Former
San Fran Fed Employee Threatened To Murder Ex-FHFA Head Ed DeMarco - (www.zerohedge.com) Richard Hornsby last week threatened to shoot
former FHFA Acting Director Edward J. DeMarco and then kill himself, according
to an April 29 police report. DeMarco, who retired from the agency that
regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on April 30, was taken to a secure
location while Hornsby was arrested. The details of the charge against Hornsby can be found here. So how did the FHFA COO nearly end up
commiting a murder-suicide? Perhaps this had something to do with it: "Before
joining FHFA, Hornsby worked for 26 years at the Federal Reserve Bank of San
Francisco." WSJ, which broke the story, has more:
Mr. Hornsby didn't respond to requests for comment, including messages left on
a cellphone and a visit to his apartment. A woman who answered the phone at a
California number associated with his name hung up when informed the caller was
from The Wall Street Journal.
All-cash deals hit 43% of total home sales in
1Q - (www.cnbc.com) Even
as deep-pocketed institutional investors pull back on buying homes, all-cash
deals accounted for an all-time high of 43 percent of total homes sales in the
first quarter, according to RealtyTrac. The demand is high, supply is low and that is
precisely why more homebuyers today are relying on cash to be competitive. It
is not just investors. Indeed, institutional investors, which bought large
swaths of distressed properties in the past few years, are actually slowing
their purchases, down to just 5.6 percent of all U.S. residential sales in the
first quarter of 2014 from 7 percent one year ago, said RealtyTrac. "Strict
lending standards combined with low inventory continue to give the advantage to
investors and other cash buyers in this housing market," said Daren
Blomquist, vice president at RealtyTrac.
Yellen: Minimum wage hike to have negative
impact - (www.cnbc.com) In
testimony before a Senate committee on Thursday, Fed Chair Yellen said a
minimum wage increase would likely have some negative effects on jobs, though
it's not clear how large. Still, boosting the federal minimum wage, which has
remained at $7.25 per hour since mid-2009, would benefit some people, she
added. In recent months, the federal minimum wage has been a hot-button issue.
In February, President Barack Obama boosted the minimum pay for federal
contractors hired in the future to $10.10 per hour. He's also voiced his
support for the federal level for all workers to rise to $10.10 from the
current $7.25. Separately, organized protests of fast food workers have lobbied
for a jump to $15. Yellen also addressed concerns regard U.S. fiscal policy. "Fiscal
policy, while it has accomplished a very meaningful reduction in the budget
deficit, as you pointed out has served as a drag on spending and aggregate
demand in the economy and in a sense this has been part of the headwinds that
the Federal Reserve has had to confront in designing our own monetary
policy," she said.
Hedge
Funds Extend Their Slide - (online.wsj.com) A
bumpy trading environment is tripping up hedge funds. Big stumbles by some star
managers drove hedge funds to back-to-back monthly declines for the first time
in two years, according to researcher HFR Inc. The lackluster showing—the
average hedge fund trailed benchmarks for both stocks and bonds in April—was a
blow for an industry that charges more than other fund managers but pitches
steady returns in both good times and bad. Hedge funds on average dropped 0.17%
in April, HFR said Wednesday, following a 0.33% decline in March. Funds hadn't
turned in two consecutive losing months since April and May of 2012, HFR said.
Early
Tap of 401(k) Replaces Homes as American Piggy Bank - (www.bloomberg.com) The
Internal Revenue Service collected $5.7 billion in 2011 from penalties, meaning
that Americans took out about $57 billion from retirement funds before they
were supposed to... Adjusted for inflation, the government collects 37 percent
more money from early-withdrawal penalties than it did in 2003. Meanwhile, the
amount of home-equity loans outstanding was $704 billion in 2013, down 38
percent from the 2007 peak, according to Federal Reserve data.
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