Europe Stuns with €1.5 Trillion Bank Rescue
October 15th, 2008Via: Telegraph:
Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Holland and Austria have joined forces to launch the greatest bank bail-out in history, offering over €1.5 trillion in guarantees and fresh capital in a “shock and awe” blitz to halt the credit panic.
The move – unveiled simultaneously in the six states to maximise the show of unity – throws the full weight of the eurozone behind global efforts to stem the crisis.
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October 14th, 2008Thank you.
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One in Three Recent Atlanta Police Academy Graduates Have Criminal Records
October 14th, 2008Career advancement.
Via: Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Keovongsa Siharath was arrested in Henry County on charges he punched his stepfather.
Jeffrey Churchill was charged with assault in an altercation with a woman in a mall parking lot.
Calvin Thomas was taken into custody in DeKalb County on a concealed weapons charge.
All three are now officers with the Atlanta Police Department.
More than one-third of recent Atlanta Police Academy graduates have been arrested or cited for a crime, according to a review of their job applications. The arrests ranged from minor offenses such as shoplifting to violent charges including assault. More than one-third of the officers had been rejected by other law enforcement agencies, and more than half of the recruits admitted using marijuana.
“On its face, it’s troubling and disturbing,” said Vincent Fort, a state senator from Atlanta. “It would be very troubling that people might be hitting the streets to serve and protect and they have histories that have made them unqualified to serve on other departments.”
But Atlanta police say it’s not so simple. Officials have been trying without success for more than a decade to grow the department
to 2,000 officers, an effort hurt by this year’s budget crisis. With competition for recruits intense among law enforcement agencies, Atlanta has had to make concessions.
“We would like, in an ideal world, to see every applicant with a clean record, but obviously that’s not reality,” said Atlanta police Lt. Elder Dancy, who runs the department’s recruitment unit. “I don’t think you’ll find any departments who hire only applicants with squeaky-clean records.”
Three decades ago, a police officer with a criminal record was much less common than it is now, said Robert Friedmann, a criminal justice professor at Georgia State University. But times have changed and many agencies have had to relax their hiring policies, Friedmann said.
Other local police agencies have hiring guidelines similar to Atlanta’s. Police departments for Cobb, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties don’t hire recruits with felony convictions but do hire those with misdemeanor arrests, on a case-by-case basis.
Cybercrime Supersite Was FBI Honeypot
October 14th, 2008Via: Wired:
DarkMarket.ws, an online watering hole for thousands of identify thieves, hackers and credit card swindlers, has been secretly run by an FBI cybercrime agent for the last two years, until its voluntary shutdown earlier this month, according to documents unearthed by a German radio network.
Reports from the German national police obtained by the Südwestrundfunk, Southwest Germany public radio, blow the lid off the long running sting by revealing its role in nabbing a German credit card forger active on DarkMarket. The FBI agent is identified in the documents as J. Keith Mularski, a senior cybercrime agent based at the National Cyber Forensics Training Alliance in Pittsburgh, who ran the site under the hacker handle Master Splynter.
The NCFTA is a non-profit information sharing alliance funded by financial firms, internet companies and the federal government. It’s also home to a seven-agent FBI headquarters unit called the Cyber Initiative and Resource Fusion Unit, which evidently ran the DarkMarket sting.
The FBI didn’t return a phone call Monday.
U.S. Summons Only Super Elite Bankers to a Meeting
October 14th, 2008Via: Economic Policy Journal:
The Bush administration summoned executives from leading banks to a meeting in Washington Monday afternoon to work out details of the $700 billion plan.
And, as they say in Chicago, “If you are not at the table, you are on the menu.”
For the record those expected at the table are:
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit, JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon, and Bank of America Corp. CEO Kenneth Lewis were all asked to attend. There was some speculation that Paulson might have expanded the invitation to at least three other CEOs from various regional banks, people said.
The FDIC directly examines and supervises about 5,250 banks and savings banks, and Paulosn invites at most 8 bankers to discuss how to divvy up $700 billion?
“It was expected that whatever comes out of the meeting will be used to put the finishing touches on the plan,” AP reported its sources as saying.
How Does “Unlimited Funds” Sound?
October 14th, 2008Via: Bloomberg:
The U.S. Federal Reserve led an unprecedented push by central banks to flood financial markets with dollars, backing up government efforts to restore confidence in the banking system.
The ECB, the Bank of England and the Swiss central bank will offer unlimited dollar funds in auctions with maturities of seven days, 28 days and 84 days at a fixed interest rate, the Washington-based Fed said today. The Bank of Japan may introduce “similar measures.” The dollar declined and some money-market rates fell.
Policy makers from the Group of Seven nations pledged at the weekend to take “all necessary steps” to stem a market panic after the MSCI World stock index plunged 20 percent last week. Central banks last week cut interest rates in tandem for the first time since 2001, the U.S. plans to buy $700 billion in distressed assets from banks and in Europe, the U.K. is leading a push to keep lenders afloat with taxpayers’ money.
“By providing unlimited dollar funds they are acting on the back of the G-7 plan to ensure the system is fully liquidized,” said Lena Komileva, an economist at Tullet Prebon Plc in London. “We’re going to see even more liquidity provided and more aggressive rate cuts are coming.”
U.S. Treasury Said to Invest in Nine Major U.S. Banks
October 14th, 2008“My dear guests, I am Mr. Roarke, your host. Welcome to Fantasy Island.”
Via: Bloomberg:
The Bush administration will announce a plan to rescue frozen credit markets that includes spending about half of a total of $250 billion for preferred shares of nine major banks, people briefed on the matter said.
The companies are Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, State Street Corp., and Bank of New York Mellon Corp., the people said. One of the people also said Merrill Lynch & Co. will receive an investment.
The injections represent a new approach for Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s attempts to prevent a financial market meltdown from sending the U.S. economy into a prolonged recession. He’s following similar interventions by European leaders and using broad powers Congress gave him earlier this month to save the country’s banking system.
“They’ve decided they need to do something drastic and this is drastic,” said Gerard Cassidy, a bank analyst at RBC Capital Markets in Portland, Maine.
None of banks getting government money was given a choice about it, said one of the people familiar with the plans. All of the banks involved will have to submit to compensation restrictions, said the person.
The government will also guarantee the banks’ newly issued senior unsecured debt, making it easier for them to refinance their liabilities, the person said.
Allocating Money
The Treasury plans to spend $25 billion each for stakes in Citigroup and JPMorgan, people said. Another $25 billion will be divided between Bank of America and Merrill, which agreed last month to be acquired by Bank of America. Goldman and Morgan Stanley will each get $10 billion, while State Street and Bank of New York will get injections of about $3 billion each, people said.
Research Credit: Eileen
Swindling, Iron Triangle Style
October 13th, 2008Via: New York Times:
They huddled in a quiet corner at the US Airways lounge at Ronald Reagan National Airport, sipping bottomless cups of coffee as they plotted to turn America’s missile defense program into a personal cash machine.
Michael Cantrell, an engineer at the Army Space and Missile Defense Command headquarters in Huntsville, Ala., along with his deputy, Doug Ennis, had lined up millions of dollars from Congress for defense companies. Now, Mr. Cantrell decided, it was time to take a cut.
“The contractors are making a killing,” Mr. Cantrell recalled thinking at the meeting, in 2000. “The lobbyists are getting their fees, and the contractors and lobbyists are writing out campaign checks to the politicians. Everybody is making money here — except us.”
Within months, Mr. Cantrell began getting personal checks from contractors and later returned to the airport with Mr. Ennis to pick up a briefcase stuffed with $75,000. The two men eventually collected more than $1.6 million in kickbacks, through 2007, prompting them to plead guilty this year to corruption charges.
Mr. Cantrell readily acknowledges concocting the crime. But what has drawn little scrutiny are his activities leading up to it. Thanks to important allies in Congress, he extracted nearly $350 million for projects the Pentagon did not want, wasting taxpayer money on what would become dead-end ventures.
Research Credit: EB
Army Orders Pain Ray Trucks; New Report Shows ‘Potential for Death’
October 13th, 2008Via: Wired:
“As a consequence, the ADS provides the technical possibility to produce burns of second and third degree. Because the beam of diameter 2 m and above is wider than human size, such burns would occur over considerable parts of the body, up to 50% of its surface. Second- and third-degree burns covering more than 20% of the body surface are potentially life-threatening – due to toxic tissue-decay products and increased sensitivity to infection – and require intensive care in a specialized unit. Without a technical device that reliably prevents re-triggering on the same target subject, the ADS has a potential to produce permanent injury or death. ”
Related: Say Hello to the Goodbye Weapon
Bank of America: Is It Just Me…
October 13th, 2008UPDATE 3: It’s Working Again
It’s there now. * Twilight Zone Music *
UPDATE 2: Telephone Banking Seems to Work
I called back and used the automated system. I was able to check my account balance.
UPDATE 1: My Checking Account Is No Longer Listed in My Online Banking Profile
When I logged into online banking at Bank of America today, a screen appeared that said something like, “We cannot retrieve information on all of your accounts at this time.” I don’t have the screen shot. There was only an “OK” button to click at the bottom of the message. Once I clicked through, I was still able to see my credit card account, that I never use, but my checking account is not there at all. It’s not even listed. I tried to click into “Bill Pay,” the online payment system:
“You do not have any Bill Pay enabled accounts.”
I’m chuckling, more than anything else, right now. I’ve only kept minimum balances in there for years, thinking that “this” could happen at any time. I don’t know if “this” is “it” or if there’s some legit technical problem, whatever that would mean.
I’ve used online banking with Bank of America since around 1998. I’ve never experienced a problem like this before.
I just tried calling. The computer voice told me, “Our banking center is closed for the holiday. Please try your call again after the holiday.”
— End Update —
Before I post an EMERGENCY alert, can anyone out there access their Bank of America checking accounts online?
If you see “that” message, I’d appreciate a screen shot of it. I was so shocked by what I saw that I lost track of the screen shot, and it won’t display again for me.
