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The Camaro's arrival completes a baby boomer trinity of so-called pony cars, following the return of the retro-styled Ford Mustang and Dodge Challenger. 

For those who want to save money and fuel, or just be seen in the Camaro's hunky embrace, the V-6 will do the trick. But muscle car mavens will want the 6.2-liter V-8, with 426 horsepower when paired with a 6-speed manual transmission, or 400 horsepower for the version mated to a 6-speed automatic. If saving gas is a priority, note that the car will also run the V-8 on 4 cylinders. 

The new Camaro has sharp style outside, but the interior is less enticing. 

The SS starts at $30,995, while the base model begins at $23,995. RELATED

With more displacement,  the V-8 engine in the SS offers nearly 150 extra pound-feet of torque (for a total of 400),  as compared to the base-model V-6 engine

The coupe is built on a modern sport sedan platform, a modified offshoot of the Holden Commodore that General Motors builds in Australia.

 

Source:

A Muscle Car to the Rescue for General Motors    

BILL VLASIC and NICK BUNKLEY

NYT, July 9, 2009   

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/business/10auto.html

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Posted at 10:19 PM | Permalink

M Hanson Advisors – Real Estate & Finance

The Mortgage Pages - July 9^th 2009

- Mortgage Default & Foreclosure Crisis - Brutal Past Two-Months

            - Will loss reserves decrease again in Q2?

            - Long-term default trends broken

            - Prime, Jumbo Prime, and Option ARMs leading the way

            - FL and NV - 1 in 5 homeowners in default or foreclosure

            - 637k NEW mortgage delinquencies in May

            - Q1 new loan production down slightly from Q1 2008

With earnings on tap, one of the major pro-financials arguments I have been hearing lately is the continued reduction of loss reserves.  I just assumed that everyone was in the ‘reserve building’ camp this quarter.  The fact is, defaults are rising across the board. With respect to residential real estate, defaults and foreclosures were up over 20% in Q1 relative to Q1 our data show.

A couple of weeks ago Lender Processing Services put out its monthly mortgage performance observation report that I skimmed through. The charts and results looked a lot like our data, so I filed it away in the mental hard drive and moved on. But upon closer examination over the past few days, the report was very enlightening. They also show that conditions continue to worsen, but only in the past couple of months long standing seasonality trends were broken and mortgage performance turned markedly worse.

The report is 3mb so instead of attaching, below are the charts that are the most important. If you want the full report, please shoot me a note and I will send.  Mark

Defaults, Foreclosures and Seasonality Trends Broken

May month-over-month default increase over 300% above the average for past four years.  

Foreclosure inventories across Pay Option, Subprime and Alt-A continue to surge -- up 88.3% y-o-y. This shows how lagging foreclosures actually are. The foreclosure resales for sale today are from 30-day loan defaults that first happened from 1 to 1.5 years ago -- the heart of the Subprime Implosion.  This highlights how much housing supply is in the foreclosure pipeline at any given time.

As explained in the previous chart, the massive default surge in higher grade paper over the past 6 months shown below will not produce foreclosure-related housing supply for months down the road…even longer with mortgage modifications in full force that extent out the default and foreclosure crisis.  This will keep supply/demand fundamentals strained indefinitely, especially with lending outside of $417k still extremely tight relative to 2002-2007.

ONE in FIVE properties in FL and NV are in some stage of foreclosure.  Now that is what you call supply.

This number even shocked me -- this equates to 1.3% of ALL mortgage loans in the country becoming delinquent in May alone.  This is out of control. We track from Notice-of-Default, which is at 90-days typically. At 90-days most borrowers don’t cure. But as values come down, jobs continue to be lost and financing remains tight, more and more 30-day delinquencies are making all the way to foreclosure. Therefore, this 637k number is now very important and comes into play.

What happened in April and May? A complete break of trend can be seen here. This is significant.

The same significant trend break can be seen here.

The perfect mortgage credit crisis -- the perfect borrowers, many that don’t need the help and that will not spend their $100 month refi savings, are the only ones able to borrow.

The epidemic mortgage mod re-default rate averaging 60%-70% will keep foreclosure related housing supply on the market for years.

This is another great example of why mortgage mods are ineffective -- they are addressing the problem far too late in the process.  As a mortgage mod bear, this data is a positive to me.  But if they wanted to make mods more effective, they would hit the borrower with force at the 30-day late mark.

Best Regards,

Mark Hanson

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How To Save California

With the federal government refusing to lend its assistance, the State of California is in dire financial straits. Here are some of the budget cuts being considered to save the state:

$1.2 million: Canceling a planned monument to Adrienne Barbeau

$109 million: Eliminating program that gives $100 pocket cash to hopeful starlets as they get off the bus in Hollywood

$100,000: Reduce annual salary of people holding up letters for Hollywood sign all day

$170 million: Closing all schools east of Bakersfield

$24 million: Promotional fund for spreading bullshit claim that California makes great cheese

$11 million: Ceasing production of Tell Me About The Rabbits, George: The 3-D IMAX Experience for the Steinbeck Center in Salinas

$9 million: Funds used to keep vandals out of Peter Falk's yard

$47.2 billion: Schools, roads, potable water

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Sears Tower Unveils 103rd Floor Glass Balconies

Chicago's Sears Tower has opened a glassed-in viewing platform that is not for the faint of heart.

By Karen Hawkins, AP

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