Florida school pool frozen

A report in the New York Times describes a run on an investment pool run by the state of Florida on behalf of local schools. The pool, which has some exposure to subprime mortgage loans, stopped honoring requests for withdrawals November 29.

Home foreclosures double

Alex Veiga of cnbc.com reports that home foreclosure filings in the U.S. almost doubled in October 2007 from a year earlier.

Less credit means less money

Peter S. Goodman reports in the New York Times that lenders are continuing to be extremely cautious. This implies a contraction not only in credit, but in the money supply.

Bill Gross on the banking system

The founder of Pimco questions the soundness of today's banking system.

Home sales and prices fall in October

Reuters reports that sales of existing homes were down in October. Prices fell while unsold inventory increased from a year earlier.

Home prices down a record

Michael M. Grynbaum reported in the New York Times on a record drop in single-family home prices in major U.S. cities.

Home price down in third quarter

CNNMoney.com staff writer Les Christie reports that home prices were down in the third quarter from a year earlier, according to he National Association of Realtors (NAR).

Where's the inflation?

Christina Cheddar Berk writes for cnbc.com about pre-holiday season price cutting by retailers.

Trillions of real money

Grace Wong, writing for CNNMoney.com, quotes Goldman Sachs economist Jan Hatzius on the mortgage fiasco that could reduce lending by trillions of dollars. That would be a whopping deflationary hit to the economy.

Shirley MacLaine on materialism

Actress, author, and radio talk show host Shirley MacLaine was a guest on the overnight talk show Coast to Coast AM with George Noory on November 14, 2007. Noory talked with her about her latest book, Sage-ing While Age-ing.
GN: “…you also know that this planet is being divided between the haves and the have-nots where the—those people in charge are getting greedier for power, greedier for more wealth and I don’t know how much wealth you have to have…. You said something pretty fascinating in your book in terms of, you know, the obsession people who have wealth, why they have to keep buying more--bigger houses, more cars. You know, why can’t they just be simple about what they have? And I see this divide, Shirley, is getting to the point where it’s got to stop and come back in or we’re going to have a planetary problem.”
SM: “Yah, I think we already do. But, I think everyone wants more because they’re frightened. And we’ve been so schooled on materialism. That is really basically our god, is materialism. That makes us feel better, or certainly equal to prayer, or to meditation. I would say that materialism is what we should be warning ourselves against. Now, the fact that we are divided between the haves and the have-nots—I think the real problem might be I the middle where people are not—the ones who are in the middle, who have just enough, but have to eke out their existence with hard work, and unhappiness and quiet lives of desperation. That might be the real problem. Because those who are very poor sometimes have a high, high level of spirituality. And those who are very wealth—if they can get past the greed—they can turn into top benefactors for the rest of humanity. I mean, look at Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and some of those people. The ones in the middle are the ones I’m worried about. And that’s my identification, because I’m a middle class person. Never with more than $300 in the bank in the family treasury, so to speak. So, I identify with them and that’s who I want to help.”
GN: “Good for you. Well, you understand them and you begin to appreciate the fact that the middle class has been eroding away….”
SM: [Yes.]

Mortgage maze bites lenders

Gretchen Morgenson writes in the New York Times about how a ruling in Ohio against holders of mortgage backed securities may forestall many foreclosures.

Countrywide does less loans

The number of mortgage loans made by Countrywide Financial Corp. in October was cut in half from a year earlier.

ETrade hit be mortgage mess

According the November 13, 2007 edition of The Wall Street Journal, ETrade lost $2.2 billion of its market value during trading on NASDAQ Monday to close at $3.55, down 59% for the day and 84% for the year to date. ETrade is "...a company that helped pioneer online stock trading..." according to the Journal and has also been involved in the home mortgage market. This represent another instance in which a large number of dollars have simply vanished.

Mayan calendar Night Five (2)

Natural psychic Sean David Morton was a guest on the overnight talk show Coast to Coast AM with George Noory on November 8, 2007. He talked about the coming Fifth Night of the Galactic Cycle of the Mayan calendar, comparing it to the biblical Apocalypse as described in the book of Revelation. His views are partially based on the work of Dr. Johan Calleman and John Major Jenkins. (continued from last post)

SDM: “…when you look at the Mayas, you look at the Aztecs, and you look at the Egyptians, it’s identical to what in Christian terminology is called the Apocalypse, the scenario that takes place in the final phase of creation and is metaphorically described in the book of Revelation…. The last part of the Mayan calendar that’s about to be completed on October 28 of 2011 [Calleman's corrected date] and then the last part of the night of that calendar of December 21 of 2012. And there’s a lot of people that think that the Apocalypse is the end of the world and it’s not, or at least it’s not really meant to be. It’s the large scale evolution of consciousness and it is entirely determined by this grand cosmic plan. So the Beast, as they call it, cannot win and the book of Revelation ends with a world that is freed from pain and suffering, and the end of the world—but it’s only the end of world as we know it….

“…it’s nevertheless important to realize that evil and good have no independent existence out there, it’s all just the duality of positive versus negative, male versus female, right and left sides of the brain, east versus west…. So despite what Hollywood says, there really are no forces of good and evil….

“…Billions, if not trillions, of dollars are being spent on foreign countries and foreign wars while the whole infrastructure of the United States is just collapsing. And it’s a crime and it’s thievery and looting, at the highest levels, of the treasure of America—is being spent to kill people and blow up other places, when it should be spent on what’s important here, which is actually fixing our roads and our streets and our infrastructure and the things that we use every day.”

Mayan calendar Night Five (1)

Natural psychic Sean David Morton was a guest on the overnight talk show Coast to Coast AM with George Noory on November 8, 2007. He talked about the coming Fifth Night of the Galactic Cycle of the Mayan calendar and its possible effects on the economy.

GN: “…Many Americans right now are concerned about their financial future, their houses, their jobs and lately you have been just uncanny with some of your predictions and views of the future…. What the heck’s goin’ on, Sean?”

SDM: I’m looking at the cycles of the Great Pyramid of Giza that talk about the beginning of economic and catastrophic earth changes starting in 2005…. Talking about the beginning of the collapse of material civilization if you look at the Mayan and Aztec calendars…. The people that have done really yeomen's work on this have been Dr. Carl Johan Calleman and John Major Jenkins who wrote Maya Cosmogenesis [2012] and Calleman’s fantastic book The Mayan Calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness….

“…now we are talking about the collapse of dualistic culture and we’re talking about the collapse of materialism and people have now seen what’s happened when they, quote, live beyond their means, when they play that whole 'keeping up with the Joneses' kind of deal. When they get sucked into the whole aspect of American culture…. The motto of the American civilization…is, “Mo’ is betta….

“There’s the larger cycle of the Fifth Night [of the Mayan calendar beginning November 19, 2007]… coming up. This is a shift of energy that opens. I’m not saying that November 19, that Armageddon’s gonna happen and that missiles will be in the air, whatever…. This year from November 19, 2007 through November 12 of 2008 is gonna be a deep crisis for global materialist culture. There’s going to be a destructive reaction. What you might call Armageddon….

“… The good news is that beginning in [November] 2008 to 2009 is a flowering which is a renaissance….

“… Do you think we have it in our culture to revolt now?

GN: “Yes.”

SDM: “Really?”

GN: “Yes, I do. To a point—once we get to the point. I don’t think we have gone over the edge yet. But we’re getting very close…. Let me tell you where you where you begin to see it.”

SDM: “Ok.”

GN: “You see it in the store, you see it on the roads, you see it with people’s rudeness. People aren’t—I’m not talking about everybody—people aren’t happy…. People who work in the service business who are suppose to make you feel good, they’re not happy….

SDM: “…everything that has mollified [the middle class]: housing, subprime lending, ah, everything...is slowly disappearing one after another after another.”

GN: “… The illusion has collapsed.”

SDM: “…Difficulties or catastrophes in the time ahead will have much less to do with natural disasters then they do with social, spiritual and psychological consequences of the old values which are now coming to an end as a result of a massive change in consciousness….”

Home equity tapped out

As Peter S. Goodman writes in the New York Times, the multi-billion dollar slush fund of home equity is evaporating.

Banks hedge on losses

Vance Cariaga writes in Investors Business Daily that banks may be slow to write-down debt on their books.

Merrill Lynch stock takes a hit

Landon Thomas Jr. writes in the New York Times that Merrill Lynch may have to write-down nearly $10 billion worth of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) backed by questionable mortgages.

Collateralized debt a drag

Grace Wong of CNNMoney.com writes that fallout from collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) may extend the credit crisis.

In another aricle Wong reports that a Deutsche Bank analyst expects a bit hit to banks earnings in the fourth quarter.

Home foreclosures surge

Reuters reported that filings for foreclosure on U.S. homes in the third quarter of 2007 were almost twice that of a year earlier.

via cnbc.com