Weekend Economists Lunar New Year Celebration February 4-6, 2011

I have asked several emigres from mainland China how one wishes a Happy New Year, and gotten inconclusive results.

Tradition in this country says: Gung Ho Fat Choy / Gong Hei Fat Choi, which is Cantonese, apparently.

The Mandarin response sounds like "Sen Ni Hao". If one is from the South, I am told by a second source, who favors "shien ni hao".

For most Americans, China is still a dark continent, and our Chinese-born neighbors are assimilating as fast as they can....

Which might be the greatest error. To emigrate to a nation in decline, when the nation of one's birth is coming out of isolation and poverty...still, the Chinese-born here are very happy to be in this country. However, their children will lose the language.

One must conclude that the balance hasn't shifted in China's favor---yet.





But we are here to document the shifting sands of political economics, so post what you have.

American Trust Bank, Roswell, Georgia, was closed today by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Renasant Bank, Tupelo, Mississippi, to assume all of the deposits of American Trust Bank.

The three branches of American Trust Bank will reopen on Monday as branches of Renasant Bank...As of December 31, 2010, American Trust Bank had approximately $238.2 million in total assets and $222.2 million in total deposits. In addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, Renasant Bank agreed to purchase approximately $147.4 million of the failed bank's assets. The FDIC will retain the remaining assets for later disposition.

The FDIC and Renasant Bank entered into a loss-share transaction on $94.3 million of American Trust Bank's assets...The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $71.5 million. Compared to other alternatives, Renasant Bank's acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF. American Trust Bank is the twelfth FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the third in Georgia. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was Enterprise Banking Company, McDonough, on January 21, 2011.



North Georgia Bank, Watkinsville, Georgia, was closed today by the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with BankSouth, Greensboro, Georgia, to assume all of the deposits of North Georgia Bank, except certain brokered and Internet deposits.

The two branches of North Georgia Bank will reopen on Saturday as branches of BankSouth...As of December 31, 2010, North Georgia Bank had approximately $153.2 million in total assets and $139.7 million in total deposits. BankSouth agreed to purchase approximately $123.9 million of the failed bank's assets, including all of the loans. The FDIC will retain the remaining assets for later disposition.

BankSouth will purchase all of the deposits of North Georgia Bank, except those from certain deposit brokers and those placed over the Internet. The FDIC will pay brokers directly for the amount of their funds. Customers who placed money with the deposit brokers should contact them directly for more information. Internet deposit customers will receive a check from the FDIC for the amount of their funds and may contact the FDIC at the toll-free number below for additional information...

The FDIC and BankSouth entered into a loss-share transaction on $120.1 million of North Georgia Bank's assets...The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $35.2 million. Compared to other alternatives, BankSouth's acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF. North Georgia Bank is the thirteenth FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the fourth in Georgia. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was American Trust Bank, Roswell, earlier today.


Community First Bank – Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, was closed today by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect the depositors, the FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with Northbrook Bank and Trust Company, Northbrook, Illinois, to assume all of the deposits of Community First Bank – Chicago.

The sole branch of Community First Bank – Chicago will reopen on Saturday as a branch of Northbrook Bank and Trust Company...As of December 31, 2010, Community First Bank – Chicago had approximately $51.1 million in total assets and $49.5 million in total deposits. Northbrook Bank and Trust Company will pay the FDIC a premium of 0.50 percent to assume all of the deposits of Community First Bank – Chicago. In addition to assuming all of the deposits of the failed bank, Northbrook Bank and Trust Company agreed to purchase essentially all of the assets.

The FDIC and Northbrook Bank and Trust Company entered into a loss-share transaction on $42.8 million of Community First Bank – Chicago's assets...The FDIC estimates that the cost to the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) will be $11.7 million. Compared to other alternatives, Northbrook Bank and Trust Company's acquisition was the least costly resolution for the FDIC's DIF. Community First Bank – Chicago is the fourteenth FDIC-insured institution to fail in the nation this year, and the first in Illinois. The last FDIC-insured institution closed in the state was First Suburban National Bank, Maywood, on October 22, 2010.

Are there any left???



TG

there were four gas stations at every major intersection, sometimes more.

I think Georgia had the same deal with banks.

But I have nothing yet either - just got home - long day - also been obsessed with Egypt rising.....

But hope to post later. Or tomorrow - I'm pretty whipped :(

http://www.housingwire.com/2011/01/31/cre-extend-and-pretend-reaching-breaking-point?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+housingwire/uOVI+%28HousingWire%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

For 2011, 10 of the 11 banks that have closed so far showed bad commercial real estate loans taking the lion's share of the distressed loan book.

In six of those cases, losses on bad construction loans made up more than half of the bank's nonperfoming loans.

According to Trepp Analytics, CRE loans comprised $600 million, or 82% of the $732 million in nonperforming loans.

For the past two years, lenders followed a trend of refinancing the terms of the loan, in a strategy called "extend and pretend."

but I have nothing to post.

:cry:


TG

I ain't that fat!

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/02/pete-peterson-using-college-courses-as-trojan-horse-for-anti-social-security-medicare-propaganda.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

It’s not a pretty spectacle when a very rich man tells little people they ought to get by with less, particularly when his firm benefitted handsomely from the pump and dump operation that led to the financial crisis.

Pete Peterson, one of the two founders of the Blackstone Group, has had a longstanding campaign against Social Security and Medicare. He’s sufficiently aggressive that to combat consistent poll ratings that show that both programs enjoy substantial support, his foundation set out to generate different survey results by stacking the deck heavily in its favor. As we recounted last July:



And we also noted:



The Peterson Institue’s new ruse is to avoid grownups with fully formed opinions, since they are not amenable to short-form reprogramming. Instead, they are targeting high school students with an anti-deficit “education” program, on the assumption if they can inculcate a belief system, the desired policy choices will follow....

SOURCE ARTICLE: http://www.remappingdebate.org/print?content=node%2F400

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/02/floyd-norris-makes-bizarre-comparison-to-1983-to-put-smiley-face-on-job-outlook.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

The Daily Capitalist’s translation of Bernanke’s remarks:

Since August when we began to flood our primary dealers in Wall Street with newly printed money the market went up because they used the money to buy financial products, including stocks. We are trying to cause price inflation because the majority of the FOMC is concerned about price deflation. If we cause price inflation then we will fool everyone into thinking that because prices are going up, such as in the stock markets, that it is real growth even though it’s just price inflation. Even better the national debt can be paid down with cheap dollars. Yields on Treasurys initially went up because the bond vigilantes aren’t stupid: they know it will cause inflation so they wanted higher yields. But, ha, ha, the Euro went into the tank because of the PIIGS and money flooded back in to the US and drove Treasury yields back down, for the time being. Screw the vigilantes. The same thing happened when we tried QE1, but as we all know, that failed and we are desperately trying again because we don’t have too many arrows left in our quiver. Hey, if it had worked, would we be doing QE2? We are desperate because if unemployment doesn’t come down, the Obama Administration will be screwed and I’ll lose my job. We are ready to do QE3 because we don’t have a clue what else to do.

Now to Norris’ truly bizarre column, in which he argues that circumstances now are very much like those of 1983, when forecasters were not optimistic about the odds of unemployment falling quickly, when lo and behold, it did.

The problem is that there are some of us who are old enough to remember 1983, like yours truly. And 1983 has about as much resemblance to today as a merely badly out of shape athlete does to one who is in the hospital and is refusing surgery (or in our case, structural change). Even though I do have the bad habit of reacting strongly to nonsense in the MSM (it’s such a frequent occurrence that I should be used to it by now), I expect more from Norris, who has to know better. I sent a short set of comments to a jaded economist colleague who also remembers 1983 well (and has also analyzed that period), with my message starting, “This is complete horseshit and Norris should be embarrassed.” His reply, “Yup. Totally stupid.”...

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/the-ruinous-fiscal-impact-of-big-banks/?ref=business

Simon Johnson, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, is the co-author of “13 Bankers.”

The newly standard line from big global banks has two components – as seen clearly in the statements of Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase and Robert E. Diamond Jr. of the British bank Barclays at Davos last weekend.
Simon Dawson/Bloomberg News Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

First, if you regulate us, we’ll move to other countries. And second, the public policy priority should not be banks but rather the spending cuts needed to get budget deficits under control in the United States, Britain and other industrialized countries.

This rhetoric is misleading at best. At worst it represents a blatant attempt to shake down the public purse.

On Tuesday, in testimony to the Senate Budget Committee, I had an opportunity to confront this myth-making by the banks and to suggest that the bankers’ logic is completely backward.

Start with the bankers’ point about budget deficits and spending cuts. Public deficits and debt relative to gross domestic product have ballooned in the last three years for one simple reason – the big banks at the heart of our financial system blew themselves up. On this point, the conclusions of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which appeared last week, are very clear and utterly compelling.

No one forced the banks to take on so much risk. Top bankers lobbied long and hard for the rules that allowed them to behave recklessly. And these same people effectively captured the hearts, minds and, some would say, pocketbooks of the regulators – in the sense that a well-regarded regulator can and often does go work for a bank afterward.

The mega-recession, which is starting to look more like a mini-depression in terms of employment terms for the United States (which lost 6 percent of employment and is still down 5 percent from the pre-crisis peak), caused a big decline in tax revenues. Falling taxes under such circumstances are part of what is known technically as the “automatic stabilizers” of the economy, meaning they help offset the contractionary effect of the financial shock without the government having to take any discretionary action.

()Whatever you think about the effectiveness of the additional fiscal stimulus packages provided to the economy in early 2008 (under President Bush) or starting in early 2009 (under President Obama), remember that the impact of these on the deficit was small relative to the decline in tax revenue.

The total fiscal impact of this cycle of regulatory co-option, as reflected, for example, in the Congressional Budget Office baseline debt forecast (which compares what this was precrisis and what this is now) – is about a 40-percentage-point increase in net federal government debt held by the private sector...

...In this context, the idea that megabanks would move to other countries is simply ludicrous. These behemoths need a public balance sheet to back them up, or they will not be able to borrow anywhere near their current amounts.

Whatever you think of places like Grand Cayman, the Bahamas or San Marino as offshore financial centers, there is no way that a JPMorgan Chase or a Barclays could consider moving there. Poorly run casinos with completely messed-up incentives, these megabanks need a deep-pocketed and somewhat dumb sovereign to back them...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/03/learning-to-walk-underwater-mortgages_n_818315.html?page=1

LONG AND WELL-WORDED TREATISE--WORTH THE READ

...Walking away from a home, however, is more than the sum of a few business decisions. For many homeowners, it's either an act of civic defiance against a system they no longer buy into or the end result of being shuffled around by institutions that don't help them solve their financial problems.

While walking away is a frightening and dangerous step into the unknown, millions have beaten the path in the past few years. To find out what it's like to walk away, The Huffington Post asked readers who were considering making the move, or who had already done so, to write in and share their stories...

...The hostility people felt from their banks made the decision to walk away easier for many, and some now even revel in it, celebrating a break from a system they see as rigged against them. "We get daily calls from creditors and banks that threaten this and that, and I just laugh knowing I am helping to bring down the system that has brought us all down and continues to reap giant profits at the expense of the little guy," said one. Others are still haunted with shame by the decision. Most said they felt a mix of both.

Many of the homeowners said they felt alone and powerless in their interactions with the banks and were curious to hear what other people in similar situations had to say. "There should be support groups for people who have to deal with these banks," said Richmond Burton, 50, a soon-to-be-former resident of Long Island's East Hampton. "It can drive you crazy. I'm very good at dealing with pressure, and they made it feel like you're at their mercy."...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703652104576122220220538048.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

Bank of New York Mellon Corp. currency traders used a foreign-exchange system called "Charlie" to create fake trades and overcharge Virginia pension funds by at least $20 million, according to allegations in recently unsealed documents in a Virginia court.

The allegations, made by a whistleblower group, are part of a widening probe by state prosecutors into whether custody banks such as Bank of New York Mellon and State Street Corp. shortchanged public pension funds in executing currency trades used to complete financial transactions abroad...

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/51184220-76/hatch-committee-finance-senator.html.csp

Sen. Orrin Hatch on Thursday officially assumed his spot as the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, a position that he says will make him a force in dealing with efforts to rewrite the tax code and overseeing the ramifications of health care reform.

Before diving into those politically dicey issues, however, Hatch enjoyed a love-fest from his fellow senators during the first meeting of the committee.

“Senator Hatch and I both come from Western states where practicality and pragmatism are a way of life,” said Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont. “We like to deliver results for our constituents. That connection is one reason we’ve been able to partner on the committee to get things done.”

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., noted that there was actually an election to choose the top Republican on the panel and it took “two-and-a-half seconds and it was unanimous” for Hatch...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/41408510

With memories of last May's "Flash Crash" still fresh in investors' minds, now comes warning of a market meltdown that could extend beyond stocks—a possible "Splash Crash" that also would affect currencies, commodities and bonds.

New York Stock Exchange trader
Getty Images

The interconnectedness of high-speed trading platforms is making such an event increasingly possible, says John Bates, chief technology officer at Progress Software in Bedford, Mass.

Geopolitical disturbances such as those in Egypt, Tunisia and elsewhere in the Middle East are just the kind of things that could trigger the "Splash Crash," sapping liquidity from trading systems and causing havoc among various markets.

"The dominos are no longer limited to one asset class," Bates warns in an essay posted on the Tabb Forum, an invitation-only online repository for market research. "Algorithms are becoming increasingly sophisticated, encompassing all of the elements that may impact a trade in a certain instrument."...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41388646/ns/business-personal_finance/

It’s a good thing the American financial system doesn’t have to run for election.

A new report finds that just 26 percent of Americans trust the country’s financial system.

That’s actually relatively good news for banks, big corporations and the like. It’s up from 20 percent in January of 2009, when the country was still deep in recession and grappling with the financial crisis...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/02/04-4



bold emphasis added by me in sheer "how impossibly transparently corrupt and evil - not to mention absolutely insane on it's face - does something have to be before our "Representatives" reject it in spite of their Corporate Masters?" jaw-dropping astonishment even from this jaded observer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12354402

The FAO Food Price Index, which measures the wholesale price of basic foods within a basket, averaged 231 points last month - its highest level since records began in 1990.

It was up 3.4% from December, the seventh monthly rise for the index...

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/02/02/american_allies_dictators/index.html

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia,

King Abdullah II of Jordan,

Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea,

Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan,

Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov of Turkmenistan

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/america-loses-another-ally-as-yemens-president-quits-2202660.html

The President of Yemen, one of America's foremost allies in the "war on terror", has become the latest leader in the Middle East to announce he will be stepping down as he seeks to calm anger and stave off the street protests which have gripped Egypt and Tunisia.

Yemen is viewed as the second most important battleground by the US after Afghanistan and the decision by Ali Abdullah Saleh to leave office after three decades augurs uncertain times for the campaign against al-Qa'ida. Ahead of a planned "day of rage'", Mr Saleh asked the opposition parties to form a coalition government after declaring that he will not seek re-election when his current term ends in two years' time. He insisted that his son Ahmed, thought to be his political heir, will also be out of the running...

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/201123142759661467.html

Egypt's attorney-general has issued a travel ban on several former ministers and a prominent member of the ruling party and frozen their bank accounts, state news agency MENA has said.

Those banned from leaving the country are Habib al-Adly, the ex- interior minister, Ahmed el-Maghrabi, the former housing minister, and Zuhair Garana, the former tourism minister.

Ahmed Ezz, a wealthy member of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) who resigned from the party after protests against President Hosni Mubarak broke out last week, was also among those banned from leaving the country.

The statement said other officials were also under the ban which would last "until national security is restored and the authorities and monitoring bodies have undergone their investigations".

THE RABBIT PERSONALITY

A person born in the year of the Rabbit possesses one of the most fortunate of the twelve animal signs. The Rabbit, or Hare as he is referred to in Chinese mythology, is the emblem of longevity and is said to derive his essence from the Moon.

When a Westerner gazes at the Moon, he may joke that it is a ball of cheese or tell a child the story of the Man in the Moon. When a Chinese looks at the Moon, he sees the Moon Hare standing near a rock under a Cassia tree and holding the Elixir of Immortality in his hands.

During the Chinese mid-Autumn festival when the Moon is supposed to be at its loveliest, Chinese children still carry lighted paper lanterns made in the image of a Rabbit and climb the hills to observe the Moon and admire the Moon Hare.

The Rabbit symbolizes graciousness, good manners, sound counsel kindness and sensitivity to beauty. His soft speech and graceful and nimble ways embody all the desirable traits of a successful diplomat or seasoned politician.

Likewise, a person born under this sign will lead a tranquil life, enjoying peace, quiet and a congenial environment. He is reserved and artistic and possesses good judgment. His thoroughness will also make him a good scholar. He will shine in the fields of law, politics and government.

But he is also inclined to be moody; at such times he appears detached from his environment or indifferent to people.

The Rabbit is extremely lucky in business and monetary transactions. Astute at striking bargains, he can always pop up with a suitable proposal or alternative to benefit himself. His sharp business acumen, coupled with his knack for negotiation, will ensure him a fast rise in any career.

more...
http://www.theholidayspot.com/chinese_new_year/more_zodiacs/rabbit.htm

I'm a goat, and and an Aries....and it shows, I'm afraid.

Or, however you spell it.

...it's gonna be a good year!

Video of Obama at the inaugural interspersed with statements since - on One commentator - "there's been an unseemly continuity" ... between Bush and Obama ...
:cry:

Using a smiley but they are real tears of real grief I cry every time I hear him from before he took office.

I was reading a bit of the article posted elsewhere on DU about the man who died at Guantánamo after being imprisoned, but NEVER CHARGED, for nine years.

This country, this government, has become in too many ways the very things the "patriots" revolted against.

I think we need a revolution led by women.


(Sorry, guys, but I do.)



TG, TT

I totally agree. Unless that woman is Sarah Palin.

Or Michelle Bachmann or Sharron Angle or Ann Coulter or any of those other wacko women!

Can't say that Old Lady Thatcher was anything to be proud of either.

Oh, hell, can we just have some progressive human beings in charge of things???!!! instead of raving right wing lunatics???


:hi:


TG

Fool me once...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704124504576118421859347048.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

...In 2010, total compensation and benefits at publicly traded Wall Street banks and securities firms hit a record of $135 billion, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal. The total is up 5.7% from $128 billion in combined compensation and benefits by the same companies in 2009...

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/02/so-how-did-major-law-firms-lose-deal-documents-on-the-way-to-the-massachusetts-supreme-judicial-court.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29


I am even more convinced that the failure of the banks’ attorneys to track down the actual legal documents was not “carelessness”. I find it too hard to believe that the attorneys were this incompetent on an appeal of a major issue to the state’s supreme court. They had plenty of time (over a year).

Every deal I ever worked on had a full set of closing documents prepared in a binder. The issuer’s counsel law firm typically sent all of the documents to us via CD. We had stacks of them.

I suspect the foreclosing attorneys requested the documents and the requests were rejected by clever attorneys for the issuers who saw the potential liability and didn’t want to create a clear paper trail back to them.

If the low level foreclosing attorney looks incompetent in assembling his case, that’s one thing. If a big Wall Street law firm made a major mistake about the legal basis for selling loans without proper title in Massachusetts or any other state, well, that’s a whole different story....

it should be possible to prove up the material terms of the missing agreements based on the actual payments made and other ancillary documentation, or even to re-create the assignment documents, if the parties to them aren't contesting them.

E.g., if bank A originated the mortgage and assigned it to bank B which pooled it and assigned it to servicer C, and none of those parties dispute that all that happened, and payment was made and received at each step including fees to the servicer. If you know what was assigned and what was paid for it, and can at least get your parties to confirm that much, that should be all you need as against the borrower. If drafts or e-mails showing the final terms exist, you might even be able to re-sign complete, final documents.

Sure it would add to the expense of foreclosing, but it beats losing your collateral completely.

Unless the foreclosing entity doesn't even know where it got the mortgage?

This particular mess was created when banks decided that they were above laws that prescribed the documenting of title
transfers, most particularly, I think, because states have a vested interest in knowing who owns property for purposes
of taxation and title transfer.

The banks simply ignored the entire set of laws, stealing (as if they needed the money on top of their other ill-gotten
gains) tens of millions of dollars away from schools and social programs and the other things that states use such
fees for.

The issue is not that they couldn't agree among themselves to say who owns the mortgage - that is in fact what they are
trying to do by creating whole documention via fraudulent means. The issue is that they broke a rather well-established
system of accounting for property, and are trying to continue to hold themselves above the responsibility for it, making
everyone else assume what is rightfully their self-created problem.

that may be what finally puts the Zombies out of our misery.

http://bostonreview.net/BR36.1/rosen.php

In the spring of 2000, I began a three-year stint on Citigroup’s corporate-derivatives team. I was just months past my twentieth birthday, with no work experience to speak of, in a world beyond my imagination. As my boss summed me up after a day of interviews, I was “fucking unpolished.”

The credit-derivatives group, then just three or four people I sat next to, soon spawned an ever-expanding team managing ever-more complex creations: credit-default swaps, collateralized debt obligations, and the myriad other structures built with black boxes and shrouded by acronyms. Meanwhile, my group continued to peddle mostly the forbears of these recent menaces, the more mundane interest-rate swaps and Treasury-rate locks. The newer derivatives, though hardly identical to their predecessors, nonetheless evolved in similar environments, were likewise designed to manipulate risk, and were also customized on a trade-by-trade basis.

Our clients were non-financial corporations, the Deltas and Verizons of the world, which relied on us for advice and education. Our directive was “to help companies decrease and manage their risks.” Often we did just that. And often we advised clients to execute trades solely because they presented opportunities for us to profit. In either case, whenever possible we used our superior knowledge to manipulate the pricing of the trade in our favor.


I never heard this arrangement described as a conflict of interest. I learned to think we were simply smarter than the client. For unsophisticated clients, being smarter meant quoting padded rates. For the rest, a bit of “legerdemath” was required. Most brazenly, we taught clients phony math that involved settling Treasury-rate locks by referencing Treasury yields rather than prices...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_COUNTRYWIDE_CALIF_LAWSUIT?SITE=ININS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

The state of California has reached a settlement in a predatory lending lawsuit against former executives at Countrywide Financial Corp. that will pour $6.5 million into a fund to help foreclosed homeowners.

The state had sued Countrywide, CEO Angelo Mozilo and President David Sambol under former Attorney General Jerry Brown. The 2008 lawsuit alleged that the company lured borrowers with low "teaser" rates on adjustable rate loans. Loan officers didn't tell borrowers that the rates would jump, that prepayments would be penalized, and the total loan costs would skyrocket, even if they made additional payments, the state alleged.

The settlement filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court says Countrywide agreed to pay $6.5 million to a Foreclosure Crisis Relief Fund. It will provide restitution, loan modification services and relocation assistance for foreclosed homeowners, plus money for state and local agencies to prosecute mortgage fraud, Attorney General Kamala Harris said.

The lawsuit claimed that Countrywide engaged in unfair business practices and false advertising laws with just about every action it took to market and originate some of the most popular - and potentially risky - types of home loans...

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/03/business-us-bofa-lawsuit-idUKTRE71199M20110203

Bank of America Corp was hit with a lawsuit on Wednesday claiming the lending giant hid foreclosure problems that eventually led to a decline in its share price...The suit, a proposed class action, says Bank of America concealed defects in the recording of mortgages, which harmed investors when the company had to temporarily discontinue foreclosures last fall.

"We are reviewing the lawsuit and have no further comment at this time," said Bank of America spokeswoman Shirley Norton.

Along with other lenders like JPMorgan Chase & Co and Wells Fargo, Bank of America has been the subject of scrutiny over its foreclosure practices.

Attorneys General from 50 states kicked off an investigation last year amid questions about legal documents submitted in court...And while litigation from angry borrowers has mushroomed, many of the leading U.S. class action firms have stayed out of the fray, citing the difficulty of recovering substantial damages.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/03/business/economy/03class.html?_r=1&ref=business

Saving your home from foreclosure is increasingly a do-it-yourself project.

Lawyers are scarce and free legal assistance is overwhelmed in New Mexico, so a community center here is offering an hourlong class in how to download the correct forms, decipher the lingo and mount a defense, however tentative and primitive, against a multibillion-dollar bank.

“I don’t see success for someone like me who doesn’t understand the law,” said Skylar Perea, a senior care aide who fell behind on her payments during the eight months she was out of a job. “But it’s better than nothing.”

In New Mexico, New York, Florida and the 20 other states where foreclosures require a judge’s approval, homeowners in default have traditionally surrendered their homes without ever coming to court to defend themselves. (In the 27 other states, including California, Nevada and Arizona, homeowners have a much harder time contesting a foreclosure even if they want to.) That passivity has begun to recede. While many foreclosures are still unopposed, courts are seeing a sharp rise in cases where defendants show up representing themselves.

One factor driving the increase is the changing nature of foreclosure.

When people went into default in 2008, it was generally because of the exploding cost of a subprime loan. Unable or unwilling to handle sharply higher payments, the homeowner walked away with little protest. Now many defaults are prompted by stretches of unemployment like Ms. Perea’s. These owners do not have the resources to come up with all their missed payments at once. But if they can persuade their lender to restructure the loan instead of seizing the house, they have a chance of staying put...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/28/BUT11HFPU9.DTL#ixzz1CWhkOhQ5

A bank is legally bound by its promise to try to work out a loan modification with a homeowner to avoid foreclosure, a state appeals court has ruled.

Thursday's decision by the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles involved a homeowner who said she refrained from protecting her home in a Bankruptcy Court filing after the bank promised to negotiate new loan terms - then foreclosed and evicted her.

The court refused to undo the foreclosure but said the owner, Claudia Aceves, could sue the bank for fraud. Her lawyer, Nick Alden, said the ruling should also help financially distressed homeowners who make several months of reduced payments in reliance on a bank's promise to modify their mortgages.

"The homeowner has no choice but to work with the bank," Alden said. Typically in such cases, he said, the lender will reject the final payment as insufficient, declare the borrower unqualified for a loan, and foreclose.

A lawyer for U.S. Bank, the lender in the case, was unavailable for comment.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/28/BUT11HFPU9.DTL#ixzz1D5g4jdE4


YET ANOTHER FORM OF PERVERSITY DESIGNED TO BILK THE PEOPLE....

Doesn't even equal pocket change.

B of A, as usual, gets off very, very easy.

Wankers.



TG, TT

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-problem-of-structrual-unemployment-really-incompetent-managers?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+beat_the_press+%28Beat+the+Press%29



...The anecdotal evidence from employers suggests that the problem is that people who run businesses don't understand basic economics. It presents comments from one employer who complains that he can't find workers for jobs that pay $15 an hour. This is not a very good wage. It would be difficult for someone to support themselves and their children on a job paying $15 an hour ($30,000 a year). If the company president understand economics, then he would raise wages enough so that the jobs were attractive to workers who have the necessary skills.

If the economy were actually suffering from a problem of structural unemployment, then we should be seeing substantial sectors of the economy, either by region or occupation, where wages are rising rapidly. We don't see this. There is no major industry or occupational grouping where there is evidence of large pay increases. We should also see big increases in average weekly hours, as firms try to work their existing workforce harder due to the unavailability of additional workers. We don't see this either.

In other words, the data provide essentially zero support for the claim that the economy's problem is that workers don't have the right skills for the available jobs. All the evidence supports the idea that the problem is simply we have not generated enough demand (i.e. the problem is with the people who design economic policy, not with the country's workers)...employers who apparently don't understand that if you can't get the workers you need, then you must offer a higher wage.

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2011/02/02/no-one-could-have-predicted-the-housing-bubble-middle-east-status-quo-would-crash/

....But, as the WSJ makes clear, a lot of the surprise simply comes down to a misjudgment about what ordinary people might do....

Now, I made the analogy here with the elite surprise at the very foreseeable crash of the housing bubble they had blown up. And to the extent that a bunch of “experts” repeatedly insisted they were smarter than the people experiencing this stuff first hand, the analogy makes sense.

The self-declared smart people so sure they’ve got control over the situation are increasingly proving, of late, not to have that control.

But I also think Egypt must be a broader warning. The status quo everywhere–based on the Washington consensus economically and US hegemony geopolitically–may be a lot more fragile than the experts paid to sustain that status quo will admit.

I suspect Egypt is just one in a series of increasingly bigger surprises for our governing elite.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/01/ff_lottery/all/1

Delighted, he decided to take a lunchtime walk to the gas station to cash in his ticket. “On my way, I start looking at the tic-tac-toe game, and I begin to wonder how they make these things,” Srivastava says. “The tickets are clearly mass-produced, which means there must be some computer program that lays down the numbers. Of course, it would be really nice if the computer could just spit out random digits. But that’s not possible, since the lottery corporation needs to control the number of winning tickets. The game can’t be truly random. Instead, it has to generate the illusion of randomness while actually being carefully determined.”...

The apparent randomness of the scratch ticket was just a facade, a mathematical lie. And this meant that the lottery system might actually be solvable, just like those mining samples. “At the time, I had no intention of cracking the tickets,” he says. He was just curious about the algorithm that produced the numbers. Walking back from the gas station with the chips and coffee he’d bought with his winnings, he turned the problem over in his mind. By the time he reached the office, he was confident that he knew how the software might work, how it could precisely control the number of winners while still appearing random. “It wasn’t that hard,” Srivastava says. “I do the same kind of math all day long.”

That afternoon, he went back to work. The thrill of winning had worn off; he forgot about his lunchtime adventure. But then, as he walked by the gas station later that evening, something strange happened. “I swear I’m not the kind of guy who hears voices,” Srivastava says. “But that night, as I passed the station, I heard a little voice coming from the back of my head. I’ll never forget what it said: ‘If you do it that way, if you use that algorithm, there will be a flaw. The game will be flawed. You will be able to crack the ticket. You will be able to plunder the lottery.’”...

That night, however, he realized that the voice was right: The tic-tac-toe lottery was seriously flawed. It took a few hours of studying his tickets and some statistical sleuthing, but he discovered a defect in the game: The visible numbers turned out to reveal essential information about the digits hidden under the latex coating. Nothing needed to be scratched off—the ticket could be cracked if you knew the secret code.

The trick itself is ridiculously simple. (Srivastava would later teach it to his 8-year-old daughter.)


A BIT TECHNICAL AND WONKY, BUT FASCINATING

INSTRUCTIONS AT THIS WEBSITE:

http://crimeshouldntpay.com/call-your-ag

http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2011/02/when-will-the-recession-end-part-139-russia-admits-its-dead-and-falling-apart.html

...CIA predicts by 2015, the disintegration of Russia by six to eight states.

CIA predicts by 2015, the disintegration of Russia by six to eight states. This is reported on an open site in the CIA report, the leading think tanks, which contains a forecast of the world until 2015. Specialists regard Russia as a country that is in extreme geographical and geo-economic conditions. Another factor affecting us negatively, is that two-thirds of Russian territory lies in the permafrost zone, and the average cost of a barrel of oil is $ 14-15 versus $ 4 in Saudi Arabia...

The same CIA that didn't see the recent events in Tunisia or Egypt coming.

How are you, Matt? Haven't seen you much. We've been having Finland weather here--floating around 0C and terribly windy, which Finland was not, in my time there.

What is life like in the Great Northern Land these days?

Last winter, I felt like I was digging or pushing the car out of snow once a week.

This winter, totally opposite. May be my mildest winter ever here. Today, 43F.

But every once in a while, I still yearn for a good old-fashioned NJ blizzard. You don't get those here. Nothing even close.

Call me crazy, I know.

Well, except for the Dec. 31st January thaw--for about 12 hours....

“If this were America, fifty people would have been arrested by now,” one American official said.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_filkins#ixzz1D4FYWIDC


SADLY, I THINK NOT--THIS ISN'T THE '80'S, AFTER ALL.

:rofl:

I'LL JUST BET THEY ARE--LIKE VULTURES CIRCLING

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/imf-says-ready-to-help-egypt-others-in-trouble-20110201-1acaw.html

The IMF - Imposing Misery Forever

http://www.flickr.com/photos/56404717@N03/5214643620/

I will be your mugger tonight. If you have any questions, ask my assistant, Timmeh.

WHAT WENT DOWN--MINUTE BY MINUTE, BLOW BY BLOW

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27399.htm

http://www.housingwire.com/2011/01/28/second-guessing-the-wamu-seizure-and-sale-fcic-report

...Jaime Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said he would have only bid $1 for the failing Seattle-based thrift instead of nearly $2 billion had he known no one else was bidding...

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/01/30/was-the-financial-crisis-avoidable

ONLY IF EVERYTHING DONE IN THE PAST 30 YEARS OR MORE HAD BEEN DONE ENTIRELY DIFFERENTLY....

IT'S NOT ANYTHING YOU ARE THINKING....

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e2ec5cda-2f33-11e0-88ec-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1CytmDojB

...The issue at stake, as David Autor, economics professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explained, is that over the past three decades western women have made remarkable advances in educational attainment. Of male and female workers now aged 45-54, roughly equal numbers attended college. But for workers aged 25-34 in the US and most of Europe, “female rates of college attainment greatly exceed those of men”, by around 1.3 times, Autor notes. So too with US high-school diplomas.

This is having a big impact on job patterns, particularly in the US. More specifically, since many jobs now require educational qualifications, women have often hung on to their jobs more successfully than men, particularly in poorer and/or black communities. “Males as a group have adapted poorly to the challenges posed by the labour market developments of the last three decades – appear to be falling in occupational stature,” Autor observed.

Worse still, these unemployed poor men are becoming increasingly marginalised from family life, as (largely employed) mothers decide they are better off “investing in the labour market than marriage”. Partly as a result, the percentage of men in prison among black high-school drop-outs is now a stunning 25 per cent. For black women, it is barely 3 per cent...

WELL, THEN, THEY ARE GOING TO HAVE TO GET USED TO IT, AT HOME AND ABROAD

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/feb/04/radical-islam-united-states-independence

The nature of any regime it backs in the Arab world is secondary to control. Subjects are ignored until they break their chains...

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/01/john-bougearel-claims-the-job-market-will-boom-are-entirely-unsubstantiated.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

A decade ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted that the U.S. economy would create nearly 22 million net jobs in the 2000s.

These government forecasts for 2010 were particularly off. When the job market peaked in 2008 on the eve of the financial crisis, the manufacturing sector had already shed 5 million workers since the decade began, with more layoffs to come in the Great Recession. The forecasters said that the economy would create 22 million jobs over the next 10 years. At the decade’s economic peak, though, that number stood at only 7 million. Job growth in the 2000s was the lowest of any decade ever recorded by the federal government, stretching back to the 1940s.

Faith in Government Sanguine Projections are Badly Misplaced

Obama said with the benefit of his stimulus measures, the US economy would create three million jobs in 2010. The actual number of jobs created in 2011 was 1.12 million (before final benchmark revisions). Now, the CBO is projecting 2.5 million jobs will be created annually from 2011 to 2015. From the CBO: “As the recovery continues, the economy will add roughly 2.5 million jobs per year over the 2011–2016 period.”

That is more than 200,000 jobs being created per month every month for the next 5 yrs. Moody’s economists actually estimate 270,000 jobs will be created per month on average in 2011. Yet peak annual job growth ranged from 154,000 to 178,000 during the housing boom era circa 2004-2006.

But there can and will be no housing boom in the US over the next five years that will possibly match the housing boom of the previous decade. Just the excess supply of homes alone will take to 2013 to absorb, according to JPM. With no housing related jobs to create at least until 2013, there is simply no way the US can create 2.5 million or 200,000+ jobs per month on average in 2011-2012....

A RIGHTEOUS SCREED--HE HACKS AT IMMELT, TOO

http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2011/02/china-agritech-sniff-test-and-other.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BronteCapital+%28Bronte+Capital%29

...Lucas McGee Research had put out a note accusing China Agritech (Nasdaq:CAGC) of being a fraud.

Lucas McGee is a new name for me - but their report is a classic of the genre. They visited the factories (addresses in the annual filings) and there was nothing there. These are plants that supposedly generate 50 thousand tonnes of "organic fertilizer" per year....A truck carries a bit under 20 tonnes fully loaded. That is 2500 trucks per year - in and out of the plant - so maybe 10 per working day bringing in the "raw material" and taking out the pellets. You think you might notice some activity - but alas there was none.

All very interesting - but most interesting is that - at least according to China Agritech's annual report - Carlyle - the most influential private equity firm in the world - have an equity stake in this company and a nominee on the board. Her name is Anne Wang Zheng - and she is young (33) and a VP of Carlyle Asia Growth. She works at the Shanghai office.

Now Carlyle - again according to the filings - has actively traded and sold China Agritech stock exercising their options.

I am not going to vouch for the fraud. I have not visited the factories so I do not know. (I confess however to being short the stock for the usual accounting-raised-eyebrows-reasons.)

I see five possibilities - though it is possible that readers - or Carlyle - see more. I have sent an email to Anne Wang Zheng asking for her views but have received no reply. Here are the five possibilities:

1. The short-seller allegations are false. (That is the short's note is a fraud.)

2. The short-seller allegations are true but Carlyle is not actually represented on the board of China Agritech. The China Agritech filings that say they are represented are in error (a fraud committed by China Agritech). It would not be the first time I have seen people named as directors or officers of a fraudulent company when they in fact have nothing to do with the company. In this case the company is fraudulent but Carlyle/Anne Zheng are honest.

3. Carlyle is represented on the board of China Agritech - but remain - at least until the publication of the short's note - ignorant of the fraud. In which case Carlyle/Zheng look incompetent - but not criminal. Zheng in fact might be competent if the deception conducted by China Agritech were very well executed. Being actively deceived even in her role as a board member makes her gullible - but being deceived is not a criminal offence and if she took reasonable steps to acquaint herself with the situation but was deceived regardless she does not even have civil liability.

4. Carlyle is represented on the board - but found out during the time they were represented on the board that it was a fraud and did nothing about it. In that case either Carlyle or Zheng (or both) are accessories after the fact to fraud. Also as they sold stock they might be insider traders.

5. Carlyle and/or Zheng knew that the company is a fraud from inception - and purchased the stock and sold the stock in that knowledge. It could be that Zheng knows and Carlyle does not in which case Zheng has committed fraud against Carlyle (and its clients)...MORE

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110204/bs_nm/us_bankofamerica_mortgage

Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) appointed on Friday a new foreclosure and loan modifications czar, and created a new unit to oversee problem home loans in a bid to sort out its on-going foreclosure issues, becoming the first large U.S. bank to do so.

The new unit creates a seventh major division at the bank reporting directly to Chief Executive Brian Moynihan, an indication that the largest U.S. mortgage servicer is attempting to be more aggressive in resolving its problem mortgage loan portfolio.

Analysts said the move signals major U.S. mortgage lenders have not yet turned the corner on the problem home loans on their books.

"This is a significant step. If Bank of America has these issues, what kind of problems does everyone else have?" said Matt McCormick, a Cincinnati-based portfolio manager at Bahl & Gaynor Investment Counsel Inc.

The change splits the largest U.S. bank by assets' mortgage business into two parts: One focused on current and new mortgages, and another dedicated to foreclosures and workouts....

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704709304576124104225741650.html?mod=WSJ_myyahoo_module

The owners of baseball's New York Mets and their business partners failed to investigate direct warnings and obvious evidence of Bernard Madoff's fraud even as they thoroughly intertwined their financial fortunes with his investment firm over nearly a quarter-century, a lawsuit unsealed Friday contends.

The lawsuit seeks up to about $1 billion from brothers-in-law Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, their partners, relatives and various entities tied to their real-estate business, Sterling Equities Associates.

It was filed by Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee seeking to recover money for Mr. Madoff's victims, who is asking for nearly $300 million in fictitious profits he says the team owners and their associates withdrew from the Ponzi scheme before it collapsed in December 2008. The suit also indicates he may seek up to $700 million representing principal they withdrew since 2002. ...

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/02/04/jp_morgan_madoff_lawsuit/index.html

The financial services giant faces questions about whether it was complicit in Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme...

Stories about crooked bankers are a dime a dozen these days. After the credit crunch, the American public was inundated with reports of abuse, fraud, overleveraging and other malfeasance. When it comes to financial institutions, it's probably fair to say that our expectations have been lowered a bit. So what does a bank have to do to become universally despised these days? We may soon find out.

JPMorgan Chase was just implicated -- in a very real way -- in the Bernie Madoff quagmire. Irving Picard, the bankruptcy trustee tasked with recovering ill-gotten gains from the Ponzi scheme, filed suit against the bank as early as last December. However, the court sealed the lawsuit, and only now are its details coming to light. Picard seeks $6.4 billion in damages for the Madoff victims, arguing that JPMorgan wasn’t just complicit in the fraud, but actually central to it.

According to the New York Times:

David J. Sheehan, the trustee’s lawyer, bluntly asserted that Mr. Madoff "would not have been able to commit this massive Ponzi scheme without this bank."

BERNIE MADOFF--THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING--NO WONDER HE WENT TO JAIL WILLINGLY--NO WONDER HIS SON KILLED HIMSELF.

OR WAS IT RETRIBUTION BY THE VICTIMS?

...How bad could it get for JP? For comparison, consider Goldman Sachs, which has become synonymous with the sort of financial abuses that brought the economy down in 2008. The firm came under fire for its cozy relationship with Washington. It was implicated in the collapse of Greece’s economy. It was sued by the SEC for hedging against toxic assets it was simultaneously selling to clients. A popular documentary even detailed its role in economic apocalypse. Arguably none of those infractions carry with them the sort of lightning rod associations that the Madoff affair does. And people loathe Goldman Sachs.

And then there's the bottom line. After a blockbuster 2009, Goldman Sachs’ profits this past year were down 38 percent, as its revenue dropped $8.4 billion. Of course, the decline in profit has more to do with the bank's market positions, and its stock value remained relatively flat. But the figures are hardly confidence inspiring.

Does JPMorgan face a similar fate -- slow growth and universal enmity? Hard to say. Business-wise, things couldn't be peachier. The firm recorded a 48 percent bump in earnings in 2010, alongside $17.4 in profit. But its reputation has certainly taken a hit. And that’s not to mention the likely (and sizable) financial hit the bank will incur from the Madoff lawsuit, whether they go to court and lose or -- more likely -- dish out a hefty settlement.

Zero Hedge has previously demonstrated the improbable, for lack of a better word, upward bias in revising initial jobless claims applications. Today, we look at an even greater statistical problem at the BLS: that of Non-Farm Payrolls. Courtesy of today's full year revision announced by the BLS, and a granular sort by John Poehling, we have discovered that while revisions added a whopping 55k jobs in the years 2006-2008, NFPs have now been revised to remove 538k jobs in the 2009-2010 period. In other words, based on data revisions, under President Obama, America has suddenly created over half a million jobs less (even if all of them are part time) simply due to statistical adjustments. We won't even go into analyzing just how much worse the S&P would be trading if all those monthly "upside" NFP reports had reflected true and not completely fudged numbers. At an average 22.4K downward monthly revision for every single monthly NFP report in the past two years, we are 100% confident that not even Iosif Shalom Bernanke would be able to offset the market plunge that would ensue each and every of the past 24 months... if fundamentals were ever to be remotely meaningful again, of course.



http://www.zerohedge.com/article/bls-history-downward-revisions-or-how-department-truth-goosed-markets-half-million-fake-jobs

Comparing the blue and purple lines.... although the scale is too hard to interpret confidently.

One would have to go back even further to see if his discrepancy is a constant feature. At least the curves track each other.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/member/magazine/what-happened-to-15-million-u-s-jobs--20110120

America’s jobs crisis began a decade ago. Long before the housing bubble burst and Wall Street melted down, something in our national job-creation machine went horribly wrong.

The years between the brief 2001 recession and the 2008 financial collapse gave us solid growth in our gross national product, soaring corporate profits, and a low unemployment rate—but job creation lagged stubbornly behind, more so than in any economic expansion since World War II.

The Great Recession wiped out what amounts to every U.S. job created in the 21st century. But even if the recession had never happened, if the economy had simply treaded water, the United States would have entered 2010 with 15 million fewer jobs than economists say it should have.

Somehow, rapid advancements in technology and the opening of new international markets paid dividends for American companies but not for American workers. An economy that long thrived on its dynamism, shedding jobs in outdated and less competitive industries and adding them in innovative new fields, fell stagnant in the swirls of the most globalized decade of commerce in human history.

Even now, no one really knows why...

and each day has its own emphasis:

Preceding days

On the days before the New Year celebration Chinese families give their home a thorough cleaning. There is a Cantonese saying "Wash away the dirt on ninyabaat" (年廿八，洗邋遢), but the practice is not usually restricted on nin'ya'baat (年廿八, the 28th day of month 12). It is believed the cleaning sweeps away the bad luck of the preceding year and makes their homes ready for good luck. Brooms and dust pans are put away on the first day so that the newly arrived good luck cannot be swept away. Some people give their homes, doors and window-frames a new coat of red paint. Homes are often decorated with paper cutouts of Chinese auspicious phrases and couplets. Purchasing new clothing, shoes, and receiving a hair-cut also symbolize a fresh start.

In many households where Buddhism or Taoism is prevalent, home altars and statues are cleaned thoroughly, and altars that were adorned with decorations from the previous year are also taken down and burned a week before the new year starts, and replaced with new decorations. Taoists (and Buddhists to a lesser extent) will also "send gods" (送神), an example would be burning a paper effigy of Zao Jun the Kitchen God, the recorder of family functions. This is done so that the Kitchen God can report to the Jade Emperor of the family household's transgressions and good deeds. Families often offer sweet foods (such as candy) in order to "bribe" the deities into reporting good things about the family.

The biggest event of any Chinese New Year's Eve is the dinner every family will have. A dish consisting of fish will appear on the tables of Chinese families. It is for display for the New Year's Eve dinner. This meal is comparable to Christmas dinner in the West. In northern China, it is customary to make dumplings (jiaozi 饺子) after dinner and have it around midnight. Dumplings symbolize wealth because their shape is like a Chinese tael. By contrast, in the South, it is customary to make a new year cake (Niangao, 年糕) after dinner and send pieces of it as gifts to relatives and friends in the coming days of the new year. Niangao literally means increasingly prosperous year in year out. After the dinner, some families go to local temples, hours before the new year begins to pray for a prosperous new year by lighting the first incense of the year; however in modern practice, many households hold parties and even hold a countdown to the new lunisolar year. Beginning in 1982, the CCTV New Year's Gala was broadcast four hours before the start of the New Year.
First day

The first day is for the welcoming of the deities of the heavens and earth, officially beginning at midnight. Many people, especially Buddhists, abstain from meat consumption on the first day because it is believed that this will ensure longevity for them. Some consider lighting fires and using knives to be bad luck on New Year's Day, so all food to be consumed is cooked the day before. For Buddhists, the first day is also the birthday of Maitreya Bodhisattva (better known as the more familiar Budai Luohan), the Buddha-to-be. People also abstain from killing animals.

Most importantly, the first day of Chinese New Year is a time when families visit the oldest and most senior members of their extended family, usually their parents, grandparents or great-grandparents.

Some families may invite a lion dance troupe as a symbolic ritual to usher in the Chinese New Year as well as to evict bad spirits from the premises. Members of the family who are married also give red envelopes containing cash to junior members of the family, mostly children and teenagers. Business managers also give bonuses through red envelopes to employees for good luck and wealth.

While fireworks and firecrackers are traditionally very popular, some regions have banned them due to concerns over fire hazards, which have resulted in increased number of fires around New Years and challenged municipal fire departments' work capacity. For this reason, various city governments (e.g., Hong Kong, and Beijing, for a number of years) issued bans over fireworks and firecrackers in certain premises of the city. As a substitute, large-scale fireworks have been launched by governments in cities like Hong Kong to offer citizens the experience.
Second day
Incense is burned at the graves of ancestors as part of the offering and prayer ritual.

The second day of the Chinese New Year is for married daughters to visit their birth parents. Traditionally, daughters who have been married may not have the opportunity to visit their birth families frequently.

On the second day, the Chinese pray to their ancestors as well as to all the gods. They are extra kind to all dogs and feed them well as it is believed that the second day is the birthday of all dogs.

Business people of the Cantonese dialect group will hold a 'Hoi Nin' prayer to start their business on the 2nd day of Chinese New Year. The prayer is done to pray that they will be blessed with good luck and prosperity in their business for the year.
Third day

The third day is known as chì kǒu (赤口), directly translated as "red mouth". chì kǒu is also called chì gǒu rì (赤狗日). chì gǒu means "the God of Blazing Wrath" (熛怒之神). It is generally accepted that it is not a good day to socialize or visit your relatives and friends.<7><8><9>
Hello Myself Shubham Tripathi for India.I think this section (third day)Need to be corrected as many of my Chinese friends are attending gatherings this day.
So Help me and kindly contribute to edit this Section.
Fifth day

In northern China, people eat jiǎo zi (simplified Chinese: 饺子; traditional Chinese: 餃子), or dumplings on the morning of Po Wu (破五). This is also the birthday of the Chinese god of wealth. In Taiwan, businesses traditionally re-open on the next day (the sixth day), accompanied by firecrackers.

It is also common in China that on the 5th day people will shoot off firecrackers in the attempt to get Guan Yu's attention, thus ensuring his favor and good fortune for the new year.
Seventh day

The seventh day, traditionally known as renri 人日, the common man's birthday, the day when everyone grows one year older. It is the day when tossed raw fish salad, yusheng, is eaten. This is a custom primarily among the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, such as Malaysia and Singapore. People get together to toss the colourful salad and make wishes for continued wealth and prosperity.

For many Chinese Buddhists, this is another day to avoid meat, the seventh day commemorating the birth of Sakra, lord of the devas in Buddhist cosmology who is analogous to the Jade Emperor.
Chinese New Year's celebrations, on the eighth day, in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond, British Columbia, Canada.
Eighth day

Another family dinner to celebrate the eve of the birth of the Jade Emperor. However, everybody should be back to work by the 8th day. All of government agencies and business will stop celebrating by the eighth day.
Ninth day

The ninth day of the New Year is a day for Chinese to offer prayers to the Jade Emperor of Heaven (天宮) in the Taoist Pantheon. The ninth day is traditionally the birthday of the Jade Emperor. This day is especially important to Hokkiens. Come midnight of the eighth day of the new year, Hokkiens will offer thanks giving prayers to the Emperor of Heaven. Offerings will include sugarcane as it was the sugarcane that had protected the Hokkiens from certain extermination generations ago. Incense, tea, fruit, vegetarian food or roast pig, and paper gold is served as a customary protocol for paying respect to an honored person.
Tenth day

The other day when the Jade Emperor's birthday is celebrated.
Thirteenth day

On the 13th day people will eat pure vegetarian food to clean out their stomach due to consuming too much food over the last two weeks.

This day is dedicated to the General Guan Yu, also known as the Chinese God of War. Guan Yu was born in the Han dynasty and is considered the greatest general in Chinese history. He represents loyalty, strength, truth, and justice. According to history, he was tricked by the enemy and was beheaded.

Almost every organization and business in China will pray to Guan Yu on this day. Before his life ended, Guan Yu had won over one hundred battles and that is a goal that all businesses in China want to accomplish. In a way, people look at him as the God of Wealth or the God of Success.
Fifteenth day

The fifteenth day of the new year is celebrated as Yuan Xiao Festival/Yuánxiāojié (元宵节) or Shang Yuan Festival/Shàngyuánjié (上元节) or Lantern Festival, otherwise known as Chap Goh Mei (Chinese: 十五暝; pinyin: shí wǔ míng; literally "the fifteen night") in Fujian dialect. Rice dumplings tangyuan (simplified Chinese: 汤圆; traditional Chinese: 湯圓; pinyin: tāngyuán), a sweet glutinous rice ball brewed in a soup, is eaten this day. Candles are lit outside houses as a way to guide wayward spirits home. This day is celebrated as the Lantern Festival, and families walk the street carrying lighted lanterns.

In Malaysia and Singapore, this day is celebrated by individuals seeking for a love partner, a different version of Valentine's Day.<10> Normally, single women would write their contact number on mandarin oranges and throw it in a river or a lake while single men would collect them and eat the oranges. The taste is an indication of their possible love: sweet represents a good fate while sour represents a bad fate.

This day often marks the end of the Chinese New Year festivities...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year

http://baselinescenario.com/2011/01/29/davos-two-worlds-ready-or-not/#more-8584

Many of the people who control the world’s largest corporations are quite comfortable with the status quo post-financial crisis. This makes sense for them – and poses a major problem for the rest of us.The thinking here is fairly obvious. The CEOs who provide the bedrock of financial support for Davos have mostly done well in the past few years. For the nonfinancial sector, there was a major scare in 2008-09; the disruption of credit was a big shock and dire consequences were feared. And for leaders of the financial sector this was more than an awkward moment – they stood accused, including by fellow CEOs at Davos in previous years, of incompetence, greed, and excessively capturing the state.

But all of this, from a CEO perspective, is now behind them. Profits are good – this is the best bounce back on average in the post-war period; given that so many small companies are struggling, it is reasonable to infer that the big companies have done disproportionately well (perhaps because their smaller would-be competitors are still having more trouble accessing credit). Executive compensation at the largest firms will no doubt reflect this in the months and years ahead.

In terms of public policy, the big players in the financial sector have prevailed – no responsible European, for example, can imagine a major bank being allowed to fail (in the sense of defaulting on any debt). And this government support for banks has translated into easier credit conditions for the major global corporations represented at Davos.

The public policy issue of the day, from the point of view of such CEOs, is simple. There needs to be sufficient fiscal austerity to strengthen public balance sheets – so that states can more effectively stand behind their banks in the future, and to keep currencies from moving too much. Leading bankers, in particular, insisted on the paramount importance of providing unlimited government support to their sector during 2008-09; now they insist with equal or greater vigor that support to all other parts of society be curtailed.

This is where cognitive dissonance creeps in. Most CEOs feel that the provision of general public goods is not their responsibility, although they are very happy to help guide (or capture) the provision of public goods specific to their firm.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704062604576106282512683312.html?mod=WSJ_business_whatsNews

As municipal borrowers look to renegotiate bond deals, banks are drawing a tough line in the refinancing talks.

Some banks that helped borrowers get cash are less willing to or able to do so now. Stronger banks that still can provide backstops, called letters of credit, will do them only with strings attached. Costs for the letters have risen.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/01/new-york-times-joe-nocera-blames-crisis-on-mania-meaning-victims.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29

KNOCK DOWN ALL THOSE NEOLIBERAL AND TEA PARTY TALKING POINTS WITH THIS COLUMN...

I really hate February, and it hates me back.

It came down 2 inches an hour at one point.

It did warm up, at least.

By most historic metrics, the market is showing signs of a significant top. Here are just a few key metrics:



1) Investor sentiment is back to super bullish autumn 2007 levels.

2) Insider selling to buying ratios are back to autumn 2007 levels (insiders are selling the farm).

3) Money market fund assets are at 2007 levels (indicating that investors have gone “all in” with stocks).

4) Mutual fund cash levels are at a historic low.



This final point is key. Mutual funds are the “big boys” of the investment world. If they have become fully invested in the market, this means there are few buyers left to push stocks higher. This is evident in the fact that every time mutual fund cash levels dropped, stocks collapsed soon after.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/market-running-out-buyers-except-fed

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x358064

Excellent post, must see!

Thanks for the link!

2/3/11 The Real Estate Lobby Is Ready to Rumble
Financiers, homebuilders, and real estate agents are uniting to save mortgage subsidies
By Lorraine Woellert

Barbara J. Thompson plans to put a human face on the high-stakes debate over whether to preserve cherished U.S. government subsidies for home loans. Hundreds of faces, in fact. Next month, she'll lead a legion of "everyday people" to Capitol Hill to affirm the virtues of homeownership and urge Congress not to abandon federal support for low-cost mortgages. "These are your neighbors, they're the people who teach your kids at school, they're your firefighters," says Thompson, executive director of the National Council of State Housing Agencies, whose members help provide loans to first-time home buyers. "The middle working class is the bedrock of our country."

Joining Thompson's cause will be thousands of homebuilders, real estate agents, civil-rights leaders, and bankers who aim to deliver a similar message to Congress: Preserve government support for housing. Together, these groups represent what one might call, with apologies to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a real estate-industrial complex that transcends partisan politics, geography, and socio-economic divides.

more...
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_07/b4215033159758.htm

Ilargi at The Automatic Earth discusses the Real Estate-Industrial Complex

The present US housing finance system, in which the government - through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae, the FHA and others-, guarantees all losses from mortgage loans for the lenders, but none for the borrowers, is the prime perpetrator in, if not the outright cause of, the financial -and political- crisis the US finds itself in. It's those government -read: taxpayer- guarantees that made it possible for lenders to throw all caution to the wind, lend to anyone who could fog a mirror, and use the proceeds to engage in ultra-high-stakes poker games in the international finance markets.

What the borrowers got were homes at artificially -hugely- elevated prices, and, when the markets started to crash, foreclosures, job losses and bankruptcies. Still, people like Barbara J. Thompson, who claims to "represent" your neighbors, teachers and firefighters, wants that same system to be perpetuated and revived.

lots more...
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2011/02/february-5-2011-real-estate-industrial.html

at taxpayer and ordinary citizen expense.

At some point the country hits the brick wall from all this extension of credit and fraud. I used to think it would have happened in Oct 2008, but here we are 2 1/2 years later. It's anybody's guess how much longer this will go on.

Sovereign Wealth Funds. :scared:

These are what are going to finish us off, and turn us into a third world nation.

They are big piles of cash, mainly from oil producing nations that are buying up our parking meters, turnpikes, and anything else that crooked politicians, such as Ed Rendell, Richard Daley, and Mitch Daniels will sell them at fire sale prices to temporarily plug a hole in their budgets. We can't be raising taxes on those rich people or making corporations pay theirs.

They're in cahoots with Goldman Sachs and a few others. They set up a speculative bubble in oil, front run the trades, make their money, and cash out. Then Goldman makes more fees setting up deals to buy our infrastructure. Funny, how the other asshole Daley (the new Chief of Staff) said the other day, that we shouldn't be spending money upgrading and repairing our infrastructure. Wonder why not?

It's like Dylan sang in "Subterranean Homesick Blues", You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

That song, BTW is where the Weatherman Underground took their name. I wonder what Bill Ayers has to say about this shit now.

At least that's how I feel today. Some days I feel we will slowly devolve into third world status.
Either way, it's coming, maybe sooner and quicker.

I had to shovel 6 inches of party cloudy, get the spare car jumped so I could move it and then drive it for a half hour to recharge the battery, and I am bushed. The Kid is off with a friend, and I'm just gonna take it easy for a bit.

Have a good week and Sien ni hao!