The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008

tejasmarcos says on Jul 29, 2008, 17:07:

it will only help about 1 in 8, but that is a start. these would be simple "re-casting" refinances if they were not all securitized. banking greed basically led to the mess to begin with. everybody wants to blame the brokers, but that simply is not true.

trying to walk a straight line on sour mash and cheap wine...

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tejasmarcos says on Jul 29, 2008, 17:31:

i'm not sure how the profit works when banks sell foreclosures since they are selling them in some cases for 40 cents on the dollar. the key would be to drop the rate to an affordable level and keep the loan performing (essentially what the plan does). they could even stretch the amortization to 40 years to make up for the front end loss. it would atleast allow the homeowner to stay in the house.

foreclosures hurt everybody...

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tejasmarcos says on Jul 29, 2008, 19:40:

i was talking about the post, but fannie/freddie secured most of the origination debt anyways.

trying to walk a straight line on sour mash and cheap wine...

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gringoloid says on Jul 30, 2008, 08:50:

I saw this post when it first went up and waited a little to see what the comments would reveal about this bill. I guess no one saw this:

Hidden in the fine print of this bill, congress voted to increase the national debt ceiling by another $800 billion. The corporate/dupe media completely ignored this fact, I didn't see anything on CNBC or anywhere else but I'm in Colombia and I don't get a lot of mainstream news reports.

You're getting close to another trillion dollars for chrissakes. After all the other bail outs going on, another dilution of the currency. How long do you think this will go on?

In the $5.3 trillion bail out of fannie mae and freddie mac the week before.......i notice that profits are private but bail outs are paid by the public.

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tejasmarcos says on Jul 30, 2008, 12:29:

loid - i see your point, but what is the end-game? when we hit double digit trillion dollar debt status, what then?

- also, the fannie/freddie bailout won't be the entire 5.3 trillion as the majority of those loans are performing. the real issue for those two entities is reserve fund requirements to cover losses.

LDW - the Dallas economy is not based on expensive oil, although Exxon/Mobile is based in Irving. if anything, we are a services based economy. in terms of the energy sector, natural gas is the big driver in and around the metroplex.

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tejasmarcos says on Jul 30, 2008, 13:57:

LDW - not exactly, but not worth arguing the point. from my personal point of view, construction and real estate has been the main driver for the past 10 years in Dallas, until the recent downturn. this fueled the ancillary services sector including food and retail.

* Houston benefits more from the energy sector than Dallas does. Either way, good debate.

http://www.dallasfed.org/research/pubs/fotexas/fotexas_intro.html

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tejasmarcos says on Jul 30, 2008, 14:32:

houston is slightly higher than dallas. i would say an average of 10-15%. i don't have a clue about calgary. is that where you are from? there is an amazing national park just due west and southwest of calgary, right?

trying to walk a straight line on sour mash and cheap wine...

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gringoloid says on Jul 30, 2008, 21:59:

as i told houstongal not long ago, we're seeing the 70's all over again and i believe the same thing is going to happen..............houston, and texas in general, are going to fare the best within the states during this downturn. houston was basically untouched by all the oil price hike problems of the mid 70's.

i wish i knew what was going to happen with all this debt...............i do know that all fiat currencies eventually collapse...............maybe we'll be seeing the amero.

i think the banks are being straightened out right now at public expense to get them in shape for the coming downturn........after the new president is installed there won't be any more giveaways or stimulus checks.

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gringoloid says on Jul 30, 2008, 22:13:

i made a major change in my philosophy today...........i'm going negative on the euro. i think it may be a little overvalued. i've been long for quite sometime.

my thoughts were that the euro would be used to value oil from OPEC, but what i think now is that once the banks get straightened out in the usa.......the same problems will occur in europe. so under the circumstances, i don't think the euro will take over as the next reserve currency. just my opinion.

i do vertical spreads so i'm playing both sides, up and down, which limits my profits and losses, but this is the first time i have puts on the euro. december puts at 1.56 and calls at 1.62.

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tejasmarcos says on Jul 31, 2008, 07:23:

texas did not hyper-appreciate like the rest of the country. my little neighborhood did well to squeak a 2-3% increase per year the last 5 years. *there were "pockets" that appreciated as much as 10% a year, but some of those areas are now falling back a little now.

loid - what happens to my greenback when the collapse occurs? should i think about moving $$ out of the bank into stocks, gold, land & hard assets?

trying to walk a straight line on sour mash and cheap wine...

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gringoloid says on Jul 31, 2008, 08:01:

tj, i wish i knew exactly what to do...............i can only say in my case that i removed as much of my portfolio as possible out of the dollar these past few months. the gold i used to talk about is really not an investment, it's a hedge against some problem with the dollar.

i'm not making any recommendations to anyone, but i'm in foreign currencies and foreign cd/s............like the australian dollar, krone, yen, remnibi.

I said that in June of 2009, I'm going to take a look at the real estate in colombia and miami. I could be wrong and it's just my opinion but I think we're going to see some good deals in the latter part of next year. This goes against the 'prophets of the perpetual bull' around here at pbh, but i've seen too many asset bubbles in my time.

I'm staying completely out of stocks right now except precious metals that i've had for many years. Lot of my friends are going heavily into BRIC and Chindia right now........i don't think they're going to get hurt, but it's not for me.

Since you like real estate though, I'll give you a good stock, Realty Income Corp, symbol O, NYSE. Take a look at the yield on that and they've paid a dividend like that every quarter since the 70's. I think they've gone 430 dividend payments straight. When I see a newbie pbh poster wanting to come to Cartagena and buy a gas station it really makes me wonder.............he would be much safer with this.............no work either.

Tonight at dinner I'll give you a fund witth an 11% yield from Blackrock. It's a kill the muslims, Cheney, F-16, satanic banker, jewish supremacist, feed christians to the lions, enormous oil profits, invite illegal immigrants, degrade women, Rev. Al Sharpton, feminize men, cut the pay of working people and bail out the big boys, kill JFK, turn people into robots at their jobs, call in SWAT teams to elementary schools--should two students shake hands kind of a mutual fund.

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morphus says on Jul 31, 2008, 08:04:

"refinance existing mortgages"

Was'nt that the problem in the first place? he housing market crashed because people were using their house as an ATM to buy new SUVs and Beamers.

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tejasmarcos says on Jul 31, 2008, 08:19:

morphus - home equity loans drove false appreciation. subprime ARM's is what sank the ship.

loid - sounds good, like a horror flic. see you 2nite at 7:30 p.m. if we get there any later, the place will be jam packed. everybody is now here for ColombiaMODA and beginning to arrive for the feria.

a story from today's WSJ regarding the EURO;

Euro-Zone Confidence Dropped Sharply in July
By PAUL HANNON
July 31, 2008; Page A12

LONDON -- Business and consumer confidence in the 15 countries that use the euro weakened sharply in July, adding to evidence of a worsening economic slowdown in Europe.

According to a European Commission survey published Wednesday, the overall measure of economic sentiment in the euro zone fell to 89.5, from 94.8 in June.

It was the largest monthly fall since October 2001, the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., and much larger than the drop to 93.0 that was forecast by economists. The measure now stands at its lowest level since March 2003, indicating that the economy will slow further in the months ahead.


"It was only the latest number in a string of very weak data that confirm that the economy is experiencing a severe downturn," said Aurelio Maccario, an economist at Unicredit in Milan. "It will be very hard to see the return to relatively healthy growth numbers the ECB currently envisages from Q4 onwards."

In a separate survey, GfK NOP found that consumer confidence in Britain was at its weakest since records began in 1974, as the headline measure fell to minus-39 from minus-34 in June. In July of last year, before the credit crunch took hold and when the U.K.'s economic prospects still looked good, the measure stood at minus-6.

"There seems to be little sign of any relief," said Donna Culverwell, a researcher at GfK.

trying to walk a straight line on sour mash and cheap wine...

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gringoloid says on Jul 31, 2008, 08:23:

TJ, thanks for that article, i'm going to have to add the WSJ to my reading list. I never followed it because it reports on trends and i'm usually looking for cutting edge material.

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tejasmarcos says on Jul 31, 2008, 08:44:

i use it for news mainly, since i am not in the market as of yet. see you later on 2nite.

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tejasmarcos says on Jul 31, 2008, 10:46:

correction: cheap money (loans) combined with real estate speculation drove false (hyper) appreciation. home equity loans were the byproduct of that cycle. a large percentage of the home equity loans were used to consolidate higher interest rate credit card debt.

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gringoloid says on Jul 31, 2008, 13:23:

TJ, look at this article sent to me by an ex-pbher..............i honestly don't know what to do here.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/07/30/cnoz...

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tejasmarcos says on Jul 31, 2008, 13:45:

that does not sound good. wish i had a crystal ball.


Thomas Jefferson said:

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of our currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and the corporations that will grow up will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

"The issuing of power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.�

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