The Housing Bubble

Ex, Was going to do a long reply but thought better of it. I’ll leave well enough alone and go back to the Bits and discussions of gold, silver, oil, stocks and macro/micro economics I enjoy here knowing that every single real estate deal done since 2005 has been sold to a sucker.

Actually. There are quite a number of larger so-called ‘luxury’ apartments in the Boston burbs, and despite their characterization, in a fair number of them, bed sheets double as curtains.
But I am sure many occupants drive brand new SUVs and eat out a lot.
So it’s not the size. It’s the quality of buildings. It’s the quality of inhabitants.

Thats only 28 days before the election.

I think the bigger blunder was not launching earlier to take advantage of the political ad money.

agreed they also had building issues…the ac in the studio and tape room was not big enough to handle the heat, and other electrical problems.. plus water problems that delayed them a month maybe 2 months

Remember they have over the air tv stations they fed their own reports too…so they could have easily had a news crew assigned to Perot months before…but Management wanted nothing to do with equal opportunity for 3rd parties or to have an alternative voice, and air time.

Not much different then todays fox news

No he had $18 million of your tax dollars to spend bout 1/3 or the other parties…and was saving it to spend after the debates…

Kook or not is about YOUR TAX MONEY you check off each year to provide money for the elections…

Even Ralph Nader can barely get on TV anymore

But Brittney can almost every day now she has a top 10 single…aimed for the 8th grade educated Merickanz

—————————–
I’m ignoring the 1996 run because it was joke. By then he was widely regarded by the public as a goof, and most of his original supporters had fled.

To Perots’ credit he called it:
If NAFTA gets passed = Giant sucking sound. Huge rush of outsourcing.
Also Gore : If Bush is elected the top 1% will steal every last dime. so true.
…Not that I am defending either one, nor voted for them. Just wanted to point out there are words of wisdom from both sides.

i would prefer he uses that power to eavesdrop on every member of this outgoing administration.

Just arrest them all. It would be easier.

They will be too busy chasing “Joe The Plumber” or “Tito the Builder”. Ben may want to watch his back too.

in the (ahem) less educated parts of the country

You mean like Baltimore?

NoSingle one.

I was in California yesterday and a person whom I was visiting did not know that he was bi-racial?

There is your less educated state for you.

Also, had to change the channel, however being an opened minded person, I listend to a talk radio program out of Berkly, CA. They were suggesting that OB should take money from the well to do and redistribute to the poor? Thats interesting that it is similar to some of the mis-statments by Obama.

Actually, I take that back. He lost me when he was blasting McCain on Larry King.

But then I thought, “50 million people can’t be wrong, can they?”

I was scared to death what Bush would do to the country before the election in 2000, as I did do my homework on him. But I too gave him a fresh start after 9/11. He lost me on Iraq, and was dead to me after Katrina. The implosion of the economy, and Wall Street, was just icing on the cake.

Bush gave me many reasons to despise him. He earned it. Barack deserves the same benefit of the doubt.

The fact that the geniuses who said the world would end if we didn’t vote for GWB in ‘00 and ‘04 are now saying the same thing about McCain today is what lost me to the Republican Party, potentially forever. I can’t stomach becoming a card-carrying Dem, so it looks like Independent-land for me.

Well guess what, the world did end, and it was because we keep electing anti-American neocons who care more about ideology and placating the rabid right than keeping this country afloat. Hey, the End of Days is approaching and Jebus is coming so what does it matter anyway, right?

I’m still voting Obama though. He’s a better choice than any except Ron Paul, IMO.

The “fresh start after 9/11″ is what everybody gave him. I, however, did not buy it then and I don’t buy it now.

Yeah, I’m going to blow the BS whistle on that one. My chief problem with the guy is that he’s proposing an enormous nationalized health care spending bill at a time where the national debt has already reached deplorably high levels. Where’s the money for this going to come from, Mr. Obama? We already don’t have room in the budget over the next 50 or so years to pay our existing obligations for Social Security and Medicare…so why should we add on more?

This ever-increasing government spending amounts to financial child abuse, as far as I’m concerned.

And then there’s the fact that to me he seems insincere and contrived. His alleged “great oratorical skills” only seem to show themselves when he’s well-prepared…but when he tries to give an impromptu speech he comes off as a somewhat sloppy, flat, and occasionally offensive speaker. His “change and hope” mantra has gotten as old as the McCain/Palin “we’re such mavericks” nonsense.

Of course, raise these points to an Obama supporter and you’ll be treated as if you’ve just questioned the existence of God - except the argument will be even angrier and will have far less intellectual merit.

Gotta agree here. Criticism of Barack here sounded more like Rush Limbaugh talking points on the economy. It was IMO junk, but not racist.

I’ve been reading this blog since it was a baby, so I already know there are a lot of sexist and racist people posting here. Pismoclam, for instance (who has been divorced 2x and brags about ripping off the 2nd young girl with a prenup) has referred to Obama as “Watermelon Man” and something with a Hussein in it. Tell me that’s not racist. If you guys aren’t seeing it, then you must be letting it slide.

It is unfortunate that you are so quick to say that a few racist, or sexist on a blog constitutes alot. There are a couple, maybe a few, but certainly not alot.

As for the election,
The white people that would only vote McCain because he is white should cancel out the black people that would only vote Obama because he is black. Statisically speaking these idiots should cancel each other out.

Effect of racism on elections should be moot, but the back and forth between the followers of both may be long lasting.

Absolutely.

Though I’d prefer a third-party candidate because I’m suspicious of anyone who gets such huge amounts of campaign funding from financial institutions (esp during a “financial crisis”).

That being said, I would be very happy to see Obama win. With the exception of bailouts for FBs, he’s right on the money regarding what’s wrong with our country and how to fix it, IMHO.

Another member of the “Deliverance” wing of the Republican party speaks out.

Don’t worry Jethrow, he won’t take your guns or your women!

It looks foolish, that running your mouth without doing your homework thing…

At least I know how to take care of my own affairs. The rest of you on the religious left need your nanny messiah to take care of you. That would be fine if he were just going to take care of you and stay out of my life. How do I opt out? I have no choice but to put up with pathetic losers like yourselves and the corrupt leaders you seem to want ruling your lives. I mean that in the nicest possible way of course.

They’ll never get it, banana.

At least he demonstrates that not all the Republican votes in 2000 and 2004 weren’t imaginary.

I apologize for being dense..something is not clicking for me this morning.

What you say makes sense if you assume that the bank must retain/not re-loan funds coming from other sources - ie your example regarding someone elses mtg payment. However, what if instead the bank borrows from the FED to get the cash. In that case, no money is being taken out of circulation to make up for the defaulted debt, no?

As you say that the “balance sheet depletion counts against the bank’s reserves”…is this in 1:1, or is the reserve ratio in play here? (ie are you saying that what’s on the balance sheet counts towards the bank’s reserves? If that’s the case, wouldn’t only a fraction of that which was defaulted on essentially be “destroyed”?)

I’m consuming copious amounts of coffee as I type, so hopefully this will click sometime soon this morning

And then the fed and the treasury issue more funny money bonds and t-bills to recapitalize banks, sell ‘em to the Chinese and Japanese and thereby pump more fiatscos into the great worldwide ponzi scheme. Poof indeed.

I hope we don’t have to hit up Haiti to buy our t-bonds if the Asiatics tire of them…

Heck, can’t we just invent a country along with it’s requisite funny cotton and have it buy them? It’s the Enron way baby!

There is no Freedonia lunch.

I tried to watch that movie. Painful. I wish Harpo Marx was still alive so I could punch him in the face.

People are not paying back their loans because they never did produce anything with all that borrowed money. That’s where it all unwinds. The expected growth in real goods did not concur with the temporary growth in money supply.

joey - I’m surprised, but sorry you you’ve got it wrong. The money is indeed created when it is leant.

When the $100 is paid back to the bank, is then gone. You’re neglecting the fact that the person’s employer had to get the $100 from *somewhere*. What if the person’s employer happened to be the grocery store? There you have a perfect circle that illustrates the concept. The bank creates $100 to lend. The person spends it at the grocery store. Now $100 exists. The grocery store then pays the person $100 in his paycheck. It still exists. Then the person pays back the loan - whammo it’s gone.

That’s why all loan paybacks do indeed result in destroyed money - however it was money that was created back when the loan was made. The net effect is that no money is created or destroyed*

However writedowns due to defaulted debt do not result in this destroyed money. If the person doesn’t make any salary, and declares they can’t pay back the loan, then the bank writes down the $100. However that $100 is still out there. So the $100 was created, but never destroyed. That my friends, is inflation. It was *created* at the time of the loan, but didn’t actually manifest itself until the writedown. Thus IMO that’s why all these writedowns by the banks in the end are not deflationary, but rather inflationary, because they replace loan paybacks that would otherwise cause a net effect of money neither being created nor destroyed.

*This assumes a constant level of loaned money. Since over the long term we’ve had ever-increasing amounts of loaned money - voila we have inflation, fueled by loans.

swinging 13″<– oh my.

And here, *I* was the one planning celebrate at the parties soon. While all the blokes around me were glum and bankrupt, I could swing my *cough* 34C and snap up something nice for a nice price.

But thanks to Paulson & Co., now I have to pad the blokes’ pants to make them feel better.

(Yikes. I hope my mother isn’t reading this!!)

In the lad’s defense, I think he’s right.

Dude, you are Lad. EmperorNorton_II and you are the same person. You might fool others, but not me, and that’s reason why you’re always trying to bust on me. You and I know it’s true.

My favorite is how whenever Lad goes on one of his trips to the Rockies or wherever to get in touch with nature, the ol’ Emperor comes on to post. Magically when lad comes back, the Emperor disappears. You’re a total fraud. I doubt you have any gold over”seize”, too.

Anybody who wants to take some time and search for Emperor and Lad posts and compare them, they can draw the same conclusion.

You are very quick on the uptake, my cover is blown.

And to think that nobody else had figured out what I didn’t bother to hide all that much, and it took you a year to figure it out?

You are very wrong about everything else you think you know about me, though.

I’ve known about it for a long time, it’s just when you use your alter ego to support your main identity that it goes beyond the pale.

I know you’re a fraud. These few posts are enough to prove that.

I know you’re a religious fanatic about your Gawd, I mean Gold. I know that when anybody ever tries to pin you down and get actual information from you, you either don’t answer, or you write something caustic and avoid the issue. I know that you rarely have any original thoughts, being satisfied with using what others have said. I know that when you accidentally spill out a verifiable prediction, they’ve been wrong (how did that one massacre go, by the way?). I know you think guns are for you, but not other people. I know that you think you are Gawd’s gift to financial genius.

Lastly, I know that you are wrong when you say “You are very wrong about everything else you think you know about me, though.”

Everyone has known that Aladinsane is Emporor Norton II for a long time. He’s also Troy. I think he might also sometimes post as gal, but I’m not sure.

Look, alad is just joking around with the multiple identities thing, and he lives near/in Yosemite. He doesn’t “go to the Rockies”. I usually don’t stand up for him (just because he never stands up for me), but I want to right now because the facts are wrong.

Pretty sure in the past I’ve seen instances where Ben has told people not to use multiple identities because it makes him have to work harder on the spam filter.

It’s me, myself and I here…

I see the blog police have been notified of possible false identities being used on an anonymous forum, in complete anonymity anonymously enough.

Okay, I’ve been here basically since the beginning of the blog…and didn’t know alad and the emporer were one and the same.

If “everyone” knew, I feel really foolish.

and other banks get money from the FED because they have a terrible balance sheet and are on the brink of going poof! Maybe the small strong banks need to get extra money so the nearly-bankrupt big sharks cannot buy them up by the dozen? all BS IMHO …

clue,

I will miss vozzie. Does this mean your postings will be easier to understand? Will your clues be eaiser to solve?

Is there such a thing as a fake nom de plume?

or, as in your case, o Protector of Mexico, “nombre de pluma.”

I only reign on Wednesdays.

maya rudolph is HOT!

“No man who ever held the office of president would congratulate a friend on obtaining it.”
- John Adams

that would be the sensible thing to do. so they probably are not doing it.

My original tin foil hat reason for picking Palin was that if McCain won, he’d get her out of his buddies’ hair in Alaska and things would go back to “normal,” whatever that is.

Palmetto,
You give too much credit to the idiots/religious zealots that are what the GOP has become.

Never explain an action with a plan when incompetence will cover the bill.

Your argument makes zero sense. Our health care expenses are exploding without it. This is causing those of us that do pay to shoulder the burden of those of that don’t. The additional expense is going to the middle men, who provide zero value to the system. They have not kept costs down. It has been the opposition.

I also take issue with any Republican that tries to tell me about fiscal responsibility. Have you people no shame?

Look at the country!

Damn, more typos in that last post than you can shake a stick at!

The money that we currently use for private insurance would instead go to some socialized form of payment. I don’t think it’s a net increase in spending, although those of us who currently enjoy superior benefits may lose out.

This “economic crisis” wasn’t built in 6 or 8 years. Of course, you’re so hell-bent focused on your blue team you can’t or won’t see it.

Financial institutions only need regulation b/c of the govt created monetary frankenstein. And to the extent they might need regulation, they won’t get it from anyone. Regulation is needed on the way up, not the way down. Dems won’t change that. More of the same.

Republicans have certainly gotten us mired in this crappy war. Dems were largely responsible for the last mucky one. The great Dem hero himself JFK only escalated the Veitnam conflict followed faithfully by LBJ, funny how selective memory works. Yeah, the Dems are real doves. Sounds like more of the same to me.

NOLA got drowned because of being a bowl next to an ocean. It’s not rocket science, the most primitive of civilizations built housing above sea level. This is just another example of you being so anti-rep that you can’t see clearly. Bush doesn’t make hurricanes wet and stupid people stupid, as much as you would like to blame those on him too.

Dems have a long tradition of deficit spending as well. We didn’t get a national debt in just 6 or 8 years. Geez, wake up. Even Clinton was raiding SS while claiming a budget surplus. It was only a surplus by govt account standards, which if any publicly traded corp used the CEO would be in jail, and I’m not exagerating. But naturally you blue-blood dems just lap it up when Clinton says “we have a surplus”, never mind the bothersome facts. So yeah, more of the same here too. Deficit spending and plenty of entitlements for you at the expense of your (or someone elses) children or grandchildren.

Agreed. What we need at this point is serious fiscal conservatism - something neither major candidate seems to agree with.

I’m finally starting to understand why so many people don’t vote (aside from factors like stupidity, of course). When you feel like neither major party gives a damn about you, it’s kind of hard to get up the urge to go out and vote for one of their own.

Correction: We’re about to go mainstream…. and it’s about time.

Who will do what? Increase entitlements and national debt? Paid for by the people who can’t afford to pay for it, no doubt. Yeah, that’s a huge deviation from our current trajectory.

You know, I will happily pay more taxes to see the budget deficit reduced over the long term. I will happily pay more for American made products.

My standard of living has much more to do with the relationships I have with other people than how many toys I can buy.

Does that make me a liberal?

You know, I will happily pay more taxes to see the budget deficit reduced over the long term.

Well, you’ll be paying more taxes. You can expect the national debt to continue to increase to the point of either default or severe inflation.

1 out of 2 ain’t bad I guess.

Bluprint, you would vote for someone just because of their skin color? My goodness man, this is not a computer game where you make decisions just to see what happens,

Life is a game. And I’m curious to see what happens. It’s not like I’m actually making the decision, I was just stating my preference.

Anyway, if I had any say in it, I would still make it a black guy for prez. I think we could use the culture and maybe it would generate some benefits with regard to foreign relations. But I would have chosen George Clinton. Put some P in the presidency.

“I’m so groovy I dig me.”

Bootsy Collins doing slap on a P-Bass… smokin..

“P” is New Zealand slang for Meth. It’s short for pseudomethamphetamine…

I mistook the P for George Clintons phunk. I’m not into the drug culture.

This ain’t New Zealand, this is the internet.

And the P stand for Funksidency

I’m gonna go get my groove on now. later ya’ll.

Oh, and I’ll be paying special attention to the space bass, just for you ex.

Vermontergal,

So, how do you explain the Republican’s obsession with Israel? Show me where the Constitution says that it is the responsibility of the President to serve as Commander in Chief of the people of Israel.

Heh.

I can’t explain anything - I barely understand my own actions at times, let alone an odd ongoing issue from the ruins of WWII Europe.

All I really know is that acting in your own self interest, without worrying about currying the favor of people who don’t live your life and probably don’t even like you is not arrogant. It doesn’t mean you don’t “need” anyone. It’s just respectful of the idea that you know what’s in your own best interest.

you can’t run a country or a life by worrying about other people’s opinions of your actions

Yep, as long as those “other people” are willing to do your slave labor for you, pump your oil for you, and grow your grapes and oranges for you in January, while you pocket the profits, no reason to worry how they feel, right?

What vermontergal is saying is right. I often feel that we’ve brought on more enmity against us abroad by our indiscriminate meddling in foreign affairs, thus bringing on accusations of American “cultural imperialism” and such. We would make far more friends abroad simply by leaving people alone and not constantly trying to convert foreign countries to the American democratic “cause”.

“The rest of the world wants to drag us down to their level, period. Despite our problems, we can and should do better than the rest.”
=================================================

Around 85% of Americans don’t own passports, which means they’ve never been anywhere, and they tend to make blanket statements about the rest of the world that may bear some relevance in a backwater 3rd world country, but not amongst our peers in the 1st world.

It’s time to get out and see the world and ruin some long-wrong stereotypes, people…

WTF is it with the airy fairy metophoric yammering that amounts to nothing. For instance, “The world wants to drag us down to their level” means what? Is it kind of like “God bless America”? Why would zealots be so shortsighted not to say God Bless The World? Because the the rest of the world his horrible and we’re rah rah #1 red white and blue? Get a grip!!!!!!

“For instance, “The world wants to drag us down to their level” means what?”

I was in France 3 weeks ago. If I were to get dragged down to that level I would be pretty happy. It seemed pretty good to me.

This idea of saying, “you’re not the boss of me” and then pouting is what 8-year olds do, not great nations. It is silly. I would be more depressed right now if the rest of the world wasn’t criticizing us. There is so much that needs to be criticized.

“Around 85% of Americans don’t own passports, which means they’ve never been anywhere”

I don’t have a passport. I’ve been to France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Mexico, Canada, Puerto Rico, Morocco, Israel, The United Arab Emirates, Turkey, both Germanies, Switzerland, and Australia.

Around 85% of Americans don’t own passports, which means they’ve never been anywhere, and they tend to make blanket statements about the rest of the world that may bear some relevance in a backwater 3rd world country, but not amongst our peers in the 1st world.

I have a passport and I’ve only been to Canada.

People are the same everywhere. Europe has stupid people and stupid policies, just like here. I betcha NYCityBoy didn’t visit the parts of France where Islamics from her ex-colonies hang out in 100% concrete housing and live in a world of half citizenship and no jobs. (That’s where the riots started…)

The act of traveling doesn’t make anyone smarter or more cultured or “better”, especially if you are only there to see touristy stuff. I think you can learn just as much about how the world works by living and working with inhabitants of a small town (or neighborhood) than seeing the icons and old churches of someone else’s culture.

Which comes back to why I agree with with the idea that we have right to decide policies in our own best interest without regard to the opinions of people not living our lives or paying the bills. The attitude that Europeans are better or smarter than us simply because they are European is just as arrogant and narrow minded as assuming we’re always right because we’re Americans.

yBoy didn’t visit the parts of France where Islamics from her ex-colonies hang out

Well if you want people to think you’re well-informed you should know that “Islamic” does not refer to people, but institutions or cultures. A person can be a Muslim, and a Muslim may or may not be an Islamist. For example, Saddam Hussein was not an Islamist (he was a secularist), but Bin Laden is.

Most of the people you’re talking about are in fact only nominally Muslim, and are about as religious as anyone else in France (i.e. not very).

I’ve had the pleasure of having left behind my remains in many a different type of crapper* in this big world of ours, and in the end my accomplishment was the same as it would be here @ home, just different ways of coming to the conclusion.

Vive la difference…

* stand-up crappers take the most getting used to…

“Which comes back to why I agree with with the idea that we have right to decide policies in our own best interest without regard to the opinions of people not living our lives or paying the bills.”

When have we NOT conducted business that way and what makes you think we’ll deviate from that established history?

Simple test. Have you ever been to another country? Mexico doesn’t count. Because if you haven’t, you really have no place making comments about what other countries do or don’t think.

And yes, I have been outside the USA. Many times. I went to Japan in the mid 80’s when it was still cool! I’ve been to just about every country in Europe, and I have been to Turkey.

And yes, I got drunk in Mexico!

Bottom line. The views of those of us that have actually been somewhere holds more water than those that haven’t been anywhere. And spouting Rush Limbaugh propaganda doesn’t help your cause!

No, your opinions don’t count more just because you’ve had the luxury of travel. You went on vacation, BFD. Call me back when you’ve earned your PhD in cultural anthropology, then I’ll lend you more respect.

Crooked is straighter? Double talk? Campaign First?

Or, it could be that not everyone who’s monetarily poor wants a handout. It’s even slightly possible that they want a better life and are willing to work for it. And, maybe, they don’t want themselves or their kids to have to “share their wealth” once they achieve that.

They used to call that the American Dream.

The American Dream is to get yours and sc%&w everybody else?

Darn, and I thought it was to buy a McMansion!

“The reason they call it the American Dream is because you gotta be asleep to believe it.” — George Carlin

Interfering with free trade, whether it’s taxes, tariffs, patents, is only going to make society net poorer.

Please, like the government bureaucracy middlemen, aren’t going to take huge pay off cuts in their redistribution schemes.

All those European countries and their social programs are on the fast track to default bankruptcy too.

Taxes should be capped at 10% maximum, for all levels of government, for everybody.

Of course there’s a whole bunch of intolerant bigoted thieves who think it’s their right to vote their neighbor’s property away. And this is the primary reason for societal decline. Civilization only exists to the extent VOLUNTARY cooperation exists. And that means free trade without interference.

People are just PLUM DUMB. After a century of economic efficiency and technological innovation, houses, education, health care, cars should all be cheaper than ever. Yet the masses are oblivious to how the Federal Reserve banksters counterfeited all that wealth away.

It’s even slightly possible that they want a better life and are willing to work for it. And, maybe, they don’t want themselves or their kids to have to “share their wealth” once they achieve that.

This is no longer 1962 when you could land a 30-year job at Generous Motors direct out of (free) high school. Nowadays you need college, and connections. You don’t get those by yourself. If you have brains but your parents have no money, or if you live in a bad school district, you may never have the opportunity. You could work and work and will never make it.

And please understand that “wealth” is $250K a year. That is a LOT of income. Even Obama’s Senate salary is less than that. (His $4M fortune is a one-time lump sum from his two books, not his income. ) Even Sarah Palin would get a tax cut.

And it’s not like Obama is taking EVERYTHING over $250K. Take the “Joe the Plumber” example. He purported to make $270K a year. His tax hike? Less than $1000 a year (I think). Hardly crippling.

The socialists who enacted the Income Tax swore it would never be used to tax anyone except the richest 1%. Every year, Congress has to exempt the super rich tax cheats (those making $50K a year) from the Alternative Minimum Tax. The Federal Reserve has artificially inflated far too many into far too burdensome taxation which is killing productivity and freedom.

Do you have any clue how much wealth the Federal Reserve has stolen away through its hidden taxation counterfeiting inflation since it was enacted?

Keep on inflating house prices and kick grannies out of their homes when they can’t pay the taxes on their fixed incomes. These are “compassionate” leftists. So when inflation makes everything 20 times more expensive, leftists will claim those $50K a year workers now nominally being paid $250K are “rich”, and getting more than their “fair share”.

They don’t even feel the slightest bit guilty taking away peoples’ property, and just invent phony justifications as they go along.

Government is already taking too much from EVERYBODY at all levels. But these people are STUPID too. Let’s subsidize every college student an extra $10K a year so that colleges can just raise their tuition prices an extra $10K per student per year. Same exact thing with Health Care.

Oxide you are making way too much sense!

I have to agree with oxide. I m not rich but I dont want any spread laid on me. I didnt want the stimulus; I didnt need it. Ill make my own money. I dont need it to be taken away from anyone. Muhammad’s horse is talking to those who covet the lifestyle of the rich. He resonates with them. They will reap an economic whirlwind when and if he’s allowed to fulfill his promise. I dont like it, but, I’m prepared. Hope you are.

Worn out threat BP. Enjoy the ride.

All I know is, when a guy making six figures starts taking up for the “poor old wage slave”, it’s time to check my wallet.

lol

BP,
I live close by/amongst those “rich” you talk about.
They can kiss my as**
-

Yeah right..And they get to watch their precious stock market crash while they are on “strike”.

All I know is, when a guy making six figures starts taking up for the “poor old wage slave”, it’s time to check my wallet.

And if you think someone who can’t even remember how many houses he owns starts talking up for you, it’s time to get your head examined.

And if you think someone who can’t even remember how many houses he owns starts talking up for you, it’s time to get your head examined.

I wasn’t talking about Obama, I was referring to exeter. lol

You saw words which you did not understand, therefore it must mean I was rootin’ for the other team, eh?

Nice demonstration of blue-skew tho. Thanks for that. lmao

Why does government constantly get more expensive? Why does government constantly get more expensive in percentage of taxes taken?

Government operated fine before the bubbles, but going back to pre-bubble tax levels is somehow a budgetary crisis?

The free market goose that lays the golden eggs is being smothered. Free trade occurs because it benefits *both* sides. That’s why it occurs voluntarily.

What is there to prevent the government, to prevent people from voting, to take everything away from another person?

Nothing as far as I can tell. Which means the Constitution is dead for all practical purposes. This will end only in War (as if the Thieves Gone Wild aren’t already at war anyway).

That’s why people in Chicago cheer, clap, and applaud when automobile ticket booters get shot.

Can’t we all just get out of other peoples’ wallets? End the Federal Reserve. End the IRS.

some time ago…

I need to start proofing…

If Russia invaded Turkey, would Greece help?

Laddie,

He originally ran away from home because he didn’t like the way his dad was rearing him.

He returned because he couldn’t leave his brothers behind

Mike

Sadly, a lot of those votes will truly be “thrown away”. At least here in Austin (perhaps it’s a TX thing?) One has to be a “registered” write-in candidate for the vote to be counted. So, on the electronic machine you can type it in, but at some point the vote will just disappear.

So, apparently I did literally throw my vote away yesterday :/

I thought you had to be a citizen to be on a jury. A legal resident alien can get a DL in Texas, like anywhere else.

Its actually more restrictive than that, you must also reside in the same county and speak Englsih. They do a lot of weeding out at the court house.

Good enough for me. Thanks. I’ll sit on my hands.

All I know is I’m far more comfortable being short in this environment than long. More fortunes have been lost by “bottom pickers” than by bulls or bears.

But not yet.

Feel the same way. Every once in a while I look at SSO, but I can never pull the trigger, only because I know the floor is much farther down than I could stomach.

A visit to Keeler on the east shore of Owens dry lake is worth the trip.

There’s a massive dock dilapidating, that used to transport Silver from the Coso mines across the lake, way back when.

A few hundred folks live there now, and it frequently gets buzzed by fighter jets from Edwards…

maybe it is a good comparison, because the Swiss expect most of their rivers to run nearly dry in 25-50 years as a result of global warming and disappearing of glaciers (there will be huge fluctuations due to heavier rainfall).

yeah, that’s Ouray’s PR moniker, heard it called that since I was a kid and actually very apt.

Touchy, aren’t we? Ever hear of Richard Lindzen? Maybe you guys are the ones who need to learn something.

Also, Casa, to your point, I repeat a comment I made a while back– which is not original with me– that global warming has become a non-falsifiable proposition. If there are more hurricanes than usual, fewer hurricanes, if it’s wetter, drier, hotter, colder, sunnier, cloudier, it all somehow proves global warming. Is there anything that could happen that would *disprove* it, or even cast doubt on this thesis?

Global Warming (now called “Climate Change”) is the biggest “scientific” hoax of all time. In 5 years of arguing against these politically motivated leftists not one single person has ever been able to provide a simplified linear of non-linear formula of weighted variable inputs that determine the output = Average Earth Temperature.

When you realize these fools are seriously suggesting humans can alter the Earth temperature by 25% you’ll realize these are the same people that sacrificed humans so that the Sun could rise the next day.

Ask for a link to an Average Earth Temperature formula of weighted variables (including things like the Sun) and you will NEVER get one. Yet those very same people PRETEND they understand “science” and mathematical models. Truly incredible. It’s nothing but a new religion without facts and without (even the crudest of) models. Climatologists = Weather Priests.

and your conclusion is based on ??????????????????????????

They aren’t building any more creepy waterfront Projects, you know… so buy now or be priced out forever!

yep. Same here.

Well, that doesn’t make any sense.

What if ITIM is substantially below rent, by say 20%?

I understand the not wanting to be “tied down” part but if they above were true, you could rent it out. (Yes, I can’t believe I’m actually saying this! Someone kill me now.)

Houses aren’t inherrently evil. It just got possessed for awhile. Now they’re getting repossessed.

LOL

Exorcise those prices!

Yep and certified by a licensed real estate appraiser as well…

Yep. I trust this rally as far as I can throw a Volkswagen.

You may get lucky in your timing one time and unlucky a second. The timing is somewhat a matter of luck, no?

Why? Gold is a confidence game just like anything else with false demand.

A few thousand years of false demand is habit forming.

He’s not talking about “confidence IN gold”. He’s talking about taking the sheep the cleaners by “recommending gold”.

You scare the cr*p out of them. Jump, sheep, jump, and then you buy it back from them at half.

That’s always fun to watch. Highly recommended.

“…then you buy it back from them at half.”

We are only off by 25 pct so far. Any thoughts on how long until we get through the other half of ‘half off’? Probably not until this period of unusually high volatility is over, I guess…

I would hope you’d write in ron paul. Any support for other party candidates would help to break the demopublican stronghold on the system.

It might take a while but in 12 yrs we might be able to break the system.

Oh, state. I didn’t see that.

Its from a think tank. Those guys the dems/pubs go to for legislation when they aren’t getting it from BOA. I found a link to part of it.

As I mentioned the idea is floating around and was discussed by some congressional democrats as a proposal.

Its bad policy V but you are too warped to understand that.

The eminent domain decision was an activist court decision to help out some democrats. Sponsored by some liberal judges.
Hence a decay of property rights again. All bad.

Freezing would be more ladylike for me Not a problem for Iceland, they apparently have geothermal energy they haven’t bothered to tap. They found their financial bubble more profitable while it lasted.

Talk to me when the Netherlands acquires a lot of nukes, OK?

Having a hand of nuke cards is like having a Royal Flush, but the other players never bet because they can’t make a hand, and it never gets called.

And then all of the sudden 63 years later, everybody has a Royal Flush…

If you have a big size, you can put it in a lot of places automatically.

Keep up, old man!

When you impose a “wealth tax” (which is what the above suggestion is), society goes to “barter” pretty quickly.

Having actually lived in a country where there was a “wealth tax”, I’ve seen this first-hand. This is not some theoretical boondoggle. You were better off even buying a car because the car didn’t count as “wealth”. The whole thing was beyond m*ronic and they scrapped it pretty quick down the road.

we have a wealth tax in Netherlands for savings, stocks, gold and other assets while items like homes, expensive cars and luxury yachts don’t count (you can buy most of those items VAT-free).

But maybe the tax works here because the citizens are economically less clever or more obedient than in less developed countries (or maybe government likes the way it props up housing and yachting business and accepts that many people are cheating?).

we have a wealth tax in Netherlands for savings I’m curious how that works. Does the bank statement show a deduction from the balance every month, with that amount going to the government?

Yeah, and how do they report “gold”?

What happens if you buy gold in France, and drive it back? Or if you stash it in Switzerland or England?

I mean, really! For the love of common sense, a wealth tax is comically easy to transgress.

For anything else like stocks, etc. you just build it into the model of doing business. They will adjust once, and then trade at that discount.

Or you just emigrate.

The markets are very efficient at punishing savers right now. There has never been a better time to be so rich that you don’t have to worry about a 25% loss on your investment portfolio.

I must say that I berate your profession for leading the sheeple down the primrose path of efficient markets and portfolio theory and other equally execrable h*rsesh*t.

These are academic criminals. Dole artists pretending to disseminate knowledge.

Of course, since it’s my alma mater that did most of the criminal damage, I wonder what that says about me.

“No alumnus donations for you!” sums it up, I suppose.

PB:

Investors have been losing out.

Savers have been losing out.

Borrower-defaulters have made out like bandits.

“Of course, since it’s my alma mater that did most of the criminal damage, I wonder what that says about me.”

Chicago guy, eh?

Default.

It was that “persecuting everyone else” that got the early Saints into trouble, but some people take a very long time to learn their lessons, especially if they are unable to think independently because of a habit of over reliance on “GENERAL AUTHORITIES.”

Wrong again, in Missouri it was being abolishionist in a slave state.

In Nauvoo, it was deciding to defend themselves.

You are right, I’m sure the founding fathers intended that any religion that was offensive to any segment of the population should be forced to go quietly into the night.

NSO,

You are right, no church will be forced to perform marriages. They will perform no marriages instead of compromising standards. It’s already happened in Canada.

Additionally, the litigation due to “hate speech” has also already happened.

You no as well as I do that the people to be feared are on the fringes of every group, mormons, gays, muslims, jews. You are sadly naive if you don’t think there are gay people who’s goal is the conversion of straights, and if they can use the law to that end they will.

BTW, gays outnumber mormons in cali about 3:1. If they want to legalize gay marriage let them put it on the ballot for a vote or get their vote in the legislature. Using the courts for your back door defeats checks and balances and is not the way to run a representative republic.

But government should be allowed to dictate it to religious groups?

Separation goes both ways. Tolerance should too.

In Mass, catholic charities has shut down their adoption services rather than obey a court order to allow adoptions by homosexual couples. That church is a private organization, the government shouldn’t dictate a secular morality to them.

“But government should be allowed to dictate it to religious groups?”

How does expanding the definition of marriage to include gays anything to anybody? I see a bunch of hypocrites who claim* to respect the rights of other groups to live according to the dictates of their own consciences, but who actually want to impose their personal standards of private behavior on the personal lives of others.

*Eleventh Article of Faith: We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

…include gays dictate anything…

It dictates (pun?) because taken in concert with hate speech legislation it could mean a person preaching from the pulpit against homosexual relations could be prosecuted for a religious belief.