Illinois Careens Towards Bankruptcy; Governmental Collapse Coming – Mish
I hope whoever wins has enough courage to say “we are broke”, stop paying all but emergency ongoing bills and toss those unfunded pension liabilities into court where they belong. Unions and politicians helped bankrupt Illinois thus unions and politicians should be the one taking the biggest hit.
Where the Jobs Are – Financial Armageddon
There are jobs out there for individuals with plenty of experience. There are opportunities for Americans with skills and training that might have cost tens of thousands of dollars and required many, many hours to acquire. There are ways for unemployed professionals and white-collar workers to be productive again.
Moral Hazard and the Crisis – The New Yorker
One of the more remarkable moments in yesterday’s Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission came when Jamie Dimon, the C.E.O. of J.P. Morgan, said that his bank had never tested its portfolio against the possibility that housing prices would fall.
The intentional renters: An Alameda couple reflects on the hidden costs of home ownership – The San Francisco Chronicle
Mingo’s tale of getting in over his head with real estate is not a story from the recent housing bust — he bought his Alameda home in 1990.
Foreclosures soar despite effort to delay them – The Detroit Free Press
Foreclosure filings in Michigan jumped last year even with a freeze on foreclosures, suggesting that 2010 could be another rough year in a state where one out of every 38 households is in foreclosure.
Wall St. Weighs a Challenge to a Proposed Tax - The New York Times
In an e-mail message sent last week to the heads of Wall Street legal departments, executives of the lobbying group, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, wrote that a bank tax might be unconstitutional because it would unfairly single out and penalize big banks, according to these officials, who did not want to be identified to preserve relationships with the group’s members.
Mortgage program failing to deliver – The Contra Costa Times
The biggest company in the program, Bank of America, has completed modifications for fewer than 2 percent of the 200,000 borrowers it has enrolled. Rebecca Mairone, a Bank of America executive, said the bank has started sending notaries door-to-door to get signed documents back quickly.
How The Remedy To One Crisis Might Cause The Next - The Atlantic
Over the last two years developed countries kept their economies afloat with a flood of borrowed money. Now investors are getting nervous about sovereign debt levels, forcing some nations to make a painful choice: stop borrowing, cut spending or raise taxes – or craft some combination of the three.
What Home Sellers Don’t Tell Buyers – The Wall Street Journal
Given the complexity of disclosure laws, it’s not surprising that potential buyers don’t hear about every problem in a house. Besides the issue of fibbing, sellers may genuinely not know about problems. And even if they do, the laws generally don’t apply to bank-owned homes transferred in foreclosures, which now constitute a larger share of sales.
