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intelligence firms set up investor meetings at White House - (www.washingtonpost.com) Wall Street investors hungry
for advance information on upcoming federal health-care decisions repeatedly
held private discussions with Obama administration officials, including a top
White House adviser helping to implement the Affordable Care Act. The private
conversations show that the increasingly urgent race to acquire “political intelligence” goes beyond the
communications with congressional staffers that have become the focus of
heightened scrutiny in recent weeks. White House records show that Elizabeth
Fowler, then a top health-policy adviser to President Obama, met with executives
from half a dozen investment firms in 2011 and 2012. Among them was Kris
Jenner, a stock picker with T. Rowe Price Investment Services
who managed its $6 billion Health Sciences Fund. Separately, an
officialin the agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid spoke in December
with managers of hedge funds, pension plans and mutual funds in a conference
call. The official, Andrew Shin, was pressed during the 50-minute call for
information about upcoming Medicare decisions but declined to discuss matters
still under agency review, according to people familiar with the call.
44%
owners stuck @ home. - (www.thestreet.mobi)
About 44% of homeowners with mortgages cannot
afford to sell their homes, according to a recent blog post from real estate company Zillow.
Despite a recovery in prices, over a quarter of homeowners with mortgage loans
still owe more than their homes are worth. "But another 18.2 percent of
homeowners with mortgages, while not technically underwater, likely do not have
enough equity to afford to move," according to the blog post. 43.6% of
homeowners have less than 20% equity in their homes. That makes it hard for
them to move or trade-up, given the considerable costs involved in buying and
selling a home, including the cost of a down payment for the next mortgage. This
inability to sell is one of the big factors behind the acute shortage of
existing homes for resale in the country. Strong investor demand for foreclosed
homes is another reason.
Banks'
Lobbyists Help in Drafting Financial Bills - (www.nytimes.com) Bank lobbyists are not
leaving it to lawmakers to draft legislation that softens financial regulations. Instead, the
lobbyists are helping to write it themselves. One bill that sailed through the House
Financial Services Committee this month — over the objections of the Treasury Department — was
essentially Citigroup’s,
according to e-mails reviewed by The New York Times. The bill would exempt
broad swathes of trades from new regulation. In a sign of Wall Street’s
resurgent influence in Washington, Citigroup’s recommendations were reflected
in more than 70 lines of the House committee’s 85-line bill. Two crucial
paragraphs, prepared by Citigroup in conjunction with other Wall Street banks,
were copied nearly word for word. (Lawmakers changed two words to make them
plural.) The lobbying campaign shows how, three years after Congress passed the
most comprehensive overhaul of regulation since the Depression, Wall Street is
finding Washington a friendlier place.
ECB
Warns Financial Weakness Could Break Best Lull in Two Years- (www.bloomberg.com) The European Central Bank
said weakness in the euro-area economy and the fragility of the region’s banks
risk ending what it describes as the calmest period in financial markets since
2011. “The main message is that financial stability has improved since the last
issue,” ECB Vice President Vitor
Constancio said today in Frankfurt as he presented the ECB’s
twice-yearly Financial Stability Review. “But the situation remains fragile.
The year 2012 was not good at all for banks.” While the central bank credits
its own so-called OMT bond-buying program for helping to produce an easing of
tensions in the 17-member currency area after fears of a break-up peaked last
year, six straight quarters of recession are eroding the resilience of banks.
ECB President Mario Draghi says his staff are looking at ways to stimulate
lending to small businesses.
Risk of Bank Failures Is Rising in Europe, E.C.B. Warns - (www.nytimes.com) The European Central Bank warned on Wednesday that the euro zone’s slumping economy and a surge in problem loans were raising the risk of a renewed banking crisis, even as overall stress in the region’s financial markets had receded. In a sober assessment of the state of the zone’s financial system, the E.C.B. said that a prolonged recession had made it harder for many borrowers to repay their loans, burdening banks that had still not finished repairing the damage caused by the 2008 financial crisis. Last year ‘'was not a good year for banks at all,'’ Vítor Constâncio, the vice president of the E.C.B., said Wednesday.
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