Eric
Holder Owes the American People an Apology - (www.bloomberg.com) The
Justice Department made a long-overdue disclosure late Friday: Last year when
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder boasted about the successes that a
high-profile task force racked up pursuing mortgage fraud, the numbers he
trumpeted were grossly overstated. We're not talking small differences here.
Originally the Justice Department said 530 people were charged criminally as
part of a year-long initiative by the multi-agency Mortgage Fraud Working
Group. It now says the actual figure was 107 -- or 80 percent less. Holder
originally said the defendants had victimized more than 73,000 American
homeowners. That number was revised to
17,185, while estimates of homeowner losses associated with the frauds dropped
to $95 million from $1 billion. The government restated the statistics because
it got caught red-handed by a couple of nosy reporters. Last October, two days
after Holder first publicized the numbers, Phil Mattingly and Tom Schoenberg of
Bloomberg News broke the story that
some of the cases included in the Justice Department's tally occurred before
the initiative began in October 2011. At least one was filed more than two
years before President Barack Obama took office.
Iron Ore Gluts Seen Through 2017 on Record
Supply: Commodities - (www.bloomberg.com) The
seaborne iron ore market is poised for at least four years of expanding gluts
as producers from Rio Tinto Group to Vale SA increase supply to a record just
as growth in China drops to the slowest pace in a generation. The surplus will
reach 82 million metric tons in 2014, the most since at least 2008, and the
glut will keep growing through 2017, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Australia will account for about 66 percent of the supply gains next year,
Morgan Stanley says. Iron ore will average $115 a ton in 2014, 19 percent less
than now and the least since 2009, according to the median of 10 analyst
estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Prices rose as much as eightfold in the past
decade as China added $6.8 trillion to its gross domestic product. The nation
now makes almost one in every two tons of steel produced globally. Ore supply
failed to keep pace, with shortages in seven of the past eight years, spurring
Rio, BHP Billiton Ltd. and Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. to boost output.
In
One Bundle of Mortgages, the Subprime Crisis Reverberates - (www.nytimes.com) A
subprime deal came back to haunt Fabrice Tourre, a former Goldman
Sachstrader,
when a federal jury in Manhattan found him liable for civil securities fraud. He
is not the only one feeling the pain of a subprime transaction six years on. Hundreds
of thousands of subprime borrowers are still struggling. Some of their
mortgages ended up in another Goldman deal that was done at the same time as
Mr. Tourre was working on his own financial alchemy. In February 2007, just
before everything fell apart, Goldman Sachs bundled thousands of subprime
mortgages from across the country and sold them to investors. This bond became
toxic as soon as it was completed. The mortgages slid into default at a speed that
was staggering even for that era. Despite those losses, that bond still lives.
It has undoubtedly left its mark on ordinary borrowers. But the impact of the
deal spread ever further. It touched the bankers who sold the deal. It even
landed on taxpayers, who ended up owning a large slice of the Goldman bond.
The
homebuilding industry's increasingly desperate attempts to preserve HMID - (www.ochousingnews.com) Like
any industry that enjoys an undeserved government subsidy, the homebuilding
industry is fighting to keep it. The home mortgage interest deduction does
little to increase home ownership rates, particularly among low wage earners,
but it does inflate housing prices, especially where high wage earners live.
Homebuilders equate high house prices with greater profits and more
homebuilding activity, so they are fighting to keep it despite the fact it is
very costly to the US taxpayer and does little to boost home ownership rates. Supporters
of the home mortgage interest deduction are very worried that Congress will
curtail it in the debate over comprehensive tax reform. The National
Association of Homebuilders is becoming increasingly vocal — and increasingly
desperate — in their attempts to justify this subsidy.
New
York regulator takes aim at virtual currencies - (www.latimes.com)
U.K. Inflation Slows From 14-Month High on Clothes Prices - (www.bloomberg.com)
U.K. Inflation Slows From 14-Month High on Clothes Prices - (www.bloomberg.com)
Li & Fung Profit Misses Estimates on Weaker U.S. Retail
Demand -
(www.bloomberg.com)
Yum China Sales Trail Estimates as Diners Shun Chicken - (www.bloomberg.com)
Yum China Sales Trail Estimates as Diners Shun Chicken - (www.bloomberg.com)
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