Standard & Poor's Corp. on Monday withdrew its threat to downgrade the U.S. government for a second time, citing an improving economy and declining budget deficits. But it said the U.S. still falls short of getting a AAA rating because the two bickering political parties refuse to bridge their differences and address long-term debt problems.
The government is already struggling to manage the more than 195,000 foreclosed homes it now possesses and is ill-prepared as a new wave of foreclosures looms on the horizon, according to federal watchdogs who paint a less rosy picture of the housing market than politicians.
For many investors, the more than halving of the deficit from a high of $1.55 trillion during the depths of the recession is the latest sign that the economy finally has turned the corner and is on a solidly upward path.
As a Realtor in Orange County, California, Gary Thomas lives at the epicenter of the last decade’s epic housing boom and bust that is only now beginning to release the economy from its withering grip.
Fannie Mae will return nearly $59 billion to taxpayers after experiencing its best-ever profits last quarter, the mortgage giant announced Thursday.
Have you heard about a nation so in debt, it is seizing assets from the bank accounts of private citizens? On the other side of the world, a modern-day Greek tragedy is taking place now on the island of Cyprus that has implication here at home.
President Obama outright demagogued his way to re-election and more government control over the economy by blaming the free market for the 2008 financial crisis. Now the administration is pushing banks to make more home loans to borrowers with weaker credit by using government programs to insure them against default, at a time when the federal government is already underwriting 90 percent of mortgages.
There is evidently no idea bad enough and no failure severe enough to stop the government from trying it once again. In myopia remarkable even by abysmal government standards, the White House is pushing for policies that fueled the housing bubble, which burst a mere five years ago.
Fannie Mae, the mortgage finance giant that was bailed out by the federal government five years ago, posted in 2012 its first annual profit since before the housing crisis and the largest in company history.
