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STORIES:
Even
after bankruptcy, trapped by student debt - (www.sacbee.com) The
misfortunes that brought schoolteachers Devin and Sarah Stang and their four young children
to bankruptcy - and the loss of their house and a car in the process - were
their own unique story. They bought the house at just the wrong time. There
were heavy medical expenses when, at five months pregnant, she delivered stillborn
twins. And their money woes go back further: When Sarah's college softball team
pressured her to drop classes she wanted to take, she quit, lost her
scholarship and had to make up the difference with loans. Devin, too, borrowed
to get a master's degree. Then they struggled amid school layoffs near their
Sandusky, Ohio, home. Now, the Stangs just want a truly clean slate,
financially. But even the ordeal of bankruptcy won't give it to them, and the
reason is a common one: Much of their debt comes from private student loans.
Anti-Euro
Le Pen Gain Spooks Overseas Investors in French Stocks - (www.bloomberg.com) Pierre Mouton,
a fund manager at Notz
Stucki & Cie. in Geneva, looks at the rise of anti- European,
anti-austerity parties across the border in France with concern. It may keep him out of the
country’s stock market. “We’re cautious on French stocks,” Mouton, whose firm
manages $7.5 billion and has been reducing its holdings in France, said in an
interview. “If the new president breaks under pressure from these groups,
stocks will suffer. We prefer not to take that risk.” Marine Le Pen of the
anti-euro, anti-immigrant National Front won 17.9 percent, while Communist
Party-backed Jean-Luc Melenchon took 11.1 percent in the first round of the
French elections on April 22. Socialist Francois Hollande, who got 28.6 percent, and
President Nicolas Sarkozy, with 27.4
percent, will square off in the decisive second round on May 6.
Spanish banks ‘vulnerable’ and may need public help, says IMF
- (www.washingtonpost.com) Spain, already struggling to contain its public debts, may need to pump
more taxpayer money into its ailing banks to clear away tens of billions of
dollars in bad real estate loans, the International Monetary Fund reported on
Wednesday. In an overview of the country’s
financial system, the IMF said that despite extensive restructuring,
Spain’s banking sector “remains vulnerable.” It needs more capital and a
strategy for quickly clearing away the legacy of a collapsing property bubble. Spanish
officials have shut down or forced the merger of most of the country’s “cajas”
— the savings banks that lent heavily for real estate projects. But the level
of bad loans continues to grow, and is now a $185 billion burden weighing
on the capacity of banks to make loans to households and businesses.
Planned
palace upsets some neighbors in tony D.C. suburb - (www.washingtonpost.com) In an era of prosperity that has made the Washington area the nation’s most affluent region,
the home going up in an exclusive Great Falls neighborhood
could be its most potent and polarizing symbol yet: a 25,424-square-foot
mansion modeled on the Palace of Versailles. “Le Chateau de Lumiere,” as its
owners have dubbed it, will be among the largest homes ever built in the area,
but it is also creating an outsize controversy worthy of Louis XIV himself. Its
construction has divided the Hidden Springs community, pitting a former media
mogul against a CEO. It has sparked angry confrontations and spurred a lawsuit
that has opened a window on the type of high-stakes disputes that are usually
kept hushed in the region’s toniest enclaves.
Believe
It Or Not, Housing Prices Are FALLING In Silicon Valley - (www.sfgate.com) With
Facebook's IPO looming and easy VC money flying, the housing market is going
nuts in Silicon Valley. At least that's the conventional wisdom. In Palo Alto,
home of Stanford University and a number of startups (Facebook just recently
left for Menlo Park), houses are getting multiple offers. Even
small houses in need of serious renovation can fetch more than $2 million.
But new statistics from Zillow suggest the picture is way more complicated than
that. In fact, housing values in Silicon Valley have DROPPED since last year.
Specifically, housing values in the San Francisco urban area are down 4.5% from
last year and down 0.6% between February and March, while prices in the San
Jose urban area have dropped 0.3% since last year. (They were up 0.5% month to
month.)
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