WASHINGTON -- Banks and other lenders are still foreclosing on Americans' homes at a rate that's outpacing the Obama administration's main effort to stem the crisis. In fact, while the Treasury Department's Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, has started the mortgage modification process on almost 760,000 homeowners who are at risk of losing their homes, less than 5 percent of those workouts have become permanent, government data show."HAMP has made only limited progress for nine months now, and the residential foreclosure crisis continues to mount," said Richard Neiman, the superintendent of banks in New York state and a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel that was formed to monitor the Treasury bank bailout funds that support the mortgage program. He was appointed to the post by the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives. Another member of the oversight panel, U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, a Texas Republican and a critic of the bailout bill, called the mortgage program "a failure."In a recent report, he said the administration's efforts "have assisted only a small number of homeowners while drawing billions of involuntary taxpayer dollars into a black hole." (Hensarling recently left the panel.)The Treasury Department acknowledges that its program needs to do a better job of making hundreds of thousands of trial modifications permanent, but an official said the program is making progress and is on track to meet many of its goals.
WASHINGTON -- Banks and other lenders are still foreclosing on Americans' homes at a rate that's outpacing the Obama administration's main effort to stem the crisis.
In fact, while the Treasury Department's Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, has started the mortgage modification process on almost 760,000 homeowners who are at risk of losing their homes, less than 5 percent of those workouts have become permanent, government data show.
"HAMP has made only limited progress for nine months now, and the residential foreclosure crisis continues to mount," said Richard Neiman, the superintendent of banks in New York state and a member of the Congressional Oversight Panel that was formed to monitor the Treasury bank bailout funds that support the mortgage program. He was appointed to the post by the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives.
Another member of the oversight panel, U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, a Texas Republican and a critic of the bailout bill, called the mortgage program "a failure."
In a recent report, he said the administration's efforts "have assisted only a small number of homeowners while drawing billions of involuntary taxpayer dollars into a black hole." (Hensarling recently left the panel.)
The Treasury Department acknowledges that its program needs to do a better job of making hundreds of thousands of trial modifications permanent, but an official said the program is making progress and is on track to meet many of its goals.
but when his advisers are all banksters, what chance does he have ? keep to the Fen Causeway
Almost a quarter of voters in Iceland have signed a petition against plans to repay money lost by foreigners when an Icelandic online bank collapsed. The petition urges the president to veto the bill that allows the move, and calls for a referendum on the issue.
The petition urges the president to veto the bill that allows the move, and calls for a referendum on the issue.
The compensation amounts to some 12,000 euros for each citizen on the island nation of 320,000.
According to Indefense at least three members of Althingi who are supporters of the government have put their names on the list urging the President not to sign. This is surprising, considering the fact that only two government supporters voted against the bill in Althingi. Among those who supported the bill was Ásmundur Dadi Einarsson, chairman of Heimssýn, the coalition against Iceland joining to European Union.
CAPE CORAL, Fla. -- After an improbable rise from the Bronx projects to a job selling Gulf Coast homes, Isabel Bermudez lost it all to an epic housing bust -- the six-figure income, the house with the pool and the investment property.> Now, as she papers the county with résumés and girds herself for rejection, she is supporting two daughters on an income that inspires a double take: zero dollars in monthly cash and a few hundred dollars in food stamps.With food-stamp use at a record high and surging by the day, Ms. Bermudez belongs to an overlooked subgroup that is growing especially fast: recipients with no cash income.About six million Americans receiving food stamps report they have no other income, according to an analysis of state data collected by The New York Times. In declarations that states verify and the federal government audits, they described themselves as unemployed and receiving no cash aid -- no welfare, no unemployment insurance, and no pensions, child support or disability pay. Their numbers were rising before the recession as tougher welfare laws made it harder for poor people to get cash aid, but they have soared by about 50 percent over the past two years. About one in 50 Americans now lives in a household with a reported income that consists of nothing but a food-stamp card.
CAPE CORAL, Fla. -- After an improbable rise from the Bronx projects to a job selling Gulf Coast homes, Isabel Bermudez lost it all to an epic housing bust -- the six-figure income, the house with the pool and the investment property.>
Now, as she papers the county with résumés and girds herself for rejection, she is supporting two daughters on an income that inspires a double take: zero dollars in monthly cash and a few hundred dollars in food stamps.
With food-stamp use at a record high and surging by the day, Ms. Bermudez belongs to an overlooked subgroup that is growing especially fast: recipients with no cash income.
About six million Americans receiving food stamps report they have no other income, according to an analysis of state data collected by The New York Times. In declarations that states verify and the federal government audits, they described themselves as unemployed and receiving no cash aid -- no welfare, no unemployment insurance, and no pensions, child support or disability pay.
Their numbers were rising before the recession as tougher welfare laws made it harder for poor people to get cash aid, but they have soared by about 50 percent over the past two years. About one in 50 Americans now lives in a household with a reported income that consists of nothing but a food-stamp card.
About one in 50 Americans now lives in a household with a reported income that consists of nothing but a food-stamp card.
And it will get worse and there's nothing the govt. can/will do about it. Yet people like to survive and they have brains. If you can't live legally, well ... Have you seen the SIZE of that rich Republican's house? Can you imagine the goodies worth taking? You see, we get your brother's van, we stake out the house, and ... In the end, might makes right. Nothing has changed since the caveman.
A Middle Eastern investment fund that pays Tony Blair about £1m a year as an international adviser is in talks to develop one of Iraq's biggest oilfields. Mubadala, a United Arab Emirates investment firm, is in negotiations to join a consortium of western oil companies developing the Zubair oilfield in southern Iraq. More than £6 billion of investment is required for the project. Blair has always insisted that the Iraq conflict was never linked to the country's vast oil reserves, but he was facing criticism this weekend over his role with Mubadala. The investment firm, which receives 80% of its revenues from oil and gas, in
A Middle Eastern investment fund that pays Tony Blair about £1m a year as an international adviser is in talks to develop one of Iraq's biggest oilfields.
Mubadala, a United Arab Emirates investment firm, is in negotiations to join a consortium of western oil companies developing the Zubair oilfield in southern Iraq. More than £6 billion of investment is required for the project.
Blair has always insisted that the Iraq conflict was never linked to the country's vast oil reserves, but he was facing criticism this weekend over his role with Mubadala. The investment firm, which receives 80% of its revenues from oil and gas, in
Guardian version here.
What caught my eye is here
But the Crown Estate will not require developers to source a proportion of the turbines and other components from domestic manufacturers unlike other countries, including Spain and China. The paucity of Britain's low carbon industry was exposed last year, when Dutch firm Vestas closed England's only turbine manufacturing plant. A spokeswoman for the Crown Estate said the government body, which owns the UK's seabed, was holding a supply chain roadshow for British manufacturers around the country, starting later this month. Working with regional development authorities, companies will be informed what components will be needed by the energy companies to help British industry benefit from the construction programme.
The paucity of Britain's low carbon industry was exposed last year, when Dutch firm Vestas closed England's only turbine manufacturing plant.
A spokeswoman for the Crown Estate said the government body, which owns the UK's seabed, was holding a supply chain roadshow for British manufacturers around the country, starting later this month. Working with regional development authorities, companies will be informed what components will be needed by the energy companies to help British industry benefit from the construction programme.
The UK hasn't had a wind manufacturing industry for decades, period. Vestas didn't shut a manufacturing plant, it shut a blade facility which had been unsuccessful. Blade plants are the easiest in the industry to establish anywhere in the world, as already done.
UK offshore is very important for the future, but there is nothing more important than the immediate reestablishment of STRONG activity in the onshore sphere. Without that you don't get experienced experts, and the supply chain for offshore takes longer to establish. Fer crissakes, the UK doesn't even have the level of resource assessment skills that No. Europe has, much less skilled service engineers and techs. That comes from building turbines on land, period.
The UK is a blind dog with its olfactory nerves removed, thinking it hears other dogs rooting around for bones. Morning, all. "Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin
Stronger regulation should be the first line of defense against excessive speculation that could send the economy into a new crisis, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Sunday. But he didn't rule out higher interest rates to stop that from happening. The Fed chief's remarks were his most extensive on the subject since the housing market's tumble led to the gravest financial crisis since World War II -- and perhaps the worst in modern history, in his view. Critics blame the Fed for feeding that speculative boom in housing by holding interest rates too low for too long after the 2001 recession. But Bernanke, in a speech to the American Economic Association's annual meeting in Atlanta, defended the central bank's actions. Extra-low rates were needed to get the economy and job creation back to full throttle after the Sept. 11 attacks and accounting scandals that rocked Wall Street, he said. Bernanke said the direct links were weak between super-low interest rates and the rapid rise in house prices that occurred at roughly the same time. The stance of interest rates during that period "does not appear to have been inappropriate," he said.
Public-Transit Passengers Face Rough Ride Public transportation will be more crowded and more expensive this year as big-city transit systems across the country respond to severe budget pressures. Funding from state and local governments -- a key part of budgets for transit systems -- has been cut and ridership is down overall, prompting transit officials to trim service and raise fares at a time when many customers are pinched themselves. San Francisco is raising fares for commuters this month. Chicago will lay off workers and eliminate bus routes in February to avoid fare increases. New York City is planning to wind down free and reduced-cost student fares starting in September. And Washington, D.C., is proposing to decrease the frequency of trains.
Public transportation will be more crowded and more expensive this year as big-city transit systems across the country respond to severe budget pressures.
Funding from state and local governments -- a key part of budgets for transit systems -- has been cut and ridership is down overall, prompting transit officials to trim service and raise fares at a time when many customers are pinched themselves.
San Francisco is raising fares for commuters this month. Chicago will lay off workers and eliminate bus routes in February to avoid fare increases. New York City is planning to wind down free and reduced-cost student fares starting in September. And Washington, D.C., is proposing to decrease the frequency of trains.
Private companies could make a profit by selling water back to the public under a little-noticed provision in California's $11.1 billion water bond. In a state where water is an especially precious resource, this provision may become controversial as it goes before voters in 2010.... [A]ccording to the San Francisco Chronicle, the bond allows for the creation of joint powers authorities who "may include in their membership governmental and nongovernmental partners that are not located within their respective hydrologic regions in financing the surface storage projects." "The bond basically spreads the cost over the state of California. This puts us in a position of having general taxpayers subsidizing at least some profits for a private corporation. And that's not right, especially at a time when we have huge budget deficits," said Mark Schlosberg, Western regional director of Food and Water Watch, a nonprofit organization in Washington.... The bond provides for the formation of what are known as joint powers authorities - usually a coalition of public entities that pool resources for projects they probably couldn't do, or couldn't afford to do, on their own. The water bond, though, specifically allows for the creation of joint powers authorities that "may include in their membership governmental and nongovernmental partners that are not located within their respective hydrologic regions in financing the surface storage projects." Read more...
[A]ccording to the San Francisco Chronicle, the bond allows for the creation of joint powers authorities who "may include in their membership governmental and nongovernmental partners that are not located within their respective hydrologic regions in financing the surface storage projects."
"The bond basically spreads the cost over the state of California. This puts us in a position of having general taxpayers subsidizing at least some profits for a private corporation. And that's not right, especially at a time when we have huge budget deficits," said Mark Schlosberg, Western regional director of Food and Water Watch, a nonprofit organization in Washington.... The bond provides for the formation of what are known as joint powers authorities - usually a coalition of public entities that pool resources for projects they probably couldn't do, or couldn't afford to do, on their own. The water bond, though, specifically allows for the creation of joint powers authorities that "may include in their membership governmental and nongovernmental partners that are not located within their respective hydrologic regions in financing the surface storage projects."
The bond provides for the formation of what are known as joint powers authorities - usually a coalition of public entities that pool resources for projects they probably couldn't do, or couldn't afford to do, on their own. The water bond, though, specifically allows for the creation of joint powers authorities that "may include in their membership governmental and nongovernmental partners that are not located within their respective hydrologic regions in financing the surface storage projects."
Read more...
Possibly related lesson:
IRR Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
State records show Walmart paid $22.6 million in cash last year for the right to claim $33.6 million in energy tax credits. The cash went to seven projects, including two eastern Oregon wind farms and SolarWorld's manufacturing plant in Hillsboro. In return, Walmart profits $11 million on the deal because that's the difference between what it paid for the tax credit and the amount of its tax reduction. The loser in the transaction is Oregon's general fund -- which pays for public schools, prisons and health care programs -- because the state is out the full $33.6 million in tax revenues. Read more...
The loser in the transaction is Oregon's general fund -- which pays for public schools, prisons and health care programs -- because the state is out the full $33.6 million in tax revenues.
Possibly related history:
S.Res. 98, 1997 S. 280, 2007, Lieberman, HRC, Collins, Durbin, Lincoln, McCain, Nelson, Obama, Snowe instead of REDD Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
It is logical for such tax credits to be taken over by companies that are rich - you need companies that do pay tax bills for the taxcredits to have any value, and it is logical to pay less for a tax credit that you will be able to use only later. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
En deuxième lieu, le Conseil a jugé que l'importance des exemptions totales de contribution carbone étaient contraires à l'objectif de lutte contre le carbon réchauffement climatique et créaient une rupture d'égalité devant les charges publiques. (articles 7, 9 et 10). this contribution (articles 7, 9 and 10). --Décision n° 2009-599 DC du 29 décembre 2009 Decision No. 2009-599 DC of December 29, 2009
How Limousine Liberals, Oligarch Farmers and Even Sean Hannity Are Hijacking Our Water Supply - By Yasha Levine - The eXiled
A group of water oligarchs in California have engineered a disastrous deregulation and privatization scheme. And they've pulled in hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars without any real public outrage. The amount of power and control they wield over California's most precious resource, water, should shock and frighten us -- and it would, if more people were aware of it. But here is the scary thing: They are plotting to gain an even larger share of California's increasingly-scarce, over-tapped water supply, which will surely lead to shortages, higher prices and untold destruction to California's environment.
NASA Satellites Can See California's Wealth Transfer All The Way From Space - By Yasha Levine - The eXiled
That much water would be enough to keep the taps and toilets flowing for half the people living in America for a year. And, in terms of cash-money, it's worth many billions of dollars. At the most conservative estimate (using the rate at which California's water officials buy back water from farmers), it amounts to something like $6 billion. But it could go all the way to a hundred billion if the state's dry spell persists. And because NASA says that most of the pumping happened on the south-western edge of the Central Valley, all those billions have been going to the richest corporate farmers in California, the kind of farmers who commute to work at the crack of dawn on their personal jets while getting briefed by their financial advisers on a plan to scrap their farming operations and transition into water trading full time. Because selling taxpayer-subsidized water back to the masses at a markup has been the easiest money they ever made.
Assembly Budget Committee Chairwoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, said the state should seek a federal guarantee for its bond debt. That would mean the federal government would ensure people who buy the state's bonds that it would repay them in the event California could not. That idea was dismissed last year by leaders in Washington. Spending that money, which already has been approved by voters, could create "thousands and thousands of jobs, and it would do it now," she said. Read more...
A key proposal in the overhaul of money market regulation suggests that money market fund managers will have the option to "suspend redemptions to allow for the orderly liquidation of fund assets." You read that right: this does not refer to the charter of procyclical, leveraged, risk-ridden, transsexual (allegedly) portfolio manager-infested hedge funds like SAC, Citadel, Glenview or even Bridgewater (which in light of ADIA's latest batch of problems, may well be wishing this was in fact the case), but the heart of heretofore assumed safest and most liquid of investment options: Money Market funds, which account for nearly 40% of all investment company assets.... Yet what is strange is that even with all the adverse consequences of holding cash in Money Markets, the total AUM of this "safest" investment option is still substantial, at nearly $3.3 trillion as of December 30, a big decline yes, but a decline that should have been much greater considering even the president since March 3 has been beckoning his daily viewership to invest in cheap stocks courtesy of low "profit and earning ratios" (that, and the specter of President's Working Group on Financial Markets). Could this action, whereby investors will no longer have access to money that historically has been sacrosanct and reachable and disposable on a moment's notice, be the last nail in the coffin of money markets? We believe so, however, we are not sure if it will attain the desired effect. With an aging baby boomer population, which would rather burn their money than invest in the stock market again and relive the roller-coaster days of late 2008 and early 2009, the plan may well backfire, and result in even more money leaving the shadow system and entering such tangible objects as deposit accounts (at community banks, of course), mattresses and socks. And speaking of the President's Working Group...
Yet what is strange is that even with all the adverse consequences of holding cash in Money Markets, the total AUM of this "safest" investment option is still substantial, at nearly $3.3 trillion as of December 30, a big decline yes, but a decline that should have been much greater considering even the president since March 3 has been beckoning his daily viewership to invest in cheap stocks courtesy of low "profit and earning ratios" (that, and the specter of President's Working Group on Financial Markets). Could this action, whereby investors will no longer have access to money that historically has been sacrosanct and reachable and disposable on a moment's notice, be the last nail in the coffin of money markets? We believe so, however, we are not sure if it will attain the desired effect. With an aging baby boomer population, which would rather burn their money than invest in the stock market again and relive the roller-coaster days of late 2008 and early 2009, the plan may well backfire, and result in even more money leaving the shadow system and entering such tangible objects as deposit accounts (at community banks, of course), mattresses and socks. And speaking of the President's Working Group...
Inadvertantly ties in the forgotten 2008 road show "Blueprint for America's Working Women and Families."
Possibly related news:
Automatic Workplace Pensions We'll help you save PWG (1, 2, 3, 4)...no conspiracy theory, really. Diversity is the key to economic and political evolution.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lenders involved in risky mortgage lending that contributed to the 2007 financial crisis were also some of the fiercest financial lobbyists, according to a report by International Monetary Fund economists.
In the report "A Fistful of Dollars: Lobbying and the Financial Crisis," the economists said their studies showed that lenders taking on the most risk were also the most active in lobbying against laws and regulations related to mortgage lending. The study did not name any of the lenders but the language in it implied that they were among the biggest banks and mortgage brokerage companies in the nation. "Lenders that lobby more intensively on these specific issues have (i) more lax lending standards measured by loan-to-income ratio, (ii) greater tendency to securitize, and (iii) faster growing mortgage loan portfolios," the report said. "Ex post, delinquency rates are higher in areas in which lobbying lenders' mortgage lending grew faster, and, during key events of the crisis, these lenders experienced negative abnormal stock returns," it added. The study is the first to document how lobbying may have contributed to excessive risk-taking in the U.S. housing market that led to the 2007 financial crisis, economists Deniz Igan, Prachi Mishra and Thierry Tressel said.
The study did not name any of the lenders but the language in it implied that they were among the biggest banks and mortgage brokerage companies in the nation.
"Lenders that lobby more intensively on these specific issues have (i) more lax lending standards measured by loan-to-income ratio, (ii) greater tendency to securitize, and (iii) faster growing mortgage loan portfolios," the report said.
"Ex post, delinquency rates are higher in areas in which lobbying lenders' mortgage lending grew faster, and, during key events of the crisis, these lenders experienced negative abnormal stock returns," it added.
The study is the first to document how lobbying may have contributed to excessive risk-taking in the U.S. housing market that led to the 2007 financial crisis, economists Deniz Igan, Prachi Mishra and Thierry Tressel said.
... the odds are that any good economic news you hear in the near future will be a blip, not an indication that we're on our way to sustained recovery. But will policy makers misinterpret the news and repeat the mistakes of 1937? Actually, they already are. The Obama fiscal stimulus plan is expected to have its peak effect on G.D.P. and jobs around the middle of this year, then start fading out. That's far too early: why withdraw support in the face of continuing mass unemployment? Congress should have enacted a second round of stimulus months ago, when it became clear that the slump was going to be deeper and longer than originally expected. But nothing was done -- and the illusory good numbers we're about to see will probably head off any further possibility of action. Meanwhile, all the talk at the Fed is about the need for an "exit strategy" from its efforts to support the economy. One of those efforts, purchases of long-term U.S. government debt, has already come to an end. It's widely expected that another, purchases of mortgage-backed securities, will end in a few months. This amounts to a monetary tightening, even if the Fed doesn't raise interest rates directly -- and there's a lot of pressure on Mr. Bernanke to do that too. Will the Fed realize, before it's too late, that the job of fighting the slump isn't finished? Will Congress do the same? If they don't, 2010 will be a year that began in false economic hope and ended in grief.
The Obama fiscal stimulus plan is expected to have its peak effect on G.D.P. and jobs around the middle of this year, then start fading out. That's far too early: why withdraw support in the face of continuing mass unemployment? Congress should have enacted a second round of stimulus months ago, when it became clear that the slump was going to be deeper and longer than originally expected. But nothing was done -- and the illusory good numbers we're about to see will probably head off any further possibility of action.
Meanwhile, all the talk at the Fed is about the need for an "exit strategy" from its efforts to support the economy. One of those efforts, purchases of long-term U.S. government debt, has already come to an end. It's widely expected that another, purchases of mortgage-backed securities, will end in a few months. This amounts to a monetary tightening, even if the Fed doesn't raise interest rates directly -- and there's a lot of pressure on Mr. Bernanke to do that too.
Will the Fed realize, before it's too late, that the job of fighting the slump isn't finished? Will Congress do the same? If they don't, 2010 will be a year that began in false economic hope and ended in grief.
My expectation is that, some time during 2010, the disconnect between the financial markets' euphoric expectations and the hard reality of a deleveraging private sector will bring the optimism of both "born again Keynesian" neoclassical economists and the markets to an end. Growth will not resume once the stimulus packages are removed, since deleveraging will then assert itself in the absence of government stimulus. Falling debt will subtract from growth, as it once added to it, and unemployment will start to rise again.
... and unemployment will start to rise again.
But that's not a problem because they can always phoney - up the statistics. In the end, might makes right. Nothing has changed since the caveman.
Oil prices have risen above $80 a barrel on the New Year's first day of trading, driven by hopes of a US economic recovery and reported comments that Russia had cut supplies of crude to Belarus. The central European state on Monday denied there had been any suspension in supplies from Russia, the world's largest oil and gas producer. "The information on cutting supplies does not correspond to reality," Marina Kostyuchenko, a spokeswoman for Belarussian state oil refiner Belneftekhim, was quoted by the AFP new agency as saying. "Oil is arriving both for transit and for refineries." Her comments follow a report by the Interfax news agency which quoted a Belarus oil industry source as saying that Belarus's refineries were not receiving Russian oil on Monday morning.
Oil prices have risen above $80 a barrel on the New Year's first day of trading, driven by hopes of a US economic recovery and reported comments that Russia had cut supplies of crude to Belarus.
The central European state on Monday denied there had been any suspension in supplies from Russia, the world's largest oil and gas producer.
"The information on cutting supplies does not correspond to reality," Marina Kostyuchenko, a spokeswoman for Belarussian state oil refiner Belneftekhim, was quoted by the AFP new agency as saying.
"Oil is arriving both for transit and for refineries."
Her comments follow a report by the Interfax news agency which quoted a Belarus oil industry source as saying that Belarus's refineries were not receiving Russian oil on Monday morning.
For something I'm working on: we know that China is pursuing a mercantilist policy: keeping the renminbi weak through a combination of capital controls and intervention, leading to trade surpluses and capital exports in a country that might well be a natural capital importer. We also know, or should know, that this amounts to a beggar-thy-neighbor policy -- or, more accurately, a beggar-everyone but yourself policy -- when the world's major economies are in a liquidity trap. But how big is the impact? Here's a quick back-of-the-envelope assessment. ... And, if we think of the United States as bearing a proportionate share, and also use the rule of thumb that one point of GDP = 1 million jobs, we're looking at 1.4 million U.S. jobs lost due to Chinese mercantilism.
But how big is the impact? Here's a quick back-of-the-envelope assessment.
...
And, if we think of the United States as bearing a proportionate share, and also use the rule of thumb that one point of GDP = 1 million jobs, we're looking at 1.4 million U.S. jobs lost due to Chinese mercantilism.
