NPR 2008-11-12

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The mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are announcing a new plan to help several hundred thousand homeowners facing foreclosure. NPR’s Chris Arnold has more.

The move is the biggest step by the government so far to use Fannie and Freddie to help stem the tide of foreclosures. Some homeowners say that the plan will see their interest rates lower effectively down below 3% in order to make their payments more affordable¹. The loan payments will be set at 38% of the homeowners’ income. Still helping² several hundred thousand homeowners sounds like a lot of people, but economists³ say the scale of the problem is such that 5 to 7 million more people are going to lose their homes in coming years. And they said that would push the economy into a much more severe recession. Sheila Bair, the head of the FDIC, has been proposing a much more sweeping⁴ plan that could help several million homeowners. She says the Fannie Mae initiative is a step in the right direction, but it falls short of what is needed. Chris Arnold, NPR News.

 Some big banks now are saying they may plan to try to help people falling behind on their home loans. Giant Citigroup has launched an initiative aimed at helping at-risk borrowers by agreeing to halt foreclosures for people who live in their homes, have decent incomes and could possibly make lower payments. In addition, the New York-based financial services firm says it will reach out to as many as half a million homeowners who are delinquent⁵ on their mortgages.

President Bush marked Veterans Day by making a trip to New York where he spoke⁶ in the shadow of the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid⁷ at a rededication ceremony. The vessel⁸ was a floating museum. Mr. Bush praised those veterans in the audience for their service. Today we send a clear message to all who have worn the uniform: thank you for your courage, thank you for your sacrifice, and thank you for standing⁹ up when your nation needed you most. The retired¹⁰ aircraft carrier first saw services in the Pacific during World War Two, Korea and Vietnam.

Armistice¹¹ Day was celebrated¹² in France today without a single living World War I veteran for the first time in the nation’s history. Aya Batrawy reports from Paris.

Between 1914 and 1918, the Great War fought largely on French soil, cost the lives of nearly 2 million German, a million British and a million and a half French soldiers. Bells tolled¹³ throughout France at 11 o'clock this morning marking the minute the guns fell silent 90 years ago. And leaders from the powers that fought the war now allies gathered at the side of the 1916 battle of Verdun where 300, 000 French and Germen were slaughtered¹⁴ over 11 months of bloody¹⁵ trench¹⁶ warfare¹⁷. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, flanked by the speaker of the German parliament and Britain’s Prince Charles, gave a message of European reconciliation¹⁸. The last living French and German soldiers to fight in World War One both died earlier this year. For NPR News, I’m Aya Batrawy in Paris , NPR News.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 176 points today. The NASDAQ lost 35 points. This is NPR.

Voters in the state of Ohio have sent a message to so-called payday lenders, opposing tougher restrictions¹⁹ on the interest rates those companies can charge customers. Payday loan industry officials say as a result of the barren initiative, they are looking at other business options in the state, whereas some consumer groups worry that the lenders are simply trying to find a way around the vote by offering loans under other state laws.

Two leading British communications companies have announced cost cutting and programs to increase efficiency as ways to handle the economic crisis. Larry Miller²⁰ reports from London.

The British cable TV company Virgin²¹ Media says it's cutting 2, 200 jobs or 15% of its workforce²². It said the move is part of a group wide overhaul²³ designed to save the company nearly 200 million dollars over the next four years and that it’s critical to ensuring its future. Earlier this month, Virgin Media was given until 2, 012 to refinance 6. 7 billion dollars of debt. Efficiency is also on the agenda for the Vodafone cell phone group which plans to reduce cost by nearly 1. 7 billion dollars. It would not say whether jobs were on the line as it announced that its half year net profit fell 35%. For NPR News, I'm Larry Miller in London.

Imagine if you could get a handle on how many people are contracting the flu nationwide, or even in your home state, perhaps weeks before the official statistics begin coming out. That’s pretty much what Google is offering to a new site called Google Flu trends. It tracks a number of inquiries²⁴ from people typing in key words like flu symptoms or muscle aches into the Internet search engine and plots it on a graph. Based on early trends, the company says it may be able to detect flu outbreaks a week to 10 days before they’re reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.