KeNo's Housing and Economic Portal: Saturday July 31 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

Some Call it Transparency, Others Another Example of Government Waste - (abcnews.go.com) As the midterm election season approaches, new road signs are popping up everywhere – millions of dollars worth of signs touting "The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act" and reminding passers-by that the program is "Putting America Back to Work." On the road leading to Dulles Airport outside Washington, DC there's a 10' x 11' road sign touting a runway improvement project funded by the federal stimulus. [The cost of the sign, $10,000]. ABC News has reached out to a number of states about spending on stimulus signs and learned the state of Illinois has spent $650,000 on about 950 signs and Pennsylvania has spent $157,000 on 70 signs. Other states, like Virginia, Vermont, and Arizona do not sanction any signs. In response to questions by ABC News, Jill Zuckman of the Department of Transportation said, "The best estimate is that states have spent about $5 million of the $28 billion spent on road projects on signs – or less than .02 percent of overall project spending." At the center of the controversy are a series of guidelines provided to stimulus recipients. In the letter, Rep. Issa cites what he calls "perhaps the most overly political guidance on stimulus advertising" involving the Department of Housing and Urban Development and a stimulus recipient. According to investigators from the oversight committee, HUD provided the Office of Native American Programs with information on "signage requirements." The document suggested a sign template informing the public the projects had been, "Funded By: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, Barack Obama, President."

To Protest Hiring of Nonunion Help, Union Hires Nonunion Pickets - (online.wsj.com) Billy Raye, a 51-year-old unemployed bike courier, is looking for work. Fortunately for him, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters is seeking paid demonstrators to march and chant in its current picket line outside the McPherson Building, an office complex here where the council says work is being done with nonunion labor. "For a lot of our members, it's really difficult to have them come out, either because of parking or something else," explains Vincente Garcia, a union representative who is supervising the picketing. In California, one group is offering to pay $10 and up per hour to activists to hold signs in demonstrations against foam cups and plastic bags. In Atlanta, Timothy Baker, a 40-year-old unemployed warehouse worker, says his money-making strategy has been to walk picket lines for $8.50 an hour for the Southeastern Carpenters Regional Council. "It's something to do until you find something better." The union's Mr. Garcia sees no conflict in a union that insists on union labor hiring nonunion people to protest the hiring of nonunion labor. He says the pickets are not only about "union issues" but also about fair wages and benefits for American workers. By hiring the unemployed, "we are also giving back to the community a bit," he says.

Regulators close 8 U.S. banks with $2 billion assets - (www.reuters.com) - Regulators closed eight U.S.-insured banks with combined assets of $2 billion on Friday, raising the number of failed banks to 96 this year, said the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. NAFH National Bank of Miami will take over three of the banks, which together had 23 branches and $1.39 billion in assets. NAFH is a newly chartered bank subsidiary of North American Financial Holdings, Inc, a bank holding company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. "Together with our planned investment in TIB Bank, today's transaction continues our progress toward building a strongly capitalized, high performing, regional bank," NAFH Chairman and Chief Executive Gene Taylor said in a statement. North American Financial Holdings says it raised $900 million in equity capital to invest in failed and undercapitalized banks. On June 29, it said it would invest $175 million in TIB Financial Corp in Naples, Florida.

Fight Now Looms Over Fannie, Freddie - (online.wsj.com) The fight over the changes to U.S. financial regulation was bruising. The coming debate over what to do with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac promises to be even more contentious. The revamp of the nation's financial infrastructure, which will be signed into law next week by President Barack Obama, didn't address the fate of the mortgage-finance giants that helped fuel the housing bubble and were taken over by the government in 2008. So far, the U.S. has spent $145 billion to keep the companies afloat. Administration officials say they will outline a proposal to Congress by early next year and that intense discussions are under way on how the government should restructure its role in housing finance. The administration doesn't appear to have coalesced around an answer, according to the officials, though top advisers have indicated they see some continuing government role. Lawmakers from both parties have heavily criticized the public-private ownership model that led the once enormously profitable companies to fail spectacularly. However, few in Washington know what to do next. A Republican amendment to the financial-rules bill that didn't pass spelled out an exit plan for the government but didn't specify what would take the place of Fannie and Freddie, which own or guarantee a little over $5 trillion of the nation's $10 trillion of mortgages.

BP, feds clash over reopening capped Gulf oil well - (news.yahoo.com/s/ap) BP and the Obama administration offered significantly differing views Sunday on whether the capped Gulf of Mexico oil well will have to be reopened, a contradiction that may be an effort by the oil giant to avoid blame if crude starts spewing again. Pilloried for nearly three months as it tried repeatedly to stop the leak, BP PLC capped the nearly mile-deep well Thursday and wants to keep it that way. The government's plan, however, is to eventually pipe oil to the surface, which would ease pressure on the fragile well but would require up to three more days of oil spilling into the Gulf. "No one associated with this whole activity ... wants to see any more oil flow into the Gulf of Mexico," Doug Suttles, BP's Chief Operating Officer, said Sunday. "Right now we don't have a target to return the well to flow." An administration official familiar with the spill oversight, however, told The Associated Press that a seep and possible methane were found near the busted oil well. The official spoke on condition of anonymity Sunday because an announcement about the next steps had not been made yet.