patrick.net

oThe FHA loan limit would be permanently increased to a maximum of $720,750 from $362,000.
oFannie and Freddie’s conforming loan limits would be increased for one year only to a maximum of $729,750 from $417,000.

I presume the FHA loan will have a 3% down. Even with zero down, I hope we will not see anymore I/O or neg am, so at 6% we are looking at about $4,321 P&I. The Fannie/Freddie would be about $4,375 P&I if zero down were allowed. Hopefully such high payments will dampen the demand even with the raised limits.

Still, nothing I'd like to see more than high down payments, along with a property tax reset for any borrower accepting the new loans. Hopefully also, the new loans will have sane debt ratio and income qualifications.

Fear not, to counter your insane Kallerfornien congresspeople, we Coloradoans have elected the heroic Senator Wayne Allard. He will stop them. At least he supports financial literacy. :)

Sorry for being OT so early. This is from WSJ - OO will like reading this.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120779551054104069.html?mod=djemITP

Beijing Signals Inflation Focus As It Lets Yuan Rise
Currency Returns To Early-'90s Level Against the Dollar

On Thursday, the U.S. dollar slid to less than seven yuan for the first time since the early 1990s, ending Shanghai trading at 6.9916 yuan, down from 7.0017 yuan in the previous session. The yuan has now gained more than 18% against the dollar in less than three years, although it has been flat or even depreciated against other major currencies, such as the euro.
...
On a visit to Beijing last week as the dollar seemed poised to slip below seven yuan, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told the state-run China Daily that the accelerated appreciation was "a very important and very wise step."
...
"It's going to go a lot higher," says Jim Rogers, a U.S. investor and self-described China bull. Mr. Rogers says the Chinese currency has the potential to strengthen to just two yuan to the U.S. dollar -- a 2½-times rise from current levels -- noting that the Japanese yen once made a similar rise from 500 to the dollar to 100 to the dollar, albeit over a number of years.
...

OK, how do I play this trend ? FXI ?

You can't do FXI, because an appreciating Yuan will exactly mean a tanking Chinese stock market. There are also some political struggles going on to determine who the next No.1,2,3,4... of the Politburo will be, so I would not want to get in the middle of this.

A better way is to buy Yen. Yen was concerned about appreciating by itself because that meant more relocation of manufacturing to China. As Yuan moves, many other Asian currencies will move too, particularly Yen.

I will continue to load up Yen when it's weak.

dude, you need a new paradigm.

Boomer on. Boomer be. DennisN for everyone. DennisN you are the king, man your skill in getting lucky is amazing. I wish I could buy you a glass of Ridge, but hey, your friends already have hooked you up.

Let’s all get lucky and then tell everyone how lucky we got. Or we could placate ourselves with large plasma TV's bought on credit showing us 194 channels of crap. Wake up you fucks; it's all about making things here, not buying cheap shit made by slaves in back ass fuck wad countries. China? Give me a fucking break. Japan whoooooped China's ass and could do so again given then chance. I say the US military pull out everywhere and just let the fuckers fight amongst themselves. Why not. I'd love to see Panzers roll across the Arden again. Plus the Chinese love the Japanese. We could make a fortune just selling weapons to both sides.

Shit I'm sorry, everyone be baller programmers making 2 hahas. My bad. Ok buy the condo.

Fuck you Dennis.

Just what is a haha?

Patrick,

You may want to get Ms. Eshoo on the phone and explain to her how many readers and supporters you have. Otherwise expect your missive to land in the proverbial bit bucket.

OT: What is up with American Airlines? All this stuff about safety inspections and grounded flights seems mighty fishy to me. Lots of airlines have fleets of MD-80 airplanes, but why is it mostly Delta and AA that are grounded? Something does not smell right here ...

OK, I will try calling today.

I would say that any email that calls a Congresswaoman a 'silly tool of the banks' is not intended to be taken seriously.
The truth is, housing prices are coming down. And they are coming down fast enough that we are seeing big, big problems in an over-leveraged financial market. If they came down any faster, the cure may be worse then the problem; for example massive unemployement. No sense in the bubble-sitters finally getting the prices they (rightly) see as appropirate if they have no jobs to make the income needed to afford those rightly priced houses.
Let this process take some time. 10% a year for 3 years, with small to flat declines after that is about all the strain our credit crunched financial markets can handle.
Save the tool comments for the lax lending standards and the total lack of reguation and oversight.

Just my opinion.

Duke,

See local glossary at http://patrick.net/wp/?p=63 , although it won't tell you how to spell "the Ardennes".

Patrick,

What Duke said. A slight rewrite may be in order before you call. Heh.

Eshoo was never my rep since I lived in SJ, but look what her constituancy entails: www.house.gov/formeshoo/zipauth.html I wonder whether UCSC is part of the 14th?

Patrick,

I would suggest you take a lesson from Winston Churchill, e.g. his declaration of war on Japan in 1941.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_declares_war_on_Japan_(1941)

"But after all, when you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite." ;)

What is up with American Airlines? All this stuff about safety inspections and grounded flights seems mighty fishy to me. Lots of airlines have fleets of MD-80 airplanes, but why is it mostly Delta and AA that are grounded?

AA has a large fleet of MD-80's. Continental and Southwest have none.

I hate old planes. I choose my flights base on the aircrafts. And I don't like flying in anything from MD.

What is up with American Airlines? All this stuff about safety inspections and grounded flights seems mighty fishy to me.

Someone at the FAA is short American Airlines!

And OK, "silly tool of the banks" deleted.

The Bill doesn't do much for housing. It's plain robbery. Giving out benefits to shareholders of big builders and may be a few speculators in the name of helping housing. Still worth the fight against bad bills.

surfer-x said:
I say the US military pull out everywhere and just let the fuckers fight amongst themselves.

Actually, I can see the logic in this. Secure our borders, deploy the world's greatest military in defensive mode, and tell everyone to sort it out by themselves. We only get involved if someone:
1. is dumb enough to f*ck with us
2. is getting big enough to be a threat to us
3. is beginning to wave their nukes around

Sure, while the war is raging, our "economy" will be a fraction of its pre-war size, and we will need to deal with the privations imposed by self-sufficiency for a few years. The best part of it is that the banksters will be too busy lending to the warring parties, and hopefully will leave us alone for a while...

Oh, forgot to add: "Not Foreign Policy Advice" :-)

Wow, your letter was pretty rough. You're obviously dead on though.

By the way, I heard the NPR story the other day with your interview. I ended up sending a note to the journalist and got a response.

The one thing that bugs me most about bailout reporting and the legislation to date is that neither deals with the fact that many people who stand to be bailed out are in the position they're in simply because they took equity out of their homes. So, the question is, is this bailout a subsidy intended to keep poor innocent folks in their homes, or is it a subsidy for whatever people felt like buying (cars, boats, remodels, vacations) with their home equity?

I heard the NPR story too. One lady commented, People need those Home Equity Loans, They have build a life style around it.

We should add that to constitution. It's a fundamental right of people.

Great email, but unless you include a very LARGE donation, just expect more boilerplate, and no consideration.

It sounds like you should have shorted Frontier instead.

www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/04/10/financial/f232455D98.DTL&tsp=1

I would say that any email that calls a Congresswaoman a ’silly tool of the banks’ is not intended to be taken seriously.

Well he could've called her a silly cow if he wanted to be offensive. Silly tool of the banks is accurate and therefore not 'namecalling'. Besides, see HARM @ 9:04am for how to be listened to. Politeness is irrelevant in this case.

What does this tell us about Obama?

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1116676020080411

Obama denounces big corporate pay packages

Pay packages are determined by the market. If someone wants changes, he better be a shareholder.

What is next? Workers of blue states unite?

The best weapon against outrageous executive pay is hostile takeover.

Peter P
the link you provided answers your question:

in a drive to convert middle-class anger about the U.S. economy into votes.

That's all it tells us and nothing else. We know absolutely nothing about this man and have absolutely no idea what he would do if elected. Consequently, I am stunned at his level of support!

McCain is surprisingly quiet nowadays.

Who will be his VP? Rice? Romney?

shareholders don't get to approve executives pay.

The best weapon against outrageous executive pay is hostile takeover.

That is just naive. First, it's a highly inefficient method. Second, the probability of hostile takeovers, especially with the express purpose of curtailing executive pay, is near zero. Third, there is no motivation or rationale from the perspective of of the hostile takeover advocate to act solely for executive pay. I doubt activist shareholders have exec pay on the top of their lists right now, or anytime in the near future.

shareholders don’t get to approve executives pay.

But they can fire the board who approves the pay.

Any non-shareholder should not have any say over executive pay because it is none of his f*cking business.

Skibum, if executive pay by itself is not significant enough to warrant an arbitrage condition than the excessiveness of the pay is a moot point.

But they can fire the board who approves the pay.
Highly unlikely... although majority shareholder voting for the BOD holds out some hope for reforming the system.
http://harvardmagazine.com/2003/11/making-directors-account.html

And then there are proxy wars. Fun!

Remember, minority shareholders are not forced to hold company shares.

The best investor protection is the freedom to invest and divest.

Is excessive executive pay unfair? Probably. Should someone do something about it? Only the shareholders should, if they can. Caveat emptor.

Peter says:
Any non-shareholder should not have any say over executive pay because it is none of his f*cking business.

True in your free market which doesn't exist. In current market when tax payers have to take losses, it is my business. Also most people's 401k's are invested in all big companies.

I personally don't have anything against pay on performance. People like gates, jobs and co can take whatever they want. CEO's of oil companies, financial companies (basically not performance based) who get paid huge bonuses just because markets were favourable to them or booked profits early and left others to eat losses later would be my concern.

Peter P,

I have to say this, so excuse me if it offends you.

It seems like you have never worked in the corporate world and you really have no handle of what a "free market" is.

Executive pay is a result of "you scratch my back and I scratch your back" and it has absolutely nothing to do with market pay. How do you determine the executive pay through open market, by bidding? Do you know how you even get into the line of executives available for bidding? Do you know how the board of directors are selected? Have you even participated in something remotely related to selection of board of directors?

What Obama said is exactly right. There is no such thing as pure freedom, if you desire pure freedom, pack and move to Mars. We all live in regulated freedom.

Also most people’s 401k’s are invested in all big companies.

Why invest in companies whose leaders don't even own 10% of the shares?