Everything goes better.
That’s what we have to believe.
But:
From HousingWire.com
The number of foreclosure notices delivered to homeowners increased nearly 7% from June to July, and are up 32% from July 2008, according to Irvine, Calif-based RealtyTrac's Foreclosure Market Report.
Foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — were reported on 360,149 US properties during the month, about one in every 355 households.
“July marks the third time in the last five months where we’ve seen a new record set for foreclosure activity,” RealtyTrac CEO James Saccacio said in a statement. “Despite continued efforts by the federal government and state governments to patch together a safety net for distressed homeowners, we’re seeing significant growth in both the initial notices of default and in the bank repossessions.”
From Bloomberg
Sales at U.S. retailers unexpectedly fell in July as a boost from the cash-for-clunkers automobile incentive program failed to overcome cuts in other spending.
The 0.1 percent decrease in sales, the first drop in three months, followed a revised 0.8 percent gain in June that was larger than previously estimated, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Purchases excluding automobiles fell 0.6 percent, also more than anticipated.
Today’s report underscores the threat to spending from the continued deterioration in the job market; a separate government report today showed more Americans than forecast filed claims for unemployment insurance last week. Retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Macy’s Inc. are cutting costs and inventories to bolster profits as households cut back on non-essential items.
From the Wall Street Journal
Only last week, Ginnie announced that it issued a monthly record of $43 billion in mortgage-backed securities in June. Ginnie Mae President Joseph Murin sounded almost giddy as he cheered this “phenomenal growth.” Ginnie Mae’s mortgage exposure is expected to top $1 trillion by the end of next year—or far more than double the dollar amount of 2007. . . Earlier this summer, Reuters quoted Anthony Medici of the Housing Department’s Inspector General’s office as saying, “Who would have predicted that Ginnie Mae and Fannie Mae would have swapped positions” in loan volume?
Ginnie’s mission is to bundle, guarantee and then sell mortgages insured by the Federal Housing Administration, which is Uncle Sam’s home mortgage shop. Ginnie’s growth is a by-product of the FHA’s spectacular growth. The FHA now insures $560 billion of mortgages—quadruple the amount in 2006. Among the FHA, Ginnie, Fannie and Freddie, nearly nine of every 10 new mortgages in America now carry a federal taxpayer guarantee.
Herein lies the problem. The FHA’s standard insurance program today is notoriously lax. It backs low downpayment loans, to buyers who often have below-average to poor credit ratings, and with almost no oversight to protect against fraud. Sound familiar? This is called subprime lending—the same financial roulette that busted Fannie, Freddie and large mortgage houses like Countrywide Financial.
On June 18, HUD’s Inspector General issued a scathing report on the FHA’s lax insurance practices. It found that the FHA’s default rate has grown to 7%, which is about double the level considered safe and sound for lenders, and that 13% of these loans are delinquent by more than 30 days. The FHA’s reserve fund was found to have fallen in half, to 3% from 6.4% in 2007—meaning it now has a 33 to 1 leverage ratio, which is into Bear Stearns territory. The IG says the FHA may need a “Congressional appropriation intervention to make up the shortfall.”
… Then there is the booming refinancing program that Congress has approved to move into the FHA hundreds of thousands of borrowers who can’t pay their mortgage, including many with subprime and other exotic loans. HUD just announced that starting this week the FHA will refinance troubled mortgages by reducing up to 30% of the principal under the Home Affordable Modification Program. This program is intended to reduce foreclosures, but someone has to pick up the multibillion-dollar cost of the 30% loan forgiveness. That will be taxpayers.
In some cases, these owners are so overdue in their payments, and housing prices have fallen so dramatically, that the borrowers have a negative 25% equity in the home and they are still eligible for an FHA refi. We also know from other government and private loan modification programs that a borrower who has defaulted on the mortgage once is at very high risk (25%-50%) of defaulting again.
From DNAIndia.com
An outspoken Communist Party official in China has confirmed long-held suspicions that GDP data was being massaged and exaggerated by regional party leaders to show higher economic growth, in the process "squandering social resources."
In a brutally honest and searing speech recently, Wang Yang, the reformist-minded party secretary of Guangdong province in southern China, laid bare the dishonest means party leaders at the provincial level were employing "to polish their numbers." Since Wang is one of the few provincial party leaders who is also a member of the decision-making central Politburo, his words -- and the fact that even the official media has reported them -- is being seen as a signal that Beijing is wary of the accuracy of GDP data reported by the provinces.
"Some of our GDP data sure looks rosy," Wang told party officials. "But they do not amount to growth of social wealth; in fact, social resources are being wasted to show GDP growth." For instance, he said, provincial party officials build a bridge, which contributes to GDP; they then "dismantle" and rebuild the bridge, each time contributing to GDP. "We may have boosted our GDP this way, but this is a huge waste of social resources."
Likewise, he said, some regional governments registered GDP growth by encouraging "polluting industries", and then showed even higher growth by cleaning up the pollution.
Wang said that such practices, which went against "the laws of a market economy", were causing him deep disquiet. "Amidst the economic downturn, when everyone is eager to show 'rosy' numbers, all manner of backward productive forces are being revived," he said.
Chinese policymakers have set a target of 8% GDP growth for this year, and going by the 7.9% GDP growth reported for the first half of 2009, that looks like it will be achieved. But independent economists have expressed scepticism about the authenticity of the official data.
Others have voiced concern that an excessive preoccupation with the pace of growth (as opposed to the quality of growth) was spawning structural distortions in the Chinese economy.
Indicatively, the provincial GDP data for the first half of 2009, released by China's 31 provinces over the past week, adds up to 1 trillion yuan higher (or about 10% more) than the national GDP data released by Beijing earlier this month. Strikingly, 24 of the 31 provinces reported growth rates higher than the national average --- which, while not statistically impossible, is highly improbable, according to economists.
Party leader Wang argues that instead of artificially boosting GDP data, provincial leaders should focus on "restructuring and transforming" the industrial structure -- that is, move away from labour-intensive, low-technology, polluting and energy-inefficient industries.
It's an odd world
Sphere: Related Content
