Muara Teweh!

DO YOU want a nuclear reactor in your backyard or a solar panel on your roof? Put crudely, this was the choice presented at the weekend when the Prime Minister, John Howard and Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd, offered radically different solutions to global warming.

At first glance, Rudd was the hands-down winner. Offering householders a cheap loan of $10,000 to help them install solar panels and rainwater tanks sounds like a no-brainer. Not only does it work at the grass roots, it picks up on the global strategy for combating greenhouse gas emissions proposed in the latest United Nations expert report, due to be released on Friday.

Recent Labor polling shows about two-thirds of voters reject nuclear power as the answer to global warming, while more than 90 per cent want the Government to pursue renewable alternatives such as solar and wind energy. » Read more after the jump →

New research has raised more concerns about the size of loans being taken out by Australian home buyers.

Credit ratings agency Moody’s produces ratings for mortgage-backed securities, which are the way an increasing number of home loans are funded.

The agency’s annual study of loan collateral has confirmed a gradual shift in 2006 to bigger loans compared to the value of the property being bought.

It says that for the first time, there has been a significant percentage of loans with loan-to-valuation ratios above 95 per cent. » Read more after the jump →

THE five major Australian banks are set to score annual net profits of at least $17 billion between them, despite the fact that the spectacular growth of the last three years is beginning to tail off.

Analysts are convinced that another record result for banks is on its way after ANZ indicated that its business was likely to grow by about 10 per cent in the coming months, following a half-year performance that produced cash earnings of $1.94 billion.

ANZ’s profits should top $4 billion this year.

Both Westpac, the smallest of the big four, and St George, which occupies the middle ground between the majors and the regional banks, are expected to underline the upward trends when they release their interim results this week. » Read more after the jump →

KEVIN Rudd has pre-empted next week’s federal budget by announcing a $300 million scheme for people to make their homes greener by improving energy efficiency and water conservation.

The initiative — mainly low-interest loans up to $10,000 — would be available to families with incomes up to $250,000.

Mr Rudd said that the income limit was not excessive.

“We don’t have some sort of class enemy basis upon which we do this — that’s the old politics of the past,” he said.

The measures — described by Mr Rudd in Howardesque terms as “practical” — come ahead of » Read more after the jump →

FAMILIES will be able to borrow up to $10,000 in low interest loans under a $300 million Labor plan to give Australians access to rainwater tanks, solar panels and other initiatives to combat climate change.
At Labor’s national conference in Sydney today, Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd said that Labor wanted to develop practical solutions to deal with the environmental problems facing the nation.

He described the $300 million solar, green energy and water renovation plan as the “practical bread-and-butter stuff that the Labor Party is so good at”.

“How do you fund getting solar panels on your roof? How do you cope with the upfront costs » Read more after the jump →

Consumer groups believe that lenders should be held liable if they allow borrowers to take home mortgages that aren’t suitable for them. Previous articles in this series concluded that a suitability standard was not an effective way to deal with bad mortgage selection, unaffordable loans, refinances that don’t benefit borrowers, or overcharging.

This article looks at suitability as a potential remedy for another remedy that has never worked properly: mandatory disclosure rules.

The conventional wisdom, which I shared for a long time, is that government should formulate and enforce disclosure rules because that assures uniformity of disclosures across the market.

But if the disclosures mandated by government are useless or worse, which is the case, uniformity does not help borrowers. Indeed, poor disclosures can be worse than no disclosures » Read more after the jump →

Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta (FHLBank Atlanta) today announced that the Federal Housing Finance Board (Finance Board) has appointed three new members to FHLBank Atlanta’s board of directors. They are F. Gary Garczynski, William C. Handorf, and Robert L. Strickland Jr.

F. Gary Garczynski is chairman of the National Housing Endowment and president of National Capital Land and Development, Inc., a construction and real estate development company in Woodbridge, Va. He previously served as the 2002 Past President of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). A housing developer with more than 30 years’ experience, Garczynski serves as a Senior Life Director of NAHB, a Life Director of the Home Builder Association of Virginia, and a Senior Life Director of the Northern Virginia Building Industry Association. He also is a member of the Prince William County, Va., Affordable Housing Task Force and a three-term appointee to the Virginia Housing Commission. » Read more after the jump →