Posted by Nicholas Adams on Jul 13, 2011
The European bank stress test results are out, and we are told that all but eight or is it nine? banks passed.
FLOYD NORRIS
Notions on high and low finance.
There is a lot of talk about how stressful the tests really were. Are they not treating sovereign debt as being as risky as markets now believe it to be? That is interesting, but may not be very enlightening. We can take for granted that most or maybe all banks in any country would be in trouble if that country defaulted on its debts. It appears that we now will know more than ever before about the specific exposures of each bank.
You can check out the numbers for any particular bank here.
The tests covered 91 banks, but the European Banking Authority, which conducted the exercise, is releasing results for just 90 of them. The other one is Helaba, a German bank owned by two states.
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Posted by Nicholas Adams on Jul 13, 2011
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) today urged Italy get on with its austerity measures to reduce the government’s deficit. The IMF also highlighted its concerns that Italy’s tax reform plan lacked detail and the growth projections included in the recovery plan were too optimistic.
Tags: Italy, Italy Curtail
Posted by Nicholas Adams on Jul 11, 2011
CATHERINE RAMPELL
Dollars to doughnuts.
Ive suggested several different explanations for why the jobs crisis has gotten so little attention in Washington, especially compared to the deficit. In response, a lot of frustrated readers e-mailed me to argue that Id left out one other explanation: the media. Major news organizations have devoted much more air time, ink and pixels to Americas debt concerns than to the 14-million-person army of jobless workers, they argued.
As a reader named Cindy writes:
If any of these big media conglomerates really cared about the millions of people that are being tossed like road kill, they would be doing something to help us organize and give us the coverage we need to be heard once and for all.
Another reader, Virgil, writes:
People hear in the media that it is not that bad out there, so they turn on their friends that are unemployed and call them deadbeats and state that their taxes are so high because they have to pay for those that wont get a job.
Complaints about media coverage do appear to be supported by a cursory review of articles from the last two years.
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Tags: Deficit, Vs Deficit
Posted by Nicholas Adams on Jul 09, 2011
The rate of inflation in the UK eased in June to an annualized rate of 4.2 percent. Analysts had predicted the rate to remain the same as the previous month at 4.5 percent.
The unexpected decline can be partly explained by an aggressive wave of price discounting as merchants desperately try to lure shoppers back into the shops. This was reflected in the Retail Prices Index which fell from 5.2 percent to 5.0 percent and while retail prices were down, food prices continue to climb jumping another 0.9 percent for the month.
Tags: Eases June, June
Posted by Nicholas Adams on Jul 07, 2011
WASHINGTON – The University of California at Los Angeles Health System (UCLAHS) is settling potential violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules for $865,500 said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights.
HHS investigated two separate complaints filed by unnamed celebrity patients who received care at UCLAHS. The patients claimed that employees at UCLAHS had looked at, repeatedly and without permission, their protected electronic health information. Und
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Tags: Health System, Privacy
Posted by Nicholas Adams on Jul 06, 2011
The good news is that with the approval of an 8.7 billion euro loan payment Greece will make its debt responsibilities later this month thereby avoiding an outright default. The bad news is that even with this rescue package, the intended debt relief plan may still be considered a default by the ratings agencies.
The European Union – with the tacit approval of the French banking system – has suggested a plan that would see financial institutions “roll over” the repayment of debt owed to many the region’s largest banks. Referred to as “re-profiling” it is hoped that deferring payment will give Greece the breathing room it needs to get its affairs in order without being considered an outright default. It appears however, that at lease one of the ratings agencies is not prepared to go along with the scheme.
Standard & Poor’s advised EU officials that a debt rollover is simply another form of default and would be reflected in a downgrading of Greece’s credit rating. A default designa
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Tags: Default, Tantamount Default
Posted by Nicholas Adams on Jul 06, 2011
MENLO PARK, CA – In its June Health Tracking Poll, Kaiser Family Foundation finds that Americans generally do not have confidence in Congress or private insurers to keep Medicare financially sound.
While no group gets an overwhelming level of support from survey respondents, Americans appear to have more confidence in an independent panel of experts than the federal agency that now runs Medicare.
Other key findings include:
- In order to reduce the federal deficit, a plurality of Americans (45 percent) say they would support minor reductions to current levels of Medicare spending, but fewer than one in five (18 percent) support major reductions for this purpose.
- The public overall is divided on a proposal to change Medicare into a system in which the government pays a fixed amount to help seniors acquire private health insurance coverage (45 percent support the proposal and 49 percent prefer the current system).
- Many Americans – and even higher shares of seniors – remain unaware of some of the key provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) that affect Medicare.
- The public remains divided in their overall assessments of the ACA, with 42 percent holding a favorable view of the law and 46 percent an unfavorable one.
- As the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination gets underway, voters continue to want lawmakers and candidates to focus on the country’s economic problems. The econ
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Tags: Medicare
