The Housing Bubble

I’m writing in my cat for calif governor

I’m staring at my ballot and the word “Libertarian” is staring back at me.

I don’t want Meg or Barbara to win so I am voting for Moonbeam and Carly - it’s not that I WANT Moonbeam or Carly, but I want Meg and Barbara even less.

But as for the other offices … well, there’s that word “Libertarian” staring back at me. So I’m going to vote Libertarian for everything else. And I am betting a lot of other people are going to do the same.

We’ll see.

How ironic to click on the HBB and see Senator Bennet of Colorado and his lovely family. This toady of the banksters and the Fed has saddled future generations, including his own offspring, with trillions in unpayable debts due to his support of TARP, his vote against Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Fed, and his sweetheart deals with Wall Street.

The banksters will be far more generous than most pimps in rewarding Bennet’s services rendered, following his defeat, God willing, by Ken Buck. His departure, 22 months after being appointed to replace Senator John Salazar, would finally put an end to his craven facilitation of Wall Street’s rip-off of Colorado and all productive Americans. I don’t doubt Wall Street has a cushy and well-compensated lobbyist job lined up for him already. But some fine day he is going to have to look his children and grandchildren in the eye on day and give an account for the gargantuan trans-generational swindle he and his ilk, abetted by heedless Republicrat voters, perpetrated on them and their generations.

Realtors are untrustworthy and dishonest

“California Realtor Charged With Scamming Elderly Homeowners, Lenders”

http://tinyurl.com/25k2udt

When I moved to So Ca in 1962 (I was Pre-K) it was a great place to grow up. A UC was affordable at one time, and this state matched its legend.

Attorneys ask courts to toss out foreclosure cases
Motions focus on ‘robo-signers’ with GMAC, Wells Fargo
November 01, 2010|By Jamie Smith Hopkins, The Baltimore Sun

Attorneys for Maryland homeowners are asking the courts to dismiss hundreds of foreclosure cases that depended on paperwork submitted by so-called robo-signers on behalf of mortgage servicers.

Civil Justice, a Baltimore nonprofit that specializes in foreclosure issues, made the request in motions filed last week in two cases. One motion asks that all Maryland foreclosure cases with documents signed by Jeffrey Stephan of GMAC Mortgage — including the Baltimore case in question — be tossed out. The other asks for the same treatment of all Maryland cases with documents signed by Xee Moua of Wells Fargo.

Both Stephan and Moua acknowledged in depositions that they signed hundreds of affidavits a day — attesting to information being used to foreclose on U.S. homeowners — without the legally required “personal knowledge” of that information. Quickly dubbed “robo-signing,” the practice has prompted investigations by regulators and foreclosure freezes by mortgage servicers.
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OK…..Cheerful though for the day——————-

What do you get when you play a country western song backwards?

The guy gets his jobs back, his girlfriend back, his dog back, and his truck back!

Debt Collectors Face a Hazard: Writer’s Cramp
By DAVID SEGAL
Published: October 31, 2010

When Michael Gazzarato took a job that required him to sign hundreds of affidavits in a single day, he had one demand for his employer: a much better pen.

“They tried to get me to do it with a Bic, and I wasn’t going — I wasn’t having it,” he said. “It was bad when I had to use the plastic Papermate-type pen. It was a nightmare.”

The complaint could have come from any of the autograph marathoners in the recent mortgage foreclosure mess. But Mr. Gazzarato was speaking at a deposition in a 2007 lawsuit against Asset Acceptance, a company that buys consumer debts and then tries to collect.

His job was to sign affidavits, swearing that he had personally reviewed and verified the records of debtors — a time-consuming task when done correctly.

Sound familiar?

Banks have been under siege in recent weeks for widespread corner-cutting in the rush to process delinquent mortgages. The accusations have stirred outrage and set off investigations by attorneys general across the country, prompting several leading banks to temporarily cease foreclosures.

But lawyers who defend consumers in debt-collection cases say the banks did not invent the headless, assembly-line approach to financial paperwork. Debt buyers, they say, have been doing it for years.

“The difference is that in the case of debt buyers, the abuses are much worse,” says Richard Rubin, a consumer lawyer in Santa Fe, N.M.

“At least when it comes to mortgages, the banks have the right address, everyone agrees about the interest rate. But with debt buyers, the debt has been passed through so many hands, often over so many years, that a lot of time, these companies are pursuing the wrong person, or the charges have no lawful basis.”
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Please don’t call me a robo-poster, just because I am fond of this story.

Lenders on autopilot
Using robo-signers to process thousands of foreclosures opens banks up to legal risks

By Jenifer B. McKim
Globe Staff / November 2, 2010

Renee Hertzler is a high school graduate with an impressive title: Bank of America Corp. vice president. She’s also one of the country’s most notorious so-called “robo-signers’’: employees hired by lenders to sign off on the stacks of foreclosure paperwork that grew along with the nation’s housing crisis.

In a sworn deposition in Boston earlier this year, Hertzler made a startling admission: She rarely read the crucial documents, as many as 8,000 a month.

“Most of the time, I sign them in batch,’’ she said during a deposition taken in February that was part of a lawsuit filed by a Gardner woman trying to save her home from foreclosure.
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Just finished my first “Pergo” type laminate floor, bamboo 210 sq.ft. bed room, never done one before, I have layed tons on tile, brick pavers, stone etc… So I thought this “floating” floor would be easy, took me a while to get the hang of it, not easy to get cuts and corners into place, but all in all not so bad. I had to close the door several times to keep my foul language from drifting down the hall for my wife(who is used to it) to hear. One more bedroom left, same type flooring. Then on to a 30 foot hallway that will be in something I understand, broken slate.

My knees and back are loving this project, thank god for beer, wine and rum!

Volcker Says Quantitative Easing May Create Inflation in Future

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, an adviser to President Barack Obama, said quantitative easing may spark inflation in the future and the amount involved may be a cause for concern.

“When money is too easy for too long, we will have more” asset bubbles, Volcker, 83, said in Singapore today.

He was commenting as Fed policy makers prepare to meet today and tomorrow in Washington amid concern that economic growth is not strong enough to reduce a U.S. unemployment rate close to 10 percent. The Fed may announce a plan to purchase at least $500 billion of long-term securities in a move known as quantitative easing, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

This problem is very easily solved: Pass a law requiring prison time for any bank manager who is responsible for the wrongful eviction of a homeowner due to negligent document processing.

Why foreclosure robo-signers should be everyone’s concern
By JULIET M. MORINGIELLO • October 31, 2010

Why should we care that an employee of GMAC Mortgage admitted to signing 400 foreclosure affidavits a day without reading the loan files to verify that the information in the affidavits was correct?
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The harms of automation are many. In recent weeks, the securitization system has come under attack because in the financial world’s zeal to make mortgage debt easily transferable, responsible parties failed to accurately track the paths that mortgage paper often takes. Even when the correct person is foreclosing on the mortgage, the documents are often rife with mistakes.

Subprime mortgage loans carry high fees. Lots of high fees. High fees generated by automated systems with no human intervention. A bankruptcy case filed in Louisiana several years ago illustrates some of the harms of automation. Before filing for bankruptcy, the homeowner had missed one mortgage payment and, for the next several months, paid an extra $100 with each paymentr to make up her missed payment. Because the servicer’s automated system considered each subsequent payment to be late, it ordered numerous inspections of the property, each of which resulted in fees being added to her debt. When a human being finally looked at the records in the bankruptcy case, it became clear that two different houses were inspected. Even more shockingly, one of the inspections was reportedly conducted on a date on which the inspection would have been impossible — the area in which the house was located was under an evacuation order because of Hurricane Katrina. This is not an isolated incident — when a homeowner makes a late payment or an insufficient payment, these systems often fail to apply the payment to the debt owed, diverting the payments to “suspense accounts.” As a result, every subsequent payment is registered as a late payment, resulting in additional late fees, interest charges, inspection fees and fees for other default-related services.
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http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/24/america-s-worst-politician.html

Alan Grayson and Ron Paul have been virtually the sole champions of the public interest against the Fed’s disastrous policies and the swindles perpetrated by the TBTF banks on taxpayers. Not surprisingly, the corporate-owned MSM has served as their bankster masters’ doberman’s in going after Grayson, who is probably going to be unseated by the clueless voters of Orlando.

From today’s Energy Daily (I get it through work so I don’t want to link, sorry):

———-
“AWEA Chief Executive Officer Denise Bode [ie lobbyist] said in a statement that the industry’s weak performance in the third quarter of this year reflects investment uncertainty in U.S. wind development, for which she squarely blamed U.S. energy policy shortcomings more so than the shaky global economic environment.

U.S. wind turbine and component manufacturing plants has been “aided by a degree of stability” in the federal production tax credit for renewables, the availability of a refundable federal tax credit under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), and state requirements for renewable energy.

However, without the continuation of those incentives and adoption of a federal benchmark of 15 percent renewable power in the nation’s electricity mix by 2020—policies AWEA has implored Congress to support—U.S. wind development could “stall out,” Bode said.”
———–

In other words, those “free-market” geniuses don’t want to do anything without government cheese. And I bet they vote Libertarian too.

Fed up Fannie and Freddie eye new workout firms
By Al Yoon
NEW YORK | Mon Oct 25, 2010 11:35am EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are looking to more aggressively move loan workout duties to specialist firms as their frustrations with the big banks deepen, sources said.

Widespread criticism — and federal and state investigations — of big banks’ use of inaccurate paperwork when foreclosing and their reluctance to ease payments for borrowers has created an opportunity for smaller companies to take on more of the lucrative business. Ten firms handled 80 percent of Fannie Mae’s loans, of which 27 percent were in the hands of Bank of America, as of June.

The trend may result in big banks losing revenue as the now four-year mortgage crisis wears on, but it may help homeowners and save taxpayers money. Homeowners may end up with better care as they wind their way through the foreclosure process and taxpayers — who support Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — may end up shouldering fewer losses from bad mortgages.

Banks including Wells Fargo & Co and Bank of America Corp collect payments on millions of mortgages and work out bad loans. The service of collecting monthly payments is typically paid out of the interest rate charged on the loans guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“There’s a ton of servicing transfers going on. Some very big ones,” said Sue Allon, chief executive officer of Allonhill, a Denver, Colorado-based mortgage risk management firm that has been involved in some of those deals.
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Taxpayer-subsidized wind and solar power schemes are right up there with “carbon credits” as being the scams of the 21st Century. As always, follow the money, and you’ll see this isn’t about “clean, renewable energy.”

Foreclosure Defense: A Strategy Based On Banks Losing The Paper Trail
04:05 pm
October 21, 2010

In a kind of Alien vs. Predator scenario that’s playing out across the backdrop of America’s housing crisis, lawyers have put lax bankers in their sights, hoping to unravel foreclosures by exposing flawed paperwork.

Lawyers Peter Ticktin, left, and Josh Bleil look at stacks of depositions from 150 robo-signers last week. The attorneys allege that the court documents reveal an industry-wide banking scheme to defraud homeowners.

The revelation that “robo-signers” at banks don’t review loans became a scandal last month, and forced Bank of America and other institutions to review their processes.

But as The Wall Street Journal reports, the strategy has been used since at least 2006 — when Florida attorney James Kowalski “helped keep one couple in their home six years beyond their last mortgage payment.”

And Bloomberg says the trend began even earlier — in 2002, when Boca Raton accountant Joseph Lents stopped paying his $1.5 million mortgage. He challenged Washington Mutual to find the promissory note, which they failed to do. DLJ Mortgage Capital, which bought the loan, didn’t have it, either.

As of now, Lents owes around $2.5 million in debt, taxes and penalties, according to Bloomberg. But he’s still living in that house.

Stories like those have led to the creation of a legal subspecialty called foreclosure defense. There’s been a proliferation of Web URLs with names like “foreclosuredefense dot com.”

And a recent search for “foreclosure defense attorney” on Google returned more than 3 million results — and five out of the top six results point to lawyers and firms in Florida.
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Could the world go back to the gold standard?
November 1, 2010 11:41am

During any period of monetary disorder — the 1970s, for example, or today — a host of people calls for a return to the gold standard. This is not the only free-market response to the current system of fiat (or government-made) money. Other proposals are for privatising the creation of money altogether. (See, on this, Leland Yeager, professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and Auburn University, in the latest issue of the Cato Journal.) But the gold standard is the classic alternative to fiat money.

It is not hard to understand the attractions of a gold standard. Money is a social convention. The advantage of a link to gold (or some other commodity) is that the value of money would apparently be free from manipulation by the government. The aim, then, would be to “de-politicise” money.

The argument in favour of doing so is that in the long-run governments will always abuse the right to create money at will. Historical experience suggests that this is indeed the case.

So why choose gold? It is, after all, an impossibly inconvenient means of exchange. But gold has a lengthy history as a widely-accepted store of value. If one is looking to reinstate a pre-modern monetary (SIC), gold is the obvious place to start.
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Typical gubmint BS I tried once and only once in my life after hurricane Hugo, (I lived on Sullivans Island,S.C.) to get a little hold over help from FEMA (I was wiped out) Total crap, reams of paper work, and I had $1100.00 in a savings account which disqualified me for a $3000.00 tool replacement loan. Along with the fact I could produced no receipts for said tools. Guess why? Because my f’ing house was gone, you morons, it’s called a hurricane for a reason! Anyway screw the gubmint, because they are out to screw you! Keep voting for more government, you get what you deserve.

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. — Denied claims for Gulf of Mexico oil spill victims are rising dramatically because of a flood of new filings coming in without proper documentation or with no proof at all, the head of the $20 billion BP fund said Monday.

Some 20,000 people have been told they have no right to emergency compensation, compared to about 125 denials at the end of September. This is in addition to many others who say they are getting mere fractions of what they’ve lost, while others are receiving large checks and full payments.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8102785/Bank-of-England-must-use-QE-to-buy-bad-mortgages-warns-Fathom-Consulting.html

Here we go - a UK “think tank” is saying England must use QE inkjet bucks to buy up bad mortgages. Yes, by all means, let’s transfer more bad debts run up by irresponsible FBs and lenders onto the public books. How long before bankster-funded “think tanks” and Republicrat K Street lobbyists propose the same thing over here?

Two views of the post-housing bubble apocalypse
November 1, 2010 | 2:45 pm

On Monday, my colleague Don Lee and Mark Whitehouse of the Wall Street Journal both took up the issue of how problems with mortgages are affecting the broader economy. But their approaches to the issue are so radically different, it’s almost funny.

Whitehouse taps a familiar vein of outrage, writing about the economic boost received by millions of homeowners who defaulted on their mortgages but have yet to be kicked out of their homes:

Defaulters living in their homes are getting a subsidy worth about $2.6 billion a month, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis based on mortgage data from LPS Applied Analytics and rent data from the Commerce Department. That’s 0.25% of U.S. personal income, roughly equivalent to the benefit top earners receive from Bush-era tax breaks.

In short, foreclosure delays are roughly equivalent to tax breaks for the rich. But that’s not all — according to Whitehouse, some of the folks who have defaulted “are cashing in by renting out their homes.” Hmm. Perhaps at least some of those evildoers are landlords, whose properties in some areas are defaulting faster than owner-occupied homes?

http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2010/11/mortgage-defaulters-vs-people-stuck-in-underwater-homes.html

“The one aim of these financiers is world control by the creation of inextinguishable debts.” ~Henry Ford

Who cares Bill? It has to be done to “save” us…

Fed Easing May Mean 20% Dollar Drop: Bill Gross

The dollar is in danger of losing 20 percent of its value over the next few years if the Federal Reserve continues unconventional monetary easing, Bill Gross, the manager of the world’s largest mutual fund, said on Monday.

“Other countries and citizens are willing to work for less and willing to work harder—and we forgot the magic formula somewhere along the way,” Gross said.

“I think a 20 percent decline in the dollar is possible,” Gross said, adding the pace of the currency’s decline was also an important consideration for investors.

“When a central bank prints trillions of dollars of checks, which is not necessarily what (a second round of quantitative easing) will do in terms of the amount, but if it gets into that territory—that is a debasement of the dollar in terms of the supply of dollars on a global basis,” Gross told Reuters in an interview at his PIMCO headquarters.

The Fed will probably begin a new round of monetary easing this week by announcing a plan to buy at least $500 billion of long-term securities, what investors and traders refer to as QE II, according to a Reuters poll of primary dealers.

“QEII not only produces more dollars but it also lowers the yield that investors earn on them and makes foreigners, which is the key link to the currencies, it makes foreigners less willing to hold dollars in current form or at current prices,” Gross added.

To a certain extent, that is what the Treasury Department and Fed “in combination” want, said Gross, who runs the $252 billion Total Return Fund and oversees more than $1.1 trillion as co-chief investment officer.

“The fundamental problem here is that our labor and developed economy labor relative to developing economy labor is so mismatched—China can do it so much more cheaply,” he said.

Stop paying on underwater mortgages and get out there and buy a Chevy Volt and a couple of iPhones! This is going to end badly.

Millions of homeowners keep paying on underwater mortgages

By Don Lee, Los Angeles Times
November 1, 2010

Reporting from Washington — For almost two years, home foreclosures have swept the nation, spreading misery among once-buoyant families, spattering lenders with red ink and undermining efforts to restart the economy.

But a bigger problem may turn out to be the millions of Americans who are still faithfully paying their mortgages, but on houses worth far less than before the bubble burst. It’s not that these homeowners will stop making their payments. It’s just the opposite — that they will keep doing it.

How could that be a source of future trouble? Because, with home prices stagnant in much of the country, payments on mortgages that are underwater could absorb billions of dollars that might be used for other forms of consumer spending — a drag on family finances, the housing market and the overall economy.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-economy-mortgages-20101101,0,7338975.story - 181k

Japan pizza chain offers $31,000/hr part-time job

As part of a series of events commemorating the 25th anniversary of its arrival in Japan, Domino’s Pizza Japan is set to hire one lucky person at the rate of 2,500,000 yen ($31,030) for an hour’s worth of work in December.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20101102/tot-life-us-japan-pizza-4b7b872.html

Hey look, 36 jobs have been created!

36 Ind. unemployment officers to have armed guards

Associated Press
1:11 p.m. CDT, October 27, 2010

FORT WAYNE, Ind. — Armed security guards will be on hand at 36 unemployment offices around Indiana in what a state agency says is a step to improve safety and make branch security more consistent.

Lotter said the agency is merely being cautious with the approach of an early-December deadline when thousands of Indiana residents could see their unemployment benefits end after exhausting the maximum 99 weeks provided through multiple federal extension periods.

“Given the upcoming expiration of the federal extensions and the increased stress on some of the unemployed, we thought added security would provide an extra level of protection for our employees and clients,” he said.

Foreclosuregate: Time to Break Up the Too-Big-to-Fail Banks?

With risky behavior by big finance again threatening economic stability, how can we get things right this time?

by Ellen Brown
posted Oct 15, 2010

Looming losses from the mortgage scandal dubbed “foreclosuregate” may qualify as the sort of systemic risk that, under the new financial reform bill, warrants the breakup of the too-big-to-fail banks. The Kanjorski amendment allows federal regulators to pre-emptively break up large financial institutions that—for any reason—pose a threat to U.S. financial or economic stability.
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Yesteray 2banana posted an article about a “struggling woman has to sell Obama letter to help pay for house”.

Well, folks, in case you were wondering, according to the Chicago Tribune, she got $7,000 for the letter from a dealer.

“A Michigan woman is selling a handwritten letter from President Barack Obama to help pay her medical bills, the New York Post reports. Obama was so taken by Jennifer Cline’s story of how she and her husband had lost their jobs that he took the time to personally respond in January. “Things will get better,” Obama wrote. Autograph dealer Gary Zimet tells the Post that he paid $7,000 for the letter.”

Is there any possibility for the Department of Justice to subpoena Megabank, Inc business records to determine whether too-big-to-fail insurance claims payments were something they “banked” on?

FDIC to sue bank officials in effort to recoup $1 billion in losses
By Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 9, 2010

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has authorized lawsuits against more than 50 executives at failed banks across the country in an attempt to recover more than $1 billion of the agency’s losses during the credit crisis.

More than 50 bank officers and directors were negligent, committed fraud or otherwise breached their duties and are, therefore, legally liable, the FDIC concluded after lengthy investigations into the first wave of bank failures.

The FDIC, which insures bank deposits, has lost more than $75 billion in nearly 300 bank failures since 2008, and officials view the lawsuits against the responsible parties in part as a means to recoup some of the losses.

Similar efforts after the lending failures in the 1980s, which were aimed at the involved officials, attorneys, accountants and securities brokers, recovered more than $5 billion.

“These investigations are now beginning to produce results, and we anticipate that many more will be authorized,” FDIC Chairman Sheila C. Bair said in a statement Friday evening. “As a matter of policy, the FDIC believes strongly in accountability for directors and officers whose personal misconduct led to a bank’s failure.”
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The republicans are going to win big today.

More importantly, fiscal conservatives (a subset of the Republicans) are going to win big also. I find it sad that there are no fiscal conservative democrats to support but that is a story for another day.

To answer all the idiotic liberal posts that are coming of “Republicans win big so when are the great reforms coming?” and “These new Republicans will be as bad as the old Democrats that were just kicked out so who cares?” I answer the following:

For starters it is not “reform” – Republicans cannot change government wholesale when they do not control the white house or have a filibuster proof majority in the senate.

However it IS improvement.

Cap-and-Trade is now dead
Bailouts of bankrupt industries is dead
Additional trillion dollar “stimulus” packages are dead
So are a bunch of other idiotic ideas like expanding collective bargaining

No it is NOT everything I want but it is better than what we had.

We cannot afford 2 more years of Obamanamics.

UPS Says 2011 Rates Will Rise 4.9 Percent

United Parcel Service Inc. says rates for next year are going up 4.9 percent for ground and air-express shipments.

UPS, the world’s largest package-delivery company, said Monday that the new rates will take effect Jan. 3.

Imports of electronics products from Asia, including the Apple iPhone and iPad, have boosted UPS this year and helped offset slow growth in the U.S. The company reported last week that third-quarter net income rose 81 percent compared with the same period in 2009.

But officials told The Associated Press at the time they were not optimistic about a rapid economic recovery.

As the economy grinds away, consumers have continued to trade down — opting for slower but less expensive shipping options. Businesses, however, are often paying higher rates for faster delivery, according to UPS officials. That’s helped UPS make more money per package than it did last year.

Go Sheila Bair!

Legal/Regulatory
F.D.I.C. Is Said to Plan New Liquidation Rules
October 8, 2010, 4:33 am

The federal banking regulator is expected to propose new rules for seizing and dismantling large financial firms on the verge of collapse, Reuters said, citing a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, as part of a proposed rule, was expected to say all creditors of large, nonbank financial firms should expect losses in a failure, The Journal said.

The rules, which could be unveiled as early as Friday, will be part of a broader effort to end the era of “too big to fail” financial institutions, The Journal said.
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WTH? I thought team Barry was going to ‘fix’ it all…

Mortgage Modification Failures Push Borrowers Into Foreclosure

With as many as 7 million homes facing foreclosure or already taken, according to Zillow Inc., both the government and companies such as Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase & Co. offered programs to forestall seizures by easing mortgage terms. Photographer: Jacob Kepler/Bloomberg

Jill Gray of Mesquite, Texas, said her three-year-old son, Anthony, often tells her before he goes to bed: “I wanna go to the other house.”

Jill, Anthony and Tiffy, their black Labrador-mix dog, moved about 12 miles to a rental home three weeks ago after their one-story brick house in Garland was auctioned in a foreclosure. Gray, 38, tried for almost a year to get her mortgage modified, only to have the approval rescinded. Bank of America Corp. said documents were missing — papers that Gray said she sent.

Gray’s experience, in which homeowners get evicted while participating in programs designed to avert foreclosures, is being repeated thousands of times at the biggest mortgage firms, according to groups that aid borrowers. The government’s Home Affordable Modification Program came under fire at hearings last week for “trial” arrangements that allow late fees and debts to stack up and documents to disappear, triggering seizures.

“Many homeowners end up facing foreclosure solely on the basis of the arrears accumulated during a trial modification,” said Julia Gordon, senior policy counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending, in Oct. 27 Congressional testimony. “One incomplete payment or one accounting mistake can land you on an apparently unstoppable conveyor belt to eviction.”

With all these new rules for breaking up big banks, you would almost think Uncle Sam had some big banks in his cross hairs!

* BUSINESS
* OCTOBER 8, 2010

New Rules on Bank Breakups
FDIC Expected to Use Discretion to Rank the Creditors; That Can Be Tricky

By DEBORAH SOLOMON

WASHINGTON—Federal regulators are expected to outline as early as Friday rules for seizing and dismantling a large financial firm that could allow some creditors to get a better deal than others in limited cases.

BREAKUP

The FDIC’s Sheila Bair, shown testifying on Capitol Hill last month, said the authority to pick among creditors in bank seizures will be used rarely.

BREAKUP
BREAKUP

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., as part of a proposed rule, is expected to say that all creditors of large, nonbank financial firms should expect losses in a failure, according to people familiar with the government’s plans. The rules are part of a broader effort to end the era when certain institutions were judged “too big to fail” because the government had no orderly way to dismantle them.
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Brett Arends’ ROI
Nov. 2, 2010, 12:10 a.m. EDT
Wall Street is like a heist movie
Commentary: The difference is that the big guys rip off the little guys
By Brett Arends, MarketWatch

BOSTON (MarketWatch) — The best way to understand Wall Street is to view it as a heist movie, like “The Sting,” “The Italian Job” or “Ocean’s Eleven.”

There’s just one difference: In your traditional caper, a bunch of little guys get together to steal money from the big guys — a tycoon, big bank or major corporation.

On Wall Street, it works the other way around.

Take the Great Bond Caper taking place right under your nose, right now. Most people don’t even know it’s going on.
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I wonder if things would have been different if Hillary had won the election…

The Ten Biggest American Cities That Are Running Out Of Water

http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/111186/the-ten-biggest-american-cities-that-are-running-out-of-water

I almost believe they are doing this to control their growth…ie, keeping head count down.

Lane

Stocks edge higher before elections- AP

Stocks are climbing in the opening moments of trading as investors await the results of midterm elections that are expected to give Republicans at least partial control of Congress.

Hi all. I clicked on the site and saw my niece (in-law) staring at me. Yes, she plays Barbara Boxer in the new right-wing video, “I Worked So Hard For That” advertised this morning on the HBB. She’s very funny (and only 34 years old - they had to add a lot of wrinkles to her face and neck.)

WTH? I thought Hott-Lanta was in the middle of a bounce back in this U shaped recovery?

Big Atlanta homebuilder Bowen goes out of business
Atlanta Business News

Bowen posted a note on its website that said Friday was its last day of business.

Though a spokeswoman, company officials said the closing would not affect homes under warranty, and that all warranty questions should be directed to the third-party warranty company. They declined to comment on the the 41-year-old company’s demise.

“The decision to close Bowen Family Homes after 40 plus years in the business has been a difficult one,” reads the statement on the website. “Unfortunately, the market dynamics of the past few years have made it impossible for us to continue business.”

The business began in 1969 when founder Rudy Bowen was a builder in Gwinnett County, according to Hoover’s Inc. company records database. The company remained in the family as Bowen’s son, David Bowen, eventually took over as chief executive and his sons-in-law, Mike Phelps and Tip Cape, joined the enterprise.

Another WTH? Barry promised ‘green’ jobs for all who wanted them. I guess he meant only those green jobs on wall street.

Pipestone wind-turbine factory idled; 110 layoffs

Suzlon Group’s Pipestone factory, which once employed 500 people, will lay off most of its remaining workers as U.S. demand for wind power sits becalmed for now.

Wind-turbine maker Suzlon Group will idle its Pipestone, Minn., plant, putting 110 workers out of jobs, because the once-booming U.S. wind energy market has lost headway.

QE2 over $5 t to be announced tomorrow?

Nov. 2, 2010, 12:01 a.m. EDT
Sell bonds now, Fed’s QE2 is doomed to fail
Commentary: Buffett, Gross, Grantham, Faber, Stiglitz agree: Bernanke plan a disaster

By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Warning, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s foolish gamble to stimulate the economy will backfire, triggering a new double-dip recession. Bernanke is “medding” too much in the economy, say Marc Faber, Bill Gross, Jeremy Grantham, Joseph Stiglitz and others.

The Fed is making the same kind of mistakes Japan made that resulted in its 20-year recession. The Washington Post says Larry Mayer, a former Fed governor, estimates that to work it would take QE2 bond purchases of “more than $5 trillion …10 times what analysts are expecting.”
…

‘Way off topic, but we sure enjoyed the World Series - have been SF Giants fans for the past 30 years since we moved to California. A nice break from nonstop election news.

You know Trenton would probably cease to exist if they have cut 328 shovel leaners…

Trenton layoffs begin Friday unless state aid comes through

TRENTON — Mayor Tony Mack’s administration will initiate a portion of its massive layoff plan on Friday unless the city hears by then whether it has been awarded millions in state Transitional Aid, Mack said yesterday.

Trenton has already twice delayed moving ahead with up to 328 planned layoffs as it waits to hear if it will receive some portion of the $39.4 million in aid it has requested.

The city faces a $56 million deficit, and each delay in cutting its payroll makes it more difficult to balance the budget, Mack said. He said the layoff delays cost the city $1.5 million every two weeks, making it critical that some layoffs proceed.

“We will be going ahead with layoffs in some form on Friday,” he said.

Homeownership at lowest level in a decade
Homeownership rate at 66.9 percent; lowest level in a decade as foreclosure crisis continue

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s homeownership rate is at the lowest level in more than a decade, hampered by a rise in foreclosures and weak demand for housing.

The percentage of households that owned their homes was unchanged at 66.9 percent in the July-September quarter, the Census Bureau said Tuesday. That’s the same as the April-June quarter.

The last time the rate was lower was in 1999, when the rate was 66.7 percent.

The nation’s homeownership rate was around 64 percent from 1985 through 1995. It then rose dramatically during the Clinton and Bush administrations, hitting a peak of more than 69 percent in 2004 at the height of the housing boom.

After the housing bubble burst, the rate has been declining gradually.

About 18.8 million homes, or 14.4 percent of all houses and apartments, were vacant, according to the government survey. That was down slightly from the second quarter of the year, when 18.9 million houses and apartments were vacant.

About 2.5 percent of all primary residences were vacant and for sale and 10.3 percent of all year-round rental units were listed as vacant and for rent.

How is that Ownership Society concept working out?

Homeownership At Lowest Level In A Decade
by The Associated Press
WASHINGTON November 2, 2010, 10:36 am ET

The nation’s homeownership rate is at the lowest level in more than a decade, hampered by a rise in foreclosures and weak demand for housing.

The percentage of households that owned their homes was unchanged at 66.9 percent in the July-September quarter, the Census Bureau said Tuesday. That’s the same as the April-June quarter.

The last time the rate was lower was in 1999, when the rate was 66.7 percent.

The nation’s homeownership rate was around 64 percent from 1985 through 1995. It then rose dramatically during the Clinton and Bush administrations, hitting a peak of more than 69 percent in 2004 at the height of the housing boom.

After the housing bubble burst, the rate has been declining gradually.

About 18.8 million homes, or 14.4 percent of all houses and apartments, were vacant, according to the government survey. That was down slightly from the second quarter of the year, when 18.9 million houses and apartments were vacant.
…

Gridlock is a good thing…

Likely gridlock in Congress could threaten economy
Post-election gridlock in Congress could pose threat to a fragile economy if little gets done

WASHINGTON (AP) — Political gridlock is supposed to be good for business. If bickering lawmakers can’t agree on anything, the thinking goes, they can’t pass laws and regulations that make the economy worse.

So will the midterm elections, which are expected to leave Congress at least partially controlled by Republicans and squaring off against a Democratic White House, be a help to the economy?

Don’t count on it.

A standoff between the Obama administration and emboldened Republicans will probably block any new help for an economy squeezed by slow growth and high unemployment. Congress might also create paralyzing uncertainty for investors and businesses by fighting over taxes, deficits, health care and financial regulation.

“We expect massive gridlock and little cooperation,” writes Brian Gardner, Washington analyst for the financial firm Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.

If times were good, gridlock wouldn’t matter so much. A Republican Congress and Democratic White House butted heads in the mid- and late ’90s, after all, and their sparring did nothing to derail a strong economy.

DH got a postcard last night from his (soon to be ex) eye doctor telling him that its time to have his eyes checked and his tentative appointment was on X day and time. He didn’t set the appointment - he didn’t even request it - or anything.

Never seen that done before!

Desperate much?

I told him he better call and cancel it because next thing you know they’ll be charging our insurance for “not cancelling within 24 hours” or some nonsense like that.

Fraud. Fraud. Fraud.

Things are moving faster than I thought. There’s a big article on CNN about Obama reversing gears and encouraging foreclosures to head into full gear to clear out the market in order to return to healthier times. Don’t you think he would wait until tomorrow for this announcement or does he assume that all homeowners are Republicans and won’t be backing his people anyway today?

I posted this to allow liberal heads to explode.

Actually, I posted it as it seems like Brazil is becoming an economic powerhouse after decades of socialist malaise. Maybe a correlation and maybe not…

—————————

Brazil Vote’s Winners: Evangelicals [Brazil had a run-off election this past Sunday]

The Wall Street Journal | October 29, 2010 | John Lyons

RIO DE JANEIRO—Brazilians will take to the polls Sunday to determine their next president, but already one big winner of this political season has emerged: evangelical Christians.

[SNIP]

….a grass-roots campaign of sermons, Internet videos and DVDs distributed mainly by evangelical pastors thrust moral questions like abortion and gay marriage abruptly onto the political agenda and forced Ms. Rousseff and Mr. Serra to declare positions. Joined by some conservative Catholic bishops, the evangelicals mobilized at least partly in response to the government’s approval last year of a broad social plan supported by Ms. Rousseff’s party that included calling for greater gay rights and abortion rights.

[SNIP]

….by the day of the vote, Ms. Rousseff had slipped below the threshold. Some one million voters abandoned her for religious reasons, according to a Datafolha survey. Those came on top of three million defectors who cited corruption charges involving a top Rousseff aide.

[SNIP]

By many estimates, some 20% of Brazilians are now Protestants—the majority practicing in Pentecostal churches such as the Assembly of God. That is among the world’s biggest populations of evangelicals outside the U.S.

Evangelical churches play a growing role in Brazilian politics, mainly by backing Congressional candidates. This was a break-out year: Self-described Protestants won 50% more Congressional seats in the October vote, 71 of nearly 600 seats overall.

Evangelical members of congress are often elected to protect the interests of their churches, which control major television and radio networks.

They are politically diverse, backing both the government and the opposition. Their influence grew when they united to move the entire debate on social issues to the right.

We don’t have to innovate.
We can simply quantitate.
Like Zimbabwe and Weimar

Cotton Advances to Record in New York, China on Sustained Supply Concern

Cotton surged to records from New York to China on concern global demand will outstrip supply after cold weather in China and U.S. storms hurt crops.

Cotton for December delivery advanced as much as 1.9 percent to $1.3176 a pound on ICE Futures U.S. and traded at $1.3116 at 4 p.m. Tokyo time, gaining for a third day.

“Spinning mills are having difficulty securing enough volume, indicating very tight supply,” said Han Sung Min, a broker at Korea Exchange Bank Futures Co. in Seoul. “Mills in China keep importing following higher domestic prices.”

Barry’s so special…

US to spend $200 mn a day on Obama’s Mumbai visit
Press Trust of India

Mumbai: The US would be spending a whopping $200 million (Rs. 900 crore approx) per day on President Barack Obama’s visit to the city.

“The huge amount of around $200 million would be spent on security, stay and other aspects of the Presidential visit,” a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit said.

About 3,000 people including Secret Service agents, US government officials and journalists would accompany the President. Several officials from the White House and US security agencies are already here for the past one week with helicopters, a ship and high-end security instruments.

“Except for personnel providing immediate security to the President, the US officials may not be allowed to carry weapons. The state police is competent to take care of the security measures and they would be piloting the Presidential convoy,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

Navy and Air Force has been asked by the state government to intensify patrolling along the Mumbai coastline and its airspace during Obama’s stay. The city’s airspace will be closed half-an-hour before the President’s arrival for all aircraft barring those carrying the US delegation.

The personnel from SRPF, Force One, besides the NSG contingent stationed here would be roped in for the President’s security, the official said.

The area from Hotel Taj, where Obama and his wife Michelle would stay, to Shikra helipad in Colaba would be cordoned off completely during the movement of the President.

Porsche US Sales Surge 61%:

I wonder what pecentage of buyers are Wall street-types?

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/porsche-october-us-sales-surge-61-2010-11-02

I keep reading that people are mad about the economy and joblessness. That’s what happens when over time a population is dumbed down to the point they think it’s governments place to “create” jobs and take care of them. It is not, and see how well it’s been working over the decades, playing out just the way it has to. The republican’ts and democraps are the same players. So here we go again, false hope and promises that will not be kept!

Democrats Face Biggest House Midterm Defeat in Years.

The Republicans are poised to retake the U.S. House and narrow Democrats’ margin in the Senate, delivering a rebuke to President Barack Obama’s party in a campaign shaped by voter anxiety over jobs and the economy.

Republicans, who need a net gain of 39 seats to take control of the House, may pick up at least 50 in today’s elections, capitalizing on concerns about government spending and a 9.6 percent unemployment rate. The party may win as many as eight seats in the Senate, just shy of the 10 needed for a majority.

“It’s going to be one of those elections that 10 to 15 years from now people look back and point to as a midterm bloodletting,” said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Washington-based Rothenberg Political Report. Voters “are just in a foul mood,” he said.

US to spend $200 mn a day on Obama’s Mumbai visit

ndtvcom/article/india/us-to-spend-200-mn-a-day-on-obama-s-mumbai-visit-64106

Listening to the radio on the way to work this morning. The DJ was commenting about how she took her kid Trick or Treating and how many houses there were with lights on. Except when she knocked on the door and waited, she realized they were unoccupied.
No furniture, no nothing - just the light left on.

WASHINGTON (TheStreet) — One of the most important tasks before the 112th Congress will be rewriting the rules of the American dream.

Since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were seized by the federal government in September 2008, lawmakers, with a few exceptions, have remained surprisingly mum about what will become of them. The Obama administration has promised to deliver a plan for the future of housing finance a few times, but ultimately put it off until next year.

Restructuring Fannie and Freddie in any meaningful way would have been difficult enough when one party dominated Capitol Hill. Now, with polls predicting that Republicans will at least split the legislative branch — if not take it over outright — it may be completely impossible to restructure the government-sponsored entities.

“Will the pace of GSE reform speed up or slow down, depending upon the results of November 2?” asks HSH Associates, a mortgage-data firm, in a recent blog post. “Our guess is neither; even then, once they do, our suspicion is that only minor reforms will come, with substantial reform possibly kicked past the 2012 presidential election.”

When asked what the mortgage industry wants out of Tuesday’s election, HSH Vice President Keith Gumbinger offered a common refrain: Clarity.

A Fort Collins section 8 story:

http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20101102/BUSINESS/11020313/Dozens-queue-for-government-housing-vouchers

Who’d of thunk it?

Study: No Reason to Pay Realtor Commissions When Selling a House

http://money.blogs.time.com/2010/11/02/study-no-reason-to-pay-realtor-commissions-when-selling-a-house/#ixzz149OO1gYQ

There’s an assumption that the 6% typically paid in realtor commissions on a home sale is worth it because the seller will command a higher price than if he’d gone the “for sale by owner” route. But a trio of academics who researched years of home sales says that this assumption is false. In fact, they discovered that owner sellers got higher sales prices than owners who involved—and paid a commission to—real estate agents.

…conclusion:

“Our key finding is that Realtors do not offset the cost of their commission; they do not get you a higher price.”

Their findings, summed up at the Kellogg Insight website, are based on a close look at home sales from 1998 to 2004 in one market: Madison, Wisconsin. Researchers compared sales involving realtors (who presumably received commissions) to sales from owner sellers who paid a flat $150 for an online listing. Here’s what they found:

With full access to data from both platforms, Nevo and his colleagues found that their raw data confirmed that owner sellers achieved higher prices for their homes. The average premium was 11 percent, or $14,800. That’s on top of the funds that sellers who used Realtors lost in the form of a commission.

How could this be? Shouldn’t a real estate pro be able to attract higher bids than a novice owner seller?