KeNo's Housing and Economic Portal: Wednesday July 20 2016 Housing and Economic stories

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Wednesday July 20 2016 Housing and Economic stories

Half Of Municipal Employees In Small Italy Town Arrested For Fraud ... - (www.zerohedge.com) Roughly half the municipal employees in Boscotrecase, Italy (population 11,000) have been arrested for fraud. The employees clock in, sometimes for each other (with boxes over their heads), but don’t show up for work. The arrested are accused of fraud against the state. As a result, there are not enough people to run the town. Services are shut down. Please consider Not Enough Staff to Run Italian Town after Arrests for Bunking Off Work. The mayor of a small town outside Naples had to shut down most municipal offices after police arrested 23 of his staff in the latest revelations of absenteeism in Italy’s public sector. Staff were filmed clocking in and then leaving to go about their personal business or using multiple swipe cards to register absent colleagues, police said, in scenes that have become familiar after numerous similar scandals.

China Urges Banks to Step Up Risk Controls as Bad Loans Increase - (www.bloomberg.com) China’s banking regulator required banks to step up risk controls and safeguard financial stability as the nation’s soured debt rose. Banks’ nonperforming loans climbed to 1.81 percent of outstanding credit as of June 30 from 1.75 percent three months earlier, the China Banking Regulatory Commission said in a statement on Friday. While the CBRC said the banking industry’s capital adequacy and provision levels are still “relatively sufficient," it urged the lenders to raise capital to enhance their loss-absorbing and risk-management ability. Chinese lenders are grappling with a growing mountain of bad debt after flooding the financial system with cheap credit for years to prop up economic growth. The official figures of 1.39 trillion yuan ($208 billion) as of March are widely believed to understate the true scale of the problem, with CLSA Ltd. estimating nonperforming loans were probably closer to 11.4 trillion yuan at the end of last year.

Wall Street is cranking out auto loans, and the dollar total is huge - (www.cnbc.com) The auto lending business is all revved up, thanks to Wall Street. More auto loans and leases are being cranked out at banks likeJPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo at a time when consumers are piling on more debt — and lengthier loans — to cover new and used car purchases. JPMorgan saw auto loan and lease origination volume jump by 9 percent year over year, to $8.5 billion, the bank reported in its second-quarter earnings. Overall, the bank said its auto loans and leases rose 17 percent year over year. Wells Fargo also showed an increase in auto originations, with a 2 percent rise year over year and an 8 percent increase from the first quarter of $8.3 billion, it announced in its earnings Friday. The total dollar amount lent to car buyers eclipsed the $1 trillion mark earlier this year, and it remains to be seen whether anything can stall growth in auto loans at a time when borrowing costs consumers so little.

Deutsche Bank: A floundering titan - (www.economist.com) THERE are banks that are smaller than Deutsche Bank, and there are larger ones. There are riskier ones, and safer ones. But it is hard to think of any other big financial institution so bereft of a purpose. Since its acquisition of Bankers Trust in 1999, Deutsche has sold itself as a global investment bank. Yet American rivals leave it trailing, even in its own backyard: the Goldman Sachs of Europe, it turns out, is Goldman Sachs. Deutsche’s revenues have dived since the crisis; last year it reported its first annual loss since 2008. Its shares are worth barely an eighth of what they were in 2007. Employees are demoralised: less than half are proud to work there.

Welcome to Illinois (Where Every 5 Minutes Someone Moves Out) - (www.mishtalk.com) Illinois has the worst migration statistics in the nation. Every 5 minutes, someone decides to leave. Out-migration is a serious problem for Illinois, and policymakers should focus on curtailing it by fostering a better climate for job creation and economic growth. The more Illinoisans leave, the fewer there are left to shoulder the burden of Illinois’ tremendous debts. The sheer number of residents leaving Illinois matters – but it’s also critical to understand the demographic breakdown of those out-migrating Illinoisans. When it comes to who’s heading out of Illinois, the largest group of out-migrants is people who are in their prime working years, ages 25 to 54. This is a troubling trend, which points to a weak state economy and the loss of adult taxpayers along with their children. According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS, Illinois’ out-migration appears in large part to be composed of prime working-age adults.

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