The Housing Bubble

Realtors Are Liars®

Deadbeat lotto winnings shouldn’t be taxed?

A trio of congressional Democrats have introduced a bill that would provide tax relief to homeowners who were wrongly foreclosed upon and receive money from the recent nationwide mortgage foreclosure settlement.

Under current law, those settlement payments would subject the homeowners and servicemembers who receive them to additional tax burdens. Homeowners receiving relief in the form of mortgage debt forgiveness and direct cash payments for wrongful foreclosure could be subject to federal income tax.

http://www.accountingtoday.com/news/Congress-Tax-Relief-Mortgage-Foreclosure-Settlement-62206-1.html?CMP=OTC-RSS

I’m bullish on stocks.

I’m trying to fathom this writer’s point: What could possibly limit the Fed’s ability to continue purchasing 61% (or even 100%) of U.S. Treasury debt, indefinitely?

OPINION
Updated March 27, 2012, 6:49 p.m. ET

Demand for U.S. Debt Is Not Limitless
In 2011, the Fed purchased a stunning 61% of Treasury issuance. That can’t last.
By LAWRENCE GOODMAN

The conventional wisdom that nearly infinite demand exists for U.S. Treasury debt is flawed and especially dangerous at a time of record U.S. sovereign debt issuance.

The recently released Federal Reserve Flow of Funds report for all of 2011 reveals that Federal Reserve purchases of Treasury debt mask reduced demand for U.S. sovereign obligations. Last year the Fed purchased a stunning 61% of the total net Treasury issuance, up from negligible amounts prior to the 2008 financial crisis. This not only creates the false appearance of limitless demand for U.S. debt but also blunts any sense of urgency to reduce supersized budget deficits.

Still, the outdated notion of never-ending buyers for U.S. debt is perpetuated by many. For instance, in recent testimony before the Senate Budget Committee, former Federal Reserve Board Vice Chairman Alan Blinder said, “If you look at the markets, they’re practically falling over themselves to lend money to the federal government.” Sadly, that’s no longer accurate.
…
Mr. Goodman is president of the Center for Financial Stability and previously served at the U.S. Treasury.

ahansen seems to always have good advice.

Comment by ahansen
2012-03-27 11:09:14

“I wasn’t there that night, nor were the rest of us. Shall we wait for due process on this one?”

Spike Lee apologizes for retweeting wrong address

10 hours ago

SANFORD, Fla. — Spike Lee has apologized to a Florida couple who say they were forced to leave their home when a Twitter posting that the director helped spread listed their address as that of a man who shot an unarmed teenager.

Elaine and David McClain are in their 70s and say they have a son named William George Zimmerman who lived in their Sanford-area home in the mid-1990s. They say he is no relation to 28-year-old George Zimmerman who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26.

The killing has touched off widespread public outrage and protests across the country, including from Lee and other celebrities, because Zimmerman was not arrested. He says he acted in self-defense.

Lee tweeted late Wednesday: “I Deeply Apologize To The McClain Family For Retweeting Their Address. It Was A Mistake. Please Leave The McClain’s In Peace.”

“Now listen here pilgrim, … er, mate, what goe$ around, come$ around in these here parts!” [$poken in a gruff John Wayne voice with an Australian tinge]

Murdoch fights back against “lies and libels”
ReutersBy Georgina Prodhan

News Corp, whose global media interests stretch from movies to newspapers that can make or break political careers, has endured an onslaught of negative press since a phone-hacking scandal at its News of the World tabloid blew up last year.

At its height last July, Murdoch told British parliamentarians: “This is the humblest day of my life,” after meeting the family of a murdered schoolgirl whose phone News of the World journalists had hacked.

On Thursday, it appeared that Murdoch had had enough of apologizing. “Enemies many different agendas, but worst old toffs and right wingers who still want last century’s status quo with their monopolies,” he tweeted.

For an avowed republican such as Murdoch, describing someone as a rich and upper class “toff” is a damning insult.

The BBC has a long history of ideological clashes with BSkyB, which is 39 percent owned by News Corp, and both Rupert and his son James Murdoch have publicly attacked the British public service broadcaster over the years.

The Australian Financial Review is owned by Fairfax Media, the main rival to Murdoch’s News Ltd newspaper group in Australia.

“INACCURATE CLAIMS” [ heheheheheee]

“The BBC’s Panorama program was a gross misrepresentation of NDS’s role as a high quality and leading provider of technology and services to the pay-TV industry, as are many of the other press accounts that have piled on - if not exaggerated - the BBC’s inaccurate claims,” he wrote.

NDS has complained that it was not asked for its side of the story before Monday’s Panorama, which claimed NDS had leaked secret codes that allowed rampant pirating of BSkyB rival ITV Digital, which went bust in 2002.

Separate reports by the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Australian Financial Review newspaper this week said that News Corp’s pay-TV smartcard security unit, NDS, had promoted piracy attacks on rivals, including in the United States.

NDS and News Corp had already denied the allegations, but on Thursday the media conglomerate mounted a concerted fight back as a corruption scandal that has plagued its British newspapers began to encroach on its far more lucrative pay-TV business.

Gee, it almost appears that Wall Street thought bail outs were in the bag…

Trial begins in city of St. Petersburg’s lawsuit against Wachovia

He said internal Wachovia memos will show the bank was operating more out of self-interest leading up to the Lehman Bros. collapse in September 2008. Marcus said Wachovia held too much in Lehman Bros. bonds and wasn’t in a position to sell in 2007 or tell clients to do likewise.

Marcus said Wachovia held on to the sinking investment not because if felt that Lehman Bros. would rebound, but that if it did fail, it would be bailed out by the federal government.

“That’s a bet (Wachovia) made with their own money,” Marcus said. “Problem was, that’s a bet St. Petersburg was never asked about.”

He then displayed an email from a Wachovia official written after Lehman’s bankruptcy: “Everyone is still surprised Lehman was not bailed out.”

Wells Fargo attorneys will try to show that city officials were culpable. It’s just that they didn’t pay attention.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/civil/trial-begins-in-city-of-st-petersburgs-lawsuit-against-wachovia/1222050

Here is a very important Op-ed which I doubt will be included as required reading for the Georgetown University lectures on the recent actions of the Fed.

Whether responding to today’s crisis with a discretionary suspension of the “rules” (e.g. to enable bailouts of systemically risky financial institutions) resets rational expectations in a manner to increase the likelihood and incidence of future systemic financial crises is a subject for serious debate.

OPINION
Updated March 28, 2012, 7:34 p.m. ET

The Dangers of an Interventionist Fed
A century of experience shows that rules lead to prosperity and discretion leads to trouble.
By JOHN B. TAYLOR

America has now had nearly a century of decision-making experience under the Federal Reserve Act, first passed in 1913. Thanks to careful empirical research by Milton Friedman, Anna Schwartz and Allan Meltzer, we have plenty of evidence that rules-based monetary policies work and unpredictable discretionary policies don’t. Now is the time to act on that evidence.

The Fed’s mistake of slowing money growth at the onset of the Great Depression is well-known. And from the mid-1960s through the ’70s, the Fed intervened with discretionary go-stop changes in money growth that led to frequent recessions, high unemployment, low economic growth, and high inflation.

In contrast, through much of the 1980s and ’90s and into the past decade the Fed ran a more predictable, rules-based policy with a clear price-stability goal. This eventually led to lower unemployment, lower interest rates, longer expansions, and stronger economic growth.

Unfortunately the Fed has returned to its discretionary, unpredictable ways, and the results are not good. Starting in 2003-05, it held interest rates too low for too long and thereby encouraged excessive risk-taking and the housing boom. It then overshot the needed increase in interest rates, which worsened the bust. Now, with inflation and the economy picking up, the Fed is again veering into “too low for too long” territory. Policy indicators suggest the need for higher interest rates, while the Fed signals a zero rate through 2014.

It is difficult to overstate the extraordinary nature of the recent interventions, even if you ignore actions during the 2008 panic, including the Bear Stearns and AIG bailouts, and consider only the subsequent two rounds of “quantitative easing” (QE1 and QE2)—the large-scale purchases of mortgage-backed securities and longer-term Treasurys.

The Fed’s discretion is now virtually unlimited. To pay for mortgages and other large-scale securities purchases, all it has to do is credit banks with electronic deposits—called reserve balances or bank money. The result is the explosion of bank money (as shown in the nearby chart), which now dwarfs the Fed’s emergency response to the 9/11 attacks.

Before the 2008 panic, reserve balances were about $10 billion. By the end of 2011 they were about $1,600 billion. If the Fed had stopped with the emergency responses of the 2008 panic, instead of embarking on QE1 and QE2, reserve balances would now be normal.

This large expansion of bank money creates risks. If it is not undone, then the bank money will eventually pour out into the economy, causing inflation. If it is undone too quickly, banks may find it hard to adjust and pull back on loans.

The very existence of quantitative easing as a policy tool creates unpredictability, as traders speculate whether and when the Fed will intervene again. That the Fed can, if it chooses, intervene without limit in any credit market—not only mortgage-backed securities but also securities backed by automobile loans or student loans—creates more uncertainty and raises questions about why an independent agency of government should have such power.

The combination of the prolonged zero interest rate and the bloated supply of bank money is potentially lethal. The Fed has effectively replaced the entire interbank money market and large segments of other markets with itself—i.e., the Fed determines the interest rate by declaring what it will pay on bank deposits at the Fed without regard for the supply and demand for money. By replacing large decentralized markets with centralized control by a few government officials, the Fed is distorting incentives and interfering with price discovery with unintended consequences throughout the economy.

For all these reasons, the Federal Reserve should move to a less interventionist and more rules-based policy of the kind that has worked in the past. With due deliberation, it should make plans to raise the interest rate and develop a credible strategy to reduce its outsized portfolio of Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities.
…
One reason the Fed kept its interest rate too low for too long in 2003-05 was concern that raising the interest rate would increase unemployment in the short run. However, an unintended effect was the great recession and very high unemployment. A single mandate would help the Fed avoid such mistakes. Since 2008, the Fed has explicitly cited the dual mandate to justify its extraordinary interventions, including quantitative easing. Removing the dual mandate will remove that excuse.

A single goal of long-run price stability should be supplemented with a requirement that the Fed establish and report its strategy for setting the interest rate or the money supply to achieve that goal. If the Fed deviates from its strategy, it should provide a written explanation and testify in Congress. To further limit discretion, restraints on the composition of the Federal Reserve’s portfolio are also appropriate, as called for in the Sound Dollar Act.

Giving all Federal Reserve district bank presidents—not only the New York Fed president—voting rights at every Federal Open Market Committee meeting, as does the Sound Dollar Act, would ensure that the entire Federal Reserve system is involved in designing and implementing the strategy. It would offset any tendency for decisions to favor certain sectors or groups in the economy.

Such reforms would lead to a more predictable policy centered on maintaining the purchasing power of the dollar. They would provide an appropriate degree of oversight by the political authorities without interfering in the Fed’s day-to-day operations.

Mr. Taylor is a professor of economics at Stanford and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. This op-ed is adapted from his testimony this week before the Joint Economic Committee, which drew on his book “First Principles: Five Keys to Restoring America’s Prosperity.” (W.W. Norton, 2012).

No matter what the pessimists say,
The DJIA stays above 13K.

Index Futures:
S&P 500 1,395.50 -4.75 -0.34%
DOW 13,015 -38.00 -0.29%
NASDAQ 2,761 -7.50 -0.27%

Wall Street stays skeptical
Spain ON Strike | More about Spain
Barbara Kollmeyer/MarketWatch
A union banner lamenting the government’s desire to suspend social and labor rights hangs in Madrid during Thursday’s national strike against austerity.

Spanish unions don’t mince their words: ‘Austeridad, no!’
Spain’s major unions say all their workers are off the job Thursday in protest of austerity measures.
• Rajoy’s budget seeks to buy time for Spain
• ‘Deed in lieu’ impact so far unclear, Fitch says

EUROPE
• Euro zone’s headaches multiply (24/7 Wall St.)
• Yields turn higher in Spain, Italy | Italy debt sale
• Europe’s growth to lag in first half of 2012: OECD
Futures indicate a lower open. Investors fret about U.S. growth, China’s outlook and European debt.
Best Buy results scrutinized; RIM’s on deck.
• Improving trend intact in U.S. jobless claims
• Fourth-quarter GDP growth unrevised at 3%

I am sure you can buy in this neighborhood at $50/sq. ft.

Teen Faces Life Sentence in Slaying of UK Tourists

By TAMARA LUSH Associated Press
SARASOTA, Fla. March 29, 2012 (AP)

In a case that generated blaring tabloid headlines in the U.K. press, a Florida teen is facing life in prison without parole for murdering two young British tourists who got lost and wandered into a housing project where their convicted killer lived.

After an eight-day trial, a jury on Wednesday convicted 17-year-old Shawn Tyson of two counts of first-degree murder in the shooting of James Cooper, 25, and James Kouzaris, 24, last April.

The two men were on a three-week Sarasota holiday and spent an evening drinking when they got lost.

Both were considered fun-loving world travelers by those who knew them. Their friends Paul Davis and Joe Hallett said the pair had a knack for making friends with people of all ages and races. Cooper had traveled to Australia and loved tennis; he was a tennis pro in his hometown and had played against countryman Andy Murray. Kouzaris played rugby, taught English in Taiwan and had traveled through Central America prior to visiting Sarasota.

The men were in Florida staying with Cooper’s family on a Gulf coast beach near Sarasota and on April 15, they dined and drank downtown.

Authorities said both were drunk when they got lost and accidentally wandered just before 3 a.m. into the housing project where Tyson lived.

Witnesses testified that Tyson told them he saw two “crackers” — a derogatory term for white people — walking through the neighborhood and that he intended to rob them. The tourists said they didn’t have any money and begged Tyson to let them go home. The men also told Tyson they were lost.

“Since you ain’t got no money, then I have something for your ass,” Tyson recounted to a witness, then added that he shot the men several times.

Hallett said friends and family were thankful for the support provided by Sarasota police and municipal officials.

And Davis, who attended the trial, said although he was satisfied with the verdict, it rang hollow.

“Ours is a life sentence with no chance of parole for a broken heart and a shattered soul,” Davis said.

Both men also said they were “dissatisfied” with the lack of support or condolences from the United States government and President Barack Obama in particular.

“We would like to publicly express our dissatisfaction at the lack of any public or private message of support or condolence,” Joe Hallett, a friend of the two victims said.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/teen-faces-life-sentence-slaying-uk-tourists-16026993 - -

March 29, 2012, 10:00 a.m. EDT
30-year mortgage rate falls to 3.99%
Stories You Might Like
Shanghai stocks tumble to lead most of Asia down
Europe stocks lower led by Spain; H&M tumbles
By Ruth Mantell

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Following various reports of weaker housing data, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage average fell to 3.99% in the week ending March 29 from 4.08% in the prior week, Freddie Mac said Thursday in its weekly report. The rate was 4.86% a year earlier. To obtain the latest rate, payment of an average 0.7 point was required, according to Freddie, a buyer of residential mortgages. A point is 1% of the mortgage amount, charged in prepaid interest. The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to 3.23% in the latest week from 3.30% in the prior week. Meanwhile, the average rate on the 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage decreased to 2.90% from 2.96%. The 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM fell to 2.78% from 2.84%.

Yawn…

March 28, 2012, 4:30 a.m. EDT
Shanghai stocks tumble to lead most of Asia down
By Sarah Turner and V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch

HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Chinese shares tumbled to lead a broad decline for major Asian markets Wednesday, with the Shanghai benchmark suffering this year’s worst percentage loss so far, led by mining and metal stocks.

On mainland bourses, the Shanghai Composite (CN:000001 -1.43%) tumbled 2.7%, its worst loss since late November, to finish at 2,284.88, while the Shenzhen Composite slumped 4.1% to 909.58. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index (HK:HSI -1.32%) lost 0.8% to 20,885.42.

“State enterprises’ combined earnings are going down. This is relatively new, so sellers are using that as an excuse to drag down the market,” said Steve Cheng, associate director at Shenyin Wanguo. The selling might also be an effort by institutional investors to lock in profits before the end of the first quarter, he added.
…

Wake me up from hibernation when this correction ends. I am thinking it will be over by early next week, as the stock market always goes up, in the long run.

March 28, 2012, 5:15 p.m. EDT
U.S. stocks drop as global growth fears percolate
Oil sinks after emergency-reserve talk, rise in inventories
By Laura Mandaro, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — U.S. stocks fell for a second session Wednesday as investors dumped energy and other stocks closely tied to global growth after a disappointing report on durable-goods orders.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA -0.34% ended down 71.52 points, or 0.5%, to 13,126.21, or 0.4% higher from last Friday’s close. At its lows of the day, down 128 points, it had briefly lost weekly gains.
…

Am I missing something, or does the steadily improving labor market situation seriously undermine the Fed’s case for QE3?

March 29, 2012, 8:30 a.m. EDT
U.S. jobless claims total 359,000 in latest week
By Jeffry Bartash

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The number of Americans who filed requests for jobless benefits fell by 5,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 359,000, the U.S. Labor Department said Thursday. The latest data includes the government’s annual seasonal-adjustment revisions extending back five years, which have resulted in a small increase in weekly claims. The number of new applications for benefits last week, for example, was originally reported at 348,000. The revisions now put last week’s level of claims at 364,000, a 4.6% increase. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch projected claims would fall to 345,000 in the week ended March 24, but those estimates did not factor in the revisions. The average of new claims over the past four weeks, meanwhile, dropped by 3,500 to 365,000, a four-year low. Continuing claims decreased by 41,000 to a seasonally adjusted 3.34 million in the week ended March 17, the Labor Department said. About 7.15 million people received some kind of state or federal benefit in the week ended March. 10, down 131,488 from the prior week. Figures for continuing claims and total claims were little changed under the government’s revised formula for calculating the data.

Mar 28, 2012 1:28pm
Romney Boosts Wisconsin Gov. Walker Ahead of Recall Election
(Image Credit: Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES — At a Wisconsin voters’ tele-town hall Wednesday, Mitt Romney threw his support behind embattled Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who is facing a recall election after he orchestrated a law that cuts public employees’ collective bargaining rights in the state.

“Governor Walker is, in my opinion, an excellent governor, and I believe that he is right to stand up for the citizens of Wisconsin, and to insist that those people who are working in the public sector unions have rights to effect their wages, but that these benefits and retiree benefits have fallen out of line with the capacity of the state to pay them, and so I support the governor in his effort to reign in the excesses that have permeated the public sector union and government negotiations over the years,” said Romney.

This was the first tele-town hall Romney has held with Wisconsin voters ahead of next week’s primary.

“This is something which a number of other states have confronted as well,” said Romney, who talks daily about the need to reduce the size of government and curtail out of control spending. “The state of Indiana, even my home state of Massachusetts, has reigned in the collective bargaining excesses associated with retirement benefits for future retirees.”

“I understand that current retirees are not having their benefits changed, but for future retirees collective bargaining will not include some of these retirement benefits, and I support the governor and his effort to bring fiscal responsibility to the capitol,” said Romney.
…

EUROPE NEWS
Updated March 29, 2012, 5:28 a.m. ET

Spain Strike Challenges Austerity
By DAVID ROMÁN and JONATHAN HOUSE

MADRID—A nationwide general strike in Spain started early Thursday with closures of factories across the country, though activity levels seemed largely normal in big cities.

The strike, called by the two largest unions in the country, is the first clear challenge to Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s austerity and reform drive. It has drawn support from the Socialist Party, which was in power until December and is the largest opposition in parliament, as well as the much smaller United Left bloc.

On downtown city streets there was a little more traffic than usual as more people used their cars to go to work. The Madrid regional government agreed minimum services with public transport operators of about 30% of normal capacity.

In the underground Sol metro and train station, there was less activity than usual. Lidia Castillo, a 38-year-old waitress at a nearby restaurant, said there were fewer people than usual on her train from the Villaverde suburb. She said trains were coming every 20-30 minutes instead of the usual 10-15 minutes.

The streets around the central Puerta del Sol square were strewed with fliers and storefronts were dotted with stickers bearing slogans like “We are on strike!” and “They want to take away our rights!” Carrera San Jeronimo street was filled with trash, beer bottles and the remnants from a small fire where a group of protesters had gathered in the early hours.
…

Cramdowns are coming.

Developments
Real estate news and analysis from The Wall Street Journal

March 28, 2012, 3:40 PM

Mortgage Write-Downs Granted Here, There – Not Everywhere
By Alan Zibel

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac aren’t granting reductions in homeowners’ loan balances, as has been widely noted of late. Nevertheless, some Americans who have gotten into trouble on their mortgages are actually seeing their loan balances cut, as a debate rages in Washington about whether doing so on a wider scale will be effective.

More than 35,000 homeowners received principal reductions from their lender last year, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said in a report Wednesday. The total was up about 20% from about 29,000 in 2010. But it was still down 23% from nearly 46,000 in 2009, when banks started to write down loans acquired at a discount from failed institutions.

“Principal reduction modifications can be an effective tool in the overall arsenal,” said Bruce Kruger, the OCC’s lead mortgage expert.

Banks are mainly granting homeowners write-downs if they hold those loans on their balance sheet and tend to do so for loans that are significantly “under water”— meaning that the homeowner owes far more on the property than the home is worth. They are not permitted to do so for loans that they have sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the federally controlled mortgage investors.

Principal reductions made up about 8.5% of all loan modifications completed in the fourth quarter, compared with 7.8% in the third quarter of last year and 2.7% in the fourth quarter of 2010, the regulator said.

The OCC’s quarterly “mortgage metrics” report covers 31.4 million loans worth $5.4 trillion, or 60% of U.S. home loans. Of those mortgages, about 3.8 million, or 12% had missed at least one mortgage payment, and 1.3 million were in foreclosure as of the end of last year.

Whether to encourage more loan reductions for troubled homeowners has been a matter of intense public interest. The Obama administration has stepped up pressure on the independent regulator for Fannie and Freddie to grant more reductions, offering new incentives to do so.

The federal regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, has been evaluating the incentives the administration has offered. But the agency’s acting director, Edward DeMarco, has resisted doing so, saying that it may not make economic sense for Fannie and Freddie and could encourage more borrowers to default.

“We’re encouraging them to … look at it again because we think there’s a good economic case, a good financial case for doing it in some cases,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told House lawmakers on Wednesday.
…

Who knew David Koch sat on the board of Reason Magazine.
Who knew that the Koch Brothers started The Cato Institute.
(I might have known at one time-mentalpause.)http://www.npr.org/2012/03/27/149443423/koch-brothers-move-to-control-cato-institute

Re: “Social contract” and the current SCOTUS debate.

If public health does not “promote the general welfare” in our country, I don’t know what does. One child sick with airborne Ebola virus+one over-crowded airplane = a whole country in peril and/or panic.

The insurance industry doesn’t get to dictate to America’s military system, educational system, transportation and infrastructural systems; why should it have any say in our public health care? (ans: Because they can’t wring any more money out of the banking system?)

Back to the point:
Just as we all benefit from a common defense, we also benefit from our public health system every time we eat at a restaurant and don’t contract TB, or expect the paramedics to show up at a crash site and cart the injured off to hospital instead of some back-alley quack. Public health is both a benefit and a duty of American citizenship, just as getting an education is, funding our roads is, defending the country is.

I think the problem America is having with the current “health care debate” is that we’ve let the insurance industry define it. We’re debating mandated “insurance” here, not mandated public health.

The insurance industry has NOTHING to do with health care; doctors do. Nurses and techs do. Hospitals and clinics do. Researchers and clinicians do. Insurance middlemen do not– anymore than they have any business dictating to our military how to “prosecute” our wars, our farmers how to feed us, or our schools how to teach our children to read. “Health Insurers” have turned a concept into a commodity, and the American people have just accepted it as “the way things are.”

It’s time to re-brand the argument.

Panic-stricken phone call comes into the Arizona Slim Ranch early this morning. It’s my mother:

“Slim, WHERE did you put my car keys?”

Mind you, this is the same mother who drew a very bad hand in the Lousy Luck card game back on February 13th. She fell on ice and broke her wrist and hurt her hip that day. She fell again on the 28th, an MRI was done, and lucky her, broken hip. Off to surgery for both the hip and wrist.

As mentioned here before, I went back east to tend to my dad (who can’t live alone) and her from February 27 to March 14.

What prompted Mom’s phone call was her doctor visit yesterday. Doc took the brace off her wrist, and said the X-ray of it and her hip looked fine. He also said that my mom was one tough lady and that he didn’t want to see her again for a very long time.

I told Mom that I’d kept the car keys in my room (so that my dad wouldn’t find them and go out for a joyride) while I was back east. After she got home, I gave the keys back to her and she put them in her purse. Where she found them this morn.

This afternoon, she’s going to take a drive over to the hairdresser.

WOO-HOO!!!!

Conservatives, particularly those with college educations, have become dramatically more skeptical of science over the past four decades, according to a study published in the April issue of the American Sociological Review. Fewer than 35 percent of conservatives say they have a “great deal” of trust in the scientific community now, compared to nearly half in 1974.

“The scientific community … has been concerned about this growing distrust in the public with science. And what I found in the study is basically that’s really not the problem. The growing distrust of science is entirely focused in two groups—conservatives and people who frequently attend church,” says the study’s author, University of North Carolina postdoctoral fellow Gordon Gauchat.

In fact, in 1974, people who identified as conservatives were among the most confident in science as an institution, with liberals trailing slightly behind, and moderates bringing up the rear. Liberals have remained fairly steady in their opinion of the scientific community over the interim, while conservative trust in science has plummeted.

If you don’t believe in science ie the process of observation, measurement, thesis, testing and pier review and testing. What do you use to make decisions? Do people really trust the faith of politicians over the scientific process?

Best Buy misses fires 400 and shuts stores.

Sorry Best Buy - Didn’t you get the memo the consumer is dead. The FED gov and WS elite are busy driving in the last stake.

Monty Python
Im A Lumberjack lyrics

I’m a homeowner and I’m OK
I sleep all night and I work all day
(He’s a homeowner and he’s OK
He sleeps all night and he works all day)

In my house is where I live you see
I`m upside down so I live for free
(In his house is where he lives you see
he`s upside down so he lives for free?)

I cut grass, I eat my lunch
I go to the lavat’ry
On Wednesdays I go shopping
And have buttered scones for tea
(He cuts grass?)
(He’s a homeowner?)

I bought my lovely house back in 03
Then I rfied twice with my equity
(he refied twice?)
(He’s a homeowner?)

I’m a homeowner and I’m OK
I sleep all night and I work all day
This house payment is too much for me
I spent all the cash from my equity
(He spent all the cash?)
(He’s a homeowner?)
(He lives for free?)

G’morning HBB.

L’il update. The family is still looking to buy a house, but ever so slowly, and with great hesitation. Our landlord is placated for now, and I am more convinced that prices are going to drop down another notch here in our city by the bay. We’ve been waiting 10 years, so another 6-12 months won’t kill us.

Inventory is insanely low. Yes, there are some bidding wars going on, but only because savvy sellers price their house well below what anything else is going for, and then the house gets bid up to comps.

I have been tracking NODs and auctions, and there are a couple of homes that look great that were not bought at auction and are now bank-owned.

It’s fairly easy to find out which bank now has the house (assessor’s office website). But then what?

For instance, there’s a house I am interested in. 3/2 with view of entire city on a large lot.

01/30/2012 Sold $430,000
02/28/2006 Sold $729,000
06/16/2003 Sold $350,000

The sale in Jan 2012 was to the bank: Lehman/Aurora

So they have been sitting on this REO for 2 months. Do I need to know someone who knows someone??

There’s gotta be a way for a regular person to get at these REOs - esp. if you have an address and know which bank owns the house.

Am I just barking up a dead end? (I adore mixed metaphors, sorry)

Funny how no one posted this yet here.

Back in the Bush days - something like this would have had a 100 comments by now.

————————————

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-run House has overwhelmingly rejected President Barack Obama’s $3.6 trillion budget for next year after a vote forced by GOP lawmakers to embarrass Democrats.

Democrats have defended Obama’s budget priorities but they largely voted “no” Wednesday night.

The vote was 414-0.

Some of you might find this interesting/amusing. The Census Bureau just released figures for county to county population moves 2005 - 2009. Top places influx/out-flow were Maricopa, AZ (south of Phoenix) and Los Angeles to Riverside, Los Angeles to San Bernardino. The census stats for what this blog was pointing out very early in the bubble.

http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/american_community_survey_acs/cb12-51.html

Is anyone watching the Supreme Court hearings on the Health Care Bill that is being challenged by 26 States right now ?

The mandate that people have to purchase health insurance is being challenged of course .

The way I look at it is that is was a price fixing monopoly anyway that
they didn’t attack that to begin with ,so they never corrected the corruption of that industry to begin with . The drug industry controls
the medical industry anyway ,and its has corrupted into harming the public now anyway ,along with being price fixing expensive . The private insurance companies want to make to much profit ,as well as the AMA . The cash cow of Medicare was abused and we can no longer afford those costs ,so why isn’t the racket of that industry seen for what it is .

Instead the arguement is “Should people be mandated into purchasing
the price fixing products of a corrupted industry that is breaking the backs of the American people “, and in large part this was why many people could not afford health care or they were dropped .

Than if you add that Employers are dropping covering people ,no doubt because its become to expensive ,and it always was a employer sponsered program to begin with ,its cracking under the weight of
not being sustainable .

“Beginning in April, visitors to NYTimes.com will have access to 10 free articles per month instead of 20.”

Can you refer to inflationary pressures when there is no exchange of money?

Oh wait, I just posted about all the spybots we allow to track us after visiting various websites. How much do they collect from scooping and selling info from every visitor and why are they still pressuring us for more? I suppose this will cut down on our ability to scan the web. (Perhaps that’s the actual intention?)

Is oil falling for political reasons, or is there some fundamental economic change driving down the price?

Hey polly, here’s a securities question for you:

I was looking at a house near my rental that is about to hit the 3-years post-foreclosure mark, and has still not been listed for sale. Unreal…

Anyway, the owner of record is “Lehman XS Trust Series 2005-5N”. So I did a little searching online, and looked at their SEC filings.

The most recent are from 2006. Their 10-K is a riot of laughs—pretty much every item says “Not Applicable.” Financial Stmts? Not Applicable.

Their 8-K is similarly content-free. And in late 2006, they filed a “15-15D” saying that they don’t think they need to file anymore.

They did say in that form that there are only “Seventy Eight (78)” holders of record—I’m guessing that the ownership was consolidated to such an extent that they no longer meet the standards for having to file publicly. But they don’t really say much of anything other than that one factoid.

Is there any way to find out more information about who the benficial owners of a trust are?

I’m really curious about who would be sitting on a property for three years without making any attempt at disposing of it, and why.

Thanks for any tips…

Younger generations shafted.

http://www.esquire.com/features/young-people-in-the-recession-0412#ixzz1qWgDYvmb

“David Frum, former George W. Bush speechwriter, had the guts to acknowledge that the Tea Party’s combination of expensive entitlement programs and tax cuts is something entirely different from a traditional political program: ‘This isn’t conservatism: It’s a going-out-of-business sale for the Baby Boom generation.’ The economic motive is growing ever more naked, and has nothing to do with any principle that could be articulated by Goldwater or Reagan, or indeed with any principle at all. The political imperative is to preserve the economic cloak of unreality that the Boomers have wrapped themselves in.”

“Democrats may not be actively hostile to the interests of young voters, but they are too scared and weak to speak up for them.”

More bleating about Lazy Americans:

http://tinyurl.com/bpnal79

In which, our fearless small businessmen are:

-A service supplying tutors in NYC paying contractors $25-$50/hour ($10-$30/hour after taxes) because “we do not want to charge our customers more”

-A small manufacturer in Manitowoc offering the “competitive wage” of $8.50-9.50/hour.

-A credit card processor who says “training costs money” Duh…..

-A financial services company for the US government, who needs people with financial expertise and the ability to pass a security clearance. (These people don’t grow on trees). Starting pay? Not mentioned. But you can probably guess

-A guy selling cellphones (mall kiosks), bitching about Lazy Americans who aren’t as driven to work for slave wages like the serfs in the old country.

When the economy gets rolling again, the payback will be a bi#ch.

Who do I see about being a whistle blower on 12 million liars? I guess it not illegal if lenders don`t check up on applicants’ information, right Lynn.

•6 money habits that are illegal

#4 Lying on a home loan application

Homebuyers and homeowners who want to refinance may be tempted to inflate their income or hide some of their debts to better their chances of receiving a “yes” from the lender. But lying on a loan application is fraud, and lenders do check up on applicants’ information, Kaplan says.

“You should always be honest,” she says. “We all go through difficult financial periods, and it’s tempting to want to fudge. But if you get caught, it’s going to lead to huge headaches, and you will sleep better at night knowing that you aren’t living with a lie.”

http://www.savvysugar.com/Illegal-Money-Habits-21426658 - 122k

I like the image of using a battering ram to knock down the walls at Megabank, Inc.

WRITING ON THE WALL
Updated March 29, 2012, 12:04 a.m. ET

It Takes a Village to Battle a Bank
By DAVID WEIDNER

The movement to use local government funds as a battering ram against big banks has gained momentum since the start of the year. Some examples:

—On March 19, homeowners facing foreclosure petitioned Brockton, Mass., to move its money out of Bank of America Corp., (BAC -2.26%) J.P. Morgan Chase (JPM -1.30% & Co.), and other big banks that activists contend refuse to negotiate fair loan modifications. Banks have said those accusations are groundless.

—On Feb. 29, the Los Angeles City Council directed the city attorney to draft an ordinance that would gather foreclosure and small-business-lending data on banks that do business with the city.

—Last month, Kansas City, Mo., officials passed a resolution that directs the city manager to select banks that are responsive to the community’s needs and don’t engage in predatory lending.

—In New York City, legislation has been introduced that would require banks to submit a community reinvestment plan and progress reports that would be used by the city’s banking commission to rate banks that want to hold city deposits.

Similar actions are under way in Austin, Texas; Boston; Chicago; Minneapolis; San Jose, Calif., and Portland, Ore. San Francisco Supervisor John Avalos has stepped up his campaign to start a municipal bank, introducing a resolution last week.

Together, the actions suggest that even though Occupy movements across the U.S. dropped from the headlines like a pup tent whacked by a police baton, anti-big-bank activists are getting traction with some local politicians.

In contrast, Washington is compromised by big dollars thrown around by the bank lobby. Lobbyists for the banks spent $472 million in 2011, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a research group.

Near the top of the list: Goldman Sachs Group Inc., (GS -2.06%) Bank of America, J.P. Morgan and their employees, according to the latest release by the Federal Election Commission.
…