Sunday Reading – Bank Failures, Foreclosures, Bankruptcies, and Profits From Death

Bank failures, air traffic, profits from death, foreclosures, and more items from the web and the news wires. Also this weeks schedule of events.

Citadel Broadcasting files for bankruptcy

Busy (and very expensive) weekend for bank failures.

And while we are talking about costs to the FDIC, consider just how bad the FDIC is at estimating the ‘real’ cost – FDIC estimated Colonial Bank cost would be $2.8 billion, but the real cost has risen to $5.8 billion.

2010 forecasts from the Market Oracle

$36 /hour to $13 /hour. White-collars turn blue

Global air passenger traffic drops by largest amount in aviation history

Obama’s “Home Affordable Modification Program” – Huge Failure

Foreclosure backlog is huge

Goldman Sachs ditches attempts to profit from death

Fewer states add jobs – Green shoot is dying (RT note: watch for the surge in layoffs in retail sectors in January and February)

AIG – cough up the e-mails

Washington for Sale – Bill Moyer video link , Robert Kuttner and Matt Taibbi guests.

Iceland – Sovereign rating at risk yet again over internal financial battles. One more rating cut and Iceland will be classified as junk.

Greece admits that sovereign rating may be cut by Moody’s

Things are big in Oklahoma – like their record setting deficit

12 20 2009 11 25 32 PM 300x204 Sunday Reading   Bank Failures, Foreclosures, Bankruptcies, and Profits From Death

United Kingdom – Property is a black hole, more bank losses.

(IQ) Earlier on Sunday, Iraq halted crude oil exports from its northern oil fields to the Ceyhan port near Turkey – Press (Update)
- The move came after it was reported that a main pipeline in northern Iraq was attacked.
- The attack occurred at around 8:30 p.m.on Saturday (1730 GMT)
- According to one estimate, the pipeline’s capacity is equal to about 450K bpd (approximately 23% of Iraq’s exports) (wire report)

Events for the week of December 21 to 25:

Monday:

08:30 -  Nov Chicago Fed Index (last -1.08)

Tuesday:

08:30 – Final Q3 GDP q/q (prelim 2.8%), Q3 GDP Price Index (prelim 0.5%), Q3 Personal Consumption (prelim 2.9%), Q3 Core PCE q/q (prelim 1.3%)
10:00 – Dec Richmond Fed Manufacturing (last 1), Nov Existing Home Sales (last 6.1M, m/m 10.1%), Oct House Price Index m/m (last 0.0%)
Wednesday:
08:30 – Nov Personal Income (last 0.2%), Nov Personal Spending (last 0.7%), Nov PCE Deflator y/y (last 0.2%), Nov PCE Core (last m/m 0.2%, y/y 1.4%)
09:55  – Dec Final University of Michigan Confidence (last 73.4)
10:00  – Nov New Home Sales (last 430K, m/m 6.2%)
11:00 – Treasury note announcement
15:00 – Aug Consumer Credit (last -$21.6B)
Thursday:
08:30 Nov Durable Goods Orders (last -0.6%, ex-transport -1.3%), Initial Jobless Claims (last 480K), Continuing Claims (last 5.186M)
MARKETS CLOSE AT 1 PM
Friday:
MARKETS CLOSED



More on this topic (What's this?)
Are Bank Stocks Such a Good Buy?
Big Moves For Bank Stocks
Read more on Banking at Wikinvest

Reality Bites – The Real Story Of What People Need

There are many ways to gauge the ‘sentiment’ and/or the financial health of Americans. The Government conducts their own surveys, there are cold call surveys from independent research firms, and there are Wall Street analysts giving everyone who will listen their forecast of the consumer spending habits.

Thanks to the Internet (do we really have to thank Al Gore for the Internet?) and the giant search engines a vast amount of data is available to us that we could not obtain previously, at least not easily. We all know that Google keeps track of every search ever made. Privacy concerns have been raised about this time and time again. But tonight’s article is not about privacy issues, that is a whole topic in of itself.

This article deals directly with just what people in the United States are searching for on the Internet. There is a social stigma attached to asking for information on certain things. A person may be too embarrassed to ask for some types of information, perhaps they are fearful that a friend or relative might find out. So that brings us to the Google and what people search for in the privacy of their own homes (or wherever they access the net from).

Click on ‘read more’ for the shocking graphs of data I was able to extract…

[Read more...]




Reality Bites

Food Stamp use in the United States reaches another record high – One in Eight Americans now on food stamps

Law School Professor says just walk away from your mortgage

Larry Summers – While President of Harvard misguided the investments of endowment funds – $1.8 Billion Loss
(and this is the guy who Obama picked to be the head of the nations economic team)

Making Homes Affordable – Program to curtail foreclosures still does not work – Maybe Plan B will work

Retail Spending – Oh No!  Black Friday spending down 8%

Want to get into the Hotel business? – Hotel Owners Behind On Payments

Ben Bernanke – Leave us alone

Bankruptcy filings – Increase 34%

Not yet confirmed but definitely something to chew on – TARP recipients banned from making commercial loans ???

(h/t Butch, Jennifer, Al)

Late Night Reading

  • KB Homes (KBH) being investigated for accounting violations – Business Week
  • United Kingdom to hold HUGE garage sale (will even sell the Channel Tunnel) to help with budget woes – BBC
  • CitiGroup (C) was found to be helping foreign investors avoid paying taxes - FT
  • The FHA is another ‘bail out’ in the making – Business Week
  • Pay for your own health insurance in Massachusetts? You may be taxed for not having bigger polices – WSJ
  • FDIC pays for milking cows – Money Rate
  • More on the FHA meltdown in the works – NYT
  • Are you planning to take a flight in Japan? You better you the toilet first so the airline can save on fuel – Dailymail
  • And speaking of toilet… School children in Ireland now required to bring their own toilet paper to school – Telegraph
  • Oil refinery to be shut down (recall that only a few years ago the Government was predicting that more refinerys would be needed) – WSJ
  • Apartment vacancies reach 23 year high – Bloomberg
  • California – the next bail out? – Guardian

(hat tip Butch for assistance with articles)

More on this topic (What's this?)
Manhattan Apartment Prices Drop Again
Prieur’s readings (October 25, 2009)
Read more on at Wikinvest

Link Fest

Link and more links of interest…

  • Ghost ships – The unused shipping vessels – British Mail online (must read)
  • Wisconsin sales tax receipts declines for the first time ever – Wisconsin Telegram
  • Hundreds of homes to go up for auction, unpaid taxes – WFMZ TV
  • Bank system safe? – Not so fast – American Thinker
  • Retail Sales – Still dropping in the United Kingdom – The Independent
  • California budget problems just won’t go away – San Jose Business Journal
  • Credit Scores being impacted nationwide – LA Times
  • PayDay Loans, Here we go again with ripoffs ( 7 day loan APR 970.90%) – Pay Day Loans Web Site
  • Double Dipping – Financial Times
  • Wells Fargo high level employee get fired for throwing ‘parties’ in foreclosed homes in their trust – Huff Post (just one more reason to hate the bankers)

And finally a debt revolt begins…

More on this topic (What's this?)
More Pain Ahead for US Banks
Big Moves For Bank Stocks
Read more on Banking at Wikinvest

Labor Day Readings…

As the United States celebrates Labor Day it is fitting to acknowledge all of the issues facing those who are still employed, and to the millions who no longer have any jobs.

This year Labor Day should be called “Non Labor Day” in recognition of those who have suffered greatly at the hand of Washington, D.C. and their failed policies.

(hat tip Butch for help with links)

And finally tonight we have this clip from an interview with California congressman Pete Stark. Congressman Stark tries to say that the more debt a nation has.. the wealthier it is.  Huh! I guess that makes California the richest state in the nation. If they are so rich then why did they have to issue IOU’s.. hmmmm

If more debt makes a nation wealthier then I wonder why it is that sovereign ratings are in jeopardy for nations with high debt. Congressman Stark is incredibility stupid and it is no wonder why California is in such trouble with a representative like this. I also get a hint of racism in Congressman Starks interaction with the reporter from Puerto Rico.

And one last item for the night.. New clothing for the H1N1 season.

9-5-2009 1-04-51 AMThis ensemble will look great at work or for a night on the town amongst the H1N1 infected people walking by. You too can be fashionable in the midst of a pandemic..

Who created this ugly crap!

More on this topic (What's this?)
The End of Cheap Water?
“How China Cooks Its Books”
Read more on Investing in China at Wikinvest

Weekend Reading

Bedtime Reading

More on this topic (What's this?)
Not Exactly a Pretty Picture
Something has to give
Read more on Unemployment (U.S.) at Wikinvest