Free Republic

It’s not a script for the next science-fiction thriller, but renowned British scientist James Lovelock is giving human civilization less than 32 years before all hell breaks loose because of the effects of global warming. Lovelock said the impact of climate change is irreversible regardless of what mankind does. “By 2040, the world population of more than six billion will have been culled by floods, drought and famine,”

"Decline in Home Prices Accelerates" — Page One headline, The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 27 Gloom. Doom. Calamity. Home prices are tumbling. We're bombarded by somber reports. But wait. This is actually good news, because lower home prices are the only real solution to the housing collapse. The sooner prices fall, the better. The longer the adjustment takes, the longer the housing slump (weak sales, low construction, high numbers of unsold homes) will last. It's elementary economics. Pretend that houses are apples. We have 1,000 apples, priced at $1 each. They don't sell. We can either keep the price at...

The Socialist Democrat’s Creed – “Doom and Gloom from Womb to Tomb” I wanted to address the negativity that some Americans have made such a large part of their way of life. I have observed that more Americans thrive on negative news about America. These Americans previously predicated negative news. The negative news appears to provide some ego satisfaction when it occurs. On closer observation, I discovered a link between the liberal’s thirst for celebrating all things negative about America and the media’s quest to satisfy that thirst. The liberals and the media also express a desire for America to...

The American economy, God bless it, isn't listening to all those doom-and-gloom predictions that we are marching headlong into a recession before the end of the year.   The professional pessimists who persistently peddle their predictions on the network news and business shows have been warning us all year that the economy is headed toward the cliff. Many of them were at it again this week — hoping against hope their cataclysmic forecasts will come to pass.  The lead economic story in The Washington Post Sunday began this way: "The economy is slowing, the dollar is falling. Wall Street is laying...

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards said if he wasn’t elected president, the population of African-American males is likely to either wind up in prison or dead. At an MTV/MySpace.com forum Thursday, Edwards responded to a question about inner-city kids partaking in violence by saying there was no “silver bullet” to fight the problem. “We start with the president of the United States saying to America, ‘we cannot build enough prisons to solve this problem. And the idea that we can keep incarcerating and keep incarcerating — pretty soon we’re not going to have a young African-American male population in America....

Consumer Spending Posts Better-Than-Expected Gain While Inflation Eases WASHINGTON (AP) -- Consumers shrugged off a rash of bad news to spend more than expected in August while a key measure of inflation eased to the slowest pace in 3 1/2 years. The Commerce Department reported Friday that consumer spending rose by 0.6 percent in August, the best showing in four months and better than the 0.4 percent increase that had been expected. Incomes rose by 0.3 percent last month, slightly lower than had been expected. A closely watched gauge of inflation was up just 1.8 percent in August, compared to...

Late payments on U.S. home equity lines of credit rose to a 5-1/2 year high in the second quarter of 2007 but delinquencies on many other types of consumer loans fell, the American Bankers Association said Wednesday. In its quarterly report on consumer borrowing, the bankers group said delinquencies in repaying home equity lines of credit rose to 0.77 percent in the April-June period. That compared to a rate of 0.60 percent in the first quarter and represented the highest rate since the fourth quarter of 2001 when the rate was 0.81 percent. However, the rate of closed-end home equity...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Demand for big-ticket manufactured goods plunged in August by the largest amount in seven months, with widespread weakness signaling a slowdown in the nation's industrial sector. The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that orders for durable goods, everything from commercial jetliners to home appliances, fell by 4.9 percent in August, the biggest decline since a 6.1 percent fall in January. It was far larger than the 3.5 percent drop that economists had been expecting and resulted from across-the-board decreases in a number of categories. The concern is that the steep downturn in housing and turbulence in financial markets...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Sales of new home increased 2.8% in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 870,000 as the inventory of homes for sale dropped for a fourth straight month, the Commerce Department estimated Friday. Sales were stronger than the 820,000 annualized pace expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. See Economic Calendar. In addition, sales in June were revised slightly higher. Sales are down 10.2% compared with last July. Read the full report. Stocks turned higher after the report was released. See Market Snapshot. Inventories of unsold homes fell about 1% to 533,000, the fourth consecutive decline. At...

NEW YORK - The dream of owning a home is fading away for many Americans with less than stellar credit. On Tuesday HomeBanc Corp. said it will not issue any more loans, and Impac Mortgage Holdings Inc. shut down a type of loan called “alt-A” for people with limited documentation or slight credit issues. That followed bankruptcies for two of the country’s biggest home lenders — American Home Mortgage Investment Corp. and New Century Financial Corp. — and tighter terms at most other lenders that are thus far surviving a shakeout in the industry. “Every day I hear about a...

Let me just preface by saying that I don't make a habit of commenting on what other colleagues at CNBC say. It's neither prudent, nor necessary. I also didn't even plan on blogging this week; I'm on vacation for crying out loud! But my BlackBerry was buzzing off the base this weekend, with housing bloggers begging me to respond to Jim Cramer's outcry on Friday about the Fed and the mortgage market. So let me just blog here respectfully. I understand Cramer's passion (you can see it again in the clip below.) I do. I'm not out there in the...

Diversification -- not putting all one's eggs in the same basket -- has long been a mainstay of investing safely. But it works only so long as all the baskets don't tumble at once. In recent weeks, assets around the world have fallen in lockstep. Stocks, corporate bonds, emerging-market debt and a host of derivatives backed by mortgages and other types of borrowing have been hit hard. Even commodities such as gold and other metals, which investors turn to precisely because their prices typically don't move in sync with other assets, dropped along with everything else in late July. The...

April New Home Sales Post Highest Monthly Gain in 14 Years WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sales of new homes surged in April by the biggest amount in 14 years, but the median price of a new home dropped by the largest amount on record. The mixed signals left no clear picture of whether the worst of the nation's housing slump is over. The Commerce Department reported that sales of new single-family homes jumped by 16.2 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 981,000 units. That was far better than the tiny 0.2 percent gain that economists had been...

Hundreds of Georgians lost their homes Tuesday. The houses, taken from debt-laden homeowners, were sold to bidders on courthouse steps statewide. The increasingly busy monthly auctions show that not all of the residential market is in decline. Foreclosures are rising. More than 115,000 properties across the country were in the foreclosure process in October — up 42 percent from the same month a year earlier, according to RealtyTrac, a California company that tracks foreclosures. Foreclosures in Georgia are up a stunning 99 percent in the past year...

(notice how "lameduck" is in the url) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ridiculed as the "do-nothing" 109th U.S. Congress, the Senate and U.S. House of Representatives on Monday begin a brief session to wrap up whatever work they can, install a new defense secretary and approve money to prevent a shutdown of government services. The Republican-led Congress will meet only for about another week before drawing to a close -- as lawmakers prepare for the new 110th Congress set to convene on January 4 under Democratic control. Having been blown out in the November 7 elections, Republican lawmakers are getting ready to...

Prices remain the story in home sales, with Sarasota-Bradenton prices falling 18 percent in October, the second biggest drop in the state. The median sales price in the Sarasota-Bradenton market was $277,900 last month, compared with $340,700 during the same month in booming 2005. The Charlotte County-North Port market was not far behind, with a drop of 17 percent, from $243,900 to $202,800. Only Fort Myers-Cape Coral took a bigger fall, posting a 44 percent decline in median sales price, from $445,100 to $249,200, the Florida Association of Realtors reported on Tuesday. The median is the point where half the...

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Aluminum producer Alcoa Inc. announced a restructuring of its product operations on Tuesday that will include plant closings and could ultimately result in a 10 percent reduction of its worldwide work force. About 6,700 jobs will be cut in the next year and a further 6,400 jobs will be moved into a joint venture with Norway's Orkla ASA with the intent eventually to spin it off, the Pittsburgh-based company said. Video More video Learn how to assess what health care plan is perfect for your family. (Part 2 of 2) Play video The restructuring program is...

AP Home Sales Plummet in 38 States in 3Q Monday November 20 By Lauren Villagran, AP Business Writer Third-Quarter Home Sales Plummet in 38 States During the Summer; Home Prices Also Tumble NEW YORK (AP) -- The feeble U.S. housing market showed more frailty when third-quarter home sales plummeted in 38 states, hitting Nevada, Arizona, Florida and California particularly hard, government data showed on Monday. The once-booming real estate market's persistent weakness over the past year has reined in expectations for economic growth but hasn't been severe enough to offset a rising stock market, lower gas prices and improved consumer...

I am convinced that the housing bubble is gigantic and will burst before long with massive implications here and abroad. In fact, it's the key to the global economic outlook. Setting the Scene House prices in recent years have leaped well beyond their normal relationships to the CPI...

BEIJING (Reuters) - Humans are stripping nature at an unprecedented rate and will need two planets' worth of natural resources every year by 2050 on current trends, the WWF conservation group said on Tuesday. ADVERTISEMENT Populations of many species, from fish to mammals, had fallen by about a third from 1970 to 2003 largely because of human threats such as pollution, clearing of forests and overfishing, the group also said in a two-yearly report. "For more than 20 years we have exceeded the earth's ability to support a consumptive lifestyle that is unsustainable and we cannot afford to continue down...

(CBS) IRVINE The unsold inventory of new homes in Orange County is at the highest level since 1996, according to an economic forecast released Friday in Irvine. Through August, sales of existing homes in Orange County were off 29 percent compared to the same period a year ago, the largest year-over-year decline, according to the UCLA Anderson Forecast: Orange County Economic Outlook for 2007. The rate of sales over the last five months have been "brutally low," with Southern California home sales falling to their lowest level in nine years last month, according to the forecast.

The rate of decline in the US housing market is continuing to surprise the pundits. The number of housing starts - that is, new home construction - fell 6% in August, down almost 20% on last year, the worst annual decline in four years, and a much worse fall than expected. That came hot on the heels of news from the National Association of Home Builders that house builders’ confidence is at its lowest since 1991. “This implies an increasingly negative outlook for the consumer sector given the importance of equity withdrawal and the positive wealth effects housing has provided...

It seems like every month, I'm running into people passing out a slick new business card that announces them as a real estate agent or mortgage broker. Who wouldn't want to get a piece of the action? On certain Portland streets, housing prices are doubling in a matter of months. And when there's this kind of temptation to make quick money, greed can't be far behind.Insiders call it land flipping. Silent second. Straw buyers. Foreclosure fraud. Equity skimming. Air loans. If there's a thought to do it, there's a scheme attached to it."It's the fastest-growing white collar crime in the...

Sep 28, 2006 EYE ON AMERICA The US, debtor nation By Peter Morici The United States is a debtor nation, just like the poorest states in Africa, Latin America and Asia. Since the fourth quarter of last year, US citizens and businesses have paid more dividends, interest and the like to foreigners than they have received from abroad. How Americans entered a debtor's life is hardly a puzzle, but what it means is troubling.

Sep 20, 2006 4 Major California Home Markets See Drop In Prices (AP) LOS ANGELES A real estate research firm says the median price of a California home increased last month at the slowest annual rate in nine years. Four counties actually saw price declines. Among the largest real estate markets, according to DataQuick Information Systems, the steepest drop was 6.7 percent in San Mateo County. Other decreases were seen in Marin County (2.3 percent), San Diego County (2.2 percent) and Alameda County (1.5 percent). Appreciation in Sonoma, Santa Clara, San Francisco and Contra Costa counties was essentially flat. The...

As rates creep up, borrowers with interest-only loans face sharply higher mortgage payments: Tina Gren Clarence saves $600 a month with an interest-only loan she took out about a year ago for a Petaluma home, yet already is considering heading off the financial hit when her monthly payments could jump. And Peter Shidler, whose low-payment-option loan could turn from a sweet deal into a potentially bitter one, is refinancing and still will pay $500 more monthly on his Santa Rosa home. Gren Clarence and Shidler, like two out of three Sonoma County home buyers and owners, joined the fast-growing club...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The number of homes entering into some stage of foreclosure is surging, according to a survey released Wednesday. In August, 115,292 properties entered into foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure sales. That was 24 percent above the level in July and 53 percent higher than a year earlier. Where foreclosures are jumping Year over year gain in homes in foreclosure. Click for more stats on each state. Nevada: Up 255% California: Up 160% Florida: Up 62% It was the second highest monthly foreclosure total of the year; in February, 117,151 properties entered foreclosure....

With millions of adjustable-rate mortgages about to reset this fall, experts expect a wave of foreclosures by Americans in every income bracket. Here's why they could soar in late 2006 and beyond: Those easy-mortgage chickens are coming home to roost. This fall the adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) that millions of Americans took out during the recent housing boom will be reset, and many homeowners will see their monthly mortgage payments shoot up by as much as 20%. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, of all mortgages financed in 2005, 36% were ARMs -- the highest ever. This is a matter of...

If Democrats win one or both houses of Congress in November's elections, as polls suggest is increasingly likely, President Bush's Washington will change dramatically. Democrats will press to get out of Iraq. They'll mount investigations into the Bush administration's record that could rival those of Presidents Nixon in Watergate and Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky affair. They'll push a boatload of social-welfare legislation, such as raising the minimum wage, that reflects their pent-up priorities, while blocking the Republican agenda on social issues such as gay marriage, abortion and religion. Those are some of the top plans that Democrats would pursue...

16th of June DEFEATING DEPRESSION PART 1 “Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad” Proverbs 12:25 Depression- from Webster’s New Unabridged Dictionary Low spirits, gloominess, dejection, sadness, a decrease in force, or activity, or amount, a decrease in functional activity. An emotional condition either normal or pathological characterized by discouragement, a feeling of inadequacy, the act of humbling abasement as a depression of pride. Abasement, reduction, sinking, fall, humiliation, dejection, melancholy. Major Depression Facts Major depression is the No.1 psychological disorder in the western world.(1) It is growing in all age groups,...

The economy's growth has never before been so driven by real estate. Now that engine is sputtering. Jiany Massad isn't quite ready to throw in the towel on his fledgling career as a Miami real-estate tycoon. But if the local housing market continues to head south, the 30-year-old real-estate broker is already making alternate plans. "I might restart my old business," he says of a home decorating company that specialized in high-end window treatments. "At least it's real-estate-related." With home sales down by nearly a third in Florida last quarter, thousands of those who hoped to cash in on the...

When Jesus was living, he did not align himself with the Jewish religious parties, then called Saducees and Pharisees, nor the secular authorities: King Herod and Rome. He obeyed the Mosaic law and even paid tribute. He told Nicodemus, an old man that he had to be born again to be saved. Jesus meant born spiritually. Jesus preached that this spiritual new baby would be then, dead to the world, living in the world but not of it. He pointed out that worrying about the future was not what a Christian would be doing because tomorrow has enough worries to...

Let me go on record as saying I like Hyundai. For the record, I personally own a Sonata, and it's a great car. That said, will someone from Hyundai's advertising department kindly explain what you were thinking when you authorized the latest commercial for the 2006 Sonata? "Rethink Everything" involves the concept of the Hyundai Sonata turning the world upside down. You can access the commercial online with this URL: http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvideo/projects/f/commercials/6702.html The spot starts out innocuously enough: a rather cliche scene of a Sonata cruising along a city street. Quickly the spot kicks into high gear: An office located in...

I think the latest commercial for the Huyndai Sonata speaks for itself, and you can access it online using the URL: http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvideo/projects/f/commercials/6702.html . So the quuestion is, "Why is Hyundai using imagery remisiscent of 911 to help sell cars"?

This is different. This post isn't about what I have gleemed from some 'news-source' today. This post is about HOW do you convince your friends, your family .. your loved ones that "There Is A Crisis" in America and that this crisis continues to grow, each and every day..regardless of whether they believe it or not! The only thing that any of them believe in is: Our Government. I would like to give you the whole story, how I have tried and finally given up, given up in trying to convince my family, my loved ones that we are at...

Millions of Americans bought into the real estate boom with adjustable mortgages and home equity loans. Now rising interest rates are forcing them into agonizing financial choices. Aug. 8, 2006 - When Shawn Howell saw the house in the summer of 2004, he thought he couldn’t lose. The location-close to family and in an upscale subdivision in Louisville, Ky.,—was perfect; the three-bedroom plus loft was just right. The price was a little high at $217,000—especially as Howell's wife, Niki, had just given birth to their second child. But the couple learned they could purchase it with no money down by...

NEW YORK -- Home prices in some parts of the country are falling. Builders are scaling back. Bubble or not, the biggest housing boom in recent U.S. history is coming to an end. Now here is the big question: How bad will the aftermath be? At this point, most economists expect a "soft landing," a gradual decline that won't derail the nation's economic expansion, now in its fifth year. But there is a good chance they are being too optimistic. The boom has depended heavily on the upbeat psychology of consumers, builders and lenders. As moods swing, the landing could...

Washington (Reuters) - U.S. consumer credit rose by a bigger-than-expected $10.27 billion in June on a surge in credit card debt, a Federal Reserve Report on Monday showed. ADVERTISEMENT Analysts polled by Reuters were expecting consumer credit to rise by just $4 billion after increasing by an upwardly revised $5.88 billion in May. Consumer credit outstanding rose to $2.186 trillion in June, rising at a 5.66 percent annual rate from $2.176 trillion the prior month. Revolving credit, which includes credit and charge cards, rose by an annual 9.80 percent rate in June to $820.65 billion after a 11.04 percent surge...

BOSTON (MarketWatch) -- It is becoming increasingly obvious that financial advisers, real estate experts and parents will someday point to what is happening in the mortgage market today and use it as a cautionary tale of what can go wrong when a buyer stretches to get too much house during a market that seems invincible. Real estate has been booming in most markets over the last five years or longer, fueled by interest rates that reached four-decade lows and by consumers who used new mortgage products to extend their buying power. Many home buyers stopped worrying about buying a home...

Many brokers thrived last year amid record home sales, but this year the industry has taken a turn for the worse. TAMPA — The sneeze came first: Home sales in the Tampa Bay area dropped by a third from last year’s peak. For symptoms of the developing head cold, plunge into the exhibition hall at the Tampa Convention Center, where the Florida Association of Mortgage Brokers is holding its annual trade show. Puffed up to handle record-breaking home sales of last year, which poured money into savvy brokers’ pockets, the residential lending industry and affiliated businesses are mostly deflating this...

Urge to cash in on the housing bubble has spawned an industry of schemers: Every boom has a dark side. The merger mania of the 1980s produced insider trading scandals. The '90s stock bubble was busted for biased investment research. And so it is with real estate, the hottest market of the past eight years. The urge to cash in on rising home values has spawned a growing share of hucksters, schemers and rip-off artists. Learn how to avoid ten of the biggest real estate rip-offs or view Video: Real Estate Rip-OffsClick HereSo far, it is tough to know exactly...

WASHINGTON - The pace of U.S. home building fell more than expected in June as groundbreaking on single-family units logged the slowest pace in 1-1/2 years, according to a government report on Wednesday that added to signs of a broad cooling in the housing market. The Commerce Department said June housing starts fell 5.3 percent in June to a 1.850 million unit annual pace, from a downwardly revised 1.953 million unit pace in May. May’s rise had interrupted a string of three straight monthly declines. Economists had expected June housing starts to decline to 1.90 million units from May’s originally...

Law allows lenders to go after personal savings as well as the house, unlike original mortgage. Homeowners behind in their mortgage payments after hocking the house to pay for a major remodel or a new boat or car may be in for a rude awakening. If they previously refinanced and their lender decides to foreclose, they may not only lose their house, but the bank also may be able to go after their other financial assets including stocks, savings and their paycheck. And even if the bank doesn't go after their other assets, a foreclosure may mean a big tax...

From deteriorating security in Afghanistan and Somalia to mayhem in the Middle East, confrontation with Iran and eroding relations with Russia, the White House suddenly sees crisis in every direction. North Korea's long-range missile test Tuesday was another reminder of the bleak foreign policy landscape that faces President Bush even outside of Iraq. Few foreign policy experts foresee the reclusive Stalinist state giving up the nuclear weapons it appears to have acquired, making it another in a long list of world problems that threaten to cloud the closing years of the Bush administration, according to foreign policy experts in both...

Rising Interest Rates, Higher Gasoline Prices Make It Harder for Consumers to Handle Debt NEW YORK (AP) -- Rising interest rates and higher gasoline prices are putting the squeeze on consumers' budgets, and many are finding it harder to keep up with their bills. Credit counseling agencies say that consumers are coming in in droves seeking help. ADVERTISEMENT "My phones are going crazy," said Howard Dvorkin, president of the nonprofit Consolidated Credit Counseling Services Inc. in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "Consumers are carrying an exorbitant amount of debt -- and they don't have any savings to fall back on if things...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. mortgage applications fell last week as interest rates hit their highest in over four years, an industry trade group said on Wednesday. ADVERTISEMENT The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity for the week ended June 23 decreased 6.7 percent to 529.6 from the previous week's 567.6. Borrowing costs on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages, excluding fees, averaged 6.86 percent, up 0.13 percentage point from the previous week, its highest level since April 12, 2002 when it reached 6.92 percent. The MBA's seasonally adjusted purchase mortgage index fell 6.2 percent to 389.0....

Casey Files: Government Debt – Termites in the HouseAs I write, gold has rebounded handsomely over the $600 mark, perhaps putting a stake through the heart of the recent steep correction. Or, perhaps not.After all, it isn’t the fundamentals, per se, that are currently causing gold to spike. It’s largely just the chattering of the trading community based on their reading of the tea leaves revealed in the Fed’s latest press release.In order to make any real sense of where gold should be trading, and will be trading soon enough, you have to look deeper, much deeper, into the...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The tell-tale sign of a stagnating real estate market? When homes for sale start lingering - and that's exactly what real estate brokers and other industry watchers say they're seeing now. The National Association of Realtors does not maintain national time-on-market figures. But inventory - the number of homes for sale - spiked 37 percent for the 12 months through April 30, the most recent data available. Homes are staying on the shelf longer. Languishing in hot markets There are no official regional statistics for the time homes spend on the market. Here are estimates for...

WASHINGTON - Sales of existing homes fell for the third time in the past five months in May, with the weakness led by a big drop in demand in the Northeast. ADVERTISEMENT The National Association of Realtors reported Tuesday that sales of previously owned homes dropped by 1.2 percent in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.67 million units. The median price of the homes sold in May rose to $230,000 in May, up 6 percent from the same month a year ago. That represented a slowdown from huge double-digit price gains last year at the peak of...

NEW YORK - Young workers in the United States are twice as likely as older colleagues to steal office supplies for home use without thinking it is wrong, a new study says. And all those missing paper clips and pens add up to more than $50 billion a year. One in five workers age 18 to 24 did not feel it was wrong to take home office supplies, said the Spherion Workplace Snapshot, an online survey. Story continues below �« -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- advertisement -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Among those young workers, one in four said they had taken supplies home in the past year,...