LABOR, ECONOMY & THE CLIMATE - page 28

The Department of Justice on Thursday announced indictments against two former traders for their role in manipulating a key interest rate that impacts more than $300 trillion in global financial contracts. Matthew Connolly and Gavin Campbell Black are facing ten conspiracy and wire fraud charges for working to manipulate LIBOR—the London Interbank Offered Rate—in order to increase profits for their employer, Deutsche Bank AG. Connolly was a director at the bank’s Pool Trading Desk in New York. Black served as a director for the bank in… Keep Reading

Climate change will eventually force the US government to spend billions more annually due to hurricane damage alone, according to a Congressional Budget Office report published Thursday. The influential legislative forecaster said the federal government currently spends $18 billion every year on hurricane recovery, but that amount, adjusted for inflation, will grow to $24 billion by 2075. Overall, the study predicted that hurricane damage will by 2075 account for $39 billion in all spending, public and private. The CBO said the US currently spends $28 billion on… Keep Reading

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray touted existing alternatives to payday lending on Thursday, as the agency released long-anticipated rules to curtail abusive loansharking. Cordray described the so-called “small-dollar” credit market as fundamentally broken, and said he hoped the proposed regulations would push the financial industry toward less predatory practices. “We are not intending to disrupt existing lending by community banks and credit unions that have found efficient and effective ways to make small-dollar loans to consumers that do not lead to debt traps… Keep Reading

Lower crude prices aren’t just hurting oil companies, they’re also inflicting pain on the country’s largest banks. Commercial and industrial loan payments overdue by three or more months were up in the first quarter by $3.3 billion, according to an FDIC report published Wednesday. The 2.4-percent uptick in commercial and industrial delinquencies was “the first quarterly increase in total noncurrent loan balances in 24 quarters,” the federal banking regulator said. The report noted the trend resulted from “[s]harply lower energy prices,” and that it disproportionately impacted… Keep Reading

Numbers released from the federal government show that officials tasked with patrolling public lands and forests are dealing with a growing number of assaults on the job. The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) reported that abusive incidents against its officers rose by 87 percent last year. The US Forest Service (USFS) reported a 60 percent uptick in violence against its employees. The data was released by the agencies in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests filed by the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental… Keep Reading

A federal appeals court in Richmond, Va. declined to reconsider a high profile ruling it made in favor of a transgender student. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday that it would not rehear a case brought by Gavin Grimm. A 16-year-old transgender boy, Grimm was granted the right by the court to sue his local school board for attempting to keep him out of the boys’ bathroom. Grimm was born female but came out as a transgender male in high school. He was allowed… Keep Reading

The first shipment in years of US rice to Cuba arrived on the island amid a trade delegation led by Gov. Jay Nixon (D-Mo.). Twenty tons of the commodity earlier this week reached the Port of Mariel, near Havana, courtesy of the Missouri-based Martin Rice Company. Cuban trade minister Maria de la Luz B’Hamel called the gift “a symbol on the start of lasting relationships that could be strengthened with all US agricultural producers,” according to a Cuban state news report published Monday. The US… Keep Reading

The Speaker of the House is threatening to lock down the amendment process after Democrats seized on annual spending bills to ensure protections for gay, lesbian, and transgender Americans. Briefing reporters Thursday just minutes after an energy and water appropriations bill failed on the House floor, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) accused the legislative minority of “sabotaging” the process. More than half of Ryan’s GOP caucus voted down the spending measure after Democrats on Wednesday night succeeded in affixing an amendment to the legislation that would… Keep Reading

Citibank added $175 million to its LIBOR-fixing legal bills after agreeing to settle charges with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The bank was also fined $250 million by the regulator for manipulating an interest rate indicator called ISDAFix between 2007-2012. The two regularly-published gauges are used to price financial commodities around the world. LIBOR, the London Inter-Bank Offering Rate, is what banks charge each other for short-term loans. It influences the cost of over $300 trillion in financial services. Citibank, in one instance, fudged the… Keep Reading

Federal regulators are seeking an injunction to stop striking Verizon workers from demonstrating at New England hotels where replacements are being housed. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is accusing the union members of being noisy and “confrontational” at the premises of various hotels, in an apparent violation of labor laws on secondary boycotts. “The union locals’ ‘confrontational’ and ‘highly disruptive’ picketing has included allegedly shouting to hotel guests that they were staying with ‘scabs’ at bedbug-infested hotels,” according to an NLRB motion filed Monday… Keep Reading