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Acting at Barack Obama's behest, President George W. Bush on Monday asked Congress for the final $350 billion in the financial bailout fund, effectively ceding economic reins to the president-elect in an extraordinary display of transition teamwork.
Shares of the troubled bank tumble on reports of a sale of the company's Smith Barney division -- and some analysts warn a breakup of the banking giant could soon follow.
A second, far larger wave of U.S. mortgage defaults is building
By Vikas Bajaj Published: August 4, 2008
NEW YORK: The first wave of Americans to default on their home mortgages appears to be cresting, but a second, far larger one is building with alarming speed.
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But with the U.S. economy struggling, homeowners with better credit are now falling behind on their payments in growing numbers. The percentage of mortgages in arrears in the category of loans one rung above subprime, so-called alternative-A, or alt-A, mortgages, quadrupled to 12 percent in April from a year earlier. Delinquencies among prime loans, which account for most of the $12 trillion market, doubled to 2.7 percent in that time.
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"Subprime was the tip of the iceberg," said Thomas Atteberry, president of First Pacific Advisors, a investment firm in Los Angeles that trades mortgage securities. "Prime will be far bigger in its impact."
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Prime and alt-A borrowers typically had a five- or seven-year grace period before having to start making payments toward their principal. By contrast, subprime loans had a two- to three-year introductory period. That difference partly explains the lag in delinquencies between the two types of loans, said David Watts, an analyst with CreditSights.
In the world I see - you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway.
www.imdb.com...
More than $2 trillion in consumer credit could be cut in the next 18 months, as credit-card companies pull back credit lines in anticipation of credit funding problems and regulatory changes, said Meredith Whitney, an Oppenheimer Holdings Inc. (OPY) banking analyst who’s well-known for her gutsy and prescient (and ultimately correct) market calls.
“What you haven’t seen yet digested by the market is banks pulling lines from consumers,” Whitney said in an interview with CNBC. “And across the board you saw the big banks that command so much of the market share of key products like mortgages and credit cards start to pull lines in the third quarter and that’s going to continue in the fourth quarter. And that’s going to continue into 2009.”
Instead of reducing taxes on interest payments, the Government could tax all bank deposits and other risk-free savings. This would create a negative risk-free interest rate, encouraging savers either to invest in property, shares and other productive assets - or simply to save less and consume more. In either case, the result would be more consumption and physical investment, less unemployment and faster recovery from the slump.
Originally posted by cpdaman
It may come down to dramatic measures such as debt jubilee's and competive one time devaluations against gold that stops the spiral downward in prices (not necessarily living standards) also perhaps with a world war that will grow the debt
as far as the topic (LOL) i will look into that.........right now it appears the consumer will be the next shoe to drop .... CONSUMER CREDIT may drop up to 40% this year!
"Hyperinflation", or even "Serious Inflation" (similar to what we had in the 1970s) is impossible without a means to transmit the rise in prices into wages.
Originally posted by jefwane
I don't see how Obama can lay the blame for the PR about the TARP on Bush. After all he was one of the Senators who voted for it. He knew there were no stipulations as to how the money was to be used. Saying otherwise is disengenuos if not an outright lie.
Originally posted by cpdaman
stimulus checks -tax rebates and the kitchen sink will be thrown at U.s consumers.....one key will be how much is used to buy new stuff....and how much is saved (given uncertain job status) and how much is used to pay off debt
Originally posted by jefwane
I realize that CPDAMAN's 2009 thread was closed because it turned more into an investment thread than a discussion with a conspiracy related theme....
Originally posted by jefwane
Gold seems to have topped at $1000/oz and seems to be printing lower highs and lower lows since (which my amatuer TA says is Bearish).
Originally posted by OBE1
Here's a mystery maybe some-one can shed some light-on. Citi has joined JPM in advancing it's 4Q reporting date. Both were scheduled to report just after the new administration takes the helm on Jan 20 (Jan 22 and Jan 21 respectively). I'm convinced there is a connection...just not sure what it is?
The financial reports for both banks will come in looking very bad, possibly even catastrophic for Citi.
GW Bush, is using whatever presidential authority he has to force the remaining half of the TARP mone
Voila. Bush rides off into the sunset having added one final screw up to a very long list, allowing Obama to take office and remain relatively clean for at least a few days more than he would had he been stuck having to pry those funds away from a suddenly Bailout-unfriendly Congress.