Bits Bucket For October 8, 2009
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The Housing Bubble
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what will our “leaders” get us into today? at least we can be sure of more debt..sigh.
Obama promised to battle “a corporate culture rife with insider dealing and questionable accounting practices and short-term greed … [and] economic policies that favour the few over the many”
Sounds good
Good thing he promised, you can rest easy now.
So he’s leaving the Democratic Party??????
As has often been said, these two parties are one: Republicrat, or Demublican. And they are fast dissolving, at least in the eyes of the public.
Now, of course, the various entrenched interests will attempt to thwart a third party, but I see it coming. The best thing to do is “talk amongst yourselves”, to friends, family, etc., about third party candidates.
I can’t believe John McCain is the so-called leader of the Pubs right now, or that they’re trying to trot out Mitt Romney again.
Bring back the Whigs.
The major parties are too fooked to fix.
The problem is that a third party will need to have deep financial pockets to have a chance to take on the entrenched power structure and win……..and it seems that the only people that have that kind of money aren’t any better/as trustworthy than the currently installed muttz.
Meet the new boss……same as the old boss.
Why be negative about Romney? He is one of the few modern day politicians that I would actually trust to watch my children…something that has been lost for quite some time now.
He took a situation in the SLC Winter Olympics that was falling off the cliff and ended up actually making a small profit.
His first meeting with the board for the olympics was apparently dramatic. He bought some pizzas and placed them on the conference table and invited the organizing committee to enjoy their last free lunch.
We could use that now in Washington.
Same as before. K Street is alive and well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/opinion/04rich.html
“Barack Obama promised a change from this revolving-door, behind-closed-doors collaboration between special interests and government. He vowed to “do our business in the light of day” — with health care negotiations broadcast on C-Span — and to “restore the vital trust between people and their government.” He said, “I intend to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over.” That those lobbyists would so extravagantly flaunt their undiminished role shows just how little they believe that a new sheriff has arrived in Dodge.”
DownInSanAntonio,
Too funny! Is that a true story? Sounds like a great technique to get through to people. Think I’ll try it sometime.
I’d trust John M. to watch my kids but I’d imagine his bedtime stories would be a little scary?
X-GSfixer,
Why the negativity? Here in Oregon, 3rd. Party ( Liberatarians ) have decided -several- elections on a shoe-string budget and as little as 3% of the vote!
Just ask Kevin Mannix our Rep. contender for Gov. on not (1) but TWO seperate elections! We don’t need 51% of the vote and OR is as good a place to start as any? Also note Ross Perot got I believe 18% of the vote here and the largest in any state.
“Why be negative about Romney? He is one of the few modern day politicians that I would actually trust to watch my children…”
Given the fact that he strapped the helpless, terrified family dog to the TOP of the family car on a trip, I’m sure he makes excellent decisions regarding the well being of innocent children. NOT. I’ll go ahead and pass on him as the caretaker of anything living, thank you very much.
DinOR,
I believe that I read the story in the Deseret News.
Whoever is our next President, I hope that he/she has the strength and independence to make such statements.
Agreed with John McCain.
I heard a rumor the other day that John McCain wasn’t even born in the US of A.
He wasnt he was born in Panama.
Hi GrizzlyBear:
Should we go after all of the trucking companies that haul pigs, goats, cows, chickens, down the highway while being “strapped” to the back of a Semi going 70 mph? What about people carrying dogs in cars with the windows open? What about dogs in the back of pickup trucks?
I really don’t get that line of attack against Romney. Doesn’t make sense in the greater scheme of things.
skip, That’s right, he’s a zonie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Canal_Zone
Why be negative about Romney? He is one of the few modern day politicians that I would actually trust to watch my children…something that has been lost for quite some time now.
He took a situation in the SLC Winter Olympics that was falling off the cliff and ended up actually making a small profit.
His first meeting with the board for the olympics was apparently dramatic. He bought some pizzas and placed them on the conference table and invited the organizing committee to enjoy their last free lunch.
BS.
I wouldn’t trust him with the kids and Not us. Maybe his wife, but not him.
Why be negative about Romney? He is one of the few modern day politicians that I would actually trust to watch my children…
I have a problem with religious people in general. I’m really troubled by the fact that you can’t get elected in this country without professing your allegiance to one or another imaginary beings in outer space.
I have a problem with religious people in general. I’m really troubled by the fact that you can’t get elected in this country without professing your allegiance to one or another imaginary beings in outer space.
I think Romney will find the opposite, that you can’t get elected by professing your allegiance to imaginary beings in outer space. I can’t see any of the southern Republican base voting for a Mormon.
Wow, one comment and a swipe at two religions. Kudos.
Hey wait, didn’t Obama attend a church for 20 years in Chicago?
And is professing allegiance to aliens any wackier than believe the song of god died, then came back from the dead 3 days later? There is a chance aliens do exist, a pretty good chance actually given the billions of stars out there that could in tehory have a planet orbiting around it with life on it. Odds that Jesus rose from the dead? I’d put those odds at about the odds of Exeter buying 3 condos in Miami this weekend.
I’ll meet you and raise you. (Go Exeter!)
I don’t know poker. I mean to say that I heartily endorse Ex’s cynicism.
Thank you.
Say Eddie….. why change usernames so frequently?
Guys guys guys. Bottom line. Campaign Finance Reform.
In other words take away the ability for corps and lobbyists for those corps to Buy the people that run for office.
PURE start to begin changing the status Corporate Quo/ Elite Quo .
Nothing else will get the ball rolling, unless you guys/we guys, all americans start voting out the the current schnooks.
Don’t see that happening to soon. When they campaign in 10 it will be just the same thing, just Groundhogs Day.
Bullsh!t Spewing fromst their lips, thanking us all the way to the bank. Their bank.
“A society cannot be both ignorant and free” - Thomas Jefferson
So what are you saying neuro?
Agree with you very much on the campaign finance reform. All elections should be publicly funded only, IMHO.
economic policies that favour the few over the many”
I would favor an economy that favored hard work and accomplishment instead of redistribution and sob stories…
” ‘I would favor a economy that favored hard work and accomplishment instead of sob stories…”
Stpn2me….perfect …agree 100 percent …and you said it in such few words .
Really, so you are worried about corporate insurance companies and their profits?
Good, they bought another one. Sold to the highest (ins.)bidder, bs er.
Gotta agree Stpn2me. Nothing more annoying than listening to rich people whine while sh.., er, stepping all over J6P and showing very bad leadership skills and examples en mass.
I did see an article where the White House dumped all the lobbyists on the advisory boards to the Executive and Congress. I guess they will end up with a “Governmental Spokesman” on these boards, but at least K-Street is getting really ticked off by this.
No, it won’t change anything in the long run. There will still be lobbyists on these boards who don’t have any obligation to the people who elected the POTUS, Senate or Congress. Still, it made the K-street “tasseled loafers” angry. That was pleasing.
Roidy
P.S. I.T.B. I.G.H. T.I.N.W.C.D.
(It’s too big. It’s gonna hurt. There is nothing we can do.)
A Trillion buckos and I haven’t even felt a buck of it…..
We are such morons ….Universal health care would have been far cheaper then the stupid wars in iraq and afghanny.
Really, so much for “sociailism”
A Trillion buckos and I haven’t even felt a buck of it…..
Been to a gas station recently?
I venture that without the trillions in Fed pumping (pun intended) that oil would probably be about $25 a barrel right now, and gas at about $1.20.
Just one example.
Oh - you thought you would receive some of this money. LOL - good one. No, that’d be reserved for Wall Street banks, and keeping government employees employed.
oil would probably be about $25 a barrel right now, and gas at about $1.20.
How does Fed money prop up oil prices? Please forgive my ignoance, I really would to know.
I have been wondering for a while why the price of gas is so dang sticky at $2+
Simple. New Fed money weakens the dollar generally, by just putting more of them out there. To escape a weakening dollar people divest into other things like stocks (thus the stock market rise), and commodities - like oil. This is exactly why we have $70/bbl oil prices right now despite a huge glut. High oil prices of course translate to high gas prices.
Fed prints money. Dollar gets depreciated.
Oil is priced in dollars. Takes more dollars to buy a barrel of oil.
The price of gas has been quite constant over the past 40 years when adjusted for inflation. There have been wild gyrations up and down. But those are short lived. $4 gas lasted a few months last year. In 1999 there was a brief sub-$1 gas period which IIRC lasted a few months as well.
But if you smooth out the graph over the long term, gas has cost about $2.25 a gallon in constant dollars since the 60s.
To escape a weakening dollar people divest into other things like stocks (thus the stock market rise), and commodities - like oil.
Oh, duh! Thank you!
what will our “leaders” get us into today? at least we can be sure of more debt..sigh.
What will happen to Felix in the next exciting adventure…
Remember, ask not what your bank can do for you, but what YOU can do for your bank.
Wamu has an entire newly redecorated lobby, that I can see so far.
New carpet, paint, tile, desks, furnishings, 50 inch plasma tvs on pallets and idiots who work there and try to say with a straight face, “we didn’t take the bailout money” ‘we didn’t want it’, ‘we gave it back’.
So, let ME hold that money for a few months and then lets see how they like it or call it by its real name. A LOAN without interest.
A freebie.
May as well have the gubmint back 100% of mortgages, we’re not that far off now!
Fannie and Freddie to Aid Mortgage Banks - WSJ
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are preparing to introduce a program aimed at helping independent mortgage banks acquire the short-term credit they need to make home loans, according to people familiar with the plans.
The two government-backed mortgage companies, the main providers of funding for U.S. home loans, plan to provide advance commitments to purchase home mortgages that meet certain standards. The goal is to reduce risks faced by independent mortgage banks.
“The goal is to reduce risks faced by independent mortgage banks.”
Who gets to face the risks (and fund them)? And is the party that gets to fund the risks (including moral hazard induced by the free guarantees) willing to foot the bill?
Exactly.
One man’s safety is another man’s risk.
That applies to a whole plethora of facets of society.
(or in this case - one corporation’s “reduced risk” is a whole bunch of taxpayers’ new expense)
Yeah.
This is gonna work.
All that big chunk of unemployment and the government guys are all thinking we need more loans.
Obama & company (including republicans) are still on the credit is the lifeblood of the economy express train to nowhere.
Oh it goes somewhere alright…
wmbz, for intents and purposes, they already have. It’s how we got into this mess.
TARP? Too big to fail?
“…all intents…”
IRS offers deductions for new vehicle purchases.
South Florida Business Journal
The cash-for-clunkers deal may be gone, but the IRS is offering another break to those purchasing a new car, light truck, motor home or motorcycle.
Purchases made before Jan. 1 qualify for a deduction on the state and local sales and excise taxes on 2009 tax returns under the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act.
The deduction is limited to the sales and excise taxes and similar fees paid on up to $49,500 of the purchase price of a new vehicle.
The deduction is reduced for joint filers with modified adjusted gross incomes between $250,000 and $260,000, and other taxpayers with modified adjusted gross incomes of between $125,000 and $135,000.
Those with higher incomes do not qualify.
The deduction is available regardless of whether taxpayers itemize deductions on their returns.
So we’re now subsidizing all but the excruciatingly wealthy to buy cars? What portion of the population is excluded from this subsidy, the upper 2 or 3 percent of all incomes?
Why are we subsidizing any motor home purchase?!
Is there any remotely compelling reason why there should ever be a taxpayer subsidy for an individual to purchase a $49k vehicle?
I hear ya SDGreg. When I read that yesterday I thought Franklin’s warning marking the end of the republic had come to pass.
**************
Although found nowhere in the national archives or known writings of Benjamin Franklin, it is widely accepted that he once said “When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
It was Alexis de Tocqueville, the French observer of American culture and author of Democracy in America.
Actually various versions have been attributed to various people, including Sir Alex Fraser Tytler, as well as Tocqueville and Franklin. Here’s some discussion - www dot lorencollins.net/tytler.html.
Seems it’s pretty unclear who said what. It’s applicable nonetheless.
By that reasoning, we’re at the end of the Republic already, since Congressmen (all of them) vote themselves campaign constributions on a daily basis.
The banks have been quite successful in voting/lobbying for more dollars. Very successful, indeed!
“Why are we subsidizing any motor home purchase?!”
More to the point, why are we subsidizing foreign governments, war machines, illegal immigrants, special interest groups, banksters, Wall Street, etc.? If we pulled our many subsidies, things would be much more prosperous here in the US.
Hah, for regular people. Not for the people who matter.
“We have too much regulation!!!” squeal my knee-jerk, Ditto-head, Republican friends.
I too used to think regulation was bad……..but then I noticed that the ones complaining the most were also the biggest cheaters, corner-cutters, “I’m-too-smart-to-obey-the-rules”, and “do-as-I say, not-as-I-do” chumps out there.
My desktop Federal Aviation Regulations book is about 3 inches thick. And behind every reg., there was a smoking hole in the ground somewhere. Do I like all of them? No, but I know they are in there because someone did something stupid, and the FAA couldn’t get them to stop unless they had a law/regulation against it. So you do fudging/”creative interpretation” at your peril.
(Funny anecdote: My former FAA Inspector, when he would be out on a road trip/field inspection, would always come to my hangar, and look at the books on my jets first. Why? “I need to cleanse my palate before I go look at the cropdusters…….”)
I wouldn’t fly an airliner on a bet, if the FAA took eight years off, and the airline bean counters found out about it.
+ a gazillion, XGSy.
I too used to think regulation was bad……..but then I noticed that the ones complaining the most were also the biggest cheaters, corner-cutters, “I’m-too-smart-to-obey-the-rules”, and “do-as-I say, not-as-I-do” chumps out there.
I hear it allllll the time from builders and developers. “There’s too many regulations! It hurts families! It costs jobs! That’s my retirement you’re stealing from me! Yada Yada!”
Translation: Stupid health department/evil guvmint won’t let me build a septic drainfield within the well-head radius of the neighbors drinking water supply. Dam*n them! Can’t they see I want more money?
“+ a gazillion, XGSy.”
Talk about inflation; a +1 ain’t worth chit now.
Exactly X-GSfixr. And while there are plenty of boneheaded regs out there, the vast majority of them exist for real and good reasons.
Example: Did you know that Lebanon was once covered in dense forests? Wanna guess where it all went? And how about them buffalo?
Example: Did you know that Lebanon was once covered in dense forests? Wanna guess where it all went? And how about them buffalo?
Well, think about Easter Island:
Moai carver: Whattaya mean, I can’t cut down the last palm tree on the whole freakin’ island? I need it! I gotta use it to roll this here giant carved grumpy-lookin’ stone head over to Jim-Bob’s house! I got a deadline! All these regulations suck! How’m I gonna feed my kidsd? You’re just taking away my retirement!….’
Worked out reallllll good for them, huh?
HAHAHAHAHAAHAH!
…This is probably apocryphal, but I read somewhere that after the island had been denuded of large vegetation, after the last canoe had rotted and there was nothing left to build a new canoe with, that after the poopie really really hit the fan, one popular insult translated as: ‘The flesh of your mother sticks in my teeth.’
That’s a good one. I’ll have to remember that one.
Nation Building. Why are we Nation Building?
W got us into another Vietnam but much longer. Legacy.
Isn’t that against all our country stands for, constitutionally? Nation Building?
Isn’t that against all our country stands for, constitutionally? Nation Building?
For all the bitching I do about the Bush Administration, I do believe they were trying to accomplish a couple of strategic goals:
1)Stabilize the middle east* by…
2)…liberating Iraq thus turning it into a valid ally.
Formidable plans with blatantly clueless execution - disaster.
*I.e., stabilize America’s access to oil
2)…liberating Iraq thus turning it into a valid ally.
Iraq was our ally only a mere 20 years ago.
Iraq was our enemy 30 years ago.
Iran was our ally 30 years ago.
Iran was our enemy 50 years ago.
Iran was our ally 70 years ago.
Afghanistan was our enemy 10 years ago.
Afghanistan was our ally 30 years ago.
One thing I do agree with many on the Left is the notion that Iraq was all about oil. It was and still is. Same for Iran and Afghanistan, IMHO.
Not just access to supply. It’s more about selling oil for dollars vs selling oil for something other than dollars. The Boyz at the Fed and Treasury want the dollar used because it allows other PTB in other governments to build up reserves of dollars, which they are then instructed to use to buy some of our fabulous T-Bonds. The Saudis know the drill and they behave and the Fed/USA keeps them in power.
Saddam wanted to be independent and make his own deals so that’s why he had to go. Same fate awaits the guy in Iran, the Fed/USA wants to call the oil shots and he’s not playing nice. Shortly we will hear why it was absolutely necessary to incinerate him and how we should be glad that’s over with.
Afghan is a place where a pipeline and other things can go through from Iran into China. That is certainly one reason why we are there IMHO.
“Is there any remotely compelling reason why there should ever be a taxpayer subsidy for an individual to purchase a $49k vehicle?”
Because those are the cars the lawmakers purchase?
subsidy for an individual to purchase a $49k vehicle?”
Because those are the cars the lawmakers purchase?
Nailed it.
We bought a second car (new, 2009 model) a few weeks ago. I had to explain to the sales dude how inconsequential the tax deduction for sales and excise taxes on a new car is. Unfortantely, most people that are even aware of the deduction think of it as a tax credit (similar to the $8,000 cash for shacks credit), and not a tax deduction.
Example, in Massachusetts the sales tax on a new car is 6.25%. That is $1350 on a $20,000 car. Assuming an average tax bracket of 28%, that works out to $378. Free money is good for me personally, but to mortgage the future of the Republic in such an obvious nod to special interests is downright criminal.
Might as well take what you can get while there’s still gubermint cheese to be handed out. If you don’t take it somebody else will. I am afraid it is too late to turn things around. Special interest is calling the shots. No way they’ll relinquish power voluntarily. Next election we will have the same two parties of criminals running the show as every election.
The ability to bribe/lobby politicians which has been declared legal by our supreme court (= non elected officials serving the ones that put them in a position of power) is the root of the problem.
As a consolation, things are run similarly all over the world. Always have and always will. The people in a position of power will extract as much personal gain out of the system as possible. That holds true for just about any political system from Communism to Capitalism.
Obama is trying very hard to wean the American economy off its dependency on consumerism, but that will take time. Meanwhile, they must absolutely avoid the Depression-era hunker-down. The best example of hunker-down was post 9-11, when everyone stayed at home with their families, watched TV, and spend nothing. That caused a recession right there.
So the government is launching a giant version of the “Shoes on Sale Syndrome.” As in: I don’t really need these $100 shoes, but they were 20% off, so I “saved” $20! I’m going to use the $20 at Applebees! [of course they could have save $100 by not buying the shoes.]
Only this time, people are buying $200K houses just to “save” $8000, or buying $20000 cars to “save” $4500, or signing up for 3.5% down so they can “save” $33000 [which they promptly spend on a wedding.]
People are so stupid.
(on a side note, I don’t count the mortgage tax credit as a bad incentive. You have to live somewhere, and in a normal market, renting is still cash in the trash. I still believe in the stability of owning a home, in a normal market. But if someone buys more house for the credit, that’s idiotic.)
Meanwhile, they must absolutely avoid the Depression-era hunker-down. The best example of hunker-down was post 9-11, when everyone stayed at home with their families, watched TV, and spend nothing. That caused a recession right there.
Once again, lack of consumer spending does not cause recessions. It simply means that more money is being saved, and is thus available for investment in longer-term projects.
Once again, lack of consumer spending does not cause recessions. It simply means that more money is being saved, and is thus available for investment in longer-term projects.
In the long-view, you’re right, of course.
In the shorter term, that pullback in consumer spending has a measurable impact. Whether or not A.) the consumer should be driving the bus, and B.) some businesses should die off if they’re unable to wait for investment in longer-term projects — well, those are interesting issues unto themselves, but a consumer pullback still has repercussions.
“Once again, lack of consumer spending does not cause recessions. It simply means that more money is being saved, and is thus available for investment in longer-term projects.”
True, but in the mean time, a bunch of bankers and their cronies might not be able to buy a new yacht this year, so clearly we have to print money, create more debt, and destroy the economy to save them.
“Once again, lack of consumer spending does not cause recessions. It simply means that more money is being saved, and is thus available for investment in longer-term projects.”
I think it is a little more complex than that. Recessions only count in terms of their effects on human beings. Some folks get by just fine in the worst of depressions & some are destroyed for much of the rest of their lives by the smallest of recessions.
Reductions in consumer spending have destroyed the plans and livelihoods of millions of auto workers, construction workers and retail workers. If the money is saved and invested in building new manufacturing plants in China, those who have lost through the reduction is consumer spending aren’t necessary helped by the increase in saving.
Individuals are in recessions. Not economies.
Or it means that debt is being paid down.
I agree, Lehigh dude and Chicago dude. Lack of consumer spending won’t cause recessions…IF the economy doesn’t depend on consumer spending. Unfortunately, our cycles have shortened to where only consumer spending is fast enough to keep up. Even then we had to resort to credit. We just don’t have enough stability to lengthen the cycle.
[obligatory knock on conservatives]
Obama knows this full well. He is trying. His stimulus bill is designed to be medium-term. But what did the conservatives do? They whined that it didn’t solve everything Right This Very Minute. So much for longer term projects.
[/obligatory knock]
I hope we can return to the days of slower cycles and more security and less stress. We’d all be healthier and happier.
Agreeing with Lehigh guy here. Basically the GDP number is beating us over the head all the time.
Savings is bad. Spending is good.
There is a fear of deflation that we need to get past.
obligatory knock on conservatives
You mean republicans? There’s a huge distinction betwn conservatives and Republicans.
You mean republicans? There’s a huge distinction betwn conservatives and Republicans.
Like what? No, really, I’d like to hear your thoughts.
Oly, didn’t you notice that person’s screen name is ronpaul? A conservative who would NOT be complaining that the Stimulus didn’t “solve everything right away.” Ron Paul would be complaining about the Stimulus, that’s for sure, but not because it was supposed to SOLVE anything! Whereas one DOES hear well-known Republicans criticizing the stimulus for “stimulating the wrong stuff” or something like that.
You mean republicans? There’s a huge distinction betwn conservatives and Republicans.
To me a concise summary would be:
Republicans: Cut taxes
Conservatives: Cut spending
Oly, didn’t you notice that person’s screen name is ronpaul? A conservative who would NOT be complaining that the Stimulus didn’t “solve everything right away.” Ron Paul would be complaining about the Stimulus, that’s for sure, but not because it was supposed to SOLVE anything! Whereas one DOES hear well-known Republicans criticizing the stimulus for “stimulating the wrong stuff” or something like that.
Hmmmm… I think you’ve made it clear to me. Grathias.
Funny, in nyc, what we wouldn’t give for a livable 200K house, or even a 400K one! We are the U.S. ponzi society in microcosm … paid dollars more than in other places, but paying multiples of that just to put a roof over our heads.
Meanwhile, they must absolutely avoid the Depression-era hunker-down. The best example of hunker-down was post 9-11, when everyone stayed at home with their families, watched TV, and spend nothing. That caused a recession right there.
Umm… the 2001 recession started before 9/11. It was due to the dot-bust.
Nice try though.
I still remember W asking the people to go shopping and take a trip to Disneyworld.
Obama is trying very hard to wean the American economy off its dependency on consumerism
Oh Really? Not trying to be smug here, but can you list some examples?
That’s an easy one. Obama’s plan is to destroy the economy so no one can purchase anything other than the necessities and what the gov’t dictates what you can spend money on. Welcome to the new tyranny.
“Obama is trying very hard to wean the American economy off its dependency on consumerism,”
Oh is that what he’s doing? Bwahhahahaha
Stepn, IMO the best way to do this is to create an economy where the jobs don’t depend on somebody impulse buying something. The big examples are Obama’s Big Three: health, education, energy. If people don’t go into debt to buy the newest toy or splurge on a new car every three years, people are laid off. But there will always be students to teach, people to heal, and homes to heat. If those fields are expanded, more jobs are safer even if we all cut up our credit cards. Families can actually plan to stay ahead of the money at the beginning of the month rather than have to catch up at the end.
Yes, I realize that this is very simplified. And at the moment, it’s not going well. The hole is too deep to jump out of in one step. But I like the general idea.
Stepn, IMO the best way to do this is to create an economy where the jobs don’t depend on somebody impulse buying something. The big examples are Obama’s Big Three: health, education, energy.
So - you’re saying people don’t buy health care, education, or energy?
News to me.
One way or another - all products and services are bought. The differences are the logistics of who does the paying, and as a result who gets to make the choices.
Of course people buy health and education and energy, through several mechanisms. But they don’t “impulse buy” those things. In fact, they sort of have to buy those things. That’s the point. If we put our brains and labor where there is steady demand rather than whim demand, the jobs are safer.
Maybe I should have said “consumer discretionary,” not outright consumer spending. I don’t know if that 70% figure is discretionary, or overall consumer.
Of course people buy health and education and energy, through several mechanisms. But they don’t “impulse buy” those things. In fact, they sort of have to buy those things. That’s the point. If we put our brains and labor where there is steady demand rather than whim demand, the jobs are safer.
Maybe I should have said “consumer discretionary,” not outright consumer spending. I don’t know if that 70% figure is discretionary, or overall consumer.
Doh - OK I just realized that I did totally miss the word “impulse” in your original post - that pretty much does imply discretionary spending as you say (though not necessarily - e.g. a new house may not be an impulse but I would consider it discretionary).
Never mind. I agree.
You’ve all just discovered the problem with “supply side” economics.
And as a reminder, we are a 75% consumer economy, but the PTB have decided they don’t need consumers any more.
Lack of consumer spending does cause recessions (among other things), but not because the consumer is suddenly reticent, but because his wages didn’t keep up with real inflation. Therefore, there is no longer any money TO spend.
And since “supply side” economics states that the economy is not demand driven, but supply driven (i.e. build it and they will come) it also therefore believes that the money will just magically come from…. somewhere. In other words, J6P and the consumer are two different people.
It is this cognitive dissonance (or hopeless dualism if you like) that has been driving this country for decades. And if it isn’t fixed, it’s only going to get worse.
Once again, eco, you nailed it.
And its really bad for us DJ’s, now we have to promote have big mailing lists lots of friends on FB myspace linked-in etc. Bar owners get so many dj wiling to work for free (door or percentage of the bar) that getting paid is almost out of the question unless its an old timey (irish) bar owner who still treats his employees well.
————————————————–
The best example of hunker-down was post 9-11, when everyone stayed at home with their families, watched TV, and spend nothing. That caused a recession right there
It was due to the dot-bust.
+100
The evidence is to the contrary. Cash for Clunkers, “Home Stabilization Act”, to name a few were enacted to perpetuate the consumerism. Actually I can’t think of any thing he’s done to curtail consumerism although he talks a good game.
If Obama can’t get things done while he has 60% of support in Congress, it is foolish to believe that he will accomplish these things later in his term. I am 100% certain that Congress will be more hostile to him after 2010. Pubies may take at least one of the houses. If not it will be equally divided with slight dem majority. You know how that goes for any meaningful legislation. Not implying that Obama has any meaningful ideas to begin with. Just giving a dose of reality to these blind Obamatons.
The hope is the republicans get control of the house but just barely.
Then Obama secures himself.
Best we can hope for is gridlock keeping them from acting on anything.
I don’t disagree. The evidence is that the government is trying to perpetuate consumerism to keep things from dying entirely until things get better — that is, until the stupid banks finally write off all their bad debt. But at some point they will shut off the consemerism tap. Who knows when. Bernanke already made noise about shutting off the banking tap.
I really don’t know what will happen in Congress, but at the moment, I don’t think Republicans have the numbers to take a House. The Dem majority is too large.
The Dem majority is too large.
Plus the Dem maj is 40% bluedog rep voting block.
INO - in name only.
Various pundits saying the behavior of the blue dogs may depend very much on the outcomes of governor races in NJ & VA. These might be seen as Obama referenda; if Repubs win both (as well they may), blue dogs may ditch the Health Plan completely. But perhaps I am overly optimistic.
[of course they could have save $100 by not buying the shoes.]
Every grocery clerk says the same thing, ‘you saved x amount’. I say, thanks, but I overspent by leaving the house and buying something I didn’t need. No savings there. Impulse/boredom buying.
Why doesn’t the President take Industry off their dependency on
cheap labor World wide . They don’t think they need the American worker anymore ,yet those jerks want the American consumer to spend …..why do you think they arranged easy credit .
I guess in the final analysis BIg Business doesn’t care if the consumer is American ,Spanish ,Greek ,or remote village in the
middle of the ocean . After they exhaust the Americans ,it’s on to emerging markets.
These entities have become so detached in their
thinking, in terms of survival of a population ,that it’s just head count ,regardless from which it comes . Oh but come a situation in which they need the American tax dollars …oh well that a different story ……..FIRE ……FIRE …give us money ,give us
stimulus …….give us cash for clunkers …..pay our retirement funds we underfunded ……..pass laws in our favor ……stall reform ………. make new laws so it doesn’t come out that we broke the old law ….get us a regulator thats in bed with us .
And don’t ever mention reform or regulations to the Power Brokers because that would be like throwing water on the Wicked Witch in the Wizard Of Oz .
And don’t ever mention reform or regulations to the Power Brokers because that would be like throwing water on the Wicked Witch in the Wizard Of Oz
Good one.
Exactly right, Wiz.
Depends where you live. Sales tax where I live is 8%. That’s $3200 sales tax on a $40K car. Excise tax 1st year is $700. Round it up to $4000. If you’re in the 28%, deducting it means $1120 saved. That’s consequential if you ask me.
And even if you buy the $20,000 car that still $560. Probably not enough to make me decide to buy a car vs. not buy a car, but enough to make me buy the car this year if I am on the fence.
And there are some counties where sales tax is over 9%. I think in Nashville it’s 9.5%. You’re talking some serious money for higher end cars.
Those with higher incomes do not qualify.
Of course not.
People who save don’t either.
Indeed!
Gotta punish the savers, producers, and people who follow the rules!
The savers and producers are the only ones left who have any money left to tap.
And I find it strange that higher-income people can’t participate. They are the ones who could most afford to buy.
Funny timing that someone starts a discussion about this. I’ve purchased 2 cars in the past month, and NEITHER of them qualified for the credit. I’m just snake bitten, I am always limiting out or “just missing” the government free money train.
One car was used, the other leased (used cars, in a stunning display of stupidity, don’t qualify. Leases also don’t qualify, but, actually, I think that’s a good idea. Leases are for upper income brackets anyway, there’s no reason to encourage people to lease cars, only about 1 in 10 who lease SHOULD lease. Leases are NOT an “affordability tool”, and should not be seen/used that way). And, either way, AGI may have been a problem. I just laugh when I see things like this; I didn’t even know about it until AFTER I had purchased both cars. I then went to see if I qualified (and found out I didn’t). However, had I quallified, it would have totally been “money from heaven”. I didn’t even know that the credit was out there, and it had NO impact on my decision to purchase/not purchase. That’s the risk the government runs with raining all this money down; people are becoming numb. You can’t stimulate one type of activity when your simultaneously stimulating ALL types of activity.
Umm…you guys all know that “the IRS is offering” is a particularly misleading phrase, right?
That deduction for the state/local sales/excise tax was enacted by Congress and signed by the president as part of the economic stimulous package in February. It’s been around for eight solid months.
The deduction is limited to the sales and excise taxes and similar fees paid on up to $49,500 of the purchase price of a new vehicle.
The deduction is reduced for joint filers with modified adjusted gross incomes between $250,000 and $260,000, and other taxpayers with modified adjusted gross incomes of between $125,000 and $135,000.
Those with higher incomes do not qualify.
so, how does that affect those who make around 20-50k?
Not so much. Big Deal.
Still another deal for the better paid.
Another deal for the better paid and HIGHER TAXED.
Someone making 20-50K pays minimal if any income tax. So it’s not a surprise that they won’t benefit when there is a program to lower income tax obligations.
I’ll gladly give up my “deal” if I get to pay no income tax as well.
Like you say, you don’t pay income taxes anyways.
20-50K pays minimal if any income tax.
BS- where do you come up with the stuff you do?
Start’um at birth saving for that first home…
usnews
Coming Soon: $500 for Every Newborn?
Imagine a world where every baby received a trust fund at birth. It might sound like a fairy tale, but being born into money–or at least into a $500 savings account–could soon become reality for all children born in the United States. Lawmakers are considering a bill that would give each newborn just that, with the goal of promoting savings that would later be used for education, a first home, or retirement. Here’s what you should know about the ASPIRE (”America Saving for Personal Investment, Retirement, and Education”) Act:
How would this program work?
The ASPIRE Act would give each child born in the United States a $500 savings account. Recipients could then use that money once they were older to pay for education, a first home, or retirement. Low-income children would receive additional funding, and all participants could add to their accounts over time.
ASPIRE, aka “Cash for Rugrats”.
It’s like these a-holes have been using the tax code to manage behavior/play favorites for so long, that their minds are totally devoid of any other way of thinking. Keep fiddling, Senator Nero………
Government as a whole is intellectually bankrupt, “long” on guys who are professional politicians, and “short” of those who have actually participated in the real world. They need to quit talking to their friends on Wall Street and inside the Beltway, and see what’s happening out here in “Wretched-Refuse-land”.
Like the 401K program, the new 401TOT funds would be managed for a fee by the Wall Street firms who line the pockets of the elite in DC.
LESS is unacceptable.
We are beyond the point of no return, the system will continue to deteriorate until it collapses under it’s own weight. No way around it, with the glittering jewels of ignorance and self importance we have at the wheel of our ship of state.
I nominate “Savings for Spawn”* as a nickname for this lame idea.
* I really wanted to nominate “Savings for Successful Sperm”, but I’m not sure it would make it through the filter.
in this country…it’s savings for successful embyros.
I read about a plan to give each child $1k per year to age 18 and not allow them to touch it until age 67 as a way to eliminate Social Security.
Wow Skip ….Is the government saying that they can’t be trusted to not steal social security funds so they need to put the money in each individual account ? How much money would that be worth in 67 years given you had a average 7% interest rate for that term given and the original 18 yearly add-ons? Any math wizards
around?
I heard about a plan to give each person $1M when they’re born, and then allow them to draw down from it as they do various forms of community service.
(Since we’re talking about stupid pie-in-the-sky plans. That’s one I just made up. I could come up with many other stupid ones also I’m sure.)
Skip
At age 18, the fund would be worth $39k
At age 67, the fund would be worth $1.07 million.
At age 67, the fund would be worth $1.07 million.
By then of course $1.07 million will be about the price of a bicycle.
” How much money would that be worth in 67 years given you had a average 7% interest rate for that term given and the original 18 yearly add-ons?”
$1,000/year for 18 years plus growth @ 7% FOR 49 years is roughly $1,001,510 at age 67. But if you assumed a 3% inflation rate the real buying power of that would be roughly $182,254.
“…We are beyond the point of no return, the system will continue to deteriorate until it collapses under it’s own weight…”
YOU LIE!!!
Run Hwy,….RUN!
(Practicing for Thanksgiving dinner with my “TrueBeliever’s / TrueDeceiver’s™” siblings)
“The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think what we like and say what we think.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Good post, hwy.
Oh, and I’ll be earnestly praying for your personal safety at Thanksgiving dinner with the TrueBeliever’s / TrueDeceiver’s™” siblings.
Something tells me it will become very exciting.
Think of the number of generations between the days of Nero and Caligula and the final collapse of Rome. Things do move faster these days, but it still could take a while. Housing market might even reach a real bottom before that!
“Government as a whole is intellectually bankrupt, “long” on guys who are professional politicians, and “short” of those who have actually participated in the real world. They need to quit talking to their friends on Wall Street and inside the Beltway, and see what’s happening out here in “Wretched-Refuse-land”.
I think this HB blog of Ben’s has more value than almost all paid subscription info out there. I’m not so sure most of the readers here understand what they have. You could have saved some serious bux, Mr. and Mrs. America.
But now, back to business. Politicians have been selling this country down the river for at least a few generations now. Yes they are politicians. I do not consider them my “leaders”. A “leader” is something attached to a “lure” and and some monofilament, IMHO.
The current Administration marketed the lure and a whole lot of folks swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. It is usually at this point where the readers from the Left chime in with “Well at least we got rid of Bush who destroyed the whole country and maybe the world” blah blah blah as if they had a clue. What they actually got “rid” of was some media inspired baggage that was being marketed by OBot Inc. So now the same boatload of crap that was being “repudiated”
is cheerfully gobbled down and they pronounce it good because it has the “at least we care about the little guy” label attached. Yeah, right. The Republican vs. Democrat mindset and duopoly has bankrupted the country financially and morally. The fat cats in DC and Wall Street stay fat and meanwhile
real people with real families and real budgets and real problems are being carved up for more fat cat dinner courtesy of the “oh but at least we care about the little guy” crowd. As. If.
nice one, cb!
“The ASPIRE Act would give each child born in the United States a $500 savings account.”
For the first time in my life I can see the groundwork forming for another Civil War.
Please don’t worry. It will never happen. This one is just a non-starter in the United States. Seriously. It is the kind of thing people throw out to have something to give up when they are negociating stuff that they think they might be able to actually get.
The academics who first suggested something like this were talking about WAY more money, received at around 18 and you had to pay it back with interest out of your estate. See “The Stakeholder Society” by Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott. As I recall, all anyone had to do to shout them down was ask how they could prevent someone from using the money to buy drugs. End of story.
Could this be a set up for the eventual collapse of social security?
Here kid, here’s $500 - and tell your parents to forget about all that FICA tax they were paying.
Shhhh. This might be the closest some of us ever get to being paid to have sex. Bring it on!
Which members of the subpopulation of US adults who are of breeding age are most likely to view $500 per child in free money as a serious incentive to have more kids?
I am guessing there is a large overlap with the part of the prospective first-time home buyer population who would be knocked off the fence by the $8000 tax credit…
Pretty soon, only those who respond to Uncle Sam’s generous incentives will be forming households… I am sure there is some kind of evolutionary principle at work here, and also that those designing the incentive programs ignored it.
I am sure there is some kind of evolutionary principle at work here
Unfortunately it’s reverse evolution. Darwin would be quite dismayed.
subpopulation? from my vantage point it’s the majority.
Wait, was Idiotocracy actually a documentary sent back in a time machine?
“BRAWNDO! The thirst mutilator! It’s what plants crave! It’s got electrolytes!”
from my vantage point it’s the majority.
Which is why we are NOT a democracy…
http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/aspire_act_2009
FAQ!
“How would this program work?”
I’m thinking there would be a technology called the printing press involved.
Or would the ’savings accounts’ be endowed with $500 worth of The Precious™? That might be a better approach to make sure they are worth something by the time the youngsters hit age 18.
How about a $500 treasury bond with a maturity of 18 years? Make it non-assignable before maturity.
—-Rant on (please be forewarned)—
“The ASPIRE Act would give each child born in the United States a $500 savings account.”
Do we, as a nation, and as a world/planet, really want to continue to encourage childbearing?
In my opinion, all of this subsidy (tax deductions primarily, but all the support system built up around the “baby machine”) is an idea based in mid-evil times; a time when the country/nation with the most young, able bodied citizens held a competive advantage against other nations. If you had the most people who could hold a sword and fight, you could take over other nations and expand your empire. Also, young people were better able to farm the land, and do the other tasks that require younger bodies. And finally, people only lived to 30-40 years old, it was necessary to encourage large families because of the likelyhood of untimely death.
Fast forward to today.. One guy, sitting in a room somewhere, can kill every living organism on the planet. The idea of nation building through imperialism is pretty much a forgotten concept. Healthcare is dramatically better; avg life expencentacy has gone up 2-3X in the past 2000 years. And, most importantly, we don’t really need many “young, able bodied” men to till the fields anymore, we have machinery that can do it for us.
And yet, even today, we do everything we can to encourage childbearing. IMHO, it doesn’t make any sense. Fewer people will put less stress on the global environment/resources, less stress on the social support mechanisms, and also allow us to spend more time molding the young people of tomorrow for the jobs that are going to be required (primarily high levels of education). In my analysis, we have too many people on this earth already; we have adults and children starving to death across the globe, massive constraints on natural resources, and, frankly, no resources to property train and educate the vast number of children that are born in this country today.
Having children is a basic human desire, it’s not something that we need to encourage and/or subsidize. It’s going to happen if we encourage it or not! The most competitive nations 100 years from now are going to be the nations with the most EDUCATED and productive workforce, NOT the nation with the most people living in poverty!
In my opinion, we should start to reduce/eliminate the subsidies for having children; it’s a behavior that, although understandable, doesn’t really make the nation “better” or “richer”. Our goals should be better education and MORE TIME spent on the children that are born. Having more and more children just helps to overload the systems, and causes more people to “fall through the cracks” and become a drain on the system, rather than actually contributing to it.
Again, all of this is IMHO, and I’d love to hear constructive arguments/counterpoints. Keep the venom to yourselves though, I know it’s not a popular view!
Shoot, being popular is hardly a prerequisite for being right.
And with the parasites in power expect them to only agitate for a bigger host organism to leech off.
Don’t worry…..our kids ecological and economic footprint is much smaller than ours, whether they want it that way or not.
Makes sense to me Fink…
Just for carbon footprints alone, you are totally right.
Not sure how you can convince the religions who think the only way to elevate to the spirit in the sky is to have more and more kids, because ‘go forth and multiply’ is THE WORD.
While I agree 100% with your premise, may I submit that when you become an old person, your continued survival will be dependent upon the tax base provided by those young folks’ toil. And if not actual pension monies, then the labor infrastructure that keeps them viable. It’s kind of the way things are set up….
IIRC, Singapore endows its citizens with an individual trust fund that they can draw upon for a house, education, medical expenses etc. The last I heard it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 2M USD per citizen.
Not sure what good $500 would do except encourage saving at an early age. Finally.
This fits in with some of my thoughts I’ve been having about jobs. Some roles within society actually generate wealth (farmers, resource extraction, manufacturing, construction, etc) while everyone else, to varying degrees, facilitates the generation of wealth (health care, police, accounting, politicians, etc). Wages received for our work represent a claim on the real wealth. As population has grown, the wealth creation roles have grown much more slowly or even declined due to technological improvements. Facilitation jobs continued growing, but even they seem to be hitting a wall (how many more hair stylist do we need?). They also are becoming less beneficial (scrap booking retail jobs, a bloated FIRE ‘economy’) etc.
+1. Most folks don’t grasp that concept Al. Each incremental layer of specialization in the non-wealth producing fields is less stable than the layer before it and worth less. And by “worth less” I don’t mean necessarily makes less money, but is easily jettisoned in society when times get tough.
Not sure I’d agree with that. The president of the U.S. is probably the single farthest removed from an actual wealth creation job, yet that’s a very stable job. Health care likewise does well during a downturn. However auto-production - a direct wealth-producing job - has gotten hammered lately. Same with home construction - just look at all the carpenters who are *really* struggling.
The best correlation to stability isn’t with what layer, but with what industry. Certain industries are more stable during downturns. It even depends on which downturn - e.g. the 2001 downturn hammered tech jobs; the current recession is much worse yet is hitting tech a lot less.
the 2001 downturn hammered tech jobs; the current recession is much worse yet is hitting tech a lot less.
Unemployment in Silicon Valley is higher now than in 2001 after the dot com burn out.
In fact, things are soo bad in the tech industry, for the first time in 15 years companies have not used up all of the H1-bs available (85k). Two years ago the allotment was used up on the first day.
IBM is only a few years away from its plan of having no US based workers.
The jobs you’re pointing out are particularly related to current bubbles. Take away the bubble folks (which are a lot of industries) and I think it would be interesting to see how the rest fare.
As for the Presidency, John McCain may take exception. Republicans took a shellacking due to the economy. I think the Dems will in the next election.
IBM is only a few years away from its plan of having no US based workers.
HP too. As I imagine are other Fortune 500’s.
Unemployment in Silicon Valley is higher now than in 2001 after the dot com burn out.
In fact, things are soo bad in the tech industry, for the first time in 15 years companies have not used up all of the H1-bs available (85k). Two years ago the allotment was used up on the first day.
IBM is only a few years away from its plan of having no US based workers.
Unemployment is worse *everywhere* than in the 2001 bust. Relatively speaking the bust isn’t hitting Silicon Valley as bad as the 2001 bust did though.
Unemployment rates:
2001 USA: 4.0 -> 6.0 (55% increase)
2001 SV: 2.5 -> 9.0 (250% increase)
2008 USA: 4.5 -> 9.8 (110% increase)
2008 SV: 4.0 -> 11.7 (190% increase)
Thus in the previous recession (by that measure) tech was hit about 5x worse than the rest of the economy, whereas in this one it’s been hit about 1.8x.
Keep in mind that much of the post-2002 SV employment was building houses; that accounts for a lot of the unemployment there. Also - while SV likes to think that entire tech world resides there, it doesn’t. SV is mostly the epicenter of R&D, which is the tip of the tech spear, and will always take the brunt of pullbacks. A lot of the bulk of tech “heavy lifting” if you will is based elsewhere (RTP, DC, MA, TX etc.)
A lot of the bulk of tech “heavy lifting” if you will is based elsewhere (RTP, DC, MA, TX etc.)
There’s nothing going on in Texas…there is a nice former EDS HDQ and soon to be empty Perot HDQ in Plano for rent.
“…The idea of nation building through imperialism is pretty much a forgotten concept.”
Cheney’s stomping down hallway, scowl on, face red…paddle in hand…
Run Fink!….RUN!
In my opinion, we should start to reduce/eliminate the subsidies for having children; it’s a behavior that, although understandable, doesn’t really make the nation “better” or “richer”. Our goals should be better education and MORE TIME spent on the children that are born. Having more and more children just helps to overload the systems, and causes more people to “fall through the cracks” and become a drain on the system, rather than actually contributing to it.
The problem is that our current system of government is a big ponzi scheme and the only way to keep it from collapsing is to breed lots of workers (aka future consumers and tax payers) to keep the system propped up. That IMHO is the base problem with our society and until we figure out another way, we will always have the same problems. Unfortunately any other model would probably not support 30% yearly profits and thus will never even be contemplated by the powers that be.
You will notice that you never hear anyone in government say a peep about how 90% of our environmental problems are caused by overpopulation and out of control immigration and could be solved by population and immigration control.
And for the record, I am NOT a bleeding heart liberal and was a registered republican until recently when I switched to independent. I have been a lurker here for a long time, I just wanted to put my .02 on this issue as it is one that I feel is often overlooked. Also, I have no kids.
Please don’t flame me and tell me to kill myself first. I don’t think we should kill people, I just think that many people who should not be having children do and usually for the wrong reasons. It’s just my opinion.
I’m not going to flame you DB in AZ ,I’m going to say you nailed it
on the head .
Thanks! A lot of people would prefer to avoid this issue, which is why anyone who proposes population control is invited to start with themselves.
As long as society keeps breeding a whole new generation of suckers, businesses and the government can continue to live like kings and loot and pillage. However, like the whole Madoff scheme, as soon as that stops happening, the whole system falls apart. Why do you think they won’t do anything about immigration? Yes they like the cheap labor, but I suspect that it is also due to the fact that Americans just don’t breed enough anymore.
Well Al ,I have children (grown) and I love children ,but you can’t be blind to the truth of the problems that over-population
can cause ,in spite of self-interested groups benefiting from
having a bigger population .
Wow. Just Wow.
If this is real, at least. There is a real ASPIRE act, however the title (subtitle) of this act (HR 3583) is “To provide for a subsidy to sellers and buyers of fish directly delivered to American Samoa from vessels with United States fisheries endorsements that manufacture for the United States.”
Not really sure what that has to do giving money to kids, but that’s the way our convoluted congress works these days.
“$500 for Every Newborn?”
Let me not fail to mention that this is one of the stupidest ideas I have ever seen in print…
I dunno…….there’s got to be a joke about doin’ it, and getting a $500 rebate in there somewhere………”F##K for Bucks?”
I’m sure you would have to use an IRS “EZ” form of some kind.
I already get a tax deduction and credit for my kids. But they want me to have even more? Too late, the factory is closed.
Wmbz:
What would make total sense is for the parents grandparents to put ANY amount tax free (even $100K) into the kids IRA, ….after all the kid will have to pay a penalty and taxes if they withdraw early…
You do realize The ASPIRE ACT was proposed in 2007 right?
I think they proposed something similar even earlier than that (2003-ish???).
Wonderful?!
Now, we just need to make sure this is setup to encourage more breeding by those who shouldn’t have kids; then, we can achieve “Idiocracy” even faster!
What we won’t tell them is that by the time the rug-rats are old enough to spend their money, $500 will buy a loaf of bread - or it won’t buy anything because by then we’ll be using Bernanke Bucks with little pictures of black helicoptors and printing presses on them.
Lawmakers are considering a bill that would give each newborn just that, with the goal of promoting savings that would later be used for education, a first home, or retirement.
What, with 500 wholllllle dollars?
Ummm, lessee…that’s about two weeks worth of Pampers.
“a $500 savings account–could soon become reality for all children born in the United States.”
I’m surprised no one asked the question of whether or not this would apply to children of illegal immigrants…
How about we exchange this for the current children’s tax deduction?
On a side note, I can’t wait for Thanksgiving dinner, when I once again get to ask my friend (who is Mr “I hate taxes in all forms”) if he will be sending back the deduction his daughter will garner him this year. (I already know the response too…)
The Aspire Act has already done its job: more distraction.
I’d say it worked pretty good, wouldn’t you?
The solution is simple… Just raise taxes, oh, wait maybe it’s not that simple.
Comptroller: State Finances A Mounting Crisis
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
The State of Illinois’ pile of unpaid bills has grown to a record-breaking $3 billion. Comptroller Dan Hynes said Tuesday it’s never before been this bad at this point in any previous fiscal year. CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery reports that some social service agencies that rely heavily on state reimbursement warn they will soon be forced out of business.
Hynes said that things are likely to get worse before the state’s bleak revenue picture begins to improve.
The comptroller reported corporate income tax receipts down $77 million for July through September; sales tax receipts, down $244 million; personal income tax receipts, down $251 million.
One result: the typical creditor must now wait three months to be paid by the state, compared to a two-month wait at this time last year.
It’s all very discouraging to the physician who runs Family Home Service.
Dr. Norman James said he does not have enough cash to pay his 250 employees this Friday. He said he may have to close the doors, leaving more than 450 clients without the support they need to stay in their own homes and out of expensive nursing homes.
Dr. James said his bank had tripled the size of his line of credit, but that money is now all gone. Dr. James said Illinois owes his agency $900,000, about $700,000 of it past due by up to five months.
The Land of Stinkin’
No joke, I’ve been following the budget situations of a few munis near me - revenue is collapsing from underneath them. FY 10 is a disaster after just 1Q and FY 11 is outright dreaded.
The common theme seems to be that FY 10 revenues were forecast to rebound (a.k.a. robust 2H 09 econ recovery) by now. Gee, anyone know who might have put that idea in their heads?
So which state will fail first, Illinois or California?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/04/california-failing-state-debt
All we are saying, is give New York and New Jersey a chance.
So which state will fail first, Illinois or California?
The Illinois budgetary outlook is lookin’ ugly, no doubt, but my money’s on California in the race to the bottom.
I thought CA has already failed. Did I miss something?
Colleague had to make hotel reservations in Chicago for next month. He said that The Drake is now taking the federal per diem rate and glad to have the business. This is unheard of. The first time I had to stay in Chicago on a federal per diem, it was almost impossible to find a hotel that would take that rate.
What is the current rate for the federal per diem, Polly? Does it vary from city to city? Or is the same rate no matter if you’re in Manhattan, NY or Manhattan, KS?
http://www.gsa.gov/Portal/gsa/ep/contentView.do?contentType=GSA_BASIC&contentId=17943
Kansas City $168
NYC $411
Varies from city to city and is adjusted several times a year. I think he said he was working with $205. The amount you get to cover food and sundries varies with each city as well.
If I can find a public link to the table, I’ll post it.
Thats insaneeeeeeeeeeee
The LaQuinta right here in Sunnyside just 6 stops from grand central, or a $10 cab ride had $99 weekend special posted.
$411 a day ….geez
$411 includes the $71 you get per day for food and other incidentals. The max hotel rate is $340. Goes down a LOT after November 30th.
Here is the GSA (general services administration) site for looking up per diem rates. Looks like the allowable rate for Cook and Lake county goes WAY down after November 30th.
http://www.gsa.gov/Portal/gsa/ep/contentView.do?contentType=GSA_BASIC&contentId=17943
Needing some advice from the HBB Brain Trust. (I’d ask you all to not “sugar coat” it, but after reading this blog for 3-4 years, I know what to expect……:)…..)
When do you know it’s time to throw in the towel on finding a job in your current field, and starting at the bottom doing something else? Especially when you have 30 years invested in training/experience in what you are doing?
When the unemployment runs out?
(For those that want to flame me for accepting unemployment, this is the first time I’ve been out of work since 1974……… It doesn’t bother me to get a little of it back.)
“When do you know it’s time to throw in the towel on finding a job in your current field, and starting at the bottom doing something else”?
Now!
That’s what I am doing, after 30+ years in the same or nearly same business, I am looking in different directions.I hate being idle, and need an income stream, so here we go.
The unemployment bucks you are getting are a stop gap to the next opportunity. It’s out there, good luck!
Look at it as an opportunity for re-invention.
While no job is ever nirvana, it’s a chance to assess what you liked/disliked about your previous employment and create a new list of personal priorities.
And of course conserve your severance/assets, so you can do your best to hold out for an interesting new opportunity, not just a paycheck.
“Severance”
Thanks for reminding me…… Didn’t get no severance, got stiffed for 10 weeks of severance, 6 weeks of PTO, and my last expense report (Company filed Chapter 11).
Somebody needs to become somebody else’s jailhouse bi#ch.
OUCH! Sorry to hear that, X-GSfixr. Getting stiffed on the expense report is really bad.
I thought employee claims were pretty high up on the pecking order during bankruptcy. You should get some % of what you were owed.
He will… ten years from now.
Could be worse……Rumor Control has it that one guy got stiffed for $70,000 worth of company expenses on his personal VISA card.
Pilots like using their personal cards…….that way, they get all the reward points………
It’s a good deal, until your company stiffs you on your expense reports, and files Chapter 11.
Ouch…
You can look to do something new, but still keep an eye on jobs in your former occupation — just in case.
Best of luck to you, GSfixer!
The time to go hunting is not when the cupboard is empty.
It strikes me that most of what you have learned is transferable elsewhere: Character, thought process, steadiness, thoroughness, ethics, self disclipline. All very valuable commodities. What 20 year old without those skills can compete with you?
I have a lot of flexibility, in that I don’t have any strings (like a house/lease, kids in college/working, no wife/significant other to worry about)……..other than my “driver” and my two “projects”, everything I own would fit into a 20 ft U-Haul.
And compared to where I’m located now, about anyplace would be an improvement. (It ain’t the end of the earth, but we can see it from here………)
I’m able to stay in the bunker until next spring if I need to……..but, green shoots notwithstanding, I’m becoming more convinced by the day that things are going to continue to go to hell for a lot longer than I have cash to sit it out. (A big local shop just cut all their full-timers down to a 22 hour workweek).
“He told me ‘Cheer up, things could be worse’……….sure enough, I cheered up and things got worse.”
There is a helicopter repair facility in Coatesville PA that is very very busy.
Did you ever think of what you would want to do if you didn’t need to earn a big salary? If you aren’t going to earn a lot, might as well make it fun.
You are lucky to have so few entanglements. Take advantage of that. Some of my friends are so tangled up they will be lucky to get out of this in one piece. They are nailed in place.
Boeing rotorcraft division is hiring as well.
Although it appears that they are about to strike, you probably should wait until that all gets resolved if you’re interested. (I don’t know how you feel about unions, it’s a UAW shop)
You’d also have to be pretty flexible to adapt to the Philadelphia atty-tood.
*winkie*
You’d also have to be pretty flexible to adapt to the Philadelphia atty-tood.
Hey, if he can deal with us, he can probably handle Philly.
I worked in, and later supervised a IAM crew in Wichita……..but a “Union Shop” in Kansas is a completely different breed of cat, compared to a UAW shop in Michigan or the Northeast.
In ICT, the 10% “hard-core union” guys and the 10% of the management that made unions neccesary, spent their time beating up each other, while the “get the job done” guys went about their business. (Kansas is a Right-to-Work state, union membership isn’t mandatory).
You can usually tell how crappy the management is in a particular department/facility, by the percentage of union members.
One of my buddies was TDY at General Motors Flight Department (UAW shop) for a while……….guy was on Prozac when he got back. Said it was one giant circle-jerk.
BF works at Boeing, he fits into that “get the job done” category. He’d taken off work for two days when his strike assignment comes in the mail. He didn’t even know they had decided to go out.
From what he told me last night, looks like the decision has been made, they’ve already put out the burn barrels.
the 10% “hard-core union” guys and the 10% of the management that made unions neccesary, spent their time beating up each other, while the “get the job done” guys went about their business.
And THAT is why unions are necessary. Those 10%, the rest of us work hard and yet, you get some idjit mgrs, and some idjit workers. That ol 80/20 rule. Not ALL as some here always profess. Then again, some good workers are harrased by idjit mgrs who should be shot.
Hey now, here’s an idea:
First, win fifty million in Powerball.
Next, invest it all in a 145 Repair Station in Tucson or Miami.
Be your own Director of Maintenance.
Hire a bunch of rent-a-wrench guys from whoever is laying off. Hire some marketing schmoes to promise 20 day D-checks on 727, MD-11, L1011, and Airbus birds.
Buy more lottery tickets with whatever is left after 90 days.
The field is a little crowded though, so maybe buying more lottery tickets as soon as you get the 145 ticket is the best idea.
BINGO!!! We have a winner!!
Actually my “Powerball” plan is to buy and old jet, take it to a maintenance shop, and bi#ch about how the work is being done, then bi#ch about the bill when it shows up.
“When do you know it’s time to throw in the towel on finding a job in your current field, and starting at the bottom doing something else?”
Recommended re-employment effort diversification strategy:
1) Keep seeking opportunity in your chosen field, but don’t pursue this full-time if there are no jobs. Think of this as keeping your hat in the ring, should something open up. An important component of this part of your effort is to keep others you know in your field informed and to stay tuned in to information sources about position openings.
2) Allocate a sufficient amount of your time to researching alternative career directions. You should not seek to “start over from ground zero.” Rather evaluate all the things you have learned from your many years of work experience, and figure out what closely-related fields to your current occupation might be able to make use of your skills. There is a good chance that you will be able to identify another avenue of employment where demand for your skills and knowledge is (or will eventually be) higher than in your current area of work, but where your capabilities will be immediately valuable.
3) Figure out what specialized training would be necessary to enter different alternative career paths, and use this as a key factor in your decision.
4) Obtain this book and follow its guidance.
GOOD LUCK!
Can you afford to go to a two-year school? I don’t know your situation, but my advice is to move to a podunk state for cheap rent. Or to a podunk area in your own state, to keep residency. There are rural trade schools all over the map. Enroll in something like wind-turbine maintenace, care mechanic, truck mechanic… you should be able to ace it with your experience.
You’re effectively going to be 22 again, and any job will pay accordingly.
And learn Spanish. Low-income fields are rife with illegals.
I’ve decided……..I want to be….. a lumberjack!!!!
So I can put on women’s clothing, and hang around in bars……..
And every sperm is sacred (or at least worth $500)!
Hahaha. Nice.
I wouldn’t try that in my neck of the woods…
That’s what I am doing, after 30+ years in the same or nearly same business, I am looking in different directions.
Talk like this is the only thing that is going to pull this country through. Sitting on laurels and waiting for a job to come open unfortunately is what the majority of people are going to do. I applaud you and wish you good luck…
BTW,
The military is ALWAYS looking for a few good contractors for an all expense paid vacation to the middle east…
I’m:
-Too old
-Weigh too much
-Don’t know squat about helos……too many parts, moving in too many different directions.
-Am not much interested in “respecting” traditional Afghan culture. I kinda grown accustomed to the 21st Century.
You could be a warrent officer for mantinance.
Having worked for many power companies that are investing in wind-turbines, I think learning to maintain them would be damn cool. That is, if you don’t mind working way-the-hell up in the air with very little safety net in a windy area.
Electric utility I used to work for set up a wind turbine farm, next to one of their main powerplants.
The guys tell me that they are constantly broke/off-line.
Installing solar panels is supposedly big here in Cali and pays quite well. Got to be good at heights though.
The first cars broke down all the time too. As did all the first planes.
It don’t get more podunk than Kansas (minus Johnson-Wyandotte and Sedgwick-Butler counties).
Everybody want’s to know if you are related to them, or someone they know……..and if you are a local, you probably are.
Idiot trade schools are pushing classes in carpentry, HVAC, and aircraft mechanics (WTF???……..my future son in law got his A&P from Wichita Votech last year…..15 in his class…..none of them have found jobs, or have been laid off.)
About the only people hiring are the government contractors rebuilding busted/worn-out helicopters coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Anybody else noticed the proliferation of trade school advertising lately?
I have. My favorites are the construction supervisor ones. There are just so many jobs in that field and no one with any experience to compete with once you get out, right?
Your ethics might not let you do it, but could you get work teaching in one of those trade schools? Have you gotten on USAjobs and searched for FAA positions? Can you contact the FAA inspector that liked your log books so much and find out if they are hiring? Or if he knows someplace that would like to trade up to a qualified person after having to put up with bad people during the boom since they have never been able to pay that much?
I’d say you should be open to switching fields, but you should look into switching locations as well. A person who could deal with living in a basement apartment could live very cheaply even here in the DC area, and our job situation is better than most other places.
What polly says. Also - look under Critical Infrastructure Protection. I am sure airports and the like are part of that. You sure know the ins and outs of airports and how to make them operate better, or harden them, or whatever they might be looking for. It may be a long shot, but it’s not going to take that much time to cruise the postings.
Why would anyone flame you for accepting unemployment? Its insurance that has been paid for. (First time for me also though).
I got scared at one point thinking that the reason I couldn’t get work was because of my age (and for some, that is the reason); then I realized that wasn’t true for most since I’ve ended up being in the top 2 finalists at 3 jobs so far, so its only a matter of time.
Doesn’t answer your question at all, but just wanted to offer some hope. Plus, even though on this board the belief is the economy is going to get worse; with a bit of luck, you’ll land a job before the rest of the country realises it, because evidently it doesn’t right now the way the stock market keeps going up.
I went from 15 years in the publishing industry to a toxicology lab. Started as an Admin. Assistant just to get a job (had to downplay all my past experience - somehow they hired me though they knew I was vastly overqualified). 5 years into it, the Director of Marketing snatched me up for her department. I am now in a position that is much more suited to me and very happy, but still at the tox lab. Who knew?
That is the thing, though. You have to be sure to play down to a different position/industry sometimes. Or just play it differently. I tried to make it sound like I needed a change from publishing (I didn’t - would have been happy finding another job in the industry, but it wasn’t happening).
Good luck!
P.S. My ultimate dream would be to have enough $$ to pay cash for a house in a small midwest town (with extra $$ to spare) and pay my meager bills on waitressing money at the local diner. Sounds silly, I know, but I’m so burned out on the rat race. If I didn’t have a young son, I may have already done this.
Used to wait tables years ago. Loved it! Thought about going back to it but need a higher income for now.
Take control of you’re your future in your own hands. Start a business. Never rely on somebody else to provide you with a job aka living. I have said it before and I will say it again, it is much difficult to make a living. It is much easier to make money. Good luck
I’d need a hangar lease, and a couple hundred thousand buck to buy tools, and hire about seven-eight people from the git-go to start up a aircraft repair business, per the Part 145 regs……..don’t have $400-500K laying around to start a business. While the industry has shrunk 33-40% in the past year, depending on who you talk to.
I’m finding out that FBOs don’t want independents/contractors working in their facilities……only reason I’m able to work on the airplane I’m working on now, is due to my experience and documented training (none of the FBO guys have any training at all in type)
They don’t want contractors because most of them are idiots or kids just out of school. Your experience and documented training is about to pay off - just hang in there. Once they get to know you your reputation will do the rest. My team out here in Long Beach is overbooked with planes through the end of the year. I should be able to make up for my unpaid furlough time earlier this year with all the overtime I’ll have to work to meet the schedules. Watch gulfstream.com- there are jobs posted weekly for GDAS and gulfstream themselves. Like I said below things are starting to really pick up, at least for the GIV and up crowd. whatever you do, don’t change fields and lose the advantage you have in experience…
Chin up
That’s a very nice and hopeful post. Maybe signs that the recession is really over?????
In starting a business one of the easiest hurdles to over come is money. There is an ungodly amount of money sitting around on the sidelines waiting to be invested in good business models. I have years of experience in establishing new business in US and Canada. So I know what I am talking about.
I’m a big fan of concurrent activity. Keep applying for jobs in your current field while exploring other options as well. If you can find a job waiting tables or whatever, grab it. It’s always easier to get hired when you’re already working. If there’s a geographic area where jobs of the type you are looking for are common, get the job waiting tables there. You’d be surprised how much it’ll help if you’re a familiar face at the interview. It also tells your boss you’ll take whatever jobs you’re given.
If there’s a geographic area where jobs of the type you are looking for are common, get the job waiting tables there. You’d be surprised how much it’ll help if you’re a familiar face at the interview.
Maybe even better than waiting tables is to see if you can participate in fund-raising events. Then be both cool and bossy when you help out.
See, you get to become friends with people— and lots of times they happen to be policymakers and/or upper management —AND at the same time you get to show off that you are not only super-cool, you can also manage people and/or events well.
When do you know it’s time to throw in the towel on finding a job in your current field, and starting at the bottom doing something else?
My two tiny pieces of information:
1)I know that Ryan airfield outside of Tucson has a company which maintains water-bombers for the California wildfires - this is the start of the “off-season” when they do all their maintenance.
2)Evergreeen Airfield north of Tucson on I-10 is a huge retrofit facility where they take jets to fit them with smaller seats and take out the excess leg-room.
The best of luck to you!
GDAS Westfield has openings right now- go to Gulfstream.com. Keep an eye on that sight- things are starting to ramp up right now….
Peace brother
I agree. Although I’m no the most positive guy around here (:lol:), I’ve been hearing rumblings direct from the owners and principals, of improved business from several different sectors.
Not all and not universal. But it’s more than they expected.
I’m loving this kind of news from you guys. Posted before about some unemployed friends who were very depressed about the total lack of prospects, then suddenly got multiple offers after months of being out of work.
It’s all about the JOBS. If we can get people back to work and out of debt, we win!
Ex-GS-Fixer, if this is the first time since 1974 you have been unemployed, then despite having gotten the ol’ stick in the eye on the personal front, you have led a sheltered life.
You have had continuity of employment through the early 70s recession, lost to the dim recesses of memory now, but from those who lived through it - a slow slog to the bottom. Your income has persisted through two oil shocks, through the hyperinflation and stagflation of the Carter era, through the killing recession of the early 80s and the subsequent merger mania and airline consolidations which threw many of your peers to the curb.
Not even going to mention the 90s recession, whose 8% housing correction genned more bankruptcies than the 80s recession, or the 2001 recession, remarkable only for the fact that the jobs lost never reappeared. Most of us, who have encountered these structural dislocations and corporate permutations, have simply been thrown to the curb by the numbers. We got caught on the buttery side of the bread when it hit the floor, en masse, waking up to pound the curbs with tens of thousands of identical others in our regional employment centers.
I applaud your legendary work ethic. Undoubtedly your capability kept an aircraft or two on which I was personally quaking up in the air. Hard as it is to believe, many of those who were kicked to the curb during one or more of these previous recessions also pulled double and triple shifts in jobs with no OT, to get a product out the door. The Third World-ization of America began right here, in the Fortune 50, at the behest of some pompous starched up bully who promised more than we could deliver in a reasonable 50 hour week - or a 60 hour week - or a 70 hour week - out of the sheer joy of tyranny. He, of course, left the work for the peons - except for off point micromanagement during his regularly scheduled hours - and took the credit.
I have no advice, and I have been in that netherworld. Eventually, what I did was to abstract my core competency - abstract analytical ability, not tied to any particular domain - and looked for companies that had lots of problems. Being a generic problem solver with good analytical and communicative skills, and packaging myself thus, became my ticket. Such as it is.
You are gifted in 3-D analytical imaging, or whatever the term of art is. You are also gifted mechanically, if I interpret your posts correctly. This is not tied to the airline industry. You have mastered massively complex mechanical and control systems, both on the analytical and on the mechanical level. Where is there a large enough palette for you? Personally, I would target refineries and chemical plants. You already know hydraulics, valves, pressure variables and Bernoulli’s Law. Plus wiring and switching. What else do you need to analyze control systems in pipes?
That’s what I’d do. But then, I can’t say that I’ve had an unbroken income stream since the 70s.
Best to you!
TTT’s words carry little weight… No surprise, they ain’t buying your BS, Timmy.
I-Believe-in-Strong-Dollar Turns Relic as China Begs Stability
Oct. 8 (Bloomberg) — More than a decade after former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin made the “strong dollar” national policy, currency traders say the same words coming from the Obama administration have little meaning.
Timothy Geithner, the current Treasury secretary, has tolerated the greenback’s 12 percent slide from its peak this year in March as measured by the Federal Reserve’s trade- weighted Real Major Currencies Dollar Index. While he said as recently as Oct. 3 that “it is very important to the United States that we continue to have a strong dollar,” the last time the U.S. intervened in markets to support its currency was 1995.
The weaker dollar may boost America’s exports as the economy recovers from the deepest recession since the 1930s. The risk is that it may also drive away America’s largest creditors just as the Treasury relies more than ever on foreign investors to buy the bonds financing Barack Obama’s stimulus spending. The dollar’s share of global currency reserves fell in the second quarter to 62.8 percent, the lowest level in at least a decade, the International Monetary Fund in Washington said on Sept. 30.
“Since the dollar has been weak and weakening for years, Geithner was using a code phrase, a carry-over from the Bush administration,” said David Malpass, president of research firm Encima Global in New York. “It means that the U.S. approves of a constantly weakening dollar but doesn’t want a disruptive collapse,” said Malpass, the former chief economist at Bear Stearns Cos. and deputy assistant Treasury secretary from 1986 to 1989.
Poorer Americans
The dollar’s 15 percent decline against the euro and 11 percent depreciation versus the yen since early March are increasing concern among world leaders. At the same time, Americans are getting poorer.
Per capita net wealth tumbled to $172,749 in August from a peak of $212,599 in September 2007, government figures show. A United Nations Human Development Report released Oct. 5 showed America’s quality of life dropped to No. 13 in a 2007 global ranking from No. 5 in 2000.
“TTT’s words carry little weight”
That’s because he’s part of the “booboisie”. He did provide a great comedy moment for Chinese students, though. Sneering, contemptuous laughter.
On that note (pun intended), the $ index went back below 76 today.
Keeping in mind that that “dollar index” is largely weighted against the also-very-weak Euro. Against other more solid things (including other more solid currencies) it’s doing even worse.
‘More than a decade after former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin made the “strong dollar” national policy, currency traders say the same words coming from the Obama administration have little meaning.’
Ya think?
So, what’s the gubmint gonna do about this credit drought. More stimuli? Or perhaps they will start forcing borrowers to borrow and lenders to lend.
Drought of Credit Hampers Recovery - WSJ
A year after the U.S. economy was brought to its knees by the bursting of the housing bubble, credit for consumers is still being aggressively ratcheted back.
Total consumer credit outstanding, which includes everything from credit-card debt to loans for recreational vehicles, fell $12 billion in August, or at a 5.8% seasonally adjusted annual rate, the Federal Reserve reported Wednesday. It was the seventh straight month of declines, the longest stretch since 1991.
The drop is a stark demonstration of how banks and other lenders are scaling back, owing to their own exposure to the struggling real-estate market.
How much of this is lenders dialing back (overdue IMHO) on new lending and how much is lenders taking write downs on old debts that are defaulting?
One factor that is stunting deals: Commercial loans that were once written with liens against personal residences have dried up, since the presumed equity in said homes has vanished.
Which makes cash all the more valuable.
Gold up, stockmarket up, oil up. I guess everything’s OK now.
Funny how everything is up, except the dollar is down. That tells me one thing. Maybe “everything but the dollar” isn’t what’s doing the moving.
Under 76. Wasn’t it Denninger that said if it got under 76, look out below. Well, guess we’ll find out shortly if he’s correct. (Sigh)
Bad news: I am very ill
Good news: I can sit and bed and surf all day
Catch the bug from your youngun?
Wait til he’s school age!
Something bad is going around at one of my kids’ schools. At least some of it has been diagnosed as H1N1. That’s why I am nervous over waking up today with the sniffles…
I am trying to keep my cool, but I’ll admit to losing it this morning. The sight of my littleman laying on the couch reduced me to nothing.
So far (he has been sick for 3 days) none of us has a temperature, but we’re not doing well. My mom is en route from NY — called in backup.
If my wife gets sick (scheduled for c-section 10/22) this will become a whole different ballgame.
I guess it’s true that this is striking younger people much more than seasoned citizens. We don’t know anyone in our community (mostly retirees) who has come down with any flu-like symptoms yet this fall.
NPR had a coment by an MD Researcher, who said that people born prior to 1957, have an immunity to H1N1 due to some kind of virus mutation from their anncestory, stemmng from the1918 flu.
2nd try at posting…
NPR -A MD Researcher said that anyone born prior to 1957 had an immunity to H1N1 because of some virus mutation in the ansestory of the 1918 flu. He wasn’t too scared of H1N1 and felt it was over hyped.
I was born in 1953 so maybe I’m safe.
D -
I was teasin at ya yesterday about the bar fight thing.
I guess I should have added a *winkie*.
“The sight of my littleman laying on the couch reduced me to nothing.”
They tend to be quite resilient. I remember freaking out about our kids’ temperatures spiking to 103 degrees F, but you put them in a cool-water bath and calm them down, and things typically improve from there…
Hang in there! We seem to be getting something like this too. Light runny nose and occasional coughs, probably from the drip. No fevers here, either. Sounds more like a cold than what I’ve heard of H1N1, which hits a lot harder, I thought. Need to get those shots quick, before the real thing hits!
Tepid water, actually, is best for fever reduction. Works like a charm.
And I’m a big fan of Motrin for kids (even toddlers). Lasts longer than Tylenol.
You do have to remember as an adult that a kid with 103 fever is very sick, but not as sick as you would be with a 103 fever.
The last time I had a fever of 102.5, I could barely get myself back and forth to the bathroom. Anything beyond that was impossible.
The last time I had a fever of 103 was the last year I failed to get a flu shot (over a decade back!)…
You might have her call the doc right away, and find out what he thinks about getting her on a priority list to get the new vaccine for H1N1. Evidently, the virus does a real number on pregnant women.
virus does a real number on pregnant women.
Yes,
Be very attentive on this. I read some article on preg women with this virus. It would scare the hell out of me. I hope you and yours gets better….
Muggy,
Have you thought about having your wife stay in a hotel or other “safer” place until the new baby comes?
Hope you feel better soon! It’s no fun being sick with kids.
Both my 12 y.o. boy & I had h1n1 last month. Lame as the flu goes. Much less a problem than is reported. However, in the last day into it I apparently had a very minor stroke (says my doc), which caused me to pass out & be unconscious for a few minutes. Scary crap.
Don’t know if it is related, but I know of 6 people who have had strokes in the last month. 1 died. None older than 56. All are either where I work or where my wife works. H1N1 is rolling about both organizations. Wondering about a correlation.
“I know of 6 people who have had strokes in the last month. 1 died. None older than 56.”
I don’t know anyone who had a stroke under age 56 and you know 6? Yes, I’m guessing there may be a serious correlation but it may not be H1N1 - maybe something in the environment? Or does flu cause strokes?
Either way I hope you are feeling better and taking very good care of yourself and the others in your life.
We’ve got something flu-like making the rounds here. But it’s quick and mild.
Headaches
Body aches
Sour stomach
Fever
As usual everyone in the house got it except hubby who appears to have one hell of an immune system. (maybe he should get the H1N1 innoculation)
Hope you get better for the big event, Muggy.
Thought of you and your family yesterday, btw, when mil returned from Skaneateles w/photos. She has a few childhood friends that live on the lake. Inspiring people. Amazing places.
Good news: I can sit and bed and surf all day
Since you’re too far away to breathe your nasty germs on me, I’m going to declare that this is only good news, from my perspective.
Naw, I’m sorry you’re so sick, Muggy.
Don’t forget that alcohol kills germs.
Get well soon, Muggy. I enjoy your posts very much as I am a Florida native living in Atlanta (since the 50’s, born in Tampa). I moved to Tampa twice (2004 and 2006) but moved back to Atlanta due to lack of jobs down there. I like to hear what’s going on in Florida. Also enjoy hearing about your littleman.
I love hearing about mini-muggy, too. Also mini-ET. I used to pester both of them sometimes for a photo or two of their littlemen, because they produced some abnormally cute kids and I like to look at pictures of cute little kids. I don’t care if that sounds girly. Because I am, in fact, a girl.
Anyway, this was until I realized I might sound like some sort of crazed stalker.
But I do still wish sometimes we could see a photo, like with a snot bubble in it, that one was very funny.
*wistful sigh *
(Hey! Sicky-boy! That there’s a HINT.)
“I used to pester both of them sometimes for a photo or two of their littlemen, because they produced some abnormally cute kids and I like to look at pictures of cute little kids… Anyway, this was until I realized I might sound like some sort of crazed stalker.”
Nonsense! We all thought of you as a crazed stalker long before Muggy and ET started popping out kids.
Nonsense! We all thought of you as a crazed stalker long before Muggy and ET started popping out kids.
Oh. Hooray, then!…
…I guess?
A crazed stalker in the best way of course.
Yeah, and then she has the nerve to look down on her stalkers… :-).
Hello:
I´ve just discovered this blog and I realize that things are happening in Spain are similars in other sides of the world. First of all, I want to introduce my self. I´m from spain, and I´m living in Seville. It´s that why I want to apologize because my english is not very good. I want to tell you about the things have happening about the last 12 years in Spain, but I think they are very similars in your country. In Spain the interest rates where very high in the early 90s. But when we began to create the ‘euro’, there were some changes. One of theses was to have to go down the interest rates. Before that, the mortgages usually last for ten or twelve years. In fact, I bought a very small flat in Seville priced on 36.000 €. My interest was to pay this flat as soon as posible to buy one bigger. This was in 1997. In theses days interest rates were about 6%, and everybody thought that interest rates would go down. And it happened this way. Interest rates go down until about 2%. This allow buyers pay more for houses. But instead houses bigger be bought, the prices of the same houses quickly go up. The banks, that were strange to make mortgages over 12 years began giving mortgages over 20. In about 6 year the housing price rise about twice. This encourage investors to buy houses, helped by mortgages to 30 y 40 years and interest rates more o more shorts. In the early 2000s we lived a boom like never one spanish had known. Hundreds of thousands were built each year. Since 2000 till 2007 spain that it hasn´t got any inmigrant grew quickly to 6 millions inmigrants (about 12% of population). Our GPD grew more than another great european economy thanks the building. Then, the housing prices rose four to the price in 1997.
But I was upset with that, because I had my plans to my future to sell my flat and buy another bigger, and those plans faded away. I thougt I should be fool if I paid such a amount to improve my living flat. I´d rather keep my flat and live with better standars of live (travel, go out on weekends, etc.).
And the spanish bubble burst about two years. Suddenly interest rates went up as the oil price. Since this moment we are living in a big crisis and we don`t know when we are going to leave it.
The building sector is absotely still, and then the unemployment has risen to near 20%. There are some falls in housing price, but not many.
The feeling here is that spain last longer than the other economies to leave the recession, but I think this is the hope of spanish, because they think that if germany, france or UK become in recovery, sooner o late we`ll follow this way. But I think that this crisis is worse than our goverments want to make us to think.
I think this speculative economy that all of us have lived since 90’s has carried to a mess very dificult to go away.
At least, the international organisations say that you are in the tracks of recovery. We have to keep waiting.
I gotta go to work, but I just wanted to welcome you to the blog, cruz. Your English is just fine. I wish my Spanish were as good.
I wish my Spanish were as good.
I wish my freakin’ English was as good.
Yes, Cruzy, welcome to the Best Blog Ever, aka ‘the HBB’.
How do you say ‘test’ in Spanish?
LOL - or “first”! Cruz will have a built-in advantage, being 4-5 hours ahead of the rest of us.
prueba, test, or examen.
Grathias.
(I’m going to respond to you in Castillian Spanish, which a Castillian Spaniard once told me means with a lisp.)
Cruz,
The only recovery over here is in the empty promises of the politicians. Don’t hold your breath for the US to lead the world out of the recession just yet. Your English is great. Welcome.
Welcome..
Your English is dramatically better than my Spanish, so, please don’t apologize for it! Also, sadly, you’re English is better than about 90% of the e-mails that I get every day from native English speakers.
Anyway, welcome the to the blog and thanks for the update from your corner of the world!
Welcome Cruz.
What do you call someone who can speak three languages? Tri-lingual.
What do you call someone who can speak two languages? Bi-lingual.
What do you call someone who can speak one language? American.
In all fairness, teaching English as a nation’s second language is an obvious choice. It’s important for nearly every field and endeavor and Hollywood creates media using the stuff, so it’s clear why most governments around the world teach their students English - and it’s clear why most kids would choose English as the language to learn. Now…which language is the US supposed to standardize on and teach their kids? Spanish? Chinese? Japanese? French? Think you could get all the parents to agree? I think the US would have a large problem trying to implement a “your kid must learn language X in school”. Which one of those languages would most help the kid traveling around Europe or Asia? Hint: it’s English.
Wake me up when the world standardizes on Esperanto and governments start enforcing its learning.
It’s funny when I speak to other black american’s (opps, african americans about what lanquages are spoken in africa. Everyone always comes back with some stupid answer like swahilli(sp?) or something. Little do they know, it’s french, spoken almost all over africa…
Wake me up when the world standardizes on Esperanto and governments start enforcing its learning.
I think Chinese may supplement English in the future…
I heard the same thing about Japanese in the 80s. I still hear the same thing about learning Spanish. I’ve also heard it about learning Russian. I think language-learning in the states will stay the same: various schools will teach various languages and students will pick which ones, if any, they want to learn.
Stepn2me,
And much to my chagrin, I dropped almost 10 years of French learnin’ from my younger days. At the time I thought, where, except for France, would I use it? I saw the light about 10 years later and think a refresher course is in order. I’m thinkin’ Morocco and Madagascar, amongst others!
I’m thinkin’ Morocco and Madagascar, amongst others!
Yes, because those places are vibrant and vital crossroads of the modern world…
And what ‘others’? Senegal? Hooray!
Seriously, what use is French anymore, except to be snotty? IIIIII can be tremendously snotty in English, and semi-adequately snotty in German and fadingly snotty in Spanish…plus any of those languages will get me around in more places than Morocco and Madagascar.
Now, don’t be mad, sleepless, okay? I’m just teasing you, you know. Don’t come on over and refuse to share tater-tots or anything.
Yeah, but those places aren’t Morocco or Madagascar now, are they?
Again with the tater-tots? Being a travelin’ sort, was trying to watch what I put in the ole pie-hole. I was very oyster-appreciative though…don’t I get partial credit for that?
But yeah, when there’s an opportunity for tots, it’s more than a slight breach of etiquette to refuse them…my bad.
I was very oyster-appreciative though…don’t I get partial credit for that?
Yes, that’s true. Therefore I won’t rebuke you anymore* about the delicious and golden tater-tots refusal.
*much.
Oh, sleepless, I will tell you this, because I know you can appreciate it, being another PNWster.
So, last week I spotted an early cluster of meadow mushrooms right there in the interchange by the Capitol rotunda, so of course I screeched to a halt and leaped out and gathered them up with joy and stuffed them into the little cooler I keep in my car for groceries, and traffic jams be d*mned.
Then I forgot alllllllll about them, of course, until this very afternoon, when I desired to put some ice-cream into the cooler and opened it…
Boy…my eyes about blowed up! I flung myself backwards on my car hood and rolled off it like a shouting rolling-pin, carrying on and fussing, man it was horrible!
Kids! Don’t forget your mushrooms! It was worse than if I’d stuffed somebody’s head in there and forgot it*!
*In theory. I wouldn’t know in actuality, of course. Yet.
* exthamen! *
hey Bill isn’t Ghetto really our main language? It seems like it.
————————————–
What do you call someone who can speak one language? American.
What do you call someone who can speak one language? American.
I like:
“What is a Canadian?”
“An un-armed American with health care”
Bill, that last line of ‘What do you call someone who can speak one language? American’
It would be even funnier if it was: ‘What do you call someone who can’t speak even one language very well? American.’
It’s kinda true. That’s what makes it funnier. And sadder.
Anyhow, I observe many people who speak fluidly and cogently, with elegance and grace. A lot of them are on this blog. DennisN has, for instance, provided many of my rare word sightings in my Word Watching Journal. (that’s like a bird-watching journal, except better.) If I had it handy I’d relate some of the gems. I remember, for example, one time Professor Bear used ‘desuetude’ in casual discussion and I about fainted with joy. I’d been waitin’ fer FOREVER for that one.
I would tell you all the words I eagerly yearn to see used in regular discourse, but then you guys would helpfully use them, and that would be cheating.
NO! No! Don’t tempt me!
Olygal,
OMFG! Im LOLing MFAO! Your right theirs a lot of truth in you’re post your a very perceptive women.
women who can’t use woman or women correctly are HUGE pet peeves of mine!
I’m not going to get into a discussion of that one, not at this time.
Oly, please stop being so latitudinarian.
“I’m not going to get into a discussion of that one, not at this time.”
LOL. Fair enough! And to be fair, I see it abused by both genders. But to be a (fill in the blank) and not know how to correctly use (fill in the blank) in context is pretty bad. I just happen to notice that one a LOT. For some reason, use of “man/men” doesn’t seem to have the same problems.
can’t use woman or women correctly
Story of my life.
I remember, for example, one time Professor Bear used ‘desuetude’ in casual discussion
That’s ’cause PB is “da Suede Dude”
For some reason, use of “man/men” doesn’t seem to have the same problems.
Well, I know IIIII don’t. (Nyuk, nyuk.)
….I was just trying to tell you today’s Horrible Mushroom Event, sleepless. I’ll try again tomorrow, because I know you’ll understand and will bard along with me.
I meant ‘BARF’, not ‘bard’, along with me.
Jeeze.
Comment by lavi d
2009-10-08 16:40:01
can’t use woman or women correctly
Story of my life.
Harhar.
But in case you’re serious, you know why? Because you don’t wear a matador cape and hold a long-stem rose clenched in your teeth, that’s why.
The very first time I ever saw you, on the American visionary series, I shouted out loud: ‘Hooray! Lavi looks just exactly like I thought he would! Except for where’s his cape and his rose clenched in his teeth?’
Think about it, man.
Just sayin’.
No, yes, really I did say that. It was the weekend, at home, so I didn’t have to be quiet or anything.
—What do you call someone who can speak three languages? Tri-lingual.
What do you call someone who can speak two languages? Bi-lingual.
What do you call someone who can speak one language? American.—-
Make that… barely one language.
-evildoc
Also, sadly, you’re English is better than about 90% of the e-mails that I get every day from native English speakers.
Even “your’re” English could stand some polish.
LOL.. All right, you caught me. But this is a blog, not a professional e-mail (and I don’t proof what I write here, I figure you folks are smart enough to figure it out). When I get professional (resumes, for example) with grammar/spelling errors like that… Well, that’s another story.
Welcome to the blog! Thanks for your post. We have heard that Spain is having a hard time - worse than here in the U.S. in fact. It’s unfortunate.
Keep us informed pleased! We would love to hear “stories from the ground” about what’s going on in Spain.
Unfortunately I don’t speak much Spanish though my wife is fluent, and we’d love to spend some time in Spain in a few years.
Welcome to the blog, Cruz.
I knew Spain was in for troubles when I rode through grove after grove of felled olive trees near Arcos de la Frontiera back in the late 1980’s. In order to join the EU, Spain had been required to cut down all those tens of thousands of ancient trees so the olive oil production didn’t “unfairly” compete with Italy. Some had been 500-800 years old.
Further out toward what was being called “The German Coast” huge mansions were going up along the cliffsides, financed by German industrialists and speculators.
My most vivid memory of that place is of a lone feral bull wandering through the deserted streets as a real estate agent tried to sell me a 50% down payment, six year mortgage on one of the villas.
The price was about 1/10 of what a similar house would have cost back in the US at the time—something in the neighborhood of 120K for a cliffside mansion overlooking the sea with an orchard and a small vineyard.
I knew THAT price structure wasn’t going to last long….
In order to join the EU, Spain had been required to cut down all those tens of thousands of ancient trees so the olive oil production didn’t “unfairly” compete with Italy. Some had been 500-800 years old.
NOOOOOOoooooOOOOOOooooooOOOOOOOOOOO! AHHHHHhhHHHHHH! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO….!!!!
*begins to sob loudly *
That would be an excellent example of Rand’s “politics of pull”. (that author you once said you’d outgrown)
Rand. (that author you once said you’d outgrown)
Yeah, when I turned 14 and stopped moping around wearing black turtlenecks and a tragical facial expression. Thank Jeebus that particular developmental stage was a brief one…
Anyway, I never said ol’ Aynnie was a TOTAL idjit. (Just mostly a total idjit.)
Thank Jeebus that particular developmental stage was a brief one…
Or I might have grown up to be the chair of the Federal Reserve!
*shudder! *
Every HBBer has read Ayn Rand, right? With or without the black turtleneck/13 year old pimply harmonal turbulence?
Or shall I proffer a precis?
Well - never really thought the black turtleneck thing was her genre, at least my impression. Beatnick’s aren’t typically your industrialist-loving types. I do agree that her views were very… simplistic shall we say, and you have to take just want you want out of them.
I think the core message though was good, and things like killing olive trees and dumping thousands of gallons of milk are symptoms of what she was getting at.
Beatnick’s aren’t typically your industrialist-loving types.
I wasn’t really a beatnick. I grew up in the wilderness of southern Utarr, all red rocks and sagebrush and cowboys, and I didn’t know what a beatnick was. Nobody did. But if one had shown up in town, they’d a been fed to goats, after they was completely trampled by cows and then driven over with dusty pick-up trucks.
No, I was just doing my best to be disenfranchised and bitter and melancholy. It’s hard work, when the desert sun is blasting down like a skillet and there’s a bunch of ignorant and unsympathetic farm-animals outside…Sylvia Plath and H.P. Lovecraft seem silly, in such circumstances.
Sigh.
You know, I’ve really been thwarted in a lot of my plans, now that I think of it. Maybe I should become a beatnick right now, make up for lost time.
*prueba! *
Welcome to the blog Cruz.
Please don’t apologize for your English. Your English is better than my Spanish
Keep posting about what is happening in Spain.
Keep posting about what is happening in Spain.
Yeah! Becauthe I want to know alllll about it too! For inthance, doeth the rain in Thpain fall mainly on the plain?
Oh, and are you a Cathtillian Thpaniard?
Thanks everyone for this so good welcome. I´m not an economist, I´m a simply ordinary man who has seen in his surroundings how people were happy when they were unable to think about this fake wealth has an end. People was living above their capacity because the banks become to give money without questioning. Usually I thought we were living such a madness, i could see young workers unskilled (usually from the slums) working like builders and winning more than a doctor and spending all their money in a car (thanks to the banks) like audi, bmw or that kind. But I was optimistic and I thought that all that money that had produced the building business (those great profits from the real state companies) would go to other sector more productives, and Spain could be a really european country. But I was wrong. That money was invested in more and more houses. One unsustainable model of grow.
And now, we are here, looking the unemploiment grow up, and without stop.
I had to stop by the moment, I´ll try to tell you more things as good as I can about our spanish bubble. And also, I´ll tell some new from europe and how is our future.
Regards.
This is great. We had a poster from The Netherland (nhz). But he is no longer here. We need more Europeans.
And I like English written by people who speak Spanish. One of these days I will learn Spanish, and it helps to see where the Spanish put their words. In English, the order of words is very important. In European languages, it is less important.
In English, the order of words is very important. In European languages, it is less important.
What say you makes that?
Wow …….How did this madness go World wide ? One of the plus factors with having local economies is that when one section of the
globe isn’t prospering ,for whatever reason ,many others will be .With so many areas going in the can ,there is no hope of funds being
transfered to depressed areas (that would be in a deflationary cycle )
that would bring some recovery .
This reminds me of when the Market Makers use to tell speculators
that rich baby-boomers were going to buy their spec. houses ,and maybe for a short time some of that took place ,but it died and
that potential baby-boomer often times was a spec. buyer also ,rather than a end-user .
“Wow …….How did this madness go World wide ?”
My theory. Bankers and marketers don’t care about borders. Consumers of the world, unite!
welcome Cruzcampo
Not theory. Truth.
Yep.
The impression that one gets here is that Spain is like Florida: Lots of over construction based on the idea that people will sell their overpriced houses in the North and retire there. The end result has been huge amounts of housing compared to the demand which actually developed.
winning more than a doctor
Ay si! The verb ganar. It means both “win” and “earn.”
Tengo que revolver aprender mi español!
Man, you are one fast learner!
“I´ve just discovered this blog and I realize that things are happening in Spain are similars in other sides of the world.”
In Spain it’s “man against man”; in the U.S. it’s the other way ’round.
You mean this: uɐɯ ʇsuıɐƃɐ uɐɯ ?
“You mean this: uɐɯ ʇsuıɐƃɐ uɐɯ ?”
That’s exactly how it is in Australia.
Bienvenido!
I have now exhausted my Spanish capability.
May you find many happy and useful things here.
You have just entered the blogosphere on cruz-control.
Bitterroot Resort in foreclosure
http://tinyurl.com/ydkuhjc
and so ends the W Mt RE bubble..
Remember the Bitterroot thread from a couple years ago?
That was the place the Traveling Boomer Bus was supposed to drop off all its wealthy riders. The ones who didn’t make it to Naples FL at least.
No, I’ve only been here a couple years. Better late than never!
Will Asian central bank tightening leave Uncle Buck in the dust?
* The Wall Street Journal
* OCTOBER 8, 2009, 8:23 A.M. ET
Asian Central Banks Intervene as Dollar Tumbles
BY DAVID ROMAN
SINGAPORE — The U.S. dollar continued to tumble against most Asian currencies Thursday, prompting a wave of foreign-exchange intervention by central banks in South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and Thailand seeking to limit damage to their export industries.
Traders said the dollar selloff is unlikely to fade soon, given the prospect for a long period of low U.S. interest rates to support a sluggish U.S. economy and increasing signs central banks in Asia will begin tightening monetary policies in the months ahead.
…
japan?
So long as government spending is used to plug holes in the credit system, prices are likely to be propped up at levels where private credit sources will be unwilling to accept the risk of falling-price collateral. This is especially the case in the housing market, where prices are currently propped up on a government-supported quasi-permanently-high plateau.
Why would a private lender want to be left holding the bag when government price supports are eventually eliminated?
I suppose as long as the myriad financially-engineered, taxpayer-funded price supports remain in place, government and Federal Reserve spokespeople can crow about how well the myriad forms of stimulus are working to bring about economic recovery?
* The Wall Street Journal
* OCTOBER 8, 2009
Drought of Credit Hampers Recovery
By TOM LAURICELLA, JASON ZWEIG and CONOR DOUGHERTY
A year after the U.S. economy was brought to its knees by the bursting of the housing bubble, credit for consumers is still being aggressively ratcheted back.
Total consumer credit outstanding, which includes everything from credit-card debt to loans for recreational vehicles, fell $12 billion in August, or at a 5.8% seasonally adjusted annual rate, the Federal Reserve reported Wednesday. It was the seventh straight month of declines, the longest stretch since 1991.
The drop is a stark demonstration of how banks and other lenders are scaling back, owing to their own exposure to the struggling real-estate market. But it also reflects a reluctance by Americans to hold big loads of debt at a time when the job market remains in bad shape and the value of their homes has fallen.
Revolving credit, consisting mostly of credit-card charges, fell at a 13% annual rate, the Fed said. Nonrevolving credit, which includes auto loans, slid by $2.1 billion, or at a 1.6% annual rate. That was smaller than the previous months’ declines, but it came in a month when the federal government’s “cash for clunkers” program was giving a big lift to auto sales.
Total consumer credit outstanding has shrunk some $119 billion, or 4.6%, from its peak in July 2008, to $2.46 trillion.
This pullback in borrowing and a disinclination to spend has important ramifications for the economy, as consumer spending amounts to about 70% of U.S. gross domestic product. While over the very long term, reducing the massive debt load in the economy may translate into healthier growth, efforts to rein it in appear likely to restrain the recovery for some time.
Worries about the availability of credit were in part behind the federal stimulus that flooded the financial system with cash.
“The U.S. economy is geared for consumption,” said Jason DeSena Trennert, chief investment strategist at Strategas Investment Partners. “It’s going to be hard to get it to grow if the consumer is going to continue to [reduce debt]….It means we have to rely on government spending to plug the hole.”
…
Drought of Credit Hampers Recovery
“Drought” being defined as “lack of flooding”.
It should read “Drought of Income Hampers Recovery”
Nobody who is honest, with an active braincell in their head, is going to borrow more money, unless they think they are going to have income to repay it.
Its amazing how they expect the bubble to just pick up where it left off. As long as folks are worried about falling wages and losing jobs they won’t be borrowing a whole lot anytime soon.
“Its amazing how they expect the bubble to just pick up where it left off.”
Not quite. They are not leaving it up to chance and expecting it to happen on its own. There is actually a massive financial engineering effort going on behind the scenes to aid and abet that outcome.
Nobody who is honest, with an active braincell in their head, is going to borrow more money, unless they think they are going to have income to repay it.
You described about 1% of the population. The other 99% who are not honest and/or don’t have brain cells will continue borrowing apace; income level be damned.
The culture of finance.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aGS4vvPvwFl8
“Doing cocaine or drinking heavily is part of the City culture; you work hard and you play hard and you get rewarded because your bonus is fantastic,” says Hopley, a consultant at The Priory, a group that runs several mental health centers. When the bonuses are cut and many of your friends lose their livelihoods, things no longer look so good.
“A number of people now tell me: ‘I finally realize what a shit job I have got,’” Hopley says. “‘If it wasn’t for the bonus, I wouldn’t be working these hours and I wouldn’t be working with these people.’”
What? No more booze and cocaine! Damn, trickle down economy effect.
I read somewhere that based on the usage in Manhattan, there are 10ks of cocaine being driven up the New Jersey turnpike every day.
The Wall Street bovine herd seems to be reveling in the unhinging of the gold peg. The timing couldn’t be better for the US stock market to go parabolic, as October is only in its first week…
Parabolic up?
Right ‘……up or down ?
Up, then down… the usual bubble-to-bust progression.
Join the party. What happens with the fed stays with the fed.
Oct. 8, 2009, 3:21 a.m. EDT · Recommend · Post:
Macau’s casino boom over, says gambling tycoon
Big bets on ego projects unlikely amid tighter credit markets
By Chris Oliver, MarketWatch
MACAU (MarketWatch) — Among the casualties of the global credit crisis, add Macau’s casino arms race.
Harder times in the global credit markets mean it’s now unlikely there will be a repeat of the development-at-light-speed building frenzy in the Chinese gambling capital, according to the 32-year-old co-chairman and chief executive of Melco Crown Entertainment, Lawrence Ho.
“I don’t see major resorts opening for the next couple of years now,” Ho said.
He said the days of easy credit, which helped fund his own $2.4 billion casino are over, adding that banks won’t be so willing to fund the ambitions of the next player any time soon.
The new mood is a huge reality check after the last three years.
“People were blindly chasing market share without any regards for margin.” Ho said.
“The good thing that came out of the financial crisis is that, while the market was booming, the competitors looking at this industry were more concerned about ego and market share than creating value for shareholders,” he said.
…
Ha, just wait ’till the little commie China Gov’t…forces…”The Population” to extract their home “equity” and put it to good “communism consumerism” use…besides gambling, they might want to invest in a variety of tobacco products.
welcome cruz!
DOW 10,000 next week?
Depends on how far the Fed is willing to let the dollar fall…
Till China decouples the RMB. Classic game of chicken. I don’t see the Chinese blinking anytime soon.
test
You pass!
Those damn Yankees are still snatching up property in Florida.
Blackstone buys Busch Gardens
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/tourism/busch-gardens-in-tampa-sold-by-anheuser-busch-inbev-as-part-of-27b-deal/1042271
Big news here in Virginia, as the local Busch Gardens Williamsburg is considered one of the top parks in the country.
Sorry if this has already been posted. There is alot more in the article that is eye opening to say the least.
Chaos at Cobo: Detroiters turn out for federal help
Detroit — Thousands hoping to get applications for federal help on rent and utility bills turned Cobo Center into a chaotic scene today.
“This morning, I seen the curtain pulled back on the misery,” he said. “People fighting over a line. People threatening to shoot each other. Is this what we’ve come to?”
Outside Cobo on Wednesday, some people reportedly were going through the crowd, snatching the necessary applications from those who’d already obtained them. There also was a constant din of screams from people insisting they be let inside.
LaTanya Williams, a 32-year-old Detroiter, quickly filled out her form because “people are stealing them.”
“I am hoping to get any help that they will give me,” she said. “Everybody needs help.”
Dan McNamara, president of the Detroit Firefighters Association Local 344, was looking down from his office window across from Cobo.
“This absolutely is representative of the struggling middle class in America,” he said. “We’ve been betrayed by the government, Realtors and those who’ve got. The promise has been broken.”
http://www.detnews.com/article/20091007/METRO01/910070396/Chaos-at-Cobo–Detroiters-turn-out-for-federal-help
Here si the followup….DESPERATION…fights police
http://www.freep.com/article/20091008/NEWS05/910080464/1322/Cobo-a-scene-of-desperation
Thanks for the link. I am at a loss for words to describe what I see happening to our Country. What a shame!
Haha, he called out the Realtors. That’s awesome.
That was cool!
But he’s also wrong about the demographics. Those people are NOT middle class, they are the the poor.
If you will reference Detroit on Wikipedia, you will see that the city became polarized along racial lines with white in the suburbs and blacks in the city. This polarization became one of Detroit’s biggest problems and had repercussions on every aspect of that city.
Previous post got lost.
That was cool, but he’s wrong about the demographics. Those are the poor of Detroit. Not the middle class.
“People fighting over a line. People threatening to shoot each other. Is this what we’ve come to?”
Hell, that would be just a normal everyday at the factory I used to work at.
Hahah, beat me to it. I was gonna say ‘welcome to my daily life.’
What’s the scope for the Fed to use dark pools to launder asset price manipulation schemes out of sight and out of mind?
Minyanville
The Decoder: Dark Pools
Megan Barnett Oct 08, 2009 8:15 am
In Goldman vs. Rest of the World, Goldman’s Winning
Indeed, dark pools are garnering lots of attention from regulators in both the US and Europe these days.
What exactly is a dark pool, besides something you don’t want to dive into when snakes and other vermin might be swimming beneath the surface?
Dark pools are trading systems where large institutional investors can execute trades without the public market seeing them. They’re legal, alternative stock exchanges that were created so traders could buy or sell a large block of shares without the broader market finding out before — or after — the trade was made.
For instance, if Goldman Sachs (GS) wanted to unload a large number of Microsoft (MSFT) shares in the open market at the best possible price, they’d have to go looking for potential buyers. In doing so, other traders would hear about the pending sale, potentially taking advantage of an opportunity to profit from it before the Goldman trade happened. Dark pools, where large buyers and sellers communicate anonymously without the broader market knowing, theoretically prevent front-running by other traders.
Investors like the anonymity of dark pools, and they also like their lower costs since they don’t have to pay transaction fees to the exchanges.
…
Have I ever mentioned the market is rigged?
Good find PB!
The US stock market rally continues to ride the back of a dollar selloff on the FOREX market. The dollar is falling relative to almost all other developed country currencies.
From Bloomberg:
CURRENCY VALUE CHANGE % CHANGE TIME
EUR-USD 1.4786 0.0095 0.6453% 13:24
GBP-USD 1.6086 0.0116 0.7292% 13:24
USD-CHF 1.0260 -0.0068 -0.6548% 13:24
USD-SEK 6.9723 -0.0189 -0.2708% 13:23
USD-DKK 5.0346 -0.0318 -0.6284% 13:23
USD-NOK 5.6468 -0.0417 -0.7336% 13:23
USD-CZK 17.4670 -0.0410 -0.2342% 13:23
USD-SKK 20.3740 -0.1299 -0.6333% 13:24
USD-PLN 2.8658 -0.0084 -0.2905% 13:24
USD-HUF 182.6280 -0.8025 -0.4375% 13:23
USD-RUB 29.5260 -0.2321 -0.7799% 12:59
USD-TRY 1.4580 -0.0116 -0.7910% 13:23
USD-ILS 3.7339 -0.0125 -0.3343% 12:57
USD-KES 74.7170 -0.5825 -0.7736% 10:05
USD-ZAR 7.3325 -0.0995 -1.3388% 13:23
USD-MAD 7.7080 -0.0411 -0.5304% 13:24
Well d’oh…
Oct. 7, 2009, 6:41 p.m. EDT
Gold loses luster when priced in euros, pounds, Aussies
By Laura Mandaro & Moming Zhou, MarketWatch
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Gold’s performance in the euro, British pound and other currencies has been lackluster compared to its rise in U.S. dollars, a trend suggesting investors are more interested in bullion as a hedge against the greenback than global inflation.
That sensitivity also means the gold rally could quickly reverse if the U.S. dollar gains ground, one analyst warned.
“The lion’s share of the gold-price increase is due to the weak dollar,” said Carsten Fritsch, a commodities analyst for Commerzbank in Frankfurt. “Once things make a turn there, you could see a quite rapid correction in gold prices.”
…
Playing the devil’s advocate here, so long as the Fed is willing to let the value of the dollar wither away, what is to prevent both nominal gold and US stock prices from climbing to unforeseen heights from here forward?
what is to prevent both nominal gold and US stock prices from climbing to unforeseen heights from here forward
rising interest rates and less disposable cash causing collapsing housing prices and banks.
rapid inflation causing people to shop only for food and energy and no manufactured goods
Massive inflation or deflation has the same result riots.
The PTB want an orderly change, the problem is they are walking a tightrope in swirling gale force winds, and they have given away the bar they used to help maintain balance. They also have China and others considering pulling up their stake that holds the rope in place.
So long as the Fed is willing to use financial engineering measures to keep a lid on rising interest rates, where is the problem?
“…they are walking a tightrope in swirling gale force winds, and they have given away the bar they used to help maintain balance…”
What is the ‘bar…they have given away’ in your analogy?
“
OnceIf things make a turn there…Fixed that for him.
Great story
My retirement fund recently added a treasury money market. I viewed this as much safer than the WF sweep which basically had no fdic backing, no regulation, and no rules on what they could invest in.
Now I get this proxy from Dreyfus funds.
They want to any of their funds to be able to loan to any of their other funds. Apparently the FDIC has changed rules that allow them to do this. So in essence they want to take my money in the treasury money market earning <1% and loan it to say the “Let’s go to Vegas and put it all on Red Fund”. Yet another way to force people to gamble and let banks keep the profits if they win.
PS I’m voting no, probably to no avail.
Voting no does no good. Actually it helps them. Not voting is a little harder for them since it means they might not hit the percent of shares voting that they need to call it a valid proxy.
But I’d still tell you to vote no. At least is allows you to register your preference.
A reputable family of funds that does that will probably back stop their most conservative funds internally to make sure that they don’t break the buck based on bad behavior by other funds. Assuming they can, of course.
I voted against every fund I owned going to a master/feeder fund structure, but they all did it. The pension fund managers are golf buddies with the mutual fund managers. Sigh.
measton …..You are talking about something that I have been worried about . I have been seeing a lot of this lately and to me it’s just a
bad faith way to get money into higher risk avenues . I’m telling you
that these people are masters at coming up with ways of getting the money going in the direction they want it to go .
My company has ceased its pension program and we finally have the IRS approval to distribute the money.
I am not of retirement age yet, so I would have to roll it over to another option.
Get this…Ayco, A Goldman Sachs Company will be providing free brown bag sessions to discuss our distribution options. There is no chance in H$%$ that they would get my money.
Brown bag session? Yeah, they want to figure out your potential to be a bagholder.
Grab the market by the nuts. Edwards and Magee is a good start.
From today’s Austin American Statesman:
The firm is representing Palmco in its request for a zoning change to build a larger, taller building than city rules allow.
Upscale apartments for lobbyists near the capital. I had thought that Austin was overbuilding luxury apartments and condos, but I hadn’t thought of this brilliant plan. That is so special! It’s really a developer’s two-for-one - screw a city and a state at the same time!
Did you read the latest Scott Burns article?
He just moved to Dripping Springs and said that there is no problem with real estate in Texas.
There’s not… if you stay within the +/- $100K residential market.
Weren’t 2005 retail sales pretty strong, thanks to the still-intact housing market ATM?
Of course, one should consider nominal versus real dollar values in the comparison…
The New York Times
Retailers’ Sales for September Only Reach 2005 Levels
By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM
Published: October 8, 2009
The good news for retailers in September was that sales were the best they had been all year.
Shoppers in downtown Seattle this month. Many retailers reported September sales that beat Wall Street expectations.
The bad news was that sales in major retailing categories were merely at 2005 levels.
On Thursday morning, some of the nation’s biggest retail chains posted September sales that were better than in previous months, though that was largely because the stores had easier year-over-year comparisons. For the first time this year, retailers were comparing their sales to the abysmal numbers they began posting last fall, when the markets collapsed. Stores also benefited from a calendar shift that pushed Labor Day, as well as the usual back-to-school shopping rush, later in September.
Over all, for September, the retailing industry posted a 0.6 percent sales increase for stores open at least a year, according to Thomson Reuters. That figure is higher than analysts expected, and underscores that the rate of economic deceleration has stabilized. Several chains on Thursday also increased their earnings guidance.
Still, “you want to be careful how much you’re reading into the improved numbers,” said Michael McNamara, vice president for research and analysis at SpendingPulse, an information service by MasterCard Advisors that estimates sales for all forms of payment, including cash, checks and credit cards.
In an interview this week, Mr. McNamara explained that in a sector like jewelry, for instance, sales increased 1.2 percent in September. “But that is still about 5 percent lower than we were in September 2007 and about 10 percent lower than the sector was in September 2006,” he said. “In some respects the sector has turned the clock back to 2005 sales.”
…
Hell anything would be better than “previous months.”
At least Mr. McNamara not only has the guts to clarify it, but he also got ink for doing so.
They often state how “bad” things are because they are at 2004-2006 levels. To me, those were very, very bubbly days, so not sure how they interpret that as “bad” news.
This $75 bn infusion of other peoples’ money sounds like a really good deal for those who tried to financially hang themselves a couple of years ago by purchasing homes they couldn’t afford.
What is the value of an annuity at 14% of a typical homedebtor’s pretax income for the future life of a mortgage? I am guessing it must be well over $100,000 in free money we are talking about here — much better than the $8000 tax credit which is presently causing so many first-time buyers to salivate. I guess that is a just reward for joining the Ownership Society, huh?
Oct. 8, 2009, 2:42 p.m. EDT
Obama plan claims 500,000 mortgage modifications started
More than 757,000 modifications have been extended in government program
By Ronald D. Orol, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — An Obama administration loan modification program has met its goal of having 500,000 mortgages modifications started as part of its program to help three to four million troubled homeowners over the next three years, the Treasury Department reported on Thursday.
The Treasury wanted to have 500,000 home loan modifications started by Nov. 1, but had accomplished that goal roughly one month earlier.
U.S. loan servicers have begun modifying more than 487,081 loans for troubled homeowners on the verge of foreclosure as of the end Sept. 30, according to the report. The program met its 500,000 goal in early October. More than 757,955 modification offers have been extended by loan servicers as part of the program known as the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP.
…
How it works
Under the $75 billion modification program involving government subsidies to lenders, the lenders are responsible for bringing down interest rates so that a borrower’s monthly mortgage payment is no more than 38% of pretax income. After that, the government program matches the amount reduced by the lender to bring a homeowner’s payments down to 31% of pretax income.
Should a lender have a difficult time getting a homeowner’s payment down to 31% of pretax income by lowering its interest rates, it can also lower the principal owed on the mortgage and take advantage of government assistance.
As part of the $75 billion initiative, servicers receive $1,000 for each successful modification, as well as additional government funding for each month the borrower stays current on its loan. Homeowners can also receive $1,000 a year for five years as part of the program, as long as they stay current on their loan payments.
The program also set up a three-month trial period where troubled homeowners prove they can pay the lower mortgage payments before they qualify for longer term modifications.
…
Lest anyone think I am exaggerating, grade school arithmetic will suffice to show otherwise. $75 billion spread over 750,000 modifications comes out to $100,000 per loan modification:
$75,000,000,000 / 750,000 = $100,000.
Has Uncle Sam ever previously injected anywhere near this generous an amount of subsidy into the housing market in a one-shot forbearance scheme?
Of course, I am merely doing the easy back-of-the-envelope direct effect calculation here. The indirect benefit of protecting banks and owners of homes the households in question cannot afford from the impact of further home price declines is much harder to quantify, but likely to be of a similar order of magnitude and similar distributional impact (benefiting current home owners at a cost to non-homeowners) as the direct effect.
A further extremely-costly but difficult-to-quantify impact will be the moral hazard lesson taught by the Treasury to lenders who made crazy loans and households which accepted them:
Don’t worry about making financially stupid decisions, because we have your backs, and will make others share in the costs.
I’m telling all of our “homeowner” friends to get their loans modified with principal reductions, if possible.
The PTB asked for it (total default of all mortgage borrowers), and they shall soon get it. Hope they are ready.
Should a lender have a difficult time getting a homeowner’s payment down to 31% of pretax income by lowering its interest rates, it can also lower the principal owed on the mortgage and take advantage of government assistance.
Someone earlier made a statement that if the government subsidizes principal reductions that the pitchforks would come out from other non-assisted existing homeowners. Well - here we have it in black and white, do we not?
As a result, it will stimulate more strategic defaults.
Your post suggests why my back-of-the-envelope estimate of the cost of forbearance taxpayers are unwittingly being coerced into funding may prove to be very conservative.
If the majority of well-educated Americans own homes, then why does it matter much whether non-homeowners are screwed over by home ownership subsidies?
Given that the number of foreclosures is likely to eventually prove “larger than expected,” will the Obama Economics Team have to hit up the taxpayer for more forbearance money going forward, in the interest of “fairness”?
Best revenge possible: Keep using those credit cards, but pay off your balance in full every month. Let Megabank, Inc fund your float, instead of the other way around.
Consumer Watch
Oct. 7, 2009, 6:12 p.m. EDT
Mad as hell, consumers dump credit cards
Balances tumble as fury toward issuers swells
By Jennifer Waters, MarketWatch
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — Consumers slashed borrowing at a faster-than-expected pace in August for the seventh straight month, underscoring not only their tough economic plight but also their bubbling outrage at banks and credit-card issuers.
The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that consumers cut $11.98 billion in borrowing in August, trimming their outstanding debt to $2.46 trillion, representing a 5.8% annual rate of decline and deeper than economists had expected.
Job recovery is lagging
U.S. job growth and recovery is still some way off, says Tig Gilliam, chief executive of Adecco Group North America. (Oct. 2)
Credit-card debt dropped the most, falling 13.1%, or $9.91 billion, to $899.41 billion. It was the 11th uninterrupted month of declines, the longest on record. See full story.
With unemployment at a 26-year high of 9.8%, many consumers have no choice but to tighten their belts. But more and more, consumers are closing their own accounts and choosing not to use credit cards because they’re just plain angry.
“There’s an enormous amount of backlash against the banks,” said Dennis Moroney, research director at Tower Group. “It’s like in the movie ‘Network,’ people are saying, ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.’”
…
That might work in high interest environment, but what they make in fees from retailers dwarfs anything they loose on the float. I’ve gone to using cash, keep more money in my city and state F the banks.
You all do know that the CCcos were the biggest proponents of the personal bankruptcy “reform” a few years ago, right?
You know what I would have loved to read:
Mad as hell, US government dumps Chinese credit card
Balance tumbles as fury toward issuer swells
But I’m not so lucky, yet
Luckily for the US, it’s different in Latvia…
Emerging Markets Report
Oct. 7, 2009, 11:33 a.m. EDT
Worries over crisis-hit Latvia rise as debt auction disappoints
Bank of Latvia issues dramatic statement warning of lack of confidence
By Polya Lesova, MarketWatch
FRANKFURT (MarketWatch) — Latvia’s central bank warned Wednesday of “another wave of distrust” beginning to roll over the Baltic country, as the government received no bids for one of its three auctions for debt securities, heightening worries over its financial situation and the sustainability of its currency peg.
The Bank of Latvia, in an uncharacteristically dramatic statement for a central bank, said the lack of confidence can potentially bring higher interest rates and exacerbate conditions for entrepreneurs.
The two main reasons for the lack of confidence are “the many less-than-clear signals associated with the process of adopting the state budget and the called for legal amendments that would limit the liability of borrower toward lender to the value of collateral,” the Bank of Latvia said in a statement on its Website.
The latter measure should be postponed, as it would not help to encourage lending at this point but would instead slow down the recovery, the bank said.
“In the situation where the world’s attention is focused on us, there is a most urgent need for fixing the budget, by setting state expenditures at levels that are sustainable in the long run, and for fostering the financial stability,” the bank said.
…
In tomorrow’s news, China buys Latvia.
NuttyMuck to prop up housing market with GSE backing:
* The Wall Street Journal
* BUSINESS
* OCTOBER 8, 2009
Fannie and Freddie to Aid Mortgage Banks
By JAMES R. HAGERTY
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are preparing to introduce a program aimed at helping independent mortgage banks acquire the short-term credit they need to make home loans, according to people familiar with the plans.
The two government-backed mortgage companies, the main providers of funding for U.S. home loans, plan to provide advance commitments to purchase home mortgages that meet certain standards. The goal is to reduce risks faced by independent mortgage banks so they can obtain short-term credit.
Spokesmen for Fannie and Freddie declined to discuss details of the plan, and the companies’ regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, declined to comment.
But other people briefed on the situation said Fannie and Freddie plan to build on a previously undisclosed pilot program that Freddie has with Provident Funding Associates LP, a large national mortgage lender based in Burlingame, Calif., and with NattyMac, a so-called warehouse lender based in St. Petersburg, Fla., that provides short-term funding to mortgage companies.
Under that pilot program, these people said, Freddie makes commitments to purchase loans made by Provident Funding that are financed by NattyMac. NattyMac is responsible for ensuring that the loans meet certain quality standards set by Freddie. The commitments from Freddie reduce the risk that NattyMac or Provident will be stuck with loans that are rejected by Freddie or Fannie and can be sold to other investors only at a huge discount.
Provident Funding officials couldn’t be reached for comment. A spokesman for NattyMac’s parent company, Guggenheim Partners LLC, a New York-based financial-services concern, declined to comment.
…
I’m trying to grasp what they’re doing here. Why is NattyMac even involved - i.e. why don’t F/F just buy the loans directly from Provident?
A little high-stakes
money-launderingrisk management I guess?Maybe concerns about the future viability of the GSEs are driving attempts to bring newly-created housing rescue entities into play?
Fannie and Freddie Continue to Struggle, Lawmakers Told
By JACK HEALY
Published: October 8, 2009
In the year since the government stepped in to rescue the collapsing mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the agencies have taken $96 billion from the Treasury, and may still need more.
That was the somber assessment delivered Thursday by the federal agency charged with overseeing the government-controlled Fannie and Freddie, which have lost a combined $165 billion since July 2007 as their bets on the housing market went bad.
“The short-term outlook for the enterprises remains troubled,” said Edward J. DeMarco, acting director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, in testimony before the Senate Banking Committee.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which bought millions of home mortgages, were taken over by the government last September after their share prices plummeted and investors abandoned the companies, fearing they would collapse under the weight of their loan portfolios. The government put Fannie and Freddie into a conservatorship and offered billions in federal lifelines.
Now, as housing prices struggle higher and an $8,000 tax credit has enticed many first-time home buyers into the market, Fannie and Freddie are limping along. The Federal Reserve is buying more than $1 trillion in mortgage-backed securities in an effort to loosen credit and restart the mortgage-financing markets.
Yet even as the broader economy tries to turns a corner, Fannie and Freddie face huge obstacles, Mr. DeMarco said.
Their books are still bleeding red as foreclosures rise and homeowners — even the highest-quality borrowers — fall behind on their mortgage payments. Several crucial positions remain vacant, and Mr. DeMarco said the agencies were worried about losing workers because of the uncertainties surrounding their fate.
…
Holy cow! This just gets worse and worse.
I think I heard the hiss of deflating values today:
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/10/post_28.html
Syracuse, NY - “More than 200 people gathered today in downtown Syracuse in search of a bargain by bidding on properties seized by Onondaga County for unpaid taxes.
The auction, held at the John H. Mulroy Civic Center Theater, was open to the public and attracted around 15 first-time bidders according to a show of hands.
Bargain hunters were able to snatch up properties at lower than 50 percent of the assessed value. One winning bidder purchased a two-story residence in Clay assessed at $138,889 for $45,000.
“All kinds of people show up. Homeowners, investors, landlords,” said Bernie Brzostek, Onondaga County’s contracted real estate auctioneer. But it’s mostly “seasoned veterans” who populate property auctions, he said.”
But it’s mostly “seasoned veterans” who populate property auctions, he said.”
This makes me think of delicious spicy beef jerky strips, for some reason. You know, like in the grimy glass jars to be found at remote wilderness gas-station when you’re on a college road-trip.
And that makes me hungry again. Oh, no!
Okay, HBBers, I’m off! Out to run down either a ’seasoned veteran’ or else a Slim Jim! Whichever runs slower.
…Back in a bit…
Beef jerky is good. I used to add some cream cheese to the beef jerky. Ummmm Ummmmm GOOD.
I love jerky! I prepared many a table-load of jerky as a wee lass…
*nostalgic sigh *
…Wait, are you serious? Well, since it’s you I’ll try it, instead of automatically barfing.
But this better be tasty, missy.
I thought bubble reflation was the primary objective of the myriad housing interventions currently underway?
MORTGAGES
FHA may be setting up repeat of housing bubble, lawmakers worry
The percentage of loans backed by the agency that are delinquent or in foreclosure hit nearly 8% at the end of June. Critics say borrowers don’t have enough of a stake in keeping up with payments.
By Jim Puzzanghera
October 8, 2009
Reporting from Washington - In the wake of the mortgage meltdown, the Federal Housing Administration has emerged as a pillar of the still wobbly housing market — providing vital insurance that enables borrowers to qualify for loans with as little as 3.5% down.
This year alone the agency has backed nearly 2 million mortgages worth at least $328 billion. It insured 21.5% of all new mortgages last year, up from fewer than 6% in 2007.
Some lawmakers, however, worry that the FHA may be doing its job too well — enabling too many people with shaky finances to get loans, and in effect setting up a potential repeat of the housing bubble fueled in part by no-questions-asked subprime loans.
Recent numbers appear to underscore those concerns. The percentage of FHA loans that are delinquent or in foreclosure climbed to nearly 8% at the end of June, from about 5.5% in early 2006, according to the Mortgage Bankers Assn. And in the weeks ahead, its reserves for loan losses are projected to slip below federally mandated limits.
“It’s not the least bit implausible to be concerned about the ever-deteriorating performance of the FHA portfolio,” said UCLA finance professor Stuart Gabriel, director of the university’s Ziman Center for Real Estate. “The jury is out as to whether the FHA is going to need a government infusion.”
…
It occurs to me that with all the big players - politicians, the FIRE industry, and most homeowners - wanting both inflation (to deflate their debts) and home price supports , what’s to stop them from the runaway spending on home price supports?
And I’ll bet they tell us that “nobody could have seen it coming” regarding the FHA defaults.
(sigh…)
Wake me up when this nightmare is over.
I want to than you all once again, and also wolfgirl and Socaljettech who I missed, for your kind comments re Allison.
She is still in critical condition, but slowly improving.
Thank You Again, Very Much! (Allison thanks you too).
I may copy/paste this over on bits, so maybe wolf and Socal have a greater chance of seeing it…
Stories like this make me wish I better understood game theory:
The Financial Times
Asia steps in to support dollar
By Kevin Brown in Singapore, and Peter Garnham and Chris Giles in London
Published: October 8 2009 15:09 | Last updated: October 8 2009 20:43
Asian central banks intervened heavily in the currency markets on Thursday to stem the appreciation of their currencies against the US dollar amid fears that their exports could be losing ground against China.
The mainly south-east Asian countries have been spurred to defend the competitiveness of their currencies by China’s decision to in effect re-peg the renminbi to the dollar since July last year.
Simon Derrick, at Bank of New York Mellon in London, said: “Other Asian central banks outside China are naturally looking to aggressively defend their competitive edge against undesirable currency strength as the dollar weakens.”
After allowing the renminbi to appreciate by about 20 per against the US dollar from mid-2005, Beijing re-pegged its currency to the greenback when export growth contracted.
The greenback hit one-year lows against a raft of regional currencies. The dollar index, which tracks its value against a basket of six main currencies, hit a 14-month low in afternoon trading in New York.
Jean-Claude Trichet, European Central Bank president, issued a warning about the euro’s strength on Thursday and said that authorities on both sides of the Atlantic would “co-operate as appropriate”.
Marco Annunziata, chief economist at Unicredit, said: “He clearly tried to signal as convincingly as possible that the eurozone and the US are united in the desire to limit the rise in the euro versus the dollar – but the market is calling his bluff.”
…
Interesting…
Remember what Hoz was saying before he went wherever he went…
I miss him.
If they stop testing and start draining, will interest rates go up?
The Financial Times
Fed begins testing ‘reverse repo’ trades
By Michael Mackenzie and Henny Sender in New York
Published: October 9 2009 00:01 | Last updated: October 9 2009 00:01
The Federal Reserve has begun conducting small-scale tests of trades called “reverse repos” on Wall Street that would enable it to drain cash from the financial system once it decides to roll back its current extraordinarily loose monetary policy.
In a reverse repo – shorthand for a “reverse repurchase agreement” – the Fed sells assets such as Treasury securities to dealers for cash with an agreement to buy them back at a slightly higher price at a later date. In the process, bank reserves are drained from the financial system.
…
Just to better understand this, isn’t this essentially a collateralized loan to the Fed?
* The Wall Street Journal
* ECONOMIC FORECASTING
* OCTOBER 9, 2009
Scarred Job Market in for Slow Recovery
By PHIL IZZO
The worst recession since the Great Depression has left a scorched landscape that will weigh on the labor market and the broader economy for years to come, according to economists in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey.
The 48 surveyed economists expect the economy to bounce back from four quarters of contraction with 3.1% growth in gross domestic product at a seasonally adjusted annual rate in the just-ended third quarter.
Economists expect a full jobs recovery may take years. Phil Izzo talks with Kelsey Hubbard and Simon Constable in the News Hub.
Expansion is seen continuing through the first half of 2010, though at a slower rate. But the massive downturn means the labor market will take years to heal. On average, the economists don’t expect unemployment to fall below 6% until 2013; unemployment hit 9.8% in September.
“Never before has business shed so many workers so fast, so many people failed to find work who are looking for work, and so many dropped out of the labor force as in the current circumstance,” said Allen Sinai at Decision Economics.
The labor market’s tough road was underscored by Thursday’s report on weekly applications for unemployment insurance. The Labor Department reported that initial claims fell 33,000 to 521,000 in the week ended Oct. 3. The number of people collecting unemployment insurance also fell, but remained above six million.
The Wall Street Journal surveys a group of 52 economists throughout the year. Broad surveys on more than 10 major economic indicators are conducted every month. Once a year, economists are ranked on how well their forecasts have fared. For prior installments of the surveys, see: WSJ.com/Economist .
The decrease in continuing claims likely reflects people exhausting their unemployment benefits after several months of looking for work in vain.
“We expect the improvement to remain a very slow one, and therefore for the household sector to be contending with a weak labor market for quite some time,” Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist with research firm MFR Inc., wrote in a note to clients.
…
Years? In other words, never.
In my 30+ years as a wage slave, I’ve now seen 6 recessions. That’s one recession approximately every 5 years.
This is Not Good.
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehn, good bye-eye,
Adieu, adieu, adieu adieu adieu…
* The Wall Street Journal
* OCTOBER 9, 2009
U.S. Stands By as Dollar Falls
BY JON HILSENRATH AND MARK GONGLOFF
The dollar fell to a 14-month low against other currencies Thursday, intensifying a trend that the Obama administration has publicly suggested it opposes — but which it appears prepared to tolerate quietly.
Many of America’s trading partners, however, are pushing the other way. In Asia, traders said central banks in South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia and Hong Kong again intervened to slow the dollar’s fall against their currencies.
…
* The Wall Street Journal
* REVIEW & OUTLOOK
* OCTOBER 9, 2009
The Dollar Adrift
A global vote of non-confidence.
The biggest story in the world economy is the continuing fall of the U.S. dollar, or at least it is everywhere outside of Washington, D.C., the place most responsible for its declining value. For good reason, the world is wondering if America has cast the dollar adrift.
…
The value of any currency is ultimately determined by the supply and demand for that currency. And the problem for the dollar at the moment is that there is a much larger supply of dollars than there is global demand for them. The solution rests not in Manila, Bangkok or Paris, but in Washington.
Start with dollar supply, which is entirely a function of America’s central bank, the Federal Reserve. The Fed has been flooding the world with dollars in the name of preventing a U.S. deflation after last year’s panic, and it shows no sign of tightening any time soon. Last week’s awful September jobs report convinced markets that the Fed will keep the money spigot wide open well into 2010. And yesterday, Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Fed and thought to be a rare hawk on the Fed’s Open Market Committee, chimed in that no one at the Fed thinks this is the time to raise interest rates.
All of this is a signal to world markets that holding dollars is a risky proposition, which in turn contributes to falling global demand for dollars. The Fed is telling the world that it is concerned primarily—perhaps only—with the domestic U.S. economy. If the dollar falls against other currencies, that’s their problem. The Fed will let the dollar fall.
For a time in the wake of the panic, the dollar benefitted from a flight to the relative safety of U.S. Treasurys and other dollar assets. (See the nearby chart.) In a storm, the dollar was thought to be less risky than other investments. But as this overall global risk aversion has ebbed, the risk calculus has turned and the dollar itself has become more dangerous to hold than nondollar investments.
…
stpn,
I wrote a long and pedantic reply earlier to your comment about Swahili as an answer to what people speak in Africa, but it got eaten. Indeed people speak French in the former French colonies (and Belgian colony) in Africa, but it is not commonly spoken in the former British colonies - which cover a lot of territory, nor in former Portuguese and Italian colonies nor in South Africa. An exception is a tiny Francophone elite in Cairo.
Swahili is the only African language used as an official language for the African union (the others are Arabic, English, French, Portuguese and Spanish). It is the most widely spoken African language, a supra-tribal language (as are Arabic and the colonial languages). It is an official language in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and the DR Congo; it is universally spoken in the Comoros although French is their official language, and spoken by a large minority in Oman.
Modern Swahili was codified as an official language during decolonization from a trade language - the lingua franca that developed in East Africa and the maritime cultures of the western Indian Ocean over millennia of commercial contacts (documented as long established in the first century AD).
Its base comes from Bantu, a large and important central African ethno-linguistic group. A large number of vocabulary words (wiki says 35%) are derived from Arabic, also many from European languages. (The term Swahili derives from the Arabic word sahl [coast, pl. sawahil])
The spread of French in Africa is an interesting part of colonial history, a triumph of central planning and bureaucracy. During colonial times, a student in Senegal or Tunisia studied the exact curriculum day by day as a student in Nice; the French were very effective in spreading education in their language and culture in their colonies, even more so than the British.
But to me, the linguistic and cultural hybridization that grew out of the trading networks of the Indian Ocean, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, and East Africa over thousands of years is much more interesting - a major and fascinating part of world history.
I carried on too much again. But my point is that refering to Swahili speakers in Africa is NOT STUPID, not at all, not at all.
(I also appreciate that Swahili-speaking African Muslims are a very tolerant folk and don’t mind if a visitor enjoys a beer now and then.)
Well, I have no freakin’ idea what this is in reference to, but it’s a very interesting post nonetheless.
Above, there’s a complicated and interesting thread about language, in which stpn posted:
I responded in the early afternoon with a reply that didn’t make it - maybe eaten or maybe I canceled rather than posting. In the evening I re-posted, still feeling passionate in defense of Swahili.
Wow! Impressive HiZ.
Thanks!