| Gov. Perdue Must Protect Broadband in North Carolina The North Carolina state Senate just rammed through an awful bill that would stop local communities from building their own high-speed Internet networks. With the Senate out of the way, this bad bill is headed to the desk of Gov. Bev Perdue, who has hinted that she'll veto it. But hints aren't enough. We need to make absolutely sure that Gov. Perdue vetoes this bill. Joshua Levy, SavetheInternet.com Local Broadband Limits Go to Gov. Perdue North Carolina state lawmakers have sent the governor a measure limiting local governments' ability to set up public broadband networks. The bill, H129, sets a higher bar for municipalities who want to get into the broadband business. Laura Leslie, WRAL-TV Data Caps and Web TV: Heading for a Clash? Online video channels are popping up like weeds, and major players like Netflix expect their popularity to just keep growing. Meanwhile, another major Internet service provider, AT&T, just began a policy of limiting the amount of data its customers can send and receive each month. Are these trends headed for a collision? Richard Adhikari, TechNewsWorld A 'Rube Goldberg Theory of Regulation': Net Neutrality Hearing Gets Testy This week's Net Neutrality hearing took 10 seconds to turn adversarial. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) opened the House Judiciary Committee meeting with a series of broadsides against the FCC and its chair, Julius Genachowski, seated below him at the witness table. Nate Anderson, Ars Technica FCC Chief: Antitrust Law Can't Adequately Defend Internet Antitrust law was inadequate to preserve the openness of the Internet and to allow innovation to flourish, the top U.S. communications regulator said, defending Internet road rules adopted last year. Jasmin Melvin, Reuters Key Senate Office Questions Spectrum Crunch A key Senate office is questioning the existence of a spectrum crunch that the White House and the FCC have repeatedly invoked as justification for measures to repurpose TV airwaves to mobile broadband companies. Sara Jerome, The Hill FCC Gears Up for Reverse Auctions Last week's FCC workshop on Universal Service reform was a reminder of just how serious the commission is about the idea of using a reverse auction to award funding for areas that do not currently get broadband service. The workshop also revealed that many decisions about how such an auction would work have yet to be made. Joan Engebretson, Connected Planet How the Media Have Covered bin Laden's Death In the first three days since the death of Osama bin Laden, the attention given to the event in both traditional and new media has been only nominally focused on the political ramifications of the terrorist's death. Instead, the discussion across a broad range of mainstream media, on Facebook, Twitter and in the blogosphere, has centered on trying to sort out what happened and on people's feelings about it. But so far the coverage has defied the tendency seen in many major national news events to turn quickly partisan. Mark Jurkowitz, Project for Excellence in Journalism Does Posting Things to Twitter Make You a Journalist? Why don't journalists want to admit that others can now perform many of the same functions they do, given these new tools? Because that means that anyone with a Twitter account or a blog is competition. But that is the reality -- and journalists of all kinds had better start getting used to the idea, instead of trying to define their way out of it. Mathew Ingram, GigaOM How State-Funded TV Stations Covered the Osama News Around the world, state-funded satellite TV stations -- like Russia Today, Iran's Press TV, China's CCTV, France 24 and Al Jazeera -- are broadcasting world news as they see it. That means that millions are hearing stories from new perspectives, and stories like the death of Osama Bin Laden can vary dramatically, depending on which channel you're watching. Linette Lopez, Columbia Journalism Review Breathing Room: Toward a New Arab Media As Arab politics are transformed, journalists across the region are assessing their role in this new landscape, warily testing boundaries, adjusting to new realities and daring to dream of the possibilities. Lawrence Pintak, Columbia Journalism Review Is Non-Profit Journalism a Safeguard for Press Freedom? Non-profit journalism, in the sense of news not being the profitable activity, is a way of helping to guarantee more editorial independence. This is one more possible safeguard for press freedom. Clothilde Le Coz, MediaShift | This week: Jigsha Desai is one of Editor & Publisher magazine’s 25 people under the age of 35 who are helping to reshape journalism and guide media companies through the digital era. And public interest advocates call for reforms to the FCC's Universal Service Fund in order to support broadband build-out and adoption. Listen here. Big Companies, Special Interests Hire Private Congressional Delegations to Lobby Government When AT&T goes forth to lobby the U.S. Congress, the company brings its own congressional delegation -- six former members in all. And AT&T is hardly alone in tasking congressional alumni to do its corporate bidding on Capitol Hill. In all, 43 different companies, organizations and special interest groups last year employed at least three former congressmen as registered federal lobbyists, according to a new report. OpenSecrets.org AT&T-T-Mobile Merger: A Bum Note for Musicians? The AT&T-T-Mobile merger is not just about phone service. Mobile handsets are fast becoming one of the main ways people connect to the internet, and this trend is only going to continue. So why should musicians and music entrepreneurs care? Lots of reasons, actually. Future of Music Coalition Gov. McDonnell's Public Broadcasting Cuts Actually Strip Funding from Virginia's Classrooms Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell announced that he was using his line-item veto power to cut $424,000 in funding state legislators had approved for public broadcasting. The funding McDonnell eliminated with the veto doesn't actually go towards developing television or radio programming. Rather, its for the Instructional Telecom Services contract with the public broadcasters, a program dedicated to developing and providing low-cost or free electronic educational materials for Virginia schools. ThinkProgress Google, Facebook: 'Do Not Track' Bill a Threat to California Economy Google and Facebook are warning legislators of dire consequences if California passes a "do not track" bill. The proposed law would require companies doing online business in the Golden State to offer an "opt-out" privacy mechanism for consumers. Ars Technica Third Attack Against Sony Planned A group of hackers says it is planning another wave of cyberattacks against Sony in retaliation for its handling of the PlayStation Network breach. CNet Sony Chief Says PlayStation Network to Return Soon Sony posted a series of announcements on its PlayStation blog, answering customer questions about a cyberattack that brought down the entire PlayStation Network and other services last month. Sony's chief executive, said that the PlayStation gaming network would be back online in the coming days. Sony also laid out plans to try and reimburse customers who have been without access to services for almost three weeks. New York Times Time Warner Chief: Netflix Is No Threat Time Warner chief Jeff Bewkes insisted that Netflix does not pose a threat to traditional broadcast and cable outlets -- and that he has seen little evidence that Netflix subscribers are "cutting the cord." But some analysts have suggested that Bewkes may be overly optimistic. IMDb First Broadcast Network Aimed at African Americans Will Debut This Fall Bounce TV, the first broadcast network designed exclusively for African Americans, announced a deal with broadcaster Raycom that will allow the channel to debut in 26 markets this fall. The Hill Facebook Now Pays Users 10 Cents to Watch Certain Ads Facebook will now reward users who watch certain ads with Facebook Credits, which can be redeemed to purchase goods on Facebook Deals, the company's new Groupon-like daily deals service. The incentive, however, is not huge. Initially, the average ad will yield one credit, which is equivalent to 10 cents. Mashable FCC May Open Meeting May 12: Washington, DC 36th Annual Community Radio Conference Jun 1-Jun 4: San Francisco, CA Create or Die 2: Journalism That Matters Jun 2-Jun 5: Greensboro, NC Personal Democracy Forum Jun 6-Jun 7: New York, NY FCC June Open Meeting Jun 9: Washington, DC 140 Character Conference Jun 15-Jun 16: New York, NY Netroots Nation Jun 16-Jun 19: Minneapolis, MN Allied Media Conference Jun 23-Jun 26: Detroi, MI National NOW Conference Jun 24-Jun 26: Tampa, FL Blogging While Brown Jul 8-Jul 10: Los Angeles, CA |
5/7/11
News of the movement for May 6, 2011
Posted: 06 May 2011 01:24 AM PDT
This week seems to be open season on Deutsche Bank. The Department of Justice suit on them over FHA loans was singling them out when a lot of US banks are every bit as guilty. Now we have a Los Angeles prosecution over Deutsche acting as a slumlord, with the city attorney looking to launch cases against other major securitization trustees, namely HSBC, US Bank, and Bank of New York. We have pointed out, that banks (more accurately, securitization trustees and servicers) are awful property managers, as anyone who lives in a neighborhood with foreclosed properties will attest. This inattention becomes disastrous in densely populated areas. The story in the Los Angeles Times is about as gripping as real estate gets:
Los Angeles officials say the bank has been a dreadful landlord and neighbor. Prosecutors say that during a yearlong investigation, they found evidence that Deutsche Bank had illegally evicted some tenants, let others live in squalor and allowed hundreds of unoccupied properties to turn into graffiti-scarred dens for squatters, gang members and other criminals.
Police records show scores of alleged crimes committed on the properties, including vagrancy, possession of drugs for sale and assault with a deadly weapon. In December 2007, police found a dead body at a Deutsche-owned house on West 55th Street. In 2008, they discovered prostitution at a house on Evers Avenue…
“This particular bank is … helping to destroy communities,” said Councilman Dennis Zine, one of six members of the Los Angeles City Council who joined City Atty. Carmen Trutanich at a news conference in which they excoriated Deutsche Bank and other banks that have foreclosed on properties in Los Angeles….
Maria Reyes was never sure who owned the Echo Park bungalow she rents with her disabled son. After the original landlord lost it in foreclosure, she paid her rent to the loan servicer. But she said the people she spoke to there turned a deaf ear on her repeated requests for repairs. City records show more than 50 code and habitability violations at the house, including faulty plumbing and a broken front window, which Reyes finally covered with plywood.
Other renters also have had to take matters into their own hands.
Jorge Jimenez, 30, got no response when he complained about a collapsed floor in the bedroom of his Deutsche-owned home on East 48th Street, so last year, he paid several hundred dollars for materials to rebuild it himself, he said.
“The floor was falling, and they wouldn’t do anything” Jimenez said. “They wouldn’t say anything when we complained.”
In the bathroom of the two-bedroom stucco house he shares with his wife, son and another couple, the shower is missing tiles and the faucets won’t stop dripping. Jiminez has wrapped plastic bags around them to try to stop the flow.
In the kitchen, he and his family have to use pliers to turn the water on and off because the handle is broken.
Deutsche offered a lame defense:
“As we have repeatedly advised the Los Angeles city attorney’s office, loan servicers, and not Deutsche Bank as trustee, are contractually responsible for both the maintenance of foreclosed properties and any actions taken with respect to tenants of foreclosed properties,” spokesman John Gallagher said in a statement.I give the odds of this washing as close to zero. The servicer is effectively a subcontractor to the trustee; the responsibility ultimately resides with the trustee. If the trustee could somehow argue that the servicer had misled him (by withholding or falsifying information), the trustee might be able to shift liability onto the servicer. The spectacle of the servicers and trustees pointing fingers at each other in these cases ought to be amusing.
Posted: 05 May 2011 02:16 PM PDT
We’ve been sayin’ the commodities runup and the fixation on inflation looked like a rerun of spring 2008: a liquidity-fueled hunt for inflation hedges when the deflationary undertow was stronger. That observation is now looking to be accurate. But what may prove different this time is the speed of the reversal. With investors acting as if Uncle Ben would ever and always protect their backs, markets moved into the widely discussed “risk on-risk off” trade, a degree of investment synchronization never before seen. All correlations moving to one historically was the sign of a market downdraft, not speculative froth. And as we are seeing, that means the correlation will likely be similarly high in what would normally be a reversal, and that in turn increases the odds that it can amplify quickly into something more serious.
The only way to stem this unhealthy pattern of cross market connection is structural measures, meaning measures to reduce the tight coupling of financial markets which allows developments in one market to propagate quickly to seemingly not so closely related markets. But we are a long way away from seeing the authorities consider, much the less act, to stem the free flow of capital, which has long been depicted as virtuous. The work of Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff on financial crises shows the reverse, that high levels of international capital flows are strongly correlated with larger and more severe implosions. But we may have to test the current system to destruction before we can develop the will to fix it.
From Bloomberg:
Commodities plunged the most since 2009, led by oil and silver, and stocks posted the biggest three-day drop since March as selling of energy futures drove down equities. The dollar strengthened and Treasuries jumped.It’s premature to call this anything other than a sharp correction. Recall in February 2007 that a plunge in Chinese stock markets produced two weeks of jangled nerves and roiled markets, and May 2010, the first serious dose of Euromarket sovereign debt worries, was no party either, yet the markets appeared to shrug those events off. But the underlying financial system has been patched up with duct tape and baling wire, and the thorniest issues, namely, undercapitalized banks and global imbalances (both China-US and within the Eurozone) remain unaddressed. The “It’s not a global financial crisis” sounds awfully reminiscent of “subprime is contained.” It was until it wasn’t.
The Standard & Poor’s GSCI index of 24 commodities sank 6.5 percent at 4:01 p.m. in New York and lost 9.9 percent this week. Oil tumbled 8.6 percent, the most in two years, to $99.80 a barrel. Silver dropped 8 percent, extending the biggest four-day slump since 1983 to 25 percent…..
Selling swept commodities markets as investors sold positions following gains of more than 23 percent in 2011 through April 29 by silver, oil, gasoline, coffee and cotton. The dollar, which slumped 13 percent versus the euro between Jan. 7 and May 2 as the S&P 500 Index rallied 7.2 percent, strengthened against all 16 major counterparts except the yen after European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet signaled he will wait until after June to raise interest rates.
“It’s panic,” said Michael Shaoul, chairman of Marketfield Asset Management, which oversees $1 billion in New York. “You have those super crowded trades. Now you’re in liquidation mode. There’s nothing to do with weak U.S. economic data. It’s not a global financial crisis. It’s a classic liquidation move in a crowded trade.”
Via : Yves Smith NakedCapitalism
Republicans to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Drop Dead
In a new effort to guarantee the continued right of banks to loot and pillage, 44 Republican senators have written to Obama saying that they won’t approve of any head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ex what these Ministers of Truth choose to call a “restructuring” of the agency.The arguments made against the agency strain credulity. As the New York Times reports:
“This is about accountability,” said Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Banking Committee. “The bureau, as currently structured, lacks any semblance of the checks and balances inherent in the Constitution. Everyone supports consumer protection, but we should never entrust a single person with this much power and public money.”Shelby’s blustering is about the CFPB’s budget, which is to be 12% of the Fed’s total. That would make it roughly half the size of the not terribly effective SEC. But Congress controls the SEC’s funding, and there is a direct relationship between what a joke the agency has become and regular threats to cut off its air supply (particularly from the senator from Hedgistan, Joe Lieberman). By contrast, the far more effective FDIC (which has a bigger budget than the SEC) keeps its fees and doesn’t have to go begging to Congress (note the SEC is a profit center and actually uses less money than it collects from the securities industry). Note that the unhappy Republicans are also calling for the CFPB to have a board, as the FDIC does, but that issue is a mere sideshow to the budgetary question.
So Shelby is lying on two fronts: that there are no financial regulators free from Congressional thumbscrews, and that it will have a large amount of money and independence.
And if he really is worried about rich, powerful, rogue financial regulators, why isn’t he taking aim at the Fed first and foremost? It fits his profile far better than the CFPB does.
The real issue, of course, is that an effective CFPB will commit crimes against banking (note that crimes against banking can get you put in jail in Switzerland and they don’t mean just robbing banks. Damaging the reputation of banks also qualifies). Financial firms have behaved so badly in the consumer arena that even a half-hearted effort at consumer protection will inevitably create bad press about banking practices. So it is absolutely necessary to hobble the agency. Warren is not exaggerating when she says:
“Every day, somebody’s got a plan to undercut this agency, to knock it down,” she said. “The conversation is effectively: ‘Oh, we’d really like to kill this thing but it might be too popular for that — that might cause too much blowback. So can we find a way to maim it?’”Warren has been seen as a non-starter as a head of the agency because she’d never be confirmed. But the requirement that the chief be in place by July 21 necessitates a recess appointment, which would circumvent the approval process. The Republicans are making clear that if that happens, they will extract a few pounds of flesh, say in budget fights.
It was pretty much assumed that the Administration would find someone less inflammatory but still fitting vaguely under the “liberal” brand (particularly now that “liberal” extends well into the center right) to appease the right wing hotheads and still look like they had not completely capitulated. But now that Warren has been doing a good job in staffing up the agency (one of the criticisms made of her was she was a mere academic and hence incapable of running an organization) and various candidates have turned the Administration down, her fans are talking up the idea that she will indeed get the nod.
I’d be delighted for that to be the case, but I don’t see that happening. America is a very big place, and I’m sure if the powers that be look further, they can find someone who will appear adequate. In fact, there might be some logic in holding the “see aren’t you glad this isn’t Warren” candidate back as long as possible to increase Republican anxiety (as in they waste energy shooting at Warren when she isn’t in the running).
Nevertheless, this sorry episode again proves that the primary objective of most members of the ruling classes is preserving and extending their power. Every account of the crisis has shown that bad mortgage lending practices were a major culprit. Having consumers be smarter and better protected should logically be a plus unless your business model depends on cheating them. So the vociferous attacks on the CFPB should clear up any doubts on that front.
via:Yves Smith NakedCapitalism
Posted: 06 May 2011 02:43 AM PDT
We’ve taken a dim view of the “worse than stress tests” review by Federal regulators of foreclosure practices late last fall. This was an obvious effort to alleviate concerns in the wake of the robo-signing scandal. When the bank-friendly OCC released the results of the review, the guts of which was a look at 2800 seriously delinquent loans from all the major servicers, it confirmed our reservations:Can you see what a garbage in, garbage out exercise this was? This is all a limited review of the servicers’ internal records, with no external validation. This process is inherently incapable of capturing numerous abuses flagged in the media and in this and other blogs, including document forgeries (production of allonges to cover for the failure to convey notes correctly), loss or deliberate late application of payments; the application of “junk fees” and impermissible fee pyramiding; notes held at the originator rather than the trust (notice the failure to audit trustees), lack of cross checking of servicer claims re servicing with borrower experiences. The HAMP fiascoes alone, with repeated servicer false claims of document losses, should lead to serious skepticism about servicer claims about the integrity of their internal processes.The GAO has just released a useful report that gives an overview of servicing, describes how regulation of it is fragmentary and incomplete, and recommends that the CFPB develop a plan for how to regulate servicers and that banking regulators look more seriously at documentation risk.
And it is also impossible for Walsh’s statement about standing to have any solid foundation without a 50 state review of foreclosure actions as well as a legal analysis of the New York trust theory discussed in Congressional hearings, Congressional Oversight Panel reports and on this blog. There is not evidence that any such review took place in either the original Treasury project description, the Walsh retrospective comments, or the staffing (which would require the involvement of considerable outside resources to even take a stab at the task in a mere eight weeks).
The banking regulators are so obviously corrupt or at best deeply captured that they no longer even do a remotely credible job of covering for their abdication of their role. And until the media starts to call them out on it, it is certain to continue.
The GAO also discussed the famed foreclosure task force review, and its commentary bore out some of the charges we made. They noted that the files chosen were a small sample, clearly chosen to be a mix. The GAO refrained from using language critical of the process, but reading between the lines, made it clear that this selection process was not rigorous, but was an informally designed but hopefully indicative sample. This section was telling:
The reviews did not include an analysis of the payment history of each loan prior to foreclosure or potential mortgage-servicing issues outside of the foreclosure process. For example, examiners focused their reviews on foreclosure procedures and documentation preparation and did not examine whether servicers had followed other requirements, such as FHA requirements for assessing the borrower for a loan modification or other loss mitigation alternatives, before initiating foreclosure…Lawsuits like Ibanez, in which two servicers had over a year of appeals to find notes and prove chain of title and instead came up emptyhanded, as well as numerous other cases where the notes have been missing, have “tah dah” allonges, or where the foreclosure mill changes the story of how the note got from the originator to the courthouse several times casts considerable doubt on the largely clean bill of health produced by this Federal review. In fact, the issue is often not the inability to locate the note, but that the chain of title is problematic. Consider this language from the widely discussed Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Ibanez decision:
However, bank regulatory officials told us that examiners did not always verify, as part of the loan file review process, whether documentation included a record of all previous mortgage transfers from loan origination to foreclosure initiation, as may be required by some state laws or contracts.55 In addition, with some exceptions, examiners found that notes appeared properly endorsed and mortgages appeared properly assigned. In a few instances, examiners uncovered notes that were not properly endorsed, which could subject the servicer to challenges on its authority or standing to foreclose. Additionally, while each of the regulators stated that servicers could generally produce requested documentation, servicers at times had required some time to find necessary documents
The plaintiff banks, who brought these cases to clear the titles that they acquired at their own foreclosure sales, have simply failed to prove that the underlying assignments of the mortgages that they allege (and would have) entitled them to foreclose ever existed in any legally cognizable form before they exercised the power of sale that accompanies those assignments.As MBS Guy noted:
I am even more convinced that the failure of the banks’ attorneys to track down the actual legal documents was not “carelessness”….As we indicated in our earlier mini-rant, there were significant “see no evil” gaps in this foreclosure study. The GAO is directionally correct, that certain important issues were not probed, but by being too trusting of the regulators and by not knowing this terrain in depth, missed the scope and significance of the issues that were not investigated.
I suspect the foreclosing attorneys requested the documents and the requests were rejected by clever attorneys for the issuers who saw the potential liability and didn’t want to create a clear paper trail back to them.
If the low level foreclosing attorney looks incompetent in assembling his case, that’s one thing. If a big Wall Street law firm made a major mistake about the legal basis for selling loans without proper title in Massachusetts or any other state, well, that’s a whole different story.
Help Us Fight The republican War on Women!
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Dear Reader
The House just passed a bill that could force rape and incest survivors to prove to the IRS that they were assaulted.1
And now they are even threatening hold our entire economy hostage over it by attaching the contents of the bill to essential legislation that raises the debt ceiling. If the debt ceiling bill does not pass then it would devastate our economy—and Republicans want to use this threat to force Senate Democrats into voting for a bill with these anti-choice provisions included.2
It's absolutely outrageous. That's why we are teaming up with our friends at EMILY's List to pressure the Senate to reject this and other terrible attacks on the rights and well-being of women.
Can you sign our joint petition right now? Tell the Senate to stand up against this terrible bill—and speak out against the Republican war on women.
H.R. 3 would impose tax penalties on small businesses and individuals who buy abortion coverage with their own money—with exceptions only for cases of rape, incest, or when a woman's life is in danger.3
The result? Survivors of rape and incest who seek abortion care could be forced to detail their assaults and provide proof to IRS investigators.4
Reliving a horrific sexual assault to the police and in court is awful enough. Forcing women to prove to IRS investigators that they were assaulted is simply inhumane.
Unfortunately, H.R. 3 is just one horrendous part of a full-scale war on women. House Republicans have been churning out one vile bill after another that impinges on women's rights, health, and the constitutionally protected right to choice. It's clear their top priorities are not jobs and the economy.
Republicans clearly have no boundaries when it comes to attacking women's rights. But just as when they attempted to redefine rape, we can stop them from passing this anti-choice bill and subjecting rape survivors to inhumane interrogations—if we all speak out.
Can you sign the petition today? Just click below—and share this email with your friends, family, and social networks today.
Thanks for all you do.
–Kat, Wes, Carrie, Michael, and the rest of the team Sources:
1. "GOP Bill Would Force IRS to Conduct Abortion Audits," Mother Jones, March 18, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=
2. "Republicans Could Force Anti-Abortion Bill Into Debt Limit Compromise," Firedoglake, May 4, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=
3. "If H.R. 3 Becomes Law: One Woman's Story,'" National Women's Law Center, April 27, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=
4. "GOP Bill Would Force IRS to Conduct Abortion Audits," Mother Jones, March 18, 2011
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=
5/3/11
Posted: 02 May 2011 11:25 PM PDT
How does Goldman get away with it again and again? Is it simply bribery? Well, we don’t call it bribes in advanced economies, since big fish typically have more complicated and indirect ways of rewarding people who help them out, but it amounts to the same thing. Or do they have the five by seven glossies on people in key positions of influence?The latest sighting is in Private Eye, courtesy Michael Thomas. This is comparatively penny-ante stuff compared to other instances of Goldman winning at the expense of the general public. Here, the firm engaged in what is politely called a tax avoidance scheme:
The scheme concerned an offshore “employee benefit trust” used to pay bonuses to Goldman’s London bankers, who for secrecy reasons are employed by a British Virgin Islands company called Goldman Sachs Services Ltd. In London they legally work on secondment to UK-based Goldman Sachs International. The trust, it was planned, would enable the bank and its bankers to avoid national insurance running to £23m through a convoluted share purchase arrangement.So the Goldman staffers underpaid the taxman by £23 million.
21 other companies tried the same trick. HM Revenue & Customs got settlements from all of them in 2005 in large measure because court decisions on employee benefit trusts came down in favor of the government. But Goldman tried to wriggle out of it:
Goldman, by contrast, hung out on the technicality that HMRC was pursuing its UK company for the NIC when it should have gone for the BVI one. That required Goldman to claim that the BVI company had a UK “presence”, an argument that collapsed embarrassingly at a tribunal hearing in December 2009 when HMRC produced a letter from Goldman’s tax director, Mike Housden, claiming – in order not to incur a corporation tax charge – that the BVI company did no business at all in the UK!So Goldman clearly owes that £23 million plus interest from 2005, which is roughly an additional £20 million. As important, the HMRC had implemented the policy in 2007 of “litigation and settlement strategy” which translates into: “If our legal advice is strong, do not accept settlements for less than 100 percent of the tax and interest due”. And the advice they had gotten from outside counsel on the Goldman case was that their position was very strong.
So…the new head of HMRC, Dave Hartnett, lets Goldman slip the noose. Per Private Eye:
Papers seen by the Eye reveal that Hartnett personally “shook hands” on a deal over a long-running dispute concerning a tax avoidance scheme going back to 2002, without consulting HMRC lawyers (as he didn’t over Vodafone), and in the process unlawfully letting the US bank off around £20m.Despite some consternation among the lawyers, the deal went through:
When HMRC’s lawyers, led by general counsel Anthony Inglese, met to discuss the deal in December after Hartnett had presented it as a fait accompli to HMRC’s “high risk corporates” board, there was unanimous disapproval since it breached both the law and HMRC’s own policies. But somehow, rather than point this out to Hartnett or anybody else, Inglese approved the settlement.Private Eye wonders what winks and nods were involved:
The cushy settlement may or may not be related to a simple entry on Dave Hartnett’s hospitality register for May 2009 which shows that, as the dispute raged, he took “supper” at “Goldman Sachs office”.UK Uncut is not going to get very far if people like Hartnett and Inglese are permitted to ride roughshod over official policy and allow rich bankers to pay less than they owe. I hope the organization takes note and includes craven and possibly complicit officials in its campaign targets.
Via ; Yves Smith Naked Capitalism
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| Breadline NYC 1935 FDR mus. Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Mus. |
GuestPost:Gallup Poll Shows that More Americans Believe the U.S. is in a Depression than is Growing ... Are They Right?
via :Washington's blog
Consumer confidence is, well ... in somewhat of a depression.Reuters reports today:
The April 20-23 Gallup survey of 1,013 U.S. adults found that only 27 percent said the economy is growing. Twenty-nine percent said the economy is in a depression and 26 percent said it is in a recession, with another 16 percent saying it is "slowing down," Gallup said.Tyler Durden notes:
That means that more Americans think the country is in a Depression, let alone recession, than growing.How can so many Americans believe that we're in a depression, when the stock market and commodity prices have been booming? As I noted last week:
Instead of directly helping the American people, the government threw trillions at the giant banks (including foreign banks; and see this) . The big banks have - in turn - used a lot of that money to speculate in commodities, including food and other items which are now driving up the price of consumer necessities [as well as stocks]. Instead of using the money to hire Americans, they're hiring abroad (and getting tax refunds from the government).But don't rising stock prices help create wealth?
Not really. As I pointed out in January:
A rising stock market doesn't help the average American as much as you might assume.Indeed, most stocks are held for only a couple of moments - and aren't held by mom and pop investors.
For example, Robert Shiller noted in 2001:
We have examined the wealth effect with a cross-sectional time-series data sets that are more comprehensive than any applied to the wealth effect before and with a number of different econometric specifications. The statistical results are variable depending on econometric specification, and so any conclusion must be tentative. Nevertheless, the evidence of a stock market wealth effect is weak; the common presumption that there is strong evidence for the wealth effect is not supported in our results. However, we do find strong evidence that variations in housing market wealth have important effects upon consumption. This evidence arises consistently using panels of U.S. states and individual countries and is robust to differences in model specification. The housing market appears to be more important than the stock market in influencing consumption in developed countries.I pointed out in March:
Even Alan Greenspan recently called the recovery "extremely unbalanced," driven largely by high earners benefiting from recovering stock markets and large corporations.I noted in May:
***
As economics professor and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich writes today in an outstanding piece:
Some cheerleaders say rising stock prices make consumers feel wealthier and therefore readier to spend. But to the extent most Americans have any assets at all their net worth is mostly in their homes, and those homes are still worth less than they were in 2007. The "wealth effect" is relevant mainly to the richest 10 percent of Americans, most of whose net worth is in stocks and bonds.
As of 2007, the bottom 50% of the U.S. population owned only one-half of one percent of all stocks, bonds and mutual funds in the U.S. On the other hand, the top 1% owned owned 50.9%.And last month Professor G. William Domhoff updated his "Who Rules America" study, showing that the richest 10% own 98.5% of all financial securities, and that:
***
(Of course, the divergence between the wealthiest and the rest has only increased since 2007.)
The top 10% have 80% to 90% of stocks, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of non-home real estate. Since financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10% of the people own the United States of America.
How Bad?How bad are things for the little guy?
Well, as I noted in January, the housing slump is worse than during the Great Depression.
As CNN Money points out today:
Wal-Mart's core shoppers are running out of money much faster than a year ago due to rising gasoline prices, and the retail giant is worried, CEO Mike Duke said Wednesday.And - in case you still think that the 29% of Americans who think we're in a depression are unduly pessimistic - take a look at what I wrote last December:
"We're seeing core consumers under a lot of pressure," Duke said at an event in New York. "There's no doubt that rising fuel prices are having an impact."
Wal-Mart shoppers, many of whom live paycheck to paycheck, typically shop in bulk at the beginning of the month when their paychecks come in.
Lately, they're "running out of money" at a faster clip, he said.
"Purchases are really dropping off by the end of the month even more than last year," Duke said. "This end-of-month [purchases] cycle is growing to be a concern.
The following experts have - at some point during the last 2 years - said that the economic crisis could be worse than the Great Depression:
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- Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke
- Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan (and see this and this)
- Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker
- Economics scholar and former Federal Reserve Governor Frederic Mishkin
- The head of the Bank of England Mervyn King
- Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz
- Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman
- Former Goldman Sachs chairman John Whitehead
- Economics professors Barry Eichengreen and and Kevin H. O'Rourke (updated here)
- Investment advisor, risk expert and "Black Swan" author Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Well-known PhD economist Marc Faber
- Morgan Stanley’s UK equity strategist Graham Secker
- Former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae Edward J. Pinto
- Billionaire investor George Soros
- Senior British minister Ed Balls
States and Cities In Worst Shape Since the Great Depression
States and cities are in dire financial straits, and many may default in 2011.
California is issuing IOUs for only the second time since the Great Depression.
Things haven't been this bad for state and local governments since the 30s.
Loan Loss Rate Higher than During the Great Depression
In October 2009, I reported:
In May, analyst Mike Mayo predicted that the bank loan loss rate would be higher than during the Great Depression.Indeed, top economists such as Anna Schwartz, James Galbraith, Nouriel Roubini and others have pointed out that while banks faced a liquidity crisis during the Great Depression, today they are wholly insolvent. See this, this, this and this. Insolvency is much more severe than a shortage of liquidity.
In a new report, Moody's has just confirmed (as summarized by Zero Hedge):
The most recent rate of bank charge offs, which hit $45 billion in the past quarter, and have now reached a total of $116 billion, is at 3.4%, which is substantially higher than the 2.25% hit in 1932, before peaking at at 3.4% rate by 1934.And see this.
Here's a chart summarizing the findings:
(click here for full chart).
Unemployment at or Near Depression Levels
USA Today reports today:
So many Americans have been jobless for so long that the government is changing how it records long-term unemployment.The following chart from Calculated Risk shows that this is not a normal spike in unemployment:
Citing what it calls "an unprecedented rise" in long-term unemployment, the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), beginning Saturday, will raise from two years to five years the upper limit on how long someone can be listed as having been jobless.
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The change is a sign that bureau officials "are afraid that a cap of two years may be 'understating the true average duration' — but they won't know by how much until they raise the upper limit," says Linda Barrington, an economist who directs the Institute for Compensation Studies at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
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"The BLS doesn't make such changes lightly," Barrington says. Stacey Standish, a bureau assistant press officer, says the two-year limit has been used for 33 years.
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Although "this feels like something we've not experienced" since the Great Depression, she says, economists need more information to be sure.
As does this chart from Clusterstock:
As I noted in October:
It is difficult to compare current unemployment with that during the Great Depression. In the Depression, unemployment numbers weren't tracked very consistently, and the U-3 and U-6 statistics we use today weren't used back then. And statistical "adjustments" such as the "birth-death model" are being used today that weren't used in the 1930s.And see this, this, and this.
But let's discuss the facts we do know.
The Wall Street Journal noted in July 2009:
The average length of unemployment is higher than it's been since government began tracking the data in 1948.The Christian Science Monitor wrote an article in June entitled, "Length of unemployment reaches Great Depression levels".
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The job losses are also now equal to the net job gains over the previous nine years, making this the only recession since the Great Depression to wipe out all job growth from the previous expansion.
60 Minutes - in a must-watch segment - notes that our current situation tops the Great Depression in one respect: never have we had a recession this deep with a recovery this flat. 60 Minutes points out that unemployment has been at 9.5% or above for 14 months:
Food Stamps Replace Soup Kitchens
1 out of every 7 Americans now rely on food stamps.
While we don't see soup kitchens, it may only be because so many Americans are receiving food stamps.
Indeed, despite the dramatic photographs we've all seen of the 1930s, the 43 million Americans relying on food stamps to get by may actually be much greater than the number who relied on soup kitchens during the Great Depression.
In addition, according to Chaz Valenza (a small business owner in New Jersey who earned his MBA from New York University's Stern School of Business) millions of Americans are heading to foodbanks for the first time in their lives.
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The War Isn't Working
Given the above facts, it would seem that the government hasn't been doing much. But the scary thing is that the government has done more than during the Great Depression, but the economy is still stuck a pit.
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The amount spent in emergency bailouts, loans and subsidies during this financial crisis arguably dwarfs the amount which the government spent during the New Deal.
For example, Casey Research wrote in 2008:
Paulson and Bernanke have embarked on the largest bailout program ever conceived .... a program which so far will cost taxpayers $8.5 trillion.
[The updated, exact number can be disputed. But as shown below, the exact number of trillions of dollars is not that important.]
So how does $8.5 trillion dollars compare with the cost of some of the major conflicts and programs initiated by the US government since its inception? To try and grasp the enormity of this figure, let’s look at some other financial commitments undertaken by our government in the past:
As illustrated above, one can see that in today’s dollar, we have already committed to spending levels that surpass the cumulative cost of all of the major wars and government initiatives since the American Revolution.
Recently, the Congressional Research Service estimated the cost of all of the major wars our country has fought in 2008 dollars. The chart above shows that the entire cost of WWII over four to five years was less than half the current pledges made by Paulson and Bernanke in the last three months!
In spite of years of conflict, the Vietnam and the Iraq wars have each cost less than the bailout package that was approved by Congress in two weeks. The Civil War that devastated our country had a total price tag (for both the Union and Confederacy) of $60.4 billion, while the Revolutionary War was fought for a mere $1.8 billion.
In its fifty or so years of existence, NASA has only managed to spend $885 billion – a figure which got us to the moon and beyond.
The New Deal had a price tag of only $500 billion. The Marshall Plan that enabled the reconstruction of Europe following WWII for $13 billion, comes out to approximately $125 billion in 2008 dollars. The cost of fixing the S&L crisis was $235 billion.
CNBC confirms that the New Deal cost about $500 billion (and the S&L crisis cost around $256 billion) in inflation adjusted dollars.Why Haven't Things Gotten Better for the Little Guy?
So even though the government's spending on the "war" on the economic crisis dwarfs the amount spent on the New Deal, our economy is still stuck in the mud.
Government leaders make happy talk about how things are improving, but happy talk cannot fix the economy.
Two fundamental causes of the Great Depression, and of our current economic problems, are fraud and inequality:
- Fraud was one of the main causes of the Depression, but nothing has been done to rein in fraud today
- Inequality was another major cause of downturns - including the Depression - but inequality is currently worse than during the Depression
Posted: 01 May 2011 01:06 PM PDT
→ Washington’s BlogGovernment scientists and media shills are now “reexamining” old studies that show that radioactive substances like plutonium cause cancer and arguing that exposure to low doses of radiation is good for us (a theory called “hormesis”).
It is not just bubbleheads like Ann Coulter and pro-nuclear hacks like Lawrence Solomon are saying it as well. In virtually every discussion on the risk of nuclear radiation, someone post comments arguing that a little radiation makes us healthier.
However, the official position is that there is insufficient data to support the hormesis theory: As Wikipedia notes:
Consensus reports by the United States National Research Council and the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) have upheld that insufficient human data on radiation hormesis exists to supplant the Linear no-threshold model (LNT). Therefore, the LNT continues to be the model generally used by regulatory agencies for human radiation exposure.See this, this, this and this.
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The notion of radiation hormesis has been rejected by the National Research Council’s (part of the National Academy of Sciences) 16 year long study on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation. “The scientific research base shows that there is no threshold of exposure below which low levels of ionizing radiation can be demonstrated to be harmless or beneficial.
Most proponents of the hormesis theory claim that data from the residents of Nagasaki and Hiroshima shows that residents exposed to low levels of radiation (i.e. some miles from the bomb blasts) lived longer than residents who lived so far away that they were not exposed to any radiation.
However, as Reuters noted in 2000:
Japanese survivors of the atomic bomb have their life expectancy reduced by an average about 4 months, which does not support claims that survivors exposed to low levels of radiation live longer than comparable unexposed individuals.A large study of bone cancer in survivors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima published in March of this year also showed no hormesis, but rather increased cancer risk even at low doses. (See this and this for more evidence that low levels of radiation can cause cancer.)
To clarify the question of whether atomic bomb survivors have enhanced or reduced life expectancy, Drs. John B. Cologne and Dale L. Preston from the Radiation Effects Research Foundation, Hiroshima, Japan, studied 120,321 survivors and estimated their radiation exposure and mortality rates after 45 years of follow up.
They report in the July 22nd issue of The Lancet that median life expectancy fell by about 1.3 years per Gy of estimated radiation dose, and declined faster at higher doses. At doses below 1 Gy, median life expectancy fell by about 2 months, while exposures of greater than 1 Gy resulted in a median loss of life of 2.6 years.
Drs. Cologne and Preston estimate that at a dose of 1 Gy, 60% of those exposed died from solid cancer, 30% from illnesses other than cancer, and 10% from leukemia.
“These results are important in light of the recent finding that radiation significantly increases mortality rates for causes other than cancer,” they write.
Other data has also been misinterpreted by those who advocate that a little radiation is good for you. For example, the above-quoted Wikipedia article notes:
In popular treatments of radiation hormesis, a study of the inhabitants of apartment buildings in Taiwan has received prominent attention. The building materials had been accidentally contaminated with Cobalt-60 but the study found cancer mortality rates more than 20 times lower than in the population as a whole. However, this study compared the relatively young irradiated population with the much older general population of Taiwan, which is a major flaw. A subsequent study by Hwang et al. (2006) found a significant exposure-dependent increase in cancer in the irradiated population, particularly leukemia in men and thyroid cancer in women, though this trend is only detected amongst those who were first exposed before the age of 30. This study also found that rate of total cancer cases was lower than expected.Even If Hormesis is Real, We’ve Got Too Much of a Good Thing
Even if the accepted scientific consensus is wrong and hormesis is real, we’re getting too much of a good thing.
As I’ve previously noted:
There Are NO Background Levels of Radioactive Caesium or IodineSimilarly, I’ve pointed out:
Wikipedia provides some details on the distribution of cesium-137 due to human activities:
Small amounts of caesium-134 and caesium-137 were released into the environment during nearly all nuclear weapon tests and some nuclear accidents, most notably the Chernobyl disaster. As of 2005, caesium-137 is the principal source of radiation in the zone of alienation around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Together with caesium-134, iodine-131, and strontium-90, caesium-137 was among the isotopes with greatest health impact distributed by the reactor explosion.As the EPA notes:
The mean contamination of caesium-137 in Germany following the Chernobyl disaster was 2000 to 4000 Bq/m2. This corresponds to a contamination of 1 mg/km2 of caesium-137, totaling about 500 grams deposited over all of Germany.Caesium-137 is unique in that it is totally anthropogenic. Unlike most other radioisotopes, caesium-137 is not produced from its non-radioactive isotope, but from uranium. It did not occur in nature before nuclear weapons testing began. By observing the characteristic gamma rays emitted by this isotope, it is possible to determine whether the contents of a given sealed container were made before or after the advent of atomic bomb explosions. This procedure has been used by researchers to check the authenticity of certain rare wines, most notably the purported “Jefferson bottles”.
Cesium-133 is the only naturally occurring isotope and is non-radioactive; all other isotopes, including cesium-137, are produced by human activity.So there was no “background radiation” for caesium-137 before above-ground nuclear testing and nuclear accidents such as Chernobyl.
The Argonne National Laboratory notes:In other words, even if a little radiation is good for us, we have already been getting exposed to a lot more radiation – from nuclear weapons tests, Chernobyl, Japan and other sources – than our ancestors were ever exposed to.
Essentially all the plutonium on earth has been created within the past six decades by human activities involving fissionable materials.So like radioactive cesium and iodide – which I discussed yesterday – plutonium doesn’t exist in nature in any significant quantity, and so “background radiation” is a meaningless concept.
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Atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, which ceased worldwide by 1980, generated most environmental plutonium. About 10,000 kg were released to the atmosphere during these tests.
Average plutonium levels in surface soil from fallout range from about 0.01 to 0.1 picocurie per gram (pCi/g).
Accidents and other releases from weapons production facilities have caused greater localized contamination.
Indeed, even if the studies did show that low level exposure by the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki helped them live longer, background radiation in 1945 was much lower than after above-ground nuclear tests, Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Other Toxic Exposures
It’s not only apologists for the safety-averse nuclear power industry which is trying to convince us of hormesis. Apologists for all big polluters are arguing hormesis as well.
Wikipedia describes the general theory:
Hormesis … is the term for generally favorable biological responses to low exposures to toxins and other stressors.Even if radiation hormesis is true, we are exposed to a wide range of toxic chemicals, including BPA in our cans, rocket fuel in our drinking water, mercury in our fish, and many others.
Even if any toxic substances might have a hormesis effect in a vacuum, we are not exposed to chemicals in a vacuum … we are exposed to several chemicals at the same time. Indeed, scientists long ago demonstrated the “synergistic effect” of toxins, where:
The combined effect of the substances acting together is greater than the sum of the effects of the substances acting by themselves .For example, smokers are much more likely to get cancer from exposure to radioactive radon gas than non-smokers.
So even if there is hormesis from a chemical at low doses (hormesis promoters claim that low level exposures cause our body to produce a wave of antioxidants and other cancer-fighters), by the time we get swamped with the myriad of toxic chemicals and radiation exposures present in modern life, our body’s defense mechanisms become so overextended that any hormesis effect is lost.
The bottom line: Some more radiation from Japan or a new nuclear power plant will not be good for us.
used via :Naked Capitalism/ crossposted:Washington Blog
| News of the movement for May 2, 2011 |
 Comcast Must Do Better on Local News to Meet Merger Promises A new Free Press report, "No News Is Bad News," reveals deep disparities between the amount of local news offered on Comcast's English- and Spanish-language stations. Free Press How the Bin Laden Announcement Leaked Out The nation's TV anchors and newspaper editors did not know, at first, that President Barack Obama would be announcing the death of Osama bin Laden, an extraordinary development in the nearly 10-year-long war against terrorism waged by the United States and its allies. But reporters in Washington suspected almost immediately that the announcement could be about bin Laden. Brian Stelter, New York Times Osama Bin Laden Dead, the Story Twitter Broke Word that Obama would be making an announcement started spreading around 10:30 p.m. But Keith Urbahn, chief of staff for the office of the former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, appears to be the first to have broken the news that Osama bin Laden was dead -- via his @keithurbahn Twitter feed. Tyler Gray, Fast Company Stages of News in a Twitter and Facebook Era This evening, as we learn about the death of Osama bin Laden, we're seeing firsthand what happens when the real-time, immediate notifications of Facebook and Twitter meet real-world events. It's not the first time, but the death of Osama bin Laden is truly a global event in the way that Prince William and Kate Middleton's marriage was not, or even what the protests in Egypt and Libya are not. Stacey Higginbotham, GigaOM Lara Logan on Egypt Sexual Assault: Mob Was 'Trying to Tear My Limbs off My Body' In her first interview since the incident, the CBS News chief foreign correspondent describes her attack, which was perpetrated by an estimated 200-300 men. Hollywood Reporter Why Media's Excessive Royal Wedding Coverage Is Appalling and Wrong It has become fashionable to bash the saturation coverage of the royal wedding, but the the problem isn't with the amount of coverage, or even the expense, but with what it costs us. This spectacle illustrates the degree to which profit-driven "giving the people what they want" has undercut journalism's true purpose. Colby Hall, Mediaite  FCC Offers Public a Chance to Chime in on AT&T-T-Mobile Deal If AT&T joins forces with T-Mobile, the number of top national wireless phone service competitors in the United States will shrink from four to three. The FCC wants to make sure that the move will be in the best interests of the people who keep these companies alive, which is to say, anyone who owns a cellphone. In that spirit, the government agency is turning to the public for opinions on the planned deal. Adam Rosenberg, Digital Trends Press Not Buying AT&T Spectrum Claims Even the normally unskeptical and pliable technology press is having a hard time buying any of AT&T's spectrum arguments Karl Bode, Broadband Reports Wireless Consolidation: How Did We Get Here? The wireless industry as we know it was built by consolidation, but as more and more people rely on mobile broadband, the stakes are much higher. Do we really want what is effectively a duopoly in wireless to mirror the duopoly we already have in wireline? Stacey Higginbotham, GigaOM  Shed a Tear: The Age of Broadband Caps Has Begun AT&T has begun restricting more than 16 million broadband users based on the amount of data they use in a month. The No. 2 carrier's entry into the broadband-cap club means that a majority of U.S. broadband users will now be subject to limits on how much they can do online or risk extra charges as ugly as video store late fees. Ryan Singel, Wired CBS Plans to Keep Its Spectrum CBS has taken a slightly less adversarial tone toward the FCC's spectrum reclamation plan than the National Association of Broadcasters, group owners representing hundreds of TV stations and state broadcast associations. And since it says it is not going to be selling out its spectrum, or planning to share it with other stations, CBS put an emphasis on the FCC making sure those left behind are still in control of their own destiny. John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable Ham Radio Volunteers Worry About Spectrum Plan Across Alabama, emergency communications systems fell silent this week when tornadoes knocked down antennas and cellphone towers. Amateur radio operators are helping to restore emergency communication in some of the areas hardest hit by the storms. But those volunteers say their ability to provide that help is threatened by a new bill in Congress. Joel Rose, NPR |  A new Free Press report, No News Is Bad News: An Analysis of Comcast-NBC Universal Compliance with FCC Localism Conditions, offers the first glimpse of Comcast’s compliance with a merger condition required by the FCC that seeks to increase local news programming at Telemundo and NBC stations owned and operated by Comcast. Read the report here.   FTC May Be on Verge of Launching Google Probe The Federal Trade Commission appears to be in the early stage of a broad antitrust investigation of Google. Agency officials have begun contacting companies recently and signaled that the commission plans to launch a probe of whether Google is abusing its dominance in search and search advertising. Politico White House Masters Wild Web Obama’s White House is the first to fully confront the frenetic pace of agenda-setting in the age of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. As the administration struggles to push its own message through the clutter, White House officials are intensifying efforts to maximize their online audience, modernize their message dissemination and integrate that message with mobile applications and other social media tools. Politico iPhone and Android Users Face Many Companies Who Want to Know Where They Are The disclosure of a hidden file on iPhones late last month drew an outcry because it seemed to record users' every move. But that isn't the only way mobile phone users' movements are being tracked. San Jose Mercury News Facebook Serves 25 Percent of Display Ads Facebook accounted for more than one-quarter -- 25.8 percent -- of all U.S. display ad impressions in the fourth quarter of 2010. MediaPost NBC-Comcast Merger Signals End of Versus.com The cable sports channel Versus, which is now under control of NBC Universal, is starting to reflect the recent Comcast-NBC merger. The channel's website, Versus.com is no more, as it is now under the NBC Sports umbrella. Going to Versus.com will redirect you to NBCsports.msnbc.com where there is no Versus branding. NESN Company Creates Electronic Chip to Track Hotel Bathrobes Your days of helping yourself to a free hotel towel or bathrobe are over. A Miami company has patented a washable radio frequency identification chip that can be sewn into towels, bathrobes and bed sheets so hotels can keep track of their linens. Reuters   The Engagement Metric May 4-May 5: Columbia, MO FCC May Open Meeting May 12: Washington, DC Create or Die 2: Journalism That Matters Jun 2-Jun 5: Greensboro, NC Personal Democracy Forum Jun 6-Jun 7: New York, NY FCC June Open Meeting Jun 9: Washington, DC Netroots Nation Jun 16-Jun 19: Minneapolis, MN FCC July Open Meeting Jul 12: Washington, DC |
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