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Two U.S. housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Thursday announced huge losses in the fourth quarter of last year, fresh evidence of the still struggling U.S. property market.
Fannie Mae registered a net loss of 2.1 billion U.S. dollars in the fourth quarter last year, and requested an additional 2.6 billion dollars in federal aid, the Washington-based company said Thursday in a statement.
Freddie Mac posted a net loss of more than 1.7 billion dollars in the same period, and asked for an additional 500 million dollars in federal aid, according to a statement released by the company on Thursday.
The Obama administration earlier this month unveiled a report to Congress on reforming the U.S. housing finance market, aiming to wind down the two government-sponsored enterprises, while giving the private sector a bigger say on the multi-trillion-dollar market.
The two companies played a major role in the run-up to the severe financial crisis. The U.S. government stepped in to take over Fannie and Freddie in September 2008 and cost U.S. taxpayers multi-billion dollars, which has drawn criticism from various sectors.
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Thursday, July 26, 2012
Springhill Group Home Loans: South Korea Springhill Group - Insurance fraud | L...
Springhill Group Home Loans: South Korea Springhill Group - Insurance fraud | L...: http://mariajosefa40.newsvine.com/_news/2012/07/26/12968105-south-korea-springhill-group-insurance-fraud-zimbio-livejournal-tumblr The ins...
South Korea Springhill Group - Insurance fraud | Livejournal | Tumblr | Newsvine
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The insurance fraud in Changwon uncovered by the Financial Supervisory Service is both shocking and disturbing. It involved as many as 1,361 people, mostly residents of the South Gyeongsang Province city, who either posed as fake patients or exaggerated their illnesses. Collectively, they claimed 9.5 billion won from 33 insurance companies between 2007 and 2011.
At the center of the scam ― the largest ever in terms of the number of people involved ― were three unconscionable hospitals in the city, which recruited fake patients systematically in cahoots with insurance brokers and solicitors. They did this to increase revenue and ease their financial distress.
The main ploy used by the hospitals was to share a patient, meaning they would arrange for a patient to check in the three hospitals alternately for a different disease. For this, they faked his illnesses and prepared false documents. For close cooperation, they shared patient information among themselves.
This scheme helped patients pocket more insurance money. They all purchased multiple private health insurance policies before hospitalization. On average they received some 7 million won per person. In one example, a man in his 50s was hospitalized for a total of 564 days over three years, collecting 95 million won in insurance.
The Changwon case followed a similar one that took place in Taebaek last November, involving more than 400 people in the declining mining town in Gangwon Province. They got a total of 14 billion won in insurance payments. As with the Changwon scam, three financially distressed hospitals in the city played a central role.
The two cases suggest that insurance fraud is a fairly common occurrence in Korea. According to the FSS, the number of insurance-related crimes has surged in recent years. Last year alone, more than 70,000 people were caught for insurance scams, with the amount of false claims they filed reaching 423 billion won.
Yet the figure represented just the tip of the iceberg. A study by the Korea Insurance Research Institute estimated that domestic insurance companies paid a total of 3.4 trillion won to fraudsters in 2010, up 53 percent from 2006.
The figure accounts for 12.5 percent of the entire sum insurance companies paid to their customers in that year. According to the institute, these false claims had the effect of increasing annual insurance premiums by 70,000 won per person or 200,000 won per household on average.
Health insurance scams inflict damage not only on private insurers but on the National Health Insurance, which is jointly funded by taxpayers, corporations and the government. As insurance fraud increases health care costs, the government needs to crack down on fraudsters.
Yet the problem is that fraud rings employ increasingly sophisticated schemes to beat insurance companies and regulators. For instance, people involved in the Changwon case limited their hospital stay to less than two weeks as a longer one would be scrutinized by the National Health Insurance Corp.
To fight insurance fraud, insurance companies need to be more aggressive in handling suspicious claims. When they encounter questionable claims, they should investigate them. But they often choose to pay the claims and transfer the costs to customers as doing so is cheaper and more convenient.
The NHIC and the FSS are also required to enhance their skills to analyze suspicious claims and beef up their investigation manpower. But these measures alone would not be enough to curb the rising trend of insurance scams.
A more fundamental solution would be to enact a special law, as in many other countries, to deal with insurance fraud differently from fraud of other types. In fact, the FSS has already submitted a bill to toughen punishment for insurance fraud. But lawmakers have not acted on it for years.
The bill calls for canceling the licenses of insurance agents and slapping doctors and hospitals with heavier penalties when they are found to have been involved in a scam. It also proposes to grant insurance companies a limited right to investigate suspicious claims.
Along with these steps, the government will have to find measures to ease the financial hardship of many hospitals in provincial cities. These hospitals are in trouble as patients in their cities prefer big, well-known hospitals in Seoul. If local hospitals put up the shutters, the nation’s entire health care delivery system would be crippled.
http://springhillgrouphome.com/
The insurance fraud in Changwon uncovered by the Financial Supervisory Service is both shocking and disturbing. It involved as many as 1,361 people, mostly residents of the South Gyeongsang Province city, who either posed as fake patients or exaggerated their illnesses. Collectively, they claimed 9.5 billion won from 33 insurance companies between 2007 and 2011.
At the center of the scam ― the largest ever in terms of the number of people involved ― were three unconscionable hospitals in the city, which recruited fake patients systematically in cahoots with insurance brokers and solicitors. They did this to increase revenue and ease their financial distress.
The main ploy used by the hospitals was to share a patient, meaning they would arrange for a patient to check in the three hospitals alternately for a different disease. For this, they faked his illnesses and prepared false documents. For close cooperation, they shared patient information among themselves.
This scheme helped patients pocket more insurance money. They all purchased multiple private health insurance policies before hospitalization. On average they received some 7 million won per person. In one example, a man in his 50s was hospitalized for a total of 564 days over three years, collecting 95 million won in insurance.
The Changwon case followed a similar one that took place in Taebaek last November, involving more than 400 people in the declining mining town in Gangwon Province. They got a total of 14 billion won in insurance payments. As with the Changwon scam, three financially distressed hospitals in the city played a central role.
The two cases suggest that insurance fraud is a fairly common occurrence in Korea. According to the FSS, the number of insurance-related crimes has surged in recent years. Last year alone, more than 70,000 people were caught for insurance scams, with the amount of false claims they filed reaching 423 billion won.
Yet the figure represented just the tip of the iceberg. A study by the Korea Insurance Research Institute estimated that domestic insurance companies paid a total of 3.4 trillion won to fraudsters in 2010, up 53 percent from 2006.
The figure accounts for 12.5 percent of the entire sum insurance companies paid to their customers in that year. According to the institute, these false claims had the effect of increasing annual insurance premiums by 70,000 won per person or 200,000 won per household on average.
Health insurance scams inflict damage not only on private insurers but on the National Health Insurance, which is jointly funded by taxpayers, corporations and the government. As insurance fraud increases health care costs, the government needs to crack down on fraudsters.
Yet the problem is that fraud rings employ increasingly sophisticated schemes to beat insurance companies and regulators. For instance, people involved in the Changwon case limited their hospital stay to less than two weeks as a longer one would be scrutinized by the National Health Insurance Corp.
To fight insurance fraud, insurance companies need to be more aggressive in handling suspicious claims. When they encounter questionable claims, they should investigate them. But they often choose to pay the claims and transfer the costs to customers as doing so is cheaper and more convenient.
The NHIC and the FSS are also required to enhance their skills to analyze suspicious claims and beef up their investigation manpower. But these measures alone would not be enough to curb the rising trend of insurance scams.
A more fundamental solution would be to enact a special law, as in many other countries, to deal with insurance fraud differently from fraud of other types. In fact, the FSS has already submitted a bill to toughen punishment for insurance fraud. But lawmakers have not acted on it for years.
The bill calls for canceling the licenses of insurance agents and slapping doctors and hospitals with heavier penalties when they are found to have been involved in a scam. It also proposes to grant insurance companies a limited right to investigate suspicious claims.
Along with these steps, the government will have to find measures to ease the financial hardship of many hospitals in provincial cities. These hospitals are in trouble as patients in their cities prefer big, well-known hospitals in Seoul. If local hospitals put up the shutters, the nation’s entire health care delivery system would be crippled.
http://springhillgrouphome.com/
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
China’s Export Machine Goes High-End: tonybricks
- 1. Chinas Export Machine Goes High-End
- 2. From its sprawling manufacturing base deep in China’ssouthwestern Hunan province, some 100 kilometers fromwhere Mao was born, construction-machinery maker SanyGroup plans to take on the world. While workers in blueoveralls and yellow hard hats crawl over huge mobilehydraulic cranes and cement mixer trucks in a gleamingfactory, Sany President Tang Xiuguo sits in his expansiveoffice nearby, discussing the opening of Sany factories inBrazil, India, and Alabama, as well as the soon-to-be-completed $475 million acquisition of Germany’sPutzmeister, the world’s largest maker of cement pumps.The bespectacled Tang, one of four founders of the 22-year-old company, aims to lift overseas sales, now some5 percent of its $16 billion revenue, to up to one-fifth ofrevenues within five years.
- 3. The phrase “Made in China” summons up images ofcheap shoes, plastic toys, and electronics assembled inthe vast factory complexes of Foxconn TechnologyGroup (HNHPF). While China built its powerful exportbusiness—increasing 17 percent a year over the lastthree decades—on such light industry and electronicsassembly, that is fast changing. Rising labor costs, up15 percent annually since 2005, plus an appreciatingcurrency, are putting new pressures on China’s cheapmanufacturing model and driving textile, shoe, andapparel factories to close or relocate to Vietnam,Cambodia, or Bangladesh. “China’s share of the world’slow-end exports has started to fall. This reflects a shift byChinese producers into sectors where margins arehigher rather than a failure to compete,” wrote U.K.-based Capital Economics in a March 28 note.
- 4. Chinese-built ships, for example, dominated the globalmarket with a 41 percent share last year, well ahead ofSouth Korea and Japan, according to London-basedshipping services company Clarksons. Data from theInternational Trade Centre, a joint agency of the UnitedNations and the World Trade Organization, also showstrong gains in China’s global share of the markets forrailway locomotives and wagons, machinery, and industrialboilers. In construction machinery, Sany’s specialty, threeChinese companies (Sany included) now rank in the top tenglobally. Many of the new exporters are producing frominland China, rather than the coast, the traditional region formanufacturing.
- 5. Overall, the portion of China’s exports made up by heavyindustry, about two-thirds of which is machinery, has grownfrom 29 percent in 2001 to 38.7 percent last year,surpassing light industry and electronics, according toBeijing-based economics consultants GK Dragonomics.“They are making different products with higher technology,things they can charge more money for,” says AndrewBatson, GK Dragonomics’ research director, who estimatesthat the new industries can help lift China’s share of globalexports from 10 percent now to 15 percent by 2020. “Thetypical Chinese exporter is not a shoe factory in Guangdonganymore. Instead it is some kind of equipment or machinerymaker.”
- 6. The Chinese makers of this machinery are targetingIndia, South America, and the Middle East, as Europe,still China’s largest export market, struggles with its debtcrisis. Europe, the U.S., and Japan accounted for48 percent of China’s total exports last year, down from56.1 percent in 2003, with developing countries nowtaking the majority, says Louis Kuijs, an economist at theHong Kong-based Fung Global Institute. “We have anadvantage because our technology and our productslevel are more suitable for these countries,” says Sany’sTang. “And our price is a bit lower than otherinternational brands.”Policy makers have made upgrading industry a nationalpriority. Equipment manufacturing, shipbuilding, and carsare among the industries slated to receive $2.5 billionfrom the government
- 7. this year to improve technology and product quality.Mergers and acquisitions inside China and overseas arealso being encouraged Says Shao Ning, vice minister ofthe powerful State-Owned Assets Supervision andAdministration Commission of the State Council: “Ourposition is we support Chinese companies investingabroad.”While China’s new manufacturers are not competing indeveloped markets yet, already they arechallenging Caterpillar (CAT), Siemens (SI),GeneralElectric (GE), and other established equipment makersin places like South America and Russia. China’sconstruction-machinery industry is expected to overtakeJapan’s and Germany’s soon, making it the world’ssecond-largest exporter in the category, behind the U.S.
- 8. Winning market share in the U.S. and Europe could takeyears, in part because of concerns over Chinese quality(the crash of a Chinese-built high-speed train in Zhejiangprovince in July hurt China’s reputation as amanufacturer). Sany says it spent $240 million last yearupgrading its factories, including the installation ofwelding robots. As Sany expands overseas, it aims toimprove its products to match the quality achieved by itsnewest acquisition, Germany’s Putzmeister, which willshare engineering know-how and suppliers with itsChinese parent. Says Tang, “We know that ‘Made inChina’ doesn’t have a great reputation. We want tochange this through selling high-quality products.”
- 9. The bottom line: Chinese exports havebeen rising 17 percent a year on average.To keep that pace, China is trying to grabmarket share in high-end machinery.
Omaha Time Capsule: Church hit by explosion :south korea group of springhill
What happened in the Midlands on this day? Here's a sampling from the World-Herald archives.
ST. PETER'S CHURCH HIT BY EXPLOSION
March 31, 1936: Dozens of windows were shattered in surrounding buildings and a number of persons were knocked off their feet by a terrific blast in the boiler room of St. Peter church. Firemen think gas accumulated in the flue, ignited and exploded. No damage was done to the furnace and boiler. Carl Schrattenberger, engineer, who was firing the boiler at the time, escaped without injury. He was hurled 15 feet. Persons in the vicinity said a huge cloud of smoke rolled out of the chimney. The force of the blast was felt up to six blocks away.
1964: Representatives of city employees' unions said the proposed $338,000 increase in the city's pay plan was not enough. The unions recommended, instead, an increase of at least 10 percent. The proposal sent to the Personnel Board by Personnel Director Ernest W. Howard called for an annual increase of about 5 percent. It would give raises to about 80 percent of the city's 1,700 employees.
1987: People wanting to establish a day shelter for the homeless would be required to obtain a city permit under a proposal to be reviewed by the City Planning Board. The board also would consider a redevelopment plan for the Lackawanna leather-processing plant a 2420 Z St. The plan called for the city to provide a $250,000 tax-increment loan to help expand the plant. The homeless shelter permit proposal came from City Councilman Walt Calinger. He said the city needed to have some controls over the establishment of shelters.
1996: The gypsy-moth spraying in the previous May that cost the City of Bellevue $15,000 seemed to have taken care of the moth infestation. Only one male moth was found in traps set during the summer. "We're looking real good there," said Stephen Johnson, an entomologist with the Nebraska Department of Agriculture. Johnson said that if traps laid out for the next two years didn't contain any moths, the problem would be considered solved.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Tunnel linked to looming North Korea nuclear test? South Korea thinks so
By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services
Updated at 8:35 a.m. ET: Recent satellite images show North Korea is digging a new underground tunnel in what appears to be preparation for a third nuclear test, according to South Korean intelligence officials.
The excavation at North Korea's northeast Punggye-ri site, where nuclear tests were conducted in 2006 and 2009, is in its final stages, according to a report by intelligence officials that was shared Monday with The Associated Press.
Its release comes as North Korea prepares to launch a long-range rocket with an observation satellite that Washington and others say is a cover for testing missile technology that could be used to fire on the United States.
North Korea shows off its launch pad, satellite
Observers fear a repeat of 2009, when international criticism of the North's last long-range rocket launch prompted Pyongyang to walk away from nuclear disarmament negotiations and, weeks later, conduct its second nuclear test. A year later, 50 South Korean were killed in attacks blamed on the North.
"North Korea is covertly preparing for a third nuclear test, which would be another grave provocation," said the report, which cited U.S. commercial satellite photos taken April 1. "North Korea is digging up a new underground tunnel at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, in addition to its existing two underground tunnels, and it has been confirmed that the excavation works are in the final stages."
Inside North Korea: Closely watched rocket launch poses risks
Dirt believed to have been brought from other areas is piled at the tunnel entrance, the report said, something experts say is needed to fill up underground tunnels before a nuclear test. The dirt indicates a "high possibility" North Korea will stage a nuclear test, the report said, as plugging tunnels was the final step taken during its two previous nuclear tests.
A U.S. official told NBC News it was possible that North Korea could be about to test a thermonuclear weapon, dozens of times more powerful than the weapons they have tested in the past. The North has carried out significant research into both "boosted fission" and thermonuclear weapons development in recent years. However, without testing, the North could not be certain that such a weapon is reliable.
North Korea announced plans last month to launch the satellite using a three-stage rocket during mid-April celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the birth of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung.
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Casino cheats' camera scam discovered after 3 years
A three-year plot involving hidden cameras at card tables to help gamblers cheat the Kangwon Land Casino in South Korea has finally been discovered.
Local police have detained two employees of the casino after wireless cameras in two card boxes were found, the Korea JoongAng Daily reports.
Suspicion was aroused when a gambler at one of the casino's baccarat tables identified a pinpoint red light coming from a card box. Police believe that the cameras were recording the cards as they were dealt so that a member of the criminal gang could then relay the information back to a gambler at the table.
One of the men detained admitted that he had received a request to plant a camera in 2009. It is understood that the two men were paid thousands of dollars each time they installed a camera.
Police are now reviewing CCTV footage to track down others involved in the scam and, according to the newspaper, the casino has subsequently removed several executive-level officials in the wake of the discovery.
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