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| By Sherwood Ross Every Christmas season a large electric star visible for miles is illuminated on a mountainside overlooking Bethlehem, Pa., to commemorate the time the holy family of Christianity took refuge in a manger on the night of Christ's birth. This past Christmas, this city of 71,000 whose principal landmark is the rusting remains of the once thriving Bethlehem Steel Corporation was unable to shelter its own growing number of homeless families from bitterly cold weather. As in the New Testament account, there was no room at the inn for some and the city, citing "liability issues" turned down requests to house the homeless on freezing nights in its jail or in the parking garage under City Hall. "Here is what we are facing in the Lehigh Valley" writes Marcie Lightwood, a social worker at Trinity Episcopal Church in the local Morning Call: "Thousands of jobs have been lost in the past six months. When this happens, renters (and some homeowners) have two or three months before they get evicted. Then they may have another month or two of living in a vehicle (if they have one) or sofa surfing with friends and relatives. If they had foresight, they got on one of the waiting lists for one of the shelters, which are full" The churches alone, she notes, can't do it all. Link to Article |
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| 2/2/2009 9:41 AM ET
(RTTNews) - President Barack Obama warned Monday that more banks are likely to fail, despite efforts by the government to keep the nation's money-lending institutions afloat. The best efforts of the government through the $700 billion financial rescue package may not be enough to counteract mismanagement in some banks, Obama said.
In an interview airing Monday on NBC's TODAY show, Obama warned that some U.S. banks are in "very vulnerable positions." Risky lending practices during the subprime mortgage boom and the resulting rash of defaults revealed many banks were overextended, sparking bank failures across the country and a credit crisis.
Banks have likely "not fully acknowledged all the losses that they're going to experience," Obama said in the interview, was conducted by TODAY anchor Matt Lauer Sunday at the White House. "Some banks won't make it," Obama added. However, for the vast majority of Americans there is no worry about their deposits as long as they are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Obama said. In the meantime, the toxic assets weighing down the banks will have to be removed, he said. Link to Article |  |