The Housing Bubble

American homes are worth $1.7 trillion less. ~ cnnmoney
December 9, 2010

Can’t sell your home for a decent price? You’re not alone.

American homes are expected to be worth $1.7 trillion less in 2010 than they were worth last year, according to a report released Thursday by real estate website Zillow.

This year’s drop in home values is 63% bigger than the $1 trillion dip in 2009, and brings the total value lost since the housing market’s peak in 2006 to a whopping $9 trillion.

While the homebuyer tax credit helped prop up the housing market in the second half of 2009 and the first half of 2010, home values continued their slide in the second half of the year. Almost $700 billion in value was lost in the first half of the year, compared to Zillow’s estimates of $1 trillion in the second half of 2010.

“It’s a testament to the nearly irresistible force of the overall market correction that government incentives can only temporarily hold back the tide, and that the market will ultimately find its natural equilibrium of supply and demand,” said Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Stan Humphries.

And it may not get much better.

No $250 check for seniors

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The House failed to pass a bill Wednesday that would have put a $250 check in the mail to 58 million Social Security recipients.

The measure was designed to provide a one-time payment to make up for another year without a cost-of-living adjustment to benefits.

The bill, which would cost about $14 billion, failed by a vote of 254 -153.

Pathetic… Doing away with the evil Bush tax cuts for the evil rich is what got so many of Barry’s followers to vote for him. Now he says if they are not extended it will cause a recession. Now that is some hope and change for ya!

WH warns tax defeat could trigger new recession

WASHINGTON (AP) — Raising the direst alarm yet, the Obama administration warned fellow Democrats on Wednesday that if they defeat the big tax-cut compromise detested by many liberals, they could jolt the nation back into recession.

President Barack Obama appealed anew for Congress to “get this done” and insisted that more congressional Democrats would climb aboard as they studied details of the $900 billion year-end measure. Several did announce support on Wednesday, but at least one said there still was “a mood to resist.”

Just like out of a Bond film: Inside the astonishing subterranean WikiLeaks bunker

With his eccentric personal life and air of mystery, the flamboyant WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange seems to be doing his best to impersonate a James Bond villain.

How appropriate, then, that he has chosen what looks like an 007 film set as the back-up store for the thousands of confidential emails and documents that have shaken the world.

These pictures show the Pionen data centre, 100ft below ground in a former Cold War nuclear bunker, where all the WikiLeaks files are being kept.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1337014/WikiLeaks-bunker-Julian-Assanges-subterranean-Bond-villain-den.html#ixzz17cRRaUZ8

“The sharp downturn in housing markets across the country, which undermined the solvency of major financial institutions and severely disrupted the functioning of financial markets, has led the United States into a recession that will probably be the longest and the deepest since World War II.”

~ 2009 Budget and Economic Outlook, Congressional Budget Office, March 2009

Hacker Threatens More Attacks on Those Seen as WikiLeaks Foes
By JOHN F. BURNS and RAVI SOMAIYA
Published: December 9, 2010

LONDON — In a campaign that had some declaring the start of a “cyberwar,” hundreds of Internet activists mounted retaliatory attacks on Wednesday on the Web sites of multinational companies and other organizations they deemed hostile to the WikiLeaks antisecrecy organization and its jailed founder, Julian Assange.

On Thursday, a man identifying himself as one of the activists from a group called Anonymous, who used the pseudonym Coldblood in an interview with BBC radio, said: “This campaign is not over from what I’ve seen. It’s still going strong.” The speaker had an English accent and said he was a 22-year-old software engineer with no specific political loyalty.
…

Profiles in Tax Cuts: Presidents in Tough Times
Today’s Political Debate Versus History’s Biggest Slashers
By SHERISSE PHAM
Dec. 9, 2010
…
The great historical tax cuts belong to just a trio of presidents: Kennedy, Reagan and Bush.

Progressive tax rates in the United States date back to the 19th century, when Congress enacted the nation’s first income tax law – The Revenue Act of 1862 – to support the Civil War effort. Like today’s modern tax structure, the Civil War taxes were graduated: a person earning more than $600 per year was taxed 3 percent, those earning more than $10,000 were taxed 5 percent.

Fast forward to the biggest presidential tax acts in recent history: John F. Kennedy’s Revenue Act of 1964, Ronald Reagan’s Economic Recovery Act of 1981 and Tax Revenue Act of 1986, and George W. Bush’s Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and Job Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003.

Kennedy: The First Cut Is the Deepest

Before Kennedy stepped in, the tax rate for the wealthiest Americans was a staggering 91 percent – a number that would send today’s top earners fleeing for Switzerland in droves. Rate reductions, also known as the Kennedy Tax Cuts drove that number down to 70 percent.
…

Bank of America Muni Bid Rigging Payments May Be
`Tip of the Iceberg’

By Martin Z. Braun and Jeff Bliss - Dec 8, 2010 12:01 AM ET

Bank of America Corp.’s agreement to pay $137 million in restitution for taking part in a nationwide bid-rigging conspiracy for municipal-investment contracts may soon be followed by more settlements to repay the scheme’s victims, the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division head said.

Bank of America’s settlement is “likely the tip of the iceberg,” Andrew Gavil, a law professor at Howard University in Washington, D.C., said in an e-mail. He said other conspirators may pay much higher penalties.

The government has identified more than a dozen firms, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., UBS AG, and Societe Generale as unindicted co-conspirators in a criminal case brought by the Justice Department against a Los Angeles investment broker.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-08/bank-of-america-deal-in-muni-case-may-be-tip-of-the-iceberg-.html - 61k

Across the bond, a bubble is still leaking air.

* ECONOMY
* DECEMBER 9, 2010, 6:19 A.M. ET

… U.K. house prices fell on an annual basis in November for the first time in 12 months, as demand for the increasing number of available properties slipped further.

House prices fell 0.1% on a monthly basis and were 0.7% lower compared with November 2009, according to the Halifax house-price index. The annual drop was the first since a 1.6% annual fall in November 2009. In October, house prices rose 1.8% from September and were 1.2% higher on a yearly basis.

“Higher numbers of properties for sale, combined with reduced demand, have caused the recent decrease in prices,” said Martin Ellis, Halifax housing economist. Mr. Ellis added that the mixed picture of rising and falling house prices “is consistent with a relatively flat underlying trend for house prices.”

The index also reported a 2.1% drop in prices in the three months to November compared with the previous three-month period. In the three months to October house prices fell 1.2%.

Tax Appeals Swamp U.S. Cities, Towns as Property Prices Plunge

By Jeff Green and Tim Jones
Dec 8, 2010 10:34 AM ET

A fiscal flood that threatens to swamp local government budgets across the U.S. overflows from file cabinets in the office of Patty Halm, chair of the Michigan Tax Tribunal.

The backlog of cases from taxpayers seeking to lower property-tax bills of more than $100,000 shot up to 14,236 this year from an annual average of about 6,000 during the past decade. The backlog of smaller claims was at 28,558 at the end of September, eight times higher than a decade ago, according to records at the tribunal, a Lansing-based administrative court.

From Los Angeles to Atlantic City, the New Jersey gambling resort whose credit rating Moody’s Investors Service cut by three levels last month, property owners are demanding lower taxes after real-estate values plunged. The disputes over billions in dollars come as municipalities are already slashing services such as police and fire protection and may depress revenue further as communities try to recover from the longest recession since the 1930s. In Michigan, Governor-elect Rick Snyder has warned that hundreds of towns face financial crises.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-08/plunging-home-prices-fuel-property-tax-appeals-swamping-u-s-cities-towns.html - 61k

Is it OK if I just bury my head in the sand? This scenario is too scary to contemplate.

* CAPITAL
* DECEMBER 9, 2010

Beware the End of Savings Glut

* By DAVID WESSEL

The last few years, we’re told, were an aberration. The end of the credit and housing booms ended in a once-in-a-century bust. Governments rushed to the rescue, and central bankers pushed short-term interest rates very low. Investors rushed to the safety of U.S. Treasurys, helping keep long-term interest rates down even as the U.S. borrowed heavily and, now, the Fed is keeping them from rising.

What next? What will happen when the U.S. economy recovers, as it surely will some day? One likely outcome: a reversal of the global saving glut and an end to the abundance of cheap capital.

Looking beyond the next few years, McKinsey Global Institute, the think-tank arm of the consultancy, foresees a surge in investment by emerging markets, particularly China and India, at the same time as those countries begin to save less. Business, banks, consumers, investors and governments “all will have to adapt to a world in which capital is more costly and less plentiful, and where over half the world’s saving and investment occurs in emerging markets,” McKinsey says in a new report, “Farewell to Cheap Capital.”

As a whole, the world economy can invest only as much as it saves. A farmer in the old days divided his crop between corn that he’d eat or sell (consume) and corn that he set aside (save) to plant next year (invest). The same goes for the output of the global economy. Turning history on its head, much of the increased saving over 25 years has come from China and other poorer countries and flowed to richer countries, particularly the U.S.

Thrifty Chinese workers and peasants put money in the bank. The banks lent to the government which lent to the U.S. Treasury and mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And it ended up financing cheap mortgages in the U.S. before the crash and the big Obama fiscal stimulus after the crash. Government, companies and households in China accounted for a remarkable $1 in every $4 of global saving in 2008.

McKinsey says all this is bound to wane in the next several years, as China and India pick up the pace of investment. “China,” it says, “plans to build new subway systems, highways and high-speed trains in its top 170 cities.”

170! To keep pace with urban population growth, China needs to add one New York City’s worth of residential and commercial space every two years; India, one Chicago’s worth every year. With so many Asian factories producing close to capacity, predicts Hong Kong-based HSBC economist Frederic Neumann, a surge in business capital spending is likely. Based on the consensus forecasts for global growth, McKinsey projects global investment—which amounted to a bit more than 22% of world output before the financial crisis—could reach nearly 25% by the end of this decade, a level not seen since the early 1970s.
…

Military finds another way to kill / damage US soldiers

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus is pushing all members of America’s armed service to buy and eat as much gulf seafood as possible.

This is as sinister as it gets! BP has destroyed the gulf and is now working with the U.S. military to get it in the homes of American troops(already poisoned by continued exposure to depleted uranium) throughout the country! Multiple scientists have declared gulf seafood toxic and for good reason. Over 2 million gallons of toxic dispersant has been sprayed in and around the gulf. The facts are so heavily documented that there is no logical way that any literate human being not pushing an agenda could believe otherwise.

This is common sense.

theintelhub dot com

They have already talked about the notion of reducing FB loan balances for years now with no action. If they succeeded at this point, would they have to retroactively award compensation to all the foreclosed former FBs who would have qualified for the program if only it had been in force back in 2006 or so? And wouldn’t success on this idea require screwing over either the investors on the other side of the lending contracts, or other people who were nonparties to the contracts? And isn’t there a risk that a program which is loudly announced but which only applies to a small fraction of FBs will enrage the people who don’t qualify more than it will mollify those who do?

* HOMES
* DECEMBER 8, 2010

Fannie, Freddie Pressed on Mortgages
By NICK TIMIRAOS And ALAN ZIBEL

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in talks with Obama administration officials to join fledgling government programs aimed at reducing loan balances of mortgages where borrowers owe more than their homes are worth, according to people familiar with the situation.

An agreement with the two government-owned mortgage giants to write down so-called underwater loans could reduce the threat to the U.S. housing market from the glut of homeowners believed at risk of default should their personal finances or home prices worsen. A deal would deepen losses at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which already have cost taxpayers about $134 billion.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which own or guarantee about half of all first-lien mortgages in the U.S., have been highly reluctant to reduce loan balances, especially for borrowers who are still making payments.

The Obama administration is pressuring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, through their primary regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency. The administration wants the firms to join a program run by the Federal Housing Administration that allows banks and other creditors, which agree to write down mortgages, to essentially hand off the reduced loans to the FHA.

Federal officials estimate that 500,000 to 1.5 million homeowners could benefit from the program—a fraction of the estimated 11 million borrowers who were underwater as of June 30, according to CoreLogic Inc. That figure represents about 23% of all U.S. households with a mortgage.
…

Six of 10 Americans don’t think the housing market will start to recover until at least two years from now and more would consider letting their mortgages lapse, a survey found.

BY NIRVI SHAH
nshah@MiamiHerald.com

The survey found that about 70 percent of renters said it would be at least two years before they would buy a property.

More than 2.8 million homes received foreclosure notices last year, Sharga said, a record number that is likely to be topped by the end of 2010.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/08/1962599/americans-see-housing-recovery.html?source=patrick.net#ixzz17ci56YpX

Weekly U.S. jobless claims drop 17,000 to 421,000

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The number of U.S. workers filing new applications for unemployment benefits fell by 17,000 last week to 421,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected initial claims in the week of Dec. 4 to fall to a seasonally adjusted 425,000. Last week’s number was revised up by 2,000 to 438,000. Continuing claims, which reflect people already receiving unemployment checks, declined 191,000 to a seasonally adjusted 4.1 million. Some 8.3 million people received a form of state or federal benefits in the week of Nov. 20, down 611,944 on an unadjusted basis

Go Chicoms! Chug that oil.

China Car Sales Jump 29% to Record as End Looms for Government Incentives ~ Bloomberg News

China November Passenger Car Sales Rise 29% to Record

Sales of passenger cars increased to 1.34 million in the month, higher than the previous record of 1.32 million in January, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

China’s passenger-car deliveries to dealers rose to a record in November as customers rushed to take advantage of government incentives supporting vehicle-buying that may expire at the end of the year.

Sales of passenger cars including multipurpose and sport- utility vehicles increased 29.3 percent to 1.34 million in the month, higher than the previous record of 1.32 million in January, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. The pace of growth was the fastest since April.

* DECEMBER 9, 2010, 4:40 A.M. ET

Cost Of Insuring European Sovereign Debt Rises - Markit

LONDON (Dow Jones)–The cost of insuring debt issued by European sovereigns was broadly higher Thursday.

The five-year credit default swap spread on Ireland was three basis points wider at 535 basis points, according to data provider Markit.

CDS are derivatives that function like a default insurance contract for debt. If a borrower defaults, sellers compensate buyers.

The five-year CDS spreads on Spain and Portugal were five basis points wider at 310 basis points and 440 basis points, respectively, while Belgium and France were both two basis points wider at 191 basis points and 100 basis points.
…

Didn’t Germany already strongly nix this idea?

Bloomberg
Euro Area Common Bonds Would Help End Debt Crisis, AFME Says
December 08, 2010, 5:09 AM EST
By Paul Dobson

Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) — The creation of common government bonds or bills for the euro area may help bring an end to the region’s fiscal crisis by deepening market liquidity, according to the Association for Financial Markets in Europe.

“There are significant advantages and it could be a possible solution for the sovereign debt crisis,” Sander Schol, a director of the association in London, said in a phone interview. “The decision to come up with a common bond is a political decision. It’s very important that they stay in touch with market participants when formulating the proposals.”
…

“TrueBambooLie™”

China stood up by winner of “Confucius peace prize”:
Reuters News

“…When pressed by journalists on claims in a press release that the prize had been chosen by “democratic voting by Internet users,” Tan admitted that no Internet voting had occurred, swiftly adding next year’s prize would incorporate voting.

But the awarding of the prize bore at least one resemblance to what will transpire at Friday’s Nobel ceremony — its recipient was not in attendance.”

Ahansen,

What is the address again for your Mrs. Miller?

Skye

THE RECESSION IS OVER IN TEXAS!!

I finally got the ‘official’ renewal letter for my apartment in downtown Austin, TX.

My rent will go up from 1350 to 1590+81 in parking… a whooping 24% increment in housing expenses. (901 sq ft)

I am a good friend with the apartment manager, and he pretty much told me he is just a middle man… he sets no prices… I can call the regional director for the company, and she will listen, but prices are non-negotiable

Why are rents going up?

Construction at The Austonian and The W Hotel, both which are adjacent buildings, is completed. Having units with multi-million dollar condos has increased property values; therefore, taxes went up and they’re passing the costs to customers.

Occupancy is at 97%, and new clients are paying 1700 to 1800 for similar units, which you can check at amli dot com

I do not want to move, but the increment translates to roughly 4k a year in housing… I am not sure what to do

I called a locator yesterday, and she was not surprised by the increase… She said there is not way I would be able to find a 1-bedroom unit in the heart of downtown with a 1400 budget… I would have to move to the outskirts of downtown or possible out of the area.

How is this even possible during a recession?

Anti-foreclosure activists plan rally at the Palm Beach County Courthouse today

By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 5:25 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 9, 2010

Homeowner advocates will gather today at the Palm Beach County Courthouse to protest foreclosures.

The rally, called “Homeless for the Holidays,” is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. It is being organized by Foreclosure Hamlet and Foreclosure Fraud — local groups dedicated to helping homeowners in foreclosure and drawing attention to foreclosure irregularities.

The rally will be followed by the monthly foreclosure happy hour gathering held at E.R. Bradley’s in downtown West Palm Beach. The happy hour begins at 5:30.

Michael Redman, who runs the website called Foreclosure Fraud, said a group from an international media outlet is expected to attend the rally and happy hour.

In Maryland here … been looking at real estate listings in my neighborhood (all attached homes/rowhomes, common in the Baltimore area) …. Lately there have been a few rowhomes listed that are $30K higher or so than any others … and then I look deeper and see that they seem to be all purchased in 2006/2007/2008 and have had upgrades. Looks like a situation of people having to sell at that higher price to break even. They are nice homes in a great school district, but not when you can get one 30K, 40K, 50K cheaper that is in decent (if not ultra-updated) shape (270k or 280K vs 320K) and do updates yourself for less.

So what’s with people wanting to move so quickly after they bought a house? I don’t get it - unless it’s a move for a job.

Another note - we bought a house and actually got that $8K tax credit (saved up tons, and it’s a neighborhood where our mortgage is actually equal to rent, so we felt it was the right time for us … and hey, if someone wants to give us $8K too, we’ll take it) and we just got a nice reminder letter from the IRS that if we leave that house before 3 years, or rent it out, or anything that would make it not be a primary residence, that we will owe all the money back. So it looks like the IRS is on the lookout for fraud or ways to get that money back.

It’s all good…

Top Spending Forecaster Greenlaw Sees U.S. Consumer Pickup

American consumers will again be the drivers of the economic expansion in 2011 as employment picks up and wages grow, said David Greenlaw , Morgan Stanley’s chief fixed-income economist.

GF’s sister (most main-stream person ever) just decided to try to buy a new house because she is so far underwater on hers. She NEEDS a bigger house for her kids and can’t stand that her house (purchased four years ago at the tippy top) is worth less than 1/3 of what she owes on it. Frustrated by the lenders (she is current on the mortgage) who won’t allow her to re-fi, she has spoken to an attorney who assures her that a “strategic default” is the magic trick that will make everything good for her. She plans on buying the new larger home just prior to the strategic default on the old house that she just put a new granite kitchen in back in August. We tell her she is nuts, to which she gets angry. Its totally disgusting.

oneoverspot . com appears to be attracting quite a bit of interest for you metal heads. Said site will be the low cost leader of precious metals brokers.

Comment by Watching and Waiting
2010-12-09 04:46:12
Record-low interest rates are what pushed renter William Jordan off the fence. Fending off pleas for a new home from his wife for years, the 38-year-old financial advisor jumped in October and locked in a 4.375 percent FHA mortgage on a $760,000 Capistrano Beach, California, house.

“I’d been stalling my wife and that low interest rate was the causal factor” for action, said Jordan, who believes home prices may see further declines. “If I wait for the actual bottom, I think the payments will be higher.”

Darn! They didn’t list his phone number. I really need a financial adviser who thinks like that.
————————————————————————————-

This was posted in yesterdays bucket with no link but it sure is good evidence that idiocy and delusional thinking is alive and well in CA.

Hahaha the flip dream continues.

A foreclosed house I have been watching for a while had been listed at about 280k and dropped steadily to 220k over the past year. It never did sell for some reason. Me thinks the surrounding ghetto is just to oppressive, IMHO.

It DID finally go to auction last week and sold there for 176k. I get a note from Zillow this morning that the very same house is now available for the lovely price of 240!!!

Umm, did the buyer-now-seller not notice that the SAME house would NOT sell at 220 just a month or so ago?

176, plus 9% auction fees, plus other fees, puts it around 200k out of their pocket. Crazy.

If this makes it and the link works, scroll down to the comments, these squatters are turning into nasty delusional people.

Homeless for the Holidays rally to protest foreclosures
by Kim Miller

Local homeowner advocates are holding a “Homeless for the Holidays” rally on Thursday beginning at 2 p.m. in front of the Palm Beach County Courthouse.

Organized by Foreclosure Hamlet and Foreclosure Fraud, the rally will be followed by the monthly foreclosure happy hour at E.R. Bradley’s in downtown West Palm Beach.

http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/realtime/2010/12/08/homeless-for-the-holidays-rally-to-protest-foreclosures/ - -

Here’s a classic example of an “it’s different here” article. But after considering the article, could it not be? Brazil has 190 million people with only 400,000 currently existing mortgages.

EI’s Garrabrant: Brazil demand outweighs fears

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6B75CK20101208

Reuters) - Brazil might be an exception to the rule of thumb that says avoid the asset everyone’s piling into, according to the chief executive of Equity International, the international arm of real estate mogul Sam Zell.

The potential for Brazilian growth is still great because pent-up demand outstrips supply for the consumer in any number of areas, including housing and both durable and non-durable goods, just to name a few,

Another sign of potential gains, Garrabrant told the Reuters 2011 Investment Outlook Summit in New York on Wednesday, is that financing a shopping center or office building is difficult, and Brazilian banks still aren’t good lenders, he said.

“This is going to take some time for Brazil to create the financial infrastructure whereby capital is available in debt and equity form, intelligently, rationally,” Garrabrant said.

So, talk of an overheated market has to be taken in context, considering Brazil is a country of 190 million that has transformed from a mostly poor to majority middle-class nation.

“There’s a capital inefficiency that prevails, so the hype, the headlines, have to be tempered a bit by this inefficiency that’s going to continue to improve,” he said.

As an example, Garrabrant said, a year ago there were only 400,000 mortgages in Brazil, a number that likely is matched in Manhattan alone in the United States.

…”We feel there is more political risk in the United States than Brazil.”

Dallas-Fort Worth pre-owned home sales fell 25 percent in November

December 8, 2010
By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News

November marked the sixth month of declining home sales in North Texas, and the outlook for December is for further declines.

Real estate agents sold 4,250 single-family homes through their Multiple Listing Service, down 25 percent from a year earlier.

November had the lowest monthly sales total since February

“Hot” careers…

Career Comparison: Real Estate Agent Or Mortgage Broker

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/12/07/investopedia6169.DTL#ixzz17d4iCRRs

If you’re considering a career as either a real estate agent or a mortgage broker, this article is designed to help you make a logical choice between these two careers. Read on to find out which occupation best fits your education, experience, skills and personality.

Tax Appeals Swamp U.S. Cities, Towns as Property Prices Plunge

Jeff Green and Tim Jones
Bloomberg

The backlog of cases from taxpayers seeking to lower property-tax bills of more than $100,000 shot up to 14,236 this year from an annual average of about 6,000 during the past decade . . .

from whatreallyhappened com

WASHINGTON – Wanna hear a secret? The U.S. and Canada are probably going to remain friends. And the conservative and liberal party leaders in England? They don’t like each other.

But keep that under wraps. The U.S. doesn’t want that sort of sensitive information getting out for a decade or so.

While the recent leak of government documents onto the website WikiLeaks has revealed government secrets on such topics as Iran, North Korea and Yemen, the disclosure also unmasked another closely guarded fact: Much of what the government says is classified isn’t much of a secret at all.

Sometimes, classified documents contained little more than summaries of press reports. Political banter was treated as confidential government intelligence. Information that’s available to anyone with an Internet connection was ordered held under wraps for years.

Days after President Barack Obama’s inauguration, the White House received a classified message from the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa. It was a primer for the president’s upcoming trip to Canada and it included this sensitive bit of information, marked confidential:

“No matter which political party forms the Canadian government during your Administration, Canada will remain one of our staunchest and most like-minded of allies, our largest trading and energy partner, and our most reliable neighbor and friend.”

The document could not be made public until 2019, for national security reasons.

Such non-secrets have a cost. The more stuff the government classifies, the more money it takes to keep it all concealed. The government spent at least $9 billion keeping classified information under wraps last year, and that doesn’t include the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and others that keep their spending on classified information classified.

Most Americans can do little but take it on faith that those secrets are actually worth keeping. And advocates for open government say that when too much is classified, it makes it harder for the government to cry foul when legitimate secrets are leaked.

“The problem is, we’ve got a system that keeps way too much that is secret, and as a result we can’t protect the real secrets nearly as well,” said Thomas Blanton, the director of the National Security Archives, a private research institute at George Washington University. “And the stuff we really need to know is buried under a mass of trivia.”

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101209/ap_on_re_us/wikileaks_that_s_classified

LONDON – Police with riot shields held off angry student protesters marching to London’s Parliament Square on Thursday as lawmakers debated a controversial plan to triple university tuition fees in England

WikiRape just a cheap publicity stunt.

The women here are near to and over 30 and have international experience, some of it working in Swedish government embassies. There is no suggestion of drugs nor identity concealment. Far from it. Both women boasted of their celebrity connection to Assange after the events that they would now see him destroyed for.
Webmaster’s Commentary:

This is just cheap tabloid tactics to keep Assange’s face in the news and bolster his illusion of credibility even as his own volunteers blow the whistle on the secret Israeli deal Assange made.

N.C. Foreclosure Prevention Fund

Many North Carolina homeowners are struggling now to make their mortgage payments due to job loss or reduction of income through no fault of their own or because of an unforeseen temporary financial hardship, such as a divorce, serious illness or death of a co-signor. If you are searching for help, be assured that you are not alone. The N.C. Foreclosure Prevention Fund is here to help you avoid foreclosure.

The Mortgage Payment Program offers zero-interest loans of up to $24,000 to pay your mortgage and other related expenses for up to 24 months. If you live in one of 50 “hardest hit” counties with the highest 2009 unemployment rates, you may qualify for a loan of up to $36,000 for up to 36 months. The loan can also be used to bring mortgage payments current.

The Second Mortgage Refinance Program will be available in the 50 “hardest hit” counties in June 2011. It may help you refinance a high-cost second mortgage and reduce your monthly payments to an affordable level.

Avoid Scams: Foreclosure help is free through our counseling partners. The N.C. Attorney General’s Office provides information on how to recognize and avoid scams.

http://www.ncforeclosureprevention.gov/nc_foreclosure_prevention_fund.aspx - 10k

Obama: Tax Deal Could Yield ‘Millions of Jobs’- AP

(AP)President Barack Obama says a congressional vote on the tax-cut deal he negotiated with Republicans will determine whether the nation’s economy “moves forward or backward.”

~~ When Barry was on the campaign trail, he said he would raise taxes on the ‘rich’ “there is a point when some people make too much money”-BHO. Bankrupt big coal, create millions of ‘green’ jobs. Create ‘free’ universal health care, break up the lobbyists. Redistribute the wealth etc,etc..

Barry’s battalions of buffoons/followers must be sorely disappointed! Now he says we must keep the tax cuts for the rich and big bidness. Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.

Mortgages hit 6-mo. highs

Benchmark home-loan rates surge along with Treasury yields. Typical 30-year rate tops 4.6%.

Well, this headline was applicable for about fifteen minutes:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/treasurys-rise-after-worst-slide-in-two-years-2010-12-09

Huge story here being basically ignored by the MSM.

CNN Money:

In November, the unemployment rate for those post-college age (20-24) was almost 16%, compared to 9.8% for the nation. And according to a recent Pew Research Center study, nearly 40% of 18-29 year olds have been unemployed or underemployed since December 2007.

Of all real estate stories this one is the most sad and Americans fund this atrocity:

“Let Us Call On Israel To STOP SHOOTING CHILDREN!” Congressman Brian Baird

http://tinyurl.com/23nx492

“Four or five years ago, it was the perfect time to sell, but times have changed. Now is the time to demolish your home”

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20101206/ARTICLE/12061014/2413/BUSINESS?p=1&tc=pg&tc=ar

Israel appears only in 77 out of 20,000 Wikileaks docs

On its website WikiLeaks says it has so far released “almost 20,000″ of the “251,287 leaked United States embassy cables.”

The release, however, raised questions as it doe not contain any incriminating or embarrassing document against Israel.

“No classified Israeli material was exposed by WikiLeaks,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in November, suggesting that Tel Aviv viewed the release as a positive.

An Israeli-born investigative journalist has found evidence that WikiLeaks “struck a deal with Israel,” based on which the websites founder Julian Assange would withhold cables incriminating Israel in exchange for money.

Among the recent crop of hedge fund stars, Pershing Square Capital’s Bill Ackman is notably absent from the parade of gold bulls. But he and Paulson do share a bullishness on another asset class: Housing.

Paulson, who recently bought a two-bedroom condo in NYC for a reported $2.85 million, has been quoted saying: “If you don’t own a home buy one. If you own one home, buy another one, and if you own two homes buy a third.”

Wow I better get started.

Today’s Headline in the “TrueAnger™” PeeParty tea toadlers front page newspaper, “Reduce the Deficit NOW!” Southern Times:

Lil’ Opie throws US taxpayer money $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ to Southern “Border-State”…workers promise not to REBEL over sub/non-UNION salary pay & minimum benefits. Goodbye Detriot,…Hello Louisville!

Ford Investing $600 Million, Hiring 1,800 at SUV Plant:
By Keith Naughton and Jeff Green / Bloomberg news

“Today’s $600 million investment in Louisville is financed in part by the $5.9 billion in U.S. Department of Energy loans it received last year to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles, Ford said.

Ford expects to hire about 1,000 employees to either work in Louisville or fill vacancies created by those moving to the Kentucky factory, she said. The new hires will be paid about $14.50 an hour, about half what veteran assembly workers make at Ford, she said. To stimulate hiring and lower costs, the United Auto Workers union agreed to create a second wage tier in the 2007 contracts with Ford, General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC.”

I rescind previous comments I may have made suggesting systematic upward bias in Zestimates™.

Dec. 9, 2010, 12:10 p.m. EST

U.S. homes to lose $1.7 trillion in value this year: Zillow
About $9 trillion has been lost since June 2006, report estimates
By Amy Hoak, MarketWatch

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — Homes in the U.S. will have lost $1.7 trillion in value in 2010 by the time the year is through, according to estimates released Thursday by Zillow dot com, an online real-estate marketplace.

That’s 63% more than the $1 trillion in value that homes lost last year, the report said.
…

Would this not greatly increase shipping wheat by rail & truck? Gonna take a bunch more trucks and trains with the capability. The job Is bound to take longer than expected.

U.S. Closing Columbia River to Barges, May Affect Wheat Exports

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) — Shipping on the Columbia-Snake River System, a major gateway to the Pacific Ocean for U.S. wheat and barley exports, will be halted until March as the Army Corps of Engineers replaces locks and dams built as long ago as 1957.

Barge traffic will be “effectively” stopped along a 365- mile (587-kilometer) stretch from tomorrow until March 18 as lock gates are replaced at the John Day, The Dalles and Lower Monumental dams, Army Corps spokesman Scott Clemans said. Five other dams will be repaired during the period, he said.

Traffic through the river-locking system is slowest during the winter, with five to 10 barges a day, Clemans said. Barges primarily carry grains, fuel and garbage. The four-month halt is unusual because shipping is normally closed for only two weeks a year for routine maintenance, he said. The U.S. is the world’s largest wheat exporter.

Team Polosi sez…No!

House Democrats vote to reject Obama’s tax cut compromise with the GOP unless modified ~The Associated Press

House Democrats voted Thursday to reject President Barack Obama’s tax deal with Republicans in its current form, but it was unclear how significantly the package might need to be changed.

By voice vote in a closed caucus meeting, Democrats passed a resolution saying the tax package should not come to the House floor for consideration as written, even though no formal House bill has been drafted. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., introduced the resolution.

Said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas: “If it’s take it or leave it, we’ll leave it.”

Dec. 9, 2010, 12:01 p.m. EST
The 10 worst states for retirees
Commentary: Taxes, weather take glitter off golden years

By Robert Powell, MarketWatch

BOSTON (MarketWatch) — Plenty of folks are aware of the best states for retirees. But what are the 10 worst states in which to spend your golden years?

People of Illinois, California, New York, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Ohio, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Nevada — you probably already know the answer.
…

Household Worth in U.S. Rose by $1.2 Trillion in 3rd Quarter
~ Bloomberg

Household wealth in the U.S. rose by $1.2 trillion in the third quarter as share prices jumped in response to an improving economy.

Ford Investing $600 Million, Hiring 1,800 at SUV Plant ~ Bloomberg

Ford Motor Co ., the world’s most profitable automaker, is hiring 1,800 workers and spending $600 million to overhaul a factory in Louisville, Kentucky, to build small sport-utility vehicles.

Anyone in San Diego see the smoke from this fire?

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/dec/09/traffic-plans-bomb-factory-house-burn/

PB?

Closed out one of my savings accounts today, and found out that it had earned a whopping $30 in interest. I’m rich!

Political whiplash warning: Read ahead only if you have a strong neck.

House Democratic caucus angrily objects to tax-cut package

In a sharp rebuke to President Obama, Democrats who contend the tax-cut package is too generous to the rich say it should not come to the floor in its current form. Some Democrats started chanting ‘Just say no’ during the meeting, according to Rep. Brad Sherman.
…

MarketWatch First Take

Dec. 9, 2010, 1:51 p.m. EST
House Democrats acting like angry drunks at bar
Commentary: Maneuver by Democrats unlikely to end well

Good! I guess Boner got bombarded by a bunch of people telling him to stop his stupid sh!t.

Dec. 9 (Bloomberg) — Representative Ron Paul, Texas Republican and author of “End the Fed,” will take control of the House subcommittee that oversees the Federal Reserve.

In his capacity as subcommittee chair Dr. Paul will focus on domestic monetary policy, currency, precious metals, valuation of the dollar, economic stabilization, defense production, commodity prices, financial aid to commerce and industry.

~ In other words…we finally have someone on that committee who really understands the subject!

Don’t be a fool: Keep your hard drive private.

Gadgets
The Death of the Hard Drive

By Jeremy A. Kaplan

Published December 09, 2010 | FoxNews.com

President Obama is in hot water with many members of his own party for agreeing to a deal to sustain all the Bush-era tax cuts for high- income taxpayers in exchange for two more years of extending federal unemployment insurance for the long-term jobless, plus cutting the payroll tax by $120 billion for one year.

Most of us would like to have more money than we do. Many of us want rich people’s assets distributed among those who have less. Others of us are willing to scramble up the ladder toward riches on our own, and only ask that government not discourage us. Neither faction will get what they want.

Is it me or are the democrats just imploding today?

———————————

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell repeal blows up in Senate
sfgate | December 9, 2010 | Carolyn Lochhead

The Senate is voting now on party lines on a cloture motion that will probably kill efforts to repeal the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ban on gays in the military.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine rushed to the Senate floor asking why majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., suddenly acted moments ago to move ahead on the defense authorization bill, despite their negotiations, ensuring it will fail to get the 60 votes to break a GOP filibuster. If the motion fails, so does repeal of the 17-year old ban.

Ten Infamous Islands of Exile

Established to banish dissidents and criminals, these islands are known for their one-time prisoners, from Napoleon to Nelson Mandela

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Ten-Infamous-Islands-of-Exile.html#ixzz17ePhYj9S

Item: Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan said on Thursday he would impose a 90 per cent tax on bankers’ bonuses, in a move to try to silence critics who have said the banking sector drove Ireland into the ground.

> Why not a 100% tax on their bonuses and a 90% on their income? The banking sector DID drive it into the ground. Or better yet just hang the bastards, the people would not mind!

Read this link and weep: http://www.cnbc.com/id/40590863

They just will not stop.

Not sure if link posted: http://www.cnbc.com/id/40590863

From Tyler Durden: “One of the funniest lines in Bernanke’s speech last 60 Minutes speech is when he said that the currency in circulation has not increased despite his monetary easing - ergo there is no inflation. Of course, as even doorknobs know by now currency is merely one component of physical and binary money out there. But trust a pathological liar to expect 60 Minutes’ viewers to be dumb as a bag of hammers. Of course, a far more important metric of the moneyness of the system, is the M2 aggregate (technically M3 is far more important, but as per the Fed’s March 23, 2006 decision, M3 was discontinued as “M3 does not appear to convey any additional information about economic activity that is not already embodied in M2 and has not played a role in the monetary policy process for many years. Consequently, the Board judged that the costs of collecting the underlying data and publishing M3 outweigh the benefits.” Ah yes, the Fed is worried about costs…) Anyway, the M2 has just risen to a fresh all time record: in the week ended November 29, Seasonally Adjusted M2 was $8,812.2 billion, which is the 19th week of the last 21 in which this metric has increased. Is inflation about to prove just how much of a monetary phenomenon it really is? But not to worry - the Chairman is well ahead of everyone in withdrawing all of this excess money already percolating through the economy.”

China fears spook markets

Robust Chinese trade data heighten concerns of an imminent rate hike from Beijing, weighing down on most Asian markets.