Prepare
For Tough Times If Your Job Has Anything To Do With Real Estate Or Mortgage - (theeconomiccollapseblog.com) If
you have a job that involves building homes, buying homes, selling homes or
that is in any way related to the mortgage industry, you might want to start
searching for alternate employment. Seriously. Interest rates are
starting to rise dramatically, and mortgage lenders such as Bank of America,
Wells Fargo and JPMorgan Chase are all cutting thousands of mortgage-related
jobs. Last week, mortgage refinance activity plunged to the lowest level
that we have seen since June 2009 and total mortgage activity dropped to the
lowest level since October 2008. Unfortunately, this is only the beginning.
Mortgage rates closely mirror the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries, the the
yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries has nearly doubled since
early May. But it is still only sitting at about 3 percent right
now. As I have written about previously, it has a ton of room to go up before it hits
"normal" historical levels, and so do mortgage rates. As I
noted the other day, some analysts believe that the yield on 10
year U.S. Treasuries is going to hit 7 percent eventually.
'How can you have a recovery when people are
getting poorer?' - (www.telegraph.co.uk) Those
retailers, including Morrisons, Next, John Lewis and Homebase, will be cursing
George Osborne. Earlier this week the Chancellor declared that the British
economy had turned a corner and was starting to recover. Such declarations make
a 1.6pc fall in like-for-like sales over the past six months rather difficult
to explain, and that was the challenge Dalton Philips of Morrisons faced on
Thursday. With shops in every corner of Britain, retailers are as good a
bellwether for the health of the UK consumer as any business. So the large
number of reports published this week offer a useful measure against which to
check the accuracy of Osborne’s comments. At first glance, you might think that
he has been spending too much time in the sun. Yes, sales of outdoor furniture
and plants at Homebase and B&Q have soared thanks to the heatwave but the
chief executives on the high street still hold grave concerns about the health
of Britain’s economy. “It is not yet filtering through into people’s pockets,”
Philips said. “Our customers aren’t any wealthier today than they were a year
ago. For most people, at the end of month, there is no money left in their
pocket.” Lord Wolfson, Next’s chief executive, was even more blunt. “We believe
that talk of a full-blown recovery is premature,” he said.
Portugal’s
10-Year Bonds Decline for Fourth Day as Italy’s Drop - (www.bloomberg.com) Portugal’s
10-year bonds fell for a fourth day before European Union and International
Monetary Fund officials begin two reviews next week on how the nation is
meeting the terms of its financial aid program. Italy’s 10-year government
bonds declined for the first time in three days as euro-area leaders voiced
concern that political instability could threaten economic reforms. Italian
three-year borrowing costs rose to the most since October at an auction yesterday. German (GDBR10)bonds
rose after a report showing U.S. retail sales climbed less than economists
forecast boosted demand for safer assets before the Federal Reserve decides
whether to slow the pace of bond purchases next week. “Italy and Portugal are
the riskiest places in Europe right now,” said Allan von Mehren, chief analyst
at Danske Bank A/S (DANSKE) in Copenhagen. “There is also the
tapering issue next week and people are probably cutting down on risk ahead of
the meeting.”
Factory
Rebirth Fizzles in U.S. as Work Shipped Overseas - (www.bloomberg.com) Randy
Webb sees scant evidence of a U.S. manufacturing rebound
in the Ohio plant
where he’s fixed aircraft electronics for 25 years. Honeywell International Inc. (HON) is closing the shop in 2014 as it expands
such work overseas. Webb is among 80 employees poised to lose their jobs in
Strongsville, Ohio, outside Cleveland, near where General Electric Co. (GE) will shut a lighting factory in favor of
production in Hungary. Delphi Automotive Plc (DLPH) is sending parts assembly to Mexico from
Flint, Michigan, and Eaton Corp. (ETN) will make extra-large hydraulic cylinders
in the Netherlands, not Alabama. “Manufacturing is clearly on the downswing,”
said Webb, 49, who was told in April that the Strongsville Service Center would
close. “Everybody I know is jumping to the service industry or taking some
other kind of job.” The U.S. industrial comeback, an idea embraced by PresidentBarack Obama and some economists as 12 years of
factory-job losses gave way to three annual gains, is now sputtering. Even with
nonfarm payrolls up 1.1 percent in 2013 to 136.1 million, manufacturing has
stagnated at less than 12 million. Factories added more than 500,000 positions
after falling in February 2010 to the lowest since 1941.
Social Security overpays $1.3 billion in
benefits - (www.cnbc.com) An upcoming GAO report obtained by NBC News
says the federal government may have paid $1.29 billion in Social
Securitydisability
benefits to 36,000 people who had too much income from work to qualify. At
least one recipient collected a potential overpayment of $90,000 without being
caught by the Social Security Administration, according to the report, which
will be released Sunday, while others collected $57,000 and $74,000. The GAO
also said its estimate of "potentially improper" payments, which was
based on comparing federal wage data to Disability Insurance rolls between 2010
and 2013, "likely understated" the scope of the problem, but that an
exact number could not be determined without case by case investigations.
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