After 30 plus years in the financial industry and having helped and guided many people out of debt. This is my way of helping and guiding people on net and out in the blogosphere about my thoughts and feelings about our financial world.
MY PHOTO OF THE DAY SHOWING PRESIDENT OBAMA`S RECOVERY DIARY.
Date: Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 4:55 PM
Subject: Photo of the Day: Responding to Irene's Impact
Your Daily Snapshot for
Monday, August 29, 2011
Photo of the Day
President Barack Obama visits the National Response Coordination Center at FEMA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., to monitor the latest on Hurricane Irene, Aug. 27, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) In Case You Missed It Here are some of the top stories from the White House blog. Hurricane Irene: President Obama on Response and Recovery Efforts President Obama assures those who have been impacted by the deadly storm that "America will be with you in your hour of need."
Weekly Address: Coming Together to Remember President Obama pays tribute to the first responders, those who have served, and those who lost their lives ten years ago in the September 11th attacks. Visit Serve.gov for ways to commemorate this solemn anniversary in your community. Weekly Wrap-up: Time to Prepare A quick look at what happened this week on WhiteHouse.gov. Today's Schedule All times are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). 10:15 AM: The President receives the Presidental Daily Briefing 11:00 AM: The President makes a personnel announcement 12:10 PM: The President meets with senior advisors 12:45 PM: The President and the Vice President meet for lunch 2:00 PM: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney Indicates events that will be live streamed on WhiteHouse.gov/Live Get Updates Sign up for the Daily Snapshot Stay Connected
Time to quit the gold party?: A fall of $170 in two days has made investors nervous. Does it mark the end of the bull run or a buying opportunity?
All the posts are provided by me and any comments l provide are my own view of the markets and are not the views of the article writer and or news provider.
You first have to get past the most unbelievable online security system I've ever seen. Try it - you won't know whether to laugh hysterically or cry uncontrollably.
Now to the scan. My Tesco Clubcard account has been transferred over as a Clubcard with Overdraft account. I never asked for this so assume they're doing it for everyone. "Pretty irresponsible, almost encouraging people to fall into debt" I hear you all saying. But here's the genius part from Tesco. When they show you your account balance they INCLUDE the overdraft facility. So if say your actual balance is £153 and you have a permitted overdraft of £500, then your actual balance is shown as £653.
Cue thousands of Tesco customers going out and spending money they thought they had but didn't, only to then get hit with overdraft charges. As they say, "every little helps....."
All the posts are provided by me and any comments l provide are my own view of the markets and are not the views of the article writer and or news provider.
Re: 'The most inefficient and disastrous bank I have ever dealt with’: Having dealt with numerous banks and lenders for and on behalf of people for over 25 years, nothing surprises me today. These banks are just getting greedier by the day and as regards Santander not providing an adequate service does not surprise me at all, having dealt with banks in Spain, where the left hand did not know what the right hand was doing. You can see why they now are in debt and have no real structure for the repayment as such.
Maybe one day banks will learn it is the people that bank with them that should be put first and not their profits.
Re: Bachmann Softens on Farm Subsidies - Lindsey Boerma - Politics - The Atlantic: So the way forward in US politics is too support only the policies that provide the maximum amount of return for the person that has a farm or some other business or asset that can gain them more money and not to look after the people who you are supposed to represent. Is this not called lining your own pocket?
Re: Bachmann Softens on Farm Subsidies - Lindsey Boerma - Politics - The Atlantic: No Kool-Aid here nor any allegiance to party or personage above principle. The Republican Party doesn't even fully control the House... the Republican partly loyalists do not like the Tea Party... they tolerate them. Before the 2010 election the Democratic Party controlled the Presidency, the Senate, and the House. The Ratings for Obama were strong in the beginning, but Congress' ratings have been in the teens and twenties for years and years. Currently Obama's ratings are have reached new unprecedented lows. Obama has had 3 years in office, 2 of those with a Democratically controlled Congress, and look what we have.
Here are some stats from NBC's Meet the Press on 6/12/11...
Obama's Change
============
Unemployment:
January 2009 - 7.3% June 2011 - 9.1% Change: UP 25%
National Debt:
January 2009 - $10,600,000,000,000 $10.6 TRILLION > $32,000 per person
June 2010 - $14,300,000,000,000 $14.3 TRILLION > $43,000 per person
Change: UP 35%
Price of Gas:
January 2009 - $1.83 June 2011 - $3.74 Change: UP 104%
This is change we can do without regardless of the party affiliation. I would like to see EVERY sitting politician who is responsible for this economic disaster out and all those complicit of destroying the country (our economy) regardless of party or capacity brought to justice and made to repay everything they have stolen plus 20% tot he American people.
He started by blaming others and he is still blaming others. He has now added natural disasters. The Republicans, if you include the Tea Party, control the House. So much for your false assertion and blame game. The Tea Party as a group have been the only group touting fiscal responsibility.It seems plain that you have not thought out your criticism of the foster children... the Bachmann's are not on welfare and using the "subsidies" as you call them for their income... which is import of your attack. Your other tactic is to discount the writer of what you don't want to hear or have seen here. The tactic speaks for itself. Since you are so worried about my IQ, I will assure you that it is fine (well over 120 if I recall correctly from my college days). Another attack will be in the area of my education... I have several degrees including a graduate degree. Having a background in IT and programming and now being a mathematics instructor in have a proclivity for analysis. As for middle class qualifications I have never been rich and I have been poor as a child (on welfare and food stamps). Most of my life I have been middle class. Having taught students hundreds of students and supervised/managed not only students but people, I have an admiration for those who do so with positive results. Remember too that she is a mother of 5... being a good parent is harder than corporate or blue collar work or teaching.I say this only to illustrate the error in attacking people and not sticking to issues.
The Tea Party is not just a constituency of anger. Sure there are people who are angry and rightly so. However, my affiliation with the Tea Party, is that it is a call to reign in oppressive freedom threatening overreaching overbearing Federal and State and local gov't tyranny. We want fiscally responsible and socially responsible representatives whose first loyalties are to the principles that this nation was founded upon and made America truly a shining city on a hill. We harbor no delusions touting America's perfection, but we do believe that adherence to the principles on which it was founded will give man the best gov't to be had to date and the best possible with the exception of course of being lead by a perfect potentate.
Perhaps that will help you understand that Tea Partiers, at lest some of us, are not irrationale, not pro-rich, not pro-elitism, and not pro-party so much as pro-principles of the founding fathers. We are tired of politics as usual, we want people who can balance their own checkbooks and not encumber us with excessive debt... people who can manage their families well and standby their commitments.. enuf said...
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT MY OVERVIEW - THIS WAS PROVIDED BY A COMMENTATOR FOR DISQUS ON THE ATLANTIC.
All the posts are provided by my own and personal view of the global financial markets and are not always the views of the people who provided the post or article.
This is an example of what l said in my first post today about watching where you gamble your hard earned income as we are no where near out of the woods. I will keep you posted as to my thoughts and feelings over the next few weeks.
All the posts are provided by my own and personal view of the global financial markets and are not always the views of the people who provided the post or article.
All the posts are provided by my own and personal view of the global financial markets and are not always the views of the people who provided the post or article.
All the posts are provided by my own and personal view of the global financial markets and are not always the views of the people who provided the post or article.
This is a typical way of people short term getting themselves out of debt or so they believe as it is easy to borrow other peoples money, but more difficult to pay it back. A saying of long ago was if you cannot pay today you will not be able to pay tomorrow and as we all know " TOMORROW NEVER COMES " and we never know what is round the corner. So your debts build up and your credit limit is exceeded and one day a letter on the mat of life comes the final demand saying you owe X but with daily interest accruing at Y sooner rather than later Z is more than you can comfortably afford.
Tips on Balance Transfer Credit Cards: The cost of living is soaring and personal debt levels are mounting on a regular basis. Credit card interest rates are now higher than ever, yet 35% of Brits turn to their credit card to help fund their day-to-day living expenses.
All the posts are provided by my own and personal view of the global financial markets and are not always the views of the people who provided the post or article.
As people now have a penchant for buying in the areas of sunnier areas of the US such as Florida and California then it would hold true that they would now have the highest amount of properties in state of foreclosure. As we tend to attract people to these types of property in these area then the tendency will be that numbers will rise and eventually as with all global financial changes we should and will see a drop in prices, due to lack of prosperity in these areas of the US.
• The bad news is short term delinquencies increased in Q2. The not-so-bad news is long serious delinquencies declined slightly.
• Because of the high level of delinquencies, there are some questions about the accuracy of the seasonal adjustment.
• Florida has almost 25% of all loans in the U.S. in the foreclosure process. California is 2nd with 10.6%, but the percent of loans in-foreclosure in California (3.62%) is actually below the national average (4.43%).
• Judicial foreclosure states usually have the highest percentage of loans in the foreclosure process.
Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.
This graph shows the percent of loans in the foreclosure process by state and by foreclosure process. Red is for states with a judicial foreclosure process. Because the judicial process is longer, those states typically have a higher percentage of loans in the process. Nevada is an exception.
Florida, Nevada, New Jersey and Illinois are the top four states with percent of loans in the foreclosure process.
This graph shows all delinquent loans by state (sorted by percent seriously delinquent).
Florida and Nevada have the highest percentage of serious delinquent loans, followed by New Jersey, Illinois, New York, Ohio and Maine.
I'll post some more graphs later to show which states are seeing improvement.
Note: the MBA's National Delinquency Survey (NDS) covered "MBA’s National Delinquency Survey covers about 43.9 million first-lien mortgages on one- to four-unit residential properties" and the "The NDS is estimated to cover around 88 percent of the outstanding first-lien mortgages in the market." This gives almost 50 million total first lien mortgages or about 6.4 million delinquent or in foreclosure.
The third graph shows the number of loans delinquent in each state (as opposed to the percent). California is the largest state, so it is no surprise that the number of delinquent loans is very high (I'd expect California to always be #1). In that sense this graph is misleading - in reality California is in about the same shape as Indiana and Rhode Island (previous graph).
Florida has 7.6% of all loans, but almost 25% of all loans in-foreclosure and 18% of all seriously delinquent loans. In most ways, dividing this by states is arbitrary - except the foreclosure process matters.
All the posts are provided by my own and personal view of the global financial markets and are not always the views of the people who provided the post or article.
Hemitage Capital's chief executive, hedge fund manager Bill Browder, is up 5% YTD and he's doing it while fighting corrupt Russians.
Browder's $1 billion hedge fund made most of its money investing in Russian companies -- until he had a falling out with authorities.
Now Browder is not allowed in the country.
He was banned from entering Russia, "blacklisted" and named a "threat to national security," after accusing Russian tax officials of corruption and embezzlement in 2006, according to a report in The Economist.
Later on, several of his associates and lawyers, as well as their relatives, were victims or crimes, beatings and robberies, the New York Times reported.
Browder's friend, Sergei Magnitsky, testified that Moscow tax officials embezzled $230 million. Magnitsky, a 37 year-old Hermitage tax lawyer and married father of two, died at the hands of Russian officials, according to a report in The Telegraph.
The same officials Magninski testified against retaliated and arrested him in 2008 on charges of tax evasion. He was placed in pre-trial detention for eleven months. There he was beaten to death. He never said goodbye to his family.
And in December, the European Parliament voted in favor of a resolution for freed EU member states to introduce a visa ban and freeze bank accounts of the Russian officials linked to Magninski's death, The Telegraph reported.
He even convinced the Swiss to freeze some of the bank accounts of the officials.
Browder now lives in London and manages the hedge fund at its offices in London's Golden Square. Hermitage, which was established in 1996, now identifies itself as an emerging markets specialist.
While the fund is no longer at its $4 billion peak, it now has about $1 billion in assets under management. What's more is the fund is up nearly 5% this year, despite the rout in the stock market, The Telegraph reported.
Browder is the grandson of the former leader of the Communist Party, USA during the 1930s. Browder, however, identifies himself as a capitalist.
He grew up in Chicago and attended the University of Chicago where he studied economics. He earned his MBA from Stanford Business School.
He eventually became a British citizen.
Below is a video of Bill Browder detailing the tragic death of Magninski and discussing Russian police fraud.
All the posts are provided by my own and personal view of the global financial markets and are not always the views of the people who provided the post or article.
After more than a decade of strong expansion led by a credit-fueled housing boom, the Spanish economy was hit by three major shocks: the global financial crisis, the busting of Spain’s domestic boom, and the euro area debt crisis. These shocks exposed Spain’s vulnerabilities stemming from accumulated imbalances and pushed the economy into a sharp recession, with the euro area debt crisis subsequently putting pressure on funding costs.
The economy has been gradually recovering and re-balancing. Growth has gradually picked up from the first quarter of 2010, led by strong exports as the re-balancing to external demand proceeded. Private sector savings-investment balances have improved, helping stabilize debt ratios and reduce the current account deficit. The housing market continued to adjust. Real wages moderated and unit labor costs improved. However, at around 21 percent, the unemployment rate is more than twice the euro area average. Inflation has picked up, led by energy prices and indirect taxes, and is again above the euro area average. A reform of collective bargaining aiming at greater firm-level flexibility was presented to Parliament in June 2011, complementing the June 2010 labor market reform.
All the posts are provided by my own and personal view of the global financial markets and are not always the views of the people who provided the post or article.
The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a three-year Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) for an amount equivalent to SDR 52.51 million (about US$84.5 million) with St. Kitts and Nevis. The arrangement will support the authorities’ economic program, coupled with a comprehensive debt restructuring, to restore debt and external sustainability and set the stage for sustained growth.
As a result of the Board’s decision, an amount equivalent to SDR 22.15 million (about US$35.6 million) is available for immediate disbursement. The three-year SBA arrangement represents 590 percent of St. Kitts and Nevis’ (SDR 8.9 million) IMF quota. St. Kitts and Nevis joined the Fund in August 1984.
Following the Executive Board’s discussion of St. Kitts and Nevis on July 27, 2011, Ms. Nemat Shafik, Deputy Managing Director and Acting Chair, made the following statement:
“The St. Kitts and Nevis economy is gradually recovering from a prolonged recession. However, fiscal imbalances and structural fragility's pose significant risks to the economic outlook.
“The authorities have started to implement an economic program to address these challenges over the medium term. The main objectives of this program are achieving higher growth and a sustainable fiscal position. The authorities’ plans include front-loaded fiscal consolidation, a comprehensive debt restructuring, and further steps to strengthen the financial sector.
This is another debarcle that should easily be solved by enabling everyone with the stroke of a pen to have healthcare what ever their color or creed. But easy does not exist in this world of high finance and the so-called power to wield the mighty dollar like some mad axe murderer and quosh peoples hopes for a better world.
When you read all that is required to make this all possible you wonder why the bill cannot be signed sealed and delivered and without all this fuss and nonsense. But that would be so easy and we do not do easy, we look at easy and say OK let`s make it harder and that way we can cover up all the money we will make with administration and service cost`s and to do that we need to make it harder.
But the TRUE COST is not whose idea it was or who was in charge of the bill or getting it through congress but as always, the real true cost is peoples LIVES. So spare a thought for those who you may never get to know but are human beings like us and deserve the best care any money can buy.
This is great news for any country to discover oil in this world of dwindling stocks as the world plunges to a day when we will struggle to run our economy without enough black gold. But as with all new and much needed discoveries it is always the words.
WEALTH - SHARED - POPULATION in that order that will make the difference between WHO receives WHAT and of course at WHAT price.
Kazakhstan: Making the Most of Its Oil Wealth: With major new oil discoveries in recent years, oil will be the main driver of Kazakhstan growth. But a key challenge is to ensure that the benefits from the oil wealth are shared by the population as a whole.
This is an example of how our economy is run from a computer on a desk by the people that are supposed to have our best interest`s at heart, but as all is now becoming plaintively obvious that their decisions in protecting our way of life is being eroded everyday. The so-called bear market is coming ever closer and the rich and moreover the super-rich are looking at decamping to far away places, with their mega bucks made by using your money, not their own.
It's time again for the weekend update of our "Real" Mega-Bears, an inflation-adjusted overlay of three secular bear markets. It aligns the current S&P 500 from the top of the Tech Bubble in March 2000, the Dow in of 1929, and the Nikkei 225 from its 1989 bubble high.
The chart below is consistent with my preference for real (inflation-adjusted) analysis of long-term market behavior. The nominal all-time high in the index occurred in October 2007, but when we adjust for inflation, the "real" all-time high for the S&P 500 occurred in March 2000.
See also my alternate version, which charts the comparison from the 2007 nominal all-time high in the S&P 500. This series also includes the Nasdaq from the 2000 Tech Bubble peak.
It has been a year since Ben Bernanke threw his last big bone to Wall Street: The announcement at last year's Jackson Hole schmooze-fest that the Fed had a number of options at its disposal to stimulate the economy.
(Translation: We're launching QE2).
Bernanke's speaking at this year's Jackson Hole this Friday. Wall Street is speculating--or at least praying--that the Fed Chairman will say something similar this year.
This seems a reasonable bet. Bernanke tends to freak out whenever markets tank, and the last month of ~15% declines has wiped $8 trillion off the value of global stock markets.
On the other hand, QE2 was a bust, and Bernanke has already recently promised that the Fed will keep short-term interest rates at zero until 2013. And inflation has been ticking up. So maybe the Fed chairman will hold firm.
