Author: Serkadis

I spent the last week or so playing with a copy of the new Quicken Essentials for Mac from Intuit and I can make this review really short for you. If you’re a die-hard Quicken user, you will hate (I mean really loathe and despise) the new Quicken Essentials product. If you are new to Personal Finance Management (PFM) software, then you will probably really like Quicken Essentials but still feel a little confused about why you have to pay $60 $69 for it.

Quicken Pops a Mint

Quicken 2007 for Mac was released in August of 2006. Since that time, Intuit has struggled to define its Mac strategy and loyal users have felt left behind. Intuit tried an online product that worked with the Mac, but were bewildered when a little startup, created as an anti-Quicken, amassed more subscribers. Last September, Intuit took another look at that startup and acquired Mint.com and placed Mint’s founder, Aaron Patzer at the head of the personal finance group at Intuit. That move appeared to show that Intuit was floundering and was looking for outside help to fix its core PFM business. Understandably, the new Quicken Essentials shows a strong Mint influence.

The Essence of Quicken

To start on the new version, Intuit threw away the code for previous releases and started over to create a Mac native version with a modern look and feel. One of the design goals was to create a financial app that would feel at home as part of the iWork suite and it mostly succeeded. The new version looks great and shows a lot of attention to simplifying the user experience in areas like adding new accounts. People that are new to Quicken will love how easy it is to get started.

The new version had four key features: to see all your accounts one place, to see where your money is going, to stay on top of bills, and to track goals for saving money.

Accounts in One Place

Quicken Essentials will download transactions from about 12,000 banks out of the box (around the same number that Mint.com currently supports) and up to 16,000 financial institutions will be supported in the next few months. This is over 3x the number of FI’s that Quicken for Windows supports. This is a tremendous improvement.

Where is My Money Going?

Quicken Essentials provides a nice looking home page with pie charts to quickly show where you stand. Instead of being buried in reports, this information comes front and center. QEM also supports budgets for tracking spending by category.

Plan for Bills

Quicken Essentials will analyze your previous spending and detect recurring bills to help you anticipate upcoming expenses. Of course, you can enter bills manually as well.

Set Goals for Saving Money

You can set goals and track your progress towards that goal.

The reboot of Quicken for Mac comes at a price in features however. While Intuit was fairly certain that they would cover 80 percent of the users from previous versions, there are going to be a lot of pretty upset users from the other 20 percent.

What’s Missing?

No Bill Pay

There is no Bill Pay feature in this release. Intuit found that less than 10 percent of existing customers were using that feature. Because major banks offer free online bill pay to their customers, this feature was axed as “non-essential.”

No Turbo Tax Link

There is no quick link to export tax prep reports direct to Turbo Tax. Many users would simply run the reports to look at spending by category and then type those numbers in Turbo Tax so, again, Intuit decided that this feature was also “non-essential.”

No Investment Tax Lot Accounting

QEM will track the current value of your investment accounts, but it does not provide any reports on the history of your transactions. Fortunately, all the transaction data is preserved in the underlying data and will be available to future versions that offer more comprehensive investment reporting.

The Future

Banking Services

QEM is one of the first places where you will see the integration between Intuit and Mint. All of the back-end will eventually be the same across Mint, Quicken for Windows and Quicken for Mac. Quicken for Mac will be the first product to get the big connection and then the rest will be ported over.

Parity with Windows

The whispered goal at Intuit is to bring parity to the Mac and Windows versions. This includes file format compatibility between different platforms. There is a clear acknowledgment that customers just want to get access to their financial information on whatever platform is available or convenient and Intuit is interested in being there.

Whither Quicken 2007 for Mac?

Quicken 2007 is still being fully supported. Intuit made it clear that it will provide support for a three-version window to include 2006, 2007 and Quicken Essentials.

iPad

No official statement here, but Intuit did discuss that the iPad is an “at your fingertips” device and financial data is a nice thing to have “at your fingertips.”

TheAppleBlog Recommends

I mentioned at the start that Quicken Essentials for Mac is similar in many ways to Mint. The product is streamlined, simple, visually appealing, and easy to jump into. They are so similar, that it is hard to understand why you should pay $59 for Quicken Essentials when you can use Mint.com for free. That decision comes down to…

• planning future transactions to manage cash flow
• importing historical data
• offline access

If you need any of those features, Quicken Essentials would be a good choice except for the price. For such a limited product (albeit a much cleaner and better designed product) I really think Intuit should have come out with $29 introductory pricing, $19 if you own any other Quicken product.

If you are a hard-core Quicken user and you like to reconcile your bank statements with your own records and you religiously enter all your receipts, you will be disappointed in this product. You might really like the next version that includes tax lot accounting and bill pay, but then hold on to your $60 $69 for a year (yes, I am an optimist and will hope against hope to see another version in a year). For the time being, hold on to Quicken 2007, or even Quicken 2010 for Windows, and see what happens.

Lee University was named as one of six Presidential Awardees in the 2009 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, the highest federal recognition a college or university can receive for its commitment to service-learning and civic engagement….The Corporation administers the Honor Roll in collaboration with the Department of Education and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Campus Compact and the American Council on Education….

Read the entire article in The Chattanoogan.

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Vevo is barely a couple of months old, but it is already proving quite popular, at least in terms of traffic. The credit doesn’t really go to the new site, rather YouTube is the ‘culprit,’ as it sends a huge amount of people towards Vevo every day. Being a site dedicated to music videos exclusively, it could prove a useful gauge for measuring … (read more)

Filed under: Etc., Toyota

When seasoned executive Jim Press surprisingly jumped ship at Toyota to work at Cerberus-controlled Chrysler, we were half expecting the 36 year veteran of the Japanese automaker to dish some dirt on his ex-employer. After all, Press was the highest-ranking U.S.-born executive Toyota ever had, and if anyone had the scoop on the company he would. In the end, other than a couple of jabs at the Prius, Press took the high road, leaving his post at Toyota with his dignity intact.

But after watching Toyota knee-deep in recalls and with the government breathing down the company’s collective neck, Press appears to have had enough. The Detroit Free Press reports the typically positive-tongued Press released a statement saying that “the root cause of their problems is that the company was hijacked, some years ago, by anti-family, financially oriented pirates.” Shiver our timbers, that doesn’t sound good. Press adds that the negative forces that led Toyota astray didn’t “have the character necessary to maintain a customer first focus.”

But while Press is very much down on some of the plank walkers that helped lead Toyota into its current morass, he has a decidedly rosier take on the new top boss. Press reportedly said in his press release that Akio Toyoda is the only person who has what it takes to save the Japanese automaker from its current predicament, adding “he is very capable, and he embodies the virtues and character that built this great company.”

Is Press finally speaking out against the forces who pushed Toyota to become too big, too soon, or is he angling to get his old job back? We’re guessing the former is likely the case, as Press already has 40 years of automotive experience under his belt and the next couple years at Toyota are likely to be challenging ones. Top tip, Keerthi!

[Source: Detroit Free Press]

Jim Press: Akio Toyoda only person to save Toyota from “anti-family, financially oriented pirates” originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You may recall late last year we wrote about how Yahoo got upset about the security website Cryptome publishing their “surveillance guide,” which details the process (and prices) for law enforcement to request information from Yahoo. Yahoo got upset and issued a DMCA takedown notice, which Cryptome fought. Cryptome has published similar documents from a variety of companies. Recently, for example, it published one from Microsoft, and… once again it’s faced with a DMCA takedown. Microsoft sent the DMCA takedown to Network Solutions who refused to stand up for Cryptome, leading to the site being taken offline. Even worse, Network Solutions didn’t even wait until its self-imposed deadline to take down the site. As soon as Cryptome filed a counternotice (which would actually give NetSol a reason to keep the site up), NetSol took the site down.

This is a massive abuse of the DMCA takedown process by Microsoft. The DMCA is designed to stop people from sharing copyrighted information not for the purpose of hiding documents — and especially not for the purpose of trying to suppress the release of important information.



Furthermore, this kind of move has only served to do one thing: call much more attention to Microsoft’s surveillance guide, which, yes, is now much more widely available. On top of that, it’s made clear that Network Solutions will immediately buckle under DMCA threats — so if they’re your register, perhaps it’s time to look elsewhere. Microsoft is a company that should know better than to abuse the DMCA to stifle free speech, and it seems quite likely that they will end up regretting this decision.



Update: And, of course, now that they’ve drawn much more attention to the whole thing, Microsoft has withdrawn the takedown.

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CHICAGO (STMW) – A man filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Cook County Sheriff and a deputy he claims falsely arrested him and left his “young” son in a vehicle on a busy south suburban interstate.

On Sept. 13, 2009, Cook County Sheriff’s Deputy D. Woods stopped a vehicle driving by Daryl Morgan on Interstate 57 at 167th Street near Oak Forest, according to a suit filed in U.S. District Court.

The suit claims Morgan was arrested and his “young” son was left at the scene of the arrest.

Morgan was released from the Cook County Jail “more than two days” after the arrest and criminal charges were dropped, according to the suit.

Morgan claims the deputy had no reason to arrest him, and there was not a warrant for his arrest. The four-count suit claims false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and indemnification and is seeking judgment against Woods and Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart.

Cook County Sheriff’s office spokesman Steve Patterson said Morgan has never filed a complaint with the sheriff’s office or any other authorities. He laughed at the idea of anyone leaving a child behind on an interstate and forwarded any other questions to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, who could not reached Thursday morning.

“Police officers don’t generally leave kids on the side of the road,” Patterson said.

Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

The Chicago Tribune reports that suspect faces a felony burglary charge. Police have not identified the person.

Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis has said his department was considering the possibility of murder charges against anyone arrested in the burglary.

The funeral for Sgt. Alan Haymaker will be held Friday. He was killed after his police vehicle skidded and crashed into a light pole and a tree on Lake Shore Drive near Irving Park Road.

Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

US review site Yelp was cited in a class action lawsuit by two law firms representing a veterinary hospital from Long Beach, California. The lawsuit was filed at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and is still pending approval. The main claim is for unfair business tactics, citing extortion strategies from the Internet star… (read more)

Sega’s sent out a presser announcing the European release date for Alpha Protocol. Details past the jump.

Filed under: Motorsports

USF1 has already entered the terminal vortex – that is the swirl of rumors, silence and denials that leads everyone casting pitiful glances at some entity, thinking “You stink of death.” The team didn’t say much when everyone was wondering what was happening, but in motorsports, everyone knows what that means: they don’t have money.

Now team principle Ken Anderson has come out and admitted that the organization has financial issues and is said to be speaking with the FIA about missing the first four races of the season. His take is that “We have a timeline in place that if we get a decision quickly [granting the right to miss races], that triggers funding and we’re good to go.” He also clarifies that YouTube honcho Chad Hurley is still backing the team. A disgruntled employee, on the other hand, has a different take, writing to Autosport magazine that workers were told the team had funding for three years, and that the recent upheaval has led to the departure of ten of the 70 employees.

If something definitely good doesn’t happen for USF1 in a matter of hours, the next phase will be the zombie zone, when a thing is still technically alive but everyone regards it as dead. Another sponsor has ended its partnership with the team, driver Jose Maria Lopez is still contracted but said to be on the verge of joining Campos F1, and the rumors of Hurley’s bolting to Campos still resound. Good luck finding jockeys to jump on that horse, guys.

As we understand it, even if USF1 does get FIA approval, it still doesn’t even have a car. Anderson said he wants to show up at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona on May 9. If the FIA granted Anderson his wish today, USF1 would still have just 70 days to finish building a car and get it crash tested – and find two paying drivers to pilot it. And then, with no in-season testing, we can only surmise they’d show up on for Friday practice and be ridiculously off the pace. At this point, even if USF1 does survive… who wins? Hat tip to Peter!

[Sources: The New York Times, ESPN]

Report: USF1 team not dead yet, may miss early races originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – California lawmakers are trying to make the Golden State a little cleaner – at least when it comes to foul language.

On Thursday, the state Assembly is scheduled to vote on a resolution calling for a statewide “Cuss Free Week,” to occur annually during the first week of March. If approved by both houses of the Legislature, the resolution would take effect next week.

It was inspired by a South Pasadena teenager who founded a No Cussing Club at his junior high school in 2007. The movement has earned international attention.

Portantino said his resolution is simply a guideline, a reminder to “act like you’re at your grandma’s house.”

Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

Washington Campus Compact, Bellingham, Wash., currently has two Grant Manager positions available. One is responsible for overseeing the Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) grant as well as other community engagement programs; the other is responsible for the Students in Service (SIS) grant as well as other community engagement programs. These are both grant funded positions funded until August 31, 2010; with future continuance dependent upon funding. All applicants will be considered for both opportunities.

The Grant Manager will work as part of the senior staff of Washington Campus Compact (WACC). The Manager will develop, design, and oversee their grant and other community engagement programs; develop all program policies and procedures; and develop and implement strategies for campus partner and national service member recruitment and retention. They are responsible for interpreting and developing programmatic systems to comply with funding agencies’ regulations; providing training and technical support to campus partners to build sustainable campus-based community engagement programs; and document and disseminate best practices for the programs.

About the Department
Washington Campus Compact (WACC) is a statewide coalition of college and university presidents (hosted at Western Washington University) who have united to:

• Support students to become engaged leaders in their communities through service and community engagement activities
• Further the civic and public purposes of higher education
• Strengthen communities

Position Responsibilities

• Oversee community engagement programs
• Develop and manage program operational systems including program policies and procedures
• Supervise staff (number will fluctuate depending on the needs of the different programs)
• Ensure that participating sites receive sufficient training and technical assistance to comply with federal policies and to meet program objectives
• Be accountable for reaching federal recruitment, retention, and program goals
• Respond to each campus partner’s unique needs in the manner most appropriate to that campus or organization
• Work as part of the senior management team to write and submit all program grant proposals, continuation proposals, and progress reports in accordance with funding agency guidelines
• Manage budgets and prepare fiscal reports including itemizing grant expenditures and documenting match
• Work with the Training Manager to develop and implement program training modules for VISTA and community engagement programs
• Develop all program written resources; work with technical support staff to maintain/enhance program website
• Work with campus partners, regional partners, external stakeholders, and WACC staff to create relevant future programming based on identified regional, statewide, and local needs and priorities
• Serve as an advocate and expert in the area of poverty elimination and other community engagement initiatives at the state, regional, and national levels
• Work with other national service programs in the region and within the Campus Compact national network to strengthen the national service network
• Participate in program specific trainings at the federal, regional, and state levels; this includes presenting WACC program models and impacts at a minimum of one conference annually
• Conduct public outreach to further develop anti-poverty programming and build regional infrastructure; educate public audiences about the positive impact of programs
• Attend Professional Mediation Training

Required Qualifications

• BA/BS degree
• Minimum 3 years experience and demonstrated skills in program management in community engagement related fields
• Demonstrated experience designing and presenting trainings
• Demonstrated experience and skills supervising others
• Demonstrated excellent written, oral, and interpersonal communication skills

Condition of Employment

• Travel and work some evenings and weekends

Preferred Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience in team-building
• Demonstrated experience working in national service programs
• Demonstrated experience in higher education
• Demonstrated excellent organizational and time management skills
• Demonstrated strong computer skills

Academic Emphasis

• N/A

Job Location

• Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA

Salary

• Commensurate with qualifications and experience

Bargaining Union

• Not applicable

Application Instructions and Requested Documents
Please log in and submit your application via WWU’s Electronic Application System for Employment (EASE). Note: You will need to be using Internet Explorer to utilize our online application system.

A cover letter, resume, and contact information for three references are required and should address your experience related to the position responsibilities and the required and preferred qualifications. You may cut and paste or upload your materials as noted on the EASE application.

Other Information: N/A

Job Posted: 2/17/10

Closing Date: 3/10/10

Recruitment #: 100066

WWU is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, committed to assembling a diverse, broadly trained faculty and staff. Women, minorities, persons with disabilities, Vietnam-era and disabled veterans are encouraged to apply. All new employees must comply with the immunization policy and show employment eligibility verification as required by the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Service before beginning work at WWU. A thorough background check will be conducted on all new hires. For disability accommodation, call (360) 650-3774.

Social gaming is becoming increasingly popular and a big business. The trend became apparent last year, as more and more people played games on social networks and the companies that made them started raking in the money. Social network hi5 saw this as an opportunity to refocus and revamp the site with social gaming in mind. Its latest move solidifi… (read more)

ORLANDO, Fla. — A veteran SeaWorld trainer from northwest Indiana was rubbing a killer whale from a poolside platform when the 12,000-pound creature reached up, grabbed her ponytail in its mouth and dragged her underwater. Despite workers rushing to help, the trainer was killed.

Horrified visitors who had stuck around after a noontime show watched the animal charge through the pool with the trainer in its jaws. Workers used nets as an alarm sounded, but it was too late. Dawn Brancheau had drowned. It marked the third time the animal had been involved in a human death.

Brancheau’s family in Schererville says she knew since she was a little girl that she wanted to work with whales.

Brancheau went to Andrian Catholic High School in Merrillville. She was also homecoming queen there. Her family and friends say she was living her dream as a trainer of killer whales at SeaWorld, according to ABC 7 Chicago.

“Dawn was the most loving, caring, spiritual person,” said Diane Gross, sister.

Despite losing their loved one, Brancheau’s relatives were celebrating her life. They say she wanted to be a trainer he ever since she was 9 years old, when the family visited SeaWorld.

“We all felt she had the most awesome job in the world,” said Gross. “Our kids grew up visiting her, seeing her shows, seeing what she does. And we were just so proud of her.”

Gross said the trainer wouldn’t want anything done to the whale because she loved the animals like children. The trainer was married and didn’t have children.

“She loved the whales like her children, she loved all of them,” said Gross, of Schererville, Ind. “They all had personalities, good days and bad days.”

Gross said the family viewed her sister’s death as an unfortunate accident, adding: “It just hasn’t sunk in yet.”

Dawn was the youngest of six children who grew up near Cedar Lake, Indiana. Her passion for marine life began at the age of nine, Gross said, on a family trip to Sea World.

According to a profile of Brancheau in the Sentinel in 2006, she was one of SeaWorld Orlando’s leading trainers. Brancheau worked her way into a leadership role at Shamu Stadium during her career with SeaWorld, starting at the Sea Lion & Otter Stadium before spending 10 years working with killer whales, the newspaper said.

She also addressed the dangers of the job.

“You can’t put yourself in the water unless you trust them and they trust you,” Brancheau said.

Horrified visitors who had stuck around after a noontime show watched the animal charge through the pool with the trainer in its jaws. Workers used nets as an alarm sounded, but it was too late. Dawn Brancheau had drowned. It marked the third time the animal had been involved in a human death.

The whale, named Tilikum, apparently grabbed Brancheau by her long ponytail, according to the head of animal training at all SeaWorld parks, Chuck Tompkins. He told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that her ponytail swung out in front of the whale.

“That’s when the trainer next to him (Tilikum) said that he grabbed the hair, pulled her under water. And of course, held her under water,” Tompkins said.

SeaWorld’s Web site said the park would be open Thursday but that killer whale shows were suspended for the time being at its Orlando and San Diego parks. Its third location in San Antonio is not yet open for the season.

Brancheau’s interaction with the whale appeared leisurely and informal at first to audience member Eldon Skaggs. But then, the whale “pulled her under and started swimming around with her,” Skaggs told The Associated Press.

Some workers hustled the audience out of the stadium while the others tried to save Brancheau, 40.

Skaggs said he heard that during an earlier show the whale was not responding to directions. Others who attended the earlier show said the whale was behaving like an ornery child.

But Tompkins said the whale had performed well in the show and that Dawn was rubbing him down as a reward for doing a good job.

“There wasn’t anything to indicate to us that there was a problem,” Tompkins told the CBS “Early Show.”

Another audience member, Victoria Biniak, told WKMG-TV the whale “took off really fast in the tank, and then he came back, shot up in the air, grabbed the trainer by the waist and started thrashing around, and one of her shoes flew off.”

Because of his size and the previous deaths, trainers were not supposed to get into the water with Tilikum, and only about a dozen of the park’s 29 trainers worked with him. Brancheau had more experience with the 30-year-old whale than most. She was one of the park’s most experienced trainers overall.

“We recognized he was different,” said Tompkins. He said no decision has been made yet about what will happen to Tilikum, such as transferring him to another facility. SeaWorld has also suspended the killer whale shows at all of its parks, which also include locations in San Diego and San Antonio, to review procedures.

A SeaWorld spokesman said Tilikum was one of three orcas blamed for killing a trainer in 1991 after the woman lost her balance and fell in the pool at Sealand of the Pacific near Victoria, British Columbia.

Steve Huxter, who was head of Sealand’s animal care and training department then, said Wednesday he’s surprised it happened again. He says Tilikum was a well-behaved, balanced animal.

Tilikum was also involved in a 1999 death, when the body of a man who had sneaked by SeaWorld security was found draped over him. The man either jumped, fell or was pulled into the frigid water and died of hypothermia, though he was also bruised and scratched by Tilikum.

Billy Hurley, chief animal officer at the Georgia Aquarium– the world’s largest — said there are inherent dangers to working with orcas, just as there are with driving race cars or piloting jets.

“In the case of a killer whale, if they want your attention or if they’re frustrated by something or if they’re confused by something, there’s only a few ways of handling that,” he said. “If you’re right near pool’s edge and they decide they want a closer interaction during this, certainly they can grab you.”

And, he added: “At 12,000 pounds there’s not a lot of resisting you’re going to do.”

Mike Wald, a spokesman for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration office in Atlanta, said his agency had dispatched an investigator from Tampa.

Wednesday’s death was not the first attack on whale trainers at SeaWorld parks.

In November 2006, a trainer was bitten and held underwater several times by a killer whale during a show at SeaWorld’s San Diego park.

The trainer, Kenneth Peters, escaped with a broken foot. The 17-foot orca that attacked him was the dominant female of SeaWorld San Diego’s seven killer whales. She had attacked Peters two other times, in 1993 and 1999.

In 2004, another whale at the company’s San Antonio park tried to hit one of the trainers and attempted to bite him. He also escaped.

Wednesday’s attack was the second time in two months that an orca trainer was killed at a marine park. On Dec. 24, 29-year-old Alexis Martinez Hernandez fell from a whale and crushed his ribcage at Loro Parque on the Spanish island of Tenerife. Park communications director Patricia Delponti said the whale, a 14-year-old named Keto, came from SeaWorld but is not a son of Tilikum.

Associated Press contributed to this report.

Read the original article on DailyHerald.com.

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services

A decision that can be described as strange and homophobic was taken by Citibank officials yesterday, February 24, 2010, regarding the bank account of the New York-based startup Fabulis. Their funds were blocked without any notice to the client, after a few days earlier, a bank official decided that the website’s blog page contained p… (read more)

 

 

A copy of the first issue of Superman comics was sold for one million dollars. The copy originally sold for ten cents in 1938. Someone said that if that same dime had been invested in General Motors stock in 1938, it would be worth at least a quarter.

What are brokers and reps saying out there? “It seems the faucet turned off mid January.  My brokers have very little and it seems every community bank is terrified of Friday’s and the FDIC.” “I’m still pretending to be a Mortgage Broker in this wonderful economic climate, all I seem to be doing is paying for licenses, taking exams and foolishly marketing my services.” “Things are good here – people are getting back out looking and people are listing – just what we need!” “Dealing with the current GFE hassles is about as easy as folding a fitted sheet!”  Lastly, “Rob – The following is an actual underwriting condition from a large wholesale lender which is known for having the best wholesale pricing for conforming loans. (As background, the borrower is a staff attorney for the Federal Reserve Bank of NY.) ‘Please provide a signed letter from CPA stating if [client’s first name] has 25% or more ownership in Federal Reserve Bank. If ‘yes’ he should be run as self employed.’”

Locks appear to have picked up this week, but the MBAA reported that mortgage applications last week were down for a third consecutive week. Apps were down 8.5%, with refi’s down almost 9% and purchases down a little over 7%. Purchases are down to mid-1997 levels. As a percentage of applications, refi’s are hanging tough at 68% if total activity – is your company ready if they dip below 50%? The MBAA now forecasts refinancings will fall to a range of $500 billion to $600 billion this year from $1.4 trillion in 2009.

As I tell groups whenever I speak, you can’t drive through a downtown anywhere in the United States without seeing “For Rent,” “For Sale,” “For Lease” signs, or plain empty storefronts. It turns out that the default rate for commercial property mortgages held by U.S. banks more than doubled in the fourth quarter and may peak at 5.4 percent at the end of 2011, according to a study by Real Capital Analytics Inc. The default rate for loans on office, retail, hotel and industrial properties jumped to 3.8 percent from 1.6 percent a year earlier. The default rate for loans on apartment buildings rose to 4.4 percent from 1.8 percent. Commercial property values, which fell 29% in December from a year earlier, are down 41% from the October 2007 peak, according to the Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Index. Unfortunately for banks here in the US with between $100 million and $1 billion in assets, they hold 25 percent of commercial property loans outstanding and 15 percent of apartment loans. The biggest banks, those with more than $10 billion in assets, hold about half of commercial loans and two-thirds of apartment loans.

Freddie Mac said yesterday that it lost $7.8 billion in the fourth quarter, or $26 for every man, woman, and infant in the United States. On the plus side, it was better than the $23.9 billion Freddie lost in the same quarter a year ago, and apparently doesn’t need more money (for now) than the $51 billion in taxpayer aid it already received. For all of 2009 the company lost $21.6 billion versus 2008’s loss of $50.1 billion. But Freddie Mac’s chief executive, Charles Haldeman, warned of a “potential large wave of foreclosures” still to come

Wells Fargo’s wholesale group alerted patrons on the subjects of fees paid by the seller (Per HUD, “all seller-paid fees must be disclosed on the GFE – including transfer taxes. If seller-paid fees are not disclosed on the GFE, then you are required to provide a refund to the borrower for any amount that exceeds tolerance limitations – regardless of whether or not the seller actually paid the fee. The only exception is fees that are required by state law to be paid for by the seller: Must be legally required by the state or local government and the purchase contract alone will not satisfy this requirement.”), and the disclosure of government fees. Starting in mid-March, Wells Fargo wholesale will begin sending an e-mail message confirming that the appropriate amount of the government fees listed below have been disclosed – brokers will be responsible if the disclosed amount of a government fee changes at any time without evidence of a valid changed circumstance.

U.S. Bank’s Consumer Finance Wholesale Mortgage Division sent customers a revised list of states with restricted LTV’s, with more states improving than worsening. For example, USB will go to 90% on 1st mortgages with no MI (including jumbos and cash out products) and up to 85% on 2nd mortgages, in AL, AK, AR, CO, CT, DE, GA, ID, IN, IA, KS, KY, ME, MD, MA, MN, MO, MT, NE, NH, NM, NY, NC, ND, OK, PA, RI, SD, TN, VT, VA, WV, WI, WY. In the states of IL-NJ-OH-OR-SC-UT-WA USB lend up to 90% on 1st mortgages, and to 80% on 2nd mortgages. Finally, in AZ-CA-FL-MI-NV (it’s “Tier 1″ states) the wholesale division goes to 75% on 1st and 2nd mortgages.

Yesterday’s $42 billion 5-yr auction did not go well. It goes back to the “What if we held an auction and nobody bid?” Indirect bids, which in the past indicated a level of interest from foreign entities but in the last year became a little convoluted, have been on a roller coaster: Tuesday’s 2-yr hit over 53% of the auction while yesterday’s was the lowest since July at 40%. Not good. The Bernanke testimony (rates need to remain low), along with the much worse-than-expected New Homes Sales data, muddled the picture somewhat for investors yesterday. The good news for mortgage folks is that dealers are reporting heavy selling, and selling is often powered by locks, so current locks must be picking up.

The New Home Sales data was particularly bad. In January sales dropped 11%, the worst on record and erasing all the gains from last year. Nationwide, inventory represents over a 9 month supply – the highest in almost a year. And year-over-year the median price for a new home fell in January by 2.4%, to $203,500 from $208,600 a year ago. Regionally, January new-home sales dropped 35.1% in the Northeast, 11.9% in the West, and 9.5% in the South. Sales rose 2.1% in the Midwest.

And although Mr. Bernanke said the economy still needs the Fed’s support via low rates, he said the central bank is prepared to tighten credit when the time comes to prevent inflation. A first step toward tighter credit could involve the Fed draining the more than $1.0 trillion in excess reserves banks have accumulated after the central bank bought mortgage-backed securities and U.S. Treasury securities to combat the financial crisis, most likely through reverse repurchase agreements.

This morning the markets are being pushed around by Jobless Claims, the GDP, a $32 billion 7-yr note auction, and continued testimony from Ben Bernanke. Prior to the 8:30AM EST numbers the yield on the 10-yr was back down to 3.66%. Durable Goods were up 3% for January versus December’s +1.9%. (Ex-transportation the number was -.6%.) Jobless Claims showed an increase of 22,000 to 496,000, with a four-week moving average creeping up by 6,000 to 473,750. Immediately after the news the yield on the 10-yr dropped to 3.64%, and mortgage prices are better between .125 and .250, depending on coupon.

We were dressed and ready to go out for the New Years Eve Party. We turned on a night light, turned the answering machine on, covered our pet parakeet and put the cat in the backyard.
We phoned the local cab company and requested a taxi. The taxi arrived and we opened the front door to leave the house.
As we walked out the door, the cat we had put out in the yard scoots back into the house. We didn’t want the cat shut in the house because she always tries to eat the bird.
My wife goes on out to the taxi, while I went back inside to get the cat. The cat runs upstairs, with me in hot pursuit.
Waiting in the cab, my wife doesn’t want the driver to know that the house will be empty for the night. So she explains to the taxi driver that I will be out soon, “He’s just going upstairs to, uh, say goodbye to my mother.”
A few minutes later, I get into the cab.
“Sorry I took so long,” I said, as we drove away. “That stupid thing was hiding under the bed. I had to poke her rump with a coat hanger to get her to come out! She tried to take off, so I grabbed her by the neck. Then, I had to wrap her in a blanket to keep her from scratching me. But it worked! I hauled her fat rump downstairs and threw her out into the back yard!”
The cab driver hit a parked car.

Rob

(Check out http://www.mortgagenewsdaily.com/channels/pipelinepress/default.aspx. For archived commentaries, check www.robchrisman.com )

For many years, whenever people insisted that the ability to download movies would kill the movie business — including the box office revenues — we’ve made the analogy that just because people can prepare food at home (for much lower cost!) it hasn’t changed the fact that sometimes people still go out to dinner. It’s an apt analogy. People go out to dinner for a variety of reasons, despite cheaper (and potentially healthier) fare at home. Basically the overall experience makes it worthwhile as a social experience. That applies equally to movies and eating out. I was reminded of this recently. A whole bunch of you sent over Gizmodo’s post about the old Dead Kennedys cassette tape mocking “Home Taping is Killing Music” by leaving the second side blank so “you can help”:

This image (or a similar one) shows up every couple of years and makes the blog rounds. So, at first I wasn’t going to bother posting it, but then the Freakbits guys pointed me to various “offshoot” slogans and images, including the following one that’s so good it needs to be shared widely:



Yes, folks, home cooking is killing the restaurant industry. Why won’t Congress and the USTR deal with this pernicious problem?

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