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A woman checks her unemployment insurance over the phone at the California Employment Development Department office in Sacramento, CA. According to estimates from the National Employment Law Project, up to 600,000 Americans will have exhausted benefits provided by the Recovery Act by the end of October. via www.americanprogress.org Continue reading

WASHINGTON – After weeks of political haggling, the Senate agreed Tuesday to take up legislation that would give people running out of unemployment insurance benefits up to 20 more weeks of federal aid. via www.theolympian.com Continue reading

From the Desk of Carl Levin Sen. (D. MI.) Washington D.C. – Mr. President, currently the nation’s unemployment rate is higher than it has been since 1983. In my home state of Michigan, the unemployment rate is 15.3 percent – 5.5 percent higher than the nation’s unemployment rate of 9.8 percent. Translated into real people, this means that 15.1 million Americans are unemployed, of which, more than 740,000 are living in my home state. Michigan provides a little more than 420,000 individuals with unemployment benefits. As of October 16, more than 44,000 Michiganders have exhausted much needed unemployment benefits and... Continue reading

The Iraq war and President Bush have faded from voters' thoughts in the year since President Obama won the White House, leaving this year's Democratic candidates to justify $787 billion in stimulus spending despite lingering high unemployment and pushing a health care overhaul amid widespread voter skepticism. Heading into next week's gubernatorial contests and special congressional elections, Democrats face an electorate whose good will and belief that an Obama-led party would be transformative have quickly evaporated even though the main issues seemingly are the same. From California to New York, dominant themes are health care, Social Security, the weak housing... Continue reading

Democrats play defense in 2009 elections - Washington Times Posted using ShareThis Continue reading

For the past three weeks, Democrats in the Senate have been trying to quickly pass an extension of unemployment benefits for the growing number of long-term unemployed Americans, only to have their bill blocked each time by the Republicans. Earlier this week, Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid [D, NV] filed for cloture on the bill in an attempt to overcome the Republican-led opposition and move the bill forward towards becoming law. The vote on cloture, which will require 60 votes to pass and will put every member of the Senate down on record, is scheduled for Tuesday. “On an issue... Continue reading

Top Financial Services Committee Members Rely Heavily On Finance Campaign Contributions By Paul Blumenthal on 10/09/09 @ 2:33 pm | 8 Comments Tags: Barney Frank, Campaign Finance, Congress, derivatives, Economic Crisis, Economy, Finance, Financial Regulation, Financial Services Committee, insurance, Melissa Bean, Paul Kanjorski, Spencer Bachus One year after the biggest economic collapse since the Great Depression, Congress is still debating new financial regulations to protect consumers and prevent risk-taking in the financial sector. The House Committee on Financial Services is currently undertaking the important first step of writing, amending and voting on some of the pieces of the long-proposed financial... Continue reading

Mortgage giant Fannie Mae said this week that it will retire its HomeSaver Forbearance (HSF) program and replace it with a new Payment Reduction Plan (PRP), which will extend the benefit to investors and owners of second homes. via www.dsnews.com Continue reading

So far 106 banks have failed in 2009. See FDIC timeline of 2009's failed banks. CreditSights, which tracks the dismal data, predicts that in the current cycle, from 2008 through 2011, as many as 1,100 banks will fail. That would wipe out 13.4% of all U.S. banks, representing 7% of U.S. banking assets. via www.marketwatch.com Continue reading

October 24, 2009 65 and Up and Looking for Work By STEVEN GREENHOUSE It is well known that during the nation’s gale-force recession, many older Americans who dreamed of retirement continued to work, often because their 401(k)’s had plunged in value. In fact, there are more Americans 65 and older in the job market today than at any time in history, 6.6 million, compared with 4.1 million in 2001. Less well known, though, is that nearly half a million workers 65 and older want to work but cannot find a job — more than five times the level early this... Continue reading

The old fogies at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco today tried to figure out what those crazy kids are doing with technology by interviewing a group of five Bay Area teenagers. The session, moderated by former Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy, rambled and eventually degenerated to teenagers free associating on different companies (”Google?” “Simple!”), but the most compelling part for me was seeing their visceral dislike of Twitter. Continue reading

The HOPE NOW Unemployment Committee collaborated with the Obama Administration to develop a new tool to help identify the eligibility of unemployed homeowners to for the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). via www.housingwire.com Continue reading

Washington, DC - October 22, 2009 - (RealEstateRama) — As thousands of Floridians continue losing their homes to foreclosure, U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor is calling on the Treasury Department to provide detailed information about the number of trial loan modifications offered to at-risk homeowners. Castor joined with Chairwoman Maxine Waters demanding that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner provide the requested information about the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) by next week. Waters, of Los Angeles, is chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity. via florida.realestaterama.com Continue reading

WASHINGTON--(ENEWSPF)--October 22, 2009. The U.S. Department of Labor today announced the creation of a new Unemployment Benefit Estimation Tool that allows mortgage companies and housing counselors to project a homeowner's unemployment insurance income for loan modification purposes. The tool was created as part of collaborative effort among the Labor Department, the U.S. Department of Treasury, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Reserve Bank and the Hope Now Alliance. via www.enewspf.com Continue reading

By Karey Wutkowski and Mark Felsenthal WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. pay czar on Thursday slashed cash compensation for the top earners at seven companies that received massive taxpayer bailouts, while allowing for some increases to retain key talent. Kenneth Feinberg, charged with reworking pay contracts for the 25 highest-paid employees at the seven banks and automakers, said their cash compensation rate for the remainder of 2009 would drop by more than 90 percent compared to 2008. Overall compensation rates would be cut in half, on average. via www.reuters.com Continue reading

Liberals Open Fire on Harry Reid - CBS News Posted using ShareThis Continue reading

Oct. 22 (Bloomberg) -- New Castle Funds LLC’s efforts to survive the arrest of its co-founder in the Raj Rajaratnam insider-trading case were set back as a Swiss bank ended a partnership and Rajaratnam decided to liquidate his funds. Union Bancaire Privée liquidated a fund that it hired New Castle to manage, the Geneva-based bank said yesterday in an e- mailed statement. The Luxembourg-registered Market Neutral U.S. Equity fund had assets of $36.1 million at Aug. 4, according to Bloomberg data. via www.bloomberg.com Continue reading

Oct. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Wells Fargo & Co. earned almost a third of its pretax quarterly profit by hedging mortgage- servicing rights, producing gains similar to those that have helped some of the biggest U.S. banks offset weaker consumer- lending businesses. via www.bloomberg.com Continue reading

October 21, 2009 In Fraud Case, a Deal That Lost Millions By ALEX BERENSON Raj Rajaratnam, the authorities say, masterminded one of the biggest insider-trading schemes in a generation. But if Mr. Rajaratnam was trading on insider information, apparently he was not very good at it. A close examination of the trades that led to his arrest last week reveals a startling fact: In all, Mr. Rajaratnam lost millions from what prosecutors characterize as illegal trading. One bad trade, in the shares of the chip maker Advanced Micro Devices, cost his hedge fund, the Galleon Group, $30 million. That loss... Continue reading

Toothpick Giraffe Puzzle. Five toothpicks form the giraffe shown above. Change the position of just one pick and leave the giraffe in exactly the same form as before. The re-formed animal may alter its orientation or be mirror reversed but must have its pattern unchanged. (Click image to see solution.) via www.nytimes.com Continue reading

October 21, 2009 Volcker’s Voice Fails to Sell a Bank Strategy By LOUIS UCHITELLE Listen to a top economist in the Obama administration describe Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman who endorsed Mr. Obama early in his election campaign and who stood by his side during the financial crisis. “The guy’s a giant, he’s a genius, he is a great human being,” said Austan D. Goolsbee, counselor to Mr. Obama since their Chicago days. “Whenever he has advice, the administration is very interested.” Well, not lately. The aging Mr. Volcker (he is 82) has some advice, deeply felt.... Continue reading

In this view, what you might call the philosopher’s view, each of us has certain ingrained character traits. An honest person will be honest most of the time. A compassionate person will be compassionate. via www.nytimes.com Continue reading

Rising Debt a Threat to Japanese Economy By HIROKO TABUCHI TOKYO — How much debt can an industrialized country carry before the nation’s economy and its currency bow, then break? The question looms large in the United States, as a surging budget deficit pushes government debt to nearly 98 percent of the gross domestic product. But it looms even larger in Japan. Here, years of stimulus spending on expensive dams and roads have inflated the country’s gross public debt to twice the size of its $5 trillion economy — by far the highest debt-to-G.D.P. ratio in recent memory. Just paying... Continue reading