by Calculated Risk on 12/17/2010 11:27:00 AM

From the BLS: Regional and State Employment and Unemployment Summary

Regional and state unemployment rates were generally little changed in November. Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia recorded unemployment rate increases, 15 states registered rate decreases, and 14 states had no rate change, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
...
Nevada continued to register the highest unemployment rate among the states, 14.3 percent in November. The states with the next highest rates were California and Michigan, 12.4 percent each, and Florida, 12.0 percent. North Dakota reported the lowest jobless rate, 3.8 percent, followed by South Dakota and Nebraska, 4.5 and 4.6 percent, respectively.

Click on graph for larger image in new window.

This graph shows the high and low unemployment rates for each state (and D.C.) since 1976. The red bar is the current unemployment rate (sorted by the current unemployment rate).

Nine states now have double digit unemployment rates. A number of other states are close.

by Calculated Risk on 12/17/2010 08:58:00 AM

From the NY Times: Moody’s Slashes Ireland’s Credit Rating

Moody’s ... cut Ireland’s credit rating by five notches to Baa1, with a negative outlook, from Aa2 and it warned further downgrades could follow. The rating remains investment grade but if it were to move down by three more notches, Irish debt would be classified as junk.

“The Irish government’s financial strength could decline further if economic growth were to be weaker than currently projected or the cost of stabilizing the banking system turn out to be higher than currently forecast,” Moody’s said in a statement.

The yield on the Ireland 10-year bond is up to 8.37%.

Meanwhile, from Bloomberg: EU Leaders Create Debt-Management Mechanism From 2013

by Calculated Risk on 12/16/2010 11:59:00 PM

From the NY Times: Congress Sends Tax Cut Bill to Obama

From the WSJ: Congress Passes Sweeping Tax Bill

Not much market reaction. The Asian markets are mixed tonight. And CNBC's Pre-Market Data shows the S&P 500 off a fraction of a point. Dow futures are off about 10 points.

Best to all.

by Calculated Risk on 12/16/2010 08:30:00 PM

UPDATE: Congress Passes Tax Legislation 277-148

7:40 PM ET: The Committee of the Whole proceeded with three hours of general debate on the Senate amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 4853

Some resources for following the House vote:
• U.S. House: Office of the Clerk
• The live video feed from the House.

Earlier today:
• CoreLogic: House Prices declined 1.9% in October
• Housing Starts increase slightly in November
• Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims decline to 420,000

Graph galleries: House Prices, Housing Starts, and Weekly Claims

by Calculated Risk on 12/16/2010 07:18:00 PM

With some people once again trying to rewrite history, here is an excerpt from a piece Tanta wrote in 2008. This captures my view on the role of Fannie and Freddie:

I think we can give Fannie and Freddie their due share of responsibility for the mess we're in, while acknowledging that they were nowhere near the biggest culprits in the recent credit bubble. They may finance most of the home loans in America, but most of the home loans in America aren't the problem; the problem is that very substantial slice of home loans that went outside the Fannie and Freddie box ...

Fannie and Freddie had about as much to with the "explosion of high-risk lending" as they could get away with. We are all fortunate that they couldn't get away with all that much of it. It is a fact that their market share dropped like a brick in the early years of this century, except of course for years like 2003, when fixed rates dropped to cyclical lows, refis boomed, and GSE market share shot up again, only to plummet in the years following during the purchase boom.

But they didn't like losing their market share, and they pushed the envelope on credit quality as far as they could inside the constraints of their charter: they got into "near prime" programs (Fannie's "Expanded Approval," Freddie's "A Minus") that, at the bottom tier, were hard to distinguish from regular old "subprime" except--again--that they were overwhelmingly fixed-rate "non-toxic" loan structures. They got into "documentation relief" in a big way through their automated underwriting systems, offering "low doc" loans that had a few key differences from the really wretched "stated" and "NINA" crap of the last several years, but occasionally the line between the two was rather thin. Again, though, whatever they bought in the low-doc world was overwhelmingly fixed rate (or at least longer-term hybrid amortizing ARMs), lower-LTV, and, of course, back in the day, of "conforming" loan balance, which kept the worst of the outright fraudulent loans out of the pile. Lots of people lied about their income (with or without collusion by their lender) in order to borrow $500,000 to buy an overpriced house in a bubble market. They weren't borrowing $500,000 from the GSEs.

I miss T. Best to all.

by Calculated Risk on 12/16/2010 03:50:00 PM

On mortgage rates from Tom Lawler:

This morning most major mortgage lenders were posting indicative quotes for a 60-day lock on a 30-year fixed-rate prime conventional conforming mortgage in the range of 5 1/8% and 1 point, reflecting the sharp runup in secondary mortgage market yields.

And some resources for following the House vote:
• U.S. House: Office of the Clerk. This is a running account of what is happening on the floor. Watch for H.RES.1766

Providing for consideration of the Senate amendment to the House amendment to the Senate amendment to the bill (H.R. 4853) to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 ...

• And a live video feed from the House (currently in recess in session)

While we wait for paint to dry ...
• From Mark Thoma: Initital Claims for Unemployment Fell Last Week. Why Should We Care? (see the 2nd graph for a relationship between initial claims and payroll employment)
• CoreLogic: House Prices declined 1.9% in October
• Housing Starts increase slightly in November
• Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims decline to 420,000

Graph galleries: House Prices, Housing Starts, and Weekly Claims