Category: Personal Finance

EDITORIAL: Nevada Supreme Court rules for investor in super lien case

The Nevada Supreme Court perpetuated an absurd injustice last week when it decided that property rights and due process don’t apply to mortgage lenders. The justices ruled in favor of a speculator who in 2013 claimed clear title to a Las Vegas property by simply paying off $6,900 in back HOA dues despite the fact that Well Fargo held an $81,000 note on the home.The dispute concerned a poorly written Nevada law passed in 1991 and intended to shield homeowner associations from financial stress triggered by delinquent dues payments.

Congress scraps Obama rules on coal mining, guns

The Republican-controlled Congress on Thursday scrapped Obama-era rules on the environment and guns, counting on a new ally in the White House to help reverse years of what the GOP calls excessive regulation. The Senate gave final approval to a measure eliminating a rule to prevent coal mining debris from being dumped into nearby streams, while the House backed a separate resolution doing away with extended background checks for gun purchases by some Social Security recipients with mental disabilities.

House Rolls Back Rule Restricting Gun Sales to Severely Mentally Ill

The Republican-led House voted Thursday to repeal an Obama-era Social Security Administration regulation to keep people with severe mental illnesses from buying guns. “The Social Security Administration not only overstepped its mission with this regulation, it discriminated against certain Americans with disabilities who receive Social Security benefits.

House GOP aims to scrap Obama rule on gun background checks

The Republican-controlled House on Thursday took its first steps toward strengthening gun ownership under President Donald Trump, moving to scrap a regulation that provides background checks for disabled Social Security recipients mentally incapable of managing their own affairs. The regulation, issued in the final months of President Barack Obama’s term, is one of a handful congressional Republicans are rolling back, knowing they have a new ally in the White House.

Major commercial players split on state of the RE cycle: survey

Major stakeholders are split on whether the market has already hit its peak, according to a survey conducted by one of the country’s largest commercial real estate trade groups. The report from the Commercial Real Estate Finance Council , whose members include giant asset managers like BlackRock and New York developers like Fisher Brothers, noted that 55 percent of respondents at the group’s annual conference concluded that the real estate market has already passed its high point, while another 43 percent said the market is still moving through the middle of the cycle.

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Trump signed an executive order Friday that bans lega… . People opposed to President Donald Trump’s executive order banning travel from seven Muslim-majority countries continue to demonstrate at Los Angeles International Airport Sunday, Jan. 29, 2017.

What does President Trump mean for housing?

It’s early days in President Donald Trump’s administration, but he’s already moving fast to make changes in the housing market. What does President Trump mean for housing? It’s early days in President Donald Trump’s administration, but he’s already moving fast to make changes in the housing market.

Elections Have Tax Consequencesby Kevin D. WilliamsonIf you have…

If you can’t – well, the view from Santa Monica is very different from the view from is very different from the view from Elmira in upstate New York. Progressivism in the United States used to be a school of political action, but today it is mainly a highly refined lifestyle – one that Republicans may be on the verge of making a little more expensive.

For most Americans, Dow 20,000 carries little benefit

While Wall Street celebrates yet another stock market record – surpassing 20,000 on the Dow Jones industrial average – many Americans have little reason to cheer. Despite the spread of 401 retirement plans, the wealthiest 10 percent of households own roughly 80 percent of stock market wealth.

3 proposed bills may affect estate planning in Texas

Budget: With a revenue shortfall predicted to top $4 billion, the new state budget will have to go on a diet, even as Abbott and legislative leaders hope that President-elect Donald Trump’s promises to bolster federal border-security initiatives and curb skyrocketing health care costs could save the state billions. Less money will affect passage of proposals with big price tags, including franchise tax reductions and tuition reforms, they agree.

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The assertion that Trump lost the popular vote because of alleged illegal voting appears to be part of a developing pattern for the new administration in which falsehoods overshadow outreach efforts. President Donald Trump holds the most powerful office in the world.

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Rep. Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump’s staunchly conservative choice to lead the White House budget office, is headed before a Senate panel whose members will probe for clues on the new administration’s plans… Rep. Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump’s staunchly conservative choice to lead the White House budget office, says Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid need significant changes to be preserved for future generations The assertion that Trump lost the popular vote because of alleged illegal voting appears to be part of a developing pattern for the new administration in which falsehoods overshadow outreach efforts.

Trump to inherit $559B deficit, stable economy

WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump has inherited a stable economy and a government that is on track to run a $559 billion budget deficit for the year, congressional analysts said Tuesday. The estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office say the economy will hold relatively steady, with economic growth rising slightly to 2.3 percent this year and unemployment averaging less than 5 percent for the duration of Trump’s term.

What Trump’s first executive actiona

President Donald Trump is joined by the Congressional leadership and his family in the President’s Room of the Senate, at the Capitol in Washington, January 20, 2017. Photo by J. Scott Applewhite – Pool/Getty Images) President Donald Trump blocked an Obama administration policy Friday that would have reduced the cost of mortgages for millions of home buyers.

President Trump’s First Hours In Office

Within hours of taking the oath of office, new President Donald Trump signed his first executive order in the Oval Office while the press looked on. Making good on his promise to get started on “Day 1,” President Trump and his administration got right to work on Friday, taking steps to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and announcing the reversal of their predecessors’ plans to reduce mortgage insurance premiums on federally insured home loans.

Pen is put to paper on filling Cabinet, repealing health law

Later, with a swift stroke of a pen, Trump signed an executive order on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that his spokesman, Sean Spicer, said would require government agencies to “ease the burden of the law.” The order declares that Trump’s administration will seek the “prompt repeal” of the law and that the government should prepare to “afford the states more flexibility and control to create a more free and open healthcare market.”

Trump begins to set up his administration

President Donald Trump quickly assumed the mantle of the White House and began setting up his new administration on Friday, signing a bill that allows retired Gen. James Mattis to serve as his defense secretary, as well as the nomination papers for his other Cabinet choices.

Bernie Sanders Said America Is Not a Compassionate Country. The Numbers Say He’s Right.

“No we are not a compassionate society,” Sen. Sanders interjected during Tom Price’s confirmation hearing on Wednesday as he pointed to the rate of child poverty and to the fact that so many “older workers have nothing set aside for retirement.” On Wednesday, Bernie Sanders had his chance to question Tom Price, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to head the Department of Health and Human Services.

Treasury Nominee Steven Mnuchin’s ‘Avatar’ Profits Shelter Attacked at Confirmation Hearing

On Thursday morning, Steven Mnuchin, the president-elect’s nominee to head the U.S. Treasury Department, appeared before the Senate Finance Committee. Although the bulk of the confirmation hearing was expected to focus on his positions on tax reform and his role during the mortgage crisis nearly a decade ago, his Hollywood connections got some heavy attention with an attack on where his profits from Avatar were funneled.

Trump’s Treasury pick facing criticism over foreclosures

Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Treasury Department, Stephen Mnuchin, built his reputation and his fortune as a savvy Wall Street investor. But one of those investments has put him in the crosshairs of Democrats as he heads into his confirmation hearing Thursday: sub-prime mortgage lender IndyMac bank.

Illinois Senate vows swift action on ambitious budget plan

If last week’s action is any indication, the Democratic and Republican leaders of the Illinois Senate are serious about attempting to bust the state’s 18-month budget deadlock – quickly. Democratic Senate President John Cullerton and Minority Leader Christine Radogno negotiated an ambitious, multi-part plan to end a nearly two-year battle between Democrats and GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner, which has forestalled an agreed-upon annual state spending plan since 2015.

National View: Economic brinkmanship

On March 4, 1933, at the bottom of the worst financial and economic crisis to afflict the United States since the Civil War, Franklin D. Roosevelt took office as president. Two days later, Roosevelt acted to stanch the collapse by suspending gold payments, imposing a four-day “bank holiday” and arranging emergency assistance for banks when they reopened.

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A story widely shared online that claims President Barack Obama’s mother-in-law will receive a lifetime government pension is false. The post published by The Boston Tribune, a satire website that mimics an actual news publication, is headlined “First Grandma Marian Robinson to Receive Lifetime $160K Government Pension.”