Bits Bucket For November 16, 2009
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The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
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(from Yahoo Finance Nov. 16)
“Dan Alpert of Westwood Capital [says] house prices are still too expensive. Price-to-rent ratios have fallen only 75% as far as they need to to get back to normal levels. [And] rents are now falling, which will further inflate price-to-rent ratios, suggesting that [prices] could fall even further.
“The main problem, Alpert says, is that we built too many houses. Speculators are…buying houses to rent, and the increase in rental inventory is putting pressure on rents, making it more attractive to rent instead of buy. …This oversupply will put pressure on prices and rents for years.”
– no news here, just a nice description of reality.
“… rents are now falling, which will furthur inflate price-to-rent ratios, suggesting that [prices] could fall even furthur.”
The economic contraction rolls on. In this case those who have made financial commitments that depend on high rents are hosed.
You’re right about those who made commitments that depend on high rents, and I’d even take it a step further to include those who were expecting the same rents and high occupancy. Speculators are assuming cash flow based on full occupancy, and that’s just not going to happen. I don’t for one second believe all of the people who are gobbling up the still overpriced homes at the bottom end of the market have the financial ability or stability to sustain long term vacancies.
Having been raised part of my life in northern NV where prices have crashed, I’ve paid attention to that market, and there has been a feeding frenzy on “low end” homes. People have been “snapping them up” thinking they’re getting bargains because in many instances they had reached the sub $100k level. I’ve even read on some blogs and such that people were saying that “the lower end has bottomed”. That’s laughable. The homes which were selling recently for less than $100k to the low $100k’s are real dogs which have historically been in that price range, or lower, save for the bubble. These people didn’t get bargains, they simply bought for more realistic prices than that of the peak. But, what they aren’t factoring in is falling rents and extraordinary vacancy levels due to the worst economy and highest unemployment rate in history coupled with a staggering overhang of inventory.
What’s worse, many of the builders have now resumed building out many of the stalled developments. There must be investors galore, because it’s simply insane for those companies to continue to add new homes. These are the big named national builders. I cannot see this ending well for them. There has got to be a limit to the amount of suckers who will ante up. The new homes do NOT even remotely cash flow at the current sales prices. Also, these new homes put even more pressure on rents for those falling apart POS’s that the infestors are gobbling up on the lowest end.
A cogent assessment. The huge overhang of foreclosures and non-performing loans is the 800-lb gorilla in the room that the REIC and Wall Street are trying desperately to ignore.
The are building so that the FBs can use the Obama dollars to buy. Get ready for some more foreclosures in two years or sooner.
These guys are in big trouble 11,000 apartments bought at the peak..now they cant raise the rents like they wanted
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/23/nyregion/23stuytown.html
——————————————————–
those who have made financial commitments that depend on high rents are hosed.
“The ruling by the Court of Appeals may leave the current owner, a partnership of Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty, and the former owner, Metropolitan Life, liable for an estimated $200 million in rent overcharges and damages owed to tenants of about 4,000 apartments.”
Who would have thought that Larry Fink would be involved in such a scummy thing? While he was on CNBC talking about how “capitalism went way too far”, acting like some sort of savior, I don’t recall him detailing how he was personally, quite possibly illegally, shafting the poor for his own financial gain. These guys are parasitic creeps.
Grizz:
They are new school scummybag landlords. the old school landlord knew how to raise rent from $500 to $1500 legally.
the trick was to get the dumbest tenants you can find, and they would vacate every 6 months/year so you could raise the rent 20% on every vacancy. Then add in new appliances and no trouble.
Stable people like me were turned down from nice places back in the mid 90’s.
Plus you would be amazed at how many $3000 gourmet stoves and bamboo floors and high end fixtures are in 6th floor walk up apartments. Landlords can legally charge 1/40 per month on all the upgrades for life.
Noticed a substantial uptick in the number of Multi-Family Residences on ForeclosureRadar in the Los Angeles area recently.
Can’t hold on to that knife much longer… Too much blood bein’ spilt.
Thanks for quoting that guy, azlender. Here is another piece by him about the parallels between today and the post-1929 crash bubble that preceded the Great Depression.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/19729161/Havent-We-Been-to-This-Show-Before-Dan-AlpertWestwood
Nice post
Thank you for the link, REhobby. I’ve been looking for something like this compilation.
Interesting link…the best part is that the current “hope” rally was pegged at 9,500-ish (at the time that was written) and is now at 10,300-ish.
I agree with what is said there, but think the dollar story might be different, and that “dollar unknown” might lead to an entirely different outcome this time.
Yep. 3 million shadow inventory says he’s absolutely right.
Just looking for clarification: the above says 3 million shadow inventory - so would that be housing stock held by banks and others that would come on the market if prices stabalized.
I seem to remember someone else mentioning ~17M empty units. So i assume that includes all uninhabited houses including empty rentals etc. How much of this (if any) would include “second houses or vacation houses”
FYI - I am in downtown Seattle - and the condo across the street (now finally sold out) probably only has 25% lights on at 8 and 9 pm. I cannot see it being more than 50% occupied.
Just looking for clarification: the above says 3 million shadow inventory - so would that be housing stock held by banks and others that would come on the market if prices stabalized.
The shadow inventory will come on the market when banks have a financial cushion large enough to write off the losses. The houses will collapse from neglect before prices return to what they have them booked at.
The 3 million number comes from this article, and includes only foreclosed homes or “seriously delinquent”, which is a way of saying ones that will be foreclosed once the bank gets the resources to get around to it.
The 17m total vacant does include rentals, I think maybe even seasonal - both of which are huge normally anyhow, so not really meaningful, except when looking at trends.
“As of July, mortgage companies hadn’t begun the foreclosure process on 1.2 million loans that were at least 90 days past due, according to estimates prepared for The Wall Street Journal by LPS Applied Analytics, which collects and analyzes mortgage data. An additional 1.5 million seriously delinquent loans were somewhere in the foreclosure process, though the lender hadn’t yet acquired the property. The figures don’t include home-equity loans and other second mortgages.”
The shadow inventory will come on the market when banks have a financial cushion large enough to write off the losses.
And I suspect they’ll miscalculate. When banks can afford to cover the 45% haircut, they will all dump their properties. Nobody will buy that inventory at 45% haircut, because the only money left is smart money or bottom feeders. So that inventory will crash another 25%. Can the banks survive that? Not without government help. And I don’t anticipate anymore bailouts — politically too dangerous.
Can the banks survive that? Not without government help. And I don’t anticipate anymore bailouts — politically too dangerous.
There are many more ways to get government help than direct bailouts.
- Asset-targeted stimulus
- Rules changes (e.g. FASB)
- Backdoor bailouts - e.g. F/F MBS purchases, as funded by the Fed
etc.
The only thing not tried yet, at least en masse, is reduction in supply by method of bulldozer. When things get really desperate - I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.
Maybe we’ll see a cash-for-shacks program where the gub’mint - that would be us, the taxpayers - get to buy up all the foreclosures and abandoned properties that have gone to seed.
I have a friend who bought 40 houses in Detroit for $4000 ea. Then hired two paroled bubbas to manage for him. Cash flows like crazy. Tenants are ‘NOT’ late with these mgrs.
Bob, there was a time just a few months ago when John Mauldin was saying 2M and Professor Bear was saying 20M. Both able to cite good authority. Yes, the larger figure must include not only (temporarily?) empty rental units, but also second homes and vacation homes that nobody is actively trying to sell or even wanting to sell.
I’m doing my part to continue downward pressure on rents and prices, as follows. Past four winters I rented a furnished house in Morro Bay, or a sequence of different-sized houses because guests from L.A. come in Nov and March but not in Jan and Feb. This winter I expect to downsize the Jan-Feb rental to a house-share w/ an acquaintance. Saving more than 50% of the cost of renting the smallest available short-term rental house.
Morro Bay in Jan-Feb…Sweet…
I’m in Morro Bay and am an economics geek- look me up when you are in town and we can grab a cup of joe and talk economy- JE
Hello everyone!
All is well.
Ben, I got the shirt, thanks. I will send you the pic, it has to be cleared by PAO first. BUT, we are looking for a local to model it, or we may just put it on a goat.
More to follow on THAT…
To those of you who helped with the song I was looking for, thanks. We still dont know the name, I dont know how I am going to find it.
To those of you classical music fans, it is in the movie “Alien” (the first one) at 46:37. It only plays for about ten seconds. It’s not in the credits to the movie. I think it’s a nocturne. It’s driving me crazy. I have to know the name of this song……
Looks like retail sales move about 1.4%. I guess the stock market will move about 300 pts today on this “good news”. With the economy the way it is, I think housing will skip along a bottom for at least five years to come. I dont understand why people equate gross domestic product or retail sales with increasing the price of their home. Prices are still too high, unemployment looks like it will get worse.
http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/news/0911/gallery.double_dip_warning_signs/index.html
Even some in the main media may seem to see it now. Check out the foreclosures by state graphic. And then look at the unemployment stats….
Stpn2me
Stpn2me -
For the record, I eagerly await the photo. On a goat, on a local, on a tree, any good photo. Maybe on a local riding a goat?
Make it a good one and I’ll post it on the blog.
How about on one of those dog-sized camel spiders?
Too many legs….I vote for the goat.
LOL - that would be great. Special order for Ben?
If I EVER see a dog sized camel spider, this army will be one officer short….
There’s no telling where that shirt will end up. I am thinking about doing a battlefield circulation going to some various operating bases for photos…NCO’s have vivid imaginations and we have been brainstorming who or what will end up wearing that shirt and in the picture. I am in a sensitive area and it has to be approved, but it will be a good pic…This is going to be fun…
Looking forward to it!
With huge apologies to Dr. Seuss
We would like it on a goat
We would like it on a boat
We want to see it on a GI
(But not in Playgirl posed with Levi)
We would not find it a bummer
To see it photo’d on a Hummer
Or lying on a bed of sand
Gladly seeking the perfect tan
We refuse to share it with the NAR
Unless the wearer has feathers and tar
But those here would agree it’s true
We would most like to see it on you
Love it, SD Bear!
Get Pamela Anderson to model !
How about on a local in a tree fornicating with a goat? That’s got to be an everyday sight in the Middle East.
Step:
Saw Rosie Ledet last night amazing performers and no record deals:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhTLSRvHt2o
Rosie eh? Youtube is blocked on govt computers, but when I get back to the hooch I will check it out. Being a singer is hard stuff, sucks about the no record deals….
BTW,
Anyone out there know that classical song? It’s killing me!
ahansen is on it…
To those of you classical music fans, it is in the movie “Alien” (the first one) at 46:37. It only plays for about ten seconds. It’s not in the credits to the movie.
Step, Jerry Goldsmith did the score for the first Alien. Looks like there are a couple pieces of music that weren’t included in the “complete” soundtrack — a snippet from an earlier Goldsmith film (this may be what you’re after) and a composition by Howard Hanson.
Thanks…I will have to check it out…Jerry Goldsmith did so the movie background, but I know this classical piece is someone elses. I cant remember the name, but I think it was something about love or “Romantic music” or something like that. It was a part of the “In a classical mood” collection, and it may have come from their Vienna disk or the Reflections part. I am going to buy the whole set anyway, but half of the 82nd is looking for the name of this song now….
ahansen said late last night she would watch the movie for you. Albeit with much trepidation. I expect she will come up with your answer!
stpn, is it either of these:
# “Excerpts from ‘Symphony no. 2 (Romantic)’”
Written by Howard Hanson
# “Excerpts from ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’”
Written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (as W.A. Mozart)
I guess I should have read the thread first…
On my DVD of Alien it’s from about 46:00 to 46:10. It’s part of the second movement, Romance - Allegro, from Mozart’s Serenade in G major K 525 known as “Eine Kleine Nachtmusic”.
At 46:37, all I could hear was the guy’s breathing. I cranked up the volume all the way - there may have been some music at the threashold of hearing but I couldn’t make it out.
Make that Romance - andante.
Yay! Great job, Dennis!
Bingo, Dennis. It’s the Allegro, K 525.
Great minds screw up alike. The andante.
Try these two:
# “Excerpts from ‘Symphony no. 2 (Romantic)’”
Written by Howard Hanson
# “Excerpts from ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’”
Written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (as W.A. Mozart)
BTW, I’m betting it’s the Night Music, much more familiar to most.
The false bottom is in
Yesterday I was out looking at some open houses in the neighborhood in Miami Shores. Decent to nice neighborhood with homes ranging from the lower 200s all the way up to the 800s. Most the houses were build in the 20s up to the 50s. Traffic in the open houses was heavy, usually with multiple people looking at the same property. I did notice that “reasonably” priced properties don’t tend to stay on the market for too long. According to the realtor 3/2 houses with garage, 2000 sqft and in good condition fetch $300 - $500K and often attract multiple bids. Anything over $500K tends to be difficult to sell. Several deals didn’t close due to financing issues and houses come back on the market.
How much does it cost to own a $400K house in Miami Shores?
Taxes are about 2.5% of assesed value with a small discount if this is your 1st residence. Insurance in Miami is very expensive, you’re typically looking at about $5K a year with huge deductibles. So you’re in with $15K or about $1250/month between taxes and insurance. A mortgage on $400K with 20% down and 5% interest runs about $1700. So you’re looking at a grand total of around $3000/month for a 3/2 in a nice neighborhood. That’s not counting the tax deduction for property taxes and interest, nor is it counting those pesky bills for a new roof or HVAC that tend to pop up in $10K increments.
In summary, prices are not anywhere as outlandish as they were 4 years ago, but they still require a substantial financial commitment which stretches many borrowers to the limit.
I also noticed several houses with over grown yards and “love letters” from code enforcement taped to the door. These properties seem abandoned. Not sure how many more foreclosures are in the pipeline in this particular neighborhood…time will tell.
Yes, indeed, the false bottom is in. Look to the first part of 2010 for the real decline, as outlined by Charles Hugh Smith in his outstanding chart.
I just can’t fathom the insanity of CONgress and this administration. Huge, expensive, ambitious programs in the midst of the worst decline since the Great Depression. Even assuming that compulsory health care, amnesty and crap’n trade were good ideas, without jobs, how in Jeebus can we afford them?
I wonder if they (FED & gubermint) keep on pumping hard enough if they can generate enough inflation to keep house prices from falling. So far it seems to work for real estate and the stock market. Retail sales are also up according to official numbers. Happy days are here again, at least for now. Of course that would prove that you can print and borrow your way to prosperity which I have a hard time believing. How long can we sustain the unsustainable? Another quarter, until the next presidential election, until the cows come home?
The cows won’t be coming home anymore. Government agents were informed by some Non-govermental agency that beef production is causing carbon emissions. Therefore, cows are being confiscated and exterminated to save the planet from more carbon dioxide.
Next, you will be taxed for breathing. I expect us to have breath recording devices installed in our vehicles and houses so the “government” can monitor and TAX every breath we take.
If the cows could have ponied up the tax money, they would have been allowed to continue polluting the air, but since they had no income, it was necessary to eliminate them for the good of the planet.
Sorry about the cows.
When the cows fart, they cause methane emissions. So it’s a double whammy there for the Fast-Food Nation.
Actually most methane comes out the front of the cow - more of a belch.
more of a belch.
After a HBB meet-up I am guessing there are many methane expulsions. Just guessing. I know I do…belch.
Sure retail sales are up, at the stores which are still open and answer the phone to take the survey. At the closed store across the street, not so much.
Sales tax revenues meanwhile, are down.
Sales tax revenues meanwhile, are down.
Yup. But don’t tell that to Mr. Stock Market Investor.
Good point. A couple months ago, somebody here said that “we could probably get by with half the retail,” and I believe it. I’ve been driving around the past couple months, and I’m stunned at the number of shopping centers.
Well some of that was based on the idea that all those new development would be full of “high end”* shoppers, and we know how THAT turned out.
*”high end=non price averse=stupid spendthrifts.
I understand this “administration” perfectly. It’s a copy of joseph stalin. Stalin had the power of the military to force his will on the people and drive them to serfdom. The state police were all powerful.
Obama needs to first drive Amerika into complete bankruptcy and dispair to simply take over all over what were once private enterprises, using money, rather than bullets to remove all vestiges of freedom from this land. Once accomplished, then he can “save” the country from the ravages of “capitalism”.
You must remember that Obama has been an EEOC appointee, throughout his life. He was annointed as president of Harvard Law Review, not because he was academically brilliant, but because he was “black”, and the students felt they needed to “diversify” the Campus. He has been handed everything by some form of government mandate, and to him, that’s what makes the Country great. Consequently, any program that expands government, allowing mandated programs to support specific groups at the expense of the general population is “good”.
Obama has no concept of capital enterprise, and doesn’t want to.
He’s more comfortable with his comrades, Castro, Chavez and Kim Jung Il. He understands their concept of “Governance”.
Once you understand his “world view”, then understanding his “policies” is really quite easy. World Socialism via an oligarchic handful of money changers. Goldman Suchs, Bilderbergers, and friends of Maurice Strong and that vile Hungarian running the
euphemistically titled People for the Amerikan Way should dictate world policy. The rest of us should just supply labor and shut up.
Businesses should be run by the government, for the government, and the people should get whatever the goverment says they should be entitled to, depending on the particular racial, social status the goverment determines is appropriate.
Hail, Obama! All bow down.
“He has been handed everything by some form of government mandate, and to him, that’s what makes the Country great.”
You nailed it. Thanks
Nailed it to the wall of the madhouse maybe.
Diogenes…You and Edneo should move in together…Good match…
He left out Hitler and Genghis Khan.
He forgot Hitler and Genghis Khan.
EddieTard and The Neo-Confederate. Hoodathunk?!
Well, I would say Obama is perhaps more like Fidel than Stalin. And even that’s a stretch. Despite the havoc they wreaked, both Stalin and Fidel were strong, opinionated leaders (I’m not saying they were good or just or right, I’m just saying they were iron-fisted leaders who held on to power). That’s not Obama. Even assuming he wants to impose communism on the US, he’s not running the show, not by a long shot. He’s being used by a number of people and groups. If I had to say who is really running the show, I’m thinking Rahm.
Diogenes, the truly sad thing is how many people (including some regular posters here) strongly believe in his goals and his strategies.
I guess they all figure that in the new order, they will be among the “more equal” animals.
Well, I would say Obama is perhaps more like Fidel than Stalin. And even that’s a stretch … He’s being used by a number of people and groups.
Thanks for injecting some reason, Palmy.
Whether or not you like the guy or his policies, he’s not even close to a Stalin. That’s ridiculous. The rightwing blowhards who go into naming-calling hyperbole mode at the drop of a hat are both wrong and tiresome.
many people strongly believe in his goals and his strategies ??
I disagree…It was more of a paradigm shift away from the neocon stranglehold that gripped this country for eight years…Forced Dogma, $140. oil, interventionist wars to enrich your friends and reward the military complex etc… Elections have consquences…
Cram Bush & Cheney down the throats of America long enough you get Obama…
So now we’re rewarding the acorn,seiu,and UFW mrxists !
Cram Bush & Cheney down the throats of America long enough you get Obama…
————–
Exactly!
(Not that I’m particularly happy with the way Obama’s doing things so far…)
Oh, please.
“He was annointed as president of Harvard Law Review, not because he was academically brilliant, but because he was “black”, and the students felt they needed to “diversify” the Campus.”
You don’t get to be the president of an ivy league law review in order to diversify the campus. On a purely technical grounds, that position goes to a third year student (already on campus) who is already on the law review (already proven himself pretty brilliant). The leadership position was most likely because the other law review members liked his leadership style and personality. You don’t want to have to work for a complete a**hole 30+ hours a week for your entire third year.
And Stalin? Using the military to push us to serfdom? Sounds like a good idea for a video game. You can advertise on Rush and Beck or maybe get Palin’s kids to endorse it.
I agree with Polly. Having been on Law review, I wouldn’t have let most of those people represent my dog. Book smart - yes, common sense - hell no, personality, not a chance. Can’t imagine what law review is like at Harvard.
If he was smart and outgoing as he appears, then being black was most likely only icing on the cake, if anything.
Polly, I think you missed the “using money rather than bullets” part of Diogenes’ post.
“Using the military to push us to serfdom?”
It’s entirely possible. You don’t have to listen to Rush or Beck or Palin to ascribe to this. You just have to read history. But then again, I DID have to remind you, after your statement that the Founding Fathers advocated violent revolution, that they peacefully withdrew from British rule by written resolution and that Britain drew first blood because they didn’t approve of it.
Don’t even bother, Bill. Lawyers are trained to miss salient points not their own.
I don’t see iron strength in Obama. I see lots of feel good goals without insight into practicality. I also see turn on a dime opinions that mirror what he is hearing. He will not be effective because he has no conviction, no sense of sacrifice and no grit. The Pres is more of a figurehead than most acknowledge anyway, a celebrity.
We must watch the Congress and the banks closer than the President.
Comparing Obama with Stalin and the likes is quite a stretch. Em, take alook at in the history books instead of listening to Beck, Hanity and other demagogues.
To figure out what Obama is up to take a look at his campaign donors and the beneficiaries of his policies. Goldman-Sachs is this administration’s Haliburton. The goal is to transfer as much wealth as possible from the taxpayer (ie. average American worker) to the financial elites on Wall Street. Did the various bailouts help the average American or did they help the average bankster? To answer this question take a close look at who is unemployed and who is bringing home fat bonus checks. Today the US is more like a company that has been taken over by financial locust. It is in the process of being stripped clean with every last penny squeezed out of it before it will get abandoned penniless and the locust moves on to greener pastures. All this has little to nothing to do with socialism or communism. Obama himself is probably clueless and/or powerless of what is going on, Goldman-Sachs & friends are running the show, hardly a crew I would call socialist.
+1, Blue Skye.
And this is a point my history/civics teacher often tried to drive home in class. Even to the point of how local elected officials could affect you far more than the nationals officials.
“Point #1 -You don’t get to be the president of an ivy league law review in order to diversify the campus. On a purely technical grounds, that position goes to a third year student (already on campus) who is already on the law review Point #2 -(already proven himself pretty brilliant).”
Point #1 - He did, with help from the Saudi royalty and their $$$. No wonder he bows to them.
Point #2 - “C” student at Columbia doesn’t suggest any brilliance. It suggests affirmative action and political pull got him into Harvard, NOTHING ELSE.
Obama is as brilliant as a sack of drowned mice. Refer us to ONE brilliant article, ONE mediocre article, or ONE article at all, he ever authored in college. Bill Ayers writing a book for him doesn’t count.
Why has Team Obama refused from day one to show any transcripts or papers by the “brilliant student”? Because he is hiding his ineptitude. He’s a Has Been media sensation/fraud, presently decomposing like a maggot-filled carcass, right in front of your very eyes. He is a teleprompter suit fronting for George Soros and other wannabee New World Order types who would like nothing better than to put us on the Zimbabwe Plan.
“Why has Team Obama refused from day one to show any transcripts or papers by the “brilliant student”?”
I’ve always wondered about that. But, it might be that it isn’t so much that the papers aren’t good, but might be what they advocate or argue for.
It’s been said he was a Constitutional scholar. What does that even mean? So he studied the Constitution. Doesn’t mean he ascribes to it. In fact, his papers may very well have focused on how to subvert it, or why it should be set aside, etc.
However, to take the measure of a man or woman, look at what they do, not what they say. Look at the results of their efforts, etc.
Sorry Polly,
You have drunk of the KoolAid and there is probably no way to help you. PLEASE post for me ANY paper or academic records of the OH! Bama. there are none. Obama was, in fact, appointed to the Law Review because, although there had been Asian and other “non-white” appointees, there NEVER was a Black and they felt is was time to affirm their do-gooder credentials.
I would like to read Obama’s papers. I understand Doctoral thesis from candidates are usually posted in the campus library for review of the staff and students. where are they?
And let’ see ………..2 books, about himself, as we are now finding out, as most of us often suspected, ghost-written by the likes of William Ayers. Where are Obama’s GRADES?
Remember George Bush? Everything needed to be posted and proved. With OBAMA, it’s all about executive priviledge and everything is covered up.
He is NOT brilliant, and everytime he opens his mouth, without his teleprompter, he proves it. But that was not the point of my comments. Even if he was Einstein incarnate, he is still a Marxist, by any measure. That is his core. He believes it and as long has he and his “Friends” are the Poletbureau, and dictating to the masses, he is happy.
You obviously are overly invested into NPR based on your commentary. CBS, NBC, CNBC and CNN give us the “facts” and everyone else is a right-wing ideologue. Turn off the National media and listen to some of the discussions on the hate-radio networks from average American citizens and you won’t think the platforms of some of the republican candidates are completely kooky.
However, I am a supporter of RON PAUL, and voted for him in the Presidential primary. R and D don’t matter to me.
I don’t support Sara Palin, but i don’t think she is less intelligent than Obama, just very poorly presented by your friends. It’s like the MEDIA photos of their favorite Democrat (socialist) candidate smiling and waving and the opponent’s picture has a scowl, or a sour-puss face and is posted on a background of swastikas. It’s all madison street sales pitches to the impressionable public.
You are right about one thing. I do listen to Rush, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Dennis Prager, Rusty Miller, Laura Ingraham, Michael Medved, and a host of other radio programs. I also would listen to the imbecile Randy Rhodes when Air Amerika was in range and that jerk from Minnesota.
They never discussed anything in depth or made any arguements for or against their positions. The entire programming was criticizing the republicans. Period. Ad nauseum. I never heard any reasoning about why their positions were better, just they were more “fair”, the typical
equality-motivated, everyone is “equal” and should have the same healthcare, income, housing, opportunity, education, sex, rights, benefits, blah, blah, blah, all paid for, somehow, by the “government”. It didnt’ matter if the ideas were flawed or failed, they were better people because they “cared”.
I could go on till I’m finger-cramped, but let’s spar the board space and drive space and just say, everything the “radionuts” are saying is not the stuff of lunatic “fringe” elements, the MASS media just refer to them as such without much resistance since they are all in the same camp.
There’s also the possibility, if indeed he was affirmative action, that no papers exist.
This affirmative action stuff can be so hurtful, often to the person on the receiving end. I recall about a year or two ago, the guy in charge of our county’s Housing Authority was beleagered by press after 12 million bucks (or something like that) went missing from the agency coffers. Wasn’t his fault, but he was the chief and obviously unqualified for the job. Nonetheless, he was a very decent person and burst into heart-wrenching tears on camera when it dawned on him that the buck stopped with him and he couldn’t depend on underlings to float his boat. Geez, my heart went out to the guy. It was like screaming at and punishing a little kid for getting an F on a calculus exam.
As opposed to the top down affirmative action
“Heck of a Job Brownie”
Oh for God’s sake. We are debating the presidents intelligence again?
He is clearly a pretty smart and savvy operator. What ever else.
Good grief, could most of us here deal with having our college papers examined?
“Using the military to push us to serfdom?”
It’s entirely possible. You don’t have to listen to Rush or Beck or Palin to ascribe to this.
What drugs to you have to take though?
That’s so funny I fergots to laugh, faw-faw haw-haw guffaw.
I do listen to Rush, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, ??
Oh $h.tt….What a revelation !!! who da thunk…
Obama is far more like Chauncey Gardiner than like Stalin or Castro.
Bravo, Doghouse! Best yet!
Actually my favorite premonition of Obama is H.P. Lovecraft’s description of Nyarlathotep:
“Who he was, none could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a Pharaoh. The fellahin knelt when they saw him, yet could not say why.”
I don’t support Sara Palin, but i don’t think she is less intelligent than Obama.
And that tells me all I need to know. Enjoy your 20%.
that jerk from Minnesota.
Would that be Senator Franken?
I never heard
That says it all. You guys only “hear” what you want to hear.
Much less comprehend.
Much less work through the bs you shove into your ears by the minute. You are what you listen to.
Nuf said.
DD,
+100%.
“You are what you listen to”
That would also include:
CNN
MSNBC
NBC, ABC, CBS
NPR
AP
College Professors
Congress
Hollywood
Nuf said.
Diogenes wrote:
Obama was on the campaign trail for two years. Before that, he was a professor (associate? assistant?) at the University of Chicago law school. It is simply not credible that he would not have been “found out” during these previous timeframes. Because everyone was doing a proctosigmoidoscopy on him. You can bet the McCain campaign would have happily presented any real evidence of record fakery.
I did not vote for Obama, I reject many of his social tenets, but this kind of stuff just makes people sound like kooks. You can smell when chicanery is real, like Dan Rather making up Bush’s National Guard story. That had legs, and there was lots of evidence the story was bogus.
Like anything, when people make assertions like this, I say, “Where’s the evidence?” And when you then point to some purported lack of evidence, I say, “You provide the proof.” Show me a link (not to a tiny website that any marginally capable individual can put up, but to something reputable), something, and I am willing to entertain the possibility.
But without EVIDENCE, the assertions are just kookery.
Casino.
“You are what you listen to”
That would also include:
Other sources from BBC to other media in other countries, much reading from all sources here and abroad toBalance out the stuff spewing forth.
It is about balance.
Nuf said.
But without EVIDENCE, the assertions are just kookery.
And always follow the money, who is financing the tv channels, news media, tea parties and so forth.
Then you have an idea that this is where this ‘organization’ might be coming from, what their agenda might be.
Then you research more.
Sound bites aren’t truth in toto.
Spot on, Dio!!
http://karws.gso.uri.edu/jfk/conspiracy_theory/the_paranoid_mentality/the_paranoid_style.html
An article that needs to be revisited occasionally. Though it will never convince those that suffer from it.
A snippet for today’s communist cospiracy:
“Today, the mantle of McCarthy has fallen on a retired candy manufacturer, Robert H. Welch, Jr., who is less strategically placed and has a much smaller but better organized following than the Senator. A few years ago Welch proclaimed that “Communist influences are now in almost complete control of our government”—note the care and scrupulousness of that “almost.” He has offered a full scale interpretation of our recent history n which Communists figure at every turn: They started a run on American banks in 1933 that forced their closure; they contrived the recognition of the Soviet Union by the United States in the same year, just in time to save the Soviets from economic collapse; they have stirred up the fuss over segregation in the South; they have taken over the Supreme Court and made it “one of the most important agencies of Communism.”
Close attention to history wins for Mr. Welch an insight into affairs that is given to few of us. “For many reasons and after a lot of study,” he wrote some years ago, “I personally believe [John Foster] Dulles to be a Communist agent.” The job of Professor Arthur F. Burns as head of Eisenhower’s Council of Economic Advisors was “merely a cover-up for Burns’s liaison work between Eisenhower and some of his Communist bosses.” Eisenhower’s brother Milton was “actually [his] superior and boss within the Communist party.” As for Eisenhower himself, Welch characterized him, in words that have made the candy manufacturer famous, as “a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy”—a conclusion, he added, “based on an accumulation of detailed evidence so extensive and so palpable that it seems to put this conviction beyond any reasonable doubt.”
Now we learn that Eisenhower was just the warm-up act for Obama! Tee-hee.
Yep, this is what happens when you cut the metal health budget.
We just went through 8 years of the worst administration I’ve ever seen in my 50 years and a man who has only been in office for 11 months is blamed for it. Reminds me of the crook who complains about living in a bad neighborhood.
And speaking of which, have you seen the latest tea-baggers gaffe? “Robert Erickson” Speech to MN Tea Party Against Amnesty on YouTube.
You guys are Crazy
Obama = Stalin ??
Obama needs to first drive Amerika into complete bankruptcy . Uhh that was accomplished by the prior administrations.
Most industrial countries we trade with have socialized medicine. They are not communist. They deliver better health care for a fraction of a cost. If we were able to do this it would take a huge anchor off of small business and allow them to better compete better with the rest of the world.
It’s funny I think we all fear the same thing, some non democratically elected group of people running the show to our detrement. I see oligopolies that become so powerfull they manipulate our government and prevent free enterprise as the problem. They steal from all of us by manipulating markets. Insurance companies that strip 22-24 cents of every health care dollar, Enrons manipulating energy prices, GS manipulating stocks. You see government alone as the problem, or a gov that runs corporations.
Here is the proof that my view is correct. Who makes more money a president (current or ex) or GS,other Wall street, or insurance CEO’s. Who was in the room with Paulson when the AIG bailout was being written up, the president or GS. Presidents come and go but Wall Street CEO’s and the elites have much more staying power. Is our gov manipulating GS for its benefit or is GS manipulating our gov for the benfit of GS.
The reality is that some elements of corporate America have become so powerfull that they are manipulating our government and using their power to strip wealth from the vast majority of Americans. They manipulate markets and thus prevent the country from receiving the benefits of capitalism. The reality is that capitalism works when there are a lot of competitors and a game board with rules and an enforcer of the rules who is not bought and paid for. In reality I am on the side of capitalism.
Most other western countries can provide “socialized medicine” mostly because they have been able to mooch of Amerika.
1. Because of Amerika, they don’t spend much on Defense.
2. They mooch off Amerikan innovations in medical technology while Americans pay the premium for these services.
3. Compare to Americans, their citizens have a healthy living lifestyles.
Even with all the problems we have I have to say our health care provides a better service to almost 80% of the people who have some kind of insurance. It’s the 20% that we need to fix.
Maybe they don’t have to spend much on defense because they don’t go around the world being a bully.
Most industrial countries we trade with have socialized medicine. They are not communist ?
We are #37….
“”Most other western countries can provide “socialized medicine” mostly because they have been able to mooch of Amerika.”"”
No they can do it because they spend 50% less per capita than we do on health care with comparable or better outcomes overall.
“”Compare to Americans, their citizens have a healthy living lifestyles. ”
2005 CBO report suggested that obesity did not even come close to closing the cost gap between US healthcare and that of other countries.
Sorry, congressman, but your logic is flawed. So what if they mooch off our defense spending? They still spend less total on health care than we do. Defense spending is irrelevant to that. The ‘mooch off our medical research’ arguement is lame, too. Why should we pay for the world’s medical research? And do you have any statistic to prove it? Finally, the healthier lifestyle claim. Well, most of the rest of the world is slimmer than we are, but they have much, much higher smoking rates than we do. That’s unhealthy, right Doc?
Well, most of the rest of the world is slimmer than we are, but they have much, much higher smoking rates than we do.
The rest of the world is rapidly closing that overweight/obesity gap.
The WHO says there are currently 1.6 billion overweight adults in the world — a number they expect to grow by 40 percent over the next decade.
The rest of the world is rapidly closing that overweight/obesity gap
Thanks to Monsanto and GMO foods, preservatives and High Fructose Corn syrup in all foods.
1. If they have to spend more on defense, they will have less to spend on healthcare. Let’s not forget that they already pay a higher tax in Average than Americans.
2. Obesity rate US - 32%, OECD - 15%
3. Smoking rate US - 17%, OECD - 24%
It’s interesting that even though EU has a higher smoking rate than US, it has lower rates of heart diseases and Lung Cancer.
livingingreece.gr/2007/11/18/eu-vs-usa-health-care/
4. nytimes.com/2006/10/05/business/05scene.html?bl&ex=1160452800&en=6737dbf98961a2a6&ei=5087%0A
They may have to spend more on defense, but again that is irrelevant to the health care question. They pay less per person on health care, and outlive us. Their total tax rate is also irrelevant to this point.
And yes it is interesting that Europe smokes more and eats all those delicious high fat foods, and they still outlive us. I’m not sure what conclusion to draw from that, but it sure doesn’t implicate their health-care as being somehow second-rate. It seems to imply that it’s better, no?
I don’t think you can draw a conclusion from that. May be obesity is much of a risk than smoking is. I knew few women who smoked to suppress their appetites. May be they had it right all along, who knew?
I think comparing one country’s health care system to that of other is like comparing apple to oranges. US may have all the issues and I believe in current form it’s not sustainable, but I have a hard time believing that 80 to 85% of who have some kind of medical insurance get a lower quality health care than any country in the world.
I was also surprise to find out the higher vehicular deaths and HIV deaths in USA in comparison to EU. Our numbers look like that of a 3rd world country.
Dr. Dean Edell (a show that I hear four hours of a week as I play them for my job) brought up something I hadn’t considered in terms of health care.
I already knew that infant mortality statistics are not comparable, as varying countries count live births in different ways. One of the reasons that the US infant mortality statistics look so horrible is that every child born with a pulse is counted as “live”— even if the child is premature, has one of the trisomy disorders (which means death within a few hours, guaranteed), and so forth. I prefer this means of counting from an honesty standpoint.
What I didn’t know was that the US also has a higher percentage of premature births than, say, Sweden (the example he used.) From a population standpoint, Sweden appears to be a homogenous, upper-middle-class population, with all of the health benefits that accrue thereto. In contrast, the US has a high percentage of poor people (often in racial breakdowns that may confuse the issue) and all of the health disadvantages that come with that.
IOW, if you look at the US demographic slice that matches Sweden, the percentage of premature births is nigh-on identical. This matters because premature births account for most of the infant mortality and other health issues that lead to children dying before their first birthdays.
Furthermore, if you have a premature baby, the statistics are best in… the US. (Anecdote: My husband’s cousin had twins at the appalling stage of 22 weeks. The doctors said, “There are NO cases of surviving twins at this stage.” Now there are, and for former preemies, they’re pretty healthy.)
What does this mean? Only this: Unless you know what the statistics are measuring, you don’t know how they compare. I’ve had friends who’ve had wonderful experiences with Britain’s NHS care, or Canada’s system. I’ve had friends that have had horrendous experiences in both of those systems. The same goes for US systems.
My take is that a good healthcare system has to be flexible, and the probability of a national system created by the US Congress is likely to be anything but.
Even if they do pay more in taxes, they seem to get more bang for their buck. And I’m not even sure whether thats actually true anyway. I seem to recall paying 25% in taxes back in the UK.
If you take your taxes, then add on whatever you pay for medical, dental and vision — what’s your tax percentage then?
Let’s look for the ‘good’ in the Obama depression. With more layoffs increasing, people won’t have as much money to eat. Resulting in less overweight people. Let’s hear the cheers for the Mesiah from chicago.
they seem to get more bang for their buck.
In Sweden…
The cost of Peace of Mind that you will get healthcare ..
PRICELESS.
That alone is enough to keep anyone calm and assured that no matter what happens, their basic care is guaranteed.
+20 billion, DD.
I dislike the Obama agenda as much as anyone does, but I have to admit he was duly elected (unlike Stalin/Castro). And despite the best efforts of the likes of Chris Matthews, I believe Obama will be Unelected pretty soon. Or, like Clinton, he will be suddenly dealt an uncooperative legislature and will maybe have the brains to change his tune.
I also agree w/ those who note that the privileges of bankerhood are not usually associated w/ socialism…but every attempt at socialism has always created some privileged class (usually govt only), ours would be no exception.
I also agree w/ those who note that the privileges of bankerhood are not usually associated w/ socialism…but every attempt at socialism has always created some privileged class (usually govt only), ours would be no exception.
And haven’t we always hade a privileged class???
He may indeed be “unelected” - but if so, who will take his place? We are suffering from a tremendous leadership hole right now in the U.S.
There are people like Obama with charisma and/or demographic appeal, and there are a few with pretty good integrity, but I don’t see a single person the combination of the two, and certainly none with what I would consider strong leadership skills (which IMO from his first year it appears Obama vary much doesn’t have).
Personally I think Obama gets elected again in 2012 - despite having fairly bad approval numbers.
Hopefully some true cream will rise to the top soon, or else we’re in for a world of hurt the next couple of decades, on many fronts.
(I’d do it - but I’m pretty busy for a while. Got a lot of projects around the house I *really* need to get to.)
Lender,
I think you are correct on both points in the first paragraph. This administration is starting to look a little one-term to me for a variety of reasons jobs being the biggest issue in reality and the banker bonuses (small by comparison in real economic terms but huge in the “its not fair” world of real people) being another huge one. The biggest thing I have learned from working in government is you are in trouble when you let someone else dictate both your timing and the parameters of what you have to produce. You end up making mistakes if you have to fix [insert intractable problem here] and have only [really short amount of time] to do it.
If we look at the candidates from the last election, Mitt looks to be in the best position, but I don’t know who else might be in the wings who doesn’t have a presentation issue (Jindal) or a sex with someone other than his wife issue.
Serious Congress watching takes a lot more energy than I have to give it, but it will largely depend on who the republicans run. If the go to the hard core right wing including on social issues, the democratic losses will probably be minimal. If they run fiscal conservatives who are socially moderate or at least don’t talk too much about being socially immoderate, the turnover could be a lot more than minimal.
Talk of one-term is way too premature. He’s still got about two and half years to see if things improve. He needs to control the agenda and have some fight with his friends in Congress. Most of Amerika is not where Pelosi and Black/Hispanic Caucus are. He should be smart enough to see this. I guess when you are mad drunk in power and adulation, you probably believe your own invincibility.
I have said it before and I say it again. NY23 will replay in 2012 and Obama wins second term. I may even run again as a libertarian.
NY23 will replay ??
EXACTLY !!!! The whole party has been reduced to Cult status and they will never attract the centrist…
ronpaul,
It is too early to know, but it isn’t too early to speculate especially, when you start to look at projections of unemployment numbers. In the last recession, I got laid off nearly a year after it was officially over. Good friend of mine was laid off another 4 to 6 months after that. If the jobs picture really turns around between now and the June before the election (and I mean a serious drop in the unemployment rate and part timers going back to full time, not just an end to huge losses every month), things might work out, but I just don’t see it. Elections are emotional. Unemployment is terrifying. The two are hopelessly intertwined.
I’d like to see a replay of NY-23. Let the Republicans destroy each other in the primaries for once.
Mitt looks to be in the best position,
THAT is the “best” option. Oh lawdy. Doomed I say, DOOMED.
ugh.
Great…Mitt…More forced Dogma…Sorry…Won’t hunt in a centrist nation…
The ‘rogue’ wing of the repubs will never support Romney. And they’re calling the shots right now.
alpha - They are in charge now, but if they cause havoc in the mid-terms and loose a few seats they should have easily won, they might hold back a bit to get the White House. Not a guarantee, just a guess. Like I said, I think most of this is dependent on jobs and I don’t see how the current administration can get enough job growth going even without a double dip recession to get re-elected. I’m not happy about it. I care about judicial appoinments too much to be anything but depressed. But that is my assessment from 10,000 feet.
They might get muzzled a bit if they blow the mid-term elections, but I don’t think they will vote for a Mormon who passed a ‘universal health care’ bill as governor. I think they will remain a big enough force in the GOP to at least keep Mitt from getting the nomination. They may not get the wacko of their choice, but they’ll act as spoilers against anyone like Mitt. Or Giuliani.
“Obama needs to first drive Amerika into complete bankruptcy and dispair to simply take over all over what were once private enterprises, using money, rather than bullets to remove all vestiges of freedom from this land. Once accomplished, then he can “save” the country from the ravages of “capitalism”.”
The other possibility is that Obama has a bunch of advisors who are giving him bad advice, because they believe short term solutions will work. I know this is less satisfying than the belief Obama is a socialist conspirator out to bring the US to it’s knees, but it’s much more likely.
Presidents aren’t supposed to be brilliant, they are supposed to follow instructions.
Get over it.
Your savior presidents are puppets.
Industrial / Military complex and corporations run this.
Gotta admit, this is probably the most accurate yet. Although, I think Obama is trying. I’ll defend Geithner, but the O-man has got to get rid of Summers.
Congress will be interesting in 2011. If the Dems retain the Senate (likely — very difficult to lose 8-10 seats) there’s talk that Schumer is angling for Majority Leader. That’s when you really see things be rammed through.
Vabeyatch hit a bullseye.
Yep. On this, most of us — left leaning and right — tend to agree.
There’s a difference between an honest man and a blithering one….
I’m not sure that health care or amnesty are bad ideas. Cap n trade was an Al Gore “I lost to Bush” level stupidity.
“I’m not sure that health care or amnesty are bad ideas.”
I am. Especially shamnasty. Sorry, you just can’t reward people for breaking laws. It just never works. On account of you get what you reward. As demonstrated by the last shamnasty under Reagan, which was a complete and utter joke. People who are rewarded for breaking laws will continue to do so, and in great numbers.
It’s coming according to Axletoad. He says there’s a bi-partisan support for this and they have been working behind the scenes for some time now.
He also mentioned that it will provide a “quick” path to citizenship for many. Sounded kind of desperate to me. I know that they need more votes pronto.
Which might not be a bad thing, provided they seal the border BEFORE they start on this nonsense. Or else you’ll see millions more flooding in, just as they did in 1986.
You need someone to buy those houses, yes?
Palmetto,
1) Is your screen name based on the large cockroaches?
2) If at some point we actively discourage people from walking across the border by actually doing something about it; then I’ll go after them for breaking the law.
At this point, we practically roll out the red carpet.
My plan. Landmines. Lots and lots of landmines. Possibly armed helicoptors. Plus make the Mexican’s move back 5000′ from the border.
Add in some active naval patrols and satelite observations.
Then secure up the ports.
You see an illegal after that, I’ll be impressed.
“My plan. Landmines. Lots and lots of landmines. Possibly armed helicoptors. Plus make the Mexican’s move back 5000′ from the border.”
Landmines are never the answer. Just too nasty. Now if all the deployed troops returned to the US, there would be plenty of bodies for patrols.
Al, the border is too big. Nothing is more unnerving than watching a few people get their legs blown off.
Unlike troops, you can’t bribe the landmines. Simple, efficient and mechanical.
You want cheap, efficient, and mechanical? How about a wall 100′ tall 20′ thick that goes to bedrock or the water table, whichever comes first? About $1 million/mile.
by Charles Hugh Smith in his outstanding chart.
Please repost the link.
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogaug06/post-bubble-symmetry.html
I just can’t fathom the insanity of CONgress and this administration.
What I can’t fathom is what sort of idiots are buying stocks at these levels, when we have a 10.2% unemployment rate (higher if you look at real data) and all manner of indications that worse is on way.
Dollar dumping.
After three cups, you feel like you can afford anything.
That’s wine. So how do you feel after three cups of coffee?
Morning Bill. I thought something tasted wrong, now to see if I can get my eyes open.
Just a musing…I drove into DC this weekend as I had something to do and too much stuff to drag with me to make the Metro workable. Plus, getting access to one of the Smithsonian parking lots is just too cool for school. Anyway, drove past the SEC on the way in. That may be the most pretentious government building I have ever seen: vast planes of white stone, odd shape as if it wants to be a tower but knows it isn’t allowed because of the DC height restrictions. Pretentious. There plenty of larger buildings around like the Old Executive Office building or the IRS building, but both of those are just big, blocky grey buildings. OK, the Old Exec building has a bit of old fashioned flair on the outside and looks smashing when they put up the bunting for the 4th of July, but just not the same thing at all.
Drove by Fannie Mae on the way home (different route). Like a country estate house but with less lawn (still a lot of lawn, just not quite enough to be sweeping or to be able to handle an access road flanked by stately trees, but still very odd. Not like an office building at all from the outside.
Does the outside of a building have any influence on the attitude of the people who work inside? I’m sure that the security measures do, but I’m just talking about the appearance of the outside, what you see when you walk toward the outside of the building. Hmmm…
Yes, the outside of a building has any influence on the attitude of the people who work inside, or the other way around. The Los Angeles County Office of Education “Clark” building, when I first saw it, reminded me of a giant warehouse. A huge rectangle consuming multiple blocks, to warehouse all the feckless employees.
Sounds like we had similar weekends. I went into DC with the kids and went to the zoo this weekend; went to the museum of natural history yesterday, and came out by Vienna etc. area.
DC has a lot of great stuff, the times you can forget about the slime flowing around (reminds me of Ghostbusters II). A few times I found myself looking down the mall and thinking to myself “that there’s probably the most influential building in the world; and the most corrupt, at least in terms of volume of corruptness”. A beautiful day yesterday though nonetheless.
However I have to say - the metro sucks. Really sucks, compared to most others.
I was downtown Sunday seeing Rashomon myself… But I like metro, although it’s been years since it’s been part of my daily commute, and apparantly service HAS gone downhill as ridership has increased and everything has gotten older and less reliable.
Oh metro is a nightmare, especially the Red Line. I used to have the joy of commuting out of Silver Spring.
“OK, the Old Exec building has a bit of old fashioned flair on the outside”
One of my favorites. Richardsonian Romanesque at it’s very best. I have always loved that building. I pine for the lost architectural art of heavy block masonry. The ’stuff’ we build now will never last like that.
As far as modernism goes, the East Wing is pretty cool but DC just doesn’t have many good modernist buildings and sadly, NO good examples of Art Deco. Chicago and NYC got most of that, Miami and LA got the rest.
Don’t know if someone posted this link yesterday, about how short sales are being flipped for a quick profit by real estate brokers and their investor cohorts.
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20091115/ARTICLE/911151083?Title=The-new-flipping-short-sales
Bill in Carolina,
Great article and about time! This is the very form of scumbaggery I’ve been warning about since -before- the bust. ‘This’ is the real issue. While legions of us are endlessly distracted by whether or not BO is nothing more than a “media sensation” millions and millions of dollars are being shuffled out the back door!
OUR… back door ( as taxpayers ) once again providing the backstop for REIC Cartel members to do what they do best. Fluff appraisals and employ straw buyers w/ kickbacks.
So true.
I tried to warn the FBI about short sale scams over a year ago, and they said they were not investigating short sale fraud because they didn’t think it was prevalent enough.
The only way to avoid this is for the lenders to handle the entire transaction. The “owner” should have no part in the short sale transaction, as it’s the BANK (a.k.a. taxpayers) that is losing the money.
As it stands, the “owner” gets to choose the listing agent, and this opens the door for all kinds of fraud. IMHO, if you aren’t bringing money to the table to close the deal, then you (the seller) should have no say in the transaction.
With the gov pumping billions of dollars it does not have to stimulate even the smallest movement and activity, I don’t get the sense anybody cares about how people generate business producing sales tax and periperal spend at this point.
peripheral
Don’t Know Nothing..,
As you read the article though you begin to get a sense of just what a neg. feedback loop this is! Many of the same realtors fluffing up the bubble are now preying on the banks once again w/ all kinds of shady tactics.
In one case, to the tune of $100,000 “profit” for them in a single day! So here we go again w/ slanted appraisals and straw kicks. The good news though is that these operators are having to go rogue. They no longer have the blanket complicity they easily enjoyed during the boom.
People at the title co’s etc. are waking up to the fact that these guys are douchenozzles.
Many of the same realtors fluffing up the bubble are now preying on the banks once again w/ all kinds of shady tactics.
Now there’s something you don’t see every day!
That is truly disgusting.
REhobbyist,
It sure enough is. I enjoy the OT spirited debates as much as the next bubble blogger but this really IS at the core of our issues. It’s obvious our woes have grown well beyond this brand of local tomfoolery but here we are, with the barn door still wide open?
And I think it speaks volumes about how little has taken place on the regulatory front for realtors that are pretty much still shooting from the hip? Thankfully this has put the fear of God into enough people there’s now ample whistle blowers but this brand of BS should have been the ‘first’ to have been shut down!
“President Obama says he will convene a ‘jobs summit’ to finally bring the problem under control. Using all the analytic skill that his administration can muster, the President is determined to figure out why so many people are losing their jobs and then formulate a solution.
“The public relations stunt will likely ignore the root cause of the economic imbalances and instead stress the need for government spending on training and education, i.e. more public debt. The unemployed do not need government theatrics, they need actual jobs. But as long as the government props up failed companies, soaks up all available investment capital, discourages savings, punishes employers, and chases capital out of the country, jobs will continue to be lost.” ~Peter Schiff
Schiff’s commentary reminds me of an anecdote about JFK, who listened intently to the experts in his office discussing creation of an expensive job training program. Finally, he inquired: “But what jobs will we be training these people for?”
The experts were at a loss for an answer.
Gotta love Schiff. Thanks, wmbz.
http://schiffforsenate.com/
Schiff, as I’m sure most of us are aware, is running for Chris Dodd’s senate seat. Chris Dodd, the single largest recipient of campaign funds from Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae, is right up there with Barney Frank as one of the biggest villains of the housing bubble. I would love to see an upset victory, though the voters of CT have shown a remarkable affinity for corrupt and incompetent Republicrat politicians.
one of the biggest villains of the housing bubble.
While I don’t disagree, did you forget anyone else? Folks lets say in the WS area, or banks, or GS…etc.
Unfortunately I see a lot of “jobs” for social media then I look closer and it seems one of the best requirements to be a “social media expert” is to have run a MLM venture successfully
Stuff like Word of Mouth advertising, email invites, marketing to friends and families first.
And it seems lots of business owners have Failed miserably in getting people customers into their business so they “need” to find people/employees with big facebook myspace friends to bring in da biznizz
Hint: a DJ without a facebook page or one with less then 500 friends is not a real dj….yeah right.
—————————-
But what jobs will we be training these people for?
“But what jobs will we be training these people for?”
As good a question as ever! Here’s where I have a problem. I won’t even bother going back to my HS days of the 70’s ( when were told to get specialized training or face a lifetime of serfdom in the new service-based economy? ) but has there been ANY indication just since the 90’s that things would improve for the avg. worker?
Any at ALL? How did millions of us not get the memo?
Don’t know if you noticed dinor but the technology is a tad bit different than in the 70’s and it is all about consumerism and service industry as compared to the 70s.
And since then, 70%+ jobs/manuf = trade training have been offshored. So good luck with that analogy ie: going back to the 70s
DD,
That was -hardly- what I was driving at. My point was that the Amurrikan Worker has been given -ample- warning and on many, many fronts.
It all probably seemed highly unlikely that some “Chinamen” was going to “take your job” back then? And not much ‘more’ probable in the 80’s? But the daily erosion of pay and benefits was plain to see for anyone -not- in a coma.
I mean how much bigger of a two-by-four did we need to get hit over the head with? Again, all during the boom nobody gave a rip their job sucked. It didn’t really become a factor until until after it became all too apparent an Int. Only loan wasn’t your ticket out of the workforce?
how much bigger of a two-by-four did we need to get hit over the head with?
Sort of the size of a WS building with AIG on the front or GS.
Yes, it was slip slip slipping away from the late 70s on as Nixon was in favor of environment issues being taken care of and of regulation but the Finance industry side tracked all that during his term and from then on, getting Their man with the Gipper and so forth.
DinOR, as much as I rail against the PTB for fine position we find ourselves in these days, I will also readily admit that J6P consistently voted against his own best interest… and still does so.
The PTB have successfully convinced J6P to identify with the lifestyles of the rich. A state most will NEVER achieve but will risk it all (and lose it all) to try for it.
And we all ENCOUARGE it!
So instead of being happily middle class, where you can still take nice foreign vacations and afford a decent life in a decent neighborhood, we’ve collectively decided it’s all or nothing.
So until J6P is living on the street (or tents) and truly, TRULY going hungry, this will stay the dominate mentality.
And truthfully, many people are simply not cut out to go to college or any other higher form of education for that mater.
J6P consistently voted against his own best interest… and still does so.
It is like a record skip. They buy the bs and think they, just like Brad Pitt can get all the good roles And Angelina, no matter what they look like, or how little they make.
Nascarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrvarooooooooooom. and so forth.
I’ve had about a dozen invites from casual acquaintances to join their various “professional networking” sites. I ignore all such requests on general principle. My genuine friends have my e-mail and phone number and have spent time hanging out at my house.
You would reconsider if you were unemployed. LinkedIn is a good site for finding people you used to work with who may be able to help with jobs.
Sammy is above that.
Linked in is a decent source.
Schiff sounds about right. Instead of getting all lathered up and ideological about Obama. He’s just doing a liberal twist on the same thievery Reagan and the Bushes propagated. The same people are getting richer … few more crumbs might trickle down under O, but not enough to make much of a difference. People conveniently forget how hard GWB pushed the monster stimulus last fall, with henchman Hank by his side. Resources are being squandered, we all can agree on that, I hope.
BINGO
Our gov is controlled by Wall Street not the other way around.
A couple of times I heard OBAMA trying to buck Wall Street and
they came down on him so hard his head started to spin . The master are willing to spend major bucks if anybody tries to challenge their rule.
“The master are willing to spend major bucks if anybody tries to challenge their rule.”
And this would be the “Regulation Theory” at work. The theory that Capitalism is self-regulating in its efforts of self-preservation. The PTB well understands the need to throw the public a bone from time to time to avoid any serious challenges to their power to take root.
The New Deal is the quintessential example of the “Regulation Theory”. Although “conservatives” decried it, the New Deal was itself a heckuva a lot more palatable to the PTB than the alternatives at the time.
We are seeing a repeat of this today. That said, there are many variables in this equation and many have changed siginificantly from the 1930s - nuclear weapons, instant global communications, China (which appears more put together than Stalin’s purge-ridden Soviet Russia), etc.
Do you have links for Obama challenging Wall Street, wizard? It appears the problem is not Obama, it’s Congress.
Not long ago I used to hear. It’s not Bush, It’s the congress.
It was never Bush. He just made a convenient figurehead.
People conveniently forget how hard GWB pushed the monster stimulus last fall, with henchman Hank by his side. Resources are being squandered, we all can agree on that, I hope.
Yes. Recall vividly.
It was bush= WAR Mission Accomplished.
I recall vividly as well. As incredible as it seems, people who should know better are looking at the Bush Presidency with nostalgic fondness. How can you miss such epic incompetence and buffoonery? Not to mention the prolifigate spending and massive growth of government by a so-called Republican administration.
Which is why every incumbent of both parties should be unseated in the primaries next spring.
And some of us are just ‘now’ figuring that out? One of my favorite political cartoons is the Capitol Dome being completely engulfed by railroad cars emulating a snake.
That would have been during the Grant Administration.
And some of us are just ‘now’ figuring that out?
But you keep beating the anti O drum along with the (InsanityHannity/BushandaBeck,Limpbow,Ingraham/MakeupanystoryPalin) crowd.
You don’t know much about Schiff, do you.
Comparing ourselves to our competition (rest of world) we still have a few unique broad-based capabilities: Our people are still far more tenacious than other groups, we are still the largest base of innovation, we are still incredibly aggressive, and we have killer marketing and business skills. Consider though that our razor sharp business skills and innovation is first and foremost aimed at reducing the need for labor or the level of skill and price of labor. Now add in a downturn in housing - which was fast becoming our key industry - and there just isn’t much left from a jobs perspective now or in the future.
Chicago School Board chief sleeps with the fishes. Dang! Wonder who he pissed off?
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-chicagoschools-pr,0,5770853.story
My kinda town, Chicago is, my kinda town.
LOL, apologies to edgewaterjohn, one of my fave posters.
He had invested big in the Olympics coming to Chicago–some of the local wonks on the radio this morning were speculating that he might be in trouble financially because of that. And that this was likely suicide.
Just speculatin’, of course.
“And that this was likely suicide.”
by drowning? Ugh.
Just noted on the trib site that it does look like a self-inflicted GSW to head. ugh.
Really? OK, now, so he shot himself in the head and then fell into the river? Wonder how you’d do that. I guess you’d have to poise yourself very carefully at the edge of the river, point the gun to your head, start to fall forward and then shoot. Wow, that’s elaborate!
Hey - it’s more believable than accidentally falling on a knife - 23 times.
He had invested big in the Olympics coming to Chicago–some of the local wonks on the radio this morning were speculating that he might be in trouble financially because of that.
There are a lot of local bigwigs in the same boat, politicians and power brokers alike. Is there more despondency and misfortune in store?
We can only hope so…
bet it’ll be a financial scandal was brewing or he had a few pole dancer trysts. or maybe he was gong to outed as gay…..
From Blago to 2016 to this, it just warms my heart that all HBBers across the globe now get to share in the rancid local political scene we lovingly call Da Machine.
Rock on Palmy! It’s dreary today - a long winter is settling in.
From Blago to 2016 to this, it just warms my heart that all HBBers across the globe now get to share in the rancid local political scene we lovingly call Da Machine.
Let nothing be a surprise when the Mighty Machine is a-rollin’ down da highway! “Collateral damage” is to be expected.
killer marketing and business skills
Asians have some serious skills. Try bidding on a product/biz with asian owners. Loyalty is their plus.
Emphasis on “killer.” I recall certain well-placed executions. And those are only the ones we read about.
I suspect he was helped into the water.
Stats prove out that men don’t do a double whammy, just a messy at home/garage/basement demise.
Never understood why people off themselves in their own home. Not only do they leave their family to deal with the trauma of finding the body, cleaning up the mess, etc., but they also lower the value of the property by about 30-40% (and realtors are required to disclose if a murder or suicide took place in a home, from what I understand). How could you do that to people you care about?
Take niacin, not Zetia.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/HeartDiseaseNews/cheap-niacin-beats-pricier-zetia-heart-patients/story?id=9092855
Right palmetto . In 100 years they will be talking about what a sham
modern drugs were . What about just eating fresh foods ….you know a balanced diet and some exercise . I have seen the side effects that medications give . On some news program the other day some commentator was saying that now they are finding out that the body builds up medications after long term use …..great just great .
I’m not saying that there isn’t some life saving drugs around ,but lifestyle is most likely responsible for a good amount of the medical problems people have.
What about just eating fresh foods ….you know a balanced diet and some exercise.
Why cut back on a sedentary high-calorie lifestyle when you can take a pill? Instant gratification!
I believe this, Housing Wizard.
I think dependence on psychotropic drugs makes people crazier, myself.
In Montana,
True, I had a branch mgr. that was totally dependent on them. Right after 9/11 he had a boyish grin you couldn’t -slap- off his face?
We had a client that was facing a $100k Margin Call and he was still “welling up” inside w/ some sort of chemically induced ‘joy’? I closed the office door behind me and told to lay off the damn Zoloft ( or whatever ) long enough to grasp the fact that a LOT of money was on the line here!
I guess I was harshing his buzz? Buzz Killington, that’s me!
Buzz killer.
After 9/11 saw lots of coworkers with colored pills. I couldn’t figure out how they could be so calm about the issues etc, then I saw ‘vitamin time’ in their hands.
Prefer finding out that we are severely short on magnesium, iodine/sea salt in our diets and fixing those. Magnesium helps tremendously with mood.
DD,
I ‘try’ to remember taking my magnesium every day. Another big help ( especially here in Gray Sky Country ) is your vitamin D! Makes a world of difference.
But doping up on happy pills, putting a band-aid on depression isn’t helping. Particularly when you’re the only person in the office ‘not’ using them.
Makes a world of difference.
I am noticing that too.
With all the sun I grew up in and am surrounded by daily, D is crucial.
Plus, it takes a few months for the full effectiveness of those funny pills with major side effects to take hold.
Doctors should be required to disclose in writing to patients what kind of incentives they’re getting from pharmacetical reps to push their products, even if it’s to say that “she’s totally hot and I want to bang her like a cheap gong - so take the damned meds she’s pushing!”
Oncologists are only mds who are allowed to sell chemo/radiation thereby making huge profits pushing chemo,radiation.
Methinks it smells of unethical practices.
“you know a balanced diet”
As long as I can put chocolate at the base of my pyramid.
Obama Communist? Hardly..
Comparing Obama with Stalin and the likes is quite a stretch. Em, take alook at in the history books instead of listening to Beck, Hanity and other demagogues.
To figure out what Obama is up to take a look at his campaign donors and the beneficiaries of his policies, don’t listen to what he says. Goldman-Sachs is this administration’s Haliburton. The goal is to transfer as much wealth as possible from the taxpayer (ie. average American worker) to the financial elites on Wall Street. Did the various bailouts help the average American or did they help the average bankster? To answer this question take a close look at who is unemployed and who is bringing home fat bonus checks. Today the US is more like a company that has been taken over by financial locust. It is in the process of being stripped clean to the bone with every last penny squeezed out of it before it will get abandoned penniless and the locust moves on to greener pastures. All this has little to nothing to do with socialism or communism. Obama himself is a willing tool of what is going on. He’s a great speaker and diplomat. the perfect guy for the job. The parasite is sucking the host dry without the host taking (much) notice. Goldman-Sachs & friends are running the show, hardly a crew I would call socialists. To a certain extend it is also a balance act between not causing civil unrest and milking foreign financiers (China, Japan, Saudis & other suckers) without scaring them off. None of the ones in charge care about how great America is/was/could be or how the people are doing or where this country will be in 10 or 20 years. The only motivation driving these people is how much they can squeeze out of the US before the ship sinks given the constraints that squeezing too hard will make it sink faster while not squeezing enough will leave money on the table for the next guy.
Sorry to be so pessimistic, but that what seems to be going on.
He’s an Obamunist, advocating Obamunism.
I love me, I love me.
I’m wild about myself.
I love me, I love me.
My picture’s on my shelf.
If a fixation on “spreading the wealth around” is not communist, I don’t know what communist is.
Bill, people don’t use the word “communist” anymore. If you do, you’re supposed to be some sort of paranoid knuckle-dragging Neanderthal. It’s like it is being wiped from the history books, it never existed. So we won’t recognize it when it comes around again.
that’s because communism sucks…the left now are even celebrating the fall of communism and the anniversary of the coming down of the berlin wall…and at the same time praising the move towards “democratic socialism”…i like to just call it “neo com”.
Heh, very good. I like it.
I thought that was “socialism” (spreading the wealth). IIRC “Communism” abolishes private property.
So if a thief breaks into your house and steals your belongings you wouldn’t want any of that wealth back?? Because that’s what Wall Street has done.
Don’t worry Bill when you look at the total effective tax rate (Fed, state, etc) The top 0.5% likely pay less than many on this board and they have benefited far more from gov well fare.
The problem is that if you take EVERY CENT of the income of those who earn more than $500K a year, you get something like $1.1 to $1.3 trillion.
Not enough to come close to covering the Obama spendathon, especially when the real costs of “health reform” kick in.
So either we borrow, or sock it to the middle class. Which do you prefer??
You keep saying that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
Which word?
communist
sloth-gracias!
Mike , I’m afraid that you might be very right about your take on what is going on . I’m sure that our President has his chosen ones that he would like to help ,but doesn’t every President .
With all the PR campaigns going on in this Country to hide what the truth is ,it’s any wonder that the American people don’t know who their
true Masters are ,(the evidence is in who got the bailouts ).
Beazer Homes CEO McCarthy may face civil charges
Beazer CEO could face charges over incentive compensation; SEC staff recommends civil action. Monday November 16, 2009
ATLANTA (AP) — Federal regulators have notified Beazer Homes USA Inc. that its top executive could face civil charges over incentive compensation.
The notification comes more than a year after the Atlanta-based homebuilder settled a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into its financial statements.
Beazer Homes said in a regulatory filing Monday that SEC staff issued a so-called Wells notice to CEO Ian McCarthy. That means the staff intends to recommend civil charges against McCarthy for possible securities violations. Recipients of the notices can respond to the allegations before the commission decides on any enforcement action.
Beazer said McCarthy intends to respond to the notice, which is not a formal allegation nor a finding of wrongdoing.
Beazer said the SEC staff recommended action against McCarthy “to collect certain incentive compensation and other amounts allegedly due” under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The company’s filing did not disclose how much compensation is involved, or other details about the disputed pay.
The company itself is not named in the notice. A Beazer representative did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
Millions will have to repay part of tax credit
Report: Millions of couples, retirees may have to repay some of Obama tax credit. ~ Monday November 16, 2009
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 15 million taxpayers could unexpectedly owe taxes when they file their federal returns next spring because the government was too generous with their new Making Work Pay tax credit.
Taxpayers are at risk if they have more than one job, are married and both spouses work, or receive Social Security benefits while also earning taxable wages, according to a report Monday by the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration.
The tax credit, which is supposed to pay individuals up to $400 and couples up to $800, was President Barack Obama’s signature tax break in the massive stimulus package enacted in February.
Most workers started receiving the credit through small increases in their paychecks in April. The tax credit was made available through new withholding tables issued by the Internal Revenue Service.
The withholding tables, however do not take into account taxpayers with multiple jobs or married couples in which both people work. They also don’t take into account Social Security recipients with jobs that provided taxable income.
The Social Security Administration sent out $250 payments to more than 50 million retirees in the spring as part of the economic stimulus package. The payments were meant to provide a boost for people who didn’t’ qualify for the tax credit.
Well that’s just ducky.
“The withholding tables, however do not take into account taxpayers with multiple jobs or married couples in which both people work. They also don’t take into account Social Security recipients with jobs that provided taxable income.”
Unacceptable. Completely. This is not rocket science, people.
I recall the time that my employer (the federal government) had underwitheld my state taxes. It seems that when they switched payroll offices, the new one in indianapolis had no inkling of Maryland’s piggyback county taxes, so they didn’t withold anything for them. Unfortunately there is simply NO reasonable way for an individual to see whether their taxes are being witheld correctly.
I do’nt know what it is with MD taxes .. but i have never had an employer without them correctly. They always ask which county I live in, but then only withhold state, so I always end up owing for the county. So annoying! Why is it so hard?
Well, if you have a bad year, you can arrange for extra to be withheld the next year, at least you can at some employers, or you can send extra each quarter either by check or electronically. I admit, it requires some serious effort, and until you get hit with the problem, well most regular employees depend on their employers to get it right.
As for the Indiana company that didn’t know about MD’s county taxes? I hope your company fired them right quick or got a huge refund on that year’s bill which they shared with the employees. I, personally, would never hire a payroll company that didn’t have a long history of working with companies in my state. You can end up paying a lot for getting your services on the cheap.
–All involved were guvvies, so nobody was going to get fired. (Defense Finance and Accounting Service) And yes, I did indeed have extra witheld to make sure that I was not grossly (penalty and interest) underwitheld. Generally it seems that there were two problems: people unfamiliar with Md’s system of adding county income taxes to state taxes, and the fact that counties were changeing the AMOUMT of the add-on. Used to be that every county except one (Wicomico?) took a straight 50% of your state taxes and added it to the bill. Then the state raised the limit and counties started adding different amounts, some 55%, some 60% etc.
Woo hoo - per the stock market - happy days are here again! Everyone can rest easy and start taking their money out of hedges, like gold and such.
Wait a minute…
Ananova: Quirky China News
Man builds stair-climbing wheelchair.
A Chinese pensioner sold his apartment to fund his dream of creating a wheelchair that can climb stairs.
Li Rongbiao, 67, of Beijing, came up with the idea after his wife, Wang Huifang, 65, broke her leg, reports West China City Daily.
“It used to take us a good half an hour to walk downstairs from our fifth floor apartment to the ground floor after her injury,” he said.
“I realised that what she needed was an electric wheelchair that could go up and downstairs but such a thing didn’t exist.”
So, despite a complete lack of mechanical knowledge, Li sold his apartment for £44,000 to fund the project.
“I bought a lot of books, and used half a year to learn the computer designing, and then another half a year to design the wheelchair,” he said.
With one charge, his foldable electric wheelchair can climb nearly 3,000 steps - the equivalent of 50 floors, he claims.
The prototype requires somebody to use minimal force to help manouevre it but Li says the next version will be able to climb stairs unaided.
He has already been awarded two patents for his invention and is now looking for partners to help him market it commercially.
I saw a stairclimbing wheelchair at a Disneyworld exhibit years ago. Made by Segway IIRC.
I remember seeing one about 15 years ago, at least a prototype. It’s not something new - I’m surprised you don’t see them everywhere by now. I would imagine that it has something to do with government bureaucracy.
re: your comment oxide below about elevators - ever look into how much it costs to put an elevator into a home? Not even close to feasible for most people.
My Uncle in the UK had a motorized seat that was attached to the handrail of the stairs. And up he went!
They already have one. It’s called an elevator.
Bring it here, man. If people want to stay in their homes as they age, they’re going to need it. It’s width might be an issue.
Meanwhile, all we’ve managed to invent lately is new types of mortgages and new internet gaming fantasies.
No WT, those are the only inventions the corporations ALLOW us to have.
I know many garage inventors whose products are gathering dust because they can’t get money to mfg and promote and the companies that they might be able to sell to and do have the resources, want their invention for a song or end up stiffing them on their contract.
So excuse if I’m often on down on “innovation” and “free to pursue opportunity.” I’ve seen the reality. If you are not already wealthy, your invention has no chance in hell of ever making it.
And if you design a car/engine that gives you over 100 mpg, you get bought out at best, at worst, you get nothing and the run around, never having your invention sold to the public.
Lots and lots of those inventions pooof.
As an engineer I invent new things constantly, I know of many others who bring new ideas to life as well. The spirit and ability to invent aren’t the issues with which we should be troubled.
Trochoid. That’s the shape, a geometric inverse of the right angle. Demoed once several years ago on the tonight show with Leno
He showed off a car with square wheels that moved smoothly across a custom made bumpy surface. Bumps were trochoid in cross section of course. That’s what I remember. Leno rules
New Cars under $5K:
http://www.mainstreet.com/slideshow/smart-spending/bargains/deals/cool-new-cars-under-5k
None of them are street legal in the US, Japan or Europe. Is this what our future holds? Good bye Suburban, hello 1500 lb hatchback?
I’ve watched enough video of the 5K cars collapsing into a small metal sandwich.
Thanks no.
I don’t understand why the micro-cars sold in America (Smart, Aveo, Kia Rio, etc) have such mediocre gas mileage.
My daily driver is a 1999 Nissan Maxima that takes off like a rocket, carries four people and luggage comfortably, and gets 26 mpg commuting and almost 30 in steady highway driving.
If I’m going to settle for a much slower, much smaller car I want to see mpg figures that make it a reasonable trade-off, at least 45, hopefully a bit more.
Even with gas at $6 a gallon, driving 12,000 miles a year, the difference in annual fuel cost between 28 and 40 mpg is less than eight hundred bucks a year.
I don’t understand why the micro-cars sold in America (Smart, Aveo, Kia Rio, etc) have such mediocre gas mileage.
The Korean brands are especially bad in this regard. The Chevy Cobalt (hardly a paragon of technology or efficiency) outperforms the much smaller Chevy Aveo at the fuel pump.
But what I was wondering is if someday we will lower our safety standards to allow the under $5K cars that are designed for the 3rd world to be sold here? Will American consumers tolerate a car that can barely hit 80 mph? Or will they have no choice as their paychecks continue to shrink?
First car I ever owned was a 1978 Accord (the original model) bought in 1982
Very comfortable, reasonably quick (for the ’80s), outstanding (36+) mpg.
I never felt in the least “unsafe” driving this car. Look at the 2009 models, they are like armored personnel carriers by comparison.
This is the generation of Americans that believes we should live in a Nerf world where life itself is safety-padded for our protection. Well, there are tradeoffs in everything we do, and in this case it means forking over at the gas pump.
Americans that believes we should live in a Nerf world where life itself is safety-padded for our protection.
HOW did we get past roller skating w/o helmets,knee pads, elbow pads? How did we get past biking w/o same. How did we fall out of tree houses and not sue the neighbor? How did we grow up..oh I forgot maybe the ones that got injured the most are the same ones robbing us blind? NAH, they are the wussy ones born after us hardy souls.
Had an ‘89 civic manual that got 43 mpg highway. But I repeat myself repeating myself.
I had a ‘59 Bugeye Sprite with upgraded 1275cc motor and 3.9 rear end that got 46 mpg on long trips.
‘79 diesel Rabbit 4 speed, 53mpg. Idiot light for the oil didn’t function and I seized the motor, it’s a heartbreaking memory.
Re: Bugeye.
You actually got the thing to MAKE a long trip…?
Will American consumers tolerate a car that can barely hit 80 mph? Or will they have no choice as their paychecks continue to shrink?
We had these in the 70’s - anyone remember the late 70’s models of the Chevy Chevette? Must have weiged less than 2000lbs, no power anything, manual trans, 1.3? liter four banger, etc. I remember learning to drive in one of these we drove it from Medford to K-falls and could only hit 80mph going down the pass…
Vega. Pinto. Maverick. Monza.
Well one factor is that mileage is measured more accurately now. You really can’t compare 30mpg in 2009 with 30mpg in 1979. Add more safety and pollution equipment and mileage suffers. But people also expect more performance from cheap cars that they used to.
But people also expect more performance from cheap cars that they used to.
Absolutely. Even the cheapest econoboxes these days have 110+ hp engines as opposed to 70 or 80 hp 20 years ago.
Can you imagine the smog we would be dealing with in this area if we ahd the current level of traffic and 70’s emissions per vehicle? The mind goes numb considering it. The lungs too.
Oh heck, I’m not objecting to these improvements, I’m just saying that comparing published mpg is to some extant, comparing apples to oranges.
Yes, we did a good job of getting rid of real auto pollution. The kind that really rots your lungs.
Now getting rid of mythical pollution (aka carbon dioxide) is going to be a couple of orders of magnitude more difficult, especially with India and China planning to burn coal into the the foreseeable future.
level of traffic and 70’s emissions per vehicle?
reason The Col moved us from PDX to Riverside and said, ‘heck no’ made a beeline to the desert to get away from the IE smog in the 60s.
Dutch Drivers to Be Taxed By the Mile ~ November 16, 2009
The Dutch government plans to bring the polluter-pays principle into the home garage.
Rather than an annual road tax for their cars, drivers will soon pay a few cents for every mile on the road, in a plan aimed at breaking chronic traffic jams and cutting carbon emissions, the Cabinet decided Friday.
The GPS monitoring system could be a test case for other countries weighing options for easing crowded roads. Some cities like London have created congestion charges to control traffic in downtown areas, but only Singapore has a similar scheme for charging according to the amount of travel.
When the plan takes effect in 2012, new car prices will drop as much as 25 percent with the abolition of a purchase tax and the road tax, which now totals more than $900 per year for a mid-sized car.
Instead, an average passenger car will pay $0.07 per mile, with higher charges levied during rush hour and for traveling on congested roads. Trucks, commercial vehicles and bigger cars emitting more carbon dioxide will be assessed at a higher rate, the Transport Ministry said.
The GPS devices installed in cars will track the time, hour and place each car moves and send the data to a billing agency.
The Netherlands — and especially the coastal area encompassing the cities of Amsterdam, The Hague and Utrecht — has one of the most burdened road networks in Europe, with traffic jams likely at dozens of places virtually throughout the day. Hourly broadcasts report where the traffic is snarled, but often few alternatives exist to escape the highways.
Link/source?
Don’t get me started on the Dutch ! Their ‘Army’ votes on their officers and on their commands.
I was prepared for a big legal battle! But without even batting an eye, Orange County FL lowered my property taxes on some land I own (20 acres directly adjacent to Walt Disney World) 40%.
I suppose I should have asked for more!
I paid very little for this land, before the bubble peaked. I just wrote a check for it. The plan was to plop a little house in the middle of it. I wanted some land that wasn’t encumbered by HOAs and CC&Rs.
Then the bubble hit, and folks were trying to sell equivalent lots for $8.Million or more! Of course, the never sold at that price.
Now I’d never think of building a house there. There are so many rental homes available, and within 1/2 mile there’s now boarded up houses (only 3 years old!) and section-8 housing. It’s too dangerous and risky to ever consider having a retirement home there (except as part of a tax-reduction strategy, if I ever wanted to officially leave California….)
so why not sell it to uncle walt for more parking or maybe another attraction?
Robotic Hamsters Sell Out at Walmart as Season’s Must-Have Toy!
Nov. 15 (Bloomberg) — Selling retailers on this season’s must-have toy, robotic hamsters called Zhu Zhu Pets, was like gambling millions in blackjack, said creator Russell Hornsby.
“This is a Christmas where a lot of people didn’t want to take big risks,” Hornsby, 56, founder and chief executive officer of closely held Cepia LLC, said in a telephone interview. “You’re gambling because you’re selling to kids. That’s a pretty fickle group.”
The bet is paying off. U.S. and U.K. retailers, such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp., Toys “R” Us Inc. and Tesco Plc, can’t keep them in stock. Target is limiting them to four per customer. Some parents are resorting to Amazon.com, where the critters sell for at least twice the $8-to-$10 price.
“It’s the hottest toy I’ve seen since I’ve been at Toys ‘R’ Us, and old-timers tell me this is one of the hottest toys in history,” said CEO Jerry Storch, 53. He has been at Toys “R” Us for almost four years.
A must-have toy may spur more foot traffic and purchases at retailers, and Zhu Zhu Pets is the first since Mattel Inc.’s 10th anniversary Tickle Me Elmo in 2006 to spark as much buzz, said Gerrick Johnson, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets in New York. He projects sales of $50 million this year.
Zhu Zhu thanks you for participating in their viral marketing.
Interesting that the it toy is an $8-$10 pretend hampster instead of a $300 gaming system.
And a fake hamster might be more interesting than a real one. My brother’s hampsters were basically nocternal and spent most of that awake time licking their balls.
Those hampsters would make perfect congressmen. Let’s start a petition and get them on a ballot.
>spent most of that awake time licking their balls
Most male mammals do this…….
“Most male mammals do this……. ”
And all would if they could.
I hear robotic gerbils sold out as Wall Street’s favorite toy.
LOL, Sammy.
Yawn.
ABC News Exclusive: Obama Admin Slashed 60,000 Jobs From Recent Stimulus Report.
Office of Management & Budget Document: 12 Stimulus Recipients Reported ‘Unrealistic Job Data’ ~ Nov. 16, 2009
The Obama administration, under fire for inflating job growth from the $787 billion stimulus plan, slashed over 60,000 jobs from its most recent report on the program because the reporting outlets had submitted “unrealistic data,” according to a document obtained by ABC News.
A document from the Office of Management and Budget obtained by ABC News shows that before an Oct. 30 progress report on the government stimulus program the administration asked the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board to remove information from 12 stimulus recipients that contained “unrealistic data,” including “unrealistic job data.”
One recipient – Talladega County of Alabama – claimed that 5,000 jobs had been saved or created from only $42,000 in stimulus funds.
Some of the political stuff in this thread has been just ridiculous.
The reality, for better or worse, has been Obama the Incrementalist. That hardly makes him Stalin.
And Obama might want this or that, but it all has to go through the brick walls of Congress. He is not a dictator, afterall.
It was Bush who said it would be a heck of a lot easier being a dictator.
“It was Bush who said it would be a heck of a lot easier being a dictator.”
I think he said “dicktater”.
With nuckuler ambitions. Who supported tourists.
And he said, gynos could practice their love to women.
Can you believe it? He has been in office for 11 months and he is a facist, communist, Stalinist, Hitler, Devil incarnate. Forget about the last 8 years of a previous administration that has helped lead us to where we are now.
Hard to forget about all the lip service paid to good, worthwhile concepts like “fiscal responsibility” and “pay as you go” from the Democrats during the entire Bush administration.
Said lip service vanished - quicker than Mozilo’s Lamborghini or a dollar in Casey Serin’s checking account - on January 20, 2009, and not a trace of it has been seen since.
+100 sfbg
What?, suddenly we expect a “1000 lb man” to ‘lose’ all that weight ie: bad debt, war, job loss etc, healthily in 10 mo?
You guys first.
Makes no difference if a person loves or hates Barry, his crowd has taken a bad situation and accelerated bad plans and programs. They will stay the course and run trillions more in deficits.
Obama is not helping.
Sure, he was handed a bad hand, but he has made it much worse and that should concern everyone.
Please not more of this lame excuse, “he’s been office for only 10 months…..”
SFBA Gal,
I certainly hope you don’t ascribe those misdirected criticisms toward ‘me’? You won’t hear me saying that kind of stuff.
Personally, I think it makes it all that much easier for his supporters to say “this is just plain nuts” and gloss over the P’s real shortcomings.
But we really, really DO have to move past this. Between an unwillingness to let go of the Free Pass “of the failed policies of the LAST eight years…….” and gleefully assigning blame to the guy in the White House that still hasn’t fully unPACKED, we’ll never get anywhere. We have to decide whether we’d rather wallow in this, or try to move forward.
I was not directing the criticisms at you DinOr and they are not misdirected.
When certain bloggers compare Obama to Hitler and Stalin, they have lost the argument.
Stalin was a heinous evil man directly responsible for the deaths of 20-30 million people. To directly compare Stalin to anyone of a lesser stature diminishes the magnitude atrocities Stalin committed and is disingenuous to the memories of his victims.
Amen Brother Skip. Just like you hear the word “holocaust” thrown around for things that pale in significance next to a concerted effort to erradicate a people from Europe. “Nazi” is another word that’s been done to death.
While I’m not particularly a fan of Obama, I can’t see him as Stalin. He just sort of depresses me. No flip, just flop.
I pretty much tune him out. Has anyone seen the infomercial/commercial for that shill financial rescue company on TV? They took some footage of Obama bloviating about the financial meltdown, with stock market crawls at the bottom of the screen, and then used him as the background for their pitch.
And that said it all for me.
I pretty much tune
himyou out.Aw, c’mon, DD, ya know I loves ya, didn’t mean to piss you off, I really enjoy your posts and opinions and stuff. Read my post below, I wuz just gassing off and shouldn’t have been so mean about the guy, OK? Friends? I posted the Charles Hugh Smith link fer ya….
I wuz just gassing off
See, I knew it, methane gas already.And we aren’t even at a HBB meet up.
DD,
Well, it’s getting easier and easier to tune it ‘all’ out with each passing day? And not just BO. It doesn’t stop there.
Right now I’m much more focused on what’s going on at the -local- level! I probably can’t do much to salvage healthcare or illegal immigration, but I CAN do something when I see local builders tanking smaller banks and then re-inventing themselves in a matter of months!
‘That’ is something we should all be jumping up and down about. But you know what, everyone and I DO mean ‘everyone’ is absolutely fatigued over this! They’ve watched their own equity erode and they figure “If a few of us “get over on the system” well, then good for them!”
Seriously, that IS the mentality out there. They’re just too tired to fight it any more. A lot like WE were a year or so back?
Oh I agree, Dinor.
Everyone is fatigued to the max and the local pols are a rotten bunch to ie: mary bonomack, like the ones in your area too.
It seems that locally there isn’t any real ‘clean up’.
Good luck with your area. Mine is shot. Not to belabor a point, but when Arnie was running for office, he came out here to raise $ at The Vintage country club($$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$) and was asked in the paper why he wasn’t meeting and greeting.
His response “this district always votes R”.
So to another earlier post, the majority of the citizens in the 54th district always vote against their best interests.
This district since the early 60s ie Art Linkletters retirement villages have wealthy senior retirees who MANY times vote R.
And that is what we call Snowbirds.
If you and your buds here were bicycles, you would all be Unicycles.
You’re right, DD, that was a horribly vicious thing for me to say.
I just wish the guy would stop propitiating to everyone and everything.
And then sometimes I feel desperately sorry for the guy. I know this may come as a shock, and I’m sure it will get a lot of “Don’t feel sorry for Obamas”, but sometimes he just makes me feel sad, pore lil’ jug-eared feller. I’m sure he’s got feelings, but they must be so blocked, probably have to be. I mean, first there was his crusading moonbat of a mother who dragged him all over to hell and gone, until his grandparents took him in. Then there was that book “Dreams from My Father”, which was a desperate plea for love from a deceased abusive bigamist who couldn’t have cared less. I think the poor guy has been humping to please all his life and the song continues. That he’s president makes it a bit complicated. As an individual, if he chooses to propitiate to foreign rulers, that’s his business. But leave me out of it.
It’s like the guy tried sooo hard and finally gets to be prez, now he’s got to find someone to hand over the prize (US) to, for a pat on the head and few kind words.
I’ll bet he doesn’t get many kind words from Rahm. Whew, I’d like to be a fly on the wall for THOSE conversations.
The kind of expectations people had for Obama never cease to amaze me. No President can rule by decree and no single individual has the power or authority to singlehandedly fix whole categories of problems that have built up over years. The real problem is that tens of millions of Americans refuse to take responsibility for their own poor choices or try to do the right thing even when it costs them.
+1
The real problem is that tens of millions of Americans refuse to take responsibility for their own poor choices or try to do the right thing even when it costs them.
+++bazillion.
Goes for the PTB too.
I’m no fan of Obama, but some of the demonizing is ridiculous. Comparisons to Hitler and Stalin? Grow up.
I agree. It really is tiresome of all these statement comparing Obama to Stalin and Hitler. The sad part is the Dems did the exact same thing to Bush. I guess it is easy to call our elected leaders name than to work at ways to solve real problems.
Patriot Act 1 & 2?
Wiretapping without court order?
Department of Homeland Defense? (that must have been a mistake. I’m pretty sure they meant “Der Fatherland Dept of Defense”)
Not exactly holding up that ol’ Constitution is it?
So while Ol Bammy may not be moving fast enough for some of you all on the economic front, he is trying to get you your rights back by undoing all the above… which took away ALL of your rights. Most people I know can’t chew gum and walk at the same time, let alone walk, chew gum, juggle plates, while hopping on one foot, on a tight wire, in a rainstorm, while trying to text.
Don’t even get me started on all the disasters Bush left behind.
+ 10 bazillion!
Halifax earnings fall 80 percent.
Washington Business Journal
Government information technology contractor Halifax Corp., which lost its AMEX listing last month, reported a drop in sales and earnings that plunged more than 80 percent. The company attributed the results to the end of several large maintenance contracts.
Alexandria-based Halifax had fiscal second-quarter net income of $44,000, or 1 cent per share, compared with $227,000, or 7 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago. Revenue was $7.6 million, down from $8.9 million.
Halifax remains “reasonably optimistic looking forward, given the pressure in the maintenance service marketplace and the economic environment in general.” said CEO Charles McNew.
Halifax (Pink Sheets: HALX) was warned in March that it no longer met requirements for an AMEX listing after its shareholder equity fell below the minimum $4 million. The 42-year-old company was unable to regain compliance.
Orleans Furniture Company to close.
MARION COUNTY, MS - A mainstay of Marion County business is closing its doors at the end of the week.
Orleans Furniture Company will be shutting down its manufacturing facility, resulting in the loss of 75 jobs.
Company CEA Ed Marshall said the company can no longer compete with foreign markets. He said the furniture business is normally the first affected by a recession and the last to come out of it.
Marshall said the company will retain 20-25 employees to help run the import side of the business.
wmbz,
Well if you can’t beat ‘em..?
This is my big fear. Had the economy began it’s recovery ( assuming you’re buyin’ ‘that’? ) a little sooner, they ‘may’ have had a shot at surviving!
I would hate to be the last carcass found just yards away from the watering hole?
Millions will have to repay part of tax credit
By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press Writer 24 mins ago
WASHINGTON – More than 15 million taxpayers could unexpectedly owe taxes when they file their federal returns next spring because the government was too generous with their new Making Work Pay tax credit.
Taxpayers are at risk if they have more than one job, are married and both spouses work, or receive Social Security benefits while also earning taxable wages, according to a report Monday by the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration.
The tax credit, which is supposed to pay individuals up to $400 and couples up to $800, was President Barack Obama’s signature tax break in the massive stimulus package enacted in February.
Most workers started receiving the credit through small increases in their paychecks in April. The tax credit was made available through new withholding tables issued by the Internal Revenue Service.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091116/ap_on_bi_ge/us_tax_credit_pickle
GM reports $1.2B loss, says it shows progress
By TOM KRISHER and DEE-ANN DURBIN, AP Auto Writers
DETROIT – General Motors Co. said Monday it lost $1.2 billion from the time it left bankruptcy protection through Sept. 30, far better than it has reported in previous quarters and a sign that the auto giant is starting to turn around its business.
The company also said it will begin repaying $6.7 billion in U.S. government loans with a $1.2 billion payment in December. It plans to repay the debt over the next eight quarters, but could pay it back as early as next year. But the money will come from funds loaned by the government.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091116/ap_on_bi_ge/us_earns_gm/print
Is this for real?
Am I reading this correctly… the money to pay back the loans from the government will come from… loans from the government????
Ai yi yi
“Is this for real”?
Sadly yes! Even more pathetic is the fact that so many are reporting this sham as good news.
Gubmint motors, need more be said.
“But the money will come from funds loaned by the government.”
This is truly funny to me, because it shows the government is learning from private enterprise.
Many of the banks are still listing CRE loans as “performing” when it is very obvious they will take a bath on those loans. The reason they are performing is that the borrower is still making payments out of “reserves”; in other words, the interest payments are coming out of a portion of the loan proceeds that were designated for making the loan payments from day-one when the loan was written.
So the loans perform perfectly, right up until the “reserves” are depleted, and then go into default instantly.
The GM loan looks remarkably similar to that…
For the drinkers in our crowd.. line up for a sip?
Drilling for Scotch whiskey on frozen continent
WELLINGTON, New Zealand – A beverage company has asked a team to drill through Antarctica’s ice for a lost cache of some vintage Scotch whiskey that has been on the rocks since a century ago.
The drillers will be trying to reach two crates of McKinlay and Co. whiskey that were shipped to the Antarctic by British polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton as part of his abandoned 1909 expedition.
Whyte & Mackay, the drinks group that now owns McKinlay and Co., has asked for a sample of the 100-year-old scotch for a series of tests that could decide whether to relaunch the now-defunct Scotch.
Workers from New Zealand’s Antarctic Heritage Trust will use special drills to reach the crates, frozen in Antarctic ice under the Nimrod Expedition hut near Cape Royds.
Al Fastier, who will lead the expedition in January, said restoration workers found the crates of whiskey under the hut’s floorboards in 2006. At the time, the crates and bottles were too deeply embedded in ice to be dislodged.
The New Zealanders have agreed to try to retrieve some bottles, although the rest must stay under conservation guidelines agreed by 12 Antarctic Treaty nations.
Fastier said he did not want to sample the contents.
“It’s better to imagine it than to taste it,” he said. “That way it keeps its mystery.”
Richard Paterson, Whyte & Mackay’s master blender, said the Shackleton expedition’s whiskey could still be drinkable and taste exactly as it did 100 years ago.
If he can get a sample, he intends to replicate the old Scotch and put McKinlay whiskey back on sale.
“I really hope we can get some back here,” he was quoted as telling London’s Telegraph newspaper. “It’s been laying there lonely and neglected. It should come back to Scotland where it was born.
“Even if most of the bottles have to remain in Antarctica for historic reasons, it would be good if we could get a couple,” Paterson said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091116/ap_on_fe_st/as_odd_new_zealand_antarctic_whiskey
That’s like in the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” where the generators ran out of fuel but they still managed to drudge up some 12-year-old Scotch to die with…
One of the coolest things I’ve ever thought to do was to freeze some anhydrous ethanol (using liquid nitrogen), then set the resultant alcohol ice cube on fire.
From John Chachas’ paper on “The Economy”. He’s running for Congress in Nevada. Good luck Lavi.
Fixing the housing crisis underpins fix the economy
The tepid response to the massive contraction in housing prices, with Las Vegas leading the nation, must be redressed with a bolder and better approach for supporting people on the verge of foreclosure, or walking away from their homes.
The bipartisan consensus in Washington is that the only way to find our way out of this crisis is to modify loans and attempt to keep homeowners in their properties by offsetting the additional costs to financial institutions through federal subsidies. The reality is that less than 3% of seriously delinquent loans actually received a modification under the current approach.
Instead, Chachas favors:
1) Establish a Federally Chartered Home Mortgage Guarantee Agency where the government could help lend to homeowner capital so they can pay down part of their primary mortgage. This facility would help reduce monthly carrying costs for a prolonged period, but not be debt forgiveness. By simply renegotiating the terms of the mortgage it further hurts the lender and often times delays the inevitable.
2) First time homebuyers should be required to put more money down for a real estate transaction funded with any form of mortgage thus reversing irresponsible legislation creating “free” money and “no money down” loans which exploded during the Clinton administration.
3) Subsidize a more streamlined process to accelerate the recycling of empty housing inventory into the hands of qualified buyers.
Forget Your Inflation Fears, Think About Investing for a Deflationary Environment.
Nov 16, 2009 Investing, Products and Trends, Recession.
With prices rising for many goods including food, fuel, gold and stocks, many market watchers are chanting: beware of inflation!
But not our guest Gary Shilling, president of A. Gary Shiling & Co. “I see a world of excess supply,” says Shilling, author of the popular INSIGHT newsletter. “I see that over the next decade.”
Many signs point toward deflationary pressures, according to Shilling: Advances in technology boosting productivity, globalization and weak demand for goods as Americans save more. All these factors are likely to build inventory and trim about 1.5% off real U.S. GDP growth annually, he says.
So what should an investor buy in a deflationary environment? Shilling’s strategy includes preferring:
* High quality bonds and Treasuries
* Dividend payers like utilities
* Small luxury goods
* The dollar. “I think the dollar is in for a substantial rally,” he says.
* Consumer staples and food
* Health Care
And what to avoid? His list includes:
* Commodities
* Big-ticket consumer purchases
* Emerging market stocks, bonds
* Antiques, art and other “alternative investments”
* Commercial real estate
* Home-builders
* Junk bonds
Nice post wmbz….
After he said he thinks “the dollar could be in for a substantial rally,” he lost me after that.
Is it going to rally after we trim the deficit, raise interest rates and cut gubmint? Don’t stand on one foot waiting for those things to happen including a long term dollar rally.
I’ll agree with him on the utilities, but the rest of the list is horse hockey.
Deutsche Bank Drowning in Vegas on Costliest Bank-Owned Casino.
Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) — Deutsche Bank AG’s Cosmopolitan Resort & Casino complex in Las Vegas, already the most expensive debacle in the city for a single lender, is now two years behind schedule, $2 billion over budget and under water — literally.
Deutsche Bank, the resort’s owner since it foreclosed on developer Ian Bruce Eichner last year, requires 24-hour pumps and containment walls after workers hit an aquifer below the Nevada desert floor. It’s another challenge for a project whose delays and redesigns have sparked lawsuits from condominium buyers and sales agents amid record declines in Las Vegas’s gambling revenue, home prices and hotel-room bookings.
The German bank’s foray into the heart of the U.S. gambling industry, where it’s also a lender to bankrupt Station Casinos Inc. and the unfinished Fontainebleau, looms as an “impending disaster,” casino magnate Stephen Wynn said on a conference call with analysts last month. Wynn, who presides over the Wynn and Encore Las Vegas resorts, built the Bellagio next door to the Cosmopolitan.
Deutsche Bank took over the project after Eichner defaulted on a $760 million loan last year. The Frankfurt-based lender hired Related Cos., the developer of New York’s Time Warner Center, to oversee construction of the development’s two high- rise condominium and hotel towers, resort and casino. Cosmopolitan sits on 8.5 acres between the 76-acre Bellagio, MGM Mirage’s most profitable resort, and CityCenter, the firm’s newest development, packed on 67 acres.
Interesting, well, sad and, interesting.
I guess I just assumed that when putting that kind of money at risk, sufficient reasearch would have been done -prior- to drilling etc? I realize it’s not an exact science by any means but wouldn’t some ground penetrating radar been in order here?
Another sign of the boom times, the simple act of borrowing the money was enough to ensure success, details be damned!
An aquifer below the Nevada desert? I would think that would be worth a small fortune.
articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/HomebuyingGuide/weston-stop-acting-rich-start-getting-rich.aspx
The neighborhood in which we live influences a lot of our spending. The more expensive the house, the bigger the mortgage tends to be, and the more we’ll spend on heating, cooling, insuring and maintaining the place.
But we also feel pressure to match our neighbors’ spending on cars, vacations, furnishings and other trappings.
The “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality means the fancier the neighborhood, the less wealth we may accumulate, Stanley said. The opposite is also true: When our surroundings are more modest, we tend to spend less, regardless of our incomes.
Most millionaires have just one house. Many people associate a second or vacation home with having arrived. In Stanley’s surveys, though, 64% of millionaires had never owned a second home. The net worth of second-home buyers at the height of the real-estate boom was actually considerably lower: a median of about $380,000, Stanley estimated.
Houses cost a lot to run and maintain. Stanley postulates that money-savvy millionaires find one home to be enough and prefer not to pour money into a property they may not use often — or might feel pressured to use more often than they want to.
“The propensity to spend,” Stanley said, “is directly related to the typical home price in that neighborhood and to the price you paid for the house.”
Interestingly, most of the people Stanley surveyed who lived in $1 million-plus homes weren’t millionaires.
“They may have a big mortgage,” Stanley said. “They don’t have a lot of money.”
In fact, Stanley found that three times as many millionaires live in homes worth $300,000 or less than live in homes worth $1 million or more.
“People who have a tendency to accumulate wealth live in neighborhoods that are easy to live in,” Stanley said. “That’s a hallmark of an accumulator.”
The Millionaire Next Door. Good post.
Reminds me to look at properties in less ostentatious environs ie: not gated is a start.
Just like FPSS says: one’s primary residence is a liability, just like one’s car and one’s underwear.
It depends. For some people the right kind of underwear can provide very good dividends.
Tee hee, packman. You so right.
Stanley and Danko rock!
I noted they said most millionaires only have one house. Why leave another house vacant (vacation home) and pay double the utilities?
The only downside to living well below your means is that you are living among people who stretched their burger flipping budget to get even there!
Perhaps we’ll get this also, something else to cause the bed-wetters to panic…
WORLD NEWS
MILLION HIT BY ‘PLAGUE WORSE THAN SWINE FLU’
A DEADLY plague could sweep across Europe, doctors fear, after an outbreak of a virus in Ukraine plunged the country and its neighbours into a state of panic.
A cocktail of three flu viruses are reported to have mutated into a single pneumonic plague, which it is believed may be far more dangerous than swine flu. The death toll has reached 189 and more than 1 million people have been infected, most of them in the nine regions of Western Ukraine.
President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko has called in the World Health Organisation and a team of nine specialists are carrying out tests in Kiev and Lviv to identify the virus. Samples have been sent to London for analysis.
President Yushchenko said: “People are dying. The epidemic is killing doctors. This is absolutely inconceivable in the 21st Century.”
President Yushchenko said: “People are dying. The epidemic is killing doctors. This is absolutely inconceivable in the 21st Century.”
Without looking deeper (yet) - that statement doesn’t pass the sniff test. Thousands of people die every year to the common flu even in first-world countries. I’m sure many of them are doctors.
So yes - it’s very conceivable, and nothing extraordinary. If they’re going to make Chicken Little statements - at least state something that’s unique about the virus - something to truly be worried about.
One day someone is going to let Captain Tripps out then?
“President Yushchenko said: “People are dying. The epidemic is killing doctors. This is absolutely inconceivable in the 21st Century.””
“One day someone is going to let Captain Tripps out then?”
In the 21st century Mother Nature may very well decide that one species is grossly overpopulated and do something about it. Or a lab deep in a mountain may accidently release something that kills 99.9996% of us. (I think the former is more likely.) Anyone who isn’t mentally prepared for a major outbreak is in denial about how harsh nature can be. A leader of a country that can’t see this possibility is not going to be able to react well when it happens.
Personally, I think that’s why there’s always a “Swine Flu Crisis” or other such nonsense going on. It’s not so much they are trying to scare us, it’s just that a big, bad disease WILL happen someday and they want to be able to say they told us this could happen.
PS The Stand - still my favorite King novel of all time!
Dead Zone and The Stand are my favorites by Stephen King.
It amuses me to see the Fear Channels hyping H1N1 and all these other deadly pandemics allegedly percolating out there. 189 dead in Ukraine? Forty thousand a year die in the US every year from seasonal flu strains. OH MY GOD WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE! But probably not from a flu epidemic.
OH MY GOD WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!
The end is coming.
President Yushchenko is in a little bit of a political situation…can not afford a war (with say Granada), do not have any legal/illegals to pick on….so for diversion how about a Super Flu.
Charge-offs down, delinquencies up at Capital One
Washington Business Journal
Monthly delinquency and charge-off numbers at Capital One Financial Corp. were a mixed bag in October, the company reported Monday.
On its domestic cards, McLean-based Capital One’s (NYSE: COF) largest sector, the company posted net charge-offs of $460.2 million, an annualized rate of 9.04 percent. That is better than September’s numbers when the company posted $508.4 million in charge-offs, or 9.77 percent.
Domestic card loans at least 30 days delinquent rose in October to 5.72 percent from 5.38 percent in September.
The company’s auto finance charge-offs slipped to 4.32 percent from 4.58 percent a month prior, and loans at least 30 days delinquent dropped to 9.3 percent from 9.52 percent.
Charge-offs rose on international credit card loans to 9.49 percent from 9.24 percent in September. Delinquencies in that sector also nudged higher to 6.67 percent from 6.63 percent.
Bernanke: it is not obvious U.S. assets overpriced relative to value.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aWUYwayGaJc4&pos=2
“It is inherently extraordinarily difficult to know whether an asset’s price is in line with its fundamental value,” he said today in response to audience questions after a speech in New York. “It’s not obvious to me in any case that there’s any large misalignments currently in the U.S. financial system.”
He’s got to be kidding. The stock P/E is at 18 based on an optimistic projection of next year’s earnings, and bond yields are on the floor with just one way to go.
“The best approach here if at all possible is to use supervisory and regulatory methods to restrain undue risk-taking and to make sure the system is resilient in case an asset-price bubble bursts in the future.”
This was the first place I read “another bubble is inflating before our eyes” as stock prices took off. That view was all over the financial press the last week. But people are still buying because each of them thinks they can get out first.
And then we’ll check for “resilience.”
He’s got to be kidding. The stock P/E is at 18 based on an optimistic projection of next year’s earnings, and bond yields are on the floor with just one way to go.
Actually a P/E ratio of 18 isn’t bad… normally. Typical range is between 10 and 25, with an average just over 16.
I say “normally” though, because that’s using a 10-year running average of earnings. But the 10-year running average of earnings is quite high right now, due to the bubble. Inflation-adjusted earnings averages 23, but the past 10 years has averaged 56.
(using Case/Shiller data)
So - if earnings themselves remain low - with the 10-year average coming back to “normal”, then P/E will continue to go up to 36 even if the stock market stays flat. 36 of course is indeed bubble territory.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people’s initiative and independence.
You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.~
Thanks!
Tell this to Polly, Measton, and Exeter now.
But you CAN help Ben by hitting the little donate button above!
LOL. Amen to that.
Nice bucolic bull$hit. That homespun imbecility works sometimes I see.
You cannot help the poor by letting the rich do as they please.
You cannot strengthen the weak by letting the strong do as they please.
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift… so that the spending makes your business prosper.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by the wage payer do as they please.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. So LET THEM EAT CAKE!
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people’s initiative and independence… unless you’re the boss.
You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves. But since the reality is that they won’t, that the strong and rich prey upon the weak and poor, rules and regulations have to be enacted and enforced.
Do you believe in candy crappin’ unicorns(tm)?
Hell no!
+1 trillion +/-
You cannot
help the poor bydestroyingthe rich.You cannot
strengthen the weak byweakeningthe strong.You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot
lift the wage earner up bypullingthe wage payer down with these lack of regulations.You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people’s initiative and independence.
You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.~ Unless of course you steal it from them because you could ie: GS & WS.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
And how is a tax system where the top 1% pay at least as much in taxes as I do destroying them?
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
Redundant
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
Agree, but our tax system does not do this. CEO’s and Hedgefund managers arrange their salary to be paid in the form of dividends capital gains, insurance contracts, jets, housing, low cost loans and thus pay a much lower effective tax rate than I do. The federal reserve does this via inflation, Wall Street does this by manipulating markets, and out Gov has done this by not doing it’s duty with regard to creating a level playing field with defined rules that are enforced.
You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down.
And our current health care system hurts the wage payer that has to provide insurance from companies that strip 22-24 cents of every health care dollar. Think of how much of a small busines owners time is wasted trying to figure out which insurance plan they should use. I’ve seen employers switch every year or two in an attempt to save money. Many of the things that you view as pulling the wage payer down actually help the economy by creating a middle class, and actually help many wage payers if they bothered to look at the big picture.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
Trust me the class hatred that is felt in America right now is well deserved. You don’t think Wall Street deserves a little hatred????
You cannot build character and courage by taking away people’s initiative and independence.
Nor can you by taking away opportunities, and the chance for upward mobility. You can’t build courage and character if you allow monopolies and oligopolies to crush small business.
You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.~
Agree 110%. I would do away with Welfare and unemployment, but I would provide gov jobs that pay just enough to put food on the table and training. It would require people to show up and work, but would pay the bare minimum. The longer you are on the program the harder/uglier your job gets. If there are no public jobs people won’t be able to do for themselves, so without some form of income to survive they will break into homes, and rob people just as I would do if my family was facing starvation.
In the ’90s and ’00s the newspapers were full of stories about what a great place America was. Its economy was so dynamic…its entrepreneurs were so clever…its financial system was so highly evolved and flexible. What could go wrong?
Everything!
And now we’re going to read a lot of claptrap about what an awful place it is.
“The American dream needs repair,” is forerunner of the genre. In today’s Financial Times, it focuses on the rigidities of the US system. The time was when a young American could start at the bottom and work his way up. Luck and pluck was all that it took. But now, according to scholars at the Brookings Institution, people stay put. If you’re born poor in America you’re more likely to stay poor than if you had been born poor in Britain, Denmark, Sweden or dozens of other countries.
What happened? The authors do not say. So we will. Success breeds failure. As a society becomes rich, more and more people find ways to game the system. The elite get tax credits, tariffs, and protective regulations. Every layer of bureaucracy makes it harder for new competitors to get ahead. And every new tax on income makes it harder for upstarts to join the ranks of the rich. The poor get their parasitic benefits too. Welfare, unemployment compensation, child tax credits, medicare, food stamps, social security - all of these programs give the poor an incentive to stay poor.
~ Excerpt: From The Daily Reckoning
They missed a key set of quotation marks:
What happened? The authors do not say. So we will. Success breeds failure. As a society becomes “rich“, more and more people find ways to game the system.
I already got roasted over this. A bunch of studdies have shown that Welfare and charity encourage dependance or for people to make poor decisions. So, we are getting a lot more of those.
From the top end we are creating more and more debt. The debt holders, the rich, are getting richer collecting interest. The middle class is the ones primarily eroded by this.
So, there is less posibility for social movement.
A lot of the tax the snot out of the middle class to pay for the lazy and bad decision makers, really marginalizes the value of your work. Your taxes go up and your seperation goes down. Eventually you quit.
Similarly the thing we are paid with, wages, have been getting crushed with respect to assets. Be they stocks or house prices.
That is the other part of stability the Fed is trying to sell as a good thing.
I have to agree James. Welfare for corporations just makes them dependent and entitled.
“Empire of Debt” by the guys who run the Daily Reckoning site is one of my favorite books.
Note: From my 82 year old father…
Mediocre writers sometimes take an entire essay or book to make their point. Good ones, like publisher Bill Bonner, can do it in a sentence or two.
“All paper currencies eventually go to their intrinsic value, which is zero. And gold always goes to its traditional value too - at a level where a man can take an ounce of it and get himself a suit of clothes, about 30 bottles of good whisky…one horse…or a trip across the Atlantic in economy class.”
< We say again, we don’t recommend gold as an “investment.” That is, a device for making a profit. However, it is a helluva fine store of value.
We came bawling into the scene in the late 1920s when 100 ounces of gold would buy a lovely little cottage. At the Monday afternoon price of gold 100 ounces today would buy a little $114,000.00 house.
Which is the better store of value…gold or paper?
FWIW - one thing about gold is that it’s highly manipulatable. For instance I had a coin dealer tell me once that in 1934 after possession was made illegal that some people actually threw their gold coins in the trash. If so, of course that was a really stupid thing, but then there are a lot of really stupid people out there. Key point being that gold’s value swings wildly - even across decades. In 1974 it was worth the same as it was 40 years before, thus certainly didn’t come close to maintaining its value. However of course 6 years later it was worth over 20 times more, but then 20 years later back down to 40% of its 1980 value, while inflation was up 120%.
Point being - it’s a dangerous game. It’s not inconceivable for the government to make gold illegal again - not sure what excuse they could use since we’re off the gold standard, but I’ll bet they could find one. If that happened, the price would plummet overnight. Of course - that might be the exact purpose.
Anyhow - I always take the “store of value” thing with a grain of salt. While that’s true over the period of hundreds of years, not so much over the period of just a few years or even decades.
I hope that someone from this board looked at SWC, as I suggested a few days ago. Huge move over the last few days. I do own gold stocks but I think that palladium, platinum and silver bullion and stocks are better since in the modern era these are more useful metals.
World’s stupidest idea. I can take all of his usual nonsense but htis absolutely infuriating. Does the craziness ever end?
Frank floats loan plan for unemployed homeowners
By Michelle R. Smith
Associated Press Writer / November 16, 2009
FALL RIVER, Mass.—Rep. Barney Frank is floating a proposal to use the interest the government collects from the TARP bailout to give loans to unemployed homeowners struggling to pay the mortage.
Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Monday at appearances in Fall River and New Bedford that the plan would help people who’ve lost their jobs keep their homes by giving them federal loans until they get another job.
The lack of a way to help jobless homeowners has been identified as a weakness in the Obama administration’s plan to tackle the mortgage crisis. A recent report by a Congressional oversight panel said the $50 billion program “was not designed to address foreclosures caused by unemployment,” now the main cause of default.
A Treasury Department spokeswoman declined to comment on Monday.
Give me a break!!!!!
“Rep. Barney Frank is floating a proposal to use the interest the government collects from the TARP bailout to give loans to unemployed homeowners struggling to pay the mortage”.
Yep, slobbering Barney going after votes, the old slut is one of many examples in the D.C. cesspool that are twisting the system into an unrecognizable distortion that will break this country.
This came out a few months ago, didn’t it?
As opposed to floating loans to financial corporations with mark-to-fantasy Level 3 “assests?”
Not that either should happen. But hey! Good for the goose, good for the gander, right?
Personhood for corps needs to be shot down/reversed, & removed.
b.i.n.g.o.
Public Assistance Recipients Behaving Badly:
Mich. caseworkers worry about threats from clients
By DAVID EGGERT (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
November 16, 2009 4:46 PM EST
LANSING, Mich. - One frustrated client hurled a piece of concrete through the window of a welfare agency. Another threw her car keys at a welfare worker before being escorted away. At one point, a woman on public assistance even took a swing at a worker.
As Michigan struggles with the highest-in-the-nation jobless rate, state workers who deal with unemployment, welfare and other aid programs say they have never been so overwhelmed - or so worried about their safety. Some clients have begun taking their anger out on the very people who are offering help. And caseworkers are seeking extra protection.
Looks like there is a different class of welfare recipient entering the system.
Yeah the ones that lost their underground job…now what?
Nothing worse than lowlifes with a sense of entitlement.
“Some clients have begun taking their anger out on the very people who are offering help. And caseworkers are seeking extra protection.”
Oh well, just tell them that they have to wait; that everybody in Government is still busy cleaning up the mess Bush left behind. That should settle their hash.
Have you tried the new “Muchelle” flavor hope and change???
Seems to me Greenspan engineered this catastrophe. Clinton and Bush of course supported him. Reminds me of the treasurer in OC a few years back who bankrupted Orange County with the same shenanigans on a smaller scale. Unfortunately, Obama seems little different in actual actions than Bush. He does get a lot of credit for what he says though. He says peace — da da Nobel peace price. He says credit card reform and everyones rates go up 10% da da — he enacted credit card reform. IMO all of these cretins should be tried and convicted, but then I am no longer a citizen, but rather just a worthless consumer with no credit or cash left right?
It never ceases to amaze me how people seem to think that desperate, hungry people should just fade out of sight.
Let them eat cake, I suppose.
And herein is precisely the reason ol’ Barney is proposing helping the unemployed stay housed.
What’s Kept the Rally Going? Investor Fear, Not Confidence
November 16, 2009
As strange as it might seem, the eight-month-old stock rally may just keep going because so many investors still think it won’t last.
Investment advisors say clients continue to view stocks with hesitancy and skepticism-a vestige of the panic that swept through the markets just a year ago. But that fear, ironically, has kept stocks from going up too far, too fast-allowing the market to move gradually higher as investors creep timidly back into stocks.
“We’re seeing a lot of evidence that they’re buying this rally with a lot of apprehension,”says Richard Sparks, senior analyst at Schaeffer’s Investment Research in Cincinnati. “We would interpret that pessimism and apprehension in a positive way.”
As major indexes continue to reach fresh highs-the crossing Monday of 1100 on the Standard & Poor’s 500 marks the latest hurdle-conviction that the rally can keep going builds.
“The buying’s not getting out of hand. The more controlled a rally is, the more sustainable it is,” says Sparks, who expects small- and mid-cap technology to lead the market. “At least in terms of earnings and the economic numbers that are coming out, I would expect we should see a strong, steady rally to continue through at least year’s end.”
Market watchers are eyeing a few key milestones coming up as tests for the rest of 2009, a year that began with freefalling stocks and looks to end with a better than 60 percent rally.
Simple - they’re not betting for recovery, they’re betting against the dollar.
It’s why everything that can be bought with dollars and re-sold later - stocks, houses, gold, oil, treasuries, other currencies, etc. are going up in price. The only things not going up in price fast are consumables; i.e. things that can’t be later resold without significant inherent depreciation - cars, food, etc.
Meredith Whitney talking gloom and doom on CNBC today. She is a breath of fresh air.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/33972133?__source=RSS*tag*&par=RSS
She is right on target, IMO. There is a down draft heading our way in the not to distant future.
“The us consumer was going through the greatest credit contraction ever - even bigger than that during the Great Depression. ‘That credit contraction is accelerating’, she said. ‘There’s nowhere to hide at this point.’”
This “greatest credit contraction ever” for the US consumer spells doom for those whose jobs are heavily dependent on consumer spending…
…of which a mere seventy-percent-plus of our economy is based on.
Hey didn’t you get the CIT memo? You know, the one that says we don’t consumers in a 75% consumer driven economy?
You can google it.
“…don’t need…”
Dang it!
The pilot came on and said, ladies and gentlmen we have lost two of our three engines. A worried passenger tuned to the man next to him and asked, how far can this plane fly on one engine? The man next to him replied, all the way to the scene of the crash. We should be there about twenty minutes before the fire department.
Postal Service reports $3.8 billion loss.
Agency continues to lose money despite $10 billion in cost-cutting measures. Mail volume drops by 25 billion pieces in the fiscal year.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The U.S. Postal Service reported a $3.8 billion loss in the 2009 fiscal year, despite $10 billion in cost-cutting measures.
During the year ended Sept. 30, the cash-strapped agency cut 40,000 jobs, but still employs over 712,000 people. Those cuts, combined with reduced overtime hours and lower transportation-related costs, shaved $6 billion in expenses.
Additionally, the USPS reduced the payments it made for retiree health benefits by $4 billion.
This is the third year in a row that the agency has posted a loss. The USPS, which lost $2.8 billion in fiscal 2008, and $5 billion in 2007, is a self-supporting government agency that receives no tax dollars. It relies solely on the sale of postage and products and services to generate sales.
Ah the good ol postal service! And we expect government to reduce the cost of health insurance? Only Pollyanna government fans believe the Pelosi/Reid/Frank/Obama BS.
What I find humorous is that Prez.Barry used USPS as an example of a poorly run gubmint organization, several months ago. I am sure sickness care won’t be though, they’ll get their sh!t together and it will be very efficient! Riiiiiiiight.
I wonder if the USPS has looked into bulk rate deals they give to advertisers? While I partly understand the argument behind bulk rates, at the same time it almost seems like the USPS is offering subsidized postage to advertisers - many of them big banks and insurance companies. Maybe those breaks are no longer in the best interest of the USPS and advertisers should have to pay the full rate like everyone else?
The fate of our economy hardly hangs on the fate of junk mail. Junk mail that takes the same amount of resources to move as a kid’s letter to Santa.
Not “seems.” Are. And have been for decades.
Not really, it is a lot more effective to mail 10000 letters to a single zip code with CASS certified bar coded letters than to mail a letter to the north pole with poorly handwritten child’s writing.
I reckon the post office could be closed - every time I email an invoice to a customer I do them out of their 44 cents … I do a lot of bulk mail, which is the cash cow of the USPS, but the folks at the bulk mail office said it is dead now …
As Dinor and I were haggling over technological changes from the 70s = jobs vs. now = email.. you see, Trade jobs are basically a thing of the past due to offshoring, technology and there was that indian lady at the end of the phone today reading from a script..
No more jobs here. Just look away, keep walking. Nothing to see here.
Missouri needs 444,183 new jobs, Kansas 23,866, U.S. Chamber says
Kansas City Business Journal.
Missouri needs to create 444,183 jobs in the next decade to make up for jobs lost in the current recession, and Kansas needs to create 23,866 jobs, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The chamber said Monday that it has launched a campaign called “American Free Enterprise. Dream Big” to highlight the need to create 20 million jobs nationwide in the next decade. The organization said the nation needs to restore some 7 million jobs lost in the current recession and create 13 million new jobs needed in the next decade.
The national organization is holding a series of events across the country to promote the multiyear campaign, which aims to support free enterprise through advertising; grass roots advocacy; citizen, community and youth engagement; and research and ideas leadership.
Campaign officials said they expect to develop a set of policy objectives that probably will include keeping tax and regulations at a reasonable level, doubling exports within five years and investing in innovation.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, based in Washington, is the world’s largest business federation, representing more than 3 million businesses and organizations.
“Dream Big”
“‘Cause you ain’t gonna like reality.”
So instead of actually creating jobs, they’re going to spend money talking about creating jobs.
And that my friends is why we are where we are and, barring a miracle, we’re ultimately doomed.
representing more than 3 million businesses and organizations.
Perhaps many fewer than reported.
The US chamber hasn’t done our jobs industry any good at all. Just a mouthpiece for corporate non-regulation.
Amelia Island Plantation files for bankruptcy
Amelia Island Plantation resort said it will continue to operate while it reorganizes under Chapter 11 bankruptcy, aided by an investment deal with residents of the island.
…
The company said it would not have sufficient cash to meet its Nov. 20 payroll without access to a debtor-in-possession loan facility. It employs more than 825, down 275 positions from its staffing level prior to the recession.
Jax Biz Journal
More than one in seven American households struggled to put enough food on the table in 2008, the highest rate since the Agriculture Department began tracking food security levels in 1995.
That’s about 49 million people, or 14.6 percent of U.S. households. The numbers are a significant increase from 2007, when 11.1 percent of U.S. households suffered from what USDA classifies as “food insecurity” — not having enough food for an active, healthy lifestyle.
Researchers blamed the increase in hunger on a lack of money and other resources.
President Barack Obama called the USDA’s findings “unsettling.” He noted that other indicators of hunger have gone up, such as the number of food stamp applications and the use of food banks. And he said his administration is committed to reversing the trend.
“The first task is to restore job growth, which will help relieve the economic pressures that make it difficult for parents to put a square meal on the table each day,” Obama said in a statement.
What’s shocking about this: “More than one in seven American households struggled to put enough food on the table in 2008″.
What’s stupid about this: “Researchers blamed the increase in hunger on a lack of money and other resources”.
What’s surreal about this: “The first task is to restore job growth, which will help relieve the economic pressures that make it difficult for parents to put a square meal on the table each day,” Obama said in a statement”.
Who would have thunk pouring good capital into failed TBTF institutions, together with ridiculous attempt to prop up non-productive assets like houses, and US dollar devaluation would lead to increasing hunger?
Let them eat houses! Le McMansion is so yummy!
Obama = “Law of unintended consequences”
Remind us again who initiated and finalized TARP?
Who told the FBI to not investigate mortgage fraud?
Who told the SEC to not look to closely at CDOs, derivitives, hedge funds and CDSs?
+100
George?
I am not sure what part of not liking Obama’s policies which appear to be salting the wounds of Bush policy makes me a Bush supporter. The problem is that these schmucks all take big corporate bribes in the form of campaign contributions and other “legal” lobbying interests, then thumb the American people for the interests of their corporate clients.
Right now we need a president who can steer us clear of the danger the last guy(s)? wrought upon us, and I do not see this happening with this administration. Obama had the opportunity and moral imperative to represent the people of the United States, but instead has continued the policies put in place by his predecessors and instead looks like the big bankers man, where Bush was the Oil guy.
What the hell? I thought the recession ended several months ago.
City Hall Orders $1.75B in Additional Budget Cuts…NYC.
Layoffs could be next as agencies must slash costs this year and next
Mon, Nov 16, 2009
Time to sharpen the budget knives — again. City Hall bean-counters have asked city agencies to make deep new cuts for this year and next — cuts which may include lay-offs.
Agencies have been asked for plans to cut $550 million from this year’s budget and between $1.2 billion from next years budget, NBCNewYork.com has learned. Uniformed agencies — cops and fireman — and the Department of Education will face a duller budget axe, with smaller cuts expected for this year and next.
But other city agencies will have to cut deeper, according to an Office Management and Budget memo obtained by NBCNewYork.com. The new cuts would come on top of $3-plus billion dollars in cuts already enacted by the cash-strapped city government.
Schools and uniformed agencies are expected to slice an additional 2 percent from their budgets for the Fiscal Year 2010, which started in July, while other agencies will have to make 4 percent cuts. It gets worse — or better, depending on your perspective — in 2011 as city schools and uniformed agencies will be asked to slice 4 percent and other agencies 8 percent.
Today’s news comes just moments before Albany lawmakers are scheduled to convene to address the state’s $3-billion budget deficit. The timing may not be a coincidence. So far there is no deal on how to close the state budget gap but state cuts could leave New York City at least an additional billion dollars in the hole.
Digging the city out of its looming budget crisis while preserving services is the most pressing challenge facing Mayor Bloomberg in a third term.
Post eating day.
He’s right I think, of course I also think this turd should have had a bullet put in his head long ago.
Paterson Rips White House For NYC 9/11 Trial
New York Governor Says Trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 4 Others In New York ‘A Decision I Would Not Have Made’
NEW YORK (CBS)
Gov. David Paterson openly criticized the White House on Monday, saying he thought it was a terrible idea to move alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspected terrorists to New York for trial.
“This is not a decision that I would have made. I think terrorism isn’t just attack, it’s anxiety and I think you feel the anxiety and frustration of New Yorkers who took the bullet for the rest of the country,” he said.
Paterson’s comments break with Democrats, who generally support the President’s decision.
Didn’t McVeigh get tried in OKC?
And 93 WTC bombers get tried in NYC?
Thanks for finding this out for me.
…alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed…”
I wonder if they’ll let this mastermind explain his reason for the 9/11 attacks through an interpreter in court, or will we be forced to digest a “professional talking head” version of why?