There have been 58 bank closures through July 22, five of them in Illinois, including one in St. Charles. Daily Markets looks at the current climate. Looking back, there were 157 bank failures in 2010, 140 in 2009 and 25 in 2008. While the financials of bigger banks have been stabilizing on the back of…
Category: National/International
Must Read: How Goldman Sachs Created the Food Crisis
Frederick Kaufman explains how our daily bread has become fodder for Wall Street speculators, at Foreign Policy.com. Since the bursting of the tech bubble in 2000, there has been a 50-fold increase in dollars invested in commodity index funds. To put the phenomenon in real terms: In 2003, the commodities futures market still totaled a…
Because What Happens in California Keeps Happening in Illinois. . .
California is not Vegas. Over the past couple of years, what happened there did not stay there, and it happened here in similar ways. The latest out of California is a rash of mortgage foreclosures on churches: “Churches Find End is Nigh” I would not be surprised if the same trend happens in Illinois.
Major Abraham Lincoln Event, February 11th
LOCKPORT and WORLD RECORD ATTEMPT The City of Lockport and The Gaylord Building, a historic site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, will take part in a world record attempt on Friday, February 11, 2011 to help kick off nation’s Civil War Sesquicentennial. People of all ages are invited to help The Gaylord Building…
Boone County Watchdog Runs with Bank Post
Check out this local issues blog synergy. Boone County Watchdog took my December 31 post, “Bank Troubles 2010”, spotlighted Castle Bank (which has a presence in Boone County) and put it into the big picture with “Bank Issues which Received Little News Coverage”. Some of it was news to me, so thought I’d share. Thanks…
Bank Troubles 2010
The Washington Post reports that 2010 brought the largest number of bank failures since 1992. The total comes to 157 this year, the most since the savings & loan crisis. The Federal Insurance Deposit Corporation (FDIC) lists 16 Illinois banks with 2010 closure dates. The list of failed institutions at the FDIC is filled with…
Non-profits Turn Foreclosures Back Into Homes
This is in the news now: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40822152/ns/business-real_estate Some folks were ahead of the curve decades ago, the Historic Savannah Foundation, which started out with a similar concept in restoring historic (instead of foreclosures) homes, back in 1959. I wrote about this program before, but it is worth mentioning again: http://www.myhsf.org/ That program is awesome, including…
Infrastructure Report Card
The American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE), an organization committed to improving the nation’s infrastructure, has released its 2009 report card on the condition of America’s infrastructure. It graded 15 areas from Aviation to Wastewater for a national GPA of D, and estimates it will take $2.2 trillion over the next five years to bring…
Bell to Refund Property Taxes It Overcharged
The State of California is forcing the city government of Bell, a non-prosperous suburb of Los Angeles whose administrators were among the most highly paid in the country, to refund $3 million in property taxes the municipality overcharged. About 4,000 property owners will be reimbursed under the plan. Bell is not the only California city…
Time to Look at Bell
Home to 37,000 people, Bell, California is one of the least prosperous suburbs of Los Angeles at a per capita income of about $24,000, yet its residents pay the second-highest property tax rate in Los Angeles County — even higher than that of Beverly Hills. The taxes have gone to pay some of the highest…