Are you a fan of Twinkies, the cream-stuffed yellow cake confection packed with sugary goodness, wrapped in a thin layer of cellophane? If so, here’s some bad news for your sweet tooth: Hostess Brands Inc., the maker of Twinkies, HoHos and other convenience store delicacies, has filed for bankruptcy just two years after emerging from its previous bankruptcy. CBS News and the AP report that Hostess—which employs 19,000 workers in 49 states—has more than $860 million in debt, faces high labor expenses, rising ingredient costs, and a decrease in sales …
Take a stroll through your neighborhood Occupy Wall Street protest–whether it’s in New York or Chicago, Detroit or San Francisco–and you’re likely to see a recurring theme emblazoned across cardboard signs: redistribute wealth from the 1 percent to the 99 percent, all in the name of fairness, whether or not it makes good policy. Or if you want to hear that message without fighting the crowds, you could save yourself some time, turn on the TV, and tune in to President Barack Obama’s latest campaign swing across America, this time …
After more than a year of delay, the House Financial Services Committee is finally starting work on legislation that will hopefully end Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two housing finance giants that helped to make the housing crisis worse. Both essentially failed in September 2008 and have been in a conservatorship under control of the Federal Housing Finance Agency since then. Many had hoped that Congress would address these two entities at the same time that it overhauled the financial regulatory system in the onerous Dodd–Frank legislation. But that …
Given the task of producing a plan to develop a new housing finance system after the crisis of 2008 and the failure of both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—a task that everyone agrees will be extremely complex—the Obama Administration decided to punt. Rather than one detailed plan, it produced brief summaries of three very different ones, leaving the nation to wonder what the Administration really wants. The report clearly supports ending both Fannie and Freddie, but what happens next is very unclear. The three proposals for the future after Fannie …
Hamtramck, Michigan, is running out of money. City Manager William Cooper tells The New York Times: “We can make it until March 1—maybe.” And Hamtramck is not alone. According to the Times, 15 municipalities have pursued bankruptcy in the past two years. And if the economy does not improve revenues, many other local governments will be in the same boat. Many of these cities, like Hamtramck, have already cut spending on parks, senior centers, and road maintenance. But there is one area they can’t cut: salaries, benefits, and pensions of …
$154 billion. That is the amount of taxpayer money that will be needed to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac according to a new “stress test” performed by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. And that is the good news. If the economy dips into a second recession and foreclosures rise, the Fannie and Freddie bailout could nearly double in size. The agency, which oversees Fannie and Freddie, released the numbers “to inform public debate about the future of the two companies” ahead of expected Obama administration proposals slated for …
In early August, when the U.S. Senate earmarked $10 billion to recover lost jobs in education, supporters of the measure claimed the money would save thousands of teachers’ jobs. President Obama put the figure at 160,000 jobs across the country. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said it would save the jobs of 16,500 teachers in her state. And Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) claimed the funding would protect between 2,000 and 3,000 teaching jobs in Colorado. But nearly three weeks after the vote, Bennet, at least, appears to have exaggerated. According to …
In October 1964, then spokesman Ronald Reagan stepped into the national political spotlight for the first time with his now-famous “A Time for Choosing Speech,” delivered in support of presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. His words stand in stark contrast to those of many of America’s elected officials today, as this video by the Republican Study Committee shows.
This past Friday the Associated Press reported: Nearly half of the 1.3 million homeowners who enrolled in the Obama administration’s flagship mortgage-relief program have fallen out. The program is intended to help those at risk of foreclosure by lowering their monthly mortgage payments. Friday’s report from the Treasury Department suggests the $75 billion government effort is failing to slow the tide of foreclosures in the United States, economists say. Faced with this reality, Media Matters fellow Duncan Black blogged:
Despite their key role in creating the housing crisis, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not being reformed, and will continue to cost the American taxpayer huge sums of money for the foreseeable future. There will be a housing summit on Tuesday, but its already clear that the federal government will remain in the mortgage business, despite the scandals that have emerged. Bailouts of the mortgage giants have already cost the taxpayer $111 billion, and the Congressional Budget Office projects they will cost another $290 billion this year alone. (This …
