Bush: US is not headed into recession WASHINGTON - President Bush said Thursday the country is not recession-bound and, despite expressing concern about slowing economic growth, rejected for now any additional stimulus efforts. "We acted robustly," he said. FDIC to add staff as bank failures loom WASHINGTON -- The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is taking steps to brace for an increase in failed financial institutions as the nation's housing and credit markets continue to worsen . . . The agency, which insures accounts at more than 8,000 financial institutions, is also seeking to hire an outside firm that would help manage mortgages and other assets at insolvent banks, according to a newspaper advertisement. Bush Calls Surveillance Bill an ‘Urgent Priority’ WASHINGTON — Using some of his toughest language in weeks, President Bush prodded Congress on Thursday to pass his preferred version of surveillance legislation, asserting that every day of delay could put the country in danger. Cleveland: ghost town created by America’s loan scandal Slavic Village is Ground Zero for a tragedy being repeated across America. The dramatic rise and fall of the sub-prime mortgage market has left borrowers across the country facing repossession. In 2002 there were 101 foreclosures in Cleveland. In 2005 the number was 2,000, last year it was almost 8,000. Across America the number of foreclosures rose 79% last year, according to Realtytrac, an American property analyst, as people, many of whom would never have received loans in the past, have failed to keep up their mortgage payments . . . Cleveland’s mayor Frank Jackson knows who to blame: Wall Street. The mayor’s office is suing some of the world’s biggest banks. including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and Royal Bank of Scotland’s Greenwich Capital, claiming they acted like organised criminals financing the sale of products that they knew could do nothing but harm to Cleveland. Sub-prime mortgages have proved as bad as drugs in the destruction they have wrought on the community, he said. 1 in 100 Americans Are Behind Bars, Study Says For the first time in the nation’s history, more than one in 100 American adults is behind bars, according to a new report. Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million. Another 723,000 people are in local jails. The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars. Europe's closest friendship falls apart To cancel one high-level Franco-German meeting is unfortunate. To cancel two in less than a week implies a bank of freezing fog is descending over the Rhine.
