Daily Digest - November 18

• 1) Fannie, Freddie Woes Hurt Apartments

" One troubling sign: one-quarter of the $180 billion of apartment-building loans on Fannie’s books were originated near the top of the market in 2007 and those loans account for nearly half of all its commercial-loan delinquencies."

• 2) Gold to Outperform U.S. Stocks on Stimulus, Marc Faber Says

"The support level for the commodity will now be at $1,000, which was the precious metal’s resistance level previously, Faber said in a Bloomberg Television interview in Singapore today."...

“Will it go $2,000, $200,000 or $2 trillion? I don’t know,” Faber said. “But if you have money printing in the world, then the price will over time rise. It will go up more for things that you just can’t increase the supply, and the supply of precious metals is very limited.”

• 3) Vegas council to hear about $400 million deficit

"LAS VEGAS—Las Vegas City Council members are beginning to consider ways to deal with a projected budget shortfall of more than $400 million over the next five years.

City officials say city finance chief Mark Vincent will address the council Wednesday about the state of a deficit that has grown since the last projection in May.

At that time, the shortfall was projected at about $240 million over the next five years."

• 4) Watsonville city services will close next week

"WATSONVILLE - The city will close a long list of services during Thanksgiving week, a cost-cutting measure aimed at balancing the city budget.

Watsonville has been dealing with a $4.5 million general fund deficit and most city employees agreed earlier in the year to take 10 percent pay cuts."

• 5) State, for 1st time, forced to get a loan (Arizona)

"As lawmakers convened Tuesday to start chipping away at a $2 billion budget deficit, the state is preparing to turn to outside lenders for the first time in Arizona history.

The borrowing is needed to give the state enough cash to carry it through ongoing revenue shortfalls, state Treasurer Dean Martin said.

He estimates the state will need to borrow $700 million to see it through the June 30 end of the fiscal year. As of Tuesday, Martin said, the state had exceeded its threshold of $500 million in IOUs and would need to turn to institutional lenders. To date, the state has been borrowing against internal accounts."

• 6) Florida lawmakers weigh end of stimulus money

"TALLAHASSEE — As lawmakers grapple with a shortfall for the coming fiscal year that could total as much as $2.7 billion, there’s another financial headache looming on the horizon:

The pending expiration of the federal stimulus money that the state used to patch holes in its $66.5 billion spending plan for the current spending year.

In education alone, that could cost the state more than $1.2 billion in education funding in the 2011-12 spending year, blowing a larger hole in an already stretched education budget.

That’s on top of other areas where a far-from-robust economy is still expected to hamper tax revenues, with the result being a shortfall as high as $5.4 billion."

• 7) $1 billion short? State may get loan (Minnesota)

"The state of Minnesota's financial picture looks so bleak that top officials are considering a rare move: Borrowing money to make sure the state can pay its bills next year.

Tom Hanson, commissioner of Minnesota Management and Budget, told a legislative subcommittee Thursday that the slow recovery could trigger general fund shortfalls in the spring significant enough to warrant short-term borrowing for the first time in a quarter-century. The state's tax collections are already $223 million lower than officials predicted."

• 8) Thousands to Protest UC Cuts, Fee Hikes

"UC President Mark Yudof says the 10-campus system needs a $913 million increase in state funding next year. He has argued that the fee hikes are necessary to help reduce a half billion dollar budget deficit made worse by recent cuts by the state.

Meanwhile, California State University Chancellor Charles B. Reed is recommending asking for an increase of $884 million for 2010-11. The board of regents will be meeting at UCLA over the next couple days.

The finance committee is expected to approve the 32-percent hike in fees today with the board of regents following suit and passing the proposal tomorrow. If it goes through, this would be the first time annual UC tuition surpasses the $10,000 mark."

• 9) Ambac Reports Its Capital Surplus Almost Tripled in Quarter (Look how they did it)

"Ambac Assurance Corp.’s regulatory surplus climbed to $856 million as of Sept. 30 from $305.6 million at the end of June, the company said today"

"Ambac increased its surplus in part by tearing up credit- default swap contracts on $5 billion of collateralized debt obligations in exchange for $520 million in payments to counter- parties, according to the filing today."

• 10) Fed May Not Increase Rates Until 2012, Bullard Says

"Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis President James Bullard said policy makers may not start to raise rates until early 2012 while facing a “too low for two long” argument that may “weigh heavily” on the central bank."

• 11) Stanislaus County retirement system starting to recover from losses

"Because of increased retirement rates and other factors, the employer contribution rates may have to increase from 12 percent of payroll in 2008 to 18 percent in five years. The retirement fund, which was about 85 percent funded in 2008, is on a downward course to be 60 percent funded in 2013.

Local agencies such as the county and city of Ceres are struggling with budget shortfalls, so they are not looking forward to increasing their contributions for the fiscal year that starts July 1."

• 12)  Chris Martenson on Energy and Peak Oil...(Video posted at nathan's Economic Edge)

"Interesting talk by Chris, about 10 minutes long."

• 13) NYC Homeowners Hit With 8.8% Property Tax Hike

"Cash-strapped New York City homeowners are being hit with hefty property tax increases. And the reason is hard for homeowners to both understand and swallow.

To city homeowners it gives new meaning to the term fuzzy math. Their property values have plummeted but their taxes are going up.

And they are furious."

•  14) Wall Street on Track for Record in Profits

"The report noted that the four largest investment firms in Manhattan — Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and the investment banking arm of JPMorgan Chase — earned $22.5 billion in the first nine months, in contrast to losses of more than $40.3 billion in 2008, primarily at Merrill."....

"Fueling the gains were extraordinary profits from the firms’ own securities trading accounts as they borrowed at near-zero interest rates and put the money to work in the securities markets. Member firms on the New York Stock Exchange earned a record $35.7 billion for their broker-dealer operations in the first six months, $8.9 billion more that the previous high in 2000, the state comptroller said.

In turn, the profits are contributing to a resurgence of bonuses on Wall Street. Six of the top American bank holding companies set aside $112 billion for salaries and bonuses, including deferred payments, in the first nine months, Mr. DiNapoli reported."

..........“They come from Citigroup, they come from Goldman Sachs, ….it is the banks owning the country. It is the greatest bank robbery in American history”, says Celente.

I love watching Chris speak.

You'll definitely want to watch that video with Chris that SaxPlayer found. I was at the event. Not seen in the video, but around the 4 minute mark, when Chris starts talking about Net energy return, you should have seen the expression on the face of the oil company executive. It was classic! She started to taking some notes about that topic...bet she never heard THAT before!!!

FHA-Backed Lending Is a ‘Train Wreck,’ Toll Brothers Chief Says

"“Yesterday’s subprime is today’s FHA,” Toll said"

"“It’s a definite train wreck and the flag will go up in the next couple of months: Bail us out. Give us more money.”

The FHA’s losses are greater than the agency can withstand, Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer with government- backed mortgage lender Fannie Mae, said in testimony before Congress in October. The FHA said 456,000 of its loans, or 8.2 percent, were in default as of September. That was up from 5.6 percent in September 2008.

The default rate for loans tracked by the Mortgage Bankers Association was a record 9.24 percent for the three months through June, the most recent period for which data is available. That was up from 6.41 percent a year earlier."

Foreclosures Overwhelm Rural Communities

"In Dakota County, Minnesota, where there never used to be any foreclosures, the backlog of vacant, unwanted foreclosed houses sets a new record every month, overwhelming the resources of local government to address the health and safety problems they pose."

Alan Grayson Seeks To Eliminate Fed-Mandated Currency Swaps Which Bail Out Foreign Central Banks Shorting The Dollar

One month ago, Zero Hedge did an exhaustive examination into the topic of over half a trillion of foreign FX liquidity swaps to central banks issued by the Fed, and how by administering this unprecedented incursion into international monetary policy, Ben Bernanke became the lender of last resort not only to US institutions on the brink, but to all those foreign central banks, and thousands of foreign financial institutions, who were massively short the dollar the last time the bubble popped (ring a bell?). Since we have ended up in the same boat promptly once again, and since the ponzi scheme can only continue so long before all those short the dollar scramble to cover shorts at some point in the future, as Roubini has predicted, it is merely a matter of time before the Fed will need to disburse another trillion or so of FX swaps to bail out all those who are shorting the US middle class into oblivion. We ignore the ethics of bailing out those who have done nothing but piggyback on the dollar carry trade, and in doing so, have decimated the purchasing power of America's working class, which is precisely what Ben Bernanke did. Buying stocks may be patriotic but bailing out those who want your dollar to purchase less tomorrow than it can today, sure does not pass the sniff test (Bernanke, of course, being at the top of that particular food chain).

If this goes through, all the global USD carry-traders will need to buy new underwear. 

TOAST

I learned a few things from this video, thanks Mr. Still.

This is a link to a time lapse U.S. map showing unemployment rate changes by county over the last two years.  Its fairly stark, especially taking into account that these are just the "official" rates.

http://cohort11.americanobserver.net/lat...

It makes it look like New England isn't a bad place to be (relatively speaking of course) comparitively.

"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and the corporations which grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

-Thomas Jefferson