20M
homes fear theyll never live debt-free - (www.nypost.com) The
American dream has become the American debt trap. During the economic downturn,
millions of cash-strapped Americans relied on credit cards to pay unexpected
medical bills or to weather unemployment. Now, in an economic recovery enjoyed
mainly by the wealthy, ordinary Americans can’t earn enough to pay off their
debts or break their reliance on credit for basic needs, new studies show. Credit
has become so essential to survival that 20 million American households do not
expect to ever live debt-free, according to a new survey by consumer research
firm Mintel. While consumer debt-per-capita levels have declined since the
recession, New York’s overall level remains high, at $47,170, outstripping the
national average, and student loan debt has grown.
MLS
Phantom Listings Distorting House Prices - (www.huffingtonpost.ca) A
real estate consultant’s warning that housing market data in Canada is being
artificially inflated has some economists and market observers wondering
whether the recent upswing in house sales and prices might be partly an
illusion. Real estate consultant Ross Kay alleges that realtors in certain
parts of the country — particularly in Greater Toronto and southern Ontario —
are artificially inflating home sales by listing the same property twice, or
sometimes even three times. Kay says when a double- or triple-listed house like
this sells, the additional listings are counted as a sale by every one of the
real estate boards to which the house is assigned. That turns one sold house
into two or three sales in the housing data. The end result, Kay argues, is that
reported home sales and house price numbers are higher than they really are. “Statistically
valid month-over-month comparisons on sales volumes are inflated as much as 15
per cent in some cities in 2013,” he told HuffPost in an email. “Average prices
are skewed upward as much as 10 per cent some months.”
Americans
in Poll Doubt Economy Rebound in Defiance of Forecasts - (www.bloomberg.com) Americans
are losing faith in the nation’s economic recovery even as forecasters expect
growth to accelerate, according to a Bloomberg National Poll. Fewer people
anticipate improvement in the economy’s strength over the next year than in the
last survey in June, with 27 percent saying the expansion will be more robust,
down from 39 percent who expected improvement three months earlier. Forty-four
percent of poll respondents say they expect the economy, which has expanded for
nine consecutive quarters, to remain about the same, while 28 percent see it
weakening. “We’re still in a recession; I don’t know why they say it’s over,”
says Chris Sams, 28, a disabled Navy veteran from Daingerfield, Texas. “It may be over in Washington, D.C., where the per capita income is higher
than anywhere else, but down here the minimum wage is the highest wage.”
Debt
Disaster Seen Unless VAT Rises to 20% by 2020: Japan Credit - (www.dailynewscrunch.com) Japan
must raise its sales tax to at least 20 percent by the time the Olympics come
to Tokyo in 2020 to avert a "disaster" in its bond market, according
to the head of a panel advising the world's biggest pension fund. The
consumption levy, due to increase in April for the first time since 1997, will
need to quadruple from current levels to handle Japan's increasing welfare
costs and rein in the nation's debt, said Takatoshi Ito, who leads an
investment panel for the 121 trillion yen ($1.22 trillion) Government Pension
Investment Fund. He said funds like GPIF are at risk of being too dependent on
Japanese government bonds, where 10-year yields of 0.670 percent are the lowest
globally. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to decide next month if Japan's
economy can weather an increase in the tax to 8 percent in April. Current rates
of 5 percent are a fifth of the value-added taxes imposed in Nordic countries
like Sweden, and need to be raised to prevent the implosion of a debt burden
that's more than double the size of Japan's economy, Ito said. Government
obligations will grow to 245 percent of economic output this year, the highest
ratio globally, according to International Monetary Fund estimates, compared
with Greece's 179 percent and 108 percent for the US
The Honey Launderers: Uncovering the Largest Food Fraud in U.S. History - (www.businessweek.com) On March 24, 2008, von Buddenbrock came to the office around 8:30 a.m., as usual. He was expecting a quiet day: It was a holiday in Germany, and his bosses there had the day off. Giesselbach was on holiday, too; she had returned to Germany to visit her family and boyfriend. Sometime around 10 a.m., von Buddenbrock heard a commotion in the reception area and went to have a look. A half-dozen armed federal agents, all wearing bulletproof vests, had stormed in. “They made a good show, coming in with full force,” he recalls. “It was pretty scary.” The agents asked if anybody was hiding anywhere, then separated von Buddenbrock and his assistant, the only two employees there. Agents brought von Buddenbrock into a conference room, where they questioned him about ALW’s honey business. After a couple of hours they left, taking with them stacks of paper files, copies of computer hard drives, and samples of honey.
Failure
to raise U.S. debt limit worse than government shutdown: Moody's - (www.reuters.com)
Fed Chairmen and the Randomness of Reputations - (www.businessweek.com)
Fed Chairmen and the Randomness of Reputations - (www.businessweek.com)
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