mlimber writes “The NYTimes has a story about how Congress has quietly begun to press for an equal number of women in the hard sciences and engineering under Title IX, which is ideal known for mandating numerical equality for boys’ and girls’ sports for institutions that accept federal funding. The problem is, the article states, it isn’t merely that women face discrimination from male colleagues, though that is often true, or that they are discouraged from pursuing these fields. Rather, women with aptitude in these areas often simply have other interests and so pursue their education and careers in other fields like law, education, or biology. Opponents of this plan, including many women in scientific fields, say implementing sex-based quotas will actually be detrimental because it will communicate that the women can’t compete on even terms with men and will be ‘devastating’ to the quality of science ‘if each male-dominated field has to be calibrated to women’s level of interest.’”

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Filed under: Products and services, Sprint Nextel Corp (S)

In what I think about a strange move, Sprint Nextel Corporation (NYSE: S) said recently that it would begin offering more hybrid phones that work with the older Nextel Direct Connect walkie-talkie feature along with having voice service available with Sprint’s current network. As many of you know, Sprint Nextel operates two totally incompatible wireless networks in the U.S. — a reason oft cited as the main cause of the failure of Sprint and Nextel to fully merge.

Perhaps Nextel’s network is the only reliable one for the much-needed walkie-talkie service that so many companies and industries rely on. If you’re in construction, manual labor or field work, you most likely have experienced Nextel’s walkie-talkie service at some point. But, it appears Sprint is indeed trying to keep its two networks separate instead of integrating both into a single, national network with a singular customer base.

Sprint deployed a replacement service to the Nextel walkie-talkie feature years ago called “Ready Link,” but the service did not catch on with dedicated Nextel subscribers or even new Sprint subscribers at all. In fact, I would go as far as to say the only worth the older Nextel network has to Sprint at this point is the popularity of its Direct Connect service. Other than that, why on earth would Sprint just kill the Nextel brand and product and put it to rest once and for all? It’s already written off nearly the entire merger price anyway.

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Filed under: Forecasts, Bad news, Economic data, Housing, Federal Reserve, Recession

So far, billionaire investor George Soros states he doesn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel; at least not yet.

Soros told Reuters Monday the crisis over Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) will not be the last, and that the wider credit crunch will continue to effect the already anemic-growth (or worse) U.S. economy.

On Monday, the U.S. Treasury announced a plan to shore-up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, including authorization to purchase unlimited stakes in and lend to the companies, aimed at stemming a collapse in confidence, Bloomberg News reported Monday. Soros said the U.S. Treasury’s plan, and if need be, the resources of the U.S. Federal Reserve, will keep Fannie and Freddie functioning, but that does not blot-out the main negative: the drag effect of home foreclosures on the U.S. economy, Reuters reported.

‘Most serious financial crisis of our lifetime’

Calling the year-long global financial market turmoil “the most serious financial crisis of our lifetime,” Soros stated the negative impact of foreclosures and the credit crisis is prone to increase, creating a deeper U.S. recession.

Economist Peter Dawson told BloggingStocks that “while Soros provided a candid description of current events, no doubt derived from considerable research, he may have been a little too stark . . . seeing too much of one side of the asset / liability ledger.”

“Both in terms of income and wealth, even after all the hits the economy and market has taken, the United States still has considerable resources at its disposal. The resources are there to solve the problems,” Dawson stated. “How those resources are allocated and who pays are political questions and will have to be resolved by the political process.”

Economic Analysis: Investor Soros says there’s more heavy lifting ahead concerning defaults and foreclosures, and we will have to side with his analysis. Economist Dawson, in FDR-like terms, does provides a ray of light, but also notes that at this juncture it remains an open question whether the United Says, politically, will take the substantive actions necessary to correct previous policy errors.

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jmichaelg writes “Michael Benson is proposing that NASA send the ISS to the moon instead of leaving it low earth orbit. (While we’re at it, we should re-brand it as the ‘International Space Ship.’) He points out that it’s already designed to be moved periodically to higher orbits so instead of just boosting it a few miles, strap on some ion engines and put it in orbit around the moon instead of the earth. That would provide an initial base for the astronauts going to the moon and give the ISS a purpose other than performing yet more studies on the effect of micro gravity on humans. Benson concludes: ‘Let’s start the process of turning the ISS from an Earth-orbiting caterpillar into an interplanetary butterfly.’”

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Gibson writes “A team of 57 engineers at NASA’s Marshall Spaceflight center feel that the Ares rocket is not the best solution for launching the new CEV. They’re currently working on their own time developing an substitute launch system known as Jupiter. The 131 page proposal, along with other information, is available on the project website. Proponents of the project say that it is ’simpler, safer, and sooner’ than the Ares project, predicting the ability for a return to the moon in 2017, two years before the current goal. Ares management has so far dismissed the proposal as a ‘napkin drawing.’”

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Filed under: Rants and raves, Scandals, Money and Finance Today, Politics, IndyMac Bancorp (IMB), Housing, Federal Reserve, Recession

Would it be superior if the government sought to stabilize interest rates at 5% (a general goal), or is it superior to change the rates willy nilly? Is it superior for people to know where they stand or is it impossible given the huge number of economic events that remain out of our control?

I was against the federal stimulus package and posted Fund roads & bridges NOT mad money stimulus and later Serious Money: Stimulate productivity not consumption contesting the federal governments economic approach, or lack thereof, under the current administration (White Home and Congress) and this thought came to mind along similar lines.

All of the interest rate manipulations of the past dozen years have overheated and slapped our economy around. Adding to that the funding of the war effort and the price of food and energy means that almost each American household has been left in a quandary.

The government seems to be very bad at planning, and slow to react, or at least perceive a coming storm. They do appear reactionary at ideal and everyone cheers when they find a way to stave off disaster for one more day. That’s the case this day as they take over IndyMac Bank (NYSE: IMB) and bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

All the while more capital is put into circulation. The perpetual increase in bad loans that overheated the housing market created phantom equity that’s disappearing as reality sets in. We are seeing that the only way the Feds cans keep the country from total economic collapse is to replace the phantom equity with capital that’s real, but of less value… because the printing presses are rolling night and day.

It might even be a positive thing if they’d to actually print the money because they could not print it fast enough in small bills, and we would have less devaluation than when currency is created digitally.

The daily sighs of relief continue to come but there is no escaping paying the price. The devalued dollar is simply a mortgage on the nation and other nations are receiving the interest payments and will continue to do so.

In the future will we be able so stabilize interest rates and the currency or can we only look forward to continued manipulation and exasperation at increasingly more rapid rates?

Sheldon Liber is the CEO of a small private investment company and the principal for design and research at an architecture & planning firm. He writes the columns Chasing Value and Serious Money.

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Filed under: Politics, Housing, Recession

Market absolutists’ complaints notwithstanding, the U.S. Treasury’s plan to shore-up Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) will stabilize the bond and credit markets, but it’s unlikely to sidetrack a mortgage system revision by the U.S. Congress, in one economist’s interpretation.

“[U.S. Treasury Secretary Paulson has acted, now is the time for [U.S. Rep.] Barney Frank to react,” economist David H. Wang told BloggingStocks Monday.

At issue: who pays for mortgage risk?

At issue is what constitutes acceptable mortgage risk by banks and mortgage lenders whose loans or asset-backed securities are insured by the U.S. Government or government service enterprises, Wang said.

“The way the system was configured, if banks and mortgage lenders made high-risk loans and won, they collected huge profits. If they made high-risk loans and lost, the government, or the taxpayer, bore the cost,” Wang stated. “This system is untenable.”

What’s one likely revision? Wang stated he believes a “two-tier mortgage system will emerge.” The first group will include loans/mortgages offered by banks “for specialized clients/situations.” This batch of mortgages and assets tied to them would not be backed by the government or by GSE insurance, he stated.

The second patch or tier of mortgages and assets tied to them would be backed by the government or by GSE insurance, but they will serve the public interest: the loans/mortgages “will be restricted to first-time homeowners and those with lower-middle / moderate incomes who will occupy their homes,” Wang stated. Wang added that he expects U.S. Rep. Frank, D-Massachusetts and chairman of Home Financial Services Committee, and others on Capitol Hill, to push for such new regulations, among other reforms.

The goal of the reforms, Wang said, “would be the continuance of private sector flexibility to create new products to serve a dynamic market” while restricting government insurance provisions to owner-occupied, first-time home buyers.

“The government should not be the backstop for creative mortgages made by banks and lenders to finance speculative, luxury condominiums in Las Vegas. Frankly, it’s a ridiculous situation where you or I as taxpayer have to bail out luxury developments and vacation home mortgages gone bad. That’s not what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were designed for,” Wang said. “If the banks and mortgage lenders want to speculate on creative, upscale residential mortgages or other non-conventional mortgages, they can, just so long as they bare 100% of the cost for loan failure, not the taxpayer.”

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