Tell It To Al

All this talk about an improving economy, yet mortgage delinquencies – which started this mess – just hit yet another record high, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported today.

Click here to read the details in MBA’s report. More than 13% of Americans with mortgages are either in foreclosure or headed that way, being behind in their payments. To reiterate: This is the highest figure the MBA has EVER reported.

The good news is that MBA reports a decrease in subprime and adjustable-rate mortgage defaults. But now we have rising foreclosures on traditional loans thanks to rising unemployment.

Forget what you may hear about the end of the recession.

Even if we get government-spending-induced growth in the third quarter, as many economists predict, we’ve got double-digit unemployment and plummeting housing values. For most of us, it will still feel like a deep economic malaise no matter what they say.

Hey, Griz? Did you get a pay cut? I could swear my pay check is smaller since we filed bankruptcy in April 2008.

Suck it up, Charlie. Our CEO took the biggest pay cut of all. And at least we’re still in business.

He’s a wise man. Click here to read all about him in Al Lewis’ column. Click here to watch Al talk about Frontier Airlines on 9News.

Frontier CEO Sean Menke, who launched Frontier’s “whole different animal campaign,” says the animals are happy. They could have been painted over by Southwest Airlines Co.

What’s the point of having a Swiss bank account if the bank gives up your name to U.S. Internal Revenue Service ?

IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman today said his agency will get the names of 4,450 clients at UBS who are suspected of hiding as much as $15 billion in assets. UBS earlier this year turned over 250 names. And now about 150 wealthy Americans are under investigation for dodging taxes. Three have already pleaded guilty and a fourth is expected to plead guilty next month.

In the end, the United Bank of Switzerland is like any other criminal defendant. It agreed to hand over the names – and pay a $780 million penalty – as part of a defered prosecution agreement. Maybe its clients would have been better off in the Caymans.

The offshore banking industry has been around for centuries. What did they think was going on in those offshore accounts besides hidden taxible activity or worse? I guess it takes a pretty deep recession – and an attending drop in tax revenues – to get the IRS to care.

Can’t wait to hear what Ben Bernanke has to say in Jackson Hole, Wyo., on Friday.

The Federal Reserve’s annual symposium, sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, will focus on “Financial Stability and Macroeconomic Policy” as if to suggest that either actually exist at the moment.

And Bernanke’s speech will be on “Lessons from a Year of Crisis,” as if we’ve learned any.

Two years ago, at this same symposium, Bernanke said:

“It is not the responsibility of the Federal Reserve — nor would it be appropriate — to protect lenders and investors from the consequences of their financial decisions.”

Hmm. Whatever happened to that plan?

At least, like all wise economists are trained to do, he hedged, also saying,  “But developments in financial markets can have broad economic effects felt by many outside the markets, and the Federal Reserve must take those effects into account when determining policy.”

Who knew he meant trillions in bank bailouts?

The Fed deserves some credit for stopping a complete credit meltdown and possibly a depression. But it’s solutions are likely to take a toll of their own for years to come.

Consider, the Fed has met the problem of too much spending and too much debt with more spending and more debt. It dropped the words “moral hazard” from its glossary and continues to support a system that pays Wall Street bankers to take excessive risks with other people’s money.

Has anything really changed?

Denver’s beloved Frontier Airlines will not disappear into a merger with Southwest Airlines Co. thanks to a surprise winning by by Rebublic Airways. I talked about it with Shawn Patrick of Denver’s 9News on Sunday morning. Here’s a replay:

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This is the story of two Denver vending machine entrepreneurs who filed a $100 million lawsuit against Starbucks and Pepsi and lost.

Darrell Creswell, right, and Joseph Degesualdo claimed a joint venture of the two beverage giants gave them a lucrative deal to sell Starbucks-branded vending machines and then backed out just as the orders began pouring in like Frappacino.

Click here to read my first column on how the two former church pastors turned salesmen came to file the lawsuit in Denver District Court.

And click here to read how it all shook out before the jury.

(Photo of Degesualdo, Creswell, in Denver court house, by Al Lewis.)

Bernie Madoff makes more headlines, but the Ponzi-scheme allegations again Sir R. Allen Stanford are far more intriguing.

Stanford, now in prison awaiting trial in Houston, may have used his ill-gotten gains to essentially take over the island nation of Antigua. Stanford has maintained his innocence and blames the Securities and Exchange Commission for the collapse of his offshore banking empire – a counter claim as big and bold as the man making it. 

Former U.S. Congressman and GOP presidential candidate Tom Tancredo told me it’s right out of a James Bond plot, where an evil genius launches attacks on humanity from a remote island headquarters. 

Natalia Querard, whose family owned a renowned hotel at Antigua’s Half Moon Bay, told me Stanford got the government of Antigua to seize her hotel so that he could have it for himself.

It’s a complicated tale, with more than one side, which I’ve told in two columns. Click here for Part I. Click here for Part II.

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Town hall meetings on health care are not advancing the issue because nobody really understands what health care reform really means. At this point there are five bills winding their way through Congress. These bills are more than 2,000 pages long and containing legal language that

Productivity grew at the fastest pace in six years, the Labor Department reported Tuesday.

Click here for a story on that.

The miracle that is American ingenuity just never quits, even in a recession.

Here, even street bums innovate, as evidenced by this automatic moocher I found on the corner of Broadway and Alameda in Denver on Tuesday. Once in place, this cutout can apparently do the work of one panhandler.

It seemed to be operating autonomously when I stopped to photograph it. There was no one around to explain it. But just imagine U.S. productivity with one of these on every corner.