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Using Mortgage Finder to find the best mortgage and remortgage deals could save you thousands of pounds. Find the right cheap mortgage or cheapest remortgage. Lenders are starting to bring in tracker mortgages after they deserted the market when the ...

Tracker mortgages return, but not for first-time buyers - MyFinances.co.uk

The owner or owners of this house on River Ridge Drive in Marstons Mills seek a buyer for the property. Sales are up on the Cape, but transaction prices are down. Mortgage loans decline, foreclosures increase M ore properties are selling, but for ...

Real estate sales rise, prices fall on Cape Cod - Cape Cod Today

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- AIG may have gotten a $150 billion deal Monday, but that's just a small fraction of the nearly $3 trillion in financial rescue programs the government has created to stabilize the U.S. economy. The Federal Reserve and U.S ...

Where AIG's new bailout ranks - CNN Money

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The government has stepped in with nearly $152.5 billion to try and stabilize AIG. The nation's banks are tapping even more. Now General Motors wants its own bailout. On Friday, GM ( GM , Fortune 500 ) said it is running ...

Year of the bailout - and now GM? - CNN Money

(CEP News) Toronto - The Canadian government will purchase up to an additional $50 billion of insured mortgage pools by the end of the fiscal year to boost credit availability, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Wednesday. That will bring the total ...

Canadian Government Adds $50 Billion to Mortgage Program - Economicnews

You wouldnâ€™t expect a $1 million home on Easy Street on Smith Mountain Lake to end up in the same situation as a $20,000 house from inner-city Lynchburg. One was built as a lakeside mini-mansion in 2006. It has 5,200 square feet, granite ...

Losing it all: Subprime loan mess slamming doors on homebuyers in ... - Lynchburg News and Advance

Please register to gain free access to WSJ tools. An account already exists for the email address entered. To understand the dynamic of how big banks and companies are raising money these days, look to General Electric and J.P. Morgan. In these ...

Register for FREE - Wall Street Journal

This report was originally written following the Government's shock interest rate announcement on 6 November, but was updated to include news of the tranche of fixed-rate deals that were pulled from the market in the following 24 hours. Below that ...

A round-up of the best fixed-rate savings - This is Money

Highlights of Q3 2008 compared to Q3 2007 - Originations grew by 10% to a quarterly record of $38 million; - The mortgage portfolio grew by 18% to $798 million; - Normalized income per unit decreased 21% to %0.286; - Monthly distribution per unit ...

Home Equity Income Trust Announces the Release of its Third Quarter ... - CNW Group

To members of Congress, President Bush, President-Elect Obama, fellow Americans, and current and future residents of the Phoenix area, the state of the Phoenix real estate market is â€œweary but hopeful.â€ Numerous challenges including an onslaught ...

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Resolved Question: please help me summarize this ASAP!its an article?

Crisis marks out a new geopolitical order By Philip Stephens Published: October 9 2008 19:32 | Last updated: October 9 2008 19:32 Blame greedy bankers. Blame Alan Greenspanâ€™s careless stewardship of the US Federal Reserve. Blame feckless homeowners who took out loans they could never expect to repay. Blame politicians and regulators everywhere for closing their eyes to the approaching tempest. EDITORâ€™S CHOICE Comment on this column - Jun-23More from this columnist - Aug-23All of the above are culpable. I am sure there are even more villains lurking out there. Sometimes, though, it is worth looking through the other end of the telescope. The wreckage of the financial system holds up a mirror to the changing geopolitical balance. It offers advice, and a warning, as to what the west should make of the emerging global order. Until quite recently, the talk was about the humbling of Americaâ€™s laisser faire capitalism. The US governmentâ€™s $700bn bail-out was the price to be paid for past hubris. For reasons that still elude me, one or two European politicians seemed to delight in the troubles of an ally that still guarantees their security. Schadenfreude comes before a fall. Solid, conservative Germany has been among the European nations forced to shore up its banks. Angela Merkel, the chancellor, has been driven to assure German voters publicly that their savings are safe. Belgium and the Netherlands have rescued Fortis. Ireland and Greece have issued blanket guarantees to bank depositors. Others have done something similar. Most dramatically, Gordon Brownâ€™s British government has part-nationalised all of its leading banks in a desperate bid to crack the ice of the credit freeze. If the toxic mortgage securities and opaque credit swaps that infected the worldâ€™s financial system came with a made-in-the-US stamp, European banks were eager buyers. For the humbling of America, we should substitute the humbling of the west. Asia, as we have seen in the markets this week, is not immune from the shocks and stresses. Japan, which has only quite recently emerged from the long twilight of its 1990s banking collapse, has now been hit anew by the global storm. China felt compelled this week to follow western central banks in cutting interest rates. So did a host of smaller Asian countries. Recession in the US and Europe will slow the growth of Asiaâ€™s rising economies. Standing back, though, two things mark out this crisis as unique. First, is its sheer ferocity. I am not sure how useful it is to make comparisons with the 1930s. History never travels in a straight line. What is evident is that governments and central banks have had no previous experience of coping with shocks and stresses of the intensity and ubiquity we have seen during the past year. The second difference is one of geography. For the first time, the epicentre has been in the west. Viewed from Washington, London or Paris, financial crises used to be things that happened to someone else â€“ to Latin America, to Asia, to Russia. The shock waves would sometimes lap at western shores, usually in the form of demands that the rich nations rescue their own imprudent banks. But these crises drew a line between north and south, between the industrialised and developing world. Emerging nations got into a mess; the west told them sternly what they must do to get out of it. The instructions came in the form of the aptly-named Washington consensus: the painful prescriptions, including market liberalisation and fiscal consolidation, imposed as the price of financial support from the International Monetary Fund. This time the crisis started on Wall Street, triggered by the steep decline in US house prices. The emerging nations have been the victims rather than the culprit. And the reason for this reversal of roles? They had supped enough of the westâ€™s medicine. A decade ago, after the crisis of 1997-98 wrought devastation on some of its most vibrant economies, Asia said never again. There would be no more going cap in hand when the going got rough. To avoid the IMFâ€™s ruinous rules, governments would build their own defences against adversity by accumulating reserves of foreign currency. Those reserves â€“ more than $4,000bn-worth at the present count â€“ financed credit in the US and Europe. There were other sources of liquidity, of course, notably the Fed and the reserves accumulated by energy producers. It also took financial chicanery to turn reckless mortgage lending in to triple A rated securities. But as a Chinese official told my FT colleague David Pilling the other day: â€œAmerica drowned itself in Asian liquidity.â€ Owning up to the geopolitical implications will be as painful for the rich nations as paying the domestic price for the profligacy. The erosion of the westâ€™s moral authority that began with the Iraq war has been greatly accelerated. The westâ€™s debtors cannot any longer expect their creditors to listen t more

Resolved Question: Will Obama win like Kerry did?

Kerry (9/2/2004), "We are in the worst economy since the Great Depression." Obama (9/16/2008), "We are in the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression." Even back in 2003, Kerry said, "We've had the greatest job loss since the Great Depression.â€ Of course FactCheck said, in their words, "Comparing the current job slump to the Great Depression is ludicrous." Kerry was talking about an unemployment rate of 6.4% and today we are at 6.1 I think we are starting to see the same desperation and exaggeration that happened in Kerry's campaign. Many were not around during the depression but there were some of us that had parents old enough to explain in detail what it was like. 1 out of every 4 people were unemployed and there were soup lines where people would stand waiting to be fed so they would not starve. I think this can fool a lot of the kids to make them believe times are almost as bad as back then, but there is no comparison. The worst of times since the Great Depression was during the Carter (he also ran on the policy of "change") administration where mortgage interest rates topped 21%. ==== You guys don't even know your candidate. You are comparing him to Bill Clinton. That couldn't be further from the truth. Compare him to Carter. His bid mirrors Carter's, including his goals. The political experts pointed this out at the beginning and the reason there is so much distance between him and Clinton. It's a pipe dream to think another dot-com boom will come along and bail us out like during Clinton... it won't happen folks. ========== mrtester1959->"Not really sure of the point of your comparison." The point is mrtester1959... When Kerry started losing he started claiming we are in the worst economy since the great depression. Now Obama is doing the exact same thing. That's the point in black and white, if you didn't get it the first time. more

Voting Question: Will you rate how bad my life is sucking on a scale of 1 to 10?

In comparison to yours if you wish 1 being really crappy, 10 being the best details: -I've been happily married for 2 years, I think our relationship is amazing, and I love him more than I ever thought he would -We just bought our first house! BUT we financed it though his mother, and pay her like a mortgage, and she now want's her money back, we must refinance or sell -I'm addicted to pain killers (really expensive) -I must admit, I'm the worst alcoholic I know, when I don't have pills, I drink up to a 1/2 a fifth a night -We just got the greatest dog ever, we love her sooo much! -I hate my job, of course I've never liked any job, who does, but this one is taking a toll on my body and my mind, and because of the house thing, I can't quit -I really love my husband -I love my family (except my mother, who I hate) -My sibling is addicted to drugs, worse than I am, and I constantly worry that he will accidently overdose, or kill himself. -My psychiatrist put me on ritalin, and though it doesn't do anything, I still take it and think I'm becoming dependent. there are so many other things, but these stand out the most. so, do you think I'm normal, or f'd up? and I'm only 23 more

Resolved Question: will you rate how bad my life is sucking on a scale of 1 to 10?

Resolved Question: Is "ALL WELL" with the banking system? I think not? Your thoughts?

1. Paulson appears on Face The Nation and says "Our banking system is a safe and a sound one." If the banking system was safe and sound, everyone would know it (or at least think it). There would be no need to say it. 2. Paulson says the list of troubled banks "is a very manageable situation". The reality is there are 90 banks on the list of problem banks. Indymac was not one of them until a month before it collapsed. How many other banks will magically appear on the list a month before they collapse? 3. In a Northern Rock moment, depositors at Indymac pull out their cash. Police had to be called in to ensure order. 4. Washington Mutual (WM), another troubled bank, refused to honor Indymac cashier's checks. The irony is it makes no sense for customers to pull insured deposits out of Indymac after it went into receivership. The second irony is the last place one would want to put those funds would be Washington Mutual. Eventually Washington Mutual decided it would take those checks but with an 8 week hold. Will Washington Mutual even be around 8 weeks from now? 5. Paulson asked for "Congressional authority to buy unlimited stakes in and lend to Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE)" just days after he said "Financial Institutions Must Be Allowed To Fail". Obviously Paulson is reporting from the 5th dimension. In some alternate universe, his statements just might make sense. 6. Former Fed Governor William Poole says "Fannie Mae, Freddie Losses Makes Them Insolvent". 7. Paulson says Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are "essential" because they represent the only "functioning" part of the home loan market. The firms own or guarantee about half of the $12 trillion in U.S. mortgages. Is it possible to have a sound banking system when the only "functioning" part of the mortgage market is insolvent? 8. Bernanke testified before Congress on monetary policy but did not comment on either money supply or interest rates. The word "money" did not appear at all in his testimony. The only time "interest rate" appeared in his testimony was in relation to consumer credit card rates. How can you have any reasonable economic policy when the Fed chairman is scared half to death to discuss interest rates and money supply? 9. The SEC issued a protective order to protect those most responsible for naked short selling. As long as the investment banks and brokers were making money engaging in naked shorting of stocks, there was no problem. However, when the bears began using the tactic against the big financials, it became time to selectively enforce the existing regulation. 10. The Fed takes emergency actions twice during options expirations week in regards to the discount window and rate cuts. 11. The SEC takes emergency action during options expirations week regarding short sales. 12. The Fed has implemented an alphabet soup of pawn shop lending facilities whereby the Fed accepts garbage as collateral in exchange for treasuries. Those new Fed lending facilities are called the Term Auction Facility (TAF), the Term Security Lending Facility (TSLF), and the Primary Dealer Credit Facility (PDCF). 13. Citigroup (C), Lehman (LEH), Morgan Stanley(MS), Goldman Sachs (GS) and Merrill Lynch (MER) all have a huge percentage of level 3 assets. Level 3 assets are commonly known as "marked to fantasy" assets. In other words, the value of those assets is significantly if not ridiculously overvalued in comparison to what those assets would fetch on the open market. It is debatable if any of the above firms survive in their present form. Some may not survive in any form. 14. Bernanke openly solicits private equity firms to invest in banks. Is this even close to a remotely normal action for Fed chairman to take? 15. Bear Stearns was taken over by JPMorgan (JPM) days after insuring investors it had plenty of capital. Fears are high that Lehman will suffer the same fate. Worse yet, the Fed had to guarantee the shotgun marriage between Bear Stearns and JP Morgan by providing as much as $30 billion in capital. JPMorgan is responsible for only the first 1/2 billion. Taxpayers are on the hook for all the rest. Was this a legal action for the Fed to take? Does the Fed care? 16. Citigroup needed a cash injection from Abu Dhabi and a second one elsewhere. Then after announcing it would not need more capital is raising still more. The latest news is Citigroup will sell $500 billion in assets. To who? At what price? 17. Merrill Lynch raised $6.6 billion in capital from Kuwait Mizuho, announced it did not need to raise more capital, then raised more capital a few week later. 18. Morgan Stanley sold a 9.9% equity stake to China International Corp. CEO John Mack compensated by not taking his bonus. How generous. Morgan Stanley fell from $72 to $37. Did CEO John Mack deserve a paycheck at all? 19. Bank of America (BAC) agreed to take over Countywide Financial (CFC) and twice announced Countrywide will add profits to B of A. Inquiring minds were asking "How the hell can Countrywide add to Bank of America earnings?" Here's how. Bank of America just announced it will not guarantee $38.1 billion in Countrywide debt. Questions over "Fraudulent Conveyance" are now surfacing. 20. Washington Mutual agreed to a death spiral cash infusion of $7 billion accepting an offer at $8.75 when the stock was over $13 at the time. Washington Mutual has since fallen in waterfall fashion from $40 and is now trading near $5.00 after a huge rally. 21. Shares of Ambac (ABK) fell from $90 to $2.50. Shares of MBIA (MBI) fell from $70 to $5. Sadly, the top three rating agencies kept their rating on the pair at AAA nearly all the way down. No one can believe anything the government sponsored rating agencies say. 22. In a panic set of moves, the Fed slashed interest rates from 5.25% to 2%. This was the fastest, steepest drop on record. Ironically, the Fed chairman spoke of inflation concerns the entire drop down. Bernanke clearly cannot tell the truth. He does not have to. Actions speak louder than words. 23. FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said the FDIC is looking for ways to shore up its depleted deposit fund, including charging higher premiums on riskier brokered deposits. 24. There is roughly $6.84 Trillion in bank deposits. $2.60 Trillion of that is uninsured. There is only $53 billion in FDIC insurance to cover $6.84 Trillion in bank deposits. Indymac will eat up roughly $8 billion of that. 25. Of the $6.84 Trillion in bank deposits, the total cash on hand at banks is a mere $273.7 Billion. Where is the rest of the loot? The answer is in off balance sheet SIVs, imploding commercial real estate deals, Alt-A liar loans, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds, toggle bonds where debt is amazingly paid back with more debt, and all sorts of other silly (and arguably fraudulent) financial wizardry schemes that have bank and brokerage firms leveraged at 30-1 or more. Those loans cannot be paid back. What cannot be paid back will be defaulted on. If you did not know it before, you do now. The entire US banking system is insolvent. I have my garden, well stocked pantry sheld, outdoor stove, fire wood and propone burners. This will get worse...much much worse........good luck to all!!....be prepared more

Resolved Question: Is Obama Disigenuous?

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23643866-5013948,00.html The illusion that is Barack Obama * Font Size: Decrease Increase * Print Page: Print Fred Siegel | May 05, 2008 POLITICAL campaigning necessarily produces a wide gap between words and deeds. This is the price of bringing together a broad coalition with disparate interests. All effective politicians are at times authentically insincere or sincerely inauthentic. Exaggeration, embellishment, overstatement, doubletalk, deception and lies presented as metaphorical truths are the order of the day. So, of course, Barack Obama is no different. He exaggerates the credit he deserves for a limited piece of ethics-reform legislation. He embellishes when he presents himself as having had a consistent record on the Iraq war when in fact he's done a fair amount of zigzagging. He engages in doubletalk when, on free trade and Iraq, he tells the yokels one thing and the policy people another. He overstates when he presents his minimal accomplishments in the Illinois Senate as proof of his stature. He engages in systematic deception when he says he doesn't take money from lobbyists. He presents a lie as metaphorical truth when he says it was the 1965 bloody Sunday attacks on peaceful civil rights protesters in Selma, Alabama, that inspired his parents to marry. (They had been married for years already.) All of this is unappealing, but also unexceptional. What makes it different is that there's not just a gap but a chasm between his actions and his professed principles, which would normally kill a candidacy. And because his deeds are so few, the disparity is all the more salient. Obama, far more than the others, is the "judge me by what I say and not what I do" candidate. He wants to be the conscience of the country without necessarily having one himself. The disparity between Obama's rhetoric of transcendence and his conventional Chicago racial and patronage politics is a leitmotiv of his political career. In New York, politicians (Al Sharpton excepted) are usually forced to pay at least passing tribute to universal principles and the ideal of clean government. But Chicago, until recently a city of Lithuanians, blacks and Poles governed by Irishmen on the patronage model of the Italian Christian Democrats, is the city of political and cultural tribalism. Blacks adapted to the tribalism and the corrupt patronage politics that accompanied it. Historically, one of the ironies of Chicago politics is that the clean-government candidates have been the most racist, while those most open to black aspirations have been the most corrupt. When the young Jesse Jackson received his first audience with then mayor Richard Daley Sr - impervious to the universalism of the civil rights movement in its glory - offered him a job as a toll-taker. Jackson thought the offer demeaning but in time adapted. In Chicago, racial reform has meant that the incumbent mayor, Richard M. Daley, has been cutting blacks in on the loot. Louis Farrakhan, Jackson, Jeremiah Wright and Obama are all, in part, the expression of that politics. It hasn't always worked for Chicago, which, under the pressure of increasing taxes to pay for bloated government, is losing its middle class. But it has served the city's political class admirably. For all his Camelot-like rhetoric, Obama is a product, in significant measure, of the political culture that Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass described: "We've had our chief of detectives sent to prison for running the Outfit's (the mob's) jewellery-heist ring. And we've had white guys with Outfit connections get $100 million in affirmative action contracts from their drinking buddy, Mayor Richard Daley ... That's the Chicago way." At no point did Obama, the would-be saviour of US politics, challenge this corruption, except for face-saving gestures as a legislator. He was, in his own Harvard law way, a product of it. Why, you may ask, did the operators of Chicago's political machine support Obama? Part of the answer was given long ago by the then boss of Chicago, Jake Arvey. When asked why he made Adlai Stevenson - a man, as with Obama, more famous for speeches than for accomplishments - his party's gubernatorial candidate in 1948, Arvey is said to have replied that he needed to "perfume the ticket". Obama first played a perfuming role as a state senator. His mentor, Emil Jones, the machine-made president of the Senate, allowed him to sponsor a minor ethics bill. In return, Obama made sure to send plenty of pork to Jones's district. When asked about pork-barrel spending, Jones famously replied: "Some call it pork; I call it steak." Obama repaid the generosity. When he had a chance to back clean Democratic candidates for president of the Cook County board of supervisors and Illinois governor, he stayed with the allies of the Outfit. The gubernatorial candidate he backed, Rod Blagojevich, is under federal investigation, in part because of his relationship with Tony Rezko, the man who helped Obama buy his house. The Chicago way has delivered politically for Obama even this year. Ninety per cent of his popular-vote lead over Hillary Clinton comes from Illinois, and two-thirds of that 90 per cent comes just from Cook County. Some of this advantage came from the efforts of Obama's political ally, the flame-throwing reverend James Meeks, a political force in his own right. Meeks, who mocks black moderates as "niggers", is an Illinois state senator, the pastor of a mega-church and a strong supporter of Jackson's powerful political operation, which has put its vote-pulling muscle squarely behind the Obama campaign. It was only with Obama's remark about bitter, white, working-class, small-town voters that we saw his difficulties appealing beyond the machine's reach. He won his US Senate race in 2004 not only because his opponents self-destructed but also because of the machine's ability to deliver votes. In Pennsylvania, he has lacked such assistance and the campaigning has not gone nearly so well. First, Obama pretended to be a tenpin bowler and scored a 37. Then, appearing before a supposedly closed San Francisco audience, he complained that small-town Pennsylvanians "cling to guns or religion or antipathy towards people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment, as a way to explain their frustrations". This is the man who belongs to a church built on bitterness, rancour and conspiratorial fear. During the Wright affair, Obama not only repeatedly lied about what he knew and when but violated the spirit of the civil rights movement in its mid-1960s glory. When, as a young man, I was on the periphery of the movement, there was an unwritten rule that if people told racist jokes or speakers engaged in defamatory rhetoric, you needed to register your immediate disapproval by confronting the speaker or ostentatiously walking out. Wright's "black theology" is essentially a Christianised version of Malcolm X's ideology of hate. But for 20 years, Obama, who had planned to run for mayor of Chicago, kept silent about the close, if at times competitive, relationship between Wright, whose 8000-member mega-church gave him his political base, and Farrakhan. His ambition overrode his moral integrity. As part of his "black value system", Wright attacked whites for their "middle classism", materialism, and "greed in a world of need". Obama sounded similar notes in his recent address at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York, in which he laid the blame for the sub-prime mortgage crisis on those who had "embraced an ethic of greed, corner cutting and inside dealing". But that's exactly what Obama did in buying his luxurious house. Given the choice of purchasing a less expensive home or getting into bed with his fundraiser-cum-slumlord-cum-fixer Rezko, Obama chose the latter. Then again, the oppressed of Trinity United Church of Christ are building Wright a $US1.6 million ($1.7million), 960sqm home complete with four-car garage, whirlpool and butler's pantry. This house, which backs on to a golf course, is to sit in Tinley Park, a gated community in southwest Chicago that is 93 per cent white. The Obamas' charitable giving is consistent with Wright's talking Left while living Right. Obama and his wife are quite well off. They had an estimated income of $US1.2 million from 2000 to 2004. But the man who preaches compassion and mutuality gave all of 1 per cent of that income to charity during those years. Most of that went to Wright's church. There is a similar chasm when it comes to Obama's claim to post-partisanship. His achievements in reaching out to moderate voters are largely proleptic. But words are not deeds and, although Obama has few concrete achievements to his name, his voting record hardly suggests an ability to rise above Left v Right. In the Illinois Senate, he made a specialty of voting present, but after his first two years in the US Senate, National Journal's analysis of rollcall votes found that he was more liberal than 86 per cent of his colleagues. His voting record has only moved further Left since then. The liberal Americans for Democratic Action gives him a 97.5 per cent rating, while National Journal ranks him the most liberal member of the Senate. By comparison, Clinton, who occasionally votes with the Republicans, ranks 16th. Obama is such a down-the-line partisan that, according to Congressional Quarterly, in the past two years he has voted with the Democrats more often than did the party's majority leader, Harry Reid. Likewise, for all his talk of post-racialism, Obama has played, with the contrivance of the press, traditional South Side Chicago racial politics. The day after his surprise loss in New Hampshire, and in anticipation of the South Carolina primary, with its heavily black electorate, South Side congressman Jesse Jackson Jr - Obama's national co-chairman - appeared on MSNBC to argue, in a prepared statement, that Clinton's teary moment on the campaign trail reflected her deep-seated racism. "Those tears," said Jackson, "have to be analysed ... They have to be looked at very, very carefully in light of Katrina, in light of other things that Mrs Clinton did not cry for, particularly as we head to South Carolina, where 45 per cent of African-Americans will participate in the Democratic contest ... We saw tears in response to her appearance, so that her appearance brought her to tears, but not hurricane Katrina, not other issues." In other words, whites who are at odds with, or who haven't delivered for, Chicago politicians can be obliquely accused of racism on the flimsiest basis, but pillars of local black politics such as Wright, with his exclusivist racial theology, are beyond criticism. Liberals love Obama's talk of taking on powerful financial interests. But here , too, he is rather slippery. In his Cooper Union speech, he denounced in no uncertain terms the "special interests" of people on Wall Street (who are well represented among his campaign donors). He, of course, had an opportunity to push for repealing the privileged tax treatment of private equity firms when that question was before Charles Grassley's Senate subcommittee - but he simply made a pro-forma statement in favour of doing so and disappeared. Nationally, as in Chicago, Obama the self-styled reformer never crosses swords with any of his putative foes. To pick another example, he has attacked "predatory" sub-prime lenders while taking roughly $US1.3 million in contributions from companies in that line of business. Obama is the internationalist opposed to free trade. He is the friend of race-baiters who thinks Don Imus deserved to be fired. He is the proponent of courage in the face of powerful interests who lacked the courage to break with Wright (until Wednesday). He is the man who would lead our efforts against terrorism yet was friendly with Bill Ayers, the unrepentant 1960s terrorist. He is the post-racialist supporter of affirmative action. He is the enemy of Big Oil who takes money from executives at Exxon-Mobil, Shell and British Petroleum. Obama has, in a sense, represented a new version of the invisible man, a candidate whose colour obscures his failings. But so far, the wild discrepancy between Obama's words and his deeds, and between his enormous ambitions and his minimal accomplishments, doesn't seem to have fazed his core supporters, who apparently suffer from a severe case of cognitive dissonance. Like cultists who rededicate themselves when the cult's prophecies have been falsified, his fans redouble their delusions in the face of his obvious hypocrisy. That is because Obama, in the imagination of many of his fans in the public and the press, is both a deduction from what was - the failures of the Bush administration and the scandals of the Clintons - and an expression of what should be. The ideal, the aspiration, is so rhetorically appealing that it has been assumed to be true. They remind one of Woodrow Wilson's answer when asked if his plan for a League of Nations was practicable: "If it won't work, it must be made to work." Fred Siegel is a contributing editor of City Journal. He teaches at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. more

Resolved Question: When buying a fixed rate mortgage - what does the term "Overall Cost For Comparison" mean?

And how does this differ from the AER? more

Resolved Question: Mortgage Lending Questions for Newbie!?

I'm currently applying for a mortgage via my mortgage consultant/broker. First question~ Should I shop around via different brokers to get various comparisons or will my various loan camparisons come from one broker? 2nd Question~ At what point should I recieve my Good Faith Estimate? Some people say 3 days after the loan application is submitted and others say once you find the property! Isn't it too late to bargain and shop around once the property is found??? 3rd Questions Yield spread premium...should I be leary or is this everyday practice in the mortgage lending world? I don't have a full understanding of this! WOW! I feel really overwhelmed right now! Credit rating is approx. 620 Thanks I have 20% and closing cost, I believe I'm ready financially, however I'm afraid of not asking the right questions and not looking for obvious RED FLAGS!!! I'm pretty much settled on the fact that I want a 30 year Fixed Loan! I was told that I didn't have to use a sub- Prime Loan more

Resolved Question: can i sue mortgage lender for fraud??

We closed our homeloan on a home we built 3 months ago and final appraisal was$245,000 which is what it needed to be around for approval since we were borrowing $190,000. we already owned the land prior to building. After closing we went to refinance with a different company who approved us at the lower rate only one thing was wrong...the appraisal came in at $160,000. Needless to say we were shocked since apparently our home depreciated $85,000 in 3 months!! after reviewing original appraisal we found many misrepresentations of supposed home values used for comparisons, as well as an inflated value of our land already owned and when I contacted lender they said that agent was fired for questionable practices and that was that. Soon after they sold my loan to another company which was also shocking since this bank bragged about how they dont sell their loans off. can i sue for this or what? what type of lawyer? Any help would be great more

Resolved Question: how does closing costs affect my mortgage,and is there a down side to buying points?

I had read that the buyer(s) should consider if buying points is more important to them in order to lower their mortgage rate, in comparison to paying higher closing costs. This could just be a statement of either/or since the closing costs are a norm in buying , whereas buying points is a choice- not sure what the author intended here. more

Resolved Question: How to know which mortgage lenders to stay away from?

I am buying a home and am comparison shopping among different mortgage lenders. The usual big names like Countrywide, Bank of America, Citibank etc have higher rates than the lesser known/unheard of places. How can you know which ones are reputable and which ones to stay away from? Specifically wondering about Liberty, Alpine, Quicken, Priceline etc. Is it important to go with a local, "known" lender or non-local lesser known ones? more

Resolved Question: Mortgage Comparison?

What are some key things to keep in mind when comparing mortgage loans from one bank to another. Any advice would be great. For exmaple: intersest rate.....closing vs.no-closing cost etc........ more

Resolved Question: I'm shopping for a mortgage!! I want to use lending tree or one of the online comparison sites ...?

This is my 1st time buying a house. I want to make an informed decision, and obviously I want a great rate! How can I do this without affecting/lowering my FICO score because of all of the companies checking my credit? I have excellent credit, but I don't want to just accept the 1st mortgage offer from my local bank. I know there are lower rates out there, but I'm afraid to use the online sites. Do they work well? Is it something you recommend? So far, I'm not impressed with the mortgage rates I'm being quoted. I've checked with 2 local banks. I want a fixed rate (terrified of ARMS because of all of the foreclosures I'm hearing about...) so if you have a recommendation, please let me know. Are there any rates under 6% these days for a 30-year fixed? If so, where do I find them? more

Resolved Question: interest rates/APR (mortgages)?

when looking for current mortgage interest rates (fixed rate for 2 years) i have seen that most offer an initial offer, a follow on rate and an overall cost for comparison. An example of this is; initial offer - 5.19% follow on rate - 7.44% variable overall cost for comparison - 7.4% APR could someone explain to me what this jargon means? What is the interest rate on the loan? is it the APR rate? I am aware that APR is the annual percentage rate but would you be paying the 5% interest rate for the first 2 years then the higher rate after that? more

Resolved Question: Has anyone used USAA for a mortgage?

How are their rates, service, closing cost etc in comparison to other lenders? more

Resolved Question: Help needed finding a low interest rate for a home purchase loan.?

I am looking for suggestions for a good place to apply for preapproval for a home purchase loan. We want to make sure that we get the best interest rate, but don't want to have multiple credit checks on our credit. We have excellent credit, so this will not be a problem. Just want to make sure we get the best deal for a fixed rate 30 year mortgage with low closing costs. We have found the house that we want to make an offer on. We just need our preapproval before we can make that offer. I don't want to do lending tree, because they put multiple credit checks on your credit and I have looked at the interest comparisons online and they are very limited. I know there is somewhere out there that we can find a lower interest rate. All help will be highly appreciated. more

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