I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is now speaking to the media at a presser about the tentative and still-sketchy plan hastily organized last night with members of Congress to create a federal entity that will contain the bad debts which have tanked the financial industry.
He is attributing the root cause of this economic debacle to the mortgage crisis and the existing five million mortgages in default and foreclosure at this time.
Of note is the casual reference to “responsible” homeowners — as if all of the failed mortgages were the fault of “irresponsible” homeowners. I can’t help wonder what families who experienced acute health care crises think of being labeled as “irresponsible.”
Paulson is also saying that the measures that the Treasury and other regulatory bodies will take must be large enough to make a difference, in the range of hundreds of billions of dollars, and that the cost to taxpayers would be less than the option of failing to take this sizable step.
Further, Paulson says he’s meeting with Congress all weekend to hammer out the details.
Which means they’re still making this up as they go along.
Even the esteemed, experienced talking heads of the financial industry are scratching their heads right now.
More — much more — later.
[UPDATE] 10:30 a.m. EDT –
President Bush — hey, remember that guy, Mr. 28% Approval Rating? — will be speaking about the financial crisis at 10:45 a.m.
Let me guess that he’ll give his full support to whatever Treasury Secretary Paulson is working on at the moment, a parallel statement to his brief statement of support yesterday morning for Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox.
(Note, too, that we wouldn’t have seen Mr. 28% Approval Rating come out of his burrow yesterday had not presidential candidate John McCain made a gaffe by saying as president he would fire Chris Cox. The president, though, cannot fire heads of independent agencies; hence the label, “independent.”)
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