ECONOMIC UPDATE - 4/29/10
Möebius Pretzel
Employers announced plans to cut 67,611 jobs in March, according to
outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. That's up 61% from
February, when 42,090 jobs were lost
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Home Prices Will Collapse
By Peter Schiff
Given the massive support for real estate already afforded by record-
low interest rates and massive federal tax and policy incentives,
there are very good reasons to believe that home prices will indeed
collapse when these crutches are removed.
http://www.investmentnews.com/
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Geithner: "Pickpocketing Trillions from the People to Give to the
Oligarchy Was Deeply Unfair, but we ... um ... had to."
Tim Geithner told the 'Today Show' that:
It's "deeply unfair" that some financial institutions that got
taxpayer-paid bailouts are emerging in better shape from the recession
than millions of ordinary Americans.
Geithner also argued that President Barack Obama had no choice when
confronted with a financial crisis.
"As the president has said, we had to do some very unpopular things,"
Geithner said. "People looked at what had happened."
"It's not fair. It's deeply unfair," he said. "He (Obama) had to
decide whether he was going to act to fix it or stand back ... and
that would have been calamitous for the American economy."
There are only a couple of minor inaccuracies in Geithner's
statements:
* The government hasn't done anything to fix the economy
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/04/geithner-looting-country-for-trillions.html
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Mortgage delinquencies rise to nearly 14%
Webmaster's Commentary: Mike Rivero
There is no economic recovery.
There is no economic recovery.
There is no economic recovery.
The US Federal Government is lying to you when it says there is.
They don't know how to fix it.
They are not even trying.
The bovine excrement about recovery they are feeding to you is to keep
you from tarring and feathering the greedy bastards while they strip-
mine what is left of the carcass of this nation as it trashes in its
death-throes.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100325/bs_nm/us_usa_financial_mortgages
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Half of U.S. Home Loan Modifications Default Again
More than half of U.S. borrowers who received loan modifications on
delinquent mortgages defaulted again after nine months, according to a
federal report.
The re-default rate of loans modified in the first quarter of 2009 was
51.5 percent by the end of the year, the Office of the Comptroller of
the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision said in a joint
report today. The figure, which measures payments at least 30 days
late, climbed to 57.9 percent for changes made in the prior 12 months.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aVYxPZ56vjys
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Personal Income Drops Across the Country
Personal income in 42 states fell in 2009, the Commerce Department
said Thursday.
Nevada's 4.8% plunge was the steepest, as construction and tourism
industries took a beating. Also hit hard: Wyoming, where incomes fell
3.9%.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703409804575144033573666238.html
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Social Security to See Payout Exceed Pay-In This Year
The bursting of the real estate bubble and the ensuing recession have
hurt jobs, home prices and now Social Security.
This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives
in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross
until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Webmaster's Commentary: Mike Rivero
For those of you nearing retirement age, who actually believed that
there would be anything left in the social security system for you
when you retired, from what you contributed during your working life,
there most likely will be absolutely nothing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/business/economy/25social.html?hp
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Barton Biggs: Stock A Safe Haven With Food And Firearms To Protect
Against Doomsday Pillagers
Former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson warns:
"We're running out of time ... to prevent a true depression." He says
unless we break Wall Street's "stranglehold" we will be unable prevent
the Great Depression 2.
Morgan Stanley research guru turned hedge fund manager Barton Biggs
(pictured), who called the market rally, advises that you buy a farm a
good distance away from a city and, he advises, make sure that your
doomsday safe-haven:
* Be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food
* Be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine,
clothes, etc
And get a gun, he says, because "a few rounds over the approaching
brigands' heads would probably be a compelling persuader that there
are easier farms to pillage."
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Economists: Another Financial Crisis on the Way
Even as many Americans still struggle to recover from the country's
worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, another crisis --
one that will be even worse than the current one -- is looming,
according to a new report from a group of leading economists,
financiers, and former federal regulators.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/economists-warn-financial-us-economy/story?id=9990828&page=1
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When It Comes to Innovation,
Is America Becoming a Third World Country?
A report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
looked at the progress made over the last decade in the area of
innovation.
Out of the 40 countries and regions it examined, the U.S. ranked dead
last.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/when-it-comes-to-innovati_b_512280.html
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Banks Biggest Winners in Obama's New Foreclosure Plan
The initial foreclosure relief program unveiled a year ago was
supposed to help up to four million struggling homeowners.
So far fewer than 200,000 borrowers have been granted permanent loan
modifications.
http://www.alternet.org/news/146228
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CrossTalk on Billionaires: The money tumor
Interview that includes Ellen Brown, author of "Web of Debt"!
The combined wealth of the world's billionaires soared 50%, from $2.4
to $3.6 trillion, in 2010.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7moo-O2Rok
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The Great American Bank Heist – On the Day we Reach a Monthly
Foreclosure Filing Record Banks Announce Record Profits & the Stock
Market is up 80%
It is rather fitting that on the day we hear about banks reaching
record profits once again, because after all it is so difficult to
borrow at zero percent and gamble in the stock market and make a gain,
that we also find out that March was the highest month of foreclosure
filings ever (and we’ve had some bad months).
If there was ever a more clear indication between the split from Main
Street and Wall Street this is probably the strongest indicator so
far.
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75% Of Homeowners In Obama's Loan Modification Plan Still Owe More
Than Their Homes Are Worth
Over half of the roughly 170,000 distressed borrowers who have gone
through the program are seriously underwater, meaning they have
negative equity of at least 25 percent, the report shows, citing data
through February.
In other words, for every $1.00 their home is worth, they owe at least
$1.25.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/14/obamas-home-loan-modifica_n_536801.html
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Eating well on $68.88 a week? That's the food stamp budget for a
family of 4
How well can a family of four eat on just $68.88 a week?
For more than 38 million Americans, it's more than a matter of
conjecture.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36507576/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition
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More Than 53% of Your Tax Payment Goes to the Military
The 2011 military budget, by the way, is the largest in history, not
just in actual dollars, but in inflation-adjusted dollars, exceeding
even the spending in World War II, when the nation was on an all-out
war footing.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25206.htm
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U.S. Cities In Free Fall
Economic indicators in these metros have gone from bad to worse, with
no sign of recovery.
http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/us-cities-in-free-fall
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California’s unemployment rate hits high of 12.6%
California’s unemployment rate reached a new high in March, hitting
12.6%, bolstering fears that unemployment will remain a persistent
problem through at least the end of the year.
The unemployment rate in February was 12.5%.
California was tied with Rhode Island for the third-highest
unemployment rate in the nation, after Michigan and Nevada, according
to data released Friday morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The
national unemployment rate in March was 9.7%.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2010/04/californias-unemployment-rate-hits-high-of-126.html
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One Million Foreclosures in 2010: That’s Recovery, Mr. President?
President Obama has repeatedly promised the American people oodles of
hope and change. So far, he has delivered tons of despair and more of
the same.
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/22036
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Illinois bank-owned foreclosures double in first quarter
Almost 15,000 Illinois homeowners lost their homes to foreclosure in
the year's first three months, twice as many as the number that went
back to lenders during 2009's first three months, new figures show.
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Foreclosure Pipeline Is Full to Bursting
The foreclosure pipeline will be full for years to come. That
precludes any "recovery" in housing valuations as supply will swamp
demand.
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Next bubble: $600 trillion?
As interest rates begin to rise worldwide, losses in derivatives may
end up bankrupting a wide range of institutions, including
municipalities, state governments, major insurance companies, top
investment houses, commercial banks and universities.
Defaults now beginning to occur in a number of European cities
prefigure what may end up being the largest financial bubble ever to
burst – a bubble that today amounts to more than $600 trillion.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=143057
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For nations living the good life, the party's over, IMF says
In the lingo of the International Monetary Fund, the future of the
world hinges on "rebalancing and consolidation," antiseptic words that
would not seem to raise a fuss.
Who doesn't want more balance in their life?
But the translation is a bit ruder, something on the order of: "Suck
it up. The party's over."
To keep the global economy on track, people in the United States and
the rest of the developed world need to work longer before retiring,
pay higher taxes and expect less from government. And the cheap
imports lining the shelves of mega-chains such as Wal-Mart and Target?
They need to be more expensive.....
http://eclipptv.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=319
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College Graduates’ Debt Load May Outstrip Ability to Repay
Students, especially at for-profit universities, are leaving college
in the U.S. with a debt load large enough to raise questions about the
ability of many to repay loans, a study found.
Webmaster's Commentary: Mike Rivero
The high-paying jobs used to lure students into debt for their
education have fled to foreign shores, and the end result is that in
the United States, college graduates are working as cooks and store
clerks.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_en&sid=a3WrFTm7EAuE&source=patrick.net
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