1. AMERICA'S DEBT CRISIS
Debt ceiling FAQs: What you need to know
CNN May 18, 2011
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Congress he would have to suspend investments in federal retirement funds until Aug. 2 in order to create room for the government to continue borrowing in the debt markets.
The funds will be made whole once the debt limit is increased, Geithner said in a letter. "Federal retirees and employees will be unaffected by these actions."
He went on to urge Congress once again to raise the country's legal borrowing limit soon "to protect the full faith and credit of the United States and avoid catastrophic economic consequences for citizens."
Congress, meanwhile, is not showing any signs of budging. Many Republicans and some Democrats say they won't raise it unless Congress and President Obama agree to significant spending cuts and other ways to curb debt. (Social Security and Medicare squeezed)
Geithner told Congress that he estimates he has enough legal hoop-jumping tricks to cover them for another 11 weeks or so.
But then he said that's it. If lawmakers don't get it together by Aug. 2, the United States will no longer be able to pay its bills in full. (Slashing spending alone won't cut it)
The rhetoric about whether to raise the ceiling and under what conditions has been loud, harsh and, at times, misleading. Exasperatingly, it's far from over.
2. Squatter Nation: 5 years with no mortgage payment
CNN June 12, 2011
Millions are staying in their homes without paying their mortgages.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Charles and Jill Segal have not made a mortgage payment in nearly five years -- but they continue to live in their five-bedroom West Palm Beach, Fla. home.
Lynn, from St. Petersburg, Fla., has been living without paying for three years.
In Thousand Oaks, Calif., an actor has missed 30 payments, and still, he has not lost his home.
They're not alone.
Some 4.2 million mortgage borrowers are either seriously delinquent or have had their cases referred to lawyers to pursue foreclosure auctions, according to LPS Applied Analytics. Of those, two-thirds have made no payments at all for at least a year, and nearly one-third have gone more than two years.
These cases can go on and on. Nationwide, it takes an average of 565 days to foreclose on borrowers in default from their first missed payments to the final auction. In New York, the average is 800 days and in Florida, where the "robo-signing" issue is particularly combative, it's 807.
If they want to fight evictions hard, borrowers can remain in their homes even longer while their cases are being worked through.
The Segals have been doing that -- in court. They bought their home in 2003 with an adjustable rate mortgage. After a few years, their monthly payments tripled to $3,000, just as their home-inspection business was cratering.
3. Apple unveils 'iCloud' storage, new operating systems
CNN June 6, 2011
San Francisco (CNN) -- Apple's Steve Jobs on Monday announced a new service called "iCloud," which lets Apple product owners store documents and music on the Internet instead of on their own computer hard drives or mobile phones.
iCloud expands on the trend of cloud computing, which refers to the idea that computer users are storing more of their information "in the cloud" of the Internet rather than on their own storage drives.
All of a person's Apple devices -- iPhone, iPads and Mac computers -- sync wirelessly with Apple's iCloud, giving users access to their documents, photos, apps, calendars and e-mails from any location, not just on a specific gadget.
"We think this is going to be pretty big," said Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, who has been on medical leave since January.
4. Roubini Says ‘Perfect Storm’ May Threaten Global Economy
Bloomberg Jun 12, 2011
A “perfect storm” of fiscal woe in the U.S., a slowdown in China, European debt restructuring and stagnation in Japan may converge on the global economy, New York University professor Nouriel Roubini said.
There’s a one-in-three chance the factors will combine to stunt growth from 2013, Roubini said in a June 11 interview in Singapore. Other possible outcomes are “anemic but OK” global growth or an “optimistic” scenario in which the expansion improves.
“There are already elements of fragility,” he said. “Everybody’s kicking the can down the road of too much public and private debt. The can is becoming heavier and heavier, and bigger on debt, and all these problems may come to a head by 2013 at the latest.”
Elevated U.S. unemployment, a surge in oil and food prices, rising interest rates in Asia and trade disruption from Japan’s record earthquake threaten to sap the world economy. Stocks worldwide have lost more than $3.3 trillion since the beginning of May, and Roubini said financial markets by the middle of next year could start worrying about a convergence of risks in 2013.
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