Mainstream News

FBI: Louisiana woman staged racist attack

"A young black woman in the US state of Louisiana apparently staged a racist attack in which she told police that three men set her ablaze and scrawled KKK on her car, officials said Tuesday. Sharmeka Moffitt, 20, was seriously burned in the incident and remains in critical condition. She called police from a park in the town of Winnsboro on Sunday night and told them three men in white hoodies doused her with a flammable liquid and ignited it. The FBI was called in to assist local authorities because the incident was initially considered a possible hate crime." Continue reading →

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Across Corn Belt, Farmland Prices Keep Soaring

"Farmers are carrying less debt than they were 30 years ago, and low interest rates are also a factor because they make it less costly for farmers to borrow. The federal crop insurance program also plays a role in keeping farmland prices high, by covering a majority of losses in revenue or crop yields. Some lenders have reported that a number of farmers are taking out loans based on the current value of their land to take advantage of the farmland boom. Fed officials and some real estate brokers said these buyers could be in trouble if interest rates rose and crop prices fell." Continue reading →

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Iowa Farms Minting Millionaires as Rich-Poor Gap Widens

"Booming worldwide demand for grain has showered wealth on farmers by tripling Iowa land values in the past decade and setting them up for record profits this year, even in the face of the nation’s worst drought in more than half a century, the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects. Land that had long produced boxcars full of corn and soybeans is now yielding a new crop: locally grown millionaires. In doing so, it has brought to the nation’s rural areas the kind of income divide that had long been the province of urban America. Average rents are up 43 percent statewide since 2008." Continue reading →

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Reverse brain drain: Economic shifts lure migrants home

"The financial crisis that began in 2008 has tested middle-class America's sense of stability and the European right to social welfare. It has also caused many to question whether the developed world is still the only land of opportunity worth migrating to. Emerging economies not only are faring better than most of the developed world in the current recession, they also continue to grow, drawing back their expatriates and, in some cases, even luring new high-skilled citizens of the US and Europe. Those countries losing their allure could also lose their competitive edge." Continue reading →

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Zurich eyes halving corporate tax

"Zurich, Switzerland's largest city and financial hub, may cut its corporate tax rate nearly in half if foreign firms lose fiscal benefits amid EU pressure, the regional financial chief said on Tuesday. By doing so, Switzerland's economic centre would aim to convince foreign companies to remain in the canton even if Switzerland bows to EU pressure and alters a system allowing such firms to pay less taxes than Swiss companies. The Zurich proposal follows a similar proposal presented in Geneva last week, suggesting that Switzerland's second-largest business hub should cut its corporate tax rate from around 24 to 13 percent." Continue reading →

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Spanish savers move money to Switzerland

"Crisis-hit savers in Spain are transferring their their money to Switzerland for safety, the head of Geneva's 80-strong banking association said on Wednesday. In addition to an increase in Spanish funds, Droux said Geneva banks had seen an inflow of cash from other eurozone countries so far this year, as well as from the Middle East and developing countries including those in South America. Switzerland is not a member of the European Union and so is not a member of the eurozone." Continue reading →

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Switzerland: The Other Currency Manipulator

"Switzerland is manipulating its currency for the exact same reason China does: to help exporters gain a price advantage. And Switzerland is a big net exporter, with a current account surplus (exports minus imports) of 12 percent of GDP, compared to just 3 percent for China. Why aren’t we freaking out about Swiss currency manipulation? Probably because Switzerland’s small scale helps us understand what a manipulated currency really means: cheaper Swiss goods for U.S. consumers. With China, we somehow get this backwards." Continue reading →

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Wary Swiss Banks Shun Americans

"The new law, expected to be phased in over several years, requires foreign banks to identify Americans among their clients and to provide their financial information to the Internal Revenue Service. Just one person overlooked could mean a penalty equivalent to 30% of a bank's U.S. income. Most banks in Switzerland have little appetite to deal with such risk and are quietly—or openly—ushering American clients out or limiting the range of products offered to them, tax experts and bankers say." Continue reading →

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Boy ordered to change schools for carrying cystic fibrosis gene

"School officials said they believe 11-year-old Colman Chadam’s genetic makeup may put other students at risk and ordered him to move from Palo Alto’s Jordan Middle School to another district middle school three miles away after his parents disclosed his condition on a medical form in the beginning of the school year. Colman has never had the lung problems associated with the disease, has never required treatment and tested negative on a sweat test, which is the definitive diagnostic test. The Chadmans said they only disclosed his condition out of an 'overabundance of caution'." Continue reading →

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NYPD informant who tracked militants quits, denounces police

"The informant, a 19-year-old American citizen of Bangladeshi descent, was recruited by the NYPD recently as part of an expansive intelligence-gathering program the department launched after the al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001. His assignment was to make contact with suspected Islamic extremists to try to determine if they had any inclinations to engage in violence. On October 2, however, the informant, whom the source did not name, posted a message on his personal Facebook page exposing himself as an informant to people he had been in contact with. He declared that he had quit as a police informant." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNYPD informant who tracked militants quits, denounces police