" /> Coruscation: December 2006 Archives

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December 31, 2006

Unbanked and illegal

Many of the immigrants surveyed said they lacked the
identification papers needed to open bank accounts,
while others said they shunned banks because of
hidden fees and the large penalties for bounced
checks. Some immigrants said that banks’ hours
and locations were inconvenient and some said
they could not wait for a week for their paychecks
to clear.

...

Since November, New Labor has provided cards to
200 immigrant members, including some who are
here illegally. Three other centers — in Hempstead,
N.Y., Chicago and Los Angeles — have begun
offering the cards as well, and organizers say they
hope to make them available to tens of thousands
of immigrants at 140 worker centers nationwide
within the next few years.

-- STEVEN GREENHOUSE, NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J.

[via NYT]

December 17, 2006

Housing markets at Seeking Alpha

Housing markets at Seeking Alpha.

December 16, 2006

Shared Appreciation Mortgages: Lessons from the UK

The recent rise in shared appreciation mortgage (SAM) availability motivates
careful consideration of underlying borrower incentives. The lender's share
of appreciation in SAMs (share) is essentially a dynamic prepayment penalty
imposed on the borrower. However, the borrower faces a moral hazard
due to his ability to affect the penalty by reducing maintenance.

We adapt a competing risks mortgage-pricing model to calculate SAM
theoretical equilibrium rates. Our borrower possesses rational expectations
of both the house price market and interest rates. Our simulation results may
help explain the lack of secondary market interest for the UK SAMs containing
extreme contract terms.

Keywords:
Shared appreciation, mortgage pricing, options, prepayment penalty, default

JEL Classifications: G21

Sanders, Anthony B. and Slawson Jr., V. Carlos,
"Shared Appreciation Mortgages: Lessons from the UK" (July 2005).
Available at SSRN.

See also:

In a nutshell, the shared appreciation mortgage allowed you to
borrow 25 per cent of the value of your property at zero interest,
provided you agreed to pay the bank, upon your death or sale of
the house, 75 per cent of the appreciation in the price.


The punters were offered the benefit of a zero- interest-rate
mortgage; they took a risk; they got spectacularly stung.

-- Boris Johnson

December 15, 2006

Moody's Commercial Mortgage Metrics (Moody's CMM)

Moody's Commercial Mortgage Metrics (Moody's CMM)

TWC/CMM

Commercial Mortgage Metrics from Moody’s and TWR,
the leading source for commercial real estate performance
and valuation forecasting.

Risk Measures provided by CMM:

Probability of Default,
Loss Given Default,
Expected Loss,
Value at Risk,
Yield Degradation,
Risk Adjusted Yield,
Distance to Default.

December 14, 2006

Anatomy of mortgage prepayments, Hayre L.S., Chaudary S. et

Hayre L.S., Chaudary S. et Young R.A. : "Anatomy of prepayments",
Journal of Fixed Income, 10, 2000. [PDF]
The paper is actually in chapter 4 of Hayre's book:
SSB's guide to MBS and ABS.

December 13, 2006

Road conditions, Highway 500

Road Conditions, see Hwy 500:

Quebec Border to Wabush
Wabush to Churchill Falls
Churchill Falls to Happy Valley-Goose Bay

December 12, 2006

Men's Warehouse suit vs banking attire

Is a Men's Warehouse suit banking attire ? LSO comment.

... with each new crop of banana republic groupies and
you’ll see first hand that all the accounting minor from B
ucknell ever taught them was that blue shirt plus khakis
equals acceptance.

December 9, 2006

sepia mutiny

East Indian blogging by sepiamutiny, example.

December 8, 2006

Option Adjusted Spreads: The OAS Trilogy

Trilogy by Andrew Davidson and Co (AdCo)
1. Active Passive Decomposition
2. Prepay risk and option adjusted valuation concept
3. prOAS Valuation model with refinancing and turnover risk

December 7, 2006

informationarbitrage / Roger Ehrenberg

Information Arbitrage / Roger Ehrenberg

Examples: Why make content that others monetize ?
The socialist realm of user-generated content.
Wall Street Compensation: A Flexible Model for a Changing World.


December 6, 2006

Calendar infill 2006

2006 sept 29-30

2006 oct 20-29,31

2006 nov 5-10, 12-20, 22-30

2006 dec 7, 9-11, 18-30

December 5, 2006

Sex-positive ?

Do they need to be feminists who like porn or can
they be porny types who are also feminists?

-- MeFi

December 4, 2006

Stéphane Dion in his own words

Solomon: Stephen Harper won an election because he had five
points. They were simple. They were easy to understand. If
Stéphane Dion had five points and I was taking an elevator
ride with you what are the five points I should know about
the Dion platform? Sum them up.

Dion: I have only three pillars.

Solomon: You only have three, that’s even shorter, Stéphane.

Dion: Three pillars with me: we’ll have a much more strong
economy, more social justice, and a safe environment.

Solomon: Those are the three pillars.

Dion: Yeah.

Solomon: But are there three, you know….

Dion: Oh, you want concrete deliverables.

Solomon: Yeah, those are five deliverables. remember he said
he’d cut the GST. He had five deliverables. what’s your five
deliverables?

Dion: And they are very bad policies and people see that today.

Solomon: Do you have five better ones?

Dion: So, I will not copy Harper. He is copying Bush. I will not
copy him. I will be myself.

Solomon: But, do you need deliverables?

Dion: Yes. I will have deliverables. You will you open your
door, I’m doing door to door. You ask me why I would vote
Liberal?

Solomon: Yeah.

Dion: I will ask you: are you thinking to retrofit your house,
to change your house, to buy a cottage, to buy a new car,
to change your appliances or your furnace or your
acclimatization? Very likely you will say yes to something.
Then I say, 'perfect, I will give you a very good labelling.

You will know which product will save you money over
the years because it will be energy efficient and your
electricity bill will go down. But this product is likely to
be more costly at the beginning. So I will help you to
offset the cost with a tax rebate. Vote for me!'

December 3, 2006

Stephane Dion takes Canada's Liberal leadership / Stéphane Dion - Parti libéral du Canada

Vision:

Science, research and education powerhouse

Record: The Budget-maximizing Bureaucrat,
Explaining Quebec Nationalism,
The Collapse of Canada
Parties and the Size of Government in Liberal Democracies
.

Fans and endorsers:

Rob Edger
Westmount Liberal
Calgary Grit
idealisticpragmatist
The Tyee - Laura

Accepted by:
Fuddle Duddle (formerly fuddle-duddle)
dynamiteonline (but Dion needs to learn to speak English)

Detractors:
Bob Rae-supporting RedTory says 'Dion was, um, clumsy at best and his English, quite atrocious and haphazard'.

Related:
LibNews
LibBlogs
LiberalCatnip wait for the results with patience.
The thewhatdoiknowgrit did it for the swag. Toques, eh !

December 2, 2006

Michael Ignatieff, #2

Michael Ignatieff placed a strong second.
Let's hope he sticks around.

Letter from supporter Ruby Dhalla (Brampton—Springdale).

December 1, 2006

Just watch me

Canada looks more like a police state than a democracy
eight days after the kidnapping of British Trade
Commissioner James Cross. On Parliament Hill a
reporter confronts Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau:

"What is it with all these men and guns around here?"
By calling in army tanks and men in full gear, Trudeau
boosted national security. But the military's presence
makes some Canadians feel a whole lot less secure.
How far will the prime minister extend law and order?

Just watch him. (1970, October)