Tuesday Economic News
FIRST: An exercising in delaying the inevitable.
More waves of foreclosures will keep downward pressure on home prices in parts of the U.S. over the next several years, two new studies project.
The studies—by John Burns Real Estate Consulting Inc. and Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC—both conclude that most efforts to modify loans with easier terms will delay, not prevent, the loss of homes to foreclosure.
Foreclosures are never pleasant. For the bank, it’s business as usual. For the family in the house, it’s personal. It’s their home. It’s where they keep all their stuff.
SECOND: It’s worrisome that the public sector isn’t even bothering to pretend to tighten the belt when the private sector is. Going Galt, anyone?
On TechTicker this morning, Gary Shilling highlighted a trend that many folks are increasingly angry about: The growing divergence between private sector and public sector compensation and benefits.
Specifically, many public sector employees now make a lot more than their private sector counterparts. And that, says Gary, will eventually lead to a tax revolt.
[. . .]
Thanks to generous health-care benefits and pensions, it pays – more than ever – to work in the public sector. Economist Gary Shilling fears dubious consequences if state and local workers continue to make more money and at the same time governments raise taxes and cut services.“In good times, nobody really cares that much but now we’re not in good times,” says the President of A. Gary Shilling & Co. “The basic problem is pay differential, as I see it, and that I think is likely to lead to a taxpayer revolt.”
Be sure to read the entire thing.
