Hertha Berlin lose, fed-up fans invade the pitch

It's been an awful season for Hertha Berlin. A year after finishing fourth in the Bundesliga and missing out on the Champions League by a couple of points, Hertha now find themselves in last place with just three wins all season. So with their fans already on edge as the club looks set for ... — full article at sports.yahoo.com

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Fed sees ‘little change’ in West’s housing

The Fed’s San Francisco unit noted housing in the West is “appeared to be little changed on net” in its 2nd “Beige Book” of 2010. This is a Federal Reserve Board report on regional economic conditions that’s done eight times a year. In January, the Fed called Western housing “largely stable.” (Note: Note that 2009 [...] Fed sees ‘little change’ in West’s housing is a post from: Lansner on Real Estate

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Financial Reform Fight: Dodd Unveils His Bill, Looks For Leverage.

Today at 2 p.m. Sen. Chris Dodd will reveal his financial reform bill, and TAPPED will be there. In the run-up, there have been a bunch of preview stories, with The Wall Street Journal's version offering the best coverage. I'd definitely recommend these interviews with Dodd and with his chief Republican interlocutor, Sen. Bob Corker. Corker complains about haste -- a joke, as these issues have been well aired. In particular, he blames the Treasury Department for pushing Dodd to move his bill "to the left," which speaks to the underappreciated efforts of the administration to keep Dodd on track. But the bill Dodd will drop today doesn't reflect the ideological concerns of the left; it really is a technocratic piece of legislation that still reflects Corker's influence. The consumer protection regulator, for instance, will apparently still be housed in the Fed and subject to a veto from other regulators. Without seeing more details about the preservation of the agency's independence and jurisdiction -- one promising report is that state attorneys general will be able to enforce federal consumer regulations -- this doesn't sound like the kind of structures that would protect consumers very well at all. The Fed itself will be both weakened and empowered. Consumer protection will apparently be autonomous (but why, then, is it "housed" in the Fed?); regulatory authority for small banks will be moved out of the Fed. The Fed will also have tighter rules about limiting the influence of private banks over the Federal Reserve's regional branches. For instance, the president will appoint the head of the New York Fed, but banks will still have too much say. It will also see new checks on its power to rescue firms and make overarching regulatory decisions. On the other hand, the institution will have increased power over large financial institutions of all kinds, including non-bank firms (this is a good idea -- no more unsupervised AIGs). Issues of derivatives are still outstanding. The bill will apparently match Dodd's November version on the issue, but Dodd says he will change it to reflect potential agreements being worked out between Sens. Jack Reed and Judd Gregg. Expect Sen. Maria Cantwell to get involved in that scrap as the bill moves toward the floor. Mechanisms behind systemic risk regulation and the dissolution authorities designed to prevent the "too big to fail" problem are still hazy. And the Volcker rule will apparently be implemented through a two-step process involving a study, which seems like a hedge. So is this good for reformers? Sort of. It's a good sign that the bill is moving forward, as is Dodd's willingness to forsake Republican support to get some momentum. But the substance still isn't quite what will be required to revamp the financial system. It will be easier to improve the bill as it makes it way out of committee and onto the floor; outside reform groups and the Obama administration have mainly been biding their time for Dodd to start marking up a bill, as has House Financial Services Committee Chair Barney Frank. Their actions in the next week -- particularly Frank's -- will give us a better idea of what lies ahead. -- Tim Fernholz

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Fly Fishing With Darth Vader, and more

by Mark Silva You really had to ride with Janet Reno in that little red pickup truck that she drove across her native Florida in a perhaps Quixotic campaign for governor to appreciate the morning that she made a detour to an empty shopping mall in Jacksonville in a futile search for voters. The impromptu stop prompted by a scheduling snafu led the first woman to serve as attorney general through the men's underwear section of a department store -- she even had hosted a real "Janet Reno Dance Party'' in South Beach to raise money for her failing campaign for the 2002 Democratic gubernatorial nomination in the Sunshine State -- in a desperate quest for a hand to shake, anyone's hand. The Bataan-like walk through the near-empty mall ended at a women's makeup counter, where Reno was offered a makeover. She declined. Or, you could simply read Matt Labash's account of Reno "riding again'' into the Florida swamp, or his accounts of many other odd days in the journeys of some of the oddest fits in American political suits. The best of it is collected and bound now, for better or worse, in a volume that the senior writer for The Weekly Standard has dubbed Fly Fishing with Darth Vader And Other Adventures with Evangelical Wrestlers, Political Hitmen, and Jewish Cowboys. Simon and Schuster, the publisher, has printed "Labash's masterful profiles of the outsized and outrageous characters who populate America's murky periphery -- Pirate Kingfish Governor Edwin Edwards, Recovering Crackhead Mayor Marion Barry, Dirty Trickster Roger Stone.... alongside devastating pieces on the dying cities of our nation such as Detroit and New Orleans'' and "his hilarious tirades on the health hazards of Facebook and the virtues of dodgeball.... He chronicles Al Sharpton's eating habits on the campaign trail, fishes the Snake River with Dick Cheney, and investigates the "great white waste of time" that is our neighbor to the north.'' Only Matt could diss Canada so easily (we'll save Australia.) The truth is, Matt is unencumbered by most of the conventions that bind a lot of conventional political reporters -- he still uses commas, for sure -- while marching on in the tradition of some of the best who have widened the boundaries. They're celebrating the publication of Matt's book tonight at a book party in Washington -- we're not dropping names, so we won't mention that the bash for Labash will be staged at his buddy Tucker Carlson's house, or that Dave "Mudcat'' Saunders, the redneck savant who apparently once fed Labash deer turds, may show up. (See the notice for Matt's book at Carlson's The Daily Caller, or here, for that matter, for an understanding of how inbred Washington actually is.) Here's to Matt, and the best for his book.

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Japanese Stocks Rise After Fed Pledges Low Interest Rates; Sony Advances

Japanese stocks rose, sending benchmark indexes toward an eight-week high, after the U.S. Federal Reserve said it will keep its main interest rate near zero for an extended period and the yen weakened.

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Summary Box: Fed boss wants to retain bank duties

MAKING THE CASE: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke urged Congress to let the Fed keep all of its banking supervision. He argued that information gleaned from that process helps the Fed guide the economy.

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Fed may hint at how long rates will stay at lows [AP]

From AP News via Yahoo Finance How best to telegraph the approach of higher rates is likely to dominate discussions when Bernanke and his colleagues meet Tuesday. In particular, the Fed will decid ...

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Fed boss makes case to keep all banking duties

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke urged Congress Wednesday to let the Fed keep all of its banking oversight, arguing that information gleaned from that process helps the central bank guide the economy.

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Fed saves some regulatory authority in dodd plan

WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve would retain some but not all of its oversight powers in the changed financial landscape envisioned by Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd in a plan unveiled on Monday.

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Fed maintains low rates, upgrades view on US economy (AFP)

AFP - The Federal Reserve has maintained record low interest rates but offered a modest upgrade to its view of the US economy still dogged by high unemployment and tight credit.

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