Thursday, February 10, 2011

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

35% Say Their Home Is Worth Less Than What They Still Owe

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/housing/february_2011/35_say_their_home_is_worth_less_than_what_they_still_owe


The number of homeowners who say their homes are worth more than what they still owe on their mortgage has fallen to its lowest level in nearly two years.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of homeowners shows that 35% of homeowners now say they owe more to the bank that their home is currently worth. Fifty-one percent (51%) say their home is still worth more than the amount left on their mortgage. Another 14% aren't sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
But the number who say their home is worth more than their mortgage is down six points from January and is the lowest result measured since May 2009 when just 49% reported their home was worth more.
While more than 70% of homeowners who make $75,000 or more annually say their home is worth more than the amount they owe on their mortgage, fewer than half of those who earn less report the same.
The number of homeowners who say their home is worth more now than when they bought it has plummeted in the past two-and-a-half years. 
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The survey of 730 Homeowners was conducted on February 5-6, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology
Slightly more homeowners (12%) say it’s likely they’ll either miss or be late on a mortgage payment in the next six months, up from nine percent (9%) last month but similar to results found last year. The overall finding includes just three percent (3%) who say they are Very Likely to miss a payment. Eighty-five percent (85%) say it’s unlikely they will miss or be late on a payment, including 47% who say this scenario is Not At All Likely.
Seven percent (7%) say they’ve missed or been late on a mortgage payment in the past six months. However, the overwhelming majority (92%) say that’s not the case. These results are little changed from past surveys.
Twenty-six percent (26%) of all American Adults now believe the government should step in to assist those who are having trouble making their mortgage payments, up six points from last month. Sixty percent (60%) say troubled homeowners should sell their homes and find less expensive ones, a view shared by most Americans since 2007 when the housing bubble first began to burst. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure which option is best.
Separate polling finds that only 26% of all Americans think the government should be primarily concerned with making it possible for more people to own a home as opposed to making sure that the only people who can get mortgages are those who can afford them. Sixty-three percent (63%) disagree and say the government's primary concern should be limiting mortgages to those who can pay them back. 
Congressional Republicans are likely to take a closer look at government-backed mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as they continue to consume billions of taxpayer dollars to cover bad loans. While many Americans have benefited from Fannie and Freddie loans, a majority don't hold high opinions of either one.
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Friday, February 4, 2011

Obama’s Blocking Of New Power Plants Triggers Nationwide Blackouts

http://www.prisonplanet.com/obamas-blocking-of-new-power-plants-triggers-nationwide-blackouts.html


Obama’s Blocking Of New Power Plants Triggers Nationwide Blackouts

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Fury as hospitals hit with outages while post-industrial collapse of America accelerates
Alex Jones & Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, February 3, 2011
The rolling blackouts now being implemented in Texas and across the country as record cold weather grips the United States are a direct consequence of the Obama administration’s agenda to lay siege to the coal industry, launch a takeover of infrastructure under the contrived global warming scam, and help usher in the post-industrial collapse of America.
Planned power outages conducted by utility companies have caused outrage amongst officials at four major hospitals in Texas, at Parkland, Baylor, Methodist and Presbyterian Dallas.
“Because of the sensitive life-saving equipment, hospitals are considered “critical care facilities,” and supposed to be exempt from rolling blackouts,” reports CBS 11. “That’s exactly what Presbyterian Dallas was led to believe. “We were of the understanding that hospitals and other critical-care providers were not supposed to be affected by planned outages,” said hospital spokesman Stephen O’Brien.”
As well as hospitals, nursing homes, fire stations, police stations, other emergency response facilities have also been hit with outages as demand soars due to freezing temperatures. Many places in Texas now rely on Mexico to supply their power.
“Mexico’s state electricity company on Wednesday started supplying electricity to the US state of Texas, where demand shot up amid unusually cold temperatures and caused power outages,”reports AFP.
Hospitals are supposed to be exempt from the blackouts which hit yesterday, with power company Oncor attributing the outages to a “mistake,” but there were no such mistakes when it came to supplying power to Cowboys Stadium. The government has ensured that the blackouts will not affect Super Bowl venues, a decision that has left residents furious.
Street lights and traffic lights have also been hit by the outages, causing traffic build-ups and other hazards more typically associated with a decrepit underdeveloped country, and not with the supposed leading light of the prosperous first world.
The inability of power companies to meet demand is almost exclusively a consequence of the Obama administration’s publicly stated goal to bankrupt the coal industry and in turn ram through the de-industrialization of America under the guise of the phony global warming mantra.
Even as China and Mexico are allowed to build dozens of new power plants every year, the United States is barely permitted to construct a handful, as the Environmental Protection Agency takes control of refineries and power plants under the completely fraudulent pretext of preventing global warming even as the country experiences some of the coldest weather seen for decades.
Texas has been the epicenter in a battle over the Obama administration’s drive to have the EPA regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Texas is the only state that has refused to implement a permit process.
“Austin said it would not establish such a scheme for greenhouse gas emissions because the US Environmental Protection Agency had no authority to regulate them as of January 2,”reported the Financial Times.
“Twelve other states are mounting a legal challenge to the federal government’s authority but they, unlike Texas, are implementing the new measures while the dispute makes its way through the courts.”
Local environmental officials in Texas were again involved in a fight with the EPA after the, “Texas Commission on Environmental Quality last week approved an air permit for the $3.2 billion Las Brisas Energy Center despite a formal EPA request that the commission delay issuing the permit until EPA’s concerns about the plant’s emissions impacts are fully addressed.”
The Obama administration is conducting industrial warfare against the United States. Obama’s 2008 promise to “bankrupt” the coal industry by placing suffocating restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions even as China and other countries are given free reign to pollute at will is now coming to fruition. This is all part of the “post-industrial revolution” that the global elite have promised to enforce as a means of turning the United States into a decaying banana republic.
It’s also about the federal government’s drive to seize infrastructure and sell it to the highest foreign bidder by gradually squeezing the ability of local independent utility companies to meet demand in American communities.
The shortage of power plants to meet the demands of Texans and other Americans in areas across the country is down to the EPA holding local utility companies hostage and blocking them from building desperately needed new power plants.
Obama’s January greenhouse gas rules restricted the amount of emissions allowable for new power plants, while giving an exemption to General Electric, an intimate administration insider.
Although local coal companies are the ones suffering, the transnational power giants are in on the scam. Knowing that they can move production offshore and produce energy with far fewer costs and restrictions in places like Mexico and China, huge oil companies are constantly contriving artificial scarcity as a means of driving up prices and eliminating competition from smaller utility companies.
As internal memos from the mid-1990′s that were leaked in 2005 show, oil giants like Mobil, Chevron and Texaco are deliberately reducing refining capacity to drive, “independent refiners out of business in an effort to increase prices.”
“Large oil companies have for a decade artificially shorted the gasoline market to drive up prices,” said FTCR president Jamie Court. “Oil companies know they can make more money by making less gasoline.”
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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.