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Cited: MSNBC

A new, old financial, setback is becoming a long-term employment barrier as bad credit seems to be sidelining some jobless workers even though being jobless could be the reason for that credit.

Three years ago, after working as a temporary data entry clerk and receptionist for a Los Angeles skin care company, Debra Banks was pleased when her manager offered her a full-time job.

“I thought I was in for sure,” said Banks, 54. “I was getting praise about how hard I worked. I was pretty committed there because I thought I was going to get a full-time job.”

There were just a couple of formalities, including a check of her credit history.

“My heart dropped,” said Banks, who has no health insurance and a large unpaid medical bill. When the results came back, she said, the manager gave her the bad news. “Tomorrow’s your last day.”

Employers’ growing reliance on credit checks when screening new hires is turning out to be bad news for millions of jobless Americans. Losing a job can often mean trouble paying bills for many unemployed people. And the damage done to their credit history increasingly can become a barrier to finding another job, touching off a vicious downward spiral.

“I understand a background check,” Banks said. “But I can’t see how your credit relates to your work. I had more than proved my worthiness as an employee. I didn’t steal anything. I didn’t cheat. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

There are no hard numbers on how often poor credit reports thwart someone’s effort to find a new job. Many applicants will never know; employers aren’t required to explain why a candidate was turned down for a job.

But a recent survey by the Society of Human Resource Management found that many employers use credit checks to screen job candidates. Of the roughly 350 employers who responded, 60 percent said they checked credit histories for some or all job applicants. That’s up from 43 percent in 2004 and just 25 percent in 1998.

Credit checks are used most frequently when hiring senior executives, workers with financial responsibilities or access to cash, and workers who would have access to confidential information about other employees, according to the survey.

The conventional wisdom in using credit histories in hiring decisions is that a bad history of paying bills is a pretty good indicator of an employee’s reliability.

And if a new worker is to have access to large amounts of company cash or financial systems, it’s only prudent for a hiring manager to find out if the applicant has a pile of unpaid debts, said Lester S. Rosen, CEO of ESRcheck, which screens job candidates for companies.

“If an employer hires an embezzler and did not do a credit report in a sensitive position and the employer was then sued for negligent hiring, the argument would then be: ‘How stupid were you for not to running a credit report?’” he said.

Checking credit as part of the hiring process apparently has become more widespread for several reasons. Where prospective employers once relied on detailed references from an applicant’s former managers, many companies — fearful of getting sued for providing a negative reference — have become reluctant to provide more than basic information, like the dates and description of a former worker’s job.

Yet the increased scrutiny of credit histories comes while a record 6.4 million Americans have been unemployed for more than six months. Such long-term unemployment can do serious damage to personal credit.

Many also face the expiration of unemployment insurance; unless extended by Congress, some 5 million people will run out of benefits by June, according to the National Employment Law Project.

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The credit crunch has also battered the financial records of consumers who have never been late on a bill. As lenders have cut back credit limits unilaterally, some card holders have been caught owing more than their new, lower limit.

“There’s been absolutely no change in that person’s behavior, no change in their circumstances,” said Paul Leonard, director of the California office of the Center for Responsible Lending. “The change was made by the credit allocation decision of the credit card companies.”

The surge in home foreclosures since the collapse of the housing market has also sent millions of otherwise job-ready applicants into bad-credit limbo. Identity theft or divorce can also render a job seeker unemployable.

Critics of the practice argue that there is little research correlating bad credit with good job performance.

“There is no science, there is no evidence that supports the idea that an applicant’s credit history is reflective of a person’s propensity to steal or their suitability for employment generally,” said Adam Klein, an employment lawyer at Outten & Golden in New York. “These are basically unrelated concepts. … It would be like asking for hat size or if you can sing on pitch.

In some cases, a job candidate with bad credit could even turn out to be a better worker, critics like Leonard argue.

“The simple case is somebody who has lost a job and suffered damage to their credit score,” he said. “They’re going to be a more motivated and inspired employee than somebody who hasn’t because they need the income more.”

Under current law, employers can access any job applicant’s credit history, with some restrictions. The reports made available to employers don’t include the applicant’s age or credit score, for example. Job candidates have to be notified of the credit check and give their permission to access their credit data. And if you’re turned down for a job explicitly because of bad credit, the employer has to give you a copy of the report.

Employment screening consultants caution that credit histories should be used sparingly — in part because, as many consumers have learned the hard way, the information in a credit history isn’t always reliable. Credit agencies themselves routinely caution anyone using their reports that the information may be inaccurate or out of date. But correcting an error can take 30 to 60 days — long after an employer has made a hiring decision and moved on.

Though many employers run credit checks on some applicants, relatively few are turned down for a job because of bad credit, according to Rosen of ESRcheck.

“It’s only when they’re down to a finalist or one or two finalists that they’ll run a background check,” he said. “And in the real world, what we see is that it really takes something pretty horrendous in the credit report to reverse a decision that they’re vested in.”

But critics of the process say the information provided in a credit report is being used too broadly and shouldn’t be available to all employers for all job applicants.

The use of credit reports in hiring decisions also faces a legal challenge on the grounds that it discriminates against minorities and other groups that have lower-than-average credit scores.

In a suit filed last September in Baltimore, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charged a corporate marketing company, Freeman, with unlawful discrimination by refusing to hire black job applicants based on their credit history.

The Commission argues that because the practice has a “significant disparate impact” on black applicants, it is a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The case is pending.

Proposals to ban the use of credit histories in job screening have been introduced in several states and in Congress, but the measures face an uphill battle. Last fall, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have sharply limited the use of credit histories to job candidates who would have access to large amounts of cash or confidential financial information, among special situations.

In July, Rep. Stephen Cohen, D-Tenn., introduced a bill in the House, H.R. 3149, that would amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act to ban the use of credit checks in the hiring process. The bill would carve out exceptions for work involving national security clearance or some jobs in the financial services industry.

Cohen says he doesn’t believe a bad credit history should reflect negatively on a job applicant.

“That might have been the case in a different economy, but not in this economy,” he said. “If you’re laid off and you don’t have a job, you don’t have an income and you can’t meet your obligations. The credit agencies are against it. It’s part of their business. They’re making money out of it. They want to do as much credit reporting as they can.”

Cohen concedes that the bill faces strong opposition. However, it does have the support of 51 cosponsors even though it is stuck in committee in hearings and hasn’t been scheduled yet.

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My Take: I can understand a credit check or someone who handles money or even in national security, why would someone hiring a carpenter need to do a credit check? Can someone who is not hired because of bad credit sue? I would recommend a contact Nassau County employment lawyers if that’s the case. Because I think that is wrong to deny a person a job just because they have bad credit when the job doesn’t require them to you handle money.

You know, that actually sounds more like discrimination. I recommend people that are denied a job for that reason to contact a NY employment discrimination lawyer. It is a construction job they might actually be able to get a Del Mar CA construction lawyer to help them because they definitely would not need a San Diego real estate lawyer.

I wonder, could that type of discrimination be determined fraud on the part of the employer? If they can then people should get off Ottawa fraud lawyer. But it probably wouldn’t be determined as fraud.

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Cited: Reuters

Even though Bank of America Corp. won its lawsuit with the United States Security and Exchange Commission over a merger with Merrill Lynch, the judge called it a “half-baked baked settlement of $150 million. This ended an embarrassing public battle between the largest US bank in the nation’s top securities regulator

Deals

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff nevertheless called the settlement “half-baked justice at best,” and in criticizing it may have given new ammunition to the many lawsuits over the merger, including litigation by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

Rakoff said it was clear that the bank had failed prior to a shareholder vote on the merger to adequately disclose the scope of Merrill’s “historically great” losses, and that it had authorized Merrill to pay as much as $5.8 billion of bonuses.

“Despite the bank’s somewhat coy refusal to concede the materiality of these nondisclosures, it seems obvious that a prudent bank shareholder, if informed of the aforementioned facts, would have thought twice about approving the merger or might have sought its renegotiation,” he said.

The judge nevertheless said the law required him to give “substantial deference” to the SEC in approving the accord.

Bank of America spokesman Bob Stickler said the bank was “very pleased” that Rakoff accepted the settlement. The SEC and Cuomo’s office had no immediate comment.

The settlement ends two SEC lawsuits alleging that Bank of America misled shareholders about the bonus payouts, which ultimately totaled $3.6 billion, and Merrill’s losses, which reached $15.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008.

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“DAMNING” RULING FOR BANK

Had Rakoff rejected the settlement, a trial over the bonuses would have begun on March 1.

The judge in September rejected a $33 million accord over the bonuses, faulting the SEC for accepting a lenient penalty that failed to hold individuals responsible.

“Bank of America might have won a settlement, but in the big picture, it lost,” said Elizabeth Nowicki, a visiting professor at Boston University School of Law.

“Judge Rakoff’s acceptance of the settlement is actually as damning as his rejection would have been,” she went on. “Shareholders in other lawsuits will have guidance on how best to go forward, and will have encouragement from how poorly a jurist viewed the actions of Bank of America executives.”

Among the lawsuits is a shareholder class-action case in Manhattan federal court, led by Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray. His office was not immediately available for comment.

Rakoff’s approval requires both sides to file by February 25 a revised settlement reflecting some changes they had accepted.

Bank of America’s shares rose 28 cents, or 1.8%, to $16.16 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

DEFERENCE

The judge said he accepted the settlement despite its “very modest punitive, compensatory, and remedial measures that are neither directed at the specific individuals responsible for the nondisclosures nor appear likely to have more than a very modest impact on corporate practices or victim compensation.

“While better than nothing,” Rakoff went on, “this is half-baked justice at best.”

Rakoff particularly faulted the $150 million fine, which he called “modest” and said “penalizes the shareholders for what was, in effect if not in intent, a fraud by management on the shareholders.”

The judge also accepted the settlement though Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America rejected his proposal to let the SEC and the court help choose a pay consultant.

Rakoff nevertheless said that it is not judges’ role to “impose their own preferences,” and that he would exercise “self-restraint” in declining to block the settlement. The judge was appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton.

YOGI BERRA

Cuomo on February 4 sued the bank, its former chief executive, Kenneth Lewis, and its former chief financial officer, Joe Price, who now oversees consumer and small business banking.

That lawsuit sets forth a significantly different set of facts, including that the bank in mid-December 2008 used an “empty threat” of backing out of the merger as leverage to get taxpayer aid from the government.

Bank of America has said the government essentially forced it to close the merger. It ultimately received $20 billion of federal bailout money, which it has since repaid.

Cuomo also called into question the facts behind the decision to fire general counsel Tim Mayopoulos, just as the bank’s worry over Merrill’s losses was morphing into alarm.

The SEC accepted the bank’s argument that Mayopoulos was let go to keep Brian Moynihan, who was being displaced as corporate and investment banking chief, from leaving the company. Moynihan is now the bank’s chief executive.

Rakoff said he had not determined who was right, but said there was “substantial evidence” to support the SEC’s view.

“Given the somewhat tortured background of these cases and the difficulties the motion presents,” Rakoff wrote, “the court is tempted to quote the great American philosopher Yogi Berra: ‘I wish I had an answer to that because I’m getting tired of answering that question.’”

The judge used a comment by a Hall of Fame baseball player, which has been used by many non-baseball people when making his final statement about the case.

If you wish to obtain more information about these cases, they are SEC v. Bank of America Corp, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, Nos. 09-06829 and 10-00215.

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My Take: I think my question would be if they needed $20 billion bailout money why were they trying to get a merger with the company that had massive losses? I think it’s great that B of A has paid back that $20 billion, but why did they want to merge with a company that was losing money?

It sounds to me like the company was getting ready to hire some Portland OR bankruptcy attorneys or North Carolina bankruptcy attorneys. I guess Merrill Lynch found a way out of it, the merger. However, I think the judge could have come up with a better decision. To me, it seems like the shareholders lost out on the deal.

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Cited: Reuters

There is controversy in the travel industry as a new travel promotion act is signed by Pres. Barack Obama. Many in the industry fear that the act will backfire. However, most in the US travel industry are hoping that it will reverse the decline in international visitors to the country and create jobs.

President Barack Obama, on March 4, signed into law the Travel Promotion Act, a measure that will set up an 11-member board to develop a national multi-channel marketing campaign to draw foreign travelers and provide information on travel policies.

Industry executives say the act can help strengthen the U.S. economy and revive the sector, which has taken a hit as the recession dampened demand for air travel and led consumers to cut back discretionary spending at hotels and restaurants.

Jim Abrahamson, president of the Americas region for InterContinental Hotels Group, the world’s largest hotel company, said there are lessons to be learned from other countries that use aggressive marketing campaigns to attract visitors.

“Today we’re a marketing and messaging-driven economy,” Abrahamson said. “We have to keep our product in front of customers.”

According to independent analysis by Oxford Economics, the program could attract 1.6 million additional visitors from other countries and create more than $4 billion in consumer spending annually, as well as generate $321 million in new federal tax revenue each year. As mentioned in previous posts, this landmark legislation was sorely needed, as America’s travel industry was the only major country without a national tourism promotion budget. Not keeping pace with global competitors cost us 68 million visitors to the U.S. and more than $500 billion in total spending over the last decade.

In addition, the U.S. Travel Association estimates that, based on its analysis of government data, the U.S. travel industry lost nearly 400,000 jobs between 2008 and 2009. However, with this new program we can move forward, creating an estimated 40,000 new American jobs in the first year according to U.S. Travel Association and help reduce the federal budget by $425 million over 10 years according to the Congressional Budget Office.

But some in the travel industry expressed concern about a $10 fee that will be charged every two years to visitors from countries that participate in the Visa waiver program. That fee, along with voluntary private sector contributions, will be used to pay for the program.

“We generally oppose tourism taxes, which this is,” said Steve Lott, a North America spokesman for the International Air Transport Association, which represents 230 airlines worldwide. “We’re concerned about retaliatory action by other countries.”

Lott added that national resources would best be directed toward addressing barriers faced by global travelers in the United States. For example, cutting the time required for foreigners to obtain a visa and minimizing security hassles at U.S. airports would do much to improve perceptions about traveling to America, Lott said.

The non-profit U.S. Travel Association said there has been a drop in overseas travel to the United States each year since the September 11, 2001, attacks. Last year, 2.4 million fewer overseas visitors came to the United States than in 2000, it said.

This new law, which was signed March 4 by President Obama, creates a multi-million-dollar public-private partnership to promote the United States as a premier international travel destination and better clarify U.S. security and entry policies to potential foreign travelers.

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My Take: One thing is for sure, if it works, it is something the country needs. I, myself, do not travel that much because I am disabled and on a limited income. If I were to travel, I would love to go to Australia. When I was a kid, my brother gave me two authentic Australian boomerangs. Of course, one was actually for him. I love them and I wanted to learn how to use mine, but never could get the hang of it. I was ever able to go I would bring back a ton of the Australian souvenirs.

I would also bring back miniature flags for the areas I visited. I would want to see a real live koala and a kangaroo in its natural habitat and not a zoo. Of course, I would also like to visit Hawaii. However, unless I happen to hit the lottery I will not be visiting either location.

But this Travel Act, very well could bring in much-needed money to the country as well as jobs for the millions that are unemployed presently. So, I will cross my fingers and pray that the Act does what it is meant to do, help.

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Cited: Reuters/AP

On February 20, Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank Pres. Sandra Pianalto stated that there were too many variables that affect the value of the dollar to predict where it is headed.

Taking questions after addressing a group of high school students, Pianalto, a voting member of the Fed’s policy panel this year, was asked what policies were being put in place to safeguard the dollar’s value.

Pianalto noted that dollar policy was not under the purview of the Federal Reserve, but added: “The value of the dollar is set by the markets and there are so many variables. It is just very hard to know what direction it is going to go.” U.S. dollar policy is directed by the Treasury Department.

Asked about the Fed’s decision to increase the interest rate it charges banks for emergency loans, Pianalto described it as response to improving market conditions.

“As the credit situation improved and the financial markets improved … we tried to get it so the banks would access those funds in the market,” she said.

The Fed said on February 18 it was raising the so-called discount rate by a quarter point to 0.75% percent.

It made no move in the federal funds rate governing overnight lending between banks, which can broadly influence credit costs and has been the Fed’s main monetary policy tool. That rate still stands in a zero to 0.25% range.

Pianalto did not address the outlook for the economy or monetary policy in her remarks, and largely sidestepped questions on fiscal policy, which she said was not the Fed’s domain.

“It is important to step back and come out of this recession with recovery and to make sure that the correct fiscal policy is created,” she said.

The Obama administration has forecast a record $1.56 trillion budget deficit this year. At 10.6% of GDP, it would be the largest deficit since 1945.

The dollar extended its rise February 19, a day after the Federal Reserve bumped up the rate that banks must pay for emergency loans. Analysts said the rate hike was a sign of the central bank’s confidence in the financial sector. The euro briefly slid below $1.35 for the first time in nine months before paring its losses in New York.

The euro traded as high as $1.51 in November, but worries over big deficits in Greece and other European countries has undermined the stability of the currency used by 16 countries.

The euro fetched $1.3599 by late New York trading February 19, down from $1.3617 late February 18, before the Fed announcement. It broke below $1.35 in Asian trading overnight, bottoming at $1.3444, and its lowest point since May 2009.

The Fed said it was normalizing emergency liquidity measures, not trying to raise borrowing costs for companies and consumers. The central bank stood by its pledge to keep interest rates at their current range of near zero for an “extended period.”

A higher interest rate, or the expectation of higher rates, can prompt a shift of funds to the dollar. Analysts noted that many investors were taking the Fed’s move as a signal that it would hike rates faster than other central banks.

But the Fed’s move late on February 18, lifting the discount rate by one-quarter point to 0.75%, is unlikely to mean higher interest rates since the economy remains weak. Instead, it suggests that the Fed thinks the American financial sector is on the mend, said Brian Dolan, chief currency strategist at Forex.com.

“We’re past the crisis,” Dolan said.

There was little evidence that the Fed would feel immediate pressure to raise rates that would affect American shoppers and businesses. On Friday, the government said consumer prices rose a scant 0.2% last month, while core inflation that excludes food and energy dropped 0.1%. That hasn’t happened since December 1982, and gives the Fed room to leave rates very low for now. Raising interest rates is a tool in fighting inflation.

In other trading February 19, the British pound tumbled to $1.5464 from $1.5627 late on February 18 after falling to a nine-month low of $1.5350 earlier. Meanwhile, the dollar rose to 91.71 Japanese yen from 91.34 yen.

Against those nations that export commodities to the United States, the dollar was higher. As the price of crude and other commodities fell off, yesterday and Canadian dollars fell as the dollar rose versus the Nordic currencies and many Asian currencies.

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My Take: I just wish the dollar would go for it does. I don’t know about where the dollar is going down or up, but I do know that prices are going up. In fact, some stores are actually thinking about charging you for plastic bags that you use the store. You know the bags I mean, the imprinted bags that you put your groceries in and have the store emblem on them. It’s not like their wholesale plastic bags or anything. What I would like to know is how are they going to charge you for them because they don’t know how many you’re going to use at any given time.

I can see the prices going up every month. I use natural skin care products and I can see a difference in the price every month. I would love to be able to use natural aromatherapy that they have out, but I can’t afford. I expect things like new and used copy machines to go up in price because technology is getting better and costs more. But some prices should actually go down because people are buying more. Of course some electronics actually do go down in price like to Canon color ImageRunner, it’s at least $100 cheaper than it used to be.

Okay, I will stop b–ching about the cost of everything. As for what was stated in the article, I believe that the dollar will survive. It has in the past and it will in the future. We have to believe in our country to keep it going.

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Cited: Reuters

According to the industry data that shows the fragile state of the recovery in the housing market, US mortgages were in a record foreclosure with 15% delinquent in the fourth quarter of last year.

Housing Market

The Mortgage Bankers Association said on January 19 the combination of loans in foreclosure and one payment in arrears was 15.02 percent on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the highest ever in the survey.

However, the delinquency rate for mortgages on one-to-four-unit residential properties fell to a seasonally adjusted rate of 9.47% of all loans outstanding as of the end of the fourth quarter of 2009, down from 9.64% in the third quarter but up from 7.88% in the same quarter a year earlier, the MBA said in its National Delinquency Survey.

“This drop in the delinquency rate is good news and shows that the problem may not get much bigger. But it is still a big problem,” Jay Brinkmann, MBA chief economist told Reuters in an interview.

In particular, the 30-day delinquency rate showed a sizable drop in the fourth quarter, a strong sign that the market may be seeing the beginning of the end of the unprecedented wave of mortgage delinquencies, he said.

Brinkmann said the drop is important because 30-day delinquencies have historically been a leading indicator of serious delinquencies and foreclosures.

On a historical basis, there is usually a large spike in short-term delinquencies at the end of the year. But 30-day delinquencies fell to 3.63% from 3.79%.

Only three times before in the history of the MBA survey has the non-seasonally adjusted 30-day delinquency rate dropped between the third and fourth quarter, and never by this magnitude, Brinkmann said. Another apparent good sign is a drop in the rate of new foreclosures started.

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The percentage of loans on which foreclosure actions were started fell to 1.2% in the fourth quarter, down from 1.42% in the third quarter but up from 1.08% in the same quarter a year earlier, the MBA said.

“The drop in new foreclosures started may be temporary, however, because we continue to see large increases in loans 90 days or more past due,” Brinkmann said.

Typically, 30-day delinquencies account for the largest share of all delinquencies. But loans 90 days or more past due now account for half of all delinquencies, the highest share in the history of the MBA survey and double the share only two years ago, he said.

Brinkmann said despite the drop in short-term delinquencies, foreclosure rates could continue to climb, however, based on the ability of borrowers 90 days or more delinquent to solve their problems.

The U.S. foreclosure inventory rate for all loans was 4.58% in the fourth quarter, up from 4.47 percent in the third quarter and from 3.3% in the fourth quarter of 2008.

A sizable number of the loans in the 90-plus day delinquent bucket are in loan modification programs. They are carried as delinquent until borrowers demonstrate they will make the payments agreed to in the plans.

The pattern of mortgage delinquencies now very much follows the pattern of unemployment, which was at 9.7% in January, according to the Labor Department.

“Therefore, until the issue of this large segment of long-term unemployed is resolved, many of the longer-term mortgage delinquencies will remain a problem with a strong likelihood of turning into foreclosures down the road,” said Brinkmann.

President Barack Obama will use a campaign stop for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Friday to announce a new initiative to help support homeowners in five states hit hardest by the U.S. housing crisis.

Obama announced he is designating $1.5 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to fund Housing Finance Agencies in Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan and Nevada.

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My Take: Well, I hope that the housing industry stays as it is for now. The reason being, I am on low income and have just been preapproved by house. The first time I’ve ever been eligible entities because of the housing crisis. I know many people from the West Coast to the East Coast are having troubles with their mortgages. I understand that Louisville KY home loans are among the best I have and are doing great. Unfortunately, I do not live in Kentucky. I also hear that an Indianapolis IN mortgage is a good one to get, but again I do not live in Indiana.

Now that TARP just might come in handy for me because I live in Arizona. I have been searching the Internet for various properties for sale and have found some really nice ones. The ones that are the kind I really want I cannot board like villas in Andalucia. If you didn’t know, that’s in Spain. Spain has some beautiful Casa Del Sol homes that are absolutely gorgeous with a outrageous price, in my opinion, but the view alone is worth it.

I have even looked at some Grandview real estate that is absolutely beautiful in New York State. There again lies the problem; I do not live in New York. But there is some beautiful Piermont real estate that I would love to have if I lived there. That means I keep looking in Arizona where property I want, my dream house.

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Cited: Reuters

You would not think that an office building over a shopping mall in downtown Philadelphia could put fear in the hearts of bad guys on Wall Street. However, it does because that is where the regulator has set up a sophisticated computer database to catch insider traders and it is helping the US Securities and Exchange Commission do just that.

Last month, Daniel Hawke, an energetic, guitar-playing 46-year-old lawyer, was named head of a new task force charged with cracking down on a variety of market abuses.

Even before the promotion, Hawke, who remains director of the SEC’s Philadelphia office, cast a surprisingly long shadow over the financial industry from his perch a two-hour or so drive from the canyons of Wall Street.

A few weeks after hedge fund billionaire Raj Rajaratnam was arrested in New York last October in the most significant insider trading investigation in two decades, Hawke and his team of lawyers were busy working to reel in the next big catch.

In mid-November, his crew handed out more than a dozen subpoenas to hedge funds and Wall Street investment firms seeking information about trading activity in shares of several drug manufacturers and consumer products companies that were buyout targets in 2006 and 2007.

Hawke, who has more than a decade of regulatory work under his belt, won’t discuss the details of the subpoenas or the nature of the ongoing investigation.

But the flurry of activity last fall is indicative of the new, aggressive approach Hawke said he and his team are using to unearth cases of insider trading. And in the months to come, Wall Street firms and hedge funds likely will receive more of these regulatory calling cards from Philadelphia.

“Our focus is on conducting trader-based investigations, rather than going security by security,” said Hawke, who has run the Philadelphia office since 2006 and will now also serve as director of the new market abuse unit.

The goal, he said was to discover “hard-to-detect frauds.”

CYBER SLEUTHS

Much of the initial detective work that Hawke’s group is doing relies heavily on computers. The team cross-checks trading data on dozens of stocks with personal information about individual traders, such as where they went to business school or where they used to work.

Hawke said his investigators are looking for patterns of “behavior by traders across multiple securities” and seeing if there are any common relationships or associations between those traders.

His stock sleuths then try to determine whether those traders who are wheeling-and-dealing in the same group of securities are doing so because they are simply smarter and luckier than other investors, or have benefited from improper access to confidential information.

Looking for connections and past associations among traders at hedge funds and Wall Street firms may not sound like an entirely novel way to conduct an investigation. But it is a marked departure from the way insider trading investigations tended to get going at the SEC.

Historically, the agency has pursued such cases only after being tipped off by an informant or receiving a referral from a market surveillance team at a particular exchange about unusual trading in some stock.

“Our goal is to be better masters of our own destiny by making the most informed decision about what conduct to investigate,” said SEC Enforcement Chief Robert Khuzami, in a recent interview. “And one way to accomplish that is to have the broadest and deepest information about what is going on in the markets.”

Even the sprawling Galleon Management insider trading investigation, which has led to criminal charges filed against Rajaratnam and 21 others, began with a tip from an exchange and the help of an informant. Federal prosecutors didn’t begin placing wiretaps on some of the defendants’ cell phones until well after the SEC began gathering evidence of potential wrongful trading by Galleon co-founder Rajaratnam and others.

“A decade ago there wasn’t a whole lot of computer assistance when it came to matching up names or matching up employers,” said Bruce Carton, a former SEC senior counsel and now editor of Securities Docket, an online securities law blog. “That’s extremely helpful.”

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PHILADELPHIA STORY

This newly elevated status for Hawke’s crew may come as a surprise to some on Wall Street, where the SEC’s Philadelphia office is often seen as playing second fiddle in regulatory matters to New York and Washington, D.C.

After all, the Galleon case has been almost entirely a New York and Washington operation. And while Hawke’s office has jurisdiction over firms operating in five mid Atlantic states and the nation’s capital, no one could confuse Philadelphia’s Market Street district with Wall Street.

Four years ago, security was so lax at the building where Hawke works that a group of self-styled anarchists stormed the entryway of the SEC’s offices and staged a protest.

But tapping Hawke to oversee the SEC’s new market abuse task force is a way for the agency’s bosses to acknowledge that the Philadelphia office has come up with innovative ways to investigate insider trading.

The agency is giving Hawke the authority to pull in SEC lawyers across the nation. Indeed, his deputy in the market abuse unit is Sanjay Wadhwa, who is currently the assistant regional director of the SEC’s New York office.

Hawke began briefing the agency’s top brass about his computer-assisted forensic work in late 2007. During a meeting with then SEC Enforcement Chief Linda Thomsen and others, he explained how his team had begun compiling trading records kept by Wall Street market makers on dozens of stocks that were buyout targets. He told his superiors they were looking for common trading patterns to begin an initial inquiry.

A year ago, Hawke’s strategy of combing through these so-called “blue sheet” trading records scored its first big success. The Philadelphia office, in tandem with federal prosecutors in New York, filed civil and criminal charges against seven people in conjunction with an insider trading scheme that reaped more than $11 million in profits. The case arose from an analysis of trading patterns in stocks of several companies involved in buyouts in which UBS kept coming-up as one of the deal advisors.

Federal prosecutors got a big break in that investigation when one of the defendants, former UBS investment banker Nicos Stephanou, pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against his alleged co-conspirators. Stephanou is charged with providing some of the defendants with confidential information about the impending buyouts of supermarket chain Albertsons and construction materials manufacturer ElkCorp.

In his cooperation agreement, Stephanou also admitted providing some of his co-conspirators with confidential deal information as far back as 1997. Before the arrests in Galleon, the Stephanou case was one of the bigger insider trading busts by prosecutors and securities regulators in recent memory.

LONG ARM OF THE SEC

Over the years, Hawke, a Washington native, whose father John was a former U.S. Comptroller of the Currency, has earned a reputation for taking on complex cases. He joined the SEC in 1999, after walking away from a lucrative job as a partner with a Washington law firm.

One of his first assignments was a case that led to the SEC filing administrative charges in the summer of 2001 against the now defunct accounting firm Arthur Andersen, which the agency accused of producing faulty audits of trash hauling giant Waste Management Inc. A few months later, Arthur Anderson would again be in the news for its improper audits of Enron.

But it is in insider trading cases where Hawke has shined. And he’s not shied away from taking on cases where defendants accused of wrongful trading live in far flung places.

In the Stephanou case, for instance, some of the defendants come from Cyprus and Greece. In 2005, he uncovered a scheme by traders in Estonia to get illegal access to corporate press releases distributed by Business Wire before the potential market-moving information was released to the public.

“Dan has a long history pursuing investigations that have a market abuse angle,” said Scott Friestad, an associate director in the SEC’s Washington, D.C. office, who supervised Hawke before he moved to the Philadelphia office. “He has been involved in bringing a number of cases that are ground-breaking in some fashion.”

Hawke has also had his share of setbacks. For example, in 2008, a federal judge tossed out a case Hawke’s office had filed against a hedge fund manager it had accused of insider trading.

Right now, the Philadelphia office is embroiled in a pitched legal battle with suspended Blackstone Group investment banker Ramesh Chakrapani, one of the defendants in the Stephanou case. In an unusual procedural move, Hawke’s office wants to dismiss its insider trading case against Chakrapani but retain the right to refile the case at a later date. But a lawyer for Chakrapani, in a bid to clear his client’s name, has asked a federal judge to dismiss the SEC action with prejudice — meaning the agency can’t come back and charge the banker again. A ruling in the matter is pending.

And some, even inside the SEC, question whether Hawke’s approach is of much use for developing investigative leads beyond cases in which traders are getting access to confidential buyout-related information.

Hawke is cognizant of those criticisms. He said his proactive approach doesn’t necessarily trump tips or informants. The Estonian case, he pointed out, began with a tip from Seattle-area trader and well-known regulatory gadfly Yolanda Holtzee about an unusual spike in trading in a stock.

Rather, he said, computer-assisted probes are intended as a “starting point” for investigations. They help regulators get a better view of what traders are doing in the markets, he said.

In his office that overlooks the historic building where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he hopes to send a warning to the rogue traders that the SEC is not going to stand by and wait for informants to informants to come forward to expose them.

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My Take: It about time they started doing something. Their actions may cause businesses problems with commercial mortgage financing or cause the business to go out of business. When their actions cause problems for businesses, they should pay the price. It’s not right that a business should have to get loan restructuring just because somebody was playing the stock market.

Big businesses may not have to worry about retail merchant accounts or integrated payroll services because they have their own in-house. But when big business has problems it seems to filter down into small businesses as well. Small businesses have to worry about business payroll solutions in small business credit card machines and small business insurance among other things that big business doesn’t need to worry about.

White-collar crime, as it is called, hurts everybody and not just the big businesses.

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Cited: Reuters

It seems that consumers are still wary even though retail results have improved. This year for retailers may be more about winning sales from competitors than gaining customers to purchase more, at least for those that sell everything from torn paper to refrigerators

Discounters like Target Corp and Sears Holdings Corp’s Kmart stores posted improved sales performances on February 23, while home improvement retailer Home Depot Inc and department store chain Macy’s also forecast better sales in 2010.

Many of them saw demand pick up for items that sat out the recession on store shelves, but cautioned investors that they don’t expect a huge improvement in sales trends this year while unemployment remains high.

“You are going to see these times where you have consumer explosions, where business will pick up for five or six days, but then they are going to go down again to lower levels,” said Britt Beemer, founder of America’s Research Group, which monitors consumer sentiment.

That raises the competitive stakes for store chains, whose investors are focused on seeing better sales after more than a year of cost-cuts and store closings.

“While we still see little meaningful near-term improvement in macro-economic conditions, we do believe there is opportunity to gain market share by increasing same-store sales,” said Macy’s Chief Executive Terry Lundgren.

Lundgren’s view was bolstered by a new survey that showed U.S. consumer confidence fell in February to the lowest in 10 months, as consumers’ short-term outlook for the jobs market worsened, according to the conference board.

Macy’s nevertheless said it expects a 1% to 2% increase in sales at stores open at least a year for the current fiscal year, compared with a 5.3% decline last year.

Shares tracked by the Standard & Poor’s Retail Index were off 0.2% in afternoon trading. Target slipped 0.8% and Sears 1.3%, while Macy’s rose 1.3%. Home Depot, whose quarterly results suggested continued gains against rival Lowe’s Cos Inc, rose 1.9%.

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SHOPPING FOR MORE PAINT

One positive sign is that customers of both Home Depot and Lowe’s were more willing to spend on big-ticket home projects such as painting, new flooring and renovating kitchens after a prolonged slump in the U.S. housing market.

Home Depot posted its first quarterly same-store sales rise in nearly four years.

Target has seen customers adding a few more home improvement and apparel items to their baskets, not just buying essentials like food, and expects sales of such discretionary merchandise to improve.

“Today, guests are telling us they’re increasingly confident and are visiting more often and shopping more of the store,” Kathee Tesija, Target’s executive vice president of merchandising, said during a conference call with analysts.

But consumer caution was also evident in weekly sales numbers. The ICSC/Goldman Sachs same-store sales index rose 0.9% in the week ended February 20, compared with a year earlier. ICSC research forecasts a 2% rise in February same-store sales overall.

Macy’s posted fourth-quarter profit of $1.40 per share, excluding onetime items, compared with an average analyst estimate of $1.37 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Home Depot posted a profit that beat analysts’ expectations in the quarter, compared with a year-earlier loss. It forecast increases of about 2.5% in both total and same-store sales for this fiscal year, while net earnings from continuing operations should rise about 15.5% to $1.79 a share.

SEARS LOSES GROUND TO HOME DEPOT, LOWE’S

Sears’ profit more than doubled, largely on cost cuts, as its same-store sales still fell 2.5%.

But the Sears chain appears to be losing market share to Home Depot and Lowe’s, which have invested to improve their stores, said Credit Suisse analyst Gary Balter.

“Would you rather be in the lower multiple names that offer better growth or the higher multiple name that, other than some very effective Internet advertising, operates in stores that have been underinvested in for years?” Balter said in a research note.

Target slightly beat analysts’ estimates as it avoided drastic clearance sales that crimped results in the holiday quarter last year. Sales at stores open at least a year, a key gauge of a retailer’s health, rose 0.6%.

Target has reduced inventory and boosted low prices over the past year to get customers to come back and had stopped shopping there during the downturn. Target is also revamping many of its stores to include fresh vegetables and fruit as well as groceries. Target has also stated that Wall Street’s estimated first-quarter earnings estimate is above their own forecast.

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My Take: I stopped shopping at Target and Kmart because their products were so “cheap” and I don’t mean the price. You could find all kinds of gifts like aviation gifts for an outrageous price and we got him home and find out that they weren’t worth it. I know someone that collects brass bells and bought one, it cracked first time she rang it. When she took a look at it, it said “Made in Taiwan”!

Maybe this economic crisis will get them to sell “good” American products that are worth the price they put on them. I know one time both Kmart and Target sold fantastic invitations of all kinds like birthday party invitations and they were worth the money you paid for them. Of course, today, many people want to take advantage of the Internet and get custom design invitations. The same goes with announcements; you could buy beautiful marriage announcements at either store. Here again, people are going to the Internet to get custom birth announcements that are sent directly to their home.

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Cited: Reuters

The US dollar is taking a beating; there is no doubt about that. Last time it took such a beating was when the country was facing a mounting inflation and the escalating cost of the Vietnam War. The then president, Richard Nixon (Tricky Dick), took the United States off the gold standard on August 15, 1971. The gold standard had been in place since 1944 and Nixon ordered the Federal Reserve to back all dollars in circulation with gold

The move amounted to a made-in-America double-digit devaluation, shocking the country’s foreign creditors.

Deep inside the New York Federal Reserve Bank’s fortress in lower Manhattan, Scott Pardee, then 34, was fielding frantic calls from central bankers around the world. They were demanding the United States cover the foreign exchange risk on their reserves.

“The whole roof came in on us,” recalled Pardee, a former New York Fed staffer who is now an economics professor at Vermont’s Middlebury College. “That is the kind of situation the U.S. doesn’t want to be in.”

Nearly 40 years later, the dollar still dominates world trade. At the height of the financial crisis in 2008, investors fled to the dollar as a temporary safe haven. But the dollar has been falling steadily since 2002, and as the world economy recovered last year, dollar selling resumed, and reviving doubts about how long it could remain the world’s unrivaled reserve currency.

The Greek debt crisis, which has sent investors stampeding back into the U.S. currency, has provided a reprieve. The dollar has gained some 10% against the euro since December. And following the Fed’s decision last week to hike the discount rate it charges banks for emergency loans, the dollar rose even higher as some investors bet it would benefit from the eventual end to the Fed’s post-crisis regime of easy money.

But a number of economists, investors and officials here and abroad interviewed for this story say the longer-term prognosis is far from rosy.

As the United States racks up staggering deficits and the center of economic activity shifts to fast-growing countries such as China and Brazil, these sources fear the United States faces the risk of another devaluation of the dollar. This time in slow motion — but perhaps not as slow as some might think. If the world loses confidence in U.S. policies, “there’d be hell to pay for the dollar,” Pardee said. “Sooner or later, the U.S. is going to have to pay attention to the dollar.”

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French President Nicolas Sarkozy isn’t on anybody’s short list for the Nobel Prize in economics. But at January’s World Economic Forum in Davos Sarkozy proposed, to scattered applause, creating a new version of the Bretton Woods currency accord, which set up the very gold standard that Nixon brought crashing down.

Most economists doubt a return to the gold standard is feasible in today’s interconnected world, with so much capital crossing borders at the click of a mouse.

Yet, as Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti, a foreign exchange expert at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, put it: “Post-crisis, a lot more things are on the table. It is true among policymakers and in the markets that people are much more willing to look at unconventional proposals and even some proposals that may seem antiquated.”

ACROPOLIS NOW

Some argue the dollar’s recent rally against the euro and yen (it’s up almost 6% against the Japanese currency since December) is less a vote of confidence than a realization that it’s simply the best of a bad bunch.

Per Rasmussen, a retired currency trader who worked at Chase in the late 1970s in London, called it a “reverse beauty pageant” in which investors pick the “least ugly” contestant. Since rising above $1.50 in November, the euro has tumbled more than 10% and was last changing hands around $1.3550, near a nine-month low.

The currency has been battered by doubts about whether Greece and other wobbly euro zone economies can manage the spending cuts needed to rein in out-sized budget deficits. The worries have weakened confidence in the whole concept of European monetary union.

Thomas Kressin, who helps manage PIMCO’s $100 million GIS FX strategy fund, said the euro is in danger of entering into an extended downtrend that takes it as low as $1.22 — which he described as fair value — over the next three to five years.

But the euro’s lurch lower has done nothing to change traders like Axel Merk’s dim view of the dollar’s future.

Based in Palo Alto, California, Merk has been trading for 16 years and is currently president and portfolio manager of Merk Investments, the biggest mutual fund manager dealing exclusively with currencies.

He acknowledges he has had to scramble in his short-term funds to avoid being on the wrong side of the euro’s nosedive. But over the next decade and beyond, Merk said the dollar has nowhere to go but down.

Investors will balk at “reckless U.S. fiscal and monetary policies” and start looking for alternatives to the U.S. currency, he said.

Others might take refuge in commodities. A recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing showed billionaire investor George Soros’ New York-based firm more than doubled its bet on the price of gold during the fourth quarter.

Merk, whose $550 million Hard Currency Fund is designed to profit from a steady dollar decline, said he believes Washington is banking on a gradual dollar devaluation to shrink its monstrous debt and fuel an export boom to propel the economy.

“Now I am convinced that (U.S. authorities) consider a weaker dollar the solution to many of their problems. But you can’t turn your policies upside down and expect the rest of the world to put up with it forever.”

That view is at odds with the official line from U.S. policymakers. They insist that “a strong dollar is in the U.S. interest,” a phrase repeated so often by former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin in the 1990s it became his mantra. The person in the job today, Timothy Geithner, has made this mantra his own. Treasury officials, who routinely defer to the Treasury chief as the only authorized spokesman for dollar policy, declined to provide comments for this story.

SHARING THE SPOTLIGHT

What’s clear is that America’s debt-holders aren’t the passive, pliant bunch they used to be. Some of the biggest holders of U.S. dollar assets are also among the fastest growing economies and they are hardly bashful about criticizing U.S. policies, particularly now that the financial crisis has eroded America’s influence and its reputation for sound economic management.

China alone holds $2.3 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, with nearly $800 billion in U.S. Treasury debt. And at a press conference last year, Premier Wen Jiabao did not mince words: “We have lent a massive amount of capital to the United States and of course we are concerned about security of our assets. To speak truthfully, I do indeed have worries.”

Terrence Checki, who has acted as the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s chief international trouble-shooter for two decades, warns that the U.S. cannot afford to ignore such concerns.

“We are no longer alone as the central axis for the global economy,” he told a gathering of influential bankers and policy-makers during a Foreign Policy Association dinner at New York’s St Regis hotel in December. That, he added, implies “recognizing that our leverage will not be what it once was. We also need to be attentive to the messages we receive, such as rumblings about the dollar and our policies and priorities, even when we disagree with them.”

History suggests that a currency is supplanted the same way Ernest Hemingway said a man goes broke: gradually, then suddenly. In terms of economic might, the United States surpassed Britain in the late 19th century. But it took another 60 years and two world wars to strip sterling of its reserve status.

Even so, some worry time is not on the United States’ side. Emerging markets already account for roughly half of global output and that share is rapidly increasing. In 2003, Goldman Sachs said the size of China’s economy would surpass that of the United States by 2041. Five years later, it revised the forecast to 2027. China is expected to surpass Japan as the world’s second largest economy this year.

All of which would be fine were it not for the fact that the United States continues to live beyond its means. The recent spike in borrowing and spending following the financial crisis is creating a debt burden that, in the word of Moody’s Investors Service, is trending “clearly, continuously upward.”

Continued in “Is US Dollar Doomed? Part 2“

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My Take: I remember one of my high school teachers saying World War III will not be fought with bullets, guns or bombs, but with the dollar. This article seems to be holding true to that statement. I am no economist or expert, but I know that the dollar is the blood of this country and it seems this country is slowly bleeding to death.

I know what they could do! Put on the benefit to hope the country pay off its debts. It’s only fair since the country help them get out of bad spot, don’t you think? Maybe they could get a few movie stars to make an appearance, get choir to sing during intermissions and maybe a comedian to bring everybody spirit of. Of course, they will need to get choir risers so everybody can see them. Don’t forget the seating risers so that the audience can see at this stage properly. I know, this is all a dream.

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Cited: Associated Press

New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli announced in February that Wall Street bonuses surged up 17% to $20.3 billion and stated that the bonuses were “bitter pill” after taxpayers bailed out Wall Street after its meltdown.

Total compensation at the largest securities firms grew beyond that figure and profits could surpass what he calls an unprecedented $55 billion last year, DiNapoli said. That’s nearly three times Wall Street’s record increase, a rate of growth that is boosted in part by the record losses in 2008 of nearly $43 billion, the Democrat said.

“Wall Street is vital to New York’s economy, and the dollars generated by the industry help the state’s bottom line,” said DiNapoli. “But for most Americans, these huge bonuses are a bitter pill and hard to comprehend. … Taxpayers bailed them out, and now they’re back making money while many New York families are still struggling to make ends meet.”

DiNapoli supports reforms that require Wall Street bonuses to be tied to long-term profitability, to force more stability in the volatile markets and “make sure the securities industry thrives without driving the rest of us out on a fragile economic limb.”

DiNapoli reviews tax collections each year and bases his annual projection of Wall Street bonuses on income and other taxes paid in New York City.

DiNapoli notes the bonuses help state revenues tremendously as it faces an $8.2 billion deficit, but they are a “bitter pill” to most taxpayers nationwide. The bonus estimate doesn’t include compensation that Wall Streeters chose to take in stock options and other kinds of deferred payment.

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He said the bonus pool is a third less than the amount paid out two years ago when Wall Street had its previously most profitable year.

The estimate does not include stock options that have not yet been realized or other forms of deferred compensation. This year’s estimated bonus pool is a third less than the amount paid two years ago, the previous most profitable year.

For example, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman could receive a stock bonus currently valued at $8.1 million for 2009 if he meets certain performance targets, the bank said in January. Gorman is getting deferred stock worth $5.4 million but no cash bonus for 2009, Morgan Stanley said in a filing. Gorman can’t cash in the stock for three years.

Banks had been expected to hand out near-record compensation for last year’s performance. Several banks earned huge profits in 2009, aided by billions in government bailout funds and a rebounding stock market.

The eight biggest US banks have been asked to reveal how much they are planning to pay out in employee bonuses for last year by State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. The size of the bank’s bonus pool should have been affected if the banks hadn’t received a taxpayer rescue at the height of the financial crisis in late 2008 according to the State Attorney General.

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My Take: It seems to me that they shouldn’t be getting any bonuses. They are the ones who started this mess and they should pay for it. I have an idea! They give their bonuses to the taxpayers! That will never happen! Why not give them a bonus that is simple like Bon Jovi tickets? Or maybe give them hit show theater tickets? I just cannot understand means of dollars in bonuses.

I understand that the stock options are a delayed bonus because they can’t cash them in for three years, but get real. I really do not think they should be getting any kind of a bonus. They may The stock market flowing smoothly, but they also caused big problems for everybody.

I mean, people are using their hobby tools to supplement their income because the economy is so bad. I know friend of mine was into toy trains or rather models trains and he sold them to try and avoid foreclosure on his home. So why should they get bonuses?

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Yes, the pun is intended in the title! While casinos and gambling (think Vegas and poker tournaments!) have been around for a long time – this glitzy and exciting world of chance entered the technological age within the past cade or so, and an online casino is as near as your computer internet connection.

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Not only that, but you can access online casino gambling any time, 24/7, whenever it happens to fit into your schedule. Join a poker table over your morning coffee, while you’re still in your pajamas … or play craps at midnight with the other night owls.

Of course, caution is advised – just as you can become addicted to gambling in a physical casino, you can become addicted to online gambling. As a matter of fact, an online gambling addiction may develop even more easily and quickly. This is due to the ease of access, as well as the false sense of security you can experience through the virtual setting – as if you are just ‘playing’ a game, not actually participating in a game which can drain your finances.

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