The Housing Bubble

Check this out:

Citi’s holiday treat: No foreclosures for a month
By Hibah Yousuf, staff reporterDecember 17, 2009: 5:18 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Citigroup will suspend foreclosures and evictions for 30 days, giving 4,000 at-risk borrowers a break during the holiday season, the company said Thursday.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/17/news/companies/Citigroup_mortgage_suspension/index.htm

——————–
Isn’t that nice? Christmas provides an excuse for not foreclosing.

Adding it all up…just a thought.

The cost of living is rising in many states due to hidden taxes, sur-charges and increases in services costs being attached to telephone bills, energy bills and additional fees that were once included in regular utility bills associated with owning or renting. In Wisconsin, hardworking ordinary people are paying for stupid stadiums that they didn’t want to paying District Attorney’s saleries through their monthly heating and cooling bills.

This isn’t counting rising fees from everything to include increases in auto registrations to battery and tire disposal impact fees. 43 cents here, $25 here, this crap adds up in the montly and yearly cost of living nut. An addital proposed snow tax removal here and a inner-city tire/road tax like the City of Milwaukee and all of this crap adds up fast.

The above items aren’t all inclusive of course but just a thought about the shift of additional “Fees”, surtaxes and service taxes above above and beyond property and income taxes are quickly piling up on j6p and family in this state. Make no mistake, all of these “Fees and hidden Taxes here and there do ADD UP.

What’s next and how are the “Fees, Surtaxes and service “Taxes” in your state adding up to your montly nut to the State, local Gov’t or businesses ?

State DA surcharge now hitting We Energies bills
By Thomas Content of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Dec. 18, 2009

47¢Monthly cost of the district attorney fee for residential customers. It will drop to 26 cents starting in July.

$1.07Monthly cost for small businesses. It will drop to 57 cents in July.

The state-authorized surcharge on electric bills to pay for district attorney salaries is now hitting utility bills of We Energies customers.

The Milwaukee utility is the last of the investor-owned utilities in the state to begin collecting the surcharge. The increase took effect with bills processed on Thursday, utility spokesman Brian Manthey said.

For residential customers, the fee amounts to 47 cents a month. The fee will drop to 26 cents a month for the fiscal year that starts in July.

Small businesses will pay $1.07 a month beginning now and 57 cents a month beginning in July. Factories can expect to pay $29.53 a month starting this week, and $15.83 a month beginning in July, the utility said.

*** Rush job rant — Once again not responsible for spelling, grammer or any resonable logic***

mikey

http://tinyurl.com/yl9xqk5

Top 7 insane homeowners association rules.
No more than 14 roses? No smoking in your own home? After a homeowners association told a Virginia vet he couldn’t hang a flag, even Obama sympathized.

1. Thou shalt not plant too many roses
A Rancho Santa Fe, California, homeowners’ association targeted Jeffery DeMarco for exceeding the prescribed number of rose bushes allowed on his four-acre property. When DeMarco balked, the HOA levied monthly fines, threatened foreclosure, and ultimately defeated DeMarco in court. After a judge ruled that the willful rose enthusiast had violated the community’s architecture design rules, DeMarco was forced to pay the HOA’s $70,000 legal bill — and lost his home to the bank.

http://www.theweek.com/article/index/104150/Top_7_insane_homeowners_association_rules

Triton: Merrill Stevens lays off workforce.
South Florida Business Journal

The Triton, a newspaper for South Florida’s nautical community, is reporting in an e-mail that the Merrill Stevens shipyard on the Miami River has laid off the remainder of its workforce as it tries to restructure financially.

“Yard owners were not prepared to talk on the record earlier today, but several sources at the yard confirmed the closure,” said the events e-mail from Triton Publisher David Reed.

The move would be a sharp reversal of the yard’s previous plans and another blow to South Florida’s marine industry, which suffered from residential projects taking over sites during the housing boom.

The South Florida Business Journal in October 2008 reported that the $98 million dredging of the Miami River would allow Merrill Stevens accommodate much bigger and heavier boats. As a result, the shipyard was planning a $40 million expansion to increase its workforce from 150 to 500 to work on megayachts.

Merrill Stevens’ Web site describes it as Florida’s oldest continuously operating yacht services company, since 1885.

The Business Journal called the company seeking comment Friday evening, but the extension for the officer on duty was not working.

Bollinger layoffs a possibility.
December 18, 2009

HOUMA — Bollinger Shipyards could begin layoffs in January at one of its Amelia yards, CEO Donald “Boysie” Bollinger said Friday.

Bollinger said the approximately 190 employees at the St. Mary Bollinger Marine Fabricators had been notified under the WARN Act, federal legislation that alerts workers of impending reductions.

He wouldn’t say how many workers could be affected. That would depend on how much work the company was able to contract, he said.

“We’ve warned everybody that was possible,” Bollinger said in a phone interview Friday evening. “We’re not trying to be vague, we’re just trying to be factual.”

As much as possible, affected workers would be absorbed by the company’s other yards, he said.

As of a Courier and Daily Comet tally in October, the Lockport-based company was Lafourche Parish’s fourth-largest employer, with a total of 2,100 workers at 13 yards in Louisiana and Texas.

The oil-and-gas service industry has been hit hard by a global economic downturn that has cut global demand for energy. As large oil companies have scaled back their drilling and production operations, that means fewer orders for new vessels and construction projects that keep workers busy in the Houma-Thibodaux area.

S.D. County jobless rate declines
Thousands stop looking for work

By Dean Calbreath, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Saturday, December 19, 2009 at 12:13 a.m.

The unemployment rate in California and San Diego County dropped last month, signaling that the two-year recession in the state, while not quite over, may be coming to an end.

In California, the jobless rate edged down from a revised 12.5 percent in October to 12.3 percent in November, according to data released yesterday by the California Employment Development Department. Other than a 0.1 percentage point decline in June, it was the first time the unemployment rate has declined since late 2006.

Locally, the rate fell from a revised 10.7 percent in October – the highest point since the Great Depression – to 10.3 percent in November, its lowest point since June. The national unemployment rate also declined last month, falling from 10.2 percent in October to 10 percent in November.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the drop is “promising news,” but added that with nearly 2.3 million Californians still unemployed, job growth remains his top priority.
…
Yesterday’s jobs report offered hints of the uneven nature of the recovery. Even as the jobless rate improved, the number of salaried workers statewide fell by 10,000. The reason the jobless rate improved was that nearly 20,000 people left the job market and are no longer counted on the unemployment rolls.

“Since the adult population has not declined, this represents a decline of adult workers looking for work,” said Michael Bernick, an employment analyst affiliated with the Milken Institute in Santa Monica. “It’s mainly a combination of adult workers deciding to go back to postsecondary education or stay longer in postsecondary education, and adult workers who have stopped looking at least for a time — deciding to retire, or parent full time or wait until the labor market picks up.”

During the last seven months, 308,700 people in California have dropped out of the labor force for similar reasons. As they filter back into the work force, the rate of improvement in the jobless rate could slow down.

Since California’s job market peaked in July 2007, businesses have cut more than 1 million jobs and the unemployment rate has more than doubled from 5.3 percent. Even if the job market has hit bottom, it will probably take at least until the end of next year for the unemployment rate to fall below 10 percent and until 2014 to return to its pre-recession levels, according to projections by IHS Global Insight, a Massachusetts-based economic analysis firm.
…
Because the state does not seasonally adjust employment figures on a county-by-county level, it’s hard to judge how well the economy performed last month. The county added 4,500 jobs from October, but 3,700 of those were retail positions that were filled as the holiday shopping season got under way.

Comparing year-to-year figures provides a better measure of overall growth. From November 2008 to November 2009, the county lost 43,300 jobs — a significant improvement from the 47,800 annualized job loss in October.
…

Despite all the carnage reported in the media, people are doing stupid things again here in Jax, FL.

Someone offered a house for 268K and it sold for 310K. A specuvestor paid 158K for a house, installed new floors, a roof, and kitchen cabinets, and listed it for 240K. Another specuvestor bought a home and listed it for rent way above market. Its collecting dust.

Over and above all that, buyers are jumping over each other to place bids on overpriced foreclosures where the seller offers to pay closing costs. FMac is having a lot of success attracting bids using that pricing scheme.

Never underestimate stupid.

The Final Arbiter ~ American Purgatory
By G. Simmons and Brett Buchanan

Are financial markets a direct reflection of the overall health of a nation? I wish they were not, but I fear they are.

I wonder at times if our nation has entered a state of purgatory – all of us mulling around in the waiting room to Hell, anxiously counting the minutes until the grim reaper saunters through the door sickle in hand his mission to send us off to eternal damnation. Unfortunately, there is little time to close this door so that we may stave off this potential fate that looms so near. What we need to alter this course is a procession of men who possess moral fortitude and common sense, men of rationality and reason. Men of action who will set in motion the dismantling of institutions that bleed this nation dry.

http://realityarbiter.com/2009/12/american-purgatory/#more-478

Major shoe-shine boy moment duly noted:

* PAGE ONE
* DECEMBER 19, 2009

Gold Is the New Tupperware, and You’re Invited to the Party
It’s Much More Fun Than a Pawnshop; the Cash Is Only So-So but Comes in Handy

By KELLY EVANS

ROWAYTON, Conn. — The 1950s were big for Tupperware parties. The 1970s were hot for Mary Kay cosmetics. As this decade hobbles to a close, a new kind of social gathering is invading America’s living rooms: the gold party.

Shannan DeCesare, 40 years old, brought four gold chains, two unloved bracelets, some earrings that had lost their mates and a couple of other old pieces to her neighbor’s house here last week. Minutes later, she was showing off a check for $610. “Merry Christmas to me!” she exclaimed amid applause from the small group of women clustered around host Christine Smith’s dining-room table. “Don’t tell my husband,” she joked, as she pondered how she might spend the loot.

Gold is above $1,110 an ounce

Worries about inflation have pushed gold prices above $1,110 an ounce, up 50% from a year ago. And many people stung by the weak economy are looking for discreet ways to raise extra cash without sneaking down to the pawnshop.

As a result, gold parties are booming, creating opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs—and a new worry for regulators. Typically, small companies promote the parties through word of mouth or by advertising in communities likely to produce plenty of sellers. The companies provide a specialist to value sellers’ items, and pay the host a cut of about 10% of proceeds.
…

Last week, I made a comment about gold parties today being like tupperware parties in the 70s.

I see this in the WSJ this am: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126118451895697969.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories

guess they are reading ben’s blog. And where’s my cut?

Subprime Sam’s efforts to debauch private mortgage lenders’ underwriting standards are working. The race to the bottom that helped inflate the largest housing bubble in human history is back on again!

* The Wall Street Journal
* DECEMBER 19, 2009

Down-Payment Standards Eased
By RUTH SIMON

Some mortgage insurers and lenders are beginning to relax their down-payment requirements, in a sign of increased confidence in the housing market.

The changes, which are being done on a market-by-market basis, mean buyers in some parts of the country can now borrow 95% instead of 90% of a property’s value. Until recently, mortgage companies had tighter standards for these markets because of falling home prices.
…
…the latest moves, while modest, are an indication that some mortgage companies believe the worst home-price declines are over — at least in certain parts of the country — and that prices are likely to stabilize or fall slightly over the coming year.

A rosier view of the housing market isn’t the only factor driving the changes. Mortgage insurers also are seeking to regain market share from the Federal Housing Administration.

New insurance written by private mortgage insurers dropped by nearly 60% in the first nine months of 2009, compared with the same period a year ago, according to Inside Mortgage Finance. Borrowers without sufficient funds for a 20% down payment have been flocking to the FHA, which lends to people with as little as a 3.5% down payment.

“To have any presence in the mortgage market, the mortgage insurers have to be more flexible,” said Guy Cecala, editor of Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade publication. The mortgage insurers had gotten so strict, he noted, that their standards were tougher than those of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
…

Looks like health care will pass. Question is the government is to require everyone purchase insurance. Will not that in its self make this bill be tide up in court for many years on constitutional grounds?

What again is the argument against reinstating the Glass-Steagall Act, which put a firewall between lending and gambling activities? The banking system worked just fine until the rules separating depository institution operations from Wall Street casino operations were scrapped.

But it would also limit crony capitalism opportunities for the Dodds and Franks of the world, and would curtail the almighty Fed’s power, so please forget that I suggested this.

* The Wall Street Journal
* OPINION
* DECEMBER 18, 2009, 9:09 P.M. ET

Not All Banks Are Created Alike
Only a few institutions make large trading profits. They should be regulated differently.

By ROBERT G. WILMERS

Congress is moving rapidly toward new financial-services regulation, focused on limiting the sort of “systemic risk” said to have helped bring on the current recession. But we are also in a period where there is great concern about the limited availability of credit to fund companies whose growth could bring down the country’s persistent high unemployment.

Any new regulation of the financial industry must distinguish between firms engaged primarily in speculative trading and lenders linked to the real economy of Main Street. The great danger is that regulation of the former might inadvertently strangle the latter.

Today, not all institutions that call themselves banks, or bank holding companies, operate in similar ways. Traditionally, banks take deposits and make loans to small and mid-sized businesses which, if successful, generate jobs. This sort of banking has long been highly regulated—indeed, more than 4% of many banks’ expenses are devoted to regulatory compliance.

In addition, these traditional banks have been self-insured through payments they make to cover the cost of Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insurance. Unfortunately, much of this oversight did not extend to institutions such as Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, AIG and others—whose activities did so much to bring on our financial crisis.

The big firms that played a central role in that meltdown, and many others that continue to dominate the financial services industry today, derive far less of their income from deposits and lending than do Main Street banks. Instead, they engage in a range of quite different activities, including trading in loans that others have generated, speculation in stocks and bonds and exotic derivatives.

In fact, 90% of all trading revenues earned by bank holding companies is concentrated in just five firms—Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley. These are the institutions showing the renewed profitability that has attracted so much public comment. But much of this improvement comes from trading and speculation. The vast majority of American banks don’t do either.
…

ITEM: Americans are increasing their personal savings and as a result the sales of imported goods are decreasing. This means that the rest of the world has fewer US dollars to spend on, among other things, US Treasuries.

< You tight-fisted consumers are changing the money lending dynamics! China and other big players have fewer dollars to lend the United States and the U.S. cannot force foreigners to loan to us.

Watch for a big push to get Americans to put their savings into U.S. Bonds.

Henry Ford said on February 11, 1934:

“Let them fail; let everybody fail! I made my fortune when I had nothing to start with, by myself and my own ideas. Let other people do the same thing. If I lose everything in the collapse of our financial structure, I will start in at the beginning and build it up again.”

Volumes are written daily on what ‘must’ be done to save this or that, simple fact is… Everyone is not a winner baby!

We’re off to Skaneateles and Rochester for the holidays today. I’m looking forward to a little time with family and drinking with friends (we’ll actually have babysitters!). I’m sure there will be many “we just bought a house” conversations with friends, and many “why haven’t you bought a house?” conversations with family.

Renovating doesn’t pay off like it used to.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Home remodelers are getting less bang for their bucks. For the fourth straight year, renovation jobs have added less to resale values relative to their costs, according to an annual Remodeling Cost vs. Value Report released this week by the National Association of Realtors.

The average remodeling job cost $50,908 in 2009 and added $32,497 to the value of the home, a ratio of 63.8%. That was down from a cost-to-value ratio of 67.3% in 2008, when the average was $49,866 and the added value was $33,568.

One common renovation, a mid-priced bath remodel, for example, runs an average of $16,142 and adds only $11,454 to the resale value of a house — recouping just 71% of its cost. In 2008, the same job cost less — $15,899 — and typically added $11,857 to the home’s value, recouping 74.6%.

The most financially successful jobs are smaller-scale, lower-cost renovations that improve the exterior appearance of homes. In this down real estate market, curb appeal is king.

“Once again, this year’s report highlights the importance of a home’s first impression,” said NAR President Vicki Cox Golder, owner of Vicki L. Cox & Associates in Tucson, Ariz.

Ron Phipps, a real estate broker in Rhode Island, said how the house looks from the outside is more important than ever.

“If you’re driving down the street and the house doesn’t have great appeal, it doesn’t matter how nice it is inside,” he said.

India Housing to Escape Dubai’s Collapse, Mistry Says (Update1)

(Bloomberg) — India’s property market, where prices have risen as much as 29 percent in major cities, will escape the kind of collapse that afflicted Dubai, said Keki Mistry, incoming head of the nation’s biggest mortgage lender.

“Dubai was very different from India,” Mistry, who was appointed on Dec. 4 as chief executive officer of Housing Development Finance Corp., said in a Bloomberg-UTV interview. In “India, the property market is largely end-user based; in Dubai, the property market is largely investor based.”

Central banks and governments across Asia have been taking steps to rein in property prices this year on concern speculative money inflows will generate asset bubbles. Some areas in China and India may become the “next Dubai” because of debt-fueled property investment, fund manager Mark Mobius said this month, citing Mumbai and Shanghai.

“It wouldn’t be a country-wide situation; isolated pockets of disaster because of over-spending and over-leveraging,” Mobius, who oversees more than $30 billion of emerging-market assets at Templeton Asset Management Ltd., said in a Dec. 2 interview with Bloomberg TV in Hong Kong.

Dubai, the second-biggest sheikhdom in the United Arab Emirates, went from being the world’s best-performing property market to the worst within a year, underscoring the challenge central bankers face in ensuring rapid credit growth doesn’t lead to bubbles.

“Even as we have had to spend our way out of this recession in the near term, we have begun to make the hard choices necessary to get our country on a more stable fiscal footing in the long run.”
-President Barack Obama December 8, 2009

I admit I do pick on this empty suit, but his writers make it so easy.

“Part of the problem is just filtering out the noise in the system. Probably 99% of what you heard is just noise - distracting information, misunderstood phenomena, and dubious data. When you read the commentariat…the pundits…the newscasters, economists, and analysts who are telling you what is happening and what lies ahead, you have to remember that most of them had no idea what was happening two years ago. Now, they have even less of an idea of what is happening”.

~ B.Bonner

The WSJ reports:

“A growing number of people in Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada, where home prices have plunged, are considering what it known as a ’strategic default,’ walking away from their mortgages not out of necessity but because they believe it is in their best financial interests.”

Some 5.5 million people have houses that are 20% or more underwater. One of them, spotlighted in the WSJ, had a house worth $230,000 and a mortgage of $318,000.

Here is one way the problem of too much debt is solved…not by paying it off, but by writing it off. The homeowner in this situation can improve his balance sheet - wiping out $88,000 worth of debt - without lifting a finger. Logically, he could go to the lender and cut a deal. But lenders won’t want to get their customers started on bad habits. So, he will just cease paying his mortgage. His credit rating will suffer. But what does he care? He’s fed up with debt.

The house will be seized by the bank. Then, it will come out of the shadow inventory and into the light of the active housing market - pushing prices down.

The good ol’ WSJ has noticed the big shift in attitudes. No longer able to afford spending, Americans are deciding that spending isn’t cool.

“We seem to be at a cultural inflection point that we haven’t seen since WWII,” said one market researcher.

“Their value system is shifting from aspiring to material wealth to aspiring to a better life,” said another one.

~Clipped from the daily reckoning.

We own 3 Saabs and two of them are convertibles. I bought them used. The Saabs lose their value rapidly and are just as much fun to drive as the full size BMW or Audi convertibles for almost one third the price. They give good gas mileage around 28 to 30 on the highways. I was able to buy 3 year old Saabs that sold new for 42K with 40K miles for less than 10K. I will be sad to see this car company go under.

GM to Shut Saab Unit, Quirky Icon of the Road

General Motors Co. said it would wind down its Saab business, marking the near-certain death of one of Sweden’s most storied companies and a car brand with a small but devoted following.

GM had given itself a final chance to complete a sale of the quirky 62-year-old luxury auto maker by year’s end. But it said unsolvable issues arose in late-stage negotiations Friday to sell the company to Spyker Cars NV, a Dutch maker of ultraluxury sports cars.

It is the second time this year that GM’s plans to sell an ailing brand have collapsed. Its efforts to sell Saturn also failed, and the company reversed itself on plans to sell its European car maker, Opel.

While bidders could still emerge for Saab’s remaining assets, including two yet-to-be-launched models, GM’s announcement ushers the car manufacturer spawned from a Swedish plane maker to the junkyard along with Saturn and Pontiac.

In the end, Saab proved to have too small a following to attract large auto makers looking for scale in a global recession.

http://thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=5787#comments

Max Keiser chat’s with Edward Harrison, nothing much new, but apparently the difficulties in Greece are weighing one a few minds.

http://maxkeiser.com/

Yikes it’s almost 2pm here in NJ and only 87 posts? I thought the snow storm on the eastern seaboard would have kept folks at home and blogging. I hope no one is out shopping to keep the economy up?

Meanwhile Happy FDIC Friday shutdowns:

7 Banks Fail Including UmbrellaBank’s Parent and Imperial Capital

It looks like the total number of bank failures for 2009 will be 140. Since today is the last non-holiday Friday for 2009, the FDIC will probably take a break for the rest of 2009. Seven banks failed today, and several were sizable banks. The FDIC wasn’t able to find buyers for 3 of these banks. Consequently, only the insured deposits are being covered. The $250K basic coverage limit does seem to be keeping the uninsured deposits down. The FDIC estimates only $3.2 million out of about $960 million in total deposits of those 3 banks were uninsured.

Three of the closed banks were sizable and offered accounts nationwide on the internet. These include:

* New South Federal Savings Bank, Irondale, AL (parent of UmbrellaBank)
* Imperial Capital Bank, La Jolla, CA
* First Federal Bank of California, Santa Monica, CA (operated FirstFedDirect.com)

The FDIC was able to find buyers for all of these three banks.

Yikes it’s almost 2pm here in NJ and only 87 posts? I thought the snow storm on the eastern seaboard would have kept folks at home and blogging. I hope no one is out shopping to keep the economy up?

Meanwhile Happy FDIC Friday shutdowns:

7 Banks Fail Including UmbrellaBank’s Parent and Imperial Capital

It looks like the total number of bank failures for 2009 will be 140. Since today is the last non-holiday Friday for 2009, the FDIC will probably take a break for the rest of 2009. Seven banks failed today, and several were sizable banks. The FDIC wasn’t able to find buyers for 3 of these banks. Consequently, only the insured deposits are being covered. The $250K basic coverage limit does seem to be keeping the uninsured deposits down. The FDIC estimates only $3.2 million out of about $960 million in total deposits of those 3 banks were uninsured.

Three of the closed banks were sizable and offered accounts nationwide on the internet. These include:

* New South Federal Savings Bank, Irondale, AL (parent of UmbrellaBank)
* Imperial Capital Bank, La Jolla, CA
* First Federal Bank of California, Santa Monica, CA (operated FirstFedDirect)

The FDIC was able to find buyers for all of these three banks.

Ouch. From my former hunting (rather skiing) grounds. Park City.
Just glanced at vacation rental by owner.
Properties large and small, most booked for less than 30% of the winter. (Some of these may also rent via a property management firm, but most calendars seem having been updated recently. Most management firms do not allow the owner to rent out himself.)

…[Early this year, two of these firms disappeared tens of millions in rental income, instead of paying the owners]….
Vacancies at Christmas and Sundance. Some price competition: half off during Sundance, by private owner with a huge mountain home. Ouch. A friend still has not rented out her place. It’s been empty since spring.

Oh, and I don’t know how reliable foreclosure dot com is. But just the number of listings has tripled for Summit County (Park City) and quintupled for Wasatch next door, in the last three months. Most listings added in October and November.

I just don’t know, but this whole second home industry seems like a virtual reality to me, and a tremendously stupid idea. Wasting resources for lodging that no one needs. Tens of thousands of units mostly empty. See Snowmass and so many others.

Thousands plunged in Christmas holiday chaos as travel group goes bust
Daily Mail Reporter

Ticket-holders were turned away from airports and thousands more had their Christmas plans thrown into disarray today after it was announced a travel group had gone into administration.

Allbury Travel Group, which includes the Libra Holidays, Argo Holidays and JetLife brands, ceased trading with 100 holidaymakers currently abroad and about 4,000 customers with forward bookings, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said.

The Hertfordshire-based firm operated air package holidays and flights to Greece, Cyprus and Egypt from several British airports, including Gatwick, Manchester, Newcastle, Birmingham and Leeds Bradford.
Enlarge Aphrodite Hills Resort, Cyprus

Aphrodite Hills Resort in Cyprus was one of the destinations available - until last night - through Allbury Travel Group

Travellers turned up expecting to fly out for their Christmas breaks today to be told the company had entered administration at midnight.

Laura Tardelli, 35, from Walthamstow, east London, saw her week-long break to Taba Heights in Egypt ruined after she arrived with a friend at Gatwick Airport today.

She said: ‘My friend and I turned up at the check-in desk to be told there was a problem. We at first thought it was to do with the weather but the lady explained that the company had gone into administration at midnight.

Jetlife was one of three brands operated by the travel group

‘There are around 4,000 people with forward bookings and about 100 abroad who probably don’t even know about this. We were told they would have to buy another ticket to get back.

‘I feel totally miffed. The company must have known before midnight that it was going into administration. There’s been no emails, no letters, nothing from them to let us know.

From today’s detnews DOT com: Judge refuses to halt sale of the Pontiac Silverdome. He says residents had their hearing. The Silverdome was built in 1975 and many residents were furious when it sold for what amounted to 1 cent on the dollar of its original cost of $55.7 million. IMHO whoever is willing to pay even that little for it is paying way too much for it.

Published on ShanghaiDaily.com

IT is getting harder for governments to buy United States Treasuries because the US’s shrinking current-account gap is reducing supply of dollars overseas, a Chinese central bank official said yesterday.

The comments by Zhu Min, deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, referred to the overall situation globally, not specifically to China, the biggest foreign holder of US government bonds.

Chinese officials generally are very careful about commenting on the dollar and Treasuries, given that so much of its US$2.3 trillion reserves are tied to their value, and markets always watch any such comments closely for signs of any shift in how it manages its assets.

China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange reaffirmed this month that the dollar stands secure as the anchor of the currency reserves it manages, even as the country seeks to diversify its investments.

In a discussion on the global role of the dollar, Zhu told an academic audience that it was inevitable that the dollar would continue to fall in value because Washington continued to issue more Treasuries to finance its deficit spending.

He then addressed where demand for that debt would come from.

“The United States cannot force foreign governments to increase their holdings of Treasuries,” Zhu said, according to an audio recording of his remarks. “Double the holdings? It is definitely impossible.”

From today’s detnews DOT com: Slow season for Great Lakes shipping winding down.
– Dan Gallagher, president of the Port Huron-based Lakes Pilots Association, estimated its 10 captains made 40 percent fewer trips this year than in 2008. “It’s been a tough year altogether,” said Gallagher, whose association’s members pilot foreign freighters as they travel through the lakes and toward the Atlantic Ocean.
– The members of the Cleveland-based Lake Carriers’ Association have about 65 US-flagged ships, eight of those freighters didn’t sail this year for lack of cargo, while others carried only a handful of shipments before they were laid up again.
– Imports and exports of goods such as grain, corn and soybeans will increase as credit becomes easier to obtain, Gallagher said. “It is all about credit,” he said. “A load of these products are millions of dollars, and everything is run by credit.”

Fujitsu staff begin walkouts over pay, job cuts.

Fujitsu Services’ staff are picketing at the company’s London headquarters today, in protest against pension cuts and compulsory redundancies set for the New Year.

Earlier this week, Unite union members at the firm voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action, after many Fujitsu workers expressed disgust at the services outfit’s proposed pay freeze and plans to lay off 1,200 staff.

Further stoppages are expected at Fujitsu over the coming weeks warned Unite, which described the strike as the first national walkout in the IT sector in the UK.

It’s expected that at least 1,500 Fujitsu employees will strike today. The company currently employs 11,000 people, who are based at sites including Bracknell, Stevenage, Manchester, Crewe, Belfast, Staines, Basingstoke, Wakefield, Sheffield, Solihull, Telford, Swansea, Slough, Lewes, Warrington, Cardiff, Londonderry, Bristol, Newcastle upon Tyne and London.

“Our members are clearly angry with the way the company has treated them. Their pay has been frozen, compulsory redundancies are being pushed through and their pension scheme is under attack. All of this is happening at a time when the company is making substantial profits,” said Unite IT and communications national officer Peter Skyte.

No matter a persons stance on ‘global warming’ the past week in Copenhagen was a colossal waste of time and money. The mere idea that the cast of buffoons involved could reach an agreement that would ’save’ the planet was completely ludicrous. What did come of it though was a commitment to endlessly waste billions, upon billions of dollars. Wonder who will benefit and wonder who will be stuck with the bill?

Castro mocks Obama visit to Copenhagen.
Dec 18

Obama Speech Without Teleprompter Provides Neck Workout

Veteran Cuban leader Fidel Castro on Friday dismissed US President Barack Obama’s trip to UN climate change talks in Copenhagen as a “show,” and complained that the world’s poor will shoulder the burden of any summit agreement.

Castro’s opinion article, titled “The Moment of Truth,” also criticizes the “fascist methods” used by Danish police to put down protesting environmental activists.

“It is already evident that a great catastrophe threatens our species,” wrote Castro, 82.

Perhaps the worst part of the summit “is blind selfishness of a rich and privileged minority that intents to impose the bulk of the necessary sacrifices on the immense majority of planet inhabitants,” Castro wrote.

He opined that “for the chiefs of the empire (the United States), despite their maneuvers and cynical lies, the moment of truth is arriving. Their own allies believe them less and less.”

In the article, which appeared in government-run media, Castro quotes at length leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who both spoke at the summit.

The former Cuban president, who still leads the Cuban Communist Party, earlier criticized Obama for accepting the Nobel Peace Prize and lashed out at his climate policies, accusing the US president of not fighting the “oligarchy of irresponsibly” who are opposing change.

“Obama is not ignorant. Like (Al) Gore, he knows the grave danger that threatens everyone, but he vacillates and is weak in the face of a blind and irresponsible oligarchy in that country,” Castro wrote in an editorial published December 9.

Is this a case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend even if he was my enemy?????

Storage Containers for sale. Pick up at depo or we’ll deliver to you. - $1300 (Delivery throughout the Inland Empire)
Date: 2009-12-18, 12:08PM PST
Reply to: sale-ensng-1516148018ATcraigslistDOTorg

New Housing, insulate the thing and you are done!

Sounds like the Keynesian faith that governments should use hair-of-the-dog stimulus to spend their problems away into oblivion is about to get its severest test.

December 19, 2009 7:54 PM
Kevin Hassett: Could U.S. story become a Greek tragedy?
By KEVIN HASSETT
Bloomberg News columnist

A Republican takeover of the House may be the only thing between the U.S. and the abyss.

The world economy shuddered recently as a rating company downgrade of Greek debt set off fears of default. Investors decided to beware of Greeks bearing bonds, and markets stumbled.

Article Tab : Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, center, speaks during an economic policy speech aimed to soothe international markets increasingly worried by the country’s ballooning public debt and budget deficit, in Athens, Dec. 14, 2009. Greece’s debt has soared to a staggering euro 300 billion (US$ 442 billion), and the country has a 12.7 percent deficit. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

While the economic data are showing signs of a recovery, there is a genuine risk that the book on this financial crisis has yet to be completed. We may not even have reached the climax.

Governments around the world have propped up their failing financial institutions with borrowed money. We used to have overleveraged banks; we replaced them with overleveraged governments.

Panics start small and spread. If Greece goes down, almost every Western government will be at risk.

The sad fact is that Greece is hardly exceptional when it comes to fiscal insanity. If the current Greek budget outlook proves to be accurate, then its deficit over this year and next will average a whopping 10.9 percent of gross domestic product. Small wonder that investors headed for the exits. A deficit that high could easily turn into a fiasco.

As bad as that picture is, it’s worse in the U.S. Our deficit this year, according to the latest estimate from the Congressional Budget Office, will be 11.2 percent of gross domestic product.

Syracuse University economist Len Burman, the modest and sober budget expert who was a top official in President Bill Clinton’s Treasury Department, told the Washington Post that according to a model he has developed to study the current situation, a “catastrophic budget failure” might happen.

Burman added, “I try not to get too depressed, because if I really thought it was going to play out the way this model works, I would just move to a cabin in Montana and stockpile gold and guns.”
…

Show Us the E-Mail
By ELIOT SPITZER, FRANK PARTNOY and WILLIAM BLACK
Published: December 19, 2009

WE end this extraordinary financial year with news that the Treasury is in discussions with American International Group about selling the taxpayers’ 80 percent ownership stake in that company. The government recently permitted several banks to break free of its potential oversight by repaying loans made during the rescue. But with respect to A.I.G., the Treasury should not move so fast. There is one job left to do.

A.I.G. was at the center of the web of bad business judgments, opaque financial derivatives, failed economics and questionable political relationships that set off the economic cataclysm of the past two years. When A.I.G.’s financial products division collapsed — ultimately requiring a federal bailout of $180 billion — those who had been prospering from A.I.G.’s schemes scurried for taxpayer cover. Yet, more than a year after the rescue began, crucial questions remain unanswered. Who knew what, and when? Who benefited, and by exactly how much? Would A.I.G.’s counterparties have failed without taxpayer support?

The three of us, as experienced investigators and prosecutors of financial fraud, cannot answer these questions now. But we know where the answers are. They are in the trove of e-mail messages still backed up on A.I.G. servers, as well as in the key internal accounting documents and financial models generated by A.I.G. during the past decade. Before releasing its regulatory clutches, the government should insist that the company immediately make these materials public. By putting the evidence online, the government could establish a new form of “open source” investigation.

Once the documents are available for everyone to inspect, a thousand journalistic flowers can bloom, as reporters, victims and angry citizens have a chance to piece together the story. In past cases of financial fraud — from the complex swaps that Bankers Trust sold to Procter & Gamble in the early 1990s to the I.P.O. kickback schemes of the late 1990s to the fall of Enron — e-mail messages and internal documents became the central exhibits in our collective understanding of what happened, and why.

So far, prosecutors and regulators have been unable to build such evidence into anything resembling a persuasive case against any financial institution. Most recently, a jury acquitted Bear Stearns employees of fraud related to the collapse of the subprime mortgage market, in part because available e-mail messages suggested the employees had done nothing wrong.

Perhaps A.I.G.’s employees would also be judged not guilty. But we would like to see the record to find out. As fraud investigators, we would like to examine the trading patterns of A.I.G.’s financial products division, and its communications with Goldman Sachs and other bank counterparties who benefited from the bailout. We would like to understand whether the leaders of A.I.G. understood that they were approaching a financial Armageddon, and whether they alerted their counterparties, regulators and shareholders to the impending calamity.

We would like to see how A.I.G. was able to pay huge bonuses to its officers based on the short-term income they received from counterparties for selling guarantees that, lacking adequate loss reserves, the companies would never be able to honor. We would also like to know what regulators knew, and what they did with the information they had obtained.

Congress wants answers, too. This month, during hearings on Ben Bernanke’s nomination to a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve, several senators fumed about being denied access to his A.I.G.-related documents.

No doubt, some of the e-mail messages contain privileged conversations among lawyers. Others probably include private information that is irrelevant to A.I.G.’s role in the crisis. But the vast majority of these documents could be made public without legal concern. So why haven’t the Treasury and the Federal Reserve already made sure the public could see this information? Do they want to protect A.I.G., or do they worry about shining too much sunlight on their own performance leading up to and during the crisis?

A.I.G.’s board of directors, a distinguished group of senior business executives, holds the power to decide whether to publish the e-mail messages and other documents. But those directors serve at the behest of A.I.G.’s shareholders. And while small shareholders of public corporations generally do not have the right to force publication of internal documents, in this case one shareholder — the taxpayer — holds an 80 percent stake. Anyone with such substantial ownership has effective control over corporate decisions, even if the corporation is a large public one.

Our stake is held by something called the A.I.G. Credit Facility Trust, whose three trustees are Jill M. Considine, a former chairman of the Depository Trust Company and a former director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Chester B. Feldberg, a former New York Fed official who was chairman of Barclays Americas from 2000 to 2008; and Douglas L. Foshee, chief executive of the El Paso Corporation and chairman of the Houston branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Ultimately, these three trustees wield all the power at A.I.G., and have the right to vote out the 11 directors if the directors are unwilling to publish the e-mail messages. In other words, if these three people ask A.I.G.’s board to post the messages and other documents, the board will have no choice but to comply. Ms. Considine, Mr. Feldberg and Mr. Foshee have the opportunity to be among the most effective and influential investor advocates in history. Before A.I.G. escapes, they should demand the evidence.

The longer it remains hidden, the less likely we will be to answer many questions about the A.I.G. collapse and the larger economic crisis — including the most important one: how do we prevent a repeat? Time is the enemy of effective investigation; records disappear, memories fade. The documents should be released — without excuses, or delay.

Eliot Spitzer is a former attorney general and governor of New York. Frank Partnoy is a professor of law at the University of San Diego. William Black is a professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

And all through the mall there arose quite a chatter
They ran from the stores to see what was the matter
Cause over by Santa a picture was snapped
A good lookin lady jumped off of his lap
The children in line sceamed out Mom can you see!
The parents just said that`s just his Christmas tree
The manager yelled at the guard and the elf
Get Santa a present to cover himself
The mothers all blushed and their faces turned red
As visions of Santa now danced through their heads
Santa just smiled cause the doctor was right
The Viagra he gave him was working all night
He told Donner and Blitzen I`m feelin so good
It`s been two-hundred years since I`ve had Christmas wood
And as Santa walked out on that cold winters day
That good lookin lady got into his sleigh
It`s a good thing that old Mrs. Claus never knew
What that lady and Santa were going to do
But that good lookin lady saved Christmas they say
Cause you can`t get down the chimney with your d–k that way.

Ho Ho Ho
Merry Christmas

I was thinking about this the other day . You have the President of the United States going on National Television saying to Americans that Health care reform is necessary to keep the private health care companies honest .
So in essence the President admits that Health Care is dishonest and needs reform . Doesn’t this strike you ? So, if a Industry was dishonest ,seems to me the lawmakers could immediately make laws that bust the crimes and
dishonesty . Apparently the Health Care Companies abused their favorable treatment from the laws from the Politicians thus far , just like the Banking industry ,and it’s time for reforming them . You don’t even have to go to a public option to do this . Make laws that they can’t do this or that and also bust their monopolies .

So much of whats wrong today occurred in the last 10 to 15 years when the Corporations and Wall Street got such favorable treatment with laws and repeal of laws from the Politicians to begin with . These Entities went haywire with their new found freedom to fleece ,thanks to the bribed Politicians . The Politicians can correct their original madness and they don’t owe these bad faith Entities anything. Wall Street created a fake bubble in real estate , Health insurance Companies went about the process of fleecing the public regarding health care with their monopolies and bad faith cancelling of any risk ,and they took control over the Doctors in a unholy alliance ,that decrease actual health care .

Congress/Senate paved the way for Globalism which created the net result of loss jobs for Americans and competition with salve labor Countries . Only traitors to their Country would do this ,but lets just call it a mistake ,but they could undo those mistakes . I am sick and tired of every time the Politicians go to draft a Bill that they are beholding to
the ENTITIES that abused their favorable treatment and already enjoyed
windfall profit they didn’t deserve to begin with . As I have said before ,
Companies use to get by on much smaller profit margins but now they think that its their God Given right to fleece the public ,without competition , while enjoying hand out after handout from the government as if they were welfare cases instead of the greedy Entities they really are .