Did you see the news about Greece this morning? The banks were closed and they've placed limits on the money it's customers can take out per day.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33322754
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/greece-defaults-imf-payment-despite-013243561.html
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Saturday, November 3, 2012
A Retirement Wake-up Call
I woke up really early this morning, my body anticipating the time change this weekend and to the noise of the TV being on to that Ed Slott infomercial about saving your retirement. I've seen it before. I'm sure I'll watch it again. But something struck me. 2012 went by so fast and I probably have about 20 more working years before I retire.
FACT: The three things you cannot live without are food, shelter and clothing. People will give you clothes and share their food with you as these things are relatively cheap but you have to maintain a roof over your head or eventually you'll die of exposure to the elements.
FACT: The single most expensive financial decision one will ever make is to buy a house.
I went to lunch the other day with my cheapskate lunch date (who is in retail loan sales) and somehow the conversation always turns to money. Previously, I discussed with him my need to refinance my home because I currently have a Hybrid 5 year Fixed/6 month Libor Note that's been adjusting for awhile now. Since LIBOR rates are tied to the European economy and it followed the U.S. economy decline with the credit crunch and the housing market crisis, my Note rate dropped from the initial rate and has stayed low... but the economy is improving. Jobs are coming back to the finance market because even I've had opportunities to interview recently for what I do which is highly specialized and I'm not looking for a new job now. And with an improved economy, interest rates will start to creep up higher. And the interest rate I'm paying today for my home loan is close to market rate and I don't want to put myself into a situation where I have a high interest rate and may not be able to refinance in the future. I also know that my loan is owned by Fannie Mae and HARP Loans, that are easier to qualify for with a high LTV and that require no appraisal, are going away next year.
After getting back to work, he sent me this email:
"Your goal this week or next is to contact HR in order to open a 401(k) because retiring poor sucks. I have to turn down seniors all the time (for cash-out refi home loans) and it makes me sad."
I had a 401(k) before I was laid-off from my mortgage job (the company closed) and because it lost half it's value and I didn't know when I was going to get my next job, I liquidated it the moment I could. Almost right after my severance pay ran out, in February 2008, I was hired as a contractor to Fannie Mae for a year and a half driving 150 miles round trip for work each day to manage the default vault at 1800 Tapo Canyon (if your're in the industry, you know that address holds one of the highest number of mortgage loans on the west coast) of loans moving from Countrywide's safekeeping into my custody. I supervised the vault's growth to hold 325,000 files (who knows how large it is today). The stock market tanked in October. HBO produced an excellent movie called "Too Big to Fail" which is a portrayal of what happened in October 2008. I was sitting in the belly of the beast and the beast was required to be bought by B of A and the behest of the U.S. federal government due to B of A exercising a large repurchase of poor performing loans.
FACT: You only have about 45-50 years to save before you retire.
When you're in your 20's and busy establishing your career, home and family, you're probably not thinking a whole hell of a lot about your retirement. My cheapskate lunch date is actually the same age I am, mid-40's, and as he's also a Realtor, he's put his money to work more than I have in the past so I have to give him some respect for the financial position he's in now as compared to mine own.
My parents, when they retired, didn't really plan for it. Both had to work after retirement because they didn't have homes to sell and live off of the proceeds or even homes that generated a net income from rent. They had no savings accounts, just checking accounts. Both had meager life insurance payouts. I was able to settle my father's estate, but my mothers???
She lived off of credit cards until the day she died. As I cleared out her apartment, I found many newly bought items and at the time, couldn't figure out how she could afford it. That is until I found a brown box in the back of her closet full of unpaid credit card bills which turned into charge offs. She couldn't afford it. She consulted with a family friend, a lawyer, that told her not to pay them after she was 75 and had triple by-pass heart surgery.
I took back to the store those items I could find receipts for and threw the contents of her apartment in storage because it was right before Christmas when she passed. I paid the final utility bills with the cash on hand and that refund money and also ignored those credit card bills. Because of the lack of her financial and retirement planning, I had to pay out of my own pocket for her cremation, her headstone, her funeral and the transfer of her ashes to New York where they were buried with her parents, my grandparent, as she wanted. It took me a year and a half to get rid of that storage unit, finally donating the majority of the contents to Goodwill after giving away some things to friends and I paid for that storage unit, too. I can imagine my story of not being able to settle my mother's estate multiplied by the number new retirees and the debt river that's coming.
So in essence, if the vast majority of people now have the lack of retirement planning, execution and savings like my parents had, you and I will be paying for it all the way through the period the baby boomer generation (born between 1946 and 1964) goes into retirement (2011 to 2029) and subsequently passes away passing their unpaid debt onto the large financial institutions who will pass it on to the consumer in the form of higher fees and interest rates. That consumer is you and me.
Ed Slott says the biggest retirement killer are:
1. taxes
Tax free safety zone (life insurance and annuity)
Payouts from Life Insurance are tax free.
Roth IRA's conversions. You can get an annuity inside your Roth IRA.
2. risk
You cannot rely on the stock market for a secure retirement future. Think about an annuity. It guaranties your retirement income for life.
3. saving money
Sometimes you have to spend money now to save money later. Buy life insurance. Seek out qualified financial planners.
4. uncertainty
No one will ever care about your retirement money more than you.
5. inactivity
Doing nothing will be costly because prices rise and taxes increase. Do something now when you can. If you want a secure financial future, you have to do something about it.
I emailed HR about establishing a new 401(k) blind-copying my friend and then I called and was qualified for a HARP loan all in the same day.
Lets see where I am this time, next year...
FACT: The three things you cannot live without are food, shelter and clothing. People will give you clothes and share their food with you as these things are relatively cheap but you have to maintain a roof over your head or eventually you'll die of exposure to the elements.
FACT: The single most expensive financial decision one will ever make is to buy a house.
I went to lunch the other day with my cheapskate lunch date (who is in retail loan sales) and somehow the conversation always turns to money. Previously, I discussed with him my need to refinance my home because I currently have a Hybrid 5 year Fixed/6 month Libor Note that's been adjusting for awhile now. Since LIBOR rates are tied to the European economy and it followed the U.S. economy decline with the credit crunch and the housing market crisis, my Note rate dropped from the initial rate and has stayed low... but the economy is improving. Jobs are coming back to the finance market because even I've had opportunities to interview recently for what I do which is highly specialized and I'm not looking for a new job now. And with an improved economy, interest rates will start to creep up higher. And the interest rate I'm paying today for my home loan is close to market rate and I don't want to put myself into a situation where I have a high interest rate and may not be able to refinance in the future. I also know that my loan is owned by Fannie Mae and HARP Loans, that are easier to qualify for with a high LTV and that require no appraisal, are going away next year.
After getting back to work, he sent me this email:
"Your goal this week or next is to contact HR in order to open a 401(k) because retiring poor sucks. I have to turn down seniors all the time (for cash-out refi home loans) and it makes me sad."
I had a 401(k) before I was laid-off from my mortgage job (the company closed) and because it lost half it's value and I didn't know when I was going to get my next job, I liquidated it the moment I could. Almost right after my severance pay ran out, in February 2008, I was hired as a contractor to Fannie Mae for a year and a half driving 150 miles round trip for work each day to manage the default vault at 1800 Tapo Canyon (if your're in the industry, you know that address holds one of the highest number of mortgage loans on the west coast) of loans moving from Countrywide's safekeeping into my custody. I supervised the vault's growth to hold 325,000 files (who knows how large it is today). The stock market tanked in October. HBO produced an excellent movie called "Too Big to Fail" which is a portrayal of what happened in October 2008. I was sitting in the belly of the beast and the beast was required to be bought by B of A and the behest of the U.S. federal government due to B of A exercising a large repurchase of poor performing loans.
FACT: You only have about 45-50 years to save before you retire.
When you're in your 20's and busy establishing your career, home and family, you're probably not thinking a whole hell of a lot about your retirement. My cheapskate lunch date is actually the same age I am, mid-40's, and as he's also a Realtor, he's put his money to work more than I have in the past so I have to give him some respect for the financial position he's in now as compared to mine own.
My parents, when they retired, didn't really plan for it. Both had to work after retirement because they didn't have homes to sell and live off of the proceeds or even homes that generated a net income from rent. They had no savings accounts, just checking accounts. Both had meager life insurance payouts. I was able to settle my father's estate, but my mothers???
She lived off of credit cards until the day she died. As I cleared out her apartment, I found many newly bought items and at the time, couldn't figure out how she could afford it. That is until I found a brown box in the back of her closet full of unpaid credit card bills which turned into charge offs. She couldn't afford it. She consulted with a family friend, a lawyer, that told her not to pay them after she was 75 and had triple by-pass heart surgery.
I took back to the store those items I could find receipts for and threw the contents of her apartment in storage because it was right before Christmas when she passed. I paid the final utility bills with the cash on hand and that refund money and also ignored those credit card bills. Because of the lack of her financial and retirement planning, I had to pay out of my own pocket for her cremation, her headstone, her funeral and the transfer of her ashes to New York where they were buried with her parents, my grandparent, as she wanted. It took me a year and a half to get rid of that storage unit, finally donating the majority of the contents to Goodwill after giving away some things to friends and I paid for that storage unit, too. I can imagine my story of not being able to settle my mother's estate multiplied by the number new retirees and the debt river that's coming.
So in essence, if the vast majority of people now have the lack of retirement planning, execution and savings like my parents had, you and I will be paying for it all the way through the period the baby boomer generation (born between 1946 and 1964) goes into retirement (2011 to 2029) and subsequently passes away passing their unpaid debt onto the large financial institutions who will pass it on to the consumer in the form of higher fees and interest rates. That consumer is you and me.
Ed Slott says the biggest retirement killer are:
1. taxes
Tax free safety zone (life insurance and annuity)
Payouts from Life Insurance are tax free.
Roth IRA's conversions. You can get an annuity inside your Roth IRA.
2. risk
You cannot rely on the stock market for a secure retirement future. Think about an annuity. It guaranties your retirement income for life.
3. saving money
Sometimes you have to spend money now to save money later. Buy life insurance. Seek out qualified financial planners.
4. uncertainty
No one will ever care about your retirement money more than you.
5. inactivity
Doing nothing will be costly because prices rise and taxes increase. Do something now when you can. If you want a secure financial future, you have to do something about it.
I emailed HR about establishing a new 401(k) blind-copying my friend and then I called and was qualified for a HARP loan all in the same day.
Lets see where I am this time, next year...
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Yahoo! News Story - JPMorgan dismisses mortgage head Lowman - Yahoo! News
JPMorgan dismisses mortgage head Lowman - Yahoo! Newshttp://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110614/bs_nm/us_jpm_mortgage_3
============================================================
Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/
************
Why am I highlighting this article over other similar ones posted on the internet?
This one has a bit more meat than the others and one can appreciate that if you've been in this business for awhile. My comments from this point on are in blue.
"Lowman joined JPMorgan from Citigroup in 2006. During his tenure at JPMorgan, the bank picked up bad mortgage assets through its acquisitions of investment bank Bear Stearns & Co and retail bank Washington Mutual. They make it sound as though they picked up a germy virus. No, they willingly bought the bad loans of these two companies.
acquisitions: a decision made at a meeting by all the major banks at the time and the Fed of what company among them could bear (pardon the pun) the debt that WAMU and BS had on their books. WAMU's underwriting was crap due to long standing technology issues. Among other loans purchased, BS was buying up much of the remaining RTC securitizations and repackaging them trying to make a pool of marginally performing loans shiny, newish and attractive to investors. JPMC knowingly bought bad mortgage assets by acquiring these companies. WAMU in September 2008 after a FDIC seizure. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/25/bear-stearns-fraud-emails_n_813855.html
Lowman was pushed aside in February by JPMorgan's CEO, Jamie Dimon, who assigned his top aide, Bisignano, to the company's retail banking unit to fix its mortgage business.
If you look up Frank Bisignano on Forbes.com, you can see that he has a been at Citigroup since 2000. If you look up David Lowman, you can review on the press release that he came from a place where he appeared to have no or minimal mortgage background. http://www.forbes.com/2006/10/27/leadership-careers-jobs-lead-careers-cx_ll_1027hfr.html
During Lowman's tenure, the unit was so disorganized that the bank seized homes of at least 33 U.S. military servicemen on active duty, violating federal law and prompting Dimon to apologize at the company's annual shareholder meeting. The bank has said it is forgiving those loans.
The above paragraph is particularly nasty because of the Soldiers & Sailors Civil Relief Act that was revised and went into effect in 2003 (one of the good things that came about during the Bush presidency) which grants certain protections for military troops on active duty. Protections like the fact that you cannot foreclose on the home of active military personnel.
Lowman could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday. Technically, he can't comment because he'll sign a paper that says he can't discuss any business dealings by his former employer. Lowman appeared before congressional committees last year ( http://www.ncsha.org/blog/house-and-senate-committees-address-foreclosure-crisis-and-loan-modification-problems ) where he was chastised for his division's refusal to cooperate with borrowers and modify mortgages. Read the article. Ahem - we learned a new word today kids - robo-signing. Now we're making up words because acronyms in the mortgage industry are not confusing enough. Reminds me of dangling chads and how the general public had no clue what the news media were talking about at the time.
I imagine Lowman was probably told by the CEO to minimize losses. Regarding loan modifications: Simply put, if you don't have an earned income (many people lost their jobs over the credit crunch), you won't get your loan modified. If you don't want to provide your financial statements (because you're trying to hide the fact that you didn't qualify for the loan in the first place), you won't get your loan modified. If you botch the documents requested of you in anyway (late, missing, erroneous), you won't get your loan modified. If you don't like the terms of your loan, they suggest that you refinance instead.
Lowman said in a June 2010 hearing that the bank was understaffed, (at that point they probably had a RIF throughout the entire organization, not just in mortgage lending) but was adding employees to work on problematic mortgages. They opened temporary regional offices called "ChaseWorks" dedicated to help distressed mortgagors.
In a hearing in November, Lowman acknowledged mistakes in foreclosure paperwork and said the bank was cleaning up errors." Mistakes happen, but they can also be fixed.
============================================================
Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/
************
Why am I highlighting this article over other similar ones posted on the internet?
This one has a bit more meat than the others and one can appreciate that if you've been in this business for awhile. My comments from this point on are in blue.
"Lowman joined JPMorgan from Citigroup in 2006. During his tenure at JPMorgan, the bank picked up bad mortgage assets through its acquisitions of investment bank Bear Stearns & Co and retail bank Washington Mutual. They make it sound as though they picked up a germy virus. No, they willingly bought the bad loans of these two companies.
acquisitions: a decision made at a meeting by all the major banks at the time and the Fed of what company among them could bear (pardon the pun) the debt that WAMU and BS had on their books. WAMU's underwriting was crap due to long standing technology issues. Among other loans purchased, BS was buying up much of the remaining RTC securitizations and repackaging them trying to make a pool of marginally performing loans shiny, newish and attractive to investors. JPMC knowingly bought bad mortgage assets by acquiring these companies. WAMU in September 2008 after a FDIC seizure. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/25/bear-stearns-fraud-emails_n_813855.html
Lowman was pushed aside in February by JPMorgan's CEO, Jamie Dimon, who assigned his top aide, Bisignano, to the company's retail banking unit to fix its mortgage business.
If you look up Frank Bisignano on Forbes.com, you can see that he has a been at Citigroup since 2000. If you look up David Lowman, you can review on the press release that he came from a place where he appeared to have no or minimal mortgage background. http://www.forbes.com/2006/10/27/leadership-careers-jobs-lead-careers-cx_ll_1027hfr.html
During Lowman's tenure, the unit was so disorganized that the bank seized homes of at least 33 U.S. military servicemen on active duty, violating federal law and prompting Dimon to apologize at the company's annual shareholder meeting. The bank has said it is forgiving those loans.
The above paragraph is particularly nasty because of the Soldiers & Sailors Civil Relief Act that was revised and went into effect in 2003 (one of the good things that came about during the Bush presidency) which grants certain protections for military troops on active duty. Protections like the fact that you cannot foreclose on the home of active military personnel.
Lowman could not immediately be reached for comment on Tuesday. Technically, he can't comment because he'll sign a paper that says he can't discuss any business dealings by his former employer. Lowman appeared before congressional committees last year ( http://www.ncsha.org/blog/house-and-senate-committees-address-foreclosure-crisis-and-loan-modification-problems ) where he was chastised for his division's refusal to cooperate with borrowers and modify mortgages. Read the article. Ahem - we learned a new word today kids - robo-signing. Now we're making up words because acronyms in the mortgage industry are not confusing enough. Reminds me of dangling chads and how the general public had no clue what the news media were talking about at the time.
I imagine Lowman was probably told by the CEO to minimize losses. Regarding loan modifications: Simply put, if you don't have an earned income (many people lost their jobs over the credit crunch), you won't get your loan modified. If you don't want to provide your financial statements (because you're trying to hide the fact that you didn't qualify for the loan in the first place), you won't get your loan modified. If you botch the documents requested of you in anyway (late, missing, erroneous), you won't get your loan modified. If you don't like the terms of your loan, they suggest that you refinance instead.
Lowman said in a June 2010 hearing that the bank was understaffed, (at that point they probably had a RIF throughout the entire organization, not just in mortgage lending) but was adding employees to work on problematic mortgages. They opened temporary regional offices called "ChaseWorks" dedicated to help distressed mortgagors.
In a hearing in November, Lowman acknowledged mistakes in foreclosure paperwork and said the bank was cleaning up errors." Mistakes happen, but they can also be fixed.
Friday, December 4, 2009
OK, that's better
I have an interview on Monday for two different jobs with the same company. When lightening strikes, I guess... For weeks I have not been able to find anything local. I even went so far as applying to a job near Phoenix, AZ. To me, it's the closest thing to California without water, but damn. I'm not looking to relocate unless it's something I absolutely must do.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Job? What job?
So I get a call from a recruiter on Wednesday who tells me about a job and then Friday he calls to say an internal candidate is getting first dibs at the interview. Grrr.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Automaker Bailout
I'm weary of this automaker bailout. I'm weary of it because it should not be considered an automaker bailout, but really it's an effort to keep all of those employed in the industry working.
I hope that there were provisions written into the P&P on how the automakers are allowed to use the money because I don't want to see the American public's money to sustain the industry being used on the foreign arms of these same companies that exist all over the world.
Yes, I'm stingy like that.
I hope that there were provisions written into the P&P on how the automakers are allowed to use the money because I don't want to see the American public's money to sustain the industry being used on the foreign arms of these same companies that exist all over the world.
Yes, I'm stingy like that.
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