The Housing Bubble

Make no mistake, Bammy is NOT in control of anything at this point. His handlers are.

I seriously doubt that.

Regardless of whether one agrees with any particular decision, he’s an engaged president. O couldn’t be farther from the last guy in that regard — he doesn’t have “handlers” to make problems go away while he rides his mountain bike or pretends to clear brush down on the “ranch.”

Chris Mathews Show..??

He show followed “Meet The Press” until a few months ago here in Silicon Valley…Is his show still on ??

I think it now films and shows on Saturday with some places repeating it on Sundays. My DVR records it (along with a host of other shows), but I haven’t had time to watch it lately (along with a host of other shows) so it gets delated. If you have DVR you can search by title and have it automatically recorded regardless of when it plays.

Or you can go for a bike ride instead and enjoy the nice spring some of us are having.

+1 ET-Chicago

[With other poor black seniors, watching Chance on TV]
“Louise: It’s for sure a white man’s world in America. Look here: I raised that boy since he was the size of a piss-ant. And I’ll say right now, he never learned to read and write. No, sir. Had no brains at all. Was stuffed with rice pudding between th’ ears. Shortchanged by the Lord, and dumb as a jackass. Look at him now! Yes, sir, all you’ve gotta be is white in America, to get whatever you want. Gobbledy-gook!”

Obama is not Chauncey. Though I do love the final scene when they pick the next President.

“he’s an engaged president.”

He certainly gives that impression. I don’t compare him to the last one, either. I’m really weary of that. Each president should be taken on his own merits, or lack of them. But for all the hoopla, projection and oratory, Bammy would have been nothing more than a second rate senator with limited experience. Make no mistake, Rahm and compan run the show, Bammy carries their water, as he did with the stimulus package.

Muir, as I commented yesterday, the racial game is over, since the only color that matters is the long green.

Palmy,
I hope you’ve seen “Being There.”
That’s were the quote comes from.
I picked the movie because in the end, at a funeral, the PTB decide who the next President will be.
It was Peter Sellers last movie, and there’s Shirley MacLaine and other great actors.
I also picked the movie as a tribute to the fact that, it is true, the racial game is over.

My mind works in mysterious ways, to me at least.

I don’t compare him to the last one, either.

You should. Because he has to clean up the mess left by the last one.

Obama was dumped onto a pit of quicksand created by Greenspan, Cheney, Paulson, and the rest. At least wait until Obama and this country crawl onto solid ground, free of the after-effects of the “ownership society” folks and their ilk on Wal*Street. Only after that you can judge Obama “on his own merits.”

Make no mistake, Rahm and compan run the show, Bammy carries their water, as he did with the stimulus package.

Rahm is a powerful, crafty devil, without a doubt. (I am not at all fond of Mr. Emanuel; he is very skilled politically, however.) But you are quite mistaken if you think Rahm’s some kind of puppetmaster.

Including Nancy in the cabal makes it laughable, and it tells me you need to go back to ye olde secret cabal theory drawing board — Nancy can’t manage to control her own caucus or agenda in the House, let alone pull strings across branches of government. She’s a largely ineffectual Speaker, not some master tactician.

Muir, I’m familiar with Being There. One of my fave movies. Thanks for clarifying the reference. Yes, I do think Bammy was “picked”. So were those before him.

What I’m noticing. They want to go after the bonuses but not the funds.

No word that perhaps continuing to funnel money down the AIG drain might be a mistake.

You guys.

Sometimes you really do get distracted by the sideshow.

I’ve spent some time on the inside in politics. The way the system works is that a very few insiders representing the different wings of the parties pick (decide to fund) their candidate.

As the race goes on, if it looks like their guy/gal isn’t gonna make it, they’ll switch their pick (funding) to second best in order to have some influence.

Many of these folks will fund a candidate in both parties as a hedge.

If you aren’t on the list for insiders, you have no chance of winning. Their are probably no more than 200 of these insiders making the real decisions on who becomes president. From what I can tell though, it is how the founding fathers set the system up to start with. It is just not taught in history books.

I disagree. The founding fathers despised political parties (the Jacobins in Europe might be an example), but they inevitably sprung up and without any real plan to keep parties out of the game, they got their claws in pretty quick.

Their caucuses and other self-rule are codified in our laws (they’re entrenched) but not in the Constitution … in fact, much of the way they run doesn’t seem to have much to do by way of “guarantee[ing] a democratic form of government.”

Check it out on the local level, where the party bosses control elections even though they are an extra governmental force which really shouldn’t be anywhere near the process like that.

The power of the entrenched political parties is one of the weaknesses of the American system.

As for the big boys paying for congresscritters on both sides of the aisle, well, duh. Recall when Bill Gates had to throw ideology out the door (he disagreed on social issues with Republicans and hadn’t had a history up ’til then of giving them money) when the Democratic admin came after his anti-competitive tactics? Any port in a storm!

Ditto, where is the code for the rolling eyes smiley face???

Send the secret and instructions.

Can I also be entrusted with the code for the rolling eyes smiley face???

Hmmm - what’ll ya give me?

Here it is -

Just kidding

It’s -

: roll :

(remove the spaces)

Much as I hate to give away trade secrets -

How to do Wordpress smileys

It feels like I’ve gotten a secret password. Lol!!!

Thanks, Packman

testing

Great it works, Thanks again!

test

thanks pac !

I have been having lots of evil thoughts about what I am hoping to see happen to AIG bonus recipients

Wall Street Journal
* MARCH 17, 2009
Dodd’s Safe Perch Is Shaken by Bailout
By NAFTALI BENDAVID

As Washington wrestles with a once-in-a-generation financial meltdown, Sen. Chris Dodd has as much riding on the outcome as anyone on Capitol Hill.

As Senate Banking Committee chairman, the Connecticut Democrat will be able to claim credit for new financial regulations the public wants. But he also is a longtime friend of Wall Street, making him a convenient scapegoat if voters sour on the government’s handling of the economic crisis.
…
The public’s current attitude is “let’s burn a few bankers alive,” said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute in Hamden, Conn. Mr. Dodd “will do a lot of things that people will like in the next 20 months — guaranteed. He’s going to want to look good.”

Not that I would seriously wish it on anyone, but I am curious whether there is a historical precedent for bankers getting burned alive in this country, or at least tarred and feathered?

Agree. Regarding an earlier comment by someone about how our indignation should be directed at the overall amount rather than the bonuses: Isn’t it a moot point? We already own 80% of the bloody poster-child failed example of what’s wrong with (North) America.

There are a lot of pigs wandering around with lipstick lately.

Polishing turds? Didn’t they manage to do that on Mythbusters? I loved that episode!

I missed that episdoe of Mythbusters.

Jamie and Adam are cute

‘Jamie and Adam are cute’

I find that beret very irksome. But I’m kinda high-strung and unreasonable, and I know this about myself. So I just shut my eyes when the beret makes an appearance, and all is well.

You don’t care for the beret but you’re OK with the walrus mustache?

The turd polishing episode was when I stopped watching the show regularly. What a waste of an hour that episode was.

Jamie and Adam are cute.

Wow, women have some very questionable tastes.

Heck no - Nerds Get Chicks

I have the feeling that the Fed/Treasury has told the banks that there will be no auditing, that they can keep everything marked to fantasy for a long long time.

“…they can keep everything marked to fantasy for a long long time.”

This has got to be one of the more infuriating things about the meltdown. Just about every day I hear stories on CNN, etc about those who want mark-to-market rules abandoned.

Isn’t there anyone who asks why we would mark to anything BUT market value??

If sky high valuations were “market priced” at the height of the mania, then so are .20 on the dollar if that’s what the market will bear! Sheesh.

Isn’t there anyone who asks why we would mark to anything BUT market value??

First, let me say I am pro-MtM. But there were/are many on this board who think that when a house was selling at it’s peak (let’s take for example, in the IE) that it wasn’t a “fair” price. If you make that argument in the good times then a similar argument becomes reasonable in the bad times.

Also, I don’t think anything was marked up on the way up. In other words if a security is held, according to GAAP, for sale then I believe the rule is that it should be on the books for less of cost or market. What that means is you get MtM on the way down, but marked at cost on the way up.

If anyone can confirm or deny that I would appreciate it. I haven’t had time to look it up yet…

“Isn’t there anyone who asks why we would mark to anything BUT market value??”

what matters in the accounting world isn’t whether one way is more accurate than the other way…it’s that all companies are consistent with the treatment of each type of transaction.

if they change the mark to market rule…analyss will still know the assets are shit…the financials will just not say it.

to pretend that this crisis would have been avoided if not for the mark to market accounting rules is ludicrous IMHO.

How does it work for securities trading firms or firms where part of the operation is trading and another part is not? Moreover, if we’re going to use a discounted cash flow model, how do you value equities without dividend streams but market values?

we’re going to use a discounted cash flow model, how do you value equities without dividend streams but market values?

You could use free cash flow of the firm.

How does it work for securities trading firms or firms where part of the operation is trading and another part is not?

IIRC, it’s not the firm, but the asset. If you are holding a security for sale compared to holding to maturity, the rules are different. AFAIK it doesn’t matter what kind of firm you are. A manufacturing firm holding a MBS for investment has to treat it the same as Goldman holding the same security. Unfortunately I don’t remember all the details around this to take with salt…

One other thing, accounting in the U.S. has longed used a historical cost model, that is, assets are on the books at historical cost minus depreciation. The reasoning is that we are attempting to allocate cost and we are not attempting to place a fair market value on the assets.

Now we introduce SOME assets where the intent is different. So if we use MtM on certain assets, there is going to be discrepency unless we do it for all assets. Generally the response to this problem is that the method should reflect Mgmt’s intent. If mgmt intends to use an asset in production until it is “used up” (like a machine) then we merely need to worry about allocating the cost of the asste correctly. If mgmt is holding a security for trade/investment then a valuation that reflects current fair value (however you want to define that) is more appropriate.

You could also use something like EBT(1-t) / Re

More to the point: There are other ways (which may be more or less suitable than an open market price) to place a “fair value” on a thing.

‘I’ll believe it when it see it.”

I know my “HOPE” is going to get smashed, but, it will make me feel better in the long run because I did something to help expose these shenanigans at the FED.

You know the saying: “I got my paycheck but it’s spent already.”?

That’s where the money is going.

SDRE Bear, my purchase had to do with some fuzzy notion of pairing long and short ETFs as a hedge (SKF was the other one, sold on Thursday). As a newly minted day trader hobbyist, I soon came to my senses and realized I really didn’t know what I was doing. So my minimal gains on UYG made me happy I hadn’t lost anything. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

That will be my justification today for my embarrassment of dry powder. I have a bad feeling about this rally… I think it’s going to drag on for a few weeks… but probably trade sideways. I won’t touch financials on the upside, that’s like picking up copper rods in a nuclear pile with your bare hands. IMO. Waiting for a nice entry point for SKF, SRS. Traded SRS for a nice little profit Friday (got out b/c the market refused to roll over and die Friday afternoon). I wonder if SRS and SPY have decoupled as of today?

And I wish I could figure out the probable direction of foreign currencies/USD, but I think I will leave that to smarter folks than me… already dazed and confused.

As I said last week, this rally has legs.

There are gonna be some very nice trades here.

“”I’m still holding out but getting ansy.”

This is the fastest way to lose money.”

I agree and don’t buy unless I really see a change coming. Bought UYG at 1.38. (Sold way too early of course, but I’m ok with that. ) I missed SKF at 145 (and a later sale at 260) and have no problem with missing that rally. But I can’t decide if the 120’s make sense or if this is going to be another low 100’s opportunity.

The other question is how will the discussion (or implementation) of bringing back the uptick rule affect the ultra shorts? From both a fundamentals view and from a psychological one? It would be so much easy to decide when to buy and sale if they would just stop changing the rules!

I decided not to do this even if it gets to the 100-120 I posted about last week. I got burned on a retry of FXP and am concerned that the same thing will happen with SKF. External forces and the ETF not acting as it was designed lead me to this decision. FYI- check out FXP and FXI the double CHina, long and short, they started moving in the same direction when clearly they shouldn’t be. I was unhappy to lose money when I guessed right but the ETF “mis” performed and am afraid mark to market, uptick rule, and smarter people then I will make an obvious trade a loser….

Jason Zweig recently wrote in the WSJ about the risks of ETFs not following the sectors they track and why that happens. I found the link at seekingalpha.com. Being semi-computer illiterate, I unfortunately can’t put the link into my comment here.

I believe the government is going to remove the tax breaks to any company that ships its jobs to other countries.

The reason globalization is a sham is because of the status of the dollar. In a real fair trade system, their wouldn’t be import/export imbalances over a long period because the value of the dollar would go up or down as the imbalances expanded and contracted. That doesn’t happen, so the U.S. runs a huge trade deficit every year.

Fix that, and the issues with globalization go away very quickly.

I like the option of buying Japanese and German don’t you? Without globalization your only choice in cars would be a UAW built, Detroit piece of junk.

Yeah, Housing Wizard is right.

Manny ….It wouldn’t be that you could not buy a Japan or German produced car ,but there would be a tariff attached to that foreign car . Certainly when a Ford car is being produced in Mexico ,and than sold to a American ,it is Mexico that is benefiting from the jobs that car plant created.

But lets say that Corporations discovered that producing all products outside of America increased their bottom line ,than eventually if you want to get silly about it ,there will be no jobs in America and Americans would than not be able to buy these products . Or if you create a situation where you say that Americans now have to accept the wages a person in Mexico takes in order to find work and be competitive ,than Coporations will suceed in making it impossible for the American to buy
the products they want to sell .

Oops. My bad. It was $5B

http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/obama_bailout_bill/2009/01/27/175729.html

But why worry when ACORN registers Mickey Mouse to vote in Florida, or when they register the same person 73 times to vote in Ohio? Nothing could possibly be wrong with that.

Links:

http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2008/10/13/acorn_probe.html?sid=101

CLEVELAND — Election officials in swing state Ohio’s most populous county asked a prosecutor today to investigate alleged voter-registration fraud, including 73 registrations obtained from one man by an advocacy group under fire in other states.

One of the new voters, Freddie Johnson, 19, of Cleveland, said he signed 73 voter registration forms over a five-month period. Johnson said he was trying to help paid ACORN solicitors collect signed registrations but he didn’t intend to vote more than once.

You realize, of course, that it was ACORN that reported these anomalies?

Uhuh. And that’s why they’re under investigation and/or have been convicted in a dozen states for voter fraud. Nobody - not even the most ardent kool-aid drinking Obamabot - can possibly believe ACORN is anything other than a vote stealing operation bought and paid for by the Dem party.

Rents are tied at the hip to incomes and we all know what 20% unemployment translates to.

Detroit is just a glaring basket-case.

Soon coming to Cleveland and Buffalo and Rochester and Syracuse and Denver, etc. etc. etc.

Short term (next 3-5 years) yep.

Long term (10-20 years) - it’ll be interesting to see. I’ll bet that:

- Some of these areas will bounce back as we bring manufacturing back from China and Mexico due to the building trade and drug wars.

- In the end areas that’ll end up getting hit hardest will be “discretionary spending” industry areas - like tourism in FL, CA, AZ, and of course Vegas.

Some of these areas will bounce back as we bring manufacturing back.

There is absolutely no reason to bring back manufacturing to these high-cost-high-wage towns.

Manufacturing will come back, and it will relocate mostly in the south where wages are lower and governments are not as expensive.

Places like Detroit and Cleveland are broken - so absurdly broken that I do not believe that they can be fixed.

I could buy that. That’s why Toyota is mostly in the south - less unionized.

That being said though - it seems like there would be some significant cost savings in simply using existing infrastructure - roads, houses (beat up as they are), schools, etc. vs. building all new ones. At some point these broken down towns should cross the cost-benefit line, where it’s worth taking the salary hits, along with the benefit of existing infrastructure vs. just dying.

I’ve never seen or done any study though. Just seems that way.

“Places like Detroit and Cleveland are broken - so absurdly broken that I do not believe that they can be fixed.”

I agree 100%.

Detroit and Cleveland sit near valuable soil and even more valuable water. There is no reason to grow frozen broccoli in China, or Mexico. And we can make our own melamine.

I have set up 3 manufacturing plants. One of the plants employed 600 workers. My main criteria were to set up plants by optimizing how close the plant was to the markets it served. The proximity to various cities and the big populations we intended to serve. Location of the support companies supplying the raw materials. Overhead building cost as well as the caliber of workers we could employ from the nearby communities. I discovered we found nicer hard working people who lived in small towns. The North East has the biggest wealthiest population as well as many cities are within a 4 to 6 hr drive of each other. The availability of commercial space is quite reasonable. Taxes are a killer.

Your arguments that companies will relocate to the south has some merit as companies are being forced to relocate to the south like it or not. The lower profit margins companies that solely rely on volume can not adequately survive in the north east have been relocating to the south. Some of our suppliers of raw materials have been discussing with us that they have very few customers (actually 2 left in NYS) and a day will come either we will have to pay huge shipping cost for raw material being shipped from the south or else join the herd towards a corporate migration down south. If gas goes back up to $4 to $5 bucks per gallon again our truck load price will move from $150 to well $4000. A company can hire lots of $10 per hr Bubbas in the south for that kind of money difference per truck load.

Finally I think I will have to get used to eatin fried cat fish, drinking ice tea thru a hose pipe while writin with an ink pen. Y’all.

I tried growing frozen broccoli but the neighbor kids kept throwing snowballs at me.

LOL at SUGuy (from a Southerner).

If your factory ends up being more than one floor - don’t forget you have to mash the elevator button to go between floors.

Oh - and all soda is Coke, whether it’s Coke or not.

P.S. if you end up in NC - don’t ever bring up the subject of BBQ, or else no work will get done the rest of the day.

Just think FPSS,

All those academia in our goverment went to college and still don’t see the obvious.

+1
Not only it is not obvious for most people, in fact they think you are at best retarded to suggest that housing is cost. Happened to me many times in the last couple of years when I discussed the topic with colleagues and friends. What gets me is that even RE bears do not agree with me that housing is cost.

These are the same hyper-maroons who think that paying interest on credit cards is “great” because inflation bails you out.

(As opposed to paying no interest at all, and investing that money.)

Most days it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed.

Republican or Demorat arguments aren’t the story……suburbs thrive because smaller governments and school districts are more responsive to individuals than big government, no matter who is running things. Add this to the inability/unwillingness of politicians to make tough decisions/P.O. voters, and it’s easy to see where the problem is.

Sprawl happens when suburban governments become big and unresponsive, and people start moving to outlying towns to get away from the same problems all over again.

Add the fact that most workplaces are pretty portable anymore (a big enough roof, air conditioning, internet connections) and the jobs can follow the employees.

Correct, X-GSfixer. It does not matter which party is in control, the bigger the city, the worse the skimming bureaucracy.

The same is also true if the town is too small. “No outsiders wanted,” seems to be the rule.

Bull. Sprawl happens because the developer profits by externalizing costs. The local gov loses because farmland pays more in in taxes than it takes out.

People don’t move farther out b/c they’re fed up with suburban gov’t… in fact, often the opposite, the inner suburb has the “desireable” schools, shopping, commute, ‘hoods. They move farther out b/c they can get more house for less and some contingent b/c taxes are cheaper (b/c they don’t want to pay for those “desireable” schools).

A few move out b/c they want country, but the sprawl always follows them!

You will often find that the city slickers in the exurbs complain and complain about their newfound slice of paradise because it doesn’t have the amenities/hospitals/efficient gov/excitement of their old ‘hood.

Both the theater and the train station still have a beauty of workmanship and attention to detail. What a shame to see them falling into ruin.

There were some items in those photos that ought to be worth something even now: the old dentist’s chair, the 1940s-era kitchen table, the cabinets in the school. Surely somebody could use that stuff and save it from further decay.

There were some items in those photos that ought to be worth something even now: the old dentist’s chair, the 1940s-era kitchen table, the cabinets in the school.

I thought the same thing, Elanor, though it’s also nice to see those objects still in situ. The metal medical cabinetry off to one side of the dentist’s chair caught my eye.

Excellent point above.

The saving grace of things built at the turn of the LAST century is that they were built well. Even open to the weather they can last more or less structurally intact for decades. The crap they build now wouldn’t last 6 months if it was exposed to the elements and wont last 50 years even with the BEST maintenance.

Suburbia is toast once energy costs catch up to it. The cheap credit orgy is the only thing that sustained it and everyone on this blog knows that its dead as disco.

My hope, as an architect, a proponent of urbanism and living within our means, is that people will re-discover the ‘ancient’ cities, re-build our rail infrastructure, and start to re-build and adapt the ‘ruins’.

Yes, the train station and theater are spectactular, even in decay and take it from me. They DONT (and most likely CANT) build them like that any more.

you’re right about can’t: lost skills, and cost of labor is too high.

yeah, you can always hire illegals, but they sho’ won’t do it right.

Oh I fully expect things to work that way - just not nearly as quickly as the OFHEO data is indicating. There’s no way price drops go in three quarters from 15% -> 20% -> 2%.

Especially when Case/Shiller is indicating no slowdown in price declines through the same period, including in California.

It’s weird since the OFHEO data has up to now been quite reasonable in following Case/Shiller data, and my own observations of some various areas.

I regret to inform you that NSO is quite right. Direct your attention to this quotes;

“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.”
Aug. 26, 2002, Dick Cheney, Vice President

Now there is a lie you can wager the lives of soldiers on. 4000 of them.

Why lie?

4000 soldiers, plus over a million innocent civilians (but 99% of them non-christian/jew, so they don’t count).

“Lie”? From the above link, which has about 75 similar statements from President Clinton, Hans Blix, and leading Democrats:

“In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more the very kind of threat Iraq poses now — a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed.

If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program.”

President Clinton
Address to Joint Chiefs of Staff and Pentagon staff
February 17, 1998

Iraq occupation=LIE.

The difference: Clinton didn’t think it worthy of going to war. Bush did. Real, real simple.

I think the most telling headline/actual truth that I saw was the following:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,79450,00.html

And the pictures:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/28/iraq/main570588.shtml

Our collective money and men/women would have been better used to combat terrorism in other ways.

Could that difference possibly have to do with anything that happened on 9-11-01?

RentalWatch: The concern was (in the words of Congressman Richard Gephardt - D, MT) “an A-bomb in a Ryder truck in New York, in Washington and St. Louis.” Perhaps Gephardt “lied” to the American people in the hopes of making a profit on [insert nutty conspiracy theory here].

LehighValleyGuy: Exactly. After 9-11, failing to address “a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists” (in the words of President Clinton) wasn’t a popular concept. That’s probably why Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John Kerry, John Edwards, Harry Reid, and a few hundred others all voted yes to “authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.”

(See “freedom agenda” website posted above for a full vote listing.)

Have a look at the above site — read what was said, who said it, and who voted for what. The only people who can discount the detailed information there are partisan hacks.

Wow, Bush, Rummy and Cheney had nothing to do with the war? Your straw man has me confused about what you consider “false”, exactly…

Yeah, but exactly where does Billy Bob go to get that American made decal?

My grandfather came to Florida from Decatur, IL during the GD with my grandmother, infant uncle and 3 year old mother. He had a corn farm and was starving to death. Had a drought one year and lost most of the crop. Ate the seed corn to survive. Couldn’t get a loan to replant.

Abandoned the farm to the County and came South where a childhood friend could give him a job as an auto mechanic. He used the last of his money on gas. No one ate for the two day trip south including the baby.

You can go out to Whistleville outside Decatur to the cemetery and see all the folks who died during the GD. Big bump up over the ’20’s & ’40’s. Many don’t realize how many people died of starvation, lack of health care, lack of necessities. It wasn’t something anyone wanted to document.

It is interesting that people desire to have a lot of things they consider valuable, and others are willing to produce it for them. But we can’t seem to figure out how to make this happen on a reasonably sustainable basis. Humans are not very intelligent animals after all.

Tell that to your kid with the infected tooth when you can’t afford to get it fixed because you lost your freakin’ job because the company you worked for went BK for no reason otherthan it can’t get a freakin’ business loan.

I will say it again so maybe it sinks in: Your attitude speaks volumes in terms of your entitlement mentality. The population of the world is currently over 6.7 billion. 16 percent, over 1 billion don’t have access to clean water. Almost 6 percent, over 400 million, exist on less calories than required for subsistance. What does the world owe you or any individual when suffering on that level exists?

I’m not sadistic, nor am I a financial anarchist. I am a realist who has come to terms with the fact that the difference between my expectations for life and reality are solely the result of my shortcomings. I am someone who has taken full responsibility for the welfare and well-being of his family to heart.

While it may be a fictitous example, it sounds to me like the problem of your child’s infected tooth, your lack of health insurance coverage, and your business’s lack of available credit and eventual demise is worthy of some sort of empathy or sorrow? Amazing then, when a frugal lifestyle and the delay of gratification would have prepared one with savings and means to weather a storm of such calamity. Or is that too quaint an idea? Should the government, rather my taxes as well as inflation pay for this child’s toothache and his parents inability to save or at least maintain credit in lieu of savings?

“..a frugal lifestyle and the delay of gratification would have prepared one with savings and means to weather a storm of such calamity..

That comment would be laughable if it weren’t so painfully mistaken. Evidently, you haven’t the slightest idea what would actually happen to you along with everyone else, if the the financial system were to collapse.

Actually, the death rate declined nationally after the 1929 Crash. This was a matter of surprise to everyone, because they expected the ‘hard times’ would cause it to rise.

I do not mean the minimize the problem of hunger (which was real for many populations in the 1930’s). But it is a popular misconception that the Depression led to death. (Now, this count would not have included abortions. Anecdotally, it seems like induced abortions rose during the Depression, but I don’t know of any hard numbers, and of course the birth rate plummeted. I also don’t know what infant mortality looked like, but that would have been included in the death rate. From what I recall, other factors may have been in play resulting in a reduced % infant mortality as part of a multi-decade downtrend.)

I do not know if there is any connection, but an interesting discovery in the last 30 years is that eating less than one’s proper caloric intake, while detrimental to one’s appearance (hair, skin), actually *prolongs* life.

Evidently, you haven’t the slightest idea what would actually happen to you along with everyone else, if the the financial system were to collapse.

I’m quite certain you don’t know what would happen either. What I do know is that the world would go on. My family would go on living for as long and as well as it could. Do you think we would stop living, give up? I think not.

Truly, you live in fear.

The main reason the death rate dropped in the 30’s and 40’s was the introduction of antibiotics, and their precursors, sulfamides.

Probably it would have dropped more if people hadn’t been starving to death as well.

Reason for making sure everybody gets minimal health care and food requirements? When somebody discovers something like antibiotics, everybody benefits. And you never know when that somebody is going to be born poor.

Joey , Lets just say we let the Investment firms crash and banks were taken over by FDIC or the government to keep a fuctioning banking system . All the losses would of been spread out in part . The investment class would of loss no doubt ,but it was excess investment money that
would of been lost in theory . Instead the losses were simply tranferred from the real bagholders (the gamblers )to the taxpayers .

Oh ,of course there would of been a need for some resititution in certain cases . The government could of been in the position to use money where it was really
needed ,rather than saving WHO ? Ok ,so who is saved ?
Certainly all those people who invested in 401k’s for years didn’t get saved . People who lost their jobs didn’t get saved . The future cost to save the investment class ,or Investment firms that are totally discredited now ,or AIG ,who owed the banks insurance money (including Foreign Banks ) would of gone BK . AIG would of sold off all its assets and a certain portion of their debt would of been given to who they owned money to .

In addition the government would of had more money to deal with situations that really needed public funding .
At least had we let thing fall as they should of legally ,than we wouldn’t now be supporting the
gangsters that created the mess and we wouldn’t be having problems
keeping Ponzi scheme Firms afloat in this environment .

When you have a major Ponzi-scheme crash ,do you have a need for all the viable businesses that were dependant on that Ponzi scheme for instance ? We had a need for contraction in certain areas and a need for expansion in other areas ,after the crash . Do you need to build more houses when you already have a excess supply ? Do you have a need to make loans when people need to pay off debt ?
Its not that you don’t spend money during a emergency ,but you spend money that will really be effective . Also the moral hazard of the bail out will take it’s toll .

At the very least ,short term loans could of been made to
some of the financial entities until the matter could of been investigated by a neutral committee ,instead of the Emergency Paulson Plan of Blank Checks and immunity .

So,I do not accept the notion that the de-leveraging could not of been handled in not only a more cost effective way ,but a way that would not create the moral hazard ,and also not address the corruption that
still is alive and kicking .

I’ll bet you $10 that they say they didn’t turn off the water bcecause the germs on the handle would make the original hand washing useless or words to that effect.

They should be made to stay and clean the rest room if they are caught.

They should be made to stay and clean the rest room if they are caught.

Testify. And they should be forced to do it With.Their.Tongues.
But I’m not some kind of a barbarian. They can have a drink of water afterwards, all cleansing-like.

That and the golf courses. Nuts!

Xeric gardens. It’s the desert, people!

For example, growing up I only knew rich Republicans.

I must clarify. I don’t mean everyone I knew was a rich Republican. I grew up in a town with no traffic-lights, for instance, so we wasn’t terribly fancy and cultured.
I meant that everyone I knew who was rich, was also a Republican. Because, as I say, there wasn’t any other kind of human to be had in the wilderness of Utarr.
Except for Mexicans and Lamanites, and they don’t count, obviously. I mean, come on!

Well, I don’t know any of the really wealthy folks around here. But, this is area is heavily Republican, and I’d venture to guess that the few families who pretty much own and run the place are Repubs.

The people who I am familiar with are from another state, as that’s where I did a lot of my growing up (though I was born in Seattle, I moved away as a young child and returned to the area as an adult). Like I said, it’s hardly scientific, but it’s my experience. I certainly don’t ignore the large swaths of limousine liberals, but I think they are dwarfed by the numbers of wealthy conservatives.

I wouldn’t wager anything on my observations, as I don’t run in such circles anyway. I prefer people who are more down to earth, and share the same economic realities.

Good for you. We have them entrenched in city gov. They talk out of both sides of their mouth, content in the knowledge that only a small minority are paying attention (not enough to vote them out).

No matter their alleged political affiliation, local political office here is a stepping stone to some other cushy position and ultimately, ownership of an RE empire (the only real wealth around here). Many of them are slumlords, Realtwhores, and developers, and the ones that aren’t are about to be.

Plus I need scissors for the ear hairs; maybe eventually a lawn mower.

(P.S. I use the “man” term in the generic sense, being that I have no clue if you’re a man or woman. That being the case - you’re not that woman that was attacked by a bear last year are you? Anyone know what happened to her? I forgot what her handle was. Hope she’s doing OK.)

woman attacked by bear is ahansen

GrizzlyBear is slightly mysterious