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Job and Family Services made several checks on Joe the Plumber Wednesday, October 29, 2008 5:56 PM By Randy Ludlow The Columbus Dispatch Document * Read the letter from Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, about background checks made on Joe the Plumber [pdf] Multiple checks on "Joe the Plumber" were made through state computer systems at the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. Agency Director Helen Jones-Kelley disclosed early this evening that computer inquiries on the presidential campaign figure were not restricted to a child-support system. The department also checked on Samuel...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government is considering a plan that would help around 3 million homeowners avoid foreclosure, sources briefed on the matter said. A final deal had not been reached as of Wednesday afternoon and negotiations could still fall apart, but government agencies were contemplating using around $50 billion from the recently passed bailout of the financial industry to guarantee about $500 billion in mortgages. The plan could include loan modifications that would lower interest rates for a five-year period, according to two people briefed on the plan, who asked not to be identified because details were still being...

<p>WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve has slashed a key interest rate by half a percentage point as it seeks to revive an economy hit by a long list of maladies stemming from the most severe financial crisis in decades.</p> <p>The central bank on Wednesday reduced its target for the federal funds rate, the interest banks charge on overnight loans, to 1 percent, a low last seen in 2003-2004. The funds rate has not been lower since 1958, when Dwight Eisenhower was president.</p>

NEW YORK/DETROIT, Oct 27 (Reuters) - General Motors Corp (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Cerberus Capital Management have asked the U.S. government for around $10 billion in an unprecedented rescue package to support a merger between GM and Chrysler LLC, two sources with direct knowledge of the talks said on Monday. The government funding would include roughly $3 billion in exchange for preferred stock in a merged automaker, according to one of the sources, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The U.S. Treasury Department is considering a request for direct aid to facilitate the merger...

WASHINGTON -- Congressional leaders are considering whether to create a special bipartisan panel to draft legislation to overhaul financial-services regulations next year.The hope is that a single committee, possibly comprising senior lawmakers from the House and Senate, could help cut through the turf wars that often come with industry overhauls. Having a separate group of staffers also could help relieve the pressure on existing financial-committee staffers, some of whom have had to put on the back burner less-pressing responsibilities in order to deal with the financial crisis.Similar panels have been established in the past, including after the Sept. 11,...

It looks like the financial wizards at Goldman Sachs are betting that the U.S. government is going to impose a cap-and-trade system for global-warming emissions sooner rather than later, despite the financial crisis shaking up the corridors of power from Wall Street to Washington. Goldman is announcing today that it will partner with Salt Lake City-based carbon-offset project developer Blue Source LLC. The company, backed by big-time private equity investors First Reserve Corp. and Och Ziff Capital Management Group, sells carbon credits. Neither Goldman Sachs or Blue Source would comment on the size of the investment, other than to say...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Jurors in Ted Stevens' corruption trial discovered a mistake in the Alaska senator's indictment Monday, an embarrassing gaffe for Justice Department prosecutors that could benefit the senator. Stevens, the Senate's longest-serving Republican, is charged with lying on Senate financial documents about $250,000 in home renovations and gifts he received from a millionaire oil contractor. Among the seven charges in the indictment, prosecutors said that Stevens checked "no" on financial documents when asked whether he received any gifts in 2001. Actually, he checked "yes," — and jurors asked the judge what they should do about that. Prosecutors insisted...

Nearly 150 Democratic and Republican staffers have signed their names to a petition to halt Friday’s scheduled price increase in the House cafeterias, according to the founder of the website www.stopthepricehike.com . The 10 percent increase is due to rising food and gas costs, according to the Chief Administrative Office (CAO), which oversees the House eatery vendor, Restaurant Associates (RA). But the website’s manager, Brian Diffell, says CAO Dan Beard’s allowance of the price change is an example of his disregard for staffers. “There’s a concern, I think, that you’re seeing a vendor and a House officer operate independently of...

Clive Maund at clivemaund.com says, "Payback time for Wall St and Washington will be when foreign investors fail to turn up at the bond auctions to finance the bailout plan, whose US$800+ billion will have to be created out of thin air. So the bonds will have to be monetized, which will mean an immediate spike in inflation, which will cause the rate of corporate bankruptcies to soar as failing companies take down others in a chain reaction because the losses will be highly leveraged by credit default swaps etc. This is the underlying reason why banks won't lend to...

The Federal Reserve announced Tuesday that it will provide up to $540 billion in financing to bolster the money market mutual fund industry, its latest effort to get credit flowing more freely again. The Fed's new program, called the Money Market Investor Funding Facility, will be used to support a private-sector initiative designed to provide liquidity, or cash, to money market investors. The Fed plans to back purchases of short-term debt including certificates of deposit and commercial paper that expire in three months or less from money market mutual funds. The funds are large buyers of commercial paper and CDs,...

After watching the presidential debates it became obvious to me that it’s politics as usual and that my candidate — who was almost laughed out of the race early on — has been right all along. Neither candidate will admit that our “central banking system” is at the heart of the economic crisis and that it’s the printing, borrowing and creation of credit and money from thin air that got us where we are. But all through the race, my candidate said, “By injecting money into the market to prop it up, we make the inevitable collapse worse in the...

Washington Mutual is under investigation by federal authorities looking into what caused its banking units to be seized by government regulators and sold to J.P. Morgan Chase last month. U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Sullivan in Seattle said his office created a task force working with investigators from the FBI, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Internal Revenue Service to investigate what led regulators to close WaMu. "Due to the intense public interest in the failure of Washington Mutual, I want to assure our community that federal law enforcement is examining activities at the bank to...

Only a few months ago, Sam Faddis was running a CIA unit charged with preventing terrorists from getting nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Today, only 50, the equivalent of a full colonel at the top of his game, he has quit. Scores more like him, Faddis says, spies with years of working the back alleys of the world, have walked away from the CIA’s Operations Directorate at the top of their careers, at a time when the agency needs their skills the most. The directorate is losing “25 or 30 chiefs of station” — the top CIA representative in a...

In 1976, a scandal arose in Sweden when marginal tax rate for self-employed was 102%. Yes, 102%!!! It is not a typo. This was to be known as the "Pomperipossa effect" from a story published on March 3, 1976. The publication led to a stormy tax debate. In the parliamentary election later in the same year the Social Democrat government was voted out for the first time in 40 years, and the tax debate was one of several controversies that may have contributed to the election result.

Under Ohio's constitution and laws, there are two ways to remove a statewide elected official: impeachment by the legislature, or through a complaint signed by at least 603,413 qualified electors that is filed and tried in court.The constitution says an officeholder can be impeached "for any misdemeanor in office," but that doesn't necessarily refer to a crime, said Steven F. Huefner, an associate law professor at Ohio State University, and Steven H. Steinglass, a law professor and dean emeritus at Cleveland State University. Rather, "misdemeanor" in this context refers more generically to any misdeed, and that ultimately is defined by...

Yesterday, Bloomberg.com reported that Barack Obama believes that carbon dioxide endangers human health and welfare and thinks it should be regulated using the Clean Air Act. What are the likely outcomes if carbon dioxide is regulated under the Clean Air Act? Regulating carbon dioxide means regulating the activities that emit carbon dioxide. In the United States, 85% of the energy we use comes from sources that emit carbon dioxide—coal, petroleum, and natural gas. Regulating these sources of energy will increase prices to consumers (e.g. electricity and gasoline)and reduce the economic efficiency of the economy, leading to job losses and large...

If the current polls hold, Barack Obama will win the White House on November 4 and Democrats will consolidate their Congressional majorities, probably with a filibuster-proof Senate or very close to it. Without the ability to filibuster, the Senate would become like the House, able to pass whatever the majority wants. Though we doubt most Americans realize it, this would be one of the most profound political and ideological shifts in U.S. history. Liberals would dominate the entire government in a way they haven't since 1965, or 1933. In other words, the election would mark the restoration of the activist...

Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation's $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive. House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee's Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, are looking at redirecting those tax breaks to a new system of guaranteed retirement accounts to which all workers would be obliged to contribute. A plan by Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic-policy analysis at The New School for Social Research...

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Pennsylvania has begun a major effort to cut electricity use, requiring the state's 11 utilities to not only stop power usage from rising, but to cut it starting in 2011. Legislation that Gov. Ed Rendell signed Wednesday requires the utilities to cut annual electricity usage by at least 1 percent by May 31, 2011, based on usage estimates made by state regulators, who can take into account a major anomaly, such as an unusually hot summer or a substantial surge in demand from a new user, such as a factory. To ensure that utilities take the task...

This is a blog excert from Wade Rathke, the founder and Chief Organizer of ACORN International and SEIU Local 100, AFL-CIO, etc. ACORN’s foreclosure prevention negotiations have picked up momentum behind the scenes again recently. Last week solid progress made with teams at Merrill Lynch in New York and WAMU in Seattle. Next week another face-to-face round in Dallas with GMAC and other metroplex area servicers on the docket. A call with Wells this week to finally get them into the game and discuss much needed streamlining is now set. Ocwen, a target not long ago, is piloting in three...