Month: March 2013

Three days that saved the world financial system

Adapted from “The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire,” by Neil Irwin (The Penguin Press, available April 4). WASHINGTONO POST:  …But in fact, what happened over three days and four nights in May 2010 is essential to understanding the economic predicament in which the world still finds itself. In that moment, the […]

Russia gears up for shale boom

FINANCIAL TIMES:  Russia is gearing up for an oil boom on the same scale as the US, as the techniques that sparked the shale revolution are applied to Siberia’s deposits of unconventional oil, according to one of the country’s top oil executives. Leonid Fedun, vice-president of Lukoil, said Russia, the world’s second-largest oil producer after […]

Close inmates’ revolving door

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER Editorial: …Pennsylvania’s prison halfway houses are a failure. More felons who spent time in halfway houses return to jail than among those released directly from prison to the streets… Wetzel ordered an in-house study, which showed that 67 percent of inmates released from halfway houses wound up back in jail within three years, […]

Pa. gubernatorial primary gets ugly early

POLITICO: …Earlier this month, a top aide to Rep. Allyson Schwartz warned an adviser to state Treasurer Rob McCord – a likely primary opponent – that there could be consequences for his political consulting business if he continues to criticize the Philadelphia-area congresswoman behind closed doors…

Business, Labor Get Immigration Deal on Guest Worker Program

NEWSMAX:  …Under the emerging agreement between business and labor, a new “W” visa program would bring tens of thousands of lower-skilled workers a year to the country. The program would be capped at 200,000 a year, but the number of visas would fluctuate, depending on unemployment rates, job openings, employer demand and data collected by […]

Some phone companies seek to end landline service

USA TODAY:   As more telephone customers cut the cord and shift service to wireless or Internet-based options, some major telephone companies have asked the federal government to pull the plug on the old-fashioned service. They say regulations that require maintenance of outdated, little-used infrastructure hinders progress because it ties up money that could otherwise be […]

Obamacare Faces Near-Solid Block In The South

HUFFINGTON POST:  As more Republicans give in to President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul, an opposition bloc remains across the South, including from governors who lead some of the nation’s poorest and unhealthiest states… Widening Medicaid insurance rolls, a joint federal-state program for low-income Americans, is an anchor of the law Obama signed in 2010. But […]

Senators Leahy, Paul introduce mandatory sentencing reform bill

By Phil Smith DRUG WAR CHRONICLE:  Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) joined Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) in introducing legislation that would give federal judges greater flexibility in sentencing in cases where mandatory minimum sentences are involved. The bill, Senate Bill 691, also known as the Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013, would […]