BUSINESS BRIEFS
Foreclosure prevention program about to begin
Advertiser Staff and News Services
| |||
 |
|
||
WASHINGTON — Against a backdrop of record low new-home sales and ballooning losses from foreclosures, Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan told lawmakers yesterday that the lending industry is set to launch the Obama administration's $75 billion foreclosure prevention program next week.
Final details will be released next week, but Donovan said the plan will allow borrowers with big debts from car loans, credit cards and unaffordable mortgages to have their home loans modified to lower the monthly payment, even if they are not in default.
Borrowers who owe up to 5 percent more than their home's current value will be able to refinance, if their mortgages are held by mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
REPORTS ON JOBS, DURABLES GRIM
WASHINGTON — The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits topped 5 million for the first time since record-keeping began in 1967, the Labor Department said yesterday. And the number of first-time claims hit 667,000, the highest level in more than a quarter-century.Orders for cars, computers, machinery and other durable goods plunged a larger-than-expected 5.2 percent in January as global economic troubles reduced demand from customers at home and abroad.
GM LOSES $9.6B IN 4TH QUARTER
DETROIT — General Motors Corp. posted a $9.6 billion fourth-quarter loss and said it burned through $6.2 billion of cash in the last three months of 2008 as it fought the worst U.S. auto sales climate since 1982 and sought government loans to keep the century-old company running.The nation's biggest domestic automaker said yesterday it lost $30.9 billion for the full year and expects to state in its upcoming annual report whether its auditors believe the company remains a "going concern." GM and its auditors must determine whether there is substantial doubt about the automaker's ability to continue it operations.
COLORADO'S OLDEST NEWSPAPER CLOSES
DENVER — The Rocky Mountain News, Colorado's oldest newspaper and a Denver fixture since 1859, publishes its last edition today.Owner E.W. Scripps Co. said yesterday the newspaper lost $16 million last year, and the company was unable to find a buyer.
Financial problems are widespread in the newspaper industry as the economy has deteriorated, ad revenue has tumbled, readers have gravitated toward the Internet and advertisers have followed them.
U.S. BANKS LOST $26B LAST QUARTER
WASHINGTON — The nation's banks lost $26.2 billion in the last three months of 2008, the first quarterly deficit in 18 years, as the housing and credit crises escalated.The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said yesterday that U.S. banks and thrifts also more than doubled the amount they set aside to cover potential loan losses, to $69.3 billion in the fourth quarter from $32.1 billion a year earlier.
Rising losses on loans and eroding values of assets "overwhelmed" banks' revenues in the fourth quarter, the FDIC said.
