The Housing Bubble

What would Jesus do? Overturn the money-changers’ tables!

I can see that picture on the front of a Christmas card…

That’s what you’re gettin’ if you’re on my XMas list.

I’m not skeptical, we were put here by space travelers. Genesis for earth solved

———————————–
I reminded him that its one thing to be skeptical of the spontaneous appearance of life

In Colorado, what was your relative’s response?

Nobody ever questions the “spontaneous appearance” of God. And God is a much more complex entity than some single-cell organism.

I’m not skeptical, we were put here by space travelers. Genesis for earth solved
——————————————————————-
Yea, this is probably the galaxy’s prison planet.

“Yea, this is probably the galaxy’s prison planet.”

I haven’t seen any dolphins recently have you?

In Colorado, what was your relative’s response?

Something along the line of “that’s entirely different”.

Something along the line of “that’s entirely different”.

Those “christians/fundamentalists” just cherry picking to suit their fear based agenda.

“I reminded him that he trusted science enough to put his whole family on an airliner to come out and visit us.”

Not to insult your relative (much) but you just nailed one of the ‘fundemental’ aspects of every fundie I have ever met. They are just too f-ing stupid to ever grasp that EVERYTHING our civilization relies upon is a DIRECT result of technology and applied science. Thats why I’m a dyed in the wool aetheist. faith in religion just isn’t rational and if it isn’t rational it really ins’t worth $hit as far as i’m concerned. If that offends anyone reading this, well….Too bad. I’m as entitled to my opinion as anyone and I can at least clain that I have thought the issue through rather than just pointing to some ancient myth.

OK, rant off, LOL. It’s been a stressfull week and its only wednesday.

OK, rant off, LOL. It’s been a stressfull week and its only wednesday.

Its OK. FWIW, he isn’t stupid, he simply (at the time) has settled into a belief system that he couldn’t reconcile with the natural world around him. He has modified his view somewhat since then.

Good to hear that he has broadened his mind somewhat.

The thing that is so appalingly tragic is how little most people appreciate how amazing the world is RIGHT NOW. We are truely standing on the shoulders of giants but so few people really get that.

I once has someone tell me that she felt sorry for me that I didn’t believe in god and that I must have no sense of wonder about the world. I just laughed in her face. To me is it wonderous that I can gaze up at the night sky and appreciate what it is that I am actually seeing. Whats wonderous is that people like Galileo, Kepler and Newton could peel back the veil of myth and superstision and allow ALL of us to grasp the stars. This is far more ‘wonderous’ to me than any ’sky father’ story and I have no problem telling people ‘you can stuff your creation myths, I’ll take calculus and thermodynamics any day.

He has modified his view somewhat since then.

How did he do this? What made him revise his mystical beliefs?

The polymoanial is huge.

There you go, the real answers come from mixing the science, albeit dismal, with the common sense of persons who have been there and done that.

And to answer your question, nobody can tell the future with any regularity, but from slopes, trendlines, etc. one can give probabilistic answers that can help make decisions with greater confidence.

The two most omportant things I am watching are the 12 month trendline of NOD and the 3 month trend on PPSF.

Easy. Its the equation for a straight line, drawn on a scale having two axes (Cartesian coordinates?); m is the slope (or, tangent) of the line, b is the value for where the line crosses the y axis when x is zero. If the line rises from left to right, the term mx is positive, I think. Hey! Its been 30+ years!

“I predict as UE approaches Great Depression 1 levels, they will simply change how it is reported to make sure it never gets “too high.” ”

They _already_ did that—way back in 1996. Was that great foresight on the part of govt?

Headline inflation as reported today is much lower now than it would have been if we reported it the same way that we did back in GD-I.

#7. And if you don’t pay your mortage you get deported.

Not minimum wage, but wages that will allow one to afford a cardboard box and one bowl of rice a day. An article yesterday said that only 8% of chinese have disposable income, ie after paying for food and shelter they can afford well anything. This is what we are heading for.

Wall Street and the elites have won. They will have a world of people who are poor and hungry. They will work for nothing but the chance to keep living and feed their family. If push comes to shove (ie from neighboring country) they will work for less. They will not complain with a 70 hour work week. They will not complain when they are asked to mix toxic material into food or building materials or medicine. Those who control natural resources and gov will become even more powerfull and wealthy.

The solution is well known and repeated throughout history.

+1

Exactly. Because, for the true Wall Street style sociopath, it is not enough for them to be absurdly rich - everyone else must also be terribly poor.

Why are you all accepting the fate that Wall Street and the monopolies have in store for you ? Wouldn’t you fight a hood that tries to break into your house ? I still think that the Majority can take back America again and maybe prevent the fate that is developing because of the current Power structures . At the drop of a dime ,the Politicians could create new laws that favor Main Street for a change . Laws could go into effect that actually penalize outsourcing and twisted trade balances . Incentives could come into play that actually reward Companies that provide jobs for Americans .
Wall Street screwed America big time in 1929 ,but the Politicians at the time saw to it that they were put in a controlled box for about 70 years . The current Politicians
must do the same as they did in the 30’s and overhaul the corrupt stacked deck that came about because of bribed
de-regulations and favorable laws to the BIG CASINO and other monopolies along with slave labor competition and open borders in more ways than one .

Wall Street /Banks/Insurance Companies /Corporations just created a situation were fewer people got more of the wealth ,which is contrary to the long term trend of the middle class getting more of a piece of the pie. Apparently the United States works a lot better when more of the distribution of wealth goes to the great middle class/upper middle class . I’m not saying that if a person gets wealth
the good old fashion way ,they aren’t entitled to it ,but if you steal it by a stacked deck by bribing Politicians to enact favorable laws ,than your a brat kid that cries to mommy every time the playing field in leveled out . What is worse is that the elite Power structure is well skilled in getting Politicians to transfer social costs and bail outs to the taxpayers . Such a deal .

But unlike the Chinese, America’s poor has easy access to projectile weapons.

Move the business to flyover country?

Businesses are moving out and it will get worse. There are no tax advantages to staying in Californian.

How do the ‘other family members’ feel about that?

slothtime!

For the same “crime” the rebels who ignored the taxes of King George in the thirteen colonies should have been tried for TREASON justifiably too, from your point of view.

Nice. We have a British loyalist here folks!

Nice. We have a British loyalist here folks!

London is one of my favorite cities!
I would invite you, but you are all wet.

I mean always swimming;>

But no loyalist Bila.
Would like to see corps pay up too.
Look if ‘you’ are going to enjoy the benefits of living, working, doing biz in the US, then you have to participate fully. If ‘you’ want to use Free Speech and other tools in our bucket, then you owe the taxes ‘you’ have been hiding.

That’s just damn socialeest/commie talk, DD. Why, everybody knows that the Murican way to do business is to socialize the risk and privatize the profits! Anything else is just, just damn socialeesm!

everybody knows that the Murican way to do business

Speaking to the choir!

OT***tell Stpn that there is the ALIEN marathon this coming Saturday so we can all watch for that musical piece!

And Bill…. for you:

“Second, the Boston Tea Party can’t be explained merely as an outburst of nationalism. After all, colonial Americans still identified themselves as British. Nor was it an anti-monarchal uprising like the French Revolution, at least at the outset. Looking closely at the events that led up to that night, we see that it was a highly targeted attempt to block the British East India Company from carrying out a specific plan to monopolize American commodities markets, starting with tea. When respectable American businessmen - including John Hancock, one of the richest men in America - took the uncharacteristically radical action of dressing up in disguise and committing wholesale vandalism, the motivating
force was not abstract. It was literally to defend their businesses. In other words, it was a highly pragmatic economic rebellion against an overbearing corporation, rather than a political rebellion against an oppressive
government. Or more accurately, it was a rebellion against a corporation and a government that were thoroughly intertwined.”

-Gangs of America page 54

We certainly got along well before the 16th amendment and all these added unconstitutional agencies.

The true patriot flies the flag of the original 13 colonies (not 50 states) as a symbol of agreeing with the level of small government that was within the realm of the US constitution. The 50 state flag is a symbol of backing big government that is foreign to the ideas of our founders.

Long live the spirits of Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and Lysander Spooner.

DD

I hid no taxes. Ever. I paid all the taxes I owe. You are not playing a guessing game here. You are slandering (seriously) me for something that you are imagining.

something that you are imagining.

wth are you talking about?

Did I say YOU?
Are we not talking about how those off HBB are doing this and doing that?

More than 14,700 U.S. taxpayers came forward to disclose billions in offshore bank accounts in 70 countries

Are you a little bit nervous? Again, did I say you?

“did I say you?”

Right here:
Look if ‘you’ are going to enjoy the benefits of living, working, doing biz in the US, then you have to participate fully. If ‘you’ want to use Free Speech and other tools in our bucket, then you owe the taxes ‘you’ have been hiding.

DD:

I want to eliminate corp taxes it just increases the final cost to us anyway.

But it also mans if they lose money uncle sam wont bail them out by applying the losses against future income..since there would be no tax either way.

And we wont be subsiding $50 mill a year paychecks either…that is what shareholders are for.

———————————————————
But no loyalist Bila.
Would like to see corps pay up too.

BiLA sounds nervous to me too. Book him, DDanno.

‘you’

Bila, did you not notice the ‘ and ‘ ?

Instead of using quotation marks, I chose to use ‘ ‘ hoping to convey to those who were using, and often do use really dangerous language that would inflame someone who is really on the fringe to take action.
Also using quotations would have indicated that it was actually a quote.

Nowhere did I say You bila. Go take another lap!

Oh, please.

The democrats do it for votes and republicans do it for their business friends. End of story. GOP trying hard for these votes with little goodies is a whole another story. When you have a populace that’s 100% dependent on Government services that’s a goldmine for democrats and they know it and they will do all to increase that voter base. It’s politics 101.

Let’s just for a moment imagine that the new immigrants vote 80% republicans. Do you think the dems would still support for “quick path to citizenship?”

Besides extremely rich white folks, trust fund metro white kids, Blacks and Hispanics, I don’t think dems can rely on any other votes for granted. So they need to increase the vote banks. Yes 2006 & 2008 was different, but it’s not a trend. Here’s what the dems’ British siblings were doing. Don’t forget that this also had the hidden agenda - permanent labor votes.

Jack Straw and Tony Blair ‘dishonestly’ concealed a plan to allow in more immigrants and make Britain more multi-cultural because they feared a public backlash if it was made public, it has been claimed.

The allegation was made after a former Labour adviser said the Government opened up UK borders partly to humiliate Right-wing opponents of immigration.

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1222769/Dishonest-Blair-Straw-accused-secret-plan-multicultural-UK.html#ixzz0XE2yO8QQ

Oh, please.

The democrats do it for votes and republicans do it for their business friends. End of story. GOP trying hard for these votes with little goodies is that’s a whole another story. When you have a populace that’s 100% dependent on Government services that’s a goldmine for democrats.

Let’s just for a moment imagine that the new immigrants vote 80% republicans. Do you think the dems would still support for “quick path to citizenship?”

Besides extremely rich white folks, trust fund metro white kids, Blacks and Hispanics, I don’t think dems can rely on any other votes for granted. So they need to increase the vote banks. Yes 2006 & 2008 was different, but it’s not a trend. Here’s what the dems’ British siblings were doing. Don’t forget that this also had the hidden agenda - permanent labor votes.

Jack Straw and Tony Blair ‘dishonestly’ concealed a plan to allow in more immigrants and make Britain more multi-cultural because they feared a public backlash if it was made public, it has been claimed.

The allegation was made after a former Labour adviser said the Government opened up UK borders partly to humiliate Right-wing opponents of immigration.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1222769/Dishonest-Blair-Straw-accused-secret-plan-multicultural-UK.html#ixzz0XE2yO8QQ

When you have a populace that’s 100% dependent on Government services

Presumably, if all these immigrants had the tax breaks and minimum wage jobs that you advocate, they wouldn’t qualify for any government services.

The democrats do it for votes

I’m not so sure. Mexican immigrants have a track record of not naturalizing. I suppose that eventually their US born kids will grow up and vote. In that case points to the Dems for haveing long term vision, as opposed to the “Stupid Party”, which cannot look beyond next quarter’s profit numbers.

Besides extremely rich white folks, trust fund metro white kids, Blacks and Hispanics, I don’t think dems can rely on any other votes for granted.

What voters can the GOP take for granted?

It’s a much smaller demographic, and getting smaller relative to the population as a whole. Thus the constant attempts to keep any non-whites from voting, illegal aliens and actual citizens alike. If they could grab those demographics one way or another, they would. They make half-hearted attempts to do so all the time, but such attempts are also at odds with the will of the GOP’s core demographics. Conundrum!

Don’t like GOP and don’t feel the need to defend it. But I will try anyway.

Even with your accounts, GOP seems like what a political party should be, no? Doesn’t have a voter base or machine and needs to win every vote based on ideas and performance. Democrats are on the other hand…..

Well if asking for a voter registration id before you vote is an attempt to keep non-whites from voting, then I suppose I don’t know what else to say. Then again republicans may need to ask for voter id as dems tend to find votes in their glove compartments and also they seem to very popular with dead people.

Even with your accounts, GOP seems like what a political party should be, no? Doesn’t have a voter base or machine and needs to win every vote based on ideas and performance.

Huh? I said the opposite.

They have a very hardcore but shrinking voter base. They would like to expand that base, but that expansion is at odds with the values of their core demographic. So they make pandering, half-hearted attempts to woo new voters, while sending contradictory messages to their base. Their attempts to “win every vote based on ideas and performance” doesn’t seem to be going too well, and the party must do something to resolve the inherent conflict I outlined above, regardless of what one thinks about their ideas and policies.

They have a very hardcore but shrinking voter base. They would like to expand that base, but that expansion is at odds with the values of their core demographic.

Au contraire, Repubs tend to have large families, while Dems tend to abort themselves out of existence.

And all those Repub children are tending to vote Democratic. Guess how much of the 18-29 vote was won by Obama.

Au contraire, Repubs tend to have large families, while Dems tend to abort themselves out of existence.

Tell that to the working-class Irish Catholic or Latino families with multiple generations of (D) voters, they’ll get a good chuckle.

What voters can the GOP take for granted?

Protestant Fundamentalists?

Protestant Fundamentalists?

If the GOP were to distance themselves from religion and go back to being fiscally conservative and really support individual freedom, I’d go out and canvass for them.

The GOP is always fiscally conservative– when they’re not in power.

‘FDA replaces food pyramid with corn monolith’

LOL

ET-Chicago,

Very true. And getting people that “jumped ship” to these high paying ( but completely UNsustainable fields ) to see them for what they were.., was almost impossible!

I can’t think of ‘one’ MB during The Boom that wasn’t fully convinced that each year wouldn’t be better than his/her last? Against that backdrop, it’s all uphill to force people to “get real” about the true state of our employment market.

It also harbored the illusion that ‘anyone’ could become any ‘thing’ they wanted to! ( With or without all that bothersome education? ) Unfortunately what we’ll need to do to claw our way out of this is to have each and every person find their place, get motivated and get qualified one-person-at-a-time. Putting broad swaths of people that view work as nothing more than an intrusion into their personal lives just isn’t going to work.

It also harbored the illusion that ‘anyone’ could become any ‘thing’ they

Commercials are now showing SBBC(?) to get your Trainer certification- HURRY!
trainers as in gym trainers, excerpt is ‘why work when you can train at a gym …”

I can’t be in a foul mood today. During lunch, Young Frankenstein ….aaaaaaaaahh sweet mystery of life at last I’ve found youuuuuuuuuuuuuu. Well, that and the Marx bros will distract even the grumpiest of us.

The drop in the number of hispanics shopping at the local WalMart has been quite noticeable. Granted, only a subset are illegals, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the overwhelming majority of missing Hispanics turned out to be illegals.

I’ve found that the best place to look for an Illegal Index is stores that sell baby stuff.

‘you would have thought I was talking about an alien abduction site’

A lot of people forget that part of the mania. The reactions ranged from people thinking we were amusing, to seriously insane to being very angry at us for being spoilers. I initially let trolls post these reactions (as long as they weren’t vulgar) as I saw it being something that needed to be documented. By December 2005, I couldn’t keep up with deleting all the foul language being thrown at us and I went to full moderation, and then in Feb 2006 started using wordpress and it’s tools.

I still see a major disconnect. At this stage of the bust, the fact that the housing bubble isn’t even discussed shows that the “conspiracy” type attitude is still there, just maybe in a different form.

And here I thought that the kool-aid drinkers had just abandoned us, either because we’ve been proved right, or because they had no response to our logic. Hey, could you post a few of those messages, some of the old and the new? Nothing stokes the fires of self-satified I told-you-so like the desprate cries of the damned. It’s not that I WANT people to suffer, but I don’t want them or others to make the same mistakes.

What do you mean ben? by not being discussed?

I thought the way these things works is denial denial denial, “there is no problem la la la la housing always goes up, its just a lag it will pick up in summer”

But now the fact there was a bubble is apparent, the fact that house prices are slowly dropping, and once the above people lose their shirts it becomes “I lost it all in the housing bubble what will the government do to fix the housing bubble etc”

basically people will want to act like all the naughty talk about RE being a sure bet was never said by them, and if they did, well lets not live in the past what are we gonna do to fix it.

Ben,

Do you have any logs with those old (the ones that you moderated out) comments in them? I’m sure some of them would be incredibly funny to view now (You a** have no f** idea what you’re talking about, my trailer is going up 50% a year, I’m going to be worth 10M dollars by 2009!!! Go f** urself).

My favorite was going over to SDCIA and reading about “Ben’s Mushroom Farm,” which was even more amusing because speakers at SDCIA meetings were saying exactly the same things we were. People like Bruce Norris and Robert Campbell. Oh well, guess they were ’shruming too.

Well, there are lots in the original blog to look at, not all trolls. Like this one: ”

At 4:43 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

What if it never busts ? What if Greenspan and his successor keep the accomodative enviroment going forever ?

Sure, inflation will rise and that surely means that interest rates will rise. But it will also JUSTIFY what the speculative buyers are doing.

Is it possible that the Fed can/will just keep printing money ad infinum to try to get out of this mess ?

Could the number of buyers keep growing for the foreseeable future ? Could the prices on the homes today be justifiable in a high inflation future ?

This would sure make those of us sitting on cash look silly.

First it was the dotcom bubble and now this. Why does it feel like I’ve lived the lsat 7 years of my life trying to justify being a financially conservative person ? What ever happened to the good ole days of saving and prudent investing ? How did our society ever get to the point where it rewards speculators versus regular people ? Who pays the bills in the end ?”

http://thehousingbubble.blogspot.com/2005/03/housing-bubble-denial-turning-to-fear.html#comments

But this was my absolute favorite from April 2005. I read the first comment and then had to think for a bit about how to respond:

“At 12:03 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

why do you people hate the idea of every american making a few hundred thousand dollars of profit on their home?

who cares if it is a bubble?

those are REAL DOLLARS.

for fucks sake people, get a life. quit being jealous of everyone else’s success

At 12:14 PM, Blogger Ben Jones said…

Is that a Haiku?”

http://thehousingbubble.blogspot.com/2005/04/think-about-retraining-construction.html#comments

A friend who is trying to sell three (!!) houses told me that she wishes she rented too.

In 2006 DH told a co-worker why the guy should not buy, but he and his wife had a baby, and they bought. Now he wistfully tells DH that he wishes they had waited.

Another co-worker just bought in Chicago. He admitted to having buyers remorse. He and his wife are trying to have a baby, and their new condo is on the third floor with no elevator. And she wanted to buy before she lost her job.

Still I can’t say that we’re always regarded as sages. There is a large contingent of friends and family that secretly wonder if the reason we haven’t bought is perhaps because we’re hopelessly broke. And I’m okay with them thinking that.

Another co-worker just bought in Chicago. He admitted to having buyers remorse. He and his wife are trying to have a baby, and their new condo is on the third floor with no elevator.

Wait three years or so, when they have an unsalable, still-declining asset on their hands and are worried about the local school options. Their current remorse will seem anemic by comparison.

Oh I don’t think it will take three years. Real estate values aside, I’m picturing mommy carrying baby in carrier, diaper bag, and five bags of groceries up and down all those stairs. Heck, even at eight or nine months preggers that won’t be much fun.

mommy carrying baby in carrier, diaper bag, and five bags of groceries up and down all those stairs.

FIT as a fiddle in no time at all, 3rd fl walk up. Great shape.
Only side benefit I see.

I’ve lived in walk-ups for a long time, so that did strike me as a big deal. Then again, my wife was thanking her lucky stars that we only live on the second floor when she was pregnant …

A regular Mr. Popularity.

LOL

Here in “good school suburbs” Northern Ohio, decent, older, well constructed, well maintained homes can be had for under $70/sq ft; 1/4+ acre lots, all city utilities. Prices continue to drop but, at a slower rate. Small but finite number of new homes under construction in otherwise empty developments. What will change bring??

I am amazed at how drone like people are based on the latest and greatest opinions from the Main Street Media News PR machine .You will see a clip on the news like ,”Real Estate will bottom in first quarter of 2009 “,and than I get the repeat back
to me shortly from people . I than say ,”Wow thats funny because based on the shadow inventory of foreclosures
the bottom might be another 5 years away ,so I’m waiting for them to give property away .” One of my friends just laughs and another friend I talk a lot to ,who wants to invest, keeps getting mad at me ,but keeps sending me listings to look at .I told a number of people 6 months ago that rental rates were going to go down because of supply and demand and they thought I was crazy . Same dude that thought I was crazy just rented a place for 500 less than the rental price 7 or 8 months ago .

The one news program that I actually like I noticed all the advertisers are cleaning supply products ,rather than stock or real estate related products .

What is sad is that a good deal of these people that want to be landlords don’t have a clue about what it really means ,including what the real costs are and what a bitch it would be if you got a renter who lost their job ,or someone who beats up the property . I didn’t like being a landlord . One day I got two calls from two separate rentals I owned in which
bees attacked both places 7 miles away from each other ….
weird . The guy in one place was allergic to bees . You have to respond as a landlord .Or, you will get a call that the water heater just went out . You can’t just say ok I will take care of it in a week ,it’s right now you have to take care of it . Anyway ,with the REIC misquoting real costs on properties (how many tell you what the real tax bill is going to be ) people are sitting ducks . My neighbor who bought one year ago wasn’t even told about a few of the costs and
was shocked to find out after she moved in . I have never seen such bath faith in business as in what is going on these days .
At the Bank some nerd told me I shouldn’t order checks because a thief might get a hold of them . I said to the dude “I want to take all my money out of this bank now because your making me think you have a internal problem with your checks ,by what you said ,”so I took all my money out . Same dude spend thirty minutes trying to sell me bonds that had a long term and low rates.

So,my main point in all these stories is that people don’t know what in the F—k they are doing ,but there is always some sales persons willing to sell them something that isn’t really what they want .

I recall some kool-aid drinkers who, when confronted with the fact that rents and purchase price were out of line, would blithely assert that rents would have to go up. I tried to explain the reasons why the rental housing market was more “efficient” and responded more quickly to supply and demand than the purchase market.

“It doesn’t seem right because it ISN’T right”.

Correct, but sadly a very large number of people look to big nanny gubmint anytime they skin their knee.

+1 LVG, most small business plan I start end abruptly with the analysis of pertinent regulatory items.

“I’m all for gov creating jobs (no one else will in this climate), I’d use all the money wasted on welfare, unemployment, and bailouts to stimulate job creation by offering massive incentives for improved energy efficiency(insulation, windows, doors), and infrastructure (internet,cable, mass transit, schools, energy generation (especially distributive generation, local solar, and nuclear”).

Great, so how would you get the job done?

Touch welfare and ‘entitlements’ and you won’t draw back a nub, you’ll draw back a stump.

One goal of big government is to create dependents.

Great, so how would you get the job done?

I’d guarantee a job, the middle class would support doing away with welfare and unemployment if people had a way to survive.

It would pay just enough to survive
It would require you to get up every morning get to work on time and produce something. You might get 1 day off for going on job interviews a week.
If they can’t come up with enough public works then you sit your fat butt down on a bike and generate a little electricity. At least we’d cut down on medical costs.

I agree with your ideas. Prisoners in prison right now should be paying their own way also instead of us footing their bill. They have the ability to generate their own electricity, if not then they are s.o.l.

Fecaltime!

Gotta agree wmbz.

Welfare for corporations must go.

“I’d guarantee a job, the middle class would support doing away with welfare and unemployment if people had a way to survive.”

And we’d call each other comrade, and we’d write up a bunch of rules on the wall of the barn, and…

…then you sit your fat butt down on a bike and generate a little electricity.

Ha ha! Love it.

“”And we’d call each other comrade, and we’d write up a bunch of rules on the wall of the barn, and…”"

And what is your solution if unemployment is 20%.

If you lost your job and your children were starving what would you be willing to do to feed them. Are you willing to live with rampant crime and riots and social unrest???

Comrade? So “…promote the general welfare…” is now communist?

Oh dear.

Gotta agree wmbz.

Welfare for corporations must go.

I said something like that late last night and mugsy told me to get lost.

“If you lost your job and your children were starving what would you be willing to do to feed them.”

Plant a garden? Have savings? Food storage? Not waste money whilst employed on movies, eating out 3-5 times a week, alcohol, cigs, etc.? That goes a long way toward solving the problem.

You can talk all you want about the impossibility of caring for a family on minimum wage but the fact of the matter is the poorest of Americans in general are fat, lazy, wasteful, and tend to blame others for misfortune in their lives. How much would it cost to feed a family of 10 rice, beans, and chicken each week?

New immigrant families of many nationalities make the sacrifices necessary to rise from poverty to education and wealth in a single generation. The American dream isn’t a birthright.

“promote the general welfare”

Promote and provide are different words with different meanings. I don’t think the framers used the two verbs just to avoid repetition in the sentence.

Yer right. Promote is more inclusive and provide is more specific.

And dude, while I’ve met plenty of those who are fat and lazy and no more respect for them than you (and at ALL levels of business), most know who pulls the strings and that their money is worth less every year and their jobs are going offshore, never to return and that people are getting rich putting them out of jobs.

Rebellion is a rather rational response when you know the game is rigged against you. That WAS something the founding fathers understood.

I agree with you there.

“..and I have no more respect for them than you do…”

Glad you parsed that the way I meant it and understood I meant no insult to you.

If you lost your job and your children were starving what would you be willing to do to feed them.”

Plant a garden? Have savings? Food storage? Not waste money whilst employed on movies, eating out 3-5 times a week, alcohol, cigs, etc.? That goes a long way toward solving the problem.

Marie Antoinette is that you

Plant a garden,
Pssst most people live in the city and or don’t own enough land to plant a large enough garden to sustain them.

Have savings and food = eat cake

Not waste money money on movies etoh and cigs - Way to generalize every middle class and poor person. There are plenty of people out there who lived conservatively and burned through their savings after job loss, medical illness, or lost it in the market. These people just starve in your fantasy world.

The reality is that if you live next to people starving and they know you have food your little garden will not last long. Oh you have a gun, guess what so do they, and starving people have a way of not fearing death from the barrel of a gun.

I’ve never said people should be left to starve, my problem is that our current version of bread and circuses provides a patrician banquet for those on the dole. How many people could we feed in Africa with gruel for what we currently spend on food stamps in the USA? If you really want equality how about we give each family needing assistance a bag of whole wheat flour, a bottle of cooking oil, and a vitamin supplement each month and use the rest to help those in other nations who are truly starving, and those in our own nation who are truly incapable of caring for themselves.

Who forces those people to stay in the cities? Who forces them to stay in this country? They stay where they are because it is the easiest thing to do. They don’t grow food because that takes work and because uncle Sam gives it to them just for the effort of going down to Walmart. Did you know you can grow potatoes in a trash can, or tomatoes on a window sill?

I don’t speak from the lofty perch of M.A. I’ve worked most of my life with the poor and with very few exceptions those who change their circumstance are those who learn to help themselves.

If someone comes and kills me and takes my food storage so be it. My point isn’t a primer on how to survive doomsday, I’m trying to say that we as a people waste too much and ignorantly expect that life will never throw us a curve ball. I will continue to try to be prepared for those hard times that may or may not come. You are free to continue to walk the high wire over the safety net currently provided by our local, state, and federal governments.

Now who was it that offshored jobs?

ooh ooh I know! pick me pick meeeee!

Socialists?

ooh ooh I know! pick me pick meeeee!

ya looking for trouble?

So is the 2002 (or there abouts) Sony Trinatron 27 inch I got for $25 off Craigs list.

Oh?

On October 14, 2004 the New York State Office of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced that it had commenced a civil action against Marsh & McLennan Companies for steering clients to preferred insurers with whom the company maintained lucrative payoff agreements, and for soliciting rigged bids for insurance contracts from the insurers. The Attorney General announced in a release that two AIG executives pleaded guilty to criminal charges in connection with this illegal course of conduct. In early May 2005, AIG restated its financial position and issued a reduction in book value of USD $2.7 billion, a 3.3 percent reduction in net worth.

They had also gone WAY out on a limb with underwriting derivatives insuring mortgage-linked securities. Mortgage linked securities created by…. wait for it…. Goldman Sachs.

My point is, they should have let AIG and all the other TBTF go quietly into the night instead of ballooning the deficit and striving to turn the dollar into toilet paper. Sorry I wasn’t more clear.

I agree. 100%. But it wouldn’t have been quite.

It looks like the real problem was that if the global financial collapse had been worse, we could have been looking at WW3.

And while I HATE that those SOBs put us into that position, there are very real and deadly consequences among nations when big money is at stake.

“quiet”

No, I’m NOT feeling well. Allergies? Cold? Not sure.

Oh well…

Feel better soon, eco.

ya’ll get rest, eat right, and eat your vitavegavitamins ala Lucy!
Soaking in hot water w/ Epsoms salts will steam out the toxins.
Along with a good hot cup of water/courvoisier shot, and lemon twist.

Jus sayin - keep safe eco and everyone.

Seems according to the msm, over 50% of adults say they won’t take the flu shots.

What’s REALLY going on?

‘xactly.

No, that’s not posturing and kissing up. All businesses — including your precious small business — would like nothing more than to unload the cost of health insurance. At the moment, I don’t know what Obamacare means exactly, so I have to leave it at that.

If it means i am too rich for welfare but too poor to afford my own policy the guv will cover me for maybe a sliding scale or a small co payment…really that’s all we need ..

————————
At the moment, I don’t know what Obamacare means exactly, so I have to leave it at that.

Greetings James,

Thank you for your explanation regarding China and it’s likely excess capacity. Your comparing it to our ridiculous glut of housing does drive the point home. I certainly would like to see our govt. allocate the money in more productive places.

So when all is said and done it seems China will have too many factories, many of which will be idle. That is a problem, but it seems to me that they can always change a few machines and create whatever IS needed at the time. What do you think? In addition, a nation with their enormous and cheap labor coupled with the factory power to mass produce many things would be the leader in the world. Please tell me why you believe they are not setting themselves up to be the next economic superpower.

Thanks,
Fecaltime!

Making lousy cheap imitations of other peoples stuff can hardly make one a superpower, ever.

It’s already hitting the fan,but the smell and the flecks on everything…

Can we just flush this metaphor for now, okay?

Misplaced anger - I’m not mandating birth control I’m suggesting the gov offer it for free. I’m A-OK with free male bit snippin.

Misplaced anger

Guess I have been getting to many emails from my childhood ‘friends’/neanderthals. Didn’t mean to sound harsh.

lavi d:

Why that date?

If you would, I would appreciate knowing a little more, but if not, I understand too.

Thanks lavi,

Greg

lavi: I looked re archives, and her last reply was innocuous. ( OLY GAL!! How do you spell…inoxku us)?

Title: I Love/Miss/Wonder, blah, etc., Oly
Produced by: Brian Eno
Recorded: Abbey Road II
Produced/Mixed: The Record Plant

“My sensible heart wonders where you are,
Mr. Dylan said; “On a Shooting Star”,

A Shooting Star… far or near,
All things must pass, but our hearts think you are dear!

Come back Oly, we miss you. Hell, I’m dead, that’s the least you can do, ya know?

Shorty is not himself. Of course, what does that mean anyway, right?

Sorry you are dealing with liver issues.

Iodine at yahoo groups dot com. Ask away.

If you would, I would appreciate knowing a little more, but if not, I understand too.

According to the HBB Comment Search

Hi ATE:

Ben should have her email, i know i give him my real one when i post, and i’ll bet most of you do to.

Yeah we miss Oly her conjugation of words was awe inspiring.

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Complex conjugation, the operation which multiplies the imaginary part of a complex number by −1;