November 18, 2009

Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan said today that regulators around the world should address the problem that sparked the financial crisis of the past two years by establishing minimum underwriting standards for all mortgages made in their respective countries. These standards "would be the true minimums that we believe must be observed to keep lenders from risking too much loss to both themselves and their customers," he said in a speech to a seminar on international banking and finance sponsored by the Japan Financial News Company. "These standards would not dictate every underwriting feature of a mortgage product; instead, they would focus on core practices of sound underwriting on which there is the broadest consensus." The Comptroller added that these standards should not be the same everywhere in the world. "Each country has its own unique credit culture and different approaches to mortgage financing, and what works well in one might not work well in another," Mr. Dugan said. "What I am suggesting, though, is that each country should articulate what those standards are for their lenders, and should report periodically on how well those standards are working." Full release.

The following is a statement from Matthew L. Myers, President, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids: Massachusetts today announced extraordinary results from its aggressive efforts to help Medicaid beneficiaries quit smoking by providing easy access to coverage for smoking cessation medication and counseling. Massachusetts reported that smoking rates among beneficiaries in its MassHealth program plunged by 26 percent in the first two and a half years after the state began providing coverage of smoking cessation in July 2006. Costly medical procedures among those who utilized the cessation benefit also fell dramatically. Among benefit users, there were 38 percent fewer hospitalizations for heart attacks and 17 percent fewer emergency-room visits for asthma symptoms in the first year after using the benefit. There were 17 percent fewer claims for maternal birth complications since the benefit was implemented, state health officials reported. Full release.

Think your kids won't eat healthy foods? Think again. A preliminary report of the Chefs in Schools Initiative by the Harvard School of Public Health, funded by Project Bread, proves that kids not only like healthy school meals, but actually eat more of the healthy foods than they would if they were eating a traditional school meal. The study sought to analyze the value of the Chefs in Schools Initiative, which was launched by Project Bread in 2007 with the help of the Office of Mayor Thomas M. Menino, Boston Public Schools, and the Boston Public Health Commission. The concept behind the Initiative was simple: over 74% of the nearly 56,000 Boston public school children qualify for free or reduced-price school meals, which include breakfast and lunch. Clearly, many of these children come from families that struggle to put food on the table, making these children especially vulnerable to hunger and under-nutrition. The Initiative sought to make cutting-edge nutrition available to these children as an ordinary part of their school day. Full release.

Hospice workers have seen patients hang onto life to tell someone they love or forgive them. Researchers from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing and the College of Arts and Sciences at Case Western Reserve University will study what drives the dying to resolve unfinished business. The approach of Barbara Daly and Mary Jo Prince-Paul from nursing and Julie Exline from arts and sciences is to relieve psychological distress by marshaling the patient's inner strengths. These qualities include hope, optimism and connectedness that they mustered before their terminal illnesses. While resiliency has shown to improve the psychological outlook of healthy people, researchers will find out the benefits in the severely ill. Researchers have avoided including dying patients in research, but a goal is to give hospice patients options to participate in research. With a National Institute of Nursing Research grant, researchers will establish the BEST Center (Building End-of-Life Science through Positive Human Strengths and Traits) to encourage research by recruiting and supporting faculty research. Full release.

Members of a food and agricultural coalition today issued the document "Importance of Trade for U.S. Agriculture" to underscore the positive contributions from trade and its importance to the economic recovery and food security of the nation. The coalition noted that exports are essential to the prosperity of U.S. food and agriculture. About 25 percent of the total volume of U.S. farm production is exported, with many commodities having a much higher dependence on trade. U.S. food and agricultural exports are directly tied to jobs here at home and create economic opportunities for American farmers, ranchers and agribusinesses. The coalition applauds discussions being held this week between President Obama and his Asian counterparts concerning the need for global economic growth and urges support for closer economic integration between nations through trade. Full release.

U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Chair Carolyn Bartholomew will join Institute for America's Future President Robert Borosage and Economic Strategy Institute President Clyde Prestowitz on a news conference call on Thursday to assess President Obama's trip to Asia. The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a bipartisan committee established by Congress, will release a set of important recommendations on Thursday morning to address growing concerns about the economic relationship between the two nations. Experts on the call will discuss the report and their perspectives on how the U.S. can use its relationship with China to create good jobs and build a new economy out of the ruins of the old one. Full release.

New game-changing research recently conducted by the Alliance for Excellent Education (The Alliance) and released today shows that the U.S. economy would grow significantly if the number of high school dropouts was cut in half. Nearly 600,000 students dropped out of the high school class of 2008 in the nation's 50 largest cities and surrounding areas. The Alliance's research shows that if just half those students had graduated they would have earned more than $4.1 billion in additional income. In addition, state and local tax revenues in an average year would jump by a total of nearly $536 million. "In these lean economic times, local businesses and governments are looking for creative ways to improve their financial situations," said former West Virginia Governor and Alliance for Excellent Education President Bob Wise. "These numbers clearly demonstrate that every consumer, business, and taxpayer benefits dramatically when we do what it takes to increase the number of students who graduate from high school with the skills they need to succeed in life. Indeed, the best economic stimulus is a high school diploma." Full release.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis today announced nearly $55 million in green jobs grants, as authorized by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The grants will support job training and labor market information programs to help workers, many in underserved communities, find jobs in expanding green industries and related occupations. "Today's announcement is part of the administration's long-term commitment to fostering both immediate economic growth and a clean energy future. It's an investment that will help American workers do well while doing good," said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. "These grants provide an immediate return, and they are part of a larger green initiative that will help lead to increased job placements and promote economic growth." The two categories of grant awards announced today are: State Labor Market Information Improvement Grants and Green Capacity Building Grants. Both will be administered by the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration. Full release.

Increases in deaths from opioid drugs such as OxyContin may be linked to the volume of coverage such deaths receive in the news, according to a study from Children's Hospital Boston and the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill. The study compared patterns of opioid deaths and patterns of news coverage between 1999 and 2005, during which time mortality rates from opioid abuse doubled. It found that spikes in media coverage often preceded an increase in deaths, suggesting that media coverage -- even when negative -- may have influenced opioid abuse. Previous research indicates that in more than 16 states, there are more drug overdose deaths than deaths from firearms or motor vehicle accidents, and the bulk of these overdoses are from prescription opioids. "The question we had is whether the news media is providing perspective on what's happening, or whether the media is inadvertently fueling the problem by advertising the issue," says senior investigator John Brownstein, Ph.D., of the Children's Hospital Informatics Program (CHIP) and Children's Division of Emergency Medicine. Full release.

The growing use of branchless banking, including mobile phone banking, is inevitable in most countries. But it's far less certain whether large numbers of the unbanked poor will use these alternative channels for financial services beyond payments, such as savings and credit. So says "Scenarios for Branchless Banking in 2020," a new report from CGAP, a microfinance group based at the World Bank, and the U.K.'s Department for International Development (DFID). UK Minister for Trade and Development Gareth Thomas today said: "The fact that many of the 2.7 billion people who currently don't use a bank will have access to branchless banking methods such as mobile phones and the internet by 2020 is a huge step towards financial inclusion for people in developing countries. "The poor are kept in poverty when they are financially excluded. This means they lack safe places to save money, the opportunity to invest in their future and cannot reduce the risk of their savings being lost in natural disasters. Full release.

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