Sunday April 5 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

Lost HOPE - (money.cnn.com) HOPE for Homeowners prevents 1 foreclosure. HOPE for Homeowners has been a failure. But Congress thinks some tweaks will revive it. If HOPE for Homeowners, the foreclosure-prevention plan passed last summer, was a soft drink, it would be New Coke. If it was an automobile, it would be an Edsel. A movie? Howard the Duck. In the five months since it has been in effect, HOPE has helped exactly one homeowner to avoid foreclosure. This despite Congress having made $300 billion available to back these loans and estimating that the program would benefit as many as 400,000 families. "As it stands now, we've only gotten 752 applications," said Federal Housing Authority spokesman Brian Sullivan. "And only insured one loan. Needless to say, the program isn't working terribly well." Rep. Michael Castle (R - Del.), who sits on the House Financial Services Committee, agreed, calling HOPE "one of the most failed programs we've had in a long time."

Vandals target Scotland bank's former CEO's house and car - (www.guardian.co.uk) An anonymous email threatened further action against "criminal" bank bosses after the home of the former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive, Sir Fred Goodwin, was attacked early today. Lothian and Borders police were called to Goodwin's home in The Grange, an exclusive area of Edinburgh, at around 4.35am. Thirty minutes later, emails were sent to media organisations by a group which reported the vandalism and threatened further action. Goodwin has been at the centre of a row about the generosity of his £700,000-a-year pension. He stepped down from his job at RBS after the bank was propped up with £20bn of public money, which was later increased by an additional £13bn. Three windows at the front of his £2m detached sandstone villa were smashed and the rear window of a black Mercedes S600, parked in the driveway, was destroyed. No one was hurt. Goodwin and his family were not at home at the time and are thought to be living abroad. The former RBS chief was said to be "shaken" by news of the attack while his friends reportedly said the people who vandalised his property had "gone too far". Around 5am, emails arrived at the offices of the Edinburgh Evening News, Press Association and other media outlets saying that Goodwin's house "was attacked this morning" and giving the name of the street where he lives.

Why Eliot Spitzer was assassinated - (www.brasschecktv.com) The US news media failed to draw the obvious connection between the bizarre federal law enforcement investigation and leak campaign about the private life of New York Governor Spitzer and Spitzer's all out attack on the Bush administration for its collusion with predatory lenders. While the international credit system grinds to a halt because of a superabundance of bad mortgage loans made in the US, the news media failed to cover the details of Spitzer's public charges against the White House. Yet when salacious details were leaked about alleged details of Spitzer's private life, they took that information and made it the front page news for days. To the 9/11 fiasco, the Iraq War, the travesty of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, and the shredding of the US Constitution, we can now add a deliberate and reckless undermining of the credit and banking system of the US to the list of Bush administration "accomplishments." No external enemy, or group of external enemies, could have done as much harm to the nation as this group has in less than eight years.

Former Stripper Pleads Guilty in Mortgage Fraud Scheme - (www.washingtonpost.com) A former stripper accused of orchestrating a massive mortgage fraud scheme pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court in Greenbelt, admitting that she played a central role in swindling desperate homeowners out of millions of dollars. View Only Top Items in This StoryJoy Jackson, who lived lavishly while the real estate market boomed, wore a green jail jumpsuit with the word "PRISONER" across her back. She was a world away from her $800,000 wedding at the Mayflower Hotel in 2006, where she was feted by more than 300 guests and serenaded at the reception by Patti LaBelle. Jackson, 41, who was the president of the Metropolitan Money Store in Lanham, faces a decade or more in prison. Instead of helping people hold onto their homes, as they promised, Jackson and her co-conspirators took titles to properties, drained them of equity and charged exorbitant transaction fees, according to prosecutors.

EU presidency: US stimulus is 'the road to hell' - (www.sfgate.com) The head of the European Union slammed President Barack Obama's plan to spend nearly $2 trillion to push the U.S. economy out of recession as "the road to hell" that EU governments must avoid. The blunt comments by Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek to the European Parliament on Wednesday highlighted simmering European differences with Washington ahead of a key summit next week on fixing the world economy. It was the strongest pushback yet from a European leader as the 27-nation bloc bristles from U.S. criticism that it is not spending enough to stimulate demand. Shocked by the outburst, other European politicians went into damage control mode, with some reproaching the Czech leader for his language and others reaffirming their good diplomatic ties with the United States. The leaders of EU's major nations — France, Britain and Germany, among others — largely ignored Topolanek and his remarks. Obama pays his first official visit to Europe next week, aiming to thrash out reforms to the global financial system with the Group of 20 nations and call on NATO allies to commit more troops to the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Europeans leaders hope the new U.S. administration will agree with them on tightening oversight over the global financial system — which they see as crucial to fixing the global economy.

Silicon Valley may be entering another nuclear winter - (www.economist.com) The dotcom bust had incinerated an entire generation of start-ups. A much-debated essay argued that “IT [information technology] doesn’t matter.” The Valley itself seemed to matter less. Its geeks were desperately looking for their “next big thing” and minting neologisms (“utility computing”, “the digital home”) in the hope that one might stick. But ordinary people outside the Valley were no longer paying attention. Valley geeks were already hopping onto Wi-Fi hotspots and playing with “smart” phones, but most people were still dialling up to connect to the internet and using mobile phones only for talking. There was some excitement about a fairly new gadget, Apple’s iPod, but nobody suspected that its progeny, in the form of a phone, might one day make the internet “mobile”. Nor did a popular search engine, Google, show signs that it might be a lucrative business, much less a new technology superpower. It was still a world of personal computers, dominated by Microsoft through its Windows operating system. But towards the end of 2003 two conference organisers, Dale Dougherty and Tim O’Reilly, were brainstorming when Mr Dougherty used the words “Web 2.0”. They immediately realised that the phrase—with its software connotation of a newly released, better and more stable version—had enormous appeal as a rallying cry for the Valley. The Web 2.0 Conference was born, and the first one, in San Francisco in October 2004, created a stir. It took place shortly after the first big initial public offering (IPO) of a technology firm since the dotcom boom. Google’s IPO did not just announce the Valley’s return to Wall Street. It also unveiled a new business model. When Google at last revealed how much money it was making by placing small, targeted text advertisements next to search results, jaws dropped. Overnight, every entrepreneur had a new one-word pitch to venture capitalists: advertising. Google became the Valley’s new champion. Its share price soared, it entered new areas almost weekly—from e-mail to maps, from radio to newspaper advertising—and it started buying start-ups, thus replacing the stockmarket as the preferred “exit strategy” for entrepreneurs. Yahoo!, Microsoft and other rivals could not keep up.

Seychelles: Paradise goes bankrupt - (money.cnn.com) The Seychelles, the idyllic archipelago in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa, is best known as an island paradise playground for celebrities, royalty and the ultra-wealthy. These days, it's better known for something else: bankruptcy. The tiny country's debt burden may be tiny compared to Iceland, which needed a $2.1 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund last fall, but the Seychelles' problems illustrate the degree to which the global economic crisis has leveled some economies altogether. And because of its small size, with just 87,000 people, the Seychelles now has the unenviable stature of being perhaps the most indebted country in the world. Public and private debt totals $800 million - roughly the size of the country's entire economy. Last year, as tourism and fishing revenue began slowing, the Seychelles defaulted on a $230 million, euro-denominated bond that had been arranged by Lehman Brothers before its own bankruptcy. The IMF came in in November with a two-year, $26 million rescue package, and the country has since taken a series of emergency steps: It laid off 12.5% of government workers (1,800 people), floated its currency (the Seychelles rupee, which has fallen from eight to the U.S. dollar to 16, effectively doubling the prices of imports), lifted foreign exchange controls and agreed to sell state assets. The IMF has given a thumbs-up to the initial progress, but it warned that the economy would contract 9.5% this year. The government of Australia is sending tax experts to help overhaul the revenue collection system and audit local companies.

Why Google designers are quitting in a huff - (money.cnn.com) In a span of a week, three former Google Web designers piped up to explain why they quit the company. What are they so upset about? First Google's former top designer Doug Bouwman said he quit the company because of "a design philosophy that lives or dies strictly by the sword of data." He joined Twitter. Then, in a mostly positive look at the company, another former Google (GOOG) designer, Kevin Fox, responded with this critcisim for the "Google Founders and VPs:" The User Experience Design team at Google has had a glass ceiling from the very beginning. You need to fix this if you want to continue attracting world-class talent. Seriously.

Student freezes assets of Madoff's brother - (money.cnn.com) Andrew Ross Samuels of Brooklyn Law School lost nearly $500,000 in inheritance money in the Ponzi scheme. A New York student won a court order to temporarily freeze the assets of Peter Madoff, the brother of jailed swindler Bernard Madoff, the student's lawyer said on Wednesday. Andrew Ross Samuels of Brooklyn Law School said in papers filed in a suburban New York court that he lost nearly $500,000 in inheritance money in Bernard Madoff's scheme. Madoff pleaded guilty on March 12 to running the biggest investment fraud in Wall Street's history, which prosecutors have said involved as much as $65 billion. Madoff was sent to jail pending sentencing in June. His brother, who was an executive of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, has not been charged with any wrongdoing. "Samuels' grandfather passed away making Peter Madoff the trustee of a trust for him that's worth about $500,000, and the money ain't there," said the lawyer, Steven Schlesinger. "When you are the trustee and the money's not there, it's per se liability." He said the temporary freeze applied to "everything he owns," but he did not know the total value of Peter Madoff's assets.





OTHER STORIES:

California House Prices Decline 41% - (www.bloomberg.com)
Geithner Update: Grab Yer Ankles and Say "Uncle Sam" - (www.patrick.net)
Shut Down the Federal Reserve - (greatdepression2006.blogspot.com)
Nobel Laureate: Replace the Dollar - (www.businessweek.com)
Loan Modification Not Enough To Stop Walkaways - (www.youwalkaway.com)
UCLA Forecast: dark days - (www.latimes.com)
America is a slow learner - (www.realclearmarkets.com)

Vice Premier Says China Will Help Boost IMF Cash - (www.cnbc.com)
Japan Is on the Brink of Deflation as CPI Stalls - (www.cnbc.com)
30-Year Mortgage Rates Fall to Lowest Level Ever - (www.cnbc.com)
Oil Tomorrow: What Traders Are Watching for Friday - (www.cnbc.com)
GM, Chrysler Could Receive More Federal Aid: Obama - (www.cnbc.com)

So I said to Gordon Brown, I said... - (blogs.telegraph.co.uk)
Argentina's Experience With Currency Devaluation: The Corralito - (en.wikipedia.org)
February Sales Spin - (www.viewfromsiliconvalley.com)
Are Those Assets 'Toxic,' 'Dodgy,' 'Devalued' or Just 'Legacy'? - (www.wallstreetandtech.com)
Legacy? Try Fecal - (www.patrick.net)
Treasury set to reveal top reforms - (money.cnn.com)
Wall Street manages gains Oil drops - (money.cnn.com)

Betting on a housing recovery - (money.cnn.com)
IBM to cut 5,000 U.S. jobs - sources - (money.cnn.com)
Buying a toxic asset lottery ticket - (money.cnn.com)
Paradise goes bankrupt - (money.cnn.com)
Get the best refinancing deal - (money.cnn.com)