News

2011

February

17

• Time to save and pay down debt. It's a good thing in this economy to have some extra money on hand. But what do you do with it? That's what many people wanted to know during a recent online discussion. Here's what

15

• Chase admits mishandling loans to military. J.P. Morgan Chase admits to overcharging or foreclosing on homes of some members of the U.S. military.

• Beyond Fannie and Freddie. The report on Friday on “Reforming America’s Housing Finance Market” left me feeling downright giddy. While the report is hardly a finished plan for Freddie Mac (the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation) and Fannie

10

• Avoiding foreclosures. A $7.6 billion federal effort to help unemployed homeowners avoid foreclosure will soon be running in all 18 states sharing the funds. The Hardest Hit Fund, announced by President Obama a year ago and expanded to more

• Fighting for Fannie, Freddie. To many Republicans and the Obama administration, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government's mortgage giants, are ill. But rather than healing them, both sides agree that the companies should be left to die and

08

• Marry again: Financial planning a must. Life used to be so simple a generation or two ago. A mother, father and their kids, all living together under one roof. But now, the makeup of the American household has supernovaed into a

• U.S. should step back from mortgage business. A group of Wall Street professionals meeting here Monday posed a central question facing the Obama administration: How do taxpayers get off the hook for supporting new home loans without doing damage to the struggling

03

• Bridge loans for unemployed homeowners in March. A new federal program that could help thousands of unemployed homeowners in Massachusetts temporarily cover their mortgages is expected to finally be up and running by mid-March, months after it was scheduled to start. A

• Foreclosed homeowners go to court on their own. Saving your home from foreclosure is increasingly a do-it-yourself project. Lawyers are scarce and free legal assistance is overwhelmed in New Mexico, so a community center here is offering an hourlong class in how to

• In Fannie, Freddie overhaul better late than sorry. To hear congressional Republicans tell it, the Obama administration is much like the harried white rabbit that mutters, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" in Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." It

01

• One in five mortgages default after modification. One in five U.S. homeowners whose loans were modified under a federal government program to help reduce foreclosures were at least 60 days late in their payments a year after their mortgages were reworked. The

January

30

• New in this season's tax return. For taxpayers who are procrastinators, this is your year. Not only is the Internal Revenue Service asking those with more complex returns to hold off filing until mid-February, but the usual tax deadline has been

• Bank crisis whodunit, with laughs and tears. Truly startling revelations were few in the voluminous report, published last Thursday by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission on the origins of the financial panic. This is hardly a shock, given the flood-the-zone coverage and

• Lose a job? Pay cut? Double check your tax return. If you had some major economic challenges in 2010, your tax situation may be different from in years past. So be more than a passive (or procrastinating) filer this year. Even if you use a professional

• Low Income Senior Housing Application grew harder (Chinese). 美國究竟是老年人的天堂？還是墳墓？在美國退休後，不少華裔選擇返鄉定居，除了國內醫療費用低廉、交通便利，加上親友眾多，且無語言障礙，與美國相比，簡直天壤之別。 消費者行動社區經理張毓潔表示，過去美國政府確實對低收入老人設想周到，只要住進老人公寓，只需付收入三分之一，其餘由政府買單。

• Fannie y Freddie recibieron US$20.900 millones por recompras de hipotecas. Fannie Mae y Freddie Mac recibieron US$20.900 millones durante un período de cerca de tres años de bancos estadounidenses a los que obligaron a recomprar hipotecas de pésima calidad, según la

29

• ARM comeback could save you an arm and a leg. After years of virtual exile from the home-loan arena, is the adjustable-rate mortgage staging a quiet comeback? Could an ARM be on your shopping list the next time you need to buy or refinance a

28

• Report blames regulators, financial institutions for economic crisis. The official U.S. government report on what caused the financial crisis casts blame on Goldman Sachs for fueling the subprime mortgage bubble, Merrill Lynch for not telling investors about the true state of its

27

• Fed faulted for lax mortgage regulation. The Federal Reserve failed to forestall the housing bubble or prevent the abusive lending practices that contributed to it, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission said in a report, embracing a lesson that legislators have already

26

• Precios de casas en ruta de declive. Los Ángeles y Washington son la excepción con alzas de 2.1% y 3.5% El precio de las viviendas unifamiliares en las veinte mayores ciudades de Estados Unidos cayó en noviembre de 2010 un 1.6% respecto al mismo mes