Archive for the 'Collapse' Category
FDIC Friday: Guaranty Bank Goes Down; and a Few Others
August 22nd, 2009Via: Bloomberg: Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, Spain’s second-biggest bank, took over Guaranty Financial Group Inc. of Texas, the first foreign company to buy a failed U.S. bank this year as the toll of seized lenders climbed to 81. Branches of Guaranty in Texas and California tomorrow will become offices of Birmingham, Alabama-based BBVA Compass, […]
High Desert Ghetto Birds Fly Over Neighborhoods and Announce Suspect Descriptions with Megaphones
August 21st, 2009In the best of times, the vast blast furnace of the California’s wastelands never made sense to me. And now, as we head into collapse, I can’t begin to imagine what will happen in a place like Victorville as order breaks down. Maybe something between Mad Max and Dawn of the Dead. Via: ExiledOnline: High […]
Demand Rises for Publicly Funded Burials
August 21st, 2009Via: USA Today: The rough economy is inflicting hardship on people even in death. Coroners and funeral directors in several cities say the number of people seeking government-paid funerals, cremations and burials is spiking. Most counties and states will use public money to cremate or bury people who are too poor to pay for private […]
New Jersey City Considers Adult Curfew
August 19th, 2009Via: AP: Curfews might not be just for kids anymore in one city in northern New Jersey. Officials in Paterson are considering one for people of all ages in a bid to curb violence after a spate of deadly shootings. Several experts say they believe it would be the nation’s first curfew of its type […]
Mexican Army Takes Over Customs on U.S. Border
August 17th, 2009Via: AFP: Mexico’s Army took control of customs Sunday on the busy US border, as federal authorities pulled agents off the job in a massive anti-corruption shakeup, officials told AFP. An Interior Ministry official said the dismissals were being carried out at all Mexican border facilities, and that the customs agents were being replaced. Customs […]
The Pentagon Wants Authority to Post Almost 400,000 Military Personnel in U.S.
August 15th, 2009Via: Progressive: The Pentagon has approached Congress to grant the Secretary of Defense the authority to post almost 400,000 military personnel throughout the United States in times of emergency or a major disaster. This request has already occasioned a dispute with the nation’s governors. And it raises the prospect of U.S. military personnel patrolling the […]
FDIC Friday Bank Failures Much More Significant Than Usual
August 15th, 2009Via: CNN: Troubled Colonial BancGroup will be bought by rival BB&T Friday, the government said after state regulators closed the bank whose assets had been frozen by a federal judge. The Montgomery, Ala., bank, which has 346 branches spread across Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Nevada, and Texas, is the sixth largest bank failure in U.S. history […]
Foreclosures Still Accelerating: Rise 7 Percent in July from June
August 13th, 2009Via: AP: The number of U.S. households on the verge of losing their homes rose 7 percent from June to July, as the escalating foreclosure crisis continued to outpace government efforts to limit the damage. Foreclosure filings were up 32 percent from the same month last year, RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday. More than 360,000 households, […]
Green Shoots: 47 Percent of South Florida Homeowners Underwater on Mortgages
August 13th, 2009Via: Miami Herald: As home values continue to show declines compared to a year ago, the percentage of South Florida homeowners underwater in their mortgages grew between the first and second quarter of the year, figures from Zillow.com show. Forty-seven percent of all single-family homeowners with mortgages in Miami-Dade and Broward were in a negative […]
Americans Working Much Harder For Less Pay
August 12th, 2009Via: MSNBC: Feel like you’re working a lot harder these days, putting in longer hours for the same pay — or even less? The latest round of government data on worker productivity indicates that you probably are. The Labor Department said Tuesday that the American work force produced, at an annual rate, 6.4 percent more […]
