From the Home News Tribune:
New Jersey is holding its annual school board elections today, the one moment of the year when voters have a direct say in how their tax dollars are spent and how much they must pay in annual property taxes. Pretty important, right?
It is puzzling then — and more than a bit aggravating — that so few of those who are eligible to go to the polls actually make the trip. Just as strange and sad is that those who skip the election are no doubt the same ones who will complain the loudest when the tax bill arrives. For once, how about those absentee citizens do something about it by taking part?
Here’s why it is crucial. School votes decide not only who sits on boards of education but how much those elected bodies are allowed to spend. Neither’s a small matter.
School board members guide educational policies in the areas of instruction, personnel, administration, and — the one everybody feels — finances. Quality in each of those areas usually translates into quality results in the classroom.
But the rate of capital devoted to those endeavors is vital, too, not just to the interests of students but to the interests of taxpayers. School spending relates directly in many cases to school achievement, but not always. And taxpayers aren’t a bottomless pit. School budgets on average account for more than 70 percent of the local property-tax bill.
And when a budget is defeated by voters, it is left to the local governing body to make cuts. Sometimes members of the local governing body will bypass that responsibility if voter turnout was light, and they’ll leave a budget intact. The not-enough-people-went-to-the-polls excuse is easy to trot out when less than 20 percent of registered voters show up, as is the norm, or less than 10 percent participate, which is fairly common.
Voters shouldn’t give elected officials any room for excuses when a school tab gets defeated. Likewise, the electorate should say it with a shout when a school budget passes. School spending is, after all, the public’s money, and the public’s decision. Don’t forget to vote. Time’s running short. Let’s hustle.
VOTE YES ( I will be voting no) Noce article, but not the real world. The BOE in many towns will tell people that if they vote no, theri property values will go down. once they hear that, they just follow in loc step and vote yes.
And the peoplt hat I know, whoa re inf act voting no, are the informed ones, we knwo what is going on.
We will vote no, knowing full well that we are in the minortiy, but at least it is an informed decesion.
Even when sschool budgets are defeated in towns, the Mayor and Council make some minor cuts,and then the budget is passed. So it is not really all that democratic, and because of that some may not bother to vote, because what difference does it make in the end.
Are legal immigrants allowed to vote, or is this just for citizens?
ALL HAIL U.S. SHOPPERS
http://www.fxstreet.com/news/forex-news/article.aspx?StoryId=c0990d8f-8abd-41e7-b222-ca88aa7af587
“Subprime borrowers threatened with foreclosure because of big increases in their monthly payments won’t find it easy to get relief from their lenders, even if the lenders are willing, a top banking regulator said Tuesday.”
“Most of the adjustable-rate mortgages taken out in the past few years can’t be easily rewritten, Bair said. About three-fourths of the $600 billion in subprime ARMs taken out in 2006 have been securitized, or sold in the secondary market, which means that neither the servicer of the loan nor the original lender can easily negotiate with the borrower to change the terms of the loan, she testified.
Reworking the terms of the loan after it’s been securitized “can be very difficult and may require extraordinary actions,” Bair said.”
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/subprime-mortgages-cant-easily-rewritten/story.aspx?guid=%7BD35B39A1%2D8BCA%2D4D6C%2D8226%2D39B5A118A631%7D
From NJ.com:
Sources: Corzine’s driver was going 91 mph
The trooper who was driving Gov. Jon Corzine during a serious accident Thursday night was speeding at 91 miles per hour, a report released moments ago concludes. The speed limit for that section of the Garden State Parkway was 65 miles per hour.
it looks like the wolf has been beaten back from the door on sub-prime ….http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070417/ap_on_bi_ge/risky_mortgages
Washington Mutual profit falls 20 pct on mortgages
http://yahoo.reuters.com/news/articlehybrid.aspx?storyID=urn:newsml:reuters.com:20070417:MTFH66306_2007-04-17_20-27-54_N17453143&type=comktNews&rpc=44
The home loans unit posted a $113 million quarterly loss, compared with a year-earlier $52 million profit, as “weakness in the subprime mortgage market overshadow(ed) improvement in (the) prime business,” the thrift said. Loan volume slid 34 percent to $29.6 billion.
“Police initially said speed was not a factor”……OH REALLY ” traffic was flowing and the speed is not considered to be a contributing
circumstance,” State Police Superintendent Col. Rick Fuentes said last Thursday hours after the crash.
Washington Mutual stock up over 1 point AH to 41.25…..not all bad news is that bad
njrebear….focus here, the story is old news, the market’s reaction is the effect of repricing NEW news….the real litmus test is tomorrow’s price at 10:30AM given neutral effect of external market conditions.
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Shares of Washington Mutual fell 60 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $40.13 as of 4 p.m. today in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The earnings were released after regular trading hours.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aHmutH2X.mEQ&refer=us
“Are legal immigrants allowed to vote, or is this just for citizens?”
Only citizens, that is the most important right you have as a citizen.
Sal (7)-
That after-hours load up is step 1 in a short bomb that will blow up tomorrow.
I’ll also reiterate my call that WaMu may be the big bank that gets laid low by subprime. Their exposure is frightening. As Grim might say, heavy on the gelatin…light on the suspended bits of meat.
YHOO also in meltdown in the AH trading; just a putrid, stinking quarter on their part. GOOG has killed them.
Voted earlier today — a big NO.
N.Z. Consumer Prices Rise More Than Bollard Forecast
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aV2PonLp8pag&refer=home
>>
Common theme?
Hedge funds have lost ‘alpha,’ Merrill director says
Most manager performance can be replicated with indexes, Ebens claims
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/hedge-funds-no-alpha-merrill/story.aspx?guid=%7B581F2096%2DF2FE%2D40D7%2DA3BC%2DE507FD07AD5B%7D
Ebens argued on Tuesday, in front of a stonily silent audience, that most hedge fund returns come from the broader markets and can be replicated by indexes constructed, coincidentally,
#12
Clot.
Check out their regulatory reports here using docket number 11905.
https://cdr.ffiec.gov/public/SearchFacsimiles.aspx
Look at Schedule CCR. $31 billion in capital on $38 billion in assets with a Tier 1 capital ratio of 81 percent. They could write off half their assets and still be in better position than most commercial banks.
Hedge funds have lost ‘alpha,’ Merrill director says.Most manager performance can be replicated with indexes, Ebens claims
____
Nah, that just can’t be true, after all Citi just paid $800 million to Pandit for a firm with a 1-2 yr track record and stunning 6.9% performance. My ING account is pretty close to that- maybe I should start charging 2-and-20.
Dr. Bam (16)-
Thanks. I’ll save this stuff to use when sleeping pills no longer have an effect on me (at the current pace, about 6 months…LOL!).
However, I cannot determine whether WaMu’s subprime correspondent, Long Beach Mortgage, is rolled into their statements. Do you know? I’m really basing my call more on Long Beach’s dire state of affairs…and management that has been long-renowned as the mortgage world’s equivalent of being run by The Sopranos.
Abamit (16)-
FFIEC won’t regurgitate anything when “Long Beach” is entered as the subject, which makes sense…they are part of WaMu.
Check some of the press on these guys. Their losses could wipe out Fort Knox.
From the LA Times, 3/26/07:
Washington Mutual Inc. and Countrywide Financial Corp., which like Wells are major mortgage lenders with big sidelines in sub-prime, are also expected to weather the sub-prime storm — but perhaps with a few more leaks. Both are less diversified than Wells and until recently offered riskier products, such as 100% financing to borrowers with poor credit scores who didn’t document their earnings.
Washington Mutual has seen its shares fall more than 7% this year, to $42.21 on Friday, largely because of problems at sub-prime unit Long Beach Mortgage, which accounted for an estimated 9% of WaMu’s mortgage production in 2005 and 2006.
Sub-prime loans on which payments had stopped jumped 47% last year, and the number written off as uncollectible rocketed 185%. Most Long Beach borrowers last year were qualified based on the initial low teaser rate on adjustable mortgages, not the fully adjusted interest that kicks in later, Credit Suisse analyst Moshe Orenbuch said.
Bank regulators have moved to ban this practice because of the higher risk of foreclosure.
Aargh! Some scintillating press on Long Beach in #20 thrown into purgatory.
Is “written off as uncollectible” in WordPress’ pantheon of questionable language?
#16
Clot
I stand corrected. I directed you a bank sub. The holding company does look pretty shaky. It is docket number 08551
Long beach should be consolidated into those numbers.
to Clotpoll (#12) your understanding of the market dynamics is incredible great call on WM…..you better stick to buy mutual funds