From the MONEY NEWS: …Fitch’s outlook on the U.S., which it still assigns its top AAA grade, reflects declining confidence that timely fiscal measures necessary to place U.S. public finances on a sustainable path will be forthcoming, the company said in a statement Monday. Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Investors Service said Nov. 21 that […]
Month: November 2011
Egypt’s elections go smooth amid protests
From USA TODAY: …Polls indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood‘s political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party, is expected to win the most sizable portion of seats in parliament of any party. Some analysts predict Islamists — Brotherhood candidates and Salafi Muslims who practice a hard-line strain of Islam — likely will win a majority of […]
Time for the Fed to take over in Europe
From AL JAZEERA: …Fortunately, the Fed has the tools needed to prevent this sort of meltdown. It can simply take the steps that the ECB has failed to do. First, and most importantly, it has to guarantee the sovereign debt of eurozone countries. The Fed simply has to commit to keep the interest rate yields […]
Germany told to act to save Europe
From the FINANCIAL TIMES: Germany is the only country in Europe that can act to save the eurozone and the wider European Union from “a crisis of apocalyptic proportions”, the Polish foreign minister warned on Monday in a passionate call for more drastic action to prevent the collapse of the European monetary union. The extraordinary […]
Neo-Nazis Suspected in Long Wave of Crimes, Including Murders, in Germany
From the NEW YORK TIMES: ZWICKAU, Germany — Neo-Nazi terrorists are responsible for a crime wave reaching back more than a decade that includes the murders of at least 10 people, including immigrant shopkeepers and a police officer, German government officials said Sunday. The group is also suspected in more than a dozen bank robberies […]
Barney Frank Will Not Seek Reelection In 2012
From the HUFF POST: …Frank said he originally intended to run for one more term, but that his decision was partially due to the fact that the state’s new redistricting map will Frank said he has had a “busy and stressful” four years dealing with financial reform after the recession. He says he plans to […]
Utilities seek to skirt rate process
From LEHIGH VALLEY MORNING CALL: Electric, natural gas and waste water utilities may soon be able to raise prices without the public hearings and other costly, time-consuming steps that have long been part of the rate-making process in Pennsylvania. Legislation that would allow the change, which proponents say is necessary to upgrade aging infrastructure, has already made it through the state House and is now under consideration by the Senate.
Commissioner Martin to Serve on State’s Local Government Advisory Committee
COUNTY PRESS RELEASE (Lancaster, PA) – Commissioner Scott Martin, Chairman of the Lancaster County Board of Commissioners, was appointed by Governor Tom Corbett to serve on the state Local Government Advisory Committee. The Local Government Advisory Committee is an advisory and oversight committee that studies the impact of legislation on local governments. The committee is […]
Fed needs to be reconfigured
Unfortunately the too big to fail banks have gotten bigger and control more of the economy since this bail out and the inadequate financial reform bill. We need to break these banks up, encourage community banks and get money in communities and out of Wall Street. The Fed bailout shows why the Fed should not […]
Europe’s Leaders Pursue New Pact
From the WALL STREET JOURNAL: Euro-zone leaders are negotiating a potentially groundbreaking fiscal pact aimed at preventing the currency bloc from fracturing by tethering its members even closer together. The proposal, which hasn’t yet been agreed to, would make budget discipline legally binding and enforceable by European authorities. Officials regard the moves as a first […]
Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks Undisclosed $13B
From BLOOMBERG: The Federal Reserve and the big banks fought for more than two years to keep details of the largest bailout in U.S. history a secret. Now, the rest of the world can see what it was missing. The Fed didn’t tell anyone which banks were in trouble so deep they required a combined $1.2 trillion on Dec. 5, 2008…
SUNDAY NEWS
Associate Editor Gil Smart envisions in his column “The greatest fairy tale of all” : “Huge domestic spending cuts are coming. And I fully expect to see those cuts in isolation. Which is to say that there will be no meaningful military cuts, and I suspect we’ll not only keep the Bush tax cuts in […]
State-related secrecy: Change the law
From the PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE: Secrecy at Penn State didn’t start with its pedophilia scandal. And sadly, it won’t end because of Pennsylvania’s right-to-know law. It exempts the four state-related universities, placing Penn State, Lincoln, Temple and Pitt among the higher-education institutions that are least transparent to taxpayers. That abysmal national ranking comes from open-government groups […]
Close ties among Penn State, nonprofit, donors.
From the INQUIRER: In 2006, the charity at the center of the Pennsylvania State University sex-abuse scandal chose a firm run by its board chairman to construct its new $11.5 million home – on a site bought from the college on the cheap… Few thought much about the land deal or [Robert] Poole’s selection as […]