cryptogon.com

The company warned it would continue to need billions more in government funds because the housing market remains fragile.

The loss was $6.7 billion before a $1.3 billion dividend payment on senior preferred stock owned by the U.S. Treasury.

Freddie Mac has been struggling to contain losses sustained from its massive exposure to the U.S. housing market, which has suffered its worst downturn since the 1930s.

Fearing that losses would harm Freddie Mac’s ability to support housing, the government put the company in conservatorship in September 2008 and late last year pledged unlimited financial backing.

Chief Executive Charles Haldeman said the company is focused on strengthening its underwriting standards and improving credit quality.

“Though more needs to be done, we are seeing some signs of stabilization in the housing market, including house prices and sales in some key geographic areas,” Haldeman said in a statement.

“But as we have noted for many months now, housing in America remains fragile with historically high delinquency and foreclosure levels, and high unemployment among the key risks.”

The many potential triggers for an expanded crisis include a failed bond auction, any signs that Athens or donor nations were backing away from a 110 billion euro ($141 billion) bailout of Greece, and a freezing up of Europe’s interbank money market.

…

Greece became unable to finance its debt at affordable rates when its 10-year government bond yield soared near 10 percent in April. The euro zone’s other weak countries have not reached that stage; Portugal’s yield was below 6 percent on Wednesday.

Portugal sold 500 million euros in six-month Treasury bills on Wednesday at a yield of 2.955 percent, which was about four times the rate at the last such sale on March 3 but was well below maximum levels in the secondary market. This was seen as a moderately positive sign by analysts.

Spain is expected to succeed in selling 2-3 billion euros of government bonds on Thursday, although at a much higher yield than in its last auction, analysts said.

Nevertheless, every debt sale by weak euro zone states in coming months is likely to be viewed as a potential flashpoint for an expanded crisis. Portugal plans to offer more T-bills on May 19 and Spain plans another bond sale on May 20.

Annunziata estimated Spain’s bond spreads were still low enough for it to borrow at current rates for at least a year or more without doing serious damage to its finances. Portugal can keep borrowing at current rates for at least a year, he said.

But he added, “The problem, as for exchange rates, is also the speed of the movement. If spreads keep widening then markets could more quickly lose confidence and the problem would be the quantity of available financing, not the cost.”

Meanwhile, the Greek bailout package announced this week imposes such harsh austerity measures on Greece that the markets will continue doubting the country’s political will and economic ability to stick to the package.

Any sign that the government of Prime Minister George Papandreou was backing off from key fiscal reforms in the face of public opposition could raise the prospect of a Greek debt restructuring or default, triggering an expanded crisis.

The European Commission and the International Monetary Fund will monitor Greece’s progress every quarter and link aid disbursements to those reviews. The reviews could become triggers for an expanded crisis if Germany, where public opinion strongly opposes helping Greece, decides Athens is not meeting aid conditions and balks at a disbursement.

The markets could also panic if commercial banks around Europe, which have cut off funding lines to Greek banks, decide to do the same to banks in Portugal, Ireland and Spain.

So far the stresses in the money markets do not approach those seen at the peak of the global crisis. The two-year euro zone swap spread, which measures the aversion of lenders to deal with any but the most creditworthy borrowers, has widened to 65 basis points, its widest since mid-March 2009, but is far below the record 130 bps hit in October 2008.

BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years, with the largest chunk of their money going to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Donations come from a mix of employees and the company’s political action committees — $2.89 million flowed to campaigns from BP-related PACs and about $638,000 came from individuals.

On top of that, the oil giant has spent millions each year on lobbying — including $15.9 million last year alone — as it has tried to influence energy policy.

During his time in the Senate and while running for president, Obama received a total of $77,051 from the oil giant and is the top recipient of BP PAC and individual money over the past 20 years, according to financial disclosure records.

Moody’s today placed its Aa2 rating on review for a possible downgrade, a process that will conclude within three months, the company said in a statement. The rating is currently the third-highest investment grade.

Investors are shifting their attention to Portugal after surging bond yields forced Greece to seek a 110 billion-euro ($142 billion) bailout from the euro region and the International Monetary Fund. The extra yield that they demand to hold Portuguese bonds over German bunds last week rose to the highest since 1997 and Bundesbank President Axel Weber today warned that the euro region faces “grave contagion effects.”

Using both blades at the same time – one in each hand – she slashed in a downward arc like in the movie “Psycho,” sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

“She was literally walking up and down the aisles slashing people,” he said.

Police say Trawick, 34, was arrested when an off-duty sheriff’s deputy pulled his gun and ordered the woman to the ground as screaming shoppers ran from the building.

A mother holding her baby was stabbed in the neck and was taken to the hospital, where she was in stable condition, Whitmore said. The baby was unhurt and all four victims are expected to survive.

One witness said she was shopping for a Mother’s Day card when she heard someone screaming, “There is no witness protection program!” as chaos broke out in the store.

“I don’t know what it means but she was yelling that repeatedly and at the top of her lungs,” said Katy Winn, a freelance photographer from West Hollywood.

Winn said she dropped her basket and dashed across the store to the women’s section, where she hid behind the clothing racks.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Clay Grant Jr., said he was picking up paper towels and other items when people around him started running and screaming.

Grant, 26, grabbed his duty weapon, identified himself as a sheriff’s deputy and ordered the woman to drop the knives, he said. She ran away and he followed her from aisle to aisle.

Grant was wearing a white T-shirt, camouflage shorts and running shoes so several shoppers mistook him for a gunman, adding to the sense of panic, sheriff’s Sgt. Josh Mankini said. He followed Trawick from aisle to aisle, until she turned and waved the knives at him from above her head.

But he decided not to shoot because he didn’t feel his life was in jeopardy, he said. For a second time, he ordered her to drop the knives and finally she complied.

“I was more concerned about the knife, more than what she was saying,” Grant said. “Her facial expression was someone who was lost, confused, didn’t know exactly where they were.”

To fight them, Mr. Anderson and farmers throughout the East, Midwest and South are being forced to spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.

“We’re back to where we were 20 years ago,” said Mr. Anderson, who will plow about one-third of his 3,000 acres of soybean fields this spring, more than he has in years. “We’re trying to find out what works.”

Farm experts say that such efforts could lead to higher food prices, lower crop yields, rising farm costs and more pollution of land and water.

“It is the single largest threat to production agriculture that we have ever seen,” said Andrew Wargo III, the president of the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts.

New York is already a heavily policed city, with 35,000 officers and a counterterrorism bureau — the first of its kind in the country — partnering the FBI.

But Saturday’s failed terrorist bomb in the Times Square tourist hot spot has provided the authorities with a new argument for expanding a sometimes controversial security blanket of cameras, sensors and analytical software.

The system “will greatly enhance our ability and the ability of the police to detect suspicious activity in real time, and disrupt possible attacks,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday.

The high-tech system, modeled on the “ring of steel” in London’s financial district, is already in service in lower Manhattan, where Wall Street and the World Trade Center reconstruction site are located.

Headquartered at 55 Broadway, the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative goes far beyond the traditional hodgepodge of police cameras, such as the 82 devices installed around Times Square.

Instead, an integrated system maintains an unblinking eye, not just watching, but constantly collecting license plate numbers and video of pedestrians and drivers, as well as detecting explosives and other weapons.

An important component of the program is coordination between the police network and private businesses’ cameras, something that has not been established in Times Square, causing detectives significant extra work.

Also, a separate, but similar program called Operation Sentinel plans to log every vehicle entering Manhattan island by scanning their license plates and checking for radiation.

Last October, Bloomberg announced plans to expand the lower Manhattan system into Midtown, including the Times Square area.

On Sunday, New York police chief Raymond Kelly reiterated the plan and used the occasion to press for more federal funding from Washington.

Kelly also gave details about the system, explaining how the aim is for “analytic software” allowing experts to make sense of raw information in real time.

For example, alarms would trigger when cameras noticed an unattended bag or a car circling a block too many times to be considered normal, Kelly said.

Concern that the unprecedented EUR110 billion aid package to Greece won’t enough to prevent the crisis from spreading to other euro-zone countries sent the common currency tumbling more than 1% on the day. Fears have also set in about the Greek government’s ability to carry out harsh austerity measures required by the aid package.

Hopes of further recovery in the U.S. economy bolstered the greenback against most rivals, with a widely watched dollar index hitting a 12-month peak. Strong U.S. economic data have reinforced expectations that the Federal Reserve will be able to raise interest rates faster than its counterparts in the European Union and Japan.

The euro was at $1.3055 from $1.3191 late Monday, according to EBS via CQG. The dollar was at Y94.37, from Y94.59, while the euro was at Y123.23 from Y124.80. The U.K. pound was at $1.5148, down from $1.5249. The dollar was at CHF1.0971, up from CHF1.0861.

The ICE Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against a trade-weighted basket of currencies, was at a 12-month high of 83.063, up from 82.370.

“I don’t think the general public is aware how insidious this can be,” said private investigator and cell phone spyware expert Tim Wilcox.

Wilcox owns and runs one of the premier private investigative companies in the country, International Investigators, Inc. International Investigators does a lot of things. But one the company’s specialties and expertise is uncovering and exposing hidden spy tools like bugs in cell phones and other appliances.

“It takes about 90 seconds to download the spyware and you’re in business,” said Wilcox of some versions of this software that can be loaded onto someone’s cell phone.

The spyware is a lurking danger that turns your cell phone into a secret listening device, an instrument used to spy against you. Worse yet, you’ll likely never know it is on your phone.

“There could be anywhere from three to five or six million cell phones that are infected with spyware (at any one time),” said Wilcox.