NewsTrust - Housing - Most Recent Stories

Van Jones: Bank Settlement: $25B Down, $675B to Go

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - By Van Jones - Feb. 12 (News Analysis) - 'We must not forget the more than 14 million homeowners (one in five) whose homes are underwater, beneath a crushing total $700 billion in negative equity. We must not forget the more than 4 million families who have lost their homes.' Van Jones, Reader Supported News

NewsTrust Rating: 4.4 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

50-State, $25B Mortgage Settlement: Relief for Struggling Homeowners or Bailout for Big Banks?

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Feb. 10 (News Analysis) - The U.S. Justice Department has unveiled a record mortgage settlement with the nation's five largest banks to resolve claims over faulty foreclosures and mortgage practices that have indebted and displaced homeowners and sunk the nation's economy. While the deal is being described as a $25 billion settlement, the banks will only have to pay out a total of $5 billion in cash between them. We speak to one of the settlement's most prominent critics, Yves Smith, a longtime financial analyst who runs the popular finance website, "Naked Capitalism." "The settlement, on the surface, does look like it's helping homeowners," Smith says. "But, in fact, the bigger part that most people don't recognize is the way it actually helps the banks with mortgages on their own books... The real problem is that this deal is just not going to give that much relief." [includes rush transcript]

NewsTrust Rating: 4.2 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Taibbi: Mortgage Fraud Settlement is More Like a Bailout Than Justice

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Kristen Gwynne - Feb. 10 (News Analysis) - Tabbi says that as more of the banks' bad behavior is exposed, it will become obvious that they must shut down to pay for their crimes, because the reparations necessary would bleed them dry. This settlement, he says, is a "kewpie doll" for victims of banker greed, and won't "stem the tide or turn the tables for these people."

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Catholic hospitals split on giving contraceptives

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

San Francisco Chronicle - By bottomline@sfchronicle.com (Andrew S. Ross, Chronicle Columnist) - Feb. 06 - Presented By: Chicago Booth Business Forecast Ads by ...

NewsTrust Rating: 3.3 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Op-Ed Columnist: Things Are Not O.K.

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Feb. 05 (Opinion) - The unemployment report was genuinely good, but there’s a downside: the calls to stop focusing on job creation.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.1 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Reagan’s Road to Climate Perdition

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Consortium News - By Consortiumnews.com - Jan. 30 - Reagan’s Road to Climate Perdition

NewsTrust Rating: 4.7 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Most Important Speech of His Presidency

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Robert Reich's Blog - By Robert Reich - Dec. 07 (Opinion) - The President’s speech today in Osawatomie, Kansas — where Teddy Roosevelt gave his “New Nationalism” speech in 1910 — is the most important economic speech of his presidency in terms of connecting the dots, laying out the reasons behind our economic and political crises, and asserting a willingness to take on the powerful and the privileged that have gamed the system to their advantage.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.1 average - 5 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Flipping Through DNC Playbook on Romney

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

FactCheck - By Eugene Kiely, Lori Robertson, Robert Farley, Brooks Jackson, D’Angelo Gore, Scott Blackburn, Lalita Clozel - Dec. 01 (Fact Check) - The Democratic National Committee casts Mitt Romney as an untrustworthy flip-flopper in a lengthy Web video, but pads a long list of examples with some falsehoods and distortions. It's true that Romney has changed or modified his position on some major issues -- including abortion, a federal assault weapons ban and Reaganomics, as the DNC says. But the video strains the truth ... More >>

NewsTrust Rating: 4.1 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Op-Ed Columnist: A Banker Speaks, With Regret

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Nicholas D. Kristof - Nov. 30 (Opinion) - A former banker for Chase Home Finance speaks up about how executives were encouraged to make subprime mortgages and were rewarded for it.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.2 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Archbishop Rowan Williams backs revolt against coalition's welfare cuts

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Daniel Boffey - Nov. 20 - Church of England bishops unite to take a moral stand against controversial policies that they say will hit the poorest hardest Bishops across the country, backed by Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, have condemned the coalition government's controversial welfare reforms, which they say risk pushing thousands of children into poverty and homelessness. Eighteen Church of England bishops, backed by Williams and the archbishop of York, John Sentamu, are demanding that ministers rewrite their flagship plan to impose a £500-a-week benefit cap on families. In an open letter in Observer, they say the Church of England has a "moral obligation to speak up for those who have no voice". Their message is that the cap could be "profoundly unjust" to the poorest children in society, especially those in larger families and those living in expensive major cities. The high-profile intervention comes after the Church of England became embroiled in an embarrassing row over its attitude to ...

NewsTrust Rating: 3.4 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Is capitalism broken... and what is the world going to do to fix it?

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Yvonne Roberts - Nov. 06 (Opinion) - Louise Cooper, Will Hutton, Mark Littlewood, Tanya Paton and William Taylor join a round table discussion on the issues raised by the global Occupy movement T here is no doubt that it has been an extraordinary three weeks. It began with Occupy LSX taking up residence around St Paul's, a protest that exposed the dithering of the Church of England. Occupy LSX has since sparked a remarkable national debate about the kind of society in which we want to live, its priorities and values. In that spirit, the Observer brought together several opposing voices to continue the great debate. Yvonne Roberts So, can capitalism be fixed, Louise? Louise Cooper It's all a question of balance and I think it's moving the pivotal point back a little. Capitalism is clearly the only way that economies work. Capitalism works in the biggest communist state, China. So, as with everything, there needs to be a balance between the returns to those that supply capital and those that supply human capital. Maybe ...

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Fed-up customers taking action against big banks

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salt Lake Tribune - Oct. 20 - By paul beebe The Salt Lake Tribune Published Oct 19, 2011 07:41PM MDT Public anger that sparked the Occupy Wall Street protest is spilling over into direct action against Utah and U.S. banks, especially ones that took federal bailout money and charge high bank fees to make up for lost income while cutting back on lending and paying big bonuses. The fury is showing up in calls for customers to move their deposits to other banks or credit unions as a way to strike back at financial institutions that activists say have too much power in Washington. The latest moveme... ...

NewsTrust Rating: 3.7 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

9 Policies Conservatives Were For Long Before They Were Against Them

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Joshua Holland - Sep. 22 (News Analysis) - Journalist Steve Benen noted that while "the record here may be inconvenient for the right ... it's also unambiguous: the mandate Republicans currently hate was their idea." It was championed by the Heritage Foundation ... Nixon embraced it in the 1970s, and George H.W. Bush kept it going in the 1980s. For years, it was touted by the likes of John McCain, Mitt Romney, Scott Brown, Chuck Grassley, Bob Bennett, Tommy Thompson, Lamar Alexander, Lindsey Graham, John Thune, Judd Gregg, and many other ... notable GOP officials.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.1 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Obama's "21st Century Trade Deals" Look a Lot Like the Same Bad Policies He Campaigned Against

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Timothy A. Wise, Kevin Gallagher, Comment Is Free - Sep. 09 - Starting this week in Chicago, the US will be hosting the first major trade negotiations since the "Battle in Seattle" World Trade Organisation talks came here in 1999.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.8 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Poll: Obama faces trouble with key voters

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salt Lake Tribune - Aug. 28 - By KEN THOMAS and JENNIFER AGIESTA The Associated Press Published Aug 27, 2011 05:13PM MDT Washington • Whites and women are a re-election problem for President Barack Obama. Younger voters and liberals, too, but to a lesser extent. All are important Democratic constituencies that helped him win the White House in 2008 and whose support he’ll need to keep it next year. An analysis of Associated Press-GfK polls, including the latest survey released last week, shows that Obama has lost ground among all those groups since he took office. The review points to his vulnerabilities and prob... ...

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Wendover’s nuclear secrets revealed

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salt Lake Tribune - Aug. 28 - By Scott D. Pierce The Salt Lake Tribune Published Aug 27, 2011 04:59PM MDT Wendover • For the first time in decades, Historic Wendover Airfield revealed its nuclear secrets to a small group of guests who got a look at what’s on the south side of the still-operational runway. And a peek at pieces of American history. Wendover is where flight crews trained to drop the atomic bombs that ended World War II and where those bombs, Fat Man and Little Boy, were developed and assembled (with the exception of the atomic warheads). “It’s awesome,” said Faye Sanders, of Salt Lake ... ...

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Wall Street Aristocracy Secretly Got $1.2 Trillion From Fed

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Bloomberg - By Bradley Keoun, Phil Kuntz - Aug. 22 (Special Report) - Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. were the reigning champions of finance in 2006 as home prices peaked, leading the 10 biggest US banks and brokerage firms to their best year ever with $104 billion of profits. By 2008, the housing market's collapse forced those companies to take more than six times as much, $669 billion, in emergency loans from the US Federal Reserve. The loans dwarfed the $160 billion in public bailouts the top 10 got from the US Treasury, yet until now the full amounts have remained secret

NewsTrust Rating: 4.0 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Huntsman hits Perry on climate change, Fed

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salt Lake Tribune - Aug. 21 - The Associated Press Published Aug 20, 2011 06:07PM MDT Washington • Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman is pounding away at rival Rick Perry’s skepticism of manmade global warming and criticism of the nation’s central banker, saying those stands hurt the GOP and make the Texas governor come off as a not-so-serious national figure. Huntsman, a former Utah governor who was President Barack Obama’s first ambassador to China, has trailed in early polls nationally and in early voting states, leading his campaign to pledge more aggressive attacks on the t... ...

NewsTrust Rating: 2.3 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Fear of the tea party

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salt Lake Tribune - Aug. 08 - Published Aug 7, 2011 09:20PM MDT Shame on the Utah Republican members of Congress who voted against the bill to raise the nation’s debt limit. Contrast that to Rep. Jim Matheson and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., who put their country first above petty politics. Giffords, recovering from an assassin’s bullet, said she voted for the measure because “I could not take the chance that my absence could crash our economy.” Conservative-loving Utahns have been sold out by their so-called leaders in Washington who would not support ... ...

NewsTrust Rating: 1.2 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Isolated, Vulnerable And Broke

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Douglas S. Massey - Aug. 05 (Opinion) - ACCORDING to a new study by the Pew Research Center, Hispanic families saw the largest decline in wealth of any racial or ethnic group in the country during the latter half of the last decade: from 2005 to 2009, their median wealth fell by an astounding 66 percent. The reason? The implosion of the housing market, where Hispanic families had invested much of their wealth. But that’s only the latest chapter in a much longer story. Over the past two decades Hispanics have moved from the middle of the socioeconomic hierarchy, between blacks and whites, to a position below both. On virtually every indicator of socioeconomic welfare, Hispanics fell relative to blacks.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.7 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Why Obama won’t face a primary challenge

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Harold Meyerson - Aug. 04 (Opinion) - President Obama is faring poorly these days, but he can console himself with the fact that he’ll probably be spared the fate of previous presidents who fell on hard times: a primary challenge. Those groups within the Democratic Party that might otherwise be shopping around for a more forthrightly progressive alternative are deterred by two factors: the likelihood that any challenge will end up helping a radicalized Republican Party and the fact that Obama is black.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

How the GOP lost on the debt deal

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Daniel Markovits - Aug. 03 (Opinion) - The deal reached by Congress eliminates the leverage that would have been created by another imminent default until after the next election, where it will be exercised by new and possibly differently constituted players.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.7 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

GOP's hard right shift may put deal at risk

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Politico - By David Rogers - Jul. 18 - David Rogers / The Politico: GOP's hard right shift in debt talks may put deal at risk — Turning right with a vengeance, Republicans will bring to the House floor Tuesday a newly revised debt-ceiling bill that is remarkable for its total absence of compromise at this late date, two weeks before the threat of default.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.6 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Deficit hopes scaled back as Boehner pulls support

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Lisa Mascaro, Christi Parsons, Peter Nicholas - Jul. 10 (News Report) - The Republican House speaker bows to party pressure and says he'll seek a smaller agreement. President Obama has not abandoned the idea of a bargain that would reduce deficits by $4 trillion over 10 years.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.1 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Why the Southwest is burning

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salt Lake Tribune - Jul. 09 - By william debuys Writers on the Range Published Jul 8, 2011 04:25PM MDT No big thing happens for just one reason. This season’s fires, cutting broad swaths across the Southwest, result from the convergence of three powerful forces: climatic drought, institutional tunnel vision, and old-fashioned human frailty. On the face of it, the drought is simple: There hasn’t been much rain or snow across much of the region, and the forests are tinder dry. Many people ask if climate change might be a factor. A definite answer is both impossible and obvious to give — impossible ... ...

NewsTrust Rating: 3.9 average - 4 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer