Tuesday August 5 Housing and Economic stories

Top Stories:

WCI Communities files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy - (www.reuters.com) - This will be the largest homebuilder bankruptcy so far this year, and one of the biggest ever. It seems that [Carl] Icahn couldn’t pull any more rabbits out of his hat, especially after the board terminated the special company committee to consider purchase offers last month,” said Jack McCabe, CEO of Deerfield Beach-based McCabe Research & Consulting, referring to the company’s chairman. Home builder WCI Communities Inc (WCI.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Monday it and about 130 of its subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection because it failed to obtain the financing that would keep $1.8 billion of debt out of default. WCI, whose business is concentrated in Florida, one of the states hardest hit by the housing downturn, needed to restructure its debt before August 5 to avoid falling short of the cash needed to pay lenders.

Feds have come up with an exit tax! - (www.nypost.com) This law was ruled illegal in the 70s when the state of CA tried to charge an exit tax for people moving out of the state. But it is OK for the federal government to do the same thing. In fact, anyone who has $600,000 in assets and a lust for becoming a citizen of France, Italy or maybe an island in the Pacific should take note of this one. Thanks can be given to a bill that passed Congress recently and was quietly signed by President Bush two weeks ago. Called the Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Act of 2008 (the HEART bill, for short), the main part of the new law deservedly gives benefits to soldiers. But the last part of the bill, under "revenue provisions," sticks it to anyone who no longer wants to live the American dream. A hot button topic in recent years has been the fight against immigrants trying to get into this country. This bill now takes a hard line against emigrants - people trying to get out. Consider the tax an exit fee.

The World’s Grandest Ponzi Scheme Unravels - (realestateandhousing2.blogspot.com) - Latest Mike Morgan. Not for the faint of heart. Let’s talk about what is happening now . . Depression - Totally unavoidable. Bank on it. Well . . . you won’t be able to bank on it, but you can bet on it. We are not only headed for a Depression, but a violent Depression that will be far worse than 1929. Some experts believe the United States will fall into the chaos, bedlam and anarchy that tore apart Yugoslovia. I am not going that far, but I know our morals and ethics are not the same as they were in 1929. Moreover, we are a far more violent society and totally dependent upon a well oiled system for delivery of food and basic services. Bank Failures - I warned that Fridays would become known as F3 - FDIC Failure Fridays. And Voilá . . . two bank failures on Friday, July 25. Then another bank failure a week later, after the market closed, on August 1. Next week? Maybe none, but maybe 10 . . . or more. And here’s why.

Infospace and the Great Shareholder Robbery of 2007 – (billburnham.blogs.com) Before you give the management team and board any credit for doing the right thing, you might want to know a little something about the a deal they struck for themselves that nicely coincided with their fire sale. The plan was to sell off the assets and dividend out the cash proceeds to the company's long suffering shareholders, which sounds fair enough. However, the management team was able to convince the board that they should get paid a "bonus" equivalent to the dollar value of the dividends that would theoretically accrue to any vested or unvested stock options they might have. So if the company did a $5 dividend of sale proceeds and the stock dropped $5 (which it inevitably would), the management team would get a $5/share bonus for each vested and unvested stock option they owned. Now on one level that sounds fair enough. I mean after all, why should the management team and the employees have their options go further underwater simply because they are doing the right thing and trying to get shareholders back some cash. However the net effect of such a scheme is to basically give the management team a gross cut of whatever they sell an asset for without regard to whether or not the sale was even profitable. The cynic/economist/anyone with common sense would say that under such a incentive structure management would race out and sell everything and the kitchen sink for whatever price they could get because it was money in their pocket no matter what.
Care to guess what happened? Everything Must Go! That's right, Infospace's management team ran out and sold everything they could for whatever price they could get. The directory business, painstakingly built up over a period of 10 years: sold for $225M to a private equity firm. The mobile business, which they been acquiring new businesses for less than a year earlier: sold for $135M to a private competitor (who reportedly now mightily regrets the purchase). And what did they do with all that cash (as well some cash from settling a lawsuit with a former founder who defrauded the company's investors)? Why surprise, surprise, they dividended out all that cash out to their shareholders in two special dividends totaling $15.30/share or over $500M in cold hard cash. And what, pray tell, what did the management team get for the arduous task of lifting up the phone and calling their bankers? A cool $90M in special cash bonuses and stock compensation in 2007. If you are on that management team, the thought that likely came to mind as you cashed your 2007 bonus check was "God Bless America!"

California Budget Impasse Enters Eighth Week After Deadline - (online.wsj.com) Arnold is trying, but getting no help from the politicians in the state. California enters its eighth week after a budget deadline with no deal in sight between Republican and Democratic lawmakers on a spending plan, a delay that brings the nation's most populous state closer to having to slash services deeper and borrow at premium rates. Already, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on July 31 ordered layoffs of 22,000 part-time and temporary workers, instituted a hiring freeze and lowered the pay of minimum-wage state workers from a higher state level to the federal one.

Dozens of Laid-off Workers Protest at Gov. Schwarzenegger's Home - (www.myfoxla.com) Arnold taking the blame for the lack of action on the state legislature. Dozens of state workers who have been laid off or had their wages slashed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to return the favor Sunday by going to his Brentwood home and telling him "you're fired" -- at least symbolically. Wearing purple shirts of solidarity, members of Service Employees International Union Local 1000 marched outside the governor's home around noon and attempted to give him a giant "pink slip" as part of ongoing protests against the governor's budget cutbacks. Schwarzenegger, who accepts no salary for being governor, was in Sacramento, meeting with legislative leaders on the budget issue, according to his office. Faced with an estimated $15 billion state budget deficit and gridlock in the Legislature on approving a new spending plan, which was due June 15, Schwarzenegger signed an executive order Thursday that rolls back the salaries of up to 200,000 state employees to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour and lays off more than 10,000 of the state's 22,000 temporary workers.

DMV workers protest governor's move to slash pay - (www.signonsandiego.com) Trouble. DMV workers to do less work than before!!! Wearing purple union shirts and carrying signs, some 25 to 30 Department of Motor Vehicles employees picketed in front of the Hillcrest DMV office Monday morning to protest Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's move to slash state workers' pay. The group chanted “Value us, Value us” and “$6.55 has got to go” as they marched in a protest that lasted from 7:30 to 8 a.m. at the DMV office on Normal Street near University Avenue. Employee Paulette Sylvia, 35, said if her wage is cut to just the minimum of $6.55 an hour, her monthly take home pay would be reduced from about $1,900 to just $600. After, rent, food and car expenses, the DMV field representative, who handles drivers licenses and registrations, said the possibility of living on the streets is real. “It could possibly happen,” she said.

Companies Tap Pension Plans To Fund Executive Benefits - (online.wsj.com) At a time when scores of companies are freezing pensions for their workers, some are quietly converting their pension plans into resources to finance their executives' retirement benefits and pay. In recent years, companies from Intel Corp. to CenturyTel Inc. collectively have moved hundreds of millions of dollars of obligations for executive benefits into rank-and-file pension plans. This lets companies capture tax breaks intended for pensions of regular workers and use them to pay for executives' supplemental benefits and compensation. The practice has drawn scant notice. A close examination by The Wall Street Journal shows how it works and reveals that the maneuver, besides being a dubious use of tax law, risks harming regular workers. It can drain assets from pension plans and make them more likely to fail. Now, with the current bear market in stocks weakening many pension plans, this practice could put more in jeopardy.

Target sells Mervyn's (2004 story) to private equity firms - (www.bizjournals.com) Is this another case of private equity firms acquiring a good company, extracting cash, and leveraging them with tons of debt? The consortium acquiring Mervyn's includes Sun Capital Partners Inc.; Cereberus Capital Management L.P.; and Lubert-Adler/Klaff and Partners L.P.

Mervyns files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection - (ap.google.com) And now: The company, which had been languishing for several years, said that all of its 175 stores will remain open and business will continue as it reorganizes. Privately held Mervyns operates mainly in California, and has seen its sales drop further as the state is among the hardest hit by the real estate slump. "Mervyns needs to reorganize its finances and operations due to the state of the economy and difficult operating environment for our industry," Chief Executive John Goodman said in a statement. The Hayward, Calif.-based chain has been shuttering stores and leaving states such as Oregon and Washington since 2005, after a consortium of private equity players including Sun Capital Partners Inc. bought Mervyns from Target Corp. for $1.2 billion. Mervyns, along with some affiliates, filed for Chapter 11 protection from its creditors in U.S. bankruptcy court for the District of Delaware. According to court documents, Mervyns listed liabilities and assets of $500 million to a $1 billion each, with Levi Strauss & Co. as its largest unsecured creditor.

Buying a bank owned house in Oakland - (www.nothingugly.com) However, the City of Oakland is doing everything in it’s mother-lovin’ power to stop this sale. Why? Probably because they LIKE crack houses. My diligent and excellent escrow company has been “working” with the City of Oakland for almost a month to try to get this thing sold. First, we pull the title. YOW! Ug-LEE. There are numerous liens on the property from the city. Apparently, when the owner walked away, the crack heads moved in. The city cleaned it up a few times, and tried to charge the owner for the service. Now, the owner has fled, so the city is owed the cleaning charge. Also, there are numerous fines from “red tagging” - All the work was done without permits. There are three additional liens which were recorded in error (how do you record a lien by mistake? Three times?) Then, there’s the doozy. The city has a $50,000 “prospective lien” on the property. And, to cap it all off, the city is in the process of declaring the property a “Substandard public nuisance”. Now, this is all well and good. The guys who “fixed” this house weren’t going to correct anything, and city wants to get paid. However, here comes a buyer - me - paying cash for a crack house in West Oakland. Not to fix it and flip it, but to live there. You’d think they’d want to help. Here’s where the fun starts. Escrow contacts the city, and the city informs us that the “prospective lien” is ACTUALLY only for $5176, and they refer us to an inspector. The inspector’s boss has been known to return emails, though it usually takes 48 hours. The inspector herself hasn’t returned an email, ever. And she’s running about 30% on phone calls. In fact, the city of Oakland’s voicemail system has been entirely unavailable twice. So, since we’re now three weeks into the 7 day escrow, I decide to trot down to city hall.


Other Stories:

Moody’s & Fitch Absolutely Hammer Alt-A RMBS From Nearly Every Bank - (www.ml-implode.com) - While factoring in the unprecedented home price deprecation seen in the past 12-months and projecting that out, [ratings agencies] are discovering that those who purchased a home as early as 2004 are now under water and at an exponentially greater risk of default. Even many who purchased much earlier than that and put a second mortgage on the property are in a negative equity position. This is making their modeling systems a TILT.
How much worse can “It” get? - (www.ml-implode.com) - "We are believers in Steve's debt deflation theory, and in fact named our 2008 bear market call after it. I'm interviewing Steve...
MGIC Reduces Mortgage Insurance LTV’s in CA, NV, AZ and FL…This Leaves Two - (www.ml-implode.com) - MGIC, following in the footsteps of most of their competition, reduced the allowable loan-to-value (LTV) ratios for mortgage insurance in CA, NV, AZ and FL to 90% effective today.


LA Times picks up the prime meme, but misses the point - (www.ml-implode.com) - "The problems that plagued subprime lending — loose underwriting criteria, pervasive fraud, products dependent on either serial ...
Fannie's Mudd Soothed Asian Investors as Bonds Rose - (www.ml-implode.com) - "Asian investors were among the most important groups to soothe because central banks, financial institutions and funds in the r...
Worst inflation in 27 years trumps tax rebates - (www.ml-implode.com) - Nominal spending grew 0.6% on the month, but the increase was all due to higher prices, which spiked 0.8% -- the most for a mont...
Second, Larger Wave of Mortgage Defaults Coming - (www.ml-implode.com) - "Its pretty obvious that late 2006 early 2007 was when something unusual began in Sub-prime mortgages. And, not much after that ...
Housing Lenders Fear Bigger Wave of Loan Defaults - (www.ml-implode.com)

I Want A House Price Crash! - (www.fool.co.uk)
Finding Bottom: Why Prices Won't Stop Falling - (findingbottom.blogspot.com)
Housing Lenders Fear Bigger Wave of Loan Defaults - (www.nytimes.com)
Why the Fannie Bail Out is Bad Policy - (www.counterpunch.org)
Bailing Out the Bad Guys: What Congress and Bush Do Best - (www.thenation.com)
Big housing bill: no rescues soon - (www.csmonitor.com)
Housing investment off $305 billion from 06 peak - (lansner.freedomblogging.com)
Florida bank is 8th closed by FDIC - (money.cnn.com)
U.S. May Be in Very Long Recession - (www.bloomberg.com)
Greenspan Says Housing Prices Not Yet Near Bottom - (www.bloomberg.com)
The Credit Crisis Turns One - (www.businessweek.com)
Chase Suspends Jumbo Mortgages Completely - (Mish)
Foreclosures force commuters from central valley back to SF Bay Area - (www.modbee.com)

Glut of One-Bedroom Apartments in Manhattan - (www.nytimes.com)
Supply glut to drag down prices for years - (www.theglobeandmail.com)
Builders still build in spite of glut - (milwaukee.bizjournals.com)
Wave Goodbye to the Invisible Hand - (www.washingtonpost.com)
Stop the bailout - (www.youtube.com)

U.S. stocks open under pressure on financials, inflation woes - (www.marketwatch.com)
U.S. Spending Rises; Prices Jump the Most Since 1981 - (www.bloomberg.com)
Only luck can save America's economy - (www.ft.com)
New York Feels the Pinch From Wall Street Downturn - (www.washingtonpost.com)
Fed's Cuts Seem Toothless As Rates Resist - (online.wsj.com)
Housing Lenders Fear Bigger Wave of Loan Defaults - (www.nytimes.com)
Hedge-Fund Sluggers Strike Out - (online.wsj.com)
Derivatives put equities in the shade - (www.ft.com)
Fewest Treasury Traders Since 1960 Hit Taxpayers - (www.bloomberg.com)
S&P Email: 'We Should Not Be Rating It' - (online.wsj.com)
Citigroup Said to Close Remaining Tribeca Global Fund - (www.bloomberg.com)
Van Wagoner to Step Down As Manager of Growth Fund - (online.wsj.com)
When 401(k) Investing Goes Bad - (online.wsj.com)

Finance Unit of Chrysler Fails to Renew Some Funding - (online.wsj.com)
Disney raises ticket prices at US theme parks - (www.chicagotribune.com)
Fannie, Freddie Push Aims to Contain Defaults - (online.wsj.com)
Chrysler offers 72-month finance deals as it tries to attract customers after ending leasing - (www.chicagotribune.com)
Clorox to raise prices further to offset commodity costs that contributed to profit drop - (www.chicagotribune.com)
Citigroup Loses on Credit-Card Securitizations as Payments Lag - (www.bloomberg.com)
Restaurant industry thinning out ranks - (www.dallasnews.com)
McDonald's Tests Changes In $1 Burger As Costs Rise - (online.wsj.com)

European June Factory Prices Increase Record 8% on Energy - (www.bloomberg.com)
European companies braced for slowdown - (www.ft.com)
High-rise plans stalled as gloom grows - (www.ft.com)
Riches to Rags - (www.nytimes.com)
The trials of Jimmy Cayne - (www.fortune.com)

Royal Bank of Scotland poised for biggest loss in UK banking history - (www.ml-implode.com)
Freddie Mac Foreclosure Timelines - (www.ml-implode.com)
Mr. Mortgage: Chase Quietly Scaling Back Mortgage Lending - (www.ml-implode.com)
The fiction of corporate transparency - (www.ml-implode.com)