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Americans aren’t convinced new Wall Street rules will prevent a future financial crisis.
An Associated Press-Gfk Poll finds that 64 percent of those surveyed aren’t confident that a financial regulation overhaul before Congress will prevent another meltdown. Get the full story »
The number of Chicago-area homeowners who received permanent loan modifications under the federal government’s program rose 17 percent in May, but there continues to be a dramatic slowdown in the ability of local consumers to qualify for trial payment plans.
Treasury Department officials said 17,428 area homeowners have received a permanent modification since the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program that was introduced last year, compared with 14,890 homeowners in April. At the same time, the number of homeowners in active trial modifications slumped by more than 26 percent in May, to 23,640.
Nationally, the report shows that for the eight largest servicers, 48.9 percent of homeowners who were unable to qualify for a permanent modification found an alternative to foreclosure. In fact, among the largest servicers, only 7 percent of cancelled trial modifications ended up in foreclosure.
Get the full story »
BP removed Chief Executive Tony Hayward from day-to-day oversight of the Gulf oil spill crisis a day after he was pummeled by lawmakers in an appearance on Capitol Hill, the company’s chairman said Friday.
Carl-Henric Svanberg told Britain’s Sky News television that Hayward “is now handing over the operations, the daily operations to [BP Managing Director] Bob Dudley,” overshadowing news that after many setbacks BP was finally making real progress in siponing and burning off oil from the underwater gusher. Get the full story »
By Mike Memoli
| The agreement reached between the White House and energy giant BP emerged as an
early partisan flashpoint at a Congressional hearing this morning, as a
Republican Congressman apologized to the company’s CEO for what he called a
“shakedown.”
Get the full story: The Swamp.
From Bloomberg News | U.S. lawmakers on Thursday are expected to decide whether banks should pay for their funerals before they happen or afterwards as they craft a final rewrite of financial regulations.
The most sweeping overhaul of Wall Street rules since the 1930s would allow regulators to step in and dismantle troubled financial firms before they threaten the stability of the economy, in an effort to avoid a repeat of the 2007-2009 market meltdown.
But negotiators from the House and the Senate will have to resolve a standoff over whether the financial industry should have to pay for the process now or after a firm runs into trouble.
By Wailin Wong | Illinois has joined a list of governments in the U.S. and worldwide that are probing Google’s data collection for the search giant’s Street View service.
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said Wednesday her office is investigating whether the California-based company gathered personal information from state residents. Street View is used in Google Maps and Google Earth to show photos at the street level, displaying pictures taken by special camera equipment mounted on cars and other vehicles.
The controversy over Street View arose last month, when Google admitted to inadvertently capturing and storing bits of private information sent over unencrypted WiFi networks. This “payload data,” as the information is called, can include e-mails, passwords and browsing activity.
From The Wall Street Journal | In a letter sent Monday, Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), the ranking minority member on the Senate Finance Committee, asked the SEC to review the agency’s “revolving door,” which shuttles many SEC
staffers into jobs with the companies they once regulated.
Get the full story: wsj.com.
Associated Press | Anyone with a bank account or credit card has a stake in the overhaul of
financial rules Congress is working on. But the industry ties of some
politicians writing the law go far beyond the norm.
One senator’s wife is a director of a securities exchange; another
senator and his wife run a multimillion-dollar title company. And a
congresswoman’s husband drew salaries from three industry players last
year.
Several lawmakers hashing out a House-Senate compromise on the
legislation have millions in financial services company investments or
owe big mortgage debts to banks lobbying on the legislation, according
to an Associated Press review of financial disclosure reports released
Wednesday.
From Bloomberg | Illinois, whose projected deficit equals half its proposed $25.9 billion budget, sold $455.1 million in sales tax-backed bonds yesterday, as investors demanded higher yields from the state.
Get the full story: businessweek.com.
Associated Press | President Barack Obama met on his own turf with top BP officials on Wednesday to press his demands that the London-based oil giant pay into a claims fund for victims of the worst spill in the nation’s history.
Get the full story: Obama meets with BP leaders, pushes for fund.
From the Chicago Sun-Times | Mayor Richard Daley said he was “encouraged” by a private meeting with Wal-Mart executives about a possible Chicago expansion by the retail giant. “They’ve made a commitment for a variety of stores — the food desert stores, 20,000 square foot, all the way up to super-centers,” Daley said.
Get the full story: suntimes.com.
Reuters | U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Thursday that reform of China’s exchange rate is “critically important” to the U.S. and global economies, and that a more flexile yuan was in China’s interest.
Reuters | Low inflation and high unemployment in the United States justify the
Federal Reserve keeping benchmark interest rates ultra-low for “quite
some time”, Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said on Tuesday.
Associated Press | Negotiations between Boeing Co. and its striking aircraft workers in
Long Beach, Calif., entered their second day Friday in a federally mediated push
to end a nearly monthlong walkout.
