29% of Australian Bank Employees Worried about Ability of Customers to Repay Loans, 43% Pressured to Sell Products; Bernanke is Wishin’ and Hopin’
by ilene - June 9th, 2010 1:14 pm
29% of Australian Bank Employees Worried about Ability of Customers to Repay Loans, 43% Pressured to Sell Products; Bernanke is Wishin’ and Hopin’
Courtesy of Mish
Judging from of Australian bank employees, Australia’s debt bubble is ready to implode soon. Please consider Bank workers fret over customer debt.
The survey by the Finance Sector Union showed that 29 per cent of its members felt uncomfortable about their customers’ ability to meet their financial obligations with new debt products.
About 43 per cent said they were ”are under pressure to sell debt products, even if customers don’t ask for them and may not be able to afford them”.
Worries from bank tellers and workers come as the total Australian mortgage debt for owner-occupied housing hit a record $774 billion in April, while debt for investment purchases totalled $330 billion, according to data from the Reserve Bank. Personal loans totalled $141 billion in April.
Of the major banks, Westpac-owned St George ranked the highest with 75 per cent of workers reporting an emphasis on debt selling. For ANZ and credit unions, 64 per cent of employees noted an increase in debt selling.
For Commonwealth Bank, 63 per cent of workers reported the debt-selling pressure, while 53 per cent of Commonwealth Bank-owned Bankwest employees reported the focus.
Less than half of National Australia Bank employees, or 49 per cent, said they had been instructed to push more credit on customers.
Bernanke Sees Recovery Gaining Traction
Australia is all set to implode but in the US Bernanke sees recovery gaining traction.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday he is hopeful the economy will gain traction and not fall back into a "double dip" recession.
"My best guess is we will have a continued recovery, but it won’t feel terrific," Bernanke said.
That’s because economic growth won’t be robust enough to quickly drive down the unemployment rate, now at 9.7 percent, he said in remarks to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a nonpartisan research group.
Asked when the Fed will start raising interest rates, Bernanke quipped "in the future."
Wishin’ and Hopin’
Bernanke is clearly Wishin’ and Hopin’ and I have just the video sing along for it.
If you don’t like that version here is another
I have a message for Bernanke: Recoveries are not built on loose monetary policy, nor imprudent fiscal…
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Rant of the Day: No Ethics, No Fiduciary Responsibility, No Separation of Duty; Complete Ethics Overhaul Needed
by ilene - April 16th, 2010 7:58 pm
I’ve posted a lot on the Goldman Sachs fraud charges and hope it marks the beginning of change. Many of my favorite bloggers believe this is a mere distraction, and GS, the corporation, will get a slap on the wrist and a fine – which means essentially nothing happens to the people responsible for an ongoing parade of front-running, misrepresentations and frauds, even if the SEC is only permitted to file civil charges. That said, here’s Mish on the subject. (My highlights) – Ilene
Rant of the Day: No Ethics, No Fiduciary Responsibility, No Separation of Duty; Complete Ethics Overhaul Needed
Courtesy of Mish
Goldman Sachs Shares Drop After Goldman Sachs Accused of Fraud in Mortgage Deals
Goldman Sachs, which emerged relatively unscathed from the financial crisis, was accused of securities fraud in a civil suit filed Friday by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which claims the bank created and sold a mortgage investment that was secretly devised to fail.
The move marks the first time that regulators have taken action against a Wall Street deal that helped investors capitalize on the collapse of the housing market. Goldman itself profited by betting against the very mortgage investments that it sold to its customers.
The suit also named Fabrice Tourre, a vice president at Goldman who helped create and sell the investment.
The instrument in the S.E.C. case, called Abacus 2007-AC1, was one of 25 deals that Goldman created so the bank and select clients could bet against the housing market. As the Abacus deals plunged in value, Goldman and certain hedge funds made money on their negative bets, while the Goldman clients who bought the $10.9 billion in investments lost billions of dollars.
“The product was new and complex, but the deception and conflicts are old and simple,” Robert Khuzami, the director of the S.E.C.’s division of enforcement, said in a statement. “Goldman wrongly permitted a client that was betting against the mortgage market to heavily influence which mortgage securities to include in an investment portfolio, while telling other investors that the securities were selected by an independent, objective third party.”
In recent months, Goldman has repeatedly defended its actions in the mortgage market, including its own bets against it. “We certainly did not know the future of the residential housing market in the first half of 2007 anymore than we can
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the site