U.S. Jobless Claims And Foreclosures Surge

Based on financial data released this week, U.S. jobless claims and foreclosures have surged in America, painfully illustrating the financial crisis that began in 2008, is ongoing, as government remedies have failed to stem losses and fix the problem. U.S. foreclosures also set another record.

The financial health of Uncle Sam (Photo credit: David Dees)

A report this week also revealed, President Obama's mortgage relief program wasted billions in taxpayer money and produced very little positive results. Something similar transpired with Obama's jobs program.

STORY SOURCE:

US Foreclosure Filings Rise 16% as Bank Seizures Set Record

Watchdog Group: Obama's Mortgage Aid Plan Wastes Billions

Nicolas Cage Home Auctioned

Actor Nicolas Cage's Bel Air home in Los Angles, has been auctioned in foreclosure. The celebrity that once owned over a dozen homes, has lost a number of them, due to overspending and under income.

The Judiciary Report saw this house on a Hollywood home tour years ago. It does look quite stately from the outside, which made the Judiciary Report wonder what was wrong with it other than the price ($35,000,000). When the price was eventually reduced, Cage's realtor still was unable to close a sale.

But alas, nosy TMZ posted pictures of the home's interiors and confirmed the Judiciary Report's worst suspicions, Cage suffers from bad taste in furnishings and interior design. It's a common affliction among celebrities. They have appalling taste in everything from clothes to furniture.

Cage's Bel Air home looks good from the outside, but the realtor should have staged the home, removed some of the actor's eccentric furnishings, placing them in storage and painted some of the rooms neutral tones (that green bathroom is hurting my feelings and that game room is traumatizing me).

I love movie memorabilia, but don't scare home buyers and have them startled while viewing your property and thinking, "Why is Yoda in the middle of the living room."

While it is fine to have eccentric tastes, when you are selling a home, especially in a fire sale, concessions must be made. Cage's former home was a great property with good structure, charming architectural features, situated in a prime location with a significant amount of space.

Nicolas Cage

However, it is cluttered and crammed with items and wall colors from daily living that a potential buyer cannot appreciate or envision living in.

STORY SOURCE:

Nic Cage Loses Another Home

Nic Cage -- Bye-Bye Malibu

Megan Fox Did Have Hand Double

Megan Fox

Conceited actress, Megan Fox, got a bit of a reality check when Motorola, used a hand model, in their Super Bowl ad featuring her soaking in a tub, with too much collagen in her fake lips. The company in as much admitted it when queried.

Megan Fox in Motorola ad

Fox has a condition known as "clubbed thumbs" and since the commercial called for her to hold a Motorola mobile phone in her hand, they called in a thumb double (hand double).

Megan Fox hand double

Fox should be able to have the condition worked on via cosmetic surgery, if she is self-conscious regarding it. A good surgeon should be able to reduce some of the puffiness in the thumbs, even chipping off some of the bone and removing a small portion of the flesh in said appendage. As for the nail, it can be grown out and the cuticle pushed back, to give a more standard appearance.

Megan Fox's navel is being insulted

In other Megan Fox new, the New York Post is picking on her navel, labeling it a cat's eye, due to its appearance. Boy, everyone is taking Megan's ego down a notch.

Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green

In more Megan Fox news, her boyfriend that she has lived with for the past 5-years, Brian Austin Green, has fallen behind on his mortgage payments, sending the $2 million dollar home they shared into foreclosure.

Fox's celebrity was not enough to sell the home, which has been on the market for months and as such, the mortgage is in arrears by $71,000. This leads the Judiciary Report to believe Fox's star has indeed fallen, as suspected for months, as properties popular celebrities own or lived in usually go pretty fast.

RELATED ARTICLES

Megan Fox's "Toe Thumbs" Teased Again

Megan Fox has a weird belly button

February 11, 2010 - On Super Bowl Sunday everyone made a big deal about the fact a thumb-double was used for Megan Fox's Motorola ad since she's got Brachydactyly—or clubbed thumbs. But I'd like to focus on another atypical area of the actresses anatomy, her belly button.

In this video filmed during her Emporio Armani photoshoot, as the camera lingers over every inch of Megan's body with the precision of a peeping tom clutching a telephoto lens, I couldn't help but think, "I've never seen a belly button that looks like a cats eye before."...

http://www.nypost.com

Motorola Responds to Megan Fox 'Thumb Double' Accusations

Feb 11th 2010 By Brett Smiley - In a surprising development that is tearing up the blogosphere and confusing men everywhere, Megan Fox may or may not have used a body double for her Motorola Super Bowl ad.

But not for her body, really -- for her thumbs. If you haven't heard, Fox has a genetic condition called "brachydactyly" (or "clubbed thumb"), which refers to shortening of the fingers or toes...

Asylum spoke with Motorola and the ad agency, Anomaly, to get to the bottom of it. First, you be the judge: Take a look at Fox and her genuine, short thumb on the left, and thumb from the ad on the right.

In response to Asylum's question -- if Fox had a stand-in for her thumb close up -- Anomaly co-founder Jason DeLand said, "I cannot confirm or deny that."

"I've not heard it," said DeLand, when asked if he had heard about Fox's notoriously stumpy thumbs. "I'm hearing about it now ... All I know is what I see and read in popular press." Pressed further, DeLand told Asylum, "We're only concerned with how the ad has performed, and what it's doing for Motorola."

In response to the same question about a possible thumb-double, Motorola spokeswoman Tracey Thiele told Asylum via email: "It's part of our corporate policy not to comment on rumor or speculation."

http://www.asylum.com

Brian Austin Green behind on mortage payments

By Jon Boon Feb 12, 2010, 7:00 GMT - The boyfriend of Megan Fox is behind on his mortgage payments but his rep says it is part of a calculated real estate move.

Beverly Hills, 90210 star Brian Austin Green owes $71,251.42, according to legal papers filed by SunTrust Mortgage Inc in Los Angeles.

The legal papers state Green took out a $2 million mortgage with the company in 2006...

http://www.monstersandcritics.com

U.S. Foreclosures Up Again

U.S. President Barack Obama

U.S. foreclosure rates have spiked yet again, proving not enough is being done by the government and banks, to help home owners out of a national rut.

U.S. Foreclosure Filings Surpass 300,000 for 11th Month in Row

February 11, 2010, 12:46 PM EST - Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. foreclosure filings rose 15 percent in January from a year earlier and exceeded 300,000 for the 11th consecutive month as modification programs failed to keep delinquent borrowers in their homes, RealtyTrac Inc. said.

A total of 315,716 properties received a notice of default, auction or bank seizure last month, or one in 409 households, the Irvine, California-based seller of default data said today in a statement. Filings fell 10 percent from December.

Bank seizures, also known as real-estate-owned or REOs, may rise to a record 3 million this year, RealtyTrac said last month. About 66,000 delinquent loans out of a targeted 4 million by 2012 were permanently modified as of Dec. 31 under the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program, according to the Treasury Department. About 787,000 mortgages are in trial programs that change loan terms, the Treasury said Jan. 19.

“It’s almost inevitable that modifications will fail,” Michelle Meyer, New York-based U.S. economist for Barclays Capital Inc., said in an interview. “Over the next several months, we should see REOs increase at an accelerated pace.”

Foreclosure filings also fell in January of last year from December, only to rise in subsequent months, RealtyTrac said.

http://www.businessweek.com