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In effect since 1913 and long considered an untouchable provision of the tax code, the mortgage interest deduction as we know it may not be around to celebrate its 100th birthday. The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform is recommending that the mortgage interest deduction no longer be an itemized deduction; instead, it would be transformed into a non-refundable tax credit equivalent to 12 percent of interest paid on mortgages up to $500,000. What this would mean for taxpaying homeowners is up for debate. According to the National Association of Realtors, progress has been made recently in bringing stability...

Bond market investors are showing the greatest confidence in global economic growth since credit markets crashed three years ago. Yields on debt securities are rising for a fourth month as prices fall, the longest stretch since June 2008, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Global Broad Market Index, which tracks the performance of more than 19,000 securities valued at about $39 trillion. While the highest-rated debt, from U.S. Treasuries toMicrosoft Corp. debentures, are falling, the riskiest company notes are returning the most in eight years. “We've just experienced the first several months of a bear market in bonds,” said...

U.S. Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke recently congratulated himself on CNBC for helping boost the Russell 2000 stock index by 30 per cent. The San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank just published a report that claims the second round of quantitative easing – so-called QE2 – is a success because the U.S. inflation rate is a percentage point higher than it would have been absent the Fed intervention. Investors should realize how irrational this all is. The United States is in a radical money-easing environment, in which the Fed is keeping interest rates artificially low while pumping money into the...

Credit card (CC)rates could reach as high as 59.9%, according to a new CNN Money article that explored the one down side of the Credit CARD Act: Interest rates. The article revealed that CC are now hovering at near-record highs, averaging as much as 14.72%. However, for new customers with poor credit, rates could soar significantly higher because this is one area that the act did not touch on.No Limits on Rates for New Customers The Credit CARD Act, which took effect in Feb. 2010, made...changes in regard to interest rates. Here are a few: Rates can’t be increased within...

It is not independent, it is an arm of Treasury. Everything you were told was a scam and a lie - yet another time for But the new rules have slowly begun to catch the attention of market analysts. Many are at once surprised that the Fed can set its own guidelines, and also relieved that the remote but dangerous possibility that the world's most powerful central bank might need to ask the U.S. Treasury or its member banks for money is now more likely to be averted. The change essentially allows the Fed to denote losses by the various...

The giant US banks have been bailed out again from huge potential writeoffs by loosey-goosey accounting accepted by the accounting profession and the regulators. They are allowed to accrue interest on non-performing mortgages ” until the actual foreclosure takes place, which on average takes about 16 months. All the phantom interest that is not actually collected is booked as income until the actual act of foreclosure. As a resullt, many bank financial statements actually look much better than they actually are. At foreclosure all the phantom income comes off gthe books of the banks. This means that Bank of America,...

We just hit another milestone in insanity. I’ve written before that thanks to its QE lite and QE 2 programs, the Fed is now officially the single, largest owner of US debt. However, even that nonsense pales in comparison to the Fed’s latest accomplishment, that of owning over $1 TRILLION in US debt. That’s right, as of yesterday afternoon the Fed now owns over $1 trillion in US debt. This amounts of over 7% of the US’s total debt, own by our central bank. Now, many commentators have pointed out the various ways in which this policy has endangered the...

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold futures sold off Friday on concerns China will soon take steps to rein in its inflation and move to increase interest rates. Gold for December delivery /quotes/comstock/21e!f:gc\z10 (GCZ10 1,368, -35.00, -2.49%) dropped $37.80, or 2.7%, to $1,365.50 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. That was gold’s largest one-day drop since early July. The contract earlier traded as low as $1,359.30 an ounce, according to FactSet Research. Gold had lost more than $30 overnight, but seemed to have recovered somewhat at the start of floor trading. Nervous investors, however, pulled...

Islamabad/New Delhi: In a shocking revelation, sources have told Zee News that a Radioactive Gamma Projectile has gone missing from Ghotki in Sindh province of Pakistan. Sources have also revealed that the equipment has been missing since last three months. ISI is investigating into the matter but no headway has been made in the case so far. Initially, the matter was being investigated by the local police but looking at the sensitivity of the matter, the Crisis Management Cell of Pakistan handed over this case to intelligence agency. Radioactive Gamma Projectile is a device which is used to store ‘Dirty...

Last week it was announced that Israel's Bank Hapoalim surprised all the analysts and posted a quarterly net profit of 513 million shekels. In other words, half a billion shekels plus 13 million shekels net profit for three months. I have nothing against Bank Hapoalim. On the contrary, their commissions are cheaper than the other banks and I am pleased that they are making a lot of money. Everything written in this article pertains to all the large banks. Something bothered me when I listened to the report of Bank Hapoalim's profits. The bank's economists explained that the surprising increase...

Even before there was an Obama administration, there was the hue and cry for the government to "do something" to stimulate the economy reeling from the Chris Dodd Bear Market and Recession. But there also were voices warning that stimulating the economy the way Barack Obama and congressional Democrats intended — massive government borrowing to fund massive spending on government employees and infrastructure; government interference in commerce; microscopic interest rates — was failure waiting to happen. Those voices recalled how Japan stimulated its economy 10 times after the credit bubble burst in 1990. Each time, Japan ramped up government spending...

The Future Of The Global Public Debt Explosion John Mauldin | May. 2, 2010, 8:48 AM | 462 | comment 5 Everyone and their brother intuitively knows that the current government fiscal deficits in the developed world are unsustainable. They have to be brought under control, but that requires some short-term pain. Today we look at a rather remarkable piece of research from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) on what the fiscal crisis may morph into in the future, how much pain will be needed, and what will happen if various countries stay on their present courses. Some countries...

A new interest-free credit card, the first of its kind in North America, aims to reconcile Islamic canonical law and Western consumer culture. Until now, observant Muslims have been precluded from owning credit cards on which they pay interest, a violation of shariah law. The iFreedom Plus Master-Card, set to be available in the coming days, promises no bills, no interest and no credit card debt. .... With the iFreedom Plus MasterCard, holders load up their card with cash in advance, up to $6,000. Each purchase draws down on the account without accruing interest. .... Because the new product doesn't...

A sudden drop-off in investor demand for U.S. Treasury notes is raising questions about whether interest rates will finally begin a march higher—a climb that would jack up the government's borrowing costs and spell trouble for the fragile housing market. For months, investors have focused their attention on the debt crisis in Europe, but there are signs the spotlight is turning to the ability of the U.S. to finance its own budget deficit. This week, some investors turned up their noses at three big U.S. Treasury offerings. Demand was weak for a $44 billion 2-year note auction on Tuesday, a...

What is wrong with this picture: the MTS just announced that the February budget deficit was $220.9 billion, after receipts of just $107.5 billion with vastly surpassed by outlays of $328.4 billion. This is a record. Yet the interest on the public debt was a mere $16.9 billion (page 13 of the MTS report). The reason for this is because as TreasuryDirect points out, in February the interest on public marketable debt (actual cash outlays), which as of Monday stood at $8.061 trillion, hit an all time low of 2.548%. How is it possible that unprecedented debt accumulation can result...

If you have bad credit in the new era of credit card regulation, be prepared to pay -- dearly -- for the privilege of using credit. That's the message underlying recent credit card offers that feature jaw-dropping interest rates of up to 79.9 percent. The sky-high rates may be a sign of things to come in the market for so-called subprime credit cards as issuers who lend to the riskiest of borrowers try to figure out how to stay in business and comply with the new credit card reform law. "We need to price our product based on the risk...

APR Shocks Many, but Issuer Says They Are Pricing for the Risk If you have bad credit in the new era of credit card regulation, be prepared to pay -- dearly -- for the privilege of using credit. That's the message underlying recent credit card offers that feature jaw-dropping interest rates of up to 79.9 percent. The sky-high rates may be a sign of things to come in the market for so-called subprime credit cards as issuers who lend to the riskiest of borrowers try to figure out how to stay in business and comply with the new credit card...

It could be the bets are off on low interest rates. In uncommonly frank remarks yesterday, the Fed's Ben Bernanke blamed lax regulatory oversight -- not super low interest rates -- for the housing bust. "All efforts should be made to strengthen our regulatory system to prevent a recurrence of the crisis, and to cushion the effects if another crisis occurs," he told the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in Atlanta. "However, if adequate reforms are not made, or if they are made but prove insufficient to prevent dangerous buildups of financial risks, we must remain open to...

The Federal Reserve has decided to hold interest rates at a record low and pledged to keep them there for an "extended period" to keep the recovery going and drive down double-digit unemployment. But in a more upbeat assessment, the Fed says the economy has "continued to pick up" and that "deterioration in the labor market is abating," a nod to the recent slowdown in the pace of layoffs. Despite some improvements, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues said there's still reason for caution. Spending by households, while growing at a moderate pace, remains "constrained" by the weak job...

Ignoring The ProblemThe Cost of Paying the Debt NowBy starting today, the Federal Government can pay off the National Debt in 30 years by making interest and principal payments of $699,013,323,930.52 per year (see the chart below). In Fiscal Year 2009 the government made interest payments of $383,656,592,545.78. So it would take an additional $315,356,731,384.74 in annual payments to completely extinguish the debt in 30 years. By starting now, the total cost of interest will be $8,883,038,042,900.88, at 4%, over 30 years.Opportunity Cost: Waiting until 2019If the Federal Government chooses to wait until 2019 before addressing the debt, the cost...