It looks like there may be an agreement to bail out Wall Street to the tune of $700 billion. This means that the government is going to buy the bad debt from financial firms on the skids. But it faces a tough climate in the House of Representatives, where many don’t want to vote for it today. What will taxpayers get if the bill is given a green light by Congress? Aside from averting the collapse of the national economy, our national leaders say we’re getting securities backed by tangible assets—otherwise known as “homes”—that may turn a profit down the road.

 

Maybe there’s merit to this prediction, if the consolidation in the banking sector is any indication. A handful of mega-banks are gobbling up troubled financial firms left and right. The New York Times reports this morning that Citigroup has purchased Wachovia, with the help of the FDIC. Last week, the FDIC helped J.P. Morgan acquire Washington Mutual, and before that the company purchased Bear Sterns last spring. And Bank of America recently acquired Merrill Lynch. It seems the era of the truly behemoth bank is upon us.

 

Back in New Mexico…

 

To some it may be “medical marijuana” but to the feds it’s just plain ‘ole pot. Medical marijuana is now legal in 12 states, including New Mexico, but the federal government doesn’t make a distinction about the cultivation of marijuana, if the case of a Farmington native is any indication. Charles Lynch was convicted last month for operating a dispensary in California for about a year, and is facing a prison term between five and 85 years, even though the state of California and the city he operated from—Morro Bay—had “welcomed his with open arms.” According to the Farmington Daily Times, the U.S. District Judge who heard the case banned the term “medical marijuana” from use in the courtroom.

 

Helena Chemical Company is hoping to convince community members living near its plant in Mesquite that the company doesn’t cause poor air quality. Residents say too many of them have respiratory ailments and that the culprit is the Helena plant, which sells liquid chemical fertilizer and bagged fertilizer. The company has been cited numerous times since 2004 by the NM Environment Department for air permit violations, with the most recent being this past July for 11 violations. But according to the Las Cruces Sun-News, the company claims to have an independent study showing that the facility is not responsible for fugitive dust problems in the area. Traffic is the culprit instead, the study says, but local residents aren’t having it.

 

The Albuquerque Journal reported last Friday that voter rolls are up five percent in Bernalillo County. So far there are 375,244 registered voters in the county — 47 percent are Democrats and 33 percent are Republican. County Clerk Maggie Toulouse Oliver says they have a back log of 10,000 voter registration forms but that she’s confident they’ll have them all entered and ready to go on Election Day. The deadline to register to vote is Oct 7th at 5 p.m.

 

It was a sad weekend for many in Albuquerque. Long time Albuquerque City Councilor Vincent Griego passed away on Sunday. Griego represented the north valley for 24 years before retiring in 2003. He was well-liked, so much that City Hall’s chamber room is named for him. Then, as anyone reading or watching the news over the weekend must know by now, Paul Newman died of cancer on Saturday.