As the figures for auto sales in the last month start to roll in, (no pun intended) one can’t help but notice a stat hat is quite out of the ordinary. For the first time in fifteen years, the Chevrolet Camaro beat its #1 competition, Ford’s Mustang, in monthly sales. GM says it moved 9,320 last month, while Ford was only able to get 7,632 mustangs out the door.

Will this be Chevy’s model to changes the trend that has had the Camaro in the back seat, (once again, no pun intended), for the last decade and a half? Eh, I’m not so sure about that. But, could this be Camaro’s year? There definitely is reason to believe that.
“Whether Chevrolet’s victory will be sustainable over the long haul remains to be seen, but as The General has a backlog of 10,000 sold orders to fill (equating to less than a seven day supply), the streak is likely to continue for at least the next few months. Presently, GM offers just two main Camaro models, the V6 RS and the V8-powered SS, while the Ford Mustang has more bodystyles and trims than you can shake a stick at (arguably making the Camaro’s achievement seemingly that much more impressive).” (source)

Either way it will definitely be quite a close race (pun intended). Chevy, Ford, START YOUR ENGINES!

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Beazer Homes USA and its mortgage orientation arm, Beazer Mortgage, have agreed to pay over $50 million settling the charges against them of fraudulent mortgage practices.

Allegedly, the Beazer Mortgage scandal is a two headed snake.

In part one, the settlement claims that Beazer Mortgage, after charging “interest discount points” at closing on the Federal Housing Administration-insured loans they handed out, never reduced the borrowers’ interest rates and instead kept the money.

Part two claims that Beazer paid for cash “gifts” through charities to be used as the required down payment, resulting in inflated home purchase prices. Beazer Mortgage allegedly obscured default information to avoid FHA scrutiny and ignored “stated income” requirements and made loans to unqualified purchasers.

Well, you know how the story goes, unqualified buyers + inflated mortgages = many, many defaults.

But, Beazer wasn’t too worried about that at the time as, well, the FHA program would just foot the bill.

Well not anymore, Beazer…not anymore.

“This action shows that the Administration is serious about making the housing market safe from mortgage fraud and will crackdown on those who violate the trust of American homebuyers,” said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan. “At this time of uncertainty in the mortgage market, it is especially important that lenders, including builder-affiliated lenders, are held to the highest standards of conduct.”

I really enjoyed the statements made by their CEO, Ian McCarthy, regarding the matter. He tried to make it seem like matter was out of their control. As if this whole thing wasn’t something they created intentionally:

“We deeply regret these matters and have used what we have learned to strengthen our control and compliance culture and reinforce our absolute commitment to act according to the highest standards of ethical conduct throughout our organization”.

Excuse me, but what I believe you meant to say is that you, Mr. McCarthy, and the rest of the Beazer-bigwigs for that matter, deeply regret getting caught…twice.

Oh yeah, this isn’t the first time the Beazer bad-boys have bit the big one.

Not two months ago, Beazer Mortgage agreed to pay out $2.5m to 1,000+ North Carolina borrowers as part of a settlement reached with the North Carolina Office of the Commissioner of Banks over alleged origination violations in 2007.

Now it begins to make more sense as to why Ian McCarthy was among the people nominated by Time magazine as the “25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis”.

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Connecticut based soap-maker, Crabtree & Evelyn Ltd., has become the next national chain to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. “We are confident that Chapter 11 gives us the opportunity to restructure the company with a business model that will be sustainable for long-term growth,” Stephen Bestwick, the retailer’s acting president, said in a statement.

In the US, Crabtree and Evelyn are currently running 126 stores across 34 states. Crabtree and Evelyn also sell products through 130 stores operated by affiliates outside the US, through unaffiliated gift shops carrying their products, and from its online site.

While the majority of their revenue comes from retail sales, largely in the U.S., Crabtree & Evelyn is actually wholly owned by a Malaysian company, Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd., that also owns palm oil and rubber plantations. The company is Malaysia’s third-largest palm oil producer.

Crabtree & Evelyn employs 950, it said in the bankruptcy filing.

The case is In re Crabtree & Evelyn Ltd., 09-14267, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of New York (Manhattan).

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Taking advantage of the slow process of getting Federal laws into place that will limit the banks in raise the rates on customers who hold existing credit cards, Citigroup went to work. Reports come, from people close to the situation, that Citi has raised the rates of somewhere between 13 and 15 million co-branded cards. A co-branded card, for example, would be a Sears credit card.

In short, if you had a co-branded Citi card that still had an outstanding balance at the end of the months between January and April of his year, your rate on the card likely rose around 25% (or 3 percentage points).

Citi’s response to the report?

“We have adjusted pricing and card terms for some customers as part of our regular account reviews. This is an ongoing process to ensure we offer terms, interest rates, credit lines and products based on individual needs and risk profiles. These changes also reflect the dramatically higher cost of doing business in our industry as we work to preserve the broad availability of credit.”

These are the type of underhanded moves that really make my skin crawl. Citi, and most other credit card companies, for that matter, have their customers sign these agreements that basically set strict guidelines for the user, but allow the provider to do whatever they please. Citi just relinquished something like 34% of their company to the government. The knowledge of that, in combination with the fact that they see these new regulations coming down the pipeline that won’t allow them to unexpectedly raise rates and take advantage of their struggling consumer, has got them thinking, wow we better get them while the getting is good. So what do they do? They take it straight to their customers with a swift gut shot. The whole process is unfortunate and makes me sick.

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USA Today’s publisher, Gannett Co., and also our nations largest newspaper chain, is rumored to be letting several hundred jobs go within its community newspaper division, according to an anonymous source.

Rumors are that around 80 of the smaller papers under the Gannett umbrella will feel the reductions, but no cuts are expected at USA Today. On Gannett Blog, a former Gannett editor who closely follows the company, Jim Hopkins, quotes an unnamed person in the company as saying that it will announce on July 8 that it is eliminating 4,500 United States newspaper jobs. That unnamed person also predicted salary cuts to occur across the board. Gannett executives, when questioned, denied that number saying it was far to high, but did acknowledge that Gannett layoffs were on the way and that while the exact number of layoffs had not been decided upon, we can expect at least several hundred and possibly more than 1,000. The company’s United States and British newspaper divisions eliminated more than 10,000 jobs in 2007 and 2008, including about 2,000 layoffs last fall. Gannett executives have said repeatedly that they expect more downsizing.

Gannett, the publisher of USA Today and 84 other U.S. papers, saw newspaper advertising revenue fall 34.1 percent in the first quarter, compared with the period a year earlier. Analysts say second-quarter numbers will be similarly weak. The company has taken some drastic steps to lower expenses, including cutting home delivery of The Detroit Free Press from daily to three days a week, and stopping print publication of The Tucson Citizen.

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The already damaged reputation of Swiss bank, UBS, may find itself even further tarnished after receiving notice from the US Department of Justice that demanded the names of over 50,000 US customers.

But the Swiss bank won’t roll over that easy. UBS answered with a ‘no thanks, see you in court’, maintaining that divulgence of the names would be in violation of Swiss bank secrecy laws.

The court filing said that the Internal Revenue Service “seeks the identities of those account holders (and other account information) from a Swiss bank that regularly conducted business in secret within the United States, and systematically violated US law”.

After admitting to United States tax fraud back in February, UBS agreed to pay a settlement of $780m admitting that it helped thousands of US clients use Swiss bank accounts to evade taxes.

US officials, apparently, have since had a change of heart.

UBS’ take on the situation is that, in short, while regulations in US Federal court don’t keep bank from revealing the names, Swiss laws do. UBS maintains that they are willing to work on an “appropriate solution” but breaking laws in their home country would not be considered such.

So, after settling and then pulling $780m out of the bank, why is the US still going after them?

Well, it’s like a quote I heard from a baseball player the other day:

When asked, in reference to his extravagant salary: “How much will be enough?”

He turned to the reporter and casually answered “When I have all of it”.

The US suspects 52,000 Americans of using UBS accounts to hide almost $15bn of assets and unpaid taxes.

The court hearing is scheduled for July 13.

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Jaguar is currently facing a pre-tax loss of ₤281 million and as a result Tata Motors has said it is likely that job cuts will be coming. The carmaker went as far as to say that he option of shutting down under performing plants is also a definite possibility. Jaguar Land Rover has already cut 2,000 employees and has a current staff of 14,500 employees. The company is attempting to secure jobs by winning guarantees from the UK Government on a £340m European Investment Bank loan. However, the negotiations have been lengthy, with the state demanding strict terms for any financial support.

Globally sales of Land Rover fell by 35 percent last year. This is the first time in eight years that Tata Motors has reported a loss thanks to its huge losses due to its acquisition of JLR.

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