Tuesday, January 8th, 2013
DANIEL WAGNER, - The Associated Press/Salon
Stephan: Having said some unflattering things about the Obama Justice Department, I was glad to see at least modest accountability is, in fact, occurring. No one's going to jail, but at least some money is being forfeited. It is only a fraction of the total, but it is something. And there may be more coming.
WASHINGTON — Ten major banks and mortgage companies agreed Monday to pay $8.5 billion to settle federal complaints that they wrongfully foreclosed on homeowners who should have been allowed to stay in their homes.
The banks, which include JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, will pay billions to homeowners to end a review process of foreclosure files that was required under a 2011 enforcement action. The review was ordered because banks mishandled people’s paperwork and skipped required steps in the foreclosure process.
Under the new settlement, people who were wrongfully foreclosed on could receive from $1,000 up to $125,000. Failing to offer someone a loan modification would be considered a lighter offense; unfairly seizing and selling a person’s home would entitle that person to the biggest payment, according to guidelines released last summer by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Monday’s settlement was announced jointly by the OCC and the Federal reserve.
The agreement covers up to 3.8 million people who were in foreclosure in 2009 and 2010. Of those, about 400,000 may be entitled to payments, advocates estimate.
About $3.3 billion would be direct payments to borrowers, regulators said. Another $5.2 billion would pay for other assistance including loan […]
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Tuesday, January 8th, 2013
CHRIS ARSENAULT, - Al Jazeera (Qatar)
Stephan: This piece in Al Jazeera puts together what U.S. corporate media will not: the long range strategic plan of the carbon energy forces. Not a pretty picture, although incredibly profitable. Particularly when you don't have to pay for the environmental damage you do, because you've rigged the government to make sure the taxpayers pick up the tab.
A word about Al Jazeera: I have been following this network for months now, and have been impressed with the quality of their reporting. They have hired a large number of BBC reporters, and some very good American ones, and they consistently and accurately cover stories U.S. media does not, or not as well.
The US is set to become the world’s biggest oil producer in 2017, overtaking Saudi Arabia and Russia [AFP]
Some industry veterans believe it’s the biggest development in the energy game since 1859, when the first US oil well gushed from beneath the earth in Titusville, Pennsylvania.
In changes that would have been unthinkable just five years ago, the US is set to become a net energy exporter in the next few years, thanks to the controversial process of fracking that is re-wiring geopolitics and the world of energy.
The practice of shooting steam and chemicals into shale rock formations to unlock energy sources previously considered marginal has ‘changed the world’, according to one lawyer with more than 40 years of experience negotiating natural gas contracts.
‘We are talking about increases [in natural gas production] of 15 to 20 percent per year,’ George Washington University law professor Richard Pierce told Al Jazeera. ‘The US is now 100 percent independent in natural gas and within the next half a dozen years [North America] will be independent in oil. It will become a global supplier, rather than a demander, in a hurry.’
‘Once-in-a-lifetime experience’
New technologies to access hard-to-reach fuels mean that, in 2012, the United States experienced […]
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Tuesday, January 8th, 2013
PAUL KRUGMAN, Nobel Laureate - Op-Ed Columnist - The New York Times
Stephan: I confess I do not understand why any economist thinks, or ever thought, that austerity was a good idea. Obviously it destroys the middle class everywhere it is tried. When people have less money, they spend less money. Rich people put extra money in the bank; they have plenty. Middle class and poor people always have to spend the majority of their income, thus creating demand, markets, jobs etc.
But that doesn't seem to penetrate some quarters and, thus, I don't think we are out of the financial crisis that began in 2008. This year could, not will but could, get very painful.
It’s that time again: the annual meeting of the American Economic Association and affiliates, a sort of medieval fair that serves as a marketplace for bodies (newly minted Ph.D.’s in search of jobs), books and ideas. And this year, as in past meetings, there is one theme dominating discussion: the ongoing economic crisis.
This isn’t how things were supposed to be. If you had polled the economists attending this meeting three years ago, most of them would surely have predicted that by now we’d be talking about how the great slump ended, not why it still continues.
So what went wrong? The answer, mainly, is the triumph of bad ideas.
It’s tempting to argue that the economic failures of recent years prove that economists don’t have the answers. But the truth is actually worse: in reality, standard economics offered good answers, but political leaders – and all too many economists – chose to forget or ignore what they should have known.
The story, at this point, is fairly straightforward. The financial crisis led, through several channels, to a sharp fall in private spending: residential investment plunged as the housing bubble burst; consumers began saving more as the illusory wealth created by the bubble […]
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Tuesday, January 8th, 2013
CHRISTINE HSU, - Medical Daily
Stephan: Here is a fascinating potential explanation as to why crime has fallen in the U.S. Yes, that's right crime has fallen, although with the corporate media's obsession with stories of violence few people seem to realize this.
For years the rate of violent crime has fallen in the United States. It’s good news, but experts have never been able to explain why crime rates spiked in the 1980s and 1990s but then dramatically dropped in the 2000s. Theories ranging from improved police techniques to the ‘crack epidemic’ to the legalization of abortion have all been proposed by researchers, but none seem to quite fit the facts.
Now, researchers say they may have found the perfect scapegoat for violent crime: leaded gasoline.
A new study has revealed that the rise and fall of leaded gasoline strongly correlates with the pattern of violent crime rates in America.
Past research have linked high lead levels to birth defects, lower intelligence and hearing problems, but now researcher are beginning to uncover evidence that it also causes high levels of aggression.
Tulane University toxicologist Howard W. Mielke found that children exposed to high levels of lead in the 1960s and 1970s resulted in a significant uptick in crime 20 years later.
Mielke found that when the use of leaded gasoline dropped in the 1980s, crime rates also declined at corresponding rates.
Further research found the chilling correlation in countries around the world and in six U.S. cities: Atlanta, […]
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Monday, January 7th, 2013
JAKE BRIGHT, - The Daily Beast
Stephan: Here is some more good news about Africa. I just hope that as Africa develops a stable system will also develop to preserve the continent's unique natural heritage.
In corporate boardrooms and global-investment seminars, more CEOs and business leaders are talking about Africa. That much was evident at a recent New York Stock Exchange investor conference, where along with references to Africa as the ‘new Asia
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