The Housing Bubble

“Father’s Day is not about cards or forgettable presents, but about the gift of memory and the small moments that shine the brightest.”

~Patti Davis

Cost of Seizing Fannie and Freddie Surges for Taxpayers.
The New York Times

CASA GRANDE, Ariz. — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took over a foreclosed home roughly every 90 seconds during the first three months of the year. They owned 163,828 houses at the end of March, a virtual city with more houses than Seattle. The mortgage finance companies, created by Congress to help Americans buy homes, have become two of the nation’s largest landlords.

Bill Bridwell, a real estate agent in the desert south of Phoenix, is among the thousands of agents hired nationwide by the companies to sell those foreclosures, recouping some of the money that borrowers failed to repay. In a good week, he sells 20 homes and Fannie sends another 20 listings his way.

“We’re all working for the government now,” said Mr. Bridwell on a recent sun-baked morning, steering a Hummer through subdivisions laid out like circuit boards on the desert floor.

Fair Game ~ The Inflatable Loan Pool

AMID the legal battles between investors who lost money in mortgage securities and the investment banks that sold the stuff, one thing seems clear: the investment banks appear to be winning a good many of the early skirmishes.

But some cases are faring better for individual plaintiffs, with judges allowing them to proceed even as banks ask that they be dismissed. Still, these matters are hard to litigate because investors must persuade the judges overseeing them that their losses were not simply a result of a market crash. Investors must argue, convincingly, that the banks misrepresented the quality of the loans in the pools and made material misstatements about them in prospectuses provided to buyers.

‘Road to ruin’ lies ahead if spending cuts and tax rises are not carried out, warns Osborne ~ Daily Mail Reporter, 20th June 2010

* Lib-Dem MPs threaten revolt over Budget plans

Britain will be on ‘the road to ruin’ without painful spending cuts and tax rises in the Budget, Chancellor George Osborne warned today.

Mr Osborne will unveil on Tuesday what is expected to be the harshest set of economic measures seen in decades in a bid to tackle the UK’s record deficit.

Labour said the Government’s determination to go “further and faster” with austerity measures was “profoundly misguided” and would “crush” the fragile recovery.

Chancellor George Osborne speaking on the Andrew Marr show today. He will unveil on Tuesday what is expected to be the harshest set of economic measures seen in decades in a bid to tackle the UK’s record deficit

But Mr Osborne insisted it was unavoidable given the state of the nation’s finances - promising measures would be “tough…but fair”.

He said the package - which has been signed off by senior Government figures from both coalition parties - would set the framework for the next five years.

And he urged voters to judge it not on the immediate pain it would cause to everyone but on the long-term benefits.

California unemployment report fosters doubts on recovery.
The addition of 28,300 jobs in May mostly represents temporary census positions, adding to fears that a return to normal will take longer than expected. ~ LA Times

California added jobs for a fifth straight month in May, but the positions weren’t the type economists like to see.

Some were temporary census jobs that will disappear during the summer. Others were jobs snagged by people who wanted full-time work but could find only part-time positions.

Though the state added 28,300 jobs to payrolls in May, economists say the types of jobs added indicate that the state’s economy still faces big problems ahead.

‘In his time off from his job, Matthew Piper mows greenbelts and repairs streetlights free of charge for his Moreno Valley condominium community. Piper, the treasurer of the Aspen Hills Community Association, and a handful of other homeowners have endeavored to keep the community afloat since April 25, 2008, when its builder, Rancho Cucamonga-based Prestige Homes, filed for bankruptcy. Construction stopped abruptly, leaving the ghostly gray frames of three buildings as a fixture of the landscape.’

‘Marjorie Murray, a housing policy analyst and president of the Center for California Homeowner Association Law, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, said that in bankrupt developments throughout the state, homeowners “are living in an island with wreckage all around them and it is completely unclear what their recourse is.’

‘In Florida, community associations recently were dealt a setback when a state appellate court denied a motion to compel a bank to complete a foreclosure on a property where neither the mortgage nor association fees were being paid. Nor could the bank be forced to start paying the association fees. In Moreno Valley, Aspen Hills’ entry gates at Lasselle Street are always swung open, stirring the ire of homeowners who had expected the security of a private community. But the gates were never automated. Neither the builder nor its lenders can be required to complete the project or deliver promised amenities.’

‘We were sort of abandoned by the developer and management company that was initially here. … In my mind it is a breach of contract,’ said Eulanda Page, a homeowner who contends that her fees should be reduced, not raised as some have suggested to replenish the reserves. Piper said he has gone door to door trying to explain to homeowners that unless they pay their monthly fee of $217.40, the association can’t pay for vital services like trash pickup, sewer and water.’

‘Piper said the association’s liens are worthless when homes are sold in foreclosure. Because home values have fallen dramatically, he said, nothing remains from the proceeds after lenders, whose claims have priority, take their share. Assessment delinquencies have become thorns in the side of homeowners associations across the state, said Kelly G. Richardson, who chairs the legislative action committee of the Community Associations Institute. The problem is magnified, Richardson said, because banks are stalling the foreclosure process, which lets delinquent assessments pile up. Banks do not have legal responsibility for paying such fees until they take possession of a home, and then they are not required to pay the former owner’s obligations, he said.’

‘The five-bank consortium represented by Wells Fargo is not legally required to foreclose on the project, and it isn’t clear that they will do so, said Mike Buckley, the consortium’s bankruptcy lawyer. Trustee auctions have been scheduled repeatedly and then canceled for ‘a wide variety of reasons,’ said Buckley, declining to be more specific.’

‘Because the lenders have not taken title to Aspen Hills, they have no obligation to start paying association fees on the eight unsold homes. Nor are they going to complete the swimming pool, parks and gates. Jeff Last, managing director for a real estate consulting firm working for the consortium, said it does not make sense for the lenders to spend more on the property when it is uncertain if they will take possession. ‘If we foreclosed, I would anticipate we could do a lot more,’ he said.’

‘Today there is no market for new attached housing in Moreno Valley, according to Steve Johnson, who heads the Riverside office of Metrostudy, a real estate research firm. ‘The banks probably realize there is very little demand for the project. So they are not in a hurry,’ he said.’

‘But Cligny said the community can’t afford to wait. ‘There needs to be some responsibility put on lenders that requires them to perfect the foreclosure and not leave a project in limbo. I think they have responsibility to people who in good faith purchased in the project,’ he said.’

http://www.pe.com/localnews/stories/PE_News_Local_D_condo20.242a054.html

Perhaps we should have required in adult education classes in Florida RE history before we allow fools to travel inter-state with credit and money.

Many FB owners of the current Florida Fiasco are older adults and seniors that should have known the bust boom history and nature of the Florida condo game in particlar. As for the younger and native born residents of Florida, it’s not like this hasn’t happened before. Your Daddy should have taught you about condo and RE gambling and that isn’t in my job description.

The condo RE bust of the early 1980’s and it’s lingering effects there are not exactly ancient history or a closely guarded Florida State Secret.

I put this under the sigh category… No crisis wasted… Again with the whine about addiction to oil and maybe we will get some cap and trade shoved down our throats. Meanwhile we have ZERO options for replacing oil so we are going to need to handle this for another 30 years at the inside. Maybe. Maybe by the time I retire at 70 we might be transitioned from oil. Again, mass transit provides a lot of answers but labor and the dems will never get there. President wasting time watching baseball up in Chicago. You guys thought Bush stunk but this is just unforgivable. At the least he should be figuring out who is in charge down in the gulf instead of myriad of people calling the coast guard and continually retasking people. Obama is such a total empty fing suit spitting out inaccurate leftist dogma.

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein, Ap Science Writer – Sun Jun 20, 12:02 am ET

WASHINGTON – The panel appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is short on technical expertise but long on talking publicly about “America’s addiction to oil.” One member has blogged about it regularly.

Only one of the seven commissioners, the dean of Harvard’s engineering and applied sciences school, has a prominent engineering background — but it’s in optics and physics. Another is an environmental scientist with expertise in coastal areas and the after-effects of oil spills. Both are praised by other scientists.

The five other commissioners are experts in policy and management.

The White House said the commission will focus on the government’s “too cozy” relationship with the oil industry. A presidential spokesman said panel members will “consult the best minds and subject matter experts” as they do their work.

Iraj Ersahaghi, who heads the petroleum engineering program the University of Southern California, reviewed the names of oil spill commissioners and asked, “What do they know about petroleum?”

Ersahaghi said the panel needed to include someone like Bob Bea, a prominent petroleum engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who’s an expert in offshore drilling and the management causes of manmade disasters.

As a contrast here are some of the people associated with the widely hated Bush presidency that might actually help. God this is hard to watch. This admin is getting into a special category of stupid now.

Bea, who’s conducting his own investigation into the spill, told The Associated Press that his 66-member expert group will serve as a consultant to the commission, at the request of the panel’s co-chairman, William K. Reilly, Environmental Protection Agency chief under President George H.W. Bush.

This comes as a complete shock.

China says no major change expected in exchange rate following move toward greater flexibility June 20, 2010,

BEIJING (AP) — China’s central bank said Sunday it would maintain a stable exchange rate and didn’t anticipate major changes in the value of the yuan, a day after saying it would manage the currency more flexibly.

In a commentary on Saturday’s announcement, the People’s Bank of China attempted to assuage fears of a major strengthening of the yuan, also known as the renminbi, or “people’s money.”

“There is at present no basis for major fluctuation or change in the renminbi exchange rate,” the bank said on its website.

Home Sales Probably Waned After Credit: U.S. Economy Preview

(Bloomberg) — The housing market began to retrench in May after a government incentive ended, leaving manufacturing at the head of the U.S. recovery, economists said reports this week will show.

Sales of new homes fell 19 percent to a 410,000 annual pace last month, according to the median estimate of 57 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News before a Commerce Department report June 23. Orders for durable goods may show gains in business investment and overseas sales boosted demand for capital equipment like computers and machinery.

“We got the run-up in housing activity and there’ll be a pretty big payback now that the tax credit has expired,” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Pierpont Securities LLC in Stamford, Connecticut. “The strongest sector of the economy right now is manufacturing.”

Bernanke used to often speak to the need for greater transparency in the banking sector. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. I hope the good GAO auditors don’t neglect to ask the Fed about their possible role in artificially inflating the price of stock and housing market assets, as price fixing is illegal according to the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Lawmakers agree to expand audit of Federal Reserve

By Brady Dennis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 17, 2010

Lawmakers on Wednesday reached a compromise to allow expanded audits of the Federal Reserve, part of an effort to shine light on the central bank’s emergency lending during the financial crisis while safeguarding its independence in setting monetary policy.

In another marathon session to hash out differences over sweeping new financial regulations, members of a House-Senate conference committee agreed to grant the Government Accountability Office broad authority to examine the operations of the Fed and to require additional disclosures from the central bank.

The compromise expands on language from the Senate bill that would grant the GAO authority to audit the Fed’s massive emergency lending programs and compel the agency to release details about the firms that benefited from those programs during the crisis.

The new language broadens those audits to include the Fed’s discount window and its purchases and sales of government securities, requiring the central bank to disclose details about such transactions within two years after they occur. “The Fed is going to be a lot more transparent,” said Rep. Melvin Watt (D-N.C.).

House Democrats blocked an attempt by GOP colleagues to revive a more aggressive approach by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), which won wide support in the House last fall and would have opened the Fed to extensive audits, including on its decision-making regarding monetary policy.

“A full audit of the Federal Reserve System,” said Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.), who offered Paul’s language as an amendment, “is the only way to assure the necessary level of transparency to protect taxpayer dollars and ensure accountability at an institution that has unfettered powers and whose colossal errors of judgment were a crucial cause of the crisis.”
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Happy Father’s Day to all who enjoy the rewards of parenting and condolences to those who face the daunting prospect of finding affordable housing that is suitable for rearing a family.

It seems like there are many different potential ways to estimate ’shadow inventory.’ For instance, DeKaser below suggest there are 1m homes in this category, but I read and posted an article a couple of days back suggesting there are 1m homes in California alone with mortgages in default — i.e., the owner has stopped paying the mortgage entirely. Shouldn’t these be included in the shadow inventory count, as presumably the lender will eventually have to kick out the rent-free-living occupant and put the home back on the market as REO?

By Hao Li | June 18, 2010 4:47 PM EDT
Shadow inventory to put pressure on home prices

Properties emerging from foreclosures that are likely to be reintroduced to the housing market, or “shadow inventory,” will put downward pressure on real estate prices for the next few years.

Richard DeKaser, president of Woodley Park Research in Washington, explained that foreclosed properties go back to the lenders, who can then have the choice of selling them back to the market.

The lenders are managing this reintroduction of foreclosed properties “judiciously,” said DeKaser.

“[Lenders] are not dumping them as quickly as they come in. They are trying to move the properties in a manner that maximizes value.”

Many lenders are attempting to realize rental income from foreclosed properties while they wait for prices to rebound. As soon as prices do rise, lenders sell their properties.

Thus, DeKaser expects this glut of inventories – ready to be unloaded whenever prices rise – to prevent real estate prices from meaningfully appreciating over the next few years.

DeKaser – using data from the Mortgage Bankers Association and the Commerce Department – roughly estimates the current backlog of inventories at 1 million units. This figure could potentially increase in the near future if new foreclosures pile up faster than expected.
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Here’s one for those of you on the DC tour to ponder:

Delinquencies, foreclosures cast three-year shadow over market
By: David Sherfinski
Examiner Staff Writer

June 20, 2010

It will take nearly three years for the Washington area’s pent-up delinquent and foreclosed properties to clear, according to a recent report, casting a pall over the region’s housing market.

The area’s 34.2 months of inventory is in line with the national average, said the report from Standard & Poor’s. The New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island market had the highest inventory level, at 103.1 months.

Analysts have kept a close eye on the so-called “shadow” housing market, which is comprised of homes that are delinquent or in foreclosure but have not been put on the market.If banks or lenders release them too soon, home prices could crash; if they hold on to them too long, supply could dry up. A standard level of inventory is about 19 or 20 months.

“The longer the overhang … the longer it is until the market returns” to a healthy level, said Diane Westerback, managing director of Global Surveillance Analytics for Standard & Poor’s.

The area’s 34-month inventory is up about 22 percent from six months ago and about 36 percent from a year ago, but is still well off its high of nearly 60 months about a year and a half ago, the report said.

The report defines “shadow inventory” as properties that are, or were recently, 90 days or more delinquent on mortgage payments, in foreclosure, or real estate owned that are not yet on the market.

“It’s hard to say exactly how these things get liquidated,” she said. “Inevitably they’re going to get spread out a bit.”

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Delinquencies_-foreclosures-cast-three-year-shadow-over-market-96690969.html#ixzz0rPJzD0DN

“If the president Fed does it, that means it’s not illegal,”

Bulging Inventory Signals Next Leg Down In Housing
Tuesday, 15 June 2010 11:11
Written by Mike Whitney

Did the Federal Reserve collude with the big banks to hold millions of houses off the market until the Fed finished adding $1.25 trillion to the banks reserves? Did the Fed do this to make it appear that its bond purchasing plan (quantitative easing) was stabilizing prices when, in fact, it was the reduction in supply that stopped prices from plunging? It sure looks that way. This is from Bloomberg News:

“U.S. home foreclosures reached a record for the second consecutive month in May, with increases in every state, as lenders stepped up property seizures, according to RealtyTrac.Inc.

Bank repossessions climbed 44 percent from May 2009 to 93,777, the Irvine, California-based data company said today in a statement. Foreclosure filings, including default and auction notices, rose about 1 percent to 322,920. One out of every 400 U.S. households received a filing.” (Bloomberg)

Inventory steadily declined during the period the Fed was exchanging cash-for-trash (toxic assets and non performing loans for reserves) with the banks. Now inventories have begun to rise again as the banks get back to business as usual, in other words, throwing people out of their homes. The sudden uptick in repossessions and property seizures coincides perfectly with the ending of the Fed’s giant “no bankster left behind” program. Clearly, there must have been a quid pro quo.

What’s so impressive about Bernanke’s trillion dollar sleight-of-hand operation; is its utter simplicity. We’re just talking “supply and demand” here, not rocket science. The banks agreed to cut supply (by temporarily stockpiling homes) while the Fed loaded them up with a cold trillion-plus in reserves. Meanwhile, John Q. Public assumed (incorrectly) that Bernanke’s program helped to stabilize prices. It’s a very ingenious deception worthy of a professional conman.

Readers may remember that quantitative easing (QE) was promoted as a way to increase lending to consumers and to keep interest rates on mortgages low. But that was all just public relations hype. Consumer lending contracted in the last year while interest rates on the 30-year mortgage have fallen since Bernanke’s QE program ended at the end of March.
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Mortgages and the state of nature

David Wessel had a good column this week on the role government supports play in creating our culture of homeownership. In particular, he points out the economic absurdity of the 30-year, fixed-rate, no prepayment-penalty mortgage, which Raj Date once memorably described to me as a loan that “does not flourish in the state of nature.”

In about the clearest description I’ve read of the 30-year fixed rate, Wessel quotes Patrick Lawler, chief economist of the agency that regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying that “people who take a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage are buying a two-fer: a loan plus the right to prepay without penalty. You might call it a derivative that protects the borrower. Rates fall, you refinance; rates rise, you don’t pay ‘em.” The only reason these mortgages survive is that the government subsidizes them.

The question, as always, is why we do that, and whether we should continue. Homeownership is supposed to promote a lot of civic virtues like caring for your property and voting in local elections. But there’s a correlation/causation problem there: Because we support homeownership so heavily, people who are going to be in one place for a while strain to own homes. If we had a culture of long-term renting, as many other countries (and many cities) do, you’d see more of those behaviors, which speak to being rooted in a place, in renters.

The year when the average voter realizes Pogo’s saying, “We have met the enemy and the enemy is us,” is the year we start shrinking government.

http://www.naztoday.com/news/top-stories/2010/06/hardy-fire-day-2-firefighters-still-battling-fire-near-east-flagstaff/

did anybody see this???

TORONTO – Canada thinks it can teach the world a thing or two about dodging financial meltdowns.

The 20 world leaders at an economic summit in Toronto next weekend will find themselves in a country that has avoided a banking crisis ****

The land of a thousand stereotypes — from Mounties and ice hockey to language wars and lousy weather — is feeling entitled to do a bit of crowing as it hosts the G-20 summit of wealthy and developing nations.

“We should be proud of the performance of our financial system during the crisis,” said Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in an interview with The Associated Press.

He recalled visiting China in 2007 and hearing suggestions “that the Canadian banks were perhaps boring and too risk-adverse. And when I was there two weeks ago some of my same counterparts were saying to me, ‘You have a very solid, stable banking system in Canada,’ and emphasizing that. There wasn’t anything about being sufficiently risk-oriented.”

The banks are stable because, in part, they’re more regulated. As the U.S. and Europe loosened regulations on their financial industries over the last 15 years, Canada refused to do so. The banks also aren’t as leveraged as their U.S. or European peers.

There was no mortgage meltdown or subprime crisis in Canada. Banks don’t package mortgages and sell them to the private market, so they need to be sure their borrowers can pay back the loans.

I just had a look at some San Diego MLS data I downloaded from RedFin (it’s pretty much there for the taking if you want to mess around with it).

A few details:

Number of homes for sale (barring miscounts) = 11,547

Average list price = $833,371

Aggregate value of currently-listed homes by list price (aka prospective sellers’ wishing prices) = $9.6 billion

Density of more than 1 home per $100 of list price variation on the range from $175-$600K

Greatest concentration of homes for sale (SFRs + condos) is on the range from $275K-$300K (586 homes listed over a $25K range, or 2.344 homes per $100 range in home price)

In talking with a co-worker Thursday night, he mentioned he’d gone to an open house for a building with converted condos in the area west of Balboa Park (out of general interest, not to buy). The asking price for a 2 bedroom 1100sf unit was $530k, probably not too different from what might have been asked during the peak of the bubble. The agent at the open house said lots of agents had been by (no mention of potential buyers). I asked my coworker what something like that might rent for in that area. He wasn’t sure, but he thought about $1700 to $2000 a month.

For purposes of comparison, he’s in a nearby several story building with condos built as condos. His unit’s larger and recently appraised at $399k though there are no recent comps. A bank owned unit similar to his on a lower floor is expected to soon be listed at between $375-$400k.

It seems that all that happened in the past year is that the brief increase in sales resulted in some delayed projects finally being completed and offered at nearly peak bubble prices. This still has a long way to go as there is no perceptible improvement in the overall economy. I see more large pickup trucks (construction workers completing more soon to be vacant and surplus housing?), but overall traffic levels appear little different from last year and still down sharply from a few years ago.

For those that sometimes listen to the weekly broadcast on financial sense dot com, the interview with Bob Prechter yesterday was quite interesting. His forecast is for a bottom around 2016, with despair setting in around 2013. There are some similarities to the second leg down in the 1930’s, but what’s projected during the next 6 years looks like it could be more crushing. If it plays out as he is forecasting, I would be shocked if every last vestige of bubble pricing wasn’t crushed, totally crushed.

I definitely wouldn’t want to be buying now even if I could afford it. Let the dust settle, then see which places are still habitable.

My sister and her family purchased a house in Novato, CA last year. It’s a very nice house, a significant upgrade from their previous 3/2, and it backs on to a mini-ravine and public lands.

Maybe her house is too nice. Twice in the last few months her house has been listed for sale on Zillow*, even though it isn’t. Inquiry into why it was listed pulled up a real estate agent whose site said, “This house is no longer available, but you might like…”

As you can imagine, my sister is less than pleased by this. Is there any law out there that disallows use of privately held properties as come-ons? She doesn’t want speculative buyers scoping out her property.

*She works for a company that helped put the site together on a contract basis, so she has job-related reasons to keep tabs on it.

Good to see they’re “on it” with the very best. Go team Dumbo!

Obama spill panel big on policy, not engineering.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The panel appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is short on technical expertise but long on talking publicly about “America’s addiction to oil.” One member has blogged about it regularly.

Only one of the seven commissioners, the dean of Harvard’s engineering and applied sciences school, has a prominent engineering background — but it’s in optics and physics. Another is an environmental scientist with expertise in coastal areas and the after-effects of oil spills. Both are praised by other scientists.

The five other commissioners are experts in policy and management.

Hey, any of you in the oil gusher affected areas in the gulf, should start boxing and selling “Pet Tar Balls” as a fund raiser.

It could surpass the Pet Rock. This mess is no where near under control, it will take many months, so get busy there’s money to be made.

See how smart NY is! Just raise taxes, everyone knows smoking is bad for you, but the NY gubmint sees money in it. The good news is that this genius move will not create a black market. Smokers will gladly except the tax, and puff on to save the state.

New York State Government
Cigarette Tax Will Mean $10 Packs

Almost $11 for a pack of cigarettes? It might soon become a very real reality in many stores in New York City.

The cigarette tax in New York would jump $1.60 a pack under a tentative deal struck between Governor David Paterson and state government leaders.

The proposal is part of an emergency budget bill which is due for a vote on Monday.

In the city, which levies steep taxes of its own on tobacco products, a pack of cigarettes would come with a tax of $5.85, making it the nation’s first city to break $5.

South African doctor invents female condoms with ‘teeth’ to fight rape

(CNN) — South African Dr. Sonnet Ehlers was on call one night four decades ago when a devastated rape victim walked in. Her eyes were lifeless; she was like a breathing corpse.

“She looked at me and said, ‘If only had teeth down there,’” recalled Ehlers, who was a 20-year-old medical researcher at the time. “I promised her I’d do something to help people like her one day.”

Forty years later, Rape-aXe was born.

Ehlers is distributing the female condoms in the various South African cities where the World Cup soccer games are taking place.

The woman inserts the latex condom like a tampon. Jagged rows of teeth-like hooks line its inside and attach on a man’s penis during penetration, Ehlers said.

Once it lodges, only a doctor can remove it — a procedure Ehlers hopes will be done with authorities on standby to make an arrest.

“It hurts, he cannot pee and walk when it’s on,” she said. “If he tries to remove it, it will clasp even tighter… however, it doesn’t break the skin, and there’s no danger of fluid exposure.”

Ehlers said she sold her house and car to launch the project, and she planned to distribute 30,000 free devices under supervision during the World Cup period.

“I consulted engineers, gynecologists and psychologists to help in the design and make sure it was safe,” she said.