The home financing system in America works because lenders count on your moral belief system, not contracts, to hold you to the deal, while they do not take that same obligation. This one single fact gives lenders the enormous power of humiliation. Brent White has created one of the most cogent and well crafted descriptions of the present storm we’re riding, along with some unusual observations.
Continue reading “Underwater and Not Walking Away – Brent T. White – Arizona Legal Studies, The University of Arizona.”
Retirement: What’s That? | Entrepreneur.com
After spending years building businesses they’re passionate about, many entrepreneurs say they’ll never stop working.
Report to the President – SBA Small Business Financing Forum
The opening remarks of this report contains the following brilliant observation:
With financial institutions tightening lending standards in this recent economic crisis, the small businesses that depend on them for credit have been hit particularly hard.
Ya think? Without the ability to sell stock or bonds to raise capital, small businesses have to turn to banks. Banks are required to meet tough new standards and for the most part, keep the loans they write on their balance sheets. To maintain their required ratios, most banks have withdrawn credit from those least able to survive it, small business. A perfect storm.
Continue reading “Report to the President – SBA Small Business Financing Forum”
E.U.’s Microsoft Browser Antitrust Case Is History | Technomix | Fast Company
Citi Execs Sell Assets to Avoid Pay Czar | Reuters
The executives at Citibank want to avoid the wall street pay czar so badly, they’re fire selling company assets to raise enough money to pay back the TARP funds:
Citigroup also is ending an agreement with the government that guaranteed a roughly $250 billion portfolio of assets against excessive losses.
The bank sold $17 billion of common shares and another $3.5 billion of bonds that automatically convert into shares in three years.
The bank sold convertible notes that pay a coupon of 7.5 percent a year, and automatically convert to shares at a 25 percent premium to the pricing level in three years.
The bank said on Monday it also plans to issue $1.7 billion of shares to employees, and may sell another $3 billion of trust preferred securities in the first quarter.
Bank of America and Wells Fargo have done the same thing, but they found buyers and Citi didn’t. These banks will crash again, they aren’t doing better, they’ve found even lower ways to be greedy. When they crash again, let them go under.
Diagram of Geek Culture – Twitterfeeds von Ibo | Home
Landrieu, Snowe Bill to Create Jobs and Increase Small Business Lending
For those of us treading water, this is a hopeful sign.
the “Small Business Job Creation and Access to Capital Act of 2009” would increase the small business loan limit to as high as $5.5 million and extend for a year the fee eliminations and increased guarantee set to expire under the Recovery Act.
Specifically, the “Small Business Job Creation and Access to Capital Act of 2009” would:
- Increase the loan limit on 7(a) loans from $2 million to $5 million;
- Increase the loan limit on 504 loans from $1.5 million to $5.5 million;
- Increase the loan limit on microloans from $35,000 to $50,000 and increase the maximum loan made to a microloan intermediary from $3.5 million to $5 million;
- Allow the 504 loan program to refinance short-term commercial real estate debt into, long-term, fixed rate loans;
- Extend the authorization to provide 90 percent guarantees on 7(a) loans and fee elimination for borrowers on 7(a) and 504 loans through December 31, 2010; and
- Direct the SBA to create a website where small businesses can identify lenders in their communities.
Bank robber hypnotized tellers | globalpost.com
Galina Korzhova was arrested, said Anton Kornoukhov, a spokesman for police in the southern city of Volgograd, on suspicion of hypnotising a bank teller in the nearby town of Volzhky into giving her more than $80,000. She is suspected of having robbed up to 30 additional banks in what Russian media have called a “grand tour” around the country.
User Backlash Forces Facebook Privacy Tweaks, Again | Technomix | Fast Company
Facebook’s privacy policy and their sharp treatment of it’s nearly half billion users is creating a huge backlash as the company attempts to push more and more private data into the public eye. I know I’m getting tired of dealing the daily interface changes, how about you?
Read the article about the partial security roll back and how Mark Zuckerberg’s personal information got out into the open here.
