News Bytes

Lectures on “How to be happy in the US”

Kai Blum, author of the German guidebook “Alltag in Amerika” (transl.: Everyday life in America) will give a series of lectures in various German-American institutions on the subject of “how to be happy in the US” in the second half of October. He offers practical advise for an extended or permanent stay in the US to everyone who is interested, and is available for questions after that. Find the dates for Munich, Heidelberg, Tuebingen and Stuttgart on his homepage. Kai Blum emigrated to the US in 1994. He first lived in Washington DC and later moved to Virginia and then South Dakota. In the late nineties he moved to Michigan where he works for a great PR-firm. He obtained US citizenship early in 2006.

Hackers break into Sarah Palin’s email account

Even hackers participate in the US presidential campaign. Some of them hacked into a private email account of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. They wanted to prove that Palin used her private account for professional purposes. According to American law, private email accounts may not even be accessed in case of a lawsuit. “Wired Magazine” reported, that among others, email conversations between Palin and her Lieut. Governor Sean Parnell. A list of all received emails also showed, that Palin received a substantial number of emails from her staff.

According to the reports the hackers wanted to prove that Sarah Palin used her private email account for official emails and government related correspondence. It is said that the account gov.sarah@yahoo.com has been deleted by now.

Financial crisis means end of investment banks

The pressure was increasing – now, the last two remaining US investment banks give up: as a result of the financial and banking crisis in the US, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs waive their special status and become simple bank holding companies, the US Federal Reserve announced in a surprising statement in New York. In addition, both banks will receive additional credit from the Federal Reserve during the transition period. With regard to the turbulent financial markets, this will provide them with some breathing room, as they are now being regulated by the US Federal Reserve and thus have access to new capital.

With this, the financial crisis puts an end to Wall Street’s great independent investment banks in their previous form. At the beginning of this year, there were still five of them. Investment banks specialize in lucrative transactions of securities of all kinds, as well as mergers and acquisitions of companies. They take high risks but often make substantial profits. The credit crunch got them into a lot of trouble, most suffered billion-dollar losses.

Obama in the lead again

Presidential candidate Obama is the winner of the financial crisis. According to quite a few polls, he could once again establish a clear lead over John McCain. Some polls even give Democratic Senator a lead of up to nine points over his rival.

However, he does need a substantial lead in order to be reasonably sure of victory. Even if many Americans don’t want to admit it in the polls – when they cast their vote anonymously on election day, racial prejudice may still play an important role. Experts suggest this may cost him between 2 and 6 percent of his lead in the polls.

On September 26, at 9 pm EDT, Barack Obama and John McCain will meet for the first of three televised presidential debates. More in our links section.