Wednesday April 6 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

Nearly 20% of Florida houses are vacant - (finance.yahoo.com) It's not always easy to feel sorry for sunny Florida. But it just got hit with another blow. On Thursday, the Census Bureau revealed that 18% -- or 1.6 million -- of the Sunshine State's homes are sitting vacant. That's a rise of more than 63% over the past 10 years. Having this amount of oversupply on the market will keep home prices depressed and slow any recovery. During the housing boom, Florida was among the hottest real estate markets in the nation. Homes were snapped up by the state's growing population as well as hordes of investors confident that prices would continue to soar. "You'd drive through downtown Miami and see 30 or 40 cranes sticking up in the air," said Michael Larson, a housing market analyst for Weiss Research. The bust brought an end to that. Development ground to a halt. Retirees stopped relocating. And prices started falling and vacancies rising. "Housing went from being the preeminent investment of choice to toxic waste," added Richard DeKaser, an economist with the Parthenon Group.

Ex-SDSU coach sells house for $518,000 loss - - (www.signonsandiego.com) Former San Diego State head football coach Chuck Long has avoided having his house auctioned off next week by selling it for a loss of $518,000.

His home in Poway entered the foreclosure process after Long had defaulted on his payments last year, according to county records. It was scheduled to be auctioned off in a trustee's sale next Wednesday in Oceanside, but the lender instead accepted a short sale – a transaction in which a house is sold for less than what the owner owes on a mortgage. Long bought the four-bedroom home in 2007 for $1.368 million. He recently sold it for $850,000, a 38 percent loss. As a result of the short sale, the auction was canceled this week.

Showdown in the Sunshine State - (www.theatlantic.com) Two of Wall Street's savviest value investors, Bruce Berkowitz and David Einhorn, pride themselves on their rigorous analysis. Now they're locked in a scorched-earth dispute over the value of some Florida real estate….. I had gone to the Florida Panhandle to find out more about an outfit named the St. Joe Company. It sounds like the sort of place that makes designer coffee cake or handcrafted pine furniture, but until recently it was the largest landowner in Florida, a former timber barony that has spent the past decade or so transforming itself into a real-estate developer. Its current roster of developments covers acres of some of the world’s most beautiful beachfront property: sugar-white sand and emerald-green waters unfolding along a pristine, undeveloped coastline. If heaven has beaches, this is what they look like. I was visiting the beaches because they seemed to hold the key to a very public dispute over the value of St. Joe Company’s assets, and its stock price, that was taking place between two money managers named David Einhorn and Bruce Berkowitz. Both are fairly famous “value investors” of the Warren Buffett school—that is, they rely on analyses of stocks’ fundamentals to reveal stocks that are exceptionally cheap, or outrageously expensive. Both had put rather a lot of money where their mouths were, and that money was talking, loudly. Einhorn’s money was shorting the stock, practically screaming that the company was way overvalued. Meanwhile, Berkowitz’s nearly 30 percent stake in St. Joe Company was proclaiming that the company’s best days were yet to come—and it was speaking not only for Berkowitz, but for all the individual investors who had poured billions into his Fairholme Funds.

Losing Big - $65,000 Big - On Our First House - (finance.yahoo.com) Let me preface this by saying that I never wanted to buy a home. I knew the financial risks, the fact that in most cases you have to stay in a home a long time to even have a chance of making it a profitable investment, and that a home can take a lot of effort and money to maintain. My wife, on the other hand, just couldn't fathom the idea of not purchasing a house once our son was born even though we had lived together happily in various apartments for almost 10 years. While I tried in vain to explain the many downsides to home ownership, I just couldn't break through to her, and therefore gave in as any good husband should. Big mistake! Three years after purchasing our home in the spring of 2008, my wife now sees the light and finds the idea of home ownership as repugnant as I always have. Due to a multitude of reasons and factors, we decided to put our home on the market. It's now been over a year and we've yet to sell, but when we do, we stand to lose a boatload of money. As hard as it is to believe at times, and while the two often correlate, sometimes happiness really is more important than money.

Foreclosure vote could rock the banks - (finance.fortune.cnn.com) The big banks face fresh scrutiny of their handling of the mortgage mess – from their own boards, no less. Shareholders at Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C) and Wells Fargo (WFC) could vote this spring to compel their audit committees to investigate the banks' mortgage and foreclosure practices, and report back by fall. The votes will come despite much eye-rolling from the banks, which have tended to be less than forthcoming on the subject. Bank of America and Citi petitioned regulators to keep shareholders from voting on the proposal, which is sponsored by the New York City pension funds led by city comptroller John C. Liu. But the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled this month that the votes must go on. "An independent examination of bank foreclosure practices is needed to reassure shareholders and protect pensioners and taxpayers," said Liu, a Democrat who has beenpushing since last fall for bank boards to wake up and investigate. "Regrettably, the banks have failed us on this and even went so far as to try and kick us off the ballot, but the shareholders have prevailed."

OTHER STORIES:

Manifesto detailed in Corte Madera bank standoff - (www.marinij.com)

Rental Houses of the Ultra-Rich - (www.foxnews.com)

Iowa couple exploits loophole to get free house - (www.desmoinesregister.com)

Why I Am Never Going to Own a House Again - (www.patrick.net)

US Real Estate Prices Continue to Tumble - (www.realtybiznews.com)

California housing market slump persists - (www.latimes.com)

Conflict of Interest and Realtor Responsibility - (www.papers.ssrn.com)

Guilty plea in foreclosure auction rigging - (www.recordnet.com)

A Dysfunctional Fix to a Dysfunctional System - (www.reason.com)

$2 million waterfront house sees 15 price cuts - (www.huntingtonhomes.ocregister.com)

Many Banks Are Clinging to Billions in Bailout Money - (dealbook.nytimes.com)

An Advocate Who Scares Republicans - (www.nytimes.com)

A bankruptcy attorney's view of the housing bubble aftermath - (www.irvinehousingblog.com)

A Lawyer's Perspective on... Promoting Failure in America - (www.capitalismwithoutfailure.com)

This Is What Class War Looks Like - (www.dailykos.com)

Tuesday April 5 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

Michigan first to act as states weigh reductions in unemployment benefits - (www.washingtonpost.com) Michigan moved Thursday to significantly cut its unemployment program, becoming the first of what could be a flurry of debt-laden states to reduce aid even as high jobless rates persist. The Michigan measure reduces the maximum period a person can receive state unemployment benefits from 26 to 20 weeks, the lowest in the nation, officials said.Gov. Rick Snyder (R) indicated Thursday that he would sign the bill. The state’s economic troubles, aggravated by the recession and its shrinking manufacturing base, have turned Michigan into a bellwether of bust. Its unemployment rate stands at 10.7 percent — one of the worst in the country. The move comes as other Republican-dominated legislatures, including in Florida and Arkansas, are weighing similar efforts to restrict payments to the jobless, and states such as Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana are implementing far-reaching, controversial plans to close budget gaps.

U.S. Postal Service announces sweeping job cuts, district office closures - (www.washingtonpost.com) The U.S. Postal Service announced Thursday that it will reduce its workforce with layoffs and offers of buyouts and will close seven district offices from New England to New Mexico to help address record losses. The reorganization, designed to eliminate 7,500 administrative, executive and postmaster jobs this year, came as a commission that is evaluating the Postal Service’s plan to eliminate Saturday delivery concluded that one in four letters would be delayed by not just one but by two days. The independent Postal Regulatory Commission also said that postal officials underestimated the losses the agency would suffer from handling less mail— and overestimated the cost savings. Five-day service and a smaller workforce are among the Postal Service’s strategies to become solvent after losses of $8.5 billion in fiscal 2010, the result of declining mail volumes. Projected losses for 2011 are $6.4 billion. Once buyout decisions aimed at administrative staff are final in April, the agency plans to eliminate the jobs of thousands of postmasters and supervisors, many through layoffs, officials said.

Portugal Said to Need as Much as $99 Billion in Bailout - (www.bloomberg.com) A bailout for Portugal may total as much as 70 billion euros ($99 billion), two European officials with direct knowledge of the matter said, as credit-rating cuts threatened to deepen Portugal’s debt woes. Preliminary calculations put the cost of a lifeline from 50 billion to 70 billion euros, said the officials, who declined to be named because the issue is confidential. Portugal continued to rule out a rescue after the parliament’s rejection of budget cuts led Prime Minister Jose Socrates to offer to quit. Downgrades by Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s dealt a further blow, as European Union leaders called on Socrates and the opposition parties to unite behind belt-tightening measures that might spare Portugal from becoming the third euro country to tap emergency aid.

IMF Said to Be Discussing Activation of $583 Billion Crisis Lending Pool - (www.bloomberg.com) The International Monetary Fund is working on activating itscrisis lending pool, a move aimed at showing it has enough liquidity to help bail out countries in need and stabilize the global economy, two IMF officials said. Countries that contribute to the pool, with new members including China and India, are seeking an agreement on how much of the credit line’s $583 billion should be made available and for how long, according to one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are not public.

Four States Consider Legislation Barring Distressed Sales as Comparables - (www.appraisalinstitute.org) Four states – Illinois, Maryland, Missouri and Nevada – are considering legislation that would prohibit or restrict the use of “distressed sales,” such as foreclosures and short sales, as comparable sales as a part of a residential real estate appraisal. The Missouri legislation, known as House Bill 292, would prohibit appraisers from using a property that has been sold at a foreclosure sale as a comparable. Similar to the Missouri proposal, the Illinois legislation would prohibit appraisers for the next five years from using as a comparable sale “a residential property that was sold at a judicial sale at any time within 12 months.” The Nevada legislation would prohibit the use of foreclosures and short sales. The prohibitions contained in the Maryland legislation are somewhat broader and include any property that was sold under “duress or unusual circumstances, such as a foreclosure or short sale.” There is, however, conflicting language in the Maryland legislation that appears to allow for the use of distressed properties as comparables if the appraiser takes into account factors such as the motivation of the seller, the condition of the property and the property’s history or disposition before the sale. Appraisers in Maryland will oppose this legislation during a hearing March 29.

OTHER STORIES:

Bernanke to Hold Press Briefings After FOMC Meetings - (www.bloomberg.com)

Fed's Kocherlakota - Bubble's end need not hurt jobs - (www.reuters.com)

Li & Fung warns of end of cheap China goods - (www.ft.com)

Eyes Open, WaMu Still Failed - (www.nytimes.com)

Global auto output may fall 30 percent due to quake: IHS - (www.reuters.com)

Japan Raises Possibility of Breach in Reactor Vessel - (www.bloomberg.com)

Reactor Core May Be Breached, Leaking Radiation at Plant - (www.bloomberg.com)

EU Cuts Future Aid Fund’s Start-Up Capital After Germany Balks - (www.bloomberg.com)

European Carmakers May Be Forced to Idle Plants on Japan Quake - (www.bloomberg.com)

U.S. dollar, usually world’s safe haven, declining despite plenty of global turmoil - (www.washingtonpost.com)

Dealmakers seek rapid high-yield bond sales - (www.ft.com)

Monday April 4 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

Banks Hit for Credit Union Ills - (online.wsj.com) Federal regulators are blaming Wall Street's biggest firms for the collapse of five institutions at the heart of the nation's credit-union industry and are seeking to recoup tens of billions of dollars in losses on securities that doomed the five. In one of the broadest accusations that Wall Street helped cripple financial institutions during the crisis, the National Credit Union Administration, or NCUA, has threatened to sue several investment banks unless they refund over $50 billion of mortgage-backed securities sold to the five institutions, called wholesale credit unions. The NCUA is accusing Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Bank of America Corp.'s Merrill Lynch unit, Citigroup Inc. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. of misrepresenting the risks of the bonds to wholesale credit unions, which loaded up on the bonds in their role of investing on behalf of retail credit unions, according to people familiar with the situation. Regulators seized the five wholesale credit unions in 2009 and 2010, inheriting a pile of battered bonds now worth only about $25 billion, or half of their face value.

Egypt stocks slump 10% as market reopens - (www.marketwatch.com) Egyptian stocks tumbled nearly 9% Wednesday when the market reopened for the first time since late January and investors reacted to the political upheaval of the past two months. The EGX 30 stock index (XX:EGX30 0.00, 0.00, 0.00%) closed down 8.9% at 5,142.71, according to the website of the Egyptian Exchange. The Egyptian market slumped nearly 10% at the open and shortly afterwards trading was halted for 30 minutes, according to reports. The broader EGX 100 index ended down 9%. The exchange had closed Jan. 27 amid the turmoil surrounding and following the resignation of former President Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak had been in power for 30 years before the pro-democracy demonstrations sweeping the Arab world reached the country and forced him to step down. The Egyptian exchange had postponed its reopening a number of times. In February, the exchange regulator, the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority, put in place some rules for reopening the bourse.

New home sales plunge to record low in February - (www.reuters.com) New single-family home sales unexpectedly fell in February to hit a record low and prices were the lowest since December 2003, showing the housing market slide was deepening. The Commerce Department said on Wednesday sales dropped 16.9 percent to a seasonally adjusted 250,000 unit annual rate, the lowest since records began in 1963, after an upwardly revised 301,000-unit pace in January. Sales plunged to all-time lows in three of the four regions last month. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast new home sales edging up to a 290,000-unit pace last month from a previously reported 284,000 unit rate. "It's been a disappointing February for home sales and there are no signs of a turnaround," said Kurt Karl, chief U.S. economist at Swiss Re in New York. "We're going to have a continuing slowdown in the next few months, but people will start to feel better in the second half of the year and construction and sales should do better later this year and into next year."

Fed’s Fisher Sees ‘Extraordinary Speculative Activity’ in U.S. - (www.bloomberg.com) Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard W. Fisher said he sees “extraordinary speculative activity” in the U.S. after the central bank pumped record amounts of stimulus into the economy. “There is an enormous amount of liquidity sloshing around,” the regional bank chief, who votes on monetary policy this year, said in a speech today in Berlin. “There is abundant liquidity in the machine we know as the United States economy.” The Fed will likely complete its planned $600 billion of Treasury purchases in June, Fisher said, reiterating his view that no further monetary stimulus will be needed after that. The 62-year-old bank president has criticized the plan, which policy makers voted to keep in place after their March 15 meeting in Washington.

BofA Says Fed Objected to Planned Dividend Increase in 2011 - (www.bloomberg.com) The Federal Reserve objected to Bank of America's plans to boost the dividend and told the bank to revise its proposal, sending its shares down more than 2 percent in New York trade. BofA had hoped to be in a second wave of banks raising dividends in the second half of this year. Unlike some of its major rivals, BofA is still struggling to be consistently profitable and, by some measures, has less capital than many of its competitors. The largest U.S. bank by assets said it intends to submit a revised proposal to the Fed and still hopes to increase its dividend in the second half of the year. The news, disclosed by BofA in a regulatory filing on Wednesday, highlights the split between the largest U.S. banks.

OTHER STORIES:

China Demand for Gold Might Drive Consumption to Match India, World No. 1 - (www.bloomberg.com)

Eurozone bonds face boycott by investors - (www.ft.com)

Portugal Faces Lawmaker Vote Threatening to Push Toward Election, Bailout - (www.bloomberg.com)

Japan's Quake Damage May Swell to $309 Billion, Four Katrinas - (www.bloomberg.com)

BOE Voted 6-3 to Hold Rate, Saw ‘Merit in Waiting’ on Policy - (www.bloomberg.com)

U.S. airlines cut capacity to battle fuel costs - (www.reuters.com)

Tokyo Warns on Water as Radiation Hampers Nuclear Cleanup - (www.bloomberg.com)

Radiation fuels fears over Japanese fish - (www.ft.com)

Sunday April 3 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

Condo owners can't sell, can't rent - (www.lexisnexis.com) Condo associations limit number of leases; Georgians feel trapped. Kristen and Ben Hudgins feel stuck. The couple lives in an Atlanta studio condo Ben bought in 2005 while a grad student at Georgia Tech. With plans to start a family, they haven't been able to sell --- even after dropping the price. If they owned a single-family home, their choice would be a no-brainer: rent it out and move on. But like so many other metro Atlanta condo owners, they can't do that because of a condominium association rule that limits how many units in a development can be rented. Such rental caps, typically 25 percent, are intended to ensure mostly owner-occupied communities. Lenders often won't make loans for condos in communities where rental caps are exceeded. So in today's tough market, the caps can leave condo owners with no options. The Hudginses are No. 33 on a waiting list to rent their home, up from No. 45 three years ago. They tried to get a hardship approval from their condo board association to lease their space but were denied because they can pay their mortgage and aren't moving because of a job transfer. The Hudginses' dilemma is shared by Will and Jennifer Franklin, stuck in a Brookhaven condo they haven't been able to sell and can't rent under the rental cap rule.

The more loved you feel, the less you value material things - (www.sciencedaily.com) People who feel more secure in receiving love and acceptance from others place less monetary value on their possessions, according to new research from the University of New Hampshire. The research was conducted by Edward Lemay, assistant professor of psychology at UNH, and colleagues at Yale University. The research is published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Lemay and his colleagues found that people who had heightened feelings of interpersonal security -- a sense of being loved and accepted by others -- placed a lower monetary value on their possession than people who did not. In their experiments, the researchers measured how much people valued specific items, such as a blanket and a pen. In some instances, people who did not feel secure placed a value on an item that was five times greater than the value placed on the same item by more secure people.

Jan Schakowsky Introduces Bill To Raise Taxes For Ultra-Rich Elite - (www.huffingtonpost.com) Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) announced legislation on Wednesday that would create new tax brackets for earners who make significantly more than the baseline for the current top income bracket. Currently, the top marginal tax rate of 35 percent applies to income starting at $373,650, and the tax code fails to distinguish between earners making a few hundred thousand dollars a year and those making a few hundred million dollars a year. "LeBron James and LeBron James’s dentist: same difference," New Yorker financial columnist James Surowiecki quipped last year during early debate over the extension of the tax cuts enacted under former President George W. Bush. Meanwhile, income inequality continues to soar, as Schakowsky, one of the 18 members of President Barack Obama’s debt commission, noted on Wednesday.

Shocking suggestion that downpayments be raised to 20% - (finance.fortune.cnn.com) In an attempt to fix some of the problems that caused the housing bubble and financial crisis, banking regulators are coming up with new mortgage lending rules that will address what lower-risk quality mortgages should look like. The goal is to let lenders sell so-called "qualified residential mortgages" to investors without having to retain the risks. The question the Treasury Department must now answer is what makes a qualified mortgage? Regulators including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency are pushing for a 20% down payment on such loans. While the big banks like Bank of America (BAC) and JP Morgan Chase (JPM) have not formally weighed in, their lobbyists at American Bankers Association and the Mortgage Bankers Association say that requirement is far too high and would price many buyers out of the housing market. The debate will have broad implications for how homebuyers finance their mortgages. During the housing boom, many Americans took out home loans with little to no money down. When prices fell steeply following their mid-2006 peak, many borrowers didn't have enough equity to cushion the blow, leading to record foreclosures nationwide. Meanwhile, the big banks and investors holding these risky loans suffered huge losses.

Marin house prices plummet 18% in February - (www.marinij.com) Single-family home sales edged up slightly in Marin in February but the median price was off sharply compared with the same month last year, according to new figures from the county assessor's office. It marked the second straight month of a year-to-year uptick in sales volume combined with a drop in prices. "I thought the market was going to pick up this year — that was the prediction — but I am not seeing that this year," said Connie Irwin, a real estate agent with Pacific Union International in Kentfield. The county recorded 112 single-family home sales in February, up slightly from 107 in February 2010. But the median price dropped 18.9 percent over the same period, from $749,000 to $607,500. The pattern was similar month to month, with sales bumping up 12 percent in February from 100 in January and the median price dropping slightly, from $630,000 in January.

OTHER STORIES:

Americans Doomed to Medical Poverty Rises to 52 Million on Premium Hikes - (www.bloomberg.com)

Dividends Enrich Bank CEOs - (www.via Federal Reserve theft of depositor interest) - (www.nytimes.com)

In Proposed Mortgage Fraud Settlement, Gift to Big Banks - (www.propublica.org)

Southern California median house price falls, sales hit three-year low - (www.irvinehousingblog.com)

How the middle class became the underclass - (www.The ultra-rich took it all) - (money.cnn.com)

WI GOP Senators Head to DC to Collect Payoffs, er, Campaign Contributions - (www.thenation.com)

Ronald Reagan praising collective bargaining - (www.dvorak.org)

US housing starts slump 22.5%, near record-low - (www.marketwatch.com)

Housing Market Will Be Fine Without 30-Year Fixed Loans - (www.investors.com)

Lawyer loses license for advising clients to break into foreclosures - (www.dailybusinessreview.com)

Corporations Versus Individuals: The End of the Left/Right Paradigm - (www.disinfo.com)

Saturday April 2 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

States push harder for online sales tax collection - (finance.yahoo.com) Tax-free shopping is under threat for many online shoppers as states facing widening budget gaps increasingly pressure Amazon.com Inc. and other Internet retailers to start collecting sales taxes from their residents. Billions of dollars are at stake as a growing number of states look for ways to generate more revenue without violating a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that prohibits a state from forcing businesses to collect sales taxes unless the business has a physical presence, such as a store, in that state. States are trying to get around that restriction by passing laws that broaden the definition of a physical presence. Retailers are resisting being deputized as tax collectors. Until recently, the Supreme Court ruling has meant that Wal-Mart Stores Inc., based in Bentonville, Ark., would collect taxes from shoppers in all states with sales taxes, whether those shoppers buy items on or off the Web, because it has stores nationwide.

BANKER ON HOW TO SOLVE DEBT CRISIS: The Public Needs To Work Harder For Less Money And 50% Fewer Benefits - (www.businessinsider.com) An investment banker from BarCap recently told the Forum of Economic News that he's got the solution to bring "competitiveness" back to the European Union. Cut benefits by half, and make everyone work harder. The comments from Hans-Jörg Rudloff, the head of the Management Board of investment bank Barclays Capital, will obviously infuriate the public, who will remember that BarCap paid out bonuses that were so good this year that bankers gathered at a bar immediately after work for a champagne toast to everyone receiving "at least a £600,000 bonus."

Dennis Kucinich: Libya Air Strikes Could Be 'Impeachable Offense' – (www.huffingtonpost.com) Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) has panned President Obama's decision to participate in Saturday's missile attack on Libya, going so far as to question whether the strikes should be considered an "impeachable offense." In a lengthy statement dated March 18 and re-printed in full on his website, Kucinich notes: While the action is billed as protecting the civilians of Libya, a no-fly-zone begins with an attack on the air defenses of Libya and Qaddafi forces. It is an act of war. The president made statements which attempt to minimize U.S. action, but U.S. planes may drop U.S. bombs and U.S. missiles may be involved in striking another sovereign nation. War from the air is still war. As Politico is reporting, Kucinich raised the prospect of impeachment during a Saturday conference call, and is just one member of a group of liberal House Democrats questioning the constitutionality of U.S. missile strikes against Libya. The congressman mainly objected to the fact that Congress was not consulted before the air strikes, Raw Story reports. In an interview, he told the site, "And I'm raising the question as to whether or not it's an impeachable offense. It would appear on its face to be an impeachable offense."

Supreme Court Denies Effort to Bar Details of Fed Bailout – (www.nytimes.com) The Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from an association of bankers trying to keep the names of financial institutions that received Federal Reserve loans from becoming public. The Federal Reserve will publish new details about its emergency lending to banks during the 2008 financial crisis after the Supreme Court on Monday rejected an industry appeal for secrecy. The Fed said it would release detailed information soon about its main emergency aid program, the so-called discount window, breaking a policy of confidentiality that dates to its founding in 1913. The Fed was required by Congress to publish similar data about its other lending programs last year. “The board will fully comply with the court’s decisions and is preparing to make the information available,” David Skidmore, a Fed spokesman, said. The disclosures could embarrass some of the nation’s largest banks, which are eager to focus public attention on their renewed profitability, by returning a spotlight to the extent of their dependence on federal aid during the crisis. It also signaled a victory for Bloomberg News, which first requested the data in 2008.

After panic buying, Chinese seek refunds on salt - (www.latimes.com) Misguided shoppers cleared stores of the seasoning in the midst of a panic about radiation from Japan, some paying 10 times the normal prices. But few are allowed to return it for refunds. The panic buying of salt that swept China last week amid fears of radiation from Japan has been replaced with a new frenzy: how to get a refund. Many shoppers now reportedly feel buyers' remorse after realizing that there was no shortage of salt in China and that radiation from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in northeastern Japan posed little threat to coastal sea salt deposits. The hoarders are now lining up at grocery stores to ask for their money back, especially from shopkeepers who charged as much as 10 times the normal prices for the seasoning, according to Chinese news reports. "I regret it very much. I will never behave this silly anymore," a woman who bought enough salt to last her four years told the West China City News in Nanjing. She was denied a refund. A local television station in southern Yunnan province interviewed a farmer standing next to a 110-pound sack of salt he had bought that turned out not to be edible. It also wasn't returnable.

OTHER STORIES:

U.S. February Existing Home Sales Fall to 4.88 Million Rate - (www.bloomberg.com)

Schwab hops optionsXpress in $1 billion stock deal - (www.reuters.com)

JPMorgan Extends M&A Lead Over Goldman Sachs With T-Mobile Deal - (www.bloomberg.com)

New Repairs Delay Work at Plant in Japan - (www.nytimes.com)

Kan Sees Progress as Atomic Workers Connect Power, Cool Fuel - (www.bloomberg.com)

WHO warns of "serious" food radiation in disaster-hit Japan - (www.reuters.com)

Junk Bond Sales Decline as Investors Pull Cash From Funds: New Issue Alert - (www.bloomberg.com)

Libya Strikes Raise Risks of Oilfield Shutdowns, Reprisals- (www.bloomberg.com)

Wheat Rebounding 11% as Global Stockpiles Drop Most Since 2007- (www.bloomberg.com)

Ten Plays for a Market Correction - (online.wsj.com)