Homeownership Resurgence Plan

SOURCE: http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues

John McCain will direct his Treasury Secretary to implement an American Homeownership Resurgence Plan (McCain Resurgence Plan) to keep families in their homes, avoid foreclosures, save failing neighborhoods, stabilize the housing market and attack the roots of our financial crisis. America’s families are bearing a heavy burden from falling housing prices, mortgage delinquencies, foreclosures, and a weak economy. It is important that those families who have worked hard enough to finance homeownership not have that dream crushed under the weight of the wrong mortgage. The existing debts are too large compared to the value of housing. For those that cannot make payments, mortgages must be re-structured to put losses on the books and put homeowners in manageable mortgages. Lenders in these cases must recognize the loss that they’ve already suffered.

The McCain Resurgence Plan would purchase mortgages directly from homeowners and mortgage servicers, and replace them with manageable, fixed-rate mortgages that will keep families in their homes. By purchasing the existing, failing mortgages the McCain resurgence plan will eliminate uncertainty over defaults, support the value of mortgage-backed derivatives and alleviate risks that are freezing financial markets.

The McCain resurgence plan would be available to mortgage holders that:

• Live in the home (primary residence only)

• Can prove their creditworthiness at the time of the original loan (no falsifications and provided a down payment).

The new mortgage would be an FHA-guaranteed fixed-rate mortgage at terms manageable for the homeowner. The direct cost of this plan would be roughly $300 billion because the purchase of mortgages would relieve homeowners of “negative equity” in some homes. Funds provided by Congress in recent financial market stabilization bill can be used for this purpose; indeed by stabilizing mortgages it will likely be possible to avoid some purposes previously assumed needed in that bill.

The plan could be implemented quickly as a result of the authorities provided in the stabilization bill, the recent housing bill, and the U.S. government's conservatorship of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It may be necessary for Congress to raise the overall borrowing limit.

Fed orders emergency rate cut to rate cut to 1.5 percent

Fed orders emergency rate cut to rate cut to 1.5 percent

By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer 1 minute ago

The Federal Reserve cut a key interest rate by half a percentage point Wednesday to steady an economy teetering on the kind of financial collapse that America suffered in 1929.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues ratcheted down their key rate by 0.5 percentage point to 1.5 percent. The action revives the central bank's rate-cutting campaign which had been halted in June out of concerns that those low rates would worsen inflation. Since then, however, economic and financial conditions have dangerously deteriorated, forcing the Fed to reverse course.

The fact that the Fed felt it couldn't wait until its regularly scheduled meeting on Oct. 28-29, underscored the urgency of the situation.

The Fed took the action in a coordinated move with other central banks, which also were cutting their rates.

"The pace of economic activity has slowed markedly in recent months," the Fed said "Moreover, the intensification of financial market turmoil is likely to exert additional restraint on spending, partly by further reducing the ability of households and businesses to obtain credit."

Although inflation has been high, the Fed believes that the recent drop in energy prices and the weaker prospects for economic activity have reduced this threat to the economy.

In addition, the Fed reduced its emergency lending rate to banks by half a percentage point to 1.75 percent. Given the intense credit crisis, banks have been ramping up their borrowing from the Fed's emergency "discount" window.

In response, the prime lending rate for millions of borrowers will drop by a corresponding amount. The prime rate applies to certain credit cards, home equity lines of credit and other loans.

The hope was to spur nervous consumers and businesses to spend more freely again. They clamped down as housing, credit and financial problems intensified last month, throwing Wall Street into chaos. Many believe the country is on the brink of, or already in, its first recession since 2001.

The Fed's last rate cut was in late April, capping one of the most aggressive rate-cutting campaigns in decades as it scrambled to shore up the faltering economy. After that, the Fed moved to the sidelines, holding rates steady as zooming food and energy prices during that period threatened to ignite inflation. In the past few months, energy prices have retreated from record highs reached in mid-July, giving the Fed more leeway to drop rates again.

At its last meeting in September, the Fed struck a more dire tone about the economy, hinting that a rate reduction once again could be in the offing.

Even with the unprecedented $700 billion financial bailout quickly signed into law by President Bush on Friday, the failing economy and the jobs market probably will get worse. Many believe the economy will jolt into reverse later this year — if it hasn't already_ and will stay sickly well into next year.

One of the most crucial pillars of the economy — the jobs market — has cracked, and wage growth is slowing. This means that consumers will be even more hard-pressed to spend in the fashion that helps grow the economy.

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

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The Facts - 2nd presidential debate Sen McCain vs Sen Obama

Get the facts!

The Facts
Since the recent financial meltdown, McCain has repeatedly said on the campaign trail that he warned his fellow lawmakers about a potential crisis with the government-regulated mortgage firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He's referring to a May 2006 speech he gave on the floor of the Senate in support of a plan he co-sponsored — the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Act of 2005.

In the speech, he cited a federal report, saying that "Fannie Mae employees deliberately and intentionally manipulated financial reports to hit earnings targets." He also noted a $3.8 million fine Freddie Mac had recently paid to the Federal Elections Commission over problems with disclosure of its political lobbying. "These are entities that have demonstrated over and over again that they are deeply in need of reform," McCain said in the speech. He urged senators to support changing how the institutions were overseen by the government.

Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, sponsored the bill, which was introduced in January 2005. The legislation, which never became law, would have moved oversight of Fannie and Freddie from the department of Housing and Urban Development to an independent Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Agency.

The Verdict: True. McCain's warning came more than a year after legislation was introduced. He was not the sponsor and the bill failed to pass.

The Facts
Congressional Quarterly examined Obama's votes in the Senate. According to the analysis, Obama has voted with the Democratic Party 96 percent of the time during his tenure in the Senate.

CQ — a non-partisan and highly respected journal of congressional affairs — says McCain has voted in line with the Republican Party 86 percent of the time. McCain's total number of votes is much larger, since he has been in the Senate since 1986, while Obama is in his first term.

CQ also looked at what it deemed to be "key" votes. That analysis found Obama voted with his party on 29 out of 30 votes, which came out to 97 percent of the time. For McCain, CQ said there have been 335 "key" votes over the years, and that he voted with his party on 266 of them — 79 percent of the time.

However, the journal noted instances when Obama voted outside the party. In 2005, Obama was one of only 18 Democrats to vote in favor of a business-backed bill to limit class action lawsuits by forcing the most-expensive into federal court. The majority of Democrats voted against the bill, which was opposed by consumer groups and the trial lawyers lobby.

The journal also noted that Obama sided with Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, who wanted greater disclosure of earmarks in an ethics bill, by voting against an attempt by Obama's home-state mentor, Democratic Whip Richard J. Durbin, to kill DeMint's disclosure amendment.

And, Obama has criticized leading Democrats, including former presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York, for voting to authorize the Iraq war in 2002. However, many of those comments were made in the context of the Democratic primary campaign and that vote was prior to his time in the Senate.

Verdict: False. While McCain is correct that Obama has supported the Democratic leadership almost all of the time, to say he's never differed with them is not true.

The Facts: Federal law forbids candidates from receiving money directly from companies. The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics tracks donations from employees of various companies. The center's list of contributions from Fannie and Freddie employees places Obama second. Ahead of him is Sen. Chris Dodd, Democratic chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

The total listed for Obama is $126,349 — a tiny fraction of the approximately $390 million his campaign has raised, according to the center. The list shows McCain has received a total of $21,550 from Fannie and Freddie employees. The list includes donations of at least $200 from those who receive paychecks from Fannie and Freddie. It also includes donations from political action committees — pooled contributions from employees.

The report spans from 1989-2008 — just a portion of the time since Fannie Mae went private in 1968 and Freddie Mac was created in 1970.

The New York Times has published a separate list looking at contributions from "directors, officers, and lobbyists for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac" for the 2008 campaign cycle. That list — using figures from the Federal Election Commission — shows McCain receiving $169,000, while Obama received only $16,000.

VERDICT: Misleading. No donations actually came from the companies. One method of measuring employee contributions does put Obama second overall, but another, for the current election cycle, shows McCain receiving significantly more.

The Facts
The U.S. Multinational Force operated in Beirut, Lebanon, from August 24, 1982, to March 30, 1984, as part of an international peacekeeping operation in the war-torn country.

McCain was a freshman member of the House of Representatives in September 1983 when it approved legislation "that would invoke the War Powers Act in Lebanon and authorize the deployment of American Marines in the Beirut area for an additional 18 months," the New York Times reported.

The resolution had the backing of House leaders of both parties and President Reagan, and it passed by a vote of 270 to 161, the Times report said. But McCain "argued that his military training led him to oppose the continued deployment of troops in Lebanon," the Times reported.

The newspaper reported that McCain said "I do not see any obtainable objectives in Lebanon" and that "the longer we stay there, the harder it will be to leave." On Oct. 23, 1983, a suicide attack at the Marine headquarters in Beirut killed 241 U.S. service members.

"In Lebanon, I stood up to President Reagan, my hero, and said, if we send Marines in there, how can we possibly beneficially affect this situation? And said we shouldn't. Unfortunately, almost 300 brave young Marines were killed," McCain said at the debate.

Verdict: True

The Facts:
The effort to convince voters that Sen. Barack Obama would support higher taxes is a central part of Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign. McCain and the Republican National Committee have repeatedly cited 94 alleged votes by Obama to bolster their argument.

Factcheck.org, a non-partisan project of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center, pieced through records to determine just what these 94 votes were.

Key findings:
–53 were votes on budget resolutions or amendments that "could not have resulted by themselves in raising taxes," though many "were clear statements of approval for increased taxes"
–23 were against proposed tax cuts
–11 were to increase taxes on people making more than $1 million a year, to help fund programs such as Head Start, school nutrition, or veterans' health care
–Seven were "for measures that would have lowered taxes for many, while raising them on a relative few, either corporations or affluent individuals."
– The total includes multiple votes on the same measures.

Annenberg says a close look at the record reveals that Obama has "voted consistently to restore higher tax rates on upper-income taxpayers but not on middle- or low-income workers."

Verdict:
Misleading. McCain's summary ignores the fact that some of the votes were for measures to lower taxes for many Americans, while increasing them for a much smaller number of taxpayers. A nonpartisan examination also finds that the 94 total includes multiple votes on the same measures and budget votes that would not directly lead to higher taxes.

(SOURCE: www.cnn.com)

Bring back canes; say 20% of UK teachers

4 Oct 2008, 0117 hrs IST,ANI

LONDON: Teachers in Britain, it seems, believe strongly in the saying ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’, for according to a new survey one in five educators of the country wants the cane brought back in schools. The survey of 6,200 teachers by the Times Educational Supplement found that a fifth supported the right to use corporal punishment in extreme cases. The poll revealed that 22% secondary teachers and 16% of the primary teachers demand the revival of corporal punishment. “Children’s behaviour is absolutely outrageous in the majority of schools. I am a supply teacher, so I see many schools, and there are no sanctions. There are too many anger management people and their ilk who give children the idea that it is their right to flounce out of lessons for time out because they have problems with their temper. They should be caned instead,” the Sun quoted Judith Cookson, a supply teacher, as saying. On the other, hand just 12% of heads, deputies and assistants have backed the idea, says the survey.

(http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com)

GOP dread: Dems could hit 60 Senate seats

Jim VandeHei, Mike Allen Jim Vandehei, Mike Allen Sat Oct 4, 6:18 pm ET

The possibility that Democrats will build a muscular, 60-seat Senate majority is looking increasing plausible, with new polls showing a powerful surge for the party’s candidates in Minnesota, Kentucky and other states.

A poll out Friday shows Sen. Norm Coleman could now easily lose his Minnesota seat to comedian-turned-candidate Al Franken. A Colorado race that initially looked like a nail-biter has now broken decisively for the Democrats. A top official in the McCain camp told us Sen. Elizabeth Dole is virtually certain to lose in conservative North Carolina.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has seen his race tighten dangerously close over the past week — and Democrats are considering moving more money into the state very soon. And there is even talk that Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss is beatable in conservative Georgia after backing the economic bailout package opposed by many voters.

“Before the economic crisis, we had a number of races moving our way,” said Matthew Miller, communications director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “But now we’re seeing Republican numbers plummet.” GOP officials largely agree.

Senate races don’t grab national attention like the White House battle does. But if these trends hold, the Senate outcome could be almost as important to Washington governance as the presidential winner will be. It takes 60 votes to pass anything through the slow-moving Senate. So the closer the Democrats get to the number, the more power they will have next year to put their stamp on the country.

Democrats say their candidates are benefiting from the wipeout on Wall Street with a single message in every region of the country: “These are the Bush policies coming home to roost.” Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told Politico: “Americans know that in economically difficult times, we need a change from George Bush’s policies. And incumbents who have voted for six years with Bush, up and down the line, are having a difficult time trying to convince the electorate that they’ve changed their spots."

The trends reflect the growing fear of among top Republicans that their prospects could crater on Nov. 4, with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) running weakly at the top of the ticket, President Bush as unpopular as ever and the economic crisis serving as a last-minute propellant for the change message of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

With Republicans fearing the loss of 17 to 21 House seats, January 2009 could bring Democrats a dominance over Washington that neither party has experienced since the Reagan years.

The current Senate lineup is 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans and two independents who caucus with Democrats.

Democrats need to pick up nine seats to hit 60 votes. Republicans have been bracing for big losses, but it wasn’t until the past few days that they have started to privately sound the alarms that the bottom could fall out on Election Day.

GOP Senate candidates are getting pounded by the same waves of public discontent over the economy and Bush that could sink McCain, and it shows in polls from coast to coast.

Republicans fully expect to lose Virginia and New Mexico. They think there is a pretty strong chance that they also lose Colorado, Alaska, New Hampshire, Oregon and North Carolina.

This means everyone should keep their eyes on Minnesota, Kentucky, Mississippi and Georgia over the final month of this campaign to see if a wave is coming.

Several Republican strategists close to the White House said there is increasing fear among party leaders about a bloodbath. But they added that they hope to keep losses to as few as five or six seats, rather than the nine that Democrats would need to gain to reach the magic number of 60 seats.

These strategists hope the Minnesota poll out Saturday overstates Franken’s strength, because it was taken at the height of turmoil over the bailout bill that Bush finally signed Friday.

“It reflects a lot of intense unhappiness that will fade as the market restores some equilibrium,” a Republican official said.

But that same timing is very dangerous for Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), because his state has mail voting with a heavy early vote, meaning he has less time to recover from angst about the Wall Street wipeout.

Republicans say they have become more optimistic in recent days about Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.), who had been considered one of the party's most endangered incumbents.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) will certainly lose if he is convicted in a corruption trial now under way in Washington but will probably win if he is acquitted, the strategists said.

Top Republicans say they have no hope for Dole in North Carolina. “There’s no point in even counting the votes,” said a top McCain official.

Republicans said they hope to make up for one loss by persuading Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) to caucus with them. He has campaigned vigorously for McCain, and Democratic Party leaders have vowed to punish him.

One indication of the Republicans’ mood: They’re already looking past this grim election season.
“2010 looks pretty good for us to pick up three or four or five seats pretty easily,” the McCain official said.

(SOURCE: http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081004/pl_politico/14280)

Push to Return Felons to Voter Rolls Could Benefit Obama

Nonprofit groups and activists are pushing to register felons to vote this November.
AP
Saturday, October 04, 2008
RICHMOND, Va. -- Undaunted by the heat, James Bailey spent his late-summer afternoons walking Virginia's bleakest neighborhoods on the hunt for ex-cons -- each a potential voter who might cast the decisive ballot in this hotly contested state.

Finding them isn't the hard part. It's getting them to admit that a past mistake has kept them from the ballot box.

"People are really, really reluctant to say, 'I lost my rights to vote,"' Bailey said of his quest, which continued in the run-up to Monday's registration deadline in Virginia for the November election.

Nationally, there are roughly 4 million released felons whose convictions have cost them the right to vote at least temporarily, if not permanently. To return to the ballot box, felons must negotiate suffrage laws that vary from state to state, in many cases working with election officials who can be both unfamiliar with the law and hostile to former convicts seeking to register.

Such challenges matter little to Bailey and others trying to return former criminals to voter rolls, an effort they consider crucial in light of the results of the past two presidential elections: A shift of a few hundred votes in Florida in 2000 would have changed the outcome of the presidential race, and the results in 2004 came down to a margin of 119,000 votes in Ohio.

The nonprofit groups and individual activists making the push on felons' behalf agree the effort is broader this year than in previous elections, even if they aren't necessarily making a coordinated push. They expect that effort to benefit Barack Obama more than John McCain, given that the population of former felons is disproportionately black.

Obama has co-sponsored a Senate measure that would allow all ex-felons to vote, but his campaign isn't directly targeting ex-felons for registration. His campaign does include relevant info on its Web site and educates volunteers so they can explain state laws to those who may not realize they have the right to vote, said spokesman Kevin Griffis.

"All we're trying to do is make sure that, if someone is eligible, that they know their rights and that if they want to vote, they can take part," Griffis said Tuesday. "I think there's a lot of misinformation out there. Even people who may have been guilty of a misdemeanor feel like the felony laws apply to them and say they can't vote."

McCain has said states should decide whether felons have voting rights. But he personally believes ex-felons should forfeit certain rights when they commit a serious crime and that the right to vote should be restored only on a case-by-case basis -- much like Virginia's process.

Roughly 13 percent of black men nationwide have lost the right to vote, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's School of Law, which advocates the reform of felon voting rights. Black ministers, civic leaders and activists believe they are a rich source of votes for Obama.

"Of course I would go with Barack," said Deshawn Tatem, a dreadlocked drug dealer-turned-activist from Chesapeake, Va. But he's never cast a ballot. "Right at 18, I caught the felony." Tatem has never made the time to fill out an application to restore his voter rights, a request that would have to be approved by the governor. That means there's no way he'll be able to vote in November.

In Florida, where a new rule means more than 115,000 former felons who completed their sentences are now able to vote, civil rights attorney Reggie Mitchell said he's nonpartisan when he calls felons at home to give them information about registering to vote. But he also acknowledges the obvious.

Blacks represent "about 40 percent of the people who've gotten their rights lost and restored," Mitchell said. "With an African-American running, and such a critical mass, this could have a tremendous impact."

Kenneth Glasgow served 14 years on robbery and drug charges in Alabama. Now a pastor, Glasgow launched a voter registration drive inside the prisons in Alabama, where state law allows voting by felons convicted of lesser crimes such as possession of small amounts of drugs, battery or attempted burglary -- even while still serving a sentence.

Glasgow, a Democrat, estimates as many as 70,000 felons in Alabama might be eligible to vote but haven't registered. Bringing them to the polls, he said, has the potential to alter the state's political landscape.

"It's not a black-white thing," Glasgow said. "It's that people will see Republicans standing against having people's rights restored while the Democrats aren't."

The state Department of Corrections halted Glasgow's registration drive after two days because of complaints from the chairman of the Alabama Republican Party that registering inmates without adequate monitoring could lead to voter fraud. Fewer than 80 inmates filled out registration forms. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has filed suit challenging the prison commissioner's decision to stop the registration drive.

Only two states -- Maine and Vermont -- place no limits on voting due to a criminal conviction; even prison inmates can cast a ballot. Kentucky and Virginia are the only two states that permanently bar felons from voting, although the governors of those states can restore voting rights to individuals.

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear streamlined the process in March, and has since restored the rights of more than 740 released convicts. Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine promised to fast-track applications for voter restoration that his office received by Aug. 1, adding three people to his staff to process applications before Monday's registration deadline.

Applications in Virginia jumped from 76 for all of July 2007 to 138 in a single week this summer. Kaine, the governor for nearly three years, had restored the rights of 2,633 felons as of Monday, according to his spokesman, Gordon Hickey.

Laws in the other 46 states are varied, some of them a relic of the Jim Crow era, according to the Brennan Center. Eight states permanently bar felons convicted of certain crimes from voting, while the others restore the right after a sentence is completed, including parole, or as soon as an inmate is released from prison.

Faulkner Fox, who leads organizing efforts for the group "Durham for Obama" in North Carolina, said volunteers there frequently explain to shocked ex-felons that they can register to vote.

The confusion isn't limited to felons. Researchers at the Brennan Center and the American Civil Liberties Union interviewed election officials in 23 states from 2003 to this year. In a report released Wednesday, the groups said many officials in those states didn't understand voter eligibility rules for felons or how they can register to vote.

Among the problems: officials telling those convicted of misdemeanors they had lost the right to vote, failing to distinguish between probation and parole, and illegally demanding documentation.
The researchers also found election officials who said they wouldn't help a felon register, which concerns civil rights groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

"We still find election officials at the polls in too many cases only ask African-American males if (they) have a felony offense," said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP Washington bureau.
The confusion works both ways. In some cases, the researchers found election officials willing to register felons who were not yet eligible to cast a ballot under that state's law -- a potential case of criminal voter fraud.

The ACLU, the NAACP and others support a nationwide standard that would restore voting rights to all inmates once they leave prison. "Once a single local election official misinforms a citizen that he is not eligible to vote because of a past conviction, it is unlikely that citizen will ever follow up or make a second inquiry," the ACLU and Brennan Center report said. "The citizen will mistakenly believe that he is ineligible to vote for years, decades, or maybe the rest of his life."

But getting the information right, and then registering felons, isn't a guarantee of results. Tatem, the former felon from Virginia, isn't sure how much of a difference people like him will make.

"If they got their rights tomorrow, most of them probably still wouldn't vote," he said. "When you've been caged for so long, you can leave that cage open and some folk won't go through."

Estimates show Palin assets top $1 million

Palins look to land and sea to build wealth; estimates show assets likely top $1 million

SHARON THEIMER and BRETT J. BLACKLEDGE Associated Press Writers

AP
Sarah Palin and her husband have pieced together a uniquely Alaskan income that reached comfortably into six figures even before she became governor, capitalizing on valuable fishing rights, a series of land deals and a patchwork of other ventures to build an above-average lifestyle.

Add up the couple's 2007 income and the estimated value of their property and investments and they appear to be worth at least $1.2 million. That would make the Palins, like Democratic vice presidential rival Joe Biden and his wife Jill, well-off but not nearly as wealthy as multimillionaire couples John and Cindy McCain and, to a lesser extent, Barack and Michelle Obama.

One measure of financial health: While there is a home loan, Palin reported no personal credit card debt on her most recent financial report as Alaska governor. That compares to average household credit card debt among Americans of $9,840 last year.

A more complete picture will come when Sarah Palin outlines her personal finances in federal paperwork in coming days. It will include details of any mortgage debt and at least rough dollar totals for bank accounts and investments.

Palin this week characterized herself as "an everyday, working-class American" who knows how it feels when the stock market takes a hit.

The Palins' total income last year was split almost evenly between Sarah Palin's white-collar job and her husband's blue-collar work. Sarah Palin's salary as governor was $125,000; Todd Palin took in $46,790 as a part-time oil production operator for BP Alaska in Prudhoe Bay, plus $46,265 in commercial fishing income and $10,500 in Iron Dog snowmachine race winnings. These figures do not include nearly $17,000 in per diem payments Palin received for 312 nights spent in her own home since she was elected governor; she also has received $43,490 to cover travel costs for her husband and children.

In addition, each member of the Palin family received $1,654 in state oil royalties paid to all Alaskans.

The Palins' assets seem enviable: a half-million-dollar home on a lake with a float-plane at the dock, two vacation retreats, commercial-fishing rights worth an estimated $50,000 or more and an income last year of at least $230,000. That compares to a median income of $64,333 for Alaskans and $50,740 for Americans in 2007, according to the Census Bureau.

But in Alaska, scarce roads make private planes commonplace, it's typical to spend a month or two fishing commercially, and wilderness acreage is so plentiful the state has sold loads' worth stake-your-claim style. So, it's often the finer points that matter: How old is the airplane? Where exactly is the fishing spot? Is the house on a paved road?

Land itself doesn't necessarily translate to wealth, said Tom Hawkins of Anchorage, who paid about $2,000 for a five-acre parcel miles from the nearest road, best reached by snowmachine.

"I've got a stunning parcel overlooking a river," Hawkins said. "I took my wife to it. And she stood up and looked out at the stunning view and said, 'Dear, what are we going to do with it?'"

The Palins' main residence, a large two-story house on Lake Lucille in Wasilla, draws much of its value from its prime position along a paved road and float-plane accessible lake, said Darcie Salmon, a local real estate agent. He said lakefront land is plentiful in Alaska, but lakefront land along paved roads isn't.

The Palins' home, tucked behind a wooded field, is off Wasilla's main road, Parks Highway, a mostly four-lane road cluttered with restaurants, bars, retail stores, offices, grocery stores and big-box outlets such as Target. A store-bought "no trespassing" sign is posted near the entry to an unmarked, private gravel drive that winds about 100 yards to the lakefront home. A neighbor's property has an old metal gate at its entrance with a sign warning, "Enter at your own risk."

The Palins' four-bedroom, four-bath house, nearly 3,500 square feet, sits on just over two acres behind a tall wood-plank privacy fence that runs along one side of the property. It's one of the newest homes in the Snider subdivision lining Lake Lucille and is assessed at $552,000 — more than twice the value of a neighboring two-acre lot with a much smaller, older wood-frame home.
Todd Palin built the house with friends who were contractors, he said in a recent television interview.

The house is worth substantially more than the Palins' starter home, a three-bedroom, two-bath house house built in 1984 on the far western boundary of Wasilla. The quiet, wooded neighborhood was developed about three miles from the city center, with half-acre lots and space for young families.

In addition to the Lake Lucille home, the Palins own recreational property in two remote areas accessible by plane, all-terrain vehicle or snowmachine.

The Palins invested in five lots along Safari Lake, an undeveloped area near Denali State Park. They bought the property, once owned by the state's Department of Natural Resources and valued at $30,000 in assessment records, with friends Scott and Deborah Richter in 2004 and 2005. The Richters have since divorced.

With other friends, the Palins own a cabin on five acres southwest of Wasilla and the Iditarod National Historic Trail. The land and cabin are assessed at $55,000; property records do not show what the Palins paid for their share.

The Palins own snowmachines and an airplane. Todd Palin has a 1958 Piper float plane that he said has been in his family for about 20 years.

Though old, such planes remain in wide use. Palin's plane would be worth from about $38,000 to $78,000 depending on its condition, said Boyd Newman, owner of West One Aircraft Sales in Caldwell, Idaho.

Other family assets include Todd Palin's shoreside lease and commercial fishing permit to harvest salmon from Bristol Bay each season. Last year, the Palins took in $46,265 commercial fishing for sockeye salmon over about a month.

Todd Palin said he purchased his permit from his grandfather in the 1970s. A limited number of permits and shoreline leases have been issued, and the rights to them are often passed down through families or sold. Holders pay a fee each year to renew them.

Palin's is worth about $30,000, a shoreside lease on Coffee Point, where Palin's set-net site is located, is worth about $20,000, and Palin's skiff and gear are likely worth another $20,000, according to estimates by Paul Piercey, a broker with Dock Street Brokers in Seattle, which handles sales of fishing permits, boats and shoreside leases.

Palin's fishing spot is considered good but not great, Piercey said. And the work is backbreaking. Palin has said he expects to earn 68 cents per pound for this summer's catch.

"When you get up in the morning, your fingers are so swollen that you have to stick them in a bucket of icewater just to get movement back again" and ease the pain, said Hawkins, who fished on Bristol Bay one year.

Hawkins is former chief operating officer of the Bristol Bay Native Corp. and former chief executive of Choggiung Ltd., two native corporations in which Todd Palin, who is part Yup'ik Eskimo, is a shareholder, along with the Palin children. The Palins are among about 8,000 shareholders in BBNC and among about 1,200 shareholders in Choggiung Limited, Hawkins said.
Sarah Palin reported Todd Palin collecting $266 and each child $21 in dividends last year from BBNC, and a total of $16.50 from Choggiung Limited.

Todd Palin is still a BP employee. Company spokesman Steve Rinehart declined to describe Palin's status beyond confirming his employment. Palin's schedule is one week on, one week off, Palin said in a recent television interview.

Palin previously left BP in the 1990s to run Valley Polaris, a snowmachine, four-wheeler and watercraft dealership he pursued with a friend and business partner. They sold the business in 1997; public records do not show whether it was at a profit or a loss. At the time, Sarah Palin was earning about $61,000 a year as Wasilla mayor.

The Polaris dealership was among three business ventures the Palins explored; the others never took off. Palin's financial disclosure reports do not say how much if any money the Palins invested in the business ventures or real estate, or what if any profit they made on sales.

Sarah Palin formed a consulting business called "Rouge Cou" — French for redneck — but didn't pursue it.

The Palins teamed with another couple, Ray and Carolin Wells of Anchorage, to start a car wash in Anchorage, but it was never built. Carolin Wells described the Palins as silent partners she believes initially paid half the money to buy the land. Around the time Sarah Palin began considering a run for governor, the Palins reduced their stake to 40 percent.

Barely a year into the land ownership, the man lined up to operate the car wash backed out, and since neither couple wanted to run it, they decided to sell the land and move on, Carolin Wells said. She couldn't recall the purchase or sales prices of the land, but believes she and her husband made a modest profit and the Palins broke even.

The couples let their state paperwork lapse on the venture, Anchorage Car Wash LLC, resulting in a letter threatening to dissolve the corporation. The letterhead carried Gov. Palin's name on it.
The deal was among several involving undeveloped land the Palins have engaged in over the years.

The Palins purchased a parcel on Beaverhouse Lake in Big Lake in 2003 and sold it in 2004 for an undisclosed amount. The land has been assessed at $14,000 the past three years.

The Palins sold nearly five acres of undeveloped waterfront property on the northeast shore of Wasilla Lake in 2005 to a local developer. The sales price wasn't disclosed. The land now is subdivided into five parcels, with two waterfront lots, two others behind those, and a commercial lot. Duane Mathes, a local real estate agent showing the property for the owner who bought it from the Palins, said the leveled lots are listed for $149,500 each.

Salmon, who was mayor of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough that includes Wasilla while Palin was Wasilla mayor, recalled that as mayor, Sarah Palin shared many of his pro-development views, and said the Palins' land acquisitions weren't unusual.

"A lot of Alaskans own a lot of land," Salmon said, "and if you're bright, you buy land in the path of progress."

Sharon Theimer reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Rita Beamish in San Mateo, Calif., contributed to this report.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/161868

© 2008

Outsourcing Shops Feel the Street's Pain

India October 2, 2008, 5:00PM

Outsourcing Shops Feel the Street's Pain
Info tech spending in India by U.S. financial-services firms could shrink 15% to 20% over the next year

by Mehul Srivastava and Nandini Lakshman

DELHI As the credit crunch on Wall Street sent dominoes toppling around the globe, Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest software-services company, started tightening its belt. Travel was restricted, electricity consumption was to be reduced, and the company considered removing Microsoft (MSFT) Office from its PCs and replacing it with free open-source alternatives, employees say.

India's seemingly unstoppable outsourcing industry is grappling with the woes of the financial firms that make up as much as half of revenues for some players. "How this plays out, who knows?" says Pramod Bhasin, CEO of Genpact, the world's largest business process outsourcing company. Although he's optimistic, he says: "The ability to predict has gone away."

HOW TEMPORARY?
Outsourcing companies have already pulled back on new office space and leases, according to Knight Frank India, a property consultant. "Their level of concern has gone up dramatically in the past few weeks with their top-tier customers vanishing right before their eyes," says John McCarthy, a Forrester Research (FORR) analyst who traveled to India twice in September to meet with jittery Indian players. "Anyone who says they aren't worried is probably lying."

In the past two months some of the biggest names in U.S. finance have gone under. Vanishing with them is the kind of work Indian software professionals have long excelled at—projects requiring mountains of coding and individual attention. In the first half of 2007, financial companies around the world handed out at least 48 major outsourcing contracts with a total value well in excess of $5.5 billion, reports researcher ValueNotes. The first half of this year saw just eight such contracts with a total reported value of $767 million. "A lot of companies are putting on a brave face and saying this is just a temporary phase," says ValueNotes CEO Arun Jethmalani.

"But how temporary is temporary?"
The estimated hit to India's outsourcers? As much as 8% of total revenue could vanish, Forrester predicts, as information technology spending in financial services shrinks by 15% to 20% over the next year. India's top five info tech and outsourcing companies saw slower growth in the first quarter, and their stocks have taken a beating. TCS's annual profit growth slowed to 7%, down from 36% in 2007. The company declined to comment for this story. Infosys Technologies has warned that it probably won't see a rise in profit this year but had no further comment. Satyam Computer (SAY), the No. 4 software service provider, says it has contracts with Lehman Brothers, AIG (AIG), and Merrill Lynch (MER). Those are "minuscule parts" of Satyam's $2.7 billion in annual revenues, says Chief Financial Officer V. Srinivas. "But that doesn't mean there won't be an impact in the future," Srinivas says. "We would be kidding ourselves if we thought that."

Optimists predict the downturn will be short. They say revenues will bounce back when American business decides to be more efficient, resulting in more outsourced work. One rosy estimate, by consultancy Everest Group, projects that cost-cutting spurred by the crisis will result in a 40% to 50% increase in financial-service outsourcing over the next five years.

The Indians, though, will continue to face increased competition for those jobs. Global players such as IBM (IBM), Accenture (ACN), and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) have grown deep roots on the subcontinent. "The crisis will make [the Indians] face the reality of doing global business," says Siddharth A. Pai, managing director of TPI, a consultant that helps companies manage outsourcing contracts. "They haven't seen the trough yet."

With Steve Hamm in New YorkSrivastava reports for BusinessWeek from New Delhi. Lakshman covers India business for BusinessWeek.

(http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/08_41/b4103080230830.htm)
Copyright 2000-2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.

Basic grocery items rise 10.5% from last year

By Matt Andrejczak, MarketWatch
Last update: 4:51 p.m. EDT Oct. 2, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Families have been feeling increasing financial pain at grocery-store cash registers, exacerbating their difficulties in the souring U.S. economy.

Here's how much it hurts: A basket of 16 basic food items cost $48.68 over the past three months, up 10.5% from a year ago, the American Farm Bureau Federation said Thursday.

The latest survey from the nation's largest farm organization underscores the pressures reverberating throughout the food chain, from the American farm to the executive suites of the largest U.S. packaged-food manufacturers.

Besides the elevated costs for basic food ingredients, rising energy prices have boosted processing, hauling, and refrigerating expenses for food makers including Kraft Foods Inc. Potatoes, cheddar cheese and apples posted the largest price gains from the second quarter of this year. A five-pound bag of potatoes cost $3.38, up 83 cents. Cheddar was $4.91 a pound, up 31 cents. Apples fetched $1.80 a pound, up 26 cents.

Among other items that rose are the following: pork chops, up 22 cents to $3.62 a pound; ground chuck, rising 10 cents to $2.95 a pound; and whole milk, costing 4 cents more at $3.92 a gallon.
On the downside, large eggs fell for the second consecutive quarter to $1.71 a dozen, down 11 cents, while a 20-ounce loaf of white bread also dropped 11 cents to $1.79. Bacon fell 6 cents a pound to $1.43.

The American Farm Bureau conducts its informal survey on a quarterly basis. The latest reading of how stretched the American grocery budget has become was done by 72 volunteer shoppers in 32 states during the month of August. Americans spend about 10% of their disposable income on food each year -- the lowest of any country worldwide, according to the U.S. government.

Matt Andrejczak is a reporter for MarketWatch in San Francisco.

(http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/filling-grocer-cart-costing-105/story.aspx?guid=%7b41F26EF6-FF28-4EA7-9BD5-F8AFA64A01BA%7d&print=true&dist=printMidSection

Fresh Data Show Economy Is Worsening

OCTOBER 3, 2008

New data show the economy's troubles deepening, with jobless claims reaching their highest level since the 2001 recession and factory orders tumbling sharply as the manufacturing sector struggles.

The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 497,000 in the week ended Sept. 27, the Labor Department said. That was the highest since Sept. 29, 2001, and reflected the effect of hurricanes Gustav and Ike as well as a weakening economy.

Even after accounting for the hurricanes, the report signaled labor-market weakness at a time when the crisis on Wall Street threatens to pull consumer spending and the overall economy into a deeper downturn.

The four-week average of new claims, which attempts to smooth out volatility, rose 11,500 to 474,000. That is the highest since October 2001 -- when the economy was in a recession -- and well above levels typically consistent with declines in monthly employment.

The tally of continuing claims, those by workers collecting benefits for more than one week in the week ended Sept. 20, jumped by 48,000 to 3,591,000. That is the highest since September 2003, suggesting it is getting harder for the unemployed to find new work.

The 4% decrease in orders for manufactured goods in August followed a downwardly revised 0.7% increase in July, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Initially, the government said orders rose 1.3% in July.

"The factory sector appears to be entering another down leg, deepening the industry's recession," said Steven Wood, chief economist at Insight Economics.

Write to Brian Blackstone at brian.blackstone@dowjones.com and Jeff Bater at jeff.bater@dowjones.com