New-home slump keeping door shut on U.S. recovery
Plagued by too many houses and too few buyers, 2011 is shaping up to be the worst year on record for new-home sales. The slump is pushing the key home-building industry into its fifth year of decline and keeping the U.S. economy from a rebound... Many economists don't see a significant rebound occurring until housing is fixed...Shares of Los Angeles-based KB Hiome, for instance, have fallen so much that the company is valued by Wall Street at less than the cash on its books. The company has continued to build despite the head winds, announcing in August that it had opened new homes for sale in the San Francisco Bay Area.

 Amnesty for the Indefensible
“They” are the Wall Street usurers, people of a sort condemned in Scripture, who have brought more misery to this nation than we have known since the Great Depression. “They” will not suffer for their crimes because they have a majority ownership position in our political system. That is the meaning of the banking plea bargain that the Obama administration is pressuring state attorneys general to negotiate with the titans of the financial world. ...The $20 billion or so that the banks would pony up is chump change to them compared with the trillions that the Fed and other public agencies spent to bail them out. The banks were given direct cash subsidies, virtually zero-interest loans, and the Fed took $2 trillion in bad paper off their hands while the banks exacerbated the banking crisis they had created through additional shady practices, including fraudulent mortgage foreclosures.

City, builder mulling solutions for sacred knoll: Four dozen protest at City Hall to stop construction project
City officials are working with a builder to determine whether an Eastside housing project can be altered to preserve a knoll where Native American remains were discovered earlier this month. Vice Mayor Don Lane, who attended a private meeting Monday between city officials and KB Home, said he believes the company would consider selling or setting aside the parcel where the remains were found even though it is designated for the most premium home among 32 planned for the site.

Metroplex homebuilder pleads guilty in widespread mortgage fraud scheme
Davon Willis, who oversaw a mortgage broker business that processed loan applications involved in the mortgage fraud, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering on July 18, 2011.  Two recruiters of homebuyers, Julila Nicole Allen, 38, of Grand Heights, Texas, and Kimoni Jackson, 34, of Desoto, ....  Another homebuilder, Yunus Mandli, 63, of Rockwall, Texas, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud...  A mortgage broker, Quincy Dynell Harrington, 41, of Corinth, Texas, ...  One loan processor, Natasha Manley, 39 of Sherman Oaks, California, ... One home seller, Keith Ezell, 46, of Cedar Hill, Texas, ...Sharetha Jackson, 41, of Desoto, Texas, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering ... Willis Raymond McMurran, 37, of Middleton, Delaware, ... and Edward Rogers, 41, of Midlothian, Texas.,Rodney Lavann Giles, Sr., 44, of Dallas, Renetta Yvonne Jones, 40, of Plano, Texas...M.D. Habibur Rahman, 52, of Garland, Texas, ...Jon Ruliffson, 31, of Plano, Texas,  ...Larry Reisman, 49, of Dallas, a homebuilder, was indicted for conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

Attorney General of N.Y. Is Said to Face Pressure on Bank Foreclosure Deal
Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, has come under increasing pressure from the Obama administration to drop his opposition to a wide-ranging state settlement with banks over dubious foreclosure practices, according to people briefed on discussions about the deal. In recent weeks, Shaun Donovan, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and high-level Justice Department officials have been waging an intensifying campaign to try to persuade the attorney general to support the settlement, said the people briefed on the talks. “The attorney general remains concerned by any attempt at a global settlement that would shut down ongoing investigations of wrongdoing related to the mortgage crisis,” said Danny Kanner, the spokesman for Mr. Schneiderman.

New York Fed Director Kathryn Wylde Provokes Accusations Of Conflict Of Interest
Kathryn Wylde, deputy chair of the New York Fed's board, challenged state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's opposition to a proposed $8.5 billion settlement between Bank of America and a group of investors -- leaping to the defense of the financial industry -- according to remarks quoted Monday in The New York Times..."I'm just appalled," said Whalen, who is managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics. "She is a public director of a Federal Reserve Bank, and she's not supposed to behave this way. She is not an advocate for the industry." "If she wants to be an advocate for the big banks," he continued, "then she ought to step down."

Former Miami Beach building official gets 18 months in corruption case
The third Miami Beach building department employee caught taking bribes from a scandal-tainted developer pleaded guilty Monday, agreeing to serve 18 months in jail.  Mohammed Partovi, 54, pleaded guilty to two counts of “unlawful compensation’’ for accepting a Rolex watch and cash from Michael Stern, a troubled Miami Beach developer who has repeatedly been accused of fraud and forgery in lawsuits relating to his real estate business.

Investors Beware: KB Home Is Struggling Mightily
Since homebuilder KB Home reported a wider-than-expected second quarter loss of $68.5 million -- more than double from a year ago -- in late June, shares are down a whopping 20%....The company has a ridiculously high total debt-to-equity ratio of 381.5%, one of the industry's highest. Though the entire arena is under stress, most peers have a relatively better ratio.

Well Street Journal: Jury Favors KBR in Iraq Rape Trial
A jury in federal court on Friday dispatched a high-profile lawsuit against KBR Inc. brought by a former employee, finding she wasn't sexually assaulted by a co-worker while working for the defense contractor in Iraq in 2005.Jamie Leigh Jones, 26 years old, had claimed she was drugged and subsequently raped by former KBR firefighter Charles Bortz just three days after arriving in Baghdad's Green Zone. She further alleged that KBR, a former unit of Halliburton Co., had defrauded her by concealing the risk of sexual assault at its camp in Iraq, and by including a mandatory arbitration clause in her contract for resolving work-related complaints. Her lawyers had sought $145 million in damages from both defendants.