CoOlDiGgY news (late edition)

Econ Criminals:
Rubin and Greenspan to face crisis inquiry

Robert Rubin, head of Goldman Sachs and former Treasury Secretary, and Alan Greenspan, former head of the private-owned Federal Reserve, both of whom enabled and championed the conditions that caused the economic collapse, face an inquiry of "What they knew and when did they know."

Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary who played a key role in financial deregulation during Bill Clinton’s presidency and who has kept a low profile since stepping down as a special adviser to Citigroup in January 2009, is to be questioned by the US financial crisis inquiry commission this week.

The committee, created by Congress and given sweeping powers in May 2009, is also to question Chuck Prince, the former chief executive of Citi, as well as Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

The line-up suggests the committee is narrowing the scope of its investigation ahead of a final report to Congress in December.

Phil Angelides, the commission’s chairman, said he would ask Mr Greenspan, who led the Fed between 1987 and 2006, why the central bank did not curb subprime lending before the housing bubble burst.

Mr Angelides, a former California state treasurer, said: “The fact is that the Fed, as the main regulator, had the power to impose rules that would apply to everybody.

“We need to peel the veil from these events so that the American people find out what really happened.”

On Sunday, Mr Greenspan appeared to be clinging to his free market ideology, telling ABC News there remained “no alternative” to competitive markets in democratic societies and that regulators could not have foreseen the events that would follow the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

Bill Thomas, vice-chairman of the FCIC and the former Republican chairman of the House’s ways and means committee, said he would ask Mr Greenspan: “what did you know, when did you know it and if you didn’t know it, why didn’t you know it?”.

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*EPA may try to use Clean Water Act to regulate carbon dioxide

*6 dead, 21 missing in W. Va. coal mine blast

*Potential Risk to Blood Supply Probed

*Government a big commercial real estate player

*'Something's Got To Give': Massive Pension Fund Shortfalls Threaten To Bankrupt States

*US seeks maximum civil penalty against Toyota

*Watchdog Group Raises Alarm Over ‘Payday Loans’ at Mainstream Banks

*Kristol: "Better" for US to attack Iran than if Israel did

*Non-Citizen US War Vets Facing Deportation Despite Military Promises of Citizenship

*Indiana Joins Legal Challenge to Health Care Law

*Environmentalists blast Obama mining rule reversal

*Study: In social dealings, being older is being wiser

*Oil at 18-month high

*L.A. controller warns that city could exhaust general fund by May 10

*2 children killed in Mexico border state shootout

*VIDEO: First Lady says Presdient's home country is Kenya




earlier:

America's Space Program Almost Over

Shuttle Discovery blasts off this morning on the next-to-last shuttle mission ever. America's half century of manned space flight is about to come to an end. President Obama is scrapping manned NASA missions and the US will now pay Russia $50 million a seat for our astronauts to tag along

April 5 (Bloomberg) -- The space shuttle Discovery blasted off from Florida today on its next-to-last mission as President Barack Obama prepares to hold a conference on the future of U.S. space exploration in Cape Canaveral.

Discovery took off at 6:2 a.m. local time from Kennedy Space Center with six astronauts on board for a 13-day mission to the Earth-orbiting International Space Station. The shuttle, commanded by U.S. Navy Captain Alan Poindexter, is set to deliver a logistics module with equipment to be used for science experiments. The craft is set to return to Florida on April 18.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has planned three more shuttle flights before the program, which started in 1981, is shut down. Atlantis is slated to take off on its last journey on May 14, Endeavour is set for its final launch on July 29 and Discovery is to make its last trip in September.

Also part of the Discovery crew on this mission is Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki, who will serve as a mission specialist.

Discovery will still be orbiting Earth when Obama visits Kennedy for the U.S. space exploration conference on April 15. Obama announced in February a plan to end NASA’s Constellation program to develop rockets and vessels for a return to the moon by 2020 and instead focus on technology development and spurring private efforts to build spacecraft.

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*Jobless rate may rise as many are drawn back to labor force

*ANALYSIS: Want To Understand The Next Financial Crisis? Read This Account Of The Politics Behind Reform

*ANALYSIS: Robert Reich breaks down Greenspan, Summers, and Why the Economy Is So Out of Whack

*Attack on US consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan

*Michael Steele: Being a Black Republican chairman means "smaller margin" for error

*Obama mission: Saving Gov. Patrick

*Is the tea party brewing a revolution?

*Calif. climate law under assault in poor economy

*UK Housing Heading For A Double Dip


*South Africa warns against Terreblanche revenge

*Grounded ship spills 3km of oil on Great Barrier Reef