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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mishedlo who wrote (73783)	11/7/2006 9:43:10 AM
From: redfrecknj	Respond to of 110194

[Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich simply had to be out of his mind when he passed an Opportunity I-Loan Program guaranteeing low cost government sponsored mortgage loans for illegal aliens.] Another day, another program. FRESNO, CALIF. - The slumping housing market could get a $200 billion boost from new immigrant home buyers if mainstream lenders start using alternative methods to score credit, a national group of Hispanic real estate agents said Friday. Creditors such as Citigroup's Citibank see recent immigrants as a growing market niche, but those who lack Social Security numbers or legal status in the United States often are rejected by the three major credit bureaus. A handful of new credit reporting systems -- already used by 200 real estate brokers, community groups and mortgage counselors nationwide -- allows lenders to calculate risk by evaluating a prospective client's utility bills, rent checks and other payments. Should the new reporting methods gain wider acceptance on Wall Street and among secondary mortgage lenders like Fannie Mae, housing markets in places such as California's Central Valley would stand to gain the most, the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals said. "Gateway states like California and Texas will disproportionately benefit from the housing boom because so many of their residents are immigrants," said Gary Acosta, the association's co-founder, speaking from the group's annual convention in Las Vegas. "Boosting homeownership among these populations is a positive contribution." A study by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University shows Latinos will account for nearly one-third of the home-buying pool by 2010. That same year, the disposable income of Hispanics will exceed $1.08 trillion, or 9.2 percent of total purchasing power nationwide, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia. No law requires that buyers be in the country legally in order to purchase real estate, Acosta said. As with many other minority and immigrant communities, bringing Hispanic families into the mortgage market is a continuing challenge, say officials at Federal Reserve Banks across the country. Community groups from California to Atlanta have begun offering financial education classes in Spanish as the number of mortgage products available to immigrants and underserved populations has grown.

To: mishedlo who wrote (73783)	11/7/2006 10:21:00 AM
From: Tommaso	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

Sorry, Mish, I had to stop reading your blog when I got to this sentence: >>>For starters we did not really have a "gold standard" <<< Until Roosevelt acted on the authority given him by Congress, devalured the dollar, and made it illegal to hold gold, we certainly did have a gold standard. Anyone could exchange paper money for gold money at any time. It does not lend credibility to anything else that you say or believe if you try to change economic history. The "gold exchange standard" that you mention began with Roosevelt's actions and because the U. S. received so much gold from Europe, mainly, in the next twelve years, it remained more or less in effect until Nixon finally repudiated even that. Since then, we have had a totally fiat currency and the dollar has lost 75% of its purchasing power. I earned $1.50 an hour working for the Forest Service in 1956 and considered that not bad pay. I think the same work probably pays $8.50 an hour now. Bernanke is 95% correct in everything he says, and you are more than 50% wrong. That is why he is Chairman of the Federal Reserve, among other things.