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Rural Main
Street Economies in Doldrums
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The double-whammy
of high energy prices and the housing market slump are crimping
economic growth and employment among many Main Street communities,
according to a survey of community bank CEOs in 11 Midwestern and
Western states. The latest Rural Mainstreet Index shows that high
fuel costs and the housing downturn are negatively affecting farming
and non-farming industries, from tourism to logging to
manufacturing.
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Waters
Introduces Housing Reoccupying Bill
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Rep. Maxine
Waters (D-Calif.), a House Financial Services subcommittee chairman,
introduced a bill to provide $15 billion to help state and local
housing agencies buy, rehabilitate and reoccupy abandoned foreclosed
homes. The Neighborhood Stabilization Act of 2008 (H.R. 5818) would authorize the
Department of Housing and Urban Development to direct $7.5 billion in
zero-interest loans and $7.5 billion in grants toward quickly
re-occupying properties with new homeowners or renters. Properties
benefiting from the bill's financing must be resold to or house
low-income families. The House Financial Services Committee plans to
begin marking up the bill on Wednesday.
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Dugan:
Prudence in CRE Assessments Needed
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Comptroller of
Currency John Dugan asked community banks to "realistically"
assess their commercial real estate portfolios for potential problems
and plan accordingly before "problems get worse and harder to
resolve" in a recent speech. Dugan stressed the
importance of effective two-way communication and said that was an area
in which both the OCC and the banks it supervises had fallen short.
Banks also need to be forthright and "engage their examiners even
more than they might have in good times," he said.
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Bankruptcies
Jumped 38 Percent Last Year
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Thirty-eight
percent more American consumers and businesses filed for bankruptcy in 2007 than during
the pervious year, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts
reported. Personal bankruptcy cases totaled 822,590 in 2007 and
business bankruptcy cases totaled 28,322, 44 percent higher than in
2006.
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Farm Bill
Conferees Exclude FCS Expansion Provisions
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House and Senate
members of the farm bill conference committee negotiated a final
agreement on the bill's credit title that excludes provisions ICBA and
its members have strenuously opposed that would have expanded the Farm
Credit System's lending authority. The 60-member committee continues to
work on resolving differences in funding and tax provisions to pay for
an additional $6 billion to $10 billion above the current bill's
10-year budget baseline of $597 billion. The Bush administration is
waiting to evaluate the funding and tax details before declaring
whether it will support the bill. Committee members hope to make
considerable progress on these issues this week since the current
bill's April 18 deadline is fast approaching.
ICBA applauds
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and the
conference committee for their support in omitting the Farm Credit
System's expansion provisions from the farm bill. For two years ICBA
and community bankers have worked closely with members of Congress in
opposing FCS expansions in the farm bill.
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