KeNo's Housing and Economic Portal: Saturday September 24 Housing and Economic stories

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TOP STORIES:

SOLYNDRA SCANDAL ROLLS ON: Feds Raid Homes Of CEO & Founder Of Obama-Backed Solar Company - (www.businessinsider.com) FBI agents raided the homes of Solyndra CEO Brian Harrison and company founder Chris Gronet Friday, iWatch News reports, as the investigation into the company's questionable federal loan threatens to ensnare the Obama administration. The Department of Energy fast-tracked the company's loan request under its green jobs program — and Obama visited the company last year. ABC News reported earlier today that members of the Obama administration were allowed to sit in on company board meetings as observers. Solyndra filed for bankruptcy protection last week, laying off 1,100 employees and leaving taxpayers on the hook for over $500 million.

PHILIP GREENSPUN: Obama Wants To Pay The Unemployed To Play Xbox For 151 Weeks - (www.businessinsider.com) Let’s try to come up a list of things that a person, effectively taught, could do in 99 weeks. Here’s a start:

earn most or all of a bachelor’s degree if done at an efficient school such as University of Phoenix where courses are self-paced and/or in session all year rather than the lazy half-the-year calendar of a legacy university

· earn an MBA (1 year at a modern school; 2 years at a legacy school)

· become a competent video editor in Final Cut or Adobe Premiere (two weeks?)

· become a competent photo editor in Adobe Photoshop or The Gimp (two weeks?)

· develop reasonably fluency in a foreign language, even without an instructor, using tools such as RosettaStone (one year, possibly including a trip to Guatemala or China or wherever)

· start and finish an aviation maintenance degree and FAA certification (typically about 1.5 years)

· learn heavy equipment operation

· complete almost any trade school, e.g., plumbing or electrician

· go from zero computer knowledge to being a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer or a Cisco network engineer

It seems strange to pay someone for 99 weeks and hope that somehow the employers that didn’t want them when they were fresh out of work would somehow want them after two years of idleness.

What about the following modifications to the system:

· for people who live in states with an unemployment rate higher than average (see http://www.bls.gov/web/laus/laumstrk.htm for the rates), offer a lump sum at the end of 12 weeks to assist the person in moving to a state with a lower-than-average rate

· for people who’ve been unemployed for 12 weeks, simply pay for a year of education in programs with proven records of skills-building (I guess you measure by how many finished and were able to get jobs)

I have heard that there are various government training subsidies available, but none seem to be as well funded as the river of money that is going into the 99-weeks-of-Xbox system.

BofA discussing about 40,000 job cuts: report - (www.reuters.com) Bank of America Corp officials have discussed slashing roughly 40,000 jobs during the first wave of a restructuring, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the plans. The number of job cuts are not final and could change. The restructuring aims to reduce the bank's workforce of 280,000 over a period of years, the Journal said. BofA could not immediately be reached for comment by Reuters outside regular U.S. business hours. The Journal said BofA executives met Thursday at Charlotte, North Carolina, where the bank is headquartered, and will gather again Friday to make final decisions on the reductions, putting the finishing touches on five months of work. Investors are pressing BofA to improve its performance after it lost money in four of the last six quarters and its stock has fallen by half this year. The Journal said the proposed job cuts may exceed BofA's last big cutback in 2008 when it called for 30,000 to 35,000 job cuts over three years.

SEC close to deal in Fannie, Freddie case: report - (www.reuters.com) Regulators are close to an agreement with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to settle a case over disclosing their exposure to risky subprime loans, The New York Times reported on Thursday. Neither a monetary penalty nor an admission fraud would be included in the settlement under the proposed agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Times reported, citing several people briefed on the case. The SEC abandoned hopes of assessing a fine because of the precarious financial positions of the two companies, the newspaper said, citing sources who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal was not yet final. The two companies did not view the government's case as particularly strong, but they said they moved to settle to spare time and resources, the Times said, citing one person close to the talks. The negotiations have been going on since at least early summer, and a deal may not come until later this year, the newspaper said, citing its sources.

Global bondholders to decide on Greek swap offer - (www.reuters.com) Investors in Greek government debt worldwide will tell regulators on Friday whether and how they will participate in a bond swap aimed at giving Athens more time to emerge from a debt crisis, with officials expecting a take-up of about 70 percent. Athens gave banks and insurers in 57 countries until September 9 to say whether they intend to take its debt exchange offer, a key part of a second 109 billion euro bailout package it clinched at a July 21 euro zone summit to avoid bankruptcy. "September 9 is the cutoff date and it is very likely that we may have a bigger response rate as bond holders rush on the last day," a source close to the procedure said on condition of anonymity. Greece had threatened to cancel the deal unless it got 90 percent participation, which would see 135 billion euros ($189 billion) of its outstanding bonds maturing by 2020 swapped or rolled over in a global transaction it wants to conclude next month.