Monday December 27 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

Big Appliances Set Out as Trash Are Vanishing, Puzzling City - (www.nytimes.com) Over the last several months, 22,741 New Yorkers contacted the city’s Department of Sanitation and arranged for the pickup of refrigerators, air-conditioners and freezers. In more than 11,000 instances, the machines vanished before sanitation workers arrived in their white trucks to pick them up. The sheer magnitude of the thefts — 11,528 appliances, to be precise — over a relatively brief period suggests to some in city government and the recycling industry that a more organized enterprise may be at work as well. Deepening the mystery, these were neither the latest Sub Zero behemoths, sleek Bosch nor stylish retro Smeg refrigerators. They were garbage, quite literally — discarded appliances left at the curb for pickup by the Sanitation Department. And while the value of one discarded appliance may seem marginal at best, in the scrap industry, the fluctuations of commodity prices and volume add up to real money. Indeed, the big loser in what might be called New York’s Appliances Caper appears to be a multinational recycling conglomerate, a subsidiary of which has a large city contract to recycle the hundreds of thousands of tons of metal, glass and plastic generated each year by New Yorkers, including bulk metal, like appliances. In response, the officers have stepped up their enforcement, Inspector D’Angelo said, and while the theft of curbside recyclables warrants only a summons, the sanitation officers impound the vehicles and their cargo — frequently a jumbled load of refrigerators, air-conditioners, Venetian blinds, office partitions and stoves.

Detroit botched Packard plant tax collection - (www.freep.com) The City of Detroit has failed for nearly four years to send property tax bills to the owner of the Packard plant, costing the city badly needed cash. At 3.5 million square feet, the plant is by far the largest derelict property in Detroit. It wasn't until the Free Press began making inquiries last week that the city's assessor's office returned the property to the tax rolls -- with an assessed value of nearly $1.6 million. The change came nearly four years after a Michigan Supreme Court decision prompted the city to surrender the century-old plant to Bioresource, a company whose last listed corporate representative is a convicted drug dealer. Last week, less than 18 hours after a reporter questioned why the property was listed as city-owned, the assessor's office changed its status to "taxable." The property's assessed value ballooned from almost nothing to nearly $1.6 million. Robin Boyle, professor of urban planning at Wayne State University, said the error underscores "just how challenged the city is in dealing with the fundamental task of title, control, oversight and follow-through" with property throughout the city. "To me, that is a fundamental problem that leaves Detroit in a consistently weakened position. It can't even do the basics," Boyle said. "This is a huge piece of real estate, and yet, there's still confusion."

Detroit’s Schools Are Going Bankrupt, Too - (online.wsj.com) Now’s the time to cast off collective bargaining agreements and introduce school choice. ‘Am I optimistic that they can avoid it . . . ? I am not.” That’s what retired judge Ray Graves said this week when asked whether the Detroit public schools, which he is advising, would be forced into bankruptcy. Facing violence, a shrinking student body, and graduating just one out of every four students who enter the ninth grade on time, the city’s schools have been stumbling for years. Now they face a seemingly insurmountable deficit and are expected to file for bankruptcy protection at about the time that students should be settling down in a new school year. As embarrassing as such a filing would be, it also may be the only thing that can force the kinds of changes Detroit schools need—as the financial turmoil is just the latest manifestation of a system in terminal decline. Detroit is like many urban school districts—large, unwieldy and bureaucratic, with a powerful union that makes the system unable to adapt to changing circumstances and that until very recently had an indulgent political class that insulated it from reform. That insulation came in two forms. The first was neglect. Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick spent several years distracted by a scandal stemming from his affair with a staffer. He resigned last year, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, and was sentenced to four months in jail. Had he been an effective mayor, he might have also been a powerful advocate for students. The other insulating force was a conscious decision to wall off Detroit from charter schools. In 1993, Michigan’s legislature made it difficult to create new charters in Detroit by declaring that only community colleges could authorize charters for primary and secondary schools in “First-Class Districts”—defined as those with more than 100,000 students. Detroit was the only First-Class District. In 2003 the state, under pressure from the Detroit Federation of Teachers, turned down a gift of $200 million from philanthropist Robert Thompson that would have established 15 charter schools in the city. Those charters are needed today.

A Real Jaw Dropper at the Federal Reserve - (www.huffingtonpost.com) At a Senate Budget Committee hearing in 2009, I asked Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to tell the American people the names of the financial institutions that received an unprecedented backdoor bailout from the Federal Reserve, how much they received, and the exact terms of this assistance. He refused. A year and a half later, as a result of an amendment that I was able to include in the Wall Street reform bill, we have begun to lift the veil of secrecy at the Fed, and the American people now have this information. It is unfortunate that it took this long, and it is a shame that the biggest banks in America and Mr. Bernanke fought to keep this secret from the American public every step of the way. But, the details on this bailout are now on the Federal Reserve's website, and this is a major victory for the American taxpayer and for transparency in government. Importantly, my amendment also required the Government Accountability Office to conduct a top-to-bottom audit of all of the emergency lending the Fed provided during the financial crisis to be completed on July 21, 2011, which will take a hard look at all of the potential conflicts of interest that took place with respect to this bailout. So, in many respects, details that the Fed was forced to divulge on Wednesday about the $3.3 trillion in emergency loans that until now were totally kept from public scrutiny, marked the beginning, not the end, of lifting the veil of secrecy at the Fed.

Are The Federal Reserve's Crimes Too Big To Comprehend? - (www.ampedstatus.com) Just when I thought the banksters couldn’t possibly shock me anymore… they did. We were finally granted the honor and privilege of finding out the specifics, a limited one-time Federal Reserve view, of a secret taxpayer funded “backdoor bailout” by a small group of unelected bankers. This data release reveals “emergency lending programs” that doled out $12.3 TRILLION in taxpayer money - $3.3 trillion in liquidity, $9 trillion in “other financial arrangements.” Wait, what? Did you say $12.3 TRILLION tax dollars were thrown around in secrecy by unelected bankers… and Congress didn’t know any of the details? Yes. The Founding Fathers are rolling over in their graves. The original copy of the Constitution spontaneously burst into flames. The ghost of Tom Paine went running, stark raving mad screaming through the halls of Congress. The Federal Reserve was secretly throwing around our money in unprecedented fashion, and it wasn’t just to the usual suspects like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, etc.; it was to the entire Global Banking Cartel. To central banks throughout the world: Australia, Denmark, Japan, Mexico, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, England… To the Fed’s foreign primary dealers like Credit Suisse (Switzerland), Deutsche Bank (Germany), Royal Bank of Scotland (U.K.), Barclays (U.K.), BNP Paribas (France)… All their Ponzi players were “gifted.” All the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations got their cut.

OTHER STORIES:

The Grim Truth About America - (exaggerated, but real) - (www.escapefromamerica.com)

House Democrats defy Obama on tax cut bill - (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)

Japan Business Mood Worsens for First Time in 2 Years - (www.cnbc.com)

Otsuka Up 5% in Tokyo Debut After $2.4 Billion IPO - (www.cnbc.com)

Sanders: Middle class held hostage by Tea Party servants of billionaires - (www.dailybail.com)

Treasury Bonds: From Ultra-Safe to Battered and Bruised - (www.dailyfinance.com)

Mendacious Bernanke - (www.atimes.com)

50% housing bubble looms over 7 major Chinese cities - (english.peopledaily.com.cn)

Working Poor Will Pay More After Obama's GOP Tax Sellout - (www.dailyfinance.com)

Wanking Bankers - (www.youtube.com)

10 Days to Christmas, Still Plenty of Shopping to Do - (www.cnbc.com)

Sunday December 26 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

Why pay bridge tolls if you have government license plates? - (www.mercurynews.com) For 18 months Scofflaw No. 593 blew through FasTrak toll plazas at two Bay Area bridges almost every day and never paid up. Scofflaw No. 593 -- named for the random number assigned to the anonymous driver in regional toll reports -- was able to do this because the driver was part of a largely outmoded program that prevents certain government employees' addresses from being traced through their license plates. Because they can't easily be traced, some are abusing the system by intentionally zipping through FasTrak lanes without an electronic toll account. In all, 1.5 million government employees, elected officials and their families have the so-called "confidential address" plates, part of a program started in 1978 to protect police and others involved in law enforcement from being tracked to their homes by criminals. Those drivers could be police officers, an officer's spouse or child, judges, prison guards, child abuse investigators, state legislators or even museum guards. Who are they specifically? Don't ask. It's a secret, even when laws get broken. Public records show Scofflaw No. 593 dodged a bridge toll -- $4 at the time -- 467 times in 18 months, sometimes twice in the same day. That's $1,868 in unpaid tolls. If the average citizen did this once, a ticket would soon arrive in his or her mailbox ordering payment of the skipped toll plus a $25 fine, though the fine would be waived if the driver signed up for FasTrak. And Scofflaw No. 593 isn't alone. He or she is one of 4,415 drivers who blew through Bay Area bridge tolls 27,335 times from June 2008 to May 2010 without paying while driving a car registered through the Department of Motor Vehicles' confidential address program, playing a game of catch-me-if-you-can with toll authorities while the rest of the motoring public coughed up the $4 toll or faced fines.

Less Than a Full-Service City - (www.online.wsj.com) More than 20% of Detroit's 139 square miles could go without key municipal services under a new plan being developed for the city, with as few as seven neighborhoods seen as meriting the city's full resources. Those details, outlined by Detroit planning officials this week, offer the clearest picture yet of how Mayor Dave Bing intends to execute what has become his signature program: reconfiguring Detroit to reflect its declining population and fiscal health. Yet the blueprint still leaves large legal and financial questions unresolved. Mr. Bing's staff wants to concentrate Detroit's remaining population—expected to be less than 900,000 after this year's Census count—and limited local, state and federal dollars in the most viable swaths of the city, while other sectors could go without such services as garbage pickup, police patrols, road repair and street lights. Karla Henderson, a city planning official leading the mayor's campaign, said in an interview Thursday that her staff had deemed just seven to nine sections of Detroit worthy of receiving the city's full resources. She declined to identify the areas, but said the final plan could include a greater number. "What we have found is that even some of our stronger neighborhoods are at a tipping point with vacancy," Ms. Henderson said. "Vacancy adds to blight and blight is a disease that takes over the whole neighborhood. So the sooner we can get those homes occupied, the better for the city."

Jumbo loan market completely evaporated - (www.doctorhousingbubble.com) The jumbo loan market is virtually non-existent showing that many homeowners in these “prime” areas used subprime tactics in buying their homes by over leveraging and buying something they could not afford. As we have shown, many million dollar home buyers in key areas like Beverly Hills or Newport Coast were only able to buy because of the mania of the housing bubble and debt fuel that allowed people to over spend and leverage. Since these loans can’t be funneled to the government, banks are not putting their money on the line in these markets. After all, you would think that if banks had faith in their “wealthy” customers they would be making large numbers of jumbo loans. Does the above chart look like that?

Montgomery looks to tackle budget woes with fresh ammunition - (www.gazette.net) The Montgomery County Council looked to tighten its fiscal belt this week equipped with a fresh analysis of the county's budgetary plight and a plan to ensure that an arbitrator, if called in to break an impasse, would first and foremost consider the county's ability to pay union contracts. The proposal comes as a study by the county's Office of Legislative Oversight reports that the primary driver behind a 71 percent increase in spending by the county over a decade was a 64 percent increase in personnel costs. The average Montgomery County employee salary increased 50 percent and the cost of benefits rose more than 120 percent during the 10-year period, according to the study by OLO. The report, requested by the council, is "a message to the executive branch and county employee unions, ... that somewhere there has to be a balance met," said council Vice President Valerie Ervin (D-Dist. 5) of Silver Spring, who has proposed changing county law to make affordability the "priority" consideration in arbitration. Ervin's proposed bill would require an arbitrator to give the highest priority to the county's ability to pay. It also would require the arbitrator to weigh other factors, such as the interest and welfare of county taxpayers.

New bill would help contain runaway spending in Montgomery County - (www.washingtonpost.com) PUBLIC WORKERS in Montgomery County have enjoyed a spectacular run over the last decade, thanks to munificent politicians, powerful unions and a badly tilted playing field that favors workers over management. Many workers who were on the county's payroll in 2000 have seen their salaries double, in addition to receiving ever-improving benefits. Since salaries and benefits amount to 80 percent of county spending - and almost 90 percent of school spending - the fruit of the county's profligacy is a structural deficit that has proved impervious to repeated tax increases. A bill before the County Council would provide officials with a lever to restore some balance. It was introduced by the new council chair, Valerie Ervin, a product of years in the labor movement. That Ms. Ervin would sponsor legislation to trim the power of public-worker unions is a hopeful sign - and a telling one of how tilted the field has become. The result is that Montgomery has the fattest and least affordable contracts in the region and is now cutting services to pay for them. In the event that an impasse in contract negotiations leads to arbitration, Ms. Ervin's bill would require the arbitrator to give priority consideration to the county's ability to pay without resorting to tax increases. This is common sense.

OTHER STORIES:

Estate Tax Cutoff Draws Special Fire in Congress - (www.nytimes.com)

Vast majority of wealth is INHERITED. Only "negligible fraction" is earned. - (PDF - www.kotlikoff.net)

Chase Bank ransacked house of man on his death bed - (www.komonews.com)

Main player in high-end mortgage fraud scheme due in court - (www.blog.cleveland.com)

1.6 Million Put Off Retirement - (blogs.wsj.com)

Markets defy feds bond buying push - (finance.yahoo.com)

Luxury house prices are still heading down - (www.latimes.com)

House values lose $9 trillion since 2006 peak - (moneycentral.msn.com)

Housing inflation years off, poll says - (www.journalgazette.net)

Banks allowed to let foreclosures rot, empty - (www.dailyfinance.com)

A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives - (www.nytimes.com)

Wells Fargo opposes banks on mortgage-risk rule - (www.sfgate.com)

Recession Lasting Until 2018 Worth Exploring - (www.bloomberg.com)

Commercial real estate company runs on no-mortgage philosophy - (www.nctimes.com)

Chanos again warns on China's bubble economy - (www.unconventionaleconomist.com)

Record land price in Shanghai - (www.shanghaidaily.com)

Democrats Should Disregard Clinton's Endorsement of Obama's Tax Deal - (www.robertreich.org)

Saturday December 25 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

U.S. Cities May Consider Defaulting as Revenue Falls, CBO Says - (www.bloomberg.com) Cities and other local governments may see property-tax revenue decline, forcing some to consider defaulting on debt and seeking bankruptcy protection, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report. A 27 percent decline in housing values from June 2006 through June 2010 hasn’t yet driven down tax rolls of cities, counties and school districts as property collections rose 31 percent during the same period, the budget office said in the Dec. 9 report. That is expected to change, because property taxes, which generate a fourth of revenue, lag behind changes in home prices by three years, the report said. “Collections will probably fall in the coming years as local governments gradually update property-tax assessments to reflect lower market values,” said the report, prepared by Elizabeth Cove Delisle. Falling tax revenue could force issuers to examine default and protections offered by Chapter 9 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, the report said. Chapter 9 offers court protection from creditors, and allows municipalities to restructure debt, negotiate for lower labor costs and make changes without the approval of all creditors, the report said. Local governments include 3,000 counties, 36,000 cities and towns, 37,400 special districts and 14,600 public-school systems, the report said. They get nearly one-third of their revenue from state aid while less than 4 percent comes from the U.S. government, it said.

Build America Issuers Race Dec. 31 Countdown Clock: Muni Credit - (www.bloomberg.com) Issuers from across the U.S. are moving up planned Build America Bond sales to this month, making the quarter the biggest yet for the program, which is set to expire Dec. 31 if Congress doesn’t extend it. States and municipalities are slated to offer more than $3.8 billion of the securities this week, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Sales of the taxable debt in the last three months of 2010 to date represent about 21 percent of the $179 billion sold since the program began in April 2009, Bloomberg data show. The securities, which include a 35 percent federal subsidy on interest costs, have allowed state and local governments to borrow at a lower cost than traditional tax-exempt debt. President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders left the program out of a tax deal they reached last week, hastening issuers to market.

Build America Bond Program Extension Sought by Democrat in Senate Tax Bill - (www.bloomberg.com) A Democratic U.S. senator is proposing what may be a last-ditch effort to extend the Build America Bonds program as part of legislation being considered by the Senate to continue the 2001 and 2003 income-tax cuts. Oregon’s Ron Wyden, an advocate of the securities who previously led Democrats in an unsuccessful bid to have an extension included in the tax bill, offered an amendment seeking to keep them available for a year beyond their scheduled end on Dec. 31, said Jennifer Hoelzer, his spokeswoman. The looming end of the federally subsidized debt program, which pays 35 percent of the interest expenses on municipal bonds sold for public works, is threatening to push up borrowing costs for cash-strapped state and local governments. The securities were left out of the agreement President Barack Obama struck with Republicans, some of whom have been critical of the program. While in the minority, the party has enough power to stall the passage of legislation.

Alarm over rise in US bond yields - (www.ft.com) The UK’s largest investment manager has warned of a potentially “catastrophic” rise in US Treasury yields in the wake of the “extremely irresponsible” fiscal policy being adopted by Washington. Barack Obama and congressional Republicans last week agreed a fresh economic stimulus package, involving the extension of Bush-era tax cuts and unemployment benefits, a payroll tax holiday and tax breaks for investment that, if passed, are forecast to maintain the bloated federal deficit at 9-10 per cent of gross domestic product. The package, significantly larger than expected, fuelled a surge in 10-year Treasury yields to 3.28 per cent on Friday, from 2.51 per cent at the start of week, with most commentators attributing the jump to expectations of faster economic growth in the US in 2011 thanks to the stimulus. However, Legal & General Investment Management, which manages £342bn ($541bn) of assets, warned the jump in bond yields could be the start of a bear market in US debt. “They are running an extremely irresponsible fiscal policy, completely abusing their reserve currency status. No other country would be able to run such a deficit without a long-term plan to bring it under control,” said Tim Drayson, economist at LGIM.

Bears Draw More Blood From Crashing Netflix - (www.businessinsider.com) One of the short's favorite targets -- which in recent weeks has finally discovered the law of gravity -- is tanking again. It's down 4.5%. The latest headline is Jeff Bewkes of Time Warner slamming the company's economics. Click here for more on the variety of factors keeping it down >

OTHER STORIES:

Commodities' Paths Diverge - (online.wsj.com)

High-frequency traders boost forex turnover - (www.ft.com)

Chinese IPOs raise three times as much as US listings- (www.ft.com)

China Risks ‘Rush’ to Tighten in 2011 After Inflation Tops 5% - (www.bloomberg.com)

As China Rolls Ahead, Fear Follows - (www.nytimes.com)

China Said to Aim for at Least 7 Trillion Yuan Loans - (www.bloomberg.com)

Push for shake-up of EU rescue facility - (www.ft.com)

Risky Borrowers Find Credit Available Again, at a Price - (www.nytimes.com)

Housing Shaky as Lenders Tighten . - (online.wsj.com)

Fed unlikely to shift from QE2 roll-out - (www.ft.com)

Wall Street Sees Record Revenue in ’09-10 Recovery From Bailout - (www.bloomberg.com)

A&P, U.S. Grocery-Store Chain Owner, Seeks Bankruptcy - (www.bloomberg.com)

Florida Governor Declares Emergency for Crops on Cold - (www.bloomberg.com)

Friday December 24 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

Oakland Mayor-Elect's Car Booted Over Parking Tickets - (www.ktvu.com) Oakland Mayor-elect Jean Quan (who is most likely lying out her teeth - see story below) said Wednesday the reason she accumulated several unpaid parking tickets and wound up having her car booted outside City Hall on Tuesday was because she was busy. Quan, who has been on the Oakland City Council for eight years and will become mayor on Jan. 3 after narrowly winning this month's election, said in a statement that, "Over the course of the last year, my family and I have been extraordinarily busy on my campaign." "During that time we accumulated several parking tickets," she said, adding that her husband, Dr. Floyd Huen, who handles the family's bills, "thought that we were reasonably current."

M&R: Coin toss settles Oakland city parking war - (www.sfgate.com) The great parking war between Oakland City Councilwomen Desley Brooks and Jean Quanover who gets the favored spot next to City Hall has been resolved with a coin toss - but not before everyone got in their two cents. For more than two months, Brooks and Quan had been battling over who would get to park closest to the City Hall door. For Brooks, however, the issue was much bigger than a few feet of asphalt - it involved principle and went "to the heart" of how the Oakland City Council functions, according to an e-mail she shot out to constituents after we broke the news of her crusade Monday. Brooks wrote that because she was elected to the council five months before Quan - although they were both sworn in together in January 2003 - the spot was hers by virtue of seniority.

Bank of America in Municipal Bid-Rigging Case Tip of Iceberg - (www.bloomberg.com) Bank of America Corp.’s agreement to pay $137 million in restitution for taking part in a nationwide bid-rigging conspiracy for municipal-investment contracts may soon be followed by more settlements to repay the scheme’s victims, the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division head said. “Stay tuned to this channel -- I think you will see a lot more activity in the coming weeks and months,” Christine Varney, the antitrust chief, told reporters yesterday. “We are committed to getting restitution, full restitution, to all the municipalities that were victims of this scheme.” Bank of America, which has assisted the government probe of the $2.8 trillion municipal-bond market since at least 2007 in return for leniency, has provided documents, e-mails and recordings of phone calls, according to court records of civil suits. In September, Douglas Lee Campbell, formerly employed by the bank’s municipal derivatives group, pleaded guilty to taking part in a conspiracy to pay state and local governments below- market rates on investments purchased with bond proceeds.

Caught by mistake in foreclosure web - (news.yahoo.com) Christopher Marconi was in the shower when he heard a loud banging on his door. By the time he grabbed a towel and hustled to his front step, a U.S. marshal's sedan was peeling out of his driveway. Nailed to Marconi's front door was a foreclosure summons from Wells Fargo, naming him as a defendant. But the notice was for a house Marconi had never seen — on a mortgage he never had. Tom Williams was in his kitchen thumbing through the mail when he opened a letter from GMAC. It informed him that the bank would confiscate his house unless he immediately paid off his mortgage balance of $276,000. But Williams had never missed a mortgage payment. And his loan wasn't due to mature until 2032. Warren Nyerges opened his front door in Naples, Fla., to find a scraggly-haired summons server standing on his stoop. He plopped a foreclosure notice from Bank of America in Nyerges' hands. But Nyerges had paid for his house in cash. And he'd never had a checking account, much less a mortgage, with Bank of America. By now, you may have heard the stories of bank robo-signers powering through hundreds of foreclosure affidavits a day without verifying a single fact. But most of those involved homeowners who had stopped paying their mortgage. They were genuine defaulters. Now a new species of homeowner is getting pushed into foreclosure hell.

"Irish People Owe Nothing To Banks, Billionaires" - (www.dailybail.com) Video and text from youtube page: Ireland faces the most severe welfare cuts and tax hikes in its history - the high price it has to pay for receiving an international bailout. The budget is about to face a parliamentary vote, with protesters gathered outside the Parliament building. But Socialist Party MEP, Joe Higgins believes the Irish financial system is already broken beyond repair.

Property tax error increases assessment - (www.wgnradio.com) It doesn't take a rocket scientist, or a real estate agent, to know property values aren't exactly soaring in today's troubled housing market. So you can imagine Michael Ensign's surprise when he opened his most recent property tax bill to find his two-bedroom condo in Chicago's Roscoe Village neighborhood had a slight jump in value. According to the Cook County Assessor's office, the 1,445-square-foot condo was worth $209,444 in 2008. Its value in 2009? A whopping $834,770. The impact on Ensign's taxes was predictably harsh. Last year, he paid $2,287.42 for his second-installment tax bill. This year's second installment was a heart-stopping $9,593.31. After picking his jaw up off the floor, Ensign began the frustrating task of trying to convince the county there had been a mistake. Ensign said he was told the reassessment had been conducted a year ago and his time to appeal the decision had long since passed. His only option, he was told, was to pay the $9,593.31 by the Dec. 13 due date, then appeal later. If he won his appeal, the county would issue a "certificate of error," then refund the overpayment, a process that could take months.

OTHER STORIES:

China #1, US #2: Corporate corruption of gov't dooms America - (www.endoftheamericandream.com)

WikiLeaks cables: US lobbied Russia on behalf of Visa and MasterCard - (www.guardian.co.uk)

WikiLeaks sparks 'mirror' sites, leaked cables easier to access than ever - (www.nydailynews.com)

Plunging House Prices Fuel Property Tax Appeals Swamping US Cities, Towns - (www.bloomberg.com)

North CA House Prices Drop to Lowest Level Since 2004 - (www.northcoastjournal.com)

US housing doldrums to last until 2013 - (www.bbc.co.uk)

Americans see housing inflation still far off - (www.miamiherald.com)

Inflation Has The Upper Hand, Except In Housing - (www.chrismartenson.com)

Repairing the Damage of Fraud as a Business Model - (www.4closurefraud.org)

David Stockman With Stephen Colbert - (www.dailybail.com)

Why Tax Deal Confirms the Republican Worldview - (www.robertreich.org)

Bond vigilantes may thwart tax deal - (finance.yahoo.com)

10 reasons to shun stocks till banks crash - (www.marketwatch.com)

US fiscal health worse than Europe's: China adviser - (news.yahoo.com)

Thursday December 23 Housing and Economic stories

KeNosHousingPortal.blogspot.com

TOP STORIES:

Toll scofflaws get free ride with confidential license plates - (www.insidebayarea.com) For 18 months Scofflaw No. 593 blew through FasTrak toll plazas at two Bay Area bridges almost every day and never paid up. Scofflaw No. 593 -- named for the random number assigned to the anonymous driver in regional toll reports -- was able to do this because the driver was part of a largely outmoded program that prevents certain government employees' addresses from being traced through their license plates. Because they can't easily be traced, some are abusing the system by intentionally zipping through FasTrak lanes without an electronic toll account. In all, 1.5 million government employees, elected officials and their families have the so-called "confidential address" plates, part of a program started in 1978 to protect police and others involved in law enforcement from being tracked to their homes by criminals. Those drivers could be police officers, an officer's spouse or child, judges, prison guards, child abuse investigators, state legislators or even museum guards. Who are they specifically? Don't ask. It's a secret, even when laws get broken. Public records show Scofflaw No. 593 dodged a bridge toll -- $4 at the time -- 467 times in 18 months, sometimes twice in the same day. That's $1,868 in unpaid tolls. If the average citizen did this once, a ticket would soon arrive in his or her mailbox ordering payment of the skipped toll plus a $25 fine, though the fine would be waived if the driver signed up for FasTrak. And Scofflaw No. 593 isn't alone. He or she is one of 4,415 drivers who blew through Bay Area bridge tolls 27,335 times from June 2008 to May 2010 without paying while driving a car registered through the Department of Motor Vehicles' confidential address program, playing a game of catch-me-if-you-can with toll authorities while the rest of the motoring public coughed up the $4 toll or faced fines. Eventually, these scofflaws with confidential plates can sometimes be tracked down to their places of employment. But even when they are found, toll data show they aren't paying, or, in some cases, paying as little as 12 cents per violation. That's how much one driver paid for each of 242 violations -- a total of $29.04 -- when the violator was located, according to data the Metropolitan Transportation Commission released last week.

Despite being outmoded, a confidential license plate program keeps growing - (www.insidebayarea.com) At the time, it made perfect sense. In 1978, it was easy for anyone to use California Department of Motor Vehicles records to link a license plate number to the plate-holder's name and address. Police officers, judges and others who dealt with some of society's seamier denizens were unhappy about that, lest their work follow them home. So state Sen. Lou Cusanovich, a Republican from the San Fernando Valley, carried a bill -- signed into law by then-Gov. Jerry Brown -- creating a confidential address program so state and local prosecutors and public defenders, state lawmakers, judges and peace officers, as well as their spouses and live-at-home children, could put their work addresses on DMV records instead of their home addresses. Then the underlying law changed. Actress Rebecca Schaeffer was murdered in 1989 by a stalker who had gone through a private investigator to get her home address from DMV records. The Legislature reacted by passing a new law, written by Democratic Assemblyman Mike Roos of Los Angeles, to make most DMV records confidential, accessible only by police, courts, banks, insurers and some select others. Asked recently whether his 1989 legislation made the 1978 confidential-address program obsolete, Roos -- now a public affairs consultant -- replied, "Probably so." But the confidential address program established more than a decade earlier not only remained in place, it kept expanding. For example, then-Assemblywoman Jackie Speier, now a Democratic U.S. representative from Hillsborough, got a law passed in 1994 to add stalking victims to the list; then-Assemblyman Don Perata, an Oakland Democrat, in 1998 said spouses and children of peace officers killed in the line of duty could stay in the programs for three years after the death; and then-Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, a Los Angeles Democrat, in 2001 added nonsworn court workers and psychiatric social workers.

Anonymous cyberwarriors stun experts - (www.ft.com) Internet subcultures rarely make front page news. But when the mysterious forces of Anonymous took it upon themselves to attack opponents of WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing website, their success took everyone – not least victims such as Visa, MasterCard and PayPal – by surprise. This year has seen military and security experts often warn about the prospects of “cyberwarfare”. Few expected the most prominent assaults against large companies to come from a scattered group of anarchists and idealists with no identifiable leader, membership or nationality. The loose internet grouping that calls itself Anonymous has been notorious in web circles for years, particularly for its apparently random attacks on the music industry, Kiss singer Gene Simmons, YouTube and the Scientologists. Its wilfully illiterate grammar and black humour has permeated the internet far beyond the 4chan message-board, which originally spawned it. Even as the more serious matters of attacks on big companies were plotted this week, Anonymous followers in 4chan’s open chat rooms chimed in with insults and jokes. But with what it has dubbed “Operation Payback” the group has mounted its most ideological crusade yet.

A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives - (www.nytimes.com) On the third Wednesday of every month, the nine members of an elite Wall Street society gather in Midtown Manhattan. The men share a common goal: to protect the interests of big banks in the vast market for derivatives, one of the most profitable — and controversial — fields in finance. They also share a common secret: The details of their meetings, even their identities, have been strictly confidential. Drawn from giants like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the bankers form a powerful committee that helps oversee trading in derivatives, instruments which, like insurance, are used to hedge risk. In theory, this group exists to safeguard the integrity of the multitrillion-dollar market. In practice, it also defends the dominance of the big banks.

The Nerve to Say No - (www.nytimes.com) DECIDING what to do with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the taxpayer-owned mortgage giants that helped set the financial crisis in motion, will be a huge job for Congress next year. The man in the middle of that melee is likely to be Joseph A. Smith Jr., the commissioner of banks for North Carolina since 2002. In November, the Obama administration nominated him to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Fannie and Freddie’s regulator. Last Thursday, Mr. Smith’s confirmation hearing took place. Beyond prepared remarks, Mr. Smith said little at the brief and sparsely attended hearing. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, questioned Mr. Smith about his plans for the agency and asked him to reply in writing. On Tuesday, the committee will consider the nomination.

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