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To: RealMuLan who wrote (70495)	10/26/2007 11:07:02 AM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

These Tough Lending Laws Could Travel North Carolina's progressive protection laws for borrowers may become a nationwide model businessweek.com North Carolina has not had the same subprime grief as Nevada or Colorado. Nor is it known for the high-octane activism of California or New York. Yet as Washington lawmakers hash out how to deal with millions of potential foreclosures, North Carolina's predatory-lending laws are shaping the debate. The Tarheel State's progressive stance dates back long before subprime became a dirty word. North Carolina passed its first comprehensive predatory lending law in 1999 and has revisited the issue several times since. In August, Governor Mike Easley signed the toughest law yet. The North Carolina Home Loan Protection Act bans penalties for borrowers who pay off their mortgages early, mandates that lenders verify income, and is expected to limit the fees brokers collect for arranging certain high-rate mortgages. Only a handful of states, including Ohio and Maine, have enacted similar restrictions this year. And North Carolina's latest regulation is a model for proposals now making their way through Congress, including a bill sponsored by Presidential hopeful Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.). "North Carolina was at the vanguard," says housing expert Kathleen C. Engel, a professor at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in Ohio, who notes that more than half of states now have some version of North Carolina's original law on their books.

To: RealMuLan who wrote (70495)	10/28/2007 1:10:00 AM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Opec ‘to study currency basket for oil pricing’ Published: Sunday, 28 October, 2007, 07:39 AM Doha Time gulf-times.com CARACAS: Opec is likely to discuss creating a basket of currencies for oil pricing at its next summit due to the steady decline in the dollar, Venezuela’s Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez has said. “The need to establish a basket of currencies ... will probably be a point of discussion in the next Opec summit,” Ramirez told reporters on Friday during an evening event in the presidential palace. “The dollar as a benchmark currency has been weakening quite a lot and it creates distortions in oil markets.” The oil group is slated to hold a summit of the heads of state of Opec nations in November and a meeting of ministerial delegates in December. Ramirez added that world oil markets are well supplied with petroleum inventories above average, reiterating suggestions earlier this week that Opec is not likely to hike output to calm record-high prices. “We have enough oil in the market, the inventory levels are above the average of the last five years,” he said. Oil prices have soared in part because of a weakening dollar that tumbled in the wake of an interest rate cut by the US Federal Reserve. Officials from the US and China - the world’s two largest oil consumers - have expressed concern that current crude prices are too high. – Reuters