Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Wednesday October 31 Housing and Economic stories


TOP STORIES:

Lower mortage rates are unlikely, banks say - (www.washingtonpost.com) Fed actions to reduce mortgage rates may be helping banks more than borrowers.  JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, the nation’s largest mortgage lenders, said Friday they won’t make home loans much cheaper for consumers, even as they reported booming profits from that business. Those bottom lines have been padded by federal initiatives to stimulate the economy. The Federal Reserve is spending $40 billion a month to reduce mortgage rates to encourage Americans to buy homes. Instead, its policies may be generating more benefits for banks than borrowers. A new study suggests that the Fed shouldn't have just cut interest rates. It should have made them negative. “The government can’t force banks to give out loans at lower rates any more than they can force Macy’s to sell me sheets for a dollar,” said Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner at consulting firm Federal Financial Analytics.

S&P cuts Spain credit rating to near junk - (www.reuters.com) Standard & Poor's on Wednesday cut Spain's sovereign credit rating to BBB-minus, just above junk territory, citing a deepening economic recession that is limiting the government's policy options to arrest the slide. The S&P downgrade comes with a negative outlook reflecting the credit ratings agency's view that there are significant risks to economic growth and budgetary performance, plus a lack of clear direction in euro zone policies. "In our view, the capacity of Spain's political institutions (both domestic and multilateral) to deal with the severe challenges posed by the current economic and financial crisis is declining," S&P said in a statement.

Doomsday cycle targets America next - (www.marketwatch.com)  Warning bells, alarms scream louder. But our banks and politicians can’t hear, are deaf, in denial. Won’t take action ... not until it is too late. That’s the latest from Simon Johnson and Peter Boone in “The Doomsday Cycle Turns: Who’s Next?” Who is next? America, Japan, the euro zone are the triple threat next in the line of fire, in danger of collapsing, thanks to a doomsday conspiracy where global “political and financial systems have aligned to build these dangers rather than suppress them.” Three years ago, the first warning: “The Doomsday Cycle.” Since then Simon Johnson, former IMF chief economist, co-authored two bestsellers, “13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown,” and recently, “White House Burning.” Peter Boone is a research associate at the London School of Economics, which published their doomsday warnings.

Questions from a bailout eyewitness - (www.nytimes.com) IT has become almost unpatriotic to question the many and munificent bank rescues of 2008 and beyond. If you have the temerity to do so, you’re likely to hear that the bailouts were the only thing standing between us and financial obliteration. You will also be told that, four years on, many of the bailouts have made money. It’s hard to argue against this narrative, not knowing what would have happened had cooler heads prevailed. But Sheila C. Bair, former chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, is well positioned to question the dogma of the bailout brigade. And she does so repeatedly in “Bull by the Horns,” her new book about the crisis. As one of the main participants in the battles surrounding the rescues, and perhaps the coolest head in attendance, Ms. Bair provides some straight talk that represents an important piece of history and a rebuttal to the conventional wisdom.

The self-destruction of the 1 percent - (www.nytimes.com) IN the early 14th century, Venice was one of the richest cities in Europe. At the heart of its economy was the colleganza, a basic form of joint-stock company created to finance a single trade expedition. The brilliance of the colleganza was that it opened the economy to new entrants, allowing risk-taking entrepreneurs to share in the financial upside with the established businessmen who financed their merchant voyages. Venice’s elites were the chief beneficiaries. Like all open economies, theirs was turbulent. Today, we think of social mobility as a good thing. But if you are on top, mobility also means competition. In 1315, when the Venetian city-state was at the height of its economic powers, the upper class acted to lock in its privileges, putting a formal stop to social mobility with the publication of the Libro d’Oro, or Book of Gold, an official register of the nobility. 




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