Monday July 28 Housing and Economic stories

Top Stories:

Ron Paul on the Mother of All Bailouts - (patrick.net) – Very important video on the mother of all bailouts. Buried in the bill, national debt was increased $800B. Includes provision to fingerprint anyone in mortgage lending industry? Also all credit card transactions will be reported to the IRS. Government always coming up short so trying to collect more money.

U.S. Regulators Seize Two More Banks - (www.cnbc.com) - FDIC pulls another Friday night seizure, most likely to minimize press exposure. U.S. regulators took over two banks on Friday and sold them to Mutual of Omaha Bank, the sixth and seventh bank failures this year as financial institutions struggle with a housing bust and credit crunch. Two weeks after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp seized IndyMac Bancorp Inc., the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said it closed First National Bank of Nevada and First Heritage Bank NA of California. First National, characterized as undercapitalized, had total assets of $3.4 billion and $3 billion in deposits. First Heritage, described as critically undercapitalized, had assets of $254 million and $233 million in deposits, regulators said. The FDIC said the cost of the transactions to its insurance fund is estimated to be $862 million, adding that the two failed banks represent just 0.3 percent of $13.4 trillion in total industry assets at about 8,500 FDIC-insured institutions.

Blogs Are Out Of Control, Or The FDIC? - (www.ml-implode.com) ``Personally, I see a lot more misinformation on the mainstream financial news than I do on the reputable blogs- I wonder why Bair doesn’t doesn’t worry about misinformation in the media, regardless of the source?''

FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair Is Out Of Control - (globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com) - "In a sad twist of irony Sheila Bair is accusing blogs of being "out of control". Sadder still is the fact that San Francisco Business Times writer Mark Calvey agrees. Please consider the incredibly inane article FDIC learns it ignores bloggers at its peril. The federal agency insuring bank deposits learned that it can't afford to ignore the blogs following its seizure this month of IndyMac Bank, the largest bank failure since the 1980s. "The blogs were a bit out of control," Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., told the San Francisco Business Times after a speech in San Francisco this week. That's putting it mildly. Following the FDIC's takeover of IndyMac on July 11, widely followed blogs were speculating on bank runs on some of California's largest banks based on nothing more than people waiting for their branch to open or large deposits moving between financial institutions. The FDIC plans to pay closer attention to the blogosphere in the future. "We're very mindful of the media coverage and blogs in controlling misinformation. All I can say is were going to continue to stay on top of it," Bair said. "The misinformation that came out over the weekend fed a lot of depositors' fears."
Man stole ID to get $960,000 house loan - (www.ocregister.com) A Lake Forest man who used a stolen identity to obtain a nearly $1 million mortgage loan to purchase a home will serve more than five years in prison, prosecutors said. Micah Bachman, 37, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in San Diego Friday. He will serve 61 months in prison for bank fraud, false use of a Social Security account number, money laundering and aggravated identity theft in connection with the mortgage loan he obtained last year. Bachman admitted that he created the alter ego of "Tyler Jefferies" and built a credit profile for that identity based upon a Social Security number stolen from a child in Kentucky, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Mitch Dembin, who prosecuted the case.

U.S. Congressman Warns Major Economic Disaster Imminent - (www.thetrumpet.com) Time is short for making a course correction before this grand experiment in liberty goes into deep hibernation,” the U.S. Congress was told earlier this month. On July 9, Texas Rep. Ron Paul warned the House Financial Services Committee that “big events” were about to occur. “… I have days, growing more frequent all the time, when I’m convinced the time is now upon us that some big events are about to occur,” he said. “These fast-approaching events … will affect all of us. They will not be limited to just some areas of our country. The world economy and political system will share in the chaos about to be unleashed” (emphasis ours throughout). Paul continued: There are reasons to believe this coming crisis is different and bigger than the world has ever experienced. … The financial crisis, still in its early stages, is apparent to everyone: gasoline prices over $4 a gallon; skyrocketing education and medical care costs; the collapse of the housing bubble; the bursting of the nasdaq bubble; stock markets plunging; unemployment rising; massive underemployment; excessive government debt; and unmanageable personal debt. Little doubt exists as to whether we’ll get stagflation. The question that will soon be asked is: When will the stagflation become an inflationary depression?

Why wasn't IndyMac on FDIC problem list? - (www.sfgate.com) - Why wasn't IndyMac Bank, whose problems were well known in the financial community, not on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s list of troubled institutions until shortly before its failure this month? And if IndyMac - one of the three largest institutions ever seized by the FDIC - didn't make this list, could it be understating problems in the banking system? Each quarter, the FDIC discloses how many banks and thrifts are on its problem list. It does not name which institutions make the list because if it did, depositors would yank out their money and they would almost surely fail.


Other Stories:

Bank of Canada's Monkey See Monkey Do Policy - (www.ml-implode.com) - "The Bank of Canada says it is prepared to accept some of the riskiest assets on the market, giving it more power to fight the c...
Bernanke's, Paulson's, Bair's, and Cox's Next Step - (www.ml-implode.com) - "The Fed, the FDIC, the SEC, and the treasury department are all in panic mode. Here are the key players: Ben "Helicopter Drop" ...
WaMu: Liquidity Options Running Low - (www.ml-implode.com) - "(The title of this story may be misleading because they have they do have ‘options’ if you are speaking in terms of $10s of bil...
National Australia bank writes off US subprime exposure - (www.ml-implode.com) - "NATIONAL Australia Bank CEO John Stewart has said that while he expects US economic woes to worsen, his bank has no more exposu...
Ben Bernanke’s Hush Money - (www.ml-implode.com) - ``This could be a year away. This could be a month away. All we know is this: when the Federal Reserve system runs out of Treasu...
Treasury plan to rescue mortgage lenders (UK) - (www.ml-implode.com)
William Poole on Fannie & Freddie: Let Them Wither Away - (www.ml-implode.com)
Doing the Banks One Better - (www.ml-implode.com)
How housing rescue bill can help you - (www.ml-implode.com)
What's up with the covered bond push? - (www.ml-implode.com)
Video: Congress Helps Banks, but What About Homeowners? - (www.ml-implode.com)
As Housing Act Passes Congress, Questions Emerge - (www.ml-implode.com)
H.R. 3221 On Its Way For President's Signature - (www.ml-implode.com)

Taxpayer-killing housing bill passes in house - (marketplace.publicradio.org)
Disastrous Housing Bill Set to Become Law - (www.washingtonpost.com)
Slump persists: House sales tumble across US - (news.yahoo.com)
U.S. House Market Freezes In June - (www.forbes.com)
Existing-home sales fall 2.6% to 10-year low - (www.marketwatch.com)
U.S. Stocks Drop, Financials Have Biggest Decline in 8 Years - (www.bloomberg.com)
Stocks Drop Sharply; Banks Lead Decline - (www.nytimes.com)
Grand jury investigating subprime lenders - (www.businessweek.com)
Next Stop For Housing Crash: China - (www.clusterstock.com)
Half Of Employers Have Frozen Pension Plans - (www.kcra.com)
Housing Predictions - (www.opednews.com)


FCC Approves Satellite Radio Merger in 3-2 Vote - (www.cnbc.com)
Friday's Top Videos: Gold, WaMu & More - (www.cnbc.com)
'Stealth' Housing Bailout: It's Bigger Than You Think - (www.cnbc.com)

Calif. school districts curtail bus service - (www.latimes.com) - More students will have to walk or drive to class, as districts surrender to high fuel costs. Critics worry about safety.

City and State Brace for Drop in Wall Street Pay - (www.nytimes.com)
Senate Gives Final Approval to Sweeping Housing Bill - (www.nytimes.com)
Jobs, GDP, housing data on tap - (www.marketwatch.com)

Two More Banks Fail - (online.wsj.com)
U.S. regulators seize two more banks, engineer sale - (www.reuters.com)
US credit crunch set to last for months - (www.ft.com)
SEC's Assault on Illegal Short Selling Intensifies - (online.wsj.com)
After Delay, KKR Finds a Way to Go Public - (www.nytimes.com)
US home owners cut back refinancing - (www.ft.com)
Hedge funds reel as popular bets fail - (www.ft.com)
Can Hank Paulson Defuse This Crisis? - (www.nytimes.com)

Advertising slowdown weighs on media groups - (www.ft.com)
Chrysler Lending Arm In Weakened Position As It Refinances - (online.wsj.com)
Banks Rally, but Demons Still in Vault - (online.wsj.com)
Slowing US auto-finance market hits lenders - (www.ft.com)
As costs rise, inflation's next front is retailers - (www.ap.com)
Plummeting Resale Values Lead Chrysler to End Leases - (www.nytimes.com)
In Oil Debacle, Ex-Basketball Star - (online.wsj.com)
Citi paying departing Klein $42.6 million - (www.reuters.com)

Chrysler looks to drop high-end models - (www.chicagotribune.com)
Darling looks at new mortgage plan - (www.ft.com)
India's Deficit Is a Danger - (online.wsj.com)
Moody's warns on European credit quality - (www.ft.com)
Clashes between emerging economies dim trade talks hopes - (news.yahoo.com/s/afp)
Treasury plan to rescue mortgage lenders - (www.telegraph.co.uk)
ANZ Bank Profit to Fall as Much as 25% on Bad Debt Provision - (www.bloomberg.com)
House price values drop 10 months in a row - (www.telegraph.co.uk)
Moody's warns on European credit quality - (www.ft.com)
Eurozone mortgage lending at record low - (www.ft.com)

No Free Bubble - (www.nytimes.com)
Short measures - (www.ft.com)
Oil Shock: This Time, It's Different - (www.washingtonpost.com)
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Congress backs rescue package - (www.telegraph.co.uk)
How One Borrower Beat the Foreclosure Machine - (www.nytimes.com)
A Deposit-Protection Primer - (online.wsj.com)