Free Republic

Excerpt:"January 4 – Dow Jones (John Conner):  “The Federal Housing Administration has increased its single-family home mortgage limits… Effective Jan. 1, 2005, FHA will insure single-family home mortgages up to $172,632 in low-cost areas and up to $312,895 in high-cost areas, HUD said. Last year, the FHA loan limits were $160,176 in low-cost areas and $290,319 in high-cost areas.  HUD said the loan limits for two-, three, and four-unit dwellings also increased.  ‘These higher loan limits will help the FHA mortgage insurance program keep pace with the strong housing market while contributing to the Bush Administration’s commitment to create 5.5...

I spent 3 days of R & R at the Las Vegas Mandalay Bay last week, and thought it would be fun to spend a day driving around town doing some on the ground reconnaissance of the most expansive real estate bubble in the US. Based on my 8 hour survey of the Summerlin and Anthem suburbs of LV, I can say with 90% certainty that the bubble has burst and prices may spiral down for years to come. The latest finished phase of a Dell Webb development had over a hundred homes that had been completed back in August...

OK. This time they mean it, really. Economists in San Diego and around the country are saying the biggest housing boom in the region's history is slowing and may be finished by the end of 2005. "The phenomenon of doubling your money in three years is over for this cycle," said Jim Teak, a San Diego-based economist with Prudential Realty of California. A lot of people agree with Teak. The influential UCLA Anderson Forecast says in a report out today that 2005 could be the year that "reality and reason" finally cool off the housing market. Higher interest rates will...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. OK, let´s suspend the bashing of President Bush and his Democratic presidential opponent John Kerry for their stupefyingly awful records and platforms on trade policy. Let´s turn instead to how their utter inability to understand America´s globalization challenges will sandbag other major policies they´re pitching. To date, there´s no better example than Bush´s goal of turning America into an “opportunity society.” Anyone who likes free markets and capitalism, will rightly love the concept of an ownership society; and it´s no wonder that the Republicans are making it a centerpiece of their...

The U.S. government's fiscal ills have spun wildly out of control and no longer are containable within the existing system. As detailed in this article, the actual annual shortfall in U.S. government operations for fiscal year 2003 (September 30) was $3.7 trillion. Put in perspective, that means if the U.S. Treasury had seized all wages and salaries in 2003 with a 100% income tax, there still would have been a deficit! The outlook for fiscal 2004 numbers is even worse. Considering that the popularly reported 2003 budget deficit was $374 billion, one-tenth the number cited above, this installment on government...

A big drop in bond yields offered little encouragement for a tired stock market. For the week, the Dow and S&P500 posted slight declines. The Utilities were about unchanged, while the “defensive” Morgan Stanley Consumer index added 1%. Economically sensitive issues gave up some ground, as the Transports dipped 2% and the Morgan Stanley Cyclical index declined 1%. The broader market reversed recent strong relative performance, with the small cap Russell 2000 declining 2%. The S&P400 Mid-cap index was unchanged. The technology sector suffered mild declines. The NASDAQ100, Morgan Stanley High Tech, and The Street.com Internet indices declined 2%....

Loss of Jobs in America Paul Craig Roberts Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2003 Are we being spun on jobs by the White House and the rah-rah Bush media like we are being spun on Iraq? Make up your own mind after considering the following. Only a few of the 116,000 private sector jobs created in October provide good incomes: 6,000 new positions in legal services and accounting – activities that reflect corporations gearing up to protect their top executives from Sarbanes-Oxley. The remainder of the 116,000 new jobs consist of temps, retail trade, telephone marketing, and fund raising, administrative and waste...

Big, ugly things are on the horizon Comstock Partners has concluded that real estate is almost certainly the place where the big popping of the bubble will begin, and for many important reasons, even though they hedge their bet a little, and allow that perhaps a collapse of the dollar may be the culprit, or maybe some big bankruptcy, or something. But probably real estate. But continuing with the real estate angle, they quoted the Richebächer Letter, and said "Since 1997, total housing values have soared from 8.8 trillion to about 14 trillion presently." Even though they left the dollar...

Dollar's drop and oil fears cause gold rush Bullion price hits seven year high Larry Elliott Friday September 26, 2003 The Guardian (UK) Fears of a prolonged slump in the value of the dollar sent gold prices to their highest level in seven years yesterday as investors sought a haven from the turbulence of the foreign exchanges. The price of gold rose by $5 to just over $390 an ounce in London trading amid speculation that the $400 barrier could be breached in the coming weeks. With the financial markets unsettled by the sharp drop in the dollar and by...

International Perspective, by Marshall Auerback China Tightens - The Beginning Of The End Of Global Reflation? September 2, 2003 There is much anecdotal and statistical evidence to support the notion of an incipient global recovery now underway, in marked contrast to last spring's dire talk about deflation.  Germany's IFO index (a leading indicator of business confidence) has now exceeded expectations 4 months' running, Canadian home sales are booming, the UK is still in the midst of a mortgage refi boom, and the economies of emerging Asia continue to upgrade their respective GDP growth estimates.  With American economic growth recently revised...

Home  l  Broadcast  l  WrapUp  l  Storm Watch  l  Perspectives  l  Sitemap  l  About Us Apocalypse This Way Comesby Nelson HultbergSeptember 2, 2003 A smattering of today's mainstream pundits is beginning to understand that what economically plagues us today is something quite different from the standard inflationary-recessionary cycles that have prevailed since World War II. But the great majority of talking heads and financial columnists remain clueless -- dutifully accepting the establishment line that depicts the nature of recessions from past models. The error in this view is that all recessions since World War II have been the result...

U.S. Aug nonfarm payrolls fell 93,000 Friday September 5, 8:28 am ET WASHINGTON, Sept 5 (Reuters) - U.S. Labor Department seasonally adjusted jobs data. In 1,000s, Change Aug July (Prev) June (Prev) in Nonfarm Payrolls -93 -49 -44 -83 -72 Jobless Rate (Pct) 6.1 6.2 6.2 6.4 6.4 Earnings, Hours of Private, Non-Farm Production workers: . Aug July (Prev) June (Prev) Avg Weekly Hours 33.6 33.6 33.6 33.7 33.7 Manufacturing Hours 40.1 40.1 40.1 40.3 40.3 Overtime Hours 4.1 4.0 4.0 4.0 4.0 Earnings/Hour (dlrs) 15.45 15.43 15.44 15.38 15.39 Pct change 0.1 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.3 Non-Farm Month-On-Month Payroll...

<p>August 24, 2003 -- When executives start unloading shares in their own companies, Wall Street is trained to worry.</p> <p>Conventional wisdom holds that insider trading is a good barometer of where the market is heading. If the top dogs who are in-the-know about their companies are selling a lot more than they're buying, there must be a reason.</p>