11 Temmuz 2012 Çarşamba
10 Temmuz 2012 Salı
8 Temmuz 2012 Pazar
A Burgeois Revolution- Howard Zinn on the American Revolution
To contact us Click HERE
For the 4th of July, I would like to remind my readers that the American Revolution was a bourgeois revolution. The American Revolution was not a revolution in any sense of the word. It was not an overthrowing of one class for another, it was merely an exchange from the British Ruling Class to the American South Slave Owning Class. Our American Revolution produced a democracy where 90% of the population could not vote.
The slave owning aristocracy controlled America both politically and economically until the Civil War. The American Revolution was fought primarily over concern that Britain would end slavery in the American Colonies. Even though slavery was legal in the Southern Colonies only, the whole American Colony economic life depended on maintaining slavery. The U.S. Constitution held that a Black person was only 3/5 a human being.
Below is part of a transcript from a broadcast of Democracy Now! with Howard Zinn as guest. He talks about the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II. The section below is dealing with the American Revolutionary War.
- Lance
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Let’s start with the Revolutionary War. Let’s do it in chronological order, because, after all, I’m a historian. We do everything in chronological order. I eat in chronological order. All-Bran. We’ll start with All-Bran. We’ll end with Wheatena.
Anyway, the Revolutionary War. Balance sheet. I don’t want to make it too mathematical, you know, I’ll be falling in line with all these mathematical social scientists. You know, everything has become mathematical — political science and anthropology and even social work. You know, mathematical — no, I don’t want to get that strict. But a rough moral balance sheet, let’s say. Well, what’s good about the Revolutionary War? And — oh, there’s another side? Yes, there’s another side to the balance sheet. What’s dubious about the Revolutionary War? And let’s — yeah, and let’s look at both sides, because if you only look at, “Oh, we won independence from England,” well, that’s not enough to do that. You have to look at other things.
Well, let’s first look at the cost of the war, on one side of the balance sheet. The cost of the war. In lives, I mean. Twenty-five thousand. Hey, that’s nothing, right? Twenty-five thousand? We lost 58,000 in Vietnam. That’s — 25,000 — did you even know how many lives were lost in the Revolutionary War? It’s hardly worth talking about. In proportion to population — in proportion to the Revolutionary War population of the colonies, 25,000 would be equivalent today to two-and-a-half million. Two-and-a-half million. Let’s fight a war. We’re being oppressed by England. Let’s fight for independence. Two-and-a-half million people will die, but we’ll have independence. Would you have second thoughts? You might. In other words, I want to make that 25,000, which seems like an insignificant figure, I want to make it palpable and real and not to be minimized as a cost of the Revolutionary War, and to keep that in mind in the balance sheet as we look at whatever other factors there are. So, yes, we win independence against England. Great. And it only cost two-and-a-half million. OK?
Who did the Revolutionary War benefit? Who benefited from independence? It’s interesting that we just assume that everybody benefited from independence. No. Not everybody in the colonies benefited from independence. And there were people right from the outset who knew they wouldn’t benefit from independence. There were people from the outset who thought, you know, “I’m just a working stiff. I’m just a poor farmer. Am I going to benefit? What is it — what difference will it make to me if I’m oppressed by the English or oppressed by my local landlord?” You know, maybe one-third of the colonists — nobody knows, because they didn’t take Gallup polls in those days. Maybe one — various estimates, one-third of the colonists were opposed to the Revolutionary War. And only about maybe about one-third supported the Revolutionary War against England. And maybe one-third were neutral. I don’t know. I’m going by an estimate that John Adams once made. Just a very rough.
But there obviously were lots of people who were not for the Revolution. And that’s why they had a tough time recruiting people for the Revolution. It wasn’t that people rushed — “Wow! It’s a great crusade, independence against — from England. Join!” No, they had a tough time getting people. In the South, you know, they couldn’t find people to join the army. George Washington had to send a general and his troops down south to threaten people in order to get them into the military, into the war.
And in fact, in the war itself, the poor people, the working people, the farmers, the artisans, who were in the army, maybe some of them were there for patriotic reasons, independence against England, even if they weren’t sure what it meant for them. But some of them were there for that reason. Others were there — you know, some of them had actually listened to the Declaration of Independence, read from the town hall. And inspiring. You know, liberty, equality, equality. We all have an equal rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You know, it can make people — some people were inspired, and they joined.
Other people joined because they were promised land at — you know, they were promised at the end of the Revolution — you know, they were promised, you might say, a little GI Bill of Rights, just as today recruiting offices make promises to young guys that they want into the Army. They give them bonuses, and they promise them maybe a free education afterward. No, people don’t naturally rush to war. You have to seduce them. You have to bribe them or coerce them. Some people think it’s natural for people to go to war. Not at all. No.
Nations have to work hard to mobilize the citizens to go to war. And they had to work in the Revolutionary War, especially, well, when they found out that, although there was a draft, there was a kind of conscription that the rich could get out of the conscription by paying a certain amount of money. But the young, the farmers who went into the Revolutionary Army and who fought and who died and who were wounded in the war, they found that they, the privates, the ordinary soldier in the war, that they weren’t treated as well as the officers who came from the upper classes. The officers were given splendid uniforms and good food and were paid well. And the privates very often did not have shoes and clothes and were not paid. And when their time was supposed to be up, they were told, no, they had to stay. There was a class difference in the Revolutionary War.
You know, in this country, we’re not accustomed to the idea of class differences, because we’re all supposed to be one big, happy family. One nation, indivisible. We’re very divisible. No, we’re not one nation. No, there are working people, and there are rich people, and in between, yes, there are nervous people. So, yeah, the conditions of the ordinary farmer who went into the Revolution, the private, the conditions were such that they mutinied — mutinied against the officers, against George Washington and the other officers. And when I say “mutinied,” I mean thousands of them. Ever hear about this in your classrooms when you discuss — when you learn about the Revolutionary War? When you learn about Bunker Hill and Concord and the first shot heard around the world — right? — do you ever hear about the mutinies? I doubt it. I never learned about it. I didn’t learn about it in elementary school or high school or college or graduate school. You find very often that what you learn in graduate school is what you learned in elementary school, only with footnotes. You see. No, I never learned about the mutinies.
But there were mutinies. Thousands of soldiers mutinied, so many of them that George Washington was worried, you know, that he couldn’t put it down. He had to make concessions, make concessions to what was called the Pennsylvania Line, the thousands of mutineers. However, when shortly after he made those concessions and quieted down the mutiny by saying — promising them things, promising them he’d get them out of the army soon and give them pay and so on, soon after that, there was another mutiny in the New Jersey Line, which was smaller. And there, Washington put his foot down. He couldn’t handle the thousands in the Pennsylvania Line, but he could handle the hundreds in the New Jersey Line, and he said, “Find the leaders and execute them.” You hear about this in your classrooms about the Revolutionary War? You hear about the executions of mutineers? I doubt it. If I’m wrong in the question period, correct me. I’m willing to stand corrected. I don’t like to stand corrected, but I’m will to be stand corrected. And yeah, so they executed a number of the mutineers. Their fellow soldiers were ordered to execute the mutineers. So the Revolution — you know, not everybody was treated the same way in the Revolution.
And, in fact, when the Revolution was won, independence was won, and the soldiers came back to their homes — and some of them did get bits of land that were promised to them, so, yeah, many of them became small farmers again. And then they found that they were being taxed heavily by the rich, who controlled the legislatures. They couldn’t pay their taxes, and so their farms and their homes were being taken away from them, auctioned off. “Foreclosures” they call them today, right? It’s an old phenomenon.
So, there were rebellions. I think everybody learns about Shays’ Rebellion. They don’t learn much about Shays’ Rebellion, but they learn it enough to recognize it on a multiple choice test. Shays’ Rebellion in western Massachusetts. Thousands of farmers gathered around courthouses in Springfield and Northampton and Amherst and Great Barrington around those courthouses. And they stopped the auctions from going on. They prevent the foreclosures. It’s a real rebellion that has to be put down by an army, paid for by the merchants of Boston. It’s put down. But it puts a scare into the Founding Fathers.
Now, there’s an interesting chronology there. Shays’ Rebellion takes place in 1786. The Founding Fathers get together in 1787, for the Constitutional Convention. Is there a connection between the two? I don’t remember ever learning that there was a connection between Shays’ Rebellion and the Constitution. What I learned is that, oh, they got together with the Constitution because the Articles of Confederation created a weak central government, that we need a strong central government. And everybody likes the idea of a strong central government, so it was a great thing to have a Constitutional Convention and draft the Constitution.
What you were not told, I don’t think — I wasn’t told — was that the Founding Fathers on the eve of the Constitutional Convention were writing to one another before the Constitutional Convention and saying, “Hey, this rebellion in western Massachusetts, we better do something about that. We better create a government strong enough to deal with rebellions like this.” That’s why we need a strong central government.
There was a general, General Henry Knox of Massachusetts, who had been in the army with George Washington, and he wrote to Washington at one point. And I don’t have his letter with me. I do have it somewhere, you know. I’ll paraphrase it. It won’t be as eloquent as him. You know, they were eloquent in those days. Take a look at the language used by the political leaders of that day and the language of the political leaders in our day. I mean, really, it’s, you know — yeah. So when Knox writes to Washington, it says something like this. It says, “You know, these people who fought in the Revolution, these people who are rebelling, who have rebelled in west Massachusetts” —- and other states, too, not just in Massachusetts -—
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Maine.
HOWARD ZINN: In Maine, too. Yeah, you know that, Roger. You were among the rebels, I’m sure. You were there, I know.
Knox says to Washington, says, “These people who have rebelled, you know, they think that because they fought in the Revolution, they fought in the war against England, that they deserve an equal share of the wealth of this country.” No. Those were the kinds of letters that went back and forth. “We’ve got to set up a government that will be strong enough to put down the rebellions of the poor, slave revolts, the Indians, who may resent our going into their territory.” That’s what a strong central government is for, not just because, oh, it’s nice to have a strong central government. The reason’s for that. The Constitution was a class document written to protect the interests of bondholders and slave owners and land expansionists. So the outcome of the Revolution was not exactly good for everybody, and it created all sorts of problems.
What about black people, the slaves? Did they benefit from the winning of the Revolution? Not at all. There was slavery before the Revolution; there was slavery after the Revolution. In fact, Washington would not enlist black people into his army. The South, Southern slave owners, they were the first with the — for the British, doing it for the British. The British enlisted blacks before Washington did. No, blacks didn’t benefit.
Hey, what about Indians? Should we even count the Indians? Should we even consider the Indians? Who are they? Well, they lived here. They owned all this land. We moved them out of here. Well, they should be considered. What was the outcome for them when we won the Revolution? It was bad, because the British had set a line called the Proclamation of 1763. They had set a line at the Appalachians, where they said, no, the colonists should not go beyond this line into Indian territory. I mean, they didn’t do it because they loved the Indians. They just didn’t want trouble. They set a line. The British are now gone, and the line is gone, and now you can move westward into Indian territory. And you’re going to move across the continent. And you’re going to create massacres. And you’re going to take that enormous land in the West away from the Indians who live there.
These are some of the consequences of the Revolution. But we did win independence from England. All I’m trying to suggest, that to simply leave it that way, that we won independence from England, doesn’t do justice to the complexity of this victory. And, you know, was it good that we — to be independent of England? Yes, it’s always good to be independent. But at what cost? And how real is the independence? And is it possible that we would have won independence without a war?
Hey, how about Canada? Canada is independent of England. They don’t have a bad society, Canada. There are some very attractive things about Canada. They’re independent of England. They did not fight a bloody war. It took longer. You know, sometimes it takes longer if you don’t want to kill. Violence is fast. War is fast. And that’s attractive — right? — when you do something fast. And if you don’t want killing, you may have to take more time in order to achieve your objective. And actually, when you achieve your objective, it might be achieved in a better way and with better results, and with a Canadian health system instead of American health system. You know, you know.
OK, all of this — I won’t say anything about the Revolutionary War. I just wanted to throw a few doubts in about it. That’s all. I don’t want to say anything revolutionary or radical. I don’t want to make trouble. You know, I just want to — no, I certainly don’t want to make trouble at BU. No. So — yet I just want to — I just want to think about these things. That’s all I’m trying to do, have us think again about things that we took for granted. “Oh, yes, Revolutionary War, great!” No. Let’s think about it.
source: http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2010/1/8/howard_zinn_three_holy_wars
For the 4th of July, I would like to remind my readers that the American Revolution was a bourgeois revolution. The American Revolution was not a revolution in any sense of the word. It was not an overthrowing of one class for another, it was merely an exchange from the British Ruling Class to the American South Slave Owning Class. Our American Revolution produced a democracy where 90% of the population could not vote. The slave owning aristocracy controlled America both politically and economically until the Civil War. The American Revolution was fought primarily over concern that Britain would end slavery in the American Colonies. Even though slavery was legal in the Southern Colonies only, the whole American Colony economic life depended on maintaining slavery. The U.S. Constitution held that a Black person was only 3/5 a human being.
Below is part of a transcript from a broadcast of Democracy Now! with Howard Zinn as guest. He talks about the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II. The section below is dealing with the American Revolutionary War.
- Lance
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Let’s start with the Revolutionary War. Let’s do it in chronological order, because, after all, I’m a historian. We do everything in chronological order. I eat in chronological order. All-Bran. We’ll start with All-Bran. We’ll end with Wheatena.
Anyway, the Revolutionary War. Balance sheet. I don’t want to make it too mathematical, you know, I’ll be falling in line with all these mathematical social scientists. You know, everything has become mathematical — political science and anthropology and even social work. You know, mathematical — no, I don’t want to get that strict. But a rough moral balance sheet, let’s say. Well, what’s good about the Revolutionary War? And — oh, there’s another side? Yes, there’s another side to the balance sheet. What’s dubious about the Revolutionary War? And let’s — yeah, and let’s look at both sides, because if you only look at, “Oh, we won independence from England,” well, that’s not enough to do that. You have to look at other things.
Well, let’s first look at the cost of the war, on one side of the balance sheet. The cost of the war. In lives, I mean. Twenty-five thousand. Hey, that’s nothing, right? Twenty-five thousand? We lost 58,000 in Vietnam. That’s — 25,000 — did you even know how many lives were lost in the Revolutionary War? It’s hardly worth talking about. In proportion to population — in proportion to the Revolutionary War population of the colonies, 25,000 would be equivalent today to two-and-a-half million. Two-and-a-half million. Let’s fight a war. We’re being oppressed by England. Let’s fight for independence. Two-and-a-half million people will die, but we’ll have independence. Would you have second thoughts? You might. In other words, I want to make that 25,000, which seems like an insignificant figure, I want to make it palpable and real and not to be minimized as a cost of the Revolutionary War, and to keep that in mind in the balance sheet as we look at whatever other factors there are. So, yes, we win independence against England. Great. And it only cost two-and-a-half million. OK?
Who did the Revolutionary War benefit? Who benefited from independence? It’s interesting that we just assume that everybody benefited from independence. No. Not everybody in the colonies benefited from independence. And there were people right from the outset who knew they wouldn’t benefit from independence. There were people from the outset who thought, you know, “I’m just a working stiff. I’m just a poor farmer. Am I going to benefit? What is it — what difference will it make to me if I’m oppressed by the English or oppressed by my local landlord?” You know, maybe one-third of the colonists — nobody knows, because they didn’t take Gallup polls in those days. Maybe one — various estimates, one-third of the colonists were opposed to the Revolutionary War. And only about maybe about one-third supported the Revolutionary War against England. And maybe one-third were neutral. I don’t know. I’m going by an estimate that John Adams once made. Just a very rough.
But there obviously were lots of people who were not for the Revolution. And that’s why they had a tough time recruiting people for the Revolution. It wasn’t that people rushed — “Wow! It’s a great crusade, independence against — from England. Join!” No, they had a tough time getting people. In the South, you know, they couldn’t find people to join the army. George Washington had to send a general and his troops down south to threaten people in order to get them into the military, into the war.
And in fact, in the war itself, the poor people, the working people, the farmers, the artisans, who were in the army, maybe some of them were there for patriotic reasons, independence against England, even if they weren’t sure what it meant for them. But some of them were there for that reason. Others were there — you know, some of them had actually listened to the Declaration of Independence, read from the town hall. And inspiring. You know, liberty, equality, equality. We all have an equal rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You know, it can make people — some people were inspired, and they joined.
Other people joined because they were promised land at — you know, they were promised at the end of the Revolution — you know, they were promised, you might say, a little GI Bill of Rights, just as today recruiting offices make promises to young guys that they want into the Army. They give them bonuses, and they promise them maybe a free education afterward. No, people don’t naturally rush to war. You have to seduce them. You have to bribe them or coerce them. Some people think it’s natural for people to go to war. Not at all. No.
Nations have to work hard to mobilize the citizens to go to war. And they had to work in the Revolutionary War, especially, well, when they found out that, although there was a draft, there was a kind of conscription that the rich could get out of the conscription by paying a certain amount of money. But the young, the farmers who went into the Revolutionary Army and who fought and who died and who were wounded in the war, they found that they, the privates, the ordinary soldier in the war, that they weren’t treated as well as the officers who came from the upper classes. The officers were given splendid uniforms and good food and were paid well. And the privates very often did not have shoes and clothes and were not paid. And when their time was supposed to be up, they were told, no, they had to stay. There was a class difference in the Revolutionary War.
You know, in this country, we’re not accustomed to the idea of class differences, because we’re all supposed to be one big, happy family. One nation, indivisible. We’re very divisible. No, we’re not one nation. No, there are working people, and there are rich people, and in between, yes, there are nervous people. So, yeah, the conditions of the ordinary farmer who went into the Revolution, the private, the conditions were such that they mutinied — mutinied against the officers, against George Washington and the other officers. And when I say “mutinied,” I mean thousands of them. Ever hear about this in your classrooms when you discuss — when you learn about the Revolutionary War? When you learn about Bunker Hill and Concord and the first shot heard around the world — right? — do you ever hear about the mutinies? I doubt it. I never learned about it. I didn’t learn about it in elementary school or high school or college or graduate school. You find very often that what you learn in graduate school is what you learned in elementary school, only with footnotes. You see. No, I never learned about the mutinies.
But there were mutinies. Thousands of soldiers mutinied, so many of them that George Washington was worried, you know, that he couldn’t put it down. He had to make concessions, make concessions to what was called the Pennsylvania Line, the thousands of mutineers. However, when shortly after he made those concessions and quieted down the mutiny by saying — promising them things, promising them he’d get them out of the army soon and give them pay and so on, soon after that, there was another mutiny in the New Jersey Line, which was smaller. And there, Washington put his foot down. He couldn’t handle the thousands in the Pennsylvania Line, but he could handle the hundreds in the New Jersey Line, and he said, “Find the leaders and execute them.” You hear about this in your classrooms about the Revolutionary War? You hear about the executions of mutineers? I doubt it. If I’m wrong in the question period, correct me. I’m willing to stand corrected. I don’t like to stand corrected, but I’m will to be stand corrected. And yeah, so they executed a number of the mutineers. Their fellow soldiers were ordered to execute the mutineers. So the Revolution — you know, not everybody was treated the same way in the Revolution.
And, in fact, when the Revolution was won, independence was won, and the soldiers came back to their homes — and some of them did get bits of land that were promised to them, so, yeah, many of them became small farmers again. And then they found that they were being taxed heavily by the rich, who controlled the legislatures. They couldn’t pay their taxes, and so their farms and their homes were being taken away from them, auctioned off. “Foreclosures” they call them today, right? It’s an old phenomenon.
So, there were rebellions. I think everybody learns about Shays’ Rebellion. They don’t learn much about Shays’ Rebellion, but they learn it enough to recognize it on a multiple choice test. Shays’ Rebellion in western Massachusetts. Thousands of farmers gathered around courthouses in Springfield and Northampton and Amherst and Great Barrington around those courthouses. And they stopped the auctions from going on. They prevent the foreclosures. It’s a real rebellion that has to be put down by an army, paid for by the merchants of Boston. It’s put down. But it puts a scare into the Founding Fathers.
Now, there’s an interesting chronology there. Shays’ Rebellion takes place in 1786. The Founding Fathers get together in 1787, for the Constitutional Convention. Is there a connection between the two? I don’t remember ever learning that there was a connection between Shays’ Rebellion and the Constitution. What I learned is that, oh, they got together with the Constitution because the Articles of Confederation created a weak central government, that we need a strong central government. And everybody likes the idea of a strong central government, so it was a great thing to have a Constitutional Convention and draft the Constitution.
What you were not told, I don’t think — I wasn’t told — was that the Founding Fathers on the eve of the Constitutional Convention were writing to one another before the Constitutional Convention and saying, “Hey, this rebellion in western Massachusetts, we better do something about that. We better create a government strong enough to deal with rebellions like this.” That’s why we need a strong central government.
There was a general, General Henry Knox of Massachusetts, who had been in the army with George Washington, and he wrote to Washington at one point. And I don’t have his letter with me. I do have it somewhere, you know. I’ll paraphrase it. It won’t be as eloquent as him. You know, they were eloquent in those days. Take a look at the language used by the political leaders of that day and the language of the political leaders in our day. I mean, really, it’s, you know — yeah. So when Knox writes to Washington, it says something like this. It says, “You know, these people who fought in the Revolution, these people who are rebelling, who have rebelled in west Massachusetts” —- and other states, too, not just in Massachusetts -—
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Maine.
HOWARD ZINN: In Maine, too. Yeah, you know that, Roger. You were among the rebels, I’m sure. You were there, I know.
Knox says to Washington, says, “These people who have rebelled, you know, they think that because they fought in the Revolution, they fought in the war against England, that they deserve an equal share of the wealth of this country.” No. Those were the kinds of letters that went back and forth. “We’ve got to set up a government that will be strong enough to put down the rebellions of the poor, slave revolts, the Indians, who may resent our going into their territory.” That’s what a strong central government is for, not just because, oh, it’s nice to have a strong central government. The reason’s for that. The Constitution was a class document written to protect the interests of bondholders and slave owners and land expansionists. So the outcome of the Revolution was not exactly good for everybody, and it created all sorts of problems.
What about black people, the slaves? Did they benefit from the winning of the Revolution? Not at all. There was slavery before the Revolution; there was slavery after the Revolution. In fact, Washington would not enlist black people into his army. The South, Southern slave owners, they were the first with the — for the British, doing it for the British. The British enlisted blacks before Washington did. No, blacks didn’t benefit.
Hey, what about Indians? Should we even count the Indians? Should we even consider the Indians? Who are they? Well, they lived here. They owned all this land. We moved them out of here. Well, they should be considered. What was the outcome for them when we won the Revolution? It was bad, because the British had set a line called the Proclamation of 1763. They had set a line at the Appalachians, where they said, no, the colonists should not go beyond this line into Indian territory. I mean, they didn’t do it because they loved the Indians. They just didn’t want trouble. They set a line. The British are now gone, and the line is gone, and now you can move westward into Indian territory. And you’re going to move across the continent. And you’re going to create massacres. And you’re going to take that enormous land in the West away from the Indians who live there.
These are some of the consequences of the Revolution. But we did win independence from England. All I’m trying to suggest, that to simply leave it that way, that we won independence from England, doesn’t do justice to the complexity of this victory. And, you know, was it good that we — to be independent of England? Yes, it’s always good to be independent. But at what cost? And how real is the independence? And is it possible that we would have won independence without a war?
Hey, how about Canada? Canada is independent of England. They don’t have a bad society, Canada. There are some very attractive things about Canada. They’re independent of England. They did not fight a bloody war. It took longer. You know, sometimes it takes longer if you don’t want to kill. Violence is fast. War is fast. And that’s attractive — right? — when you do something fast. And if you don’t want killing, you may have to take more time in order to achieve your objective. And actually, when you achieve your objective, it might be achieved in a better way and with better results, and with a Canadian health system instead of American health system. You know, you know.
OK, all of this — I won’t say anything about the Revolutionary War. I just wanted to throw a few doubts in about it. That’s all. I don’t want to say anything revolutionary or radical. I don’t want to make trouble. You know, I just want to — no, I certainly don’t want to make trouble at BU. No. So — yet I just want to — I just want to think about these things. That’s all I’m trying to do, have us think again about things that we took for granted. “Oh, yes, Revolutionary War, great!” No. Let’s think about it.
source: http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2010/1/8/howard_zinn_three_holy_wars
CANADA'S ECONOMY OUTPACING THE US
To contact us Click HERE
IMF says Canada will likely outperform this year, sees slower growth in 2011
Thu Jul 8, 9:57 AM
Joe Mcdonald, The Associated Press
Email StoryIM StoryPrintable View.By Joe Mcdonald, The Associated Press
BEIJING, China - Canada's economy is on track to grow more quickly this year than previously expected, putting it ahead of the United States and most other advanced economies, according to new estimates from International Monetary Fund.
The IMF said Thursday it's raising the 2010 growth forecast for Canada to 3.6 per cent from its previous estimate of 3.1 per cent, issued in April.
The IMF's July report also raised its U.S. growth estimate to 3.3 per cent, up from 3.1 per cent and its world estimate to 4.6 per cent from 4.2 per cent.
Asian countries with rapidly maturing economies will grow more quickly than the United States, Japan and European countries that have historically been more advanced.
China's growth for this year, for instance, is now projected at 10.5 per cent, up five percentage points, while the IMF expects India's economy will advance 9.4 per cent this year (up six percentage points from the April projection.)
Next year isn't looking so rosey for Canada, however.
The IMF has lowered its projection for 2011 growth by four percentage points to 2.8 per cent. Also notable was a reduction in the IMF's 2011 projection for China, which has been reduced by three percentage points from April's.
In contrast, the U.S. growth projection for next year was raised by three percentage points to 2.9 per cent, slightly ahead of Canada, while the world outlook for 2011 was raised by eight percentage points to 4.3 per cent.
The IMF, a Washington-based multnational organization affiliated with the United Nations and the World Bank, said Europe's debt crisis might stall the global rebound and governments need to shore up shaky public confidence.
Its quarterly World Economic Outlook warned that "risks have risen sharply" and Europe has to quickly resolve debt problems and restore confidence in its banks.
Europe's problems "could spill over to other regions and stall the global recovery," said Jose Vinals, director of the fund's monetary and capital markets department, at a news conference in Hong Kong.
"Further credible and decisive policy action is needed to resume progress on financial stability and keep the economic recovery on track," Vinals said.
Risks so far are limited to financial markets and activity in other fields stabilized at a high level in May, the IMF said. It said industrial output and trade grew by double digits and there was a modest but steady recovery in developed economies and strong growth in emerging nations.
"The numbers for economic activity have come in strong — in fact, stronger than we have forecast," said Olivier Blanchard, director of the IMF's research department.
The fund raised this year's U.S. growth forecast from 2.7 per cent to 3.3 per cent. The outlook for Germany and other European nations that use the euro common currency was unchanged at 1 per cent.
A global "double dip," or relapse into recession, is "very unlikely," Blanchard said.
Asian economies recovered strongly this year, driven by buoyant exports and stronger domestic demand, the IMF said.
The fund raised its 2010 growth forecast for Japan to 2.4 per cent from 1.9 per cent and for India to 9.4 per cent from 8.8 per cent. The estimate of the Asia region's growth rose to 7.5 per cent from seven per cent.
However, it warned that weakness in Europe "would affect Asia through both trade and financial channels."
Weak data from major economies in recent weeks have diminished confidence in a strong rebound from last year's recession.
The fund's forecast for 2011 growth was unchanged at 4.3 per cent, a decline from this year's rate.
In a move that might fuel concern the recovery is fading, the fund lowered its 2011 growth forecast for Japan from two per cent to 1.8 per cent and for Britain to 2.1 per centfrom 2.5 per cent.
In Europe, the IMF said governments must resolve uncertainty about banks' exposure to sovereign debt and other risks and make sure lenders have enough capital and markets have adequate liquidity.
It said many advanced economies urgently need to push ahead financial reforms including recapitalizing banks, restructuring and consolidating banking industries and overhauling regulation.
"In the absence of complete banking sector recapitalization and restructuring, the flow of credit to the economy will continue to be impaired," the IMF said.
Thu Jul 8, 9:57 AM
Joe Mcdonald, The Associated Press
Email StoryIM StoryPrintable View.By Joe Mcdonald, The Associated Press
BEIJING, China - Canada's economy is on track to grow more quickly this year than previously expected, putting it ahead of the United States and most other advanced economies, according to new estimates from International Monetary Fund.
The IMF said Thursday it's raising the 2010 growth forecast for Canada to 3.6 per cent from its previous estimate of 3.1 per cent, issued in April.
The IMF's July report also raised its U.S. growth estimate to 3.3 per cent, up from 3.1 per cent and its world estimate to 4.6 per cent from 4.2 per cent.
Asian countries with rapidly maturing economies will grow more quickly than the United States, Japan and European countries that have historically been more advanced.
China's growth for this year, for instance, is now projected at 10.5 per cent, up five percentage points, while the IMF expects India's economy will advance 9.4 per cent this year (up six percentage points from the April projection.)
Next year isn't looking so rosey for Canada, however.
The IMF has lowered its projection for 2011 growth by four percentage points to 2.8 per cent. Also notable was a reduction in the IMF's 2011 projection for China, which has been reduced by three percentage points from April's.
In contrast, the U.S. growth projection for next year was raised by three percentage points to 2.9 per cent, slightly ahead of Canada, while the world outlook for 2011 was raised by eight percentage points to 4.3 per cent.
The IMF, a Washington-based multnational organization affiliated with the United Nations and the World Bank, said Europe's debt crisis might stall the global rebound and governments need to shore up shaky public confidence.
Its quarterly World Economic Outlook warned that "risks have risen sharply" and Europe has to quickly resolve debt problems and restore confidence in its banks.
Europe's problems "could spill over to other regions and stall the global recovery," said Jose Vinals, director of the fund's monetary and capital markets department, at a news conference in Hong Kong.
"Further credible and decisive policy action is needed to resume progress on financial stability and keep the economic recovery on track," Vinals said.
Risks so far are limited to financial markets and activity in other fields stabilized at a high level in May, the IMF said. It said industrial output and trade grew by double digits and there was a modest but steady recovery in developed economies and strong growth in emerging nations.
"The numbers for economic activity have come in strong — in fact, stronger than we have forecast," said Olivier Blanchard, director of the IMF's research department.
The fund raised this year's U.S. growth forecast from 2.7 per cent to 3.3 per cent. The outlook for Germany and other European nations that use the euro common currency was unchanged at 1 per cent.
A global "double dip," or relapse into recession, is "very unlikely," Blanchard said.
Asian economies recovered strongly this year, driven by buoyant exports and stronger domestic demand, the IMF said.
The fund raised its 2010 growth forecast for Japan to 2.4 per cent from 1.9 per cent and for India to 9.4 per cent from 8.8 per cent. The estimate of the Asia region's growth rose to 7.5 per cent from seven per cent.
However, it warned that weakness in Europe "would affect Asia through both trade and financial channels."
Weak data from major economies in recent weeks have diminished confidence in a strong rebound from last year's recession.
The fund's forecast for 2011 growth was unchanged at 4.3 per cent, a decline from this year's rate.
In a move that might fuel concern the recovery is fading, the fund lowered its 2011 growth forecast for Japan from two per cent to 1.8 per cent and for Britain to 2.1 per centfrom 2.5 per cent.
In Europe, the IMF said governments must resolve uncertainty about banks' exposure to sovereign debt and other risks and make sure lenders have enough capital and markets have adequate liquidity.
It said many advanced economies urgently need to push ahead financial reforms including recapitalizing banks, restructuring and consolidating banking industries and overhauling regulation.
"In the absence of complete banking sector recapitalization and restructuring, the flow of credit to the economy will continue to be impaired," the IMF said.
BMO's 5 year 2.99% Mortgage Offering
To contact us Click HERE
On first glance this looks like a great deal. 2.99% for a 5 year mortgage- the lowest 5 year rate ever.
However a closer analysis offers some of the points to be aware of.
Consider:
This is a two-week promo (at the moment) valid until JANUARY 25TH.
There are conditions to their offer. The main terms of BMO's special are as follows:
Maximum Amortization: 25 years
Rate Hold: Up to 90 days
Pre-Approvals: Allowed
Lump-sum Pre-payments: 10% maximum per year (1/2 of the 20% that BMO normally allows)
Optional Payment increase: 10% maximum per year (again, 1/2 of the 20% that BMO normally allows)
Term: Fully closed unless you sell the property, refinance (with BMO only), or early renew into another BMO mortgage.
BMO Mortgage Cash Account: Not available with the Low-Rate
BMO Skip-a-Payment: Not available with the Low-Rate
BMO ReadiLine: Not available with the Low-Rate
Other Details: Not applicable to non-owner occupied rental properties
Most importantly, the client is tied to BMO for the entire 5 year term of their mortgage, even if they want to break it and pay a penalty, they are forced to stay with BMO at whatever rate BMO offers. Client loses negotiating power.
This rate and mortgage is great if you plan to live in the house for many years and will not need to refinace during the term.
However a closer analysis offers some of the points to be aware of.
Consider:
This is a two-week promo (at the moment) valid until JANUARY 25TH.
There are conditions to their offer. The main terms of BMO's special are as follows:
Maximum Amortization: 25 years
Rate Hold: Up to 90 days
Pre-Approvals: Allowed
Lump-sum Pre-payments: 10% maximum per year (1/2 of the 20% that BMO normally allows)
Optional Payment increase: 10% maximum per year (again, 1/2 of the 20% that BMO normally allows)
Term: Fully closed unless you sell the property, refinance (with BMO only), or early renew into another BMO mortgage.
BMO Mortgage Cash Account: Not available with the Low-Rate
BMO Skip-a-Payment: Not available with the Low-Rate
BMO ReadiLine: Not available with the Low-Rate
Other Details: Not applicable to non-owner occupied rental properties
Most importantly, the client is tied to BMO for the entire 5 year term of their mortgage, even if they want to break it and pay a penalty, they are forced to stay with BMO at whatever rate BMO offers. Client loses negotiating power.
This rate and mortgage is great if you plan to live in the house for many years and will not need to refinace during the term.
CAAMP'S VIEW ON TODAY's MORTGAGE ISSUES
To contact us Click HERE
BASED ON OUR RESEARCH AND KNOWLEDGE OF THE SECTOR, WE SEE NO REASON TO TIGHTEN OR RESTRICT ACCESS TO RESIDENTIAL MORTGAGES AT THIS TIME1. CURRENT ENVIRONMENT Canada has a well-earned reputation for exercising economic prudence. As a result, we have managed to avoid a mortgage or housing market meltdown. Our banks are stable and our economy, while impacted by the general global economic slowdown, remains healthier than most. CAAMP’s extensive industry research indicates that the Canadian mortgage industry is healthy. We must continue to “stress test” our own financial sector to determine how it would withstand potential weakening of the economy. The more educated we are about the debt we incur (mortgages, credit cards, lines of credit), the better off we will be2. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ACTIONS TAKEN The federal government responded promptly when it was determined changes were needed in the mortgage market. There have been three significant sets of changes in the past 36 months: - Amortization periods shortened to 30 years from 35 and 40 years - Minimum down payment increased to 5 per cent of purchase price. No 100% LTV mortgages - Homeowners refinancing their mortgage may borrow up to 85 per cent of the equity in their home; down from 90% and 95% - These changes have impacted the mortgage market; re-financings have decreased dramatically and mortgage credit growth has slowed Based on our extensive research and knowledge of the sector, we see no reason to further tighten or restrict access to mortgages at this time3. REASONS FOR CURRENT CONCERN1) Housing Market Prolonged low interest rates are making it more attractive to purchase a home Research shows that the vast majority of homeowners can accommodate rate increases (84 per cent surveyed in CAAMP’s fall 2011 research said they could handle a $200/month increase) CAAMP’s fall 2011 survey indicates mortgage borrowers are prudent, increasing their lump sum payments and paying down their mortgage faster than required Supply and demand drive housing prices – provinces and municipalities should be more aware of their land-use policies and how they impact housing supply2) Media Focus on Insurance Ceiling - Changes in Some Banks’ Lending Practices It is a fact that CMHC is approaching its $600 billion government-imposed limit on mortgage default insurance. Private insurers have a $300 billion limit. This has nothing to do with mortgage insurers being responsible for an increasing number of higher risk mortgages Lenders are buying portfolio insurance against defaults on low risk mortgages - cases where homeowners have more than 20 per cent equity in their homes. These are not high risk mortgages. CMHC is approaching its limit because the number of mortgage holders has grown, the population and housing units have increased and lenders have been insuring low risk mortgages, leveraging the government’s triple A credit rating for other bank business Residential mortgage credit in Canada continues to expand. During the past five years, outstanding residential mortgage credit has expanded by 53%, or an average rate of 8.9% per year. The growth rate is slowing The volume of outstanding residential mortgage credit passed the $1 trillion threshold in July 2010, and as of August 2011, it reached $1.079 trillion Increased homeownership results in an increase in mortgage default insurance However, mortgage defaults are rare. CMHC reported it paid out $454 million in the first nine months of 2011 which represents a 0.42 per cent default rate Overall mortgage arrears rates in Canada are declining and never approached the level of the early 1990s. The housing market in Canada is growing organically and safely There is no parallel in Canada to the subprime default problems that plagued the US market3. FURTHER RESTRICTIONS ON ACCESS TO MORTGAGESWho will be affected? Self-employed borrowers who represent a growing portion of our labour force (currently 2.67 million people, or 15% of employment in Canada) New Canadians who can afford a down payment but have yet to build credit and employment history First time homebuyers who want to enter the homeownership market and build equity These are not the people who fall in to a sub-prime loan category like we saw in the US; yet these changes will impact them The housing industry is an engine of growth in Canada. If we impede its growth, we will add to unemployment and depress the economy If fewer mortgage lenders are able to insure their loans simply because the insurance program has not kept pace with the growth in the mortgage market, then consumers will have less choice when it comes to negotiating a mortgage. Less choice, or less competition, will inevitably lead to higher borrowing costs for the Canadian consumer Likewise, if mortgage brokers are restricted in the mortgage products they can offer, consumer choice will be diminished and costs will increase This reduced access to capital will make it more difficult for people who can legitimately afford to buy a home4)What are the Risks of Further Restricting Access to Mortgages?CAAMP has one of the most comprehensive collections of research on the mortgage industry. It includes original data on borrowers and the characteristics of mortgage loans. This research has revealed repeatedly that borrowers and lenders in Canada have been prudent, and only a very small share of borrowers would have trouble affording future rises in mortgage rates.There are risks, but most are related to the broader economy through two channels:UnemploymentThe broader economic data suggests that the Canadian economy is slowing. If that results in job losses, the housing market would be negatively affected, and there would be impacts on mortgages held by people who lose jobs and then struggle to make payments.Declining Housing PricesHousing prices could decline in a weaker market. In a recession, there is the threat of a downward spiral: a weak economy harming the housing market which negatively affects the broader economy. We believe and trust that the federal government will act to mitigate such a negative scenario.These risks have nothing to do with mortgage products themselves.Risks to the Canadian mortgage market are dependent on the performance of the broader economy. In that light, the best means to control mortgage market risk is through strong economic management. In particular, care must be taken not to take any measures in the mortgage market that unnecessarily reduce housing activity that would be damaging to the economy.
VIEWS ON BANK of MONTREAL'S 5 YEAR RATE
To contact us Click HERE
A good explainatory article by Robert McLister of Canadian Mortgage Trends explaining the pros and cons of Bank of Montreal's just announced 5 year 2.99% rate:BMO Cranks Up the Heat AgainBMO is dead-set on winning mind share among consumers.It's coming back to the market with two new deep-discount rate promos: A 5-year fixed at 2.99% (which starts Thursday, March 8, 2012) A 10-year fixed at 3.99% (which starts Sunday, March 11, 2012) Both of these specials are low-frills, meaning: A Lower Maximum Amortization: 25 years versus 30-40 years elsewhere Less Lump-sum Pre-payment Ability: 10% maximum per year (i.e., 1/2 of the 20% that BMO normally allows) A Smaller Payment Increase Option: Up to 10%, once per year (again, 1/2 of the 20% that BMO normally allows) A Locked Term: The Low-rate Mortgage is fully closed unless you sell the property, refinance (with BMO only), or early renew into another BMO mortgage. In other words, unless you sell, you're not leaving BMO for 5 years, like it or not. Both the 5-year and 10-year promos run for 3 weeks, until March 28, 2012.We've heard talk that TD and RBC will not match BMO's pricing on the 5-year term. We'll see. The last time BMO ran this special, its competitors quickly responded with 4-year rates of 2.99%. Despite the one less year, those competing offers came with all the normal bells and whistles.Unfortunately for competitors, a 2.99% five-year rate makes more headlines than a four-year promo at the same price, and BMO knows it. This deal has garnered almost a dozen major media stories already, and the press release only came out four hours ago.As for BMO's 10-year deal, it is 146 basis points below the nearest Big 6 bank competitors' advertised rates. It is BMO's lowest 10-year rate ever, and it matches ING's current 3.99% offer. (ING was the first bank in Canada to advertise 10-year rates below 4.00%.)With these rates, BMO is starting to make other big banks look increasingly silly. CIBC, National Bank, RBC, and TD are currently promoting 5-year "special offer" rates of 4.04%. That's 105 basis points above BMO (albeit with more flexibility). Those rates border on ridiculous, and they insult the intelligence of increasingly savvy consumers who know that well-qualified borrowers rarely pay anything close to those rates.Yes, we say that knowing that BMO's Low-rate mortgage is highly restrictive and not suitable for most.It is, however, suitable for some. The target market includes many: First-time buyers Rental property owners Owners of 2nd homes The customer should have no foreseeable need to break, increase or aggressively prepay his/her mortgage for five years.In posting more transparent rates than its peers, BMO is taking a page from brokers and smaller rivals. In doing so, it's building credibility with consumers at its competitors' expense.Frank Techar, BMO's Canadian banking head, tells Bloomberg: "The reaction to our January offer was fantastic." With a mortgage market that BMO CEO William Downe admits is "slowing," 2.99% is a big fat worm on a hook. It is bait that gets BMO's phones ringing.It also gives BMO's sales force a chance to upsell people into higher margin mortgages without all the restrictions of BMO's Low-rate product. (There's a lot of that going on, according to the BMO mortgage specialists we've talked to.)With this rate sale, BMO is certain to take flak for fuelling consumer borrowing at a time when high debt levels are worrying policymakers.To that end, Techar maintains that BMO is not fuelling the fire. He tells the Financial Post that these rates "are consistent with the debate around the need to reduce consumer debt levels."In an interview with Reuters, he said: "People are not going to stretch to get the largest mortgage they can with a 25-year amortization product. Because the monthly payments are higher, they...will go to a 30-year amortization product." (He's right.)Downe recently said this to analysts about BMO's Low-rate Mortgage:"We think that's a product that is good for Canadians; it's good for Canada; it's good for our customers, and we intend to continue to promote it in this environment.It's a product that we believe addresses all of the risks that are currently being debated, whether or not the consumer debt levels that are too high in Canada and a possible fallout from economic slowdown and rising interest rates. It helps our customers pay less interest. It mitigates their interest rate risk for five years. It helps them retire debt free by paying off their balance faster, and it works against market price appreciation. In fact, it helps with...house price appreciation, because the shorter amortization reduces the maximum purchase price people can afford."Being a 5-year fixed, this product does mitigate some risk. A 200 basis point rate increase by 2017 would only lift payments $133/month on the average Canadian mortgage of $151,000.As for rumours that policymakers are ticked off by BMO's pricing, the last time anyone looked, it's still a free market. BMO can price as it sees fit within regulations. As long as underwriting standards remain high, God bless it for bringing down rates industry-wide.Even if rates like 2.99% do spur more interest in mortgages, it doesn't mean lenders will approve high-risk borrowers. BMO's average loan-to-value (LTV) is just 60%. More notably, BMO's residential mortgage portfolio has a long-run loss rate of less than 2 basis points (i.e., exceptionally low).Barring a run-up in bond yields, we could now start seeing competitors (like mortgage brokers) respond with full-frills 5-year offers that are just a pittance above BMO's rate. Some might even match or beat it.We'd strongly encourage most folks to consider paying a bit more to avoid the low-rate mortgage restrictions—especially if the premium is small (0.05%-0.10%) and especially if you can benefit from the service and extras that come with a standard mortgage.Side Note: Here are a few more details about BMO's Low-rate Mortgage: Rate Hold: Up to 90 days Pre-Approvals?: Yes BMO Mortgage Cash Account: Not available with the Low-Rate mortgage BMO Skip-a-Payment: Not available with the Low-Rate mortgage BMO ReadiLine: Not available with the Low-Rate mortgage Rentals Allowed? Yes 2nd Homes Allowed? Yes
7 Temmuz 2012 Cumartesi
The Scandalous Gospel According to a Bleeding Woman: A Re-Telling- by Wilda Gafney, PhD.
To contact us Click HERE
via Luther Theological Seminary at Philadelphia
Let us pray: In the name of the One who waded in the waters of Miryam’s womb, walked the way of suffering as one of the woman-born, and woke from the grasp of death in the deep darkness of the morning. Amen.
Sarah’s daughter was bleeding from her vagina, again, still. It wasn’t the not-so-secret monthly blood whose scent was part of the cacophony of smells which perfused the Iron Age and passed largely without comment from anyone else. This was something else entirely. This was a flow that never quite stopped. It dwindled from time to time, giving birth to aborted hope that this time it had stopped for good. A day or two of respite, and then the bleeding started again. There were some years that she had gone for months without bleeding at all. And just a few months – she could count them on one hand – that she bled like other women. She had bled this way since her first bleeding. It was nothing like what her mother and aunts told her to expect. Her sisters didn’t bleed like this. She drank the teas the midwife gave her, tied the knots in the cord around her body as prescribed by the healing prophets (like those in Ezekiel 13), nothing helped. She never felt clean. There were stains on all her clothes, her chair, her bed. She was tired, tired of bleeding and just tired.
She had moved to a town where no one knew – or admitted that they knew – her story. She couldn’t stay at home any more; all of her sisters were married and having children. She loved her sisters and their children and yet every time she saw one of them blossoming with yet another pregnancy or putting a baby to her breast she felt an ache in her empty, broken, bleeding womb. The other mothers in town wouldn’t consider her for their sons. She could have married an older, widowed man to help him with his children, but that wasn’t the life she wanted for herself. And she made a decent life for herself, as a midwife, a healer, hoping to learn something that she could use to heal herself. She also became a midwife because she hoped no one would think twice if they saw blood on her skirts. All of the money she earned, all of the goods and services she received, she sold or bartered away in hopes of healing herself. She spent all of her income on every healer and physician in her town, within walking distance and sometimes beyond. She was Sarah’s daughter and she decided to do whatever it took to heal herself, save herself, to live.
Her vaginal hemorrhage didn’t affect her day-to-day life as much as people might have imagined when the flow wasn’t too heavy. After all, being ritually not-yet-ready for worship – a better translation than “unclean” in terms of illness or naturally occurring bodily cycles – was quite common and in most cases remedied by bathing and an inexpensive offering. Some cases also required physical inspection by a priest or for women – I believe – a woman who was both the daughter of and the wife of (another) priest with the pronouncement of restoration being made by the priest. But her vaginal bleeding would have to stop first, long enough for her to qualify for and pass inspection. And in the past twelve years it hadn’t and as a result she couldn’t go to Jerusalem and worship in the temple, and she wanted to go. She had been there as a child, but she wanted to go as an adult and take her own offerings and say her prayers facing the place where the living God resided, bathed in clouds of incense. It wasn’t required for women, but so many women went that there were mikvahs – baths – dedicated for them, there was a plaza named in their honor and, special gates and balconies for women who didn’t want to mix with men.
Even though she poured herself into the healing arts and her life-giving work, rejoicing at each new life born into her hands, Sarah’s daughter longed to be free of her terrible illness, the weakness, the pain, the constant washing and cleaning and to have some new things, new clothes, unstained. Her affliction also affected her sense of herself, her sense of her own value and beauty and worth. She was distant from her own family and had no family in this town. She had no one with whom to share Shabbat meals, she lit the candles by herself. Sometimes families she helped invited her for celebrations but she was always afraid her body would betray her, like that one time she thought she had enough padding and then it broke through in front of everyone. She had moved again after that. She was keenly aware that her body didn’t work like other women. She felt broken. And she knew she could die from this.
But Sarah’s daughter refused to be destroyed by her pain or paralyzed by fear. She didn’t know why her body was the way it was, but she knew it didn’t have to be. She knew it could be, should be, would be different. And she would do whatever it took to save herself, be healed, be made whole, be restored, to live – the verb means all of those things. She had heard that there was a miracle-working rebbe, Yeshua ben Miryam, (Jesus, Mary’s child) based in Capernaum who regularly crossed the Sea of Galilee. And today he was here. She was going to see him.
As she hurried after the crowd, she thought about what she was going to say. She followed the sound of the commotion and saw more people gathered than lived in her town. All of them pushing towards a group in the middle, and one of them… Yes him. He’s the one. She pushed. Not caring if some stepped out of her path because they saw or smelled the blood that was flowing even harder. She had to reach him, had to get his attention…
But he was walking with Ya’ir (who the Greeks called Jairus). Ya’ir’s daughter – what was her name? was it Me’irah? Named for “light” like her father? I think so – Me’irah had died. A child whose whole life was the length of her disease, twelve years. And now she was dead. Sarah’s daughter said to herself, I won’t bother the Rabbi. He must go to comfort Me’irah’s mother.
She was all alone as she watched her daughter die, she was all alone as she planned and began the funeral of her child. She was like so many mothers left alone to do the difficult work of holding her remaining family together through the most trying of times. Her husband had not abandoned them, but he had left them. He missed the moment when the light left his baby girl’s eyes as she passed from life to death. He left her on her deathbed and her Mama in her deathwatch in the hope that he could persuade Rebbe Yeshua, Rabbi Jesus, to come and lay his hands on her. But she died in his absence and they started her funeral without him…
Yet Sarah’s daughter couldn’t walk away; she couldn’t take her eyes off of him and found herself within a hand’s breadth. Falling to her knees, reaching out, not knowing what she would do until she did it; (according to the other two gospels) she touched his tzit-tzit, the knotted fringe on the corners of his clothing – the sign of an observant Jew. She believed that this time she would be healed. She had believed before and been disappointed, but that didn’t matter. Sarah’s daughter had resilient, indefatigable, inexhaustible, inextinguishable faith. She said, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be saved.”
More than healed, saved, saved from the death that was surely coming closer. Twelve years of pain, disappointment, sorrow and struggle did not diminish her faith; it was a living thing, carried inside of her, extended through her hand to One who was so worthy of her faith that he didn’t have to see her, speak to her or even touch her to save her, heal her, make her whole, grant her life and transform her.
And it was so. She drew the healing power from his body. She did it. The text is full of her verbs: She endured, she spent, she was no better, she grew worse, she heard, she came up, she touched, she said, she felt, she was saved/healed/restored and then she told him everything. Everything. All her pain, all her grief, all her hope, all her faith. All. She is the active agent in her healing eleven times, and once passive – her hemorrhage stopped.
And Ya’ir, Jairus, is waiting and watching. He left his child on her deathbed to find Rabbi Yeshua, Rabbi Jesus. He didn’t know if she would be living or dead when he got back; but he knew that if Yeshua, Jesus, just laid his hands on her, she would be alright. Ya’ir started his journey in faith. He said, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be saved, and live.” (There’s that verb again.) And Ya’ir ended his journey in faith. When he found Jesus, he found resurrection and life at the same time Sarah’s daughter found restoration and life.
One of the great ironies of the aftermath of this text is that the church of Jesus Christ and nominally Christian societies like ours have become so scandalized by women and our bodies that we dare not name our parts or the problems with our parts in polite company according to some folk. It is ironic, because silencing women and censuring our bodies denies the Gospel story itself: That God became flesh and blood in the body of a woman, was nourished by her blood in her body passed through an umbilical cord attached to a placenta, rooted in the wall of her uterus, and one day pulsed into this world through her cervix and vagina. Just like the rest of us – give or take the occasional caesarian.
This is the scandal of the Gospel, the Incarnation of a woman-born God. At the heart of Incarnation theology is the notion that the human body – and women are fully human – is neither accidental nor unworthy of the habitation of God. The scandal of the Incarnation is the scandal of the human body in all of its forms, genders, expressions, orientations, nationalities, ethnicities, abilities, limitations, communicable diseases, poverties. And this is what God became, for Sarah’s daughter and Ya’ir and his daughter and her mother and you and me, for the whole world, for all of groaning creation. To paraphrase Brother (Cornell) West: Jesus was born too close to urine, excrement and sex for the comfort of many. God became human to touch and be touched by the broken, bleeding, dead and dying and to be broken, bleed and die. And in so doing transformed that brokenness into a sacrament, body and blood, bread and wine, the shadow of death, grave-robbing resurrection.
This Gospel is that God’s concern for the woman-born was manifested in God, Godself, becoming woman-born, for the redemption and liberation of all the woman-born from fear and from death itself. Yeshua the Messiah, the Son of Woman, came to seek out and save the lost and to give his life as a ransom for many. Amen.
 |
| Woman with Blood |
Sarah’s daughter was bleeding from her vagina, again, still. It wasn’t the not-so-secret monthly blood whose scent was part of the cacophony of smells which perfused the Iron Age and passed largely without comment from anyone else. This was something else entirely. This was a flow that never quite stopped. It dwindled from time to time, giving birth to aborted hope that this time it had stopped for good. A day or two of respite, and then the bleeding started again. There were some years that she had gone for months without bleeding at all. And just a few months – she could count them on one hand – that she bled like other women. She had bled this way since her first bleeding. It was nothing like what her mother and aunts told her to expect. Her sisters didn’t bleed like this. She drank the teas the midwife gave her, tied the knots in the cord around her body as prescribed by the healing prophets (like those in Ezekiel 13), nothing helped. She never felt clean. There were stains on all her clothes, her chair, her bed. She was tired, tired of bleeding and just tired.
She had moved to a town where no one knew – or admitted that they knew – her story. She couldn’t stay at home any more; all of her sisters were married and having children. She loved her sisters and their children and yet every time she saw one of them blossoming with yet another pregnancy or putting a baby to her breast she felt an ache in her empty, broken, bleeding womb. The other mothers in town wouldn’t consider her for their sons. She could have married an older, widowed man to help him with his children, but that wasn’t the life she wanted for herself. And she made a decent life for herself, as a midwife, a healer, hoping to learn something that she could use to heal herself. She also became a midwife because she hoped no one would think twice if they saw blood on her skirts. All of the money she earned, all of the goods and services she received, she sold or bartered away in hopes of healing herself. She spent all of her income on every healer and physician in her town, within walking distance and sometimes beyond. She was Sarah’s daughter and she decided to do whatever it took to heal herself, save herself, to live.
Her vaginal hemorrhage didn’t affect her day-to-day life as much as people might have imagined when the flow wasn’t too heavy. After all, being ritually not-yet-ready for worship – a better translation than “unclean” in terms of illness or naturally occurring bodily cycles – was quite common and in most cases remedied by bathing and an inexpensive offering. Some cases also required physical inspection by a priest or for women – I believe – a woman who was both the daughter of and the wife of (another) priest with the pronouncement of restoration being made by the priest. But her vaginal bleeding would have to stop first, long enough for her to qualify for and pass inspection. And in the past twelve years it hadn’t and as a result she couldn’t go to Jerusalem and worship in the temple, and she wanted to go. She had been there as a child, but she wanted to go as an adult and take her own offerings and say her prayers facing the place where the living God resided, bathed in clouds of incense. It wasn’t required for women, but so many women went that there were mikvahs – baths – dedicated for them, there was a plaza named in their honor and, special gates and balconies for women who didn’t want to mix with men.
Even though she poured herself into the healing arts and her life-giving work, rejoicing at each new life born into her hands, Sarah’s daughter longed to be free of her terrible illness, the weakness, the pain, the constant washing and cleaning and to have some new things, new clothes, unstained. Her affliction also affected her sense of herself, her sense of her own value and beauty and worth. She was distant from her own family and had no family in this town. She had no one with whom to share Shabbat meals, she lit the candles by herself. Sometimes families she helped invited her for celebrations but she was always afraid her body would betray her, like that one time she thought she had enough padding and then it broke through in front of everyone. She had moved again after that. She was keenly aware that her body didn’t work like other women. She felt broken. And she knew she could die from this.
But Sarah’s daughter refused to be destroyed by her pain or paralyzed by fear. She didn’t know why her body was the way it was, but she knew it didn’t have to be. She knew it could be, should be, would be different. And she would do whatever it took to save herself, be healed, be made whole, be restored, to live – the verb means all of those things. She had heard that there was a miracle-working rebbe, Yeshua ben Miryam, (Jesus, Mary’s child) based in Capernaum who regularly crossed the Sea of Galilee. And today he was here. She was going to see him.
As she hurried after the crowd, she thought about what she was going to say. She followed the sound of the commotion and saw more people gathered than lived in her town. All of them pushing towards a group in the middle, and one of them… Yes him. He’s the one. She pushed. Not caring if some stepped out of her path because they saw or smelled the blood that was flowing even harder. She had to reach him, had to get his attention…
But he was walking with Ya’ir (who the Greeks called Jairus). Ya’ir’s daughter – what was her name? was it Me’irah? Named for “light” like her father? I think so – Me’irah had died. A child whose whole life was the length of her disease, twelve years. And now she was dead. Sarah’s daughter said to herself, I won’t bother the Rabbi. He must go to comfort Me’irah’s mother.
She was all alone as she watched her daughter die, she was all alone as she planned and began the funeral of her child. She was like so many mothers left alone to do the difficult work of holding her remaining family together through the most trying of times. Her husband had not abandoned them, but he had left them. He missed the moment when the light left his baby girl’s eyes as she passed from life to death. He left her on her deathbed and her Mama in her deathwatch in the hope that he could persuade Rebbe Yeshua, Rabbi Jesus, to come and lay his hands on her. But she died in his absence and they started her funeral without him…
Yet Sarah’s daughter couldn’t walk away; she couldn’t take her eyes off of him and found herself within a hand’s breadth. Falling to her knees, reaching out, not knowing what she would do until she did it; (according to the other two gospels) she touched his tzit-tzit, the knotted fringe on the corners of his clothing – the sign of an observant Jew. She believed that this time she would be healed. She had believed before and been disappointed, but that didn’t matter. Sarah’s daughter had resilient, indefatigable, inexhaustible, inextinguishable faith. She said, “If I but touch his clothes, I shall be saved.”
More than healed, saved, saved from the death that was surely coming closer. Twelve years of pain, disappointment, sorrow and struggle did not diminish her faith; it was a living thing, carried inside of her, extended through her hand to One who was so worthy of her faith that he didn’t have to see her, speak to her or even touch her to save her, heal her, make her whole, grant her life and transform her.
And it was so. She drew the healing power from his body. She did it. The text is full of her verbs: She endured, she spent, she was no better, she grew worse, she heard, she came up, she touched, she said, she felt, she was saved/healed/restored and then she told him everything. Everything. All her pain, all her grief, all her hope, all her faith. All. She is the active agent in her healing eleven times, and once passive – her hemorrhage stopped.
And Ya’ir, Jairus, is waiting and watching. He left his child on her deathbed to find Rabbi Yeshua, Rabbi Jesus. He didn’t know if she would be living or dead when he got back; but he knew that if Yeshua, Jesus, just laid his hands on her, she would be alright. Ya’ir started his journey in faith. He said, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be saved, and live.” (There’s that verb again.) And Ya’ir ended his journey in faith. When he found Jesus, he found resurrection and life at the same time Sarah’s daughter found restoration and life.
One of the great ironies of the aftermath of this text is that the church of Jesus Christ and nominally Christian societies like ours have become so scandalized by women and our bodies that we dare not name our parts or the problems with our parts in polite company according to some folk. It is ironic, because silencing women and censuring our bodies denies the Gospel story itself: That God became flesh and blood in the body of a woman, was nourished by her blood in her body passed through an umbilical cord attached to a placenta, rooted in the wall of her uterus, and one day pulsed into this world through her cervix and vagina. Just like the rest of us – give or take the occasional caesarian.
This is the scandal of the Gospel, the Incarnation of a woman-born God. At the heart of Incarnation theology is the notion that the human body – and women are fully human – is neither accidental nor unworthy of the habitation of God. The scandal of the Incarnation is the scandal of the human body in all of its forms, genders, expressions, orientations, nationalities, ethnicities, abilities, limitations, communicable diseases, poverties. And this is what God became, for Sarah’s daughter and Ya’ir and his daughter and her mother and you and me, for the whole world, for all of groaning creation. To paraphrase Brother (Cornell) West: Jesus was born too close to urine, excrement and sex for the comfort of many. God became human to touch and be touched by the broken, bleeding, dead and dying and to be broken, bleed and die. And in so doing transformed that brokenness into a sacrament, body and blood, bread and wine, the shadow of death, grave-robbing resurrection.
This Gospel is that God’s concern for the woman-born was manifested in God, Godself, becoming woman-born, for the redemption and liberation of all the woman-born from fear and from death itself. Yeshua the Messiah, the Son of Woman, came to seek out and save the lost and to give his life as a ransom for many. Amen.
Angela Davis speaking in Colorado Springs on the Prison Industrial Complex
To contact us Click HERE
Angela Davis speaking in Colorado Springs on the Prison Industrial Complex. Angela is truly one of the most prophetic voices of our times. She is a prophet in the Old Testament sense, calling us to social justice. In the United States we incarcerate more of our people than any other country, including China. We have a large number of non-violent people in jails and prisons, largely as a result of the misguided "war on drugs." Also there is a racial dimension to the prison industrial complex, as a very large percentage African-American males are incarcerated. It costs more to incarcerate people than it does to send them to college. It is more expensive to incarcerate a drug addict than to pay for his or her rehabilitation. The Prison Industrial Complex is classist and racist, and it is economically inefficient.
Angela Davis speaking in Colorado Springs on the Prison Industrial Complex. Angela is truly one of the most prophetic voices of our times. She is a prophet in the Old Testament sense, calling us to social justice. In the United States we incarcerate more of our people than any other country, including China. We have a large number of non-violent people in jails and prisons, largely as a result of the misguided "war on drugs." Also there is a racial dimension to the prison industrial complex, as a very large percentage African-American males are incarcerated. It costs more to incarcerate people than it does to send them to college. It is more expensive to incarcerate a drug addict than to pay for his or her rehabilitation. The Prison Industrial Complex is classist and racist, and it is economically inefficient. BMO's 5 year 2.99% Mortgage Offering
To contact us Click HERE
On first glance this looks like a great deal. 2.99% for a 5 year mortgage- the lowest 5 year rate ever.
However a closer analysis offers some of the points to be aware of.
Consider:
This is a two-week promo (at the moment) valid until JANUARY 25TH.
There are conditions to their offer. The main terms of BMO's special are as follows:
Maximum Amortization: 25 years
Rate Hold: Up to 90 days
Pre-Approvals: Allowed
Lump-sum Pre-payments: 10% maximum per year (1/2 of the 20% that BMO normally allows)
Optional Payment increase: 10% maximum per year (again, 1/2 of the 20% that BMO normally allows)
Term: Fully closed unless you sell the property, refinance (with BMO only), or early renew into another BMO mortgage.
BMO Mortgage Cash Account: Not available with the Low-Rate
BMO Skip-a-Payment: Not available with the Low-Rate
BMO ReadiLine: Not available with the Low-Rate
Other Details: Not applicable to non-owner occupied rental properties
Most importantly, the client is tied to BMO for the entire 5 year term of their mortgage, even if they want to break it and pay a penalty, they are forced to stay with BMO at whatever rate BMO offers. Client loses negotiating power.
This rate and mortgage is great if you plan to live in the house for many years and will not need to refinace during the term.
However a closer analysis offers some of the points to be aware of.
Consider:
This is a two-week promo (at the moment) valid until JANUARY 25TH.
There are conditions to their offer. The main terms of BMO's special are as follows:
Maximum Amortization: 25 years
Rate Hold: Up to 90 days
Pre-Approvals: Allowed
Lump-sum Pre-payments: 10% maximum per year (1/2 of the 20% that BMO normally allows)
Optional Payment increase: 10% maximum per year (again, 1/2 of the 20% that BMO normally allows)
Term: Fully closed unless you sell the property, refinance (with BMO only), or early renew into another BMO mortgage.
BMO Mortgage Cash Account: Not available with the Low-Rate
BMO Skip-a-Payment: Not available with the Low-Rate
BMO ReadiLine: Not available with the Low-Rate
Other Details: Not applicable to non-owner occupied rental properties
Most importantly, the client is tied to BMO for the entire 5 year term of their mortgage, even if they want to break it and pay a penalty, they are forced to stay with BMO at whatever rate BMO offers. Client loses negotiating power.
This rate and mortgage is great if you plan to live in the house for many years and will not need to refinace during the term.
CAAMP'S VIEW ON TODAY's MORTGAGE ISSUES
To contact us Click HERE
BASED ON OUR RESEARCH AND KNOWLEDGE OF THE SECTOR, WE SEE NO REASON TO TIGHTEN OR RESTRICT ACCESS TO RESIDENTIAL MORTGAGES AT THIS TIME1. CURRENT ENVIRONMENT Canada has a well-earned reputation for exercising economic prudence. As a result, we have managed to avoid a mortgage or housing market meltdown. Our banks are stable and our economy, while impacted by the general global economic slowdown, remains healthier than most. CAAMP’s extensive industry research indicates that the Canadian mortgage industry is healthy. We must continue to “stress test” our own financial sector to determine how it would withstand potential weakening of the economy. The more educated we are about the debt we incur (mortgages, credit cards, lines of credit), the better off we will be2. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ACTIONS TAKEN The federal government responded promptly when it was determined changes were needed in the mortgage market. There have been three significant sets of changes in the past 36 months: - Amortization periods shortened to 30 years from 35 and 40 years - Minimum down payment increased to 5 per cent of purchase price. No 100% LTV mortgages - Homeowners refinancing their mortgage may borrow up to 85 per cent of the equity in their home; down from 90% and 95% - These changes have impacted the mortgage market; re-financings have decreased dramatically and mortgage credit growth has slowed Based on our extensive research and knowledge of the sector, we see no reason to further tighten or restrict access to mortgages at this time3. REASONS FOR CURRENT CONCERN1) Housing Market Prolonged low interest rates are making it more attractive to purchase a home Research shows that the vast majority of homeowners can accommodate rate increases (84 per cent surveyed in CAAMP’s fall 2011 research said they could handle a $200/month increase) CAAMP’s fall 2011 survey indicates mortgage borrowers are prudent, increasing their lump sum payments and paying down their mortgage faster than required Supply and demand drive housing prices – provinces and municipalities should be more aware of their land-use policies and how they impact housing supply2) Media Focus on Insurance Ceiling - Changes in Some Banks’ Lending Practices It is a fact that CMHC is approaching its $600 billion government-imposed limit on mortgage default insurance. Private insurers have a $300 billion limit. This has nothing to do with mortgage insurers being responsible for an increasing number of higher risk mortgages Lenders are buying portfolio insurance against defaults on low risk mortgages - cases where homeowners have more than 20 per cent equity in their homes. These are not high risk mortgages. CMHC is approaching its limit because the number of mortgage holders has grown, the population and housing units have increased and lenders have been insuring low risk mortgages, leveraging the government’s triple A credit rating for other bank business Residential mortgage credit in Canada continues to expand. During the past five years, outstanding residential mortgage credit has expanded by 53%, or an average rate of 8.9% per year. The growth rate is slowing The volume of outstanding residential mortgage credit passed the $1 trillion threshold in July 2010, and as of August 2011, it reached $1.079 trillion Increased homeownership results in an increase in mortgage default insurance However, mortgage defaults are rare. CMHC reported it paid out $454 million in the first nine months of 2011 which represents a 0.42 per cent default rate Overall mortgage arrears rates in Canada are declining and never approached the level of the early 1990s. The housing market in Canada is growing organically and safely There is no parallel in Canada to the subprime default problems that plagued the US market3. FURTHER RESTRICTIONS ON ACCESS TO MORTGAGESWho will be affected? Self-employed borrowers who represent a growing portion of our labour force (currently 2.67 million people, or 15% of employment in Canada) New Canadians who can afford a down payment but have yet to build credit and employment history First time homebuyers who want to enter the homeownership market and build equity These are not the people who fall in to a sub-prime loan category like we saw in the US; yet these changes will impact them The housing industry is an engine of growth in Canada. If we impede its growth, we will add to unemployment and depress the economy If fewer mortgage lenders are able to insure their loans simply because the insurance program has not kept pace with the growth in the mortgage market, then consumers will have less choice when it comes to negotiating a mortgage. Less choice, or less competition, will inevitably lead to higher borrowing costs for the Canadian consumer Likewise, if mortgage brokers are restricted in the mortgage products they can offer, consumer choice will be diminished and costs will increase This reduced access to capital will make it more difficult for people who can legitimately afford to buy a home4)What are the Risks of Further Restricting Access to Mortgages?CAAMP has one of the most comprehensive collections of research on the mortgage industry. It includes original data on borrowers and the characteristics of mortgage loans. This research has revealed repeatedly that borrowers and lenders in Canada have been prudent, and only a very small share of borrowers would have trouble affording future rises in mortgage rates.There are risks, but most are related to the broader economy through two channels:UnemploymentThe broader economic data suggests that the Canadian economy is slowing. If that results in job losses, the housing market would be negatively affected, and there would be impacts on mortgages held by people who lose jobs and then struggle to make payments.Declining Housing PricesHousing prices could decline in a weaker market. In a recession, there is the threat of a downward spiral: a weak economy harming the housing market which negatively affects the broader economy. We believe and trust that the federal government will act to mitigate such a negative scenario.These risks have nothing to do with mortgage products themselves.Risks to the Canadian mortgage market are dependent on the performance of the broader economy. In that light, the best means to control mortgage market risk is through strong economic management. In particular, care must be taken not to take any measures in the mortgage market that unnecessarily reduce housing activity that would be damaging to the economy.
VIEWS ON BANK of MONTREAL'S 5 YEAR RATE
To contact us Click HERE
A good explainatory article by Robert McLister of Canadian Mortgage Trends explaining the pros and cons of Bank of Montreal's just announced 5 year 2.99% rate:BMO Cranks Up the Heat AgainBMO is dead-set on winning mind share among consumers.It's coming back to the market with two new deep-discount rate promos: A 5-year fixed at 2.99% (which starts Thursday, March 8, 2012) A 10-year fixed at 3.99% (which starts Sunday, March 11, 2012) Both of these specials are low-frills, meaning: A Lower Maximum Amortization: 25 years versus 30-40 years elsewhere Less Lump-sum Pre-payment Ability: 10% maximum per year (i.e., 1/2 of the 20% that BMO normally allows) A Smaller Payment Increase Option: Up to 10%, once per year (again, 1/2 of the 20% that BMO normally allows) A Locked Term: The Low-rate Mortgage is fully closed unless you sell the property, refinance (with BMO only), or early renew into another BMO mortgage. In other words, unless you sell, you're not leaving BMO for 5 years, like it or not. Both the 5-year and 10-year promos run for 3 weeks, until March 28, 2012.We've heard talk that TD and RBC will not match BMO's pricing on the 5-year term. We'll see. The last time BMO ran this special, its competitors quickly responded with 4-year rates of 2.99%. Despite the one less year, those competing offers came with all the normal bells and whistles.Unfortunately for competitors, a 2.99% five-year rate makes more headlines than a four-year promo at the same price, and BMO knows it. This deal has garnered almost a dozen major media stories already, and the press release only came out four hours ago.As for BMO's 10-year deal, it is 146 basis points below the nearest Big 6 bank competitors' advertised rates. It is BMO's lowest 10-year rate ever, and it matches ING's current 3.99% offer. (ING was the first bank in Canada to advertise 10-year rates below 4.00%.)With these rates, BMO is starting to make other big banks look increasingly silly. CIBC, National Bank, RBC, and TD are currently promoting 5-year "special offer" rates of 4.04%. That's 105 basis points above BMO (albeit with more flexibility). Those rates border on ridiculous, and they insult the intelligence of increasingly savvy consumers who know that well-qualified borrowers rarely pay anything close to those rates.Yes, we say that knowing that BMO's Low-rate mortgage is highly restrictive and not suitable for most.It is, however, suitable for some. The target market includes many: First-time buyers Rental property owners Owners of 2nd homes The customer should have no foreseeable need to break, increase or aggressively prepay his/her mortgage for five years.In posting more transparent rates than its peers, BMO is taking a page from brokers and smaller rivals. In doing so, it's building credibility with consumers at its competitors' expense.Frank Techar, BMO's Canadian banking head, tells Bloomberg: "The reaction to our January offer was fantastic." With a mortgage market that BMO CEO William Downe admits is "slowing," 2.99% is a big fat worm on a hook. It is bait that gets BMO's phones ringing.It also gives BMO's sales force a chance to upsell people into higher margin mortgages without all the restrictions of BMO's Low-rate product. (There's a lot of that going on, according to the BMO mortgage specialists we've talked to.)With this rate sale, BMO is certain to take flak for fuelling consumer borrowing at a time when high debt levels are worrying policymakers.To that end, Techar maintains that BMO is not fuelling the fire. He tells the Financial Post that these rates "are consistent with the debate around the need to reduce consumer debt levels."In an interview with Reuters, he said: "People are not going to stretch to get the largest mortgage they can with a 25-year amortization product. Because the monthly payments are higher, they...will go to a 30-year amortization product." (He's right.)Downe recently said this to analysts about BMO's Low-rate Mortgage:"We think that's a product that is good for Canadians; it's good for Canada; it's good for our customers, and we intend to continue to promote it in this environment.It's a product that we believe addresses all of the risks that are currently being debated, whether or not the consumer debt levels that are too high in Canada and a possible fallout from economic slowdown and rising interest rates. It helps our customers pay less interest. It mitigates their interest rate risk for five years. It helps them retire debt free by paying off their balance faster, and it works against market price appreciation. In fact, it helps with...house price appreciation, because the shorter amortization reduces the maximum purchase price people can afford."Being a 5-year fixed, this product does mitigate some risk. A 200 basis point rate increase by 2017 would only lift payments $133/month on the average Canadian mortgage of $151,000.As for rumours that policymakers are ticked off by BMO's pricing, the last time anyone looked, it's still a free market. BMO can price as it sees fit within regulations. As long as underwriting standards remain high, God bless it for bringing down rates industry-wide.Even if rates like 2.99% do spur more interest in mortgages, it doesn't mean lenders will approve high-risk borrowers. BMO's average loan-to-value (LTV) is just 60%. More notably, BMO's residential mortgage portfolio has a long-run loss rate of less than 2 basis points (i.e., exceptionally low).Barring a run-up in bond yields, we could now start seeing competitors (like mortgage brokers) respond with full-frills 5-year offers that are just a pittance above BMO's rate. Some might even match or beat it.We'd strongly encourage most folks to consider paying a bit more to avoid the low-rate mortgage restrictions—especially if the premium is small (0.05%-0.10%) and especially if you can benefit from the service and extras that come with a standard mortgage.Side Note: Here are a few more details about BMO's Low-rate Mortgage: Rate Hold: Up to 90 days Pre-Approvals?: Yes BMO Mortgage Cash Account: Not available with the Low-Rate mortgage BMO Skip-a-Payment: Not available with the Low-Rate mortgage BMO ReadiLine: Not available with the Low-Rate mortgage Rentals Allowed? Yes 2nd Homes Allowed? Yes
5 Temmuz 2012 Perşembe
When will the U.S. stop mass incarceration? by Lisa Bloom
To contact us Click HERE
via CNN
Editor's note: Lisa Bloom is an attorney, legal analyst for Avvo.com and author of "Swagger: 10 Urgent Rules for Raising Boys in an Era of Failing Schools, Mass Joblessness and Thug Culture." Follow her on Twitter: @LisaBloom
(CNN) -- The United States leads the world in the rate of incarcerating its own citizens. We imprison more of our own people than any other country on earth, including China which has four times our population, or in human history. And now, a new Pew report announces that we are keeping even nonviolent inmates behind bars for increasingly longer terms.
This comes at a time when soaring costs of prisons are wreaking havoc on federal, state and local budgets, as schools, libraries, parks and social programs are slashed. When I graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1983, my state spent more on higher education than prisons, a lot more. That equation is now reversed. Money that could have gone into reducing skyrocketing tuition and cuts to education has instead gone to prisons and inmates.
Over the past 23 years, California constructed roughly one new prison per year, at a cost of $100 million each, while it built only one new public college during the same period. Nationwide, spending on prisons has risen six times faster than spending on higher education.
As I protest education cuts, I'm so often told, "We just don't have the money." It's a lie. We do have the money. We just choose to spend it on prisons. Why is this not a front and center issue in the presidential campaign?
Largely casualties of our misguided "war on drugs," and vigorously promoted at the federal level by the "drug czar" and a $15 billion annual budget, the number of incarcerated Americans has quadrupled since 1980.
More than two million of our people are now locked up, with another nearly five million under an increasingly restrictive system of correctional control in lieu of or after incarceration. Criminalizing human behavior like never before, our judges are required by law to mete out increasingly punitive, long sentences, even for children. Even after inmates are released, they remain under the heavy-handed and pricey control of the criminal justice system for years or for life, often legally barred from voting, receiving public housing, food stamps or student loans.
Forced to "check the box" on job applications that they are convicted criminals, even those who have had simple convictions like marijuana possession are often legally discriminated against by employers.An unemployed young man recently wrote to me about being shut out of his dream job, nursing, because of a decade-old marijuana offense. In fact, no one at all will hire him. As he languishes on a friend's couch, he is hopeless, depressed and suicidal.
In the United States, one man out of eighteen is incarcerated or on probation or parole, and more are locked up every day. We are the last developed country on the planet to lock up juveniles, overwhelmingly boys, for life-without-parole sentences for crimes committed when they were minors. (Though the Supreme Court banned mandatory life-without-parole sentences for minors in June, judges may still impose the sentence as a discretionary matter.)
Here's one stark way to understand our new normal of mass incarceration: If we wanted to return to 1970s level of incarceration, we'd have to release four out of five people behind bars today.
Nonviolent offenders are 60% of our prison population. Releasing half of them would free up nearly $17 billion per year for schools or other worthy programs, with no appreciable effect on the crime rate. In fact, many studies conclude that mass incarceration is crimogenic, i.e., locking up people for minor offenses increases crime because they become hardened behind bars. Since few prisons offer therapy or vocational programs and children left behind in fatherless homes are more likely to grow up to become offenders themselves, the problem just gets worse.
But we cannot keep going down the road of locking up more people for longer amounts of time. According to Pew, prisoners released in 2009 served an average of nine additional months in custody, or 36% longer, than offenders released in 1990. Annually we now spend $68 billion and growing on local, state and federal corrections.
The American public strongly supports reducing time served for nonviolent offenders. But candidates appear afraid to touch this touchy third rail issue, for fear they appear less than "tough on crime."Why does the right not consider our multibillion-dollar prison system to be the type of bloated government program ripe for cost-cutting?
Why is the left so rarely concerned about the warehoused young lives and the destruction of inner city families from our culture of mass incarceration?
Why do both sides accept the framing of this question, so often parroted: In these tough economic times, should we cut more social services or raise taxes? It's a false dichotomy. The third alternative is to stop warehousing our own people.
Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinionJoin us on Facebook/CNNOpinion
via CNN
Editor's note: Lisa Bloom is an attorney, legal analyst for Avvo.com and author of "Swagger: 10 Urgent Rules for Raising Boys in an Era of Failing Schools, Mass Joblessness and Thug Culture." Follow her on Twitter: @LisaBloom
(CNN) -- The United States leads the world in the rate of incarcerating its own citizens. We imprison more of our own people than any other country on earth, including China which has four times our population, or in human history. And now, a new Pew report announces that we are keeping even nonviolent inmates behind bars for increasingly longer terms.
This comes at a time when soaring costs of prisons are wreaking havoc on federal, state and local budgets, as schools, libraries, parks and social programs are slashed. When I graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1983, my state spent more on higher education than prisons, a lot more. That equation is now reversed. Money that could have gone into reducing skyrocketing tuition and cuts to education has instead gone to prisons and inmates.
Over the past 23 years, California constructed roughly one new prison per year, at a cost of $100 million each, while it built only one new public college during the same period. Nationwide, spending on prisons has risen six times faster than spending on higher education.
 |
| Lisa Bloom |
As I protest education cuts, I'm so often told, "We just don't have the money." It's a lie. We do have the money. We just choose to spend it on prisons. Why is this not a front and center issue in the presidential campaign?
Largely casualties of our misguided "war on drugs," and vigorously promoted at the federal level by the "drug czar" and a $15 billion annual budget, the number of incarcerated Americans has quadrupled since 1980.
More than two million of our people are now locked up, with another nearly five million under an increasingly restrictive system of correctional control in lieu of or after incarceration. Criminalizing human behavior like never before, our judges are required by law to mete out increasingly punitive, long sentences, even for children. Even after inmates are released, they remain under the heavy-handed and pricey control of the criminal justice system for years or for life, often legally barred from voting, receiving public housing, food stamps or student loans.
Forced to "check the box" on job applications that they are convicted criminals, even those who have had simple convictions like marijuana possession are often legally discriminated against by employers.An unemployed young man recently wrote to me about being shut out of his dream job, nursing, because of a decade-old marijuana offense. In fact, no one at all will hire him. As he languishes on a friend's couch, he is hopeless, depressed and suicidal.
In the United States, one man out of eighteen is incarcerated or on probation or parole, and more are locked up every day. We are the last developed country on the planet to lock up juveniles, overwhelmingly boys, for life-without-parole sentences for crimes committed when they were minors. (Though the Supreme Court banned mandatory life-without-parole sentences for minors in June, judges may still impose the sentence as a discretionary matter.)
Here's one stark way to understand our new normal of mass incarceration: If we wanted to return to 1970s level of incarceration, we'd have to release four out of five people behind bars today.
Nonviolent offenders are 60% of our prison population. Releasing half of them would free up nearly $17 billion per year for schools or other worthy programs, with no appreciable effect on the crime rate. In fact, many studies conclude that mass incarceration is crimogenic, i.e., locking up people for minor offenses increases crime because they become hardened behind bars. Since few prisons offer therapy or vocational programs and children left behind in fatherless homes are more likely to grow up to become offenders themselves, the problem just gets worse.
But we cannot keep going down the road of locking up more people for longer amounts of time. According to Pew, prisoners released in 2009 served an average of nine additional months in custody, or 36% longer, than offenders released in 1990. Annually we now spend $68 billion and growing on local, state and federal corrections.
The American public strongly supports reducing time served for nonviolent offenders. But candidates appear afraid to touch this touchy third rail issue, for fear they appear less than "tough on crime."Why does the right not consider our multibillion-dollar prison system to be the type of bloated government program ripe for cost-cutting?
Why is the left so rarely concerned about the warehoused young lives and the destruction of inner city families from our culture of mass incarceration?
Why do both sides accept the framing of this question, so often parroted: In these tough economic times, should we cut more social services or raise taxes? It's a false dichotomy. The third alternative is to stop warehousing our own people.
Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinionJoin us on Facebook/CNNOpinion
CANADA'S ECONOMY OUTPACING THE US
To contact us Click HERE
IMF says Canada will likely outperform this year, sees slower growth in 2011
Thu Jul 8, 9:57 AM
Joe Mcdonald, The Associated Press
Email StoryIM StoryPrintable View.By Joe Mcdonald, The Associated Press
BEIJING, China - Canada's economy is on track to grow more quickly this year than previously expected, putting it ahead of the United States and most other advanced economies, according to new estimates from International Monetary Fund.
The IMF said Thursday it's raising the 2010 growth forecast for Canada to 3.6 per cent from its previous estimate of 3.1 per cent, issued in April.
The IMF's July report also raised its U.S. growth estimate to 3.3 per cent, up from 3.1 per cent and its world estimate to 4.6 per cent from 4.2 per cent.
Asian countries with rapidly maturing economies will grow more quickly than the United States, Japan and European countries that have historically been more advanced.
China's growth for this year, for instance, is now projected at 10.5 per cent, up five percentage points, while the IMF expects India's economy will advance 9.4 per cent this year (up six percentage points from the April projection.)
Next year isn't looking so rosey for Canada, however.
The IMF has lowered its projection for 2011 growth by four percentage points to 2.8 per cent. Also notable was a reduction in the IMF's 2011 projection for China, which has been reduced by three percentage points from April's.
In contrast, the U.S. growth projection for next year was raised by three percentage points to 2.9 per cent, slightly ahead of Canada, while the world outlook for 2011 was raised by eight percentage points to 4.3 per cent.
The IMF, a Washington-based multnational organization affiliated with the United Nations and the World Bank, said Europe's debt crisis might stall the global rebound and governments need to shore up shaky public confidence.
Its quarterly World Economic Outlook warned that "risks have risen sharply" and Europe has to quickly resolve debt problems and restore confidence in its banks.
Europe's problems "could spill over to other regions and stall the global recovery," said Jose Vinals, director of the fund's monetary and capital markets department, at a news conference in Hong Kong.
"Further credible and decisive policy action is needed to resume progress on financial stability and keep the economic recovery on track," Vinals said.
Risks so far are limited to financial markets and activity in other fields stabilized at a high level in May, the IMF said. It said industrial output and trade grew by double digits and there was a modest but steady recovery in developed economies and strong growth in emerging nations.
"The numbers for economic activity have come in strong — in fact, stronger than we have forecast," said Olivier Blanchard, director of the IMF's research department.
The fund raised this year's U.S. growth forecast from 2.7 per cent to 3.3 per cent. The outlook for Germany and other European nations that use the euro common currency was unchanged at 1 per cent.
A global "double dip," or relapse into recession, is "very unlikely," Blanchard said.
Asian economies recovered strongly this year, driven by buoyant exports and stronger domestic demand, the IMF said.
The fund raised its 2010 growth forecast for Japan to 2.4 per cent from 1.9 per cent and for India to 9.4 per cent from 8.8 per cent. The estimate of the Asia region's growth rose to 7.5 per cent from seven per cent.
However, it warned that weakness in Europe "would affect Asia through both trade and financial channels."
Weak data from major economies in recent weeks have diminished confidence in a strong rebound from last year's recession.
The fund's forecast for 2011 growth was unchanged at 4.3 per cent, a decline from this year's rate.
In a move that might fuel concern the recovery is fading, the fund lowered its 2011 growth forecast for Japan from two per cent to 1.8 per cent and for Britain to 2.1 per centfrom 2.5 per cent.
In Europe, the IMF said governments must resolve uncertainty about banks' exposure to sovereign debt and other risks and make sure lenders have enough capital and markets have adequate liquidity.
It said many advanced economies urgently need to push ahead financial reforms including recapitalizing banks, restructuring and consolidating banking industries and overhauling regulation.
"In the absence of complete banking sector recapitalization and restructuring, the flow of credit to the economy will continue to be impaired," the IMF said.
Thu Jul 8, 9:57 AM
Joe Mcdonald, The Associated Press
Email StoryIM StoryPrintable View.By Joe Mcdonald, The Associated Press
BEIJING, China - Canada's economy is on track to grow more quickly this year than previously expected, putting it ahead of the United States and most other advanced economies, according to new estimates from International Monetary Fund.
The IMF said Thursday it's raising the 2010 growth forecast for Canada to 3.6 per cent from its previous estimate of 3.1 per cent, issued in April.
The IMF's July report also raised its U.S. growth estimate to 3.3 per cent, up from 3.1 per cent and its world estimate to 4.6 per cent from 4.2 per cent.
Asian countries with rapidly maturing economies will grow more quickly than the United States, Japan and European countries that have historically been more advanced.
China's growth for this year, for instance, is now projected at 10.5 per cent, up five percentage points, while the IMF expects India's economy will advance 9.4 per cent this year (up six percentage points from the April projection.)
Next year isn't looking so rosey for Canada, however.
The IMF has lowered its projection for 2011 growth by four percentage points to 2.8 per cent. Also notable was a reduction in the IMF's 2011 projection for China, which has been reduced by three percentage points from April's.
In contrast, the U.S. growth projection for next year was raised by three percentage points to 2.9 per cent, slightly ahead of Canada, while the world outlook for 2011 was raised by eight percentage points to 4.3 per cent.
The IMF, a Washington-based multnational organization affiliated with the United Nations and the World Bank, said Europe's debt crisis might stall the global rebound and governments need to shore up shaky public confidence.
Its quarterly World Economic Outlook warned that "risks have risen sharply" and Europe has to quickly resolve debt problems and restore confidence in its banks.
Europe's problems "could spill over to other regions and stall the global recovery," said Jose Vinals, director of the fund's monetary and capital markets department, at a news conference in Hong Kong.
"Further credible and decisive policy action is needed to resume progress on financial stability and keep the economic recovery on track," Vinals said.
Risks so far are limited to financial markets and activity in other fields stabilized at a high level in May, the IMF said. It said industrial output and trade grew by double digits and there was a modest but steady recovery in developed economies and strong growth in emerging nations.
"The numbers for economic activity have come in strong — in fact, stronger than we have forecast," said Olivier Blanchard, director of the IMF's research department.
The fund raised this year's U.S. growth forecast from 2.7 per cent to 3.3 per cent. The outlook for Germany and other European nations that use the euro common currency was unchanged at 1 per cent.
A global "double dip," or relapse into recession, is "very unlikely," Blanchard said.
Asian economies recovered strongly this year, driven by buoyant exports and stronger domestic demand, the IMF said.
The fund raised its 2010 growth forecast for Japan to 2.4 per cent from 1.9 per cent and for India to 9.4 per cent from 8.8 per cent. The estimate of the Asia region's growth rose to 7.5 per cent from seven per cent.
However, it warned that weakness in Europe "would affect Asia through both trade and financial channels."
Weak data from major economies in recent weeks have diminished confidence in a strong rebound from last year's recession.
The fund's forecast for 2011 growth was unchanged at 4.3 per cent, a decline from this year's rate.
In a move that might fuel concern the recovery is fading, the fund lowered its 2011 growth forecast for Japan from two per cent to 1.8 per cent and for Britain to 2.1 per centfrom 2.5 per cent.
In Europe, the IMF said governments must resolve uncertainty about banks' exposure to sovereign debt and other risks and make sure lenders have enough capital and markets have adequate liquidity.
It said many advanced economies urgently need to push ahead financial reforms including recapitalizing banks, restructuring and consolidating banking industries and overhauling regulation.
"In the absence of complete banking sector recapitalization and restructuring, the flow of credit to the economy will continue to be impaired," the IMF said.
BMO's 5 year 2.99% Mortgage Offering
To contact us Click HERE
On first glance this looks like a great deal. 2.99% for a 5 year mortgage- the lowest 5 year rate ever.
However a closer analysis offers some of the points to be aware of.
Consider:
This is a two-week promo (at the moment) valid until JANUARY 25TH.
There are conditions to their offer. The main terms of BMO's special are as follows:
Maximum Amortization: 25 years
Rate Hold: Up to 90 days
Pre-Approvals: Allowed
Lump-sum Pre-payments: 10% maximum per year (1/2 of the 20% that BMO normally allows)
Optional Payment increase: 10% maximum per year (again, 1/2 of the 20% that BMO normally allows)
Term: Fully closed unless you sell the property, refinance (with BMO only), or early renew into another BMO mortgage.
BMO Mortgage Cash Account: Not available with the Low-Rate
BMO Skip-a-Payment: Not available with the Low-Rate
BMO ReadiLine: Not available with the Low-Rate
Other Details: Not applicable to non-owner occupied rental properties
Most importantly, the client is tied to BMO for the entire 5 year term of their mortgage, even if they want to break it and pay a penalty, they are forced to stay with BMO at whatever rate BMO offers. Client loses negotiating power.
This rate and mortgage is great if you plan to live in the house for many years and will not need to refinace during the term.
However a closer analysis offers some of the points to be aware of.
Consider:
This is a two-week promo (at the moment) valid until JANUARY 25TH.
There are conditions to their offer. The main terms of BMO's special are as follows:
Maximum Amortization: 25 years
Rate Hold: Up to 90 days
Pre-Approvals: Allowed
Lump-sum Pre-payments: 10% maximum per year (1/2 of the 20% that BMO normally allows)
Optional Payment increase: 10% maximum per year (again, 1/2 of the 20% that BMO normally allows)
Term: Fully closed unless you sell the property, refinance (with BMO only), or early renew into another BMO mortgage.
BMO Mortgage Cash Account: Not available with the Low-Rate
BMO Skip-a-Payment: Not available with the Low-Rate
BMO ReadiLine: Not available with the Low-Rate
Other Details: Not applicable to non-owner occupied rental properties
Most importantly, the client is tied to BMO for the entire 5 year term of their mortgage, even if they want to break it and pay a penalty, they are forced to stay with BMO at whatever rate BMO offers. Client loses negotiating power.
This rate and mortgage is great if you plan to live in the house for many years and will not need to refinace during the term.
CAAMP'S VIEW ON TODAY's MORTGAGE ISSUES
To contact us Click HERE
BASED ON OUR RESEARCH AND KNOWLEDGE OF THE SECTOR, WE SEE NO REASON TO TIGHTEN OR RESTRICT ACCESS TO RESIDENTIAL MORTGAGES AT THIS TIME1. CURRENT ENVIRONMENT Canada has a well-earned reputation for exercising economic prudence. As a result, we have managed to avoid a mortgage or housing market meltdown. Our banks are stable and our economy, while impacted by the general global economic slowdown, remains healthier than most. CAAMP’s extensive industry research indicates that the Canadian mortgage industry is healthy. We must continue to “stress test” our own financial sector to determine how it would withstand potential weakening of the economy. The more educated we are about the debt we incur (mortgages, credit cards, lines of credit), the better off we will be2. FEDERAL GOVERNMENT ACTIONS TAKEN The federal government responded promptly when it was determined changes were needed in the mortgage market. There have been three significant sets of changes in the past 36 months: - Amortization periods shortened to 30 years from 35 and 40 years - Minimum down payment increased to 5 per cent of purchase price. No 100% LTV mortgages - Homeowners refinancing their mortgage may borrow up to 85 per cent of the equity in their home; down from 90% and 95% - These changes have impacted the mortgage market; re-financings have decreased dramatically and mortgage credit growth has slowed Based on our extensive research and knowledge of the sector, we see no reason to further tighten or restrict access to mortgages at this time3. REASONS FOR CURRENT CONCERN1) Housing Market Prolonged low interest rates are making it more attractive to purchase a home Research shows that the vast majority of homeowners can accommodate rate increases (84 per cent surveyed in CAAMP’s fall 2011 research said they could handle a $200/month increase) CAAMP’s fall 2011 survey indicates mortgage borrowers are prudent, increasing their lump sum payments and paying down their mortgage faster than required Supply and demand drive housing prices – provinces and municipalities should be more aware of their land-use policies and how they impact housing supply2) Media Focus on Insurance Ceiling - Changes in Some Banks’ Lending Practices It is a fact that CMHC is approaching its $600 billion government-imposed limit on mortgage default insurance. Private insurers have a $300 billion limit. This has nothing to do with mortgage insurers being responsible for an increasing number of higher risk mortgages Lenders are buying portfolio insurance against defaults on low risk mortgages - cases where homeowners have more than 20 per cent equity in their homes. These are not high risk mortgages. CMHC is approaching its limit because the number of mortgage holders has grown, the population and housing units have increased and lenders have been insuring low risk mortgages, leveraging the government’s triple A credit rating for other bank business Residential mortgage credit in Canada continues to expand. During the past five years, outstanding residential mortgage credit has expanded by 53%, or an average rate of 8.9% per year. The growth rate is slowing The volume of outstanding residential mortgage credit passed the $1 trillion threshold in July 2010, and as of August 2011, it reached $1.079 trillion Increased homeownership results in an increase in mortgage default insurance However, mortgage defaults are rare. CMHC reported it paid out $454 million in the first nine months of 2011 which represents a 0.42 per cent default rate Overall mortgage arrears rates in Canada are declining and never approached the level of the early 1990s. The housing market in Canada is growing organically and safely There is no parallel in Canada to the subprime default problems that plagued the US market3. FURTHER RESTRICTIONS ON ACCESS TO MORTGAGESWho will be affected? Self-employed borrowers who represent a growing portion of our labour force (currently 2.67 million people, or 15% of employment in Canada) New Canadians who can afford a down payment but have yet to build credit and employment history First time homebuyers who want to enter the homeownership market and build equity These are not the people who fall in to a sub-prime loan category like we saw in the US; yet these changes will impact them The housing industry is an engine of growth in Canada. If we impede its growth, we will add to unemployment and depress the economy If fewer mortgage lenders are able to insure their loans simply because the insurance program has not kept pace with the growth in the mortgage market, then consumers will have less choice when it comes to negotiating a mortgage. Less choice, or less competition, will inevitably lead to higher borrowing costs for the Canadian consumer Likewise, if mortgage brokers are restricted in the mortgage products they can offer, consumer choice will be diminished and costs will increase This reduced access to capital will make it more difficult for people who can legitimately afford to buy a home4)What are the Risks of Further Restricting Access to Mortgages?CAAMP has one of the most comprehensive collections of research on the mortgage industry. It includes original data on borrowers and the characteristics of mortgage loans. This research has revealed repeatedly that borrowers and lenders in Canada have been prudent, and only a very small share of borrowers would have trouble affording future rises in mortgage rates.There are risks, but most are related to the broader economy through two channels:UnemploymentThe broader economic data suggests that the Canadian economy is slowing. If that results in job losses, the housing market would be negatively affected, and there would be impacts on mortgages held by people who lose jobs and then struggle to make payments.Declining Housing PricesHousing prices could decline in a weaker market. In a recession, there is the threat of a downward spiral: a weak economy harming the housing market which negatively affects the broader economy. We believe and trust that the federal government will act to mitigate such a negative scenario.These risks have nothing to do with mortgage products themselves.Risks to the Canadian mortgage market are dependent on the performance of the broader economy. In that light, the best means to control mortgage market risk is through strong economic management. In particular, care must be taken not to take any measures in the mortgage market that unnecessarily reduce housing activity that would be damaging to the economy.
VIEWS ON BANK of MONTREAL'S 5 YEAR RATE
To contact us Click HERE
A good explainatory article by Robert McLister of Canadian Mortgage Trends explaining the pros and cons of Bank of Montreal's just announced 5 year 2.99% rate:BMO Cranks Up the Heat AgainBMO is dead-set on winning mind share among consumers.It's coming back to the market with two new deep-discount rate promos: A 5-year fixed at 2.99% (which starts Thursday, March 8, 2012) A 10-year fixed at 3.99% (which starts Sunday, March 11, 2012) Both of these specials are low-frills, meaning: A Lower Maximum Amortization: 25 years versus 30-40 years elsewhere Less Lump-sum Pre-payment Ability: 10% maximum per year (i.e., 1/2 of the 20% that BMO normally allows) A Smaller Payment Increase Option: Up to 10%, once per year (again, 1/2 of the 20% that BMO normally allows) A Locked Term: The Low-rate Mortgage is fully closed unless you sell the property, refinance (with BMO only), or early renew into another BMO mortgage. In other words, unless you sell, you're not leaving BMO for 5 years, like it or not. Both the 5-year and 10-year promos run for 3 weeks, until March 28, 2012.We've heard talk that TD and RBC will not match BMO's pricing on the 5-year term. We'll see. The last time BMO ran this special, its competitors quickly responded with 4-year rates of 2.99%. Despite the one less year, those competing offers came with all the normal bells and whistles.Unfortunately for competitors, a 2.99% five-year rate makes more headlines than a four-year promo at the same price, and BMO knows it. This deal has garnered almost a dozen major media stories already, and the press release only came out four hours ago.As for BMO's 10-year deal, it is 146 basis points below the nearest Big 6 bank competitors' advertised rates. It is BMO's lowest 10-year rate ever, and it matches ING's current 3.99% offer. (ING was the first bank in Canada to advertise 10-year rates below 4.00%.)With these rates, BMO is starting to make other big banks look increasingly silly. CIBC, National Bank, RBC, and TD are currently promoting 5-year "special offer" rates of 4.04%. That's 105 basis points above BMO (albeit with more flexibility). Those rates border on ridiculous, and they insult the intelligence of increasingly savvy consumers who know that well-qualified borrowers rarely pay anything close to those rates.Yes, we say that knowing that BMO's Low-rate mortgage is highly restrictive and not suitable for most.It is, however, suitable for some. The target market includes many: First-time buyers Rental property owners Owners of 2nd homes The customer should have no foreseeable need to break, increase or aggressively prepay his/her mortgage for five years.In posting more transparent rates than its peers, BMO is taking a page from brokers and smaller rivals. In doing so, it's building credibility with consumers at its competitors' expense.Frank Techar, BMO's Canadian banking head, tells Bloomberg: "The reaction to our January offer was fantastic." With a mortgage market that BMO CEO William Downe admits is "slowing," 2.99% is a big fat worm on a hook. It is bait that gets BMO's phones ringing.It also gives BMO's sales force a chance to upsell people into higher margin mortgages without all the restrictions of BMO's Low-rate product. (There's a lot of that going on, according to the BMO mortgage specialists we've talked to.)With this rate sale, BMO is certain to take flak for fuelling consumer borrowing at a time when high debt levels are worrying policymakers.To that end, Techar maintains that BMO is not fuelling the fire. He tells the Financial Post that these rates "are consistent with the debate around the need to reduce consumer debt levels."In an interview with Reuters, he said: "People are not going to stretch to get the largest mortgage they can with a 25-year amortization product. Because the monthly payments are higher, they...will go to a 30-year amortization product." (He's right.)Downe recently said this to analysts about BMO's Low-rate Mortgage:"We think that's a product that is good for Canadians; it's good for Canada; it's good for our customers, and we intend to continue to promote it in this environment.It's a product that we believe addresses all of the risks that are currently being debated, whether or not the consumer debt levels that are too high in Canada and a possible fallout from economic slowdown and rising interest rates. It helps our customers pay less interest. It mitigates their interest rate risk for five years. It helps them retire debt free by paying off their balance faster, and it works against market price appreciation. In fact, it helps with...house price appreciation, because the shorter amortization reduces the maximum purchase price people can afford."Being a 5-year fixed, this product does mitigate some risk. A 200 basis point rate increase by 2017 would only lift payments $133/month on the average Canadian mortgage of $151,000.As for rumours that policymakers are ticked off by BMO's pricing, the last time anyone looked, it's still a free market. BMO can price as it sees fit within regulations. As long as underwriting standards remain high, God bless it for bringing down rates industry-wide.Even if rates like 2.99% do spur more interest in mortgages, it doesn't mean lenders will approve high-risk borrowers. BMO's average loan-to-value (LTV) is just 60%. More notably, BMO's residential mortgage portfolio has a long-run loss rate of less than 2 basis points (i.e., exceptionally low).Barring a run-up in bond yields, we could now start seeing competitors (like mortgage brokers) respond with full-frills 5-year offers that are just a pittance above BMO's rate. Some might even match or beat it.We'd strongly encourage most folks to consider paying a bit more to avoid the low-rate mortgage restrictions—especially if the premium is small (0.05%-0.10%) and especially if you can benefit from the service and extras that come with a standard mortgage.Side Note: Here are a few more details about BMO's Low-rate Mortgage: Rate Hold: Up to 90 days Pre-Approvals?: Yes BMO Mortgage Cash Account: Not available with the Low-Rate mortgage BMO Skip-a-Payment: Not available with the Low-Rate mortgage BMO ReadiLine: Not available with the Low-Rate mortgage Rentals Allowed? Yes 2nd Homes Allowed? Yes
Kaydol:
Kayıtlar (Atom)