Friday June 9 2017 Housing and Economic stories

TOP STORIES:            

Great Debt Unwind: Bankruptcies by Consumers and Businesses Jump - (www.wolfstreet.com) Consumer and business bankruptcies are rising again, after declining for years since the Financial Crisis. That’s not a propitious sign. For bankruptcy filings by businesses from large corporations to tiny sole proprietorships, the dance started in November 2015. At first it was the energy bust. But bankruptcies of energy companies have tapered off with new money surging into the oil & gas sector once again. Now bankruptcies in the retail sector are steadily worsening, and other sectors too have picked up the slack. So here we go again. Total US business bankruptcies in May rose 4.7% year-over-year to 3,572 filings, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute. That’s up 40% from May 2015 and up 10% from May 2014.

Anthem will drop out of Ohio's Obamacare market - (www.cnbc.com) Health insurer Anthem said Tuesday it will effectively exit its Obamacare individual plan business in Ohio, leaving potentially 18 counties in the Buckeye State with no insurer selling plans in 2018. Anthem, which sells Obamacare plans in 14 states this year, left open the door to dropping out of other states next year. The company this year sold individual health plans in all 88 counties in Ohio, the only Obamacare insurer to cover the whole state. But next year, Anthem said, it will sell just a single plan in Pike County, and that will only be available outside of the Obamacare federal marketplace, HealthCare.gov.

Americans Are Pouring Money Into Their Homes Like It's the 1990s  - (www.bloomberg.com) Americans' spending on residential construction projects -- from the pouring of foundations to home improvement -- just hammered out its strongest three-month period since 1994. Home sales continue to mount, albeit unevenly, and there are more one-family houses under construction now than at any time since mid-2008....What's more, Americans are spending more on home improvements. While a report Thursday from the Commerce Department showed a 2.9 percent drop in April outlays for improvements from the prior month, such spending was still 32.3 percent higher than it was a year ago. That's the strongest advance since January 2000, as the chart below shows.

CITI: Falloff in M&A Bodes Poorly for Market - (www.businessinsider.nl) M&A lawyers argue the `uncertainty' factor, which has come about recently, given some unpredictable aspects of the new Trump administration, has been the issue. It only may explain the last six months, but the trend has been poor for about two years or more. In the past, there has been some correlation with the S&P 500 and thus it could generate more legitimate fears than some of the other excuses that are put forth for not wanting to buy American equities.

Civil Asset Forfeiture: Another Stealth Tax - (www.zerohedge.com) When you're a government agency, asking for a tax increase is always a hassle. For the most part, taxpayers don't like taxes, and if asked if they want to pay more, they're likely to often say "no." Moreover, when public officials pass tax increases, they may face the wrath of taxpayers at the ballot box. For this reason, governments are always looking for ways to get revenue without having to use tax revenue. After all, if taxes are the government's only source of revenue, this presents a problem. As noted by Ludwig von Mises in Omnipotent Government: The government has but one source of revenue — taxes. No taxation is legal without parliamentary consent. But if the government has other sources of income it can free itself from this control.

OTHER STORIES:

Asian Stocks Face Mixed Start as Oil, Dollar Drop: Markets Wrap - (www.bloomberg.com)
Wall Street dips; 2017's laggards tick up, Apple slips - (www.reuters.com)
Trump set to make first moves at completely revamping the Federal Reserve - (www.cnbc.com)

Banker Robert Jones Said to Be on Trump List for Fed Governor - (www.bloomberg.com)
Bad News Bears Throw in Towel - (www.bloomberg.com)
Fed weighs benign impact of rate rises on markets - (www.ft.com)
Corporate casualties will rise as China and US tighten policy - (www.ft.com)