China Daily:
“In spite of all the government’s tough talk against excessive home price hikes, the record land price for residential housing in Beijing was broken twice on Monday thanks to aggressive bids by State-owned enterprises.
The weeklong postponement of the land auction seemingly served to save policymakers, who were explaining to the National People’s Congress how [...]
Bloomberg reports:
“Congressional leaders are raising to 3.8 percent their proposed new Medicare tax on investment income in the final health-care overhaul plan, a Democratic leadership aide said.
The rate is higher than the 2.9 percent President Barack Obama proposed in February. Under Obama’s proposal, the new tax would apply to income from interest, dividends, annuities, royalties, [...]
The Associated Press reports that the banks weren’t the only ones handing out bonuses:
“Banks weren’t the only ones giving big bonuses in the boom years before the worst financial crisis in generations. The government also was handing out millions of dollars to bank regulators, rewarding “superior” work even as an avalanche of risky mortgages helped [...]
The head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Peter Turkson, has moved away from his predecessor’s support for developing genetically modified food to alleviate hunger in poor countries. Instead, he argues that adoption of the “precautionary principle” is warranted:
“There are a lot of claims that are disputed (like) that GMOs never call [...]
Gerald Celente: JP Morgan and Citi acted like mobs bosses in torpedoing Lehman.
Note: the bankruptcy examiner’s report shows Lehman cooking its books to look less levered than it was, but the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) (Mr. Geithner, that would be you) abetted it. So did the SEC, and JP Morgan and Citi [...]
An odd little story today about well-regarded online bank and metals vendor, Everbank, that I came across at Cryptogon.
Apparently, they unilaterally changed the terms and conditions of their ‘metals select’ program recently. Everbank president, Frank Trotter, responded in a letter to Cryptogon author, Kevin Flaherty, that the changes were subsequently deleted. Still, if you’re a [...]
Will Frankfurt (the European Central Bank) come to the rescue of Greece, or Spain, or Portugal? Maybe in the end, but not now, reports Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The Telegraph:
“Mr Callow of Barclays said EU leaders will come to the rescue in the end, but Germany has yet to blink in this game [...]
The Guardian:
“For the first time in five years, no big US investment bank appears among the top nine sovereign bond bookrunners in Europe, according to Dealogic data compiled for the Guardian. Only Morgan Stanley ranks at number 10.
Goldman Sachs doesn’t make the table. Goldman made it to number five last year and in 2006, [...]
Rogers gets it right, as usual. From the Wall Street Pit:
“Commodities legend Jim Rogers talks in this Bloomberg interview about Greece’s fiscal problems which needless [...]