If you add together all of the money owned by the poorest 3.8 billion people living on this planet, it would roughly equal the wealth controlled by the 26 wealthiest men in the world. Oxfam has just issued a brand new report on global inequality, and what they have discovered is making headlines all over the globe. The rich just keep getting richer, and meanwhile the slice of the pie owned by the poor just keeps getting smaller. Today, almost half the world lives on less than $5.50 a day, and approximately 795 million people “do not have enough food”. And even in a “wealthy country” like the United States, the gap between the rich and the poor is the largest that it has been since the 1920s, and more than half a million Americans are homeless right now. This growing inequality is a ticking time bomb, and at some point it is going to explode. (Read More...)
Mortgages
Housing Crash?: U.S. Existing Home Sales Fall By The Most In Six Years
We just got more evidence that a major economic slowdown is underway here in the United States. Existing home sales were down a whopping 7.1 percent during the month of February, and this represented the biggest decline that we have seen in six years. This is yet another sign that we are in the early stages of a new crisis that is eerily reminiscent of what happened back in 2008. The truth is that most U.S. consumers are tapped out, and when you are tapped out it is really hard to get a mortgage. Banks aren’t really fond of lending money to people that can’t pay it back, and in recent years housing prices in many areas have risen to levels that are beyond the reach of most middle class families. (Read More...)
If The American Dream Is To Own A Home, Then It Hasn’t Been In Worse Shape Since 1967
Thanks to the “Obama recovery”, the rate of homeownership in the United States has fallen to the lowest level in 48 years. The percentage of Americans that own a home is widely considered to be a key indicator of the health of the middle class, and we have just learned that during the second quarter of 2015 that number dropped from 63.7 percent to 63.4 percent. It is now the lowest that it has been since 1967. Unlike a lot of other government economic statistics, this one is fairly difficult to manipulate. Either someone owns a home or they do not. And what the homeownership rate is telling us is that the percentage of Americans that can qualify for a mortgage has been falling dramatically. Just take a look at the following chart. This is not just a decline – this is a complete and utter collapse… (Read More...)
The Last Housing Crash Is Not Even Over But Bernanke Is Already Setting The Stage For The Next One
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is determined to push mortgage rates to record low levels and he is encouraging the banks that the Fed regulates to make home loans more freely. Wait a second – isn’t that exactly what caused the last housing bubble? After 9/11, the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates and this caused mortgage rates to steadily fall. Financial institutions were urged to help “expand home ownership” in America, and many of them started making home loans to people who never, ever should have gotten home loans. When mortgage rates started to go back up, millions of families with adjustable rate mortgages discovered that they could not make their monthly payments. Mortgage delinquencies absolutely soared and large numbers of mortgage-backed securities suddenly turned into garbage. So what is the Fed doing about it? The Fed recently announced another round of quantitative easing in which it will buy 40 billion dollars worth of these mortgage-backed securities a month. Essentially the Fed is clearing the bad financial paper out of the system and is creating the conditions for another housing bubble. But will we really fix our problems by going back and doing the same things that got us into trouble in the first place? (Read More...)
27 Amazing Statistics About The Real Estate Crash That Never Seems To End: More Foreclosures, More Underwater Mortgages And More Home Price Declines
The real estate crash that never seems to end appears to be getting even worse. Home prices continue to go down, the number of underwater mortgages is soaring and the number of foreclosures set an all-time record in 2010. The peak of the housing market was in 2005 and the subprime mortgage crisis erupted in 2008. Shouldn’t things be getting better by now? How many years is this real estate crash going to go on for? Home builders and those that work in the construction industry are deeply suffering because new home sales continue to hover around record lows. Mortgage professionals are having a really hard time because very few people are seeking home loans and many of those that are seeking loans cannot get approved. Real estate agents all over the country are pulling their hair out in frustration and large numbers of them have left the industry completely. The United States has never had such a prolonged real estate slump in the post-World War 2 era. Unfortunately, there are a whole lot of indications that the real estate crash is going to get even worse. (Read More...)
20 Facts That Will Make You Really Mad If You Stop And Think About Them For A While
The more you read the news today the more likely you are to get really mad. The world is becoming an incredibly crazy place, and at times the amount of bad news that is coming out can seem almost overwhelming. Everywhere you look, the poor are being oppressed, our politicians are making stupid decisions and evil is on the march. The America that so many of us grew up deeply loving is literally being ripped to shreds in a thousand different ways. Unfortunately, those in power have not had any real answers for us in decades. The Democrats don’t have any real answers, the Republicans don’t have any real answers and the Federal Reserve sure as heck does not have any real answers. In fact, it seems like almost everything that our leaders actually do “accomplish” only makes things worse. The vast majority of Americans are quite busy being entertained by “bread and circuses”, but meanwhile our country is literally falling apart. (Read More...)
Home Sales Drop Once Again
Existing home sales in the U.S. are down again. New home sales in the U.S. are down again. What else is new? The U.S. housing industry just cannot seem to bounce back. Mortgage lenders have really, really tightened up lending standards and so now there are a lot fewer qualified buyers than there used to be. It is as if the big financial institutions have nearly shut off the flow of credit. But without credit, the vast majority of American families don’t have a prayer of achieving the American Dream of owning a home. Even with mortgage rates close to record lows the housing market is still languishing. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter how low mortgage rates are if American families can’t get home loans approved. With unemployment still staggeringly high and with incomes still declining, it appears that the U.S. housing market is going to continue to suffer for some time to come. (Read More...)