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An eroding model for health insurance

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Lisa Girion, Michael A. Hiltzik - Oct. 21 (Special Report) - The health insurance system has become increasingly expensive and inaccessible. It leaves patients responsible for bills they understood would be covered, squeezes doctors and hospitals, and tries to avoid even minuscule risks, such as providing coverage to a newborn with no serious illness.

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Cutbacks hamper FBI investigations of financial crimes

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Seattle Times - By Eric Lichtblau, David Johnston, Ron Nixon - Oct. 21 (News Report) - The bureau slashed its criminal-investigative work force to expand its national-security role after the Sept. 11 attacks, shifting more than 1,800 agents, or nearly one-third of all agents in criminal programs, to terrorism and intelligence duties. Current and former officials say the cutbacks have left the bureau seriously exposed in investigating areas such as white-collar crime, which has taken on urgent importance in recent weeks because of the nation's economic woes.

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There Is a Silver Lining | Print Article

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Newsweek - By Fareed Zakaria - Oct. 20 (Opinion) - It's a fundamental American belief that competition is good—in business, athletics and life. Checks and balances are James Madison's crucial mechanisms, exposing and countering abuse and arrogance and forcing discipline on people. This discipline will be painful for a country that has gotten used to having it all. But it will make us much stronger in the long run. If we can learn the right lessons from this crisis, the United States will once more be playing by its own rules. And that cannot be bad for us.

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Health care: Both candidates' plans promise radical change

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

McClatchy - By Kevin G. Hall - Oct. 24 (Special Report) - Whether the next president is Barack Obama or John McCain, this much is assured: Each man is offering a health-care overhaul that, if successfully implemented, might hasten the end of Americans getting health insurance through their employers.

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EU says new measures needed for financial meltdown

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Christopher Bodeen - Oct. 25 (News Report) - Although Asian economies had less direct exposure to the toxic sub-prime mortgages that are wreaking havoc on U.S. and European markets, they expect to take a major hit from a drop in exports and foreign investment.

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A financial new world order?

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - By Howard LaFranchi - Oct. 20 (News Report) - Europeans especially are speaking of a "Bretton Woods II" that could do for financial markets what the 1944 summit at a resort in New Hampshire did for monetary policy.

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Living in a World with Less Credit

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Bill Powell - Oct. 24 (Special Report) - Economic reality, in other words, is settling in across the nation. Every tumultuous period of financial boom and bust comes to be defined by a word or catchphrase. Tulipmania. The Great Depression. The dotcom bubble. The word that could define the financial times we are now living through — and the economic pain that has begun — is leverage.

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McCain's hero Teddy Roosevelt was more socialist than Obama

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Timothy Noah - Oct. 24 (Opinion) - Obama is constrained by a very different political climate to justify his sole proposed tax hike—on incomes above $250,000—by stating its benefit to commerce.

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The High School Dropout's Economic Ripple Effect

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Gary Fields - Oct. 21 (Special Report) - As the financial meltdown and economic slump hold the national spotlight, another potential crisis is on the horizon: a persistently high dropout rate that educators and mayors across the country say increases the threat to the country's strength and prosperity.

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Companies start competing for bailout money

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Martin Crutsinger - Oct. 25 (News Analysis) - The bailout is now the hottest lobbying game in town. Insurers, automakers and American subsidiaries of foreign banks all want the Treasury Department to cut them a piece of the largest government rescue in U.S. history.

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The Great Depression - how close are we?

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By Carolyn Said - Oct. 20 (News Analysis) - Americans binge on credit in a mania of speculation and consumption until the debt-fueled bubble bursts. Wall Street has a meltdown, the mania turns to hysteria, and the economy goes haywire. That scenario spawned the Great Depression - and it's painfully clear that similar factors are in play today. Now the question on everyone's mind is: Will it happen again? From late-night comics to financial pundits, there are plenty of people predicting a new era of breadlines and Hoovervilles. In fact, according to a poll this month, about 60 percent of Americans think we could suffer another depression soo

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General Motors, Driven to the Brink

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Bill Vlasic, Nick Bunkley - Oct. 26 (Investigative Report) - In late May, senior executives at General Motors confronted a decision that few thought they would ever face: whether to continue developing the next generation of one of the most successful products in G.M.’s 100-year history — the full-size sport utility vehicle — or to punt the program entirely. It’s rare for an automaker to pull the plug on high-profile initiatives, much less one involving a $2 billion, top-to-bottom overhaul of a high-volume vehicle that once helped it rake in cash. This was also G.M.’s flagship platform, code-named CXX, which would underpin popular models like the Escalade, Yukon and Suburban, brawny tanks that had defined the auto giant’s image for more than 15 years. The executives killed the CXX project without a single dissenting vote. And with that, the era of the big S.U.V. was as good as dead, done in by soaring gasoline prices and consumers fleeing to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.

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Health insurers reinvent themselves as money managers

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Michael A. Hiltzik - Oct. 22 (Special Report) - Many rush to open banks as more Americans open health savings accounts, a tax-sheltered way to pay medical bills. Managing that money is more profitable than offering health insurance.

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Job Losses Accelerate, Signaling Deeper Distress

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Neil Irwin, Michael S. Rosenwald - Oct. 23 (News Report) - The labor market has been weak all year, with a slow drip of workers losing their jobs each month. But the deterioration of the job market is now emerging as a driver of economic distress, according to a wide range of data and anecdotal reports from corporate America.

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It's the Housing Market, Stupid

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Time - By Barbara Kiviat - Oct. 21 (News Analysis) - "It's the housing market, stupid." That's what an increasing number of policymakers and economists are saying as they push for widespread mortgage modifications as a way to address a root cause of the financial crisis.

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Credit Rating Exec: "We Sold Our Souls to the Devil"

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Nick Baumann - Oct. 24 (Special Report) - Internal documents show that while rating firms publicly defended their practices, executives privately wondered when the house of cards would fall.

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Rating Agencies Draw Fire on Capitol Hill

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Cyrus Sanati - Oct. 22 (News Report) - (One) lawmaker read from a series of instant messages, sent by employees of S&P, in which one analyst said they would rate a deal even if it were “structured by cows.” In many cases, these ratings agencies assigned super-safe, triple-A ratings to structured products that later turned out to be extremely risky, and in some case, worthless.

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Mortgage firm arranged stealth campaign

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Pete Yost - Oct. 19 (Investigative Report) - "If effective regulatory reform legislation ... is not enacted this year, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole," the senators wrote in a letter that proved prescient.

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The Wealth Report - WSJ.com : Why the Rich Are Losing Their Share of Wealth

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Robert Frank - Oct. 22 (Opinion) - ...At the very moment that the public is outraged over the rich getting richer, the rich might actually be losing their share of the nation’s wealth.

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The bubble keeps on deflating

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

International Herald Tribune - Oct. 20 (Editorial) - By now everyone knows that reckless and even predatory mortgage lending provoked the financial meltdown. But bad lending did not stop there. The easy money also fed a corporate buyout binge, with private equity firms borrowing huge sums to buy up public companies and pay themselves big dividends.

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New frame of mind for investing may be emerging

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Reuters - By By Jeremy Gaunt - Oct. 19 (News Report) - LONDON: Predicting what financial markets will do at the moment is a fool's game, given the unprecedented levels of volatility. But certain factors have arisen recently that may put investors in a new frame of mind this week. First, there is the changing fear factor. After months of concentrating on the potential collapse of the world's financial system, the focus has shifted to worries about global recession. Second, equity markets have fallen so far and so quickly that some investors are beginning to see them as potential good values. Third, the latest wave of corporate earnings is under way and should provide not only guidance of where things stand in the business world, but also which companies are best placed to thrive in it. Reports this week will come from the likes of Caterpillar, Apple, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Xerox, GlaxoSmithKline and Daimler.

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The Broker Rebellion

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Louise Story - Oct. 25 (Special Report) - “Brokers are walking out the door,” said Brad Hintz, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. “This is a rare opportunity for them to leave, with the stock price down. The golden handcuffs which have tied them to these companies because of deferred compensation are now essentially gone.”

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How Will Treasury Pick the Banks to Save? Just Trust Them

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

ProPublica - By Paul Kiel - Oct. 22 (Special Report) - Lacking clear criteria, the process lacks crucial transparency, said Ross Levine, a professor of economics at Brown University. "It seems an essential part of the U.S. approach to government that we don't trust the angelic behavior of anybody."

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As Fuel Prices Fall, Will Push For Alternatives Lose Steam?

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Steven Mufson - Oct. 20 (Special Report) - Even more swiftly than the price of oil rose, it has tumbled to the range that seemed far-fetched when Reinert spoke and oil was more than $130 a barrel. Now that drop threatens a wide variety of game-changing plans to find alternatives to oil or ways to drastically reduce U.S. consumption.

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Businesses scramble for a piece of the U.S. bailout

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - Oct. 26 (News Report) - WASHINGTON: The U.S. bailout is now the hottest lobbying game in town. Insurers, automakers and American subsidiaries of foreign banks all want the Treasury Department to cut them a piece of the largest government rescue in U.S. history. The betting is that many with their hands out will be successful, especially with financial markets in a stomach-churning dive and predictions that the U.S. economy is about to tumble into a deep recession. These groups argue that the credit squeeze is so severe and the risks to the economy so dire that their industries need financial support as well. The Treasury is considering requests from a variety of industries, but has not decided whether to expand the program, officials said Saturday. Lobbying efforts are intensifying. The Financial Services Roundtable wrote Treasury officials on Friday requesting that the initiative to buy $250 billion in bank stock grow to cover insurers, auto companies, securities dealers and U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies, including banks. The Treasury's plan is intended to bolster banks' tattered balance sheets and get them to resume making loans.

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