Friday News Roundup — The Foreclosure Bomb

 Someone Dropped a Foreclosure Bomb on Wellington and the Acreage.  I did a search of the areas near where I live that rode the top of the real estate bubble.  The number of homes in foreclosures there is eyepopping.

Wellington is a “ritzy” area, too.  If you want to do this yourself, 

1. Go to Google Maps (maps.google.com)
2. Type in the name of your town.
3. Under “search options,” click on “real estate”.
4. Click on “foreclosure” and “go.”

 Note - my sincere sympathies to anyone whose home is in foreclosure.

IN OTHER NEWS

US Consumer Demand Off A Cliff As Crisis Deepens

Hat-tip Jesse at Cafe Americain

Until the consumer returns to some semblance of health, there will be no sustained recovery. It really is that simple.

 Comstock Partners on Deleveraging (Not for the Fainthearted)

Yves at Naked Capitalism dishes up a research report from Comstock Partners.  The Cliff’s Notes version:  We’re turning into Japan …

 If the savings rate in the U.S. were to rise to the 10% level by 2018 (following the Japanese experience), the SF Fed economists calculate that it would subtract ¾ of 1% from annual consumption growth each year. We did a weekly comment about this very subject on June 25 of this year and came to a similar conclusion. In that same report we showed that from 1955 to 1985 that consumption accounted for around 62% of GDP. Because of the debt driven consumption over the past few years at the end of March 2009 consumption accounted for over 70% of GDP. If the percentage dropped to the normal low 60% area of GDP it would subtract about $1 trillion off of consumption (or from $10 trillion to $9 trillion)….

We expect that the U.S. deleveraging will follow along the path of Japan for years as real estate continues to decline and the deleveraging extracts a significant toll from any growth the economy might experience. We also expect that, just like Japan, the stock market will also be sluggish to down during the next few years as the most leveraged economy in history unwinds the debt.

 XX Sean’s note - while you’re at Naked Capitalism, also read “The Health Insurers Have Already Won”.  It may turn your stomach, but it’s spot-on.

 Fannie Mae to Tap $10.7 Billion in Treasury Capital

Fannie Mae, the mortgage-finance company taken over by the government, asked the U.S. Treasury for a $10.7 billion capital investment as an eighth straight quarterly loss drove its net worth below zero once again. A second-quarter net loss of $14.8 billion, or $2.67 a share, pushed the company to request money for the third time from a $200 billion government lifeline, Washington-based Fannie Mae said in a filing today with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Today’s results bring the company’s cumulative losses over the last two years to $101.6 billion and will bring its total draw on the Treasury to $44.9 billion since April.

Solar power towers have maker beaming

By utility standards, the Sierra SunTower is small - enough to power about 4,000 homes at its peak 5-megawatt production. But eSolar has deals in place to build larger plants, about 600 megawatts of peak power production in California and the Southwest, plus a gigawatt in India. To produce more power, each plant would have more towers, up to 16 for each steam turbine.

I found the following over on TheOilDrum.com …

6 PHASES OF A PROJECT:
1. Enthusiasm
2. Disillusionment
3. Panic
4. Search for the Guilty
5. Punishment of the Innocent
6. Praise and Honors for the Non-Participants

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