Bits Bucket For October 21, 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
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Banks Face Two-Front War on Bad Mortgages, Flawed Foreclosures.
Shoddy mortgage lending has led bankers into a two-front war, pitting them against U.S. homeowners challenging the right to foreclose and mortgage-bond investors demanding refunds that could approach $200 billion.
While federal regulators and state attorneys general have focused on flawed foreclosures, a bigger threat may be the cost to buy back faulty loans that banks bundled into securities. JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. have set aside just $10 billion in reserves to cover future buybacks. Bank of America alone said this week that pending claims jumped 71 percent from a year ago to $12.9 billion of loans.
Investors such as Bill Gross’s Pacific Investment Management Co. contend that sellers are obligated to repurchase some mortgages because of misrepresentations such as overstatements of borrowers’ income or inflated appraisals. Their case may be bolstered by probes in 50 states into whether banks used documents that were also flawed to conduct foreclosures. Neither dispute is likely to be resolved quickly.
“It’s going to be trench warfare with years of lawyering,” Christopher Whalen, managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics, said in a telephone interview from White Plains, New York. “The banks can’t afford to lose.”
“…Two-Front War…”
Funny — I count three fronts:
1) Home owners facing foreclosure
2) Pimco and other investors who want their money back
3) Uncle Sam
financial guru tom sullivan trying for short sale:
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/10/21/3120279/financial-guru-tom-sullivan-seeks.html
How are the rich with multiple properties doing short sales
This is an example of the kind of guy the bank could probably go after. Calif. Code of Civ. Pro. sec. 580b states in pertinent part
No deficiency judgment shall lie in any event after a sale of real property … under a deed of trust or mortgage on a dwelling for not more than four families given to a lender to secure repayment of a loan which was in fact used to pay all or part of the purchase price of that dwelling occupied, entirely or in part, by the purchaser.
- He hadn’t occupied the house since 2007.
- The deficiency is around $500K so it’s worth the bank’s time.
- He has a well-paying job (deep pockets defendant).
It may all depend upon how the courts have construed that “occupied” clause. I’d have to go research case law for that.
The Uncle Sam one is just a “front”, if you pardon the pun. The real Uncle Sam, given past actions, is fighting WITH the banks, not against them.
The lesson in all this is to not bail out crook Banks/Middlemen ,don’t bail out liar borrowers ,and don’t bail out anything that is corrupt .
All these entities are just looking for a legal loophole to get out of the
contracts that were made during the greedy boom times. Now the borrowers want the houses for free ,the banks wants the tax-payers to foot the bill for the losses and the loan investors want their money back . How can you undo the biggest financial Ponzi -scheme in history that went World-wide . Its to big .
Now the borrowers want the houses for free ,the banks wants the tax-payers to foot the bill for the losses and the loan investors want their money back .
The printing press can provide all of that, can’t it?
Good thing there were very few liar loans written.
This is turning into a circus.No one wants to be responsible.the taxpayers will have to pay everyone back.
In the meantime it has never been better to gamble in the stock market casino.
US home loan demand slumps as rates rise from lows
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. mortgage applications slumped last week as interest rates on 15- and 30-year fixed-rate mortgages rose for the first time in six weeks, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.
Interest rates, however, are not far from record lows and the drop in demand does not bode well for the housing market, which has been showing signs of improvement but remains highly vulnerable to setbacks.
Maybe its time for little dancing guys on internet ads.
There’s a double standard in the media when talking about housing. When they are talking about (ie trying the extract payments from) the little guy, they bring out the squishy concepts like “home” and “family” and “morals” and picket fences and single mom and apple pie. But on the business pages (ie I want my bonus), they make hay over a small changes in interest rates over a few weeks, as if people day-trade in houses they way they day-traded in pets dot com. I find it vaguely disturbing.
Yeah…. I wonder if people are so stupid not to see this dichotomy or do they just dismiss it?
Aside from that, the airy fairy language used by the Housing Sales and Finance Crime Syndicate is vomit inducing…. homes, family, biggest *investment* of your lifetime, “you can paint the walls any color you want”, etc… What imbecilic reasons to volunteer for a lifetime of indentured slavitude to banking thugs(finance) and corporate cheats(employers).
They’re still doing the paint-the-walls pitch here. Unbelievable. And HGTV sure made a big D out of that..I found the all the red and yellow walls revolting.
Mad Men must have copied from them then. Funny thing is, I truly doubt walls being that color in the 60s. White paint and wallpaper comes to mind. Someone needs to do their DD!
I find the “landlord eggshell” to be a nice neutral color. Is it interesting? No, it isn’t. But then I am an interesting person and my art, books and furniture are already interesting (well, the furniture will be when the new stuff arrives). I don’t need the walls to be interesting for me.
yes it was neutral colors back then..beige, taupe, ivory.
Except the kids’ rooms maybe. My mother painted mine pink and I hated it.
and don’t forget the mega bank bailout’s being sold as “keeping poor minority families in their homes.”
that one always works.
The article says demand went down as interest rates went up. I don’t see any editorializing there. There isn’t always a conspiracy everywhere.
Good Tardboi. Take your own advice and float your hobgoblins elsewhere.
Excreter, you need help dude. I can understand your anger though, what with Nov 2 just around the corner.
Wow… now elections are hobgoblins.
Thank you for proving the point TardBoi.
“Interest rates, however, are not far from record lows”
1 year ARM not going down at all, in fact it is approaching 2x the 30 year rate. The world is inside out.
Don’t lower mortgage interest rates (aka price of borrowing money for a home purchase) normally result in higher purchase demand?
What gives?
“What gives?”
Likely case is only people who already own a home are qualified to own another home, and only people who have cash in the bank are qualified to borrow money.
Well Duh….
Well yes, in all probability they HAVE. That is to say the paltry level of current demand is higher than it would be without the abnormally low rates. And prices are also higher than they would be if interest rates were closer to normal.
China’s rapid economic growth slows further
China’s rapid growth slows as Beijing cools expansion; inflation up on food costs
BEIJING (AP) — China’s rapid growth slowed in the latest quarter as Beijing steered its expansion to a more sustainable level, possibly cutting its contribution to a global recovery.
The world’s second-largest economy grew 9.6 percent in the July-September quarter over a year earlier, official figures showed Thursday. That was down from the previous quarter’s 10.3 percent but still by far the highest of any major economy.
Politically sensitive inflation edged up in September on higher food costs but incomes also rose strongly.
The growth decline might dent a global recovery as China’s appetite for iron ore, factory machinery and other imports weakens. That might hurt the United States, Australia, Europe and other economies that are looking to relatively robust China to power exports.
And what was our growth rate?
Petra Offshore Fund, REIT Unit File for Bankruptcy in New York
(Bloomberg) — Petra Offshore Fund LP, along with its Petra Fund REIT unit, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy court protection in New York.
Petra Fund REIT, an investor in commercial real estate- backed loans, and the parent company listed assets of $1 million to $10 million and liabilities of $100 million to $500 million in filings yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.
The Chapter 11 filing follows a judgment one of the fund’s creditors, KBS Preferred Holding I LLC, won against Petra to collect on its debt, according to an affidavit filed with the bankruptcy petition.
Nice leverage.
“Nice leverage.”
The value of the assets are wisped away while the debt load stubbornly remains.
Assets values result from opinions, not so the debt values - at least not right away.
Or, put differently, asset values decline slowly, as a process. Debt values - or rather the RECOGNITION of debt values - decline all at once, as an event.
The asset values, because they result from opinions, are kept pumped up by hope. Keeping hope alive keeps the asset values alive. When hope vanishes then so does asset values.
And when the asset values vanish then so will vanish the value of the debt that was backed by these asset values.
Hence the Fed will do everything in its power to keep hope alive and thus keep asset values pumped up so the values of the debts held by banks will not vanish into thin air and leave the banks as empty shells.
If the banks are deemed to be nothing but empty shells them none of them will ever be trusted to clear financial transactions and hence financial transaction will not occur and the economy will screech to a halt.
At least this is how I understand how the situation is understood by the Fed.
Commercial Real estate is off by 45% in the past two years IIRC, and still headed down. There is something on the other side of “empty shell” for banks in CRE and it’s not life. In Chapter 11 though, these guys get to keep paying themselves for a little bit longer.
And we are all obsessing over rubber stamped home foreclosure files.
It’s all dirty inside and out, from top to bottom.
Realtors bring nothing to the table except for added costs and friction to the transaction.
But lets not forget, they are highly skilled at attaching balloons to mailboxes and open house signs. I have been witness to some brilliant work by some of the best.
And cookies……..don’t forget the cookies.
For that “homey” atmosphere.
Don’t forget the affirmations: “There has never been a better time to buy,” “Suzanne researched this,” etc.
There has never been a better time to make fun of Realtors.
I harrassed a realtor trying to sell a house for 765 K in Glendora California this past weekend. She had cookies and balloons out, but the pas de resistance was her botoxed lips that seemed to elevate her entire lofty head into the wispy clouds above.
Haysoos…Glendora?? isn’t that where all the smog goes in the pm?
Did they counter your offer? Give us some entertaining details, exeter!
My offer expired. The last I heard, “the bankruptcy attorneys are consulting with BofA”. lmao.
My offer will be 10% lower if they come back.
10% less based on the asking price or 10% less based on your original offer? You offered 50% of asking, correct? So is the next one 40% of asking or 45%?
My first offer was a smidgen over 50%. My response to them will be a 45% offer. As I mentioned a few days ago, unless the risk has been picked from the bones of this dump, we’re not biting. Not on this one, not on any. We really don’t give a flying flip either way. We’ve got cash and time is on our side.
We just offered $130k for a house that is listed for $180k in central Texas. It’s a somewhat renovated brick 2000 sq. ft. 1.5 story 4BR/2BA early 1950s house on the edge of a genteel city neighborhood (it would be a convenient commute), but with no good public schools (we have kids in private school, so it doesn’t matter as much to us, but that alone means that we really need to minimize our non-school expenses). We’re giving the owner one week to respond to our offer, and it’s contingent on inspections. The same day we made the offer, we discovered that we’ll be able to live in our rental house a year longer than expected, so I’m no longer as hot to buy.
The house is officially owner-occupied, but she’s living at least an hour away. Previously she turned down an offer for $155k, saying that she “needed” $178k. She tried to sell it herself, unsuccessfully, and eventually got a realtor for a two month, 1% contract. He seemed really excited to get my email offer.
Congrats Amy-
if she has already been lowballed & refused, she maybe “primed” for your offer and accept it!
’specially if the RE Agent twists her arm & wants to get her listing sold/off his back
What part of central Texas?
I don’t really want to get too specific, but a well-preserved early 20th century neighborhood near downtown in a non-trendy city on I-35. That should give you some ideas. The downtown had a ridiculous loft project that was dealt with on this blog, and there’s a multimillion dollar student housing project downtown that just went into bankruptcy last month.
Nice area. Good move.
When I bought my house the real estate agent was helpful. He advised me on a cheaper neighborhood, explained the paperwork, etc. Probably not 3.5% helpful, but helpful.
I’ll admit its worth something not to have to endure FSBO showings. Even if you walk in the front door and instantly hate the place, you still have to endure 45 minutes of chit-chat and a laundry list of every feature plus every hour of work and every dime they ever put in to the place. Again, not worth 3.5%, but worth something.
Realtors bring nothing to the table except for added costs and friction to the transaction ??
Same could be said for Lawyers X 2…
At closing, my mortgage guy was my best friend. Not the realtor. As for the house hunt, I did most of the hunting myself and he’d show me what I wanted to see. However, he did contact me as soon as the house I ended up buying came on the market. I knew it was a prime location and good price so I went to see it immediately. There were multiple offers, but somehow I got it. So, in the end, he did find me a good house. But throughthe whole process, I did most of the legwork.
Okay, a first glance this story should have nothing to do with housing, but pay attention to the very last line - LOL!
http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2822656,Hit-and-run-motorist-four-times-limit1021.article
It’s interesting that they thought to run the prep’s address through Zillow, isn’t it? Maybe law enforcement should start doing this too?
A residence at the Elm Tree Road address he listed as his home is on sale for nearly $4.5 million, according to the real estate website Zillow.com.
Wow - that is one drunk FB!
“on sale” LOL. I think they mean “for sale.”
Ahead of the Bell: Jobless Claims
Unemployment claims likely fell last week, but not by enough to signal lower jobless rate
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fewer people may have applied for unemployment last week, but the drop probably won’t be large enough to signal a decline in the jobless rate.
Wall Street analysts expect that initial jobless claims dropped last week by 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 455,000, after jumping the previous week by 13,000 to 462,000. The Labor Department will issue the weekly report at 8:30 a.m. Thursday.
Okay someone please explain this to me. Why do they get all excited when jobless claims fall 7,000 but are still over 450,000? We debate this at work all the time…Have we really been shedding over 450,000 jobs every week? How can this ever be called a recovery?
Getting all excited keeps hope alive. Keeping hope alive keeps money flowing which keeps the economy alive.
Yes the propaganda machine running on the economy is in full swing but eventually the truth does come out. The people all know it, elected officials all know it. Its just kabookie theatre at this point.
Declining or stangnant (depending on where you live) sales tax revenues clearly demonstrate that there is no recovery. Year after year state legislatures have had to, and will continue to, grapple with declining revenues.
“Year after year state legislatures have had to, and will continue to, grapple with declining revenues.”
“Grapple with declining revenues” eventualy means cutting pensions.
A person whose pension is cut is not going to be spending a lot of money. People not spending a lot of money is not good for an economy that depends of having a lot of money spent.
This is deflation - although I have little doubt that some posters here at this blog will deem this coming event as a sign that hyperinflation is well on its way.
“Print, Print and Print”
Dr. Marc Faber
The money flows will continue to boost employment in emerging economies, along with their wages and asset prices.
The best way to visualize this process is to think of a huge money-printing machine in the US that produces an unlimited quantity of dollars. Most of these dollars flow to the corporate sector, financial institutions, and wealthy individuals. A large proportion of these dollars is then transferred to emerging economies through the US trade deficit and investment flows, and boosts economic activity and increases wealth in emerging economies relative to the US.
Some of these dollars then find their way back to the US and support Treasury bond prices. But since fewer dollars find their way back to the US than exit the country, the dollar has a weakening tendency against emerging market currencies and, especially, against hard assets whose supply is extremely limited compared to the money that the money machine keeps spitting out.
OR total payroll employment has not grown in 11 years, which is not unlike most of the rest of the US.
However, adjusting for OR population growth, payroll employment is back to the level of the early ’90s.
But it’s worse than that. Private payrolls are back to the level of ‘97, and adjusting for population there are fewer private payroll jobs per capita than the late ’80s to early ’90s.
And gov’t payrolls over the past two decades have grown at twice the population/labor force growth rate.
Total OR employment is back to the levels of ‘04-’05 and ‘99-’00; however, adjusted for population/labor force growth, employment is down 10% from ‘00 and down 3.1% from ‘90.
Now that local and state employment is necessarily being cut along with no growth or continuing contraction of private payrolls, and were OR gov’t payrolls to converge with the differential rate of growth to private payrolls and population/labor force growth, OR gov’t payrolls will be cut by 30-31% over the coming decade, implying further a similar cut in local and state budgets.
Extrapolating further at the trend rate of population growth, the per-capita reduction in gov’t payrolls and spending will be around 40%, matching what is likely to be the same decline per capita in oil production/consumption, bank lending (and overall value of US assets), and US GDP (and states’ GSP) that otherwise would have occurred from the ‘00 peak rate had the long-term trend rate occurred.
Japan, parts of continental EU, and the UK and Ireland are moving, or soon inevitably will move, in this direction of public spending cuts with the predictable implications for household incomes, increasing household economic hardship, and social discontent/unrest. (Gov’t spending cuts will not have a sustained stimulative effect on the private sector, however, as the gov’t spending cuts are occurring because the private sector is not growing or contracting, and the cost of existing gov’t as a share of the private sector will not fall much, if at all, especially if taxes are raised and net interest per receipts and per private GDP continue high or increase.)
Needless to say, the consequences for such a decline in overall private and public economic (or uneconomic) activity will be severe, life-changing, and consciousness-altering.
Grappeling so far has ment cutting pensions for future retirees. The effects of this are far in the future.
“This is deflation - although I have little doubt that some posters here at this blog will deem this coming event as a sign that hyperinflation is well on its way.”
We’re definitely in the middle of an interesting “tug of war” game. On one side money is going “poof!” while on the other side the printing presses are runnining at full speed.
The thing about the printing press is that, much like deficit spending, its very addictve and hard to kick.
And the Obammas keep coming to Ohio yet again! What ever could he hope to get from this politician forsaken burning river rustbelt? Methinks he’s going to get something special you betcha!
“Have we really been shedding over 450,000 jobs every week? ”
Not a net 450K jobs. 450K people lose their jobs every week, but others who were already unemployed find new jobs. I believe that the net number is still way in the negative range, but nowhere close to 450K.
7 million less jobs in two years is about 300,000 net lost per month.
So 75K net jobs lost per week. As Blue Skye illustrated, it can add up over time.
“…but others who were already unemployed find new jobs.”
What happens when McDonalds stops hiring?
They could sell their Golden Arches!
UE 3 is still hovering around 10% official and 17% at Shadow Stats.
Oops, 17% U-6 official and 20+% on Shadow Stats.
I believe confusion is generated when the government reports things as annualize or monthized rates. So, the weekly pace is sufficient to lose 450k jobs in a month.
What is the magic number - we need to get to below 300,000 to actually start gaining jobs.
Actually they revised last week’s total up by 26,000 - not 13,000. Several states estimates claims a few weeks back (Columbus Day?) and they susequently reported the numbers for that week were higher than they first thought.
So it’s the appraisals.
Low-Ball Appraisals Hurt Home Market
http://www.thepilot.com/news/2010/oct/20/low-ball-appraisals-hurt-home-market/
Here’s yet another pickle we’re in, thanks to the economy. According to real estate agents and appraisers, mortgage underwriters are no longer willing to accept the fact that a home is worth what someone is willing to pay for it.
Maybe the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of caution if underwriters hire appraisers from out of town who then produce low-ball appraisals — as seemed to be implied by some comments — although the truth may be that for the last few years the only way to sell a house has been to take it on the chin.
And now, a lot of the so-called “comparables” are bank-owned foreclosures being sold at truly depressing prices. If that is the case, comparables really do understate fair market value of a house being sold by a mortgage-paying owner.
“comparables really do understate fair market value of a house”
dreams die hard.
High-ball appraisals hurt market
Especially if there are almost no qualified and interested buyers at the high-ball prices.
Two things:
1.The contract price DOES constitute what the greatest fool is willing to agree to pay. The bank is interested in an estimate of what the second greatest fool will agree to.
2.The current high default rate has shown that there is NOT a perfect corespondence between what somebody will agree to pay, and what they are indeed willing and able to pay.
“The current high default rate…”
So long as the zombie GSEs or FHA federally guarantee the loan, why should the banks care if they go into default? The American taxpayer is getting forced to funnel money to FBs to buy homes they cannot afford, to the benefit of the lenders who collect claims when the loans go into default.
It’s all about saving banks, isn’t it?
F&F might stop taking the paper at any time and the lender might be stuck holding the bag .
Banks want to be paid off on the current loan from a sale ,but the lending bank for the new purchase loan wants to take the foreclosure comps serious .
It must be a nightmare out there as far as appraisal of property is concerned . There is to much of a variation of prices within the same neighborhood . It’s a foreclosure market really and it renders
other purchase sales of higher prices un-make-able until they clear out all these foreclosures .This is why F&F has become the only lender in town that is buying these loans or insuring the loss if it occurs .
Here in NoVA the RE Agents have already devised how to create bidding war scenario’s for SS & FC’S
They list the price pretty low & put up dates that the listing “expires” and state that all offers will be considered until that date
And, the highest offer wins !
If you want the house, you have to “up” your offer, ’cause there’s always someone offering more than you on the Property you want.
The ONLY people here getting deals are the Agents themselves (and their relatives, of course!!)
The noose tightens…
Who Knew What, and When?
Elliot Spitzer
Slate
Since the early days of the current economic cataclysm, I have believed that we would, with some investigation, find the Rosetta stone that would demonstrate that the banks knew that the toxic mortgages they were packaging were, in fact, not viable financial instruments.
This belief stemmed from my experience as New York state’s attorney general. The AG’s office had investigated enough subprime lenders to recognize the magnitude of fraud and the ubiquity of bogus credit analysis. Our efforts to expand our inquiry were stymied by the banks—and the Bush administration—which claimed we didn’t have jurisdiction to pursue the inquiry into many of the major national banks. (We finally won, in June 2009, in a 5-4 ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court. The ruling was a bit late.)
These documents, from Clayton Holdings, a due diligence company retained by the banks, reveal that Clayton, after analyzing more than 900,000 mortgages, told the banks that about 30 percent of the loans being packaged into securitized products did not satisfy the banks’ own underwriting standards. This meant that the securitized products were almost bound to blow up.
So what did the banks do? They essentially ignored this information. We all know why: The process of securitization shifted the risk to others, and the banks were making too much money by continuing to push the deals through the pipeline. But the critical aspect to this information is that it puts to rest the banks’ argument that they merely fell into the same econometric mistake that others had made in believing that the housing market was bound to keep rising. It wasn’t just that the banks were wrong about their forecast of the housing market; it is that they intentionally ignored critical information given to them by the very people who were supposed to perform due diligence. And then they apparently withheld from investors that critical information about the quality of the bonds they were selling.
Sounds like a massive control fraud.
And you can get up to speed on what control fraud is and does by reading William K. Black’s book, The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. It’s about the 1980s S&L debacle.
“Sounds like a massive control fraud”
Would the apparent current effort by Megabank, Inc to withhold inventory from the market fall into this category of fraud? Or would that be more of a price fixing issue, illegal under the Sherman Antitrust Act?
TBTF is gonna get sued into oblivion.
The natural course of events would of been the TBTF getting sued
silly for their acts absent the bail-outs that were contrived to prevent discovery of all the sins and it was Obstruction of Justice .
Remember some of the first Congressional hearings in which the CEO’s were lined up saying ,”We didn’t see it coming ” ?
Of course this “We didn’t see it coming ” was BS .The Bank/Middle men misrepresented securities ,breached their duty to oversee underwriting of loans and prevent fraud and they proceeded
to hide the flawed paperwork involved with the RE -backed securities process and foreclosure mess that followed.This doesn’t change the fact that many borrowers were loan liars and they can’t afford to keep the home that they now want for free or some other government hand=out .
The prices of real estate would not of gotten artificially inflated without this set up of the flawed loan system because the money would of not been available for every Tom ,Dick and Harry
to buy with the hope of selling to a greater fool without really qualifying for the loan long term . The regulators have no excuse either for sleeping on the job, but apparently the Banks had a no touch status .
Really, this has always been a issue of “TO BIG FOR THE COURTS .”
But I think about what happened in 1929 and it was similar in that
the whole Society suffered after the crash with some people losing their whole life savings in the Banks that closed down (the runs on banks )even if they never invested in the stock market . It was one of the reasons why they created FDIC insurance .
Come on, Goldmans getting paid closed to 20 billion for Credit Default swaps from a Insurance Company that didn’t have the funds to back the bet and AIG gets 200 or more billion from Tarp to make good on those shady dealings that could of been defeated because of the fraud . Since when have you every seen a Insurance Company not fight a claim ? Loan paper passed to Freddie and Fannie as a dumping ground for more bad paper that might have a clout on the title process .Obstruction of Justice was the name of the game and transfer the loss to the taxpayers and avoid criminal charges for the Banks and Investment Houses and jail time for the elite .
Securitization is the #1 cause of this mess.
Package dog crap paint it gold and sell it GSE’s, Pensions, foreign banks, retired people.
Exactly. Along with hedge funds and derivatives in general.
All unregulated. And if it was unregulated, it was a scam from the get go.
You can’t shine sh!t.
The real smoking gun in all of this is the fact (recently reported) that some of the banks used the quality of the mortgages in the pools to negotiate lower prices for purchasing the pools. This is incontrovertable evidence that they both knew about the quality and knew that it was important enough for it to effect the behavior of a reasonable person. The big fraud element left to prove is that the disclosure that they did was not sufficient. Still a high hill to climb as I’m sure there was some kind of language in the disclosures that covered this. It just might not have been enough.
Fannie and Freddie - that had actual standards for the loans that they purchased and required the sellers to promise the loans met these standards - have a much easier job to get the sales reversed, but the rest of the crowd now have some small chance of getting partial satisfaction. It is a beginning.
I see another crisis on our horizon. If the government was smart, they would develop a contingency plan now. Bailing the banksters out again should NOT be part of the plan, and this should be announced publicly and often.
Instead, form a “Interim First National Bank of the USA”, to handle essential functions during the Banking Crisis, Part Deux. And loudly and often announce that it will be privatized (by a stock sale) sometime in the near future (two/three years).
IMO, this, or something similar, should have been done the first time around.
Instead, form a “Interim First National Bank of the USA”, to handle essential functions during the Banking Crisis, Part Deux. And loudly and often announce that it will be privatized (by a stock sale) sometime in the near future (two/three years).
Ooo! A public option for banking? Sign me up!
(We finally won, in June 2009, in a 5-4 ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court. The ruling was a bit late.)
So THAT’S why they persecuted him! Well, well, well.
Local real estate agents say foreclosure probe already hurting sales
http://www.ydr.com/premium/ci_16330709
Marion Bowman’s clients — a mom, a dad and four kids — were ready to settle on a house Friday in Glen Rock.
Instead, a government foreclosure investigation held up the deal.
Several local real estate agents said (the) investigation has already brought the market for foreclosed properties in the area to its knees. They expect settlement-date delays and a residual drop-off in sales to continue for months.
“My suggestion to my clients, which they have chosen to ignore, is that they find themselves another house,” Bowman said.
“If you want to see what hell is, come and spend a day in my office,” said Mark Saunders, another broker with Morgan Collins. Some of his clients have been unable to obtain title insurance because of the probe.
The title fiasco is one reason we are toying with building a one-story Craftsman, and the offering are overpriced shacks in So Ca. If we build, all we just have to be concerned with is the land title, and if the liens were signed off. Any advice or comments?
You also have to ensure that your builder has the financial strength to buy materials, pay employees, and pay subcontractors. You don’t want to give money to a builder who leaves you with a half built house that has subcontractor liens attached.
Steamed Bean
So true, and good points.Thank you. Since we don’t need financing, and want to stay away from this title and MBS nightmare, and we want a nice home, we’re really considering building. I have to admit, your post was a wake-up call to my idealism.
Maybe we should hire a GC, and handle the A/P?
Wipeout:
Require a completion bond from the general contractor. (Or be your own general and hire a foreman to oversee and subcontract for you.) Source and purchase materials yourself, and hire your own delivery to site.
Make friends with the building inspector and take their advice on subs and sources.
Pay cash to your labor every Friday.
PLAN TO BE ONSITE EVERY DAY.
Use an escrow account and pay out on staging
completions.
Rancher
Thank you for your insight. I guess it’s a Borders and Contractors Bookstore weekend.
Also get the subs to sign a waiver of lein agreement at the same time you hand them their final payment.
And make DAMN sure they have insurance and can show it BEFORE they start work. If not, drop ‘em. Immediately.
I used to be so impressed when people told me they were building a house. I thought they were actually building it themselves.
I used to rent from a lady who did that.
She bought a lot in Tucson, then saved up money for many years. After she had enough moola in the house-kitty, she quit her job on the East Coast, moved out here and started building.
Took her two years of working six-day weeks, but, by golly, she did it. Had a little family help and had to hire a few tradesmen, but the work was mostly hers.
Once the foundation is poured and the framing is up, the rest sounds do-able by a handy couple. You just have to get the exterior skin up before the rains come. The toughest job is roofing and I’ve done that - a complete tear-off down to the wood and then apply new composition shingle roof. I lost 20 pounds and was as tan as Angelo Mozello by the time the job was over.
Are cash-paid illegal alien subs able to file a mechanic’s lien?
The roof is REALLY important.
Guy I worked with decided to replace his roof for his “spring project”. Got bids from the local roofers…….all the quotes were for big bucks (this was before all the illegals ran all the legit roofing companies out of business). Decides to turn the roof project into a “do it yourself” project, on evenings and weekends.
Gets the shingles off; of course, some of the plywood was damaged/rotted, and needed replacement. Now it’s turning into a big project.
Did I mention that this was in April/May, the peak of thunderstorm season out here in “Tornado Alley”?
No problem……just cover it with heavy plastic. This worked, for a while. Until the house got center-punched by a severe thunderstorm cell.
Off goes the plastic…….in comes the rain, in all those holes in the roof. Onto all that rock wool insulation. It holds water real good. Better to keep all that sheet rock in the ceilings nice and wet. Until the water has time to work it’s magic on the sheet rocks structural integrity.
Sometimes, it’s just better to bite the bullet, and spend the bucks.
OMG. That happened to a neighbor of mine. Rain collapsed the tarp and poured into the new second story they built..
I can. From surveying the lot, to the top coat of paint and landscaping.
But it’s dirty, nasty, sleazy, unreliable industry.
“Mark Saunders, an associate broker at Morgan Collins Realtors in York, said he received a letter from Fannie Mae on Wednesday morning instructing him to postpone settlement dates on loans originated by the following banks:
— GMAC Bank, postpone any settlements to March 31, 2011
— Chase Bank, until Dec. 30.
— Bank of America until Oct. 31, then continue to extend for 10 days at a time.
— Sovereign Bank, PNC Bank and One West Bank, extend all settlements for 30 days.”
GMAC is really extending and pretending!
French strike to save ‘birthright’ of privileges
MARSEILLE, France (AP) — Battling for benefits is a tradition in the Gilly family, passed from generation to generation — as it is for families across the country. And that goes some way toward explaining why the protests against plans to raise France’s retirement age have shown such determination and ferocity.
For Gilly and many other Frenchmen and women, social benefits such as long vacations, state-subsidized health care and early retirement are more than just luxuries: They’re seen as a birthright — an essential part of the identity of today’s France.
The protest against a government plan to raise the retirement age to 62 has special meaning for five members of the Eric Gilly clan who are demonstrating in the streets of Marseille.
“We want to stop working at 60 because it’s something our parents, our grandparents and even our great-grandparents fought for,” says Gilly, 50, a union representative at Saint-Pierre Cemetery, the largest in this bustling Mediterranean port city.
“And over the years … you can see that we’re losing everything they fought for. And that’s unacceptable.”
For Gilly and many other Frenchmen and women, social benefits such as long vacations, state-subsidized health care and early retirement are more than just luxuries: They’re seen as a birthright — an essential part of the identity of today’s France.
Whose “birthright” is it to pay for all of this? Muslim immigrants?
Only braindead types of the Dobson/Perkins/FRC freakshow would suggest that.
The government pays for it, of course..
Where does the government get the money? Who knows, and who gives a damn! Its free money!
Viva La France!
The French don’t have to pay for their own defense and haven’t for years (they have sort of a nominal force), the US taxpayer foots the bill for much of Europe, with bases and personnel. Dismantle the bases, bring home the troops. And also any aid or subsidies we send to these countries should be cancelled, toot sweet.
A common belief, but a mistaken belief.
“As of 2009, the French Armed Forces have the third or fourth highest expenditure of any military in the world, depending on calculation according to SIPRI. As well as the third largest nuclear force in the world, only behind the United States and Russia.” -Wikipedia
Furthermore, record high defense expenditure (currently at €35 billion), which was considerably increased under…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_France#Weapons_industry
——
“4th highest” means nothing
USA military budget is $1.003–$1.223 trillion (2011)
so that’s comparing about $50 billion (France) to a trillion (USA)..
20 to one?
Plus they fought some expensive wars in Indo-China and Algeria…
If you’re not maintaining an empire, you don’t need to spend much to defend yourself.
The world could use a dose of genuine American Imperialism just to teach them what it actually feels like, and to shut them up..
It was in 1982, under Socialist President Francois Mitterrand, that the minimum age to stop working was lowered from 65 to 60.
Gilly. You were 22 years old when this started. It’s not your birthright.
Retirement at age 60 sounds sweet, but the French must work 40 years to get a full pension. U.S. Social Security requires only 10 years of work.
From a French Government website:
“Under the general scheme, in order to claim a full-rate pension, a pensioner must have reached the age of 60 and have paid 40 years of contributions . The same rules apply to self-employed non-professionals, shopkeepers and traders.”
Link to follow.
Link to French Government website in English:
http://ambafrance-us.org/spip.php?article643
Actually you have to work ten years to apply for the minimum SS benefit (I think it’s 40 “credits”.)
What do you mean by minimum?
If person A works just 10 years they get the same amount as a person B that worked 40, if person B in their highest 10 consecutive years made the same as person A did.
That’s my understanding?
From Fairmark.com explain SS benefit calculation:
“In a nutshell: The calculation looks at your entire earnings history with inflation adjustments, chooses the 35 best years and finds your average indexed monthly earnings for those years. Then it applies a formula that typically comes to somewhere between 25% and 45% of this inflation-adjusted average.”
The earnings history only includes earnings up to the payroll tax maximum in the particular year.
So, if you only work the minimum 10 years, do you get assigned a zero for the other 25 years, or do they only divide by 10?
Yeah you get a 0 for any of the 35 years you didn’t work, and they divide by 35.
Widows can claim SS at age 60 on their husbands earnings without working a single day.
They got the French beat by two whole years!!!!
“Widows can claim SS at age 60 on their husbands earnings without working a single day.”
Only if they had been married for at least ten years and widow did not remarry.
It’s 40 quarters = 10 years if I read the SS docs correctly.
And this explains precisely why our very own Political Class is so against cutting entitlements. It’s because they themselves feel so entitled. Just like the French.
Class warfare (and subsequent entitlements) is alive and well in the U.S.A. It’s hardly a European phenomenom.
And this explains precisely why our very own Corporatist Class strongly supports cutting your social security and medicar. It’s because they themselves feel so entitled to your tax dollars.
Class warfare (and subsequent entitlements to the corporatist class) is alive and well in the U.S.A. And the corporatists are winning.
Class warfare
1. TARP
2. FED
3. top 400 income earners paying effective tax rates of 16% ie less than almost all the upper middle class and many in the middle class.
4. Gov contracts
5. Military and Gov support to corporate America
The proof is in the pudding my friend.
Income inequality is skyrocketing. I posted an article the other day showing that the top 1% now take home 23% of income.
The proles will eat inflation and unemployment.
I’ll throw in our give it away trade policy and outsourcing.
Our political class won’t cut medicare and SS because they would be voted out of office.
You see Tea Party protesters love their medicare and SS.
I wonder how many old people realize that young fatties, addicts and “mental” cases can get SS? That’s the part that should be cut, but no one seems to differentiate that, and the fact that once you get SSD you get lots of other stuff with it, like Section 8 and Medicare.
They pay for it with a lower salary and higher taxes. Of course their GDP per hour worked is higher than ours. Maybe a little R and R makes one more productive.
In a world of high unemployment gov should try to get peopel to retire so young people with no money can take their place.
“In a world of high unemployment gov should try to get peopel to retire so young people with no money can take their place.”
Bingo! And I would much prefer training my replacement here in the US than in some other country.
French strike to save ‘birthright’ of privileges
Good for them. Here in the USA we seem to be proud of working hard for 20 years and then getting outsourced.
I’ve had a company tell me they would make more money if they sold us and put the money in the bank and collected interest.
Which is what they did. took me years to get my old salary back
Here in the USA we seem to be proud of working hard for 20 years and then getting outsourced.
When you have a country full of “Earl’s*”, who live in the trailer park but vote for the rich, that’s what you get.
(* the TV show.)
Canadian MLS Competition
MLS rival launched by real estate companies
http://www.torontosun.com/money/2010/09/28/15502176.html
Five real-estate companies have launched what they claim is Canada’s largest commission-free sales network, mounting a challenge to the dominant Multiple Listing Service.
The network currently has 12,000 properties listed for sale and expects to double the business every year. Fees for sellers range from between $499 to $699.
Martin Rygiel, general manager for ByTheOwner.com, said the network is likely to be a real contender to the Canadian Real Estate Association’s Multiple Listing Service (MLS), which currently accounts for about 90% of real-estate transactions in the country.
“It would be absurd to think that it would not be,” he said. “From what we know, the public is in desperate need of this kind of service.”
“When it comes down to the costs of trading real estate, it’s the No. 1 concern of clients,” he added.
Rygiel said the average selling price for a house in Toronto is about $330,000, which would generate commissions if as much as $20,000 for real-estate agents.
The majority of properties in Canada are still sold through the Canadian Real Estate Association’s Multiple Listing Service.
The association has come under pressure from the Competition Bureau, which has raised concerns rules imposed on agents are anti-competitive.
The system keeps key sales information - including newly listed properties, past selling prices and neighbourhood comparisons - hidden from non-members.
Critics have also said it forces sellers to pay for services from real-estate agents that they don’t want or need.
And you can bet your sweet bippy that they’re just itchin’ to enter the U.S. market.
There’s a guy around these parts offering to put your house on MLS for $200. That’s 40%+ off his rate of $350 a few years back.
I’m sure most realtors steer clear of showing clients these listings, but I would love to see it catch on.
Tucson trembles.
Housing market’s nightmare continues as home prices slide to new lows
http://www.azbiz.com/articles/2010/10/15/construction_real_estate/doc4cb88b9945f0f602117707.txt
Fitting for October and Halloween, the housing market is getting spooky.
Events regarding repossessions have cloaked real estate in a dark shadow of uncertainty. Few are convinced the temporary foreclosure freezes by some lenders, including a nationwide freeze by Bank of America, will help.
During the housing market’s correction, global financial giant Moody’s warns the move will stall the recovery. Ulitmately, most of the pending foreclosures will happen anyway.
Average and median home sales prices in the Tucson market have dropped to their lowest levels in over five years.
September’s average sales price was $181,612. The last time prices were at that level was in January 2004 when the average was $180,567, according to the Tucson Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service.
The average dropped almost $5,000 from August and is down 9.7 percent from $201,219 in January.
Median sales prices also were spooked. The September median was $145,855, a $5,000 drop from August. The last time the median was this low was December 2003 when it was $145,000.
Median sales prices also were spooked. The September median was $145,855, a $5,000 drop from August. The last time the median was this low was December 2003 when it was $145,000.
Given that our median local income is in the high 30s/low 40s, it looks like median sales prices have a-ways to fall.
BTW, that December ‘03 median price was also above the 3x local median income metric. Bubble was well underway by the end of ‘03, and I know that because I was house-hunting back then.
Is a punitive payback potentially possible?
Banks’ legal troubles mount as everyone seeks payback
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/20/1883465/banks-legal-troubles-mount-as.html#ixzz12znfSUaw
Major U.S. banks are facing a double whammy from the subprime mortgage debacle: They’re under siege over their mishandling of home loan foreclosures and confronting mounting investor demands that they repurchase billions of dollars in failed mortgage securities.
Analysts at J.P. Morgan Chase estimated this week that banks that underwrote more than $3 trillion in risky mortgage bonds will be compelled to repurchase $55 billion to $120 billion in securities over the next few years because the underlying loans are defective.
“Banks are trying to put a good face on this,” said James Cox, a Duke University law professor who specializes in securities. However, he said, the dimensions are “potentially catastrophic” from blunders in documenting the chain of custody of the mortgages, and bondholders’ demands for repayment appear to have “tremendous value.”
Lawsuits is what I thought would happen when the crash first started. Investors who were conned demanding their money back . Really how much paper did the Banks /Middlemen actually own and how much were they just servicing when the crash hit ?
It was clear the liable parties where trying to contrive a PR campaign that nobody saw this coming and it was just a economic black swan that came out of nowhere and Banks must be saved and liar borrowers must be saved.
All the Banks/Middlemen would of been rendered insolvent by the civil lawsuits and punitive charges and it would of gone into criminal also .
Our Court system couldn’t even handle how many Plaintiffs there would be ,even given class action .
But no matter how hard the powers have tried to contain this ,it keeps coming out bit by bit . The lawmakers will come up with something to ease the pain in spite of the laws and apply it retroactive is my guess .
What irony, the bank bailout is turning into blowback!! The headlines for months have been about the billions in profits these banks have “earned.” Good, then they clearly have the money to pay back their ill gotten gains.
Some anecdotal evidence
On my run this AM - Three - count them three - newer BMWs in driveways with for sale signs that were not there last week.
bbbbut…… it cannot be so. Only rich peeple drive BMW’s.
I think they are offering 0% financing now to go along with that interest only house loan. It all evens out that way.
Where are you, Scottsdale?
I am in the great NE
Where the real estate bubble collapse = about a 10% drop over three years in housing prices.
It will hit here hard soon. All state governments are broke and jobs are leaving right and left. The Obama stimulus keep wall street afloat with their insane bonuses for awhile. That in turn, kept alot of RE up.
“All state governments are broke and jobs are leaving right and left.”
I doubt there will be any “bailout” for the states, mostly because it wouldn’t be a one time event, but would need to become a permanent subsidy. As was posted yesterday, tiny Colorado (pop 5 million) will be over $7 billion short (50% of its current budget) each year on its pension fund alone by 2022.
Funding here for State U’s is collapsing. CU is expecting it’s state funding to drop 50% next year.
When I tell people about these things they get mad at me, telling me I’m a negative Nelly. These are people who are planning on sending their kids to College. I remind them that by the time little Snotley is ready to go to college tuition at CU or CSU will probably be $15K per year, if not more unless something is done to right the state budget.
They just shrug their shoulders. Maybe they’re counting on another bubble to appear. Or a candy crapping unicorn.
Nattering Nabob of Negativity.
“Nattering Nabob of Negativity.”
Agnew must be proud.
When I talk to people they tell me that “things will bounce back” and that we aren’t in a “new normal”. When I ask them on what do they base that belief, they shrug their shoulders.
It’s like I said yesterday, we Americans are culturally conditioned to be optimists. I recall that there are polls that show that most of the working poor believe that not only can they claw their way into the middle class, they believe that they can even become rich.
In my younger days I worked at a small startup that made public safety communication equipment. We had a handful of people who did assembly work and who were paid menial wages. I distinctly recall one young gal who was convinced that there was a $30/hr job (this was in the 80’s) waiting for her out there somewhere.
When I suggested that maybe she needed to educate herself and acquire some marketable skills to improve her lot in life she disagreed vehemently. She claimed that she knew people who were unskilled and uneducated who made good money (phone company, etc.). I wished her good luck in her quest for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
I recall that there are polls that show that most of the working poor believe that not only can they claw their way into the middle class, they believe that they can even become rich.”
This is true and very sad…. and it’s the very same message sent to the dumb masses by corporatist thugs trying to get elected. It’s no different than saying “war is good, peace is bad” or better yet, “borrowing is good, saving is bad”.
It’s a horrible insidious evil lie.
“It’s like I said yesterday, we Americans are culturally conditioned to be optimists. ”
I must have missed that day in school. I’m not really a pessimist either; I really try to examine facts and draw conclusions. People who aren’t using facts are those that I consider optimists or pessimists.
“I recall that there are polls that show that most of the working poor believe that not only can they claw their way into the middle class, they believe that they can even become rich.”
I had a relative who told me he’d be a millionaire by age 30. Maybe he was channeling his father, who around age 40 planned to retire a millionaire, and he did, by staying on his good job and investing. But the son never made it, and I can’t figure out how he would have because he was drunk most the time and didn’t know much about money.
Sort of like people are a little stupid drunk now, channeling some spirit that used to be but not knowing how to follow through.
When I suggested that maybe she needed to educate herself and acquire some marketable skills to improve her lot in life she disagreed vehemently. She claimed that she knew people who were unskilled and uneducated who made good money (phone company, etc.). I wished her good luck in her quest for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
I’ve advised people to do the same thing. The reaction has been less than friendly.
Even if she got her job at the phone company there’s a good chance she was downsized over the year and she’s back to flipping burgers.
I know a guy who worked for Qwest who suffered the same fate.
Isn’t it obvious? The lure of upward mobility is a key ingredient to consumerism. Take away that carrot and what’s the motivation to buy more than one needs? Imagine if people suddenly stayed in their “starter” homes again - why that might lead to stable neighborhoods - and there aren’t any commissions/fees to be had in stable neighborhoods.
I have often been accused of being negative or pessimistic. It infuriates me that people chose to put their heads in the sand while housing, medical costs and tuitions escalated to unsustainable levels while they conveniently and lazily borrowed and spent to cover the costs. I choose to think of myself as informed and the (so called) optimists as deformed. Unfortunately, there are way more of them, then there are of us - which is why we’re in this economic depression.
Ditto. I’m seen by good friends as not only negative, pessimistic and a downer on them, but also arrogant, in that I continue to believe in the demise of the economy and the US in general in the face of multiple job offers (I live in the Bay Area), multiple bids on houses (in Los Altos, Palo Alto, etc), rising stocks and a coming storm of high-octane ipos next year (Facebook, Linkedin, Zynga, etc). Apparently next year there is going to be a huge boom in the Valley, spearheaded by Facebook, which is going to result in thousands of newly-minted millionaires who all want to live in the exclusive enclaves of Atherton, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Los Altos and Hillsborough, where the available supply is so small that it will push house prices there ever higher, even as the East Bay continues to languish.
My friend bought in Los Altos last year for 1.9 million but Zillow immediately listed it for 2.1. He made about $350k tax-free on his first house in Redwood City (350->700) and about $500k on his second house in Menlo Park (1.1m->1.6mil) so he got almost a million tax free simply by buying and selling his own house at the right time. He laughs when I ask him what will happen if his Los Altos house goes down to 1 million. I’m pretty sure he thinks it will approach 2.5 mill next year, giving him another $500k tax-free bonanza.
His SIL and good friend are apparently both minting money flipping investment properties in Florida and Arizona, respectively. So he has no reason to believe negative nellies like me. Some people just have the touch I guess.
He believes there is no innovation like there is in the US (web technologies, alternative energy, biotech) which will somehow keep us #1. He doesn’t accept we need 700 Apples just to balance the budget, that China is fast surpassing us in innovation (eg. patent filings), that we are going down relative to other countries in terms of math and science literacy rates, that we are losing jobs at the macro level, and other assorted negative stats that I throw at him from time to time. He says that even if all that is true the Bay Area, and his industry (internet) in particular, will somehow stay prosperous and drive growth and innovation, and asset prices in the area.
Geez, negative and pessimistic are some of the good things I have been called. One of my co-workers listed their home during the summer of “06 After not receiving any offers, I suggested they lower the price. Of course the listing agent knew better. By Christmas of the same year they had taken the home off the market. They were going to wait for the housing market to come back. I sort of mentioned that the market wasn’t coming back. Should have seen the looks and heard the comments.
They still have the house and it’s worth about what they paid in 1997.
By next year year Facebook could be yesterday’s news. Anyone remember MySpace?
By next year year Facebook could be yesterday’s news. Anyone remember MySpace?
Given the way Facebook has antagonized people with its cavalier attitude toward privacy, this could happen.
As for MySpace, it’s still a good place for musicians and bands to promote themselves. But its days as a massive social networking site are over.
By next year year Facebook could be yesterday’s news. Anyone remember MySpace?
Could be, but I think FB has reached critical mass where MySpace never did. FB has a high enough percentage of the population as users that the available pool who aren’t users to start a competitor is pretty thin. You’d have to be so good that almost everyone was willing to write off their current investment (picture/video uploads) in FB to jump over. I’m not seeing that happening like it did for MySpace.
Fed $$$ has been pouring into the northeast since mid 1990’s to keep up with 100 year old water and wastewater systems(see EPA filtration rule imposed in early 1990’s). Add to that additional fed $$$ post 9/11, center of the earth global finance(NYC) and you’ve got inflation.
As far as construction goes(I don’t mean slapping shacks together), the northeast is the only region in the country with work. We have outfits from the west coast bidding work here. Five years ago, we might have 10 bidders showing up at pre-bid meetings. Today? Over 100 and very few are from the northeast.
This will end eventually and IF other regions pick up, the impact on the northeast will be substantial.
I just had to share this one, for those who haven’t seen it:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101014/bs_yblog_upshot/is-david-j-stern-the-poster-boy-for-the-foreclosure-mess
Here’s a guy running a foreclosure mill, booting everyone out of their homes, yelling at employees for even talking to homeowners.
He recently bought the mansion next door to his mansion, so he could knock it down and build a tennis court.
Yeah.
This is weird. Natalie was just assuring me (rather condescendingly) the other day that there were few if any real issues like these, and FBs were just stalling for time and being big meanies to the poor banksters.
So how did Stern’s outfit set that torrid pace? A deposition given last month by a former employee of Stern’s firm as part of a probe by Florida attorney general Bill McCollum, and examined by Yahoo! News, offers some hints.
Among other issues, Tammie Mae Kapusta described alarming problems with the company’s process-serving procedure — the formal notification to homeowners, required by law, that a lender is opening foreclosure proceedings. “People were not served,” Kapusta told McCollum’s office. “Some of them would go to do modifications on loans, or go to take out other things, and it would come up that they were in foreclosure. And they would end up finding out that way that there was no actual service on them. … Service was a complete mess.”
But the serving process wasn’t the only problem. Kapusta also testified that once a lender referred a case to Stern’s firm, any later payments by the homeowner were simply ignored:
Q: What if a homeowner made payment?
A: That was never there.
Q: If that happened, it was never reflected.
A: No.
Our entire adult lives spent in bubbles?
Is Bernanke Inflating The Biggest Bubble Ever?
http://blogs.forbes.com/neilweinberg/2010/10/18/is-bernanke-inflating-the-biggest-bubble-ever/?boxes=Homepagelighttop
Benjamin Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman in whose hands the fate of our economy rests, offered his learned analysis of our housing market five years ago this month.
Recent home price increases, he said, “largely reflect strong economic fundamentals.”
It’s easy to say in hindsight that Bernanke was dead wrong. So, for that matter, was then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.
Is there any reason to think that Bernanke & Co. have things any more right now than they did while helping, through their low interest rate policy, to inflate a housing bubble of historic proportions? If anything I’d say they’ve got things more wrong than ever.
Signs of what economists like to refer to as “imbalances” abound already. Money is pouring into emerging market stocks and bonds at record rates. It’s as if the Latin American debt and Asian financial crises never happened. Gold is at a record inflation-adjusted high, excepting its freak 1980 performance. The dollar is losing value around the world. Commodity prices are rising.
Can’t you see its different this time? Pessimist.
Bernanke was wrong. Greenspan was, IMHO, criminally negligent in his role as Fed chair.
How on earth can home prices go up 20-30% YOY and not flash “bright red” on the inflation indicators. I actually know the answer to this question (owners equiv rent), but I don’t care; I could decide to make the interest rates based on my morning BM too; doesn’t make me a good Fed chief. Greenspan, is, more than any other human on earth, personally responsible for this bubble (and the horror show of an aftermath we are now living with).
That Bernanke said that is also disturbing. But he didn’t have the power to do anything at that time anyway. Greenie did, and made perhaps the biggest financial mis-calculation in US history from ~2001-2006.
These guys don’t care how they make their GDP and employment numbers. They’ll have you build more than you need, pay more than you need, and waste more than you have to meet their ends.
It’s time to end the tyrannical Fed.
Looks like this will be run thriftily…Only $262 million for admin costs.
U.S. to spend $773 million to clean up closed GM sites
The Obama administration has a cut a deal with 14 states and the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe in New York for the government to spend $773 million cleaning up environment hazards at 89 closed General Motors plants.
The Environmental Protection Agency says it will be the largest such cleanup fund in U.S. history. In the government-supervised bankruptcy that created New GM, unwanted assets were left behind in court with Old GM — now Motors Liquidation Co. — for disposal. The proposed trust has been filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York and is expected to get final approval next year.
The money will come from the more than $1 billion the Treasury Department set aside to pay for disposal of Old GM assets. About $431 million will go to states for cleanup, $262 million will be spent on fund administration.
Obama Motors - Efficiency and transparency!
But it kept UAW whole – so all is OK.
you gotta be crazy to manufacture anything in this country..
A new round of RCRA funding. We haven’t had that since 1980. This is good for outfits like Sevenson….. and me of course.
Why is it not surprising you deal with toxic waste?
Oh, and you might want to get that tumor looked at!
I deal with hiding toxic turds like you everyday.This shouldn’t be any news to you.
Shovel ready projects, you fools. This is good news.
EPA paperwork is a pain.
What will the value of the cleaned up land be?
Saw a VERY interesting story on PBS last night. There’s a non-profit org in Boston who operates like this:
1. The org gets money from investors.
2. They negotiate to buy a foreclosure from the bank, usually 50% off the wishing price.
3. They mark up the price 25%.
4. If the FB qualifies (very stringent, only half qualify), then the org sells the house back to the FB at 6%. FB doesn’t have to move.
5. The org requires the FB to direct deposit paychecks, and they directly deduct the mortage twice a month.
6. The org uses the return on investment to pay back investors and buy more houses.
7. If the house appreciates in value, the org keeps half the appreciation if the FB sells.
Wow, a totally legal back-door cram-down!!
LINK: http://www. DOT pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec10/banker_10-20.html
Nice find Oxide. It shouldn’t take long for the banks to set up Departments of Recourse.
Around here the banks are getting pretty close to their their wishing prices for REOs. If they were taking anywhere near 50% of asking, I’d have bought a house by now.
‘If they were taking anywhere near 50% of asking’
They are in some areas I’m looking at, maybe less than 50%. Coming to a theater near you.
I’ve said for years that the “mother of all cram downs” is one possible result of this. Inflating away debts is the other.
Paying back all that money? With what income?
‘cram downs” is one possible result’
The cram down dreamers are still hanging on, eh? Some of you said it was just around the corner 2 years ago…
I’m in the “inflating away debts camp”. What about you Ben?
I guess I still think house prices are gonna fall - some more.
We covered this back in 2005. There is the silver bullet thinking; that the government or some judges were going to magically keep the bubble from deflating by the stoke of a pen, or something. Then there’s the similar notion that the federal reserve will print so much money that we’ll all be able to make payments on these bubble priced houses.
The former ignored hundreds of years of RE law, the latter ingores the history of bubbles. No major bubble has ever been sustained, and this is the largest mania in history. Let me ask you, in this economy, do you see us all suddenly earning 3, 4, 7 times more income?
“Let me ask you, in this economy, do you see us all suddenly earning 3, 4, 7 times more income?”
I saw it happen in Mexico, with a much crappier economy. I guess it depends on how much money they end up creating.
‘how much money they end up creating’
We’ve been over this a few times. IMO, if the central bank could push inflation up, they would have. Yet, we hear them talk about inflation being ‘too low.’ I’ve said for a while, it looks like we’ve seen financial bubbles on top of a deflationary undercurrent. This undercurrent, if it exists, has been going on for decades. It’s overwhelmed the central bank in Japan, the Fed and the stock and RE bubbles only add to this by creating more over-supply and over-capacity. I’d suggest globalism played a big role too.
Call it pushing on a string, or what ever. If this oddly unexplored phenomenon of deflation is in place, the central banks are apparently powerless to stop it.
Yeah, but wage increases relative to the cost of living is what really matters. When was the last increase in real wages? And, with gobs of funny money flowing into commodities and emerging markets - aggregate purchasing power going forward isn’t looking so hot.
Yeah, but wage increases relative to the cost of living is what really matters.
yes it is. and most people don’t realize that it’s possible to have deflation with a rising standard of living. wages could decrease as long as the cost of living decreased more. then you’d have a rising standard of living with falling wages. deflation can happen in a strong economy. depressions and recessions aren’t linked to deflation. we’re coming into an inflationary recession.
and most people don’t realize that it’s possible to have deflation with a rising standard of living.
Unless a lot of people have borrowed a lot of money. Like now.
And do you have any examples of deflation with a rising standard of living?
Unless a lot of people have borrowed a lot of money. Like now.
right. there’s good debt and bad debt. most debt is not good. and right, now for sure, most of our debt is bad.
————
And do you have any examples of deflation with a rising standard of living?
nope. i just said it was possible to happen.
So both your points were…wrong?
So both your points were…wrong?
tell me how you think they were both wrong.
Well…You admit your point is not correct now, and has never been correct before. That pretty much sums it up. Unless this is a string theory/multiverse kind of thing.
You admit your point is not correct now, and has never been correct before.
i don’t even know which point you’re talking about. i haven’t admitted my points (either one) are not correct.
*sigh* (arguing with tj is like arguing with salvador dali- there’s no ‘reality’ we seem to agree on)
Well, You admit you’re ‘deflation with a rising standard of living’ isn’t going to occur now, and has never occurred before.
That’s pretty much admitting that you’re wrong.
And if your point is, ‘it’s possible’, then we’re in candy-crapping unicorn territory, aren’t we?
It’s possible the Chinese, out of the goodness of their hearts, will step in and pay every American’s mortgage and credit card bills, no? Or maybe just forgive us our debts. Or run eastward in unison and reverse the spinning of the earth.
(arguing with tj is like arguing with salvador dali- there’s no ‘reality’ we seem to agree on)
pandering to the audience, eh?
——-
Well, You admit you’re ‘deflation with a rising standard of living’ isn’t going to occur now, and has never occurred before.
it can’t occur with constant government interference. and i don’t know if it has ever occurred before. but it can occur in a strong economy.
———
That’s pretty much admitting that you’re wrong.
no, it’s just your inaccurate twist on it.
pandering to the audience, eh?
No, it was more of a pensee.
it can’t occur with constant government interference. and i don’t know if it has ever occurred before. but it can occur in a strong economy.
So…it’s never occurred that you know of. How do you know it can occur?
No, it was more of a pensee.
addressed to the audience..
———
So…it’s never occurred that you know of. How do you know it can occur?
it’s the logical progression of a strong currency combined with a strong free market economy.
Show us (me and the audience) the logical progression.
And why has it never occurred before?
Show us (me and the audience) the logical progression.
as the economy strengthens the value of it’s currency increases. new hires get offered less in wages and readily accept because they can see that money buys more than it used to. some wages will still increase, but on average, wages decrease slightly. the standard of living goes higher.
And why has it never occurred before?
i’m not sure that it has ‘never’ happened before. it hasn’t happened anywhere that i know of because governments always interfere in the market with taxes and regulations.
new hires get offered less in wages and readily accept because they can see that money buys more than it used to.
Where is this the case in a strengthening economy? Now or ever?
It’s certainly not happening in China.
Where is this the case in a strengthening economy? Now or ever?
there are no cases that i know of yet because all the conditions that would enable it, aren’t there.
———
It’s certainly not happening in China.
while i think china has actually become more capitalistic with their economy than we are, it is still far from a free market.
there are no cases that i know of yet because all the conditions that would enable it, aren’t there.
Candy crapping unicorn.
Candy crapping unicorn.
so because something might not have happened yet, it’s impossible..
Dare to dream. But if it sounds too good to be true…
“It’s overwhelmed the central bank in Japan, the Fed and the stock and RE bubbles only add to this by creating more over-supply and over-capacity.”
So far as I can tell, these obstacles have not whatsoever limited the Fed’s jawboning capacity.
Interesting exchange, you two….
Nice.
I never said “cram downs were around the corner.” I simply said that I advocated them, if accompanied by a BK.
However, cram-downs nearly were around the corner in the Senate, but that bill was defeated, prompting Dick Durbin’s now-famous “The banks own the place” line.
There is a similar program in Japan, except the buyer is a relative and the home owner declares bankruptcy.
6. The org uses the return on investment to pay back investors and buy more houses.
Pay back investors AND buy more houses by way of a 6% return?
You need a big chunk of money to buy more houses. It won’t come from the FB’s monthly payments trickling in..
The buy-money can come from more investors, or it can arrive by selling the notes to other investors (which is how banks do it).
——
Frankly, it somewhat smacks of a pyramid scheme..
Caterpillar 3Q profit up 96 pct on strong sales in developing countries, company ups outlook.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Strong sales growth in developing countries pushed Caterpillar’s third-quarter earnings 96 percent higher, and the world’s largest maker of mining and construction equipment increased its outlook for this year.
must be oversees cause construction is dead around here.Auctions are full if used equipment.
I can’t believe the Chinese haven’t ripped off their designs yet.
Who said they haven’t?
Google “chinese construction equipment” Click “Images.”
Where Is The Housing Recovery?
Oct. 19 2010 - 5:51 pm
Posted by John Mauldin
“Now, what does ‘broken chain of title’ mean? Simple: when a homebuyer signs a mortgage, the key document is the note. As I said before, it’s the actual IOU. In order for the mortgage note to be sold or transferred to someone else (and therefore turned into a mortgage-backed security), this document has to be physically endorsed to the next person. All of these signatures on the note are called the ‘chain of title.’
“You can endorse the note as many times as you please…but you have to have a clear chain of title right on the actual note: I sold the note to Moe, who sold it to Larry, who sold it to Curly, and all our notarized signatures are actually, physically, on the note, one after the other.
“To repeat: if the chain of title of the note is broken, then the borrower no longer owes any money on the loan.
“People still haven’t figured out what all this means. But I’ll tell you: if enough mortgage-paying homeowners realize that they may be able to get out of their mortgage loans and keep their houses, scott-free? That’s basically a license to halt payments right now, thank you. That’s basically a license to tell the banks to take a hike.
“What are the banks going to do…try to foreclose and then evict you? Show me the paper, Mr. Banker, will be all you need to say.
“This is a major, major crisis. The Lehman bankruptcy could be a spring rain compared to this hurricane. And if this isn’t handled right…and handled right quick, in the next couple of weeks at the outside…this crisis could also spell the end of the mortgage business altogether. Of banking altogether. Hell, of civil society. What do you think happens in a country when the citizens realize they don’t need to pay their debts?”
http://blogs.forbes.com/investor/2010/10/19/where-is-the-housing-recovery/ - 179k
“To repeat: if the chain of title of the note is broken, then the borrower no longer owes any money on the loan.
That makes absolutely no sense. The title might be in question, but there is no question about the FB’s lack of title.
Is there ANY chance the FB lent the money to himself, and therefore owns the note?
“That makes absolutely no sense.”
To me either, I was hoping someone would read the whole article and tell me it was wrong.
well.. if the chain is broken, it opens the door..
Maybe the FB hit the lottery last month, made a lump sum payment of $400,000, and that wasn’t recorded either.
“Prove I didn’t pay off the note!”
can’t prove a negative..
Even if the chain is broken, all the pieces are still there. The last link in the chain before the break is the legal owner, until those after the break sue.
This idea that a broken chain of title can’t be repaired and must be discarded is nonsense.
And if the last valid link in the chain is bankrupt, then the creditors who were not properly paid off own it.
All of these problems with the note/title can be fixed. The big questions are how long it will take, and how much it will cost.
And if the property stays in limbo while all these problems are ironed out.
Even if the chain is broken, all the pieces are still there.
Ahh! That is the question!
And even if so, re-linking those chains may require some ‘fancy footwork’. And new laws…
I was hoping someone would read the whole article and tell me it was wrong.
Everyone needs to read that article. Everyone. If it’s all correct…wow! We’re gonna need a bigger boat.
It is. But you have to keep an eye out for the more obscure news stories.
As I said, the banks are hoisted on their own petards.
I often warned people that they really, really don’t want Social Darwinism, as they will probably be the first victims. This is a good example. The banks, like an animal in the jungle who was top of the food chain, gorged themselves to the point of being sick and thus became vulnerable prey.
Just talked to a very knowledgeable, old-school (40+ years in the biz) real estate lawyer I know. His short answer about how to handle these broken chains of ownership: ‘No one knows. There’s never been a systemic problem like this before.’
His long version lasted a half an hour, but boiled down to the same thing: ‘No one knows.’
His best guess was to find whoever possesses the note (if they and it can be found), and try to walk it out from there. ‘But it ain’t gonna be easy’, he laughed.
No one may know where many of the actual notes are, he suggested…
Lawyers are non-committal until they take sides. Once they have a client and know which side to attack, the path becomes crystal clear.
A good lawyer knows the law, but will fight for his client, even when he is in the wrong. But I didn’t hire this guy, just asked him his thoughts. I’ve known him for years and years- he wouldn’t talk his book to me.
We’ll see if there’s some clear-cut, simple answer to this. He didn’t seem to think so. But like I said, he’s only been in the biz since the mid 60s.
You’re much more trusting than I.
Any +40 yr RE attorney who pleads ignorance about foreclosure proceedings would certainly raise my suspicions.
He wasn’t unclear about foreclosure proceedings, he was saying we’ve never had a problem of this type and magnitude before. You’ll see. We all will.
Obama wants economic recovery..
If an Executive Order can start a war (Kosovo 1999), ending this idiotic delay in foreclosures should be no problem..
“…ending this idiotic delay in foreclosures should be no problem…”
I suppose handing out free houses to homeowners for which the title chain was destroyed through fraudulent securitization would be one way to end this idiotic delay in foreclosures. It might also win the Democrats some populist votes. I hope somebody catches on and makes sure this happens on a broad scale.
Seems to me the original lender would have title, as they would be listed on the note. They then sold the loan, but new owner not listed on note. Original lender got paid for sale of loan and now has claim to the underlying collateral if borrower defaults?
When push comes to shove the lawmakers or a High Court Judge will make a rule applied
retroactive that because of the intent of the law being that
the provider of funds gets paid that they will view this as along the same lines as a typo error and give power to correct .
Original lender got paid for sale of loan and now has claim to the underlying collateral if borrower defaults?
If he was paid, he has no claim.
Unless your point is, who knows if he was paid or not? A good point, possibly. I bet this payoff will be recorded, but the chain of ownership will get vague right thereafter. But who knows? The whole thing’s the mother of all charlie-foxtrots, as we shall see.
Because a law matter of this size of potential Plaintiffs and Defendants has never been presented before I think the
Courts will go with equitable solution ,rather than the letter of the law.
Lets face it ,the legal violations occurred on to many transactions .
Really ,massive amounts of people will never be made whole again based on being a victim because the sins of the
Industry were just to big and widespread .
Did anybody think that corrupted lenders/middlemen that just wanted to pass off mis-rated loans to investors were going to actually abide by other laws ? The Market Makers wanted to turn the Real Estate business into a securities racket ,not to mention the Credit Default Swaps and all the other casino leverage games being played .
If Justice was to prevail based on the letter of the law all these entities would be BK immediately just paying off all the claims and punitive damages . A Ponzi-scheme of this size is
a Black Swan event . Still the borrowers aren’t paying the note ,so do they deserve the house for free ….hell no .
I say it was never a issue of TBTF Banks ,but rather it was a issue of TO BIG FOR THE LEGAL PROCESS .
“…if enough mortgage-paying homeowners realize that they may be able to get out of their mortgage loans and keep their houses, scott-free? That’s basically a license to halt payments right now, thank you. That’s basically a license to tell the banks to take a hike.”
I certainly hope that lots of homeowners discover that the banksters accidentally gave them free houses. This would be a lovely bit of poetic justice, after seeing those who are most responsible for creating the financial crisis so richly rewarded for their acts of wanton destruction.
Professor , it would be poetic justice if it was on a small scale ,but because the lawbreaking is on a huge massive scale and it involves millions of loans in which many borrowers were just as fraudulent
as the Banks in depriving the loan investors of their funds ,true Justice will never be achieved . If the loan contracts become voidable contracts ,than again you have to many transactions to be rendered void . I think most of the questionable notes were written from 2004 onward ,thats millions of loans . I don’t think that all the pension plans and investor funds that would be loss and borrowers getting free houses would be my idea of Justice
either because all those depositors would be harmed unjustly .People forget that the Banks and Investment houses were Middlemen that passed on these loans to stupid investors relying on bogus ratings .
The FDIC couldn’t even pay on all the loss either .The real crime is how huge this financial Ponzi-scheme was and the fact that the Middle-men, the most liable culprits ,have been bailed out and protected all along . The answer doesn’t lie in burning the depositor of the Nation or giving borrowers free houses but to get the real culprits . Look at the case of Mozillo and you can see how the the culprits are being treated ,they can buy their way out ,keep most of the ill-gotten gain and not go to jail .
In reality our whole Nation was burned by this RE Ponzi-scheme from the Money Changers and their Credit Default Swaps and
all the other Casino games these entities were playing that were get rich quick schemes by larceny . The problem is the culprits were using other peoples money ,some of which might be your own pension money .And the sad part is these elite culprits and
TBTF Institutions are alive and kicking ,still taking advantage and still violating the law .
The borrowers that were gamblers in the house flipping and sell to a greater fool scheme or equity extractors don’t deserve free houses ,if anything renters who didn’t engage in liar loans or the mania are the innocent parties in all this . The REIC seems to be getting off scott free
with the part they play in the rah rah Ponzi-scheme and you could says they were conspirators in the fraud just for a commission check . Maybe borrowers that put their life-savings
down to buy a property and didn’t lie on their loan application are harmed parties also .
The whole mess is just to big but I don’t like how the powers are just picking and choosing who will win and who will lose ,rather than solutions that come closer to equitable .
The most important things is that this mess should be painful enough to inflict a generational message on the perils of not following the rule of law. Borrowers, bankers, and bond holders.
Local cities can always step in and condem the property and take ownership at this point. They don’t need titles.
In theory. In reality, they don’t have the money or manpower to do so either.
And if they try it too many times, they will also end up in court, defending themselves against the occupants, the lenders, the insurance companies, etc.
Since I think the system ate my post I’ll try this again!
This is the most ridiculous article I’ve read in awhile:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20101014/bs_yblog_upshot/is-david-j-stern-the-poster-boy-for-the-foreclosure-mess
There’s the guy running a major foreclosure mill in Florida, booting people out of their homes, ignoring payments, yelling at employees who DARE to talk to the homeowners (don’t talk to them, don’t give them any extra time).
He’s apparently doing pretty well, he just bought the mansion right next to his current mansion on a private island, so he could knock it flat and build a tennis court.
Good times, good times.
After Bust, Using ’60s Law to Get Out of Condo Deals
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/nyregion/21condos.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&hp
The buyers — some wealthy, some not — are successfully using a 1968 federal law intended to protect buyers of out-of-state land from unscrupulous developers or brokers.
“The statute was never designed for purchasers of luxury condominiums in urban areas to get out of contracts because of changes in the economy,” said Bruce H. Lederman, a lawyer defending developers in two such cases out of Long Island City, Queens. “It was designed to protect unsophisticated out-of-state purchasers like Jackie Gleason in ‘The Honeymooners’ from Florida swampland schemes.”
To the moon Alice!
Great article!
You realize this will probably mean another round of TARP?
If the Republicans take the House, they will not let another TARP even come up for a vote. Their base hated the first one too much (most of the rest if the country too), and they have to run for re-election every two years.
I think its kinda a karma type thing with some of these developers . Usually a purchase would be subject to a appraisal and qualifying for a loan . During the boom builders wrote one-sided contracts in which the current appraisal at the time of closing didn’t matter while at the same time requiring hefty down payments . The people were stupid enough to enter into these one-sided contracts . Lawyers have found loopholes to get out of it . Really the builders should of offered current market price in light of the circumstances ,but than again some of those buyers were just chronic flippers that deserved to get burned .
I never seem to like any of the parties in these contracts .
“The statute was never designed for purchasers of luxury condominiums in urban areas to get out of contracts because of changes in the economy,”
And the 14th Amendment was never meant to reward illegal immigrants by making automatic citizens out of their children, complete with all the bennies, etc.
But, there you have it. It’s all accordin’ to interpretation.
14th amendment didn’t include any bennies.
I think this is what is meant by “hard cases make bad law.”
Volt Fraud At Government Motors ~ IBD Editorials
Green Technology: Government Motors’ all-electric car isn’t all-electric and doesn’t get near the touted hundreds of miles per gallon. Like “shovel-ready” jobs, maybe there’s no such thing as “plug-ready” cars either.
The Chevy Volt, hailed by the Obama administration as the electric savior of the auto industry and the planet, makes its debut in showrooms next month, but it’s already being rolled out for test drives by journalists. It appears we’re all being taken for a ride.
When President Obama visited a GM plant in Hamtramck near Detroit a few months ago to drive a Chevy Volt 10 feet off an assembly line, we called the car an “electric Edsel.” Now that it’s about to hit the road, nothing revealed has changed our mind.
Advertised as an all-electric car that could drive 50 miles on its lithium battery, GM addressed concerns about where you plug the thing in en route to grandma’s house by adding a small gasoline engine to help maintain the charge on the battery as it starts to run down. It was still an electric car, we were told, and not a hybrid on steroids.
That’s not quite true. The gasoline engine has been found to be more than a range-extender for the battery. Volt engineers are now admitting that when the vehicle’s lithium-ion battery pack runs down and at speeds near or above 70 mph, the Volt’s gasoline engine will directly drive the front wheels along with the electric motors. That’s not charging the battery — that’s driving the car.
The range is not good on this car.
Yea but it’s only $41,000.00 dollars and you get a gubmint kick back of $7500.00.
The Nissan Leaf is a true plugin and is shovel ready. It goes on sale next month for $9k less than the Volt.
Looking forward to renting for a weekend in San Diego.
SteveJ
We’re waiting for the Tesla Model S in 2012. (what a beaut). 300 mile range per charge and the battery technology is so much more advanced. The Leaf is antiquated battery technology according to my EE Husband. Tesla Motor’s product line will get cheaper. (see their website)
Yeah, wouln’t it be neat-o if the tesla was a real car? How about one that runs on greenhouse gases that emits oxygen into the atmosphere. That would be cool.
Yeah, wouln’t it be neat-o if the tesla was a real car?
I don’t understand why people say that. I see them driving around on the streets of Boulder. Meets my definition of “real car”.
Chris M
Tesla Roadster is real. Tesla S is still vaporware.
What a waste, still no holistic intermodal transport strategy from these guys, just band-aids like this one.
No such thing as shovel ready projects? That’s sad as it betrays a lack of imagination. There are many groups out there trying to promote better transport alternatives and these guys seize on the Volt? It does nothing to address the unsustainable hyper-consumer culture that keeps us at the mercy of our debtors. It’s just another #@$% car!
The gasoline engine just helps the car “for an extended period of time”. Clearly a successful electric car of this era.
It never was an all electric.
it’s a hybrid?
It’s mostly a series hybrid but the engineers must have found that at higher speed it was more efficient to have the engine drive the wheels rather than charge the battery and have the electric motor drive the wheels.
The prius engine can be essentially disconnected from the drive train as well.
I’m not sure there is an issue here.
I cringe whenever the “business” type start talking about engineering. Of course the Volt is a plug-in hybrid. It always has been, regardless of what GM’s marketing said. The idea is that most people drive less than 40 miles in a typical day, and the Volt will run on the battery most of that time. This is not a bad idea. The fact that the engine sometimes drives the wheels directly is a *good* thing. It would be pure waste to throw away 30% or more running a generator to run an electric motor. And the battery provides no benefit at a 70+MPH cruise. The business dweeb thinks he found a “gotcha” moment, but he’s just showing his ignorance.
I cringe whenever the “business” type start talking about engineering.
Me too. Because the business types quickly reveal that they don’t know what they’re talking about.
GM - over promise and under deliver.
I read one article that said journalists who took the Volt out for an extended test drive (way beyond battery range) only observed about 38 mpg. My 2004 Miata recently got an observed 34 mpg, and it’s not geared for maximum gas mileage but rather for accelleration.
38mpg is not that bad for a 5 passenger vehicle. Actually, I’m kinda surprised how low your 2 seater Miata’s mileage was. Were you doing 80MPH?
Miatas get OK but not great mileage. Convertables in generally have a high drag coefficient with the top down. Mine would probably get more than 34 mpg with the hardtop in place - but that wasn’t the point of my pleasure trip. Plus as I said it’s geared low to return an 8 second 0-60 time. Finally all the chassis stiffening adds weight. A hardtop adds a lot of chassis stiffening with minimal weight. My Miata weighs about 2,500 lbs which isn’t light for a small car. IIRC my 1978 VW Scirocco was only around 2,200 lbs. and could seat four.
I dug my original window sticker out of the files…
The EPA ratings for my 2004 Miata were 23 city/28 highway. This shows how bogus the EPA ratings are. I generally observe around 29-30 in town and 32-34 highway.
If its geared for acceleration, then why does it accelerate like a dead tortise?
Some people enjoy the nostalgia of small sports cars with normally aspirated 4 cylinder motors, even though they’re not fast. Having a deep first gear at least makes it feel a little zippier. “Dead tortoise” is a relative thing.
I love Miatas and there is no better track car, they have very neutral handling and are pure pleasure to drive. Acceleration is not ever mentioned as an attribute by fellow racers, however. A pure “momentum” car.
I don’t recall the Obama Administration hailing the Volt as anything, but who knows. They always spout that kind of PR.
The Volt was GM’s equivalent of a greenwashed Potemkin village for the past 10 years, and started even before Obama thought about running for Senate. Obama didn’t save GM to save their crappy management; he did it to save the worker bees jobs (and their bloody union.. I’m not opposed to unions but the UAW has definitely overstayed its welcome.)
If the Leaf is a plug-in hybrid that goes 350 miles on gasoline then I’ll consider it. Anything else is PR.
The Nissan Leaf and the hybrids from Honda and of course, Toyota will blow its doors off.
The Volt is overpriced and under-ranged.
wmbz
Why are you worried that the gas engine kicks in at 70 mph? Where in the US is that a legal speed??
“If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.” ~Emma Goldman
Well, we don’t vote on Sunday - like a lot of countries do.
It was always the pigs who put forward the resolutions. The other animals understood how to vote, but could never think of any resolutions of their own.
National Public Radio has fired news analyst Juan Williams for a remark he made on a FOX interview show.
Williams said, “If I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
In a statement, NPR called Williams a ‘valuable contributor’ but said that his comments ‘were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.’
~ I know political correctness rules at NPR, but Williams is not the only American who becomes a bit distracted when someone in head to toe drapery appears in public. It may not be rational…it may not be fair to Muslims…but, sadly, people of that faith occasionally blow themselves up in crowds.
Freedom of Speech, eh?
I think you are referring to the Freedom of Progressive Speech.
News anchors/reporters have a separate standard. They are supposed to remain impartial and neutral.
Not always adhered to nowadays.
NPR made the correct call here. Journalistic integrity (and NPR’s standards contract,) requires a disinterested public persona of its editorial staff– and Mr. Williams is far from that.
However, in all fairness, Ms. Weiss’s editorial stance in publicly firing him can rightly be construed as violating this clause as well. So she needs to go away, too.
Fair and balanced?
“If I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
I think Fox must of cut the part where O’Reily responded “I know how you feel. If I see people moving into the neighborhood who are Black, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Black, I get worried. I get nervous.”
Geez, how bad has it gotten at NPR when Juan Williams isn’t liberal enough?
I know political correctness rules at NPR, but Williams is not the only American who becomes a bit distracted when someone in head to toe drapery appears in public.
What if she was a nun?
“What if she was a nun?”
Watch yer back!
Its difficult to for a liberal news guy to be honest, but Juan will land on his feet and get a better job that pays more.
Cripes, maybe his work on Fox has changed his views and made him realize that sometimes you can speak the truth [because it is what it is]
Are there any of us who haven’t been worried when boarding a plane and happen to see a bunch of Muslim looking guys waiting in line?
A few years ago, I was waiting to board a Phoenix-bound flight in Philadelphia.
A fellow passenger, a veiled Muslim woman, decided to use the wait time to pray. So, she unrolled her prayer rug and began her prayers.
All eyes were fixed upon her.
What got my attention was the fact that she was praying north toward Allentown, rather than east toward Mecca.
The great circle route to Mecca may indeed be north from Philly.
There’s a web site for EVERYTHING these days.
Even for determining the direction to pray to Mecca.
http://www.qiblalocator.com/
Well we’re praying north toward Allentown,
And they’re closing all the factories down,
Out in Bethlehem they’re killing time…
(sorry for the ear worm)
No prob - love that song.
That’s too bad, what a horrible decision. I have the utmost respect for Juan Williams.
Juan’s mediocrity will be perfect for Fox. Isn’t he already in their stable?
Recession Worse Than Dot-Com Bust, Distress Index Shows
By Aaron Glantz on October 18, 2010 - 2:04 p.m. PDT
When the dot-com bubble burst a decade ago, Yvonne Dunkley barely noticed.
The 45-year-old Jamaican immigrant had a good job in the human resources department at the San Francisco Marriott and had just bought her first home, a two-bedroom bungalow in the city’s Ocean View District.
But now Dunkley, who supports her teenaged daughter and two disabled parents, is worried. Two years ago, she lost her job at the Marriott. She hasn’t been able to make a mortgage payment since last June and is worried about losing her home.
“I had a good job and 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, but now I need help,” she said.
“What’s really scary,” said Wimer, is that nearly three years after our current recession began in December 2007, “it doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of abating.”
The statistics show nearly 15,000 more San Franciscans are unemployed than at the peak of the dot-com recession. The number of city residents waiting in line for free food from a food pantry has tripled. The number applying for food stamps has increased by more than 50 percent.
http://www.baycitizen.org/economy/story/recession-worse-dot-com-bust-distress/ - 47k -
Did she not get the memo? The recession ended in 2009.
How the heck can someone live in San Francisco on food stamps?
In a news story from CNN Money …
It’s that time of year when employers deliver bad news about next year’s benefits. Chances are you’ll learn that your 2011 health insurance tab will be sharply higher, as companies continue to shift the burden of rising costs onto their workers.
And it’s not just premiums that are spiraling higher. You’re also likely to be hit with higher deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums as well as bigger bills for doctor’s visits and drugs.
“… as companies continue to shift the burden of rising costs onto their workers.”
Companies are doing this because there ISN’T ENOUGH MONEY, companies no longer have the money to buffer the cost of these benifits.
This is a form of a PAY CUT for workers - a deflationary event.
People everywhere will see this event as a sign of inflation but in reality it is a sign of deflation.
I guess you missed the headlines about record profits for corporate America?
Right?
Voodoo, er “supply side” economics has always been about increasing profits at everyone else’s expense not matter what the economic climate.
Good times? Raise prices and claim scarcity. Bad times? Raise price AND cut services/amount/size and claim scarcity of profit.
Good times? Cut staff and raises for all but the upper executives in the name of efficiency. Bad times? Do exactly the same but in the name of “lean times”.
The corporate motto is “Heads we win, tails you lose.”
In case some of haven’t been following current events, here’s a little news… they ARE ALL LIARS.
Hope and change baby, hope and change…
If nothing is changing, why is the “right” screaming so loudly?
(just asking.)
ZING!
And it’s not just premiums that are spiraling higher. You’re also likely to be hit with higher deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums as well as bigger bills for doctor’s visits and drugs.
Welcome to my world. We self-employed folks have had to deal with the above for years.
“We self-employed folks have had to deal with the above for years”.
Yep, and that is why I only have catastrophic hospitalization coverage with a $10,000 dollar deductible(the most Blue Cross would allow).
Everything else comes straight out of pocket.
“…We self-employed folks have had to deal with the above for years.”
Yep. This is why a public option would even out the playing field for those of us who have had to subsidize the collective bargainers all these years. Probably happen just about the time we qualify for the Medicare we’ll not get either….
And by the time BC gets through with all its “reasonable and customary”s and “not medically necessary”s and “60% up to deductible for preferred providers only” and “we’re-going-to-deny-this-just-because-we-feel-like-it-and-wait-for-you-to-appeal-it-in-writing-three-times” and “not covered under your policy”s etc. etc., that $10K deductible will look more like a $37K one. Per member of your family. Per year.
So don’t get in a car accident or catch something contagious.
I think it’s very nice that some people can afford to have health insurance with a $10k deductible. However, I am not one of them.
By way of comparison, my homeowner’s insurance has a $1k deductible. And the annual premium isn’t anywhere near the four figures.
ahansen
Nice to see you post. How are you?
I called UHC (United . .) and boy they interview you very carefully and give you all these hoops and loopholes if you dare live in Ca. As much as I hate BC, Kaiser scares me more. I want out.
You can always tell a Kaiser patient. They carry a drug backpack, and glow in the dark
IMHO, with Kaiser, you’ll never worry about medical bankruptcy, because you’ll be dead soon enough.
This has just happened to me. If I were to stay in the same plan I would pay an additional 50 dollars ever 2 weeks. Not much but it is effectively a pay cut since my salary has not gone up.
JMS
Last year’s check register showed $16K to Kaiser for coverage (2 adults) and things no longer covered, or co-pays. I’d trade you circumstances in a heartbeat. You’re still getting away inexpensive.
Nice to see all this change Barry is bringing about…
Wall Street mogul picked for State Department post
~The Washington Times
President Obama’s nominee for deputy secretary of state has earned more than $8 million in salary and bonuses since January 2009 as an executive at a Wall Street bank that received a federal bailout.
Thomas R. Nides, a six-figure fundraiser for Hillary Rodham Clinton during her 2008 presidential run, disclosed his compensation from Morgan Stanley in a recent filing with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.
Mr. Nides, the company’s chief operating officer, also said he remains eligible for additional bonus money at Morgan Stanley, which repaid its share of the federal bailout last year.
As deputy secretary of state for management and resources, Mr. Nides would replace Jacob Lew, who is awaiting confirmation as Mr. Obama’s federal budget chief and whose own nearly $1 million bonus at bailed-out banking giant Citigroup last year came under scrutiny.
Google 2.4% Rate Shows How $60 Billion Lost to Tax Loopholes
Google Inc. cut its taxes by $3.1 billion in the last three years using a technique that moves most of its foreign profits through Ireland and the Netherlands to Bermuda.
Google’s income shifting — involving strategies known to lawyers as the “Double Irish” and the “Dutch Sandwich” — helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2.4 percent, the lowest of the top five U.S. technology companies by market capitalization, according to regulatory filings in six countries.
“It’s remarkable that Google’s effective rate is that low,” said Martin A. Sullivan, a tax economist who formerly worked for the U.S. Treasury Department. “We know this company operates throughout the world mostly in high-tax countries where the average corporate rate is well over 20 percent.”
The U.S. corporate income-tax rate is 35 percent. In the U.K., Google’s second-biggest market by revenue, it’s 28 percent.
Such income shifting costs the U.S. government as much as $60 billion in annual revenue, according to Kimberly A. Clausing, an economics professor at Reed College in Portland, Oregon.
Google - one of the most liberal companies that supports ubber liberal politicians at local, state and federal levels.
But Google does not want to pay for all the socialist programs these liberal politician make into law.
Typical liberal hypocrisy. Taxes are for the little people. But since I supported all these do-good people and programs, I can hold my head high. I can feel good about myself…
A Republican and a Democrat were walking down the street when they came to a homeless person. The Republican gave him his business card and told him to stop by for a job. He then took $20 out of his pocket and handed it to him.
The Democrat was impressed, and when they came to another homeless person, he decided it was his turn to help. So he reached into the Republican’s pocket and gave the homeless man $50.
I love that joke , especially the part about the repbulican handing him 20 dollars out of his pocket.
You want hypocrisy?
Republicans block ending offshore jobs tax breaks
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68R40I20100928
So we need to lower corporate tax rates why??
Because when people need some financial help, it’s socialism, but when corporations want it, but don’t need it, yet demand it anyway, it’s called “business.”
See?
And nobody wants to be a godless socialeest/commie, now do they?
This guy was the most prominent financial advisor in Sacramento for years. He filled in regularly for Rush Limbaugh, was urged to run for Congress, but moved to New York in 2007 to anchor the new Fox business channel.
He’s trying to short sell his suburban Sacramento house for $1.9 mill, after riding the market down since 2006. Took out a $1.6 mill mortgage to buy the house in 2004. The questions I have are:
1) how can he be considered a savvy businessman/financial advisor when he rode the real estate market down instead of selling when he had the chance?
2) why doesn’t he just pay off the balance on the mortgage and keep quiet? It can’t do his business career any good to publicize this.
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/10/21/3120279/financial-guru-tom-sullivan-seeks.html
“The market is the market,” said Linda Friery, a Lyon Real Estate agent who is attempting to sell Sullivan’s home.
“The property has gone down 50 percent,” she said. “He’s no different than anybody else.”
He can afford to pay the mortgage but he’s looking for the lender to take the pain. The lender should tell him to pound sand.
Why is Obama putting a Fannie Mae/Goldman Sachs lobbyist/consultant as NSA? Examiner
Obama last week tapped Tom Donilon as National Security Advisor. What’s Donilon’s resume? I summarized it when folks floated his name as potential White House chief of staff:
He was a top lobbyist at Fannie Mae during the housing bubble, when Fannie fought — with Democratic help — to avoid any restrictions or curbs on its work to inflate home values and get more people under mortgage. Before that, Donilon was a lobbyist at O’Melveny and Myers, where Fannie was a client.
In 2008, according to his financial disclosure forms, Donilon was a paid consultant for Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Apollo Investments.
Seems well qualified to be player in the US security game. LOL
Firing offense: NPR axes Juan Williams for opinions on Muslims & post-9/11 travel
By Michelle Malkin • October 20, 2010 11:44 PM
Cable news blogger Johnny Dollar red-flagged NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik’s Twitter feed, which announced tonight that liberal NPR analyst/Fox News contributor Juan Williams’ contract was terminated — over comments Williams made about Muslims on The O’Reilly Factor. He gave his honest opinion: “[W]hen I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
Guess who stirred up the pot to get Williams fired?
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/10/20/firing-offense-npr-axes-juan-williams-for-opinions-on-muslims-post-911-travel/?utm_source=co2hog - -
Who? I couldn’t bring up the link.
I would have thought Juan had been around the bleeding hearts long enough to know you can never be completely open an honest about how you feel. There is always a chance someone somewhere my get their feelings hurt. That is unacceptable and would not be fair.
So bye,bye Juan!
Has nothing to do with his opinions and everything to do with him expressing them on a public forum– in violation of his NPR standards contract. Or do you think, wmbz, that Williams shouldn’t be “forced” to keep his end of the voluntary bargain he made with his employers when he signed on?
oh-oh. So when to hop back into SKF?
————–
Regulator for Fannie Set to Get Litigious
The Wall Street Journal | 10/21/2010 | Nick Timaraos
The federal regulator overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac hired a law firm specializing in litigation as the agency considers how to move forward with efforts to recoup billions of dollars on soured mortgage-backed securities purchased from banks and Wall Street firms.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which in July issued 64 subpoenas to issuers of mortgage securities, bank servicing companies and other entities, is working with Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, a Los Angeles-based firm that specializes in business litigation, to coordinate its investigations.
I went to a Subway-like restaurant yesterday, and when I paid with my credit card, the receipt had a line for ‘tip’.
Nobody brough anything to my table, picked up my plate or took my order while I waited….
When did tipping become the norm for all services?
I thought tipping was a voluntary payment made for services rendered; however, everyone wants a tip now.
The guy who cuts your hair, the waitress, the cab drivers, the guy who washes your car, the cleaning lady, the lady at the spa, now even fast food people??!
Have you ever stopped and realized how much $$$ you spend a year in tips?
I only tip in cash. And, to add insult to injury, I only tip when I feel that the service is worthy of a tip.
Call me a meanie, but I don’t think that tipping should be mandatory.
It seems to be mandatory…
I went to a massage clinic last week because of back pain, and there is a BIG sign at the exit suggesting minimum tips of $20 for the masseurs
BIG sign at the exit suggesting minimum tips of $20 for the masseurs
That’s the kind of thing that will drive me away from a business, never to return.
Me too. And I’d be the type to point it out to the people running the business.
20 dollar tip for the masseurs better get me a ‘happy ending’.
Probably just the standard setting on the credit card thing.
Yup. I see it a lot. Usually if its counter service like that I just write “take out” on the tip line and leave it at that.
I’m pretty sure it’s new…. I’ve been going to this place for over 3 years, and it’s the first time I notice this.
I wish we were like most European countries…. restaurant prices include taxes and service.
If you wanna leave some extra money, it’s totally optional, but in most cases, it’s not neccesary unless the service was amazing!
Perhaps it’s a new cash register set up. Anytime I have a receipt like that I zero out the tip line and fill in the total line. Do this even in “regular” restaurants as I usually leave tips in cash on a small to medium sized bill.
I wish that people in jobs like that were paid suitable wages so tips were not necessary.
I tip in the cash jar at a sandwich place that I go to a couple of times a month because after the first 3 or 4 visits the people there not only remembered me but my condiment preferences… that earns the coins from my change.
Yep, always leave yr. change in the tip jar.
And corollary:
The cruddier the dive, the bigger the percentage tip to the wait/prep staff. Coffee shop waitresses work a lot harder for that $5 than the guy who opens up a $50 bottle of wine.
how does the price of the food one serves impact how hard they work?
if you are taking about tipping as a percentage i understand…but you used a fixed amount in your example.
no she didn’t.
$5
It became popular because employers don’t pay living wages, so they play their employees off against you and make it look like the employees are just greedy.
“When did tipping become the norm for all services?”
Ah come on, Mr. Pink, throw in a buck!
Americans Growing More Pessimistic About Economy: CNBC Survey
The American dream appears increasingly elusive to the average citizen, with the CNBC All-America Economic Survey finding continued high levels of pessimism in the nation’s outlook for incomes, home values and the future of the economy.
After trillions of dollars were put to work for monetary and fiscal stimulus, just 8 percent of the nation views the economy as excellent or good and 92 percent see it as fair or poor, little changed from a year ago.
But just 37 percent of the public believes the economy will improve in the next year, down five points from a year ago. Taken together, the combined percentage of Americans who are pessimistic about the economy now and for the next year is at the second highest for the three-year life of the CNBC survey.
“Appears?” APPEARS?!
It IS increasingly elusive to the average citizen! But they are too dumb to figure this out. And so the status quo continues…
I just saw the results of a CNBC poll: Who is more to blame for the ecomomic problems of today?
Only 14% blame Wall Street
The rest blame Democrats and Republicans.
Thereby proving that MSM distractions are working to perfection. All the political squabbling along with epic features such as “Jersey Shore” and “Dancing with the wannabe Stars” are a success beyond the banksters’ wildest expectations. Almost nobody knows what the evil banksters are up to.
The next step is free pot and porn for those who agree not to vote.
Now I could go for that!
Forgot to add, if they throw in a few cases of Rolling Rock extra pale I’ll sit this cycle out for sure.
Of course I wasn’t going to vote for any democrap/republican’t , but I’ll do the right thing and take the perks anyway.
System running as planned, and the drooling dupes will be out yelling and screaming at each other about which turd is better to send to the cesspool to save them.
Remember… Vote early and vote often!
Ah, but that is what happens when politicians insert themselves in matters beyond their control…and beyond their intended mandate.
Promise a chicken in every pot, don’t be surprised when people start looking to you for the chicken!
I will not so much vote for any party as more of, against the Repubs.
Here’s why:
Repubs vote against ending tax cuts for offshoring jobs
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68R40I20100928
And another good reason:
In a notice recently released by the CFTC, Painter said Judge Bruce Levine, his longtime colleague, had a secret agreement with a former Republican chairwoman of the agency to stand in the way of investors filing complaints with the agency.
Who cares, it’s “free” money anyway!
Tab for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac rescue could soar to $363B
WASHINGTON(AP) — Rescuing mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could cost as taxpayers as much as $363 billion over the next three years, more than double the current amount, a federal regulator said Thursday.
The two companies could end up costing taxpayers $221 billion to $363 billion through 2013, the Federal Housing Finance Agency projects. The actual amount will depend on whether home prices stabilize or take another dive, the agency said.
“The actual amount will depend on whether home prices stabilize or take another dive, the agency said.”
This is BS, as the key reason for Fan and Fred to withhold supply from the market is (apparently) to prop up prices. But I suppose if they don’t pretend it is an act of Gawd, then someone might question why the U.S. tax base should be tapped for $300 bn+ worth of GSE-funded price supports, especially given than Fan and Fred’s mission was supposedly to help make housing more affordable.
Want to raise profits? Cut jobs, it’s so simple a child could do it!
Xerox Raises Profit Forecast as It Plans 2,500 More Job Cuts
Xerox Corp., the printer and business-services provider, raised its 2011 profit forecast and said it plans additional cost cuts, including the elimination of 2,500 jobs.
Future headline:
“(Name of Company Here) announces highest profits in recorded history, by eliminating all of the Company’s employees…….stock is up 50% in heavy trading”
As Always team Barry has their finger on the pulse…
No Sign Foreclosure Problems ‘Systemic’: White House
The Obama administration said on Wednesday it found no sign so far of “systemic” home foreclosure problems that threaten U.S. financial stability or structural problems that could undermine investments linked to mortgages.
But Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said a four-month probe of big banks’ mortgage practices had discovered “significant variation” in compliance with government rules, and vowed to force changes as needed.
“We will not tolerate business as usual in the mortgage market,” Donovan told reporters, saying the government would demand banks comply fully with rules requiring them to try and keep borrowers in their homes.
The Obama administration said on Wednesday it found no sign so far of “systemic” home foreclosure problems that threaten U.S. financial stability or structural problems that could undermine investments linked to mortgages.
I think the key phrase in the previous graf is “so far”.
As for us HBB-ers, being the prescient types that we are, we’ve already seen plenty of signs. And it’s only a matter of time before the goobermint comes around to our point of view.
I hereby propose that the participants in the HBB no longer use the word “government” in any way that relates to the USA, and replace it with the word “Goobermint”.
It’s a more accurate term.
“We will not tolerate business as usual in the mortgage market,” Donovan told reporters, saying the government would demand banks comply fully with rules requiring them to try and keep borrowers in their homes.”
STOP! Or I’ll yell stop again!
Funny!
Cash-strapped governments ramping up tax-collection efforts
WASHINGTON~Tax officials throughout the Washington region are trying new and often extraordinary measures to collect tens of millions of dollars in delinquent payments, as huge projected budget deficits threaten to slash public services.
Together, Washington-area localities are owed more than $40 million in overdue real estate taxes from fiscal 2010 alone. Additional millions in unrecovered fines, fees and personal property tax revenues compound those shortfalls.
They say they have been able to maintain historically high collection rates, but only by resorting to unusually aggressive collection methods.
“We give people appropriate notice, but if they ignore us, we’ll just drive out to their house and remove their car from their driveway. That’s an attention getter,” said Arlington County Treasurer Frank O’Leary.
O’Leary said he has used such tactics in the past, but lately has encountered a startling new phenomenon.
“This year I sent my people out to collect some vehicles, and they came back and said the properties had been abandoned,” O’Leary said. “That had never occurred in Arlington in all the years I’d been treasurer, and it was really sobering to hear that.”
So how do the banks get their cars back? I can’t believe everyone there has a paid off car.
Good point. What if there is a loan/lein on the car?
“We give people appropriate notice, but if they ignore us, we’ll just drive out to their house and remove their car from their driveway. That’s an attention getter,” said Arlington County Treasurer Frank O’Leary.
They can seize your car without any kind of legal process for collection of anykind of back taxes?
We are a banana republic…
The “appropriate notice” probably includes a list of possible actions that the person is agreeing to if they don’t respond to the notice in a specified number of days.
Yet they voted against ending tax cuts for offshoring jobs.
Oops? Wrong Washington. :doh:
Job seekers’ credit reports in spotlight
EEOC explores whether employers should check job applicants’ credit history
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — With the national unemployment rate at 9.6%, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is concerned about employers using job applicants’ credit history as a screening tool.
The commission met Wednesday to hear testimony from various groups about employers’ practice of checking credit reports. The meeting is part of a longer-term examination of barriers to employment.
Arbitration reform worries small brokerages
A Finra proposal that would allow investors to choose a panel of all public arbitrators may have unintended consequences, says David Sobel, incoming chairman of the National Association of Independent Broker Dealers. Sobel discussed his concerns with Dow Jones columnist Suzanne Barlyn at the group’s fall symposium.
“An ever increasing number of job applicants and workers are being exposed to employment screening tools, such as credit checks, that could unfairly exclude them from job opportunities,” said Jacqueline Berrien, chairwoman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
It’s legal for employers to obtain personal information about job seekers and workers, including consumer reports that measure credit worthiness. But some say using credit history as a screening tool has a disparate impact on some groups.
“Numerous studies have documented how, as a group, African Americans and Latinos have lower credit scores than whites,” said Chi Chi Wu of the National Consumer Law Center. “If credit scores are supposed to be an accurate translation of a consumer’s credit report and creditworthiness, that means these groups will fare worse when credit history is considered in employment.”
Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, said in a statement last month that there is the potential for a “subconscious bias” against those with more negative data in their reports.
Subconscious bias? Is that like being a little bit pregnant? Because they sure as hell DO discriminate based your credit report.
Dem promises move to trailer if elected Texas gov.
Latest local news »
TYLER, Texas — Most political candidates promise to start a new program or policy on their first day in office, but Bill White has different plans if elected Texas governor. The Democrat says his first bold move would be into a mobile home.
In another jab at Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who is costing taxpayers $10,000 a month by renting a mansion outside Austin, White vowed during a swing through East Texas on Wednesday to move into a trailer home if elected. The millionaire businessman and former Houston mayor currently lives in a 4,122-square-foot home appraised at $2.1 million, but said he would be the portrait of frugality the moment he took office.
“It will start when I move, on the first day that I’m sworn into office, out of that fancy rental mansion into a double-wide trailer,” White said. “Where I come from, fiscal conservatism means you don’t waste money on yourself.”
“TruePurity™” “fiscal conservatism” = “…costing taxpayers $10,000 a month by renting a mansion outside Austin”
Let me guess, Rick Perry sports a “white” hat, yeah just as I thought:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_CT4y-UiwdC0/S9sB6TfKnTI/AAAAAAAACKA/8UPPSUkCAek/s320/1015Perry1_e.jpg
A state gubmint at work…
Audit: NJ Turnpike Wasted Millions On Perks
MYFOXNY.COM - Auditors say the New Jersey Turnpike Authority wasted $43 million on unneeded perks and bonuses. In one case, an employee with a base salary of $73,469 earned $321,985 when all payouts and bonuses were included.
The audit says that toll dollars From the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway were spent on items ranging from an employee bowling league to employee bonuses for working on birthdays and holidays.
It took place as tolls were being increased.
The biggest expense uncovered in the audit was $30 million in unjustified bonuses to employees and management in 2008 and 2009 without consideration of performance.
One example was paying employees overtime for removing snow and working holidays and then giving additional “snow removal bonuses” and “holiday bonuses.”
Public Servants! God bless them!
They do it because they want to help the public.
I’m sure Tony and Guido deserved every penny.
Okay, THIS made me mad :
Bai Huang, 79, smiles as he wraps his mouth around a hamburger, part of his free lunch at the Curry Senior Center on Turk Street in the Tenderloin. The elderly immigrant, who came to San Francisco 12 years ago from Guangdong in Southern China, lives a few blocks away in an affordable housing complex at the corner of Turk and Gough.
Prior to last year, Huang used to prepare his own meals at home, but state budget cuts have turned that into a luxury. In February and July last year, state legislators and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger cut a total of $871 million in SSI/SSP checks for elderly and disabled Californians and eliminated an automatic cost-of-living adjustment that kept these benefits in line with inflation.
So, we’re apparently allowing 68 year old people immigrate and get social security benefits? As if we don’t have enough trouble funding it for people who actually had jobs and paid into the system.
Maybe China plans to outsource their elderly to the US, thus reducing any need for them to fund the Chinese equivalent of SS.
yep -we also let in people with AIDs too - who go right onto federal medical programs for free healthcare.
God bless middle class tax paying Americans!
Maybe he worked as an adjunct professor of chemistry for those 12 years and was disabled on the job when an Erlinmayer flask blew up in his face?
Maybe after he immigrated legally and became a US citizen, his daughter paid him a salary to manage her apartments, out of which he paid payroll taxes for enough qualifying quarters to receive SS?
Yet you begrudge this poor guy a hamburger?
You know what makes ME kinda mad?
That CA. SSI pays the legitimately disabled worker $623.03 a month (down from $654) on which to live. And that’s all they get to make without being disqualified from the program.
So, $7476.36 a year, which is 69% of the poverty guideline ($10,830) for a family of 1 for 2010.
And those guidelines are only adjusted for location in Alaska and Hawaii.
Brass Knob Back Doors Warehouse closing in November
Washington Post
Brass Knob Back Doors Warehouse, a major Washington source of salvaged architectural, plumbing and building parts, is closing its vintage French doors in November. Owner Ron Allan says the rent on the 24,000-square-foot property at 57 N St. NW has become prohibitive. In addition, the economy, the extreme weather and the city’s shift to modern condos have slowed sales in the business Allan likens to a “Victorian Home Depot.”
Allan started in salvage in 1981, when he and a partner opened a store in Adams Morgan. Allan eventually spun off the larger pieces — bathtubs, radiators, mantels and such — into a separate business. The warehouse’s closing does not affect Brass Knob Architectural Antiques, which remains open on 18th Street NW.
Throughout the years, Allan has stocked fragments from historic buildings such as Woodward & Lothrop and Pamela Harriman’s Georgetown home.
The warehouse is a mother lode for the interior design and architectural community, whose members forage the packed rooms for paint-encrusted columns and mahogany doors.
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“I am devastated,” said D.C. designer Darryl Carter, who bought barn doors, shutters and hinges there. “This place has been so inspirational to me. It’s very much part of the DNA of my work.”
Seems to me that this could be one heckuva business on the Internet. As in, skip the storefront (and the exorbitant rent) and set up an e-commerce site.
There has to be soooo much more to this story.
Commerical RE and warehouse space are getting cheaper by the day due to much less demand.
There has to be soooo much more to this story.
Agreed. And the reporter probably didn’t dig below the “mean landlord charging a prohibitive amount of rent” angle to find out what was happening.
Here’s my take on the sitch:
This was a bubble-driven business. And now that the bubble’s hissing rather loudly, there isn’t the demand that there used to be. Nowadays, business is way down, the rent’s now a big, honkin’ cost, and so it’s curtains for the 57 N St. NW store.
Not around here.
I’ve got a project that I could start almost immediately, if I can find shop space cheap enough that I can pay out of pocket, until things are up and running. Doesn’t have to be fancy.
All I see is a commercial version of the “I’m not going to give it away” mindset. Even for the commercial equivalent of slumlord property.
All I see is a commercial version of the “I’m not going to give it away” mindset. Even for the commercial equivalent of slumlord property.
IMHO, this is why the aforementioned 24,000-square-foot property will just sit there empty after it’s vacated by Brass Knob Back Doors Warehouse.
I’ll same the same thing to this guy we say to homeowners who want to sell their house: lower your prices!
I’ve been to places like that. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING is overpriced. And almost NONE of it is usable without restoration and repair.
If this were in New York, they could vote for “The Rent is too Damn High” party.
A little Anti-Glenbeckinstan, goes better a with fresh cup-o’-joe.
October 17, 2010, 5:15 PM
Morals Without God?
By FRANS DE WAAL / NYT / Opinion
The Stone is a forum for contemporary philosophers on issues both timely and timeless.
TAGS:
BIOLOGY, ETHICS, EVOLUTION, MORALS, PHILOSOPHY, PRIMATES.
Bottom-Up Morality
“A few years ago Sarah Brosnan and I demonstrated that primates will happily perform a task for cucumber slices until they see others getting grapes, which taste so much better. The cucumber-eaters become agitated, throw down their measly veggies and go on strike. A perfectly fine food has become unpalatable as a result of seeing a companion with something better.
We called it inequity aversion, a topic since investigated in other animals, including dogs. A dog will repeatedly perform a trick without rewards, but refuse as soon as another dog gets pieces of sausage for the same trick…”
“S’nausages” can be the new reserve currency!
Ergo - FBs will make mortgage payments, but refuse to as soon as another FB gets to live in their house without making payments.
monkey see,…monkey do
give it a week or so…they’ll take those cucumbers.
+1 michael. The grass is greener but most settle for dirt.
QE2
“…
Economics is essentially the study of how scarce resources are allocated. To that end, one of the main analytical tools used by economists is “constrained optimization” - we study how consumers maximize their welfare subject to budget constraints, how investors maximize their expected returns subject to a various levels of risk, how companies minimize their costs at various levels of output, and so forth. To assess whether QE is likely to achieve its intended objectives, it would be helpful for the Fed’s governors to remember the first rule of constrained optimization - relaxing a constraint only improves an outcome if the constraint is binding. In other words, removing a barrier allows you to move forward only if that particular barrier is the one that is holding you back.
…”
see hussmanfunds for full article. Well worth your time.
Slightly off-topic question…
Has anyone else been getting mailings offering rewards ($50 to 200) if you open a new checking/savings account? (You do have to jump through some hoops by some combination of direct deposit, debit purchases or on-line bill paying.)
I’ve gotten 3 or 4 in the last month and find it curious.
Monthly occurrence in my credit card bill for the last year.
At the weekly Meet Me at Maynards walk in Downtown Tucson, there’s some guy from one of the megabanks who’s set up a prize table. As in, money prizes.
I haven’t gone over to investigate, but I suspect that they’re trying to hook people into opening an account. Ummm, no thanks.
I’m very happy with my locally owned and operated bank for my business bucks. And the credit union for my personal bucks.
I’ve had at least one that I can remember, probably last week. I don’t recall if it required automatic deposit or not, as I didn’t read it that carefully. It went in the shred box.
Screw the “rewards”? Howzabout you give me 5% on my savings account if I open….a new savings account?
You’re supposed to pay *them* interest. Not the other way around.
Can I interest you in a HELOC?
…that was supposed to be a ! at the end of the first sentence…
It’s been heavily promoted in my city for the last 3 years. And the amount is anywhere from $100 to $250.
But, yeah, the hoops. And the particular banks offering these come-ons. Not even worth it.
Hyundai: We’re more American than Detroit
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — By next year about 80% of the vehicles Korean automaker Hyundai sells in the United States will be built here, the CEO of the automaker’s U.S. arm told CNNMoney.
That percentage would likely put Hyundai at the top of the “Made in the USA” rankings among all automakers operating in the U.S., including Ford, Chrysler and General Motors.
Hyundai has been on a tear lately. The 2011 Sonata earned a top safety rating earlier this month, its vehicles have been getting rave reviews and its U.S. sales are booming.
I’ve had the Sonata as a rental car and loved it. And it didn’t start shaking while I was testing it to see if it really COULD get to 120 mph as the speedometer advertised. If I was in the market for a sedan I’d definitely consider it.
Most cars have a governor in the engine management system that limits top speed to something in the 105-115mph range. No matter what the speedometer says.
And Hyundai builds their car factories in….
…drumroll…
In non-union, right to work, low tax states.
Maybe there is something to that.
Back when I was a young pup and still living in MI, I briefly held a job at an Ann Arbor-based book printer.
Truth be told, I sucked at my job. They let me go after just two weeks, and it was a good thing they did. I just wasn’t up to their standards as a pasteup person.
Mind you, this job title no longer exists. Something called “desktop publishing” came along and wiped it off the face of the earth.
But I digress.
This printer, in the state of Michigan, was a non-union plant. And the management was quite upfront about that.
They fended off organizing drives by (get this!) killing their employees with kindness. It was truly a fabulous place to work, as my coworkers were all too eager to tell me.
They fended off organizing drives by (get this!) killing their employees with kindness. It was truly a fabulous place to work, as my coworkers were all too eager to tell me.
ie even though these employees were not union they benefited from the union. Management wanted to keep them happy.
ie even though these employees were not union they benefited from the union. Management wanted to keep them happy.
Indeed they did.
This was a family-owned company, and the family actually worked in the business. Matter of fact, while I was there, one of the sons was working out in the printing plant.
As do Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Kia, Mazda, Mercedes, BMW. All across the South there are dozens of plants turning out cars and trucks and employing hundreds of thousands of people. They are all non-union. They are all profitable. They all produce good products that people buy.
It will be a cold day in hell before I buy a Big 3 union made POS. But I have and will continue to buy American non-union made products.
Does anyone actually buy GM products anymore? I mean besides the govt and car rental fleets. As a consumer you have 10-15 options for any type of vehicle out there. Who in their right mind decides they want a GM over all the rest?
The one exception to that is Corvette, which amazingly enough GM has not destroyed over the years like they destroyed everything else. The ZR1 is an incredible piece of machinery.
“It will be a cold day in hell before I buy a Big 3 union made POS”
…
“The one exception to that is Corvette, which amazingly enough GM has not destroyed over the years like they destroyed everything else. The ZR1 is an incredible piece of machinery.”
GM is slowly turning around with new designs (as is Ford). Both still have turkeys in their stables, but they are being replaced with new designs that receive accolades even overseas. Like the Cadillac CTS-V. Even the folks at Top Gear in the UK, who are VERY picky, like the CTS-V. James May said it was the best American car he had ever driven. High praise from critics who are used to test driving the latest and greatest from Mercedes, BMW and Audi.
The ZR1 is an incredible piece of machinery.
IMO the base Vette is an incredible piece of machinery (for the money), while the ZR1 is an incredible piece of marketing. I’m always surprised that people will pay so much additional money for such a small amount of additional parts.
Eddie, I just gotta ask. What does a snob like you drive?
You are so full of sheet!
Designed/engineered here? NO
Subassemblies and vendor supplied components designed and engineered here? NO
It only takes approx 10/20 hours to assemble a car. The “value added/high paying jobs” are the engineering and design work that is done before Job #1 is even built.
And what percentage of content is domestic at these “screwdriver” factories? I’m sure all those BMW engines and trannies are built in Germany by highly paid, unionized workers. And most of the Japanese and Korean powertrains are also imported.
And if the cars are better designed is that the union’s fault? I seem to recall that the white collar staff at the big three are non union. If anything it was the big 3’s management that decided to bet the company on gas guzzling, primitve trucks and SUVs.
FWIW, I’ve driven my share of imports, and they aren’t all that. I’ve had a tranny computer fail at 60K miles, a clutch that gave up the ghost prematurely. A Nissan SUV had its entire rear end replaced under a recall and had all sorts of problems.
By next year about 80% of the vehicles Korean automaker Hyundai sells in the United States will be built here
I reckon that 99.98% of the profit $$$$$$$$$ will stay in America, not Korea. On the flip side, the Detroit big x3 haven’t made a taxable profit $$$$$$$$$$ for over 45 years, so I guess it’s a wash… :-/
Well there goes the quality. No way they’ll be able to keep that 100,000 mile warranty.
All Along, The Government’s Diabolical Plan Has Been As Follows:
The illegal alien problem is simply the MECHANISM for leveraging what is yet to come. Once the civil unrest and chaos caused by the overwhelming ‘human tsunami’ of illegal aliens reduces America to complete anarchy, a state of total lawlessness and riots or the bird flu pandemic arrives, or another ‘Katrina’ occurs, or a ‘dirty bomb’ is unleashed . . . the federal government will institute martial law. One of those events or some other inventive pretext will then allow the ‘Shadow Government’ to step forward and VISIBLY take over our country. They will use martial law to install a socialist-Communist-Marxist One World Order (OWO) dictatorial government in plain sight instead of clandestinely as they do now
I agree but it will be a Facist Gov not a socialist gov. It will be a gov by of and for the corporations and elite.
How is this any different from Philadelphia today?
Yeah, but the illegals aren’t co-operating.
My BP agent brother says that border crossers have decreased significantly. For the most part, the only ones crossing now, are the ones in the drug trade. This is in SoCal.
Mexico has one third our population. If they pour up here and ‘overwhelm’ us, then I’m gonna move down there and seize some vacant beach property. (Con colitas y tequila!)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/19/AR2010101907216.html
Commodity Futures Trading Commission judge says colleague biased against complainants
In a notice recently released by the CFTC, Painter said Judge Bruce Levine, his longtime colleague, had a secret agreement with a former Republican chairwoman of the agency to stand in the way of investors filing complaints with the agency.
“On Judge Levine’s first week on the job, nearly twenty years ago, he came into my office and stated that he had promised Wendy Gramm, then Chairwoman of the Commission, that we would never rule in a complainant’s favor,” Painter wrote. “A review of his rulings will confirm that he fulfilled his vow,” Painter wrote.
Painter continued: “Judge Levine, in the cynical guise of enforcing the rules, forces pro se complainants to run a hostile procedural gauntlet until they lose hope, and either withdraw their complaint or settle for a pittance, regardless of the merits of the case.”
20 years of abuse and this guy does not say a peep.
Now he is ready to retire and now wants to come clean?
Throw them both in jail with bubba for 20 years.
Speaking as someone who has worked in more than one abusive workplace, I understand where this guy’s coming from. I’ve been there.
The trouble with abusive workplaces is that they beat you down so badly that you don’t even have the self confidence to say “Enough!” and leave. That’s why some people stay and stay and stay in these places for years. Or decades.
TTYTT, being fired from an abusive workplace is a blessing. That happened to me in one of my jobs, and my whole family was glad to see me out of there.
stated that he had promised Wendy Gramm, then Chairwoman of the Commission, that we would never rule in a complainant’s favor,”
had a secret agreement with a former Republican chairwoman of the agency to stand in the way of investors filing complaints with the agency
“TrueDeceiver’s™” + “TruePurity™” = BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
Ahhh the life of a union govt worker….
MYFOXNY.COM - Auditors say the New Jersey Turnpike Authority wasted $43 million on unneeded perks and bonuses. In one case, an employee with a base salary of $73,469 earned $321,985 when all payouts and bonuses were included.
The audit says that toll dollars From the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway were spent on items ranging from an employee bowling league to employee bonuses for working on birthdays and holidays.”
Base salary of $73K to collect tolls? And people wonder why state govt are bankrupt.
That’s nothing …… I’m double that then some. Join us. Why be a peon all your life?
1.3+ Billion humans,… good thing their social Sit-U-Ations don’t have a negative economic impact, especially when they’re legal and promote good old fashion American style “out-do-the-Jones” consumption!
For some Chinese college students, sex is a business opportunity
In a country fast-changing economically and culturally, some middle-class women become mistresses to live a better life. A university pimp explains how it works.
October 20, 2010|By Megan K. Stack, Los Angeles Times
But the motivation is strong. The young women are coming of age at a time when China’s family structure has eroded and staggering class divisions mean living, for the first time, in a country where shiny things are dangled carelessly under the noses of those who can’t afford them.
“Most of the girls are financially comfortable, but they see their classmates carrying Louis Vuitton or Gucci bags, and they’re jealous,” he said on the phone from Shanghai. “These girls want to have better lives.
Reporting from Beijing — The girls from the drama academy cost the most. Actresses are pretty, after all, and pretty is the point. Steady access to their sexual favors could cost a man more than $25,000 a year, not to mention the perks and gifts they would expect.
The gentleman on a budget had better browse through students at the tourism institute, or perhaps the business school. Women there can be had for as low as $5,000 a year.
Girls will become increasingly valuable in China.
Why? Because of selective abortion that favors boys over girls. Not to mention the exporting of baby girls to other countries like the United States. Ever meet anyone who’s adopted a baby *boy* from China? I sure haven’t!
I know a family that adopted Chinese boys in two separate adoption procedures, but in both cases that had serious medical problems that nobody in China was going to spend the money to fix but were covered under the American adoptive family’s insurance once the adoption was complete.
I seem to recall that there is a similar situation in Japan.
How do the engineering students look?
The best bargains are to be had in the teachers department, expecially in PhsyEd. Don’t ask me how I know.
The Chinese price of “companionship”?
$5000/2080 = $2.40/hour
$25000/2080 = $12.02/hour
Maybe I should start a “Fractional Ownership” plan.
They don’t want to live on cucumber slices. They want grapes and they want them now!!!! (See story above on animal behavior and perceived rewards.)
Not a bad deal for not paying anything on your mortgage for over 2 years:
By Kate Berry and Sara Lepro
American Banker
Saved, for Now
The homeowner at the epicenter of the foreclosure documentation scandal has been granted a reprieve, at least temporarily.
Ally Financial Inc.’s GMAC Mortgage on Monday moved to have its foreclosure case against a Maine woman dismissed, according to her lawyer, Tom Cox.
“For now she gets to keep her home,” he said. “In her case we pointed out the major defects that they had and I think they accepted that they weren’t going to win this one. So they figured they need to refile.”
The foreclosure case against Nicolle Bradbury has gained national attention since a deposition in the case of GMAC employee Jeffrey Stephan uncovered problems with the way affidavits and other court documents were executed by the company.
Given that the article about this one said that the current paperwork (already refiled once) doesn’t even include the address of the property, this is kind of a non-story.
I would like to withhold rent from someone like Nicolle Bradbury until she or they could prove who owned the mortgage my rent payment was supposed to be covering.
She bought the house from her brother-in-law in 2003, and stopped paying about 2 years ago.
So, her sister has GMAC’s money. I wonder if there’s a way to get the money from the sister. Perhaps so, if they can prove collusion within the family.
——
So they figured they need to refile.
Get yerself some boxes, Nicolle. They won’t make any mistakes this time around.
Wisconsin lost 9,900 private-sector jobs in September
Journal Sentinel
Wisconsin’s private sector, which should be the state’s job-creation locomotive at a time when government agencies at all levels have been slashing jobs, lost nearly 10,000 jobs last month.
“We don’t expect much job creation in the public sector,” said Marquette University economics professor Abdur Chowdhury, noting that city, county, state and federal agencies have all been cutting jobs in recent months. “So private-sector job creation must continue in order to bring the unemployment rate down.”
According to the latest monthly unemployment data from the state Department of Workforce Development, released Thursday, September’s private-sector losses totaled 9,900, nearly enough to offset the previous two months of private-sector job creation, which saw 7,900 new jobs in July and another 3,700 in August, according to revised monthly figures from the agency.
The numbers are seasonally adjusted to smooth out fluctuations from the change in weather and start in school. The data are also preliminary and subject to revision next month.
Go Juan, 2 Mil. Screw NPR!
In wake of NPR controversy, Fox News gives Juan Williams an expanded role. ~ LA Times
The cable news network signs the analyst to a new three-year contract for nearly $2 million. Meanwhile, conservative figures blast the public radio network for its response to Williams’ comments about Muslims.
I dunno if the 3 mill, 2 year contract is wise..
Getting “mugged” by NPR is likely to turn Williams into a conservative, and his value as a token liberal would be significantly undermined.
Juan Paycheck
“Take This Job And Shove It”
Take this job and shove it I ain’t workin’ here no more
Fox gave me $2 million, screw you NPR
Ya, better not try and stand in my way
Cause I’m walkin’, out the door
I don`t like flyin’ with Muslims and
I ain’t working here no more
“Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-10-20 14:17:47″
“Nine stories the press is underreporting — fraud, fraud and more fraud”
This item caught my eye (thanks,Dubya):
3. The disgraceful lack of prosecutions which has resulted from regulators virtually ending the practice of making criminal referrals and the pathetic March 2007 “partnership” that the FBI entered into with the Mortgage Bankers Association (the trade association of the “perps”) that led the FBI and the Department of Justice to (implicitly) define out of existence fraud by the lenders (and to conceive of them as the “victim” — which they are, but only of their controlling officers). Bush administration attorney general Michael Mukasey in June 2008 notoriously refused to create a national task force against mortgage fraud based on his claim that mortgage fraud was analogous to “white collar street crime.”
FBI has done a lot of investigating and found little.
AIG.. fannie and freddie.. BofA.. Lehman.. Nobody knows how many others, because they don’t publicize investigations.
Laws might be too lenient, and might allow some shady practices, but the law is what it is.
As I’ve been saying for some time now. The Bush admin DELIBERATELY and with premeditation, ordered the FBI to look the other way.
I was disappointed by the Bush Aministration when all this crap started. But, your boy, Obama has been in office for about 2 years now, all the paperwork is still traceable in many instances, and there’s lots of Fraud to go after. Why hasn’t it happened?
Why are you constantly blaming “Bush”. The FBI, OFFICE of Controller of the Currency, the Office of Thrift supervision, and the Attorney General< eric holder, should all be going after this.
They apparently have much more important things to do.
It’s taken Governors, and State Attorney Generals and Financial Officers to get these things to Court, and they aren’t doing a very good job.
Looks like gawd’s children (read: the money) have decided to exert their will against alcoholic Mel. Money talks!
“Mel Gibson is still persona non grata in Hollywood”
http://tinyurl.com/2g3cmfj
“Just three days after word leaked out that Mel Gibson would enjoy a cameo in “Hangover 2″ as a tattoo artist in Thailand, the troubled actor has been told his services will not be needed after members of the production rebelled.”
More perp walks.
Money Manager Sentenced to 14 Years.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304023804575566822027252084.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Slamming of space probes into moon reveals enough water to sustain astronauts
When the probes slammed into the moon, they kicked up plumes of debris that shot up nearly 10 miles above the lunar surface.
“Seeing mostly pure water ice grains in the plume means water ice was somehow delivered to the moon in the past, or chemical processes have been causing ice to accumulate in large quantities,” Anthony Colaprete, a project scientist and principal investigator at NASA, said in a statement.
“Also, the diversity and abundance of certain materials called volatiles in the plume, suggest a variety of sources, like comets and asteroids, and an active water cycle within the lunar shadows,” Colaprete said.
And on top of that, scientists also have found that there’s an abundance of hydrogen gas, ammonia and methane on the lunar surface, and that could be used to produce much-needed fuel there.
—-
Methane?
Send some wildcatters up there..
Why Gold Could Be the Safest Investment Out There
lewrockwell.com
Gold has so far attracted only $5.4 billion worth of private investment in 2010. At the same time, investors poured $22 billion into emerging market mutual funds and $155 billion into bonds. While some commentators have labeled gold a bubble, these numbers show the exact opposite. Being a tiny fraction of the bond market’s value, gold remains a niche investment. The fear of the unknown holds savers away from gold, and the media hype is not helping.
Most people perceive gold as speculative, whereas cash (CDs), bonds, real estate and managed investment plans are considered to be safe, conservative investments. But how likely is a sudden crash of the gold price? If history is any guide, it’s not likely at all. In fact, gold has less surprises for you than any of the assets mentioned above. If you are a conservative investor, you must have a closer look at gold.
Both gold and real estate are safe and conservative, unless speculators enter the market…. in which case either or both can become very risky.
anyway, something like 2% to 5% gold in a portfolio is considered generally appropriate, and the numbers you posted hint at investors staying within that range.
$177 x 3% = $5.31 billion.
“I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.” ~ H. L. Mencken
Will QE2 take the form of Shock and Awe liquidity bombs, or recurrent waterboarding of Uncle Buck? I guess time will tell.
The Financial Times
Unravelling the web of Fed QE
By Henny Sender, Michael Mackenzie and Richard Milne
Published: October 21 2010 17:31 | Last updated: October 21 2010 20:36
It is hard to find anyone who doubts that the Federal Reserve will unleash another super-sized dose of emergency economic stimulus next month. The bigger unknown is what will happen next. And, by priming financial markets, the US central bank has triggered a wave of speculative trading.
Indeed, fund managers, strategists and dealers round the world say the next round of “quantitative easing” by the Fed will be a driver of asset prices. Currencies, equities, commodities and the price of government bonds are likely to be dictated by the actions of a small group of policymakers in Washington.
The dollar, which has fallen sharply amid rising expectations of renewed easing, could weaken further, they say.
Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive and co-chief investment officer of Pimco, one of the biggest bond fund managers, believes that, in time, the effect of policies out of Washington will be that “as an asset class, all currencies will go down against commodities”, in a secular shift that embraces more than just gold. “The dollar is a hard call,” he says. “For the dollar to go down, something has to go up. And nobody wants their currency to go way up.”
The details of what the Fed will do remain uncertain. But Goldman Sachs economists think the most likely form of QE will be monthly purchases of $80bn-$100bn for about six months.
The scenarios envisaged in the markets have ranged from a “shock-and-awe” type approach, in which the Fed buys upwards of $1,000bn over a set period to the regular monthly purchases suggested by Goldman Sachs.
A repeat of the shock-and-awe stimulus it launched in the depths of the crisis in 2008 and 2009 is thought less likely. Fed officials are known to be weighing an approach that allows more discretionary meeting-by-meeting decisions.
…
As long as the Fed has great success stimulating the economy with nothing but words, why would they want to actually do anything?
* LAW
* OCTOBER 22, 2010
Foreclosures Jam the Court System
By ROBIN SIDEL And DAWN WOTAPKA
DADE CITY, Fla.—Judge Wayne L. Cobb came out of retirement to help clear some of the 33,000 foreclosure cases jamming the court where he sat on the bench for 32 years. Then foreclosure-paperwork problems prompted banks to suspend some proceedings. So Judge Cobb’s caseload is lighter, but the backlog remains.
So far this month, banks with foreclosure cases pending against homeowners in Pasco County have canceled scores of hearings. Judge Cobb’s caseload has been so reduced that he stayed home from work several days, giving him more time to devote to his retirement activity of raising Aberdeen Angus cows.
But the lull belies the toll that the recent crisis is having on a national court system already overwhelmed by record numbers of foreclosures. Court clerks are struggling to keep up with fast-changing dockets where banks have canceled hundreds of hearings in recent weeks. Judges are trying to figure out if they should dismiss cases that rely on affidavits prepared by so-called robo-signers who raced through paperwork without reviewing it.
The shoddy foreclosure procedures, and the subsequent suspensions, have also frozen cases in court. The moratorium “means these cases will be sitting there in la la land,” says 85-year-old Senior Judge Robert M. Deehl, another retired judge.
Bank of America Corp. and Ally Financial Inc.’s GMAC Mortgage are resuming some foreclosures they temporarily suspended pending a document review. So far, the banks say they haven’t found widespread errors. But some jurists wonder if they will be able to trust the banks’ re-examination. One Florida judge called it a “robo-review.”
“It sure has made a mess of it,” said Judge Cobb, 74.
…
Apparently it will be essential for the survival of the U.S. economy to prop up Fannie and Freddie indefinitely.
* POLITICS
* OCTOBER 22, 2010
Fannie, Freddie Elicit Grim Forecast
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s regulator said Thursday that the companies could end up costing the government $363 billion.
By NICK TIMIRAOS
Propping up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will cost taxpayers $154 billion under the most likely scenario for home prices, the mortgage giants’ regulator said Thursday. But the bill could end up much greater—nearly double the $135 billion already spent—if grimmer projections prove true and the economy slides back into recession.
The projections, based on the results of a home-price “stress test” by the Federal Housing Finance Agency, offered the first public estimates of the final cost of the government’s rescue of the mortgage-finance firms, which is on track to become the most expensive legacy of the 2008 financial crisis.
“Today’s projections show that, in the most likely economic scenario, nearly 90% of the losses at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are already behind us,” said Jeffrey Goldstein, under-secretary for domestic finance at the Treasury Department.
The results could shape the debate over the long-term role that the government should play in the mortgage market. Some Republicans argue the government should focus on shrinking the firms and ultimately privatizing them.
The Obama administration, which has promised to outline its proposed overhaul of the broader housing-finance system by next January, has said a government role may still be needed to preserve the long-term, fixed-rate mortgages that have become the keystone of the American mortgage market.
The U.S. government took over the firms two years ago and has agreed to inject unlimited sums to keep them afloat. Fannie and Freddie must pay 10% dividends on those infusions.
The cost to taxpayers excludes those payments, which could add between $67 billion and $91 billion in losses for the firms and will likely keep them from ever returning to profitability. While some housing-industry lobbyists have pushed for the government to ease the dividends, an Obama administration official said any changes should be made only as part of a broader overhaul.
Under the regulator’s most positive home-price scenario, Fannie and Freddie would lose $6 billion over the next three years and they would still have to ask the government for 11 times that amount to make dividend payments. On its most likely projection—which assumes an end to the housing crisis is close and that home prices will stop falling soon—it will lose $19 billion in the same period.
On the other hand, if the economy slides back into recession and home prices fall by another 20% to 25%, the companies could cost taxpayers an additional $124 billion, before dividend payments.
Another drop in values could lead to more delinquent borrowers with fewer options to avoid foreclosure. Price declines could also lead to losses on the nearly 200,000 homes the firms have taken back through foreclosure.
…