Bits Bucket For March 8, 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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According to Steven Roach, the jobless rate actually stands at 11.5%. The “official” (faked) statistic does not reflect the 3 million long-term unemployed who have simply given up looking for work.
Meanwhile, the markets are charging ahead. Makes no sense to me.
“Makes no sense to me.”
A pet theory: Money managers need a return to justify their hefty fees. In a zero-percent-return world it’s tough to get a return to offset these fees, hence they need to chase whatever performs.
If stocks are performing then stocks are chased. Same rule goes for gold. Or commodities. Or Beanie Babies. Whatever is chased up in price draws attention from those who must have a return.
It may be logical to be in cash in a deflationary environment but cash will not be chased by money managers because cash does not generate a return. It’s a tough sell to convince a client they should be in cash and then collect a hefty fee for putting them there when the client could go to cash himself and skip paying the fee.
Also …
Many people are now saving instead of spending. Savers hate zero-percent returns so they seek out (or are sought out by) money managers who promise a return somewhere above zero. This means a lot of saved money ends up flowing into stocks, which pushes up stock prices.
That makes sense. Who the heck wants to keep their money in money markets and CD’s that are getting 1-2%?
Bodes poorly for the time when (if) the Fed ever raises interest rates.
Sure it make sense, however, the smart money is now worried about the return of their money, not a return ON their money.
Safety is more important than gains.
Safety is more important than gains ??
Exactly Rancher…Preservation of principal is the name of the game and has been for some time…One of the best quotes that I heard recently from a money manager was this;
“I would rather lose an opportunity than lose Principal”…
“I would rather lose an opportunity than lose Principal”…
Xzackalee Mr. scdave…
I’s just a sittin’ & waitin’…a sittin’ & waitin’…a sittin’ & waitin’…for Mr. Market to make a boo-boo…a sittin’ & waitin’…not yet today,…not yet,…someday soon…
Meanwhile, the markets are charging ahead. Makes no sense to me.
Perhaps a glance at this will help. Take away the money pumping, and the markets would be right back down where they were 12 months ago.
But the money pumping is the market at the moment. This is why I am concerned about King Cash’s usurpation risk.
Doing some Spring cleaning over the weekend and my wife came across a Social Studies quiz that she took in 1982.
Q. What were some the causes of the Great Depression?
A. Too much installment and credit buying. Much unwise speculation in securities.
Q. The Great Depression came:
A. after a boom period
B. to the whole world
c. between World War I and II
d. All of the above
Good thing it is different this time.
We should start saving money in this country by first and foremost axing all History courses in public schools. It seems that we are doomed to repeat whether or not we learn it.
While I’m on my rant…what about all of this “No one saw this coming” BS that everyone from lowest speculator to the highest gov’t officer and CEO has been screaming?
We penalize 4th graders if they miss it on their Social Studies quiz, but those who run our country and make policies with our money blame the fact that “it just snuck up on us”?
Why don’t we let 4th graders run our gov’t and banks? They saw it coming.
“Why don’t we let 4th graders run our gov’t and banks?”
Instead of quants? You have got to be kidding.
On second thought … you might be on to something.
Yeah at least they have the concept down - when you shake the bank and no more money comes out, you stop buying stuff.
(At least until Mama and Papa spoil them rotten with their own borrowed money.)
That totally burns my a** too, I can’t stand that “Nobody saw this coming” garbage. Lots of people saw it coming, and lots of people are doing fine who actually examined the landscape and stayed out of housing/banking.
This wasn’t an earthquake that was unpredictable. This was a hurricane that people decided wasn’t going to be “that bad” and, against their better wisdom, decided to ride out.
This is crazy that they want to set up built in bail-outs for
investments. How can you put investment houses and insurance Companies on the same level as regulated
Banks who have FDIC insurance ?
With the risky behavior of the casino betting of Wall Street its
a foregone conclusion that they would BK any fund set up for bail outs . Are they going to set up a bail out fund for stocks
also ? Investors should know that unregulated entities could take your entire principal because your investing . Investors should know that ratings agencies are full of it .
I just don’t see how investments qualify for bail outs ,especially on the taxpayers dime .
The Corporations have already gotten the Government to back them on their pension obligations when they BK after underfunding their obligations ,while they underfund the
Government backed Pension fund to boot .
In other words ,there is a whole lot of insurance going on that puts to much liability on the government or they don’t collect enough in reserves for the insurance protection to
be viable .
It’s like with the Health Care Industry those Insurance Companies want all the low risk of claim policy holders ,while the government takes all the high risk health
claims .Thats why they started Medicare to begin with because Insurance Companies didn’t want to insure people over 65 . Insurance Companies don’t want to insure people with pre-existing medical conditions ,or people who are not employed or people who work for small business . Than the medical providers get to price fix up based on the Insurance System that is supplemented by Medicare .
I don’t know if anyone is following how BIg Business has managed to get taxpayer dollars to supplement them so they can have great profits and be great on the New York Stock exchange and pay their CEO’s millions ,while the Government is set up to pay their liability if they fall .
“Nobody saw this coming”
I was having a casual chat with a banker I know last evening. I made a quip about how “Nobody could have seen the financial crisis coming,” but I must have had a serious look on my face, as he began to cast doubt on my opinion. So I tried again, this time with a blatant smirk on my face and with my fingers held in the classic Nixon quote mark pose. He finally got the joke…
“Nobody saw this coming”
What about all the “short” market activity that occurred?
The smartest guys out there shouldn’t under estimate the cruelty and violence possible of the bottom echelons. Modern history has seen several revolutions where those with soft hands pay the ultimate price.
Plenty of people saw this comming. Of course plenty of people predicted that there’d be food riots in the wake of computer failures caused by the Y2k bug. You have to be prepared for good and bad. And you have to be suspicious of any prognostication that sounds too good to be true. There were basicly two reactions to the rapid rise in Residintal RE prices in the mid 2000s: “We’re rich,” and “Wait, that can’t be right.” And back in 2005 for those of us in the latter camp, this site was a rare place where where we could find like minded people to “talk” to.
The “official” unemployment number is a joke. It doesn’t count the millions of people who are unemployed but receive no check. I think I know more people not working who are not collecting than those who are collecting. I’d be willing to bet that the real number is closer to 20% than 10%.
Well, the U6 index is up there around 17% or so. Of course not only does the MSM not report it, it doesn’t even mention that it exists.
I guess they don’t want to sppok the herd.
12.9% is the ‘official rate’ now for California.
They aren’t even talking about the young people who have never had a job before who can’t find employment .
“12.9% is the ‘official rate’ now for California.”
And that’s on the good side of town.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm
At any given moment, there are 21 million people unemployed out of a total workforce of approx 154 million.
My own personal polls taken 2 years ago show 29% UE along with almost 90% wage stagnation.
I think the number is higher. My roommate graduated from college last May/June and has been applying to jobs ever since. She does not qualify for unemployment because she has not worked in the last 18 months (even at the time of graduation). So she was never in the “unemployment pipeline” at all. She still has not given up, but she hasn’t even gotten an interview yet. There was one position open at a local gym and she use to work for 24-Hour Fitness for two years. She also didn’t get an interview.
I’ve even referred her to my own workplace when positions open up, but so do 5-6 other coworkers and they get 150 resumes and narrow down to 3-4 interviews.
So where is the number for the people who fall off of all radars?
Off to my intern job, new printer at 1/2 price green shoots are coming my way…..
Congratulations, dj. Have a great time. Think outside the box!
Awesome story on NPR this morning about one block in a Riverside County, CA, neighborhood with dramatically falling housing prices, and the different outcomes for people who bought in ‘89 and paid off, bought and borrowed the equity to the hilt, and who bought at the peak. They even dig into the HEL borrower to find out what she spent it on, and most of it wasn’t the house.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123904860
That is an awesone article. Only one couple was immune from the mania and paid off their house. I guess there is one of us on every block!
That couple bought in 1989, at the peak of a previous housing bubble on the coasts. They must have had negative equity for some time as well. In that bubble, most people didn’t HELOC or Refi and kept paying, even though it hurt.
Yes, nice article. Different people handle their house equity differently.
Many people act like they won the lottery when their house appreciates, others pay down their mortgage.
From the article:
“Home prices in this neighborhood may have bottomed — nobody knows. The Bettses’ home is now worth little more than it was when they bought it 25 years ago — not much of a reward for doing everything right.
But that’s not how the Bettses see it: “Be it ever so humble,” says William Betts, “it’s ours.” ”
They bought it in 1986, paid it off 19 years later. He just lost his job, but can sleep well because he doesn’t have to pay rent or a mortgage. That’s the best reason to buy a house.
He is a Mormon. It seems like religion played a major role in this story. By contrast, the story did not identify the religious affiliation of the lady who bought her home way back when for under $100K and who is now, quite miraculously, $300K underwater. It is quite remarkable how effectively some people turned their home equity into an unrepayable debt burden. I don’t suppose it helps much if, as the story alleges, homes in the area are selling for only 1/4 or 1/5 as much as they were at the peak, implying market value decreases in the 75%-80% ranges.
I hadn’t realized how critical religious affiliation was to financial management, but it kind of makes sense. As Mr. Betts said, the LDS church encourages financial prudence. However, I can attest that not all LDS church members follow their leaders’ sage advice in this area.
“By contrast, the story did not identify the religious affiliation of the lady who bought her home way back when for under $100K and who is now, quite miraculously, $300K underwater. ”
She probably attends one of those churches that features the ever-popular prosperity Gospel. Jesus will make you rich! I don’t know, at the church I attend Jesus is hanging on a cross.
“…the story did not identify the religious affiliation…”
Psst, it’s a rather deceptive sales CULT, but they have “signs” all across America:
40% off!…this weekend only! Visa / MasterCard accepted!
“I don’t know, at the church I attend Jesus is hanging on a cross.”
…and the thieves who were hung next to him got off scot free.
I find an interesting parallel between the prospeity churches and those friendly folks who are are always trying to rope me into an MLM scheme.
The pastor has a Benz or a Beemer, so does the MLM guy (or maybe a Lexus).
Both guarantee results.
Both sweep you under the rug and out the door if you fail (poor people don’t tithe and don’t give good testimonials).
And speaking of Lexus cars, I recall reading that the owner and driver of the runaway Lexus in San Diego, where the occupants all died, was a cop. I was wondering, were cops and firefighters in California eligible for those “affordable” housing programs during the bubble, on account of them being “low paid” civil servants. I just ask because in the 80’s and 90’s I recall the programs being justified so cops and firefighters could live in the communities they served.
“I find an interesting parallel between the prosperity churches and those friendly folks who are are always trying to rope me into an MLM scheme.”
LDS = prosperity church incarnate. It gets much easier to pay those tithes and raise a large family if you are a doc, a lawyer or a corporate manager. And a high income and a large home are signs that you are living right in God’s eyes.
LDS = prosperity church
Totally disagree. Then again I attend in Boulder where it’s a lot of poor and strange along with some retirees. But I’ve never seen anybody suggest that I should pray for money or that I’d have more if I were a better person.
Carl –
I will give you that point. My views are probably skewed by the slice of the socioeconomic spectrum into which I married…
No problem. I just think it’s cute when you quote Primary songs here that you heard from your kids :-).
The sad thing is if/when the neighborhood becomes a ghetto, the Betts family will be the only true bubble victims there. Everybody else will, in one way or another, have cashed out and moved on.
I hadn’t realized how critical religious affiliation was to financial management, but it kind of makes sense. As Mr. Betts said, the LDS church encourages financial prudence.
I know a few Mormons and ex-Mormons who’ve kept their financial wits about them. I really admire the pragmatism of the LDS folks in this regard.
Wasn’t there an article posted a few days ago about high foreclosures in Utah?
I don’t think religion makes much difference. Salt Lake City and surrounding areas had nearly as big a spike and decline as AZ.
I just think there are some people who are financially cautious by nature, or background or both, and in this case that cautiousness has served them well.
I also think timing has a lot to do with it. Those of us who got our adult start in tough times (as I did) I think tend to be more cautious that those who started out in the boom times. The recession of 73 and 1982 very much shaped my financial attitudes.
REhobbyist…Are you in Sacramento ??
Yes.
My favorite line from the article “They never could.” Out in the bubble areas many people agreed to scheduled mortgage payments that they had no reasonable expectation of affording. I have some sympathy for those who were confused by loan terms, but how can you know how much a month you can afford?
It would be interesting to see how much equity was pulled out on that block. And how that compared to the incomes. People really DID treat equity like income. I’m reminded of one of those mortgage brokers calling me a few years ago. Once he determined that he couldn’t get me a better rate, he keep trying to sell me more debt. “You can use this money to pay off your loans.” “I have no other debts.” “You can go on a vacation.” “I do not wish to borrow more money.”
Moore made out like a bandit. She admitted she treated her house like an ATM- borrowed a whole bunch of money, then got her repayment terms changed. She’s got great-grandkids according to the story, so it seems unlikely she’ll ever pay off all the loans she got in her lifetime.
I just wish NPR had been doing stories like this in 2006, instead of 2010.
I think NPR did a number of good stories on the housing bubble before it burst. One of the few.
Nah. It really started to end in 2005 and NPR had nothing to say. 2005 was when, nationally, sales began to disintegrate. Then through 2006 prices managed to peak.
Interesting though. If you failed on your loan back in 06 or were in trouble, pretty good chance you could have escaped with a sale or at least would be 4 years removed from the bankruptcy.
I meant PBS
Quick search found mention of this blog in 2006
pbs.org/mediashift/2006/11/newspaper-bubble-blogs-feed-the-real-estate-obsession333.html
2005 w Thornberg
pbs.org/now/transcript/transcriptNOW134_full.html
2005 reporting Economist concerns about housing
pbs.org/now/politics/housingboom.html
2007
http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/317.html
She had a very young voice on air - sounded much more like a vigorous late 50’s/early 60’s than a 90 something. Not that she is likely to pay it off, but having a great grand children does not require extreme age.
I was annoyed at the reporter saying that the house being worth about what it was worth when they bought it was not much reward. She did let the couple saying that wasn’t how they thought about it get the last word, but the reporter is the one “speaking for the audience” in this sort of piece (different type of journalism than other sorts of stories) where they are trying to illustrate the motivations behind behavior and explain why different people in the same situation have different outcomes. It was very inappropriate for that reporter to imply that not having large appreciation in the value of the home was somehow a bad outcome. The couple got to keep their housing costs steady during a huge period of housing cost inflation. And now they have eliminated all costs but upkeep and taxes. Why is that not much of a reward?
Exactly, Living rent free for the next few decades should be reward enough.
“I look at it this way: You’re sitting on a bank, so if you can use it, use it because you can’t take it with you, so enjoy it while you can.”
I read this and thought, AHA! An insight into the minds of the Home Equity Loan crowd - those awful awful people!
But I have to admit, is this woman all that stupid? Reckless yes, stupid no. Her payments are now affordable and providing a home until she dies. Assuming house values stay low, her kids and grandkids would never had received the equity money anyway when she died. By refinancing when home prices were high, she was able to use the money while it was available. Bank now gets less monthly payment than expected, which is OK as they likely received bailout and are getting dollars loan at zero percent from Gov to loan out at far greater. So once again, everybody is square except the current and future taxpayers who need to payoff the bailout and the US savers at negative 0000% who are the ultimate funders of all this for many years to come.
“A nonprofit group helped her get a loan modification. Her payments have been cut in half. When a reporter tells her about the Betts family down the street, she seems a little surprised that there’s anyone on the block who didn’t refinance.
“So that’s good they didn’t have to,” Moore says. “But then, too, I look at it this way: You’re sitting on a bank, so if you can use it, use it because you can’t take it with you, so enjoy it while you can.”
DESPICABLE LEECH
Yep.
Actually I would have no problem with such people maxing out things like this - in other words simply not saving - if it weren’t for our economic system that now bails such people out in various ways. IMO it’s OK to live it up when the money’s rolling in - as long as you’re willing to live in squalor when it’s not. However our bailout society ensures that the latter won’t happen, making the former abhorrent.
I think that leech is probably the wrong the animal. Seriously. Leech is for someone that is talking money from the governement directly - like Goldman getting the Credit Default Swaps that they KNEW were subject to a huge counterparty risk paid off 100%.
If her loan modification was private and just to a lower rate, then all that is happening, is that a bunch of bond holders are getting a lower return from their securitized bonds then they expected. And their expected return was based on completely false math and risk analysis in the first place - basically an expected outcome.
What really happened with this person, is that all the things she bought became much more expensive than they ever would have been if she had not done all the refis. Directly after one refi, a relative died and she used the money to help pay for the funeral. Well, do you think anyone would have been selling funerals that cost thousands of bucks to people who are not that well off without the MEW money? Not everyone actually gets those little $10K life insurance policies.
So the question is, what is the right animal metaphor? I thought about a tape worm, since she was sucking something out the place where she lived. Or a dust mite, eating up flakes of dead skin and excreting out stuff that makes the rest of the world sick (allergic reactions)? I’m not sure. But unless the new loan is government and she doesn’t end up paying it, I wouldn’t go to leech. Again, I reserve that one to the bailed out too-big-to-fail guys.
I think this story is a microcosm of most resale home neighborhoods. In my neighborhood, por ejemplo, there are many original owners, (like my landlords), who have not used the equity. They’ve ridden the roller coaster many times, but haven’t cashed in. Then there are the folks who bought within the last few years, or used the equity for living, remodeling, etc… There are a few empty houses around, that go on and off the market. I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop on the folks who bought when these shacks were selling for near $1 million, but it hasn’t yet. They must be really stressed out and just barely scraping by. I really feel bad for the young father who paid nearly $500K for an empty lot and built a custom home on it. He runs a home theater business, that cannot be doing well right now. But I know this neighborhood is full of guys like him that are underwater and are just hanging on by their fingernails… I am so curious how and when it’s all going to come to a head.
Hey Mr. Bear, think the “Masters of the Universe” on Wall St might be able to use this quote for their new advertising campaign?
“I’m growing my green business in this brown economy.”
“My grandmother brewed manure tea,” says Haven, who has lived all her life on Southern California cattle ranches and tomato farms.
GoldenmanSucks: Here ya go America, we’ve designed a “a perfect size” “innovative financial product”… for your new home loan:
“She deliberately makes Haven teabags 3-by-5 inches, larger than varieties for human tea, but a competitor, no longer in business, made spoon-sized bags that could be easily mistaken for the human variety”
What’s a manure teabag?
February 28th, 2010, by Jan Norman, small-business columnist OC Register
Brings to mind the old adage, “Money is like manure. It is only useful when you spread it around.”
Oh, also… tankxs for my continuing education in eCONomics with this fellas insertion yesterday!
See what happens when you surrounded by a bleak hostile environment for 120+ days in Winter and your parents are Norwegian…you have lots of time to “reflect”
“…born in Cato, Wisconsin, of Norwegian immigrant parents, …graduate work at Johns Hopkins University under Charles Sanders Peirce…intellectual influences were Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer”
Doesn’t GoldenmanSucks call their “Masters of the Universe” …Financial “engineers”?
“Veblen proposes a soviet of engineers in one chapter in The Engineers and the Price System this work’s view that engineers, not workers, would overthrow capitalism was a “novel view”
“Veblen described economic behavior as both socially and individually determined and saw economic organization as a process of ongoing evolution. This evolution was driven by the human instincts of emulation, predation, workmanship, parental bent, and idle curiosity. Veblen wanted economists to grasp the effects of social and cultural change on economic changes. In The Theory of the Leisure Class, which is probably his best-known work, because of its satiric look at American society, the instincts of emulation and predation play a major role. People, rich and poor alike, attempt to impress others and seek to gain advantage through what Veblen coined “conspicuous consumption” and the ability to engage in “conspicuous leisure.” In this work Veblen argued that consumption is used as a way to gain and signal status. Through “conspicuous consumption” often came “conspicuous waste,” which Veblen detested.”
Thanks for the “Norwegian immigrant parents” detail. Now I have something to share with my Norwegian friends…
“…Doesn’t GoldenmanSucks call their “Masters of the Universe” …Financial “engineers”?…”
That because it sounds better than “gambling addict.”
Psycho-babble economics, we barely knew thee.
* The Wall Street Journal
* THE OUTLOOK
* MARCH 8, 2010
Economic Policy ‘Nudge’ Gives Way to a ‘Shove’
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
Bloomberg News
White House adviser Austan Goolsbee, last month in Washington, D.C., advocates behavioral economics.
A little more than a year into its ascendancy at the White House, behavioral economics as a key policy-making tool may be on the wane.
The opening weeks of the Obama administration were a coming-out party for economists who hold that incomplete information, subtle obstacles to participation and confusion tend to make people act in economically irrational ways. Economic policy can “nudge” people and institutions into more efficient, economically beneficial behavior without heavy-handed command-and-control measures in regulation and legislation, they argue.
Cass Sunstein, co-author of the behaviorist bible, “Nudge,” took up residence at the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, while behavioral economist Jeff Liebman is acting deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. Yet another true believer, Austan Goolsbee, took a seat on the Council of Economic Advisers.
At this time a year ago, the order of the day was disclosure, transparency and light-touch policy proposals, such as automatically enrolling workers into 401(k) plans and simplifying student-loan forms.
But in recent weeks, President Barack Obama has proposed regulating health-insurance rate increases, separating commercial banking from investing on behalf of their own bottom lines, and prohibiting commercial banks from owning or investing in private-equity firms or hedge funds.
Late last month, Vice President Joe Biden eschewed mere transparency requirements for investment advisers and announced new regulations that would require retirement counselors to base their advice on computer models that have been certified as independent. Otherwise, the advisers would be prohibited from suggesting that workers invest in funds they are affiliated with or receive commissions from. In short, “nudge” has come to shove.
White House budget director Peter Orszag said administration economists haven’t given up on behavioral economics.
,,,
Yeah - a nudge here and a nudge there, and pretty soon you’ve got http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/3325/graphcaseshillerrecent.gif.
No thanks.
Wow - so what in the world is up with my link posting skills these days?
Meant to post - this.
Sweetly ironic that Shiller is a behavioral economics guy…
Yeah…Take a good look at that graph and when it went vertical…IMO, it was part of the plan with Bush/Cheney…Keep the Indians “drunk” with the feeling of prosperity and the Chiefs can do what they please.. i.e “Iraq”…
Fear the “Non-Hawaiian”!…he’ll absolutely ruin baseball.
Partisan blinders just never cease to amaze me.
Apparently you didn’t notice that the chart hits historic highs before Bush/Cheney went into office. A little… inconvenient… for your theory?
lol packy!, What are you standing on you head reading that chart! (at least the one that is YOUR posted link)
“Apparently you didn’t notice that the chart hits historic highs before Bush/Cheney went into office.
OK, “educate” me:
Most likely more related to the cheap money policies post dot com/post 9-11 bubbles than any overt acts on the part of Bush/Cheney to divert our attention from the war efforts. I don’t think either Bush or Cheney are smart enough to use a housing bubble to distract us.
There was great fear post dot.com that the economy was in danger of collapse then followed by 9/11 the Fed was determined to put money into the economy which it did through cheap money policies. People had become somewhat fearful of the stock market post 2000, so the only place the money had to go was into real estate and consumer goods.
lol packy!, What are you standing on you head reading that chart! (at least the one that is YOUR posted link)
“Apparently you didn’t notice that the chart hits historic highs before Bush/Cheney went into office.
OK, “educate” me:
???
If you must, here’s the raw data:
Previous record was 128.3193, hit in Sep. 1989.
Month… Value
——–+———-
Feb-97 109.0338697
Mar-97 109.045605
Apr-97 109.6770612
May-97 110.513639
Jun-97 111.1428696
Jul-97 111.367524
Aug-97 111.5222214
Sep-97 111.6070645
Oct-97 111.5199455
Nov-97 111.7782514
Dec-97 112.106336
Jan-98 112.2984827
Feb-98 112.4899172
Mar-98 112.6806436
Apr-98 113.6055237
May-98 114.5269951
Jun-98 115.5159018
Jul-98 116.1583088
Aug-98 116.7991432
Sep-98 117.4384108
Oct-98 117.4597
Nov-98 117.7674244
Dec-98 118.1471897
Jan-99 118.4089836
Feb-99 118.8137848
Mar-99 119.0008436
Apr-99 119.2835307
May-99 120.4254296
Jun-99 121.5673285
Jul-99 122.1748794
Aug-99 122.8522729
Sep-99 123.2321453
Oct-99 123.5448157
Nov-99 124.0035579
Dec-99 124.5357077
Jan-00 124.8868863
Feb-00 124.8672155
Mar-00 124.5560748
Apr-00 126.0477034
May-00 127.4632257
Jun-00 128.352174
Jul-00 129.1080995
Aug-00 130.1611366
Sep-00 130.5343074
Oct-00 130.9506023
Nov-00 131.5163722
Dec-00 132.2333103
Jan-01 131.9587413
Feb-01 131.9872309
So the new record in home prices, when adjusted for inflation, was hit June of 2000 - five months before Bush/Cheney were elected.
(and seven months before taking office, of course)
P.S. I’m not attempting to excuse Bush/Cheney for their contributions to the bubble - I think they did contribute to its scale. But to propose that they used it as a tool to somehow distract people from Iraq is I think kind of stupid. And (to the data above) - they obviously didn’t *create* the bubble to distract from Iraq, because the bubble existed not only before Iraq, but before Bush and Cheney even were elected.
Packy…one of us is not seeing YOUR POST correctly, (could will be me,) what I see on YOUR posted Chart is:
Case / Schiller historic housing price index - adjusted for inflation
through 2009 QTR 1
PEAK:
2006: 200+
Is it you or me?
and seven months before taking office, of course ??
And what happened after that ?? You and I looking at the same chart here pack ?? I would think you are able to read your own post…Am I missing something here because the chart appears to be abundantly clear when the real estate missile took off ??
He posted the damn chart…I waiting for an explanation myself…
You’re seeing the graph correctly, just not my point - which is that the housing bubble was in full force before Bush/Cheney took office. Ignore the most recent peak, and compare the previous peak, in 1989, with the uptrend that started in 1997.
Do you not see that?
One could just as easily say for instance that the housing bubble was created by Clinton in order to distract from the impeachment proceedings in late 1998/early 1999. Or for that matter that the tech bubble (much larger at the time) was created for such purpose. But the suggestion IMO is ludicrous. People generally aren’t distracted from political shenanigans by financial well-being, at least in my opinion. Probably the reverse is true actually - financial problems actually tend to draw focus away from other things.
Here - let’s try this one. Same data, just with the more recent data not included.
See?
Largest housing price bubble in history - already before Bush/Cheney took office, and long before any of their legislation took effect.
housing bubble was in full force before Bush/Cheney took office ??
Not as compared to when it went “Vertical” which is what my original post stated…You need to listen to Bush’s 2002 or 2003 speech on “the ownership society” if you have not already done so…IMO, It went vertical on his watch and with his blessings for the reasons I suggested in my original post…
Packy yous a big fat TrueDeceiver™”
“Here - let’s try this one. Same data, just with the more recent data not included.
See?
Largest housing price bubble in history - already before Bush/Cheney took office, and long before any of their legislation took effect.”
Here’s your DECEPTION dudette:
“…just with the more recent data not included
BWAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! (fpss™)
&
BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
Your WORDS dudette packy:
“Apparently you didn’t notice that …the chart hits historic highs… before Bush/Cheney went into office. A little… inconvenient… for your theory?
Let’s be clear: Between 1989-2009 qtr 1… what year is the HISTORIC HIGH FOR the CASE/SCHILLER historic housing price index-adjusted for inflation?
Please if you can post the FACTS in relation to your assertion.
I was amazed to see that there was a peak in about 1907 and a valley in 1921 that was lower than anything in the Great Depression. Then things just kind of bumped along from 1923 through 1940. I expected to see significant deflation during the depression. I guess everything deflated together and housing did not deflate relative to the rest of the economy.
Post-hoc comment:
Yes that is the case. There was a lot of general price deflation, and houses went with it. C/S nominal index actually peaked at 6.34 in 1925, then bottomed at 4.40 in 1933. CPI also went down however by a lot.
“Economic policy can “nudge” people and institutions into more efficient, economically beneficial behavior without heavy-handed command-and-control measures in regulation and legislation, they argue.”
Which of the policies currently in place to prop up the housing market serve to “nudge” buyers back into the market?
- $8K tax credit
- Federally guaranteed mortgage loans
- Fed MBS purchase / mortgage interest rate suppression program
- Foreclosure moratoriums
- Making Home Affordable refinancing plan (MHA)
- Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP)
- Home Affordability and Stability Plan (HASP)
- Other?
“Economic policy can “nudge” people and institutions into more efficient, economically beneficial behavior without heavy-handed command-and-control measures in regulation and legislation, they argue.”
IS NOT the INVERSE a possibility?: if B than A
“Economic policy can “nudge” people and institutions into more IN-efficient, economically BIASED NON-beneficial behavior without heavy-handed command-and-control measures in regulation and legislation, they MIGHT argue to certain LOBBYIST.”
Apparently a critical mass of innocuous-seeming nudges can add up to a detrimental behavioral avalanche…
I’ll try a little “game” experiment with Mr. Cole & 28,567,233 perfectly aligned domino’s that spell out in really large letters:
SLICE&DICE
I’ll let him have the 1st “nudge”…while the experiment is in “real-time” mode, I’ll ask him if he can possibly predict what the “end” result might possibly look like, and maybe have him try to estimate the time needed to “reset” the “GAME” to its “original” steady state…
Apparently a critical mass of innocuous-seeming nudges can add up to a detrimental behavioral avalanche…
Yep. The problem with “nudges” is that the nudger sees the results (profits) of his nudges, decides “no harm done” and decides to nudge some more… and some more… and some more…
Potential energy can be a b**** - especially in economics.
Well, we’ve talked about pricing being set in the margins, eh?
So, we are looking at high level of inventory and a lot of people that have fallen on very tough times and found out those promises of saving yourself with credit disapear.
I predict people saving cash and velocity decreasing. Possibly a lot.
A big push would be a large middle class tax increase making the marginal value of the interest deduction go up along with expanding the credit and allowing penalty free 401k withdrawls.
Still. The marginal buyers will be gone for a long time and the overhang will exist for a long time. Lots of burned hands out there.
I see this on ebay……..even if I start a 99 cent auction sometimes i get 50 hits before someone commits that little money. before it never took even 10 hits.
——————–
I predict people saving cash and velocity decreasing. Possibly a lot.
I am convinced this form of behavioral economics has been practiced since the early 1900s. It worked in Germany in the 1930s, It worked here in the 1920s and again in the 1980s with the ‘Shinning City on the Hill’. It works really well in China today. The trick is to build and keep a 3 tier social economic system with a large, well educated middle class. As soon as the middle class starts to decay the jig is up and social unrest overwhelms the feelings of optimism.
“the jig is up, and GONE”
Guess the movie. One of the all-time greats.
And sadly couldn’t be made today
Blazing Saddles.
Blazing Saddles
Wrong. History of the World Part I.
Treasury yields up a decent amount the last couple of days. Due to the conclusion of Fed MBS purchases maybe? I know they are supposed to end sometime in March, though not sure what week.
The closing paragraph in the article, “The end of the road for Barack Obama?” appearing in today’s UK publication The Telegraph.
“There is no point to a nation’s having the audacity of hope unless it also has the sophistication and the will to turn it into action. As things stand, Barack Obama and America under his leadership do not.”
www dot telegraph dot co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/7396358/The-end-of-the-road-for-Barack-Obama.html
That’s how Congress gets away with it. Everyone thinks we have an elected dictatorship.
I don’t think Hillary, Summers and Rahm were good choices. Guy does OK when negotiating from a position of strength. Isn’t doing any kind of job being inclusive in debates either. Or actually compromising on stuff.
He also has to get it together about admonishing the republicans. While I can understand the urge to do that it just makes it harder to work together. Not to mention people in those districts get pissed off at you. It is there representatives you are pissing on.
Then the attacks on Fox News. While I understand this; they aint the ones that edited photos to make our soldiers look like they threatened civilians (Los Angeles Times) or tied explosives to a truck to make it explode (60 minutes) or some other such thing. Again, he alienates the heck out of people. Unlike slick willy, this guy just lacks charm in a lot of these things.
Again, don’t get how O isn’t focused on the economy and reform of financials. Everyone is clammoring for that.
Instead he decided to go all in all healthcare. The more we clammor for financial reform, the harder he campaigns for healthcare.
Hiring of Hilary = Corleone Rule #4 “Keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer”.
Or as LBJ said when asked why he kept J. Edgar Hoover on, “I’d rather have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.”
Overheard in my local BBQ joint the other day:
Dude 1: Dude, I have to come up with, like, 15 thousand extra bucks in the next couple months.
Dude 2: How come?
Dude 1: Well, tuition for that class. That’s seven thousand right there. We have a special assessment for the condo [Dude 1 did not say what the assessment was for while I was eavesdropping], and that’s gonna be at least two or three grand. Then there’s our vacation …
Dude 2: Yeah?
Dude 1: Yeah, it’s gonna be awesome, but I have to think at least five grand for that. I mean, you know, it’s vacation.
Dude 2: Yeah.
Dude 1: Yeah. (Sounding glum now) I have no idea how I’m going to pay for it all, though.
Dude 2: Yeah.
Dude 1 and 2 go back to munching on their pulled pork sandwiches …
Sounds like these “dudes” were used to opening the easy money spigot and having the ezbucks just flow out. Soon they will understand that getting even just $150 (nevermind $15000) isn’t that easy.
U.S. Sales Tax Rates Hit Record High
Forbes.com 03.08.10
While President Obama’s push to raise federal income taxes for the wealthy gets lots of attention, the continuing upward creep in the sales tax rates imposed by state and local governments has gotten less notice.
But Vertex Inc., which calculates sales tax for Internet sellers, reports that the average general sales tax rate nationwide reached 8.629% at the end of 2009, the highest since the Berwyn, Pa., company started tracking data in 1982. That was up a nickel on a taxable $100 purchase from a year earlier and up nearly 40 cents for the decade. The highest sales tax rate in the country now stands at 12%.
In Pictures: America’s Highest Sales Taxes
During 2009 seven states and the District of Columbia raised sales tax rates, with one jurisdiction–North Carolina–actually doing it twice. Only four states hiked rates in 2008 and only one in 2007. Given state budget problems, the 2009 state sales tax increases aren’t surprising. States have also been raising income tax rates on the wealthyand on corporations and boosting excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco. With states now facing record budget shortfalls, more tax increases seem likely.
http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/05/sales-tax-rates-record-high-personal-finance-shopping-tax_print.html
Not just sales tax but fees also….
When SC raised its sales tax a couple of years ago it was to cut property taxes. Some aspects of school costs were moved from county property taxes to the state sales tax, and property tax bills were actually reduced. In our case, significantly.
I drive the Kansas Turnpike frequently. For the most part, the turnpike is the domain of the Kansas Highway Patrol. The only time you see the local cops on the Turnpike is when they are going somewhere like Topeka, or for traffic control after a major accident. (As the entrances/exits to the turnpike are 20-30 miles apart, local law enforcement can’t answer calls easily when on the turnpike.)
At least until recently. Local cops are now running laser/radar traps on the turnpike. I guess the lure of big-buck speeding tickets is just too much to resist. Especially when the local headlines blare “Because of the drops in state revenue, pay/benefits/jobs will have to be cut……” Justified, of course, to “protect the public”.
I’m old enough to remember when the Kansas Turnpike was reasonable and prudent. My uncle in Wichita had a 60 Rambler Ambassador, used to cruise about 90, no problem.
Hell, we still do……..in rural areas, 85-90 plus mph on the Turnpike might get you pulled over, if the Trooper is bored.
Usually, if they clock you, and they want you to slow down, they will just turn on all their emergency lights momentarily.
Cow-tipping……plenty of room to shoot big guns……driving 90mph on rural highways. Just a normal day on the Great Plains.
Justified, of course, to “protect the public”. ??
Yeah…Always keeping us safe…I am soooo sick of big brother…I wish I could just have lived in the old west (with todays medical care of
)…They have raised the ticket fees, DMV fee’s around here through the roof…I think a average speeding ticket now will run you close to $300.
course
SC,
My wife got a speeding ticket from the CHP within the last year. It was over $400. I have a friend who didn’t make a complete stop before turning right at an intersection. Bam, $400+ dollars.
If you’re seriously tired of big brother, like I am, check out Montana. Yes it’s still in the US but you’ll swear you’re in paradise. It’s not perfect but it’s the closest to perfect I’ve found.
I hear ya SV…
Now lets put it in a little more perspective…A person making $14. per hour (not a lot of money but well above min.wage) would bring home around $400. per week after standard deductions…
ONE FRICKEN WEEKS PAY for a speeding ticket…Its criminal as far as I am concerned…
As far as Montana, I do enjoy it but I would never survive the winters I am to much of a wuss…I do go there though…I will be fly fishing near Red Lodge for one week in August…If I were young with nothing tying me to California, I would consider it…Good luck to you if you go…
But - only on those making over $250,000 a year - just like Obama promised - right?
P.S. Not intending to be a partisan hack (since that would be hypocritical per another of my posts) - just trying to illustrate how with regards to taxes everyone tends to focus on thing with regards to how it affects the various classes - the income tax - and generally ignore the vast amount of other taxes, and inflation, that affect everyone; or in many cases actually affect the lower classes more (e.g. gas taxes, vice taxes, etc.).
I thought that maybe it was you just realized that the President of the US of A doesn’t control… STATE TAXES
Really? Wow - I hadn’t though of that :rolleyes:
Perhaps I was referring more to economic policies that the president does have control over, that in turn later cause states to have to raise their tax rates in order to survive. Things like - really big housing bubbles.
Although I was really moreso just making a statement about how the sheeple themselves tend to focus only on income taxes, and therefore are easily led astray by popular promises relating to them; when in reality they need to look more at the bigger picture - beyond taxes even.
Let’s review chronologically:
wmbz:
U.S. Sales Tax Rates Hit Record High
Packman reply:
“But - only on those making over $250,000 a year - just like Obama promised - right?”
AFTER… that statement:
P.S. Not intending to be a partisan hack…
What does you 1st statement have to do with the title of the subject at hand?
Must I repeat?
Although I was really moreso just making a statement about how the sheeple themselves tend to focus only on income taxes, and therefore are easily led astray by popular promises relating to them; when in reality they need to look more at the bigger picture - beyond taxes even.
Perhaps I should expound (though I thought this was implied):
“… when in reality they need to look more at the bigger picture - beyond just income taxes to thing like sales taxes, and beyond taxes even.”
Not intending to be a partisan hack ??
Yes you are
I appear to be, only when countering paritsan hack posts.
Exactly what part of my post is partisan? Who besides Obama has recently made claims to only raise taxes on the rich?
I would do the same if it were Bush. I slam the Bushes and Reagan fairly often, thank you. The only reason why I do slam Dems more in general is because my views are quite conservative/libertarian, which more generally aligns with Republican party. However I do not have blinders on, like many on this board, who do nothing more than slam Republicans and have absolutely nothing bad to say about Democrats. That’s pretty much what defines “partisan”.
countering paritsan hack posts ??
I assume you are referring to me…I don’t consider my post partisan in the least…IMO, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove were the most Arrogant, uncompromising, incompetent and possibly “criminal” group I have ever seen in my lifetime (58 just a few days ago)…
because my views are quite quite conservative/libertarian ??
As are mine…30 year registered Republican until the neocons ran Dubya…I then registered independent…I voted for Nixon (oops), Regan twice and Bush 1…
You want to align yourself with this group who call themselves “republicans” you and Eddie be my guest…
What aspects of the Republican party are conservative/libertarian?
P.P.S. wmbz posts a link!!! Knock me down with a feather.
The highest sales tax rate in the country now stands at 12%.
What? Some poor schmoes have a sales tax higher than Cook County, IL? Ours is 10.25% now — I shudder to think that somebody’s getting socked with more than that.
And pity the urban smokers: they pay a whopping $4.25 extra per pack in NYC, and $3.66 in Chicago.
I think a carton around here runs over $60.
Dang,
I thought 9.75% was high here in San Mateo County.
Let them eat cake
“You know,” Delay said, “there is an argument to be made that these extensions, the unemployment benefits keeps people from going and finding jobs. In fact there are some studies that have been done that show people stay on unemployment compensation and they don’t look for a job until two or three weeks before they know the benefits are going to run out.
Host Candy Crowley: Congressman, that’s a hard sell, isn’t it?
Delay: it’s the truth.
Crowley: People are unemployed because they want to be?
Delay: well, it is the truth. and people in the real world know it. And they have friends and they know it. Sure, we ought to be helping people that are unemployed find a job, but we also have budget considerations that are incredibly important, especially now that Obama is spending monies that we don’t have.
Now I hate the idea of unemployment, and would replace it with a jobs/work program. People have to show up and do something for a check, but to say that most people want to be unemployed is a little crazy. I think the huge # of applicants for each available job refutes this.
That’s stretching it to it’s absurd conclusion, and it’s invalid.
Of course people want a job. The notion that the bulk of these people just simply don’t want a job is absurd.
The question isn’t whether they want a job or not - the questions are:
A. How hard will they work to obtain a job, while on unemployment.
B. How willing are they to take a lesser job (i.e. perhaps one more actually suited to them, if they were previously “over-employed” - e.g. someone who worked in a shrinking industry like real estate).
My assertion would be:
A. Not as hard as otherwise
B. Not as willing as otherwise
Nothing like total lack of a biweekly check to light a fire under you. With a small check the fire’s still there, but it smolders rather than burns hotly.
This all depends on the person. Some are more driven than others regardless of the existence or size of a check coming in.
That’s my observation at least, from knowing several unemployed people, and being there myself for a period recently.
I don’t think that my Nephew is trying that hard to get a new job in his field ,because there aren’t jobs in his field. That would mean to me that he needs to change his work . Is he working on that …no .
He is just waiting for the jobs to come back in his field .
I know a guy doing the same thing…
Everybody has been ragging on “freeloaders” that “need to change fields”.
I was in that situation for the last 6 months of last year. My former employer decided to get rid of their airplane, everybody in the aviation business was in “bunker mode”…..business down 40% across the board, nobody’s flying, no airplanes to maintain, so no hiring. Except for the places who are “hiring” all the time, which in my experience, means that it is a place where you DON”T want to work, if you have any options.
So, I set myself up expecting a year-long job search, rather than move 1500 miles to take a temporary job at a crappy place to work.
Please explain to me how it makes sense for a 40-50 something guy to “change fields” (when NOBODY is hiring, other than maybe hospitals looking for RNs), take a 50% cut in pay,and start at minimum wage @ McDonalds or Pizza Hut? Especially when Pizza Hut pays the same in SoCal (where the cost of living remains at the ridiculous level) as it does in Bumf##k, Kentucky?
If you have a lot of time invested in experience and training in a certain field, I would suggest that you are better off working for “free” in your field, continue circulating your resume, and prepare yourself to relocate when a decent position comes along.
As I expected, I just needed to set myself up to just get into 2010. Since Feb. 1, I’ve had a total of four days off working two “part time” jobs (and this is a “slow” time of the year). If this continues, I’ll have my best year I’ve ever had in this business.
This in one of the things that bugs me about this blog……too many people on here want their fellow man to take a screw job, because it means they will get a better deal on something.
X-GSfixr, you done good. You used your wits and the “un-employment” INSURANCE was a “bridge”… Cheers Mate!
There will ALWAYS be some…that their “decisions” regarding their un-employment” INSURANCE results in a “bridge” to “no-where”…
Hey this America, everyone still have FREE CHOICE, right?
Jack Benny: “I’m thinking, I’m thinking…”
Now, if I can only find some affordable health insurance.
This is the big, dirty secret of the health care debate. If we ever get some kind of universal health care or insurance portability, a lot of companies are going to start having employee retention problems. Which means that they might actually start having to come across with some pay raises.
Our business leaders think that using outsourcing/contractors are the hot business model. They need to be careful what they wish for. The “contractor” model in the construction trades has meant that when business is good, you pay a premium price for work, whether it’s quality work or not.
So those are the two options - either get a job that’s directly in your field, or Pizza Hut?
I exaggerate……but no worse that anyone who says that nobody is motivated to get a new job because they are getting an unemployment check.
That statement was correct; I wasn’t motivated to “start over” at a minimum wage job, or to move 1500 miles to take a job in my field with crappy pay/benefits/working environment (life is too short to put up with that crap).
Having the option (as limited as it was) to be able to keep my head above water financially while on unemployment allowed me to wait until a decent job came open.
The state benefits too, since I remain a citizen of my particular state, at a higher rate of pay than when I was let go ( = more income and sales tax revenue), vs. relocating to either coast, where they would have ZERO opportunity to generate tax revenue.
Government has been sponging money from me, and the businesses in my field, for my entire work life. Now a bunch of us in the business are (temporarily) a liability. Now everyone wants to throw us under the bus, but don’t say a peep about the housing and investment bank bailouts that make the money spent on unemployment checks look like a rounding error.
Xgulfstream,
From talking to my brother about health care I got a few notes.
1) He had a medical complication due to poor care at a VA hospital back in the 80s that almost killed him.
2) He found out that he was eligible for medicare and that saved his ass.
3) Was thinking that socialized medicine might make it a lot easier on people who are contracting, starting businesses or such things. Basically simplifying the problem for the small business guy.
We are all happy you found a job though. Congrats. I’m searching now as well.
Packman, it’s just too general of an observation. You are primarily refering to technological unemployment vs structural unemployment. My guess is a lot of the FIRE people are stuck there. For engineering it is still going OK. Outsourcing has hurt a good bit. F1B has hurt a good bit too. Overall seems like market for engineers still good.
People still want cell phones and wifi and the internet thingy.
Have a hard time changing from EE to doing something else because of salary. Would like to be a math/physics/chemistry teacher in the future in some place sunny.
I am still selling the wife on Cape Coral. Thinking of a cash purchase of a home. Hear the Chianese drywall thing is overblown but hope to avoid any of the more recent house builds.
Anyhow…. I’m fascinated by gulfstream… guy fixes planes. That is awsome.
I’ve already achieved my own personal goal. Worked on a big death ray (see ABL). Now I’m ready to move on.
X-GSfixer……..In my own defense my post was responding to this from the Wizard;
“my Nephew is trying that hard to get a new job in his field”…
And my response was of knowing a guy that is doing the same thing…Not trying…Just laying around and hitting the bar each day…
My advantage was knowing that there is very little hiring in my line of work late in the year. Travel budgets have been spent/blown, and the flying hours go way down. So I didn’t stress out too bad.
What made it suck was that I had plenty of things to keep me busy, IF…..
-I had a place/garage to work, and
-some money to spend on parts for my projects.
Not knowing for sure how long I’d be out of work (especially in this economy), I was reluctant to shell out money to rent a shop/garage, buy parts, or on anything other than the bare neccesities.
Then, the new year rolls around, everyone has a budget again, and the flying starts picking up around March 1…..so if you have open positions, or new positions to fill, the need to fill them becomes apparant around April 1.
What the airplane owners are finding out currently is that due to the number of people culled, it’s getting real tough finding a shop that can work on your airplane. (Classic American business management……..)
So I’m being approached by at least one operator offering me a “retainer” to guarantee that I’m available to fix his airplane.
This is the big, dirty secret of the health care debate. If we ever get some kind of universal health care or insurance portability, a lot of companies are going to start having employee retention problems. Which means that they might actually start having to come across with some pay raises.
When we do get universal health insurance, this country’s national anthem will become “Take This Job and Shove It.”
it’s getting real tough finding a shop that can work on your airplane ??
The people that I know that own planes are “Anal” about who touches them and it isn’t like you pull over and call AAA if they fail if you know what mean…
He is just waiting for the jobs to come back in his field .
Sometimes they just don’t come back.
What’s your nephew’s plan then?
My nephew is young enough that he could change fields . His investment in his current field is five years . He has two kids and a wife that is only working part time ,
I advise my nephew all the time that I don’t think his field is going to be kicking up that well for a long time . I suggest many other possible options .
For a long time I gave him money to help with expenses or car problems or what=ever he hit me up for . I’m trying to motivate him by not bailing him out anymore , and he isn’t the only
one hitting me up during these hard times . I get this will you give me a loan BS that you know they will never pay back .
But ,it is a difficult situation for people who are having a hard time getting reemployed .
Really ,there is a lot of pain going on out there .My Nephew told me about a tent city in his town where a bunch of new homeless people were living .
Anyway ,I’m sure we all have family or friends that are having a really hard time . That’s why watching Bankers and the bonuses are just so annoying .
The reality is that if they take a job then someone else is on unemployment. There are not enough jobs. I agree it keeps people from looking as hard as they would otherwise (it also keeps them from robbing their neighbors), it gives people poor work habits as they sit idle for so long. Again i would do away completely with unemployment but if you need a check then the gov would give you a 3d/week job (2days to interview), even if it’s riding a stationary or moving dirt from one pile to another. You show up and you do a quantity of work to get paid.
The reality is that if they take a job then someone else is on unemployment.
Given that there’s a fixed number of jobs that exist in the economy - it’s a dang good thing we’ve had flat population for the past 100 years or so.
Oh, wait…
The number is not fixed. It has been declining in relation to population.
This decade saw the number of jobs being created falling behind what was needed to stay just fixed as a percentage of population.
Not to mention the several MILLION jobs shipped overseas in the last 30 years.
Packy, I respect your opinions, and have high regard for your analytical ability. I KNOW that anecdotal argument is meaningless.
HOWEVER: there are circumstances in which you are simply up against a wall, if the edifice crumbles. CT, for example, has had its middle management eviscerated over the past ten years. After running through their savings and 401Ks, the ones who didn’t get out while they still had some liquidity are STUCCO.
They claw over one another for the K-Mart, 7-11 and Lowe’s jobs. And if they are lucky enough to get one, they tell themselves it is only temporary. For years.
They bought into Corporate America, and do not understand that that last $100K job they had, is the last one they will ever have, in a de-industrializing country. Most of them were report preparers and meeting sitters. In that closed world, it is not evident to ANYBODY that there is no value in having successive layers of interpretation. Faced with hard corporate times, they do what the farmers in the Midwest did in the 1980s: they work harder at producing more of the same. Generals fighting the last war.
It’s not working for the vanity layers of middle management in the formerly large corporations - unless those layers can be billed out as ‘consultants’.
A transformative biz model, that. Call your excess layers ‘consultants’ and start billing them out. Brazen, even. What is amazing is how so many companies have actually succeeded by doing this.
Anyway, I feel ex-GS’s pain, and if I hadn’t got the heck out of Dodge after getting my first clear look at what was emerging, I would have been stucco too. There’s a compelling case to be made that ex-GS DOES have an irreplaceable skill set and experience, that adds real substantive value to whatever he touches. IMHO, staying in an area where he surmised (correctly) that the demand would return was the right move - the physical plant and infrastructure was there.
I, on the other hand, am a fungible paper pusher, a commodity product who can arguably be outsourced. For me, it was smart to go with the numbers: from a place where there was no longer a market for paper pushers to a place where there was a market for paper pushers, and where, moreover, that paper pushing would be impolitic to outsource.
Way to go, ex-GS!
People have to show up and do something for a check, but to say that most people want to be unemployed is a little crazy. I think the huge # of applicants for each available job refutes this.
Also, the large number of unemployed versus the number of available jobs. So they all go out and apply for 10 jobs tomorrow. Then what? Most won’t end up with jobs because there aren’t any.
When the borrowing is taken away, our economy is unable to employ nearly as many as in the recent past. We have yet to make the necessary structural changes to our economy. Extending unemployment is helpful in the short run. But we must have investment in the necessary structural changes if we want more
people working and getting paid anything close to their previous wages.
Delayme is a Plagiarist! Delayme is a Plagiarist! Delayme is a Plagiarist!
“but we also have budget considerations that are incredibly important, especially now that Obama is spending monies that we don’t have.”
Previously, he said this:
“but we also have budget considerations that are incredibly important, especially now that Cheney-Shrub is spending monies that we don’t have.”
No, wait you can’t plagiarize yourself… I have that wrong:
Delayme is a “TrueHypocrite™”! Delayme is a “TrueHypocrite™”! Delayme is a “TrueHypocrite™”!
Wait a minute, are you implying that the previous administration was also spending money we don’t have ?!
Opps, sorry,…I wouldn’t want to “DECEIVE” anyone!
Yeah, that $XXX.00 a week check more than covers those $XXX+100.00 a week bills.
Oh wait…
Meatson:
Here is where welfare programs, unemployment programs totally FAIL:
You must get a paying on the books jobs to qualify even if its in a car wash…and my “internship” which is in my field and will look good on my resume in a few months will not.
————————————————————-
Now I hate the idea of unemployment, and would replace it with a jobs/work program. People have to show up and do something for a check,
Congress to take a pay cut? This is a joke, right?
Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.) has introduced the “Taking Responsibility for Congressional Pay Act,” which would cut senators’ and representatives’ salaries by 5 percent starting Jan. 1, 2011.
The measure would enact the first pay cut for Congress since 1933. The purpose of the bill is to “make Members of Congress show a personal commitment to cutting federal spending.”
Penny wise pound foolish.
Don’t know whether it helps her in reelection but I am sure she will begin each speech with “I proposed ……”
I am glad I am not in her state or district. I would have either killed myself or destroyed a TV or two.
I’d find it more interesting if congress gave up their health insurance and had to go to the individual market… might be educational for them.
Preach it, WHYoung!
They certainly won’t be waiting in line for government health care like the rest of us, if that comes to pass.
Token gesture at best.
Anybody here think it will pass?
Ye..ah.
I won’t believe it even if I see it.
Ahmadinejad Expects War to Break Out By This Summer. TSHTFPlan
Abu Dhabi Media Company, one of the largest news sources in the Arab world, reports that a recent meeting in Damascus, Syria that included president Ahmadinejad, Syrian president Bashar al Assad, and Hizbollah chief Nasrallah, was a war council that convened to set up a defensive plan in the event that Israel were to attack the region.
The Iranian president said he expects war to break out somewhere between spring and summer of this year. Meanwhile, the Hizbollah chief vowed to strike the Israeli capital, its airports and power stations if Israel dared to attack Beirut’s critical infrastructure.
“Indeed, we are being exposed to a new discourse here, an unprecedented sense of self-confidence and an unheard-of preparedness for retaliation.”
For its part, the Syrian leadership appears to have made up its mind to close off the US administration’s “trite and cheap” flirtation with Damascus and opted for bolstering its tactical partnership with Tehran.
Got oil?
Nope
I have an electric car, 5 bikes, bike trailer for the kids and live down town.
We doing get oil from Iran. At least not in any significant quantity.
But how much oil goes through the Persion Gulf? (lots) How much of the Strait of Hormuz is within range of Iranian missiles? (all of it I suspect)
Yes this is true.
Though actually - the amount of oil we get from the middle east is actually much less than most people think compared with other sources.
Yep, Canada.
Oh. Lifetime employment in the “defense” business.
Man, when I meet the guy in the sky I expect Joshua Tree Treatment.
No rest for the wicked.
Hold onto your A$$ if it happens….And just in time for the US exiting Iraq eh… Coincidence ??
Rattling sabers works for both the mullahs in Tehran and the Republicrats in D.C.
Just trying to divert Joe and Jamil 6Pack’s attention away from their domestic failures.
Time is on our side, when it comes to dealing with Iran. At worst, from the US perspective, a nuke-armed Iran will give us some disincentive to do something stupid. Which may not be a bad thing.
In the meantime, the kids in Iran are wondering what the mullahs are good for. Other that risking their demise by nukes.
If you believe Iran is led by suicidal, self destructive idiots, that plans to nuke Israel as soon as they can build a bomb (which will, in turn, lead to their annihilation), then screwing with Iran with military force makes some sense.
OTOH, if you believe that Iranians learned from history that being a nuclear-armed state restricts US options for screwing with you, you can understand the attraction of nukes (from the Iranian standpoint).
I believe the later…
Sole occupant of 32-story Fort Myers condo wants out
dhogan@news-press.com • March 8, 2010
1:10 A.M. — It looks like the loneliest condominium dweller in Fort Myers will stay lonely for awhile longer.
Victor Vangelakos is the only buyer to take possession of his unit in the 32-story Tower 1 of the Oasis high-rise project in downtown Fort Myers.
Only a handful of purchasers who put down deposits closed on their condos in the building, and except for Vangelakos, they’ve accepted deals with developer The Related Group to swap for units in Tower 2.
But Vangelakos, who paid $430,000 for the home, closed in November 2008 and insisted on taking possession. He, his wife Cathleen, and their three children use the condo as a vacation home when he can get away from his job as a Weehawken, N.J., firefighter.
http://www.news-press.com/article/20100308/NEWS0110/3080347
It was worth clicking the link just to see the photo.
“He accuses Related of using stalling tactics and of playing hardball because of Cathleen Vangelakos’ separate legal problems: Last month she started serving a three-year prison term for pocketing parking ticket payments in her job at Weehawken City Hall.”
Lovely couple. I’m sure the ten residents of the other tower would be glad to have them.
But Vangelakos, who paid $430,000 for the home, closed in November 2008 and insisted on taking possession. He, his wife Cathleen, and their three children use the condo as a vacation home when he can get away from his job as a Weehawken, N.J., firefighter.
Firefighters in NJ buying $430,000 vacation condos in FL??? How out of whack public unions are…
Don’t forget, his lady was embezzling parking ticket money.
New York unions are NOT like the unions in the rest of the country.
Well, maybe L.A. and Chicago. Even then…
Posted this late Friday, which seems to address a debate often heard on the HBB:
Federal pay ahead of private industry
“Federal employees earn higher average salaries than private-sector workers in more than eight out of 10 occupations, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data finds.
Accountants, nurses, chemists, surveyors, cooks, clerks and janitors are among the wide range of jobs that get paid more on average in the federal government than in the private sector.
Overall, federal workers earned an average salary of $67,691 in 2008 for occupations that exist both in government and the private sector, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The average pay for the same mix of jobs in the private sector was $60,046 in 2008, the most recent data available.
These salary figures do not include the value of health, pension and other benefits, which averaged $40,785 per federal employee in 2008 vs. $9,882 per private worker, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.”
1. How did they choose the professions to look at and which ones to ignore?
2. Did they account for education level and experience?
3. Is it that low level and entry jobs have been outsourced?
As far as I know all the janitors in our agency are outsourced. Maybe there are a few janitors that work in areas that require a security clearance even to pick up the trash? That would up the pay.
The federal workforce is definitly older than the general workforce (average starting age with feds is late thirties). In the private sector, they would have been fired and replaced with younger workers who get paid less. See Circuit City.
“…In the private sector, they would have been fired and replaced with younger workers who get paid less…”
We have a winner.
Also not covered were the differences in pay between higher cost and lower cost areas. “Locality pay” (tied to local wages) was partially implemented as a means of addressing pay issues in high cost areas. The reality is that workers at a given federal pay grade can live rather well in the lower cost areas while a worker in the same job in a high cost area with locality pay can struggle with expenses.
Also not mentioned in this study is the much narrower gap in the federal government between pay for management and other workers. In the private sector, executives are compensated at many multiples of the incomes of the workers whose average wages may be relatively low. In the federal government, those doing the work are getting decent compensation with the pay for managers very little more. If comparing non-executive pay, feds could appear to be doing relatively better than the private sector. However, due to ballooning executive pay, the total pay for a comparably sized work force could well be higher in the private sector. It’s just a matter of where it’s going.
The private sector might do well to emulate some aspects of the compensation and employment practices of the federal government. There are advantages to having an experienced, stable work force. The relatively lower compensation packages of managers in the federal government means they aren’t living too differently from those they manage or the general public. They can still be out of touch, but it’s harder.
LOL! You can try to rationalize all you want but it’s a department of the Federal Government, not Fox News, that is reporting their compensation is higher than what the rest of the country makes.
“Also not mentioned in this study is the much narrower gap in the federal government between pay for management and other workers.”
Well, it did say eight out of ten occupations. That is the issue — in the private sector all the pay is concentrated at the top. In the public sector, it is concentrated in retirement.
The local FAA Flight Standards District Office is staffed by old timers, who have a lot of years in the industry, know where all the bodies are buried, and know what they are doing. Yeah, they are paid a salary consumate with their experience.
The FAA tried transferring inexperienced office staff from DC, out into oversight/inspector positions at the various FSDOs. The resulting chaos resulted in that policy being revisited.
One instance that I observed personally was that the local Part 135 operators were actually “training” the FAA “inspector”…(a classic case of “Yesterday, I couldn’t spell “airplane”……now I’m an inspector of them”).
At a cost to them of approximately $200,000 in lost time and flights. The owner of the Part 135 finally called his Senator, and got this “inspector” reassigned.
Aow kinda like all those “appraisers” who came out of the woodwork during the bubble. My nephew was just out of the army and he became one.
I had thought only the old construction or govt inspector warhorses became appraisers.
As polly said:
“…In the private sector, they would have been fired and replaced with younger workers who get paid less….”
House I’m interested in for sale. Details (note - values are from Zillow):
Value in 2000 = $144K
Value at peak (late 2005 / early 2006) = $260K
Current value = $250K
Listed at $259,900
I’m seeing this for nearly every house I’m interested in. They’re all listing at the same as peak values. And, per Zillow, they’re at best only 5% down from peak.
Help me out here. Is it sill just a lag? Seems like the rest of the country - even in more “normal” areas (e.g. not CA, FL, NV) are down from peak 20% or so. What is going on around here? The zip code is 19040. Is it really different here? Or is my -20% still coming?
So sick of this.
eastcoaster-
Zillow isn’t real! I calendar their values to compare to the Recorders Office data.
If you like, you can email me at awaiting wipeout@verizon.net, I’ll link you to a whole bunch of free real estate data websites for smart consumers/agents (this evening, busy now). I am licensed in Ca.
I’ll email you. But I guess my point is - prices don’t seem to have really dropped around here. Years after the supposed bust, I’m still priced out. Will it stay flat here instead of dropping? It doesn’t make sense to me.
eastcoaster
You need real data points to determine what is really going on. Our former residence floor plan really sold for $700K in Feb 2010, but the price per Zillow shows it worth $848K. That’s why you need sources from the Recorders Office, and other data crunchers. Otherwise, you’re not getting the real story.
Don’t forget serial refi loan balances are in some of the “sold” prices.
You know… no one should ever post an email address on the web. Once a spambot finds it, you’re going to be in for an avalanche of spam. If you must post an email address, you have to post it in a nonstandard form, e.g. my address at something dot com, or something similarly obfuscated, so that only a human can read it. The more obfuscated the better.
Finally.
Influential Pakistani cleric issues fatwa against terrorism 3/5/10, Washington Post
An influential Pakistani cleric issued a 600-page fatwa on March 2, described as an “absolute” condemnation of terrorism without “any excuses or pretexts.” Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri declared that terrorists and suicide bombers were unbelievers and that “terrorism is terrorism, violence is violence and it has no place in Islamic teaching and no justification can be provided for it, or any kind of excuses or ifs or buts.”
While domestic politics in Muslim countries, the presence of foreign troops and the impact Western foreign policies remain primary drivers in radicalization, a major, comprehensive fatwa like this — along with less-sweeping fatwas issued by other religious authorities — does constitute a major challenge to the legitimacy of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/john_esposito/2010/03/influential_pakistani_cleric_issues_fatwa_against_terrorism.html
“…to the legitimacy of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups”
Here’s my POV:
“The first man to raise a fist is the man who’s run out of ideas.” HG Wells
All well in good hippie slime. What you going to do when the bullets start flying.
Make an arguement about how them fellas aint real smart?
Anyhow, good to see mainstream Islam making some strong statements on terrorism.
“All well in good hippie slime”
lol, careful james, I’ll wager I’ve watched more Clinteastwoodjohnwaynehenryfondajimmystewartjackpalanceleemarvinleevancleftcharlesbronsonchuckconners movies than you, …oh, and did I mention anything about my gun collection ?
(Note: Hwy doesn’t belong to the Sierra Club or the NRA…but he is a card carrying member of the Audubon Society & National Geographic to name a few…)
600 pages? Do they ususally run that long? Maybe he was trying to cover all the possible counterarguments.
Maybe it was double spaced, narrow margins. I see this all the time when i ask for 10 page term papers.
I’m sure he will be blown up in the coming weeks.
“Never bring a knife to a gunfight.”
- Anonymous
The end game of unregulated capitalism is monopoly oligopoly higher prices, and eventually facism.
ST. LOUIS – Some Obama administration officials have made clear their unease with the increasing control a handful of corporations have over the nation’s food supply, and this week in Iowa they could show whether they are serious about changing the system.
The first joint workshops on agriculture by regulators at the U.S. Justice and Agriculture Departments is expected to give farmers, lobbyists, executives and academics a strong indication of where the Obama administration stands on consolidation in agriculture.
Administration officials said the meeting Friday in the Des Moines suburb of Ankeny will give antitrust attorneys and farm regulators their first chance to work side-by-side and examine the concentration of power in rural America. The Iowa meeting will be followed by four other gatherings held later in the year.
Industry officials and farming groups aren’t sure whether the hearings are political theater or a first step toward legal action, or both. For farmers, it’s the most attention paid in years to their long-standing complaints that big corporations are choking out smaller players.
“This is certainly a much brighter spotlight than we’ve seen in the last 10 years,” said Tara Smith, the American Farm Bureau’s director of congressional relations.
A newly invigorated antitrust team in Washington is behind the hearings.
Christine Varney, head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, came into office last spring complaining that regulators have been too slow to file cases and that the Bush administration’s guidelines on enforcement had fostered “extreme hesitancy” in the department.
In a troubled economy where food costs are pinching consumers, Varney said agriculture will be a top priority.
“We’ve seen a lot of consolidation in the industry in the past decade,” she said. “Any time you have a lot of concentration in any part of the market, or any part of a vertical chain, it merits looking at.”
Varney and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said the workshops are aimed at creating broad policies to foster competition in agriculture, rather than scattered enforcement actions. Both will attend the hearings, and they emphasized that no action would be taken if competition was deemed fair. The point is to listen and learn.
“We want to make sure the playing field is level,” Vilsack said.
The series of workshops will run through December, looking at the seed, dairy, poultry, beef and crop industries. At issue will be the practices of industrial agriculture’s biggest players, such as grain processors Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Cargill Inc., meat companies Tyson Foods Inc. and JBS SA and biotech seed firms Monsanto Co. and DuPont.
The hearings are welcome news to Bill Heffernan, a retired rural sociologist from the University of Missouri who has been tracking growing concentration in agriculture for 20 years.
When he began studying the issue 22 years ago, Heffernan said the greatest consolidation was in the beef industry, where four firms controlled more than 50 percent of the market.
When he took his last survey in 2007, the top four meatpackers processed 84 percent of all U.S. beef. Consolidation also had spread to the poultry market, soybean crushing (which turns beans into a wide array of food products) and corn milling, he said.
Over the last year I planted 9 mangos, 2 avocados, 2 Lechees, 1 Pomegranate, 1 Starfruit, 1 Nispero and 2 Surinam Cherries. I have a hedge of Surinam Cherries which currenly provide about 2 pounds of Cherries every day for the next 4-5 weeks. I got rid of all ornamental, non fruit/food producing trees.
When you plant fruit trees pay attention to the harvest season. If you do it right you can have something being in season year round in Miami.
Over the last year I planted 9 mangos, 2 avocados, 2 Lechees, 1 Pomegranate, 1 Starfruit, 1 Nispero and 2 Surinam Cherries. I have a hedge of Surinam Cherries which currenly provide about 2 pounds of Cherries every day for the next 4-5 weeks. I got rid of all ornamental, non fruit/food producing trees
Sigh. That’s awesome!
But how do you make screwdrivers and gimlets without your own citrus trees?
You can get Oranges 4/$1 at the local market in Opa-Locka. Interesting place. You can buy anything from fresh fish, fruits, vegetables, fake Rolex, underwear, tools and Voodoo curses.
It’s time people pick up some gardening skills and get rid of ornamental landscaping. Under proper management you’ll be surprised how much food you can grow on 1/4 acre.
And you can discover the old fashioned pleasure of making jam. it’s quite easy. takes minimal equipment and very satisfying.
Dude, that is way cool!
At issue will be the practices of industrial agriculture’s biggest players, such as grain processors Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Cargill Inc., meat companies Tyson Foods Inc. and JBS SA and biotech seed firms Monsanto Co. and DuPont.
At issue? There’s enough first-person evidence, statistical data, legal proceedings, and corporate memo malfeasance to condemn all of those companies a dozen times over. The question is when and if regulators and the public are willing to do anything about it.
And what’s to stop them from exporting our food to other countries if they can pay more than us?
First, we are the “world’s breadbasket” already. Our farm exports are the highest in the world.
Second, many countries have already banned imports of any genetically modified food and farm products we might think of exporting.
Second, many countries have already banned imports of any genetically modified food and farm products we might think of exporting.
Monsanto and Cargill (among other agri-giants) are none too happy about that. The bans have mostly taken place in Western Europe and other prosperous regions, however — the agribusiness inroads in developing countries have been much greater. The subtext here is that once you hook enough poor farmers on your GM seeds or Roundup-ready seeds, you can much more easily enforce “brand loyalty,” because the farmers may have very little choice …
Kind of wonder how debt ridden these companies are?
You get all that fictional reserve money from the Fed system enabling all that consolidation.
Meanwhile the companies are left with all the debt.
Good times.
Jackson Health System to layoff 4487 people
Miami Labor Relations Examiner
The Jackson Health System, which serves Miami Dade County’s indigent population is set to lay off 4487 people by May.
Jackson Health System CEO Eneida Roldan said these layoffs will save Jackson $164 million. But even with these layoffs, Jackson is still $64 million in the hole and only has about 45 days worth of operating cash. These layoffs involve about one third of the hospital’s workforce. Also, Jackson plans to close two of its satellite hospitals.
Earlier, Roldan had discussed laying off about 900 personnel. But the SEIU agreed to a plan that would reduce or eliminate those possible layoffs. But the financial situation was found to be worse than previously thought and so the layoffs are necessary. The SEIU is expected to continue fighting for the jobs of Jackson employees, but the situation appears bleak.
It appears that the wheels are about to fall off the healthcare jobs machine.
Agreed. Once we get out of the “go to the doctor” mentality, a lot of doctors are going to be hurting. Part of getting out of this mentality is learning how to take better care of ourselves. And, if we need outside help, knowing that a lot of what doctors do can also be done by nurses and physician assistants.
“Once we get out of the “go to the doctor” mentality, a lot of doctors are going to be hurting”.
One of my sisters is a long time RN. As I am sure you know there are people who run the Doc or hospital at the drop of a hat. She has told me of people coming to the ER with a headache, stubbed toe, hang nail etc… Don’t what the solution is or how you get people to be more responsible.
…because laying off people is far easier than cracking down on part of that $60 BILLION a year in medical fraud, of which Florida is the LEADER.
Dan Rather on Chris Matthews show in regards to Obama on his leadership and health care…
“He couldn’t sell water melons on a highway, if a state trooper was flagging down traffic”
Jib-Jab / ping-pong / teeter-totter
BWAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! (fpss™)
Filed under: “TrueHypocrite™” “TruePurity™”
GOP state senator comes out as gay on talk radio:
By ROBIN HINDERY Associated Press Writer
Posted: 03/08/2010
“The 55-year-old father of four says he crossed the line and broke the law, putting people at risk, so he owes the public an explanation.
Since he was first elected to the state Assembly in 1996, Ashburn has consistently voted against gay rights measures.
The conservative lawmaker came out Monday on KERN radio in Bakersfield, saying he felt compelled to address the rumors that he had visited a gay nightclub near the Capitol before his DUI arrest.”
Keep post’em wmbz, the “TrueDoNothing™ / “TrueObstructionists™ / TrueGridLokers™” just can’t seem to …”quit ‘em”
Senator As$burns:
“The best way to handle that is to be truthful and to say to my constituents and all who care that I am gay,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s something that has affected, nor will it affect, how I do my job.”
Just one promblemo CA Senator “TruePurity™”…Your were elected in KERN COUNTY, CA…if you told those “constituents” about your sexual orientation when they went to cast their votes…YOU WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ELECTED!
(Does he still qualify for his State pension?)
What does your post have to do with Obama and Rather?
You are just another polarizing “truebeliever” democrat hack anymore.
You might want to consider the democrats are doing the wrong thing here dude. Maybe, just maybe you have to step outside that little box you are living in.
..and a cordial ChimpyMcBushcheneyhalliburton to you too!!!
Rene Zellweger: “you had me at…Jib-Jab / ping-pong / teeter-totter”
Well, James, as long as wmbz posts 86+ “Democrapts are Un-patriotic Anti-Americans” ping-pong balls into this blog table-top, ol’ Hwy’s just gonna keep swatting them back across the net, you might have noticed that…I mostly RESPOND to such “sibling” passive-aggressive taunts, it’s quite revealing how others REACT to a dose of their own “medicine”
Great.
You’re really contributing to the quality of discourse here.
Meanwhile, wmbz does a great job data mining for us.
Anyhow. Keep up the good work figuring out the republicans are a bunch of hypocrites. Probably needs to be pointed out.
Old joke… General McClernand, General Grant and Abe Lincoln.
So an angry red faced General McClernand confronts Secretary of war Stanton and says “I heard Grant told the President I was an idiot”.
Stanton says “Why don’t you go ask him yourself?”
An even redder faced General McClernand bursts into Lincoln’s office and asks the president “Did Grant tell you I was an idiot?”
Lincoln looks up and says “He assumed I already knew”.
Anyhow, not really necessary to say much about the democrats.
Perhaps it would be helpful if you were able to look at the fact that democrats are in charge NOW, 3 years running, and setting agenda. Most of which has been babling about healthcare and spending more money.
Since they are in charge now, they are going to get the heat. Believe me, I don’t feel like we have a particularly good choice from either group here. Bush managed to put forth the mother of all bailouts in TARP because he was just so darned stupid.
Well, your buddy is in there now and guess what? He is spending at unprecidented rates and doing the same damn thing. I just assume they are both so darned stupid.
One happens to be better spoken and more photogenic than the other. Both stupid though.
But now, you are a partisan hack, so I expect you will not be able to deal with the here and now.
Just bring up past mistakes to defect blame from the current bunch of idiots vs the past bunch of idiots.
You are morphing into another Eddie, just a liberal one. Makes sure you keep everyone polarized though. Serves your side well. What ever that side is.
Dear james,
I’ll limit my retort to your first complaint:
“…You’re really contributing to the quality of discourse here.”
This was start of this thread… how does reflect on me?
“He couldn’t sell water melons on a highway, if a state trooper was flagging down traffic”
Cheers!
Addendum james:
Yep, Lincoln is dear to old Hwy…
Nobody Ever Died in Here!
A man was complaining to the President that a friend of his had been expelled from New Orleans because he was a Union sympathizer. When the man asked to see the writ by which he was expelled, he was summarliy told that the Confederate Government would do nothing illegal, and so they had issued no writs. They were simply hoping to make him go of his own free will. Naturally, that reminded Lincoln of a story, and he remarked that he had known of a hotel keeper in St. Louis who boasted that nobody ever died in his hotel. “Of course,” Lincoln said with a twinkle in his eye, “Anytime a guest appeared to be in danger of dying he was carried out to die in the gutter.”
Oh the Ratherisms. I’d forgotten about those. What’s he up to nowadays?
watermelon
Boca Raton’s Eden condo project sold
South Florida Business Journal - March 8, 2010
A West Palm Beach firm that specializes in turning around troubled multifamily projects closed on a deal in early March to buy the Eden condominium complex in Boca Raton.
Priderock Capital Partners purchased the property from Ceebraid-Signal Corp. for $27.1 million, according Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod, the law firm that structured the deal for the buyers.
Priderock, which paid cash, acquired all but two units in the 248-unit project in Palmetto Park Road, across from Boca Raton City Hall. The plan is to also close on those units, which are among 27 condos sold to individuals. Once that happens, the total acquisition cost is expected to be close to $28 million, according real estate sources.
More than half of the units were never completed after Ceebraid-Signal gutted the old apartment complex to create luxury condos.
“They are going to go 100 percent luxury rental,” said Hampton Beebe, senior VP of Apartment Realty Advisors in Boca Raton, which brokered the sale.
He said many of the buildings are mere shells.
In Houston, they let old apartments (500 plus units, many often right next to other 500+ unit lots) turn into ghettos until the city either forces the owner to fix them or demolish them, because it’s far more profitable to build new condozes than remodel old, poorly built apartments.
It looks like Sarah Palin has competition.
group that includes leading conservative lawyers and policy experts, former Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and several senior officials of the last Bush administration is denouncing as “shameful” Republican attacks on lawyers who came to the Obama Justice Department after representing suspected terrorists.
Senate Republicans have demanded details of the lawyers’ past work and Liz Cheney’s group “Keep America Safe” has questioned their “values.” A drumbeat of Republican criticism forced the Justice Department reluctantly to identify seven of them last week. But the harshness of the criticism – Keep America Safe labeled a group of them the “Al Qaeda Seven” — has provoked a backlash from across the legal establishment.
That’s right those we think or say are guilty are guilty and should have no chance to argue against the charges in court. I wonder if we will see this type of program spread to US citizens. If the gov says you are guilty you are guilty. Let’s ban lawyers and get rid of these expensive courts.
“Keep America Safe”
Liz Cheney’s girl scout merit badges:
Contract-without- America / Fiscal Conservative / Compassionate Conservative / TruePurity™”
I have to hand it to “TrueBeliever’s™ / TrueDeceiver’s™” …they come up with some dandy “self-adhesive” labels!
I wonder if Bin Ladin was at the Obama’s for the weekend bar-b-que. We all know that he “pals around with terrorists”.
I wonder if we will see this type of program spread to US citizens.
Isn’t it already so? Wasn’t a US citizen denied due process because he was accused of being an enemy combatant?
US Fiscal Path Unsustainable: Senior Budget Analyst
Monday, 8 Mar 2010 | Reuters
U.S. fiscal policy is on an unsustainable path of a huge budget gap that cannot be rectified by minor tinkering, a senior budget policy analyst said on Monday.
Uncle Sam and money
While the U.S. economy has benefited from government stimulus measures, further assistance from additional stimulus would also expand the yawning budget gap, Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, said.
The budget-saving approach used in the past several decades, paying for increases in retirement and health care programs through cuts in defense spending, is not feasible in the future, Elmendorf told the National Association of Business Economists.
Wow, perpetual war and ever expanding entitlements aren’t compatible?!?!?! Man, I’m glad we have such capable six-figure people to tell us these things! I mean it’s not like us little people could have ever figured that out with our wee little minds, which are only suitable for house hunting and shopping!
PARIS (AFP) – The overwhelming rejection by Iceland voters of a deal to repay losses of collapsed bank Icesave does not affect the country’s credit rating, Standard & Poor’s said on Monday.
“In our view, the referendum outcome does not constitute an outright repudiation of Iceland’s international obligations,” S&P said in a statement.
**** I think they are wrong, of course the gov will probably try to slide something by the people who voted against repaying Britain and Holland. In the US we’d call it the patriot bill.
The referendum’s outcome “merely reflects overwhelming popular discontent with the financial conditions of a bilateral loan offered by the British and the Dutch to finance their claim,” it added.
Voters in Iceland gave a resounding rejection in a referendum Saturday to a plan to pay Britain and the Netherlands 3.9 billion euros (5.3 billion dollars) in compensation for losses suffered by British and Dutch depositors in Icesave’s collapse.
“Standard and Poor’s does not believe that the Icelandic government will resign over the referendum or that the unresolved Icesave problem will thwart nascent EU membership talks, which at this stage, are not a rating factor,” it said.
S and P currently rates the Icelandic government’s foreign currency debt BBB-/A-3, or the lowest level of investment grade.
Any downgrade would put the bonds in so-called junk territory, which means that they would be considered too risky for many big institutional investors to own them.
Unless the Icelandic government specifically promised to honer the obligations and the European investors can be shown to have done thorough due diligence… they can go pound sand.
In an effort to end the foreclosure crisis, the Obama administration has been trying to keep defaulting owners in their homes. Now it will take a new approach: paying some of them to leave.
The problem is highlighted by a routine case in Phoenix. Chris Paul, a real estate agent, has a house he is trying to sell on behalf of its owner, who owes $150,000. Mr. Paul has an offer for $48,000, but the bank holding the mortgage says it wants at least $90,000. The frustrated owner is now contemplating foreclosure.
To bring the various parties to the table — the homeowner, the lender that services the loan, the investor that owns the loan, the bank that owns the second mortgage on the property — the government intends to spread its cash around.
Under the new program, the servicing bank, as with all modifications, will get $1,000. Another $1,000 can go toward a second loan, if there is one. And for the first time the government would give money to the distressed homeowners themselves. They will get $1,500 in “relocation assistance
Oh yea that will fix the problem????????????????
Just finished reading that article myself, and it left me confused, because this would both speed price discovery and increase inventory, wouldn’t it? I thought delaying price discovery was their imperative?
Here’s a link to the article: http://ginastango.postercris.com/
Bottom line: Short sales are better than foreclosures; Better for the banks, better for Obama.
Ooops, link didn’t work. Try this one:
http://www.startribune.com/politics/86774752.html
Anyone see Packy, tell’em to go fix his posted chart…or…his statement of facts about said chart…(I keep seeing the emperor-without-clothes, …packy keeps say he’s wear white silk panties with no stains…)
Packyman = “TrueDeception™” …never thought you of all people would act just like my “TrueBeliever’s™ / TrueDeceiver’s ™” / “TrueHypocrite™” / “TruePurity™” siblings…they too can NEVER admit they, god forbid, made a MISTAKE!
Here’s your DECEPTION dudette:
“…just with the more recent data not included
BWAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! (fpss™)
&
BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
Your WORDS dudette packy:
“Apparently you didn’t notice that …the chart hits historic highs… before Bush/Cheney went into office. A little… inconvenient… for your theory?
Let’s be clear: Between 1989-2009 qtr 1… what year is the HISTORIC HIGH FOR the CASE/SCHILLER historic housing price index-adjusted for inflation?
Please if you can post the FACTS in relation to your assertion.
Poll: A third of NY workers worry about losing their jobs.
The Business Review (Albany) 3-8-10
Nearly a third (30 percent) of registered New York voters are worried about losing their jobs, according to a new Marist Poll.
And most employed New Yorkers (92 percent) say they’re satisfied with their positions, including 47 percent who say they’re very satisfied with their jobs, according to the latest Marist Institute for Public Opinion. The institute is affiliated with Marist College, which is located in Poughkeepsie.
Job satisfaction comes with age, according to the poll. Of those 45 and older, 56 percent said they are very satisfied with their jobs. That compares with 38 percent of those under 45 who said they were very satisfied with their jobs.
Most New Yorkers (77 percent) said even when the economy rebounds they have no plans to move outside the state.
The poll, released Monday, surveyed 646 registered New Yorkers on Feb. 22 and Feb. 24.
It’s really strange: The higher the unemployment rate the more I like my job.
On third is about what my survey said a year and half ago.
Sounds right to me.
(Bloomberg) — Icelanders rejected by a massive majority a bill that would saddle each citizen with $16,400 of debt in protest at U.K. and Dutch demands that they cover losses triggered by the failure of a private bank.
Ninety-three percent voted against the so-called Icesave bill, according to preliminary results on national broadcaster RUV. Final results will be published today.
The bill would have obliged the island to take on $5.3 billion, or 45 percent of last year’s economic output, in loans from the U.K. and the Netherlands to compensate the two countries for depositor losses stemming from the collapse of Landsbanki Islands hf more than a year ago. The island’s political leaders say they’ve already moved on to talks over a new accord.
93% against. Pretty impressive. As stated above, I’m sure they’ll push through some garbage despite the overwhelming oposition.
Conference Board employment index prompts hope that job growth is near. ~ Kansas City Business Journal ~ March 8, 2010
The Conference Board Employment Trends Index has risen for the sixth month in a row, prompting a prediction that the nation is on the verge of job growth.
The index is at 93.5, edging up from 93.2 in January. It’s risen by an annual rate of 13.4 percent during the past six months, the fastest six-month pace since 1994, The Conference Board said in a Monday release.
“The past two jobless recoveries in 1991 and 2002 were a result of a continuous decline in manufacturing employment,” Gad Levanon, associate director of macroeconomic research, said in the release. “This time, the strong recovery in manufacturing production has already led to two consecutive monthly increases in manufacturing employment. We are likely to see this trend continue over the next several months, which will contribute to overall job growth.”
Confucius say, “Map NOT terrain.”
Good News for US Markets: Dollar, Stocks Move Together
CNBC ~ March 8, 2010
Now that stocks and the dollar are moving in tandem again, it could be a signal for investors to put more money into US assets.
For much of the 2009 rally off the March lows the two entities had been in reverse lockstep. When the dollar would fall, stocks would rise and vice versa.
That’s because investors were using a currency that cost almost nothing to borrow to buy undervalued stocks, with a bias toward multinational and emerging markets.
While it isn’t much of a recipe for a strong economy, the combination helped lift stocks off their lows after the financial collapse and gave investors room to breathe as the economy recovered from its worst state since the Great Depression.
But with some upward trends in the economy and the likelihood that the Federal Reserve in the coming months will begin implementing policies to boost the dollar, the two have risen together this year.
U.S. Web retail sales to reach $249 bln by ‘14
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Online retail sales in the United States could reach $248.7 billion by 2014, growing 60 percent from 2009, according to a study released on Monday.
Driven by a 10 percent compound annual growth rate, the projected $248.7 billion is expected to account for 8 percent of total U.S. retail sales within five years, according to Forrester Research, which authored the study.
Online sales, which slowed in the downturn, have still managed to outpace sales at U.S. brick-and-mortar stores. The National Retail Federation expects 2.5 percent growth in total retail sales in 2010, well below the 11 percent online growth rate that Forrester projects — the same as in 2009.
With more consumers comfortable with shopping online and retailers investing more in their online operations, the online sector has been steadily growing, driven by robust growth at Amazon.com Inc, the industry leader.
Amazon.com posted 42 percent sales growth in its most recent fourth quarter.
Forrester expects consumer electronics and apparel, accessories and footwear to lead the growth, while sales of computer hardware and software will slow.
Still, the bulk of total computer product sales is made online. About 52 percent of computer product sales was made online in 2009, compared with 9 percent for apparel and 14 percent for electronics.
Watch a lot of sales taxing authorities try to get a piece of this pie. Matter of fact, this is already happening. Here’s one of the more ridiculous examples.
Yep, the tax vultures are circling every where, and you are correct mouths are watering for more of the “pie”. So what about items purchased from outside the country? How would a state propose collecting taxes from other countries, for internet sales?
Repurchased Loans Putting Banks in Hole
APARAJITA SAHA-BUBNA ~ WSJ
Lenders such as Bank of America Corp., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc. will brave stiff headwinds this year as they face demands to buy back defectively underwritten mortgages.
Annual reports filed by major mortgage lenders show big surges in the volume of loans being repurchased in 2009. Wells Fargo said it bought back mortgages with balances of $1.3 billion, triple the 2008 total of $426 million. Losses on bought-back loans doubled to $514 million from $251 million in 2008, according to the San Francisco company.
Report: Californians need to be better prepared for earthquakes
Sacramento Business Journal - March 8, 2010
Californians are aware of major earthquakes and the effect from temblors, but many have not taken necessary steps to make their homes safer and protect their personal finances, according to a just-released report.
Residents are better about doing the obvious — such as collecting supplies and making backup documents — in the case of a major earthquake, but many have failed to increase the safety of their home or purchase earthquake insurance, according to the California Earthquake Preparedness Survey conducted by the University of California Los Angeles School of Public Health for the state Emergency Management Agency.
Major findings in the survey:
• Less than 20 percent of families have reinforced their homes or had their property inspected for earthquake safety.
• About 40 percent of households keep the minimum 3 gallons of water stored per person, or more, if possible.
• Less than 20 percent have bought earthquake insurance, which will cover damage from a temblor.
“Many” can’t afford to.
Obama pledging $1.9 billion to Florida’s space industry.
Tampa Bay Business Journal - 3-8-10
President Obama is planning a return trip to Florida next month to present his Administration’s vision for America’s future in space.
Obama will join space leaders to discuss NASA’s new course as well as the future of U.S. leadership in space flight, The White House said. The conference will focus on the goals and strategies in this new vision, the next steps, the new technologies, new jobs and new industries it will create.
Obama’s recent actions in killing some of NASA’s high-profile projects have come under fire, but the President said he added $6 billion for NASA in fiscal 2011 and the next five years. That funding, according to the president, would promote innovation at NASA on a more “dynamic, flexible and sustainable trajectory” designed to “propel us on a new journey of innovation and discovery.”
The White House did not say where the conference would take place, but it likely would be held near Kennedy Space Center in Brevard County.
Obama plans to unveil a new plan for NASA that would include an additional $1.9 billion for Florida alone over the next five years. That would include a faster pace of rocket launches out of Florida as NASA tests new technologies, launches robotic precursor missions and resupplies the International Space Station.
The plan also will give a boost to a new commercial crew transportation industry that could create as many as 1,700 new jobs in Florida, White House officials said.
Good old slobbering Barney…
U.S. Taxpayers on the Hook for $5T of Fannie, Freddie Debt … No Matter What Barney Frank Says
Mar 08, 2010 by Aaron Task in Investing, Recession, Banking, Housing, Politics.
House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank caused a bit of an uproar Friday when he suggested the U.S. government does not guarantee the debts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Rep. Frank later recanted and backed a Treasury Department statement reassuring investors that, yes, Fannie and Freddie Mae debt is guaranteed by the U.S. government. “Going forward,” he said in a statement, we “will make sure that there are no implicit guarantees, hints, suggestions, or winks and nods…we will be explicit about what is and is not an obligation of the federal government.”
But after years of winks and nods, there’s no doubt that Fannie and Freddie now enjoy an explicit guarantee, according to most observers. The U.S. government placed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in conservatorship in September 2008: “This means that the U.S. Taxpayer now stands behind $5 trillion of GSE debt,” according to the Congressional Research Service.
The problem is that $5 trillion of so-called agency paper is not treated as if it is a debt of Uncle Sam for accounting purposes, says Richard Suttmeier, chief market strategist at Niagara International Capital and ValueEngine.com.
repost from yesterdays B/B.
That said ACT has been acted upon by the Supremes. They have FULLY acknowledged legally the Corporate RIGHTS over and above a single American’s legal rights. It is all there. For example if you or I choose to talk or write against a corporation and they choose to SUE you or me in court they can because it is now illegal to “cause them harm to their profit line”. That is now completely legal according to the Supreme Court. Your rights, my rights to good health or safety do not exist any longer.
You have problem with Corporate Communist Capitalism©®™, comrade?
Hwy’s motto for 2010: “Keep Americans safe…protect CORPORATIONS!”
John Roberts = wrong side of history
In 1857 came the Supreme Court case that destroyed Taney’s historical reputation.
Dred Scott v. Sandford,
The final vote: 5-4
John Roberts = wrong side of history
I certainly hope you’re right, but judging by the way things have gone since the early ’80s, he may be judged a pivotal Corporatist Hero instead.
If 10,000 Corporate CEO “People”… overcome… the “common sense” of 303 million toilet-paper behind wipin’ individuals…thus is America’s DESTINY.
I won’t be here to witness it…thus, I turn-around and leave such musings to those that have FAITH in a different outcome…
Tax move by Brazil risks US trade war ~ FT ~ March 8 2010
James Politi in Washington and Jonathan Wheatley in São Paulo
Brazil moved on Monday to raise tariffs on a wide range of American goods, potentially igniting a trade war with the US over cotton subsidies after eight years of litigation at the World Trade Organisation.
The decision takes effect next month, starting a 30-day period during which US and Brazilian officials will attempt to negotiate a solution to the dispute.
Gary Locke, US commerce secretary, and Michael Froman, deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, are due to arrive in Brazil on Tuesday. The cotton dispute is expected to be raised in meetings with government officials.
Under the Brazilian plan, duties would rise most steeply on cotton products. Many that are currently taxed at between 6 per cent and 35 per cent would be taxed at 100 per cent. The tariffs on beauty products would double, from 18 per cent to 36 per cent. Duties on household goods such as cookers, refrigerators, TVs and video cameras would also double, from 20 per cent to 40 per cent. Duties on cars would rise from 35 per cent to 50 per cent.
Brazil is allowed to impose the tariff increases – worth $560m – after winning a case at the WTO last year. Brazil challenged the legality of direct subsidies to US cotton farmers to protect them against fluctuations in global prices and a loan guarantee programme for international buyers of US cotton.
Brazil could also impose further penalties – known as “cross-retaliation” – on US intellectual property rights, potentially breaking patents in the pharmaceuticals, technology and media industries.
Little know fact: many US farmers emigrated and moved their entire operations to South America and are currently using modern, American farming techniques to improve and increase South America’s farm production.
50% rate will make London the tax capital of the world.
08th March 2010 ~ UK
London will become the most highly taxed financial centre in the world when the new 50 per cent income tax rate for those earning £150,000 or more comes into force next month.
Taxes will be higher than for financial workers living in the other key centres of New York, Paris, Frankfurt, Geneva, Zurich, Dubai and Hong Kong, KPMG calculated.
The findings will raise fears that Labour’s levies are driving businesses and bankers overseas and threatening Britain’s competitiveness.
A general view of Reuters Square, in Canary Wharf
Exodus: There are fears that Labour’s new 50 per cent income tax rate for those earning £150,000 or more, will drive businesses and bankers overseas
Terry Smith, chief executive of broker Tullett Prebon, warned yesterday that increasing taxes on workers and companies would only hinder the economic recovery.
He also accused Labour of ‘criminal negligence’ by racking up a budget deficit in the boom times rather than saving money for a rainy day.
‘The UK economy is an utter disaster on any number of fronts,’ Mr Smith said.
Tullett announced last December that it will help employees move abroad if they want to avoid the top rate of tax, and Mr Smith said workers are already looking at relocating.
The UK tax system, like the American system, allows for deductions.
And if it’s anything like the American system, the rich are paying a smaller percentage of their personal tax compared to everybody else.
Great, they can move and go help support those wacky real estate prices in places like Canada, Australia, or Singapore!
IRS to Track Online Sellers’ Payment Transactions Beginning Next Year
By Barbara Weltman AuctionBytes.com March 07, 2010
Internet sellers who don’t report their sales will no longer be under the radar. Starting next year, any bank or other payment settlement company that processes credit cards, debit cards, and electronic payments such as PayPal will have to issue information returns telling the IRS what merchants receive. The new returns are Form 1099-K, Merchant Card and Third-Party Payments.
Purpose of Reporting
The IRS believes that many online sellers fail to report their transactions. Some don’t report because they mistakenly believe that Internet sales are invisible. Others do so because they are trying to evade taxes.
The IRS has found that using information returns, such as W-2 forms for employees, Form 1099-MISC for independent contractors, and Form 1099-INT for bank interest, goes a long way toward improving the reporting of income. IRS computers can match income reported on these information returns with the income reported on tax returns.
Who’s Subject to Reporting
All merchants who accept payments through credit cards, debit cards, gift cards and PayPal will receive information returns telling them - and the IRS - the gross amount of the merchant card transactions. This will be broken down month by month. While the form uses the word “card,” the IRS has made it clear that this is interpreted broadly to include third-party network transactions (i.e., PayPal).
Exception: Very small merchants won’t be issued information returns. “Small” for this purpose means annual gross sales on merchant cards of no more than $20,000 or 200 or fewer transactions. In other words, reporting is required only if gross amounts for the year exceed $20,000 and there are more than 200 transactions.
Is it legal for the IRS to do this kind of data mining, going through people’s online statements?
Is this going to be shared information with other groups?
Oye.
I don’t see any data mining, or going through people’s online statements. They’re requiring the payment transaction firms to report to the IRS the payments they make to merchants. (And they’re excluding the little guys.) I’m surprised this isn’t already the case.
Cash is king.
I guess that will End all the 99 cent auctions now that Ebay is allowing you to list them for FREE.
Streaming C-Span live now, just heard Obama ask the audience “how many people here would like to give Americans the same health care choices that members of Congress gets?”
I don’t buy into the R vs. D mega-yawn, but I would like to see Congress get the same health care choices that Americans get, now, and for life after leaving office…
Wouldn’t make a difference. They can afford better open market health care than most people in the first place.
A 15% slip in land values causes Napa winery defaults? Serious vintners these were not. They were plain-Jane RE investors/specutators. Funniest part is the vye to sound respectable by blaming it on downturn in high end wine drinking.
Vineyard Defaults Surge as Bargain Wines Hurt Napa By Dan Levy
March 8 (Bloomberg) — In California’s Napa Valley, producer of the most expensive U.S. wines, 2010 may be a vintage year for foreclosures as the industry is squeezed by falling land values and a consumer shift to cheaper brands.
As many as 10 wineries and vineyards in Napa will change hands in distressed sales or foreclosures this year and next, up from none in 2008, according to Silicon Valley Bank. In a bank survey of vintners, 7 percent called their finances “very weak” or “on life support.”
“We have 250 vintner clients saying this downturn is the worst in 20 years,” Bill Stevens, manager of the bank’s wine division in St. Helena, California, said in an interview. “Anybody who was late to the party won’t have staying power.”
Land values in Napa, home to about 400 producers, have fallen 15 percent from the 2007 peak, driven in part by slumping demand for high-end wine, said Robert Nicholson, principal at International Wine Associates, a consulting and financing firm in Healdsburg, California. The decline makes it harder for owners to refinance mortgages, especially if the property is worth less than the loan.”
entire article is on page 1 bloomberg dot com
News Hub: Anger Management Industry Explodes
3/8/2010 5:36:50 PM
Health columnist Melinda Beck discusses increasing anger in today’s society and the rising demand for anger management services. She talks with Simon Constable about new diagnoses and treatments.
News Hub: Investors ‘Don’t Follow the Fad’
3/8/2010 5:08:50 PM
A decade after the dot com bubble burst, MarketWatch’s Dave Callaway and Mark Hulbert dicusses what we’ve learned about markets since then. They say one big lesson for investors is the folly of being in the herd.
The Wall Street Journal
HEALTH JOURNAL
MARCH 9, 2010
When Anger Is An Illness ‘Intermittent Explosive Disorder,’ Or Just a Temper Tantrum?
By MELINDA BECK
Scream at the boss? Snap at a colleague? Throw your cell phone into your @#$%%&* computer monitor? If so, you may find yourself headed to anger-management classes, which have become an all-purpose antidote for fit-throwing celebrities, chair-throwing coaches, vandals, road ragers, delinquent teens, disruptive airline passengers, and obstreperous employees.
Erin Wigger for The Wall Street Journal
Actress Valerie Harper lets her emotions run wild as Tallulah Bankhead in ‘Looped’ on Broadway. Here, Ms. Harper demonstrates smiling but masking anger.
Demand for such programs is coming from courts seeking alternatives to jail sentences and companies hoping to avoid lawsuits and office blowups. Aware that high-pressure jobs can make for hot tempers, some professions offer pre-emptive anger management. A few state bar associations now require “civility” training for lawyers renewing their licenses. And as of last year, hospitals must have programs for “disruptive” physicians as a condition of accreditation.
…