Thu 2009-10-01 10:14 EDT

Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS): A System Designed to Create the Mortgage Back Security Bubble. >> Dr. Housing Bubble Blog

Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems (MERS)...claims to be a privately-held company and their function is keeping track of a confidential electronic registry of mortgages and the modifications to servicing rights and ownership of the loans. However, if you dig deeper into MERS and their shareholders you will find the same crony bankers...shareholders include AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, WaMu, CitiMortgage, Countrywide, GMAC, Guaranty Bank, and Merrill Lynch...MERS allowed for the mortgage backed security business to explode since it allowed mortgages to be shipped off to Wall Street to be minced into tiny tranches and sold off by the big investment banks...MERS is a front for the mortgage and banking industry. It is claimed as a system of convenience but in reality, it is nothing more than the grease to lube up the housing bubble...what is significant about the Kansas Supreme Court finding has to do with the actual legal ownership of the note and deed especially when it comes to foreclosure...MERS is a straw man...provides ``an opaque veil that clouds not only the actual real ownership of the promissory note, but title to the property.''

created; Dr. Housing Bubble Blog; MER; mortgage; mortgage Electronic Registration System; security bubble; Systems designed.

Tue 2009-09-29 11:39 EDT

The Health Care Deceit

Paul Craig Roberts, CounterPunch

...The health care bill is not about health care. It is about protecting and increasing the profits of the insurance companies. The main feature of the health care bill is the ``individual mandate,'' which requires everyone in America to buy health insurance. Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont), a recipient of millions in contributions over his career from the insurance industry, proposes to impose up to a $3,800 fine on Americans who fail to purchase health insurance...The telltale part of Obama's speech was the applause in response to his pledge that ``I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits.'' Yet, Obama and his fellow politicians have no hesitation to add trillions of dollars to the deficit in order to fund wars...t was the war in Afghanistan, not health care, that President Obama declared to be a ``necessity.''

Health Care Deceit.

naked capitalism Tue 2009-09-22 13:02 EDT

Bank of America: 40% of Junk Bonds to Default by 2013

With more than half the corporate bonds rated junk, thanks to highly-levered takeovers, it wasn't hard to imagine that a protracted economic bad spell could lead to a lot of defaults...the novel feature of the binge of late-cycle merger loans, ``cov lite'' deals, will make the damage worse...the odds of a successful [re]structuring are lower, and more companies will wind up liquidating. Thus not only will defaults reach new post-war highs, but recoveries are likely to be lower.

2013; 40; America; bank; default; junk bonds; naked capitalism.

The Realignment Project Tue 2009-09-22 09:00 EDT

Public Virtues -- Part 3 (Institutional Continuity)

The Realignment Project

...all companies have to focus on the short-term. But the same is not true for the public sector....public institutions are not bound by the business cycle...government can act as the ultimate venture capitalist, making investments that might not pay off for decades to come, and it's a role that only the public sector can play...American governments at all levels have enjoyed huge success as extreme long-term venture capitalists in infrastructure and technology.

Institutional continues; Part 3; public virtues; Realignment Project.

Thu 2009-09-17 10:36 EDT

Milton Friedman and the Economics of Empire

Greg Grandin

Excerpt from Greg Grandin's Empire's Workshop. (Milton Friedman, Chile, Arnold Harberger, General Augusto Pinochet's military government, shock treatment) Not only had Nixon, the CIA, and ITT, along with other companies, plotted to destabilize Allende's "democratic road to socialism," but now a renowned University of Chicago economist, whose promotion of the wonders of the free market was heavily subsidized by corporations such as Bechtel, Pepsico, Getty, Pfizer, General Motors, W.R. Grace, and Firestone, was advising the dictator who overthrew him on how to complete the counterrevolution -- at the cost of skyrocketing unemployment among Chile's poor. The New York Times identified Friedman as the "guiding light of the junta's economic policy," while columnist Anthony Lewis asked: if "pure Chicago economic theory can be carried out in Chile only at the price of repression, should its authors feel some responsibility?"

economic; Empire; Milton Friedman.

naked capitalism Thu 2009-09-17 09:46 EDT

``How China Cooks Its Books''

We've commented from time to time on dubious Chinese data releases. But this report from Foreign Policy reports on an interest aspect: that the statistics are not manipulated only in the normal bureaucratic manner (fudging them) but also by getting companies to change behavior so it can be tallied in a more flattering fashion....unemployment is likely 40 to 50 million, as opposed to the widely reported 20 to 30 million; the statistical manipulations are a surprisingly broad-based initiative.

books; China Cooks; naked capitalism.

Thu 2009-09-17 09:31 EDT

Why capitalism fails - The Boston Globe

Stephen Mihm

Mainstream economics rediscovers Hyman Minsky; ``Instability,'' he wrote, ``is an inherent and inescapable flaw of capitalism.''...Minsky drew his own, far darker, lessons from Keynes's landmark writings, which dealt not only with the problem of unemployment, but with money and banking...Minsky argued that Keynes's collective work amounted to a powerful argument that capitalism was by its very nature unstable and prone to collapse. Far from trending toward some magical state of equilibrium, capitalism would inevitably do the opposite. It would lurch over a cliff...Minsky spent the last years of his life, in the early 1990s, warning of the dangers of securitization and other forms of financial innovation, but few economists listened. Nor did they pay attention to consumers' and companies' growing dependence on debt, and the growing use of leverage within the financial system... Minsky...argued for a ``bubble-up'' approach, sending money to the poor and unskilled first. The government - or what he liked to call ``Big Government'' - should become the ``employer of last resort,'' he said, offering a job to anyone who wanted one at a set minimum wage. It would be paid to workers who would supply child care, clean streets, and provide services that would give taxpayers a visible return on their dollars. In being available to everyone, it would be even more ambitious than the New Deal, sharply reducing the welfare rolls by guaranteeing a job for anyone who was able to work. Such a program would not only help the poor and unskilled, he believed, but would put a floor beneath everyone else's wages too, preventing salaries of more skilled workers from falling too precipitously, and sending benefits up the socioeconomic ladder.

Boston Globe; Capitalism Failed.

zero hedge Sun 2009-09-13 15:41 EDT

Mortgage Bankers Association Q2 Delinquency Rate Update

Even the traditionally optimistic MBA is starting to acknowledge the reality of accelerating deterioration within commercial real estate, as well as the delinquency pick up in multi-family loans by the Agencies...Life Insurance companies are dramatically misreporting their delinquency rates in an apparent effort to present an overoptimistic picture, with the blessing of the administration and the accountants

Mortgage Bankers Association Q2 Delinquency Rate Update; Zero Hedge.

zero hedge Sun 2009-09-13 15:40 EDT

Mortgage Bankers Association Q2 Delinquency Rate Update

Even the traditionally optimistic MBA is starting to acknowledge the reality of accelerating deterioration within commercial real estate, as well as the delinquency pick up in multi-family loans by the Agencies...Life Insurance companies are dramatically misreporting their delinquency rates in an apparent effort to present an overoptimistic picture, with the blessing of the administration and the accountants

Mortgage Bankers Association Q2 Delinquency Rate Update; Zero Hedge.

Jesse's Café Américain Sun 2009-09-13 10:32 EDT

Barrick Capitulates

Jesse

Barrick and their partner J.P. Morgan were the target of lawsuits by the gold bulls, most notably Blanchard and Company, for price manipulation through the use of their forward sales in their hedge book. Barrick's original defense was reported to be that they were acting in conjunction with J. P. Morgan and the central banks to cap the price of gold, and were therefore immune from prosecution since the central banks are immune from prosecution. Gold market manipulations.

Barrick Capitulates; Jesse's Café Américain.

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis Fri 2009-09-11 18:10 EDT

How Many Rabbits Are Left In The Hat?

Michael Shedlock

Dave Rosenberg observes simply awful employment details...65% of companies are still in the process of cutting their staff loads, manufacturing employment fell to its lowest level since April 1941, temp agency employment is still declining, flat workweek, and jobless claims stuck at 570,000 are all foreshadowing continued weakness in the labour market

hat; left; Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis; rabbit.

Bruce Krasting Tue 2009-09-08 12:06 EDT

Wallboard - China Inc.+$25mm, USA $-3.2b

Bruce Krasting

The Wall Street Journal had an interesting piece Tuesday on defective wallboard that had been imported from China . The LA Times had a more detailed discussion of this problem on July 4th. This article makes a case that the wall material may contain radioactive material. It provides the names of some of the companies involved. The problematic wallboard was sent to the US in 2006. These imports totaled $25 million. The WSJ estimates that the cost of repairing a home that has this material is $100,000. The LAT piece puts the number of homes involved at 32,000. Put those two numbers together. There are $3.2billion of losses relating to $25mm of wallboard.

25MM; 2B; 3; Bruce Krasting; China Inc; USA; wallboard.

Calculated Risk Fri 2009-09-04 19:01 EDT

Junk Bond Default Rate Passes 10 Percent

CalculatedRisk

From Rolfe Winkler at Reuters: U.S. junk bond default rate rises to 10.2 pct -SP The U.S. junk bond default rate rose to 10.2 percent in August from 9.4 percent in July ... Standard & Poor's data showed on Thursday. The default rate is expected to rise to 13.9 percent by July 2010 and could reach as high as 18 percent if economic conditions are worse than expected, SP said in a statement. ... In another sign of corporate distress, the rating agency has downgraded $2.9 trillion of company debt year to date, up from $1.9 trillion in the same period last year. Bad loans everywhere ...

Calculated Risk; Junk Bond Default Rate Passes 10 Percent.

zero hedge Wed 2009-09-02 20:01 EDT

Money On The Sidelines... 1930 Versus 2009

There is a saying, that everything new is just well-forgotten old. The same apparently is especially applicable to propaganda that seeks to part fools with their money. Today's brownie point question is: was the statement below just uttered by Larry Kudlow, or did it appear first more than 79 years ago? There's a large amount of money on sidelines waiting for investment opportunities; this should be felt in market when ``cheerful sentiment is more firmly intrenched.'' Economists point out that banks and insurance companies ``never before had so much money lying idle.'' If you answered "the latter" you were correct. It first appeared on August 28, 1930 to be precise (and who knows how many times prior...

1930 Versus 2009; money; sidelined; Zero Hedge.

Jesse's Café Américain Tue 2009-09-01 14:56 EDT

Chinese State-Owned Companies Object to Face-Rippings, Wall Street Indignant

Jesse

After one too many face-rippings by the merry Pranksters of Wall Street, China's state-owned companies have run to their government to complain about the fraudulent nature of their derivatives contracts. Chinese state firms reneging on fraudulent derivative contracts.

Chinese State-Owned Companies Object; Face-Rippings; Jesse's Café Américain; Wall Street Indignant.

Steve Keen's Debtwatch Sun 2009-08-30 14:33 EDT

It's Hard Being a Bear (Part Two)

Cassander

One of the reasons I'm still a bear on the economy is because the economists in the optimists camp are relying upon very bad economic theory. If that theory is telling them good times are ahead, that's one of the best predictors of bad times you could have. Capital Assets Pricing Model (CAPM) preached that stock market price shares accurately, that the amount of debt finance a company has doesn't affect its value, and many other notions that have gone up in smoke during the GFC. CAPM developer William Sharpe ``assumed a miracle'': all investors agree about the future and their expectations about the future are correct. Macroeconomic theory has been dominated by IS-LM model erroneously attributed to Keynes but actually due to convervative neoclassical John Hicks, which ``emasculated what was original in Keynes's General Theory, and this bowdlerised version of Keynes was then demolished by Friedman in the 1970s to usher in the Monetarist phase''

Bear; hard; part; Steve Keen's Debtwatch.