Economy

Abu Dhabi Bankrolls U.S. Students as NYU Joins Sorbonne in Gulf

When U.S. teenager Anthony Spalvieri-Kruse was considering which college to attend, he got an offer he couldn’t refuse from 7,200 miles away in Abu Dhabi.

“I’m receiving a full ride to attend, including flights and an allowance of $2,000 a year,” said Spalvieri-Kruse, now ensconced in what he calls “uber-swanky” accommodation in the United Arab Emirates. “It was pretty incredible considering that I was looking at $30,000 a year from other places.”

The 18-year-old from Kalamazoo, Michigan, is among the first students at New York University’s Abu Dhabi campus, which began classes this week. The college is being bankrolled by the emirate as it tries to underpin a $500 billion development plan by more than doubling investment in education this year.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-14/abu-dhabi-bankrolls-students-as-nyu-joins-sorbonne-in-uber-swanky-gulf.html

Obama Continues To Lose Economic Advisers

Obama has lost yet another economic advisor. Herbert Allison, who was a key figure in the government bailout of Wall Street, says he is stepping down as the Treasury Department's assistant secretary for financial stability. A recent Wall Street Journal report discusses how the President continues to lose advisers.

Allison's departure comes after Lawrence Summers announced this week he is leaving. Peter Orzsag who was the President's first budget chief has departed, as well as Christina Romer, his first Council of Economic Advisers chairmen.
http://www.benzinga.com/news/10/09/487442/obama-continues-to-lose-economic-advisers

is Geithner next?

god i hope so..

Lessons Learned From the Appointment of Elizabeth Warren

Seasoned politicians must be reflecting in envy on last Friday’s appointment of Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), by President Obama.

Her base of supporters became huge once progressive organizations like Bold Progressives, Public Citizen and other advocacy groups — along with numerous bloggers and hard-working Americans — got behind her. Over 200,000 let their voices be heard through letters and phone calls, accompanied by a robust letters-to-the-editor campaign. And finally, in his so-far uneven presidency, President Obama responded.

All of these factors made him do it. How reminiscent of those dark days of the Great Depression, when FDR said “make me do it,” and he did, changing course on the economy when pressured by the voices of the people. This is a huge win for Progressives, who proved once again that People Power matters and can indeed create change. It was “an uprising among Warren’s legion of supporters,” according to the Boston Globe, that pressed President Obama to come on board with the most progressive option on the table.

Three years ago Elizabeth Warren proposed the CFPB, but the timing was wrong. How things have changed since then. Last Friday she resigned as the head of the congressional oversight panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), her work as the panel watchdog ending as the program concluded its mission. As the architect of the CFPB, Warren will construct this brave new consumer protection agency from the bottom up, allowing her to groom her choice to run the agency. She will be given all of the tools necessary to make CFPB work the way it must. Warren has been given the president’s assurance on this, as they appear to be in agreement on the importance of this mission and its goals. It must be assumed that Republicans will now come roaring in with their shiny new “populist” persona and protest about how TARP bailed out the financial and auto industries while leaving the American public to sink in a swamp of bankruptcies, foreclosures, unpaid credit cards and monumental job losses to discredit Warren and throw a monkey wrench into the new agency.

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Our heroine, Ms. Warren, comes from pioneer stock, with a grandmother named Hannie Reed who crossed the prairie to join the Oklahoma land rush, and a father who worked as a janitor. What a truly American story, as Elizabeth went on to become a Harvard Law Professor and expert on finance and bankruptcy law, writing and coauthoring four books on finance. She also got to know a young Harvard law student by the name of Barack Obama. A story for filmmakers one day, as the story is incomplete and yet to be written.

There are those dissatisfied with the president for not going through a confirmation process in the Senate with Elizabeth Warren. His concerns were real about getting the needed 60 votes to override the filibuster that was certain to come from the Republicans. Additionally, the endless hearings and the impending midterm elections threatened to drag her confirmation process into the New Year, a delay we just could not afford. And let us not forget that those hearings would have taken place in the Senate Finance Committee with outgoing Senator Chris Dodd presiding, with his tepid “support” for Warren. Could there be a slight conflict of interest with Dodd’s wife having worked in the financial industry as an outside director for an AIG-owned company, and he the recipient of significant campaign donations from AIG? But Dodd will be gone, retiring soon and off to his own six to seven-figure paycheck in the world he once regulated. Warren has also said she did not want to commit to a five-year term that confirmation through the Senate would mandate.

And so a new day begins as Elizabeth Warren sets to work at her new post bringing sanity and fair play to consumers.

Good luck Elizabeth, the hopes of our nation are with you!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pearl-korn/lessons-learned-from-the_b_737667.html?ir=Business

something tells me ....there is more to this appointment than protecting the hens.

As previously forecast in March 2010, the US dollar was trending for a late May to Early June high, it peaked on June 7th, it now looks like it has put in the classic M top and is headed to hell in a hand-basket into late 2014 or 2015. This will likely be the unfolding of Martin Armstrong's long standing prediction of a major debt crisis with the trashing of the US dollar and Gold exceeding $5000. Futurist Gerald Celente is predicting hyper-inflation, price controls on food and then food shortages as farmers stop growing food since they will be losing money doing it, then food riots will break out in US cities. I pray this will not happen, I don't know, all I can see is the US dollar is in trouble technically. As Mr. Armstrong has predicted what is coming is the death of Socialism, where politicians use other people's money and make promises that cannot be kept, as former British Prime-Minister Margaret Thatcher said... "Socialism works until you run out of other people's money". Mr. Armstrong has suggested that Karl Marx is the most influential economist in our modern era and that his picture should be on the US dollar not the founding fathers if politicians were honest about it.


http://www.marketvisions.blogspot.com/

Analysis: Battle on mark-to-market rules gathers steam

(Reuters) – Some are predicting the disappearance of jobs, many say they fear another banking crisis.

Letters pouring into the Financial Accounting Standards Board predict those shocks and more from the rule-makers’ proposal to expand mark-to-market, or fair value accounting at U.S. banks.

Meant to give investors more up-to-date information about banks’ financial condition, the proposal would require banks to put market values on all of their loans — even those that they do not intend to sell.

Banks now value most loans based on historical costs, a measure critics say can become outdated. The new rule would be effective in 2013, though small banks could take four more years to comply.

The proposal, partly a response to the global financial crisis, has generated fierce opposition from banks, which fear it would reduce their reported capital and require them to increase reserves.

Banks argue this could discourage them from making some types of loans, hurting businesses, triggering more unemployment and harming an already fragile economy.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68N3S720100924

This fits perfectly with the Armstrong timeline

Telstra Plans to Cut at Least 6,000 Jobs, Financial Review Says

Telstra Corp. will cut at least 6,000 jobs, or 15 percent of its workforce, over three years as the company seeks to return earnings to last year’s levels, the Australian Financial Review said.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-09-29/telstra-plans-to-cut-at-least-6-000-jobs-financial-review-says.html

yeah they are not looking good..from govt monopoly to dead telco

Some 3,000 Millionaires Claim Jobless Benefits, IRS Data Show



After the economy slipped into recession in 2008, millions of Americans received unemployment benefits to make ends meet -- including almost 3,000 millionaires.

According to U.S. Internal Revenue Service data, 2,840 households reporting at least $1 million in income on their tax returns that year also collected a total of $18.6 million in jobless aid. They included 806 taxpayers with incomes over $2 million and 17 with incomes in excess of $10 million. In all, multimillionaires reported receiving $5.2 million in jobless benefits.

Those numbers are a minuscule fraction of the 9.5 million taxpayers who reported receiving $43.7 billion from jobless benefits in 2008, up from 7.6 million recipients reporting $29.4 billion in benefits in 2007. Still, economists said they are surprised so many people with seven-figure incomes claimed benefits.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-01/almost-3-000-millionaires-claimed-jobless-benefits-in-2008-irs-data-show.html

'EU measures cover up kleptocracy'

Financial journalist Max Keiser says austerity measures imposed by European Union governments are cover-ups for the kleptocracy rampant across the bloc.


"We are talking about a kleptocracy where bankers and politicians are stealing money and trying to cover their tracks by blaming it on folks and imposing austerity measures on them," Keiser said.

Many European banks have not disclosed trillions of dollars of their bad debts to their governments since the real estate problem popped in 2008, Keiser told Press TV on Thursday.

Several EU governments, hit by economic crisis and high debt, insist the austerity measures are needed to slash budget deficits.

On Wednesday, the European Commission announced that in order to evade another Greek-style debt crisis, they plan to impose fines on countries that fail to meet the region's budget rules, the Associated Press ported.

Now, governments are trying to make people bail out the banks by adopting economic austerity measures while there is no sensible connection between these two issues, Keiser argued.

He added that bankers have rigged the market by using high frequency and programmed trading and faulty accounting to create apparent rises in stock markets.

This is why there is no significant recovery and job creation after three years of the financial crisis in Europe, Keiser pointed out.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/144781.html

the millionaires story is insane..wth

Buffett considers investing more in booming China


CHANGSHA, China - US billionaire Warren Buffett said on Thursday that he would consider pouring more money into China, citing the nation's continued potential to show robust growth going forward. "China has large investment opportunities. (I will invest in) any business that I can understand, and if it is available at the right price," said Buffett during his visit to Changsha in Hunan province.

He also said that the Chinese people, especially the country's "fabulous" entrepreneurs, as well as China's booming industrial areas, have strengthened his confidence about the nation.


Microsoft Corp founder Bill Gates, who accompanied Buffett on the China tour, agreed: "I do appreciate the successful people here and I am optimistic about investing in the developing companies of China."

As the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, which owns 10 percent of BYD Co through Des Moines, Iowa-based MidAmerican Energy Holdings, Buffett came to China to also tour the Shenzhen-based automaker, one of his most successful investments which has shown sevenfold returns since 2008.

During their four-day visit to China, the US billionaires spent five hours at a philanthropy banquet in Beijing on Wednesday.
http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20101002-240228.html

White House Plans Job Training Partnership

As part of efforts to address record-high levels of long-term unemployment, President Obama plans to announce a new national public-private partnership on Monday to help retrain workers for jobs that are in demand.

The national program is a response to frustrations from both workers and employers who complain that public retraining programs frequently do not provide students with employable skills. This new initiative is intended to help better align community college curriculums with the demands of local companies.

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The program will be run by the Aspen Institute, a not-for-profit, private research organization based in Washington, but will be accompanied by a new government task force with representatives from the Department of Labor, the Department of Commerce and other agencies.

So far five major private employers — Gap Inc., Accenture, United Technologies, P.G.& E. and McDonald’s — have been named as partners, in part to build on existing training programs they already run.

“There’s a number of studies and a number of discussions about the skills gap and how that’s related to unemployment,” said Penny Pritzker, a Chicago business executive and Obama fund-raiser who sits on the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. Her family foundation, the Pritzker Traubert Family Foundation, is providing $250,000 to the Aspen Institute to start the program.

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Mr. Obama is to unveil the new program in a meeting of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board on Monday, to be followed by a White House Summit on Community Colleges on Tuesday hosted by Jill Biden, the vice president’s wife.

The Aspen Institute will announce an executive director for its new program on Oct. 25, according to Maureen Conway, executive director of the institute’s economic opportunities program.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/business/economy/03skills.html?src=busln

China will help bailout Greece in spite of projected housing crash for 2011

China has apparently decided that Greece’s junk bonds are an interesting investment. Premier Wen Jiabao said that “With its foreign exchange reserve, China has already bought and is holding Greek bonds and will keep a positive stance in participating and buying bonds that Greece will issue,” according to a www.reuters.com article on Saturday. Wen and Greece’s President Papandreou released a statement Saturday that they believe that, “The global economy shows signs of gradual recovery but many uncertainties remain.”

It’s interesting that they should say that. Especially when back in May a www.bloomberg.com article reported that China has between 9 and 12 months before their housing bubble bursts. Financial tycoons warning about this crash include investor Marc Faber, hedge fund manager Jim Chanos, and Harvard University’s Kenneth Rogoff. That would put the crash projection squarely in 2011

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As for the American housing sector, it’s not being widely reported, but there are Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) that will be resetting in 2011. According to a www.wsj.com article published in the market watch section back in 2007, $700 billion in ARMs were projected to reset in 2010 and beyond. This is the largest amount since the subprime debacle began. In addition, in a www.housingwire.com article from October of 2007, writer Paul Jackson also mentions that mortgage resets would go beyond 2010. He points to “option ARMs” that were offered during the housing boom, and suggests that there may be another crash in the housing market right around the last quarter of 2011. And don’t forget Senator Chris Dodd’s admissions over the summer regarding the Wall Street Reform Legislation: “No one will know until this is actually in place how it works.” As well as, “It will take the next economic crisis, as certainly it will come, to determine whether or not the provisions of this bill will actually provide this generation or the next generation of regulators with the tools necessary to minimize the effects of that crisis.” Isn’t it comforting to know that congress knows another financial crisis is coming in the near future?


http://www.examiner.com/christianity-politics-in-national/china-will-help-bailout-greece-spite-of-projected-housing-crash-for-2011