the latest ..just today..on obamas failures.

Payrolls Probably Fell, Unemployment Rate Reached 26-Year High
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By Shobhana Chandra


July 2 (Bloomberg) -- Employers in the U.S. probably cut an additional 365,000 jobs in June, a government report may show today, offering little evidence the Obama administration’s stimulus package is shoring up the labor market.
The payroll decline would follow a 345,000 drop in May, according to the median estimate of 79 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. The jobless rate likely climbed to 9.6 percent, the highest since 1983.
Unemployment is projected to keep rising for the rest of the year just as the income boost from the stimulus package fades, undermining prospects for a sustained rebound in household purchases, analysts said. As companies from General Motors Corp. to Kimberly-Clark Corp. cut costs, the lack of jobs will limit any recovery.
“It’s a tough labor market to be sure,” said Carl Riccadonna, a senior economist at Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. in New York. “It raises the risk of a potential double-dip in consumer spending. Rising unemployment makes it very sensitive politically.”
The Labor Department report is due at 8:30 a.m. in Washington. Economists’ forecasts for payroll declines ranged from 150,000 to 500,000. Job losses peaked at 741,000 in January, the most since 1949.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year note has dropped since reaching a seven-month high of 3.95 percent on June 10 on growing concern that any economic recovery will be muted. The yield was at 3.54 percent late yesterday.
Biggest Slump
The payroll projection for June would extend the employment slump since the recession began in December 2007 to 6.3 million, the biggest loss in the post-World War II era.
Estimates for the unemployment rate ranged from 9.3 percent to 9.7 percent, compared with May’s 9.4 percent. By the end of the year, unemployment will reach 10 percent, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed last month.
Unemployment will “remain painfully high for several more years,” Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President Janet Yellen said this week. “I expect that we will turn the growth corner sometime later this year, but I am not optimistic that the economy will spring back to normal any time soon.”
Tax cuts and Social Security payments under the stimulus plan propped up incomes last quarter, supporting household purchases. Consumer spending rose in May as earnings climbed 1.4 percent, the most in a year.
Save More
Still, the wealth destruction caused by the housing and stock-market slumps prompted Americans to rebuild nest eggs. The savings rate in May surged to a 15-year high.
Household purchases, which account for about 70 percent of the economy, dropped at a 0.6 percent annual rate last quarter before growing again in the second half of the year, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg in early June. Purchases rose at a 1.4 percent pace in the first three months of 2009.
Manufacturers probably reduced payrolls by 150,000 in June, the survey showed. More firings are in the works following the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler LLC as shutdowns ripple through auto-parts makers and car dealers.
The auto industry isn’t alone in trimming jobs. Kimberly- Clark, the maker of Huggies diapers and Kleenex tissues, plans to cut 1,600 jobs worldwide by year-end. About 800 salaried employees will leave Deere & Co., the world’s largest maker of agricultural equipment, under a voluntary program.
‘Difficult’ Actions
“These actions, while difficult, are necessary to help us emerge from this demanding economic environment,” Kimberly- Clark’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Tom Falk said in a June 25 statement. The company’s net income has declined for six straight quarters.
3M Co., the maker of Post-it Notes and Scotch Tape, reduced positions and offered early retirement to workers, while Dow Chemical Co., the largest U.S. chemical maker, is cutting jobs following the acquisition of Rohm & Haas Co.
Service providers and government agencies are also looking to lower costs. Gannett Co., the largest U.S. newspaper publisher, yesterday announced it will eliminate about 1,400 jobs by July 9. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said he’ll force state workers to take a third unpaid day off every month to conserve cash and will order lawmakers into an emergency session to tackle the state’s growing budget deficit.



the government has just started using accounting tricks to report smaller than actual job loss . by about 300K last month and 300K this month they were able to shave off of the jobs report.
just like the governments unemployment data. they only count people who are drawing unemployment. if you fall off of the unemployment roles you are no longer counted as unemployed .
if you have a part time job you cannot pay your bills with you are counted as full employed ,
of you are not drawing unemployment but are unemployed you are not counted either.
actual jobless states are over 20% now.
i think ill post a list of obama fuck ups from the news i read..JUST TODAY he has a bunch of shit he has fucked up in the paper. to include another 650K people this month without work.
i hope you dumb mother fuckers got the change you were looking for.

Exxon, Valero Face New Curbs on Carcinogenic Gases Under Obama
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By Jim Efstathiou Jr.


July 2 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama is considering new curbs on U.S. oil refineries whose gas emissions pose a cancer risk to hundreds of thousands of people living near the plants, setting up a potential conflict with companies over the cost of new regulations.
The White House suspended a ruling signed by President George W. Bush four days before he left office that found refiners were adequately controlling benzene and other cancer- causing gases, said Cathy Milbourn, a spokeswoman at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The decision may lead to regulations requiring some of the 156 refineries in the U.S. to add or upgrade equipment or limit the burning of waste gases, the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council said. New restrictions might prompt a lawsuit by refiners, which have spent about $100 billion in almost two decades to lower pollution, according to an industry group.
“We’re going to take whatever action we think is necessary if we think the rule isn’t justified,” said John Wagner, senior attorney for the American Petroleum Institute, based in Washington. Oil companies were already warning of plant closings after the House last week approved the first U.S. regulation of global warming gases.
John Walke, clean-air director for the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council, said he was encouraged by the Obama administration’s decision to suspend the Bush ruling.
“I read into their action a willingness to consider and to adopt more protective practices,” Walke said “Otherwise, they could have simply and quietly published the Bush administration rule.”
‘Premature’ Ruling
A White House spokesman, Ben LaBolt, referred questions on refinery emissions to the EPA, where Milbourn said the gas ruling by Bush had been “premature.”
While U.S. law doesn’t cap toxic emissions from refineries, which convert crude oil into gasoline and diesel fuel, it does require plants to match what the best refiners are achieving at reducing hazardous pollution. Thirteen of the 20 largest refineries are in Texas and Louisiana, according to the U.S. Energy Department.
Standards were last set in 1995. If Obama finds those measures insufficient, the government may take six to nine months to propose new requirements and a similar amount of time after that to adopt them, Walke said.
Valero, Exxon
Valero Energy Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp. and other oil companies together spent $100 billion from 1990 to 2007, and $8.3 billion in 2008, to cut pollution at refineries, according to the American Petroleum Institute. Further regulation may increase refiners’ costs and raise the gasoline prices paid by consumers, according to the lobbying group.
Fumes from refineries, factories and utilities account for about a quarter of man-made emissions in the U.S. that are potentially hazardous to human health, the EPA has said. While it’s impossible to estimate the potential cost of new rules the agency may propose, additional pollution controls will add to the cost of making gasoline, said Howard Feldman, the API’s director of regulatory and scientific affairs.
“It’s hard to attribute any final retail price to any specific control but it certainly does impact the cost of manufacturing, which ultimately will impact the cost of fuel,” Feldman said in an interview.
Limits on carbon dioxide emissions blamed for global warming were adopted by the House on June 26 in a 219-212 vote. ConocoPhillips Chief Executive Officer Jim Mulva said the legislation may lead to the “potential shutdown of refineries and investment and, ultimately, employment.”
Clean Air Act
Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil, owner of the largest U.S. refinery, in Baytown, Texas, increased profit to a record $45.2 billion last year. San Antonio-based Valero, the biggest U.S. refiner, reported a net loss of $1.13 billion for 2008.
The pollution controls put in place during the last 14 years were required by Congress under the Clean Air Act and its 1990 amendments. The EPA, under Bush appointee Stephen Johnson, conducted the first review of how well those measures were protecting the public from exposure to hazardous gases.
The agency found that under controls already in place, about 460,000 people in the U.S. were exposed to an added risk of getting cancer of 1 to 30 in a million because of refinery emissions. The EPA deemed those odds “acceptable.”
For the U.S population, the lifetime risk of getting any type of cancer is about 40 percent, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Walke’s View
The NRDC’s Walke, a former attorney in the EPA’s clean air division, said Bush’s ruling failed to consider the effect of aggregate emissions from neighboring refineries or to account for fumes from all equipment. The risk of getting cancer from refinery pollution should be lowered to 1 in a million, he said.
Getting there takes spending, as “the lower the exposure gets, the more it costs to reduce it further,” said Michael Thun, vice president emeritus for epidemiology and surveillance at the Atlanta-based American Cancer Society, which provides information on cancer research.
Benzene from turning crude oil into gasoline can cause leukemia, said Philip Landrigan, head of community and preventive medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
“This is not a situation where we talk in probabilities and possibilities,” Landrigan said in an interview. “Studies show excess rates of leukemia and related blood cancers in people, especially children, who live in communities adjacent to these refineries.”
Leukemia Link
Children under 20 living near the Houston Ship Channel in southeast Texas, an area with elevated levels of benzene from refineries, showed “significantly” higher than normal rates of leukemia, according to a 2008 study from the University of Texas School of Public Health, in Houston.
One day after taking office, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel moved to block the Bush ruling, which hadn’t taken effect, so the Obama administration could review it. Later the EPA said it would withdraw the refinery ruling “in order to reconsider” it, according to Milbourn.
The ruling, signed by Bush January 16, grades the effectiveness of pollution controls adopted by the EPA in 1995. The EPA under Bush found the maximum risk of getting cancer -- for someone living for 70 years within about 30 miles of the highest-polluting refinery -- to be 30 in a million. The agency didn’t name which plants were most polluting in the finding.
‘Right’ Conclusion
“We worked hard with the agency to give them information going into that risk determination,” Wagner said. “At that time, they didn’t find any residual risk. We thought that conclusion was right.”
From 1988 to 2007, hazardous emissions from making gasoline, diesel fuel and other products fell 65 percent, Feldman said. In 2005, refineries emitted 10,560 tons of toxic gases, according to the EPA’s latest National Emissions Inventory. Utilities released 408,650 tons.
Since 1990, “emissions have gone down dramatically,” Bill Day, a spokesman for Valero, said in an interview. Day referred questions on the EPA rule to the American Petroleum Institute, as did Kristen Hellmer, a spokeswoman for Exxon Mobil.
The industry can do better, according to Monique Harden, an attorney for Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, a group based in New Orleans that helps communities push for environmental regulation. Some of the same companies operate refineries in Europe with lower emissions than at their sites in the U.S., she said.
Mossville Project
“We really need this Obama EPA to pay close attention to innovative technologies that are used by the same companies in refineries in Europe,” Harden said.
Harden has worked with citizens in Mossville, Louisiana, who asked Houston-based ConocoPhillips to reduce pollution at its refinery in Lake Charles, Louisiana. The plant is one of 14 factories around Mossville, a community of about 300 families in Calcasieu Parish.
Shirley Johnson, a member of Mossville Environmental Action Now, a group pushing for lower refinery emissions, confronted ConocoPhillips CEO Mulva at the company’s annual meeting on May 13. He promised to visit Mossville within two months.
“What’s in the people’s bodies is the same thing that’s emitted from the refineries,” said Johnson, 71, who has lived in Mossville for 11 years. “We’re struggling here.”
Bill Stephens, a spokesman for the company, defended the existing regulation, saying in an e-mail that it was “very successful at reducing refinery emissions.”
ConocoPhillips plans to schedule the visit to Mossville, Stephens said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Efstathiou Jr. in New York at [email protected]
Last Updated: July 2, 2009 00:00 EDT

North Korea Fires Two Short-Range Rockets, South Says (Update1)
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By Heejin Koo
July 2 (Bloomberg) -- North Korea fired two short-range missiles today in defiance of United Nations sanctions, South Korea said.
The rockets were launched at 5:20 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. and were likely part of a military drill, an official at South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff who declined to be identified for security reasons said. South Korea is “monitoring the movement’s of North Korea’s military very closely,” Foreign Minister Yu Myung Hwan said in an interview.
North Korea has used such launches in the past to emphasize its rejection of UN sanctions. The communist state fired six short-range rockets in May, following its detonation of a nuclear bomb.
“The South Korean government doesn’t take these short- range missiles as seriously as it would a mid-range missile or a long-range missile,” Yu said in an interview on the sidelines of a gathering at the U.S. embassy in Seoul.
The UN Security Council approved a U.S.-backed resolution on June 12 to curb financial transactions with North Korea and prevent it from proliferating weapons of mass destruction after the communist country conducted a nuclear test May 25.
To contact the reporter on this story: Heejin Koo in Seoul at

Lear to File Bankruptcy After Lenders Agree to Terms (Update1)
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By Alex Ortolani


July 2 (Bloomberg) -- Lear Corp., the world’s second- largest maker of automotive seats, plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after reaching an agreement with representatives of secured lenders and bondholders.
Lear is seeking support from other bondholders and lenders and plans to “commence shortly” with a restructuring under court protection, the Southfield, Michigan-based supplier said in a statement yesterday. The company said it has commitment for $500 million in financing for the bankruptcy and exit from a syndicate led by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc.
The manufacturer will seek bankruptcy protection after low auto production globally by customers such as bankrupt General Motors Corp. cut into sales. More than 20 partsmakers have filed for bankruptcy this year, according to the Original Equipment Suppliers Association trade group.
“The dramatic fall-off in the market has impacted suppliers large and small,” said Mike Wall, supplier analyst at industry consultant at CSM Worldwide in Northville, Michigan.
Lear shares traded in Europe dropped 27 percent to 35 cents as of 12:16 p.m. in Frankfurt after declining 4 percent to 48 cents yesterday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has fallen 66 percent this year.
‘Full’ Payback Aim
The restructuring will protect customers and suppliers, and provide pay for the “vast majority of trade creditors in full,” Lear said.
“We intend to complete the restructuring as quickly as possible, and emerge as an even stronger and more competitive partner to our customers,” Chief Executive Officer Bob Rossiter said in the statement.
Mel Stephens, a spokesman, declined to give further details on the bankruptcy.
Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services lowered its issue-level rating on Lear’s senior secured debt to ‘D’ from ‘CC,’ after the intended bankruptcy announcement, the New York-based ratings provider said in a statement.
Lear, which said on May 14 it sought to restructure debt outside of Chapter 11, tried to renegotiate its borrowing after getting a waiver through June 30 on some conditions and a 30-day grace period for $38 million in interest payments. The supplier would join Visteon Corp. and Metaldyne Corp. among major suppliers filing for bankruptcy protection this year.
Top Two Customers
GM, based in Detroit, was Lear’s largest customer last year, accounting for 23 percent of the supplier’s $13.6 billion in sales, followed by Ford Motor Co. at 19 percent, according to an annual filing.
Low production by those companies contributed to a combined net loss of $1.05 billion in the past three quarters for Lear, which also makes electronic components.
The supplier’s ability to secure financing shows that lenders, who have been shunning auto-industry companies, may be easing credit in light of the U.S. government-backed bankruptcy restructurings of GM and Chrysler LLC, said analyst Wall.
“Some of the banks out there are starting to dip their toes in the financing waters,” Wall said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Ortolani in Southfield, Michigan, at [email protected]


how much money did obama spend of ours to save the auto industry?

keep printing money obama..geithner. bernake.

China Seeks ‘Stable’ Dollar, Monetary Diversification (Update3)
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By Bloomberg News


July 2 (Bloomberg) -- China, the largest holder of foreign currency reserves, renewed its call for a stable dollar and damped speculation the nation is seeking talks on a new international currency at next week’s Group of Eight meeting.
“We hope that as the main reserve currency the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar will be stable,” Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei told reporters in Beijing today. The official said he’s “not aware” of China pushing to put the subject on the G-8 agenda.
The dollar strengthened as He’s comments eased concern that China plans to diversify its $1.95 trillion of currency reserves. Central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan called in March for the creation of a “super-sovereign” currency, after Premier Wen Jiabao voiced concern that a weakening dollar would erode the value of the nation’s U.S. assets.
“The magnitude of China’s foreign-exchange holdings limits its ability to move out of the dollar very quickly without shooting itself in the foot,” said David Cohen, an economist with Action Economics in Singapore. “Finding alternatives is a long-term goal.”
The dollar climbed to $1.4094 per euro as of 5:53 p.m. in Tokyo from $1.4142 in New York yesterday. It was at 96.68 yen from 96.65.
The dollar declined beyond $1.42 versus the euro yesterday after Reuters, citing G-8 sources, said China asked to debate proposals for a new global reserve currency at the summit.
‘Nothing Strange’
“We hope that in the future the international monetary system will be diversified and I believe that this is the aspiration of the entire international community,” He said. “If this issue is raised by leaders during the meeting it is nothing strange, it is natural because we are all discussing how to respond to the international crisis.”
Japanese Vice Finance Minister Kazuyuki Sugimoto said in Tokyo today that he’s unaware whether the G-8 leaders will discuss a replacement for the dollar.
In a separate Chinese statement today, the central bank said it will let companies settle cross-border trade in yuan, seeking to reduce the reliance of importers and exporters on the dollar.
The People’s Bank of China renewed on June 26 its call for a new global currency and said the International Monetary Fund should manage more of members’ foreign-exchange reserves.
Currency ‘Deficiencies’
“To avoid the inherent deficiencies of using sovereign currencies for reserves, there’s a need to create an international reserve currency that’s delinked from sovereign nations,” the central bank said in a report. The IMF should expand the functions of its unit of account, Special Drawing Rights, the report said.
China is the biggest foreign holder of Treasuries, with $763.5 billion as of April. U.S. President Barack Obama is relying on the Asian nation to keep making purchases as his administration sells record amounts of debt to fund a $787 billion stimulus package.
At the end of 2008, the dollar accounted for 64 percent of global central bank reserves, down from 73 percent in 2001, according to the IMF.
To contact the reporter on this story: Dune Lawrence in Beijing at [email protected]
Last Updated: July 2, 2009 05:27 EDT

GM Plans ‘Garage Sale’ for Toxic Plants, New Jersey Golf Course
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By Linda Sandler and Christopher Scinta


July 2 (Bloomberg) -- As General Motors Corp. prepares to sell its best assets to a streamlined new entity, the worst of what it owns will be auctioned off in bankruptcy court, including contaminated factory sites, parking lots in Flint, Michigan, and a nine-hole golf course in New Jersey.
One property the carmaker is ditching is a foundry in Massena, New York, bordered on the east by the St. Regis Mohawk Indian Reservation and on the north by the St. Lawrence River. Built to make aluminum cylinder heads for the Chevrolet Corvair in the 1950s, it generated PCB sludge and waste from hydraulic fluids.
“It was created by GM dumping hazardous waste on the banks of the river, such that the waste oozed into the water and the land,” said John Privitera, a lawyer for the tribe at McNamee Lochner Titus & Williams PC in Albany, New York. “It was picked up by animals and moved up the food chain through fish and into Mohawk women -- into their breast milk, into their babies.”
The largest U.S. automaker, following its smaller rival Chrysler LLC, is using the bankruptcy process to spin off a new entity with reduced costs and debt while leaving the old GM with unwanted property and obligations to creditors, dealers, retirees, accident victims and environmental agencies.
The discarded assets will be all that creditors have to satisfy their claims as GM starts to unwind liabilities of $172.8 billion -- more than twice its reported assets.
$225 Million Cleanup
The pollutants at the Massena site wound up in the St. Lawrence River, migrated to the reservation and put the property in the New York State Registry of Hazardous Waste Sites and on the federal superfund list of contaminated places.
While the Massena site is eligible for federal cleanup money, according to Privitera, some of the cost may come out of creditors’ hide, a GM restructuring official testified.
It would cost GM as much as $225 million to clean up the site and restock the river with edible fish if it held on to the property, Privitera estimated.
At the first day of hearings on GM’s proposed asset sale restructuring chief Albert Koch estimated on June 30 that the company’s environmental liabilities for all sites are $530 million. Chief Executive Officer Fritz Henderson said money needed to wind down the old GM was $1.25 billion, up from an earlier estimate of $950 million, because of a reassessment of the environmental liabilities.
For Sale: Golf Course
The Treasury has said it would leave sufficient cash in GM’s bankruptcy estate to fund a “wind down,” though it hasn’t provided a written commitment for more funding, Koch said. Without sufficient cash from the Treasury to cover any shortfall, old GM might have to sell some of the 10 percent stake and warrants that it will get from the reorganized company as earmarked funds to pay off creditors, he said.
The golf course on GM’s hit list, the Hyatt Hills Golf Complex in Clark, New Jersey, was built on the reclaimed site of a factory that began by making hard rubber steering wheels and door handles for the automaker in 1938.
The Newark Star-Ledger called it the “best conditioned nine-hole course in New Jersey.” A Web site tour of the course shows parts of it abutting power lines, a railroad track and a line of telephone poles. Union County residents are charged $18 to play nine holes.
Big Garage Sale
“The new GM hardly needs to be in the golf course business,” said Tom Wilkinson, GM’s director of news relations, in an e-mail. “The old GM will be selling a lot of potentially valuable but peripheral property the company accumulated over 100 years, kind of like a big garage sale. You will see some really good real estate deals come out of this for investors and communities.”
Calls seeking comment from Dan Hollis, Hyatt Hills’s golf operations manager, and Robert Hoeffler, executive director, weren’t returned.
Cleanup work already done on the Hyatt Hills site “should have taken care of any issues,” Wilkinson said.
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo yesterday recommended that the bankruptcy judge in charge of the GM case scrutinize the carmaker’s proposed asset sale to make sure environmental obligations aren’t avoided.
New York State in a court filing earlier listed 11 GM sites that have contamination or “ongoing environmental compliance obligations” such as cleaning up soil, sediment, surface and groundwater and long-term monitoring, including property in Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo.
The company plans to leave behind 16 plants and associated real estate in Delaware, Ohio, New York, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Michigan, as well as an industrial park in Anderson, Indiana, a former Cadillac site in Detroit, the parking lots in Flint, offices and an employee development center in Pontiac, Michigan, and 76 acres of vacant land in Van Buren, Michigan, among other discarded property.
The case is In re General Motors Corp., 09-50026, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
To contact the reporters on this story: Linda Sandler in New Yorkt ; Christopher Scinta in New York at [email protected].
Last Updated: July 2, 2009 00:01 EDT

July 2 (Bloomberg) -- Russian companies shut out of the international debt markets are selling more ruble bonds than dollar notes for the first time since 2006 as the domestic currency recovers from its 35 percent devaluation.
OAO Russian Railways, the railroad monopoly, and X5 Retail Group NV, the largest food-store operator, led 261.6 billion rubles ($8.4 billion) of bond sales this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s more than double the combined value of the two dollar issues, by state-owned gas exporter OAO Gazprom and farming lender Russian Agricultural Bank.
“Domestic debt looks attractive for investors assuming the ruble remains stable,” said Luis Costa, an emerging markets debt analyst at Commerzbank AG in London. “In the dollar bond market we’re now back to a blue-chip game, while ruble issuance is accessible to a much wider group of companies.”
With international banks and insurers struggling under $1.5 trillion of losses, dollar bonds are all but off limits for companies in Russia, whose economy shrank an annual 9.8 percent in the first quarter, the most in 15 years. The ruble rallied 17 percent against the dollar since the government devalued the currency between August last year and January, making domestic bonds a safer purchase for Russian banks.
Stronger Ruble
The ruble strengthened to 30.47 per dollar on June 3, the highest this year, from as low as 36.56 on Feb. 18. Russia weakened its currency between August and January to protect exporters after oil, their No. 1 product, tumbled. Crude fell to as low as $32.40 a barrel on Dec. 19, before recovering to as high as $71.85 yesterday.
The rebound in the ruble has “added some degree of allure” to the domestic bond market, said Costa.
Demand for ruble bonds is also helped because Russian lenders are able to pledge the notes as collateral for loans from the central bank, helping create demand for the securities even as the nation remains more badly affected by the global credit crisis than most of its European neighbors.
Without the central bank’s refinancing program, even “selling bonds locally would’ve been difficult,” said Mikhail Galkin, a fixed-income analyst at MDM Bank in Moscow.
Prices of ruble-denominated bonds have risen as the currency stabilized. The notes climbed 7.2 percent this year, after tumbling 19 percent in 2008, according to the Micex Corporate Bond Index. The index advanced to 87.20 on June 25, the highest level since Oct. 20, a month after the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in the U.S. roiled debt markets worldwide.
Russian companies have about 1.6 trillion rubles of domestic-currency bonds outstanding, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Higher Interest
Even as investors are willing to buy ruble bonds, rising demand for funds is driving up interest costs, said Maxim Tishin, a money manager at UFG Asset Management in Moscow, which oversees more than $300 million of debt.
“Ample supply” is causing even state-owned borrowers to pay more, according to Tishin, who said he’s “expecting even more supply from blue chip companies.”
Russian Railways, the Moscow-based operator of the world’s longest rail network, paid 14.25 percent for its 15 billion rubles of bonds issued o

this shit here is not only a epic failure it is economic treason against the USA.

Senate May Pass U.S. Climate Bill, Reject Treaty, Kerry Says
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By Jim Efstathiou Jr. and Daniel Whitten


July 2 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Senate may pass legislation to slow climate change and then fail to approve a global treaty that commits nations to do so, Senator John Kerry said.
Kerry, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, will be a leader in Senate efforts to place the first domestic curbs on greenhouse gases, after the House approved a measure last week. Even if a Senate bill passes, there may not be enough support to ratify an international accord incorporating the U.S. commitments, the Massachusetts Democrat said in an interview.
A possible Senate rejection poses a threat to the 192- nation effort to forge an agreement, which scientists say can help slow warming that’s raising sea levels and changing rainfall patterns globally.
“We are definitely going to make more progress if there is a strong international agreement that the U.S. is a party to,” said Nigel Purvis, who in the 1990s worked as a U.S. negotiator on the Kyoto climate treaty that the U.S. didn’t ratify. Passing domestic climate-change legislation remains the most crucial step, Purvis said.
Senate ratification of a treaty would require 67 votes, compared with 60 for legislation.
“Sixty-seven votes is a big target here,” Kerry said last week, before Congress left for a one-week break. “We may be able to pass something that puts America on track to accomplish our set of goals. But we may pass it with 60 votes, or 61 or whatever, and that’s not 67.”
House Measure
The House approved climate-change legislation last week on a 219-212 vote. The measure would create a cap-and-trade system to curb emissions, establish a market for trading pollution allowances, and fund investments in new energy sources. It aims to cut fossil-fuel emissions from power plants, factories, oil refineries and vehicles 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020.
Senate leaders say they hope to complete their version before talks on a global climate treaty in December in Copenhagen. Twenty senators led by Kerry and Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who heads the Environment and Public Works Committee, have been meeting to prepare for the debate in their chamber.
Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top Republican on Boxer’s committee, has vowed to stop the bill, calling it “the largest tax increase in American history” and saying the “razor-thin vote in the House spells doom in the Senate.”
China, India, Brazil
Lawmakers in both chambers have said they won’t support climate change restrictions that boost costs and put U.S. businesses and farmers at a competitive disadvantage with nations such as China, India and Brazil that may not take comparable steps.
“They gotta be put in the same category as we are; they can’t be listed as a developing country,” Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, said in an interview. Iowa farmers produce corn-based ethanol, in competition with Brazil, which uses sugar cane to make the alternative fuel.
President Barack Obama will have a better chance of gaining commitments on emissions cuts from developing countries if he has votes for legislation from both chambers of Congress in hand in Copenhagen, said Elliot Diringer, vice president for international strategies at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change based in Arlington, Va.
Copenhagen Talks
The Copenhagen talks are an effort to negotiate a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an international climate agreement negotiated in part by Democratic Vice President Al Gore, which expires in 2012.
President George W. Bush rejected the Kyoto accord after it didn’t require developing countries to curb emissions. The Senate had passed a resolution 95-0 saying that members wouldn’t approve any treaty that lacked limits on India and China.
Todd Stern, the U.S. special envoy for climate change and Obama’s chief negotiator, has said developing nations must be part of a new accord. Under a U.S. proposal, those countries may agree to add renewable energy production or improve energy efficiency without taking on the specific emissions targets required of developed nations.
It’s too soon to worry about ratification of an international treaty, Boxer said in an interview.
“For me to speculate on how you get 67 votes for a treaty we haven’t yet seen, I just couldn’t do that,” Boxer said. “The most important thing now is for us to continue to act in the Congress so we give the president some wind at his back before Copenhagen.”
At the very least, Kerry said Obama will be able to go to Copenhagen with the House-passed measure and a draft of Senate legislation as a road map.
‘Tough Sledding’
Kerry’s doubts about lining up 67 Senate votes for a treaty were echoed by Harkin and Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat.
“That’s pretty tough sledding,” said Harkin, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee.
“My major interest is manufacturing and how we preserve manufacturing,” Brown said in an interview. He said he wants a trade deal that protects U.S. companies in iron and steel, aluminum, cement, glass, pulp and paper, and chemicals.
“There’s a fine line here between what the rest of the world is expecting the U.S. to do and what may be politically possible in the Senate,” said Duncan Marsh, director of international climate policy for the Nature Conservancy, an Arlington, Virginia-based environmental group.
To contact the reporters on this story: Daniel Whitten in Washington at [email protected]; Jim Efstathiou Jr. in New York at [email protected].
Last Updated: July 2, 2009 00:00 EDT

obama is just not a epic failure.
he is either completely stupid and clueless.
or he is a complete enemy of the usa and corrupt.
i think he is a enemy of the USA. and a traitor

Fannie, Freddie to Refinance Larger Underwater Loans (Update3)
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By Dawn Kopecki


July 1 (Bloomberg) -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will begin refinancing mortgages with loan-to-value ratios of as much as 125 percent as the Obama administration seeks to boost participation in its anti-foreclosure programs.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan made the announcement in a statement today. Currently Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, through President Barack Obama’s Home Affordable program, can refinance mortgages they own or guarantee when the loan is worth as much as 105 percent of the home’s market value.
The continuing slide in home prices has pushed millions of Americans beyond that 105 percent loan-to-value ratio, limiting participation in Obama’s initiative. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have refinanced 80,000 loans under that program, which set out to help as many as 5 million people who may owe more than their homes are worth, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director James Lockhart said at a real estate conference on June 18.
The decision to change the allowable ratio is part of an effort to “adapt to an ever-changing housing market,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in the HUD statement. “By expanding refinance eligibility, we can bring relief to more struggling homeowners more quickly.”
Paul Miller, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets in Arlington, Virginia, said mortgage brokers have told him that many aren’t sending borrowers through the program because it’s cumbersome and the loan applications “still have a lot of bells and whistles, which makes them difficult to do.”
Little Impact
“I don’t think it’s going to have much of an impact because you still don’t have enough qualified borrowers,” Miller said, referring to today’s announcement. “It will help on the margin, but the issues with Obama’s plans is that they all focus on affordability and not principal writedowns and at some point they’re going to have to address” that, he said.
Just 20,000 of the 80,000 refinanced Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages exceed loan-to-value ratios of 80 percent, which are the loans administration officials specifically targeted in designing the program, Lockhart said.
Peter Cirillo, an independent mortgage broker in Long Island, New York, said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s risk-based pricing makes it “much too difficult” for borrowers to qualify to refinance, even if the companies already back their loans.
“All of these government programs are having little or no effect on the ability to refinance,” Cirillo said in an interview. “Even potential borrowers with great credit and low LTV’s, but reduced income, have no chance of refinancing to a lower rate or payment because of strict” rules on debt-to- income ratios, he said.
Home Values
A drop in values has left about 20.4 million of the U.S.’s 93 million houses, condos and co-ops with mortgages higher than the properties are worth as of March 31, Seattle-based real estate data service Zillow.com said in a report May 6.
Home Affordable has also been “seeing a slowdown” as mortgage rates increase, Lockhart said. The average rate on a typical 30-year fixed loan was 5.42 percent in the week ended June 25, according to Freddie Mac. The rate is up from a record low of 4.78 percent at the end of April.
U.S. mortgage applications fell last week by the most since February, the Mortgage Bankers Association said today. The MBA’s index of applications to buy a home or refinance a loan dropped 19 percent to 444.8 in the week ended June 26 from 548.2 the prior week. The group’s refinancing gauge fell 30 percent to the lowest in seven months, while the index of purchases declined 4.5 percent.
Loan Limits
The Obama program applies to mortgages that meet Washington-based Fannie Mae and McLean, Virginia-based Freddie Mac’s conforming loan limits. That cap is $417,000 for some areas and as high as $729,750 for the 250 most expensive real estate markets.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac own or guarantee more than half of the single-family mortgages in the U.S. The government- chartered companies were seized by regulators in September amid concern that their capital wasn’t sufficient to weather the worst housing slump since the Great Depression.
The companies each said in separate statements today that borrowers with loan-to-value ratios of between 105 percent and 125 percent must refinance through their existing mortgage company to qualify. Fannie Mae is additionally paying lenders an incentive equal to half a percentage point, to encourage refinancings to shorter terms of 20 or 25 years. Freddie Mac said it is also offering a “special price incentive” as well to borrowers that accept a shorter repayment schedule.
To contact the reporter on this story: Dawn Kopecki in Washington at

medicineman said:

Geeze, you and your mental masturbation, good luck with that.

Click to expand...

Med-'O-Mao ... Your cluelessness makes the following statement crystal clear: "There are none so enslaved and those who think they are free when they are not."

Obama is a student of Saul Alinsky, the person who wrote the book on 1960s radicalism. In that respect, Obama is doing a bang-up job.

http://redstaterusa.blogspot.com/2008/10/saul-alinsky-secret-playbook-to-obamas.html

You should be proud of your vote for Obama, Med-'O-Mao as you are getting everything your hoped for: Fascist corporatism ... Obama has taken over the auto industry, the banks and the financial institutions. He has fired corporate executives and placed his own choices in those positions. He has limited the salaries and bonuses of the private business sector. He has quadrupled the debt within six months of being in power. He is about to hand the Federal Reserve even more power. He is supporting Marxist dictators in South America, while at the same time, literally ignoring the slaughter of young Iranians at the hands of their brutal government.

We have Benito Mussolini in the White House. The Middle Class is ready to implode. My God Med-'o-Mao ... when will you and your ilk come to your senses and wake the hell up?

Vi

LoL well said.

ViRedd said:

Med-'O-Mao ... Your cluelessness makes the following statement crystal clear: "There are none so enslaved and those who think they are free when they are not."

Obama is a student of Saul Alinsky, the person who wrote the book on 1960s radicalism. In that respect, Obama is doing a bang-up job.

http://redstaterusa.blogspot.com/2008/10/saul-alinsky-secret-playbook-to-obamas.html

You should be proud of your vote for Obama, Med-'O-Mao as you are getting everything your hoped for: Fascist corporatism ... Obama has taken over the auto industry, the banks and the financial institutions. He has fired corporate executives and placed his own choices in those positions. He has limited the salaries and bonuses of the private business sector. He has quadrupled the debt within six months of being in power. He is about to hand the Federal Reserve even more power. He is supporting Marxist dictators in South America, while at the same time, literally ignoring the slaughter of young Iranians at the hands of their brutal government.

We have Benito Mussolini in the White House. The Middle Class is ready to implode. My God Med-'o-Mao ... when will you and your ilk come to your senses and wake the hell up?

Vi

Click to expand...

Those that do not want to open their eyes can not be made to open them Vi. Enlightenment can not be given, no matter how forceful you try giving it to some one. It can only be discovered for one's self. Of course, I am kind of amazed at the fact that a lot of the thoughts that I had after reading about Ancient Rome, World War II and the Civil War have a much larger pool of people than I'd have imagined. Of course the quantity of people ignorant of the past still amazes me. Faulty schooling. The worst thing the United States did was allow the centralization of the education system.

You blame Obama for all this, unfortunately you're after the wrong guy. These problems have been going on for YEARS. LONG before Obama was elected.

How is Obama responsible for Korea's nuclear tests? He isn't the ruler of Korea.

doobnVA said:

You blame Obama for all this, unfortunately you're after the wrong guy. These problems have been going on for YEARS. LONG before Obama was elected.

How is Obama responsible for Korea's nuclear tests? He isn't the ruler of Korea.

Click to expand...

Many people here blame Obama for everything. They conveniently forgot some important fact.

They forgot that Bush started the rampant spending (most of it wasted away in Iraq). They forgot that gas prices soared under Bush, choking the American people's wallets. They forgot that the recession began in Bush's presidency and was caused by his mistakes. The forgot that Bush began the first bail outs (TARP) and that these bailouts failed miserably (they can't even account for millions). They forgot many events. If you listen to Vi, Cracker, and Max, Obama is to blame for everything. I hear that he even killed Kennedy AND MLK.

i guess you are not smart enough to look at the information in the articles i put up...oh well..no one has accused liberals of being smart in the last 25 years.
under bush's worst year.his last year the dumb fuck spent us 500 billion into debt.
obama hasnt been in office six months yet and has spent almost 15 trillion with another 4 trillion dollars budget next year that will be another 2 trillion dollars deeper into debt.
that is a 400 percent increase in ass hole over bush.just his first year
it is also if you want to measure the 15 trillion and growing amount of stimulus and tarp ..AIG the fed . let me figure this out..
oh...obama in six months is as compared to the ass hole scale. almost a 2000 % increase in fucking ass hole.
keep deffending this prick as your jobs evaporate at the rate of 500K to 600K jobs a month ..people who have been on long term unemployment are losing their unemployment now.ALL AS A DIRECT EFFECT IF THIS IDIOT BEING ELECTED. how you might ask? bussiness and companys are forward looking ..obama for two years promised he was going to rape the rich and the bussiness..AS SOON AS THIS IDIOT WAS ELECTED PEOPLE STARTED LAYING OFF PEOPLE AND MOVING THEIR ASSETS OUT OF THE WAY OF THIS IDIOT..in other words that is why you are losing your jobs.
before cap and trade..just a example is implemented..a move that will bankrupt the coal industry..just for example..plus increase the costs of manifacturing and doing bussiness not to mention your personal electric bills.
companys are planing movements and closing just based upon this one bill..as a matter of fact that bill is not only going to tax the fuck out of you ....you are going to lose 3.5 million jobs in your economy based upon it.
microsoft has already stated they are going to move out of the USA if obamas double taxation bill pass's..it looks like they better start packing.
i bet they will too..i bet you little commie cool aid drinkers are going to blame bush for the tax increases obama stealing private property turning the constitution on its head..law on its head..stealing from investors..
how many investors do you think are interested in investing into hugo obamas country when he can swoop in steal the company ..fire the CEO's give it to the unions and fuck to death the bond holders and investors?
you liberals are sooooo fucking dumb it is incredible.

max420thc said:

i guess you are not smart enough to look at the information in the articles i put up...oh well..no one has accused liberals of being smart in the last 25 years.
under bush's worst year.his last year the dumb fuck spent us 500 billion into debt.
obama hasnt been in office six months yet and has spent almost 15 trillion with another 4 trillion dollars budget next year that will be another 2 trillion dollars deeper into debt.
that is a 400 percent increase in ass hole over bush.just his first year
it is also if you want to measure the 15 trillion and growing amount of stimulus and tarp ..AIG the fed . let me figure this out..
oh...obama in six months is as compared to the ass hole scale. almost a 2000 % increase in fucking ass hole.
keep deffending this prick as your jobs evaporate at the rate of 500K to 600K jobs a month ..people who have been on long term unemployment are losing their unemployment now.ALL AS A DIRECT EFFECT IF THIS IDIOT BEING ELECTED. how you might ask? bussiness and companys are forward looking ..obama for two years promised he was going to rape the rich and the bussiness..AS SOON AS THIS IDIOT WAS ELECTED PEOPLE STARTED LAYING OFF PEOPLE AND MOVING THEIR ASSETS OUT OF THE WAY OF THIS IDIOT..in other words that is why you are losing your jobs.
before cap and trade..just a example is implemented..a move that will bankrupt the coal industry..just for example..plus increase the costs of manifacturing and doing bussiness not to mention your personal electric bills.
companys are planing movements and closing just based upon this one bill..as a matter of fact that bill is not only going to tax the fuck out of you ....you are going to lose 3.5 million jobs in your economy based upon it.
microsoft has already stated they are going to move out of the USA if obamas double taxation bill pass's..it looks like they better start packing.
i bet they will too..i bet you little commie cool aid drinkers are going to blame bush for the tax increases obama stealing private property turning the constitution on its head..law on its head..stealing from investors..
how many investors do you think are interested in investing into hugo obamas country when he can swoop in steal the company ..fire the CEO's give it to the unions and fuck to death the bond holders and investors?
you liberals are sooooo fucking dumb it is incredible.

Click to expand...

Blah, blah, blah - normal, incessant rambling from Max. At least ChChoda and BT know how to make a point and engage in discourse. Most people simply ignore you.

Too many want to give Obama a free pass on everything.

It was Obama who said he could fix everything if elected
It was Obama who said we must pass his stimulus and everything would be OK.
It was Obama who said if we pass his stimulus plan that unemployment would stay below 9%
It was Obama who promised millions of new jobs.
It was Obama who promised that no taxpayer making less than $250K would pay more taxes.
It was Obama who promised transparency in everything he did.
It was Obama who said he would stop pork barrel spending.
It was Obama who said no more lobbyists in government jobs.
It is Obama's administration that has hired so many staff with legal / tax issues.
It is Obama staging questions at press conferences, and town hall meetings instead of dealing honestly with the issues.

Obama promised you the world if elected, and now says it is not his fault - he begged for the job, he was not forced into it.
He has played all the idealists who actually believed the change he promised would be for the good.

angelsbandit said:

Too many want to give Obama a free pass on everything.

It was Obama who said he could fix everything if elected
It was Obama who said we must pass his stimulus and everything would be OK.
It was Obama who said if we pass his stimulus plan that unemployment would stay below 9%
It was Obama who promised millions of new jobs.
It was Obama who promised that no taxpayer making less than $250K would pay more taxes.
It was Obama who promised transparency in everything he did.
It was Obama who said he would stop pork barrel spending.
It was Obama who said no more lobbyists in government jobs.
It is Obama's administration that has hired so many staff with legal / tax issues.
It is Obama staging questions at press conferences, and town hall meetings instead of dealing honestly with the issues.

Obama promised you the world if elected, and now says it is not his fault - he begged for the job, he was not forced into it.
He has played all the idealists who actually believed the change he promised would be for the good.

Click to expand...

No one here is claiming that Obama is the savior. If you actually listen, most people do not agree with many of his policies. Show me one person on this forum who praised Obama blindly - you can't do it.