Bits Bucket for December 7, 2011
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Divisions over EU treaty threaten crisis solution
DAVID RISING, Associated Press, SARAH DiLORENZO, Associated Press
Updated 03:10 a.m., Wednesday, December 7, 2011
BERLIN (AP) — Plans by France and Germany to save the euro through closer European unity faced a serious challenge Tuesday from Britain, as deep divisions emerged between the 17 EU nations that use the euro and the 10 others that don’t.
Threatened by fears their joint currency may not survive, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have demanded changes to European Union treaties to tighten controls over spending and borrowing for all who use the embattled euro. But Britain, which doesn’t use the currency, has threatened to put the brakes on treaty changes, fearing they would force a greater transfer of power from London to Brussels and curb British influence in the EU.
Sarkozy’s and Merkel’s comments reinforced market expectations that EU leaders at a Friday summit will finally contain, through tighter financial rules, the 2-year-old debt crisis that has engulfed the continent and threatens the entire global economy.
Enter David Cameron, the prime minister of Britain who said he would be heading to the Brussels summit “to defend and promote British interests.”
“Eurozone countries do need to come together, do need to do more things together. If they choose to use the European treaty to do that, Britain will be insisting on some safeguards, too,” he declared Tuesday. “As long as we get those, then that treaty can go ahead. If we can’t get those, it won’t.”
…
as deep divisions emerged between the 17 EU nations that use the euro and the 10 others that don’t.
“United we $pend, divided we pretend to collect,…taxe$”
(Is it Hwy, or are the $wiss being awfully,…quiet?)
[non-$wiss like music playing]:
Get your motor runnin’
Head out on the highway
Looking for adventure
In whatever comes our way
Yeah, darlin’
Gonna make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space
U.S. backs eurozone plan
‘Fiscal union’; Activity frenzied as summit nears
By LUKE BAKER and DAVID LAWDER, Reuters December 7, 2011 5:10 AM
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner threw his weight on Tuesday behind a Franco-German plan to tackle the eurozone’s sovereign debt crisis and said the European Central Bank had to play a major role in any solution.
Geithner offered his support after Standard & Poor’s agency fired a second warning shot at the bloc in 24 hours by threatening to cut the credit rating of its rescue fund.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy want to change the EU treaty to impose mandatory penalties on eurozone states that exceed deficit targets, aiming to restore market trust.
Geithner said he was encouraged by moves toward “fiscal union” - under which eurozone states would obey a common set of tight budget rules - and stressed the central role in tackling the crisis of the ECB, which has been reluctant to take decisive steps.
…
When in doubt about bailout funds, make them bigger:
Dec. 7, 2011, 12:38 a.m. EST
Europe discusses doubling bailout fund: FT
By Sue Chang
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — European officials are discussing the possibility of significantly boosting the region’s ability to fight the debt crisis by operating two bailout funds, the Financial Times reported Tuesday on its website. The talks are focusing on the possibility of allowing the euro-zone’s 440 billion euros ($590 billion) bailout fund to remain in operation when a new €500 billion facility comes into force in 2012, the newspaper said. The idea of a bulked up rescue fund will be introduced along with the proposal on revising existing treaties to strengthen budget rules when leaders from 27 European Union countries meet later this week, according to the FT.
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!
“What’s the question?”
“I don’t know, but the answer is ‘more debt’.”
Whatever came of the Paulson plan to create a U.S. ‘bad bank’?
Did we create one, and if so, what is it called?
Dec. 7, 2011, 5:58 a.m. EST
Spain’s Rajoy mulls plan to clean up banks: WSJ
By Barbara Kollmeyer
MADRID (MarketWatch) — Spain’s incoming prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, is reportedly mulling plans to clean up the banking sector, such as creating a state-funded “bad bank” to buy toxic assets or forcing banks to push up their loan-loss reserves. Citing persons close to situation, The Wall Street Journal reported that the plans would be much costlier than prior efforts by the government. Analysts estimate the new plans could cost the government as much as €100 billion ($134 billion), which raises concerns of pushing the government’s financing to the breaking point, the newspaper said. One person close to the situation said Rajoy’s team is studying the possibility of paying for capital injections with the country’s €6.59 billion deposit guarantee fund, which is financed by bank contributions.
i think it’s named “bank of america”.
fitting title i must admit.
In the US it’s called Freddie Fannie and BOA.
BOA forced to buy Country Wide adn my guess is being loaded up with bad debt, they are selling the good pieces so that when they collapse they aren’t as large.
What about the Fed, which assumed the role of MBS purchaser of last resort?
Yeah, I was thinking it was the Fed which gives cash for Monopoly money face values (aka bad loans) and Fannie and Freddie which do the same.
For $30,000 a month, I will advise freddie and fannie not to do this. I will tell them that it’s “insane”.
After that, I should have enough money to start raising campaign contributions………………..
BoA was not forced to buy Countrywide. They did so at their own decision, trying to get a greater piece of the home loan pie. Remember all the synergies involved, BoA would get a team of professionals in strip mall stores who were going to be able to peddle home loans and other banking products? That was the story, anyways.
Also recall this was the time that A.Mozilla was highly regarded in public for letting people get a piece of the American dream.
The reality is that some sofa CEO’s such as myself saw this coming, hook, line, and sinker. Lewis should have just cut us bloggers a check for 10 million in exchange for us telling him this acquisition was bogus. Instead they paid millions to investment bankers and MBA types to tell him it was a great idea, costing shareholders and US taxpayers billions.
Oops.
ISTR reading that the ego of BAC’s CEO played a large role in the decision to buy Countrywide.
He wanted to have the biggest, baddest financial institution in the land. He sure succeeded on the “baddest” part, didn’t he?
I seem to remember Lewis not wanting to make the purchase and then there was a meeting with Hank Paulson and other heavy weights and the deal went through.
You can’t tell me that the FED didn’t want this to happen. By parring up a healthy bank w Countrywide they slowed the collapse.
NW had a piece on Corzine. The more I read the more I think this guy was given bad information either intentionally or not. He literally bet the bank on a bailout of EU debt. Either that or he had a relationship with the counter parties. Let’s see if he goes to jail.
The squad has very distinct memories about this, look at how many shares of Countrywide that the Orange One unloaded throughout 2007, literally dumping chunk after chunk every couple days. He knew it was almost TSHTF time, the “official story” about him retiring is just BS.
Meason - You are confusing BoA/Countrywide with the BoA/Merrill Lynch deal. BoA wanted to back out of the ML acquisition in Dec 2008 and that is when the alleged Fed/Paulson/Lewis discussion took place.
BoA acquired Countrywide on July 1, 2008. I believe it was announced towards the end of 2007, and I watched every day waiting for the due diligence report to show Countrywide was the company soon to be worthless. Neverless, BoA keep on going, like the Titanic full speed towards an iceberg.
“The more I read the more I think this guy was given bad information either intentionally or not. He literally bet the bank on a bailout of EU debt.”
My hunch is that many underestimated Merkel’s resolve in the face of pressure to approve German complicity in too-big-to-fail bailouts took the leaders of Megabank, Inc by surprise. I don’t see how anyone (except maybe Merkel herself) could have seen that coming.
Stock traders definitely like too-big-to-fail bail!
Dec. 7, 2011, 3:18 a.m. EST
Europe stocks higher on bailout fund report
MADRID (MarketWatch) — European stock markets opened higher on Wednesday after a report in the Financial Times said European officials are in talks to potentially double the firepower of the euro-zone bailout fund.
…
Comment from the article:
“Here we go again … say something first, provide the details later … or not provide the details, depending on what is the current sunspot number or something random like that.
Or better yet, just have this rumor refuted 24 hours later. Brilliant.
Maybe that’s their plan, create rumors to manipulate the market and make money via insider trading to support the bailout funds. Hmm. — whatwhat“
Yep corporate executives would get thrown in jail if they rumored bad news bought a lot of stock and then later came out with news that everything was great. But this is exactly what the big banks and trading houses are doing, well actually I suspect it’s central banks telling the banks when to invest and then making sure they win.
STAMPEDE!
RPT-Italy output falls, underscoring recession fears
Wed Dec 7, 2011 5:12am EST
ROME, Dec 7 (Reuters) - Italian industrial output fell
twice as fast as expected in October, down 0.9 percent after a
record 4.6 percent drop a month earlier and auguring badly for
the economy in the fourth quarter.
On a work-day adjusted year-on-year basis, output in October
was down 4.2 percent, the steepest fall since December 2009,
official data showed on Wednesday.
“It’s weaker than we expected and confirms our idea that
output and gross domestic product will both fall in the fourth
quarter,” said Unicredit analyst Chiara Corsa.
“We expect a 0.6 percent drop in fourth quarter GDP,” she
added.
…
“Italian industrial output fell”
lol
Austerity lessens industrial output? Who’d'a thunk?
The next thing you know, they’ll be telling us tax revenue is down, thus making the deficit worse. Which will require more austerity…
Eyes says boy, yous on to something…
http://tinyurl.com/7knnq3a
industrial output = mining and other mineral extraction
You seem to be suggesting that government subsides make the activity more profitable for the government (subsidy < taxes paid by the corp) which I’m sure oil companies would also argue, but I’m not sure we can surmise that generally to any real degree, especially since it doesn’t take any negative externalities into effect.
industrial output
Definition
Total output of U.S. factories and mines; a key economic indicator released monthly by the Federal Reserve Board.
investorwords
industrial output
( Accounting ) : What an industry produces, as a national
total.
yawiktionary
Tis more than just mining.
Michael Tennenbaum Expects Recession in U.S., Europe
Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) — Michael Tennenbaum, founder of Tennenbaum Capital Partners, talks about the outlook for economies in the U.S. and Europe. Tennenbaum also discusses the outlook for the European Union, Germany’s economy, Federal Reserve monetary policy and his investment strategy. He speaks with Pimm Fox on Bloomberg Television’s “Taking Stock.” (Source: Bloomberg)
This was a good interview.
OECD raises spectre of global recession
Paris thinktank says trade growth slowed dramatically in almost every major world economy during the autumn
Heather Stewart
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 30 November 2011 08.47 EST
Article history
Export growth in China slowed sharply in the third quarter, the OECD said. Photograph: Str/AFP/Getty Images
Trade growth stalled in almost every major economy in the autumn as the crisis in the eurozone hammered business confidence, raising the spectre of a worldwide downturn.
In its regular report on the state of the global marketplace, Paris-based thinktank the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) says: “Trade growth slowed strongly in most major economies in the third quarter of 2011.”
The industrialised G7 countries and the Brics – Brazil, Russia, India and China – saw a 1% decline in imports in the third quarter of the year, compared to a 4.6% increase in the second quarter.
The widespread nature of the slowdown will alarm analysts, because it is reminiscent of autumn 2008, in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, when world trade plunged sharply as confidence collapsed. Then, falling trade volumes – and sharp declines in measures such as the Baltic Dry Goods index, which tracks shipping costs – were the first warning signals that the global economy was on the brink of a deep recession.
…
They must be mistaken. Consumer driven economies don’t actually need consumers. Just ask Wall St.
…and various MSM sock puppets.
Or to be more accurate: “Consumers” don’t need incomes … they only need access to loans.
Illegal aliens will come here to consume the things real Americans won’t.
Now that’s just funny, I don’t care who ya are!
Bloomberg
American Economy Rebounding as Investor Favorite in Global Poll
December 07, 2011, 6:32 AM EST
By Rich Miller
(For more on the Bloomberg poll, click on POLL.)
Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. receives its highest rating from international investors in more than two years on new optimism that the world’s largest economy will weather the financial crisis in Europe and avoid a recession in 2012, according to a Bloomberg poll.
More than two in five of those surveyed — 41 percent — identify the U.S. as among the markets that will perform best over the next year. That’s up from less than one in three who felt that way in September and is the biggest percentage for the U.S. since the survey began in October 2009. It’s also almost double that of the next two top-rated markets, Brazil and China, according to the quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll conducted Dec. 5-6 of 1,097 investors, analysts and traders who are Bloomberg subscribers.
The U.S. “may not be in the best shape ever, but compared to others it should outperform,” Alexis Laming, a poll respondent and associate director for Arab Bank (Switzerland) Ltd. in Geneva, says in an e-mail. It has “good growth potential for next year.”
Less than a quarter of investors say they expect the U.S. to relapse into recession within the next year, according to the poll. In September, half those surveyed forecast a U.S. economic contraction within that time frame.
U.S. respondents are more optimistic about the American market than their counterparts overseas: More than half pick it as a best-performing market for 2012 compared with a third of non-U.S. investors who do the same.
…
Huh? I don’t think so.
http://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/01/9145730-we-are-the-median-living-on-50000-a-year?google_editors_picks=true
U.S. respondents are more optimistic about the American market than their counterparts overseas
Like I’ve said before, all we have to do is suck less than everyone else to keep the loans coming.
Of course “optimism about the American market” is code for “now we will depend more than ever on exports to the USA” and not “we’ll build factories and hire people in the USA”.
If I may venture out on a limb for a moment, here’s a prediction:
I think that, before too long, the United States is going to be known as the comeback kid of countries.
I hope you’re right.
I think that, before too long, the United States is going to be known as the comeback kid of countries.
I think it’s definitely possible. I also think that to do it will require accepting the reality and consequences we’ve been trying so hard to avoid.
Comeback as measured by total GDP, yes.
For much of the Lucky Ducky working population, there will be no comeback, no recovery, no trickle down.
the world’s largest economy……I hear this phrase all the time.
The US is an unusual collection of States, i.e. independent (until the Civil War) sovereign nations, excluding, of course, the so-called Tribal Nations, within the nation.
But the FACT is that the Collection of Eurozone Countries are the world’s largest economy. It becomes misleading to talk about Germany/France/Italy as “independent” if we don’t talk about Florida, California, Texas, etc. as independent, at least in terms of economic impact.
FLORIDA has nearly 19 million residents, excluding the illegals that we don’t count, more like over 20 million. If Florida was considered and independent sovereign (as in the Confederation of States), then Florida would rank about 55 in the size of WORLD Countries, larger than Greece, Belgium, Chile, the Netherlands, the Czech Rep.,Sweden, Switzerland, Israel, Libya, Serbia, Ireland, Costa Rica, New Zealand, and about 200 other “countries”.
California has a larger population than Canada, the big country to our north.
In reality, we are just one region of a very large world economy. When you take Europe as a block, they have a bigger impact on the “world economy”. I guess It’s just pride or hubris that keeps the media referring to the US as the “world’s biggest economy”. I think it would be more accurate to refer to us as the worlds biggest debtors.
Now you know why there are so many eager reports that the EU isn’t going to make it.
There is MUCH coveting of control over that market.
Plan would speed foreclosures
By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 8:49 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2011
Some Florida lawmakers want to tweak a rarely used fast-track foreclosure law to shrink the state’s court backlog and as an end run around Wall Street reforms that may bar nonjudicial foreclosures.
The Senate judiciary committee, which has discussed ways to reduce the average two-year timeline to repossess a home in Florida, is scheduled to meet today in Tallahassee.
Committee member Sen. David Simmons, R-Maitland, said this week that he has drafted a bill that would change Florida Statute 702.10, a 1993 law that requires a property owner to “show cause” why a final foreclosure judgment should not be entered on an expedited basis. The bill isn’t on the agenda yet.
According to a foreclosure report by Senate staff that was presented to the committee last month, bank lawyers haven’t used the law because they believe it is limited to nonresidential property and doesn’t allow for a deficiency judgment to be entered against the owner.
The report also says that the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, signed into law in July 2010, puts limits on nonjudicial foreclosures and that adopting a nonjudicial process would require substantial changes to property laws.
Simmons said the Florida Bankers Association asked him to work on a proposal that will help clear an estimated court backlog of 371,000 foreclosure cases. His bill, which would affect current foreclosures, is still being drafted and not yet available online, he said.
“We’ve got to create an expedited method of dealing with this that will take down the backlog where the homeowner has no defenses and is simply waiting it out, or where the homes are abandoned,” Simmons said. “At the same time, if there is a legitimate defense that a homeowner wants to raise, then they need to be able to raise it.”
Florida is one of 21 states that have strict judicial foreclosure proceedings, meaning banks must get a judge’s approval before repossessing a home.
Rep. Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, was the first this year to file a bill aimed at expediting foreclosures. The proposal, HB 213, has since been substantially rewritten to include changes to the same statute Simmons hopes to amend, she said Tuesday.
She said her changes would require the courts to decide whether a homeowner has a legitimate defense to fight the foreclosure. If not, the judge could issue a final judgment.
“Some defenses should be heard, but if the borrower just responds by saying ‘I don’t want to move out,’ that doesn’t do anyone any good,” Passidomo said. “At some point, we’ve got to get these houses back on the market and this issue resolved.”
Passidomo said her bill also would allow third parties, such as homeowners associations, to move foreclosures forward when banks are delaying action.
Foreclosure defense attorneys and homeowner advocates have opposed changes to Florida law that would take cases out of the court system. They argue that chain of ownership confusion created by the mass securitization of mortgages, as well as paperwork problems caused by banks taking foreclosure shortcuts, would sail through without correction if judges were taken out of the process.
Expedited foreclosure legislation has failed the past few years in Florida, but bank representatives and lawmakers believe they have a better chance of getting something passed during the 2012 session.
“Everyone is starting to realize that to turn around the economy we have to get through this housing market,” said Anthony DiMarco, executive vice president of government affairs for the Florida Bankers Association.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/foreclosures/plan-would-speed-foreclosures-2016857.html -
11 COMMENTS (worth reading)
“Some defenses should be heard, but if the borrower just responds by saying ‘I don’t want to move out,’ that doesn’t do anyone any good,”
That’s a straw man there. Does anyone get to court and simply say, ‘I don’t want to move out’?
The real question is, if they ask to be shown proof that the forecloser has the right to foreclose, will that be considered a ‘defense that should be heard’?
it surprises me how many self-described libertarians are willing to overlook this lack of proof, in order to ‘get the deadbeats out’. Seems like a major protection we’re ceding to the PTB, if this becomes the new standard.
Of course the bill has the support of the banksters association. And they’re the guys sitting on all the inventory anyway. Or can they not prove ownership of any of those properties? An important fact we need to find out- now. Otherwise, who wants to buy a house that no one can show clear title to?
Nobody goes in with “I dont’ want to move out.” That is absurd. Even someone without a lawyer wouldn’t do that.
The real question is would anyone go in with a, “They promised me that we could work out a modification and I sent in the paperwork 17 times and got 4 verbal assurances that we would be able to work it out and here is the proof that I qualify under the guidelines they sent me but they are trying to foreclose anyway.”
The federally inspired modification programs were purely voluntary on the part of the banks. They took some cash from the adminstration to do the three month test drive modifications, but there was no obligation to make them permanent. A bank might have an agreement with its state to actually do modifications under certain circumstances (and its other legal obligations under its servicing agreement allowing it), but I kind of doubt Florida is one of those places. That means that “but they promised me they would help me” is pretty much meaningless in court.
The bank is going to respond with show me the written proof that we promised to do something since we have no records of making any verbal promises. The borrower won’t have it.
And the foreclosure will go forward unless the person running the proceedings is a real softie. If they are trying to clear the backlog, they won’t hire real softies.
The only defenses that really have any chance of working are:
1) Wrong house, I am not behind on my payments/paid off my mortgage/never had one in the first place
2) You are not the owner of my mortgage and have no right to act on behalf of the people who do.
The first is a vanishingly small minority of the cases. The second is being corrected as the paperwork debacle gets fixed.
“The second is being corrected as the paperwork debacle gets fixed.”
So we’re told. Makes you wonder why they try to pass bills like this in the meantime, though.
Well, since there isn’t any text available for review, there is no real way to know. They might be trying to do an end run around producing the original documents. Most states have ways around that (documents got lost/misfiled before MERS), but it could be burdensome. Maybe they are trying to create an easier way around it.
And the issue is only really relevant if the dispute can only be resolved by the original docs. If the person acknowledges the debt and agrees the fact that s/he paid it for 2 years before walking is pretty good evidence that all was OK before the value went down, then there isn’t a lot that they need the original docs for.
If the dispute has nothing to do with the validity of the original docs, then producing the original docs doesn’t resolve much. It is required under the law (real estate law is more fussy about written records than even other types of law), but if they change their rules, they could get to a final order a lot faster when the original docs can’t resolve the dispute.
” then there isn’t a lot that they need the original docs for.”
Except to prove true ownership. Something I would like to verify before I bought such a house.
Or are we through doing title searches, and now we just take someone’s word for it all being legit?
I’m assuming there are photocopies or images of the original docs available. The original docs are needed if the owner claims that someone pasted $365K total amount borrowed over the papers they originally signed for $350K borrowed (and adding $15K to the origination fee). You have to be able to look at the papers with the original signature on it to prove that sort of thing. Even that sort of change isn’t likely to be enough to prevent the foreclosure, though it will effect the amount of the deficiency judgement. And raise a fraud charge for the low level employee who deployed the white out.
Other than a claim that the papers were altered after being signed, an image or copy of the docs should be more than enough as long as state law allows those copies to be sufficient proof.
“I’m assuming there are photocopies or images of the original docs available.”
Why do I have the feeling that 50 years from now those photocopies will be long lost? They sure won’t be stored in the county vault, apparently. But I’m sure the banksters will have them…somewhere…maybe…
Polly, what about those who go in with “The mean old bank wouldn’t gimme a refinance” and start up the waterworks? IMO that doesn’t carry any legal weight, but it does fire up the MSM.
That is what I raised in this paragraph (trying to present the most sympathetic version):
The real question is would anyone go in with a, “They promised me that we could work out a modification and I sent in the paperwork 17 times and got 4 verbal assurances that we would be able to work it out and here is the proof that I qualify under the guidelines they sent me but they are trying to foreclose anyway.”
Unless that bank has some deal with the state to get out of fraud charges by actually doing the mods (assuming they even can under their servicing agreement), this is not going to do anything. Especially not in a state that has decided that they want to plow through the backlog.
However, even if the paperwork debacle is solved, historically judicial states take longer to process than non-judicial.
So, non-judicial states are faster to foreclose/clear the pipeline, and generally didn’t slow down due to robosigning, AND judicial states virtually stopped (creating a backlog) and generally are slower anyway to foreclosure/clear the pipeline.
The foreclosure mess will be worked through far sooner in non-judicial states–even if foreclosures go back to the historically “normal” pace in judicial states.
There are other issues here not being considered. As some of you “long-time” bloggers may recall, I posted about a year back about the house I had “contracted to buy” from Freddie Mac. The house had ALREADY been foreclosed. It had been vacant for nearly 1.5 years. It had been on the market for sale for a couple of months.
I made an offer. The offer was accepted. The Title Company cashed my deposit check and was in the process of setting up the closing date. Then, the MERS crap stirred up a bunch of Tort Lawyers who said they could get you your house back for free.
The prior owner then contacted one such lawyer and the lawyer sued over the Foreclosure. I am assuming claiming it was robo-signed and done illegally.
FReddie Mac backed out of my contract and withdrew the sale pending the outcome of this new litigation (couldn’t guarantee title). That was in Early Nov 2010. I contracted in October hoping to close for Thanksgiving.
The house is still vacant, and still not back on the market.
The prior owner had 160,000 purchase (circa 2005), I assume mostly in mortgage. I contracted for a CASH price of 62,000. Do you think the owner wants to get the house back and “adjust” the 160k she owed? Or do you think she is hoping for a “free house” because the bank can’t “prove” that she owes them the money?
Doesn’t matter. My contract was terminated. The house sits vacant………….awaiting another court decision.
“Do you think the owner wants to get the house back and “adjust” the 160k she owed? Or do you think she is hoping for a “free house” because the bank can’t “prove” that she owes them the money?”
What difference does it make? She wants the house back, and there was probably some reason under the law at the time that the foreclosure was not valid. That means she shouldn’t have lost the house at that time.
This push may (MAY) be the State of Florida changing their laws so that whatever was wrong with that foreclosure is no longer a problem. It might be something different. But I, for one, don’t want states changing their laws around because it would be a good outcome for you.
If the laws are bad, change them to be better. But don’t make up the rules as you go along because it might be better for the economy. There is enough discretion in legal enforcement (mostly based on who has the money) without tossing them out completely.
There was probably NOTHING wrong with the foreclosure. The new lawsuit simply clouded the title so that a transfer cannot be made. I suspect that when this particular house gets settled, it will be back with Freddie Mac, and put back on the market. If there was something wrong, the Judge who did the foreclosure should have caught it when it went through the process.
That’s the reason the lender goes to Court. To settle the issue.
The Buyer had every opportunity up to that time and even during the hearing to bring any pertinent information to the fore.
There are lots of Tort lawyers who will bring just about any case to court to try and get some cash out of settlement. I think this was just a case of fishing for an opportunity.
I am watching the house.
I will follow the trail as to who ends up with the title and what ultimately happens. I don’t agree with you.
I don’t think she wants the house back, unless she can get it as the price I agreed to pay, forgiving all the balance of the debt. She stopped making payments and let the house go into foreclosure. It takes a LONG time of not making payments to get there.
So, she doesn’t want the house under the terms of the original loan, or she would have brought the payments current.
I think the reality is that for some homes, the paperwork is a complete disaster, and there may be arguments that the entity trying to foreclose can’t show a legal right to do so.
I’m guessing this is 10% of the homes on the high side. But, all processing has essentially stopped.
I think the likely scenario is that when things get restarted, a good portion of those 10% will still be snarled up in a fight, but the 90% will proceed forward…with the only impediments being 1) the new procedures being put in place, and 2) the distraction for lenders and the court system that the fight over the 10% causes.
The 10% is a WAG, but you can insert your own percentage…5%? 25%? Who knows, but I’m willing to wager it is the minority, not majority of homes in the foreclosure process.
Of course it will end up back with Freddie Mac again. That doesn’t mean there wasn’t something wrong with the original foreclosure. Law is a process. If the process isn’t right, the result isn’t right at that time. It may be the right result later, when the process has been done right.
We have to live with this because we are a nation of laws. If you want to just let some wise or good or fair person make the decisions without worrying about the process, well, that is called a dictatorship. No thanks.
Good grief. Even with the protections of process we get stuff wrong. Lets not get rid of even that.
Some document showing right to foreclose should be in the record, which the defendant should check out before appearing. If there is nothing in the record, the hearing would probably just be continued until the bank gets the right paperwork filed, so the new law probably wouldn’t have much effect.
As part of Bank of America’s 8.5 settlement with bilked MBS investors in June, supposedly they agreed to expedite looming foreclosures.
Anecdotally, my wife’s home was sold rather than rescheduled for the umpteenth time. And since the settlement, Recontrust’s scheduled sales has gone in our county from 600plus to 314 as of today. So they are finally taking them back, after inexplicable, countless, delays.
Although these delays granted us an undeserved reprieve from having to move, we are glad to have a lease where we know how long we get to live. So I guess no more free houses for freeloaders in OR. Hope that the trend comes to Florida for you.
Are Florida judges elected? Can they accept campaign contributions from banks?
Yes they are elected (locally,i.e.,county), and yes they can get campaign contributions from banks. At the State level they are appointed by the governor, but we get a ballot every couple of years asking if they should retain their seat, so we get to kick them out for their awful decisions.
Cleveland, Cuyahoga County Property Values May Plunge Next Year, Fed Says
By Mark Niquette -
Dec 6, 2011 1:32 PM ET
Declining property values in Cuyahoga County and Cleveland, its largest city, may force local governments to raise taxes or cut services after parcels are reappraised in 2012, a report by Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland researchers said.
Falling prices suggest that property values could be up to 45 percent lower than 2010 county estimates, according to a study issued today by Thomas J. Fitzpatrick IV and Mary Zenker. The impact on tax collections in municipalities already facing tight budgets, especially in Cleveland and its inner-ring suburbs, “could be significant,” the researchers said.
“If creative ways to make up for this lack of revenue are not found, local governments may face the undesirable choice of either raising property taxes or reducing funding for essential services,” the study said. “The dramatic fall in property values across the country will accelerate the financial distress of municipalities in the wake of the Great Recession.”
The researchers used Cleveland and Cuyahoga County in northeast Ohio as a case study. Using the sale prices of residential properties, they estimated the current market value of parcels compared with county estimates from 2006-2010. Researchers projected that property values in Cuyahoga County will be between 11 percent and 18 percent lower than 2010 estimates after next year’s reappraisal — a $1.1 billion loss to the county tax base.
Property values may be 38 percent to 45 percent lower than county estimates in Cleveland and 26 percent to 30 percent lower in inner-ring suburbs, the report said.
“If appraisals come in close to this far below the 2010 county estimates, Cleveland and the inner-ring suburbs may face a significant tax revenue shock in 2012,” the researchers said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-06/cleveland-cuyahoga-county-property-values-may-plunge-fed-says-in-report.html -
Oh please. All they gotta do is raise the millage.
Don’t try that in Colorado. Because of TABOR millage can only be raised by citizen’s vote. And it RARELY gets approved. Our schools are falling appart as year after year of budget cut has reduced Colorado to being in the bottom 10 on per pupil spending (we’re around 6K now IIRC). The initiative to increase millage to restore school funding to 7K per pupil went down in flames.
“Falling prices suggest that property values could be up to 45 percent lower than 2010 county estimates, according to a study issued today by Thomas J. Fitzpatrick IV and Mary Zenker.”
So much for the false theory that U.S. real estate values have bottomed out. Apparently, all bottoming out is local.
Realtors Are Liars®
Congress Are Whores®
Michelle Meyer: This Is What’s Wrong With Housing -Analyst BOA/ML http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ACzcCfmZH4&feature=related
Laurie Goodman & Michelle Meyer are interviewed in that video. Interesting stuff.
Laurie Goodman & Michelle Meyers (Chief BOA Economist)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ACzcCfmZH4&feature=related
repeat post
The problem with global finance. Really putting it in a nice, understandable nutshell.
http://takimag.com/article/the_problem_with_global_finance#axzz1flzUYlI3
And after reading this, I realize the bankster’s business model is, hey, if the people we lent the money to don’t pay us, we’ll go after others who had nothing to do with it. And the gubbermint will be our collection agency.
From the eurozone to Asia, the industrialized nations are failing to make the only real investment people can make: creating a new generation of useful citizens who can keep civilization’s wheels spinning.
+
Finance is the loaning of money from the old and wealthy to the young and poor.
So, let’s see how this “theory” works out using “it’s a spinning wobbling planet!” type calculation$: “applied” physics + (Human tendencie$)/error x1:
Driver (age 60+) = Old & wise!
Car: Lamborghini (new)
Driver’s son (from 3rd marriage) (age 22) = young & energetic!
Car: Ferraris (slightly used)
Showing off on the streets of Japan: Pricele$$
Luxury car crash in Japan may see 60 year old driver being charged:
“A dozen cars have now been turned into scrap metal due to the accident, and at least ten of them are among the most expensive and sought after vehicles for collectors. Other cars that were caught up in the accident included a Toyota Prius, Nissan GT-R and two top-of-the-line Mercedes-Benz cars.”
(Instead of the Prius for the pace car, shoulda used a Hummer)
This comes around to the concept of the government centrally planning the housing market.
All it does, in its effort to prop up housing prices through government intervention, is hurts the young, the first time home buyers and renters.
Who does it help? Wall Street lending companies. But what about current home owners though, who want their prices kept high? Interesting thing about that - the housing market is a food chain. The lower end houses are bought by the young or first time buyers, who can then later sell and buy a bigger house and so on up the price ladder.
BUT - if you stop that bottom rung, the entry of new buyers into the market, the music stops.
The short term goal this government central planning of the housing market has is to keep profits up for the banks and their balance sheets looking good. It’s helping the cronies but I think it’s hurting the market and a good chunk of the population..
Forget about economic justice, interrupting the housing food chain at the lower rungs is going to hurt the entire food chain, all the way up the price ladder.
The move up market has collapsed. First time buyers are now able to buy at the top of the rung, because outside of rich people’s homes, the average buyer tops out at what we call McMansions.
The more interesting question is what happens to the so-called starter homes when the top level is the same price.
The more interesting question is what happens to the so-called starter homes when the top level is the same price.
They get held on the books for a decade at 2005 prices while sitting empty and then get bulldozed?
I had a lunch with a friend in the insurance business that deals with contractors. Business has been way down for years as contractors do not need the insurance for their employees such as workmen’s compensation.
Seems pretty bleak if you do business with contractors.
I’ve done a bit of construction photography over the years. Have tried to sell this service to contractors and guess what? Nothing doing.
I’ve also put any thought of selling design services to contractors on hold for the time being.
There an interesting graph in the youtube video Awaiting posted above. It shows construction employment dropping dramatically after the pop in 2006-2008, but still at or above 2000 levels. If it were to drop to 1990 levels it would mean a dip of equal magnitude to what we’ve already seen.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=198719
Are they really this dumb? (Bernanke et al.)
“We Are The Median”
http://lifeinc.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/01/9145730-we-are-the-median-living-on-50000-a-year?google_editors_picks=true
“From 2007 to 2010, the Census Bureau estimates that median household income fell by 6.4 percent, to $49,445, as unemployment soared to a peak of over 10 percent. (The jobless rate dropped last month to 8.6 percent — still high by historical standards although the best level in more than two years.)
Of course, median income varies a lot depending on what kind of household you live in. For families, defined as two or more related people living together, median household income was $61,544 last year. For single people, it was $29,730.”
Welcome to the Lucky Ducky future
Love to hear the eCONomists spin this one about how it’s possible to have a recovery in an economy that is 70% consumer spending, when the consumers don’t have any jobs or money.
As long as I got credit cards with higher and higher limits - I can buy whatever I want…
Where have you been for the past few weeks?
Military duty.
FYI
Huge housing bubbles around some military bases.
Soldiers make some coin on deployments and they do spend it when they get back.
E-4s driving $50,000 trucks. Pricy restaurants crazy on Tuesday nights. And everyone is buying housing.
Soldiers make some coin on deployments and they do spend it when they get back.
Like I’ve said before, being a soldier is the new good paying blue collar job, especially since the construction bubble will be dead for a long time.
…yeah it’s all fun and games until somebody puts and eye out!
As long as I got credit cards with higher and higher limits - I can buy whatever I want…
In Jib-jab’s “Big Boxmart” that is the point the shopper makes. As long as he has a fistful of credit cards he will be fullfilled.
See earlier posted article posted by CIBT:
“OECD raises spectre of global recession”
Trade growth stalled in almost every major economy in the autumn as the crisis in the eurozone hammered business confidence, raising the spectre of a worldwide downturn.
“This is far and away the strongest global economy I’ve seen in my business lifetime” - Henry Paulson, 7/12/2007
Hoping to bust blight, Royal Palm Beach hires company to track foreclosed homes
By Mitra Malek Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 8:39 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 1, 2011
ROYAL PALM BEACH — The village will turn to professionals to track homes that are in some stage of foreclosure so that its communities can keep weedy lots with broken windows at bay.
The village council this evening voted unanimously to hire Federal Property Registration Corp. to identify properties in default and notify owners and mortgagees that they must register with the village.
Until now, village staff had been tracking the properties in response to an ordinance the council passed in April aimed at preventing vacant or foreclosed properties from falling into disrepair. Upon passage, the village had planned to hire a company to do the work, but the staff took on the task temporarily to see if it was feasible to handle in-house.
Federal Property Registration Corp. in October reported to the council that it had found 1,427 problem properties, while staff had identified about 325.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/foreclosures/hoping-to-bust-blight-royal-palm-beach-hires-2007460.html?showComments=true - 85k
Somewhere between the padding by the company and the slack from the council is the real number.
“Somewhere between the padding by the company and the slack from the council is the real number.”
In the Village of Royal Palm Beach which is west of town? If anything the 1,427 number is low.
Yikes!
HUD demands $654,000 from West Palm for Redemptive Life’s Coleman Park housing project
By Andrew Abramson and Kimberly Miller
Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
Updated: 10:00 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011
Posted: 8:32 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2011
Homes in the 800 block of 22nd Street are part of a city program to build and rehab 60 homes in troubled Coleman Park. West Palm has spent more than $3 million in federal stimulus money.
WEST PALM BEACH — The city has been ordered to reimburse the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development $654,000 by Jan. 4 for failing to properly administer federally funded low-income housing projects run by Bishop Harold Ray of Redemptive Life Fellowship Church.
West Palm Beach officials meanwhile have ordered Redemptive Life Urban Initiatives, a non-profit associated with Ray’s 600-member church in West Palm Beach, to repay the city as much as $1.1 million. The city has been demanding documentation from the nonprofit to prove the federal money it received from the city was not used to pay board members or to hire builders without putting contracts out to bid, as federal rules require.
Turner has said it was the city’s own internal monitoring, and not HUD, that found numerous problems in the program and that the city alerted HUD it was looking into the matter.
Those problems included two instances in which the city reimbursed Redemptive Life twice for the same project after being double-billed.
Dominion Realty, the company that sold the homes that Redemptive Life built and which received commissions on the project, was owned by Tram Ventures, which was started by Ray, according to documents in Ray’s response to the city’s questions.
Keith James now a city commissioner, was the registered agent for Tram when it was incorporated. James, who defended the church leader during a city hall meeting Monday, was paid from the federal funds, according to city records.
The city’s housing department has been a mess for years, Commissioner Kimberly Mitchell said Tuesday. An overhaul has been needed in the department for a long time.” she said.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/hud-demands-654-000-from-west-palm-for-2016845.html
Now you all know I am not smart enough to work for the govt. or be a city commissioner or anything but I may have raised an eyebrow B4 I plowed $3 million in federal stimulus money to a Bishop who watches over his 600 person flock in the hood and then drives home to his mansion in a gated community of multi millionaires where he watches over his realestate fraud empire and his serial refinancing.
Location Address: 11771 LITTLESTONE CT
Municipality: UNINCORPORATED
Parcel Control Number: 00-41-42-14-07-000-1100
Subdivision: STONEWAL ESTATES
Official Records Book: 09416 Page: 1263 Sale Date: Aug-1996
Legal Description: STONEWAL ESTATES LT 110
Owner Information
Name: RAY HAROLD C &
Mailing Address: 11771 LITTLESTONE CT
WEST PALM BEACH FL 33412 1621
Sales Information
Aug-1996 09416/1263 $600,000 WARRANTY DEED
6. Bed Rooms 6
7. Full Baths 5
Subarea and Sq. Footage for Building 1
No. Code Description Sq. Footage
1. BAS BASE AREA 5270
2. FOP FINISHED OPEN PORCH 108
3. FOP FINISHED OPEN PORCH 590
4. FOP FINISHED OPEN PORCH 144
5. FGR FINISHED GARAGE 672
6. BAS BASE AREA 391
11. Roof Cover CONC. TILE
15. Floor Type 2 MARBLE
Total Square Footage : 7175
Total Area Under Air : 5661
POOL - IN-GROUND
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 8/29/1996 11:09:09
CFN: 19960301294
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 9416/1265
Pages: 7
Consideration: $480,000.00
Party 1: RAY HAROLD CALVIN & BRENDA JOYCE
RAY BRENDA JOYCE (M)
Party 2: FIRST FED S&L PBS
Legal: STONEWAL EST #1 L110 L
Its party time for the Bishop!
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 5/21/2003 10:30:13
CFN: 20030294480
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 15253/1924
Pages: 21
Consideration: $565,000.00
Party 1: RAY BRENDA J
RAY HAROLD C
Party 2: CHASE MANHATTAN MORTGAGE CORPORATION
Legal: STONEWAL EST #1 L110 L
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 7/13/2004 13:21:19
CFN: 20040406266
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 17249/1264
Pages: 9
Consideration: $218,000.00
Party 1: RAY HAROLD CALVIN
RAY BRENDA JOYCE
Party 2: CHASE MANHATTAN BANK USA NA
Legal: STONEWAL EST #1 L110 L
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 3/27/2006 16:46:19
CFN: 20060178083
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 20108/1817
Pages: 20
Consideration: $773,500.00
Party 1: RAY BRENDA J
RAY HAROLD C
Party 2: MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS INC
HSBC MORTGAGE CORPORATION USA
Legal: STONEWAL EST #1 L110
Type: LP
Date/Time: 2/2/2011 09:45:02
CFN: 20110039466
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 24342/1912
Pages: 1
Consideration: $0.00
Party 1: BAY HILL ESTATES PROPERTY OWNERS ASSOCIATION INC
Party 2: RAY HAROLD CALVIN
RAY BRENDA JOYCE
Legal: STONEWAL EST #1 L110 L
Forgive me father for I have stolen millions in federal stimulus money and artificially inflated refi gains from my mansion along with screwing my flock. Ah yes Redemptive Life is good.
Enlarge Photo 2003 photo: Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., left, and Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., right, listen as Bishop Harold Calvin Ray of West Palm Beach, founder and CEO of the National Center For Faith Based Initiative discuss their efforts to enlist congressional support for the program at a news conference at the Capitol.
Related
Willie Gary defends Bishop Ray: We don’t want to fight. If we have to, we’ll fight At palmbeachpost.com
West Palm’s history-rich Coleman Park neighborhood seeks revival
West Palm Beach demands cash from church after probe into low-income housing program
Revitalizing Coleman Park: Where are the buyers?
Coleman Park homes get energy efficiency makeovers
..
“Enlarge Photo 2003 photo: Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., left, and Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., right, listen as Bishop Harold Calvin Ray of West Palm Beach, founder and CEO of the National Center For Faith Based Initiative discuss their efforts to enlist congressional support for the program at a news conference at the Capitol.”
Aide to Rep. Alcee Hastings convicted of conspiracy, fraud, money laundering; lawyer vows appeal
by George Bennett | November 7th, 2011
Mikel D. Jones, a longtime Palm Beach County aide to U.S. Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar, was found guilty today by a federal jury of scheming to defraud a New York venture capital fund that helped finance Jones’ private law firm.
Jones, 55, who lives in Boynton Beach, received a $78,578 salary in 2010 as a top local aide to Hastings while also running a personal injury law firm in Philadelphia.
Jones was convicted of conspiracy, money laundering, 14 counts of wire fraud and 14 counts of mail fraud. His wife, Dona Nichols Jones, 54, was convicted of conspiracy, money laundering, and 14 counts of wire fraud.
Hastings in July called Jones a “top-flight congressional aide” and “my friend,” but said the charges against Jones had nothing to do with his congressional office and he knew nothing about them.
Today Hastings issued this terse statement:
“Today, I learned that Mikel Jones was found guilty of certain charges against in him in the United States District Court Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He is no longer employed by my Congressional office.”
http://www.postonpolitics.com/2011/11/aide-to-rep-alcee-hastings-convicted-of-conspiracy-fraud-money-laundering-lawyer-vows-appeal/
Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar: No
“Let me be clear: this debt ceiling ‘compromise’ won’t help our economy,” Hastings said in a statement. “Drastically slashing essential government spending at a time when Americans need it the most is not going to improve anything for the millions of struggling unemployed and underemployed people. When businesses won’t spend and consumers can’t, the government has to take the reins to boost demand and put money in people’s pockets. It is simple economics.”
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2011/aug/02/heres-how-local-congressmen-voted-on-raising-the/ - 176k
Revitalizing Coleman Park: Where are the buyers?
By Andrew Abramson Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 10:19 p.m. Saturday, May 21, 2011
A year and a half after the city announced with great fanfare that it would build and rehab 60 homes in Coleman Park, only three sales have closed. Nine more homes are under contract but don’t appraise out.
The city has spent more than $3 million in federal stimulus money to buy five dozen lots and 19 new manufactured houses, most of which remain empty.
“It’s frustrating,” Mayor Jeri Muoio said. “We want homeowners in that area. From what I understand, (the banks) are under-appreciating the land. The houses are well-built and worth the money built for them.”
Skip McDonough, president-owner of Family Mortgage in Jupiter, has worked with West Palm Beach in previous revitalization projects. He said the bank appraisals are realistic, even generous.
“I can’t imagine the houses being worth more than $30,000 to $40,000 right now,” he said. “No matter how nice the houses are, you still have to cross over Tamarind Avenue to go anywhere, and that has as high crime as anywhere else.”
The city never should have bought new homes in this market and should have focused on rehabilitating older ones, which would have cost much less, McDonough said.
“I don’t understand how you can be so incompetent,” he said. “It makes zero sense.”
The city hoped to take the money from selling them and turn around and build more houses to further revitalize the neighborhood. But only $1.3 million in federal stimulus grants is left with only three sales completed.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/revitalizing-coleman-park-where-are-the-buyers-1490205.html - 91k
“The city has spent more than $3 million in federal stimulus money to buy five dozen lots and 19 new manufactured houses”
60 lots in that hood = $60k and that is generous x 2
I will let someone else put a $ amount on the 19 new manufactured houses.
In a world where technology has dramatically reduced the number of people needed to produce goods and services how do you keep unemployment from spiralling.
1. Step one - Try to create new markets. ie globilization. This only works for a while.
2. Step two - Create new products - Computers cell phones TV’s, but how many more advancements do people need. 3d TV is a flub. Are we at the golf club stage in developement. ie every year they try to come up with some gimick that make people feel like they have an advantage, in reality all the gains from material and engineering advancements have been made. Pfizer just cut it’s R and D budet from 10 billion to 6 billion. My guess is others are doing the same because the easy advancements have been made. They don’t see as many block busters in the future.
3. Step three - Hand out credit to get those who can’t afford goods to buy them.
I think this is where the world is at.
I think step 4 will be either a downward spiral of consumption or gov will do something to redistribute wealth and create jobs. So far it looks like a spiral down.
Step 5 - WWIII? Gets rid of alot of excess capacity and consumers…
Don’t joke. The odds are very good it may still come to this.
Technically, we are in a world war right now. How many countries are we currently conducting active combat operations? Not to mention a few skirmishes here and there?
Uh huh. See?
Conversely, are more countries currently in combat now compared to the average number at any point since WWII? My guess: We are currently not significantly higher than average.
There was a comic strip from Argentina called “Mafalda”. Think of it as a high brow Latin American version of Peanuts, a little deeper and a more polical.
The main characters, as in Peanuts, are children (there are adults too).
Mafalda is the main character. She is a small child (they are all about 7-8 years old) with a very strong social conscience.
Anywho, in one strip Mafalda is worrying about global nuclear war. Here friend, Manolito (the son of a Spanish shopkeeper) tells her not to worry, as nuclear war would be detrimental to commerce, therefore it won’t happen. “Entre bueyes no hay cornadas” he tells her “oxen do not gore each other.”
Of course his world view is shaped around the family business and he was oblivious to the reality of what was back then the cold war.
But it brings up a good question. Will nations go to war over bad debts? It seems to me that there is plenty to lose and little to gain. Of course, we all know that humans can be irrational.
Those debts also represent some backroom deals we’ll never know about.
And it ain’t poker/beer money.
Deadbeat MegaBankersInc. CEO’$ & $upport $taffers?… or… Debbie-the-deadbeat-debtors-x-many-millions?
Who should we focu$ our US Gov’t workers & re$ources on as citizen/taxpayer-peons? Who?
California, Nevada AG’s join forces on foreclosure
December 6th, 2011, by Ronald Campbell / OC Register
Two months after quitting nationwide settlement talks with big banks, California Attorney General Kamala Harris announced an “investigation alliance” with Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto. The states, both hard hit by foreclosures, will share evidence and litigation strategies.
Harris walked out of settlement talks led by Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller and the Obama administration on Sept. 30. At that time, the attorneys general were said to be negotiating a settlement in the $10 billion to $25 billion range with the five biggest mortgage lenders.
States that have either left the talks or criticized their direction in addition to California and Nevada include New York, Massachusetts and Delaware. By pulling out, the states increase their potential leverage on the banks.
Harris said California and Nevada have been hit harder by foreclosure than any other state. She cited estimates by RealtyTrac that in October one of every 243 California homes and one of every 180 Nevada homes received a foreclosure filing.
Nevada sued Bank of America on Aug. 30. It also filed more than 600 felony charges against Orange County residents Gary Trafford and Gerri Sheppard on Nov. 16, for so-called “robo-signing” — forging signatures on foreclosure documents.
[Yikes!]
Both were mid-level employees of Loan Processing Services Inc., of Fort Lauderdale, a company that processes foreclosures for banks across the country. A notary who had endorsed purportedly forged documents and who was a key witness against the pair was found dead in her home last week, but three other notaries have been charged with aiding the scheme.
Massachusetts sued five major banks and the Mortgage Electronic Registration System on Dec. 1, alleging widespread violations of foreclosure laws.
Harris has not filed any lawsuits or criminal cases related to the foreclosure crisis.
Whatever became of the 546,669 California foreclosure filings (4% of the state’s housing units) in 2010? That many foreclosures just last year, and a foreclosure process which can be completed in nine months, suggests the resale market should be flooded with inventory as of the end of 2011; what is the status as I type of those 1/2 million+ homes (not to mention myriad foreclosures from 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2011)?
I predict that when the dust settles on the California housing bubble collapse, officials will rue the decision to withhold inventory from the market in 2011. There will be far fewer financially qualified owner-occupants ten years from now, as the tail end of the Baby Boomer generation will have little interest by then in family-sized housing, with their sights focused on downsizing for retirement.
California, Nevada form alliance to crack down on foreclosure fraud
By Michael Martinez, CNN
updated 4:29 PM EST, Tue December 6, 2011
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
-”This must be about reform,” California’s attorney general says
-Nevada and California ranked 1-2 last month in foreclosure percentages
* Nevada had 9.4% of its homes in foreclosure last year
* California had 4% of its housing units in foreclosure last year
Los Angeles (CNN) — Saying their states are hardest hit by the nation’s foreclosure and mortgage crises, the attorneys general of California and Nevada formalized Tuesday a joint investigation alliance to help homeowners victimized by fraud, officials said.
California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris and Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto said they are willing to partner with other states and provide support as California and Nevada investigate how pervasive is fraud in foreclosures and mortgages.
Harris said she has heard anecdotal stories during town hall meetings throughout the state about misconduct in the origination, servicing and foreclosure portions of the mortgage industry.
“That is part of our investigation, is to see how pervasive is the fraud,” Harris told reporters at a news conference Tuesday morning.
Their joint probe, during which the two states will share information, subpoenas and witnesses, will also seek reforms to protect homeowners, the officials said. Harris described the mortgage crisis as nationwide “man-made disaster” that has inflicted its worst toll on California and Nevada.
…
The foreclosure process in California can be completed in as few as nine months, Harris said.
In October, Nevada and California ranked No. 1 and No. 2 for the percentage of housing units in foreclosure, “reflecting a parallel surge in foreclosures in the two states,” officials said.
In Nevada, one of every 180 properties entered into foreclosure in October, officials said.
In California, one of every 243 homes received notice of a foreclosure filing, and in 2010, the state led the country with a total of 546,669 such filings, or 4% of the state’s housing units, officials said.
Nevada led the country with 9.4% of its homes going into foreclosure in 2010, officials said.
The pipeline for new foreclosures in CA is shrinking though…7.3% non-current in CA per LPS. This is 22nd best in the country (and continuing to improve in rankings every month).
The high foreclosure rate is because CA is continuing to foreclose, and it’s a non-judicial state.
Let me restate my point:
How did the state absorb millions of foreclosures (including foreclosures for other recent years besides 2010) during a period of double-digit unemployment, tightening lending standards and outmigration?
The picture makes little sense, unless there are many more vacant CA homes in shadow inventory than commonly believed.
We live in a contradiction world, a world that is overflowing with goods and services but the serfs cannot afford to purchase what they produce. In the past scarcity of goods (famine, etc.) was the harbinger of bad times. I’m sure the ancients would find our poverty ridden world of plenty to be puzzling.
If this situation continues some flavor of step 4 might happen, whether it is a communist revolt or a a more benign socialits redistribution remains to be seen. History does tell that the 1%er’s try hoard all the marbles which eventually instigates something nasty like communism.
On CNBC (linked from Drudge): More Americans Go Abroad for Economic Opportunities
“the percentage of Ameicans aged 25 to 34 actively planning to relocate outside the U.S. has quintupled in just two years, from less than 1 percent to 5.1 percent.
Younger Americans seem even keener to look abroad, with 40 percent of those 18-24 expressing interest in foreign relocation, which is up from 15 percent two years ago.”
Younger Americans seem even keener to look abroad, with 40 percent of those 18-24 expressing interest in foreign relocation, which is up from 15 percent two years ago
Does that include kids who sign up for the US military
More Americans Go Abroad for Economic Opportunities
Wait until they get a load of the 3rd world salaries and realize that illegals are paid more to bus tables in the USA than their 3rd World white collar jobs pay.
I knew a guy who romanticized about how cool it would be to live in Costa Rica. Then he went to visit and checked into the cost of living vs. the pay.
He came back and no longer talked about it.
As someone who has lived in a 3rd world country I can tell you that unless you own a business or are a member of the managerial class you will live a lifestyle worse than a US Lucky Ducky.
A friend spent some time living in Costa Rica. The level of incompetence in everyday activities never ceased to amaze him. He was very happy to come back to the good ole USA.
Then there was the acquaintance who lived in Chile while her husband was doing academic research there. The country seemed to run on who you know, rather than what you know. Which didn’t lead to the best results.
Like my friend, she was very happy to the land of the free and the home of the brave.
I have to wonder if there is a country on the planet where government is not corrupt, and where who you know isn’t more important than what you know.
I used to think about relocating outside the U.S. But the realization has set in that you will always be a foreigner if you become an ex-pat. Some days, I feel like that would be OK; however when you get to be old, you want the familiar comforts of home around you.
The Nordic countries seem to be doing well in that respect.
My wife is Chilean, and we travel there frequently. I don’t think it is any worse than here, at least in Santiago. It certainly isn’t any cheaper to live there than it is here.
The Nordic countries seem to be doing well in that respect.
And you are a RACIST
Any suggestion that those frozen, nordlander, ice people could do anything better than a multi-culti swirling cesspit of diversity and anomie like the U.S. of Amerikwa is racist, racist, racist
See also Japan
There was a comedian on NPR the other day that was commenting (in connection to the OWS movement) about how his 13-year-old daughter camped out in the garage, demanding “fairness”, and that his response was:
1. You are a pretty good looking kid;
2. Living in the United States; and
3. Was born into a pretty well-off family.
You better hope the world doesn’t become more “fair”.
In all seriousness, we need to find a way to battle against globalization and poor policies at home in a way that allows more of those on the lower end of the pay scale to afford the products that they produce–however, we should all admit that the US is still a pretty damn good place to be living.
I have been out of the country for 3 years now. I dont plan on coming back until they overhaul the tax code.
I dont plan on coming back until they overhaul the tax code.
Hwy’s big brother, the “Tax Expert”, is wallowing in pro$perity (-ethical behaviors). :-/
With state government gridlocked, politicians turn to the voters
December 6, 2011 | 11:58 am
This year’s bipartisan budget negotiations in Sacramento broke down over three key issues: taxes, public employee pensions and a limit on future state spending. Despite lawmakers’ inability to reach a deal on those issues, it appears voters will have a chance to have their say on all three.
Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday introduced his proposal to raise sales taxes and income taxes for upper earners, and has said he wants curbs on public pensions on the November ballot. On Tuesday, a coalition of taxpayer groups filed a measure to limit state spending, something legislative Republicans have insisted be a part of any tax-increase plan.
The new initiative would cap state spending, allowing increases linked to the annual growth in personal income.
“This sound and sensible proposal will force government to live within its means, balance the budget, pay down debt and control spending,” said Teresa Casazza, president of the California Taxpayers Assn. “It is time voters demand fiscal discipline by passing this measure, which calls for excess revenue above the limit to first be used to pay down state debt.”
…
Train$, Plane$ & $olar Panels (w tax advantage$)
Berkshire Buys $2 Billion Power Project in Buffett Solar Bet
December 07, 2011, / By Todd White and Marc Roca / Bloomberg
Buffett, 81, has said that businesses like utilities have earnings power even under adverse economic conditions and can provide fair returns on capital as long as they make investments in infrastructure to meet customer needs. Owning utilities is “not a way to get rich,” he said at a meeting of U.S. state regulators in 2006. “It’s a way to stay rich.”
Berkshire’s earnings from the utilities and energy business were $888 million in the nine months ended Sept. 30, an increase of 13 percent from the same period last year.
When completed, the 2 solar projects will produce 1.2 billion kilowatt-hours of energy per year, enough to provide power for about 170,000 homes. First Solar says it will cost .90 cents per watt to make just the panels.
*BTW, PV electricity uses zero water to produce power.
The fix is out, at least for the moment. I’m wondering if the eurozone leaders will find it easier or harder to reach agreement on deep and widespread austerity measures than did the U.S. Congressional Super Committee?
Dec. 7, 2011, 9:58 a.m. EST
Euro falls more; Germany shoots down latest plan
ECB dollar lending surges after central bank move last week
By Deborah Levine and William L. Watts, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The dollar extended gains against the euro on Wednesday following reports that Germany is rejecting the latest proposal to boost the euro zone’s ability to bail out larger debtors.
The shared currency was under pressure already after banks aggressively took advantage of the European Central Bank’s first dollar-liquidity operation since major central banks last week moved to cut the cost of dollar funding.
…
The US Congress quickly and easily voted on the cuts which were necessary. The Super Committee was just political theater and cover.
I’d love to see the votes of Congress on the cuts that accompanied the super committee, if anyone’s Google Fu is sufficiently powerful.
Found a Wikipedia link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_Control_Act_of_2011
American Dream fails in Inland Empire
by Mitchell Hartman
Marketplace for Monday, November 21, 2011
These handwritten signs dot the highway meridians in Rialto and surrounding towns. The only boom in real estate is in distressed properties right now.
Kai Ryssdal: The recession is, officially, over. A lot of experts and some economic indicators agree on that. But the experts and the indicators don’t know what they’re talking about.
In California’s Inland Empire, that’s definitely true. The Inland Empire’s out in in the desert east of L.A. with 4.3 million people living there, nearly double the population of Nevada. In the decades before the recession, it was the place families went to to pursue the American Dream. There were cheap suburban houses with two-car garages and good jobs in construction and warehousing and trucking. There were so many jobs, in fact, that the unemployment rate fell below 5 percent. Now, it’s triple that in many towns, and the dream has turned into something of a nightmare.
…
…and they still get all the smog that blows in from the coast.
The inland empire was the overflow zone for metro LA. Not surprising at all that the place has a poor educational demographic. How unskilled do you have to be to not be able to work in a “robotic” warehouse? It can’t be any harder than playing with an XBox.
How unskilled do you have to be to not be able to work in a “robotic” warehouse? It can’t be any harder than playing with an XBox.
A friend has been in the order fulfillment business for decades. What that means is that her company takes phone or Internet orders for merchandise, puts ‘em into boxes, and then ships them hither and yon.
To put it politely, she hires people who are personable and easy to get along with. They’re expected to be good team players, but that’s how fulfillment gets done. What they’re not expected to be is very bright or creative.
She has no problem finding plenty of potential employees to choose from.
Yup those skills are not important anymore…when they were, the DJ had multiple job opportunities, sometimes wishing for the old days, is the better choice.
What they’re not expected to be is very bright or creative.
“The Inland Empire’s out in in the desert east of L.A…”
It’s still better than the high desert, e.g., Lancaster, Palmdale, Victorville, etc., which have become hardcore section-8.
Blame Hitler: LOL!
Euro debt crisis has deep roots
The problems in Europe date back to the days of Adolf Hitler, seen here in an undated photo with then British Prime minister Neville Chamberlain.
by Stephen Beard
Marketplace Morning Report for Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Steve Chiotakis: Well the European crisis has many causes of course. Excessive debt, uncontrolled public spending… and Adolf Hitler.
Yeah, as Marketplace’s Stephen Beard reports, some of the roots of Europe’s current economic woes can be traced back to Germany’s infamous and murderous leader.
Stephen Beard: If you’re looking for someone to blame for the eurozone debt crisis you could start with this man: Adolf Hitler.
It was after the death and destruction caused by Adolf Hitler and his regime in the 1940s that Europe set off down the path that led to the common currency.
…
Didn’t Europe have a common currency UNDER Adolf Hitler?
What currency where the conquered countries using 1939-1945 until liberated?
The Deutschmark…
It was after the death and destruction caused by Adolf Hitler and his regime in the 1940s that Europe set off down the path that led to the common currency.
Actually, I believe it was the Reichmark
Cau$e & Effect Hwy50 style:
(Hwy’s visual flash card warning for children, PG13; for crude & violent images)
Easy: http://tinyurl.com/7jrhmz2
Peasy: http://tinyurl.com/76ndxs3
Lemon: http://tinyurl.com/29kknyn
Squeezy: http://tinyurl.com/6w8we6e
From “In the Loop”:
Toby Wright: “No, it’s difficult, difficult, lemon,…difficult!”
“A va$tly over-$old debacle…” Ben Jones “The Flag” AZ
Wow. That’s REALLY reaching. In fact, it’s reaching so far it might almost qualify as a reach around.
The party of the 1% doesn’t want the CFPB to stand in the way of Megabank, Inc’s license to steal without detection.
The battle over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Republicans are trying to block the appointment of Richard Cordray, seen here swearing in at the beginning of his confirmation hearing in Sept. 2011, as director of the CFPB in preference of a commission; Democrats say it’s a fight against consumer protection.
Interview with David Lazarus
Marketplace Morning Report for Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Stacey Vanek Smith: Speaking of deadlock, tomorrow the Senate will vote in the confirmation hearing of Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Cordray is the former Ohio Attorney General. He was picked over Elizabeth Warren to head the CFPB partly because he was thought to be more politically neutral — but now Republicans say they will block Cordray’s nomination anyway.
David Lazarus is the consumer columnist for the L.A. Times. He joins me now. Good morning, David.
David Lazarus: Good morning.
Vanek Smith: So David, what’s the problem? Why are Senate Republicans threatening to block Cordray’s nomination?
Lazarus: Well they say that they feel that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau needs more accountability and more transparency, so they want to see some structural changes to it. That’s their story. What consumer advocates are saying is these guys basically want to water down the agency and make it friendlier to businesses, and the key change that they want to make is to do away with the director altogether and instead bring in a five-person commission that advocates say would be more easily influenced by industry. It would have Republicans, it would have Democrats — and as we’ve seen with the Federal Communications Commission, the Consumer Product Safety Commission — when you’ve got a mixture of ideologies on the commission, business has a few more ways of getting their point across.
…
Not surprising at all. The CFPB is for financial industry transparency.
However, there’s big money in obfuscation. It’s just that simple.
I’ve got to send Elizabeth Warren a donation.
Anytime I hear “business friendly” my first thought is “easier to cheat.” And I guess I have a comrade in that thought:
“There seem to be but three Ways for a Nation to acquire Wealth. The first is by War as the Romans did in plundering their conquered Neighbours. This is Robbery. The second by Commerce which is generally Cheating. The third by Agriculture the only honest Way. — Ben Franklin.
“The third by Agriculture the only honest Way.”
Must not have been any ag subsidies back in Ben Franklin’s day…
I was thinking about Occupy Wall Street and the dangers of the movement being co-opted by other groups with their own axes to grind and who sense a soapbox from which to advocate their own causes.
I remember seeing the original list of OWS demands. There were like 17 which were solely economic. But then, it was like “identify the demands which are unlike the others.” And two glared out - a pro vegan plank and an anti-death penalty plank.
I thought then, this will be the real way that OWS is undermined. Others will co-opt it. I remember some lame attempts at trying to portray them as anti-Semites but that was relatively transparent. But this - the co-opting of the movement, moving it away from the core economic issues - that is the more insidious and more effective way to destroy the movement.
The squad visited Occupy Denver on Tuesday 10/4, before it degenerated into a total freakfest (HUGE homeless population here, and marijuana is basically legal) and the state and city police cleared them out.
Also before the corporate media turned it into left vs right, instead of the up vs down that is the real direction of the conflict.
If 1-5% of the braindead sheeple can be woken up to the behavior of the criminal bankster oligarchy, then OWS has succeeded.
Expect 2012 to be less peace and love and more long hot summer…
The problem is that it is not “Wallstreet” it is the FED. and the Federal regulators that aided and abetted this fiasco. SEC hasn’t stopped anything and the Treasury/Fed/Congress all gave “bailouts” to those who should have rightfully lost everything.
Angelo Mozillo, Hank Greenberg, Jamie Dimon, and ALL the Goldman Suchs boys have been feeding at the government trough for decades. I think Lloyd Blankfein must have ladled a huge plate of gravy for him and all his buddies. WE don’t have Capitalism, in the sense of a FREE Market, we have Capitalism in the sense of a control of Capital, via the FED.
Obama has supported all the shenanigans, while publicly railing about greed and unfairness. Where are the prosecutions? He rushed to vote in favor of the bailouts. Demanded “stimulus money” for his cronies and has done nothing to change the rigged system.
the Financial reform bill he signed did absolutely nothing but lock in the gains of his cronies. All the Federal Agencies, under the EXECUTIVE Branch don’t go after the Banksters. They go after average people trying to make a living with fraud all around them.
Socialism is not the answer. Rule of LAW is. The FRAUDSTERS need to go to jail. As much as you may hate Bush, the ENRON, world-com, gangs of criminals were prosecuted and jailed.
The current administration simply says “that’s all in the past, and we need to look ahead with the new jobs bill i have proposed”, blah, blah……………..so I can reward my supporters and get more votes.
Other than not doing business with the criminal banksters, and besides voting for Ron Paul, what can a non-wealthy, non-connected individual do?
Terminate ALL business with the “big banks”. I know people who still do business with BofA and I chastise them for it.
why would you do business with these crooks?
Most of them are issuing credit cards. If you have one of those, send it back. Don’t take out loans from them. loans are there business. Do your part to kill them.
They are looking for every way to raise fees, charges, and interest rate charges to screw you out of your money.
Do everything you can to keep money away from them.
Obama will do everything to help them, and he can give them billions in contracts, so it’s an uphill climb.
Is it JPM that gets huge fees for running the “food stamp” program. the send out all those debit cards and skim money from the Fed for running the transactions. they want more “customers”. I want them dead.
Agree with the majority of what you said.
But again funneling state dollars to private entities/WS/banks/CEO’s is not socialism. I don’t understand why we hear this over and over.
The big problem of course is that when you write the laws and control the prosecutors it’s very unlikely that you will go to jail. WS and the elite have become richer the middle class has become poorer, the money grubbing politicians do the bidding of money and as wealth is consolidated they do what big money demands. What big money demands is the ability to strip wealth by controlling/manipulating markets and stealing tax payer dollars and pure theft.
“The problem is that it is not “Wallstreet” it is the FED”
Who do you think the FED works for?
Hint: Two words, first one starts with a ‘W’, second one with an ‘S’.
Which popular asset class is the least favorite among money managers?
And why? ‘Tis a conundrum.
US debt: money managers’ least favorite investment (AP)
NEW YORK – Ask the people who invest billions for a living to name their favorite picks for 2012 and you’ll get a smorgasbord worthy of a holiday party: Brazilian stocks, U.S. junk bonds, and government debt from Colombia. Ask them what they dislike and they’ll name one of the top-performing investments this year: U.S. government bonds.
Investors can rattle off a long list of reasons to avoid Treasurys. They pay next to nothing and are bound to plunge in value whenever interest rates begin climbing from their historically low levels. It seems nobody likes Treasurys, yet everybody keeps buying them anyway.
“Our least favorite asset is Treasurys,” said Christine Hurtsellers, chief investment officer for fixed-income at ING Investment Management during a recent press briefing. “We still have a lot, but it’s hard to make the argument for them.”
…
Take a look at what banks and corporations are buying.
There was an article in the WS journal which I read while in the waiting room for an eye exam. It said a large number of corporations are sitting on cash or treasuries, they aren’t investing in the company, they aren’t paying dividends. Ask yourself why?
My only thought on that is that it probably wouldn’t happen if the stockholders actually controlled the company.
What do you think about this ? Robert Prechter too negative?
I’m reading a Mark Stein Book very negative view of big government and future demographics. so where’s the good news besides corporate profits?
“Don’t get too comfortable with the relatively flat markets of 2011, there’s a big storm coming our way. This is the view of Robert Prechter, founder and president of Elliott Wave International. In the attached video Prechter compares the current phase of the market to the late stages of the 1929 - 1933 period in U.S. history; a time marked by extreme volatility eventually ending in tears.
“One of the things that happened in 1929 was that a consortium of the biggest banks in the country tried to stop the market from going down,” notes Prechter. Those banks failed of course, just as Prechter says they did when the Central Banks tried to prevent the coming financial meltdown in 2008 by offering essentially free credit.
The timing is only different, he says, because “banks these days are much bigger than they were in 1929.” In the 20’s institutions were reliant on client money to lead their bailout attempts. Today Central Banks have the ability to call on future, often overstated, tax revenues and are unencumbered by anything such as a gold standard when attempting to ward off the human desire to hide under the covers, financially speaking.
Prechter also draws parallels to April of 1930, 1937, and other periods in which relatively brief recoveries dissolved. Pick a tool, any tool, and Prechter says it suggests a stock market going lower. “Patterns, sentiment indicators, or momentum are all saying the same thing: This is a bear market rally.”
According to Prechter, not all the Central Banks in the world trump international trends towards a cautious, negative mood already impacting all things financial. This trend, the inverse of those giddy days of the 1990’s when all things seemed possible (even Internet stocks and the Euro!), causes predictable behaviors in the masses. They tend to sell stocks, stop spending, and start revolting against current leadership; all of which should sound familiar to those who read the newspaper.
It’s an environment confounding to bulls and bears alike. At the beginning of 2011, Prechter notes, the bulls were betting on a sharp recovery in stocks and “got hurt quite a bit.” Commodities were a bad bet, hurting “hyper-inflationist” bears.
“Both camps didn’t want bonds and bonds are the only things that had a great year, 18% plus total return on the year so far,” Prechter notes. He thinks bonds fit the “deflationary scenario” that will hit us “in the next four or five years.” At that point, he says we’ll wipe the slate clean, get rid of the bad debt, and start all over again.
In other words, if you don’t identify with the anger being expressed around the world, check back in with us half-a-decade from now when we’re on the other side of a complete and utter meltdown. Prechter is willing to bet you’ll be part of those identifying with the disenfranchised by then.
“History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men.”
“Godzilla” - BOC
Filed under: Lucy: “Hwy50, you’re such a BLOCKHEAD!!!!!!!” Happy Holidays to all!
Jim Jordan, sits with one of the Christmas displays stored at his childhood home in Costa Mesa, which is known as the Snoopy House during the holidays. The future of the 44 year-old tradition is unknown, now that Wells Fargo owns the home.
For 44 years, the Snoopy House has enchanted families with its elaborate display of Charlie Brown-themed decorations, lights and motorized characters. But when news of the foreclosure spread last week, community members came together to support their tradition and the house’s owner, Jim Jordan, a Costa Mesa remodeling contractor.
Charlie Brown: [upset] Rats!
Lucy Van Pelt: You’ve been dumb before, Charlie Brown, but this time, you really did it.
[pause; then everyone bursts out laughing]
Violet: Boy, are you stupid, Charlie Brown.
Patty: You’re hopeless, Charlie Brown.
Frieda: Completely hopeless
Violet: I told you he’d goof it up. He isn’t the kind you can depend on to do anything right.
Snoopy: Whoooooooooooooooooooooo.
Charlie Brown: [sarcastically] Man’s best friend.
Lucy Van Pelt: Listen, all of you! You’ve got to take direction! You’ve got to have discipline! You’ve got to have respect for your MegaBankerInc.!
[notices Snoopy]
Lucy Van Pelt: I oughta slug you!
Lucy Van Pelt: [Snoopy licks her face] Ugh! I’ve been kissed by a dog! I have dog germs! Get hot water! Get some disinfectant! Get some Iodine!
Snoopy: [Snoopy sticks out his tongue] Bleah! “blah,blah,blah…#!*%#!… blah,blah,blah…#!*%#!… blah,blah,blah…#!*%#!”
Snoopy House to go on display at City Hall:
By SEAN GREENE / OC Register /
Jordan started the tradition years ago and has owned the Snoopy House since 2005 after his mother passed away. In 2008, he applied for a new mortgage loan on the house when his business began to slow. The bank denied his application because he was current on his payments and the house was deemed an investment property, he said. Jordan received notice that he had apparently defaulted on his mortgage payments after what he said was a string of bad advice from consultants.
Last week, Wells Fargo made good on its threat to foreclose on Jordan. He was given a tight deadline to remove all of his property from the home, including the heavy Snoopy decorations. But the big challenge was finding a place to store everything. That’s when the community rallied behind him.
Over the weekend, her two kids, Dayle, 8, and Jackson, 10, opened a lemonade stand outside the Snoopy House, raising about $230 at 50 cents a cup.
That donation was Jordan’s first deposit in a new trust fund to maintain the house and overcome mounting legal fees. In years past, he has turned down donations to the Snoopy House, saying it was his way of giving back to the community.
On Saturday, Jordan received two phone calls from City Hall. The first came from Planning Commissioner Jim Fitzpatrick, who said the city had been inundated with phone calls from residents about saving the Snoopy House. Later, city Chief Executive Officer Tom Hatch joined in a conference call with Jordan to ask if the Snoopy House could be held on the lawn outside City Hall.
“I was absolutely stunned at that offer,” Jordan said. “(The city officials) are so wonderful to work with. … They understand the importance to the community.”
Some details still need to be worked out, such as finding a big enough power source for the display.
Jordan said he is humbled by all that has happened, but next year he still hopes to bring the display back to its proper home on Santa Ana Avenue. He said he hopes he can meet with Wells Fargo and find a way to retain the property.
OTOH, there’s the Christmas Lights Gone Wild house. It’s still up and running, AFAIK.
Another story from the “news” media that tells all about the hardships on people by the mean, nasty banksters (not to be too easy on the banksters).
But, just how do you own a HOME for 44 years and not own it FREE AND CLEAR. I am sure he inherited it from his mother in such condition.
That was 2005, so somewhere between 2005 and 2008 he took out a BIG, big “loan” since business was slowing down.
How much did he get? It must have been quite a bundle.
He got “bad financial advice”, such as “you have all your money tied up in your house. you should put your equity to work for you.”, etc. etc.
So in 2008 he “needs” a re-fi. Really? Why? No business. Already spent all the money from the Cash-out re-fi? Guess so.
Now, no money. Big loan. No credit. Let’s all cry our hearts out for this generous fellow who is all about giving back to the community. What a crock. Why didn’t he SAVE during good times to have sufficient money for the hard times?
I don’t know the answers, but there are just to many “hard luck” stories, and the loser is never responsible for his/her plight.
boo hoo.
“3. Step three - Hand out credit to get those who can’t afford goods to buy them.”
And where does this “credit” come from?
So it WASN’T a terrorist attack at Fort Hood after all. Just a simple case of workplace violence.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/06/military-growing-terrorist-target-lawmakers-warn/
(Sigh). How did this post of mine end up down here? Sorry ’bout that.
That was 2005, so somewhere between 2005 and 2008 he took out a BIG, big “loan” since business was slowing down.
That’s an important one. I almost feel bad for people who screwed themselves that way. Every experience and piece of advice in their whole lives had told them that things would turn around within a year or two and all they had to do was stick it out a little longer than their competition.
Lucy: I finally got my Christmas wish: real estate. Now I’m underwater and married to Pigpen the unemployed strawberry picker. Where’s Charlie Brown? I need to pull the football away from him to make myself feel better. He’s such a blockhead.
On the lighter side …
Who do you think Charlie Brown wound up with?
1) Marcy
2) Peppermint Patty
3) The red headed girl
or
4) Lucy!
Vote early …vote often!
Cole Younger: “Women,…love ‘em!”
Peggy Jean on the rebound!
Later, Charlie Brown wants to buy Peggy Jean some gloves for Christmas but does not have the money to buy them for her (Linus suggests he send her a card advising her to keep her hands in her pockets). Charlie Brown sells his entire comic collection in order to buy the gloves, only to meet Peggy Jean in the shop and learn that her mother had just bought her the same sort of gloves; in the end, Charlie Brown gives the gloves he bought to Snoopy so they do not “go to waste”
Charlie Brown likes Peggy Jean as much as the Little Red-Haired Girl, if not more, but in her final appearance in the strip on July 11, 1999, she reveals to him that she has another boyfriend who is waiting at the soccer field, leaving Charlie Brown brokenhearted.
I had forgotten about Peggy Jean. I am collecting those nice Peanuts books (the ones with 2 years of strips in them).
IIRC, Marcy did once tell Peppermint Patty that she would accept a marriage proposal from “Chuck”, much to Patty’s chagrin.
Al Capone?
I wanted to post this section of an article today by a guy named daniel amerman. The opening paragraph gave me a visual reminder of the REAL state of the world economy. It’s sounds funny, but it’s really sad:
this was section 6, Derivatives.
A potential euro collapse threatens the possible near term annihilation of the financial system through both credit derivatives and interest rate derivatives losses. The near criminal insanity of investment bankers writing themselves massive bonus checks for effectively standing in a circle and making promises to each other that none of them have ever had the capital to back up (in the event of genuine systemic crisis), will be brought to the fore.
Absent massive government interventions, we may have a bankrupt financial system where none of the highly leveraged big players have any real capital remaining because their loan and investment portfolios went bad, but they still owe massive amounts of money to each other as counterparties on the hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivatives contracts.
The nominal sum of derivatives contracts outstanding is about $700 trillion, while the global GDP is estimated to be about $63 trillion. If the governments assume and honor the derivatives contracts, then they could be on the line for a cumulative bailout that exceeds the size of the global economy (though this would be reduced by the netting out of offsetting contracts). As a more likely alternative, there would be attempts at a legal “fix” of some sort, where governments use their lawmaking, regulatory and monetization powers to maintain a functional banking system, but would effectively set aside the rule of law (in one way or another) when it comes to derivatives contracts.
“Absent massive government interventions, we may have a bankrupt financial system where none of the highly leveraged big players have any real capital remaining because their loan and investment portfolios went bad, but they still owe massive amounts of money to each other as counterparties on the hundreds of trillions of dollars in derivatives contracts.”
Ergo massive government interventions to contain ‘too-big-to-fail’ systemic risk are in the bag.
Limbaugh also commented that Obama was blaming Americans for the problems he caused.
“This man’s got forty five million Americans on food stamps for crying out loud! He’s accumulated more debt than any prior President by a large margin and he’s only three years in and he’s lecturing us, we’re the problem.”
the speech in kansas has turned me off to obama,i cant stand the lies anyl onger.
i cannnot cast a vote for prez in 2012…i have no candidate to vote for
Ron Paul
And Obama is exactly right about that, Americans are the problem. Blame the politicians and bankers all you want, but it was Americans selling their overpriced real estate to other Americans, screwing them in the process. Most on this blog knew it was a house of cards waiting to implode and planned accordingly. Why did the rest of our family and friends not see it? Willful blindness and greed. We are reaping what we sowed from the insanity of the Bush years. This country is getting what it deserved for being so ignorant of history and reality.
Viva la Revolucion!!
Uhm, so what year was it when the economy tanked? Oh year, the last year of the BUSH presidency.
And how long were Repubs in control of the government? 12 years wasn’t it?
So yeah, I guess 3 years is plenty of time to undo 12 years of disaster policies.
Limbaugh is still a gas bag
Take out the spending on the two wars inherited, unemployment food stamps medicaid payments due to rupturing credit bubble, and the extra costs associated with the medicare prescription drug plan and of course the collapsing tax revenue and you will see there has been very little extra spending that you can tie completely to Obama. McSAME would have done no better.
That said Obama has done nothing to restrain the WS monster that is devouring this country.
MICHAEL MOORE, ON CNN: Well, “The Washington post” three weeks ago had this investigation and they said that President Obama has now raised more money from Wall Street and the banks for this election cycle than all — than all eight Republicans combined. I don’t want to say that, because if that’s the truth, that Wall Street already has their man and his name is Barack Obama, then we’ve got a much bigger problem.
they hate him from both fringes !!!!!!!
At least Michael Moore is candid did about this. I’m sure Limbaugh still sings dubya’s praises.
You’re probably right. I have to give Moore credit for at least being able to criticize his idol. Even James H. Kunstler has been bemoaning how useless and ineffective Obama is, and how disappointed and disillusioned he is. Kunstler is an unapologetic Jewish Leftist (I say that because Jews mostly support Democrats by a huge margin, 77% Obama). (Blacks voted 96% for Obama).
I disagree with his political positions, but agree with many of his viewpoints about where we are and where we are going.
I read his weekly blog, and over the past two years, he has gone from adoration to contempt for a man who had a chance to make a difference, particularly when it comes to stopping the banking fraud and restoring a rule of law.
“Kunstler is an unapologetic Jewish Leftist”
LOL. And… maybe he had a shot at being a right-wing, redneck NASCAR fan?
There has always been more truth telling , internal criticism, and dissent in the democratic party. Not enough for my taste, but much better than the GOP who are much more likely to vote the same way. This is why they are seen as weaker than the GOP.
It can easily be found on google that Oabam rasied more money from
It can easily be found on the Internet that Obama raised more money from INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTIONS than all the others combined.
Yea, it’s just that when you live in Yemen, you really shouldn’t be allowed to contribute to American Election campaigns.
Can you back that up?? You’re suggesting a significant amount of his donations came from Yemen. Or is this just a little Rush rubbing off on you.
It’s not the income disparity (at least not entirely….it’s people who have a large amount of money in the bank through inheritance or long term investments that makes the tax code unfair.
One family makes 100k and has three kids. Most if not all there money goes to support the families annnual needs. Now if another family with three kids has 500k in the bank they can use that money to get tax deductions. For example.
100k
Both spouse max out the 401k deduction at 16k (32k deduction)
Both spouses plow the 6k max into an Ira (12 k deduction)
Both spouses one put 3k per douse per kid into a 529 plan (12k deduction)
The extra cushion allows for a bigger house with mortgage interest deduction (let’s say 15k).
That’s 71k deductions and now you only have to pay tax on the 29k left which is essentially nothing. They have now sheltered all there money from income taxes while the family that needs to live on their income cannot. Why is this not a huge fairness issue.
It is the income disparity as well.
You can’t have one without the other.
Now if another family with three kids has 500k in the bank they can use that money to get tax deductions. For example.”
they will have to draw down their savings to cash flow, and eventually have to pay taxes when they retire and start taking money out of the IRA , they could move to oil city Nevada when they retire to get away from CA state tax .
but yea its a bit of an advantage I guess or I should say hope because I’m doing that and I got the money from selling my townhome in 2006, tax free profit. I rent now
no 529 plan though spouse doesn’t work either and I don’t make 100K unless I have a good year in the stock market, this year looks good.
“Why is this not a huge fairness issue.” I had a engineer in Phoenix tell me what I did was wrong ( sell RE at the top and rent) this from a guy who couldn’t save money, complusive buyer of junk , guns, ammo , electronics.
not really unfair IMO unless you make more than me then its unfair
You are just deferring tax in the case of the IRA, 401k, and 529 Plan (i do believe). They will pay tax on that money in the future, and probably at a higher rate than now.
I’m not sure what the $15k refers to in your example - I guess their total house payment, but in that case, they wouldn’t get a MID as that would be a total payment of only about $1250 a month.
Raising 3 kids on $29k net can’t be easy. That takes a lot of discipline when you have $100k take home and $500k in the bank. If it were easy, then economics would be less of a science than it already is…. I’m not saying it’s not doable - but the marginal value of a dollar starts to fall at some point, and working like a dog for the future as opposed to living it up now is not something very many people are going to do - especially with 3 whiny needy kids.
But the number of families with $500k and a $100k income is a still a small overall percentage, considering the median household has about $100k total in savings (not including pensions, but your example doesn’t have a pension so it’s not really applicable). 10mm households have $1mm in total assets, say 25mm (of 130mm total US households) have around $500k.
I guess your point is that it takes money to save money, and I’d agree yeah it helps. I’d also say that deferring tax into the future with 401k and Roth plans are a net good, so if there are unfair items in the tax code, these would not be the ones I’d focus on. I’d say raising capital gains tax would do a lot more good.
The 15 k was the mortgage interest deduction…..assuming another 5 or 10k actually goes to principle. Anyway, you get the point it is easier to save and pay no income taxes if you have a boatload already……
And the net effect is that wealthy people with the same incomes get taxed far less on that income than non wealthy who make the same.
(yes I realize that most of those deductions result in deferred taxes……but TODAY they are avoiding them through these legal means.). Don’t get me started on the fact that they can shelter them all the way till they die and beyond by taking advantage of the 5 mil per spouse estate tax exemption for gifts to family members. GET IT…..Wealthy pay little if any INCOME tax!
One’s stored wealth can help reduce taxes if the stored wealth can reduce the need for income.
One example is imputed rent. If one’s home is paid off free and clear then he gets to enjoy living rent free. There are expenses from owning one’s home (i.e. taxes, upkeep) but the expenses should be far lower than equivilent rent.
It should be noted that rent are payments to somebody else uses money which various taxes have already been paid, so imputed rent is a sort of phantom after-tax income.
Another form of phantom-income-generating stored wealth is an investment in solar power generation equipment. Once the equipment is paid for all the electricity (or heat, or whatever) is free - one does not have to generate any after tax income to pay for something that is free.
Used properly stored wealth can reduce the need for taxable income. And the farther one reduces taxable income the closer his tax bracket approaches zero.
Nothing wrong with that IMO.
To expand a bit more:
One could have a variety of fruit trees that produces an abundant supply of fruit. These trees are a form of wealth that produces food, and the food that they produce is food that one does not have to buy.
If ones does not have to buy then he doesn’t have to spend. If he doesn’t have to spend then he doesn’t have to earn. If he doesn’t have to earn then he doesn’t have to pay income taxes.
In my view if one restricts his thinking about the purpose of investments is to increasing income then he is missing half the picture. The missing half has to do with cutting expenses.
Whatever expenditure of money that is saved by capital investments is money that doesn’t have to be earned. And unearned money is untaxed money.
Invest well and your taxes can be low because your income can be low.
I have a hard time foreseeing how this train wreck will turn out, except that it will inevitably be ugly.
Dec. 7, 2011, 12:01 a.m. EST
End times for the euro zone
By Jon D. Markman
Stocks have ripped higher on hints that the leaders of France and Germany are determined to ram a political solution down the throats of the euro zone to counter an economic problem. Lenin must be laughing in his grave.
The newest proposal by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel creates what amounts to a fiscal KGB in Brussels to beat up on euro zone countries that break ranks on budget policy. It’s as preposterous as all the others that have come before.
The citizens of countries ranging from Finland to Slovakia are not going to give up any more of their sovereign rights to technocrats running an organization that has already failed miserably at its goal of creating economic stability through currency union.
Anyone with a high school textbook can read about how centrally planned economies are a relic of the barbaric Soviet era — in which Merkel herself came of age in East Germany. Even in the U.S., the federal government does not tell the states how much money to raise or how to spend it.
The problem of course is that Merkel and Sarkozy have come to this Plan E, F or G — I’ve lost count — because Plans A, B, C and D for dealing with the creditors knocking at the door of overleveraged European governments have hit dead ends.
Borrowing money is fun. Paying it back is a real drag. Let’s take off the rose-colored glasses and look at the reality with help from analyst Satyajit Das in Australia:
– European governments and banks need 1.9 trillion euros to refinance maturing debt in 2012.
– Italy alone needs 113 billion euros in the first quarter and 300 billion over the full year.
– European banks need 500 billion euros in the first half of 2012 and 275 billion in the second half.
– This means they need to raise 230 billion euros per quarter in 2012, versus 132 billion per quarter in 2011.
– Yet since June 2011, European banks have been only able to raise 17 billion euros, compared to 120 billion in 2010.
Das notes that Europe does not have a liquidity problem that can be solved by cutting the cost of swaps. In other words, you can’t just replace private-sector lenders with official lenders such as the ECB, IMF or the Fed.
…
HBB posters are not alone in our amazement at the size of secret zero interest rate bailout loans to Megabank, Inc.
Thursday December 1, 2011
The Daily Show
America’s Next TARP Model
A Bloomberg report reveals that the U.S. government loaned banks $7.7 trillion in secret bailout funds at no interest and then borrowed the money back at interest.
This is just too awesome.
Some long-time posters here may recall my occasional post as of five or so years ago expressing hope that Jon Stewart would hone in on the financial situation for material.
We are there now, folks!
3852 Gull Rd
Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33410
Foreclosure Bank Owned
$74,900
Beds:3 Bed
Baths:2 Bath
House Size:1,496 Sq Ft
Days on site 2 days
MLS ID A1580700
Location Address: 3852 GULL RD
Municipality: UNINCORPORATED
Parcel Control Number: 00-43-41-31-04-003-0160
Subdivision: PALM BEACH CABANA COLONY PLAT 2 IN
Official Records Book: 21709 Page: 677 Sale Date: Apr-2007
Legal Description: PL 2 PALM BEACH CABANA COLONY LT 16 BLK
Name: KOENIG CLAUDETTE J
Mailing Address: 3852 GULL RD
PALM BEACH GARDENS FL 33410 2224
Type: D
Date/Time: 8/11/1987 03:11:00
CFN: 19870238308
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 5381/1996
Pages: 1
Consideration: $75,000.00
Party 1: WATROUS JACK A & LINDA ELAINE
Party 2: REESE CLAUDETTE
FERGESON G JEANNE
Legal: L16 B3 PALM BCH CAB COLONY 2
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 6/25/2002 14:14:09
CFN: 20020322113
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 13842/261
Pages: 11
Consideration: $115,600.00
Party 1: KOENIG CLAUDETTE J
DEBISSCHOP CLAUDETTE REESE
Party 2: OPTION ONE MORTGAGE CORPORATION
Legal: PB CABANA COL 2 B3 L16 BL
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 4/28/2004 12:36:48
CFN: 20040235266
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 16871/362
Pages: 20
Consideration: $147,500.00
Party 1: KOENIG CLAUDETTE J
DEBISSCHOP CLAUDETTE REESE
Party 2: ARGENT MORTGAGE COMPANY LLC
Legal: PB CABANA COL 2 B3 L16 BL
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 4/18/2006 16:16:25
CFN: 20060228425
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 20217/190
Pages: 20
Consideration: $165,000.00
Party 1: KOENIG CLAUDETTE J
Party 2: MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS INC
AMNET MORTGAGE INC
AMERICAN MORTGAGE NETWORK OF FLORIDA
Legal: PB CABANA COL 2 B3 L16 BL
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 5/8/2007 12:22:54
CFN: 20070223885
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 21709/678
Pages: 16
Consideration: $192,500.00
Party 1: KOENIG CLAUDETTE J
Party 2: MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS INC
ADVANTAGE ONE MORTGAGE CORP
Legal: PB CABANA COL 2 B3 L16 BL
Type: JUD
Date/Time: 8/17/2010 09:03:32
CFN: 20100303615
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 24013/1463
Pages: 4
Consideration: $0.00
Party 1: BAC HOME LOANS SERVICING LP
COUNTRYWIDE HOME LOANS SERVICING LP
Party 2: KOENIG CLAUDETTE J
DEBISSCHOP CLAUDETTE REESE
REESE CLAUDETTE
Legal: PB CABANA COL 2 B3 L16 BL
Business is booming(?),
But where are the buyers,
Inventory is looming,
Realtors Are Liars.
Comment by Prime_Is_Contained
2011-12-06 18:24:00
If those drones don’t have a “lost comms, return to base” subroutine in them for exactly such a situation, then we are getting _seriously_ ripped off in what we are paying for them.
That wouldn’t be rocket science to implement.
(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by bink
2011-12-06 20:27:54
It would pretty much have to rely on GPS, which isn’t hard to jam or spoof.
Nope, once the drone has an initial knowledge of its position (from launch site data, earlier GPS fix, etc), it should be able to easily discard bad GPS data that does not agree with its known location.
It could even rely entirely on inertial navigation (built on accelerometers and gyros) in its emergency-return function if GPS appears to be spoofed. And it wouldn’t be possible to spoof GPS all the way back to its base-of-origin.
Shame the liars. You know who they are. Just shame them. You have nothing to lose. Shut down conversations that distort the truth. Start conversations that seek the truth.
Shame the liars.
Even as the headlines suggest the eurozone crisis has been resolved, sovereign central banks in the eurozone are worrying about whether they will be able to print currency fast enough in case the common currency collapses.
MARKETS
DECEMBER 8, 2011
Banks Prep for Life After Euro
Countries Study Printing Their Own Notes in Case Monetary Union By DAVID ENRICH, DEBORAH BALL and ALISTAIR MACDONALD
Some central banks in Europe have started weighing contingency plans to prepare for the possibility that countries leave the euro zone or the currency union breaks apart entirely, according to people familiar with the matter.
The first signs are surfacing that central banks are thinking about how to resuscitate currencies based on bank notes that haven’t been printed since the first euros went into circulation in January 2002.
At least one—the Central Bank of Ireland—is evaluating whether it needs to secure additional access to printing presses in case it has to churn out new bank notes to support a reborn national currency, according to people familiar with the matter.
Outside the 17-country euro zone, numerous European central banks are eyeing defensive measures to protect against the possible fallout if the euro zone were to unravel, other people said. Several, including Switzerland, are considering possible replacements for the euro as the external reference point, or peg, they use to try to keep their currencies’ values stable.
The central banks’ planning is preliminary, according to the people familiar with the matter. It doesn’t represent an expectation that the euro zone is headed for dissolution.
But the fact central bankers are even studying the possibility, which until this fall was considered unthinkable, underscores how swiftly conditions have deteriorated. Policy makers, central bankers and investors around the world have pinned their hopes on this week’s Brussels summit to forge a long-awaited solution to the Continent’s two-year financial crisis, which was ignited by doubts over countries’ abilities to pay their debts.
The stakes are high. A failure of Europe’s leaders to defuse the crisis would fuel already growing doubts about the viability of the euro zone. Many policy makers, bankers and other experts fear the monetary union’s unraveling would not only reverse a decade of economic integration but also would trigger financial chaos.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. put out a report Wednesday that advised investors and companies to hedge against a collapse of the euro zone—though the bank said the likelihood of that happening was just 20%. It said many corporate clients were buying currency derivatives to place bets against the euro.
Before the formal launch of the euro in January 2002, an army of planners spent years choreographing the logistics of the currency’s debut, including the minting of billions of bank notes and coins and the distribution of the new currency to banks and businesses across the Continent. Disassembling the bloc would be messy at best. Among the many challenges, loans and deposits currently denominated in euros would have to be switched to new currencies. And individual countries would need to decide whether to dust off their old currencies and, if so, how to quickly produce large quantities of paper money.
In Montenegro, which used Germany’s Deutsche mark as legal tender before it adopted the euro in 2002, central bank officials are weighing their options for life after the euro. The Balkan country would have “a wide range of possibilities, from using another foreign currency to the introduction of a domestic currency,” said Nikola Fabris, chief economist at Montenegro’s central bank. One problem with the latter option: Montenegro doesn’t have the capacity to print its own money, he said.
Most euro-zone central banks maintain at least limited capacities to print bank notes. While the European Central Bank is responsible for determining the euro zone’s supply of bank notes, it doesn’t actually print them. The ECB outsources the work to central banks of euro-zone countries. Each year, groups of countries are assigned the task of printing millions of bank notes in specific denominations.
The countries have different arrangements for printing their shares of the notes. Some, like Greece and Ireland, own their printing presses. Others outsource to private companies.
The assignments vary from year to year. Last year, Ireland printed 127.5 million €10 notes, and nothing else, according to its annual report. This year, it was among 11 countries assigned to print a total of 1.71 billion €5 notes.
…