Archive for March 2009

HUD Imposes Dramatic Restrictions On FHA Cash Out Refinances

FHA Tightens Rules Again
First there was an increase in the required credit scores to be eligible for FHA financing.  (See FHA Increases Minimum Credit Score Requirement).  Now comes a major tightening of the rules on FHA cash [...]

Loan Modification Searches Go Parabolic - Making Home Affordable Guidelines

Loan Modification Searches Go Parabolic - Making Home Affordable Guidelines

Loan Modification Enters Mainstream Vocabulary
If you had used the term “loan modification” six months ago, most people would have given you a blank stare.  With the passage of the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan, the term loan [...]

Are Geithner’s Days Numbered? Banks And Investors Have Zero Confidence

First Impressions Hard To Reverse
The old saying in the recruiting business is that one is judged in the first 15 seconds of a job interview.  Irregardless of what happens for the rest of the interview, that first [...]

Bank Of England’s Desperate Last Tactic Forestalls British Sovereign Default

Printing Money - Final Desperate Tactic
The Bank of England is engaging in a massive repurchase of British debt in an attempt to pump cash into a crashing British economy.  The Bank of England’s money printing is necessary [...]

Banks Push Back On Bailout - Wells Fargo Calls Stress Test “Asinine”

Wells Fargo Discovers High Cost Of Government Help

Wells Fargo Chief Calls Stress Test Asinine
March 16 (Bloomberg) — Wells Fargo & Co. Chairman Richard Kovacevich criticized the U.S. for retroactively adding curbs to the Troubled Asset Relief Program, [...]

AIG Says We Must Retain The Talented Staff That Lost $170 Billion

According to AIG, Good Work Must Be Rewarded
Record Loss
AIG, whose fourth-quarter loss was the worst in corporate history, earmarked $1 billion in retention pay for about 4,600 of the company’s 116,000 employees so they won’t leave the [...]

The Dow Jones Is Really At 1,000

The Dow Jones Is Really At 1,000

Larry Summers Says Buy Stocks
The President’s economic advisor, Larry Summers, noted last week that:
“Although there could be many ways to question this calculation, that the market would be at essentially the same real level as it was [...]

Where Is The Physical Gold And Why Does US Restrict Gold Purchases? Does The GLD Have Any Gold?

Strange Situation In The Gold Market
Two recent articles seem to suggest that there is a large physical shortage of gold.
Is the physical shortage of gold the reason for the large restriction in US Mint gold coin sales?   [...]

China Questions US Solvency - US Says Not To Worry

US Insists China Fears Over Debt Unfounded
The Obama administration rejected China’s concerns that its vast holdings of U.S. assets might be unsafe, in an unusual diplomatic exchange that underscored the global importance and the potential fragility of [...]