Posts Tagged ‘loans’
Vietnam signs major nuclear power contracts
Dimitry Medvedev and Nguyen Minh Triet celebrate the contract signing
Daylife/AP PHoto used by permission
Russia and Vietnam on Sunday signed a deal worth an estimated 5.6 billion dollars for the energy-hungry Southeast Asian country’s first nuclear power plant…
An official with Russian state nuclear conglomerate Rosatom has told AFP the construction cost of a two-reactor plant is estimated at more than four billion euros…
Vietnam wants to build eight nuclear facilities in the next two decades. Initial government plans call for four reactors, with a total capacity of 4,000 megawatts and at least one of them operational in 10 years’ time.
Sergei Kiriyenko said a 2020 timeframe for the Russian plant was “absolutely realistic”.
Russian President Medvedev earlier held talks with Vietnamese officials centred on expanding his country’s presence in Vietnam, which he said is “actively developing” on various fronts.
“On all these directions Russia will assist Vietnam, which is our close friend,” he said after paying his respects at the mausoleum of Vietnam’s revolutionary hero Ho Chi Minh…
Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan, also on a visit to Hanoi, announced with his Vietnamese counterpart that the two countries will join forces to build two other nuclear reactors.
Moscow is willing to provide a loan to help finance the Russian plant’s construction…The two sides signed additional agreements on construction of a hydro power station and cooperation in the oil sector.
If the United States government, U.S. industry had brains located anywhere near their heads instead of the nether portions of their anatomy, we could have been providing those services to developing nations in Asia and elsewhere.
Back in the day, when I worked for a vendor to the nuclear power industry, I became fed-up with the policy of treating nuclear power generation as a short-term cash cow to supplement welfare for American capital goods producers. I quit. Went on to other aspects of metallurgy. Literature, Philosophy. Politics. You understand how that works.
When a couple of world-class safety screw-ups made nuclear power unpopular – and we had plenty of wars serving up supplemental income – our nation walked away from the dance. Leaving us decades behind productive commerce on the world stage.
Add to that the political history of America’s imperial adventures in the 3rd World…and you understand why there’s no American participation in any signing ceremonies like this.
President Obama announces rural broadband grants
President Barack Obama has announced nearly $800 million in loans and grants for the build-out of broadband networks to reach homes, schools and hospitals.
The grants and loans, which will be matched by another $200 million in private investment, is part of Obama’s roughly $800 billion federal stimulus package, which includes $7.2 billion for broadband expansion projects. Obama said the 66 new infrastructure projects will directly create 5,000 jobs and help spur economic development in some of the nation’s hardest-hit communities…
The departments of Agriculture and Commerce are administering a total of $7.2 billion in grants and loans for projects in 50 states and Washington, D.C.
Increasing broadband access to rural and low-income families and small businesses is a major part of the National Broadband Plan issued by the Federal Communications Commission earlier this year…
The projects Obama announced will include laying communications lines to homes, hospitals and schools and expanding computer facilities in libraries, community colleges and other public areas…
“Broadband can remove geographic barriers between patients and their doctors,’ Obama said. “It can connect our kids to the digital skills and 21st century education required for the jobs of the future.”
I’ve had some reasonably humorous discussions with county officials in my neck of the prairie. They’re pretty much headed in the right direction at trying to fill in the broadband gaps in a county that is 2,000 square miles – with about 100,000 people outside the limits of the one for-real city in the county.
That city being Santa Fe. You know. The city where the Council is worried about the 30 people who have complained that wifi and cellphones – in their neighborhoods – is eating their brains. A truly chickenshit New Age political question.
Anyway, the two biggest problems the county has are [1] filling out all the bloody federal paperwork and [2] trying to keep our own solutions separate from whatever the city wants to do. Or not do.
‘Dear Mr. President, I need a freakin job. Period’
A Buffalo billboard displayed a succinct message when President Obama visited the economically distressed city Thursday, according to reports. The billboard read “Dear Mr. President, I need a freakin job. Period.”
The president was scheduled to stop in Buffalo – a city that had fallen on hard times long before the recent recession – as part of his “Main Street” economic tour.”
The billboard was part of a media campaign known as the INAFJ Project, organized by a local businessman who saw his own small business go under 15 months ago.
“We employed 25 people and it was the most heartbreaking situation I’ve been through in my life” Jeff Baker told CBS News. The ad – and a video posted on YouTube – features college students.
Baker told the Buffalo News that the banks had refused to work with him and his brother Scott, according to the Washington Examiner. The men rented the billboard space for $5,500 a month ago, before they knew that the president would be visiting their town.
Timing couldn’t have been better.
I heard a radio interview with Baker – and it’s not like he’s uptight with Obama or the programs that are in place. Like a lot of areas, like a lot of people, it’s just that more is needed.
Baker is brighter than slackers like the teabaggers who figure that blaming the people who are trying to pick up the pieces after two terms of dumbo is what working people and seniors should do.
Republicans would exempt car dealers from loan oversight. WTF?
President Barack Obama today warned that exempting auto dealers from a new consumer protection agency would hurt buyers and let dealers continue “deceptive practices.”
The nation’s 20,000 new-car dealers have blitzed Capitol Hill over the past two weeks seeking to be cut free from the agency that would oversee consumer lending, part of a package of financial reforms expected to move through the Senate over the next several days. They’re backing an amendment by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., that would exempt auto dealers’ lending from new oversight that would still apply to banks and finance companies like Ally Bank, the former GMAC.
In his statement, Obama said leaving dealers out of the bill would let them “inflate rates, insert hidden fees into the fine print of paperwork, and include expensive add-ons that catch purchasers by surprise.
“This amendment guts provisions that empower consumers with clear information that allows them to make the financial decisions that work best for them and simply encourages misleading sales tactics that hurt American consumers,” Obama said…
Bailey Wood, a spokesman for the National Automobile Dealers Association, said the new rules would hurt loans to less-creditworthy customers, either forcing them to pay higher rates or not get financing at all…
The financial reform bill that passed the House last year excluded auto dealers after a similar lobbying push.
But a growing coalition of consumer advocates, community banks and the Defense Department has pushed back in recent days against the auto dealers’ efforts, saying dealers who craft loans for consumers should face the same kind of oversight that mortgage brokers, who make similar offers.
That these creeps muscled their way through the House last year speaks volumes about lobbying and corruption in Congress. Protection for consumers continues to take 2nd place – or lower – in the priorities of elected scumbags.
Car dealers already have the reputation of bottom-feeding parasites. Do you trust them to bring integrity to American business?
Iceland chooses democracy over British beancounters
Icelanders delivering their “request” for a referendum to the president
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission
Iceland’s president has accused the United Kingdom and the Netherlands of financially “bullying” his country.
Olafur Ragnar Grimsson said the two countries had been “using their influence within the International Monetary Fund” to stop it lending Iceland billions of dollars needed to rebuild the country’s debt-ridden economy…
“We have a situation, where a small nation is in fact ready to shoulder part of this burden but doesn’t want to be put in a corner where the very survival of its economy in the next 10 years would be at stake.”
The comments came after the UK expressed anger at the highly controversial decision by Iceland’s president’s to veto a bill that would pay back billions of dollars Iceland owes the UK and Netherlands. Britain was forced to spend $3.69 billion last year to cover the losses that British savers incurred when Icelandic banks collapsed…
You may not be up-to-date; but, understand that the entire adult population of Iceland probably would have thrown the President and the wimps in the Althing into the sea – if he didn’t veto the bill. The Brits treated Iceland in an incredibly cavalier fashion when their banks began to fail – invoking some yorky anti-terrorism laws to grab Iceland assets in the UK.
Grimsson told CNN his move was in the name of democracy. He said he acted in response to the one-quarter of Icelanders who petitioned against the compensation bill that would cost about $17,300 per Icelandic citizen.
“We have forgotten that there are two pillars in the western heritage that we are proud of. One is the evolution of the free market but the second is the evolution of democracy,” Grimsson told CNN.
“And what I did was when I was faced with a decision between the financial concerns on the one hand, and democracy on the other, I decided to go with democracy.”
RTFA.
Nations with centuries of imperialism in their history might consider reviewing their attitudes towards small countries – formerly colonial lands in the not-to-distant past. Expecting Icelanders to ask “how high?” when Gordon Brown says, “Jump!” is beyond likely.
Thank you, Ben. Better late than never – still rules!
Or we could turn complete control of the economy over to cronies like this
Daylife/AP Photo used by permission
The Federal Reserve made a profit of $52.1 billion in 2009, a rise of 47% over the previous year.
The sum allowed the central bank to pay a record $46.1 billion to the US Treasury last year. That was the largest amount ever paid by the central bank since its creation in 1914.
The record figure was largely thanks to its attempts to support the financial system throughout the ongoing financial crisis.
The Fed funds itself from its own operations and returns any profits to the Treasury department. The figures suggest that US taxpayers have, so far, gained money from the US government’s action in propping up the system…
The emergency lending programmes instituted by the central bank during the last year’s financial crisis helped swell the Fed’s balance sheet to more than $2 trillion…
The Fed also earned money from its emergency loans to banks and other firms, such as the giant carmakers. It charged both interest and fees on these.
That’s kind of brief, a snapshot, a precis of what the balance sheet looks like. Hopefully, it provides some clarity to folks who don’t usually pay attention to aspects of the U.S. economy that involve the Fed or its management.
Sarkozy says it’s time to loan money for the country’s future
National Library of France
French President Nicolas Sarkozy has outlined a $51.5 billion “grand loan” France will take out to invest in universities and fields such as renewable energy and the digital economy.
Mr Sarkozy said financing was needed to prepare France’s long-term future but he denied it was a stimulus package, saying the investments it will support “would be necessary even without the crisis…”
In a rare press conference at the Elysée, Mr Sarkozy said: “Today we must prepare our country for the challenges of the future, so that France can fully profit from the recovery, so that it is stronger, more competitive and that it creates more jobs…”
France’s universities are to receive the lion’s share, with $16 billion used to build between five and 10 world-class campuses. A further $11.7 billion will go to France’s research institutes – in particular biotechnology and health care. Mr Sarkozy also pledged $7.3 billion for renewable energy and $6.6 billion to develop France’s digital economy. Budget cuts would match the interest on the extra spending, he insisted.
The authors of the loan say it will boost France’s long-term growth.
France’s opposition parties, Left and Right, are as opportunist as our own. You will wade through rivers of crocodile tears over deficit spending, taxes, priorities – though not as much whining about aid to the young and underprivileged. In that sense, France is less of a class-based nation than the U.S..
The model is nothing new. I’m a bit surprised to see a French conservative advance the proposal. The Gallic breed must not share the shortsighted-gene characteristics of America’s country club set.
Small banks move in as the chain banks falter
FirstBank of Colorado flew this message over a Rockies game
Sensing an opportunity to capitalize on public outrage over big national banks rescued by taxpayer bailouts, Edward Speed has started a campaign urging Texans to take their cash out of banks like Wells Fargo and turn it over to small homegrown institutions like his, the Texas Dow Employees Credit Union in Lake Jackson near the Gulf Coast.
His pitch drips with Texas swagger — “Real Texans bank locally” reads one of his ads. “We respectfully suggest they head on back home and make their profits where they live…”
Across the country, community banks like Mr. Speed’s are trying to tap into the public’s outrage over Wall Street greed to lure customers from their big multinational competitors.
The overarching message: You can trust us, because we did not cause the crisis and did not need bailouts.
“We’re pretty convinced that the public is very upset with these big banks, and they don’t have much use for them anymore,” Mr. Speed said in a telephone interview. “I can’t beat Wells Fargo and Bank of America nationally, but I can certainly beat their branch across the street…”
But the recession has provided an opening for small banks to promote their relative stability. According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the federal agency that insures deposits, banks with less than $1 billion in assets remained the best capitalized in the industry, meaning they have adequate cash to absorb loan defaults.
And most smaller banks have continued to extend credit to consumers and small businesses, while big banks like Citigroup continue to cut back on their outstanding loan balances. With the bankruptcy of the CIT Group, one of the biggest small-business lenders in the country, community banks sense even more opportunity to fill the void.
Just about all the friends I have in banking IT work for community banks. They knew about the crap loans, sub-prime disasters looking for a time and place to happen as early as I did – a decade ago. In general, they refused to participate in the gamble – and came through the recession smelling like a rose.
My favorite local bank has pretty much always financed more home construction loans, home mortgages than anyone else in the region. They picked up their share of foreclosures – mostly spec homes built by contractors trying to stretch into being bigger than they should have been. They’ve also picked up the lion’s share of refinanced mortgages from folks who are here to stay.
They’re still the people I would turn to for a loan.
President Obama lays down terms for Auto Bailout
Daylife/Getty Images
The White House on Sunday pushed out the chairman of General Motors and instructed Chrysler to form a partnership with the Italian automaker Fiat within 30 days as conditions for receiving another much-needed round of government aid.
The decision to ask G.M.’s chairman and chief executive, Rick Wagoner, to resign caught Detroit and Washington by surprise, and it underscored the Obama administration’s determination to keep a tight rein on the companies it is bailing out — a level of government involvement in business perhaps not seen since the Great Depression.
Mr. Obama’s auto industry task force, in a report released Sunday night assessing the viability of both companies and detailing the administration’s new plans for them, concluded that Chrysler could not survive as a stand-alone company.
The report said the company would get no more help from the government unless it can finalize a proposed alliance with the Italian automaker Fiat by April 30. It must also reduce its debt and health-care obligations.
If a deal is reached between Chrysler and Fiat, the administration says it would consider another loan of $6 billion to Chrysler.
G.M., on the other hand, has made considerable progress in developing new energy-efficient cars and could survive if it can cut costs sharply, the task force reported. The administration is giving G.M. 60 days to present a cost-cutting plan and will provide taxpayer assistance to keep it afloat during that time.
The plan Mr. Obama announced today will also include government backing of warranties for G.M. and Chrysler cars and trucks, to give consumers enough confidence to buy them, even if one or both are forced into bankruptcy.
Most of the TV talking heads wasted my time. They didn’t have anyone commenting with experience in business, automobiles or consumers.
Rising the bow wave of electoral politics from the presidential election there are new faces, new voices – and not much of any added insight from American media.
Canada will pick up 20% share of loans to car companies
Canada has announced a $3.3 billion bail-out plan to aid two US car manufacturers with operations there. The offer of emergency loans follows the US government’s decision on Friday to provide $17.4bn in loans to help General Motors and Chrysler survive.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said it was “a regrettable but necessary step to protect the Canadian economy”.
The amount promised represented the 20% share Canada has in the North American automobile industry, he said.
Mr Harper said there were “hundreds of thousands if not millions” of families in Canada potentially affected by the ongoing difficulties in the car industry.
Nice to see that Harper noticed. Bush must have sent him the memo.
