Monthly Archives: April 2013

04.24.13
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Marketwatch: Modified mortgages show ‘alarming’ default trend

Troubled homeowners who received modified mortgages through a federal program are seeing high default rates, a troubling trend that officials inadequately understand, according to an investigator’s report released Wednesday.

The oldest permanent modifications made through the federal Home Affordable Modification Program, which launched in 2009, were redefaulting at a rate of 46.1% as of March 31, according to the report from the special inspector general overseeing the Treasury Department’s efforts to shore up the U.S. financial system. HAMP’s permanent modifications from 2010 have redefault rates ranging from 28.9% to 37.6%.

“The number of homeowners who have redefaulted on a HAMP permanent mortgage modification is increasing at an alarming rate,” the report said. “Treasury’s data shows that the longer a homeowner remains in HAMP, the more likely he or she is to redefault out of the program.”

Unfortunately, Treasury officials have an insufficient understanding of factors behind failures, according to the report.

“Better knowledge of the characteristics of the loan, the homeowners, the servicer, or the modification, more prone to redefault will increase Treasury’s understanding of the underlying problems that cause redefaults and provide Treasury an opportunity to address these issues proactively,” the inspector general said.

HAMP mortgages are modified to lower monthly payments by cutting interest rates and extending terms, among other actions. Servicers and borrowers receive incentive payments through the program.

Unsuccessful modifications have a “devastating effect,” according to the report.

“Redefaulted HAMP modifications on already struggling homeowners when any amounts previously modified suddenly come due,” according to the report. “When the homeowner cannot pay it, they lose their home to foreclosure.”

When Treasury launched HAMP, officials said the program could help 3 million to 4 million at-risk homeowners avoid foreclosure. However, as of March 31, only about 2 million HAMP modifications had been started, and 54% of these have been cancelled, according to the report.

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Click below for the full article.

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/04/24/modified-mortgages-show-alarming-default-trend/

04.24.13
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The Week: As his library opens, Was George W. Bush the worst president ever?

George W. Bush holds one of his last news conferences in January 2009.

 

The dedication of the George W. Bush library gives loyalists of the former president a chance to highlight what they see as the positive legacy of his eight years in office.

But even among supporters there is a sense he’ll never be given historical vindication.

Former White House press secretary Ari Fleisher told NBC News: “I’m increasingly doubtful, just because I think the lens of history is not changing. A lot of us used to say President Bush will look good and he’ll be vindicated in the public eye. But realistically speaking, I don’t see a lot of the people who write history all of a sudden changing their mind about George W. Bush.”

As Jill Lawrence points out, the polling of historians seems to back this up.

Nearly 60 percent of the historians and political scientists in a 2006 Siena College survey rated Bush’s presidency a failure and two-thirds said he did not have a realistic chance of improving his standing.

A 2010 Siena ranking of presidential scholars rated Bush as one of the nation’s five worst presidents. A similar 2009 C-SPAN ranking put Bush in the bottom eight.

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Click below for the full article.

http://theweek.com/article/index/243205/was-george-w-bush-the-worst-president-ever

04.24.13
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Washington Post: Governments may push workers out of employer health care and into health exchange

In a quest to save money, political leaders in Washington state are exploring a proposal that would shift some government workers out of their current health plans and onto the insurance exchange developed under President Barack Obama’s health care law.

Lawmakers believe the change, which could affect thousands of part-time state employees and education workers, would save the state $120 million over the next two years. It would consequently push more health care costs onto the federal government because many of the low-income workers would likely qualify for federal subsidies.

Washington state appears to be the first major government to seriously explore the possibility of pushing public employees into the exchange, but it probably won’t be the last. Rick Johnson, who advises state and local governments on health care policy at the New York-based consulting firm Segal Company, said he expects it will be an option some state and local governments will explore in the years to come.

“I can see that as one of the solutions out there,” Johnson said.

A spokeswoman with the Department of Health and Human Services declined comment.

Because the federal law requires employers to provide coverage for those working at least 30 hours a week, states are exploring various ways to manage their part-time employees.

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Click below for the full article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/governments-may-push-workers-out-of-employer-health-care-and-into-health-exchange/2013/04/24/fed10f26-acb4-11e2-9493-2ff3bf26c4b4_story.html

04.24.13
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Yahoo News: House GOP report slams Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama on Benghazi

Seven months after the deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, House Republicans released a new report on Tuesday that implies then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton misled lawmakers about her role in drawing down security assets in the war-torn country. The 43-page report also accuses President Barack Obama of failing to anticipate violence against Americans on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The assault on the facility, carried out by as-yet unidentified assailants, claimed the lives of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. It also sparked a firestorm of political controversy in the United States because top Obama aides linked it—wrongly—to anger in the Muslim world at an Internet video ridiculing Islam.

Republican staff from the House committees on Armed Services, Foreign Affairs, the Judiciary, Oversight and Government Reform, and Intelligence produced the report, which accuses the Obama administration of trying to “cover up” the reality of the attack.

The White House countered that the document raises questions “that have already been asked and answered in great detail.”

The document, a copy of which was obtained by Yahoo News, implies that Clinton misled lawmakers under oath by denying that she played a role in denying requests from American officials in Libya for more security.

The report cites an April 19, 2012, cable, signed by Clinton, acknowledging requests from Stevens’ predecessor for more security “but instead articulates a plan to scale back security assets for the U.S. Mission in Libya, including the Benghazi Mission.”

That clashes with Clinton’s Jan. 23, 2013, testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations panel. In that appearance, she declared that she felt responsible for the security of all State Department employees. “But the specific security requests pertaining to Benghazi, you know, were handled by the security professionals in the department,” she said. “I didn’t see those requests. They didn’t come to me. I didn’t approve them. I didn’t deny them.”

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http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/house-gop-report-slams-hillary-obama-benghazi-213149551–politics.html;_ylt=Al.qMX0c6jYx.TsWdLDl4e.8Cu9_;_ylu=X3oDMTVxZ2k0cmFmBGNjb2RlA2dtcHRvcDEwMDBwb29sd2lraXVwcmVzdARtaXQDQXJ0aWNsZSBNaXhlZCBMaXN0IE5ld3MgZm9yIFlvdSB3aXRoIE1vcmUgTGluawRwa2cDZjgwNmNiMzMtMWFjMi0zOGI0LTg2ZjgtZDdiMjExZmM0MjRmBHBvcwMyBHNlYwNuZXdzX2Zvcl95b3UEdmVyA2U4OTlmYTIzLWFjODEtMTFlMi1hZWZlLTJhZDdmNWIyNzU2MQ–;_ylg=X3oDMTNucXYwZWlvBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDNjk5MGRlMTctNDM4OC0zNWRhLWJkMWUtZDczZTViNmM0ZWVkBHBzdGNhdANwb2xpdGljc3x1LXMtZ292ZXJubWVudARwdANzdG9yeXBhZ2UEdGVzdANRRV9UZXN0;_ylv=3

04.24.13
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Reuters: Catholic Church withdraws subpoena to Obama on birth control

Scaling down a legal fight with the White House, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York has agreed to drop a request for documents about the government’s requirement of insurance coverage for birth control, a court filing on Monday said.

The archdiocese sent a subpoena to President Barack Obama’s administration in February asking for documents from White House staff, including Obama himself, for use in a church lawsuit against the contraception mandate.

Citing the burden involved and calling a subpoena of the president’s office inappropriate, the White House asked a federal judge to toss out the subpoena on April 4.

A notice filed in U.S. District Court in Washington late on Monday said the archdiocese agreed to withdraw its subpoena. It did not say why.

A lawyer for the archdiocese declined to comment on Tuesday. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Justice Department, which represented the White House in court, had no immediate comment.

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Click below for the full article.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/23/us-usa-courts-obama-idUSBRE93M17H20130423

04.23.13
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Marketwatch: The slowdown is more than a soft patch, Goldman Sachs got it wrong before they got it right

For months, economists and the media have proclaimed that we are in full-recovery mode. While the markets were at record highs, unemployment had not improved, economic growth was stagnant and most corporate earnings had little to do with an increase in sales and revenue and were based on moves like laying-off thousands of people and shedding non-performing assets.

Last week, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. — one of those bullish outfits projecting enthusiasm — reversed its earlier upbeat message, saying that consumer spending is slowing down, which will likely have a negative impact on future growth. The significance is that most analysts and economists are coming to grips with the fact that the economic data doesn’t support stock-market valuations at these levels.

What economists and analysts failed to connect is the contrast between reality and the stock market — the low consumer spending, paltry economic growth, weak hiring by companies and reckless quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve while the stock market soared.

So, let’s look at everything Goldman Sachs (and many others) missed, and the chain of economic events.

The importance of consumption on the overall economy should not be overlooked. While in the economic cycle, it is production that comes first, as it provides the income necessary for individuals to consume, it is ultimately consumption that completes the cycle by creating the demand.

Despite repeated bailouts, programs, and interventions, economic growth remains mired at sub-par rates as consumers struggle in a low growth/high unemployment economy. Businesses, which have been pressured by poor sales, higher taxes and increased government regulations, have learned to do more with less. Higher productivity has led to less employment and higher levels of profits.

The dark side of that equation is that less employment means higher competition for jobs which suppresses wage growth. Lower wage growth and incomes means less consumption, which reduces the aggregate end demand. In turn, lower demand for products and services puts businesses on the defensive to “do more with less” in order to protect profit margins. Wash, rinse and repeat. This is why deflationary economic environments are so greatly feared by the Fed as that relationship between production and consumption is incredibly difficult to break.

I don’t believe that the current slowdown is just a “soft patch,” but is instead the end of the expansionary cycle that began in 2009. That belief is simply based on the fact that economies do not grow indefinitely but cycle between expansions and contractions.

In the current economic environment, where the consumer is caught in a balance sheet deleveraging cycle, economic contractions occur more frequently than they do under more normal economic conditions. This is not an indictment of fiscal or monetary policies, but simply a statement about the cycles of an economy.

So where does that leave us now and the remainder of 2013?

At some point, despite the ongoing interventions by the Federal Reserve, the stock market will revert to the underlying fundamental story which has been slowly deteriorating over time. The question that remains to be answered is simply how long can the Fed’s artificial intervention programs continue to elevate asset prices?

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Click below for the full article.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-current-slowdown-is-more-than-a-soft-patch-2013-04-23?siteid=yhoof2

04.23.13
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Yahoo News: Tsarnaev’s condition improves; brothers reportedly motivated by U.S. wars

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev informed investigators that he and his brother were not directed by a foreign terrorist organization. Instead, they were “self-radicalized” and motivated to kill, in part, by U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Washington Post reported.

The 19-year-old also acknowledged his role in the attack while being questioned by investigators in his hospital bed, the report said. Tsarnaev, who has a gunshot wound to the throat and was sedated, responded in writing. He also suffered gunshot wounds in the head, neck, legs and hand during a late-night shootout in Watertown, Mass.

Meanwhile, Tsarnaev’s condition is improving, the FBI said on Tuesday. The college student, who had been listed in serious condition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center since his capture on Friday, is now in fair condition, the bureau said.

The update comes a day after Tsarnaev was charged with two federal counts of using a weapon of mass destruction to kill, injure and cause widespread damage at the marathon. Tsarnaev was informed of the charges and read his rights in his hospital room on Monday morning, and placed in the custody the U.S. Marshal Service. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

Three people were killed and more than 200 others wounded when two powerful homemade bombs exploded near the race’s finish line. Dzhokhar and his 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed by police as the two attempted to avoid capture, are suspected of planting those bombs.

Tamerlan was an ardent reader of jihadist websites and extremist propaganda, U.S. officials told the Associated Press, suggesting the brothers were motivated by an anti-American, radical version of Islam.

Meanwhile, U.S. investigators traveled to southern Russia on Tuesday to speak to the parents of the brothers, a U.S. Embassy official told the news service. Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, the mother of the suspects, and their father, Anzor, are in Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim province in Russia’s Caucasus.

After the bombings, Anzor said he believed the brothers were set up and called Dzhokhar a “true angel.” Maret Tsarnaeva, the brothers’ aunt, who lives in Toronto, also said she believes her nephews were framed.

Family members are not the only ones expressing doubt.

Many Twitter users have been expressing support for Dzhokhar using the hashtag #freejahar.

And just like the conspiracy theorists who claimed last week that the Boston Marathon attacks were staged, the support for Dzhokhar has been fervent despite his reported confession.

A Change.org petition to “guarantee Dzhokhar Tsarnaev the right to a fair trial,” addressed to President Barack Obama, has more than 6,000 supporters.

“We believe that within the chaos caused by the Boston Marathon explosion, two young men were wrongfully accused of something they did not do, and one of them has lost his life before even getting the opportunity of a proper trial,” Anita Temisheva, the user who launched the petition, wrote. “We do not wish to see blood of yet another innocent victim, someone who, by U.S. law, is innocent until proven guilty. It is vital to end this persecution, as all the conflicting information shown by the media, and footage from the incident, seen by people from all corners of the world, doesn’t manifest itself as enough evidence to condemn Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of this heinous crime.”

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Click below for the full article and a video as well.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/tsarnaev-condition-motive-wars-193132367.html

04.23.13
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ABC News: Simple Boston Bomb Plot Hatched Without Foreign Help, Authorities Believe

In the hours before Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was charged with the crime that could lead to the death penalty, authorities tell ABC News the 19-year-old accused terrorist has started to provide his version of the events that led to the deadly Boston Marathon bomb attacks.

For all the power of the two explosions at the Boston Marathon finish line, and for all the dramatic gun fights on the streets of Watertown, and for all the suppositions about the role of disciplined, well-trained terrorists, the college student reportedly told investigators the whole attack was devised from the Internet. The two brothers, he said, had no direction or financing from governments or rogue groups overseas.

Authorities tell ABC News they now believe the two foreign-born brothers were inspired to violence by the Internet preaching’s of al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki, the charismatic American-born radical jihadist, who has been dead now for more than a year. They used instructions from an al Qaeda Internet magazine to make their pressure cooker bombs. And Dzhokhar, the younger of the brothers, may not have even known about the plot until a week or so before the attack, sources told ABC News.

Seth Jones, a counter-terror expert at the RAND Corporation, said the attack’s simplicity and home grown origins may wind up being some of the most chilling aspects the Boston bombing.

“This is kind of the al Qaeda modus operandi now, not relying only on operatives, but trying to get people do it yourself radicalization to build their own bombs without coming to a training camp in Pakistan or Yemen or other locations,” Jones said.

“They ad-libbed part of it and made some decisions on a few elements of the bomb making but what’s different about this is they took a very simple recipe and then targeted the Boston Marathon,” Jones said. “And why the marathon? Because it was there, essentially, and easy. Not long in the planning.”

Authorities also told ABC News it is increasingly likely that the older of the brothers, Tamerlan, devised the plot and did most of the work in pulling it together.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died during a firefight with police early Friday morning.

“The older brother appeared to be the more radicalized of the two and was the one that drove the need to conduct the attack as well as the preparation for the attack that is building the bombs,” Jones said.

As to what drove Tamerlan to violence, his younger brother has apparently told investigators it was his hatred of America, and its policies in Afghanistan and Iraq, law enforcement sources said.

Officials say they do not plan to take what the younger accused bomber has told them at face value, and that the probe will continue to examine whether there were overseas terror connections of any kind. “It would be in his interest to minimize his own role,” one official said.

But the younger brother is reportedly telling investigators is consistent with what many of those who knew Tamerlan were observing — his disgust with things American and Christian.

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Click below for the rest of the article.

 

04.23.13
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Time: Tax-Free Internet Shopping Jeopardized by Bill

Tax-free shopping on the Internet could be in jeopardy under a bill making  its way through the Senate.

The bill would empower states to require online retailers to collect state  and local sales taxes for purchases made over the Internet. The sales taxes  would be sent to the states where a shopper lives.

Under current law, states can only require stores to collect sales taxes if  the store has a physical presence in the state. As a result, many online sales  are essentially tax-free, giving Internet retailers a big advantage over  brick-and-mortar stores.

The Senate voted 74 to 20 Monday to take up the bill. If that level of  support continues, the Senate could pass the bill as early as this week.

Supporters say the bill is about fairness for businesses and lost revenue for  states. Opponents say it would impose complicated regulations on retailers and  doesn’t have enough protections for small businesses. Businesses with less than  $1 million a year in online sales would be exempt.

“While local, community-based stores and shops compete for customers on many  levels, including service and selection, they cannot compete on sales tax,” said  Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the National Retail Federation. “Congress  needs to address this disparity.”

And, he added, “Despite what the opponents say this is not a new tax.”

In many states, shoppers are required to pay unpaid sales tax when they file  their state income tax returns. However, states complain that few people  comply.

“I do know about three people that comply with that,” said Sen. Mike Enzi,  R-Wyo., the bill’s main sponsor.

President Barack Obama supports the bill. His administration says it would  help restore needed funding for education, police and firefighters, roads and  bridges and health care.

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What do you think about this idea and especially the bold/underline statement above?  Click below for the full article.

http://techland.time.com/2013/04/23/tax-free-internet-shopping-jeopardized-by-bill/#ixzz2RLDPJE86