The House of Representatives on Thursday voted to extend Bush-era tax cuts on individual income up to $200,000 a year and $250,000 for families, letting extra cuts for the wealthiest to expire. Get the full story »
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Cubs whiff on pitch to renovate Wrigley Field
The Chicago Cubs’ proposal to use tax dollars to finance more than $200 million in improvements at Wrigley Field has so far missed the strike zone, but the team’s ownership is not giving up.
When Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts unveiled the plan last month, he had hoped for speedy legislative approval of his financing proposal that required the state to issue bonds on the team’s behalf. He said a bill could be introduced during the General Assembly’s veto session held the past few weeks in Springfield.
But the team’s concept never turned into a bill for lawmakers to consider, because of objections to how the bonds would be repaid. The General Assembly’s veto session ended Thursday morning. Get the full story »
Chicago movers have stakes in Fed crisis programs
Chicago’s Arie and Ida Crown Memorial, the Crown Investment Fund, the Edgar D. Jannotta Jr. Revocable Trust and Allstate were among the “material investors” in various trusts and funds that borrowed under Federal Reserve programs aimed at easing the financial crisis, newly released records show.
The Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF, was set up by the Fed in November 2008 and began lending in March 2009. Get the full story »
White House: Jobless aid lapse may cost 600K jobs
The White House urged Congress Thursday to extend unemployment aid and warned that failure to act would inflict a heavy toll on millions of Americans that could put the U.S. economic recovery at risk.
“Without an extension, employment would be about 600,000 lower…in December 2011 than if a year-long extension were passed,” according to a new report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
U.S. unemployment insurance for those on long-term aid, which Congress had already extended to up to 99 weeks from a traditional 26 weeks of support, expired on Wednesday. Get the full story »
Banking giants leaned heavily on Fed in crisis
Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein testifies before a Senate investigative committee on Capitol Hill, April 27, 2010. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)
Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and other big U.S. banks repeatedly sought help from the Federal Reserve during the financial crisis, according to data on Wednesday that showed just how precarious their situation was at the time.
Many of the firms now boasting solid profits had to rely on funding from the U.S. central bank, which essentially acted as the glue holding the financial system together in the tumultuous months that followed the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008.
Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, now part of Bank of America, were the three biggest recipients of the Fed’s key emergency lending programs, according to a Reuters analysis of Fed data. Goldman Sachs was sixth on the list, contradicting claims from its top executives that the firm always had plenty of cash on hand. Get the full story »
Dec. 1, 2010 at 5:35 p.m.
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Filed under: Banking, Economy, Investigations, Policy, Politics, Real estate U.S. sees big costs for banks to fix foreclosures
U.S. banks will have to make “significant investments” to clean up foreclosure practices and some lenders potentially face strong pressure from investors to buy back faulty mortgages, a top Federal Reserve official said Wednesday. Get the full story »
Fed officials say U.S. must address budget issues
The European debt crisis should serve as a warning that the United States must address its long-term budget problems, U.S. Federal Reserve officials said on Wednesday. Get the full story »
Fed papers show breadth of emergency measures
The Federal Reserve on Wednesday released details on $3.3 trillion in emergency loans made during the financial meltdown that showed Citigroup and Bank of America leaning on overnight loans from the central bank well into the spring of 2009. Get the full story »
Senate passes bill to boost food safety
The Senate passed the largest overhaul of the U.S. food safety system in decades on Tuesday, a response to massive recalls such as last summer’s recall of half a billion eggs in a salmonella outbreak.
The Senate voted 73-25 to pass the bill. The House of Representatives backed a different version in July 2009. With their post-election session due to end by mid-December, lawmakers have just weeks to resolve their differences and send legislation to President Barack Obama to sign into law. Get the full story »
Obama, Republicans agree to negotiate on taxes
President Barack Obama (C) and Vice President Joe Biden (3R) meet with bipartisan Congressional leadership in the President's Private Dining Room at The White House November 30, 2010. (Pete Souza/White House Photo)
President Barack Obama said on Tuesday he still disagreed with Republicans on whether to extend Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, but the two sides agreed to negotiate a deal in the coming days.
Obama said he appointed Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and budget director Jack Lew to work with congressional Republicans and Democrats to come up with a compromise to prevent broad tax increases from occurring next year.
“We should work to make sure that taxes will not go up by thousands of dollars on hard-working middle-class Americans come January 1, which would be disastrous for those families but also could be crippling for the economy,” Obama told reporters after a meeting with congressional leaders at the White House. Get the full story »
U of C profs: Housing woes, joblessness to linger
While the U.S. economy will grow at a modest clip in 2011, housing prices likely will languish and unemployment will remain high, according to forecasts by University of Chicago Booth School of Business professors at a luncheon presentation today.
Growth in the gross domestic product could reach 3.4 percent, exceeding the consensus of economic forecasters, according to economics professor Randall Kroszner, who was a governor of the Federal Reserve System from 2006 to 2009.
“I don’t agree with those who say we are in an extended period of low growth, but we are unlikely to have a powerful recovery either,” he said. Get the full story »
Asian, Latin American cities leaders in recovery
A view of Istanbul, Turkey at night. Cities like Istanbul are rebounding from the recession faster than U.S. ones. (Steve Brandt/Minneapolis Star Tribune/MCT)
Major American and European cities, from New York and Chicago to London and Paris, are pulling out of the Great Recession at slower rates than cities in Asia and Latin America, according to a study released this morning by the Brookings Institution and the London School of Economics and Political Science.
In fact, the recession served to accelerate a shift in economic growth to emerging metro areas that has gone on for many years, the report found.
The first Global MetroMonitor study ranked 150 metro areas on their growth in employment and economic output per person, before, during and after the global downturn. Twenty-nine of the 30 top performers post-recession were outside the U.S. and Europe, while 28 of the 30 weakest performers were in those two global regions. Get the full story »
Nov. 30, 2010 at 5:55 a.m.
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Filed under: International, Investigations, Policy, Technology EU launches formal Google probe after complaints
European Union antitrust regulators launched a formal investigation on Tuesday into Google after several search service providers complained that the company had abused its dominant position. Get the full story »
U.S., South Korea trade chiefs to meet on deal
Top U.S. and South Korean trade officials will meet Tuesday and Wednesday in Columbia, Maryland to try again to resolve differences blocking U.S. approval of a free trade agreement, U.S. officials said. Get the full story »
