Posts Tagged ‘Obama administration’

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Are Gas-Sipping Cars Leaving Hybrids in the Dust?

Tuesday, February 7th, 2012

When Cadillac is staking its comeback on a compact car that boasts fuel economy approaching 40 mpg, what does it mean for hybrid and electric vehicles?  Cadillac’s ATS sedan is one example of how carmakers at the Detroit Auto Show are re-emphasizing small, powerful models with more fuel-efficient engines such as sport-utility vehicles; even, please note that we are talking gas here, hybrids are taking a back seat. Additionally, General Motors’ luxury brand says that the ATS will have a turbo-charged four-cylinder 270-horsepower engine that offers impressive fuel economy. Meanwhile, Ford is dropping plans for a hybrid version of its popular Escape SUV.

Although recent auto shows have been stocked with gas-electric hybrids and SUVs, slow hybrid sales have brought a dose of reality.  Carmakers realize they can give buyers what they want and avoid the expense of electric motors and batteries by making cars smaller and getting significantly improved fuel economy from traditional gas engines.

“The advantages of hybrids are getting harder to justify,” said Scott Corwin, a vice president with consulting firm Booz & Co.  “It’s the cost differential. Consumers are rational and they understand the cost of ownership.”  Hybrid sales slowed in 2011 to just 2.2 percent of auto sales, down from 2.4 percent in 2010, according to researcher LMC Automotive.

Mike Jackson, CEO of Fort Lauderdale, FL-based auto retail chain AutoNation Inc., said that approximately 75 percent of his customers want to talk about hybrids, although they constitute only 2.5 percent of his sales.  “What happens from the 75 percent consideration to the 2.5 percent commitment?” Jackson said. “They look at the price premium for the technology, which is already subsidized and discounted, and say “the payback period is too long; not for me.  It’s a back-of-the envelope conversation on the part of the American consumer.”

After a decade of hybrids and oil hovering near $100 a barrel, consumers still aren’t ready to pay the premium for hybrid models, said Reid Bigland, president of Chrysler Group LLC’s Dodge brand.  “The delta you get in fuel-economy lift with a hybrid is continuing to shrink because of the efficiencies with the internal combustion engine” through direct engine, turbochargers and advanced transmissions, Bigland said. “The pure economics are a tough case.”

The Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid lures people into the showroom, said Chris Perry, Chevrolet’s vice president of U.S. marketing. With fewer than 8,000 sales last year, consumers often went to a Chevy dealer to look at the Volt and settled on something else less pricey.

Despite slower-than-anticipated sales, the Obama administration has defended tax incentives for electric vehicles.  Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said that the program has worked, “It’s real money and people have utilized it.”

The administration is advocating aggressive fuel efficiency mandates for the U.S. fleet to decrease oil dependence, particularly through more electrical vehicles. President Barack Obama would like to see one million electric vehicles on the roads three years from now, a goal that industry insiders say is too optimistic. The industry is simultaneously investing in battery technology while making more affordable gains through improvements in conventional engine and transmission systems.  Administration officials are fighting Congressional and consumer skepticism about the wisdom of the $7,500 tax credit that mainly has benefited more well-heeled buyers, who experts say would have been able to purchase the technology without it.

Jeremy Anwyl, CEO of online consumer research group Edmunds.com, said plug-ins are most popular on the West and East coasts with “early adopters,” or educated consumers passionate about using less gasoline.  “For these folks, affordability is not the issue,” Anwyl said.

Automakers have little choice but to promote more hybrids as they prepare for fuel-efficiency requirements that will require significant increases by 2020. However, advances such as Ford’s EcoBoost technology have raised mileage for gas-powered engines —the new Fusion midsize sedan can get 37 miles to the gallon — though bigger gains are still needed.

That’s why many are bullish on alternative engines.  “Internal combustion can’t get all the way there, so you need an alternative,” said Russell Hensley, a partner with the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. “The only alternative we have at the moment is electrification.”  McKinsey listed “uncertainty around future adoption of hybrid/electric powertrain technology” as one of several challenges facing automakers in coming years. According to McKinsey, hybrids could account for up 25 percent of sales by 2020, with battery-powered cars making up five percent. It confirmed that internal-combustion engines would dominate the industry through at least 2030.

Over at the Rocky Mountain Institute, Randy Essex and Ben Holland point out that when gas-electric hybrids first rolled out in 2000, the Honda Insight and Toyota Prius had sales of just 9,350. Those figures looked anemic at the time, too. But in the ensuing years, the technology caught on and more than two million hybrids have been sold in the United States. If that’s any prologue, it could bode well for future plug-ins.

“But is this comparison apt? On the one hand, the new generation of electric vehicles enjoy a few advantages that Priuses didn’t. Gasoline prices sat below $2 per gallon back in 2000, considerably lower than today. What’s more, the latest round of fuel-economy standards, under which carmakers have to get their fleet averages up to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, should give the big auto companies incentive to roll out more plug-in vehicles in the coming years.  But then again, today’s electric cars also face special hurdles that the old hybrids didn’t. For one, there’s ‘range anxiety,’ in which would-be buyers of electric cars sometimes fret that their batteries will run out of juice and leave them stranded.”

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Government Wants to Sell Foreclosed Properties in Bulk as Rentals

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

The Obama administration plans to work closely with federal regulators, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to start a pilot program to sell government-owned foreclosures in bulk to investors as rentals, according to administration officials.

There currently are approximately 250,000 foreclosed properties on the books of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and millions more are expected.  Last year’s foreclosure processing delays created an enormous backlog of properties yet to be processed and are just now being restarted. One of the program’s initiatives is for the federal government to mitigate and manage new foreclosures.  Late-stage delinquencies still number close to two million, according to a report from Lending Processing Services (LPS).  Foreclosure starts are double foreclosure sales and “the trend toward fewer loans becoming delinquent, which dominated 2010 and the 1st quarter of 2011, appears to have halted,” according to LPS.

“I think there is a fair amount of money in the wings waiting to buy, investors doing cash raises to buy properties on a large scale,” said Laurie Goodman of Amherst Securities. “But that means they have to build out a rental organization; it means they build out a management company, because if you’re accumulating a hundred homes in Dallas that’s very different than running a multifamily building.”

This is good advice. The recession began with housing, and is one of the main things holding back the recovery.   The most recent unemployment numbers — which showed that non-farm payrolls grew by 200,000 in December, and the jobless rate declined to 8.5 percent from 8.7 percent  — join other cautious signs of an improving economy, although the housing situation is worsening.  There’s still a serious risk it might put a halt to and not just delay expansion.

“Foreclosed homes are a complex problem. We need some creative thinking and new processes to solve the problem of so many distressed homeowners.  I would love to see the market handle it on its own but what makes sense for a single home is likely to destroy confidence in the housing market in aggregate,” said Jafer Hasnain, Partner at Lifeline Assets.  “Housing distress needs a Michael Dell to think about streamlining process details, and a Steve Jobs to make it elegant and human.”

House prices fell again in October, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index.  The pipeline of delinquencies and future foreclosures is full, which continues to dim the prospects of a quick recovery.  Efforts so far, such as the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), have helped, but less than hoped.

According to the Federal Reserve, there are no simple answers, but it makes several suggestions that Congress should examine.  One is to encourage conversions from owner-occupied to rental because that market has strengthened in recent months: Rents have risen and vacancies have declined.  A faster conversion rate would hold down rents and ease the pressure of unsold homes on house prices. Fannie, Freddie and the Federal Housing Administration account for about 50 percent of the inventory of foreclosed properties.  Many of these are viable as rentals.  A government-sponsored foreclosure-to-rental program to clear away regulatory hurdles would make a big difference.

A second suggestion is to encourage refinancings.  The administration tweaked the existing HAMP program in October, easing some of the earlier restrictions on eligibility.  Even more could be done, according to the Fed.  One possibility involves the fees that lenders pay to Fannie and Freddie for assuming new risks when loans to distressed borrowers are refinanced. These charges could be cut or eliminated, even though Congress just voted to increase them to help pay for the payroll-tax extension.

Some institutional investors have shown interest in bulk REO deals, but the plan has to incorporate ways to help facilitate financing.  That has been one of the biggest barriers to deals already in the works between hedge funds and the major banks.  There is plenty of cash to buy properties, but creating a management structure for the rentals is costly, and some investors are finding the math doesn’t add up to make it worth their while.

Larger investors want to get real scale in any government program, in the range of 50, 100, 500 properties per deal, or $1 billion-plus in assets. That’s why the government is looking to test several different approaches.  Fannie Mae did a $50 million sale in June, although that was on the small side. Officials are evaluating what larger asset sales would look like.

“We expect several pilots that will involve both local investors and institutional investors. The goal here is to reduce supply by converting foreclosed homes into rental units,” says Jaret Seiberg of Guggenheim Securities. “Less supply – even less fear about a flood of foreclosed homes hitting the market – could stabilize (home) prices.”

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Santa Brings More Than 200,000 New Jobs in December

Monday, January 16th, 2012

The United States added more than 200,000 jobs in December of 2011, building on a strengthening employment market that dominated the second half of the year.  This brought the unemployment rate down to 8.5 percent from the revised 8.7 percent, which had been predicted in November.  The primary growth was in transportation — primarily courier services that hired for the holidays — healthcare and manufacturing, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“It would have been even better without the drag from Europe,” said John Canally, economic strategist at LPL Financial, a stock brokerage firm. “The Europe situation created uncertainty, and uncertainty was used as a reason not to hire until now.”  The year ended even more strongly than economists had predicted.  They had forecast that employers would add a net 150,000 jobs in December, according to a survey by Factset. They also had predicted that the unemployment rate would tick up to 8.7 percent from November’s 8.6 percent; this is the lowest rate since March 2009.

In the end, November’s unemployment rate was revised up in this report, to 8.7 percent.  The better-than-expected monthly gain of 219,000 private-sector jobs means American businesses have replaced more than three million of the 4.2 million private-sector jobs that were lost the past 13 months. The private-sector jobs gained since employment bottomed in February of 2010 marks the strongest recovery since the 1990-1992 recession, when U.S. businesses added 4.2 million jobs in the same amount of time.

The new job numbers highlight the fact that the U.S. economy is on its way to recovery even as strains in Europe persist,” said David Watt, senior currency strategist at RBC Capital in Toronto. The fact that the labor market is gaining traction should be good news to the Obama administration, whose economic policies are relentlessly attacked by the political opposition.

This string of better-than-anticipated economic indicators has highlighted the stark contrast between the recovery in the world’s biggest economy and Europe, which faces bad times for months or even years.  Even with the good news, the American economy needs an even faster pace of job growth over a sustained period to make a noticeable dent in the pool of the 23.7 million people who remain out of work or underemployed in the wake of the 2007-09 recession.

December marked the 15th consecutive month that employment numbers have risen. Marcus Bullus, trading director at MB Capital, said: “That’s one hell of a number. Such an impressive fall in both the number of jobless Americans and the unemployment rate will cheer everyone bar Republican spin doctors.  The Obama administration could be forgiven for showboating over this convincing evidence that America’s economy is pulling away from Europe’s.  From a market perspective, strong US data like this will add to optimism, but nobody doubts the considerable downward pressure the Eurozone will continue to place on the global marketplace during 2012.”

Automatic Data Processing’s (ADP) numbers for December are even more impressive, saying the government added 325,000 jobs in December.  ADP’s figures do not always match the government’s, and economists warned that seasonal factors could have boosted the figures. Even so, all the major measures of the job market appear to be on the upswing.

Lasting payroll gains are needed to chip away at joblessness and support household spending, which accounts for approximately 70 percent of the world’s largest economy. The labor market figures come on the heels of recent data showing increased manufacturing and a rebound in consumer sentiment that show the U.S. is barely impacted by Europe’s debt crisis.  “You got the trifecta — more people working, wages up and the average work week up,” said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group Inc., who accurately forecast the December payroll gains.  “You can’t really argue that that isn’t a sign of significant improvement in the job market.”

Yearly benchmark revisions showed the unemployment rate averaged 8.9 percent in 2011, down from 9.6 percent and 9.3 percent in the previous two years. It still ranks as the worst three-year period since 1939 to 1941.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Phil Izzo says the increase is “for real.” According to Izzo, “While the unemployment rate has been falling in part due to people leaving the labor force, a large portion of this month’s number appears to come from people finding jobs.

“The unemployment rate is calculated based on people who are without jobs, who are available to work and who have actively sought work in the prior four weeks. The actively looking for work’ definition is fairly broad, including people who contacted an employer, employment agency, job center or friends; sent out resumes or filled out applications; or answered or placed ads, among other things. The rate is calculated by dividing that number by the total number of people in the labor force.

“The key to the drop in the broader unemployment rate was due to a 371,000 drop in the number of people employed part time but who would prefer full-time work, that comes on top of big drops in that category over the past two months. That number could reflect people having their hours increased or part-time workers moving on to full time work,” Izzo concluded.

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Federal Regulators Floating the Idea of 20 Percent Downpayment Mortgages

Thursday, November 10th, 2011

Is a 20 percent downpayment on a house or condominium on the horizon?  If some federal regulators get their way, buyers may have to put down $60,000 on a $300,000 house to get the best possible mortgage interest rate.  Although this sets the bar high, regulators believe it will prevent the risky lending practices that ended in a rash of foreclosures.

Numerous groups immediately announced their opposition to the proposal, contending that a 20 percent downpayment is too burdensome for many working class would-be homebuyers.  If the proposal goes into effect in summer, it is not likely to have a major impact on the housing market for a while because the majority of mortgages are insured by federal agencies and are exempt from the rule.  John Taylor, chief executive of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, said “If we require 20 percent downpayments to get a loan, we will ensure broad swaths of working- and middle-class people will not be able to get a loan.”  According to Tom Deutsch, executive director of the American Securitization Forum, believes the 20 percent requirement will do little to encourage banks to make loans without federal backing.  “The extremely rigid proposals…will further prolong the U.S. government’s 95 percent market share of the credit risk of newly originated mortgages,” he said.

Sheila C. Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, disagrees.  “Properly aligned economic incentives are the best check against lax underwriting,” she said.  The Federal Reserve and Treasury Department also support the move, and other federal regulators are expected to get behind the new requirement.  The move comes as the Obama administration is working to end Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage companies, by reducing the competitive advantage they have over banks.  One proposal is to require the agencies to charge higher fees to draw private firms back into the mortgage market.

Mortgage Bankers Association CEO John Courson warns that the 20 percent downpayment requirement would further damage already sluggish housing demand.  “We believe that such a narrow construct of the risk retention exemption would limit mortgage opportunities for qualified borrowers more than it would reduce the number of problem loans,” Courson said.  Ron Phipps, president of the National Association of Realtors, said the new rules will further restrict mortgage credit and housing recovery overall.  “Adding unnecessarily high minimum downpayment requirements will only exclude hundreds of thousands of buyers from home ownership, despite their creditworthiness and proven ability to afford the monthly payment, because of the dramatic increase in the wealth required to purchase a home,” Phipps said.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who is leading the regulatory effort, said “Risk retention will help promote better standards for underwriting and securitizing mortgages, which is good for the long-term health of the housing market and for our nation’s economy.”  An element of the Dodd-Frank Act that impacts the residential market, known as “risk retention”, is a rule that requires that mortgage lenders and securitizers to invest a minimum of five percent of the risk on qualified residential mortgages. The rule will play a crucial role in determining how much risk banks have to retain from mortgages they originate or package into bonds known as mortgage backed securities (MBS) and then subsequently sell into the market.  “If this proposal goes through, the way it’s written, I think the housing market will not recover for years to come,” says Joe Murin, chairman of consulting firm The Collingwood Group.

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Bernanke: No QE3

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in a long-awaited speech in Jackson Hole, WY, announced no new steps the Fed will take to prop up the shaky U.S. economy.  Rather, he expressed optimism that the economy will continue to recover, based on its inherent strength and from assistance provided by the central bank.  Bernanke restated the Fed’s determination to keep the federal funds rate “exceptionally low” for a minimum of two years.  He did not say what many had been hoping to hear: that the Fed would begin another round of quantitative easing – usually referred to as QE3.

 Bernanke said that he expected inflation to remain at or below two percent.  Additionally, he acknowledged that the recent downgrade of the nation’s AAA credit rating had undermined both “household and business confidence.”  He implied that there was only so much more the Fed can do to stimulate the economy, and that the time has come for Congress and the Obama administration to create “policies that support robust economic growth in the long term,” to reform the nation’s tax structure and to control spending.

“In addition to refining our forward guidance, the Federal Reserve has a range of tools that could be used to provide additional monetary stimulus.  We discussed the relative merits and costs of such tools at our August meeting.  We will continue to consider those and other pertinent issues, including, of course, economic and financial developments, at our meeting in September,” Bernanke said.  He went on to clarify the Fed’s guidance about how long interest rates will remain exceptionally low.  “In what the committee judges to be the most likely scenarios for resource utilization and inflation in the medium term, the target for the federal funds rate would be held at its current low levels for at least two more years.”

As Bernanke delivered his remarks, the government cut its estimated 2nd quarter GDP growth to a paltry rate of one percent, a revision from the 1.3 percent previously reported.  The revision was expected and primarily due to weaker exports.  In more positive news, private spending and investment in April through June were slightly higher than initially estimated.  The GDP grew by an annual rate of just 0.4 percent in the 1st quarter.  The 2nd half of 2011 is expected to be somewhat stronger, but a major driver of the economy — consumer spending — remains weak amid slow hiring and sluggish income gains.

“This economic healing will take a while, and there may be setbacks along the way,” Bernanke said.  “Although the issue of fiscal sustainability must urgently be addressed, fiscal policymakers should not, as a consequence, disregard the fragility of the current economic recovery.  Although important problems certainly exist,  the growth fundamentals of the United States do not appear to have been permanently altered by the shocks of the past four years,” Bernanke said. “It may take some time, but we can reasonably expect to see a return to growth rates and employment levels consistent with those underlying fundamentals.”

“Economic performance is clearly subpar, and from that standpoint the case for some sort of further economic-policy assistance is just being made by the poor performance,” said Keith Hembre, chief economist and investment strategist in Minneapolis at Nuveen Asset Management.  Although Bernanke said the Fed has stimulus tools left, “the threshold to utilizing them is going to require fairly different conditions than what we have today,” such as lower inflation or a return of financial instability, Hembre said.

Bernanke also used the occasion to scold Congress for its tardiness in resolving the deficit debate. “The country would be well served by a better process for making fiscal decisions,” Bernanke said at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual economic symposium.  “The negotiations that took place over the summer disrupted financial markets and probably the economy, as well, and similar events in the future could, over time, seriously jeopardize the willingness of investors around the world to hold U.S. financial assets or to make direct investments in job-creating U.S. businesses.”  Bernanke implied that a return to economic prosperity is at stake.  “I do not expect the long-run growth potential of the U.S. economy to be materially affected by the crisis and the recession if — and I stress if — our country takes the necessary steps to secure that outcome,” he said.  The budget process, according to Bernanke, would be more effective if negotiators set “clear and transparent budget goals” and established “the credibility of those goals.” 

Bernanke reassured investors that United States prospects for growth are sound over the long term and that the Fed has tools to aid the recovery if needed, even though he is not planning another stimulus at this time.  “What no action will do is give confidence to investors that things are not as bad as many people perceive, otherwise he would’ve acted,” Keith Springer, president of Springer Financial Advisors in Sacramento, CA, said.  “Investors will eventually see the positives.”

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Foreclosures Appear to Be Stabilizing

Monday, August 29th, 2011

Foreclosure filings fell a dramatic 35 percent in July to the lowest level in nearly four years as lenders and state and federal agencies ramped up their efforts to keep delinquent borrowers in their homes, according to RealtyTrac Inc.  A total of 212,764 properties received default, auction or repossession notices, the lowest number in 44 months.  Filings declined on a year- over-year basis for the 10th consecutive month, and were down four percent when compared with June.  One in every 611 households across the country received a notice.  “The downward trend in foreclosure activity has now taken on a life of its own,” RealtyTrac Chief Executive Officer James J. Saccacio said.  “Unfortunately, the fall-off in foreclosures is not based on a robust recovery in the housing market but on short-term interventions and delays that will extend the current housing market woes into 2012 and beyond.  It appears that processing delays, combined with the smorgasbord of national and state-level foreclosure prevention efforts, may be allowing more distressed homeowners to stave off foreclosure.” 

Nevada leads the nation with the highest foreclosure rate of any state, one filing for every 115 homes.  California, with one foreclosure for every 239 homes came in second, while Arizona, with one in every 273 homes, was third.  Las Vegas continued to record the nation’s highest foreclosure rate, with one in every 99 homes getting a foreclosure filing in July. 

Foreclosure auctions, the final step in the agonizing foreclosure process were also scheduled on five percent fewer properties in July.  The month’s auction total hit a three-year low and was nearly half (46 percent) below the March, 2010, peak.  An estimated four million vacant homes not yet accounted for by lenders constitute an immense inventory of residential properties, approximately 2.2-million of which are in default and have not yet been formally foreclosed known as the “shadow inventory” weigh down the marketplace. 

The Obama administration is proactively seeking ways to dispose of foreclosed homes that are under government control.  The goal is to “bring stability and liquidity” to the housing market, Edward J. DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), said.  The FHFA regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which guarantee approximately 90 percent of American mortgages.  President Obama has proposed a program to encourage the rental of foreclosed homes owned by the Federal Housing Administration, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.  Banks could adopt similar programs and offer homes at steep discounts to get residential real estate off their books.  Financial institutions typically get lucrative write-offs from these and so might prefer to rent some properties.  Other federal attempts to prop up the housing market have not been successful to date.  The Making Home Affordable Program operation was launched in March of 2009 with the main component the Home Affordable Modification Program.  This was created to cut mortgage payments for families who couldn’t afford them, but wanted to keep their houses.  A Congressional Oversight Panel report said the programs had failed and fell far short of its goal to modify mortgages for three million to four million homes.  The new Obama plan to rent foreclosed homes has the potential to positively impact home prices.

Writing on MSNBC, John W. Schoen says that “A sharp slowdown in the pace of home foreclosures may help ease the financial burden on bankers by helping them unload a glut of repossessed homes more slowly and delay booking losses from the sale of distressed properties.  But it will do little to help millions of Americans families at risk of being tossed from their homes in the next few years.  The slowdown follows a wave of legal challenges by homeowners that has all but shut down the machinery of bank repossession in some states.  Some homeowners are disputing the widespread practice of ‘robo-signing’, in which lenders process batches of foreclosure fillings with little or no formal review.  Other homeowners have successfully halted repossessions by questioning shoddy paperwork or broken paper trails that don’t establish clear title to a property.  The slowdown has left millions of American households in legal limbo, prolonged the housing market’s four-year recession and delayed hopes for a broader economic recovery.” 

“The process has more or less ground to a halt in a lot of states that do foreclosures through the court system,” said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at RealtyTrac.

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Reinventing Fannie and Freddie

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

The initial steps to dismantle Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are underway with the introduction of a bipartisan bill in the House of Representatives that would replace the mortgage giants with a minimum of five companies that would issue mortgage-backed securities with significant federal regulation.  The compromise legislation proposed by Representative John Campbell (R-CA) and Representative Gary Peters (D-MI) is likely to be the only plan that will attract sufficient support from both parties on a politically volatile subject, especially at a time when gridlock looms over issues such as how to curb federal spending.  The bailout of the two companies has cost taxpayers upwards of $100 billion.

According to Representative Campbell, “Rather than putting out a political marker, we can move a piece of legislation that is significant…and can actually become law.  The only other approach that’s out there in a bill is one that replaces Fannie and Freddie with nothing.”  Other policymakers, such as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, have discussed the merits of a limited but unambiguous government guarantee of securities backed by certain types of mortgages.  The new entities – similar to Fannie and Freddie — would be limited to purchasing loans that meet certain standards, including size caps.  The difference would be that the firms would be required to hold much more capital than Fannie and Freddie.  Only the mortgage-backed securities that they issue –not the companies themselves — would enjoy federal guarantees.  The companies would operate similarly to public utilities and likely will not have exchange-listed shares.

Critics say the proposal risks recreating the same dynamics that led Fannie and Freddie to use their government ties to take risks that harmed taxpayers.  “In reality, this is almost surely going to be terrible,” said Dwight Jaffee, finance professor at the University of California, Berkeley.   Government insurance programs, he says, inevitably lead to “a catastrophe.”  Advocates argue that taxpayers will be less exposed to losses because borrowers will have to make significant downpayments.  Additionally, the new firms will have to hold more capital.  Additionally, the firms will be required pay a fee for government backing to finance a catastrophic insurance fund, much as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation levies fees and handles bank failures.

The mortgage and housing industry support a continued government role in supporting mortgage lending, including the Mortgage Bankers Association, National Association of Realtors and National Association of Home Builders.

The agencies are still hemorrhaging money.  For example, Fannie Mae reported a loss of $8.7 billion for the 1st quarter of 2011, which included a $2.2 billion dividend payment to the Treasury Department.  The loss was significantly less than the $13 billion reported one year ago.  “We need to manage our credit book — our old legacy book very vigorously,” said Fannie Mae President and CEO Michael Williams.  But that is not in conflict with helping distressed homeowners.  “Helping people to avoid foreclosure is a good thing,” Williams said.

Action must be taken to keep the mortgage market afloat and provide securitization for investments.  According to a Washington Post editorial,  “The housing market is still in deep trouble.  Prices nationwide have fallen by about a third since the peak in 2006 — and they appear to be trending down again.  The resulting hit to household wealth may hinder the recovery, which is already sluggish.  Small wonder that various advocates for housing are once again asking Washington for help.  But in at least one area, the prescription would be worse than the disease.  We refer to calls for extending the current elevated limit on the size of loans eligible for securitization by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage-finance giants operating under government control.  Congress ‘temporarily’ raised the limit to a maximum of $729,759 in certain markets in response to the sudden evaporation of private liquidity during the 2008 crisis, but that measure is set to lapse at the end of September.  At that point, the limit will not revert to the pre-crisis maximum of $417,000 in most of the country but to a level set in relation to local medians — and capped at $625,000.  But the Obama administration has supported a reversion to lower loan limits as the first step in gradually reforming the mortgage security market and reducing taxpayer exposure to Fannie and Freddie.  The administration’s goal is to lure cash-rich would-be mortgage securitizers back into the market, starting with the high end.  Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has described this as “crowding in” private capital, and it is the rare housing policy proposal that has enjoyed a measure of bipartisan support.”

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Offshore Cape Wind Farm Gets the Go-Ahead

Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

The controversial Cape Wind Energy Project – to be constructed in Nantucket Sound between Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts – has been given the green light by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.  “The Department has taken extraordinary steps to fully evaluate Cape Wind’s potential impacts on environmental and cultural resources of Nantucket Sound,” Salazar said.

The nation’s first offshore wind farm,  Cape Wind will see 130 wind turbine generators constructed; each will have a maximum blade height of 440 feet and will be arranged in a grid pattern several miles offshore.  When completed, Cape Wind will produce enough electricity to power about 400,000 homes on Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.  Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement approved the wind farm’s construction and operation.

Cape Wind – which was first proposed 10 years ago — has faced opposition from everyone from local Indian tribes to fishermen to the Kennedy family, whose six-acre compound in Hyannis Port overlooks Nantucket Sound.  “Taking 10 years to permit an offshore wind project like Cape Wind is completely unacceptable,” Salazar said.  Representative Edward Markey (D-MA) said “Let’s get this wind project built, and keep this American clean energy momentum pushing us ahead like a down east breeze.”

The opposition did not resonate on the national level and so the Interior Department used Cape Wind as a test case for offshore energy projects and green-lighted one major regulatory step after another.  Those who forcefully opposed the wind farm include The Cape Cod Times, Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce, and the government of the Town of Barnstable.  Many older residents say resistance to Cape Wind was an exact copy of the opposition to the creation of the Cape Cod National Seashore Park 50 years ago.

According to Salazar, the Cape Wind project could create as many as 600 to 1,000 jobs, and jump start a network of similar renewable wind farm projects up and down the Atlantic coast, which has the potential for tens of thousands of new jobs for Americans.  He criticized the process, which delayed the construction of America’s first offshore wind farm for 10 years, saying, that the Obama administration wants to streamline the permitting process in the future.  “After a thorough review of environmental impacts, we are confident that this offshore commercial wind project — the first in the nation — can move forward,” said Michael Bromwich, who directs Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy, Management, Regulation, and Enforcement.  “This will accelerate interest in the renewable energy sector generally and the offshore wind sector specifically, and spur innovation and investment in our nation’s energy infrastructure.”

While Cape Wind has found a buyer for 50 percent of its output, it has not for the other half.  Dennis Duffy, Vice President, said the company was “confident” it would find a customer for the other half.  The approval comes as the state proposed to redefine a different federal ocean area that also is under consideration for offshore wind.  The state wants the federal government to remove approximately half of a 3,000-square-mile area south of Massachusetts from potential wind development to protect vital fishing grounds.

“We submitted a proposal that would move the Commonwealth towards (making Massachusetts the nation’s offshore wind energy leader) while safeguarding waters important to our commercial fishing industry,” said Richard K. Sullivan Jr., state Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs.

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Posted in Development, General, Green | No Comments »

Economists Say U.S. Economy Is on the Road to Recovery

Wednesday, April 27th, 2011

The American recovery is on the road to recovery, unless the mounting federal deficit slows its momentum.

A recent survey by Smart Brief and the international market research firm Ipsos of 841 financial professionals found that 67 percent think that stock prices will rise this year and that the country’s economic output will increase by 65 percent; another 59 percent said they expect unemployment to decrease slightly in the next 12 months.  The survey found that even such modest optimism is tempered by expectations of rising health care costs (88 percent); higher fuel prices (85 percent); rising prices for durable goods such as appliances, automobiles and consumer electronics (72 percent); and slightly higher interest rates (59 percent).  Additionally, 43 percent expect home prices to continue declining, while only 21 percent expect them to rebound; 34 percent expect no change.  By a margin of 70 percent – 30percent, respondents oppose allowing states to declare bankruptcy; 77 percent expect the nuclear disaster in Japan to drive greater investment and funding into renewable energy.

“Financial professionals are cautiously optimistic about economic prospects in the near term; indeed, they think that the overall scenario will improve, and they’re making business decisions on that basis, such as increased investment and hiring,” said Ipsos Managing Director Cliff Young.  “That being said, there are still concerns in the short to medium term about the increased costs of inputs such as fuel and durable goods.”

Larry Summers, former president of Harvard and architect of the Obama administration’s stimulus plan agrees, noting that “An economy in economic freefall has now recovered for 18 months,” he said.  “Make no mistake, the American economy has a feeling of normalcy that was completely absent in 2009 and that is a substantial achievement.”  Summers warned that the nation faces new challenges, including reducing the 8.9 percent unemployment rate, which he said is “far, far too high.”  He said it will be important for the US — and Massachusetts, in particular — to keep the life sciences industry strong.

To keep the recovery on track, the International Monetary Fund urged the United States to speed up efforts to slash the budget deficit.  “It is important the United States undertakes fiscal adjustment sooner rather than later,” said Carlo Cottarelli, director of the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department, the U.S. is projected to have a fiscal debt balance as a percentage of GDP of 10.8 percent in 2011, the biggest percentage among advanced countries. “Market concerns about sustainability remain subdued in the United States, but a further delay in action could be fiscally costly,” the IMF said.

According to the IMF, although most advanced economies have taken steps to tighten budget gaps, two of world’s largest economies — Japan and the United States — had delayed action to maintain their recoveries.  “Countries delaying adjustment in 2011 will face more significant challenges to meet their medium-term objectives,” the IMF warned in its updated “Fiscal Monitor” report.

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Posted in Economics, General | 1 Comment »

Regulators Cracking Down on Banks Over Foreclosures

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011

Federal regulators at the Departments of Justice, Treasury and Housing, as well as the Federal Trade Commission, have ordered the nation’s largest banks to revamp their foreclosure procedures and compensate borrowers who were financially hurt by “pervasive” bad behavior or carelessness.  According to the bank regulators, failure to comply with the rules will result in fines and a broad investigation conducted by state attorneys general and other federal agencies.  The regulators acted after being criticized for not putting a halt to risky lending practices during the housing boom.

Describing the lending practices as “a pattern of misconduct and negligence,” the Federal Reserve said that “These deficiencies represent significant and pervasive compliance failures and unsafe and unsound practices at these institutions.”  Borrowers in trouble have complained that applying for a modification using the Obama administration’s program has been too complicated and characterized by multiple games of telephone tag.  Enforcement requires servicers to set up compliance programs and hire an independent firm to review residential-foreclosures.  The banks will be required to make sure that communications are more “effective” between borrowers and banks when it comes to foreclosure and mortgage-modification proceedings.

Citibank, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, the nation’s four leading banks, top the list of financial firms cited by the Federal Reserve, Office of Thrift Supervision and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.  Citigroup said that it had “self-identified” desired changes in 2009 and that it has helped more than 1.1 million homeowners avoid foreclosure.  “We are committed to working with our regulators to further strengthen our programs in these areas and meeting these new requirements,” the company said.

As stern as the recent move seems to be, there are still critics.  “These consent orders are worse than doing nothing,” said Alys Cohen, staff attorney for the National Consumer Law Center.  “They set the bar so low on some things and they give the banks carte blanche on others.  And they give the appearance of doing something while giving banks control of the process.”  Additionally, consumer advocates and members of Congress said the new rules are too little, too late.

Congressional critics maintain that the order is too moderate.  House Democrats introduced legislation that would require lenders to perform specific actions, including an appeals process, before starting foreclosures.  “I want to know what abuses (the government agencies) identified, which banks committed them and how their proposed consent agreement is going to fix these problems,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) the ranking member of the House Government and Oversight Committee.  “Based on what I have read…I am not encouraged at all.”

More than 50 consumer groups don’t like the settlement,  and claim that the expected settlements do little more than require mortgage servicers to obey existing laws and that they lack penalties.  “They’re left to police their new improvements,” said Katherine Porter, a University of Iowa law professor who is an expert on mortgage services.  Another concern is that the settlements may weaken the ability of 50 state attorneys general to force concessions from mortgage servicers.  The attorneys general have been investigating mortgage servicers since last fall, and in March sent the companies a list of terms, which go further than those pursued by bank regulators.  Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, who’s leading the joint effort, says any settlements with banking regulators will not “pre-empt” the states’ efforts.

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Posted in Economics, Financing, General, Residential | 1 Comment »

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