Free Republic

The Federal Reserve is most likely going to raise interest rates by three quarters of a percentage point again on Wednesday, its fourth straight supersized hike. And it’s still possible another rate increase of that magnitude could come in December. But the big question for many investors – and American consumers – is whether the Fed will send the economy into a recession with these massive rate increases. There are hopes that any downturn would be mild, but this is uncharted territory for the Fed. Former central bank chairs Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and current Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen never...

With full support from the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve continues to weaken the dollar in order to "stimulate" the economy. Such exercises never create sustainable growth, but they sure are disruptive. One destructive result is that capital is misdirected because of false price signals. When the dollar is debased, commodity prices rise and speculation increases. Thus, it's impossible to know what the real supply/demand price is of a commodity or an asset--primarily land--related to the commodity. We see this harmful phenomenon playing out in farmland prices, which went up 12% last year, while doubling over the past decade. Prior...

      Among long-time politicians who are being seriously challenged for the first time this election year, Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts best epitomizes the cynical ruthlessness which hides behind their lofty rhetoric.Having been a key figure in promoting the risky mortgage lending practices imposed by the federal government on lenders, and on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy these risky mortgages from the lenders, Barney Frank blamed the resulting collapse of financial markets and the economy on everybody except Barney Frank.In February 2009, as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Congressman Frank summoned the heads...

Looks Like Poor Henry is taking the hit for the Democrats on housing bust.

Making every American adult a homeowner was always imprudent and impractical; now that's obvious. Four years ago, President Bush declared: "The more people who own their home, the better off America is." And as his administration proposed federal guarantees for mortgages without requiring down payments, then-Federal Housing Commissioner John Weicher told me in 2004: "We will have some defaults, but nearly all those families will remain homeowners." The challenge is to tighten consumer-protection rules to discourage abuse and fraud, but not so much that only the better-off half of Americans can buy homes. One option is to require lenders to...

QUEEN CREEK, Ariz. - Out on Phoenix’s suburban fringes, where cement mixers are fast colonizing hay and cotton fields, the day is winding to a close. The home hour has arrived. But sundown gives away a troubling secret: Behind dark windows and unanswered doors, it’s clear nobody is coming home. The ranch home on Via del Palo where the newspaper in the driveway has been sitting unclaimed since April. The house at the corner of 223rd Court with faded fliers stuck in the door. They’re empty, left behind by a rising tide of foreclosures. This neighborhood has a still-unfolding story...

The next boom for builders may be complaints from angry homeowners Residents of a new housing development in South Carolina fear that fumes from contaminated soil have caused dizziness and blackouts. In Colorado, homeowners say they were led to believe they'd enjoy a recreational lake that never materialized, causing property values to slip. As the housing slump worsens, U.S. homebuilders increasingly find themselves fending off complaints of shoddy construction, unsavory sales tactics, and use of unsafe land. There's no definitive gauge of consumer sentiment toward builders, but several signs point to growing unease. The annual new-home satisfaction surveys done by...

Let me just preface by saying that I don't make a habit of commenting on what other colleagues at CNBC say. It's neither prudent, nor necessary. I also didn't even plan on blogging this week; I'm on vacation for crying out loud! But my BlackBerry was buzzing off the base this weekend, with housing bloggers begging me to respond to Jim Cramer's outcry on Friday about the Fed and the mortgage market. So let me just blog here respectfully. I understand Cramer's passion (you can see it again in the clip below.) I do. I'm not out there in the...

The US sub-prime crisis that has so far wiped $2,100bn (£1,030bn) from the value of global stock markets still has a long way to go, investment guru Jim Rogers claimed yesterday. 'This was one of the biggest bubbles we've ever had in credit' said Jim Rogers Mr Rogers, a New York-based fund manager and former partner of George Soros, who predicted the start of the commodities rally in 1999, said US banks and homebuilders would feel the effect of the crisis for years. "This was one of the biggest bubbles we've ever had in credit," Mr Rogers, chairman of Beeland...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The outlook for the housing market looks bleaker than ever. Foreclosures are skyrocketing. Home prices continue to fall. And forecasts for a recovery keep getting pushed back. Meanwhile the collapse of the subprime lending market has spread to the financial markets, sparking fears that tighter credit will have a broader impact on consumers and the economy. Current Mortgage Rates Type Overall avgs 30 yr fixed mtg 6.26% 15 yr fixed mtg 5.93% 30 yr fixed jumbo mtg 6.68% 5/1 ARM 5.91% 5/1 jumbo ARM 6.13% Find personalized rates: The U.S. government has downplayed the risk of...

Tarrant County foreclosures have risen at alarming rates in recent years, now hitting more than 1,000 a month in nine of the past 10 months.Tarrant County foreclosures have risen at alarming rates in recent years, now hitting more than 1,000 a month in nine of the past 10 months.Tarrant County foreclosures have risen at alarming rates in recent years, now hitting more than 1,000 a month in nine of the past 10 months.Tarrant County foreclosures have risen at alarming rates in recent years, now hitting more than 1,000 a month in nine of the past 10 months.And they are ripping...

WASHINGTON -- Market experts expecting the home construction lull to end some time soon are going to have to wait longer than hoped. The chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders said new home construction in the U.S. may take until 2011 to return to last year's level. According to the NAHB, monthly construction starts would need to jump by 21 percent to reach David Seiders' benchmark for full recovery — 1.85 million. There were 1.53 million construction stats in April, the Commerce Department reported. At the height of the five-year housing boom in January 2006, construction began...

The housing slump has been painful for millions of people who work in real estate or recently bought a house. For Patrick Killelea, however, this year has been one long victory lap. Mr. Killelea, a 41-year-old software engineer, has long preached that it makes more economic sense to rent than buy homes. He recalls shouting "Wow!" when he heard about September's 9.7% drop in prices of new homes. "I didn't want to gloat," he says. "But then again, maybe I did." For years, Americans who refused to buy real estate at what they considered excessive prices were ribbed for failing...

A Cautionary Housing Tale from Japan by Michael Nystrom September 8, 2006 Cambridge, MA In the summer of 1990, with my freshly minted Bachelor's degree from the University of Washington, I went off to Japan to make my fortune. In the late 1980's if you recall, Japan was the place to be - Japanese management was all the rage, the Nikkei was soaring, and Japanese businessmen were buying up impressionist paintings and prime properties around the world at record prices. Americans were fretting and wringing their hands at the prospect of being displaced as the world's supreme economic power. In...

• Q2 jumps by 67 percent year over year • Buyers done in by ‘creative mortgages’ according to figures released Monday by Foreclosures.com, a Central Valley-based real estate investment advisory firm and publisher of foreclosure property information. "Year over year at the end of the second quarter of 2006, foreclosure activity in California has increased more than 67 percent," says Alexis McGee, president of Fair Oaks-based ForeclosureS.com. The once hot housing markets in Las Vegas and Phoenix are cooling off rapidly and defaults there are on the rise as well, she says. "Both Las Vegas and Phoenix were impacted by...

Being a professional mortgage lender and broker, I like to believe that most of us in the business are honest, reliable and knowledgeable. While this is true to a large extent, the relatively few bad guys in this business make us all look bad. The housing market has cooled and interest rates are on the rise. What's a mortgage broker to do? Well, it's pretty clear that many of them are getting a bit more aggressive in their marketing techniques. Over the last few weeks, I decided to pay close attention to the myriad of mortgage advertisements that constantly bombarded...