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According to First American CoreLogic, a real estate information company, 10.7 million households had negative equity in their homes. That is they were under water because they owed more on their mortgages than the properties are worth. The proportion is 23% or one in four homeowners. Mark Fleming CoreLogic's chief economist points out that having negative equity lowers labor mobility and in that way makes it harder to sell the house to look for jobs elsewhere. This is happening in Michigan and other states and is a discouraging sign for improving the job numbers. In this way the poor prospects in housing, banking bad loans in commercial real estate with tight bank lending, and the already high 10.2% umnemployment rate intersect to make 2010 pose significant risks for the economy.

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Arne Duncan describes the improvements in K-12 education in two regions of the U.S.- the District of Columbia and Tennessee between 2011 and 2013, shown by the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The hard work of educators, parents and school officials is paying off and offers examples for other parts of the country, says Duncan. Lessons include facing the facts, not dumbing down by setting low standards. With higher standards Tennessee students were only 34% proficient in math and 45% in reading compared to the 91-92% with lower standards. Republicans followed up on the work of Democrats in the state. Soliciting feedback from critics and experts- the feedback was used to improve systems and learning to help teachers and students. Schools chancellor Kaya Henderson says improving teacher quality was critical, and so was academic rigor. Still Duncan says more needs to be done, this only shows the right direction for states lagging behind, and one should not get complacent. The other areas college enrollment and dropout rates need to be followed carefully. International PISA results still show the U.S. at 27th in math and 14th in reading of 65 countries- making this only the beginning in setting the future course for U.S. educational improvements....

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WSJ reporters Corkery and Yoon give a remarkable account of the individual homeowners and investors inside one toxic subprime mortgage security from Countrywide Financial Corp. named CWABS- 2006-2007. There is Amanda Gavini of Fort Myers who continued making mortgage payments against the odds after a illness and death in the family. And a couple Donald Mudd- Patricia Starr who were approved by Countrywide for a $171,000 adjustable rate mortgage loan at 8% with a $10,000 down payment for a home in Port Charlotte, Florida. The approval came only 3 months after the couple emerged from personal bankruptcy in 2006, and by 2009 Mudd was missing payments. Other borrowers such as Mrs. Gavini in Florida took out two loans at 7% and 11% in 2006, have continued making payments and are still unable to refinance under the HAMP or HARP government programs. It is because of these homeowners who continue to make payments helping the security price recover, that one of PIMCO's funds which owns a stake in this security has made good returns. Hedge fund Marathon Asset has also made good returns on this security because of the U.S. government's Public Private Investment Program to help banks recover by providing government incentives for purchase of these securities from banks. This was a way to get banks holding these subprime securities to resume normal lending in financial markets....

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Reasons why the U.S. Stimulus spending failed to give the economy the boost it needed.

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Obama's State of the Union address in 2014 focusses on increasing the minimum wage, reducing inequality and creating opportunities for the middle class. It marks a shift to doing things by executive order wherever possible to avoid protracted debates and delays by Congress.

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The Home Affordable Refinance Program's (HARP) gradual success in 2012-2013 in reducing foreclosures, after struggling in 2010-2011. From about cumulative 1 million who refinanced loans under HARP for relief in home payments the numbers went up to close to 3 million by the end of 2013, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. Of this a major proportion were people who owed less than 105% of their home's value. The performance of the program improved with a revamp of HARP at the end of 2011.

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Bruni on the view that Obama has squandered his advantages of oratorical transcendence, poetry, serious thoughtfulness, in the U.S. presidential election of 2012. He does not mention the lack of a serious plan to turn the economy around, high rate of joblessness and declining incomes that are a basic issue in the 2012 election, and how oratorical transcendence has little correlation with getting the right policies implemented. The Des Moines Register's support in 2008 put Obama on the road to the presidency in 2008 with a victory in the Iowa primary. In 2012 it gave its endorsement to Romney to give him a chance to correct the problems with the economy and to do this with a new effort to forge the bipartisan consensus missing in the Obama first term.

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Krugman says austerity measures alone won't work as the economies in the eurozone shrink in 2012.

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Galston cites a Federal Reserve Board of Chicago 2014 study showing setbacks for black people in achieving improvement in income status. Even for children born into middle income black families about 55% are expected to fall below middle income status compared to 36% for children of white middle income families. The problem is not just the gap as Galston points out but what it says for the declining income mobility for the white middle class when 36% are likely to see declining status and prospect for the future, and 23% will see no improvement. Overall it shows a lack of income and social mobility for whites and minorities alike compared to the past improvements since the 1960's, not a bright prospect and less hope for the future the way things are, and why so many of the establishment candidates and existing policies are being questioned by voters.

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R.E.O. is lingo for "Real Estate Owned," the term for homes taken in by banks that are from foreclosures. Reomac is the industry group that specializes in the sales of such homes. And "REO tsunami" refers to the flood of some 700,000 bank properties now on the market nationwide. Therre were just 100,000 in 2006. In February, nearly 45% of the home sales natinwide were called short sales in which homeowners under duress sell a property for less than their mortgage, according to the National Associaiton of Realtors. These sales have worsened a natiowide decline in home values, as REO homes typically sell at a 20% discount. Reomac just held its 2009 conference at Palm Desert. The extravagance and the excess at the conference is amazing considering that the whole country is facing this crisis and California is one of the hardest hit states. From the way people are trying to get these properties one could not imagine that the rest of the country is going through a crisis, and millions in developing countries might at this very moment be plunged below the poverty line!...

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Shows what the different states are doing and why the response at the state level is slow even though its better than the respose at the federal level. Most of this action willhelp future borrowers and rlieve some of the effects on current borrowers but only to a small degree otherwise the foreclosure process will probably continue to play out.

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How the mortgage restructuring process might take shape to mitigate the effects on homeowner, on lenders and on the overall economy of rising foreclosures in 2008 as the Alt-A mortgages rest to higher rates. Active intervention by California's governor to obtain mass restructuring through agreements with lenders, four servicers agreed to extend the teaser rate for several years and fast tract the procedures for whole masses of struggling but not hopeless borrowers to get the lower rate.

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The House of Representatives just passed a bill to stem foreclosures and stabilize house prices by having the government through the Federal Housing Administration reinsure upto $300 billion of problem loans. The bills backers estimate 1.5 million foreclosures could be prevented by this bill but the Congressional Budget Office estimates only about 500,000 foreclosures can be averted this way. Under this bill lenders would have to writedown their loans to 85% of current value of the house. Borrowers pay a fee for the insurance and give up any share in future price appreciation to the government. According to the Congressional Budget Office the cost to the government is modest about $1.7 billion over years. The reason for the limited effectiveness of this bill is that it is voluntary, not much government money is extended. Many of the comments in the blog on this article as is the case with other articles on help to homeowners facing foreclosure show the widespread idea that its a bailout of irresponsible decisions by homeowners and mortgage companies who made the loans. This may be the reason why so little has been done in this regard and the limited government money extended even in plans put forth by Congressional Democrats like Barney Frank. Feldstein who is a former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under Reagan has taken a different approach focussing on homeowners who may see the rational decision is to walk away from homes where they have no equity in their homes as prices drop by 20% and for government to prevent a wave of foreclosures in this manner. The danger is if not much is done there could be a downward spiral in home prices as foreclosure reach a new high in 2009. Last year according to Economist's charts foreclosures were averaging more than 100,000 a month now they are averaging more than 200,000 a month, this would take it from 1.5 million foreclosures in 2007 to 2.5 million in 2008. According to the Economist 9 million people owe more than their house is worth, the homeowners who have negative equity, and if they were to foreclose at the rate of 2-3 million a year and accelerating as the economy deteriorates, this could be enough to start a downward spiral. At that point a new President and Congress would have to take drastic action with a substantial amount of the government's money. In that kind of crisis not much thought would be given to the cost because like the financial meltdown that was feared during the Bear Stearns crisis the fears of a global severe economic crisis would make action necessary on many fronts of which housing would be one....

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The Congressional Budget Office report in 2011 shows after tax resource flow that a family has to pay for consumption, a better approach to measuring the growth in incomes since 1970 including government help to lower income people and gains in the stock market for upper class Americans. This report shows after tax resource flow for the top 1% in the U.S. tripled from 1970 to 2011. For the middle fifth of the distribution families experienced real net income gains of 36 percent, and the bottom fifth of the distribution real net income gain of 50 percent.This suggests gains of about 10 percent a year if averaged over 30 years for the top 1 percent compared to 1% a year for the middle fifth and 1.5% for the bottom fifth. The report was done in 2011 and this could skew the results. Between 2011 and 2015 the stock market recovered and this would suggest a much higher gain for the top 1% of incomes and the top 10%, while also providing improvement in incomes for the middle fifth and the bottom fifth as unemployment decreased. Working class and minimum wage slowly recovered, and interest income on savings extremely low, with large student and other household debt, so that even at 10-12% gains per year for the top 1%, and 1-2% for the middle fifth of the distribution and 1.5-2% for the bottom fifth the last three decades have not been good for working class and middle income Americans compared to the the period 1950-1970 early postwar period recovery....

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The historical allusions in the media in Greece, Italy and Germany, and cultural perceptions which have increased differences in the European Union. This comes at a time of austerity programs in the Southern tier of EU countries and pressure on Germany to fund the debt reduction in some EU countries.

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Louis Gallois, CEO of EADS gives his views about reviving European industrial competitiveness.

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Jeb Bush on the Republican party and lack of willingness to compromise to come up with viable solutions to economic problems facing the U.S.