Wednesday May 6 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

Report: Democrats Refuse to Allow Skeptic to Testify Alongside Gore At Congressional Hearing - (www.climatedepot.com) UK's Lord Christopher Monckton, a former science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, claimed House Democrats have refused to allow him to appear alongside former Vice President Al Gore at a high profile global warming hearing on Friday April 24, 2009 at 10am in Washington. Monckton told Climate Depot that the Democrats rescinded his scheduled joint appearance at the House Energy and Commerce hearing on Friday. Monckton said he was informed that he would not be allowed to testify alongside Gore when his plane landed from England Thursday afternoon. “The House Democrats don't want Gore humiliated, so they slammed the door of the Capitol in my face,” Monckton told Climate Depot in an exclusive interview. “They are cowards.” According to Monckton, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), Ranking Member on the Energy & Commerce Committee, had invited him to go head to head with Gore and testify at the hearing on Capitol Hill Friday. But Monckton now says that when his airplane from London landed in the U.S. on Thursday, he was informed that the former Vice-President had “chickened out” and there would be no joint appearance. Gore is scheduled to testify on Friday to the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment's fourth day of hearings on the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The hearing will be held in 2123 Rayburn House Office Building. According to Monckton, House Democrats told the Republican committee staff earlier this week that they would be putting forward an unnamed 'celebrity' as their star witness Friday at a multi-panel climate hearing examining the House global warming bill. The "celebrity" witness turned out to be Gore. Monckton said the GOP replied they would respond to the Democrats' "celebrity" with an unnamed "celebrity" of their own. But Monckton claims that when the Democrats were told who the GOP witness would be, they refused to allow him to testify alongside Gore.

Media Ignore Al Gore's Financial Ties to Global Warming - (www.newsbusters.org) [H]ow Gore buys his "carbon offsets," as revealed by The Tennessean raises serious questions. According to the newspaper's report, Gore buys his carbon offsets through Generation Investment Management: Gore helped found Generation Investment Management, through which he and others pay for offsets. The firm invests the money in solar, wind and other projects that reduce energy consumption around the globe... Gore is chairman of the firm and, presumably, draws an income or will make money as its investments prosper. In other words, he "buys" his "carbon offsets" from himself, through a transaction designed to boost his own investments and return a profit to himself. To be blunt, Gore doesn't buy "carbon offsets" through Generation Investment Management - he buys stocks. Fascinating. So, as Dr. Global Warming travels the world in his private jet while spending 20 times the average American on energy for his home, all the time telling us it’s okay because he’s buying carbon offsets, he’s actually purchasing these investments from himself. Furthermore, and maybe more important, Gore stands to benefit financially in a potentially huge way if more and more people buy into this junk science….. However, as Riehl pointed out, this story is even juicier: To add insult to injury, Gore chose Peter S. Knight, an old friend and colleague some are sure to recall, as the US President of GIM. Peter S. Knight, formerly Managing Director Met West Financial, lawyer, Chief of Staff for Senator Al Gore (D-TN) from 1977-1989, and Campaign Manager for President Clinton's successful re-election in 1996, is President of Generation U.S. This would be him: Reno Rejects Inquiry Into a Clinton Aide. Atty Gen Janet Reno decides against any further investigation of Peter Knight, Pres Clinton's 1996 campaign manager in connection with office building development in nation's capital; such an investigation could have led to naming independent counsel to look further into activities of Knight, who is also former top assistant to Vice Pres Al Gore. Yes, thanks to Janet Reno, no one ever found out how $20,000 in stock turned up in an account for Knight's then 13 year old child. Dispute over Democratic Party campaign-financing shifts to Zachary Knight, 13-year-old son of Peter S Knight, Clinton-Gore campaign chairman in 1996, who was given $20,000 in stock by William Haney 3d, chairman of Molten Metal Technology Inc; Republicans believe gift, which came after father was named chairman of campaign, was really payment to Knight, who had worked as $7,000-per-month lobbyist for company; Knight denies involvement in any impropriety; Riehl accurately asked: If Gore's motivation in pushing Global Warming is so altruistic, was it really necessarily for the already wealthy Gore to establish a multi-million dollar corporation in England to cash in? And given the history of Gore and Knight, are these people we should trust to drive a re-vamping of the world economy at the same time they're lining their pockets because of our much smaller carbon footprints? Riehl marvelously concluded: If Al Gore is successful with this latest scheme, Gore and his cronies are going to be much more $green$ than most of the earth. And the only green in this for you and me is the kind that accompanies envy as Gore trucks around on private jets putting dollars to offset his extravagance into a cash machine generating profits on the backs of the middle class with misrepresented science that doesn't deserve to be called science at all.

Jane Harman: Angry, partisan, civil liberties extremist - (www.salon.com) Blue Dog Rep. Jane Harman -- once the most vigorous Democratic cheerleader of Bush's NSA warrantless eavesdropping program -- is rip-roarin' angry today. Apparently, her private conversations were eavesdropped on by the U.S. Government! This is a grave outrage that, as she told Andrea Mitchell just moments ago, demands a probing investigation: That's what I asked Attorney General Holder to do -- to release any tapes, I don't know whether they were legally made or not, of my conservations about this matter . . . and to hope that he will investigate whether other members of Congress or other innocent Americans might have been subject to this same treatment. I call it an abuse of power in the letter I wrote him this morning. . . . I'm just very disappointed that my country -- I'm an American citizen just like you are -- could have permitted what I think is a gross abuse of power in recent years. I'm one member of Congress who may be caught up in it, and I have a bully pulpit and I can fight back. I'm thinking about others who have no bully pulpit, who may not be aware, as I was not, that someone is listening in on their conversations, and they're innocent Americans. So if I understand this correctly -- and I'm pretty sure I do -- when the U.S. Government eavesdropped for years on American citizens with no warrants and in violation of the law, that was "both legal and necessary" as well as "essential to U.S. national security," and it was the "despicable" whistle-blowers (such as Thomas Tamm) who disclosed that crime and the newspapers which reported it who should have been criminally investigated, but not the lawbreaking government officials. But when the U.S. Government legally and with warrants eavesdrops on Jane Harman, that is an outrageous invasion of privacy and a violent assault on her rights as an American citizen, and full-scale investigations must be commenced immediately to get to the bottom of this abuse of power. Behold Jane Harman's overnight transformation from Very Serious Champion of the Lawless Surveillance State to shrill civil liberties extremist.

Junk Bond Defaults to Reach Record by March, S&P Says - (www.bloomberg.com) U.S. speculative-grade corporate defaults will reach a record 14.3 percent by March 2010, even after the economy shows signs of recovery in this year’s third quarter, according to Standard & Poor’s. There were 38 corporate defaults in the first quarter, more than double the number in the year-earlier period, S&P analysts led by Diane Vazza in New York wrote in a report today. Defaults will rise amid an economy that will contract through the third quarter, declines in corporate earnings and a “continued credit freeze that is particularly unfavorable to companies at the lowest rungs of the ratings ladder,” S&P said. “The unwillingness on the part of financially battered, risk- averse lenders to extend forbearance agreements or roll over debt for all except the most creditworthy borrowers could accelerate default flow.” Companies seeking amendments to bank loans nearly doubled in each month of the first quarter, with 16 in January, 31 in February, and 51 in March, S&P said, citing its Leveraged Commentary & Data. Junk-rated companies have about $177.5 billion of debt maturing in 2009 and $179 billion coming due in 2010, including bonds and bank loans, S&P said. So-called junk bonds are rated below Baa3 by Moody’s Investors Service and lower than BBB- by Standard & Poor’s. Sixty-one companies have defaulted this year as of April 17, three times as many as during the same period a year ago, and affecting $200 billion of debt, S&P said.

Savers are still paying for Fed’s gift to banks - (www.latimes.com) Who's really bailing out the banks? Taxpayers, for sure. But the largely unsung victims of the financial system rescue are loyal bank depositors -- especially older people who have relied on interest income from savings certificates to live. To save the banks from soaring loan losses, the Federal Reserve did what it always does when the industry gets into trouble: Policymakers hacked their benchmark short-term interest rate, which in turn pulled down all other short-term rates, including on savings vehicles. But this time the Fed went to rock-bottom on rates. In December, the central bank declared that it would allow its benchmark rate to fall as low as zero.Savers still are paying the price for that gift to the banks. Average rates on certificates of deposit nationwide have continued to slide this year, according to rate tracker Informa Research Services in Calabasas. The average yield on a six-month CD fell to 1.27% this week, down from 1.86% on Jan. 1 and 2.24% a year ago. Anyone who has a CD maturing soon should be prepared for serious sticker shock. Banks have been able to continue whittling down savings yields because the industry overall is flush with cash -- not just from the Fed's efforts to pump unprecedented sums into the financial system, but also because the events of the last year have left many people too afraid to keep their money in anything but a federally insured bank account. At least you know your principal is guaranteed. Even as short-term interest rates have dived since the financial crisis exploded in September, the total sum in CDs under $100,000, as well as savings deposits and checking accounts, has soared by $507 billion, to $6.07 trillion, according to data compiled by the Fed.

Crisis as a Means to Building a Totalitarian State - (www.globalresearch.ca) As the world financial and economic crisis comes into its own, the Western political leaders and elites are seeking to impress on mankind the idea that this upheaval will end up ‘turning the world into something different’. Even though the picture of the 'new world order’ remains vague and fuzzy, the main idea is quite clear: A single global government, goes the argument, has to be established if we don’t want general chaos to prevail. Every now and again, Western politicians mention the need for a ‘new world order’, a ‘new world financial architecture’, or some kind of ‘supranational control’, calling it a ‘New Deal’ for the world. Nicolas Sarkozy was the first to say so, while addressing the UN General Assembly in September 2007 (that is, before the crisis). During the February 2009 meeting in Berlin convened to prepare the G20 summit, this was echoed by Gordon Brown, who said that a worldwide New Deal was needed. We are conscious, he added, that where the world financial flows were concerned, we would not be able to emerge from this situation with the help of purely national authorities alone. We need the authorities and world watchdogs to make the activities of financial institutions operating in the world markets totally open to us. Both Sarkozy and Brown are protégés of the Rothschilds. Statements made by certain representatives of ‘the global elite’ indicate that the current crisis is being used as a mechanism for provoking some deepening social upheavals that would make mankind – plunged as it is already into chaos and frightened by the ghost of an all-out violence – urge of its own free will that a ‘supranational’ arbitrator with dictatorial powers intervene into the world affairs. The events are following the same path as the Great Depression in 1929-1933: a financial crisis, an economic recession, social conflicts, establishing totalitarian dictatorships, inciting a war to concentrate power, and capital in the hands of a narrow circle. This time, however, the case in point is the final stage in the ‘global control’ strategy, where a decisive blow should be dealt to the national state sovereignty institution, followed by a transition to a system of private power of transnational elites. As early as the late 1990s, David Rockefeller, author of the idea of private power that is due to replace the governments, said that we (the world) were on the threshold of global changes. All we need, he went on, is some large-scale crisis that will make people accept the new world order. Jacques Attali, Sarkozy’s adviser and former EBRD chief, claimed that the elites had been incapable of dealing with the currency problems of the 1930s. He was afraid, he said, that a similar mistake would be made again. At first we’ll wage wars, he went on, and let 300 million people perish. After that reforms will follow and a world government. Shouldn’t we better think about a world government already at this stage, he asked?

A Reality Check on Mortgage Modification - (www.nytimes.com) WE are almost two years into the housing storm and foreclosure floodwaters continue to rise. A record 800,000 homes received a default or auction notice in the first quarter, an increase of 9 percent from the fourth quarter of 2008, according to RealtyTrac. And one in five mortgage loans exceeded the value of the underlying property at the end of 2008, according to data from American CoreLogic Inc. With figures like these, it’s only natural that many in Congress want to lend a hand to troubled borrowers. And so legislators have put together the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009, a bill that aims, among other things, to prod financial companies into modifying more troubled home loans. Mortgage modifications are, in theory, appealing. But in reality, the most popular types of modifications — where delinquent amounts are simply tacked onto the mortgage — tend to default again later with distressing regularity. Still, pushing loan modifications is a Congressional priority. The bill, which passed the House on March 5, may soon come to a vote in the Senate. Unfortunately, the bill would not only pay institutions handsomely for each modification they do — at $1,000 each, a bounty that could reach $10 billion — but it would also create opportunities for mortgage servicers to profit at the expense of investors who own the loans. And who are these investors? Sure, they include big-time speculators and market sophisticates. But because so many of these securities also found their way into portfolios of mutual funds and other professionally managed accounts, individual investors could be harmed if the bill becomes law. Mortgage securities have covenants — known as pooling and servicing agreements — that define their terms. They require loan servicers to act in the best interests of investors when they make decisions about how much forbearance to give troubled borrowers. This requirement has led some servicers to reject loan modifications. Changing the terms of the mortgages, they contend, can hurt investors by reducing interest payments. Lawsuits could follow.




OTHER STORIES:

California Ponders a Constitutional Convention - (www.breitbart.com)Goodbye GeoCities :( - (news.bbc.co.uk)Pig Flu Outbreak Spreads from Mexico into US - (www.breitbart.com)Mish: Let the Criminal Indictments of Paulson, Bernanke, Lewis BeginBig Banks Have a Bad Credit Problem - (money.cnn.com)The Fed at Risk - (www.bloomberg.com)Larry Summers Falls Asleep - (www.huffingtonpost.com)** China has nearly doubled its gold reserves since 2003 ** - (www.marketwatch.com)Can Business Schools Help Fix the System? Let Harvard Know. - (blogs.harvardbusiness.org)
OPEC, Asia Ministers Call for Oil-Market Oversight - (www.bloomberg.com)

IMF Considers Bond Issue to Raise Funds for Lending Programs - (www.bloomberg.com)
Insider Selling Jumps to Highest Level Since 2007 - (www.bloomberg.com)
Mexico’s Calderon Declares Emergency Amid Swine Flu Outbreak - (www.bloomberg.com)
Recession, Far From Over, Already Setting Records - (www.nytimes.com)
Fed says gov't ready to save stress-tested banks - (news.yahoo.com/s/ap)
Housing downturn moves up to Silicon Valley mansions - (www.latimes.com)
New Worries for Next Tier of Banks - (www.nytimes.com)
U.S. Stress-Test Accounting May Make Banks Raise Capital Levels - (www.bloomberg.com)
GM may close Pontiac division after 82 years - (www.marketwatch.com)
After an Off Year, Wall Street Pay Is Bouncing Back - (www.nytimes.com)

Week Ahead: Stocks in Tug of War—but Trend Looks Up - (www.cnbc.com)
No Freefall in U.S. Economy: Summers - (www.cnbc.com)
Price of Gas Barely Budges in Last Two Weeks - (www.cnbc.com)
After Off Year, Wall Street Pay Is Bouncing Back - (www.cnbc.com)
MySpace Names Chief Executive, Once of Facebook - (www.cnbc.com)