This Week in ESG and Impact Investing

According to Bloomberg, "The Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating 14 corporations for possible accounting fraud and other crimes related to the subprime lending crisis, officials said.

Neil Power, chief of the FBI's economic crimes unit, wouldn't identify the companies, though he said the cases involve 'valuation-type stuff.'"

We warned about these problems in 1991. In 2001, we worked to create the first investment vehicle designed to address subprime lending problems. Fraudulent valuation is a key component in predatory home mortgage lending.

A key question concerns the lack of early warning from the Federal Reserve Board's Consumer Advisory Council: "The Consumer Advisory Council was established in 1976 at the direction of the Congress to advise the Federal Reserve Board on the exercise of its duties under the Consumer Credit Protection Act and on other consumer-related matters.The council membership represents interests of consumers, comm…

According to the Kansas City Star, "Douglass National Bank, the Kansas City area’s only black-owned bank, failed Friday under the weight of mounting loan problems. It will reopen Monday as part of a Louisiana bank.

The bank’s failure is the first in the nation this year and the first in the area since Superior National Bank failed in April 1994.

Douglass’ two Kansas City, Kan., offices and one in Kansas City will reopen as branches of Liberty Bank and Trust Co. of New Orleans.

Liberty is a profitable $327 million bank with 14 branches in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas."

According to the Kansas City Business Journal, "Troubled Douglass National Bank lost $1.3 million in 2007, the Kansas City-based bank reported in its latest filing with federal regulators."

As we noted yesterday (1/24/08) in an article by Marissa Fajt in the American Banker Newspaper ("Prospects Said to Be Dim for Struggling K.C. Bank")

"The bank had a deal to sell itself, but it fell through in October, and William Michael Cunningham, social investing adviser with Creative Investment Research Inc. in Washington, said he has been wondering since then if Douglass could survive on its own.

'Given the trouble they have been in and the problems they have — lack of income, a buyer backing out, and real estate issues — it just wouldn't surprise me if they had reached the tipping point..Douglass is likely to have trouble meeting its capital needs, because there are not many investors or investment funds looking to put money into a small minority bank.."

Following a reduction in subprime market exposure, ratings for the holding company that owns one of the largest Hispanic banks were upgraded today. Moody's "changed the rating outlook on Popular Inc. (BPOP) and its units to stable from negative. The company is rated A3 for senior debt and its unit, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, is rated C+ for bank financial strength and A2 for deposits.The outlook change follows Popular's sale of a significant portion of its Equity One mortgage and consumer loan portfolio to American International Group Inc. The outlook was downgraded to negative Dec. 24, 2007.

Moody's said the transaction will reduce the company's exposure to U.S. subprime mortgages and significantly strengthen its holding company liquidity position since Popular has largely financed its U.S. consumer finance business with short- and medium-term wholesale borrowings at the parent company level."

Of course, we still have issues with AIG, Popular, and the ratin…

According to the Washington Post, "Stock markets around the world plummeted today, as a financial crisis that began in the market for U.S. home mortgages spread to almost all corners of the global economy."

This challenges both theories concerning global equity market independence and equity portfolio risk management techniques that rely on global diversification to control risk. This is particularly troubling: there may be no safe haven for equity investors.

In 2006 and 2007, global economic activity was very strong. This was due, in part, to $458 billion dollars spent by the US, between 2003 and 2007, on the Iraq war. In an earlier age, stimulus of this magnitude would have all but guaranteed that the US would not fall into recession in 2008. To date, several factors have intervened:
The US has outsourced the Quartermaster function. Thus, critically important military support functions, including meal preparation and service, are now handled by foreign nationals. Economic st…

We attended House Budget Committee hearings today.

As the New York Times noted, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Mr. Bernanke, testified that "A recession is probably not on the horizon, but quick passage of an economic-stimulus package plus aggressive action by the Federal Reserve are the appropriate prescription for the ailing economy.."

Let's hope he is right on the first count. As Fed Chair, he is pledged to political neutrality, so he cannot be specific on the second. We, of course, have no such limitation. Our suggestions follow.

Any economic-stimulus package should target low to moderate income consumers. We suggest implementing a $30 billion dollar increase in food stamp benefits. Given new distribution technology (EBT), this part of the stimulus plan would hit the economy first and quickly and, as an added benefit, would go a long way toward beginning to even the income distribution in the country. Benefits should be expanded to include more and newer con…

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