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To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (4315)	5/6/2003 12:22:10 PM
From: Mannie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5423

Housing boom... In Seattle, home sales in April were 27% above April '02. Amazing.

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (4315)	5/6/2003 1:36:52 PM
From: loantech	Respond to of 5423

I am going to sue you Pal,<g> just let me know when your ship has come in. <vbg> Tom

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (4315)	5/7/2003 9:46:22 AM
From: 4figureau	Respond to of 5423

U.S. consumer confidence down 2 points-ABC/Money Wednesday May 7, 8:01 am ET NEW YORK, May 6 (Reuters) - U.S. consumer confidence dropped this week to its lowest level since the fall of Baghdad, according to a survey published Tuesday, suggesting consumers are shedding some of their post-war exuberance. Declining confidence this week suggests other gauges of consumer sentiment, including surveys from the University of Michigan and the Conference Board, may decline in May after rising in April. ABC News/Money Magazine said its weekly Consumer Comfort index fell to -21 this week, a 2 point drop from last week and its lowest since the week of April 6. The index ranges from +100 to -100. But consumer confidence measures have not historically correlated strongly with consumer spending, so the decline in this survey may not mean consumer expenditure is flagging. ABC News/Money Magazine said the index also fell after the 1991 Gulf War. In 1991, the ABC News/Money Magazine index rose 10 points in the five weeks after the war, then fell 3 points in one week and 6 points over the next month. In the recent poll, 29 percent of respondents rated the economy positively, unchanged from the previous week. The survey's buying climate gauge, which assesses Americans' willingness to spend their cash, was unchanged at 36 percent. Americans' outlook on their personal finances fell, with 54 percent of respondents rating their situation as excellent or good, down from 56 percent in the prior week. The weekly ABC/Money poll is based on about 1,000 interviews, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. biz.yahoo.com

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (4315)	5/7/2003 9:52:24 AM
From: 4figureau	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 5423

Japan to spend ¥10,000bn tackling bad loans By David Pilling in Tokyo Published: May 6 2003 21:53 A new public body charged with turning around some of Japan's struggling borrowers plans to buy up loans belonging to as many as 400 companies over the next two years. The Industrial Revitalisation Corporation, which starts business on Thursday, has been licensed to spend up to ¥10,000bn ($84bn, €74.7bn, £52bn), amounting to almost a quarter of the official estimate of ¥43,000bn in bad loans that is swamping the banking sector. Kazuhiko Toyama, the corporation's chief operating officer, said on Tuesday that the IRC plans to break even within five years. The new body is mandated to buy problem loans belonging to salvageable companies, repackage them and sell the loans back to the market. It is capitalised at ¥50bn, but can borrow up to ¥10,000bn. Mr Toyama, 42, who has built a reputation as a corporate doctor, said the IRC would have to overcome fear among banks and borrowers that might dissuade them from signing up. "Some people might be scared that the IRC is some kind of aggressive private-equity-style player and that we aim to push the purchasing price down and to make an arbitrage profit, but that's completely nonsense. "Our goal is to revitalise Japanese industry." Mr Toyama said he aimed to sign up borrowers from several industrial sectors as quickly as possible to establish early success stories that would encourage others to come forward. "This is not a profit-oriented company, it's a public company, so we are okay with zero profit," he said. In some cases the IRC, as well as buying loans, would provide fresh investment to build a company's competitive advantage. Turnaround meant more than simply cutting headcount, especially given Japanese lifetime employment practices, said Mr Toyama. Canon, the printer and camera manufacturer, showed that a successful hybrid could be developed between US and Japanese management practices. His words may soothe banks and borrowers whose historical relationships have sometimes made the process of clearing bad loans through the market agonisingly slow. But they could also add to scepticism among foreign investors that the IRC's real purpose is to help out banks by paying over the odds for bad loans and to stop weak companies going to the wall. Jeffrey Young, economist at Nikko Salamon Smith Barney in Tokyo, said: "The IRC doesn't have an incentive to ensure that the companies are restructured. It appears to be a place to keep assets off the banks' balance sheets [but] out of the market because the restructuring process is too painful." Mr Toyama denied that the IRC would become a warehouse for "zombie" companies, saying it aimed to sell on investments within three years of purchase. He admitted that some turnarounds might fail, leaving the IRC - and ultimately the taxpayer - to foot the bill. "There is always a risk in turnarounds. The IRC has been established to take the risk that sometimes private creditors cannot afford." Mr Toyama was a founder of Corporate Directions, one of Japan's few corporate turnaround specialists, and helped salvage a number of well-known companies including Japan Lease and Akiyama Printer. The IRC, which has a staff of about 100, will rely heavily on outsourcing to experts inside and outside Japan. news.ft.com