As part of its spirited but confounding effort to "win the future," the Obama administration has announced Startup America, a program that aims to dampen the effects of our stumbling economy through the magic of state-sponsored ingenuity and entrepreneurship.
For starters, the U.S. Small Business Administration plans to match $2 billion in private sector investment Read More
GMAC Mortgage, a subsidiary of mainly government-owned Ally Financial, announced today that it has resumed foreclosure proceedings in 23 states, ending its nationwide moratorium on home repossessions. The Detroit News reports:
"As we review the affected files in the 23 judicial states and take any needed remediation, the foreclosure process continues," said Gina Proia, a Read More
The potential costs to Bank of America resulting from foreclosure foibles aren't as bad as some people think, according to Bank of America home lending and insurance president Barbara Desoer. The costs related to the latest mortgage mess are "grossly distorted," told Bloomberg.
She said that the bank's foreclosure review will impact fewer than 30,000 Read More
Speaking today at the Boston Federal Reserve Bank, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said what many were expecting him to say -- it looks like the Fed is interested in giving a jolt to our slow-growing economy. But as others have pointed out, it's not clear how that will happen.
"[T]he FOMC is prepared Read More
Amid increased fervor surrounding what looks to by widespread errors in the foreclosure process, investors today are showing a marked lack of confidence in Bank of America, the nation's largest bank by assets and, notably, the 2008 buyer of bumbling mortgage firm Countrywide.
As Fortune points out, shares of Bank of America today hit Read More
Former hair stylists, factory workers and Wal-Mart greeters are among the bank-designated "foreclosure experts" at the heart of the current paperwork fiasco that's wrapping the housing market in a legal stranglehold. If anyone still had confidence in major mortgage lenders' ability to properly process foreclosures, today's news reports ought to complete the crisis of faith.
Peter Read More
Adorable billionaire Warren Buffett -- who's soon to be played by the guy who voiced the old man in Up -- thinks the economy will remain shaken by the shock of the 2008 financial crisis "for a long time," Bloomberg reports.
In a pre-recorded video that was played for a conference audience in Airport Read More
Partially government-owned megabank Citigroup has joined the growing list of big banks that are changing the way they handle the business of kicking people out of their homes.
Unlike its rivals, Citi is plowing ahead with foreclosures, but it has stopped initiating new business with a Florida law firm that is under investigation by the Read More
Foreclosure moratoriums are apparently the hottest fad since hula hoops or slap bracelets. And as with all fads, the dominance of this new trend could only be truly known when the cool kids started doing it. Well, that moment is upon us: Goldman Sachs has now gotten in on the foreclosure-suspension madness.
Already honored withRead More
An Oct. 9 editorial in The Wall Street Journal about the growing legal quagmire of shoddy foreclosure paperwork is raising hackles -- and eyebrows -- across the Internet. To give an idea of the level of fairness and intellectual rigor in the piece, here's a choice line: "As far as we know, House Speaker Read More
The epidemic shoddy legal paperwork that threatens to bring the market for foreclosed homes to a screeching halt has claimed another victim, and the prognosis has worsened for one of the original patients. Pittsburgh-based PNC has called for a 30-day halt to foreclosures in 23 states, and Bank of America has suspended foreclosure Read More
Shoddy paperwork by our nation's banks is forcing some people to shack up with their bosses or choose between losing their old house to sloppy foreclosures and losing their new houses to ... sloppy foreclosures.
When ruining people's lives through bureaucratic entanglements and general laziness doesn't quite do the trick, some banks hire contractors Read More
Today's New York Times offers a wrist-slashingly depressing look at what people do when improper foreclosure documentation impacts their home purchases.
Twenty-eight-year-old Florida catering assistant Amanda Ducksworth is now couch-surfing at her boss's house, her 7-year-old son in tow., She can't move into the house she wants because it went off the market amid investigations Read More
By 2020, everyone will be a billionaire, according to the National Inflation Association. You'd think they'd be happier about their prediction:
When our government creates inflation with the goal of generating higher incomes, the real incomes of Americans always decline dramatically. Inflation never creates wealth, but instead misallocates resources that would have went towards productive Read More
Charles Evans, the Chicago Federal Reserve president who last week made some noises suggesting that the Federal Reserve should print more money to buy long-term bonds and stimulate the economy, today went into a little more detail in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
His economic outlook is not favorable. He says that Read More
