Bits Bucket For July 18, 2010
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The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
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Went to the beach in St Pete yesterday with the family. On the way we passed an open house. For funsies we stopped to take a look at how the other half lives.
Great house, separate pool guest-house, awesome stainless/granite/marble kitchen with top of the line stuff. Insulated garage with epoxied floor and painted walls. Right on the channel to the ocean with gorgeous vies from every bedroom. Our biggest complaint was that the outdoor grill/sink/wetbar was separated from the pool area. darn!
It really was a dream home, but 2400 sq feet at 1.1 million, just a bit rich for our blood. That house has been on the market 6 months so far, and already dropped almost 30% in that time.
The number of houses for sale in that ‘hood means it may be on the market a while longer. There WAS a steady stream of lookie-loos while we were there. This is the first open house where we saw others than ourselves. Chock it up to the nature of the house I guess. Every one I chatted with said 1.1 million was too much.
rusty, don’t you think a lot of the waterfront in Pinellas County is going to have more of a drop as a result of the Gulf oil spill? I know that supposedly no oil has hit the shore directly here, presumably because of the loop current, but I wouldn’t swim in the Gulf around here, nor would I eat ANY seafood that came out of it, especially since I’ve done a bit of reading about that Corexit dispersant. Nasty, toxic stuff.
But of course, the local news was full of clips about the Sarasota area and “Come on in, the water’s fine! We’re open for business!”.
I don’t want the already fragile economy to go bust around here, I want people to do well. But I think people have a moral responsibility to other people not to put them in harm’s way. Just because crap isn’t washing up on the beach, doesn’t mean it isn’t in the water and won’t cause harm.
Oh totally, we walked away thinking that when the oil hits in September, the houses will all lose a huge % of asking price instantly. Compound that with the number of houses for sale in St Pete Beach area and it will be fun to watch.
One thing learned from that open house, I really, really need a shiny new, split level dishwasher!
http://video.godlikeproductions.com/video/WKRG_News_5_Testing_Water_Samples_Alabama_Coastal_Wateravi
What we have so far in the Gulf has been a laminar flow. Give it time, a storm or a hurricane and you will end up with a turbulent flow. Then the equations of mass transfer can not be solved. The oil is not going anywhere and hence all bets are off. God help if we reach Reynolds number above 2100.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynolds_number
Gotta like the exploding beaker of water. It wouldn’t surprise me if the dispersants end up being worse than the oil- and served only to keep us from getting news coverage of big thick flows of oil, which probably would have been easier to skim or burn off. Now it looks like the Gulf itself is flammable.
All the excess…. much of it garbage…. poses what value to those seeking shelter? Not much.
We will get past the fetishness. Sooner or later but we will get past it.
2400sqft at 1.1 million? My last house was 2000sqft. 78K. No pool but a nice, very well kept, older neighborhood with lots of huge trees.
In Houston, 1 million will get you 5000sqft with 2 outdoor kitchens if you want them.
Oh in contrast to the new house, we had just come from looking at a rental in South Tampa (where we really want to live).
It was a typical rental house with typical renters. The house -could- have been nice, but the renters had lived there a LONG,LONG time, and management only came by to mow the yard. The house was a WRECK. Sinks didn’t work, carpet was horribly stained, water damage in the ceiling, every wall needed painting. Cabinets busted in the kitchen, there was something that needed work in every room.
How can someone live in a place, and let it fall apart around them due to indifference? Rental or not, have some pride in where you live! It only takes sweat equity and not cash to keep a place decent. I can’t just live in a place with defects. Maybe my defect is having to fix everything around me… so that place would have kept me occupied forever.
It was so bad that even cleaned up, if I moved in I wouldn’t be happy knowing what lies beneath that quick coat of cheap paint. Doubly so contrasted with the nice house we saw just after it. The hunt continues.
“How can someone live in a place, and let it fall apart around them due to indifference? Rental or not, have some pride in where you live! It only takes sweat equity and not cash to keep a place decent.”
Renting means never having to lift a hammer or a paint brush or a wrench. My attitude while renting is if the LL doesn’t want to do it, I sure as hell won’t do it for him, at least not for free. If you rent a car do you change the oil while you’re renting it? Renting a house is no different.
“Renting means never having to lift a hammer or a paint brush or a wrench. My attitude while renting is if the LL doesn’t want to do it, I sure as hell won’t do it for him, at least not for free. If you rent a car do you change the oil while you’re renting it? Renting a house is no different.”
I don’t know about that. There definitely are perks for looking after a place you’re renting. The last time I rented, I performed basic maintenance and upkeep, painted and decorated and kept the yard looking nice. In return, my LL very promptly fixed anything major with no complaints (he even came over and took care of a wasp’s nest I was afraid to deal with myself!), and in the NINE years I was there, he never raised the rent. Not once. It was $700/month when I moved in and $700/month when I moved out.
I paid the same rent for 3+ years until I moved out recently. One time he mentioned the possibility of a rent increase and my reply was do you want my notice now or should I wait until you formally raise the rent to send it? Never heard anything about a rent increase again.
Basic maintenance should be done by the landlord, not the tenant. My only contractual obligation was to cut the grass, which I outsourced to my neighbor’s kid for $15 a week. Any other maintenance done by me was a phone call to let my ll know it was needed.
“My only contractual obligation was to cut the grass, which I outsourced to my neighbor’s kid for $15 a week.”
Our LL contracts with a Spanish-conversant yard care service to obtain much better outdoor maintenance and upkeep than I ever could or would provide. This presumably is covered out of our rental payments.
Works for me!
I agree with Lola. During the 18 years we rented, we never had a rent increase, presumably because we paid the rent on time, did basic repairs ourselves and only bothered the landlord or prop manager with major issues.
You are performing labor for the landlord. You should get prompt maintenance and prompt removal of the wasp nest regardless of whether you do basic maintenance!!!!!! I’m frigging serious! I get prompt - same day - maintenance in my apartments I rent and I don’t do anything beyond making my own living place spic and span.
For instance, I had a leak in my air conditioner. Heavy sucker. It’s mounted in the ceiling and goes through the roof. Well if it was a small time landlord, it would be a week or two to get it fixed. These maintenance people had it fixed promptly.
That is why renting from a big corporate rental business is far better than renting from a small landlord.
I agree with Bill. I have been renting for a 5 years from a first time landlord. There are some minor repairs that need to get done, and my landlord will approve after she sees the estimate. Unfortunately I don’t really have time to wait at home for 2 days to get an estimate and then get it repaired. I also know there is really no way my rent could be covering her mortgage payements. If I rent again, I’ll probably go corporate since it is easier to get these thin taken care of. I didn’t sign up to be an owner and find my own contractors/etc to live in my apartment. If I did that I would have bought my own place.
Why do YOU have to get the estimate? In fact, why do you have to do anything beyond calling the landlord and saying “the frammis is broken–get somebody to fix it?” Like you, I’m renting from a LL whose mortgage is not covered by my payments, yet he’s responded promptly to any issues I’ve had (most recently with the AC, and one does NOT want AC issues in Phoenix in July!) Still, if it’s a very minor repair I’ll usually just take care of it. I had a flaky electrical outlet in the living room a while back, so for a couple of bucks I picked one up at the hardware store and took the 10 minutes to replace it myself. I’m not home that much, and I don’t like people coming into the house when I’m not there if it’s not absolutely necessary, so I don’t really mind doing the minor stuff myself.
My best friend rents my condo in the OC for 21yrs. In 1989 the rent was $950, now it’s $1200. Could get $1600. I never had to call the handyman. Some things are worth it.
I understand your not wanting to deal w/ the handyman…
But…
$400/month can buy you A LOT of handyman work!!!
You are giving your friend a good deal.. if that’s the true market rent.
I have seen rentals (several), where the renters also did not lift a scrubbing sponge with Comet on it, probably for a year or more.
It is utterly disgusting how some people live, and the kind of tolerance some folks have with regard to filth. I am talking about some who would be categorized as middle class.
“Oh in contrast to the new house, we had just come from looking at a rental in South Tampa (where we really want to live).”
Beware of South Tampa, rusty. Many areas flood if there’s even so much as a heavy dew. It has some great old houses and neighborhoods, but South Tampa doesn’t have quite the cachet that it used to, courtesy of the bubble.
I hear ya. Some places are really nice, certainly compared to the ghetto we live next to in Temple Terrace. It has a lot of bonuses for us in: two of the top middle schools in the county, closer to Clearwater, Ybor and St Pete where all of the activities are, and it would shorted my wife’s commute by 30 minutes. It really is hit and miss down there, so we will investigate thoroughly.
Trouble is, is there really any nice places left in Tampa that aren’t riddled with gangs, rim rent-to-own places, or other seedy establishments? Driving up and down Nebraska ave on Friday was an eye opener!
Carrollwood might not be too bad, it’s a bit far from St. Pete, but not too bad for Clearwater and Ybor. Tampa’s a rough go in finding a decent neighborhood.
Have you checked out Lowry Park?
Or the Rocky Point area?
Or Safety Harbor over in Pinellas? That will give you access to St. Pete/Clearwater and Westshore Tampa. Ybor, not so much.
Davis Island
Hyde Park
Oh and they still wanted 2100 a month, firm, to rent the place.
Rusty, you will save so much over a lifetime if you’re willing to buy a house with defects, as long as it is structurally sound. I just sold a house that had been on the market to a young couple who were able to see beneath the water stains and ugly carpets. It was built in 1950 with beautiful hardwood floors. It’s in a very good neighborhood with great schools. The couple that bought it 60 years ago eventually built an addition with a third bedroom and second bath, plus a laundry room and big family room with fireplace. Then in the 60s they put in silly light fixtures, orange and green shag carpet. But the husband was a plumber and put in good copper plumbing. After her husband died, the widow aged and neglected everything, and passed away last year. Her out of state son put it on the market with a new roof and furnace, but didn’t do any cosmetic fixes, and there were no takers. It looked awful. He reduced the price gradually from $200/sq ft to $140/sqft. My couple came in at $120/sq ft and the offer was accepted immediately. We ripped up the carpets and got the beautiful hardwood floors repaired and refinished for $1600. A landscaper cleaned out the back yard and put in sod and sprinklers and raised gardening beds for $1200. Painters charged $5000 to power wash and paint inside and out, scrape the acoustic ceilings, taking down ugly old metal awnings to let the light in, and repairing the stained plaster. Home Depot put new vinyl floors in the bathrooms and carpet in the family room, plus new toilets and sinks, for $5000. They bought and replaced light fixtures. They have nice furniture mostly bought from Craigslist. It’s been a month since they closed and the place is gorgeous. Their monthly payment including mortgage, taxes and insurance is $1140/month for a $160,000 loan with 20% down. Why pay taxes and interest for 30 years on somebody else’s updates, when you can do them yourself for a fraction of the cost, in your own taste?
Why pay taxes and interest for 30 years on somebody else’s updates, when you can do them yourself for a fraction of the cost, in your own taste?
Comments like that really get my goad, not because I think renting is better than owning but because it’s only true if you shop and purchase carefully. Would that be true if you bought at the top of the market in a bidding war, of course not.
In our personal situation (over here in Spain) our rent is 660€ a month vs 900€ for a mortgage plus condo fees. Of course the payment could increase when interest rates rise (all mortgages here are floating)
Again buying is only better than renting if you buy at the bottom of the market rather than the top.
PS yes you throw money away on rent but you also throw money away on interest as well
i paid cash for a house so i don’t waste money on rent or on interest. i will end up spending probably 5k per year making the place nice…i already did the whole interior and just have the kitchen left and spent about 20k. for me buying a year ago was a great decision as a first time buyer. we are halfway through the great flushout…and have atleast 2 more years to go. buffet said we need to work off the excess housing, we built close to 2 million/yr over 5 years and he said we need about 1.2 million new builds per year. so, about 4 million excess houses were build. we are at 300k as of last month and below 500k for a couple years now. so, we got a little over two million more to absorb. then we need the economy to improve. i’m just looking now for a second cash house!
RE, sounds really nice. We are just not in a position to buy at the moment, but could if we wanted to. I see some that are fixer uppers, I am not demanding turn-key on something I want to buy. But something i want to just rent needs to be decent if they want my money.
Hyde and Beach parks are the areas we are concentrating in. They seem to be the nicest, with the good schools. I work in Lakeland, so I can’t get too far west , over any bridge for example. My commute is already 40 minutes as it stands. At least nobody uses the crosstown, so I won’t have to fight traffic. We may stay in Temple Terrace, just upgrade to nicer digs, once we have to move out of this one.
Oh, I’m sorry, Rusty. I didn’t realize that you were renting. I thought you were buying.
Banks eye higher fees to boost declining revenue
Their profits threatened, banks look to fees to offset cost of overhaul
NEW YORK (AP) — Big banks facing big drops in revenue are looking to Main Street to make up the difference.
Checking accounts, bank statements, even popping into your local bank branch could carry a hefty cost as the nation’s mega-banks scramble to offset expected damage from the sweeping financial overhaul. The uncertain future has overshadowed otherwise strong second-quarter earnings at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp.
All three companies beat expectations this week with profitable results. Yet their stocks tumbled, helping send the wider market sharply lower Friday.
The reason: Investors are worried about banks’ future earning power after Thursday’s passage of the most dramatic rewriting of banking rules since the Great Depression. Adding to the pessimism are falling trading profits — which all three banks mentioned in the their earnings reports — and weak U.S. loan demand.
I wonder how much they cooked their books.I dont trust the financials of the banks.
This was completely expected.
Obama and the Dems (along with 3 imbecile RINOs) have created a 2300 page bill that will create 500 new regulations on banks that will add tens of billions in costs to banks.
Only a fool would expect anything other than those costs being passed on to consumers.
Just wait until the other 2000 page bill passed this year takes effect. That extra $5 a month in checking account costs will pale in comparison to the added costs thanks to Obamacare.
Eddie, you don’t seriously believe that Chris “Countrywide” Dodd or Barney “Fannie Mae” Frank and their cohorts on this bill had anything but the public interest in mind, do you?
Whatssa matta you? Don’t like the fact that NONE of the new financial “regulations” apply to Freddie and Fannie?
I’m trying real hard to feel sorry the very organizations that caused this damn disaster. Nope. I’m not feeling it.
And who says customer can’t go somewhere else?
The government says so. Beginning with healthcare.
Do you suppose that the Feds protected Fannie/Freddie because their eventual goal is for no one will be able to purchase property from any entity other than government?
I suppose it. Strongly, in fact. Consider:
1. Healthcare. Rapid nationalization; no choice.
2. Banks/financial institutions. CARD CHECK. Suggestions of annuitizing 401Ks and the like.
3. Communications - internet, tv, radio. FCC.
4. Energy. Cap & trade. Ban offshore drilling.
5. Food. New obesity examinations/fines. Cigarettes. Fast food. New czarist powers given to the FDA.
Did I miss anything? Your sex life? Time for the government to determine whom you’ll have sex with, how often and under what circumstances. I give it until 2013 until our fascist leaders propose doing something about THAT, too. Abortions on demand paid for by unwilling “taxpayers” already is in place.
Why do the banks need to raise fees, when they can just have their wholly owned subsidiaries, the Democrats and Republicans, arrange for more bailouts?
Homeowners Use Airbnb Room-Renting Site to Pay Mortgage, Dodge Foreclosure.
Nichelle Morant was on the verge of losing her three-unit house in Brooklyn, New York, earlier this year, after tenants renting the second and third floors lost their jobs and moved out.
With bills mounting and foreclosure looming, Morant converted the space into a bed and breakfast. Using the San Francisco-based rental site Airbnb.com to take reservations, she was soon raking in $4,500 a month, enough to cover her mortgage.
“This has been our stimulus package,” said Morant, a pastry chef, who lives with her family on the ground floor of the home. “We were going to lose our house.”
For Airbnb — along with Craigslist and rival rental sites like HomeAway.com Inc. — the threat of foreclosures is bringing a surge of listings. Local entrepreneurs Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia didn’t have that in mind when they conceived of Airbnb. They just wanted to take the hassle out of renting out a house, a spare room, or even just a couch.
With U.S. unemployment near a 26-year high and foreclosures in their fifth year of increases, there’s no shortage of homeowners seeking relief. Using Airbnb presents risks, though. Renting rooms forces homeowners to share space with strangers, and amid a backlash from the lodging industry, there could be legal challenges.
New York Law
New York lawmakers passed a bill this month, backed by the Hotel Association of New York City and the Hotel and Motel Trades Council, banning rentals of less than 30 days in apartment buildings.
The legislation is directed at larger multifamily dwellings in New York City and not individual homeowners. Still, there’s broader concern about unregulated rentals, said Joe McInerney, chief executive officer of the American Hotel & Lodging Association in Washington, which advocates for the industry.
“What are the qualifications, what are the sanitary things that are going to be done, how are you going to make sure that noise is regulated, how are you going to make sure they’re not parking all over the place?” McInerney said. “You have to take a look situation by situation and area by area.”
“You have to look at the campaign contributions we just got from the hotel/motel trade association, and the potentially lost hotel taxes.”
There, I fixed it for ya.
Love it, Bill.
+1
Fight Now Looms Over Fannie, Freddie
The fight over the changes to U.S. financial regulation was bruising.
The coming debate over what to do with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac promises to be even more contentious.
The revamp of the nation’s financial infrastructure, which will be signed into law next week by President Barack Obama, didn’t address the fate of the mortgage-finance giants that helped fuel the housing bubble and were taken over by the government in 2008. So far, the U.S. has spent $145 billion to keep the companies afloat.
Administration officials say they will outline a proposal to Congress by early next year and that intense discussions are under way on how the government should restructure its role in housing finance. The administration doesn’t appear to have coalesced around an answer, according to the officials, though top advisers have indicated they see some continuing government role.
Lawmakers from both parties have heavily criticized the public-private ownership model that led the once enormously profitable companies to fail spectacularly. However, few in Washington know what to do next.
They should gut these companies and start over.they are bankrupt and being supported by the govt with money borrowed from china.
I think that the administration will stall as long as they can. Reforming F and F will open the books on the trillions of bad debt they hold. They can’t bail them out like they did the banks, which enabled them to continue to hide the toxic debt on their books. An acknowledgement of remaining mortgage debt would risk their attempts at a recovery.
I think they hope that jobs will pick up in 2011. Good luck with that.
F and F’s current function is to act in more or less the same capacity as the RTC did back during the S&L disaster.
U.S. Atheists Reportedly Using Hair Dryers to ‘De-Baptize’
American atheists lined up to be “de-baptized” in a ritual using a hair dryer, according to a report Friday on U.S. late-night news program “Nightline.”
Leading atheist Edwin Kagin blasted his fellow non-believers with the hair dryer to symbolically dry up the holy water sprinkled on their heads in days past. The styling tool was emblazoned with a label reading “Reason and Truth.”
Kagin believes parents are wrong to baptize their children before they are able to make their own choices, even slamming some religious eduction as “child abuse.” He said the blast of hot air was a way for adults to undo what their parents had done.
“I was baptized Catholic. I don’t remember any of it at all,” said 24-year-old Cambridge Boxterman. “According to my mother, I screamed like a banshee … so you can see that even as a young child I didn’t want to be baptized. It’s not fair. I was born atheist, and they were forcing me to become Catholic.”
I bet a lot of current homeowners wish they could get out of their mortgage that easily.
Lol, it looks as if some of the baptism took hold. If they were TRUE non-believers then they shouldn’t care if they were tainted with holy water or not since in their minds as athesiests it shouldn’t be possible for the holy water to be holy in the first place.
But since they do seem to care that the were tainted with holy water and they need this holy water to be dried off with a hair dryer then they are in a sense acknowledging that they believe there is some power in the holy water after all.
And if they believe there is power in the holy water then they really aren’t athesiests.
“I was born atheist”
Maybe, maybe. Maybe you make a religion of it. For sure though, born stooopid.
Boy, what a stupid publicity stunt that is. It’s only for getting 15 minutes of fame folks! I do agree it seems counter to the atheist ideal to use some stupid symbolic stunt that is as faith-based as the baptism ritual.
This is a good sign that atheism is growing in numbers in the U.S. Many atheists would disagree with that publicity stunt because it is symbolically promoting faith. When there is a lot of disagreement and various shades of ideas (communism, socialism, capitalism, objectivism) among atheists, you know the numbers of non-believers is growing.
Once the population of atheists in the U.S. gets to 30 percent (like in Europe), the religionists lose any power in politics. I predict the so-called “moral majority” will not be able to influence any US senator party nominees or POTUS nominees in the top three political parties in a generation.
I suspect Jesus would cringe at most of his so-called adherents these days.
if they believe there is power in the holy water then they really aren’t athesiests.
+1, combo. Murray Rothbard makes the same point. Atheists aren’t people who don’t believe in God, they are people who believe in God and hate Him.
You are wrong. And how do you know your imaginary friend is a “him?”
I’d hate to see what atheists do to Jewish men who were circumcised as babies.
I never know which side is crazier these days, the religious nuts or the atheist nuts. Stories like this give the edge to the atheists.
A better form of ‘de-baptism’ would be pouring a beer over your own head while listening to Black Sabbath.
LMAO…… nice Alpha.
These passive and active public displays of rejection of a mono-theistic God screams one thing….. Anger and rage toward a mono-theistic God.
Simply put, if they were truly atheists they would be indifferent toward matter spiritual.
Sounds to me like it is more of a social occasion and a chance to invite reporters to cover it rather than a conflicted accnowledgement of actual belief that they would rather not have. Oh, and a public rejection of parental beliefs, which is a bit immature but certainly doesn’t mean that they actually believe in God.
Why waste a perfectly good beer?
+1 Alpha…
Alpha, darling. I do so love you.
Look how far we’ve come since the days of MArk Twain:
In Mark Twain’s book Life on the Mississippi, he reports on the six-decade long feud between the Darnell and Watson families and other elements of life in the Bend. “In no part of the South has the vendetta flourished more briskly, or held out longer between warring families, than in this particular region,” he wrote. Twain continues:
“There’s been more than one feud around here, in old times, but I reckon the first one was between the Darnells and the Watsons. Nobody don’t know now what the first quarrel was about, it’s so long ago; the Darnells and the Watsons don’t know, if there’s any of them living, which I don’t think there is. Some says it was about a horse or a cow—anyway, it was a little matter; the money in it wasn’t of no consequence—none in the world—both families was rich. The thing could have been fixed up, easy enough; but no, that wouldn’t do. Rough words had been passed; and so, nothing but blood could fix it up after that. That horse or cow, whichever it was, cost sixty years of killing or crippling! Every year or so somebody was shot, on one side or the other; and as fast as one generation was laid out, their sons took up the feud and kept it a-going.
And it’s just as I say; they went on shooting each other, year in and year out—making a kind of a religion of it, you see—till they’d done forgot, long ago, what it was all about. Wherever a Darnell caught a Watson, or a Watson caught a Darnell, one of ‘em was going to get hurt—only question was, which of them got the drop on the other. They’d shoot one another down, right in the presence of the family. They didn’t hunt for each other, but when they happened to meet, they pulled and begun. Men would shoot boys, boys would shoot men. A man shot a boy twelve years old—happened on him in the woods and didn’t give him no chance. If he had ‘a’ given him a chance, the boy’d ‘a’ shot hint.
Both families belonged to the same church (everybody around here is religious); through all this fifty or sixty years’ fuss, both tribes was there every Sunday, to worship. They lived each side of the line, and the church was at a landing called Compromise. Half the church and half the aisle was in Kentucky, the other half in Tennessee. Sundays you’d see the families drive up, all in their Sunday clothes—men, women, and children—and file up the aisle, and set down, quiet and orderly, one lot on the Tennessee side of the church and the other on the Kentucky side; and the men and boys would lean their guns up against the wall, handy, and then all hands would join in with the prayer and praise; though they say the man next the aisle didn’t kneel down, along with the rest of the family; kind of stood guard. I don’t know; never was at that church in my life; but I remember that that’s what used to be said.
Troubled Mel ‘leaving the States’ after selling his New York mansion at cut price. ~ 18th July 2010
Mel Gibson is poised to quit the US after selling his mansion near New York.
The disgraced Lethal Weapon star, who faces allegations of violence from his Russian former girlfriend, sold the mock Tudor property, known as Old Mill Farm, for £16 million – £10 million less than the asking price.
Show of support: Mel Gibson’s ex-wife Robyn is defending him against the domestic violence allegations
Gibson has also put his Malibu home, Lavender Hill Farm, on the market for £10 million, according to a property newsletter.
He has told friends that he will move back to Australia - where he grew up after moving from America when he was 12 - with his ex-wife Robyn, who still supports him.
“He has told friends that he will move back to Australia - where he grew up after moving from America when he was 12 - with his ex-wife Robyn, who still supports him.”
And I’m sure he still supports her. However, I think this is the right thing for him to do. Back to his roots, back to the lady who stood by him all those years. Things sort of fell apart after they split.
The whole Mel thing is tragic, but it is a cautionary tale for guys, too. One of the latest reports is that this Oksana lady tried to extort him, after he tired of her. Gee, no one could have seen THAT coming.
“a cautionary tale for guys”
What’s that saying?
The _ _ _ _ ing you’re getting is the _ _ _ _ ing you got.
Yeah, my sis has a friend who loves that expression, she’s always saying “That’f the —-ing ya get for the —-ing ya got!”
A former colleague at work had a wife in her 20s and he was in his 40s. She was beautiful and came from a wealthy family. Yet he was always looking over his shoulder. She had him p***y-whipped. I remember I heard that when he had money he hid it from her. He once came up with an elaborate plan: Get six lexar bottles (no metal) and stuff each of the bottles with $100 bills. Tie them with string together at the top of the bottle. Bury them a few feet apart from each other. So if things go awry in the marriage and the spouse comes after the money, she only gets what little is in the bank. I figure he would probably bury the lexar bottles in some park way out in the back country and use GPS to get the position.
I laughed at that elaborate scenario. But the level of distrust in his spouse was very evident. I think the paper money would lose so much value in six years that it would not be worth it. Better to hide gold somewhere. But then the gold could be found with a metal detector. I would not bury treasure on private property, as that could be taken by a spouse. It would make more sense to bury it in some wilderness area.
Best thing is not to get married to someone you cannot fully trust in the first place. My colleague should have stayed single and visit the legal escorts in Canada to “get satisfaction.”
wife in her 20s and he was in his 40s ??
And what would any common sense man expect from this ?? Thinking with the wrong head…
“Best thing is not to get married to someone you cannot fully trust in the first place.”
This criteria should be listed near the top in any relationship be it marriage, friend, business partner, employee, employer, vendor, customer … whatever.
You know I like mel gibson.Who hasnt had a bad rant and said stuff that they didnt mean.He is being extorted by the media.
Exactly, arizonadude. He’s a great actor, entertainer and producer.
The “entertainment” media is mostly a bunch of parasites. They wouldn’t even have a gig if it weren’t for performers. They’re maggots, feeding off the flesh of productive people.
In my life, I’ve heard just as bad if not worse between people.
I will admit to watching an enterainment media show or two and frankly, most of these “reporters” and “commentators” sound like a pack of braying asses, with all their “outrage” and bloviating. I’ll bet if you looked into the lives of most of these puking snot marks you’d find some pretty unsavory stuff.
Fox News & CNN?
Mel’s biggest crime is being a conservative.
Roman Polanski rapes a 13 year old but he’s a liberal so all is forgiven. Alec Baldwin calls his 12 year daughter a pig on an answering machine, but he too is a good lieutenant in the liberal army, so all is forgiven. Rob Lowe has sex with a 16 year old at the Democrat Convention, no biggie.
But Mel says some stupid shit while obviously drunk on the phone to his ex and he’s worse than Hitler. Because no man up until now has ever said anything like that to an ex before. Right?
Have you guys heard the tapes? I am sure that arizonadude and palmetto would never say what he said, even drink. The only reason you’re defending him is because he’s a successful actor. He’s a scum. People say what’s really on their minds when they’re drunk - I learned that from my father. He’s a racist abuser who thinks that being rich and talented makes him entitled. And he uses his religion as a cover.
Roman Polanski is even worse - a pedophile criminal. Some in the Hollywood establishment support him, but the good old US of A will pursue him until he dies. Hopefully the stress of the pursuit has made his life somewhat miserable. The Swiss and the French disgust me - shield a rich criminal for tax dollars.
+1
“Mel’s biggest crime is being a conservative.”
That comment speaks volumes about the commenter.
What is scary is his persona off the screen is a mirror image of it on screen…He is not acting folks…That IS who he IS…
Not all is forgiven for Polanski and Baldwin. Yes, some have defended them, but many have not. Whoopi Goldberg defended both Polanski and Gibson. But Whoopi’s kinda weird when it comes to this kinda thing. The U.S. government, with Liberals now in charge, would love to get it’s hands on Polanski and put him in a dark cell somewhere for a long time.
And the conservative Catholics are appalled by Gibson’s actions since they so revere “The Passion” and he has very publicly come out as a traditionalist Catholic in the past.
Mel needs to stop drinking, plain & simple.
I would almost guarantee that to be the root cause of most everything that’s wrong in his life.
As for Hollywood? I can take it or leave it.
“Mel needs to stop drinking, plain & simple.”
True, it would do him a world of good. Moving to Australia won’t necessarily help. The “mates” like to get together and tie one on from time to time. But at least he’ll be among his own and they’ll close ranks. It will be more difficult for this Oksana woman to extort him.
Gibson fathered a child with Oksana, the ex-wife of the actor Timothy Dalton, with whom she is on very good terms and shares custody of their 12-year-old son. She is a classically trained pianist who met Gibson when he produced an album for her. I think that you guys are being very unfair to her. She deserves whatever she can get from Gibson.
“She deserves whatever she can get from Gibson.”
Apparently she thinks so, too. So much so, that she didn’t like the first deal she got, so she went back to the well, and apparently threatened to release the tapes. When she couldn’t do a better deal, pop goes the weasel.
Indeed, she is a classically trained musican and composer and from all reports, quite good. I wouldn’t take that away from her. But hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and there’s no fool like an old fool.
Prof. Bear as usual you miss the point and go off on a nonsensical tangent.
Let’s try again.
Roman Polanski, rapes 13 year old, Hollywood forgives.
Alec Badwin berates 12 year old daughter, Hollywood forgives.
Mel Gibson calls ex a slut….Hollywood shuns.
Geee I wonder why the double standard. Can’t be due to political views can it?
Or we go to option 2 for PB, blame Goldman Sachs. Yea that’s the ticket, it’s all because of Goldman Sachs.
No, it’s not political. Do you hate every Democrat you know? Do you think all Democrats hate all Republicans or vice versa.
I think you’re overlooking Mel’s anti-semitic remarks. You’ve got to remember who most of the power brokers are in Hollywood. Remember with “The Passion” there was some controversy over the perception of how Jews were portrayed. I think that has more to do with it than politics.
Mel Gibson….. an established and proven racist, misogynist and anti-semite.
Yep….. he’s a conservative for sure.
“I think you’re overlooking Mel’s anti-semitic remarks.”
It’s all those things that Eddie overlooked (including the point of my post) to which I referred when I said his comment spoke volumes about him…
U.S. homes repossessed by banks set to hit record 1 million this year
By Ariana Eunjung Cha
The number of American homes repossessed by banks hit a record high in the second quarter of the year, putting the number of foreclosures on track to hit a record 1 million by the end of 2010.
Bank repossessions increased 5 percent from the previous quarter and 38 percent from the second quarter of 2009 to 268,962, according to data released early Thursday by RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif., firm that tracks the foreclosure market.
But while the number of homes in the final stage of the foreclosure process increased, the number of new filings fell. Both default and auction notices were down on a month-over-month and year-over-year basis.
The combination of bad news and good news can be explained by two seemingly contradictory trends that are the result of Obama administration efforts to encourage with lenders to help homeowners in distresss.
Over the past few months, lenders have been clearing out a backlog of homes that had been temporarily saved from foreclosure thanks to prevention efforts in 2009. And at the same time, they have been delaying foreclosure proceedings on homeowners with delinquent payments and instead trying to work with more aggressive loan modification strategies or to accept a short sale.
So while foreclosure activity may seem to be flattening out–particularly in hard-hit states like California, where filings were down 13 percent from a year ago, and in Nevada, where they were down 6 percent from a year ago–it’s probably only temporary.
“We’re seeing some positive signs, but the caveat is that we believe most of the decrease is not the result of the housing market really recovering but more of the result of artificial intervention on the part of government and lenders,” said Daren Blomquist, director of marketing communications for RealtyTrac.
…
LONG POST(feel free to skip if not interested)
Wife’s home is scheduled to be auctioned on 11/22/10 by an outfit called Recontrust(go to recontrust dot com to see their schedule by county and state). I think these are just BAC foreclosures.
Bofa is going forward and has reserved space at the courthouse although NOD has not been filed, lender has not contacted my wife in person once or even twice, nor has it listed my wife’s prop in the newpaper, etc. Are they putting the cart before the horse? These are the folks, I believe, that had the injunction against them in Utah before it was lifted.
We were surprised to see the auction date/location already tenatively scheduled. Maybe they figure they can take care of those procedural details in time for the pre-set auction date(disclaimer is that info may change or not be totally curent).
Hoping that sheer volume and reschedulings could postpone wife’s day of reckoning due to space at the courthouse? Or legal misdeeds of the lender? Filing for bankruptcy to freeze the asset?
We keep our house nice, we have had it up for sale at the amt. that would let us pay off the loan, in other words, a “wishing” price. Now comps are currently $190, although my wife “paid” 380k(80k down and 80k in payments is 160k actual cash poured in) for the unit and we owe 304k. We are well over 100k underwater, I was laid off from two teaching jobs, but can still work some. Wife has two jobs, each giving her about 15/20 hours. We would like to stay in our house (squat) and continue paying the 20k per year for our health benefits. I have a pain condition and my wife my need a hysterectomy due to grapefruit sized fibroid tumors in the family (mom and sis). Hers are not so large, but she may need major procedure done, which being covered, our second, paid for home, may not be on the chopping block just yet while I try ever so hard to get a group insurance job that won’t lay me off. Spending 10 years with the kids, makes it hard to even get an interview and the fact that you may have homeschooled is frowned upon due to the lack of income that results when your kid does not go to public school.
So how do we get a year or more out of our house before the foreclosure happens. Not complaining on the likely 8 months we will be getting but hey were american and we want more.
Intermission comic relief on another topic; My French in-law is in town. He has three kids from a previous marriage, but he spends most of his time in America with my sister and her kids, recently moved back to the Bay Area after a few years on Reunion Island. So this French brother-in law of mine has bio kids are largely without a father in the country, as they live in France and dad iive here with his honey, my sis.
Oh well, my sister herself adopted two kids with her ex-husband, ditched him in France for her French beau(rekindled romance after 20 years), and proceeded to live in Reunion Island away from her adopted children, or if she had custody, the kids were 20 hours by plane from Dad, who finally told them he could not handle that arrangement and asked my sister to move closer. I am in the camp that if you make kids you should stay close, unless you are deployed or some such. Not cruise for love, but honor the commitments you have made to one another.
When we were travelling in their county, he gave me a French name, Michel. I am thinking of telling Francis, my sister’s newish hubby, that since he is now a bonafide American citizen, that his American name is now Frank! Will our (lack of)sense of national pride make my suggestion gauche?
Back to my wife’s mortgage issues. We were a little shocked on the price drops because we sold one unit here for 350k in 2006(since foreclosed on and offered at 165k), and this one is newer and nicely situated, and it had 40k in “instant equity” from the appraisal and the UHS told us that it would be worth 500k in a year. We were just that stupid,
Now we want to know if/how/when we can get them to extend the auction date. After all 8 months not paying 2k per month helps us recover some of our downpayment money. April, May June or July payments have not been made, we will happily surrender the house the day they come knocking.
We are not planning to short sale, as we have heard that at least some banks win in the case of the short sale. They get the short sale money, plus the FDIC reimbursement of 80% of the original value of the toxic loan made to the bank. That would (possibly)additionally reimburse the lender at 80% of the original loan amt(just extapolating information from a youtube video posted here about how Indymac comes out profiting from short sales, thanks to the FDIC reimbursing loan losses at 80% of the original amount lent). So the bank makes up to 430k(240k is 80% from FDIC, 190k from the short sale) on a loan which they made of 308k And the dicrepency would be income for my wife to deal with.
So they are making 430 k. Plus they have received 80k in paments over the course of three years (not sure because wife put 20% down which means we never bought mortgage insurance, possibly a deterrent to the bank from wanting to foreclose, I just don’t know what mortgage insurance provides the lender or if the FDIC steps in and reimburses them. Not sure if BofA got the sweetheart deal that INDYMAC did regarding being reimbursed for losses. So, without mortgage insurance, would BAC be forced to eat the loss from my wife foreclosing?
Plus the fact that we have dumped 80k in payments to Bofa makes us willing to stay and maintain the property as long as they will let us. We will not be doing nonsensical damage out of anger.
Any ideas how to stall the Recontrust foreclosure date(wholly owned subsidiary of BAC)? Possibly the Bankruptcy filing? Promising to try and short sale it at the last minute? (not something we are inclined to do, the bank refuses to tell us straight up what a price is that they would except, which would be very helpful to streamline the short sale process.
i.e. Give us a price that you will take rather than the run around! Now it goes something like this; Will you take an offer of $1? Two weeks later, bank says no. Will you take $100k. Month later bank says no. Say we have an offer of 175k. Why can’t we know ahead of time if the bank will take it or not? Can’t they read or determine comps? They are screwing us six ways till friday, they have been reluctant so far in providing us the original trust deed written three lenders earlier. Countrywide bought the original loan, then Bofa bought Countrywide Ask for the original loan docs, the trust Deed? Wifey was originally financed by AMS, then quickly sent to Countywide, then sold to Bofa/countrywide.
Get an attorney. Lega Aid if you have to.
“we have heard that at least some banks win in the case of the short sale. They get the short sale money, plus the FDIC reimbursement of 80% of the original value of the toxic loan made to the bank. That would (possibly)additionally reimburse the lender at 80% of the original loan amt(just extapolating information from a youtube video posted here about how Indymac comes out profiting from short sales, thanks to the FDIC reimbursing loan losses at 80% of the original amount lent). So the bank makes up to 430k(240k is 80% from FDIC, 190k from the short sale) on a loan which they made of 308k”
If this was true, banks would be doing short sales left and right and unloading REO inventory like mad. They aren’t. I saw the you tube article you refer to, but I can’t quite make it reconcile with whats really happening inventory and sales-wise.
What Palmy said… get a lawyers advice. An RE attorney deals with type of thing regularly, they know the process, and how to navigate it.
Google - how to delay foreclosure
Collect recommendations from the various articles and seek a lawyer.
For ex. Two legal strategies that have emerged as effective (though not necessarily available to every person facing foreclosure) are requesting to have your entire mortgage rescinded because of non-compliance with Truth in Lending laws, as well as contesting ownership of the original loan.
Thanks for sharing, and good luck to you. My key advice:
1) Agree you should get an attorney.
2) First figure out how to minimize your personal financial loss.
3) After that, please figure out how to stick the maximum possible loss onto Megabank of America.
Thanks for advice. We have already consulted attorney.
I know that my other free and clear residence is seperate and safe from bank repo. I own one house, and my wife owns another, and Oregon is NOT a community property state.
Trying to get as much time as possible out of this one that we are no longer paying on.
Will examine the truth in lending avenue.
Have also asked for original loan documents to contest the ownership of the origninal loan, but bank cut off our telephone call at that point and we have not procured.
Wife will re-examine her options, I was not eligible to be on this loan so I technically have nothing to do with this home, so my other asset is safe, according to the city attorney we spoke with. But with $160k in, we feel like we should get to stay a little longer, seeing how we could buy one outright today for 160k to 210k.
What up with an appraisal for 440k?? Done in 2006, of course. Now they are selling for 200k!
Nowhere have I seen such terrible looking new developments, such shoddily built houses, and at such prices, as in Bend. Energy leaking uglinesses. Bend being surrounded by sagebrush the size of…oh well, try France. To the South, North and East, it’s a quarter million square miles of sagebrush. It is really truly mystifying, because other than retail, what jobs are there? The college? The railroad that whistles by sometimes? And who has still money to spend in all these new plazas?
What is the median income again ??? Wasn’t this town only supported by Californians, who were hated for it? Because I don’t see how a few Portlanders who crave dry weather can keep that party going.
And yes, I was there recently, and one thing I really like - that fragrance of the sage, especially after a little rain. And I could not help but looking at craigslist, and such language as follows is typically found there:
“Custom home located on a quiet family cult a sac.”
Lack of French is one thing. Trying to sell an old mare as a race horse, as local realtors like to do, by employing the oddest marketing language, is quite another.
How many people in Bend can afford 200 K ?
Just rent it out, as the rents equal those in the high paying city of Munich.
And why exactly would I help you to live rent free ???
Frankly, I am still angry at the buyers who over extended themselves, drove up prices for everyone else, and are now whining.
I remember reading a couple of posts from you before, and every time it was decorated with some sob story, just like the ones from the newspaper articles that are posted here.
I am sorry, but I think you are, or have been, a kind of RE speculator, and I am not fond of such, to put it mildly.
Mike I still say with sincere wishes things get better…a nice divorce would help a lot in your finances….both of you will be covered by medicaid. you really don’t have many options left…$16K insurance is not a joke.
I have been growing and selling food for 10 years and working with kids for 5 more. The first invitation I made regarding my post was feel free to skip it. Don’t worry about me, I have a paid off house to live in, no mortgage.
If you like what the banks and insurance companies have been doing in the USA, come live here and see how you do.
C’est la vie. I don’t like Frenchies, so I won’t read your posts in the future Sarge
One other thing sageness, you remind me why I don’t bother posting here much, but most seem to remember my comments, including you. I have seen your name countless times but I can’t seem to remember a single thing you have ever said.
I am adding my perspective, like it or not there are plenty more like me in Bend and elsewhere. Not liking it will not change it, so you can be angry with me if it makes you feel better. At least you remember me, cuz I ain’t afraid to tell what has happened in my life. So I have made a bundle buying and selling homes that I have lived in. Helped make time for my wife and I to spend with our children. Some folks try and be helpful, others need to spiteful. you are in the latter category, I know it sucks to be angry at things you can’t change.
As I feel regarding health care. No divorce just yet aNYCdj.
Do I feel that underwriting was careless and should not have been exended to a Bend grocery checker? Yes, you seem to agree. We also put skin in the game or bought homes for cash, never HELOCed a thing. Does Bend have jack for work…yep. But the mountains sure are purty, and we moved here before the cali goldrush, so have been accepted by the locals. So we are somewhat atypical, only defaulting on one mortage and saving enough to have a home free and clear w/ paid off cars too. Sound like bad wine or sour grapes to me.
Paying 160k to live in a home for 3 years + a few extra months is in no way rent free! Don’t care to help? SKIP ALTOGETHER Can’t resist sending ill will my way even though my wife and I both work day jobs now?
Voulez vouz coucher avec tu mere ce soir?
For everyone else who does not know French: the last line means Mother f*ck’r, and he means me. Thanks a lot.
“So I have made a bundle buying and selling homes that I have lived in.”
Yep, RE speculator, and the last line proves, turning nasty and vicious, and really below the belt, when called out.
Bloomberg
Housing, Leading Index Probably Slumped: U.S. Economy Preview
July 18, 2010, 12:07 AM EDT
July 18 (Bloomberg) — The housing market took another step back in June as construction and purchases dropped, and a gauge of the outlook for growth signaled the expansion will lose steam, economists said before reports this week.
The expiration of a buyer tax credit has caused housing to retreat, showing the industry that precipitated the recession cannot sustain a recovery absent job growth. The financial turmoil caused by the European debt crisis has shaken confidence in the world’s largest economy, raising the risk that spending and employment will cool.
“At a minimum, we’re headed for a soft patch and possibly an extended period of slow growth,” said Julia Coronado, a senior economist at BNP Paribas in New York. “There is a lot of uncertainty about where housing goes from here. Now that we’re in the world ex-tax credits, it’s not clear how deep the pool of demand is for housing.”
…
Flashback 2006: We couldn’t possibly regress even more to a permanently high plateau, or *horrors* even negative appreciation, could we?
It seems like the two-yr T-note yield was similarly tanking just before the stock market dipped to DJIA = 6K in early 2009.
But don’t worry — this time is different.
Bloomberg
Treasury Two-Year Yields Drop to Record Low as Economy Weakens
July 17, 2010, 12:12 AM EDT
July 17 (Bloomberg) — Treasury two-year note yields fell to a record low as reports showed that consumer confidence plunged to the lowest level in a year and retail sales declined, heightening concern the economic recovery is stalling.
Yields on 10-year notes traded near a 14-month low this week after minutes of the Federal Reserve’s June meeting showed policy makers noted that risks to the recovery increased. Housing starts and sales of existing homes declined last month, reports next week are forecast to show.
“The economic data just keeps coming in softer,” said James Combias, New York-based head of Treasury trading at Mizuho Financial Group Inc., one of the 18 primary dealers that trade with the central bank. “The bond market is pricing in the real possibility of slower growth.”
…
The problem with the treasury yields going down is that they make dividend stocks look better. The 2 year note yields 0.625
This makes a large conservative stock look good:
Company symbol yield (%)
Chevron cvx 3.9
General Electric ge 2.6
Exxon/Mobile xom 3.0
American Express axp 1.7
AT&T t 6.7
Pinnacle West pnw 5.4
Honeywell hon 2.9
Raytheon rtn 3.1
Verizon vz 7.1
General Mills gis 3.1
Hershey hsy 2.5
Ross Stores rost 1.2
Wal-Mart wmt 2.4
Costco cost 1.5
Colgate-Palmolive cl 2.6
Southern Copper scco 6.0
Freeport McMoran fcx 1.9
Barrick Gold abx 0.9
Metropolitan Life met 1.9
So if a stock crash happens, it will be the stretch of the rubber band, making the above stocks even more attractive and another mini stock boom with perhaps a 2,000 point rise in the DOW.
The 2 year note yields 0.625 ??
There is a damm good reason that the yields are that low…Its called fear…Preservation of principal is job #1….
Yeah,the yield going down like that to 0.625 means lots of people have fear enough to buy those notes. I have a two year note yielding 2% that matures in a couple of months. That shows how far the yield has moved in two years. Nevertheless, that investment belongs in my treasury asset allocation so I will probably buy another two year note.
People with money are being bled by their brokers as they dash this way, no that way…
Skills are worth more than money.
“Consumer confidence” has to be the most unreliable indicator of all. Let’s face it, most consumers are sheep and lemmings. They get their worldview from the MSM, which in turn propagates the “all is well, spend spend spend!” mantra of their corporate cartel masters. By the time these dullards figure out that there’s a problem, we’re pretty much deep into the depths.
Perhaps this is mere coincidence, but I note that 44 years ago was 1966, which marked the onset of a period of prolonged U.S. stock market weakness which did not end until 1982 or so — 16 years later.
Consumer prices dip for third straight month
By JEANNINE AVERSA (AP) – 1 day ago
WASHINGTON — Consumer prices fell for the third straight month, offering some bargains to American shoppers.
The Consumer Price Index, the government’s most closely watch inflation barometer, dipped 0.1 percent in June, the Labor Department reported Friday. Less expensive energy bills were a big factor behind the drop. Prices for some food items, airlines fares, computers, telephone service and personal care products also fell last month.
So-called “core” consumer prices, which strip out volatile energy and food, rose 0.2 percent in June. That means core prices rose only 0.9 percent over the past year. That’s below the Fed’s inflation target and has core prices holding at a 44-year low.
Companies are wary of jacking up prices because consumers have cut their spending for two straight months.
A more pessimistic mood among American shoppers was reinforced Friday with the release of a twice-monthly survey from the University of Michigan and Reuters. An index of consumer sentiment compiled from the survey fell to 66.5 in early July from 76. That, along with disappointing earnings reports from two large banks, sent stocks tumbling.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 185 points in early trading.
“Confidence remains unusually weak and that the slowdown in the economic recovery that we always expected has begun,” said Paul Dales, U.S. economist for Capital Economics.
…
“Perhaps this is mere coincidence…”
Then again, perhaps not. Inflation was raging in 1966.
Besides RE, I have yet to see this mythical price deflation.
Desert heat / Budweiser / assault weapons / “TrueBeliever’s™” + a gift card from Cabella’s / Wal-Fart…(Hwy wonders if they use RE signs for target practice?)
Man with neo-Nazi ties leading patrols in AZ
By MICHELLE PRICE Associated Press Writer
“…given that Ready’s group is heavily armed and identifies with the National Socialist Movement, an organization that believes only non-Jewish, white heterosexuals should be American citizens and that everyone who isn’t white should leave the country “peacefully or by force.”
“We’re not going to sit around and wait for the government anymore,” Ready said. “This is what our founding fathers did.”
Nationalist socialist is enough to make me hate that group already.
“This is what our founding fathers did.”
BS. Our founding fathers enslaved and murdered non-whites. They didn’t just walk around in the desert talking to reporters. Wussies.
No, you’re full of BS. Our founding fathers freed slaves and wrote impassioned denunciations of the slave trade. What have you done for freedom lately?
No YOU are full of BS.
George Washington, SLAVE IMPORTER AND OWNER
Ben Franklin, SLAVE OWNER AND TRADER
You really need some elementary school history lessons.
Educate us Mr. French Canadian progressive.
Already done Cupcake.
Tanning customers bought minutes just before salon closed
Tanning salon customers might have been irritated this month to find a new 10 percent federal tax slapped on their bills. A bigger irritation was in store for regulars at a Metro East chain that encouraged them to prepay to avoid the tax.
According to customers, all three Florida Tan Salon locations were open for business on June 30. One regular said that she spoke that day with the company’s owner, Edward “Ted” Rozman, and that he seemed upbeat and cordial. By July 2, each location was closed. Signs on the door offered little in the way of explanation, other than that the stores shut down “due to the economy.”
Rozman couldn’t be reached for comment. His listed home phone number is disconnected, as are the phone lines at the Florida Tan locations in Collinsville, Highland and O’Fallon, Ill. Rozman did not respond to a message sent to his personal e-mail account.
Marta Hinton, of O’Fallon, said she is left with about $150 in tanning minutes that she won’t be able to use. Hinton, who visited the O’Fallon salon about twice per week, blames Rozman for selling minutes his customers would never be able to use.
According to Hinton, Rozman encouraged customers to stock up on minutes before the federal tax kicked in on July 1. (The tax, which was included in the federal health care overhaul, is intended to deter people from using indoor tanning beds, which have been linked to cancer.)
Hinton said she bought about 1,000 minutes during a Memorial Day sale that was heavily promoted at the salons.
“He was really pushing a ‘buy one package, get one for half off’ special,” Hinton said. “He got everyone’s money, and now he’s gone.”
Hinton worries that Florida Tan might have burned her reputation, too. The real estate agent has referred business associates and clients to the salon — including one who recently bought 1,000 minutes of tanning time at Hinton’s suggestion.
Another customer said she spoke with Rozman on June 30. “He acted real friendly,” said the Belleville woman, 37, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Ramona.
“I asked him how many minutes I had left, and he said, ‘Don’t worry, you’re good. You’ve got 200 left,’” Ramona said. “I asked him about it, and just two days later, he’s closed.”
I’m willing to offer thousands of tanning minutes at very low prices to anyone who is interested. The only stipulation is that they can only be used during daylight hours when there is no overcast.
Priceless, combo!
I used to think tanning salons were a luxery for white people; but they really have utility if you think about it.
Some white people use them to get a “base tan’ so when they go on vacation in the Bahamas in the dead of winter, they can go straight to the beach for hours of drunken fun in the surf and sand with no fear of sun burns.
So is the tanning salon tax racist?
Maybe, but the real racism may be the fact that black people can’t go on vacation because a vacation first requires you have a job.
“Maybe, but the real racism may be the fact that black people can’t go on vacation because a vacation first requires you have a job”.
Not having a job or being able to vacation is racism? So all the poor unemployed whites that can’t go on vacation are “victims” of racism also, cool I didn’t know that.
The word racism is used far to often by people that have no idea what it means.
“The word racism is used far to often by people that have no idea what it means.”
do you need to die in order to know what death is?
“do you need to die in order to know what death is”?
A person can “know” they are alive, but they can not “know” they are dead. So your question is pointless.
Besides your comment was about racism, and that poor blacks who can not vacation because they are jobless is NOT racism.
“A person can “know” they are alive, but they can not “know” they are dead.”
Can a person know they are a white person if non white people do not exist?
“Maybe, but the real racism may be the fact that black people can’t go on vacation because a vacation first requires you have a job.”
The race card poker table is just down the hall, sir.
Yawn.
It’s not racist. It’s actually government good intentions. I don’t condone socialist engineering, but many of those people who use indoor tanning don’t save enough money to cover their own medical expenses. If they get melanoma later in life, they will use taxpayer money to pay for their expensive cancer treatments. This well intended tax could at least be used to pay for the medical costs of melanoma.
I don’t like any tax except tariffs though.
Bill:
This is why finally we tax cigarettes at a level which helps pay for the medicaid expenses at the end of life…
$8-10 a pack is a fair price
Sure, let’s tax the shift out of those smokers and tanners. How dare they live there own lives? These taxes and government health care are not about the public interest, they are about control. It is real easy to support these taxes when it is not your ox being gored.
You know the obese and sedentary are the most expensive in terms of health care. But I am sure we are going to start taxing food to “pay” for their costs. Perhaps it would be far less expensive to promote exercise. Exercise keeps your body growing and building new tissues instead of atrophy. Exercise will even decreases the health risk for smokers by a significant amount.
- Just say no to progressives.
Sure, let’s tax the shift out of those smokers and tanners. How dare they live there own lives? These taxes and government health care are not about the public interest, they are about control. It is real easy to support these taxes when it is not your ox being gored.
You know the obese and sedentary are the most expensive in terms of health care. But I am sure we are going to start taxing food to “pay” for their costs. Perhaps it would be far less expensive to promote exercise. Exercise keeps your body growing and building new tissues instead of atrophy. Exercise will even decreases the health risk for smokers by a significant amount.
So much for being a libertarian.
@spook can you move along to another forum please, we aren’t here to espouse useless stereotypes. I don’t know if you understand statistics, but the overall black unemployment rate is about, worst case, 20%. So 80% of African-Americans have jobs (and therefore can go on vacation.) Pointless statement.
Excuse me jaded, but are you unemployed, or African American?
Obama spent all or part of 26 days on vacation his first year in office. Suspect it’s because he has a job. Perhaps he could submit a proposal to Congress similar to the one the Europeans are working on.
The European Union has declared travelling a human right, and is launching a scheme to subsidize vacations with taxpayers’ dollars for those too poor to afford their own trips.
Antonio Tajani, the European Union commissioner for enterprise and industry, proposed a strategy that could cost European taxpayers hundreds of millions of euros a year, The Times of London reports.
“Travelling for tourism today is a right. The way we spend our holidays is a formidable indicator of our quality of life,” Mr. Tajani told a group of ministers at The European Tourism Stakeholders Conference in Madrid on April 15. Mr. Tajani was appointed to his post by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
The plan — just who gets to enjoy the travel package has yet to be determined — would see taxpayers footing some of the vacation bill for seniors, youths between the ages of 18 and 25, disabled people, and families facing “difficult social, financial or personal” circumstances.
Why, Germans have always received “vacation money” from their employers each year, as per contract. Not enough to cover the whole trip to Greece, but enough for quite a few family dinners by the sea.
Oh for heaven’s sake, Spook, stop whining. This depression is an equal opportunity un-employer, brought to you courtesy of the bungled policies of our bought and paid for congress critters on BOTH sides of the aisle, of every complexion, over the past thirty years. Right around then, I reckon, is when they figured out that they never had to leave Fat City.
It’s not about white and black. It’s not about right and left.
It has devolved into right and wrong, with the entrenched money guys - your pal Al included - choking the throats of the rest of us.
I become tiresome: the only solution is to vote against ALL incumbents for the NEXT thirty years. That way nobody has a chance to get entrenched in the money machine. That way, public service is restored to being a hiatus away from your “real” life. That is, assuming you have one. We will discover that most of the folks voted out have no more substance than cardboard cutouts.
What we have now are career criminals running the government, in between breathers on the bench on Wall Street.
Everybody get off your high horses and spit out the diahhrea you have been fed from the Eastern lib establishment. This political correctness blather has systematically dumbed down your capability for critical reason. That is, to examine the patterns and facts of a situation beyond the 30 second sound byte, and to lay them out and compare them, and to draw your own conclusions. My grandparents, working in the fields with very little eddication, were able to do this and to determine when they were being manipulated. What excuse do you have, my politically correct contemporaries, for not having the brains to do the same?
You whine and blather about Sarah Palin, when her real crime is that she doesn’t come out of the approved Eastern intelligentsia mold. And you don’t have the capacity to consider that this is why she rubs you wrong!
Personally, I pray for some Nebraska farmer to take a run at it. And for Sarah P or somebody like her. They cannot be worse than the crooks at whose alters you worship. Elmer Fudd could not be worse, or do me - and you, and our collective children - more damage in our lifetimes.
I’m wary about small businesses that run promotions to prepay for future services at a discount.
A local gym ran a pre-paid promotion for 2010 at the end of 2009, offering what amounted to a 15% discount if you prepaid for the 2010 year by 12/31/09.
This gym “went dark” around the end of May. From what I read online, they were still signing up new customers until the end.
Those prepaid 2010 memberships look awfully expensive now.
B…b…but Hinton researched this. And realtors are supposed to have a superior knowledge of the local economy. Isn’t that how they justify their 6%?
As I’ve said before, I must have missed how tanning salons became a life necessity and the only hope and salvation for mankind.
Florida’s foreclosure king:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/foreclosures-bring-wealth-rebukes-for-florida-lawyer/1109664
New law will lead to greener but higher-priced furniture.~ USA TODAY
Not too long ago, many mass-market furniture makers weren’t all that interested in the no-formaldehyde-added wood that Todd Vogelsinger was trying to sell them from Columbia Forest Products. After all, consumers and regulators weren’t exactly demanding that furniture be formaldehyde-free.
That’s about to change.
The law signed this month by President Obama limiting the amount of formaldehyde in wood is expected to lead to higher furniture and cabinet prices, but healthier — and greener — homes. It’s also likely to increase consumer awareness of a little known chemical and its effects.
ECO-FRIENDLY: : Going truly green might require detective work
Formaldehyde, which is used in many building materials, is linked to cancer and has long been known to cause respiratory problems. The government-provided trailers for victims of Hurricane Katrina were banned because of breathing problems caused by formaldehyde in the walls, ceilings and cabinets. The trailers reignited controversy this month when it was revealed some were being used to house BP oil spill cleanup workers.
“New law will lead to greener but higher-priced furniture.~”
I’ve always been “green” in my furniture purchases. I recycle: I buy used. Or even free.
So to eliminate a processing step and the associated materials and labor costs… more?
This is why we’re doomed.
What’s wrong with Nebraska, just raise taxes…problem solved.
Nebraska state tax revenue drops
The state of the economy can be seen in state tax revenues.
After years of almost steady growth, Nebraska tax revenue dropped two years in a row, something that hasn’t happened in modern times.
The state collected about $3.2 billion this fiscal year, 4.6 percent less than the previous year.
In fact, fiscal year 2010 tax revenue is $147 million below annual tax revenue four years ago.
“If the line graph for revenue were a heart monitor, we’d be in cardiac arrest,” one legislative staff member joked.
State tax revenue, primarily state income and sales tax, reflects the impact of the national recession — layoffs, stock market crash and restrained spending.
Canada may be ready to drop its nearly useless one-cent coin from production.
“When The Canadian cent was first produced at the Ottawa Mint in 1908 (earlier production was done in England), you could buy a paper for two cents and a loaf of bread for five cents. But since then, it has lost 95 per cent of its purchasing power.” ~ Pierre Duguay, deputy governor of the Bank of Canada.
Despite its drop in buying power, Canadians still have an insatiable demand for the coin — almost 1 billion pennies a year. The mint produces 500 million and the rest come from recycling by persuading Canadians to part with pennies that have been hoarded away.
To add insult to injury, it costs about 1.5 cents to produce and distribute each one-cent coin, meaning production is costing taxpayers a pretty penny. Going Centless Makes Sense
~The U.S. should consider dropping the cent, too. It costs more than a cent to make them. And we should consider Canada’s system of producing a $1.00 coin instead of the paper dollar bills that wear out so fast. Canada also mints a $2.00 coin. The lowest denomination paper bill in Canada is the C$5.00 note.
Speaking of circulating coin and currency - - hanging over the present morbid monetary scene is the specter of irredeemable Federal Reserve notes. Constitutional expert Dr. Edwin Vieira says it’s imperative to re-establish a system of sound money and honest banking. He believes the present money illusion is leading to economic disaster, replete with severe austerity measures and excruciating economic misery. He says that will cause us to “…abandon Washington, Madison, and Jefferson for Mussolini and Hitler. Down that road madness truly lies.”
~Don’t dismiss Vieira as just another eccentric economist. He has merely read history and noted that all fiat currencies end in disaster and all experiments in democracy invariably decline into dictatorship.
all fiat currencies end in disaster and all experiments in democracy invariably decline into dictatorship.
Rather sweeping statement, considering there are many democracies that have not declined into dictatorships, and many fiat currencies that have not ended in disaster. You could postulate that they are going to fail, but they haven’t failed yet, and many have lasted a long time and are still doing alright, so you can’t really say it’s inevitable. (Granted, in time, everything fails, even if it lasts until the sun burns out. I assume we’re dealing with a shorter time frame, though.)
Uh, the currency doesn’t necessairly have to be fiat in order to fail. Salt was once used as a currency, so was chocolate, and cigrettes (and maybe they still are in some places). And large round stones with holes in the middle.
It’s all about perceived value. If an item has a perceived value among a population and if it can be used to trade for something else then one could say it is a form of currency.
Beanie Babies were once thought by many to have a large perceived value and hence were traded and thus were a form of currency until their perceived value disappeared, and along with this disappearance went their value as a currency.
Shares of Enron once had a perceived value and could have been - and was - used as a currency, etc.
Could we re-link gold to the dollar? That might stop things.
The $1.00 and $2.00 coins (Loonies and Twoonies) are a PITA. They’re heavy, take up more room to store, they break (the center portion of the Twoonie has a habit of popping out) and they wear holes in the pockets of pants and change purses.
Please don’t lie about how toonies break. I’m from Canada, and I’ve never seen one break, much less anyone I know. When the toonie was introduced in the 90s, local TV had people on who claimed the same thing and did a test. To pop the centre of the coin out, you need to brace the edges and use a metal punch with a hammer. It just doesn’t happen on its own without tools.
There are other reasons that bills are better; namely, they weigh less and don’t make jingling noises when you move. But I never had to deal with a bill changer in a vending machine that didn’t like the loonie or toonie I dropped in it.
“Free Checking” on the way out?
“Checking accounts are a potential source of income. That’s the No. 1 thing that banks are looking at to recoup some of these costs,” said Shannon Stemm, a financial services analyst with Edward Jones.
Bank of America is considering raising minimum balances on some accounts and charging customers who fall below it. Other banks are considering doing away with the once ubiquitous free checking accounts long used to lure new customers.
Another hint of things to come - - Bank of America’s pilot program in Georgia, charges customers $8.95 a month to get paper statements or use bank tellers. The bank could start the program nationally as soon as next month. (A lot of senior citizens will howl about this. They are apt not to have computers and have no intention of learning the ropes of on-line banking.)
“Considering” raising minimum balances? BOA raised its minimum balance for no-charge checking a year or two ago from $300 to $750!
Up until I turned 55 BOA had a free senior citizens checking account. I walked in on my 55th birthday and was told they had just ended the program.
What, you STILL aren’t using a credit union?
No kidding.
I just downloaded an app for my phone to help me find no-fee ATMs that are associated with the Credit Union Service Center. It has already paid for itself (well, the app was free, so the 2$ I saved the 1st time put me ahead).
I have been using a credit union for the last 20 years. They still pay interest on all accounts, they charge 8% credit card interest as opposed to the now-standard 30% charged by the big banks on the government dole, they don’t charge for checking accounts if you keep more than $150 in your account, and they make reasonable loans to ordinary people who have a history of paying back. I have not seen any sign of any stealth fees, attempts to delay posting payments to my credit card account in order to justify a late fee, or any of the numerous forms of petty and not so petty larceny practised by the big banks sucking the government t!t. I don’t understand why a small depositor would do business with boa, wells, citi, or any of the other welfare recipients.
While credit unions are not perfect, they beat the snot out of banks. I will NEVER use another bank in my life if I don’t have to.
Something else to consider: in the last 3 decades of financial disasters, credit unions suffered far less than all other public financial institutions.
The Jobless Effect: Is the Real Unemployment Rate 16.5%, 22%, or. . .?
Raghavan Mayur, president at TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, follows unemployment data closely. So, when his survey for May revealed that 28% of the 1,000-odd households surveyed reported that at least one member was looking for a full-time job, he was flummoxed.
“Our numbers are always very accurate, so I was surprised at the discrepancy with the government’s numbers,” says Mayur, whose firm owns the TIPP polling unit, a polling partner for Investors’ Business Daily and Christian Science Monitor. After all, the headline number shows the U.S. unemployment rate today is 9.5%, with a total of 14.6 million jobless people.
However, Mayur’s polls continued to find much worse figures. The June poll turned up 27.8% of households with at least one member who’s unemployed and looking for a job, while the latest poll conducted in the second week of July showed 28.6% in that situation. That translates to an unemployment rate of over 22%, says Mayur, who has started questioning the accuracy of the Labor Department’s jobless numbers.
Mayur isn’t alone in harboring such doubts, nor is he the first to wonder about inaccuracies. For years, many economists have pointed to evidence that the government data undercounts the unemployed. Economist Helen Ginsburg, co-founder of advocacy group National Jobs For All Coalition, and John Williams of the newsletter Shadow Government Statistics have been questioning these numbers for years.
In fact, Austan Goolsbee, who is now part of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, wrote in a 2003 New York Times piece titled “The Unemployment Myth,” that the government had “cooked the books” by not correctly counting all the people it should, thereby keeping the unemployment rate artificially low. At the time, Goolsbee was a professor at the University of Chicago. When asked whether Goolsbee still believes the government undercounts unemployment, a White House spokeswoman said Goolsbee wasn’t available to comment.
Such undercounting of unemployment can be an enormously dangerous exercise today. It could lead to some lawmakers underestimate the gravity of the labor market’s problems and base their policymaking on a far-less-grim picture than actually exists. Economically, and socially, that would make a bad situation much worse for America.
(From DailyFinance)
Do we really need to go into the U3/U6 thing or the BLS birth death model? Discouraged worker category is vague and BLS models jobs on anticipated growth. Also they monkeyed around with census jobs. Everyone involved in the census was looking for work.
It ain’t just the banks that have been cooking the books.
It’s not cooking the books. It’s not understanding the history behind these numbers. U3 and U6 are not some attempt to cook the books. Neither is the birth and death MODELS. They are attempts to anticipate seasonality in employment.
Take construction for example. All over the country people are off work for the winter because of weather. There is also seasonal hiring around the holidays.
Do you count those jobs or not?
The U3 and U6 numbers have been at what is considered depressionary levels for a while. At some time they decided to do something about people part time employed, not actively searching, off having a baby exc. Hence they made up U3 and U6 numbers. Always have to look at the revised number.
If you are a market player it’s always a mixed bag to look at. If a company is laying off workers it might mean it is going to take a tax charge BUT have much better margins in the future. Not always bad market news.
Also just watching the markets is boring. The markets going up or down are inflation or deflation. I mean if the entire market goes up in price, what does it mean other than inflation?
OK…. this was a very boring conversation anyway.
Well, if they don’t cook the books then how do we look better than the Europeans? Think about the implications.
My own small scale surveys say the same thing. UE is FAR higher than officially reported.
Same with inflation.
America’s New Debtor Prison: Jail time being given to those who owe
www walletpop com/blog/2010/07/15/americas-new-debtor-prison-jail-time-being-given-to-those-who/
(sorry if its a repost)
“People who are imprisoned for their debts are technically locked up for contempt of court after failing to appear for a hearing pertaining to their debt. It’s a legal loophole that debt-collection companies are increasingly using. Here’s how it works: First, the collections company files a lawsuit against the debtor, which requires them to appear in court. If the debtor doesn’t show up, the creditor wins a default judgment against them. This allows them to ask the court to schedule another hearing at which the judge can go through the debtor’s assets and determine if actions such as wage garnishments or bank account seizures can take place.
“If the debtor doesn’t show up to that hearing… the judge can order the debtor in contempt of court and issue a warrant for their arrest… Generally, the judge sets the cost of bail at the amount of the disputed debt, an amount which is then turned over to the creditor.
“…some unscrupulous debt collectors never even send debtors the required notification that the case is being taken to court. Then the debtor fails to show up and the collector wins a default judgment, which can pave the way for imprisonment until they post their bond.”
The loophole is to call it “theft” and not debt.
Voila’! It is obviously NOT debtors prision, oui?
But… not showing up for a court hearing just plain stupid.
As for no notification, that’s a slam dunk lawsuit against the collection agency.
…[s]tarting on January 1st in 2012, US federal law will require coin and bullion dealers to report to the Internal Revenue Service all gold and silver coin purchases and sales greater than $600.
No that is not an error, they tacked the gold coin tracking regulations into the health bill. They are just tacking stuff on wherever they can.
The question is…What is this doing in a health care bill?
directorblue.blogspot.com/2010/07/health-care-bill-inserts-tracking-of.html
• Instead of auditing the Federal Reserve, we get a banker ‘reform’ bill that increases the Fed’s powers. (And Goldman Sachs too by default.
• Instead of paring down the military, we get more wars we can’t afford.
• Instead of removing power from the financial gestapo–the IRS–we will be increasing their budget and control over us.
We are increasingly tracked, monitored, herded, feed, fined, taxed and nagged. We’re bought and sold. Private bankers ‘own’ us and they won’t allow escape.
Well I’m still gonna sell a bunch of bullion after January. Paper trail or not. Frigging government.
Hmm…January 1, 2012. Consider that a gift from the cowardly Dumbocrapic Congress. We gold buyers have enough time to make our purchases / sales in advance of that time. One can change his whole lifestyle / identity / whereabouts in seventeen months easily and hibernate with his wealth until this socialist disease passes.
“One can change his whole lifestyle / identity / whereabouts in seventeen months easily and hibernate with his wealth until this socialist disease passes”.
Yep, there is always a way around a road block, been dodging gubmint bullets all my adult life! Tree top flying works once you get the hang of it.
The question is…What is this doing in a health care bill?
The ‘health bill’ was never about health care. It is about a massive expansion of federal power and reach.
Those poor, poor insurance companies were doing such a great job! How dare the government tell them what to do?!
Riddle me this, ecofeco: why did insurance company stocks go UP after the passage of this “reform”?
No mystery. Forced market lock in. The part I really hate about the bill.
For more info, go to:
http://www.healthcare.gov/
Those poor, poor insurance companies were doing such a great job! How dare the government tell them what to do?!
The poor, poor GOVERNMENT CHARTERED and heavily GOVERNMENT REGULATED insurance companies were doing a crummy job– so obviously more government is the answer…
Despite laws, people still commit crimes. Therefore we should not make punishment more onerous, right?
Yes they are heavily regulated. Because if they weren’t they would rob you blind. Period.
Despite laws, people still commit crimes. Therefore we should not make punishment more onerous, right?
So we should keep making more laws until there are no more crimes committed?
Yes they are heavily regulated. Because if they weren’t they would rob you blind. Period.
If they weren’t ENABLED in the first place by government, people would look to each other’s sense of honor and reputation, rather than to the government, to protect themselves from scams.
Ata way Lehigh. I can see the Murray Rothbard influence in that response of yours!
The ‘health bill’ was never about health care. It is about a massive expansion of federal power and reach.
Bingo.
Oh no, another “soft patch” coming…
Housing, Leading Index in U.S. Probably Slumped in Sign Recovery Slowing. ~Jul 18, 2010
The housing market took another step back in June as construction and purchases dropped, and a gauge of the outlook for growth signaled the expansion will lose steam, economists said before reports this week.
Builders began work on 580,000 houses last month at an annual rate, down 2.2 percent from May and the slowest pace this year, according to the median estimate of 61 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News before Commerce Department data due July 20. Other reports may show sales of existing homes decreased for a second month and the index of leading indicators declined for the first time in more than a year.
The expiration of a buyer tax credit has caused housing to retreat, showing the industry that precipitated the recession cannot sustain a recovery absent job growth. The financial turmoil caused by the European debt crisis has shaken confidence in the world’s largest economy, raising the risk that spending and employment will cool.
“At a minimum, we’re headed for a soft patch and possibly an extended period of slow growth,” said Julia Coronado, a senior economist at BNP Paribas in New York. “There is a lot of uncertainty about where housing goes from here. Now that we’re in the world ex-tax credits, it’s not clear how deep the pool of demand is for housing.”
“Housing, Leading Index in U.S. Probably Slumped in Sign Recovery Slowing.”
How are those numbers going to turn out ‘worse than expected’ if MSM prognosticators start anticipating them to look bad?
“it’s not clear how deep the pool of demand is for housing.”
Some might call that an abyss.
Hungary Assets May Fall as IMF, EU End Talks Without Backing Deficit Plan
Bloomberg
Hungarian bonds and the currency may fall after the International Monetary Fund and European Union ended talks with the government without endorsing Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s plans to control the budget deficit.
The Washington-based IMF, which is providing the bulk of a 20 billion-euro ($25.8 billion) emergency loan to Hungary under a 2008 bailout agreement, said late yesterday that “a range of issues remain open.” Hungary must make “tough decisions, notably on spending,” to comply with deficit requirements, the EU said.
Clouds over U.S. housing
Four major indicators due in coming week, but economists are unusually uncertain about what to expect, where industry is headed.
“economists are unusually uncertain” LOL! It doesn’t matter whether they are certain or uncertain, they are still usually wrong.
“…they are still usually wrong.”
And the data still usually comes in ‘worse than expected’ compared to their so-called ‘forecasts’…
+1
This is an important election, as the climate is at stake. We would be in deep doo-doo without one.
Australian Election Battle Begins With Company Profits, Climate at Stake.
Jul 18, 2010
The latest poll shows Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Labor party with an election-winning lead. Photographer: Joseph Lafferty/Bloomberg
Australians will vote in a general election on Aug. 21 that will decide whether mining companies share more of their wealth, who pays to clean up the environment and if the first female prime minister can keep her job.
The latest poll shows Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s Labor party with an election-winning lead over Tony Abbott’s Liberal- National coalition. Gillard, who ousted former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd last month, set the date for the election on July 17, vowing to maintain the economic growth that helped skirt the global recession while improving education and health care.
The election will determine whether resources companies led by BHP Billiton Ltd. and Rio Tinto Ltd. pay higher taxes, a policy championed by Rudd and diluted by Gillard, 48, to win their support. Abbott, bidding to make Labor the first one-term government in 80 years, pledged not to adopt the tax, describing it as a punishment for the nation’s most profitable industry.
“There are fairly big differences in terms of health, the mining tax, which the coalition would ax, and in industrial relations and regulation generally,” Shane Oliver, head of investment strategy at AMP Capital Investors, which manages about $95 billion, said by telephone from Sydney.
U.S. Instructs BP to Reopen Gulf Well, Capture Oil After Concluding Tests
Jul 18, 2010
BP Plc was ordered by U.S. officials to open its sealed Macondo gusher in the Gulf of Mexico and resume capturing the escaping oil after it concludes tests on the well.
BP, based in London, stopped the flow of oil and began testing on July 15 to look for damage. After reviewing more than two days of data, BP found no evidence of hidden leaks, Kent Wells, BP’s senior vice president for exploration and production, said on a conference call with reporters yesterday.
National Incident Commander Thad Allen ordered the London- based company yesterday to do at least another 24 hours of monitoring, including additional seismic mapping intended to detect oil leaking from the seafloor.
“The test has provided us with valuable information which will inform the procedure to kill the well and a better understanding of options for temporary shut-in during a hurricane,” Allen said in an e-mailed statement.
Relief wells that BP is drilling to plug the leak with mud and cement next month remain the “ultimate step” in stopping the spill, Allen said. BP plans to finish drilling the first relief well this month and kill the gusher by mid-August.
This story immediately brings to mind the health care reform bill…
Chuck Jaffe
July 18, 2010, 12:01 p.m. EDT
Financial follies
Commentary: Wall Street reform does nothing for Main Street
…
This law is so ponderous, no one seems sure of what’s in it. I pride myself on my ability to get through detailed legal documents, but after reading this bill to the point just before my eyes started bleeding, the one thing that becomes clear is that no one can be entirely sure what the heck they voted for.
The law was written by congressional aides, who were buttonholed by lobbyists and were more concerned with passing legislation that would be popular with the public come mid-term elections.
There is so much stuff in this bill, it feels like legislators simply wanted to wear the public down. Try reading this on your own (I dare you), and the sight of politicians spinning sound bites and bullet points doesn’t look so bad. The legislation is so painful to get through that you could punish white-collar criminals by forcing them to read this thing aloud for hours on end.
…
“The June poll turned up 27.8% of households with at least one member who’s unemployed and looking for a job, while the latest poll conducted in the second week of July showed 28.6% in that situation. That translates to an unemployment rate of over 22%, says Mayur, who has started questioning the accuracy of the Labor Department’s jobless numbers.”
I have to question the comparability of the 22% figure Mayur cooked up by his own recipe with the BLS jobless numbers. Generally speaking, different methodologies give different answers.
That was supposed to be a response to this post:
“Comment by cobaltblue
2010-07-18 08:49:07
The Jobless Effect: Is the Real Unemployment Rate 16.5%, 22%, or. . .?”
He did what exactly what they do: he called people.
He is saying that the BLS is outright lying. And they are.
Presto-Change-o… Where’s my “free” stuff?
Changing Stance, Administration Now Defends Insurance Mandate as a Tax.
WASHINGTON — When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”
And that power, they say, is even more sweeping than the federal power to regulate interstate commerce.
Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations.
Under the legislation signed by President Obama in March, most Americans will have to maintain “minimum essential coverage” starting in 2014. Many people will be eligible for federal subsidies to help them pay premiums.
In a brief defending the law, the Justice Department says the requirement for people to carry insurance or pay the penalty is “a valid exercise” of Congress’s power to impose taxes.
Firms cancel health coverage
With cost rising, small companies turning to state
The relentlessly rising cost of health insurance is prompting some small Massachusetts companies to drop coverage for their workers and encourage them to sign up for state-subsidized care instead, a trend that, some analysts say, could eventually weigh heavily on the state’s already-stressed budget.
Since April 1, the date many insurance contracts are renewed for small businesses, the owners of about 90 small companies terminated their insurance plans with Braintree-based broker Jeff Rich and indicated in a follow-up survey that they were relying on publicly-funded insurance for their employees.
In Sandwich, business consultant Bill Fields said he has been hired by small businesses to enroll about 400 workers in state-subsidized care since April, because the company owners said they could no longer afford to provide coverage. Fields said that is by far the largest number he has handled in such a short time.
“They are giving up out of frustration,’’ Fields said of the employers. “Most of them are very compassionate but they simply can’t afford health insurance any more.’’
Apparently, there are quite a few individuals here who LIKE this development.
What you find abhorrent, wmbz, they find Glorious.
I wonder if their kids and grandkids also will find it Glorious.
Would these small businesses have been able to continue to provide coverage if they were in Connecticut or Maine? Or would their employees simply be on their own?
We may reach a point where nobody can afford insurance, except for those wealthy enough not to need it, regardless of whether it is paid for by individuals or employers or government. When that happens, I guess we will just use less medical care and die earlier from treatable chronic conditions (like diabetes) or from public health threats (like tuberculosis) or from accidents or childbirth.
But that will be OK because then we won’t have to save for retirement.
How about individuals paying for their own individual insurance?
What a novel idea!
Remove the government, corporations and insurance companies and I’d bet that health care costs drop markedly for all.
If nobody can pay for it, prices will come down. That’s how it works.
“WASHINGTON — When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax.”
No new tax, they were creating 16,500 new IRS agents.
There is a clause to hire 16,500 new IRS agents to continuously audit everyone throughout the year as they will be responsible to make sure everyone is purchasing health care insurance and whoever is not covered will have to pay a $2250 fine that is deducted from tax returns or else they will be garnishing wages.
I can’t wait until January 1!
The U.S.S.A. officially begins.
The United Socialist States of America.
DC Council member HELOCs the crap out of his house to buy a huge boat and fancy cars, and still manages to run up tens of thousands in credit card debt.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/17/AR2010071702704.html?sid=ST2010071702781
When D.C. Council member Kwame R. Brown wants an escape, he can climb into a Cadillac Escalade, head down to a private yacht club on the Anacostia River and fire up Bullet Proof, his 38-foot powerboat, before returning to his four-bedroom Hillcrest home.
Brown and his wife, Marcia, had purchased the brick home, on a hill across from a wooded gully, for $313,000 in late 2002. They got a 30-year, fixed-rate loan from Industrial Bank and within a year borrowed against the equity. According to real estate records, the couple refinanced in 2004, signing a $319,260 adjustable-rate note from Washington Mutual, adding soon after a $92,000 home equity line of credit from SunTrust.
In 2006, at the height of the market, the Browns refinanced again, borrowing $598,000 from McLean-based First Savings Mortgage Corp. At the time, Brown was drawing a $92,530 salary as a council member; his wife had left her job to raise their two children, born in 2001 and 2003, and would not return to work until 2007. “We made a sacrifice for that, and I don’t regret that sacrifice,” said Brown, who now is paid $122,530 a year and stands to make $190,000 if elected chairman.
Chuck Riley, a real estate agent active in the Hillcrest market and a neighbor of Brown’s, estimates the home’s current market value at no more than $420,000. The balance on the mortgage, Brown said, far exceeds that figure and the line of credit is still active.
Just living the great American “consumers” dream, I want it all and I want it now!
Besides as his wife said, they made “sacrifices”, it was really,really hard, and as everyone should know by now, it wouldn’t be fair other wise.
All I had to read was “Escalade” to know this guy is an idiot.
“DC City Council member” wasn’t enough for you?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100718/ap_on_bi_ge/cb_cuba_too_many_workers
Socialism destroys workers’ incentive to work or produce?! I am shocked, shocked! Ironic that Castro is complaining about parasitism, when that is the highest and logical manifestation of the system he devoted his life to imposing.
Community organizers and DNC Utopians, take note.
HAVANA – At a state project to refurbish a decaying building in Old Havana, one worker paints a wall white while two others watch. A fourth sleeps in a wheelbarrow positioned in a sliver of shade nearby and two more smoke and chat on the curb.
President Raul Castro has startled the nation lately by saying about one in five Cuban workers may be redundant. At the work site on Obispo street, those numbers run in reverse.
It’s a common sight in communist Cuba. Here, nearly everyone works for the state and official unemployment is minuscule, but pay is so low that Cubans like to joke that “the state pretends to pay us and we pretend to work.”
~~ But the good news, here in Amerika is you can sleep in a gubmint wheel barrow and make 3 times what a non-gubmint worker would make, having to actually work and get a pension, so it’s all good. We’ll be hiring more redundant workers as time goes on, so it will get even better!
This may be a dumb question.
I want advice on an economics textbook for a self-study refresher course. My college econ course was back in 1973 and of course my memory is somewhat vague.
I’d like to hear some suggestions on a text to use, hopefully one that uses college level mathematical tools. I have an MA in math and find it much quicker to read through a text that doesn’t try to use words to “talk their way around mathematical concepts” if you get my meaning.
At a price tag of $3.99 (used), how could you go wrong with this one?
Principles of Economics [Hardcover]
Robert H Frank (Author)
Ben Bernanke (Author)
› Visit Amazon’s Ben Bernanke Page
5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
1 Review
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10 new from $30.97 67 used from $3.99
That sounds good. I figured that students pay inflated prices on texts that needlessly change edition every year or so, but that I could use one a few years old. Thanks.
DennisN,
Do you want to learn economics for real, or do you want to learn the pseudo-intellectual Keynesian gobbledygook that is taught in universities?
If the former, I recommend Murray Rothbard’s two volume masterpiece History of Economic Thought.
PS:
I also have an MS in mathematics, but economics is a separate subject that has to be studied from the ground up. Higher math doesn’t help much with a genuine understanding of economics, though it is used often as window-dressing in “econometrics” and similar academic pretensions.
You remind me of another favorite which you will not find discussed much in the Keynesian-dominated world of U.S. university economics departments:
Economics in One Lesson
by Henry Hazlitt
The Lesson
Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousandfold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics or medicine-the special pleading of selfish interests. While every group has certain economic interests identical with those of all groups, every group has also, as we shall see, interests antagonistic to those of all other groups. While certain public policies would in the long run benefit everybody, other policies would benefit one group only at the expense of all other groups. The group that would benefit by such policies, having such a direct interest in them, will argue for them plausibly and persistently. It will hire the best buyable minds to devote their whole time to presenting its case. And it will finally either convince the general public that its case is sound, or so befuddle it that clear thinking on the subject becomes next to impossible.
Here is an excerpt from the ending, which will provide an inkling of how far along we have come in the 32 years since it was written in 1978 (sadly, not very far!!!):
In brief, the main problem we face today is not economic, but political. Sound economists are in substantial agreement concerning what ought to be done. Practically all government attempts to redistribute wealth and income tend to smother productive incentives and lead toward general impoverishment. It is the proper sphere of government to create and enforce a framework of law that prohibits force and fraud. But it must refrain from specific economic interventions. Government’s main economic function is to encourage and preserve a free market. When Alexander the Great visited the philosopher Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for him, Diogenes is said to have replied: ‘Yes, stand a little less between me and the sun.” It is what every citizen is entitled to ask of his government.
The outlook is dark, but it is not entirely without hope. Here and there one can detect a break in the clouds. More and more people are becoming aware that government has nothing to give them without first taking it away from somebody else—or from themselves. Increased handouts to selected groups mean merely increased taxes, or increased deficits and increased inflation. And inflation, in the end, misdirects and disorganizes production. Even a few politicians are beginning to recognize this, and some of them even to state it clearly.
In addition, there are marked signs of a shift in the intellectual winds of doctrine. Keynesians and New Dealers seem to be in a slow retreat. Conservatives, libertarians, and other defenders of free enterprise are becoming more outspoken and more articulate. And there are many more of them. Among the young, there is a rapid growth of a disciplined school of “Austrian” economists.
There is a real promise that public policy may be reversed before the damage from existing measures and trends has become irreparable.
The Road to Serfdom by Hayek is also on my reading list.
LVG,
Well….actually both. I’d like to learn the pseudo-intel-Keynesian stuff so that I can rebut some of the nonsense I see coming from the government and on many blogs. Right now I’m not able to even parse their arguments properly.
My point about math comes from my remembering a lecture which presented a “plausibility argument” about some curves dealing with elasticity of demand. IIRC I thought to myself “that’s just the chain rule from calculus”.
Is there a doctor in the house
Friend is scheduled for arthoscopic knee surgery Tuesday (meniscus and ACL repair). His labs came back with elevated creatine levels– re: kidney function. something about 1.2 being the high end of normal and his being 1.4. Does anyone know if anesthesia is going to tax his possibly hurtin’ kidneys? He may reschedule or is he worried over something minor? He is gonna talk to the anesthesiologist. Yes he takes vicodin and or ibuprofen and drinks, and takes blood pressure meds. He is 42. Cardiologist took him off his meds in effort to improve labs, but with surgery sched. for Tuesday he is worried! (he could re schedule, but wants to ideally be recovered enough to teach by Sept.). But you cant teach if you are dead, I suppose.
Any surgeons wanna take a stab at this one? Newly elevated creatine levels + surgery being the bugaboo.
A doctor is going to tell you exactly what I’m going to tell you: he needs to talk to HIS doctor or seek a second opinion IN PERSON from another doctor.
Medical advice over a public message board is not only a bad idea, but illegal as well.
forgot to mention that I know that, thanks for the edumacation, I was/am not looking for binding info. But thanks for playing doctor anyway and giving advice, then telling me it is illegal to give advice. You did not what any doctor would tell my friend, maybe all doctors don’t recommend second opinions, but it is good advice neverthelless, even if it is illegal advice from a layperson.
Always get a second opinion when surgery is involved. He is fretful, as he has never had elevated creatinine, which caused me to investigate as a layperson on his behalf.
Is searching “elevated creatine levels” on google or medical message boards also illegal? Hope ya didn’t break any laws on my behalf. Thanks polly as well, good sound anecdotal experience plus the idea that hte cardiologist should be in touch with the anesthesiologist.
He has high blood pressure. I have a feeling he will get some more medical advice before being put under.
I had meniscus tear surgery about a year ago at George Washington University Hospital in DC. No one ever took a single blood sample. Not at the hospital and not at the doctor’s office, and I had never had general anesthesia before. Blood pressure got checked a few times. Is your friend sure that the test was even needed? The ACL tear might make his time under anesthesia a lot longer, but I don’t think so. Does he have heart disease? If so, the anesthesiologist should be talking to the cardiologist rather than your friend guessing at whether his surgery is going to kill him.
If you can’t fill ‘em, burn ‘em.
OUR VIEW: Burn vacant homes
Last updated
Sunday, July 18, 2010 - 12:09am
The Ogden Fire Department’s request to burn the vacant homes in the Ogden River Project area for firefighters’ training purposes is a great idea that Junction City leaders should fund as soon as possible.
The deserted homes are a public hazard, period. If there is a feasible way to get many of the 40 homes demolished and eliminate the fire hazard, it makes sense to do it. The Ogden City Council needs to allocate $564,000 to demolish the homes. The Ogden Redevelopment Agency’s fiscal 2011 budget includes $183,275 to start the process of demolishing the vacant houses. Other funding options include Business Depot Ogden lease money, property liens or exchanges for land in the river project for a local park.
The River Project has been partially stalled due to inaction by Ogden Riverfront Development, managed by California developer Gadi Leshem. It involves about 60 acres by the river in Ogden from 18th to 20th streets and Washington Boulevard to Wall Avenue. The area boasts beautiful terrain and walking and biking areas. But the abandoned homes have prompted 17 structure fires in the area that the Ogden Fire Department has had to respond to in the last 30 months, said Ogden Fire Chief Mike Mathieu.
…
Do they gut the houses before they light em up?
The reason I ask is because modern houses have so much plastic/synthetic materials that the smoke is toxic.
Salon
Editor: Steve Kornacki
Updated: Today
Topic: Mortgage Crisis
Wednesday, Jul 14, 2010 12:22 ET
How The World Works
New budget director’s Wall Street stain
Citibank investment funds overseen by Obama nominee Jacob Lew bet against the housing market. Off with his head!
…
Pinched: Tales from an Economic Downturn
Monday, Jul 12, 2010 20:20 ET
I thought I’d beaten the foreclosure crisis
When the first wave hit, I shook my head at irresponsible Americans. Then I lost my income — and my home is next
That is great writing! And I am very aware that I could be the next victim of the foreclosure crisis if my landlord doesn’t keep up or if my temp job ends.
Wondering if Ben Jones knows this outfit?
Salon
Pinched is an ongoing series about life during a recession.
Wednesday, Sep 30, 2009 03:08 ET
What’s left behind when people lose their homes
My boyfriend and I repossess and clean out foreclosed houses. It’s not easy picking up after the American dream
By Cindy Reid
He is the man you never want to see pull up to your house. He has eyes that go flat when you offer excuses. Couldn’t pay your mortgage? Too bad. A mix-up with the bank? Get yourself a lawyer. Paperwork says the bank owns your house now. Today is moving day.
My friends call him “Repo Joe.” The crews call him “Bossman.” I call him boss, too. But I also call him “sweetie.”
My boyfriend owns a company in South Carolina that evicts people and cleans up foreclosed houses so they can be put back on the real-estate market. In his 20 years in the business, he has seen it all and then some. I’ve only been working for him for two years, but it’s hardened me, too (and I was a pretty tough New Yorker). I couldn’t have picked a better time to join his crew. No one used to care about this kind of grunt work. Now he is pestered by people who want to work for him. People who want to get rich too, cleaning up after the American dream.
On paper, the business is pretty straightforward: A house is assigned from the bank that has foreclosed on the property. Find the house. Take numerous pictures before, during and after the cleanup process. Go to the next house. It sounds so simple; in fact the Internet is filled with get-rich-quick tutorials on how to make money doing it. What’s not on paper is how you feel cleaning up behind a family’s dead hope.
In the beginning I would ask, “How did they lose their house?” What I really meant was, “Was it their fault?” But Joe doesn’t know the answer. It simply isn’t part of the paperwork. So I would try to extrapolate from the evidence: My first was a double-wide on a dirt road in the woods, filled with empty prescription bottles, a hospital bed, boxes of Depends, insulin needles. Maybe someone died, I thought. But the neighbor said no, the woman had just been unable to pay her bills, so they foreclosed on her. After a dozen houses, I stopped wondering what happened. People’s lives take crappy turns. It happens to everyone, especially these days.
…
Zen & The Art of Foreclosure
A backwards account of losing every thing & yet no thing
MARCH 12, 2010 11:08AM
How Foreclosure Feels in Less Than 500 Words
I am not certain how many days I have left until foreclosure. I am not certain where I will move. I am not certain how the final moments in my house will feel, whether I will cry tears of relief or tears of sadness. Either way there’s a 9 in 10 chance a grown man will be crying when he walks out his front door for the last time. I am not certain what the neighbors will think when they see me carting my things from the house. I am not certain what they will surmise led to the foreclosure in the weeks following. I am not certain if they will think about it at all. I am not certain they will care. My life is filled with uncertainties and it’s driving me crazy. The only thing I am certain of is that I will lose my house and there is nothing I can do about it.
…
Skyrocketing foreclosures? I feel joy when I hear of it.
Collapsing Sales Volume? It lights up my day.
Falling housing prices? I feel nothing but glee.
A lying realtor squealing like an infant about no sales? I feel like I died and went to heaven.
Seems to be that there is “some seepage a distance from the well” according to Thad Allen. I remember someone on this blog saying this could be exactly the case on saturday morning…
It was friday morning, actually.
Fair Game
Holding Bankers’ Feet to the Fire
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
Published: July 16, 2010
KUDOS to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, overseer of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the crippled mortgage finance giants. While some in Washington have continued to coddle the big banks even after they drove our economy into the ditch, this agency seems serious about recovering money for taxpayers by holding bad financial actors to account.
The agency announced last Monday that it had issued 64 subpoenas to a throng of unidentified financial services institutions, seeking documents related to mortgage securities that Fannie and Freddie bought from Wall Street during the boom years.
The subpoenas are designed to tell the agency what many of us want to know: How did Wall Street package and sell private-label mortgage securities to investors, even though the nature and quality of some of the loans crammed inside those tidy little packages were, at best, suspect?
Once that question has been answered, Fannie and Freddie can force the institutions that sold the securities to repurchase the improper loans, allowing taxpayers to recover some of the losses they’ve swallowed on Fannie’s and Freddie’s federal bailout.
Investigating this aspect of the mortgage mess seems a pretty logical step for a regulator. But in the topsy-turvy world of Washington, the housing finance agency’s move is unusually aggressive. Edward J. DeMarco, its acting director, seems to be that rarity — a regulator who not only talks about looking out for the taxpayer, but actually does something about it.
The subpoenas went to companies that act as trustees for mortgage pools or that service the loans in them. The housing finance agency wants to see loan files and transaction documents related to those pools, including mortgage applications and property appraisals. Recipients of the subpoenas have 30 days to produce the requested documents. Additional subpoenas may follow, it said.
The agency had to resort to subpoenas, it said, because when it asked the institutions for the records it got nowhere for many months. “Difficulty in obtaining the loan documents has presented a challenge to the enterprises’ efforts” to ascertain whether losses at the companies are the responsibility of others, its press release said.
Fannie and Freddie bought only the highest-rated pieces of these deals, but they bought buckets of them. During 2006-7, these entities bought $294 billion of so-called private-label securities. Not all of these purchases are under scrutiny, the agency said.
It is clearly turning up the heat on the major players in mortgage servicing and securitization. Among the bigger trustees in the business are Deutsche Bank and the Bank of New York, while loan servicers include Bank of America and many more. None of the banks would confirm if they had received subpoenas.
…
Fannie Mae gets tough on ’strategic’ mortgage defaults
By Paul Sakuma, AP
Nearly 528,000 homes were taken over by lenders in the first six months of the year, a rate that is on track to eclipse the more than 900,000 homes repossessed in 2009, according to data by RealtyTrac.
By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY
Borrowers who walk away from mortgages they can afford to pay — making “strategic defaults” — are running increasing risks that they’ll be penalized for doing so.
Starting in October, Fannie Mae says, strategic defaulters will be disqualified for new Fannie Mae-backed loans for seven years after their foreclosures. Fannie also says it will go to court where it can to recoup outstanding mortgage debt from borrowers who strategically default.
Under a bill that’s passed the House and awaits Senate action, the Federal Housing Administration would be barred from insuring mortgages for those who previously ditched a mortgage they had the ability to pay.
Get-tough policies are forming at the same time that about a quarter of mortgage borrowers owe more than their homes are worth.
Fannie Mae buys about 40% of all mortgages and packages them for resale to investors. The FHA insures about 30% of home mortgages.
Freddie Mac, which also buys mortgages, says it is examining Fannie Mae’s policy.
To determine if a borrower is in default, Fannie examines whether the homeowner still has access to credit and is paying that debt and others.
Cracking down on strategic defaulters is controversial. Some lenders say it is necessary to stem the tide of homeowners shirking their obligations.
“We need to start treating bad behavior with serious and measureable consequences so that we can get this nation back on its feet,” says Daniel Smith, vice president of mortgage banking at First Place Bank in Livonia, Mich. “Washington needs to come up with a uniform law on this issue.”
…
Moody’s eCONomy dot com is predicting a miraculous U.S. housing market rebound by 2012.
Time will tell. The current trajectory certainly doesn’t agree with their projections! For one thing, they don’t seem troubled by the fact that there is no labor market recovery; secondly, they neglect to mention the fact that the Keynesian hair-of-the-dog first-time-buyer $8K stimulus burned the legs out from under the chair on which housing demand used to rest, in order to heat up the economy.
No chair legs, no demand.
Tracking the U.S. housing market’s rise, fall and rebound
These five charts show the housing industry’s boom and bust this decade and forecast the possible course of its recovery the next three years, as reflected in home sales, home prices, housing starts, the supply of homes available for sale and mortgage defaults. All data is quarterly.
…
Opinion
Obama’s New Financial Regulation Bill Strangles America’s Economy with Red Tape
By John Berlau
Published July 15, 2010
The 2,315 page Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill that passed the Senate 60-39 on Thursday and will be signed by President Obama next week should not be called “financial reform.”
Instead, it should be called what for what it is: pages and pages of massively costly, counterproductive and possibly unconstitutional mandates on nearly every type of business except for those government-sponsored enterprises at the root of the crisis.
And while the bill claims to crack down on excesses on Wall Street, its harshest impact will likely be on Main Street businesses that had nothing to do with the crisis.
A front-page Wall Street Journal article this week noted that “far from Wall Street, President Barack Obama’s financial regulatory overhaul … will leave tracks across the wide-open landscape of American industry.” The Journal notes that “the bill will touch storefront check cashiers, city governments, small manufacturers.”
But one thing it will leave totally untouched are the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which new research by Congress’ Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and other bodies shows was even more of a prime factor in the subprime boom than originally assumed.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency now reports that Fannie and Freddie purchase 40 percent of of all private-label subprime securities in 2003 and 2004. Indeed, according to Edward Pinto, housing scholar and Fannie’s former chief credit officer, millions of mortgages to borrowers with credit scores of less than 660, considered by prominent researchers to be the dividing line for subprime loans, had been labeled by Fannie and Freddie as prime going back as early as 1993.
Rather than wait for Congress’s own Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to issue its report in December to examine the role of Fannie and other causes, Congress has instead passed a bill that will not prevent future bubbles and imposes untold costs that will put the country in danger of slipping back into a recession.
…
How is that decoupling theory holding up these days?
Bloomberg
Asia Bond Risk Jumps Most in Six Weeks After U.S. Bank Earnings
July 18, 2010, 9:47 PM EDT
More From Businessweek
July 19 (Bloomberg) — The cost of protecting Asian bonds from default surged by the most in six weeks after U.S. banks reported revenue that missed estimates, sending stocks tumbling.
The Markit iTraxx Asia index of credit-default swaps on 50 investment-grade borrowers outside Japan climbed 9 basis points to 137 basis points as of 8:23 a.m. in Singapore, the biggest jump since June 4, prices from Credit Agricole CIB and CMA show.
“The negative reaction in the stock market to U.S. bank earnings has got the credit market worried,” said Finbar Cooke, head of credit derivatives at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. in Sydney. “It’s made investors question the strength of the economic recovery.”
The Markit iTraxx Australia index jumped 8 basis points to 133.5 basis points as of 10:56 a.m. in Sydney, the most since June 29, according to ANZ and CMA. Markets in Japan are closed today for a holiday.
Credit-default swap indexes are benchmarks for protecting bonds against default and traders use them to speculate on credit quality. An increase suggests deteriorating perceptions of credit quality and a drop shows improvement.
…
One in Five Federal Student Loans Go Into Default
By ZAC BISSONNETTE
Posted 9:00 AM 07/17/10
Economy, People, College Finance
New data from the Department of Education shows that of federal student loan borrowers whose loans entered repayment in 1995, fully one in five — or 20% — have since gone into default.
To put that number in perspective, the default rate on first mortgages hit a record high of 5.67% in 2009 and has since pulled back to 3.71%. The default rate on credit cards is 9.14%, and the default rate on car loans peaked at 2.75% last year.
And while defaults on those loans generally require just three months of missed payments, a federal student loan must go close to one year without payments before it is considered to be in default.
Borrowers are often unaware of the risks associated with student loans. For too long, guidance counselors, financial aid officers, and admissions officers have been telling young people that student loans are a good form of debt, and that the high earnings that come with a college degree will make that debt manageable. We can now say definitively that that was never true for a higher percentage of borrowers than on almost any other kind of loan.
See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/c28×5A
test
The apparent disagreement began to sprout Saturday when Allen said the cap would eventually be hooked up to a mile-long pipe to pump the crude to ships on the surface. But early the next day, BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles said the cap should stay clamped shut to keep in the oil until a permanent fix.
The company very much wants to avoid a repeat of millions of gallons of oil spewing from the blown well for weeks, watched live across the country on underwater video.
My guess is BP does not want an accurate accounting of how much oil is spilling into the gulf. If they hook this up to a boat and can measure exactly how much is recovered with no leak you will know how much is spilling. If this number turns out to be much higher than the BP and gov(manipulated by BP) figures then BP faces higher liability.
we never had a rent increase
That’s me too.
To kurt, measton, DennisN, Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower, pressboardbox, exeter, Happy2bHeard, Spook, polly and mikeinbend.
Whatever you do, don’t cheat!
CHINESE HOROSCOPE:
THE YEAR OF THE IRON DRAGON, WISHING YOU PROSPERITY AND GOOD FORTUNE IN THE CHINESE NEW YEAR
FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS - DO NOT CHEAT OR IT WON’T WORK AND
YOU WILL WISH YOU HADN`T.
TAKE 3 MINUTES - TRY THIS - IT WILL FREAK YOU OUT.
THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO ME SAID HER WISH CAME TRUE 10 MINUTES AFTER SHE FORWARDED THE EMAIL. NO CHEATING !!!!
THIS GAME HAS A FUNNY / CREEPY OUTCOME. DO NOT READ AHEAD, JUST DO IT. IT TAKES ABOUT 3 MINUTES - WORTH A TRY
1st. Get PEN and PAPER
2nd. WHEN CHOOSING NAMES, MAKE SURE THEY ARE REAL PEOPLE THAT YOU ACTUALLY KNOW
3rd. GO WITH YOUR FIRST INSTINCTS!!!!! It’s very important for good results.
4th. SCROLL DOWN ONE LINE AT THE TIME
DON`T READ AHEAD
otherwise
YOU WILL RUI N THE FUN.
On a blank sheet of paper, WRITE NUMBERS 1 through 11 in a COLUMN on the LEFT.
BESIDE the NUMBERS 1 & 2,
WRITE DOWN ANY
2 NUMBERS YOU WANT.
DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE NUMBER?
BESIDE the NUMBERS 3 & 7,
WRITE DOWN THE NAMES OF TWO MEMBERS
OF THE OPPOSITE SEX.
CAUTION: DO NOT LOOK AHEAD or IT WILL NOT TURN OUT RIGHT
WRITE ANYONES NAME (like FRIENDS or FAMILY. …)
next to 4, 5, & 6 .
DON`T CHEAT OR YOU`LL BE UPSET THAT YOU DID
WRITE down FOUR SONG TITLES in 8, 9, 10, & 11
Finally, MAKE A WISH
ARE YOU READY?
HERE IS THE
KEY TO THE GAME
THE NUMBER of PEOPLE YOU MUST TELL ABOUT THIS GAME is found in
SPACE 2
THE PERSON IN SPACE
3 IS THE ONE YOU LOVE
THE PERSON YOU LIKE but your relationship CANNOT WORK is in
SPACE 7
YOU CARE MOST about t he PERSON you put in
SPACE 4
THE PERSON YOU NAME IN NUMBER 5 IS THE ONE WHO
KNOWS YOU VERY WELL….
THE PERSON YOU NAMED IN6 IS YOUR LUCKY STAR
THE SONG IN 8 IS THE SONG THAT MATCHES WITH THE
PERSON IN NUMBER 3
THE TITLE IN 9 IS THE SONG FOR THE
PERSON IN 7
THE 10 TH SPACE IS THE SONG THAT TELLS YOU MOST ABOUT
YOUR MIND
AND 11 IS THE SONG TELLING HOW YOU
FEEL ABOUT LIFE
NUMBER 1 IS YOUR
LUCKY NUMBER
SEND THIS TO A MINIMUM OF10 PEOPLE
WITHIN AN HOUR OF READING THIS.
IF YOU DO, YOUR WISH WILL COME TRUE.
IF YOU FAIL TO, IT WILL BECOME THE OPPOSITE
IT IS STRANGE HOW IT SEEMS TO WORK.