Here's the latest Case-Shiller data, adjusted for October 2011.
Say, is that a green shoot?
Say, is that a green shoot?
The Times has forgotten -- or, more likely, chosen to ignore -- a long and sordid history of government involvement with housing.
But all was not well. Foreclosures rose from 2% in 1922 to 11% in 1927.
Instead, the feds reacted to the crisis by forming the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC). HOLC was a New Deal bailout organization that turned government into an even bigger player in the housing market. HOLC would buy up troubled mortgages from banks and allow homeowners to refinance.
Put simply, the U.S. government had federalized much of the mortgage market.
After the riots of 1968, the government passed a law giving poor families FHA-insured loans with nearly no down payments.
Community agitators claimed studies were demonstrating that blacks were not receiving the same number of loans as whites; and the media jumped on the bandwagon. Experts pointed out, however, that creditworthiness of borrowers had not been taken into account.
Acorn also successfully applied political pressure to Congress, which passed legislation in 1992 that required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to devote 30% of their loan portfolios to low- and moderate-income borrowers.
In early 2000 the FDIC proposed increasing capital requirements for lenders making subprime loans, Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and John J. LaFalce (D-NY) battled the attempts, urging the regulators “not to be premature” with stricter underwriting.
In October 1994, Fannie Mae head James Johnson reminded a banking convention that mortgages with small down payments had a much higher risk of defaulting (actually, three times more likely to default). Yet the very next month, Fannie expanded its program to include products with a 97 percent loan-to-value ratio (a 3% down payment), the result of more political pressure from Maxine Waters and others in Congress.
Barney Frank (D-MA) has aggressively resisted attempts to privatize the GSEs, which would eliminate both the risk to taxpayers and the political influence endemic in the series of failures. And the Obama administration’s various mortgage bailout plans have not only failed, they also eerily resemble the New Deal’s HOLC.
How Nancy Pelosi Made Millions Blocking Credit Card Legislation: BGQOTD: "How did Nancy Pelosi snag one of the most coveted initial public offerings in history? ...Pelosi received her Visa IPO almost two weeks after a potentially damaging piece of legislation for Visa, the Credit Card Fair Fee Act, had been introduced in the House. If passed, the bill would have cut into Visa’s profits substantially by lowering so-called “interchange fees,” the 1% to 3% charge retailers pay Visa when customers use Visa cards for purchases. Interchange fees are a critical source of revenue for the four credit card companies–$48 billion in 2008, to be exact.
...[But] with at least ten percent of the Pelosi family’s entire stock portfolio invested in a single stock, Nancy Pelosi clearly had a vested interest in ensuring that Visa’s profits were protected. And that is exactly what she accomplished. Despite broad public support for the bill—77% in one study—Pelosi saw to it that the bill never made it to the House floor." --Wynton Hall
I just love it when progressives and big government Republicans prattle endlessly about the need for more regulation. Every industry in America is regulated to an unprecedented degree, with thousands upon thousands of federal bureaucrats micromanaging light-bulbs, shower heads, the size of toilet tanks, gas mileage, energy exploration, dishwasher design, and everything else you can think of.The Washington Post reported on its Web site Friday that seven SEC employees had been disciplined, based on details provided by a person familiar with the actions. A second source, an official involved in the process, told The Post that Schapiro had received recommendations to fire an employee over the mishandling of the Madoff case.
Later Friday, Nester confirmed details and added that an eighth employee also received disciplinary action. A ninth employee, who was facing a potential seven-day suspension, resigned before disciplinary action was taken, Nester said.
The punishments given the SEC employees varied and included suspensions, pay cuts and demotions.
The employee recommended for termination received one of the more severe penalties, a 30-day suspension along with a reduction in pay and grade. Another was given a pay cut of 5.7 percent. At the low end, one employee was suspended for seven days, another for three days and two others were issued counseling memos, a step below a reprimand.
When President-elect Obama came to Washington in late 2008, he was outspoken about the need for an economic stimulus to revive a struggling economy... After he was sworn in as president, he proclaimed that taxpayer money would assuredly not be doled out to political friends...
...But an examination of grants and guaranteed loans offered by just one stimulus program run by the Department of Energy, for alternative-energy projects, is stunning. The so-called 1705 Loan Guarantee Program and the 1603 Grant Program channeled billions of dollars to all sorts of energy companies...
...In the 1705 government-backed-loan program [alone], for example, $16.4 billion of the $20.5 billion in loans granted as of Sept. 15 went to companies either run by or primarily owned by Obama financial backers—individuals who were bundlers, members of Obama’s National Finance Committee, or large donors to the Democratic Party. The grant and guaranteed-loan recipients were early backers of Obama before he ran for president, people who continued to give to his campaigns and exclusively to the Democratic Party in the years leading up to 2008. Their political largesse is probably the best investment they ever made in alternative energy. It brought them returns many times over.
...The Government Accountability Office has been highly critical of the way guaranteed loans and grants were doled out by the Department of Energy, complaining that the process appears “arbitrary” and lacks transparency. In March 2011, for example, the GAO examined the first 18 loans that were approved and found that none were properly documented. It also noted that officials “did not always record the results of analysis” of these applications. A loan program for electric cars, for example, “lacks performance measures.” No notes were kept during the review process, so it is difficult to determine how loan decisions were made. The GAO further declared that the Department of Energy “had treated applicants inconsistently in the application review process, favoring some applicants and disadvantaging others.” The Department of Energy’s inspector general, Gregory Friedman, ... has testified that contracts have been steered to “friends and family.”
...These programs might be the greatest—and most expensive—example of crony capitalism in American history. Tens of billions of dollars went to firms controlled or owned by fundraisers, bundlers, and political allies, many of whom—surprise!—are now raising money for Obama again...
Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn asked Holder if he has apologized to Terry’s family for what happened to him because of the DOJ’s controversial program. Holder replied that he hasn’t.
“I have not apologized to them, but I certainly regret what happened,” Holder said.
Cornyn followed up, asking if Holder has “even talked to them.”
“I have not,” Holder replied.
Cornyn offered Holder the opportunity to apologize to Terry’s family, during the hearing, for his murder. “Would you like to apologize today for this program that went so wrong and that took the life of a United States law enforcement agent?”
Holder expressed his sadness without apologizing.
Politico reported Thursday that Attorney General Eric Holder sent a “private letter” to the family of murdered Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, apologizing for his death. But friends of the Terry family question the Department of Justice’s apparent decision to leak that letter to media before both his parents had read it.
...friends of the Terry family told The Daily Caller on Thursday that they haven’t received it...
...If what [they] said is true, either Holder never sent his “private letter” to Terry’s parents or someone at the Justice Department leaked it to Politico before its recipients received it.
Deficit Reduction Fever: SteynQOTD: "I think the arrogance, and frankly, the sometimes latent anti-Semitism that the Europeans have, that has been tragic over and over again…I mean, you know, here’s a man…Bibi Netanyahu is worried about the very survival of his country. He has in the Palestinian Authority somebody who is a clear public liar, who has said that ultimately, they don’t want a peace agreement, they want to get rid of Israel. He has in Hamas a mortal enemy. He has in Hezbollah a mortal enemy. He has in Iran Ahmadinejad, a dictator who says he wants to eliminate Israel from the face of the Earth. And yet their nasty comments are aimed at Netanyahu? I mean, it tells you just what’s wrong with the elites in Europe, and frankly, the elites in the United States." --Newt Gingrich
Hillary Clinton gave a major foreign policy address on Monday articulating the Obama Administration’s updated policy toward the Arab uprisings, and it didn’t get the news coverage it deserved. That was probably to be expected, since her speech revealed a pronounced tilt toward the Islamists vying for political power after the “Arab Spring”, a tilt that will discomfit many Americans. Luckily, some people were paying attention. Here are two reactions from solid Middle East analysts with disparate viewpoints and approaches who both reacted to Hillary’s remarks with similar raised eyebrows.
This is actually very important, especially if you are concerned about where Obama is leading our country.
More Questions Than Answers in Secretary Clinton’s Remarks on the Arab Uprisings
One of the consequences of Secretary of State Clinton’s speech will be for people in the Middle East to conclude that the United States now endorses Islamist parties.
-- Robert M. Danin, Council on Foreign Relations, November 8, 2011It’s Official: Obama Administration Promotes Islamist Regimes; Insists They are Moderate
But now there can be no doubt that Obama’s Middle East policy is engaged in what might be the biggest blunder in the history of U.S. foreign policy.
-- Barry Rubin, PJ Media, November 8, 2011
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is developing Underground Injection Control Class II permitting guidance for hydraulic fracturing activities that use diesel fuels in fracturing fluids.
"In our opinion, this is an underhanded attempt to pick the lock on the back door and get regulatory oversight over fracturing. As I have said earlier, this could easily stop 95 percent of North Dakota drilling for 18 to 24 months and slow it to half or less of current levels after that," said Lynn Helms, Bismarck, director of the N.D. Department of Mineral Resources.The EPA is studying any potential impact of fracking on groundwater and drinking water and Helms has said also would impact drilling in the state. That study was announced earlier this year.
Hydraulic fracturing, also called fracturing or fracking, is a process used to break open oil-bearing rock with pressurized fluid and sand. The process is used in about 95 percent of the wells drilled in North Dakota.
..."They have conducted three public meetings and the environmental community is pressing for a broad definition of diesel fuel that would define it as any petroleum distillate that is found in diesel fuel," Helms said... He said this would be a different definition than the other 163 references to diesel fuel in the Energy Policy Act 2005.
Helms said the Independent Petroleum Association of America has filed a lawsuit to stop the process, with oral arguments to be heard in federal court shortly... A brief filed by IPAA legal counsel in March said, in summary, "there is no reason to believe that EPA's new interpretation of the SDWA and its implementing regulations reflects a carefully reasoned change in policy."
It goes on to say, "An agency cannot do so formally or informally without engaging in a proper rulemaking when the consequence for the regulated community is complying at the cost of many thousands of dollars or potentially being subject to an enforcement action. EPA's decision should be vacated and EPA should be barred from enforcing its position until such time as EPA engages in a rulemaking that satisfies the APA and the SDWA."
Throughout the Obamacare debate, President Obama repeatedly promised, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.” Now, Gallup reports that from the first quarter of 2010 (when Obama signed Obamacare into law) to the third quarter of this year, 2 percent of American adults lost their employer sponsored health insurance. In other words, about 4.5 million Americans lost their employer-sponsored insurance over a span of just 18 months...
what’s clear is that, more than 25 months before Obamacare would really go into effect — if it’s not repealed first — employers are already dropping employees from their insurance rolls.
Take Walmart, for example — a prominent Obamacare supporter. Gallup writes,
“The nation's largest private employer, Wal-Mart, announced in October that new part-time employees who work less than an average of 24 hours a week would no longer be able to get their health insurance from the company. Wal-Mart laid out several other cuts to its health insurance offerings, including some workers’ ability get coverage for their spouses. Other companies have already made and will likely continue to make similar changes to their health insurance benefits….
“If Wal-Mart's decision is a precursor of how employers intend to manage their healthcare costs, the downward trend in employer-based healthcare will likely continue.”
So in addition to costing about $2.5 trillion over its real first decade (2014 to 2023), looting nearly $1 trillion from Medicare over that time (according to the CBO), forcing Americans to buy government-approved health insurance under penalty of law, and amassing unprecedented power and money in Washington at the expense of Americans’ liberty — if Obamacare stays on the books, you may like your health care plan, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can keep your health care plan...
Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore has been touring Occupy Wall Street demonstrations across the country–including some of the most violent, such as Occupy Oakland–urging activists to continue their fight against the wealthy “one percent” of Americans... Through an independent source, Big Hollywood has obtained exclusive photographs of the house matching the address of Moore’s waterfront mansion. It is the kind of luxurious summer home that 99 percent of Americans can only dream of owning....Moore’s Torch Lake vacation home is likely worth close to $2 million...
...In addition, according to statistics from 2009, Forest Home Township has no black residents. The township is roughly 98 percent white. Call that 99 percent, and Moore’s claim to be among “the 99 percent” begins to have some basis in reality.
No one begrudges Moore his wealth, but it is deceitful for him to claim poverty while encouraging class warfare among other Americans. It is also purely narcissistic and selfish for Moore to back radical and destructive socialist policies that would deny other Americans the opportunity to become as rich as he is.
Hi, Mark, I just wanted to call in and let you know a year ago, October 2010, my plumbing company did some work for Ms. Pelosi and her husband in D.C., took care of her problem and billed her accordingly... She chose to ignore payment of that bill and we kept sending her an invoice, pretty much on a routine basis and never heard back from her.
We sent her a nice letter saying, 'Please, this invoice is past due', and she chose not to pay it. She says she's for the common person, but it's ironic.
...I work for the plumbing business... this has been over a year now... [There's no dispute] ...the problem was solved and the thing that bothers me is that we provided materials for the job, the labor was performed, my employer paid the plumber and had to buy the materials, and it just seems very unfair that everything was done in good faith... and nothing reimbursed... [The owner] is a small-business owner and he knows this is going to be the case on an occasional basis, but it seems so unbelievable that somebody in that position -- who can afford to pay her bill for a service that was rendered -- chose not to.
...It was October of 2010 and Mr. Pelosi called the office and I happened to be the one who answered the call. He, it was interesting, we chuckled after we hung up, because he was dropping his name, his wife's name, interjecting it into the conversation... to make clear that I understood who this was...
We showed up, took care of the problem, everything was solved. Just a routine service call... it wasn't a major thing, it had to do with the bathtub in the bathroom, it wasn't draining properly. And she want to be able to use that as a form of relaxation at night; he informed me of that in the call. So we took care of that for her. It was nothing serious or overly complicated.
[The bill wasn't a large amount] ...not at all, absolutely blowing us off.
Yet three years after the mortgage meltdown and the vaunted Obama stimulus program, the real unemployment rate (U-6) actually worsened even if we look at the year of 2011 alone. The U-6 unemployment rate remains over 16% and could actually be far worse because of some of the tricks used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In fact, ShadowStats.com puts unemployment in excess of 22 percent.
Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg. The job losses we'll see in the coming years will make what we've seen thus far look like a jaunt in the park. A quick review of recent articles describing the impact of the massive regulatory state (the EPA alone has grown 120 percent under Obama) offers some ominous projections for future job losses.| Description | Jobs Destroyed | Source |
| Delaying the Keystone XL Pipeline until after the 2012 election | 20,000 | LA Times |
| Forcing lignite coal plants in Texas to close (EPA) | 14,000 | Heritage |
| Gulf Drilling Moratorium (Interior) | 72,000 | LA Times |
| EPA's Cross-State Air Pollution Rule | 1,440,000 | Daily Caller |
| EPA's determination that coal ash is a "hazardous waste" | 250,000 | Western Caucus |
| EPA's shutdown of AEP plants | 5,000 | CAPPS Online |
| EPA's commercial and industrial boiler regulations | 800,000 | Clatskanie Chief |
| Interior Department's protection of lizards and smelt fish | 75,000 | Human Events |
| Jobs killed by the Obama environmental machine | 2,676,000 |
CBS Report to Expose Insider Trading on Capitol Hill: C4PQOTD: "Sarkozy then said of Netanyahu, “I cannot bear him, he’s a liar,” to which President Obama reportedly said, “You may be sick of him, but me, I have to deal with him every day.”A number of journalists heard this but did not report on it after staffers from Sarkozy’s office went to the journalists and told them the comments were meant to be private. According to reports, French media tradition requires journalists to honor that privacy, and in keeping with that tradition, they were asked to sign agreements to that effect. Apparently many of them complied “due to the sensitivity of the issue.” But it was a French website, Arret sur images, that first reported the conversation. Reporters from Reuters and the Associated Press confirmed the account of the conversation. Sarkozy’s and Obama’s offices have refused to comment." --AIM
Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government. In effect, the Obama administration.
Liberals have invented all sorts of clever schemes for avoiding originalism, even though the Framers studied thousands of years of human history to create a resilient, flexible framework upon which the body politic could grow. They have discovered numerous methods to reject the nation's highest law, upon which they take an oath to uphold when they enter office!Meet the Smiths: 26-year-olds Bill and Joan have been married for five years and have two young children. Bill earns about $65,000 a year in sales and Joan has gone back to work and earns about $35,000 annually. Bill owes quite a bit on his college student loans and will pay about $3,000 in interest on them in 2013. With Joan working again, they are paying $3,000 for year-round child care. Joan inherited some AT&T stock from her grandmother, which pays her $1,000 in dividends every year. Finally, counting home mortgage interest, they have about $20,000 in itemized deductions.The first big change affecting the Smiths will be a combined increase in income tax rates, and a tightening of tax brackets as a result of the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. We estimate this will cost them $960 in 2013.
Bill will lose the complete deduction of his student loan interest in 2013, costing about $840. The pair's allowable deduction for child care will drop to $2,400 from $3,000, and they will also see their credit for children drop in half, costing another $1,000.
The marriage tax penalty will come roaring back to hit the Smiths in 2013, costing an estimated $500. The tax on their dividend income will go increase to $280 from $150, adding another $130. Finally, although we did not calculate the effect, without Congressional action to once again "fix" the alternative minimum tax, the Smiths could owe this ugly tax as well!
Luckily for the Smiths — but not for many Americans — other major changes for 2013, which do not personally affect them, include a phase out of itemized deductions and personal exemptions if their income starts to climb.
In summary, because of tax laws expiring this year and next, we estimate that the Smiths will owe $3,598 more in income tax in 2013 than in 2011 with no change in their income.
Not safe to display the flag in a U.S. high school: VolokhQOTD: "Italy desperately needs structural reforms especially the ability for corporations to fire people much easier than they can now. Long-term, reforms will make Italy more competitive. Short-term, reforms coupled with austerity measures will add so much pain (not that it takes that much) that the vast army of Krugmanites will howl at the moon.
Also bear in mind there have been no reforms that have started yet, only promises to make reforms. Things in Italy are about to get much worse, and Italy is already in recession." --Mike Shedlock