The Housing Bubble

Soon to be the current date where I sit:

12/12/12 12:12

Song royalties are great, but even they can’t match the cash flow from a reverse mortgage.

– Mick Jagger
Tonight’s David Letterman Show Top Ten List, No. 5

Obama, Boehner trade ‘fiscal cliff’ proposals but appear no closer to a deal
By Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane, Published: December 11

President Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner were struggling late Tuesday to prevent negotiations from breaking down after they traded dueling proposals for averting the year-end “fiscal cliff” that made no progress toward an agreement.

Obama telephoned Boehner (R-Ohio) on Tuesday, hours after receiving the speaker’s latest proposal for a deal on taxes and spending. The offer was virtually identical to the document Obama summarily rejected just one week ago, according to Republican aides.

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza looks at the potential dealmakers in the “fiscal cliff” talks.

Obama’s chief negotiator, Rob Nabors, later rushed to the Capitol to meet with Boehner’s top aides.

Even as Boehner spokesman Michael Steel announced that a new offer had been delivered to the White House, he complained that Republicans are “still waiting” for Obama to propose serious cuts to popular health and retirement programs that are forecast to swell the national debt in coming decades.

“Where are the president’s spending cuts?” Boehner asked earlier in the day in a speech on the House floor. “The longer the White House slow-walks this process, the closer our economy gets to the fiscal cliff.”
…

Fed is expected to launch revamped bond buying program to aid economy as ‘fiscal cliff’ looms
By Associated Press, Published: December 10

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve is expected to announce a revamped bond-buying plan Wednesday to maintain its support for the U.S. economy.

The Fed’s goal would be to keep downward pressure on long-term interest rates and encourage individuals and companies to borrow and spend. If it succeeds, the Fed might at least soften the blow from tax increases and spending cuts that will kick in in January if Congress can’t reach a budget deal.

But its actions wouldn’t rescue the economy. Chairman Ben Bernanke warned last month that if the economy fell off a “broad fiscal cliff,” the Fed probably couldn’t offset the shock.

Fears of the cliff have led some U.S. companies to delay expanding, investing and hiring. Manufacturing has slumped. Consumers have cut back on spending. Unemployment remains a still-high 7.7 percent. If higher taxes and government spending cuts lasted for much of 2013, most experts say the economy would sink into another recession.

On Tuesday, the Fed began a two-day meeting, which will end Wednesday afternoon with a statement announcing its policy decisions. Afterward, the Fed will update its forecasts for the economy, and Chairman Ben Bernanke will hold a news conference.

The expectation is that the Fed will unveil a program to buy $45 billion a month in long-term Treasurys. This would replace an expiring program called Operation Twist. With Twist, the Fed sold $45 billion a month in short-term Treasurys and used the proceeds to buy the same amount in longer-term Treasurys.
…

This dead cat bounce is destined to land on the sidewalk.

Local realtors claim housing slump ending: San Diego home prices up 17%
Prices 17% higher in November than one year ago
Posted: 12/12/2012
Last Updated: 4 hours ago
Allison Ash

SAN DIEGO - San Diego home prices were 17 percent higher in November than they were a year ago, and that’s “tremendous,” according to the president of the Greater San Diego Association of Realtors.

“It’s a big increase,” said Donna Sanfilippo, who explained that while the median price for single family homes was up 17 percent, the increase was 27 percent for condominiums and townhomes.

It shows the real estate market is recovering, but there are still growing pains.

“The biggest thing we’re experiencing is a lack of inventory,” she said. “When you have less than two months’ supply on the market – and we’ve been consistently at that for the past several months – that means some of that appreciation is multiple offer situations where it’s almost a bidding war, and that’s going to increase appreciation, especially in an entry-level housing market.”

Buyers like Chequita Falls are finding out its becoming a seller’s market.

“There’s not that much out there,” she said. “I started looking in August and I was really excited and thinking that it’s going to come through. Now with these investors paying cash, I don’t have a chance.”

Falls called the investors “sharks” that hurt her chance of achieving the American dream of home ownership.

“I’m mad about it,” she said. “It’s sad. What happens to middle income people? We’ll never be homeowners.”

The median price for a single-family home in San Diego is now $408,000. In November of 2011, it was $350,000.
…

Working for zombie companies can be highly lucrative.

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Managers’ Median Pay: $200,000 a Year
By The Associated Press
Posted 5:16PM 12/10/12 Posted under: Real Estate, Banking, Government
By MARCY GORDON

WASHINGTON — A government report finds median pay for nearly 2,000 senior managers at government-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exceeded $200,000 last year.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees the two mortgage giants, also did an inadequate job monitoring pay, according to the report released Monday from the inspector general for the FHFA.

The median figure means that half the managers received salaries above $200,000 and half received less.

Those managers represent nearly 17 percent of the roughly 11,900 total employees at the two bailed-out companies. Compensation for senior managers at the companies cost about $455 million in 2011, according to the report.

The report also says the top 333 of those managers are vice presidents who had median pay of $388,000. That’s close to salaries paid by private financial firms and exceeds pay for similar jobs at federal agencies.

Because the FHFA doesn’t closely evaluate the compensation of senior managers, it is unable “to ensure that the costs associated with senior professional compensation are warranted,” the report says.
…

End Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
By David C. John
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
ANALYSIS/OPINION:

It is time to pull the plug on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Before they failed in 2008, both had moved well beyond their original raison d’etre: Providing low-cost funds to the housing market by packaging mortgages into bond issues and selling them to investors. Their investments in their own and others’ high-risk mortgage bonds failed spectacularly. The government was forced to take them over, costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.

Today, they remain under government control. They still account for more than 90 percent of the housing finance market. Because their fees for guaranteeing and packaging mortgages into bond issues are so low, the private sector is effectively frozen out.

Policymakers should be focused on fixing this dysfunctional approach to mortgage finance. Instead, the administration and its congressional allies have launched a series of generally unsuccessful efforts to enable borrowers to refinance homes that are now worth less than they owe.

With housing gradually rebounding, the need for mass refinancing programs has passed. Rising prices will enable underwater borrowers to return to building equity. Policymakers should now turn to developing a housing finance system that will stimulate housing sales.

The process of phasing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can and should begin without delay. Both housing finance giants should gradually increase the cost of their services. This will enable private sector competitors to enter the market. The transition can take place without disrupting the housing market.
…

Long-treasured mortgage interest deduction may face changes
‘Fiscal cliff’ debate has put home mortgage interest deduction on the table. Critics contend it benefits the wealthy much more than the middle class.
December 10, 2012|By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — At 70, Frank White isn’t a typical first-time home buyer. But a key reason he ditched his Altadena apartment and bought a three-bedroom house in nearby Pasadena has been common for decades: He wanted the tax break.

“I pay very high taxes, and I have no deductions,” said White, who owns an apartment rental business with his two brothers. Now, after purchasing the $500,000 home in November, he’s looking forward to writing off the interest on his 30-year mortgage.

But the longtime tax break could face major changes as Washington policymakers search for ways to reduce the deficit as part of the debate on the so-called fiscal cliff. And that’s sending shivers through home buyers such as White and much of the housing industry.

“My deductions are important to me, what few I have,” White said. “We need to go after the corporations that don’t pay a … cent. Let’s go after those guys first. But leave me alone.”

The home mortgage interest deduction is one of the most cherished in the U.S. tax code. It’s also one of the most expensive, estimated to cost the federal government $100 billion this fiscal year.
…

Pre-Market Indications
Futures:
S&P 500 -0.05%
DOW 0.0%
NASDAQ -0.02%

Here’s your best bet to beating a ‘rigged’ market

Commentary: Is Wall Street a “rigged game,” too difficult for anyone but the pros? Financial blogger Tadas Viskanta tells why this, in fact, is one of the best times to be an individual investor.

Costa Coffee sales rose by 7.1% in the last three months against the backdrop of protests and boycotts against its closest rival Starbucks because of the US chain’s controversial tax arrangements.

“We have been the UK’s favourite coffee shop for some time; we remain the taxman’s favourite coffee shop too,” declared Andy Harrison, chief executive of parent company Whitbread.

Harrison said it was impossible to attribute Costa’s increasingly strong performance to the controversy surrounding Starbucks’s tax affairs, but he noted that Costa had enjoyed a record week last week, with UK stores – excluding franchised shops – taking £10m and attracting 3.8m customers. The weather may have played a part too – cold but dry, a perfect blend for coffee shop sales.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/dec/11/costa-coffee-sales-starbucks

Tax avoidance campaigners have held protests at Starbucks cafes across the UK, despite the firm’s pledge to pay millions of pounds of extra corporation tax for the next two years.

UK Uncut says the coffee firm’s promise to pay £20m is “a desperate attempt to deflect public pressure” from itself.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20650945

Politico - Counting the casualties of Barack Obama’s drone wars:

“It is a fascinating thing to behold when the most self-righteous among us are forced to watch their false idols crumble to the ground in a miserable heap of rubbish. Just as millions of faithful followers were forced to watch Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s PTL empire collapse the late 1980s, a new breed of puritanical prigs will be forced to face the fallacies that form the foundation of their political faith.

History treated the Bakker clan with the contempt they rightly deserved. I suspect it will be no kinder to those “progressives” horrified by George W. Bush’s anti-terror campaign but mute to the terror of the Obama administration’s savage drone wars. These sensitive souls, so repulsed by the waterboarding of three terrorists ten years ago, now celebrate their administration’s version of a war on terror that swapped out the targeted capture of terrorists with a drone program that all too often kills children, women, grandparents and scores of innocent young men.

The left’s twisted morality pose on this topic too often comes in fits and starts, with the most righteous of the lot declaring Bush a war criminal for his interrogation techniques while granting absolution to the man who champions a far more brutish approach. One wonders where these secular televangelists have gone in a week when BBC reporters tell of an 8-year-old girl having her young skin pierced by a drone bomb’s shrapnel while watching her grandmother being blown to a thousand pieces in front of her young eyes.

Where have all the human rights heroes gone?

Where are the ladies of Code Pink?

Where are those protesters driven to rage over the waterboarding of 3 terrorists who are now so ambivalent about random killings?

They are nowhere to be seen. The facts of the past decade have shown these “human rights activists” to be little more than opportunistic political hacks who share Jim Bakker’s selective morality. Like Bakker at the height of his PTL glory, these left wing ideologues choose silence and a political pose that owes more to the embrace of power than a respect for human rights.”

http://www.politico.com/story/2012/12/countdown-to-zero-dark-thirty-84904.html?hp=r5

Asia Times Online - Picking up a $170 billion tab:

“During the Cold War, such bases became the foundation for a “forward strategy” meant to surround the Soviet Union and push US military power as close to its borders as possible. These days, despite the absence of a superpower rival, the Pentagon has been intent on dotting the globe with scores of relatively small “lily pad” bases, while continuing to build and maintain some large bases like Dal Molin.

Americans rarely think about these bases, let alone how much of their tax money - and debt - is going to build and maintain them. For Dal Molin and related construction nearby, including a brigade headquarters, two sets of barracks, a natural-gas-powered energy plant, a hospital, two schools, a fitness center, dining facilities, and a mini-mall, taxpayers are likely to shell out at least half a billion dollars. (All the while, a majority of locals passionately and vocally oppose the new base.)

How much does the United States spend each year occupying the planet with its bases and troops? How much does it spend on its global presence? Forced by congress to account for its spending overseas, the Pentagon has put that figure at US$22.1 billion a year. It turns out that even a conservative estimate of the true costs of garrisoning the globe comes to an annual total of about $170 billion. In fact, it may be considerably higher. Since the onset of “the Global War on Terror” in 2001, the total cost for our garrisoning policies, for our presence abroad, has probably reached $1.8 trillion to $2.1 trillion.

By law, the Pentagon must produce an annual “Overseas Cost Summary” (OCS) putting a price on the military’s activities abroad, from bases to embassies and beyond. This means calculating all the costs of military construction, regular facility repairs, and maintenance, plus the costs of maintaining one million US military and Defense Department personnel and their families abroad - the pay checks, housing, schools, vehicles, equipment, and the transportation of personnel and materials overseas and back, and far, far more.

The latest OCS, for the 2012 fiscal year ending September 30th, documented $22.1 billion in spending, although, at congress’s direction, this doesn’t include any of the more than $118 billion spent that year on the wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere around the globe.”

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/NL13Dj01.html

Globe and Mail - Canada’s housing market: a victim of demographics:

“Demographic trends built up our housing market, and now they’re going to start pulling it apart.

Prepare yourselves, buyers and sellers. The years ahead for housing will look nothing like the last decade.

A report issued by Pacifica Partners Capital Management in B.C., describes the housing market as we know it today as a product of a wave of buying by baby boomers in their peak earning years. Now, as they start entering retirement, boomers aren’t buying houses any more and the younger generation isn’t large enough to pick up the slack.

Anyone still think the housing market’s going to snap back from the weakening trend that has taken hold in the past couple of months? It’s not, so act accordingly. Adjusting our expectations about housing won’t be easy because we’ve seen prices rise dramatically. Canadian Real Estate Association numbers show an average annual price gain of 7.7 per cent over the past 10 years on a national basis.

Aman Bhangu, Pacifica’s vice-president of research, said real estate has performed a lot like stocks did before the twin stock market crashes of the past decade. “At the end of the 1980s and 1990s, you had that mantra of ‘buy and hold, stock markets always go up, just get in there.’ It’s likewise with real estate – ‘real estate always goes up.’”

Mr. Bhangu said that taking a fresh look at the fundamentals supporting the real estate sector suggests prices are overvalued today by one-third, while other estimates call for a price decline of 10 to 25 per cent from current levels. Forecasts like these are educated guesses, whereas the demographic impact on housing is rooted in basic numbers.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/mortgages/canadas-housing-market-a-victim-of-demographics/article6185296/

~The Daily Grind~

Falling Birth Rates Leading To Cratering Housing Demand

http://business.time.com/2012/12/04/birth-rate-plunges-during-recession/

With this much excess empty housing(and growing by the day),let it crater.

Washington Times - Homeland Security increasingly loaning drones to local police:

“Far from the battlefields of Afghanistan, a Predator drone was summoned into action last year to spy on a North Dakota farmer who allegedly refused to return a half dozen of his neighbor’s cows that had strayed onto his pastures.

The farmer had become engaged in a standoff with the Grand Forks police SWAT team and the sheriff’s department. So the local authorities decided to call on their friends at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to deploy a multimillion dollar, unarmed drone to surveil the farmer and his family.

The little-noticed August 2011 incident at the Lakota, N.D., ranch, which ended peacefully, was a watershed moment for Americans: it was one of the first known times an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) owned by the U.S. government was used against civilians for local police work.

Since then, the Washington Guardian has confirmed, DHS and its Customs and Border Protection agency have deployed drones — originally bought to guard America’s borders — to assist local law enforcement and other federal agencies on several occasions.

The practice is raising questions inside and outside government about whether federal officials may be creating an ad-hoc, loan-a-drone program without formal rules for engagement, privacy protection or taxpayer reimbursements. The drones used by CPB can cost between $15 million and $34 million each to buy, and have hourly operational costs as well.

In addition, DHS recently began distributing $4 million in grants to help local law enforcement buy its own, smaller versions of drones, opening a new market for politically connected drone makers as the wars overseas shrink.

The double-barreled lending and purchasing have some concerned that federal taxpayers may be subsidizing the militarization of local police forces and creating new threats to average Americans’ privacy.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/10/homeland-security-increasingly-loaning-drones-to-l/

Counterpunch - An Interview With Noam Chomsky on Obama’s Human Rights Record:

“Obama’s policies have been approximately the same as Bush’s, though there have been some slight differences, but that’s not a great surprise. The Democrats supported Bush’s policies. There were some objections on mostly partisan grounds, but for the most part, they supported his policies and it’s not surprising that they have continued to do so. In some respects Obama has gone even beyond Bush. The NDAA, which you mentioned, was not initiated by Obama, (when it passed Congress, he said he didn’t approve of it and wouldn’t implement it) but he nevertheless did sign it into law and did not veto it. It was pushed through by hawks, including Joe Lieberman and others. In fact, there hasn’t been that much of a change. The worst part of the NDAA is that it codified – or put into law – what had already been a regular practice. The practices hadn’t been significantly different. The one part that received public attention is what you mentioned, the part that permits the indefinite detention of American citizens, but why permit the indefinite detention of anybody? It’s a gross violation of fundamental human rights and civil law, going all the way back to the Magna Carta in the 13th Century, so it’s a very severe attack on elementary civil rights, both under Bush and under Obama. It’s bipartisan!

As for the killings, Obama has sharply increased the global assassination campaign. While it was initiated by Bush, it has expanded under Obama and it has included American citizens, again with bipartisan support and very little criticism other than some minor criticism because it was an American. But then again, why should you have the right to assassinate anybody? For example, suppose Iran was assassinating members of Congress who were calling for an attack on Iran. Would we think that’s fine? That would be much more justified, but of course we’d see that as an act of war. The real question is, why assassinate anyone? The government has made it very clear that the assassinations are personally approved by Obama and the criteria for assassination are very weak. If a group of men are seen somewhere by a drone who are, say, loading something into a truck, and there is some suspicion that maybe they are militants, then it’s fine to kill them and they are regarded as guilty unless, subsequently, they are shown to be innocent. That’s the wording that the United States used and it is such a gross violation of fundamental human rights that you can hardly talk about it.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/12/12/an-interview-with-noam-chomsky-on-obamas-human-rights-record/

Hey blue staters and urbanites! Are you ready for the new All-American Apartheid? In which us red staters and rural voters will govern, while you guys obey? It’s coming soon, as part of the GOP’s much-predicted (by me at least) enhanced voter suppression strategy!

Choose Your Own Voters
The GOP is already plotting how to marginalize urban voters in the next election.

By David Weigel
Slate

“In the busy mind of Virginia state Sen. Charles Carrico, voters can be divided into two species. The first: “people in my district,” which covers a swath of the state’s rural southwest. These voters are real people. The second species: voters in “metropolitan districts.” In 2012 and 2008, rural voters watched Democrats turn out that metro vote, which elected Barack Obama. That experience apparently taught Carrico and the people he represents that “their votes don’t mean anything.”

“Carrico’s solution: Make the rural vote matter more and make the metro vote count less. His bill, SB273, would assign 11 of Virginia’s electoral votes to its 11 congressional districts. The state’s two remaining votes would go to whoever received the “highest number of votes in a majority of congressional districts.”

“Four of those 11 districts contain huge clusters of Democrats, and voted for Obama. The next seven districts, largely rural, voted for Mitt Romney. Had the Carrico proposal gone into effect this year, Romney would have lost Virginia’s popular vote by 4 points and carried nine of its 13 electors. The metro denizen’s vote would have still meant something, sure. It would have meant less than the vote of the angry coal miner in Appalachia.”

Ah, the electoral college. The gift to the rural slaveholders that keeps giving- to essentially the exact same people.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/12/how_the_republican_party_is_planning_to_marginalize_urban_voters_in_the.html

Christmas Traditions

Caroling
Greeting Cards
Christmas shopping
Eggnog
Christmas Tree
Christmas lights
Cookies for Santa

And let’s not forget…

Holiday tradition continues with foreclosure freeze

by Kim Miller

Federal mortgage backers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced this morning they won’t evict families from foreclosed homes during the holidays.

For Fannie Mae, the suspension on evicting homeowners in foreclosed homes will be from Dec. 19 through Jan. 2. Freddie Mac’s suspension dates are from Dec. 17 through Jan. 2.

The eviction and lockout suspensions have become a tradition for the two government-sponsored entities since the real estate bust left hundreds of thousands of homeowners in dire straits and facing the loss of a home during the holidays.

“We’re taking this step in support of families who have faced financial challenges and gone through a foreclosure,” said Terry Edwards, executive vice president of credit portfolio management at Fannie Mae. “The holidays are a chance to be with loved ones and we want to relieve some stress at this time of year.”

The suspensions are not affecting other foreclosure-related activities. Firms handling local evictions will continue to file documentation in preparation for evictions scheduled after Jan. 2.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 3rd, 2012 at 10:39 am and is filed under Foreclosures, Housing boom, Mortgage fraud, Mortgages.

2 Responses to “Holiday tradition continues with foreclosure freeze”

1
Scrooge Says:
December 3rd, 2012 at 11:48 am

Dear homeowner: Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! … Now get out!

Love Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac

2
Average Joe Says:
December 3rd, 2012 at 1:06 pm

“We’re taking this step in support of families who have faced financial challenges and gone through a foreclosure,” said Terry Edwards- LIAR; All Banks are holding on to their assets to limit supply and falsely (and unethically) drive up prices, building an unjustified consumer confidence.What happens when they flood the market with the 9 year supply of shadow inventory of foreclosures in the state? Not to mention the new construction thats coming back. Just sinking thier claws deeper into a new market of sheeple.! Wake up people!

First-Time Home Buyers Missing Out on Housing Recovery
US News and World Report
David Francis

As the housing market continues to show improved signs of strength, many first-time home buyers are failing to benefit from the broader recovery.

The Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey, released last week, found that first-time home buyers were purchasing only 34.7 percent of the homes sold in October. That’s down from 37.1 percent in September, and is the lowest percentage ever recorded by the survey.

This decline surfaces as purchases of non-distressed homes–houses that are not in foreclosure–have increased dramatically in 2012. The report shows that the vast majority of the homes being sold are regular purchases–accounting for 64.7 percent of all houses sold in October, up from 55.7 percent in February. The increase is a sign of strength in the housing market, as fewer people are buying homes in foreclosure.

But according to the survey, first-time buyers are the only group that has not purchased more non-distressed properties in the last five months. Meanwhile, current homeowners are picking up an increasing number of properties, purchasing 54.4 percent of all homes in October, up from 50 percent in June.

The basic problem is that about half of owner-occupant homebuyers rely on low down payment loans. FHA is now under significant financial pressure,” Popik says. “They’ve tightened their underwriting, and weeded out a lot the lenders that have poor lending practices.” He adds that, in the process, FHA has restrained access for first-time buyers who can’t make the traditional 20 percent down payment.

Changing attitudes toward housing. Simons says first-time buyers might be avoiding the housing market because of the hangover from the housing crisis. He says they are turned off by the unpredictability of the investment. “People are disillusioned. They don’t see appreciation like they once did,” he says. “There’s a false hope of growing wealth in a house. People are being more selective about where they buy.”

Simons also believes the culture of foreclosure that persisted throughout the crisis has negatively influenced attitudes toward the housing market. “People who went through it themselves, or know people who went through it, are definitely turned off. People who defaulted will not buy quickly,” he says.

http://homes.yahoo.com/news/first-time-home-buyers-missing-housing-recovery-162948646.html

Fed Exit Plan May Be Redrawn as Assets Near $3 Trillion

By Craig Torres & Josh Zumbrun -
Dec 7, 2012 10:37 AM ET .

A decision by the Federal Reserve to expand its bond buying next week is likely to prompt policy makers to rewrite their 18-month-old blueprint for an exit from record monetary stimulus.

Under the exit strategy, the Fed would start selling bonds in mid-2015 in a bid to return its holdings to pre-crisis proportions in two to three years. An accelerated buildup of assets would also mean a faster pace of sales when the time comes to exit — increasing the risk that a jump in interest rates would crush the economic recovery.

“There is certainly an issue about unwinding the balance sheet” in a way that “is effective and continues to support the recovery without creating inflation,” St. Louis Fed Bank President James Bullard said in an interview in October. The central bank might have to “revisit” the 2011 strategy, he added.

The Fed is already buying $40 billion a month in mortgage- backed securities to boost the economy, and policy makers meeting Dec. 11-12 will consider whether to purchase more assets. John Williams, president of the San Francisco Fed, has proposed adding $45 billion of Treasury securities a month.

The bigger the balance sheet, “the riskier the exit becomes,”
Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker said during a Nov. 20 speech in New York. “That is something we need to think carefully about.”

Krishna Memani, director of fixed income at OppenheimerFunds Inc., said a too-rapid sale of assets risks disrupting the $5.2 trillion market for agency mortgage debt.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-07/fed-exit-plan-may-be-redrawn-as-assets-near-3-trillion.html - 158k -

Florida Realtors discuss 2013 housing market with national economists

For anyone attending I would recommend…..

Pro Line® Men’s Stream Rubber Chest Waders Cleated
5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

Price: $73.37 - $89.99

http://www.amazon.com/Line%C2%AE-Stream-Rubber-Waders-Cleated/dp/B000LHSIZ6 - 257k -

Florida Realtors discuss 2013 housing market with national economists

Posted: 8:00 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2012
By Kimberly Miller

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

The forecast for Florida’s housing future will be discussed today in Orlando during an economic conference hosted by the Florida Realtors.

Leading housing experts, including Fannie Mae Senior Vice President Doug Duncan and Leslie Appleton-Young, vice president and chief economist for the California Association of Realtors, will speak at the event.

With the inventory of homes statewide dwindling, prices have started to rise, according to recent measures.

But a report from the foreclosure-tracking company RealtyTrac, which will be released Thursday, may dampen the 2013 housing forecast. Florida has taken the top spot nationally the last two months for foreclosure activity and a slowdown isn’t expected.

Today’s conference begins at 8:30 a.m.

“Florida Realtors is bringing together expert economic forecasters to discuss what they see happening in Florida and nationally in 2013,” said Florida Realtors Chief Economist John Tuccillo. “Realtors who watch this economic conference will gain insight into how the markets likely will develop next year, from the overarching economic environment to the financing climate to conditions in Florida’s local markets.”

Buyer beware of bear traps!

China Shares End up Tracking Regional Markets’ Gains; Banks Lead

SHANGHAI–China’s shares tracked gains in regional markets Wednesday, with banks leading the way thanks to bargain hunting.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks both A and B shares, ended up 0.4%, or 8.03 points, at 2082.7. The Shenzhen Composite Index closed flat at 793.29.

Analysts said they expect the Shanghai index to face immediate resistance at 2100 after recent gains. The benchmark index has risen 6.3% in the past seven sessions.

“[The index] broke above the 60-day moving average of 2062 on Monday, a positive sign that further gains could be on the way,” said Zhang Yanbin, an analyst with Zheshang Securities.

Shenyin Wanguo Securities analyst Li Xiaoxuan said “the market is reacting to expectations of supportive policies from Beijing after the annual Central Economic Work Conference,” which will take place some time this week.

However, it isn’t clear yet whether those expectations will be met, she added.

“A short-term moderate rebound in the economy will help stabilize market sentiment but won’t be enough to justify a rally in the market”, Ms. Li said.
…

German opposition proposes bank-financed rescue fund, debt redemption fund for Europe
Published December 12, 2012
Associated Press

BERLIN – Germany’s main opposition parties are proposing that banks should pay at least €200 billion ($260 billion) into a new European rescue fund rather than hoping for taxpayer-funded bailouts in future.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-left challenger in elections expected next September, Peer Steinbrueck, says it’s important to reduce “the blackmail potential of banks.”

In a joint appearance Wednesday with his Social Democrats’ allies, the Greens, Steinbrueck also backed calls for a so-called European debt redemption fund, aimed at helping struggling countries pay off debt. Merkel’s government has vehemently rejected that idea and all other proposals for pooling eurozone debt, saying it doesn’t want a “transfer union.”

Steinbrueck says Europe has long been a transfer union and Merkel has accelerated that process during the crisis by agreeing to bailouts for some countries.
…

There were 12,103 babies born in Detroit in the 12 months prior to the Census Bureau survey, and 9,124 of them — or 75.4 percent — were born to unmarried women.

Don’t tell me that the Katrina flooding of horrible rap music was not done on purpose.

http://cnsnews.com/blog/terence-p-jeffrey/obamas-america-will-become-detroit

Ok - if you are going to go off the grid. Make sure to UNDERSTAND your system.

Oh yeah - $70,000 for solar panels for ONE house?????????

YOU WILL NEVER MAKE YOUR MONEY BACK. EVER.

How much of that was subsidized? Great.

About the worst investment you could make.

And it did NOT EVEN WORK when the power went out.

But you went “green” so all is good.

Yet one $1,500 generator could have done it all.

Ok - done venting.

——————————

Solar Companies Seek Ways to Build an Oasis of Electricity
NY Times | 11/19/12 | DIANE CARDWELL

When Hurricane Sandy wiped out the power in areas like coastal Long Island and the Jersey Shore, what should have been beacons of hope — hundreds of solar panels glinting from residential rooftops — became symbols of frustration.

Despite the popular perception that installing solar panels takes a home “off the grid,” most of those systems are actually part of it, sending excess power to the utility grid during the day and pulling electricity back to run the house at night. So when the storm took down power lines and substations across the Northeast, safety systems cut the power in solar homes just like everywhere else.

“Here’s a $70,000 system sitting idle,” said Ed Antonio, who lives in the Rockaways in Queens and has watched his 42 panels as well as those on several other houses in the area go unused since the power went out Oct. 29. “That’s a lot of power sitting. Just sitting.”

Comment by alpha-sloth
2012-12-12 05:17:43
Why are we allowing all these foreigners to lay claim to U.S. sovereign territory? And why not put an end to it, sooner than later?

Because then they’d seize American property that’s in their country?

bravo! but that’s not the only reason. what logical reason is there for denying foreigners to own property here? why shouldn’t their property be protected? thinking they’ll drive prices up is a false boogieman. prices are headed down, and they would learn that lesson also. after they learned it, they’d be even more reluctant to buy property. the japanese learned it the hard way and their buying never harmed us like most of us thought it would.

That seems like poor design and engineering to me. At $70,000, I would expect a system to be able to store energy in batteries or send it to the grid, depending on the need at the time….

A little Christmas cheer

Merry Xmas. Check this Out

http://www.flixxy.com/best-christmas-lights-display.htm

Dems Ask for Delay to Obamacare Med Device Tax They Voted for in the First Place

Medical Device Tax is just one of 20 Obamacare Taxes.
In a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, 18 Democrat senators and senators-elect have asked for “a delay in the implementation” of the Obamacare medical device tax. Like most of the significant tax increases in Obamacare, the medical device tax is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2013, conveniently after the 2012 presidential election.

Each of the 18 Democrat signatories voted for or supported Obamacare in the first place. And now they want a sweetheart exemption from one of its most onerous provisions. Even in Washington DC, that shows a lot of gall.

The signatories to the letter are as follows:

Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)

Kay Hagan (D-N.C.)

Al Franken (D-Minn.)

Herb Kohl (D-Wis.)

Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.)

John Kerry (D-Mass.)

Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.)

Robert Casey (D-Pa.)

Ben Nelson (D-Neb.)

Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.)

Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.)

Dick Durbin (D-Ill.)

Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.)

Patty Murray (D-Wash.)

Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)

Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.)

Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) – (Voted for Obamacare in the House)

View PDF here.

http://www.atr.org/dems-delay-obamacare-med-device-tax-a7380 - -

“too big to fail,” or at least “too big to prosecute,” was alive and well four years after the financial crisis.”

Posted: 7:27 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 11, 2012

US defends $1.9B deal with British banking giant

By CHRISTINA REXRODE

The Associated Press

NEW YORK —
American authorities on Tuesday cited “astonishing” dysfunction at the British bank HSBC and said that it had helped Mexican drug traffickers, Iran, Libya and others under U.S. suspicion or sanction to move money around the world.

HSBC agreed to pay $1.9 billion, the largest penalty ever imposed on a bank.

The U.S. stopped short of charging executives, citing the bank’s immediate, full cooperation and the damage that an assault on the company might cause on economies and people, including thousands who would lose jobs if the bank collapsed.

Outside experts said it was evidence that a doctrine of “too big to fail,” or at least “too big to prosecute,” was alive and well four years after the financial crisis.

The settlement avoided a legal battle that could have further savaged the bank’s reputation and undermined confidence in the banking system. HSBC does business in almost 80 countries, so many that it calls itself “the world’s local bank.”

Lanny A. Breuer, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s criminal division, cited a “stunning, stunning failure” by the bank to monitor itself. He said that it enabled countries subject to U.S. sanction — Cuba, Iran, Libya, Myanmar and Sudan — to move about $660 million in prohibited transactions through U.S. financial institutions, including HSBC, from the mid-1990s through September 2006.

Officials noted that HSBC officers in the United States had warned counterparts at the parent company that efforts to hide where financial transactions originated would expose the bank to sanctions, but the protests were ignored.

HSBC even instructed an Iranian bank in one instance how to format messages so that its financial transactions would not be blocked, Breuer said at a news conference announcing the settlement.

“The record of dysfunction that prevailed at HSBC for many years is simply astonishing,” Breuer said.

For the government not to go a step further and prosecute was “beyond obscene,” said Bill Black, a former U.S. regulator for the Office of Thrift Supervision who now teaches at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

“Regulators are telling us, ‘Yes, they’re felons, they’re massive felons, they did it for years, they lied to us, and they made a lot of money … and they got caught red-handed and they’re gonna walk.’”

Black disputed the government’s concern that indicting HSBC could take down the financial system.

“That’s the logic that we get stability by leaving felons in charge of our largest banks,” he said. “This is insane.”

A 28-year-old man from Henley Beach South in Adelaide was reported for cultivating cannabis after photos of his plants were noticed on a real estate website.

The plants, growing in pots, inadvertently showed up in photos used to advertise the house for sale.

http://mobile.news.com.au/realestate/news/henley-beach-south-man-reported-after-property-ad-featured-cannabis-plants/story-fncq3gat-1226535669096

“All over the country, activists have declared housing a human right and come together in solidarity,“

You have the right to granite countertops, stainless appliances and a gated community.

If you cannot afford granite countertops, stainless appliances and a gated community they will be given to you without any questioning, if you wish.

Knowing and understanding your rights as I have explained them to you, are you willing to make a mortgage payment without an attorney present?

Foreclosure fighters rally in Lake Worth

by Kim Miller

Palm Beach County homeowner advocates will hold a candlelight vigil tomorrow, Dec. 6, in Lake Worth to commemorate a national day of action against foreclosures.

The event, which begins at 5:45 p.m., is part of the Occupy Our Homes’ movement of “Reclaim our homes, reclaim our future.” It will be held at a vacant foreclosed home at 107 North B Street.

This is the second year of the event, which is being organized locally by Palm Beach County homeowner advocate Lisa Epstein and the blog 4closurefraud.org.

“All over the country, activists have declared housing a human right and come together in solidarity,“ said Shab Bashiri, an organizer with Occupy Our Homes Atlanta, “We’re occupying our homes to prevent eviction, disrupting foreclosure auctions, restoring vacant homes to community use, and putting the spotlight on the banks that caused this mess in the first place.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2012 at 1:06 pm and is filed under Florida economy, Foreclosures, Housing affordability, Housing boom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

CRATER!!!!

New phone adivce:

I am really tired of apple and my really old IPhone. I think the nokia lumina 920 looks sweet. I guess the biggest drawback for me is the lack of apps but all the big players (facebook, flixter, Netflix) seem to be available.

Does anybody here have one or any other WP?

I have kids and would love the better camera and video that comes with it which is one aspect where the nokia shines over the IPhone.

The liars are out telling you “it’s ok to buy”. This ought to be enough to tell you it’s a horrible idea for you and a great idea for them.

Two lessons of the past that are being ignored:

1) Central planning leads to massive malinvestment.

2) Money printing to try and increase the wealth level of a society - has that ever actually worked?

Instead of trying to decentralize and diversify the markets so they are more responsive, and attempting to gracefully get rid of the malinvestment (a tricky proposition), they are centralizing the markets in the Fed and government, and reinforcing the malinvestment, financialization and homogeneity.

I realize the Fed is trying to increase inflation expectations. But they’re playing with fire with just a lot of handwaving about how they would put it out. Reagan sparked a severe recession to get rid of it but then launched a 30 year binge of deficit spending and here we are today.

At least it’ll be interesting I suppose.

The article I’ve been trying to post keeps getting stuck in cyberspace, so I’ll just write the news:

Christie in New Jersey just passed the law that will allow lenders to foreclose more quickly on abandoned properties.

This is the first time I have seen judicial state pass a law that will help speed up the processing of foreclosures. IL state houses have also passed such a law, but to my understanding, it has yet to be signed by the governor.

Florida needs to do this as well.

This is a potential game-changer in terms of judicial states working through their shadow inventory of foreclosures. IMHO, this could be the trigger that starts another leg down in NJ (and IL to follow)…if you are considering buying in NJ, I would be extraordinarily cautious right now.

The law is set to take effect (ie. the foreclosures begin) in March 2013.

If you want to Google it, the law is called the Residential Foreclosure Transformation Act, signed into law on December 6th.

Once the property has been deemed vacant and abandoned (and they can’t find an occupant to serve otherwise), the sheriff is ordered to sell the property within 60 days.

Again, I can’t stress this enough…this law, and laws like it could be a real game-changer with respect to clearing distressed inventory in judicial states.

Actually, I posted the wrong bill…Christie vetoed the bill I noted…this one is Senate Bill S2156.

My bad.

Lloyd Blankfein is worried that investors think low interest rates will last forever.

Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, discussing how ‘Cliff’ deal may work.”One of the big risks that’s looming is complacency. People are once again complacent about the low level of interest rates,” the Goldman Sachs CEO said at the New York Times DealBook conference Wednesday.

As a result, there could be losses for investors with portfolios heavy with low interest loans, Blankfein predicted.

“At some point growth will come back. I think its going to come back sooner than people think. Now what’s going to happen when growth comes back, interest rates rise?” Blankfein said. “That will have an effect on portfolios and people will have losses.”

Blankfein said that Goldman is advising all its corporate clients to borrow “as much as they’re going to need for as long as they think they could need it” because of the low interest rate environment.

Blankfein’s words revealed a conflict at the heart of Goldman’s business. It advises corporate clients to issue debt while warning investors that buying too much low-interest debt might be financially perilous.

“Florida is once again the foreclosure capital of the country thanks in part to Tampa Bay, where filings jumped and piled behind tens of thousands of pending cases.”

http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/realestate/foreclosure-filings-rise-again-in-florida-and-tampa-bay-area/1265889

CRATER!!!!

Why, you may ask, did I just take great pleasure in spending the last hour- and-thirty-four minutes on hold to a call center in Mumbai?

Thanks to government Recovery Act cheese, (which subsidizes broadband incursion into underserved rural territories) I AM FREE OF HUGHESNET!!!

FREE AT LAST. FREE AT LAST. THANK GOD ALMIGHTY I AM FREE AT LAST. (Amen)

Oh bugger…

L.A. NOW
Southern California — this just in
Cal State Fullerton lockdown: search focuses on Mihaylo Hall
December 12, 2012 | 10:13 pm

Cal State Fullerton University remained on lockdown late Wednesday as police focused their search on one building on the southeast end of campus.

About 400 staff and students are held inside Steven G. Mihaylo Hall, a 200,000-square-foot business and economics structure, where a suspect was last spotted.

The fugitive and four others were involved in an armed robbery earlier in the day in Moreno Valley. They shot an employee, then led police on a wild car chase that spanned four counties. After they stopped at Cal State Fullerton, two of the men were captured. Two others ran away, and one reportedly went into Mihaylo Hall. The fifth was caught in Watts shortly after.

Alarms rang throughout the campus about 4 p.m., alerting students to the incident. While people have been evacuated from other structures, Mihaylo remains locked down. Police had searched about three-quarters of the building as of 8 p.m. Campus Chief of Police Dennis DeMaio could not estimate how much longer it would take.

“It’s a slow-moving process because you’re checking every hallway, every student and having to identify them,” he said.
…

High housing prices and homelessness seem to go hand-in-hand…who’d've thunk?

San Diego Ranks Third Highest for Homeless
San Diego is number three in transient population
By Gene Cubbison
Wednesday, Dec 12, 2012 | Updated 6:20 PM PST

San Diego has just attained a third-place national ranking – a distant third, to be sure.

Not for something cool, heroic or lofty.

It’s for the size of its homeless population — just over 10,000 county-wide — which is outranked only by those of New York and Los Angeles — both four to six times larger — according to a report just issued by the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development.

While the HUD report doesn’t say why this has come about, a visit to the San Diego’s 200-bunk emergency winter shelter in Barrio Logan — operated by the nonprofit Alpha Project for the Homeless – yields some theories, if not quantifiable answers.

“There’s a lot of resources here in San Diego,” says Janis Phillips, a shelter resident who is expected to be among more than 800 street people served by the shelter during its four-month run.

“They help us out,” Phillips adds. “We have this tent from Alpha Project. I feel we’ve got more of these going on than other places that could help the homeless. If you don’t want to see us out in the street, help us.”

Bob McElroy, the Alpha Project’s founder, president and CEO, says this area’s battle against homelessness has become a lot less uphill, thanks to increasingly enlightened local governments agencies, nonprofits and charity groups.

And, says McElroy: “Hey, it’s San Diego”, citing a moderate, year-round climate and mellow urban scene that make the city relatively accommodating to life on the streets.

But only up to a point.

“It is a retirement community; it’s extremely expensive to live here,” says shelter resident Paula Meador. “You have to have money and you have to be productive.”

And given that San Diego County is home to a large military community, the influx of down-on-their luck veterans is a big part of the growing homeless numbers, up 6 percent over last year.

“This is the only shelter for female veterans,” McElroy points out. “We have everything from Vietnam veterans, we have World War Two veterans in here. And we also have Iraq and Afghanistan veterans over here. These kids — that’s going to be an issue for decades to come.”
…