Wednesday June 4 Housing and Economic stories

Top Stories:

The "parking lot" homeless of Santa Barbara - (edition.cnn.com) There are 12 parking lots across Santa Barbara that have been set up to accommodate the growing middle-class homelessness. It is illegal for people in California to sleep in their cars on streets. New Beginnings worked with the city to allow the parking lots as a safe place for the homeless to sleep in their vehicles without being harassed by people on the streets or ticketed by police.
Harvey stays at the city's only parking lot for women. "This is very safe, and that's why I feel very comfortable," she said.
Fat pensions spell doom for many cities - (money.cnn.com) – People should be up in arms over these costs: But the real nail in Vallejo's coffin was the city's labor costs. Under the current labor agreement, the average police officer walking the beat in Vallejo will be paid $122,000 this year before overtime, according to city documents. An average sergeant will make $151,000; a captain, $231,000. The average firefighter, meanwhile, will bring in $130,000 before overtime.
It’s Not So Easy Being Less Rich - (globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com) - NANCY CHEMTOB, a divorce lawyer in Manhattan, has found that her days have become crammed seeing clients, all worried about how an economic downturn will affect their marriages. One of her clients recently confessed that his net worth had decreased to $8 million from more than $20 million, and he thinks that his wife will leave him. He has hidden their fall in fortune by taking on debt to pay for her extravagant clothes and vacations. “I literally had to sit there and tell him that he had to tell his wife that she had to stop spending,” she said. “He was actually scared she would leave him because their financial situation changed so drastically.”
Mr. Mortgage: CA Housing Stats…The Real Story. 4.25 Years Supply - (www.ml-implode.com) - ``Most think the CA ‘housing crash’ has been ongoing for a couple of years. That is not the case... California has YEARS OF INVE...
-2 + -2 = 4 as Liabilities Get New Bond Math - (www.bloomberg.com) Leave it to Wall Street to profit from its own distress. Merrill Lynch & Co., Citigroup Inc. and four other U.S. financial companies have used an accounting rule adopted last year to book almost $12 billion of revenue after a decline in prices of their own bonds. The rule, intended to expand the ``mark-to- market'' accounting that banks use to record profits or losses on trading assets, allows them to report gains when market prices for their liabilities fall.
Expensive House Fails To Sell, Then Burns - (www.arktimes.com)
Villains in Mortgage Mess? Start at Wall Street. Keep Going. - (www.washingtonpost.com) - But make no mistake: Today's crisis dwarfs the S&L fiasco. The eventual cost to taxpayers of this scandal is likely to make yesteryear's culprits look like pikers.
The short version of how we got here: Lenders, fat with money made cheap by the federal government, aggressively coaxed millions of borrowers to take out unaffordable mortgages. They lent this money without assessing whether borrowers could repay it. They assumed, in fact, that most wouldn't be able to and would have to refinance into new, equally unaffordable loans. This process would produce an endless cycle of fees for the lenders -- but only if home prices rose, fairy-tale-like, forever.
Another English Bank In Trouble - (news.yahoo.com) - Shares in British buy-to-let specialist Bradford & Bingley plunged Monday after it issued a profit warning and agreed to a massive US cash boost, sparking fresh credit-crunch nerves after the Northern Rock fiasco
Foreclosure capital Stockton has odd market - (msnbc.msn.com)
Thornburg Earnings Further Delayed, Stock Faces Delisting - (www.ml-implode.com) - Thornburg Mortgage announced today that it needed even more time to complete its form 10-Q for the first quarter, which was expe...


Other Stories:

Bernanke Blames Saving Glut For Housing Bubble - (globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com) – Greenspan was known for his Fed Speak, but I think this tops many of Greenspan’s deflections of blame. Very funny. In the financial sphere, the three longer-term developments I have identified are linked by the fact that a substantial increase in the net supply of saving in emerging market economies contributed to both the U.S. housing boom and the broader credit boom. The sources of this increase in net saving included rapid growth in high-saving East Asian countries and, outside of China, reduced investment rates in that region; large buildups in foreign exchange reserves in a number of emerging markets; and the enormous increases in the revenues received by exporters of oil and other commodities. The pressure of these net savings flows led to lower long-term real interest rates around the world, stimulated asset prices (including house prices), and pushed current accounts toward deficit in the industrial countries--notably the United States--that received these flows. To be sure, the large inflows of savings and low global interest rates presented a valuable opportunity to the recipient countries, provided they invested the inflows wisely. Unfortunately, this did not always occur, as an increased appetite for risk-taking--a "reaching for yield"--stimulated some financial innovations and lending practices that proved imprudent or otherwise questionable.
America's Recession Could Slip to Depression - (waldo.villagesgroup.com)Nystrom: The Second Great Depression Visits Detroit – (depression2.tv/d2/node/118)
US News: Peter Schiff's Worst Case Scenario - (www.usnews.com)
Economist: America's Housing Prices Falling Faster than During Great Depression - (www.economist.com)
* VIDEO: THE CASE FOR THE PROSECUTION OF GEORGE W. BUSH FOR MURDER * - (bullnotbull.blogspot.com)
Mike Whitney: Economic depression in America: Evidence of a withering economy is everywhere - (www.globalresearch.ca)
Credit Hurricane To Make Landfall - (www.ml-implode.com) - An incredible (yet sobering) article by Benet Sedecca. Some highlights: Another important takeaway was that the older and mo...
Foreclosures Cost Lenders, Homeowners, the Community, and You Big Bucks - (www.ml-implode.com) - "Earlier this month a reader, Pamela Norvell, wrote a suggestion for lessening the foreclosure crisis. She suggested a freeze an...
Corporate Bankruptcies Increase As More Near "Financial Disaster" - (www.bankruptcy-statistics.com)
GM Closing 4 More Plants in North America - (biz.yahoo.com/ap)
Bernanke Signals Discomfort With Weak Dollar (But what's he going to do about it?) - (www.marketwatch.com)
Subprime Crisis to Hit Egypt? - (weekly.ahram.org.eg)
Ike Obasi Wants to Sell You a House - (www.businessweek.com)
House Prices, Confidence Continue Plunge - (www.seekingalpha.com)
Where the Financial Crisis Is Headed Next - (www.smartmoney.com)
Why Lower House Prices Are in Your Interest - (www.seekingalpha.com)
Alt-A Borrowers Looking More Like Subprime than Prime - (www.researchrecap.com)
Desperate Americans Selling Nest Eggs - (www.clusterstock.com)
Total Borrowings of Banks from Fed - (research.stlouisfed.org)
Japan financial firms' 2007 subprime losses total Y1.9 trillion - (www.marketwatch.com)
Japan a good buy in contrary trend - (www.iht.com)
Foreclosure Bus Tour, Sign of Housing Bust, Hits NY Area - (bloomberg.com)
The market turns cold in a desert boomtown - (latimes.com)
High food and energy prices not all bad - (www.washingtontimes.com)

Oil Falls More Than $1 as Bernanke Signals U.S. Rates on Hold - (www.bloomberg.com)
U.S. Stocks Rise on Bernanke Outlook, Growth in Factory Orders - (www.bloomberg.com)
Dollar Rises to Two-Week High Versus Euro on Bernanke's Remarks - (www.bloomberg.com)

Bernanke signals discomfort with weak dollar - (www.marketwatch.com)
Skyrocketing gasoline prices force changes - (www.latimes.com)
Souring economy puts the bite on pet owners - (www.chicagotribune.com)
After Mortgages, Construction Crisis May Be Building - (online.wsj.com)
Credit worries rattle markets again - (www.reuters.com)
An Impossible Dream, the Euro Finds Its Way - (www.nytimes.com)
Apollo unit halts cash payouts - (www.ft.com)
Soros sounds alarm on oil 'bubble' - (www.ft.com)
Las Vegas called 'mortgage fraud ground zero' - (www.usatoday.com)
Wheat futures surge near $8 on hot U.S. weather - (www.signonsandiego.com)

Lehman may raise $3-4 billion fresh capital: (online.wsj.com) - (www.reuters.com)
GM to Close Four Plants, Shift Production to Cars - (www.bloomberg.com)
Lehman Weighs Raising Capital - (online.wsj.com)
Toll Brothers swings to Q2 loss - (www.reuters.com)
Marriott sees softening US demand - (www.marketwatch.com)
ResCap says needs more liquidity - (www.ap.com)
After Wachovia, WaMu Shuffles, Who's Next? - (www.thestreet.com)
Winnebago Idles Plant in Iowa - (online.wsj.com)
Dutch wind power giant to open research center in Houston - (www.chron.com)
GM seen cutting deeper as recovery sideswiped - (www.reuters.com)

European Producer-Price Inflation Accelerates to 6.1% - (www.bloomberg.com)
Foreign investors 'losing faith' in economy - (www.ft.com)
U.S. Slump Spreading To Canada? - (www.forbes.com)
Inflating China - (online.wsj.com)
Europe's Expansion Accelerates More Than Estimated - (www.bloomberg.com)
China says U.S. economic slump won't deflate exports - (www.latimes.com)
Food Production Must Rise 50% - (online.wsj.com)

Monday May 5 Housing and Economic stories

Top Stories:

Is the credit crisis over, as many are saying? Not according to Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D., founder and president of Weiss Research, Inc. and a leading advocate for investor safety, is a nationally recognized expert on domestic and international financial markets
Wall Street pundits would have you believe that the Fed has saved the day, that the worst of the credit crisis is behind us, and that there's nothing more to worry about. My view: They're full of baloney! And for the evidence, look at what's just hit the fan on Friday:

· First, Standard & Poor's downgraded America's largest mortgage lender — Countrywide Financial — to "junk." The reason: Bank of America, which was supposed to be gung-ho about saving Countrywide from bankruptcy, is getting cold feet. In its latest filing with the SEC, Bank of America says it may not want to back up all of Countrywide's debts after all. Instead, it may decide to put $31.8 billion of Countrywide's debts in a separate corporation. And analysts now suspect Bank of America may later take that corporation into bankruptcy, stiffing Countrywide's bondholders. So you can easily see why even S&P, typically slow to act, promptly downgraded Countrywide's bonds to junk! But I ask you: Is this a sign that the credit crisis is behind us?

· Second, the Fed just announced that it's greatly expanding its Term Auction Facility (TAF). This is the new facility the Fed inaugurated last December to funnel money to big banks in exchange for shakier-than-normal collateral. At the time, they made it sound like a temporary, emergency measure, with biweekly auctions of up to $20 billion. Then, earlier this year, they expanded this facility to $50 billion. And on Friday, they've just bumped it up — again — to $75 billion per auction, or nearly FOUR times the original level. So I ask again: If the credit crisis were truly behind us, why would the Fed need to be dishing out so much more money to the banks? It makes no sense.

· Third, the Fed also announced on Friday that it's expanding its Term Securities Lending Facility (TSLF). This is the newer, more radical, program whereby the Fed gives big brokers its high-quality Treasury securities in exchange for inferior quality, toxic paper. Until now, the Fed was accepting only securities based on home and commercial mortgages. And given the sorry state of U.S. real estate, that was bad enough. However, the Fed's new rules, effective immediately, make it possible to take in a lot of other garbage, including securities backed by credit cards and student loans that may be going sour. Is this the type of thing the Fed does when credit conditions are improving? Or is this the sign of a Fed with its back against the wall, still desperately searching for ways to put the crisis behind us?


S&P cuts Countrywide to junk status after BofA filing Markets ... - (www.reuters.com)
Bernanke Answers S.O.S. Call - (Mish at globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com) – Another crisis created by US Fed and US politicians. Now Bernanke answers Senator Dodd's request to bailout the Student Loan Program.
No Assets? No Problem. Crap loans continue. - (www.forbes.com) - many Americans can still buy homes with nothing down thanks in large part to the federal government and a legal loophole that lets builders and bankers ensure a steady stream of asset-challenged borrowers for taxpayer-insured loans. With quietly expanded powers, the Federal Housing Administration is already offering the next-best thing to nothing down on a house: a payment of just 3.0% will get practically any American with a pulse and a job a mortgage of up to $729,000, at least until the end of this year.
Baseball star Canseco loses house to foreclosure - (news.yahoo.com) – The latest athlete/celebrity to lose their home or walk-away.
Bush vs Olbermann - (www.ml-implode.com) - Bush, world’s most famous failed oilman and the dumbest guy in the room, tries to spin his way out of the housing crash and high gas prices. Olbermann is there to smack him down.''
What do you do when you're the most tasteless and tactless person in the world? - (www.ml-implode.com) – Mukesh Ambani net worth is estimated at $43 billion by Forbes in March. Reliance Industries was founded by Mukesh's father, Dhirubhai Ambani, in 1966, and is India's most valuable firm by market capitalization. The couple, who have three children, currently live in a 22-story Mumbai tower that the family has spent years remodeling to meet its needs, at a cost of $2B.
Credit crunch expands to cash-out refinancing, investment properties and vacation homes - (www.latimes.com)
Fed Moves to Loosen Tight Credit - (www.nytimes.com)
Government Intensifies Mortgage Investigation - (www.nytimes.com)
Desperate house sellers start swapping - (www.9news.com)
Arab States May Drop Fixed Dollar Exchange Rates - (www.bloomberg.com)
Financial Crisis Protest - New York, April 25, 2008 - (www.ml-implode.com) - Love some of the posters.
U.S. Sees First Sales Tax Revenue Drop in 6 Years - (www.ml-implode.com)


Other Stories:

Condo Flipper Rental Woes - (www.ml-implode.com) - "The Washington Post finds two fresh victims of the RE bust, condo owners whose mean, nasty condo boards won't let them rent out...
Waking Up From The American Dream - (www.ml-implode.com)
Is the Credit Crisis Really Over? Minsky Would Say No - (www.ml-implode.com)
Accelerating Housing Declines - (www.ml-implode.com)
3 Aides Ousted; AG Admits Affair - (www.ml-implode.com)
Slowly I Turned - Foreign Financing of US Faltering - (www.ml-implode.com)

Credit Crunch Sends More Consumers To the Sidelines - (online.wsj.com)
Americans cutting back for Mother's Day - (www.latimes.com)
Downgrades Show Storm Isn't Over - (online.wsj.com)
Say goodbye to the specialized mortgage options - (www.chicagotribune.com)
Buffett Says Bond Insurers Don't Deserve AAA Rating - (www.bloomberg.com)
US art market beginning to feel strain - (www.ft.com)
Weaker confidence in retirement savings a good thing - (www.chicagotribune.com)
Precious-Coin Market May Lose Its Luster - (online.wsj.com)
What difference will +$1,200 make up against -$100,000 - (www.ml-implode.com) - "With home price in parts of the country dropping by $100,000 per year or more, is $1,200 in rebates from the government going t...
Housing Bust Duration - (www.ml-implode.com) - "This is an update to a previous post using the February Case-Shiller Price Indices."


Microsoft Walks Away From Yahoo After Fight on Price - (www.bloomberg.com)
UBS May Cut 8,000 Jobs After SF12 Billion First-Quarter Loss - (www.bloomberg.com)
Corn Ethanol Loses More Support - (online.wsj.com)
Asia fears lost decade, unrest from food price shock - (www.reuters.com)
How to Clear a Road to Redemption - (www.nytimes.com)
US art market beginning to feel strain - (www.ft.com)

The Fed and you: don't bet on cheaper mortgages - (www.schwabinsights.com)
Fed running out of room - (www.nypost.com)
Fed Rate Cuts Won't Stop Housing Plunge - (www.bloomberg.com)
Is The Bottom Really In? No! - (Charles Hugh Smith)
Another Full Year Of Housing Pain? - (online.wsj.com)
FED Up - (www.fedupusa.org)
Discounted Houses, Going, Going - (promo.realestate.yahoo.com)
12 Observations on Residential Housing - (www.seekingalpha.com)
House Rabies - (www.oxfordamericanmag.com)