Unemployment rates in 372 U.S. metropolitan areas in July, new Labor Department figures show. Some 19 metros now have unemployment rates above 15%; eight of them are in California, hard-hit by the real estate collapse, and five of them are in Michigan, suffering from the auto industry’s downturn. El Centro, Calif., continues to have the nation’s highest unemployment rate, rising to 30.2% in July. Yuma, Ariz., is next with 26.2%. The national average in July was 9.7%, not seasonally adjusted. The Labor Department will update the latter figure on Friday, when it releases its monthly employment report. There were a few bright spots in July, mostly in the nation’s interior states less affected by the real estate boom-and-bust and aided by relative strength in their natural resources industries. Bismarck, N.D., registered the lowest jobless rate in July, 3.1%, followed by two other Dakota cities: Fargo, N.D., and Rapid City, S.D., at 4.3% each. Among the nation’s biggest cities with population of a million people or more, Detroit’s unemployment rate was highest, at 17.7%, followed by Riverside-San Bernadino-Ontario, Calif., at 14.3% and Las Vegas at 13.1%. Charlotte joined the hardest-hit metros with a jobless rate of 12.4% in July. Oklahoma City, at 5.9%, and the Washington, D.C. metro area, at 6.2%, had the lowest unemployment rates among the nation’s biggest cities in July.

To calculate the cost of a tax credit per additional unit sold, we need to sum up the total cost of the credit - as an example $2.877 billion for Cash-for-Clunkers to the Dept. of Transportation - and then divide by the estimated increase in sales because of the credit. Remember some cars or houses would have been sold anyway (even though they still receive the tax credit), but it is the additional sales that matter. That was the purpose of the tax credit! (update: Shnaps notes that the auto credit had an additional benefit of better mileage ) We have two examples today. First, for autos , if sales in August had been about the same as June (pre-tax credit), there would have been 850 thousand light vehicles sold (NSA). This is about a 9.7 million SAAR. Next we add in the tax credit: Although the DOT reported close to 700 thousand car sales associated with the Cash-for-Clunkers program, probably about 550 thousand were in August. If these were all additional sales, then the total sales (NSA) for August would be about 1.4 million, or almost 16 million SAAR. If , and total sales were 1.17 million (NSA) in August, then the tax credit only generated about 320 thousand extra sales. Of course some regular car buyers might have put off a purchase to avoid the rush in August, so this isn't perfect, but instead of costing taxpayers $4,170 per car (as announced by DOT), the cost to taxpayers per additional car sold was close to $7,200. The numbers are much worse for the first-time home buyer tax credit . The NAR this morning: NAR estimates that about 1.8 to 2.0 million first-time buyers will take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit this year, with approximately 350,000 additional sales that would not have taken place without the credit. I believe the NAR underestimates first-time home buyers, especially considering the definition for the tax credit is anyone who hasn't owned a home in three years - not really a "first-time" buyer. I also think the NAR is overestimating...

New York Fed purchases $5.6 billion in Treasury coupons

submits: Apparently I was wrong about the impact of foreclosures when I said that banks were holding onto the properties and not placing them on the market. It came to light via Diana Olick, who I respect at CNBC, in a report yesterday. It is not that banks are simply holding onto the properties, they are just so backlogged that they cannot get them into the market fast enough. According to the report, banks are waiting as long as possible to try keeping people in their homes by using the Obama 'Making Home Affordable' plan. Unfortunately, people cannot simply refinance when they are unemployed or underemployed which is the primary problem now. Bank of America () told Diana that since most of the properties are owned by third party investors, the bank has an obligation to place properties on the market as soon as possible.

Mark Alexander submits: With recent prices for typical senior private label residential mortgage backed securities (subprime, Alt-A, and prime jumbo) now 25%-40% higher than two months ago, it would be a stretch to call them an opportunity of a lifetime. They are not even the opportunity of the past two months. Nevertheless, even with the increases, the prices of many of these securities remain at levels that should generate annualized returns in the 20%-25%+ range so long as we do not see another much more severe leg to the recent recession. Class A-2D of GSAMP 2006-HE5 (one of the securities referenced in Markit's ABX 07-1 AAA index), for which Reuters has provided recent price quotes in the ballpark of 20 cents on the dollar, provides an example. There are differences between GSAMP 2006-HE5 and other subprime pools, but the risk-reward trade-offs on these securities are more similar than different. Therefore, examining a single security from this pool provides useful insights into the return potential for other subprime securities, and to a lesser extent, Alt-A and prime jumbo securities.

The recession is finally hitting city budgets, with overall city revenues inching down in fiscal 2009 for the first time since 2002, according to a report to be released Tuesday by the National League of Cities. Weak growth in property taxes, reflecting soft housing prices, did not counterbalance sharp declines in other sources of income, including sales taxes, income taxes and state aid, according to a survey of 379 league member cities.

We all bore witness to the financial meltdown. We all know it was caused by sub-prime mortgages and greedy financial engineering and that it was exacerbated by a flailing auto industry, a deregulated, price-gauging credit card industry, and a general population who had to learn not to live beyond their means the hard way. We [...]

Bank of America Corp. is offering to repay part of its bailout money, and the U.S. is pushing for the bank to pay at least $500 million to shelve a tentative pact that would have had the government share its losses on certain assets. The moves, described by people familiar with the matter, both relate to an extra measure of federal aid given to help BofA complete its acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co. Both sets of discussions, if completed, would enable BofA to reduce a layer of federal involvement in its affairs.