Capital’s underground river: Mexican remittances

8 June, 2007 (09:51) | Capital markets, Markets, Poverty, Remittances, Subprime, World markets, World news |

Even as an enormous underground river of people flows south to north across the American continent — the vast human tide of illegal immigration from Mexico — Flowing north across the Rio Grande it is counterbalanced almost perfectly by another vast underground river flowing north to south: a flow of capital, in remittances from workers […]

The mouse that roared: Disney’s employer-obstructed housing, Part 2

7 June, 2007 (09:36) | Inclusionary zoning, Local issues, Markets, Mobile homes, NIMBY, Policy, Zoning and land use |

[Continued from yesterday’s Part 1.] Yesterday we saw that Disney, Anaheim’s biggest employer, though it had lost a 3-2 city council vote regarding a proposed high-end residential development, was suing the city to block it and had secured support of at least one useful person, Anaheim’s mayor, Curt Pringle. We’re friends with the mayor! Mayor […]

The mouse that roared: Disney’s employer-obstructed housing

6 June, 2007 (09:37) | Inclusionary zoning, Local issues, Markets, Mobile homes, NIMBY, Policy, Zoning and land use |

At a time when workforce housing, especially in blue states and cities, is becoming an ever-more-serious problem, particularly at the local level, some employers are forging partnerships with local government to create new affordable housing. And then there is Disney, which appears to be doing everything it can to keep ‘those’ people — who make […]

Mortgage brokers: the honorable mercenary? Part 2

5 June, 2007 (09:53) | Loans, Mortgages |

[Continued from yesterday’s Part 1.]   Yesterday we discovered that, in being to thine own financial interests true, mortgage brokers claim they work neither for consumers nor for lenders.   “Neither a borrower nor a lender work for.   And it shall follow as the night the day.   Thou canst not be sued by […]

Mortgage brokers: the honorable mercenary?

4 June, 2007 (09:35) | Loans, Mortgages |

As the subprime shakeout works its way through housing’s crumple zone, and delinquent borrowers struggle to restructure their loans or otherwise hold on to their property, “I’m innocent and you’re guilty!“ the search for blame among the lending community’s dramatis personae is increasingly zeroing in not so much on the subprime lenders as companies but […]