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Big banks are violating national mortgage settlement, report says

Danielle Douglas — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:43:00 GMT

A new study confirms allegations made by state prosecutors that some of the nation’s biggest banks are violating the terms of the $25 billion national mortgage settlement, the landmark agreement to clean up shoddy foreclosure practices.

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Democrats like health reform better when it's called 'Obamacare.' Republicans not so much.

Sandhya Somashekhar — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 20:33:36 GMT

Welcome to Health Reform Watch, Sarah Kliff's regular look at how the Affordable Care Act i s changing the American health-care system — and being changed by it. Sandhya Somashekhar is filling in while Sarah's away, and you can reach her with questions, comments and suggestions here. Check back every Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon for the latest edition, and read previous columns here.

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In the next four years, we'll see if Wall Street can be reformed

Suzy Khimm — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:57:00 GMT

Four years ago, President Obama was sworn in as a financial crisis was still engulfing the markets and the economy. Now he can point to a Wall Street overhaul that he helped push through Congress, intended to prevent such a meltdown from happening again. But to a large extent, the real impact of those financial reforms will depend on what happens over the next four years.

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Fed expects to begin pullback this year if recovery is steady

Ylan Q. Mui — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:34:00 GMT

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Wednesday that the central bank expects to begin scaling back its massive economic stimulus later this year and end the program by mid-2014 if the recovery continues apace.

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This graph shows how bad the Fed is at predicting the future

Dylan Matthews — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:31:37 GMT

On Wednesday the Fed issued its latest policy statement and accompanied it, as always, with economic projections. They project the economy will grow by 2.3 to 2.6 percent, in real terms, in the fourth quarter of 2013 relative to the fourth quarter of 2012. That speeds up to 3.0 to 3.5 percent in 2014 and 2.9 to 3.6 percent in 2015. Unemployment also is projected to fall, hitting 5.8 to 6.2 percent in 2015, all while inflation stays below 2 percent. Hooray!

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Firefox Web browser to move ahead with ‘Do Not Track’ option

Craig Timberg — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 19:18:00 GMT

The maker of the popular Firefox browser is moving ahead with plans to block the most common forms of Internet tracking, allowing hundreds of millions of users to eventually limit who watches their movements across the Web, company officials said Wednesday.

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Liveblogging the FOMC and Bernanke's press conference

Neil Irwin — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:46:03 GMT

The Federal Reserve's policy committee met Tuesday and Wednesday, and at 2 p.m., the Federal Open Market Committee released both a statement announcing its policy stance and the its economic projections, revealing how its members expect growth, employment and inflation to evolve in the years ahead. Chairman Ben Bernanke then began a scheduled news conference, first giving a prepared statement describing the Fed's goals and policy stance, then taking questions from reporters. We're liveblogging all of it here, so keep reading!

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It's almost as if Jeff Sessions' opposition to immigration reform isn't about the poor at all

Ezra Klein — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 17:01:15 GMT

That CBO report showing that the Senate bill will boost the economy? It's not good enough for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). Even if it does help the economy, he says, "the benefit will go to the business owners." He worries that "the 21 million Americans who can't find full-time work will have an ever harder time getting a job and supporting their families." Immigration, he warns, could be "the biggest setback for poor and middle-class Americans of any legislation Congress has considered in decades."

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Finance people are from Mars, and economics people are from Venus

Neil Irwin — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:59:31 GMT

Well that was something. On a day when there is already a strange hothouse atmosphere around the Federal Reserve's policy statement and chairman Ben Bernanke's afternoon news conference, there was a long, often tense exchange on CNBC between Rick Santelli, the network's sometimes-bombastic correspondent (recall that it was one of his rants that launched the tea party movement), and Jon Hilsenrath, chief economic correspondent at The Wall Street Journal.

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Chamber: Safety net spending is a ‘time bomb’

Jim Tankersley — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:23:00 GMT

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is worried that not enough Americans are worried about social safety net spending.

The nation’s largest business lobbying group launched a renewed effort Wednesday to reduce projected federal spending on safety-net programs, labeling them a “ticking time bomb” that, left unchanged, “will bankrupt this nation.”

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Return of Drunk Bernanke: What the Fed chairman might want to say, but probably won't

Neil Irwin — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:54:21 GMT

In March, when Ben Bernanke last faced the press for a news conference, we brought you "Drunk Ben Bernanke," our best guess as to how the Federal Reserve chairman might respond to questions thrown at him if he were feeling particularly blunt. That is, how might an inebriated Bernanke face the press.

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Delaware is bailing out its casinos. Wait, what?

Lydia DePillis — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:54:10 GMT

Earlier this week, Delaware's casinos got a surprise windfall. Just days after saying no to tax breaks, Gov. Jack Markell (D) proposed that $8 million of the state's budget surplus be distributed amongst its three struggling establishments, to forestall the layoffs that at least one of them had threatened.

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No, the CBO report doesn't mean immigration brings down wages

Dylan Matthews — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:39:22 GMT

Tuesday's CBO score of the Gang of Eight immigration reform bill was pretty much a slam dunk for the bill's supporters. As Ezra put it, "This isn't just a good CBO report. It's a wildly good CBO report." But that doesn't mean there aren't holes that the bill's opponents can try to poke in that picture.

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The NSA's secrecy is bad for the NSA

Timothy B. Lee — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:30:16 GMT

To quell public concerns about its domestic surveillance programs, the National Security Agency on Tuesday provided new information about safeguards designed to protect Americans' privacy. More transparency is welcome, but the disclosures raise the question: why wasn't this information made public a long time ago?

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Wonkbook: The real damage the CBO did to the case against immigration reform

Ezra Klein, Evan Soltas — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:54:44 GMT

Welcome to Wonkbook, Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas's morning policy news primer.To subscribe by e-mail, click here. Send comments, criticism, or ideas to Wonkbook at Gmail dot com. To read more by Ezra and his team, go to Wonkblog.

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The U.S. is throwing fewer children in prison these days. Here's why.

Brad Plumer — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 13:26:25 GMT

Last week, I noted that the United States puts more youths and teenagers in jail than any other developed country, with about 70,000 detained on any given day in 2010. And there's plenty of evidence suggesting that this policy does far more harm than good.

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Climate change threatens trouble in the near future, World Bank says

Howard Schneider — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:00:00 GMT

The World Bank is beginning to commit billions of dollars to flood prevention, water management and other projects to help major Asian cities avoid the expected impact of climate change, a dramatic example of how short the horizon has become to alleviate the effects of global warming.

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SEC to require admissions of guilt in some settlements

Dina ElBoghdady — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 02:35:00 GMT

The Securities and Exchange Commission will begin requiring admission of guilt in certain types of civil settlements, a major departure from the agency’s routine use of a boilerplate clause that allows defendants to pay fines without acknowledging liability.

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Can state laws protect you from being watched by drones?

Timothy B. Lee — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 01:53:52 GMT

The number of privately operated drones is expected to explode over the next decade as everyone from oil and gas companies to real estate agents to animal rights groups plan to use these light, cheap, unmanned aerial vehicles as automated “eyes in the sky,” analysts say.

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Rising mortgage rates elicit fears they could hurt housing recovery

Amrita Jayakumar — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:55:36 GMT

Mortgage rates have spiked over the past few weeks, rising at the fastest pace since 2010, sparking fears that the housing market could weaken and undermine the country’s economic recovery.

In the short term, the jump in interest rates is spurring home buyers in the Washington region and other hot markets to action, adding to the already frenzied competition to get a home. But a sustained rise would hurt a fragile housing recovery, which has climbed out of the depths of its crash with the help of record-low rates, economists said.

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FCC nominee Tom Wheeler touts telecom industry ties

Cecilia Kang — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:34:42 GMT

President Obama’s pick to head the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday told Senate lawmakers that his decades of heading lobbying groups will bring important business sensibilities to the oversight of a communications industry undergoing a massive technological transition.

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FCC nominee Tom Wheeler touts telecom industry ties

Cecilia Kang — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:34:42 GMT

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Treasury Secretary Jack Lew unveils new signature after quibbles with his scribble

Zachary A. Goldfarb — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:01:49 GMT

Jack Lew was the senior budget adviser to President Obama and President Bill Clinton. He was Obama’s chief of staff. Now he is Treasury secretary.

But his most remarked-upon trait was his unusual signature, a series of eight connected loops that looked more like a doodle than a signature that should grace the U.S. currency. If one had to guess the name, word or, more accurately, sound represented by his old autograph, it would simply be “Oooooooo.”

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The best sentences we read today

Dylan Matthews — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:08:28 GMT

-- "You have studied the words of the Prophet Tufte, and you have concluded that they demand jihad."

-- "Though Bundy was extremely guilty, in general the science of biting is, well, bollocks."

-- "If there is one man in this world who can convince markets that America will tolerate above-trend inflation, it is Paul Krugman."

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CBO: Immigration reform is a free lunch

Ezra Klein — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:08:09 GMT

Good news for immigration reformers: The Congressional Budget Office has scored the Senate immigration bill and concluded it will cut deficits by $200 billion in the first 10 years and $700 billion in the second 10 years.

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