Thursday, July 8, 2010

More Than 12 Percent of Mortgages Nationwide Delinquent or in Foreclosure

I’ll keep this particular piece of bad news relatively short: Lender Processing Services reports that mortgage delinquencies were up fairly substantially last week. Mortgage delinquencies in May increased to 9.2 percent, up 2.3 percent from the April. This is also a 7.9 percent increase from the previous year.

Going a little further, the nationwide foreclosure rate is 3.2 percent, meaning that more than 12 percent of mortgages are delinquent or in foreclosure. Florida and Nevada lead the nation in non-current mortgage loans, with 22.4 percent and 21.8 percent respectively.

Additionally, the number of delinquent loans that are “cured” (become current) is declining, meaning that fewer and fewer people who become delinquent on their mortgages are able to catch up on payments.

None of this bodes particularly well for the future of the economy or the housing market. Further home price declines could certainly contribute to additional foreclosures.

Bernanke, Fed Made Used Taxpayer Money To Buy Junk Bonds Without Congress Knowing

bloomberg.com:

July 1 (Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and then-New York Fed President Timothy Geithner told senators on April 3, 2008, that the tens of billions of dollars in "assets" the government agreed to purchase in the rescue of Bear Stearns Cos. were "investment-grade." They didn't share everything the Fed knew about the money.

The so-called assets included collateralized debt obligations and mortgage-backed bonds with names like HG-Coll Ltd. 2007-1A that were so distressed, more than $40 million already had been reduced to less than investment-grade by the time the central bankers testified. The government also became the owner of $16 billion of credit-default swaps, and taxpayers wound up guaranteeing high-yield, high-risk junk bonds.

Read the whole story: bloomberg.com

Millions of motorists face £300 bill to install digital radios as ministers press ahead with FM switch-off

Millions of motorists will be forced to spend hundreds of pounds replacing or converting their car radios with new digital sets.

The coalition Government is to press on with controversial plans to switch off FM and medium wave radio in favour of digital – leaving much of the nation with no option but to pay out for new equipment both at home and in the car.

Despite serious concerns that the public neither wants nor is ready for the change, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt is expected to announce he will stick with Labour’s plans for a mass switchover in the next five years.

Switchover: Cars will need to be fitted with digital radios before analogue sets become obsolete by 2015

Switchover: Cars will need to be fitted with digital radios before analogue sets become obsolete by 2015

The move will cost consumers hundreds of pounds as they are forced to update and change their analogue radios at home and in their cars, before they become obsolete.

As many as 100 million analogue radios will become largely redundant after 2015 and around 20 million car radios will be useless - leaving many without their favourite stations.

Around 20 per cent of all radio listening happens in cars but only 1 per cent of all cars currently have the capability to receive digital stations.

Motorists will either have to replace their car radios at a cost of some £300 or buy special ‘conversion’ kits that must be attached to the windscreen, often alongside Satnavs, which could also cost more than £100.

LAST ANALOGUE TV IS SOLD

Sold out: Analogue TV sets are now extinct

Analogue television is now extinct in the high street with digital sets now the only type on sale.

Research by Digital UK, which is tasked with overseeing television’s switchover, revealed this week that for the first time 100 per cent of sets sold were digital.

The World Cup is credited with sounding the death knell for analogue television by boosting sales of digital sets by nine per cent prompting retailers to reject the older televisions.

Consumers have increasingly been demanding televisions with digital and HD capability rendering traditional screens are now all but obsolete in the high street.

David Scott, chief executive of Digital UK, said 13,000 stores across the country were surveyed.

He added: ‘With a quarter of the country already fully switched to digital TV and a further 11 million homes due to switch next year, it’s good news that retailers have finally stopped selling analogue sets.

‘Having said that, people shouldn’t assume they need to replace their TV for switchover, virtually any old television can be easily converted to digital simply by connecting a digital box.’

This year Britons have bought nearly a million televisions a month with the average purchase price £400.

It is estimated that there are 60 million televisions in the UK – almost as many as there are people.

Last month the Office for National Statistics said the population had reached 61.8 million.

DAB sets for the home cost from £20 for a basic radio to £200 for waterproof, rechargeable versions that can be used outside.

The plans will hit motorists and pensioners hardest but most ordinary homes have two or three radios – and the expense of replacing them all will mount up for everyone.

The outgoing Labour Government was not able to put the 2015 date into its Digital Economy Act, which was rushed through during its last days of power this April.

But a Government source said it would try to stick with Labour’s planned timetable, meaning every household will have to own either a digital radio or have a TV in the next five years.

Senior Tory Lord Fowler, chair of the communications committee, warned the public ‘were not prepared’ for it.

He said: ‘These are people who do a lot of radio listening and if you’ve got four or five radios dotted around the house, then replacing them means the cost adds up.

‘The public have got to be taken with the process on this otherwise there is going to be something of an explosion of indignation.’

Digital platforms, including DAB radio, television and online accounted for 24 per cent of all radio listening in the first three months of this year, according to Rajar figures published in May.

This is an increase of almost four per cent on the same period in 2009 but still a small proportion of the nation.

Currently, DAB coverage reaches about 90 per cent of the population but is extremely patchy in hilly areas such as Snowdonia in Wales and the Peak District in England. FM coverage, meanwhile, runs at more than 99 per cent.

Critics also say that the quality of the reception can vary wildly and is often poorer than FM.

After 2015 there is likely to be a phase out period where FM, MW and digital offerings run alongside each other in order to ensure everyone has adjusted.
This phase out process could happen region by region, following the television model.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has said incorporating digital radios into new models by 2015 would ‘be a challenge, but achievable’ but that still leaves tens of millions of older cars requiring conversion.

Earlier this year the communications committee published a report urging caution on radio switchover.

It said: ‘We recommend that the Government, in collaboration with the manufacturers, should provide guidance to the public on in-car digital listening, including advice on conversion kits available and likely to be available within the timeframe of digital switchover.’

Mr Hunt is expected to reveal his definitive time line and plans for digital radio tomorrow.

Federal jury awards $269.2 million in damages in "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" suit

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In a legal setback for the the Walt Disney Co., a federal jury in Riverside awarded the creator of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" nearly $269.2 million in damages from the once-popular prime-time game show.

The decision strikes at the heart of the "vertical integration" argument that has buttressed the wave of consolidation that has swept Hollywood over the last 20 years, in which media giants contend that it is economically advantageous to control both the production and distribution of TV programming.

Creator Celador International sued The Walt Disney Co. in 2004, claiming that it had been denied its fair share of profits from the show, which aired on the entertainment giant's ABC network for three years beginning in the summer of 1999 and continues to appear on local TV stations. Celador argued that a series of "sweetheart deals" struck between a clutch of Disney-owned companies kept the show in the red, even as it became ABC's first No. 1 show in more than a decade.

Celador asked the jury to award damages of up to $395 million in broadcast licensing fees, based on what one expert said would be the fair market value of the show. The U.K.-based company also claimed that it was owed $10 million in revenue from the sale of "Millionaire"-inspired games and other merchandise.

The jury arrived at a figure that was slightly less -- $260 million in licensing fees and $9.2 million in money owed from the sale of merchandise. Disney issued a statement, saying it plans to challenge the award.

"We believe this verdict is fundamentally wrong and will aggressively seek to have it reversed," Disney said in the statement.

The case has been described as an illustration of "Hollywood accounting," in which TV shows that become major hits never turn a profit. Over the course of the four-week trial, Celador's attorneys introduced evidence that the show generated $515 million in revenue from license fees over the course of its three-year prime-time run through 2002, not including $70 million in merchandising revenue.

"Millionaire" also attracted nearly $1.8 billion in advertising for ABC, according to research firm Kantar Media.

But according to Disney's accounting, Millionaire has run a $73-million deficit.

[Update, 11:22 p.m.: For more, see the story on the ruling against Disney in the "Who Wants to Be a Millionnaire?" lawsuit in tomorrow's Times.]

-- Dawn C. Chmielewski

Photo of "Who Wants to be Millionaire?" by Virginia Sherwood / ABC

The World of Most People and the Power of the Unseen.

Dog Poet Transmitting…….



It’s hard to find something to write about anymore. Of course, there are many situations and subjects that keep moving toward some unknown destination. All over the world there are conditions and pressures that interconnect with other conditions and pressures around the world. Perhaps the most mystifying feature is the world press. Major cataclysmic events are in operation or soon to be and the press is having tea with advertisers and reality TV stars. You wouldn’t (and don’t) know that much of anything that is happening is actually happening.



The situation in the Gulf of Mexico is off the charts and a number of police and enforcement agents are in operation to hinder the access of people seeking to study and report on what is happening. It appears that it has been made a felony to approach locations within a certain distance for the purpose of taking photos. This is in violation of laws that allow citizens to have access to public beaches and other locations. Workers involved in the cleanup are forbidden to speak to anyone about what they are doing.



BP is a company that is largely owned by front corporations that are owned by Rothschild. The press is 96% owned by Zionist concerns. The situation in the Middle East has been made the way it is by the same interests, starting with the 9/11 attack which was carried out by Israeli and American intelligence forces, which also engineered the attack on Afghanistan, which dummied up the false intel on Iraq and is now engaged in an all out effort to accomplish an attack on Iran. When you consider that ICTS was the security firm in charge of all 9/11 airports, the London Tube and the Madrid train station; it is pretty obvious who the bad guys are.



Then, when you factor in who is in control of the central banks and what they have done to financial interests that impact on the livelihood of the common soul and then look at what Goldman Sachs has been up to, it can be pretty scary. It explains the critical necessity of controlling the flow of information to the public.



Of course there are other interests involved. Of course there are bad elves and other helpers who have sold their soul for money and token power, as well as those blackmailed and threatened in various ways but… it can’t be denied that the state of Israel and the Zionist hegemonic machine is possibly the single most destructive engine of darkness at work in the world today.



People with the courage to do so are talking about this at blogs and the alternative press. They’re talking about it behind closed doors in the governments of the world. Alliances are shifting and the stage is being set for some world changing acts. Most of the world is watching TV or looking for something to occupy their attention while they hear little or nothing of any importance. The lies are immense and unceasing. It would look pretty bad overall if it weren’t for the fact that what you see is not all there is and… one of the things you don’t see is the most important thing of all. That’s what I’m banking on; meanwhile the operations of clever psychopaths against ignorant mouth breathers is a kind of death dance that goes on life after life with the players changing places.



The biggest difficulty that those who would seek to change the world encounter is that most people don’t want you to change the world. What most people want it to occupy the positions held by their oppressors. Most people want to be rich and famous. Most people want to be shallow and vain and accomplish it marvelously.



It’s like the case with the divine and religions. Most people see God as a bigger version of themselves. Most religious people frown on certain behavior while supporting far worse. Most people don’t want to hear this because most people think they know what’s going on and it is a certainty that most people do not and you can’t tell them any different.



The present situation that exists, as it affects nearly everyone, was brought about by the rise in the power of corporations and banks. As business gained more and more economic clout, it could hire more lawyers. They could also influence legislation. So more and more laws favored the interests of business and fewer laws protected the public from their predations. Business has no real loyalty to any country so business took its manufacturing where it could build its goods cheaper and out of cheaper elements. Corporations became obsessed with higher and higher profit margins and this naturally led to worsening situations for the poor and middle class. When you want to squeeze a greater amount of money from everything you do, you have to squeeze those with the least ability to complain and the least amount of capital to hire lawyers in their defense.



This is an age of paramount materialism. Therefore, those interests who operate the machinery also determine the reality. This is why television is set up to indoctrinate the consumer from a very early age and why most people see reality in terms of objects and amusements directed at base appetites because these reflect the products being sold. Business doesn’t have a conscience and a soul, so it doesn’t matter if the products poison the consumer or the environment, because the nature of business is to get bigger and bigger as if there were no end to it. After awhile, most people see their condition as the way it is because, as far as most people are concerned that is the way it is.



Into the mix comes the idea of patriotism in defense of a country whose main intent is to subjugate the rest of the world, based on the presentation of ongoing threats from countries they seek to plunder, on the behalf of corporations that desire the resources and make their money from warfare. Anyone who doesn’t play the game is marginalized or slandered as a threat to the internal security of the nation. Since the media that feeds the public its information is completely controlled by those who also profit from the various evils of imperialism and materialism, it’s a tight little circle from which few escape.



The illusion of the public good, civil rights and citizens rights is maintained by various organizations and charities that are headed by individuals that support the status quo and what should happen doesn’t happen …but it looks like it does, even when the people most affected can clearly see that it doesn’t.



Eventually there is a problem with the population which requires a major reduction in numbers and that’s just something that gets done because it serves the interests of business. I’m not opposed to business because it is a necessary thing. I’m talking about the corporate mind set but most people will think I don’t like business anyway (grin).



So, like it says on those maps in bus kiosks and at tourist centers, you are ‘here’, right where the little arrow is pointing. The combination of all the situations described in this post eventually lead to a terrible tragedy and the breakdown of the whole false envelope of manufactured reality. Out of the ashes, there rises a new world and after a couple of thousand years, you are right back where that arrow is pointing.



People don’t understand why this cycle repeats over and over, if they happen to be aware of it at all …but that is the nature of the world. The whole dance of civilization is just a movie in which people are given the opportunity to play a part. It stands to reason that there must be more than this at some other locations. We know there are times when it is not so bad overall and times when it is pretty bad nearly everywhere.



It’s not easy to make sense out of the whole affair and an objective observer would very soon be able to determine that most people are crazy and that the predictable routine of their movements is what gives them the appearance of sanity where there is none.



As I said, there’s something else that has a major effect on everything and also determines the outcome. It’s that thing I mentioned that you can’t see. Some people are in touch with this but most people are not. Since this is going to be demonstrated while most of us are still here, it isn’t necessary for me to say any more except to say that every life is affected, protected or destroyed by the power of this unseen thing and it probably makes sense to find out what that is and get into some kind of positive relationship with it but… most people won’t because most people think power comes from the visible agencies that seem to most clearly demonstrate the possession of it. Actually, all power is obtained from the unseen and only has that power for so long as the unseen allows it. This is not something most people can grasp and that is unfortunate for most people.



End Transmission…….



It gets even stranger as the denouement approaches but we’re used to it.

Formerly Beloved Technical Analyst For Wall Street Warns Massive Market Crash Coming

Pick any Roland Emmerich disaster movie and randomly select a scene--that's more or less what Robert Prechter, a market forecaster who was widely lauded as a technical analyst in the 1980s, says is coming to the Dow, writes the New York Times.

“

Buy-and-hold stock investors will be devastated in a crash much worse than the declines of 2008 and early 2009 or the worst years of the Great Depression or the Panic of 1873, he predicted.

For a rough parallel, he said, go all the way back to England and the collapse of the South Sea Bubble in 1720, a crash that deterred people “from buying stocks for 100 years,” he said. This time, he said, “If I’m right, it will be such a shock that people will be telling their grandkids many years from now, ‘Don’t touch stocks.’ ”

”

Prechter bases his doom and gloom on something called the Elliott Wave theory, which is based on the work of an accountant who discovered patterns in the stock market in the 1930s and '40s. He's used it to provide investing advice for decades now, and the paper says that since 1980, a portfolio based on his advice "has slightly underperformed the overall stock market but has been much less risky, losing money in only one calendar year."

Now he's saying that within the next 5 to 6 years, the Dow--currently over 9,000--will fall to less than 1,000.

The Times also talks to another analyst who recently moved his money out of stocks into cash, but who says he thinks that after a coming 10 to 15% drop, there should be another "meaningful rally."

“

The “mathematics don’t work,” Mr. Acampora said, because such a big decline would imply that individual stocks would need to trade at unrealistically low levels. Furthermore, he said, “I don’t want to agree with him, because if he’s right, we’ve basically got to go to the mountains with a gun and some soup cans, because it’s all over.”

Still, on a “near-term” basis, he said, “We’re probably saying the same thing.”

”

"A Market Forecast That Says ‘Take Cover’" [New York Times]

Food Thieves Prove Tough Times are Already Here

Mac Slavo

Normally we hear about thieves breaking into a house to steal a flat screen TV, or jacking someone’s car.

But, with the economy falling apart and millions out of work, stories like these will become much more common, as TV’s, computers, cell
phones and home furnishings start taking a back seat to essential goods like food:

The sign on the side of the road reads, “Home grown veggies for sale,” but thieves apparently ignored the words, “for sale”.

The theft happened over the weekend at a home along Bennetts Bridge Road in the Greer area of Spartanburg County.

The homeowner didn’t want to be identified, but told deputies that someone stole 40 pounds of ripe tomatoes, 20 pounds of lima and butter
beans and took all of her cucumbers and squash.

…

She blames the economy for the crimes.

source: MSNBC

The victim is likely right. The fair market value of those vegetables is roughly $150.

Chances are that whoever stole that food is not headed down to the nearest pawn shop to off-load it. They are likely bringing the veggies
back to the house for personal consumption.

While we may experience a strong deflationary impact to debt based goods like house prices, chances are that the essentials like energy and
food are going to rise significantly in relation to wages. If you’ve
been to the grocery store lately and picked up a week’s worth of veggies
and fruits, then you can attest to the costs.

It’s not cheap to eat healthy.

Hat tip Roger Mack for sending this one over

http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/food-thieves-prove-tough-time...