McConnell says ailing automakers not doing enough

McConnell says ailing automakers not doing enough
Feb 22 11:36 AM US/Eastern

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WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate's Republican leader says U.S. automakers seeking government aid still aren't doing what's necessary to save themselves.

Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky says that failure, in his view, is leading to a long-term policy in which the government simply props up the auto industry.

The government has already loaned $17 billion to General Motors Corp. and Chrysler, and they are seeking nearly $22 billion more.

McConnell says he opposed the bailout money in December because the companies were not willing to restructure as needed. And he says the companies still aren't making the restructuring decisions that are called for.

McConnell appeared Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

America's Top 15 Emptiest Cities

America's Top 15 Emptiest Cities
These Once Boom Cities Are Now Quickly Turning Into Recession Ghost Towns
By ZACK O'MALLEY GREENBURG
Forbes.com
Feb. 22, 2009

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Call it a modern-day tale of two cities.
Las Vegas Most Abandoned City
Las Vegas edged Detroit for the title of America's most abandoned city. Atlanta came in third, followed by Greensboro, N.C., and Dayton, Ohio
(Getty Images)

For decades, Las Vegas, ripe with new construction and economic development, burgeoned into a shimmering urban carnival. Detroit, once the fulcrum of American industry, sagged and rusted under its own weight.

These days, it's the worst of times for both.

Las Vegas edged Detroit for the title of America's most abandoned city. Atlanta came in third, followed by Greensboro, N.C., and Dayton, Ohio. Our rankings, a combination of rental and homeowner vacancy rates for the 75 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the country, are based on fourth-quarter data released Feb. 3 by the Census Bureau. Each was ranked on rental vacancies and housing vacancies; the final ranking is an average of the two.
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PHOTOS: Best Cities To Live On $500,000
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Sad Sack City: The Nation's Most Miserable
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Click here to learn more about America's emptiest cities at our partner site, Forbes.com.

Cities like Detroit and Dayton are casualties of America's lengthy industrial decline. Others, like Las Vegas and Orlando, are mostly victims of the recent housing bust. Boston and New York are among the lone bright spots, while Honolulu is the nation's best with a vacancy rate of 5.8 percent for homes and a scant 0.5 percent for rentals.

Still, empty neighborhoods are becoming an increasingly daunting problem across the country. The national rental vacancy rate now stands at 10.1 percent, up from 9.6 percent a year ago; homeowner vacancy has edged up from 2.8 percent to 2.9 percent. Richmond, Va.'s rental vacancy rate of 23.7 percent is the worst in America, while Orlando's 7.4 percent rate is lousiest on the homeowner side. Detroit and Las Vegas are among the worst offenders by both measures--the Motor City sports vacancy rates of 19.9 percent for rentals and 4 percent for homes; Sin City has rates of 16 percent and 4.7 percent, respectively.

"It's a mess," says Vegas developer Laurence Hallier. "Right now, things are just frozen. Everybody's scared."

Hallier, 40, knows from experience. His $600 million Panorama Towers complex was a tremendous success at its inception three years ago. The first of his four planned residential skyscrapers sold out in six months; the second, which opened in 2007, sold out in 12 weeks. As the third tower neared completion last fall, Hallier had sold 92 percent of its units. Then the recession hit, and only half the units ended up closing. Hallier says it will take years to break even, and plans for the fourth tower have been delayed indefinitely.

U.S. cannot go back to old ways, top economists say

U.S. cannot go back to old ways, top economists say
Mon Feb 23, 2009 12:37pm EST

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States cannot battle its economic crisis by simply trying to go back to its old ways of spending too much and saving too little, two widely followed economists said on Friday.

Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York, said a $40 trillion loss in global wealth, a reflection of declines in stock prices and home values, would not easily be reversed.

"The scale and drama and rapidity is extraordinary," Sachs said at a panel at Columbia. "We're not likely to be sending demand and consumption back up. Fixing the banks is not really the key to unlocking the demand side."

Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, a former chief economist of the World Bank and a professor at Columbia, said in a separate panel that the banking sector has shown itself to be a detriment to society rather than a positive driving force.

The world economy is in the grips of a crisis that shows few signs of abating, and which most analysts consider to be the most severe shock since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Stiglitz said that, under the guise of innovation, banks discovered new ways of taking risks that brought few benefits to most people and are now threaten the entire global economy.

"They not only didn't innovate, they actually resisted innovations that were important," Stiglitz said. "It was heads I win, tails you lose. And you lost."

He argued that talk of increasing transparency is actually an effort to divert attention from the real issue: financial complexity designed to pad profits and hide them from the eyes of regulators.

He suggested that, to date, efforts to simply pump money into banks have been a fool's errand. "Think of what we could do if we had spent $700 billion in a new, good bank."

Talk about moving toxic assets off bank balance sheets is also misguided, Stiglitz said. "Moving things around doesn't actually create value."

With this in mind, Sachs said that rather than trying glue back together a broken financial system, policy-makers should focus on a long-term vision that includes productive investments in transportation and energy infrastructure.

"We ought to be thinking about how to get the saving into future oriented development, not to recreate the bubble," Sachs said.

(Editing by Leslie Adler)

Financial job losses accelerating: U.N. agency

Financial job losses accelerating: U.N. agency
Mon Feb 23, 2009 6:50pm EST

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GENEVA (Reuters) - Jobs in the financial sector are disappearing at an accelerating rate, with knock-on effects for the broader economy in financial centers such as New York and London, the United Nations said on Monday.

A report from the U.N.'s International Labor Organization (ILO) for a meeting this week on the impact of the economic crisis on the more than 20 million people employed in the sector said financial services employment is now likely to shrink permanently, in contrast to recent strong growth projections.

Announced financial sector layoffs between August 2007 and February 12 this year totaled 325,000, and close to 130,000 jobs or 40 percent were announced between October 2008 and February 12, indicating a rapid acceleration over recent months, it said.

"As the global economy sinks further into recession, and financial institutions' assets experience even greater impairment, job losses can be expected to rise even faster," the ILO said.

Redundancies are likely to affect all kinds of jobs in the sector, including information technology specialists that were spared in previous waves of job losses, it said.

While the losses are worldwide, financial centers like New York and London will bear the brunt, with the combined New York metropolitan area expected to lose up to 100,000 financial services jobs, it said.

The U.S. securities industry alone shed 17,600 jobs in the last quarter of 2008, a rate exceeded only once in the last decade by the 18,800 jobs lost between November 2001 and February 2002 due to recession and the September 11 attacks.

As a percentage of the workforce, employment in securities is shrinking at roughly twice the pace of U.S. employment as a whole and twice as fast as the broad financial sector, it said.

Citing projections from consultancy Oxford Analytica that London-based financial institutions will have shed 30,000 jobs in 2008 and will lose at least one third more in 2009, the ILO said total jobs in London could fall to 4.51 million in 2010 from 4.71 million in 2008.

"The knock-on fiscal impact of the credit crunch due to a shrinking real economy is expected to be considerable," it said.

As in the United States, the loss of lucrative financial jobs and bonuses would have knock-on effects elsewhere, with the loss of one to two other jobs for each financial redundancy, it said.

"These figures almost certainly understate the real situation, as announcements of job cuts are not always forthcoming," the ILO said of the reported financial job losses.

Financial services employed 5.6 million people in the European Union in 2006, with banking and insurance accounting for 75 and 20 percent respectively, and intermediaries such as hedge funds and wealth managers accounting for the rest, it said.

The sector represented 2.7 percent of total EU employment. That was much less than in the United States, where the equivalent was 4.7 percent or 4.1 million workers, of whom 44 percent were in banking, it said. On a broader measure including real estate, U.S. financial sector employment was 8.36 million.

(For the ILO paper go to: here )

(Reporting by Jonathan Lynn)

Lawmakers' taste for pork returns to Capitol Hill

Lawmakers' taste for pork returns to Capitol Hill
Lawmakers' taste for pork returns to Capitol Hill
Stephen Dinan (Contact)
Monday, February 23, 2009

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Buzz up!

Pork is back on the menu and the appetite is growing on Capitol Hill, where the number of lawmakers voluntarily swearing off earmarks for pet projects has fallen by nearly half compared with last year.

Just 17 of the 41 House members who promised not to request earmarks last year have made the same pledge this year, according to a survey of all congressional offices by the fiscal conservative action group Club for Growth. The holdouts include some top Republican leaders and all five House Democrats who had forsworn earmarks last year.

Just as telling, only six new lawmakers out of 63 that took office this year have said they will forgo earmarks, despite many of those freshmen having run on promises of restoring fiscal responsibility.

Despite expressing disgust for earmarks and pledging not to request them last year, Rep. Jackie Speier, California Democrat, is going her own direction this year.

“She has formed a Citizens Oversight Panel made up of people from across the 12th District and representing different political views to review appropriations requests in public forums and pass their recommendations on to her,” said her spokesman, Mike Larsen. “It is her hope to expand this process to all congressional districts to provide accountability to the appropriations process.”

Other House members said they're not sure whether they'll sign again this year.

“It's still under discussion,” said Anne Lupardus, spokeswoman for Rep. Ron Kind, Wisconsin Democrat.

Andrew Roth, government affairs director for the Club for Growth, compiled the club's survey of who's sworn off earmarks by soliciting each congressional office. He also scours reports to see whether members of Congress have issued press releases or told local reporters they have sworn off earmarks.

Mr. Roth said that while this year's list is smaller than 2008, it's still better than a few years ago when “you could count all the anti-earmarkers on one hand.”

“I expect more members to join the list once the budget becomes a central focus of Congress, because then the debate about earmarks will heat up again and there will be a political motive to get on this list,” he said.
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WND Exclusive FROM JEROME CORSI'S RED ALERT
Bailout solution? Soros-promoted bank takeover
Plan calls for nationalization as end to TARP subsidies
Posted: February 23, 2009
11:25 am Eastern

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Editor's Note: The following report is excerpted from Jerome Corsi's Red Alert, the premium online newsletter published by the current No. 1 best-selling author, WND staff writer and columnist. Subscriptions are $99 a year or $9.95 per month for credit card users. Annual subscribers will receive a free autographed copy of "The Obama Nation," the blueprint for Obama's first term in office.

The Obama administration, with the support of some top Republican senators, appears to be moving toward nationalizing U.S. banks, in a strategy known as the "Swedish Plan," Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports. The strategy was heavily championed by George Soros at the Economic World Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year.

In the early 1990s, Sweden nationalized banks, but only after the banks had taken the losses writing down their own troubled losses.

(Story continues below)




Economists Christopher Wood argued in a Financial Times column that the U.S. Troubled Assets Relief Program, or TARP, has failed to follow the Swedish model. He wrote that the U.S. government has poured $700 billion of bailouts to banks and brokerage firms without requiring the institutions to first to write down their bad assets and without the government taking majority control.

"Should the Obama administration choose to implement the Swedish plan as a solution to the bank meltdown over toxic assets, the change in direction would effectively limit the continuance of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP," Corsi wrote.

TARP was predicated on the idea that the government could bail out banks by issuing loans to provide liquidity so they would continue extending credit. Under TARP, the banks were expected to write down, sell or otherwise work out toxic assets that were based on mortgages or other forms of securities derived from debt products, including student loans or credit cards.

"The decision to move from a TARP bailout to a bank nationalization approach largely reflects a growing government realization that troubled bank assets may well amount to trillions of dollars, instead of the more limited $700 billion Congress had provided in the two tranches of TARP bailout funds," Corsi wrote.

As Red Alert previously reported, George Soros told CNBC from the Davos conference that the world economic system entered meltdown when the U.S. government refused to bailout Lehman Brothers in the closing months of 2008.

"When Lehman was allowed to go into bankruptcy, we experienced a game-changing event," Soros said. "The system broke down and had to be put on global life support."

Soros strongly recommended the Obama administration follow the Swedish model by nationalizing troubled U.S. banks as quickly as possible so toxic assets in mortgage-backed securities and other troubled bonds could be absorbed by the taxpayer, positioning the banks to begin aggressive lending once again, only now with clean balance sheets and new government bureaucrat managers.

Appearing to be an insider, Soros suggested to CNBC that the Obama administration plans to "save up" $100 billion from the TARP, with a plan to "leverage these funds up" by utilizing Federal Reserve assets to reach a total of a new $1 trillion to rescue banks, without going to Congress with a request for a new $1 trillion in TARP funds.

Soros suggested this new $1 trillion "will help relieve the situation," but he doubted even this additional $1 trillion would be "enough to turn the situation around."

"In the end, we will have to nationalize the banks, if we want the banks to start lending again," Soros finally admitted to CNBC toward the end of his interview.

Prominent Republican senators such as John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsay Graham, R-N.C., known for their support of expanding U.S. free-trade agreements, have joined the bandwagon urging President Obama to nationalize banks under the Swedish model.

"You should not get caught up on a word [nationalization]" Graham told the Financial Times. "I would argue that we cannot be ideologically a little bit pregnant. It doesn't matter what you call it, but we can't keep on funding these zombie banks [without gaining public control]. That's what the Japanese did."

As evidence President Obama was moving toward the Swedish model, the Financial Times cited a comment he made over the Presidents Day weekend.

"They [the Japanese] sort of papered things over," Obama said. "They never really bit the bullet … and so you never got credit flowing the way it should have, and the bad assets in their system just corroded the economy for a long period of time."

Now, Red Alert's author, whose books "The Obama Nation" and "Unfit for Command" have topped the New York Times best-sellers list, reports that the massive deficit-funding social welfare program the Obama administration pushed through Congress as "economic stimulus" may be followed by plan to turn troubled banks into government banks.

Corsi received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972. For nearly 25 years, beginning in 1981, he worked with banks throughout the U.S. and around the world to develop financial services marketing companies to assist banks in establishing broker/dealers and insurance subsidiaries to provide financial planning products and services to their retail customers. In this career, Corsi developed three different third-party financial services marketing firms that reached gross sales levels of $1 billion in annuities and equal volume in mutual funds. In 1999, he began developing Internet-based financial marketing firms, also adapted to work in conjunction with banks.

In his 25-year financial services career, Corsi has been a noted financial services speaker and writer, publishing three books and numerous articles in professional financial services journals and magazines.

For more information on U.S. bank nationalization and for financial guidance during difficult times, read Jerome Corsi's Red Alert, the premium, online intelligence news source by the WND staff writer, columnist and author of the New York Times No. 1 best-seller, "The Obama Nation."

For the complete report and full immediate access to Jerome Corsi's Red Alert, subscribe now.

Subscribe to Jerome Corsi's new weekly economic newsletter, Red Alert, for one year and, for a limited time get "The Obama Nation" free. (This offer applies only to annual subscriptions for $99.) Bookmark and Share




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“Cleanse

Poll: Most Americans fearful about state of country

February 23, 2009 -- Updated 1217 GMT (2017 HKT)

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Poll: Most Americans fearful about state of country

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* Nearly eight in 10 say things are going badly in the country
* Three of four Americans are angry about the way things are going in the country
* But three out of four questioned say that things are going well for them personally
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By Paul Steinhauser
CNN Deputy Political Director
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A new national poll indicates that nearly three out of four Americans are scared about the way things are going in the country today.
A deputy oversees an eviction in Lafayette, Colorado, last week.

A deputy oversees an eviction in Lafayette, Colorado, last week.

Seventy-three percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday say they're very or somewhat scared about the way things are going in the United States. That's six points higher than in an October poll.

Nearly eight in 10 say things are going badly in the country, with just 21 percent suggesting that things are going well. The survey also says that three out of four Americans are angry about the way things are going in the country. But three out of four questioned say that things are going well for them personally.

The poll was released a day before President Obama gives a prime-time address before a joint session of Congress.
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"Americans always believe things are better in their own lives than in the rest of the country," said CNN polling director Keating Holland. "But they are realists as well -- they recognize that bad times somewhere else in the U.S. may eventually come to affect them. That's why so many say they are angry and scared, even though they're content with their own personal circumstances.

"There is a tiny sliver of good news -- the number of Americans who think things are going very badly has dropped from 40 percent in December to 32 percent now," Holland added. "But since most of those people switched from the very bad category to the pretty bad category, it's wrong to say that the public is more optimistic -- call them a little less pessimistic at best."

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted Wednesday and Thursday, with 1,046 adults questioned by telephone. The survey's sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
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Oscars turn into blatant homosex-fest

WND ACADEMY AWARDS 2009
Oscars turn into blatant homosex-fest
'You will have equal rights federally across this great nation of ours'
Posted: February 22, 2009
10:37 pm Eastern

By Joe Kovacs
© 2009 WorldNetDaily


Dustin Lance Black

The Oscar winner for best original screenplay used his acceptance speech as a pro-homosexual soapbox tonight, promoting same-sex marriage and federal equal rights for "gays" and lesbians.

Dustin Lance Black won his Academy Award for writing "Milk," the story of Harvey Milk, the first openly homosexual man to be elected to major public office in America. Milk was portrayed by Sean Penn in the film set in San Francisco in the 1970s. Penn was awarded the Oscar for best actor.

The emotional Black stated in his acceptance speech:

When I was 13 years old, my beautiful mother and my father moved me from a conservative Mormon home in San Antonio, Texas to California, and I heard the story of Harvey Milk. And it gave me hope. It gave me the hope to live my life. It gave me the hope one day I could live my life openly as who I am and then maybe even I could even fall in love and one day get married.

I wanna thank my mom, who has always loved me for who I am even when there was pressure not to. But most of all, if Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he'd want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are less than by their churches, by the government or by their families, that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value and that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you and that very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights federally, across this great nation of ours.

Thank you. Thank you. And thank you, God, for giving us Harvey Milk.

Sean Penn also promoted the homosexual agenda during his own acceptance speech for best actor, saying, "We've got to have equal rights for everyone."

He first addressed the audience as "You Commie homo-loving sons of guns."



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Supreme Court decides if aliens liable for using stolen citizen identities

WND INVASION USA
Illegal: 'No clue fake IDs belong to Americans'
Supreme Court decides if aliens liable for using stolen citizen identities
Posted: February 23, 2009
10:58 pm Eastern

By Chelsea Schilling
© 2009 WorldNetDaily


(photo: FBI)

The Supreme Court is considering whether illegal aliens who have used fake Social Security numbers can escape federal aggravated identity theft charges – including a mandatory two-year sentence – by simply claiming they never knew the identity belonged to a real person.

In 2000, illegal alien Ignacio Carlos Flores-Figueroa of Mexico used a bogus Social Security number and resident alien card to get a job with a steel company in East Moline, Ill. He worked under a false identity for six years and then decided to begin using his real name and another fraudulent Social Security number.

His employer notified U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and authorities found Flores-Figueroa's aliases belonged to U.S. citizens.

The illegal alien was indicted by a federal grand jury in 2006, and he pleaded guilty to two counts of misuse of immigration documents and one count of illegal entry into the United States.

However, he refused to plead guilty to aggravated identity theft under 18 U.S.C. § 1028A – a federal statute that mandates a two-year prison term for anyone who "knowingly transfers, possesses, or uses, without lawful authority, a means of identification of another person."

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa convicted Flores-Figueroa of two counts of aggravated identity theft, and sentenced him to a prison term of 51 months for the misuse of immigration documents and entry without inspection offenses and a consecutive 24-month prison term for aggravated identity theft.

Flores-Figueroa claims he is not at fault because he "had no intention of stealing anyone's identity" when he purchased numbers from a person in Chicago who sells sham IDs.

(Story continues below)




So, with Kevin Russell of Howe & Russell representing him, the illegal alien took his case to the Supreme Court.

On Wednesday, in Flores-Figueroa v. United States, the court will hear arguments on whether an illegal alien who fraudulently uses identification can be charged under the statute without proof that he knew the ID was stolen.

An estimated 8 million U.S. citizens become victims of identity theft every year. The case could protect illegal aliens from prosecution if the Supreme Court rules they cannot be charged under the federal statute unless prosecutors can prove they knew their fraudulent IDs belonged to American citizens.

Acting Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler wrote in the brief that the federal statute is meant to "provide enhanced protection" for victims of identity theft.

"The harm the victim suffers when her identity is so misused bears no necessary relationship to the perpetrator's awareness of her existence," he wrote.

Los Angeles attorney Stephen Masterson supported Kneedler's position, stating that the question of whether an illegal alien knows he is stealing an existing identity is irrelevant because "the havoc wrecked on the victim's life is the same either way."

But Flores-Figueroa and at least 20 illegal alien activist groups, defense lawyers and privacy experts are claiming the federal statute only applies to identity thieves who use stolen information to empty bank accounts and incur bills in other people's names – not illegals who use American identities to find work.

The government has applied the statute to aliens caught using phony identification during immigration raids. Illegals are often given the opportunity to plead guilty to lesser immigration charges and submit to immediate deportation rather than face prosecution as identity thieves.

Chuck Roth, litigation director for the National Immigrant Justice Center in Chicago, accused the government of using the federal statute as "a bludgeon" to coerce illegals into pleading guilty to lesser charges and agreeing to leave the country.

Flores-Figueroa's lawyers told the Associated Press, "When a person makes up a Social Security number, having no idea whether it belongs to someone else, it is hard to see how that conduct qualifies as 'theft' much less 'aggravated theft.'"

The Philippines will slaughter 6,000 pigs

MANILA, Feb 23 (Reuters) - The Philippines will slaughter 6,000 pigs at a hog farm north of the capital Manila to prevent the spread of the Ebola-Reston virus, health and farm officials said on Monday.

But the government has lifted a quarantine on a second hog farm after tests by experts from the World Health Organisation (WHO), World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and Food and the Agriculture Organisation (FAO) showed no more signs of the disease.

The country has more than 13 million heads of swine and the discovery of Ebola-Reston on two hog farms north of Manila was isolated, the government said.

"There is ongoing viral transmission in Bulacan ... as a precautionary measure, depopulation will be carried out in the Bulacan farm," Health Secretary Francisco Duque told reporters, referring to the farm just north of Manila.

The government said 6,000 pigs would be killed, burned and buried as experts sought to determine the source of Ebola-Reston in pigs as well as pig-to-pig and from pig-to-human transmission. Duque said 147 human samples have been tested for Ebola, but only six have tested positive. But all six remain healthy, he added.

"Ebola-Reston poses a low risk to human health at this time," Duque said.

It is the first time the virus has been found outside monkeys and the first time it has been found in pigs. The virus had previously jumped from monkeys to humans but this was the first case of a jump from hogs.

The Ebola-Reston virus was found in the Philippines as early as the late 1980s and 25 people were found infected after contact with sick monkeys. But only one developed flu-like symptoms and later recovered. (Reporting by Manny Mogato; Editing by Sugita Katyal)