Mohave.net

Edward Lawrence, Reporter
Clock is Ticking on Las Vegas’ Water Supply
Aug 17, 2007 03:43 PM MST

The news coming from the Southern Nevada Water Authority Thursday about the valley’s future water supply is worrisome. Unless we act quickly, there will be no water for hundreds of thousands of Las Vegas Valley residents in just three years.

http://www.lasvegasnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=6943263

There is a video on the page also. And here is a link to a blog with comments from readers.

http://blogs.lasvegasnow.com/2007/04/nevadas_water_s.html

This is really a stupid news clip from CNBC. A quote from the clip:

“Ya know, if China were to revalue it’s currency or China is to start making say, toys that don’t have lead in them or food that isn’t poisonous, their costs of production are going to go up and that means prices at Wal-Mart here in the United States are going to go up too.”

So just play with your lead toys and eat your poison food and everything will be fine.

http://www.thevanguardian.com/news.php?id=12

Here is a guy who used the signs everyone had available to them and bet the assets of his hedge fund that the deteriorating housing market would get worse. So far his fund has doubled in value in a few months, while other funds have disappeared leaving investors out billions of dollars. There has been so much info available regarding the easy lending market that it shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone that it has collapsed. Four page article……

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/19/business/mortgage.php?page=1

Missed signs led to mortgage meltdown

By Nelson Schwartz and Vikas Bajaj
Published: August 19, 2007

NEW YORK: All through last year, Jim Melcher saw the signs of a rapidly deteriorating American housing market – riskier mortgages, rising delinquencies and more homes falling into foreclosure. And with $100 million in assets at his hedge fund, Balestra Capital, he was in a position to do something about it.

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Bernanke and what he is doing towards the credit crunch. Video…

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid959009704?bclid=979307711&bctid=1137833094

I hope they don’t mean this because I’m sure the credit crisis won’t be over in 3 months.

http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_6643472

Countrywide’s troubles deepen
BY GREGORY J. WILCOX, Staff Writer

CALABASAS – Countrywide Financial Corp.’s financial trouble deepened Thursday, forcing the nation’s biggest mortgage lender to tap an $11.5 billion credit line to fund operations.

Paul J. Miller, an analyst at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., said in a research report that Countrywide’s survival depends on how long the mortgage crisis lasts.
“We do believe there is a scenario in which the current liquidity crises last for longer than three months and CFC is forced into bankruptcy,” he wrote. “It will be ugly, but it can happen!”

Miller also predicted that if the crisis passes within a month, the company will be able to resume normal origination functions and its stock price will jump back into the $30 range.
If it persists for more than a month, he said, Countrywide might be forced to sell assets at a deep discount, putting “tremendous pressure” on its stock.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-countrywide17aug17,1,5048775.story?coll=la-headlines-business&ctrack=1&cset=true

THE MORTGAGE MELTDOWN

A rush to pull out cash

Worried about the stability of mortgage giant Countrywide Financial, depositors crowd branches. In Laguna Niguel, Bill Ashmore drove his Porsche Cayenne to the bank’s office and waited half an hour to cash out $500,000. “It’s got my wife totally freaked out,” he said.

By E. Scott Reckard and Annette HaddadAugust 17, 2007

Anxious customers jammed the phone lines and website of Countrywide Bank and crowded its branch offices to pull out their savings because of concerns about the financial problems of the mortgage lender that owns the bank.

Even the Bay Area of California, supposedly erosion proof, is getting a clue.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/17/BUC3RK0EM.DTL
,
New-home sales dive 1/3 in June
Economist says price drop will bring back demand
Kelly Zito, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, August 17, 2007

“Prices went way ahead of themselves relative to the incomes of the consumer, and price increases could only be maintained with exotic financing,” Krueger said. “Once that went away, you had a significant erosion of demand.”
Statewide, the picture is similar.

Ultimately, though, steeper price reductions may be the answer.

“How does demand come back? When prices come down,” Krueger said. “For the consumer, that potentially could be good – it could alleviate some of the affordability problems we suffer from so much in the Bay Area.”

A good editorial from the Orange County Register:

http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/home-loans-buyers-1810407-subprime-mortgage

For the longest time, Orange County residents have gleefully watched their home values escalate nearly beyond reason. It was almost too good to be true – for homeowners, anyway – as home values have basically tripled in the past nine years. But when something seems too good to be true, it usually is too good to be true. So now the market is self-correcting………………..

The housing market, though, is working itself out. The government should not intervene with either bailouts or regulations. Lenders are becoming more careful (some argue they are become too careful as an overreaction to the problem), unqualified buyers are now less able to get loans, and home prices will no doubt start coming back to reality. With less equity available, homeowners will also be spending less money on remodeling and other consumer spending, at least for now.
That’s how markets work. There is no way to avoid some pain. As one an old saying puts it, “capitalism without failure is like religion without sin.”

Another article from Tucson. They are indicating this has to do with First Magnus closing, but the house they are talking about has been on the market for more than a year. Since First Magnus just went out of business and the lending problems did not exist before this spring, obviously lending was not the problem. There is a video on the page also.

http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=6944906

Tucson Housing Market Could Take Hit

Aug 17, 2007 08:30 AM MST

The closing of First Magnus could have a negative and positive effect on the Tucson Housing Market.

“This is my equity, this is my retirement.”

James Shirkey is seeing that equity and his retirement slip away as the housing market takes another hit with the closing of First Magnus.

“A year and a half ago, according to appraisals, I had about $140,000 worth of equity and now I’m getting down to $70,000 or $80,000 and it still isn’t selling, so it’s very terrifying.
Shirkey’s house has been on the market for more than a year and experts say it could be there even longer now.

For some reason, the Miner has not been updating their web site this week. There was an article about a new hospital in the paper earlier in the week that didn’t show up on the web site. Here is a later article that did appear on the web site.

http://kingmandailyminer.com/main.asp?SectionID=13&SubSectionID=18&ArticleID=12899

8/17/2007 12:05:00 PM

Response to new hospital mostly positive
Terry Organ Miner Staff Writer

Brian Turney, chief executive officer of Kingman Regional Medical Center, made it clear Thursday he has no objection to the competition KRMC will face once Hualapai Mountain Medical Center opens in two years.However, he expressed some concerns over how HMMC will conduct business as a for-profit facility. KRMC holds a designation from the Internal Revenue Service as a non-profit operation.

First Magnus announces layoffs, halts new loan activity
By Jack Gillum
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona Published: 08.16.2007

First Magnus Financial Corp. announced this morning that it would substantially cut its workforce, after announcing to its employees late Wednesday that it would stop writing loans today.

Employees at the Tucson-based mortgage firm, headquartered at 603 N. Wilmot Road, were leaving this morning with packed boxes – many with downtrodden faces and some uncertain about what to do next.

http://www.azstarnet.com/business/196691