Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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I know the F&F news is getting tiresome, however I have to agree with Rep.Hagel. This is morphing into a complete mess at our expense. Any normally run operation would have to file BK, and the heads would not continue to rake in millions…
House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, last week said he intends to tie the Treasury plan to the federal debt limit, capping the amount of taxpayer funding officials could use to help finance the mortgage firms.
Senate Banking Committee member Charles Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, sent a letter to Paulson last week asking why taxpayers should extend “an unlimited line of credit” to the companies while their chief executives “continue to make multimillion dollar salaries and bonuses?”
Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd, 49, was paid $11.6 million in salary, stock awards and other compensation last year. Freddie Mac Chief Richard Syron, 64, received $18.3 million in total pay last year.
House Democrats plan to include in their bill a measure that would grant almost $4 billion to communities to purchase foreclosed homes, a measure Bush has threatened to veto.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aGn4Ioxg8g9s&refer=news
We all knew that they had to do something because in the words of Jim Wright, ex TX congressman, “We just want to help you”.
Can’t stop this fellow, he’s doing and end around play now. These loose cannons are really getting out of control, but what the hell, it’s not their money. I hate to wish bad on people but this crowd really deserves it. Of course it won’t happen, they’ll just keep right on loading their pockets.
July 21 (Bloomberg) — Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, aiming to create a new source of U.S. mortgage financing, wants banks to start issuing covered bonds without waiting for legislation from Congress.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a6fBFIHXXbSs&refer=news
Billy Hank drafts off of Congress, and slingshots ahead into the pockets of the public…
Nascar, D.C. style.
“House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, last week said he intends to tie the Treasury plan to the federal debt limit, capping the amount of taxpayer funding officials could use to help finance the mortgage firms.”
That is about the most ludicrous, and scary, thing I’ve ever heard. The federal debt limit is about as inflexible as - oh I’d say an earthworm. It is a joke pure and simple. It is meaningless. This limit is raised virtually every year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5282521
(from 2006)
“The federal debt limit is about as inflexible as - oh I’d say an earthworm. It is a joke pure and simple. It is meaningless. This limit is raised virtually every year”.
You are right IMO, it is a joke ( a bad one) and the debt just worsened. The gov’t says it has only $297 billion left on its credit line as of July 17th.
“The federal debt limit is about as inflexible as - oh I’d say an earthworm.”
Great point and analogy.
‘why taxpayers should extend “an unlimited line of credit” to the companies’
Because today’s U.S. taxpayers (1) are woefully ignorant and (2) have no voice.
It was not always so…
Why No Outrage?
Through history, outrageous financial behavior has been met with outrage. But today Wall Street’s damaging recklessness has been met with near-silence, from a too-tolerant populace, argues James Grant
By JAMES GRANT
July 19, 2008; Page W1
It’s funny, people I know who have been around awhile and usually view gov’t with suspicion I find totally bought in to this bubble, and now see the bubble as the status quo, and feel to preserve it, rather than correct it. Watching your housing value rise by a multiple of 3 does something to a persons psyche, I guess.
That kind of appreciation only happened in choice markets. Most of flyover country didn’t see anything close to 3X appreciation.
If the masses won’t get energized about deficits, I sure hope they’ll get outraged when Corpgov takes away our free internet!
The camel is trying to get it’s head in the tent vis-a-vie Canada. I sure hope they can stop this in it’s tracks!
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9627
This will give the mom-n-pop ISPs the shot in the arm they need. Let the cable and the phone companies try to restrict access!! In my neck of the woods we have several local ISPs. Some even have their own infrastructure (wireless) and they can tell the cable and phone companies to take a hike.
It’s a gallant vision, Mom-and-Pop holding off and defeating the evildoers! However, Mom-and-Pop ISPs aren’t sufficient. If the vast majority of people can’t get access via such ISPs, then the vast majority of people won’t be able to surf the web freely. Which would mean that the content available on the web would slowly be strangled.
The two models can’t survive together in harmony. One will dominate. It won’t be Mom-and-Pop. All the Telus’s need do is demand money from the Mom-and-Pop ISPs to allow their users access to the sites for whom the big ISPs serve as gatekeepers, and the masses will abandon the dying Moms-and-Pops in an instant.
I mean, think about it–how many people have “free tv” anymore? Pretty much everything has moved over to cable.
No, this has to be stopped before it starts.
IAT
PS–I’m not so keen on the new forum. Registered, took a look. Looks lots busier, distractedly so. But, I like the big topic design here, rather than the threaded design there. The design here brings me surprises and new insights I did not know enough to seek. The design there–well, I already have many ways to find the answer to the question I know I have. I understand the need for change. But this is, so far to me, a step backwards. Oh well.
IAT
All the Telus’s need do is demand money from the Mom-and-Pop ISPs to allow their users access to the sites for whom the big ISPs serve as gatekeepers
And what sites would those be?
But today Wall Street’s damaging recklessness has been met with near-silence
It was also met with near-silence from the WSJ, until it all started blowing up.
No whistleblowers, no watchdogs, no MSM coverage. Just those stupid bloggers trying to panic everyone…as Dr. Phil McSame sez, it’s all in our heads.
It’s called consolidation of the press, and corporate stripping down of the news.
Excellent article.
I think that this point hits it:
“Wall Street is off the political agenda in 2008 for reasons we may only guess about. Possibly, in this time of widespread public participation in the stock market, “Wall Street” is really “Main Street.” Or maybe Wall Street, its old self, owns both major political parties and their candidates. Or, possibly, the $4.50 gasoline price has absorbed every available erg of populist anger, or — yet another possibility — today’s financial failures are too complex to stick in everyman’s craw.”
I think the latter is true - most people simply don’t understand what’s going on at a root cause level. They only see what’s at the surface - home prices increased a lot for a while and are now decreasing, and as a result foreclosures are increasing. But that’s as far as J6P knows. J6P generally doesn’t even make the connection of the recent low interest rates with the price bubble, and doesn’t even see the complex web of underlying securities, let alone understand them (I know I don’t for the most part, even after reading a lot about them from this blog).
To some extent the fault can linked to our laziness in civic duty - we’re just too tied up in bettering our own lives to spend much time caring about our community or nation anymore. I will, ashamedly, admit that that’s largely the case with me. Also though a large part of the fault is just the complexity of our financial system. It takes so much time and effort to understand how it works now, to the level where one can take a meaningful stance and actually make valid arguments to back up one’s stance, that such effort is hard to justify. IMO that’s probably not an accident. The more complex the problem - the easier it is for the problem-makers to do their business unhindered and profit from it.
I find the lack of outrage that most people have is accompanied by a dull indifference to anyone who speaks passionately about our own complicity in this economic disaster:
“Yeah dude I know this recession has to do with subprime lenders and oil prices on Wall Street, but I’m not gonna become some ecofreak and not use my credit card or spend all of my cash when I can get a house with 5% down! I’m sure we can get things back to the way they were…let the government fix this mess!”
With 70% home ownership and everyone licking their chops at their so called “equity gains” from their homes and their 401Ks, most people have too much of a stake in the Ponzi scheme to see the forest instead of the trees.
Listen! I am outraged at the Democrats.
I am outraged at the Republicans.
I’m outraged at every scumbag politician!
Except for Ron P. and now Jim Bunning!
No vote for any incumbent!
Mike
Great article on the economy.
Dow Hits Fair Value
http://www.zealllc.com/2008/dowfairpf.htm
“Stock markets oscillate around this 14x fair-value level because this is where the markets clear, all investors with surplus capital have the opportunity to invest it and all companies that want surplus capital have the opportunity to procure it. So this fair-value concept for stocks is not only historically verifiable, but it is eminently logical too. After 8 long years of mean reverting, it is exciting to see the Dow fairly valued again.
This 14x fair-value point is also the anchor from which undervaluation and overvaluation are objectively measured. At half fair value, 7x earnings, stocks are very cheap historically. As soon as you see 7x earnings in the major stock indexes, it is time to throw every dollar you’ve got at the deeply undervalued stock markets. Such levels are only seen at the end of 17-year secular bears, like 1982.
Conversely double fair value, 28x, is classical bubble levels. Once the major stock indexes trade above 28x earnings, it is time to think about exiting investments and preparing for the end of the 17-year secular bull. If you look at a Long Valuation Wave chart over the last century or so, the importance of 7x, 14x, and 28x index P/E ratios is readily apparent. Stock-market history is crystal clear regarding valuation ranges.”
I don’t think we are at fair value because the earnings in the price-earnings ratio are dependent on ever-rising consumer debt, allowing them to spend more than they earn. An end to ever greater borrowing means higher wages, or lower prices, or lower sales and standard of living, and thus lower profits.
Yes, ever-rising consumer debt will cut into corp. profits.
Stagflation should continue for another 8 years or so. PE ratios falling to the levels last seen in 1982 (7x). Then it with be time to get back into the Dow.
Or perhaps more appropriately - the *lack* of continuing rise in consumer debt (via inability and/or unwillingness to continue this rise, on the part of the consumer) will cut into corporate profits.
While are indeed at actually fairly low P/E ratios in the market - indeed the main reason is because E is very inordinately high, due in no small part to the housing bubble - e.g. HELOCs, and also due to increase in other consumer debt like CC’s.
By comparison - recent corporate earnings far exceeded the earnings peak in early 2000 - right before the tech bust. S&P index of earnings from operations in 2000 Q2 was 14.88. The index was 24.06 in 2007 Q2 - about 60% higher. Was our economy really 60% more productive this past year than during the *peak* of the tech boom (when telecoms in particular really were making money hand over fist)? No. It was mostly fluff money pumped into the system in false anticipation that the boom would continue - ala Ponzie scheme.
Since 2007 Q2 EPS has dropped a lot - down to 16.62 as of Q1 2008 - but IMO this is still way too high. It seems to have bottomed the last couple of quarters, but IMO this is just a ledge on the way continuing down. We’ll see though.
Notice how the MSM is already saying the worst is over, following last week’s havoc? I had to bite my lip when a friend of mine chirped today about how the financials/stock market was rebounding, blah, blah blah. It’s hard to respond without sounding like Debbie Downer.
Along with the extremes above and below fair value as represented by P/Es are the extremes represented by market psychology.
A Goldilocks market will produce high P/Es, a Doom-and-Gloom market low ones. Patient and unemotional investors will buy cheaply from impatient and emotional investors.
One group will end up rich, the other group poor as the beat goes on.
“Stock markets oscillate around this 14x fair-value level because this is where the markets clear, all investors with surplus capital have the opportunity to invest it and all companies that want surplus capital have the opportunity to procure it.”
Stare at yourself in the mirror and keep repeating until convinced:
There is no PPT…
there is no PPT…
there is no PPT…
…
Fair is foul and foul is fair,
hover through the fog and filthy air.
There is no PPT. Easy enough.
Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd, $11.6 million..Freddie Mac Chief Richard Syron, $18.3 million in total pay last year.
yeah.. so? What does this have to do with anything.. The company’s owners agreed to pay those salaries. Who’s business is it to object?
Maybe you make too much money.. Someone might poll your employees, or your fellow workers, and ask them their opinion. If they think you make too much according to your performance and output, govt can put a stop to it.
Ask your kids if you are giving them enough allowance. You make tons of money in comparison, and they get a few crumbs.. a mere pittance.. Is this fair to them?
Take a trip to the ghetto.. ask those people if you make way too much money.
Congress has a lot of unfinished business interfering in the matter of who is worthy of how-much wealth.
If Fannie and Freddie are “private businesses” then they can go to the street and get their own money to pay their expenses.
When the “faith and credit” of the United States needs to be pledged to maintain the standard of living these CEOs expect, then every citizen who pays taxes from the most menial minimum wage job to highly paid executive peers gets to have a say.
What’s that got to do with it? A contract is a contract. They were private businesses when the contracts were negotiated and agreed upon.
When the same people who object to renegotiating the principle owed on underwater mortgages have no problem demanding changes in employment contracts, something’s a little squirrely..
The point is that if this is a PRIVATE company that can afford to pay it’s top executives many MILLIONS of dollars, when that company fails it should FAIL. The salary these guys earn is just another fact in the long list of facts which suggest that the Federal government has no business giving them my money.
If you disagree, feel free to write Mr. Mudd or Mr. Syron a personal check with “Please save your company” on the memo line. They’ll laugh and the company will fail. This is -precisely- what a Federal bail out will achieve, but they won’t use your personal stationary.
Yup a contract is a contract. Fat Tony Provenzano had a contract on Anthony Castellito, but hey, a contract is a contract ya know…..
YuppieNOVARenter .. and so we come to the crux of the problem.. the seminal question:
Which will ultimately cost taxpayers less. Letting the GSE behemoths fail or by supporting them?
When our politicians weigh the consequences of either choice, the results are measured not in terms of economic recovery.. They are measured in votes.
I like to think we the people are capable of having a less biased opinion, and can attack the problem in a more rational and practical manner, but i’m beginning to doubt it.
Exeter,
FYI, Tony Pro junior kept up the family business in New Jersey later on.
Of course, they were all Democrats.
>joeyinCalif
>Which will ultimately cost taxpayers less. Letting the GSE behemoths fail or by supporting them?
Once upon a time, people were terrified of the horrors of a too-powerful Federal government. (Ironically, they were called “conservatives,” as in “conservative use of government power,” which is exactly opposite of the current usage.) These people ridiculously believed that the government and the markets should rarely, if ever, intersect, and under no conceivable scenario would the government use public money to invest in the market.
Then the USA gleefully crapped all over that fairy tale.
I see your question as suggesting that we kill the patient to cure the cancer.
If you’re seriously interested in my personal answer to the question, leave the GSEs to their own chosen fates and sell tickets to defecate on their graves. That which would best serve American citizens is the Constitution and limited Federal powers, in my opinion.
If you’re seriously interested in my personal answer to the question, leave the GSEs to their own chosen fates..
I am interested.. but since you didn’t answer, let me restate the question: Which will ultimately cost taxpayers less. Letting the GSE behemoths fail or by supporting them?
Which path will cost taxpayers more? Which will cost taxpayers less?
..perhaps we can discuss any constitutional or moral issues which may somehow be involved afterwards..
It might cost us less, however, like any other lender we are well within our rights to ask that the entity getting the money clean house, reduce its liabilities. We as lenders ask these things for our FHA loans why not ask of the GSEs.
>joeyinCalif - I am interested.. but since you didn’t answer, let me restate the question:
I guess it wasn’t clear. I believe it will do American citizens more harm to bail out the GSEs using public money raised by Federal taxes. It will do more harm by something like 1000:1, all in my opinion.
Let them fail and sell tickets to defecate on their graves.
..It will do more harm by something like 1000:1
harm? harm.. i think we’re going round and round on your constitutional ferris wheel, but i’ll assume you actually answered the question and that by “harm” you mean dollar cost.
If so, you’re saying that for every $1,000 in pain we might suffer as a result of letting the GSEs fail, that we save $999,000 in dollars taxes?
I have an idea about how to save taxes.. let the GSEs and big lenders go tits up.. let the dominos fall.. let the economy deteriorate and let the real wave unemployment begin.
No paycheck? No problem. The lack of a job is offset by not having to pay income taxes.
Joey,
Your keyboard runneth over!
Mike
SV guy .. I apologize for running off at the keyboard.
I keep forgetting that a lot of people who read this blog have no job, no investments, no money and have no dog in the fight.. perhaps they live in their mother’s basements or in a cave on a cliff.
It’s only natural they’d find the seemingly endless stream of political and financial conversation to be quite boring and pointless.
Joey:
I’ve not seen any credible evidence to suggest that bailing out the GSE’s or the investment banks will be good for the country, will save jobs or will help the economy or the society in the mid term (Keynes said that in the long term, we are all dead).
Perhaps in the very short term, it might keep things going, this transfer of wealth from the taxpayer to the financial companies, but it will set up a moral hazard. Eventually, the mess probably become too big to bail.
What if it does not become too big to bail? 300 billion this time, only 4% of GDP. Well, I don’t want to set up this house of cards again, only to have yet another massive transfer of wealth from the taxpayer to the NAR and the financial companies, in 15 or 20 years.
The only evidence of calamity I’ve seen are “Appeals to authority” - basically, “I know better than you” or “Senor Paulson knows better than you do.”
I am skeptical. I’d like to see a model of how the dominoes would fall, then an actual example, then how it would be scaled up to actually deleteriously impact the economy in the mid term.
So, don’t wait to post your evidence. Just post it. Facts are facts. Or post a link to it. If you merely wish to in a rhetorical battle with the other posters, you clearly are, but your posted facts remain very sparse.
I, and others I’m sure, are interested in seeing your theory about why bailing out the GSE’s and perhaps the investment houses is better for the economy and the society than not doing so would be.
neuromance, here is just one tiny facet of the situation.
What allows you go to the bank and make a cash withdrawl, or write a check on your account, and it clears? Does the bank save your deposits in a vault and keep it there incase you want some of it?
No.. the bank is in the business of lending your money out to people who then pay the bank interest.
Well, if the bank lends money to people who buy homes, how can that money (your money) be available for you to withdraw?
It’s because the bank sells that mortgage-debt to entities like the Freddie and Fannie. Banks sell debt to those GSEs and get cash in return. Those 2 GSE’s buy about $5T or half the mortgages in existance. Among other things, GSEs then repackage and sell some of the debt to investors. (Everyone makes money except the borrowers who pay for the convenience and privilage.)
Now, suppose your bank can’t sell that mortgage because the GSEs have failed. Your money would not be available to withdraw or pay bills.
The bank won’t get the mortgage money back for about 30 years, and neither will you have access to it until then..
So, obviously, you can’t put your money in a bank. Neither can anyone else… and the banks can’t lend money because nobody will deposit money in a bank.
Business cannot borrow because the banks have nothing to lend. A business cannot start, it cannot grow if already started, and business won’t exist for long without the ability to borrow when it needs money.
And when a business fails, the jobs go with it.
Enter the 100%, full-reserve bank. Match deposit durations with loan durations. Everyone lives within thier means. Cost inflation remains flat because people have to use **real money** to buy things.
The FDIC and SIPC and PBGC should be bailed out (this time). Every other entity should rot.
“Take a trip to the ghetto.. ask those people if you make way too much money.
Congress has a lot of unfinished business interfering in the matter of who is worthy of how-much wealth.”
This is one of my pet peeves. Somewhere in this country there is one person who has less than everybody else. Other than that single person, everybody else, who dabbles in the “who should have more than who” argument, is in effect saying that nobody is allowed to have more than me. But I’m entitled to have more than everybody who has less than me, so screw everybody but me.
I think it is about a million-way tie between those who have nothing. Just on skid row here in LA, there are seemingly hundreds. Perhaps you are talking about differentiating those with less than nothing? There are far more with less than nothing, holding mortgages on houses worth less than they owe. Donald Trump at bottom likley was farthest into negative territory.
“yeah.. so? What does this have to do with anything.. The company’s owners agreed to pay those salaries. Who’s business is it to object”?
While I would normally agree, this is not a typical company. I am quite sure if I were running a Bankrupt company my salary would be effected. These convoluted ‘entities’ are in the taxpayers pocket now and salaries should be scrutinized with a magnifying glass IMHO.
fine.. but lets not be retroactive about it.
anyway, we all know what it’s really about. The politicians are priming the class-warfare re-election pump.. it’s about votes.
“fine.. but lets not be retroactive about it”.
I agree, any past salary deals are out of bounds. At some point, at the rate we are going Congress will a point their next CEO’s.
Fine by me. Good even and about bloody time. I have long maintained that this isn’t over until a city burns but I’d settle for the 1%ers assets going up in flames.
viva la revolution baby >; )
..but I’d settle for the 1%ers assets going up in flames.
What comes after the 1%ers .. the 5%ers? then it’ll be the 25%ers.. then it’ll be you.
“Who’s business is it to object?”
The U.S. taxpayers who will retroactively pay those salaries. D’oh…
i like how you elevate “taxpayers” to an elite status.. a group that should never have to pay for the trouble they’ve gotten themselves into..
But no! This bubble wasn’t the public’s fault.. it was not they who took out the mortgages.. not they who lied on the loan docs.. Not they who borrowed money they could never hope to repay.. not they who’s pension funds and as individuals begged for a never ending supply of MBS to gamble their money for the very highest returns available.
Not they who own the companies and elected the politicians that let it all happen. Not they who HELOC’d themselves into hopeless debt and in so doing crushed the economy. Not they who should suffer any losses for their stupidity.
But it is they who must be allowed to default on those loans and let those lenders go under. They who should bear no responsibility for their actions.
Walkaway Economics… the politics of irresponsibility and passing the buck… an excellent foundation on which to build an economy.
but.. but.. that stuff was all done by other people. I had nothing to do with it! Oh? really?
Take the money from the people who raked it in - the top and the stockholders and hedge funds and the rest of the crooks
Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd, 49, was paid $11.6 million in salary, stock awards and other compensation last year. Freddie Mac Chief Richard Syron, 64, received $18.3 million in total pay last year.
Take the money from the people who raked it in..
Did you say “take”?
I really thought Hillary would have a chance since marxism finds it’s most fertile ground in economic downturns.. wealth-envy and greed are powerful elements of human nature. But it aint over yet.. Maybe she’ll get the vice-pres nod.
>I really thought Hillary would have a chance since marxism finds it’s most fertile ground in economic downturns..
Are you aware of the University of Chicago’s Economics department and their history in the last 50 years regarding Chile, Argentia, Poland, Russia, Louisiana, etc.?
Just inquiring.
“Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd, 49, was paid $11.6 million in salary, stock awards and other compensation last year. Freddie Mac Chief Richard Syron, 64, received $18.3 million in total pay last year.”
What did they nee/do with all that money?!
Ah, I love crony capitalism!
I am supposed to fork over 2/3’s of my monthly paycheck to buy an overpriced McMansion built by illegals (so it is questionable if the house will outlive the loan), while the heads of bankrupt companies who can’t even produce legit finacials on their mortgage-related mess continue to make more money per year than I’ll make in severa lifetimes.
Yeah, because that makes sense!
Privatize the profits and socialize the losses - the worst of both worlds!
Right on Pondering…. One set of rules for you and me, another set of rules for the wealthy elite. It’s a private club paid for by you and me…. but we’re not welcome to join.
“Right on Pondering…. One set of rules for you and me, another set of rules for the wealthy elite. It’s a private club paid for by you and me…. but we’re not welcome to join”
So what do we do ?; stop playing the game?
I saw a comment late yesterday about how Israel would be in trouble without US support. I’m afraid I have to disagree. Israel, without US aid money, would no longer restricted to buying military harware from US defense contractors (they are required to spend nearly all of that aid buying hardware form US contractors). They would then vastly expand their home grown defense industry (probably doing joint ventures with India with whom they share huge strategic interests. Then, as with most newly built industries, the jv’s would have lower production costs than the heritage ones and be able to under cut the rest of the market. I expect there are a number of places that they would not want to sell to, but that list would hardly overlap all of the ones the US cares about (Cuba? Venezuela?).
Also, there is a private company in the process of setting up an electric car network that could take them off gas powered vehicles for nearly all their domestic fleet. They are an ideal test country for such a program since the population dense areas are so close together. I saw a presentation last week. It was very, very impressive. I think the company is also working with Denmark, though not as far along.
Also, whether you like it or not, there are a lot of people who would pour money into the country if they lost US government support. Not enough to make up the 3-4 billion, but most of that is just an indirect subsidy to the US defense industry as mentioned above. The private funding would go a long way to make up for any unrestricted aid. The bulk of the support would be from fundamentalist Christians who believe that the existence of Israel as a home for the Jews is necessary to bring about the second coming of Jesus, so they are a very, very reliable spigot. They don’t hold back money if they disapprove of the actions of the government as many Jews in the US do - actually, Jews in the US probably redirect their money to direct aid to Israeli hospitals, universities and social service orgs, but since money is fungible, the redirection of that support is more of a government accounting problem than anything else. Anyway, not $3-4 billion, but a lot.
I just don’t think that cutting off the US spigot to Israel is as big a problem for them as people here thought it was., especially now that India has built up enough of a middle class to be a real strategic partner. Also, for what it is worth, someone said yesterday that Israel was a valuable ally in the cold war but now wasn’t as important. I think they are more valuable now, being much more entangled in the direct area. In the cold war, I don’t see how they were much help except as a counter to Egypt controlling the Suez Canal. Now that isn’t trivial, but if oil had started to cost more on a permanent basis back then, we might have innovated our way out of the current mess before it even happened.
“I just don’t think that cutting off the US spigot to Israel is as big a problem for them as people here thought it was.”
Then why not do it, if, as you say, the $3-4 billion in taxpayer money is just going to support the US defense industry.
I think that the reps and senators from the states that have the defense contractors prevent it for practical reasons and the ones whose constituents care about US support for Israel (again, currently more the fundamentalist Christians and a much smaller set of very vocal Jewish community leaders) prevent it for theoretical reasons. It is politics and pork, just like about 20% of what happens in DC (and about 90% of what is reported in the news - the rest is just people doing their jobs).
I resent how any criticism of Israel or its foreign policy is “anti-Semitic”. I have no love of theocracies of any stripe: Jewish, Christian, or Muslim. A secular government is every bit as important as a democratic one.
Because it is not in the US interests to have someone else influencing Israel.
Or to have them calling calling their own shots. What is more of an issue is why Israel doesn’t just cut it off. But, obviously, the transition wouldn’t be easy, and they would garner a lot more sympathy if they got cut off than if they just told us where to shove it, so that may be enough to explain that end of things.
let thme pick up our tab- you also get hit by A-rabs as part of the deal
Yes, Egypt does get a buttload of our tax dollars too. It costs a whole bunch to keep the lid on that powder keg.
But does Egypt have the same arrangement as Israel where the billions in aid have to come in the form of US armaments?
buying the peace is expensive.
Not sure, but their deal was essentially a payment for signing a peace treaty with Israel. Anyone else know?
The silent partner in our 2-front never-ending battle, the one almost nobody points the finger at, for some reason…
Is the defense industry.
When you build a $5 million helicopter gunship, you generally can’t build another one to replace it in a peace-time setting, for quite awhile.
Harsh weather conditions in both Afghanistan and especially Iraq, are tailor-made to wreck sophisticated machinery, and keep the arms dealers back at home, dumb, fat & happy.
Losing $3-4 Billion worth of weaponry sales to Israel seems like really small potatoes in the scheme of things. If we are so worried about Israel having flings with other merchants of death that seem unsavory, how come we didn’t care when Israel did so much arms business with apartheid South Africa?
It’s high time to turn our swords into solar arrays and engage bright minds into discovering the heretofore unthought of things about sustaining human life, not ending it.
True that, brother.
It’s high time to turn our swords into solar arrays and engage bright minds into discovering the heretofore unthought of things about sustaining human life, not ending it.
Hear, hear!
Here, here!
you speak blashphemy. This country is run by the military industrial complex. We have to keep inventing wars every few years, there is a lot of money riding on being in a constant state of war.
I think the complex has finally found an ideal war –”the war on terrorism”. Its like the war on drugs, there is no beginning and no end, no criteria for victory or defeat. This will go on for decades and we will do everything to prolong it.
“A standing army is one of the greatest mischief that can possibly happen.” James Madison (1751-1836), US fourth president
“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” Dwight Eisenhower, Farewell Address 1961
You know you don’t want an ObamaNation to take over the country.
MT, Are you some GOP robo-poster?
Aladinsane,
It is absolutely criminal how acre after acre of California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico could be part of a solar or PV grid, and yet we are not there today.
I think it’s better that we have a monstrosities by the dozen, like the new U.S.S. Ronald Reagan ($5 Billion cost), in lieu of energy independence.
Please read this before making general statements. India did not even recognize Israel until very recently. Israel is smaller in population than many small islands in the Indian Ocean and is quite irrelevant in Asia.
John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt,
http://www0.crashrecovery.org/testimonials/rwp_06_011_walt.pdf
Prof. John Mearsheimer on the Israel Lobby
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSAqNuf55k0
India didn’t recognize Israel when it wasn’t to their advantage to do so - now it is to their advantage. Times change. I’m sure Israel understands that - and never underestimate the shared experiences of terrorism and getting out from under British rule. India has her own engineers, but they don’t have the same experience with military hardware that Israel’s do. Also, we are talking about cooperation on weapons, etc. development. Size matters with trading partners, not as much with technology sharing.
Are you counting loan guarantees?
It is my understanding that the Chinese now hold a little more than 1.8 trillion dollars and are the largest bond holders of Fred&Fan outside of the U.S.A. I have to wonder how long our little yellow friends will hang on to all those green backs, and as they start diversifying where will all the dollars go?
Sovereign funds cut exposure to weak dollar…
By Henny Sender in New York
Published: July 16 2008 22:35 | Last updated: July 16 2008 23:24
Some of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds are seeking to scale back their exposure to the US dollar in a sign of global concern about the currency.
One big sovereign fund in the Gulf has cut its dollar-denominated holdings from more than 80 per cent a year ago to less than 60 per cent, while China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) has been looking to strike deals with private equity firms in Europe as a part of a strategy to reduce its dollar holdings.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fc250ac2-5361-11dd-8dd2-000077b07658.html
“our little yellow friends”
Is this type of comment really necessary? The implied racism detracts from the rest of your post.
You beat me to the punch sf_v. Agree with your statement.
I have a Chinese neighbor and we have joked about this stuff for years. I guess he’s not as touchy as many people are. My wife is German and the term Kraut doesn’t bother her one bit nor her family. I’ve been called a honky, cracker, white boy many times in my life, didn’t hurt a bit. Of course having grown up during school integration in the 60’s toughened most of us up. We learned that only “sticks and stones could break our bones that words could never hurt us.” Unless you allow them to. I am lucky that my many acquaintances of differing colors and Nationalities didn’t fall in to the PC trap, and we get along just fine, without having someone else telling us ‘how’ we should feel. So if you read something that offends you, jump right past it, it won’t hurt a bit.
So I guess you greet your black friends with “what’s up Nigga?”
Different story, and you know it (re: N-word). Or, then again, maybe you don’t. That’d be hard to fathom. I think it’s more likely you’re just trying to make a general point against un-PC phrases (which I have no problem anyone doing). Your particular example is very specific, however, to a race that has not yet found whatever it needs to find to elevate its status in the US.
I’m a Jappo, by the way. Hard to insult me with colors, wouldn’t you say? Now think back 60 years.
Good morning Ben,
It looks like the old timers on this site are uncomfortable with the new forum. We may be unhappy with change.
One other point, unless I am mistaken, you have to register to read comments even if you do not post. I suspect many individuals would prefer to remain unknown.
Good luck in your new venture.
Wow, sorry about taking two days off in 3 years. As far as the registering, I am working on that patch today. But that takes time from posting - sorry again. Oh, and sorry for trying to make some hay from the bust too. And I guess I have to apologize for making a forum? Sheesh.
One thing is certain to me; the world is in flux. Embrace change.
LOL. We will all have to go to HBBANON. Symptoms of withdrawal can get nasty.
Whatever you do Ben, thanks for all the eyeopening work you have shared with us. Make hay while the sun shines!
Yeah, Ben, make hay while the sun shines! Tons of hay! And then build a ’straw bale-built’ castle from the waste stem output, with a moat, and a drawbridge, and the heads of your enemies on sticks on the crenellations as ornaments, but you can keep that yappering idjit Lawrence Yun’s head by your throne as a funny little hand puppet.
Ben, I am not being critical! All I was trying to say, is that us old timers were comfortable with the old/current format. Old people (in my opinion, I can’t believe what I am saying!) are not enamored with change.
Maybe you could maintain this site and let us publish the news stories thereby freeing up your time. Each of us, could list news articles that others could comment on in a bits/buckets.
Just a thought.
I am maintaining this site. I was up at 4 AM doing just that. But I have to get familiar with the forum maintenance. And then there is this server instability on the HBB that I just have to take some time and address.
‘let us publish the news stories’
IMO, a forum is a better method of doing this as it allows the thread to live as long as the users chose.
Ben I’ve got a couple great avatars.
I think I will like the new format better myself- I always had a problem coming back to a certain thread I was following after a days postings. Also- Thanks Ben!! You helped me justify not overextending myself many years ago- my gut feeling said this wasn’t right but I didnt know how it was happening until I read this blog. Lots of very smart people here who’s posts I have really enjoyed reading. Thanks All!!
Yeah, the new format is great, especially living across the ocean and not being able to keep up with any given thread.
It will allow us to get down to the real heart of certain matters… heh
Capitalissimo - good point. I’m going to be in OPEC-land soon and it will be easier to keep up with what’s going on.
Ben,
I know I usually give you $20 during each money drive. If it will keep the old blog intact, maybe I can go $25.
Good luck in your latest endeavor.
This blog is priceless. May the forum be half as good!
Mike
‘Old people (in my opinion, I can’t believe what I am saying!) are not enamored with change.’
I’m not old! I’m 35. I assert that that is NOT old. But I STILL hate change, and that is because ‘change’ and/or ‘progress’ often seems to involve trees being cut down. Any other kind of change is fine. Except for when my favorite food labels change. I hate that, too. I’m also mad that people stopped using teepees to live in, because those’re cute.
Or, it could just be that in my soul I am a grumpy old coot with a cane and a desire to whittle bunnies while sitting in a rocker on the porch.
For a while, I thought you said “whip bunnies”, and I was gonna jump right in for that ’cause, to borrow a phrase from you, verily are they delicious in the pot after they croak.
Wow, Oly, I thought you were older than I. Wise beyond your years, I suppose.
‘For a while, I thought you said “whip bunnies”, and I was gonna jump right in for that ’cause, to borrow a phrase from you, verily are they delicious in the pot after they croak.’
Ooooh, I like to eat rabbits, too. Rabbits with mushrooms and risotto, I bet that’d be good.
You know what, Faster, I am trying to imagine what you’re going to be like if you ever grow up to be an old coot with a cane and a whittling knife.*
I can only hope there’s a documentary of it, because boy howdy, I would really want a copy, especially if New York doesn’t survive the event.
*I already know what I’m going to be like. I’m going to be just like now, except with more pallets stacked behind the garage, and more books stacked against the walls. And maybe I will have jars of tadpoles in the fridge, I haven’t decided about that part yet.
‘Wow, Oly, I thought you were older than I. Wise beyond your years, I suppose.’
Oh, yes, bear, I am quite super wise and know many thingies. * assumes sagacious expression, tinged with ennui and a touch of virtuous humility *
What would that be that made you think I was wise? I’ll take a note of it, so I can cause others to believe the same thing, because that could come in handy.
Was it when I told you all I like to play with frogs while wearing a tiara? When I celebrated being first to post in bits by discussing my dream about a monkey with a spatula? When I talked about how goats can levitate? Or was it my oft demonstrated grasp of quantum physics?
“Wise beyond your years, I suppose.”
Check that.
“Maybe you could maintain this site and let us publish the news stories thereby freeing up your time.”
That’s exactly what the forum does.
Not in the same way, though. It’s cool to have one large melting pot we can all contribute to . . . I tend to like large blog discussions better than opening and closing lots of little forum threads.
These blog items have been like a big party where everyone is together in one room and may find themselves a part of conversations they would never have anticipated, while the forum discussions are more like private discussions that only some people are participating in.
I’m not judging or complaining, just like some others, I’m stating why we have liked the blog so much.
I’m old and I’m learning it. Is there an FAQ place? I need to figure out how to increase the point size of what I am typing from what looks like 4-point, and to change the colors of my type and the background.
One benefit for us oldsters - it looks like you can add bold and italics and such by using the tools in the forum screen when you compose - I never tried that in the blog because I was afraid I’d screw it up and cause pain for other posters, as happened here long ago.
A big plus is the ability to go back and correct typos - I misspelled a word in the subject line of my sole post and was able to fix that. I guess the downside is the ability of a dishonest poster to go back and retroactively change their argument.
I like Ben’s note that it allows the most popular topics to float to the top and dogs (like mine, apparently) to sink like a stone.
I’m curious about your new venture. I still think you’d make a kick-azz documentary about this whole mess. I can think of no one else who can tell the story without slant. Whatever the venture is - good luck!
verily, the world is all fluxed up
-evildoc
Typically, I prefer traditional message boards to threads like we’ve have on these boards.
However, for the past three years, I have been religiously reading the HBB on my Blackberry, which works very well. Unfortunately, the message board format does not work as well on Blackberries and other PDAs.
I imagine you may lose some hits from those of us reading from PDAs if the majority of the posts are in the message board format. OTOH, message boards produce much more advertising revenue (something that PDA readers don’t contribute to anyway), so I don’t blame you. I would have done the same thing.
Ditto on the PDA comment. I bought a Palm earlier this year just so I could quit wasting so much paper printing out threads. (OG, I would minimize margins, go 4 columns wide, and print both sides of the page, to save trees.)
It’ll be sad if I’m no longer able to get this as a digest. I hope if there are any tricky ways to do so that someone will post them in one of these remaining BBs.
*Printing*Out*Threads*
Wtf is wrong with you?
I have not yet had my brain wired to receive wifi direct, thus I need an interface. There are only two valid mobile interfaces PDA/cell phone, or paper.
If you had taken a second to read my post you would see that earlier this year I upgraded my mobile info-intake to PDA. I don’t surf this blog. I read it. It makes me money, and if buying paper is what it takes then I’ll buy paper.
My comment above was more about how the forum format lends itself not at all to the manner in which I’ve been absorbing the info found here. I’ll note that I find little time for PO forum for the same reason. The time I have for reading is when I am mobile, and wifi access just isn’t adequate for ongoing surfage.
All i can say is Thanks Ben……I have learned so much by being here, but then i suspected something was wrong 4 years ago when i say my areas 2 fam houses go from $350K to $399k$450K….to today when 2 sold this year for $749k or so….
i knew even at $425k it would barely break even, and rents have not gone up that much in this area since we are a good hike to the 7 train, then its elevated so you have to walk up the equivilent of 4-5 flights of stairs to get on the subway…even if you are in shape its not easy.
I wish you well and hope you write a book and get a $5mill advance…and you know i will see you in NYC on the book tour!!!!
Ben, good luck with the new venture.
Registration is very simple, I wish you all the best.
the world is in flux ??
Out of Chaos comes opportunity……
“Out of chaos comes opportunity…”
Ain’t it the truth.
Hah!
Hang tough there, Ben. Monsoon season is upon us and you hold the high ground. Thank you.
The check is in the Paypal.
ben
you sound like my wife. are you a virgo?!?
I kept gettting user name does not exist. I tried the name from this system, and the e-mail address. Is it something else I forget? And I’ll have any number of possible passwords to work through.
Like I said, there is a bridge, but there is divided opinion on how well it works. I’m working on that. My browser remembers all my passwords.
Me, too. I finally reregistered with another of my vast stash of user names and my old e-mail, created a new password, and that worked fine. I did not have to register any personal info to use the board, though I see that some people have and are even adding photos to their profile.
See you on the Forum!
WWWench (no longer bicoastal)
“I kept gettting user name does not exist. I tried the name from this system, and the e-mail address. Is it something else I forget? And I’ll have any number of possible passwords to work through.”
I just registered using eastcoaster and a password. No biggie if the bridge didn’t work. And no need to change screen names.
I get it. If old doesn’t work make old new. I’ll give it a try.
What are you guys talking about “register” ??
I found it….
WT - this might be answered farther on down - I had the same issue because I was trying to post without registering. Easy process and registering is no different that signing up originally - you use your screen name and an e-mail address - I assumed it is better for Ben if we use the same old e-mail, so he knows we’re not poaching a screen name, but that was only a guess. All that is different is you have to enter (and remember) a password. No big deal. My screen lets me set how long the software or my browser or Windows - not sure which - keeps me alive on the forum. It might be linked to the IP address, but you don’t have to stay active at all.
I am figuring it out as I go. It seems very similar to the SDCIA forum that we used to peek in on when those folks still thought house prices would never decline.
same for me
I get so much from this community that a change from one format to another is not a big deal for me.
The only time I got “user name does not exist” was when I had neglected to register before trying to log in.
However, after registering and logging in, I couldn’t figure out how to read or reply to the existing posts, despite calling up the “help” pages which seemed to be addressed to someone who already knew something about how to navigate on these boards. Maybe i just need some coffee. C U later…
From what I can tell (at least it works), to read it you have to click on the blue wording: either “New Board”, “New Board” or “General Discussion.” That’s as far as I’ve gotten - can’t figure out how to post a reply, but I’ll keep at it or someone else will tell us.
WT - did you hit the register button on just try to login with current data?
I hit register, and I’m up and lurking.
Leigh
Hope this helps
lurking
Ah, an old hand at message boards.
I got to the forums once, but then my username went unfound. I’ll try again.
I welcome the new board - I’m more used that format actually from other boards. It’s a much better way to continue ongoing discussions from day to day on a particular topic.
Ben - couple of suggestions if I may:
- It may be worth initiating a board just for “board suggestion” topics (like what I’m doing right now
). Just a good way to keep track of suggested improvements.
- The board is very narrow, making it not so easy to read the subject lists. I’m not sure if that’s anything you can do anything about, but if so it may be worth widening them. FWIW I use this board a lot, which has a pretty good layout: http://accboards.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?fid=2
P.S. Thanks so much for your hard work on these boards!
Also FWIW - If it’s possible to use the MyBB format/software - just my opinion it’s a lot better, and is more mature (it’s been around much longer) than SMF; thus probably would cause less maintenance issues. However perhaps that’s not do-able or desirable since this blog is SMF.
I like the new forum. It’s double plus good.
Winston
The forum is awesome. It’s really worth the time learning how to use it.
At first I thought there might be something sinister afoot, the kook that I am. However, the forum allows us all to have our say in a much more organized and timely way.
What’s more, prolific posters can have their own tiny little corner. So, you don’t have to read through lines and lines of a thread to look for a post/response etc. Heck, it’s automated!
Great move, Ben.
Winston
An unscheduled 5 days away and the world changes. Sounds like fun, I am sure that by the end of the day I will have registration figured out.
Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.
HOZ!
Where ya been!
Happy to see ya typing again
Leigh
Leigh.
I tried to reply to your cheery greeting on the forum but cannot figure out how to do so. I clicked on everything clickable, but getting a reply screen eludes me so far. So “Hi” back at cha, hon.
Also SFgal, exeter, billinMaryland, et al. Bear with me?
Here’s what I continue to wonder. Many of the post mortems (now that everyone is willing to admit there was a mortem) focus on the fact that those initiating and securitizing the loans did not hold them. They got the fat fees for the doomed loans, but others would take the losses.
And yet almost all the announced pain, so far, has been felt by the initiators (as a zillion, most recently IndyMac, have gone bust) and the securitizers (as Bear Stearns went under, others have taken massive losses, and Fannie and Freddie have had to be bailed out).
So what does this mean? That the initiators and securitizers have choked on guarantees, sparing the bond investors, after all? Or that the losses we’ve seen are the tip of the iceberg?
I haven’t heard as much about bond pools cutting payouts, just bond pools losing money. Has anyone else? And if the bond pools continue to pay out, aren’t losses being shifted from the lowest tranches to the highest?
It seems to me that two things happened to the initiators.
1) They were stuck holding the bag on a lot of paper when the market busted. They were still taking on loans fast, but couldn’t offload the debt, which is now worth a fraction of it’s initial value.
2)These companies got huge with lots of overhead. When revenue went to nothing, any cash on hand would have been soaked up through operation expenses. They couldn’t cut staff or locations fast enough.
and possibly 3) they drank the kool-aid and held mortgage securities in their own portfolios. Didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime.
Initiators either have to or customarily do (depending on who you read) hold on to the unrated tranches of securitized loans, which is the very bottom, very worst of the pool i.e. paid last. CDOs were used to insure those unrated tranches until that market went belly up.
And yet almost all the announced pain, so far, has been felt by the initiators
That’s not true at all. Holders of US mortgage junk all over the planet have been taking writedowns, from a small village in Norway to Canada’
s Yukon territory. Plus many, many small investors.
Not to mention non-US banks like UBS and CIBC.
I think you’ve only been following the stories that get really big exposure like the Bear Stearns and Indymac failures.
Can’t wait to see what the insurance companies and pension plans will be doing WRT write-downs.
AZ Lender or other private lenders
do you know of a bulletin board or association of serious private lenders ? (not p to p wackos)
tia
Hey Ben,
New format is pretty cool. Just had a minute to register and peek.
I hope you enjoyed your days off Ben.
Thanks for all your hard work. (Contribution on its way)
I like that forum w/all its added flexibility. But I’m also happy to hear that this site is here as I like how we can go down a single thread (Bits) and hear what’s happening all over the country and pick up info we might not know we should be looking for!
Good luck in your new venture.
Index Shows Falling Home Prices, Rising Sales of Religious Statuettes
http://blogs.wsj.com/developments/2008/07/18/index-shows-falling-home-prices-rising-sales-of-religious-statuettes/
This combination worked for me, but I think the 10% price cut at a time when all of my competitors were sticking to 05 bubble prices is what sealed the deal!!
U.S. Expansion May Be First in 60 Years Without Income Recovery…
July 21 (Bloomberg) — For six years, Tom Stechmiller’s 2 percent annual pay raises didn’t keep up with increases in the cost of living. Now, with prices rising faster and the economy slowing, his wages have been frozen.
“I’m terrified,” said the 47-year-old father of two, an embalmer for Service Corp. International from the Chicago suburb of Berwyn, Illinois. “This isn’t the American dream.”
The current U.S. economic expansion is the first in 60 years that may end before many Americans have recovered from the last slowdown. Annual family incomes adjusted for inflation have grown just 0.8 percent since the end of 2001 even as the economy expanded an average 2.7 percent a year, leaving households little cushion to absorb higher food and fuel prices.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ayssdzZgEfUo&refer=worldwide
That’s U.S. monetary policy isn’t it? Price increases good, wage increases bad.
“That’s U.S. monetary policy isn’t it? Price increases good, wage increases bad”.
Yep, apparently! The group my wife works for pass out an annual 2% raise. They cut out performance bonuses. As close as I can figure our household inflation rate has been between 7&10% for the last two years. We can control some things, but energy and food are out of our hands to a great extent. Our local electric utility is going after a 13% increase this year. They pushed through a 14% increase 2 years ago, of course their supply prices are going up so that’s what they needed to do.
As BHO stated several months ago… If elected he will pass out ’stimulus’ checks for as long as it takes to get ‘things’ back on track. So it looks like we have two candidates that haven’t a clue.
HaHa! Price increases w/o wage increases = home price declines…
And the corporatists smile with glee.
Along with the Chinese, Indians, and the Saudis. Where else do you think those wages are going.
The Bush Economy, in all it’s glory.
Worst President Ever!
maybe, except for the next one.
You don`t remember Carter do you ?
I remember Carter well. The Carter that appointed Paul Volker to break the back of gold and inflation, and succeeded beyond any measure. The Carter that told everyone 30 years ago to conserve?(you know, that little word that is the root word of conservative). And the same Carter who negotiated lasting peace to this day with Israel and her nemesis Egypt.
You mean that Carter?
Oh, that Carter.
I remember gas lines and hostages, I mean that Carter.
Let me refresh your memory. The gas lines were a result of the OPEC embargo 1973-1974 when HamBurgular Nixon was in office but I’ll wager you’re far too young to remember that.
Yeah, but he didn’t start an all out war with Iran and send thousands of americans to die in the middle east .What a weakling.
Let me refresh your memory, I worked at a gas station in the summer during the Carter years with odd and even licence plate days to get gas, and I watched people who had been sitting in their car since 5 a.m. move the last car sign from one to another and threaten the owner of the station. Oh and there was a ten dollar limit per car. So don`t tell me how great the Carter years were. I would have responded earlier but I still work, I don`t receive government checks or food stamps.
The odd/even fueling scheme was abolished in 1976 but don’t let that fact get in the way of your fantasy.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/75/11/Controls_Nov1975.pdf
exeter
Let me continue to refresh your memory
It was 1979 remember how great things were with Iran and the Ayatollah the hostages the failed rescue attempt gas lines.
I`ll wager you are too young to remember or you have a very selective memory
“So don`t tell me how great the Carter years were”.
A number of posters aka as the perma-pissed will shoot over to Wikipedia clip a few “facts” shoot back paste them and tag a snide comment along with it. Somehow I think it makes them feel a little smarter than the next guy.
I find it kind of funny.
“what a weakling”
Funny I remember thinking just that as Iranians burned American flags and hung Carter dummies as they paraded our blind folded hostages across our T.V. screens on the nightly news.
Exeter
Look up gas lines in 1979 see what you find.
If you would like to know the name and location of the gas station let me know you can call there my brother in law owns it now, the reason I was concerned about the owner of the station in 1979 was the fact that he was my father. When I pulled out of my street at 6:45 a.m. about a mile and a half from the gas station there was the line. If making believe it didn`t happen makes you feel better about Carter thats fine. I really don`t want to get in the way of your fantasy.
I’m trying to remember if Carter’s failure to do his job and enforce existing laws led to the near failure of the US banking system, or if his buddies profited from keeping us dependent on oil, or if he started any hundred year wars on false pretenses, or if he refused congressional subpoenas, undermining Constitutional separation of powers?
…hmmm nope, don’t recall that happening.
Carter’s Volcker appointment was a good one…his regime of belt tightening saved us. We’ll see how well Uncle Helicopter manages the current mess.
The odd-even gasoline rationing system went into effect June 20 1979 when Gov. Ella Grasso declared an “energy emergency” in the state of Connecticut
Hey exeter I have to go fill up my tank now
“don’t let that fact get in the way of your fantasy”.
Fantasy? I can tell you for a fact we had Gas lines, shortages and odd even right here in S.C. in 1976,77,78 I was here and remember it well. Unless of I wasn’t here and just dreamed it all.
Remember this little gem wmbz??? http://thehousingbubbleblog.com/?p=4584
Your “Lincoln quotes”? Sure you remember them.
I guess your memory fails you too. But don’t let my federal reserve link serve as a reference. It’s far easier to take an idiots and his brother in laws word for it.
Hey wmbz
Maybe Bill Clinton thought he just dreamed about having sexual relations with that woman.
“Funny I remember thinking just that as Iranians burned American flags and hung Carter dummies as they paraded our blind folded hostages across our T.V. screens on the nightly news.:”
Yes, and the only way to respond to that is by declaring all out war on the offending country. Except when the offending country is China which forces our plane down and doesn’t allow us to take it back any other way except cart it off. Neocons like you are just a bunch of school bullies, when faced with a bigger bully they run tail between legs.
“In addition to paying for the dismantling and shipping of the EP-3, the United States, ostensibly to pay for the 11 days’ food and lodging supplied by the Chinese government to the plane’s crew, agreed to pay the Chinese government $34,000.[4]“.
Where’s your sense of disgust now?
“Where`s your sense of disgust now”
Right where it was then. At that point Military spending had been cut for years and IMHO we were not in a position to react to anything from a position of strength. Or were the arcticles that I read then about poor moral in the military fantasy also.
I wasn’t aware that Carter was CT governor.
Nice try cupcake.
Office of the Governor:Ella Grasso 1975-1980 Inventory of Records
exeter look it up signed The idiot
RG 005:036, Office of the Governor: Ella Grasso (1975-1980)
Inventory of Records
Finding aid prepared by Connecticut State Library staff.
Copyright © 2007 by the Connecticut State Library
——————————————————————————–
Overview of the Collection
Repository: Connecticut State Library
Creator: Connecticut. Governor (1975-1980 : Grasso)
Title: Ella Grasso records
Dates: 1971-1982
Dates: bulk, 1975-1980
Quantity: 366 cubic feet
Abstract: Includes correspondence, subject files, press releases, official statements, and speech files.
Identification: RG005_036
Accession: T001625
Language: The records are in English.
——————————————————————————–
Biographical Note
Born: May 10, 1919, Windsor Locks, Connecticut.
College: Mount Holyoke College, Bachelor of Arts, 1940; Master of Arts, 1942.
Political Party: Democrat.
Offices: Connecticut House of Representatives, 1952-1957; Connecticut Secretary of the State, 1959-1971; U.S. Congress, 1971-1975; Governor of Connecticut, 1975-1980.
Died: February 5, 1981, Hartford, Connecticut.
Grasso was in complete command at the beginning of her second term. Loyal Democrats controlled both houses. The large surplus continued, and she was able to increase social spending in some of the areas previously promised. Grasso’s Urban Action Program directed funds to the needs of impoverished areas in the state, with money aimed at housing, mass transit, day care, and the elderly. However, the late 1970s were marked by an oil crisis that hurt the state’s economy and required state aid for heating for the poor in the winter. This, and the increased operational costs of state government, forced Grasso to call for a tax increase for the first time in several years. Gasoline shortages in the summer of 1979 also tested her leadership abilities. A manageable system of odd/even rationing based on license plate number was instituted to ease hoarding and long lines. She opened an emergency gasoline center at the State Armory.
RG 005:036, Office of the Governor: Ella Grasso (1975-1980)
Inventory of Records
Finding aid prepared by Connecticut State Library staff.
Copyright © 2007 by the Connecticut State Library
——————————————————————————–
Overview of the Collection
Repository: Connecticut State Library
Creator: Connecticut. Governor (1975-1980 : Grasso)
Title: Ella Grasso records
Dates: 1971-1982
Dates: bulk, 1975-1980
Quantity: 366 cubic feet
Abstract: Includes correspondence, subject files, press releases, official statements, and speech files.
Identification: RG005_036
Accession: T001625
Language: The records are in English.
——————————————————————————–
Biographical Note
Born: May 10, 1919, Windsor Locks, Connecticut.
College: Mount Holyoke College, Bachelor of Arts, 1940; Master of Arts, 1942.
Political Party: Democrat.
Offices: Connecticut House of Representatives, 1952-1957; Connecticut Secretary of the State, 1959-1971; U.S. Congress, 1971-1975; Governor of Connecticut, 1975-1980.
Died: February 5, 1981, Hartford, Connecticut.
Grasso was in complete command at the beginning of her second term. Loyal Democrats controlled both houses. The large surplus continued, and she was able to increase social spending in some of the areas previously promised. Grasso’s Urban Action Program directed funds to the needs of impoverished areas in the state, with money aimed at housing, mass transit, day care, and the elderly. However, the late 1970s were marked by an oil crisis that hurt the state’s economy and required state aid for heating for the poor in the winter. This, and the increased operational costs of state government, forced Grasso to call for a tax increase for the first time in several years. Gasoline shortages in the summer of 1979 also tested her leadership abilities. A manageable system of odd/even rationing based on license plate number was instituted to ease hoarding and long lines. She opened an emergency gasoline center at the State Armory.
exeter
Before you call someone a liar and an idiot, get your facts straight, remember it`s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.
Duck, weave and shift and yak yak yak and still doesn’t change the fact that the federal odd/even fueling scheme was abolished in 1976.
Strike 3.
Wow If you don`t believe the archive from the State of Connecticut with the site attached to search yourself, I don`t expect you to believe me.
Have a nice day.
I know I do, many folks down here in Dixie voted for him simply because he was Southern. When Reagan came along us Southern folk along with the rest of the Country had, had a craw full of the Nut farmer.
The bright spot of his Presidency was his brother Billy, he was a drunk azz hoot! I still have a six pack of Billy Beer.
Hmmm… Billy Carter or Neil “I’m really not a felon” Bush.
Oops. I nary forgot. Character doesn’t matter. lmao.
In 1980 Carter has some pretty dismal approval ratings, and a whole lot of Dems didn’t like him by then. I always though he would have had a better chance against R.R. if the old sot Teddy Kennedy hadn’t challenged him, which threw him off. Also R.R. was a better public speaker and really knew how to position himself in front of a camera to his favor. Of course many years of acting gave him a big edge over Jimmy in that dept. Reception has a lot to do with politics.
Hmmm… Billy Carter or Neil “I’m really not a felon” Bush.
Did you ever listen and watch Billy? He really was a funny guy, and drank a sh!t load of beer. Although he was an embarrassment at times for his brother (Billygate), Billy figured what the hell, my brothers the Pres. what’s anybody gonna do. He lived it up, good for him! Dead at 51 from cancer.
I too remember Carter and don’t know that I’d want him as president again. However, there’s a big difference between the ineffectiveness of Carter and the willful plundering of Bush. From an energy standpoint, the country would be in much better shape today if Carter’s energy policy hadn’t been undone by Reagan.
There was no lasting damage from the Carter presidency. I’m not sure if all the damage done by W will be undone in my lifetime.
Sorry, I give that special title to Woodrow Wilson.
As do I… 1913 Federal Reserve.
Amazing, I just came to that conclusion a few days ago. Getting us involved in WWI, in disregard of Washington’s warnings, may have set in motion a great number of the disasters of the 20th century. Back then the anti-war protestors really had a point.
“The world has seen, over the past 20 years, an increase in the supply of labor,” said Robert Solow, a winner of the Nobel Prize in economics who’s now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “When you have a big increase like that, the wages of the person in the middle are likely to be held down.”
If more of us competed for CEO positions, would that drive down CEO wages? Interesting how CEO wages go to the moon while all other wages head toward China. Might government anti-labor policy in the past 25 years be a factor of some significance?
You can pretty much peg the start of the decline for the middle class on Reagan’s war on Unions and working people.
Hi Ed,
I take a longer term view.
I think things started to go downhill when Democrats controlled Congress in 1980’s. No?
Could you point to some legislation that the Dems passed and Reagan or Bush signed that lead to the plight of the middle class.
The Family Leave act? Nope, vetoed. Barring permanent replacement of striking workers? No, vetoed.
Oh, maybe it was putting anti-Union, corporate loyalist incharge of the Labor Dept. Or maybe pro-corporate SCOTUS Justices on the Court. Maybe tax-cuts that benefit the wealthy, investment class while at the same time increasing the taxes working people pay. Maybe refusing to negotiate with and then firing the Air Controllers to show he was tough on Unions.
You see I can point to a lot of things Reagan did to f*ck the working guy.
Do you have anything but a snarky neo-conservative quip.
For the long view, you seem to have selective memory problems.
There are several ways in which the Bush family plays into the Savings and Loan scandal, which involves not only many members of the Bush family but also many other politicians that are still in office and still part of the Bush Jr. administration today. Jeb Bush, George Bush Sr., and his son Neil Bush have all been implicated in the Savings and Loan Scandal, which cost American tax payers over $1.4 TRILLION dollars (note that this is about one quarter of our national debt).
Between 1981 and 1989, when George Bush finally announced that there was a Savings and Loan Crisis to the world, the Reagan/Bush administration worked to cover up Savings and Loan problems by reducing the number and depth of examinations required of S&Ls as well as attacking political opponents who were sounding early alarms about the S&L industry. Industry insiders were aware of significant S&L problems as early 1986 that they felt would require a bailout. This information was kept from the media until after Bush had won the 1988 elections.
Jeb Bush defaulted on a $4.56 million loan from Broward Federal Savings in Sunrise, Florida. After federal regulators closed the S&L, the office building that Jeb used the $4.56 million to finance was reappraised by the regulators at $500,000, which Bush and his partners paid. The taxpayers had to pay back the remaining 4 million plus dollars.
Neil Bush was the most widely targeted member of the Bush family by the press in the S&L scandal. Neil became director of Silverado Savings and Loan at the age of 30 in 1985. Three years later the institution was belly up at a cost of $1.6 billion to tax payers to bail out.
The basic actions of Neil Bush in the S&L scandal are as follows:
Neil received a $100,000 “loan” from Ken Good, of Good International, with no obligation to pay any of the money back.
Good was a large shareholder in JNB Explorations, Neil Bush’s oil-exploration company.
Neil failed to disclose this conflict-of-interest when loans were given to Good from Silverado, because the money was to be used in joint venture with his own JNB. This was in essence giving himself a loan from Silverado through a third party.
Neil then helped Silverado S&L approve Good International for a $900,000 line of credit.
Good defaulted on a total $32 million in loans from Silverado.
During this time Neil Bush did not disclose that $3 million of the $32 million that Good was defaulting on was actually for investment in JNB, his own company.
Good subsequently raised Bush’s JNB salary from $75,000 to $125,000 and granted him a $22,500 bonus.
Neil Bush maintained that he did not see how this constituted a conflict of interest.
Neil approved $106 million in Silverado loans to another JNB investor, Bill Walters.
Neil also never formally disclosed his relationship with Walters and Walters also defaulted on his loans, all $106 million of them.
Neil Bush was charged with criminal wrongdoing in the case and ended up paying $50,000 to settle out of court. The chief of Silverado S&L was sentenced to 3.5 years in jail for pleading guilty to $8.7 million in theft. (Keep in mind that you can get more jail time for holding up a gas station for $50.)
Today Neil Bush is working on closing a deal in Florida, where his brother Jeb is governor, to sell a software package to schools with his startup company Ignite.
Update 11/28/2003: Some of Neil Bush’s business deals have been exposed in his recent divorce case. For more on this see:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/112703A.shtml
http://www.salon.com/news
Mikey, the rekleptican uni-blab just shortcircuited from information overload. lmao.
Wages and the cost of living is always a topic I’m interested in .It seems to me that in the last 10 years the cheer-leading has been “Ask not what your Corporation can do for you ,but what you can do for your Corporation .”
As you can see, Corporations immediately feel justified in raising
their prices when they get any price increases ,and than they say to their employee that they can’t afford to give them a cost of living increase .I have lived in a time where cost increases and wage increases kept in line with each other . The scales of balance regarding the Big Corporations verses their employees have tipped in favor of the Corporations ,not unlike how out of balance the Unions got at some point that broke the backs of the Corporations
Now the people are having their backs broken .Has anybody ever hear of the concept of balance ?
“The world has seen, over the past 20 years, an increase in the supply of labor,”
————————————————————————-
let’s see here LABOR vs. shit-fer-brains intellectuals. labor wins hands down.
You’ve clearly never taken a martial arts class at a top ranked engineering school.
I’m sure that there IS plenty of competition for CEO positions. For every CEO there are a dozen executive VPs waiting for their chance to grab the brass (golden?) ring.
Talk to JoeyinCalif, he seems to think that CEO wages are off limits cuz the cozy board voted to approve them. You’re talking class warfare if you question CEO entitlements.
No one who is an embalmer is going to be living the american dream, I don’t care what he makes.
This is exactly why we needed the GW tax break for the elite. Capital Gains Taxes and inheritance tax, and dividend tax cuts. The elite should get the bulk of the benefits from the expansion and tax brakes. Sarcasm off
The middle and upper middle class will have a steady diet of wage stagnation and inflation until there is no middle and upper middle class, just the poor and the elite.
The middle and upper middle class will have a steady diet of wage stagnation and inflation until there is no middle and upper middle class, just the poor and the elite.
Meanwhile, automakers wonder why car sales are way down.
It’s “Red Dawn”, financially.
Are we the Wolverines?
Are we the Wolverines?
Let’s hope so!
Mozillo has been caught giving loans to people in what is obviously a conflict of interest. It looks like he is going to jail. My question is: Will he be the husband?
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=799048058&play=1
Roidy
Dodd saved 77,000 over 30 years, whats that $200 a month,he is a bigger idiot than I thought.
“It looks like he is going to jail. My question is: Will he be the husband”
What are the prisoner colors in Cali?
The roadside prisoner crews in New York wear orange! Which I think is very appropos for the tan man. He’ll project that sexy unihue look that makes one appear so much taller and slimmer.
“Oh, stop, now” (Paul Lynde voice)
HAHAHAA…
I read that, then kept going on to the next subject and then it hit me! LOL!
It would depend on where he were to do time. He’d be bitch material in most prisons. His face is hard on the eye but they’ll be looking at him from behind.
Very damning. Up front full disclosure to the borrowers of the discounts they were getting. Also mentioned was the loan for a judge that was hearing a Countrywide case that was said to be far outside their lending guidelines at the time. There could be more people than just Mozillo going to jail.
Mozillo in prison? Not likely. He will end up on or near the same island as Ken Lay sipping cocktails and laughing at the chumps he suckered.
Alas, Kenny Boy Lay is no longer on this earth. He eluded justice with a coronary.
(Unless you buy into the theory that he faked his own death and is drinking daquiris with Jim Morrison in some exotic locale.)
“Mozillo in prison? Not likely. He will end up on or near the same island as Ken Lay sipping cocktails and laughing at the chumps he suckered.”
Will he “die” conveniently before the appeals have been heard on the civil cases thus preserving the ill-gotten gains?
In a freak tanning-bed accident, the late departed expired late last night.
The ashes have already been spread in the Pacific, as per his wishes…
I think he’ll make a prison break in the laundry with the orange jumpsuits.
This is really disgusting. Our gov’t is completely under the spell of the big money and large corp crowd. I would expect that a US Senator and a Fed Judge would have a higher sense of purpose. Instead we are getting spied upon, ignored, and lied to.
Our democracy is getting weaker, and I’m not sure it can be reversed anytime soon.
Roidy
I just joined new sight.
How come no topic list for Palos Verdes Peninsula and surrounding South Bay beach cities.
And for those of you who hate when I incorrectly explain where exactly Palos Verdes Peninsula is located.
Just south of LAX between Long Beach and Redondo Beach beach that large hill or or mini mountain sticking up there with 9500 home owners.
never mind.
I added Palos verdes peninsula to new board and my guess is if Palos verdes peninsula stays as a topic area forever and everyone who joins up enters their own particular location very soon there will be a lot of cities. A lot.
Good Morning Ben!
Keep up the good work!
Best regards,
Queen Mormon Tea
Here in sunny Mesa, AZ 85213
To the kind folks here at the HBB i need some advice i have been reading the blog a few years now after the Indymac debacle i have to ask is my money from my mothers inheritance safe in ING its only 10,000 but i am disabled and unable to work i live of 800 in SSI every month any and all advice is appreciated. Thanks for everything you have done Ben ad everyone.
as long as your account in ING is FDIC insured i would not worry too much. 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!!!!!!!
If the government is too afraid to let Bear Stearns fail, and too afraid to let Fannie/Freddie flounder/go BK, do you honestly think that they won’t stand behind the FDIC?
That’s the biggest no-brainer in the list, in my opinion. If the FDIC collapsed, there would be bank runs EVERYWHERE, and the entire system would collapse, dogs/cats marrying, you know, complete mayhem.
I wouldn’t worry about any balances less than $100k in an FDIC insured bank. If you are honestly concerned about the FDIC failing and not being propped up by the US Gov., you should pull all of your money out of the bank and buy guns, ammunition and food and hide out in a cave.
I think your account is A-OK… No matter what, short of a meteor strike, the FDIC will cover all insured accounts up to $100,000.00. There are bound to be more bank failures to be sure, but I wouldn’t stuff my mattress just yet.
so is this gonna be the new marching orders for the mainstream media?
don’t report losses…report “beats better than expected”.
Irrational exuberance strikes continental Europe…
Europeans optimistic on property prices
By Ralph Atkins in Frankfurt
Published: July 20 2008 19:02 | Last updated: July 20 2008 19:02
Europeans have high hopes that the value of their houses will rise over the next five years, even if the next 12 months see prices remaining stagnant or falling.
Confidence in housing market prospects is shown in the latest Financial Times/Harris opinion poll, which reveals that among Europe’s biggest countries, the Italians, Spanish and British are most upbeat about longer-term price trends.
But the British are also gloomiest about the short term, with 42 per cent expecting the price of their house to fall over the next year.
U.S. bubble bust, redux.
But it’s different there!!!
Test
I’m having a mental stagpression…
The most important response to the bubble’s aftermath at a personal level will be to not let it foster a negative mindset. Ben has shown us all tremendous leadership (should I say “resilience”?) in that respect.
“cut with the negative waves Kelly” …Donald Sutherland as Sergeant “Oddball”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly%27s_Heroes
OK - Help! Hayulp! Like WTEconomist, I can’t figure out how to reply to a post. There seem to be no links anywhere on my screen for this, including the bar that is referenced in the Help section on the Forum menu.
I can see, for example, that Hoz had almost 300 views and only 10 replies, so I think I am far from the only one who hasn’t figured out how to reply. Can any of you who did, help us? I don’t want to bother Ben, as he is up to his neck in gators and he never gets any time off.
look on the top or bottom of the thread, there should be a green bar that has buttons on it. they say: reply - notify - send topic - print. hit the button you want to use.
Yes, but you have to be logged in, I had the same problem.
Hwy50 - thanks. That is the answer. I thought that when I clicked on “one week” I would stay logged in. I wasn’t. Easiest way for me to remember now is that if I don’t see “Logout” at the top, I’m not logged in and will not be able to reply. Thanks.
I don’t even see hoz in the list of users. Did he change his name?
I think he went to take a wiz.
My mistake - I meant Housing Wizard - Wiz.
Just haven’t been felling well for a few days. As soon as this old fart can figure out how to register and keep ‘hoz’; I’ll be up and posting.
Hope you feel better soon, Hoz!
The bank that I have my buisness checking account with BankAtlantic is sueing Dick Bove . I never have more than $50,000 in there, but it would make payroll a bummer if they went down.
I like reading the HBB but Ben has never saved me any money because I could not qualify for a mortgage.
ask not what ben can do for you.
ask what you can do for yourself.
I posted this on the forum, but I’m adding it here for those who might be intimidated about learning how to use it. It is in response to theorizing that old-timers might leave the “family” because the change in venue matches up with their change in interests, or something like that:
A.B. Dada - it will be waaay easier to find TxChick’s posts now than before. Go to the Members List button at the bottom of the opening screen. click it, then click “T” at the top to get all the “T” screen names. Then click on her screen name (BTW, she’s not registered yet - I looked up yours instead). There is a link that will take you directly to all of her recent posts.
I was intimidated this morning but forced myself to try all the buttons and doodads. I can do way more on here than I could in the blog, since I didn’t know how to do formatting or create a link or stuff like that. It is very easy here.
For any other novices reading this, I recommend typing a few lines of apologetic text (in case you mess up and hit “Post” by mistake). Play with the buttons next to the Add BBC line. For some things, you have to highlight text first, others not.
I am one of the oldest codgers on the blog, at 65 in a few weeks, and if I can learn enough of this in a day to survive in it, most can. Personally, I like Ben’s idea - the most popular threads rise to the top, so to speak, and it is far easier to skip discussions that I don’t care about. It will require more intelligent “Subject line” thinking by posters - the subjects will have to be pretty specific, but so what? As an example, I am interested in property in the northern half of Georgia, so I started a thread for Georgia - Atlanta Metro area. That will allow me to exchange views with people who have similar interests, apparently for some time to come. And if I want to see what Prof. Bear or Chick or Wiz or AZLender or SD Greg or any other regular has to say, I can do so easily. Further, I can tell if they’re online and shoot a question to them, if I’m lucky.
I don’t think we’re going to lose anything. Most of us trust Ben’s judgment; I trust it completely and his blog saved my butt from a potentially horrible buying mistake in early 2006. I’m just guessing, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Ben creates his own threads here, to replace those he put the blog. In that case, little would have changed except the procedure and we have an improved way to interact with each other.
nice post.
Im a gen-x, convinced to buy into the downturn based on how much a month versus rent on a 15yr fixed. I did not buy the house for long term personal use. Its a duplex I’ve converted for my family, and Im actually building a third unit.
When its all over, and the bottom is in, Ill rent the triplex, and buy my real home for cash.
simple….but you gotta have a plan. I have a vested interest in the meltdown of Home prices over the next three to five years….the rental market sets the bottom, along with higher interest rates and wages.
So the real story here is always and forever going to be wages, interest rates, and unemployment. The rest is mostly noise.
65 yr old men who are playing in real estate along with immigrant strawberry pickers does not compute. However, renting to those two social classes is a big draw for me.
Chip,
Thanks for your encouraging post!
I hate to say it, but I receive more truth from sources of Humor than the MSM.
We are possibly screwed as a nation, however you have one or both choices in saving your sanity- Laugh or cry…
Here is my approach from JIB/JAB. They had this nailed years ago, but most persons did not listen and cover their “you know what”!
Some say that crying and laughing are really the same, just coming at the situation from different directions.
Enjoy…We will all need it after 8 years or 30 years.
http://www.jibjab.com/originals/time_for_some_campaignin
http://www.jibjab.com/originals/in_2007
http://www.jibjab.com/originals/second_term
http://www.jibjab.com/originals/what_we_call_the_news
http://www.jibjab.com/originals/2-0-5
http://www.jibjab.com/originals/big_box_mart
http://www.jibjab.com/originals/this_land
http://www.jibjab.com/originals/good_to_be_in_dc
The definition of the new worker for today’s economy, by GC…
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/107431/george_carlin/
What we need in life is a little humor…