No Fee Balance Transfer Offers Rise Again

Research has showed that credit card providers are waiving balance transfer fees but charging higher interest rates . According to financial website MoneyExpert.com , the number of credit card providers that are offering credit card holders the chance to transfer outstanding debt from another card without having to pay a fee to do so has risen by nearly 20pc to 69 during the past year. [more...]

Date: 2009-09-29 15:20:06

Blog posts (458) | Videos (103)
 

The Mini Depression and the Maximum-Strength Remedy

This is not the Great Depression of the 1930s, but nor is it turning out to be merely a bad recession of the kind we've experienced periodically over ... now is not the supply of credit. Yes, Wall Street is paralyzed at the moment because the bursting ... loans. But even if credit were flowing, those loans wouldn't save jobs. Businesses want to borrow [more...]

Date: 2008-11-09 15:02:00

Enron America-The FBI Enters, Stage Right

When the Enron bubble burst several years ago I wrote that Enron was just a snapshot of the rot that has been ... assassination that the"chickens always come home to roost". He was of course correct. As above, so below. Now this flock of chickens is coming home to roost. Bet on it. And worse? It has a bad case [more...]

Date: 2008-09-24 11:07:12

Home Equity Loans For People With Bad Credit

Home equity loans for people with bad credit are often the only way they have to improve their credit history, and can also help people consolidate their debt to make it more manageable. They are available, and these loans have helped thousands of homeowners improve their finances. Lenders may offer lower interest rates and more points Related posts: Home Equity Fixed Loans Home equity fixed loans are credit extended to homebuyers who... [more...]

Date: 2009-09-30 18:58:52

Gates of Vienna News Feed 10/5/2008

USABailout Bill Loops in Green Tech, IRS SnoopingCrowds Again Gather to Pray Before Image in WindowElection Precinct in Islamic Center That Hosted Extremist’s VisitMilitant Obama Youth March to ‘Alpha, Omega’ ChantN.Y. Times Whitewashes Obama-Ayers ConnectionRacism Without Racists Europe and the EUExtradition Bid Raises Fears of ‘Thought Crime’ [more...]

Date: 2008-10-06 00:49:00

The Trend Of Unsupportable Housing Prices

The Boston Globe reports from Massachusetts. “The median price statewide for single-family homes last month tumbled 9 percent to $323,000 from $355, ... would be further damaged. ‘At this point, the housing market is in such bad shape I don’t think even ... , that’s got to be bad for the real estate market.’” The Seacoast Online. “George Reagan of New [more...]

Date: 2008-09-24 12:54:08

Gates of Vienna News Feed 10/14/2008

A significant news story this evening: after a year, the murder of those teenage girls in Texas has officially been termed an “honor killing” by the FBI. Needless to say, the Muslim lobby is not happy about this.Also, a Swiss government minister says her country needs to import more foreign workers.Thanks to Abu Elvis, C [more...]

Date: 2008-10-15 03:29:00

McCain Speaks, DOW Rises

The DOW was down over -800 points until John McCain started his hard-hitting speech today attacking Barack Obama on everything from his ... to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie ... -334.91, which is very bad but certainly not as bad as -800. I thought the  financial situation [more...]

Date: 2008-10-06 20:22:19

David Sirota: Top 5 Reasons to Vote Against Paulson's $700 Billion Bailout

There's news this Sunday afternoon of a congressional deal to bailout Wall Street fat cats with $700 billion of taxpayer cash ( ... INHERENT FISCAL INSANITY COULD MAKE PROBLEM WORSE When an individual consumer uses a new credit card to pay off astounding debt from an old credit card, it's called kiting, and in many cases [more...]

Date: 2008-09-28 23:35:52

Obama’s Government Grants to Aid with Debt Relief – Pay off All Personal and Unsecured Debt

If you’ve been getting under further and further with debt, you know the feeling of despair that can come from seeking help and being met with empty promises or a lot of red tape. The bottom line of needing debt relief is that your name is on the line and the people you are indebted to have a claim against your reputation or property and can damage your credit or repossess your belongings. [more...]

Date: 2009-09-30 17:50:48

Why This Is A Great Time To Be A Real Estate Investor!

Take a look at some industry blogs and you would think that when the bubble burst it spelled doom and gloom for everyone. Not true at all. Not by a long shot. There are a bunch of people making an absolute killing in the biz. While some agents may be making money, the majority are not. Why? Does it really matter? [more...]

Date: 2008-11-26 17:24:50

The Sand States

Here are excerpts from "The End" in Portfolio by Michael Lewis, author of Liar's Poker, on the financial collapse ... in asking home­owners with bad credit and no proof of income to put no money down and defer interest ... states. The loans would have been made by one of the more dubious mortgage lenders; Long Beach Financial [more...]

Date: 2008-11-12 00:44:27

Now is Not The Time to Panic

“I know people are scared watching the markets unravel. Don’t panic. That is the worst thing that you could do in a market like this. Think about it ... and remember this too shall pass. We will not fix decades of overspending, a housing bubble and credit ... was one approach to fixing the financial institutions that we need to remain healthy [more...]

Date: 2008-10-07 16:39:05

Conspiracy of the Lemmings: Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis; Part II

Cross-posted by Maggie at Maggie’s Notebook By Jim Simpson Note: I am indebted to the incredible efforts of many bloggers, who did the yeoman’s work of ferreting out many of the hard-to-find facts in this article. I particularly want to thank David Horowitz and his Discover the Networks team, Trevor Loudon of New Zeal blog, Cliff Kincaid, [more...]

Date: 2008-10-31 14:25:21

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

GOP Attacks on ACORN Are Based on the Fear of 1.3 Million New Voters

Jesse Jackson Jr. from the Huffington Post: What the Republicans are Really Afraid of The Republicans tried to make fun of Barack Obama as a community organizer at their national convention in Minnesota, which I guess just goes to show how little Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have to fear from right-wing “humor [more...]

Date: 2008-10-13 15:11:21

The Lamps Are Going Out

No major newspaper would run any op-ed from me. I gave up and sent one to American.com, which you can see here. The bottom line: The financial bailout isn't as bad as Main Street thinks. It's worse. I think I'll just paste the other one below the fold. Next, I am going for a long bike ride. You might [more...]

Date: 2008-10-03 20:06:57

Gates of Vienna News Feed 10/8/2008

As of tonight the news feed has been up and running every day for three months (except for when I’ve been away).I’ve received a few complaints about it. Some readers don’t like to have to scroll through the headlines to get to the good stuff, and others don’t want me to waste space on American news stories which are being covered thoroughly [more...]

Date: 2008-10-09 03:43:00

The Brakes Are Not Working In California

The LA Times reports from California. “A record 10% of the nation’s mortgage-burdened homeowners fell behind on their loan payments or were in foreclosure during the third quarter, according to a survey released Friday by the Mortgage Bankers Assn., which said California and Florida were the biggest contributors to the worsening picture [more...]

Date: 2008-12-06 18:15:59

Falling Out Of A Bed That Gets Higher Every Day

The Herald Tribune reports from Florida. “Mark Brivik, a real estate investor who made a living buying, fixing up and selling houses on Longboat Key and other parts of Southwest Florida, has filed ... off her credit cards and ripped them up.” Still, even without credit card debt, Lesso is struggling [more...]

Date: 2008-11-24 14:34:43

Why I'm still concerned about yesterday's vote and its impact on the economy

I find fascinating this entire discussion of whether or not voting down the bailout bill yesterday poses an economic danger to the US ... that all is not lost. But credit markets are still frozen. Practically no one in America can get a loan right now. No one. So I decided to use the Google and find out more about what this credit crunch really [more...]

Date: 2008-09-30 16:57:50

Not Ready Yet to End Our Addiction to Growth

The value of public companies listed on stock markets has dropped by about a third in the past year. This means that shareholders believe that this group of companies, which are an important but not dominant factor in the global economy (the public sector, notably health and education, and privately-owned enterprises, [more...]

Date: 2008-10-14 02:37:26

What Sort of Loan Can I Get? (October 2008)

Having had two separate very qualified buyers ask me if they could get a loan in the last two days was kind of an eye opener to all of the hype out there about how difficult it is to get a loan currently. Things have swung just as far ... it significantly harder to qualify for a loan than they really should. This won't be permanent [more...]

Date: 2008-10-23 13:44:13

California Mortgage Loan Disclosure Statement

California has replaced the one page federal Good Faith Estimate with a two page Mortgage Loan Disclosure Statement. When I originally wrote this, I haven't seen a lot of abuses of this yet, mostly no doubt because it is so new. I didn't even know if there were solid regulations and implementation policies and standards on it yet [more...]

Date: 2008-11-05 14:43:51

Welcome to the Wal-Mart Society: Why Republicans Want Automakers to Fail

Republican members of Congress who think autoworkers have "Cadillac" health care benefits should give up their health plans and take up a Wal-Mart plan, says columnist Mark Sawyer. George Bush, borrowing from author Jeff Gates, once trumpeted what he called the alm"ownership society." The ownership society was attractive in many ways [more...]

Date: 2008-12-22 17:33:25

Boston Tea Party Presidential candidate Charles Jay answers Obama-McCain debate questions

Posted at cj08.com (I wasn’t invited to Friday night’s presidential debate, but you knew I was going to weigh in anyway. My “participation” comes in the way of interspersing my responses into the actual text of the debate, which you will see below. All of those responses to the questions asked by moderator Jim Lehrer are in bold type [more...]

Date: 2008-09-27 18:49:05

No Bailouts For Billionaires -- And No Bail For These Bums Either

Let's make a deal before the markets open in Asia My financial advisor is pretty conservative with her suggestions ... named Paulson (not related) and some "vulture capitalists" who are buying up bad mortgages ... they presided over the packaging and sale of loans that helped bring down the investment-banking system [more...]

Date: 2008-09-28 13:00:00

Предсказания Кюнстлера на 2009 - США, Нефть, Геополитика, Путин

Спонсор месяца - #1 RX pharmacy affiliate program!Сайт дня (как попасть) - http://www.business-magazine.ru/There are two realities "out there" now competing for verification among those who think about national affairs and make things happen. The dominant one (let's call it the Status Quo) [more...]

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

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

Q&A with the Banker Panel at the National Auctioneers Association

Here are my notes from yesterday’s Mortgage Industry Panel from the National Auctioneers Association’s Convention in Denver ... National Bank; Residential Mortgage Lending Ken West VP Commercial Lending Mountain Plains Farm Credit ... loan right now. A: (Wes) Underwriting guidelines will continue to get tighter. We have a few [more...]

Date: 2008-12-02 08:00:57

The choice: getting out of the credit mess, or sink into a depression

One of the most alarming things about all the bailout talk is that the Community Reinvestment Act is still in the books . Why should this matter? ... or employment history and little or no savings or credit history. The intellectual start of this mess ... Because it’s at the heart of the current credit crisis. Harvey Golub writes in today’s Wall Stret [more...]

Date: 2008-12-09 14:27:33

Who nose?

On the right, Charles Krauthamer: Paulson is a lame duck. In four months, he is gone ... and the seizing up of the credit markets convinced them that their ad hoc Bear-yes, Lehman-no rescue ... against withholding golden parachutes from failed executives. But artificially capping the pay of people [more...]

Date: 2008-09-26 12:40:12

Stanley Kurtz: HOW ACORN & ITS DEM ALLIES BUILT THE MORTGAGE DISASTER, and how Obama is right in the middle of it

UPDATED Please scroll down I didn’t have a chance to post on it yesterday, but Maria and a couple of friends sent this, ... to relax their credit standards as well, local banks would never make home loans to customers with bad ... to force banks into making high-risk loans to low-credit customers is still active. None [more...]

Date: 2008-10-14 12:37:34

Credit Card Debt: Next Big Hit to Banks?

Given how overextended consumers are, and how banks have been cutting back on the cheapest piggybank, home equity loans, by slashing those credit lines, and the reports of rising delinquencies from even conservative ... in credit card losses. But under the new bankruptcy code, if you do no qualify for Chapter 7 bankruptcy [more...]

Date: 2008-10-01 09:17:30

Those Order Takers Are Now Gone In California

The Ventura County Star reports from California. “According to Bill Watkins, executive director of the UC Santa Barbara Economic Forecast Project…a foreclosed home in California sells for $200,000 less than a traditional home. Until foreclosures are worked through the market, ‘we don’t think the real estate market can clean itself up, [more...]

Date: 2008-12-27 18:47:48

Bailout Fatigue Sets In

attorneygeneral.utah.gov Just as troubled borrowers are poised to become the next likely recipients of government help, ... mortgage-loan modifications — the anger over bailing out borrowers has been growing. Taxpayers ... saying, ‘I didn’t buy a house I couldn’t afford. I didn’t take out a home equity loan [more...]

Date: 2008-12-09 18:38:11

Forecast for 2009

Introduction       There are two realities "out there" now competing for verification among those who think about national affairs and make things happen. The dominant one (let's call it the Status Quo) is that our problems of finance and economy will self-correct and allow the project of a "consumer" economy to resume in "growth" mode [more...]

Date: 2008-12-29 03:33:57

Bill Clinton Campaigning for Obama in Orlando Today

NOTE FROM PAM: I added some video clips below the fold. Former President Bill Clinton spoke at a Obama for President rally in Orlando, Florida today ... who are not at this rally. We have to elect a president who will rebuild the American dream, repair a badly ... , incomes declining, heathcare costs of doubled, college costs up 75 percent -- credit card [more...]

Date: 2008-10-02 01:31:07

Congresswoman to ABC's Chris Cuomo: Calm Down!

A Republican and a Democratic member of Congress attempted to calm "Good Morning America" news anchor Chris Cuomo during an interview on Tuesday ... people give $700 billion to the Treasury." Cuomo's "pass anything" attitude could also be seen ... back to Washington, D.C. Where are their heads? Specifically, the people who voted against [more...]

Date: 2008-09-30 17:29:35

The Fire Inside the Smoking Gun at Fan and Fred That Ruined Mortgage Lending

Here’s the smoke (HT my guardian angel), from the September 30, 1999 New York Times (click on “more” if you’re on the home page to see the smoke) ... , the Fannie Mae Corporation is easing the credit requirements on loans that it will purchase from banks ... to individuals whose credit is generally not good enough to qualify for conventional loans. Fannie [more...]

Date: 2008-10-01 13:03:22

Steve Parker: What failure of bailout bill means to car buyers, carmakers and dealers

The worst news from yesterday's rejection of the bailout will be for, as usual, those least able to afford it ... get foreclosed; a few weeks versus as long as a year. Some new and used car dealers have electronics ... posting. New car dealers treat their used car lots like jewelry stores; they often make more profit [more...]

Date: 2008-09-30 12:07:44

Bailout a 'disgrace,' Congress 'pathetic'

by Frank James Nouriel Roubini, one of the economists who presciently warned that the financial markets and economy were headed for a ... day-of-reckoning, can't say enough about how bad he believes the Treasury's bailout is. nouriel ... the government recapitalized the banking system only seven included a program of purchase of bad [more...]

Date: 2008-09-29 13:38:43

Gates of Vienna News Feed 10/1/2008

USACalif. Lawmakers Get Free GasolineIMF Adds to Pressure on Congress to Approve Bail-OutNorth Carolina Man Pleads Guilty and is Sentenced for Federal Hate CrimesObama’s Assault on the First AmendmentObama and SlaverySchwarzenegger: Communism Still Bad IdeaThe Greenlining Institute: Does the Financial Crisis Have Its Origins in Berkeley [more...]

Date: 2008-10-02 00:29:00

10 of the World’s Most Dramatic Financial Crises, and Their Lessons

Financial crises are consistent in one way, and one way only: They’re far more sexy when your neighbors are wearing them ... : In 1985, Sweden deregulated its credit market, leading to a commercial property speculation bubble ... the government took on bad assets worth about $9.9 billion, it was eventually able to recoup [more...]

Date: 2008-09-25 00:06:51

What Are We Buying?

On one level, we know that the $700 billion taxpayers are being asked to cough up is going to investment banks, ... of all home mortgages has risen steeply over the last few years as the housing bubble drove home prices up and lax lending rules roped more people into the pool. Home mortgages were valued [more...]

Date: 2008-09-25 19:15:01

An interview with Alan Greenspan

After repeated requests, at great personal expense, and after a series of logistical obstacles ... many individuals interpreted your comments as a sign of approval for those kinds of risky loans [more...]

Date: 2008-09-30 17:05:00

Lending Woes: A Deeper Consumer Analysis

This may seem like an odd analogy, but I remember this story about my Mom when she was having her 7th baby ... for the Subprime Crisis.   Subprime loans did not come into being in late 2003.  2003 is the year more people ... You can’t get a good loan, but we can find you a BAD loan, if that’s what you want.”  Most people said [more...]

Date: 2008-12-29 21:19:46

Today’s Hit-And-Miss Parade

A report from Florida Today. “Conventional wisdom advises home sellers to examine recent sales of comparable homes in their area, and price their home in line with those selling prices. But today’s market is anything but conventional. ‘There’s no pattern,’ Realtor Cindy Kelley said of sales prices. ‘Here’s what we’re up against,’ she said [more...]

Date: 2008-12-07 16:04:16

Who was responsible for the financial crisis?

by Mary Obviously the answer is much more complicated than most people understand and certainly more complicated than people like Muck and the ... who had no means to pay the money back. Remove that from the equation, and there was no real estate ... "feel" for market conditions, for ushering in an era of easy credit that accelerated the mortgage mania [more...]

Date: 2008-11-23 02:28:11

Bailout Defeat Offers Opportunity

Whether you supported the bailout gladly, supported it holding your nose, ... to come down on in order to take credit for whatever eventually would happen. As it turned out, McCain ... he is. Ultimately, the compromise failed. Doesn’t matter whether you think that’s good or bad. It’s dead. Former [more...]

Date: 2008-09-30 00:30:03

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