CalPERS
loses pitch to eject San Bernardino from bankruptcy - (www.pionline.com) San
Bernardino, Calif., was deemed eligible to remain in bankruptcy by a judge who
rejected arguments by the $264.6 billion California Public Employees' Retirement System that the city didn't qualify for court
protection. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Meredith Jury in Riverside, Calif., ruled
Wednesday in the city's favor, saying it needs the “breathing space” afforded
by bankruptcy to renegotiate debts. “The city deserves a chance,” the judge
said in her decision. “The creditor body deserves a chance. The citizens of the
city deserve a chance.” San Bernardino sought bankruptcy protection from
creditors on Aug. 1, 2012, blaming a fiscal emergency brought on by a $46
million budget shortfall. Since filing, the city has fought its employee unions
in an effort to cancel their contracts and quit making certain payments to
Sacramento-based CalPERS.
The US professionals quitting
the rat race to become farmers - (www.bbc.co.uk) Farming
has always been a hard way to make a living. Now, a small but - anecdotally -
growing group of Americans are leaving the structure and security of an office
job for the gruelling, yet rewarding work of earning money from the land. Some
want to be a part of improving the food supply for themselves and their
community; others are excited by the prospect of becoming self-sufficient, or
simply working outdoors like their ancestors did. There are no good statistics
yet on how many people are moving from desk jobs to field work, but Kimberley
Hart, Karen Sommerlad and Erik Jacobs have all made the transition. Ms Hart
gave up making costumes for Broadway productions to grow vegetables on a modest
rented farm in upstate New York, while Mr Jacobs left behind his career as a
Boston-based freelance news photographer to study as an apprentice farmer. Meanwhile,
Ms Sommerlad left a campus planning post at Harvard University to grow
everything "from arugula [rocket] to zucchini [courgettes]".
The
Next Financial Crisis Might Be Only Weeks Away - (www.peakprosperity.com) For
years we've preached the From the Outside In principle of markets: When trouble
starts, it nearly always does so out in the weaker periphery before creeping
towards the core. We saw this in the run-up to the housing bubble collapse, as
sub-prime mortgages gave way before prime loans, and in Europe, as smaller
economies like Greece, Ireland, and Cyprus have fallen first and hardest (so
far). We see this today in accelerating food stamp use among poorer U.S.
households. In each case, the weaker economic parties give way first
before being followed, over time, by the stronger ones. Using this framework,
we can often get several weeks to several months of advance notice before
trouble erupts in the next ring closer to the center. Which makes today
notable, as we're receiving a number of new warning signs. The periphery
is giving way. Ever since the current economic "recovery" began,
we've been warning of the high risk of a renewed financial crisis. That
risk is now uncomfortably high. This is because nothing that led to the
first round of troubles was actually addressed at the root level.
Instead, prior troubles were simply papered over with central-bank liquidity,
leaving structural weakness intact – for instance, our ‘too big to
fail’ banks are just as big, and our sovereign debt levels are even worse than
they were pre-2008.
West
Virginia Repo Company Sent To Wrong House - (www.huffingtonpost.com) Going
to the wrong house and repossessing everything inside has to be one of the
biggest mistakes a repo company can make. When Nikki Bailey, a former teacher living in West Virginia,
returned to her home in the small town of Logan after visiting a friend at the
hospital on Aug. 6, she found a big red truck backed up to the house. The
driver said she had been foreclosed on and all her possessions were at
the dump,
according to the Logan Banner. “Everything was gone,” Bailey told area news
outlet WSAZ. “Living room furniture, my Marshall diploma, my high school
diploma, my pictures -- my history. I was teacher of the year. All of that
stuff is gone -- certificates from that. It's all gone.” Bailey told the Logan
Banner that her home had been paid for since 1988. The bank that ordered the
foreclosure has not been named. The repo company that removed Bailey's belongings was told to go to a house in Godby
Heights in Logan, Bailey's attorney, Tim DiPiero, told WSAZ. But no such place
exists.
THE
CHICAGO WAY? Illinois Officials Under Fire For ObamaCare Contracts – (www.foxnews.com) Making
ObamaCare a reality will require massive computing power to track, store and
process the millions of individual cases. But in Illinois, contracts to compute that
state’s cases – valued as high as $190 million – are being awarded without
competitive bidding. The practice already has watchdogs crying foul. “No
transparency and with no bidding -- if that’s legal in Illinois, It shouldn’t
be.” said Adam Andrzejewski of openthebooks.com, a watchdog group. “To the
extent that is happening across the country, the citizens need to know it.” “It
has the hallmarks of everything that is Chicago and also Illinois, which is
totally imprudent and not the best practices,” says Illinois Republican State
Senator Ron Sandack. Illinois cases are stored and processed in the Medicaid
Management Information System or MMIS. The Department of Health and Family
Services describes the 30-year-old system as antiquated and needing an upgrade
to handle the massive case load expected from ObamaCare.
India's Rupee Keeps Falling and the Trade Deficit Keeps
Widening - (www.bloomberg.com)
China companies feel the investment hangover - (www.ft.com)
China companies feel the investment hangover - (www.ft.com)
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