IMF
sours on BRICs and doubts eurozone recovery claims - (www.telegraph.co.uk) The
International Monetary Fund has thrown in the towel on emerging markets. After
years of talking up the BRICS club of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South
Africa, it now admits that these countries have either exhausted their catch-up
growth models, or run into the time-honoured problems of supply bottlenecks and
bad government. The IMF was caught off guard by the ferocity of the emerging
market rout when the Fed began to talk tough in May, threatening to turn down
the spigot of dollar liquidity that has fuelled the booms -- and masked the
woes -- in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. In what amounts to a mea culpa, the
IMF hinted that it had for long been blind to festering problems in the BRICS
and mini-BRICs.
Biggest
Confidence Drop Since 2008 - (www.businessinsider.com) U.S.
economic confidence plunged more in the past week than in any week since the
collapse of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008 -- the catalyst for the
financial crisis and U.S. recession. Gallup's Economic Confidence Index fell nine points in late February and early March 2013 as Congress and President Barack Obama
failed to reach an agreement to avoid automatic federal spending cuts as part of
sequestration. Economic confidence fell eight points during the week ending
Feb. 20, 2011, as Congress and the president reached an agreement on the
federal budget at the last minute, avoiding a government shutdown.
Amid
slimdown, Arkansas prisoners get paid while guards do without - (www.foxnews.com) Some
employees at an Arkansas federal prison are unsure when the next time they’ll
receive a paycheck amid the government slimdown, but the inmates are continuing
to get paid for jobs like landscaping, WMCTV.com reported. The report said that the inmates are still receiving checks because their
funds come out of a trust fund that is not affected by the problems in
Washington. About 600 workers at the federal prison in Forrest City are
impacted by the slimdown, the report said. “The inmates who have committed the
crimes in this country and are incarcerated by violating the laws of common
society, they’re not affected by the shutdown, but the employees that we trust
to keep our communities safe are,” Jeff Roberts, a prison employee who goes to
work every day and does not get paid, told the station.
USDA
Buyers Stuck in Limbo as Shutdown Hurts Housing - (www.bloomberg.com) Jacob
Smith, a 25-year-old Florida firefighter, wasn’t paying much attention
to the U.S. government shutdown until it threw his move to a new three-bedroom
home near Daytona Beach into limbo. Smith was ready to complete the purchase
Oct. 1, the day the closure began. Now he has to wait until the Department of
Agriculture reopens its mortgage business. For now, Smith’s landlord is
allowing him to stay in his one-bedroom rental, crammed with boxes and
furniture meant for the larger property. His builder, Adams Homes of Gulf
Breeze, Florida, said it has about 10 other customers on the east coast of the
state with purchases also on hold. “It’s
pretty ridiculous,” Smith said. “It seems rare that what you see on the news is
directly affecting you. Hopefully it will end soon.” USDA loans account for
about 132,000 mortgages a year in areas designated by the agency as rural,
according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. While they make up just 1.4
percent of the U.S. mortgage market, the product is one of the few available
that allow zero-down payment loans and are an early warning of how the
government’s first partial closing in 17 years could put a drag on the wider
housing market.
Montana
Towns Struggle With Oil Boom Cost as Dollars Flee - (www.bloomberg.com) Tractor-trailer
trucks carrying oil, water and sand to drilling sites are lined up at one of
two stoplights in Fairview,
Montana, as the mayor tries to figure out how to squeeze more people into his
town. The prairie community straddles the state line with North Dakota and
needs a new water tank, improvements to its sewage treatment plant and curbs
and gutters. The price tag: $14.4 million -- five times the city’s $2.7 million
budget. “A town of 1,100 people just doesn’t run down to the bank and write a
check for that kind of money,” said Mayor Bryan Cummins. “Our town has eight
times the traffic traveling through it as it did five years ago.” Fairview is
one of a half-dozen bucolic farming towns in eastern Montana transformed over the past 18 months into
bedroom communities for workers toiling in the Bakken oil patch. Unlike North Dakota cities
that reap tax money from oil production to help keep pace with double-digit
growth, Montana municipalities get next to nothing. The towns’ new reality
illustrates the tradeoffs that come with the energy boom and how the drilling
that showered riches on its neighbor poses challenges in Montana.
Mother
Dies Amid Abuses in $110 Billion U.S. Stent Assembly Line - (www.bloomberg.com)
Brazil Lifts Selic to 9.5% from 9% in World's Longest Streak - (www.bloomberg.com)
Brazil Lifts Selic to 9.5% from 9% in World's Longest Streak - (www.bloomberg.com)
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