The Press Democrat: Alt-A loans: Second wave of foreclosures ahead (ht Atrios) reports that there are 18,000 Alt-A mortgages in Sonoma County (about 18 percent of all mortgages). This is a larger percentage of mortgages in Somona County than for subprime – which accounted for about 10 percent of all mortgages in the county at the peak. According to the story – using First American CoreLogic as a source – about two-thirds of these Alt-A loans will see a significant payment increase over the next few years, with recasts peaking in 2011.
War on Error: General Powell Told Bush “Don’t Do It” on January 26, 2002 Eric Kleefeld: Sotomayor Spark Lights Intra-GOP Conflagration David Frum and Company Alan Viard: Don’t Give Away the Cap-and-Trade Permits Daniel Shavuro: Doug Holtz-Eakin talks up new conservative think tank Gary Gorton: Slapped in the Face by the Invisible Hand: Banking and the Panic of 2007 PhilipGreenspun: How the Web and the Weblog have changed Writing AP: The mortgage crisis is spreading and hitting new heights: Borrowers with good credit now make up the largest share of foreclosures as job losses and pay cuts exact their toll… Matthew Yglesias: Not a Parody Matthew Yglesias: Netanyahu Surprised to Learn that Obama Means What He Says on Settlements Will Wilkinson: The rise of collectivist conservatives Richard Rigby: Can China embrace its history and Zhao Ziyang’s memoir? Adam Serwer: The Racialism of the Odious Stuart Taylor, Jr
Michael O’Hare parries: The Reality-Based Community: Sotomayor and rhetoric : Brad DeLong raps my knuckles for being cavalier about the sentence talking heads have been endlessly parsing from Sotomayor’s Berkeley speech. Here’s the full paragraph: Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O’Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases.
1981 can be considered a turning point year because of the “Reagan Revolution,” the appointment of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the Strategic Cooperation Agreement, the attempted assassinations of Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II, Reagan’s economic policy, the introduction of the Internet, and the identification of the AIDS virus.
Note: Any reading below 100 shows contraction. So the improvement in the index to 98.6 means the business is still contracting, but contracting at a slower pace. From the National Restaurant Association (NRA): Restaurant Industry Outlook Continues to Improve as Restaurant Performance Index Hits Highest Level in 11 Months The outlook for the restaurant industry grew more optimistic in April, as the National Restaurant Association’s comprehensive index of restaurant activity registered its fourth consecutive monthly gain.
This post combines the latest results of the Rueters/University of Michigan Survey of Consumers , the Conference Board’s Index of CEO Confidence and the State Street Global Markets Index of Investor Confidence indicators into a combined presentation that will run twice monthly as preliminary data is firmed. These three indicators should disclose a clear picture of the overall sense of confidence (or lack thereof) on the part of consumers, businesses and investors as the current recessionary period develops. Today’s final release of the Reuters/University of Michigan Survey of Consumers for May showed a another bump up for consumer sentiment with a reading of 68.7 an increase of 14.88% above the level seen in May 2008
On Tuesday, S&P issued a request for comments on proposed changes to their CMBS rating methodology. This was the key sentence: Our preliminary findings indicate that approximately 25%, 60%, and 90% of the most senior tranches (by count) within the 2005, 2006, and 2007 vintages, respectively, may be downgraded. After some negative analyst reactions , S&P extended the comment period (ht Jason): Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services today extended the comment period for its proposed changes to its methodology for rating U.S.
Yesterday I posted a graph labeled the distressing gap showing that existing home sales have held up much better during the housing bust than new home sales – probably because of distressed sales (foreclosure resales and short sales). Click on graph for larger image in new window. This graph shows the same information, but as a ratio for existing home sales divided by new home sales (ht Michael) The recent change in the ratio is probably related to distressed sales – home builders cannot compete with REO sales, and this has pushed down new home sales while keeping existing home sales activity elevated
Today, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released their second installment of the Q1 2009 GDP report showing a (revised) significant contraction with GDP declining at an annual rate of -5.7%. Easily the most notable features of today’s report are the stunning declines to residential and non-residential as well as exports of both goods and services. Fixed investment provided significant drags on growth with non-residential investment declining a whopping -36.9% and residential investment plunging -38.7% while net exports of goods and services declined -28.7%.
Typically for the frenetic Web 2.0 community, there’s been an awful lot of hype about mobile audio sharer AudioBoo lately – perhaps excessively so, for what is just another, albeit easier, way to get sound on to the web. But, like Twitter itself, AudioBoo’s buzz has begun to extend outside the geek fraternity and in to mainstream broadcasting (witness BBC Five Live’s Richard Bacon inviting listener comments this way this week)
— BSkyB—Virgin Media : BSkyB ( NYSE: BSY ) could be looking to bolster its digital TV portfolio by splashing out on seven channels from its close pay TV rival Virgin Media: according to FT.com , Sky is offering a so-far unbeaten £160 million for VMED’s VMtv content division , including Living and Bravo. VMED has been considering selling the VMtv division for months and a sell-off looked especially likely after the sale of its shopping channel business Sell-off TV and the exit of content division CEO Malcolm Wall . Sky’s bid is thought to be well above the money offered by other interested parties, including Channel 4, Five owner RTL, and Time Warner ( NYSE: TWX )
Now that Anglo has officially blown through essentially all of its capital, and given that the government regularly cites PWC’s recent assessment of BOI and AIB’s likely capital needs, I thought it might be a good moment to remind folks of this excerpt from the PWC report on Anglo (released in February, fieldwork concluded on December 10): Under the PwC highest stress scenario, Anglo’s core equity and tier 1 ratios are projected to exceed regulatory minima (Tier 1 – 4%) at 30 September 2010 after taking account of operating profits and stressed impairments … We used an independent firm of property valuers (Jones Lang LaSalle) to value a sample of 160 properties held as security in relation to the top 20 land & development exposures on Anglo’s books as identified in our Phase II review and report. The results of this work indicated that impairment charges over the period FY09 to FY11 would fall in a range between the two PwC impairment scenarios but closer PwC’s lower impairment scenario. Hoocoodanode
Europe’s trade ministers have asked the European Commission executive to examine Google’s Books search project after Germany complained the site is illegal. A paper Germany handed to the council of ministers Thursday said Google ( NSDQ: GOOG ) had scanned books from US libraries without consent from rightsholders, including European authors: ” Google’s actions are irreconcilable with the principles of European copyright law, according to which the consent of the author must be obtained before his or her works may be reproduced or made publicly available on the internet.” Google is scanning books under America’s “fair use” copyright provision, which doesn’t exist in the UK , and, having been sued publishers in the US, is set to settle out of court by October- but Germany is upset that European authors published in the US will only retain the right not to be included in Google Books if they opt out of American publishers’ class action. Germany’s paper also says Google Books threatens a publicly-funded, Europe-wide online database: “As a result of this behaviour, initiatives such as Europeana , which digitalise and make available on line copyrighted works only after prior consent has been obtained from the rights holder, have also lost ground.” Not everyone’s upset, though – Oxford University Press is amongst the European publishers to have works included
Bebo tells us Joanna Shields’ leaving was her own decision, but the president of the social network and the AOL ( NYSE: TWX ) People Networks division which is based upon would surely have known change was coming. It was only recently that AOL had restructured in to three units – Mediaglow (content), Platform-A (advertising) and People Networks (social), the division including AIM, ICQ and Socialthing that Shields had been building in Bebo’s image.
From The Times: House prices halved in FSA stress test The key assumptions in the stress test were that the economy would shrink by 6 per cent from peak to trough with growth not returning until 2011 and trend growth not until 2012. The regulators also assumed unemployment rising to 12 per cent of the workforce, or 3.7 million people, which is 1.5 million more than the present number and would be a higher level of joblessness even than in the recession of the early 1980s. Finally, the FSA posited a 50 per cent fall in house prices from their peak and a 60 per cent fall in commercial property prices – office blocks and shops.
YouTube has begun blocking embedding of all Britain’s Got Talent clips at TV rightsholders’ request, just as Susan Boyle’s follow-up performance has come close to setting another record for video views. The move affects not just clips from the current round of semi-finals but also the early rounds that made Boyle an internet star. Whilst her I Dreamed A Dream rendition became the fastest growing viral video ever, YouTube now displays the message “Embedding disabled by request” on hundreds of Talent videos uploaded over the course of the ITV (LSE: ITV) series – effectively killing off the “long tail” of views the videos would have continued to enjoy from third-party sites carrying YouTube’s video player – and limiting the likelihood the latest clips will propagate in the same way.
It was only 12 months ago a somewhat fragile World Association of Newspapers CEO Timothy Balding assured WAN’s international congress in Sweden that print was not dead. Now WAN president Gavin O’Reilly has reprised the responsibility, trying to convince delegates to WAN’s “Power of Print” conference in Barcelona: “The simple fact is that, as a global industry, our printed audience continues to grow “… Predicting the “death of newspapers” “seems to have reached the level of a new sport,” O’Reilly said: “That this doom and gloom about our industry has largely gone unanswered is, to me, the most bizarre case of willful self-mutilation ever in the annals of industry
With Anglo about to report its results, last Sunday’s newspapers contained stories that the government was considering not honouring coupon payments on Anglo’s Tier 1 perpetual bonds. In light of that, it is interesting to note the following story (from Wednesday’s FT): Bradford & Bingley, the nationalised mortgage bank, quietly issued three statements after the market had closed on Tuesday, informing holders of three classes of notes that they would not now be getting their next due interest payment
The OECD says yes GIVEN that the current global recession had its origins in a global credit crunch, it is not surprising that there has been much discussion of whether fixing the financial system (particularly, getting banks lending again) is a necessary condition for a broader economic recovery. Some, like Japanese economist Keiichiro Kobayashi, have argued that the answer is an emphatic yes, pointing to Japan's experience in the 1990s. Paul Krugman didn’t agree with Mr Kobayashi’s interpretation of the Japanese experience (but Mr Kobayashi argued in response that Krugman was using the wrong period in Japanese history to make his point)
One bidder has already taken itself out of the running for the remains of the commercial VOD Project Kangaroo, but the race is still on for the never-used technology. C21Media.net , citing an unnamed source, reports that TV technology firm Arqiva is now the sole bidder for Kangaroo’s technology, which includes a PC and TV interface and EPG after Orange declared itself out of the race last week ; the company is well-placed to make a bid—its main clients include the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV (LSE: ITV), the abandoned project’s shareholders. Arqiva has been in a buying mood of late: the radio frequency owner bought ITV’s 70 percent stake in outside TV broadcast company JFMG for £1 million in February and bought the remaining 63 percent stake it didn’t own in the first DAB radio complex Digital One from Global Radio in April
For graphs based on the new home sales report this morning, please see: New Home Sales Flat in April Yesterday, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that “Distressed properties … accounted for 45 percent of all sales in April”. Distressed sales include REO sales (foreclosure resales) and short sales, and based on the 4.68 million existing home sales (SAAR) that puts distressed sales at a 2.1 million annual rate in April.
Today, the Department of Labor released their latest read of Joblessness showing seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment claims declined 13,000 to 623,000 from last week’s upwardly revised 636,000 claims while “continued” claims jumped 110,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 5.1%. It’s important to note that the two most significant periods for job cuts on a non-seasonally adjusted basis is January 15 and July 15 so as July and clearer visibility on H2 quickly approaches it will be interesting to see how initial jobless claims fares. Also, the continuing claims series is presenting the clearest picture of what is likely to be one of the most problematic aspects of this period of economic crisis namely how to make an immense and growing number of highly specialized (college educated) service/professional service workers productive again
By Edward Hugh: Barcelona German exports and investment spending plunged in the first quarter, dragging Europe’s largest economy into its deepest economic slump on record. Exports were down 9.7 percent from the fourth quarter and company investment declined 7.9 percent, according to the Federal Statistics Office. The Office reported that gross domestic product fell a seasonally adjusted 3.8 percent from the previous three months, confirming an initial estimate from May 15.
If you’re a Scoot advertising customer, you can add your Google Streetview image, if available, to your Priority or Super Listing on the online business directory. Streetview doesn’t yet cover the whole of the UK, so log into your Scoot account with your user ID and password, click ‘Edit this listing’ and go to the Map tab. If a Streetview image is available for your business, it will appear on screen. If you want to add this to your listing, just tick the box underneath the image. You’ll find that if you change your location marker on the map, your Streetview image will change accordingly. You can also use the up, down, left and right arrows on your Streetview image to determine the start point to be displayed on your Listing. Don’t forget to save your changes before logging off! Click here for more information about advertising on Scoot .
By Edward Hugh: Barcelona This is one of the key points I have been hammering here on this blog for some weeks now. There is clear evidence of most economies globally “stabilising” at this point, you could even stretch it to say that the “worst is over” – since I doubt we will go back to the dreadful days of December and January (see German manufacturing PMI chart below) – when it was like someone had given a very sharp knock to the whole industrial sector with a large sledgehammer, and of course ultimately the vibrations settle down even if the damage remains. But to go from this evident fact to drawing the conclusion that a full recovery is now in the works would be a very fast and loose use of both logic and economic theory.
