Bits Bucket For January 17, 2010
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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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Markets Not Facing ‘Reality’ Of Slow Economy: El-Erian
CNBC
Financial markets have failed to price in the remaining problems that bedevil a long-term economic recovery, Pimco’s Mohamed El-Erian told CNBC.
Inconsistencies that the market faces include the tax on bailed out banks that President Obama announced Thursday and its effects on their ability to lend; long-term unemployment issues and the difficulty in fixing them due to the federal budget deficit, and weaknesses with sovereign balance sheets, Pimco co-CEO El-Erian said in an interview.
Despite these issues, stocks continue to climb, with the market about 60 percent above the March 2009 lows and posting mild gains so far in 2010.
“You come to the conclusion that the market simply hasn’t priced in the reality of what we talk about every single day,” said El-Erian, who helps run the world’s largest bond fund.
‘“You come to the conclusion that the market simply hasn’t priced in the reality of what we talk about every single day,” said El-Erian, who helps run the world’s largest bond fund.’
How can markets perpetually act this dumb, without coercion from 800 lb Wall Street gorillas who can make their own weather?
I think it is appropriate to repost this link (which I believe was posted on the hbb a few weeks ago):
“in the name of “avoiding” financial Armageddon, they’ve bent over backwards to provide cash and cover for, if not actively participate in, a thoroughly corrupt status quo that selectively eschews the rule of law to enable manipulation of a broad range of markets that hugely profit the most greedy and lawless among us– to the permanent detriment of everybody else. That might not be the intention at the very top, but the scoreboard still reads: Wall Street 10, Public minus 10 plus interest, payable forever.”
http://calltoaccount.wordpress.com/
This article and the great comments that follow is a must read and thanks for repost of it . What I like about this article is that it is addressing just how much of a rigged fraudulent game it has been
in the financial markets that went afoul of the law really while regulators breached their duty and these Entities became lawless. In the Casino they have been making bets with pretend money and is that any different than Bernie Madoff ? Like I have said all along
the first response to the crisis should of been a investigation which should of resulted in the total purging of the rigged corrupt games while heads spinned and heads rolled to prison . My favorite expression is that the bail outs resulted in the biggest case of obstruction of justice and cover-up in this Countries history ,and Standing law was violated .Unreal …and these bastards are taking the whole ship down .
A sobering must-read.
“What other industry has literally dozens of words and phrases characterizing unethical, illicit conduct? (Backdating, Channel stuffing, Cherry picking, Churning, Cookie jar reserves, Cooking the books, Dummy accounts, Earnings management, Flipping, Fomenting, Free-riding, Front running, Insider trading, Late trading, Lulling, Market timing, Marking the close, Matching orders, Naked options, Naked short selling, Off balance sheet, Painting the tape, Ponzi scheme, Puffing, Pump and dump, Pyramid scheme, Round-tripping, Scalping, Selling away, Short and distort, Spinning, Spring loading, Tipping, Touting, Trading ahead, etc., etc., etc.) God’s work, indeed.”
Wall Street gorillas who can make their own weather ??
Never heard it put that way before but it is so true…
Didn’t mean to exclude PimpCo by saying “Wall Street”…
Wall Street isn’t a physical address but rather a state of mind.
Even the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street is on Wall Street.
Sounds like a guy whose bets went the wrong way. Apart from buying treasuries, what else are bankers suppose to do with all the free money coming from the fed? Wake up, man. There is overcapacity everywhere. When the music is playing bankers are compelled to dance.
Good god man what a bunch of BS. What were bankers supposed to do?
They were supposed to unload all their toxic MBS assets on the open market at 40+% haircut and use the Fed money to cover their losses. They could then re-work “most” people’s mortgages — at least primary residences — which would keep people paying a reasonable amount [combo], which would keep consumerism going if only at a lower lever. As the economy healed, the banks would then use the future profits from their newly shored-up fundamentals, and the payments from those re-worked mortgages, to pay back the Fed. The Fed would use the profits from the TARP program to create new jobs in health/edu/energy as per Obama’s domestic agenda.
Meanwhile, the new owners of the less-toxic MBS would then unload the actual shadow inventory homes at a 50% haircut to make their own profit. Housing prices would fall to where the smart folks (us) would raid their pockets of shadow cash [combo again], thus injecting more fresh real money into the system.
That’s how an honest, conservative Wall Street would work, anyway. Pay off your bills before you go gambling again. And to be honest, I think this is what Obama (personally), along with most of America, would have done.
But N-O-O-O-O, they are a greedy bunch of [expletives]. And they saw the Fed as gift money to go to Vegas (metaphorically — they sure as hell didn’t go to Vegas physically or financially.)
The fatal flaw of honest people is in thinking that everyone else is as honest as they are. And Obama made that mistake. What bugs me is that Summers and Geithner should have known that this is what would happen and should have warned Obama. However, we can’t forget that most of these shenanigans were crafted by Hanky Panky Paulson and his [expletive] “partners” at Golden Sacks.
If Obama wanted bankers to do what you’re saying (use TARP to offset MBS losses, etc) instead of what they’re doing (looking for more profit), why didn’t he simply add these limitations to the TARP funds/program?
And we are about 4 or 5 years into the meltdown and the gambling casinos are still alive and kicking .Wall Street/Lenders are making record making bonuses off the contorted markets that have come about because of the Bailouts and the capital injections they enjoy with a zero % Fed rate while they get to cook their books and not mark to market . Lets not discount the Government Programs that directly reduced their losses
regarding their junk fraudulent mortgages that were defective to begin with and no more than a Ponzi-Scheme or fraudulent leverage game . Look at all the bets Wall Street makes without anything to back it in their unregulated financial Worlds where playing with other peoples money they think is their birthright .
Does anyone get the feeling that Wall Street is telling the Government what to do ,rather than the other way around ?
Exactly! Speaking now in defense of the investment bankers, they did what any profit-maximizing entity unencumbered by a rule of law would have done if handed a ginormous sum of money with no strings attached: Figured out a better way to maximize profits than following the government’s script.
…market simply hasn’t priced in the reality of what we talk about every single day,..
How do you price in limitless government support? How should investors react to an environment where economic recovery is too big to fail?
Seems to me investors are responding to recovery efforts exactly as was intended. Rather than hoarding money they feel safe investing it, and so they do.. and the market goes up. Q.E.D.
Perhaps the markets ARE pricing in future inflation, in which case current levels are entirely justified.
Correct.
Just wondering if we’re being fed propaganda about the fear of inflation when deflation seems to be the overwhelming force over the long run. It’s difficult to determine which way is up or down.
TAXPAYER SUBSIDIZED JOURNALISM?
This week, NOW’s David Brancaccio (PBS) talked to professor Bob McChesney and journalist John Nichols about the perils of a shrinking news media landscape, and their bold proposal to save journalism with government subsidies. Their new book is “The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again.”
Should journalism get the next government bailout?
I saw the NOW interview and could not believe the conclusion drawn by McChesney and Nichols. They think taxpayer supported journalism is the wave of the future and contend that just because journalists’ paychecks come from the government till their reporting will not be influenced by it. They showed no understanding whatever of the function of the competitive free market in news dissemination. They also don’t think the Internet can take up the slack as more newspapers founder. .
Branchaccio didn’t challenge them at all on where they thought the harried taxpayer would get the extra funds with which to support the news media. !!
It’s not the “journalists” that people have stopped paying for, it’s the Real Estate ads.
NOW and Moyers are the most liberal shows on TV. And I’m not sure that the “free market” should apply to news, any more than it should apply to the water supply or electricity.
That said, it seems to me that the only people who have time or money for the news are the ones who already have lots of money, and those with the money don’t want any news. For example, Monsanto would like nothing more than to quietly take over the final 10% of the seed market while everyone is head-faked by Simon Cowell and Tiger Woods.
For some interesting insight, check out the sponsors or various PBS shows. Most shows have lots of corporate sponsors, but NOW has only one, a mutual insurance company. The rest are foundations.
“… and contend that just because journalists’ paychecks come from the government till their reporting will not be influenced by it.”
Just shoot me and get it over with. Does anyone here agree with this statement? Does anyone remember the NAR’s influence when it came to press coverage of real estate happenings during the bubble years?
Does anyone here agree with this statement?
You are on the money combo. He who has the Gold I mean “cash” makes the rule.
And if you listen to NPR you can still hear a ton of commercials from the National Association of Real-a-sores. Don’t worry Combo, the government money won’t influence them. It doesn’t influence PBS or NPR. Bwahahaha.
Oh yea! The softball, self serving, “it’s all big misunderstanding” questions that NPR and PBS throw at the realestate types on their shows. I remember a number of News Hour and Frontline shows that completely blamed the borrowers (yes), WS Criminals (yes), buyers of SIVs-CDOs-CDS-securities-who-didn’t-do-their-homework(yes), but never the NAR types. Never, never.
No, money doesn’t influence news reporting. Money doesn’t shut people up. I refuse to believe that the 4th Estate can be influenced by money and power.
Roidy
The MSM has become the propaganda arm of the corporate cartels who own them. Since even the dumbest of the sheeple are starting to figure out they need to look elsewhere for real news and real truth, subscription rates are tanking. Not surprisingly, the media moguls would love to have taxpayers subsidize their politically-correct drek to improve their quarterly earnings statements. Politicians, who would like to erect fences of the mind to corral the herd into the incorporated global plantation, will naturally be all too willing to allocate taxpayer dollars for this project.
Time to re-read Orwell’s 1984.
“Time to re-read Orwell’s 1984″
Some of the headlines also read like “Left Behind”
Happily, I’ve never read “Left Behind.”
Whenever I see a news show or a documentary I consider the bias in the program ,but you can still get a lot of facts that you can than apply your own critical thinking to ,even if you don’t accept their spin on the data .
Did you just apply critical thinking in explaining a good application of critical thinking? Stop it. We can’t be havin’ any o’ that.
LOL….
Government supported journalism is very dangerous. Once you let someone grab you by the balls, you do what they say. Journalists going into the pay of the government just become a propaganda arm. To suggest that they will stay independent is laughable.
Just another example of how pathetic politicians can be. Ms. Coakley is having Barry interrupt a golfing&basketball day to help sink her campaign.
Martha Coakley’s campaign not only has turned nasty as she tries to fend off Scott Brown for the U.S. Senate seat formerly occupied by Ted Kennedy, but it’s turned childish as well.
Somebody did a bad PhotoShop job of attaching Brown’s head to an ad from UPS. (The outfit with all those brown trucks.) “What can brown do for you?” was the UPS tag line. Ms. Coakley changed it to “What can Brown do to you? UPS is ticked and may have reason to sue. Brown is contemplating legal action in response to the cover of a four-page mailer sent by the Massachusetts Democratic Party. which says, “1,736 women were raped in Massachusetts in 2008. Scott Brown wants hospitals to turn them all away.”
To illustrate how desperate the Democrat Party is, they are importing President Obama on Sunday to campaign for Coakley! He said he was not going to get involved, then suddenly changed his mind. Wanna bet we taxpayers are footing the cost of that trip? The Massachusetts Democratic Party is not saying “Mr. President, thanks for coming. We’ll pick up all your travel and security expenses.”
Billy Jeff Clinton will be there as well. It’s a lot more important he be in MA campaigning than helping out the Haiti effort.
Welcome, welcome to the machine.
Preach idealism and practice corruption. I figured Bill would be busy at his office in Harlem trying to help out all of the locals. He is such a genuine guy. Bwahahaha.
Preach idealism and practice corruption.
The most succinct description of liberal Democratic politics I’ve ever seen. Not that the GOP is any different.
“Preach idealism and practice corruption.”
Machiavelli could offer no better advice.
“Billy Jeff”
That’s funny.
B.Job Clinton in Haiti? Please, there is no glamor, money or hot babes in that.
Maybe there is some advantage for Hitlery’s future WH bid?
Hitlery’s future WH bid ??
Biden resigns due to health concerns and Hilary is inserted as VP…Obama does not run for re-election because he can’t win and he already accomplished everything “First Black President”… Hilary carries 90% of the woman vote and now is the first female President…
What a coup…
Hilary carries 90% of the woman vote and now is the first female President…
I honestly cannot imagine Hillary becoming president. The hatred of the Clintons is a truly awe-inspiring force of nature.
Throw in the GOP’s penchant for me-too diversity (Jindal, Steele, Palin) and it’s not too hard to imagine a Republican woman as candidate and likely winner if Hillary were the opponent.
President Rice?
How can that be tied into a conspiracy? If she hadn’t run a crappy campaign in the primaries she would already be president. As late as 2008 she looked like a lock.
President Rice ??
Lavi…The lap dog for Dubya ?? IMO, anybody associated with the Bush II administration are toxic…
IMO, anybody associated with the Bush II administration are toxic…
Eh, it’s just my lowly opinion - I think Rice would have a better chance than Hillary.
Hillary had her day. I could see the mood of people now being, “Okay, we gave the Dems a chance, we have a ‘diversity’ president, now we need to get something done”
I don’t disagree with you…I just think there is to much bad laundry for anyone trying to run that was in the inner circle of the Bush II Administration…
If it got down to Rice, Palin, or Clinton, which would you vote for? Or would you rather just leave the country?
If it got down to Rice, Palin, or Clinton, which would you vote for?
I’d vote for Rice. I know little about her, but I absolutely cannot stand Hillary and the fact that Palin is even remotely considered a viable candidate, is disturbing beyond words.
Is that a promise Bear?
In Rice’s favor, she plays the piano very capably. How many other black female concert pianists have a shot at a future WH bid?
In Rice’s favor, she plays the piano very capably.
I also like that her “dream job” is NFL commissioner.
Bill Clinton took the job of UN special envoy to Haiti some time ago…he more than other pols belongs there now.
Bill Clinton took the job of UN special envoy to Haiti some time ago…he more than other pols belongs there now.
My girlfriend was complaining about all the ads in online video from Haiti. I told her I had no interest in watching disaster footage from Haiti because I can’t stand pictures of Haiti in the first place. God what a horrible place.
The Comedians - Graham Greene
“Billy Jeff Clinton will be there as well. It’s a lot more important he be in MA campaigning than helping out the Haiti effort.”
His wife is doing that piece of dirty work.
“To illustrate how desperate the Democrat Party is, they are importing President Obama on Sunday to campaign for Coakley!”
Is Obama really a campaign trail asset right now? It seems that Democrats may already start to look at him the way Repubs looked at Bush in 2008. They might say, “stay away from me”.
Obama’s got around 55% approval in Mass, which puts him well ahead of Coakely, who, by all accounts, ran (or actually didn’t run) a terrible campaign.
He’s already sunk to dems campaigns, if I was Coakley I’d ask Barry to do me a favor and stay on the golf course!
On the other hand, since he is light skinned and doesn’t speak in a negro dialect(unless he wants to)it may help her a little, who knows.
to=two
NYCityBoy
I tried to package up the JTE and make it available, but the extension failed after install.
The way Drumminj set up the directories doesn’t match what I have for instructions…
I’ll try again - and I will get it - but the cold medication makes thinking a challenge.
Thank you for the try. I have a new netbook I’m using. Once you are used to the Joshua Tree, it is hard to go back. Hmmm, that might have more than one meaning.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703657604575005513996542830.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
From the WSJ: The (corruption) Cases Coakley Didn’t Prosecute - very telling, as is her vicious and vindictive prosecution of a couple who were almost certainly innocent of child-abuse charges.
A good lieutenant in the MA Democrat Machine. Corrupt to the bone and wins election after election without a peep from the MSM. But a Republican doesn’t disclose a $200 gift he received and it’s P.1 news for 3 weeks.
The voters of MA who have for decades sanctioned Democratic corruption richly deserve the mess they’re in.
“The voters of MA who have for decades sanctioned Democratic corruption richly deserve the mess they’re in.”
True. But Ted Kennedy and the Kennedy wannabe Kerry have created a mess for me too. And if this Martha “I think Curt Schilling is a Yankees fan” Coakely gets elected she will too.
Should a FB choose his/her FICO over an affordable mortgage
Mortgage rescue: Credit score killer
Tami Luhby, December 28, 2009: NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com)
Most troubled homeowners view President Obama’s foreclosure rescue plan as a way out of their financial troubles. But many don’t realize that entering a trial mortgage modification can actually hurt their credit.
Jason Axelrod learned that the hard way. Axelrod, a municipal employee who lives outside Chicago, entered a trial mortgage modification program this spring.
He had not fallen behind in his mortgage, but he was finding it harder to make ends meet after his overtime was cut and his property taxes skyrocketed. Told it would not hurt his coveted 750 score, Axelrod secured a $565 reduction in his monthly payments.
Eight months later, Axelrod is still stuck in the trial modification, trying to satisfy his loan servicer’s endless requests for documents. And to his horror, his credit score has plummeted to 644. “It’s completely destroyed my credit,” said Axelrod. “If I had known it would affect my score, I would have never entered the program.”
…Despite his weakened credit score, there is at least some good news for Axelrod: After being contacted by CNNMoney.com, JPMorgan Chase said his permanent modification had been approved.
But because of his newly blemished credit background, his two credit unions turned him down for a car loan. His dealership told him the best he could get is a 12% rate, a hefty hike from the 4.7% he was paying before. “This is the biggest nightmare,” he said. “My credit is completely useless.”
It’s amazing how these people think there should be no price to pay for their bad decisions. The moral hazard that’s been created, in the last couple years, is incredible. He can barely pay his mortgage and he’s out car shopping.
His claim he would have not entered the program, if he had know it would hurt his his credit score, is a bunch of baloney.
+1
“This is the biggest nightmare,” he said. “My credit is completely useless.”
Ugh.. Yes, because you’re NOT PAYING YOUR BILLS, your credit is not so good anymore. What did you expect? Your lender is changing the contract to your benefit because you can’t/won’t pay them; did you expect a “gold star” from the credit reporting companies for this?
If a lender feels it is in their best interest to modify a loan, so be it; they certainly should have that right. However, at the same time, the lendee should take a serious credit hit for this action, the lender is modifying the loan because they feel you won’t pay them anymore (which is what you told them when you demanded a modification). That’s a very negative credit event, as it should be.
Axelrod should change his name to “nimrod”.
Watch the little video. It’s disgusting. The first thing they do is give Obama full credit for reducing mortgages. I guess he must have chipped in his entire personal fortune to help these people. Oh, wait, he just made yet another vote buying promise with the tax money of future generations.
I am starting to dislike Obama as much as I disliked Bush. Of course I didn’t think he would be very good in the first place. Unlike others on the HBB I didn’t buy his silly rhetoric. Thank god I don’t have to try to explain that mistake.
Obama and the dems didn’t create and nurture these years of festering boils that have finally exploded all of this toxic puss upon America and it’s people know it. The republicans with their Greedy Old Party and their Enablers were mainly responsible for it.
There was no containing these numerous foreign and domestic messes and fiascos you and your kind brought upon the working people. You don’t create a disaster and just bail out Scott Free Boyz.
Any clean up will be hard, long, expensive and very distasteful. The American people and the taxpayers will be long suffering and struggling to clean up your expensive GOP Party messes …Once Again !
You won’t be allowed to eat your MSM idiotic “Freedom Fries”, adjust your jinglistic lap flags on your little blue suits and cry “it wasn’t us” hiding and throwing rocks in some minority sheltered corner and obstructing when it comes to responsibility and accountability. Things may be rough but the voters finally fingered you and they aren’t going back.
You may love to flatter yourselves…but the majority of the voters, hopefully…still HATE your guts and will remind you this when they pull the levers for a long, long time to come.
How did this screed ever get through the filter?
[not that it was a bad screed.
]
Too bad it was just plain silly. The Democrats weren’t involved? What the heck? Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and Charles Schumer couldn’t have been better friends to Wall Street if they were Republicans. Clinton had Bob Rubin and Larry Summers as his treasury secretaries. The list of Democrat sins are long indeed.
I am not a Republican or Democrat. I just look at this mess that is the Democrat party and all I pray for now is the division of Congress. The system is what it is. I am not going to get some ideal 3rd party created by November. Bring on gridlock.
I usually like Mikey’s posts but he lost his mind on this one.
You may love to flatter yourselves…but the majority of the voters, hopefully…still HATE your guts
Ouch.
Actually, I think it’s been amply demonstrated here that it’s us against the government. Our corporate overlords would like nothing better than us treating politics like a football rivalry (Go Chargers!)
I recently saw a near-life-size picture of George Bush on the back door of a cab-over camper with the words, “Miss me yet?” printed next to it.
Also saw a small car in a shopping center parking lot the other day with - scrawled in soap paint - the words, “You can’t fix stupid. Obama, Reid, Pelosi must go!”
I agree totally. It is us against the corporate/government/Fed axis. Our best defense is that they tie themselves into a knot and can’t do anything. They do the least harm when they do the least.
Didn’t Glass-Steagall get repealed during a period of gridlock?
Mikey —
Don’t hold it back, man, tell us what you really think!
they forgot what it was for
Hey PB,
It was a slow Sunday waiting for the playoff games, so I figured I’d wave to the room snipers taking potshots to liven things up.
Thank god I don’t have to try to explain that mistake ??
Did you vote for the other mistake ?? Talk about a nightmare…We would have already bombed Iran and what ever remaining liberties you enjoy would likely be gone…
I did not vote. It would not have made much difference. I don’t buy into, “you can’t complain if you didn’t vote”.
The mistake I avoided was acting like a 6 year old and buying into the “hope and change” bulls–t. I was no fan of McCain and sent off several emails to friends on how anybody that praises Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan wouldn’t be much better.
I have done more to get people thinking through emails, FaceBook and personal conversations. I would guess that in my circle I have helped more people see the reality of our financial establishment than anybody else. I have worked at the grass roots level.
I may not have voted but I have done the difficult things in my own personal life to try to wake people up. To me, getting the people around me to start thinking was a greater accomplishment than voting for some idiot Republican or Democrat.
I have worked at the grass roots level.
Would that be like, oh, I don’t know… Community Organizing?
NYCityBoy….I don’t blame you for choosing not to vote for either…However, IMO. your lack of voting was really a vote for the winner..Maybe a better option would have been a protest vote…
As far as Hope & Change….I never bought into the hope part but I was definately on board for change…IMO, Bush II has brought this country to its knees ecomomiclly…I am not letting the Dems off the hook here but its the “Cheif” that dictaqtes policy and his policies were the worst that I have seen in my lifetime and possibly in the history of the country…
If the pendulum swung to far to the left, that is the price we all pay for the voters that brought us neocon forced dogma for eight years…As far as I am concerned, the change that we got was a dagger in the heart of the right wing-nuts…
Maybe, ultimately out of this we will get a centrists conservative to lead this country out of the abyss…
“Maybe, ultimately out of this we will get a centrists conservative to lead this country out of the abyss…”
Oh, be still my beating heart…..dare I even hope?
Can we please put to rest the tired straw man that everyone who voted for Obama saw him as a messiah and held him in childlike awe? It’s a right-wing meme that has no basis in reality. Did he have some supporters that idolized him? Of course, pretty much every candidate does.
Most people I know who voted for him did so because he ran a great campaign and was on the brighter side of almost every issue that divided him from McCain. McCain ran a terrible campaign, made a disastrous choice for VP, and ran away from everything that he stood for as Senator.
Politics is the art of the possible, and I try to nudge the system in the direction I prefer. If you’re too good to compromise, then hold out for perfection. Has the perfect candidate ever run for office before? Who?
Can we please put to rest the tired straw man that everyone who voted for Obama saw him as a messiah and held him in childlike awe?
Thank you.
I still like Obama the person. He really seems like a good father and husband and at it’s core that represents real American ideals. - That said, he and the rest of congress can go f**k themselves.
“Should a FB choose his/her FICO over an affordable mortgage”
It’s a business decision every household must make for itself, somewhat akin to the question of whether ’tis better to walk away or to endure the slings and arrows of outrageous mortgage payments on a principle balance that is twice the market value of the collateral.
Stucco, I have noticed that both sides want ALL of their business decisions to come with no personal pain or responsibility. A business decision is usually painful and has consequences. These clowns, from the lowliest FB to the head of JPM and Golem Sacks, think the pain should always be borne by others. Screw them, all.
Amen!
Too bad, Axelrod. Boo hoo. This is a municipal employeen that was counting on his overtime to help him pay his mortgage. Now the baby gets a gift and is still mad. Can the host withstand many more parasites before it dies?
“Told it would not hurt his coveted 750 score,”
Told…by whom? The same people who told he him could Refinance Later? Next time, get it in writing, Jason!
Axelrod’s credit rating will eventually be restored if he pays off his debts gradually. Doesn’t he get that ?
‘Gradually’ takes too long. He needs that new car now.
So do I, but I’m trying to kill my Mazda first. This is going to take a long time, evidently
Eight years old and the radio buttons are all falling off, the windshield wipers are frayed and have to be replaced again, the engine light keeps coming on even after being fixed repeatedly by our Arab mechanics, the heating leaves a lot to be desired, and the little lever by the driver’s seat doesn’t open the trunk anymore, but it starts up every morning in the cold, goes down the road just fine, and has nooooo car payments….even the crimson red color is fading. No rust showing though. 106,200 miles, and I want it to last another 46,000. It’s going to be a long four years.
My 2004 Camry is still going strong too. 125K miles and well maintained, but NO payment, and much lower road tax and insurance!
1998 Chevy 1500 5.0L V-8. 140k and still 1) no payments, 2) fair mileage, 3) reliable, and 4) no rust.
I’ll get better than 250k I think. I know I’ll need to replace the tranny sooner or later. Paint is starting to really peel. The bed seems to smell faintly of dead deer on hot days. The hazards of rural living.
Roidy
P.S. Always change the tranny fluid every 30k boys and girls!
He can have that car NOW, if he wants. He just needs to pay 12% instead of 5%. Over 36 months, that’s a difference of about $50 a month on $15K financing, or $100 on $30K financing. He ought to be able to handle that easily, especially since he just lowered his mortgage payment!
If he wants a loan of longer than 36 months, or is financing more than ~$20K, or can’t handle an extra $100 a month, his credit rating is the least of his problems. He needs to stop whining.
Only 106,200 miles? That thing’s a Spring chicken. My car turned 250K recently, at which point I planned on withdrawing it’s life support, but sadly it’s just too comfortable and runs too good.
In desperation, I put a 5,000 mile trip together. That should kill it.
Silverback,
Spend $100 and get an OBD-II (on board diagnostics rev. 2) scanner. Pull the trouble codes yourself and look up others’ reports on a Mazda forum. Mazda’s controllers are really picky about trivia, such as not screwing your gas cap on tight enough after refueling.
My Volvo’s check engine light came on every 10,000 miles as a reminder to change your oil.
He called the local chapter of “Renting is Throwing Your Money Away, Inc.” and they advised him.
Just 3,000 South Floridians have won loan modifications through federal program
By Kimberly Miller
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 12:25 p.m. Friday, Jan. 15, 2010
Fewer than 3,000 South Floridians have a permanent loan modification under President Obama’s nearly year-old program to stem home foreclosures.
In the Treasure Coast, just 111 troubled borrowers have seen permanent relief from the $75 billion plan announced in February.
The dismal performance of the program marketed as a helping hand for the nation’s more than 3.3 million delinquent home loans was released Friday in a Treasury Department progress report.
Throughout Florida, which by every measure is one of the states hardest hit by the real estate crash, there are 8,405 permanent modifications. In Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties combined there are 2,987 permanent modifications.
Another 96,703 Florida loans are on trial modifications.
The Making Homes Affordable program gives incentives to banks to modify loans in three basic ways; reducing interest rates to as low as 2 percent, increasing the life of the loan, and reducing the principal owed on the loan.
“You keep hearing about this wonderful program the government is doing but it’s not working,” said Joel Bienvenu, who owns a home west of Boca Raton and has been trying to get a loan modification through Wells Fargo since August. “I keep getting excuses that they are just overwhelmed.”
Unbelievable….he received a loan mod because he could not handle the payment but is now trying to buy a new car. Welcome to Scamerica!!
Why do these idiots even allow themselves to be featured in these articles? It’s like a lot of the people that go onto “reality” TV. They just make themselves look like d-bags. I would personally remind this guy of his stupidity on a regular basis.
Let me just add that anybody that told me, “renting is throwing your money away” in 2006 and 2007 has paid dearly for those words. Shame is a great weapon against stupidity. Make sure you use it.
Why shouldn’t it hurt their credit? It signals loud and clear that these are dumbasses who will try to weasel out of their financial obligations. No loan for you!
“This is the biggest nightmare,” he said. “My credit is completely useless.”
Very telling. My biggest nightmare would be if anything bad happened to my wife or kids, or if I became a burden on my family. Loss of credit would be way far down the list of things I fear. But for this fool, keeping up appearances must be all-important - and without borrowed money to maintain the facade, he’ll feel like a failure. What a jackass.
I just can’t see why people are so concerned about their credit score. Its just a number, who cares. If you pay cash for everything who needs it?
After all the screwing the credit card companies have exercised on Americans, I still find it hard to believe people still use credit cards.
I just put a transmission in my truck. I opened my wallet and peeled out $2,400.00 in cash. Loved the look on the the guys face.
Who uses credit cards? Have you tried to buy a plane ticket or book a hotel room without one? Tried buying something on-line without a credit card?
Credit cards are not inherently bad, if wisely used. They have good protections on purchases, and they are good way to prove your responsibility. At the moment, I am using my credit cards as a bridge while I slowly transfer my banking from my old state to my new state.
But it’s just that, a temporary fix. Once settled here (I’m guessing about 6-9 months) I intend to go back onto a cash-money diet, not even a debit card. I did that in 2004-2006 and wow, were my expenses ever low.
oxide, I must be living under a rock. Sorry. Was it you who packed up and moved from Texas to Oregon in a blazing display of courage, with no job in hand?
Also, this concept of ’settling in’ is strange to me. I’ve never actually gotten out of ‘alert’ anywhere, enough to do that. My protest against the man consists of keeping some part of my life in boxes, a symbol of being ready to leave.
I should read a book about ’settling in’. I’m sure I would learn a thing or two. But it sounds like you have the way of it.
Tried buying something on-line without a credit card?
You could do it if they took Pay Pal.
Raiding the retirement fund to keep your business afloat.
(CNNMoney.com) — Like many business owners these days, Bob and Joyce Stubbe are facing a cash crunch.
Business is slow at AFM Industries, their aerospace tooling shop in Anaheim, Calif., and clients are taking longer than usual to pay. Banks still aren’t lending, and Bob Stubbe doesn’t want to max out his home equity line of credit, especially now. Nor does he want to lose his business — Stubbe believes that as the economy recovers, it will too. His last-ditch option? Raid the 401(k).
The couple used their retirement money about four years ago during another industry downturn, recovered, and started a new 401(k). “I’ve got a sizeable amount in it now again, but this is the nature of the beast,” says Stubbe. “What is more important to us, the 401(k) we’ll need in 15-20 years or the survival of the business? I’m 54 years old. Today, I think the business is the most important thing.”
Financial advisors view retirement savings — which are protected in the event of bankruptcy — as a sacred cow and rarely recommend using it to fund a business. Yet for some, it’s the only option they have left.
Ugh.. If they “raided” their 401K 4 years ago, and are now looking to do it again, they don’t have a “sizable amount in it again”, they have, at most, about 60K (assuming they maxed the contribution for 4 years). Given their age (54), 60K is about 1/5th to 1/10th the amount that they “need” to retire by 65.
They better hope this business hits it big; if not, they are going to be destitute in their retirement years. It takes about 1-1.5M in a 401K to retire comfortably at 65 (assuming no other large savings/pensions). They will never be able to get there, so at this point, they are probably better advised to “raid” the 401K and start taking fliers. Shoot, buy lottery tickets!
“they don’t have a “sizable amount in it again”, they have, at most, about 60K”
They may consider that sizable. You never know. We were talking last night how people think $400,000 for a house is no big deal but ask them if they have $25,000 in savings and they will act like that amount is equivalent to the national debt. Stupid!
“Banks still aren’t lending, and Bob Stubbe doesn’t want to max out his home equity line of credit”
Let me touch up this line for Bob. Banks are lending but only to good candidates and you, Bob, are not one of them. You actually have to have some money and be willing to make payments.
As far as the HELOC, I’m guessing that the limit has been reduced so much that maxing it out would barely get Bob and the wife a night of putt-putt gold and dinner at the local White Castle.
The credit junkies are just so sickening. They all seem to be looking for the government funded methadone clinics.
Here in the southwest, our “White Castle” is In- N-Out.
IMO, for the couple to retire in southern California at 65 in 12 years, they not only should have a paid-off downsized house, they should have a combined $3,000,000. For normal retirement income and huge medical bills, just in case.. Me, I think I need $2,000,000 in 15 years since I am renting and might not want to ever buy again.
There is no substitute for White Castle. Krystal down south is a knockoff. I have had In ‘n Out Burger and it is completely different.
Harold and Kumar were right about this.
and huge medical bills, just in case.
Just in case…what? If you eat healthy and have a swimmer’s body and a healthy lifestyle, as you have repeatedly told us, then you should never have ANY medical problems at all, right? Yes, I realize I’m overemphasizing the point and eliminating all the gray area — a la Eddie and his straw men. But we have had almost this exact conversation before; that people who don’t eat healthy etc “deserve” to get sick, and people who keep a healthy lifestyle shouldn’t worry about not having insurance.
I am going to die at some point. So don’t be facetiously baiting me to defend my stand that nothing in our constitution says the government must be in the health care industry. My rights end where yours begins. I cannot force you to subsidize my life, which of course includes my health, nor can you force.
Seriously. The government is interjecting itself into all aspects of human and social behavior. Government can’t “give” anything that isn’t taken away from somebody else, usually by coercive means.
The govt has destroyed Social Security. Amtrak has never made a profit. Medicare is broke. The post office is perpetually in the red. Education is a mess. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac…’nuff said.
And yet somehow people think that if only we let the govt run health care it will be better and cheaper.
And yet somehow people think that if only we let the govt run health care it will be better and cheaper.
I know, that must mean people think the current health-care system is REALLY bad huh?
I know, that must mean people think the current health-care system is REALLY bad huh?
He shoots! He scores!
(My apologies if you’re female)
Ryo might want to learn that 85% of people are very satisfied with their insurance. But why let facts get in the way of hyperbole and a $2T leftist dream?
85% of people are very satisfied with their insurance.
Yeah, and to hell with the 15% who aren’t and the 50 million who can’t get insurance at all.
“I know, that must mean people think the current health-care system is REALLY bad huh?”
Our health care system is the best the world has ever seen and ever will see. Time to turn the whole thing over to your friendly neighborhood government bureaucrat. Yeah, that’ll work.
“Yeah, and to hell with the 15% who aren’t and the 50 million who can’t get insurance at all.”
We don’t live in a riskless utopia. I was one of those 15% until my early 30’s, I paid cash and I guess if I got into an accident or had a serious illness I would be sitting on mound of debt or have found myself among the previously living.
There has to be a better way to assist those in the gap short of a complete government take over.
There has to be a better way to assist those in the gap short of a complete government take over.
I’ve never been for a “government takeover” of health care. I want someone to curb the abuses of the insurance industry.
85% people covered by insurance are satisfied. There’s no data on the people who were kicked out of their insurance after developing an expensive disease.
Our health care system is the best the world has ever seen and ever will see.
It is not. Many studies have shown other countries post better stats at about half the cost.
There has to be a better way to assist those in the gap short of a complete government take over.
I know. Why have the Republicans not ever really cared about proposing a “better way”?
nyc, I have to respectfully disagree. Running a biz is very dependent on credit. If the biz is going well, you hire, and buy raw materials on the front end which are tied up in work in process (WIP). The longer they are tied up in WIP, the longer it takes to ship them out. Once you ship them out, you can bill for them. Then wait to get paid on the ‘normal’ good times 30 day cycle. Let’s say your production cycle is 30 days. In a no-friction world with instant delivery, that’s one month you have to pay for raw materials, the staff to process them, the staff to sell them, and the utilities to run your plant before you get paid. You can generally assume two weeks of friction on either end, unless you’re Wal-Mart.
Thus, if your biz is growing, you have to repeatedly buy more stuff before getting paid, and assuming you have hired, you have to pay the staff before getting paid from your customers.
Even if your biz comes to a standstill, and you are not buying raw materials, just waiting for payments to roll in, State and Federal laws require ?60 ?90 days of notice before layoffs. So, with nothing going out (which will form the basis for payment), AND while waiting for increasingly drawn out payments, you are still paying staff, utilities, leasehold, payroll taxes, business taxes, and remitting sales taxes. We assume here that a receding tide sinks all ships.
So, if your biz is growing, you pay out before you get paid. If your biz is declining, you can’t turn the payment faucet off. Hence, we get debacles such as Arrow Trucking, who turned everything off on a dime, declaring BK overnight, leaving their truckers and equipment stranded midstream. They may not have been able to afford to do anything else.
nyc, unless you start your biz with six months’ worth of peak production working capital in an escrow account somewhere, from which to draw, and which to replenish immediately upon receiving payment from customers, you are going to need credit for working capital in both good times and bad times. I have done restructuring plans for 283 small to mid cap firms, and I have not seen a single one that was started with a working capital escrow account.
Perhaps your experience is different. All I am relating is what I have seen and done professionally.
“If they “raided” their 401K 4 years ago, and are now looking to do it again, they don’t have a “sizable amount in it again”, they have, at most, about 60K (assuming they maxed the contribution for 4 years).”
By the time they pay taxes + penalty on that $60K 401K withdrawl, they’ll have enough to tide the business over for what… a month? Two months? Stupid, stupid, stupid.
While employee contributions max out at $15k a year, the employer could have contributed much more. If they have a corporation, the “employer” can contribute above and beyond that. The total limits are around $50,000 per year. So, they could have a total of $250,000 in their account, or even $500,000 for a couple.
http://benefitsattorney.com/modules.php?name=415
Expect more stories like this from the FreePress. It will soften us up to have the Fed take the 401Ks for our own good.
I sent out a group email a couple of weeks ago introducing the idea of the government encroaching on retirement accounts. Many people have never heard of this potential development. I think I nearly made one of my best friends cry.
Anybody that thinks anything is beyond this government is crazy. Just look into Pelosi’s psycho eyes. There is no horror too horrific for her to try, or at the very least, contemplate seriously. The political whores would sell us out for day old bread and a slice of Virginia ham.
“Just look into Pelosi’s psycho eyes.”
ROTFLMFAO!!!
You don’t think the Fed’s proflifigate money-printing isn’t going to “encroach” on your retirement account, as Bernake’s helicopter money becomes wheelbarrow money a la the Weimar Republic?
Couple the Weimar printing press with a forced move into treasuries. Check-Mate
Dude, I’m no political whore - but I have to admit, I’d also sell you out for a slice of that VA ham. Nothing personal….
The fact that you wouldn’t even hold out for a dab of mustard says a lot.
I’d be conflicted about it, you should know.
Just look into Pelosi’s psycho eyes. There is no horror too horrific for her to try
…or ignore.
If there was any doubt that the Reps and Dems are two faces of the same hydra, it was incinerated when Pelosi flatly refused to even investigate the possibility of impeaching Bush.
The horrors of the “Reign of Error” were easily overlooked in her desire to consolidate power.
Pelosi & Co. also gave Cheney a pass for things that could have landed him in prison.
Bingo!
+1
Read the
handwritingtypewriting on thewallblog:BUST UP THE TOO-BIG-TO-FAIL TRUSTS, BEFORE THEY BUST YOU!!! And screw the liars who run them.
BofA CEO disagrees with bank break-up calls
Joe Rauch
RALEIGH, North Carolina
Mon Jan 4, 2010 3:21pm EST
* BofA knew of Merrill pain in November: House panel
Tue, Nov 17 2009
* BofA swings to $1 billion loss
Fri, Oct 16 2009
* CORRECTED - UPDATE 6-BofA posts $1 bln Q3 loss as consumer credit hurts
Fri, Oct 16 2009
* UPDATE 5-BofA agrees to give U.S. more details on Merrill
Tue, Oct 13 2009
Incoming Bank of America Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan greets associates in Charlotte, North Carolina in this December 17, 2009 file photo. REUTERS/Chris Keane
RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp Chief Executive Brian Moynihan said the financial industry needs to embrace a looming regulatory overhaul instead of fighting it, but added that breaking up the biggest U.S. banks would be a mistake.
Moynihan took a more conciliatory stance toward new regulation than his predecessor, Kenneth Lewis, who retired on December 31.
“We as an industry cannot avoid the simple fact that we caused a lot of the damage, and we have to help make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he told the North Carolina Economic Forecast Forum, hosted by the North Carolina Bankers’ Association and Chamber of Commerce.
Moynihan said U.S. banks bore their share of the responsibility for the financial crisis and the current struggles of U.S. consumers.
“Many consumers borrowed more than they should have, and we helped them do it,” he said.
Moynihan’s comments provided early signals the bank will resist efforts to break up commercial and investment banks that came together during the industry’s extended deregulation in the 1990’s. Politicians and critics like U.S. Senator Christopher Dodd are arguing banks that are judged too big to fail should be broken up.
Moynihan disagreed.
“It represents what our customers need from us as an industry,” Moynihan said.
…
“It represents what our customers need from us as an industry,” Moynihan said.
We customers enjoy the convenience of having our banks also destroy our economy.
Yes, and we non-customers aren’t thrilled about grabbing our ankles while Obama subsidizes the banksters’ reckless speculation and lending while they award themselves huge bonuses.
Only fun to watch it happen to others, eh sammy?
Yes, the grand finale of the Reagan revloution is an ugly thing to watch- just as we who opposed it all these years predicted.
BTW- Obama’s not a dictator ya know. He has to work with a congress that’s been bought-and-paid for by Wall Street lobbyists, who can do so because one party in particular opposes campaign finance and lobbying reform. The same party that Ron Paul belongs to.
The so-called GOP leadership has been trying to undermine and get rid of Ron Paul for years. He’s not shy about shining a light on their corruption and lack of Republican principles.
By your own (very often repeated) formulation, he is a ‘republicrat’- a fool, and part of the problem.
Or are there legitimate reasons for a person to vote for a democrat or republican after all?
On the contrary, I consider Ron Paul one of the very few genuine Republicans, and principled politicians, in the GOP. I would vote for any candidate, Democrat or Republican, who appears to have genuine convictions and integrity and shares my view on the limited and proper role of government and the rule of law.
My BS meter just went through the roof. You’re not fooling me, Brian! He knows full well that regulations can be got around — his lawyers are drafting loopholes as we speak. But breakup is death from which they can’t recover.
In all fairness, isn’t a Megabank, Inc CEO job these days pretty much about
nonstop lyingconducting public relations campaigns?If I remember correctly ,when the meltdown started they merged
big Wall Street Investment Houses with the Biggest Banks . First and foremost ,this is what created the problem to begin with that
Investment firms that had many unregulated financial markets were playing Lender and regulated Lenders were messing around in Wall Street Casinos also. Wall Street playing Lender affected the playing field for regulated lenders and by passing on the loans the regulated banks could just act like Wall Street . Make no mistake that it was Wall Street that came up with the CDO securities and
the crazy loans that ended up going big time Main Street . It’s clear that the major bucks for lending were coming from securities ,rather than saving accounts and CD’s ,in other words .
My point is that how can you have a regulated lending market if
Wall Street can usurp it by them being the Market Makers regarding lending . There is no question that it was Wall Street that came up with the crazy bogus loans ,that they leverage to up to 40x’s . They already figured out in the 30’s that you can’t let Wall Street be a Lender while they are also the party that makes the investment . It’s really a conflict of interest position .
I know Ben doesn’t generally condone links to other blogs, and this post is a bit old, but it is by the former Clinton Secretary of Labor; hopefully it qualifies for an exception.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Too Big to Fail: Why The Big Banks Should Be Broken Up, But Why The White House and Congress Don’t Want To
<b<And now there are five — five Wall Street behemoths, bigger than they were before the Great Meltdown, paying fatter salaries and bonuses to retain their so-called “talent,” and raking in huge profits. The biggest difference between now and last October is these biggies didn’t know then that they were too big to fail and the government would bail them out if they got into trouble. Now they do. And like a giant, gawking adolescent who’s just discovered he can crash the Lexus convertible his rich dad gave him and the next morning have a new one waiting in his driveway courtesy of a dad who can’t say no, the biggies will drive even faster now, taking even bigger risks.
What to do? Two ideas are floating around Washington, but only one is supported by the Treasury and the White House. Unfortunately, it’s the wrong one.
The right idea is to break up the giant banks. I don’t often agree with Alan Greenspan but he was right when he said last week that “[i]f they’re too big to fail, they’re too big.” Greenspan noted that the government broke up Standard Oil in 1911, and what happened? ” The individual parts became more valuable than the whole. Maybe that’s what we need to do.” (Historic footnote: Had Greenspan not supported in 1999 Congress’s repeal of the Glass Stagall Act, which separated investment from commercial banking, we wouldn’t be in the soup we’re in to begin with.)
…
The arsonists love to tell people how to put out fires.
I didn’t know Ben didn’t like links from other blogs. I posted the Huffington Post call for “Move your Money” out of too-big-to-fail banks and into more conservative (and sound) community financial institutions. But I won’t do that in the future if it’s a problem.
I don’t know why they think local banks are any better. They’rein to the local RE and CRE up to their eyeballs.
Dunno, but the things I personally like about local banks is that (1) they are not too-big-to-fail, (2) they face better competitive incentives for providing good customer service, and (3) their ground-level familiarity with the local economy reduces the likelihood they will make REALLY STOOPID GAMBLES like their TBTF brethren on Wall Street made.
Who is going to recycle treasuries if the government breaks up Megabank? Bankers are paying themselves first because they understand the true state of affairs.
Isn’t that the Fed’s job?
Fed prints reserves at zero pct. Banks buy government securities at market rates. Banks recapitalize and government deficit funded. Hence, FFR will be low for a long, long time.
How does this source of bailout largess to Megabank, Inc compare to the various other government subsidies they enjoy as a reward for being too-big-to-fail?
I just want to make a list of why the financial markets were some what stable for so many years .
(1)Lenders made loans and required reasonable down payments so the borrower had skin in the game . Lenders underwrote those loans to make sure the property and the borrower qualified ,thus making the loans marketable in the secondary market for sale .Also Lenders took it serious that they had a duty to make reasonable loans and fraud was something they underwrote against .
(2) Loans that were not 80% or less loan to value had to be insured to offset the risk of the higher loan to value .
(3) Often times loans were seasoned (or held by the banks for 2 to 3 years )before they were sold in the secondary market ,thereby they
were proven performers .
(4) Rather than Wall Street being a Lender they were just the party that arranged the sale between lenders and investment blocks ,and there were standard institutional buyers of loans like F&F ,the VA and Big Insurance Companies ,and other long term investment
monies .Banks and purchasers of loans were more satisfied will lower spread margins on big blocks of loan bundles .
(5) While Banks retained the servicing of loans for a fee they ended up replenishing their capital for new lending by having a secondary market to sell to . Those market were very stable and had low loss
overall and had a good reputation . A percentage of loans were kept on the Banks own books often times .
(7) Their were hard money loans made by private investors but the
loan amounts were even smaller that were made on sub-prime borrowers and the interest rates were higher to offset risk . The greater the risk the lower the loan to value was .
(8) Lenders would enforce insurance on property and other codes of health and safety standards during this long term stable period of the lending markets .
(9) For most part risk was rated correctly ,however you could never predict when a plant would close down or a borrower might lose their job or some of the other risks associated with lending . That’s why the down payment or the insurance would tend to cover the cost of foreclosure making loss less likely for the Lenders .
Fast forward to the crazy lending World of Wall Street and the CDO securities .
I don’t know why Wall Street thought that by spreading out risk in the form of CDO trenches that would change inherent risk ,and why securities would change the fact that you needed a ample down payment and proof of income and value of the property
needed to qualify for the loan . Where was any kind of a time test model done to prove that CDO securities spread out the risk and
created this low risk with low down loans and the crazy loan product they came up with . In my view WS just made everything up so they could make a lot of money . Sure your not going to have a lot of foreclosures at first when interest rates are low and the market is
hot ,but as the crazy lending continued it created the artificial prices
that became the risk in it’self . Guess they needed a risk model for artificial prices created by faulty lending and fraud .
What a breach of lending that WS would create a false demand that drove up prices by unable borrowers getting loans with no down payment protection hedge either .
Wayne Root: ‘Time Magazine’s Big Blunder:
The Ben Bernanke Travesty’
January 5th, 2010
Ben Bernanke is “Disaster of the Century”… NOT “Person of the Year”
Ron Paul Should be Time’s “Person of the Year”
By Wayne Allyn Root and Rick Williams
You can usually count on Time magazine to get things backwards, and they missed in a big way with their selection of Ben Bernanke as “Person of the Year” for 2009. Bankster Ben was wrong, wrong, and wrong again in his Federal Reserve policies and prognostications, with the result being runaway debt, endless deficits, and a financial industry scam machine that is rapidly reaching its proper status as laughingstock of the planet. Bernanke was not the first Fed Chairman to get a big boost from Time- Alan Greenspan once graced Time’s cover (flanked by Larry Summers and Robert Rubin) with the three of them touted as “The Committee to Save the World.” Well of course we know where that led- those three contributed to the destruction of the world’s economy. But that’s par for the course. The people writing the news love to predict and make the news. Unfortunately their predictions are almost always wrong. That could be why most mainstream media corporations in this country are now on the verge of bankruptcy. It appears that the same media”experts” that make terrible predictions, aren’t any better at running a business. One thing’s for sure: the dying Time magazine loves its bankers.
…
Interesting article because it has a detailed graph which can be enlarged to show a camparison of 2008-09 Average house sale price(?), % change, number sold, and days on market. Bear in mind that this information is provided by houses listed and sold on the MLS.
Real estate market lost value in 2009
Foreclosures, credit for first-time buyers drove down the average price in metro area
By Paul Gores of the Journal Sentinel
Posted: Jan. 16, 2010
Data from Metro MLS Inc., which monitors sales by Realtors, shows that in most of the 71 municipalities in the Milwaukee metropolitan area, the ongoing national housing slump - combined with record foreclosures and a tax credit that favored buyers of starter homes - continued to drive down average sale prices.
The average price declines: 19.1% in Milwaukee County, 9.4% in Ozaukee County, 9.6% in Washington County and 5.5% in Waukesha County. Nationally, homes prices dropped about 9% through the first three quarters of the year, the latest figures available from the home-price tracking unit of Brookfield-based Fiserv Inc.
Real estate professionals say the average sale price in Milwaukee County was negatively impacted by subprime mortgages.
http://tinyurl.com/ydc3gwy
A great find, PB, and more evidence of why the MSM is stagnating into irrelevance. I actually read that fawning Time puff-piece on Bernanke while sitting in the dentist office - the root canel that followed was a pleasure in comparison. Time’s shilling for the political establishment and corporate cartels has become so blatant that even the most lowbrow subscribers must be able to see through it by now.
“…the root canel that followed was a pleasure in comparison.”
LOL!
Read about the “greatness” of Ben Bernanke or be castrated with a clothes hanger? Hmmmm. Could I have a minute to decide?
The continuing misunderstanding that Time’s ‘man of the year’ means ‘hero of the year’.
No, I understand it just means the most influential mover and shaker. My point still stands: this was one of the most blatantly fawning and uncritical “journalistic” promotion pieces I’ve ever seen, even by TIME’s pathetic standards.
The year is barely two weeks old and four more U.S. banks have been closed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. That’s one more than the three that failed in all of 2007.
The 140 bank failures last year were the highest annual tally since 1992, at the height of the savings and loan crisis. The failures compare with 25 in 2008 and three in 2007.
The number of bank failures is expected to rise further this year. The FDIC expects the cost of resolving failed banks to grow to about $100 billion over the next four years.
< The FDIC is telling us the banking industry is still under an enormous strain and there’s more potential deadwood to be dealt with in 2010. Bear in mind the cost of closing down failed banks last year was some $30 billion and the cost is expected to be nearly as much this year.
But the FDIC only closes smaller banks. The whales are roaming the ocean with nothing to fear. The plankton are not so safe. It really is disgusting. But I hear that Obama didn’t get elected to help a bunch of fat cat bankers.
Nosirree, and those fat-cat bankers who pumped $4 million into Obama’s campaign did so for purely altruistic purposes, with no expectation of any quid pro quo. TIME and NEWSWEEK said so.
Four million is nothing compared to the trillions of treasuries MegaBank will be packaging and distributing for the current administration.
The banks and the government are engaged in a game of three card monte. Joe 6pack is the mark; he just doesn’t know it yet.
Some background.
I have heard a number of “WS Analysts” claim that this current recession/depression is not closing as many banks as in the late 80’s and early 90’s. This is BS because the S&L debacle greatly added to that mess. Also, the banks that are closing are much larger now than then. There are no two and three branch banks anymore. Most are at least regional with the rest being located over several states or the whole nation.
This is really bad and gonna get worse.
Roidy
Of course ‘it’ will pass and the MSM will make a big deal out of it. “Sticking” it to the evil rich banksters, and once again the evil banksters won’t pay, you and I will. Dog&pony show, nothing more.
Obama confident bank tax plan will pass Congress.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama expressed confidence Saturday that lawmakers would approve his proposed tax on banks to recover bailout money, despite opposition from Republicans and the financial industry.
“Like clockwork, the banks and politicians who curry their favor are already trying to stop this fee from going into effect,” he said, using his weekly radio and Internet addresses to promote the plan he announced this past week.
“The very same firms reaping billions of dollars in profits, and reportedly handing out more money in bonuses and compensation than ever before in history, are now pleading poverty. It’s a sight to see.”
If banks can afford to pay out all those bonuses, he said, then they can repay taxpayers, too.
“We’re not going to let Wall Street take the money and run. We’re going to pass this fee into law,” he said.
And about 3 months after it passes and those eeeeevil banksters get what they deserve, we’ll see this MSM headline:
CONSUMERS ANGRY AS BANK FEES ON THE RISE ONCE AGAIN
Yet nobody in the MSM will put 2 and 2 together.
You need to crack open your Microeconomics 001 text book and do a little reading, pal. Once the trusts are busted, the residual too-small-to-bail banks will have to compete for consumers’ business. They will not have the market power to screw their customers the way that Megabank, Inc summarily can.
Do these banks even have shareholders any more? I would think it outrageous, if I were a shareholder, that the employees pay themselves bonuses when the assets of the company are still marked to fantasy. Giving these guys time to recover the balance sheet seems counter productive.
Uhm have you seen the stock prices of banks lately. BAC is up 150% YOY. Shareholders don’t complain too much with that kind of return. And quite frankly when an executive team returns 150%, they deserve every penny of their compensation.
If I had access to 0% funding, I’ll bet I could “make” a lot of money too. And I’d do it for just $1,000,000 total, not bonus!
“And quite frankly when an executive team returns 150%, they deserve every penny of their compensation.”
Does it matter whether theft from the American Treasury was involved in generating the executive team’s 150% percent profits? Or is it simply a matter of the executive team getting their hands on the loot by whatever means necessary? (Just a hypothetical question here — don’t mean to sound accusatory…)
And quite frankly when an executive team returns 150%, they deserve every penny of their compensation.
150% is nothing. The Enron, Worldcom and Goldman executive team beat that easy. Heck, Madoff beat that over the years too.
To be honest, I’m probably a shareholder myself through mutual funds. Unless you truly keep tens or thousands of dollars in your mattress or pick your own individual stocks/bonds, we are all shareholders.
I pick my own individual stocks and always have. To me it’s incomprehensible why anyone would put their money in a mutual fund managed by people who make money whether you do or not.
Well I think it’s incomprehensible that I would have to spend 4 hours each days picking stocks and paying for each trade. Nor do I think I could handle the stress of watching the stock prices of only a few companies, knowing that even a bobble by one of them would bring down a lot of my portfolio. I like a larger baskets with more eggs, and more baskets.
“The email traffic has raised questions about the role of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner”
New emails show AIG mulled bank payment disclosures January 17, 2010 1:43 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The New York Federal Reserve Bank actively worked with bailed out insurer AIG to build a case against disclosing details of AIG’s payments to banks just days after the insurer considered making them public, documents released late on Saturday showed.
Lawyers for the Fed bank, which had taken over a pool of AIG assets as part of a $180 billion government bailout of the insurer in 2008, advised that AIG maintain a “confidential treatment request” from the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to emails provided by Rep. Darrell Issa, a U.S. lawmaker probing the matter.
A separate batch of emails made public earlier this month showed that New York Fed had advised AIG not to disclose the payments in a securities filing in late 2008.
The email traffic has raised questions about the role of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who ran the New York Fed at the time of the AIG bailout and the insurer’s payment of some $62.1 billion to banks to liquidate credit default swaps it had sold to them.
No, speaking strickly for myself, the AIG disclosures only confirmed my opinion of Turbo Tax Timmy.
Roidy
P.S. I was working with another scientist (a paleontologist) this past Friday. He is a “master scientist”, if you will, with great experience and stature. He is not all that “connected” to the internet age. He knew who TTT was. Heck, he brought it up. I was amazed! ROTFLMAO!
I hope Obama wears a clown nose when he signs this. He could stand on the bully pulpit and call for the return to Glass/Steagall. He could fire Geithner and bring in somebody from outside the banking industry to show that the banks don’t run the universe. But he won’t. He will give us window dressing.
The Democrats are in charge. It’s their turn to do the right thing or take the criticism. They can’t blame Bush any more.
“The Democrats are in charge. It’s their turn to do the right thing or take the criticism. They can’t blame Bush any more”.
You’re right the Democraps are in charge, and have been since 2006 (house&senate) however like most spineless pandering wimps they will blame the Bush admin.(or anybody else)for years to come.While we continue to circle the drain.
Since there’s not a dime’s bit of difference between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to fiscal policies, there’s plenty of blame to go around. This didn’t start with Obama, although he’s making it far worse with his bailouts and out-of-control money-printing and borrowing.
“Like clockwork, the banks and politicians who curry their favor are already trying to stop this fee from going into effect,” he said
Define irony: A guy whose second-largest donor was Goldman Sachs trying to talk like a populist bank-basher. Nice try, Barry, but we see those puppet-strings on your wrists and ankles.
Perhaps if the folks at the top of the economic pyramid scheme are unwilling to bust up the too-big-to-fail trusts, the effort can work its way from the bottom up. The American people have a right to put their money in banks that don’t deliberately ignite banking crises by throwing away hundreds of billions of dollars, with the rational expectation for massive bailouts to fund obscene bonus payments when myriad other Americans are out of work.
Move your money
Dec 30, 2009 13:05 EST
Arianna Huffington and Rob Johnson are organizing a big bank boycott. They want depositors to take their money out of Too-Big-To-Fail banks and put them in smaller, high quality banks.
They’ve launched a new website and have teamed up with Chris Whalen to give folks other options. Whalen’s firm, Institutional Risk Analytics, has a proprietary system that grades banks using FDIC data. Enter your zip code and Whalen provides a list of high quality banks in your area.
It’s a potentially powerful combination. Huffington has wide reach due to her media ubiquity and popular website. Johnson, once a portfolio manager for George Soros’s Quantum Fund, is a successful veteran of high finance who’s spoken out against the danger of derivatives and will head Soros’ $50 million Institute for New Economic Thinking. Leveraging Whalen’s data means the two can do more than simply ask folks to move their money. They can provide better options.
(You can read more about it in this column published at HuffPo.)
I applaud the effort and plan on taking them up on it. Some of my savings currently reside at a TBTF bank, earning nothing, and I plan to move the account shortly.
…
Rising Yachts Lift No Tides
Jackson, Jesse
January 11, 2010
A rising tide may lift all boats (except, of course, those stuck at the bottom). But, as we learned over the last year, refloating the yachts doesn’t create the tide.
Under Presidents Bush and Obama, the Federal Reserve’s Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretaries Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner repeated one constant argument. They had to resuscitate the banks, they said, because finance is the lifeblood of the economy. If the banks went down, financing would freeze up, and the economy would die. They rescued the banks not to save the banks, but to save the real economy. So they pumped billions into the banks, created trillions in subsidies and swaps, and kept interest rates near zero to bolster the banks’ balance sheets, and stave off financial collapse.
It worked in a fashion. The banks are back, making profits, and are gearing up to announce lavish bonuses — six, seven, eight-figure (that’s over $10 million) bonuses for their leading producers.
But refloating the banks didn’t create a tide. Unemployment is in double digits and rising. Foreclosures of homes are rising. Personal bankruptcies are at record levels. Incomes are stagnant or worse. State and local budget crises will be worse this year than last, with cuts and layoffs growing. American families aren’t recovering even if the economists say the economy is.
There is a fundamental disconnect. The economy can’t revive without a functioning financial system, but the banks can profit big time without Americans benefiting. Banks can borrow money at zero percent from the Federal Reserve and buy into rising stock markets abroad. They can invest in companies moving jobs to growth areas like China. They can profit by making bets on minute movements of stock and bond markets that have nothing to do with helping small businesses with the financing they need.
So the banks are making money, but the U.S. economy isn’t benefiting very much. Small businesses still can’t get loans. The banks are still resisting rewriting mortgages, so home foreclosures keep rising. Wall Street is thriving, but the rest of the country is not.
That’s why the debate on jobs and on financial reform that is about to heat up in the Congress is so important.
…
+1 Preach it, Jesse!
Jes’ Me Jackson has found his next shakedown target. For once I wish him luck.
This is the first time I have ever agreed with anything he said.
..Wall Street is thriving, but the rest of the country is not…
Yeah.. So?
Must we all prosper or no one is allowed to prosper? Such a situation sounds kinda commie if you ask me..
Thanks Joey, you just popped several of my blood vessels.
Either ignore trolls or call them out. No need to let them get under your skin…
If I called this post out I’d be banned.
Call me out…?
My cards are already on the table. You’re holding up the game. Lets see yours.
I think most free-market capitalists would be entirely fine with the Wall Street profits if the banksters had not obtained them by financially-engineered theft from the American Treasury.
Bingo!
Theft?
Oh yeah.. now i remember… The super secret conspiracy by the PTB.. or is it the PPT?
Or are they the same, evil people.. No doubt they are.
Conspiring to take over the world!
Please spare us your conspiracy theory straw men. I was referring to what Angelides and others conducting the financial investigation are bringing to light pretty much as I type. You ain’t seen nothing yet.
PB,
I still believe joey=eddie.
And I think I know who the joey=eddie twins really are.
Yeah, what’s so wrong with oligarchy? Let them eat cake!
jackson’s all talk and no action. He said he was going to cut Obama’s nuts off. Hasn’t happened.
That’s because the banksters got them first.
He tried, but discovered they were long gone.
Please respond to this posts with nice, rational, simple explanations for my wife as to why renting for another 16 months would be good. She’ll read this before we hit the streets today. Thanks
You need to buy a house right now, because:
1. Real estate is the best investment.
2. Real estate always goes up.
3. Buy now, or you’ll be priced out forever.
4. Renting is just throwing away money.
5. Suzanne researched this.
Ok, nevermind.
Don’t expect anyone posting at 6a to be nice, rational or simple. It’s too much to ask.
Perhaps my sister’s tale will resonate with your wife:
Three years ago (December 2006), my sister and BIL had a house under contract which had been previously bought just a few months earlier by a flipper, who was selling it to them at a $50,000 (20 percent!) markup. By long-distance phone call, I was able to convince lil’ sis to walk away from the deal.
A week later, I heard through the family grapevine (not my sister, who ultimately ignored my sage advice) that the flipper had put a couple of thousand dollars more on the table. This was sufficient encouragement for BIL to badger lil’ sis into re-signing the contract to seal the deal.
Flash forward to January 2010:
1) The home they were vacating, which they had planned to fix up and sell in Summer 2007, is almost ready to sell now.
2) They live in a nice, much larger home than previously (that is the happy ending part!).
3) BIL will never be able to afford his California dream home now, as they are stuck in the Midwest with a ginormous home which is unlikely to ever again sell for what they (over)paid. If they had just sat on their cash pile, they would currently be in a financial position to make an all-cash purchase of a San Diego home. (It goes without saying that they would rather be in San Diego, as everyone wants to live here.)
Why 16 and not 18 or 14 or 9 or 17? 16 seems like an odd number of months to plan out for.
“Why 16″
Because we would re-align our lease with the academic year — it’s also a little incentive for the LL to reduce rent, which has worked every time I have suggested a 12+ lease.
Muggy,
As a fellow FL resident, I’d say that the biggest reason to continue renting is that, given the current economic climate, house prices are bound to be lower 16 months from now than they are today. Interest rates are at historic lows; which pushes house prices as high as possible (making the same monthly payment cover a larger principal amount). When interest rates rise (they will, without question) house prices will fall. This makes your savings much more valuable, the more you can put down on the house the less high interest debt you have.
Also, in FL (as I’m sure your aware), once you buy your tax basis is kind of set for life. Because of this, you want to negotiate the lowest possible price on a house, something that’s not possible in a historic low interest rate environment. Coupled with the home buyer’s tax credit, house prices are being “levitated” above their actual value. Buying in FL is a mistake in this kind of environment; it will surely lead to devaluation of the asset as interest rates rise and the tax credit expires.
Finally, you have to examine your personal financial situation. If you were to buy a house for 300K today, and it was worth 200K next year, could you withstand the 100K loss? If you needed to sell, would you be able to bring 100K to the table to get out of the house? For most people, losing 100K of borrowed money (which you have to pay back; with interest, making that 100K cost more like 200K to pay back) is not something that they can financially withstand.
That said, I am actually looking to buy in FL, but not because I think prices are going up; I’m sure that if I were to buy this house next year it would be cheaper (perhaps significantly). However, it’s a rather unique property, and for me, I can withstand a 20-30% drop in value and still have the cash to buy my way out of the house should it prove necessary. I don’t plan to ever sell the house; but, the important factor is, if I did need to, I could afford the price depreciation that I’m confident that we will see. Also, it’s a REO property being sold at ~100 dollars per sq/ft, and it’s waterfront, all factors that I had decided were important to me when purchasing.
Good luck! Either way you decide to go, be happy that you didn’t buy in 2003-2007!
Hi Muggy, well you’re in a tight place here. Instead of setting a time limit of 16 months, I’d suggest a compromise here. Tell her, “let’s watch the housing prices for the next SIX months and see what happens”. Tell her you can follow the trend together, whether it be going up ( verrrry unlikely ), or downward. I don’t think that trying to enforce a 16 month moratorium on buying a house is a good idea without her agreement. The two of you have a good marriage, so I’m sure you’ll work it out. Have you decided to stay in Florida ? I thought that you were kind of leaning to N.Y. state. That being said, if you actually found a house in absolutely perfect condition that was pitifully undervalued ( and I mean pitiful here ), it might be a good time to start putting in LOW offers. If you’re going to buy a house in the next 8-16 months anyway, start looking around a little now.
We’ve ( really, I’ve ) been looking a little green-sided 542 sq. ft. rental which has been totally remodelled, was $ 27,000, then $24,000, now $19,900. Guess what we’re going to drive to and look around at this morning ? It’s ridiculous.
I’ve been looking AT A little green house, that is to say
Later, after viewing little green house. It’s really nice, and a great remodel. It’s very, very small, even for a rental. It’s got a great 1 1/2 car garage with an upstairs that has also been remodeled. Someone put a ton of work in on it before losing it to foreclosure. There’s a cash deal in place and it will close by this
Friday. We’d buy it if there was no deal in place, but it’s probably for the best anyway. Easy, peasy rental, though.
“Have you decided to stay in Florida ? I thought that you were kind of leaning to N.Y. state.”
Relocating back to NYS would be a very difficult thing to do given the job scene.
Mike, awesome post. I get the SOH cap, but are you sure they’re are set for life? We’ve seen taxes going down on virtually every home we’re eyeballing.
Muggy,
Well, it’s not set in stone. If you bought during the boom, your taxes are going to go down, because your SOH “cap” is at some horribly inflated number. If you bought before the boom, you’ll just see your taxes go up forever, but more slowly than everyone elses. With portability, you’ve now gotten to the point in FL where the first home you buy (which will set your SOH cap, and therefore indirectly set your portability number moving forward), really does shape your tax bill for the rest of your life. It’s really THAT important to get the first buy right; if you don’t, not only will you pay too much to the bank, but you’ll (as a side benefit) have a higher tax bill than someone who bought “correctly” after you.
What we’re seeing now in Palm Beach is that the appraisals are going down (as they should) and the mill rates are going up (to “make up” for the lost revenue). Mill rates effect everyone (SOH or not), so, at least now everyone’s in the same boat. The idea that we need to “make up” for the “lost” revenue that we used to have (during the bubble) is asinine; but… That’s the way it is in FL, and we (the voters) are too dumb to change it.
Thanks again, Mike.
That looks pretty good to me Mike. I’m renting for a year in the Sarasota Bradenton area, and $100 sq. ft. waterfront would be great here, but would consider Pinellas near the beach if something were priced right there. Where in Florida are you?
I’m in Palm Beach Gardens; upper end of Palm Beach County. And the house that I’m trying to buy does need significant work (probably 50K), so the total cost will work out to ~125/sq/ft once it’s brought back to more livable standards. However, that’s within my comfort range for the type of house that I’m looking at, a small private dock and on a canal. Unless I lose my job (not out of the question, but not overly likely as well), I don’t see any reason that I’d ever want to sell it (except, perhaps, to retire). As such, I’m not all that concerned with the direction of prices over the next 10-15 years; if the price is the same 15 years from now as it is today, I’d be fine with it (I’m almost expecting it). 5 years from now, I expect the home will be worth between 80 and 110% of what I’m willing to pay for it now.
The purchase price for this house is <50% of the loan value (which was initiated in 2006). That’s a good indicator for me; 50% (1/2 price) was my marker for starting to look again at houses.
The reason I put before is that anything reasonably priced is likely to have far too much wrong with it. Do you have time to repair a fix upper with two small children?
Prices are likely to be much lower a year from now.
There may be a gem waiting for you, hiding in the shadow inventory.
Yesterday I was in Lowe’s, and to my surprise there was a small crowd (6-8 people) at the paint counter! Somebody here tracks the paint-counter crowd as a metric for how much flipping is going on.
The $8K tax credit immediately raised house prices by $30-$40K. Wait for that $8K to expire. (I really think it will. Looks like the demand is fizzling out…again.)
When one partner forces the other to do something that they dread, they have no charity for that person, and no insight into the future erosion of the person and the relationship.
When the weak partner surrenders to their fate and misery, in the interest of temporary peace and tranquility in the home, they sign their own death warrant.
Consider the word “husband”.
Very well put. A husband and a wife shouldn’t be at odds on a fundamental decision such as rent/buy, kids/no kids, where to live. I can’t imagine the negative consequences that type of thing has on a marriage. My wife and I are both savers, don’t care to own (already have), and neither one wants kids. Life is pretty tranquil. Change any of those things and I can’t imagine what it’s like.
Good luck, Muggy. This is really a fundamental issue you need to hammer out for your family and for your well being.
Blue and DJ, please recall that this all started with baby number two… my wife agreed to continue renting until we actually started looking at rentals which were in horrible condition, and at asking pricing higher than owning — yes, really.
This is the only reason I turned the dogs loose.
BTW, I hope I don’t sound argumentative — just clarifying. Keep the thoughts coming — THANK YOU!
We hope for the best for you Muggy!
Muggy, I have never been a DJ.
At some point owning may make sense. I see places in my hometown that I would buy if I lived there. They are down 40 percent from the peak. There is nothing in the NYC area that I would buy.
Too bad you will second guess the actions of The Fed and the government.
What the heck, just play rock, paper, scissors and be done with it.
Muggy, as you know I’m looking at houses, too. In fact, I’ve been wanting to buy for about 8-1/2 years now. Moved back from Chicago to PA in May 2001 because A) my family is here and I missed them; B) I got a good job offer; and C) upon research, it appeared I could afford a house in PA more than I could in Chicago.
I moved into my parents in-law suite to save cash. It was to be a very temporary situation - no longer than a year. Within that year: 911 happened; I lost my great job to layoffs; though I had made some offers on houses prior to losing the job, I lost them all in bidding wars. I then met and married my son’s father with the plan to move to Florida for his job. That transfer never happened, I had my son, our marriage fell apart (I was shouldering all the bills on a secretary salary - took whatever job I could get at the time - even though he made about 2.5x my income - pretty messed up).
Now we’re into early 2005. Housing? Forget about it. Waaaay too far from my reach by then. But I kept watching (and every now and then looking at properties). Along the way I found this blog and my “secretary” job turned out to be a wonderful career move. I moved up to Executive Admin. Assistant (still vastly over qualified, but the money was getting better) and then a year and half ago the Director of Marketing poached me for her department and I’m finally back where I should be career-wise.
So now I’m more serious about looking for a house. But guess what? I can’t and won’t do it if the numbers don’t work. They don’t quite work yet - thus my 90% of asking on the offer I submitted Thursday that I’ll probably lose out to another bidder if they’re not “phantom” bidders come Monday or Tuesday when the estate decides. Am I bummed? Hell yes. I guarantee I’m more frustrated than your wife. To start with, I don’t have a great man in my life looking out for me! It’s just me and my son (his father pops in about once or twice a year and that’s it).
So, long post short - she should wait because all signs point to a market that is still going down. What’s the hurry? If I am still waiting after 8.5 years, she can wait a few more months or so. Please try to get her to focus on the wonderful things she has that I would kill for - a great partner; wonderful kids (ok, I do have a wonderful kid).
And at the end of the day, it really does take two “yesses” and one “no” regarding big decisions in marriage. Sounds like there’s one “no” - but not just no…more like “just not yet”. And that’s not too bad.
Good luck!
Muggy, just tell her you will give in on buying a house in return for 3 b-jobs a week. That will certainly make you a lifelong renter.
She said, “yes, it would.” Lol…
At that exchange rate, I would figure out a way to work hard enough to afford a San Diego house…
All very good points. It’s easy to forget what you have. We sound like we are in a similar timeline as far as life events go. I got really bummed the other day when someone mentioned being behind the 8-Ball when you graduate into a recession. I hit the pavement right as the dot com nonsense blew up (then 9/11, then housing bubble…).
Do you sense that there is a lot of phantom inventory where you are? I do here in Pinellas County, FL — but I am also seeing a ton of sales. I think people with cash are still planning on boomers retiring here. Ahhhhhhh!
Oh, I have you far beat on being behind the 8 ball. I’m 44 and have never yet owned a place (geez, if I wait 11 more years I can get into a 55+ place - though my son couldn’t move in with me
I moved back & forth from PA to Chicago twice and just never felt like I “needed” to own a place as I liked being mobile (and I was single and childless). The itch started in my early-mid 30s, but then all the above life events started when I was 35/36. You’re, what, early 30s? Relax.
I don’t sense that there is phantom inventory in my area, but I could be wrong. My problem is I’m being rather picky in terms of where I want to live - want to stay in the current school district I’m in and it’s not huge - graduating classes are a little over 300. So my options are not many. My son starts 1st grade next fall so if I’m going to move districts, I’d like to do it before then. But I’d really rather not.
“Please respond to this posts with nice, rational simple explanations for my wife as to why renting for another sixteen months would be good.”
1. The global economy is currently undergoing an economic contraction. This contraction is unwinding the expansion that went on for many years previous to 2006.
2. This expansion was mostly driven by borrowed money not earned money. Real estate was the favorite collateral used to back up this borrowed money because it was widely assumed that real estate prices always go up, thus borrowing against real estate was considered almost risk free.
3. Due to this current economic contraction that has replaced the previous economic expansion it is beginning to dawn on a lot of people that borrowing against real estate is not as risk free as previously thought. The fact that real estate prices can actually go down is a new concept to a lot of people.
4. Because people are sometimes slow to accept a changing reality - such as real estate prices sometimes go down - it takes a long time - years even - for people to catch on to what is really going on around them.
5. In the meantime the market will slowly do its work in repricing assets - including real estate - to be more in balance to prices that can be supported by earned money rather than by borrowed money.
As always, thanks Combo…
I liked that as well, combo. Mind if I snatch it and use it at will? Didn’t think so. Thank you.
Every time you sign with a realtor, a little kitten dies.
A Lexus SUV runs over a kitten that is being chased by a puppy that also gets run over.
and the little children see it happen
Just before they get run over, too…
Every time you sign with a realtor, a little kitten dies.
A good percentage of every commission dollar earned by a Realtor goes to payments on the puppy-and-kitten killing SUV.
Governments (fed, state, and local) and the REIC (banks, insurers, and estate agents) are engaged in a dreadful game of 3 card monte. You’re the mark. The only way to win is not play the game. If you are going to play, however, beware of the speculative asset shuffle and pay with cash you are willing to lose.
P.S. The only thing that changes with each election or ceo firing or congress person’s resignation is the dealer. The object of the game stays the same.
Just heard from my wife that the sole breadwinner in a young couple we know lost his job, two days before Xmas. Against my sage advice, they moved out of their rental and purchased a high-priced, supersized McMansion back in 2006. Now they have five months of severance pay for him to find a job in an economy where there are none. He is the type of well-qualified young upwardly mobile professional who you would normally expect to have no trouble staying gainfully employed.
All this reminds me of how risky it is to buy a house during a very nasty recession with no obvious end in sight. This discussion is a prelude to a related article that appeared in the Sunday SD Union-Tribune (sorry for any typos — can’t find a link):
Rental Roundtable
Bankruptcy filing has would-be renter worried
QUESTION: I was a homeowner who recently filed fro bankruptcy in an effort to stop foreclosure proceedings against me. Now I am planning to move and rent a home or apartment Does the bankruptcy filing disqualify me from renting?
ANSWER from tentants’ attorney Steven R. Kellman, director of the Tenants Legal Center:
A bankruptcy is a lawful procedure sanctioned and allowed by federal law. Many successful major corporations have filed for protection under the bankruptcy laws.
A landlord may certainly look at one of these filings but should not automatically reject your application because of it, even though some might. Unfortunately, you are not protected against economic or “credit” discrimination. Financial condition is generally not a protected class like race, religion, national ancestry, etc. Therefore, a landlord may * discriminate based on certain credit history and economic factors. The credit criteria must be lawful and be applied evenly to all applicants.
There are limited exceptions, including a prohibition from discriminating based on the source** of income. Landlords should view bankruptcy with an open mind. It not only means avoiding debt. It also means taking lawful action to manage the debt to prevent further losses which in turn case more unpaid debt.
A landlord gains a measure of security with a new tenant after a recent bankruptcy debt discharge since that tenant may not file another bankruptcy for seven years. This means that the foreseeable anticipated rent must be paid and it cannot be wiped out with another successive bankruptcy for that period.
…
*My dead tree copy included the word “not” here, but I assume it was there due to the SD U-T editor’s faulty misinterpretation of the passage, which makes no sense with “not” included.
**Not sure if this rule applies to ACORN-sanctioned income-producing activities like prostitution…
Step 1 to fixing the financial system: Banish financial lobbyists from K-Street.
How Big Finance Bought Uncle Sam
Contributed by Anonymous on Tuesday, January 05, 2010 11:00:14 AM
A year after the biggest bailout in US history, Wall Street lobbyists don’t just have influence in Washington. They own it lock, stock, and barrel.
— By Kevin Drum
THIS STORY IS NOT ABOUT THE origins of 2008’s financial meltdown. You’ve probably read more than enough of those already. To make a long story short, it was a perfect storm. Reckless lending enabled a historic housing bubble; an overseas savings glut and an unprecedented Fed policy of easy money enabled skyrocketing debt; excessive leverage made the global banking system so fragile that it couldn’t withstand a tremor, let alone the Big One; the financial system squirreled away trainloads of risk via byzantine credit derivatives and other devices; and banks grew so towering and so interconnected that they became too big to be allowed to fail. With all that in place, it took only a small nudge to bring the entire house of cards crashing to the ground.
But that’s a story about finance and economics. This is a story about politics. It’s about how Congress and the president and the Federal Reserve were persuaded to let all this happen in the first place. In other words, it’s about the finance lobby—the people who, as Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) put it last April, even after nearly destroying the world are “still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.”
But it’s also about something even bigger. It’s about the way that lobby—with the eager support of a resurgent conservative movement and a handful of powerful backers—was able to fundamentally change the way we think about the world. Call it a virus. Call it a meme. Call it the power of a big idea. Whatever you call it, for three decades they had us convinced that the success of the financial sector should be measured not by how well it provides financial services to actual consumers and corporations, but by how effectively financial firms make money for themselves. It sounds crazy when you put it that way, but stripped to its bones, that’s what they pulled off.
…
Bloomberg
Volcker Calls for Help Fighting Bank Lobby on Reforms (Update1)
January 15, 2010, 04:13 PM EST
(Updates attendance in second paragraph, adds comments on Fed staffing in fifth and sixth paragraphs.)
By Christine Harper
Jan. 15 (Bloomberg) — Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman advising the Obama administration, said bank lobbyists are promoting “reform light” and blocking regulatory changes that would stave off future crises.
“If you agree, make your voices heard somehow or another,” Volcker, 82, said yesterday at the Economic Club of New York, whose members include bankers, hedge-fund managers, economists, lawyers and former government officials. Almost 1,200 people attended the lunch, according to Jan Hopkins, the club’s president. “There is heavy lobbying on the other side, and that has to be overcome.”
It’s been a year since Volcker issued a report from the Group of Thirty, a panel of former central bankers, finance ministers and academics, calling for separation between commercial banks and businesses that engage in speculative risk- taking such as hedge funds and proprietary trading. The idea hasn’t been embraced by most regulators and lawmakers.
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‘Abstract, Abstruse’ Economists
Still, he called for improvements at the Fed, including a “stronger administrative focus.” He reiterated his call for one of the Federal Reserve board members to be designated as vice chairman for supervision. He also said he doesn’t think the members of the board and the open market committee that sets monetary policy should be limited to economists, whose speciality has become “more and more abstract, abstruse and mathematical.”
“The regulatory and supervisory staff must attract some of the nation’s best talent — certainly professional economists, but also financial engineers, auditors, and risk management experts,” Volcker told the audience.
…
I think one of the duties of any elected official is to commit no acts
that would threaten the general welfare of the whole of America .
The majority has been penalized in order for the Fat Cat Culprits to be able to continue with their unbridled greed and gaming of the systems . Of course Wall Street and the Lenders were going to take advantage of all these handouts and concessions without any requirements .
Do you really think that the current Politicians are able to go against their Masters .Look at how these bastard just threatened to punish
Main Street if they get punished . This is what you are dealing
with and they have gotten worse because they were rescued .
If we now are only at January 1933, then we have, what, another 12 more years of the Great Recession ahead of us?
New Business
January 13, 2010, 1:18PM EST
The FCIC Should Swiftly Summon Alan Greenspan
Financial reform might take on new life if the former Fed chairman were to admit his and the system’s failings in plain English
January 1933: Banker Donald Durant is sworn in before a Senate panel Bettmann/Corbis
January 2010: Blankfein, Dimon, Mack, and Moynihan take the oath Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
The public debut of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission on January 13 featured Wall Street bosses striking alternately defensive and humble poses while pundits recalled the glory days of New Deal investigator Ferdinand Pecora. The bankers’ contrition seemed mostly shallow, especially compared to their obvious impatience over the occasional sharp question. More important, it seems likely that the hopeful historical references to Pecora will ultimately prove disappointing.
One way the commission could salvage something meaningful from the hearing room theater would be to bear down on a former Washington player so far not on the witness list. That would be Alan Greenspan.
In the runup to the commission’s opening act, many commentators invoked Pecora, the peppery chief counsel who 77 years ago galvanized a Senate investigation of the 1929 crash. The Pecora Commission, as it came to be called, revealed abuses that showed Depression-era Americans just how much Wall Street was a semi-fixed casino. We will likely get some of the same as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission (and let’s hope someone devises a catchier name soon) holds hearings in coming months.
…
Like a capable California jazz musician, Phil Angelides doesn’t miss a beat!
* JANUARY 15, 2010
Financial Inquiry Extends to Past Regulators
By JOHN D. MCKINNON And MICHAEL R. CRITTENDEN
WASHINGTON–The chairman of the commission investigating the 2008 financial crisis said Thursday he planned to probe the actions of regulators back to the Clinton Administration, broadening his inquiry beyond bankers.
Former California Treasurer Phil Angelides said in an interview he wanted to know “what did the FBI, the Fed, the Department of Justice and others know about subprime lending; when they know it, and why didn’t they act?”
Mr. Angelides said former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and current Chairman Ben Bernanke likely would be called to testify at future commission hearings. He also mentioned former Securities and Exchange Commission heads Christopher Cox, William Donaldson and Arthur Levitt as likely witnesses.
“Whatever people they feel can shed light on the causes of the recent market events should be made available to them,” said Mr. Levitt, who served from 1993 to 2001. Messrs. Greenspan, Bernanke and Cox declined to comment or didn’t respond to inquiries.
Mr. Angelides’s comments came after the commission heard Thursday from current regulators, who detailed how various government agencies—including the Federal Reserve and the SEC—failed to attack the fraudulent mortgages and toxic assets that contributed to the financial-market meltdown in 2008.
…
The Cali boys are pi$$ed that they’re getting thrown under the bus while the Wall Street boyz are getting a mulligan and bonuses. This reminds me of the east coast/west coast gangsta rap feud. Will somebody please put a cap in the head of the notorious A.I.G.? (A job for Joe 2pac?)
…notorious A.I.G.
Ha! Made me laugh out loud.
Alpha-sloth,
Way too funny - I wish I was creative enough to add to this…although I think there is a future here for your newly coined phrase - joe 2pac!
One pac, two pac, three pac four…
Here’s an idea, cut spending! Na, that wouldn’t be fair, raise taxes!
LA’s midyear budget shortfall hits $175 million.
Los Angeles Councilman Bernard Parks revealed that the city’s revenue shortfall hit a staggering $175 million halfway through the fiscal year.
Parks, chairman of the City Council’s Budget and Finance Committee, said tax and fee collections were short $75 million in the first quarter and $100 million in the second quarter.
The shortfall could mean layoffs and furloughs — even for city employees who thought their jobs were protected by a recent labor deal.
Nor can the city expect to see the typical second and third quarter boost in revenue, Parks said.
“In my judgment, there’s little expectation that you’re going to see this revenue figure turn around during this fiscal year,” he said.
Just keep squeezing the middle-class until you can’t squeeze them any more. Buying votes on their backs seems to be the modus operandi.
I was just reading here in CA they want to start charging up to $2100 for fire department calls. Of course almost all the money the departments get from us to pay for these calls already go to ballooning retirements!
Of course almost all the money the departments get from us to pay for these calls already go to ballooning retirements!
And transporting accident/emergency victims who can’t pay - the poor, the undocmented, etc. Fire Depts, like hospitals cannot refuse to transfer an injured human.
I guess we’re stuck with that situation unless you want to go to having your citizenship, health insurance or creditworthiness encoded in a microchip under your skin.
I guess we’re stuck with that situation unless you want to go to having your citizenship, health insurance or creditworthiness encoded in a microchip under your skin.
We’d still be stuck unless we were willing to let the uninsured die on the side of the road. (Universal health care and control of immigration would be a more pleasant alternative, seems to me.)
Bernard Parks is one of the leeches on taxpayer money. He draws a 6-figure pension being the ex chief of LAPD and now has another pension for being a councilman not to mention the current salary and benefits that he enjoys. The city council/ elected officials and political appointees in top positions need to take a major pay cut if they are serious about addressing this budget shortfall.
Trading-Pit Glamour Dims as Computers Ascend in Film (Update1)
(Bloomberg) — Doug Pringle saw punches thrown, blood spilled and fortunes lost during his 17-year career at the Chicago Board of Trade. He misses it, every day.
“The biting of the nose and the fights, sure, when you’re throwing around that kind of money, people tend to lose it sometimes,” said Pringle, 42, who traded corn, soybeans, 10- year Treasury notes and 30-year bonds. “I miss the excitement.”
Chicago’s open-outcry nostalgists can now watch their slow- motion obituary on film. “Floored,” a documentary that premieres in the city tonight, captures the fading swagger of its exchange pits as electronic trading takes over.
Traders and former traders in the film recount drug-fueled road trips with prostitutes, living in mansions, and a crash that included divorce and having to take a $400-a-week job.
The numbers in Chicago’s pits peaked in 1997, with about 10,000 traders flailing their arms with buy and sell signals in a daily scrum of sweating and shouting, said Steve Prosniewski, a trader who’s one of the film’s producers. Less than 10 percent of those remain, he said.
‘Alive and Kicking’
“You were jammed like sardines, but alive and kicking,” said Prosniewski, 43. “Sometimes you’d drop all your trading cards and your pen on the floor, and you’d leave them there till the end of the day because you’d get crushed trying to bend over and get them.”
“Nobody trusts the banks anymore,”
One of South Florida Fair’s hottest items an unlikely seller: Home safes
By Charles Passy
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 12:01 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010
At the South Florida Fair, vendors hawk everything from miracle cures to leather goods.
So what’s one of the biggest sellers at the 2010 fair? A home safe to store your valuables.
“Nobody trusts the banks anymore,” said fair concessionaire Linda Bryan of her booming safe business.
Normally, Bryan sells safes through her husband’s Miami-based business, Jim Bryan Safe & Lock. But friends told the couple that the South Florida Fair is a buyer and seller’s paradise for merchandise of all kinds. So, the Bryans thought it was worth a try, especially since the home-safe business has been known to flourish in tougher economic times (apparently, when money is tight and banks are struggling, folks like to have extra cash on hand — as long as it’s under lock and key or protected by a combination
I can get 0% from JP Morgan or 0% locked away in my bedroom. Hmmmm. Which would I prefer?
If I owned a home safe I would keep my less valuable stuff inside it and hide my more valuable stuff somewhere in a place that only I knew about.
“All safe deposit boxes in banks or financial institutions have been sealed… and may only be opened in the presence of an agent of the I.R.S.”
- President F.D. Roosevelt, 1933
And thus it all began.
Men strip Loxahatchee Groves home under foreclosure, but was that a crime?
By Eliot Kleinberg
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 1:52 p.m. Friday, Jan. 8, 2010
A judge today ruled prosecutors can’t prove eight men committed a crime when they stripped a million-dollar Loxahatchee Groves home under foreclosure.
The ruling could well lead prosecutors to drop charges against the eight, unless new evidence comes to light.
The decision focuses a spotlight on a growing problem: it’s taking a year on average for lenders to seize foreclosed homes through a formal sale, giving angry or desperate owners plenty of time to cart away goods and fixtures.
Or have someone do it for them.
“There is a problem with the system that’s going to plague our system for a long time,” Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Ted S. Booras said.
A Palm Beach County Sheriff’s report says a person had met a deputy Wednesday night at the home at 14094 43rd Road North. It’s valued at $1.1 million.
After the man showed the deputy a foreclosure document, the deputy found the eight men, seven of them from Broward County, removing major appliances, cabinets, and even toilets and tiles and copper wire.
Andrew H. Carr, 47, of Davie, told the deputy the men were in the house with the permission of a man named Gary Coulton, who was in Jamaica.
Coulton is the cousin of Michael Brandon, listed in property records as the home’s owner.
But the eight were charged with burglary of an unoccupied dwelling, criminal mischief of $1,000 or more, grand larceny of $100,000 or more, and possession of burglary tools.
On Thursday, Assistant Public Defender Marie Calla told the judge Coulton had sold the home to Brandon in 2007.
“It sounds like probably what happened (was), this guy (Brandon) owned the place, it’s in foreclosure, he said, ‘Guys: take everything out of it.’” Callas said Thursday.
“It may be immoral and unethical, but it’s not a crime if you own the property,” she said,
This morning, Calla told the judge a lawyer for the Bank of New York had confirmed the foreclosure sale had not yet occurred and so the home still technically belonged to Brandon.
“Banks have legal remedies that they’re not exercising, such as getting restraining orders,” Booras said. “There is some serious civil issues between everybody and the bank, (but) they’re civil, not criminal.”
“‘It may be immoral and unethical, but it’s not a crime if you own the property’, she said.”
What if the property was, say, a car instead? Could I legally strip a car that I was behind on the payments and was about to be repossessed? If so, could that stripping include the engine and drive train?
Just leave a pair of headlights in the street.
Roidy
You don’t “own the property” until you have a mortgage-burning party. This should’ve been an open-and-shut case.
Of course, incidents like this may give the banks more incentive to get foreclosures off their hands as quickly as possible.
i dunno about that.. wiki-dictionary has about 8 definitions of “own” and not one mentions anything about something being purchased or paid off.
Websters has
a : to have or hold as property : possess.
b : to have power or mastery over.
Ownership boils down to who controls it. Possession alone often determines who owns something… well.. maybe 9/10ths of the time.
Own:
b : to have power or mastery over.
Does that mean the Banks OWN us?????
If you owe the bank $1,000, it owns you.
If you owe the bank $1,000,000, … well.. it’s hard to say who owns who.
Good chance if the bank was dumb enough to loan a debtbeat $1,000,000, the debtbeat will prove “too big to fail”…
CA Renter and I had an exchange about real estate subsidies. Perhaps this commentary is a bit off topic, but it sheds some interesting light on how extend-and-pretend works…
After TARP: Hidden bank subsidies-12/30/2009
commentary by: David Russell
Citigroup and Wells Fargo repaid $45 billion of government funds under the Troubled Asset Relief program last week, freeing their management teams to increase executive compensation without government interference. As a result, the general perception has been that these banks and others that received TARP money at the height of the financial crisis are now free of taxpayer support.
But these institutions are still enjoying extensive benefits at the public’’s expense–albeit with much less publicity. In this first installment of a two-part special report, we will explore three unspoken subsidies the banks still receive, and will probably continue to enjoy, long into the future.
Subsidy No. 1: Cheap Money
Banks can now repay government funds because they”re getting virtually free money from the Federal Reserve’’s low-interest rate policies. Case in point: Bank of America, the country’’s biggest lender.
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Subsidy No. 2: Agency Bonds
Banks traditionally held Treasuries as their “cash and cash equivalent” assets. But over the last 20 years, the financial sector has come to rely almost entirely upon Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities as their “cash.”
…
Subsidy No. 3: ”Regulatory Forbearance”
In many ways, this is a just fancy way of saying “not enforcing the rules.” It’’s made possible under a policy that, in its own right, has a long history: For example, many of the same banks that received TARP funds were deliberately allowed to mask big losses in the 1980s after their loans to Latin American countries went bust.
Today, banks are doing the same thing by underreporting losses and delinquencies. This means that, even if banks aren”t collecting, they can keep counting interest they”re owed as if they are getting paid. This allows them to delay the write-down process, and casts doubts on their financial statements.
…
This article suggests to me that a large chunk of money that is supposed to exist in the economy really doesn’t.
Which increases the value of money that actually does exist.
Warning - Coffee drinking combined with the watching of this video may lead to a wet keyboard.
George Bush on Haiti “I know a lot of people want to send blankets or water. (big grin) JUST SEND YOUR CASH. One of the things the president and I will do is ensure your money is spent wisely.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibMf68i4rz8&feature=player_embedded
We need mo money for da Govt thugs.
Syracuse, NY — Another crazy idea popped into Bill Comiskey’s head: What if the tax department required banks to turn over their customers’ mortgage applications?
Homebuyers fill them out at a time when they want to impress the bank with their incomes. They sometimes are not in the same mood when they fill out their tax returns. Investigators could compare the two records, look for clues.
Comiskey, the state’s lead tax enforcer, called Nonie Manion, director of the audit division, from the car. He was zipping across New York state to deliver another speech at another tax preparers convention.
“Would this work?” he asked.
Every piece of personal information is on the table these days at the tax department, where a desire to collect taxes on the underground economy is prompting new and aggressive tactics. Comiskey, a one-time Mafia prosecutor, has been armed by lawmakers with new powers. His staff is for the first time pulling information from third parties into a continuous river of information about businesses and individuals.
The tax department is brainstorming a kind of data mining most often associated with Homeland Security.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2010/01/data_mining_helps_new_york_cat.html
“Every piece of personal information is on the table these days at the tax department, where a desire to collect taxes on the underground economy is prompting new and aggressive tactics”.
“underground economy”
Keep raising taxes and keep coming up with new ‘fees’ and the under ground economy along with barter, trade and under the table cash transactions will just keep increasing.
(GM) = Gubmint Morons!
Last week I was speaking to the owner of a construction company in Vermont who stated he had done some work for a farmer for meat. He was very happy with the transaction as he commented on the quantity as well the quality of the meat he got for bartering his services.
When i was growing up in No Dak 40-55 years ago meat/work trading was standard….more of a friend/friend thing then economic.
Nothing earthshaking here. John Bogle has warned Vanguard investors about this stuff for years. Chair on a corporate board? You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. I’m sure Madeline Albright and Robert Rubin’s invaluable advice helped shareholders immensely, and of course those on the corporate boards desperately need the extra income to maintain lifestyles that most Americans would envy. Thank God we had oversight of investment & insurance firms, banks, hedge funds, rating agencies, government-backed lenders - can you imagine what could have happened without it?
Money for nothing: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/business/17shelf.html
Chicks for free?
Obama Fails to End “Too Big to Fail” Syndrome
Saturday, January 16, 2010
The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), created to manage the federal government’s bailout of Wall Street, is supposed to conclude this October, but issues stemming from the unprecedented rescue operation are likely to linger long past that. In addition to holding hundreds of billions of dollars in private assets into at least the near future, the administration has not begun to address what to do about the “implicit guarantee” that the bailout created: the notion that no matter how big a mess Wall Street creates, the government—and taxpayers—will never let it down out of fear of allowing banks “too big too fail” to just collapse.
In the latest report from the Congressional Oversight Panel charged with reviewing TARP, the panel members warned: “Belief remains widespread in the marketplace that, if the economy once again approaches the brink of collapse, the federal government will inevitably rush in to rescue financial institutions deemed too big to fail.”
This situation has distorted prices, “giving large financial institutions an advantage in raising capital that mid-sized and smaller banks–those not too big to fail–do not enjoy.” Furthermore, the government’s “implicit guarantees also encourage major financial institutions to take unreasonable risks out of the belief that, no matter what happens, taxpayers will not allow their failure.”
In the report, the panel members offer some possible remedies for eliminating the “implicit guarantee.” These include submitting the largest financial institutions to increased oversight and mandatory federal insurance, imposing limitations that prohibit banks from getting to a specified size, or even reinstating the provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act, repealed in 1999, which kept institutions from acting as both investment and commercial banks.
…
The Wall Street banksters have handed OBWon an ideal opportunity. Carpe diem, or face an electorate galvanized to support whichever rival 2012 presidential candidate promises to bust the Wall Street trusts.
Editorial
What to make of those big banking bonuses
Washington shouldn’t get distracted from its primary goal: ensuring that no company is too big to fail.
January 15, 2010
Wall Street executives aren’t famous for their humility, but they reached a new level of tone-deaf hubris in their recovery from the collapse of 2008. A number of top banks and investment firms have racked up outsized profits in recent months, sending their bonus checks through the roof. Goldman Sachs, for example, set aside $16.7 billion billion for employee compensation — and that’s just for the first nine months of 2009.
This despite the fact that many of the same companies were in danger of going under just a year and a half ago, only to be rescued by federal bailout dollars and extraordinarily generous credit terms from the Federal Reserve. Washington not only pumped tax dollars into banks through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, it practically guaranteed them easy profits by providing capital at virtually no cost or risk — money the banks lent only to the safest of borrowers.
Not surprisingly, some politicians have responded by calling for punitive taxes on Wall Street bonuses. And Thursday, President Obama used the bonus issue to sell a new tax on giant banks, brokers and insurers that’s designed to recoup TARP losses, saying, “If these companies are in good enough shape to afford massive bonuses, they are surely in good enough shape to afford paying back every penny to taxpayers.”
But all this anger, while understandable, distracts Washington from what should be its primary objective: to avert future bailouts by making sure no company is too big to fail.
…
Future candidates, read the handwriting on the wall, or learn from personal experience in life’s dear school that you, too, are not TBTF.
“Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.”
– Benjamin Franklin –
* HEARD ON THE STREET
* JANUARY 7, 2010
Even Dodd Isn’t Too Big to Fail
By PETER EAVIS
There is a reason Dodd became a dud.
Sen. Christopher Dodd announced his retirement Wednesday in the face of polls that suggested he could lose his seat in November elections.
In theory, this should be Mr. Dodd’s moment. The Connecticut Democrat is spearheading financial-sector-overhaul legislation as head of the Senate Banking Committee. Indeed, his longtime willingness to combat certain harmful lending practices should have helped in a period of widespread anger toward the financial industry.
But voters were perhaps right to judge him not up to the job of protecting America from an outsize, dysfunctional banking system. Mr. Dodd’s special mortgage from go-go lender Countrywide illustrated that he also could get too close to financial firms. And though the draft of his financial-overhaul bill was tougher than the House measure on consumer protection, it shared a big weakness: Its provisions actually could embed the too-big-to-fail problem more deeply in the system.
All this suggests that there may well be votes for candidates who support more direct policies, such as breaking up dangerously large banks. Indeed, Sens. Maria Cantwell and John McCain have introduced a bill that could force a separation of commercial and investment banks.
…
Indeed, Sens. Maria Cantwell and John McCain have introduced a bill that could force a separation of commercial and investment banks.
That’s the first “right” thing RINO McCain has done for quite a while.
Why Obama must take on Wall Street
By Robert Reich
Published: January 12 2010 20:40 | Last updated: January 12 2010 20:40
It has been more than a year since all hell broke loose on Wall Street and, remarkably, almost nothing has been done to prevent all hell from breaking loose again.
In fact, close your eyes and you could be back in the wilds of 2007. Bankers are still making wild bets, still devising new derivatives, still piling on debt. The big banks have access to money almost as cheaply as in 2007, courtesy of the Fed, so bank profits are up and bonuses as generous as at the height of the boom.
The only difference is that now the Street’s biggest banks know they are “too big to fail” and will be bailed out by taxpayers if they get into trouble – which means they have every incentive to make even riskier bets. And, of course, American taxpayers are out some $120bn, while millions have lost their homes, jobs and savings.
All could be forgiven if the House and Senate committees with responsibility for coming up with new regulations were about to come down hard on the Street and if the Obama administration were pushing them to. But nothing of the sort is happening.
…
A question for fellow HBB readers:
Am I the only poster here who believes busting up the TBTF Wall Street trusts is an essential step towards delivering affordable housing to the American consumer?
No, you are not the only one. Many people believe that property prices cannot fall unless the entire economy, including Wall Street, falls.
“Many people believe that property prices cannot fall…”
I don’t live in on Pandora. After all, house prices have already dropped by quite a lot.
A friend of mine was going to name his daughter “Pandora.” When I explained the horrors she would face in High School, he quickly backed off that plan. He wasn’t real up on his Greek mythology.
The only thing left in Pandora’s box was HOPE.
There’s got to be an Obama joke here somewhere.
There are several jokes there. But we probably should let them be.
I have a baby names book which categorizes by trends and ethnicities. Under Greek Myth it has Jocasta.
Jocasta– you know, Oedipus’ mother.
Electra is on the same list but pales in comparison.
“…including Wall Street, falls.”
And by no means do I equate Megabank, Inc with ‘Wall Street.’ In fact, I sincerely believe that both Wall Street and Uncle Sam, Amalgamated would prosper immensely after adjusting to the end of the too-big-to-fail trusts. If I thought otherwise, I would not be so eager to see the trusts get busted up.
“…the entire economy, including Wall Street, falls.”
The TARP’s passage was clearly a blessing in disguise, as a failure to pass it would have provided the Wall Street banksters’ public relations machine with a convenient scape goat for those long soup lines outside the doors of Megabank, Inc. Of course, this does not prevent them from insinuating that the soup lines would be far longer were it not for the TARP and other bailout largess to benefit Megabank, Inc.
United States
Food and poverty
The Big Apple is hungry
Jan 14th 2010 | NEW YORK
From The Economist print edition
Increasing numbers of New Yorkers need help getting enough to eat
…
There are lots of new faces. Ninety-three percent of emergency food sites have seen an increase in first-time users of their services. According to the Food Bank for New York City, an estimated 1.3m New Yorkers now rely on soup kitchens (which provide hot meals) and food pantries (which give away food). The number of people having trouble paying for food has increased 60%, to 3.3m, since 2003.
…
I wonder how many people coming in to food banks or soup kitchens still subscribe to cable TV.
I think busting the TBTF Wall Street trusts is an essential step towards regaining control of our country, not to mention getting affordable housing.
TBTF is not just the financial market or it’s effect on housing prices. TBTF is really the ultra rich like Gates, Buffet, Jobs, Murdoch ect. They control the system, the media, the food supply. And I see no indication they are loosing their grip. Did anyone remember the post from last week that showed the top 10% got richer and more powerful during the crises.
We the people are divided and week.
Let me know when the people call a general strike for a few days and I’ll change my mind.
“TBTF is really the ultra rich like Gates, Buffet, Jobs, Murdoch ect.”
Your definition is much broader and nebulous than mine. I prefer to narrowly focus discussion on the sytemically risky financial firms which have implicit free bailout insurance, courtesy of Uncle Sam. But I guess we are all entitled to make up our own definitions, as this is a blog forum…
Home building is going nowhere
Housing starts expected to fall 3% in December
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — After plunging by about 75% from the lofty levels during the housing bubble, new home construction has finally stopped falling.
But, despite massive healing efforts by the government and the industry, home building hasn’t shown any real improvement since bottoming early last year.
Through November, housing starts were essentially flat for the past year at an average annual pace of about 550,000, bouncing higher in one month and drifting lower in the next.
Economists expect little change when the government reports on December’s starts activity on Wednesday of the coming week. The housing number will be the major economic release of the week.
The consensus forecast of economists surveyed by MarketWatch calls for a 3% decline in starts to a seasonally adjusted rate of 555,000 from 574,000 in November
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/home-building-is-going-nowhere-2010-01-17?siteid=rss
Published: January 16, 2010 06:01 pm
Time for Main Street to stand up to Washington and Wall Street
Don McNay
Special to the Register
“We’re lost in a cloud, with too much rain,
We’re trapped in a world. That’s troubled with pain.
But as long as a man has the strength to dream, he can redeem his soul and fly”
— Elvis Presley
Another scandal is breaking on Wall Street. When AIG was bailed out by the taxpayers, it allegedly was told by Timothy Geithner’s New York Federal Reserve to alter a Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure.
The Federal Reserve bureaucrats did not want Americans to know that AIG was funneling some of the bailout money to pay off debts at Goldman Sachs. At 100 percent on the dollar.
Geithner is now Secretary of the Treasury for the United States of America.
His friend and predecessor was Henry “Hank” Paulson, who left his job at Goldman Sachs to become Secretary of the Treasury.
There might be a connection here. A connection that cost American taxpayers billions of dollars.
The same week AIG was bailed out, Paulson let Goldman’s rival Lehman Brothers go bankrupt. I guess Lehman didn’t owe Goldman Sachs any money.
It looks like Paulson and Geithner took extra care, and apparently gave improper or illegal instructions, to make sure Goldman stockholders got the best of it.
In the era of Watergate, what AIG and the New York Federal Reserve did was called a cover-up. People went to jail. President Nixon was forced to resign.
It would seem like the AIG story could be bigger than Watergate. The amount of money involved is much larger.
Normally, when a public company lies on an SEC filing, like Enron did, you would be expecting regulators to be hauling people off to jail.
If they were told to lie by government officials, the bureaucrats should be breaking rocks somewhere too.
We are not seeing that so far on the AIG front.
Inside Washington is blowing off the AIG story.
…
By their massive indifference to the only Presidential candidate opposed to bailing out Wall Street - Ron Paul - Main Street clearly indicated they don’t have such a big problem with bending over for the banksters or Wall Street’s Republicrat enablers.
But as long as a man has the strength to dream, he can redeem his soul and fly”
— Elvis Presley
Just don’t do your dreaming on the potty after washing down a handful of phenobarbitol with bourbon.
Coincidentally, last Friday was The King’s 75th birthday.
So now Chicagoland is more affordable to me than PA. What a flip-flop from 9 years ago. MLS #07284181 is a 3/2 split level with a 2 car garage in the western burbs (where I used to live). $175,000. That house in my current area would be listed for about $275,000 or more. wth?
20-20 minutes north and that house would be asking over $300K. Looks like its a REO/SS with a contract on it, so perhaps the bank actually priced it to sell.
This from an article on NY FED hiding info from sec and american public regarding aig
“The New York Fed has said its focus in AIG disclosures has been “ensuring accuracy and protecting taxpayers interests during a time of severe economic distress.”
I almost fell out of my seat laughing, the FED is looking out for the American Tax payer ??? PLEASE they need another excuse cause hthere is no way that this one is going to fly.
“…ensuring accuracy and protecting taxpayers interests…”
Isn’t this the outfit whose former president under-reported his personal tax liability?
Some notes from the SoCal trenches:
My school district is facing $35 million in cuts next year. Purportedly, the Superintendant has no idea how to meet those cuts. Oh, and that $35 million figure? That’s based on the Feds handing California $7 billion, per Schwarzenegger’s demands which, as has already been noted by others on this blog, are unlikely to materialize, judging by Axelrod’s statement.
We are also “bleeding enrollment” in the words of one District official. 400 lost so far this year, and the conservative estimate of 600 next year. Each kid represents $8000 thus the push from District is to keep EVERYONE in school — even those that are failing miserably. There is a lot of pressure to inflate grades. Of course, such pressure NEVER comes in writing.
The District is large geographically and crosses socioeconomic lines as it moves from east to west. The west side is wealthier, the east side schools, far less so. At this point, I do not have the information to say from where the majority of drops are coming, but I can say that the kids in my school (East side, very poor) are even less concerned about their grades than they have been in the past — if that’s even possible. Lots of stress at home, I surmise; they have bigger fish to fry than whether or not they get a D or better in their English class.
The Union’s best guess is that we’ll lose at least 37 teachers. As it is, we’re overstaffed. The union tends to be optimistic; my guess is that we’ll lose more, especially when the budget gets revised again and the District realizes it’s looking at even deeper cuts.
On another front: My father’s commercial landlord, who has extensive commercial rental properties in the Western United States (CO, NV, AZ, UT), says there are no new small businesses signing up for leases of commercial office space. He’s re-upping some leases, but generally only from well-established, seasoned business owners like my father.
Just thought I’d share what little I have to contribute. Thanks to all of you guys and Ben for keeping all of us who are interested ahead of the curve.
Thanks for the post. One of my daughters is a grade school teacher in the Bay Area thus I have a great interest in what is going on.
EPA floats unique Fla. water quality rule
South Florida Business Journal -
For the first time in history, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing special water quality standards that would apply to only one state – Florida.
The EPA, responding partly to a lawsuit, plans a series of limits on phosphorus and nitrogen – nutrients that come from fertilizer and wastewater – for Florida waters that are different from the rest of the U.S.
A news release from the agency said the new limits are “to protect people’s health, aquatic life and the long-term recreational uses of Florida’s waters, which are a critical part of the state’s economy.”
But, one group already is slamming the proposal as a costly burden for the state. The Don’t Tax Florida Coalition, made up mostly of agricultural interests, sent out a news release, calling the proposed standards “a de facto water tax from Washington that will impose major economic hardship on Florida’s battered economy, with questionable benefits to our environment.”
The coalition said one study estimates a $50 billion infrastructure bill to comply with the standards, which will result in higher water bills.
“It simply makes no sense to force Florida to spend billions of scarce dollars in excess of what is necessary to meet an arbitrary federal regulation,” said Mark Wilson, president and CEO of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, in the coalition’s news release.
They are doing the same thing in Maryland for the Chesepeake Bay.
The Florida Chamber of Commerce???, a good independent source of info.
The Nelson Bribe Revisited
When the Democratic leadership got Senator Ben Nelson (D-Nev.) on board their Medical insurance reform bill with the promise of a one-of-a-kind federal subsidy of Medicaid in Nebraska, a loud uproar ensued. That provision drew criticism from governors and others in both political parties from the moment it was disclosed, and even former President Bill Clinton urged that it be jettisoned.
In its place, officials said Obama and lawmakers decided to increase federal money for Medicaid in all 50 states, although it was not clear if there would be enough to cover the expansion completely.
Talk about deception and tangled webs. (Shakespeare: “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive! “) The promoters of the costly, complicated medical reform scheme are working frantically to get legislation to President Obama’s desk even though a final draft is not complete nor has the public had a chance to read it.
Senator Nelson indicates he didn’t mean for the federal subsidy of Medicaid be allocated only to Nebraska. He now says all states should receive more federal underwriting of their Medicaid programs. (!!) Any idea where the money will come from, Senator?
Uncle Sam doesn’t need unpopular taxation when he’s got a printing press.
Senator Nelson recently made a hasty exit from a restaurant where his fellow Nebraskans showed their vocal lack of appreciation for his efforts to gouge other states on their “behalf.” He looks like a fugitive in recent photos.
Uptick in 2009 CPI
No wonder consumers aren’t in a huge rush back into debt, their inflation-adjusted weekly wages fell 1.6 percent last year — the sharpest drop since 1990 — even as consumer prices rose 2.7 percent.. Slack pay and scarce job growth, along with tight credit and a rising savings rate, are holding back spending. That’s hindering the recovery.
< The Consumer Price Index (CPI) jumped 2.7 percent in 2009. There was a time, some 40 years ago, when 3 - 5 percent price inflation triggered demands for price controls. Now it’s considered very mild.
2005 +3.5 percent 2006 +2.5 ” 2007 +4.1 ” 2008 +0.1 ” 2009 +2.7 ” < Price inflation came back at a good clip in 2009. Nearly 3 percent. Had wages increased at that rate, or more, consumers would would be feeling less pain. But wages FELL 1.6 percent.
Time to push up the Fed funds rate to 8% and flush out all the deadbeats.
Fine with me. It would also immolate the dollar shorts.
Ain’t gonna happen unless exogenous circumstances force their hand. Otherwise, my monetary policy forecast is ZIRP throughout 2010, and a ‘longer-than-expected’ period thereafter. The Fed is pushing on a string, and they know it…
CNBC’s Jim Cramer: Brown Win Tuesday Causes Huge Stock Rally As Investors Celebrate ‘Pelosi Politburo Emasculation’
January 17, 2010
Former Barack Obama supporter Jim Cramer on Friday said the stock market would have a huge rally if Scott Brown defeats Martha Coakley in Tuesday’s special senatorial election in Massachusetts.
“I think investors who are nervous about the dictatorship of the Pelosi proletariat will feel at ease, and we could have a gigantic rally off a Coakley loss and a Brown win,” said Cramer on Friday’s “Mad Money.”
“It will be a signal that a more pro-business, less pro-labor government could be in front of us.”
I predict that if Brown wins, the Senate will immediately abandon all pretense at bipartisanship horsetrading and move directly to reconciliation. There were even a few trial balloons about pulling the nuclear option.
Either way the Dems are screwed. They painted themselves into a corner on this one and if they try this “nuclear” option they will loose even more seats than if they let it die. They are loosing many of the Independents and some of their own Dems on this Healthcare crap.
Seriously, is Obama’s historical reputation worth this political suicide?
I assume you’re talking about the health care bill. No, I don’t think that passing the health care bill will lose Dem seats, not directly, anyway. A good bit of the “disapproval” of the health care bill was lefties wanting much more, all the way up to single payer. However, they are warming to getting something/anything. And they aren’t going to vote out their Senator because of it — they think the Republican is far far worse. At most, the lefty Dems will mount a primary challenge to the incumbent, which is usually enough to bring the incumbent in line. example: Arlen Spector.
Whether a bill is passed by Reconciliation or not won’t matter. Arcane voting procedures in the Senate are lost on J6P.
THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER
This one is a little different…
Two Different Versions…
Two Different Morals
OLD VERSION ;
The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away…
Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.
The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Be responsible for yourself!
MODERN VERSION ;
The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.
CBS, NBC , PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.
America is stunned by the sharp contrast!
How can this be, that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?
Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green….’
ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house where the news stations film the group singing, “We shall overcome.” Then Rev. Jeremiah Wright has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper’s sake.
President Obama condemns the ant and blames President Bush, President Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the grasshopper’s plight.
Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.
Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar and given to the grasshopper.
The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant’s food while the government house he is in, which, as you recall, just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn’t do anything to maintain it.
The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.
The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and once peaceful, neighborhood.
The entire bug nation collapses, bringing the rest of the free world with it.
The entire bug nation collapses, bringing the rest of the free world with it.
Masterful. With one tiny clarification:
The entire bug nation, weakened after years of theft, abuse and neglect at the hands of Bush, Cheney, DeLay and the K-Street gang, collapses, bringing the rest of the free world with it.
Your brush is quite narrow. Try the multi decade brush.
Your brush is quite narrow. Try the multi decade brush.
Agreed. Just as if I had written the original, I wouldn’t have tried to pin the whole thing on the current congress/administration, either. In fact, I wouldn’t have mentioned any names, just “president” and “congress” and “talk show” and “celebrities”.
Oh well. It was still a cute story, even if tilted.
I confess I read your comment more carefully than the fairy tale.
I call BS. Here’s what’s really happening:
The grasshopper works hard and puts a little away for the winter.
The ant STEALS from the grasshopper and calls that stealing “hard work.”
The grasshopper complains to the ant, in private.
The ant then complains back — on FOX News — that the grasshopper is trying to prevent him from stealing the rest. Even trying to claw back a little…who does that grasshopper think he is?
But I agree with you that it’s “two different morals.”
SEEKING ADVICE…
My realtor just called. The other realtor is going to meet with the family tomorrow at noon to make a decision. That realtor is emailing everyone who expressed interest to say if you’re going to make or change an offer, do it by then.
Get this…as of RIGHT NOW, my offer is the only one in his hand. So what’s with him having “multiple” offers when he called my realtor yesterday?
I can do one of two things: leave things where they are (offering 90% of asking) or up it (I can up just slightly without over-extending - maybe to 94% of asking). What would you do?
“What would you do?”
I’d walk.
The best financial deal you will ever get is the one that you are willing to walk away from.
From the tone of your posts I take it that your heart is heavily involved in this deal. This puts you at a great disadvantage - one that the realtors are well aware of. Hence, you are getting jerked around.
I’m not talking about a counter offer situation, just a “do I give my top line best offer which is just slightly above the offer I already put in, or let the dice roll as is”? They haven’t responded to my offer yet, that’ll happen tomorrow. If they counter at that point, that’s when I need to decide to play or walk.
But I am pretty put off that I was told yesterday there were multiple offers already when in fact that’s not the case. Guess that’s the game, though. And why I came to the blog…because you are all so damn smart - many saw right through the “phantom” offer routine right away.
…do I give my top line best offer which is just slightly above the offer I already put in..?
I get the impression that’s exactly the way they want you to think.
Does “your” realtor get more commission if you pay more for the house?
If he says you’re outbid, drop your price to 80% of asking.
Watch his face carefully. The reaction will be precious.
If he says you’re outbid, drop your price to 80% of asking.
I wanted to say something like that earlier, but I know from experience* that I am not a great negotiator.
*The ex-wife is a jedi-master
I suggest you stand pat.
When they accept your offer tomorrow include your building inspection contingency. If the inspection reveals any serious problems, you can use the information to have the sellers fix the problem or reduce the price.
Combo is giving you some good advice also.
Please let us know how you make out.
Fingers crossed for you.
I’m not one of the smart ones but still I have opinions.
OK, the guy lied. He most likely did this without encouragement from the seller. No matter. You made a legally binding offer on paper. He responded by voice (and was lying). My take would be to stop the voice exchange, as you are not playing the same game as the realtor. Let them make any counter offer they wish, in writing, signed by the owner(s). Even accepting your offer at this time is a counter offer. No more games.
Also, your offer expired so you are not bound by it. The tease to up your offer would get you back in the legally binding zone. Sit tight and it’s their move. If yours is the only offer, why would you up it!?! You are being played like a violin.
If it were me, and there was a counter offer, I’d drag it out, go look at the property again for half a day at least, and let them get nervous. Then I’d offer the same money as at first and ask for a new roof or new oven and some rewiring or something. I’d also ask the head of the agency selling the place to have someone else present the offer as the first agent proved to be a liar. That’s just me, I doubt you are in the emotional place to be so cold.
What would you do?
Offer 85% of asking. If they play more games, the offer goes down to 80% of asking. You have 24 hours to decide.
When we bought our house, they tried to tell us there was another offer (on a house that had been on the market for seven months!) so we said, fine, and left our offer as it was. I’d either do that or drop your offer. Remember that this is not your house, it’s theirs, and all the pressure is on them. If you “lose” it, another will be along.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/15/sunstein/print.html
Obama confidant’s spine-chilling proposal: Cass Sunstein wants the government to “cognitively infiltrate” anti-government groups
Glenn Greenwald
Jan. 15, 2010 |
Cass Sunstein has long been one of Barack Obama’s closest confidants. Often mentioned as a likely Obama nominee to the Supreme Court, Sunstein is currently Obama’s head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs where, among other things, he is responsible for “overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs.” In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-”independent” advocates to “cognitively infiltrate” online groups and websites — as well as other activist groups — which advocate views that Sunstein deems “false conspiracy theories” about the Government. This would be designed to increase citizens’ faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists. The paper’s abstract can be read, and the full paper downloaded, here.
Sunstein advocates that the Government’s stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups.” He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called “independent” credible voices to bolster the Government’s messaging (on the ground that those who don’t believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government). This program would target those advocating false “conspiracy theories,” which they define to mean: “an attempt to explain an event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role.”
…sending covert agents into “chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups.”
But Eddie doesn’t like Obama!
Maybe Eddie and his controllers just WANT you to think that…in all seriousness, this is the creepiest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Why am I not surprised.
For that matter, Eddie could use Obama-baiting to try to ferret out the anti-Obama posters here. Don’t take the sucker fluffer bait.
Would you really need to ‘ferret out’ the anti-Obama posters here? Most won’t shut up about it.
LOL.
A wise man surrounds himself with advisors more wise than he.
A sociopath surrounds himself with greater lunatics.
Skye, a sociopath is a manipulator. A con man. A con man has no use for lunatics. A con man needs sycophants.
I encourage everyone to read the actual paper this article is about. (There’s a link to it in the article.) It’s kind of an interesting update on ‘The Paranoid Style In American Politics’ (another must-read). Oh, and it’s not quite as terrifying as some here contend. Hate to stop the cascade…
Of course, I probably work for…them
One of my great concerns is that with the corporate-owned media abdicating their role as a credible source of information, that information vacuum is being filled by “new” media such as blogs that are often pushing an agenda. Perception is reality, and in hard economic times dangerous oversimplifications or outlandish conspiracy theories gain widespread currency. And scared or angry people are more likely to believe and act on bad information, which can lead to needless tragedy. I wish the media moguls would recognize this and strive to gain back some of their lost credibility by doing honest reporting that’s in the public interest.
“an attempt to explain an event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role”
Why don’t we just get the Congressional audit of the Fed going, so that blog authors won’t have to waste so much time and energy conjecturing how Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, Hank Paulson, and top managers at too-big-to-fail megabanks could possibly have not seen the housing bust and the banking crisis coming, when so many amateurs had no problem foreseeing it and predicting it with remarkable clarity?
And I am very happy that Angelides is doing a great job so far with his investigation of the financiers responsible for sowing the seeds of this crisis. STAY THE COURSE, PHIL!!!
Some folks say California has four seasons: Earthquake, fire, drought and floods. It looks like flood season may be on the way this week, with a few mudslides possibly included. If 20 inches actually occur in the mountains, flooding or mudslides could become severe, as there is no grand cover in areas that were denuded of vegetation in the Fall 2007 fires.
Storms expected to drench county
By Robert Krier, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Saturday, January 16, 2010 at 12:04 a.m.
Stan King, a hydrographic instrumentation technician, checked a water-level sensor in Escondido Creek yesterday in preparation for heavy rains forecast for next week.
John Gastaldo / Union-Tribune
FORECAST
As of yesterday, three major storm pulses were expected to arrive next week and bring up to 8 inches at the coast and 20 inches in the mountains. The heaviest downpours could arrive Thursday, when thunderstorms and the strongest winds are likely, the National Weather Service said.
San Diego County could be headed for its wettest week in more than a decade.
A succession of storms is expected to bring heavy rain beginning Monday, and there may be only a few short breaks through Friday, according to the National Weather Service. Computer forecast models are calling for 5 to 8 inches of precipitation at the coast by the end of the week and more than 20 inches in the mountains — a year’s worth of rain for some locations.
“People should take this series (of storms) seriously,” said Ivory Small, a forecaster at the weather service’s Rancho Bernardo office. “It could be quite memorable. There are going to be some daily records set, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some two- or three-day records set, as well. It’s got all that potential.”
Eight inches of rain in a week would rank among the biggest deluges in San Diego history. Since record-keeping began in 1850, the city has received more than 8 inches in a month only four times.
…
SUGGESTED PREPARATIONS
• Don’t try to drive through a flooded street if you can’t see the road. It only takes a few inches of rain to sweep away a car.
• For information on road closures, visit sdcounty.ca.gov/dpw/emergency.html or twitter.com/sdcountydpw.
• Stock up on emergency supplies, including a first-aid kit, prescription drugs, a portable radio, food, flashlights and spare batteries.
• Keep plastic sheeting and plywood on hand for repairs.
• Clean out gutters and drains.
• Turn off automated irrigation systems.
• Check for beach closures before venturing into the ocean. Contamination is common during and after heavy storms.
• Use the free sandbags provided by local governments to protect property, but be sure not to block county culverts. Here are some locations, and bring your own shovel:
San Diego:
Fire Station 15, 4711 Voltaire St. in Ocean Beach
Fire Station 21, 750 Grand Ave. in Pacific Beach
Fire Station 28, 3880 Kearny Villa Road in the Kearny Mesa-Montgomery Field area
Fire Station 29, 198 W. San Ysidro Blvd. in San Ysidro
Fire Station 33, 16966 Bernardo Center Drive in Rancho Bernardo
Fire Station 37, 11640 Spring Canyon Road in Scripps Ranch
Lifeguard stations in Ocean Beach, Mission Beach and Pacific Beach
Oceanside:
City Operations Center, 4927 Oceanside Blvd.
San Diego County:
1364 Tavern Road, Alpine
Dulzura Fire Station, 17304 Highway 94, Dulzura
North County Fire Protection, Station 4, 4375 Pala Mesa Drive, Fallbrook
1587 Highway 78, Julian
Cal Fire, Mount Woodson Station, 16310 Highway 67, Ramona
16971 Highway 76, Valley Center
28205 N. Lake Wohlford Road, Valley Center
RECORD RAINFALL
Wettest months in the city of San Diego’s history since record-keeping started in 1850:
9.26 inches: December 1921
9.09 inches: January 1993
9.05 inches: February 1884
8.06 inches: January 1995
7.88 inches: March 1867
Source: National Weather Service
Online: For Robert Krier’s weather blog, go to uniontrib.com/weather-watch
If 20 inches actually occur in the mountains, flooding or mudslides could become severe
Dang PB! Got your life preservers?
Hey PB == Professor Bear == Pacific Beach!
“Pretty Bad”
The good news: The regression effect suggests that if you predict that in the next week, your city is likely to record a rainfall total which will exceed the monthly totals for all but four months going back to 1850, the actual outcome is likely to turn out “better than expected.” And meanwhile, the newspapers which report the dire forecast will capture more readers’ attention, so it is all good!
Ah, earthquake season- when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love.
PB also = peanut butter. Excellent survival food. Everyone should keep a few back-up jars.
Heavy rains in desert regions can also be EXTREMELY dangerous when arroyos– dry mini-canyons– can flood unexpectedly, even when there isn’t rain directly over the area. Such a short, swift flood took out a section of I-5 in Southern California in 1995 and led to some deaths as people drove into the sudden creek. Be careful and know conditions!
The Financial Times
Creditors put Dubai World debt up for sale
By Anousha Sakoui, Robin Wigglesworth and Simeon Kerr
Published: January 17 2010 22:01 | Last updated: January 17 2010 22:01
Bank creditors to Dubai World that are owed billions of dollars are trying to reduce their exposure to the debt-laden conglomerate by offering their loans for sale ahead of an expected restructuring of the company’s $22bn of debt.
Last week, debt traders told potential investors that there was a seller seeking to offload about $100m of loans.
This would be the first large trade in the $5.5bn loan facility at Dubai World’s parent, of which $2.1bn falls due for repayment in June, according to Bloomberg data.
Investors and traders say the debt could be sold at 70 per cent of face value.
It is not certain that the trade will take place. The potential seller’s identity has not been revealed.
It is believed other loans have been offered privately to potential investors.
“The sellers are mainly some of the smaller international banks . . . which are starting to get discouraged by the whole process,” a banker based in Dubai said.
“There’s a huge disconnect in price, and bids [at 50 per cent of face value] are being driven by the market’s view of the likely recovery value for Nakheel and the other Dubai World assets.”
…
EDITOR’S CHOICE
In depth: Dubai financial crisis - Nov-27
Dubai’s DP World seeks London listing - Jan-06
Comment: Burj bet may pay off – eventually - Jan-04
Clamour for payment for emirate’s cranes - Jan-04
World’s tallest tower opens in debt-hit Dubai - Jan-04
Dubai’s restructuring continues to reverberate - Dec-30
The Financial Times
Banking: Rarely pointed finger
By John Plender
Published: January 17 2010 18:40 | Last updated: January 17 2010 18:40
Analysis
Possession without obligation to the object possessed approaches felicity.
George Meredith might not have had institutional investors in mind when he wrote The Egoist. Yet this cynical aphorism in his comic novel from the high Victorian period applies very neatly to the widespread view that the shareholders of the last decade behaved like absentee owners when confronted with excessive risk-taking by banks.
Sir David Walker, author of the recent UK government-sponsored review of corporate governance in the financial sector, argues for example that “board and director shortcomings … would have been tackled more effectively had there been more vigorous scrutiny and engagement by major investors acting as owners”.
For Lord Myners, UK financial services secretary, shareholders should have paid closer attention to the strategies, motives and competence of the boards and chairmen of banks.
Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, speaking in the context of takeovers, told investors and industrialists last week that he wanted to “ask if London can set a new standard for high-quality, long-term engagement between investors and company owners”.
These views are echoed with a different nuance in the US, where a panel of industry and market experts told the Senate banking committee last month that the global financial crisis represented “a massive failure of oversight” but that “share owners currently have few ways to hold directors’ feet to the fire”.
…
I’m so glad we have all the right wing members on board tonight.
Hey look what I found in the memory hole!!
whatthe.blogetery.com/index.php/2007/12/29/list-of-bush-scandals/
1. Patient neglect at Walter Reed Army Hospital
2. US Attorney firings
3. Libby/Plame Affair (Outing a CIA agent)
4. Iraq war
5. Afghanistan (leaving before the job was done)
6. Iran saber rattling
7. North Korea (mishandling nuclear issue)
8. The War on Terror (failure to capture Osama bin Laden, dubious allies)
9. Civilian contractors in Iraq (poor service for big bucks)
10. Military Commissions Act (torture, kangaroo courts, indefinite detention, and loss of habeas corpus)
11. Hurricane Katrina and the drowning of New Orleans
12. NSA warrantless wiretapping
13. SWIFT (international money transfers)
14. Black sites and rendition
15. Department of Homeland Security (a massive boondoggle)
16. K Street lobbyists (for government you can buy)
17. Dusty Foggo (No. 3 at the CIA)
18. Duke Cunningham (a corrupt politician)
19. Tom Delay (another corrupt politician)
20. Mark Foley and the House pages
21. Cheney Energy Task Force (and hiding info about it)
22. Tax cuts for the richest of the rich
23. Global warming (denial and stalling)
24. Terri Schiavo and the attempted trashing of family privacy rights
25. Budget deficits and a greatly increased national debt
26. Stacking of the Supreme Court (Roberts and Alito)
27. Medicare( lack of long term solvency)
28. Medicare Part D (Drug prescriptions)
30. Doug Feith (stovepiping Iraq intel)
31. 2000 election (stolen)
32. 2004 election (rigging)
33. 9/11 Commission limitation and manipulation of
34. 9/11 Commission’s recommendations delayed implementation
35. Marginalization of the UN
36. Preventive war doctrine
37. Loss of US prestige
38. Inaction on Israeli-Palestinian peace process
39. Lack of spending on basic research
40. Alberto Gonzales
41. FDA restricting the mission
42. EPA restricting the mission
43. Porter Goss trashing the CIA
44. Militarization of intelligence
45. Rampant cronyism
46. Signing statements
47. Unilateral Executive
48. Abuse of the National Guard
49. Breaking the Army
50. Increase in the balance of trade deficit
Part 2:
51. Grassley Bankruptcy Bill (creditors favored over debtors)
52. Cross border Mexican truck safety
53. Rove’s security clearance (kept after his part in outing Valerie Plame)
54. Anti-immigration raids (children and parents separated)
55. Dubai Ports deal (a Middle East company in charge of US ports in the age of terrorism)
56. Patriot Act and its Extension
57. Privatization of Social Security (a bad idea endlessly recycled)
58. War on Science
59. David Safavian (Abramoff associate)
60. Claude Allen (White House adviser caught shoplifting)
61. Bush lying about firing Rumsfeld before the November 2006 election
62. Armstrong Williams (paid propagandists)
63. Labor Department (ground down by Mitch McConnell’s wife)
64. Net neutrality/media ownership
65. Israeli bombing of Lebanon (delay in putting a ceasefire in place)
66. PDB on Bin Laden (ignoring the terrorist threat pre-9/11)
67. Ground Zero declared non-toxic
68. Sago mining disaster (non-enforcement of safety regs)
69. Harriet Miers Supreme Court nomination (a supreme act of cronyism)
70. Vetoing stem cell research
71. Plan B contraception
72. Clear Skies/ Healthy Forests Acts (weakening pollution controls and opening forests to logging)
73. Ballistic missile shield (only works to antagonize the Russians)
74. Leandro Aragoncillo (the spy in Cheney’s office)
75. Overseas AIDS programs (reflecting the Administration’s benighted views on sex)
76. Constitutional amendment against gay marriage
77. Drilling in Bristol Bay, Alaska
78. Canard of Clintons trashing the White House before leaving
79. Jeff Gannon (a male prostitute in the White House press corps)
80. Native American trust funds
81. Creationist materials at national parks
82. Returning US war dead (banning photographing the returning coffins)
83. False military reporting (Pat Tillman, Jessica Lynch)
84. AIPAC spy scandal
85. Detainee court cases (a quick guide)
86. Opening US mail
87. Subprime mortgage bubble
88. Bush’s ties to Enron
89. 2001 California energy crisis (refusal to intervene in this Enron manufactured crisis)
90. Darfur (calling it genocide is not a policy)
91. Russian loose nukes (underfunding)
92. OPR Gonzales investigation (stymied)
93. Interference in lawsuit against Big Tobacco
94. Phone jamming in New Hampshire (with White House connections)
95. Steven Griles (Abramoff’s man at Interior)
96. US Attorney targeting of Democratic office holders
97. Interim US Attorney provision (an attempt to appoint USAs without Senate approval)
98. FBI National Security Letters (overuse and abuse)
99. GSA (Hatch Act violations)
100. Karl Rove
101. Civil Rights Division at Justice (voter fraud used to suppress minority voting)
102. Campaign finance (still rotten)
103. Swift boating of John Kerry
104. No Child Left Behind (an uneducated President’s predictable approach to education)
105. Susan Dudley (an anti-regulator regulator)
106. Paul Wolfowitz (two disasters for the price of one: Iraq and the World Bank)
107. Kenneth Tomlinson (conservative interference in public broadcasting)
108. Matteo Fontana (student loan administrator bought and paid for by student loan companies)
109. Rachel Paulose (abrasive crony interim USA for Minnesota)
110. White House email on RNC servers (in contravention of White House Records Act)
111. Georgia Thompson Wisconsin employee railroaded by Republican USA before an election
112. Pre-election investigation of Bob Menendez
113. Kay James (political hires)
114. Bernard Kerik (Giuliani crony)
115. Bush’s early years
116. Watch lists (so many, so large, so ineffective)
117. Classification and de-classification Cheney style
118. Cheney shoots Harry Whittington
119. ATS (another database, this one at the DHS)
120. Scalia conflict of interest (his duck hunting trip with Cheney)
121. Election Assistance Commission (suppressed a report showing voter fraud was not a problem)
122. Attacks against Mohammed ElBaradei (mostly for being right about Iraqi and Iranian WMD)
123. Alice Fisher (Criminal Division Justice)
124. House Ethics Committee (the ethics part is just for laughs)
125. Media complicity in the Bush years
126. Democratic inaction (in the same time frame)
127. Lack of Republican oversight (ditto)
128. AUMF against Iraq (often cited, seldom read)
129. Medals of Freedom for the disaster in Iraq
130. Real ID Act
131. Jose Padilla (an American enemy combatant)
132. Electronic prescription reporting
133. Jean-Bertrand Aristide (Haiti)
134. Hugo Chavez (Venezuela)
135. Ethanol (a political fuel)
136. Republican filibustering
137. Stacking of federal judiciary with hacks
138. Ralph Reed (Abramoff associate)
139. Proselytizing at the US Air Force Academy
140. Office of Faith Based Initiatives (a sop to the religious right)
141. Military disability ratings (another story of how Bush really supports the troops)
142. Earmarks (good when Republicans do them, bad when Democrats use them)
143. Medicare privatization (more victimization of the elderly)
144. Nuclear proliferation (a very unequal approach)
145. Julie MacDonald (Fish and Wildlife)
146. Darleen Druyum (defense procurement scam)
147. Luis Posada Carriles/Vang Pao (terrorists but our terrorist)
148. No White House investigation into Plame affair
149. Politics at NASA
150. Attempt to limit federal prisoners testifying before Congress
Armstrong Williams (paid propagandists)
I remember that one!
Part 3:
151. Corporate remuneration
152. Financial analysis and investment (a supposed separation)
153. Scott Bloch (whistleblower protection, not really)
154. Richard Levernier and Bogdan Dzakovic (whistleblowers)
155. Sibel Edmonds (whistleblower)
156. Monica Goodling (political hires)
157. Michael Baroody and the Consumer Products Safety Commission
158. TALON (Pentagon surveillance of civilians)
159. Scripted Iraqi war White House news conference
160. Bill Frist and healthcare giant HCA
161. Julie Myers (Immigration)
162. Randall Tobias (AIDS coordinator with a yen)
163. Robert Coughlin (Abramoff tie in)
164. Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction is a thankless job
165. Continuing Republican support for the Iraq war despite the public’s rejection of it
166. Border Fence with Mexico (a short fence for a long border)
167. Bush coverup strategies to defeat Congressional oversight
168. Gordon Smith campaign and White House help
169. Debra Yang (US Attorney)
170. Elizabeth Cheney (nepotism)
171. Dick Cheney
172. Oil lease fiascos
173. Guantanamo defense counsels (not the path to career advancement)
174. VA bonuses (for a job not well done)
175. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (another ineffective board and doctored report)
176. Johnnie Frazier (Commerce IG)
177. Bill Roderick (EPA IG)
178. Janet Rehnquist (HHS IG)
179. Karla Corcoran (Post Office IG)
180. Polar bears, global warming, and censorship
181. American Center for Voting Rights (fake voter fraud group)
182. MTBE (gas additive)
183. FBI domestic spying without probable cause
184. Gutting overtime pay regulations
185. Leaving the International Criminal Court
186. Dissemination of medical information
187. Deregulation of energy companies
188. James Holsinger (Anti-gay Surgeon General nominee)
189. Italia Federici (Abramoff crony)
190. Thomas Barnett (Anti-trust Division Justice)
191. Palestinian civil war
192. A list of reasons to invade Iraq
193. A list of Iraq war turning points
194. Torture and Guantanamo
195. Torture and Iraq
196. Dick Cheney and the Fourth Branch
197. Bill Mercer and the US Attorney scandal
198. John Rizzo (CIA lawyer permissive of torture)
199. Public Interest Declassification Board (a useless entity)
200. SCOTUS: Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1 (integration)
201. SCOTUS: Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (gender discrimination)
202. SCOTUS: Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life (issue oriented political advertising)
203. SCOTUS: Morse et al v. Frederick (free speech of minors)
204. SCOTUS: Leegin Creative Leather Products, Inc. v. PSKS, Inc. (price fixing OK’ed)
205. Booz Allen cost overruns on DHS intelligence contract and DHS incompetence
206. Alphonso Jackson (Secretary HUD and political interference)
207. Donald Rumsfeld
208. SCOTUS: Rapanos v. United States (wetland protection)
209. Attempts to overturn the Roadless Rule protection of wilderness areas
210. An unreported leak of highly enriched uranium
211. Opening up the San Rafael Swell to development
212. Pro-rating the value of older Americans at the EPA
213. Shoddy armoring kits for Humvees from defense contractors
214. Senator David Vitter (a family values conservative who likes to visit prostitutes)
215. Nuclear Regulatory Commission control of radioactive materials remain ineffective
216. Hedge fund profits while huge are taxed at lower rates
217. SAIC, the revolving door, and expensive contracts for systems that don’t work
218. MRAP, delay in deployment of IED resistant vehicles to Iraq
219. Intelligence Oversight Board which did nothing during 5 1/2 years of Bush excesses
220. DHS employed Wackenhut for its security, a firm that just may be more incompetent than the DHS
221. Drug czar John Walters and Hatch Act violations
222. SCHIP (children’s healthcare less important than insurance company profits)
223. Alaska’s two Senators and one Congressman all caught up in corruption scandals
224. Don Siegelman (ex-Governor of Alabama and a political prosecution with ties to Karl Rove)
225. FEMA trailers for Katrina victims with high levels of formaldehyde
226. The White House declares that Harriet Miers doesn’t have to answer a subpoena based on a legal opinion by 227. White House says it will not prosecute contempt citations
228. Matthew McKeown a political appointee hired into a career position at Interior
229. Attempted political interference in Oxycontin plea deal
230. David Petraeus mislays 350,000 rifles and pistols in Iraq
231. David Palmer (EOCC nomination despite poor management and legal skills)
232. Peter Kirsanow affirmative action opponent named to Civil Rights Commission
233. Patriot Act Extension gave the AG the right to decide if death penalty defendants were adequately represented
234. Petraeus report (hyped by the White House but actually written by it and not presented by Petraeus)
235. Richard Stickler (opposed to mine safety regulation nominated to head Mine Safety)
236. Daniel Pipes (anti-Moslem appointed to the US Institute of Peace)
237. Nicole Nason (head of National Traffic Safety Administration bans experts from talking with public)
238. Senator Larry Craig arrested for soliciting sex with a male police officer
239. Auditor of no bid KBR Iraq contract demoted
240. ADVISE DHS data mining program inappropriately reviewed
241. Use of state secrets argument
242. Breastfeeding campaign changed due to infant formula manufacturers‚ pressure
243. Consumer Products Safety Commission gutted
244. Steven Law (Mitch McConnell crony)
245. Iraq met few of the Bush Administration’s own benchmarks
246. Peter Keisler (Civil Division Justice)
247. Six nuclear tipped cruise missiles flown across US in massive security breach
248. Marion Blakey (FAA head takes job with industry trade group)
249. DOJ announces it will not prosecute Chiquita Banana executives for paying off Columbian terrorists
250. Alexis Debat neocon terrorism expert caught making up numerous interviews
Last part 4:
251. Howard Krongard (State IG more interested in covering up department misdeeds)
252. Telecoms involved in warrantless wiretapping are represented by former government officials and protected by current officials who used to work for them
253. Turbulence, an NSA/DHS intrusive cyber surveillance program
254. Charles Reichers procurement officer benefitted from contractor largesse
255. Karl Zinsmeister kooky White House domestic policy adviser
256. Blackwater (private security contractor involved in numerous incidents in Iraq)
257. Runup to the Iraq war (in quotes)
258. State Department gives grant to Taliban
259. Failure to spend funds to exonerate individuals through DNA testing
260. Proposed DHS use of flawed Social Security info to weed out undocumented workers
261. CIA Director investigates his own Inspector General
262. Joseph Schmitz (partisan former DOD IG)
263. Chemical restraints used on undocumented immigrants
264. Downing Street memo (Bush determined to go to war, non-coverage by US press)
265. Michael Mukasey nominated as AG, makes clear he will back all of Bush’s policies
266. In test, airport screeners miss most fake bombs; near collisions between aircraft on the ground little changed
267. Dyncorp was given a billion dollars to train the Iraqi police force
268. Abdallah Higazy mistakenly arrested and held after 9/11
269. Racist, anti-gay judge Leslie Southwick confirmed by Senate to Court of Appeals
270. Holy Land Foundation accused of funding terrorists; signature case ends in big mistrial
271. Two antagonistic anti-corruption units in Iraq
272. Medical contract for National Guard let to cronies
273. Fake FEMA news conference
274. Zacarias Moussaoui case
275. Failure to secure fissile material at American nuclear sites
276. NIE summaries no longer to be released
277. Donald Vance (whistleblower) held for 3 months without charge by US military
278. Sami al Haj and Bilal Hussein, newsmen, held without charge
279. Stacking the Commission on Civil Rights with Republicans
280. Beating the war drums and the November 2007 NIE on Iran
281. Donald Kerr, No. 2 to DNI Mike McConnell, declares anonymity a thing of the past
282. Bush visit “free speech” zones
283. Executive order authorizing political commissars at federal agencies
284. Al Hubbard wrongheaded Bush economic adviser leaves post
285. Push for last minute pro-business regulations
286. Right to kidnap foreign nationals even of countries with an extradition treaty
287. White House logs declared a state secret
288. Torture tapes made then destroyed
289. Social Security disability backlogs growing
290. Proposal (withdrawn) to place JAG corps under politically appointed DOD counsel
291. Increasing mental health needs in US Army after service in Iraq
292. KBR employee raped in Iraq held against will by KBR
293. Another data base this one an FBI biometric system
294. Eric Andell (Education) in travel scandal
295. Lester Crawford (FDA) Plan B and conflicts of interest
296. Carl Truscott (ATF) more interested in decorating his office than doing his job
297. John Korsmo illegal campaign event
298. Bush job creation (not)
299. US Attorney Chris Christie steering contracts
300. FBI not paying phone bills for wiretaps
301. DC Circuit court says torture is OK; detainees not persons
302. DHS’ goofy terrorist target list
303. Unnecessary intrusive background checks
304. Boats that don’t float
305. Cambone’s soft landing
306. More incompetence at the VA
307. The diving dollar
308. Soaring oil and gas prices
309. John Bolton, International Man of Disaster
310. Bush versus the whales
311. The Federal (non)- Protective Service
312. A buried report on Iraq reconstruction
313. A buried report on Great Lakes pollution
314. A buried report on privatizing US intelligence
315. Rick Renzi for hire
316. Understaffing at State
317. Understaffing at the US Park Police
318. William Haynes the Pentagon’s torture lawyer
319. Emasculating oversight boards
320. Americans behind bars
321. Manipulating reports at the EPA
322. Timothy Goeglein, a faith-based plagiarist
323. Substandard military helmets
324. In the bag at the SEC
325. Another punished whistleblower
326. Inspector Generals, a broken system
327. Staying in Iraq forever
328. The National Data Exchange
329. A crook at the House Republican campaign committee
330. A semi-buried report on Saddam and al Qaeda
331. Freedom of Information, well not so much
332. Running interference for crooks in LA
333. Government by contractor
334. Bad ammo, worse contractors
335. Another one bites the dust
336. Monica Goodling strikes again
337. The FAA and the less than safe skies
338. Pentagon waste in acquisition spending
339. Abuse in the government’s SmartPay card program
340. Rumsfeld’s army of the future
341. The Supreme Court: Physicians of last resort
342. al Qaeda safe havens in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas
343. Torture in Afghanistan in 2003
344. The military propagandists
345. The Indiana voter ID case
346. No Child Left Behind’s Reading First boondoggle
347. Cheney and the right whales
348. The EPA, Mary Gade, and dioxin
349. Conflicts of interest in NASA’s moon project
350. Poorly secured nuclear material at Lawrence Livermore
351. Iraqi anti-corruption chief held out to dry
352. FDA loosens rules for drug trials in Third World countries
353. Another attempt to restrict information
354. USDA to no longer track pesticide use
355. Department of Defense can not account for billions it spent in Iraq
356. Pentagon aeronautics contractor supplies dubious products for aircraft
357. Pentagon has too few auditors for its weapons acquisition programs
358. Failure of KBR to fix electrical problems leads to soldier’s electrocution
359. Investigating the run up to the Iraq War
360. KBR dodges an audit and ditches the auditor
361. A medical report on torture
362. KBR exposed US soldiers to a carcinogen in Iraq
363. Political Selection in Justice Department internship programs
364. Supreme Court: 2nd Amendment applies to individuals
365. Speculation in crude oil futures markets
366. The anthrax attacks, a blown investigation
367. War, oil, oil companies, and Iraq
368. SEC to reduce oversight of international corporations and markets
369. Pentagon General lies to Congress about KBR Iraq water contract
370. Renting public officials to pay for the Bush Library
371. HHS seeks to permit refusal of services for women
372. Fusion Centers and Domestic Intelligence
373. Bush tax policy favors foreign corporations
374. Selling off the country’s roads
375. The Hubbush letter and a forged justification for war
376. Policing the national political conventions
377. Gonzales’ mishandling of national security document
378. KBR and forced labor in Iraq
379. The GSA opposes 9/11 safety changes in building construction
380. Republican US Attorney downplays Obama assassination plot
381. Labor Department pulls rug out from under corporate whistleblowers
382. More corruption in the government’s oil leasing programs
383. Active duty Army unit to be deployed for domestic operations
384. Datamining: Intrusive and it doesn’t work
385. Corruption in the missile defense program
386. Failure to outfit planes to fight fires in Southern California
387. Political censorship at PBS
388. Religious profiling at the DHS
389. A political hit: Michael Garcia and Eliot Spitzer
390. Voter suppression efforts in the 2008 elections
391. The Bureau of Land Management and shady deals in Utah again
392. BP receives a slap on the wrist from Justice Department
393. Oh, and another Bureau of Land Management shady deal in the West
394. Transportation Department relaxes rules on truckdriving safety
395. Lax oversight at the Office of Thrift Supervision contributed to bank failures
396. Wrongdoing in the Air Marshal Service
397. Government OK’s dumping mining debris in and near streams
398. Managing the Obama transition, the NASA example
399. The cockamamie FBI investigation of the Madrid train bombings and Brandon Mayfield
Who’s keeping the list on Obama?
Number 1 with a bullet => his entire financial team.
Something tells me it shouldn’t be that hard to find a list of Democratic transgressions from back when Clinton was in office with a Dem majority in congress.
Blue Star,
I used to have a list of people (at least that long) that died strange and mysterious deaths after having had a close encounter with Bill Clinton.
IMO, you should forget about the Bush Admin and try to figure out how you can save your current adminstration from imploding the Democratic party for the next 20 years.
Peace.
Thank you Blue Skye. Yes the right wingers don’t want to remember their history. How quickly we forget.
Arguments over which administration was more scandal-ridden miss the point. Any abuse of power, or ineptitude for that matter, should be cause for great concern regardless of the political stripe of the President in power. It is a sign of a sick society when people rationalize and minimize “their” party’s misdeeds by pointing out that the opposition is even worse. Enough of the partisanship! There’s plenty of blame to go around - the focus should be on electing competent and principled replacements for most of the current political set.
You forgot to mention obliteration of the English language, $4 gas and really su*ky weather last spring.
list-of-bush-scandals
Hey, I did a graphic like this.
The Financial Times
Smarter ways to punish a banker
By Clive Crook
Published: January 17 2010 16:52 | Last updated: January 17 2010 16:52
Whenever you wonder if rage at Wall Street is getting a little out of hand, some titan of the industry speaks up and makes you think, “Let’s go down there and smash some windows.”
Top banking executives appeared last week before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, set up by Congress to look into the debacle. Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase were far from contrite. Both said how well their companies were doing despite the crisis, which had been a nuisance, to be sure, but more an act of nature than something their industry brought about. “There are a number of things we could have done better,” Mr Dimon conceded graciously.
When you measure that complacency against the harm the slump has inflicted on millions of innocent bystanders, rage seems the only apt response. Revenge is called for. How about a fine, to punish the bandits and show them who’s boss?
Last week the White House said the country’s biggest banks should pay a “financial crisis responsibility fee”. Levied at 0.15 per cent of liabilities (excluding deposits and regulatory capital), it would raise about $90bn (€62bn, £55bn) over 10 years if enacted. The administration wants the fee to remain until fiscal losses under the troubled asset relief programme, estimated at about $120bn (but likely to be less) are recovered. “We want our money back, and we’re going to get it,” said Barack Obama. Tough talk, and good politics. The Democrats need both.
…
A lot to discuss, but I may be in the clear… the wifey is about 80% sold on staying put.
Totally nuts, btw… some houses were like 2005 all over again, with the candles and crowds… others were obviously desperate FBs. Nothing more unconformable thank walking through a house with the owners there.
Just posted an explanation of the present state of the lower (”entry-level”) end of the market on today’s other thread. Please let me know if I was unclear…
It was the kittens, wasn’t it.