Bits Bucket For March 1, 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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Name:Ben Jones
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Not much impact from repeat buyer credit.
Real estate agents, economists see lukewarm interest for $6,500 repeat home buyer credit. (AP)
It sounded like a great idea three months ago: Hand homeowners a $6,500 tax credit to find a new place to live, giving a thrust of energy to the housing market’s recovery.
So far, people are staying put.
In November, the federal government extended a tax credit of up to $8,000 for people who hadn’t owned a home for three years. This credit had helped boost home sales last summer and fall. Seeking to build on that momentum, the government added a new credit of up to $6,500 for current homeowners, hoping it would transform them into house-hunters this winter and spring.
But real estate agents around the country say the credit is doing little to elevate sales.
Surprisingly enough that same story goes on to give an example of how a typical agent’s commission alone (6% on median priced house) would more than consume the entire $6.5k.
I had forgotten about the commission. Then there are additional closing cost’s, home inspections etc… So it would make sense that the tax credit would not have the intended impact. Prices will have to come down.
“Most sellers employ real estate agents who typically receive 6 percent of the sales price”.
“For a home sold at the national median sales price of $164,700, the agent’s commission is $9,882. There goes the $6,500, and then some”.
More info from the article
It sounded like a great idea three months ago: Hand homeowners a $6,500 tax credit to find a new place to live, giving a thrust of energy to the housing market’s recovery.
But real estate agents around the country say the credit is doing little to elevate sales. Reasons vary.
The unemployment rate is still near 10 percent and consumer confidence is falling. “If you don’t have a job, you’re not going to be able to buy a new house,” said Deborah Farmer, owner of StarLight Realty in Tampa, Fla.
“No one is saying, `I need to buy something before it expires,’” said Tim Surratt, an agent with Greenwood King Properties in Houston.
Another problem is that homeowners, in many cases, will need to sell their current home to afford a new one and claim the credit on tax returns. That’s a major issue for borrowers who owe more than their home is worth. Nearly one-in-three homeowners with a mortgage is currently in that situation, according to Moody’s
Also, $6,500 may not mean much to a buyer with enough equity to sell a property and afford another home. The savings will hardly dent down payments or moving costs. Most sellers employ real estate agents who typically receive 6 percent of the sales price. For a home sold at the national median sales price of $164,700, the agent’s commission is $9,882. There goes the $6,500, and then some.
So far, the credit “is hardly registering on the economic Richter scale,” said Patrick Newport, an economist with IHS Global Insight
The Realtors group has produced radio spots touting both credits as an “opportunity of a lifetime.” With mortgage rates at around 5 percent, and home prices remaining affordable in many cities, one would think adding a tax credit would send sales skyward.
This is only good for those who were planning to move anyway.
“No one is saying, `I need to buy something before it expires,’” said Tim Surratt, an agent with Greenwood King Properties in Houston.
Appears the sense of urgency has lost it’s punch. The home selling industry will have to come up with a new campaign. The “buy now or be priced out forever”, ship has sailed. I’m sure they have something cooking to ’save’ the market.
I’m sure, when he made that statement, the lament in his voice was palpable. I hope he cried afterwords.
“The home selling industry will have to come up with a new campaign. The “buy now or be priced out forever”, ship has sailed. I’m sure they have something cooking to ’save’ the market.”
Buy now, or we won’t be around to sell you a house in the future?
“The home selling industry will have to come up with a new campaign.”
The bottom is in! Don’t be a fool and sell out at the bottom. That’s what the banks want you to do.
Keep up with those payments at all costs and keep the evil bankers at bay. They brought this horror into to your life.
Fight back and win! Fight to pay off the house! Do whatever it takes!
Buy now or we’ll shoot this dog!
Does anyone else remember the popular argument that ‘if prices go down, people just won’t sell’?
That was every homeowner’s comeback here in SoCal, and I still hear it from time to time.
$6500 is down in the noise. Even the moving expenses alone can be that high.
One of our Tenants moved in Nov. just before the 8K credit was set to expire .They bought a 50’s house with lead & asbestos issues . pd well over value for it , over 200K , which is well above this areas’ average , for existing houses.It was a rush job , all taking place in a few weeks . Everyone wanted their cut or commission in a slow market…( Rural upstate SC).They had no money , and rather iffy credit . As their landlord the last few years , I knew that only too well .
How they raised the down payment is anyone’s guess . My guess is that they somehow hocked the impending 8K credit plus their tax return money . There was a house sale , but I’d be surprised if they manage to make very many payments on that amount , probably about double what the rent was ….All for an 8K credit…
Yup,
All the government is doing is extending this mess. Suspect the next wave of foreclosures will more than likely include your previous tenants.
You know, I find it oddly satisfying that this credit is managing to teach a bunch of people how little money $8000 is. Not sufficiently satisfying to think the credit is a good idea - it is obviously a terrible idea. But the number of people who used to think that $8K was a lot of money if you were on the receiving end and that $250K wasn’t a lot of money if you were on the paying end has got to be getting smaller.
Don’t you think?
People making a lot more than me still think it’s big bucks, because they have never saved. Ridiculous.
Of course as most of us here know, the more you save the less you realize you have.
I’ve been thinking quite a bit of how younger people in particular seem to have no sense of the value of money. I don’t know whether its because I’m in the Bay Area, but no-one seems to bat an eye that an orderinary ranch style house is going for $500,000 here still!
That’s HALF A MILLION dollars. I think people just get immune to high amounts after a while.
Are they immune to the monthly nut? P&I + taxes + insurance has to be over 3K per month, and that’s at 5% interest.
How many people can really swing that, even in the bay area?
Obama will cover the monthly 3K.
He sure ain’t covering mine.
How they raised the down payment is anyone’s guess
Perhaps they got an FHA mortgage, which is the government-operated subprime business. “3.5% downpayment is all you need!” as the banners on the overbuilt condo towers in downtown San Jose like to remind us.
There was a house sale , but I’d be surprised if they manage to make very many payments on that amount , probably about double what the rent was ….All for an 8K credit
LOL… had the same thing happen to me. A young couple renting one of my 1-bedroom apartments for $600/mo, only one had a job between the two of them and they’re expecting their first child in a few months. They bought a house for $240K in the Dartmouth area and moved out last month. At that price, you’re getting an outdated ranch that needs a lot of work. When they left, I asked what the deal was with the cable in their apartment (it was “free” for a while). They said after a few months, it stopped working and they never bothered to sign up for it because it was too expensive… can’t afford $100-150/mo for cable and internet, but they could afford to triple their monthly payment for housing.
Had to get that First-time buyers credit. I’m also thinking they received a gift from the in-laws for the down payment… anyway, Mom and Dad will be financially supporting them for some time to come.
Cable TV at $100 plus it IS too expensive.
The HBB has been saying it all along, and reality is catching up: the REIC is trying to set the stage for a $15K credit once this one expires.
I don’t believe it will happen.
I’m not sure it will either, but it won’t stop the REIC from trying!
I don’t believe it will happen.
Agree. There’s a veritable stew of programs that serve the same purpose - going on now and/or in the works I’m sure, that can supplant the expiring tax credit.
- Fed MBS purchases
- Fannie/Freddie MBS purchases
- Allowing banks to postpone writeoffs
- Foreclosure moratoriums
- Holding foreclosures off inventory
- General new money creation
- Etc. etc.
Despite the general ignorance of the sheeple, it gives me hope that there’s at least some cognizance of this Sword of Damocles hanging over potential homebuyers’ heads.
Apparently enough people know that despite the government’s massive pumping - gravity is still a harsh mistress.
“Not much impact from repeat buyer credit.”
No surprise there; how is $6,500 in credit going to provide sufficient incentive for a homemoaner who is $100,000 or more underwater to move?
Slim here. Got a comment on tax credits for expensive things.
Last week, I was at the Tucson edition of Green Drinks. This is a monthly gathering of people with some connection to the environmental field. And it’s great place to start a drinking game whenever you hear the words “green” or “sustainability.” You’ll be sloshed in no time.
But I digress.
The topic around last week’s table was tax credits for the installation of solar water heating. At least one person at the table had done the installation (he did a lot of the work himself) and had gotten the credit.
Well, good old contrarian Slim decided to liven things up by questioning the $5,000 upfront cost on this sort of adventure. That’s right, five thousand smackers to heat water. That’s a lot of smackers.
The other folks told me to quit whining, but, hey, when I’m on a roll, I’m on a roll. I’m of the opinion that a solar water heating system shouldn’t have to cost that much. I mean, come on. We’re just getting a container of water up to 120 degrees Farenheit, right?
Of course, the argument that I could get a loan to finance the installation was raised, and I whined at that one too. After all, when I’m on a roll, I’m on a roll.
$5K? They saw him coming..
Ouch.
Me, I’m not sure what the point WAS SUPPOSED to be. I mean the 8k new home buyer credit was intended to create more demand by bringing new people into the market for the purchase of housing. But money for existing homeowners just increases churn. The only thing that I can imagine is that they were thinking that by encouraging move-up purchasers is that it was going to extend the government price support to more expensive houses. But the move up market is gutshot because many people are underwater by 20k or more. $6500 is a pittance by comparison.
Oh remembering cash for clunkers… If you remember they talked about the marginal cost for something like this. You had a certain number of people that we going to buy a new car anyway. Often the clunker owner. So, you gave an incentive that was substantial but how much did it really do to stimulate sales?
You could see a lot of people cashed in on that deal. So, in some sense it worked.
Now, for repeat buyers, the 6500 credit is nice but isn’t a major incentive. The first time buyer credit in lieu of downpayment was the big deal. There are plenty of marginal buyers to take advantage of that plus lots of ways to work the system. I’m sure a lot of rich kids now have houses in their names to take advantage of the credit.
So, the move up market is still dead and it is likely that market begins to crumble over the next three to four years. Yep. Still a long way yo go. 2012-2013. Longer with so many BS mods out there. Could be a very flat market till 2020. Or longer.
The boomer retirement fits into this picture nicely.
The first problem is that it’s a tax credit. Not cash. Not real money. A tax credit. Your are not really getting $8000, just lowering your final tax bill. For some, this might even mean a refund. For most, not.
The second is that it’s now too low to be attractive. Tax credits work when they are for substantial amounts.
>You are not really getting $8000, just lowering your final tax bill
Since most people pay their taxes out of their paychecks, it is, in fact, cash (in the form of a refund).
A couple with 2 kids making $100k per year would pay just over $10k in taxes for 2009. Assuming they paid that out throughout the year through their paychecks, they’d still get an $8000 check from the gubmint. (Because they would have overpaid by $8k.)
And I think they’d argue that that check was really money.
I think you’re confusing a credit with a deduction. It’s a huge difference.
There are many problems with the credit but to argue it’s not “real money” doesn’t pass examination.
HOA Heck (continued) I share this with you cuz it is funny as all get out, but now I am an alleged criminal mischief 111 and criminal tresspass 11, both misdemeaners, but I become a felon if I have contact with her before court. She already accused me of spying on her cuz I had the audacity, one time, to traipse in common area behind her unit to get the mail. Only once, cuz of the dogshit she left uncleaned back there. But stepping outside seems to be enough to incur a spying allegation. My wife and I are scared to so much as step outside, and I have been living away from home in a travel trailer at the coast, which is four hours away.
All this cuz I got angry and unplugged her common area Christmas lights on Feb 15. These been burning non stop, attended or not, for 65 days, after owner service head assured us that the common area would be removed of lights within 48 hrs of Dec 20th! A call to the owner had been placed as well, and he tried from afar to get them off, but concluded that the sherriff would eventually have to evict her as she never will leave without being tased.
As some of you may recall, I have had a run-in with this nasty neighbor over lights. We called so many times, not documeted b us, but the owner services lady is providing with a letter and her promise to get the lights down before 12/22/09. Some trees were strung up at over 20 feet and electrical cords, (elec. service paid for by the owner) lights on 100 ft of fence, bushes shrubs etc.)
She is a weak victim of some sort of malady that enables her to have service dogs. She is also quirky. We rented our townhome to her becauase of two references. Both of whom have since severed ties, and are reluctant to write letters describing her oddness/offness, due to fear of litigation.
We rented to her on a weekly basis, charging a basic $175 deposit(furnished, we like to camp and have people stay here in the summer) because we found a rental (she then turned month to month as the thing really would not leave voluntarily). When we initially showed her the place, she sat in every chair, wanted to hear every electronic device like computer speakers. that was closest to our kids’ school. She was a pain and a klepto tenant. We have a signed note from her admitting possession of about 12 DVDs. We would get calls from her regularly. We cleared snow for her. And she moved in a naturopath without our permission (her friend, her cousin, her helper, depending on who you ask). She would call when the hot water ran out, when the bbq igniter needed a battery, no matter if it was 10pm on a holiday. My wife noticed she had a Christmas tree up in October 08 for Christmas(a bad omen).
We finally got her out April 2009, but gave her a reference…for the place 3 doors down. Somehow she was calling every owner to find a stooge(this is why one person cut ties with her, using inside information from her friend to cold call owners). We found a letter in our old mail a couple months ago informing that my wife, as an owner, would be fined if she didn’t keep her dog on a leash, mostly due to owners complaining.
Sept 09 she was firmly entrenched, and refused to up her security ante from $175 to $1000-claiming she had renters insurance so it was all goodWTF. We did like her rent checks, and she was paying $400 over market rate, so we figured it was worth it, a pain in the rear tax. While she was her, just moving around in the bedrooms was near impossible due to boxes stored of vitamins, etc.
After phsically moving out, she took with her a Pendleton blanket that we allowed her dog to lay on(it was also our dog blanket). She clamoured for her $175 deposit back, but we held tight and gave her a receipt for the 10 hours of cleaning she left behind for us.
She moved….three doors down. Problems there started when I saw my blanket hanging over her balcony. I repo-ed it, but she came a knockin, saying I had given it to her. She JACKED sheet sets, DVDs etc. She also HACKED into(she had no authorization nor did she have my password) her paid for cable account to upgrade service. This resulted in eviction, which she weaseled out of it claiming she was sorry, etc. We finally got her out on time by physically moving some of her stuff to her new pad for her.
Then there was the issue of the man she had living in her parking space in an RV. She demanded a set of HOA by-laws and came and went in that motorhome to the limit of her rights (48 hours for packing, 12 hours for washing, moving it over to the nearest sports center when asked to leave. Then moving back when the guest services would leave. When I asked this extra extra tenant (she had one helper/cousin with benefits/living with her off lease), after about a week of this BS, the nice man told me “Whenever I GD want, go have another beer”. I don’t drink BTW.
My wife will not take pictures of her decorations or the lights still up in the trees bacause she fears she could make me a felon, or that lady will make it out to be. She is already including spying in her police report, so we are all scared of her. Even though she is meek as a mouse. After I took my blanket back, she came over for it, ande I lost cool and told her the things she had stolen she could have, minus the blanket, cuz we considered anything she touched tainted. She aslo wanted an itemized list justifying our holding of her security dep. of $175, and acted like she wanted the blanket back, because she thought I gave it to her.
Mike,
Now you know why there is a waiting period for purchasing a handgun.
What a nightmare!
This is why I never wanted to be a landlord. Over 90% of the American public will try to cheat you. Wal-Mart shopppers!
Good luck with that situation.
Right, landlording should be left to the pros and there are plenty of people who have a knack for the business. OTOH today’s FBs that think they can “rent this out” are in for some nasty surprises.
I don’t believe 90% of the American public will try to cheat you. In most areas of American life a small percentage makes the whole barrel of apples look rotten and influences political decisions far out of their actual representation.
Mike,
You got yourself a Grade A nutcase there. Good luck to you. I hope you beat all the charges. HOAs supposedly exist to prevent these things happening, and I am sorry to hear yours let you down so badly.
BTW, your calls to the association may be documented. Our phone bill lists every number we call; yours may be that way too.
Again, good luck and keep us posted.
Agreed. Call the phone company and see if you can get a record of your local calls over the dates in question.
I still think a good lawyer could get this dropped ahead of time if you have the resources to do it. On the other hand, nut jobs are notorious for stabbing themselves in the foot once they get in front of judges. Her irrationality is your best friend.
On the other hand, typing out what happened on this blog, in random word files, in e-mails to yourself, etc. will help you remember everything in an orderly manner. Take the post and read it out loud. Make sure it sounds well reasoned. Make sure you can recite the facts in order and without repeating things. The more calm you are when you have to answer questions the better.
Oh, and get the admin services people to take the pictures for you. They can’t be accused of spying if they are taking pictures of property they are responsible for maintaining.
You need to search her previous cases in your local court databases. I’m sure this isn’t the first time she’s had run-ins with the neighbors. Talk with her former neighbors; you might be interested in what you might discover.
Sounds like the type who has nothing better to do than harass the neighbors and sue them for settlements. Crazy like a fox. Expect some kind of “offer” from her to make things “go away”.
The problem is, you can make her life a mind-numbing hell if you put your mind to it, but most normal people don’t have the time to do it “right”. And now, you are on the defensive.
Sometimes it is better to do unto others, before they do unto you.
Or she could just be borderline crazy. That’s certainly common enough. I’m reminded of the guy who came into our office and claimed that “You’re all talking about me behind my back.” Fortunatly, I did manage to stop myself from saying “Well, we weren’t before, but we sure will be now.”
Xfixer, a teacher I subbed for said he moved from NYC because he did not want to live by the “east coast” version of the golden rule any more(more or less, he did recite the mantra just as you stated)
But he has friends send him tapes so that he does not lose his accent cuz he is proud of his roots, but sick of having to live that way.
Polly, Kim, et al thanks for the helpful advice!
Mike, I hope you can put that situation behind you ASAP.
Last year my sane sister and I bought a house for my crazy sister back in Michigan to live in. A big motivation was the fact that she had been evicted in the past. Now our only worry is that she’ll drive her neighbors crazy. But at least there are four walls and a hard between them and her. There are crazy people in this world, and they do have to live somewhere.
You gotta have contingency plans…..
oops, yard, not hard.
Yet another reminder to myself: never, ever, ever, EVER buy a property that is subject to an HOA of any kind.
And if that wasn’t enough, here’s more:
http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2010/feb/17/cover-home-owner-association-horror-stories/
Home Owner Association Horror Stories
“I was much happier as a renter. My worst landlord was a dream compared to these people.”
I agree with that comment. I’d much rather deal with most any professional landlord than most any California HOA.
The first part and the last part of the article are more a history of HOA’s, in California in particular, with lots of horror stories in the middle.
That’s a real nightmare you have there.
I pre-screen rental applicants to extreme detail as it is the #1 reason of losses on renting out RE. Over 30 years of doing this my average tenant stays for +6 years and my profit margins have yielded 14%. It has taken me up to 4 months to accept the right tenant but I’ve only had 1 eviction so it does pay off in the end. Matching the right tenant with the right landlord can work out but the responsibility is the landlord.
Right on! Tenant screening is key.
I’ve also heard that charging the max amount of security deposit allowed by law is a good filtration device.
This was your first clue.
“When we initially showed her the place, she sat in every chair, wanted to hear every electronic device like computer speakers.”
You should have shown her the door immediately. People like that only get worse. You have my deepest sympathies.
My mom had a tenant who was a real PITA. She actually told my mom she needed to talk to me about making my children play with her child. None of the kids would play with him.
One day she came over and told my mom she had terrible news, she was moving. She was sure my mom would be totally devastated. Bawahhahaha
mikeinbend, those are called “toxic customers.”
Get a good lawyer immediately.
Setbacks in Wine Country
As frugal consumers turn to more affordable vintages, strapped North Coast wineries forced to adapt ~ THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
The North Coast wine industry, home to the highest concentration of high-end wineries and vineyards in the nation, is reeling from the impacts of a recession that has made it chic to drink cheap wine.
Few are immune from the sea change sweeping the industry, from ultra-luxury brands fetching over $100 a bottle to high-volume supermarket wines struggling to keep prices above $10 amid a flood of inexpensive imports and deeply discounted domestic wines.
“This is beyond a recession. This is a complete resetting of the clock,” said Sebastopol winemaker Tim Olson, co-owner of the boutique Olson Ogden wine brand.
This was discussed in yesterdays thread which I didn’t read until late last evening. All I can say is ‘good riddance’ to these pretentious operations. I hope they go out of business by the dozens. I cannot tell you how many acres of forest were destroyed in WA, replaced by vineyards for trendy wineries dreamed up by wealthy ex-Californians. There is a MASSIVE bubble in wineries, and methinks it has everything to do with loose lending. Here’s hoping these credit junkies get the smackdown of a lifetime.
Let them drink wine, GB? Not so bad actually.
“I cannot tell you how many acres of forest were destroyed in WA, replaced by vineyards for trendy wineries dreamed up by wealthy ex-Californians.”
Grizzly, where are you referring to? Forest and vineyard tend to prefer very different climates, different soils, etc etc etc. Most of the WA vineyards I’m aware of are in eastern WA, in the arid/desert-like regions, not in the forested regions.
That said, I do agree completely that there is a massive bubble in wineries, and that it will be significantly deflated by the deleveraging forces that are afoot.
“Forest and vineyard tend to prefer very different climates, different soils, etc etc etc.”
Au contraire mon frere. You’re talking to the gardenmaster. “Hansville Hill Vineyards” in north Kitsap County- bought land on the bubble, cleared every single piece of vegetation and up sprouted this pretentious eyesore. Sickening. Tons of wineries in western WA and Oregon. Clearly you’re not a wine connoisseur. Neither am I, but I pay close attention to habitat destruction.
Which reminds me- miss ya, Oly. I loved the torch you carried. Sorry I never got to meet you. We had a lot in common, though I’m a much grouchier blogger.
There is a MASSIVE bubble in wineries, Sparkling wine anybody? Perhaps we should call that “California Process,” sparkling wine.
A wine guide, from personal experience:
Under $5: Likely potable, hints of kerosene on the nose.
$5 - $10: It’s usually okay. Not great, not bad, but plenty good enough to drink with a plate of spaghetti.
$10-$20: Most wines in this price range are very good or excellent.
$20+: It’s almost certainly an excellent wine, but you’ve paid more than you have to. Still, there’s something about breaking out some bottles of $100 something or other for special occasions.
My personal experience is that price is a poor guide of quality, except perhaps on the extreme low end. ($4-a-gallon Gallo is a cheap college drunk, but ugh). We generally get lots of wine that I’d consider high quality in the lower end $5-10 range. You just have to keep a good eye out for deals.
I’m going to stand by it. Specifically, I’ll state this: the list above holds true if you select a bottle of wine completely at random. If you actually do a bit of research and wait for sales, you can get great wine in the under $10 range, but I never shop for wine that way. Random bottle selection adds a sense of adventure to it.
Safeway discounts quite heavily now. I typically buy $11 range and those are reduced from $16. Edna Vineyard puts out a nice Chardonnay reduced from $15 to 9.99.
Good guide. I regret that (1) I am a cheapskate, and (2) I am the only wine drinker in my household. Hence I reluctantly consume the $5-$10 just-OK table wine, rather than the $10-$20 excellent selection.
I may have to make an arrangement with myself to earn more money in exchange for stepping up to the $10-$20 price range…
As for me, I’d rather drink beer.
Well my motto use to be “The best wine you can get in a box.” Sadly, despite the theoretical benefit having no dunnage in box wines, most of ‘em aren’t actually legally able to call themselves wine: instead they’re sold as “Wine with natural flavors.”
“…The North Coast wine industry, home to the highest concentration of high-end wineries and vineyards in the nation, is reeling from the impacts of a recession that has made it chic to drink cheap wine….”
My heart bleeds.
There is plenty of great wine out there in the $10 to $20 range. I’ve had types of wine I normally can’t stand that completely changed my mind from that price range.
$100? Pretension never did anything for me. Personally, I think they’re just a bunch of… whiners.
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This makes lottery tickets look respectable.
As in, “the best way to part a fool from his money is to make sure that it looksa little bit like a video game”?
That sounds about right.
Because what the world needs right now is more derivatives.
Aw, come on, rainmayun, you can never have too much calculus in your life.
And as with many things, the commotization of financing will invariably only fund boring vanilla predictable blockbusters. Boring, all the same strip malls, residential development, and movies.
“Housing: Time to Pull the Plug on Government Support”
http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/feb2010/pi20100226_589467.htm
Here is this little nugget three paragraphs down in the op-ed piece.
“Artificially holding prices at above-market levels harms new potential buyers, from young adults starting their own households to immigrants putting down stakes in the American Dream. The subsidies wrongly delay the inevitable home market price adjustment to excess supply in many markets across the country.”
We’ve been over the issues discussed in the op-ed piece many times. Supply vs. demand as an overriding principle of Economics 101 is, basically, ignored by those that should know better.
It’s my taxes and economic well being. The Fed and US Gov’t isn’t even trying to “clean up the mess”. Instead, they are trying to continue the bubble.
We can’t reflate. No.
Roidy
“We can’t reflate”
Nope, but it is amazing just how many people think we can and it’s just around the corner.
Yes, it’s just around the corner. Now, the real question is, “Which corner?”
We have been bombarded with “recovery signs” for a year now. Yet, we are also told that “We are not out of the woods yet.”
It wouldn’t surprise me to see the stock indexes hit new highs. DOW 15000? It also wouldn’t amaze me to see the DOW hit a new low. DOW 5500?
I do know this: When Lehman failed, the world learned the wrong lesson. We will see things supported when they shouldn’t be. Also, ” How’s that Wall Street reform workin’ out for ya’? ” to paraphrase Sarah P.
It is my belief that reform has not seen serious work because it would require firms to undergo an orderly failure instead of a bailout. We will get the reform we need. We will.
It will happen just as soon as it is not needed. It is not what the US Gov’t does, it is also what it doesn’t do that is far more important. Let us not forget that there are two types of sin: commission and omission.
Roidy
P.S. Is there a Tea Party for moderates?
Moderates are un-American.
Very concise and to the point. Too bad the politicians won’t read it. Of course, they don’t care what is in the best interests of the citizens of this country. They’re not-so-secretly lining their own pockets and those of the wealthy, country be damned.
The stock market is a running infomercial on how the success of reflation is just around the corner. It is about as bogus as any Billy Mays pitch there ever was. It will take more than “Mighty Putty” to fix this mess.
What’s most disturbing is how the current crop of tax credit induced buyers are not stopping for even a second to ask why so many damned people want to put them into a house. While the actions of the PTB with reagards to house prices is quite predictable, the behavior of buyers is anything but.
Where, exactly, does the “support” for government support of the housing market originate? For instance, has the government stepped in to prop up housing prices in previous housing busts? And what gives the Fed the authority to intervene to the extent it does in the housing market? Is all policy discretionary now — i.e., the old rules (aka “laws”) don’t apply any more?
Just curious…
I am puzzled by this long list of Lacker stories on the MarketWatch web site with no links. Perhaps the links will show up later?
I am particularly interested in the following stories:
1. Lacker wants Fed to hold only Treasurys on books
2. Lacker: MBS purchase plan likely to end on time
3. Lacker: Fed has got to stop subsidizing housing
If the Fed stops subsidizing housing, who in the federal government is going to take over the job? My personal guess: The uncorked GSEs.
All MarketWatch News & Commentary
Fed is ’scapegoat’ in crisis aftermath: Lacker
11:26 a.m. Today11:26 a.m. March 1, 2010
Lacker wants Fed to hold only Treasurys on books
11:18 a.m. Today11:18 a.m. March 1, 2010
Lacker: MBS purchase plan likely to end on time
11:14 a.m. Today11:14 a.m. March 1, 2010
Lacker: Fed has got to stop subsidizing housing
11:13 a.m. Today11:13 a.m. March 1, 2010
Lacker: Assets sales can be first tightening move
11:12 a.m. Today11:12 a.m. March 1, 2010
Lacker: Removing ‘extended period’ depends on news
11:10 a.m. Today11:10 a.m. March 1, 2010
Fed’s Lacker: Extended period wording appropriate
11:08 a.m. Today
Well Fannie Mae was created in response to heightened foreclosre activity in the Gread Depression. Which brings us to how prevalant the phrase “not since the great depression,” has become.
Artificially holding prices at above-market levels harms new potential buyers
But it also maintains the value of the toxic assets on the books of Fannie Freddie, and the banks. The well-being of Wall Street and the well-being of Main Street are mutually exclusive. However, at the same time, Wall Street IS Main Street, in the form of pensions, 401K’s, and corporations (i.e. jobs).
It’s not that government is bought off or doesn’t care or doesn’t know. I’m pretty sure that all of them — Geithner Obama Bernanke Summers Orszag Roehmer etc — are well aware of this internal conundrum.
I think you are talking about toxic assets in the hands of rich people and possibly some pension funds.
We need to wait till the rich guys are totally divested.
“Artificially holding prices at above-market levels harms new potential buyers, from young adults starting their own households to immigrants putting down stakes in the American Dream.”
OMG! Someone in the MSM actually _said_ it????
I love it when MSM writers appear to be quoting me. Perhaps it is time to change my blog handle to Ghost Writer?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1251999/Now-Tesco-estate-agent-OFT-opens-doors-market.html
Tesco, the UK version of Wal-Mart, is expanding into real estate sales. The chain is working on a flat-fee plan where sellers could market their homes for a 199 GBP (about $350) fee. British realtors, naturally, are outraged and trying to block the plan.
Be afraid, NARsters, be very afraid. It’s only a matter of time before this market model arrives in the US. No more six percent for you!
Got mixed emotions about that one.
Just watched “Wall-E” (again) during the weekend (I’ve got young kids, so watch things like that over and over a lot). Not really crazy about the whole “B&L” model of retail, where one company (read: Wal-Mart) is your one-stop-shop for virtually every service. There’s a reason why specialization works; you try to focus on too many things, and you lose the edge on each of them.
Preach it, packman!
Over here in the web development field, I’ve had to deal with more than a few clients who’ve registered a domain name at one of those “we do it all” registries. One of them is headquartered here in AZ, and the name is one that refers to a male parent moving forward. (Just plant the word “go” into that obscure name reference, and you’ll get my drift.)
Any-hoo, I’ve had to talk quite a number of these people out of having their websites hosted with these registries. Why might that be? Because website hosting isn’t their long suit. Domain registration is.
I’ve also had to move more than one website out of a registry host because things weren’t working right and the tech support was useless.
GoDaddy and I hate those bastards. I’ve had to move many customers out of their walled garden hellhole.
but didn’t a British company ( Foxton’s?) already try that here?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/7339784/Germany-refuses-to-be-bounced-into-Greek-rescue-deal-by-EU.html
Mixed messages over the supposed EU plan to buy $30 million euros in Greek debt. French are acting like its a done deal; Germany’s Merkle (a phony “conservative” in the G.W. Bush model) is saying, not so fast. German taxpayers and more nationalist-minded parties are furious, naturally.
30 million? Is that enough to make a difference? Seriously? Or is that just the beginning of a program that will require a lot more in the next stage, and the one after that and the one after that…..
That’s apparently a mis-type. It’s $30 billion, not $30 million.
Not huge by U.S. standards, but pretty big by Greek standards.
Uh, guys, “$” is not used for Euros.
Yeah yeah. I don’t know how do make a Euro symbol on my PC. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
BTW, here’s a link to the 30 billion Euros ($41B) reference.
Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) — Germany and France are considering a plan to bail out Greece that could cost as much as 30 billion euros ($41 billion), the Wall Street Journal reported, citing an unidentified person familiar with the situation.
From the article:
“Markets are confused over whether the EU is playing a subtle game of “constructive ambiguity” to keep Greece guessing, or whether refusal to offer details masks a deeper split.”
It must be working because the stock market is ‘way up today!
Maybe the threat of bailouts to Greece is giving hope to Spain, Ireland and Italy. So, it’s likely we see an inrush of dollars as the currency traders take flight.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33667.html
RINO John McCain, the most pathetic Presidential standard bearer ever for the (formerly) Grand Old Party, never met a bailout or amnesty that he didn’t like. Now he’s trying to explain away his craven subservience to Wall Street by bleating that he was “misled” about the stimulus money.
I hope AZ voters won’t be “misled” into voting this clown another term in the Senate.
I never voted for McSame (while registered in AZ). For the last nine years I considered him a fraud.
“I hope AZ voters won’t be “misled” into voting this clown another term in the Senate”.
As do I, he needs to spend more time with his family in one their 7 homes or however many they have, since he doesn’t know. The fellow running against him better be good and have plenty of $$$, incumbents are tough to beat.
Right now, McCain’s only Democratic opposition is a first-time city councilman from Tucson. And he’s still in the exploratory committee phase.
The talk around town is of the “Rodney Glassman really thinks he can beat McCain?” variety.
McCain might need to be more concerned about his challenger in the Republican primary, J.D. Hayworth. I don’t know anything about the guy, other than he seems to be a tea party favorite and has called out McCain for being a RINO.
He was the Congressional representative in my district in Arizona and lost to Democrat Harry Mitchell. My district in AZ is very conservative and hated Haworth so much that they voted in a socialist - Mitchell.
I don’t know much about Haworth except Sheriff Joe Arpaio supports him. Nuff said. I quit voting.
Let’s take him at his word, that he was misled. Strong leaders aren’t easily misled, so it’s clear he isn’t cut out for the presidency, or public service period. He should immediately tender his resignation on account of his overwhelming ignorance.
This was so stupid . Some shill from Wall Street/Goldmans (Hank Paulson) comes rolling in on his horse and yells FIRE and demands
a big gun and 700 billion to buy toxic assets if needed . Further ,Paulson wanted immunity for anything he did .Paulson In conjunction with the Fed Chairman set up the Discount Window loans being opened to
Investment Houses ,Insurance Companies ,Banks ,you name it ,way before the Tarp request .I watched the set up .
The Feds gave these entities repeated short term loans based on junk assets at par value .
They had us right where they wanted us ,before the TARP request came in . Its simple ,the old Donald Trump Card . All these Entities are going to default on the short term loans if we don’t give them bail outs . The short term loans were for the purpose of buying time to set this up also . Otherwise the way it was set up before
the set up ,many of these unregulated entities that usually can’t go to the Discount Window would of had to pound sand . It was a way of getting the Credit Default Swap business meltdown into the bailouts at par value ,no doubt the plan was conceived in the Goldmans think tank .
Also in a declining market they got Congress to up the F&F limits
on loans . You could clearly see that this was for the purpose of
making F&F the dumping ground for the higher loan stuff and to become the emergency Lender of choice because the credit markets were dead from the private sector .It was all abound how to transfer loss to the Taxpayers .
And Congress now wants us to believe that they were mislead by the rescue team . I saw a couple Politicians that challenged the
conflict of interest of Paulson at the time (Bernie Sanders was one of them ) ,but for most part this Good/Bad Bank jive talk was
not convincing ,and smelled of ….jive talk . Paulson ended up not buying toxic assets….why do you need to when you getting 100% pay offs from credit default swaps from AIG bailouts .
Now we find out that Goldmans was playing cover up with Greece and their balance sheets . Can you imagine what would of happened if the meltdown just happened based on Standing law
at the time ? The Whole fine network of Casino games and foul play and leveraged Casinos would of been exposed in all their glory ,and no doubt the threads would of been traced to the Mastermind
Goldman’s. Hank Paulson made 1/2 billion during the boom ,and our wonderful Politicians gave that Dude over 700 billion ,and now McCain is saying he was mislead ? Maybe Politicians aren’t use to questioning their Masters . Throw all the bums out in coming elections .
Here’s another I’d like to see go down in a ball of flames, among many in D.C. Never happen though, the queen of the moonbats has a very loyal following.
Against all odds, a radical S.F. Republican takes on Nancy Pelosi.
SFweekly
John Dennis sits in the back room of Perry’s in Pacific Heights, reflecting aloud over a cup of tea on the personal liberties he believes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has stripped from him.
“I was shocked by Massachusetts,” San Francisco State political science professor Robert Smith says, “but I would have a heart attack if a Tea Party Republican beat Nancy Pelosi in San Francisco.”
On the other hand, consider the alternative, J.D. Hayworth.
http://www.frumforum.com/hayworths-phony-conservatism
More people apply for energy assistance to help with heating.
USA TODAY~ 3-1-10
A record number of U.S. households are applying for help to pay home heating bills with 17 states fielding application requests that are up more than 20% from last year, the National Energy Assistance Directors’ Association says.
Almost 9 million U.S. households are expected to need help paying winter energy bills. That’s up 15% from the record-setting 7.7 million last year, the association says.
Since we’ve all been hit with at least one high-use bill by now, how about we compare notes. What was your worst-case daily cost of energy this winter? Take your highest energy bill or bills so far this winter, divide it (them) by the number of days covered, and add those numbers if more than one.
We’re all electric, so there’s only one bill. We hit $7.15 per day. With only two of us, there’s not as much cost for hot water (showers, laundry) as there would be for a larger family. We also have a programmable thermostat for the heat pump.
Our highest day $7.13. All electric, two people, 1000sq.ft. rented condo. Thermostat set at 68 degrees.
Let’s see, last month it was about $6 for a 3000 sq foot house, with a 10 sq ft basement, 5 people living in it. January and February are out worst months for heating, so our total daily should start dropping quckly. Could be as low as $4 in March.
I mentioned earlier that I spent rainy yesterday at KXCI’s headquarters in Downtown Tucson. Pledge drive. They need the help, and I’m fairly good at handling pledge calls. So, Slim, go to the phones…
During the on-air pitches, quite a few people note the station’s frugality. And I can speak for that firsthand. The KXCI building is not heated in the wintertime, except for space heaters in the two staff offices. The studios have enough equipment to be self-heating.
Not paying a heating bill saves the station a lot of money.
HOA heck continued(”I am not a scrooge”. Cue Nixon boarding the plane)
Sorry if I am boring any of you, hopefully someone can learn something from this regarding being part of an HOA, not least of all myself. But I cant sleep, and there are sages in da house fo sho!
This lady also previously, after she became our neighbor, would come over at 10 pm, because she broke a blind in her unit or whatever, whenever. We were not even her landlord anymore, and have small children. She scared our small children on another similar occasion talking of UFOs. She would come over whenever until we kindly told her to leave us alone and keep the stuff because we considered it unusable after she touched any of it. We sees the moonbat, on occasion, in the middle of the night, flashing a beam around, wandering in the back pasture in her robe. Before my wife figured the beam was her, she was a bit afraid, cuz I was out at the coast working,
Spewing at her because she had the “audacity of hope” to ask for the Pendleton blanket back was effective. Effective it was, after I grabbed if from her gound level balcony, in that she stopped coming over, but she has $300 worth of our junk that we conceded to her that day last summer, minus the Pendleton blanket.
About 2/1/2010, our children alerted us of a loud domestic dispute taking place at her house, her and her “caregiver” were having a spat and I had the opportunity to explain what certain words meant. A few days later the police came, we were hoping it was eviction, but rather it seemed that they were needed to help with the dispute. This guy was spotted down the road with a car full of stuff with the police man talking to him. Another caregiver took his place. Now we notice that he is back!! after the police had to seperate them a few weeks ago. Not sure about restraining order, on him or not, we have just been witnesses to squabbling outside
The new caregiver smokes, the mean lady also allegedly smokes according to what our kids tell us, and the butts she leaves behind (Benson and Hedges, anyone??). This caregiver is the lady I think taped me on her cell phone, while I was refusing to get out of Lady Loco’s face as I was returning her lights to her balcony after dismantling a small portion of the display. I was hoping she could see I was in the common area, Christmas was over anyway, and that I would leave when I was GD ready, not when she told me to. To go ahead and call the police for being there.
Well she called alright, and convinced the police to come knocking. I explained what I did, and they wrote me up for tresspass and mischief. Criminal but not felonious.
Let’s say I plead no contest to these charges, is it better to be conviceted than expend all my resourses trying to duke it out in court. Supposedly, from what the police told me, all I could be out is court fees and mitigation fees for any damhatage I did to lights, etc.
That way I can put this behind me, and avoid further vindictive action on her part regarding our previous relationship. We did overlook our 2009 income or pay sales taxes while renting to “friends from Craigslist ads. There was not much, income wise, reporting would not affect our income bracket, but this lady makes us beyond uneasy. Owner says she will be gone before Fools day (I am celebrating Fools day this year bigtime). Assuming she leaves like she is supposed to.
After the RV problem, the owner told her if she so much as stayed one day in September, she would owe the whole month’s rent. This was her ticket to stay of course she did not leave as requested, but rather snowed them, and she is now slated to leave 4/1/2010. Our day in court is March 17, not March 11 as I had previously told youall.
That is it for now, I am tired and maybe can get a little more sleep w/o worry. I leave today for the coast again, to return maybe one more weekend between now and court. I work out at the coast, so I would go there some any way, it’s my mancave out there, and I don’t want to be accused of spying. Just going outside is enough for this lady to say I am peeking in at her. We also spotted her walking from the trash can with, we assume, some of our insignificant(we thought) documents we had trashed.
Do i NEED to lawyer up if I prepare case as follows:
Asserting that I was cleaning up abandoned stuff in the common area
and was nice enough to return it to the occupant’s deck
Character references from mutual acquaintances
Charts outlining where her lights were, where common areas are, and where I was standing.
I wasw not tresspassing while cleaning up hazards and returning them to their owner rather than just throwing it out.
Letter from owner services regarding their dropping the ball and never confirming that the lights were off.
Willingness to be convicted and plead guilty or no contest to the mischief and try to fight the tresspass charge seeing how the mischief could cover that as she was asking me to leave her immediate area and I was refusing)
Happy to pay for the misdemeaner(s), so long as it is less than a few hundreds
My very levelheaded wife by my side.
Wanting the Lady to feel vindicated so we can put this behind us and have no fear, i.e. she leaves us alone.
Knowing she comes off as a complete idiot who is at best mentally compromised but still a scheming meanie.
Thinking I could appeal or ask for a jury trial( any litigation lawyers here on the board or recommend a good one in Central Oregon??)
Don’t want her digging in our dirt to try to get us for something; say renting to her on the down low, w/o paying room tax when she was staying here weekly.
We do not want to take anyone to court, but this is affecting our ability to live together as a family here at our home. has affected: making money(can not work while preparing and going to court), mental state(can’t sleep), ability to sell our townhome, our ability to enjoy parts of the common area. Much more, thank you for reading if you did muddly through, here is an online prize for you (throws snickers bars out to anyone who reads/responds). Hey I am a substitute teacher so I have a bag ready for good readers.
You guys are so smart (BTW, anyone heard from ATE-UP?). Anyone know a good criminal defense lawyer? I have a BA in pre-law, so preparing the case myself is within my ablilties (to be found guilty).
Should I sue the HOA because of their inaction regarding getting the lights down? We are way out there, resort-wise, but pay high HOA’s at $250/mo. We have seen diminished services too as layoffs have affected the resort. For instance, one landscape feature (500 yd creek) has been dry since a June 2009 flood. So there is a mosquito breeding pond, black plastic exposed in spots where burbling creek once was. The manmade creek flooded away parts of the rock layer after an intense thunderstorm, but it lays unfixed. Landscaping was not properlh trimmed in places, weeds are taking over in others. The jist of if is we pay more and get less for our HOA fees, yet we stil pay them and try to use the gym, tennis courts, COMMON areas, etc.
I disconnected the lights only after asking many times for the HOA (calls to guest services would have been logged, but are available only by supoeana) to take care of her abandonment of propertyfire hazard, tripping hazard, visual nuisance, personal light display on common area owned by the resort but managed/landscaped by the HOA).
When you have a problem, don’t take the law into your own hands, take ‘em to court….the People’s Court!
Seriously though, can’t I just cop my pleas, and pay my fees? Is misdemeanor conviction a big deal??
We paid the mortgage this month, but we will join the tide of foreclosures soon enough, but every month we pay is another month we stay on the back end, as there is no way we can afford this home long term, and the HOA’s are not a good value anymore evidently.
Thnx, Mike
“But I can’t sleep…”
What’s that saying? Don’t mud wrestle with a pig?
Had a co-worker years ago who essentially suffered a nervous breakdown over his dealings with such a “tenant from hell.” He had to vent to us, and he was often in tears by the time he finished. My sympathies go out to you Mike.
My sympathies also go out to Mike. But the best way to deal with someone that is crazy is not to deal with her at all.
Disengage and move on with your life Mike.
Snicker, Snicker. She is on m’fn slippery pig; at least we should be able to let her go wee wee wee all the way back to Lex Kentucky where she comes from (tryst fund baby, who happens to have health issues and and supposedly has an Astronomy shop, currently tied up in litigation with her former partner, in Vancouver, WA).
Can I plead guilty/nocontest with explanation, pay for misdemeaner offenses if necessary, and have it be no big deal on my permanant record?
And not employ any lawyers(no offense Polly). Not that I don’t resemble one. For dinner tonight, chinese pepper steak; and for dessert, torts!
High Desert Museum (cool place, only holds animals that are not re-hab material. Blind owls, slightly smashed porcupines, etc. No Killer Tillies robbed from pods for display)had a big sign made a few years ago that read “High Dessert Museum” Once, I went there with a tart and we had us some bowls of torts. Yes, we were high as heck.
Don’t plead guilty. Don’t plead no contest. You have no idea what it will do to your future employability. You owe it to your kids to keep your record clean. No matter how hard it is to get this resolved.
And you NEED a lawer. Do as much of the leg work ahead of time as possible. Make sure the office handles criminal matters. Make sure they have paralegals in the office (you pay less for their time than for the lawyer).
Sue the HOA? For what? They aren’t responsible for your subsequent actions. How much monetary damage did you receive by having the lights up? Nothing? I thought so. They said they would make her take down the lights within 48 hours. They didn’t. You remedy against them was to insist they do what they said they would do back then.
Dude, you need to get a lawyer pronto, if you don’t have one already.
Everybody bad mouths them here, but when you are in a legal bind (especially if, as you say, we are talking criminal convictions) a good lawyer will help; if for no other reason, advising you on what to do personally. They also have ways of getting to know the rest of the story Re: this kook.
Find a divorce lawyer who “gets medieval” with ex-husbands (talk to the divorced nurses at your local hospital…..and don’t ask me how I know this…..). If he doesn’t handle this kind of case himself, he will know someone who does.
Turning a nasty lawyer loose on people that f##k with you is like taping the feet of a cat. One of life’s simple pleasures.
And you NEED a lawer. Do as much of the leg work ahead of time as possible.
Dude, you need to get a lawyer pronto, if you don’t have one already.
I totally agree.
Mike, your posts are very disorganized and I’m worried about your emotional condition.
I think that your obsession with your weird neighbor is inappropriate. She’s no longer your tenant - just a neighbor now. I think that your financial problems are far more worrisome to you.
1) get legal aid for this trespass situation and get it resolved.
2) walk away from that condo.
3) get some counseling - talk to your wife about whether she thinks you need it. I’m not a psychiatrist, but you don’t sound right to me.
We care about you and want you to be ok, but sometimes we all need help beyond the blog.
I don’t think legal aid will take a case that isnt’ a felony in most places. It is worth a call, but you can’t depend on it.
Mike is mostly disjointed about the stuff that happened when she was his tennant. He needs to get that stuff straight in case she brings it up in court as examples of him harrassing her, but he was pretty clear on the part dealing with the actual accusation here. That is good, but needs to be even better.
Mike, I know I sound like a broken record, but you have to have a lawyer. Someone who knows what to say, but much more importantly someone who knows what NOT to say. You need somone to edit for you and you need it a lot.
Thank you for noticing my anxiousness/bitocraziness. Pain rules my days since an accident 12 yrs ago. My insurance policy does not cover mental health issues.
This of course does not mean they don’t need to be addressed. But you are right organizational skills could be better when writing long posts. Sorry
I am borderline depressed, obsessive compulsive, with chronic pain plus anxiousness.
I don’t spend much time editing or thinking about how I come across on the blog. I figure it beats lurking. I know that there are smart, good people like yourself here and I am sounding off as to not take it out elsewhere. just trying to sort things out, and I appreciate your concern.
You are absolutely right about her just being a neighbor now, and not much of what I am saying is pertinent to the case against me, which in the scope of things is relatively minor. That people exist seemingly to annoy or leech eats at me though.
Get a lawyer, seriously.
For starters, I don’t see how you could have been trespassing if you were in a “common area”. But what were you doing there in the first place? Just let your beefs with this shrew go, for Pete’s sake. Lawyer up for this case and then ignore this woman.
Also, a 5 am rant after no sleep may not make the most sense. Aired partly for your entertainment, so I will try and organize better next time rather than rant randomly as that does come off as “off”. Stuff peeves me, but I realize it ain’t necessarily moot if ex-tenant brings it up. Even if ranting reveals the inner me, better to air it here so as to get an idea what NOT to say.
Polly, I will take your advice and seek legal counsel in a good office w/ paralegals that handles criminal cases.
‘Cause you will get dirty, and the pig will enjoy it.
The last time I came across that saying, it was when I was using it to describe the experience of trading barbs with a troll named Eddie.
Nothing lower than a social help parasite with entitlements and rights.
Mike, you need to step away. My old lady neighbor was driving me nuts until I started ignoring her.
Now she’s great!
Never, ever talk to the police. EVER! You can *only* hurt yourself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
Do you have any type of legal aid services where you live Mike? If you do see if they can help you out.
There’s a lawyer on a talk show that can give you some advice. He is on from 12-1 PST on KGO. You can listen on the internet at http://www.kgo.com
Jeez, this is the last kind of thing “legal aid” should be doing. The only thing Legal Services will touch here are indigent family law cases. I mean, no assets. Mike needs to man up and retain counsel if he’s going to get all worked up like this.
“Aleksandr Herzen, speaking a century ago to a group of anarchists about how to overthrow the czar, reminded his listeners that it was not their job to save a dying system but to replace it: “We think we are the doctors. We are the disease.” All resistance must recognize that the body politic and global capitalism are dead. We should stop wasting energy trying to reform or appeal to it. This does not mean the end of resistance, but it does mean very different forms of resistance. It means turning our energies toward building sustainable communities to weather the coming crisis, since we will be unable to survive and resist without a cooperative effort”.
~Clipped from~ Chris Hedges: Zero Point of Systemic Collapse
We stand on the cusp of one of humanity’s most dangerous moments.
Thanks for the reference. I like Chris Hedges and look forward to reading this article in Adbusters.
it was not their job to save a dying system but to replace it.
Just don’t think about making those Federal Government snow days permanent. Polly might get upset.
I was going nuts.
Fortunately, I had my computer at home so I could get some stuff done that didn’t require other people and one of our executives had a big conference call that I was able to participate in from home.
I wonder if Bunning is thinking about closing down the Federal Government again. I don’t think it really helped the Republicans last time (before I worked here), but he might be willing to try it again. I could mananage without a paycheck for quite a while. I’m not positive about all of my fellow feds.
Well the last time, none of us federal employees* missed a check. Of course how long people were out depended on what department they worked in. Some appropriations were passed and other not.
*of course, as usual, contractors got the poopy end of the stick.
California is a greater risk than Greece, warns JP Morgan chief.
Jamie Dimon, chairman of JP Morgan Chase, has warned American investors should be more worried about the risk of default of the state of California than of Greece’s current debt woes. Telegraph ~ UK
Mr Dimon told investors at the Wall Street bank’s annual meeting that “there could be contagion” if a state the size of California, the biggest of the United States, had problems making debt repayments. “Greece itself would not be an issue for this company, nor would any other country,” said Mr Dimon. “We don’t really foresee the European Union coming apart.” The senior banker said that JP Morgan Chase and other US rivals are largely immune from the European debt crisis, as the risks have largely been hedged.
“as the risks have largely been hedged.”
Weren’t all the CDS risks carefully hedged with AIG? …Jamie?…Jamie???
Oh! You, sir are too big to fail! Bailout protected. I forgot.
Yep, gotta bail out AIG so that GS executives can “earn” those huge bonuses.
That’d be a big “No Duh” Jamie. California is in the U.S., and it’s a heck of a lot bigger than Greece, and not much better off debt-wise. And like Greece they don’t have the option to monetize the debt away. So yes of course it’s a bigger deal for the U.S.
As is Illinois, Florida, New York, etc. (though CA especially)
California and Greece are quite comparable except Greece has a lot more english speakers living there.
“California is a greater risk than Greece, warns JP Morgan chief.”
Cool! Jamie Boy is a HBB reader. Guess I will have to stop saying so many mean things about the banksters…
American reliance on government at all-time high.
Washington Times~ March 1, 2010
The so-called “Great Recession” has left Americans depending on the government dole like never before.
Without record levels of welfare, unemployment and other government benefits as well as tax cuts last year, the income of U.S. households would have plunged by an astonishing $723 billion — more than four times the record $167 billion drop reported last month by the Commerce Department.
Moreover, for the first time since the Great Depression, Americans took more aid from the government than they paid in taxes.
The figures show the devastating results of the massive job losses last year and indicate that the economic recovery that began last summer is tenuous and has a long way to go before many Americans resume life as normal, analysts said.
“Americans took more aid from the government than they paid in taxes.”
Hmm…
So their motivation for ultimately getting off that gravy train is…?
Maybe more jobs? That would be a great help.
Indeed. I am flabbergasted at the talk of the “unemployed are sitting on their duffs” when there are 6 or more unemployed for every job opening. What are the other five supposed to do?
Unemployment benefits stink! They are a mere fraction on the income they replace. I don’t know a single unemployed person who is content to live off of those meager checks. They all want their old jobs back, and most are willing to take a job that pays less than the old one because it will still be way more than the $300-400 they’re getting from unemployment.
Having just involuntarily spent almost 6 months “sitting on my duff”, I can vouch for that statement.
Unemployment checks are just barely enough to keep you at a subsistence level, economically….if you have someone to move in with…..and you don’t have a lot in the way of bills.
The good news is all that money you save (and all those greenhouse gases you don’t emit). because a fill up at the gas station lasts 4-6 weeks, since you really have nowhere to go.
Without the new COBRA subsidy, my COBRA payment would have been over half my monthly unemployment.
In other words, just enough money to keep people from picking up pitchforks, or starting an insurgency.
Unemployment checks are just barely enough to keep you at a subsistence level, economically….
I am flabbergasted at the talk of the “unemployed are sitting on their duffs” when there are 6 or more unemployed for every job opening. What are the other five supposed to do?
See my posts last week regarding the underground economy and people working under the table. As an example, my contractor has been collecting unemployment for over a year, while showing up to work for his old boss, working under-the-table, and doing side-jobs (like mine) for cash. I have no problem with him doing so because he is a friend and I know his family. His young daughter plays with mine. He is saving money and getting by (barely)… and I save money
However, every one of his “sub-contractors” he had helping him also worked “under-the-table” and most, if not all, were also collecting unemployment. On a large enough scale, at what point do you say “Enough!”. There is work out there, but not at “prevailing wages”. I have plenty of work to do to my property, but refuse to pay thousands of dollars more to “legit” contractors who price in profit, insurance, taxes, high employee wages, etc. into their quotes. My parents need a new roof. They have 3 quotes and just got another one from my contractor friend. Guess who’s quote was thousands less (translated into big savings for my parents near retirement)?
The “System” is broken. There is work to be had, but not at prevailing wages. Unfortunately, like most FB’ers, people (and companies) won’t drop the (labor) price unless absolutely forced to. Extending unemployment benefits for such a long time (almost 2 years now) just pushes out the day of reckoning and invites abuses of the system. I feel bad for those out of work and unable to find a job (there are three in my extended family), but let’s get real: the world needs ditch diggers, house cleaners, land scapers, carpenters, plumbers, accountants, marketing managers, software programmers, etc… but not earning the hefty sums of the last ten years. And yes, executives are overpaid as well.
BTW, my plumber drives a ‘08 7-series BMW that he bought or leased new and lives in the nicest restored Victorian homes in my neighborhood… back in the day, only rich doctors or laywers could afford that. What does that tell you about prevailing wages for common services?
I feel bad for those out of work and unable to find a job (there are three in my extended family), but let’s get real: the world needs ditch diggers, house cleaners, land scapers, carpenters, plumbers, accountants, marketing managers, software programmers, etc… but not earning the hefty sums of the last ten years.
I can buy that, except that they should be able to get cheap housing to go with those lower wages but the system is preventing that from becoming available. If we’re going to force people to suck it up and live on less, lets make sure housing also falls to cushion the blow. How can we expect people to live on 20-25k/yr and still pay 1k/mo for housing?
This is a very good point you make in your post Carl Morris ,and this is what bothers me the most .
The cost of living in America has not adjusted to the downgrade of the price of labor concerning a number of jobs, not to mention the lack of jobs .If supply and demand factors are moot ,because you can always outsource ,than
the American worker is up against a unlimited amount of workers . No contest .
The system is also preventing a lowering of the cost of Health Care. This price fixing is occurring in many areas of the economy .
Many prices were based on the housing boom inflation years when money was falling from trees . Have the price of cars come down accordingly ,without government incentives ?
My Nephew use to get paid 20 buck a hour and now he tells me he would be lucky to get 12 bucks a hour . My Nephews rent didn’t go down and his costs on the basics didn’t go
down .
As I see it ,whatever the cost systems were prior to Globalism ,outsourcing ,lost manufacturing ,increase in monopolies , improper trade balances ,the wages kept up to keep the middle class from sinking . It was called “Cost of Living ” wage increases . OK ,some of the Union deals went to far ,but it’s easier to correct that than using the Worlds cheap labor source to combat any power the employee has .
And what did the greater profits for Corporations result in other than CEO’s making millions more on the windfalls .
When American Companies competed against each other for business it was within the price structure of what the American peoples wages were . Now the cheap labor monopolies from other Countries comes in and screws up all
the cost of living price structures in the United States .
At the same time this vast money supply from around the World during the boom years distorted the lending policies and turned them into easy money with no qualifying ,thanks to the Money Changers at Wall Street . And nobody talks about how much Globalism is affecting the tax base in America either . Trade is one thing ,but a rigged system is another .
Sort of OT but still relevant. A little story for you.
My friend’s brother called her last week to tell her he has colon cancer. Turns out he had been bleeding for quite a while but couldn’t go to the Drs. because he had no insurance. So he had to wait until he could go on Medicare.
He finds out today how much it has spread.
I hate this health situation with a passion!!
Turns out he had been bleeding for quite a while but couldn’t go to the Drs. because he had no insurance
While I’m sorry to hear about your friend’s brother’s situation, it wasn’t the lack of insurance that stopped him from going to the Dr. It turns out that doctors will in fact see you if you don’t have it…
It’s that he couldn’t afford to pay the doctor for his services. For a simple exam/office visit.
Everyone wants health care, but everyone wants to pay in less than their care costs. Yes, prices are high. But regardless of price, a system can’t work if everyone pays in less than they get in benefits. People have to at least be capable of covering non-catastrophic issues.
“…said Mr Dimon. “We don’t really foresee the European Union coming apart.” The senior banker said that JP Morgan Chase and other US rivals are largely immune from the European debt crisis, as the risks have largely been hedged.”
Since these behemoths are all “hedged” against everything bad, and positioned perfectly for all things good, is it fair to assume, since you can’t bet both sides of a game and make money, that their gravy train is 100% pure taxpayer money which is, in fact, that “hedge?”
The bet is then financial gods can dictate the outcome. I think they will in the case of Greece but not with energy cartel of countries that have state control of their resources like Russia, OPEC. The resource wars will be harder to manage.
More than a Million set to lose Jobless Benefits in March
Depending on extended unemployment benefits to see you through the Great Recession?
You’d better not: The Senate failed to push back the Feb. 28 deadline to apply for this safety net.
Starting Monday, the jobless will no longer be able to apply for federal unemployment benefits or the COBRA health insurance subsidy.
Federal unemployment benefits kick in after the basic state-funded 26 weeks of coverage expire. During the downturn, Congress has approved up to an additional 73 weeks, which it funds.
These federal benefit weeks are divided into tiers, and the jobless must apply each time they move into a new tier.
Because the Senate did not act, the jobless will now stop getting checks once they run out of their state benefits or current tier of federal benefits.
That could be devastating to the unemployed who were counting on that income. In total, more than one million people could stop getting checks next month, with nearly 5 million running out of benefits by June, according to the National Unemployment Law Project.
Uh oh! Get your guard dog and your ammo ready.
This should do wonders for Q1 and especially Q2 GDP.
Other option? Send this chart even further to the moon.
Personally I’ll take the former. Take the GDP hit, and give people the kick in the bootie to get them back to work. I’ve heard of several people being very… lackadaisical shall we say… in looking for new jobs as the suck on the government tit.
Yeah, those unemployment checks are sooooo fat and generous. $300-500 a week is ample subsitute for that lost $1000-$2000 a week paycheck.
Funny how there’s always money for wars and bailing out wall st., but when it comes to this money is too tight to mention.
“Uh oh! Get your guard dog and your ammo ready.”
Indeed. It will be “interesting” to see what happens as millions watch as their last lifeline vanishes.
Well when those Wall Street types go on a looting spree, they do it by shoveling shopping carts of money around the House, rather than shoveling stuff from MY house into their shopping carts. I may lose just as much in the end, but a guard dog and ammo won’t help me at all.
Funny how there’s always money for wars
Don’t knock it. Lots of people employed in ‘em, too. Like my step - he got 5 years out of the mil but they won’t let him re-up so back he comes in June.
Well, when times are tough they get to cherry pick who gets to be a soldier.
And didn’t I read (not too long ago) that the services were turning down 70% of potential enlistees due to their having at least one of the following problems:
1. Obesity
2. A criminal record
3. Failure to pass the drug screening
“Funny how there’s always money for wars”
Especially to support some miserable place with no natural resources that we require, and no substantial manufacturing base for products that we need either. And the folks doing the saber rattling don’t participate either; that’s for Joe Sixpack’s offspring.
(NewsCore) - The U.S. Department of Transportation announced it was going to furlough nearly 2,000 federal transportation employees without pay Monday.
Federal highway reimbursements, national anti-drunk driving efforts, and multimillion dollar construction projects across the country were to be halted under the measures.
The department blames Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky), and his attempt to “block key legislation” that would have extended tax credits for COBRA health coverage, unemployment insurance for 400,000 people, and short-term extension of the Highway Trust Fund.
“As American families are struggling in tough economic times, I am keenly disappointed that political games are putting a stop to important construction projects around the country,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
“This means that construction workers will be sent home from job sites because federal inspectors must be furloughed,” he added.
La Hood said federal inspectors would be removed from critical construction projects, forcing work to come to a halt on federal lands.
The construction sites forced to halt work include the $36 million replacement of George Washington Parkway Humpback Bridge in Virginia and the $14 million construction of the U.S. Virgin Islands Christiansted Bypass.
Iran unexpectedly surfaces hidden nuclear stockpile The Daily Caller 02/27/10
Iran has left international weapons inspectors stunned over the past two weeks as it suddenly moved virtually all of its underground nuclear fuel stockpile to an above-ground plant,
The strangest of the speculations — but the one that is being talked about most — is that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps is inviting an attack to unify the country after eight months of street demonstrations that have pitted millions of Iranians against their government.
Euro zone unemployment remains stable unexpectedly
2010-03-01
Forex Pros – The unemployment rate in the euro zone remained stable unexpectedly during January, official data showed on Monday.
According to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics agency, the euro zone’s seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate was 9.9%,
Sweden unexpectedly slides back into recession in Q4
March 01, Reuters
Sweden’s economy unexpectedly slid back into recession in the fourth quarter, figures showed on Monday, sending the crown lower and raising questions about how soon interest rates will rise.
Tampa area home prices plunge unexpectedly in January
The Tampa Tribune
The median sales price of Tampa Bay single-family existing homes fell to $125,600 in January, according to the Florida Realtors. That’s an 11 percent drop from December but a 3 increase from a year ago when the median sales price was $122,400.
I see a pattern here Rio.
Damn you “unexpected”! Spawn of Satan you are!!!!!!!
This should become a regular HBB feature, Rio. Maybe post a list once a week? Your public demands it.
This should become a regular HBB feature, Rio. Maybe post a list once a week?
OK but not once a week because I only want to post them when HBB readers are not expecting them.
Who Broke America’s Jobs Machine?
Why creeping consolidation is crushing American livelihoods.
By Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman
If any single number captures the state of the American economy over the last decade, it is zero. That was the net gain in jobs between 1999 and 2009—nada, nil, zip. By painful contrast, from the 1940s through the 1990s, recessions came and went, but no decade ended without at least a 20 percent increase in the number of jobs.
Many people blame the great real estate bubble of recent years. The idea here is that once a bubble pops it can destroy more real-world business activity—and jobs—than it creates as it expands. There is some truth to this. But it doesn’t explain why, even when the real estate bubble was at its most inflated, so few jobs were created compared to the tech-stock bubble of the late ’90s …
… [M]ost Americans still believe that our economy remains the most wide open, competitive, and vibrant market system the world has ever seen. Unfortunately, the stories we have told ourselves about competition in America over the past quarter century are simply no longer true.
Perhaps the easiest way to understand this is to take a quick walk around a typical grocery or big-box store, and look more closely at what has taken place in these citadels of consumer choice in the generation since we stopped enforcing our antitrust laws.
Sorry, but no. It’s outsourcing, plain and simple - both internal and external. It doesn’t take big corporations to outsource work to employees that don’t show up on government jobs reports - your local yard guy does it too.
Not that I have a problem with outsourcing, or would propose that corporate consolidation hasn’t been happening, or would state that consolidation has it’s problems - but we’re lying to ourselves if we think that corporate consolidation itself is the actual cause of the jobs problem.
But consolidation has led to globalization.
When Boeing/Toyota/Intel are the only game in town, and their mantra is “My way or the highway”, it’s hard for local politicians to keep themselves from selling out.
But consolidation has led to globalization.
Agree. However like I say - the cause of job loss isn’t directly “consolidation” - it’s outsourcing. And outsourcing doesn’t all come from globalization - things can be outsourced within the U.S. - specifically to illegal aliens (if I must spell it out).
Nevertheless - if I may troll some, perhaps off on a tangent - why exactly would a consolidated company outsource via globalization?
America doesn’t have any borders anymore ,lets face it . Outsourcing ,American manufacturing moved to Foreign Countries, ,Illegal immigration as supplement to Big Business while they send a certain percent home ,China manufacturing and the Wal Mart monopolies crushing local American business . Next idea ……outsourcing medical work …might already be in the process .The American tax base is eroding because of our
open business borders also .Money supply being transported World Wide based on the next great place to invest
,much like the next great place to flip a house during the boom. The remaining monopolies in America ,like health care, are crushing the American family budget ,but propping up real estate so damage control can allow for Wall Street to continue with it’s corrupt systems is the highest priority .
One thing I learned by watching the Business channel Cheerleaders is that the only thing that matters is the bottom line in a Corporation that is sold on the New York Stock exchange and it doesn’t matter how that is obtained .All that matters is the Casino and all the games that goes with it .
With construction jobs and real estate/loan jobs leaving ,and Corporations going to being lean and mean on top of all the outsourcing ,where are all the new jobs going to come from ? They are even starting to slash government jobs .What about all those entitlements that were promised that don’t fit in with the New World Order ? What about all the Corporation underfunding of pension plans that fall on the Government rescue programs .
I always thought that automation was going to get us and take away the jobs ,I never dreamed it would be a takeover from within and China of all places would be a big game player.
The million dollar question is again, why do corporations offshore jobs in the first place? Believe me it’s not only the cheap labor.
I saw a manhole cover made in India a year ago in a midwestern city that had me baffled for a while. It’s not only the labor is dirt cheap over in India, there’s got be more reasons why shipping a metal 2 oceans apart is still cheaper than building it here.
I think the answer to reducing outsourcing/offshoring is for us as Americans to be able to compete with labor forces all over the world not only in work but also in Salary. Our cost of living as well as living standard has to go down if we want to have more jobs in this country. Sucks to be USA but I do not see any other way out.
The million dollar question is again, why do corporations offshore jobs in the first place? Believe me it’s not only the cheap labor.
I saw a manhole cover made in India a year ago in a midwestern city that had me baffled for a while. It’s not only the labor is dirt cheap over in India, there’s got be more reasons why shipping a metal 2 oceans apart is still cheaper than building it here.
It’s both cheap labor and lesser environmental and labor regulations in other countries than in the U.S. Actually the cheap labor is in part due to the lesser regulations - i.e. no minimum wage (or one that’s far less).
Until such time that either:
A. The playing field is leveled regulations-wise, or
B. The standard of living of foreign countries rises to meet the U.S. and/or the U.S. falls to meet them, or
C. We enact protectionist measures, or
D. A combination of the above
Then we will continue to lose jobs to outsourcing, simply because other countries can do the same thing cheaper than us.
And it actually can be cost effective to ship basic metal things overseas; e.g. I have some dumbbells that are made in China. Reason is that we get a lot of our iron from there anyhow. China produces 10 times more iron than we do, and India 4 times more. They can either ship over the raw iron, or the finished goods - the weight isn’t that much different.
One of the other things that happens….
Well, everytime a country gets a new system together it tends to be more advanced than all that proceded it. So the new plant in india might be far more efficient than the plant in the US.
A very smart friend of mine passed along an interesting thought. Empires tend to collapse under their own weight.
So, you take a young dynamic country like the US founded by a bunch of anti-government radicals and wait over time. You get creeping socialism sucking away the dynamic of free markets along with breeding unproductive socialist entitlement attitudes. Give it a couple hundred years and you have institutions that are EASILY seen as unworkable/failed/unsustainable along with decaying infastructure that is too hard to build around. Meanwhile the non-productive classes suck up more and more resources often to support things that should be abbandoned. See Detroit.
Attempts to get away from these structures are met with increasing political attack from large interest groups.
We’ve got it all over the place. Be it the AMA or AFLCIO or what ever municipal union you chose. Not to mention people elect a bonehead like Obama who will bail out failed institutions like GM. Further entrenching a company that needed to die and does nothing but suck life from the rest of the country. Things like FRE/FAN/FHA/SAL. Medicare. Ultra long term unemployment benefits.
You look at the places with growth. China, little regulation and plenty of fertile ground for improvement. Same with India. People happy to get any kind of work. Not a lot of money in social programs like Medicare.
Where are we headed? Off to more socialist experimentation.
Our collapse isn’t assured at this point but seems like we are headed that way. What the collapse leads to? Don’t know.
I tend to agree with the article that the monopolies have played a major role in crushing new jobs and innovation ,not to mention the price fixing aspect of monopolies .
Bernanke’s Low Yields Keep Los Angeles From Refunding Bonds.
March 1 (Bloomberg) — Natalie Brill, chief of debt management for Los Angeles, would like to take advantage of record-low interest rates to save at least $4.55 million by refinancing bonds for the second-most populous U.S. city. Except Ben S. Bernanke’s monetary policy would wipe out much of the savings.
Brill, 47, is caught in an unintended consequence of the Federal Reserve chairman holding overnight rates near zero to ease the worst recession since the 1930s. The city, facing a $212 million budget deficit for the current fiscal year, could sell tax-exempt obligations yielding less than 4 percent to retire 5 percent debt sold seven years ago. To do so, Brill would first have to park the proceeds of the new bonds in U.S. government securities that under Bernanke pay as little as 0.53 percent.
Warren Buffett says current US health care system is an ‘economic tape worm’ hindering US. 3-1-10 (AP)
The head of the holding company Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said Monday on CNBC that America’s health care system needs fundamental reform to attack costs because it’s not practical to continue devoting roughly 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product to health care.
Buffett says much of the rest of the world is paying about 9 percent of their GDP on health care and have more doctors and nurses per person.
He says he hopes Congress will develop a new health care reform proposal that will restrict costs more than any of the current plans would.
Too many pigs at the trough, all aremed with the best lobbyists that money can buy. They were be no meaningful reform until the system collapses (when only the wealthy and other privileged groups have access to medical care).
The truth is that we overspend on things that aren’t always needed. I used to work for a defibrillator maker. They had two tiers of product:
AEDs: the automatic defibs that you sometimes see in public places, like airports. Usually cost $2000 or less.
Full defibrillators: The kind you see in crash carts in hostpitals. The cost $10,000 or more.
Here is a tidbit learned. In the US ambulances are equipped with the fancy $10,000 defibrillators, even though EMTs usually use then in AED mode. In other countries ambulances are typically equipped with, you guessed it, a $2000 AED.
I strongly suspect that these runaway costs are systemic across the system, in large part as CYAs to protect the health care providers.
The bottom line is that we need to change the cost structure of how healthcare is delivered in this country. But it seems unlikely to happen anytime soon. Perhaps the recently lowered Medicare reimbursements that are being loudly protested will be a first nudge to the healthcare industry that “business as usual” is about to end.
I’ve taken the course in using the AED. Here’s the skinny:
The machine comes equipped with instructions. You follow them to the letter.
Now, the bad news: If you’re dealing with a victim of Sudden Cardiac Arrest, your prompt attention (and calling of 911) may help save a life. However, SCA is pretty nasty stuff. Even with widespread AEDs and training in Continuous Chest Compression, the survival rate is only raised from the single digits to the low double digits.
Went to a medical training course where the EMT said basically the same thing. (The guy was from AZ…..same guy maybe?)
Said basically that you needed to shock someone within 5 minutes of the attack. And that doing CPR/Chest compressions beyond 10 minutes or so was a waste of time.
CPR saved my grandfather. He lived 10 years longer.
It’s so hard to pass a bill when it threatens the gravy of opposing big Lobbyist . I got a idea ,do whats best for the majority of Citizens and
to hell with the monopolies .
I strongly suspect that these runaway costs are systemic across the system, in large part as CYAs to protect the health care providers.
Your strong suspicions are borne out by data on the industry.
But the systemic overruns and inefficiencies are hardly relegated to fancy hardware — other problem areas include software, recordkeeping, pharmaceutical costs, and administration.
Somewhere, some time there must have been a local Eyewitness News! story/lawsuit about someone who would have been saved it the EMDs had had the 10k machine…and here we are.
America’s health care system needs fundamental reform to attack costs because it’s not practical to continue devoting roughly 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product to health care.
What do we need health insurers for anyway? LA Times 2/28/10
statements she and other WellPoint executives have made, suggests that insurers can’t profitably manage through periods of high unemployment….what she was really telling the committee members was this: “Please put us out of our misery.”
In delivering this appeal, Braly was forced to make an implicit admission that her industry almost never makes explicitly: The nation’s health coverage system is so hopelessly broken that even the health insurance industry can’t handle it anymore.
The only way insurers can remain profitable at all is by selling healthy people on policies that don’t offer much coverage at all, while squeezing older, less healthy people remorselessly
Instead, the health reform obstructionists, who mostly belong to the Republican Party, mouthed the same tired and irrelevant bromides.
(The) WellPoint management team observed that the company had lost 1.4 million subscribers, or 4%, during 2009. Much of that was because of layoffs
America’s hidden debt bombs
March 1, 2010
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — America’s total debt load is on pace to top $13 trillion this year, and $22 trillion by 2020 — and that’s just the debt we’re counting.
What’s not being counted: potential debt bombs that don’t get factored into most budget analysis.
When anyone talks about U.S. debt, they typically refer to two numbers.
The first is the debt held by the public. That’s money owed to those who have bought U.S. Treasurys, most notably big bond mutual funds and foreign governments. Debt held by the public today is roughly $8 trillion and rising.
The second number is the money the federal government owes to government trust funds, such as those for Medicare and Social Security. The government has used revenue collected for those programs to cover other outlays. Currently, the debt to the trust funds is approaching $5 trillion.
The two combined is the total gross debt that’s accounted for. But deficit hawks also worry about what’s not on the books.
They apparently aren’t hidden so very well, as we have discussed them for years already on the HBB…
How good is YOUR homeowner insurer? Sarasota paper has coverage about the good, bad and ugly in today’s issue. Here’s one of six of the “ugly” Florida insurers they highlighted.
MAGNOLIA INSURANCE
Started: 2008
Policies: 82,000*
Funds set aside: $16.4 million*
Amount insured: $17 billion*
Risk factors: Highly leveraged. $1 in capital per $1,058 insured.
High risk concentration: Two of five homes insured are in Dade and Broward counties.
About the company: Formed out of the founder’s Key Biscayne home, several insurance agents said they had trouble even contacting the company for their clients. “They didn’t even have an office. They didn’t even have a Web site. They didn’t have a phone,” said Miami agent Dulce Suarez-Resnick. Company president Henry James Irl got licensed to open Magnolia despite recent court orders garnishing his wages over credit card debts. Regulators put the company under administrative supervision and required Irl to resign in December.
www dot heraldtribune dot com/article/20100301/ARTICLE/303019999/2416/NEWS?Title=SPECIAL-REPORT-Weak-insurers-put-Floridians-at-risk
If the requirements these days are that low for Insurance Company
reserves ,than the system is designed for the leverage games whereby the Government steps in and pays when the Insurance joints go BK, given one real widespread emergency . This Company couldn’t even cover 2% of their customers in a disaster . Now I’m becoming more and more interested in what new laws have come about in the last 10 years regarding Insurance Companies . What is going on with all the financial systems ?
Another Sarasota newspaper article about how savvy flippers are making money again. Not as much as in the old days, but if you have money you can put at risk, there’s opportunity out there.
www dot heraldtribune dot com/article/20100301/ARTICLE/3011017/2413/BUSINESS?Title=Quiet-profit-from-houses-in-arrears
LA budget mess means cutbacks, layoffs.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — For two decades, Los Angeles built libraries with a vigor rarely seen in the nation, spending $335 million to get books and computers within the reach of those who might not otherwise have them.
Now, it’s getter harder to get inside the buildings.
A hobbled economy has left the nation’s second-largest city starved for cash, and 72 library branches now are closed Friday mornings to save money. More than 1,000 people work at the libraries, but layoffs and retirements could slash the staff by 20 percent or more by June. Hours will be cut again.
A new era of austerity has arrived grimly in Los Angeles, where Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is warning the city must do more with less. The library hours only begin to tell the story. As many as 4,000 layoffs are planned, which would translate into more gaping potholes, neglected parks and streets lined with overgrown trees.
from a friend in AZ ,
“My wife, as many of you know, works as a legal assistance at a law firm that deals with bankruptcies/foreclosures. She had an emergency bankruptcy where a gentleman house was in foreclosure. Sounds pretty common. The catch was that he had arranged with his lender to do a loan modification. Apparently, the lenders have two separate departments, one foreclosure and one for Loan modifications. They may or may not be in communication with each other. The guy was instructed to try to catch up with his delinquent payments and the loan would be consensually agreed upon by both he and the moorage company of the new loan. Of course, these are government back loans that we all hear about on the news. Well interestingly enough the foreclosure department finished first and served a foreclosure notice to the guy and to the public. He is losing his home. The bank is very happy that he at least did not live for several months for free. That’s criminal, hehehe. My wife says that it is very rare to see a loan modification. It is reported that there are approximately 10% that actually go through. “
Been reading HBB long enough to know that now is not the time to buy…the bubble still going strong here in San Francisco…
but I AM SICK OF BEING A RENTER!!
We’ve lived in the same SFH for 10 years now - paid almost $250K in rent over that time. Two kids, etc. etc.
The problem? DOGS.
We love dogs. It’s impossible to be a dog-lover and a renter. SF is known to be a dog-friendly city, but I guess really only if you are a home owner.
I know we gotta wait. No we are not moving inland (I surf). But I have been waiting a long time. Thought about buying in 2000, just about ready, career-wise, etc., but then the tech bubble hit and all bets were off. Then blam the housing bubble. A tear down in this city costs half a million. In the ghetto.
I don’t want to live in Specific Whites (Pacific Heights) and I’m sure as hell not going to spend 600K to live in a ticky tacky house in Daly City in the fog.
WTF?!
I DO want to own my own home and have as many dogs as I please. And not stress about how clean the house is so I can impress the landlady. 10 years and NEVER paid the rent late. Credit score, FWIW, 820.
Rant off.
“…ticky tacky house in Daly City…”
Thanks for the lovely rant, which brings to mind a song:
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,1
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there’s doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.
And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
Daly City is great, when viewed through the window of a departing airplane!
I sympathize with your rant. I too would like to eventually buy. My problem is jobs. I’ve been sidewaysedly mobile for about 10 years. I’m afraid to buy a dining room table, much less a house. And now I’m in an area where buying is not impossible, but it would be a disaster.
My only hope is that renting will save me enough money over so that over the next 25 years I’ll save up enough to retire and buy in low-cost podunk. It’s not much different from a mortgage-burning party, I guess. C’est la vie.
“My only hope is that renting will save me enough money over so that over the next 25 years I’ll save up enough to retire and buy in low-cost podunk.”
Guess we’ll see you in podunk 25 years from now
“Guess we’ll see you in podunk 25 years from now”
What if every HBB’er moved to Oil City en masse? Do you think we could get it going there on our own?
The first blog-based community. At this point that would be a better risk than buying in Florida.
I’m here and now predicting a bubble in podunk twenty-five years hence.
Doubt it, PB. There wil be far too much supply in podunk for a bubble, especially post-boomer. And there’s just so much podunk out there. If all else fails you can tear down a rotting 40’s farmhouse and put a double wide on the sewer connection. Amazing where you can live if you’re not tied to an office.
“There wil be far too much supply in podunk for a bubble, especially post-boomer. And there’s just so much podunk out there.”
Thanks so much for the uplifting reminder: They aren’t running out of land in podunk, just yet. The only thing I could imagine going wrong would be for a replay of the recent housing mania coinciding with the time one wanted to move to podunk. But I am thinking a similar real estate bubble may never again recur over my lifetime, and perhaps not even over the future lifetimes of my kids and (future) grandkids…
“I’m afraid to buy a dining room table, much less a house.”
We’ve been postponing some major purchases too. Even if you have the money saved, what’s the point of buying a new bedroom set only to see it nicked and scratched up in the next move?
Go ahead and own dogs. But please be a responsible owner and ensure that your dogs aren’t a neighborhood noise nuisance. There are plenty of the other kind of owners, and you can read all about them at BarkingDogs.net.
A lot of areas restrict the number of dogs you can own, even in a SFH, unless you are registered as a breeder. Check town laws before you buy.
Hey I surf too. 4 surgeries later I still think I can but sure not every day! I got my teaching license in Bend’oer, and turned my nose up on Oregon surfing, cuz a few more hours invested and Big Sur there I went for winter breaks etc. Summers in SB, used to commuting for the southies anyway. Then I worked teaching out at the coast, got a 5 mm, gloves and hood; and its like Jalama 15 yrs ago. Move to Bend, buy a house for 150k, and carpool portacrowd with Gerry(well maybe not cuz he is a wave hog ambassador unfortunately he’ll snake you on his SUP with a grin on his face and he is like the pied piper for older SUP guys, they show up when he does)my rant off. Bu he don’t frequent some of the other great unmentionable Surf Spots. If you like south wind protected lefthanders, course you have to kiss a few rocks and few locals then you’re in there. Although its a 4 hour ride to the beach, it keeps your toes wet. And if you swim a mile now and then in the pool, you are always good to go.
Via AP:
Two thousand federal transportation workers will be furloughed without pay on Monday, and the Obama administration said they have a Kentucky senator to blame for it.
Federal reimbursements to states for highway programs will also be halted, the Transportation Department said in a statement late Sunday. The reimbursements amount to about $190 million a day, according to the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
The furloughs and freeze on payments were the result of a decision last week by Republican Sen. Jim Bunning to block passage of legislation that would have extended federal highway and transit programs, the department said. Those programs expired at midnight Sunday.
I’m just saying that Bunning is doing a good job here. Probably one of the only people doing a halfway good job.
I mean, the guy said figure out how to pay for this before we go off and spend it. And suddenly he is the bad guy.
Anyhow, we are probably saving a huge amount on not sending the money out.
It’s amazing what happens when you remove a subsidy ends
Mortgage approvals drop sharply
Experts have said the end of the stamp duty holiday was behind the drop.
The stamp duty threshold dropped back to £125,000 on 1 January, prompting a rush on mortgage approvals and completed home sales in the final months of 2009.
The government concession, which had temporarily pushed the threshold up to £175,000 for just over a year, had been aimed at halting the rapid slump in the property market.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8542764.stm
The MarketWatcher’s stable of economics experts are blaming February labor market weakness on the weather. I expect to soon see bad February home sales rationalized in similar fashion; never mind that the Florida condo market held up just fine through the 2005 hurricane season.
Feb. 28, 2010, 10:40 a.m. EST
Jobs market clouded by storms in February
Payrolls expected to drop 85,000, but should bounce back in March
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Mix some of the worst winter storms on record with a weak economy and you’ll get disappointing payroll data when the government reports on February’s job market this week.
Economists say the massive snowstorms that hit the eastern half of the nation in the second week of February could depress employment by as much as 150,000. But the impact of the storms will mostly be temporary, with a large bounce back in March very likely, depending on the next storm, of course.
“The blizzard that blanketed the East Coast during the February employment survey week probably caused a sharp decline in payrolls for the month,” wrote Peter D’Antonio, an economist for Citigroup Global Market, who was the MarketWatch forecaster of the month for January.
“The underlying fundamentals are improving gradually,” D’Antonio said. “An excessive weather-driven decline will be reversed in March.”
…
MarketWatch consensus
See economic calendar
date report Consensus previous
March 1 Personal income 0.4% 0.4%
March 1 Consumer spending 0.4% 0.2%
March 1 ISM 57.5% 58.4%
March 1 Construction spending -0.5% -1.2%
March 2 Motor vehicle sales 10.4 mln 10.8 mln
March 3 ISM services 51.0% 50.5%
March 4 Jobless claims 470,000 496,000
March 4 Productivity 6.5% 6.2%
March 4 Factory orders 2.5% 1.0%
March 5 Nonfarm payrolls -85,000 -20,000
March 5 Unemployment rate 9.8% 9.7%
March 5 Average hourly earnings 0.2% 0.3%
March 5 Consumer credit -$6.0 bln -$1.7 bln
Right, the weather in the NE. I’ve lived in the NE for over half a century and I say that this was not a severe winter by any measure. So we had a few snow days. It might cut into someone’s vacation time, but loosing jobs?
We’ll soon be in the rainy season. I wonder how many jobs will be lost in the March runoff and the April floods?
Yeah, that “unexpected” bad weather in February really screwed the pooch.
By allowing so many Americans to live rent free in homes that should be foreclosed, banks are doing God’s work: Providing a massive stimulus to America’s consumer economy. Booyah!
(Note on punctuation below: All of it is SIC)
Not Paying Mortgages is Keeping Americans Spending
Mark , TraderMark
Published 02/19/2010 - 12:20 a.m. EST
Jim Cramer finally came around to my line of thinking this morning… an “aha” moment as the virtual light bulb went on over his head. How can retailers be doing pretty darn good… credit cards stabilizing… and even car buying jumping a bit, even as unemployment rages. He has PART of the picture - the house ATM has been replaced by the govenrment ATM. [Jun 5, 2009: 1 in 6 Dollars of Income Now Via Government; Highest Since 1929]
But over and above that, as I advanced in November 2009 piece [Nov 25, 2009: America's Stealth Stimulus Plan; Allowing It's Home "Owners" to be Deadbeats] we now have a permanent stimulus happening as great swathes of Americans are sitting in homes not making a payment.
” I was looking through the avalanche of economic data today, and it struck me how once again Americans are spending well over their income growth.
I’ve written about this in the past in conceptual terms but never put it into an analysis. The true stealth stimulus plan in America is letting so many of its people live “rent free” as they sit in defaulted homes not making a mortgage payment. This “cost savings” allows them to shop and spend, and otherwise support the American consumption society. While it is hard to keep track of all the stimuli, try to think back to the Bush spring 2008 stimulus. (that was about 37 stimuli ago) That goosed GDP quite well for two quarters. But we now have a quasi permanent stimulus plan that goes on quarter, after quarter, year after year…. and its equivalent to have a permanent Bush level stimulus (using VERY conservative figures).
Mr Market likes “worse than expected” construction numbers, as they imply the Fed has good reason to keep the pedal to the interest rate medal for “longer than expected.”
market pulse
March 1, 2010, 10:10 a.m. EST
U.S. construction outlays down 0.6% in January
By Ruth Mantell
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Spending on U.S. construction projects fell at a seasonally adjusted rate of 0.6% in January, the Commerce Department estimated Monday. The decline was wider than the 0.5% drop expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. Spending in December dropped an unrevised 1.2%. Residential outlays in January rose 1.1%, while nonresidential outlays fell 1.4%, and public outlays fell 0.7%.
Well I’ve argued for years that the “Bad news for the economy is good news for the stock market,” meme is more evidence that the valuations are speculative ones based upon more money sloshing into equities and bidding up the prices rather than expected future profits. Rinse and repeat.
Valuations are based on the Fed’s best response to unfolding financial conditions. Fundamentals? Fuggetaboutit.
We are not getting the WS reform that we were promised because reform would permit the orderly dissolution of failing WS Megabanks instead of a bailout.
Roidy
Obama Fed, here we come:
Fed’s Kohn to resign; 3/7 seats to be unfilled
March 1, 2010 3:06pm
by Emma Saunders
Rate setting meetings are going to get lonely. Donald Kohn has announced he will leave the Federal Reserve, effective June 23.
History will judge Chairman Bernanke and the Fed to have met challenges over the last several years “with great speed, imagination and effectiveness,” Kohn said in his resignation letter to President Barack Obama, released today by the Fed.
The departure opens a third vacancy on the seven-member Fed Board of Governors, giving Obama the chance to pick a majority of the panel after appointing Daniel Tarullo in 2009 (Bloomberg).
Is it me - or are our country’s supposed leaders resigning in droves right now?
Seems we have quite the leadership vacuum. Hmmm…
(A very loaded “Hmmm…” that is, though loaded in many ways).
“Is it me - or are our country’s supposed leaders resigning in droves right now”?
Bailing out left and right, getting out while in the calm eye of the storm!
There are a number of openings on WS. That’s why. It’s time to make money now that they have “fixed” the financial system.
Roidy
It is probably related to boomer retirement factor. More and more people getting up there in age. Get used to it. Should be the rage for the next 20yrs or so.
Look at the grand eventuality…
Eventually your housing needs are a small pine box. Underground even!
You also don’t emit any greenhouse gases unless some fu*ker digs you up.
You have no financial worries.
Your spouse will not beetch at you to go mow the lawn of fit the leaky flaucet.
Your kids will not have to take care of you.
Think of the savings on food alone.
The boomers are downsizing in a big way here. Heck, we get some good ole h1n1 going and the checkout line might get a little backed up.
Wonder who GS &JP will ‘recommend’ to Barry for the seats? Surely someone formally with one of the firms, with “great speed, imagination and effectiveness”.
Generally the only one that really matters is the NY seat, which isn’t one of the empty ones.
Not surprisingly, BTW, three of the last four NY Fed heads (including the last two) have been GS people.
See no bubble, hear no bubble, speak no bubble.
Inside business | a weekly conversation with san diego newsmakers
San Diego real estate has a California problem
The real estate market may suffer as companies flee state, analyst says
By Roger Showley, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Monday, March 1, 2010 at 12:04 a.m.
…
QUESTION: From 20,000 feet up, how do you view San Diego’s current real estate market?
ANSWER: In the big picture, we are in one of the most highly supply-constrained markets that you tend to get on both coasts of the United States. As a result, they tend to have faster rent and price increases and faster price declines. So we end up getting a volatile market. But because we’re supply-constrained, we don’t have as much oversupply in most of the commercial real estate sectors as you have in major markets around the country. At the same time, one of the problems is we’re stuck in California. San Diego would be a great place to live if it wasn’t surrounded by California.
QUESTION: What’s so bad about California?
ANSWER: We are not only a noncompetitive business location, but my expectation is that it will get much worse before it gets much better because of our budget deficit problems. So I suspect individuals here will have such high tax burdens that businesses like the one we’re sitting in will be prime candidates to move to nearby states with lower taxes.
QUESTION: Many people have moved to Riverside County to buy affordable homes. Is that the best answer?
ANSWER: The better our transportation, the farther away people can live because it’s affordable. That’s absolutely critical. The better solution is to allow more density in development. That’s hard to do in a place where you don’t want more people living next to you. So density of development is a solution to affordable housing and mixed-use development.
…
“San Diego would be a great place to live if it wasn’t surrounded by California.”
Gotta love that remark!
Maybe. I see it as another version of “it’s different here.” I’ll give credit for at least having a creative version, though.
Does everyone still want to live in San Diego and enjoy the company of fellow residents like this guy?
Registered sex offender held in case of missing teen
Lake Elsinore man arrested; hunt for Chelsea King to expand
By J. Harry Jones, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Originally published February 28, 2010 at 7:47 p.m., updated March 1, 2010 at 9:13 a.m.
Investigators stood outside a home late Sunday night on Matinal Road in Rancho Bernardo linked by public records to John Albert Gardner III, arrested in the Chelsea King disappearance.
John R. McCutchen / Union-Tribune
…
San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore makes announcement in Chelsea King case Sunday.
A registered sex offender was in jail Monday morning on suspicion of murder and rape in connection with the disappearance of Poway teenager Chelsea King, the Sheriff’s Department said.
John Albert Gardner III, 30, who listed his home address in Lake Elsinore, was arrested in front of a popular Mexican restaurant and bar called Hernandez Hide-A-Way in the tiny community of Del Dios on the west shore of Lake Hodges near Escondido at 4:20 p.m. Sunday, San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said Sunday night.
…
My aunt has the most unusual volunteer job of anyone in my family. (And, as you may have divined from some of what I’ve said here, the Slims do a lot of volunteering — and we have a blast doing it.)
Any-hoo, back to Aunt Jean.
She helps the state police maintain her state’s sex offender database. While I was visiting her last summer, I (innocently) asked if I could go with her to visit the people she works with. Just to meet them and thank them for their service to the state’s residents and visitors like me.
Jean’s reply: “No! It’s a secure facility!”
That news was delivered with a good bit more vehemence than I usually hear from Jean. So, we didn’t go to the state police barracks.
She also told me that when she’s working on the database, there’s no talking. If she wants to ask a question, she has to signal the person with the answer so they can go out in the hall and talk.
I have to personally question Dr. Carroll’s statement. Wouldn’t castration work? Is there a way to do it that would not constitute cruel and inhumane punishment? Your daughter’s future survival may depend on the answer.
Calif. parents recount ordeal of missing daughter
By ELLIOT SPAGAT | Associated Press | 8 minutes ago in US
Brent and Kelly King knew something was wrong when they discovered their 17-year-old daughter Chelsea wasn’t home.
…
John Gardner III, 30, remained in custody without bail after his arrest outside a Mexican restaurant in suburban Escondido. Steve Walker, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, said a decision would be made by Wednesday about filing charges against Gardner.
Sheriff Bill Gore said physical evidence recovered during the search linked Gardner to the disappearance, but he declined to elaborate.
Gore said on ABC’s “Good Morning” that the interrogation of Gardner had not been productive.
“We questioned Mr. Gardner into the evening and so far we still don’t know where Chelsea is,” Gore said. “We’re confident that we have the right man in custody. Now we’ve just got to find Chelsea.”
Investigators searched a town house Monday about a mile from the park where neighbors said Gardner’s mother and stepfather lived, The San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper reported.
…
Investigators also suspect Gardner could be tied to a Dec. 27 assault on a female jogger from Colorado who fended off her attacker in the same park.
Gardner, a resident of Lake Elsinore, about 75 miles north of Poway, was required to register as a sex offender because of a conviction for lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14, the Megan’s Law Web site said.
He was convicted in May 2000 of molesting a 13-year-old female neighbor and sentenced to six years in prison, the Union-Tribune reported. A psychiatrist who interviewed Gardner said he showed no remorse for his actions. according to the court records obtained by the newspaper.
“There is no known treatment for an individual that sexually assaults girls and does not admit to it in any way,” Dr. Matthew Carroll said in the documents.
…
Do repeat sex offenders have the same constitutional rights (without qualification) as all other Americans? I find this notion highly suspect.
Castration of Sex Offenders:
Prisoners’ Rights Versus Public Safety
Charles L. Scott, MD, and Trent Holmberg, MD
Sexual victimization of children and adults is a significant treatment and public policy problem in the United States.
To address increasing concerns regarding sex offender recidivism, nine states have passed legislation since 1996
authorizing the use of either chemical or physical castration. In most statutes, a repeat offender’s eligibility for
probation or parole is linked to acceptance of mandated hormonal therapy. Future legal challenges to this wave
of legislation will probably include arguments that such laws violate constitutional rights guaranteed to the offender
by the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. When the promise of freedom is predicated on mandated
treatment, the clinician must carefully assess the validity of informed consent.
J Am Acad Psychiatry Law 31:502–9, 2003
Oh for God sakes ,if castration would stop the crimes ,them by all means it being cruel to not protect the public . How do you ensure that they will stay on hormone therapy ? I’m sorry but I don’t have very much tolerance for sex crimes against children .
,if castration would stop the crimes ,them by all means it being cruel to not protect the public
by that argument, jailing every member of the population save one would stop all crimes. So it’d be cruel not to do that, right???
Well, if you make suicide legal. Otherwise you’d have to jail 100% of the population…
I had a discussion with a friend as to were we violating the offenders rights.
Personally I told him the problem was ever letting these guys out in the first place.
I said the only proper treatment involved a .45 and a shovel.
Letting these guys out is a sure fire way to get some poor kids murdered. Take this guy out, kill him and bury him. Use a hammer and we can save a bullet.
There isn’t any cure or treatment. These guys bounce in and out of facilities for their entire lives till they get better at their crimes. They get the bright idea that it is better not to leave a witness. So, here we are.
“They get the bright idea that it is better not to leave a witness.”
That’s the trouble with trying to solve the sex crime problem through harsher punishment: The harsher the penalty, the greater incentive to eliminate the key witness once the crime is committed.
I have, quite frankly, had my fill of these stories since I have lived in California. What do other societies do with such guys? Are there any success stories, where sex crimes are kept very low by the right system of law and enforcement?
Gardner is apparently linked to the crime, but won’t talk. Is extraordinary rendition an option when it comes to getting sex criminals to reveal the whereabouts of their victims?
Now we’re talking!
Feb. 27, 2010, 11:28 a.m. EST
Buffett calls out financial leaders
Berkshire Hathaway chairman suggests Wall Street execs have gotten off lightly
By Sam Mamudi, MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Warren Buffett, the world’s most famous investor, launched an attack Saturday on big-bank executives, calling for penalties for those who led their companies to near-ruin.
…
Now he says it after he got his portfolios baild out, WellsFargo, GS and AIG to name a few.
Can’t believe the level of hypocricy of this old turd.
Well, that’s how the rich get rich, right?
Agreed. Buffet is scum of the earth. Why people look up to him as if he’s some sort of god is beyond me.
Cuz he drives an old car (Lincoln Towncar) and eats at a mom-n-pop steakhouse. He’s one of us!
Did you all see Warren’s stock market special services announcement on CNBC earlier today? Pretty soon, the inner party will have him on all the networks 24/7 making public services announcements saying, “All is well in East Asia; buy stocks.”
U.K. Mortgage Approvals Dropped to Eight-Month Low in January.
March 1 (Bloomberg) — U.K. mortgage approvals dropped in January by more than economists forecast to an eight-month low, adding to evidence that the housing-market recovery may be losing momentum.
Lenders granted 48,198 loans to buy homes, compared with 58,223 in December, the Bank of England said today in London. The median of 22 economist forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey was for a result of 50,000. Gross mortgage lending dropped to the lowest level since 2000.
Bank of England policy maker Kate Barker said last week the property market may face “adjustments” as banks curb lending, and Hometrack Ltd. said today that price gains observed last month don’t have solid foundations. The U.K.’s longest cold snap in 30 years and an increase in a tax on housing transactions may have also damped activity, economists said.
U.S. Gypsum in Stony Point to close in June; 70 to lose jobs
lohud.com 3-1-10
STONY POINT — United States Gypsum Co. will close its wallboard manufacturing plant in Rockland as demand for its product continues to fall off in the poor housing market, according to financial documents.
The Stony Point plant, which employs about 70 people, will shut down by June, its Chicago-based parent company said in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Stony Point Supervisor William Sherwood said this morning that he was informed of the decision late last week.
“It’s a disaster,” he said. “Horrible, horrible news for Stony Point and the 70 or so employees who are losing their jobs.”
“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”
~Alexis de Tocqueville
So how many years ago did America stop enduring, then?
Since the beginning of the Republic.
He didn’t foresee foreign creditors or the printing presses, did he?
“The American Republic will endure until the day foreign creditors discover Congress bribes the public with borrowed and sometimes freshly printed moneys.”
Homeowners Say Banks Keep Them Underwater by Spurning Loan Program Rules - FOXNews.com- (AP)
A slew of struggling homeowners are coming forward with complaints about the way banks are operating under a federal loan modification program announced last year by the Obama administration.
You qualify.
Those two words, from the mouth of a bank representative last October, triggered a wave of relief for Tracy Davis and her husband James. The couple had been in and out of work for three years and were struggling to pay their mortgage — so when the Bank of America worker told them they qualified under a federal program to have their loan modified, they finally saw a path to keeping their house.
“We walked out thinking, great,” Tracy Davis said.
But weeks went by, and nobody contacted them, and they weren’t able to reach anyone — other than representatives at a call center in India.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/01/homeowners-say-banks-underwater-spurning-loan-program-rules/?test=latestnews
“According to the suit, they went to a Treasury-sponsored “borrower outreach” event in Cincinnati at the end of October at which bank representatives offered them modified home loans and pledged to send them the paperwork “within weeks.” The documents never came, they say.”
In a post this past weekend I predicted this would happen to the attendees of the Florida outreach. There were scores of computers in the photos but no discernable printers, possibly indicating that modification paperwork would not be available on the spot.
Now we read that its already happened to others.
They’re about to do one of those HOPE NOW thingies here in Tucson. Methinks that a lot of underwater homeowners are about to be very disappointed.
The mother of all bailouts to come.
J.C. WATTS ~ Las Vegas Review-Journal
I’m all for bipartisan agreements that make sense. However, when I look at what is unfolding in Congress in the name of bipartisanship on banking reform, it makes me extremely nervous.
Here we go again.
Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Bob Corker, R-Tenn., are working on bipartisan legislation to revamp the regulatory structure of the financial services industry. The House passed Rep. Barney Frank’s version Dec. 11. The bill from Frank, D-Mass., would create a controversial Consumer Financial Protection Agency and codify a permanent bailout authority for the federal government.
The big question for Americans who hate bailouts is whether the Senate will follow the House’s lead and grant the Federal Reserve the statutory authority to bail out individuals, partnerships or corporations to the tune of $4 trillion.
On Page 506 of the House-passed bill, which is titled the “Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act” is the following language: The amounts made available under this subsection shall not exceed $4,000,000,000,000.
This so-called “reform” and “consumer protection” legislation authorizes a $4 trillion bailout fund for Wall Street. That is more money than President Obama’s 2011 budget ($3.8 trillion), the gross domestic product of Germany ($3.7 trillion), and between five and six times the amount of the Troubled Assets Relief Program. A majority of House members actually voted for a bill containing $4 trillion in new bailout authority. You just can’t make this stuff up. It is really in the bill.
How should one reconfigure the operation of one’s household in order to qualify as “bailout worthy”?
And yet somehow there’s no money for the unemployed.
Killer Hot Dogs
The federal government is toying with the idea of requiring hot dog manufacturers to change the shape of their product to “make them safer.” A very small number of kids under 10 have choked to death on them.
The death rate per hot dog is incredibly small. American kids younger than 10 eat approximately 1.8 billion hot dogs per year, which works out to an average of about 45 hot dogs per child per annum. That pegs the death rate per hot dog from choking at 0.0000007 percent. If crossing a street were so safe, parents would breathe a sigh of relief.
< What about the tots who choke on hamburgers, lollipops, and candy bars? Shouldn’t the federal government do something about that, too?
I hate to hear of the death of any child, but to think the government is going to eliminate accidents by forcing expensive re-tooling for making hot dogs is a new heigh in wasteful bureaucratic protectionism.
Why does the phrase “Nanny Nanny BOO! BOO!” come to mind?
That would be the ultimate - a nanny state that pre-chews our food for us! I don’t even think the Europeans would go that far.
Now we’re screwed. Now we get to pay for OSHA-approved hot dogs, that cost 9 bucks/pound.
Just make them in pea-sized bites, so you can eat them with a spoon (or better yet, a straw)……Yum….
Have I got to do all the thinking for everyone around here????
The Inflation vs. Deflation Dynamic
Can Bernanke keep deflation at bay?
Britain’s economics commentator Ambrose Evans-Pritchard surveys the scene and reminds us what Fed Chief Ben Bernanke said in 2002:
“Fed chairman Ben Bernanke told us in his 2002 speech ‘Deflation: Making Sure It Doesn’t Happen Here’ that: 1) Japan’s slide into deflation was ‘entirely unexpected’, and that it would be ‘imprudent’ to rule out such a risk in America; 2) ‘Sustained deflation can be highly destructive to a modern economy and should be strongly resisted’; 3) that a ‘determined government’ has the means to stop deflation, if necessary by use of the ‘printing press’.”
Evans-Pritchard is correct. That famous “printing press” remark from Dr. Bernanke is the basis for the widely held view the US is going to be swept by a terrible hyperinflation soon. If deflation gets out of hand, so the reasoning goes, Ben will crank up the printing presses and offset it with whatever flood of cash is necessary.
That’s the theory, but the Fed can’t put billions of new money into the hands of the public directly. It can’t be handed out on street corners nor dumped by the bushels from hovering helicopters. It can be created through the fractional reserve banking system plus the operations of the Open Market Committee of the Fed as it buys government IOUs in large quantities, thus monetizing more government debt. Don’t look for helicopters!
That’s the theory, but the Fed can’t put billions of new money into the hands of the public directly. It can’t be handed out on street corners nor dumped by the bushels from hovering helicopters. It can be created through the fractional reserve banking system plus the operations of the Open Market Committee of the Fed as it buys government IOUs in large quantities, thus monetizing more government debt. Don’t look for helicopters!
What better way to pass out money than through an efficient organization such as the U.S. government?
The government does a wonderful job of passing out money, by the trillions, lately. Problem is, in our ‘consumer’ society it’s got to get to the man on the street. No matter how hard BB runs the digital presses, if it isn’t squirting out all the way down the line, he can’t get the inflation rate target he’s shooting for. Deflation is the F-bomb around the reserve.
So what can the FED do get get that money into the pockets of Joe&Jane S.Pack, if the banks won’t? Mail out direct checks, like Bush did? They will need to be a whole hell of a lot bigger than $600.00.Then the people would need to spend it, not use it to pay off/down debt. BB has got issues and knows it, all is not going according to plan, he has a very limited play book.
And they all lived happily ever after in Weimar….
US construction spending down by billions to 7-year low
Phoenix Business Journal - 3-1-10
Construction spending in January hit its lowest level since 2003, according to new numbers from the Associated General Contractors.
AGC reported Monday that construction spending nationwide totaled $884 million in January — a $5.5 billion drop from December.
AGC economist Ken Simonson said the drop indicates continued weakness in the commercial real estate sector. Phoenix and other major markets have seen their office, retail and industrial markets slide during the recession.
“What’s clear from this data is that the downturn in nonresidential construction spending is far from over,” he said. “Federal funding for construction is one of the few crutches propping up a deeply wounded construction industry.”
Foreclosures up in Mecklenburg
Charlotte Business Journal ~ March 1, 2010
Foreclosure filings last month in Mecklenburg County rose 82 percent from a year earlier, according to court data provided by the state.
The number of foreclosure filings in Mecklenburg totaled 940 in February, up from 517 a year ago. The number of filings increased 17 percent from January, when foreclosure filings totaled 804.
The number of filings in Mecklenburg last year totaled 12,769, the county’s highest annual number on record. Statewide, the total hit 63,312, also a record.
A number of surrounding counties also saw significant increases in foreclosure filings last month. In Gaston County, the number of filings hit 149 in February, up 161% from 57 a year ago. Cabarrus, Catawba and Iredell counties all had 86 percent increases from a year earlier, and Rowan County had an 80 percent jump in the number of filings, according to the court data.
Foreclosure filings indicate the beginning of foreclosure proceedings, but not every case results in a foreclosure sale. The statistics include both residential and commercial foreclosure filings.
U.S. airline, union disputes could disrupt flights ~ USA TODAY
Air travelers in the USA could face the same type of labor relations-driven flight disruptions that crippled air travel in parts of Europe last week.
American, Continental, United, US Airways and Southwest are in prolonged contract talks with various unions.
Several have the potential to boil over, though it’s not an ideal time to strike.
Air travel remains in a slump, and unemployment hovers around 10%. U.S. airlines have piled up more than $54 billion in losses and shed 170,000 jobs in the last decade, a 23.4% decline.
Airline workers “don’t have a strong hand, but they seem to be getting close to the boiling point,” says airline labor expert and retired United pilot Kit Darby of KitDarby.com Aviation Consulting. “It’s like in the movie (Network): They’re as mad as hell, and they aren’t going to take it anymore.”
Next up? Possibly American Airlines’ flight attendants or mechanics and ramp workers. Both unions say they’ll seek the start of a 30-day clock leading to a strike deadline if talks this week don’t produce a deal to their liking. Other labor groups, including pilots at United, Continental and US Airways, are further from a strike procedurally but may be on the same trajectory.
The last major airline strike in the USA was in 2005. Most of the Northwest mechanics who walked out then never returned. Northwest, now a part of Delta, hired temporary replacements and outsourced maintenance work.
And, as usual, the employees will be sacrificed on the altar of the $79 NY-LA Coach-class ticket.
And, as usual, the employees will be sacrificed on the altar
Well, they can always clean ski boots. (If they have a great education and years of professional work experience)
Santa Cruz job seekers head for the hills 3/1/10 Santa Cruz Sentinel.
LAKE TAHOE — With new jobs hard to find, some of the unemployed are heading to the mountains to look for work, even if the work only lasts as long as the snow.
Lake Tahoe ski resort officials say they’ve seen a significant surge in the number of applicants this winter, many overqualified, for positions such as lift operators, parking lot attendants,
People with graduate degrees and years of professional experience laid off from their “real jobs” have been willing to move to the snow, live with roommates and work for minimum wage.
“These applicants were highly qualified and highly motivated…The majority of seasonal resort jobs, she said, start at $8.50 an hour,
“This past fall was one of the best hiring seasons we’ve ever been through in Lake Tahoe,” said Brittany Clelan, Northstar’s human resources director. “There were plenty of qualified applicants for every position — many coming from a manager level at their last position and bringing a wealth of experience.”
Years ago, a coworker (who hailed from Wisconsin) described his bout of unemployment as “joining the governor’s ski team.” And to think that I didn’t know that Wisconsin had ski slopes.
Trucker YRC makes further job cuts. ~ Mar 1, 2010
KANSAS CITY (Reuters) - U.S. trucker YRC Worldwide (YRCW.O) has slashed its workforce further, cutting into its already-thinned ranks as it tries to appease lenders and debt-holders as part of a broad financial restructuring.
The trucking company refused comment. Sources within the company said the No. 1 less-than-truckload carrier laid off at least 200 people in February from its Overland Park headquarters location and a campus in Akron, Ohio.
The layoffs include 90 people, or about 25 percent, in YRC’s information technology division, the sources said.
Analysts have expressed concern that YRC’s job cuts, coupled with voluntary departures by employees looking for more stable employment elsewhere, might leave the YRC talent pool too shallow.
“It is a concern,” said Dahlman Rose analyst Jason Seidl. “You hope they can maintain enough of a talent pool so they can forward.”
YRC has fired more than 4,500 employees over the last year as it struggled to stay out of bankruptcy and hold onto customers.
A funny story in the Times today about Madoff’s victims.
Seems they’re whining that they should get, via SIPC insurance, the total amount of money Madoff claimed to have earned them, not just the money they put in.
In other words, they think they’re entitled to the phony 15%-18% yearly returns Madoff claimed to have been earning, just because Madoff printed a piece of paper that said they earned it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/business/02madoff.html?hp
Fortunately, the Judge in charge of this disagreed.
(Actually, even getting their cash-in back may be too generous. If they had it in the S&P 500 over the past few years, they would be down a point!)
Concerning Madoff’s Victims.
You would think that the victims could redo their taxes if they paid
taxes on interest or earnings they only collected as a paper profit ,if they never actually got it . Paying taxes on fraudulent gains is the only issue here . Other than that ,your lucky if you get your original principal
back from a criminal scheme . Some of these victims might of been lucky that they didn’t have the money available to invest in real estate
for instance in the last 10 years .
Some of these victims might of been lucky that they didn’t have the money available to invest in real estate
for instance in the last 10 years .
Exactly!
Certainly, these folks have been victims of a crime, and I don’t want to blame them.
However, if they had taken their money and put it in another high-risk investment, over the past years (like any mutual fund company’s “aggressive growth fund”) they’d be lucky to have 50% of their money left!
Rich people paying taxes. What a quaint ideal. (Silly you……we’re talking rich folks here.
)
Everybody knows that they all hire accountants and lobbyists, and don’t pay no steenking taxes.
X-GSfixr
Oh,I forgot about the rich not paying taxes .
China PLA officer urges challenging U.S. dominance.
BEIJING (Reuters) - China should build the world’s strongest military and move swiftly to topple the United States as the global “champion,” a senior Chinese PLA officer says in a new book reflecting swelling nationalist ambitions.
The call for China to abandon modesty about its global goals and “sprint to become world number one” comes from a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Senior Colonel, Liu Mingfu, who warns that his nation’s ascent will alarm Washington, risking war despite Beijing’s hopes for a “peaceful rise.”
“China’s big goal in the 21st century is to become world number one, the top power,” Liu writes in his newly published Chinese-language book, “The China Dream.”
“If China in the 21st century cannot become world number one, cannot become the top power, then inevitably it will become a straggler that is cast aside,” writes Liu, a professor at the elite National Defense University, which trains rising officers.
I seem to recall hearing something in Sunday school about this mindset. As in, “Pride goeth before a fall.”
Does this mean we have to buy their products ?
It means caveat emptor when consuming Chinese products…
I believe it means, we going to take over Taiwan and there isn’t anything you can do to stop us.
Yep.
Sometimes I worry that defense will go out of bidness cause we don’t have any real enemies.
Then someone goes out and says “No, we promise lifetime employment”.
Of course spending my career making shit that makes life worse isn’t entirely fufilling either.
China. Going to be a double plus good buddy.
Farrakhan predicts ‘white right’ trouble for Obama.
CHICAGO — Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan, boasting his divine stature, on Sunday predicted trouble ahead for President Barack Obama and urged him to do more to improve the lives of blacks and the downtrodden.
The 76-year-old leader said the “white right” was conspiring to make Obama a one-term president, and pointed to his stalled efforts to introduce health care legislation as proof. He said those opponents and lobbyists were trapping him into a future war with Iran that could lead to mass destruction.
“The word ‘prophet’ is too cheap a word. I am a light in the midst of darkness,” Farrakhan said at the annual convention of the movement that embraces black nationalism. “It ain’t ego, it’s my love for you.”
An estimated 20,000 people attended the heavily guarded Saviours’ Day event at the United Center in Chicago. Followers — men dressed in navy uniforms and women in white skirt suits with matching hijabs — cheered on Farrakhan with shouts of “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is great.”
Farrakhan spent most of the fiery nearly four-hour speech recounting a 1985 vision he had in Mexico. Farrakhan has often described how he believes he was invited aboard an unidentified flying object he calls “the wheel” where he said he heard the late Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad speak to him.
He said that experience led him to inklings about future events, including the United States’ 1986 bombing of Libya.
Farrakhan recounted how his divine knowledge has allowed him to recognize countless warning signs over the decades — such as natural disasters such as the earthquake in Chile — and said they indicate impending trouble, including for Obama.
States may ban credit checks on job applicants.
Associated Press
ANNAPOLIS, Md. – It’s hard enough to find a job in this economy, and now some people are facing another hurdle: Potential employers are holding their credit histories against them.
Sixty percent of employers recently surveyed by the Society for Human Resources Management said they run credit checks on at least some job applicants, compared with 42 percent in a somewhat similar survey in 2006.
Employers say such checks give them valuable information about an applicant’s honesty and sense of responsibility. But lawmakers in at least 16 states from South Carolina to Oregon have proposed outlawing most credit checks, saying the practice traps people in debt because their past financial problems prevent them from finding work.
Wisconsin state Rep. Kim Hixson drafted a bill in his state shortly after hearing from Terry Becker, an auto mechanic who struggled to find work.
Becker said it all started with medical bills that piled up when his now 10-year-old son began having seizures as a toddler. In the first year alone, Becker ran up $25,000 in medical debt.
Over 4 1/2 months, he was turned down for at least eight positions for which he had authorized the employer to conduct a credit check, Becker said. He said one potential employer told him, “If your credit is bad, then you’ll steal from me.”
“I was in a deep depression. I had lost a business, I was behind on my bills and I was unable to get a job,” he said.
Hixson calls what happened to Becker discrimination based on credit history and said his bill would ban it.
“If somebody is trying to get a job as a truck driver or a trainer in a gym, what does your credit history have to do with your ability to do that job?” Hixson said. He said he knows of no research that shows a person with a bad credit history is going to perform poorly.
Wow …Someone posted a number of weeks back that they are also
practicing discrimination in hiring practices if you might be a employee ‘that the Health Care provider might not like so much ,as in higher risk groups between 50 and 65 . All this to add to the normal discrimination
that seems to take place .
But in answer to your question about the the truck driver ,he could steal some of the cargo if he was deeply in debt . Desperate people do desperate things . The Congress of US doesn’t seem to think that people becoming debt slaves would weaken them either ,while they attempt to pump us real estate prices that nobody can afford .
Wow - so I was just checking the Florida Assn of Realtors’ stats. Median price statewide from December to January went from $140,400 to $130,900. That’s quite a drop, given that it had leveled off in the $140k range back in Jan ‘09.
Back to early ‘02 prices in Florida, at least (that was when they were last that low).
Ft. Myers median is now $90k - 75% off the 2005 peak! Wow.
Paging Muggy…
Tell that to the seriously greater fools outbidding/countering me.
Just checking in. Real estate in this small colorado mountain town moving to out-of-towners. In the past ten years, fewer than 15% of total sales have been to locals. Folks from Denver buy a house, visit two weeks a year, board up the windows and let the grass grow the rest of the time. When the lawn isn’t covered in snow, that is. They are hoping for this place to become the next Telluride, I guess.
Went to look at a house with doors that don’t close because of the lousy foundation. This one was nicer than most. $260k, about 2/3 of the asking price in 2007 is still too much money, though.
Lately we’re considering a move back east among the fields and rolling hills. The mountains are nice, but I miss spring and fall and the scenery of my childhood.
The exception is at times like these quite important, no?
Fed’s Lacker: Housing aside, banking system solvent
Tue Jul 8, 2008 6:38pm BST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With the exception of the housing sector, the U.S. banking system is going through a normal credit cycle, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker said on Tuesday.
…
So - just one of those normal little business cycles on the commercial real estate side? Um… OK.
Maybe I should have bolded the date before posting that (old) article:
Tue Jul 8, 2008 (i.e. pre-Fall 2008 financial market Armageddon)
Doh. Didn’t notice that.
“the U.S. banking system is going through a normal credit cycle, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker said on Tuesday”.
Was he able to say that with a straight face? I would have busted a gut laughing if I had been sitting there taking notes.
Hey Jeffy I think you meant to say “abby-normal”
Bloomberg
Lacker Says Fed Is Scapegoat for Anger Over Bailouts (Update1)
March 01, 2010, 3:43 PM EST
(Adds comments on economy starting in sixth paragraph.)
By Craig Torres and Peter Cook
March 1 (Bloomberg) — Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Jeffrey Lacker said the central bank is “being made a scapegoat” to satisfy anger over bailouts as Congress seeks to limit its consumer-protection and bank-supervision powers.
“People are mad at us,” Lacker said today in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “I can understand the ire after what happened in 2008. It was so unexpected, and it seemed to over- step boundaries that everyone thought we were going to obey.”
…
Noranda Aluminum to lay off 89 workers.
Nashville Business Journal - March 1, 2010
A Franklin aluminum producer is eliminating 89 jobs in 2010, hoping to save between $8 million and $10 million annually.
Noranda Aluminum Holding Corp. announced the reduction in its annual earnings statement, which also reported an overall profit amid “adverse market conditions.” The reduction will impact Noranda’s U.S. work force through voluntary retirement and terminations, according to the company.
“Noranda remains committed to its strategy to improve productivity and grow its business,” Kip Smith, president and CEO, said in the report.
He said the reductions and associated restructuring will reduce costs and conserve company liquidity. Robert Mahoney, chief financial officer, declined to comment further.
I’m so glad that Noranda Aluminum is doing it’s part in increasing
the bottom line and laying off 89 workers ,while growing their business
at the same time . Interesting ,how do you do that ?
UA shuttle drivers strike over wages
March 1, 2010 bizjournals.com
The University of Alabama Crimson Ride shuttle drivers went on strike this morning seeking higher wages.
The shuttle drivers, members of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1208, shut down campus buses by striking against employer First Transit. Most of the CDL-licensed drivers earn less than $10 per hour and have no benefits, according to a news release. The release said University of Alabama shuttle drivers make less than peers at the University of Texas at Austin ($11.25-17.16) and the University of Florida at Gainesville ($12.50-16.75) who receive benefits in addition to hourly wages.
First Transit is a subsidiary of FirstGroup, the British firm contracted by the university to operate the shuttle service, according to the release.
And to think that people making 10 bucks a hour might want more money and a few benefits . What does health care cost for a family
of 4 these days ,about 1k a month or more ?
Maybe Eddie knocked hisself out while poppin’ corks on the bubbly.
Yes, where the heck IS Eddie!
He should be in here doing his part!
I hate slackers.
Roidy
He’s doing his part by staying away…
Borrow and Spend … Again? Recovery Built on “Fragile Structure,” Martin Wolf Says
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/borrow-and-spend-…-again-recovery-built-on-%22fragile-structure%22-martin-wolf-says-432419.html?tickers=^DJI,^GSPC,UUP,TIP,GLD,TBT,XLF
Interesting piece. This guy is with the Financial Times. He states that reflating the consumer “borrow and spend” economy won’t work and shouldn’t work. He talks about how the deficits are too large, but can be larger before they need to be cut. :O
Note that quite some way into the interview, he states that Great Britain has been able to devalue the pound without inflation. What he means is that GB has, initially, be able to “beggar thy neighbor.” Will there be further success.
He does realize that the Fed, US Gov’t, central banks all over the world are trying to go back to the bad old days of HELOC, debt, credit cards, etc.
It won’t work. No credit card run-ups under these circumstances. No HELOCs, NINJAs, idiots, perverts, morons, stupoids with the exception of DC and WS.
I love deleveraging.
Roidy
Whad’ya know: Great vampire squids have feelings, too!
* MANAGEMENT
* MARCH 1, 2010
Goldman Lists New ‘Risk’: Bad Press
Company Sees Negative Media Coverage as a Potential Threat to Its Business; Aggressive Responses
By JOE BEL BRUNO
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. added something new to the laundry list of financial risks it faces: unflattering attention.
In its annual report, the New York company said “adverse publicity” could have “a negative impact on our reputation and on the morale and performance of our employees, which could adversely affect our businesses and results of operations.”
The unusual disclosure in a 12-page section of “risk factors” ranging from rocky financial markets to natural disasters is the latest sign of Goldman’s whipping-boy status among rivals, lawmakers and angry Americans because of the firm’s giant profits.
“Goldman has become one giant pinata to whack,” said Charles M. Elson, director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, adding that he couldn’t recall a previous instance where a company cited bad publicity as a risk to its business. “It’s reflective of the rather bizarre political climate in which we operate.”
A Goldman spokesman declined to comment.
Some corporate-governance experts said the move isn’t surprising given all the unwelcome attention Goldman has received since the financial crisis erupted. In July, a Rolling Stone article compared Goldman to a “great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.” The phrase has been widely repeated in other publications and online, along with Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein’s comment to a U.K. newspaper in November that the firm is doing “God’s work.”
“They’ve determined that these kind of stories could have a material impact on their stock price, and view it as something they need to make investors aware of,” said Michael Ryan, president of advisory firm Proxy Governance.
…
Great find! Pobrecitos…
Why am I about as optimistic about the proposed new banking rules as I was about Obamacare?
* MARCH 1, 2010, 11:44 P.M. ET
Deal Near on Banking Rules
Senators Outline Plan to Create New Consumer-Protection Unit Within the Fed
By DAMIAN PALETTA
WASHINGTON–Key senators were close to a deal on legislation to overhaul financial regulations, people familiar with the matter said, bringing the U.S. a step closer to sweeping changes to the way banks interact with consumers and the markets alike.
Top senators from each party were near a breakthrough agreement to create a new consumer-protection division within the Federal Reserve. This has been a contentious point due to heavy criticism of the Fed’s past handling of its consumer-protection powers.
Senator Christopher Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut and chairman of the Senate Banking Committee listens to Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, speak during his semiannual monetary report in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, Feb. 25, 2010.
Senators Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) and Bob Corker (R. Tenn.) were conferring with other members of their parties last night in an effort to sell that agreement to them, Senate aides said.
The two senators have also reached a deal that would let the federal government break up large, failing financial companies.
That plan tackles one of the most politically thorny flashpoints of the economic crisis: What powers should the government have to break up firms so it doesn’t have to resort to taxpayer-funded bailouts?
Agreements on these details are expected to shape a bill that Sen. Dodd, chairman of the Banking Committee, plans to introduce in the Senate. The House of Representatives passed a bill overhauling financial-market rules in December. Differences between the two packages would have to be reconciled before any final agreement could be signed into law by President Barack Obama.
It is unclear whether White House officials would accept the idea to create a new consumer-regulation unit within the Fed. “The president remains strongly committed to an independent agency whose singular focus is advocacy for consumers,” an administration official said.
The deals are the closest the bitterly divided Senate has come to an agreement on new financial rules. Mr. Dodd will likely have to make a hard sell on any plan to give the Fed new powers to police the way mortgages and other products are offered to consumers. He has been one of the Fed’s biggest critics and routinely blasted the central bank for failing to enforce the consumer-protection powers it already has.
“Senator Dodd is keeping members informed on how things are progressing as he has throughout this process,” his spokeswoman said. “We do not have an agreement yet. He hopes to have a consensus bill in the coming days.”
…
* The Wall Street Journal
* MARCH 1, 2010
Bid to Curb Mortgage Tax Break Falters
By JAMES R. HAGERTY
The latest effort to scale back some tax deductions on mortgage interest, one of the nation’s most-enduring tax breaks, is finding little support in Congress.
President Barack Obama’s latest budget proposal, released in February, includes a provision that would shrink deductions for mortgage interest, real-estate taxes, charitable contributions and other items for married couples with annual incomes of more than $250,000, or individual filers earning more than $200,000. Under the proposal, such taxpayers would save 28 cents of tax liability for every $1 of mortgage interest or other eligible expenses, down from 35 cents now.
But the proposal has gained no traction in Congress so far. Members from both parties are concerned about how it would affect both the housing market and charitable contributions, says Matthew Beck, a spokesman for the Democratic majority on the House Ways and Means Committee.
The administration believes the proposal would reduce the deficit and “distribute the cost of government more fairly among taxpayers of various income levels,” says a Treasury spokeswoman.
But lobbyists for the real-estate industry say scaling back the deduction would hurt demand for housing at a time when the market remains fragile. “It seems very counterintuitive to impose this kind of pain on an industry that’s already suffering more than any industry in America,” says Jerry Howard, chief executive of the National Association of Home Builders.
Lucien Salvant, spokesman for the National Association of Realtors, says the proposal “amounts to a tax increase on an important group of homeowners and would rob buyers of the incentive to move up in the housing market.”
The Treasury rejects those arguments. “This proposal is unlikely to have any real effect on the housing market since tax benefits are only one small part in determining the overall demand for high-end housing,” the Treasury spokeswoman says.
…