Decoding the information on home sales and consumer spending

An uptick in February pending home sales followed a precipitous January drop. consumer spending logged a modest February increase that was rendered flat after adjusting for inflation. Stocks edged upward on the new data and real estate analysts expect the trend in pending home sales to continue as the economy improves. Post resource – Analyzing new data on pending home sales and consumer spending by MoneyBlogNewz.

consumer spending changes with inflation

The Commerce Department states a rise from January to February in consumer spending. It went up 0.7 percent. Consumer spending has risen eight months in a row, however February’s increase, adjusted for inflation, is just 0.3 percent, matching the increase reported in January. Rising food and energy prices pushed up inflation in February. The fastest rate since June 2009 was recorded by the Commerce Department in the personal consumption expenditures price index increase. In January it was 0.3 percent while going to 0.4 percent in February. February's 0.3 percent increase in personal income was more than canceled out with the consumer expenditures price index increase. In order to cover rising food and energy costs, households have been going into savings. From January to February, there was a decrease in savings from $710.5 billion to $676.7 billion.

Sales of homes determines economy

Pending home re-sales increased 2.1 percent in February after dropping 2.8 percent in January, according to the National Association of Realtors. There was a drop from February 2010 though. It totaled a 9.3 percent drop. Pending home sales represent signed contracts. They’re an economic indicator for this very reason. After the contract closes, the existing home sales personal details are then affected in a few months. There was a 9.6 percent decrease in February in existing home sales which accounts for 95 percent of today's market. The increases since February 2002 in home values have all been erased now. This is because since February 2010, there has been a 5.2 percent decrease in existing residences sales. In February, there was a 17 percent decrease in new home sales which is the lowest recorded rate. There was an 8.9 percent decrease from February 2010 in new home sales also.

Is it going to get any lower

Because home costs continue to fall, the National Association of Realtors expects existing home sales to eventually rise 5 to 10 percent overall in 2011. Very few people are getting regardless of the truth that housing has become so affordable it should be one of the most attractive investments in the U.S. Renting a home costs more currently than it would to pay mortgages and homeownership costs in several markets, suggests Deutche Bank. In fact, 28 of the 54 major markets are this way. Optimistic real estate analysts are betting that this affordability will eventually entice potential homeowners into pulling the trigger. The re-emergence of homebuyers could start raising housing costs in many markets, which could get even more homebuyers off the fence.

Citations

Bloomberg

bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-28/pending-sales-of-u-s-existing-homes-unexpectedly-climbed-2-1-in-february.html

New York Times

nytimes.com/2011/03/29/business/economy/29econ.html?src=busln

Fortune

finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/03/28/real-estate-its-time-to-buy-again/

Fed move to green light shareholder dividend boost problematic

Bank of America stockholders will only make a penny per share this year, so says the Federal Reserve. Based on the outcomes of the latest stress tests, the Fed has set several big banks free to raise shareholder dividends, but Bank of America is still in detention. The fragile economic recovery leads some industry experts to question the Fed’s decision, which weakens banks in the event of a double dip. Post resource – Why allowing banks to boost shareholder dividends is a bad idea by MoneyBlogNewz.

Fed throttles Bank of America dividends

The Federal Reserve heard from Bank of America that it wanted to, in the second half of 2011, to boost shareholder dividends in January. The quarterly dividend would have to go up 8 cents which would be about 20 percent of earnings. According to analysts, the Fed forbid Bank of America from doing so because of the bank’s exposure in the housing sector after buying out Countrywide in 2008, a decision that cost it $2.24 billion last year. Investor groups have also been pressuring B of A to purchase back billions in bad mortgage securities the bank foisted on them before the meltdown. Dividend increases were declared by JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and U.S. Bancorp after getting permission from the Fed. The Fed could be getting a revised version of the dividend plan by June from Bank of America.

Why would banks boost dividends for shareholders?

The economy won’t be able to grow without increasing dividends helping banks raise more equity in the future, Wall Street banks argue. By paying shareholder dividends, banks attract investors however lose equity. Bankers disdain equity and love leverage. While a company like Google is funded almost entirely by equity, the average bank lives on other people’s money, funding more than 95 percent of investments with debt. Equity is something banks don't need because leverage makes executives and shareholders lots of money. This is assuming there is health in the financial sector. banks become more liable for risks when they have more equity too. They don't count on working class individuals to bail them out when things go bad while instead decreasing default risk.

Fed decision risks another bailout

There were many highly leveraged banks noticed during the financial crisis. The Fed was worried about this. There are some that disagree with the Fed allowing shareholder increases. They thing the boosts shouldn't take place until the economy is stronger. Sometimes individuals will purchase a home with a small down payment and a mortgage that is 98 percent of the purchase price. This is compared to the leveraged bank by Simon Johnson of the New York Times. It ends up being a good risk with a rise in the home price. Both the creditor and borrower are part of the risk. A drop will hurt both of them. The main difference, however, between highly leveraged banks and highly leveraged homebuyers are the banks have learned they’re too large to fail. Having a leveraged bank fail doesn't mean anything. Working class individuals will end up paying for it to be okay.

Articles cited

New York Times

economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/dividends-lost/?emc=eta1

Business Insider

businessinsider.com/how-bank-dividends-help-wall-street–and-hurt-almost-everyone-else-2011-3

CNN Money

money.cnn.com/2011/03/23/news/companies/bank_of_america_dividend/index.htm

Firefox 4 wipes out Internet Explorer 9 in first day downloads

A short time after Internet Explorer 9 was launched, Firefox 4 made its debut. A week after Internet Explorer counted about 2.4 million first day downloads, Firefox 4 scored three times as many. Microsoft could be faulted for some of the beating, because Internet Explorer 9 has no support for Windows XP, while Firefox 4 does.

Firefox 4 eats Internet Explorer 9’s release

There were almost 7 million downloads of Firefox 4 within the first twenty-four hours it launched on Tues. One day after Internet Explorer 9 was launched, 2.4 million users had downloaded the upgrade. IE9 is definitely losing to Firefox 4. Still, nothing can compare to the "Download Day" that Mozilla did to win a Guinness World Record with Firefox 3.0 having 8 million download in the first twenty-four hours. Most of the Firefox 4 downloads came from Europe, where Mozilla has a huge following. About 44 percent of the Firefox 4 first-day downloads came from Europe. About 26 percent came in North America. Asian users followed with 20 percent. The remainder came from the rest of the world.

Microsoft claims goodbye to the old Windows XP

In the first day download competition, Firefox was bound to beat Internet Explorer 9 based on what Microsoft did. Microsoft developed Internet Explorer 9 for Windows 7 and Windows Vista only, a strategy that could find company CEO Steve Ballmer in need of a personal bank loan. Net Applications explained that Windows XP is 10 years old and used by about 61 percent of Windows machines in Feb. although it can't use Internet Explorer 9. It was really significant to create a Firefox 4 that those on Windows XP could enjoy because it’s such a big group. Firefox engineer Jonathan Nightingale explained this is why it was so essential to put together, states GeekWire. Microsoft wasn't preparing on wasting time developing Internet Explorer 9 "to the lowest common denominator," in accordance with a statement over it. Windows XP users might be forced to upgrade because of this change Microsoft has made.

How Firefox makes Mozilla money

The stakes in the browser market for Mozilla are high. Tracking user information for advertisers is the way that Microsoft and Google make money. Mozilla has links in the built in search bar to make money from though. Mozilla makes more money as a non-profit foundation while there are more users for Firefox. In 2009, the foundation made $104 million – up 34 percent from 2008, when revenues were $78 million. In 2009, Internet Explorers market share was at 68 percent, which it now has dropped to 56.8 percent, although that is nevertheless in the lead. Firefox has a 21.7 percent market share although it lost 2.5 percentage points in market share because of all the delays for Firefox 4. The large winner in the browser war is Google Chrome, which has grown from nothing to capture about 11 percent of the market in the same period.

Citations

MSNBC

technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/23/6327891-firefox-4-soars-thanks-to-microsofts-luddite-customers

Computerworld

computerworld.com/s/article/9214982/Firefox_4_thumps_IE9_in_first_day_download_contest

TechCrunch

techcrunch.com/2010/11/18/state-of-mozilla/

Google deal with book publishers overturned by court

Google’s vision of a universal virtual library has hit a snag in court . Using copyright and antitrust arguments, Google’s opponents successfully overturned a $125 million offer between Google and the publishing industry to complete the project. Even though the negotiation was declined, those involved in the offer said the ruling provided guidance as to how it will achieve approval in the future.

Settling on Google Books

There was a program called Google Books that was started. The idea of the program is to take all books that have been published and make them accessible on the internet digitally. The Association of American Publishers put together a lawsuit in 2005 with the Authors Guild. The book-scanning project got Google sued. Finding a way to pay authors and publishers for the novels being viewed was something Google agreed to do after having to pay $125 million up front in 2008. Many groups argued against the settlement such as Amazon, Microsoft, the Justice Department, foreign governments and copyright experts making it go into the legal system. On Tuesday, Manhattan federal court judge Denny Chin said the Google Books settlement would solidify the company’s search monopoly and give it the right to exploit published works without the permission of copyright holders.

The orphan works problem

Google Books would be able to digitize any book without permission unless the author and publisher opted out of the agreement because of a provision with Judge Chin objected to the most. An "opt-in" option was one Chin liked better. This was his suggestion. The opt-out provision was written due to an issue with so-called “orphan works.”. Anytime a book has a copyright holder that can't be found or is unknown, it is an orphan work. An opt-in would make it impossible to use orphan works, Google claims. The point of this was for Google Books to be able to contain orphan novels to be available to anyone. Opponents of the settlement said the availability of orphan works is an issue best addressed by Congress, not the settlement of a private lawsuit.

Sensing antitrust problems in there

Google defends its book-scanning project as an effort to “democratize knowledge” by offering every book ever written, which is about 130 million and counting, in accordance with the business. Antitrust issues are there also though. Nobody would be able to compete with such a complete library as Google would have with this program. Google would be in a position where it would never lose with Google Books having so several novels on the internet. Google has not wasted any time during the fights. About 15 million novels have been scanned by the company already. In Google's Book Search, you are able to find novels with expired copyrights also as 20 percent of copyrighted titles. On Google, sample texts are available for all copyrighted titles. It does not matter if they have been licensed or not.

Information from

New York Times

nytimes.com/2011/03/23/technology/23google.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Financial Times

ft.com/cms/s/2/f7ee4948-54bf-11e0-b1ed-00144feab49a.html#axzz1HR3IHDr1

PC World

pcworld.com/article/222963/judge_rejects_google_book_deal_over_monopoly_concerns.html

Beware phantom financial debt pains from charge-offs

Maintaining good credit could be challenging, particularly after a life-altering event like job loss. Understand that if a creditor throws in the towel and charges off one of your debts, that does not mean that you’re in the clear. Even if the record has dropped off your credit score, financial debt collectors might still be able to legally hound you. Article source – Beware phantom debt pains from charge-offs by MoneyBlogNewz.

Good part to charge off

There are several credit history charge-off scenarios. Consider this one. You might get something dropped off your credit score but nevertheless owe money on it. This is because, states Bankrate, there are different financial debt collecting and debt reporting rules to go by. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) provides the guidelines for financial debt collection, while the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) holds jurisdiction over how a charge-off is reported.

On the plus side, the FCRA mandates that a charge-off must be removed from your credit history after 7 years. That includes whatever financial debt collection agency owned the financial debt. Check your credit score about a month after the charge-off is designed to occur. Dispute the bad debt with Equifax, Experian and TransUnion if it is still there.

You can't charge off Chapter 7 bankruptcies, student loans or tax liens.

Charge off financial debt does not necessarily leave

FCRA rules help people out a bit. It keeps bad credit from staying on a credit history forever. The FDCPA does not have the exact same rules though. Financial debt collectors can still bother you for money. As there is a lucrative secondary market that purchases bad debt, there is still cause for concern on the part of the consumer who needs debt repair. At least once, an agency will make an effort to collect from you. A charge-off won't happen until then.

Taking out charge card debt has become more common. This is because joblessness has kept individuals from spending money. A customer can get from the charge cards though due to a statue of limitations. The state and court system will determine how long this time period is although it’s usually 6 to 10 years for installment loans, auto loans and pay day loans and 4 to 6 years for charge cards. If you need to know, specifically, talk to you state's attorney general.

Financial debt collection law

Nobody can contact you about financial debt anymore if it has been charged off past the statue of limitations for state. You can do a counter-suit if a debt collector continues.

Legal action will require time, money and the advice of a lawyer, however. What should you do if a debt collector is pursuing you legally then? Just settle or pay the financial debt for the easiest way out.

Information from

Bank Rate

bankrate.com/finance/debt/debt-dropped-from-credit-report-still-owed.aspx

Equifax

ai.equifax.com/CreditInvestigation/

Experian

experian.com/consumer/cac/InvalidateSession.do?code=DISPUTE

Trans Union

annualcreditreport.transunion.com/entry/disputeonline

How to deal with collections

youtube.com/watch?v=9SVFdH0Ayco

Winners and non-winners of Google algorithm modification

When Google changed its algorithm, every company in the business of internet content was right away affected. No aspect of doing business as an Internet content provider was unaffected. Google changed its search algorithm to stem the tide of worthless content material that has been overwhelming its search engine results, a move that shifted an estimated $1 billion across the content industry.

Google rewards high quality content

In the past year Google’s search quality has been degraded with garbage content material. To be able to repair search quality, Google has been told to modification things by many groups. The Google algorithm modification is meant to punish content farms and reward research, in-depth reports and thoughtful analysis, Google states, and it affected the internet writing industry as soon as Google flipped the switch. Any websites that had original quality content on them all the sudden got lots of traffic. Sites that exist simply to lure search engine traffic were devastated. The algorithm update has noticeably changed 11.8 percent of search queries, in accordance with Google. ComScore is an internet marketing research business that explained that the algorithm may change 1.4 billion searches in just one month based off of the 12 billion search queries in January that Google had.

Not helping content farms at all

There was a 5 to 50 percent increase in traffic to the Online Publishers Association's website a day after Google's algorithm change. Sistrix is a web metrics firm that explained "click bait" content material farms got a major hit with this. Websites for instance Mahalo.com, Wisegeek.com, Ezinearticles.com and Yahoo’s Associated Content material suffered a drop in Google search traffic in excess of 75 percent. Just last week Mahalo.com had to fire 10 percent of workers. Another content material farm is Demand Media. It has high quality and click bait on it though. Stock for eHow.com went down after the recent $1.7 billion IPO due to this. Demand Media benefited in the end though. There were issues that came with Demand Media online websites like AnswerBag.com and Trails.com though.

Traffic hits on Google

About 20 to 30 percent of traffic on a page is brought in when on the top listing of a Google search which helped internet publishing. Between 5 and 10 percent of traffic goes to second and third spots. Results on the page other than that get almost nothing. It’s at about 1 percent. Falling to the second page, in impact, creates search listings invisible. Google algorithms now tend to follow the Personal Blocklist on its Chrome browser. This allows users to block any web sites that seem offensive to them. Google said that although it does not use data gathered from Personal Blocklist, 84 percent of the domains blocked by Chrome users have been demoted by the algorithm change.

Articles cited

CNN

money.cnn.com/2011/03/08/technology/google_algorithm_change/index.htm

CNN Money

money.cnn.com/2011/03/08/technology/google_algorithm_change/index.htm” target=”_blank

Adweek

adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/e3i0fcd39a826b5c1cd3b13fba6c2a9dfba” target=”_blank

International Business Times

ibtimes.com/articles/116434/20110225/demand-media-google-algorithms-content-farms.htm

Sistrix

sistrix.com/blog/985-google-farmer-update-quest-for-quality.html

Google blog

googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/finding-more-high-quality-sites-in.html

Congress eyes United States oil reserve as fuel costs soar

The United States strategic oil reserve is being eyed by some members of Congress as a remedy to rising gasoline and oil costs. Politicians are urging the Obama administration to open the spigot, despite a worldwide surplus of oil production capacity. United States supplies of oil and gasoline are also far above average seasonal levels. The administration’s position is that the modest rise in gasoline prices isn’t yet enough to warrant tapping into U.S. oil reserves, which could spook international oil markets into further price increases.

The plan Congress has with the oil reserve/span>

About 727 million barrels of oil are found in the United States strategic petroleum reserve. In the last 10 days, there has been a 28 cent increase in the average price of gas per gallon. Selling a part of the strategic oil reserve was suggested by Senator Bingaman, D-N.M., as the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He said this would help keep oil prices stabilized. Reducing oil consumption in the U.S. could be more likely to occur with the sell also, giving tax breaks for hybrids and electric car. Also, it was suggested the deficit may be reduced with the sell along with getting gas prices back to normal.

U.S. not running low on oil/span>

The Obama administration objects to tapping the United States strategic petroleum reserve as a reaction to the current spike in gasoline and oil prices, even though its 2012 spending budget proposal calls for selling $500 million worth of oil from the reserve to fund certain programs. The administration contends that tapping the oil reserve would send a false panic signal to customers and markets when the U.S. isn’t running low on oil. A major oil storage facility in OK that supplies the interior U.S. has record inventories. From Canada, the United States is getting gasoline while North Dakota is starting to produce. There are 346.4 million barrels of United States crude oil inventories, states the U.S. Energy Information Administration. You will find 9.86 billion gallons of U.S. gasoline in the inventories. For this time of year, the amounts of the inventories are both higher than normal.

Oil increasing costs need a solution/span>

Oil industry analysts agree with the Obama administration that tapping into the strategic oil reserve now would have virtually no effect on oil and gas prices, and it would validate the fear that is driving up prices. The supply of oil isn't the problem, many suggest. They think a shortage of surplice production capacity is the problem everybody is facing. Speculators are betting that spreading Middle East unrest will reduce surplus oil production capacity. The oil price problem would become a severe problem if the surplus oil production capacity perished off. The oil markets can be better if the capacity to produce oil settles rather than attempting to temporarily stop the problem.

Information from/span>

New York Times

nytimes.com/2011/03/04/business/energy-environment/04oil.html?_r=1

Foreign Policy

oilandglory.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/04/the_weekly_wrap_march_4_2011

UPI

upi.com/Business_News/2011/03/03/Crude-oil-supplies-fall-slightly/UPI-22221299189942/