Bits Bucket for June 5, 2014
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
And all government. Thus the design to keep any body or politician or bureaucracy from becoming too powerful. Senators have become imperial positions. They’ve amassed so much influence over the funding process their fundraising swamps any challenger. John McCain would have been gone years ago if not for this fact. Now he tells us how much longer he’ll remain senator.
]]>“Final Fundraising Figure: Obama’s $750M”
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=6397572
“He was not quite the first $1 billion president — but he was three quarters of the way there.
In 21-plus months, Barack Obama raised roughly $750 million from donors, surpassing all of his White House opponents this year and also eclipsing the total amount of money raised by all of the presidential candidates combined in 2004.”
]]>the swiss changed from full backing, to i think about a 1/4 backing of gold. it leaves room for the franc to fall, but it couldn’t fall less than a quarter of the original value in relation to gold.
or we could quit the fiat business and go to metal by weight. don’t put a dollar value on it and just use a representation of a certain amount of gold.
each solution bring its own problems.
]]>Beyond silly. This must be insider talk for the debt lifestyle.
]]>And that’s changed how? Don’t forget, the central bankers appointed too. How about executive orders? Going to war without the consent of congress? My, there really isn’t much democracy involved after all. But lets be sure to keep these senators that stay in office for 40 years even thought they do the opposite of what the people want, and come out super rich. Just how FU do things have to get before you realize we’re being screwed?
]]>which type of gold standard should we have?
]]>Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
Freedom is Slavery…
The obama way
—————
A Surveillance State Beyond Imagination Is Being Created in One of the World’s Freest Countries
alternet.org | June 2, 2014 | Noam Chomsky
The documents unveil a remarkable project to expose to state scrutiny vital information about every person who falls within the grasp of the colossus - in principle, every person linked to the modern electronic society.
Nothing so ambitious was imagined by the dystopian prophets of grim totalitarian worlds ahead.
It is of no slight import that the project is being executed in one of the freest countries in the world, and in radical violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights, which protects citizens from “unreasonable searches and seizures,” and guarantees the privacy of their “persons, houses, papers and effects.”
Much as government lawyers may try, there is no way to reconcile these principles with the assault on the population revealed in the Snowden documents.
It is also well to remember that defense of the fundamental right to privacy helped to spark the American Revolution. In the 18th century, the tyrant was the British government, which claimed the right to intrude freely into the homes and personal lives of American colonists. Today it is American citizens’ own government that abrogates to itself this authority.
In other ways too, the constitutional lawyer in the White House seems determined to demolish the foundations of our civil liberties. The principle of the presumption of innocence, which dates back to Magna Carta 800 years ago, has long been dismissed to oblivion.
Throughout, the basic principle remains: Power must not be exposed to the sunlight. Edward Snowden has become the most wanted criminal in the world for failing to comprehend this essential maxim.
“…defense of the fundamental right to privacy helped to spark the American Revolution.”
seems a tad revisionist…
“Edward Snowden has become the most wanted criminal in the world for failing to comprehend…”
I think he does comprehend. You and I comprehend and the Secret Police comprehend. The Russians and the Germans and the British and the Chinese comprehend.
Does that make O’bama the most unwanted criminal in the world?
The Nobel Peace Prize President????
‘Over half of Americans (52%) have had to make at least one major sacrifice in order to cover their rent or mortgage over the last three years, according to the “How Housing Matters Survey,” which was commissioned by the nonprofit John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and carried out by Hart Research Associates. These sacrifices include getting a second job, deferring saving for retirement, cutting back on health care, running up credit card debt, or even moving to a less safe neighborhood or one with worse schools.’
“These sacrifices include getting a second job, deferring saving for retirement, cutting back on health care, running up credit card debt, or even moving to a less safe neighborhood or one with worse schools.”
+1 I moved roughly 1,000-miles northward.
And some of the 48% who do not make “major sacrifices” to pay for overpriced housing have so much money left over after “throwing money away on rent” every month that they don’t know where to throw it.
Because Bill in Los Angeles / Orange County / wherever = WIN
“I moved roughly 1,000-miles northward.”
Provided you can find suitable employment, moves to the north or inland are potential avenues for coping with the crushing burden of stagflationary increases in living costs.
Yes, but it won’t last.
Equity locusts from California continue to ruin local economies elsewhere as they flee the state and move into plush digs that their new neighbors would never be able to afford.
Living high on the hog is very Californian. It doesn’t matter if the living is done in California or elsewhere.
MacBeth:
Have you ever even been to California? You are obsessed with Californians. Why?
California is golden. Progressives are Gods and must be worshipped. California progressives are the kings and queens of Gods. They weep if you despise them.
There are many Republicans in California I met who understand that the state has wacky liberal NutsiPelosis bny the millions. But they grew up here and I guess are tolerating what is going on as long as their homes are their castles. Some self-described “progressives” are quietly accumulating hidable and movable wealth in the form of things such as wines, and selling them without 1099s.
I question the efficacy of quiet desperation the Republicans here are going through. Is it sanctioning when bad things happen and good people are not preventing the bad things from happening? I’m not asking them to leave the state. I am asking them to be bold, publicly denounce progressivism and Sacramento. Publicly complain about the illegals. Publicly withdraw consent.
You are obsessed with Californians. Why?
Probably because “ALL” Californians do x or “ALL” Californians are y.
Point is that many people who insist they are not liberals are still collectivist by pigeonholing people.
Those who put down Californians are broadcasting their own collectivism. An individualist knows better.
“Those who put down Californians are broadcasting their own collectivism. An individualist knows better.”
Well said.
tad revisionist? The Rev War was not about privacy at all. The Decl of Independence doesn’t talk about what we’d call “privacy” today. In fact, there is no generalized right to privacy in the Constitution. (The EU actually has many specific privacy provisions and stronger wording about privacy in general, which pisses off tech companies.)
The Bill of Rights lays out some privacy protections, but it’s really more about procedures the gov’t would have to go through to void your rights (limits on types of punishment, when they can search your house, when they can commandeer your house in a time of war, when they can restrict your speech in extreme cases, etc). Keep in mind, all of those rights are limited, i.e. you can’t be locked up for saying “Google is evil” or “Obama is a crappy president” but your private employer can sure as hell fire you for it.
The “privacy” issues are big, but let’s be honest– they are fairly recent in origin. They’ve exploded in scope with the advent of computers, the internet, and cell phones because of the common carrier issues involved. (previously personal mail and the media would’ve been concerns, but these were not on the personal level for most people — e.g. the big NY Times/Pentagon Papers case didn’t directly implicate the average person’s rights.)
‘there is no generalized right to privacy in the Constitution’
You’ll be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
What are you talking about? I stated a fact.
Yes, yes, people will pick me of all people as some symbol of privacy-hating and anti-freedom. Sure.
I hate these NSA programs, I think the military/homeland sec budget should be severely slashed. I think the spying on US citizens is categorically wrong, whether it’s metadata or actual conversations.
Snowden also seems to have done the moral thing by opposing these programs and leaking them to us. Obama’s utter failure on these issues is going to be what future generations remember him for — not for ending the wars (which would’ve ended anyway). He basically changed when he got to DC and started taking the “expert advice” of the MIL IND complex. He’s been a huge disappointment because of this.
Is it impossible for you to square that with me stating the fact that the Constitution does not (unlike other constitutions around the world) include a general privacy provision and that most of these issues have taken on new meaning in the last 20-30 years?
I’d expect better from you.
‘I’d expect better from you.’
I can just see it:
Firing squad ready. Take aim.
POW!
Jones, you’re supposed to wait for the order!
Thank you Ben for starting my morning making me think of the Jefferson Airplane lyric “up against the wall, motherf*****!”
Some people have a hard time discerning between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It is a shameful ignorance of things so easily read and so profoundly important.
Some people have a hard time discerning between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
Including the Supreme Court, IIRC…
The point remains, neither the Decl of Ind nor the Constitution contemplate these types of privacy issues. And the framers of these documents were not as much civil libertarians as people try to say — they did not think that the average man should be able to directly elect senators or the president. They certainly didn’t think women or non-whites should vote. That said, they were far ahead of their time when it came to the idea of sovereignty and freedom and the Constitution was really well done. A big reason the Const. doesn’t help much with these privacy issues is that it was written before these issues exist, unlike the EU constitution.
Both parties could’ve set some privacy laws in place but they both go the opposite direction these days. Bush set up the FISA courts and all the spying we have today and Obama has used these tools and expanded them in some cases. What a disappointment. That said, the guys who opposed these things never got a chance to talk (Ron Paul, Gary J). In particular, LOL @ GOP not allowing Ron paul to speak at convention unless he would instruct his delegates to vote for Romney.
Awww, poor Joey is disappointed. Is that all you can muster while still railing against Romney, who aint even relevant anymore.
¨the framers of these documents were not as much civil libertarians as people try to say — they did not think that the average man should be able to directly elect senators or the president.¨
A lot of libertarians favor repealing the 17th amendment, which mandates the direct election of senators.
It is interesting how little direct democracy there is in the original Constitution. Only the House is directly elected by the people.
How many millionaires and billionaires are there in the senate? I wonder how we got this income inequality?
Who exactly do you think elected the people who elected the senators before? How did we get to a place where both Arizona senators are actively pushing amnesty when the people have made it clear they want to stop it? And you talk of democracy?
I was talking of direct democracy in the sense of the people directly electing a person as opposed to having a smaller group elect or appoint a person, as was the case when the US Senate was elected by the state senates, the President was elected by the electoral college, and the Supreme Court being appointed by the President and approved by the Senate, which was the original set-up in the Constitution. The only institution on the national level elected directly by the people was the House of Representatives.
‘the President was elected by the electoral college, and the Supreme Court being appointed by the President and approved by the Senate’
And that’s changed how? Don’t forget, the central bankers appointed too. How about executive orders? Going to war without the consent of congress? My, there really isn’t much democracy involved after all. But lets be sure to keep these senators that stay in office for 40 years even thought they do the opposite of what the people want, and come out super rich. Just how FU do things have to get before you realize we’re being screwed?
I’m not necessarily calling for more direct democracy, I’m just pointing out that there was less of it in the original Constitution. I don’t know if it would be better if our US senators were elected by our state senates, but I do know that in my experience, having lived in seven different states as an adult, state governments are just as corrupt as the federal government, if not more so, and are cheaper to buy off. So I don’t see much advantage in repealing the 17th amendment. I think it would probably make things worse.
’state governments are just as corrupt as the federal government’
And all government. Thus the design to keep any body or politician or bureaucracy from becoming too powerful. Senators have become imperial positions. They’ve amassed so much influence over the funding process their fundraising swamps any challenger. John McCain would have been gone years ago if not for this fact. Now he tells us how much longer he’ll remain senator.
I think the two party system is the real problem. All levels of government are screwed up by it. Weŕe no better with the state guys running things than the federal guys. Cities that have non-partisan mayors and councils are generally run much better than cities with partisan governance, in my experience.
It is a bit confusing…
to a socialist or marxist.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Evidently the difference between The Constitution and The Amendments To The Constitution is a bit confusing to a paid shill, eh?
Joe is right. Even the Fourth Amendment does NOT guarantee a right to privacy. The government can search and seize your privacy all they want, as long as they state what they’re going to invade, and get a reasonable permission slip from that same government to do so. And that’s just for the government. There is evidently no limit on what a private company can do.
And you do not seem to understand while Joe can hide behind the word “generalized”, the 4th amendment does protect the right of privacy if it is applied in the manner that the framers of the constitution wanted. What government is doing would not have been upheld judges following their oaths. However, the framers conceded that once you have people in office with no integrity and Obama is one of those no law will protect citizens from tyranny, the only check at that point is the items of protected by the second amendment. Of course, it may come down to a point where citizens will have to either use them or lose them since government will ignore the second amendment.
‘The government can search and seize your privacy all they want, as long as they state what they’re going to invade, and get a reasonable permission slip from that same government to do so’
You mean, like, due process?
‘The Top 5 Claims That Defenders of the NSA Have to Stop Making to Remain Credible’
‘As former director of the NSA and CIA Michael Hayden recently admitted: “We kill people based on metadata.”
I don’t need some jive talking lawyer to know where this is going.
would not have been upheld had judges
Guys, you’re forgetting that morals and ethics mean nothing to the vast majority of citizenry in metropolitan D.C.
It’s funny - those who say they’re there to protect you hide behind laws (or the absence thereof) to do just the opposite.
In their eyes, if it’s not against the law, it’s okay.
There’s a reason why there’s been no proposed amendments to The Constitution since the ERA failed to ratify back in 1982.
The Constitution is considered problematic to many of those in the DC area. It’s a deterrent they’d rather ignore.
Jive talking lawyers = Foot soldiers of the mafia family.
tad revisionist? The Rev War was not about privacy at all.
BTW, Joe as the original article stated the colonists were very upset about the British using their houses for British troops. I cannot think of a greater invasion of privacy than a government forcing me to take a stranger into my house. The revolution at its core, was about the colonists refusing to accept the burdens imposed by the British to keep their empire going. Higher taxes and the use of property without permission or compensation caused the revolution. Privacy was very important, the forced housing issue and the right to be free from search and seizure without warrants were at the forefront of concessions the colonists sought before deciding to revolt.
BTW, Great Britain and their citizens thought it was only “fair” to impose higher tax and uncompensated use of property burdens since the colonists in general were much wealthier than the British citizens. Sound familiar?
once you have people in office with no integrity and Obama is one of those no law will protect citizens from tyranny, the only check at that point is the items of protected by the second amendment.
WTF? There are VERY clear checks! If a politican has no integrity, then there is very clear provision to vote them out after two, four, or six years. If the politician breaks a clear law, there is provision to remove him before that time. The only time the Second Amendment could be invoked, maybe not even then, is if a politician tried to set up as dictator for life, and that hasn’t happened yet. (And I guess there’s some argument for Supreme Court Justices too.)
Aren’t whole societies are built on jive-talking and hiding behind words? That’s what a society IS. If you’d like to set up a system based on firing squads, well, there are plenty of historical examples to draw on. Whether or not it can be called a society is up for debate.
Ben, the text of the Constitution and Amendments, as written, is vague as intended: You can reasonably search records and papers if you go through the due process of establishing probable cause and obtaining a warrant. But here’s where this is going. The politicians (all of them, remember this started in 2001 and probably before) are jive talking on the meanings of “reasonable” and “probable cause.” Is it “reasonable” to collect and keep years of records without probable cause, just in case somebody finds — or invents — a probable cause later. It is constitutional to seal warrents for security reasons, etc. ? The answer, from all sides of the political polygon, appears to be no.
Well Dan, can you explain why “privacy” isn’t even remotely mentioned in the list of grievances against the King?
Google and Facebook are doing their best to help the government identify anyone and everyone. It is getting to the point where you cannot do anything online without being tracked by these high tech surveillance machines masquerading as service/content providers. While I have never used Facebook and never will, I do have a Gmail account but refuse to create a Google+ profile.
What I despise is that during my browsing, it always shows my e-mail account unless I make sure to sign out. I have no doubt that Google is doing everything they can to share whatever they can about me to those with a financial interests or otherwise, as much as I try to fight it. They also have my cell phone number which was supposedly for helping me should I forget/lose my password, but I am sure it is for sale for the right price. Where else would the Caribbean scammers have found my number?
I am sorry to say that my internet experience has been steadily eroding due not only to the intensive efforts to destroy my anonymity and spy on my every move, but to the barrage of ads which oftentimes lock up my browser in an attempt to unleash some full screen, in my face marketing slam to peddle a product which I would only be less likely to purchase due to such outrageous tactics. Combine this with the news that Sprint is set to take over T-Mobile and most certainly ruin the only somewhat decent cell phone service provider with no contract and I can see the day coming where I no longer use the net or a cell phone. I have just about had enough of these companies. I lived without them before, so surely I can do without again.
We use a privacy protection search engine, ixquick, out of the Netherlands. They also by the name of Start Page, iirc. My H is a former Intel guy.
inch:
That won’t protect you. You need to use something like the Tor network. What does your husband’s ex-employer have to do with it?
Maybe Intel had intel?
use duck duck go for searching instead of google.
Quote from John Adams:
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
I am sorry to say that my internet experience has been steadily eroding
“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” — common misquote from Eric Hoffer.
The Bill of Rights lays out some privacy protections, but it’s really more about procedures the gov’t would have to go through to void your rights
It’s kind of a semantic difference. The fourth amendment is supposed to require the police to get a warrant before they can search your house. One could say that that constitutes a right. I don’t know that it makes sense to say that the right is voided when a judge reasonably grants the warrant.
What if the police tried to search my freezer and I said NO? They can’t search the freezer, because I have the right to privacy. Now, what if the police went to a judge with evidence that I had stolen cash in the freezer, and got a warrant? Police come back, ask to search the freezer, I again say NO. But this time, they CAN search the freezer. So my right to protect the knowledge of what’s in my freezer has effectively has been voided, at least temporarily for the time of the warrant. (They still can’t look in the oven…)
It’s very semantic.
Your right is against unreasonable searches and seizures. The term “unreasonable” is then defined. So no, your right is not removed when there is probable cause, etc. It’s the same right, but a different situation.
The purpose of the warrant is to create a public record of who decided what’s reasonable, and based upon what specifics. Judges are elected. That’s why it’s important not to be a suicidal sheep who automatically argues that humans have no rights because only governments have rights. You have to make sure not to re-elect judges who serve bad warrants, or other officials who search/seize without a warrant. Secret warrants are also no good.
” Secret warrants are also no good.”
Simple words are quite adequate among honest men and women.
Just so long as we remember that Thomas Jefferson had nothing to do with the Bill of Rights. Zero. Zip. Nada.
From yesterday’s Bits Bucket.
seems a tad revisionist…
I don’t think so. Government overreach was a central theme to the revolution. That included reaching into individual homes which is why we ended up with the third amendment to the constitution forbidding forced quartering of soldiers in private homes.
He’s only saying that it HELPED spark the revolution, so I think it’s a valid statement. Am I picking too many nits?
Who knows? I thought the quartering was seen as a theft of property and an imposition of the expense of feeding and otherwise taking care of unwelcome guests. I never read anything about the quartered soldiers taking letters or looking under skirts.
I think some of them did a lot more than just “look under” the skirts.
This reference claims the Redcoats were far more often guilty of sexually assaulting colonial women than were Patriot soldiers. Given the extra work it entailed, quartering was no fun even without the added injury of sexual attack.
Someday everything will be recorded, from satellites high in the sky and cameras and microphones on devices being so ubiquitous.
Then there will be no more criminals?
Doubleplusgood, indeed!
and Noam voted for it
I don’t understand why 2brony thinks that this problem is partisan, and specifically the fault of Democrats. The Democrats are the ones who want a Constitutional Convention to get money out of politics. That is the root cause of this problem.
The Democrats are the ones who want a Constitutional Convention to get CONSERVATIVE money out of politics.
Hmmmm, well this Constitutional Convention thingie would tend to be populist, so I’d imagine the partisanship would take a back seat if we had one.
Unless you’re against democracy, that is.
Bananas is a blind partisan hack.
You mean like this:
“Final Fundraising Figure: Obama’s $750M”
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=6397572
“He was not quite the first $1 billion president — but he was three quarters of the way there.
In 21-plus months, Barack Obama raised roughly $750 million from donors, surpassing all of his White House opponents this year and also eclipsing the total amount of money raised by all of the presidential candidates combined in 2004.”
Obamacare Subsidies to be. Withdrawn/Delayed/Rescinded?
By Elise Viebeck - The Hill
More than 1 million people may be in jeopardy of paying back a portion of their ObamaCare subsidies because of discrepancies between their applications and federal records.
Another roughly 966,000 have discrepancies related to citizenship or immigration status, according to federal health officials.
The problem was uncovered in a federal document obtained Wednesday by the Associated Press. The slide presentation revealed that 2.1 million people had inconsistencies in their exchange applications at the end of April.
The Obama administration is now engaged in the tedious effort of reconciling the inconsistencies “by hand.”
http://thehill.com/author/elise-viebeck#
That’s right my friends, the administration is going to be repairing this problem by hand and we all know they’re the most honest/reputable/open administration ever. What a freaking mess!
“discrepancies between their applications and federal records”
Equals
Fraud and lies.
Speaking of fraud and lies Obama’s whole AGW agenda, in light of data like this:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/04/the-pause-continues-still-no-global-warming-for-17-years-9-months/
At a time when the satellite data is totally contrary to the AGW theory, instead of being cautious with new initiatives Obama is doubling down on policies that drive up energy costs. Interesting NASA’s ground based data is claiming this month or that month is the warmest, appears to be nothing but fiction since is varies so greatly from the satellite data and this divergence really only began about five months ago. I think it just like the VA wait lists, this administration is more interested in propaganda than truth.
So why the push on AGW? I suggest the following reasons 1. to please crony capitalists in the green energy areas who are supporting Obama supporters in Congress (2) creates the ability in the future to generate tax revenue from the middle class while still claiming that no tax increases are occurring, (a carbon tax). 3. To create the need for and a funding mechanism for world government.
Sorry, I will not be able to comment further today at least in the morning or even read comment before then. The fact that the actual data is contrary to the theory and yet government will not even acknowledge it, means that this is not driven but science but a hidden agenda which I say is very contrary to the middle class.
Housing, Dannyboy, housing!
AGW policies raise energy prices, energy costs impact the economy, the economy impacts the demand for housing. Just follow the logic to housing. For Lola, more evidence of a socialistic paradise:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ahead-world-cup-rios-drug-trade-shifts-outskirts-n123286
Yeah. Some of that plus honest mistakes, incorrect databases and an assortment of other reasons.
I’m just amazed that the ACA, plus the administration of it, is so fraught with unforeseen problems. Was this what Nancy Osmosis was talking about when she said, “we have to pass this bill to see what’s in it” ?
Wait — wasn’t the topic AGW, not ACA? You skipped from one political acronym to another without missing a beat.
Actually I was replying to 2banana regarding his post.
The alphabet soup of acronyms gets confusing at points.
Blackhawk, every government program is fraught with fraudsters trying to bilk their way into free government money. That’s why people have to fill out so much paperwork to sign up. And it looks like this problem WAS forseen, since there is infrastructure in place to jump on it.
Nancy’s comments were just comments. Anyone who wanted to know what was in it could have read it. Goodness knows the detractors printed out enough copies to use as props on TV.
Oxide.
I agree. Every government program is fraught with fraud, abuse and overspending. There’s no incentive for anyone inside the operation to complain or suggest changes.
Plus I’m actually shocked that anyone was checking the applications bit not surprised that they’ll be making adjustments manually. In the end they’ll get rubber stamped and sent through.
Move along, move along, nothing happening here.
The more paperwork, the more fraud.
Equals
Fraud and lies
Wasn’t that what the “navigators” were suppose to do, show the applicants how to game the system with lies to get health insurance? So many seem to have gotten that meme, it is hard to believe otherwise.
It’s called “working on behalf of the people”.
Because they know better.
The thing that I find most incredible about this story -
It implies a concerted effort by ‘federal health officials’ to identify this fraud which many of us knew was certain to be rampant. So early in the game, and they’re already chasing this down? And the AP is on the story? Not at all what I have expected.
Why doesn’t the government just conceal and bury all of this? The MSM would certainly be glad to go along, as it doesn’t fit with the meme of everything being great with ACA enrollment. So I’m curious as to what the motives would be in shining the daylight so soon.
It’s difficult to imagine they’re doing what’s right, isn’t it?
Probably to reduce the impact of this, the greater the fraud the greater the failure to reduce the deficit:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/cbo-quietly-drops-forecast-obamacare-180500918.html
I don’t like Obama.
Thank you for stating this directly, instead of cutting and pasting several dozen talking-point articles.
Which talking points?
So all of those things didn’t happen?
Go to www dot drudgereport dot com and learn everything you’ll ever need to know about Barack Hussein Obama.
The Washington Times
The Daily Caller
Breitbart dot com
The New York Post
The UK Daily Mail
(insert city name here) dot cbslocal dot com
Personally, I prefer infowars dot com, but the above sites are good clickbait for the haterz…
You are only allowed to read news from “approved and real journalists”
Please only get your news from:
NYT
LATimes
ABC
NBC
CBS
CNN
Time
etc…
senator dianne feinstein endorses this blog post
read any new york times article about a mass shooting or gun control, go to the online article comments, and click on ‘reader picks’ to get a good idea of what the bedwetter libtard coastal elitist sentiment is…
i met this dude who builds ar-15 lower receivers and sells them at the tanner gun show for $210, says you can build a base model for $650, is this a good price?
“Thank you for stating this directly, instead of cutting and pasting several dozen talking-point articles.”
Oxide,
What’s all the fuss? I’m surprised this bothers you.
I bet Bush was admonished via talking points rather heavily on this board in 2007 and 2008. Perhaps you even participated in that?
If you liked it then, then you should support this now. Afterall, Obama=Bush.
“I bet Bush was admonished via talking points rather heavily on this board in 2007 and 2008.”
For the record, when I posted on the Bush recession beginning in December 2007, more than a full year before Republicans tried to pin blame for it on Obama, I used only primary news sources for the information.
And I find the cut-and-paste talking points that some choose to post here way beyond annoying.
“I don’t like Obama.”
I would have a beer with O any day. Or two beers.
I don’t like the voters who voted for Obama and I don’t like the lobbyists who put him in office.
Good thought!
Similarly, I’ve often reflected on how almost any U.S. CIC would most likely make the finest of dinner partners, one-on-one. It’s when they assume the mantle of power which accrues from leadership of the “free world” they can become somewhat frightening.
Odd thought. I see myself typing this: I distrust anyone in authority, whether in government, religion, or…big corporations.
I am anti-corporation. That’s the odd part. But it makes sense since corporations would not exist without government. The “limited liability” part is what I hate about corporations. And without “limited liability,” all would be most likely small companies.
“I fight authority and authority always wins” - J.C.M.
This family proves just how expensive it is to be poor
Mandi Woodruff - Daily Ticker - June 5th, 2014
Unless you’ve experienced poverty first-hand, it’s difficult to imagine just how expensive it can be.
Low-income Americans make up the majority of the country’s 34 million underbanked households, a group that is often forced to rely on high-cost alternative banking products when they’re feeling financially squeezed.
When the Kimmels married in 2000, they made the conscious decision to live a debt-free life. They paid for their wedding in cash, got rid of their credit cards and committed to a cash-only lifestyle.
“Both of us have had credit before and experienced getting in over our heads,” Melissa, 44, says. “We thought we were being responsible not having any credit, because we had a lot of friends we were seeing who were getting deep into debt.”
When Alex, a musician and recording technician, was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and had to leave his job in 2009, Melissa, an executive assistant at Brown University, became the primary breadwinner for their family. On a salary of less than $40,000 a year, she was suddenly financially responsible for a family of four, including two young sons, one of whom, Jonah, 13, is autistic and requires expensive care.
As the bills stacked up, the couple began overdrafting their bank account on a regular basis, getting slapped with as much as $35 in fees each time. Without a credit history, they had trouble qualifying for new lines of credit. A secured credit card would have helped them boost their credit over time, but their credit union required them to come up with $500 to open one — a lump sum they couldn’t afford.
As a result, when they needed $450 to pay for a special developmental test for Jonah that was not covered by insurance, they went to the only place that wouldn’t turn them down for their lack of credit history — a payday lender.
Over the course of three years, the Kimmels spent $1,700 in fees on their original $450 loan.
“underbanked households”
Ya gotta love it. People piss and moan about banks and what they are up to and then they complain because they are “underbanked”.
Bahahahahahahahahahaha
‘The European Central Bank on Thursday took a raft of new, unconventional steps, including new cheap loans for banks…it reduced the rate it pays on money deposited by banks from zero to minus 0.1 percent.’
‘Offer long-term loans to banks at cheap rates until 2018…The targeted loans would be charged a fixed rate, meaning that the rate could not rise over the life of the credits, even if the bank raises its benchmark.’
Take a look at this guys photo in the link. A little more about him:
‘From 1984 to 1990 he was the Italian Executive Director at the World Bank. In 1991, he became general director of the Italian Treasury, and held this office until 2001. During his time at the Treasury, he chaired the committee that revised Italian corporate and financial legislation and drafted the law that governs Italian financial markets. He is also a former board member of several banks and corporations (Eni, Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale,[5] Banca Nazionale del Lavoro and IMI).’
‘Draghi was then vice chairman and managing director of Goldman Sachs International and a member of the firm-wide management committee (2002–2005).’
The negative interest rate is interesting. What will these guys think of next!
What’s that under his eyes, money-bags?
“…it reduced the rate it pays on money deposited by banks from zero to minus 0.1 percent.”
What is the difference between this policy and outright theft?
The color of law.
fear not, I just got an offer to refi my 2012 car that was never financed to begin with
tx Mr Banker !
Do not fear, they are all good now.
The Kimmels eventually paid off their loan balance this year, with a generous and unexpected donation from a neighbor. Melissa recently earned a promotion at work and says they plan on putting the money they had been using to cover their payday rollover fees into a savings account.
Plus, they didn’t lose their cable service ($100/mo)! It’s a win!
Un freaking believable.
Did Mimi come up with that word herself?
Brown University needs better health insurance for employees. What does it cost to go there one year? Cant the children of the rich afford to give this woman top shelf coverage?
Are you kidding?
They don’t have time for that. There are too many cocktail parties to go to, and besides, supervising nannies and deckhands can get quite stressful at times.
Of course it’s expensive to be poor. Recall the analogy of Africans being too poor to buy more than one soap packet at a time, paying more ¢ per wash. The same concept applies to poor America, only a little higher up the purchase spectrum.
That said, the Kimmels were stupid. They had an autistic son — which mean sh!t can happen at any time — and they still didn’t try to re-establish a credit history? You can still build credit while maintaining a mostly cash lifestyle simply by using the card occasionally and paying it off. Sure, it would cost an annual fee and a little interest, but it’s worth to have a credit card which can save you in a pinch.
That is debt donkey talk. It is more expensive to be above the poverty line than below it. They went into debt to preserve assets that they could no longer afford.
They went $450 into debt for a test for an autistic son. Is that the “asset” that they could no longer afford?
You misunderstand my simple words. The son is not an asset. Do the math.
The son is not an asset.
Very unpc. If a conservative said something like that he would be out of a job if he/she was known. Would not matter that it might just be a poor choice of words.
The son is not an “asset” of greed and personal consumption. The family obviously could not give up the assets of greed and personal consumption to afford care for their son, so they blame him. A head of household making $40 large can handle a $500 hit if they are responsible, not if they are living over the edge on what used to be a $100,000 lifestyle. Payday loans are taken out not by the unfortunate poor, but by the intentional poor, blaming their fiscal irresponsibility on the child’s disability.
Yes thank you, Lawyer Dan, for noticing those funny “quotation marks.” Hey did you see the funny “?” thingy. I threw that in too, just for kicks.
The story references that the only troublesome debt that the Kimmels had was a $450 test for the son. Blue knee-jerked with the usual debt-donkeying to “preserve an asset.” Since no other debt was mentioned, by elimination it sounded as if the asset was the son.
Blue, which assets were the Kimmels trying to preserve? This is not the stock bought-a-house-in-2006 story. And being generally cash people, they wouldn’t need to afford any assets, since they would have owned them outright. And which math are you asking about again? The loans that they don’t have?
Nor was I advocating that they charge up a storm. I simply said that they should have maintained the credit card by charging a little on it and paying it off in full. That’s how you raise your FICO without incurring debt. I know, I did it for years. Even if the Kimmels didn’t want to take out loans, they could have had a few thousand credit limit, in case they needed a quick $450.
Jaysus what is WRONG with the HBB reading comprehension lately?
(V, my credit cards used to have a $20 annual fee. Instead of trying to get it waived, I thought it was worth the $20 fee to improve my FICO.
Skye, sorry, we’re cross-posting.
I may check out that documentary to find out how a couple with a cash lifestyle couldn’t come up with $450. Even on $40K/year they would have had few expenses. My guess is that the rent was too damn high.
I’ve been there, raising kids on a rather low income with a disabled spouse and one of the kids with a disability that had to see a specialist. So I had to make adjustments downward in what I owned and what I “needed”. I cut the cable, stopped buying a pint now and then, sold the Grumman canoe and drove a beater, worked a few hours at a second job & etc.
When you have $40,000 gross to work with and used to earn a lot more there are options (sacrifices) and tradeoffs. If paying what one owes is the highest priority, $400 will get paid. If you pay a few dollars a month on a medical debt, usually it is satisfactory.
On the other hand, if the parents cannot part with their possessions and addictions then they might blame one bill they ignored for their plight. That is my guess. Not like we all haven’t seen it a hundred times. That and reporters love a victim story.
I am sympathetic about the MS, it is an awful way to go, but the guy isn’t gone yet is he?
“I’ve been there, raising kids on a rather low income with a disabled spouse and one of the kids with a disability that had to see a specialist.”
As one who often contemplates the prospect of raising kids after a major financial setback, I find that very admirable! We haven’t crossed that bridge in our household since I lost a job over two decades ago, but I always have in the back of my mind an adjustment strategy in case current plans fail. It’s great to hear firsthand from someone who mustered the wherewithal to deal with such a plight.
P.S. I believe the lack of any kind of a real safety net for parents in the U.S. helps explain the currently abysmal birth rates. Why risk not only losing your own financial livelihood, but the ability to care for your kids?
Utah certainly is doing its best to maintain white baby reproduction rates at a high level!
Report: Website examines birth rates in U.S., Utahns have been busy
Posted 4:06 pm, June 4, 2014, by FOX 13 News, Updated at 04:11pm, June 4, 2014
SALT LAKE CITY – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have recently released data regarding birth in the United States, and according to the data Utah has a higher birth rate than any other place in the country.
Business Insider reports that Utah’s rate of 17.6 births per 1,000 people in 2013 is the highest in the nation and well above the national average, which is 12.5 per 1,000 people. The map in this story is a screen shot of an interactive map that shows the birth rates by states, click here for the map.
The same article from Business Insider speculates the high number of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may have something to do with the statistics, and they also suggested the fact the state has the lowest median age in the country, at 29.2, may also be a factor.
…
The same article from Business Insider speculates the high number of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may have something to do with the statistics,
I can’t imagine what would make them think such a thing?
and they also suggested the fact the state has the lowest median age in the country, at 29.2, may also be a factor.
Could the higher birthrates and lower median age possibly be connected somehow? [/sarcasm]
Sorry, I just find reporters amusing sometimes.
Just ask Melissa and Alex Kimmel. The Scituate, Rhode Island, couple is featured in a new documentary called “Spent: Looking for Change,” sponsored by American Express (AXP), which follows a handful of families struggling to cope outside of the traditional banking system.
Cherrypicked to star in a documentary sponsored by Amex. Why?
There is no annual fee for a credit card. You must be thinking of American Express. I don’t know what that thing is, but it’s not exactly a credit card.
“Without a credit history, they had trouble qualifying for new lines of credit.”
WTF? I can still remember when the lender looked at your income.
So the guy with MS doesn’t qualify for disability insurance?
the higher home prices are, the more interest banks get to fund political campaigns. Its that simple.
Municipalities appreciate those higher property taxes too.
No it’s not really that simple. In fact it’s not even right. The money that the bank receives depends much more on the interest rates, and prices are a function of interest rates too.
Here’s an example, courtesy Bankrates’ amort calculator:
$300K house, 10% down, 4% interest, 30 years:
PI/month = $1289, total interest paid = $194K.
$213K house, 10% down, 7% interest, 30 years:
PI/month = $1277, total interest paid = $267K.
In other words, if interest rates increased from 4% to 7%, the price of house would have to drop ~30% just to keep the same PI monthly nut. (given that the same monthly nut means that a buyer is just as likely to buy at that price.)
But the bank would collect MUCH more interest at the LOWER price and higher rate because a much larger proportion of that same monthly nut goes to interest, not to principle. (this is assuming no refi) If banks want to donate to politicians, they want high interest rates and wouldn’t care so much about price.
But that’s if they collected revenue only from mortgages. It clearly not that simple either. They also want low interest rates so that they themselves can borrow low and lend high, just like any stockbroker buys low and sells high. Not to mention derivatization and securitizations.
u are a debt slave like it or not.
Not everyone is on the 22 year debt donkey plan like you.
Show me that $213K house in ZIP 80210 that isn’t a total dump and I’ll pay for it in less than 5 years.
Goon, if interest rates went to 7%, then a $300K house would have the potential to drop to $213K… if J6P were the only ones buying. More likely, some investor would snatch up the house at $250K.
But I don’t doubt that you could pay it off in 5 years. That’s the beauty of having cash lying around. We have to remember that HBB posters are not typical of the population.
It’s a huge error to assume that investors overbidding on list prices is anything but a flash in the pan.
It’s a huge error to assume that investors overbidding on list prices is anything but a flash in the pan.
+1. It is, to a large extent, a side-effect of the Fed’s efforts to ensure that there is no decent return in any relatively-”safe” investments.
When the era of cheap crack-cocaine credit ends (which might not be anytime soon), that side-effect will end with it.
Investors in RE will at some point in the future once again expect a decent ROI—which does NOT occur when you overbid at time of purchase.
A turd in the bed pan.
“But the bank would collect MUCH more interest at the LOWER price and higher rate because a much larger proportion of that same monthly nut goes to interest, not to principle.”
Here are approximate first-year interest calculations for homes purchased for $500K and for $320K:
Principle = $500K
Interest rate = 4%
Interest collected = 4% * $500K = $20K
Principle = $320K
Interest rate = 6.25%
Interest collected = 6.25%*320K = $20K
What am I missing here?
Wait — I know: My example just looks at the first year of payments.
Yours follows the Realtor® strawman approach of assuming the homeowner continues to make payments for 30 years. I don’t know exactly how low is the share of owners who actually do this, but it is definitely small.
What are you missing? You’re speaking to a DebtJunkie.
I am fixated on 30 years because I have this paid-off house mentality.
But anyway, let’s take the example that people sell after 7 years, which is more realistic:
$500K mortgage 4%: PI/month = $2387. Year 7 interest total $131K
$320K mortgage 6.5%: PI/month - $2022. Year 7 interest total $139K.
So, the low price high rate still wins out. But I don’t think that your prices are realistic. $320K at 6.5% is not equivalent to $500K at 4%. I chose prices to give equivalent PI/month to approximate apples-to-apples comparison.
“So, the low price high rate still wins out.”
Which was the point of my comparison.
My apples-to-apples was (approximate) first-year interest payments; what happens after that varies widely depending on individual buyer motives and financial circumstances.
If you want to really get apples-to-apples, you also need to add in closing costs, which will further favor the low price / high rate purchase over the high price / low rate purchase, as six percent is six percent, regardless of interest rates.
“I am fixated on 30 years because I have this paid-off house mentality.”
That’s called triple your cost mentality. If you actually had a paid off house mentality, you wouldn’t have borrowed for multi decades.
Foolish.
“I have this paid-off house mentality.”
Beyond silly. This must be insider talk for the debt lifestyle.
Paid mine off in 17 years, easily. Retired at 53. Slackers are losers!
And it’s still a massive loss.
“But the bank … they want high interest rates and wouldn’t care so much about price.”
Here you have missed the Housing Bubble and financial crisis entirely. When price goes down more people default and the banks start to fail.
Housing ‘crappy investment’: ‘Shark Tank’ pro
Michelle Fox - CNBC.com - June 5th, 2014
Real estate will be a “crappy investment” over the next five to 10 years thanks to rising interest rates and stagnating home prices, investor Kevin O’Leary told CNBC’s “Closing Bell.”
“I am convinced that at some point later this year we’ll see the first 25 basis point rise. It’ll rip through the infrastructure of utilities, and REITS and real estate,” said O’Leary, one of the stars of the reality show “Shark Tank.”
For example, if a couple took a $200,000 loan for a $250,000 house, that house would have to go up 6 percent a year to cover the debt, transaction fees and taxes, he said. However, after five years, O’Leary doesn’t think that home will be worth more than the original sale price of $250,000.
“Don’t buy any real estate. Don’t do it,” O’Leary said.
Instead, he thinks investors should rent their homes and spend their money in the market—50 percent stocks, 50 percent bonds—for a better return and more liquidity.
he’s right, of course. and how sad that the fed can’t even raise by 25 basis points without it “ripping through the system”. we have entire sectors that are dependent on the fed.
Is he demanding this 6% in the first year? Then he’s being manipulative. The break-even on the transaction costs of a house has been calculated 3-4 years for decades. The benefits of buying have always come at the back end.
Isn’t there a chance that loosening GSE credit could drive home prices still higher?
I hope not.
Mortgage rates in the U.S. rose, increasing home-loan costs for the first time in six weeks.
The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage was 4.14 percent this week, up from 4.12 percent, Freddie Mac said in a statement today. The average 15-year rate climbed to 3.23 percent from 3.21 percent, according to the the McLean, Virginia-based mortgage-finance company.
Here’s a comment exchange on the article:
————
OLDTECHY • an hour ago lets compare apples to apples ..
Sure, I can RENT some apartment for LESS than I can BUY some HOUSE. But, even so, those pesky taxes, insurance, maintenance, interest, etc would be included in that rent payment.
MortgagePro >OLDTECHY • an hour ago
Nope.
Remember ….. Landlord expenses are never automatic pass through to the end user.
————
Wow, there’s some data driven analysis right there.
“Don’t buy any real estate. Don’t do it,” O’Leary said.
Instead, he thinks investors should rent their homes and spend their money in the market—50 percent stocks, 50 percent bonds—for a better return and more liquidity.”
yea those bonds will do great when interest rates rise
yea those bonds will do great when interest rates rise
so will stocks and housing. look out below.
counter-intuitively, one thing that more often than not has a history of rising with interest rates is gold. might well happen again.
Where are the realtor shills crowing about “pent-up” demand?
“Young people are also getting off to a slower start. They are delaying homeownership and some big-ticket purchases because of student debt and underemployment. Student-loan borrowers retreated from homebuying in 2013 for the second year in a row, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said last month. Young adults without student debt have a net worth that’s seven times higher than those who do, a report from Pew Research showed.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-05/college-graduates-struggle-to-find-employment-worth-a-degree.html
What those kidz need are $500,000 starter homes!
It doesn’t matter what the kidz need. It’s all about the Boomers. NPR had a really long commercial on today about low-alcohol wines. Then after that, (or maybe it was before that), they had a piece about Boomers. “Boomers are super heroes AND smart. They are going to continue working past the minimum retirement age because they are sooooooo hard-working and responsible. It’s not because they frittered away their continuously increasing and high incomes their entire lives. It has nothing to do with the fact that they also supplemented those high incomes with lots of mo credik. It’s because they are GREAT people.”
In the meanwhile, kidz are stupid loosers bcuz they won’t give $500,000k to a boomer, in exchange for a house that was purchased 50 years ago for $50k.
And how is this related to cheap wine? Simple. Younger people (who drink more wine) can’t afford to buy expensive wine, so the wine makers want to sell cheap wine. This means they have to make it look cool, even though it tastes bad and you have to drink more to get the full effect, and it makes you fat. However, the cheap-wine drinking kidz ARE LOOSERS WHO NEED TO FORK MORE $$ OVER TO THE BOOMERS.
That’s pretty much the story line these days.
We continue down the path of the demise of the dollar as a reserve currency:
http://peakoil.com/business/renminbi-use-surges-in-home-of-us-dollar
Lol. How does an expectation of rising rates later this year in the states jive with the EU’s latest move to NIRP, negative interest rate policy, to combat deflation? Does anyone here actually think the US economy can grow to the point of requiring an interest rafe rise while China and Europe are fighting deflationary pressures in their own economy?
Pure bunk… rates aren’t going anywhere in the US.
The war on savers will continue…
Correct.
And not only that, think of what rising interest rates would do to the debt.
Not that anyone in Washington gives a rat’s @ss about making a budget and sticking to it, anyway.
I thought rates had been going up pretty steadily for about a year.
while we’re on property rights Hungary stole everyone 401k so gov elites can retire and watch private sector people work
got ammo?
Realtors are liars. And so is Liberace. And LIEberals. And lawyers.
Is there any other “industry” that has more liars than worthless, worthless housing?
I can’t think of one. You’ll get ripped off by one of these creeps even under the most favorable circumstances. Just ask the tens of millions of debt junkies that bought a house in the last 14 years.
Rent for half the monthly cost. Buy after prices bottom.
Rent for half the monthly cost. Buy after prices bottom.
I should live so long.
Aren’t you looking forward to the afterlife? Just buy a house then.
“Just buy a house then.”
Or better yet, get sent to Heaven and live rent-free in paradise forever!
Percentage of homes purchased cash -city state and price range
http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/charts/guest/2014/Keith-Jurow-140603-Fig-1.jpg
Can someone explain to me how drug money is washed in RE deals? What does it matter what you’re converting the cash to?
Yes, I am talking about Miami.
I see no evidence at this point that prices will ever be allowed to bottom.
With housing demand at 19 year lows and falling, what difference does it make?
June 5, 2014, 6:01 a.m. EDT
Not even a bull market can interest people in stocks
Opinion: Equity ownership falls to the lowest level in over half a century
By Howard Gold
How often have you heard some Wall Street shill talking about all the cash on the sidelines waiting to come back into the market? Or some pundit worrying that too many investors have rushed into stocks, signaling an imminent sell-off?
Well, now, we can safely ignore those claims and others like them. An authoritative new study published recently in the Financial Analysts Journal shows that all investors — individuals and institutions alike — are keeping the lowest percentage of their portfolios in stock in over half a century.
According to three Dutch researchers — Ronald Doeswijk, Trevin Lam and Laurens Swinkels — investors held only 37.7% of the $90.6 trillion in global investable assets in stocks in 2012, the most recent year their data covered.
That and the 37.1% they invested in equities in 2011 were the lowest exposure to equities investors have had since 1959, when records were first kept. It’s considerably below what they held even in the late 1970s, before the Reagan-era bull market began, and in the early 2000s after the dot.com bubble burst.
In fact, there may be cyclical and structural reasons for this shift, according to Lam, senior analyst in quantitative research at Rabobank, based in the Netherlands.
“I do think that the changes in the global multi-asset market portfolio are cyclical,” he told me in an email. “There are periods in which the weight of equities increases at the expense of bonds … [but after the dot.com bust] the weight of bonds rose quickly at the expense of equities.”
Equity ownership peaked at around 64% of the total global market portfolio in 1968 and again in 1999, near the top of two great secular bull markets.
Yet it never exceeded 53% during the mid-2000s cyclical bull market. To me, 2011-2012’s low numbers show that, though the S&P 500 and other indices are hitting all-time highs, investor confidence still hasn’t recovered from the dot.com bubble and the financial crisis.
As I wrote here late last year, surveys showed a steep decline in the percentage of Americans who said they owned stocks or stock mutual funds.
…
Markets
Wall Street Adjusts to the New Trading Normal
Transaction Volume in May Fell to Its Lowest Level Since Financial Crisis
By Dan Strumpf
June 6, 2014
A trader at the New York Stock Exchange last month. Trading volume tumbled in May to its lowest level since the financial crisis. European Pressphoto Agency
The stock market is hitting records again, but it doesn’t feel that way on many Wall Street trading desks.
Trading volume on the major U.S. exchanges last month tumbled to its lowest level for May since the financial crisis. A daily average of 5.7 billion shares changed hands, the least for the month since 2007, according to Credit Suisse Trading Strategy.
The slowdown in trading comes as investors see little reason to make big changes to their portfolios amid an expanding but unspectacular U.S. economy, lackluster first-quarter earnings reports, and above-average stock valuations as a share of projected company earnings.
The decline comes despite six record closes last month on the S&P 500, extending a trading slowdown that started after the financial crisis. Daily average U.S. stock-trading volume last year was down 37% from the peak hit in 2009, Credit Suisse data show.
This year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has made just one daily move of 2% or more. The Dow made moves of 2% or more 10 times by this time of year in 2010 and 33 times in 2009 in the same period.
At the Milwaukee stock-trading desk of investment bank Robert W. Baird & Co., Michael Antonelli uses the down time to send market-related tweets or works on posts for his firm’s stock-market blog, Bull and Baird. A tweet from Tuesday: “Another completely dead day.”
…
got 401k? http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/The-Adam-Smith-Institute-Blog/2011/0102/European-nations-begin-seizing-private-pensions
got ammo ?
Yeah. Having a bank account with a bunch of digits makes it too easy. No doubt they’d love to do that here in IL, CA, etc.
What next: Negative interest rates on private savings accounts?
P.S. I suppose as long as deflation runs over 3 percent a year, a low level of negative interest rates need not be the end of the world.
If you aren’t union these days, you typically don’t have a pension. And since everyone in a union is a red diaper baby commie, then it stands to reason that no red blooded Americans would be affected by this, right?
Yes I got ammo. 4 different sizes. lots o’ rounds.
Also got other movable hidable wealth in the form of precious metals bullion. Got cash too. Movable and hidable kind.
Half of Americans can’t afford their house
MarketWatch.com
June 5, 2014, 12:22 p.m. EDT
As the housing market slowly recovers, a majority of homeowners and renters are finding it hard to meet rising rents and mortgage payments, new research finds.
Over half of Americans (52%) have had to make at least one major sacrifice in order to cover their rent or mortgage over the last three years, according to the “How Housing Matters Survey,” which was commissioned by the nonprofit John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and carried out by Hart Research Associates. These sacrifices include getting a second job, deferring saving for retirement, cutting back on health care, running up credit card debt, or even moving to a less safe neighborhood or one with worse schools.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/over-50-of-americans-struggle-with-home-affordability-2014-06-03
There is no sacrifice too big to make when it comes to owning your own home.
Amy:
How are stock broker classes coming along?
Living in a rental will never feel like a real home.
Fetch. Cheetos. Now.
Amy:
When are you getting your stock broker license? Might as well go full-bore if you are going to sell BS, right? Did you fail the test or something? Having cash lying around will never feel like real savings.
“There is no sacrifice too big to make when it comes to owning your own home.”
“They wanted to avert disaster by paying the endless debt.”
Aztec sacrifice
In spite of all the great accomplishments of the empire, it’s the Aztec sacrifice that the people are often remembered for. Why were sacrifices offered? What were they like? Read on…
Types of sacrifices
Though the human sacrifice is the most talked about, there were actually many types of sacrifices in the empire. The people believed that they owed a blood-debt to the gods. They wanted to avert disaster by paying the endless debt. Blood was a common theme - the sacrifice that the gods required (see Aztec religion for more on Aztec sacrifice).
So, animals would be sacrificed, as well as humans. Also, there was ritual blood-letting, where people would cut themselves to offer their blood to the gods.
http://www.aztec-history.com/aztec-sacrifice.html - 10k -
http://maine.craigslist.org/med/4505503794.html
Sixty bucks to take pictures of a house for an hour? AZ Slim should hop on that.
Dow 20,000,000 by 2015!
so what cities are still “HOT” w multiple bids?
N VA is now flat
open house signs etc
Bubble talk is even getting into my online Chinese lessons:
——-
Use these potential complement phrases when SHOPPING:
Mǎi bu qǐ 买不起
This means “can’t afford to buy” and can be helpful in a bargaining situation.
If a vendor quotes you a high price, you can scoff and say 买不起 “mǎi bu qǐ.”
You also hear this one a lot when people are talking about the high prices of real estate in China. So many people “mǎi bu qǐ fángzi” (买不起房子), or “cannot afford to buy a house.”
— For US real estate sellers, this is the variation that applies:
If a potential Chinese purchaser of US RE scoffs and says 买不起, just scoff back and say, “You’re Chinese! Of course you can afford it!” – “Nǐ shì yí gè zhōng gúo rén, dāng rán mǎi de qǐ!” 你是一个中国人,当然买得起!
Is it normal for a house to still be Pending after nine weeks?
We’re seeing escrows of 45-60 days for people who are buying with mortgages (6-9 weeks). My understanding is that some of the loan programs make the process longer.
I’d say at 9 weeks you are at the long end of “normal”.
When there is no answer, leave it to R._Fraud to pull one directly out of the bull$hit barrel.
Hillary Clinton: Warmonger for the Bankster Elite
Next president owned by the same banks and corporations as Obama and Bush
by Kurt Nimmo | Infowars.com | June 5, 2014
Unfortunately, it takes the media mouthpiece of the Russian government to tell the truth about Hillary Clinton and the War Party.
You’ll never get the truth from the U.S. government’s media mouthpiece who self-righteously and disingenuously claim they are independent and “fair and balanced” (cue laugh track).
Clinton, of course, is no different than your garden variety Republican, including the any number of neocons. All of them are propped up by the military-industrial-intelligence complex and the banksters who run the show and who laughingly pretend we all live in a pluralistic democracy. Of course, anybody who has more than two brain cells to rub together and is not in serious denial knows we live in an authoritarian plutocracy run for the sake of a small clique of mega-rich and powerful global internationalists.
Clinton will be the Democrat contender for the position of teleprompter reader. Jeb Bush will probably be the Republican choice to play the political equivalent of musical chairs. The ruling elite has decided it wants to stick with the Bush-Clinton dynasty for the foreseeable future.
Hillary is preferable because the elite are keen on making sure all criticism and political activism is either marginalized or written off as hatred and thus not only dismissible, but worthy of a violent response by government. Criticism of Hillary will be deemed sexist the same way serious criticism of Obama is now considered racist.
In addition, Hillary’s confrontational and ugly personality will be described as an admirable attribute indicative of a strong leader the same way the psychopathic personalities of her male counterparts are described as the attribute of masters of statecraft (the word is synonymous with bombing small helpless nations and bailing out transnational banks).
It really is too bad RT had to run this piece. The Russian government, of course, is as authoritarian and violent, and in some instance more so, than the government ruling the United States. Anti-Russian propaganda disseminated by alphabet networks owned and operated by an interlocking directorship dominated banks and transnational corporations point out Russia’s flaws on a daily basis.
Everything we see on television, an increasingly on the internet, “often surpasses expectations of media subservience to government propaganda,” as Edward S. Herman noted nearly two decades ago. Only the alternative media, which naturally suffers from its own flaws, is free to tell the truth.
As an arm of the state, RT has its own propaganda agenda. Part of that agenda is pointing out the indisputable fact the U.S. government is owned and operated by banks and large corporations. For pointing out what the corporate media in this country is forbidden to mention, we can be thankful. On the other hand, we should be wary and mistrustful of RT and any other propaganda organ of the state.
More uncharted territory ahead for central banking:
Draghi Unveils Historic Measures Against Deflation Threat
By Jeff Black and Stefan Riecher Jun 5, 2014 9:07 AM PT
Mario Draghi unveiled an unprecedented round of measures to help the European Central Bank’s record-low interest rates feed through to an economy threatened by deflation.
The ECB today cut its deposit rate to minus 0.1 percent, becoming the first major central bank to take one of its main rates negative. In a bid to get credit flowing to parts of the economy that need it, the ECB also opened a 400-billion-euro ($542 billion) liquidity channel tied to bank lending and officials will start work on an asset-purchase plan. While conceding that rates are at the lower bound “for all practical purposes,” the ECB president signaled policy makers are willing to act again.
“We think it’s a significant package,” Draghi told reporters in Frankfurt. “Are we finished? The answer is no.”
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and money system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company.
http://www.themoneymasters.com/the-money-masters/famous-quotations-on-banking/ - 31k -
by Zen Gardner
Amazingly enough, most people don’t know that the Federal Reserve Bank is a private institution. It’s so private that despite its profound influence and power, no one is allowed to know who the board of directors are or any of its inner workings. Yet they control not just the production and flow of money in America, but the economic mechanisms that drive the US economy and thus much of the rest of the world.
If the American people truly understood how the Federal Reserve system works and what it has done to us, they would be screaming for it to be abolished immediately. It is a system that was designed by international bankers for the benefit of international bankers, and it is systematically impoverishing the American people. The Federal Reserve system is the primary reason why our currency has declined in value by well over 95 percent and our national debt has gotten more than 5000 times larger over the past 100 years. The Fed creates our “booms” and our “busts”, and they have done an absolutely miserable job of managing our economy.
But why do we need a bunch of unelected private bankers to manage our economy and print our money for us in the first place? Wouldn’t our economy function much more efficiently if we allowed the free market to set interest rates? And according to Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the U.S. Congress is the one that is supposed to have the authority to “coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”. So why is the Federal Reserve doing it? (source)
philosophers-stone.co.uk/…/05/what-is-the-federal-reserve-and-why-is-it-private/ - 40k -
“If the American people truly understood how the Federal Reserve system works and what it has done to us, they would be screaming for it to be abolished immediately.”
We’ve heard this alot here, especially regarding Ron Paul’s ‘End the Fed’ proposal.
But once you ‘End the Fed,’ what then? Bitcoin for our money supply? Gold standard? Automatic adjustment of quantity of money to maintain a stable inflation rate (possibly zero)?
Before abolishing the status quo policy, it seems prudent to have a viable alternative in hand.
Crypto currency is here to stay. Whether Bitcoin, DarkCoin, Dogecoin, or whatever.
And the winning crypto currency will be unregulated. There is no way to regulate it. Regulate one and everyone else will use an alternative crypto currency.
And if the government blesses bitcoin with a regulation as a stipulation, it will make people flee to a different crypto currency.
‘Before abolishing the status quo policy, it seems prudent to have a viable alternative in hand.’
We did before: the constitution. But which status quo are you speaking of? Before the gold standard was abolished, before Bretton Woods? Before the Greenspan Put? Before QE, 1, 2, 3 and infinity? One might say that our wall street betters must hold the key to the printing presses, because they and only they are wise enough to keep us from eating gruel. But I have my doubts.
Before the gold standard was abolished, before Bretton Woods?
which type of gold standard should we have?
I don’t care if it’s a pork belly standard. There has to be some mechanism to keep these unaudited fat cats from printing as much money as they want, and using it how they want.
the problem is that the value unit of a currency changes. it should be tied to a commodity like gold or silver, but how much gold or silver?
the swiss changed from full backing, to i think about a 1/4 backing of gold. it leaves room for the franc to fall, but it couldn’t fall less than a quarter of the original value in relation to gold.
or we could quit the fiat business and go to metal by weight. don’t put a dollar value on it and just use a representation of a certain amount of gold.
each solution bring its own problems.
If the American people truly understood how the Federal Reserve system works
the last one of the old timers that understood the FED died about a month ago..
The Federal Reserve system is the primary reason why our currency has declined in value by well over 95 percent
the writer thinks monetary inflation causes price inflation. however, demand for dollars will increase the money supply without debasing the dollar. FED qe is recent. and it probably is somewhat dollar debasing. but the author is talking about the time since 1913 (FED), not since qe.
there are many forces that affect the dollar. but the main one is the value of our labor which constantly gets eroded by taxes, regs and criminality.
things like advancing skills and automation add to the value of our labor. so it’s a constant tug of war. we may be getting more dollars per hour now, but in real terms, those dollars don’t buy as much as before.
the erosion of the value of our labor has already had dire consequences. but it will get worse. more businesses will close than open. as a matter of fact, i think it’s already happening. as the dollar loses value, prices rise even as business slows. people get poorer and can no longer do the things they could before. they know life is harder, but they don’t know why. this will become the worst of the worst.. an inflationary depression. something the keynesians don’t even believe can happen. but it will.
The Fed creates our “booms” and our “busts”, and they have done an absolutely miserable job of managing our economy.
the poor boob of an author doesn’t understand that economies can’t be ‘managed’ or they will eventually die. want to have a thriving economy? don’t try to manage it.
The Fed creates our “booms” and our “busts”,
no, but it does exacerbate them.
Wouldn’t our economy function much more efficiently if we allowed the free market to set interest rates?
absolutely!
Congress is the one that is supposed to have the authority to “coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures”.
“regulate the value there of”
how does some entity regulate the value of gold or silver? can’t be done. it sounds like they’re talking about fiat currency there.