Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke revealed last week that
he was turned down when he tried to refinance his home loan.
According to Bloomberg News, Bernanke, in speaking at a conference in
Chicago Thursday, told the crowd, “I recently tried to refinance my
mortgage and I was unsuccessful in doing so.”
“I recently tried to refinance my mortgage and I was unsuccessful . . ."- Ben Bernanke
The audience reportedly laughed, and Bernanke responded: “I’m not making that up.”
“I think it’s entirely possible” that lenders “may have gone a little bit too far on mortgage credit conditions,” he said.
Bernanke also told the conference of the National Investment Center
for Seniors Housing and Care that the first-time homebuyer market is
“not what it should be.”
Bernanke was paid $199,750 annually as head of the central bank and
reportedly earned $250,000 in March for his first public speaking
engagement since stepping down in January.
He also reportedly received $1 million in a deal to write his memoirs.
A shipping container filled with approximately $140,000 worth of
medical equipment needed to fight the spread of the Ebola virus in the
West African country of Sierra Leone has sat untouched on the docks of
the country's capital for nearly two months according to a published
report.
According to The New York Times the shipment of hospital linens,
protective suits, face masks, and other items arrived in the port of
Freetown Aug. 9, but has still not been cleared by government officials.
The Ebola outbreak has killed over 3,000 people, with the vast
majority of deaths occurring in Sierra Leone and two other West African
countries, Liberia and Guinea. Local health officials have been
overwhelmed by the spread of the virus, and some say the case of the
delayed container is a vivid illustration of how government corruption
has undercut efforts to fight Ebola as well.
The Times reports that the shipment was organized by Chernoh Alpha
Bah, an opposition politician in Sierra Leone. A government official
told the paper that approval of the shipment may have been delayed to
prevent the opposition from scoring political points about their
response to the outbreak.
The paper also reported that the $6,500 shipping fee for the
container had not been paid by the Sierra Leone government, resulting in
three other other containers of supplies being kept at the docks by the
shipping company. According to The Times, government officials disputed
the fee before arguing that proper shipping protocols had not been
followed. An official at the country's health ministry said the shipment
should have been cleared with them first, before adding that the
supplies would be cleared "very soon."
Meanwhile, another would-be donor, an expatriate Sierra Leonean
living in Canada, tells the paper his shipment has been delayed for over
a month because of the government's unwillingness to pay a $5,000
shipping fee. In context, the government official told The Times that
the country has received over $40 million in cash donations to help
fight Ebola.
Sierra Leone is still recovering from an 11-year-long civil war, and
the country's health ministry was beset by corruption charges levied at
dozens of health officials over misappropriation of vaccination funds.
Vice President Biden on Sunday issued his second apology of the
weekend for remarks that offended allies that the U.S. needs in the
fight to destroy the Islamic State.
Biden apologized by phone Sunday to Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi
Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, saying he never meant to imply that his
country was supporting Al Qaeda fighters in Syria. Al Nahyan is also the
deputy supreme commander of the United Arab Emirates’ armed forces.
Biden made the remarks at a speech Thursday, suggesting U.S. allies
including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had funded
and armed extremist groups linked to Al Qaeda. The UAE was exasperated
and requested a formal clarification.
"The Turks … the Saudis, the Emirates, etc. What were they doing?
They were so determined to take down (Syrian President Bashar) Assad and
essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war," Biden said during the speech
at Harvard University.
"What did they do?” he continued. “They poured hundreds of millions
of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight
against Assad -- except that the people who were being supplied were al
Nusra and Al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from
other parts of the world."
The White House said Biden clarified his remarks Sunday and
recognized the UAE's strong steps to counter extremists and
participation in U.S.-led air strikes on the Islamic State, also known
as ISIL and ISIS.
On Saturday, Biden apologized to Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan for also saying during the speech that the Turkish leader
admitted his country made mistakes by allowing foreign fighters to cross
into Syria.
Biden also spoke directly to Erdogan -- to “clarify” his comments and
to apologize for “any implication" that Turkey or the other allies had
intentionally supplied or helped in the growth of the Islamic State or
other extremists groups in Syria, the White House said.
Erdogan denied making such remarks and said Biden would become "history to me" over the comments unless he fixed the situation.
The speech was an especially bad event for the vice president, who
has a history of gaffes and unscripted, problem-causing remarks.
Biden also took a question from a student who identified himself as
being the vice president of the student body by jokingly saying first:
"Ain't that a b-tch? … I mean ... excuse me, the vice president thing?”
In 2010, after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into
law on national TV, Biden was caught on a live microphone saying to the
president this is "a big f---ing deal."
Turkey, a NATO ally, is expected to define the role it will play in
the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State militants who have
captured a swath of Iraq and Syria, in some cases right up to the
Turkish border.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday criticized the
White House’s rebuke of his country’s settlement construction as
“against American values,” but praised President Obama’s decision to
launch airstrikes against the Islamic State militant group in Iraq and
Syria.
Israel came under fire last week after a Jerusalem city official
signed the final go-ahead for construction of a new housing development
in east Jerusalem. Israel says east Jerusalem is part of its capital and
considers Jewish housing developments there to be neighborhoods of the
city, but the international community, including the U.S., does not
recognize Israel's annexation of the area and considers construction
there to be illegitimate settlement activity.
In a striking public rebuke last week, the Obama administration
warned Israel that the new project would distance Israel from "even its
closest allies" and raise questions about its commitment to seeking
peace with Palestinians.
Netanyahu, in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” called the administration’s condemnation of the project “baffling.”
"It's against the American values. And it doesn't bode well for
peace," he said. "The idea that we'd have this ethnic purification as a
condition for peace, I think it's anti-peace."
However, Netanyahu said he supported the Obama administration’s
decision to launch airstrikes in the battle against the Islamic State,
and that Israel is ready to help the U.S. in “every way that we're
asked.”
Netanyahu said he believes the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or
ISIL, Hamas and Iran are all locked in a competition to be the dominant
militant Islamist group in the Middle East. He said the greatest threat
to both the U.S. and Israel is the possibility that one of the groups
could “marry their mad ideologies to weapons of mass death.”
"ISIS has got to be defeated because it's doing what all these
militant Islamists are trying to do. They all want to first dominate
their part of the Middle East, and then go on for their twisted idea of
world domination," Netanyahu said. “The difference between ISIS and
Hamas and ISIS and Iran and so on is they all agree that the world
should be an Islamist hill, but ... each of them wants to be the king of
the hill."
Netanyahu also spoke positively about his sometimes testy
relationship with Obama, saying he has a good working relationship with
the president.
"I don't want to say like an old married couple, but the president
said that we had-- he's had more meetings with me than with any other
foreign leader,” he said. “And I think you get to a point of mutual
respect. You cut to the chase very quickly. You talk about the real
things openly, as befitting real allies."
Good Old Democrat.
Vice President Biden on Saturday apologized to Turkey President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan for saying the Turkish leader admitted his country made
mistakes by allowing foreign fighters to cross into Syria.
Biden spoke directly to Erdogan to “clarify” comments made on
Thursday at Harvard University and apologized for “any implication" that
Turkey or other allies had intentionally supplied or helped in the
growth of the Islamic State or other extremists groups in Syria, the
White House said.
Erdogan denied making such remarks and said Biden would become
"history to me" over the comments at Harvard’s Kennedy School of
Government, in Cambridge, Mass., unless he fixed the situation.
The speech was an especially bad event for the vice president who has
a history of gaffes and unscripted, problem-causing remarks.
Biden also took a question from a student who identified himself as
being the vice president of the student body by jokingly saying first:
Ain't that a b-tch? … I mean ... excuse me, the vice president thing?”
In 2010, after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into
law on national TV, Biden was caught on a live microphone saying to the
president this is "a big f---ing deal."
Biden on Thursday also described Erdogan as "an old friend" but
suggested he said privately: “You were right. We let too many people
through.”
Turkey is now trying to seal its border.
Erdogan also said: "I have never said to (Biden) that we had made a
mistake, never. If he did say this…, then he has to apologize to us.
"Foreign fighters have never entered Syria from our country. They may
come to our country as tourists and cross into Syria, but no one can
say that they cross in with their arms."
He said Turkey had prevented 6,000 suspected jihadis from entering the country and deported another 1,000.
The spat comes as Turkey, a NATO ally, is expected to define the role
it will play in the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State
militants who have captured a swath of Iraq and Syria, in some cases
right up to the Turkish border.
This week Turkey's parliament approved a motion giving the government
powers for military operations across the border in Syria and Iraq and
for foreign troops to use Turkey's territory.
A day earlier, Biden and Erdogan held a telephone discussion on ways
their countries can work together to degrade and destroy Islamic State
and restore security and stability to the region, according to the White
House.
At Harvard, Biden said that "our biggest problem is our allies" in responding to the civil war in Syria.
"The Turks … the Saudis, the Emiratis, etc. What were they doing?
They were so determined to take down (Syrian President Bashar) Assad and
essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war," Biden said.
"What did they do?” he continued. “They poured hundreds of millions
of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight
against Assad -- except that the people who were being supplied were al
Nusra and al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from
other parts of the world."
The White House also said in readout of the Biden-Erdogan
conversation Saturday: "The two leaders reaffirmed the importance of
Turkey and the United States working closely together to confront ISIL,"
as Islamic State is also known.
The head of the CDC said Saturday that imposing a travel ban between
the U.S. and West African countries dealing with the Ebola virus could
worsen the outbreak that has killed over 3,000 people in five
countries.
"Though we might wish we can seal ourselves off from the world, there
are Americans who have the right of return and many other people that
have the right to enter this country," Dr. Thomas Frieden told a press
conference. "We're not going to be able to get to zero risk no matter
what we do unless we control the outbreak in West Africa."
Frieden added that a travel ban could make it difficult to get
medical supplies and aid workers to the affected regions in West
Africa.
"We really need to be clear that we don't inadvertently increase the
risk to people in this country by making it harder for us to respond to
the needs in those countries," he said, "by making it harder to get
assistance in and therefore those outbreaks would become worse, go on
longer, and paradoxically, something that we did to try and protect
ourselves might actually increase our risk."
Health officials have ruled out two potential Ebola cases in the
Washington D.C. area, with Howard University Hospital in the District
and Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in suburban Maryland confirming that
patients who had been kept in isolation did not have the virus. A
similar scare in New Jersey, when a passenger on a United Airlines
flight from Brussels fell ill, also turned out not to be the virus.
Frieden said Saturday that officials are “beginning to see some
progress” toward controlling the outbreak, “but it's going to be a long
hard road.”
Frieden said that they've already gotten "well over" 100 inquiries on
suspicious cases in recent months, with an uptick coming after the
Dallas patient was diagnosed. Federal officials have said tests have
been done on about 15 and all but one -- Duncan -- were false alarms.
Most of the cases don't involve travel to West Africa, "but we'd
rather have a wider net cast," said Frieden. That way "we're more likely
to find someone promptly if they did actually have exposure and they do
actually have symptoms," he said.
The virus that causes Ebola is not airborne and can only be spread
through direct contact with the bodily fluids -- blood, sweat, vomit,
feces, urine, saliva or semen -- of an infected person who is showing
symptoms.
The first person diagnosed with Ebola in the United Sates went to a
Dallas hospital last week but was mistakenly sent home, despite
revealing he was visiting from Liberia, before returning by ambulance
days later.
"There were things that did not go the way they should have in
Dallas," Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious diseases chief at the National
Institutes of Health, said Friday. "But there were a lot of things that
went right and are going right."
Texas officials now are monitoring 50 people, 10 of whom they
consider at high risk, who came into contact with the man, identified as
Thomas Eric Duncan. They've had to quarantine four of them, and even
had problems getting rid of the infectious waste left in the apartment
where the patient stayed.
Texas health officials say Duncan is now in critical condition.
Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins said during the Saturday press
conference that he took the four to a new home where they will be
quarantined for 21 days.
Jenkins, the county top elected official, urged Americans to show
compassion for them, saying they are deeply concerned about the public’s
health and are people “just like in your family.”
