| More Risk for Fannie, Freddie?
Currently, FHA can't guarantee mortgages higher than $367,000. The plan, as outlined by Speaker Pelosi, also expands the role of FHA in assisting homeowners in trouble. In addition to raising the loan limits for FHA, Congress will permit more borrowers facing defaults to refinance through the FHA, and increase funding for housing counseling to $500 million to help home buyers who fall behind on their mortgage. Raising the loan limits should allow a larger pool of borrowers to qualify for lower-cost mortgages or to refinance existing mortgages, something that has been difficult to do since mortgage lenders pulled back from nonconforming loans. "This, along with the fact that interest rates have dropped, will give a big kick to the demand side of the housing market," said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at Global Insight, an economic consulting firm in Lexington, Mass.
Beam Me Up
The fund-raising 'Conversation with Warren Buffett' drew over 1,500 people, including a mix of Silicon Valley executives such as John Doerr, a partner at venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers... Tickets ranged from $100 to more than $2,300, drawing in around $1 million, according to the Clinton campaign." How ludicrous - the country's prominent venture capitalists and its best known and beloved "capitalist" raising funds for a committed welfare statist and socialist. On CNBC, Hillary agreed with Buffett's position to maintain the estate tax because, in her words, "It's really a tax to prevent us from having inherited wealth generation after generation which would undermine the kind of spirit and meritocracy that the United States stands for." This is awfully charitable of Hillary and Warren to provide such a vital service to our "free" society.
Stories expected to appear in the Tuesday, Jan. 29, edition of The ...
FORECLOSURE RATES: The number of U.S. homes that slipped into some stage of foreclosure in 2007 was 79 percent higher than in the previous year, a real estate tracking company says. Many homeowners started to fall behind on mortgage payments in the last three months, setting the stage for more foreclosures this year. TAXING STATES: It's the perfect tax: Government exacts a big payment without having to fend off lobbyists or wage a political fight. And in most cases, the taxpayer doesn't even have a say. That's the allure of New York's proposal to tax illegal drugs, just one of the innovative and sometimes odd ways states are trying to raise revenue in these increasingly gloomy economic times. WORLD MARKETS: European and most Asian stock markets rebound as investors cheer an overnight rally on Wall Street and snap up beaten down shares on expectations of a U.S.
Recession–Who Cares?
But hellooo, we've had brisk growth for the last few years, as the President always likes to remind us, only without those promised increases in personal income, at least not for the middle class. Growth, some of the economists are conceding in perplexity, has been "de-coupled" from mass prosperity. Growth is not the only economic indicator that has let us down recently. In the last five years, America's briskly rising productivity has been the envy of much of the world. But at the same time, real wages have actually declined. It's not supposed to be this way, of course. Economists have long believed that some sort of occult process would intervene and adjust wages upward as people worked harder and more efficiently. And what about the unemployment rate? The old liberal faith was that "full employment" would create a workers' paradise, with higher wages and enhanced bargaining power for the little guy and gal.
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