New Phase of Crisis: Securities Sink Banks (WSJ)

"The U.S. banking crisis is entering a new stage, as lenders succumb to large amounts of toxic loans and securities they bought from other banks."

Souring Prime Loans Compound Mortgage Woes (WSJ)

Frightening foreclosure figures. One in eight households nationwide are in foreclosure or behind on mortgage payments. "Loans extended to borrowers with good credit are deteriorating at a faster clip" than loans to subprime borrowers. Doesn't feel like "recovery." Calculated Risk's detailed breakdown/analysis points out that Alt-A loans are included in the "prime" category, which may make the high numbers a little misleading. More on that (plus this explanation) from Reuters: "That could be skewing things since Alt-A loans by definition are less than prime and extremely loose lending standards during the boom have made them look more like subprime loans. For example, borrowers taking out an Alt-A loan could state their income rather than prove it."

Rise of the Super-Rich Hits a Sobering Wall (NYT)

John McAfee's net worth has fallen from $100 million to $4 million. Send him a sympathy card.

Burress Will Receive 2-Year Prison Sentence (NYT)

A New York millionaire, football player Plaxico Burress, who wounded no one but himself and threatened no one, gets two years in jail for his gunplay. Other New York millionaires who didn't need to pack heat to cripple millions of Americans are still on the loose on Wall Street.

Insider Selling Highlights Growing Downside Risk (TradingHelpDesk.com)

"... Company insiders are now selling stock at the highest rate in two years. This action does not guarantee a market decline but it does imply the easy money in the current bullish run has been made and downside risks, whether temporary or cyclical, have increased. ..."

MORE HEADLINES FOLLOW

UBS, Switzerland's largest bank, will hand over to the IRS at least 4,450 names of Americans suspected of hiding money in secret accounts that at one time contained $18 billion.

Among the collateral damage: Writers will now have to add an asterisk to the phrase "as secret as a Swiss bank account."

UBS got off easy, and so did thousands more rich Americans: The U.S. government had demanded that UBS identify the holders of 52,000 accounts. As part of the deal finalized today, the U.S. is dropping its lawsuit against the bank, and the bank won't get fined.

Be sure to read the backgrounder on Bradley Birkenfeld, the American employee of UBS who blew the whistle. Not that he's a hero, because he was one of the schemers and has pled guilty, but he stands to possibly rake in money for snitching. Birkenfeld is probably no longer welcome in Switzerland.

Under Pressure, Obama Defends Health-Care Plan (WSJ)

Teabaggers outside, friendly folks inside. Too friendly and too respectful inside, reminiscent of the carefully screened audiences at the "town halls" that Dick Cheney and George W. Bush conducted. Best quote from a teabagger outside: ""Adolf Hitler was for exterminating the weak, not just the Jews and stuff, and socialism — that's what's going to happen." "Jews and stuff" — sounds like a chain of Bar Mitzvah-themed gift shops.

G.M. Puts Electric Car's City Mileage in Triple Digits (NYT)

It took a fucking bankruptcy to make GM get on the stick and finally roll out a fucking electric car.

U.S. economy has bottomed: George Soros (Reuters)

He should know. He's one of the world's most aggressive, barebacking tops.

President Barack Obama may very well be getting in the faces of the lobbyist-orchestrated teabaggers at a New Hampshire "town hall" this very minute. Click above to listen in.

Too bad it would be impolitic for Obama to talk about the so-called teabaggers (and the lobbyists like Dick Armey who are organizing them to rile the Democrats) the way David Shuster discussed teabagging while guest-hosting Keith Olbermann's MSNBC show this past April 13. Here's that video:

A classic oral report, and if the video's not working for you, click on the jump line right below for the next page to see the transcript:

Click on the above video to read Barack Obama's lips as he says, "No new taxes!"

CNN's Ed Hornick asks whether that campaign promise puts Obama "on shaky ground." Well, of course it does.

Especially when the president's two main money advisers, Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, are already breaking Obama's word by not ruling it out, prompting a strong response from Obama flack Robert Gibbs, who insisted that Obama will not raise taxes on people who make less than $250,000 a year. The Washington Post's Michael A. Fletcher writes: "If two of President Obama's top economic advisers cracked open the door to the possibility middle-class tax increases Sunday, the White House slammed it shut on Monday."

No, the White House only says it was slamming it shut.

It's painful to get a reality check from Arizona's arch-conservative senator, Jon Kyl, who, no matter his motives, says: "I think that what the secretary and Mr. Summers said Sunday is actually more true than the press secretary tried to make it out to be. It's simply a recognition of a reality that you can't pay for all of this and not impose taxes on middle Americans."

There will be tax hikes — maybe disguised as fees, whatever. Yes, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger just signed off on a budget measure that included no tax increases. But he simply slashed and burned programs, and Obama has no such luxury: Who pays for the health-care package and the Afghan War? Not California.

And even if the recession really is easing, the federal government's still going to have to bail out the broke-ass state governments.

Where does your state rank among those in the rankest shape? Check this CNN graphic.

A world of difference here. Both stories use the same figures from the same source, so there's little doubt that charitable giving dropped during 2008. But the Times leads with: "Charitable giving fell last year by the largest percentage in five decades." And the WSJ leads with the angle that "dire predictions" were probably exaggerated.

The winner of this battle? The Times story, by Stephanie Strom.

In any case, maybe it's not so bad a thing that Barack Obama lost his battle to impose pay restrictions on Wall Street. Thanks to the gelt the execs rake in, they convert some of that shamelessness into shame and wind up giving some of it back.

But the verdict's still not in on whether the recession has crippled charitable giving. Both stories note that charities did pretty well for most of the year but that giving dropped off sharply in the fourth quarter. So the figures for 2009 may be more revealing. And then we'll really see whether the whining this past March over Obama's attempts to reduce tax deductions for charitable donations is justified.

Complete with charts that make the two social-welfare programs look like skyscrapers, the old-news story reports that their financial condition has deteriorated "in part because of the recession" and that the Social Security trust fund "will be exhausted" in 2037, "four years earlier than expected."

By that time, I'm going to be one really pissed-off 90-year-old.

Yes, it's a problem, but who's got memory loss here? The Times and other mainstream media. A little perspective, please. They don't mention that the non-9/11 defense budget has been growing at a faster rate than these "entitlement" programs, as some of us noted in March. Nor do they point out, as many of us did last month, that there's a bigger picture here. See "The Red Ink of a Greyer Future" for demographic details.

Not to mention that just as much of a long-term threat to the budget as a Social Security shortfall is the specter that the Bush regime's tax cuts for the rich will remain in place — despite Barack Obama's plans. As Bob Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says about the impact of Social Security and Medicare on the federal budget:

Greenstein also notes that the 2037 date for exhaustion of Social Security money is not a new prediction; it was also the date predicted in 2000 by the trustees of the SS monies.

So the business world is stung by President Barack Obama's harsh comments about tax havens and the people who love them. Good for him (unless you're a rich twit), but if you're a tax haven, not to worry.

It's unusual for a U.S. president to be so public in condemning tax havens, but it's probably a futile gesture, other than making for a good show. All the big countries would have to join in a concerted effort to stop corporations and rich people from hiding their money on friendly little isles like the Caymans. And the preliminary results of that ballyhooed effort don't look promising.

Nearly a month ago, Alexander Neubacher pointed out some reasons in Der Spiegel, under the headline "Why the Fight Against Tax Havens is a Sham."

And this fight is a diversion from the more immediate problems of the global recession. It's sexy to point to tax havens and stir up public anger, just as it was sexy for Congress to suddenly bluster about AIG's bonuses when in fact such excessive greed has been standard practice up and down Wall Street.

Not that tax havens aren't a problem for governments. But this move against them comes only after world leaders at the G-20 summit in London vowed to stamp them out because the leaders couldn't agree on much else to say about other issues.

And after much huffing and puffing, the Europeans produced a "blacklist" of tax havens that included zero countries. And officials on the Caymans, which are no doubt a tax shelter, are fighting back, claiming that they fear a "witch hunt."

That's a real protest, unlike the "tea parties" being promoted by Fox News — see Jon Stewart's "Tempest in a Tea Party" last night — to try to give the GOP some sort of basic issue to rebuild the party other than feeding Rush Limbaugh to the troops.

Adding up the past failure to pay taxes by such Obama Administration appointees as Kathleen Sibelius, would-have-been appointees like Tom Daschle, and, of all people, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the head of the IRS employees' union says her members are "upset and angry." The Chicago Tribune explains:

More on why they're seething:

A shocking reminder of a tax-code glitch.

Before you go out on the town on December 31, 2010, do your wallet a favor: Visit that rich relative in the hospital and pull the plug.

Why? If your wealthy parent, granny, aunt, or uncle survives into 2011, you could inherit only the wind.

Nate Silver gives us that timely reminder over at fivethirtyeight.com. He doesn't actually recommend that you incorporate plug-pulling into your family's estate-tax planning, but he does write on March 26, in "A Good Time to Die?":