Where
is the political accountability for America's pension disasters? - Bethany
McLean - (www.reuters.com) Five
years after the financial crisis, there’s still a hue and cry about sending
people to jail. After all, financiers were, at best, self-servingly optimistic
about the future. At worst, they said things that weren’t true, and made
promises they couldn’t keep. Investigations are still ongoing, and although
it’s doubtful, maybe some big guys will go to jail. But there’s another group
of people who have injured, and are continuing to injure, millions of Americans
with purposefully blind optimism and false promises. Those are politicians in
every city and state that is facing a pension shortfall. You can’t read the
news without hearing about the pension problem. Last week, federal judge Steven
Rhodes ruled that Detroit can proceed with the largest municipal bankruptcy in
history, thereby allowing the city to cut billions of dollars in payments that
are owed to city employees, retirees, investors and other creditors. In
Illinois, Governor Pat Quinn signed into law a plan that will trim Illinois’s
pension hole, which is viewed as being one of the deepest and darkest in the
country. (Labor unions say they will challenge the plan in the courts; credit
rating agencies have pointed out that the legal protection of pension benefits
is particularly strong in Illinois, so it remains to be seen what will happen.)
Politicians
Slam New York Post Cover On Murdered Landlord - (www.businessinsider.com) The
newly elected Brooklyn borough president and other New York politicians quickly
condemned a controversial New York Post Sunday cover that asked about a murdered
Jewish landlord,
"Who didn't want him dead?" Eric Adams, the new Brooklyn
borough president, led a press conference Sunday afternoon to condemn the Post's
"hateful coverage" of the death of Menachem Stark. Stark was a 39-year-old father of eight who was shoved into a light-colored Dodge
caravan outside his Brooklyn office late Thursday. His charred body was found
this weekend on Long Island. Rabbi Abe Freedman tweeted that new New York City Public Advocate
Letitia James was among the other politicians present at the press conference.
According to the New York Observer's Colin Campbell, she suggested advertisers boycott
the Post.
At the press conference, Adams called on the
Post to issue an apology to Stark in Monday's edition.
Analysis: Economy becomes liability for Turkey's scandal-hit government - (www.reuters.com) When a senior Turkish businessman publicly criticized the central bank this week for failing to stabilize the tumbling lira currency, he was taking aim at a pillar of support for the government: its reputation for strong economic management. Monetary policy "is causing losses to companies which made transactions trusting in the central bank", complained Mehmet Buyukeksi, head of the Turkish Exporters Assembly, an umbrella group for about 52,000 companies. Appointed with the approval of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, central bank governor Erdem Basci has pursued a low-interest policy closely associated with the ruling AK Party's drive to build Turkey up as an industrial power. So Buyukeksi's criticism was ominous - a sign that Turks, whose real incomes have risen almost 50 percent under 11 years of AK Party government, may be starting to lose faith in the way it runs the economy.
[Bloomberg]
Bakken Crude Pegged as More Dangerous Imperils Shale Boom - (www.bloomberg.com) Safety
rules will probably be tightened on crude oil shipments from North Dakota following a string of railway explosions,
threatening to damp an energy boom that has boosted the region’s economy. U.S.
regulators yesterday issued a safety alert after a train carrying oil crashed
and caught fire earlier this week in North Dakota, where surging production has
helped lead a renaissance in domestic energy and driven the state’s unemployment
rate to the nation’s lowest. The type of oil pumped from the shale formations
of North Dakota may be more flammable and therefore more dangerous to ship by
rail than crude from other areas, the Transportation Department said in the
alert. Regulators are considering imposing tougher rules on railcar
construction, among other steps, potentially raising the cost of moving the
crude to market.
Stock
Losses Make Investors Sick as Hospital Admissions Jump - (www.bloomberg.com) Falling
stocks get people worried sick, if hospital records are any guide. A one-day
drop in equities of around 1.5 percent is followed by about a 0.26 percent
increase in hospital admissions on average over the next two days, according to
a March 2013 study by Joseph Engelberg and Christopher
Parsons, associate professors of finance at the University of California at San Diego. The impact on psychological conditions such
as anxiety or panic attacks is even stronger and more immediate, with
admissions jumping twice that much in one day. “It’s a very straightforward
result,” Engelberg said today at the American Economic Association’s annual
meeting in Philadelphia, where he presented the findings. The results were
based on almost three decades of daily admission data for California hospitals.
Hospitalizations rise on days when shares fall, and “people are hospitalized
disproportionately for mental conditions.”
Bank
of Finland Warns Debt Level Poised to Double: Nordic Credit - (www.bloomberg.com)
Reinhart-Rogoff Find Hangovers in Bank Crises: Cutting Research - (www.bloomberg.com)
Reinhart-Rogoff Find Hangovers in Bank Crises: Cutting Research - (www.bloomberg.com)
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