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Show and Tell: iPhone 4S
The live animal still upstages any gadget.
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Pushing New Boundaries
This group looks like a drill team and glee club combination.
I can't find the hook in the samples shown.
The best feature I can find is the suspicion of their authorities. -
Sean Thackrey
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Obama’s Katrina? Maybe Worse
This is more an admission of my own inattention than anything else; but still, to me, it was strange that when I read Frank Rich's comment, "consistent with his political DNA as a small-government conservative in thrall to big business", I took it as referring to Obama. I reread it; but at this point, I can't deny my first take.Frank Rich is discussing the Deep Water Horizon blow out and its political ramifications for president Obama. I did not find Sean Thackrey's purported quote in the article.This is a troll.B.P. is still operating. They should not be but political power is a market place and they have bought.
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LAllen
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Does IMF Stand for Impressive Macroeconomic Flexibility?
So the IMF is holding a meeting on rethinking macroeconomic policy (I was invited but couldn’t make the timing work.) And the Fund’s chief economist has already made it clear that he’s open to some serious revision of the prevailing paradigm.
It is not news that sovereign debt (bonds in Euros) troubles the banks.-
Eurozone strains increase with grim new economic data
Italian bond rates and Spanish jobless numbers rise, while Belgium and four other countries face fines for size of deficits- Eurozone crisis: Eurozone unemployment hits 16m
- Figures reveal a quarter of Spaniards unemployed
- Eurozone unemployment hits new record
- Eurozone crisis: calendar of key events in January
- George Soros: Indecision sowed seeds of conflict
- Hard-pressed Hungarians struggle with mortgages
- Hungary's 'Viktator' faces tide of protest
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/08/cut-working-week-urges-thinktankCut the working week to a maximum of 20 hours, urge top economists
Job sharing and increased leisure are the answer to rising unemployment, claims thinktank
"Heather Stewart- The Observer,
- Article history
Unemployment levels are rising within both Britain and the eurozone. Photograph: Mark Richardson/AlamyBritain is struggling to shrug off the credit crisis; overworked parents are stricken with guilt about barely seeing their offspring; carbon dioxide is belching into the atmosphere from our power-hungry offices and homes. In London on Wednesday, experts will gather to offer a novel solution to all of these problems at once: a shorter working week. A thinktank, the New Economics Foundation (NEF), which has organised the event with the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics, argues that if everyone worked fewer hours – say, 20 or so a week – there would be more jobs to go round, employees could spend more time with their families and energy-hungry excess consumption would be curbed. Anna Coote, of NEF, said: "There's a great disequilibrium between people who have got too much paid work, and those who have got too little or none." She argued that we need to think again about what constitutes economic success, and whether aiming to boost Britain's GDP growth rate should be the government's first priority: "Are we just living to work, and working to earn, and earning to consume? There's no evidence that if you have shorter working hours as the norm, you have a less successful economy: quite the reverse." She cited Germany and the Netherlands. Robert Skidelsky, the Keynesian economist, who has written a forthcoming book with his son, Edward, entitled How Much Is Enough?, argued that rapid technological change means that even when the downturn is over there will be fewer jobs to go around in the years ahead. "The civilised answer should be work-sharing. The government should legislate a maximum working week." Many economists once believed that as technology improved, boosting workers' productivity, people would choose to bank these benefits by working fewer hours and enjoying more leisure. Instead, working hours have got longer in many countries. The UK has the longest working week of any major European economy. Skidelsky says politicians and economists need to think less about the pursuit of growth. "The real question for welfare today is not the GDP growth rate, but how income is divided." Parents of young children already have the right to request flexible working, but the NEF would like to see job-sharing and alternative work patterns become much more widespread, and is calling on the government to make flexible working a default right for everyone." This is not a winning strategy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/business/mortgage-servicing-horror-stories-fair-game.html?ref=business
THE authorities have fallen silent lately about a possible settlement over foreclosure abuses at big mortgage servicing companies.The talks began in earnest last March, and people keep whispering that a deal is nigh. But last week, a spokesman for Shaun Donovan, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development and a lead negotiator, said that there was nothing new to report. That’s probably not a terrible thing. After all, no deal is better than a bad deal. State and federal authorities jumped into these talks without conducting serious investigations into foreclosure shenanigans. Why strike a deal — one that would, say, shield banks from new litigation over toxic loans, flawed securitizations and the mess at MERS, the registry that has made such a jumble of land records — without knowing what happened?
So it’s nice to know some attorneys general are taking matters into their own hands. One is Martha Coakley of Massachusetts, whose lawsuits against big banks have unearthed important details about dubious mortgage practices.
Another is Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada. She filed a case against Morgan Stanley that was settled last year, generating as much as $40 million in monetary relief for borrowers. She also participated in a suit against Wells Fargo that resulted in $45 million in principal forgiveness for Nevadans. And she has a case pending against Bank of America.
Last month, Ms. Masto sued Lender Processing Services, the huge default and foreclosure processor that works behind the scenes for most large banks. With this case, she demonstrated how enlightening an in-depth study can be. The complaint, which came after a 14-month inquiry, contends that L.P.S. deceived consumers by committing widespread document execution fraud, misrepresenting its fees and making deceptive statements about its efforts to correct paperwork. Investigators interviewed former L.P.S. employees and customers and examined foreclosures the company had worked on.
“L.P.S. played a critical role in the deceptive foreclosure practices that have harmed Nevada homeowners and burdened Nevada courts,” the complaint said. Consumers have paid the price, it continued, “through bankruptcies, evictions and foreclosures that were predicated upon false, forged, fraudulent and/or inaccurate documents.”
L.P.S. strongly disputes the allegations and has vowed to fight. The company has come under the microscope partly because of its size and scope: its loan-processing services touch 27 million loans, half of all the mortgages in the nation, by dollar amount. Most large loan servicers use L.P.S. systems.
It’s a lucrative business. For the nine months ended Sept. 30, the company’s loan transaction services generated operating margins of 20 percent on $1 billion in revenue.
When mortgages go into default, L.P.S. provides banks servicing the loans with an automated system that monitors the cases as they proceed.
The details recounted in the Nevada lawsuit describe how that system hustled borrowers through the foreclosure process. A boiler-room operation comes to mind, or that great Lucille Ball skit in which she tries in vain to keep up with the assembly line at a chocolate factory.
For example, a former L.P.S. employee who worked in “attorney management,” overseeing firms that performed legal work for foreclosures, told Nevada investigators that L.P.S. required him to resolve issues raised by the firms at a rate of 30 foreclosure files every hour. That’s two minutes apiece. The employee soon left L.P.S.
Former workers at another division described their work as “surrogate signers.” They said their job was to forge signatures on documents. These people were hired through temporary agencies; one said she was paid $11 an hour and told that her job was “to sign somebody else’s signature on documents,” the lawsuit said. She told investigators that she signed roughly 2,000 documents a day for months.
Another former worker said that when a banking executive came by for a tour, the signers were told “to lie” and tell the executive they were signing their own names, the lawsuit says.
Notarization worked much the same way, the complaint said. One former worker said she realized that she might have notarized documents she had also signed as a surrogate.
As a result, the lawsuit said, borrowers had to deal with documents containing “false assertions about which entity was authorized to foreclose, and false assertions about whether the consumer was delinquent on a loan payment.”
Kind of important details, no?
Michelle Kersch, a spokeswoman for L.P.S., said it no longer executes documents in Nevada and does so elsewhere “with stringent controls in place” to ensure compliance with all rules.
In an interview last Thursday, Ms. Masto declined to talk specifically about the case against L.P.S. But she said that her office had been working on mortgage-related investigations since 2007, when consumers began complaining. “It really required our team to figure out what was going on,” she said, “to understand it from the beginning to the end, then put in place a plan based on our limited resources to target the types of fraud we were seeing.” Eighteen people — investigators, prosecutors and support staff — work full time on mortgage issues in the Nevada office.
“The challenge we have is statute of limitations on these cases,” Ms. Masto said. “It could be anywhere from four to six years, depending on the incident.”
When she filed suit against L.P.S., she said it was “the next, logical step in holding the key players in the foreclosure fraud crisis accountable.” That suggests other cases are forthcoming.
“If you are going to allow banks to skate around the integrity of the system,” she said, “what kind of justice is that?” Good question." -
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Tom McMahon
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Friends With Benefits
Goldman Sachs has made money on this. Their investors may not.
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Elizabeth Fuller
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Friends With Benefits
I refuse to be shocked by bad people being bad.
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Brooklyn's Rube Goldberg
Fun.
But not worth a special trip. Lawrence Dunn
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Obama’s Katrina? Maybe Worse
This is more an admission of my own inattention than anything else; but still, to me, it was strange that when I read Frank Rich's comment, "consistent with his political DNA as a small-government conservative in thrall to big business", I took it as referring to Obama. I reread it; but at this point, I can't deny my first take.This commenter is a troll.
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Show and Tell: iPhone 4S
I just don't want to play with Apple.
I am curious what they will do next. -
Pushing New Boundaries
The change of regime is the new thing here.
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Sean Thackrey
Obama is doing what he can. I want more but it is not available.
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LAllen
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Does IMF Stand for Impressive Macroeconomic Flexibility?
So the IMF is holding a meeting on rethinking macroeconomic policy (I was invited but couldn’t make the timing work.) And the Fund’s chief economist has already made it clear that he’s open to some serious revision of the prevailing paradigm.http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/08/financial-crisis-capital-flow
Financial crisis could turn the tide against unrestricted capital flows
Boom-bust pattern has meant even IMF and Bank of England are rethinking regulationHeather Stewart gives us no content.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/Mario Monti: 'The euro is not in crisis'
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti on Sunday rejected talk of a euro crisis and said Rome was open to the idea of a tax on financial transactions championed by France - but only if the measure was part of an EU-wide effort.
08 Jan 2012| 81 CommentsWe may pass through Hell but the UK will rise from the flames
Over recent years, the ills of the US economy have been remarkably similar to the UK's: excessive growth of consumption, fuelled by credit; an overvalued housing market; a huge trade deficit with the rest of the world; and weak corporate investment.
08 Jan 2012| 77 CommentsCameron's EU veto puts MEP's job in jeopardy
One of Britain's most high-profile European politicians could be ousted from her job in a wave of anti-British sentiment that has followed David Cameron's use of his veto last month.
07 Jan 2012| 79 Comments'Printed money' and regulatory diktat are keeping UK gilt yields low
The UK Government claims Britain is a safe haven. On the surface, that looks true.
07 Jan 2012| 277 CommentsWeek ahead: January 9-13
Trading updates from HMV and Marks & Spencer will reveal how two of the biggest high street names fared over the key Christmas period.
07 Jan 2012| CommentUS sees economic cup as half empty
Recent signs of growth in the US economy are no guarantee of a robust recovery.
07 Jan 2012| 37 CommentsHow should we fund the UK's growth agenda?
January's economic forecasts for the year ahead may not make festive new year reading, but they do represent a call to action for businesses and government, working together, to help contribute towards a new growth agenda for the UK.
07 Jan 2012| 12 Commentshttp://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jeremywarner/100014111/protection-is-alive-well-and-growing-fast/"Since July 2011, new protectionist measures have outnumbered liberalisating measures by nearly three to one. The vast majority of these initiatives are not traditional trade defence measures or tariff increases, but new forms of protectionism such as discriminatory investment measures, export subsidies, discriminatory bailouts, wage subsidies, and so on. It won't surprise to learn that China is one of the major offenders. As pressure on governments to save jobs and protect local industries grows, so do the number of protectionist measures. Protectionism isn't dead at all. It's merely been reincarnated in different form that circumvents the established rules."
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Tom McMahon
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Elizabeth Fuller
Goldman Sachs will get prosecuted one of these days.
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Elizabeth Fuller
No change.
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Lawrence Dunn
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Obama’s Katrina? Maybe Worse
This is more an admission of my own inattention than anything else; but still, to me, it was strange that when I read Frank Rich's comment, "consistent with his political DNA as a small-government conservative in thrall to big business", I took it as referring to Obama. I reread it; but at this point, I can't deny my first take.
No, as things have turned out.
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