U.S. House Republican leader John Boehner Tuesday called for the resignation of President Barack Obama’s economic team, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and White House economic adviser Larry Summers. Boehner, in the text of a speech to be given in Cleveland, called for a “fresh start” on the economy. Get the full story »
Filed under: Politics
Visit our Filed page for categories. To browse by specific topic, see our Inside page. For a list of companies covered on this site, visit our Companies page.
Conservatives gunning for Illinois judge Kilbride
Justice Thomas L. Kilbride in 2007. (Photo from Illinois Supreme Court)
Judicial retention races are usually about as exciting as renewing your driver’s license.
Usually Illinois judges up for retention don’t run against anyone, and the ballot simply asks voters whether they want to keep the jurist on the bench by marking “yes” or “no.” No Illinois Supreme Court justice has ever not been retained.
But this year, negative politics have crept into one retention race with the election more than two months away. Conservative activists are targeting Thomas Kilbride, whose 10-year term on the Illinois Supreme Court is up, setting up a potentially nasty and expensive retention battle that voters have never seen before. Get the full story »
Aug. 23, 2010 at 10:26 a.m.
Comments Off
Filed under: Bank failures, Banking, Economy, Policy, Politics Fed’s Hoenig: ‘Too big to fail” hurts small banks
The viability of community banks is threatened by policies that have conferred “too big to fail” status on larger banks, reducing their cost of capital, Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Thomas Hoenig said on Monday.
Hoenig, in prepared testimony to a field hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations here, said the community bank model was still viable, especially if allowed to compete on an equal footing with larger banks. Get the full story »
SEC to meet next week on proxy access rules
Securities regulators will meet on August 25 to consider giving shareholders more power to nominate company directors.
The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday posted on its website an agenda for the meeting next week, in which it will consider whether to adopt the reforms, a contentious issue known as “proxy access.” Get the full story »
Chicago gains in global cities ranking
Chicago moved up two slots, to No. 6, in an updated ranking of global cities, coming in behind New York, London, Tokyo, Paris and Hong Kong.
The ranking aims to show how much influence a city has beyond its own borders. It was conducted by Foreign Policy magazine, management consulting firm A.T. Kearney and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and comes two years after the inaugural ranking by these same parties.
The top four cities retained their hold over the two-year period, though the ranking also showed growing momentum in Asia and the Pacific, with five of the 10 cities deemed most global. In addition to Tokyo and Hong Kong, those cities included Singapore, Sydney and Seoul. Get the full story »
Bankers push govt. involvement in mortgage market
The Obama administration invited banking executives Tuesday to offer advice on changing the government’s role in the mortgage market. Their response: stay big.
While the executives disagreed on the exact level of support needed, the group overwhelmingly advocated the government should maintain a large role propping up the nearly $11 trillion market.
Aug. 9, 2010 at 5:12 p.m.
Comments Off
Filed under: International, Policy, Politics, Privacy issues, Technology Saudi-BlackBerry fix deadline passes
A deadline Saudi Arabia has fixed for BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion Ltd and local mobile phone operators to address security concerns has lapsed, but the handset’s services continue to operate normally.
The Communications and Information Telecommunications Commission (CITC) on Saturday gave the kingdom’s three mobile firms until Monday before it proceeds with a threat to cut the BlackBerry’s Messenger function for some 700,000 users in the kingdom, a threat which it had already delayed last week. Get the full story »
An $11B return on Chicago parking meter lease?
From Bloomberg | A Morgan Stanley-led partnership will get at least $11.6 billion from Chicago drivers over the next 75 years, 10 times what Mayor Richard Daley got when he leased the system to investors in 2008. Get the full story »
Fitch downgrades rating on Chicago bonds
Fitch Ratings reduced its rating on city bonds Thursday, citing Chicago’s rapid use of one-time reserves to balance past operating budgets, its underfunding of pension obligations and its steep declines in tax revenue.
Fitch cut its rating on $6.8 billion in outstanding general obligation bonds by one notch, from AA+ to AA, which is the third rung from the top (and still considered high quality.) But the agency also issued a negative outlook, and warned that further downgrades were possible if the city doesn’t balance its operating budget and address its retiree benefit costs — or if the local economy gets worse. Get the full story »
At Ford plant, Obama says his plan saved industry
President Barack Obama today told workers at a South Side Ford plant that his bailout push helped save an “industry on the brink.” More » Get the full story »
ShoreBank may close after federal aid refused
ShoreBank Corp., the unprofitable Chicago lender to low-income communities, may be forced out of business after failing to win $75 million of federal bailout funds, three people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Daley emphasizes job growth in annual speech
Mayor Richard Daley sounded like a politician who’s going to run for re-election as he delivered his annual State of the City speech, said several aldermen who heard it today. Throughout the 40-minute talk, Daley touched on future improvements he thinks are important for Chicago’s success in areas of job growth and education.
GOP criticizes Ill. Senate candidate for bank loan
Republicans accused Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias of lending money to a corrupt political insider, although Giannoulias said he left his family’s bank before the loan was issued and the insider wasn’t listed on loan documents.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported Monday that Broadway Bank lent $22.75 million to a development company in 2006. One of the company’s owners was Antoin “Tony” Rezko, who was then tied up in a corruption probe that ultimately led to his conviction for shaking down people who wanted to do business with the state.
