Wednesday August 3 2016 Housing and Economic stories

TOP STORIES:

America's Aging Baby Boomers, Forced To Work Until Death, Blamed For Collapsing US Productivity - (www.zerohedge.com) The graying of America's workforce will come as no surprise to regular readers. Just earlier this month, we wrote that in a little noticed aspect of the "stellar" June jobs report, the vast majority - or 90% of all new jobs - went to workers 55 and older. Hardly an outlier, this was the latest confirmation of a very troubling trend: all jobs created since the recession started in December 2007 have gone to workers 55 and older. Adding insult to injury, America's aging baby boomers, unable to retire from their menial jobs as a result of the Fed's destrucitve monetary policy which has guaranteed no income on savings, are now also being blamed by researchers for America's collapsing productivity.

Another Retailer Leveraged Buyout Bites the Dust - (www.wolfstreet.com) PE Firm Apollo Schemes to Get Unstuck as Claire’s Stores Goes over the Cliff. Claire Stores – “the latest trends in jewelry & accessories for girls, teens, & tweens” with “must-have hair accessories, stylish beauty products, & more” as it says – has decided to start twisting the arms of its creditors, and has hired law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius to help in those endeavors, “sources” told Reuters. Creditors can see the big gun pointed at their heads: if they don’t agree to a debt restructuring deal entailing a big haircut for them, the company will file for bankruptcy, which might entail an even bigger haircut. To cut costs, the company already shuttered 150 stores over the past four quarters, and is now down to 2,831 stores in the US and Europe, as per its earnings report for the quarter ended April 30. Revenues dropped 6.4% to $300 million, generating a net loss of $38.8 million. It’s buckling under $2.35 billion in long-term debt. Interest expense amounted to $55.1 million, or 18.3% of revenues!

Dubai Police: Using VPN in United Arab Emirates is a Punishable Crime - (www.hackread.com) A high-level Dubai Police official has made it clear that use of Virtual Private Networks (VPN) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is strictly prohibited under country’s cyber laws. It was UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) who previously had warned users not to use VPN,  now the Dubai Police official has also made it clear if users found using VPN to access VoIP services and blocked sites, they will be punished under Law Number 9 against users of VPN. While answering a question about how does the police track cyber criminals involved in bullying or other Internet related crime if they use VPN? Mr. Al Hajri, Director at the Cyber Crime division of Dubai Police said:

The Glut Strikes Back as Oil Returns to Brink of Bear Market - (www.bloomberg.com)   The bullish spirit that gripped oil traders as industry giants from Saudi Arabia to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. declared the supply glut over is rapidly ebbing away. Oil is poised for a drop of 20 percent since early June, meeting the definition of a bear market. While excess crude production is abating, inventories around the world are brimming, especially for gasoline, and a revival in U.S. drilling threatens to swell supplies further. As the output disruptions that cleared some of the surplus earlier this year begin to be resolved, crude could again slump toward $30 a barrel, Morgan Stanley predicts. “The tables are turning on the bulls, who were prematurely constructive on oil prices on the basis the re-balancing of the oil market was a done deal,” said Harry Tchilinguirian, head of commodity markets strategy at BNP Paribas SA in London. “It’s probably going to take a little longer than they expected.”

ICICI Bank’s Quarterly Profit Drops as Loan Provisions Surge - (www.bloomberg.com) ICICI Bank Ltd., India’s largest private sector lender by assets, posted a 25 percent drop in first-quarter profit as provisions for bad debt rose. Net income fell to 22.3 billion rupees ($333 million), or 3.83 rupees a share, in the three months ended June 30, from 29.8 billion rupees, or 5.09 rupees, a year earlier, the Mumbai-based lender said in an exchange filing Friday. That matched the 22.1 billion-rupee mean of 20 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Chief Executive Officer Chanda Kochhar is striving to boost ICICI’s profits at a time when surging bad loans in the country is forcing lenders to set aside more funds to cover delinquencies. In April, the bank reserved 36 billion rupees for possible defaults by companies in sectors including cement, power and mining, an amount that came on top of the 33 billion rupees it put aside to cover soured loans in the March quarter.

OTHER STORIES:

Yen Jumps More Than 1.5% as BOJ Decision Day Spurs Market Nerves - (www.bloomberg.com)
Bad Year Made Worse for Stock Pickers Outmatched by Complexity - (www.bloomberg.com)
Homeownership Rate in the U.S. Drops to Lowest Since 1965 - (www.bloomberg.com)
Companies have a $10 trillion bill that is coming due - (www.cnbc.com)

Energy junk bonds under pressure from sliding oil price - (www.ft.com)
Erdogan wants army under president's control after coup: Turkish official - (www.reuters.com)

Fears grow over Wall St’s appetite for securities-based lending - (www.ft.com)
BoE expected to take total rate cuts since Lehman to 673 - (www.ft.com)
Yen surges and shares drop as BoJ plays it safe - (www.ft.com)
Turkey shakes up armed forces, U.S. says purges harming cooperation - (www.reuters.com)