July 29, 2010

Bits Bucket For July 29, 2010

Post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here.




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291 Comments »

Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 05:44:51

Foreclosures boom among nation’s most creditworthy
75% of the largest metro areas posted an increase in foreclosure activity in the first half of 2010. ~ USA TODAY

A record number of borrowers once judged the most creditworthy are heading into foreclosure as the job market leaves more homeowners unable to keep up with mortgage payments.

Foreclosures among borrowers with prime conforming loans have shot up 425% since January 2008, according to Lender Processing Services, which compiles mortgage data. Conforming loans are those eligible for purchase by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the federal agencies that buy mortgages from lenders.

Jumbo prime loans not eligible for purchase by Fannie or Freddie have done even worse — foreclosures on those have increased nearly 600%.

Jumbo loans are typically mortgages worth more than $729,750.

Comment by Bill in Carolina
2010-07-29 08:38:35

Wait, I thought prime was contained!

Comment by sfbubblebuyer
2010-07-29 09:18:28

It’s contained to people that have mortgages.

Don’t worry, those people without mortgages won’t default! Whew! Safe at last.

 
 
Comment by oxide
2010-07-29 10:50:10

Just as Credit Suisse predicted…

Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 14:42:55

I luvs Credit Suisse and especially what’s her name.

Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 14:57:04

Would that be Ivy Zelman? IIRC, she’s no longer with CS.

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Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 16:40:54

Ivy Zelman

If that’s the one who made those very accurate predictions, yes.

 
 
 
 
Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 14:41:45

Damn leebrul MSM lies! It was the leebrul Dems putting a gun to the lenders heads and making them lend to the po’ folks!

Oh wait… these aren’t poor people.

 
 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 05:47:56

California workers stiffed again

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — California’s state workers just can’t catch a break.

For the past year and a half, 200,000 of them have been forced to take three unpaid furlough days a month — losing as much as 14% of their pay.

The furlough order expired July 1, when workweeks and full salaries were restored.

But the reprieve was short: The state’s workers are getting slapped back down.

On Wednesday, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered state agencies to reinstitute “furlough Fridays” starting Aug. 1.

Schwarzenegger’s executive order declared a state of emergency over a $19.1 billion budget shortfall that has left the state without a budget for the fiscal year that began July 1.

The furloughs will continue until a budget is passed and the state’s finance department ensures California that has enough cash on hand for the year.

Comment by NYCityBoy
2010-07-29 05:58:57

Those poor, poor unionized state workers. This is like feeling sorry for real estate agents. I guess they have three less days a month to waddle around and be surly with the citizens of their communities. Of course Arnie exempted so many groups from these furloughs that this doesn’t cover anywhere near 100 percent. The unions will continue to suffocate municipalities until the host has turned blue and died. Hey, who else will think of the children?

Comment by arizonadude
2010-07-29 06:02:43

Theres a tear in my beer and I’m crying over here…………….

 
Comment by Natalie
2010-07-29 06:20:29

I have two friends in the process of renovating their kitchens and bathrooms to in order to sell it and get “top dollar” even though I told them it was a waste of money. I don’t know about you guys, but if I’m looking at homes and I see recently renovated kitchens and baths my first instinct is to cross it off my list as it appears to be owned by some brainless HGTV addict who is looking for a sucker. I really don’t understand the concept of paying more than 100% for the cost of a renovation done to someone else’s taste. True, it would save me time an hassle, so I might be willing to pay up to 70% of the cost for a quality renovation, but no one that does such renovations in order to sell is expecting to get less than 120% back and thus per se unreasonable.

Comment by Natalie
2010-07-29 06:21:52

This ended up in the wrong spot.

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Comment by arizonadude
2010-07-29 06:23:45

Nothing like a little granite and stainless to get excited.

 
Comment by Natalie
2010-07-29 06:48:07

I weep for white appliances. Prejudice is so ugly.

 
Comment by oxide
2010-07-29 07:42:51

I fully agree with the idiocy of having to pay for someone else’s taste. Too often that taste matches whatever is on sale at Home Despot, which means NO taste. I’d rather have an ugly but functional kitchen and re-do it myself.

BTW, I’ve in been a Home Despot’s and Lowe’s lately and business is picking up. More people in the design department, several people at the paint counter. Not a crowd, but much better than it was.

 
Comment by jetson_boy
2010-07-29 07:46:53

I also don’t understand why people spend craploads of money on kitchen rennovations to sell a house. I’m a cheap SOB and when we move to TX to buy a house, I fully intend to buy the cheapest house possible- meaning something like an un-updated 70’s rancher. I can live with a fugly interior.

 
Comment by Lane from s.c.
2010-07-29 07:48:03

I think we are seeing alot of people staying put, updating….making nicer and not moving up the way they have in the past. I have seen it here in my hood. Two houses and added on rooms in the last year.

Lane

 
Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 07:52:29

I think we are seeing alot of people staying put, updating….making nicer and not moving up the way they have in the past. I have seen it here in my hood. Two houses and added on rooms in the last year.

I’ve been working with a local handywoman on exterior repairs and repainting here at the Ranch.

She reports the same thing, and it’s having quite a nice effect on her business. Oh, BTW, she only takes payments by cash or check. Not credit cards.

 
Comment by exeter
2010-07-29 09:23:28

“I also don’t understand why people spend craploads of money on kitchen rennovations to sell a house. I’m a cheap SOB and when we move to TX to buy a house, I fully intend to buy the cheapest house possible- meaning something like an un-updated 70’s rancher. I can live with a fugly interior.”

BINGO

 
Comment by EastBayTom
2010-07-29 10:36:41

I’m a metallurgist by trade and one of the first thing many of our textbooks say is to not be wasteful when specifying materials. The funny part is one of these books (from way before the boom) even specifically mentions stainless steel kitchen appliances as being a waste of resources (chromium, nickel, molybdenum, etc.) People don’t realize these are finite resources for the planet and it’s residents….what a waste……

 
Comment by exeter
2010-07-29 12:06:04

“what a waste…..”

Not to mention a huge misallocation of capital.

 
Comment by Chris M
2010-07-29 12:38:21

Well, stainless appliances may be unnecessary, but they will almost certainly be recycled at the end of their life. Even carbon steel scrap will fetch $0.16/lb these days. And something that gets used for decades and then recycled doesn’t really fit my definition of a “waste of resources”. But it does seem stupid for a seller to try to increase the selling price through upgrades. Just lower the price and let the buyer do the upgrades if they want to.

 
Comment by FB wants a do over
2010-07-29 16:09:28

And something that gets used for decades and then recycled doesn’t really fit my definition of a “waste of resources”.

Are the appliances manufactured today really designed to last decades?

 
Comment by Chris M
2010-07-29 17:15:45

Are the appliances manufactured today really designed to last decades?

Well that’s a good point. Maybe decade. Singular. But if the metal is recycled, it’s not wasted. I don’t know how much plastic is actually recycled, but metal is near 100% recyclable. And since it was a metallurgist who wrote “what a waste”, that’s what I was thinking about. In 500 years, that same chromium could be part of a Futurama style hovercar.

 
 
Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 07:49:44

I’m with you, Natalie. Another red flag for me is the bathroom remodel. Like their kitchen counterparts, bathroom remodels say “brainless HGTV addict!” to me.

OTOH, if I see a house of a certain age with re-wiring, re-plumbing, and new mechanicals, all of which are done by people who know what they’re doing, then I’m impressed.

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Comment by Sean
2010-07-29 08:26:29

100 percent of the renovation? Ummm, no. I will say that sometimes people who do a light design and make a kitchen open and bright - and that does draw my attention. I’d much rather have a newer kitchen vs. some couple who beat the hell out of their house without as much as updating the light switch covers. Usually these types of houses are priced the same as the one with the new kitchen.

My rule of thumb: Look at the plate covers. If they are painted over or painted around that is a glaring sign of people taking a shortcut during a project. If you can’t take the 30 seconds to unscrew the old covers then pay the 70 cents to get a new plate what else did you shortcut?

 
Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 09:23:12

My rule of thumb: Look at the plate covers. If they are painted over or painted around that is a glaring sign of people taking a shortcut during a project. If you can’t take the 30 seconds to unscrew the old covers then pay the 70 cents to get a new plate what else did you shortcut?

Oh, Sean, you are playing my song!

As mentioned before, I’ve been volunteering with a Tucson group called the Green Retrofit Co-op. Low-cost home modifications with the goal of increasing energy efficiency is our game.

Anyhoo, part of our work involves removing plate covers so we can seal air leaks behind them. We’re required to bring utility knives so we can cut the paint away from the edge of the plate without damaging the wall or the paint job. A real PITA of a task, and, alas, one that’s quite common.

 
Comment by Sean
2010-07-29 11:52:05

Yeah, when I bought my house I had the same “putty knife work” your going through. I just bought the oversized ones they sell at Lowes - the ones that are about a 1/2 inch larger than the normal ones. No one can tell the difference and they look fantastic.

Another one that cheeses off the RE Agents are the plugs. Nowadays the code calls for the ground to be up, not the conventional down. (Why I don’t know. My Dad is an electrician and told me this). When an agent says “All electrical has been updated” simply state the new code to them. Their look is priceless.

 
Comment by Jim A.
2010-07-29 12:25:22

It’s so that if you accidentally drop a thin conductor (say a small piece of metal) and if falls into any slight gap between the face of the plug and the face of the outlet it will be more likely to hit the ground pin, not the hot prong.

 
 
Comment by sfbubblebuyer
2010-07-29 09:21:21

Yep. When we were shopping, if I saw a recently renovated ANYTHING, I became suspicious. I know when people renovate for sale, they put in the cheapest crap they can. Particle board cabinets, whatever tile is cheapest/etc.

The house we wound up buying (three years too early, I’m guessing) had a remodeled kitchen alright. It was remodeled in the 70’s. And it looked spotless! The people took good care of it, and lived in the house until they died.

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Comment by mikey
2010-07-29 10:21:50

Well, when these FB and greater fools listened to Suzanne, RE agents, banksters, friends and watched the TV flipper shows, this is what we get.

Millions of Americans under “House Arrest” and trapped in their moneypits.

They mind as well remodel the kitchen to look busy…as they aren’t going anywhere as the banksters try to tightly control the flow of foreclosures and pray for the best.

This is Amerika and they can’t just…”Give MY house away!?!”

I rent and I love it.

:)

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Comment by nycjoe
2010-07-29 07:22:07

I wonder what percentage of them are living in an affordable place, with reasonable expenses and a little left over. If that were my situation, I’d be enjoying the time off. Bet you if you gave most people their salaries and benefits and a 4-day week …

Comment by drumminj
2010-07-29 07:35:31

Bet you if you gave most people their salaries and benefits and a 4-day week …

i’d jump on it in a second!

My girlfriend works for the city gov’t, as I’ve mentioned here before. Most of the people in her office have “flex time” - that is, they work an extra 1/2 hour each day, and then have every other Friday off. I would LOVE that.

Unfortunately, in a salaried job in private industry, it’s simply expected that you work 9 hours/day 5 days a week, with no reciprocal time off.

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Comment by Elanor
2010-07-29 08:32:50

Unfortunately, in a salaried job in private industry, it’s simply expected that you work 9 hours/day 5 days a week, with no reciprocal time off.

Or 10, 11, 12 hours…it is appalling what private industry/publically held companies expect of their employees. Your entire life belongs to them. Loyalty to the overlords is a one-way street, too.

 
Comment by In Colorado
2010-07-29 08:48:13

Or 10, 11, 12 hours…it is appalling what private industry/publically held companies expect of their employees. Your entire life belongs to them. Loyalty to the overlords is a one-way street, too.

Put in a 40 hour week with Corporate America and you are considered a slacker, a lazy bum.

And yes, they consider you to be their property. Never again will I work for them if it can be helped.

 
Comment by neuromance
2010-07-29 18:03:41

Put in a 40 hour week with Corporate America and you are considered a slacker, a lazy bum.

This really depends on the company.

 
 
Comment by m2p
2010-07-29 07:49:01

I know one that has already declared BK. It would have happened with or without the furloughs. Used to run out of money before he ran out of month. A last minute run to the pawn shops would keep his head above water and his stomach filled with ale.

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Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower
2010-07-29 07:43:37

“Those poor, poor unionized state workers.”

I was thinking about that unionization yesterday. Do the state workers have a choice to not join (I doubt it)? And once the union has control, isn’t it pretty much guaranteed that a lack of money will translate into reduced hours of work, since unions tend to block efforts to reduce the pay rate?

 
 
Comment by jetson_boy
2010-07-29 07:40:13

I have 3 friends who all work for the state. All of them make between 40-50k, which in places like the Bay Area might as well be like working at a fast food joint. That kind of money goes nowhere here- I know because I used to make 45k and I barely saved anything. The last time a furlough was enacted this hurt them pretty badly. 3 days a month is like 3/4 of a week off per month.

Say what you want to say, but put yourselves in their shoes. Its not a good thing.

Comment by In Colorado
2010-07-29 07:57:03

Its fun to believe that all state employees make 6 figure salaries. There probably are too many state employees who make six figure salaries, but appararently its not typical.

My wife is a municipal employee. She isn’t unionized and doesn’t have a fat pension waiting for her. She makes $17/hr. She does have furlough days though, however they are still only a handful per quarter.

 
Comment by scdave
2010-07-29 09:37:38

40-50k, which in places like the Bay Area might as well be like working at a fast food joint ??

Fast food equals $7.50 per hour X 40 hours X 52 weeks = $15,600. so your math fuzzy…

With that said, there are a number of problems with the unionized government workers…One is that the pay is inconsistent with the qualifications..My good friend should not be making $65,000. per year for reading water meters which is more than my teacher/daughter who has two advanced degrees…Another is the bloated staffing…Think; four guys standing around a hole in the ground with one shovel…

Comment by In Colorado
2010-07-29 10:33:10

I think he meant that 40K in the Bay Area has the same buying power as a fast food job in flyover country.

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Comment by cobaltblue
2010-07-29 08:58:36

We still have a ways to go:

When Jail Threats Don’t Work: Greek Government Punctuates Case Against Strikers By Firing Tear Gas At Them

Greece is currently paralyzed, literally, due to a wholesale shortage of fuel at gas stations, as drivers of trucks carrying the precious commodity have been striking for several days. As noted previously, the government invoked a war-time mobilization measure forcing the strikers to stop striking or face civil penalties and jail time. Shockingly, this had absolutely no impact ont he angry mob. In order to make its point even more clear, the government accentuated its overturn of labor rights by firing tear gas at protesters, according to the Guardian. And, in an amusing turn of events, the IMF delegation which was rumored to be passing by at just this time to conclude the backroom deal in which US taxpayers would fund a few hundred more billion of failed Greek programs, was subjected to a Greek parliamentary guard wearing the traditional skirty attire, screaming in a bullhorn that the truckers were merely engaged in a modern remixed version of sirtaki and there was absolutely nothing to see there (obviously the guy had just graduated from the CNBC School for People who Want to Fabricate the Truth Good).

On islands, where fuel supplies have totally run out, tourists could be seen abandoning rented cars by the side of the road while yachts remained docked in harbours or drifted out at sea.

The trucker’s strike “is a huge problem for bookings that our country needs, to cover part of the losses that have occurred in recent months,” said Andreas Andreadis who heads the Greek Hotel Federation.

(From Zero Hedge)

Comment by sfbubblebuyer
2010-07-29 09:26:49

They’re looking more and more boned. Time to get the burros out of retirement and get them hauling!

 
 
Comment by X-GSfixr
2010-07-29 10:45:11

“….just can’t catch a break…..”

Boo-hoo-hoo, they’ve got to take three furlough days a month, when the “real world” unemployment rate is 20%.

Dirty Little Secret #1 (from direct observation)……If they have enough seniority, they were already taking three days off a month. The only difference now is that they aren’t getting paid for it. This is why laying off the low seniority people doesn’t save as much money as it does in the private sector.

How it works:

-Low seniority people get laid off, high timers are theoretically supposed to pick up the slack.

-High timers make sure that they take all the vacation/sick/PTO time they are contractually entitled to.

-Things fall behind. High Timers get overtime pay to come in on their “days off”.

Note….not everybody in government does this. There are actually government employees that get the big picture, and suck it up. But I’ve seen it happen more than once.

Comment by In Colorado
2010-07-29 14:55:02

Things fall behind. High Timers get overtime pay to come in on their “days off”.

What is this “overtime pay” you speak of sir? I’ve seen references to it in old movies and such.

 
 
Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 14:46:10

Love the thread drift. :lol:

 
 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 05:55:40

Homes will sell if priced right; foreclosures have impact ~ USA TODAY

Emily Rennie’s three-bedroom house in Oakland was a beauty in a sweet location. Walking distance to the lakeshore. Close to shops. A refurbished patio in the back. Inside, a modern kitchen with granite countertops.

Listed at $539,000 when she put it on the market, the Excelsior Avenue house was missing one crucial thing: The right price. After a few weeks with no offers, she cut the price to $499,000 in May. Then she cut it to $475,000 in June. She is still hoping for an offer.

Rennie is discovering the cold reality of post-housing-bust prices: No matter what she thinks her house is worth, what matters is what buyers are willing to pay. That can be a lot less in areas where the supply of houses for sale is swollen by foreclosures and short sales, often priced 20% to 30% below the ones being sold by financially healthy owners. Nationally, such properties account for a third of all sales three years after a historic chill blew over an overheated housing market.

Comment by NYCityBoy
2010-07-29 06:00:43

Oh my god, it even comes with a refurbished patio. Well, that must add like sixty two trillion dollars worth of value. Where do I sign to make my offer. I will even throw in both of my kidneys and a testicle.

Comment by arizonadude
2010-07-29 06:04:36

Still amazing what some of this junk is selling for.San diego always seems to amze me too.

 
Comment by Curt
2010-07-29 06:26:42

I’ll bet a koi pond would generate a bidding wqr in no time!

 
Comment by Elanor
2010-07-29 08:38:20

And how about those granite countertops!

 
Comment by OK_Land_Lord
2010-07-29 09:07:39

Thats all? LOL good laugh thanks..

 
 
Comment by James
2010-07-29 06:30:44

also about what banks are willing to lend. My experience is there aren’t a lot of non-fha loans without 20pct down in 500k land.

You can go to bankrate and get quotes with low down money.

 
Comment by rms
2010-07-29 07:06:14

“Rennie is discovering the cold reality of post-housing-bust prices: No matter what she thinks her house is worth, what matters is what buyers are willing to pay.”

Betcha Rennie has never had an entrepreneurial experience.

 
Comment by Shelby
2010-07-29 07:47:09

Ah, Real Estate is a cruel teacher

especially the first time around!!

 
Comment by jetson_boy
2010-07-29 07:51:08

Could also be because its in OAKLAND… If its within walking distance to Lakeshore, that could mean it passes through questionably sketchy neighborhoods. Sure- during the nutty bubble days hipsters were buying up homes in the ‘hood for 600k…. but definitely not now…

 
Comment by SDGreg
2010-07-29 11:59:44

“Listed at $539,000 when she put it on the market, the Excelsior Avenue house was missing one crucial thing: The right price. After a few weeks with no offers, she cut the price to $499,000 in May. Then she cut it to $475,000 in June. She is still hoping for an offer.”

With two price cuts so far, if she’s not getting traffic or offers, it’s still overpriced. At least she doesn’t seem to be waiting too long for each price cut and the cuts are by decent amounts. To the extent she can keep doing that, she should eventually get traffic, then offers.

Comment by Kim
2010-07-29 13:55:48

“At least she doesn’t seem to be waiting too long for each price cut and the cuts are by decent amounts. To the extent she can keep doing that, she should eventually get traffic, then offers.”

Agreed. I am still seeing hopeful wanna-be sellers of $500K+ properties lower their prices by $5,000. And everyone wonders why their house has been on the market over two years.

 
 
 
Comment by Kim
2010-07-29 05:59:36

Goldman blocks worker from leading financial crisis walking tours

“Everybody’s favourite Wall Street bank, Goldman Sachs, has suffered a sharp sense of humour failure about a worker in its graphics department leading tourists on credit crunch-themed walks around Manhattan’s financial district.

“He was told that given the nature of the tours he was giving, we’d like him not to do it,” says (Goldman’s chief spokesman) Van Praag. “Being very deprecating about the industry while claiming to be an employee of one of the organisations within it seemed to be inconsistent.”

Goldman apparently took exception to Comerford’s description, which I reported, of subprime mortgage securities as “crap”. Van Praag said: “Here he is, advertising himself as a Goldman employee and talking about producing subprime mortgage securities as ‘crap’.”

linky:
www guardian co uk/business/andrew-clark-on-america/2010/jul/28/goldmansachs-financial-crisis

Comment by combotechie
2010-07-29 06:16:44

“Being very depreciating about the industry by claiming to be an employee of one of the organizations within it seemed to be inconsistent.”

Bye, bye, soon to be inconsistent ex-employee. These large corporations can’t stand any glimmer of Truth shined upon them.

Look to Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert and an ex-and-inconsistent employee of SBC for an example.

Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 07:59:20

And I’m not surprised that the guy works in the graphics department. We’re not known for our ability to toe the corporate line.

Comment by Jim A.
2010-07-29 09:39:28

You mac using, ponytailed, black-jeans wearing art-school graduates. (my closest friend works over in graphics. )

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Comment by NYCityBoy
2010-07-29 09:47:48

You forgot the part about dope smoking.

 
Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 10:25:23

Yours Truly has never used a Mac, keeps a pair of black jeans only if I’m called out for Community Emergency Response Team duty, and my college degree is in economics, not art. As for the pony tail, haven’t had one since I was in grade school.

 
Comment by varelse
2010-07-29 10:32:48

“You forgot the part about dope smoking.”

Don’t they usually test for that nowadays?

 
Comment by aNYCdj
2010-07-29 13:08:51

Varelse:

Sure they test all the dope smoking guys on the loading dock….but forget the coked up VP who steals 1000 times more then the poor slub who got drunk on 25 cent beer night.

 
Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 14:50:51

…or politicians.

 
Comment by kcgirl
2010-07-29 15:50:47

I’ve often thought that the only thing a pre-employment drug test tells you is if the person is smart and disciplined enough to lay off for a few days/weeks, depending upon the recreational substance of choice.

 
 
 
 
Comment by Ol'Bubba
2010-07-29 07:24:07

How dare that Van Praag. He sullies the good name of crap.

 
Comment by sfbubblebuyer
2010-07-29 09:29:52

Are they mad at him for not using the phrase “complete and utter stinking, fetid” in front of the word “crap”?

 
Comment by X-GSfixr
2010-07-29 10:59:28

Can’t wait to read the memo from the Law Department……..

“Dear Fellow Goldman Sachs Associates:

It has been brought to our attention that some associates are using the word “crap” in reference to our line of Mortgage Securitization Products. The use of this terminology must be discontinued immediately, as “crap” suggests that the product is defective or substandard. It also be problematic if used during litigation.

Effective immediately, we suggest that you utilize the phrases “enhanced opportunity” or “slightly less than totally secure” when describing said products.

Thank you for your support with this matter.”

 
Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 14:52:03

So fired.

 
 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 06:15:50

Americans Cut Back on Visits to Doctor. ~WSJ

Insured Americans are using fewer medical services, raising questions about whether patients are consuming less health care as they pick up a greater share of the costs.

The drop in usage is showing up as health-care companies report financial results. Insurers, lab-testing companies, hospitals and doctor-billing concerns say that patient visits, drug prescriptions and procedures were down in the second quarter from year-ago levels.

“People just aren’t using health-care like they have,” said Wayne DeVeydt, WellPoint Inc.’s chief financial officer, in an interview Wednesday. “Utilization is lower than we expected, and it’s unusual.”

Comment by NYCityBoy
2010-07-29 06:19:38

“Utilization is lower than we expected, and it’s unusual.”

This is why nothing should ever be “free”. If it is free it will be abused. Just check out the emergency rooms and the abuses that exist.

Comment by arizonadude
2010-07-29 06:28:48

I avoid the doctors and hospitals like the plague.They have become such revenue generators I feel unsafe.The amount of medical mistakes that occur is astounding.I dont want some med student giving me the wrong pills and ending up a vegetable.

Comment by palmetto
2010-07-29 07:00:49

“I dont want some med student giving me the wrong pills and ending up a vegetable.”

Tell me about it. I refused to take some meds one time that, had I taken them, would probably have induced a stroke when combined with another med I was already taking. Lucky for me. A lady I know wasn’t so lucky, she took the sinus meds and had a mild stroke as a result.

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Comment by Bill in Carolina
2010-07-29 07:12:48

If the med student gives you the wrong pills he SHOULD end up a vegetable. :-)

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Comment by Elanor
2010-07-29 08:40:39

Thanks for saying it, Bill. :D

 
 
Comment by edgewaterjohn
2010-07-29 07:17:19

That’s understandable to me. This society is over-medicated in a huge way.

This past week they ran yet another story about the life expectancy leaders - Japanese women. That’s hardly a mystery to me - go to Japan and you’ll see active seniors. The walk and hike everywhere, they’re on bikes, they’re sweeping the front stoop - everywhere you see this, they are out an about like nobody’s business.

Back over here our hucksters immediately try to commodify that energy…it must be their diet - or some herbal remedy - something we can sell! No, it’s just being active and balanced FOR LIFE, and that no huckster can sell.

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Comment by aNYCdj
2010-07-29 07:56:55

Edge:

Bigggg Difference in America…we have Land lots of it…so most places you have to drive. little to no mass transit and lots of narrow winding 2 lane roads so biking is a scary proposition.

That’s hardly a mystery to me - go to Japan and you’ll see active seniors.

 
Comment by edgewaterjohn
2010-07-29 08:12:02

I’ll entertain a lot of excuses dj - but too much land is not one them. It’s a mindset, one is either active or they are not.

For ex: My current gf pays big bucks to join a gym and get a personal trainer, yet at home she has a cleaning service. Her commute is three miles is perfect biking conditions, yet she drives and pays for parking at both ends!

Yeah, it irritates me but I don’t pay for any of it and she is giving me something I need right now. So, I grin and bare it. Life is a series of sacrifices, ya know?

 
Comment by sleepless_near_seattle
2010-07-29 12:43:28

I agree with edge.

Also saw this when i was in Italy. I realize they’re not all pasta-eating sloths there, but I was surprised how fit most people seemed. Lots of walking and biking going on.

Seems most people don’t want to see nutrition and fitness as an everyday affair, as a lifestyle. Think they can “diet” for a month and that will solve their problems. Cardio, cardio, more cardio (regardless of how you get it), and stop eating fried foods is my pet response to friends saying they “need to go on a diet.”

 
Comment by sleepless_near_seattle
2010-07-29 12:44:53

Oh yeah, and turn off the TV.

 
Comment by MrBubble
2010-07-29 13:04:48

“so most places you have to drive”

Your argument/excuse is like… What word did that Gollum guide use when describing MBS again? Oh yeah: crap.

Biking 25 miles to band practice this afternoon. Much of the ride is safe. Some is hairy. But with a bike and some 30 lbs dumbbells:

Gym membership: $0
Gas Money: $0
Money for ferry: $0
Car payment: $0
Car Insurance: $0
CO2 pollution: minimal
Oil war deaths: minimal
Noise pollution: 10 dB?
Accidents/Deaths Caused: 0

Pounds dropped: 15
Inability to lose any more: totally irritating

I quit the drinking, but I’m getting most of my fruit (from the trees that I pick for the under-served including myself) in the form of homemade pies…

Mmmm… homemade pies.

MrBubble

Nice spiced plum pie recipe on epicurious.com for those that have a surfeit. I’m thinking that if I can just get everybody else fatter…

 
Comment by aNYCdj
2010-07-29 13:21:20

Remember I am in NYC so i have to do lots of walking…and yes i have a car too..

But now I would be scared to bike ride…worst I have even seen here

The roads are rutted, broken, pot holes, i’d be afraid of winding up in the hospital….not seeing an open manhole i almost drove into 2 hours ago…in Brooklyn…yes right there in the middle of the street no manhole cover.

=======================================
I’ll entertain a lot of excuses dj - but too much land is not one them. It’s a mindset, one is either active or they are not.

 
 
Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 07:56:00

Hey, AZ dude, where are you? (I’m in Tucson.)

And I agree with you on the avoiding of doctors and hospitals. It’s how I was raised. Boy, am I grateful to Mom and Dad for that, because in one town that we lived in, there was a clinic that gave out prescriptions to kids like they were candy.

Us? We went to an odd duck of a doctor who thought that most prescription drugs were overkill for little children. So, I grew up hardly knowing what a drug was.

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Comment by arizonadude
2010-07-29 08:18:53

I’m stuck in sacramento right now.I was living in gilbert for awhile.I miss arizona but get to visit often.Looking forward to the day I can get back for an extended period.

It’s time for americans to man up.

 
 
 
Comment by mikey
2010-07-29 10:48:36

A comprehensive annual physical with a clean bill of health and a dental with no cavities and a cleaning are major Blessings.

I worked in the medical field and unless I fall of my roof, I get squished by a big bus or I get mangled in the great Housing Bubble Trainwreck, I DON’T want to see another doctor or the insides of his damned hospital.

Stay healthy and …keep away from them.

(my bill is in the mail)

:)

Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 10:53:14

Or, as a good friend used to tell me when I lived in Pittsburgh, “Keep your body out of the junkyard.”

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Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 14:53:58

People go to the emergency room because they can’t afford to go to the doctor when they first get sick.

 
Comment by potential buyer
2010-07-29 15:03:20

You have to be kidding me! Have you ever sat in a county hospital waiting room? I have. Not pleasant. You are there for hours and hours. No-one in their right mind would choose to do that.

And let me tell you about my son’s friends who went in after falling into a fire. Servere burned arm. Sat there for 13 hours. Finally left and went to a non-county hospital, who had to treat him because he went to the emergency.

 
 
Comment by combotechie
2010-07-29 06:24:03

Oh the pain!

No surprise here: If it hurts bad enough then people will go to the doctor. But the physical pain needs to outweigh the financial pain. When money is really tight - as it is now - then the physical pain REALLY needs to be severe if scarce fiats are to be pried away from poor smucks who don’t have many of the worthless unbacked thingys.

Comment by combotechie
2010-07-29 06:29:02

And what about preventative doctor visits, such as annual physical check-ups?

Again, if the pain is there and it hurts enough then the doctor gets a visit. But if there is no pain then the doctor doesn’t get a visit. That means appointments for physicals get put off.

Comment by NYCityBoy
2010-07-29 06:37:20

The last time somebody told me to, “turn your head and cough” it cost me nearly six hundred dollars. How was I to know she wasn’t even a doctor? Since then I’ve been leery of those yearly “check-ups”.

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Comment by mikey
2010-07-29 11:09:10

“Oh my god, it even comes with a refurbished patio. Well, that must add like sixty two trillion dollars worth of value. Where do I sign to make my offer. I will even throw in both of my kidneys and a testicle”

Sheesh NYCityBoy, the way you are so willing to throw your body parts around, you’re still lucky to be able to “turn your head and cough.”

Six hundred bucks and…

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Alive! It’s alive! It’s alive!

You got a deal NYCityBoy !

:)

 
 
Comment by Rancher
2010-07-29 07:31:40

Yearly checkups? I have a friend who didn’t for
years, a big, strong, fit fellow. He passed out
in the shower and the paramedics took him in.
Turns out he has type 2 diabetes and prostate
cancer and is now facing two years of extensive
treatments. Stupid is as stupid does. He now
realizes that your life is worth a lot of money.

I have a physical every year and charge
it off to preventive medicine.

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Comment by In Colorado
2010-07-29 08:43:55

Thanks to those useless “checkups” they found polyps in my colon (of the bad kind).

I’ve mentioned this before: I know someone who had chest pains and didn’t go to the ER. Fortunately for him, he didn’t roll snake eyes.

 
Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 15:00:49

Checkups cost money. Most people who don’t get checkups are the ones who can’t afford them.

But let’s say you can afford a checkup. Can you afford the results? And how do you even know if the results are correct without yet a 2nd opinion… that costs more money.

So in the end, it’s back to the emergency room.

I can’t afford a checkup or regular doctor visits or a dentist and trust me, it’s scary. But I have. No. Choice.

 
 
 
 
Comment by edgewaterjohn
2010-07-29 07:06:55

Yeah, and the ones cutting back are probably those that are still employed and productive - putting their productivity at risk.

Meanwhile, at the clinic I pass each and every day it’s fatties and their babies cramed wall to wall.

Comment by NYCityBoy
2010-07-29 08:01:58

Meanwhile, at the clinic I pass each and every day it’s fatties and their babies cramed wall to wall.

And I bet these land whales don’t pay a dime out of their own pocket. And check out what they drive.

 
 
Comment by measton
2010-07-29 07:42:41

The problem of course is you may get people not gettin gmedical care when a disease is early and treatable. I’m all for rationing as a lot of treatments provide marginal or no proven benefit, but this type of rationing may not save money in the long run and almost certainly won’t make the us healthier.

Comment by measton
2010-07-29 07:46:41

As an example
My father in law is currently suffering from what is most likely a kidney stone. He refuses to get it evaluated as he has high deductible insurance. It’s certainly possible that a stone could obstruct his kidney or get infected or not pass for a long long time. It’s also possible that he has some form of cancer. A simple xray would have an excelent chance of confirming the diagnosis and evaluating how severe the problem is. We’re going with the watch and wait approach.

Comment by NYCityBoy
2010-07-29 07:56:50

And how much of that is due to the fact that Americans have convinced themselves that they shouldn’t have to pay a nickel for their own medical care? They can spend money like crazy on everything they don’t need but when it comes to medical they think it should all be F-R-E-E.

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Comment by edgewaterjohn
2010-07-29 08:04:15

I guess that’s evdience that “privatizing the gains and socializing the loses” is one thing that has indeed trickled down from the elites to J6P?

 
Comment by Housing Wizard
2010-07-29 09:39:20

I don’t think that Americans are not paying for health costs . The average family of 4 pays about 15k a year or more for a somewhat good policy.This is exactly what the Health Insurance Companies want, people paying a lot of money for health care but not using it . Further, the new policies they offer are horrible that have a high deductible that don’t cover anything . The people that do pay are not getting value for the dollar IMHO .
Like the financial sectors ,Insurance Companies
have become greed base industries that don’t want to give you value for the dollar . There are so many areas that people are not getting value for the dollar anymore . To add insult to injury the middle class is suppose to take pay cuts and be happy to pay these monsters of greed . Its all about monopolies and contrived markets and bought off
politicians . There was a time in America where the balance was a lot better between Industry and the worker and the cost of living . I blame a lot of this on Globalism that allowed for Industry to have it’s cake and eat it to .

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2010-07-29 09:41:45

And how much of that is due to the fact that Americans have convinced themselves that they shouldn’t have to pay a nickel for their own medical care?

I’m not sure what your point was but it reminded me of all the talk of the “free” health care people.

“Free”? This is an odd propaganda talking point often parroted by good people who have been misled by powerful interests with an agenda.

Who thinks health-care should be “free”? Who? The majority who get it from their employers? Those who think it should be single-payer and paid for by taxes? Medicare recipients? How can people think a substantial number of people wanting reform could possible think health care would be “free”? It makes no sense but it sounds good on radio.

Our taxes pay for the military. Do we think the military is “free”. “Free military for everyone?” Do we think we should start more wars because tanks and guns are “free”?

Let’s do some research and compare the US system with countries like Canada, England and France where the health care is “free”.

Do French, English and Canadian people have more unnecessary procedures done because health care is “free” compared to the USA where our system is not “free” but based on profit?

The facts would prove otherwise and shoot down the disdainful propaganda talking point of “free” health-care being abused because it is “free”.

 
Comment by measton
2010-07-29 09:45:36

Well I’ll throw in that he made some bad real estate investments against my advice and is hurting financially. That being said, I agree that no one wants to part with money for any reason. If you want a health care system that is cost effective should rationing be made by

1. People who don’t have any medical training and are faced with big financial pain vs death for making the wrong decision.
2. Insurance industry with real profit motive for denying care, legitimate or not.
3. Gov who must be responsible to the tax payers and the people, and has to get elected.

I vote for #3 as bad as it is. Socialized medicine is cheaper (Costs half as much with similar overall outcomes). It will make our businesses more competetive. It doesn’t prevent those with money and those with private insurance from getting additional care. Take this new prostate cancer vaccine that costs $120k for a 2 mo benefit. I’d say the socialized system shouldn’t pay for it but if you have the money or private insurance then go for it. The socialized system would only pay for treatments with good cost benefit ratios and research on treatments that might be cheaper than the standard. Currently the vast majority of research dollars goes for evaluating new drugs and the studies are designed to maximize the benefit to the drug maker who is financing them.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2010-07-29 10:31:28

I vote for #3 as bad as it is. Socialized medicine is cheaper (Costs half as much with similar overall outcomes). It will make our businesses more competetive. It doesn’t prevent those with money and those with private insurance from getting additional care. Take this new prostate cancer vaccine that costs $120k for a 2 mo benefit. I’d say the socialized system shouldn’t pay for it but if you have the money or private insurance then go for it. The socialized system would only pay for treatments with good cost benefit ratios and research on treatments that might be cheaper than the standard. Currently the vast majority of research dollars goes for evaluating new drugs and the studies are designed to maximize the benefit to the drug maker who is financing them.

Great points!

On the other hand if we get that it will all be free and stuff and freedom aint free in capitalism when we got producers being punished for not being lazy with no one wanting to work because of regulations that stifle monopolies that is what America is all about.

 
Comment by aNYCdj
2010-07-29 16:30:34

Whoo Hoo the end of Free breast reductions…95% are unnecessary…this would be a Very Very good thing.

The socialized system would only pay for treatments with good cost benefit ratios

 
Comment by Rancher
2010-07-29 17:33:14
 
 
Comment by X-GSfixr
2010-07-29 11:08:36

“….simple x-ray…..”

Man, are you behind the times. They don’t x-ray sheet anymore. CT-Scans across the board now. At $3000 bucks a pop.

Gotta find a way to pay for the equipment somehow……..

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Comment by mikey
2010-07-29 12:27:28

Be it automobiles or the human body…good preventive maintenance is the key to the longevity game.

Fantastic story of one really cool 91 yr old lady that has driven her 1964 Comet 557,000 mile. Orgional owner an she’s had it up to 120 mph. Has all he work records.

She also packs heat.

:)

http://tinyurl.com/39udgud

 
Comment by In Colorado
2010-07-29 14:51:52

Actually I had a good old fashioned X Rays when my knee was hurting,

 
 
Comment by Bill near tampa
2010-07-29 23:30:06

I’ve had 5 kidney stone episodes over 30 years.

Two passed, and three required a minor operation to clear
them. Yes, this can be life threatening, but the pain or discomfort will eventually get so bad that he could act in time to fix the problem. It’s not usually urgent like a heart attack or stroke. Of course cancer is something else.

You don’t need X rays to detect them. In fact they’re aften hard to see on X rays.

Just go to a walk-in clinic and they take a urine sample and look for blood. This shouldn’t cost very much.

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Comment by varelse
2010-07-29 10:51:41

The problem with healthcare in America is not the lack of availability, it is the lack of affordability. So far none of the options offered by the government address the high costs…..the government just seeks to ensure availability, which we already have.

Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 10:59:28

Bingo. And, sorry to say, the high cost isn’t just due to the procedures and the expertise.

I’ve regaled everyone with tales of how my crackerjack, reasonably priced dentist got the cosmetic procedures bug. After all, you can charge a mint for that stuff. And, better yet, no fighting with insurance companies.

Being afflicted with the cosmetic bug meant that her perfectly adequate office had to be remodeled into something that looked like it came right out of Architectural Digest. And then she had to get a makeover. All for that upscale demographic she hoped to attract.

You can pretty well imagine the effect on her fees. In a decade with relatively low inflation, they just about doubled. And good ole Slim, who just needed an exam and a cleaning, was priced out.

I can’t help thinking that I wasn’t the only one.

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Comment by In Colorado
2010-07-29 15:03:10

Our dentist did the same thing. We had to fire him.

 
Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 15:06:43

You and millions of others. And that’s not hyperbole.

 
 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2010-07-29 11:05:46

the government just seeks to ensure availability, which we already have.

Available? We? All citizens?

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Comment by In Colorado
2010-07-29 08:38:29

The dovetails into what I have been seeing. 5 years ago I sometimes couldn’t get in to see my GP for 2-3 weeks. Today? Same day service or at most a 2-3 day wait.

 
Comment by sfbubblebuyer
2010-07-29 09:31:55

Anecdotal evidence from my company : yes. Fewer tests being ordered, even as market penetration is increasing. We got a larger share of a smaller market. And believe me, it’s not the condition we test that is shrinking… it’s the people who can afford testing to help diagnose it.

Comment by In Colorado
2010-07-29 09:44:13

I had a colonoscopy last year. I wonder how many people out there need one but won’t get it done because of cost? IIRC the “rack” price is close to $5000.

Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2010-07-29 10:19:05

Average cost of Mastectomy in USA 2001: $26,000
source: pubmed.gov

Mastectomy in 1st class Brazil Hospital 2009: $8,500
source: A friend of mine

Yea Buddy We’re number 1…

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Comment by awaiting wipeout
2010-07-29 18:13:09

Planet Hospital does medical tourism and they track the results from patients, and screen the providers (many U.S. trained Drs.). They are in Calabasas (So Ca) and have a website. People I know who have used them are elated. So America, India, and other countries.

 
 
Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 10:27:59

In Colorado, I’m one of those people. Not just because of the cost, but also because of the risk of perforation.

And recall that a few months ago, President Obama had a virtual colonoscopy as part of his checkup. Something tells me that those cost a good bit less than $5k. And come with no perforation risk.

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Comment by measton
2010-07-29 11:04:20

My dad got one and didn’t think it was much better than a standard colonoscope, plus a lot of people who get a virtual then have to get a standard colonoscope.

 
 
Comment by X-GSfixr
2010-07-29 11:11:20

My colon checked out fine a couple of years ago, back in the good old days when I had insurance.

No need to thank me for sharing……… :)

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Comment by potential buyer
2010-07-29 16:17:08

Had one 3 months ago. Intercepted a ‘look’ between 2 nurses when I said I wouldn’t necessarily be coming back in 3 years at $100 a pop.

Their look led me to suspect that Kaiser was mailing out notices for the procedure to all and sundry. At a $100 per patient, it was probably worth it for them since their equipment was likely paid for.

My suspicions weren’t just a ‘feeling’. Many people I had spoken to said they received a notice to make an appointment.

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Comment by awaiting wipeout
2010-07-29 18:21:20

potential buyer
Kaiser is costing us (2 adults) $16K a year. A $100 co-pay is absurd. Our individual policy has a $10 co-pay for procedures, and office visits are a $25 co-pay.

When I see the illegals getting treated better than us (they get Kaiser free in Ca), I feel like blowing a head gasket.

 
 
 
 
 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 06:17:28

Jobless Claims in U.S. Declined by 11,000 to 457,000

July 29 (Bloomberg) — The number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment insurance fell 11,000 last week to 457,000, a figure that signals the labor market will be slow to improve even as the economy grows.

The number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment insurance fell to 457,000 last week, a figure that signals the labor market will be slow to improve even as the economy grows.

Initial jobless claims dropped by 11,000 in the week ended July 24 from a revised 468,000, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. First-time applications last week were in line with the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey. The number of people receiving unemployment benefits rose, while those getting extended payments declined.

Comment by edgewaterjohn
2010-07-29 07:20:01

Wait for next week’s revision. Maybe it wasn’t even that much of a drop.

Comment by drumminj
2010-07-29 07:41:30

exactly. if you apply the same revision as the previous week, then the numbers are exactly the same….

why do they even report the non-revised numbers?

Comment by sfbubblebuyer
2010-07-29 09:36:54

They should be talking about the number of people being hired vs. being fired. That’s the key metric.

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Comment by In Colorado
2010-07-29 09:39:05

For the same reason married guys tell their girlfriends that they’re going to divorce the old lady any day now?

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Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 15:09:20

Wait for next week’s revision. Maybe it wasn’t even that much of a drop.

HA! Right?!

 
 
 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 06:18:57

Mortgage-Bond Spreads Surpass Lows Reached During Federal Reserve Buying

Yields on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage securities that guide U.S. home-loan rates reached record lows relative to 10-year Treasuries as investors search for higher returns amid limited refinancing by borrowers.

Fannie Mae’s current-coupon 30-year fixed-rate mortgage bonds narrowed 0.02 percentage point to about 0.58 percentage point more than 10-year Treasuries as of 1:45 p.m. in New York, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The gap reached 0.59 percentage point on March 29, two days before the Federal Reserve ended its buying of $1.25 trillion of so-called agency mortgage bonds. The spread matched that low two weeks ago.

Comment by packman
2010-07-29 09:32:00

Incredible.

This spread should have skyrocketed when the Fed ended its MBS purchase program. I’m wondering why it didn’t. Perhaps the now-ubiquitous FHA backing?

Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower
2010-07-29 19:23:41

Aren’t those mortgages all federally guaranteed? So long as rates are super low with little expectation they will increase soon and no room to go down, they are as safe as Treasurys, but pay a higher yield than Treasury debt at a similar duration. There is little refinancing risk on mortgages with little room between their rates and zero. Tightening underwriting standards decrease the risk a loan will be canceled early due to default. What’s the average duration on a mortgage, seven years or so?

 
 
 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 06:29:47

New York City Risks Larger Deficits Than Mayor Forecast, DiNapoli Says

New York City’s budget for the current fiscal year is balanced, though deficits may be worse than the mayor predicted, said New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

In his annual review of the city budget, DiNapoli said today shortfalls may be as large as $5.1 billion next year, rising to $6.8 billion in 2014. The $63.8 billion budget Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the City Council approved for fiscal 2011, which began July 1, forecast potential gaps of $3.3 billion in 2012 and $4.8 billion in 2014.

While revenue will probably increase by $250 million, New York’s spending plan may have a $726 million deficit this year because of the unexpected $626 million cost of a new teachers’ contract and the loss of $279 million in Medicaid subsidies the U.S. Congress may not approve, DiNapoli said.

Comment by NYCityBoy
2010-07-29 06:39:41

unexpected $626 million cost of a new teachers’ contract

At the center of every shortfall are the public unions. Shocking!

Comment by measton
2010-07-29 07:49:00

I’d also say at the center of every shortfall are the elites in NY paying a lower effective tax rate than the middle class proles. Everyones a pig when it comes to money.

Comment by NYCityBoy
2010-07-29 07:54:43

I will agree with that. But around here you have powerful unions that have a stranglehold on local government AND they provide subpar service.

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Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 15:13:43

Only in NY or CA and Detroit and Chicago. The unions really aren’t that strong outside of those 2 regions.

Please try and remember, those of you living on the coasts, that you are not the center of the nation and things are a leetle bit different for the rest of us.

 
 
Comment by aNYCdj
2010-07-29 16:39:28

Take it from me who nearly ran into an open manhole this afternoon in Brooklyn… the money is not going to repairing streets…

I dare anyone to drive on the 59th st bridge the ruts broken asphalt, on the queens side and the potholes on the Manhattan side…this has been going on for months…

Comment by Mugsy
2010-07-29 21:55:02

Years my friend, years!

Comment by aNYCdj
2010-07-30 04:22:46

true…but they usually try and patch it up every few months but not this time….where did that Trillion dollar shovel ready jobs money go….

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Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 06:43:41

The Year America Dissolved
The Year America Dissolved ~ Paul Craig Roberts ~ July 28, 2010
It was 2017. Clans were governing America.

The first clans organized around local police forces. The conservatives’ war on crime during the late 20th century and the Bush/Obama war on terror during the first decade of the 21st century had resulted in the police becoming militarized and unaccountable.

As society broke down, the police became warlords. The state police broke apart, and the officers were subsumed into the local forces of their communities. The newly formed tribes expanded to encompass the relatives and friends of the police.

The dollar had collapsed as world reserve currency in 2012 when the worsening economic depression made it clear to Washington’s creditors that the federal budget deficit was too large to be financed except by the printing of money.

With the dollar’s demise, import prices skyrocketed. As Americans were unable to afford foreign-made goods, the transnational corporations that were producing offshore for US markets were bankrupted, further eroding the government’s revenue base.

http://www.infowars.com/the-year-america-dissolved/

Comment by X-GSfixr
2010-07-29 11:13:44

So your saying I need to open a donut shop?

Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 15:16:09

Naw. A taco wagon. Mobility is survival.

 
 
 
Comment by Mike in Miami
2010-07-29 06:46:50

Who needs the American consumer/worker?
Profits this earning season seem just fine. US corporations are making record profits without the input of the American consumer. They shifted production and sales overseas. GM is selling more cars in China than in the US. Why hire expensive US workers when you can get 10 workers in China for the same price? Is this sustainable? How will our Nanny state do if around 20+% of the workforce are permanently un(der)empolyed? how about pension promises, medicare, etc.? How about the federal budget as income tax dries up? Questions, questions,…

Comment by WT Economist
2010-07-29 07:42:20

Having the rest of the world generate the demand is the only way out for the U.S.

Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 07:58:09

Yeah, but there’s no guarantee that they’ll want to buy what we make. After all, the United States isn’t the most beloved country on the planet.

Comment by oxide
2010-07-29 08:19:58

They like American-made weapons.

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Comment by X-GSfixr
2010-07-29 11:16:45

That’s my idea. We GTFOODodge everywhere, and sell weapons to all comers in the ensuing power vacuum.

 
 
 
 
Comment by In Colorado
2010-07-29 07:59:50

Wait for the sovereign debt bombs to explode overseas. Then we’ll see how robust those underpaid foreign consumers are.

 
Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 15:20:23

We are still THE largest market in the world. But without consumers, it will not last and neither the Chinese or the Indians will catch up in time to fill the gap, which IS what the transnationals are betting on.

 
 
Comment by Brett
2010-07-29 06:56:11

WHAT JUDGE BOLTON blocked - and THE REASONS SHE GAVE

Requiring police officers to attempt to check the immigration status of those they have stopped if there is reason to suspect they are in the U.S. illegally.
Why: “Legal residents will certainly be swept up by this requirement,” and “their liberty will be restricted while their status is checked.”
Forbidding police to release anyone they have arrested until that person’s immigration status is determined.
Why: In Tucson alone, nearly 37,000 people per year who are “arrested” by police are cited and released at the scene. Checking all of them is “likely to burden Immigration and Customs Enforcement” and divert resources from other federal responsibilities.
Making it a violation of Arizona law for anyone who is not a citizen to fail to carry documentation.
Why: The provision “imposes an unacceptable burden on lawfully present aliens. … The federal government has long rejected a system by which aliens’ papers are routinely demanded and checked.”
Creating a new state crime for trying to secure work while not a legal resident.
Why: It “conflicts with a comprehensive federal scheme” that does not penalize people who look for work.
Allowing police to make warrantless arrests when there is a belief that the people have committed offenses that allow them to be removed from the United States.
Why: The laws determining if an immigrant can be deported are complex. “There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens.”p

Comment by FB wants a do over
2010-07-29 09:28:08

Arizona already has a law that prevents businesses from hiring Illegals.

So, with the new laws in place let’s say a person is stopped, asked where they’re from, where they work, etc. If they’re found to be here illegally, then the next stop is the employer.

I like it.

Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 10:29:45

Arizona already has a law that prevents businesses from hiring Illegals.

Unfortunately, it’s not being enforced the way it needs to be.

 
 
Comment by palmetto
2010-07-29 09:43:37

And I’ve been calling my useless and depraved members of Congress to let them know I do not support any further funding for the military action in Afghanistan. Why? A country that can’t secure its borders can’t do squat in Afghanistan, or anywhere else, for that matter. So why are service men and women being maimed and killed? To defend what? So a mosque can be erected near the 9/11 site? So things are safe for Obama to be on The View?

I can’t tell you how deep my contempt runs for the fedgov.

If you are a member of the military, or have children or relatives in the military, ask yourself why we are wasting lives and treasure abroad. There is no country to defend anymore. If you’re a parent, don’t send your children to make things safe for a depraved Washington and their corporate clients.

Comment by palmetto
2010-07-29 10:05:12

BTW, Obama just effed himself with this decision. He may have won a battle against one of the United States, but he’s lost the war with this one, and lost it for his party as well. Pyhrric (sp?) victory.

Comment by NYCityBoy
2010-07-29 10:09:51

The President of the United States going on The View? Good lord. What a pathetic statement that is.

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Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 10:32:12

I can remember when presidential candidate Richard Nixon appeared on Rowan and Martin’s “Laugh In.”

Talk about pathetic. Guy couldn’t even put some punch into “Sock it to me!”

 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 10:34:13

President Obama calls African-Americans a ‘mongrel people’

NEW YORK — President Obama waded into the national race debate in an unlikely setting and with an unusual choice of words: telling daytime talk show hosts that African-Americans are “sort of a mongrel people.”

The president appeared on ABC’s morning talk show “The View” Thursday, where he talked about the forced resignation of Agriculture Department official Shirley Sherrod, his experience with race and his roots.

When asked about his background, which includes a black father and white mother, Obama said of African-Americans: “We are sort of a mongrel people.”

 
Comment by In Colorado
2010-07-29 10:40:43

When asked about his background, which includes a black father and white mother, Obama said of African-Americans: “We are sort of a mongrel people.”

Isn’t that true of most Americans? It seems that everyone I meet is: 20% Irish, Italian, German, Polish, English with a smattering of Cherokee thrown in.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2010-07-29 10:47:21

with a smattering of Cherokee thrown in.

lol, it’s always Cherokee

 
Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 10:52:11

When asked about his background, which includes a black father and white mother, Obama said of African-Americans: “We are sort of a mongrel people.”

At the risk of wading into a not-so-nice place, I’m going to agree with him.

Why? Because there was a lot of, shall we say, mixing between white owners and their black slaves. Quite often, it wasn’t consensual, but that’s how things were back then.

The end result is that you seldom see black Americans with complexions as dark as black Africans.

 
Comment by X-GSfixr
2010-07-29 11:20:36

“….always Cherokee”

I’m thinking of changing my name to “Tonto Horowitz”

(and now we find out how many on the blog have heard the joke…. :) )

 
Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 15:38:28

Classic. :lol:

 
 
Comment by hip in zilker
2010-07-29 12:04:06

Pyrrhic

:-)

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Comment by In Colorado
2010-07-29 10:38:28

If you’re a parent, don’t send your children to make things safe for a depraved Washington and their corporate clients.

I’ve had the pleasure of answering the phone just to have a Sgt. Recruiter ask to speak to my high school age kid (graduating senior). I always tell them to take a hike. They are really pushy and won’t take no for answer. After a while they give up and stop calling, that is until the next kid is old enough.

Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 11:01:41

That’s interesting, because when I was in high school, I had a conversation or two with a very nice Army recruiter. No pressure at all. Mom was dead-set against my joining the Army — this was right after Vietnam, after all — so those calls from the very nice lady didn’t get anywhere.

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Comment by In Colorado
2010-07-29 14:36:13

Well, if we areally are going to invade Iran we will need more boots on the ground.

FWIW, the local paper reported that 30% of graduating seniors at the local HS joined the military.

That’s right. 30%.

 
Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 15:40:49

With UE highest among blacks and teenagers, what are their choices?

 
Comment by aNYCdj
2010-07-29 17:46:47

eco:

That’s why no one protests these wars….we have plenty of willing volunteers to get shot at.

 
 
 
Comment by rms
2010-07-29 20:13:57

“If you are a member of the military, or have children or relatives in the military, ask yourself why we are wasting lives and treasure abroad. There is no country to defend anymore.”

If Afghanistan didn’t rest along Iran’s eastern border we wouldn’t be there. Iraq rests along Iran’s western border, and that’s why we are there too. In all of the middle east there is no issue of greater urgency and worry for Israel than Iran’s ascent to nuclear power. The average American’s problem of unemployment and feeding their families are not relevant in the large scheme of things.

Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2010-07-29 21:34:05

If Afghanistan didn’t rest along Iran’s eastern border we wouldn’t be there. Iraq rests along Iran’s western border, and that’s why we are there too. In all of the middle east there is no issue of greater urgency and worry for Israel than Iran’s ascent to nuclear power.

The average American’s problem of unemployment and feeding their families are not relevant in the large scheme of things.

Yes it is relevant. Totally relevant. But your point is relevant too.

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Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 15:21:54

Checking all of them is “likely to burden Immigration and Customs Enforcement”

There’s your REAL answer right there.

 
 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 07:08:11

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Still Too Big to Nail:
Bloomberg Opinion ~ Jonathan Weil

The White House says it’s finally ready to consider new ideas for what to do about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Still absent from the government’s agenda is any serious effort to hold anyone accountable for their ruin or investigate why they collapsed.

Back in December 2003, after Freddie disclosed what in retrospect was a relatively mild accounting scandal, its regulator published an exhaustive 185-page report cataloguing the company’s financial-reporting abuses. In May 2006, the same regulator disclosed similar findings about Fannie’s books in a report covering 348 pages.

Strangely, there’s no similar examination under way today by the Federal Housing Finance Agency into the reasons why Fannie and Freddie imploded in 2008, or whether anyone at the companies did anything improper. That’s probably because the agency and its predecessor, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, bear responsibility for letting the companies resume their natural tendency to run amok.

Other probes seem to be going nowhere. The federal panel charged with investigating the companies’ demise, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, is overloaded with other assignments and running out of money.

Comment by jeff saturday
2010-07-29 08:10:38

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

The financial overhaul signed by President Barack Obama didn’t address their future. The Obama administration has said it wants to wait until next year to determine their future.

So far stabilizing the pair of mortgage buyers has cost taxpayers $145 billion.

They own or guarantee about half of all U.S. mortgages, or nearly 31 million home loans worth more than $5 trillion.

Comment by jeff saturday
2010-07-29 08:31:53

The loans are worth $5 trillion. I wonder what the houses the loans were made on are worth?

Comment by NYCityBoy
2010-07-29 08:45:56

Less.

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Comment by jeff saturday
2010-07-29 09:01:28

Less, what a word. Even more powerful when it follows other words like….

home
gut
spine
brain
use
bottom
tooth
end
hope
or my favorite bra

 
Comment by Prime_Is_Contained
2010-07-29 09:38:03

:-)

 
 
 
 
Comment by NYCityBoy
2010-07-29 08:17:44

Expect nothing out of Fannie and Freddie “reform”. Wait a minute. I want to rephrase that. Expect them to reform this monsters and make them even worse.

 
Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 15:46:09

I’ll bet they still haven’t found that $12 BILLION that Franklin Raines “lost” when he was in charge, yet he still got his $100 MILLION retirement.

 
 
Comment by Hwy50ina49Dodge
2010-07-29 07:29:28

News from ‘The OC” ;-)
Filed under: “None-Dare-Call-It-A-Conspiracy”
Crissy Cox’s elbow rubbing Fascist Island lunch buddies…

Mansion sold despite default, divorce, death:
July 29th, 2010, by Jon Lansner OC Register

The high-profile 18 Harbor Island in Newport Beach sold for $27 million last month — the 8th highest price paid for an Orange County residence, by our math.Yes, the same Harbor Island that’s home to three Orange County billionaires: real estate’s Don Bren and George Argyros and a more recent home purchaser, bond king Bill Gross.

But as bankruptcy attorney Richard Golubow noted in court documents, a steep list of obstacles were faced in the process of selling 18 Harbor Island …

* property was in a bankruptcy proceeding.
* owners had an acrimonious divorce proceeding.
* lawsuits seeking control of the property.
* a deeded first right of refusal.
* multiple title defects, erroneous recorded liens, assessments, etc.
* a recorded property tax default, a deed of trust in default and a ground lease in default.
* rumored structural issues and perceptions that the home was inadequately maintained for a property of this value.
* being the location of a suicide.
* rumored issues of authority to negotiate or sell, as well the rumored inability to transfer clean title.
* Bankruptcy Court approval meant buyer’s privacy could not be assured.
* “as-is” sale, without the benefit of customary disclosures regarding property history and condition; difficultly to show while previously occupied; did not “show well” due to improper staging for showings.
* an original list price exceeding the highest price paid for a residence in Orange County, at the beginning of a declining real estate market.
* limited functional and aesthetic appeal to a customary buyer of this type of property.
* near complete eradication of lending for this type of a purchase, thus severely diminishing the field of prospective purchasers.

“It was beyond legal issues. It was just the most contentious case that I’ve ever been involved with,” said Golubow, an attorney who also has a real estate license. ”I was just very, very difficult.”

 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 07:32:58

In iPhone, adult industry sees pocket porn market.

NEW YORK (AP) - It’s a maxim of technology: Invent the newest gadget and the porn industry will find a way to cash in.

So when Apple Inc. launched the iPhone 4 and its FaceTime videoconference feature, it didn’t take long for adult-entertainment companies to develop video-sex chat services and start hiring workers through Craigslist.

With more than 3 million of the phones already sold, the adult industry stands to make big money on this new way to reach out and touch someone - even if it puts Apple, which has always taken pains to keep its iPhone apps squeaky clean, in an awkward spot.

In at least five cities, Craigslist ads seek models specifically for video sex chat on FaceTime. Many of the ads even offer to throw in a free iPhone 4 for the new employees.

FaceTime lets people call another iPhone 4 user and have live video conversations over a Wi-Fi connection through the phone’s camera and screen. In one TV ad, a soldier uses it to get a look at his faraway wife’s ultrasound pictures.

The adult industry wants its customers to share moments of an entirely different kind with its stars. And while the technology may be new, the idea is not. Porn providers have always been early adopters.

Comment by oxide
2010-07-29 08:31:13

Well to be technical, it’s not an “entirely different” kind of moment…

Comment by sfbubblebuyer
2010-07-29 09:42:28

Depends on how far she shoves…

 
 
Comment by Chris M
2010-07-29 12:28:58

Maybe they could also make use of the “vibrate” function.

 
 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower
2010-07-29 07:47:14

Higher home prices, slower sales — that sounds familiar; when do I remember that happening before?

Oh yeah — just before the real estate bubble popped back in 2006.

Freddie Mac: 30-year mortgage at record low 4.54%
By Sue Chang

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Freddie Mac said Thursday the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage average again fell to a record low of 4.54% with an average 0.7 point for the week ending July 29. In the previous period, the average was 4.56%, and the year-ago average was 5.25%. “For the sixth week in a row, interest rates on fixed-rate mortgages eased to all-time record lows during a week of mixed housing data reports. The number of local markets experiencing annual increases in home prices appears to be growing,” said Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac chief economist, in a statement. “However, existing home sales in June slowed to an annualized pace of 4.37 million units, the fewest since March. Moreover, although new home sales jumped by almost 24% to 330,000 dwellings, it represented the second slowest rate since 1963,” he added.

Related stories

* Cash-in mortgage refinancings rise: Freddie Mac (July 28)
* Freddie Mac: 30-yr mortgage at record low of 4.56% (July 22)
* A cash-in refinance can cut mortgage costs (July 26)
* 30-year fixed-rate mortgage stays at record low (July 15)

 
Comment by edgewaterjohn
2010-07-29 07:58:28

Sign ‘o the times?

We have been having an epidemic of people walking and jumping in front of trains this year. No kidding, there’s been like one a week for quite some time now - the last one just this past Friday and another a few days before that and so on back into the spring. As a lifelong fan of the rails, I’ve never seen anything like what is happening here in 2010. One or two a years tops is the norm. (The local MSM has yet to tally them, probably so as not to encourage such behavior, which is incredibly cruel to the engineers and wintnesses.)

Comment by CarrieAnn
2010-07-29 12:13:44

“incredibly cruel to the engineers and wintnesses”

Some of the depressed youth in the area have taken to jumping from the top floor of the Carousel Mall to the open expanse two floors below. I can’t even imagine how awful that would be to see, not to mention the jumper could so some major damage if he landed on you. The mall has done nothing to remedy the open railings situation.

Comment by rms
2010-07-29 21:56:28

“The mall has done nothing to remedy the open railings situation.”

Aesthetics?

 
 
Comment by Chris M
2010-07-29 12:58:50

I ride Metra 4 days a week, and the conductors tell me that nearly every one of the “pedestrian fatalities” is a suicide. The local news always reports it as an accident, though. I do remember this happening in years past, usually in the late fall on a Wednesday. A few months ago, the embattled Metra director killed himself by stepping in front of a train, which seemed a fitting way for him to go. That one was obvious enough that the news did report it as a suicide. I live close to there, and noticed at the time that he used a crossing on the lightly used McHenry spur. So the trains going to or from Crystal Lake and beyond were not delayed. I gave the poor guy a little bit of credit for not screwing things up for a few thousand commuters that day.

Comment by Kim
2010-07-29 14:22:28

“I gave the poor guy a little bit of credit for not screwing things up for a few thousand commuters that day.”

Yes, and I read that he had a copy of Metra’s policy for dealing with suicides in his pocket, so the hapless employees would immediately recall how to handle the situation.

 
Comment by edgewaterjohn
2010-07-29 17:32:13

Oh yeah, it has always happened, but with no where near this frequency. This is getting creepy, and it’s not only Metra - they’re even jumping in front of the el more often too.

And IMHO, you’re giving Pagano too much credit - that train still had an engineer who has to deal with that, and from the accounts I’ve read, he was looking right up at the cab when he walked out on the track.

 
 
Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 15:58:07

Suicides are up everywhere.

 
 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 08:01:04

Mortgage rates hit low of 4.54 percent
Average rates for fixed mortgages hit lowest level on record for fifth time in six weeks

NEW YORK (AP) — Mortgage rates dropped to the lowest level on record for the fifth time in six weeks, making homebuying and refinancing the most attractive in decades for those who can get loans.

The average rate for 30-year fixed loans this week was 4.54 percent, down from 4.56 last week, mortgage company Freddie Mac said Thursday. That’s the lowest since Freddie Mac began tracking rates in 1971.

The last time rates were lower was during the 1950s, when most mortgages lasted just 20 or 25 years.

The rate on the 15-year fixed loan dropped to 4 percent, down from 4.03 percent last week and the lowest on record.

Comment by Kim
2010-07-29 08:43:29

I’d like to lock in that 15 year now, and then buy a house in another year or two.

Comment by Prime_Is_Contained
2010-07-29 09:44:55

Anyone have thoughts on whether shorting GSE MBS would allow for a rough equivalent of locking in that rate?

Buying the bonds long is loaning the funds; so shorting them should be roughly equivalent to borrowing them.

NOTE: this is not investment advice. YMMV. Consult your investment advisor before taking any action. Personally I expect rates to continue to decline very slowly for some time, but having lost a large chunk in 2009, I no longer pretend that I have insight into the markets. :-)

 
Comment by exeter
2010-07-29 09:47:51

I heard Lying Larry Kudlow recently made the statement “The fed won’t raise rates in our lifetime”.

I’m not sure what to think about that one.

Comment by packman
2010-07-29 10:23:39

Personally I think he may be right. However he didn’t mention the rest of the story.

IMO a very plausible scenario is the economy continues to be stagnant, and eventually just crashes and burns, all the while with the Fed trying to prop it up with ZIRP.

Then at some point the Fed just ceases to exists - replaced by an international central banking entity. Or perhaps rather than cease to exist, just stripped down to a shell of its former self, with monetary authority removed - e.g. the way the ECB it over from the Bundesbank etc.

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Comment by exeter
2010-07-29 10:43:54

Interesting.

 
Comment by packman
2010-07-29 11:24:55

e.g. the way the ECB took it over I mean.

 
 
 
Comment by Jim A.
2010-07-29 09:55:43

Seven years ago, I though that I’d NEVER see rates as low as 4.875% on a 15 yr again in my lifetime. Boy, did I get THAT one wrong. Which serves to point out that going “all in” with ANY market prediction is probably a mistake, even if your reasoning is pretty sound.

Comment by NYCityBoy
2010-07-29 10:11:03

Rates will hit 4.0% at some point. That is my prediction.

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Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 08:02:37

An update on our helicopter crash:

Medical copter crashes; 3 killed

Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 16:00:21

There have been a lot of med aircraft going down over the last few years.

I doubt it has anything to so with cut backs on maintenance. :roll:

 
Comment by rms
2010-07-29 22:10:36

A USAF Pararescue medical unit based at Davis-Monthan AFB recently lost a crew and helicopter in Afghanistan.

 
 
Comment by Prime_Is_Contained
2010-07-29 09:19:22

Here’s a classic example of prices increasing in the face of reduced demand—e.g. price inflation in a deflationary period.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/business/global/27shipping.html


Companies that lack contracts with shippers are paying even more. The cost of shipping a 40-foot container from Hong Kong to Los Angeles without a contract, or the spot rate, was about $871 in July 2009, a five-year low. This month, that spot rate reached $2,624, a five-year high, according to the industry consultant Drewry Shipping Consultants, as reported by The Journal of Commerce. That exceeded even the cost before the recession, which was about $2,000.

Comment by rentor
2010-07-29 10:01:05

Just like rents are increasing in the face of reduced home prices. I suspect many FB’s who are renting homes/condos instead of selling at a loss are demanding more. I expect this will change after November elections when stimulus will become a 4 letter word and austerity will be a good word to be associated with.

 
Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 16:03:40

There. Is. No. DEFLATION! (except for RE and wages)

 
 
Comment by rentor
2010-07-29 09:43:47

Arizona senator who authored the Immigration bill which was blocked by the judge says Sanctuary Cities are also illegal. Thats because they too are doing the feds job.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2010-07-29 09:58:54

Race, Politics, the “News” Media – Yellow Journalism is Back Des Moines Register 7/28/10

http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/2010/07/28/race-politics-the-news-media-yellow-journalism-is-back/

As you all know, conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted a heavily edited video of a black USDA executive Shirley Sherrod making a “racist comment” (24 years ago before she worked for USDA).

The news media, and especially “the Unfair and Unbalanced” Fox news ran the story as an example of black racism.”

We seem to be back to yellow journalism, that totally biased and political medium that misled and incited citizens and voters. If that’s the end result of the new media explosion – bloggers, YouTubers, Internet publications that are biased and politicized, distortion, fabrication, doctored-up photos, tapes, video, stories how are citizens supposed to make intelligent decisions?

Yes, yes I know that some of you think all of the media is biased and this is just “bias balance” giving conservatives a new biased media voice to offset the New York Times, Washington Post, Public Radio and TV, and the Des Moines Register.

Maybe that’s true but in the “mainstream” media people get fired for doing this sort of thing. It’s taught in journalism schools just take some classes at the Greenlee School at ISU and you’ll find out. It’s called “ethics” in journalism. In the free for all of the “new media” there are no editors, publishers and there is no accountability. It’s the media Wild West!

Comment by michael
2010-07-29 11:08:28

“Under our Constitution it is We The People who are sovereign. The people have the final say. The legislators are their spokesmen. The people determine through their votes the destiny of the nation. It is therefore important—vitally important—that all channels of communications be open to them during every election, that no point of view be restrained or barred, and that the people have access to the views of every group in the community.” Id. , at 593 (opinion of Douglas, J., joined by Warren, C. J., and Black, J.).

this quote was cited in the citizens united majority opinion…i kinda like it.

Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2010-07-29 16:28:10

It is therefore important—vitally important—that all channels of communications be open to them during every election, that no point of view be restrained or barred, and that the people have access to the views of every group in the community.

this quote was cited in the citizens united majority opinion…i kinda like it.

Yes but we must never forget that “views” and “points of view” are different than lies and deceit.

Comment by nickpapageorgio
2010-07-29 23:00:01

You’re smart enough to separate points of view from lies and so are the folks in flyover country…Relax.

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Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 16:07:58

When the large corps bought up and consolidated most of the MSM back in the 1980s is when we went back to yellow journalism.

This was part of the overall plan of the Business Roundtable (a group of the top 200 corporate CEOS) which was formed in 1972 and who’s main purpose was coordination of power and resources and rebuttal and refutation of consumer watchdog groups in conjunction with increased lobbying.

 
Comment by nickpapageorgio
2010-07-29 23:06:12

Progressives invented yellow journalism, Breitbart is just giving progressives a taste of their own medicine.

Does that excuse Breitbart for not providing the entire context of the speech given by this misguided bureaucrat? No.

 
 
Comment by fisher
2010-07-29 10:03:36

Santa Fe Co. NM posts 200% increase in foreclosure activity:

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/SantaFeNorthernNM/Foreclosures–Santa-Fe-County-sees-a-surge

Floppers? Official unemployment rate currently is a little over 8% in NM.

Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 16:09:28

You know the UE has to higher than that.

Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 16:10:39

…to be.. :roll:

 
 
 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 10:36:42

Many cities awaiting a housing recovery
Sluggish housing market could last two more years, data suggest
msnbc.com

After welcome signs of growth in housing earlier this year, home sales — and prices — are likely to wilt again in the summer heat, a victim of rising foreclosures and weak demand in many parts of the U.S.

Like the economic recovery in general, the housing recovery is uneven: Data for the nation as a whole show prices inching higher, but in many parts of the country prices have yet to hit bottom, analysts say. And when prices do recover, the gains will be gradual.

“In some of these markets that were hit, say, 50 percent or so, it’s going to take years to recoup that lost real estate wealth,” said Andrew Gledhill, an economist with Moody’s Analytics. “I don’t think this is a one- or two-year problem. This is a five-or six-year problem.”

After steep declines following the housing bust, prices on the national level appear to be leveling off. The median price for an existing home sold in June was $183,700 — up 1 percent from a year ago, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Comment by edgewaterjohn
2010-07-29 11:07:01

Six more months? Two more years? What a big stroke off.

Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 16:14:45

It took 4 years for the S&L disaster to bottom out and 2 more years of flat prices after that.

 
 
 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 10:39:22

U.S. Century Bank’s profit shrinks, bad loans up.
South Florida Business Journal

TARP recipient U.S. Century Bank had a smaller profit in the second quarter as its amount of bad loans climbed.

The Doral-based bank earned $733,000 in the second quarter, down from net income of $1 million in the first quarter, according to its regulatory filing.

Although its net interest income improved, the bank took a $3 million expense to reserve for future loan losses, up from a $2.6 million loss reserve expense in the previous quarter.

 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 10:46:20

AP survey: A bleaker outlook for economy into 2011

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economic recovery will remain slow deep into next year, held back by shoppers reluctant to spend and employers hesitant to hire, according to an Associated Press survey of leading economists.

The latest quarterly AP Economy Survey shows economists have turned gloomier in the past three months. They foresee weaker growth and higher unemployment than they did before. As a result, the economists think the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates near zero until at least next spring.

Yet despite their expectation of slower growth, a majority of the 42 economists surveyed believe the recovery remains on track, raising hopes that the economy can avoid falling back into a “double-dip” recession.

The AP survey compiles forecasts of leading private, corporate and academic economists on a range of indicators, including employment, consumer spending and inflation. Among their forecasts:

_ Economic growth the rest of this year and early next year will weaken, to less than 3 percent. From January through May, the economy grew at roughly a 3.5 percent pace.

_ The unemployment rate will be no lower at the end of the year than it is now — 9.5 percent. A majority think it will be 2015 or later before the rate falls to a historically normal 5 percent.

_ State budget shortfalls pose a “significant” or “severe” risk to the national economy. The loss of tax revenue has forced state and local governments to cut services and lay off workers.

Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 16:16:50

More “unexpectedly!”

 
 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 10:50:35

Ford to lay off 388 at Windsor engine plant

CBC News has learned Ford Motor Co. will lay off nearly 400 workers at its engine plant in Windsor, Ont.

The news comes just one day after General Motors closed its transmission plant, pulling out of the city after 90 years.

The Ford workers have been told they will be laid off beginning Nov. 1.

Ford has decided to eliminate one shift at the plant.

However, as that happens, the automaker plans to begin another shift at the newly rebuilt Essex engine plant, also located in Windsor.

The net loss of jobs in that move will be 388.

 
Comment by measton
2010-07-29 11:07:04

Funny email

What Have We Learned in 2,065 Years?

“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.” - Cicero, 55 BC

Evidently nothing.

Comment by packman
2010-07-29 11:34:36

FWIW - the Roman Empire had its peak long after this - during the 1st thru 3rd centuries - generally the absolute peak is considered to be during Trajans reign in the early 2nd century.

However this was fueled by constant expansion and plundering of neighboring areas. Being that the world is of limited size, this of course is not an infinitely-sustainable model.

(Though the limited size of the world wasn’t really the issue, but just how much physical land could be ruled by the citizens of just one city. E.g. it’s hard to fight a war against a new aggressor on your border when it takes months just to get to where the fight is, from your central city.)

Comment by Jim A.
2010-07-29 12:33:44

Depends somewhat how you define peak. Certainly it grew much larger in later years. And the number of citizens increased greatly. But arguably the RIGHTS of those citizens and their ability to participate in government was already in decline.

Comment by packman
2010-07-29 13:49:59

Yeah I was speaking strictly in terms of size, though also to some extent wealth. The two where inexorably tied.

However as you say there’s the underlying “peak” in terms of political/social/etc. strength. That’s of course very subjective; as you say the empire had become a lot more dictatorly/centralized by then. This in turn could have been said to lead to its eventual downfall; in the end a succession of weak/bad dictators definitely played a hand in the shrinkage of its physical size and power. By the same token though strong emperors like Trajan seemed to contribute a lot to its physical growth.

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Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 11:31:51

As Consumers Keep Purse Strings Tight, Retailers Must Innovate … or Die. ~ Tech Ticker

Retail stocks were among the big winners of 2009, rallying as the economy strengthened and consumer confidence rose. But now, as unemployment remains high and fears of a double-dip recession persist, the major stores are again struggling.

Vera Gibbons, columnist for WalletPop, says retailers are using both innovative tactics and old fashion deals to entice wary consumers to spend. Until the job market improves and people regain confidence in the economy, retailing will stay weak, Gibbons says. Until then, deals and originality will dominate the retail landscape.

“Retailers are treading water and they are thinking ‘if consumers aren’t feeling confidence, how do we get them back into the stores?,’” Gibbons says. “So they are coming out with new initiatives to drive traffic.”

Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 16:20:28

There is only thing that will work and it’s the same as RE… drop the damn prices and offer a better selection.

You don’t need to make a billion $ profit every effin’ year.

And how’s that “what goes around comes around” workin’ for ya?

 
 
Comment by Steamed Bean
2010-07-29 11:43:36

“In some of these markets that were hit, say, 50 percent or so, it’s going to take years to recoup that lost real estate wealth,”

Some of those markets will never see those prices ever again. The crashdaq is 40% of its peak value 10 years later, why is it that “experts” fail to believe the same thing can happen to RE?

Comment by Steamed Bean
2010-07-29 11:45:45

This was supposed to post about 5 posts earlier.

 
Comment by Jim A.
2010-07-29 12:35:40

Never is a long time, but it seems to me that a generation or two before real prices return to peak is more likely than not.

Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 16:22:29

Nope. The cycles I’ve seen are roughly 10 years. (emphasis on “roughly”)

 
 
Comment by packman
2010-07-29 13:51:01

it’s going to take years to recoup that lost real estate wealth

That’s assuming - falsely - that it existed to begin with.

Comment by edgewaterjohn
2010-07-29 17:24:01

Right, and the only way they might recoup that “wealth” is if someone else decides to give up their own. With the mania slowly dying that isn’t a foregone conclusion anymore.

 
 
 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 11:46:51

Insurance.com to close Solon headquarters, eliminate 144 jobs
July 29, 2010

SOLON, Ohio — Insurance.com, the Solon insurance rate comparison website, said today that it will soon lay off its 144 employees and shut down its local headquarters.

The company filed a notice with the state that said it has signed an agreement to sell “substantially all of its assets to an outsider purchaser on July 26.”

Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 12:00:44

OMG, that’s just a few hops and a skip away from the town where my aunt used to live. She loved to take visitors out to Solon — it’s such a neat little place.

Comment by sleepless_near_seattle
2010-07-29 13:22:21

I played basketball in HS against Solon. lol

 
 
 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 11:59:45

One in five Californians say they need mental health care.

Almost 5 million California adults say they could use help with a mental or emotional problem, according to a survey released Wednesday by researchers at UCLA. About 1 million of them meet the criteria for “serious psychological distress.”

However, only one in three people who perceive a need for mental health services or are in serious distress have seen a professional for treatment, the survey found.

Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 12:02:47

One of the problems with mental health care is the people who work in the field. Sorry to say, but more than a few of them could use some, ahem, help.

Comment by NYCityBoy
2010-07-29 12:20:04

Most of the people I know that see or would like to see a shrink have problems that are of their own making. They turn to Prozac as if that can undo the stupid decisions they’ve made in life. I can’t imagine it is any different in California.

“I don’t know what happened doctor? We were making $110,000 per year. We bought a dream house for $700,000 and put our $3,000 life savings as a down payment. The house was so nice I just didn’t feel right driving a Camry anymore so I bought the Beemer. My husband got a Tahoe. We just figured we could make up our shortcomings each month with the credit cards and then pay it all off when we sold for $1,000,000. Now the house is only worth $450,000. You have to help me, doc. I don’t know where my stress and tension comes from. I guess the world just isn’t fair. Do you like my implants?”

Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 16:24:47

Far too true.

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Comment by FB wants a do over
2010-07-29 12:27:52

Does that include PB?

 
Comment by edgewaterjohn
2010-07-29 17:21:50

One out of five does? Or one out of five doesn’t?

Better check for typos, WoMBatZ.

 
 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 12:29:28

Surge in ‘virginity repair’ operations on NHS as increasing number of women hide evidence of sex before marriage ~ Daily Mail Reporter

The half hour hymenoplasty procedure can cost up to £4,000 privately

An increasing number of women are having controversial ‘virginity repair’ operations on the NHS before they get married.

In the last five years, 116 hymen repair operations have been undertaken at the tax payer’s expense.

Thousands more women are believed to be paying up to £4,000 to have the surgery done privately each year.

Private practitioners have claimed a surge in demand in the operation has been driven largely by Muslim women desperate to preserve the illusion that they have not had sex before their wedding night.

The procedure - viewed by some as invasive and degrading - sees the hymen stitched or reconstructed so that it will tear and bleed again on the woman’s wedding night.

Many women give false names and addresses and some are even buying chastity certificates to ‘prove’ that they are virgins.

Comment by Kim
2010-07-29 14:43:28

“The … procedure can cost up to £4,000 privately”

I never understood this. The purchase of a bloody steak and a little creativity is obviously A LOT cheaper. Just sayin’.

Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 16:26:50

4k is a lot cheaper than getting killed because you’re not a virgin.

Sad ain’t it?

 
 
 
Comment by Rental Watch
2010-07-29 12:40:52

Some shadow supply anecdotes:

I spoke with a guy this morning who is trying to buy property from banks in the Sacramento, CA area, fix them up and resell them. He noted that the main reason there is an opportunity is that there are a lot of rules with respect to FHA financing, so the homes that need fix-up dollars don’t appeal to the masses, regardless of price, since there is little financing available. That said, he makes a lot of offers, and few buys…

In any event, his observations:

1. There is a lot of junk out there–you don’t want to walk through some of the foreclosures–just disasters.
2. It is really hit or miss with getting a bank to pay attention to your offer. When he’s made an offer to some banks, they seem to go into a black hole…no response.
3. Other banks (he called out BofA by name) respond in an orderly fashion. He noted that BofA has a practice of responding within 45 days. A broker that he knows that handles a lot of BofA work typically had over 100 listings with BofA. Now he has less than 20–in the Sacramento market specifically.

Seems like until more banks take a “quick response” approach, we will not work through the inventory issues. It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if there is a correlation between the slow responders and balance sheet weakness. If you can’t take the balance sheet hit, you can’t sell. If you’re BofA, you can clear out inventory without worrying too much about failing–you’ve already proven yourself to be too big to fail.

Take this for what it’s worth, one guy’s observations…and I have no reason to doubt his commentary…he’s not trying to sell me anything.

Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 13:23:20

There is a lot of junk out there–you don’t want to walk through some of the foreclosures–just disasters.

Ben’s made that same point. Many times, in fact.

And, what baffles me is that these foreclosed houses are just sitting there empty. Even without vandalism and thievery, an empty house will still deteriorate. Ben’s recent photos of his trip to DC, by way of Texas and Florida, showed that in a big way.

So, what do these banks gain by holding on to these dumps?

Comment by Rental Watch
2010-07-29 14:05:42

If banks can meter out their losses at their own pace, they can stay in business. That’s a pretty big incentive to slowly sell.

I’d be willing to bet that’s the motivation, especially with the comment that BofA is working through their inventory at a steady pace…they are not afraid of failing based on these losses.

Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 16:28:42

If banks can meter out their losses at their own pace, they can stay in business. That’s a pretty big incentive to slowly sell.

Exactly. This was the lesson learned from the S&L disaster. The real “trickle down.”

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Comment by Rental Watch
2010-07-29 17:28:02

We may then have a faster recovery in new home prices/sales than the shadow inventory numbers indicate. If a disproportionate number of “shadow inventory” housing is the stuff where lenders would be taking the largest losses (needs massive renovation, doesn’t qualify for FHA, etc.), then the “shadow inventory” will be a very poor competitor with new and decent quality product in the market.

The garbage will be absorbed in time, but will take a different path than good quality housing (investor with lots of cash for fix-up/resale, as opposed to simply someone who wants to move in).

A tale of two markets?

 
 
 
 
 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 13:20:43

Republicans Block Small-Business Lending Measure
(Bloomberg)

Senate Republicans blocked a measure that would cut taxes and ease credit for small businesses, saying they objected that Democrats refused to consider their amendments to extend expiring tax breaks.

The Senate voted 58-42 today to end debate on the bill, falling short of the 60 votes required to consider the legislation for passage.

“Once again a common-sense bill that would help Americans is being held hostage by political calculation,” Senator Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, said in debate before the vote.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said he would work with Republicans today to seek a compromise on amendments to the measure. The legislation was aimed at easing terms for loans guaranteed by the Small Business Administration, providing $12 billion in tax breaks and issuing grants to states to provide business loans.

It would have provided $30 billion to banks with less than $10 billion in assets to encourage lending to small businesses. The cost of paying back those capital infusions would decline based on the level of small-business lending by the bank. The aid could spur $300 billion in lending.

Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 14:24:20

Methinks that Senator Patty’s on to something. And it also looks like the Democratic senatorial candidates just landed a whale of a campaign issue.

Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 15:22:38

Are small businesses having trouble getting loans that you know of?

I keep reading it but in my area it’s not the case. Credit lines have been cut to a couple of people that I know, but no one I know that runs a business is having any trouble getting access to credit.

Sounds to me like “they” just want to flush more money into the system, and someone that wants to open a scrapbook, or candle making shop will be back in bidness.

Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 15:28:20

What I keep hearing is that business are suffering from a shortage of customers, not credit.

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Comment by Hwy50ina49Dodge
2010-07-29 14:37:48

“TrueDoNothing™ / “TrueObstructionists™ / TrueGridLokers™”

Comment by jeff saturday
2010-07-29 14:52:20

“TrueDoNothing™ / “TrueObstructionists™ / TrueGridLokers™”

Where`s your smiley face?

Comment by Hwy50ina49Dodge
2010-07-29 16:11:45

“Senate Repubicans blocked a measure that would cut taxes and ease credit for small businesses, saying they objected that Democrapts refused to consider their amendments to extend expiring tax breaks.

:-)

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Comment by jeff saturday
2010-07-29 17:01:47

Thank you

 
 
 
 
Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 16:30:48

Well played.

 
 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 13:23:21

Quality Aircraft Services notifies state of layoffs
South Florida Business Journal

A company that provides skycaps and baggage workers to Miami International Airport plans to layoff 227 workers.

Miami-based Quality Aircraft Services notified the state of its plans under the Worker Adjustment Notice and Retraining Act (WARN), saying that it planned to lay off the workers on Sept. 30 when its contract with Miami-Dade County ends.

Miami-Dade County records show that commissioners in 2004 approved a 3-year contract to have Quality service the airport. The county was allowed to renew the contract up to seven times for a term of one year.

Quality was awarded the contract as a Black Business Enterprise, but airport spokesman Greg Chin said that the county could not extend the contract because of a subsequent legal ruling that precluded it from doing so.

“It was the county attorney’s opinion that this contract could not be extended,” Chin said.

Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 16:32:28

You know it’s bad when you can’t money off the backs of sub min wage employees.

Bad management that is.

 
 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 14:01:20

$73 million…Chump change.

Citi to pay $73 million for misleading investors

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Citigroup said Thursday it would pay $73 million to settle charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission that the bank, as well as two of its executives, misled investors about the company’s exposure to the subprime mortgage market.

Wall Street’s top regulator said Citigroup repeatedly made misleading statements in investor presentations and in public filings about the actual size of assets it controlled that were backed by subprime mortgages.

Between July and mid-October 2007, the company maintained its holdings of what have now been dubbed “toxic assets”, stood at $13 billion, when in fact the number was closer to $50 billion, according to the SEC.

Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower
2010-07-29 19:11:49

The Wall Street wrist slapping exercise plays on. Are Americans generally confused by the distinction between millions in penalties intended to remedy billions* in ill-gotten gains? Apparently whoever is cooking up these penalties believes that is the case.

*For readers who are rusty on grade school maths,
$1 billion = 1000 X $1 million.

 
 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 14:04:43

This spill is crude oil I believe… not good.

Estimate Rises of Oil Spill in Michigan.

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. — More than one million gallons of oil may have spilled from a pipeline into the Kalamazoo River this week, significantly more than the pipeline’s owner initially estimated, federal officials said.

Response crews worked to contain the oil as officials from the Environmental Protection Agency released their estimate of the size of the spill. After the pipeline began leaking on Monday, its owner, Enbridge Energy Partners, put the figure at about 800,000 gallons.

“The Kalamazoo River is a fast-moving river, and E.P.A.’s focus right now is on preventing oil from the Enbridge spill from affecting sensitive shorelines and, ultimately, keeping the oil out of Lake Michigan,” the E.P.A. said in a statement.

Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm expressed growing worry on Wednesday that the oil spill, believed to be among the largest ever in the Midwest, might reach Lake Michigan if containment efforts were not strengthened.

 
Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 14:08:54

I hope they throw this POS out on his fat old lying ass…

Panel hits Rangel with 13 alleged ethics charges

WASHINGTON – House investigators accused veteran New York Rep. Charles Rangel of 13 violations of congressional ethics standards on Thursday, throwing a cloud over his four-decade political career and raising worries for fellow Democrats about the fall elections.

The allegations — which include failure to report rental income from vacation property in the Dominican Republic and to report more than $600,000 in assets on his congressional financial disclosure statements — came as lawyers for Rangel and the House ethics committee worked on a plea deal.

One was struck, people familiar with the talks said, but Republicans indicated it was too late.

The deal between the lawyers will have little meaning if the committee members don’t approve it, and Republicans said at the proceeding they were insisting on going forward with a trial. The panel is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans.

“Mr. Rangel was given multiple opportunities to settle this matter. Instead, he chose to move forward to the public trial phase,” said Rep. Jo Bonner of Alabama, the senior Republican on the ethics panel

Chairman Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., has made clear that she wants the committee to be unanimous — leaving little chance for agreement without Rangel capitulating on virtually all counts.

Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 14:58:20

Isn’t Rangel facing a primary challenge from one of Adam Clayton Powell’s sons?

Comment by wmbz
2010-07-29 15:15:00

Yes, and after 40 years of Rangel’s lying and cheating… the things politicians do, it’s past time for him to go. So I would think Powell will make a big deal out of this.

Comment by Arizona Slim
2010-07-29 15:42:40

The really sad thing about this is that how it gives black politicians a bad name. Yes, there have been more than a few Marion Barrys and Kwame Kilpatricks.

But there have also been some real gems like Bill Gray, who was a congressman from the Philadelphia area some years ago. And, locally, many of us still miss Chuck Ford, who was on our city council and ran for mayor as well.

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Comment by Spook
2010-07-29 19:25:00

who was it who said: “how can you kill John Wayne when you wanna BE John Wayne?”

 
 
 
 
Comment by ecofeco
2010-07-29 16:35:22

What a chump. Yes, he should go.

(jeez, you make more money than most people make and you STILL have to cheat? WTF?)

 
 
Comment by exeter
2010-07-29 15:31:48

Realtors Are Corrupt

 
Comment by aNYCdj
2010-07-29 18:07:04

Gotta love those state workers craping on other state workers……

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP/1010 WINS) — New York Gov. David Paterson says he’s planning for at least 1,000 layoffs to contend with a fiscal crisis after public worker unions refused to provide concessions.

Paterson made the comments Thursday on WSYR in Syracuse. It’s the first time he’s put a number on the layoffs he plans to issue before the end of the calendar year.

The public unions have refused his offers of delaying a few days pay and suspending 4-percent annual raises to avoid job losses, saying they have binding contracts and the state should cut waste before people.

The Civil Service Employees Association and the Public Employees Federation unions argue that Paterson is bound by his previous pledge not to lay off state workers until at least Jan. 1.

 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower
2010-07-29 19:04:44

The revision of Jeffrey Skilling’s personal personal and Enron’s corporate history is in high gear (story on tonight’s BBC World Business News). As explained by his lawyer, what happened to Enron was no different than what happened to Wall Street banks in 2008 — evaporation of liquidity beyond the firm’s control, no more nor less. Skilling was neither dumb nor culpable for what happened at Enron — simply a wrongfully accused (and convicted) innocent victim.

No mention of accounting fraud, off shore shell corporations set up to hide debt, etc. This story made me want to puke…

Enron encore?
Thu, 29 Jul 10

Duration: 10 mins

After four years in jail, Jeffrey Skilling, the former head of the collapsed energy giant Enron could soon walk free.

 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower
2010-07-29 19:45:13

So now the purveyors of sh!tty assets are no longer allowed to even discuss them honestly in their e-mails!

Goldman reforms: No swearing

In the wake of embarrassing profanity that came to light in recent hearings, Goldman Sachs moves to prohibit swearing in emails and other messages.

 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower
2010-07-29 22:19:46

Is anyone willing to try their hand at farming in exchange for a govt sponsored no-down loan?

WSJ Blogs
Developments

* July 29, 2010, 3:03 PM ET

Popular ‘Zero Down’ Mortgage Program Makes Comeback

By Dawn Wotapka

Coke Whitworth/Aurora Select for The Wall Street Journal

Erick Moore used a no-money-down USDA-backed loan to buy this four-bedroom house outside Raleigh, N.C.

One of the nation’s last sources of no money down financing for home loans appears to be making a comeback: Legislation that restores a Department of Agriculture home-buying program is headed to President Barack Obama’s desk for signature.

The legislation makes the USDA’s Single-Family Housing Guaranteed Loan Program self-sufficient, the National Association of Realtors reports. Borrowers will have to pay a higher “guarantee fee” of 3.5%–essentially upfront mortgage insurance–but the fee can be folded into the mortgage.

Buyers won’t mind paying a bit more in fees, says Sue Botelho, a senior mortgage advisor with Waterstone Mortgage Corp. in Ft. Walton Beach, Fla. “It’s great news,” she said. “It’s a huge part of my business. I am thrilled.”

Also happy is LGI Homes, a Texas builder that caters to USDA buyers. Chief Executive Eric Lipar estimates he’s lost 100 sales in the last few months.

“Once funding’s officially in place, we’ve got customers waiting,” he said.

The USDA wasn’t immediately available for comment.

Real estate news and analysis from The Wall Street Journal

* Real Estate News: California’s Building Bust Choking Off Jobs
* Long Island: Nice Place To Build, If You Dare

 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower
2010-07-29 22:27:07

For a state with just over 12 percent of the nation’s population, 10 out of 12 U.S. metro areas with higher than 15 percent unemployment leads me to question the wisdom of basing a state’s economy on an unsustainable level of real estate investment.

* The Wall Street Journal
* BUSINESS
* JULY 29, 2010

California’s Building Bust Choking Off Jobs
State Has 10 of 12 U.S. Metro Areas With 15% Unemployment

By CARI TUNA

(See Corrections & Amplifications item below.)

Amid the tepid economic recovery, California’s construction industry continues to hemorrhage jobs, helping to explain why unemployment across the state remains so much worse than elsewhere in the country.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Unemployed Americans attend a National Career Fair at the Airport Radisson Hotel in Los Angeles last week.

Of the nation’s 12 metropolitan areas with jobless rates of 15% or higher in June, 10 were in California, the Labor Department reported Wednesday.

A major factor: The state’s construction industry shed 74,400 jobs in the 12 months ended in June, more than any other sector lost. During that period, construction employment fell 12% in California, compared with a 1.3% drop in total nonfarm employment in the state and a 7.4% drop in construction employment nationwide.

The nation’s most populous state was an epicenter of the national housing bust. From June 2006 through last month, it lost 43% of its construction jobs, or 401,900 positions. That far outpaced a 28% decline in total U.S. building employment during the same period.

A Major Migraine

Now, as several other states begin to add construction jobs again, California’s building industry, a closely watched barometer of the state economy, keeps shrinking. The imbalance is due partly to overbuilding during the boom, which was more pronounced in California than in many other states. Economists say that is a big reason California’s unemployment rate has stayed so high, at 12.3% in June, compared with 9.5% nationally.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday ordered most state workers once again to take three unpaid furlough days a month, beginning in August, until the state enacts a budget for the fiscal year that began July 1.

Separately, there were further signs of a slowdown in manufacturing and durable-goods demand across the country in the Federal Reserve’s “beige book” report, an anecdotal account of regional economic conditions prepared in advance of the Fed’s Aug. 10 policy meeting. “Manufacturing activity continued to expand in most Districts, although several Districts reported that activity had slowed or leveled off during the reporting period,” it said.

The pain in California’s construction industry is evident from the northern wine country down to the Mexican border. In the state’s southeast corner, El Centro in Imperial County posted the highest jobless rate of any U.S. metro area in June, a seasonally unadjusted 27.6%, the Labor Department said Wednesday.

Until the housing bubble burst, construction in the largely agricultural area was booming, as people from San Diego and Mexicali, Mexico, arrived to snap up cheap homes, said Sam Couchman, director of Imperial County’s Workforce Development Office. As the downturn set in, the area’s building sector imploded, shedding 40% of its workers, or 800 jobs, since June 2006, according to the California Employment Development Department. “Construction came to a virtual halt,” leaving half-finished neighborhoods and never-occupied commercial spaces across the county, said Mr. Couchman.

Among California metro areas, Los Angeles and Riverside lost the largest number of construction jobs in the 12 months ended in June, shedding 15,900 and 10,800 workers, respectively. Further north, Napa posted the biggest percentage decline in building employment. Its construction sector shrank 31% in June from a year earlier, a loss of 900 jobs.

“I honestly thought that things would have been looking up by now,” said Kyle Wheeler, of the plumbers and steamfitters union for Napa and Solano counties. “But they’re not, and we see no end to it yet.”

 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower
2010-07-29 23:33:51

Now this is kind of cool. Not sure what this article is doing floating around in cyberspace so far ahead of its publication date.

Sounds like more quantitative easing may be coming down the pike. Allocate your investments accordingly.

Seven Faces of “The Peril”
James Bullard

Preprint
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review
September-October Issue

Abstract
In this paper I discuss the possibility that the U.S. economy may
become enmeshed in a Japanese-style, deflationary outcome within
the next several years. To frame the discussion, I rely on an analysis
that emphasizes two possible long-run outcomes (steady states) for
the economy, one which is consistent with monetary policy as it has
typically been implemented in the U.S. in recent years, and one which
is consistent with the low nominal interest rate, deflationary regime
observed in Japan during the same period. The data I consider seem
to be quite consistent with the two steady state possibilities. I describe
and critique seven stories that are told in monetary policy circles re-
garding this analysis. I emphasize two main conclusions: (1) The
FOMC’s extended period language may be increasing the probabil-
ity of a Japanese-style outcome for the U.S., and (2) on balance, the
U.S. quantitative easing program offers the best tool to avoid such an
outcome.
JEL codes: E4, E5.

Keywords: Zero bound on nominal interest rates, active Taylor
rule, global analysis, multiple steady states, Fisher relation, stability.

 
Comment by ann gogh
2010-07-30 14:10:54

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/20100730/pl_cq_politics/politics3715096
is this olde news:
Increase in FHA Mortgage Insurance Premiums Passes in House

The House passed legislation Friday to give the Federal Housing Administration flexibility to raise mortgage insurance premiums on the loans it guarantees.

Sponsored by House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, the bill would give the FHA authority to increase the mortgage insurance premiums it charges, from 0.55 percent to 1.55 percent.

Frank, D-Mass., said the bill is part of a bipartisan effort to “make sure that the FHA is both an effective and efficient means for housing finance.”

Historically, the FHA insured relatively inexpensive mortgages for low-income borrowers. But the FHA’s share of the mortgage market rose significantly during the financial crisis as private lenders fled the housing market and the government stepped in to keep mortgage money flowing, loosening underwriting requirements and increasing the amount of new loans the agency could insure.

That surge in loan volume and defaults have thinned the FHA’s capital reserves, which have now dropped below the 2 percent threshold mandated by Congress. Allowing FHA to increase its premiums would allow the agency to boost its dwindling capital reserves.

In June, the House passed a broader bill that included the provision, but the Senate has not acted on the bill. Frank said he intends to press the Senate to take up the broader bill.

Frank’s bill also would require the assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development to testify before Congress within 270 days of enactment of the bill to discuss the finances of the Federal Housing Administration. Frank said his panel would hold the hearing in September.

 
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