The Housing Bubble

“We’re going to see this continued market dive for another five years,”

“Next year, you’ll start seeing the banks unloading these homes left and right.”

Report: 46% of home sellers in Palm Beach County take loss

By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 12:11 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011

People selling their homes in Palm Beach County lost money nearly 46 percent of the time during the third quarter of this year, according to a new report from real estate analysis firm Zillow.

The percentage of homes, including single-family, condominiums and townhomes, that sold for a loss between July and the end of September, was a 3.4 percent increase from the previous quarter and at an elevated rate predicted to continue through at least next year.

Nationally, 34 percent of homes sold for a loss in September, an increase from 31 percent during the same time in 2010.

Stan Humphries, chief economist for Seattle-based Zillow, said he expects home prices to decline another 3 percent to 5 percent before reaching a bottom nationwide.

In Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, 46.7 percent of homeowners with mortgages owed more on their loan than their home was worth during the third quarter. That’s up slightly from 45.8 percent in the second quarter.

Negative home equity, sometimes referred to as being underwater, also was up nationally, increasing from 26.8 percent in the second quarter to 28.6 percent in the third.

Stan Humphries, chief economist for Seattle-based Zillow, said he expects home prices to decline another 3 percent to 5 percent before reaching a bottom nationwide.

In Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, 46.7 percent of homeowners with mortgages owed more on their loan than their home was worth during the third quarter. That’s up slightly from 45.8 percent in the second quarter.

Jeff Shanley, president of Pembroke Pines-based Ambire Group Holdings, said it’s optimistic to think South Florida home values will hit bottom in 2012.

Shanley’s company manages foreclosures for banks. He’s concerned about the growing shadow inventory of distressed homes that are either in foreclosure or already repossessed but not on the market.

“We’re going to see this continued market dive for another five years,” he said Monday as he waited for Habitat for Humanity to take unwanted furniture from a foreclosed condominium on Riviera Beach’s Singer Island. “Next year, you’ll start seeing the banks unloading these homes left and right.”

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/real-estate/report-46-percent-of-home-sellers-in-palm-1955970.html

Nevada Foreclosure Filings Dry Up After ‘Robo-Signing’ Law
Wall Stree Journal

Foreclosure filings in Nevada plunged in October during the first month of a new state law stiffening foreclosure-processing requirements.

Slightly more than 600 default notices were filed against homeowners through Oct. 25 in the state’s two most-populous counties, Las Vegas’s Clark County and Reno’s Washoe County. That was down from 5,360 in September, or an 88% drop, according to data tracked by ForeclosureRadar.com, a real-estate website that tracks such filings. Default notices represent the first step in processing foreclosures.

Nevada’s state Assembly passed a measure that took effect on Oct. 1 designed to crack down on “robo-signing,” where bank employees signed off on huge numbers of legal filings while falsely claiming to have personally reviewed each case. Banks suspended their foreclosure filings one year ago and have gradually restarted them after those and other improper foreclosure-processing practices surfaced.

Among other steps, the Nevada law makes it a felony—and threatens to hold individuals criminally liable—for making false representations concerning real estate title. Individuals are also subject to civil penalties of $5,000 for each violation.

Realtors Are Liars®

Nearly 29% of mortgaged homes underwater, report finds
MSNBC

A whopping 28.6 percent of homeowners with mortgages owe more on their loans than their homes could sell for, according to quarterly data released Tuesday by Zillow, a real estate website. That’s up from 26.8 percent in the second quarter. Home values declined only 0.2 percent from the second quarter but were down 4.4 percent year over year.

The rising percentage of homes with “negative equity” or “underwater” status is due largely to how long the foreclosure sale process takes rather than home value fluctuations, said Zillow chief economist Stan Humphries. Prior to the “robo-signing” scandal around foreclosures that came to light in 2010, the negative equity rate hovered in the 21 to 23 percent range, but has been in the 26 to 28 range since due to added delays in foreclosure sales. While the rate of foreclosures is dropping, the time required for foreclosures to sell has lengthened.

“We’re in uncharted waters,” Humphries said in an interview. “More than one in four homes underwater and about 9 percent unemployment is a recipe for more foreclosures.”

Homes with underwater status are often considered risks for future foreclosure, since owners could have trouble refinancing or selling and may opt for a foreclosure via “strategic default” if they feel they will never regain their lost equity.

Humphries estimates that home values will bottom out in 2012 at the earliest and said the foreclosure market will remain “robust” for the next two to four years.

In several cities, more than half of all homes with mortgages are underwater, including Phoenix (66.2 percent), Atlanta (58.7 percent), Riverside, Calif. (51.4 percent), Tampa (56.5 percent) and Sacramento (50.9 percent). Other big metro areas with a high percentage of underwater homes include Miami-Fort Lauderdale (46.7 percent), Chicago (46.2 pecent), Cleveland (41.5 percent) and Denver (38.5 percent).

The seemingly endless housing industry recession has caused a radical shift in opinion around home ownership.

A new survey found that only 52 percent of Americans still consider home ownership the American dream, while 48 percent consider it more of a nightmare.

The survey, by Columbus, Ohio-based Home Value Insurance Co., found that one-third of respondents thought buying a home was a risky investment and 18 percent said they were “not sure” they’d advise a younger person to buy one. About 85 percent said they consider now a bad time to sell but a good time to buy, while 23 percent of owners said they were likely to sell within five years.

Foreclosure rates are now twice last year’s
AP

NEW YORK (AP) - Foreclosures on delinquent U.S. mortgages have almost doubled from this time last year, according to the latest reading from Fitch Ratings.

The higher foreclosure rates mean U.S. housing prices will probably fall another 10 percent before stabilizing, the ratings agency said Monday.

The rate of new foreclosures on delinquent loans has risen to over 10 percent a month, according to Fitch’s latest RMBS (residential mortgage-backed security) Performance Metric. That’s almost double the historical lows from a year ago, and is close to the 14 percent average rate between 2000 and 2010.

Fitch said foreclosures were lower this time last year after industrywide deficiencies in foreclosure procedures were revealed. Many foreclosures were found to be authorized by automatic “robo-signatures,” rather than being properly evaluated by bank employees.

Fitch said the higher foreclosure rate will push housing prices lower by increasing the inventory of houses on the market. But the full number of new houses on the market won’t be evident for another year, according to Fitch.

Man dangles for hours off NY’s Tappan Zee Bridge

TARRYTOWN, N.Y. (AP) — A fired government worker with a protest sign dangled for hours from New York’s Tappan Zee Bridge on Monday, backing up traffic for miles before dropping into the Hudson River and being hauled aboard a police boat.

Michael Davitt, 54, of Garnerville, N.Y., had been angry about being dismissed in 2008 from his counseling job with the Rockland County mental health department and was well known to law enforcement, county Sheriff James Kralik said.

On Monday morning, Davitt drove a van onto the bridge, lowered a rope ladder that was anchored to the van and climbed down, then sat in a harness for more than three hours about 65 feet above the river.

He swayed in the wind and occasionally swigged from a bottle.

Attached to his apparatus was a banner accusing Rockland officials of a “cover-up” and “retaliation.” “This is bizarre,” county spokesman Ron Levine said. “This is a very strange way of making a point.”

He said Davitt had applied for and been given a disability retirement pension.

At about 2 p.m., state police on the bridge deck attached tethers to the rope ladder and lowered Davitt nearly to the water, hoping to get him into a police boat, said state police Capt. Evelyn Mallard.

He then jumped from a height of about 10 feet and swam away, apparently uninjured. After a couple of minutes in the water, he grabbed a lifeline and was hauled onto a Yonkers police boat and handcuffed.

OWS will not change one law
OWS will not get one new person elected
OWS will end in riots and violence

————————–

Occupiers terrorize us: eatery
NY Post | November 8, 2011 | AMBER SUTHERLAND and BOB FREDERICKS

“I’ve been told, ‘Watch your back!’ 10 times,” Stacey Tzortzatos, owner of Panini & Co. Breads, located across from Zuccotti Park, told The Post yesterday.

She and her employees are terrified by the constant threats, which she said began after she demanded the protesters stop using her shop’s restroom as a place to bathe every day.

The final straw came about two weeks ago, when the demonstrators broke a bathroom sink, flooding the shop, and clogged the toilet — setting her back $3,000 in damages.

She put up a sign that said the bathroom was out of order, but they tore it down shortly afterward, she said.

“I have the police in here 10 times a day, [and] I’m the bouncer. I’ve been called the spawn of the devil. “It’s unbelievable what goes on in here every day, ” Tzortzatos said.

And on Friday, she said, a crazed squatter burst into the shop and demanded that workers fill a 10-gallon container of water.

When they refused, “he banged it on the ground and started yelling” and threatened the staff, she said.

“He said he was entitled to have it for free.”

————————-

Community Board Asks “Occupy Wall Street” Protesters To Clean Up, Quiet Down
NY-1 News | Oct 20, 2011 | Michael Herzenberg

“This has been a nightmare,” said Brian Summers, who lives near Zuccotti Park.

Summers said those trying to force corporations to become better corporate citizens should learn to be better citizens themselves.

“It makes us feel horrible. We work down here, we live down here,” said Summers.

Drums are played each and every day. The noise registers as 117 on a decibel meter.

According to the federal government, regular exposure to 110 decibels can lead to permanent hearing loss.

Local officials have been swamped with neighborhood complaints.

That’s why they invited protesters to hear them firsthand at a Community Board 1 meeting Thursday.

Besides the noise problem, residents say protesters are pouring urine in the streets.

“Our neighbors do not urinate and defecate in the street. These occupiers need to vacate our neighborhood,” said one resident.

From the UK Guardian: The 1% are the very best destroyers of wealth the world has ever seen

“Many of those who are rich today got there because they were able to capture certain jobs. This capture owes less to talent and intelligence than to a combination of the ruthless exploitation of others and accidents of birth, as such jobs are taken disproportionately by people born in certain places and into certain classes.

The findings of the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, winner of a Nobel economics prize, are devastating to the beliefs that financial high-fliers entertain about themselves. He discovered that their apparent success is a cognitive illusion. For example, he studied the results achieved by 25 wealth advisers across eight years. He found that the consistency of their performance was zero. “The results resembled what you would expect from a dice-rolling contest, not a game of skill.” Those who received the biggest bonuses had simply got lucky.

Such results have been widely replicated. They show that traders and fund managers throughout Wall Street receive their massive remuneration for doing no better than would a chimpanzee flipping a coin. When Kahneman tried to point this out, they blanked him. “The illusion of skill … is deeply ingrained in their culture.”

… if you have psychopathic tendencies and are born to a poor family, you’re likely to go to prison. If you have psychopathic tendencies and are born to a rich family, you’re likely to go to business school.

This is not to suggest that all executives are psychopaths. It is to suggest that the economy has been rewarding the wrong skills. As the bosses have shaken off the trade unions and captured both regulators and tax authorities, the distinction between the productive and rentier upper classes has broken down. Chief executives now behave like dukes, extracting from their financial estates sums out of all proportion to the work they do or the value they generate, sums that sometimes exhaust the businesses they parasitise. They are no more deserving of the share of wealth they’ve captured than oil sheikhs.

The rest of us are invited, by governments and by fawning interviews in the press, to subscribe to their myth of election: the belief that they are possessed of superhuman talents. The very rich are often described as wealth creators. But they have preyed on the earth’s natural wealth and their workers’ labour and creativity, impoverishing both people and planet. Now they have almost bankrupted us. The wealth creators of neoliberal mythology are some of the most effective wealth destroyers the world has ever seen.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/nov/07/one-per-cent-wealth-destroyers

Do the Koch brothers still back up Herman Cain at this point? Or will they now flip-flop their allegiance over to Romney?

Lexington
Sex and pizzas
The fairy tale of a political original heads towards a sticky end
Nov 5th 2011 | from the print edition
…
Can Herman continue to be Herman in the face of the harassment allegations? Perhaps, especially if the complaints against him are shown to have been untrue, unproven or exaggerated. But some of the originality has already started to drain out of the Cain narrative. For all the unorthodoxy of his campaign so far, the tale that unfolded this week has followed a script containing many of the plot twists that have become drearily familiar from previous political sex scandals in America.

First, Mr Cain, like many before him, ignored the golden rule, which is to tell all at once before the media find out anyway. The day after Politico broke the story, he denied (and continues to deny) ever having harassed anyone, claiming that after an investigation the charges against him were dismissed. He also said he was unaware of any financial settlement being paid. As the day wore on, however, he started to recall more details. Yes, there had been some sort of agreement under which one of the women might have been paid three months’ salary, but he could not remember whether he signed that agreement himself. The next day the New York Times reported that one of the women had in fact been paid a full year’s salary of $35,000.

Next Mr Cain complained, and some of his friends agreed, that the story was not a case of the newspapers doing their job but a racist “witch-hunt”. Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Centre, which purports to unmask “liberal bias”, said that Mr Cain had predicted months ago that he might face a “high-tech lynching” like the accusations of sexual harassment that afflicted Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court. “In the eyes of the liberal media”, said Mr Bozell, “Herman Cain is just another uppity black American who has had the audacity to leave the liberal plantation. So they must destroy him, just as they tried destroying Clarence Thomas.” By November 2nd Mr Cain was accusing his bouffant Republican rival, Rick Perry, of orchestrating a smear campaign against him.

And so it invariably goes in America’s paranoid, super-charged politics. The lovely bubble of the Cain story has popped, making it harder for those bewitched by his silver tongue and folksy charm to continue to overlook his frequent gaffes and flaws, which include flip-flops on abortion and a comprehensive ignorance of the world beyond America’s shores. On television this week he gave a grave warning: China is trying to develop nuclear weapons! It has had them for half a century. For a while, Mr Cain and his story reminded Americans of something rather wonderful about their country. Now, perhaps, too much light has been let in on the magic.

For the heck of it, I went to regulations dot gov to check up on the progress of the proposed Credit Risk Retention rule, the one that would, if implemented, require 20% down OR the bank has to keep 5% of the mortgage. *

No progress on the rule itself, but I found a couple interesting Public Comments:**

From Senator Carl Levin: (D-Mich)
http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=OCC-2011-0002-0120

“In the mortgage area, the proposed rule effectively exempts Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans so long as those entities remain in conservatorship or receivership. Since it is likely that those entities will remain wards of the U.S. government for an extended period of time, this exemption is justified if the U.S. government also takes steps to ensure that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans are only high quality, low risk loans.”

Translation: this part of the rule is ok, IF the gov puts some separate limits on the quality of paper the F&F is allowed to buy.

“That [5%] option would essentially allow RMBS securitizers to retain the equity tranche at the bottom of their securitizations, which is the tranche that is likely the most difficult to sell. Given recent history, although retaining a horizontal residual interest tranche may be appropriate in other types of securitizations, it should not be an available option for RMBS. ”

Translation(?): Levin thinks that the 5% tranche the banks would have to keep is not strong enough. But Levin doesn’t offer an alternative.

[On QRM]:”This approach, in which each independent metric essentially acts as a tripwire to disqualify a loan as QRM, is inconsistent with Congressional intent and is not reflective of
modern underwriting and risk management practices…. ”

Levin then goes on to say that 20% is probably too high; that diaqual on one missed payment is too strict especially since they don’t take into account what the missed payment was (as written, I could be denied a house for missing a $20 CC bill). Also, 28% rule is probably too strict, and that the proposed rule doesn’t factor in the positive effect of 10% down or mort insurance.

This is a long and pretty well-written document, with references to a committee report on the causes of the financial crisis. In short, sounds like Levin likes the ideas, but he thinks the agencies overshot and went to too strict.

Translation: Bring back FICO!!! We don’t wanna look at pesky stuff like income!! FICO worked so well before!!! WAHHHH!!

————
*The rule would NOT require you to put 20% down to get a mortgage, as the idiot media orginally reported. You can still get a mortgage, but the bank has to keep a little risk. Recently, I’ve seen the media modify the story as needing 20% down “to get the best rates.” It’s propagandic, but no longer false.

**This very common in government. Many times, a gov or regulator worker bee in a department who worked on something will have an objection to how his co-workers or management ultimately decide the matter. There are ways to file a formal complaint within the gov, but that rocks the boat within the workplace. So instead, the worker bee will voice his objection by posting a Public Comment, in his capacity as a member of the taxpaying public. Worker bee’s co-worker regulators are forced to read and address the worker bee’s comment (along with everybody else’s), but the worker bee faces no repercussions for his opinions. In this case, I believe that the Senators are using Public Comment to voice their opinion on how the worker bees are implementing their new Dodd-Frank law.

Europe’s Debt Crisis
Greek debt crisis: Shades of Argentina
By James O’Toole
@CNNMoney
November 8, 2011: 5:09 AM ET

A woman passes in front of the window of an exchange in downtown Buenos Aires last month.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel descended on the G-20 summit last week intent on stabilizing Greece and resolving the European debt crisis. But Athens may instead end up seeking guidance from an unlikely source: Argentina.

A decade ago, facing burgeoning debt, a grinding recession and a devastating bank run, Argentina declared default on $132 billion in debt, the largest sovereign default in history. It also abandoned its fixed exchange rate with the dollar, sending the value of the Argentine peso plummeting.

Yet fast forward to 2011 and the country has enjoyed years of surging growth led by its cheapened exports, its GDP swelling 9.2% in 2010.

Is this a solution for Greece? Can it abandon its debts and an oppressive fixed currency — in this case, the euro — and use cheap exports to grow its economy?
…

just read somewhere that if you make over $ 35k a year you are in the top 1% globally.

not sure if it’s true…if it is…i simply find it amusing.

“Surprising”

Mortgage payments show surprising rise in delinquencies

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/story/2011-11-08/mortgage-late-payments-Q3/51120096/1

While lawmakers in Washington debated the debt ceiling and consumer confidence dropped, more homeowners were having a harder time making their mortgage payments.

The rate at which mortgage holders were late with their payments by 60 days or more rose in the June-to-September period for the first time since the last three months of 2009, according to TransUnion.

The credit reporting agency said 5.88% of homeowners missed two or more payments, an early sign of possible foreclosure. That was up from 5.82% in the second quarter.

Hey, I am finally all “caught up” (according to my excessively strict definition which means paying off the CC card not just before it is due, but before it closes out for the month so the bill is actually $0) from my vacation this summer.

It was my little experiment in living on a “fixed income” without letting any interest accrue on the credit card. Very interesting exercise. Got to the point where I had to think HARD about doing certain things that cost money at the time but would be cost savers long term. Very interesting exercise indeed.

Pulling it off without access to your bank accounts by computer or if you were subject to banking fees that you couldn’t predict with absolute precision would be outrageously difficult, nearing impossible. As a matter of fact, I had to adjust a withdrawal I made from an ATM this weekend because I wasn’t sure if a particular deposit would be made before some other withdrawals were posted. I was right to be cautious. The withdrawals were all posted on the 7th and the deposit didn’t come through until the 8th.

The story we have been waiting for:

The $26 Billion swindle: (First time buyer tax credit hoax)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-great-26-billion-real-estate-swindle-2011-11-08

Finally….

Cubans hail a private property revolution

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/06/cubans-can-sell-homes-home-raul-fidel-castro

State controls are whittled back as Raúl Castro abolishes the ban on buying and selling houses

…..Shortly after the Cuban revolution brought Fidel Castro to power in 1959, all homes effectively became the property of the state. Cubans who remained on the island were given the right to live in the homes they occupied and pass them on to friends or relatives. They were also permitted to swap houses. However, selling or buying was prohibited.

All that changed last week, when the Cuban government announced – with significant understatement – an “amendment” to the existing property law. What it amounts to is the creation of a legal property market and the most significant loosening of the state’s dominance of Cubans’ lives since the revolution.

It is part of a process that has been slowly unfolding since 2006, when Castro was forced by illness to hand over the presidency to his brother, Raúl, after 47 years in power. The younger Castro, who turned 80 last June, has emerged as far less dogmatic than Fidel.

We don’t always know what we think we know.

Dismantling The China Hard Landing Narrative

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2011/11/08/dismantling-the-china-hard-landing-narrative/

There is a growing chorus of economists and investors in the U.S. who seem to be clamoring for the Chinese economy to collapse, much in the way the Western economies did over the last three years.

….No surprise, but a hard landing is definitely not in the interest of Beijing. Despite sounding a little like Alan Greenspan last year in saying there was no property bubble, to admitting their is one in 2011, China’s government is actively doing something about it rather than exacerbate it by super loose monetary policy. Government’s cannot control every aspect of its economy, and the spending and investing habits of millions of people, but China is still a command and control system. Its banks are less leveraged than their Western counterparts were prior to the 2008 credit crisis. It was the over leveraged Western financial system that led to the Great Recession.

Gee I wonder why the OWS mobs only get 30% support?

SAN DIEGO (CBS) — A pair of Southland street cart vendors who were forced to shut down their businesses after “Occupy” protesters vandalized their carts are hoping to get some help from local residents.

Coffee cart owner Linda Jenson and hot dog cart operators Letty and Pete Soto said they initially provided free food and drink to demonstrators, but when they stopped, the protesters became violent.

And according to one city councilman, bodily fluids were used in the attacks.“Both carts have had items stolen, have had their covers vandalized with markings and graffiti, as well as one of the carts had urine and blood splattered on it,” said Councilman Carl DeMaio.

In addition to the attacks, the vendors also said they recently received death threats.”

Credit unions can help consumers save money because they are non-profit, and can pay higher interest rates on savings accounts, and offer lower loan and credit card rates. The median annual fee for credit cards is $25 for credit unions and $59 for banks, and their respective overdraft transfer fees are $6 and $10, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts in May 2011.

uh no banks are always free to charge lower rates. Credit unions don’t have to generate the fat bonuses that bankers and stock holders want because the profit will go back to the union members who are in essence stock holders and customers.

This is of course why banks buy off politicians and have them try to destroy credit unions. In Wi they have pushed through new rules that allow management of credit unions to convert to banks without informing the current owners ie the customers and profit from it.

One last cruise up Seneca Lake. It was a beautiful ride on a T-shirt day. There is still some color in the trees lakeside, some yellow, a lot of muted orange to brown.

Now the veins of the Blue Skye are filled with antifreeze. She’ll rest in suspended animation in anticipation of spring. What a wonderful season it has been.

Lightning sparks well fire in North Texas

Here in N. Texas where I live they have wells spaced about 1/2 mile apart in dense urban areas. There is one about 400 yds. from my house and 3 more within 6 blocks. The one near my house has 6 of these 1,500 gallon tanks right out in the open. No barriers, no pits or berms just sitting about 10′ apart. The EPA has no jurisdiction by law to regulate these things, only the state sets safety ‘guidelines’.

http://www.kvue.com/news/state/Lightning-sparks-well-fire-in-North-Texas-133461338.html

Drill baby drill.

Which of the PIIGS is next in line to blow up: Italy or Greece?

Italy debt crisis: patriotism and black comedy amid the gloom

An appeal to save the nation by buying bonds has snowballed, while a TV show reflecting the lows of MPs has become a hit

Tom Kington in Rome
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 November 2011 16.03 EST
Article history

A veteran political correspondent stepped out of the chamber of deputies after Silvio Berlusconi’s body blow on the budget vote and shook his head. “Did you notice how the opposition didn’t celebrate? There’s a real crisis going on here and they just don’t know what to do either.”

As hundreds of MPs huddled in the elegant lounges of Rome’s parliament after the vote, trying to figure out how the stalemate would play out, Romans in the rainswept streets outside were voicing their frustration at finding Italy on the frontline of a global financial crisis, with politics heading for an impasse instead of finding a way out.

“The real Greek tragedy is here,” said Francesco Papa, a local politician sheltering under a stone portico in Piazza del Parlamento.

“If we had been better governed we would have been able to do without the euro, just like Britain, but we threw it away and what wealth there is stays hidden.”

Watching the politicians trickle out of parliament, Papa added: “Politics here is based on loyalty to leaders, not on merit, and the transfer market for MPs will continue for a few days. But for me this is the last day I’m interested in politics.”

Waiting for the rain to stop under the massive portico of the Galleria Sordi nearby, Giovanni Bulfaro, an engineer, described himself as “a former member of the Italian middle classes. This is a catastrophic situation and I am feeling every minute of it,” said Bulfaro, 41. “I hope the government resigns and a technical government can be appointed.”

With growth stalled, about 14% of Italians now living in poverty and a third of young people out of work, Berlusconi irked a large number of Italians by saying things were not all bad since restaurants were full, a boast that prompted his interior minister, Roberto Maroni, to say: “You cannot hide the truth.”

Marta Carbone, an economist who was checking shop windows inside the Galleria Sordi, warned that the reforms Berlusconi has hurriedly put together to lift the Italian economy could prove a non-starter. “How can you reform the system when the black economy and corruption will doom it to failure?” said Carbone, 28.

Margherita, 19, a philosophy student, said: “I cannot wait for this government to fall, they don’t represent me, starting with our ridiculous prime minister.”
…

“Occupy” group may vacate tent cities, move into foreclosures

by Kim Miller
Palm Beach Post

Occupy group in downtwon West Palm Beach
California’s “Occupy Oakland” group is considering a new initiative to take over empty buildings and homes, according to several news sources including the San Francisco Chronicle.

The proposal has been discussed for the past several days but was allegedly passed at a general assembly meeting last night and announced by the #OccupyOakland twitter account.

The plan is to encourage the occupation of bank-owned/foreclosed and abandoned properties across Oakland.

As the Chronicle reports, city officials are not very excited about the initiative.

“It’s lawlessness,” the Chronicle quotes Joe Haraburda, president of the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, as saying. “How about if you were a building owner and somebody took over your property? What gives them the right to do that?”

Occupy representatives said their followers would improve any place they occupy.

“It’s a very important front for the Occupy movement all over this country, and if any one city can set a precedent for taking over foreclosed buildings, the idea will then quickly spread,” said Adrian Dyer, an Occupy organizer in the Chronicle. “The key is to improve what we occupy, to do it right, to set a good example.”

The Chronicle further reports:

The challenge in seizing foreclosed buildings is how to do it in a way that attracts support, many in the 165-tent Occupy Oakland camp at Frank Ogawa Plaza agreed in meetings and interviews Monday. That means appealing to everyone from the homeless Occupy campers to the soccer moms who show up for marches.

“One idea is to contact the people who were foreclosed upon and enlist them in the effort,” said Kevin Seal, an Occupy organizer. “We want to have a plan before we do anything.”

Lumber jack song - YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zey8567bcg - 93k - Cached - Similar pages