Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.
Wed 01.20.2010
Republican Brown Wins Massachusetts Senate Election Republican Scott Brown won the Massachusetts Senate seat of the late Democrat Edward Kennedy, a political upset that imperils health-care legislation in Congress and sends a warning shot to Democrats ahead of November’s elections. Brown was leading Democratic state Attorney General Martha Coakley 52-47 percent with 92 percent of the state’s precincts reporting, according to the Associated Press, which projected Brown as the winner. Independent candidate Joseph Kennedy, no relation to the late senator, had about 1 percent of the vote.
Government is Too Big to Succeed Ron Paul Last week, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission kicked off their first round of hearings on the causes of the economic meltdown on Wall Street. The commission is being compared to the the Pecora Commission launched in 1932 to investigate the causes of the Great Depression. The Pecora commission is beloved by those who believe the solution to every problem is more laws because it was used to justify a number of new laws, including Glass-Steagall. Of course, none of those laws addressed the real causes of the Great Depression. It was the introduction of unsound monetary policy and central economic planning pursued by the Federal Reserve that really threw everything off balance. The Fed was founded in 1913 to stabilize the economy and prevent a recurrence of the short-lived Panic of 1907, but instead it promptly produced the Great Depression which lasted more than 15 years.
Marc Faber on Central Banks Blowing Ever Larger Debt Bubbles
Is The U.S. Economy Being Tanked By Mistake or By Intent? The government wants Americans to believe the greatest economic collapse in history was the result of ineptness and mistakes yet still have confidence in their financial institutions. Should American bankers be let off the hook because they self-declare, before an investigational panel, that the failure of their newly invented risk swaps and other highly leveraged investment schemes was simply due to "mistakes"? Not malfeasance - just every-day mistakes? Bankers just fell asleep at the helm at a critical juncture in American history. Is that what we are being led to believe?
Gold Price Holds at $1,132 as Inflation Risks Weigh on Gold The gold price opened the week near unchanged at $1,132 per ounce as rising concerns of inflation kept a lid on the price of gold and the rest of the commodity complex. The gold price also fought off strength in the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY), which traded higher by 0.69% to 77.599 as the opening bell rang. Gold mining stocks, as represented by the Market Vectors Gold Mining ETF (GDX), also opened relatively unchanged alongside the price of gold. As the global economy recovers, investors and traders continue to grapple with the question of whether the massive infusions of money into the system from central bankers will spark inflation. The potential policy response to this question has implications for the price of gold and gold mining stocks as well as the broader investment landscape.
A $1,600 Gold Price in 2010? Gold to Rise as System Collapses Gold price volatility has picked up in the past few weeks as diverging views about the next move in the price of gold have intensified. The gold price declined $152 off its early December high of $1,226.50 before rallying to move comfortably back above $1,100 per ounce. While gold has seen violent daily and monthly oscillations, the longer-term trend has been decidedly positive over the past decade - with investors driving up the gold price 281% over the past ten years. The events of the last 18 months have further strengthened the fundamental investment case for gold as conveyed to Barron's by their all-star panel of money managers and investment strategists. No longer relegated to the backwater of the investment landscape, gold-related investments have slowly but surely entered into the mainstream.
Gold "Set to Break Higher" as UK Inflation Jumps, Eurozone Faces "No Good Solution" to Greek Deficit THE PRICE OF GOLD slipped against the US and UK currencies on Tuesday but rose to a one-week high for Euro investors as the single currency fell on a series of poor data. Construction output in the 16-nation Eurozone shrank 8% in Nov. from the same month in 2008, new figures showed. Economic sentiment in Germany also fell on the ZEW survey. Consumer-price inflation here in the UK meantime jumped at a record pace during Dec., nearing the 3.0% level at which the Bank of England must publicly defend its policies. Bank interest rates for UK savers have now lagged inflation since June 2008.
The Future of Gold & Silver . . . . Although it is true that both gold and silver have been subjected to the grossest and most egregious manipulation of any commodity in history, I fully understand the necessity of these actions over the past 40 years. No fiat monetary system could have survived this long without the secret computer price control mechanisms in place...especially in gold and silver as they ARE the only true competition to fiat money.
2010 To Mark Dollar Demise Well, that was another year, and decade, one that was characterized by exacting prices for almost a century of easy money led by the Fed. And it continues today with bubble dynamics in economies and markets considered a normal expectation these days, explaining why gold was top performer over the past 10-years, and should remain in that spot moving forward as well baring silver’s remonetization. That is to say, anybody, like Time Magazine, expecting smooth sailing over the next 10-years is most likely barking up the wrong tree with all the problems that still lie ahead for us, problems ranging from increasingly unmanageable debts and deficits, which are a result of the big turn in the credit cycle in 2008, to the pending demise of the dollar ($) as the world’s reserve currency.
Sound Familiar? In 1933 Roosevelt decided that the key to ending the depression was to create inflation. To that extent he took the US off the gold standard. Actually he just arbitrarily revalued gold from $20.00 to about $35.00. The value of the dollar quickly dropped about 40%. By this time Europe was already off the gold standard and competitive currency devaluation was already well underway on the continent. In order to compete the US followed suit. So what was the result of Roosevelt's inflation scheme? Initially the economy saw a small uptick. Employment picked up slightly although it still remained high all the way into WWII. But there are always unintended consequences when the government meddles in the market and this time was no different.
Howard Ruff: Reprising (and Preparing for) Rough Times TGR: You have written quite a bit about the U.S. government's growing debt and unfunded liabilities, heading toward an even more aggressive printing of money and inflation. How convinced are you that this is the only outcome? Howard Ruff: I am basically staking my reputation on it. I guess I can't do any more than that. I am convinced that we're moving into a socialist age, and the Obama Administration is deliberately trying to create European socialism here in America. All of their objectives require creating money. Until we have a new administration with a new philosophy—which isn't going to be printing all this money—I think inflation is in our future.
Hyperinflation Nation Part 1 of 2
Hyperinflation Nation Part 2 of 3
Hyperinflation Nation Part 3 of 3
4 Reasons Why Bernanke Will Refuse to Fight Inflation With recent news of inflation rising in Australia we turn an eye to the same eventuality at home in the US. Despite overwhelming growth in the monetary base, little inflation has yet to appear in government measures. Not that we’re one to trust those… Inflation’s unlikely to keep at bay much longer. To date, banks have been hoarding new money pumped into the system as excess reserves (to protect themselves against grotesque losses like the $7.6 billion Citigroup reported losing last quarter). However, banks will again begin to lend once they feel there’s room to maneuver, and the resulting burst of growth in the money supply will lead to rapid inflation.
China, Asset Bubble, And Jim Rogers News reports about dangerous asset bubbles in China are now reaching a crescendo as the government continues to take steps to rein them in. Bloomberg has a number of reports today about soaring home prices, soaring stock prices, and one famous investor who now sees a bubble. First up, a story about the bubblicious property market China property sales jumped 75.5 percent to 4.4 trillion yuan ($644 billion) last year, led by the eastern cities of Zhejiang and Shanghai, as record new loans boosted buying.
The Message of Massachusetts A crisis is a terrible thing to exploit. Whether or not Republican Scott Brown wins today in Massachusetts, the special Senate election has already shaken up American politics. The close race to replace Ted Kennedy, liberalism's patron saint, shows that voters are rebelling even in the bluest of states against the last year's unbridled pursuit of partisan liberal governance. Tomorrow marks the anniversary of President Obama's Inaugural, and it's worth recalling the extraordinary political opportunity he had a year ago. An anxious country was looking for leadership amid a recession, and Democrats had huge majorities and faced a dispirited, unpopular GOP. With monetary policy stimulus already flowing, Democrats were poised to get the political credit for the inevitable economic recovery.
Obama 'Surprised and Frustrated' and 'Not Pleased' by Massachusetts Senate Race President Barack Obama is "surprised and frustrated" and "not pleased" with the Senate race that will conclude in Massachusetts today, White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters during Tuesday's press briefing. During the briefing, Gibbs fielded several questions about the special U.S. Senate election between Republican state Sen. Scott Brown and Democratic Attorney General Martha Coakly. Recent polls show the Republican Brown leading in the race to fill the seat long held by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.
Coakley adviser memo: D.C. Dems 'failed' Coakley The Coakley campaign is bridling at finger-pointing from the White House and Washington Democrats, and an outside adviser to the campaign has provided to POLITICO a memo aimed at rebutting the charge that Coakley failed and making the case that national Democrats failed her. The adviser, who made the case to my colleague Jonathan Martin on the condition of anonymity in response, he said, to "the current leaking coming out of the White House and the DNC that is chalking all of this up to a "bad candidate".
Japan Airlines announces bankruptcy Its debt reaches 16.5 billion dollars. It is the largest bankruptcy in the postwar history of Japan. Under state control, the company will continue to fly, but will fire 15700 people. At a cost to taxpayers of 44 billion yen. Japan Airlines (JAL) today announced bankruptcy. The largest airline in Asia, hit by the global crisis, now has a debt that is about 16.5 billion U.S. dollars. Yesterday, the company's shares fell to their lowest point in 59 years of history, pulling down the value of JAL is now estimated at 150 million U.S. dollars, more or less the price of a new jumbo jet.
Marc Faber Says Worry about Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain Soverign Debt Defaults After every financial crisis there's a sovereign debt crisis, Marc Faber says. Countries that borrowed too much during the boom times start struggling to pay their competitors back, and eventually some of them default. The countries most likely to blow up this time around are the "PIIGS": Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain. One ore more of them, Faber says, will likely default in the next couple of years. And, that could result in the death of the Euro currency. Longer-term, Faber says, Japan and the US are in line for the same fate.
Bernanke Yields To Pressure, Welcomes 'Full Review' Of AIG, Copies Boilerplate Language From Prior Testimony Ben Bernanke has yielded to increasing public pressure to finally disclose all the details surrounding the AIG: 28.22, 0.16 bailout, and in a letter to Acting Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, Bernanke said he would welcome a full review of the AIG taxpayer bailout by the GAO and will make available "all records and personnel necessary to conduct this review," emphasizing that a review should give taxpayers "the most complete understanding of our decisions and actions." One wonders why stop at AIG? Why not open up the Fed to a GAO audit on all bank bailout activities undertaken in the period commencing with the GSE nationalization, and culminating with the Lehman bankruptcy. Surely that would provide an ever more "most complete" understanding of just who got what and how much taxpayer capital was put just so Wall Street could enjoy another record bonus season.
Bernanke, Hoping to Quiet Critics, Seeks Review of Fed's A.I.G. Bailout The Federal Reserve chairman Ben S. Bernanke asked a government auditor on Tuesday to review the Fed's actions in bailing out the American International Group, as controversy persisted over the central bank's role in extending billions in credit to the insurer. Mr. Bernanke, in a letter to the acting comptroller general Gene Dodaro, said the Fed would make available to the auditor, the Government Accountability Office, all documents and personnel necessary to conduct the review.
Federal Reserve No Longer To Keep Its Secrets about AIG Bailout The Federal Reserve is giving up on the fight to keep some of its bank bailout dealings secret. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke (pictured) sent a letter to the General Accountability Office inviting the congressional auditors to conduct a "full review" of the Fed's aid to struggling insurance giant AIG (AIG), according to a report from Bloomberg. "The Federal Reserve would welcome a full review by GAO of all aspects of our involvement in the extension of credit to AIG," Bernanke said Tuesday in a letter to Gene Dodaro, acting head of the Government Accountability Office. A copy of the letter was released by the Fed. Geithner: Not Aware Of Secrets Pact
AIG bailout probe widens to include Paulson House committee also calls N.Y. Fed chair Friedman to testify A House of Representatives committee is broadening its investigation of secretive bank bailouts to include former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and former Federal Reserve Bank of New York Chairman Stephen Friedman. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has invited Paulson and Friedman to testify about their roles in the bailout of American International Group Inc., according to the committee's chairman, Democratic Rep. Edolphus Towns.
New York Fed Says AIG Phrase Marked for Deletion Was Inaccurate The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said its attorneys suggested American International Group Inc. not disclose information about full-value payouts to banks because it wasn’t “precisely accurate.” “The counterparties ultimately received slightly less than 100 percent of par value,” the New York Fed said in a statement today on its Web site. The central bank said it “sought to ensure” that AIG had the “greatest possible precision” in its securities filings. E-mails released this month showed that the New York Fed asked the company to withhold information from the public about payments to banks. The New York Fed indicated it made 250,000 pages of documents available to Congress as lawmakers seek information on the Fed’s oversight of AIG.
A "Bloodbath" By Any Other Name: More Pain Ahead for Big Banks, Whalen Says A big week of bank earnings accelerates midweek with results expected from Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, US Bancorp and Wells Fargo on Wednesday, followed by Goldman Sachs, American Express and Capital One Financial on Thursday. So what should investors expect? More revenue disappointments, such as those already posted by JP Morgan and Citigroup, according to Chris Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics. "Right now the total egg - credit -- is shrinking," Whalen says. "The bank side is not a source of growth. Can you pull it out on the capital market side? Maybe, but I'm not sure where that comes from" given many of the big banks have loaded up on low-risk securities in the aftermath of 2008's bloodbath.
Big, in Banks, Is in the Eye of the Beholder Jamie Dimon, chief of JP Morgan Chase, may have strong arguments that banks should be able to grow as big as they want, but there is a swelling chorus of leaders in the United States and abroad who are more concerned about the risk that such huge banks present to the rest of the economy, Andrew Ross Sorkin writes in his latest column in The New York Times. Where Mr. Dimon and his opponents seem to agree, however, is on the advantages of a "resolution authority," which would give the government the ability to put a too-big-to-fail financial company into a conservatorship in much the same way the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is able to unwind a commercial bank without putting it into bankruptcy, Mr. Sorkin writes.
Souring Mortgages, Weak Market Put Loan Agency on a Tightrope David Stevens bought his first home almost 25 years ago, paying just 3% down with a loan backed by the Federal Housing Administration. "I had no money in the bank," he says. "If it weren't for the FHA, I wouldn't have gotten that home." Now, as FHA commissioner, Mr. Stevens has to decide how many others to let through that door. Souring FHA-insured mortgages are threatening the agency's finances. Congress is pressuring him to tighten the easy-money standards that once helped people like him, and he is expected to announce revisions as early as this week.
TARP Tax Trickery: Banks Won't Really Pay Back All $90 billion Remember that story last week about the new tax proposed by President Obama, which will be designed to recoup $90 billion in lost TARP money from the nation's largest financial firms? Well, there's a catch: The banks won't actually be repaying $90 billion. They'll only have to pay $58.5 billion, because the "Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee" will be tax deductible. Henry Blodget, who writes the Clusterstock blog for Business Insider, made that little tidbit public today. And his source for the claim that the fee will be tax deductible? The Treasury Department, which he says emphasized it during a conference call with Wall Street. I guess Treasury is trying to mute financial industry opposition to the new fee by saying "Hey, it won't be as bad as it sounds."
Secret bill-writing on the rise The civics books say the House and Senate produce a final bill by sitting around a table where the public can watch them work out their differences. It's a quaint idea, but a different modern reality has been on display this month. Democrats are refusing to open to the public the end-stage negotiations on how the government is going to change the delivery of health care. And it's not just on the high-profile health care bill; the trend on much legislation is to shut the door and keep the minority party, cable TV and other media on the outside.
Waterboard JP Morgan and The Mortgage Bankers Assn How to give an economics writer a coronary: Recommend something that has been done twice before, and both times led to disaster, including being a major contributor to The Great Depression. Well guess what: JP Morgan and the other banks are doing exactly that. Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Banks will push the Obama administration to expand its mortgage-modification program to allow interest-only periods on reworked loans, seeking to bring more homeowners into the initiative while recognizing concern that it may only postpone defaults, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.
MBS, R.I.P.? A Treasury rule on loan modifications riles the securities market. The $1.7 trillion mortgage securitization market is still a mess, despite (or in part because of) the Federal Reserve's $700 billion splurge into the market. But another reason may be Treasury's decision to undermine private mortgage-backed securities (MBS) contracts. BlackRock Inc. Chairman Laurence Fink went so far recently as to call this "one of the biggest issues facing American capitalism." He's worried that to protect banks from billions of dollars more in writedowns on bad second liens (a.k.a., home-equity loans), Treasury is trashing private contracts. "There is modification going on protecting our banks, protecting their balance sheets" and "I'm just very worried about it." Until that issue is cleared up, he says, we won't "get a vibrant securitization market back."
New York Fed Told AIG To 'Stand Down' On All Counterparty Discussions In one week, Tim Geithner will testify before Congress on his involvement in the AIG disclosuregate scandal, which, in late 2008 sought to prevent material information about AIG counterparty make-whole arrangements from seeing the light of day. Of course, in March of 2009, following political pressure, AIG: 28.22, 0.16 and the FBRNY caved and disclosed that $27 billion in taxpayer capital had been used to yield to the bankers' every whim and to take them out at par, while their underlying AIG CDOs were priced 50% lower, if not more. Zero Hedge previously wondered when will Goldman be approached by the SEC with questions on whether or not they sold their direct AIG protection in the form of CDS to parties under a "big boy" letter, or did Goldman transact on a $2.5 billion notional position while in possession of material, non-public information. This, of course, in addition to having absolutely no impairments on their actual CDOs, thereby providing the firm with material excess returns over and above what their total capital at risk would have been. With Goldman's Stephen Friedman accompanying Geithner in the hearings, he hope that someone in authority will finally ask the right questions.
Could Geithner Face Criminal Charges?
Do Obama and Geithner Have the Same Flaw: Accommodation Instead of Moral Action? A lot of us have been wondering, despondently, why the Hell Barack Obama is keeping Timothy Geithner on the job as Treasury Secretary, given his central role in the plunder of trillions of dollars from American taxpayers, and his record of subverting democracy in the service of Wall Street billionaires. Geithner's the guy that drove the getaway car in the heist -- so why was he hired to run the Treasury? You'd expect to see a guy as corrupt as Geithner serving as the Finance Minister in some Central Asian autocracy -- but not in Barack Obama's government, not after all he promised in the campaign.
Two More Reasons to Sell Treasury Bonds Two more reasons to sell US Treasury bonds: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These two giant mortgage lenders are poster children for the dangers of wrapping government guarantees around the credit markets. With help from the state-sponsored banking system, these two government-sponsored entities (GSEs) perverted the process of credit intermediation and artificially suppressed the cost of mortgage loans over many decades.
A Cadillac Tax Exemption From an Edsel Administration By David Limbaugh This past Sunday marked the first time President Barack Obama graced a Washington, D.C., church with his presence since Oct. 11, but apparently it was not to sit in a pew and worship. Instead, he was doing the sermonizing and politicking -- gloriously intermingling church and state as only liberals are allowed to do in this country. Don't get me wrong; I'm no scold when it comes to the church-state separation mania, which I think has been grossly expanded by liberals not to preserve the constitutional protection of religious liberty, but to selectively suppress it. But here I am digressing before I've even gotten started on the main focus of today's rant.
Markets Decoupling 1/19/10 Pay close attention to the relationship between different asset classes and even different commodities, i.e dollar, oil, and metals. Our second objective at $77 in February Crude was reached today but prices did not stay there for long as oil reversed closing above $79/barrel. We suggest covering all remaining shorts and have yet to get clients long but we may have some bullish strategies to come. We still want to see a lower print in natural gas before issuing any buy recommendation, for those brave souls who remain short stay the course. For all energy contracts start following March as February goes off this week. All losses in Equities were gotten back today on the major indices?? As we said in last week's blog and this morning's commentary we think a correction is long overdue but look for a close below the 20 day MA to confirm.
More Market Infintalism, High Unemployment, Shrinkage Fed credit report says Americans now borrowing a lot less, Goldman Sachs fingered for causing the economic crisis, personal bankruptcies soar, mortgage market shrinking, vacancies grow, tax collections shrink, banks create extraordinary means to keep afloat Americans borrowed less for a 10th consecutive month in November with total credit and borrowing on credit cards falling by the largest amounts on records going back nearly seven decades. The Federal Reserve said yesterday that total borrowing dropped by $17.5 billion in November, a much bigger decline than the $5 billion decrease economists had expected.
Senate GOP calls for cutting public workers' pay 5 percent, hiking health care costs LANSING, MICH. - Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop said Tuesday the pay of teachers, professors and state and local government workers should be cut by 5 percent and held at that level for the next three years to save money. The Rochester Republican told reporters he is proposing a constitutional amendment to go to the voters in August that would suspend collective bargaining rights and allow the pay cut to take effect.
Fail Britannia? If the United Kingdom collapses, it will be impossible to stop America from crumbling too. BY ROBERT MORLEY Addicted to debt and devoid of industry, Great Britain faces economic catastrophe. But if Britain crashes, it will not crash alone. It won't be the story of an isolated island fading into history, but of 200 years of Anglo-Saxon dominance coming to an abrupt end. Even though it's not even on the radar screen for most Americans, Great Britain is headed toward a debt crisis, and thus a currency crisis. On January 8, the Telegraph reported that Neil Woodford, head of Invesco Perpetual, said there was a "high probability" of Britain losing its aaa credit rating-something that has never happened before.
Risks to Sustained Economic Recovery (With Lessons Learned from Winston Churchill and Teddy Roosevelt) Remarks before the Annual Meeting of the Waco Business League - speech by Richard W. Fisher . . . . These are times that try men's and women's souls: They are not particularly felicitous economic times. The Federal Reserve has worked tirelessly for the past two years to rescue the financial system and the economy from plunging into the abyss of depression and chaos. As last year came to a close, we saw our efforts begin to bear some fruit: Interest rates and spreads between the yields on various key financial instruments have come down significantly. The markets for bonds and stocks have come back to life, and the economy-while subject to taking one step back for every few it takes forward-has nonetheless begun a palpable, if tepid, recovery. We are not yet out of the woods.
Lieberman: Massachusetts Election Shows Public "Really Skeptical" About the HC bill By Philip Klein Sen. Joe Lieberman on Tuesday said that even a close race in Massachusetts would show that the public is "really skeptical" about the health care bill that he voted for. "It's pretty clear that if Scott Brown doesn't win, it's certainly going to be close, and that in itself is newsworthy," Lieberman said on a Fox appearance with Neil Cavuto. Cavuto asked him to explain the message being sent by Bay State voters. "I think the message is, from the voters of Massachusetts, that people are anxious about the future, and they're unhappy about what's happening in Washington," he said. "They're anxious about the economy, the continued unemployment. They don't like all of the partisanship and deal making here in Washington. And they're really skeptical about this health care bill."
Progressives Abandon Universal Coverage Forever Understanding the Senate's plan to ban undocumented aliens from buying health coverage No one can accuse the health care legislation currently in the works of being perfect. But whether the flaws in the final sausage after the House and Senate bills are reconciled are acceptable to self-respecting progressives ought to depend on this: Do they help—or hinder—the ultimate objective of universal coverage? By this measure, if the provisions in the current Senate bill concerning undocumented aliens make it into the final bill, progressives, who put principle above politics, should bid adios to the whole effort. The bill would turn the undocumented into a permanent underclass of health care have-nots, making universal coverage unattainable.
Pelosi: "We will have healthcare -- one way or another" House speaker sounds confident of reform passage, even with a big loss for Democrats possibly on the horizon Given what looks like the impending loss of the party's Senate supermajority, Democrats have reason to be down in the dumps about healthcare reform. But if that's the way House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's feeling, she's not showing it publicly. "Let's remove all doubt, we will have healthcare one way or another," Pelosi said during an event in San Francisco on Monday. "Certainly the dynamic would change depending on what happens in Massachusetts. Just the question about how we would proceed. But it doesn't mean we won't have a health care bill."
House may be considering passing unamended Senate health care measure A top House Democrat said Tuesday that the Senate health care bill is "better than nothing," an indication that the House of Representatives is considering passing the more conservative Senate measure with no alterations. The House Democratic leadership may resort to that course of action if Massachusetts Republican state Sen. Scott Brown wins Tuesday's race to fill the vacancy created by the death of Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy.
International Hearings Begin On "Falsified" Swine Flu Pandemic In order to promote their patented drugs and vaccines against flu, pharmaceutical companies influenced scientists and official agencies, responsible for public health standards to alarm governments worldwide and make them squander tight health resources for inefficient vaccine strategies and needlessly expose millions of healthy people to the risk of an unknown amount of side-effects of insufficiently tested vaccines.
If the sales price is 20% or more above the acquisition cost the lender must meet conditions concerning appraisal and property inspection
The waiver is limited to forward mortgages, no Home Equity Conversion Mortgages
Here is the actual wording of the waiver from the HUD website: "Mortgagees" in this case would be the banks and their subsidiaries that have foreclosed on the home. So all you entrepreneurial flippers need to check the fine print, and perhaps team up for a percentage from the banks, who are in the driver's seat on this HUD exception to the anti-flipping rule passed in 2003. This does provide yet another opportunity for the banks and their subsidiaries to skin more money from the foreclosure transaction with the help of public subsidy. So if you are the entrepreneurial sort, you'll have to grease the palms of the banks to gain access to the FHA for those quick flips.
Homebuilding's biggest CEOs to skip U.S. trade show The homebuilding industry's biggest trade show meets this week, but most of its biggest executives will not be there. The International Builders' Show, happening this week in Las Vegas, is the marquee event of the homebuilding industry, equivalent to the Consumer Electronic Show for technology or Fashion Week for retailers. It will attract about 55,000 builders, contractors and other industry professionals to a maze of booths and exhibits featuring more than 1,000 companies selling everything from skylights to stoves.
The Double Dip In Builder Confidence Is Here The NAHB reported its December housing market index, which came in at 15, missing expectations of a rebound from November's reading of 16, and is now at the low levels last seen in June. The double dip, at least in perceptions of what is happening to the housing market is here, and follows the recent housing starts inflection point. Additionally, builder confidence for current sales also slipped by a point to 15, even as optimism for sales in the next 6 months held at 26. Lastly, the measure of traffic from prospective buyers declined one point to 12, the lowest level since the market bottom in March 2009.
Banks seized 30,000 S. Fla. homes in 2009 Banks seized more than 30,000 homes in South Florida through foreclosure last year, a 16 percent increase from 2008, according to a new report from CondoVultures.com. Lenders filed 97,000 foreclosure notices in 2009, but not all of those homes have been seized.
Be Prepared For Softening Of US Housing Data Tertiary reports are warning of renewed weakness in the US housing sector. Today the NAHB Housing Market Index was reported. This little watched survey of home builders tracks present sales, 6-month sales expectations and traffic of prospective buyers (of single family homes). The index ranges from 1 to 100. It most recently peaked in Sept 09 at 19. NAHB reported today that its index slipped to 15 from 16 in December. It has not risen since Sept and is back to where it was in June.
FBI illegally collected thousands of phone records between 2002 and 2006 The FBI violated the law in collecting about 2,000 U.S. telephone records during the Bush administration, though the violations weren't intentional, officials said Tuesday. Citing internal memos and interviews, the Washington Post said the FBI invoked nonexistent terrorism emergencies or persuaded phone companies to provide information as it illegally gathered records between 2002 and 2006.
Senate not seen passing climate bill in 2010 The Senate is unlikely to pass climate change legislation this year after going through the contentious health care debate, and will focus on a separate energy bill that has more bipartisan support, a key Democratic senator said on Tuesday. Democrats are seeking to iron out differences between sweeping bills passed by the Senate and House of Representatives to revamp the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare system, President Barack Obama's top domestic priority. "It is my assessment that we likely will not do climate change this year, but will do an energy bill instead," Senator Byron Dorgan, told reporters in a telephone conference call.
Apple's Secret Cloud Strategy And Why Lala Is Critical . . . . An upcoming major revision of iTunes will copy each user's catalog to the net making it available from any browser or net connected ipod/touch/tablet. The Lala upload technology will be bundled into a future iTunes upgrade which will automatically be installed for the 100+ million itunes users with a simple "An upgrade is available…" notification dialog box. After installation iTunes will push in the background their entire media library to their personal mobile iTunes area. Once loaded, users will be able to navigate and play their music, videos and playlists from their personal URL using a browser based iTunes experience.
Predators and the Constitution The feds usurp another area of state law. Sex offenders are the least sympathetic of legal plaintiffs. Still, we were dismayed last week to see so many Supreme Court Justices during oral arguments apparently willing to let the federal government take over an area of law governing criminals that the Constitution grants to the states. The question in U.S. v. Comstock is whether sex offenders who have already completed their federal criminal sentences may then see their incarceration extended through a process of "civil commitment" by the federal government. The law in question, the 2006 Adam Walsh Child Protection Act, allows the Attorney General to certify a person as a danger to the population and keep him in federal custody. The law tramples on the traditional power of states to protect public health and safety.
Pope's visit to Rome synagogue: taking into account Israel and the Church in Israel It would seem to have by now become de rigueur for the reigning Pontiff to make a visit to the Great Synagogue of Rome - like, for example, the visit to the President of the Italian Republic (and the President's visit to the Vatican Apostolic Palace) - and it is good that this is so, it is comforting. To be sure, on each occasion it is a matter for a choice that the Pope makes with sovereign freedom, but an expected one, a foreseeable one. The truly "historic" and the properly "epoch making" importance are inevitably reserved to the very first occasion, which being the "first in history" is therefore necessarily unrepeatable as such. If nonetheless the visit that the Supreme Pontiff has deigned to make to the Great Synagogue of Rome on 17 January 2010, although being the second one, after the first one made by the Venerable John Paul II (in 1986), may yet be seen by future historians as "epoch making" in its own right, this may well be due to a truly singular circumstance: Provision was made for the presence in the Synagogue, with the Pope, of the principal Authorities of the Catholic Church in Israel: The Apostolic Nuncio, the Custos of the Holy Land, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem. The territories of the respective missions of the Custos and the Patriarch do, it is true, extend well beyond the confines of the Jewish State, but they do include it in its entirety.
US accused of 'occupying' Haiti as troops flood in France accused the US of "occupying" Haiti on Monday as thousands of American troops flooded into the country to take charge of aid efforts and security. The French minister in charge of humanitarian relief called on the UN to "clarify" the American role amid claims the military build up was hampering aid efforts. Alain Joyandet admitted he had been involved in a scuffle with a US commander in the airport's control tower over the flight plan for a French evacuation flight. "This is about helping Haiti, not about occupying Haiti," Mr Joyandet said. Geneva-based charity Medecins Sans Frontieres backed his calls saying hundreds of lives were being put at risk as planes carrying vital medical supplies were being turned away by American air traffic controllers.
Obama gets 'F' for Mideast policy On the eve of a four-day visit to the United States, hawkish Likud MK Danny Danon on Monday launched a blistering assault on President Barack Obama's Middle East policies, declaring that he would give Obama "a failing grade" for his first year in office. "I would give Obama an 'F' for serious lack of knowledge or understanding on topics related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," said Danon, speaking to The Jerusalem Post ahead of his US trip.
'Middle East conflict driving Christians out' A Vatican document released Tuesday blamed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the "occupying" of lands for fomenting most of the conflicts in the Middle East, driving Christians out and making life difficult for those who remain. The document is a guide for discussions for an Oct. 10-24 meeting of Mideast bishops convened by Pope Benedict XVI to discuss the plight of the Christian minority in the overwhelmingly Muslim region. The exodus of Christians from the region and religious discrimination faced by those who remain are main issues on the table.
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