Before a house is foreclosed on, the mortgage goes delinquent. If one leads to another then the real estate bust is about to get a lot worse.
The percentage of current and performing mortgages fell to 86.4 percent at the end of the fourth quarter of 2009, down 0.9 percent from the previous three months, marking a decline for the seventh consecutive quarter, the report by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision said.
The decline was attributable to a 21.1 percent jump in mortgages 90 or more days past due, to 4.7 percent of all mortgages in the portfolio at the end of 2009.
Recall when we said HAMP is a scam? A new GAO report confirms that conclusion (well not so dramatic but the statistics are the same!)
When Treasury announced the program in March 2009, it estimated that HAMP could help 3 to 4 million borrowers. Through February 2010, including both the portion funded by TARP and the portion funded by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:
about 1.1 million borrowers had begun trial modifications
about 800,000 were in active trial modifications
fewer than 200,000 permanent modifications had been made
There is no stopping it this time.
Last month Senator Jim Bunning created a stir with his stand against extending unemployment benefits to the long-term unemployed through borrowing. After a lot of political grandstanding, it ended after a couple days when both sides agreed to a temporary 30-day extension.
One might see blazing headlines that initial weekly unemployment claims for March 25, 2010 dropped 14,000 to 442,000. But note the below, contained in the press release:
This week's release reflects the annual revision to the weekly unemployment claims seasonal adjustment factors. The historical factors from 2005 forward have been revised.
From 2005 they revised the data? What kind of yearly seasonal adjustment is that?
Then from MarketWatch we have (looks like someone got on the phone?)
Latest figures reflect annual revisions to the data that put claims 10,000 lower than they would have been under the old methodology, a Labor official said.
Without the annual revision, claims would have totaled about 453,000
The Kansas City Federal Reserve President, Thomas Hoenig, spoke truth to power in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, titled The Financial Foundation for Main Street. This is how it starts out:
If we stray from our core principles of fairness or ignore the rule of law, we distort the playing field and inevitably cultivate a crisis. When the markets are no longer competitive, firms become a monopoly or an oligopoly and it matters more who you know than what you know.
Then, the economy loses its ability to innovate and succeed. When the market perceives an unfair advantage of some over others, the very foundation of the economic system is compromised.
The Durable Goods advance report for February 2010 was released yesterday and showed a 0.5% increase for new orders. The report was driven by non-defense commercial aircraft, which rose in new orders 32.7% in a month. Somebody is selling a lot of planes.
Most health industry sectors are winners – some bigger than others -- under sweeping health care legislation that will expand coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans over the next decade, analysts say.
Hospitals, doctors, drug makers and most health insurers will pick up armies of new paying customers. Nursing homes and Medicare's private health plans will face steep government payment cuts, however.
From professor of economics at Middlebury College, Robert E. Prasch, from the New Economic Perspectives site at the Univ. of Missouri,
Although the agency said Portugal's austerity budget was "credible", it said the government would need "to implement sizeable consolidation measures from next year", as well as reverse stimulus measures this year, in order to get its debt levels under control.
This is an astounding headline. According to Bloomberg, Chinese Business Executives are meeting right now with President Obama and are for increasing the value of Chinese currency in relation to the U.S. dollar.
Chinese executives are joining U.S. President Barack Obama in backing a stronger yuan, even as Premier Wen Jiabao says the currency isn’t undervalued.
Yang Yuanqing, chief executive officer of Beijing-based computer maker Lenovo Group Ltd., said gains would boost consumers’ purchasing power. Qin Xiao, chairman of China Merchants Bank Co., said an end to the yuan’s 20-month peg to the dollar would let lenders set market-based interest rates. Chen Daifu, chairman of Hunan Lengshuijiang Iron & Steel Group Co., said a stronger currency would cut import costs.
Most people are under the false assumption that the taxpayer bailout of Wall Street banks began and ended with TARP. They couldn't be more wrong.
The Wall Street bank bailout began with Federal Reserve subsidies in December 2007, and has continued in one form or another right up to now.
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is nearing a deal that would allow it to benefit from a tax refund of as much as $1.4 billion, becoming the latest company to tap a little-noticed plank in an economic stimulus bill.
That law let companies apply losses from 2008 or 2009 against taxes paid in the previous five years, instead of the previous two years.
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