thestatedtruth.com | September 20, 2010
“An incredible 14% of the nearly 54 million first liens in the country are now either delinquent or in default” the Real Estate Channel’s Keith Jurow, observes. “To come up with a total for the shadow inventory, let’s first add the total number of loans in default to those delinquent 90 days or more since […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Real Estate, Wall Street |
No Comments »
Tags: delinquent, foreclosures, Real Estate, shadow inventory
thestatedtruth.com | September 18, 2010
By Gary Shilling Consumers Go On Strike It wasn’t until late 2008 that we had the collapse in home equity as house prices nosedived (Chart 2), rising layoffs (Chart 3) and the drying up of consumer lending drove consumers into retrenchment. But they suddenly went on a buyers strike in the last four months of 2008, […]
Category: Charts and Graphs, Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Personal Net Worth, Real Estate, Wall Street, World News |
No Comments »
Tags: commercial equity, commercial property index, home equity, Real Estate
thestatedtruth.com | September 17, 2010
The median expected investment return for more than 100 U.S. public pension plans surveyed by the National Association of State Retirement Administrators remains 8%, the same level as in 2001  “It’s unrealistic,” according to John Bogle, founder of mutual fund giant Vanguard.  He says the return assumptions in place at most pension plans can’t be meet. […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Pensions and Retirement, Wall Street |
No Comments »
Tags: net worth chart, pension chart, pension plans, pension shortages, under funded pensions
thestatedtruth.com | September 15, 2010
Bloomberg     09-15-2010 The slide in U.S. home prices may have another three years to go as sellers add as many as 12 million more properties to the market. Shadow inventory — the supply of homes in default or foreclosure that may be offered for sale — is preventing prices from bottoming after a 28 percent […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Real Estate |
No Comments »
Tags: bank owned, foreclosures, Real Estate
thestatedtruth.com | September 15, 2010
ICI’s latest data discloses that in the week ended September 8, domestic funds saw outflows of $2.2 billion, following last week’s massive $7.7 billion. And ETFs experienced outflows as well. So far September has experienced nearly $10 billion in outflows, even as the market has ramped by over 6%. This is the 19th sequential outflow […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Pensions and Retirement, Wall Street |
No Comments »
Tags: stock funds flow data, stock market outflows, stock redemptions
thestatedtruth.com | September 15, 2010
The funded status of the 100 largest corporate defined benefit pension plans dropped by $108 billion during August 2010 as measured by the Milliman 100 Pension Funding Index (PFI). The funded status decrease was primarily due to a significant decrease in corporate bond interest rates that are the benchmarks used to value pension liabilities. Though […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National Security, Pensions and Retirement, Wall Street |
No Comments »
Tags: pensions, srirement
thestatedtruth.com | September 14, 2010
A $108 Billion Deterioration In ONE MONTH www.zerohedge.com     09-14-2010 According to actuarial and consulting firm Miliman, in August 2010, the funded status of the 100 largest defined benefit pension plans sponsored by U.S. companies dropped by $108 billion to a 10-year low of 70.1%. Yes, that’s a $100 billion + deterioration in one month! The […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Pensions and Retirement, Wall Street |
No Comments »
Tags: pension deficit, pensions, under funding
thestatedtruth.com | September 13, 2010
So what will bolt from the gate fastest Stocks, Bonds or could Gold and Silver lead the way? The New York Fed has just disclosed it will buy $27 billion in Treasurys between mid-Sept and mid-October. Using the Basel III blessed 30x leverage, this money, once it makes its way to the Primary Dealers, should be […]
Category: Commentary, Commodities, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Real Estate, Wall Street |
No Comments »
Tags: stock market, treasurys, wall st, Wall Street
thestatedtruth.com | September 13, 2010
From John Williams of shadowstats.com……… – Protracted Economic Downturn Re-Intensifies – Systemic Stability: “Tap-Dancing on a Land Mine” – Risks of U.S. Dollar Instability and Systemic-Salvation Efforts Pose         Severe Inflation Threat www.shadowstats.com
Category: Charts and Graphs, Commentary, Commodities, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Wall Street, World News |
No Comments »
Tags: Economy, john williams of shadow stats
thestatedtruth.com | September 11, 2010
If not for record low interest rates, the Debt Service Ratio chart below would look a lot different! The consumer, and why the expectation (and reality) of deflation will keep U.S. buyers subdued, and continue to make the US economy ever more reliant on the government’s transfer payment, aka welfare, program. A very simple illustration of the […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Real Estate, Wall Street, World News |
No Comments »
Tags: consumer debt, debt, personal debt
thestatedtruth.com | September 11, 2010
FDIC’s Bair Warns of Government “Exposure” in Mortgages WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A key U.S. banking regulator raised concern on Wednesday about the risk of “exposure” the government is taking on in the mortgage market and urged more stringent standards for underwriting mortgages. “We should all be concerned about the type of exposure that the government […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Real Estate |
48 Comments »
Tags: housing, mortgages, Real Estate
thestatedtruth.com | September 10, 2010
Interesting fact…..stock market REIT ‘s (Real Estate Investment Trusts) are trading at near record highs. Of the $3.1 billion new delinquencies in August, $1.1 billion (36%) corresponded to hotel-backed loans, pushing the hotel-specific delinquency rate past 20%. Current delinquency rates by property type are as follows: –Hotel: 20.80% (from 18.64%) –Multifamily: 14.18% (from 13.87%) –Retail: […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Pensions and Retirement, Real Estate, Wall Street, World News |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | September 9, 2010
Shifting Demographics A factor affecting demand is shifting demographics. The Baby Boomer generation is no longer the consumption engine it has been to the US economy.  We have a generation that, as has been predicted for some time, is reducing its expenses but it may be even more dramatic than forecasted. With home housing […]
Category: Charts and Graphs, Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Pensions and Retirement, Wall Street, World News |
398 Comments »
Tags: age distribution, consumption, demograhics, getting older, new normal, Real Estate, spending
thestatedtruth.com | September 8, 2010
After two months of moderated growth in delinquent loans backing commercial mortgage-backed securities (CMBS), the delinquency rate in August increased 21 basis points to 8.92%, according to the analytics firm Trepp. It’s an increase from the 8.71% measured in July and another new record. The August delinquency rate is more than double the 4.03% rate […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Real Estate, Wall Street, World News |
No Comments »
Tags: cmbs, commercial property defauls, commercial real estate, property defaults, Real Estate
thestatedtruth.com | September 8, 2010
The Federal Reserve said the U.S. economy maintained its expansion while showing “widespread signs of a deceleration†in mid-July through the end of August, according to a survey by 12 regional Fed banks. The New York Fed reported “signs of decelerating†in the district, including “further deceleration†in manufacturing. The Philadelphia region said business conditions […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Real Estate, Wall Street, World News |
No Comments »
Tags: fed banks, federal reserve, u.s. economy
thestatedtruth.com | September 5, 2010
So even though we have nearly 8,000 banks, the bulk of the assets sit with a small number of banks and the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF), the fund that backs the assets of the banks is actually in the red for $15 billion: www.mybudget360.com
Category: Charts and Graphs, Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Pensions and Retirement, Wall Street |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | September 4, 2010
A must listen to interview with Jim Rickards about our economy and more.  We all need to be aware of the direction of things to come.   This interview from Jim Rickards will help in understanding these things better.  Click on the following link or paste into your browser:   http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2010/9/4_Jim_Rickards.html  Biography of James G. Rickards…..James G. Rickards is […]
Category: Audio Clips, Commentary, Commodities, Economy, Finance, Gold and Silver, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, National Security, Pensions and Retirement, Real Estate, Wall Street, World News |
459 Comments »
Tags: Economy, everybody should listen to this, jim rickards, must listen too, new york stock exchange, stockmarket, wall st, Wall Street
thestatedtruth.com | September 3, 2010
Very interesting,  but also a worst nightmare for tax payers……….Under Pennsylvania law, Ambac Assurance (which insures some of Harrisburg’s debt) can take Harrisburg to court to seek an order to raise property taxes to pay debt. This is the nature of “full faith and credit†of general-obligation bonds. So the tax payers are stuck for the […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Pensions and Retirement, Wall Street, World News |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | September 2, 2010
Key words here are…..”public debt had served for decades as the ultimate shock absorber — rising in bad times but not declining much in good times.â€Â Now things have to change as  the wealthiest nations face years of belt-tightening. International Monetary Fund Warns G7 on Debt Thursday, 2 Sep 2010 By: Sewell Chan The world’s most […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Wall Street, World News |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | September 2, 2010
Crisis mode? Hmm…..their words not ours! ECB Keeps Key Interest Rate at 1%, May Maintain Crisis Mode By Christian Vits  Sep 2, 2010 The European Central Bank kept interest rates at a record low today and President Jean-Claude Trichet may signal the bank will stay in crisis mode into next year. The ECB’s Governing Council […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Wall Street, World News |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | September 1, 2010
Front Running the Fed September 1, 2010 “… the public is no longer investing in stocks, but rather in bonds. So far this year through July, bond mutual funds have attracted $224.4bn in net inflows including reinvested dividends.  Equity funds have attracted only $17.2bn ytd, with $32.2bn going into International funds while $15.0bn flowed out […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Gold and Silver, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Pensions and Retirement, Wall Street |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | August 30, 2010
According to the Investment Company Institute (ICI), bond mutual funds have attracted more money than equity mutual funds for 30 consecutive months through June, the longest stretch in more than 23 years.
Category: Charts and Graphs, Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Outliers, Pensions and Retirement, Wall Street |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | August 30, 2010
Interesting facts we haven’t heard of before! Â For the first time since at least 1997, fewer than 29 percent of ratings for stocks covered by brokerages worldwide are buys, according to 159,919 recommendations compiled by Bloomberg. Analysts are turning more pessimistic even as they push up estimates for profit growth among Standard & Poor’s […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Wall Street |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | August 29, 2010
Some food for thought from George Friedman, CEO of STRATFOR, who believes China “will have a collapse†in the coming decade due to internal striff, an export based economy, and low internal rates of return,  It will set America up as the primary beneficiary in a new Golden Era. Mr. Friedman’s views are controversial but well worth listening […]
Category: Audio Clips, Commentary, Commodities, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, National Security, Wall Street, World News |
243 Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | August 29, 2010
Last week, the Liscio Report posted an interesting comment on their blog, Where we are?: Here’s an updated guide to “where we areâ€â€”how the U.S. economy is faring relative to the average of previous financial crises around the world. Though individual details vary, we’re following the script pretty well. In the graphs of four major […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Pensions and Retirement, Wall Street, World News |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | August 29, 2010
By Todd Harrison of Minyanville Seeking Solutions In An Uncertain World We used to play for silver, now we play for life; ones for sport and one’s for blood at the point of a knife. –Grateful Dead We live in interesting times. During the last two years, a financial virus spawned and infected the economic […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Gold and Silver, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, National Security, Pensions and Retirement, Real Estate, Wall Street, World News |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | August 28, 2010
This continues to be a hot subject and the problems continue to get worse. Question: Why should communities have to support bloted state and government pension and benefit plans that are guaranteed no matter what the loses are, and totaly out of control while the rest of the country in the private sector has to live with less because of loses to IRA’s and […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Pensions and Retirement, Wall Street |
590 Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | August 27, 2010
Here is a summary of parts of a Wall Street Journal article by California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger on government pensions and employee benefit compensation. Roughly 80 cents of every government dollar in California goes to employee compensation and benefits. Spending on California’s state employees over the past decade rose at nearly three times the rate our […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Pensions and Retirement, Wall Street, World News |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | August 27, 2010
08/27/2010 The WSJ’s Simon Constable interviews Robert Shiller.  He says that an economic double dip may be “imminent.”  Shiller also believes that when the NBER looks back at the data, Q3 of this year will mark the beginning of the second dip of the recession. Ironically, since up to now the previous recession has never actually […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, Real Estate, Wall Street |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | August 26, 2010
Modest is putting it bluntly…..There was some modestly encouraging news. The percentage of mortgage borrowers receiving foreclosure notices fell slightly to 4.57 percent in the April-to-June quarter.  Government efforts haven’t made much of a difference. Nearly half of the 1.3 million homeowners who have enrolled in the Obama administration’s main mortgage-relief program have been cut loose […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Real Estate, Wall Street |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | August 26, 2010
The Canary in the coal mine.    Sounds like a bad situation is setting itself up here…… We went over some of this just a few days ago……It’s an unfolding disaster…. Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System, Springfield, plans to sell $3 billion in investments, or about 10% of its $33.1 billion in assets in the current fiscal year […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Pensions and Retirement, Real Estate, Wall Street |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | August 26, 2010
Hmm…..Two months in a row, right in the middle of the traditional best seasonal time of the year for real estate….not one new home was sold valued above $750,000 in the whole U.S. according to David Rosenberg (he worked for Merrill Lynch and now resides in Canada as chief economist and strategist at Gluskin Sheff). …..Attitudes towards […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Real Estate |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | August 26, 2010
In a bid to stem taxpayer losses for bad loans guaranteed by federal housing agencies Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn) proposed that borrowers be required to make a 5% down payment in order to qualify. His proposal was rejected 57-42 on a party-line vote because, …………Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn) explained, “passage […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, Real Estate |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | August 24, 2010
Pension funds everywhere had better pay attention to what’s going on with the Illinois Teachers Retirement System. It’s a wake up call……Hello, anybody there! When the financial crisis erupted, it first hit banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, real estate/ private equity funds, asset managers, and then hit pension funds. But pensions remain very vulnerable because […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Pensions and Retirement, Wall Street |
602 Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | August 24, 2010
Existing home sales fell to their lowest level in over 15 years in July as inventories soared.   It portrays a grim picture for the housing market absent government support. Home resales dropped a record 27.2% or nearly twice as much as analysts had expected to an annual rate of 3.83 million in July, according to the National Association of […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, Real Estate, Wall Street |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | August 23, 2010
Let’s keep this in mind…..Quoting PIMCO’s Bill Gross on real estate mortgages, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac….”To suggest the private market can come back in and take the place [of the government] is simply impractical. It won’t work”. Sources say the Obama administration is floating the idea  that any federal backing of mortgages be paid for […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Real Estate |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | August 23, 2010
Bill Gross reviewed demographics in his PIMCO August Investment Outlook, and he showed a graph, “Deep Demographic Doo-Doo”…..Now we can read David Rosenberg’s take on the matter. Today David Rosenberg begins to tackle the U.S. demographic issues from his own perspective, with his preliminary conclusions, not validating any current optimistic perspectives in the U.S. economy: “starting next […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Pensions and Retirement, Wall Street |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | August 23, 2010
One more reason that the average person on main street has no chance, and that’s official! Interest rates continue to drop for the U.S. Treasury, large companies and home buyers, but for most of the 381 million U.S. credit-card accounts borrowing rates have been flying to the upside at an alarming pace. Amoung the reasons: […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Pensions and Retirement, Wall Street |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | August 22, 2010
The Phillie Fed report was just awful. Buried in the details was the fact that the hours-worked index is collapsing, consistent with previews to past recessions. Very worrisome. (From my favorite slicer and dicer of data, Greg Weldon: www.weldononline.com) Bottom line? It is going to be a tough environment for the next 6-8 years. That […]
Category: Charts and Graphs, Commentary, Economy, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Pensions and Retirement, Pictures, Real Estate, Wall Street |
No Comments »
Tags:
thestatedtruth.com | August 20, 2010
HAMP stands for Home Affordable Modification Plan…… The key here is that these borrowers are still up to their eyeballs in debt after the modification. From Treasury: HAMP Servicer Performance Report Through July 2010 According to HAMP, there are 255,934 “active trials”, down from 364,077 last month. There is still a large number of borrowers in limbo […]
Category: Commentary, Economy, Finance, Interest Rates, Bonds, National News, Real Estate, Wall Street |
No Comments »
Tags: