Leo Gerard

Republicans jammed together a mess of old, failed and vague schemes and called it a jobs bill. Sen. John McCain conceded the reason for the rehash: “Part of it is in response to the president saying we don’t have a proposal.”

They still don’t. This despite the fact that they promised voters during their campaign to take control of the U.S. House one year ago that they’d create jobs. That they’d focus on jobs. That nothing was more important to them than jobs.

Now, what they’ve offered instead of actual jobs is a polyglot of GOP talking points. It’s certainly no vision to move the country forward. It’s a plot to set the country back – to repeal the health care law that will soon help provide coverage for the nearly 50 million Americans without insurance, to rescind the Wall Street reform law designed to prevent another financial sector-caused meltdown, and to thwart regulations, like those that stopped distribution of listeria-infected cantaloupe that killed 25.

GOP Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio called the Republican polyglot a “pro-growth proposal to create the environment for jobs.” It is, in fact, a pro-business proposal to permit corporations to destroy the environment for humans.

http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2011104324/99-seek-just-economy-not-just-economy

The nation continues to be mired in an anemic, jobless recovery. And according to a report commissioned by the United States Conference of Mayors, and prepared by IHS Global Insight, many regions in the country still continue to lose jobs. Of the 363 U.S. metropolitan regions reviewed by IHS, only 61 will fully recover all the jobs that were lost during the recession by the end of this year. The rest will recover far fewer — the average city will only recover roughly 40% of jobs lost from peak employment.

24/7 Wall St. examined the nine metropolitan regions that are projected to recover less than 5% of the jobs lost during the recession by the end of 2012. These cities, in particular, were hurt by the housing crash, the loss or decline of an industry, and a reduction in government services and jobs.

Many of the cities that will recover the least jobs by the end of this year experienced particularly heady housing markets through 2006. As a result, they also had among the worst housing crashes in the country. In Reno-Sparks, Nevada, median home values dropped nearly 40% between 2007 and 2010. Five of the nine cities on this list had a major decline in housing, with four markets losing 25% of their median home value.

http://247wallst.com/2012/01/19/the-nin-cities-that-havent-recovered-from-the-recession/#ixzz1kD8Pdtn1

Rumor has it that on Monday, after months of negotiation with big banks, the White House may announce a settlement that would let the banks off the hook for their role in the foreclosure crisis -- paying a tiny fraction of what's needed in exchange for blanket immunity from future lawsuits.

We hope these rumors are untrue.

President Obama has the ability to stop and change the direction of this sweetheart deal. He should reject any deal that benefits the one percent and lets the big banks get away with their crimes. Instead, the president should stand with the 99 percent and push for real accountability and a solution that will help millions of people in this country.

Here are the hard facts about the housing crisis we face:

3.5 million Americans are homeless.
18.5 million homes sit vacant.
Since 2007, more than 7.5 million homes have been foreclosed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/van-jones/obama-housing_b_1221921.html

The U.S. Energy Department has granted Jordan Cove Energy Partners a 30-year license to export liquefied natural gas to a short list of nations with which the United States has free trade agreements.

Read more: http://theworldlink.com/news/local/article_e2b86f69-f43f-5380-81a3-51131e0dda44.html#ixzz1kIHeWXoK

10% LNG Export by 2015?

Despite a well-supplied market, Henry Hub has experienced a rare excitement spiking to a 10-month high partly on the prospect of increasing LNG trade (See Chart) and export after the U.S. Energy Department authorized Cheniere Energy (Amex: LNG) to export LNG from its Sabine Pass terminal.

Chart Source: FT.comSabine Pass is the largest of nine import LNG facilities in the United States. Cheniere Energy plans to retrofit the import terminal for liquefaction capabilities. Construction is set to begin in 2012 and the production is expected to come online in 2015.

Morgan Stanley has estimated that North American LNG export capacity may exceed 6 bcf/d by 2015, or around 10% of the current US daily production of 60 bcf/d. Morgan Stanley said it expects the ramp-up of the LNG export to ease the current stranded price environment as both the US and Canada have LNG export projects in the works targeting LNG export by 2015.

Read more: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-07-10/markets/29989302_1_lng-import-terminals-lng-export-lng-trade#ixzz1kIKclJx4

Freeport LNG’s liquefaction facility and export terminal will take advantage of the huge natural gas reserves that have been unlocked in recent years to provide substantial job creation and economic stimulus to the U.S. at large. New natural gas production and export of LNG represents a long-term economic lift to the nation’s natural gas-producing regions and the overall US economy.

http://www.freeportlng.com/Liquefaction_Project_Benifits.asp

COOS BAY (AP) — A company that originally wanted to import liquefied natural gas from overseas through Coos Bay received a preliminary permit Wednesday allowing it to switch to exporting.

http://www.dailyastorian.com/news/northwest/coos-bay-lng-receives-preliminary-permit-for-export/article_f46f2754-21cb-11e1-98c3-0019bb2963f4.html

On December 7, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commision (FERC) granted a 30-year license to Jordan Cove LNG (liquefied natural gas), located in Coos Bay, Oregon, to transform its existing import terminal license into an export terminal license. It would be the first LNG export terminal on the west coast of the U.S., with multiple LNG export terminals also in the negotiation phase, set to be located on the west coast in Kitimat, British Columbia.

http://www.desmogblog.com/another-lng-deal-inked-fracking-export-bonanza-continues

Payday lending is one of the few growth areas in financial services, but it's likely to come under pressure now that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has set its sights on the industry.

In one of his first public appearances, the bureau's recently appointed director, Richard Cordray, chaired a hearing on payday lending in a packed ballroom in Birmingham, Ala., Thursday. Birmingham has so many payday lenders - 93 by one count - that the City Council last month imposed a six-month moratorium on new ones opening.

Also on Thursday, the bureau published guidelines it will use to examine whether payday lenders, both banks and nonbanks, are complying with consumer financial laws.

"Fundamentally, I believe regulation is coming," says FBR Capital Markets analyst Edward Mills, who attended the hearing. "The CFPB has clearly demonstrated that they mean business. They want to show they are doing things that are meaningful to the average consumer. I think they consider reforms to payday loans low-hanging fruit."



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/21/BU9B1MS93V.DTL#ixzz1kCX8jzGI

Terry Plumb | The Rock Hill Herald

The General Assembly is back in session, thank the Lord; now, we'll have some protection against Those People.

Take, for instance, the bill Republicans have introduced to require drug tests for anyone applying for unemployment checks. We certainly don't want to give taxpayers' hard-earned money to some druggie just because he's out of work.

Gov. Haley's all for this idea. Last year she pointed out that half of the applicants for jobs at the Savannah River Site were being disqualified because they failed a drug test.

Sure, she later had to retract her claim after learning that the actual rejection rate was only about one percent, but her main point was correct: You just can't be too careful with Those People.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/22/136029/commentary-getting-those-people.html#storylink=cpy

Maaike Noordhuis

Royal Philips Electronics NV (PHIA) workers in the Dutch town of Drachten who expected to be fired were astonished when the site manager said the company was bringing production of its top-priced electric shavers home from China.

Rob Karsmakers, the factory manager who returned from four years working for Philips in Asia, told the baffled crowd that the consumer-electronics company would boost investment in Drachten, where it employs 2,000 staff.

“A product engineer in Shanghai now is just as expensive as in Drachten,” said Karsmakers, who has overseen the plant since 2009, in an interview. “But in China, the headcount turnover is high. That is not sustainable.” Philips, which also lights the Eiffel tower and the Olympic Stadium in Beijing, employs a total of 14,000 people in the Netherlands.

The nation, the fifth-largest economy in the euro region, has expanded its allure as a manufacturing powerhouse next to its dominant German neighbor. The Netherlands leads in areas as varied as paints and combat uniforms for the U.S. Army. Apple Inc. (AAPL) uses chips produced by machines from ASML Holding NV (ASML) for its iPhone and iPad, and TomTom NV (TOM2) help drivers navigate unfamiliar roads.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-19/china-no-match-for-dutch-plants-as-philips-shavers-come-home-1-.html

Angela Greiling Keane

U.S. regulators, who ended their investigation yesterday into the Chevrolet Volt, said electric- powered vehicles do not pose a greater risk of fire than gasoline cars.

“Based on the available data, NHTSA does not believe that Chevy Volts or other electric vehicles pose a greater risk of fire than gasoline-powered vehicles,” the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in an e-mailed statement.

The conclusion by NHTSA came two weeks after General Motors Co. (GM) told Volt owners to bring the vehicles to dealerships for repair.

The government started investigating the Volt after a side- impact crash test in May led to a fire three weeks later. During that test, the lithium-ion battery pack broke open and coolant leaked into the battery. When the car was physically rotated as part of the test, more coolant leaked into a circuit board, leading to a fire. NHTSA replicated the fire in November and started an official probe Nov. 25.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-20/chevy-volt-battery-fire-investigation-closed-by-u-s-regulator.html