Mississippi home foreclosure rate as of May 2012

According to RealtyTrac (see here), the foreclosure rate for Mississippi as of May 2012 was 1 in every 2,735.  The following map is from RealtyTrac (click to enlarge).

Not your grandfather's presidential race...

The 2012 presidential campaign appears to me to be one of the more unusual ones in modern times.  Yes, both President Obama and Mitt Romney offer us (and the media) plenty of material to criticize and question.  But "strange" may not be just the right way to describe Romney's reaction to questions about his finances.  "Elusive" doesn't quite cover it either.  What I mean is this: We have a person running for President of the United States who can't seem to answer pretty straightforward questions about his sources of income (how about applying some "birther" skepticism to his finances!).  David Kay Johnson recently suggested Mr. Romney answer (at least) the following questions (see here):

"1. Did you buy any illegal or gray area tax shelters?
"2. Did an IRS audit ever uncover serious problems with any of your tax returns?
"3. Did you make use of offshore vehicles to defer, or avoid paying, federal income taxes?
"4. Did you take advantage of any tax strategies that the IRS did not uncover in audits?
"5. Did you fully tithe to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints every year and take a deduction on your tax return that shows that?"

 Add to this the fascinating story in Vanity Fair (see here) by Nicholas Shaxson which thoroughly describes the, well, strange world of Romney finances.  It appears he learned the lessons of "off-shore" accounts and the use of "tax havens" well while at Bain.  Of course, Mr. Romney has repeatedly said all this is legal.  I'm sure it is, but we could use a little data here.

Public pension underfunding

The Pew Center on the States has a new report ("The Widening Gap Update," see here) that reports data on public pension funding (see graph below, click to enlarge).

From the report:  "Many experts say that a healthy pension system should be at least 80 percent funded. In 2000, more than half of the states were 100 percent funded, but by 2010 only Wisconsin was fully funded, and 34 were below the 80 percent threshold—up from 31 in 2009 and just 22 in 2008."

The report expresses "serious concerns" about Mississippi's pension funding and its funding of retiree health care.

The skewed cost of Medicare

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting piece (see here) that shows just how much the cost of providing Medicare is "skewed" towards the end-of-life care and a small percentage of cases.  The graph below shows the problems (click to enlarge).

New concerns about manufacturing

The Institute for Supply Management's latest manufacturing index points to renewed weakness in the manufacturing sector.  Click to enlarge.

"Obama-care" biggest tax... What?

OK, you can oppose the legislation, but let's get the facts straight (that is, if facts matter to some people anymore!).  Kevin Drum's data turned into the following chart by Austin Frakt (see here).  Click on the graph to enlarge.

Total Returns Index as of June 30

The Capital Spectator (see here) has a nice summary of the Total Returns for Major Asset Classes as of June 30, 2012 (click to enlarge).