Obama Administration Using Accounting Gimmicks That Would Make Enron ‘Blush,’ Says Republican Lawmaker

fannie-mae
Fannie Mae headquarters in Washington, D.C
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(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) says the Obama administration is using an accounting “gimmick” in its budget by not including the debt owed by mortgage firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

“The accounting gimmicks that are used today would make an Enron and WorldCom accountant blush,” Hensarling told reporters. “The American people know that under the policies of this administration-under the policies of this Congress-we are drowning in a sea of red ink.”

Hensarling, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, joined a group of House Republicans Tuesday in announcing the introduction of a bill that would require President Obama’s Office of Management and Budget to include the liabilities of Fannie and Freddie in the national debt calculation.

The two companies are defined as government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) whose portfolios include trillions of dollars in American mortgages, many of which are now “under water.” The federal government took control of the mortgage giants in 2008, as they neared financial collapse.

Billions of taxpayer dollars ($61 billion for Fannie Mae and $51 billion for Freddie Mac) has been spent so far to keep the GSEs solvent. Just this week, Freddie Mac reported a $7.8 billion loss in the final three months of 2009, but said it will not require another taxpayer infusion at this time.

Hensarling on Tuesday suggested that the administration is under-reporting the nation’s debt by failing to account for the potential liability incurred if Fannie and Freddie go deeper into the red.

The potential liabilities incurred by Fannie and Freddie, Hensarling said, would amount to “the mother of all bailouts.”

freddie-mac
Headquarters of the federally chartered mortgage giant, Freddie Mac, in McLean, Va.

“When the final chapter is written on the history of our financial debacle, it will show that the cause was the government policies that cajoled, incented (sic) and mandated financial institutions to lend money to people to buy homes that, ultimately, they could not afford,” Hensarling said. “At the epicenter of those federal policies was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and before all the dust settles in the final accounting, they will prove to be the mother of all bailouts.”

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, estimated that the unfunded liabilities of Fannie and Freddie could exceed $5 trillion.

Under Republican’s proposed bill, the White House Office of Management and Budget would have to treat the GSEs’ estimated liabilities as part of the federal debt, and those liabilities along with the rest of the debt would have to remain under the debt ceiling.

Congress recently voted to raise the debt ceiling above $14 trillion dollars for the first time to accommodate other spending.

Read moreObama Administration Using Accounting Gimmicks That Would Make Enron ‘Blush,’ Says Republican Lawmaker

Matt Taibbi: Wall Street’s Bailout Hustle

Goldman Sachs and other big banks aren’t just pocketing the trillions we gave them to rescue the economy – they’re re-creating the conditions for another crash

matt-taibbi-wall-street-bailout-hustle

On January 21st, Lloyd Blankfein left a peculiar voicemail message on the work phones of his employees at Goldman Sachs. Fast becoming America’s pre-eminent Marvel Comics supervillain, the CEO used the call to deploy his secret weapon: a pair of giant, nuclear-powered testicles. In his message, Blankfein addressed his plan to pay out gigantic year-end bonuses amid widespread controversy over Goldman’s role in precipitating the global financial crisis.

The bank had already set aside a tidy $16.2 billion for salaries and bonuses – meaning that Goldman employees were each set to take home an average of $498,246, a number roughly commensurate with what they received during the bubble years. Still, the troops were worried: There were rumors that Dr. Ballsachs, bowing to political pressure, might be forced to scale the number back. After all, the country was broke, 14.8 million Americans were stranded on the unemployment line, and Barack Obama and the Democrats were trying to recover the populist high ground after their bitch-whipping in Massachusetts by calling for a “bailout tax” on banks. Maybe this wasn’t the right time for Goldman to be throwing its annual Roman bonus orgy.

Not to worry, Blankfein reassured employees. “In a year that proved to have no shortage of story lines,” he said, “I believe very strongly that performance is the ultimate narrative.”

Translation: We made a shitload of money last year because we’re so amazing at our jobs, so fuck all those people who want us to reduce our bonuses.

Goldman wasn’t alone. The nation’s six largest banks – all committed to this balls-out, I drink your milkshake! strategy of flagrantly gorging themselves as America goes hungry – set aside a whopping $140 billion for executive compensation last year, a sum only slightly less than the $164 billion they paid themselves in the pre-crash year of 2007. In a gesture of self-sacrifice, Blankfein himself took a humiliatingly low bonus of $9 million, less than the 2009 pay of elephantine New York Knicks washout Eddy Curry. But in reality, not much had changed. “What is the state of our moral being when Lloyd Blankfein taking a $9 million bonus is viewed as this great act of contrition, when every penny of it was a direct transfer from the taxpayer?” asks Eliot Spitzer, who tried to hold Wall Street accountable during his own ill-fated stint as governor of New York.

Beyond a few such bleats of outrage, however, the huge payout was met, by and large, with a collective sigh of resignation. Because beneath America’s populist veneer, on a more subtle strata of the national psyche, there remains a strong temptation to not really give a shit. The rich, after all, have always made way too much money; what’s the difference if some fat cat in New York pockets $20 million instead of $10 million?

The only reason such apathy exists, however, is because there’s still a widespread misunderstanding of how exactly Wall Street “earns” its money, with emphasis on the quotation marks around “earns.” The question everyone should be asking, as one bailout recipient after another posts massive profits – Goldman reported $13.4 billion in profits last year, after paying out that $16.2 billion in bonuses and compensation – is this: In an economy as horrible as ours, with every factory town between New York and Los Angeles looking like those hollowed-out ghost ships we see on History Channel documentaries like Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes, where in the hell did Wall Street’s eye-popping profits come from, exactly? Did Goldman go from bailout city to $13.4 billion in the black because, as Blankfein suggests, its “performance” was just that awesome? A year and a half after they were minutes away from bankruptcy, how are these assholes not only back on their feet again, but hauling in bonuses at the same rate they were during the bubble?

The answer to that question is basically twofold: They raped the taxpayer, and they raped their clients.

Read moreMatt Taibbi: Wall Street’s Bailout Hustle

US Banks Facing $1.4 Trillion Crisis Over Commercial Real Estate Loans

Commercial Real Estate Losses Could Hit $300 Billion: TARP Panel:

“The banks that are on the front lines of small-business lending are about to get hit by a tidal wave of commercial-loan failures,” said Elizabeth Warren, a law professor at Harvard University who heads the COP.

Warren and her fellow panel members warn that “a significant wave of commercial mortgage defaults would trigger economic damage that could touch the lives of nearly every American.”


• Commercial property set to lose $300bn on $1.4bn of loans

• Nearly 3,000 banks face dangerous exposure as loans mature

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Wall Street banks and other financial institutions may be heading for the wall as a further crisis looms in 2011 over commercial property loans. Photograph: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

America’s fragile high street banks are bracing themselves for a fresh financial crunch as a wave of commercial property mortgages go sour on offices, shops and factories, causing losses of up to $300bn (£192bn) hitting nearly 3,000 small- and medium-sized financial institutions.

A congressional oversight panel charged with scrutinising the Obama administration’s bailout efforts has warned that $1.4tn of loans covering commercial premises will reach maturity between 2011 and 2014. After a plunge in property prices, nearly half of these loans are underwater, with borrowers owing more than their underlying property is worth.

An analysis by the panel found that 2,988 of America’s 8,100 banks have potentially dangerous exposure to commercial property loans. The impact could damage hopes of a US economic recovery and could cause a further squeeze in the availability of credit to consumers and businesses.

Read moreUS Banks Facing $1.4 Trillion Crisis Over Commercial Real Estate Loans

Report: 1 in 5 US Homeowners Underwater; Foreclosures at Record High

Green shoots!

Rep. Alan Grayson: ‘20 Percent Of Our Accumulated Wealth Over The Course Of 2 Centuries Gone in 18 months!’


Foreclosures Across The Country Rose To A New High In December

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NEW YORK – One of every five U.S. homeowners owed more on their mortgage than their home was worth in the fourth quarter, a trend that poses a serious threat to the U.S. housing market’s recovery, real estate Web site Zillow.com said on Wednesday.

Homeowners with “underwater” mortgages are more prone to defaults and foreclosures. They typically do not qualify for refinancings and are unable to sell their homes because they would need to cough up cash at closing time to pay off their mortgage.

The percentage of American single-family homes with mortgages in negative equity rose to 21.4 percent in the fourth quarter from 21 percent in the third quarter, according to the Zillow Real Estate Market Reports.

U.S. home values declined again in the fourth quarter, as the Zillow Home Value Index fell 5 percent year-over-year and down 0.5 percent quarter-over-quarter, to $186,200. It was the 12th consecutive quarter of year-over-year declines, the reports showed.

“The prevalence of markets in or near a double-dip situation shows that we are not yet at the bottom, in terms of home values,” Stan Humphries, Zillow chief economist, said in an interview.

Read moreReport: 1 in 5 US Homeowners Underwater; Foreclosures at Record High

Meredith Whitney on CNBC: ‘I Haven’t Been This Bearish in a Year’; ‘S&P Expensive Across the Board’; Expects Next Leg Down in the Housing Market Soon



Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) — Meredith Whitney, the analyst who cut her rating on Goldman Sachs Group Inc. last month, said bank stocks are overvalued after rallying faster than the U.S. economy and share prices will fall to tangible book value.

“I haven’t been this bearish in a year,” Whitney, founder of Meredith Whitney Advisory Group LLC, said today in a CNBC television interview. “I think you can sit on cash for a little bit, because you have to wait for a leg down in valuations. The S&P is expensive across the board.”

Read moreMeredith Whitney on CNBC: ‘I Haven’t Been This Bearish in a Year’; ‘S&P Expensive Across the Board’; Expects Next Leg Down in the Housing Market Soon

Goldman Sachs Takes On New Role: Taking Away People’s Homes

SAN JOSE, Calif. — When California wildfires ruined their jewelry business, Tony Becker and his wife fell months behind on their mortgage payments and experienced firsthand the perils of subprime mortgages.

The couple wound up in a desperate, six-year fight to keep their modest, 1,500-square-foot San Jose home, a struggle that pushed them into bankruptcy.

The lender with whom they sparred, however, wasn’t the one that had written their loans. It was an obscure subsidiary of Wall Street colossus Goldman Sachs Group.

Goldman spent years buying hundreds of thousands of subprime mortgages, many of them from some of the more unsavory lenders in the business, and packaging them into high-yield bonds. Now that the bottom has fallen out of that market, Goldman finds itself in a different role: as the big banker that takes homes away from folks such as the Beckers.

The couple alleges that Goldman declined for three years to confirm their suspicions that it had bought their mortgages from a subprime lender, even after they wrote to Goldman’s then-Chief Executive Henry Paulson — later U.S. Treasury secretary — in 2003.

Read moreGoldman Sachs Takes On New Role: Taking Away People’s Homes

New York Fed’s Secret Choice to Pay for AIG Swaps Squandered Billions of Taxpayer Money

Here is what Timmy, Benny and the boys did to sponsor Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Societe Generale and other banksters:

“…the New York Fed, led by President Timothy Geithner, took over negotiations with the banks from AIG, together with the Treasury Department and Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s Federal Reserve.”

“After less than a week of private negotiations with the banks, the New York Fed instructed AIG to pay them par, or 100 cents on the dollar. The content of its deliberations has never been made public.”

WTF have they (Timmy, Benny and the boys) done?

Janet Tavakoli, founder of Chicago-based Tavakoli Structured Finance Inc., a financial consulting firm, says the government squandered billions in the AIG deal.

“There’s no way they should have paid at par,” she says. “AIG was basically bankrupt.”

Far more money was wasted in paying the banks for their swaps, says Donn Vickrey of financial research firm Gradient Analytics Inc. “In cases like this, the outcome is always along the lines of 50, 60 or 70 cents on the dollar,” Vickrey says.

Why have they done it?

One reason par was paid was because some counterparties insisted on being paid in full and the New York Fed did not want to negotiate separate deals, says a person close to the transaction. “Some of those banks needed 100 cents on the dollar or they risked failure,” Vickrey says.

For Timmy fans:
The Federal Reserve buys Fannie Mae bonds; Timothy Geithner is a liar
Treasury Secretary Geithner’s Closest Aides Reaped Millions Working for Banks, Hedge Funds


timmy-timothy-geithner
Timothy Geithner, U.S. treasury secretary, testifies at a House Appropriations Committee hearing in Washington, D.C.

Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) — In the months leading up to the September 2008 collapse of giant insurer American International Group Inc., Elias Habayeb and his colleagues worked nights and weekends negotiating with banks that had bought $62 billion of credit-default swaps from AIG, according to a person who has worked with Habayeb.

Habayeb, 37, was chief financial officer for the AIG division that oversaw AIG Financial Products, the unit that had sold the swaps to the banks. One of his goals was to persuade the banks to accept discounts of as much as 40 cents on the dollar, according to people familiar with the matter.

Among AIG’s bank counterparties were New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co., Paris-based Societe Generale SA and Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank AG.

By Sept. 16, 2008, AIG, once the world’s largest insurer, was running out of cash, and the U.S. government stepped in with a rescue plan. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the regional Fed office with special responsibility for Wall Street, opened an $85 billion credit line for New York-based AIG. That bought it 77.9 percent of AIG and effective control of the insurer.

The government’s commitment to AIG through credit facilities and investments would eventually add up to $182.3 billion.

Beginning late in the week of Nov. 3, the New York Fed, led by President Timothy Geithner, took over negotiations with the banks from AIG, together with the Treasury Department and Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s Federal Reserve. Geithner’s team circulated a draft term sheet outlining how the New York Fed wanted to deal with the swaps — insurance-like contracts that backed soured collateralized-debt obligations.

Subprime Mortgages

CDOs are bundles of debt including subprime mortgages and corporate loans sold to investors by banks.

Part of a sentence in the document was crossed out. It contained a blank space that was intended to show the amount of the haircut the banks would take, according to people who saw the term sheet. After less than a week of private negotiations with the banks, the New York Fed instructed AIG to pay them par, or 100 cents on the dollar. The content of its deliberations has never been made public.

Read moreNew York Fed’s Secret Choice to Pay for AIG Swaps Squandered Billions of Taxpayer Money

To all homeowners in foreclosure: Judge wipes out $460,000 mortgage debt

Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur has become something of a crusader for homeowners’ rights in the wake of the housing crisis, as well as a major critic of US banks. Moyers played a clip of her giving a speech this past January in which she urged homeowners to ignore eviction notices and become “squatters in [their] own homes” if they need to:

“So why should any American citizen be kicked out of their homes in this cold weather? … Don’t leave your home. Because you know what? When those companies say they have your mortgage, unless you have a lawyer that can put his or her finger on that mortgage, you don’t have that mortgage, and you are going to find they can’t find the paper up there on Wall Street. So I say to the American people, you be squatters in your own homes. Don’t you leave. In Ohio and Michigan and Indiana and Illinois and all these other places our people are being treated like chattel, and this Congress is stymied.”

Source: Top economist: President Obama ‘missed opportunity’ to reform financial system

See also: Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur: There Has Been a Financial Coup D’Etat


foreclosures


FOR decades, when troubled homeowners and banks battled over delinquent mortgages, it wasn’t a contest. Homes went into foreclosure, and lenders took control of the property.

On top of that, courts rubber-stamped the array of foreclosure charges that lenders heaped onto borrowers and took banks at their word when the lenders said they owned the mortgage notes underlying troubled properties.

In other words, with lenders in the driver’s seat, borrowers were run over, more often than not. Of course, errant borrowers hardly deserve sympathy from bankers or anyone else, and banks are well within their rights to try to protect their financial interests.

But if our current financial crisis has taught us anything, it is that many borrowers entered into mortgage agreements without a clear understanding of the debt they were incurring. And banks often lacked a clear understanding of whether all those borrowers could really repay their loans.

Even so, banks and borrowers still do battle over foreclosures on an unlevel playing field that exists in far too many courtrooms. But some judges are starting to scrutinize the rules-don’t-matter methods used by lenders and their lawyers in the recent foreclosure wave. On occasion, lenders are even getting slapped around a bit.

One surprising smackdown occurred on Oct. 9 in federal bankruptcy court in the Southern District of New York. Ruling that a lender, PHH Mortgage, hadn’t proved its claim to a delinquent borrower’s home in White Plains, Judge Robert D. Drain wiped out a $461,263 mortgage debt on the property. That’s right: the mortgage debt disappeared, via a court order.

So the ruling may put a new dynamic in play in the foreclosure mess: If the lender can’t come forward with proof of ownership, and judges don’t look kindly on that, then borrowers may have a stronger hand to play in court and, apparently, may even be able to stay in their homes mortgage-free.

The reason that notes have gone missing is the huge mass of mortgage securitizations that occurred during the housing boom. Securitizations allowed for large pools of bank loans to be bundled and sold to legions of investors, but some of the nuts and bolts of the mortgage game — notes, for example — were never adequately tracked or recorded during the boom. In some (many) cases, that means nobody truly knows who owns what.

Read moreTo all homeowners in foreclosure: Judge wipes out $460,000 mortgage debt

Fall Of The Republic – The Presidency Of Barack H. Obama (The Full Movie HQ)

“When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
– Benjamin Franklin


Added: 22. October 2009

Fall Of The Republic documents how an offshore corporate cartel is bankrupting the US economy by design. Leaders are now declaring that world government has arrived and that the dollar will be replaced by a new global currency.

President Obama has brazenly violated Article 1 Section 9 of the US Constitution by seating himself at the head of United Nations’ Security Council, thus becoming the first US president to chair the world body.

A scientific dictatorship is in its final stages of completion, and laws protecting basic human rights are being abolished worldwide; an iron curtain of high-tech tyranny is now descending over the planet.

A worldwide regime controlled by an unelected corporate elite is implementing a planetary carbon tax system that will dominate all human activity and establish a system of neo-feudal slavery.

Read moreFall Of The Republic – The Presidency Of Barack H. Obama (The Full Movie HQ)

US Treasury: Millions more foreclosures are coming

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A bank owned home is advertised for sale in Encinitas, California August 18, 2009. (REUTERS)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Only 12 percent of U.S. homeowners eligible for loan modifications under the Obama administration’s housing rescue plan have had their mortgages reworked, and millions more foreclosures are coming, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

A Treasury report showed 360,165 people had their monthly payments reduced through August, up from 235,247 through July, but a senior Treasury official conceded much more must be done to soften the impact of a severe and prolonged housing crisis.

“The recent crisis in the housing sector has devastated families and communities across the country and is at the center of our financial crisis and economic downturn,” Michael Barr, assistant Treasury secretary for financial institutions, told a House Financial Services subcommittee.

Read moreUS Treasury: Millions more foreclosures are coming

Brace for a New Wave of Foreclosures, the Dam is About to Break

A summary of Second Quarter 2009 Negative Equity Data from First American CoreLogic shows that Nearly One-Third Of All Mortgages Are Underwater.

• More than 15.2 million U.S. mortgages, or 32.2 percent of all mortgaged properties, were in negative equity position as of June 30, 2009 according to newly released data from First American CoreLogic. As of June 2009, there were an additional 2.5 million mortgaged properties that were approaching negative equity. Negative equity and near negative equity mortgages combined account for nearly 38 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage nationwide.

• The aggregate property value for loans in a negative equity position was $3.4 trillion, which represents the total property value at risk of default. In California, the aggregate value of homes that are in negative equity was $969 billion, followed by Florida ($432 billion), New Jersey ($146 billion), Illinois ($146 billion) and Arizona ($140 billion). Los Angeles had over $310 billion in aggregate property value in a negative equity position, followed by New York ($183 billion), Miami ($152 billion), Washington, DC ($149 billion) and Chicago ($134 billion).

• The distribution of negative equity is heavily skewed to a small number of states as three states account for roughly half of all mortgage borrowers in a negative equity position. Nevada (66 percent) had the highest percentage with nearly two?thirds of mortgage borrowers in a negative equity position. In Arizona (51 percent) and Florida (49 percent), half of all mortgage borrowers were in a negative equity position. Michigan (48 percent) and California (42 percent) round out the top five states.

There are some interesting tables and graphs in the article that inquiring minds are investigating. Here are some partial alphabetical lists.

click on any chart in this post to see a sharper image

Negative Equity Share

Property Values and Loan-To-Equity Ratios

Nevada, not shown has a near-negative equity share of 68.9% and a Loan-To-Value ratio of a whopping 115%!

It is disingenuous to say there are only a half-dozen or so problem states, when the problem states are where people live. It is wrong to treat Alabama and Alaska the same as California or Florida.

Mortgage Facts and Figures – Select States

  • California has $2.4 trillion in mortgages debt. 42.0% of the properties have negative equity.
  • Florida has $923 billion in mortgage debt. 49.4% of the properties have negative equity.
  • Illinois has $447 billion in mortgage debt. 29.4% of the properties have negative equity.
  • Arizona has $298 billion in mortgage debt. 51.0% of the properties have negative equity.
  • Nevada has $149 billion in mortgage debt. 65.6% of the properties have negative equity.
  • Nationwide there is $10.1 trillion in mortgage debt. 32.2% of the properties have negative equity.37.6% of the properties have “near-negative” equity.

32-37% Of All Mortgage Holders Are Stuck, Unable To Sell

Take a look at that first line. California has $2.4 trillion in mortgages debt. 42.0% of the properties have negative equity. Think Wells Fargo (WFC) sitting on its massive share of California pay-option-arms is “Well Capitalized”? If so, think again.

Read moreBrace for a New Wave of Foreclosures, the Dam is About to Break

On the Edge with Max Keiser: The coming collapse of the US will be much worse than that of the USSR (07/31/09)

Max Keiser compares the collapse of the US and the USSR … and more.

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Read moreOn the Edge with Max Keiser: The coming collapse of the US will be much worse than that of the USSR (07/31/09)

On the Edge with Max Keiser and Catherine Austin Fitts, former Assistant Secretary of Housing (06/26/09)

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Read moreOn the Edge with Max Keiser and Catherine Austin Fitts, former Assistant Secretary of Housing (06/26/09)

Ben Bernanke in Denial 2005-2007

Ben Bernanke is just another puppet of the elite behind the scenes.


Bernanke telling us not to worry about housing, mortgages, or car companies in the years before the recession, like denying a train wreck that is coming down the tracks.

Bernanke was chairman of President Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, and now as chairman of the Federal Reserve, he’s the fourth most powerful person in the world according to Newsweek.

The Fed Did Indeed Cause the Housing Bubble

More from Catherine Austin Fitts:
Former Assistant Secretary of Housing: The U.S. is the Global Leader in Illegal Money Laundering
Rethinking Diversification

This is a MUST-READ.


To: The Wall Street Journal

Re: “The Fed Didn’t Cause the Housing Bubble”

By: Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve

Dated: Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Ladies and Gentlemen:

In his article on your opinion page, “The Fed Didn’t Cause the Housing Bubble,” Alan Greenspan attributes the housing bubble to lower interest rates between 2002 and 2005. That’s amazing to me.

My company served as lead financial advisor to the Federal Housing Administration between 1994 and 1997. I watched both the Administration and the Federal Reserve aggressively implement the policies that engineered the housing bubble. These are described at my website and in my on-line book,Dillon Read & the Aristocracy of Stock Profits (http://www.dunwalke.com).

One story, for example, is the following:
“In 1995, a senior Clinton Administration official shared with me the Administration’s targets for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage volumes in low- and moderate-income communities. We had recently reviewed the Administration’s plans to increase government mortgage guarantees – most of these mortgages would also be pooled and sold as securities to investors. Even in 1995, I could see that these plans would create unserviceable debt loads in communities struggling with the falling incomes expected from globalization. Homeowners would default on mortgages while losses on mortgage-backed securities would drain retirement savings from 401(k)s and pension plans. Taxpayers would ultimately be hit with a large bill . . . but insiders would make a bundle. I looked at the official and said that the Administration was planning on issuing more mortgages than there were houses or residents. “Shut up, this is none of your business,” the official snapped back.”

Read moreThe Fed Did Indeed Cause the Housing Bubble

The Obama Deception

See also: Ron Paul: Obama Foreign Policy Identical To Bush


1:51:21 – 12.03.2009
Source: Google Video

Report: 1 in 5 Mortgages Are Underwater

In Nevada, more than half of all mortgage borrowers are upside down

It’s bad enough when the value of your house is sinking like a lead balloon. But for a growing number of Americans, their woes are compounded by owing more on the mortgage than what that house is now worth. It’s called having negative equity—the opposite of what happens when a home appreciates and a homeowner builds positive equity above and beyond his initial investment.

In a new report released Mar. 4, more than 8.3 million U.S. mortgages, or 20% of all mortgaged properties, were saddled with negative equity at the end of 2008, according to LoanPerformance, a company that tracks mortgage data. That’s up two percentage points, from 7.6 million borrowers, from the end of September 2008. California led the nation with a monthly average of 43,000 new negative-equity borrowers over the three-month period, followed by Texas (16,000), Nevada (15,000), Florida (14,000), and Virginia (14,000).

“Given that we’ve never seen house price declines of this magnitude, this is probably one of the highest negative-equity levels we’ve ever seen,” said Mark Fleming, chief economist for First American CoreLogic, LoanPerformance’s parent. “House price declines have taken hold everywhere.”

Temptation to Walk Away

Read moreReport: 1 in 5 Mortgages Are Underwater

Hungary on edge of bankruptcy

Hungary is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy with its citizens struggling to pay off mortages and personal loans taken out in foreign currency during one of the post-Communist era’s most exhuberant booms.


Hungary’s prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany Photo: BLOOMBERG

The birthplace of the Rubik’s Cube has provided its government with a multi-sided financial crisis that defies any ingenious solution.

The forint currency has plummeted and unemployment has ballooned, creating a voracious debt trap that is sucking down banks backed by Western taxpayers, particularly those of Switzerland and Austria.

Read moreHungary on edge of bankruptcy

TEN SQUARE MILES OF CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE

“The world’s richest elite and those who fully understand the situation are buying gold like hot cakes.”

Events over the past five months since the carefully orchestrated storm was set for bank “bail outs” should make it clear to any American not walking around in a self-imposed coma that we have crossed the Rubicon. As I have written for many years: Non essential businesses will continue to go under as Americans only have enough disposable income for absolute necessities like shelter, food and transportation to their jobs or the unemployment office. This massive give away by Congress since last September is simply sealing our fate.

Americans are frightened, confused. Already we’ve seen several tragedies where fathers have killed their entire families and themselves because he’s lost his job and the bills were piling up. We will see more and worse. We the people are now being held hostage with a gun to our head to aid and assist in the final destruction of our constitutional republic. We are being held hostage with the gun of government to our heads to fund the final destruction of capitalism, freedom and liberty.

We the people are being held hostage with the gun of totalitarian government to fund the continuation of the unconstitutional, immoral invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan based on lies and manipulation. To fund organizations who conduct massive vote fraud (ACORN), filth in the Arts and schools and more killing of unborn babies. Fund the furtherance of one world government as the impostor president is openly shoving communism down our throats with the approval from most members of Congress.

Read moreTEN SQUARE MILES OF CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE

CNBC’s Rick Santelli’s Chicago Tea Party

CNBC’s Rick Santelli and the traders on the floor of the CBOE express outrage over the notion they may have to pay their neighbor’s mortgage, particularly if they bought far more house than they could actually afford, with Jason Roney, Sharmac Capital.


Last Update: Thurs. Feb. 19 2009
Source: CNBC

Failure to save East Europe will lead to worldwide meltdown

The unfolding debt drama in Russia, Ukraine, and the EU states of Eastern Europe has reached acute danger point.

If mishandled by the world policy establishment, this debacle is big enough to shatter the fragile banking systems of Western Europe and set off round two of our financial Götterdämmerung.

Austria’s finance minister Josef Pröll made frantic efforts last week to put together a €150bn rescue for the ex-Soviet bloc. Well he might. His banks have lent €230bn to the region, equal to 70pc of Austria’s GDP.

“A failure rate of 10pc would lead to the collapse of the Austrian financial sector,” reported Der Standard in Vienna. Unfortunately, that is about to happen.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) says bad debts will top 10pc and may reach 20pc. The Vienna press said Bank Austria and its Italian owner Unicredit face a “monetary Stalingrad” in the East.

Mr Pröll tried to drum up support for his rescue package from EU finance ministers in Brussels last week. The idea was scotched by Germany’s Peer Steinbrück. Not our problem, he said. We’ll see about that.

Stephen Jen, currency chief at Morgan Stanley, said Eastern Europe has borrowed $1.7 trillion abroad, much on short-term maturities. It must repay – or roll over – $400bn this year, equal to a third of the region’s GDP. Good luck. The credit window has slammed shut.

Not even Russia can easily cover the $500bn dollar debts of its oligarchs while oil remains near $33 a barrel. The budget is based on Urals crude at $95. Russia has bled 36pc of its foreign reserves since August defending the rouble.

“This is the largest run on a currency in history,” said Mr Jen.

Read moreFailure to save East Europe will lead to worldwide meltdown

U.S. Foreclosures Top Quarter-Million for 10th Straight Month


A foreclosure sign sits in front of a home in Moreno Valley, California, Dec. 31, 2008. Photographer: Francis Specker/Bloomberg News

Feb. 12 (Bloomberg) — U.S. foreclosure filings exceeded 250,000 for the 10th straight month in January as falling prices trapped owners in homes worth less than the mortgage, RealtyTrac Inc. said.

A total of 274,399 properties got a default or auction notice or were seized by banks, the Irvine, California-based seller of default data said in a statement today. It was the 37th straight year-on-year increase in filings.

“This is tough to fix, because so many people are underwater,” Bruce Norris, president of the Norris Group, a Riverside, California-based investment firm specializing in foreclosed properties, said in an interview. “Until debt goes down or prices go up, this is going to be a mess.”

The housing market lost an estimated $3.3 trillion in value last year and almost one in six owners owed more than their homes were worth, online data provider Zillow.com said last week. The U.S. economy shrank 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter, the most since 1982, and payrolls plunged by 598,000 in January, pushing the jobless rate to the highest level since 1992.

Home prices have fallen every month since January 2007 and tumbled 18.2 percent in November, according to the S&P/Case- Shiller index of 20 U.S. cities. President Barack Obama may support federal guarantees for modified home loans as the administration and Congress consider ways to help borrowers facing default or negative equity.

Read moreU.S. Foreclosures Top Quarter-Million for 10th Straight Month