Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Foreclosure Timeline Soars to 587 Days
Delays in processing foreclosures are continuing to drive up foreclosure processing timelines at the same time that new foreclosures jumped 10 percent in June, according to the June Mortgage Monitor report by Lender Processing Services, Inc., but are still down 16.4 percent from the start of the year
Read more: http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Real-Estate/2011/08/05/Foreclosure-Timeline-Soars-to-587-Days/7271312545901/#ixzz1UaCRIR6v
No Media Coverage Allowed As Remains of Elite U.S. Troops Return to U.S. Tuesday
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - The loss of dozens of elite American troops to a Taliban rocket-propelled grenade is a window on the war to come -- focused increasingly on the type of special operations the troops were pursuing when their helicopter crashed.
The U.S. military released new details Monday about the crash in the Tangi Valley, a dangerous area of Wardak province on the doorstep of the Afghan capital. The 30 U.S. troops, seven Afghan commandos and an Afghan interpreter who died were taking part in one of thousands of nighttime operations being conducted annually across the nation.
The sheer number of these missions is evidence that progress in the nearly decade-long war depends more on efforts to kill or capture insurgents than the overarching strategy of building support for the Afghan government at grassroots levels. And these missions will take on relatively more importance as troop levels decline.
Saturday's crash of the CH-47 Chinook helicopter was deadliest single loss for U.S. forces in the war and raised anew questions in the United States about why U.S. troops are still fighting the unpopular conflict.
U.S. leaders vowed on Monday not to let the loss rewrite the war strategy.
"We will press on and we will succeed," President Barack Obama said at the White House.
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said, "As heavy a loss as this was, it would even be more tragic if we allowed it to derail this country from our efforts to defeat al-Qaida and deny them a safe haven in Afghanistan."
In Kabul, German Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said, "The incident, as tragic as it was in its magnitude, will have no influence on the conduct of operations."
Jacobson said troops continued Monday to recover every last piece of the helicopter and that no one was being allowed in or out of the heavily secured crash site during the investigation. A ceremony was held at Bagram Air Field, a massive military installation north of Kabul, to pay respect to fallen service members being sent back to the United States.
Marine Gen. John Allen, the new top commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, released a statement early Tuesday in honor of the fallen American and Afghan troops. "In life they were comrades in arms and in death they are bound forever in this vital cause," he said. "We cherish this selfless sacrifice."
Pentagon officials said two C-17 aircraft carrying the remains of U.S. and Afghan troops killed in the crash left Afghanistan Monday night en route to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. They said that there will be no public media coverage at the Dover base during the ceremony that typically takes place when the bodies of fallen troops arrive because the badly damaged remains are mingled and still being identified.
Many of the Americans who died were members of the Navy's SEAL Team Six, the unit that conducted the raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden at his hideout in Pakistan. But none of the SEALs killed in the crash took part in the bin Laden mission. The official name of the SEAL team is the Naval Special Warfare Development Group.
Home price recovery slips out of sight
Any glimmer of hope that the housing market will stage a recovery in the upcoming months has vanished, thanks to the recent spate of bad economic news that has been making headlines over the past several weeks.
According to the latest analysis of home price trends in 384 markets based on the Fiserv/Case-Shiller Indexes, it will be well into the first quarter of 2013 before median home prices across the nation will even be on par with prices from the first quarter of this year.
And that's not saying much. During the first quarter of 2011, prices fell in 302 of the 384 housing markets tracked by the Fiserv/Case-Shiller index, dropping by an average of 5.1% year-over-year.
As a result of continued weakness on the jobs front and the debt ceiling fiasco, Fiserv pushed back its projections of a housing market turnaround by three months. Now, it doesn't expect home prices to start gaining any ground until the second quarter of 2012.
Instead, Fiserv expects median home prices to continue to fall by an average of 3.1% between March 31 of this year and March 31, 2012. After that, it expects to see prices increase by 2.7% until the first quarter of 2013.
"Every piece of bad news causes more people to be more nervous," said David Stiff, chief economist for Fiserv, which provides information management and analyses data for the financial services industry. "The stabilization of housing markets depends greatly on household confidence in the strength of the economic recovery. Unfortunately, recent economic news has done little to build confidence."
There still, however, is no shortage of housing inventory. More than 3.75 million existing homes in June alone were on the market, according to the National Association of Realtors. At the latest rate of sales, it would take 9.5 months to exhaust that inventory, about 50% longer than what NAR considers a healthy housing market.
"I don't think we'll see an increase in sales until we see the economy improving," said Fiserv's Stiff.
Parents to be given five-a-day checklist on how to raise children
Television and radio advertisements and posters in nurseries and on buses would spell out how parents should play, read, talk, praise, and feed their children every day, under the proposed drive.
Companies that make toys, children’s books and baby food would be encouraged to brand their products with an official logo under the proposed scheme, which is modelled on the successful “five-a-day” fruit and vegetables dietary campaign.
The children’s minister, Sarah Teather, warmly welcomed the proposals, which came from the think-tank, CentreForum, and promised to consider the option of a “five-a-day” campaign for child development.
The initiative would aim to overhaul society’s attitudes towards parenting in a similar way to the change in how drink-driving has been seen over the past 50 years.
Research has found that the quality of parenting and educational influences in the early months and years of a child’s life have an overwhelming influence on their later progress at school and careers.
UK Riots: Government Prepares Troops, Martial Law
Eyewitnesses: Police stood back and allowed rioters to loot private businesses
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Following numerous reports of failures on behalf of police to arrest looters or adequately respond to the riots in London that are now sweeping across the entire UK, curfews and troops on the streets are now being readied as authorities prepare to enforce martial law to quell massive civil unrest.
BBC News twice reported this morning that troops were being readied. The statement was first made by a reporter at 8:30am and then repeated by a Metropolitan Police representative who said “all options were on the table”.
U.K. Home Secretary Theresa May confirmsthat the government is considering “military support for the police”.
Curfews are also being discussed as authorities prepare to transform Britain into a locked down police state.
“Armoured vehicles have been brought in to clear the streets for the first time by police to tackle what senior officers say is the worst rioting and looting in living memory,” reports the Guardian.
“I have not heard of a curfew on mainland Britain in the past century. [It's] very difficult to impose. I’m not saying that it is definitely the way forward but it is something we have to consider,” Diane Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington told BBC Breakfast.
Former London mayor Ken Livingstone called for police to use water cannons to disperse the rioters.
Having started in poorer areas of London, the riots have now spread to other major cities including Bristol, Nottingham, Liverpool and Manchester.
There can be little doubt that the vast majority of the rioters are products of the country’s broken society, nihilistic youths who care little about political grievances and are primarily focused with exploiting the chaos to steal as much booty as they possibly can while getting off on mindless violence. This behavior ensures the public will overwhelmingly support whatever measures are proposed to deal with them, even to the point of outright martial law.
