Goldman Sachs Would Make $1 Billion from CIT Failure; U.S. Taxpayer Would Pay $2.3 Billion
October 5th, 2009Via: Financial Times:
Goldman Sachs stands to receive a payment of $1bn – while US taxpayers would lose $2.3bn – if embattled commercial lender CIT files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, people familiar with the matter said.
The payment stems from the structure of a $3bn rescue finance package that Goldman extended to CIT on June 6 2008, about five months before the Treasury bought $2.3bn in CIT preferred shares to prop it up at the height of the crisis. The potential loss for taxpayers would be the biggest to crystalise so far from the government’s capital injection plan for banks.
NY Man Accused of Tweeting Cop Actions at Protests
October 5th, 2009Via: AP:
A self-described New York City anarchist has been accused of tweeting the location of police officers to protesters trying to evade them during the Group of 20 economic summit in Pittsburgh.
Elliot Madison, 41, described by his lawyer as a social worker and political activist, was arrested on charges including hindering prosecution for using Twitter to inform protesters of the location of the police for the Sept. 24-25 summit, the Pennsylvania State Police said in a criminal complaint.
Madison was arrested on the opening day of the G-20 summit, a gathering of finance ministers and central bank governors from among the wealthiest nations. Dozens of protesters also were arrested.
The New York Post first reported his arrest in Saturday editions.
No one answered a phone Saturday at Madison’s home in Queens. His attorney, Martin R. Stolar, also did not immediately return a call for comment Saturday.
According to the criminal complaint, officers acting on a tip arrested Madison at the Carefree Inn on Kisow Drive in Pittsburgh. The complaint said Madison and another man were found in a room in front of computers and telecommunications equipment, wearing headphones, and surrounded by maps, contact numbers and police and emergency scanners. The men were communicating with protesters by cell phone and Internet, including Twitter, the complaint said.
It was unclear whether the second man was arrested. A Pennsylvania State Police spokeswoman did not immediately return a call Saturday.
In a court filing Friday, Stolar asked a federal judge to prohibit authorities from examining materials seized by FBI agents during a raid of Madison’s home the previous day. According to his filing, the agents were at the house for about 16 hours Thursday and seized items, including political writings, computers, cell phones, anarchist literature and “identifying information of political associates.”
Stolar said the search was illegal and some of the materials seized in the raid were likely protected under the First Amendment. The judge issued a temporary order of protection stopping investigators from examining the material, the New York Post reported.
In his filing, Stolar also described his client as a political anarchist and social worker for the Fountain House, an organization that helps people with mental illnesses. He said Madison was politically active, providing legal assistance to those “interested in expressing political points of view through demonstration and other activity” through an organization known as The Peoples’ Law Collective.
Canada: Roman Catholic Bishop Faces Charges of Possessing and Importing Child Pornography
October 5th, 2009Everyone is in shock?
Translation from Catholic Church gibberish into English: Nobody, who has been paying any attention to the astonishing crimes of Catholic Church, is shocked by this.
Via: CBC:
Bishop Raymond Lahey was released on $9,000 bail after turning himself in to Ottawa police on Thursday afternoon to face charges of possessing and importing child pornography.
The Roman Catholic cleric, who resigned his post in Nova Scotia on the weekend before news of the charges broke, has been ordered to stay away from parks and from children. He is not allowed to use the internet, and while he is free he is to stay in Rogersville, N.B. The town is the site of a Trappist monastery.
His next court date is Nov. 4 in Ottawa.
A Canada-wide arrest warrant had been issued for Lahey, 69, who brokered a $15-million settlement for victims of sexual abuse by priests of the diocese of Antigonish in Nova Scotia.
Lahey was returning to Canada on Sept. 15 when he was detained at Ottawa International Airport. Canada Border Services agents checked his laptop and found images “of concern,” Ottawa police said in a release.
Lahey was allowed to leave, but his computer and other media devices were seized. Police alleged a forensic examination ultimately found child pornography.
On Friday, Ottawa police charged Lahey with possession of child pornography and importation of child pornography.
The next day, he resigned as bishop of the diocese of Antigonish, citing the need for “personal renewal.”
‘Ultimate revictimization’
Anthony Mancini, the archbishop of Halifax who is overseeing the Antigonish diocese, went to Sydney on Thursday to speak with Lahey’s former parishioners and hold a news conference.
“I am well aware that everyone is in shock,” said Mancini.
“I am concerned with all who are trying to find any meaning in this devastation. I do not have the solution to this problem or the capacity to take away the pain or the means to erase this tragedy.”
Mancini has said he wasn’t aware of the charges against Lahey until Wednesday.
In a letter to parishioners in Newfoundland — Lahey’s native province, where he was also a bishop — the Archbishop of St. John’s, Martin Currie, wrote that child pornography is equivalent to child abuse and exploitation.
“These latest allegations are another setback for the Roman Catholic Church in Newfoundland and Labrador, a church in which we have been trying to restore people’s faith after years of scandal,” he wrote.
“When You Own Gold You’re Fighting Every Central Bank in the World”
October 4th, 2009Jim Rickards:
Former Japanese Finance Minister Nakagawa Found Dead
October 4th, 2009Via: Bloomberg:
Shoichi Nakagawa, who resigned as Japanese finance minister in February amid accusations of drunken behavior during an international conference in Rome, was found dead in his Tokyo home today. He was 56.
Nakagawa lost his parliamentary seat in Aug. 30 elections that saw the Liberal Democratic Party swept out of power after half a century of almost unbroken rule. He was not offered one of the party’s proportional representation seats.
A second-generation LDP lawmaker, Nakagawa was regarded as one of the party’s “aces,” according to Makoto Haga, chief strategist at Monex Group Inc. in Tokyo, who called his death a “painful blow” to a party that needs to rebuild.
“Compared with the widespread mistrust of the LDP, Nakagawa’s troubles didn’t have much impact on the election,” Haga said today. “The result would likely have been the same regardless.”
Police confirmed Nakagawa’s death and are investigating the cause, said a spokeswoman at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, who declined to be identified. Masato Yoshida, head of Nakagawa’s office in Obihiro, northern Japan, also confirmed earlier reports of the death by Kyodo News.
Will California Become America’s First Failed State?
October 4th, 2009Via: Guardian:
Los Angeles, 2009: California may be the eighth largest economy in the world, but its state staff are being paid in IOUs, unemployment is at its highest in 70 years, and teachers are on hunger strike. So what has gone so catastrophically wrong?
California has a special place in the American psyche. It is the Golden State: a playground of the rich and famous with perfect weather. It symbolises a lifestyle of sunshine, swimming pools and the Hollywood dream factory.
But the state that was once held up as the epitome of the boundless opportunities of America has collapsed. From its politics to its economy to its environment and way of life, California is like a patient on life support. At the start of summer the state government was so deeply in debt that it began to issue IOUs instead of wages. Its unemployment rate has soared to more than 12%, the highest figure in 70 years. Desperate to pay off a crippling budget deficit, California is slashing spending in education and healthcare, laying off vast numbers of workers and forcing others to take unpaid leave. In a state made up of sprawling suburbs the collapse of the housing bubble has impoverished millions and kicked tens of thousands of families out of their homes. Its political system is locked in paralysis and the two-term rule of former movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger is seen as a disaster – his approval ratings having sunk to levels that would make George W Bush blush. The crisis is so deep that Professor Kenneth Starr, who has written an acclaimed history of the state, recently declared: “California is on the verge of becoming the first failed state in America.”
Two Million Slum Children Die Every Year as India Booms
October 4th, 2009Via: Guardian:
India’s growing status as an economic superpower is masking a failure to stem a shocking rate of infant deaths among its poorest people.
Nearly two million children under five die every year in India – one every 15 seconds – the highest number anywhere in the world. More than half die in the month after birth and 400,000 in their first 24 hours.
A devastating report by Save the Children, due out on Monday, reveals that the poor are disproportionately affected and the charity accuses the country of failing to provide adequate healthcare for the impoverished majority of its one billion people. While the World Bank predicts that India’s economy will be the fastest-growing by next year and the country is an influential force within the G20, World Health Organisation figures show it ranks 171st out of 175 countries for public health spending.
Malnutrition, neonatal diseases, diarrhoea and pneumonia are the major causes of death. Poor rural states are particularly affected by a dearth of health resources. But even in the capital, Delhi, where an estimated 20% of people live in slums, the infant mortality rate is reported to have doubled in a year, though city authorities dispute this.
Ireland Backs EU’s Lisbon Treaty
October 3rd, 2009Mmm hmm.
Via: BBC:
Irish voters have strongly endorsed the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty – 16 months after their first vote rejecting it plunged EU reforms into deadlock.
About 67% voted “Yes”, official results from the latest referendum showed. Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen hailed a “clear and resounding” endorsement.
Political leaders across the EU have also welcomed the result.
The president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, said it was a great day for Europe.
He urged the leaders of Poland and the Czech Republic – the only other countries yet to ratify Lisbon – to sign the treaty as soon as possible.
Excreted Tamiflu Found in Rivers
October 3rd, 2009Via: Science News:
The premier flu-fighting drug is contaminating rivers downstream of sewage-treatment facilities, researchers in Japan confirm. The source: urinary excretion by people taking oseltamivir phosphate, best known as Tamiflu.
Concerns are now building that birds, which are natural influenza carriers, are being exposed to waterborne residues of Tamiflu’s active form and might develop and spread drug-resistant strains of seasonal and avian flu.
…
Computer modeling has shown that OC should survive sewage treatment, notes Wolf von Tümpling Jr. of the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research, a federal institute in Magdeburg, Germany. Ghosh’s team is now the first to confirm this, he says. Von Tümpling’s own data show that once exposed to sunlight, OC will break down, albeit slowly. Concentrations would fall at best by half every three weeks, he says.
If correlations predicted by earlier studies are correct, concentrations measured at some river sites in the new Kyoto study seem “high enough to lead to antiviral resistance in waterfowl,” Ghosh says.
And the Kyoto team didn’t test during a pandemic, when Tamiflu prescription rates might be 10 times higher, von Tümpling notes.
InkStop Abruptly Closed All 152 Retail Stores and Laid Off All Workers; No Final Paychecks
October 3rd, 2009Wow.
Via: The Plain Dealer:
InkStop Inc., a specialty retailer of ink, toner, consumer electronics and other supplies for small businesses and home offices, abruptly told its employees that it was shuttering all 152 stores nationwide as of Friday and laying off all workers until further notice.
“The company has elected to temporarily close all stores at the close of business today, Oct. 1, to focus on a restructuring plan in an effort to improve the overall operations of the organization,” the Warrensville Heights company told employees in a letter sent late Thursday.
“Paychecks will not be issued on Friday due to our cash constraints. We are working on a plan to improve our cash flow situation and reopen under better circumstances.”
The letter, signed by the Inkstop board of directors, went on to say that medical coverage and other insurance had been paid only through Aug. 31. “Your patience during this difficult time is appreciated,” it said.
That means not only will employees not be paid for the past two weeks, but they will also be financially responsible for their medical benefits since Sept. 1.
“We all knew the hammer was going to come down. We just didn’t think it would happen in one day,” Linda Mastellone, an assistant store manager at InkStop in Newtown, Pa., said via e-mail. “We all saw that the lack of ink [the main reason for the store’s existence] was a big sign that the company clearly didn’t have the capital to purchase product.
“The company has been doing poorly since I came aboard in August,” she said. “I frankly couldn’t see how they were still in business. We didn’t have much ink/toner, and we couldn’t order stock that we usually kept on the shelves.”
According to its profile page on LinkedIn.com, InkStop operates 152 stores in 14 states, including 14 stores in Northeast Ohio. “We are on track to have over 200 stores opened by the end of 2010,” it said. The site also says InkStop, founded in 2005, has 550 employees.
Phone calls to several retail stores went into voicemail, as did calls to several executives and to the company’s headquarters at 4400 Renaissance Parkway in Warrensville Heights.
Next-door tenant Michael Feuer, chief executive and co-founder of Max-Wellness LLC and MaxVentures LLC, said InkStop’s lights were off and the offices appeared unoccupied.
