In The News Today

Barrick and its OTC Short of Gold Derivative Obligations: I am asked constantly how Barrick can cover all their hedges. The answer is quite simple. Barrick does not have to buy one ounce of gold. You buy your way out of hedge contracts with paper money. The simple question is what does the long side want to release the obligation in light of future possible profits on the position? What a hell of a needlessly expensive mess. [more...]

Date: 2009-09-30 19:48:55

Blog posts (150) | Videos (125)
 

Home Loan Modification – Can You Modify to a Lower Mortgage Rate?

Getting a home loan modification can greatly help you avoid foreclosure and stay in your home.  By modifying to a lower mortgage rate or mortgage payment could go a long way to helping you save your financial career.  If you go through the foreclosure process you are going to find that it will be impossible to buy on credit for almost a decade.  This may not sound that bad but in all reality it makes life extremely difficult. [more...]

Date: 2009-09-30 19:19:52

Bernanke Casts Doubt on Stimulus, Says Fed May Buy Toxic Assets to Loosen Credit

Warning that the timing of an economic recovery is “highly uncertain,” Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said yesterday (Tuesday) ... about the continuing chokehold banks have put on credit to companies and households than he is about offering ... of the economy where liquidity has dried up for “credit easing”, reported the Guardian. “Credit sprea [more...]

Date: 2009-01-14 14:57:59

Credit Bubble bulletin ~ Nolan's analysis

A Divergence: The 2009 stock market has quickly come face-to-face with the reality that the worst of our banking system’s problems have yet to pass ... is now moving briskly. Citi management this morning announced a plan to create a new entity (“bad ... and is now backing $301bn of Citi’s real estate loans and securities. From Bank of America came the [more...]

Date: 2009-01-17 09:47:29

Got a tip for a post?: Email us | Anonymous form Get PEEK in your mailbox! ... , even offer some upfront credit to get the job done. (You can easily dump in hundreds of billions ... sort of no matter what, so once people do it they'll get a huge savings if they were in a bad [more...]

Date: 2009-01-07 12:20:03

DVD Round-Up: January 13, 2009

This week, British television comes of age with Skins and The Secret Diary of a Call Girl and Dane Cook makes his third bid for movie ... , bad soap operas and costume dramas based on 19th century English novels.  And while those programs ... are asked to play-act like they’re in high school.)  Skins also deserves credit for tackling [more...]

Date: 2009-01-08 01:40:26

Making Work for Ourselves (Part Two)

In part one, I imagined a scenario where one hundred people, selected at random, are stranded on a desert island ... to them. In fact, only forty need to work to satisfy the needs of the whole population. So how would ... , in their capabilities, in their generosity and so forth. There may, arguably, be different degrees of need [more...]

Date: 2009-01-17 15:58:44

The Psychology Of Gambling

Check out my Big RSS Subscriber Contest after reading this article. This might seem like an odd post for this blog, but stick with me for a bit. Over the last couple of days, I’ve read some stories about people in positions of some type of authority that have been caught stealing money from their organizations and using that money to support [more...]

Date: 2009-01-17 19:44:58

FHA chatter; News from MERS, Wells, Flagstar; Home price index not as bad as feared

  As my grandfather used to say, “If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.”* Apparently the folks at Sunwest Bank , out of Tustin, CA, felt the same way. Clients received a letter saying, “I regret to inform you that as of October 2, 2009, Sunwest Bank will be suspending its mortgage banking operations. [more...]

Date: 2009-09-29 19:04:07

Bail Me, Stimulate Me

In a week that signaled much worse is coming, perhaps the more dismal indication on the financial front was that Democrats finally had a chance to ... the kind of behavior that got us here: more bad loans to the wrong people won't en our crisis; they make ... . If that sounds bad, it shouldn't; this week's debate on TARP had essentially the same contours [more...]

Date: 2009-01-16 20:24:10

A consumer complaint about Consumer Reports

This story just drips with irony! 2 ... be trusted. No fault of theirs, my credit card number got out to some bad guys in Malta or Africa, and the credit card company detected it, contacted me as I was checking into a hotel in NY (by declining [more...]

Date: 2009-01-12 13:57:29

Things You Need to Know Before Raising a Private Loan

Things You Need to Know Before Raising a Private Loan by Martin ElmerA personal loan (consumer loan, private loan) could be an option, if you are short on money. But before you are raising a loan, you better learn about concepts like security, fees and interest rates.A personal loan is defined as a loan rose by an individual. Normally it is raised to buy something (like a vacation or a television). But it can also be used to pay of other dept. [more...]

Date: 2009-09-30 11:41:02

Painful eyes

A lot of emails come my way every 24 hours. Some stand out. Like this one. Not just that she’s a realtor who likes me ( ... to holding mortgage and credit card debt to the tune of 75 Billion, they say well that’s normal that’ ... citizens have become. Not just because she now laments the influence of cheap credit and easy money [more...]

Date: 2009-01-17 03:17:13

Roman Polanski is Not a Victim

Enough already. The Global Committee to Defend Roman Polanski is shocked and appalled by the arrest of their talented friend in Switzerland over the weekend. This quote from our colleague Bruce Crumley's report from France provides a flavor of the outrage: "To see him thrown to the lions and put in prison because of ancient history [more...]

Date: 2009-09-28 21:33:59

Suze Orman’s Free Book - Fixing Your Finances in 2009

Barack Obama’s speech warning of devastating unemployment levels and a lengthy recession was no surprise to most Americans ... . Debt consolidators are often a very bad deal. The National Foundation for Credit Counseling ... into the history behind the economic downturn, the book has 7 main sections: Credit Retirement Investing Saving [more...]

Date: 2009-01-09 13:29:00

DEMS SEEK TO BLAME BUSH FOR THEIR MISMANAGEMENT

Submitted by: Clark Havard Fannie, Freddie And Now, Hannie By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, January 15, 2009  Subprime Crisis: ... % of all subprime loans. Now these chickens are coming home to roost. The mortgage giants, internal memos show ... The media have pounded President Bush for a wave of Hispanic home foreclosures [more...]

Date: 2009-01-16 19:40:15

The End of Large-Bank Wholesale Lending - Time For the Mortgage Banker

The End of Large Bank Wholesale Lending - A Resurgence of Middle Market Mortgage Banking – Chase…a Leading Indicator This week Chase shut down ... t effectively manage its pipeline of locked and in-process loans. Of note, Credit Suisse recently shut down ... because NMN is subscription - sorry: “As the refinancing boom gathers steam selected residential [more...]

Date: 2009-01-16 18:23:12

Gates of Vienna News Feed 1/8/2009

The latest word is that an agreement with Russia has been reached, and the flow through the gas pipeline will resume.Also, look for the storming of the Israeli consulate in Montreal, as well as other Gaza-inspired violence around the world.Thanks to AA, Abu Elvis, Insubria, JD, Tuan Jim, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in [more...]

Date: 2009-01-09 04:49:00

Why Are My Credit Cards Being Canceled?

In today’s economy, credit card companies are changing interest rates at whim (at least until the new credit card laws go into effect…in July 2010 ... . And this could ding your credit score a little bit, which is not something you really want to happen ... by following this simple tip - it helps your credit score and it lets you keep all your available cr [more...]

Date: 2009-01-07 16:59:00

Refinancing When You Owe More Than The Home Is Worth

I've been looking around for an answer to this but my searches haven't returned anything useful ... ? Was all the refinance hype only because the markets kept going up? Is this the reason why people who got an bad loan ... to the utter limit for 100% financing could refinance into more favorable loans as their equity picture [more...]

Date: 2009-01-08 09:54:12

Stimulus Package 2009: Lightning Round Reactions

The Democrats in the House of Representatives introduced legislation this week containing $825 billion in new tax credits and government spending, ... cuts for clean, renewable energy including a new enhanced tax credit for research and development ... extension of the production tax credit for wind, hydro, geothermal, and bioenergy.  Ditto.  Go to hell [more...]

Date: 2009-01-16 15:30:30

The Endgame

The Endgame Employment Numbers Are Worse Than Posted Aye, Captain, I'm Giving Her All I've Got! Problem #1: Deflation Problem #2: Pushing on a String The Muddle Through Middle Conversations With John Deflation? Stimulus? Deleveraging? Recession? A soft depression? A return to a bull market? With all that is going on, how does it all end up? [more...]

Date: 2009-01-17 21:29:29

101 Ways to Take a Bite Out of Your Food Budget

0) // Except on the Mac - ahead of its time date.setTime (date.getTime() - skew); } var expdate = new Date (); FixCookieDate (expdate); expdate.setTime (expdate.getTime() + (365 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000)); // 1 year from now document.cookie = "wp_ozh_wsa_regardless" + "=" + escape (1) + "; expires=" + expdate.toGMTString() + "; path=" + "/Blog/"; [more...]

Date: 2009-09-29 08:20:00

Where were you when the world ended?

Being a spoiler-filled (except for the final issue) narrative of your Winter Men reading experience, in nine (somewhat lengthy) parts. Part the First. Sometime around 10 August 2005. Your trip to the local comics-purveying establishment rewards you with a new comic written by a Mr. Brett Lewis and drawn by a Mr [more...]

Date: 2009-01-11 16:25:10

Gates of Vienna News Feed 1/6/2009

Tuan Jim sends an string of important news articles about the gas pipeline crisis caused by the deadlock between Russia and Ukraine. He notes that the affected countries are dusting off alternative sources of energy — fuel oil and nuclear reactors — for electricity generation.Thanks to AA, Abu Elvis, C [more...]

Date: 2009-01-07 04:50:00

Street Cred? Buy It From The Fed

$20 BILLION IN BofA PREFERRED … ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL The single strongest currency on the Street these days is credibility ... .) When the proverbial pigeons come home to roost, and the fact that buying cruddy assets at bargain ... ridiculous? That we’ve done nothing more than enabled bad CEOs to make bad decisions? That we’re [more...]

Date: 2009-01-16 16:04:46

Buying a House - Can Anybody Do It?

Anybody can buy a house. There are several ways: you may need to fix your credit to get financing, or find a real estate investor to buy a house ... that there is no way you can afford it. It could be crushing blow. This could lead to bad feelings ... and bills. You need to know the amount of money you have to make payments on a home. Remember [more...]

Date: 2009-01-17 10:30:29

Doom - Part Deux

It's here. Finally. Doom. Doom Part Deux, actually, as the fine folks over there at The Wall Street Journal Online have informed us that the " ... . They don't really know exactly where all the money went and who did what with it. Bad answer ... Rican rum producers$128 million to auto racing tracks$33 million for corporations that operate [more...]

Date: 2009-01-17 08:34:00

More on Good Habits for Success in 2009

“Good Habits”. Lets delve a bit deeper: Constantly evaluate everything you are doing Develop the habit of constant awareness and evaluation.  Always be thinking: is this the best use of my time? Is the best way I could be doing this? Do the most important task of the day first This ties in with your daily goals, [more...]

Date: 2009-01-06 15:55:09

It's a bad time to buy a home

Analyst warns against buying homes now:Fox-Pitt Kelton home-builder analyst Robert Stevenson said Wednesday he thinks this year will turn out to be "a bad time to buy a home" as the U.S. economy loses more jobs, especially if buyers don't plan ... weren't bad enough for housing — given the mounting foreclosures, falling home prices [more...]

Date: 2009-01-08 12:47:00

The Great American Ponzi Scheme

Give us Madoff! Give us Madoff!  “Oil rises to $39 on Bernanke comments…”  “Asian stocks rise after Bernanke remarks…” When they turned out the ... say to bring about the turnaround? We find the report on the front page of the International Herald ... and the normalization of credit markets,” said the main man at the Fed, speaking to an audience at the [more...]

Date: 2009-01-14 17:00:26

Top 10 at 10: MAF warned last year (by Carter); PGC and Jacks Point; Norris attacks Kiwibank; Dilbert

Here are my top 10 links from around the Internet over the last couple of days. My apologies to regular readers disappointed by the non-appearance of the Top 10 at 10 yesterday and today’s late appearance. I was simply swamped with the news, tips and interviews from the Crafar story, where the wider economic and financial implications are now becoming apparent. [more...]

Date: 2009-10-01 00:26:58

Mortgage Loans - The Basics

by Trinity Collie Buying a home is a big decision. It is actually a really big responsibility to buy a home because it is such an expensive purchase. In order to get into a home, you will most likely have to borrow money from a bank to cover the cost of the home. This type of loan is known as a mortgage. The ease of getting a mortgage [more...]

Date: 2009-01-17 17:20:31

Kevin Nealon Records Humorous Radio Ads For Charity Giveaway

Former SNL star Kevin Nealon has recorded a series of funny radio ads as part of a fundraiser for the Boys & ... of nonexistent credit, there are plenty of ways to get into a home, including that trusty oversized key ... — and spending $150 to win a $650,000 home isn’t a bad deal! Especially with the odds being [more...]

Date: 2009-01-06 18:27:54

Tomorrow’s Star Bloggers Talk About Blogging

When a blogger becomes famous, everyone wants to get in touch with her, asking for interviews, sharing their post ideas, or just looking for a quick chat. But at that point, reaching out to her might already be too late. Unless the blogger tells you otherwise, there is nothing wrong with trying [more...]

Date: 2009-01-17 13:04:41

Markets Manias: Thinking About the Year Ahead

The alternative title for this post might have been "Still Inside the Box" since recent market action could be taken, as we are tending to do, ... we're "in the box" because the markets are wrestling with a) the continuing credit crisis ... collapse, the Lehman bankruptcy, we see the sudden grasping of the truth of how bad it is. The mid-Nov [more...]

Date: 2009-01-17 14:34:33

Mortgage: 3 Tips On Finding The Cheapest Rates

There are a lot of things to do when looking to buy a home but the most important is to get the most interesting mortgage loan rates available on the market. When applying for a loan, having a high credit score allows you to have a number ... one. Important: in some countries there are only established only two kinds of credit score: the good [more...]

Date: 2009-01-17 12:34:42

Sondheim: The Review So Far (Part 1)

OK this is the first part of overly long commentary about the new Sondheim CD set “The Story So Far” cuz I’m bored and I’m listening to it and I am ... ) They rejected it, too bad, cuz I used to watch this show as a young kiddie and mighta become ... out the disks to find out. Too bad I wasn’t compulsive when I imported those into iTunes. They Ask [more...]

Date: 2009-01-18 01:14:51

Sunday Papers 18 Jan 2008

Pushed for time this week, so the Bloggosphere round-up is a little short - I’m off on another real-world assignment to the darkest corners of Asia this coming week, but I’ve left you with plenty to read below, and have scheduled a load of articles to appear each day while I’m away - have fun y’all [more...]

Date: 2009-01-18 06:41:32

The 60 Most Anticipated Films Of 2009

2009 is obviously underway, and it could be a really great year. In no particular order, we've written about (or mentioned in brief) 60-plus films that we're looking forward to in 2009 (we actually name roughly 78 films in total, give or take). Sure, some of them we have reservations about, and some could be totally godawful, [more...]

Date: 2009-01-10 22:24:00

Alan Schram: The Story of 2008: What Went Wrong?

The past year has been financially chaotic on a level almost no one alive has ever seen ... in loans from their gracious neighborhood banker. This sounds like very high leverage ... more than 1%. However, suddenly home prices decline nationwide, and 20% of the mortgages default [more...]

Date: 2009-01-12 05:06:35

DrumBeat: January 13, 2009

Analysis: Global power demand to languish in 2009 The outlook for energy commodities this year remains grim, says a new report from Merril Lynch. Neither cold winter temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere nor a steep fall in the price of energy have provided much support to the demand for oil, natural gas or coal [more...]

Date: 2009-01-08 01:35:34

How the Credit Crunch is Crunching Out First Time Buyers

by Troy Cruz William Engle Dawn Khoury James Nissen Robert Hill Chris Laning Janet Taylor Jack Enders Bruce Gross Rick Bean Keith Wood Ray Johnson ... who have established credit. So, how are first time buyers affected by the down turn in the economy? It isn’ ... when there wasn’t a credit crunch. Before, first time buyers got a break on the interest [more...]

Date: 2009-01-17 21:06:22

"Hotel for Dogs": Movie Review

One Day, 3,000 Adoptions from Pet Shelters, No FeesUSA TodayThey're pulling out all the stops next week — including giving pets to some adopters at no charge — in a nationwide effort to boost the number of shelter animals that find new homes.Three hundred shelters across the USA are holding Change a Pet's Life Day on Jan [more...]

Date: 2009-01-17 12:52:00

Tomorrow’s Star Bloggers Talk About Blogging

When a blogger becomes famous, everyone wants to get in touch with her, asking for interviews, sharing their post ideas, or just looking for a quick chat. But at that point, reaching out to her might already be too late. Unless the blogger tells you otherwise, there is nothing wrong with trying [more...]

Date: 2009-01-17 03:17:19

The U.S. as a Banana Republic?

Plane Ditches in New York River, All Aboard are SafeReutersNEW YORK (Reuters) - A US Airways jet with 155 people on board ditched in the frigid Hudson River off Manhattan after apparently hitting a flock of geese on Thursday and officials said everyone was rescued."We've had a miracle on the Hudson," New York Gov [more...]

Date: 2009-01-16 15:10:00

Get Help With Debt When Necessary

Having debt is something that almost everybody has to deal with in their lives ... that determine its seriousness. Things like missed payments on magazine subscriptions or credit card debt shouldn ... . There are numerous forms of debt, so it’s not necessarily a bad thing. While debt is essentially [more...]

Date: 2009-01-16 10:02:27

Live-Blogging the Hearings for Obama’s SEC Chairman Pick

Mary Schapiro, President Barack Obama’s vaguely controversial pick to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, is appearing on the Dodd & Shelby Show today (otherwise known as the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, of which Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd is the chairman and Alabama Republican Richard Shelby is the [more...]

Date: 2009-01-15 15:16:09

Live-Blogging the Hearings for Obama’s SEC Chairman Pick

Mary Schapiro, President Barack Obama’s vaguely controversial pick to head the Securities and Exchange Commission, is appearing on the Dodd & Shelby Show today (otherwise known as the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, of which Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd is the chairman and Alabama Republican Richard Shelby is the [more...]

Date: 2009-01-15 16:37:43

Posts about Tri-State Real Estate (FL, GA and AL) as of January 16, 2009

Foreclosures And The Mortgage Meltdown Continues to Plague America - usreoproperties ... either being foreclosed upon or delinquent. The nation … package aiming to thaw the frozen credit ... 01/16/2009 Toyota is developing a miniature, environmentally friendly car that is powered entirely [more...]

Date: 2009-01-16 14:21:19

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