Dec 20
Every other Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a book of interest not directly connected to personal finance.
I’m a big believer in following your passions, wherever they might take you. Part of doing that is preparation – saving money, making choices that pave the way – but another part is simply stepping up to the plate and hitting that fat fasball down the middle of the plate when it comes your way.
Gary Vaynerchuk is passionate about wine. He’s one of the best known wine evangelists in the world because he wears it and shares it. He buil
Read more…
Dec 20
The recession has led many consumers to scale back their credit card use, even with the holiday shopping season in full force.
According to a new survey released by a unit of Experian, 21 percent of consumers expect to carry credit card debt after the holidays this year, compared to 26 percent from last year. The survey also found that 24 percent of those who do carry holiday debt this year are expecting to pay it if within one or two months. This compares to 18 percent last year who said they would pay off their debt within one or two months. Read more…
Dec 20
Morgan Stanley (MS) is walking away from five office buildings it bought two years ago at the height of the market for $6.5 billion (that’s “B”… not “M”), which have since lost as much as 50% in value. The reason, says a corporate spokeswoman, “This isn’t a default or foreclosure situation… we are going to give (the lender) the properties to get out of the loan obligation.”So let me get this straight….Even as Banks were getting rewarded with billions in bailouts for pumping up the industry I work in to feed my family… so that they could profit on both the way up and especially on the way down by using trades that paid off with leverage when everything collapsed… I m Read more…
Dec 19
I am working on my Christmas cards this weekend and really enjoyed reading the Wall Street Journal article: Dear Friends: Season’s Greetings! Can You Get Me a Job? about those family letters so many people include in their cards.
Holiday letters, those typically peppy annual updates on family doings, are bringing tidings of a lot less joy. More hard knocks are creeping in as unemployment persists and the economy bumbles along. Laid-off holiday scribes are using the letters in their job hunts.
Read more…
Dec 18
The Wall Street Journal article: Debtor’s Dilemma: Pay the Mortgage or Walk Away takes a look at under-water borrowers who live in states like California and Arizona where laws generally prohibit lenders from pursuing other assets of mortgage borrowers who strategically default on their loans (stop paying the mortgage even when they can afford to).
In Mesa, another suburb of Phoenix, low prices are helping to draw buyers who may walk away from other homes. Christina Delapp bought a house out of foreclosure in July for $49,000 in cash. She says she will stop paying the mortgage on another home she still owns in Tempe if she can’t sell in the next few months for more than the $312,000 that she owes.
Ms.
Read more…
Dec 17
Late last week, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to approve a bill that introduces a spate of consumer protection measures.
The amendment that would have permitted homeowners to address foreclosure in bankruptcy by altering the terms of mortgage loans (in what’s known as “cramdowns”), though, did not make the cut.
Provisions of the Bill
The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, as it’s known, includes the following provisions:
Mortgage lending reform: The bill would outlaw the type of predatory lending that allowed for the subprime boom and subsequent bust. Essenti
Read more…