Stocks opened lower and enter the final hour with modest losses on little real news, late Friday saw NY AG Eric Schneiderman file suit against MERS Corp., B of A , JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and others alleging that MERS is effectively a fraud. Through the use of deceptive practices including forgery, filing false documents, misrepresentation and other acts, as American homeowners were wrongly foreclosed on and denied due process. Worse MERS effectively eliminated property owners and the public’s ability to track real estate transfers through county records. In the process denying various municipalities 100’s of millions if not billions in recording fees through the establishment of a private electronic database designed to facilitate electronic trading of MBS that is riddled with errors and makes a mockery of the rule of law.
Recent data has put the kibosh on the recession calls by the usually reliable ECRI and John Hussman and perhaps yours truly though I figured that the recession would appear early this year, so I’m going to stick to my guns a little longer. The usually lucid and well respected Blog Calculated Risk is out with a piece figuring the housing bottom is in, at least with respect to new home sales and housing starts. The article was quick to point out that prices were another matter and that their bottom could be years away. That said a bottom in starts and new home sales would prove a significant milestone along the path of real economic recovery.
On the subject of recession we have date on petroleum and gasoline usage that clearly shows both turning down dramatically in the last few months and putting in new post crisis lows. In fact gasoline use has dropped below 8 million barrels per day in 2 of the last 3 weeks. While the trends are clearly down of late it is probably a little early to sound the alarm just yet. That said if these trends don’t turn around and soon a negative economic impact will be felt as a result.
The on again off again CRE crisis is back to center stage with the auction sale of Atlanta’s Bank of America Plaza going down with a 54% haircut for the previous owner who defaulted. Despite significant refinancing needs the commercial real estate market has so far managed to avoid a disastrous meltdown despite significant price reductions. Due to widespread use of various extend and pretend games, while they have worked fairly well so far this is a game that cannot be played indefinitely.
Hi and welcome to The Profit Motive, I’m your host Caleb Lawrence. Once upon a time in America the media acted as the watchdog of the corporations and the state. In the modern era it’s all about ratings and profits, opinion has been substituted for news and frequently is presented as fact. 
