The problems in the U.S. subprime mortgage market could spiral out of control into a global financial crisis, economist Mark Zandi said Thursday.
With a “high level of angst” in the financial markets about who will take the losses from more than $1 trillion in risky mortgages, we could be just one hedge-fund collapse away from a global liquidity crisis, said Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Economy.com.
A global meltdown is not likely, but the risks are growing, Zandi emphasized in a conference call with reporters following the release of a new study on subprime debt that concludes that the housing crisis could be deeper and last longer than investors now believe. Read the latest data on home sales.
And it could spread. “Mounting mortgage delinquencies and defaults now pose the most serious threat to the global financial system and economy,” Zandi said in his report.
“If there is a fault line in the global financial system, it runs through the U.S. housing and mortgage markets,” he said.
Zandi’s comments came as U.S. financial markets reeled from a growing credit crunch, centered not in the subprime arena, but in the leveraged corporate debt market.
In recent years, conservative evangelicals who claim a Biblical mandate to protect Israel have built a bulwark of support for the Jewish nation - sending donations, denouncing its critics and urging it not to evacuate settlements or forfeit territory.
Now more than 30 evangelical leaders are stepping forward to say these efforts have given the wrong impression about the stance of many, if not most, American evangelicals.
On Friday, these leaders sent a letter to President Bush saying that both Israelis and Palestinians have “legitimate rights stretching back for millennia to the lands of Israel/Palestine,” and that they support the creation of a Palestinian state “that includes the vast majority of the West Bank.”
They say that being a friend to Jews and to Israel “does not mean withholding criticism when it is warranted.” The letter adds, “Both Israelis and Palestinians have committed violence and injustice against each other.”
The letter is signed by 34 evangelical leaders, many of whom lead denominations, Christian charities, ministry organizations, seminaries and universities.
This article focuses on phone records, but it also states “internet activity.”
A proposed new FBI program would skirt federal laws by paying private companies to hold millions of phone and Internet records which the bureau is barred from keeping itself, experts say.
The $5 million project would apparently pay private firms to store at least two years’ worth of telephone and Internet activity by millions of Americans, few of whom would ever be considered a suspect in any terrorism, intelligence or criminal matter.
The project would involve “the development of data storage and retrieval systems…for at least two years’ worth of network calling records,” according to an unclassified budget document posted to the FBI’s Web site. The FBI did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
The FBI is barred by law from collecting and storing such data if it has no connection to a specific investigation or intelligence matter.
In recent years the bureau has tried to encourage telecommunications firms to voluntarily store such information, but corporations have balked at the cost of keeping records they don’t need.
President Bush had his Pioneers and Rangers that gathered big-money donors, aggregating at least $100,000 for the campaign. Similarly, the 2008 candidates are developing their own big-money “bundlers.”
Public Citizen launched WhiteHouseForSale.org on Thursday, a Web site designed to bring these people to light. Their info comes from the campaigns themselves, although the campaigns are not obligated to disclose how much each bundler is responsible for raising. According to the site:
Many of Bush’s supporters have thrown their weight behind John McCain. Jerry Colangelo, who owns the Phoenix Suns and Arizona Diamondbacks, supports McCain, as does Robert W. Johnson IV, heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune and owner of the New York Jets. Henry Kissinger has even rounded up the troops, along with FedEx founder and CEO Fred Smith and Wachovia president Kennedy Thompson.
[...]
Rudy Giuliani has a lot of New York moguls on his list. Donald Trump Jr., son of the big guy, is raising money for his former mayor. Jim Turley, the chairman and CEO of Ernst & Young, and Bernard Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, add a corporate flair. From the sports side, Texas Rangers owner Thomas Hicks and Modell’s CEO Mitchell Modell are bringing in funds.
Mitt Romney’s group is heavy on entrepreneurs: eBay CEO Meg Whitman, Domino’s Pizza CEO David Brandon, JetBlue founder David Neeleman and Miami Dolphins owner H. Wayne Huizenga.
[...]
And Fred Thompson, who hasn-t announced his candidacy yet, has 21 people bundling for him, including Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn.
Dr. Justin Franks, author of Bush on the Couch, and the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity have looked at what would happen if congress cut off funding for George’s war in Iraq. A very interesting read, and frightening read. They assess that he has no shame, fear of humiliation, comtempt for the truth, he is sadistic and he likes to break things. You can read the full article (really worth it) at Information Clearing House.
When it comes to National Security, Democrats are now trusted more by 42% of likely voters, Republicans by 40%. This means that Democrats now enjoy at least a nominal edge on all ten issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports to gauge voters’ trust of the two major parties.
In late June Democrats had the edge on nine of ten issues. At that time, the GOP had a single point advantage of the National Security issue.
WASHINGTON — As the Bush administration struggles to convince lawmakers that its Iraq war strategy is working, it has stopped reporting to Congress a key quality-of-life indicator in Baghdad: how long the power stays on.
Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week that Baghdad residents could count on only “an hour or two a day” of electricity. That’s down from an average of five to six hours a day earlier this year.
But that piece of data has not been sent to lawmakers for months because the State Department, which prepares a weekly “status report” for Congress on conditions in Iraq, stopped estimating in May how many hours of electricity Baghdad residents typically receive each day.
Instead, the department now reports on the electricity generated nationwide, a measurement that does not indicate how much power Iraqis in Baghdad or elsewhere actually receive.
The change, a State Department spokesman said, reflects a technical decision by reconstruction officials in Baghdad who are scaling back efforts to estimate electricity consumption as they wind down U.S. involvement in rebuilding Iraq’s power grid.
A proposed new FBI program would skirt federal laws by paying private companies to hold millions of phone and Internet records which the bureau is barred from keeping itself, experts say.
