Bits Bucket For July 20, 2008
Allow me to introduce the Housing Bubble Blog Forum! I’ll be posting a little less as I work on a new business venture, so this is a way the HBB community can continue and expand interaction and communication. I’m not going to lay down a bunch of rules for the forum right now, other than I don’t want cursing and I expect civility. But it makes sense that a forum topic should be well thought out. Sort of like a weekend topic here on the HBB.
Please log in using your current HBB screen name. I hope to have a software “bridge” between the two sites installed shortly that will automate that task.
I’ll only post a Bits Bucket for the next two days so I can monitor the new forum and work on some technical issues for this blog. As always, any donations to help with the ongoing expenses for these sites is greatly appreciated. I also want to thank the developer of this forum and can highly recommend her work. A link can be found at the bottom of the page.
http://tinyurl.com/6huohc
Gretchen from the NYTimes is at it again. Why does she think anyone would ever feel sorry for the loser’s she showcases I will never know. While it is bad that this is happening, if Americans would not be such sheeple then the banks would never be successful at loan sharking.
Yeah, even if you’re laid up medically, spending all day with QVC and a credit card (as she admits herself) is a great way to spend your life.
Where’s that trout again?
She is right. Government and business should have a higher goal than trying to fleece the sheeple. Also, people aren’t born sheeple. They are encouraged to become that by the mass media which feeds them drivel, by the government which keeps them subdued through manufactured fear or by whispering soothing platitudes in their ears, and by business which will go to any extreme to make a buck. Where is the responsibility we should have for our country and its people? If we are truly a nation of sheeple, we won’t endure very much longer.
Someone needs to tell Diane Mcleod and people who behave like her YOU CAN NOT BORROW YOUR WAY OUT OF DEBT! Acouple of questions I have. What was her income when she was married to the carpet guy after her first husband died ? Oh yeah, Social Security. Why couldn`t her 20 yr. old son help ? Well maybe after he turned 18 and the Social Security checks stopped going to mom, he took out a student loan to go to college.
You bet. My “worst” client has done three cash-out re-fi’s in the past five years. When I indicated earlier this year that the spigot would be turned off, I half expected this client to find another source, as the supposed equity is still about 40%. Sure enough, I had a call from the client last week saying a new lender had offered a 7% loan (in lieu of my 9%). SWELL, I am in a “good riddance” mood, see my post about ByeFL below. Somehow I don’t think this situation (with my client) will end well for the new lender.
Why couldn`t her 20 yr. old son help ?
The son was under no obligation whatsoever to pay for his mother’s stupidity. She put herself into this mess largely through her own irresponsibility. Yes, the medical problems were not her fault, but that’s why more prudent people avoid excessive indeptedness and set aside money for a rainy day. This cow exercised horrible judgement and now it’s catching up with here:
Ms. McLeod used debt to keep going until she was fired from her job in March for writing inappropriate e-mail messages. Since then, she has been selling her coveted handbags and other items on eBay to raise money while waiting to be evicted from her home.
Sammy
“The son was under no obligation whatsoever to pay for his mother`s stupidity”
I read “Seperated and living with her 20 year-old son, she worked two jobs so she could afford her small, two-bedroom ranch house in suburban Philadelphia”
Sounds to me like the “under no obligation” son was living with her or the “cow” as you called her. If it was me and he didn`t help, I would kick his no obligation ass right out the front door.
Hint: we’ve always been a nation of sheeple, and we’ve done just fine.
Take a gander at 19th century economic history.
That’s the whole point. You can’t regulate human behavior beyond a certain point.
Pussy, Galore isn’t a given.
It is if you pay for it. They even take dollars.
I’ve never had to pay for it…
Maybe you never had any.
“No matter how rich you become, how famous or powerful, when you die the size of your funeral will still pretty much depend on the weather.”
Michael Pritchard
Alad,
What on earth are you going to do now that the new forums require posting non-copyrighted material? Maybe this is fair use~!
new forums!? are you kidding … I have just finally figured out how to program my VCR blinking clock light after all these years . . . how in the hell am I going to learn a new forum?
and no swearing also. HA! like that will ever happen with me. if ben wants to fully fund this blog just install a virtual swear tip jar. he’ll retire richer ‘n any hedge fund manager in a month.
to a FL condo.
next to Palmetto.
“We’ve always been a nation of sheeple.”
Are you a sheeple?
I don’t understand the contempt expressed by the word “sheeple.” Some pople in trouble with debt have ended up there through no fault of their own (medical problems, accidents, etc.) and, yes, others have ended up there through their own ignorance, greed, etc. The question is, what is to be done with the sheeple? If there is no hope for them, they should just be exterminated or made into a military under class to fight our wars. Either way they are just feed cattle for the overlords who manipulate and fleece them.
I hate to point this out to you but that’s what the military is.
Take a look at their recruiting techniques. They aren’t out in force on Park Ave. or in Greenwich or Pacific Heights.
They’re in the Appalachia. They know the drill cold. Better than you and I even.
Maybe it has changed, but when I graduated from Greenwich High in 1978 Military recruiters were there every year.
Got news for you, Pussy Galore…
The “military” is in nearly every house across the land, in the form of easily concealable weaponry.
A not so well organized militia, things could get messy…
Try doing some research before you post. Unless your point was to make a fool of yourself.
qaxbami/pussy,
Sorry I must disagree with you both on many counts:
1-Sheeple/Whiners
My family had very hard times in the 70s/80s due to my father’s sudden & unexpected disability. We lived hand to mouth, fought the insurances companies & social security hammer and tong for them to honor their contracts and obligations. We all pulled together and did our part, forgoing new clothes and “stuff” contributing our grass cutting & snow shoveling money, going to the food bank, getting the free USDA cheese blocks etc. Through it all my
parents kept a roof over our heads, a car in the driveway, food on the table & most importantly the family together. We never thought of such craziness as expressed in the article of wasting money on junk, borrowing willy nilly to keep spending etc.
2-History of Sheeple
The whole reason my family held together was because my parents lived through the great depression and WWII where thrift was the only way to survive.
3-Military is a Sheeple Underclass
My family’s roots are in Appalachia and yes we hold the military in very high regard, but we are not blinded by it to the point of exploitation. I enlisted and later became an officer using the military to help me get an education and established in a professional career. I will always praise and be thankful to the military but I as well as many of my friends and relatives we no longer advocate military service due to the current commander and chief’s manipulation of the truth that has resulted in nothing but senseless violence and death.
The question is, what is to be done with the sheeple?
Make a roasted rack of sheeple? mmm mmm good!
Are you a sheeple?
Sheeple is in the eye of the beholder.
I saw a movie about a plane crash and they ate sheeple.
Funny how its always everyone else who is the sheeple.
“Donner Bars”
Really satisfies…
The term “sheeple” is generally understood to describe people who follow blindly and do not think for themselves. Unfortunately, this represents the mass of humanity, and perhaps in different ways each of us.
The constantly parroted use of the term “sheeple” self-identifies any user as a member of said class.
Another fool heard from.
Bahhhhhhh, Bahhhhhhh
Did someone say something?
Yes I did, I saw a movie about a plane crash and they ate sheeple.
Re: the military. I also must disagree with the general disparagement. There will always be people - both men and women - who will find their deepest fulfillment as warriors. That is to say, espousing rigorous physical training, unit discipline, a clear set of expectations, and a moral code. It will be a poor society indeed - poorer than it is now, peopled as it is by ’sheeple’ - were the sarcastic neo-intelligentsia successful in eliminating the warriors among us, and were you successful in eliminating a warrior class.
You will need role models for butt-kicking tough in the years to come. Heck, you personally may seek the butt-kicking tough to count among your friends in the days ahead.
In the event that butt-kicking tough is in order, which of you will step up to the plate? Lean and muscled as you are from keyboard pounding and all? Mentally toughened as you are, from coining cute euphemisms and such?
Wienies.
“I will always praise and be thankful to the military but I as well as many of my friends and relatives we no longer advocate military service due to the current commander and chief’s manipulation of the truth that has resulted in nothing but senseless violence and death.”
Well said, Joe!
Another wimp heard from!!
“Where is the responsibility we should have for our country and its people?”
That’s exactly right. Nothing should happen without our consent and IF it does, then we haven’t taken responsibility.
According to psychologists only about 30% of Americans reach the formal operations stage, which is the ability to think abstractly and be able to connect the dots. With that in mind, does it mean that those who have the ability should be predatory toward those that don’t. For example the financial exploitation of college kids is really gross. Many don’t have parental guidance so they navigate in the shark infested waters that appear as protective well meaning financial/ educational “community”. In my opinion this article highlighted the most important aspect of this whole financial “catastrophe” which is that we as a country have lost psychologically so much of what we need in order to run this country in a civil fashion. Once you start eating your own you are pretty much done. Look at all the (other) third world countries, today we have more in common with them than what probably most of us ever thought possible.
The only thing that has been “shattered” is your illusion that it was ever different.
It has always been thus. That the scales have fallen from eyes only recently doesn’t make the past a lost utopia.
A lot of people made a lot of bad decisions. They are paying the price.
Get over it.
“It has always been thus.”
Oh, really? To be sure, there are always people who make bad decisions. That’s life. But last night I was watching “That’s Entertainment” on PBS. It’s just ONE example of an industry in the US driven by creativity and work ethic in the past. These qualities made us desirable to people in other nations, that dreams actually could come true here, maybe not for everyone, but at least you had a chance if you played your cards right.
No, I DON’T want to get over what the US was and could be. I’m watching Cueball Hank on CBS right now. I want him and the other parasites to get the snot out of the way, because my money has been devalued because of wastes of flesh like him. And I’m gonna keep calling for their heads. You can keep calling for me to “get over it”. No, thanks. I like this country. It’s been good to me, despite the shenanigans of TPTB.
Excuse me, do you belive that “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”? Do you believe that “bacon and eggs are the quintessentially American breakfast”? Do you think that Edison “invented” the lamp? Do you always associate “pancakes” with “breakfast”?
If you answered yes to any of the above, you’ve been suckered. By an evil genius named Ed Bernays.
He even wrote two books about it outlining his techniques. One called “Manipulating Public Opinion” and the other called “Propaganda”.
If you’ve never heard of him, I assure you he’s brainwashed you into dozens of things. And most importantly, nobody has ever heard of him.
Spare me the condescending tone, and haul your @ss down to a library.
Oh, I’ve heard of Bernays. Had a parent who worked on Mad Ave. I happen to agree with your assessment of him. However, nice touch, accusing me of a condescending tone while you’re dripping all over the place.
But, if you prefer, lemme be a little more plebian in my comments:
“Nyah, nyah, not gonna get over it!”
Aw, shucks, just gotta admit it: My name is Palmetto and I like pancakes with breakfast. (When I can git ‘em, yuck-yuck.)
“He even wrote two books about it outlining his techniques. One called “Manipulating Public Opinion” and the other called “Propaganda”.”
Noam Chompsky’s a good read too. Eye opening stuff.
DOC
To Faster:
My grandfather ate eggs, bacon and beans his whole life for breakfast and lived on a farm in New Mexico. I do not think he ever owned a T.V.
My uncle who is almost 90 ate eggs and bacon for breakfast and I remember the Cat and the Hat: Eggs and Bacon.
I have been to nowhere in Mexico and had eggs and bacon for breakfast.
I remember reading about the early explorers (Powell, Lewis and Clark,) eating biscuits for breakfast (pancakes?)
I guess they were all a brain washed by T.V and mass marketing before there was T.V and mass marketing.
The point wasn’t that people didn’t eat bacon and eggs. So did the Poles. And the Brits. And a dozen other countries worldwide.
The point was in brainwashing them that this was “quintessentially American”. There’s nothing American about it. This is propaganda. This is image-building. Whatever, and the sheeple lapped it up.
You, yourself are so reluctant to let go of what you think of as “Americana” but this is a manufactured image. One that was so successful in its brainwashing that you need the overwhelming urge to defend it. And no amount of reason need apply.
Who’s looking foolish now?
Sorry your point are so slippery, I must of missed your point.
“This is propaganda”:
Note to all Faster is now the Self appointed Propaganda Czar. Is you call on Propaganda enlightened propaganda?
“You, yourself are so reluctant to let go of what you think of as “Americana” but this is a manufactured image. One that was so successful in its brainwashing that you need the overwhelming urge to defend it. And no amount of reason need apply.”
Sorry wrong guy:
Born in America. Mother Hispanic what ever that is. Father FOB Ireland. College roommate from Africa. Lived and worked in Asian and Europe. Considering at a job in Middle East.
Maybe you are correct: Put all this together and you get “Americana”.
One question Czar: What is not “manufactured”? Is your image from God or self ordained?
One angry FPSS, here’s his inspiration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nJspHETi1E
Here is an excerpt from today’s bi-monthly newsletter from Mr Bill Buckler of http://www.the-privateer.com (paysite).
“In a deeply disturbing article in the New York Times, published on July 16, journalist Adam Liptak
reported that on July 15, the Virginia Federal Appeals Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that President Bush
has the legal power to order the indefinite military detention of civilians captured in the United States.
Please read that again: “The indefinite military detention of civilians!” Mr Liptak’s article proceeds to
the legal particulars of this case, but they are clear enough in his outline. Undeveloped, regrettably, are
the enormous principles involved here. The accused in the case is a foreign national - residing legally in
the US - who was arrested by the civilian authorities in 2001. After about two years in civilian courts
hands, he was transferred to the US military by the simple means of re-designating him as a “terrorist”.
He has been in military hands ever since. In terms of the principles involved, the true importance of this
case is that the Appeals Court has opened the door wide for the US Administration to have the civilian
authorities arrest people and then transfer them on their own say-so to US military authorities. Once that
is done, they can be held indefinitely! The Appeals Court ruling was wide enough to apply to Americans.
Mr Liptak headlined his story precisely enough: “Court Backs Bush On Military Detentions”.
De Facto - US Martial Law Is Imposed:
In principle, the Rule of Law has hereby ended inside the United States. When the civilian courts simply
hand people over to US military authorities who have expressed an “interest” in them, the Rule of Law is
no more. Such an act by the US civilian courts vacates the space specifically reserved for them in the
American Constitution. They have vacated their position as the third independent branch of government.
There are now two systems of courts inside the United States. The civilian courts which, under this
ruling, will stand as a forward screen giving a facade of normalcy. One step behind them will be the US
military authorities which can demand the hand-over of anybody in civilian custody - and the civilian
courts will comply. Under this ruling, who is to decide which people should be so treated? The US
Executive Branch of government. By this ruling, the Executive Branch has in its hands the means with
which to incarcerate anybody, simply on its own say-so, and hold them indefinitely! That is a tyranny!
It is with a haunting sense of intellectual anticipation that The Privateer has to refer back to the front page
of our previous issue where we dealt precisely with the nature of Martial Law. The real form of martial
law arrives when the US military itself gains the power to arrest American and all other civilians.
The Very Last Line(s) Of Self-Defence:
This ruling by the Federal Virginia Court of Appeal is certain to travel to the US Supreme Court. But it
might not even be heard - if the Supreme Court decides not to hear this case. If that is the outcome, then
in full legal terms it is all over because the lower Federal Appeal Court’s decision will stand.
If the US Supreme Court does hear the case and decides to overturn the lower Appeal Court, then all is
well and the US military and its jails have, for the moment, been parked on the sidelines. But, in hearing
this case, if the US Supreme Court upholds the lower Federal Court, then it is most certainly all over. The
United States would become a tyranny under permanent Martial Law. The Commander in Chief rules.
The other and very last line of self-defence is if the American public itself wakes up to this and what it
means to their future. But the likelihood of that happening is at present very small - the true defenders of
the American Constitution being very few.
This is a bigger potential crisis than ANY US financial collapse. The future of freedom is at stake”
True, thats the bottom line.
Holy cow. How astonishing to see how few Americans know (or care) about the Constitution being so blatantly circumvented for no good reason (not that there’s ever really a good reason, mind you).
It’s crap. From PAYSITE, eh? No reason to exxagerate for money then! This guy is deliberately mis-interpreting the ruling for profit. Happens in publishing all the time, oldest trick in the book.
I’d be happy to entertain your interpretation of the ruling? I don’t think the fact of it being a paysite has any relevance to the issue at hand.
Paysite? SO, I guess all those years they were giving the papers away for free? And all the books in the library, the library never had to pay a dime to buy them?
Money and integrity are orthogonal. When we realize that, we can stop being distracted by how much it costs to read or write something, and can focus on evaluating the content of the claim which is, in fact, the most important aspect of the claim.
Realizing the orthogonality of money and integrity also has the good result of helping one see that businessmen, bankers, scholars, politicians, the poor–all groups, some people are not to be trusted, others would make major sacrifices to keep their word to you.
IAT
I feel sorry for the ‘losers’ and anger towards the ‘winners’ quite honestly.
“It’s sundown on the union..
sure was a good idea, till greed got in the way”
I actually felt sorry for Gretchen Morgenstern’s hard-luck cases. The piece did not try to drum up support for a bailout, but merely pointed out how the excesses of both lenders, consumers, and how the whole idea that “Debt is Wealth” are going to lead this country to ruin. This is the stuff we talk about on here all the time!
If the stories sober up at least one FB, they will have been worth it.
I didn’t take it that Gretchen was conveying sympathey, the facts of this story pretty much speak for themselves. Middle-aged woman, raised by parents who gave her whatever she wanted, never worried about where the money came from. This seemed like a pretty cautionary tale. People do lose their jobs, people do get sick, these are the rule, not the exception. I read Emile Zola as a kid and saw how bad spending habits were the road to ruin. His characters were always having their stuff reclaimed by creditors, be it the butcher, baker or dressmaker.
I think forums will be much harder to monitor than a thread system as you have now. Have you tried http://akismet.com/ for spam here?
Yes, for about two and a half years. Just in the last couple of days, though, the spam has been pouring in.
Hrm … hopefully they can “learn” from the traffic you’re getting. Good luck.
Hey Ben,
I can’t get past the Captcha for registering on the forum. I’m not a big fan of captchas anyway (since they are broken), but anyway…
What’s a Captcha?
It’s one of those gifs of distorted concatenations of letters that you type in that keeps spambots from registering automatically. Yahoo chat has captchas, among others. Some of the most sophisticated spammers can still get around them though.
Caution: the cower case Z’s look just like numerical 2……
A little creativeness did the trick!
Watching Meet the Press with Al Green I mean Al Gore
Tom Brokaw skimmed over a couple of questions like Do you need to live in a ten thousand square foot home ?answer. Well I`m not perfect,but I have solar pannels. That answer was fine with Brokaw. Do you fly on private jets? answer. Well sometimes I have to. Also fine with Brokaw. Now on to the real softballs. What a joke. Do as I say, not as I do.
Well, how many people worth 100 million live in “only” 10,000 square foot mansions? Perhaps, the better question is how many people in this country live in 4,000 square foot houses and have negative net worth?
I don’t think many people would agree that sending billions of dollar every day to Middle East nations is a good idea.
Love them or hate them (Al Gore & T Boone Pickens), it is difficult to argue with either of them even if you don’t agree with their motivations.
Well, If I was beating a green drum in front of the whole world I would be living in an 800ft. log cabin with a wood burning stove and at least make sure I stayed off of PRIVATE JETS !
For people that have amassed large fortunes, I don’t think it is reasonable to expect them to live in 800 foot log cabins. John Edwards lives in a 40,000 square foot house and still travels around speaking for the poor. “From each according to ability, to each according to need” went out a long time ago (see USSR or PRC).
Al Gore said his house is carbon neutral. He never said he wants America to live in log cabins and throw away their computers - he is advocating reduction of CO2 emissions. You must have him confused with some anti-technology luddite or the unibomber.
As far as private jets go, he also stated he is flying Southwest Airlines later today. I don’t think T Boone Pickens has to wait in line for his letter code to be called when he flies. While it may be easy to dismiss the ultra rich as hypocrites, you wouldn’t be hearing the message from either of them if they were poor and lived in 800 foot log cabins in the woods. Even GWB called America addicts to Middle East Oil (although he has a different solution). If a SUCCESSFUL oilman like Pickens is advocating an Al Gore approach, people on both sides of the aisle should listen.
Well said mariner22 I don`t buy it
To the best of my knowledge T Boone Pickens has one objective. To make money. I don`t expect him to fly coach.
I don`t know what Al green I mean Al Gores objective is , and I don`t have him confused with anyone. I don`t buy that carbon neutral crap about his 10,000 ft. house either. If he wants to live there fine, if he needs to fly private jets fine if he wants to use his computer to go on the internet he invented fine. Just tone it down and enjoy the large fortune he amassed in our oil gulping country.
“it may be easy to dismiss the ultra rich as hypocrites”
A member of the ultra rich who is concerned about the wealth transfer to oil producing nations and who wants to act on every front to stop it - meaning solar, wind, oil shale, nukes, drilling, and geothermal - is not a hypocrite.
A member of the ultra rich who says, “We’re killing the planet and the only way to stop it is for the American middle and working class to pay higher taxes and reduce their standard of living, while me and my buds buy “carbon credits” so we can rationalize our Lamborghinis and Gulfstreams” — that’s what I see when I look up “hypocrite” in my dictionary.
DR
” You wouldn`t be hearing the message from either of them of them if they were poor ”
Funny , I heard Mother Teresa`s message
The masses do not listen to a guy in an 800′ lob cabin.
The masses listen to anyone who had power.
I don’t have a problem with him jetting around, or living in a big house if he is doing as much as possible to circumvent all the other non green issues. Reusing, recycling, using less, much less of something and so on.
An awful lot of critics on this …today.
Well, at least he’s parked his coal-powered rocket chair.
A bad couple of years, or a bad decade?
You have heard that Fannie and Freddie, their gentle names notwithstanding, may cripple the financial system without a large infusion of taxpayer money. You have gleaned that jobs are disappearing, housing prices are plummeting, and paychecks are effectively shrinking as food and energy prices soar. You have noted the disturbing talk of crisis hovering over Wall Street.
Something has clearly gone wrong with the economy. But how bad are things, really? And how bad might they get before better days return? Even to many economists who recently thought the gloom was overblown, the situation looks grim. The economy is in the midst of a very rough patch. The worst is probably still ahead.
Job losses will probably accelerate through this year and into 2009, and the job market will probably stay weak even longer. Home prices will probably keep falling, shrinking household wealth and eroding spending power.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/07/20/business/19econ.php
Zimbabwe introduces $100 billion banknotes…
The bills officially come into circulation Monday, although they were on the foreign currency dealers market Saturday.
As high as they are, though, the bills still aren’t enough to buy a loaf of bread. They can buy only four oranges.
The new note is equal to just one U.S. dollar.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/07/19/zimbabwe.banknotes/index.html
“As high as they are, though, the bills still aren’t enough to buy a loaf of bread. They can buy only four oranges.”
“The new note is equal to just one U.S. dollar.”
I can’t even buy four oranges here with a dollar. Of course I don’t want to have to go to Zimbabwe to buy those oranges.
I can only offer 3 oranges…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpna9-GsQlg
wonder if that monopoly banker with the top hat is on the billion banknote ?
“Zimbabwe introduces $100 billion banknotes…”
“They can buy only four oranges.”
Every Mexican selling bags of oranges at the end of a freeway offramp (circa mid 90’s) is a Zimabwean trillionaire?
10,000 old Mexican Pesos (circa 1991) would have an exchange rate of just One Dollar,so it would have taken just $100 U.S. to be a Mexican Millionaire, back in the day.
Hyperinflation doesn’t care if you are Mexican, Zimbabwean, Hungarian, Chinese, Yugoslavian, Brazilian, Liberian, German, Peruvian, Russian, or any nationality.
It’s the sentence countries face when their citizens lose faith.
It always starts with the leadership being discredited wholesale, and then makes it’s way to the National Currency, and once you head down this primrose path of no longer believing in the truth fairies, anything can happen and usually does…
i was in zim two days ago, went to victoria falls. wonderful place. i would think thousands of people should have been there but only about a dozen total were looking around. only pula, rand and dollars have any value there, not that is really matters as you can only buy things made of wood or stone. the stores don’t have much if anything.
some guy tried to sell us some hand crafted goods. we asked him how things were in zim. he said “bad”. we asked why… he smiled, laughed, looked around and literally ran down the street.
Rhodesia [previous name for Zimbabwe] used to be the crown jewel of Africa. The white minority government there was a lightning rod for the self-righteous, but they sure ran the country better than the kleptocrat-in-chief Mugabe and his thugs. I wonder how many Zimbabweans rue the day they ever agitated for majority rule, looking at where it’s gotten them.
Low tourism might also be because it is past peak season, April being the best month relative to volume of water. Hopefully you were able to stay at the old Vic Falls hotel, though for more than twenty years the central government has been very stingy about letting them retain enough foreign currency to do sufficient maintenance, like keeping all the a/c’s working.
Tell it, Sammy, tell it! Slaves should be happy they are slaves, and not bulldozed into graves to make room for more worthwhile forms of life. Thankless idiots, demanding democracy. HOW DARE THEY!
IAT
IAT:
Well, Zimbabwe may be a democracy, but only on paper. Mugabe’s opponents are beaten and killed. Elections are rigged. People are starving.
If you want an example of democracy you should look somewhere else.
I never said Zimbabwe was a functioning democracy. What I was trying to say is that the people who struggled against the white regime that was not even pretending to be a democracy were correct to struggle against their oppression. That their struggle has not released them from their oppression is hardly reason for others to gloat.
Let’s see how the people here fare in keeping their democracy working. Last time I checked, people were being tortured, detained without bail, children were starving on the street, votes were routinely going uncounted, and few have stirred from their slumber. That’s how it begins. We’ll see where it goes next.
Democracy is tough to create, tough to sustain. To many love America but to them America means looking at a pretty flag on Memorial day and being able to buy what they want on credit the other 364 days of the year. Thus, I think we’re in no position to point fingers at others, no matter how comfortable that bed may feel this evening. At least the Zimbabweans, many still alive, actively struggled against their oppression. What are most of the 300 million people here doing, looking for someone to lend them some money for “necessities”?
IAT
Well, my parents house is officially on the market. Asking price $450,000. Dad has said he won’t take less than $400,000. Let the games begin!
I browsed a few other similar homes in the area and none of them are listed over $400,000. The only thing my folks have that the others don’t is an in-law suite. But, frankly, it’s in serious need of a complete renovation. And it’s one of those things that is great if you’re looking for it; a white elephant if you’re not.
“I browsed a few other similar homes in the area and none of them are listed over $400,000.”
Listing at $450K seems high relative to the “competition”. You’ll know soon enough by the traffic. Keep lowering until you get traffic, lower still more until you get offers. In this market, this can’t be handled like a typical negotiation - start high and meet somewhere in the middle. If you start too high, you will get little or no traffic and no offers. I don’t envy your position trying to handle this for a relative that has unrealistic expectations. At some point they’ll have to decide how much they really want to sell the place.
Um…would you like to get of the high horse for a second and learn to read? Eastcoaster was clearly indicating that he thought his father was being unreasonable. If you aren’t careful, you’ll get to be as annoying as Bye Florida.
Come come, SDgreg will never be as annoying as Bye FL. I wasn’t paying enough attention at the time when Bye FL stopped posting here. Did we all wave goodBye? or just Good Riddance?
You missed the part where the Oil City mayor dropped in and sang endless “Songs of Praise” about ByeFl?!?
He also said that Oil City was gonna be the next Manhattan, and if we didn’t get in there fast enough, we’d be priced out forever.
Shucks, it was awe-inspiring in a teary, melodramatic sorta way.
I thought ByeFl was rather sweet in a dingle sort of way. It was like watching Beaver Cleaver grow up and get bossy. My favorite part was when he virtuously told us about how he preached abstinence to all and sundry, and how people who didn’t heed this advice would end up all germy and weakly coughing out their last, just stretched out in a gutter while prostitutes laugh cruelly and flick cigarette butts onto their palsied disease ridden forms. Well, I’m not quoting him exactly, but that was his righteous thesis, more or less, among other virtuous themes.
And he was 26 or so, I think! Mutant.
Shortly before he quit posting I urged him to go commit some sins. Just little ones, baby steps on the road to bigger and better ones; for instance to call his brother ‘Raca, thou fool’ (Matthew 5:22), to covertly examine a girl’s bottom, to spit his chewed up gum into the neighbors lawn…hey, you know what, he probably quit posting because he’s stretched out in a gutter while prostitutes laugh and flick cigarette butts onto his palsied form.
I didnt mind ByeFl. He wasnt the sharpest tool in the shed but was never rude and tried to learn to the best of his abilities. I have much more contempt for bright ppl that refuse to listen to others ideas, or the arrogantly ignorant. I wish him well. Just a guy dreaming about being able to have a house of his own someday, and actually taking the time to learn and understand the confusing things going on in this world.
ByeFl was nice enough, Oly. I wouldn’t mind if he came online and posted updates on his ‘empire of dreams’ once in awhile, without the snide patronizing comments. He never promoted Oil City as much as all the Gold, Silver and Oil bugs who come around here trying to promote their own Ponzi schemes.
There are enough feeble minds who frequent this blog who never would have been able to take the nastiness they were dumping on him themselves. Pots calling the kettle black, IMO.
Having him around was good if only because it showed us who the graceless creatures around here really are.
Olympiagal,
Nice one! You should ghost-write for the Mogambo Guru, help freshen up his rants…
I also enjoyed ByeFL and ya gotta admit, at 26 he was trying to participate and learn, sweetly!
It would be nice to hear from him, and what he has learned so far.
I agree with SD Greg, but what he didn’t get was that I’m not handling this for them. No way. I’ve given my opinion and now I’m just going to sit back and watch the process. Anything is a huge windfall for my parents so I’m not concerned if (when?!) the sale price ends up in the $300s. I do hope they sell it before they are ready to move into their new retirement home, but that’s not until January so there’s time. In the meantime, I wouldn’t mind seeing my dad humbled a bit regarding his unrealistic expectations. He’s been pretty difficult to talk economics with ever since housing took off. He’s still one of the delusional ones. But, they may get very lucky and find just the right sucker, er I mean buyer.
I told my parents that a major correction in stock prices was coming last August when the credit crisis first hit the market. They ignored me because Bob Brinker’s models didn’t agree with me, so I know where you are coming from.
The overly preachy people around here get to me eventually, especially when they can’t be bothered to read a post and figure out what the person has said. Lecturing *you* about lowering the asking price on your parent’s house when your father is the one who decided what to ask (all crystal clear from your post) was the result of lazy reading and a strong feeling of self-importance.
Good luck maintaining the relationship with your parents. Depending on how emotionally involved your dad is with getting his price, it could get a little strained. Hopefully he can separate the reality from the person who first told him.
“He’s been pretty difficult to talk economics with ever since housing took off.”
There’s no better way to learn about what’s happening with the local housing market than to put your house on the market. I was able to see first hand, by lack of traffic and lack of offers, that prices were dropping much more than the official numbers. I might have spent more time chasing the market down if not for timely advice I read on this site.
I’m glad for your sake that you aren’t involved in the selling process. Hopefully for your parent’s sake, your father will be perceptive enough to adjust sooner rather than later. In this market, there is no time to waste if one wants to be out by January.
eastcoaster, there is no doubt in my mind that your father isn’t interested in selling. Not in the least. He’s no different than the millions of other house debtors who believe they are sitting on a million dollar lottery ticket.
“If you aren’t careful, you’ll get to be as annoying as Bye Florida.”
I was trying to be helpful, not annoying. That was not the intent and if it was taken that way, I apologize. Some of the best advice I got from someone on this site, around April or May 2006, was to be very aggressive on pricing, start out about 5 percent under comps and adjust downward as necessary. It got the place sold. My first agent had played the list above comps and negotiate down approach - total failure - little traffic and no offers. The market today is tougher now than it was then. I would not envy dealing with an unrealistic seller that’s also a relative.
Didnt seem annoying to me. No worries.
What Tim said.
Your post was definitely NOT annoying.
Compared to some stuff I’ve read on here, this didn’t seem high horsey at all.
In this down market, the first offer will be the best. An offer a month from now will be lower, and an offer two months from now will be lower still. Why? Because the slope of the d$/dt curve is currently negative.
wait till 6 months go by and they have only 2 showings..and one of them will be “the neighbor who is selling down the block” realtor…
Feeling The Economic Pinch
For Some Ohioans, Even Meat Is Out Of Reach
http://tinyurl.com/5u99r2
If you thought this would be a standard story about how times are tough and some are having to give up meat because food costs have gone up so much, you’d be wrong. Could reporters and editors please find someone more deserving of sympathy when running these type of “hardship” stories? There’s a lot of pain out there for some, but it’s hard to have much sympathy for those for whom it’s mostly self-inflicted.
“Nunez and most of her siblings and their spouses are unemployed and rely on government assistance and food stamps.”
“Nunez, 40, has never worked and has no high school degree. She says a car accident 17 years ago left her depressed and disabled, incapable of getting a job. Instead, she and her daughter, Angelica Hernandez, survive on a $637 Social Security check and $102 in food stamps.”
I guess for 20 years she could never find time to get her GED. Too much time spent eating?
“The rising cost of food means their money gets them about a third fewer bags of groceries — $100 used to buy about 12 bags of groceries, but now it’s more like seven or eight. So they cut back on expensive items like meat, and they don’t buy extras like ice cream anymore.”
Looks like mother and daughter should be able to get by on three or four bags. Save the other bags for those that might have to look at either of them. Is giving up ice cream for the morbidly obese “cutting back”? It would seem to be more of a medical necessity.
Good god. Is this a joke. Look at the size of those 2, and they title this “meat is out of reach”. They need to stop eating entirely for a few months just to get down to “obese”.
Couldn’t they find someone who was actually skinny before they started crowing on about “how I can afford meat”??
The funniest part is on the bottom left hand corner of the picture there is an icon to click to “enlarge”. It is in the shape of an arrow pointing at the daughter.
Being a vegetarian can be quite healthy if done right. But judging from the picture, these two are probably eating lots of junk food instead.
Whoa, ho, ho!
Imagine what their colons weigh?!?!?!
45? 50 lbs. of compacted fecal matter?
I’m thinnish and recently I rearranged my recession pantry.
I have not skimped on trader joes chips and crackers.
Lots of rice, pasta, soup and dried fruit. It’s all fattening but I refuse to eat tuna wraps w/o krinkle potatoe chips.
Pasta is not my first food but it’s good in soup and I feel good knowing I won’t starve this year.
I have a cupboard stuffed with chips. Bad girl!
Eating a lot of junk food? They are eating everything in sight! Keep you fingers away from their mouths.
Come on, Greg. Two people can’t eat for a month on 3 bags of groceries, no matter how much “fat of the land” they have available.
My question is why Ohio would put a subsidized housing development in a place with no bus service. Is it just assumed that people who are too poor to afford market rate rent will have reliable cars? Talk about dumb planning….
Apparently you haven’t seen subsidized housing in FL. Most of these communities have much nicer cars then my (formerly .5-1.5M) community. There are M3 after M3 parked at the downtown housing projects, a fact that burns my a** every single time I see it. And there’s enough money in rims to buy a small town out west in FL parked in the driveway of all these areas.
I thought that everyone who lived in these communities had plenty of money for cars/bling/rims, etc, just no money for housing and food? Apparently not.
what I always love about the subsized housing is the fact the people who lived there had the latest hair fad/cut/hair coloring and nails that would envy a movie star…
Meantime..I am sitting at supercuts..never seen those kind of people in there…
“My question is why Ohio would put a subsidized housing development in a place with no bus service.”
I recall reading a few posts on this blog about how this could become a bit of a trend, as section 8ers are relocated to the burbs and those with jobs in the cities move closer to their work. In other words, the inner city trades places. This is starting to happen around here to some degree. I sat with a woman one day at the clinic who had been re-located here and was desperately trying to figure out the public transportation system to get to her job in Tampa. During the boom, I started to notice a shift in the local demographics and discovered that some of the folks in St. Pete and Tampa had lost their public housing to re-development and were re-located to this area, to housing that was owned by investors who had gone Section 8. I must say, it is quite odd. We do have jobs in this area, even jobs where transportation is provided, but those are agricultural jobs and I’m not sure the new residents from the city will be up for those, they are generally filled by immigrants from south of the border.
Gas down in my area.
I filled up the other day and it was only 4.37 for reg.
If i had gone further I would have seen 1.23 for reg.
“Come on, Greg. Two people can’t eat for a month on 3 bags of groceries, no matter how much “fat of the land” they have available.”
That was partly meant in jest. But the story did have a link to their monthly budget including food. They are now spending $250 per month, down from $300. Due to inflation, presumably, per $100 they were now able to only get 7 or 8 bags of groceries instead of 12.
Even with the reduction in their food budget and the higher food costs, it appears they should still be getting around 22 bags of groceries per month versus up to 36 previously. They shouldn’t starve, but they may need to shop more carefully. During the non-frigid months, perhaps they could even walk to the grocery store occasionally.
i live on Long Island, new york where prices for everything are really high! I budget about $200-250/month for groceries for my b.f. and I. We eat QUITE well on that… Healthy too! It takes some effort to plan menus and cook creatively but it IS possible. AND neither one of us is overweight in the least.
Walk to the grocery store! You sadist! How would YOU like to walk to the grocery store and back with 350 pounds strapped to your back, arms, and around your waist?
Depressed from a car accident 17 years ago? Get over it.
These two are an example of where social engineering goes wrong. What a couple of fat-a**es. If they had to fend for themselves in the wild, Darwin would have taken them down long ago.
Depressed from a car accident 17 years ago? Get over it.
Yeah, that bugs me, too. Would love to know the details. It does say “disabled” as well, but I’m skeptical. Not that I’m plugging a candidate here, but John McCain went through hell and back (seriously, her car accident could not compare) and he didn’t lay down “depressed and disabled”. Hell, even Corzine’s accident a year or so ago was pretty severe and yet he’s still Governing.
I will give them credit for this line of thinking (hopefully they’re sincere):
People tell Nunez her daughter could get more money in public assistance if she had a child.
“A lot of people have told me, ‘Why don’t your daughter have a kid?’”
They both reject that as a plan.
For what its worth, Mc Cain has a 100% disability retirement from the Navy. Yet he claims to be 100% able to be commander in chief of the entire military. Go figger.
rogue girl
interesting comment. good irony.
“Depressed from a car accident 17 years ago? Get over it.”
There was no work of any kind that she could do for 17 years?!
Unless there is more to the story, this is a case where you need to cut her off and force her to get a job. People that could do more are being done no favors by letting them live endlessly on welfare. Save it for those that truly need it.
They make me think of a line from a Red Skelton standup bit:
“Born when meat was cheap.”
Those two are poster kids for heroin addiction!
“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
Neil Armstrong
Political harmony v. the rule of law: an easy choice for the political establishment… Jane Mayer: Since you’re in New York, let me tell you about a conversation I had with one of your senators, Chuck Schumer. When I asked him why, given his safe seat, and ostensible concern for civil liberties, he didn’t speak out more against the Bush Administration’s detention and interrogation programs, he said in essence that voters don’t care about these issues. So, he said, he wasn’t going to talk about them.
It really makes no difference if you are a bugged eyed moonbat like Pelosi & company or a paranoid fear mongering republican like, well take your pick. They are all members of the same club. Of course nuts like me who haven’t voted for either party since the early 80’s will once again write in their choice, and watch the sheeple willingly being herded toward the cliff’s edge. It will change one day but I’m sure I’ll be long gone.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/19/law/index.html
Why will it “magically” change one day?
It won’t be ‘magic’ simple Gubment evolution. The process is on going.
I’d say we have a “Kakistocracy” at this point in time. Self serving crap on both sides.
The providers @ Emperor’s Club-adjacent (D.C.) are up to their usual prestidigitationary prostitution.
The trick was getting elected, and then ignoring the tricks…
A stifled populace benefits BOTH parties and they all know it.
Yeah, the decider speaks only to hand picked audiences and fields only softball questions. But, is anyone childish enough to actually think this will change with a new president?
The current regimen of a limp White House press corps and rigorously screened audiences is the new normal - there’s no going back.
You’re right. I’ve been scanning the news about Obama’s trip aboard. Everything except a few photos is blocked from us. We’re as bad as the Soviets were.
Communism died in 1989, Consumerism looks to be dead & buried in 2009.
Just one generation separates the demise of the 2 great powers of the 2nd half of the 20th century…
“When I asked him why, given his safe seat, and ostensible concern for civil liberties, he didn’t speak out more against the Bush Administration’s detention and interrogation programs, he said in essence that voters don’t care about these issues.”
I’ll catch flack for this, but here goes:
Senator Schumer and Leiberman (to name but two) have served the needs of their constituents on many matters, but they also consistently put Israeli needs just as high (and yes, I know Israel is our ally we’ve sworn to defend). Most of us agree emphatically that the suicide bombers targeting innocent people is abominable, but is the Israeli air forces reducing Tripoli (etc.) to rubble with US procured weaponry any less barbaric even if the justification is retaliation? Seeing images on the wire services of children and families limp bodies dug out of collapsed structures is dreadful. Our tax dollars often provide the fire power for these retaliatory strikes and there is nary a peep of protest from many of our senators, such is the strength of the lobbying power of our Middle East ally here and abroad. Is anyone else bothered by the expansion of these Israeli settlements into disputed territories in what amount to land grabs? Should there not be a legal process before lands are taken? Does “might makes right” trump the democratic process for those without the might? This said, I have visited the Holy Lands, my late spouse was Jewish, and to this day I love using Yiddish phrases. I cannot remain mute to the hypocrisy in life - it bugs the sh*t out of me.
Israel was a useful ally during the cold war, but what does it really do for us, now?
Interesting, we are very strange bedfellows, politically…
The Israelis despise their leadership as much, if not more, than we do ours.
From my conversations over the years, I’ve come to the realization that most American’s aren’t aware that Israel is a mostly secular society which is controlled in many ways by the sway of the minority religious right there, and by the liberal to moderate religious support of Jews here in America. What other country has the religious right held considerable sway over the politics of the all recently? On second thought, don’t answer that- it’s to divisive.
aladinsane,
instead of looking out politics as a nation-state with set rules, what you have is a gang with the leaders seriously punishing any upstarts. Whatever the political system, the leaders will always be ruthless in holding on to their power. The smart leaders hid brute force, but the police will be brought out if necessary. I think its called civil insurrection!
Its always been this way and it will always continue this way. I don’t mean to be dramatic, but just look at the history of any country. The kicker of it is that the gang leaders of one gang have more in common with the other gang leaders of other gangs than they do to their own gang members. Its easier for a gang leader to deal with another gang leader than with their gang.
Unless you are a gang leader, you get the police billyclub or crumbs off their table, depending on how magnanimous they are.
And this from a pol sci grad who has voted every election for the last 40 years and thought that his vote counted!
I think i’ll go spend the last of my stash of high-Dollar-value banknotes, the ones with a bald revolutionist-that valued reason highly.
I for one would love to see us start shutting down bases world wide. If neighbor countries want to blow each others brains out, have at it. Nothing new under the sun, folks with differing religious beliefs have been whacking each other for thousands of years. Also helps reduce populations. Like the old Coke commercial ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony’… Feels and sounds good but it ain’t gonna happen.
I’m sure the fact that the US puts Israel above the law (whatever they do) is a major factor in the international contempt for US foreign policy. The US should get rid of this tail that wags the dog as soon as possible, and let them sort out their own mess. It won’t turn out pretty but they deserve it. And maybe without a Big Brother to back it, Israel will finally come to its senses and stop behaving like the terrorist organisation they are now.
Nice article on the front page of todays LA Times - all of the Pro Athletes want to live in Manhattan Beach CA.
Since I have lived many years there, I can share the experience of my brother in law (who was on the MB Police). About 12-15 years ago he answered a call and knocked at the home’s door. When the door opend it was a black man - he told me literally jumped back at the site.
If you are black and in Man Bch- you better be driving a nice new expensive car - or they will pull you over. It is the white-est town in CA.
Memo to overpaid pro athletes:
Collecting your $113 Million 7 year package could be problematic when your employer runs out of money.
One thing to watch for:
All those garish signs all over the arena, or playing field?
Those are for the most part, your owner’s cash cow.
As you start seeing empty spots, where Brawndo (it’s what plants crave!) advertising used to be, or is replaced by a bail bonds ad, it’s doubtful the hoi polloi is going to pick up the slack on their end, by drinking more $9 beers, as they can’t afford to pay for the gas to get their chariots to the forum…
S.P.Q.A.
Well, we’ve already been treated to a few stories about FBs who had to forgo getting season tickets to their favorite teams for the first time in a generation.
What’s so funny about those stories is that they are more upset over the loss of their seats than they probably were over any other single event of their entire lifetime.
Season tickets are to this society what that little sack of coins was to Judas.
Yes, but Judas, seeing the error of his ways tried to give the silver back. I’ll bet no FB ever did that!
I’m waiting to see what happens with the new television contracts for the major sports. If ad revenue is down, will those contracts be smaller? Ticket revenue isn’t going to make up the difference as the fans are tapped out. Owners and players could soon be fighting over how to divide a shrinking pie that must also cover higher travel costs. This could get interesting. Could we one day go back to where players don’t make that much more than the average citizen, they just have a more “glamorous” job? This would be quite a shock to most of the current generation of pro athletes.
It wasn’t uncommon for everyday baseball players to have a winter job to make ends meet a bit more, in the 1960’s…
A 2-time world series winning catcher had a liquor store in my hometown.
I heard that lowest payscale for pro sport athlete is 400k.
IF that is true, will someone please throw a ball at me..
Is the scout looking?
God, I hope so; and the sooner the better.
This “sports worship” has destroyed a large segment of my generation; throwing their lives away chasing a dream (big money, play ball) rather then trying to get a real job.
Pro sports have been devastating to the minority community (imho); as well as these 10M dollar a year music stars. The growth of the Internet and alternate media/sports/etc will stop the madness at some point; I think we are nearing the top of this bubble now. I just can’t wait for it to end, it’s been horrible for everyone involved (except for the VERY few players who took that money, invested it wisely, and now have a great life for generations to come.. Again, VERY rare).
So true, Michael.
thanks for the “Brawndo” plug.
You’re gonna drink something that you put in the TOILET?!!!
My brother used to live in MB. Other than the beach and some pseudo-hippy overpriced shopping, it had nothing to commend itself. The restaurants were mainly just generic sports bars and copycat Italian bistros.
Redondo, MB and Hermosa all run into one another in an blur of overpriced crap not worth visiting. RAT beach is one of the nicer beaches. RPV and the hill have most of the really exclusive areas.
If I’m a pro athlete I’d look at home in south Florida with the nicer water and another country home in Idaho or someplace remote.
The beach cities are just too crowded.
The beach cities are just too crowded ??
Not in N. Cali or Oregon…
So you’re saying a black man should consider Manhattan Beach off limits. Having grown up in Texas I love the hypocrisy of people on the coasts making fun of the racist ignorance of the people in middle America. Your brother in law acting like he had never seen a black man in his life is laughable and the word is spelled “sight” not “site”. Maybe MB should have a prohibition on people who can’t spell based on context.
Having grown up in SoCal and having lived in Texas now for over 10 years, I can say without reservation that I encountered MUCH more racism in California than I have ever seen in the supposedly backwards state of Texas.
Even today when I speak to people back in my home town, I find that they have much more intolerant views and opinions than I see here.
Cleaning out my inbox this morning I found a reply from Ms. Whitehouse of the Boston Globe; in response to my letter to her regarding this article.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/07/16/activists_help_condo_owner_fight_eviction/
Her reply (and this is someone writing about Real Estate at the Boston Globe - and she did not know that land records are public information in Massachusetts - WTF?):
“Thanks for writing. I especially appreciate the land records information, which I didn’t know existed or I would have included it in the story. I agree with you, Taylor is not without blame for her predicament. And I also thought it was interesting/insightful that Taylor would not disclose that information. I have to give Taylor credit, however, because she admitted she was in over her head.
“So, really, I don’t think her story as written is heartwarming. Nor do I think the story attacked corporations. The story did raise the question: if we give corporations taxpayer funded bailouts — the same corporations that gave away highly risky loans — shouldn’t there be some relief for the person who took the loan?”
I’d forward that to an assortment on editors at the Globe with an explanation of just how easy it is to get the information. They should know how ignorant their reporters are.
A 29 year old woman was in a beauty salon yesterday in W.P.B. Fl. getting ready for her wedding. She left her 4 year old son in her SUV for hours. He died. What is wrong with people ? It is just staggering to look at decisions that are made every day by poor people, rich people, politicians, gang members….
Story Palm Beach Post. Com
HOLY CRAP! I know how hot it was here yesterday. That’s murder, IMO.
This story is just plain ol’ disturbing.
This isn’t rocket science, is it?
I remember rocket science…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjtJ3GTT5ms
Actually, it seems it would have been a perfect wedding, especially with the new developments; both a new husband AND the old child out of the way!
As there are likely to be no more child support payments, this situation seems like a win-win-win to anyone without a heart, conscience, of sense of shame…
Yeah, I heard about that. They are saying “…she may not have even known the child was in her car…” As parent of a 4-year-old, you know if that child is in your car or not. She probably didn’t want the kid in the salon with her and didn’t have anyone to watch him so left him in the car. Murder, for sure.
“…getting ready for her wedding.”
Talk about Bridezilla!
Gee, wonder if they went ahead with the ceremony? After all, it’s tough getting a hall this time of year.
Fast forward…
“Your honor, the jury finds the defendant not guilty, on account of it was HER day and all.”
“He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.”
Benjamin Franklin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eI6lUyOcIE
Just got my second quarter retirement fund statement. Slight gains. I should be able to retire from my job in a few years, thanks to you guys. I’m very grateful to all of you for sharing your bearish wisdom these past couple of years.
This today on craigslist nyc:
Is there a solution to the housing mess? (Inwood / Wash Hts)
——————————————————————————–
Reply to: hous-762327705@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-07-20, 10:48AM EDT
Hi, Inwood / Wash Hts! Does the foreclosure nightmare situation have you looking for help? Would you like to take charge of your life again? Are you wondering about starting a part time business? Or, maybe a whole new business? My challenges were the same and this is what I did about it.
I have been a real estate loan broker for a lot of years. Given the property and mess we are in, my business is down substantially. I decided to add a second business. I was hoping to find that could help others, allows me feel great about my business, and .
I researched both offline and online opportunities (Incredible the amount of infobabble.out there!) and I found something that met my criteria Even better, there was an investment but it really was not as much as I was prepared for.
Just think, eight ways for your business to make money! Do you think that might help you out? No, you can’t make $600,000 a minute here, but I believe most people in Inwood / Wash Hts can really make a fair profit and be proud of their business.
{If you are ready, really ready to change your life for the better}. Reply and I will return a link to a website that can change your future.Life is about choice and this could be yours .
I find it ironic that if someone posts on Craigslist how ridiculously disconnected housing prices have become from fundamentals, how much harder it is to get a loan, how much bad advice about successfully selling a home there is out there, they will get flagged by realtards in about 20 minutes.
Yet the “Get Rich in Real Estate Quick” spam from these jerks seems to be ever increasing…
The hungrier the fish get, the less bait you have to put on the hook.
I’m originally from Inwood. All I remember was when I lived there (60’s through the 90’s) the best way to make money there was in the drug trade.
Housing price crashes typically take around 7 years to run their course. Since the peak of the bubble was 2005-2006, we likely won’t hit bottom until 2012-2013. Given that this was the biggest mania in the history of the world, there is a lot of pain to come and the government can’t do anything to stop it without impoverishing the lower to middle class citizens.
As you allude to - it will not be the price declines that bring the real pain - it will be the passage of time that puts on the big hurt.
Right now, for every FB that’s already folded, there’s gotta be many more that are hanging on by the skin of their teeth - utterly convinced that this will pass by 3Q 09.
And these are the guys that will keep up with their payments and hence will reload the bank’s depleted balance sheets.
Keep the hope alive! The sacrifice of money from these FBs will minimize the sacrifice forced onto the taxpayers.
Self-serve and slave
http://tinyurl.com/5pql8l
“Until then, I had drifted along with the do-it-yourself economy. I bused my own lunch trays. I booked my own movie tickets. I checked myself in at hotel kiosks. I even succumbed when an upscale seafood restaurant expected me to swipe my credit card through a handheld computer as if I were in a supermarket.”
“But maybe it was the election-year rants about the offshoring of American jobs from steelworkers to computer programmers that finally got me. The outsourcing of work to other countries has produced endless ire. But what about the outsourcing of work to thee and me?”
“For every task shipped abroad by a corporation, isn’t there another one sloughed off onto that domestic loser, the consumer? For every job that’s going to a low-wage economy, isn’t there another going into our very own no-wage economy?”
I’m fine with some self-service to a point, if it gets me more of what I want faster and cheaper. More often though, I “choose” self service mostly because it’s better than the miserable excuse of what’s left of “customer service”.
I remember the good ol’ days when mom & dad would drive into a gas station, and the black cord across the pavement would trigger a “ding” and the attendant would rush out and pump our gas. He’d check the oil, wash the windows, and I’d get some plastic zoo animal toy as a promotion. Can you remind me why we ever thought self-serve was a good thing?
It’s faster. Do not like self check out at supermarkets, but filling the tank yourself is faster (was in New Jersey the other day, where you don’t pump yourself).
I was in Pavillions (upscale Vons/Safeway) in upscale neighborhood in Los Angeles today. I’m a regular customer for years. Always great service. Checker asks if I wanted some item bagged, I said sure. Now I’m down with them not bagging my gallon milk or gallon juice, with carrying handles, or my 14 roll paper towels, whatever. But they didn’t bag 3 items that were not bulky. Supermarkets looking to cut every single plastic bag they can?
Can’t… even… comment…
http://tampabay.com/news/growth/article708036.ece
Where’s Tony Soprano when you need him?
Stunning. I don’t even know where to begin. There’s no way all of this is legit or quite possibly any of it. The neighbors are getting screwed.
Money laundering on a massive scale, IMO.
“After prison, Rabuffo moved to South Florida and, according to court documents, went to work for a construction company operated by a former high-ranking but unnamed official from the U.S. Department of Justice.”
Simply amazing.
And he really is a small player in the scheme of things.
ACK! Look at these things! This guy should be arrested for the architecture alone!
http://www.tampabay.com/multimedia/archive/00031/hoems_31338a.jpg
Great stuff, albeit chump change compared to the real looting.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0708/S00302.htm
A poem by Billy Collins:
The Golden Years
All I do these drawn-out days
is sit in my kitchen at Pheasant Ridge
where there are no pheasant to be seen
and last time I looked, no ridge.
I could drive over to Quail Falls
and spend the day there playing bridge,
but the lack of a falls and the absence of quail
would just remind me of Pheasant Ridge.
I know a widow at Fox Run
and another with a condo at Smokey Ledge.
One of them smokes, and neither can run,
so I’ll stick to the pledge I made to Midge.
Who frightened the fox and bulldozed the ledge?
I ask in my kitchen at Pheasant Ridge.
“Unless there is more to the story, this is a case where you need to cut her off and force her to get a job. People that could do more are being done no favors by letting them live endlessly on welfare. Save it for those that truly need it.”
MY SENTIMENTS EXACTLY
There are a lot of “reasons” the Democrats find to spend money. It’s never their money in the first place.
What this country needs is a good old tax revolution.
“Entitlement” is not in our Constitution.
There are a lot of “reasons” the Democrats find to spend money. It’s never their money in the first place. ?????????????????????
Have you taken a look at the budged deficit that developed during GW’s first term with complete republican control, how about the deficits under Reagan. Borrow spend and inflate is worse than tax and spend. The latter is at least honest and the wealth is distributed. Now I’m all for don’t spend and cut taxes or tax and spend as long as the spending improves the health of the American economy and it’s efficiency, but running up deficits is a mistake.
There are a lot of “reasons” the Democrats find to spend money. It’s never their money in the first place.
“Entitlement” is not in our Constitution.
Republicans had Congress, Senate and White House for 6 of the last 8 years. Until you realize its both parties, your drinking the kool aide. Can’t you see Republicans process the profits and socialize the losses ? I’d love to hear your explanation of the unilateral bailout of Bear Stearns, a private company by the White House, Treasury and Fed.
bailout? I thought JP Morgan bought BSterns..
“unilateral” is an interesting word.. why did you use it?
JoeyinCA, that was just a few months ago! How quickly they forget. JPMorgan bought BStearns, but only with the Fed backstopping the losses. I’ll sell plutonium pellets as batteries, if the Fed will backstop all my losses.
Again, the privatize the profits, and socialize the losses. Both parties do it. It is disgusting.
IAT
If the failure of your pluton-pellet company threatened sufficient economic damage, the Fed just might broker a deal to prevent such from happening.. i mean, that is in their job description.. no?
I will note you’ve changed the issue. You originally wrote:
“bailout? I thought JP Morgan bought BSterns..
“unilateral” is an interesting word.. why did you use it?”
but now you are defending the Fed backstopping private losses that pretty much everyone on this blog knew were coming and knows are nowhere near ending. So which is it? It wasn’t a bailout, or it was? And, if it was, where do I sign up to be bailed out so I, too, can take outrageous risks with certainty of either profit or . . . profit?
And, don’t gimme this “too big to fail” cr_p. Maybe these guys would act more responsibly if some of them were allowed to fail and join their brethren in the middle and lower classes. If a few cautionary tales were allowed to go forward, I bet we wouldn’t have such “successful” enterprises so close to failure that they turn with their hands out, begging taxpayers to restore their “capitalist” profits.
IAT
The Democrats have failed at Congress for 2 years.
Before that the Republicans FAILED at Congress for 6 years.
Before them for 60 years the DEMOCRATS failed at Congress.
Of course both parties were fiscally irresponsible.
So what?
Tax revolt. I would love to see most “Gubmint” projects and programs disappear, never come back, and the people who propose, staff, and defend them forced to PAY for it THEMSELVES. Maybe they could take out Home Equity Loans.
BWAA- haaa haa hahahah!
Maybe you should try out Mexico, they have just the kind of set-up you would prefer. No government programs, no middle class, just 1%ers holding 98% of the wealth. Oh, and lots and lots of violence so you better have enough dough to live in your gated fortress, with a private army.
I have a dumb question for those of you who live in Los Angeles near ocena. Is the air clean? I lived in Torrance for 12 years in 1990’s (4 mi inland) and I had black soot on my deck every week and these black soot lines at the edge of the carpeting against the walls. Would like to move to LA as I don’t have much family and have friends there, but I need clean air. My guess is I would have to live right on ocean? Like right ON the ocean?
I don’t trust any air that I cannot see.
lol
I live about 3 miles inland, just south of I-10, and very near Santa Monica Airport. I get the black soot on my porch and sills, and the house always gets dusty (although not the black soot) quickly. I am not sure whether it’s the freeway or the jet fuel, but I do wonder about the air quality.
I used to work with a crusty old pathologist who noticed that over the course of 30-40 years the normal pink lung tissue of Los Angelenos was progressively becoming more black in his autopsy material.
Lived in Westchester, always had black soot on my car.
Worked in Ventura CA. Wash car on Sunday, had brown soot on my white finish by end of work day Monday!
Pick your poison and hope you do not get Valley Fever.
I lived in LA and the South Bay for years. The air is filthy even by the beach. There are 2 huge ports with idling trucks and boats, 3 large airports, and the worst road congestion in the US. Stay away if you can.
Depends on what you mean by clean air.
Near the ocean here in Santa Monica, we get a little black dust in the air filters. Ground-up rubber from the streets, dried up sap and bark from the trees, some bird droppings, plus some fog means that your car will be dirty if you leave it out for a day or two. When the fires burn and the prevailing winds are from the fire areas, of course we get ash. But the breeze off the ocean (prevailing) is pretty clean compared to the inland areas.
Even if you live right on the beach, you get sand and dust in the carpets, plus whatever is in the breeze that blows off the ocean. But it’s a lot cleaner than living in an agricultural area or a desert, where dirt, sand, and soil fungus blow around all the time.
I’ve never seen any place where you could leave the windows open an expect the place to stay clean.
THe town of Alpine, which is about 30 miles east of San Diego, and somewhat rural, has the worst air quality in the county. The marine layer abuts this higher altitude mountainous region and it just collects the smog. At least near the ocean the smog tends to blow off, but given the number of major freeways along the coast, you are dealing with a chronic level of particulates from diesel and gas emissions. This is why I flipped when commuters were buying so many trucks and SUVs in the past decade, since they have lower pollution standards than passenger vehicles. And of course, motorcycles are even worse, pound for pound.
If you lived for 12 years in one decade, anywhere, I don’t think it was the “air” that you were inhaling that was the problem.
“Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man’s desire to understand.”
Neil Armstrong
I’m OUTRAGED! Why? There’s an article in the weekend WSJ called “Why no outrage?”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121642367125066615.html?mod=hps_us_inside_today
…claiming people aren’t outraged about the bubble scandal. They certainly didn’t try very hard to find outraged people.
Rather than saying “they didn’t try hard to find outraged people”, I’d say that the press didn’t report on the problem well enough to piss of J6P. I haven’t seen too many local or MSM national news programs that have come right out and blamed this mess on the pigmen. Most Americans are too ignorant or lazy to look beyond the 6 o’clock news.
“Most Americans are too ignorant or lazy to look beyond the 6 o’clock news.”
Yep. And that allows those Americans who are not ignorant and are not lazy to buy on the cheap from those Americans who are.
Reuven ..Good article .
You know I have expressed my outrage ,many a time .
You don’t really get to many articles in the main stream news really exposing what the real problem is in the world of financial leverage and
why that came about .
Now Paulson is going around spinning that Congress will give him what he wants because Congress knows how important the financial institutions of Freddie and Fannie Mae are . This again is a PR campaign to get people to think the whole world ,including Apple pie, comes to a end if Paulson doesn’t get what he wants .Also, some other well known
Wall Street investment houses are spinning that bail-out or support is needed ,or the whole world’s financial systems will come to a end . What proof does the public have of this claim . Paulson saying ,”Trust me ,I worked the weekend ,” That line is not compelling for me .
Why can’t the government create a new Lending Company that picks up the slack of the secondary market ,rather than mess with Freddie and Frannie Mae and take on the already on the books problems and obligations of those privately owned companies? The government could use Indymacs buildings and structure for the so-called emergency government involvement . The charter for the Company would be for limited use to address the emergency Nature of the credit crunch . The underwriting would have to be prudent and conforming and not anything that would put the taxpayers at risk .
Mind you ,I don’t even know if I would want such a idea ,but I’m getting sick of the government sweetening deals for private companies like the Bear Stearns 30 million dollar help package .
If the Job of the Feds is to insure liquidity in the market ,or help with the credit crunch ,(or lack of availability of funds from the private sector for loans ) ,than do so in a pure form . Otherwise ,all these back -room deals just look like bail-outs for the bad guys .
Paulson braces country for more trouble in comming months. Man I didn`t see him , I got sucked into that Al Green interview on Meet the Press
You have a stronger stomach than I do. I couldn’t watch OwlGore for two minutes. He reminds of a Kindergarten teacher talking to the class.Sort of a very creepy Mr.Rogers. One thing I have to credit him for though, (no, not for ‘inventing’ the intra-net) he took a nothing cause/idea, made many millions of dollars and a Noble Prize. He has tons of kooks that hang on his every word.
Here’s another one I can’t watch.
Paulson `Very Optimistic’ on Freddie, Fannie Rescue (Update1)
By John Brinsley
July 20 (Bloomberg) — Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson predicted the Bush administration will prevail in its effort to convince Congress to pass legislation that would allow the government to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
“I’m very optimistic that we’re going to get what we need from Congress,” Paulson said on the CBS News “Face the Nation” program. “Congress understands how important these institutions are.”
Paulson is pushing Congress to authorize the Treasury to purchase equity stakes in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which account for about half of the $12 trillion mortgage market, and expand government-backed credit lines to them. He also said he wants the legislation to include a measure that gives “real teeth” to the companies’ regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight.
“We’re very close to getting reform,” he said in a separate interview on CNN’s “Late Edition” program. “These are very important organizations — they have a very important role to play — and we need to make sure that they have access to adequate capital to get through this period.”
The economy is in a “challenging time” and probably will have “slow growth” for “months” as higher oil prices prolong the slowdown, Paulson said on CBS. The banking system is “sound” and regulators are being “vigilant,” though some banks are starting to struggle, he said.
i own a little FNM. Would it be wise to buy more?
i know.. shame on me for even asking. I do feel kinda guilty for possibly taking advantage of the situation.. not
Watching Dubya trying to sell us on the “Nucular” threat from Iran while he gives overly-familiar shoulder rubs to various G-8 leaders makes me want to ralph. I’ll take Al Gore any day of the week over the PTB.
If you’re going to insult Gore, at least get your ducks in a row: it’s “internet”, not “intranet”. An intranet is not the world wide web.
http://www.snopes.com/quotes/internet.asp
Internet of Lies
Claim: Vice-President Al Gore claimed that he “invented” the Internet.
Status: False.
Origins: Despite the derisive references that continue even today, Al Gore did not claim he “invented” the Internet, nor did he say anything that could reasonably be interpreted that way. The “Al Gore said he ‘invented’ the Internet” put-downs were misleading, out-of-context distortions of something he said during an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN’s “Late Edition” program on 9 March 1999. When asked to describe what distinguished him from his challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Gore replied (in part):
During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.
Clearly, although Gore’s phrasing might have been a bit clumsy (and perhaps self-serving), he was not claiming that he “invented” the Internet (in the sense of having designed or implemented it), but that he was responsible, in an economic and legislative sense, for fostering the development the technology that we now know as the Internet. To claim that Gore was seriously trying to take credit for the “invention” of the Internet is, frankly, just silly political posturing that arose out of a close presidential campaign. Gore never used the word “invent,” and the words “create” and “invent” have distinctly different meanings — the former is used in the sense of “to bring about” or “to bring into existence” while the latter is generally used to signify the first instance of someone’s thinking up or implementing an idea. (To those who say the words “create” and “invent” mean exactly the same thing, we have to ask why, then, the media overwhelmingly and consistently cited Gore as having claimed he “invented” the Internet, even though he never used that word, and transcripts of what he actually said were readily available.)
If President Eisenhower had said in the mid-1960s that he, while president, “created” the Interstate Highway System, we would not have seen dozens and dozens of
editorials lampooning him for claiming he “invented” the concept of highways or implying that he personally went out and dug ditches across the country to help build the roadway. Everyone would have understood that Ike meant he was a driving force behind the legislation that created the highway system, and this was the very same concept Al Gore was expressing about himself with his Internet statement.
Whether Gore’s statement that he “took the initiative in creating the Internet” is justified is a subject of debate. Any statement about the “creation” or “beginning” of the Internet is difficult to evaluate, because the Internet is not a homogenous entity (it’s a collection of computers, networks, protocols, standards, and application programs), nor did it all spring into being at once (the components that comprise the Internet were developed in various places at different times and are continuously being modified, improved, and expanded). A spirited defense of Gore’s claim by Vint Cerf (often referred to as the “father of the Internet”) notes “that as a Senator and now as Vice President, Gore has made it a point to be as well-informed as possible on technology and issues that surround it,” although many of the components of today’s Internet came into being well before Gore’s first term in Congress began in 1977.
It is true, though, that Gore was popularizing the term “information superhighway” in the early 1990s (although he did not, as is often claimed by others, coin the phrase himself) when few people outside academia or the computer/defense industries had heard of the Internet, and he sponsored the 1988 National High-Performance Computer Act (which established a national computing plan and helped link universities and libraries via a shared network) and cosponsored the Information Infrastructure and Technology Act of 1992 (which opened the Internet to commercial traffic).
In May 2005, the organizers of the Webby Awards for online achievements honored Al Gore with a lifetime achievement award for three decades of contributions to the Internet. “He is indeed due some thanks and consideration for his early contributions,” said Vint Cerf.
I’m not insulting old Al, he has long been a great source of entertainment for me. I think he seriously believes what he says.
BTW….Briefly, an intranet can be understood as “a private version of the Internet,” or as a version of the Internet confined to an organization. The term first appeared in print on April 19, 1995, in Digital News & Review in an article authored by technical editor Stephen Lawton.
Al has spoken of the intranet on more than one occasion.
Well, I would hope he believes what he says! ; )
why did you bother to define intranet? what does it have to do with anything? and if Al Gore has mentioned an intranet, what does that have to do with anything? maybe a link would help illustrate your point if there is one.
Ok, let’s not continue this since you didn’t even address the point I was making . . .
Like I said, I give Algore kudos for hitting the jackpot, selling Global Warming to crackpots…
Proved: There is No Climate Crisis…
WASHINGTON (7-15-08) - Mathematical proof that there is no “climate crisis” appears today in a major, peer-reviewed paper in Physics and Society, a learned journal of the 10,000-strong American Physical Society, SPPI reports.
Christopher Monckton, who once advised Margaret Thatcher, demonstrates via 30 equations that computer models used by the UN’s climate panel (IPCC) were pre-programmed with overstated values for the three variables whose product is “climate sensitivity” (temperature increase in response to greenhouse-gas increase), resulting in a 500-2000% overstatement of CO2’s effect on temperature in the IPCC’s latest climate assessment report, published in 2007.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/press/proved_no_climate_crisis.html
Yup. Those melting polar ice caps is our imagination. Just like Geritol Johnnys “economic advisor” Philbert Gramm stated “the high price of fuel is all in our head”.
You go girl!
This planet has been freezing and thawing and shaking and exploding and separating for how many millions of years now? Yet man is arrogant enough to think that their insignificant little azz can change the climate. Mother nature will flick us off like a tiny flea if she so desires.
Note: That Antarctica added some 50,000 acres of Ice this past year (unexpectedly). Causing the Wilkins Ice shelf to separate, of course things like that don’t count I guess.
Yup. Those melting polar ice caps is our imagination.
I couldn’t have put it better myself.. and I have one healthy imagination.
So what created the ice age and then the subsequent thaw?
“So what created the ice age and then the subsequent thaw?”
I thought that was generally accepted to have been caused by a comet impact with the earth?
“So what created the ice age and then the subsequent thaw”?
I would say the same thing that created the mini-ice age that came after those two events. Our planets on going evolution. Of course I not a scientist or a person that spends a whole of time studying these events, but a little common sense should help a reasonably open minded person to think that after all of these millions of years, mans brief little stint on our blue marble is but a fart in a whirlwind. Cataclysmic events will occur again and again until the Sun burns out 10 billion years from now(the 10 billion is from the experts, not me.)
I remember very well in the 1970’s a group of knee jerks and soul savors claimed we where headed back into another ice age and we would all freeze to death if we didn’t ‘do’ something immediately . Their recommendation was to paint the ice caps BLACK to facilitate their melting.Of course they were going to use some type of vegetable dye, so not to harm the planet. This crap was on the cover of TIME magazine.
Same thing is going on now except we didn’t have the internet or intranet back then, so the fear mongers were not able to freak out the weak minded or should I say narrow/closed minded among us.The ones that are permanently pissed off and think everything is the good old U.S.A.’s fault. Also Billions of dollars are looted from public coffers world wide to ’study’ this stuff. Which helps those that actually contribute very little to society, exist.
It’s all been done before… I know this time it’s different!
Amen.
Even the most ardent skeptics of global climate change readily acknowledge that the climate is in fact shifting. The debate is in regards to what is causing it. But I supposed there are just a few fringe elements of the flat earth society clueless enough to babble to themselves.
Meh… hopefully we will accidentally get some benefit from all the studies.
To paraphrase wmbz:
“No human has ever reported seeing the cataclysmic event. THUS, it cannot be happening to us now.”
IAT
WTF is wrong with you people who claim global warming is bogus?
It’s been discussed for almost 100 years, and it starts with physics 101. CO2 absorbs infrared radiation at the peak wavelengths the earth radiates. This prevents heat from escaping the earth. Since it’s transparent, it does not prevent the warming of the earth, which is due almost entirely to energy in the shorter wavelengths like visible.
CO2 content under the stewardship of humans has doubled or tripled. With the same energy input and lower energy output, the average temperature will rise until increased thermal radiation matches the thermal input.
Obviously, the dynamics in the atmosphere and oceans will add nuances to the way the heat budget adjusts to new conditions. But the basics are all there. Many nonlinear relationships could make it much worse, even a runaway effect. (Like the earth’s albedo dropping due to reduced ice cover at the poles.)
Now I would like to hear why such basic physical relationships like Wien’s Law, thermodynamics, and conservation of energy aren’t good enough to show that the earth should be warming due to human-introduced atmospheric components. And I’d like to hear a better theory that connects increased greenhouse gases, human activity, and a significant warming trend observed in the earth’s average temperatures.
The reality is that the pundits that argue this is a mass scientific conspiracy of some sort have no better theory. And if you have no better theory that can be explained in well established scientific terms, then it’s simple: STFU.
WTF is wrong with you people who claim global warming is bogus?
Well my right knee bothers me on rainy days, I probably need to get it scoped.
Actually, global warming deniers have a long history of being connected to “crackpot” political groups in the US, with economic interests in maintaining the status quo. Not much different than when the Catholic church insisted that the world was flat.
Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI), was formerly called the Center for Science and Public Policy.
Both groups are front groups for a right wing think tank called the Frontiers of Freedom, which was created by former Republican Wyoming Senator Malcolm Wallop.
SPPI receives funding from Exxon Mobil, as well as large tobacco companies such as Philip Morris.
I did a little <a href=”http://missoulapolis.blogspot.com/2008/07/condo-hype-questions.html” condo roundup at my place today - there’s a condo supp in the paper today and of course it’s not online. I think the paper has arrived at some sort of workaround with the realtors - they’ll hype the new bldgs but also mention the slow sales and condo fees. So the treatment is a little more critical now.
D’oh! Nevermind…
Flaming cheek! £1m-a-year gas chief tells families: ‘Just wear two jumpers’…A gas firm boss faced a heated backlash yesterday after telling families struggling with soaring fuel bills to ‘wear two jumpers’.
Jake Ulrich of Centrica - the parent company of British Gas - was attacked for his ‘flippant’ and ‘out of touch’ remarks.
The 55-year-old, who earns more than £1million a year, was accused of having no sympathy with his cash-strapped customers. His firm warned yesterday that gas bills could rise to more than £1,000 a year by 2010.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1036378/Flaming-cheek–1m-year-gas-chief-tells-families-Just-wear-jumpers.html
Yea… but the sheeple only conserve if the price goes up. Look at gasoline, there was absolutely no slowdown up to $70/bbl. Big trucks and SUVs only became more popular. I argued with folks it would go higher or that its better strategically for the US to conserve… no where. At $4+/gallon, suddenly small cars are cool.
Maybe this will get people to insulate. Fix the weather stripping, or go to double/triple pane windows! The LA Times just had an article on people taking in boarders to help cut the housing costs. I’m sure that will help the housing situation.
Something will be done about high energy and housing costs. Its amazing how adaptive the market can be. Now if someone would invent a cheaper and more efficient solar.
Lightsaber
“You’re cold? Well, put another sweater on!”
“That is both flippant and out of touch. You just don’t understand.”
“Go to your room, now!”
“aw, mom.. ok.”
Don’t count on Fed bailout for plunging U.S. currency…
Rachel Beck, Associated Press
Sunday, July 20, 2008
(07-20) 04:00 PDT New York –
Federal rescue plans are all the rage in Washington right now, for what seems to be everything but the dollar. The U.S. currency is not going to get a bailout, even though its steep decline is feeding inflation and straining the economy.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and other officials have assured us that the government is on the case of the plunging dollar.
Talk is cheap - they won’t likely do anything about it.
That’s because the Bush administration, since taking office nearly eight years ago, has not supported any U.S.-led intervention in foreign-exchange markets despite the greenback’s steep decline. That action would involve buying the ailing currency to boost its value.
“It would take a rare set of circumstances to get the U.S. right now to intervene,” said David Gilmore, a managing partner in Foreign Exchange Analytics in Essex, Conn.
With that in mind, we have to look at what Bernanke told Congress last week with some skepticism. While noting that intervention is rarely done, he said that temporary action on currencies isn’t out of the question.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/20/BUJS11QRLH.DTL
Frankly, the only thing saving this economy is the export boom, and the only way to avoid serious economic s–t is for the rest of the world to pull us out of this. So I think they want a cheap dollar, but don’t want to say so.
The problem is the rest of the world is facing rampant inflation as well. Purchases of new cars in China recently fell 10% and Bloomberg had an article about them piling up on the lots. They can inflate until the masses can’t feed and house themselves, then the riots start.
Again I will say it for all the conservatives out there, Food Stamps and government housing are not meant to help the poor, they are meant to keep the poor from rioting. It gives the elites more time to steal from the middle class before the sht hits the fan.
“Purchases on new cars in China recently fell 10% and bloomberg had an article about them piling up on the lots.”
So much for the projection of $200 oil.
Combo - exactly. Just watch what happens after the Olympic Games are over. Originally I thought the Chinese PTB would wait maybe six months, while the bathed in the warm afterglow of the games’ success, before cutting hard into the gasoline subsidies, if not eliminating them. Now think they might act much sooner than that.
Secondary but important: logically, authoritarian governments would see it as against their interest to have too many citizens who are too mobile and too able to move from place to place to protest or worse.
The irony of projecting permanent high prices of oil , or of anything else is:
1. Because prices are projected to remain high, long-term investment money is committed to increase production and find alternatives. If prices were expected to decline then long-term monetary commitments wouldn’t be made.
2. Because prices are expected to remain high consumers will search for long-term alternatives, thus driving down long-term demand. If high prices weren’t expected to remain high then consumers wouldn’t take a long-term view of permanently reducing consumption.
So, this is where contrary thinking can become benificial. Expect the opposite of what the consensus expects. If everyone expects prices will remain high then, collectively, everyone will take such actions that will cause them to decline.
Long-term alternatives for oil? I’m all ears. Perhaps I’ve consumed a little too much of the peak oil kool-aid, but there are no viable alternative sources for liquid fuels that make the world go round.
Short-term target for oil: $115, after it becomes clear that Iran will not be attacked. Long-term target $200, as it becomes clear that supply has plateaued, with new fields unable to make up for declining/mature fields such as Ghawar and Cantarell.
The peaking of world oil production concurrently with the housing bubble is very unfortunate.
“… there are no viable alternative sources for liquid fuels that make the world go round.”
No? Watch as alternative sources appear on the scene if oil keeps its high price.
That’s the radical Marxist position.
IAT
Measton:
“Again I will say it for all the conservatives out there, Food Stamps and government housing are not meant to help the poor, they are meant to keep the poor from rioting. It gives the elites more time to steal from the middle class before the sht hits the fan.”
That’s the radical Marxist position.
IAT
Marx was right.
Herd moving in a different direction.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25739569/
“Every economic downturn changes shoppers in some way. But this time, experts say the new behavior — fueled by higher gas and food prices, tightening credit and a slumping housing market — is the most dramatic and widespread that they have seen since the mid-1970s.”
Good to see my kids formative years will be similar to mine. Not in the short run of course. In the long run.
“A rebounding economy may let some consumers revert to their old ways — like people who switched to smaller cars when times were hard in the 1970s but flocked to sport utility vehicles when gas got cheap again. But with more economists believing that the current woes will last well into next year, many think the underlying frugality will linger. Some Americans say their parents or grandparents affected by the Great Depression are still hoarding buttons and squeezing out several soup meals from ham bones.”
The button thing is a waste, but the best thing about roasting a ham, beef, chicken or turkey is the great soups you get from the bones in wintertime. They act like it’s nuts. Some of us just like good food.
Here’ hoping this time it will last.
The energy crisis of the Seventies spawned the Department of Energy with a commitment to make the U.S. energy self sufficient.
Lol.
Let’s talk about Al Gore and his energy credit business, a multi-billion dollar BUSINESS. Al Gore makes $$$ every time what happens? And the greeenies see no HYPOCRISY in that.
I’m sure there are knowledgeable Democrats
somewhere.
Why don’t they talk about Mr. Carbon Footprint Gore, the guy with the “Inconvenient Conflict of Interest” with recent Cap and Tax legislation and Generation Investment Management?
I’m sure there are knowledgeable Democrats somewhere.
“Lord Almighty.. look at that footprint! What do you think, Inspector?”
“Hmmm.. I’d say we’re dealing with an unusually large animal.. definately not human.. probably an ape of some kind. Perhaps an Algorilla “
Fine - forget Al Gore. Listen to Thomas Friedman (NY Times). Listen to T Boone Pickens. Even listen to GW Bush - stop sending money to rogue states in the Middle East (and South America). What would the world be like if we launched a “Manhattan” Type project on 9/12/01 (as John McCain wants now)?
You don’t have to be Democrat to think buying Middle East/Venezuela Oil is a bad thing….
To the investors in this blog i need help i have 10,000 in ING money market from my mothers inheratince After the INDYMAC debacle should i pull it out or is it safe to keep in there? All responses are very much appreciated.
I am disabled due to a failed back surgery and live off 800 per month in SSI i have been reading this blog for a few years now and i believe most of you are smart and savvy any help would be appreciated. Thanks so much for your time and advice.
Bob
as long as your account in ING is FDIC insured i would not worry too much. now if and when the FDIC balance sheet starts to get thin due to massive bank failures thats when i would start filling coffee cans and mattresses. hope this helps!!!!!!!