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With todays cars and not many manual window cranks what do we do if we go in the water?

Ironic isn't it, that the day after a Federal Judge lifts the Deepwater Drilling Ban, BP has another accident and the cap is off the well, and uncontained or restricted oil is now flowing into the Gulf again. Not to mention the $2 Billion dollars that Petrobras was loaned and their stock is down from a Monday high of $39.45 to currently $36.25. As reported last year by the Wall Street Journal; The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field...

More tough news for Twin Cities metro homeowners surfaced this morning as home values in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area slid 4.6 percent in March from a year ago. More troubling, the real estate website Zillow.com calculates that more than 268,000 Twin Cities area single-family homeowners with mortgages owe more than their homes are worth. That number is about 41.2 percent of the total. That compares with an estimated national average of 23.3 percent of single-family mortgages with negative equity, according to the report.

To walk, or not to walk? That is the question for nearly a quarter of US homeowners who can still make their mortgage payments but are “underwater,” or living in a house worth less than the amount they owe on the mortgage. Should such homeowners with “negative equity” simply pack up and leave, mailing the house keys to their lender in a desperate act known as “jingle mail”? Or should they honor the “promise to pay” in their loan contract and keep up with monthly payments, hoping for steady growth in home prices? ...But by and large, many “underwater” Americans...

More than 11.3 million homeowners -- nearly one-fourth of all Americans with a mortgage -- owe more on their loan than their home is now worth... More than 10% of people with mortgages owe 25% more than their home is worth. The number of underwater mortgages increased by about 620,000 from the third quarter... Another 2.3 million mortgages had less than 5% equity in their home, which could be wiped out if home prices fall further. Underwater mortgages are concentrated in few states: California, Florida, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan and Georgia. In Nevada, 70% of mortgages were underwater. In California, more...

NEW YORK - One of every five U.S. homeowners owed more on their mortgage than their home was worth in the fourth quarter, a trend that poses a serious threat to the U.S. housing market's recovery, real estate Web site Zillow.com said on Wednesday. Homeowners with "underwater'' mortgages are more prone to defaults and foreclosures. They typically do not qualify for refinancings and are unable to sell their homes because they would need to cough up cash at closing time to pay off their mortgage.

February 3, 2010 No Help in Sight, More Homeowners Walk Away By DAVID STREITFELD In 2006, Benjamin Koellmann bought a condominium in Miami Beach. By his calculation, it will be about the year 2025 before he can sell his modest home for what he paid. Or maybe 2040. “People like me are beginning to feel like suckers,” Mr. Koellmann said. “Why not let it go in default and rent a better place for less?” After three years of plunging real estate values, after the bailouts of the bankers and the revival of their million-dollar bonuses, after the Obama administration’s loan...

December 18, 2009 Deep-sea volcano erupts 4,000ft under the Pacific Sophie Tedmanson in Sydney Scientists have filmed a volcanic eruption 4,000ft (1,220m) under the sea causing molten lava to flow across the deep ocean floor. The incredible footage, recorded by a submersible robot, shows the exact moment that a deep-sea volcano erupts from the ocean floor, sending an explosion of bright red lava bubbles and plumes of smoke-like sulphur through the water. The eruption of the West Mata volcano was filmed by US scientists in May during an underwater expedition south of Samoa. It is the deepest erupting volcano to...

Here is a video report showing the underwater eruption of the West Mata Volcano south of Samoa, near Fiji and Tonga. This was reportedly filmed from 4,000 feet down, and is the deepest filming ever of an underwater eruption of a volcano. . . . (VIDEOS)

Drop in Unemployment Could Have Little Impact on Default Numbers: Analysts 12/04/2009BY: CARRIE BAY he unemployment rate dropped in November, the U.S. Labor Department reported Friday, as companies shed the fewest number of jobs since the recession kicked in two years ago. Government statistics show that last month, the jobless rate edged down to 10.0 percent, falling from the 26-year-high 10.2 percent hit in October. Only 11,000 jobs were lost in November, the Labor Department said. Economists had forecast a loss of as much as 130,000, consistent with the average of 135,000 job cuts seen in the prior three months....

1 in 4 Borrowers Under Water By RUTH SIMON and JAMES R. HAGERTY The proportion of U.S. homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than the properties are worth has swelled to about 23%, threatening prospects for a sustained housing recovery. Nearly 10.7 million households had negative equity in their homes in the third quarter, according to First American CoreLogic, a real-estate information company based in Santa Ana, Calif. These so-called underwater mortgages pose a roadblock to a housing recovery because the properties are more likely to fall into bank foreclosure and get dumped into an already saturated market. Economists...

Banks Get New Rules on Property By LINGLING WEI Federal bank regulators issued guidelines allowing banks to keep loans on their books as "performing" even if the value of the underlying properties have fallen below the loan amount. The volume of troubled commercial real-estate loans is skyrocketing. Regulators said that the rules were designed to encourage banks to restructure problem commercial mortgages with borrowers rather than foreclose on them. But the move has prompted criticism that regulators are simply prolonging the financial crisis by not forcing borrowers and lenders to confront, rather than delay, inevitable problems.

Ibrahim Didi, right, the minister of fisheries and agriculture in the Maldives, signs a document calling on all countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions ahead of a major climate change conference in December. (Mohammed Seeneen/Associated Press) Cabinet ministers in the Maldives held an underwater meeting Saturday to draw attention to the threat global warming poses to the lowest-lying nation on earth. President Mohammed Nasheed and members of his cabinet wore scuba gear as they arrived for the meeting in a lagoon off the island of Girifushi. They sat at a table anchored to the sand on the floor of...

Maldives Cabinet Meets Below Waves to Highlight Climate Change Threat By Steve Herman New Delhi 17 October 2009 In an effort to highlight climate change, the Cabinet of the government of the Maldives, an Indian island nation, has held a meeting under water. Meetings of government ministers can sometimes be a dry affair. That certainly was not the case during the latest gathering of the Cabinet of the Maldives. President Mohamed Nasheed and 11 of his government ministers, plus the vice president and Cabinet secretary, donned scuba gear and plunged six meters below the shimmering turquoise surface of an Indian...

August 13, 2009 More than half of Sacramento-area mortages are under water UPDATE: Here are the local numbers: Rather shocking.... In Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Roseville-Woodland, 257,871, or 51.10 percent of all properties with a mortgage, are in negative equity. Santa Ana-based First American CoreLogic just minutes ago released a grim look at the mortgage crisis, reporting that 32.2 percent of all U.S. mortgages were tied to homes worth less than the amount of their loans. In California, it says, 42 percent of mortgages are in that condition often referred to as "under water." The report says 2.9 million California mortgages are in a...

An estimated 25 million homeowners, or 48% of those with mortgages, will owe more on the loan than the house is worth by the first quarter of 2011, according to an analysis by Deutsche Bank released this week.

The reason that these colorful shrimp are important: is because they are living next to this: NW-Rota in Eruption Video (suggest turning down computer sound/speakers, volume level is set on high for this video) More info: Submarine Ring of Fire 2006 Expedition to NW Rota 2009

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Home values in the United States extended their fall in the first quarter, with more than one in five homeowners now owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth, real estate website Zillow.com said on Wednesday. U.S. home values posted a year-over-year decline of 14.2 percent to a Zillow Home Value Index of $182,378, resulting in a total 21.8 percent drop since the market peaked in 2006, according to Zillow's first-quarter Real Estate Market Reports, which encompass 161 metropolitan areas and cover the value changes in all homes, not just homes that have recently...

PARIS (AFP) – A predicted slowdown in Atlantic Ocean currents will cause sea levels along the US northeast coast to rise twice as fast as the global average, exposing New York and other big cities to violent and frequent storm surges, according to a new study. Manhattan's Wall Street, barely a metre (three feet) above sea level, for example, will find itself underwater more often as the 21st century unfolds, said the study, published online Sunday in Nature Geoscience. Sea levels vary across regions by up to 24 centimetres (9.5 inches), influenced in part by powerful currents that coarse around...

Underwater Stock Options Get a Lifeline From Firms By Tomoeh Murakami Tse Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, March 7, 2009; D01 Nearly 100 companies have undertaken programs that allow employees, many of them executives, to exchange sharply depreciated stock options for new awards with more generous terms. The companies, from Google to Silver Spring-based United Therapeutics, argue that the exchange -- which increases the chances that executives will be able to collect rewards even though the company stock has plummeted -- is necessary to retain and motivate personnel. Critics say the practice undermines the purpose of performance-based bonuses and puts...