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JPMorgan Chase & Co. will pay $4 billion to consumers who were hurt by faulty mortgage underwriting, part of a larger $13 billion deal to settle the bank's liability in the collapse of toxic securities during the housing crisis.

The deal is expected to be announced this week.

NPR's Jim Zarroli reports that "a source familiar with the settlement says that as much as $1.7 billion will go to homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Portions of the money will also go to restructure mortgages. And in an unusual agreement the bank will use part of the money to fight blight in distressed neighborhoods by doing things such as tearing down rundown buildings."

Last month, we reported that JPMorgan had reached a tentative deal with the Justice Department to pay $13 billion to settle civil charges related to wrongdoing by some of its units during the housing crisis. The sum represents the largest-ever such settlement.

And last week, the bank agreed to pay $4.5 billion to large institutional investors who bought mortgage-backed securities whose risk they said JPMorgan misrepresented. Many of those securities were loaded down with subprime mortgages and quickly tanked when the housing bubble burst.

Reuters reports:

"The agreement is to require JPMorgan to spend the money by the end of 2016 under the watch of an independent monitor, [a person familiar with the deal] said. ...

"The total deal is also to include a $2 billion penalty and at least $4 billion for federal housing finance agencies under a previously announced agreement. The fact that the $13 billion deal would include $4 billion for some form of 'consumer relief' has been known for weeks. The details of how the $4 billion would be spent were reported earlier on Monday by The Wall Street Journal."

We told you this morning about changes announced in China regarding the country's one-child policy, as well as an announcement that it was ending its system of labor camps. But those aren't the only policy shifts by the Communist Party.

China also said Friday that it would loosen restrictions on foreign investment in e-commerce and other businesses, and allow private competition in state-dominated sectors.

The Associated Press says the changes "could be China's biggest economic overhaul in two decades." Here's more:

"Chinese leaders are under pressure to replace a growth model based on exports and investment that delivered three decades of rapid growth but has run out of steam. Reform advocates say Beijing must curb the privileges and dominant role of state companies they say are inefficient and a drag on growth."

Bitcoin, the virtual currency that exists as alphanumeric strings online, is on the verge of getting into politics.

The Federal Election Commission is expected to vote Thursday on a proposal to allow bitcoin contributions to political action committees — even as skeptics say that bitcoins could undermine the disclosure standards of federal law.

The FEC is acting as other federal agencies are also exploring the uses, and dangers, of digital currency. At a Senate hearing on Monday, federal law enforcement officials cited Silk Road, an online illegal marketplace that used bitcoins before it was shut down.

Edward Lowery III, chief of the Secret Service Criminal Investigative Division, told the panel: "While digital currencies may provide potential benefits, they present real risks through their use by the criminal and terrorist organizations trying to conceal their illicit activity."

Still, no one at the Senate hearing wanted to stifle virtual currency, and neither does the FEC. The commission was brought into the issue by the Conservative Action Fund, a political action committee that is seeking approval to accept bitcoins as contributions.

"Our interest here is we know this is happening; we're getting requests to make this happen. We really want to understand: How do we do this right?" said Dan Backer, the PAC's lawyer, at an FEC meeting on Nov. 14.

But the six commissioners weren't sure about nongovernmental currency, as commission Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat, acknowledged.

Planet Money

Adam Davidson Talks Bitcoin With Stephen Colbert

Many organic farmers are hopping mad right now at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and their reason involves perhaps the most under-appreciated part of agriculture: plant food, aka fertilizer. Specifically, the FDA, as part of its overhaul of food safety regulations, wants to limit the use of animal manure.

"We think of it as the best thing in the world," says organic farmer Jim Crawford, "and they think of it as toxic and nasty and disgusting."

Every highly productive farmer depends on fertilizer. But organic farmers are practically obsessive about it, because they've renounced industrial sources of nutrients.

So on this crisp fall morning, Crawford is practically rhapsodic as he watches his field manager, Pearl Wetherall, spread manure across a field where cabbage grew last summer.

"All that green material — that cover crop and the cabbage — all mixed up with that nice black manure that's just rich and full of good microrganisms, and we're going to get a wonderful fertility situation for next spring here," he says.

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