Word: alameda
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...keep up. "People who bank with us aren't going to bank with us because we're the highest rate on the street, but if we're too much under the market, at some point they'll leave," says Steve Andrews, president and CEO of the Bank of Alameda. The San Francisco Bay Area bank has been forced to keep rates artificially high, Andrews says, as one flailing competitor after another - IndyMac, Washington Mutual, Downey Savings & Loan - has pushed up rates in an attempt to attract deposits and stave off insolvency. "It's frustrating riding into work and hearing about...
...federal funds rate in mid-December in an effort to juice the economy by encouraging spending over savings. But that would probably also push down even further the rate at which banks can lend. "It would mean banks make a little less money across the board," says Bank of Alameda's Andrews. Not exactly a nice holiday gift...
...Rafael Martín, the mayor of the town of Alameda de la Sagra, says he's most concerned about the impact of the slump on his neighbors, some of whom are already in difficult circumstances because their mortgage payments have jumped while their shifts have been reduced. "It doesn't just affect the people who work in the brick factories," he notes. "It affects the truckers who transport the bricks, and the mechanics who take care of the trucks, and eventually even the bars where those workers go for a drink. It's like the fish that bites...
Residents of the county don't have to look far for the reason why. The outskirts of towns like Alameda de la Sagra are dotted with partially built developments where construction has been halted for months. The bursting of Spain's real estate bubble sent several major developers into bankruptcy, and halted new home construction across the country. The number of houses built in 2008 is expected to fall by 70% from 2007. That's also fueling unemployment, which jumped by almost a third in September to reach 11.3%, Spain's highest rate since...
According to Rafael Martín, the mayor of Alameda de la Sagra, the town's coffers have seen a drastic reduction in income - from an average of $140,000 in recent years to $35,000 - as building license fees have dried up. Although he is determined not to cut social services, he predicts that some planned investments will be revisited in the coming year. "Instead of building a new traffic circle or installing new streetlamps all at once," he says, "we'll have to spread them out over two or three years." But he's most concerned about...