patrick.net

Is this the future of Web 2.0?

That is Web 3.0, the new version coming next year.

The shit that the gubermint is doing is just making the process more painful and prolonging the suffering.

On the bright side, the downtrend will be more tradable.

Yen seems to be advancing steadily again. De-leveraging continues.

Perhaps the post-election rally is just a fizzle?

Not investment advice.

Dude, is AIG trying to start a riot?

At least we won't have discussions about how tax payers will be making money from bailouts from now on.

Welp, we all knew it was coming. And we all knew how idiotic the setup would be.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081111/meltdown_mortgages.html

*renting saver with hand out*
"Where is mine?"

Seriously, how about just offering anyone with a heartbeat and a will to take on a mortgage for an over-priced house a loan at those terms? Oh wait... they already did that. Blow another bubble why don't you?

Not that the new plan will work anyways... it will just delay the inevitable until housing prices in the most bubbly areas (hello there Bay Area) become affordable. How much farther do some places have to go?

Besides you need to be 3 months behind on your payments to qualify for this... how many people that are up to date on payments (but with little or negative equity) will quickly fall behind on payments to meet the guildelines? Good job... encourage people to stop paying their mortgage. That ought to work.

So what are they going to do about the massive unemployment problem about that is quickly becoming disastrous?

From FuzzyMath's link:
Indeed, Tuesday's announcement comes too late for Troy Courtney, a 44-year-old San Francisco police officer.
He moved out of his home in Mill Valley, Calif., at the start of this month -- taking his children, three dogs and one cat with him -- after failing at several to attempts to get a loan modification or a short sale -- where the lender agrees to receive less than the loan is worth.
Courtney worked overtime and tapped into his retirement account to try to catch up with two loans on his home. But in the end he couldn't convince Countrywide Financial, which managed the loan for Wells Fargo, to modify the loan.
"I feel like I missed the boat," he said of the new efforts to help more homeowners. "I'm just mad at the whole system."

I'm not sure why people want to put themselves out there like this. We don't know Troy and Lisa Courtney's extenuating circumstance are but here's what the public record says:
5/14/99: Bought property for $320,500 ($256,400 First, $64,100 Second mortagage)
3/16/05: Refinanced $630,000 Variable mortgage

Various judgements from different collections agencies on:
11/1/2003, 8/3/2004 (released after refi on 3/16/05)
6/11/2004 (released 8/17/2004)

I noticed on Craigslist that some nice 3/2 units are renting in Mill Valley for around $2500. I'm guessing that is significantly less than what their mortgage payment was.

3/16/05: Refinanced $630,000 Variable mortgage

And the article says the Courtney's were paying on TWO mortgages. So apparently the $630k was not a combined re-fi of the earlier first and second, or they took out another loan after the re-fi.

"Extenuating circumstance" or not, your "rest of the story" kinda kills the pity parade.

Can't a cop lose his job due to excessive debt, judgements, and related irresponsibility?

From Fuzzy's link:

More than 4 million American homeowners, or 9 percent of borrowers with a mortgage were either behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of June, according to the most recent data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.

That means that 91% of homeowners with a mortgage were caught up and still paying on time. Add to that the fact that 25% or so of total American homes have no mortgage at all.

And the article says the Courtney’s were paying on TWO mortgages.
There was a Trustee's Deed upon Sale on 2/13/2008 for $69,292, which may have been the second (NOD filed on 10/16/2007). I'm piecing this together from http://www.co.marin.ca.us/depts/AR/RiiMs/index.asp, propertyshark(dot)com, and a whitepages lookup.

News from Fortress East Bay. Still time to jettison the escaped pod...

Berkeley, Calif., known sometimes as a hippie haven, is becoming a hotbed for home sales.
Prices in the Bay Area suburb are up 9% this year, with homes selling for a median price of $790,986. Properties are sitting on the market for 73 days on average, the lowest of any area with positive price trends within the confines of the country's 75 largest Census-defined metro areas. Only 37% of sellers have been forced to reduce their prices, one of the lowest rates in the country.

Can’t a cop lose his job due to excessive debt, judgements, and related irresponsibility?

I know a bankruptcy or being behind on child support payments prevents you from being admitted to the State Bar of Calif. But it's more difficult if you already are a member and then do either of these things.

Either would get your security clearance stripped and therefore fired from a defense contractor job.

That means that 91% of homeowners with a mortgage were caught up and still paying on time. Add to that the fact that 25% or so of total American homes have no mortgage at all.

Exactly. Add the renter/savers with good credit to that list while you are at it.

Can someone explain to me why the rest of us are getting hit with a multi-trillion dollar tax bill to bail out speculators? Whom are probably tax cheats as well as mortgage fraudsters?

"Can someone explain to me why the rest of us are getting hit with a multi-trillion dollar tax bill to bail out speculators"

Don't think for a second that it's genuinely for homeowners

Thanks TOB!

Unfortunately, we are still looking at a coming food crisis. I would be very surprised if WW3 does not break out within 10 years.

Maine Lobster is selling for 3.69 a pound (retail), down from $15 last year as consumer demand drops.

The rescue of AIG is a scam. The point is that it appears more palatable for the pubic to rescue an "insurance company" than "wall st investment banks". Hence the troubles of wall st are transferred to AIG, which will be rescued by the taxpayers. Clever, is it not?

Bail-Outrage: Misuse of Funds, Lack of Transparency a National Disgrace

Many Americans are understandably outraged by the bailout fever that has gripped Washington this year. But even those who believe the bailouts are a "necessary evil" would have a hard time defending some of the bailout-related items that have come to light in recent days, including:
Financial institutions using TARP bailout money to pay executive bonuses. The firms, of course, say it's "different" money and bonuses are key to retaining top employees. But if you need to come to the government for a handout, shouldn't your executives forgo a bonus? Or shouldn't the government make canceling bonuses a condition of getting aid, as is the case in Europe?

The Fed refusing to reveal who received almost $2 trillion in non-TARP loans, or what collateral it has accepted from "emergency" loans made to struggling firms, as Bloomberg reports.

The Treasury Department providing a tax break to banks involved in acquisitions that could amount to $140 billion. The Washington Post reveals the change to the tax code was issued on Sept. 30, while Congress was debating the $700 billion TARP bill.

The bailouts are bad enough. But this kind of chicanery and lack of transparency makes me recall a line from another time when fear and deceit dominated Washington: Have they no shame, at long last?

Trump Files Suit Against Lenders
Donald Trump filed suit against the lenders on his unfinished Chicago skyscraper, plunging the project into legal turmoil and highlighting the credit crunch's pervasive effects on real estate.

Mr. Trump is suing to extend a $640 million senior construction loan on the 92-story Trump International Hotel & Tower from a group of lenders led by Deutsche Bank AG and including a unit of Merrill Lynch & Co., Union Labor Life Insurance Co., iStar Financial Inc., a publicly traded real-estate investment trust, and Highland Funds, a unit of Highland Capital Management LP.

The tower, which contains 339 hotel rooms and 486 condominiums, will be the second-tallest building in the U.S. behind Chicago's Sears Tower and is expected to be completed in mid-2009. The hotel, on the lower floors, opened earlier this year. But sales of both the hotel rooms and the condominiums have come in below original estimates and the project's current projected revenue remains short by nearly $100 million needed to pay off the senior lenders.

The lawsuit, filed in New York State supreme court in Queens, is a further indication of the dysfunction in the real-estate lending markets as borrowers and lenders struggle to resolve troubled projects. People familiar with the matter say the lender group, which is made up of more than a dozen institutions, was unable to agree on the extension.

Bonuses for Wall Street Should Go to Zero, U.S. Taxpayers Say
U.S. taxpayers, who feel they own a stake in Wall Street after funding a $700 billion bailout for the industry, don't want executives' bonuses reduced. They want them eliminated.

``I may not understand everything, but I do understand common sense, and when you lend money to someone, you don't want to see them at a new-car dealer the next day,'' said Ken Karlson, a 61-year-old Vietnam veteran and freelance marketer in Wheaton, Illinois. ``The bailout money shouldn't have been given to them in the first place.''

Compensation at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, Citigroup Inc. and the six other banks that received the first $125 billion of the federal funds is under scrutiny by lawmakers, including Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, also a Democrat. President-elect Barack Obama cited the program at his first news conference on Nov. 7, saying it will be reviewed to make sure it's ``not unduly rewarding the management of financial firms receiving government assistance.''

While year-end rewards are likely to decline with a drop in revenue this year, industry veterans say that eliminating them risks driving away the firms' most productive workers.

``There are instances where bonuses are justified, deserved, and in the best interests of the investment bank involved,'' said Dan Lufkin, a co-founder of Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette Inc., the investment bank acquired by Credit Suisse Group AG in 2000. ``Your very best people are people you want to hold, and your very best people will have opportunities even in this environment to transfer allegiance.''

Unfortunately, we are still looking at a coming food crisis. I would be very surprised if WW3 does not break out within 10 years.

Dude, we have to pay farmers not to farm in order to keep commodity prices from falling through the floor. Food is not a problem.

Plus have you seen how effin' *FAT* most Americans are? A famine would do us good.

Another day, another bailout: This time homeowners get to benefit from mortgage-modification programs, designed to stem the tide of foreclosures by making it easier for borrowers to stay current on their loans.

But the latest plans from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, joining banks such as J.P. Morgan Chase and Citigroup, hold plenty of risks.

Take investors in mortgage-backed securities. Modifications to mortgage holders' interest rates could leave some MBS holders with reduced interest payments. Forgiveness of principal, meanwhile, could lead to capital losses.

A bigger worry could be that these modification programs are too effective. In that case, "many current borrowers will wave the white flag of surrender and also try to get a modification," Rod Dubitsky, a senior strategist for asset-backed securities at Credit Suisse, wrote in a recent report.

The danger is that loan holders who otherwise could meet their payments would decide to fall behind to get their cut of the bailout. That could unleash a chain reaction that drives default rates even higher.

That means another dose of moral hazard. Federal officials stopped worrying months ago about that for companies, as they piled up bailout upon bailout to keep the financial system from collapsing. Now officials risk injecting warped incentives into the behavior of individuals.

If the programs take pressure off house prices, MBS holders and borrowers could both make out better than if there weren't any modifications.

But the financial crisis has shown time and again that it is tough to anticipate the unintended consequences resulting from attempts to quell the turmoil.