"What’s behind the stock market swoon? A little of everything" by Evan Horowitz Globe Staff October 11, 2018
October is known as a cursed month on Wall Street, and this week is confirming investors’ worst fears. All three major stock indexes dropped sharply on Wednesday and Thursday, with the Standard and Poor’s 500 down 6.7 percent over the last six days.
The trigger? Well, that’s not entirely clear. There was no revelation, no obvious market-shaking news to spark a sudden sell-off, but pressure had been building for a collapse like this in recent weeks — slowly but dangerously. Most dramatic among the warning signs was a jump in the interest rates paid on government bonds.
In itself, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Higher interest rates mean that seniors and other risk-averse investors can stash their money in bonds and still make decent returns, but so far, there’s been little sign of a slowdown in the US economy, with early estimates of third-quarter GDP showing continued growth, but there is concern that the Trump bump may fade in the fourth quarter and even if the fears prove unfounded, and the economy continues to perform well, that might not save the stock market.
WTF?
Stock prices just seem to have gotten too high, and when share prices get too high, they have nowhere to go but down.
There is some positive news behind all this. White House spokesman Raj Shah said, “Markets fluctuate, but the fundamentals of this economy are very strong.”
Wall Street woes and Main Street life aren’t always connected. In 1987, the Dow fell 22 percent in a single day, with barely a ripple across the rest of the economy.
Then again, the fundamentals often look good just before the fall. After a market downturn in early 2007 — less than a year before the financial crisis — a different White House spokesman, Edward Lazear, gave much the same response as Shah did.
“It looks like whatever happened yesterday was anomalous,” Lazear said. “We don’t think of it reflecting any of the fundamentals in the economy, which I think are quite strong.”
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The next article was located on page B12:
"Dow drops nearly 550 points, sending its two-day loss total to nearly 1,400 points" by Taylor Telford, Anna Fifield and Gerry Shih Washington Post October 11, 2018
BEIJING — US markets suffered deeper losses Thursday, following on a global rout as investors lost their nerve over rising US interest rates and fresh worries about an economic slowdown.
And I had to go pretty deep in the paper to find it.
Concerns about US-China ties weighed heavily, too. US markets rebounded briefly after it was announced that President Trump would meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping at next month’s G-20 summit in Buenos Aires to discuss the intensifying trade conflict.
Yeah, yeah, all China's fault.
What we do know is it is never, ever, the fault of the bankers and their scheming, scamming, looting, and usury.
The Dow Jones industrial average ended the day down 2.1 percent, or 546 points, to 25,052. It pushed the two-day loss to nearly 1,400 points. The markets landed in the red despite a government report that showed consumer prices rose 0.1 percent last month, less than expected.
Yeah, no one is talking about that.
Ivan Feinseth, an analyst with Tigress Financial, was optimistic about the strength of the economy and called the sell-off an ‘‘incredible buying opportunity.’’
It's the old buy low, sell high scheme that enriches the wealthy during a collapse.
The current panic might be quelled, he said, by de-escalation in the US trade war with China. It could also bolster faith in the tech sector, which was pummeled in the past two days.
‘‘Any kind of softening of the tensions with China would be a huge catalyst for the market,’’ Feinseth said.
Why do we need to have "faith" in markets?
It's not some esoteric unmeasurable!
After the Dow dropped 832 points Wednesday, one of the worst sell-offs since February, Trump strongly criticized the Fed for tightening rates, again signaling that he wanted interest rates to remain low.
‘‘The Fed is making a mistake. They’re so tight. I think the Fed has gone crazy,’’ he told reporters while traveling in Pennsylvania on Wednesday. ‘‘It’s a correction that we’ve been waiting for, for a long time. But I really disagree with what the Fed is doing, OK?’’
Careful, Mr. President.
Early Thursday, National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow in a news conferfence heralded the administration’s economic policies and assured the public that ‘‘the war on business is over.’’
I didn't know there was one!!
The tax loot gifts and subsidies must have confused me!
‘‘We are the hottest economy in the world right now,’’ Kudlow said. ‘‘With all due respect, I don’t think this is anything resembling a sugar high.’’
Michael Farr, chief executive of Farr, Miller & Washington, said the Fed might be nudged into slowing its pace of raising rates, but that this cycle — of panic and gradual calming — would probably continue.
I like to think of it as getting jerked around.
The real litmus test will be how the markets react to third-quarter earnings reports over the next few weeks, and how the retail market delivers for the holiday season, said Howard Silverblatt, a senior analyst with S&P Dow Jones Indices.
‘‘Volatility and concern is high,’’ Silverblatt said. ‘‘Hopefully earnings will take us away, and we can focus on the fundamentals.’’
Better come in around 20 percent or they will be disappointed.
After US tech shares plummeted Wednesday, Chinese Internet giant Tencent, Asia’s largest company by market capitalization and a major factor in the Hong Kong Hang Seng Index, was battered. By end of US trading Thursday, Tencent had announced that it would delay its planned initial public offering because of the market retreat.
Jitters were already running high, thanks to the trade war between China and the United States, which has shown few signs of being resolved any time soon.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin met with Chinese central banker Yi Gang at a World Bank conference in Indonesia on Thursday, a day after he warned China against ‘‘competitive devaluation’’ of its currency against the US dollar as the trade war escalates.
Oh, there is a World Bank meeting in Indonesia this week?
More on them below.
Yi did not tell reporters how the meeting with Mnuchin went, but told the Chinese financial magazine Caixin that China was on course to hit its GDP growth targets despite concerns about the trade war and debt levels.
The renminbi had fallen ‘‘significantly’’ during the year and the Treasury Department is monitoring this ‘‘very carefully’’ to make sure China wasn’t manipulating its currency to gain an advantage in the trade war, Mnuchin told the Financial Times.
He said he wanted to discuss the currency with Beijing as part of the trade talks. ‘‘As we look at trade issues there is no question that we want to make sure China is not doing competitive devaluations,’’ he told the business newspaper.
Separately, the Treasury Department issued new rules on foreign investments into American companies, strengthening its power to block them on national security grounds. China has been the main target for these rules.
This ongoing friction is likely to suppress markets for some time, analysts said.
‘‘As uncertainty continues to prevail in financial markets across the world, many investors are staying on the sidelines until more clarity emerges in US Treasury and Chinese markets,’’ said Yasuo Sakuma, chief investment officer at Libra Investments, according to Reuters.....
And until after the midterms!
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You know who an economic collapse helps, right?
(Hint: You can say goodbye to the Kavanaugh effect)
Meanwhile, the front-page feature of today's Globe is this:
"Fall River mayor says he’s innocent of fraud charges, won’t be resigning" by Laura Crimaldi and Brian MacQuarrie Globe Staff October 11, 2018
Fall River Mayor Jasiel F. Correia II calls himself a “classic example of a Fall River kid made good” in an official biography, which highlights his rise from “youth of the year” in 2008 to being elected the youngest mayor in the city’s history in 2015 at age 23, but a federal indictment unsealed Thursday cast an ignominious shadow over Correia’s precocious political ascent with allegations that he stole more than $231,000 from investors in his tech startup and used the money on expensive travel, a Mercedes-Benz sedan, casinos, and adult entertainment.
The stolen funds, equal to about six times the median household income in Fall River, were taken from investors in SnoOwl, which Correia founded in 2012, federal prosecutors said.
Correia is also charged with filing fraudulent tax returns in an effort to conceal the scheme. Prosecutors allege Correia stole about 64 percent of the $363,690 that SnoOwl’s seven investors contributed and spent it before becoming mayor.
Wasn't able to cover his tracks, huh?
“Today’s arrest is a shock to many in the city which has prided itself on a tradition of honest government, hard work, and public service,” Harold Shaw, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston office, said at a news conference. “Yet its mayor was far from honest, selling out his friends and associates for his own personal gain. His actions were underhanded, shameless, and greedy.”
FBI agents arrested Correia, 26, in Bridgewater at about 6:30 a.m. Thursday and brought him to Boston, where he appeared in a federal courtroom smiling and wearing leg irons with his hands cuffed behind his back.
He pleaded not guilty to nine counts of wire fraud and four counts of filing false tax returns as Magistrate Judge M. Page Kelley set unsecured bond of $10,000, a sum Correia would only have to pay if he fails to appear in court. After being set free, Correia changed into a blue suit, red tie, and Fall River lapel pin, and then denied the charges after leaving court.
“I’ve done nothing wrong,” said Correia, a Democrat who was reelected last year by a wide margin. “If you look at those bogus charges, whatever they’re called, there’s not a single thing . . . that the US attorney’s office said in that 19-page indictment that I did wrong as the mayor of Fall River.”
He said he has no plans to resign.
“I love the city of Fall River,” said Correia, flanked by his defense attorneys. “I’m going to go back to my office tonight and get back to work serving the people of Fall River.”
One of his lawyers, Mark Berthiaume, said Correia established SnoOwl while he was an undergraduate student at Providence College.
“This is a business dispute that has no business being in a federal, criminal court,” Berthiaume said.
Well, since Kavanaugh, everyone has been making a federal case of everything.
SnoOwl was developing an app that would connect businesses and consumers. The fraud unfolded, prosecutors said, when Correia falsely claimed in his pitch to potential investors that he already built and sold an app called FindIt Networks for a profit.
A prototype for SnoOwl was built, but the product never made it to market, despite representations Correia made to investors that the company was in good standing and their money was being spent on the app, US Attorney Andrew Lelling said at the news conference.
None of the investors have received returns, and investigators believe Correia has spent their money, he said. Correia largely abandoned SnoOwl in 2015 when he launched his mayoral campaign, according to the indictment.
“Despite the trappings of a company and whatever technical progress was made on the app product that SnoOwl intended to sell, the company was first and foremost a clever way to defraud well-intentioned investors and fund Correia’s lifestyle,” Lelling said.
Looks to me like he was just preparing himself for office!
None of the investors are named in the indictment, though some have come forward in The Herald News, a newspaper in Fall River.
Lelling said authorities haven’t found evidence that Correia misused public funds while in office, but stressed the investigation is continuing.
Who is the special counsel?
Correia also is accused of using $10,000 of the investment money to pay off student loans and finance his political campaign, while other funds paid for charitable donations in his own name, jewelry, restaurants, and designer clothing, the indictment said.
While making his first run for mayor three years ago, Correia, then a city councilor, said his stewardship of SnoOwl was proof he was qualified to run Fall River, Lelling said.
Former mayor Sam Sutter, whom Correia defeated in 2015, said he had information three years ago that SnoOwl was a failure.
“One of the frustrating aspects of the campaign was that a lot of people thought he was a success and had been an entrepreneurial wizard,” Sutter said. “But the exact opposite was true.”
Why did the name Elon Musk just come too mind?
Investigators said Correia tried to cover his tracks by filing false tax returns for 2013 and 2014. When Correia learned he was under federal investigation in spring 2017, he directed his accountant to file amended personal tax returns to account “for the diverted investor funds that he had previously failed to report as income,” Lelling said.
They get pi$$ed when you do that.
In January, the Friends of Jasiel F. Correia II Legal Defense Fund was registered with the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance, records show.
The fund has collected more than $76,000, including thousands of dollars donated by Correia’s campaign committee.
Is that legal?
Among Fall River residents, reaction to Correia’s arrest was mixed.
“He’s a thief — that’s what he is,” said Eddie Perriera, 90, shaking his head as he sat with arms folded on a park bench. “This has been going on for years, and they’re just catching on.”
Another resident, David Pacheco, 70, said he voted for Correia in 2015, but not last year.
“I’m not shocked about this. Money does things to people,” Pacheco said. “At 26 years old, he had the world in the palm of his hand, and the people believed in him.”
Some expressed support for Correia.
“I love the man,” said a woman who gave only her first name, Lydia . “He’s done a lot of good things for this city that a lot of people aren’t noticing. He’s fixing the streets. He’s fixing the pipes. What more do people want?”
A status conference in Correia’s case is scheduled for Dec. 6. As he walked away from the courthouse Thursday afternoon with his lawyers, Correia was followed by journalists shouting questions about reports that he was partying Wednesday night in a Seaport District nightclub.....
Said he saw rainbow squirrels.
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Has he been tested for drugs, and what do you say if it comes back positive??
The irony is that right below the article on him was this:
Getting a taste of Union Square vs. the Seaport
Flip below the fold and you will find a place to sleep it off.
Related:
"Students’ pot use puts colleges’ funding at risk" by Amelia Nierenberg Globe Correspondent October 08, 2018
AMHERST — As tangy-smelling smoke floated across the table, the students talked in the late summer sunshine. As a campus police car drove by, they made no effort to hide their marijuana.
It’s been two years since Massachusetts voters approved legalizing marijuana for adults over 21, and state officials are now starting to approve retail pot sales, but on campuses across the state, administrators have a dilemma: they follow federal law, which prohibits people from using marijuana on the property of educational institutions.
At risk? Millions of dollars in federal funding, which schools rely on to pay for everything from student aid to research.
The predicament creates challenges for college administrators and a strange tension for students who use pot. Federal law trumps state law, but shouldn’t state law trump campus policy?
I'll answer that after my hit.
“This is why federal policies in particular about drug legalization are a bad idea,” said Jeffrey A. Miron, a Harvard economist who studies drug legalization, “because then you’re led into these conflicts between state and federal policies that are just not resolvable.”
Government seems to do that, even if they have to lie to you.
He said that colleges would have to “expel large fractions of their student body” to implement campus policies, which “is just not going to happen.”
“They’re giving a tiny fraction of people a slap on the wrist,” he said. “We’re going to persist with widespread disobedience but minimal enforcement.”
Related:
"HSBC Holdings Plc will pay $765 million to settle allegations that it sold defective residential mortgage-backed securities, resolving one of the last remaining US investigations stemming from the mortgage meltdown a decade ago. The sum, announced Tuesday by US Attorney Bob Troyer in Colorado, is substantially lower than the billions paid by other banks to resolve misconduct linked to these toxic securities. London-based HSBC wasn’t a major player in the market. With Wells Fargo & Co.’s agreement in August to pay $2 billion and Royal Bank of Scotland’s deal to pay $4.9 billion that same month, the US Department of Justice is now near the end of its decadelong effort to extract penalties for the conduct that led to the financial crisis of 2008. The biggest settlements, struck in 2013 and 2014, called for JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. to pay $13 billion and $17 billion, respectively, to resolve their cases."
Looking forward to their profit reports in the Globe tomorrow.
One good thing about smoking pot is you have no money so the bank can't steal it.
“We’ve been steeped in the alcohol model for so long, that if you’re an American, you drink,” said Lester Grinspoon, an associate professor emeritus of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and pioneer in legalization advocacy. “If they were going to use something, it should be cannabis, not alcohol. It’s safer, but it’s also a much more interesting high.”
That was Kavanaugh's problem.
Of course, had he smoked pot he would have never smelled a whiff of the Supreme Court.
That reminds me: no Total Wine ad today.
Campuses across the state bring in millions of dollars every year in federal funding. If federal drug laws are broken, schools are in jeopardy of losing that money, due to the 1989 Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act. Hampshire, for example, receives more than $10 million in federal funding annually.
“It’s not that Hampshire College policy trumps state law; it’s that Hampshire College is supporting its students for the need for federal funding,” said Susie Mitton Shannon, associate dean of students and director of residential life at Hampshire. “We don’t want to put that funding in jeopardy in any way by trumping federal law.”
And if they told you no pro-Palestinian or BDS groups?
I thought campuses were supposed to be a place of free speech.
All colleges and universities that receive federal funding maintain the same stance: no recreational marijuana anywhere on campus, but policies vary.
Some are more out-of-sight, out-of-mind. In Cambridge, where Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are located, it is against the law to use marijuana in public. As more than 97 percent of Harvard students and more than 70 percent of MIT students live on campus, there are few places where a student can use without violating either university policy or city ordinance.
The smell hits you as soon as you walk in the door (they must be higher than an airplane over there)!
Other colleges take a no ifs-ands-or-buts approach. Williams College has a marijuana FAQ page that says cannabis “is prohibited for students entirely by our code of conduct,” on or off campus, recreational or not.
Some colleges come up with creative solutions. The University of Massachusetts Amherst explicitly restricts marijuana and associated paraphernalia on campus, but because a large percentage of students live off campus, it frames its message around safety and productivity. An extensive Web page lists ways to “have fun without marijuana” and reminds students to “keep on track to graduation.”
“From a health perspective, we’re concerned about both of those populations — students on campus and students off,” said Enku Gelaye, vice chancellor for student affairs and campus life. “We try to be upfront about what the issues are and give good information about what the law is.”
Legalization has also complicated the issue for students in positions of campus leadership.
“Residential life was put in an uncomfortable place to knock on people’s doors and say, ‘You know you can’t smoke on campus,’ ” said Marta Garcia, 21, who was elected to serve as a house president at Smith College for one year. “I was very much put in the middle of it and it was very awkward.”
This complex web becomes even more tangled with medical marijuana, as only some colleges offer alternatives and some students worry about possible consequences of disclosing their medication.
“Mental health services that exist here are not the best, so people try to find other means of helping themselves,” said V Timeo, 20, a residential adviser at Hampshire. “People just use drugs to self-medicate. This is a high-stress environment.”
“Medical marijuana is not an issue that comes up often,” Hampshire college spokeswoman Stacey Schmeidel said in an e-mail.
Beyond medical marijuana, the prevalence of drug use on campus can create a complicated dynamic between policing and student life.
“Even before decriminalization, you literally had people smoking in the Yard,” said Tynan Jackson, 21, a Harvard junior who does not smoke because he has asthma.
Jackson said that marijuana use is prevalent at Harvard and said students had used fans to blow smoke out their window.
“They receive federal funding so they have to institute this law, but how well they enforce it is really up to them,” he said. “But they’re not going to put you in handcuffs if you have a blunt in your hand.”
One kid says “weed helps [him] get through a wealth of issues. Personal issues, academic issues, creative issues, and it’s a lot better than drinking because I don’t feel terrible afterwards.”
If only Kavanaugh had been a stoner!
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Just wondering, but what are they actually teaching these days.
I gue$$ that means staying at the hotel is out of the question (they have since cleared the rooms).
Soon you kids will be able to go to the cannabis cafe and get your daily glass(es) of alcohol.
Also see: In a Suffolk courtroom, tears of rage follow cries of remorse
That should have been held in a secret session.
Mail for you:
"Student loan collector Navient considered settling — then Trump took office" by Stacy Cowley New York Times October 07, 2018
In the final months of Barack Obama’s presidency, the government’s top consumer regulator was negotiating a large settlement with the student loan collector Navient, which it said had misled borrowers and made mistakes that added billions of dollars to their bills, but after President Trump’s victory, talks between the company and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau broke down. Two days before his inauguration, the bureau sued Navient, accusing it of “systematically and illegally failing borrowers at every stage of repayment.” Illinois and Washington simultaneously filed their own suits, in state courts.
Want me to open it?
As the bureau has taken a softer approach toward regulating industries, including payday lending, and had its own acting director say it too often exceeds its authority, the possibility that the Trump administration will ease up on Navient has prompted more states to join the legal fray. Five have now sued Navient.
“There is growing concern among myself and state attorneys general that the federal government is not only losing interest in holding student loan servicers like Navient accountable, but that the federal government is actively looking for ways to shut down state enforcement actions against Navient and other student loan servicers,” said Jim Hood, the Mississippi attorney general, who sued Navient in July.
Two years ago, Navient was willing to reach a settlement to end the bureau’s three-year investigation. It would adjust how it serviced loans and write off some private loans it owned that were considered predatory, according to three people familiar with the talks, but after Election Day, there was a greater sense of urgency from officials at the bureau — a frequent target for criticism by Republicans. The bureau and a group of state attorneys general, who were conducting their own investigation, aimed high: fines and debt relief that together would have topped $1 billion, the people said.
The talks fell apart, prompting suits against Navient alleging it had harmed hundreds of thousands of borrowers by failing to steer them toward loan repayment options that would have been best for them. Borrowers incurred nearly $4 billion in additional interest charges that could have been avoided, the plaintiffs argued.
It's called usury.
Among the other claims: Navient repeatedly misallocated payments and incorrectly reported to credit bureaus that some disabled borrowers — including military veterans — had defaulted when their loans had actually been forgiven.
They $crewed vets, huh?
Navient has denied any wrongdoing. “We have helped millions of borrowers enroll in income-driven repayment and successfully repay their loans,” said Nikki Lavoie, a spokeswoman.
If Navient loses in court, the company could be required to pay billions of dollars in damages and overhaul the way it handles the accounts of some 6 million borrowers. A defeat could also prompt other servicers to change their policies: Navient is one of eight companies paid by the Education Department to handle the $1.4 trillion owed by 42 million federal loan borrowers.
“These problems are not just limited to Navient; these are practices we have seen at many different servicers,” said Persis Yu, director of the National Consumer Law Center’s Student Loan Borrower Assistance Project. “It’s critical to finally have a federal agency acknowledge the problems and hold a company accountable for them.”
Navient has stepped up its efforts to personally connect with the government officials leading the enforcement efforts against it. The company has met with leaders at the federal consumer bureau, and last year, it retained two former attorneys general — Martha Coakley of Massachusetts and Douglas F. Gansler of Maryland, both Democrats — to help it communicate with their peers. Coakley said her Navient work was focused on helping state officials better understand the company. Gansler said he was helping Navient “get its narrative out there.”
Now Coakley is whoring herself out for them after taking kickbacks all those years!
Navient has also begun donating to networking groups that help state attorneys general raise campaign cash.
Fortunately, state officials and authorities only care about the kids.
I mean, that's what they endlessly tell us no matter what they do!
The states’ lawsuits will take on increased importance if the federal consumer bureau drops its case. Such concerns were obliquely alluded to in a scathing resignation letter sent in August by the agency’s student loan ombudsman, Seth Frotman. Frotman stepped down while criticizing the bureau’s interim director, Mick Mulvaney, for putting the interests of powerful businesses ahead of consumers “harmed by the company that dominates this market.”
Related: "The latter is frustrated over a city and a country that in its view have become enslaved to big corporations at the cost of shared values, and where sports, the right-wing media, and rich insiders can dictate policy to politicians."
It's an epidemic!
In an interview last month with CNBC, Mulvaney said he worried about the consequences, “from a financial standpoint and a moral standpoint,” of the growing number of student borrowers who fail to pay off their debts.
So did you get your pay raise?
Think of who is saying such a thing, or rather, in what name?
Yeah, this government is concerned about you paying off your debts while it spends its way down a bottomle$$ pit.
Navient has openly sought to have the bureau’s lawsuit dropped.
“There is no evidence to date to support their case,” John F. Remondi, Navient’s chief executive, told analysts on Navient’s most recent earnings call. “Our arguments here are, you’ve had five years to look for your evidence, you found none, it’s time to move on.”
Hear that, Mueller?
Navient also made that argument privately to Mulvaney, who is also Trump’s budget director, in February in an e-mail requesting a meeting. The e-mail was obtained through a public records request. Remondi called the lawsuit against his company “a prime example of what was wrong with the bureau” under Mulvaney’s predecessor. He also repeated a number of Mulvaney’s own talking points, accusing the bureau of trying “to make law through enforcement actions.”
Four months later, Remondi met with a group of the bureau’s lawyers and one of Mulvaney’s top aides, Eric Blankenstein, the political appointee in charge of the bureau’s enforcement division, who has lately faced criticism for past racial comments.
This government is infested with supremacist Jews!
According to the two people familiar with the agency’s internal discussions, Blankenstein has particularly scrutinized the claims at the heart of the lawsuit: that Navient steered borrowers into more costly repayment options that were administratively simpler for the company.
A spokesman for the bureau declined to comment.
Web version continued talking:
Navient is also ensuring that it directly reaches those who have authority to decide whether the state cases go forward, and in March, Navient joined the Republican and Democratic Attorneys General Associations, paying $15,000 to each to do so. It was the company’s first such contribution to the groups.
Not like they are interfering or anything, right? Nothing improper.
Three months later, Remondi spoke at the Democratic association’s summer policy conference in Seattle, joining a panel discussion about how to help borrowers avoid a lifetime of debt.
And they are the party that is allegedly supposed to be looking out for you kids!
For about 15 minutes — until Ellen Rosenblum, the Oregon attorney general, who moderated the panel discussion, cut him off — Remondi spoke about Navient’s efforts to help federal loan borrowers navigate their repayment options and avoid falling behind, according to meeting attendees.
His pitch failed to sway Xavier Becerra, California’s attorney general, who had one of his top aides on the panel with Remondi. Three weeks later, his office sued Navient.
Right after the lawsuit was announced, Senya Merchant, a program manager at the Center for American Progress, a progressive advocacy group, sent a message to one of Becerra’s advisers.
“Do you think this would supplant the CFPB suit in case that one gets dropped?” Merchant wrote in an e-mail, which was obtained through a public records request.
“I can’t speculate,” replied the adviser, Sarah Lovenheim, “but that’s a good question.”
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{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Now back to Indonesia:
"Indonesian officials fear 5,000 missing as Christians pray" Associated Press October 07, 2018
PALU, Indonesia — Christians dressed in their tidiest clothes and flocked to Sunday sermons in the earthquake- and tsunami-damaged Indonesian city of Palu, as the death toll from the twin disasters breached 1,700 and officials said they feared more than 5,000 others could be missing.
Indonesia’s disaster agency said the number of dead had climbed to 1,763, mostly in Palu. Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said many more people could be buried, especially in the Palu neighborhoods of Petobo and Balaroa, where more than 3,000 homes were damaged or sucked into deep mud when the Sept. 28 quake caused loose soil to liquefy.
‘‘Based on reports from village chiefs in Balaroa and Petobo, some 5,000 people have not been found. Our workers on the ground are trying to confirm this,’’ he said at a news briefing in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital.
Nugroho said that efforts to retrieve decomposed bodies in deep, soft mud were getting tougher and that some people may have fled or been rescued and evacuated. More than 8,000 either injured or vulnerable residents have been flown or shipped out of Palu, while others could have left by land, he said.
Officially, Nugroho said only 265 people are confirmed missing and 152 others still buried under mud and rubble, nine days after the magnitude 7.5 earthquake and powerful tsunami hit Palu and surrounding areas.
The government intends to end search operations by Thursday, nearly two weeks after the disaster, at which time those unaccounted for will be declared missing and considered dead, Nugroho said.
In Palu on Sunday, at least 200 people, including soldiers, filled the gray pews of the Protestant Manunggal church for a service. They sang as a young girl in a black-and-white dress with a red bow danced in the aisle, prayed, and listened to a 30-minute sermon from the pastor, Lucky Malonda. A woman in the front pew wept.
Min Kapala, a 49-year-old teacher, said she came to the city of more than 25 churches from an outlying area because her usual house of worship was destroyed.
‘‘I’m here at this particular church because my own church is no more; it’s leveled, and on its location there’s a corn plant,’’ she said. ‘‘That was very strange to me.’’
Outside the church, Malonda said the intensity of the disaster had taken even scientists by surprise and called it the will of God. Two people from his congregation were missing, he said.
A HAARP from Heaven, huh?
Also see:
"Like many other coastal residents with newer homes, he worries about his house being more likely to be swept away as global warming strengthens storms....."
There is, of course, NO PROOF of that but the agenda-pushing pre$$ states it as if it were true.
‘‘This is for sure part of godly intervention, not outside the power of almighty God, that can’t be predicted or planned for by anything,’’ Malonda said. He said religious leaders are discussing holding interfaith prayers but nothing has been agreed yet.
Protestants, Catholics, and Charismatics make up about 10 percent of the population of Palu, the provincial capital of Central Sulawesi. The province has a history of violent conflict between Muslims and Christians, though tensions have calmed in the past decade. Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country.
I suppose every earthquake/tsunami has its silver lining. Won't be anymore of that.
As searchers continued to dig through rubble Sunday, Central Sulawesi Governor Loki Djanggola said local officials were meeting with religious groups and families of victims to seek their consent to turn neighborhoods wiped out by liquefaction into mass graves.
He said on local television that survivors in the Petobo, Balaroa, and Jono Oge neighborhoods could be relocated and monuments be built in the areas, which now look like wastelands, to remember the victims interred there. Officials have said that it is not safe for heavy equipment to operate in those areas and that they fear the risk of the spread of disease from decomposed bodies.
While grappling with immediate relief needs, the government is also mapping out plans to help more than 70,000 people, including tens of thousands of children, who have been displaced by the disasters to rebuild their lives.
Social welfare officials have set up nurseries in makeshift tents as a stopgap to keep children safe and help them heal from the trauma.
Market vendors have resumed business and roadside restaurants were open in Palu, but long lines of cars and motorcycles still snarled out of gas stations.
Yeah, everything is almost back to normal.
In Jakarta, volunteers walked around thoroughfares empty of cars collecting donations for earthquake victims during the weekly car-free morning in the city center.
I hope that isn't a scam.
--more--"
Related: Indonesian city’s recovery to take 2 years, search nears end
The official death toll has risen to 2,073.
Speaking of earthquake scams:
"Strong aftershock rattles north Haiti day after deadly quake" Associated Press October 07, 2018
PORT-DE-PAIX, Haiti — Survivors sifting through the rubble of their earthquake-toppled cinderblock homes in Haiti on Sunday were rattled by a magnitude 5.2 aftershock that caused panic and threatened to raise the death toll even further from 12.
The US Geological Survey said the epicenter of the aftershock was located 9.8 miles north-northwest of Port-de-Paix, the city hard hit by Saturday night’s 5.9 magnitude earthquake. Sunday’s aftershock had a depth of 10 kilometers.
‘‘It was an aftershock. It was at the same location,’’ said Paul Caruso, a geophysicist with the USGS.
The tremors caused panic on streets where emergency teams were providing relief to victims of Saturday’s quake, which toppled cinderblock homes and rickety buildings in several cities.
That was when my printed Globe stopped shaking.
Haiti’s civil protection agency said at least seven people died in the coastal city of Port-de-Paix and three people died in the nearby community of Gros-Morne in Artibonite province. Among the dead from Saturday night’s quake were a 5-year-old boy crushed by his collapsing house and a man killed in a falling auditorium.
A total of at least 12 people were killed in the quake, Interior Minister Fednel Monchery told radio station MAGK9. Authorities said 188 people were injured.
‘‘I feel like my life is not safe here,’’ said Maryse Alsaint, a nun who directs of the San Gabriel National School in Gros-Morne, where several classrooms were severely damaged. She said that about 500 students would not be able to return to school on Monday.
The prison and police station in Port-de-Paix were damaged, leading some inmates to try to escape. Police were using tear gas to contain prisoners inside the lockup. There was no word if any inmates had escaped.
The USGS said Saturday’s quake was centered 12 miles northwest of Port-de-Paix, which is about 136 miles from the capital of Port-au-Prince. It was felt lightly in the capital, as well as in the neighboring Dominican Republic and in eastern Cuba, where no damage was reported.
In Haiti, officials have struggled to shore up buildings despite the two major fault lines along Hispaniola, which is the island shared with the Dominican Republic. Deep poverty and government instability have also rendered weaker homes and structures particularly vulnerable in earthquakes.
Rescue workers in Haiti said they were not looking for any more victims.
In the town of Gros-Morne, one bed was covered in rubble, while the exterior walls of some homes were visibly cracked. Others tilted at precarious angles.
Pierre Jacques Baudre, a farmer and father of seven, said he was afraid to return to his home after one wall built with rocks and cement crumbled.
‘‘The house can fall at any time,’’ he said.
Meanwhile, dozens of people could be seen sifting through debris before hauling away rebar to recycle and sell.
Like in Gaza!
The civil protection agency issued a statement saying that houses were destroyed in Port-de-Paix, Gros-Morne, Chansolme and Turtle Island.
Damage was also reported at the Saint-Michel church in Plaisance and the police station in Port-de-Paix. Parts of a hospital and an auditorium collapsed in Gros-Morne, where parliamentarian Alcide Audne told the Associated Press that two of the deaths occurred.
It was not clear if there was an event in the auditorium at the time.
President Jovenel Moise of Haiti said on his Twitter account Sunday that civil protection brigades were working to clear debris. He also said the government had sent water and food.
In 2010, a larger magnitude 7.1 quake damaged much of the capital and killed an estimated 300,000 people.....
So what did Bill Clinton and George W. Bush do with the billions they were in charge of, other than build a hotel Bill could stay at on his swings through for some sexual activity?
Btw, there is still rumble from the 2010 quake that has not yet been cleared.
--more--"
Related:
Depression becomes Tropical Storm Michael, heads toward Florida
Hurricane Michael on path to hit Florida as Category 3 storm
Hurricane Michael strengthens to Category 4 storm overnight
Hmmm.
Category 4 Michael roars close to Florida coast
Was it real or will it fizzle like Florence?
"The storm was officially classified as a Category 4 — on the verge of Category 5 — but was later downgraded as it continued its rapid advance up toward Georgia and the Carolinas, where cities still reeling from Hurricane Florence prepared for another onslaught of rain and wind....."
It was still the “worst storm that the Florida Panhandle has ever seen,” and it intensified quickly, taking many by surprise.
"Panhandle faces hurricane’s toll" by Richard Fausset, Patricia Mazzei and Alan Blinder New York Times October 12, 2018
MEXICO BEACH, Fla. — Much of the coast of the Florida Panhandle, including parts of Panama City and Mexico Beach, was left in ruins.
Ted Carranza could only watch with horror and wonder as Hurricane Michael lifted the houses all around him in the small town of Mexico Beach, then spun them around and dropped them.
“It was insane,” Carranza said Thursday from the town, where the storm had crossed onto land a day earlier. It was a city in ruin. All around him, in places where there were once houses, now there were mere piles of lumber, junked home furnishings, mangled roofing, fishing rods, ceiling fans, sheets, clothing, bottles.
Mexico Beach is now a splintered, flattened wreck, with boats pushed up halfway onto land, piers and docks destroyed, and the main street through town piled with the jumbled remains of permanent homes and vacation places.
“The mother or all bombs doesn’t do any more damage than this,” said Tom Bailey, 66, a retired Army major and former mayor of the city.
No, it vaporizes everything.
Bay Medical Center Sacred Heart, a 300-bed hospital in the heart of Panama City, was a tumultuous mess Thursday morning. Doctors, nurses, and staff members wandered outside, some crying, some looking for cell service.
Some Panama City residents were desperate for supplies, and sometimes took what they needed. At a half-ruined Dollar General store Thursday, residents walked in and out of a shattered glass door with instant coffee, soft drinks, water, and nail polish.
Most came looking for something to drink or eat. “Where’s the water?” one man asked.
“Down here, dude, it’s fight for yourself,” said another man who walked off with an armful of sodas. “It’s no water, no power nowhere.”
Isn't that looting?
Tyndall Air Force Base, which straddles a narrow spit of land jutting out into the Gulf, a dozen miles south of Panama City, “sustained extensive damage,” a post on the base’s Facebook page said.....
--more--"
Related:
In poor, rural communities, fleeing Hurricane Michael was tough
Michael’s fury reminds Boston: We need climate resilience
Awww, go fish, and never mind the oil slick.
Also see:
UN report on global warming carries life-or-death warning
Then they have lost.
Desperation of the shrill cusp of madness.
"US Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke approved a 20-year ban on new mining claims in the towering mountains north of Yellowstone National Park on Monday, after two proposed gold mines raised concerns that an area drawing tourists from around the globe could be spoiled....."
Yeah, it's all about the money to be made out of thin air so there better be drastic cuts in greenhouse gas emissions or we will all be eaten by insects (don't shoot the bears even though it has become a popular pastime and the tournament has become a social media sensation but you wouldn't want one as a pet).
Besides, if you don't cut emissions your house might blow up:
"New Lawrence shelter opens for residents displaced by Sept. 13 gas fires and explosions" by Aimee Ortiz Globe Staff October 08, 2018
LAWRENCE — Shower and restroom trailers lined the curb outside 46 Stafford St. here Monday, where a new shelter opened for residents displaced by the gas fires and explosions that devastated three Merrimack Valley towns last month.
You can read the NTSB report during your stay.
With natural gas service not due to be restored until Nov. 19 in some areas, the shelter is part of a housing program for the hundreds of residents who are without heat as the weather gets colder. The utility that services the area, Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, is paying for the program, which includes more than 3,000 hotel rooms and 150 apartments.
“Since the incident happened, we’ve been working to try to line up some additional housing options,” Christopher Besse, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, said Monday. “Not necessarily that people need them today, but more that they may need them as the weather gets cold and they may not want to stay in their home if they don’t have heat.”
“It’s really a place people can go shower, sleep, overnight if they don’t have a home to go back to because it’s cold,” Besse said. “If people don’t have anywhere else to go, they can use it to stay warm if the cold weather comes.”
What cold weather in this era of global warming?
--more--"
Related: Merrimack Valley explosions intensify calls to wean state off gas
Also see:
Gas is shut off to hundreds of homes in Woburn due to spike in pressure
National Grid this time.
National Grid defends use of replacement workers during lock out
Gas is restored to most Woburn homes that lost service
"Two sagging Pacific Gas & Electric power lines made contact, sparked, and ignited a Northern California wildfire last year that killed four people and injured a firefighter, officials said Tuesday. The finding adds to the growing financial liability of PG&E over wildfires in the state. Its equipment has been blamed for starting 13 wildfires last year and the utility has told shareholders it expects to pay more than $2.5 billion in damages....."
That's the cover story for what looked like some sort of laser weapon, and it makes you wonder what is really behind the gas explosions.
Sorry, but I'm sick of the pre$$ blowing hot smoke up your, you know.
Round and round we go (alcohol involved?), and I need an aspirin.
I've gotta tell you, reading the Globe is literally starting to stink.
NEXT DAY ROT:
It stinks from the head down:
After Merrimack Valley explosions, natural gas comes under sharp scrutiny
Columbia Gas ordered to halt all work except for emergencies
Despite Baker’s call, Fall River mayor says he won’t resign
Did you see where he stayed last night?
16 dead as rescue teams scour ruins after Hurricane Michael
They are now claiming fuel tanker explosions as the cause of the fires.
Hong Kong bars another democracy supporter from running for office
Don't worry, “they may win a round or two, but democracy will prevail.”
Besides, “it appears that the market is really focusing on fundamentals.”
