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Mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures continued to creep upward in St. Louis in October, according to new data from CoreLogic.

The real estate analysis firm reported that 4.86 percent of homeowners with mortgages were 90 days or more late on payments in October, up from 4.81 percent in September.

In October, 1.75 percent of homes with mortgages were in foreclosure, up from 1.72 percent the month before.

Both St. Louis rates had been trending down until June, when they began a slow climb upward. In June, the delinquency rate was 4.65 percent and the foreclosure rate 1.64 percent.

The October delinquency rate was well below the high of 5.9 percent in January of 2010. But today’s foreclosure rate is just slightly below the high of 1.77 percent in January of last year.

St. Louis homeowners are doing much better than those elsewhere. Nationally, 7.2 percent of mortgages are delinquent and 7.75 percent are in foreclosure.

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German retail sales (GRIORTMM) unexpectedly fell for a second month in November as Europe

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Cozy ties between Britain’s police and press have compromised both sides and urgent action is needed to overhaul a culture of leaks at Scotland Yard police headquarters, a U.K. watchdog reported Wednesday.

Elizabeth Filkin _ a former Parliamentary standards chief known for her tough approach _ said British reporters and police officers had lost the ability to “scrutinize the activities of the other.”

A culture of confidential briefings, poor guidance from senior staff too ready to accept reporters’ hospitality and a bias toward tabloids had corroded relations, she said.

Filkins’ inquiry was ordered by police and Home Secretary Theresa May after Britain’s phone hacking scandal uncovered evidence hinting at improper ties between officers and the media. Filkin was asked to investigate following allegations that reporters paid officers for information.

“This inquiry has identified a range of problems in the relationship between the Metropolitan Police Service and the media which require urgent action,” Filkin said in her report.

She recommended that officers should in the future record all contacts with reporters for potential inspection, dismissing claims that would deter potential whistleblowers.

Her report also warned of the risks of “flirty reporters” and called for an end to once-traditional late night chats between police and media in Britain’s pubs.

“Alcohol is a risk,” Filkin warned.

London’s top police officer Paul Stephenson quit in July amid concerns over his links to a former News of the World tabloid executive turned PR consultant. Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World has been at the center of the phone hacking scandal, so much so that he shut down the 168-year-old tabloid in July. Over a dozen of its journalists and executives have been arrested in the scandal, including top former Murdoch aides.

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Verizon Wireless will soon make some customers pay for the privilege of paying their bills.

The nation’s largest wireless company is instituting a $2 "convenience charge" for those customers who make one-time bill payments using a debit or credit card, either online or by telephone. The fee will go into effect on Jan. 15.

There are three ways for customers to avoid the charge: Customers can make a one-time payment using an electronic check, they can pay their bill using their home banking accounts, such as Citibank (, Fortune 500) Online, or they can use a Verizon gift card or rebate card. Otherwise, single telephone and online payments will incur a $2 fee.

"The fee will help allow us to continue to support these single bill payment options … and is designed to address costs incurred by us for only those customers who choose to make single bill payments," the company said in a statement.

Customers can still enroll in a service that will debit their bank accounts or charge their credit cards on a recurring basis for free. They can also show up at a Verizon store to pay without incurring the fee, and they can mail checks to the company.

It’s not clear how many of Verizon’s 91 million customers will be affected by the new charge. A spokesman from Verizon did not reply to a request for comment.

The news came one day after Verizon Wireless’ 4G network suffered its third nationwide outage in as many weeks.

Elsewhere in the industry, a Sprint (, Fortune 500) spokesman said the company does not have similar fees, though according to Sprint’s website, certain customers who have accounts with spending limits are subject to a $5 monthly fee if they’re not enrolled in automatic payments.

T-Mobile charges customers $5 if they make payments over the phone with a company representative, a spokeswoman said. AT&T (, Fortune 500) did not return requests for comment.

Verizon’s (, Fortune 500) "convenience charge" was announced at the end of a year in which banks were vilified for charging customers a fee for using their debit cards. The banks claimed that the fees were necessary because new regulations would limit how much revenue they could make on the cards: New rules that went into effect in September capped the fees banks could charge retailers when customers swipe their debit cards.

Dumbest Moments in Business — All those $5 debit card fees

Bank of America (, Fortune 500) inspired by far the most outrage from customers after it announced it would charge its customers $5 a month for the privilege of using their debit card. Even after most other banks eventually dropped their fees, citing a customer uproar, Bank of America held fast to its decision

"They’ll understand what we’re doing — understand we have a right to make a profit," BofA CEO Brian Moynihan stated in October. But by November, the company retreated and dropped the charge.

Verizon’s fee is also akin to Ticketmaster, which famously bills a "convenience charge" and "processing fee" on top of the price of every ticket. 

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Make 2012 the year to get money right.

For those who have been procrastinating or worrying, the key is to get started. Dartmouth College studies show that most of us blunder through our finances — not because we don’t have enough money, but because we wait and hope, rather than taking the modest steps that will free us from worry, regret and losses.

Here’s how to move forward, but a word of caution: If you feel overwhelmed by these steps, do not allow yourself to be paralyzed. Rather, start small. The package laid out here will make your financial life better in the long run and give you a sense of control.

If you do nothing else, saving a little more than you now do for emergencies and retirement is a start. Paying a little more each month than the minimum on your credit cards will help a lot if you don’t add new charges. Here are the steps:

ADJUST YOUR APPROACH: Often people who struggle with money feel like they get nowhere because they don’t have enough money. That might be the case if they’ve been out of a job. But often it’s simply the bumbling along that’s the problem. They try to pay the bills when they arrive, and they spend when they think they should make a purchase. But money never seems to stretch far enough. That’s true for the affluent as well as those with small paychecks.

So start fresh. Try the budgeting approach outlined in Liz Weston’s book, “The 10 Commandments of Money,” and use the calculator at http://www.tinyurl.com/cp54pyw.

This approach requires that you spend just 50 percent of your pay after taxes on essentials such as housing, food, utilities, insurance, child care, tuition, telephone, transportation and minimum loan payments. Then, devote 30 percent to items you want: vacations, gifts, eating out. And 20 percent goes immediately — not as an afterthought — to saving for emergencies and retirement, plus paying down more than the minimum on debts.

So if you earn $3,000 a month after taxes, you have $1,500 a month for necessities, $900 for wants and $600 to save.

DON’T FOOL YOURSELF: If you cheat on the amounts, you will be cruel to yourself in the long run — perhaps setting up a cycle in which you always feel like you are sinking deeper into debt. If you have no emergency savings and the car needs tires, you will whip out the credit card and then struggle with higher charges.

And if you think you will save later for retirement, consider what people actually do: “Later” tends to never arrive, and near retirement, people panic. Living on Social Security checks averaging less than $1,200 a month isn’t pleasant, and people in their 70s can’t easily find jobs. Do the “ballpark estimate” at choosetosave.org to see what you will need for retirement and how to get there.

To provide $25,000 a year for retirement living expenses, you will need about $500,000 in total savings in a 401(k), individual retirement account or both. A 25-year-old should be able to get there by saving $25 every week and investing it in a balanced fund like the Vanguard Balanced Index Fund or T. Rowe Price Balanced Fund. But if you can live on $25,000 today, an equivalent 40 years from now will be about $81,000 because of inflation, so keep using part of every pay raise to save more. See the effect of inflation at http://www.tinyurl.com/chsdlpk.

NOTHING LEFT TO SAVE? If you are spending more than 50 percent on necessities, start looking for cuts. You need a home, but maybe not the one you intend to buy. If you are renting, maybe you can bring in a roommate. If you are locked into a mortgage, you could consider renting out a room. You need transportation, but not the car of your dreams.

Do you have Internet at home, at work and on your phone? Cutting here might give you $100 a month, and a 35-year-old who invested it in a balanced fund every month might have about $200,000 for retirement. Natalie McNeal, author of “The Frugalista Files,” writes about how she paid off about $20,000 in credit card debt over a couple of years by being deliberate — strategies like turning lights off before going to bed, skipping pedicures and cooking rather than eating out. Ask yourself the question financial planner Sue Stevens asks herself once a year: “What am I buying that does not give me pleasure?” She stops the unnecessary spending and invests it immediately.

MAKE YOUR PLAN HAPPEN: Set up automatic deposits that take money from your pay and route it directly to your bank, 401(k) at work, or a mutual fund company or broker in the case of an IRA. You won’t spend what you don’t touch on payday.

DON’T JUST SAVE — INVEST: Keep emergency money in a bank account. But to make retirement savings grow, choose a combination of mutual funds that expose your money to stocks and bonds in a 401(k) or IRA. A balanced fund puts roughly 60 percent of your money in stocks and 40 percent in bonds. Try http://www.tinyurl.com/c3j4shl.

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Prime Minister Manmohan Singh failed to win passage of his anti-corruption bill as an uproar broke out in India

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Export-Import Bank of China extended $12.5 billion more in loans to sub-Saharan Africa in the past decade than the World Bank, Fitch Ratings said.

State-owned EXIM lent about $67.2 billion to the world

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It may seem surprising that some forms of real estate have been among the most reliable of investments.

Real estate investment trusts, known as REITs, invest in and own properties such as shopping centers, apartments, offices and industrial facilities. Readily accessible investments, these are sold directly like stocks or through mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.

“The REIT market outperformed the broader equity index in 2011, and good employment growth numbers should help all sectors of the REIT market in 2012,” said Brad Case, economist with the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts in Washington.

Improved private sector job growth has a positive effect on consumer behavior, Case pointed out, and people appear to be “done with hunkering down” and seem to feel better about spending. There is pent-up demand with young people moving out of parental homes into apartments and, in the process, boosting apartment REITs, he said. Any uptick in manufacturing and trade similarly will benefit industrial REITs.

Because REITs are structured to distribute at least 90 percent of their taxable income to shareholders, they provide high yields in addition to liquid participation in the real estate market. The New York Stock Exchange recently had 142 REITs with market capitalization of $386 billion, according to NAREIT. REITs paid out a total of about $18 billion in dividends in 2010, according to that association.

Some of the biggest REITs look attractive for investment.

For example, Simon Property Group Inc. (SPG), the nation’s largest retail REIT, reported strong third-quarter results that indicated its tenants were holding up well despite obvious problems in the overall economy. It operates regional malls, premium outlet centers and international properties. The company recently owned or had an interest in nearly 400 properties with about 250 million square feet of space in North America, Europe and Asia. Expansion of malls around the world positions the company for future acquisitions.

“Income production is a fundamental reason why REITs have done relatively better than was expected,” explained Jeff Tjornehoj, senior research analyst with Lipper Inc. in Denver. “Their dividend yields are good, and investors love income in times of uncertainty, making REITs very attractive.”

A low-interest-rate environment and unimpressive dividend production in the broader stock market have boosted the image of REITs, Tjornehoj said. The best-performing REIT sector in 2011 was the self-storage market, while the worst performing was lodging and resorts, he said.

“REITs are a capital-intensive business that took it on the chin a few years ago but have settled down since then,” said Tjornehoj. “We did not see the collapse in the commercial real estate market that some people had feared, and those funds that invested in them look relatively strong right now payday loans in 1 hour.”

It is noteworthy that there is little overlap between the REIT market and the overall housing market, he said. The typical REIT fund has almost no exposure to residential mortgages, with the only potential connection that of apartments and manufactured homes. Home foreclosures make apartment REITs more attractive, he said.

Another REIT example, Public Storage (PSA), is a self-storage giant whose size equals the next four competitors combined. It features geographic diversification and efficient operations that take advantage of its economies of scale. Most of its earnings come from the U.S., where it has more than 2,000 storage facilities with about 130 million square feet in 38 states.

The self-storage business is highly fragmented, fiercely competitive, employs short-term leases and has little product differentiation. To its credit, Public Storage funds its acquisitions with preferred equity or retained earnings rather than with debt.

“When it became apparent that the economy wasn’t turning a corner, a lot of the REIT mutual funds moved into the blue chip companies with strong balance sheets and a variety of assets,” said Rob Wherry, mutual fund analyst with Morningstar Inc. in Chicago. “These buoyed a lot of the REIT funds in the first half and helped them weather the summer much better than the average equity fund.”

An investor new to REITs and real estate funds would start best with investments replicating the broad REIT market, said Tjornehoj. Here are two he considers worth looking into:

• iShares FTSE EPRA/NAREIT North America (IFNA), an exchange-traded fund with only $12 million in assets, has 90 percent of its assets in U.S. real estate holdings and the rest in foreign holdings. At the top of its portfolio holdings of 160 REITs are Simon Property Group, Public Storage, Equity Residential, HCP Inc. and Ventas Inc. It gained more than 3.5 percent in 2011.

• Vanguard REIT Index Fund (VGSIX), a mutual fund with $19 billion in assets, tracks the MSCI U.S. REIT Index, a benchmark of more than 100 securities focused on malls, apartments, office space and storage centers. With a portfolio similar to iShares FTSE EPRA/NAREIT North America, this fund that requires a $3,000 minimum initial investment provided a total return of more than 3.5 percent in 2011.

Despite all of their positives, REITs should only constitute a portion of an investor’s individual portfolio because they do move in cycles.

“A neophyte investor couldn’t go wrong with either of those two investments,” concluded Tjornehoj. “But while they offer some diversification, they are nonetheless volatile in comparison to a much broader equity allocation.”

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+%3Cp%3E+For+the+first+time+in+three+years%2C+OPEC+nations+agreed+Wednesday+to+a+higher+oil+output+level+despite+continuing+uncertainty+in+the+global+economy.%3C%2Fp%3E%3Cp%3EBut+analysts+said+the+new+output+level+of+30+million+barrels+a+day+would+have+little+impact+on+world+oil+prices.+Thanks+to+overproduction+by+some+members%2C+the+cartel+is+already+producing+that+much+oil.%3C%2Fp%3E%3Cp%3E%3Cp%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%3Cp%3E%3Cp%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%3Cp%3E%26quot%3BOPEC%27s+decision+today+to+raise+the+official+target+for+the+cartel%27s+oil+output+to+close+to+the+current+level+of+production+will+make+no+real+difference+on+the+ground%2C%26quot%3B+Julian+Jessop%2C+chief+global+economist+at+Capital+Economics%2C+wrote+in+a+note+Wednesday.+%26quot%3BThe+bigger+picture+is+that+the+latest+demand+forecasts+from+both+OPEC+and+the+International+Energy+Agency+still+look+too+high+and+that+oil+prices+have+further+to+fall.%26quot%3B%3C%2Fp%3E%3Cp%3EOPEC%27s+last+official+production+target+was+just+under+25+million+barrels+per+day+set+in+2008.+The+world+currently+produces+just+under+88+million+barrels+of+oil+per+day%2C+according+to+the+U.S.+Energy+Information+Administration.%3C%2Fp%3E%3Cp%3EOil+prices+in+the+U.S.+have+been+hovering+around+%24100+a+barrel+for+the+last+several+weeks.+%3C%2Fp%3E%3Cp%3EU.S.+oil+prices+have+risen+a+bit+in+recent+months+as+a+supply+glut+in+the+United+States+began+to+resolve+itself%2C+but+they+are+lower+than+the+%24112+a+barrel+seen+at+the+start+of+the+year+following+the+Middle+East+protests+and+a+loss+of+oil+from+Libya.%3C%2Fp%3E%3Cp%3EThe+Libyan+loss+was+largely+made+up+for+by+Saudi+Arabia%2C+which+went+against+its+fellow+OPEC+members+and+raised+production.%3C%2Fp%3E%3Cp%3EWednesday%27s+agreement+announced+at+the+conclusion+of+the+annual+OPEC+conference+held+in+Vienna+allows+for+Saudi+Arabia+to+continue+producing+oil+at+current+levels+even+though+oil+from+Libya+is+returning+to+market+and+output+from+Iraq+is+increasing+%3Ca+href%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fus-fast-cash-now.com%22%3Eonline+cash+advance%3C%2Fa%3E%3C%21–+.+–%3E.%3C%2Fp%3E%3Cp%3EIt+represents+a+bit+of+a+victory+for+Saudi+Arabia%2C+which+has+argued+for+higher+oil+production+against+some+other+OPEC+countries+like+Iran+and+Venezuela%2C+which+wanted+to+limit+output.%3C%2Fp%3E%3Cp%3EBut+OPEC+left+the+door+open+to+future+production+cuts.%3C%2Fp%3E%3Cp%3E%26quot%3BThe+Conference+also+agreed+that+Member+Countries+would%2C+if+necessary%2C+take+steps+%28including+voluntary+downward+adjustments+of+output%29+to+ensure+market+balance+and+reasonable+price+levels%2C%26quot%3B+OPEC+said+in+a+statement+on+its+Web+site.%3C%2Fp%3E%3Cp%3EOPEC+is+often+vague+and+divided+about+what+it+considers+%26quot%3Breasonable+price+levels%26quot%3B.+Last+week+OPEC+Secretary+General+Abdulla+Salem+El+Badri%2C+himself+a+Libyan%2C+described+current+prices+as+%26quot%3Bcomfortable.%26quot%3B%3C%2Fp%3E%3Cp%3EBut+it%27s+been+reported+that+certain+ministers+in+Saudi+Arabia+and+the+Gulf+states+would+prefer+a+price+closer+to+%2480+a+barrel+in+an+attempt+to+spur+global+economic+growth.+%3C%2Fp%3E%3Cp%3ESome+analysts+are+expecting+Saudi+Arabia+to+eventually+cut+production%2C+especially+if+supplies+swell.%3C%2Fp%3E%3Cp%3E%26quot%3BRelatively+weak+global+demand+growth+coupled+with+the+gradual+recovery+in+Libyan+output+and+a+resumption+of+growth+in+Iraqi+output+will+lead+to+a+Saudi+pullback+of+at+least+500%2C000+barrels+per+day%26quot%3B+by+early+next+year%2C+Greg+Priddy%2C+a+global+energy+analyst+at+the+political+risk+consultancy+Eurasia+Group%2C+wrote+in+a+research+note+earlier+this+week.+%26nbsp%3B+%3C%2Fp%3E++%3Cp%3E%3Ca+href%3D%27http%3A%2F%2Fmoney.cnn.com%2F2011%2F12%2F14%2Fmarkets%2Fopec_oil%2Findex.htm%27+rel%3D%27nofollow%27%3ESource%3C%2Fa%3E%3C%2Fp%3E+

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CNN star Piers Morgan may be known to Americans as an empathetic English interviewer, but it’s his past at the heart of Britain’s troubled tabloid newspaper world that is being trotted out before the cameras this week.

The often colorful and sometimes controversial story of Morgan’s rise to the top will be revisited Tuesday, when the former editor appears by videolink at a judge-led inquiry into the ethics and practices of Britain’s scandal-tarred press.

His appearance has been widely anticipated _ not least because of the 46-year-old’s irreverent flippancy.

“So heartwarming that everyone in U.K.’s missing me so much they want me to come home,” he joked earlier this year amid demands he return to give evidence to the inquiry, set up by Prime Minister David Cameron following the disclosure that the now-defunct News of the World tabloid had for years illegally eavesdropped on the voice mail messages of public figures.

Actors Hugh Grant and Sienna Miller, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and singer Charlotte Church are among those who have given evidence about press abuse, while executives and lawyers for Murdoch’s News Corp. have defended the newspaper.

Morgan shot to national prominence when he was picked by Murdoch to run the News of the World at age 28. Under his tenure the tabloid exposed actor Hugh Grant’s liaison with Hollywood prostitute Divine Brown and Princess Diana’s late-night phone calls to married art dealer Oliver Hoare. It wasn’t all down to good reporting: Morgan has acknowledged he kept his edge in part through bribes paid to informants on rival titles.

In 1995 Morgan left the News of the World for the Daily Mirror. His time there was marked by scoops and controversy, but his editorship ended in 2004 when he ran a faked photograph purporting to show a British soldier urinating on an Iraqi detainee.

Morgan won a second life as a TV personality, eventually signing on as a judge of “America’s Got Talent” and taking Larry King’s old spot at CNN. So far, he’s prospered. Ratings for “Piers Morgan Tonight” have been up 9 percent on last year’s figures _ good if not spectacular _ and he appears to be reaching a younger audience.

CNN spokeswoman Barbara Levin said the network was “extremely pleased” with how Morgan’s program was performing and the company has so far stood by its star even as the scandal over widespread phone hacking at the News of the World threatens to draw him in.

Skeletons have already begun peeking out of the closet.

Critics have been picking through old interviews and his autobiography “The Insider,” in which Morgan makes clear he knew of phone hacking as long ago as 2001.

Interviewed by supermodel Naomi Campbell for GQ magazine before the scandal over the practice boiled over, Morgan said he couldn’t get too upset over hacking because “loads of newspaper journalists were doing it.”

In an earlier interview for BBC radio unearthed by one of his critics, Morgan appeared to go further, saying it was difficult to condemn private eyes hired to hack into people’s phones “because obviously you were running the results of their work.”

The “you” in his statement could be interpreted in different ways. Morgan insists he wasn’t talking about himself but instead making “a general observation about tabloid newspaper reporters and private investigators.”

Morgan maintains that he has never hacked a phone, ordered anyone to hack a phone, or knowingly run a story based on an illegally intercepted message.

But the denial is hard to square with a 2006 article in which he said he’d been played a phone message former Beatle Paul McCartney left for his now ex-wife Heather Mills in the wake of one of their fights.

“It was heartbreaking,” Morgan wrote of the tape, saying that McCartney “sounded lonely, miserable and desperate, and even sang ‘We Can Work It Out’ into the answerphone.”

How did Morgan come to hear the tape? He’s refused to say, but Mills told the BBC in August that “there was absolutely no honest way” he could have obtained the recording. McCartney echoed her sentiment, saying he’d apparently been hacked.

Morgan’s book abounds with tantalizing references to questionably obtained material: There’s “a dodgy transcript of a phone conversation,” a celebrity’s stolen laptop, or _ in one of the more revealing exchanges _ actress Kate Winslet’s personal details.

“Someone had got hold of her mobile phone number,” Morgan wrote. “I never like to ask how.”

When Winslet demanded to know how Morgan got her number, which she had only just changed, Morgan shrugged it off.

“Look, Kate,” he joked, “You don’t get to be the editor of the Mirror without being a fairly despicable human being.”

___

Frazier Moore in New York contributed to this report.

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