Seen At 11: Groups Of Adults Turn To Cooperative Households To Save Money

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — With the cost of living on the rise and showing no sign of slowing down, total strangers desperate to save money are moving in together.

As CBS 2’s Dana Tyler reported Tuesday, older adults and even families are using this method to pool their resources. And the new communities are redefining the modern family.

Two million Americans over the age of 30 now live with a housemate or roommate, and shared households make up 18 percent of U.S. households – a 17 percent increase since 2007.

READ MORE:   http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/03/26/seen-at-11-groups-of-adults-turn-to-cooperative-households-to-save-money/

Study: Health law to raise claims cost 32 percent

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new study finds that insurance companies will have to pay out an average of 32 percent more for medical claims on individual health policies under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

What does that mean for you?

It could increase premiums for at least some Americans.

If you are uninsured, or you buy your policy directly from an insurance company, you should pay attention.

But if you have an employer plan, like most workers and their families, odds are you don't have much to worry about.

READ MORE:  http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_HEALTH_OVERHAUL_COSTS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-03-27-07-01-19

IER President urges US Governors to Support Pro-Growth Energy Policies

WASHINGTON D.C. — IER President Thomas Pyle sent letters to all 50 U.S. governors this week, detailing how pro-growth policies for energy development on federal lands could redound to the economic prosperity of their states.

The letters represent the next phase of IER’s nation-wide strategy to educate policy makers and the American people about the opportunity for economic prosperity that more oil and gas leasing on federal lands would create. In each letter, Pyle references state-specific data concerning budget deficits and prolonged unemployment to bolster the case for expanded energy production on federal lands.

Citing facts from IER’s recently released report, “Beyond the Congressional Budget Office: The Additional Economic Effects of Immediately Opening Federal Lands to Oil and Gas Leasing,” Pyle challenged the governors that it is their “duty to fight for public policies that improve the standard of living” for their states’ residents. By embracing a pro-growth agenda for energy development on federal lands, the states can “create real opportunities for high-paying jobs and drastically increased tax revenues.”

READ MORE:  http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2013/03/21/ier-president-urges-u-s-governors-to-support-pro-growth-energy-policies/

Govt. Spends More on Disability than Food Stamps, Welfare Combined

In an eye-opening six-month investigation into America’s disability program, Planet Money reporter Chana Joffe-Walt uncovered a “disability industrial complex” fraught with fraud that churns out 14 million checks every month to citizens the government has deemed disabled.   

“Since the economy began its slow, slow recovery in late 2009, we’ve been averaging about 150,000 jobs created per month,” said Joffe-Walt in an Public Radio International (PRI) “This American Life” interview. “In that same period every month, almost 250,000 people have been applying for disability.”

READ MORE:  http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/03/25/Govt-Spends-More-On-Disability-Than-Food-Stamps-And-Welfare-Combined

Cyprus bail-out: savers will be raided to save euro in future crises, says eurozone chief

The new policy will alarm hundreds of thousands of British expatriates who live and have transferred their savings, proceeds from house sales and other assets to eurozone bank accounts in countries such as France, Spain and Italy.

The euro fell on global markets after Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch chairman of the eurozone, told the FT and Reuters that the heavy losses inflicted on depositors in Cyprus would be the template for future banking crises across Europe.

"If there is a risk in a bank, our first question should be 'Okay, what are you in the bank going to do about that? What can you do to recapitalise yourself?'," he said.

"If the bank can't do it, then we'll talk to the shareholders and the bondholders, we'll ask them to contribute in recapitalising the bank, and if necessary the uninsured deposit holders."

READ MORE:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9952979/Cyprus-bail-out-savers-will-be-raided-to-save-euro-in-future-crises-says-eurozone-chief.html

Cyprus banks remain closed to avert run on deposits

(Reuters) - The president of Cyprus assured his people a bailout deal he struck with the European Union was in their best interests, but banks will remain closed until Thursday - and even then subject to capital controls to prevent a run on deposits.

Returned from fraught negotiations in Brussels, President Nicos Anastasiades said late on Monday the 10-billion euro ($13 billion) rescue plan agreed there in the early hours of the morning was "painful" but essential to avoid economic meltdown.

 

He agreed to close down the second-largest bank, Cyprus Popular, and inflict heavy losses on big depositors, many of them Russian, after Cyprus's outsize financial sector ran into trouble when its investments in neighboring Greece went sour.

European leaders said a chaotic national bankruptcy that might have forced Cyprus from the euro and upset Europe's economy was averted - though investors in other European banks are alarmed by the precedent of losses for depositors in Cyprus.

READ MORE:   http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/25/us-cyprus-parliament-idUSBRE92G03I20130325

Big Five UK banks see profits for 2012 'wiped out'

The major UK banks saw a 45% rise in core profits in 2012, but that hike was wiped out by a mix of regulation and their own mistakes, a KPMG report says.

Its performance report looks at Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, RBS and Standard Chartered.
It says the banks' combined core profits last year were £31.5bn.

But this was eliminated by the "cost of past mistakes and increased creditworthiness of their own debt", the audit firm's report says.

"Dire"
 
This development meant that the major banks actually saw their statutory profits slump 40% on the previous year, at £11.7bn, KPMG added.

READ MORE:   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21916653