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June
26, 2003
Paul
de Rooij
Ambient Death in Palestine
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The Best Show in Town
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June
26, 2003
Squatting in Mansions
How
Many People Really Own Their Homes?
By
SHELDON HULL
Great times are looming for bargain-hunters, if
you have cash: the Washington Post reported on June 21 that
the percentage of all mortgages currently in default has reached
an all-time high of 1.2%, replacing the previous high of 1.18%
set in the fourth quarter of 2002. Adding the 4.53% that are
"delinquent," 30 days late or more, means that nearly
six percent of all mortgages on the books today may or not be
paid. That could mean billions of dollars in the short-term,
and all sorts of chain-reaction damage in the medium, which
could cut into property values across the country. My problem
is that I cannot wholeheartedly endorse home-ownership at this
particular time because the specter of economic catastrophe looms,
its shadow only recently falling upon the vaunted housing market.
I know this from having read myself-which more people should
do, when possible.
Among the columns submitted and rejected
for publication in recent months was a gem from January. It's
premise was that the US housing market, which has helped sustain
the nation's financial health and had to that point escaped
the negative trends then (and still) common among other core
economic indicators, was not far off from serious problems itself.
I got that impression from parsing the annual report by the
Office of Financial Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), whose
major duty is the regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The report, "Systemic Risk," took the unusual step
of requesting federal authority to place Fannie and Freddie,
the second- and fourth-largest financial services institutions
in America, into receivership, if such a thing were ever necessary.
The mere suggestion was sufficiently scandalous to get OFHEO's
head run out of his spot, and the press generally ignored the
hint.
Now, a half-year later, events once thought
inconceivable are now moving into position, which is bad news
for the housing market. Only two weeks after Freddie Mac's president
was fired for "irregular accounting practices," Fannie
Mae is now under pressure for having possibly invented up to
$4.6 billion in profit for FY2002, writes the esteemed Alex Berenson
of the New York Times. If Fannie and Freddie are forced to restate
earnings reports or worse, it would severely compromise the
ability of regular Americans to finance their homes, and of
lending institutions to flip that consumer-debt into working
capital by selling mortgages to the FMs. We should hope the
scandal goes no deeper than Fannie's covering up losses caused
by interest-rate cuts last summer, because a deeper, more "systemic"
sort of rot could pop the last remaining bubble undergirding
our shaky economy.
As I write (June 23), the week's big
issue is whether the Fed will lower its interest-rate by 25
or 50 basis points, a one-quarter or one-half point cut to stimulate
investment. There are a certain number of people who will continue
to play the markets regardless of what happens, because it's
their job. Others are less certain to stay in as more difficulties
arise, and some of them represent the kind of Big Money that
must be kept happy for fear of mass panic. It already seems
that much of the world's short-term planning is based on the
presumption that a US economic collapse is at least possible.
Master speculator (and marijuana decriminalization
czar) George Soros is holding a short position on the US Dollar,
meaning he expects it to continue losing value against other
currencies, including the Euro, which was near its all-time
low three months ago when I predicted exactly the kind of huge
gains it has since made. Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway
group has turned its biggest profits ever during the last two
years, simply by exploiting the markets' general unwillingness
to tell the truth about exactly what fueled the 1990s boom market:
a credit bubble that has left the country with more debt than
disposable income (according to); a sustained assault on American
labor; and an unprecedented explosion of new technology that
incited fundamental changes in how we live. None of these factors
will be present to assist in the next economic recovery, but
you can't say that in public. Why? Because it is the average
American's willingness to spend beyond his or her means that
drives this freakish incarnation of our political-economy, which
requires strict controls to be placed on the information they
are given. Unless one reads, say, the NYT, Wall Street Journal
and the Financial Times of London daily, supplemented by EIR
fringe-work and selected volumes of Murray Rothbard, it is likely
that one will be unaware of what's really happening until it
is too late.
Shelton Hull
is a freelance journalist and writer based in Jacksonville,
FL. He has been published by Counterpunch, Folio Weekly, Ink
19 and Section 8 Magazine, among others. Please send comments
to sdh666@hotmail.com
Weekend
Edition Features
Alexander
Cockburn
My Life as a Rabbi
William
A. Cook
The Scourge of Hopelessness
Standard
Schaefer
The Wages of Terror: an Interview with R.T. Naylor
Ron Jacobs
US Prisons as Strategic Hamlets
Harry
Browne
The Pitstop Ploughshares
Lawrence
Magnuson
WMD: The Most Dangerous Game
Harold
Gould
Saddam and the WMD Mystery
David Krieger
10 Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Avia
Pasternak
The Unholy Alliance in the Occupied Territories
CounterPunch
Summer Reading:
Our Favorite Novels
Todd Chretien
Return to Sender: Todd Gitlin, the Duke of Condescension
Maria
Tomchick
Danny Goldberg's Imaginary Kids
Adam Engel
The Fat Man in Little Boy
Poets'
Basement
Guthrie, Albert & Hamod
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