Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Following a new report into the loss of a Nimrod jet belonging to the UK’s Royal Air Force over Afghanistan the family of one of the victims is seeking a criminal prosecution. Sergeant Ben Knight, aged 25, was among the fourteen killed when Nimrod XV230 crashed in 2006.

Knight’s parents have applied via their lawyers Smithfield Partners to the Crown Prosecution Service to consider evidence contained in a report by Charles Haddon-Cave QC, who is due to appear before the House of Commons next month. The Loss Of RAF Nimrod XV230, A Failure Of Leadership, Culture And Priorities stated that the accident was preventable and that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) made spending cuts a priority over safety. A 2005 review into Nimrod safety was “riddled with errors,” the report found.

Smithfield Partners have also written to the Health and Safety Executive, asking for the MoD to be investigated for breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The letter was addressed directly to deputy chief executive Kevin Myres.

XV230 had shortly completed air-to-air refueling on September 2, 2006, when it was destroyed by an explosion. “We had a 25-year-old healthy son, who used to play squash and, to put it bluntly, he ended up as a plastic bag full of bits,” said Graham Knight. “That is something which is very hard to cope with.”

The Knights met Armed Forces Minister Bill Rammell in London yesterday. Rammell said he was unable to comment on possible legal action against individuals, but promised to provide answers to other questions posed by the Knights and other families. The Crown Prosecution Service has promised consider the matter, and the Health and Safety Executive said it could not comment this early on in developments. The latest report names five people in the MoD, three with BAE Systems and two with defence company QinetiQ, as responsible.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

A review this week by Wikinews of US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) complaints about mortgages in the United States shows Bank of America leads all lending institutions in complaints.

Since mortgages complaints were recorded in December 2011, 77,622 total have been added to CFPB’s database. 29.2% of these complaints involved Bank of America, with the second most received by Wells Fargo, accounting for 15.5% of all complaints. JPMorgan Chase ranked third by volume of complaints with 9.8%. Ocwen was fourth with 8.7% and Citibank was fifth with 4.8%. Nationstar Mortgage; Green Tree Servicing, LLC; HSBC; PNC Bank; U.S. Bancorp; OneWest Bank; SunTrust Bank; Flagstar Bank; and Select Portfolio Servicing, Inc. each had between 1.0 and 3.8% of total complaints. The remaining 14.4% of all complaints about consumer mortgages were divided between about 530 other lending institutions.

The Motley Fool reported last month that for the past fiscal quarter, the biggest US based mortgage lenders were from first to fifth Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Quicken Loans and U.S. Bancorp.

According to the US Federal Reserve, debt for family residences stands at US$10.706 trillion for the second quarter of 2013. As of the end of June of this year, Bank of America is the United States’s second largest commercial bank with US$1.343 trillion in domestic assets. Wells Fargo is the fourth largest commercial bank with US$1.251 trillion in domestic assets. JPMorgan Chase is the largest US commercial bank with US$1.329 trillion in domestic assets and US$1.947 trillion in total assets.

The mortgage complaints in the CFPB report include several subproducts. Conventional fixed mortgages account for 27.1% of all complaints. Conventional adjustable mortgages account for 10.0%. FHA mortgages account for 7.7% of all complaints. Home equity loans or lines of credit account for 3.8% of all complaints. VA mortgages are 1.4% of all complaints. Second mortgages and reverse mortgages each account for 0.6% of complaints. The remaining 48.7% of complaints are about other mortgages or other mortgage issues. A few years ago, FHA loans accounted for about 10% of all US mortgages while VA loans accounted for about 3%. Prime loans accounted for over 75% of the market and the rest were subprime mortgages.

California leads all states by volume of complaints with 14768. It is followed by Florida, New York, Georgia and Texas. When complaints are divided by a state’s total population, New Hampshire leads. The state is followed by Washington D.C., Maryland, Georgia and Florida. Complaints do not correlate with national rankings for August’s foreclosure rate by state where Nevada topped the list, followed by Florida, Ohio, Maryland and Delaware.

Two zip codes account for over 1,000 total complaints between them. 565 complaints originated in the 48382 zip code, which is in Commerce Township, Michigan, located in suburban Detroit. 553 complaints originated in the 33071 zip code, in Coral Springs, Florida. According to real estate website Zillow, there are currently 1,033 properties in foreclosure in Coral Springs while Commerce Township only has 131 properties currently in foreclosure. Four other zip codes have 100 plus complaints originating from them. 91730, in Rancho Cucamonga, California, had 158 complaints. 33409, in West Palm Beach, Florida, had 132. 92626, in Costa Mesa, California, had 125 complaints. 92660, in Newport Beach, California, had 122 complaints. Respectively, the towns had 534, 1,068, 153, and 134 properties currently in foreclosure. These numbers are higher than for the cities of a few sampled zip codes where there was only one complaint, such as Gold Hill, Oregon which has 4 properties in foreclosure, and Decatur, Illinois which has 6 properties in foreclosure.

The CFPB categorizes complaints into six categories: “Loan modification, collection,foreclosure” or problems when a person is unable to pay; “Loan servicing, payments, escrow account” or problems with making a payment; “Application, originator, mortgage broker”; “Credit decision / Underwriting”; “Settlement process and costs”, and “Other”. The CFPB says the complaint types indicate consumers “appear to be driven by a desire to seek agreement with their companies on foreclosure alternatives. The complaints indicate that consumer confusion persists around the process and requirements for obtaining loan modifications and refinancing, especially regarding document submission timeframes, payment trial periods, allocation of payments, treatment of income in eligibility calculations, and credit bureau reporting during the evaluation period.” Currently, 59.6% of all complaints against lenders deal with being unable to pay. 25.1% deal with problems in making a payment. 7.0% have to do with the application process.

Of the complaint-heavy zip codes, for 48382 in Commerce Township, Michigan, 98.9% of all complaints have to deal with being unable to pay. Accounting for 23.4% of all mortgage complaints in Commerce Township, 132 of the complaints for being unable to pay were made regarding Bank of America, accounting for 97.8% or all but 3 complaints against them from the zip. 121 of the Bank of America responses in Commerce Township were closed with explanation and 12 were closed with non-monetary relief. 33071 in Coral Springs is different, with 537 of the 553 complaints being categorized under other. Only 11 complaints relate to foreclosure and issues with being able to pay. 92626 in Costa Mesa, where 32% of the mortgage complaints were about Bank of America and 26.4% were about Wells Fargo, had 93.6% of its complaints dealing with being unable to pay. 5 total complaints dealt with payment issues and 3 dealt with applications.

Beyond regional variance in complaint types lodged, the top five mortgage lenders by volume of complaints all had being unable to pay as their top complaint category, ranging between 55.8% for Citibank and 69.4% for Bank of America. Problems with payment accounted for the second largest area of complaints, with Ocwen having the largest percentage of complaints at 31.9% and Bank of America having the smallest at 18.8%. Foreclosure was the top area of complaints for a number of other lending institutions including 1st Alliance Lending, OneWest Bank, Ally Bank, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, Bank of the West, BMO Harris, BOK Financial Corp, Caliber Home Loans, Inc, Capital One, Deutsche Bank and EverBank.

Nationally, complaints reached a high of 5,840 for January 2013, 1,107 more than the next highest month of April 2013. The total emerging for September is the second lowest since records were first kept in December 2011. On a state by state level, this pattern largely repeats with a major exception for Florida which saw a peak of 849 complaints in June 2012. Then, as now, Florida was one of the top five states in the nation in its foreclosure rate. The national January spike came as the Qualified Mortgage standard required by the The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 came into play. It required mortgage lenders to take steps to insure borrowers could repay their mortgages.

Bank of America’s complaint volume follows the national trend, with a spike in January 2013 with 1,925 total complaints. Unlike nationally, the next month by volume of complaints was February of this year with 1,598 complaints. Prior to that, the highest month was May 2012 with 1,418 complaints. The lowest volume of complaints is September this year with 334.

Wells Fargo matched national trends for volume of complaints by month, with the exception of the current month being the lowest on record for number of complaints with 197 compared to the next lowest month, December 2011, when they had 221. JPMorgan’s complaint volume by month spiked in January and March of this year with 504 complaints. April of this year was the next highest month with 493 complaints, edging out May of last year with 488 complaints. September this year is on track to be the lowest month by complaint volume.

The federal government shutdown is unlikely to impact the current mortgage situation in the United States directly for most consumers, though mortgage processing by the Federal Housing Administration could be slower, resulting in fewer mortgages processed.

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

The United Kingdom Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Right Honourable Gordon Brown PC MP, in a speech to the British House of Commons today presented his ninth Budget, what is very likely to be his last Budget before the next UK General Election. This opened the parliamentary debate on the 2005 Finance Bill, and was followed by responses from the opposition parties.

In a 48 minute long speech, the Chancellor presented a Budget of “tax cuts that are reasonable, spending that is affordable, and [economic] stability that is paramount”, that was “the prudent course for Britain”. There were few surprises that had not already been indicated in his 2004 pre-Budget report. The increase in the threshold on stamp duty was greater than that forecast by commentators, as was the amount of the Council Tax rebate to households with pensioners.

Monday, November 22, 2004

Dan Rather has announced that he will retire on March 9th, 2005 as anchor of CBS Evening News. He will continue to be a correspondent for both of the 60 Minutes shows.

It is reported that Rather’s leaving has nothing to do with a report in 2004 regarding US President Bush’s National Guard service that was widely reported to be factually false. A CBS panel is looking into that report.

Others believe that Rather is stepping down due to this report and investigation. Howard Kurtz, a reporter for the Washington Post, states that “It’s pretty clear that Dan Rather faced a very unpalatable choice… His contract had at least two more years to run. [Should he] step down now before the outside investigative report, commissioned by CBS News expected in the next few weeks about his botching — and the network’s botching — of that story about President Bush’s National Guard service? Rather [decided] today that it would be better for him to step down on his own terms.”

Dan Rather, 74, has been the anchor for CBS Evening News for 24 years, succeeding Walter Cronkite. Rather is the third most watched anchor on United States television.

All links dated November 23, 2004.

• Dan Collins, “Dan Rather Stepping Down”, CBS News.
  • Blogs: Jay Rosen, Medium Lobster, Jeff Goldstein, Steve M., Captain Ed, Skippy, Cori Dauber, DJ Drummond, Christopher Kanis, Greg Ransom, Jim Treacher, Smash, Taegan Goddard, Edward, Kevin McCullough
• The Associated Press, “Rather to Resign ‘CBS Evening News’ Post”, ABC News (US). Earlier article.
  • Blogs: Kevin Roderick, Damian Penny, Will Collier, Andrew Sullivan, Roger L. Simon, Pejman Yousefzadeh, Glenn Reynolds, Jesse Taylor, Matthew Yglesias, Jon Henke, Charles Johnson, Ace
• Jacques Steinberg, “Rather to Step Down in March After 24 Years as CBS Anchor”, New York Times (registration).
  • Blogs: Jay Rosen, Hindrocket, Charles Johnson, James Martin Capozzola.
• “Dan Rather to Step Down as CBS Anchor”, Fox News.
  • Blogs: Captain Ed, Bill at INDCJournal, Hindrocket
• “Dan Rather to leave anchor desk in March”, CNN.
  • Blogs: James Joyner, Andrew Sullivan
• The Associated Press, “CBS’s Rather Will Step Down”, Toledo Blade.
• The Associated Press, “A Chronology of Dan Rather’s Career”, Seattle Post Intelligencer.
• “Iowans Sad, Happy that Dan Rather Will Step Down”, Iowa Channel.com.
• Jonathan L. Schwartz, “Viacom’s CBS Network Loses Top Anchor To Retirement”, Forbes.
• “Dan Rather Stepping Down”, WNCT.
• More articles on Dan Rather at Google News.
• More blog commentary on Dan Rather’s resignation at Technorati.
• Usenet discussions of Dan Rather at Google Groups.
• Photos of Dan Rather at Yahoo! News.

Sunday, August 21, 2005

A robotic system at Stanford Medical Center was used to perform a laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery successfully with a theoretically similar rate of complications to that seen in standard operations. However, as there were only 10 people in the experimental group (and another 10 in the control group), this is not a statistically significant sample.

If this surgical procedure is as successful in large-scale studies, it may lead the way for the use of robotic surgery in even more delicate procedures, such as heart surgery. Note that this is not a fully automated system, as a human doctor controls the operation via remote control. Laparoscopic gastric bypass surgery is a treatment for obesity.

There were concerns that doctors, in the future, might only be trained in the remote control procedure. Ronald G. Latimer, M.D., of Santa Barbara, CA, warned “The fact that surgeons may have to open the patient or might actually need to revert to standard laparoscopic techniques demands that this basic training be a requirement before a robot is purchased. Robots do malfunction, so a backup system is imperative. We should not be seduced to buy this instrument to train surgeons if they are not able to do the primary operations themselves.”

There are precedents for just such a problem occurring. A previous “new technology”, the electrocardiogram (ECG), has lead to a lack of basic education on the older technology, the stethoscope. As a result, many heart conditions now go undiagnosed, especially in children and others who rarely undergo an ECG procedure.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

North America’s oldest retailer, Canada’s Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), will be transferred from one American owner to another. NRDC Equity Partners, LLC, owners of U.S. department store Lord & Taylor, will purchase HBC from the estate of Jerry Zucker, who died in April.

In 2006, the fate of HBC was first in doubt when Zucker bought it for $1.1 billion from another American owner. The businessman wanted to convert The Bay into a more upscale department-store chain.

Zucker had also begun remodeling the company’s Zellers chain to imitate the Target Corporation, creating wider aisles, expanding outlets, and selling at prices that matched those of the Wal-Mart Canada Corporation.

NRDC plans to introduce up to 15 Lord & Taylor stores in Canada by converting some of HBC’s existing properties, which include stores such as The Bay, Zellers and Home Outfitters. Under the deal announced on Wednesday, NRDC will support a newly-established holding corporation, the Hudson’s Bay Trading Company, with $500 million in funding.

The Hudson’s Bay Company was established in 1670 to support trade and development throughout the northern North American territory that is now Canada.

Monday, April 14, 2008

This weekend, April 12–13, the joint Development Committee of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) held its annual Spring Meeting in Washington, D.C.

The Group of Seven (G7), which is comprised of the economic policy makers from the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and Japan, held its annual meeting on Friday, April 11. This meeting, which rotates locations, was also held in Washington, D.C.

The Development Committee meeting ended on Sunday, with a call from the economic leaders for assistance to the countries which been adversely affected by rising food prices. Economic growth has slowed to its lowest rate in five years, while the rising costs of food and energy have not slowed.

Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, said, “We have to put our money where our mouth is. Now. So that we can put food into hungry mouths. It’s as stark as that.” He called for US$500 million in emergency funds for the United Nations’s World Food Programme by May 1, 2008.

“All that has been done [in the past decade] can be undone very rapidly by the crisis coming from the increase in food prices,” said Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the IMF.

“Children will be suffering from malnutrition, with consequences for all their lives,” he said. He cited the growing use of land for biofuels as contributing to rising food costs. In the end growing violence and civil unrest could be a result.

Strauss-Kahn further warned that eventually it could become “not only a humanitarian question,” but could also affect developed nations by leading to trade imbalances.

Specifically cited as a current example, was Haiti, where just this weekend, violence escalated resulting in the death of a United Nations peacekeeper and the ousting of Prime Minister Jacques-Édouard Alexis.

United States Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson cautioned that affected countries “need to resist the temptation of price controls and consumption subsidies that are generally not effective and efficient methods of protecting vulnerable groups.”

Price controls and subsidies “tend to create fiscal burdens and economic distortions while often providing aid to higher-income consumers or commercial interests other than the intended beneficiaries,” Paulson said.

In their Friday statement, the G7 said “there have been at times sharp fluctuations in major currencies, and we are concerned about their possible implications for economic and financial stability.” This marked the first time since the February 2004 meeting in Boca Raton, Florida, that the wording on foreign exchange has been altered.

The G7 presented a plan to strengthen regulation of capital markets. They urged financial firms to “fully” disclose their at-risk investments and improve capital reserves. While the G7 did not outline new monetary or fiscal policies, it did promise action “as appropriate.” The timetable for the plan is 100 days.

The head of G7 Market Economics at Tullett Prebon, Lena Komileva, observed, “The implicit message is that the G7 is moving closer towards concerted action in the event that persistent volatility in the foreign exchange market presents new risk of systemic failure in the financial industry.”

“While action is unlikely in the short run, they are probably already considering a pre-emptive move in foreign exchange markets to slow the dollar’s decline,” added Komileva.

Economists at Goldman Sachs told their clients, “After a period where the possibility of G7 policy intervention seemed very remote, providing no counterweight to the dollar depreciation forces, we are moving towards a regime where G7 intervention is a more real possibility.”

Friday, February 22, 2008

Steve Wright, yesterday convicted of the murder of five women in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, has today been sentenced at Ipswich Crown Court to life imprisonment. The bodies of the five women who worked as sex workers in Ipswich were found around the town in December 2006.

The judge, Mr Justice Gross said that a “substantial degree of pre-meditation and planning” was involved meaning the requirments for a whole life sentence for Wright was met. He said, “This was a targeted campaign of murder. It is right you should spend your whole life in prison.”

Speaking after the sentencing, Deputy Chief Constable of Suffolk Police, Jacqui Cheer said, “At the start of the inquiry we could not have asked for anything more. It is a tribute to all the people who have been involved – not only police officers but their support teams and all the members of the public who phoned-in offering information.”