NPR 2009-6-18

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President Obama today called for a new consumer protection agency as part of his sweeping¹ effort to rewrite the financial rules of the road and avoid future economic meltdowns. NPR's John Ydstie reports.
 
Speaking to an audience in the East Room of the White House, President Obama said the economic crisis was partly the result of individual Americans signing contracts that they didn't understand like exotic mortgages sometimes offered by lenders who didn't tell the truth. The president said a new powerful consumer financial protection agency would rectify² that.
 
"This agency will have the power to set standards so that companies compete by offering innovative³ products that consumers actually want and actually understand.”
 
The president's reforms would also give the Federal Reserve oversight⁴ over large financial institutions whose failure could destabilize the system. The plan would also regulate derivatives⁵ like credit default swaps⁶ that help fuel the crisis. John Ydstie, NPR News, Washington.
 
While Senate lawmakers get down to negotiating details of a health care reform bill, Republicans in the House have unveiled their counter-proposal. More from NPR's Audie Cornish.
 
Heading up the GOP health reform effort is Missouri Republican Roy Blunt. He says Republicans are against the Democrats⁷' idea of creating a public health option to compete in the private market place.
 
"If there is a government competitor, you will not be able to keep what you have. Because if there is a government competitor, the government will never compete fairly. And before you know it there are no competitors, so what you had is no longer available for you to have. "
 
Republicans unveiled their own plan that includes many tax rates for small businesses and tax credits for low income Americans to encourage access to health care coverage⁸ to the uninsured. While the senate Democrats' plan is estimated to cost more than a trillion dollars, the Republicans declined to say how much theirs would cost or how many uninsured people it would cover. Audie Cornish, NPR News, the Capitol.
 
Commerce Department is reporting the nation's broadest measure of trade, the current account deficit⁹, was down sharply in the first three months of the year. The government reported the current account deficit fell 34.5% from the final quarter of last year to $101.5 billion. Bob Brusca is chief economist¹⁰ at Fact and Opinion Economics and says the decline is a positive.
 
"The deficit has been trimmed quite a bit. And it means a little bit…a little bit …actually quite a bit less reliant on capital flows from abroad. And so whittling¹¹ down the deficit is a good thing. "
 
Current account deficit takes into account not just trade of goods and services but also investment flows between the US and other nations. It’s the lowest reading for the measure since the US was last in a recession in 2001.
 
On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell seven points to end the session at 8,497. The NASDAQ closed up 11 points. The S&P 500 was down a point to end the day at 910.
 
This is NPR News in Washington.
 
As demonstrations¹² continue in Iran in the wake of disputed presidential election, the country's leaders are now accusing the US of intolerable meddling¹³ in that nation's affairs. Teheran is also alleging¹⁴ Washington has helped to fuel the bitter post- election disputes something US officials have denied. The latest development comes as amateur video has been going out of the internet, showing thousands of people marching in apparent support of pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. Mousavi has accused the Iranian government of rigging a recent election in favor of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
 
Chrysler says it will resume making vehicles at seven of its North American factories, beginning June 29th. Michigan Radio's Vincent Duffy reports.
 
Chrysler shut all of its factories down in May, just after it went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy¹⁵ protection. Last Monday it resumed production of the Viper¹⁶ at a plant in Michigan. And now the company has confirmed it will restart factories in Sterling¹⁷ Heights and Warren, Michigan; St. Louise; Toledo, Ohio plus two plants in Ontario and one in Mexico. The plants that supply parts for those assembly factories will also restart on June 29th. Most of Chrysler's assets were sold to a new company led by Italian automaker Fiat¹⁸. And that new company emerged from bankruptcy protection last week. Work on the assembly lines will only be temporary. Chrysler is still scheduled to idle all of its plants for a two-week summer shutdown in July to prepare to launch the 2010 models. For NPR News, I'm Vincent Duffy in Ann Arbor¹⁹, Michigan.
 
Giant package shipper FedEx posted a wider than expected quarterly loss. The Memphis, Tennessee based company says its loss has widened to $876 million. However, excluding previously²⁰ announced charges, the company says it actually would have posted a profit of 64 cents a share.