Infinite Unknown

The number of consumers with delinquent mortgages is poised to almost double by the end of next year, hitting its highest level in at least 16 years, according to a leading credit bureau.

TransUnion LLC, which analyzed about 27 million consumer records in its database, predicted that the proportion of consumers with mortgages that are 60 days or more past-due will hit 7.17% in the fourth quarter of 2009.

That would be the highest level reached since the Chicago credit bureau — which is releasing the data on Tuesday — first started tracking these statistics in 1992. It compares with an expected delinquency rate of 4.67% at the end of 2008.

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Tags: Economy, mortgage crisis, Mortgages, U.S.

Peter Schiff will also be right on Inflation and Gold.

The dollar is not strong because it is ‘the reserve currency’, it is strong because of all the liquidation going on and people are just sitting on cash waiting for better times to come.

What we see now is not deflation, it is the force of liquidation. M3 is over 18%! We will see inflation, even hyperinflation in the US.

Peter Schiff and Ron Paul will be so damn right about the economy.

Today UN economists warn that dollar is in for a hard landing next year:
“The current strength of the dollar is temporary and the US currency risks a hard landing in 2009, according to a team of United Nations economists who foresaw a year ago that a US downturn would bring the global economy to a near standstill.”
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2. November 2008

Source: YouTube

Tags: Cars, Economy, financial crisis, Inflation, mortgage crisis, Mortgages, Peter Schiff, Stock Market, Wall Street

Source: YouTube

Tags: Commodities, Dollar, Economy, financial crisis, Gold, Inflation, mortgage crisis, Mortgages, Peter Schiff, U.S.

TOSS-UP: Volunteer Shannon Amparan organizes bags of fruit before a food giveaway at Montebello Park. About 5,000 people showed up. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Thousands turn out for separate offerings of free food and mortgage help. Some leave empty-handed.

Some sought a cart of groceries the week before Thanksgiving, others sought a way to keep from losing their homes in the new year. By the thousands, a diverse group of Southern Californians converged on two events Saturday aimed at helping families in hard economic times.

The problems, and the aid offered, were vastly different. But both reflected the worries and needs of many.

In Montebello, nearly 5,000 turned out for a food giveaway, a number that stunned organizers who had tried to keep it a low-key event, targeting publicity to several churches and schools. But word of mouth proved stronger than a few fliers, and crowds inundated Montebello Park. A diverse mix of people stood in a six-hour-long line — families from middle- and working-class communities, including Pico Rivera, Montebello, Norwalk and Whittier. No one left empty-handed, though.

In Van Nuys, about 2,000 homeowners attended a workshop promoted as Home Preservation Day. But this was not about how to lay tile or install plumbing. A bank had mailed notices to homeowners in trouble with their mortgages, and Saturday offered them a chance to rework the terms of their loans. Bankers had hoped 100 would turn out, and planned for 200. Loan counselors had time to meet with a fraction of homeowners and some were turned away.

Filling empty cupboards

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Tags: Economy, financial crisis, Food, Foreclosures, mortgage crisis, Mortgages

A new price sign stands atop a sign outside a home in Park Ridge, Illinois, on Nov. 6, 2008. Photographer: Tim Boyle/Bloomberg News

Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) — House prices in 20 U.S. cities declined in the year ended in September at the fastest pace on record as rising foreclosures pushed down property values.

The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index dropped 17.4 percent in September from a year earlier, more than forecast, after a 16.6 percent decline in August. The gauge has fallen every month since January 2007, and year-over-year records began in 2001.

Mounting foreclosures are contributing to the drop in home prices, while adding to the inventory of unsold homes on the market. Lower property values are weighing on household wealth, causing consumers to cutback on spending and increasing the likelihood that the U.S. economy will contract for a second consecutive quarter.

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Tags: Economy, Foreclosures, GDP, housing, housing market, mortgage crisis, Mortgages, U.S.

It has been a hard year for the biggest Swiss bank, UBS. After losing millions in the US sub-prime mortgage market, it has had to beg the Swiss government for help. As Imogen Foulkes reports, its reputation in Switzerland may never recover.

Swiss shareholders are angry that the value of their shares has plummeted

In Zurich, UBS head office sits astride Paradeplatz - Parade Square to you and me.

But in recent months, the Swiss have renamed it Piratenplatz - or Pirate Square - to signify what they believe is the daylight robbery that has taken place over the last 12 months. Not of their biggest bank, but by it.

When the news began to trickle out that UBS was in big trouble because of its exposure to sub-prime mortgages, there was first surprise, then concern, and then finally, as the multi-billion pound extent of the losses became clear, fury.

I remember going to an emergency shareholders meeting earlier this year.

Touch their money and the Swiss get mad Bernhard Weissberg Blick newspaper

UBS has thousands of small shareholders, mostly relatively well-off, mostly elderly, and none of them expecting the value of their shares to be cut in half in a few short months.

Huge bonuses

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Tags: Economy, mortgage crisis, Mortgages, Switzerland, UBS

Nov. 22 (Bloomberg) — Seizure and sale of Downey Financial Corp. and two smaller lenders may cost the FDIC more than $2 billion as foreclosures rise and home prices extend declines in the worst housing slump since the Great Depression.

U.S. Bancorp acquired Downey and smaller PFF Bank & Trust, California thrifts crippled by bad mortgages, yesterday in a deal brokered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Community Bank of Loganville, Georgia, was also closed and its $611.4 million of deposits taken over by Bank of Essex in Tappahannock, Virginia.

Regulators this year have closed the most banks since 1993 as mortgage defaults and tightening credit froze markets. The collapse of IndyMac Bancorp Inc. was among the biggest in history, costing the FDIC $8.9 billion. The agency expects Downey’s demise to deplete its Deposit Insurance Fund by $1.4 billion, with PFF costing $700 million and Community $240 million.

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Tags: bank failure, Banks, Credit Crisis, credit crunch, Economy, FDIC, mortgage crisis, Mortgages

This Is Not A Normal Recession

Moving on to Plan B

“The Winter of 2008-2009 will prove to be the winter of global economic discontent that marks the rejection of the flawed ideology that unregulated global financial markets promote financial innovation, market efficiency, unhampered growth and endless prosperity while mitigating risk by spreading it system wide.” Economists Paul Davidson and Henry C.K. Liu “Open Letter to World Leaders attending the November 15 White House Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy”

The global economy is being sucked into a black hole and most Americans have no idea why. The whole problem can be narrowed down to two words; “structured finance”.

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Tags: AIG, Banks, Bear Stearns, Ben Bernanke, bubble, Credit Crisis, credit crunch, Derivatives, Derivatives market, Economy, Fannie Mae, Fed, Federal Reserve, Freddie Mac, Great Depression, Henry Paulson, Lehman Brothers, mortgage crisis, Mortgages, Politics, Recession, Stock Market, taxpayers, Treasury, Wall Street, Washington Mutual

Online estate agent says latest figures underestimate fall in prices by two-thirds

House prices across the UK have already fallen far further than official data and market indicators suggest, Rightmove, the online estate agent warned yesterday, as it revealed that up to 300 estate agents were quitting its service every month.

While the latest figures from leading mortgage lenders such as Halifax suggest that prices are down by 15 per cent from their peak, Rightmove said the falls were up to two-thirds higher.

Miles Shipside, the commercial director of Rightmove, said: “Estate agents tell us that the actual prices that are being achieved [initially between buyers and sellers] for property are down by about 20 to 25 per cent beneath peak asking prices. That has not come out in the national indices.”

His revelation suggests that house prices have not only fallen much further than the highly regarded surveys of Halifax and Nationwide, which both track house prices based on agreed mortgages, but could also be lagging behind the situation on the ground.

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Tags: Economy, housing, housing market, mortgage crisis, Mortgages, real estate

A man sweeps the area outside his tent with a broken broom at “tent city”, a terminus for the homeless in Ontario, a suburb outside Los Angeles, California December 19, 2007. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama has vowed to help middle-class U.S. homeowners facing foreclosure, but he has said little about how he will help low-income families made homeless by a worsening economy.

Obama has spoken broadly about boosting affordable housing and restoring public housing subsidies. But with economists forecasting a deep recession in 2009, he may find it hard to find the money to fulfill those promises soon.

At the same time, advocacy groups and the country’s czar for combating homelessness say immediate action is needed to halt the foreclosures of tens of thousands of homes and rehouse thousands of families amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

“President-elect Obama understands the economy will only get back on track if we end the foreclosure crisis. And he realizes that part of ending the crisis is both preventing and ending homelessness for families losing their homes,” said Jeremy Rosen of the National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Economy, financial crisis, Foreclosures, Homelessness, middle class, mortgage crisis, Mortgages, Politics, Society, U.S.