Monday June 22 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

Amid budget woes, some question Dublin-San Ramon water district bonuses - (www.insidebayarea.com) Proposals for cutbacks and higher rates have some upset with the Dublin San Ramon Services District for considering layoffs and price increases but keeping employee bonuses. The district's "Pay for Performance" program has given out over $2.2 million in bonuses over the past 10 years to the chagrin of some employees and board President Dan Scannell, who has been a critic of the program for the past five years. The district could vote on possible rate hikes and employee layoffs at its June 23 meeting, six months after approving the latest round of bonuses. For the last fiscal year, the district awarded $369,574 in bonuses to 37 employees, including a combined $102,263 to its five senior managers. The bonuses come on the heels of a $1.2 to $1.3 million budget deficit the district is facing for the 2009-2010 fiscal year. To make up for the shortfall, partly blamed on a slowdown in development and associated connection fees, the district is set to vote on increasing water consumption rates, which have yet to be decided, and the flat service charge for the size of meters customers have. Under three different options being considered by the board, the meter rate alone could rise between $17 and $20 for most customers. The district serves 16,235 metered customers, of those, 14,498 have a 5/8" meter connection and pay a current rate of $16 every other month. The district is also considering laying off between two to three full-time positions. "Six months after approving pay bonuses, you now come and asked for a rate hike?" said Scannell. "Something just doesn't look right." n October, the board of directors approved "Pay for Performance" bonuses by a 4-1 vote for senior management that ranged between 10 to 12.5 percent of their base salary. Scannell was the dissenting vote. Based on the district's salary schedule, the five senior managers earn from $147,372 to $260,964 per year depending on where they fall on the pay scale. The annual bonuses approved for senior managers ranged from $14,737 to $32,620.50 each. The program awards employees based on three different evaluation areas, individual, department and district. DSRSD officials defend the program saying the money does not come from operating expenses, but instead is a surplus for coming in under budget for that particular year. Bert Michalczyk, the district general manager since 2001, said the program encourages employees to do well, which translates into coming in under budget and passing on lower rates to customers. In 1997, the average customer paid $45.52 every two months — which does not include any fees for water from the Zone 7 Water District or power charges. Since 1997, the rates have stayed below the $45.52, including a low of $26.76 in 2001, and averaged $33.10 during the current fiscal year.

California 50 Days From Financial Meltdown - (www.controller.ca.gov) State Controller John Chiang today released his monthly report detailing California’s cash balance, receipts and disbursements in May and through the first 11 months of the fiscal year. In May, revenue was $827 million below the latest projections found in the Governor’s May Budget Revision. "Without immediate solutions from the Governor and Legislature, we are less than 50 days away from a meltdown of State government. This presents a terrible threat to California’s economy and to the State’s delivery of basic public services,” said Chiang. “A truly balanced budget is the only responsible way out of the worst cash crisis since the Great depression.” Personal income taxes were $475 million below (-23.0%) estimates in the May Revision. Corporate taxes were down $84.4 million (-25.8%), and sales taxes fell by $109 million (-3.3%). The Controller has met with Governor Schwarzenegger and Legislators in the past week to brief them on the State’s immediate cash problem. He also sent a letter to State leaders this morning with new cash projections – updated to reflect May actuals and final May Revision numbers from the Department of Finance – that continue to show the State exhausting all available cash by late July. The State is now projected to run $2.78 billion into the red on July 31. The State started the fiscal year with a $1.45 billion cash deficit, which grew to $19.8 billion on May 31, 2009. That deficit is being covered by a combination of Revenue Anticipation Notes (RANs) and internal borrowing from special funds. Borrowing from special funds is expected to provide enough cash to fund State operations through the end of the fiscal year on June 30. May 2009’s financial statement and the summary analysis can be found on the Controller’s Web site at www.sco.ca.gov.

Median home prices drop below 1989 levels in some parts of Southland - (www.latimes.com) Properties in several areas are selling for less than they did 20 years ago, and that's not including inflation. Some first-time buyers are nabbing houses for less than what their parents paid. In parts of Southern California, the housing crash has upended a basic tenet of the American dream: that home values always increase over the long term. Properties in several areas are selling for less than they did 20 years ago, and that's not even counting the effects of inflation. The reversal is a bonanza for some first-time buyers. They're nabbing houses for less than what their parents paid in the late 1980s, jumping into a real estate market that has become a kind of economic time machine. To return to the past, take a stroll down Mulberry Avenue in Lancaster. John A. Beatrice, 55, bought his spacious two-story Spanish-style house there brand-new for $120,000 in 1989. It was a price he could comfortably afford, and he planned on staying through retirement, so he wasn't worried about price swings. "I always knew real estate goes like this," said the aerospace engineer, moving his hand in an undulating motion like bell curves on a graph. But he never imagined his neighborhood would drop off the charts. In April, a slightly larger home two doors away sold for $66,500. That's just over half the $130,000 it went for new in 1992. In 2005, that house sold for $330,000. Beatrice's 29-year-old daughter is now shopping for Lancaster houses priced lower than when she was a kid. Home prices across most of Southern California have not fallen nearly as far. The median price in the six-county area was $247,000 in April, about what it was in 2002. But in 14 Southland ZIP Codes, mainly desert communities in the Antelope Valley and Inland Empire, median prices have fallen below levels recorded in April 1989, according to MDA DataQuick, a San Diego real estate information service.

Tax on Health Benefits Weighed but would exempt unions and only apply to benefits more than what congress gets - (www.washingtonpost.com) These politicians proving they are corrupt as hell and bought by unions as they continue to kiss up to their union base. A Senate plan to overhaul the nation's health system is likely to include a new tax on some employer-provided health benefits that exceed the value of the basic plan offered to federal employees, currently about $13,000 a year for a family of four, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee said yesterday. Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said he is drafting the health reform measure, which he expects to unveil next week. He told reporters that taxing employer-provided benefits is "perhaps the best way to raise money for an overhaul of the health-care system" and offered details about the form that tax is likely to take. Baucus said his proposal is likely to cap benefits at "a level higher than the actual benefit that members of Congress receive today." An employer-provided plan worth less than that level would remain tax-free, he said, while any benefit exceeding the cap would be taxed as ordinary income. Such a tax, if adopted, would be phased in over "several years," Baucus said. And it would be likely to "grandfather" in health benefits set as part of a collective-bargaining agreement, he said, allowing union plans to remain tax-free until new contracts can be negotiated. Baucus declined to say how much money the proposal would generate. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that taxing employer benefits above the value of the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan, adjusted for inflation, would generate nearly $420 billion over the next 10 years -- a sizable chunk of the $1 trillion or more likely to be needed to expand coverage for the uninsured.

MetLife Says Commercial Mortgage Defaults Will Rise - (www.bloomberg.com) MetLife Inc. Chief Investment Officer Steven Kandarian said commercial mortgage defaults will rise in the next two to three years after the economic slump subsides. “The worst is to come,” Kandarian said in an interview today with Bloomberg Television in New York, where the biggest U.S. life insurer is based. “Typically there’s a lag between when the economy softens and when the defaults actually occur.” The default rate on commercial mortgages held by U.S. banks may rise to 4.1 percent, the highest in 17 years, by yearend as debt for refinancing remains scarce and the recession drags down rents, research firm Real Estate Econometrics LLC. said yesterday in a report. Kandarian, whose portfoliocontains about $36 billion in loans on commercial property, said he expects delinquencies for MetLife will be “relatively small.” “Like all firms that hold these kinds of mortgages, we’ll have some issues,” Kandarian said. The insurer, which is also a federally regulated bank, underwrote loans “very carefully” to minimize the risk of losing principal and expects to fund more mortgages as competitors retreat from the market, he said. Kandarian is seeking higher returns from MetLife’s $300 billion portfolio after a 23 percent slide in first-quarter investment income helped push the company into its first loss since 2001. He’s drawing down the insurer’s cash holdings to buy corporate debt and said in May he was considering adding securities backed by commercial mortgages that were selling below face value. PPIP: MetLife’s portfolio won U.S. endorsement in May when the Federal Reserve’s stress test revealed the company was adequately capitalized to withstand a prolonged recession. The insurer is considering whether to buy depressed assets tied to the housing market through Treasury’s Public-Private Investment Program for troubled assets.

Obama's Pay Czar and Other Mindless Meddling - (Mish at globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com) Will the Obama administration's meddling in the affairs of business ever end? That's what I am asking as I read Treasury to name pay czar on Wednesday. The Obama administration on Wednesday will name a 'pay czar' with power to reject compensation plans at companies receiving "exceptional" government aid, an administration official said on Wednesday. The administration will also call for "say-on-pay" legislation that would give the Securities and Exchange Commission authority to require public companies to hold nonbinding shareholder votes each year on executive pay, the official said. The pay czar, or "special master," will review compensation structures for the top 100 salaried employees of firms receiving exceptional assistance, the official said. Obama Tells American Businesses to Drop Dead: Kevin Hassett at Bloomberg writes Obama Tells American Businesses to Drop Dead. I’ve finally figured out the Obama economic strategy. President Barack Obama and his team have been having so much fun wielding dictatorial power while rescuing “failed” firms, that they have developed a scheme to gain the same power over every business. The plan is to enact policies that are so anticompetitive that every firm needs a bailout. Once that happens, their new pay czar Kenneth Feinberg can set the wage for everybody and Rahm Emanuel can stack the boards of all of our companies with his political cronies. Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer came to Washington to announce what Microsoft would do if Obama’s multinational tax policy is enacted. “It makes U.S. jobs more expensive,” Ballmer said, “We’re better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S.” If Microsoft, perhaps our most competitive company, has to abandon the U.S. in order to continue to thrive, who exactly is going to stay? Hassett is talking about Obama’s proposal to end the deferral of multinational taxation. I have a simple suggestion. Instead of taxing American businesses to death in the United States, why don't we eliminate corporate income taxes in the US altogether? That way, businesses would not have an incentive to hide profits, waste money inventing schemes to defer profits, and most importantly businesses would not leave the US to do it. Indeed, having the lowest taxes instead of the highest would encourage business to locate in the US. Wouldn't that be a good thing? Interestingly, I already wrote about the "Drop Dead" idea in relation to healthcare and Kennedy's plan to partially pay for it by raising taxes on businesses. Let's review Kennedy's Healthcare Bill Will Increase Expenses, Decrease Employment and Encourage Outsourcing.

Happy Hour: The New Day Job - (www.cnbc.com) As the unemployment rate ticks ever higher, there’s a new trend emerging: happy hours in the middle of the day. And, they’re increasingly being offered four or five days a week. So, why wait until Friday? Let’s go and get our happy on right now! In Manhattan’s theater district, the Mean Fiddler takes its turns at being nice to the unemployed, offering drink specials from noon to 7pm, including $3.50 domestics, $4.50 imported beer of the month and $5 cocktails including Cosmos, Margaritas and Mojitos. And, if you’re superstitious — or, y’know, just in case — here’s a good one for you: The Kitano hotel in New York offers a variety of appetizers, wine and beer from 2:30 to 5pm for $8 each because the number 8 is considered lucky and a sign of prosperity in the Japanese culture. (See correction below.) Among those taking advantage of the specials at New York bars is Jenn Tesch, an East Village resident who was laid off from her job in sales at a medium-sized marketing firm at the end of April. "It's kind of like this underground community," Tesch said of the legions of unemployed roaming New York streets during the daytime and the businesses she's discovered that she might not have otherwise, just because they're offering daytime specials and she's suddenly budget-conscious. “[B]usinesses are recognizing that they’re having a rough time, and also saying ‘hey, we know some of you are having a rough time, too — let’s bond and get through this together,” Tesch said. Tesch said she's never seen happy hours this early before and now finds herself mentally roaming her rolodex, wondering: "Who do I know that can meet me that early?!"

OTHER STORIES:

Lewis grilled over Merrill deal - (www.ft.com) BofA chief faces tough questions

Bernanke e-mail claim in Merrill sale saga - (www.ft.com)

BlackRock to buy BGI for $13.5bn - (www.ft.com) Plans $2.8bn share sale to SWFs

Rio Chinalco deal: China licks its wounds - (www.ft.com) Rejection will deter Beijing from making big offers abroad

Obama to Appoint Overseer For Executive Pay: Source - (www.cnbc.com)

Swedish Banks Can Handle Baltic Losses of $20 Billion - (www.bloomberg.com)

Kudlow: Bernanke Put a Gun to Lewis's Head - (www.cnbc.com)

Latvia May Get IMF Tranche This Month, President Says - (www.bloomberg.com)

Japan Machine Orders, Producer Prices Fall as Firms Cut Costs - (www.bloomberg.com)

In Asia, Hints of a Distant and Fragile Recovery - (www.nytimes.com)

China’s Property Sales Surge, Add to Recovery Signs - (www.bloomberg.com)

For U.S., a Sea of Perilous Red Ink, Years in the Making - (www.nytimes.com)

'Pay Czar': No 'Edicts' Coming on Compensation - (www.cnbc.com)

Pelosi, Other Politicians Suffered Big Losses in Markets - (www.cnbc.com)

Cramer: Bank of America’s Big News - (www.cnbc.com)

Bank of America’s Chief Says Fed Pushed for Merrill Purchase - (www.bloomberg.com)

Fontainebleau Las Vegas Files for Chapter 11 - (www.nytimes.com)

Citi Makes $58 Billion Swap Deal With Government - (www.cnbc.com)

Deficit Breakdown: How the US Got Into This Mess - (www.cnbc.com)

BlackRock to Buy BGI, Becomes World Leader - (www.cnbc.com)

Treasury Prices Rally - (www.cnbc.com)

Faber Report: The Question Ken Lewis Never Gets - (www.cnbc.com)

Prospect of Jobless Recovery Makes Investors Nervous - (www.cnbc.com)

Sunday December 28 Housing and Economic stories

TOP STORIES:

California faces financial meltdown as debt grows by $1.7m an hour - (business.timesonline.co.uk) The state of California, one of the top ten largest economies in the world, will run out of money by February, causing “financial Armageddon”, according to dire new budget projections. As of yesterday, the state’s debts were mounting at a rate of $1.7 million (£1.1 million) per hour. The de facto insolvency of America’s most populous state — home to such economic engines as Silicon Valley, the Central Valley agricultural region, Hollywood, Napa Valley, the Long Beach ports, and the defence research and production facilities of Los Angeles, San Diego and the Mojave desert — would represent a new scale of catastrophe in a year in which financial markets and economies have imploded globally. Bill Lockyer, the treasurer of California, has cautioned that $5 billion of public works projects, including road and school construction, will have to be canceled because the state’s lenders are worried about an impending Iceland-style bankruptcy. California — which has a GDP of $1.7 trillion — already has the worst credit rating of any of America’s 50 states. “Without a budget solution, state financing of infrastructure projects will stop. It’s as simple, and dire, as that,” Mr Lockyer said this week. California’s biggest problem is the precipitous decline in tax revenues over the past year. The state’s property taxes — the equivalent of Britain’s council taxes — are based on the value of a house when it was first bought, and can then rise by no more than 2 per cent a year. This means that by far the most tax revenues come from new property sales, and these have all but dried up.Tax revenues have also been hit by the global recession. and credit crunch. The deflationary consequences canceling projects and raising taxes are going to be enormous.

SEC sues National Lampoon for stock manipulation - (www.reuters.com) Who say the SEC isn’t doing their job? They are going after the little guys while ignoring $50B ponzi schemes, corrupt banks (Citigroup), etc. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Daniel Laikin, National Lampoon's chief executive, and a company consultant paid kickbacks of about $68,000 for the purchase of National Lampoon stock in order to inflate the stock price. The SEC also charged two stock promoters in the case. The SEC said that from March through June of this year, Laikin and Dennis Barsky, a consultant to National Lampoon and a significant stockholder, paid kickbacks to stock promoters and a witness secretly cooperating with the government. The alleged purchases were made over a number of days and were designed to give the false impression of a steady demand for the stock, the agency said. The SEC said Laikin and Barsky were trying to push National Lampoon's stock price from under $2 per share to at least $5 per share, to keep the price above the minimum listing requirements of the AMEX, and to put the company in a better position to enter into "strategic partnerships and acquisitions."


So far, Democratic integrity looks no better than Republican politics of the past 8 years:
· Grand Jury Probes Richardson Donor’s New Mexico Financing Fee - (www.bloomberg.com) A federal grand jury is investigating how a company that advised Jefferson County, Alabama, on bond deals that threaten to cause the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, did similar work in New Mexico after making contributions to Governor Bill Richardson’s political action committees. The grand jury in Albuquerque is looking into Beverly Hills, California-based CDR Financial Products Inc., which received almost $1.5 million in fees from the New Mexico Finance Authority in 2004 after donating $100,000 to Richardson’s efforts to register Hispanic and American Indian voters and pay for expenses at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, people familiar with the matter said. On Dec. 1, Birmingham, Alabama’s mayor, Larry Langford, was charged by federal prosecutors with soliciting $235,000 in loans, expensive clothes and jewelry from Montgomery, Alabama-based bond underwriter Blount Parrish & Co. Langford, the former president of the Jefferson County Commission, included the firm on bond and derivative deals that netted it about $7.1 million. CDR, which wasn’t named in that indictment, advised Jefferson County on the derivatives. The New Mexico probe comes two years after the FBI searched CDR’s offices as part of a nationwide investigation into whether banks and advisers conspired to overcharge local governments on financing deals. That probe by the New York office of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division is ongoing, and CDR says it is cooperating.
· Source: Ill. gov nixed job for Jackson Jr.'s wife – (news.yahoo.com/s/ap) Shortly after his 2002 election, Gov. Rod Blagojevich toldRep. Jesse Jackson Jr. he didn't appoint the congressman's wife as lottery director because he had refused him a $25,000 campaign donation, a person familiar with the conversation told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "Blagojevich went out of his way to say, 'You know I was considering your wife for the lottery job and the $25,000 you didn't give me? That's why she's not getting the job,'" the person said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing federal investigation. Jackson's name has played prominently ever since Blagojevich was arrested last week on corruption charges, including allegations that he tried to sell or trade President-elect Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat for personal gain. Jackson has been identified as one of the candidates Blagojevich was considering for the seat, and a criminal complaint said his supporters were willing to raise $1.5 million for the governor if he picked the congressman. The complaint quotes Blagojevich as saying on federal wiretaps that an associate of the candidate offered to raise money for him if he made the Jackson appointment happen. Jackson spokesman Kenneth Edmonds declined to comment on the account of the exchange shortly after Blagojevich's 2002 election but said the congressman, the son of civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, has approached federal investigators to discuss the governor and others for years.
· Lawmakers Reject Election for Illinois Senate Seat - (online.wsj.com) If Blagojevich Resigns or Is Impeached, Lieutenant Governor Will Make Appointment -- Keeping the Decision in Democrats' Hands. State Democrats slammed the door Tuesday on a special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama, reversing earlier calls for a vote and ending a rare sense of statewide bipartisanship that followed Gov. Rod Blagojevich's arrest last week. "We need leadership from majority Democrats in the Legislature; instead, what we are getting is the same old insider political games," Deputy Republican Leader Christine Radogno said. "Frankly, after the past week, most people in Illinois are wondering how much more embarrassment the state must endure. Apparently, legislative Democrats think the state needs more embarrassment." In a news conference Tuesday, Mr. Obama backed away from his earlier call for a special election. "I'm going to let the state Legislature make a determination in terms of how they want to proceed," he said.


Best Buy offers employee buyouts as profit falls 77% - (www.latmes.com) Best Buy Co. offered voluntary severance packages to virtually all its 4,000 corporate employees Tuesday as the nation's largest consumer electronics chain announced its third-quarter profit skidded 77%.

IRS to lower hurdle for distressed home sales, refinancing - (www.latimes.com) The agency offers to be more lenient with homeowners facing liens on their property for delinquent taxes. >>

Calpers To Report Losses of 103% on its Residential Investments - (Mish at globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com) CalPERS, the California Public Employees' Retirement System announced a new milestone in pension plan incompetence today by admitting losses in Risky, Ill-Timed Land Deals. At the height of the property bubble, California's giant pension fund, Calpers, made a fateful decision: It aggressively poured money into real estate. As a result, today it's one of the biggest owners of undeveloped residential land in America. Partly because of these investments, California Public Employees' Retirement System is struggling to avoid one of its worst annual declines since its 1932 inception. Calpers has lost almost a quarter of its assets since July 1, the start of the current fiscal year.
The problems come at a time of uncertainty for the nation's largest public pension fund, which has been without its top two executives for nearly half a year. Calpers is poised to appoint a new chief executive as early as this week, people familiar with the matter said.Calpers is now warning California's cities, towns and schools that they may have to cough up more money to cover the retirement and other benefits the fund provides for 1.6 million state workers. Some towns are already cutting municipal services, and at least one is partly blaming the Calpers fees. Calpers in recent weeks said it expects to report paper losses of 103% on its residential investments in the fiscal year ended June 30. That's because Calpers invested not only its own money, but billions of dollars of borrowed money that must be repaid even if the investment fails. In some deals, as much as 80% of the money invested by Calpers was borrowed. ... Rest by Subscription

KB Home Ex-Official Pleads Guilty to Obstruction - (online.wsj.com) KB Home's former head of human resources agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to obstruct justice in connection with a backdating scandal that came to light at the home builder in 2006.

Illinois Pays Four Times Average on $1.4 Billion Note - (www.bloomberg.com) Illinois sold $1.4 billion of short- term notes to catch up on unpaid bills, paying as much as four times higher in yield than top-rated municipal borrowers as the state seeks to close a budget deficit amid political turmoil. Yields ranged from 3.5 percent on notes due in April 2009 to 4 percent on securities set to mature in June. Top-rated six- month municipal notes are yielding an average 0.96 percent, according to a Bloomberg index. JPMorgan Chase & Co. was the winning bidder for notes of all three maturities. Illinois confronts a projected $2 billion budget shortfall this fiscal year while Governor Rod Blagojevich faces possible impeachment after federal corruption charges. Investors demanded higher yields after Moody’s Investors Service assigned its second-highest short-term rating of MIG 2 to the notes yesterday, citing the state’s “stressed” cash position and “dramatic” increases in accounts payable.

KB Toys Files Bankruptcy With Plan to Close Stores – (www.bloomberg.com) KB Toys Inc., the 86-year-old toy retailer, filed for bankruptcy with plans to close its stores, citing a “sudden drop” in sales in the past two months. The Chapter 11 filing comes three years after KB Toys ended a previous bankruptcy by closing almost half of its 1,200 stores. The chain has shut hundreds more since amid increased competition from Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Toys “R” Us Inc. and Target Corp., which together control about two-thirds of the U.S. toy market, according to industry analyst Sean McGowan.

Australia-Backed Bank Bonds ‘Crowd’ State Debt, Prices Plunge - (www.bloomberg.com) Australian state bonds slid this week as banks sold A$11 billion ($7.4 billion) of debt backed by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s funding guarantee, “dislocating” markets and pushing the premium investors demand to hold New South Wales securities over sovereign to the highest since the 1990s. The spread on five-year New South Wales bonds over sovereign borrowings of similar maturity swelled to 150 basis points today, from an average of 31 points in the past 10 years, after Commonwealth Bank of Australia Ltd. auctioned A$2.2 billion of government-backed debt on Dec. 10. National Australia Bank Ltd. and Suncorp-Metway Ltd. sold similar domestic debt yesterday and three other banks carried out offerings in U.S. dollars. Rudd’s guarantee has driven up state government yields without achieving its goal of bringing down banks’ funding costs, JPMorgan Chase & Co. said in a note to clients.




OTHER STORIES:

A List a Landlord Doesn’t Want to Be On – (www.latimes.com) A report finds $107 billion worth of income-producing properties nationwide are already or potentially in financial trouble.
Commercial property fears deepen - (www.ft.com)
Detroit papers set to announce major changes - (finance.yahoo.com) Newspapers are desperately seeking new business models that will help them survive dwindling readership and a deep advertising slump exacerbated by the recession. The latest are the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News, which said Monday they will announce "a sweeping set of strategic and innovative changes" on Tuesday. The Detroit Media Partnership, which runs the business operations of the papers, said the changes are "designed to better meet advertiser and reader needs in an era in which digital delivery is revolutionizing how people get information." Detroit would be the largest metro area to undergo a major media makeover. The Christian Science Monitor next year will become the first national newspaper to drop its daily print edition and focus on publishing online. The changes at the Detroit papers include "a focus on more robust and more engaging digital delivery methods, and support the continued publication of two daily newspapers in Detroit," the partnership said in a statement Monday evening. Bassett said the Free Press is the 20th-largest daily in the country, with a circulation of 298,243; double on Sunday. The News, which does not publish on Sunday, had circulation of 178,280 at the end of September.
Madoff’s Records ‘Utterly Unreliable,’ Says SIPC Head - (www.bloomberg.com)
Ultra-low US rates undermine repo market - (www.ft.com)
Yale endowment drops 25 pct amid financial turmoil - (biz.yahoo.com/ap)
Median home price tumbles to 6½-year low - (www.signonsandiego.com)
Europe banks face $19 billion Q4 write-down - (www.reuters.com)
Saudi Arabia Cuts Key Interest Rate Half a Point - (www.bloomberg.com)

Boeing Protests $1.09 Billion Satellite Award Won by Lockheed - (www.bloomberg.com) Boeing seems to have found a new Method of Operation. Every time they lose a bid, they file a protest, complain to their politicians, and create panic that they will have to lay off employees. Then they get the decision overturned, then they miss their deadlines again but buy an extension. Boeing Co., the second-biggest U.S. defense contractor, is protesting larger rival Lockheed Martin Corp.'s win of a $1.09 billion contract to build weather satellites for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Boeing filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office stating the company offered a "superior proposal" based on the evaluation criteria, spokeswoman Diana Ball said in an e- mailed statement today. Lockheed Martin beat separate bids by Boeing and Northrop Grumman Corp. on Dec. 2 to build two spacecraft, with options for two additional satellites. First launch of the new satellites, which are used for weather forecasting and environmental, space and solar science, is scheduled for 2015, NASA said at the time of the award. The new spacecraft will supply about 50 times more weather and climate data than the current fleet, according to NASA.
Citigroup's Financial 'Supermarket' Model is Dead - (www.cnbc.com)
Steve Jobs' Macworld Exit: Politics, Not Health - (www.cnbc.com)
Buffett: People Thought I Was Running Ponzi Scheme - (www.cnbc.com)
Cramer: The Redemption of Ben Bernanke - (www.cnbc.com)
Morgan Stanley Earnings Preview: On the Mend? - (www.cnbc.com)
GE to Eliminate Quarterly Earnings Guidance - (www.cnbc.com)