Bits Bucket For June 25, 2009
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The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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The very last thing the FED wants to have happen, I damn well hope it does. Go to Ronpaul.com to see if your rep. is on the list.
Ron Paul’s Bill To Audit The Federal Reserve Now Has 242 Co-Sponsors
By tmartin • June 24, 2009
Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve (HR 1207) now has 242 co-sponsors, and the numbers keep growing! At the same time, HR 1207’s companion bill in the Senate, S 604, is beginning to attract its first co-sponsors!
This is history in the making, and victory is within reach. Imagine what will happen if HR 1207, The Federal Reserve Transparency Act, comes up for vote in Congress! With more than 55% of the House of Representatives already co-sponsoring this bill, it has real potential to pass — BUT only if we educate and rally the people to support it and get our Congresspeople to put it to vote and pass it.
Can you say what is the “next steps” in the bill? What does it need to get past committee? Does the committee itself need to vote to put it out for a general vote? If so - is there a timeframe?
I’m sure the accounting firm of Fraudster, Liar and Deceit are already working on an appropriate “stress test” for the Fed. They will pass with flying colours no doubt. Having said that, I admire what Ron Paul is trying to do and hope some truth will come from his efforts.
It’d be nice to see them squirm a little bit, at least.
But who REALLY needs to be kicked square in the sack is Barney Frank. It’s ridiculous that he’s demanding that Freddie and Fannie loosen loan standards after what we’ve just been through. He is either completely bought off or completely stupid. Possibly both.
I learned the other day that one can actually die from blunt force trauma to the groin. Who knew?!
Friend of mine works on training simulators for military and police. Even with “non-lethal” (aka beanbag) rounds, a head, heart, or groin shot is considered a kill shot.
Wear a cup, ladies and gents!
No pun intended with the ‘beanbag’ remark?
Hah. No, no pun intended. Actually, I was worried about mentioning it. Apparently that’s a non-PC term to use in southern CA. They call them something else (not beanbags) so as not to offend the local population.
Who knew?
Actually, I heard from a friend on K street that Dewey, Cheatam & Howe is working on that.
This is the same law firm used by the Car Talk guys, Click and Clack, on NPR.
Here’s a pic of their office in Cambridge, Mass.
For us oldsters the Three Stooges used an accounting firm name of “Dewe,Cheatum & Howe”
I can beat that… how about the movie “other people’s money” that had the firm: White, Mann, Small, Johnson.
Tom
Is it legal for the Fed chairman to threaten to oust banking CEOs who don’t play ball? Just askin’…
Bernanke, a Machiavellian Schemer?
Thu Jun 25, 2009 5:55am EDT
By sara dot behunek
The finger-pointing seems to have just begun in the months-old acquisition of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America (BAC)—and now in the spotlight is Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Today, the papers report, Bernanke will testify in front of the House oversight and government reform committee on the Fed’s role in the messy takeover, as Republican lawmakers accuse him of orchestrating a cover-up of Merrill’s worsening financial situation. Bernanke has denied any wrongdoing. “Lawmakers, especially House Republicans increasingly hostile to the Fed, are expected to ask Mr. Bernanke about [Bank of America CEO Kenneth] Lewis’s previous suggestion that the government pressured him to not disclose details about the discussions, and that officials made clear they would consider ousting management,” the Wall Street Journal writes.
“Is it legal for the Fed chairman to threaten to oust banking CEOs who don’t play ball? Just askin”’…
In the words of Sir “Bubbles” Greasepan to Larry King… The FED for all intents and purposes , is above the law.
Note: Not his exact words, but to that effect.
I think the original TARP bill passed by Congress does put the Fed somewhat above the law. The powers granted were pretty much unlimited and non-reviewable.
Exactly.
The FED can do whatever it wants and answers to no one. Threats of martial law, arm-twisting, ARM-breaking, etc. It doesn’t matter since nobody will stop them.
Now, everyone go back to sleep while we take your money, give it to bankers, and inflate away your future.
As I have asked before on this forum, would it have killed Ken Lewis to be a whistleblower before succumbing to Prof Bernanke’s threats? Isn’t that kind of high ethics something we expect from our CEOs?
Hah, who would have listened?
Unfortunately, nowadays ( and maybe it has always been this way — I don’t know and don’t want to be naive ), CEO’s across the board seem primarily interested in looting their companies, getting sweetheart deals put together, preserving their bonuses and deferred compensation, and covering their tracks. Preservation of a company’s mission, business, and shareholder and employee welfare don’t seem to be very high on their to-do lists. I’m sure there are a number of exceptions, but the group as a whole is disgusting. Ethics ? What are ethics ?
Silverback 1011,
You have been spot on of late. And where do you think they learned this kind of behavior from? Uh-huh, dot.com CEO’s. If you’ll recall back in the 90’s, CEO’s from established firms were whinning the blues b/c some kid at a start-up was getting a better comp. than HE was!
We haven’t been able to get that genie back in the bottle since?
As we discussed several months ago, Lewis should have:
-Terminated the Merrill Lynch deal
-Resign…..
I find it funny that Bernanke And Co. are beating up BoA for failing to do “due diligence” …….didn’t, in fact, the Fed pressure BoA to complete this deal in 48 hours, over a weekend, or else? Along with talk about “doing this for the good of the country” and “preventing a market meltdown when Merrill went Tango-Uniform on Monday morning?”
Moral to the story: Avoid doing business with government, especially the Federal Government, if at all possible. If the deal goes bad for any reason, you will be left holding the Sheet Bag.
They apparently didn’t notice what happened to the dot.com CEOs’ companies. Maybe it wasn’t entirely because of the looting, but the looting sure didn’t help.
Also the percentage of comp going to CEOs and higher ups as compared to the lowest paid or even the average or mean payed worker has been climbing since the 70’s, so it’s not just the dot commers that are to blame for the grossly inflated salaries.
This disparity grew large prior to the first Great Depression as well.
I think after the smoke clears from this one, we’ll see more reasonable compensation differences again.
These posts on the CXO comp bubble(s) gets a mention in the Matt Tiabbi’ article in Rolling Stone Magazine “The Great American Bubble Machine”. His section on bubble #1 - the roaring 20’s bubble, bubble #2, the tech bubble… and so on, discusses it.
sfbubblebuyer,
Oh agreed, it’s not necessarily ‘all’ new? I think though, in addition to the “instant riches”, they borrowed heavily from the dot.com’s by becoming incurable “idea junkies” constantly tinkering w/ the bus. model to the point of torture.
Walk into any Safeway store. I swear, every time I go in there I need an “escort” just to help me find where stuff is! Just leave it the F alone… already! Stop “tweaking your retail mix”! I can find peanut butter.., now where’s the jelly? Oh 17 aisles over, gotcha’.
Looting, pillaging and gutting your own company at everyone else’s expense is behavior as old as history.
Maybe we should offer shares/partnerships in a new private-equity company to members of the HBB, and do some of our own looting,pillaging and gutting.
Preferably to a company that richly deserves it.
didn’t, in fact, the Fed pressure BoA to complete this deal in 48 hours, over a weekend, or else?
Yes. Keep in mind:
The Fed = Banks.
The Fed is a cartel privately owned by the banks. Influence goes both ways, on the behalf of individual banks and the big banks as a whole - so I’m sure the Fed didn’t have to press hard to get this deal done.
“didn’t the Fed pressure them to complete this in 48 hrs”
– actually, NO. The Fed may have been applying pressure on that mid-September weekend, but the controversy surrounds what happened in Dec-Jan, after Lewis and BofA learned that Merrill’s losses were larger than previously thought. There was a “MAC” clause (material adverse change? I think) that would’ve allowed BofA to back out of the contract, and the question is whether Bernanke pressured Lewis to refrain from exercising that clause.
+1.
My employer (went public on the NYSE a couple years ago) has accelerated the looting since that time; with continious rebranding, big shots flying in on Monday mornings to show a few employees the door and then flying out, on-going retention of “management specialists” when what we really need are more people in the trenches.
They even go so far as every three months to remind us that the company stock is the best option in our 401(k). I use that as my quarerly reminder to sell whatever meager shares I was given in the previous 12 weeks.
Right on -both- counts. Still, the failure of Merrill would have set off a collision course of cross defaults ( granted most richly deserved ) that would have been a huge disruption.
Personally, since the firm “I” work w/ had $17 in cash for every $30 in assets ( compared to ML’s $1 ) I would have been fine w/ shutting that end of the distribution channel down! All those ML reps. would have landed on their feet somewhere else. This was about temp. mothballing the company for mgmt.
When the first financial regulations were loosened in the 80s, pump-and-dump quickly became the new business model.
This soon led to the Savings & Loan disaster.
10 years after the Glass-Stegal Act was repealed, here we are again.
Can you spot the trend?
“I use that as my quarerly reminder to sell whatever meager shares I was given in the previous 12 weeks.”
– I’ll wager that’s the best price they’ll ever get.
‘…on-going retention of “management specialists” when what we really need are more people in the trenches.’
Somebody has to be on the receiving end of $700 bn in TARP monies stolen from the American taxpayer; why not your ‘management specialists’ — they seem as bailout-worthy as the next guy…
Sort of OT, just caught Bravo-NYCprep.. oh for petes sake, if this is the future of our youth and our business world, get ready. It is uber wealthy children 15-17 yrs old NYC that don’t know anything but getting their own ways, knowing nothing of life.
So, when we talk about BB etc and the financial market, I frankly have no hope for the future of our country other than it going into the toilet, having the upper 1% and then the rest of us moving faster to the bottom.
Just frightening that our future is just more of what has made WS the thing to live up to.
Sorry, have mentioned this before: at the hearings, at the time, Lewis looked extremely uncomfortable. Body language, facial expression and such. Whereas Thain (sp?) looked like on top of his game. Not knowing who was who initially, I thought Thain was BofA, and Lewis was Merrill (looked beaten down).
Yesterday, I saw a clip of Ken Lewis speaking and, while only those who were present know exactly what was said, Lewis sounds and looks like a lying SOB. I don’t trust that pigman one bit. I’d be inclined to believe Bernanke.
MarketWatch First Take
Jun 25, 2009, 12:28 p.m. EST
In the dock, Fed chief defends his honor
Commentary: Hearings show regulator wasn’t as clueless as bankers
By MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Of all the changes flowing from last year’s financial crisis, one of the most shocking could be the sight of the Federal Reserve chairman essentially sitting in the dock, accused of lying, conspiracy and malfeasance.
Congressional hearings into the bungled take-over of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, and the ensuing bailout of Bank of America by the Fed, have ripped down the curtain of secrecy that has always protected the Fed from prying eyes. See full story.
A visibly shaken Ben Bernanke testified on Capitol Hill on Thursday to defend his actions and his honor. Bernanke insisted that he — and the Fed’s staff — had acted with the “highest integrity” as it scrambled to prevent another wave of panic from taking down the global financial system late last year.
…
“People seem to forget that these fiscal spending programs aren’t creating any real wealth and are simply transferring wealth from the savers to the debtors. Essentially, governments are taking money from the solvent and re-distributing these funds amongst the insolvent.”
~Puru Saxena
I like Puru Saxena. He has the ability to cut through the BS and call it as it is. John Hussman is another financial guy that tends to see things pretty clearly. How come these guys can figure it out but the people running the country (Paulson, Geithner, Bernanke, etc.) are a bunch of fools and crooks. Somethimes I wonder if they’re just stupid or if they’re brilliant criminal minds. Judging simply by the amount of money they transfered from the taxpayer to Wall Street I would guess the latter. Either way, they shouldn’t be in charge of the financial affairs of this country.
“In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.” — Albert Einstein
In the short run - including the span of a career - there’s a lot more money to be made in unethical behavior than in ethical behavior.
While I love Ayn Rand-ian philosophy in general, I diverge from her in that she proposes that the greatest good for society can be achieved via the allowance of each person to pursue their own individual greatest good, foregoing any actions that sacrifice their own good for the good of society. The problem is that this is the result - human nature is such that smart and greedy people will use power corruption for their own gain, to the detriment of society as a whole.
Instead there has to be some smart people in power who have ethics, such that they’re willing to forego some of their own individual power, and usually the wealth that goes with it, in pursuit of a better political and economic system.
George Washington IMO was such a person. After we won the Revolutionary War, there were many that wanted to install him as president via a military dictatorship. This would certainly have increased his power beyond what he would otherwise have, but he would not agree to it - he would only agree to be president if a Republican form of government, such as what was created, was put in place. He sacrificed some of his own good for the long-term good of the country.
Certainly he still did well, and “sacrifice” is a relative term. Same could be true of the PTB today though - if they were really interested in the long-term welfare of the country they wouldn’t be doing the apparently-stupid things they are doing. But instead they’re just interested in short-term wealth and increase of power. I don’t think they’re foolish, I just think they’re greedy. They’re willing to allow the financial system to be wrecked long-term, in order that they can stand on the top of the pile.
“I diverge from her in that she proposes that the greatest good for society can be achieved via the allowance of each person to pursue their own individual greatest good…”
Ah, ethics.
I still maintain that the “greatest good” is as much an intrinsic measure as an extrinsic one. Just because someone outsmarted others - and, as a result, has more wealth or presitage than others - doesn’t mean they’re better. Could be they’re just @ssholes.
I don’t know how people can look at themselves in the mirror. Extrinsic value trumps the intrinsic for most.
I still maintain that the “greatest good” is as much an intrinsic measure as an extrinsic one. Just because someone outsmarted others - and, as a result, has more wealth or presitage than others - doesn’t mean they’re better. Could be they’re just @ssholes.
+ a gazillion.
Ayn Rand…
*makes scoffy face *
She really oughtta been a developer/builder. I’ve never met one ofthem who thinks they ought to be subject to regulations (ie. prevented from putting septic drain-fields near the neighbors well, or upslope of oyster beds, etc etc etc etc) EITHER.
On the greater good,
Take a choice between:
a) you have 3 widgets; or
b) you and 4 other people have 1 widget.
Too many people choose a).
c) you and 4 other people each have 1 widget, and the government taxes you each 1 widget to give to 5 people too lazy to make their own widgets.
On the greater good,
Take a choice between:
a) you have 3 widgets; or
b) you and 4 other people have 1 widget.
Too many people choose a).
LOL - OK back to the base principle. Explain this - exactly how did the people in a) and b) come by these widgets?
If I may jump ahead - many people don’t understand that people aren’t just born with widgets.
People ARE born with widgets! Some people have dozens of widgets, and when they have kids they can shower them with widgets. And those are the people who say “Hey, don’t take any of MY widgets away, go take THAT GUY’S widget since he knows how to make more. He can always make a new one every time you take his!”
“If I may jump ahead - many people don’t understand that people aren’t just born with widgets.”
And of course, children today are born owing many, many widgets.
Watching todays youth, especially the top 2% of wealthy teens, are just a frightening example of what we have to see in our futures. Not unlike Paulson/BB/Bush/ privileged crowd. Randism gone wild.
I believe Objectivism is the ethical standard that came out of Ayn Rand’s writings.
And wasn’t Eudomon a Greek Philosopher?
Anyway, where I see Ayn failing is in a couple of key concepts:
1. Allowing power to concentrate in too few hands creates a fundamental weakness where great ideas, inventions, etc… have no ability to invigorate the market because the few who hold power don’t have the capacity to capture all of the things going on out there.
2. Human beings are fundamentally social animals. We are very hierarchical in our thinking and are driven to move up. If you leave too many poor in your wake, they will rise up against you. Your standard of living and wealth can actually be greater if you make sure those around you have enough so that they are reasonably content.
I think you need to study Rand better if you think that about her concepts. That’s pretty much opposite.
- Rands concepts promoted division of power, not concentration of power.
- Rather than removing welfare for lower classes - Rands concepts promote the idea that the very reason why the upper classes become upper class is by *providing* for the welfare of others - including the “poor”.
packman, obviously the majority of ppl who read Rand misunderstand what you derive from her work.
packman, obviously the majority of ppl who read Rand misunderstand what you derive from her work.
I haven’t studied Rand post-Atlas-Shrugged, but unless her philosophy diverged significantly from her two primary works The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, then yes - if “the majority of ppl” believe Jon’s two points above then they do very much misunderstand it.
That wouldn’t surprise me actually. A lot of people really have a hard time letting go of the false “conservation of benefit” principle - that one person’s gain must necessarily equal another person’s loss.
Well game theory implies that in many endeavors, it is advantageous to behave honestly and forthrightly with people that you’ll have to deal with again, and ruthlessly hose those who you’ll never see again. In many ways, we have internalized that lesson. We tend to trust a store with a fixed address more than somebody selling stuff out of the back of their van. We expect more honesty from a grocery store that we visit every week than a car dealer that we see at most every few years.
I would argue that those who expand their circle of honest dealing the widest are probably the best people, although they do sometimes set themselves up to be taken.
I agree 100% Jim A. Though I’m not sure that most people execute game theory - plenty of people are not honest and forthright with those they see everyday. For example, consider the numbers who have no issue taking credit for the work of others (I have real issues with people who do that).
There’s lots to like about Rand. I’m very pro-individual. Much more so than most people. I’m also very pro personal responsibility.
Yes, the best people sometimes get taken. In numerous ways, too (monetarily, sex, accomplishment - you name it).
Well game theory implies that in many endeavors, it is advantageous to behave honestly and forthrightly with people that you’ll have to deal with again, and ruthlessly hose those who you’ll never see again.
Exactly my problem with pure Rand theory. In practice of pure Rand theory, if a person found out they were terminally ill they’d go around stealing from everyone they could, knowing that they’ve almost nothing to lose if they get caught.
In the real world though - 99% of all transactions you do are with someone that you will interact with in the future - either directly or indirectly, so it’s in your best interest not to screw them over; in an ideal system that is. In a non-ideal system (back to the original subject) - people whom you screw over often have no recourse, due to the outside influence of the third party that is government.
GM is a great example. In an ideal world if a company performed so badly as to go bankrupt, then no one would ever invest in that company or buy its products again. As is now though that’s not the case - they get to continue on, and the bondholders and taxpayers get screwed, with no recourse.
My clients’ perception of me as a straightforward dealer undoubtedly helps keep the default rate at zero point zero. Their perception is slightly flawed, but I daresay I’m a more straightforward dealer than the competition.
My “personal” greater good would include abandoning the kids and my mom, and scamming enough sheeple to generate a mid-six figure income. But for whatever reason, I feel like I have a responsibility to people other than myself.
My parents obviously screwed up, and didn’t prepare me for life in 21st Century America.
People have to be regulated because the greed factor is alive and kicking . Enforcing of the laws is necessary in a Society where religion or morals does not compel people to play the game by the rules or exercise good faith to their fellow man in their dealings . As it stands right now ,we have corrupt systems in which the name of the game is simply how to take advantage of any given law or hand out ,or not get caught ,with the objective that a higher net worth is the most noble goal .
Wasn’t the goal of the Constitution to simply give everyone the opportunity for the pursuit of happiness ,rather than assurance that they will obtain it by sitting on their ass or being part of a chosen group that gets something for nothing ?
Greed is alive and well. With vegas, tv, movies, rocknroll, politicians getting away with everything and still keeping their jobs, greed and ill will is applauded by the examples above.
As a society, we raise and praise those who bring themselves up from the bottom economic strata whether by winning the lottery or working. We ignore or belittle those who don’t or can’t get ahead.
Packman …You picked a good example of a person that thought in terms of the long term good of a Country …George Washington ..
one of my favorites . How many Politicians would refuse the opportunity for power the way George Washington did ?
If the purpose of Government is in part to be involved with the regulation of human greed in terms of the business sector ,as well as do what is best for the Country long term ,the Politicians have been failing for a long time now . The corrupt system has taken us to the brink and I’m still watching the story as this plays out . For the Power-brokers to pick and choose who gets bailed out and who doesn’t is what is hard for most people to swallow . At the very least,the future was given no consideration in all these plans by
the people making the policies . Notice how they always conduct Senate hearing after a action has been executed and you can’t take it back . Still don’t know why Paulson and the Fed Chairman couldn’t of just given short term loans until the matter of what to do could of been investigated . Hard to take that this duo is claiming that they didn’t really know the balance sheets of Companies they were going to bail out . Strange hearings in the Capital these days in which the right questions are never asked .But Wall Street is happy with the answers that don’t hold water .
I agree somewhat packman. I’ve read Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and Anthem and one aspect that always seems to get missed is the protagonist(s) never work in a way that would harm others. This seems to be self evident and maybe why Rand didn’t spend any time explaining it - maybe it says something about our modern culture. The charachters are also thinking long term and
I didn’t catch on to this fact until I was most of the way through The Fountainhead ***spoiler alert*** and Roarke goes to destroy his development that’s become spoiled by others adding on useless and detrimental “ammenities”. He makes sure no one gets hurt, even the night watchmen.
Gale Wynand is another example where he runs his paper the best he can, ultimately sacrificing the entire franchise to bring down the antagonist.
The point is the protagonists are working for an ideal and the money is a secondary. Today’s CEO’s, politicians, and unelected overlords are working for the money and the job is secondary - IMHO.
ditto champagne.
5.5 pct annualized rate of GDP decline “better than expected.”
SPECIAL REPORT Road to Rescue
Economy shrinks at 5.5% rate
Despite narrower revision, the broadest measure of the nation’s economic activity posts second steepest decline in 27 years.
By Catherine Clifford, CNNMoney.com staff writer
Last Updated: June 25, 2009: 9:33 AM ET
ROAD TO RESCUE
* Bernanke denies making threats to BofA
* Stocks turn higher
* Don’t bet on a bank dividend rebound
* Economy shrinks at 5.5% rate
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The U.S. economy shrank at an annual pace of 5.5% in the first quarter, the government said Thursday, a slower pace of decline than previously reported but still the second largest quarterly drop in 27 years.
Economists had expected a 5.7% drop, according to a consensus estimate from Briefing dot com.
…
“less worse” dude, it’s cause for celebration.
For example, the good folks over at the Int’l Air Transport Association are happy that May’s 9.3% decline in air travel was “less worse” than March’s 11.1% decline. (April was -3.1%)
Someone once said that decimal points on economic forecast percentages show that economists do have a sense of humor!
Also, lost in the headlines today:
“Surprise rise for jobless claims- First-time filings for benefits reclaim highest level since mid-May.”
Despite all of this absolutely terrible news, the stock market is rocketing straight up. Stocks, oil, gold- everything up! Makes absolutely no sense. Or, perhaps it makes perfect sense, as the top 1%’ers are faring spectacularly, while the population at large slowly dies on the vine.
“Let them eat cake” ring any bells?
The truly rich are never hurt by events other another truly rich person who is mad at them.
…or large masses of people deciding they’ve had enough of their crap.
The economic pool was less cold than expected! Sure, we’re shivering and blue lipped, but we experienced less shrinkage than expected! (Probably because we’re p*ssing in it at the same time.)
Kimberly-Clark to cut 1,600 jobs, or 3 percent of its work force
On Thursday June 25, 2009, 9:47 am EDT
DALLAS (AP) — Kimberly-Clark Corp. said Thursday it will cut 1,600 jobs, or 3 percent of its global work force, as it slims down in the tough economy.
The maker of Kleenex tissues, Huggies diapers and other products employs 53,000 people around the world. It plans to make the cuts primarily among salaried and non-production workers. It does not plan to close any plants.
The company has reported a drop in quarterly profit for the past six quarters as consumer bought less amid high unemployment and the housing downturn. Kimberly-Clark was also hurt as the value of the dollar rose relative to other currencies –crimping profits from overseas sales — and consumers traded down to private label products.
Kimberly-Clark expects the job cuts to save about $150 million a year, or about 25 cents per share. It will mostly affect second-quarter results, when the company will record $110 million of the costs. It estimates total costs of $140 million to $150 million for the restructuring.
That works out to almost $94k per employee…
It’s not all salary. There are all kinds of other costs associated with employees - healthcare, retirement-account matches - even costs of computers, hardware, maintenance staff and electricity!
There’s a lot of slack in such large companies.
FPSS,
True, and HC ‘is’ a bigee, but this is case in point that I’ve been on about for some time. If -ever- there was a Non-REIC-afflicted company out there.., it HAS to be Kimberly-Clark! There’s a LOT of things this frugal person will do without ( but TP isn’t one of them! ) Besides, I’m sure they market plenty of generics.
Here we have unbridled greed taking place at the street level w/ a whole new wave of specuvestors elbowing their way into REDC auctions and on the opposite end of the spectrum we have CEO’s of firms not even within smelling distance of the REIC-Stinkpile making frantic moves w/ feet o’ clay?
I posted a long explanation below but it hasn’t appeared yet. It’s not as irrational as you’re making it out to be.
If -ever- there was a Non-REIC-afflicted company out there.., it HAS to be Kimberly-Clark!
I disagree strongly. It doesn’t work like that.
When people were flush with HELOC money, they have a tendency to upgrade even their TP. There’s a little more money to be throwing around. The margins are highest for the fanciest products. Multiply that by all the HELOC’s and they are as hooked into the credit matrix as anyone else.
You need to see the interconnectedness of all these things.
Are margins still hightest for the fanciest products when you take into acount all the marketing and advertising costs? I always sort of thought that they provided the high end stuff in consumer products to cover the entire market from the budget minded to the consumer who insists on having a high end product to distinguish themselves from those that were budget minded. There are a lot of costs involved in establishing the hierarchy in people’s minds.
Good catch, polly!
Not sure they are highest but they’re definitely not small given that they largely appeal to people with disposable income where decisions are not singularly being made on price.
In actual dollars (number of units x margin) they are definitely small because the first quantity is so small. It’s always the middle hump that makes the most money.
The smart companies are retrenching BEFORE they get hammered. Microsoft is flush with cash and still making money, but they’ve had several rounds of layoffs (the first in their history, I believe) to trim the burn rate so their fat will last them the long, cold winter.
Microsoft hasn’t produced any truly innovative products since, oh, the introduction of Windows 95. Which was essentially Windows 3.11 done properly.
They’re living off of past glories, people. Open source is the wave of the future.
Open source is the wave of the future.
BS.
GNU has been around since, what, 1984?!?
Hasn’t even made a dent in the MS corporate culture. I’ll believe it when I see it.
The fact of the matter is that my mom can boot her box and do whatever she wants. Trying to hook up the latest network device to a linux/unix box is like doing brain surgery on yourself.
Forget it! I’ve heard this nonsense for 20+ years. It ain’t happenin’.
I’m not a Microsoft (or apple for that matter) fan, I’m just saying that even companies with no cashflow problems are preparing for a downturn much longer than what the MSM is claiming we’ll see.
I am going to start using Suse linix. It has every thing you need and will still run windows if you want.
It’s not all salary. There are all kinds of other costs associated with employees - healthcare, retirement-account matches - even costs of computers, hardware, maintenance staff and electricity!
How long before employees are required to provide their own healthcare, retirement, computers, hardware, and electricity as a condition to the job?
“How long before employees are required to provide their own healthcare, retirement, computers, hardware, and electricity as a condition to the job?”
All in good time before the wealthy thugs, labor haters and captains of theft begin charging you for showing up at your workplace.
There have always been jobs where one is required to bring their own tools. Tradesman and such.
Honestly, I would rather insurance and whatnot not be tied to employment. We should do away with the tax incentives for companies to do so so that people stop thinking they can’t leave their job due to risk of losing insurance - just get private insurance.
“Just get private insurance.”
Sorry, but this is MUCH easier said than done. I’ve known people who’ve tried to get private insurance, and they were turned down because they had sinusitis.
Sinusitius!
Who among us hasn’t had that?
You haven’t known what it’s like to be screwed over unless you’ve tried to get private insurance. Or tried to get it to cover something.
Hence the absolute necessity for universal public health care.
Business will reap the benefit as will all americans.
“All in good time before the wealthy thugs, labor haters and captains of theft begin charging you for showing up at your workplace.”
I already don’t get paid for part of the time I work.
Judges said it was okay. There ya go, corporatism at its finest.
“Kimberly-Clark expects the job cuts to save about $150 million a year, or about 25 cents per share.”
We get statements like this all the time from companies that are downsizing. Can somebody please explain this?
Is the $150m the value of annual salaries and benefits of the downsizees? Does this imply that these people were doing NOTHING of any value? Or is this a net number, found by offsetting their productivity against their cost? Are they producing fewer products as a result of the downsizing, thus generating lower revenue?
And if they saved $150m by cutting 3%, why wouldn’t they cut everybody and save $5 billion?
Thanks in advance for your clarification,
Signed, Puzzled
Puzzled, ( LOL! )
Yeah, excellent point. For the longest time CEO’s have been touting the “benefits” of layoffs without really quantifying them at all?
In so saying they’ll garner all this advantage by following through on said layoffs, it’s always struck ‘me’ that they’re admitting that the affected employees were driftwood all along?
These are the kinds of questions we should have been asking all along.
I’ll give a slightly longer explanation about the “deadwood”.
In all of these large organizations, you have a buncha groups that are semi-autonomous. Effectively, they do the hiring and firing and goal-structuring, etc. etc.
When times are plush, the company lets the stuff ride because to fire would cut into “morale”. This is not totally unreasonable. No person can be expected to know all the details of all 53K employees, and the way each group makes political inroads into the larger organization is to be larger.
When times are bad, the cuts go down, and each group effectively has to let the “deadwood” go. That’s what’s going on here.
FPSS,
Oh it was never my intent to imply this was “totally unreasonable” nor that the consumer *isn’t faced w/ some hard choices.
Still… it’s that very “interconnectedness” I’m trying to disconnect? Availability ( or lack thereof ) of HELOC $’s shouldn’t become -every- CEO’s crutch. There’s always promotions and “package-to-price”. Personally, as an observer ( when I ‘can’ remain on the sidelines ) it’s been an imperative of doom & gloomers to connect as many dots as possible to the House ATM. That way, the only possible outcome is.., Total Collapse.
Major layoffs are happening at my former employer. They are hitting the Salaried-Exempts this month
-Engineers associated with a new product under development that was cancelled.
-Managers are culling the 45-60 year olds in…..especially guys they don’t particularly like.
Which is too bad, because they are the guys who actually WORKED on the airplanes at one time, vs. the newly minted college-grads who doesn’t know jack-$hit.
Up until about 1998, Tech services had the guys who had worked on the airplanes for 20-30 years, but didn’t have a degree. If they didn’t know the answer to a question, they knew who to talk to who did.
Then they started culling the old timers,and hiring the newly minted college grads……I knew this when the new guys started calling me (or my crew chiefs) every night, needing answers to technical questions from customers that they couldn’t answer, because they had kicked the old guys to the curb. This was my sign to GTFOO Dodge, and divert my career path.
I’ve had to call tech support a few times with my new part-time deal I’ve started. Takes 2-3 days to get an answer now (and half the time, it’s wrong). Evidently, ALL the old guys are gone……
Moral: “It’s the way we’ve always done things” isn’t neccesarily a a bad thing…….it may be that management has finally figured out that change for change’s sake isn’t alway better.
Availability ( or lack thereof ) of HELOC $’s shouldn’t become -every- CEO’s crutch.
Chances are the various CEO’s (even assuming that they are smart, etc.) haven’t a clue where the money is coming from.
Let’s do a thought experiment - let’s say you sell shiny “seaglass” by the shore. Suddenly you find that demand has gone up so you start stocking more inventory, and hiring an assistant. You don’t spend your time asking, “Well, golly gee gosh, why has demand gone up?”
After the bust, you’re gonna be forced to discount the inventory and fire the assistant.
The answer as to what happened is clear - it was the HELOC but that’s not how humans work, and certainly not how large corporations work. If you worked in one of those, and you presented that argument without statistical evidence (which can only be borne in hindsight), they’d laugh you out of the office.
FPSS,
I’ve worked for large corporations in the past so believe me, I get the dynamics. I’m not trying to be “Lou Dobbs” and be some kind of work force “hero”.
Additionally I’ve never denied that in tough times consumers will throw name brands under the bus in heart beat? But I’m sorry, your insistence that ‘everything’ is HELOC-related just isn’t washing. These are disposable items and I don’t recall anyone taking out a heloc to buy toilet paper?
I can deal w/ the daily O.D of bad news and crooked pols, but when the CEO of a company of this nature ( rightly or wrongly ) lays people off, attributing it ( along w/ everything else we see ) to the MEW well going dry is more than I can take. Harley… I can see. Home Depot… I can see. This? C’mon.
The simple explanation is -
Scott is one of K-C’s brands.
Employers generally use Scott TP (it’s cheaper).
Unemployment rate goes up -> Scott TP use goes down.
K-C lays off.
Nobody is taking out an HELOC to buy toilet paper.
The HELOC makes them “feel” rich so they go out and spend it on stuff that they wouldn’t in normal times. This is human nature. You’re the one that doesn’t seem to get it.
People upgrade. That’s the whole aspirational marketing thing. Yep, the credit infested just about every product. Everything from TP to Maserati’s.
Toured a home recently that had a bidet in the lav.
Had a tough time explaining to my kiddo what the appliance was, so I didn’t get a chance to check the TP roll.
“aspirational marketing”
A term you won’t really appreciate until you have daughters. They don’t need a car ( they ‘need’ a Jetta! ) They don’t need a cell phone ( they ‘need’ an I-Phone! ) “Strarter BMW’s, “starter” Mercedes, the Wealth Effect run amok.
I suppose one of the reasons I even bother to “take exception” w/ it is if you’ll recall, going into the 4th qtr. 2000, every tech CEO on the planet would say, “Oh our 3rd qtr. earnings were -strong-! ( But the uh… 4th qtr..? ) Didn’t exactly inspire confidence ‘then’ and it’s not helping now. And they Obama has teleprompter issues?
Well the two possibiliites are productivity improvements or a decline in market. If you need fewer man-hours per widgit, or you can’t sell as many widgit, cutting the might be almost all savings. But you’re right, absent some explanation, it is stupid to ASSUME that they’re magicly doing the same with less. It’s much wiser to assume that they’re doing less with less.
While I hate to get canned and hate to hear about others getting canned…
Are you serious? Production needs change all the time. Like say cell phones. You come out with a new product and demand is very high. So, you staff up to make those parts. After the initial release you are only servicing sales at a much lower pace.
Same thing with cars. You build up a line to make Hummers. They are rolling off the line but the oil prices skyrocket and the demand for Hummers disapears.
Its going to take a couple of years to get the line changed to a new product or perhaps the entire company isn’t needed.
What do you do? Some people see the writing on the wall and go find other work. Many ride things out to the end for a variety of reasons. So, you lay them off.
Things are always in flux hence there is always some layoffs/hiring going on. The picture isn’t static.
So the saving are in reduced opperation expenditures and overhead going forward.
There are a few we saved money by closing the company stories too. Often you save more by liquidating tangible assets like buildings, equipment exc.
James, I understand that production needs change. But assuming that these people were productive and building units that were in demand prior to the change, it’s not giving the full picture to say that you “saved” $X by laying them off, since you also have lower revenue now. It’s more accurate to say that your business has simply shrunk by that amount. They did mention this in the AP article but didn’t quantify it.
As for FPSS’s implication that the downsizees were not fully productive to begin with, again my question is whether this is measured and incorporated in the $150m number. I do find it a little hard to swallow that the company is now “rightsized”, when they are effectively admitting they’ve been “wrongsized” for the past N years, where N=average length of tenure of the downsizees.
With so many currencies turing in to TP, it is no wonder that Kimberly-Clark is cutting jobs. The market is about to be flooded.
Haw haw. And I figured Kimberly-Clark’s problems were due to the collective menopause of the Kotex generation.
You can educate people but you cannot educate the masses. The fed is favored by the masses because they represent something for nothing, always a popular choice. I fear that Ron Paul’s bill will go the way of his presidential campaign. We need a slightly more aggressive appoach…maybe nerve-gas pumped into the Fed’s ventilation system.
First let me admit that I’m not an economist and I don’t know if the following are even reasonable questions.
With the Fed loaning so much money to the govt. (by buying treasury bills and notes), do they really expect the govt. to pay them back? Or will the loans be rolled over endlessly?
What’s to prevent the Treasury from behaving like a FB and walking from its obligations to the Fed? After all, the Fed is an independent entity and there’s nothing but the audacity of hope backing its currency.
Could the Fed become the ultimate “bad bank” that is eventually allowed to go insolvent, and is replaced by a new central bank entity?
Could the Fed become the ultimate “bad bank” that is eventually allowed to go insolvent, and is replaced by a new central bank entity?
I don’t think anyone would trust the new central bank.
And previous buyers of our debt would be pretty mad about losing all of their investments and be reluctant to purchase new ones.
I don’t think anyone would trust the new central bank.
Irrelevant.
And previous buyers of our debt would be pretty mad about losing all of their investments and be reluctant to purchase new ones.
Also irrelevant.
We need to stop thinking in terms of pure capitalism - where people actually have a choice of where to invest their money, and actually have money to invest. We are rapidly moving away from that paradigm.
Do you have a choice for instance of where your social security money is invested?
As we experience a greater loss of wealth, with the government subsequently taking up the slack - the default investor is becoming the Central Bank itself. It chooses where to invest money, not us. We are forced to go along with their choices.
Nice, eh?
When the US finds itself having to buy foreign oil using Euros or whatever, a lack of faith in the Central Bank will be very noticeable.
Of course other currencies are also on the way to being teh equivalent of TP. Of course there is nothing to prevent OPEC from demanding payment in PMs for their oil.
there is nothing to prevent OPEC from demanding payment in PMs for their oil. Except for the amount of PMs in existence & the fact that OPEC is vastly outgunned by the rest of the world. Collective moral standards may slip when enough people are starving, freezing & living in darkness.
Good post. Sums it all up rather well.
Perhaps you should send it to various newspapers/online publishers.
Perhaps you should send it to various newspapers/online publishers.
I did actually - I submitted an editorial to the Washington Post a couple of months ago roughly to that effect. They said they were going to print it, but I never saw it show up.
Glad to hear it. Keep sending it out, packman.
You might want to send it to publications in flyover country. There, your letter might not be seen as a threat.
Well - it was in response specifically to the 4/27 WaPo article on IMF expansion, though I’m sure it could be genericized. The iron has cooled since then though.
There are hundreds of such opinion editorials written every day, denouncing expansion of central banks.
I wish I had more time.
Wait a minute. It’s the Treasury that issues bonds and notes. I know the Fed LENDS money. But does the Fed also BORROW money? I know the Treasury is in debt up to our eyeballs, but what about the Fed?
Well they BUY federal reserve notes* for the printing cost, and can accept whatever collateral they wish from banks for lending them out. It’s difficult to imagine how they could become insolvent, so long as they’re willing to accept bottlecaps and pocket lint from the banks in exchange for money.
*of course MOST money consists solely of electrons on a disk drive.
I got another question. What is the real story on those treasury bonds seized in Italy and why isn’t it a bigger story here? Under Italian law when their law enforcement seizes fake or counterfeit money they are supposed to arrest the bearers, seize the money and promptly destroy it. So why were they released and given back the bonds? If the bonds were real then why weren’t they fined? And why haven’t their names been released and why hasn’t the US issued an indictment for counterfeiting the bonds?
Italy claims to have seized $800 million in real US Bonds in the last couple of years. How is this possible if there is only $100 million in paper bonds in existence?
http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article18905
Nothing I’ve read adds up. The real question is if these bonds were real why were these two Japanese businessman heading to Switzerland with them?
Black ops economic warfare.
All major countries are engaged in this 24/7.
My guess is that Italy just wanted to make a statement (send a message) and had no intention of further prosecution.
I saw on the news they were fake. Bonds of that size don’t exist on paper?
DennisN:
A while back you posted your recipe for Chicken Marsala. Tried it last night and it was fantastic. Much better (and healthier) than you could get in a restaurant. Thanks.
To get back on topic, here’s a link to a recent Rasmussen poll. I think it was Professor Bear who was asking whether any polls had been done about the Fed.
rasmussenreports DOT com/public_content/business/general_business/46_say_fed_chairman_has_too_much_power_views_of_bernanke_geithner_unchanged
Forty-six percent (46%) of Americans say the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board already has too much power over the economy…
A new Rasmussen reports national telephone survey shows that only 11% of adults say the Fed chairman does not have enough power. Twenty-four percent (24%) say his amount of power is about right, while 19% are not sure.
Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Republicans and 50% of those not affiliated with either major political party say the Fed chairman has too much power, but just 33% of Democrats agree.
Most people are ignorant and apathetic regarding the Federal Reserve. They think they know something, but then again, they really don’t care. They want someone or some thing to manage the economy and currency in such a way as to not cause them any problems in the near term.
Unfortunately the conniving thieves and mobsters in place at the Fed and Treasury take full advantage of this trillion dollar license to steal from, and rape the taxpayers, with impunity.
And the so-called Main Stream Media just talks about what so-and-so was wearing at the Oscars or how there are so many deserving poor families with no McMansion left behind that we should wring our hands over.
Add to the government playbook that if you tell a lie, tell a big one; that if you want to steal from the taxpayers, steal trillions often and blatantly.
Just a little note that many will disagree with… I suspect that as a percentage basis more Republicans understand money than democrats.
Wasn’t the theory that a more educated population would make better government decisions and this was the reason for mass education ? Now it’s how the elite and the power brokers can brainwash the sheep by sound bites and everyone is to busy to make intelligent decisions or determine what is really going on .
A man named Edward Bernays invented modern propaganda (public relations) in the early 20th century and by extension, psychological warfare through mass media.
Oh, he was also Sigmund Freud’s cousin.
The “masses” never stood a chance.
Ah, it’s time of year in Florida. I’m currently tearing apart my sectional looking for a wolf spider the size of Nebraska
Ah, the abundant creepy-crawly life of the tropics.
I spent a considerable amount of time in my Latin American travel days shaking scorpions out of my shoes and spiders out of my clothes. Never could keep the tiny ants out of the sugar, though.
Are the fire ants chompin’ down at the park these days?
The fire ants are out like crazy. My lawn is basically a minefield of hills. They’re even hanging out on my driveway and patio, running around in mad circles.
I can handle the gators and snakes (I have a resident black racer in my backyard), but the little things creep me out. The wolf spider is problematic because those suckers can take a beating. I partially smashed one last last summer, and it still had the speed to evade me for a good 10 minutes. I think the pyramid goes something like:
geo duck > wolf spider > Chuck Norris
man, us mere mortals don’t stand a chance!
geo duck > wolf spider > Chuck Norris
Chuck’s gettin’ a little long in the tooth to be at the top of the pyramid, no?
Chuck’s gettin’ a little long in the tooth to be at the top of the pyramid, no?
I took the greater than symbols to indicate the mathematical relationship, rather than illustrating the physical layout of the pyramid. Chuck’s at the bottom of that one, I think.
Chuck’s at the bottom of that one, I think.
Now I’m left to wonder whether it’s a Grossness Pyramid or a Wily Survivor Pyramid. If it’s grossness, I believe you must be right …
(Muggy?)
“man, us mere mortals don’t stand a chance!”
- There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.
“Chuck Norris can set ants on fire with a magnifying glass. At night.”
You need to get some Talstar on your lawn ASAP!
Thank God for snow and below 0 temps!!! Anything w/ more than 4 legs creeps me out. I think the cold keeps them at bay- well at least the fire ants and 747 mosquitos.
Ahh- fire ants!
So glad I left Louisiana years ago!
Sweating 10Months of the year, fire ants that nest in the walls of your house & roaches the size of cars reside there!!
But , the people are nice & the fod is good!
The rest they can have!!!
But , the people are nice & the fod is good!
Yes, but the people can leave, and we can take the recipes with us!
(I can’t get okra to grow up here, though. Small price to pay, IMO.)
Sounds like it’s related to some of the critters who have been visiting our new worksite. We moved to a location bordered by woods, the one spider hiding in the ladies’ room looked like Black Widow Junior.
Just round up some palmetto bugs to hunt down the Nebraska sized spider.
I’ll never forget the first time I saw a palmetto bug in St. Pete. For those of you who are not familiar with them, they look like big brown cockroaches. Anyway, I was shocked by the size of the palmetto bug, and then it really freaked me out - he started flying towards me. OMG! They can fly!!!?!
Here’s a link to a photo of a palmetto bug:
http://www.wataugawatch.net/uploaded_images/images-2-715132.jpg
It’s called a palmetto bug, but it’s a roach.
“How the B-52 Cockroach Learned to Fly” is a great kids book assuming your kids can handle it. It’s a picture book so you think it is for the very young, but the story is disturbing enough to hold the attention of older kids who like the idea that the insect kingdom is out to get humans and spends time trying to figure out how to hurt us.
How much insecticide does Disneyworld go thru in a year to keep the place almost bug free>
They use alot of predator bugs to go after there bug problem.
Reminds me of a rather disgusting happening when I happened to accidentally step on a 4-in.-long slug with my typically naked right foot.
That sucker gooshed between ALL of my toes. What was previously gormless became a mash of slimey, sticky, gooey slop.
Re: FIRE ANTS. When I was down in Carolina, I found the best way to discourage the critters was to dump copious amounts of boiling water on them. When the few survivors dig out to attack whatever, hit ‘em again. Fight fire with fire.
I did that for two days and I was ant-free for three years. Then I repeated the process.
eeeeeew. God I hate those things. Mini tarantulas with an attitude.
Mutant oversize bugs that would have been right at home in the Cretaceous era are just ONE of the many reasons I would never live in Florida.
You know they have flying roaches in Florida right.
FLYING ROACHES! For Gods sake!
A couple of years ago, my brother and I made a road trip to Artesia/Roswell, NM……the route we took included a 50 mile stretch of Mew Mexico 20 south out of Fort Sumter to US 285.
(If anyone tell you “We’re running out of land”, take them down that road…..a 50 mile stretch of no houses, side roads, anything…….crossed paths with ONE truck, going the other way. Highly recommended if you own a Corvette, Porsche, Mustang GT, etc. Don’t crash….it might be hours before someone comes across the crash site. But I digress…..)
Anyhoo, as we are traveling down this road at a high rate of knots, we kept seeing these “lumps” on the pavement…..the lumps looked like they were about the size of baseballs. Then, we saw a few of these “lumps” moving. Realized that we were looking at tarantulas……..
At least that’s what we believed they were. We didn’t stop to gety out and get a closer look. I’m not too sqeamish about bugs, but If there is a bigger spyder out there, I don’t want to know about it.
Tarantulas are actually very nice. The only time you see them out, what you’re seeing is males looking for the ladies. They can’t bite very hard, only do it when really provoked, and the bites aren’t much worse than a bee sting. The do LOOK scary though.
There’s a guy in San Jose who has a few as pets. He sometimes gives talks to schoolchildren. He goes in and sort of mumbles about spiders for awhile, and about how misunderstood they are, without really moving his lips very much. At a certain point he opens up his mouth and out crawls one of his Tarantulas into his hand. Something to see, that is.
what you’re seeing is males looking for the ladies.
Serious? Where’s the ladies? What do 8-legged hairy ladies do in the day-time, besides watch ‘The Fly and Small Grub’ Channel? Yes, I really want to know.
I’m super fond* of spiders. Spiders are great.
IIIIII—and Mr. Muggy, you can take note here—-IIII would NEVER trample an innocent spider.
I always take them outside. Which is why there’s a zillion spiders outside my house poised and eagerly waiting to fall into my hair and get carried to town.
*Unless it came bustin’ out of my mouth. THEN, yes, then, you betcha, we’d have a serious spider-trampling episode for sure.
I’ve got a problem with scorpions. I keep finding dead ones in the hallway between the kid’s rooms. They’re just a couple of inches long, but I’m sure they’d leave a nasty bite on the 12 year old. The wife is all freaked out about them, but I just laugh and tell her that they’re normal in this part of Florida and completely harmless. She doesn’t believe me, but she’s not sure. I know I’m lying, but too cheap to pay for an exterminator.
Any other Floridians have this issue?
Reminds me of trying to get rid of gophers. In my attempt to tune grass out of 5 tillable acres at my old homestead, the gophers posed a challenge. Miles of tunnels and dozens of bores up through to grade made a simple task arduous. The roster of ammo went like this….. flood with water, smoke out with sulphur bombs, blast’em out with gasoline….. nothing. Solution? I called my buddy who owns a septic haulin business and gave him free disposal costs. Filled the gopher bores with septage it was instant success and hilarious besides. We started filling the bores on the high side and watch the gophers fly out of the ground like wack-a-moles. Sneezing, shaking their heads…. I guess you had to be there because it still hilarious 15 years later.
I don’t think you had to be there, I’m laughing right now. Especially adding the dancing gopher from caddy shack dancing around into my mental image.
Sometimes, the simple solutions are the best.
And the most entertaining.
Scropions run around here like ants. You ought to see the size they get here….If the hummer breaks down, we could ride one of those back to base…
The first time I visited some folks in Florida and saw their lanai, I knew I could never live there.
Anyplace you have to put a screen house over your backyard so you can go outdoors during parts of the year has way too many creepy crawlies for me.
Wow, Muggy, was this guy your county commissioner by any chance?
Sometimes I object to the activities of MY county commissioners, but I guess I’ll scale back my outrage at tad, ‘cause I guess it could be waaay worse.
My favorite part is how this jackh*le was once a professional wrestler, a ‘Killer Bee’. What darling striped boy-panties!
http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/crime/story.aspx?storyid=108159
‘Commissioner Brian Blair released from jail today’
Tampa, FL — Former pro wrestler and Hillsborough County Commissioner Brain Blair called his arrest on child abuse charges a “misunderstanding that could have been prevented” as he walked out of jail late Monday morning.
Blair faces two felony counts of child abuse after deputies say he grabbed and punched his two teenage sons at around 4 o’clock Sunday morning. He was arrested later that morning, before sunrise on Father’s Day…
“We’re talking about teenagers, we’re not talking about little babies,” Judge Heinrich said, weighing how to deal with Blair’s attorney’s request for a low bond or no bond at all.
Oh, well, then…if it’s teenaged kids then it’s perfectly
okay to beat the crap out of them.
Gigantic wolf-spiders, alligators in the park, county commissioners who used to wear striped panties and writhe around before the public…I’m really getting quite an alarming impression of Florida lately.
Read a very depressing article at HuffPo this morning about older workers who lose their positions or businesses, and no one wants to even interview them for jobs. Many comments by people having a hard time finding any employment. Hundreds of resumes, calls in response to ads or leads, all ending up with nada. There seems to be no value in experience. What a waste. And it’s not like older workers can move in with Mom and Dad, either.
In other news, a 9 year old Chicago girl was shot while bathing her dog. Drive-by, apparently targeted.
Some days I feel like weeping for the entire human species.
What was their definition of “older workers”?
Over 50, although some of the comments were by people in their 40s. A 55 year old was the focus of the article. One comment told him to shave off his (grey) beard and dye his hair.
Most recently I lead a team of about 12 people. The 35+ members always showed up for work and produced. One guy in his early 50’s was the top performer simply because he concentrated on his work and didn’t chit chat.
The 20 somethings and early 30’s whined, did as little as they could get away with, complained about being underpaid, called in sick regularly, you name it.
I was a terrible manager because I had no patience for the cry baby slackers when I was working 10-12 hours per day and getting paid for 8. Silly notion, but I expected them to do the job they were hired for.
Man, I’m 42 and the level of entitlement among people even a few years younger than me is extremely annoying. Kinda feel the same about the boomers sometimes. That’s what I get for being sandwiched in between GenX and the baby boomers.
Sorry for the personal rant.
That’s what I get for being sandwiched in between GenX and the baby boomers.
Is there a small golden window of demographic bliss where the entire peer group is industrious, handsome, and above-average?
Someone get the Greatest Generation on the rotary phone, they may want to put their teeth back in to fight y’all for the self-proclaimed title …
But what about ME???
42 makes you a leading member of GenX.
To quote my father, “….kids these days”.
As a 44 year-old, I feel the same way. Recently in a teaching evaluation, one of my students complained that he/she had to spend over three hours studying for my exams. Really. Three hours x four times a term. Obviously I am far too demanding. This student is probably the norm (though most don’t take the time to write comments in the evaluations.) Unfortunately I have no patience for this attitude. My standard response to the “how can I improve my grade” question is, “study harder” which is never well received.
Man, I’m 42 and the level of entitlement among people even a few years younger than me is extremely annoying. Kinda feel the same about the boomers sometimes. That’s what I get for being sandwiched in between GenX and the baby boomers.
+ another gazillion.
I’m 36 and I feel exactly, EXACTLY the same way.
Although entitlement attitudes aren’t restricted exclusively to gen-xers and boomers. The other day before a meeting started I had to listen to a woman, also mid 30’s, complaining how her dad recently told her he couldn’t help with her car payments anymore.
I just sat there listening in amazement to this grown woman whine and fuss and pout about her bad ol’ dad. I didn’t bother to say anything, nor did I bother to relate any instructive tales about MY dad, who really is a very, very bad dad.
I simply got up and moved, and was quite pleased to think I was probably never going to lay eyes on this person again.
…just a whole bunch of other people just like her…Sigh.
ET, Thanks for slapping some sense back into my pea brain.
No better or worse than anyone else, just don’t identify with any particular group.
What about you Groundhog?
Wow Oly, you showed amazing restraint. You had a golden opportunity for a snide remark or two.
you showed amazing restraint.
I really did.
It wasn’t emerging maturity, though. I didn’t know if she was important to what I wanted to have happen in the meeting, in which case I probably best not verbally flense her prematurely. Plus I was just tired after a long day and thought, ‘oh, why flap my tongue at this here waste of skin and corpuscles’.
Had I felt fresher and had it been a different venue I don’t know what I would have said.
Come to think of it right now, I’m surprised she picked a stranger to blabber and complain to. Why is that? Too much reality teevee? Visual impairment? Because I know d*am*n well I didn’t have my ‘kindly to worthless strangers and lost kittens’ face on at the time.
…my ‘kindly to worthless strangers and lost kittens’ face…
I sometimes practice it in the mirror, along with my ‘eagerly awaiting more gems of wisdom’ face, number II.
Oly:
Here in Maryland, it is traditional for the parents to basically buy a McMansion for their kids and then raise their grandkids, too, while the own kids work “part time” if they feel like it and basically relive the drunken days of college into their late 30’s.
Yep, it is unreal!
I agree most people ARE old farts how many have the Ipod or even have a myspace face book linkedin accounts they use regularly?
do they still listen to the “oldies” radio stations? Do they read this blog?
Its not the age number… but they are OLD for their age.
Owning an iPod is not exactly a job qualification. Knowing the basics of punctuation, however, can be quite useful.
We were told in biz school that puntuation and spelling didn’t matter. All your boss will care about is if you can “get the sh*t done”.
All your boss will care about is if you can “get the sh*t done”.
Well, what if the ’sh*t’ includes sounding all eddicated and elegantly persuasive and stuff? What was the advice for that particular situation?
When I was a boss (low-level boss) at a software firm, I once asked MY boss, “How come Joel and Martha work for ME?” — because it was so obvious that their tech skills were better than mine. He said something like, “I went to Yale, you went to Harvard, they went to RPI.” …Hey, RPI is a pretty good school, but I caught his drift.
Anyway, there’s a certain amt of BS snobbery in this Job stuff; you go along with it because in the AGGREGATE it is not completely without rationality. BUT I’m so glad to be self-employed now.
And why doesn’t anyone want to interview them?
Because when you get past age 50, health problems begin to afflict more people, and when you hire someone that age, even if it will help your business to do so, you get killed on the health insurance premiums.
At age 65, folks suddenly become employable again, thanks to Medicare.
Just one example of the economic damage due to the between health insurance and place of work. And the Democrats seem as if they intend to keep it. Big mistake.
And the Democrats seem as if they intend to keep it. Big mistake. It’s interesting that of all the talk out of DC about “reforming” health care financing, no one is talking about the straightforward expansion of Medicare to cover everyone in the US. That system is already in existence. Of course, its financial future is already dismal, and expanding its coverage to all is financially impossible.
As you mention, extending Medicare would be financially impossible — without some serious structural re-jiggering, which seems unlikely.
Medicare/Medicaid is also a favorite political whipping boy for several distinct groups, so even if they were expanding the program, it would likely operate under a different name or with some kind of symbolic distance or independence.
Well, in a way it is being discussed. That is, in essence, the public option. You would have the option of paying a premium to get medicare coverage. Medicare is fantastically popular with much lower admin costs relative to private insurance… which is why the insurance lobby will fight like crazy to prevent the public option.
Thank you, WT Economist. Another thing that gets me going is this talk about the American tradition of getting health insurance through employers.
It’s a fluke of history. Came about during World War II when wages and prices were frozen. Since giving employee raises wasn’t feasible, the deal was to offer them health insurance instead.
Fat lotta good’s that done.
I think that we are at the point where the economic dislocations caused by the “Health Care System” are vastly outweighing it’s benefits, at least for most of the population.
Currently, it appears that there is a nationwide cull going on in the workforce of everyone age 45-50 and older, especially if you are a Salary-Exempt employee. Why? Maybe many reasons, but I suspect health care premiums have a lot to do with it……..the perception that older employees are “more trouble than they are worth”.
Like the big game of musical chairs to determine who got the crap-bag of MBSs, we are now doing the same thing to determine who gets to eat the cost of health care for the 45-65 year olds.
As in defined benefit pensions, employer provided health care is going away, whether we like it or not, and J6P is getting the bill, one way or the other.
The other issue is that people are often highly compensated at 50+ years old… perhaps too highly compensated which is why they were let go in the first place.
From my point of view, giving the local housing costs, money is only worth 1/2 of what it used to be. *shrug*
It’s true. One’s focus slips, and yet it’s somehow not permitted for the employer to cut one’s pay to reflect diminished capacity. (I’m 63, I can say this stuff.) So they solve it by laying off those whose salaries exceed their usefulness.
Shortly after I graduated, my father quit his job. His company was downsizing, and the plan was to lay off three of the nine people in his lab.
I didn’t know the lab staff very well, but, knowing my father, he didn’t have slackers working for him. He expected people to produce, and if they didn’t they were gone.
So, having the staff cut by one third didn’t sit well with Dad.
The company wasn’t happy about his departure, and they tried to keep him, but he left anyway.
Periodically, I ask him how that company is faring. He’ll say something to the effect that’s still around, but it’s a shadow of its former self.
In short, you can’t downsize your way to greatness. And there are times when layoffs cause the departures of people you don’t want to lose.
The Supreme Court just recently ruled that the burden of proof is now greater than it ever for the PLAINTIFF in age discrimination claims.
There are many reasons 50yos get cut and aren’t rehired. One is that they won’t put up with anywhere NEAR as much crap as younger workers. Another is that they’re pay has to be higher or they walk. Yet another that has been mentioned already is health insurance.
Yet it’s the older age groups that hold the knowledge. Knowledge that you can’t get in college. The little things that make for better products and services.
But ultimately it boils down to who in their right mind would hire someone who knows more than you do?
Dang. Way too many typos in that post. I wish people would stop interrupting me with stupid crap. (Hot outside? Really? No way!)
Sometimes. I’ve seen a number of cases (especially in IT) where the opposite is true. Older people assume the older people have the knowledge, but the younger people could in fact do it faster, better, at a lower cost. It’s hard to generalize.
My wife and I saw a house listed yesterday that had the following info: Sold 2001-$462K; Sold 2004-$735K; new list price-$375K (about $140/sq.ft.). My wife called the listing agent and asked to see the house but was rebuffed with ‘If you aren’t pre-approved you can’t see it”. She then went to a friend who arranged to show us the property. When we got there someone was already going through the house, another group was standing next inline and we were told that when they were through that we could take a ‘look-see”. Neither of the two groups looked as though they could afford the house, but what the hell, who knows what financing lurks out there for the next fool.
Too make a long story short, we walked in the front door and couldn’t get through the house and out the front door fast enough. It was 2600 sq.ft. of pure garbage and would make a great two family rental if purchased for $200K or less. I’m sure they hope to get a bidding war going and probably will; I’ll flag it and try to find the selling price.
Could you specify what was so nasty about it? I’d love to know.
Water running under the garage floor green and slimy. Floors with Travertine flooring with the crevices filled with a chalk like material. Holes in the walls and screens. Carpeting that looked more like a rug pad. Steps to the second floor so small you could only put half your foot on. French’s mustard wall paint. Cheap baseboards and cabinets probably from TJ, Mexico. Weird angles, no flow, a master bedroom that makes a big city flop house more envious. If this were brand new, I’d have walked in and gone right back out.
The person showing us the house asked what I expected for the money, I replied quality everywhere. He told me that there is no hurry especially with this 90 day hold here in CA and the mortgage resets; my homework is to find property that I like and he’ll flag it for me and when pricing gets down to where I am interested in buying he’ll give me a call. Great guy.
Good lord! That’s bad! Sounds like a tear-down.
“My wife called the listing agent and asked to see the house but was rebuffed with “If you aren’t pre-approved you can’t see it”.”
In our three years of following the RE market, we’ve run across this attitude plenty of times as well. After a five minute conversation, one lender sent us a pre-qual letter in Microsoft Word. When the time comes that we need a pre-qual to get our feet through a door, we’ll change the date and the amount to reflect the exact amount of our offer and not a penny more. It was a hole-in-the-wall lender and I don’t even know if they’re still in business, but I’d betcha the average used house salesfolk won’t know either.
How can agents place any value whatsoever in those things when anyone can create one?
The Pre-Qualification letter stuff doesn’t mean crap for anything. I could get a “non-qualified” Pre-Qualification from a bonehead mortgage broker. The banks can pull-out anytime.
Here’s a Pre-Qual question that pretty much sums up a bad candidate: Are you trying to sell your existing home?
What crock!
How about getting back with “I plan to pay for the house cash down so let’s cut out this pre-approval crap”
Home Builders Make a Grab For Cheap Land
WSJ 6/24
“U.S. home builders, long burdened with excess holdings of land, now are shopping for more of it.
“Though it will take years for builders to make use of all the land they bought at inflated prices during the housing boom, some are starting to see irresistible values for finished lots — land ready for building, with streets, sewers and other improvements in place — in prime locations. Many of these lots are owned by banks that acquired the property through foreclosures.”
“… The lots Meritage is buying in Chandler would have cost about three times as much in 2005, said Howard Weinstein, a land broker at Land Advisors Organization in Phoenix. The average cost of a lot of 6,000 to 7,000 square feet in the Phoenix suburbs of Gilbert and Chandler soared from about $36,000 in 2001 to a peak of $120,000 in 2005. Since then, the cost has sunk to $35,000, Mr. Weinstein said….”
FWIW - some of these homebuilders *may* be doing the right thing - buying land at 70% off peak. But what if the final bottom value ends up being 90% off peak? Then they’ve bought at a price that’s 200% too high.
Yeah they’re buying at 2001 prices - but those prices were pretty dang high already.
But they have to build or go out of business. So they’re letting the banks foreclose on the land they have no hope of building profitably on and buying the land their competitors let the banks foreclose on so they can maybe make a buck or two. Of course, their competitors are buying the land that they just let the bank foreclose on.
Pretty sweet deal except for those who had money in the bank. Or are relying on the banking system to not crash.
In many cases, the builders are buying finished lots for less than the cost to improve them. Raw land values are essentially negative. They might go farther negative, but chances are good that land values will be greater than $0 again, making prices today a good deal.
Either
a) no one builds a home again because it is not economical to get land for $0, finish it, build a home, and sell it;
b) finishing costs for land fall considerably (this is tough, since asphalt prices and the cost to move earth are correlated to the price of oil), making it easy for someone else to take their cheap land, finish it and build a home for a profit; or
c) these finished lot purchases will ultimately be quite profitable (provided carry costs are not too significant).
Make your wager. The builders have bet on c.
That’s fine and good - but if you knew that a given stock was:
- at a rock bottom price, relative to fundamentals
- was going to be flat in price for 10 years, then start going up, because fundamentals will be bad for 10 years
would you buy it?
I think the builders are doing the right thing - they’re just doing it too early. They may not survive long enough to reap the profit on the cheap item they just bought.
Right now all builders need to be in survival mode, IMO. They are all still losing money - i.e. on a slow path to bankruptcy, counting on a near-future turnaround to get them off that path. But that turnaround probably isn’t going to be in the near future.
Are you saying that there will not be an uptick in new home construction for 10 years?
Prices for the finished lots will bounce up once finished lot inventory has dried up. In many markets, this is expected to happen within the next 18-24 months (in others it will be longer).
Builders better buy now, or their only other choice for getting land inventory will be to buy land, get it entitled, pay for the engineering costs and permits for finishing work, and physically put in the roads. This is far more expensive in terms of cost per lot, time involvement, and total capital committed than what they are doing today.
Many of these builders are stepping into rolling lot deals (buy 10 now, and then 10 later if the first 10 go OK). If they develop a new subdivision, they generally are going to be buying land for 100+ lots at one time.
For FINISHED LOTS, they are not too early. For UNFINISHED LOTS, they might be. I know of no builder buying unfinished lots today.
Think of it this way. If in the auto industry, let’s say everyone started with raw materials, but an interim step was to complete a chassis that was common to all cars, then then you customized your product building off of that chassis. Everyone stops building chassis because the car market dries up. The already built chassis are being used up at a slower pace than usual, but at that pace, there is 18-24 months of chassis inventory left. On the open market, you can buy an already built chassis for 50% (or less) the cost to build a new chassis.
Do you buy the chassis now? Or wait until there are none left and make your own for twice (or three times) the cost?
The stock analogy is a poor one, as the builders are trying to figure out how to buy the raw materials for a manufacturing process as cheaply as possible. Stocks are priced based on psychological factors, not the cost of raw materials on the open market.
P.S. I think homebuilder stock prices are way too high. Homebuilding by it’s nature isn’t a land speculation business, it’s a manufacturing business. It just happens that if home prices go up, the cost of the raw materials go up (namely land), so if the market skyrockets, homebuilders do exceedingly well because the value of their land inventory appreciates dramatically. That’s not going to happen for a while. For the foreseeable future, they will be back to being a low margin business. That is what is happening now–they are trying to rediscover how to be a manufacturing business, after making most of their money based on appreciating land prices over the past several years.
So - given that there’s a backlog of 1M homes yet to be foreclosed, and a backlog of 800k REO’s, for a total of 1.8M backlog of home inventory just in foreclosures - is it safe to say there’s still a significant amount of pain left in the housing market?
Don’t forget the shadow inventory.
So… yes.
Cap &Trade a.k.a. Cap &Tax is set for passage tomorrow, I believe. ‘Ol Barry’s fixing to slam the very morons sitting around waiting for him to pay their mortgage & gas bills. That poor girl in Fla. should be loving it.
Prices will go up all around, buckle up! Change is a coming.
There is a familiar pattern to the ObamACORN inspired legislation these days. Spoon feed it to the political innocents in their MSM constructed high chairs, distract them by waving a friendly looking sock puppet in front of them with your left hand, then steal their candy from under their noses with your right hand.
Damn, it’s a shame I don’t watch TV. I like sock puppets!
Anyone here watch Sifl and Olly on MTV 10 years or so back?
YES! That was a great show- before MTV turned into: Made To Vomit…
I actually have the 3rd season on DVD (never made it to air). It’s not as funny as I remember it. I must’ve drank a lot more or done a lot more drugs in college…
I think everybody has that problem. The same goes for Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
I don’t know………a lot of that Python stuff is still pretty damn funny to me. Especially the “Holy Grail stuff”
The Holy Grail and Life of Brian are some of their finest stuff. I’m talking about the TV show, half hour episodes. There’s a lot more chaff mixed in with the wheat than I remember from college.
It probably has something to do with watching it in a communal TV room with 8-12 dorm mates and repeating and laughing at all the best bits.
I liked Daria when it was on MTV.
Obama sure is gunning to slap tax increases on 100% of the population, isn’t he?
So, the lower classes will see their electricity bills double and wait 6-120 weeks for their “free” healthcare (for which they wait perhaps 3-5 hours for presently). How much money will evaporate as millions sit on their bums waiting for a new hip? Productivity will suffer. No talk of that, of course.
The masses are so dense. Those getting freebies now think things will get better for them after Obama socializes everything. A rude awakening awaits for our domestic leeches.
Maybe it’s time to invest in Proctor & Gambles. Kleenex for everyone!
It’s like they want to sell all the vacant homes, pass the cap and tax and get it done before all the new power bills start coming in.
it sounds like homeowners will be more affected than renters.
Is anybody feeling anxious?
All I can say is bring it on. The unintended consequenses are rearing their little heads. One of these stupid moves is going to make a monster that will reduce home prices to zilch.
If owning a home is supposedly an asset class, and it takes savings to buy one, why does it feel like anything other than buying a home, like investments is unpatriotic?
Zero interest rates is terrible for saving. Stop the guilt trip!
Maybe people who have money should take it out of the banks and do a quid pro quo: no interest, no deposits.
PINELLAS COUNTY (Bay News 9) — Due to an $85 million budget shortfall, almost 340 Pinellas County employees are being laid off. This is the last week for many Pinellas County employees, and hundreds more will soon be without work.
http://tinyurl.com/nx9b3o
POLK COUNTY (Bay News 9) — Budget cuts are leaving some Bay area law enforcement agencies without offices. Florida lawmakers have cut funding for office space at 14 of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s 15 field offices.
http://tinyurl.com/l34jvo
Budget cuts are leaving some Bay area law enforcement agencies without offices. Florida “lawmakers”
The Major cut should be in “lawmakers”!
Tree-top flyers once delivered South American and Mexican coke and marijuana to clandestine airsrips in Polk from time to time. Look for more planes in greater Wauchula if law enforcement fades to black.
airstrips
Same thing happened in Louisiana.
In fact, when I was bicycle-traveling along US 90 in 1981, I was warned about getting too chatty with the locals. Especially the ones who looked a bit too affluent for the area. (It’s not a terribly wealthy part of the U.S.) Quite often, those people were drug traffickers, and the bayous provided perfect cover for them.
Another incredible article by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone Magazine. This one is on Goldman Sachs and their massive control over the markets.
I tried to link it, but it didn’t get through.
“The Great American Bubble Machine”
I just plowed through it. Good read. I’m not entirely convinced of the carbon trading though.
Muggy,
I haven’t finished it yet, but thanks for your opinion, since you’re one of pretty bright bulbs. I needed a break (read through pg 10 of 12). My bp was going up.
BTW, one of my former bandmates started out at GS, he now runs a “private fund.” He just clear cut the side of a mountain in the Catskills area for his weekend place.
“since you’re one of pretty bright bulbs”
I’m personally not convinced of that, as I am often humbled by the knowledge shared here, but thank you, regardless. I guess I just apply my “Ben Logic” (how can home prices go up forever?) to the idea of carbon-trading. Even if GS is engineering all of this, what are you going to do? They can only “steal” so much.
My frame on this is similar in that I constantly tell myself ‘you can only impoverish people so much’. GS has made it’s billions largely on the backs of the middle class but if they keep it up, sooner rather than later, ther’e won’t BE a middle class in this country. There must be a few who realize you can’t EAT the goose and still benefit from the eggs but I’m also certain that there are many at GS who just dont give a $hit and would be quite happy returning to feudalism.
As Matt notes at the end of the article. The things that Goldman Sachs have engineered should be pitchfork raising provocations but so far it hasn’t happened and I strongly suspect that the adverage citizen has been so infantalized buy the media that it never will.
Yep. Matt’s always a good bet for firing up the righteous indignation and I love his style. Some think he’s a little too vitriolic but he speaks truth to BS like few can. Leave the flowery sentiments to Vanity Fair
” a little too vitriolic”
A little? He is the only panelist on Bill Maher’s HBO show that makes Maher look a bit less a–holish in comparison.
Because Matt speaks the truth a littler louder than Bill?
Yes.
Will have to check that out.
Here’s a similar article from Portfolio - though I believe it requires subscription to read the whole article. Man, I’m going to miss that magazine.
phil’sstockworld.com has the whole article.
On initial look - looks like Taibbi falls into the typical trap of assuming that it’s all the corporations’ fault, with the government standing idly by while the corporations screw everything up.
“If America is circling the drain, Goldman Sachs has found a way to be that drain - an extremely unfortunate loophole in the system of Western democratic capitalism, which never foresaw that in a Society
governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.”
LOL at “governed passively by free markets and free elections”.
Generally though - good article.
On initial look - looks like Taibbi falls into the typical trap of assuming that it’s all the corporations’ fault, with the government standing idly by while the corporations screw everything up.
Unless you consider all the campaign cash that influences gov. In which case you can again squarely blame GS ect.
So you’re saying it’s OK to do wrong, as long as you’re paid for it?
Question to our Florida HB-bloggers:
If you wanted to get a vacation / future retirement place in Florida, where would you buy and why? SFH or a town-house? Which part of Florida? Any particular neighborhoods you’d consider?
I’m toying with an idea of buying an inexpensive place for my Mom. She could move there permanently, and I’d be happy to come and visit (escape from New York, LOL).
I would look in the Ft. Myers area. Very nice there and prices have come down considerably. Miami is expensive, crime infested, corrupt, over populated and over taxed hell hole. Why the hell am I living here?
Which side of Florida is better for an avid swimmer?
Preferred: calm warm water, few jelly fish, swimmable almost year round.
“Which side of Florida is better for an avid swimmer?”
Gulf-side
Miami, Daytona, J-VilleNaples, Tampa/St. Pete, Bradenton, Panhandle
My vote: Naples
St. Pete Beach a second, though gridlock to get there sometimes. Good grouper sandwiches thereabouts.
I like Panhandle, and people often give away garbage bags full of clean, freshly caught oysters. You can roast the oysters on an open grill at a campsite, and then throw the shells at raccoons when you are done.
Avid swimmers might enjoy the balmier climes to the south.
NY, need more details… what does she expect/like? As much as I dislike Pinellas for families, I could easily wrap my mind around being an empty-nester here. The airport is awesome and esy to get in/out of, and there a lot of things to do.
The SFH v. Townhouse issue is tough. TH communities have the advantage of prowlers not knowing if you’re home or not, but you have HOAs. I would suggest a SFH, but if she’s going to be gone any considerable length, bad things will happen.
I personally would not live south of Manatee County, unless we’re talking Key West, and even then, I would only recommend that if your mom is a chain-smoking drunk, that likes to fish and sleep ’til noon.
“what does she expect/like?”
Cheap cost of living, nursing jobs, warm weather, swimming, activities and community for retirees. Nice like-minded people around.
Check out Sun City Center for starters.
http://www.suncitycenter.org/
Cost of living is relatively low, lots of activities, three swimming pools, very friendly people. Plenty of nursing jobs if she wants one.
There’s a lengthy profile of Le Tan Man himself, Mr. Angelo Mozilo, in the latest issue of the New Yorker. Haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but will report back.
(Only the abstract is available online for non-subscribers.)
Heard the classic “Everything Counts” by D Mode the other day for the first time in a long time and immediately thought of Mr. Mozilo.
“Confidence
Taken in
By a sun tan
And a grin”
Cash is king when it comes to foreclosed homes.
http://www.news-press.com/article/20090625/RE/90624085/1075
Back in 1998, my former landlady picked up a foreclosed property for $86,000 (or thereabouts). The property had two houses and that’s where the fun began. She had years of repair work to do on both of them. Seems that the former owner wasn’t into maintaining his rentals.
Speaking of that - where’s combo been lately? He’d get a kick out of that article.
Does anyone know if cash in also king on So Ca foreclosure deals? Some have a tude here.
Yup. Know a guy who bought a fairly new 4,000 square foot home in So. Cal. (in good shape) for about $50 per square foot. Seems like a pretty good deal to me.
More blatant front running by the Friends of Ben Bernanke last night and this morning in the bond markets, ahead of a noontime Fed “announcement” .
Apparently there is no limit to the greed and corruption tied to the Fed, and its accomplices.
They probably feel they are far above the law.
That no one has a right to question or stop them.
That all the money they steal belongs to them because they are so freaking important.
Bernanke should be arrested and the Fed’s assets confiscated on racketeering charges, IMHO.
Cobalt, for someone who is often on the opposite end of the political spectrum from me, it is remarkable how often your views and mine are in complete agreement !
Maybe the only beliefs that matter are “ethics” and “no ethics”.
Elanor,
Political leanings, like preferences for colors, pets, food, clothes, etc. are a product of our life experiences, education, work, families, and individual personalities.
But at a certain level, theft is just theft, dishonesty is not another variation of honesty, and personal integrity and ethical behavior are attributes to be valued.
I don’t want to particularly offend or alienate people on this blog. I do want to express a point of view that comes out of my own direct personal firsthand experience. The politically correct or popular party line is often worse than useless, IMHO.
Thanks for your comments, and hopefully what we really disagree upon eventually becomes better understood by one or both of us!
‘Maybe the only beliefs that matter are “ethics” and “no ethics”.’
You are more correct than you realize, Elanor.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actress Farrah Fawcett died on Thursday after a long battle with anal cancer, her spokesman said. She was 62.
Fawcett, who rose to fame as the star of U.S. television’s “Charlie’s Angels”, was first diagnosed with anal cancer in late 2006. She died in a Los Angles hospital.
My adolescent poster collection just went up in value!
Farrah, where ever you are, may peace and love be with you. Or for you RIP crowd, RIP.
How often did we even think of this person before her cancer struggle. The media is a mighty river of distractions.
Of COURSE Jill is in Heaven! Jeeze, as if it could ever be otherwise. Probably cleverly disguised as a stripper while she ferrets out some nefarious* activity or other with the undercover help of Kelly and Sabrina! …Oh,wait. They’re not there yet. Hmmm. Well, then, later.
But yes. Rest in peace, Jill, and I’m glad you don’t hurt anymore.
* Relatively nefarious, it being Heaven and all, of course. Like a lost palm-frond or halo, or else someone said ‘Dangit’ in vain.
I think I’ve earned a chocolate tiara. A halo is to conventional.
This goddess has been on my mind since I was a pimply-faced teen in 1976. I was too embarrassed to even get her poster to hang in my room. Teased too much by three older sisters.
And yes, I have the Playboy mags from twelve years ago, one or two still in their plastic wrapper. And of course, one unwrapped.
The girls in high school back in the 1970s styled their hair after Farrah’s. One of them was a cheerleader in my class of 1977. I had a crush on her.She was in a yearbook photo modeling a long jacket. The caption read “X looks just like an angel in her coat from y.” Those were great days.
June 25 (Bloomberg) — Builders in the U.S., battling their lowest market share on record, will need to keep cutting prices and offering upgrades to attract buyers as competition from foreclosures mounts, economists said.
The CHART OF THE DAY shows new-home sales represented 7.4 percent of all single-family purchases in May, the lowest level since data began in 1968. From 1990 through 2005, before sales started their descent, the share was about 16 percent.
“The new-home market is simply not competitive at this point,” said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania. “The share of new homes in total sales might get squeezed further. Builders will have to wait a quarter or two before they see a turn in profits.”
The share set a new nadir in May after figures from the Commerce Department yesterday showed new-home sales unexpectedly fell, even as the median price decreased 3.4 percent from a year earlier. A report from the National Association of Realtors a day earlier showed resales last month climbed to the highest level since October as the median price dropped 17 percent.
Builders have been hamstrung by land bought at premium prices years ago, and construction costs haven’t come down much, said Nicolas Retsinas, director of housing studies at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In related news - homebuilder stocks are up big today. Lennar is up 15%.
Of course! New home sales are the lowest ever, so now must REALLY be the bottom! Not like those previous bottoms! BUY BUY BUY!
You can’t sell new homes if you haven’t been building many homes for the past year.
Builders have seen their inventories dwindle…they are now shopping for finished lots.
My city just lost a fire services contract with a neighboring city — a proposal is on the table to increase the mil rate to keep the fire house open.
Had an interesting meeting today with a contractor working for the HOA of a large public national builder. The contractor is involved in clubhouse operations in a planned active seniors community.
The amenities are bleeding money, and as the builder still ‘owns’ the development, they are hugely subsidizing the amenities to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. The HOA fees are still low for a community of this type (approx $200 a month), as they are being held down until enough buyers are found for the builder to turn over the keys.
The HOA is already looking at/trying to plan for a time when the builder just walks from the site and dumps it on the HOA.
I know we all know this scenario is playing out across the country. ANYONE who is considering buying into a planned community with rich ammenities, no matter how low the price of the house and fees at the time of purchase, needs to have a clear understanding the stand alone operating challenges of the HOA.
That big volume of treasury sales must be going well this week - yields are dropping quite a bit, despite BB’s statement that the Fed doesn’t intend to extent their buying program.
Interesting.
In related news
There have been reports of large insider selling, maybe they are putting their money into Tbills. Makes sense if they believe things will be going down soon.
7 year notes are too long unless they are TIPS. I’m sticking to 52 week T-bills. Rates gotta go up.
Bank of America sued for gender bias over bonuses
Thu Jun 25, 2009 2:28pm EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp was sued on Thursday in a federal lawsuit in New York, accusing the largest U.S. bank of discriminating against female brokers at the former Merrill Lynch & Co by offering them lower retention bonuses than their male counterparts.
The lawsuit seeks class-action status, and contends that women brokers were typically eligible for lower bonuses because of gender bias at Merrill, including the brokerage’s practice of steering wealthier clients to male brokers.
Because bonuses were based on “production,” or fees earned on client assets, the payout practice authorized by Bank of America “disproportionately disadvantages women and advantages white men as favored employees,” the complaint said.
The case was brought in Manhattan federal court by Jaime Goodman, who said she worked as a Merrill broker for 16 years prior to the January 1, 2009 merger.
According to the complaint, Goodman was a top-quintile performer at Merrill, having been “a $1 million producer for nearly a decade,” but would have fared even better and gotten a higher retention bonus absent discrimination.
Bank of America did not immediately return requests for comment.
The plaintiff is seeking compensatory damages including the value of all compensation and benefits lost because of the alleged bias, as well as punitive damages and other remedies.
Maybe contrary to what one would expect, there are/have been many ‘booked out’ locations this summer, esp. in the “Grand Circle” area (now marketed as such, formerly Four Corners). Comfort Inn in Durango 150, etc etc., Moab and Bryce / Zion were often booked out since May. No rooms in West Yellowstone / Gardiner this weekend below 200 a night, incl tax…190 for Comfort Inn (w/o tax)etc etc.
Some, like Hyatt Tahoe higher than ever (almost 800 per night, well 800 with tax). Not everyone has life on hold, it so seems.
How are consumers reacting to the economic correction? “US consumers seem to have straightened up pretty fast. After the crash, they went into therapy and rediscovered their inner squirrel. Now, according to news and anecdotal reports, they’re saving all the cash they can. Savings rates, which had been near zero, are now bouncing up towards 5%. When they aren’t stashing nuts, they are becoming more independent. Reports tell us that they are planting backyard gardens…and putting in their own power plants. (Yesterday, we came across a website for people who wanted to generate their own power.) They’re said to be cutting their own hair…and their own grass, driving less, cooking their own meals, and so forth.
“They are prone to backsliding at any moment, of course. And with the feds waving the bottle under their noses every day, many are bound to fall off the wagon. But on the whole…consumers seem to be breaking free of the illusion that they can get rich by spending money.”
B.Bonner
Quick! Where can I buy stock in Flowbee??
Even my ornery butt thinks that’s a hopeful sign.
I would also hope that everyone now sees these debt enablers (a.k.a. politicians) for what they really are - the paid stooges of the PTB and nothing more.
“(Yesterday, we came across a website for people who wanted to generate their own power.)”
A perfect example of how out touch these people are. These websites have been around for years.
Amaboutojamawad compares Barry to Bush, LOL! That’s got to sting.
Says Obama ‘made a mistake’
By ANDY BARR AP
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad compared Obama on Thursday to former President George W. Bush.
Reacting to Obama’s comment Tuesday that he is “appalled and outraged” by crackdowns in Iran, Ahmadinejad said, “Mr. Obama made a mistake to say those things … our question is why he fell into this trap and said things that previously Bush used to say.”
“Do you want to speak with this tone? If that is your stance then what is left to talk about… I hope you avoid interfering in Iran’s affairs and express your regret in a way that the Iranian nation is informed of it,” he added, according to Reuters.
Every nutjob in the sandbox knows how to play Obama.
It’s Midnight At The Oasis. Sing your camel to bed.
WASHINGTON DC: WELCOME TO THE WHOREHOUSE
R.Schoon 6-25-09
Under the two-party system that characterizes present-day democracies, the conservatives represent private interests and the liberals the public interest. In truth, however, the public interest is often served by private interests just as private interests are also often served by the public interest.
Balance between the two polarities is necessary for a well-functioning society, a balance that does not presently exist. Today, both political parties are so corrupted by money and power that in most countries the “democratic process” is singularly ineffective in solving problems that confront them.
Because of the vast amounts of money available, Washington DC is especially ineffective and corrupt. In the US, the democratic process is but a smokescreen for powerful governing elites to use the blood, sweat and taxes of Americans to further their own selfish ends.
Americans no more own America than the chickens on the Kentucky Colonel’s farm own the farm on which they are slaughtered.
Governing elites have controlled the Republican and Democratic parties for decades. No matter what party is in power, the same power brokers operate behind the scene to pass and deny legislation in accordance with their, not the nation’s, best interests.
This is not to suggest that the democratic process should be abandoned or that a return to monarchy should be considered or that a more dictatorial form of democracy - which is now evolving - is the answer.
The unfortunate inability of the many to defend themselves against the predacious behavior of the few is a reoccurring theme throughout human history; and, the dangerous ability of the few to mobilize the many on their behalf should also be recognized.
History is not an accident. It is a perfect reflection of humanity. Until humanity changes, history will not.
Today, each political polarity has been manipulated by those in power to see the other as the enemy while the enemy of both, the governing elites - escape detection. Divide and conquer has been the tried and true measure of manipulating the democratic process into a mutually self-destructive process controlled by the elites.
Just got back from the Telluride Bluegrass Festival after two weeks away. If you haven’t seen David Byrne in concert, please check him out. Wild. Also, Todd Snider was a hoot.
Observations from the car:
TONS of trains sitting from Grand Jxn past Salt Lake City.
South of SLC, there are exurban developments that have one or two houses complete with streets and fireplugs where tens of houses should be but aren’t. Other developments have nearly completed houses without windows with tall weeds growing all around them.
There are lots of people towing big boats around Nevada. (?)
West Wendover, NV (aka Best Bendover) is decadent and depraved. The Rainbow Motel will make you have flashbacks — if you are prone to them.
Most people are only vaguely human in the fast-food fat shacks off the interstate. Lots of corpulence and loping gaits which any national health care system will have to take into consideration as we slouch toward Gomorrah.
Lots of retail “for lease” signs everywhere, but that’s even older news.
MrBubble
PS: I’ll be in Europe poking around starting next week. The idle cranes in the Barcelona area last year were eye-openers. We’ll see what 2009 has in store.
ROTFLMAO
(great obervations as well.)
Thanks MrBubble!
“Other developments have nearly completed houses without windows with tall weeds growing all around them.”
Similar observations can be had around the part of San (’we are running out of land’) Diego where we rent. It is as though the collapse of the housing bubble stopped the home construction boom dead in its tracks.
So today we here the builders are snapping up land again at fire sale prices. My question: Who loaned them the cashola to participate in the fire sale? Or did they just hedge the crash just right and now that they are convinced land prices have bottomed out, decided to trade some Bernankes for terra firma? Inquiring minds want to know…
‘hear’ (not ‘here’) — spellchecker malfunction!
Further, on the ‘real estate for sale or lease’ front, we have no, nada, zilch “For Sale” signs this summer posted on area yards, except for a couple of places which say “For Lease” (well, actually one says “Sale Pending,” but I know first hand that the place is for rent and the UHS misleadingly used that sign because he did not have one that says “Lease Pending.”) And it is not as though there are no homes for sale — more like there are no UHS left in the game who have the time, money and energy to market places which will not sell at the prices owners are willing to accept.
By contrast, every commercial development in the area has an “Office Space Available” sign openly on display.
Excellent reportage, Sir. Please keep us updated on the current developments in Yurp? (And how the premier cru-s are shaping up?)
Reports: Michael Jackson in coma
By Post staff and Associated Press
Several news organizations are reporting that pop star Michael Jackson is in a coma after being rushed to a hospital by Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics.
UPDATE, 5:45 p.m.: TMZ.com has transmitted a report that Jackson has died; that when paramedics arrived at the pop star’s home, they couldn’t get a pulse and were never able to get one back
Dude was my age. I liked his stuff up to “We are the world.” Would hav e preferred Moe, Joe, and Larry doing “We are the woild.” Since I’m a Malthusian.
I’m sorry for his passage. He had issues. I feel worse for the children (mostly if not entirely boys) pushed to his Neverland Ranch by their very own parents to become Pope Michael’s alter boys.
WASHINGTON DC: WELCOME TO THE WHOREHOUSE
R.Schoon
Under the two-party system that characterizes present-day democracies, the conservatives represent private interests and the liberals the public interest. In truth, however, the public interest is often served by private interests just as private interests are also often served by the public interest.
Balance between the two polarities is necessary for a well-functioning society, a balance that does not presently exist. Today, both political parties are so corrupted by money and power that in most countries the “democratic process” is singularly ineffective in solving problems that confront them.
Because of the vast amounts of money available, Washington DC is especially ineffective and corrupt. In the US, the democratic process is but a smokescreen for powerful governing elites to use the blood, sweat and taxes of Americans to further their own selfish ends.
Americans no more own America than the chickens on the Kentucky Colonel’s farm own the farm on which they are slaughtered.
Governing elites have controlled the Republican and Democratic parties for decades. No matter what party is in power, the same power brokers operate behind the scene to pass and deny legislation in accordance with their, not the nation’s, best interests.
This is not to suggest that the democratic process should be abandoned or that a return to monarchy should be considered or that a more dictatorial form of democracy - which is now evolving - is the answer.
The unfortunate inability of the many to defend themselves against the predacious behavior of the few is a reoccurring theme throughout human history; and, the dangerous ability of the few to mobilize the many on their behalf should also be recognized.
History is not an accident. It is a perfect reflection of humanity. Until humanity changes, history will not.
Today, each political polarity has been manipulated by those in power to see the other as the enemy while the enemy of both, the governing elites - escape detection. Divide and conquer has been the tried and true measure of manipulating the democratic process into a mutually self-destructive process controlled by the elites.
The nature and identity of the governing elite is very interesting. They are global. They have been around for centuries. The are masters of misinformation, manipulation, and distraction.
They usually are bankers to both sides of a conflict or war. For most people, they are a dominating force that is unseen and could not be named. Power and control is their game.
They plan and play to win over generations of time. They usually succeed.
Exactly, cobalt. I have a feeling you and I have studied some of the same things.
However, the bankers or financial families have one flaw that does work in the favor of the future of humanity: their agendas differ somewhat, they can’t always agree and do work against each other as well.
Correct, palmetto, in the end, even these people have their flaws.
R.I.P.
Michael Jackson Dies
Posted Jun 25th 2009 5:20PM by TMZ Staff
Michael JacksonWe’ve just learned Michael Jackson has died. He was 50.
Michael suffered a cardiac arrest earlier this afternoon at his Holmby Hills home and paramedics were unable to revive him. We’re told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back.
A source tells us Jackson was dead when paramedics arrived. A cardiologist at UCLA tells TMZ Jackson died of cardiac arrest.
Once at the hospital, the staff tried to resuscitate him but he was completely unresponsive.
We’re told one of the staff members at Jackson’s home called 911.
La Toya ran in the hospital sobbing after Jackson was pronounced dead.
Michael is survived by three children: Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr., Paris Michael Katherine Jackson and Prince “Blanket” Michael Jackson II.
OMG. He’s a year younger than I am. Or he was.
Sheesh. I feel like I’m in that military academy movie scene where they tell the kids to look to the left and then to the right. Reason: Only one of them will remain.
Definitely the end of an era, Slim. I dunno why, but the passing of both Fawcett and Jackson made me feel a little sad for some reason. I guess, makes me realize my time is limited now, too.
Yeah, I know what you guys/gals mean. I guess it makes you realize you have more time behind you, then in front of you. (some of us, anyway)
“I guess it makes you realize you have more time behind you, then in front of you.”
It gets bad when you have to acknowledge the odds on that statement being true are overwhelmingly long.
We will probably find out that the deaths of both were preventable. Good golly! I’m just less than 12 months younger than MJ.! The guy did not look like a cardiac risk. Prescription pills like Elvis? And Farrah. One potential cause is STD. That type of cancer strikes one out of 680 people. There is a vaccine that women under age 27 should take. Also (I won’t use the word in case Ben Jones does not want to see it, but Trojans is a major seller of them) Trojans and similar brands help prevent Farrah’s type of cancer. The cancer Farrah had strikes usually after age 60.
Farrah was too young to die and I’m grieving for her (Sorry to MJ fans)
I see what you are saying, “She took it dans l’anus and deserves what she got”. No, no. I get it. And don’t try to hide behind some statement like, “Some of my best friends like it like that.” What you are saying, at least tacitly, is that she deserved what she got, whether you deny or not. And that’s just shameful and crass.
Yet another comment that further evinces your continuing and unstoppable idiocy.
MrBubble
You are only extrapolating. You are retarded. The bubble in your name describes the vacuum between your ears.
For both good or bad, Michael was the Elvis of our generation. I think I’ll try to remember him ala his Off the Wall era. It’s pretty disturbing to see how he morphed post 1980s.
http://www.spike.com/video/michael-jacksons/2464120
Michael and Farrah on the same day. Damn, there goes 2 massive icons of my generation. And yes, I did have her swimsuit poster on my wall as a teen!
What teenage boy didn’t?
I have a relative who has worked for one of the major tabloids for many years. He once told me that when one celeb or famous figure dies, management puts all the reporters and researchers on call, a sort of celeb “death watch”, because they tend to die in threes. Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson. Tabloid Trifecta. It’s old tabloid lore, but over the years, they’ve learned it just works out that way for some strange reason
Michael was a real talent, whereas, Farrah won the looks lottery, imo. I never thought any of the angels were actresses.
Yeah but Farrah did no molesting, as far as we know. Makes her 100 times better than MJ.
“And yes, I did have her swimsuit poster on my wall as a teen!”
Best. stiff nipples. ever.
They really should be preserved in the Smithsonian.
Yup! My first introduction to female nipples. And I was bottle fed, of course.
Still are?
Better than what you feed off of these days
“What teenage boy didn’t?”
The ones who had Mark Spitz posters on their walls?
My second oldest sister had that. A Mustache-ioed Spitz.
Yeah — it seems like the people I knew back then who had Spitz posters were all female as well. I guess it did not occur to them that such a handsome hunk might not be as interested in them as they were in him?
“My second oldest sister had that. A Mustache-ioed Spitz.”
Like you didn’t jack to that.
Like mayby you’d jack dreaming that I’d jack to that.
Pfffffft. Mark Spitzer.
Now a poster of Tom Selleck in his tight pair of jeans during his Magnum PI days, oh yes.
SFBAG –
Aren’t you forgetting the hunk that was Higgins. So tasty!
MrBubble
Or TC? Or Rick? Good gawd, y’all!
Extra6/26/2009 12:01 AM ET
Did Clinton cause the banking crisis?
A trio of regulatory changes and missteps on the former president’s watch let the banks run wild and encouraged the housing bubble. But he had help, of course.
By David Weidner, MarketWatch
On Wall Street and Main Street they call William Jefferson Clinton the “Comeback Kid,” but it’s not because of some Election Day surprise.
It’s because almost everything he did regarding financial-services regulation has come back to haunt us.
If it wasn’t apparent before, the former president’s handiwork became clear when President Barack Obama announced his plans for sweeping financial-services reforms. Obama’s efforts to bring fair dealing to the mortgage markets, rules to the derivatives marketplace and restraint to big financial companies underscore the missteps of Clinton’s second term.
We had weakly regulated markets when Clinton took office, but by the time he left, they were an invitation to lawless dealing. For the ease of it, Willie Sutton would have traded his gun and mask for a briefcase and necktie.
Clinton created a fertile environment for home-lending charlatans and hiding places for Wall Street swindlers, and upset a regulatory structure that had served the financial marketplace so well for more than six decades.
3 big mistakes
Clinton bashing — like Bush bashing — is often a cop-out, but Clinton made critical mistakes when it came to dealing with the financial industry. Three poor decisions stand out.
The first, in 1997, was a change to the amount of taxes a homeowner had to pay on the sale of his or her home, up to $500,000. That change effectively made buying and selling a home for profit the most compelling investment in America by tax standards. It shifted our housing market from one of supply and demand to one of rampant speculation.
The second mistake was one of inaction. In 1998, Long-Term Capital Management’s use of derivatives and leverage required a massive $3.6 billion hedge fund bailout organized by the New York Federal Reserve Bank. After the fiasco rocked the markets, the administration was on the spot. Would it push for tighter regulation of this new form of investment vehicle? Would it rein in the derivatives markets?
Alan Greenspan and Arthur Levitt, then the chairmen of the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission, respectively, and Clinton’s Treasury secretary, Robert Rubin, all counseled against it to varying degrees. No action was taken.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner testifies before the Senate Banking Committee about White House plans to overhaul financial rules (June 18).
Repeal of Glass-Steagall
But perhaps the biggest mistake of the Clinton years regarding Wall Street and the one that rings loudest today was the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, which effectively had split investment banking and brokerages from commercial banks.
In the years leading up to the repeal, Wall Street had been grumbling that the law had become an anachronism. Financial technology was sophisticated. We were so much smarter than they were back in 1929 that there was no way a financial-services conglomerate could pose a threat to the system, Wall Street experts said. Besides, they argued, it was a good idea for banks to handle customers’ investments and savings as a hedge in the bad times.
Gosh, glad to know it wasn’t Phil and Wendy Gramm. I hear they’re just such nice folks.
Who here and in that WSJ article says that Gramm wasn’t involved?
What tends to get glossed over by the typical MSM hack ans salon.com followers is that Clinton was very much involved, too.
Heck, we have posters on this very board that refuse to acknowledge Clinton’s role.
Nice article but it does leave a heck of a lot out. Like the fact that the Financial Services Modernization Act (repeal of parts of Glass-Steagall) was created by Republicans and passed by a veto-proof margin - so Clinton couldn’t have prevented it even if wanted to.
Also the title of the article implies that the bubble was primarily Clinton’s fault. No way. Yeah he shares some blame, but the blame was spread across many administrations (including Carter and Reagan), but if I were to pick the biggest it would be Bush II. There are many causes during his tenure of course.
Is it Bush bashing to mention that the man had 8 years in office to correct whatever ills Clinton may have initiated?
Financial Times
Inflation - the real threat to sustained recovery
By Alan Greenspan
Published: June 25 2009 15:49 | Last updated: June 25 2009 15:49
The rise in global stock prices from early March to mid-June is arguably the primary cause of the surprising positive turn in the economic environment. The $12,000bn of newly created corporate equity value has added significantly to the capital buffer that supports the debt issued by financial and non-financial companies. Corporate debt, as a consequence, has been upgraded and yields have fallen. Previously capital-strapped companies have been able to raise considerable debt and equity in recent months. Market fears of bank insolvency, particularly, have been assuaged.
Is this the beginning of a prolonged economic recovery or a false dawn? There are credible arguments on both sides of the issue. I conjectured over a year ago on these pages that the crisis will end when home prices in the US stabilise. That still appears right. Such prices largely determine the amount of equity in homes – the ultimate collateral for the $11,000bn of US home mortgage debt, a significant share of which is held in the form of asset-backed securities outside the US. Prices are currently being suppressed by a large overhang of vacant houses for sale. Owing to the recent sharp drop in house completions, this overhang is being liquidated in earnest, suggesting prices could start to stabilise in the next several months – although they could drift lower into 2010.
“Owing to the recent sharp drop in house completions, this overhang is being liquidated in earnest, suggesting prices could start to stabilise in the next several months – although they could drift lower into 2010.”
What about all them REOs that banks are holding off the market, in anticipation that higher future inflation will bail them out? Or all those Alt-A and prime resets scheduled to hammer the market through 2012?
Exactly.
We don’t have “several months” of overhanging inventory. We have about 2-3 years-worth still, if you include existing REO’s and foreclosures yet to come.
Even *without* those we still have about a year’s worth of overhanging inventory - not “several months”.