Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
The FDIC is broke in terms of present capital and even just the 416 troubled banks.
The FDIC will approach the US Treasury within ten weeks for additional funding.
The FDIC must, as their funds are falling towards zero.
The FDIC will be restocked with funds by the US Treasury.
The FDIC then becomes another form of QE.
The Chinese are publicly opposed to a continued QE dollar program.
This adds more fuel to the fire that this coming winter will be extremely difficult for the US dollar.
The Coming Deposit Insurance Bailout
Another lesson that federal guarantees aren’t free.
Americans are about to re-learn that bank deposit insurance isn’t free, even as Washington is doing its best to delay the coming bailout. The banking system and the federal fisc would both be better off in the long run if the political class owned up to the reality.
We’re referring to the federal deposit insurance fund, which has been shrinking faster than reservoirs in the California drought. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reported late last week that the fund that insures some $4.5 trillion in U.S. bank deposits fell to $10.4 billion at the end of June, as the list of failing banks continues to grow. The fund was $45.2 billion a year ago, when regulators told us all was well and there was no need to take precautions to shore up the fund.
The FDIC has since had to buttress the fund with a $5.6 billion special levy on top of the regular fees that banks already pay for the federal guarantee. This has further drained bank capital, even as regulators say the banking system desperately needs more capital. Everyone now assumes the FDIC will hit banks with yet another special insurance fee in anticipation of even more bank losses. The feds would rather execute this bizarre dodge of weakening the same banks they claim must get stronger rather than admit that they’ll have to tap the taxpayers who are the ultimate deposit insurers.
It isn’t as if regulators don’t understand the problem. Earlier this year they quietly asked Congress to provide up to $500 billion in Treasury loans to repay depositors. The FDIC can draw up to $100 billion merely by asking, while the rest requires Treasury approval. The request was made on the political QT because, amid the uproar over TARP and bonuses, no one in Congress or the Obama Administration wanted to admit they’d need another bailout.
But this subterfuge can’t last. Eighty-four banks have already failed this year, and many more are headed in that direction. The FDIC said it had 416 banks on its problem list at the end of June, up from 305 only three months earlier. The total assets of banks on the problem list was nearly $300 billion, and more of these assets are turning bad faster than banks can put aside reserves to account for them. The commercial real-estate debacle is still playing out at thousands of banks, even as the overall economy bottoms out and begins to recover.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
The biggest news out there is that the Chinese state has no intention of providing Federal funds to pay into their losing OTC derivative state entities. This would allow them to pay these same funds to the OTC derivative winners in New York.
The cover story for MOPE is:
Wall St tumbles on worry about more bank failures
By Rodrigo Campos
NEW YORK, Sept 1 (Reuters) – U.S. stocks sank on Tuesday on increasing worries that there could be more bank failures and concerns that equity prices may have run ahead of the economic recovery.
A sharp drop in bank stocks in late morning trading pulled the Dow average.DJI and the broad Standard & Poor’s 500 .SPX down almost 2 percent, with investors fearing a revival of balance-sheet trouble in the financial sector.
"The chatter from (some) hedge funds is that there is a bank default", said Jon Najarian, a founder of Web information site optionmonster.com.
The KBW bank index .BKX slumped 3.8 percent, with shares of Citigroup (C.N), down 7.2 percent at $4.64, among the top drags.
Stocks had been up earlier after data from the Institute for Supply Management showed U.S. manufacturing expanded in August for the first time since January 2008. For details see [ID:nN01376541].
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
This is the beginning of major problems for cities all over North America. It is part and parcel of the Formula of 2006.
U.S. Cities’ Woes to Worsen as Taxes Trail Pace of Recovery
By William Selway
Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) — U.S. city officials say they expect to face further financial strains because tax collections won’t recover until after the economy emerges from the deepest recession since the Great Depression, a national survey found.
Eighty-eight percent of city finance officers said they are less able to cover the cost of running their governments than a year ago, up from 64 percent a year earlier, according to a survey of 379 cities by the National League of Cities between April and June. It was the most negative assessment since the survey began in 1986. Eighty-nine percent said the next budget year would be even worse.
The survey points to increasing pressure on municipal officials even as the economy shows signs of recovering from the recession that began in December 2007. While property values have plunged since 2006, with home prices down 15.4 percent in June from the year before, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index, it can take years for that decline to be fully reflected in real-estate taxes. They provide about 32 percent of municipal revenue, according to the city group. Sales taxes can also drop until months after consumers start spending.
“Since city fiscal conditions tend to lag behind national economic conditions, the effects of a depressed real estate market, low levels of consumer confidence and high levels of unemployment will likely play out in cities well into future years,” according to the National League of Cities.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
It looks like Dr. Boom is going back into business.
Pakistan nuke scientist says limits on him lifted
ISLAMABAD — Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who has admitted leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea and Libya, said Tuesday restrictions on his movements by the government had been lifted.
Asked if reports in local newspapers that restrictions on his movements had been lifted, Khan told AFP: "By the Grace of Allah, yes."
In February, a Pakistani court declared Khan a free man, five years after the reputed father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb was effectively put under house arrest for operating a proliferation network.
Last Friday, the 72-year-old Khan complained to a high court that his movements were still being restricted by the government’s security arrangements on his behalf. The court ordered the government to respond to Khan’s claim on September 4.
Local media have quoted Khan as saying that these restrictions have now been withdrawn.
"The reports that you have read in newspapers are correct," Khan told AFP, adding that he could not elaborate because the court had barred him from giving interviews to foreign media. He was, however, free to speak to local press.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
The statement is that what OTC derivatives have not done to financial entities, bad business, and litigation will.
Here comes bad business.
Commercial Mortgage Defaults Jump for U.S. Banks (Update2)
By Hui-yong Yu
Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) — The default rate on commercial mortgages held by U.S. banks more than doubled in the second quarter from a year earlier amid falling rents and occupancies for malls, office buildings and warehouses.
Loans that were 90 days or more past due climbed to 2.88 percent of outstanding balances in the second quarter, from 1.18 percent a year earlier, according to New York-based property research firm Real Estate Econometrics LLC. Defaults increased from 2.25 percent in the first quarter.
“A delinquency may have resolved itself two years ago,” said Real Estate Econometrics President and Chief Economist Sam Chandan. “Today, even one missed payment may be more indicative of an underlying problem, so banks have to be very proactive in addressing the issue.”
Banks held $1.087 trillion of commercial property loans in the quarter, up from $1.077 trillion in the previous three months. That’s almost 15 percent of all loans and leases held by banks, Real Estate Econometrics said. Defaults are rising both for lenders who hold commercial mortgages and for bondholders in the $700 billion U.S. market for securities backed by commercial mortgages.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Short term action in an attempt to solve a long term problem while dancing with the devil is bad business.
I wonder what the lender took for collateral?
Budget Crisis: City Takes Out $275M Loan
Ben Simmoneau
Philadelphia is taking out a short-term loan to help with cash flow as Pennsylvania’s budget crisis continues.
Mayor Michael Nutter announced Tuesday the city will take out the $275 million loan from JP Morgan Chase. The loan comes with a 3 percent interest rate if paid in full by November 30. On December 1, the interest rate increases to 8 percent.
Mayor Nutter expects the city will re-finance the loan at a lower interest rate in the public markets – once Pennsylvania’s budget crisis is solved.
Mayor Nutter also said Tuesday that by the end of next week, he will submit a new pension plan to the public agency that oversees the city’s pensions. Officials in Harrisburg are forcing the mayor to take that step.
Last week, the State Senate signed off on the mayor’s plan to raise the city sales tax by a penny and delay about $150 million worth of pension payments this year – but only if the city cuts the costs of its pensions.
Going forward, the city must freeze pension benefits for current workers and reduce pension costs for new workers by 20 percent. The mayor has said a new pension plan might include some type of 401(k) option to cut costs.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
This is the classic 1932 repeat.
Zombies dance while leading the financial group recovery.
Citigroup Is "Queen Of The Zombie Dance Party": Institutional Risk Analyst
The Huffington Post | Ryan McCarthy
First Posted: 09- 1-09 04:24 PM | Updated: 09- 1-09 05:43 PM
Yet another Wall Street analyst has hammered Citigroup, despite a recent surge in the bank’s stock price. Shares in Citigroup have shot up more than 60 percent in the last month.
Citi’s recent rally, however, didn’t prevent this macabre declaration today from Institutional Risk Analyst (IRA): "In Q2 2009, the queen of the zombie dance party remains Citigroup." Just last week, as NYT’s DealBook pointed out, David Trone of Fox-Pitt Kelton predicted that Citi would see an additional $68.6 billion in loan losses through 2010. (Note: Citi’s shares took a big dive today.)
Calling the bank "one of the zombie girls still rocking out at the House Bernanke dance party" and saying Citi was "halfway" in the grave," IRA questions why any serious money manager – let alone a Main Street investor – would put their money into Citigroup when so many questions remain about the bank’s toxic assets.
According to IRA’s Bank Monitor, which examines the health of individual banks, Citigroup is one of 2,256 banks to receive a grade of "F" in the second quarter of this year. In case you needed an explanation of what an "F" signifies, IRA describes this grade as: "Stress levels at the extreme range above industry average. At this degree of stress, one or more of the key elements of the business model has reached failure mode. What concerns exist are probably already public."
Worse, IRA compares Citigroup to some other well-known wards of the state:
"As we told subscribers to the IRA Advisory Service on Monday, credit losses at C could require additional injections of capital a la Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, even with the flow if subsidies that has increased C revenue greatly from 2008 run rates."
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Credit Default Derivative called Insured Municipal Bonds are not worth the paper they are written on. This should produce some interesting events and many disappointments.
Florida’s Bust Propels Muni Default Spike: Chart of the Day
By Joe Mysak
Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) — No other state comes close to Florida in defaulted municipal bonds.
The CHART OF THE DAY shows the number of bond issues that have gone into default over the past decade and Florida’s contribution to the total, according to the Distressed Debt Securities newsletter of Miami Lakes, Florida. Of the 126 bonds that are in default in 2009, 70 were sold in Florida.
Blame it on the collapse of the real estate market in general and, in particular, on Community Development Districts, which sell bonds to pay for infrastructure to support new real estate developments. Florida has 600 such districts, and 105 have gone into default on a total of $3.2 billion in bonds.
Asked how the so-called dirt district defaults in Florida compared with similar meltdowns in Colorado in the 1980s, Texas in the late 1980s and early 1990s and California in the 1990s, Richard Lehmann, publisher of the newsletter, said, “It’s worse than all three combined.” He also observed that some California defaults are still being worked out a decade after they occurred. Lehmann has launched a Web site devoted to this, http://www.floridacddreport.com.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
There is no safe haven with legs in the US dollar as it is the currency most wanted to diversify from in a planetary sense. Use common sense.
Dollar Is Funny Money in Push for World Currency
Commentary by Kevin Hassett
Aug. 31 (Bloomberg) — Like the Chinese, the folks at Disney World peg their currency to the dollar. Hand them $1 U.S. and you receive one Disney dollar, complete with a picture of Mickey Mouse or his friends, plus the signature of Disney’s official treasurer, Scrooge McDuck.
That transaction now seems superfluous. The U.S. dollar is rapidly transforming into a Mickey Mouse currency. This has led to a rising call for the creation of an alternative to the dollar in the form of a new world currency. It would be an enormous mistake to discount these calls as a sideshow. The odds of a world currency emerging have never been higher.
The calls are coming from many corners. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz chaired a United Nations panel that recommended the creation of a global reserve currency. Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, proposed that the International Monetary Fund take over the global leadership role traditionally ceded to the U.S. And Russian President Dmitry Medvedev handed out minted coin samples of a new world currency at the recent Group of Eight meeting in Italy.
These calls are worth paying attention to for a number of reasons. The arguments for a world currency are much better than you might think. An alternative to the dollar clearly has a promising market that can develop even if it is opposed by the U.S. And the idea of a world currency is most attractive to those who devoutly believe in multilateral institutions and the Canon of Lord Keynes — beliefs that are hardly in short supply in Barack Obama’s White House.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Any consideration of the US dollar as a "Safe Haven," violates all semblances of common sense.
Dollar destined to be second class currency in world’s largest banana republic
September 1, 2009
Analysis by: Michael Lynch
Summary
Professor of History Kennedy notes debate about the reserve status of the U.S. Dollar. The issue arose at the G-20 meeting in London in April and again in Yekaterinburg two months later when Brazil, Russia, China and India discussed shifting out of the dollar. Italian scholar Antonio Mosconi wrote in " The World Supremacy of the Dollar at the Rendering (1917-2008)" that the dollar is the currency of the "empire of debt" and as such, is in its last convulsion. This crisis is not like the others.
Analysis
The mainspring of the American commercial and industrial system is broken. If it is not repaired, and soon, the general economy will continue to spiral down into lethargy. This will inevitably lead to political consequences now only dimly foreseen. The town hall demonstrations during the congressional summer recess were subtle indications that Americans are beginning to realize that the functionaries cannot cope with the gathering storm. The eye of this awesome turbulence now looming well above the horizon is the ruined U.S. Treasury. Plans to run the national debt up to $9 billion by 2019 have catastrophic dimensions. With a currency that has no future, the political game cannot long go on. The only exit strategy remaining now is default which the government is reluctant to embrace (to say the least). The current financial philosophy leads to eventual chaos. Default, of course, has its own peculiar consequences. The greatest one is that the U.S.A. immediately loses superpower status and is reduced to the role of banana republic. Little consolation can derive from the fact that it will be the world’s largest such state. Without the ability to finance anything, American foreign policy will become fiction, domestic policy will amount to oratory without substance. The American people will quickly tire of the moribund federal government and replace it with one that can be more easily controlled. It is difficult to say exactly what form the new government might be. Perhaps a unicameral legislature composed of the several governors with a governor-in-chief of brief and limited power. The citizenry would formally or tacitly bring into being their powers of political assassination, popular political tools in all of the BRIC countries. But however the political questions are resolved, the fundamental economic, commercial and industrial issues would remain. Obviously in a world where foreign currencies are supreme, implications for the laboring classes are severe. A possibility is to forgo the concept of "internationalization" and revert to a closed system where there are neither imports nor exports. The citizens make an economy based upon what can be produced domestically. Implications for transportation, energy and industry are obvious. If the American system continues to drift, as it seems certain to do, then Brazil, Russia, India and China, and others will take whatever steps are necessary to pull their own systems back from the abyss (which they are now clearly doing). From this will emerge an international system of trade with the U.S.A. largely excluded unless gold is used to pay for transactions. When the gold is gone, international transactions cease. None of the above suggests that the world is coming to an end. The Soviet Union, for much of its 70 year tenure was not a world power. Modern Russia is still a work-in-progress. China, only now, is coming into its own. India has unrealized potential. Brazil, with great oil potential promises to be a power for years. The European Union will prosper. Life will go on, even for Americans, but their standards of living will decrease as the dollar fades.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
You think GM has finally realized what has happened to the world?
GM power has shifted to China
Foreign operations report to Shanghai
BY MARCIN SZCZEPANSKI and TIM HIGGINS
SHANGHAI — Largely overlooked in last month’s sweeping management reorganization of the new post-bankruptcy General Motors Co. was a recentering of power to Shanghai.
Nick Reilly went from overseeing GM’s Asia operations based in Shanghai to overseeing all of the automaker’s operations outside of North America, except for Opel — ending decades of bureaucratic silos that had carved up the globe into regional divisions.
So while GM’s Canada and Mexico operations report through the United States, most of the rest of the world reports through China.
"It should signal to everybody that certainly North America is going to be important to righting the ship, but basically the bread is going to be buttered out of Asia," said Michael Robinet, vice president of global vehicle forecasts at CSM Worldwide. "GM fully understands that, and that’s the reason why they put more decision-making capability out of Asia for their future fortunes."
As GM looks to sell off majority control of its Opel division in Europe, the Detroit automaker will likely draw on lessons from its China operations, where it is partnered with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. and Wuling Motors, for managing its new relationship.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Libor measures many things, one of which is simple demand for dollars. That one leads us to think which is worse, a high or a very low Libor rate.
Key US Dollar Libor Drops To Record Low
By Keith Jenkins
SEPTEMBER 1, 2009, 7:08 A.M. ET
LONDON (Dow Jones)–The cost of borrowing longer-term U.S. dollars in the London interbank market continued to fall Tuesday as trading resumed after the U.K. Bank Holiday weekend, with the key three-month rate marking its lowest level since the British Bankers’ Association introduced its Libor fixings back in 1986.
Data from the BBA showed three-month dollar Libor, seen as an important gauge of the effectiveness of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy, fell to 0.33438% from Friday’s 0.3475%.
The three-month rate reached 4.81875% on Oct. 10, when interbank market tensions peaked.
Meanwhile, overnight U.S. dollar Libor fixed unchanged at 0.22938%, holding below the upper end of the Federal Reserve’s Fed funds target range of zero-to-0.25%.
Three-month U.S. dollar Libor is expected to remain at low levels, according to valuations in eurodollar futures contracts.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Here is a repeat of 1932.
When you’re desperate, even bad news is good
A glut of positive economic data this summer doesn’t mean things are necessarily better – just not as bad as last time the data were collected. Maybe that’s good enough
Steve Ladurantaye
Globe and Mail Update Last updated on Tuesday, Sep. 01, 2009 02:32PM EDT
When you’ve spent the last year eating canned Spam, a bologna sandwich starts to look pretty good. So it goes with economic data, which are starting to look a whole lot better after a year of catastrophic readings.
“A lot of the numbers have been flattered by very easy comparisons,” said Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns Inc. “What we’ve gone through in the last year makes any comparison fraught with difficulties.”
As the economy teetered in February, U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke warned of the destructive powers of the “adverse feeback loop, in which weakening economic and financial conditions become mutually reinforcing.”
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Do you remember how silly this sounded in 2006 when I reminded you that central banks sold gold in 1968 to 1975, then slowed down sales and eventually turned into buyers? Also, remember how meaningless IMF sales were to the bears then? It is the same now.
It amazes me how many self-proclaimed gold experts were in diapers then.
Turning point for gold as Central Banks become buyers
With the possibility of Central Banks becoming net gold buyers and the speculation that the IMF gold may be sold "off market" gold analyst Jeff Nichols remains bullish on the precious metal’s prospects.
Author: Lawrence Williams
Posted: Tuesday , 01 Sep 2009
In his latest deliberation on the gold market, specialist gold analyst Jeff Nichols believes that gold has reached a turning point with purchases from official sources – Central Banks and sovereign wealth funds – perhaps outweighing sales as attitudes to the metal as a reserve asset become much more positive.
In particular Nichols points to China and Russia as two key nations with relatively low proportions of gold in their reserves as likely to be net buyers in the future – even if only soaking up gold from their own domestic production which otherwise would come on to the market. China announced earlier this year, for example, that it had moved 454 tonnes of gold into its reserves since 2003 – but still has only about 1.5% of its assets in gold. China’s accounting system is complex. The gold is, apparently bought by one government entity, but need not show up in its reserve statements until an internal transfer has been made into reserves – or so it says. This in effect means that its real gold reserve position is far from transparent and there is certainly a view that China is continuing to buy gold from domestic sources – Nichols surmises at a rate of around 75 tonnes a year, but again this has not shown in official reserve figures as yet and would only do so when it suits China to announce changes in holdings.
Russia too, with only around 2% of its assets in gold, has been making purchases from domestic output – and with prime Minister Putin stating publicly that the country should hold 10% of its reserve assets in gold there is considerable scope for ongoing purchases. According to Nichols, some reports suggest the country has added some 40 to 50 tons to its official reserves so far this year while other reports put purchases this year at 90 to 100 tons.
The key, though, has to be the attitude of the European Central Banks, which have been selling significant quantities of gold onto the market over the past ten years. The U.K. is the prime example of this when then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, who has, despite this financial disaster for country, built up a decidedly unwarranted reputation for financial prudence, sold half the U.K.’s gold reserves right at the bottom of the market, costing the country some several billions of dollars by some estimates.
Overall, the European banks are said by Nichols to hold on average about 55% of their reserve assets in gold – way above while Asian nations only about 1.5 – 2% – hence the big scope for purchase increases in the areas where economic growth has the highest potential. Be this as it may, Nichols reckons European Central Bankers’ attitudes are changing towards gold as an asset with the recent sharp fall in gold sales from official sources representing a renewed respect for gold as a reserve asset and reliable store of value.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
No less than once a week some form of gold scam is sent in from a hapless reader.
It is not limited to gold. Now it is a trillion dollars worth of some currency that a reader is an agent of for sale or purchase.
When will people learn that big money does not just happen to select you or I as their agent?
Mormons Become Victims in $50 Million Scam to Sell Gold Bullion
By James Sterngold
Sept. 1 (Bloomberg) — Henry Jones delivered the good news in a conference call with Tri Energy Inc.’s investors: The gold deal the company had been working on for years was about to pay off.
Jones, 55, a record producer in Marina del Rey, California, and his two partners had raised more than $50 million from 735 investors, which they said they were using to broker the sale to Arab buyers of 20,000 tons of gold owned by a group of Israelis. They promised to triple investors’ money — if only Tri Energy could overcome some last-minute glitches.
All the company needed to close the deal, Jones said on the Dec. 20, 2004, conference call, taped by one of the participants, was a “safe-passage letter” that would cost $450,000. A few days later, on another call, he said Tri Energy had to come up with $100,000 to open a “commission account.” Then, on Jan. 15, 2005, a new request: The bank handling the deal wanted $125,000 to conduct an audit.
Like those caught up in other get-rich scams — from Bernard Madoff’s $65 billion Ponzi scheme, which initially snared wealthy Jews, to an alleged $4.4 million fraud aimed at deaf people — Tri Energy’s investors had something in common. Many were Mormons and born-again Christians who shared dreams and prayers on nightly conference calls. They vowed to use the profits for charitable works and kept raising funds, at times taking out second mortgages, draining retirement accounts and recruiting relatives.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
As discussed, China’s next major economic thrust is to provide high tech products and services at lower than now competitive cost.
In doing so they will consume their own materials, making exports limited.
China plans while the West only reacts.
World faces hi-tech crunch as China eyes ban on rare metal exports
Beijing is drawing up plans to prohibit or restrict exports of rare earth metals that are produced only in China and play a vital role in cutting edge technology, from hybrid cars and catalytic converters, to superconductors, and precision-guided weapons.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Published: 5:58PM BST 24 Aug 2009
A draft report by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has called for a total ban on foreign shipments of terbium, dysprosium, yttrium, thulium, and lutetium. Other metals such as neodymium, europium, cerium, and lanthanum will be restricted to a combined export quota of 35,000 tonnes a year, far below global needs.
China mines over 95pc of the world’s rare earth minerals, mostly in Inner Mongolia. The move to hoard reserves is the clearest sign to date that the global struggle for diminishing resources is shifting into a new phase. Countries may find it hard to obtain key materials at any price.
Alistair Stephens, from Australia’s rare metals group Arafura, said his contacts in China had been shown a copy of the draft — `Rare Earths Industry Devlopment Plan 2009-2015’. Any decision will be made by China’s State Council.
“This isn’t about the China holding the world to ransom. They are saying we need these resources to develop our own economy and achieve energy efficiency, so go find your own supplies”, he said.
Mr Stephens said China had put global competitors out of business in the early 1990s by flooding the market, leading to the closure of the biggest US rare earth mine at Mountain Pass in California – now being revived by Molycorp Minerals.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Only about 1/3 of auto dealers have had their paperwork completed by the government on Cash for Clunkers while red tape frustrates the government assistance for mortgage foreclosures. These are the guys who will run health care, GM and other nationalized entities.
Homeowners frustrated by mortgage assistance program
updated 14 minutes ago
By Jessica Yellin
(CNN) — The Obama administration’s Making Home Affordable program was designed to help homeowners like Mark Kollar and Angela Baca-Kollar keep their homes.
When the recession hit, the Arizona couple’s income plummeted. They tried everything they could think of to hold on to their house: They drained their savings account, sold their 401(k), changed jobs.
It wasn’t enough, and foreclosure is set to begin in a week.
The Kollars thought they had one last hope: the Making Home Affordable program, which should have reduced their monthly mortgage to affordable payments. In theory, it’d be a win-win: The Kollars and their two children keep their home, and the nation avoids one more foreclosure.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Fat chance, just like in Iran.
Afghan tribal leaders call for Karzai to quit after detailing election fraud
September 1, 2009
In a crowded conference hall in Kabul, hundreds of angry tribal elders and local officials from southern Afghanistan gathered today to protest against what they dubbed massive electoral fraud that robbed entire districts of their votes and allocated them to the incumbent president, Hamid Karzai.
In a string of searing testimonies, community leaders told of how villages that had been too terrified to vote because of Taleban threats, of mysteriously produced full ballot boxes, and with most of the votes cast for Mr Karzai, often by his own men or tribal leaders loyal to him.
Hamidullah Tokhy, a tribal elder from Kandahar province in the south, whose governor is Mr Karzai’s brother, said: “How is it that in a district which a governor can only visit once every two years, where it’s too dangerous for the police to go, where even Nato can’t fly, how come there were 20,000 votes collected?”
The meeting was chaired by Abdullah Abdullah, the main rival to Mr Karzai in the June 20 elections, which an increasing number of Western observers and local officials say have been fatally compromised by evidence of systematic voter fraud.
Mr Abdullah, trailing in partial results already released, swore to defend the rights of voters and pledged he would not to accept any position in government with Mr Karzai, ruling out hopes of a compromise government of national unity. He said that he was having to urge calm on outraged victims of the apparent fraud, as some called for mass protests or even armed resistance.
Jim Sinclair’s Commentary
Ford auto sales were eblasted across the airwaves with hardly any mention of GM or Chrysler. It is so obvious what financial reporting is doing.
Ford August Sales Surge 17%, Chrysler Down 15.4%; GM Up Since July
UPDATED at 2:32 p.m.
Ford said August vehicle sales were up 17 percent compared to August of 2008, juiced by the government’s cash-for-clunkers program.
(Note: The Ticker originally reported that Ford sales were up 21.2 percent in August, but that figure did not include Ford’s fleet sales for the month, which were way off. Ford led its sales-figure release with the non-fleet number, obviously, because it’s the more favorable one. We call out that sneakiness here.)
Both General Motors’ and Chrysler’s August sales, on the other hand, which makes one wonder how bad they would have been without cash-for-clunkers.
GM was down 20.2 percent compared to August 2008. But the company’s August sales soared 30 percent compared to July.
Chrysler was down 15.4 percent compared to the same period of last year.
At the same time, Chrysler’s August sales were up 5 percent compared to July, so that’s something. The company blamed a lack of inventory for slow sales.
