February 18, 2009 · 8:35 am

News Day 2/18/09: Criminal charges for FBI snitch / 46 St. Paul teachers reassigned / Principals dis NCLB / more …

FBI RNC snitch charged in attack Andrew Darst, who spied on the RNC Welcoming Committee for the FBI, faces felony charges of first- and second-degree burglary and a misdemeanor assault charge, reports Randy Furst in the Strib. Court documents say that Minnetrista police responding to a call to a home at 2:18 a.m. on January 11 found the door ripped off its hinges, and that Darst “appeared to be full of rage and anger” and said he “wasn’t comfortable with the people his wife was with” in the home.

The FBI, of course, won’t confirm that Darst is an informant, but he was listed as a potential prosecution witness in a previous RNC trial, and RNC 8 lawyer Bruce Nestor confirms that he is listed as such in FBI documents. Although mug shots are usually public, a Hennepin County clerk said that Darst’s mug shot would not be released, on instructions from the FBI.

NCLB forces reassignment of 46 St. Paul teachers As part of forced restructuring at Humboldt Junior High and Arlington High School, 46 teachers were ordered to different assignments last week, with letters from the district saying that “this assignment change is not related to any issue of misconduct, nor should it be construed as a failure on your part.” Emily Johns writes in the Strib that dozens of teachers rallied outside district HQ on Tuesday, protesting lack of input into the restructuring process as a whole. District plans include the already-in-place transformation of Arlington into a sciene, technology and math magnet school, funded by a $6 million federal grant, and future plans to combine Humboldt junior and senior high schools into a single small 7-12 school and to extend the school day at both schools.

The restructuring is mandated by NCLB, but most MN principals think that NCLB itself is destructive, according to a report released yesterday by Minnesota 2020.

There are about 1,800 principals in Minnesota. Each oversees a school that has been affected by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law. While NCLB was created in Washington D.C., it has permeated education down into each classroom. NCLB has forced principals to make draconian choices to meet NCLB requirements, choices made more difficult in Minnesota’s atmosphere of declining funding and diminished results.

Some 97% of the 740 principals responding to the survey said that “NCLB’s main goal – 100 percent proficiency in tests by 2014 – is unattainable.” In addition, principals said that NCLB has forced them to spend more time and resources on “teaching to the test” and to divert resources away from arts and other subjects. They feel that NCLB has affected community perception of schools, and that its requirements for special education students and ELL students are particularly unrealistic.

The NCLB test, MCA-II, is an ineffective measure of student development. Only 15.5 percent of principals say the MCA-II is an effective assessment of student achievement. More than 96 percent said that an assessment that measures student growth over many years is more useful than the MCA-II.

“The job of an educator is difficult enough without having to work with a program that has dubious results,” concludes MN 2020.

T-Paw backtracks on carbon Are MN legislators actually surprised by the Pawlenty administration’s abandonment of green principles? Ron Way in MinnPost reports that they are, as T-Paw administration officials waffle on carbon emissions, green jobs, and clean car legislation.

David Thornton, assistant commissioner for air quality at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) told legislators no further action is needed to reduce carbon emissions and that millions of tons of carbon emissions from coal-fired Big Stone II and Excelsior Energy could actually reduce greenhouse gases. His assertions fly in the face of not only common sense but also other reports by previously Pawlenty-approved expert Bill Grant of the Walton League and the MN Climate Change Advisory Group. Thornton said the new plants would replace older, more polluting ones — but Thornton said the utilities told MCCAG that the opposite was true.

Fur, feathers and fins report What is it with all of the animal news? From the horrific chimp attack in Connecticut to discovery of 26,000-year-old saber-toothed cat bones in southeastern MN, animals are in the news this week. In the Twin Cities, the Animal Humane Society euthanized more than 120 cats found in a St. Anthony mobile home, deciding they were too sick to survive, though Animal Ark takes issue with that assertion. In Alaska, a BBC team used underwater cameras to film grizzly bears catching salmon, and reports that “Most bears will do anything to avoid getting their ears wet.” In Scotland, reports BBC, a lamb head-butted a golden eagle.

In MN, the MPCA found mercury levels in fish increasing since the mid-1990s, reversing a previous, and healthier, downward trend, reports Dennis Lien in the PiPress. The pollution probably comes from outside MN, as mercury travels thousands of miles after being produced by coal-fired power plants.

MN Job Watch As Minnesotans get laid off at a rate of about a thousand a day, many are being pushed to sign documents waiving their right to sue their employers, reports Martin Moylan at MPR. The waivers are required in exchange for some kind of severance benefits, and prevent future lawsuits about anything from work-related disability to discrimination. Attorney Stephen Cooper warns:

“An employee often thinks, ‘Oh this is something that serves both our interests. This is just a mutual way to both agree we’re both protected. That is very seldom the case. Usually the only person being protected in those documents is the employer.”

Saving drowning homeowners President Barack Obama will announce a housing bailout plan today in Phoenix. Two groups of homeowners are in trouble, reports the New York Times: about three million who are already behind in monthly payments and also about ten million whose houses are “underwater” — worth less than they owe on their mortgages. The Obama plan will target the first group, with $50 billion from the already-allotted financial bailout money going to reduce their monthly payments. The NYT analysis is that the Obama plan bets on underwater homeowners staying with their homes and mortgages rather than walking away, at the risk of wrecking their credit ratings.

Recovery.gov – your turn! The new White House website, recovery.gov, ” features cool graphs, interactive maps, projected timelines of when the money will start pumping into the economy, and a place to share your stories and offer comments,” according to the Daily Kos. And if you feel the need for a little more information before telling the government what to do, check out Baseline Scenario’s Financial Crisis for Beginners.

Afghanistan: Civilian deaths up, more troops On the heels of a U.N. report of a 39% increase in civilian deaths in Afghanistan last year, President Obama cited “a deteriorating situation” and authorized deployment of up to 17,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, reports the BBC. The troops will add to 19,000 U.S. troops under U.S. command and another 14,000 serving under NATO command. U.S. commanders in Afghanistan asked for 30,000 additional troops.

The U.N found militants to blame for 55% of 2,118 civilian deaths in 2008, and documented Taliban assassination and intimidation campaigns against anyone associating with the government and against schools. The New York Times reported that, while most of the 39% of civilian deaths attributable to U.S., NATO and Afghan forces come from air strikes, there are other significant problems:

The newly released United Nations report singled out Special Forces and other military units operating outside the normal chains of command, which, the survey said, frequently could not be held accountable for their actions.

Special Forces groups like Navy Seals and paramilitary units operated by the C.I.A. often conduct raids in Afghanistan, and often at night. Such groups typically operate outside the normal chains of command, which means that their presence and movements are not always known by regular field commanders.

Give us national healthcare! A New York Times-CBS poll shows that 59% of the country wants the government–not insurance companies–to provide health insurance, and 49% say the insurance should cover all medical problems.

The poll sampled attitudes on a wide variety of topics, and the report compares responses now to attitudes 30 years ago. Among the other findings:

Today, most Americans (60%) say they get most of their news from television, with newspapers a distant second (14%), followed closely by the internet (13%), and radio (7%). Thirty years ago, a Los Angeles Times Poll found Americans were equally as likely to get most of their news from newspapers (42%) as television (41%). The internet was not available as a choice in the 1979 poll.

Wal-Mart up, Wal-Mart down “Stronger Dollar Knocks Wal-Mart” said the BBC, but “Wal-Mart Profit Tops Expectations” headlined the New York Times. The different spins reported the same numbers: Wal-Mart reported an 8% drop in quarterly profits as the higher value of the U.S. dollar affected overseas earnings, but sales were still up and there still was a profit, as Wal-Mart continues to do better in the recession than almost anyone else.

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February 17, 2009 · 8:56 am

News Day 2/17/09: Never-ending recount / Zombie banks / Battered by spouse? Get out of town / More …

Never-ending recount The judges ruled Friday on which sets of absentee ballots would be considered (not counted, just considered for counting), and Coleman’s lawyers struck back Monday, asking them to reverse their ruling, reports Jay Weiner in MinnPost. Weiner sees the move as preparation for an appeal after the judges’ “final” decision on who won … and there’s still no word on when that decision will come. Trial, and posturing, continue today.

Zombie banks “A zombie bank drains bailout capital but doesn’t respond with any meaningful lending,” reports MPR’s Chris Arnold. When the government props up a zombie bank, it’s not lending but it won’t die. Andy Kessler, a former hedge fund manager, says zombie banks “eat the fabric of the economy,” and warns: “I’ve watched every single one of those zombie movies and everybody knows you can’t cure zombie-ism … you gotta shoot ’em, you gotta get rid of ’em, cut their heads off, put the silver bullet through their hearts–and get some healthy banks.” As Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner proposes a complicated package of private investments and public loans to buy toxic assets from banks, the zombie bank explanation sounds a timely warning. Arnold and his guests discuss solutions such as wiping out the zombie banks, and then creating new healthy banks with taxpayers as the shareholders or taking over troubled home loans and giving them to smaller community banks to restructure.

Get on the bus and get out of town Finally find a way to escape that abusive spouse and get your children to safety? Now Twin Cities victims may be given tickets to ride the old grey dog to Bemidj, Brainerd, or Albert Lea, because metro-area shelters are out of room, reports Joy Powell in the Strib. With little affordable housing, shelters and safe houses have seen average stays go from 20 days in 2005 to 37 days in 2008, and there’s just no more room in either shelters or public housing. The recession has brought more violence at home. The statewide domestic abuse crisis line has seen calls rise from an average of 500 a month in 2006 to 900 a month now. Many victims remain in dangerous situations because there is just nowhere to go.

MN Job Watch The stimulus package will increase unemployment benefits by $25 per month, across the board, as well as extending the federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) through December. A federal Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program extended benefits by 13 weeks in July, and by an additional 20 weeks in November. The 20-week extension was due to expire in March, but will now run through December.

The MN Green Jobs Task Force wants a new Green Enterprise Authority to coordinate state agency efforts to attract new green-collar jobs, reports Tim Pugmire on MPR. The task force also wants tax incentives and bonding for renewable energy projects.

Stimulus and MN deficit MN Management and Budget Commissioner Tom Hanson said that MN will get up to $2.8 billion to bolster the state’s general fund, paykng for health care, education and state stabilization aid, reports Tim Pugmire for MPR. The money may make up some of the increase in the state budget deficit, which is expected to grow from the current $4.8 billion to as much as $7 billion when the next state economic forecast comes out on March 3. The federal money comes with strings attached. T-Paw will have to restore proposed cuts in health care programs and might have to give up an accounting shift for education funds.

But that still leaves most of the MN budget carnage in place. Sheila Regan writes in the TC Daily Planet about the impact of the T-Paw proposal to basically dismantle the Perpich arts high school and arts education center.

Could be worse? Kansas is suspending income tax refunds, reports AP, and may miss this Friday’s payroll for 42,000 state employees, as the legislature and governor fight over the state deficit. And in California, reports BBC, Gov. Arnie Schwarzenegger ordered layoff notices for 20,000 state workers after CA legislators failed to approve a $40 billion budget. This on top of two-day-a-month unpaid furloughs already in place for state workers and delayed tax refunds for everybody.

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February 16, 2009 · 9:36 am

News Day 2/16/09: Tax blue jeans / 2, 4, 6, 8 – how many billions do we rate? / Around the world in 90 seconds

Tax blue jeans, give business a break Surprise! Pawlenty panel backs business tax cuts T-Paw’s 21st Century Tax Reform Commission recommended imposing a sales tax on clothing and services, and raising the cigarette tax by about a dollar per pack — all in order to pay for business tax breaks starting at $300 million the first year and rising to $900 million a year thereafter, reported AP. Hmmm – maybe people will have something to say about the panel and T-Paw at a series of town hall meetings across the state, starting Thursday.

A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money Or not — as the estimates of how much of the economic stimulus package will come to MN vary wildly from one report to the next. Four billion, and possibly more, Senator Amy Klobuchar told AP’s Martiga Lohn. $9.1 billion, said Kevin Diaz in the Strib, with the money saving or creating 66,000 MN jobs. Diaz’s colleague Patricia Lopez had estimated (one day earlier) “a cool $3 billion” for MN. Lopez quoted MN House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher as saying that “a lot of the details are not as crisp as we would like,” which seems like one of the more accurate statements about the MN stimulus funding.

Here are some of the early reports on the devilish details: Cynthia Boyd at MinnPost reports that Minnesota’s school stimulus funds are estimated at about $1.4 billion, including 815.7 million in state fiscal stabilizatin funding, $224.3 million in Pell grants, $187.5 million in added Special Education monies, $87 million in Title I tutoring for poor kids, $27.2 million in school improvement grants, $20.6 million for Head Start, and $25.2 million for Child Care and Development block grants.

MinnPost’s DC reporter, Cynthia Dizikes weighed in with more numbers — $134,695,876 in weatherization funding, $668,242,481 in infrastructure investment, $502,284,177 for roads and bridges, $92,241,542 for mass transit, $1,851,573 specifically for the Hiawatha Corridor, $107,690,700 in loan funds for drinking- and waste-water treatment.

MN Job Watch Want a recession-proof job? Shoe repair is good, according to the Strib, and so is the pawn shop business, auto repair, and debt collectors. Their business is so good, that lawyers report an increase in business from people being hounded by collectors. Bankruptcy filings are also “huge” and “the repo business is booming.”

You might take that optimistic outlook with a grain of salt, however — MPR’s Tom Robertson reports reports that not even funeral homes are recession-proof.

A growing number of families are choosing less expensive caskets for their loved ones. They’re cutting back on flowers and shortening the length of visitation services, all as a way to save money.

There’s also a rise in the number of families who cannot pay funeral costs at all, especially in regions with high unemployment. That means burial costs are increasingly falling on local or state governments.

Another Strib article by Kara McGuire points to a grim picture for workers whose retirement accounts fell, on average, by 27 percent last year. Many workers now see their employers eliminating 401(k) matches.

Around the world in 90 seconds Even as peace talks supposedly near an agreement, BBC reports that Israeli jets bombed tunnels on the Egyptian border after two rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel.

While the U.S. is at war in Afghanistan, not in Pakistan, BBC reports that U.S missile strikes killed ten people in northwest Pakistan (Sunday?), after a Saturday missile attack destroyed a house near the Afghan border, killing 28 militants. Meanwhile, the Pakistan government signed a peace deal with a Taliban group in the Swat valley, agreeing to enforcement of Islamic Sharia law in the Taliban-controlled region.

In Zimbabwe, new opposition Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai showed sufficient strength to get his deputy agriculture minister released from jail after Roy Bennett was arrested on charges of treason. The charges against the white farmer who has opposed the government of President Robert Mugabe were reduced to “terrorism,” , reports the BBC, and Mr. Tsvangirai observed that Bennet’s arrest was undermining the spirit of the power-sharing agreement.

In Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez won another referendum, this one to end term limits, allowing him to run for a third term in 2012, if he so chooses. International observers called the election free and fair.

Somalia’s President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed named a new prime minister, , reports BBC. New PM Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke is seen as a bridge between Islamists in the government and the international community. Insurgents have denounced the new government as anti-Islamist, despite the history that President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed came to prominence as one of the leaders of the Union of Islamic Courts.

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February 13, 2009 · 10:59 am

News Day 2/13/09: Slashing St. Paul / Home or nursing home / MN Job Watch and more …

Police, fire, libraries, rec centers going down in St. Paul Needing to make up $30-40 million due to state LGA cuts, St. Paul city department heads presented memos outlining possible cuts: laying off 56 firefighters, 67 police officers, and 23 civilian police department employees, closing the Hamline library and cutting other library hours, closing eight rec center buildings (down to 25 from 42 in 2006), turning off half the city’s streetlights, and reducing street sweeping and snow plowing. 54 city employees have applied for early retirement, and 10 have offered to reduce hours or take leaves of absence. The city has about 3,300 employees. Both the Strib and the PiPress have articles detailing the budget cut scenarios. St. Paul officials have scheduled two community conversations to solicit citizen input.

MN Job Watch In a no-win, no-loss scenario that may be a harbinger for public employee contracts during the year, MNSCU’s Inter Faculty Organization agreed to a new contract that freezes all salaries, but keeps benefits intact, reports Brady Gervais on MPR. The contract covers more than 3,000 faculty at the seven state universities.

Twin Cities law firms began cutting staff and attorneys this week, reports David Phelps in the Strib, with Faegre & Benson cutting 27 attorneys and an undisclosed number of other staff. Other firms cutting attorney and non-attorney staff include Merchant & Gould (33), Maslon Edelman Borman & Brand (5), Halleland Lewis Nilan & Johnson (6).

One more reason not to read the Strib And no, I haven’t cancelled my subscription yet. But yesterday’s announcement that Paul Douglas is out, , as David Brauer notes on MinnPost, means the Strib will get weather news for free from WCCO. And it signals a shift from Douglas’s “strong and oft-stated belief in global warming” to Mike Fairbourne’s global warming skepticism and what ‘CCO calls “lifestyle weather.” Those who still want to find Douglas can find him online at his own WeatherNation.

Home or nursing home? “About 25,000 Minnesotans with disabilities get help with dressing, bathing and other tasks,” writes Warren Wolfe in the Strib, with services mostly paid by Medicaid under a program originally conceived as a way to improve care and save money by allowing them to stay in their homes. More than 600 agencies bill the state for personal care attendant (PCA) services delivered by more than 40,000 PCAs. The MN Legislative Auditor reported that state spending on personal care assistance for elderly and disabled Minnesotans grew from $153 milion in 2002 to just over $400 million in 2007, according to an AP story published in the Strib. The auditor called the amount of spending unsustainable, but also said that the Department of Human Services has left the program too open to fraud and abuse. Most services are paid through Medicaid. The report found that some caregivers billed for more than 24 hours per day, and claimed consecutive 24-hour work days. Now DHS proposes to fix the program by eliminating 2,100 people from eligibility and increasing oversight. DHS would also require that people whose care is directed by a “responsible party,” such as people with mental disabilities, must live in the same household as the “responsible party.”

Loren Colman, human services assistant commissioner, characterized the changes as ensuring that resources “are being directed to people who require services, not just to those who like them.” Advocates and disabled persons testifying at a legislative hearing disagreed with her characterization. Anne Henry, a lawyer and advocate with the Minnesota Disability Law Center in Minneapolis, said “If we get too restrictive, we’ll end up paying far more when [former clients] end up in nursing homes, emergency rooms and even jails.”

Day care blues Jean Hopfensperger writes in the Strib that TC day care providers are losing out as parents lose jobs or see pay and hours cut. Some parents are looking for cheaper babysitters on Craigslist, or shifting to non-traditional work shifts, or putting together a patchwork of family members and babysitters. The average cost of full-time daycare for a four-year-old is $9,300 at a child care center and $7,000 in family child care. The waiting list for state child care subsidies has grown from 5,400 in July to 7,500 in December, and Pawlenty’s budget would cut subsidies by $10 million. Day care providers “are hoping they don’t end up in the same unemployment line as their departing clients.”

Luz Maria Frias for St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman announced that his head lobbyist, Luz Maria Frias, will move to head the city’s new Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity Department, succinctly called HREEO, reports MinnPost.

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February 12, 2009 · 9:45 am

News Day 2/12/09: Between bailout and stimulus / $7 billion MN deficit? / MN Job Watch / Housing prices, and more …

Between bailout and stimulus Sick of reading about it / thinking about it / worrying about it? So am I, but I still keep trying to understand how and why we bail out the bankers and bash the poor. One of today’s better analyses:

Steve Perry, writing in MinnPost collates a number of analyses of the latest bailout and concludes: “Thanks to the ways the money is being used–to keep the banks in private hands and their shareholders out of harm’s way–the chances that these unthinkable sums will actually prevent continuing disaster appears to diminish by the day.”

And the sums are truly unthinkable: Bloomberg reports that the total amount of bailouts, and government loans and pledges to banks, and stimulus is close to $9.7 TRILLION — “enough to send a $1,430 check to every man, woman and child alive in the world … almost enough to pay off every home mortgage loan in the U.S., calculated at $10.5 trillion by the Federal Reserve.”

Meanwhile, Congress continues to quibble over the economic stimulus package, now nibbled down to $790 billion by cutting such unworthy projects as $20 billion in school construction funding and additional amounts in Medicaid spending, according to the Washington Post.

And back to Perry:

The ultimate peril of our monstrously overgrown financial sector–which, pre-crash, accounted for about 20 percent of GDP and 30-40 percent of U.S. corporate profits, proportions that are absolutely unprecedented in U.S. history-is that government has a very hard time seizing control of the banking system when the banking system, for practical purposes, has seized control of the government.

A billion here, a billion there Gov. Pawlenty said that MN’s $4.8 billion deficit could grow to $6 or $7 billion by March. That’s almost 20 percent of the state’s budget, notes the Strib. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve Bank in Minneapolis predicted that the recession will last through 2009 — not exactly a surprise. The Fed predicts MN unemployment rates of 7.8 percent, but the hardest-hit part of the region will be the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, with a predicted 14 percent unemployment rate.

MN Job Watch Toro cut 100 salaried and office jobs Wednesday, three-quarters at its Bloomington HQ, reported the Strib. The company earlier accepted 50 voluntary retirements.

More than a thousand Minnesotans are applying for unemployment benefits each month, and four out of ten will be unemployed for 26 weeks or more, exhausting their benefits, reports Annie Baxter on MPR. For most of them, a federal extension will give them up to an additional 33 weeks, and possibly another three months after that. Lee Nelson, the state’s head unemployment benefits attorney, told MPR that, “Minnesota paid out a whopping $45 million in jobless benefits and extensions the week before last,” and payments are likel to keep increasing at about a million dollars a week.

According to the Washington Post, more employers across the country are contesting worker applications for unemployment benefits, claiming employee wrongdoing or quitting, in an attempt to keep their claim level and rates down. Department of Labor figures show record highs of just over 25 percent of claims being contested.

The play’s the thing Penumbra became the latest TC theater to announce budget woes Wednesday, cutting its operating budget by 24 percent, but maintaining plans for a half-million dollar renovation and keeping all staff on board, reported Rohan Preston in the Strib. Penumbra will postpone production of August Wilson’s “Radio Golf” from May to October.

Revise, not recount Secretary of State Mark Ritchie proposed changing election laws to require fewer automatic recounts and to allow voters to vote early and in person, and to register online. Meanwhile, the recount court is considering Coleman and Franken arguments on what categories of absentee ballots should be considered, and the end is not yet in sight.

Buyer’s market? The median home price in the Twin Cities fell 24 percent in January, writes Christopher Snowbeck in the PiPress. The St. Paul Area Association of Realtors reported a median home price of $155,000.

More on the local housing market: Lenders discriminate. Housing is segregated. Communities of color are hit harder by the foreclosure crisis than anyone else. That’s the ugly face of racial discrimination in the Twin Cities revealed in a 54-page report released by the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota Law School.

Flowers for sheep Sheep will eat most of the flowers raised by Gaza farmers again this year, but Israeli authorities have agreed to allow the export of 20,000 carnations to Europe for Valentine’s Day. According to BBC, “Cut flowers, along with strawberries, were some of Gaza’s main exported raw goods, providing a valuable source of income to thousands of families in the Gaza Strip” before the Israeli blockade stopped almost all exports in June 2007. Before the blockade, exports brought in half a million dollars a day.

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February 12, 2009 · 8:20 am

Report documents mortgage discrimination in Minneapolis, St. Paul

Lenders discriminate. Housing is segregated. Communities of color are hit harder by the foreclosure crisis than anyone else. That’s the ugly face of racial discrimination in the Twin Cities revealed in a 54-page report released by the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota Law School.

People of color “continue to receive home loans on worse terms and at a higher cost than similarly situated white borrowers, according to “Communities in Crisis: Race and Mortgage Lending in the Twin Cities”. Higher incomes did not protect people of color from lending disparities, with high-income black, Latino and Asian applicants denied loans at higher rates than low-income white borrowers.

Very high income black, Hispanic and Asian applicants (applicants with incomes more than $157,000 per year) show denial rates higher than whites in the lowest-income category (less than $39,250 per year). The disparities are greatest for black borrowers. The denial rate for blacks with incomes above $157,000 was 25%, while it was just 11% for Whites making less than $39,250.

Prime and subprime: What they are, why they matter

“Prime loans are the standard home loans that have allowed high rates of homeownership and housing mobility in the United States. Subprime loans have higher interest rates than prime loans and often contain additional features and costs that are absent in prime loans. Subprime loan features can include prepayment penalties; adjustable rate mortgages where interest rates are adjusted periodically; interest only loans, where the borrower only pays for the interest on the principal of the loan; and balloon payment mortgages, where interest rates climb towards the end of the loan. …

“Segregated neighborhoods of color, neighborhoods where more than 50 percent of the residents are people of color, receive disproportionate numbers of subprime loans. …
Although not all subprime loans are predatory, most predatory loans are found in the subprime market.”

Borrowers of color, even if they have high incomes, “are more likely to receive subprime loans than in any white income group,” found the study, thereby increasing the amount that they pay for loans and their risk of foreclosure.

A few decades ago, homeowners typically looked to neighborhood banks for their mortgages. Then home lending practices changed. Mortgage brokers and automated underwriting meant less connection between lender and borrower. “Loan securitization,” based on sales of mortgages, spread and eventually became the basis of the current financial crisis. All of these factors made the mortgage market more complex, encouraged high risk lending, and encouraged high-risk, predatory lending.

Calling homeownership “the first step to building stability and wealth” for families, the study points out that discriminatory lending has “cost another generation of people of color the equal opportunity to join America’s middle class,” despite the 40-year-old fair housing legislation passed as a consequence of the civil rights movement.

This wealth can be leveraged in numerous ways including moving “up,” into better neighborhoods and homes, co-signing loans to ensure that one’s children become homeowners, and starting businesses.8 Racial discrimination has greatly reduced access for people of color and communities of color to these long-term wealth building benefits of home ownership.

Twin Cities: Pattern of discrimination

Discrimination in lending also has maintained and reinforced housing segregation across the country and in the Twin Cities. Twin Cities neighborhoods are highly segregated by race, and neighborhoods with higher non-white populations have less access to banks and higher percentage of subprime mortgages. Lenders tend to specialize, offering either prime or subprime loans. In the Twin Cities, bank branches are less likely to be located in minority communities, with a study by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition showing the metro area ranking last of 25 large metropolitan areas studied.

North Minneapolis shows the severity of the discrimination/subprime lending/foreclosure impact on a community. The IRD study found a foreclosure rate of two percent in Hennepin and Ramsey counties overall, but 12 percent for North Minneapolis, which it described as “the most segregated and lowest-income area in the Twin Cities.”

Banks made few prime loans in North Minneapolis, while subprime lenders dominated the market. Overall, 1.7 percent of home purchase loans were made in North Minneapolis, and 49 percent of these were subprime, compared to 14 percent subprime in the area as a whole.

For example, the region’s largest prime lender, Wells Fargo Bank, NA, made just 286 of its home purchase loans in North Minneapolis out of a regional total of 35,272. If North Minneapolis had received a proportionate amount of Well Fargo’s loans, it would have received more than twice as many loans—1.7 percent or a total of 616 loans.

On the other hand, TCF has made a disproportionately large share of loans in North Minneapolis. But even homeowners with “good” loans have been affected by the overwhelming number of foreclosures in the community, which have driven down home values and made neighborhoods less stable.

What happened to the laws?

The IRD study reviews the extensive list of laws prohibiting discrimination in housing and in lending, but finds that “The federal and state governments have not enforced fair lending laws, allowing lenders to engage in illegal discriminatory behavior with little threat of punishment.” The Bush administration rolled back enforcement, so that lenders have little fear of getting caught and, even if they are caught, pay small penalties. Private civil rights lawsuits have increased, but the expense of suing is high, and lawsuits drag on for years.

The IRD study recommends some steps to address the problem of racial discrimination in housing and lending, including calls to:

• work aggressively to end segregation;

• enforce existing laws, both federal anti-discrimination laws and Minnesota laws curbing predatory lending practices;

• strengthen the Community Reinvestment Act to “increase access to affordable, prime credit for people who live in segregated communities of color;”

• re-establish a regional Fair Housing Center to bolster enforcement of anti-discrimination laws.

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February 11, 2009 · 8:26 am

News Day 2/11/09: MN to Somali / Salting the lakes / Schools slash spending / more …

Minneapolis to Somalia Leaders in the Somali and Muslim community denied that a Minneapolis mosque had anything to do with recent disappearances of young Somali men from the Twin Cities, blaming unnamed people within the local Somali community for stirring up rumors, reports Nelima Kerré in the Twin Cities Daily Planet. While the press statement, and leaders at the press conference, did not name individuals, a commenter on MPR’s website pointed the finger at Omar Jamal. Differences within the MN Somali community reflect political and clan differences in Somalia. Jamal is related to the recently-resigned Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf, while the young men have allegedly gone to fight with Al-Shabab, the youth and military wing of the Union of Islamic Courts, which opposed the Ethiopian-backed government of Abdullahi Yusuf. A former leader of the UIC, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, was elected president in January.

Around the world in 60 seconds Taking a quick look at BBC this morning:
Drug war battles in the farming town of Villa Ahumada and in a prison in Torreon (all in northern Mexico) killed 21 people on Monday, including at least six police officers executed in Villa Ahumada before the army arrived on the scene. Yesterday Mexican army troops arrested the police chief and 36 officers in Cancun, on suspicion that they were connected to the torture and execution last week of an ex-army general who had just taken charge of a crime-fighting squad targeting drug traffickers in Cancun.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has agreed to serve as Zimbabwe’s prime minister, eleven months after the presidential elections were stolen by discredited, corrupt, but still-President Robert Mugabe. Millions of Zimbabweans remain in desperate need of food and health care, and the country has been swept by a cholera epidemic.
The commander of Azerbaijan’s air force was assassinated yesterday, shot to death outside his home. Lt-Gen Rail Rzayev had headed the country’s air force since about the time of independence in the 1990s, and was deeply involved in large-scale military acquisitions in recent years. BBC: “In October 2008, the International Crisis Group described Azerbaijan’s armed forces as “fragmented, divided, accountable-to-no-one-but-the-president, un-transparent, corrupt and internally feuding”.
Tamils in diaspora are uniting in protest over government indifference to the suffering of civilians, as Sri Lanka troops continue a major offensive aimed at wiping out the rebel Tamil Tigers.

Face of People’s Bailout Joli Stokes could lose their Richfield home this year, victims of predatorylending practices. The People’s Bailout legislation proposed by MN DFL legislators is targeted at helping Minnesotans who, like Joli, face foreclosure, as well as others facing unemployment and welfare cuts, reports Madeleine Baran in the TC Daily Planet.

The legislation proposes a two-year suspension of the current five-year limit on welfare benefits for low-income families. Currently, families are cut off welfare benefits after five years. This plan would allow families an additional two years of financial support. Low-income housing advocates say that although the welfare grants are already low, an extension would prevent homelessness for many Minnesotan families. An unemployed adult with two children receives $532 in cash assistance and $413 in food support each month.

The legislation also includes a thirteen-week extension of unemployment benefits, a moratorium on foreclosures, initiatives to secure federal funds for job-creation programs, and recommendations against state worker layoffs.

Housing starts down January building permits hit a new low, reports Jim Buchta in the Strib:

The decline in construction spending has been accelerating over the past several months, evidence of just how much money is evaporating from the local economy. It affects everyone from the crews who dig foundations to the corner-store retailer that sells grass seed.

MN Job Watch MTS Systems Corp (Eden Prairie) will cut 150 jobs, writes Liz Fedor in the Strib. The cuts represent about six percent of the MTS work force. In New Hope, 70 workers at HD Bath and Remodeling will be out of work on April 1, writes Jackie Crosby in the Strib in a ripple effect from Home Depot’s decision to shut down smaller home improvement brands.

On the national front, General Motors announced Monday that it will cut 10,000 salaried workers. The NYT reports that the cuts come a month after buyout offers to the hourly workforce and three months after 5,100 jobs were cut. GM sales fell 11 percent in 2008. And, while Wal-Mart has generally profited during the recession, the Strib publishes an AP report that the retail giant is cutting 700-800 jobs at its Arkansas HQ.

Just what we need A huge high-voltage power line is marching toward MN, reports the Strib, at least if ITC Holdings Corp gets its way. The company wants to build a 3,000-mile, 765,000-volt, $12 billion “Green Power Express” line to take wind-generated electricity from the west to population centers like Chicago.

The bailout plan Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner announced a bailout that most commentators found confusing, and that investors found depressing, judging by the dive in the Dow Jones and Nasdaq, reported in the Washington Post and similar downturns in European markets, attributed to the bailout announcement by BBC. In a nutshell, the $1.5 trillion plan would “would more closely scrutinize the risks banks are facing and offer public and private capital to those that need it; create a fund, with a starting value of $500 billion, to buy up toxic real estate loans; and commit up to $1 trillion to reopen lending markets for consumer, student, small business, auto and commercial loans,” according to WaPo.

Paul Krugman quips that he was going to call the plan TANF 2 —” temporary assistance to needy financial institutions, without, you know, any of the means-testing or work requirements involved when poor people get help.” He says it’s hard to tell what the plan means at this point.

Salting 10,000 lakes A U of M study finds that hundreds of thousands of tons of road salt goes into area wetlands, ground water and lakes, reports the Strib. Well, where did you think it was going?

Schools slash spending St. Paul schools will cut 265 positions for 2009-2010, but board member John Brodrick warned that “this is not the end,” reports Doug Belden in the PiPress. The budget will be finalized in June, and school board members will meet the public at a “listening session” at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Hubbs Center at 1030 W. University Ave.

The Anoka-Hennepin school board decided to “lay off scores of teachers, reduce its textbook purchases, cut one day off the school calendar and scale back bus services to climb out of a $15.8 million budget hole,” reports Norman Draper in the Strib.

Recount – maybe some movement? The court told the Coleman and Franken lawyers to “streamline proceedings,” reports Chris Steller in MnIndy.

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February 10, 2009 · 9:23 am

News Day 2/10/08: Professor President and the press / God wants Norm? / MN “People’s Bailout” / more …

Maybe smart is the new black? The first presidential press conference got good reviews, despite, or perhaps because of, President Obama’s detailed, professorial answers to questions. Maybe the country, and the news media, are ready for beyond-the-sound-bite answers. You can watch the whole hour, courtesy of the Washington Post. Among the highlights:

This is not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill recession.

The single most important part of this economic recovery and reinvestment plan is the fact that it will save or create up to four million jobs, because that’s what American needs most right now. … At this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by the recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life.

Tax cuts alone can’t solve all of our economic problems, especially tax cuts that are targeted to the wealthiest few Americans.

We stand to lose about one trillion dollars of demand this year, and another trillion next year. That’s why you have this gaping hole in the economy.

The president said he still has hopes for bi-partisanship, but his “bottom line” is “send me a bill that creates or saves four million jobs.” He said he is willing to discuss “this tax cut versus that tax cut or this infrastructure project versus that infrastructure project,” but not willing to listen to claims about pork in the stimulus package.

It’s a little hard for me to take criticism from folks, about this recovery package, after they presided over a doubling of the national debt. I’m not sure they have a lot of credibility when it comes to fiscal responsibility.

Tell it to the city In meetings on budget cuts and priorities, Minneapolis resident and city employee suggestions ranged from cutting public works and housing inspection to unpaid days off and less-frequent trash collection, reports Steve Brandt in the Strib. Another citizen meeting is set for 7 p.m. Tuesday night at East Side Neighborhood Services, 1700 NE. 2nd St. and another employee meeting for Wednesday in Room 319 of City Hall at 12:30 p.m.

God wants Norm “God wants me to serve,” Norm Coleman told conservative radio host Mike Gallagher, reports MnIndy. But he’s still waiting for the final word on whether MN voters want him to serve.

MN People’s Bailout DFLers introduced the Minnesota People’s Bailout at a press conference yesterday, proposing expanded eligibility for unemployment benefits, a new public works/jobs program, a moratorium on the five-year lifetime limit for public assistance, a moratorium on housing foreclosures and additional protections for renters and public sector workers. More to come …

Let’s make voting harder Even as the RNC’s MN voter fraud web page acknowledged that “there are no recent documented reports of vote fraud in this state,” GOP lawmakers introduced legislation to make voting more difficult, justifying it as an anti-vote-fraud measure. Minnesota Independent reports on the Emmer-Kiffmeyer proposal to require voters to produce photo IDs. David Schultz’s op/ed in MinnPost further debunks voter fraud hysteria.

Milk prices: falling off a cliff The brief good times are over for dairy farmers, reports Matt McKiinney in the Strib. Milk futures fell to $9.30 per hundredweight on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange yesterday, from a high of more than $20 last summer. And in the grocery store? “Government reports show that the price of a gallon of whole milk fell about 7 percent from July’s high of $3.96 a gallon to $3.68 in December.” the price of production for MN dairy farmers is “between $12.77 and $15.74 per hundredweight, according to FINBIN, a University of Minnesota agriculture economics database.”

Home prices low and getting lower Nationally, housing prices will bottom out in the fourth quarter, according to Moody’s Economy.com, reports Christopher Snowbeck in the PiPress, but MN housing prices probably won’t hit bottom until the first quarter of 2010. Moody’s predicts that Twin Cities housing prices will drop 24 percent from the 2006 peak.

Step forward, stumble back on stimulus plan That’s the analysis from the Center for American American Progress, which warns that the Senate compromise on the economic stimulus package, due to be passed today, would create between 430,000 and 538,000 fewer jobs than the House bill. Overall, “the Senate compromise would provide a great boost to the economy—but legislation closer to the House-passed version (or the version originally introduced in the Senate) would do more.”

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February 9, 2009 · 8:35 am

News Day – February 9: Stimulus and sabotage; Fletcher’s cops go to jail; St. Paul pays protester; Milking the consumer, screwing the farmer; Holocaust-denying bishop in MN; and more

Stimulus and sabotage If you want to understand the depths of the country’s economic trouble, and what to begin doing about it, Nobel Prize-winning economist Pau Krugman is must reading. He has a regular column and a blog at the New York Times. You can subscribe to either or both through a variety of RSS feeds. A sample from last Friday’s really scary column:

It’s hard to exaggerate how much economic trouble we’re in. The crisis began with housing, but the implosion of the Bush-era housing bubble has set economic dominoes falling not just in the United States, but around the world. …

Would the Obama economic plan, if enacted, ensure that America won’t have its own lost decade? Not necessarily: a number of economists, myself included, think the plan falls short and should be substantially bigger. But the Obama plan would certainly improve our odds. And that’s why the efforts of Republicans to make the plan smaller and less effective — to turn it into little more than another round of Bush-style tax cuts — are so destructive.

It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge.

As you think about Republicans’ attempts to sabotage the economic stimulus package, remember how well they did with with the bank bailout, per the AP report published in the Strib

The Bush administration overpaid tens of billions of dollars for stocks and other assets in its massive bailout last year of Wall Street banks and financial institutions, a new study by a government watchdog says.

The Congressional Oversight Panel, in a report released Friday, said last year’s overpayments amounted to a taxpayer-financed $78 billion subsidy of the firms.

There’s much more, if you can bear to read it. (Or you can read the official report.)

More wrong answers in MN T-Paw’s broadband committee decided that MN should not use stimulus money for ready-to-go broadband projects in MN. Steve Alexander writes in the Strib that the Pawlenty’s Ultra High Speed Broadband Task Force’s rejection of the funds came after Comcast and other private providers objected.

The list of ready-to-go broadband projects in Minnesota included a $27.5 million municipal broadband system in Monticello, a $5.4 million Minnesota Department of Health plan to expand rural health care, and a $2,500 project to extend high-speed Internet service to a library in Worthington. Other projects included a $19.6 million plan to provide high-speed Internet to 11 Minnesota communities, including Cannon Falls, Zumbrota and Lake City, and an $18.5 million Internet-TV-telephone system in North St. Paul.

And in another area, Met Council chief Peter Bell says he wants to use stimulus money to pay off the operating deficit, rather than to expand metro transit. MPR reports:

Bell’s suggestion for how the money could be used for something it isn’t intended for, illustrates a dilemma facing stimulus supporters — that money will be moved from account to account to keep everything legal, but in the end nothing gets done that wasn’t going to get done anyway.

Milking the consumer, screwing the farmer MPR forwards a brief report from the West Central Tribune about plunging milk prices, which fell from about $20 a hundredweight last fall to half that now. Farmers are losing money — nothing new there — and consumers haven’t even noticed. I’ve been working on an article on the food industry recently, so I can offer a little more detail.

The farmer sees very little of the consumer food dollar — about 17 cents for the wheat in a loaf of bread or ten cents for the corn in a box of corn flakes. All the rest goes to processing, marketing, advertising, and everyone else’s profits.

Milk provides the most dramatic example. There are approximately 12 gallons in a hundredweight of milk. (Farmers get paid by the hundredweight, consumers pay by the gallon.) At the tip top of the farm price cycle, the farmer got $1.71 per gallon of milk. That same gallon of milk cost $3.80 in the supermarket. The farmer’s price for milk at the beginning of 2009 had dropped to about 92 cents per gallon. The price in the supermarket? Still over $3.80.

Quote of the day Remember that Holocaust-denying Catholic bishop, who also thinks that “Judeo-Masonry brought about the first two world wars”? Turns out he headed up a seminary in Winona, and lived there from 1988-2003, according to a long and interesting article in the Winona Daily News. But the quote of the day, from a September 2001 letter written by Bishop Richard Williamson, came to me last week, courtesy of my web-surfing partner:

…[A]lmost no girl should go to any university! The deep-down reason is the same as for the wrongness of women’s trousers: the unwomaning of woman… [S]ince she is not respected and loved for being a woman, she tries to make herself a man. Since modem man does not want her to do what God meant her to do, namely to have children, she takes her revenge by invading all kinds of things that man is meant to do..…[O]nly in modern times have women dreamt of going to university, but the idea has now become so normal that even Catholics… may have difficulty in seeing the problem. […A]ny Catholic…recognizes that women should not be priests – can he deny that if few women went to university, almost none would wish to be priests? Alas, women going to university is part of the whole massive onslaught on God’s Nature [of] our times. That girls should not be in universities flows from the nature of universities and…girls.

(You read it here, and you might have trouble finding it elsewhere – the bishop or his Society of St. Pius X have removed his papers from the web.)

MN Job Watch As PiPress union employees reluctantly voted to accept management’s proposal for a one-week unpaid furlough between now and April 30, Strib employees got minimal good news, reports David Brauer in MinnPost. A bankruptcy judge reversed the Strib’s earlier position, and said that the newspaper must pay 43 workers who accepted buyouts between April and September 2008 the full amount of their buyout contracts. The Strib had asked the court for permission to make the payouts. On the other hand, Strib publisher Chris Harte warned that revenue continues to slide, and axed many benefits for non-union employees while asking union employees to accept a double-digit pay cut.

In Owatonna, SPX is laying off 100 workers, about 14% of its workforce. The cuts are part of 400 layoffs nationwide for the NC-based company, which makes tools, shop equipment and automotive components.

The Recount grinds on On MinnPost, Jay Weiner captures the mind-numbing tedium of the recount trial, without losing sight of the weight of the decisions being made. Is an end in sight? No.

We, the People “The idea of self-government is in the first three words of the Constitution. What are these words?” That’s just one of the questions on the new on-line citizenship study guide being piloted by the Minnesota Literacy Council. Katherine Glover writes in MinnPost that the new citizenship self-study materials are part of a larger project called Learner Web, which is developing programs includeing GED prep, computer skills and family literacy for eventual release to the public in the form of open source software. The MLC decided to go with citizenship prep software because of “Teacher Ron,” Ron Mazurowski, who has been teaching citizenship for more than 10 years and helped to put together the material. Check out the materials on-line.

St. Paul pays protester The city will pay $5,000 to anti-war activist Mick Kelly, who sued the city after he was arrested while passing out leaflets outside a Barack Obama rally at the Xcel Energy Center in June. The leaflets promoted RNC protests, and Kelly was later shot by police with a non-lethal weapon during the RNC. Kelly plans a second lawsuit over that incident. City Attorney John Choi emphasized that the settlement did not include any admission of wrongdoing by the city, reported Laura Yuen on MPR.

Ramsey County Sheriff’s employees sent to jail Two employees caught taking money in an FBI corruption sting were sentenced to nearly three years in prison on Friday, reports David Hanners in the PiPress. The two were close friends and confidants of Sheriff Bob Fletcher. Their attorney continued to insist that the two had only taken the $6,000 as a joke, writes James Walsh in the Strib, but U.S. District Judge Patrtick Schiltz “told the men that their actions were no laughing matter, but a violation of the public trust.” Fletcher declined to comment.

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February 6, 2009 · 10:42 am

News Day – February 6: Real unemployment numbers, Ford and PiPress jobs, early grad proposal

Unemployment — 7.6% or 15.4%? Federal figures released today show 7.6% unemployment in January, up 0.4% over December. Jobs lost during January numbered 598,000, according to the official count, for a total of 3.6 million jobs lost since the recession officially began in December 2007. Of course, those figures are not final, since job losses are revised monthly. Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised December job loss figures upward, from 524,000 to 577,000.

The numbers are mind-boggling, but what do they mean? Official unemployment counts only those people actively looking for work. So-called discouraged workers (who have given up), and people who are underemployed or, in the parlance of BLS, “marginally attached,” don’t count. The official unemployment rate of 7.6% is called U-3 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A far bigger number, called U-6, measures

Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers

That number is 15.4 percent in January, up from 13.5 percent in December.

The Washington Post reported new jobless claims of 626,000 in January, a 25-year high and much larger than the previously-predicted 591,000. About 4.8 million people are currently collecting unemployment compensatoin.

MN Job Watch In St. Paul, Pioneer Press Newspaper Guild workers will vote today on a management request that they take five unpaid days off between February 9 and April 30, reports David Brauer in MinnPost. Without the furlough, workers may face more layoffs, in addition to the eight workers laid off in January. (Of course, the furlough proposal offers no guarantee against future layoffs.) According to MPR, the furloughs would affect 307 union employees and a little more than 400 workers in all.

Also in St. Paul, Ford Ranger plant workers will have another two weeks of lay-off (next week and a week in March), reports Liz Fedor in the Strib. The new lay-off announcement came shortly after workers returned from a six-week lay-off in December and January. For Ranger sales dropped by 49.3 percent in January, and the plant is scheduled for closure in 2011.

Ametech Inc., a New Ulm plant that makes electrical servo motors, will leave MN for locations in Pennsylvania and North Carolina by September. The company has 80 employees in New Ulm, and about 11,000 employees worldwide, according to AP.

Get out of high school early GOP Rep. Pat Garofalo (Farmington) wants to pay high school students to graduate early, reports the Strib via AP. He proposes to give a scholarship of $2500 per semester for students who graduate up to three semesters early, thereby saving the state money because per pupil funding is greater than that amount. DFL Rep. Mindy Greiling says this might be a bad deal for students, who could earn credits for even less money by taking PSEO or College in the Schools courses. Questions about whether the scholarship would have to be used in MN or within the U of M/MNSCU systems or all in the first year or prorated over four years remain unanswered, as the bill has not been formally introduced yet.

Farming by the numbers As a former farm girl and a long-time wonk, I find the new federal ag census fascinating. Here are some of the numbers for MN and the nation.

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