The Housing Bubble

Top of the day from the sun sine state!

Fun on weekday mornings on my six mile drive to work, with just a dab of I-75 to deal with. I keep thinking of all those commuters stuck in homes and even worse, jobs they tolerate at most. Sure feels nice not to be one of them…

It`s happening slowly, but it is happening.

Location Address: 13257 66TH ST N
Official Records Book: 23976 Page: 1397 Sale Date:
Name: GMAC MORTGAGE LLC
Mailing Address: 1100 VIRGINIA DR
FORT WASHINGTON PA 19034 3204

Jul-2010 23976/1397 $67,800 CERT OF TITLE GMAC MORTGAGE LLC

Apr-2006 20215/0506 $325,000 WARRANTY DEED TAMAYO OSCAR M

Jun-2003 15424/0284 $159,900 WARRANTY DEED FERRARI EDITH T

For sale now on realtor.com

13257 N 66th St West Palm Beach, FL 33412
$49,900 Price Reduced

3 Bed 2 Bath 1,465 Sq Ft

I just dropped $4400 for my daughter’s braces; no insurance, no group discount pricing, bareback 100%. College starts in three years!

I dedicate this link to Exeter:

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20101218/BUSINESS/12180313/Restored-1825-Wheatland-home-on-market

I wonder what type of situation makes you list your home the week before Christmas. Perhaps they celebrated Hanukkah instead.

http://cnyhomes.com/Listing/Search/info.cgi?mlnum=S245621

http://cnyhomes.com/Listing/Search/info.cgi?mlnum=S245639

I enjoy the post repeating the preposterous myth that illegals get braces for free in SoCal…
All the things people “know” that just ain’t so…

Saturday, Dec. 18, 2010
Bank of America stops handling WikiLeaks payments
The Associated Press

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Bank of America Corp. has joined several other financial institutions in refusing to handle payments for WikiLeaks.

The Charlotte-based bank released a statement saying it will no longer process any transactions that it believes are intended for the site, which has released thousands of secret U.S. diplomatic cables.

“This decision is based upon our reasonable belief that WikiLeaks may be engaged in activities that are, among other things, inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments,” the bank said.

The action comes as WikiLeaks says it plans to release information about banks. The site’s founder has previously said it has a trove of documents on Bank of America.

WikiLeaks responded to Bank of America’s announcement with a Twitter message urging supporters to stop doing business with the bank.

“We ask that all people who love freedom close out their accounts at Bank of America,” WikiLeaks said in its posting Saturday. It also called on businesses to switch funds from the bank.

In an interview with CNBC on Friday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said his organization has plans to soon release information about banks, and he told Forbes magazine last month that the data would show “unethical practices.”

http://www.bnd.com/2010/12/18/1521324/bank-of-america-stops-handling.html -

Too late now for these well-heeled insiders to catch the Santa Claus rally! If they race back into the market on the heels of tax cuts, they may help Eddie realize his dream of DJIA = 12K by year-end 2010!

* MARKETS
* DECEMBER 18, 2010

Some Insiders May Have Sold Too Soon
By DONNA KARDOS YESALAVICH and ARDEN DALE

Corporate executives who recently rushed to sell $19 billion of company shares during the past two months may have been trying to make a tax play that seemed smart—until the Obama administration’s compromise plan changed things.

Now, the extension of tax breaks enacted under former President George W. Bush means those executives will be saddled with big tax bills that could have instead been spread out over years. They also could have held on to their shares longer as the stock market catapulted to two-year highs.

Hundreds of corporate executives and other insiders disposed of shares at a frenzied pace during the past two months trying to avoid what they thought would be stiff tax penalties. The value of the shares sold since November has topped $19 billion—the highest two-month total since just before the financial crisis in 2007, according to TrimTabs Investment Research.

“A number of people did sell this year, including through the exercise of stock options,” said Matt Brady, head of wealth advisory at Barclays Wealth, Americas. “You could say they sold ‘too soon’ if they sold just because they thought tax rates were increasing in 2011.”
…

need open heart surgery? just get detained by ICE!

Some posters here speak about the housing bubble in past tense, or even say it was over years ago. The media also refers to the ‘boom’ like it’s ancient history. From Yahoo today:

‘For the four years beginning with the downturn in mid 2006, the median price of an existing home nationwide fell by 27%, or 7.7% annualized, according to Fiserv Case-Shiller. (At the worst of the decline, a year ago, prices had fallen 30%.) The median home now sells for $177,000, a bit more than what it would have fetched in 2003.’

These guys are playing with statistics:

‘Among the cities that Fiserv tracks, Merced, Calif., fared worst, with a 68% plunge in its median home price in the four years since the peak, followed closely by Modesto, Salinas and Stockton, Calif.; Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla.; and Detroit. Prices rose in just 12 cities — in upstate New York, Tennessee and Pennsylvania — that missed the boom and plugged along at their usual slow pace of appreciation.’

By mixing in places like Stockton and Detroit, they get this 2003 number. But most areas haven’t fallen like Stockton, and IMO 2003 was years after the bubble started. So use stats like rents, right?

‘Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi…says that the best reason for a bit of optimism is this: With few exceptions, the market is fairly valued based on the relationship of home prices to income and apartment rents.’

Few exceptions? Around here, you can rent a house for half of the mortgage! And I know that’s the case in many other places.

‘Median home prices rose by 3.6% during the year ended June 30. Many California cities saw double-digit increases. Prices rose by at least 5% in many cities in California’s beleaguered Central Valley and Inland Empire (such as Riverside-San Bernardino), a few cities in Florida, and in Phoenix, Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis-St. Paul. David Stiff, chief economist at Fiserv Case-Shiller, says those price increases, artificially propelled by the home-buyer tax credit, weren’t sustainable. The tax credit expired on April 30. By June, sales had begun to slide, and in July they tanked.’

‘Although this recovery may seem unendurably long, Stiff says that five to seven years is historically a “pretty standard time frame” for prices to stabilize after a large correction. But in the past, some regions suffered longer than others. For example, Dallas home prices took 12 years to recover after they fell from their peak in mid 1986.’

And this is important: the govt didn’t make the slightest effort to prop up prices in Texas in the 80’s. There was a massive liquidation of the banks; no shadow inventory, etc. All these actions have done is to prolong the recovery and encourage more people to pay too much for houses the past couple of years.

There was this today too:

‘Regulators on Friday shuttered three small banks in Georgia and one each in Florida, Arkansas and Minnesota, raising to 157 the number of U.S. banks brought down this year by the struggling economy and soured loans.’

‘The number of banks on the FDIC’s confidential “problem” list jumped to 860 in the third quarter from 829 three months earlier. The 860 troubled banks is the highest number since 1993, during the savings-and-loan crisis.’

The reversion off this foreclosure hiccup should be very entertaining to watch next year. Got popcorn?

P.S. Eyeballing the graph included with this article, it appears banks repo’d homes at a roughly 80,000/mo rate from early 2008-now. Over three years, an average 80,000/mo rate adds up to 3*12*80,000 = 2,884,000 repo’d homes so far, give or take a few tens of thousands. Given estimates floating around of 3-4 million additional homes currently in default but not yet repo’d, it appears we are not even half way through this yet.

Foreclosure Fiasco
Record plunge in foreclosures, thanks to robo-signers
By Les Christie, staff writer
December 16, 2010: 5:38 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The number of foreclosure notices filed in November plunged 21%, the biggest month-over-month drop ever recorded by RealtyTrac, the online foreclosure marketer. Filings fell 14% compared with November 2009.

The number of Americans who actually lost their homes to bank repossessions plummeted even more steeply — to 67,428. That was off a whopping 28% from 93,236 in October. Repossessions are down a third since September.

The drop in total filings, which include notices of default, scheduled auctions and repossessions, followed a 4% decline a month earlier. RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio attributed the downtrend to fallout from the recent robo-signing controversy.

“[That] forced lenders and servicers to hit the pause button on many foreclosures while they scrambled to revamp their internal procedures and revise or resubmit questionable paperwork,” he said.
…

Two States Sue Bank of America Over Mortgages
By ANDREW MARTIN and MICHAEL POWELL
Published: December 17, 2010

The attorneys general of Arizona and Nevada on Friday filed a lawsuit against Bank of America, accusing it of engaging in “widespread fraud” by misleading customers with “false promises” about their eligibility for modifications on their home mortgages.

In withering complaints filed in state courts in both states, the attorneys general accused Bank of America of assuring customers that they would not be foreclosed upon while they were seeking loan modifications, only to proceed with foreclosures anyway; of falsely telling customers that they must be in default to obtain a modification; of promising that the modifications would be made permanent if they completed a trial period, only to renege on the deal; and of conjuring up bogus reasons for denying modifications.

“Bank of America’s callous disregard for providing timely, correct information to people in their time of need is truly egregious,” Catherine Cortez Masto, the attorney general of Nevada said in a statement.
…

In the bleak midwinter
Poverty looms for the long-term unemployed
Long-term unemployment

Dec 16th 2010 | WILMINGTON, OHIO | from PRINT EDITION
…
Fifteen million Americans are now unemployed, according to the most recent jobs report. The unemployment rate for November inched up to 9.8%. The grimmest numbers, however, are for the long-term unemployed (see chart 1): 6.3m people, 42% of those unemployed, have been jobless for more than 26 weeks. That number does not include 2.5m people who want a job but who have not looked for a month or more, or the 9m who want full-time work but can only find part-time openings.
…

Those who eagerly accept the Fed governors’ assurances about how much worse things would have been without bailouts should pay close attention to the news from Iceland.

Coming in from the cold
Iceland has been tough with creditors and kind to itself. Ireland may wish it had done the same
Lessons from Iceland

Dec 16th 2010 | London and Reykjavik | from PRINT EDITION

IT IS a strategy used by countless students down the years: identify the least able classmate and endeavour to stay ahead of him. Governments have tried a similar trick to persuade voters and markets that their economies are doing well in difficult circumstances. “We are not Greece” has been a constant refrain from euro-zone countries to nervous bond investors. The consoling thought for Ireland’s put-upon taxpayers has been “at least we’re not Iceland”, whose outsize banks failed spectacularly in 2008. But that comfort is fading.

Evidence of economic recovery in Iceland means the Irish can no longer persuade themselves that things are worse elsewhere. Figures released on December 7th showed that Iceland’s GDP rose by 1.2% in the third quarter (Ireland’s third-quarter GDP rose by 0.5%, according to figures published on December 16th). The Icelandic central bank’s benchmark interest rate has fallen to 4.5%, from a peak of 18%. The halving of the dollar value of the Icelandic krona at the height of the crisis pushed inflation as high as 18.6%. It has since fallen close to the central bank’s 2.5% target. The “misery index”, a crude grading that sums unemployment and inflation rates, suggests Iceland is now doing better than Ireland (see chart).

Iceland’s recuperation seems to offer two big lessons for Ireland and other troubled euro-zone countries. The first is that the extra cost to a country of not standing by its banks can be surprisingly small. Iceland let its banks fail and its GDP fell by 15% from its highest point before it reached bottom. Ireland “saved” its banks and saw its output drop by 14% from peak to trough.

A second lesson is that the benefits to a small country of being part of a big currency union are not all they were once cracked up to be. When panicky investors were rushing out of small currencies in the autumn of 2008, the euro seemed a haven. There was much talk in Iceland of fast-tracked membership of the European Union and, ultimately, the euro. Two years on, the euro looks more like a trap for countries struggling to regain export competitiveness. Greece and Ireland have lost the confidence of markets, even though both issue bonds in euros. Iceland’s voters are cooler about joining the EU and the euro.
…

Try not to Twitter™ away your life savings in the still-born-again tech stock bubble.

Another bubble?
Some tech start-ups look over-valued
Internet start-ups
Dec 16th 2010 | NEW YORK AND SAN FRANCISCO | from PRINT EDITION

“I CAN’T decide what I like poking more: you, or these bubbles,” says bubble-blowing Kim Kardashian, a reality-TV star, in a new application for Facebook (see right). Cameo Stars, the company responsible for this innovation, lets Facebookers send to their online friends clips of minor celebrities mouthing generic greetings. Besides enriching the world’s culture, the firm may also make a fortune. But gloomy types wonder if the profusion of highly valued internet start-ups with lighter-than-air business plans is evidence of a different kind of bubble.

For the first time since 2000, internet and technology entrepreneurs can raise seed capital with little more than a half-formed idea and a dozen PowerPoint slides. “There is probably a bubble in the number of start-ups,” says Alan Patricof, a venture capitalist, though he is not yet convinced that there is irrational exuberance in later-stage valuations.

Yet valuations have certainly risen, especially for the leading firms in this latest, “social” phase of the digital revolution. Groupon, a two-year-old firm that offers group discounts to online consumers, reportedly turned down an offer potentially worth $6 billion from Google, prompting analysts to ask if Groupon’s founders had lost their coupons. A secondary-market auction of shares in Facebook in December had a minimum offer-price 77% higher than the price reportedly paid in a similar transaction three months earlier. Twitter is valued at $3.7 billion, up nearly fourfold in a year. The number of deals with (pre-investment) valuations of at least $100m is also increasing, according to Cooley, a law firm (see chart).
…

Capt. Mike Clauer was serving in Iraq last year as company commander of an Army National Guard unit assigned to escort convoys.

Clauer had a hard time understanding what his wife was saying. His $300,000 house was already completely paid for. Could it be possible that their home was foreclosed on and sold because his wife had missed two payments of their HOA dues?

In many states it is not difficult for an HOA to foreclose on a member’s home for past dues even if the amount owed is just a few hundred dollars.

“I was really in a hurry trying to get home before my family was living on the streets,” Clauer says.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128078864&ps=cprs

Having lived in HOA’s, this time I know better.

Census: Palm Beach County residents poorer, better educated

By Jeff Ostrowski Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 9:29 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 16, 2010

Residents of Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast are growing poorer even as they get better educated, according to census data released this week.

Incomes fell and poverty levels rose, yet the percentage of area residents with bachelor’s degrees rose, according to the American Community Survey, a detailed questionnaire mailed by the Census Bureau.

Blame the Great Recession for the contradictory trends. Normally, higher education levels equate to fatter paychecks, and 31.3 percent of Palm Beach County adults held bachelor’s degrees, according to surveys collected from 2005 through 2009, up from 27.7 percent in 2000.

But Palm Beach County poverty levels edged up to 11.5 percent, compared to 9.9 percent in 2000. And despite the more impressive educational credentials of the county’s residents, household incomes took a dive, from $58,008 in 2000 to $53,538 in the five-year survey period.

“That is a little bit surprising, but in the five years, you had the Great Recession,” said economist William Stronge, a professor emeritus at Florida Atlantic University and author of the book The Sunshine Economy.

This is a long and interesting piece of reporting in the WaPo today. It’s about how carpenters in Las Vegas have no future.

To get a closer look at the phenomena, The Washington Post tracked down 31 carpenters who had worked on one of the biggest projects in Las Vegas, a city that was swept up in the speculative building frenzy and now has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.

“Every time I turned around, somebody was coming into my office to say that someone just popped themselves in the head with a 9mm or some other thing,” he said. “You can’t positively link it to the downturn, but something was happening.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/17/AR2010121706790.html

From Charles Hugh Smith: Satan’s Christmas Letter.

To my fallen angels Beelzebub, Lucifer and Leviathan, princes of Hell’s demons, and to my minions, lackeys, toadies and sycophants on Earth:

As you know, this time of year usually finds me quite despondent, as the Prince of Peace’s influence waxes most atrociously around his birthday. But this year I am in fine spirits, nay, let me even declare myself absolutely giddy, for the destruction of the United States of America draws ever nearer.

Though my minions have long sown festering seeds of hate and disharmony in that now-benighted land, only recently have my favored weapons of destruction–leverage, debt, half-truths and endless, preening justifications for greed, sloth, lust, pride, envy, anger and gluttony–have been unleashed to worm their way into the stricken heart of that Republic.

My most treasured hopes of destitution and conflict in the U.S.A. are nearing fruition.

First, my minions in the Federal Reserve–such loyal servants!–and the Federal government have unleashed a veritable orgy of leverage and debt upon the land, spreading ruination under the false guise of prosperity. What a delicious irony, that the fools doomed to eternal damnation in my Empire believe themselves prosperous as they absorb the poison of exponentially rising leverage and debt.

They have made a mockery of the rule of law, openly flouting it by letting financial crimes go not just unpunished but rewarded. The blatant injustice that roams the land like a foul, slobbering beast–there are two sets of laws and two sets of books now, one for the financial Elites and their political toadies, and another one for the tax donkeys beneath them–this will eventually ignite the firestorm I seek.

American extravagance has surpassed even my highest expectations, as purveyors of luxury goods reap record profits, and the childish desire for instant gratification has become the unspoken ruler of the land. Convenience is now worshipped as a god, sitting triumphant beside entitlement, greed and willful ignorance.

Convenience is, as you all know, the name of a peculiarly slick slide into Hell.

One of my favorite sins, gluttony, is running amok, with half of the people groaning under their own weight, sickened and weakened. My loyal minions in the fast-food and packaged food industries have followed my plans to perfection, and my lackeys in the marketing and media have fueled the instant gratification and ignorance which insidiously undermine even the greatest empires.

Pride–oh, how the Americans excel at hubris and pride! The Federal Reserve chairman, bless his doomed soul, has declared himself 100% confident about an economy that is nothing but a confidence game. Oh, what joy to hear his lies spoken with such confidence!

The mere thought of the word greed cause me to chuckle delightedly, as the U.S. excels as a haven for greed without bounds, a greed so boundless that the entire universe would be insufficient to satisfy its bankers, hedge fund managers, high-frequency traders, Imperial factotums and politicians. How happy I am to see their greed grease their way into Hell.

I feel like dancing a jig when I hear the unbridled sense of entitlement which has poisoned the American spirit. Yes, let greed and avarice be cloaked with rationalizations–”I was promised,” “It’s my right,” “I deserve it,” “it’s in our contract”–it is wondrous indeed how my secret invention, “free money,” debilitates once-independent souls.

Anger is now overflowing everywhere, building my empire with every thoughtless word. Politicians rage against each other, the people rage against the politicians, and behind the scenes my servants in the political action committees feed the anger with billions of dollars in campaign donations. How amusing to see the politicos lay claim to noble ideals even as they scramble on their knees to collect the millions tossed at their feet to do my bidding.

Oh yes, my bidding, for their greed, pride and anger are my bidding. By all means, politicians, do my work: give tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy, let financial crimes go unpunished, allow the financial Elites’ looting to go unhindered, transfer the wealth earned by the citizens’ sweat to the financial Elites when their trillion-dollar bets go bad–fuel the anger which will tear you from power, and tear the country apart.

I laughed with glee when One Beholden To Me announced that he was doing “God’s work”–how I love twisting together irony and lies! He fooled no one, of course, for even the most deluded souls know he is doing My Work, not the Lord’s, but they are too distracted by games and ginned-up contests to care.

Not caring is doing my work, too, of course.

The nation bleeds itself with unwinnable wars, sacrificing its best youth on the altar of endless war–how can I not rejoice at this orgy of death, destruction and sowing of hate? The feeble liars at the nation’s helm print endless sums to fund war and to prop up vile tyrants, but offer nothing for libraries or literacy or the curing of malaria. How can I not rejoice at a nation which finds trillions for war and next to nothing to fight the diseases of the poor residents of former colonies, including that Prince of Disease, ignorance.

As for sloth–that millions are being paid to sit around watching television instead of being productive creates the perfect breeding ground for resentment, malice and envy. How perfect to pay people to sit at home and rot away, with only their discontent and despair for company.

As you know all too well, idle hands end up doing my piecework for free.

It was almost beyond my dreams to find the nation’s wealth and politics so dominated by a tiny handful of wealthy financial plutocrats–they are doing my bidding without hindrance, though I see by their troubled sleep that they know where their greed and rationalizations are taking them. To channel the nation’s wealth to a few hands–what better way to nurture envy and anger?

If ignorance were treasure, the American political class must be declared wealthier than Midas, for its ignorance has reached a pinnacle I can truly admire. Ensnared by their lust for power, blinded by their greed for fame and perquisites, they look no further than the next election cycle, dooming their nation to division, disharmony and the desolation of permanent conflict over the dwindling productive assets of this once-great nation.

The people cry out to be saved by the government, as if it was a Savior instead of a vast combine chewing through the wealth of the nation, “investing” it in corruption, parasitic financial Elites, military misadventures, Homeland “Security”–ha, isn’t that a jewel, as the nation withers from within–and the steady, unyielding oppression of the remaining productive members of society.

When the people cheer “We’re number One,” I cheer with them, for pride goeth before a fall. When they believe the half-truths, the illusions, the mispresentations, the misdirections and yes, the outright lies of the ruling class repeated by their toadies in the media, I can no longer restrain my delight, for lies and half-truths are my favored weapons of destruction. The leaders are themselves leaderless, blank, hollowed-out souls doing the bidding of their parasitic masters, focused only on keeping the corrupt and venal status quo together for a few more months, never looking out ten years.

I delight in that shortsightedness, that abject fear of change and transformation, that clinging to failure and pride, that refusal to face reality.

For the U.S.A. is now an Empire of Debt and Lies, its fraudulent financial system built on misrepresentations of risk and value, and its “economy of confidence” a con game based on illusory wealth, parasitic skimming, government gaming and tax donkeys paying for their Financial Masters’ idiotic mistakes.

This adolescent desire to believe the lies, because in believing the lies then nothing need change–this might be my most powerful destructive tool.

A hunger for fantasy and illusion, a fear of adaptation, a childish demand for instant gratification–these are forces I can rely on to lead the once-great country to absolute ruin.

And here is the beautifully evil part, my minions–no external enemy is required. The Americans are destroying themselves with their reliance on leverage, debt, denial, half-truths and overflowing servings of the Seven Deadly Sins, all of which they have elevated to “assets” in their hopelessly twisted values. To be supremely unproductive, a churner of lies and financial trickery, is now the most rewarded and admired state in America.

The spiritual rot is now so deep and pervasive that the people no longer even recognize the decay –they have been lulled into a false belief that this culture of fraud, embezzlement, manipulations, propaganda and parasitic financial Elites has always held sway. This is precisely how a people act when they have lost their way, spiritually and morally: they elevate sins to virtues, and forget the lessons of their past.

And of course everyone claiming that there is no spiritual vacuum sucking the nation dry, that the status quo is simply “business as usual”–they are doing my work, too, for habituating to all that is corrupt and reprehensible, all that is lacking in integrity and honesty, this is doing my work most admirably.

Americans no longer hate me, they hate sacrifice, with a passion that enlivens my enthusiasm for their self-destruction.

How can I not be pleased this season? At long last, the destruction of the United States by its own citizens is close at hand. Give me two years, minions, no more than four, and I shall insure they will finally begin reaping what they have sown. Ignorance, my poor dear Americans, will not save you, nor will your endless parade of excuses, justifications and rationalizations. Indeed, they are my weapons which you drive deeper into your nation’s heart with every lie, every excuse, every frantic justification for your own entitlement.

I await 2011 with high expectations.

Most sincerely yours,

Satan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koY6kXhQDQo

Leave it to an Irishman abroad to tell it like it is.

HOA’s give people a sense of false security and the regime is usually power hungry nobodies, looking for social status and sameness. Same type that thinks micro-chipping the population in India is actually good. I’ve sat in on HOA Board Meeting with amazement. Totalitarianism fans.

The french blue trim/white hse approval was my last straw. I saw no issue with the color choice. That board was meshugeneh.

Hwy senses a pattern: “…made in China”

Courtesy of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission

Recalls: Walmart, Home Depot, QVC
December 17th, 2010, by HANG NGUYEN, Retail Reporter

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. announced Thursday the recall of about 2.2 million Flow Pro, Airtech, Aloha Breeze & Comfort Essentials heaters. The heaters can malfunction resulting in overheating, smoking, burning, melting and fire. Wal-Mart has received 21 incidents, including property damage beyond the heater, injuries requiring medical attention for minor burns and smoke inhalation. The heaters, made in China, sold at Walmart stores nationwide from December 2001 through October 2009 for about $18. For more info, go to CPSC.

About 21,500 Ryobi RTS20 portable table saws are being recalled, according to a Tuesday report by CPSC. The company received one report of a consumer being hit by a piece of metal during the cutting process. There was no report of a physical injury or property damage. The portable table saws, made in China, were sold at Home Depot retail outlets nationwide and Canada from July 2010 through October 2010 for about $200. For more info, go to CPSC.

QVC announced last week the recall of about 7,500 enamel-coated 8-inch cast iron skillets. The firm has received five reports of enamel popping off of the skillet, resulting in two reports of consumers receiving minor burns. The skillets, made in China, were sold through QVC’s televised shopping programs, at qvc.com, and QVC retail and employee stores from August 2009 through September 2010 for between $28 and $35. For more info, go to CPSC.

It’s amazing how expensive deep-rock mining for precious metals can be. How about $200 million to extend a mine shaft from the 4,900 foot level to around the 9,000 foot level?

“We know what’s under us is a terrific ore body, and we’re not willing to walk away from it,” said Mike Dexter, the Lucky Friday’s general manager.

“Paying for this stuff,” Dexter noted, “is easier at $20 silver as opposed to $5 silver.”

They’ve already taken over 1 billion (billion with a “B”) ounces of silver out of Silver Valley.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/12/18/1459729/silver-boom-prompts-idaho-mine.html

What does morality have to do with pandering to greed pigs?

* MAIN STREET
* DECEMBER 14, 2010

‘Billionaires On the Warpath’?
The GOP needs to address the class-warfare argument in moral terms.

* By WILLIAM MCGURN

Say what you will about Bernie Sanders. During his Senate “filibuster” on Friday, the gentleman from Vermont asked a good question: When is enough enough?

Before Congress votes, lawmakers press for special-interest favors in the House and Senate bills. John Fund has the latest.

The object of Mr. Sanders’s ire was the deal between the White House and Republicans that will keep the Bush tax cuts in place. “The billionaires of America are on the warpath,” was his explanation. “They want more and more and more.”

In his nearly nine-hour remarks, excerpts of which are now going viral on the Internet, he framed the lack of a tax hike for the rich as a surrender to greed. In so doing, he inadvertently raised another question: How come Republicans have such a hard time speaking just as forthrightly about the moral underpinnings of their side of this argument?
…

The financial crisis has surely removed any obligation to pay bonuses
Saturday December 18 2010

AN Act of God is a clause typically found in insurance contracts, where payouts are deemed commercially impracticable owing to some wholly unforeseen or unnatural phenomena.

When he announced new laws to curb a payout of some €40m in backdated bonuses to AIB executives, Finance Minister Brian Lenihan did not use the phrase ‘Act of God’ to describe the shocking deterioration in the finances of one of the State’s systemically important banks.

But he argued against the apparent breach of the bank’s contractual duties towards staff who worked in the Capital Markets’ division — the only profitable arm of the bank in 2008 — and the Senior Counsel claimed the bonuses could not be paid out due to a supervening event.
…

A Personal Finance Bestseller

On December 19, 1732, Benjamin Franklin published “Poor Richard’s Almanac”. It functioned as an almanac, a vocabulary builder and, most importantly, the first American book on personal finance. It contained many sayings encouraging frugality, “It is hard for an empty sack to stand upright,” “A penny saved is a penny earned [modern paraphrase],” and so on.

For many, “Poor Richard’s Almanac” was the only financial advice they would hear in their lifetimes. The emphasis on saving versus spending is still the base for sound financial advice today. Franklin’s book sold around 10,000 copies a year for 25 years, making it the first personal finance bestseller as well.
…

12/18/10 09:41 AM
‘Off With Their Heads 2.0′
by Gerald Celente

We warned it would happen and it happened as we warned. “Off with their heads! Off with their heads!” chanted the angry mob as they attacked the Royal Rolls Royce carrying Prince Charles and his wife Camilla. “Off With Their Heads 2.0″ read the headline of our Autumn Trends Journal predicting the outpouring of outrage that would accompany the harsh austerity measures inflicted upon the general public, while governments doled out generous bailouts and rescue packages for bankers and financiers.

Since the onset of the Greatest Recession, I’ve been informing readers to expect uncontrolled unrest that would roil markets and destabilize governments. When people lose everything and they have nothing left to lose, they lose it. And the spontaneous attack on the Royal couple was the first salvo in what promises to be a long war between the people and the ruling classes. Anyone questioning the intensity of the people’s seething anger is either out of touch or in denial. This was the worst show of violence directed towards the Royals since the days of Irish/English hostilities.
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The “Dream Act” fell five votes short of the 60 they needed.

WASHINGTON – Senate Republicans on Saturday doomed an effort that would have given hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants a path to legal status if they enrolled in college or joined the military.

President Barack Obama called the vote “incredibly disappointing.”

“A minority of senators prevented the Senate from doing what most Americans understand is best for the country,” Obama said. “There was simply no reason not to pass this important legislation.”

What most Americans undertand is best for the country? Important legislation?

Rising mortgage rates against the backdrop of green shoots of economic recovery should have no effect. Ergo the Fed can stop using QE to buy down interest rates, and let private sources of loanable funds come back to the fore as a source of lending to the housing market.

WSJ Blogs
Developments
Real estate news and analysis from The Wall Street Journal
December 17, 2010, 9:39 AM ET.
Will Mortgage Rate Rise Hurt Housing Market?
Nick Timiraos

If Americans weren’t buying homes when rates were at 4.25%, what happens now that rates have popped back to 5%?

On Thursday, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage stood at 5.09% (with average fees equal to 0.28% of the loan amount), according to HSH.com, a financial publisher. That’s up from 4.8% last Friday. A separate survey from Freddie Mac said rates averaged 4.83% for the week ending Thursday (with average fees of 0.7%), and that’s up from a record low of 4.17% one month ago. (See “Swift Rise in Yields Pushes Up Mortgages“)

Rising rates certainly doesn’t make it any easier for homeowners to sell. But how much will it hurt? Economists say the impact might not be all that bad if rates are rising because the economy is growing. “Low rates in a crummy economy are worse for the housing market than somewhat higher rates and an improving economy,” says Thomas Lawler, an independent housing economist in Leesburg, Va.
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WSJ Blogs
Developments
Real estate news and analysis from The Wall Street Journal

* December 17, 2010, 11:29 AM ET

Oops! BofA Sends Loan-Mod Letter in Error to WSJ Reporter
By Nick Timiraos

Bank of America helpfully sent out a letter last week informing a Brooklyn homeowner that the bank didn’t have all the documents needed to finalize a loan modification application.

“Our records indicate that we are still missing some of the required documents, or some of the documents were sent to us with missing or incorrect information,” said the form letter dated Dec. 6.

But there was one problem: the letter was addressed to the couple that sold the Brooklyn apartment in 1998. It arrived in the mailbox of a Wall Street Journal reporter who bought that apartment and has never had a mortgage on it.

It’s no secret that banks’ paperwork problems have plagued the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, and the letter offers a glimmer into potential miscues. Borrowers frequently tell of sending and resending paperwork three or four times, while banks often say that modifications aren’t being completed because borrowers aren’t filing all the necessary documentation.
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WSJ Blogs
Developments
Real estate news and analysis from The Wall Street Journal

* December 17, 2010, 5:57 PM ET

Lawmakers Reject Legal Aid Money for Troubled Borrowers
By Alan Zibel

U.S. House Republicans on Friday blocked a last-minute effort to allow foreclosure-prevention funds to be directed to legal aid groups, arguing it was an inappropriate use of financial rescue money.

Lawmakers failed to pass a bill sponsored by Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D., Ohio) that would allow those groups to receive money through a federal program to assist homeowners on the verge of foreclosure.

The bill needed a two-thirds vote to pass because it was brought up under a special House procedure intended for uncontroversial issues. It fell short, in a 210-145 vote, largely along party lines.

The Treasury Department has allocated $7.6 billion to 18 states and the District of Columbia through the Hardest Hit fund, which uses money from the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Currently, legal aid groups are not able to receive such assistance. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a letter to lawmakers Friday that he supports legislation allowing them to do so.

Republicans said the measure amounts to a continuation of the deeply unpopular government bailouts. Speaking on the House floor, Rep. Lee Terry (R., Neb.) said Democrats are “attempting to bring the bailout back to life for the sole purpose of showering taxpayer money on community groups that provide legal assistance.”
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10 year treasury rate graph:

http://www.forecast-chart.com/interest-treasury-10.html

Stick a fork in it…she is done going South!

From:
http://news.goldseek.com/EuroCapital/1292617741.php

There is also a widespread belief that long-term rates will remain contained at historically low levels. Four percent is seen as the ceiling above which ten-year yields will not rise. I believe this ceiling will prove to be of the thinnest glass. Once yields easily break that level, they may quickly rise above five percent, where they will likely encounter some resistance, before heading significantly higher.

In fact, if rates approach six percent next year, we will be seeing a ten-year high in ten-year yields. If our economy is this fragile with record low rates, image how much weaker it will be with rates at ten-year highs? If the Fed believes that lower rates revive an economy through the ‘wealth effect,’ what does the Fed feel will happen when higher rates produce a reverse ‘wealth effect’?

Not only does this bell herald the end of the bond bull, but it also marks the end of the Fed’s ability to artificially engender economic “growth” through monetary policy. More significantly, the new tax compromise President Obama is about to sign will add more than $900 billion in new debt onto the government’s balance sheet over the next 10 years. This will put additional upward pressure on interest rates, and more political pressure on the Fed to monetize the debt. It is no coincidence that the real upward movement in yields began immediately after the tax/stimulus deal was brokered in Washington.

The great and invigorating influences in American life have been the unorthodox: the people who challenge an existing institution or way of life, or say and do things that make people think.

- William O. Douglas -

Will worries about potential SEC wrist slaps in 2011 disturb visions of boffo bonus sugarplums dancing through banksters’ heads?

SEC Subpoenas Wall Street Banks in Mortgage-Bond Probe
By Joshua Gallu - Dec 17, 2010 12:52 PM PT

U.S. regulators subpoenaed JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co., seeking information on the banks’ role in bundling mortgages for sale to investors, a person familiar with the matter said.

The Securities and Exchange Commission subpoenas asked the banks for details on how mortgages were selected and bundled into securities, said the person, who declined to be identified because the probe isn’t public. Reuters reported the SEC probe earlier today, saying the subpoenas were sent last week.

The SEC, which is investigating business practices that might have contributed to the collapse of the U.S. subprime mortgage market, has sued companies and executives responsible for selling loan bundles that soured when the housing bubble burst. Goldman Sachs reached a $550 million settlement over SEC claims that it misled investors. Angelo Mozilo, who led Countrywide Financial Corp. before it was sold to Bank of America, agreed to pay $67.5 million.

The agency is also investigating whether trustees of mortgage-backed financial products properly checked the performance of the underlying loans, the person said.

“We are always in contact with regulators, legislators and others who are interested in our procedures, servicing business and originations,” said Vickee Adams, a Wells Fargo spokeswoman who declined to comment on whether the San Francisco-based bank had received a subpoena from the SEC.
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Static real estate values still weigh on banks
Posted: December 19, 2010 - 1:15am
By Adam Van Brimmer

Banking’s 40-day flood is going on three years, and the local community banks are now in the ride-it-out mode.

Savannah’s 10 locally based institutions spent late 2009 and the first three quarters of 2010 cleaning up their loan portfolios, attracting new depositors and stashing away reserves to offset losses.

The hope was that by mid 2010, the economic recovery would be under way and real estate values would be climbing. Real estate improvement would lead to a decline in both delinquencies and write-downs and help shore up the balance sheet.

But property values are not on the rise, either in the commercial or residential markets.

Many local community bankers say recent appraisals show values continue to fall, albeit marginally. As First Chatham Bank CEO Brian Foster put it, “we’re bouncing along on the bottom.”
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