LyrArc Article Gist
Brazil's currency, the Real, moved up to 1.7 per 1 US dollar, on the eve of the Presidential election in the first week of October 2010. Brazil's overnight interest rate of 10.75% attracts speculative foreign capital in the carry trade, where investors boorow cheaply in the US and Japan and invest it in Brazil. The central bank has kept these rates high to finance a current account deficit of $46 billion in 2010 -which is forecast to hit $60 billion in 2011- and to finance a high level of government spending. This spending is likely to continue with Ms Rousseff as the new President, as Rousseff plans to invest in infrastructure such as bullet trains and river dams, as well as the FIFA world cup and the Olympics. Government spending has increased by 18% so far in 2010. Exporters are affected by the artificially high value of the Brazilian real. Goldman Sachs economist, Alberto Ramos, says the real is overvalued by 55% compared to its fair value of 2.65 to 1 US dollar, based on a computer model that incorporates factors such as trade, inflation and productivity. Sao Paulo is already the most expensive city in the Americas, according to one survey....

LyrArc Article Gist
Almuth Schult of Wolfsburg is a women's soccer player who plans to come back to soccer after having two children. After a successful case of a Wolfsburg teammate of hers against Lyon the new FIFA rules require that professional women football players get maternity leave at two thirds pay for at least 14 weeks. In addition clubs are not allowed to discriminate against players because of pregnancy and must reinstate them after giving birth.

LyrArc Article Gist
A detailed account of how it happened and the hard work of Secretary Paulson from meetings at 7am to 11pm, with one banker saying it was harder than prison where you get 3 full meals a day. While Treasury reviewed its options, it asked Morgan Stanley bankers and Fed officials to go over the books at Fannie and Freddie. Treasury also handled calls from foreign cenral banks holding Fannie and Freddie bonds. The long meetings at Treasury, those involved, and the final meeting with the CEO's of the 2 companies where Paulson told them "Accept, or it will happen," they could go willingly or FHFA would declare them undercapitalized and take them over involuntarily.

LyrArc Article Gist
Labor seeing a decline in unionized workers from 20% in 1980 in the private sector to 7.5% today according to the Labor Department, wants legislation embodied in the Employee Free Choice Act to help increase the number of unionized workers. Without the required 60 votes in the Senate to resist filibuster and reluctant to pick a big fight with the Chambers of Commerice and National Manufacturers Association and the business lobby on this issue early in the term, makes the Obama administration unlikely to push this issue too hard. The Employee Free Choice bill would give unions and not companies as under current law, the choice of having workers vote for a union by signing cards instead of through a secret ballot election. Card signing is preferred by unions because it can be done without an employer's knowledge. With secret ballot elections companies typically have months to mount an opposition. The bill also authorizes an arbitrator to impose a first contract ifa union fails to reach agreement with a company by 120 days following the union's formation. Under current law if the two sides don't reach a contract within a year, the union typically loses its right to be the exclusive bargaining agent for the workers....

LyrArc Article Gist
A study by Prof. Joseph Gyourko, of the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, shows that the FHA risks having $50 billion in losses over the next couple of years. Analysts say the largest banks could face billions of dollars in losses if the FHA were to push defaulted mortgages back into the hands of the banks that originated these mortgages. If home prices continue their decline, a restructuring at FHA and a taxpayer bailout will be inevitable.

LyrArc Article Gist
The new head of U.S. President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors, is Princeton economics professor, Alan Krueger. Kueger is known as the academic's academic, whose office is located with other labor scholars in the Princeton library. His work has focussed on what he calls "Rockenomics" (research about which bands do well and the reasons for this), on commuting, on studies such as the one with a suggestive title, "Sorting in the Labor Market: Do Gregarious Workers Flock to Interactive Jobs?" His appointment suggests the Obama administration is looking at no new policy initiatives, focussing on an incrementalist approach in policy actions, with the hope that he can get both political parties behind smaller changes. Putting a micro-specialist in charge at a time of huge volatility in financial markets shows an administration that is likely to continue the status quo with small changes till the presidential elections in 2012- the opposite of strong action because the Obama adminstration has no idea how to turn this economy around and only hopes things will change....

LyrArc Article Gist
The largest U.S. bank holding companies, including Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase and Citigroup, and two foreign banks Deutsche Bank and Barclays PLC must submit initial plans for "living wills" by July 1, 2012. The Dodd-Frank legislation requires financial firms to develop plans that lay out how they could be liquidated if they went under in a crisis. This legislation gives the FDIC and other regulators the power to seize and dismantle a failing financial firm, to help mitigate the problems of "too-big-to-fail" firms. The FDIC and U.S. regulators lacked such powers at the time of the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. The FDIC and the U.S. Fed co-wrote the living will rule for "comprehensive and coordinated resolution planning." In all, 124 banks, including 100 foreign banks with U.S. affiliates, which have over $50 billion in assets worldwide, must submit plans and update on a regular basis. Smaller banks will have the deadline extended to December 2013.