Thursday June 21 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

Abandoned SF mansion hits market for $25 million - (www.sfgate.com) The story is a sad one. A historic San Francisco estate has hit the market, asking $25 million. Le Petit Trianon, nestled in the heart of Presidio Heights, was built over a century ago as a replica of a Versailles mansion built for French King Louis XV around 1768. The San Francisco version is a local and national landmark, as described by this SF Chronicle article several years back, but has fallen into disrepair after current owner, Halsey Minor, purchased it for $22 million in 2007 with intentions to restore it to its grand reputation. Halsey Minor is well known in tech circles. As a founder of CNet, he made it big and went on a buying spree of real estate, art and other luxuries of the rich and famous. But, it seems the spending spree has caught up to him. Le Petit Trianon never underwent the $15 million planned restoration and this historic property is only one of many financial related issues he’s dealing with, including owing back taxes to the state. A couple of years ago, the Bay Citizen described the neglect:

Wisconsin Recall Total Disaster for Mainstream Media - (www.newsbusters.org) Up in the top left, the headline read, "EXIT POLLS: RESULTS SIMILAR TO ELECTION 2 YEARS AGO, SOURCES TELL DRUDGE... '5 POINT MARGIN'... DEVELOPING... "

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel scolded Drudge writing, "Republican and Democratic sources in Wisconsin told the Journal Sentinel that the numbers used by the Drudge Report are wrong. Sources said the exit polls showed that race as being much tighter than the conservative website indicated." As it turns out, Walker won by seven points. Of course, traditional media outlets aren't allowed to make predictions before polls close. So at 9 PM, over three hours after Drudge correctly called it a win with a significant margin for Wisconsin's Republican Governor Scott Walker, CNN's Wolf Blitzer led the insanity:  WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, I'm Wolf Blitzer in for Piers Morgan. He's in London with the latest on today's Diamond Jubilee celebration. But we begin with breaking news out  of Wisconsin right now where polls have just closed. The recall vote that could preview November's election. Look at this. Our exit polls show it's a 50-50 race as of this minute. These are exit polls, the polls that we conducted throughout the day, throughout the state of Wisconsin. These are preliminary exit poll results. Fifty percent for Scott Walker. He's on the left of your screen. Fifty percent for Tom Barrett, the Democrat, the mayor of Milwaukee. He is on the right. Scott Walker is the incumbent Republican governor. This is a race to recall him, to remove him from office. Based on the exit polls that we've been conducting throughout the day. Right now the exit polls show it's 50 percent for Walker, 50 percent for Barrett. Doesn't get much closer than this.

Buyers Frustrated by Low Inventory, Rising Prices - (onlinewsj.com)  Active home buyers are increasingly concerned about rising prices, prompting a growing number to slow down their purchase plans, according to a new survey. The findings are from real-estate brokerage Redfin, which surveyed more than 1,200 home buyers in 18 metro areas who had toured a home since March 1. The company found that 49% of respondents believe that it’s a good time to buy a home, down from 56% last quarter. The share of buyers who think it’s a good time to sell more than doubled, to 28% of respondents. Nearly six in 10 respondents said that low inventory remained their top concern with buying right now—by far the most predominant worry of buyers. The supply of homes listed for sale nationally is down by 20% from one year ago, and markets such as Phoenix, Orlando and Oakland, Calif., have around half as many homes for sale as one year ago.

OCC Dropped The Ball On Robo-Signing Scandal, Watchdog Says - (www.huffingtonpost.com) Federal regulators sure did drop the ball on the robo-signing scandal, according to a government watchdog. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, an independent bureau of the Treasury Department, failed to catch the 2008-2010 robo-signing crisis, in which banks systematically signed off on foreclosures without properly reviewing the specifics of the cases, according to a report released last week by the Treasury Department Inspector General (h/tAmerican Banker.) The OCC's examination procedures "were not sufficient in scope or application to identify significant weaknesses in national banks’ foreclosure documentation and processing functions," the report said.

Sleeping in Vermont Dumpster Shows Psychiatric Cuts'Cost - (www.bloomberg.com) Katherine Gluck blurts out to the judge, “I’m guilty.” Gluck, 47, is charged on this March morning with threatening her former husband with a hammer. Police who arrested her in Burlington, Vermont, know those tired eyes and stringy blond hair. In December, Gluck was charged but not jailed or hospitalized after she slammed a dead raccoon against the front door of City Hall. Her family urged her to get help for her bipolar disorder, which usually involves getting back on medication. She refused. Now, court-appointed lawyer Sarah Reed hopes Judge Thomas Devine will send Gluck to a hospital. The odds aren’t good. Hurricane Irene wiped out the last state-operated psychiatric beds in Vermont nine months ago. Since then, private-hospital emergency rooms have been backed up with mentally ill patients -- some handcuffed to ER beds for as long as two days. Dozens of people are turned away each month without being admitted, and calls to Burlington police about mental-health issues increased 32 percent over the prior year.

OTHER STORIES:

Smartest State 2006-2007  - (www.morganquitno.com)

New Jersey’s Looming Foreclosure Crisis  - (www.ucnj.org)

Nobel Winner Stiglitz Sees More Recession Odds in Romney  - (www.bloomberg.com)

Paul Krugman, European celebrity  - (www.salon.com)

Affordability could be an issue in the Washington area housing market - (www.washingtonpost.com)

The sorry fate of a tech pioneer Halsey Minor and historic Virginia estate Carte - (www.washingtonpost.com)

Jon Stewart Unloads On Michael 's Soda Ban - (www.businessinsider.com) 

Wednesday June 20 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

America has 40 million McMansions that no one wants - (www.utsandiego.com) America has too many big houses -- 40 million, to be exact -- because consumers are shifting preferences to condos, apartments and small homes, experts told the New Partners for Smart GrowthThursday, holding its 11th annual conference in San Diego through Sunday. Relying on developers' surveys, Chris Nelson, who heads theMetropolitan Research Centerat the University of Utah, said 43 percent of Americans prefer traditional big, suburban homes but the rest don't. "That means we are out of balance in terms of where the market is right now, let alone trending toward the future," he said.

Greece Warns of Going Broke as Tax Proceeds Dry Up - (www.nytimes.com)  As European leaders grapple with how to preserve their monetary union, Greece is rapidly running out of money. Government coffers could be empty as soon as July, shortly after this month’s pivotal elections. In the worst case, Athens might have to temporarily stop paying for salaries and pensions, along with imports of fuel, food and pharmaceuticals. Officials, scrambling for solutions, have considered dipping into funds that are supposed to be for Greece’s troubled banks. Some are even suggesting doling out i.o.u.’s. Greek leaders said that despite their latest bailout of 130 billion euros, or $161.7 billion, they face a shortfall of 1.7 billion euros because tax revenue and other sources of potential income are drying up. 

Spain admits it can no longer raise money on the global markets - (www.telegraph.co.uk) Spain has admitted for the first time that it can no longer raise money on the global markets or roll over its sovereign bonds, threatening to set off a dangerous escalation of Europe's debt crisis. Premier Mariano Rajoy said the country is "in an extremely difficult situation" and called on Europe to stand by the mutual obligations of euro membership. "Europe must say where it is going and show that the euro is an irreversible project that is not in danger, that helps nations in difficulty," he told Spain's senate. Treasury minister Cristobal Montoro confessed that Spain can no longer raise money. "The market is no longer open. The risk premium is telling us that Spain as a state has a problem accessing the market when we need to refinance our debt."

Mortgage fraud fraud - (www.nytimes.com)  I got an e-mail the other day from Richard Engle telling me that his son Charlie would be getting out of prison this month. I was happy to hear it. Charlie’s ordeal isn’t over yet, of course. When he leaves prison on June 20, Charlie, 49, will move temporarily to a halfway house, after which he will be on probation for another five years. And unless he can get the verdict overturned, he will have to spend the rest of his life with a felony on his record. Perhaps you remember Charlie Engle. I wrote about him not long after he entered a minimum-security facility in Beaver, W.Va., 16 months ago. He’s the poor guy who went to jail for lying on a liar loan during the housing bubble. There were two things about Charlie’s prosecution that really bothered me. First, he’d clearly been targeted by an agent of the Internal Revenue Service who seemed offended that Charlie was an ultramarathoner without a steady day job. The I.R.S. conducted “Dumpster dives” into his garbage and put a wire on a female undercover agent hoping to find some dirt on him. Unable to unearth any wrongdoing on his tax returns, the I.R.S. discovered he had taken out several subprime mortgages that didn’t require income verification. His income on one of them was wildly inflated. They don’t call them liar loans for nothing.

The UK is praying Spain sorts out its banking crisis - (www.telegraph.co.uk) As the Spanish banking crisis grows yet deeper, Philip Aldrick examines the burgeoning threat and the potential impact of a eurozone-funded bank rescue. There was an eerie calm about the plight of Spain at the International Monetary Fund’s spring meetings in mid-April. The country’s borrowing costs may have been inching perilously higher on news that Spanish banks had tapped the European Central Bank for around €200bn (£160bn) of a €530bn round of emergency funding, but officials gathered in the warm Washington sunshine were confident that Madrid would soon win back the markets.

OTHER STORIES:

China makes surprise interest rate cut - (www.reuters.com)

Spanish Borrowing Cost Tops 6% at 10-Year Bond Auction - (www.bloomberg.com)

Americans Cling to Jobs - (www.bloomberg.com)

New Jobless Claims at 'seasonally adjusted' 377,000 - (www.reuters.com)

Spain Blinks! - (www.telegraph.co.uk)

Fed faces political heat in weighing more economic stimulus - (www.washingtonpost.com)

US Already in 'Recession,' Extend Tax Cuts: Bill Clinton - (www.cnbc.com)

Tuesday June 19 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

"Jon Corzine is the smartest guy I know" - Joe Biden (Video) - (www.politicsandfinance.blogspot.com) After the bankrupting of MF Global, is the former head of Goldman Sachs, Senator and Governor from New Jersey and economic advisor to the Obama administration, still the smartest guy that Vice President Biden knows? If not, there is an opening for the position that could most likely be filled by a 10-year old! "...Way back in the transition period, before we were sworn in, when Barack Obama and I were literally sitting at a desk in a high rise in Chicago, beginning the plan on how we would try to get this economy out of a ditch, literally, the first guy I called was Jon Corzine. It's not a joke. It's not a joke. First of all, he's the smartest guy I know in terms of the economy and on finance, and I really mean that." Joe Biden

San Diego and San Jose Lead Way in Pension Cuts - (www.nytimes.com) While the eyes of the nation focused on Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker brushed back a recall attempt by critics of his move to strip most public-sector unions of their collective bargaining rights, a pair of less noticed local elections Tuesday in California could have more immediate ramifications for struggling state and local governments and for organized labor. Residents of San Diego and San Jose voted overwhelmingly to cut the pension benefits they give city workers. And they did so in a way governments traditionally avoid: moving to cut not just the benefits of future hires, but also those of current city workers, whose pensions generally have much stronger legal protections than those of private-sector workers.

Three top Fed members say new action to help economy may be needed - (www.washingtonpost.com) Three top members of the Federal Reserve said the central bank may have to take a fresh look at additional measures to stimulate economic growth amid a weakening in the U.S. economy and renewed threats from Europe. The Fed signaled earlier this year that it was pausing its four-year campaign to bolster the economy. But analysts now expect that the Fed will consider a new round of measures, given Europe’s deepening crisis and a spate of bad economic data in the United States — most notably, last week’s report that only 69,000 jobs were created in May. Speaking separately Wednesday, the three Fed officials — Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis P. Lockhart, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams and Fed governor Janet Yellen — all sounded the alarm about the economy’s direction in more dire terms than they’ve recently used, and all appeared more open to new action.

Americans Cling to Jobs as U.S. Workforce Dynamism Fades - (www.bloomberg.com) After 4 1/2 months of meetings, interviews and hand-holding, personnel recruiter William Rowethought he had sealed the deal.

The senior executive of a major corporation Rowe had been courting finally agreed to take a top post at a venture capital- backed technology firm in California. Then four days after giving notice, the executive, who is in his 40s, had second thoughts about leaving the security of his company and returned to his old job.  “He decided to go back to the mother ship” and not uproot his family to take a chance on joining a new firm, said Rowe, vice chairman of Pearson Partners International Inc., a search firm in Dallas. The deepest economic slump since the Great Depression has left its mark on both job seekers and job creators, making them more wary about taking risks in a slowly recovering labor market.

Spanish Borrowing Cost Tops 6% At 10-Year Bond Auction - (www.bloomberg.com) Spain sold 2.07 billion euros ($2.6 billion) of bonds, meeting its maximum target, as its 10-year borrowing costs rose. Spain sold its benchmark 10-year bond at an average yield of 6.044 percent, compared with 5.743 percent at the last sale on April 19 and 6.14 percent on the secondary market before the auction. It sold bonds maturing in October 2014 at an average yield of 4.335 percent and October 2016 securities at 5.353 percent. Demand for the benchmark debt was 3.29 times the amount sold, compared with 2.42 times in April. The bid-to-cover ratio for the 2014 securities was 4.26, compared with 3.28 on April 19, and rose to 2.56 for the 2016 debt from 2.46 the last time it was sold on April 4. It aimed to sell a maximum of 2 billion euros.

OTHER STORIES:

China Cuts Interest Rates for First Time Since 2008 - (www.bloomberg.com)

Merkel Says Germany Ready to Back Use of Current Euro-Area Tools - (www.bloomberg.com)

French Unemployment Rate Climbs As Hollande Grapples With Cuts - (www.bloomberg.com)

Carmakers Aggravate China Glut As Dealers Struggle - (www.bloomberg.com)

Bernanke Sees Risks to Economy From Europe to U.S. Budget - (www.bloomberg.com)

Initial Jobless Claims in U.S. Fell Last Week to 377,000 - (www.bloomberg.com)

Fed’s Yellen Says ‘Vulnerable’ Economy May Warrant More Easing - (www.bloomberg.com)

Monday June 18 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

Half of U.S. Lives in Household Getting Benefits  - (www.blogs.wsj.com) 49.1%: Percent of the population that lives in a household where at least one member received some type of government benefit in the first quarter of 2011. Cutting government spending is no easy task, and it’s made more complicated by recentCensus Bureau data showing that nearly half of the people in the U.S. live in a household that receives at least one government benefit, and many likely received more than one. The 49.1% of the population in a household that gets benefits is up from 30% in the early 1980s and 44.4% as recently as the third quarter of 2008. The increase in recent years is likely due in large part to the lingering effects of the recession. As of early 2011, 15% of people lived in a household that received food stamps, 26% had someone enrolled in Medicaid and 2% had a member receiving unemployment benefits. Families doubling up to save money or pool expenses also is likely leading to more multigenerational households. But even without the effects of the recession, there would be a larger reliance on government.

California Poised to Require 'solar Ready Roofs' on New Homes and Buildings  - (www.thestreet.com) State regulators with the California Energy Commission are expected to approve stringent energy efficiency standards for new residential and commercial buildings Thursday. The new standards, which would take effect Jan. 1, 2014, include a host of common-sense standards designed to save energy, from insulating hot-water pipes to making sure that air conditioner installations are inspected for sufficient air flow. But the proposed standards also require new homes and commercial buildings to have "solarready roofs" -- a mandatory requirement that will be a boon for the state's growing rooftop solar industry. Rooftop solar systems use photovoltaic solar panels to generate electricity. But their performance is affected by many factors, from the age of the roof to how it is situated -- ideally, it should face south. "Shading" is also an issue: Roofs should have clear, unobstructed access to the sun for most of the day. Attic vents, fans, skylights and chimneys can also influence how many solar panels a roof can hold.

Student loans soar 275% over past decade  - (www.money.cnn.com) Student loans have more than tripled over the past decade, according to new data from the Federal Reserve. Student loan debt hit $904 billion in the first quarter of 2012, up from $241 billion a decade ago, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York quarterly household debt report. That's up 275% since the same period in 2003. Students continued heaping on debt throughout the economic downturn, even as Americans cut back on other forms of credit, such as mortgages and credit cards. "It remains the only form of consumer debt to substantially increase since the peak of household debt in late 2008," said Donghoon Lee, senior economist at the NY Fed.

Woman Who Couldn’t Be Intimidated by Citigroup Wins $31 Million  - (www.bloomberg.com) Sherry Hunt never expected to be a senior manager at a Wall Street bank. She was a country girl, raised in rural Michigan by a dad who taught her to fish and a mom who showed her how to find wild mushrooms. She listened to Marty Robbins and Buck Owens on the radio and came to believe that God has a bigger plan, that everything happens for a reason. She got married at 16 and didn’t go to college. After she had her first child at 17, she needed a job. A friend helped her find one in 1975, processing home loans at a small bank in Alaska. Over the next 30 years, Hunt moved up the ladder to mortgage-banking positions in Indiana, Minnesota and Missouri, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its July issue. On her days off, when she wasn’t fishing with her husband, Jonathan, she rode her horse, Cody, in Wild West shows. She sometimes dressed up as the legendary cowgirl Annie Oakley, firing blanks from a vintage rifle to entertain an audience. She liked the mortgage business, liked that she was helping people buy houses.

Occupy Bernal To Stop House Auction Tomorrow At City Hall - (www.sfist.com) On Friday, June 1, Occupy Bernal (the tiny Occupy group that, despite its size, somehow gets shit done) plans to stop the auction of Alberto Del Rio's house by making noise to drown out the auctioneer at City Hall, among other ideas. Why all the fuss? Occupy Bernal explains: "Alberto Del Rio is a Bernal Heights resident who grew up in his family home. He lives there with his wife and 3 kids. To help his mother have a decent retirement, the Del Rio family took equity out of the home and refinanced. But their loan from World Savings was a Pick-a-Payment loan. Lawsuits have found these sorts of loans to be predatory. World Savings sold the loan to Wachovia, which was then acquired by Wells Fargo. “Wells took advantage of me. Like they did so many other people. They promised us the moon,” says Alberto, who has been trying to get a loan modification since 2000. The bank has continually lost his paperwork, and refused to negotiate in good faith. The bank even advised him to stop making payments in order to qualify for a loan modification, which triggered the foreclosure process. Now, Wells Fargo is scheduled to auction his home on June 1. But we won’t let them."

OTHER STORIES:

Recourse v. Non-Recourse States  - (www.loansafe.org)

Facebook Flop and Real Estate Values in and around Palo Alto  - (www.patrick.net)

Jamie Dimon and the Fall of Nations  - (www.nytimes.com)

Beware hungry Realtors - (news.yahoo.com)

Former Justice Stevens criticizes court over campaign spending rulings  - (www.cnn.com)

Springsteen lashes out at bankers in Berlin show  - (www.yahoo.com)

The Romney campaign’s surreal arguments about the economy  - (www.washingtonpost.com)

Friday June 15 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

Concerted push by cities to vacate land by using blight - (www.michigancitizen.com) The essence of the plan is the forced removal of people from their homes. Even the Detroit News had to acknowledge this in its lead paragraph about the plan. It said, “The city is trying to encourage — or push — people out of rundown neighborhoods that are largely vacant.” How will it “encourage or push” them? By cutting off services. The services being “stopped” are street lights (which haven’t been on in many neighborhoods for years), tree trimming, removal of abandoned houses, a process that continues at a glacial pace even in the best of neighborhoods, and police services, whose absence might not be noticed. The city is vague about what it intends to do with water, fire protection, garbage pick up and basic sanitation.  If past history is any guide, these too are likely to be cut off. Certainly that was the strategy used in what is now widely considered one of the most shameful episodes in city development, the destruction of Poletown. Folks living in the neighborhoods targeted for clearance would do well to learn the lessons from that effort and begin immediately to develop local safety and support organizations to resist the plan to force them out, house by house.

Defaults May Loom on California Redevelopment Agency Debt - (www.bloomberg.com) As many as 100 municipalities that took over bond obligations when California erased redevelopment agencies may not get the tax revenue they’re counting on tomorrow to make payments, the state Finance Department said. Such cities and counties may face cash-flow constraints that eventually may threaten defaults, said Matt McCleary, a project manager at Rosenow Spevacek Group Inc. The Santa Ana firm is advising about 35 cities on redevelopment issues. About 400 redevelopment agencies that helped finance projects to overcome blight were dissolved Feb. 1 by Governor Jerry Brown to redirect more than $1 billion of their funds to help fill a budget gap. Bonds for the projects were to be repaid with increased property-tax revenue from the revitalized areas.

Late CMBS Loan Payments Exceed 11%, Morgan Stanley Says - (www.bloomberg.com) The delinquency rate on U.S. commercial mortgages packaged and sold as bonds surpassed 11 percent in May as borrowers struggle to pay off maturing loans, according to Morgan Stanley. Payments on the debt at least 30 days late jumped 0.22 percentage point to 11.91 percent, Morgan Stanley analysts said in a report today. The surge marks “the third sizable consecutive month-over-month increase,” said the analysts led by Richard Parkus in New York. Borrowers are falling behind on payments as debt taken out at the market’s peak matures, with loans from the commercial property boom in 2006 and 2007 deteriorating the most, the analysts said. Of $3.63 billion in shopping mall, hotel and skyscraper mortgages that came due last month, 61 percent didn’t pay off at their maturity date, they said.

California Note Sale May Top $10 Billion, Chiang Says - (www.bloomberg.com) California, the most indebted state, may need to sell more than $10 billion in short-term securities in order to pay bills through the fiscal year that begins in July, Controller John Chiang said. The size of the revenue-anticipation note sale may exceed previous estimates as tax collections have trailed projections and the state exhausted most of its internal borrowing ability, Chiang said in an interview yesterday in Bloomberg’s San Francisco office. “It could be more,” said Chiang, a 49-year-old Democrat. “The question is whether there is market capacity.” A $10 billion sale would be the largest since 2010. California lost more than 1 million jobs in the recession that started in 2007, reducing revenue by 24 percent. This year, the largest state by population borrowed $5.4 billion in September and had to seek another $1 billion in February after tax collections fell short and spending exceeded expectations.

Hedge Fund ETF Weapons Turn Dangerous For Solo Investors - (www.bloomberg.com) If you are convinced, really convinced, the price of crude oil will rise today and U.S. stocks will fall, Factor Advisors LLC has an exchange-traded fund for you. The FactorShares 2X: Oil Bull/S&P500 Bear (FOL) offered by the New York-based firm makes a two-times long wager on crude oil futures and a short bet on Standard & Poor’s 500 Index futures, in effect delivering twice the daily change in the spread between the two positions. The product’s birth followed “a lot of feedback” from institutional investors, including hedge funds, Stuart Rosenthal, chief executive officer of Factor Advisors, said in a telephone interview. As the biggest ETF managers capture assets from traditional mutual funds with benchmark-tracking offerings, smaller competitors are catering to sophisticated investors with an increasingly complex arsenal of products. Often based on derivatives, these can be weapons for savvy investors to amplify wagers on rising or falling prices of everything from stocks and bonds to currencies and commodities. The same tools, readily available through conventional and online brokers, have proven hazardous for individual investors who sometimes misunderstand and misuse them with costly consequences.

JPMorgan CIO Swaps Pricing Said To Differ From Bank - (www.bloomberg.com) The JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) unit responsible for at least $2 billion in losses on credit derivatives was valuing some of its trades at prices that differed from those of its investment bank, according to people familiar with the matter. The discrepancy between prices used by the chief investment office and JPMorgan’s credit-swaps dealer, the biggest in the U.S., may have obscured by hundreds of millions of dollars the magnitude of the loss before it was disclosed May 10, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because they aren’t authorized to discuss the matter. “I’ve never run into anything like that,” said Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.’s Brad Hintz in New York, ranked by Institutional Investor magazine as the top analyst covering brokerage firms. “That’s why you have a centralized accounting group that’s comparing marks” between different parts of the bank “to make sure you don’t have any outliers,” said the former chief financial officer of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

OTHER STORIES:

Spain must tell Europe its plans for Bankia: EC - (www.reuters.com)

Draghi Says ECB Will Continue Lending To Solvent Banks - (www.bloomberg.com)

Indicators Signal Higher Money-Market Stress Amid Europe Crisis - (www.bloomberg.com)

Spain Takes Center Stage in Euro Crisis - (www.nytimes.com)

Brazil Cuts Rate to Record-Low 8.5% as Euro Crisis Deepens - (www.bloomberg.com)

India GDP growth could dip below 6% - (www.marketwatch.com)

In test for euro zone, Ireland votes on fiscal treaty - (www.washingtonpost.com)

Monti Urges ‘Deep, Quick’ Moves By Germany To Quell Euro - (www.bloomberg.com)

Turmoil Frays Ties Across Continent - (online.wsj.com)

Europe Fears Bailout of Spain Would Strain Its Resources - (www.nytimes.com)

Economy in U.S. Expanded Less Than Previously Estimated - (www.bloomberg.com)

Jobless Claims in U.S. Increased by 10,000 to 383,000- (www.bloomberg.com)

Fed's Bullard says more quantitative easing unlikely for now, warns on Europe - (www.reuters.com)

Rosengren wants more Fed easing; Dudley, Fisher don't - (www.reuters.com)

Thursday June 14 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

Taxpayers Want P. Diddy's Son To Fork Over His $54,000 UCLA Scholarship - (www.businessinsider.com) Less than a year after P. Diddy's son, Justin Combs, committed to play football at UCLA, state taxpayers are calling on the well-heeled freshman to turn over his $54,000 scholarship to students who need it more. In an interview with CNN, education contributor Dr. Steve Perry defended Combs' merit-based scholarship, saying he earned it fair and square. At the Upstate New York prep school where Combs recently graduated, he maintained a 3.75 GPA while playing cornerback for the football team. "He's done what he needs to do to be successful and in 'Ameritocracy' we have to accept that no matter who your father is, whether he be rich, poor or absent, that you can in fact be successful on your own merit," Perry said.

Spain Credit-Default Swaps Surge To Record On Bank Bailout Woes - (www.bloomberg.com) The cost of insuring against default on Spanish sovereign bonds rose to a record as the nation’s debt crisis deepened amid concern over bank bailouts. Credit-default swaps linked to the nation’s debt climbed 23 basis points to 583 at 11:44 a.m. in London, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Markit iTraxx SovX Western Europe Index of swaps on 15 governments rose seven basis points to 320.5. An increase signals worsening perceptions of credit quality. Bank of Spain Governor Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordonez resigned a month early, handing over the task of convincing investors that Spanish banks won’t need an international rescue. Bankia group, the nation’s third-biggest lender which received 4.5 billion euros ($5.6 billion) of public funds in 2010, asked for another 19 billion euros on May 25.

Spain’s problems add pressure on Europe’s leaders to accelerate crisis response - (www.washingtonpost.com) Spain’s economic problems are deepening, pushing the country closer to an international bailout that U.S. and European officials worry could destabilize the global economy. The risk that the euro zone’s fourth-largest country may need a massive dose of outside help is forcing the region’s leaders to accelerate weighty decisions they had expected to consider over time. These include deciding whether the euro-zone countries should begin issuing bonds that they all jointly back, a step that would be aimed at reassuring investors skittish about lending money to troubled governments such as Spain’s. But extended debate may fast become a luxury as economic activity in Spain slows, the cost of a banking-sector rescue rises and the euro zone’s uncertain future scares off investors. The release Tuesday of discouraging figures on Spain’s retail sales and exports further contributed to the sense of the country’s fragility. And the resignation of Spain’s central bank head, a month ahead of schedule, highlighted the struggle to fix long-standing problems in the country’s financial sector.

Anti-bailout SYRIZA party in the lead: Greek poll - (www.reuters.com) The outcome of an election in Greecenext month that may determine whether Athens can stay in the euro was thrown into doubt on Wednesday when a poll suggested the anti-bailout SYRIZA party would win, contradicting six previous forecasts. The poll, by VPRC for Epikaira magazine, showed SYRIZA, a radical leftist party which says it wants the debt-laden country to remain in the euro but to ditch austerity, would win 30 percent of the vote if elections were held now. The same poll put the pro-bailout conservative New Democracy party in second place with 26.5 percent of the vote. That was consistent with a previous VPRC forecast last week that also showed SYRIZA in the lead, with 28.5 percent, and New Democracy second with 26 percent.

Pending Sales of U.S. Homes Decrease by Most in a Year - (www.bloomberg.com) The number of Americans signing contracts to buy previously owned homes fell in April by the most in a year, indicating the U.S. housing recovery remains uneven. The index of pending home resales dropped 5.5 percent following a revised 3.8 percent gain the prior month, figures from the National Association of Realtors showed today in Washington. Themedian forecast of 42 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for no change in the measure. Mortgage rates at record lows failed to sustain the pace of demand as some buyers may have waited for home prices to decline further. Limited access to credit and persistent foreclosures still weigh on housing, adding to concern it will remain a source of weakness for the world’s largest economy.

This Young Lawyer Is Owed $415,000 By Collapsed Firm Dewey & LeBoeuf - (www.businessinsider.com)  A 2006 Penn Law grad is one of imploded law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf's 20 largest creditors. Dewey filed for bankruptcy in Manhattan late Monday. The once-gigantic law firm blamed its downfall on the economy and pay packages awarded to star partners known as "rainmakers." But a relatively young associate lawyer, not a rainmaker, is listed among big-league creditors including Thomson Reuters, Bank of America, and LexisNexis. Emily Saffitz, now an associate at Thompson & Knight, is owed more than $415,000 in severance pay, according to Dewey's bankruptcy filing.

OTHER STORIES:

Italy Auction Misses Target as Yields Climb on Contagion - (www.bloomberg.com)

Greek Exit From Euro Seen Exposing Deposit-Guaranty Flaws - (www.bloomberg.com)

ECB rejects Spain’s Bankia recap plan: FT - (www.marketwatch.com)

Taleb Says Euro Breakup ‘Not a Big Deal’ as U.S. Scariest - (www.bloomberg.com)

Spain Takes Center Stage in Euro Crisis - (www.nytimes.com)

ECB rejects Madrid plan to boost Bankia - (www.ft.com)

ECB Opposes Helping Fund Spain's Bankia - (online.wsj.com)

China Has No Plan for Large Stimulus to Counter Slowdown - (www.bloomberg.com)

Euro-Area Economic Confidence Declines More Than Forecast - (www.bloomberg.com)

BoE's Fisher says can't rule out euro break up: paper - (www.reuters.com)

India’s Economy Slows, With Global Implications - (www.nytimes.com)

Challenges Mount for Chinese Maker of Electric Cars - (www.nytimes.com)

Job recovery is scant for Americans in prime working years - (www.washingtonpost.com)

Wednesday June 13 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

Dewey files for chapter 11 in record law firm collapse - (www.reuters.com)  The crippled law firm Dewey & Leboeuf LLP filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday night and will seek approval to liquidate its business after failing to find a merger partner, marking the biggest collapse of a law firm in U.S. history. Once one of the largest law firms in the U.S., Dewey has been hit by the loss of the vast majority of its roughly 300 partners to other firms amid concerns about compensation and a heavy debt load. Dewey had warned employees earlier this month of the possibility the firm may shut down, and a person familiar with the matter had told Reuters that the firm was considering a bankruptcy filing. "Dewey's failure is rocking the industry in the sense that most firms are saying to themselves, if Dewey could go down, could we?" Kent Zimmermann, a legal consultant at the Zeughauser Group, said in an email Monday night.

U.S. Winds Down Longer Benefits for the Unemployed - (www.nytimes.com)   Hundreds of thousands of out-of-work Americans are receiving their final unemployment checks sooner than they expected, even though Congress renewed extended benefits until the end of the year. The checks are stopping for the people who have the most difficulty finding work: the long-term unemployed. More than five million people have been out of work for longer than half a year. Federal benefit extensions, which supplemented state funds for payments up to 99 weeks, were intended to tide over the unemployed until the job market improved. In February, when the program was set to expire, Congress renewed it, but also phased in a reduction of the number of weeks of extended aid and effectively made it more difficult for states to qualify for the maximum aid. Since then, the jobless in 23 states have lost up to five months’ worth of benefits.

Greek Euro Exit Aftershocks Risk Reaching China - (www.bloomberg.com)   Greece, responsible for 0.4 percent of the world economy, now poses a threat to international prosperity as investors raise bets its days using the euro are numbered. A Greek departure from the currency would inflict “collateral damage,” says Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Richard Clarida, a view echoed by economists from Bank of America Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase & Co. At worst, it could spur sovereign defaults in Europe as well as bank runs, credit crunches and recessions that may spark more euro exits. Global trade and financial ties mean the pain wouldn’t be confined to the euro area. JPMorgan Chase estimates a 1 percentage point slump in the euro countries’ economy drags down growth elsewhere by 0.7 percentage point. Exporting nations from the U.K. to China would suffer and commodity producer Russia would face falling oil prices. While the U.S. may fare better, even it would feel echoes similar to the financial infection following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

The British Government Is Forcing People To Work For Free Or Lose Their Unemployment Benefits – (www.businessinsider.com) Thousands more unemployed people will be forced to work for free or lose their benefits under controversial plans to be announced by the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, as the government is warned its drive to get people back into work appears to be floundering. The scheme, under which the jobless are obliged to accept an unpaid work placement for a month to keep their benefits, will be "significantly extended" within the next two weeks, according to Whitehall sources. The government believes forcing people to work or lose their benefits is inculcating a work habit in the 10,000 people currently on the programme and will be effective for others. Ministers are also looking at rolling out a national trial under which the unemployed must work for up to six months for free to avoid their benefits being docked.

Most Aid to Athens Circles Back to Europe - (www.nytimes.com)   As Greek membership in the euro currency union hangs in the balance, it continues to receive billions of euros in emergency assistance from the so-called troika of lenders overseeing its bailout. But almost none of the money is going to the Greek government to pay for vital public services. Instead, it is flowing directly back into the troika’s pockets. And so, the €130 billion, or $162.2 billion, European bailout that was supposed to buy time for Greece is mainly only servicing the interest on the country’s debt — while the Greek economy continues to plummet. If that seems to make little sense economically, it has a certain logic in the politics of euro-finance. After all, the money dispensed by the troika — the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Union’s member governments — comes from European taxpayers, many of whom are increasingly wary of the political disarray that has beset Athens and clouded the future of the euro zone.

OTHER STORIES:

Global Bond Sales Behind 2011’s Pace in Crisis - (www.bloomberg.com)  

Europe Leveraged Loan Defaults May Rise to 25%, Moody’s Says - (www.bloomberg.com)  

Spain to go to market to fund Bankia, regions: source - (www.reuters.com)  

Spain Delays And Prays That Zombies Repay Debt: Mortgages - (www.bloomberg.com)  

Dollar Scarce As Top-Quality Assets Shrink 42% - (www.bloomberg.com)  

Euro zone bank safety net leaves holes unplugged - (www.bloomberg.com)  

Buybacks Lowest Since 2009 As U.S. CEOs Push Up Spending - (www.bloomberg.com)  

Madrid in ‘game of chicken’ with EU - (www.ft.com)  

Bankia Tapping Depositors for Bonds Leaves Spain on Bailout Hook - (www.bloomberg.com)  

China Investment Appeal Waning Adds to Wen’s Challenge - (www.bloomberg.com)  

Consumer Confidence in U.S. Fell in May to Four-Month Low - (www.bloomberg.com)  

Home prices inch higher in March: S&P - (www.reuters.com)  

Analysis: JPMorgan dips into cookie jar to offset "London Whale" losses - (www.reuters.com)  

RPT-Euro's long-time doubters say 'I told you so' - (www.reuters.com)