©2010 NPR  This morning, President Obama will call on lawmakers to extend unemployment benefits for people who have been out of work for a long period of time, NPR's Scott Horsley reports. The president is scheduled to speak in the Rose Garden at the White House. For the second time in three days, President Obama is planning to unload on his Republican adversaries, calling them out for blocking the passage of emergency unemployment insurance. About 2.5 million unemployed Americans have already exhausted their jobless benefits, and unless Congress acts to extend the safety net, hundreds of thousands more will stop getting checks this month. The average u ...
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©MSNBC.com 2010  They're big, they're bad, they're sucking up billions of taxpayer dollars and they're not even addressed in the most sweeping overhaul of the financial system since the Great Depression.   Two years after a wave of rogue mortgage lending sent the global financial system to the brink of collapse, Congress has put the finishing touches on a hotly-debated set of regulations to try to prevent it from happening again. The Senate passed the regulatory reform bill Thursday, paving the way for President Barack Obama to sign into law his administration’s third piece of major legislation.  Unfortunately, the new law has a g ...
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©2010 summit daily news    Of all the current and future impacts of climate change, threats to water resources may be the most painful in the American West, according to a new report.“Protecting the lifeline of the West,” written by Western Resource Advocates, a Boulder-based environmental law and policy organization, brings together dozens of studies by climate and water experts, detailing the ways in which water, energy and climate are deeply entwined in states like Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Arizona.“Of all the implications of a hotter climate, the water implications are the most dramatic or long-term,” said Bart Miller, the organization&# ...
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© 247wallst.com The number of foreclosures in the US hit 1.65 million in the first half. That is an increase of 8% from the same period last year, and a 5% decrease from  the previous six months, according to RealtyTrac. The report also shows that 1.28 percent of all U.S. housing units (one in 78) received at least one foreclosure filing in the first half of the year.There is a silver lining.  “June numbers improved modestly, ” according to the analysis. “Foreclosure filings were reported on 313,841 U.S. properties in June, a decrease of nearly 3 percent from the previous month and a decrease of nearly 7 percent from June 2009. June was the six ...
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In spite of drastically falling home values, few buyers have remorse about buying. According to a new survey from Bankrate.com, 90% of homeowners surveyed by phone say they have no regrets.Among those that were unhappy, 31% said it’s because they cannot sell while 22% can’t afford the monthly mortgage. Additionally, 12% percent are not fans of their current neighborhood/location.The poll was conducted between June 24 and June 27 and surveyed more than 1,000 adult homeowners. ...
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©2010 A/P  The special inspector general for the financial bailout will examine how 10 states were selected for a $2.1 billion Obama administration plan to aid areas hit by the housing bust.  Bailout watchdog Neil Barofsky is performing the audit in response to a request by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., according to a letter released Tuesday by Issa's office. The Treasury Department has been running the government's "Hardest-Hit" fund, which is stocked with financial rescue money. Read more. ...
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Yavapai County had the fifth-highest number of new foreclosed homes of Arizona's 15 counties in May, RealtyTrac reported recently.Read more. ...
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2010 E&E News Byline: Colin Sullivan, E&E reporter   Federal housing regulators yesterday shot down a financing program employed in California and nearly two dozen other states that lets property owners pay for solar panels and energy-efficiency projects over time through property taxes.  The Federal Housing Finance Agency, in a stern policy statement for federal mortgage holders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, says it could not support use of Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) initiatives because they "present significant risk to lenders and secondary market entities, may alter valuations for mortgage-backed securities and are not essential for succ ...
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©2010 Housingpredictor.com Byline: Mike Colpitts Even before the greatest financial reform legislation is passed by Congress since the Great Depression, Wall Street bankers and creative companies are popping up to finagle another way to rake in billions of dollars in profits from real estate.   Risky Wall Street practices have gained the attention of politicians at the state level, who are mounting efforts at outlawing a new Wall Street real estate financial tool.  Under increasing government scrutiny, Wall Street bankers are rejecting plenty of deals brought to them to creative ...
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The recently-enacted health care reforms included a new tax reporting requirement that has generated significant controversy. Under current law, a business is required to issue a Form 1099 information report of any payment that it makes to an individual or unincorporated entity for services that vendor supplies. The health reform bill expands the reporting requirement by adding a requirement that payments for goods be included in this reporting regime. The new requirement is effective beginning in 2012. The IRS Office of Taxpayer Advocacy (a sort of ombudsman for taxpayer problems) issued a report this week that, among other things, criticized this provision for the great burden it imposes o ...
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