Bits Bucket For November 1, 2010
Post off-topic ideas, links and Craigslist finds here
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Downtown Raleigh condos hit auction block
Raleigh, N.C. — The developer of the West condominium tower in downtown Raleigh auctioned off 36 units in the development on Sunday.
The auction included one- and two-bedroom condos ranging from 930 to 1,800 square feet. Bids started at $95,000 to $260,000 on units originally priced at $269,000 to $670,000.
Some of the bids on Sunday were as low as $96,000.
The developer has five days after the auction to accept, counter or reject the highest bid on each unit.
Located at the corner of North and West streets, near the trendy Glenwood South district, the 17-story West development is most known for its rooftop swimming pool. It was one of several high-rise condo projects to sprout in downtown Raleigh during the housing boom in the middle of the last decade.
When the bottom fell out of the housing market – both locally and nationwide – three years ago, the West was left with 89 unoccupied units.
I hope the current owners like their hair cut high and tight.
Yea I am sure some of the savvy investors that snapped up the $670,000 condoz are feeling extra special now.
Weren’t there some former Duke basketball players who were heavily involved in Research Triangle real estate? I vaguely remember reading that a few years ago.
Found it. Christian Laettner and Brian Davis formed a real estate company. They appear to be struggling.
http://tinyurl.com/32u8hzc
95,000 for 950 square feet is still $100/sqft. I think of Raleigh/Durham as one of the areas I might move to because the housing is cheaper there and they have decent tech companies.
95,000 for 950 square feet is still $100/sqft.
And, to me, that price/square foot figure seems a tad high.
You mean $100 per sq. foot sounds like a HIGH price? Wow. Sounds like winning the lottery from here.
For Raleigh/Durham, $100-a-square sounds a bit pricey.
I bid on line at a William and Williams “Auction” . I was the highest bidder but the bank rejected the offer. The property has been vacant for 9 months, on the market for 6 and the NOD was filed in June 2009. The bank has been holding a none performing asset for 18 months and they are still wainitng for a better price.
The “Auction” sale is not over until it is accepted.
What a rip off
What was the sale price and what did you bid? Or at least give a % lowball. Looks to me like you’re competing not against other bidders, but against TARP.
“I was the highest bidder but the bank rejected the offer.”
“The “Auction” sale is not over until it is accepted.”
Sooo… its not really an “auction”, is it? As Ben was talking about, this is a way to dump inventory without it showing up as an official comp on the MLS.
Caveat emptor, folks.
I notice auctions are like a release of mental anguish to a seller. If the market was work aggressively, they would get a much better deal in the real estate sales community, using a good marketing broker and the mls. It is the apprehension to sell at the market range and chasing the market down is what brings sellers to the auction block.
BofA Tries to Untangle Files
Lender Checks 102,000 Foreclosure Cases; a Hangover From the Countrywide Buy
At five offices around the U.S., hundreds of Bank of America Corp. employees are slogging through 102,000 foreclosure files, trying to fix any problems.
The grunt work is slow. Just a “handful” of new affidavits were submitted to courts last week, a company spokesman says. Documents on “more than a handful” of restarted foreclosure actions will be handed over this week.
Cleaning up the mess is a huge challenge for the Charlotte, N.C., bank, a modest player in the mortgage-servicing industry before the 2008 acquisition of Countrywide Financial Corp.
The grunt work is slow.
Yeah, that would be “right to property” and “due process” kicking in.
Kind of refreshing when the rule of law doesn’t just apply to the “little guy”.
As the saying goes, “Nobody has time to do it right, but they always have time to do it over.”
I can’t imagine that phrase is actually used in your line of work, fixr. I would imagine it to be more like “Nobody has time to do it right, but they always have time to watch the wreckage burn on the tarmac.”
“Kind of refreshing when the rule of law doesn’t just apply to the “little guy”.
Rare is what it is. Very rare.
Run Turkey, Run ~ Bill Gross
* The Fed’s announcement of a renewed commitment to Quantitative Easing has been well telegraphed and the market’s reaction is likely to be subdued.
* We are in a “liquidity trap,” where interest rates or trillions in asset purchases may not stimulate borrowing or lending because consumer demand is just not there.
* The Fed’s announcement will likely signify the end of a great 30-year bull market in bonds and the necessity for bond managers and, yes, equity managers to adjust to a new environment.
They say a country gets the politicians it deserves or perhaps it deserves the politicians it gets. Whatever the order, America is next in line, and as we go to the polls in a few short days it’s incumbent upon a sleepy and befuddled electorate to at least ask ourselves, “What’s going on here?” Democrat or Republican, Elephant or Donkey, nothing much ever seems to change. Each party has shown it can add hundreds of billions of dollars to the national debt with little to show for it or move our military from one country to the next chasing phantoms instead of focusing on more serious problems back home. This isn’t a choice between chocolate and vanilla folks, it’s all rocky road: a few marshmallows to get you excited before the election, but with a lot of nuts to ruin the aftermath.
“We are in a “liquidity trap,” where interest rates or trillions in asset purchases may not stimulate borrowing or lending because consumer demand is just not there.”
Funny how wages do matter.
Hey Gross:
There is plenty of Consumer demand but banks wont increase your credit limit or give you a new card at a low interest rate to buy that pent up demand. Because the millions of people who had VERY good credit scores in 2007-8 are now in the toilet.
You mean you expect the little people to be able to borrow at the same low rates as the big boyz?
Fat chance! The banksters will continue to shear the countless millions who have CC balances they can’t pay off. They know Americans are addicted to their CCs.
Unless your household is too-big-to-fail, which implies zero risk to the Fed in lending money to you, don’t count on qualifying for zero percent borrowing rates. On the other hand, just in case you happen to live in that rarest of households which is too-big-to-fail, you should be able to qualify for a zero-percent interest loan, as in the event that you become insolvent, you will automatically get bailed out.
What’s stopping them from paying cash for what they “demand”? Isn’t the fact they need a higher and higher credit limit proof they are living beyond their means? Buying stuff they can’t afford is one of the main reasons we’re in this disaster.
People shouldn’t be allowed to borrow if they don’t have the ability to pay it back, common sense 101.
About what I was going to say. How did “get people to spend more” and “get people to borrow more” become EXACTLY the same thing? Increased, or at least flat, wages, a little sense of job security maybe?
True…but he was saying there is no demand, and that is False, I see so much pent up demand, Article 2 weeks ago guy can’t keep enough recap tires at 50+% off new tire prices in stock, here in Queens
Deferred maintenance on houses, cars, clothes just daily stuff.
But without jobs or credit it will get worse….is that a good thing?
——
People shouldn’t be allowed to borrow if they don’t have the ability to pay it back, common sense 101
Without jobs it will get worse. Credit is debt, we need wealth (jobs). More jobs with no additional credit (debt), a great thing. More credit (debt) with no jobs, digging a deeper hole.
Lately I’ve reading lots of newspaper articles that say something like “we need to get back to the 2000-2008 period when the economy was doing well”. The economy of 2000-2008 was based on massive amount of debt and fraud. That’s the goal, to get back there?
Yeah, DJ, I guess we’re becoming Recap City. Like they might say: You can’t never get what you want; but if you’ve got a credit line, and get there on time, you get what you need.
“Lately I’ve reading lots of newspaper articles that say something like “we need to get back to the 2000-2008 period when the economy was doing well”. The economy of 2000-2008 was based on massive amount of debt and fraud. That’s the goal, to get back there?”
Apparently so.
My credit card provider (discover) just doubled my balance, so anecdotally, I disagree.
I believe they doubled your limit. If they doubled your balance, it’s time to find a new credit card company… =)
No, my credit score is actually higher now than in 2007. Hubby and mine both in 800s probably because we have no debt.
No wage increases on the horizon for corporate America (except for top level mgmt).
corporations are borrowing hand over fist and sitting on the cash. My guess is
#1 management knows that companies with no cash don’t pay the CEO, so if borrowing gets harder down the road they want that paycheck strung out.
#2 The thought that a big collapse is coming and they will be able to buy up the competition for pennies on the dollar. Moving us further along the road to oligopoly of all major industries.
Right on measton ,
or move our military from one country to the next chasing phantoms instead of focusing on more serious problems back home ??
Exactly…
I remember reading an article years ago on why African nations faced the impossible task of moving forward. Part of the problem was that their best and brightest would chose careers in the military (with the hope of being on the winning side of the next coup) instead of some more productive and constructive. Careers were short, but if they were smart they could feather their overseas nest before the next team would overthrow them.
Anyway, it seems that we are now attracting a lot of our own best and brightest into the military, as they are finding other opportunities to be few and far between.
Actually, more like the best and brightest went into “financial engineering”, modern day alchemy in which they tried to make it look like they could mix raisin and sh-t and only come out with more raisins.
They did quite well for themselves, but left 10% unemployment and staggering societal debt in their wake.
“…move our military from one country to the next chasing phantoms…”
BTW, what ever became of the search for Osama bin Laden?
It’s not a priority anymore. Too much nation-building to do.
“BTW, what ever became of the search for Osama bin Laden?”
I understand that he’s now in Yemen. [/sarcasm off]
He’s where-ever those WMDs are.
Haven’t we been using the phrase “pushing on a string” for quite some time now.
-Trapping a string
-Pushing on a liquid
-Stringing out a liquid
Meh, whatever works.
Churchill on whisky.
On no account reduce the barley for whisky. This takes years to mature, and is an invaluable export and dollar producer. Having regard to all our other difficulties about exports, it would be most improvident not to preserve this characteristic British element of ascendancy.
(Memo to Minister of Agriculture, 3 April 1945)
Nice to see he had his priorities straight.
Nothing like good carne asada
TARP,TALF,HAMP,BARF,QE1,QE2 Etc…Next step lower credit qualifications, order banks to lend, and order people to borrow.Send out stimulus checks. What on earth makes the fed watchers and gubmint worshipers think “they” can fix it. How’s that been working so far? Anyone with an IQ above their shoe size knows exactly what the f’d up fed will do next. Vote early and vote often!
~ Federal Reserve’s, Bernanke’s credibility on line with new move to boost economy
The Federal Reserve is preparing to put its credibility on the line as it rarely has before by taking dramatic new action this week to try jolting the economy out of its slumber.
If the efforts succeed, they could finally help bring down the stubbornly high jobless rate.
But should the Fed overshoot in its plan to pump hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy, it could produce the same kind of bubbles in the housing and stock markets that caused the slowdown. Or the efforts could fall short and fail to energize the economy, leaving a clear impression that the mighty Fed is out of bullets - thus adding even more anxiety to an already dire situation.
The meeting of Fed policymakers Tuesday and Wednesday is set to be a defining moment of Ben S. Bernanke’s second term as chairman of the central bank. Although he helped win the war against the great financial panic of 2008 and 2009, he now risks losing the peace if he fails to end the protracted economic downturn that followed.
Just two years after the world financial system nearly collapsed, it is again gut-check time for Bernanke.
More terms as we go along
MBS, SIV, TARP, QE2, bazooka, greenshoots, MERS, strategic default,
less than perfect credit, froth, subprime, derivatives, robo-signer,
FED buying treasuries …
They should add “Jargon” as a periodic element.
GE plant in Owensboro, Ky. closes ~ WHAS11 News
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) — The General Electric Motors plant in Owensboro, Ky. is closing its doors for good. The plant built electric motors for industries, but company officials say there’s been a lack of demand for the product recently. The last motor came off the line on Wednesday.
At its peak in 1996 the plant employed 66,000, but by 2009 that number was down to 109.
Lack of demand? BS. Thank you President Clinton (NAFTA + Republican Congress) and Jack Welch for exporting tens of thousands of jobs. And did those Bush tax cuts — the ones that were going to allow businesses to create jobs and the wealth would trickle down — work out for ya?
All in the name of higher profits.
Meanwhile consumers, who are already on strike because they are broke will have another reason to slam their wallets shut: lack of quality. No doubt we all saw the recent articles chronicling the lack of durability in the latest batch of flat panel TVs. Nothing like dropping a grand on a new TV to have it crap out after 5 years or less.
I’m seeing this lack of quality with just about everything out there. Tires that wear out after just 20,000 miles, kitchen appliances that give up the ghost after just 3 years, you name it. Everything is crap, even the expensive stuff.
I had 31 inch flat tv i bought in 07 it died in 2010. screen went pink/green and then just died. made in korea!
yes these new tv’s appear to be junk.I had a mitubishi 46″ lcd and after about 2 years a red line showed up through the screen.Called mitsubishi and they said they didnt have any problems that they knew of.Went to a local tv dealer and he said it was a problem with those units und they would fix it for free under some maunfacturer warranty through mitsubishi.
“…screen went pink/green and then just died.”
Poltergeist?
We have a geek clubhouse thing (called a hackerspace) in Norfolk. So far we’ve repaired 2 flat panel TVs for the club. Can’t do anything about a cracked screen. It’s mostly module swapping, defective designs. I was thinking the other day how it might be cheaper to build a house out of flat panel televisions than wood. Need to do the math on it.
In Colorado,
Right, and the less you spend ( the more you actually notice it! )
A few weeks back *CincyDad had a great idea. He suggested adding a Disposal Fee to all electronic/appliance purchases! It’s a great idea.
I know for a FACT if I were in the checkout lane and the cashier said.., “And with the Disposal Fee that comes TO…!?” I’d be beatin’ feet back to Toaster Aisle to get one that has a shot at lasting more than a year?
Rep’s/Dem’s really can’t b!tch about nor can pro-labor/pro-free trade types. It isn’t a Tariff, it’s a Fee assessed to ALL prdts! Seems simple enough to me?
I like it.
I believe California beat you to it. They have an Electronic Disposal Fee for CRT/TVs/LCD monitors.
If the onus is on me to dispose of the crap instead of the mfg to make a better product, I wouldn’t buy it in the first unless I absolutely had to.
As I’ve said before, if people only knew how badly they are being ripped off on EVERYTHING…
Add commercial air travel to my personal buyer’s strike:
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/10/for-the-first-time-the-tsa-meets-resistance/65390/
The air traveler now has a choice:
1. pay big bucks for your ticket on a flying sardine can, but first get x-ray irradiated during an x-ray-ted security pr0no shoot when you go through the checkpoint… or….
2. pay big bucks for your ticket on a flying sardine can, but first get groped by the butch bully boys (and girls) of the tsa
If I make a.. uh.. *spicy* movie, I expect to be paid for my work, not pay the airline for the privilege. Same goes for being groped by strangers. Go ahead and call me old fashioned but I’m just not into that kind of thing. Maybe those hep cat, kooky teenagers these days really dig the exhibitionism, but I just think it’s a major bummer when it’s FORCED on you. Bet those security folks are really enjoying the show, especially the high school crowd.
I wonder if there’s a Fourth Amendment case somewhere in here. Yes, I realize that flying is a priviledge, not a right, but what about cars and houses? They can’t search my house or (ostensibly) tap my phone… has “house” been defined as a right?
It wouldn’t surprise me if this cuts into ticket sales. People are just going to stop flying rather than be humiliated, especially families and business travelers.
Wait until the racy pics are accidentally released.
People are just going to stop flying rather than be humiliated, especially families and business travelers.
And those not well endowed with patience.
Somehow I doubt Constitutional issues will roll this perversity back. Buying a plane ticket is voluntary. That said, I find it hard to believe parents will allow their children to be “processed” through airport security in this manner. It really is nekkid pix being generated by these scanners… reviewed by the same creepy old men and women you’d probably want to shoot if you saw them peeping at your kids through their bedroom windows. And then there is the x-ray danger issue (although some varieties are millimeter wave). Sure, the government says it’s “Safe”. Why would they lie? I can actually think of several reasons, but whatever.
The worse aspect of this humiliation is it probably won’t do any good. The author of the linked Atlantic article explores that issue at length. The dude worked security in Israel, and his arguments are persuasive. Ironically, I was willing to accept the extremely small risk of being blown out of the sky by some religious fanatic, and indeed flew several times in the weeks after 911, but I just can’t bring myself to submit to this useless invasion of my privacy. So, Constitution aside, I’m voting with my feet.
People are just going to stop flying rather than be humiliated, especially families and business travelers.
And those not well endowed
with patience.“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Pretty clear and straightforward statement, but it was *crapped* on decades ago.
So was property seizure without due process.
I bought a TV that died within 3 weeks . My three year old
frig is already having problems and the one I had before this
died at 6 year mark . The furniture thats sold these days is junk .
That plastic from China is weird shit …..some of it smells . I have tried out enough of these products to realize they are junk products with short lifespans . Viewed in that light ,they are not worth the cheaper price ,we are overpaying . Also there has to be something about the avoidance of regulation and thats why a lot of manufacturing is done in China . Anybody comfortable with
China products conforming to American standards. The China drywall toxicity problem is a perfect example . Screws ,bolts ,you name it ,its junk .Sometimes I wonder about the increase in
weird medical conditions not being directly linked to clothes that are processed with weird toxic chemicals .
I’m just saying if they couldn’t even regulate the fraud in loans ,
how much regulation was really taking place with products .
Yet the PR on these junk products is that it allows for the lower
classes to be able to afford products . People are overpaying and these junk products are becoming so prevalent that its hard to find any others choices because even some USA products have
part of the manufacturing done elsewhere .
I guess I’m spoiled because I was around when you got a certain
amount of value for your dollar from Industry along with quality competition between manufactures ,unlike today where it’s just one big monopoly of crap being peddled .
Obviously, the answer is less regulation!
Yes but the “deciders” in the company all made out like bandits and that’s what really counts, right? The post-modern American brand of capitalism doesn’t reward mere “cogs”.
(Deeply Cynical Sarcasm off)
Top 1% net income rose by 400% over the last 30 years.
Almost everyone else saw a decrease.
ecofeco …you joke about regulations and its funny how
you get this PR campaign that regulation is the problem .
Basically Industry is saying let us cut corners and give you a inferior product so we can make more money .
If regulation isn’t enforced that is what the problem is ,not regulations in themselves .
The greater the population the greater need for laws and regulations .People don’t like regulations and some of the laws
because they think it might be a violation of their freedoms,
but because so many people don’t know how to be good Citizens and not step on other peoples toes
the Government has to step in and be the “rule givers “. This doesn’t mean that government can’t go to far sometimes with
what they think they can enforce on the public ,or they can’t
be bribed like what has been happening therefore they come up with bad law or policies or regulations or laws that pad the pockets of a special interest group .Governments can be totally wrong about what they spend tax money on also and the big fight is always there on how the money will be spent .
The original purpose of why they wanted mass education for
the people in America was because they felt a educated
population would make intelligent choices .
Look where de-regulation in finance got us. But how some people are saying that there is no need for Government at
all is silly ,there is no need for bad Government …thats
all .
OMG - 66,000 employees to ZERO within 15 years.
Xerox profit doubles in 3rd quarter on strong sales, service contracts; job cuts planned
NEW YORK (AP) — Xerox Corp. more than doubled its third-quarter profit as sales of office equipment continued to bounce back and its recent acquisition of outsourcer Affiliated Computer Services fueled growth in services revenue.
As it looks to wring more cost savings out of the $6 billion ACS deal, Xerox said Thursday it plans to eliminate 2,500 jobs, or about 2 percent of its 133,000-person work force. That’s in addition to 2,500 jobs Xerox said it would cut back in January.
The company has been clawing its way back from a dismal 2009, when sluggish business at its customers caused a drop-off in spending on office equipment and supplies.
So how long until American style capitalism implodes?
I’d say about 3 years ago. You’re living in it.
Remember, the EU, Russia and China have all had their mini-revolutions and social/economic upheavals and are currently doing well along with South America while we continued with business-as-usual Cold War economics.
its recent acquisition of outsourcer Affiliated Computer Services fueled growth in services revenue.
We’re doomed.
What have I said about layoffs when profits are good?
66,000 is a typo- it’s 6,600. (Still a lot of jobs.)
Thank you alpha…I ready to scream that the sky was falling.
Rand Paul!
“to ZERO within 15 years”
Unlike many, I don’t pretend to be an industry analyst in that arena. But here’s my guess, many of those elec. motors go into FORKLIFTS! As in Materials Handling..?
To move ‘what’ exactly? Just a thought.
At its peak in 1996 the plant employed 66,000, but by 2009 that number was down to 109 ??
That is Frighting…You can’t tell me that the demand for electric motors has dropped the equivalent of the production capacity of 66,000 workers…I smell off-shoring…
Just saw Alpha’s post…6600…Big difference but I still suspect GE is making those motors in another country…Maybe Mexico…
From the Arizona Slim Ranch: After just six years of use, the motor in my swamp cooler crapped out. That was during the height of the July summer heat.
I have the dead motor sitting on my back porch. Don’t know where this thing was made — I should pick it up and take a close look. But I’ll bet it was one of those “outsourced to China” thingies.
And, maybe it’s just me, but I expect more than six years of life from a two-speed motor that’s only used for part of the year.
“And, maybe it’s just me, but I expect more than six years of life from a two-speed motor that’s only used for part of the year.”
Well Slim, we all know that American workers are lazy, overpaid pigs who make crap, right?
And I’ll bet your chinese made swamp cooler cost as much as the older American made ones did.
As I mentioned in a post above, EVERYTHING is crap these days. I just don’t want to buy anything, because I know It’ll be falling apart before I know it.
We had a swamp cooler on our previous house. I believe it was installed when the house was build in the late 70’s. It was made in the USA and was still running strong when we sold the house 10 years ago.
Was your replacement motor American made?
As I mentioned in a post above, EVERYTHING is crap these days.
Don’t you get it?
Why would I pay $500 for an American made washer that will last 20 years when I can pay $425 for a Chinese washer that will last 5 years?
” I just don’t want to buy anything, because I know It’ll be falling apart before I know it.”
And I don’t want to buy anything these days because customer service falls apart right away…. American-build furniture arives with whole in fabric, domestic made rug gets ordered, but the local supplier screws up the finishing and delivery of it..Imported flat-screen TV had to be returned to purchaser because of problems right awa… I could go on.
Nobody seems to be able to get simple orders (customer purcahses) correct these days.
CincyDad!
God Love You Sir!
Yes, I’ve been trying to share that w/ this crowd for over a year w/ zero traction. It’s reached a point where you have to calculate the mismanagement of assets/orders into your day.
Ul….timately, it will begin to effect the way YOU perform! ( How can it -not-? ) Oh and please to see my curteous bump on your Disposal Fee contribution to *In Colorado’s post above!
Agree here, Cincy dad. It took six customer service reps at Best Buy to find/order me a keyboard stool which was supposed to be in the store (said the webpage, which was totally wrong). The Best Buy rep who chatted with me told me that they come out their customer service meeting pep talks all eager to help the customer. I told her they needed to be less peppy and more efficient. Yes, they eventually got what I wanted, but if it takes six people there’s no way they could have made any profit off of my $30 stool by the time I walked out with it.
“Why would I pay $500 for an American made washer that will last 20 years when I can pay $425 for a Chinese washer that will last 5 years?”
Our Maytag Neptune is still going strong.
“Nobody seems to be able to get simple orders (customer purcahses) correct these days.”
That’s what $12hr, no bennies or real time off, gets you these days.
Why would anybody in their right mind give the extra effort to a job that doesn’t even pay the bills in the poor part of town? Especially when all a promotion mean is more responsibility and hours, but no raise or one that is meaningless?
ecofeco …..it’s just so true what your saying . Industry has just made it so difficult to be a customer anymore .Another thing I
have been feeling lately is that the reps just flat out lie to me ,and its apparent that a lot of Companies are short staffed and not able to give good service ,or at least the kind of service
I use to get from Companies . I have had service people start
to complain to me about how abusive their Companies are being to them .
It’s just a breakdown of humanity, all for the bottom line
profit motives of Industries .
Maybe they made stepper motors that they put into industrial robot arms, and now the motor driven industrial robot arms do the work.
Archaeologists will dig up these factories in a couple thousand years and wonder how such a wipeout could have occurred. Was it a meteor? Did the climate change? War, disease?
Will they ever come to understand it was banksters and corporatists?
Digging the Weans
http://www.joshpachter.com/pages/weans.pdf
Most history scientists are well aware of mankind’s follies throughout the ages.
Most bankers and politicians (the new aristocracy) and the fools that support them, are not.
Why don’t we ship some developers and real-a-tards down there to take care of their housing shortage.
~Chavez Says Venezuela’s Golf Courses Should Be Seized, Put to Other Uses
President Hugo Chavez said some of Venezuela’s golf courses should be expropriated and used for other purposes.
“That’s an injustice — that someone should have the luxury of having I don’t know how many hectares to play golf and drink whiskey and, next door, there’s misery and children dying when there are landslides,” Chavez said during his weekly television show, “Alo, Presidente.”
Dozens of people died in the past month when landslides caused their homes to collapse after heavy rains. Chavez said he will dedicate himself to resolving Venezuela’s housing shortage.
Chavez also called on Venezuelans to actively look for abandoned private land to expropriate.
“Look for irregularities, and by that I mean good land that’s been abandoned,” he said.
Chavez orders takeover of Venezuelan steel maker
October 31, 2010
Venezuelana President Hugo Chavez has ordered the expropriation of his nation’s largest privately owned steel producer. It is the latest in a series of state takeovers that has raised concerns among business leaders.
Chavez says the expropriation of Siderurgica del Turbio SA is part of his strategy to transform Venezuela into a socialist state. He has ordered the National Guard to safeguard the company’s seven plants.
The company exports steel products to nations in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe.
Telephone calls to the company’s offices in Caracas went unanswered late Sunday, shortly after Chavez announced the expropriation.
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9J6V3800.htm
——-
If they fail to transform the USA, America’s socialists have somewhere to else to call home sweet home.
And America’s right wing can go live with their brethren the taliban.
I fought in Afghanistan. I am also what you would perceive as a “wacky-right-wing-conservative-religious-person”
So here are the differences between myself and the Taliban.
The Taliban allowed no freedom of expression, no rights for women, no freedom of religion and destroyed anything and everyone that did not abide by their version of Islam. They destroyed the famous Buddhist statues of Bamiyan because the felt they were un-Islamic graven images. The wiped out entire peoples and villages (such as the Hazara) because they were not Islamic enough. They would think nothing of executing an entire village if one family converted to Christianity. They cut the ears, eyes, tongues and noses off people for “infractions against Islam.” They turned schools into horse stables. They planted bombs and mines in children’s play fields. They torched newly built girls schools. They stoned women to death who had been raped for “adultery.” They allowed the training of terrorist groups to export their version of Islam to the world. They looked at the world as two spheres - One that has been conquered by Islam and one that will be conquered by Islam through war. They would think nothing of raping your wife and children and making you a slave or corpse. It is what you and your family, or any non-Islamic person, deserves for being an infidel.
They would not allow women (and girls) to go to school, have a job or even leave their home (unless accompanied by a male relative). The Taliban ruled by fear and intimidation. They remind me of the Nazis and Communists.
What do the so called religious conservatives in this country want? Here is the super secret list: Economic Opportunity and Personal Liberty.
Taxes we can afford, a reverence for the US Constitution as the Founding Fathers wrote it, an appreciation for the values and traditions that made this country the finest in the history of the world, a respect for all opinion, not just what is the PC flavor of the month, an understanding that people should “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” and respect for life (no matter how vulnerable or powerless).
The differences are slight, but they are there. I hope this clears up any misunderstandings.
And what American ’socialists’ are calling for nationalizing industries and confiscating land?
Kind of annoying when you’re on the receiving end of a straw man attack, eh?
“What do the so called religious conservatives in this country want? Here is the super secret list: Economic Opportunity and Personal Liberty.”
So teaching “creation science”, picketing at military funerals, etc. is personal liberty?
Respect for life my eye. All women would be forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term and potentially raise a child they were incapable of nurturing or supporting? Where’s the respect in that ?
‘They cut the ears, eyes, tongues and noses off people for “infractions against Islam.”’
Are the Taliban different from others who practice Islam? If so, how?
Respect for life, my eye too. Aren’t these the people who want the poor to suffer because they are “choosing not to buy” health insurance, and want the elderly to go back to living without heat and eating cat food?
And does “economic opportunity” include extending economic opportunity to the populations of India and China and Mexico?
And do “values and traditions” that made this country great include Jim Crow laws and prospering mainly because most of Europe was a pile of rubble?
“an appreciation for the values and traditions that made this country the finest in the history of the world”
Which is code for? Guns, god and guts? Pillories and witch hunts? We can’t tell how crazy you are (although from previous posts, it’s going to be a non-zero amount) from this vague platform.
Some of those values and traditions that you are endorsing implicitly actually aren’t that sweet.
Where’s the respect in that ??
There is none…Your a woman…A breeding tool is all…
Nice post.
It disheartens me to hear we may allow the Pakistani to negotiate with them.
“And what American ’socialists’ are calling for nationalizing industries and confiscating land?”
Tell me again who owns GM and AIG. Also, the anti-corporatists on this blog would never characterize themselves as “right-wing.”
The Republican Taliban wants to continue to ban prostitution, which is legal in Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, most of Europe, Turkey, most of South America, and most of Central America. The Republican Taliban want to force single American men to marry to get sex.
The Republican Taliban wants to continue to ban cocaine, heroine, marijuana, meth, and so on, which are each less harmful than alcohol (Yahoo news: “Drug experts say alcohol worse than crack or heroin”).
The Republican Taliban wants to control the lives of women and force them to carry unwanted children, yet the Republican Taliban refuses to pay for the upkeep of those children to the age of eighteen.
The Republican Taliban wants to force prayer in public schools.
I don’t see much difference between Muslim terror and Republican Taliban terror.
Jeez…. you’re coming around Bill.
“Tell me again who owns GM and AIG. Also, the anti-corporatists on this blog would never characterize themselves as “right-wing.””
Technically those were bailouts and efforts are being made to reprivatize those corporations.
Communists nationalize wealth generating industries (like oil) and not money losers like GM or AIG. Bailing out TBTF businesses that should die is not socialism, its crony capitalism.
The ULTRA CONSERVATIVE RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISTS allowed no freedom of expression, no rights for women, no freedom of religion and destroyed anything and everyone that did not abide by their version of RELIGION. They disparage established denominations because they don’t adhere to FUNDAMENTALIST EXTREMISM. They would think nothing of executing an entire village if one family does what Jesus did. They cut the ears, eyes, tongues and noses off people for “infractions against RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM.” They turned schools into horse stables. They planted bombs and mines in children’s play fields. They torched newly built girls schools. They stoned women to death who had been raped for “adultery.” They allowed the training of terrorist groups to export their version of RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM to the world. They looked at the world as two spheres - One that has been conquered by RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM and one that will be conquered by RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM through war. They would think nothing of raping your wife and children and making you a slave or corpse. It is what you and your family, or anyone who rejects RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM deserves for REJECTING THEIR EXTREMISM.
They would not allow women (and girls) to go to school, have a job or even leave their home (unless accompanied by a male relative). The RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISTS ruled by fear and intimidation. They remind me of the Nazis and Communists.
What do the so called religious conservatives in this country want? Here is the super secret list: PRECISELY THE SAME THING.
Taxes for us little people, no taxes for the elite, a reversion to the white surpremacy of the founding fathers(who were slave traders), a rabid rejection of Christian values and a return to the extreme traditions that drove this country into a bloody civil war, retribution for any dissent, judging and punishing people by the color of their skin irrespective of the content of their character” and no respect for human life, (more death penalty, back to stoning people for issues of personal behavior) The differences are slight, but they are there. I hope this clears up any misunderstandings.
So how blind religious people are?
If GM and Chrysler had disappeared a year ago, we’d be a year into a bigger and better “Great Depression” right now.
Not only would they have disappeared, so would a huge chunk of what is left of our industrial base, including vendors and subcontractors who do work for other industries, aviation being one of them. The volume of work that the Big 3 did with vendors paid enough of the bills to keep costs competitive in other industries.
The “money” in any transportation business isn’t in the final assembly, it’s in the design and engineering of the product and it’s sub assemblies.
That is why the “bailout” happened. Not to save GM and Chrysler, but to save a big chunk of what is left of our industrial base.
+1
I recall seeing Laura Ingraham on O’Reilly speaking out against how the Taliban in Afghanistan treated women. Within the same segment she was speaking out against the sexual freedom of America.
What is it that she wants? Is the Republican Taliban any different than a Muslim Taliban? As you posted above, the answer is NO.
I’ve come around 30 years ago. I had the same views as you’ve seen above for 30 years. You just consider me a right wing conservative merely because of my Austrian economics p.o.v. and my staunch support of RKBA.
Some believe Conservative/Right wing Fundamentalism is to the Taliban, as po-tae-to is to po-tah-to.
The fact that many of their fellow citizens believe that differences between Christian fundamentalists and the Taliban are only in degree, should give the Christian Right something to consider. But they won’t, because “God is on their side”.
I do think we’d be a wee bit better off in Tea-o-stan than under the Taliban, just because it would be annoying as hell having to pray 5 times a day and give up everything that makes living enjoyable, and about all you individuality, but then it was a theocracy living under the Pilgrims and Puritans. That may well be part of their long-term ideal.
er, your individuality …
What do the so called religious conservatives in this country want? Here is the super secret list: Economic Opportunity and Personal Liberty.
Unless of course if you’re gay or need an abortion.
Jeez…. you’re coming around Bill.
There’s two different “Bill in”s here.
What do the so called religious conservatives in this country want? Here is the super secret list: Economic Opportunity and Personal Liberty.
Unless you happen to be gay or need an abortion.
Comparing the Taliban to Republicans/Democrats is bit over the top. Both are beholden to the corporations that support them. Direct your anger to the appropriate places.
And comparing the religous fundamentalism of evangelicals and the taliban is quite eye opening.
Steve J,
Thank you. Truly a flurry of unhinged (TM) yeah, trademarked, rants. “coming around”. Coming around to what!?
Sorry, but feeble attempts to make this about religion/family values ain’t gonna’ work this time. ( Nice try though ) Oh and that ‘is’ trademarked. What flakes.
Thank you for your service to our country, 2banana.
Pay no attention to the riff raff. They don’t mean any harm. The medium is the message.
I hope this clears up any misunderstandings.
So, you saying that lil’ Opie’s “Troop Surge” in Afghanistan is a good “I’m now the Decider!” Commmader-in-Chief decison?
The medium is the message.
And the medium is the government-created internet. What are you doing posting on such a socialist medium? Are you a fellow traveler?
alpha.. yeah this is the internet, aka the information superhighway.
Since you need do little more than type a few words and hit ‘enter’ to learn something, there was no good reason to guess at the meaning of the phrase, and expose your ignorance.
Has anyone outside of the Communist Party been calling for widespread nationalization (by force) of any industries in the USA?
Nope. Not even “Obamacare” mandated that.
Put your strawman away. One need not be a predatory robber baron to be a capitalist.
Socialist believe the government is better equipped to control the activities of certain industries. They may not advocate outright nationalization, but there’s little difference between state control and state ownership.
The fundamental principle is the same.
Call for outright nationalization? No.
By force? You mean if your company chooses not to cooperate or to follow govt mandates, you’ll pay a fine or go to jail? Yes.
If you are saying that we live in a mixed economy, then I agree. I also have no desire to return to 19th century robber baron capitalism.
But what was being discussed above was Hugo Chavez nationalizing (confiscating) private property in Venezuela. No one is disputing that the guy is a crackpot Marxist, but to compare mainstream American Democrats to Chavez is just as disingenuous as comparing mainstream American Republicans to the Taliban.
Hey, there’s a difference between “regulation” and “control.” Some Libertarian types might say a true free market has never been tried, so why shouldn’t we let them do exactly as they wish and see how it works?
Well, I ain’t never drunk arsenic, either (which is but one of the things you’ll be finding a lot of in your water if you give big biz free rein.
Socialist believe the government is better equipped to control the activities of certain industries.
You’re scaring me so much Joey but we got your number. Are the banks paying you overtime today because of the election tomorrow? Your “socialist” labels are designed to scare people who don’t really know much. Look at all the countries below who trump America in quality of life issues. How many of them are “socialist”?
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and standards of living for countries worldwide. It is a standard means of measuring well-being, (Ranked from best to worst) wiki
1 Norway
2 Australia
3 Iceland
4 Canada
5 Ireland
6 Netherlands
7 Sweden
8 France
9 Switzerland
10 Japan
11 Luxembourg
12 Finland
13 United States
Wonder what all goes into these rankings. I’m surprised we’re so high. Most of us here are probably doing pretty well, but the bottom 25% or 30%, if they live in an urban area (which about 50% of us do), are living in a war zone, dodging bullets and surrounded by gangs. Only way those 25-30 million people would be worse off would be to actually live in the Congo, a slum in India or Brazil, Afghanistan or Iraq, etc. And I guess Mexico must be somehow worse, because they keep risking their lives to come and join that group.
It may seem I’m overstating … and I like hyperbole on principle because it’s often the only thing that gets people’s attention … but when you look at the 12 countries above us, I’d say none of them have vast, dangerous no-go areas like we do. Their poorest are far better off, though maybe that’s averaged out by how much better our top 5% is doing.
when you look at the 12 countries above us, I’d say none of them have vast, dangerous no-go areas like we do. Their poorest are far better off, though maybe that’s averaged out by how much better our top 5% is doing.
Yes. It is because of our American mutant form of crony corporate “capitalism”. It has proven bad for the poor AND the middle class but great for a few. The few with all the money and power.
No one is disputing that the guy is a crackpot Marxist, but to compare mainstream American Democrats to Chavez is just as disingenuous as comparing mainstream American Republicans to the Taliban.
Sanity alert!
1 Norway
Also happens to be the least religious industrialized nation, to boot.
Socialist believe the government is better equipped to control the activities of certain industries.
You mean like the distribution of water? Somebody psoted an article yesterday about India’s water mafia. What if you charging a fee each time somebody flushed a toilet? You could jack up fees anytime you wanted. Imagine the P/E ratio on a company like that!
1 Norway 4.5 million
2 Australia 19 million
3 Iceland 0.3 million
4 Canada 31 million
5 Ireland 3.8 million
6 Netherlands 16 million
7 Sweden 9 million
8 France 59 million
9 Switzerland 7.2 million
10 Japan 127 million
11 Luxembourg 0.5 million
12 Finland 5.2 million
13 United States 270 million
Population figures rounded up from Nat. Geo. Atlas 7th Ed. 1999. (newest copy I have lying around the house)
It’s a lot easier to have a closed socialist society in a tiny country. Most of the top-10 countries in your list would barely be a state in the USA. Your list could also support the opposite conclusion that the US is the best-off of the “large” countries in the world, or maybe 2nd best-off, depending upon how big you consider Japan to be.
It’s a lot easier to have a closed socialist society in a tiny country. Most of the top-10 countries in your list would barely be a state in the USA.
The size of the country should not be relevant when one takes into account the amount of wealth each country possesses per capita. Why would it? Because the USA cannot “afford” to have a higher standard of living for ALL it’s people? Just because we are bigger? Would not being bigger be an advantage for a higher standard of living due to economy of scale?
We might be bigger but we HAVE the wealth to give our people a higher standard of living if we chose to do so. The problem is the inequality of income and wealth, not because we are bigger.
For example: The United States has more GDP per capita than the following countries on the list I posted above. But all these countries have a higher standard of living than the USA. All have less wealth inequality. Why? Because they chose public policies that benefit the many instead of the few.
Sweden
Netherlands
Finland
Canada
Australia
Belgium
Japan
and France
all have lower GDP per capita than America but have higher standards of living. The money is there. But it’s only in the pockets of the rich. So vote Republican.
source
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gdp_percap-economy-gdp-nominal-per-capita
You mean if your company chooses not to cooperate or to follow govt mandates, you’ll pay a fine or go to jail?
I don’t think GM said “no” to the government bailout. If they had, there wouldn’t BE a GM.
The only reason Ford said no was because they were smart enough to borrow money before investors knew they were insolvent. GM was asleep at the wheel.
“3 Iceland”
Before or after their banking system collapsed?
“3 Iceland”
Before or after their banking system collapsed?
B4. But I bet they still rank us.
Iceland Unemployment Rate
The unemployment rate in Iceland was last reported at 7.60 percent in June of 2010. source: tradingeconomics dot com
rio..
i don’t like socialism because it denies human nature and always leads to the equal distribution of misery.
if all you care about is quality of life, take money from anyone who’s wealthier than you and use it to surround yourself with nice things. Ignore that your lifestyle is unsustainable.
i don’t like socialism because it denies human nature and always leads to the equal distribution of misery.
Grow up dude. You are full of BS propaganda. “Socialist” Euro countries rank as the happiest in the world. And the EU has the most fortune 500 companies in the world and they beat the USA at manufacturing. They are better “capitalists” than us.
And their banks are not like the evil ones that rip us off and might pay you.
The World’s Happiest Countries
http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/14/world-happiest-countries-lifestyle-realestate-gallup_2.html
“The Scandinavian countries do really well,” says Jim Harter, a chief scientist at Gallup, which developed the poll. “One theory why is that they have their basic needs taken care of to a higher degree than other countries. When we look at all the data, those basic needs explain the relationship between income and well-being.”
Indeed, Denmark, the world’s happiest country, had a per-capita GDP of $36,000 in 2009,
(The USA’s is 44K) wiki
Day-to-day happiness is more likely to be associated with how well one’s psychological and social needs are being met, and that’s harder to achieve with a paycheck.
Joey …..Do you really think that the cheaters of Wall Street
Banking who fleeced the public deserve their wealth ? Did they make the World a better place by their ill-gotten gain .
History has shown that unregulated human nature is such
that a small % of people will amass all the wealth and maintain
rigged playing fields to fleece the Majority and Monopolies
will form eventually with unregulated capitalism .
I don’t think you will be happy until the Majority is poverty
stricken while the rich keep the rigged playing field along with their wealth and power while they bribe the Politicians to make favorable laws and taxes for them .
The CEO’s of major Companies didn’t deserve their absurd
salaries . The Bankers who were enriched by being middlemen for loans did nothing but throw a Ponzi-scheme into the financial system .A working class janitor contributed more
to Society than the protected money-changers .
Making the playing field more fair so the lower classes are
able to get more for their contribution to the Grand Bee
Hive is needed .
You seem to think that the correction of a “stacked deck ”
is Socialism . The only socialism I have seen lately is the
elite being bailed out by the Government by amounts that
are beyond belief ,amounts that would of been objected to
if they were going to the working middle class .
If you think that the problem is that the lower class lives a unsustainable lifestyle and they should go back and crawl
back under their rocks and be happy with their decrease in buying power and wages for the last 10 years ,just so those in control can get more ,well than your wrong . The industry gave them unsustainable debt dollars so they would buy products while at the same time not giving them the real wealth of increased wages .Our Industries out-sourced jobs and manufacturing and created a monopoly in foreign manufacturing to improve their bottom line.
Ok ,i will give you the fact that people abused credit and went way beyond their means but they were sold on the concept that real estate wealth would cover the tab . Why
did the money changers give this kind of credit limits to
people who had no ability to really have a debt load like that ?
What are you afraid of Joey ?
hmm.. so prosperous a group of countries.. I didn’t know that.
Why don’t they think it necessary to have a military which can defend all that fabulous wealth?
I know..
A military is so nasty and rude. It’s hardly the sort of thing seekers of happiness and well being would want to be associated with, much less pay for.
Venezuela to nationalize U.S.-owned bottle manufacturer
October 27, 2010
Charging U.S. bottle manufacturer Owens- Illinois with worker exploitation and environmental damage, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has announced plans to confiscate the local unit of the company, the 200th nationalization of a private firm this year.
The seizure comes as Venezuela suffers through a sinking economy and the continent’s highest inflation rate. Some experts blame the conditions in part on the inefficiency caused by Chavez’s takeovers of private industry, an element of his so-called 21st century socialism program.
the 200th nationalization of a private firm…besides MONSANTO… this year.
Go Hugo! Go Hugo! Go Hugo!
Some of Venezuela’s coastal development has been on alluvial fans that are highly vulnerable to mudslides, so perhaps that should be kept in mind when efforts to “resolve the housing shortage” are undertaken. The Vargas flooding of 1999 is estimated to have killed 30,000 people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vargas_tragedy
No worries. If it happens again, the US will bail them out on borrowed funds.
Foreclosure Freeze Cuts Sales, Supply in Hardest-Hit States
By John Gittelsohn - Oct 29, 2010 12:01 AM ET
U.S. home foreclosure sales are slowing in the states hardest-hit by the real estate crash as banks review their practices and delay seizures.
In Arizona, California and Nevada, foreclosure auctions on courthouse steps, known as trustee sales, are down 42 percent since Sept. 20, according to ForeclosureRadar, a real estate tracking service in Discovery Bay, California. In Florida’s Miami-Dade and Broward counties, fewer foreclosures have led to 18 percent declines this month in the number of repossessed homes listed for sale, said Ron Shuffield of Esslinger, Wooten, Maxwell Inc., a realty firm based in Coral Gables, Florida.
In a real estate market where as many as 7 million homes face foreclosure or have already been seized by lenders, according to Zillow Inc., a clog in the pipeline may delay a housing recovery, which won’t occur until home prices stop falling. That could in turn postpone a U.S. economic recovery. Distressed properties accounted for 31 percent of all U.S. home sales last month, RealtyTrac Inc. said Oct. 14.
“If what’s a hiatus turns into a moratorium, that’s quite problematic,” Stan Humphries, chief economist for Zillow, a Seattle-based real estate data provider, said in an interview. “It will delay the ultimate bottoming process in the market.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-29/foreclosure-freeze-cuts-home-sales-supply-in-states-hardest-hit-by-slump.html - 59k -
“Ron Shuffield of Esslinger, Wooten, Maxwell Inc., a realty firm based in Coral Gables, Florida.”
Unreal. This d*ckhead is still around, popping up like a bad penny. Anyone care to dig up his classic housing bubble quote?
”South Florida, he said, is working off of a totally new economic model than any of us have ever experienced in the past’. Ron Shuffield, president of Esslinger-Wooten-Maxwell Realtors, predicted.’
http://thehousingbubble.blogspot.com/2005/03/this-time-its-different.html
Thanks, Ben. The funny thing is, he could say the exact same thing now, but with different meaning.
When you hear new economic model in any sentence run away as fast as you can!!!!!!!!
From Ben’s posted link…
“Five years ago [during the dot-com boom], she said, friends at parties were crowing about “making millions of dollars on paper with $25,000 and $50,000 investments.” But “most of those people,” she added, “got wiped out.”
Wow, and it’ll also be fun in 5 years to reread quotes about the new banking model we’re operating under now.
If the banks have the proper, legally required, and necessary paperwork, then there should be no long-term problem. If they don’t have the proper paperwork, then they’ve got a big problem. One that needs to be dragged out in the open and solved now, not swept under the rug, for the banks’ convenience, to cause problems for the rest of us for years in the future.
“If the banks have the proper, legally required, and necessary paperwork”
Acquaintance of my wife who had not made a mortgage payment in well over 2 years had her house sold at auction about 2 months ago, had eviction papers to be out by Oct. 21 Well she is unpacked now because her lawyer found a “loophole” ( I assume broken chain of title) so, it`s back to no house payment, new clothes and Ipods for their kids and a couple of dinners out each week for them. I don`t know what happens to the winning bidder.
I don`t know what happens to the winning bidder.
That’s the thing- if there’s a broken chain of title, then the sales aren’t legit. To let the banks ram them through now doesn’t solve this problem, it just kicks the can down the road, and makes them worse.
Shouldn’t there be a committee of banksters and pension fund bosses from Eastern Europe at every auction to make em legit? Don’t they own all this stuff? Whoever THEY are?
“If the banks have the proper, legally required, and necessary paperwork”
or in other words
“Chavez also called on Venezuelans to actively look for abandoned private land to expropriate.
“Look for irregularities, and by that I mean good land that’s been abandoned,” he said
Showing that you own or have the right to service a mortgage that you’re foreclosing on isn’t a technicality. It’s one of the fundamentals of property law. Otherwise anyone could seize whatever property they might want. I don’t want anyone to have that ability. Do you feel some groups should be able to do that? If so, who and why?
You do know that “eminent domain” now means developers can take your property and give you whatever THEY think is fair price, right?
So a “clog in the foreclosure pipeline will delay a housing recovery, which won’t occur until prices stop falling”. So more foreclosures will stop prices from falling? No, that makes no sense, supply and demand etc. Oh, more foreclosures accelerate the drop in home prices, getting it over with sooner? But if we have more foreclosures so that house prices drop rapidly, more people will become upside-down and walk away, which will make house prices drop. So we can’t have that, must stop prices from falling too fast. How about we clog up the foreclosure pipeline, that will do it. But then we can’t have a housing recovery, as prices haven’t stopped falling. So let’s upclog it, let prices fall. But now prices are dropping too much, that’s not good either, but…
One of the reasons houses have to be cleared as soon as possible is
they go downhill and become more damaged with time . Non -performing assets that have property taxes and insurance costs end up costing more money than the mortgage with time .
In my view the sheer volume of foreclosures they have will create
a situation of making the real estate values in general go below
what you might say property value would be absent the foreclosures .
There has never been this many foreclosures ( at least in my lifetime there hasn’t been ).
.
You can’t even have a normal real estate market with this number of foreclosures IMHO . If you have 30 foreclosures in a tract and 50 regular sales all those foreclosures not only screw up the amount of properties that would be marketed at one time ,but it makes
appraisal of the regular listings impossible .I have never seen anything as extreme as this in real estate markets . it would be like
Macy’s trying to sell products in their nice store being right next to
dozens of people selling the same products for 60% off .
I think for a while the Money-changers were holding back waiting
for more TARP bail-outs taking the toxic paper off their hands.
Now that the Banks believe that more bail-outs might not be coming they need to unload these properties .
My question has always been , If the Banks and Investment houses
sold off these loans to the Secondary Market in the form of securities ( whereby Banks ,etc held less loans on their own books)
than why were the Banks/Investment houses bailed out ?
In other words the Banks were just servicing these loans ,so it would be the security holders that would need to be bailed out ,not the Banks . Were the banks forced into taking a bunch of paper
back / And what about all the additional leverage of the casino games they were playing ,how did that exactly get paid back .
i have seen cases of Fred and Fannie buying housing in foreclosure
from Banks and than F&F sells the foreclosure ,and they paid the bank par value of the mortgage . Why is the Feds so protective
of revealing who got the bail-outs ? We already know that
the Feds make trillions of dollars of short term loans to the Banks/Investment houses based on this junk paper leading up to
Tarp ,but can a servicer of a loan offer it up in return for a loan
from the Feds ,never mind the fact that the Feds gave the loans based on par value of the loan .
I’m just saying that I don’t think that anything that went on
was how they spun it to the public .
Amid mortgage mess, owners blindsided
By Dina ElBoghdady
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 30, 2010; 12:53 AM
After Valarie Stovall fell behind on the mortgage on her home near Hagerstown, her lender agreed in April to slash her monthly payment by $300, and she immediately started paying the reduced amount.
That’s why, Stovall said, she thought nothing of the yellow flier she ripped off her screen door as she returned from the grocery store one afternoon last July.
“Then I read it and went ‘Oh my God,’” she said. “It was a notice of eviction.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/29/AR2010102906772.html -
This is a great article. They continue with Stovall’s story at the end. In short, it’s the usual story. She has a back injury, has to retire, can’t keep up her $830 payments, gets 3-month temp refi at $543, applies for full refi still paying $543, they lose the paperwork for a year, and then hit her with a bill for back payments because she wasn’t paying $830. She’s under house arrest so that she’s not evicted when she’s away.
Another story from this article:
“Kevin Matthews, a Gulf War veteran, was initially rejected when he applied to his lender, USAA, for a modification of the mortgage on his Baltimore rowhouse. But when a housing counselor contacted USAA on his behalf, the lender invited him to reapply, Matthews said. The counselor filled out a 70-page application for Matthews in early May.
The lender did not respond to this new request until after his home was taken away in a foreclosure sale two weeks later, he alleged. He was evicted in June while he was away on school-related travel.
Roger Wildermuth, a USAA spokesman, said his firm was no longer responsible for Matthews’s loan because it had been sold to GMAC, though GMAC employees in his case would have identified themselves as USAA workers “to create a seamless customer experience.” Matthews is now suing the foreclosure attorneys. If he loses, the tab for his defaulted loan would fall on taxpayers because his mortgage is guaranteed by the Department of Veterans Affairs.”
—————-
I’ve never bought a house, but, 70 pages for a refi application? It’s pretty obvious that the sole purpose of this is to increase the chance that the FB will make a mistake and be rejected on technical grounds. Yeah, it’s legal, but it violates good faith in a major way. And the banks are impressing on the FB to be “moral” and make his payments?
For all these years, I’ve been throwing cash in the trash as a renter and feeling vaguely guilty about it. No more. It will be a LONG time before I trust a bank for my housing. I may just wait 20 years until I can buy cash and bypass those bastard altogether.
Other and myself have said it.
These programs were created to give false hope to FB to squeeze the last few pennies from them. Maybe even encourage them to raid their 401k’s.
Because without this false hope of somehow saving their houses when all seems losts (and it is) - they would have walked away long ago. With assets.
Assets that the banks need to keep going and pay the big bonuses. And we can’t have that.
I do not think that these programs were “created” for nefarious purposes. Do you really believe that Barack and Timmy Boy sat down and said, “Hmmm, what the best way to squeeze out a few more pennies from the FB’s, maybe even raid an FB’s 401K? I know, let’s start a three-month loan mod trial!!!” More likely, they created the program to help save those who could truly be saved. They were just surprised at how few could truly be saved.
I will, however, fully believe that the banks agreed to the Admin’s programs for the reasons you give. So they are raiding not only future labor, but the hard-earned leftover scraps from past labor too.
In fact, reading this article, that’s probably why banks were so eager to approve even the most F’d FB’s for the three-month trial mod, but equally eager to “lose” the paperwork for the permanent mod. The banks should have rejected most of these mods out-of-hand. Instead, they string along the FB so they can collect the collateral AND a few fees on top. HAMP was just another profit program for the banks.
By the way, I wonder what kind of “mods” these FB’s want?
Barack and Timmy Boy sat down and said, “Hmmm, what the best way to squeeze out a few more pennies from the FB’s, maybe even raid an FB’s 401K?
Barack is clueless so I will give him a pass but I do not doubt for a moment that Timmy sat down with Demon and Frankenstein and discussed such a plan.
Classic projection. I would expect this sort of deviancy from Cheney and Rumsfeld, except that their fantasies involved a lot more blood. But I don’t think even Larry “woman aren’t that smart” Summers would confiscate 401Ks.
They couldn’t get their hands into the 401K cookie jar directly, so they just found a means to do so indirectly.
Whether it was planned or not, the end result speaks for itself. Obama bought in because the “experts” told him it was the thing to do.
Riddle me this 2b . . .
How do you figure banks and bankers are getting fat by putting FBs into mod programs?
These are loss mitigation, not profit generation programs:
1. Borrower can’t pay contract payment, 2. bank hires additional personnel to work phones and hammer out a modified payment plan, 3. modified payment plan calls for lower interest rate and/or principal reduction, 4. high numbers of mods re-default and bank takes back property, 5. if subsequently foreclosed, bank pays costs to maintain property and sells at discount to clear its books.
They may not be doing them as efficiently as possible for all FBs, and yeah, they are kicking the can down the street, but I sure don’t see a lot of profit motive in these scenarios.
Boy Wonder - here is your answer.
We have millions of foreclosures.
We have millions more on the brink.
If the banks can sucker 50% of these people into paying their mortgage for 6-12 more months (even at a reduced rate) instead of walking away based on false hope - the banks gain:
1. Billions in dollars they would have never had
2. Time
3. Billions more in write downs they do not have to take as these loans are still “performing” that they can borrow against
4. Billions more in selling these loans “at par” to the Treasury or Freddie and Fanny.
5. Even more billions as they try to sell other foreclosed properties - they do not want to dump these houses at once on the market and crash it even further.
You make it all sound so easy. I guess you can believe what you want to believe.
*THINK* Boy Wonder.
No, flatlander is right, 2b it is loss mitigation, but on a huge scale.
You just explained the mechanics of it.
I think you both are talking past each other.
But the whole thing turned into a giant mess. The banks realized they could sucker in more payments before they foreclosed anyway. Or they could pretend to work with the FB and collect fed money for doing so, but then deny the FB in the end and then foreclose. At the very least, someone was there to watch and maintain the property.
Banks are predatory, there is no question about that. In all these cases however, the root cause for losing the home is the borrower’s failure to pay according to the terms of the loan. One gives up their own sovereignty when they promise to pay what they do not have. All “rights” pass to the lender of money when ability to pay does not materialize from hope and wishful thinking. This should be a lesson in prudence and modesty to a generation of debt slaves. Instead it plays out as not being able to trust banks because they do what they promised they would do from the very start. In this the banks are most trustworthy.
i’ve noticed something peculiar. Being 100% anti-bank can turn one into a hypocrite.
For instance, some people around here say walk-away jingle mail is very much justified because the lender agreed to accept the house as collateral.
Now the same people approve of a foreclosure moratorium and are against banks collecting on their collateral.
I want all parties involved to follow the law. Please explain how this is hypocritical.
It was the banks themselves who declared moratoria on foreclosures. They know it will be cheaper to re-examine the paperwork — properly this time — than to fight every technicality in court.
Joey
When you go to bed at night are you the inside spoon or outside spoon with the banking industry?
The law is the law is the law. They broke the law. Jingle mail is part of the contract business groups do it all the time.
“Please explain how this is hypocritical.”
You won’t get it. Joey is currently running away from this…. fast and furiously.
nothing to run from. I didn’t think it was worthy a response.
But just for kicks..
When it comes to banks, all you care about is what’s lawful, right alpha?
So, you have no complaints about all those huge executive bonuses.
I don’t think the bonuses in themselves were illegal, if that’s your point. The bailouts should have required the recipients not to give themselves bonuses, but that’s water under the crony-capitalist bridge.
I do think there’s plenty that many of the banksters did that was illegal, and if they’re not placed above the law as they have been previously, then they’ll be giving their bonuses back through lawsuits and fines. And that’s fine with me. I look forward to watching it, in fact.
Got popcorn?
nice dance.. what’s it called? The Hypocrite Hop?
Point out the hypocrisy, good sir.
i fear it might be impossible to show you your own hypocrisy.
A Hindu story tells of a fish who asked of another fish: “I have always heard about the sea, but what is it? Where is it?” The other fish replied: “You live, move and have your being in the sea. The sea is within you and without you, and you are made of sea, and you will end in sea. The sea surrounds you as your own being.” The only true answer is the one that you find for yourself.
Banks are predatory, there is no question about that.
Thwack! (A nail just got hit smack-dab on the head.)
Joey:
If the bank has the note in hand with proper provenance, then by all means they can kick the FB out on the street, with my blessing.
Hey Slim,
I assume your customer base includes individuals or businesses that don’t have your particular skill or expertise. I also assume that you charge your clients/customers a fee that covers overhead and includes some measure of profit. If answers are yes and yes, I believe you too are acting predatorially (I made that word up). You are “preying” on less informed, less talented consumers who are willing to pay you a premium and take a risk on your products/services . . . and so is every other sales minded, for-profit business in the world.
I would also argue that there is more disclosure and many more laws aimed at protecting consumers from banks than there are graphic artists or designers. Sadly though, a lot of people are just plain lazy and/or stupid.
The beautiful thing about this country, and world for that matter, is that if one thinks Slim or a bank is screwing them over, they can let their $ do the talking and find another provider.
Oh for heaven’s sake. Slim provides a service and customers pay for that service. But is Slim deceiving her customers? Is she planting viruses in the websites to skim info and selling the info? Is she hawking certain web products which she has a stake in?* Is she purposely setting up the webpage to crash so that the customer has to come back for better design? Is she planting a virus to force the customer to buy the antivirus software? Slim, as I understand, focuses on academic institutions. Does she collect a kickback for every student who chooses that school based on her web design? Or, does she purposely design a bad site for a school to convince students to go somewhere else?
Those are examples of predatory things that she could do on the sly that the customer couldn’t fix because they don’t know how. I doubt that Slim is doing any of that.
————-
*corrupt doctors order unnecessary tests simply because they own an interest in the test machine. I’m not sure how you would do this in web design…
Missing the whole point oxide.
Not implying that Slim is shady or otherwise - I don’t know, nor did I accuse her of anything but providing service and making money - lighten up.
Simply pointing out that if one can lump all “banks” together as predatory because one or a handful or several hundred have been deceitful, why not expand that to all for-profit businesses (i.e. all mechanics are crooks, all restaurants have poor service, etc. etc.) Bashing banks on this blog is all the rage, but truth is the majority are small, locally owned and only predatory if your definition of predatory is they are trying to provide a product/service that one can’t provide themselves and make a living.
I’ve dealt with a variety of banks over the last 45 years and yes, they ARE all predatory and the few that aren’t isn’t enough to make any damn difference.
I used to like S&Ls until they imploded from… exactly the same circumstances that the banks are dealing with right now.
I now deal with CUs. I tried living without a “bank” for years. It’s not worth it, so I bit the bullet and finally went with a CU.
Flatlander- I think I speak for many here when I say that we have no problem with any bank, large or small, that didn’t ignore traditional underwriting when making loans during the bubble- in fact, we would respect them. The problem is, that’s very few banks. The rest, which are the majority of banks, large or small, were part of the problem. Saying everyone else was doing it doesn’t excuse it.
‘For all these years, I’ve been throwing cash in the trash as a renter and feeling vaguely guilty about it. No more. It will be a LONG time before I trust a bank for my housing. I may just wait 20 years until I can buy cash and bypass those bastard altogether.’
I am waiting for the fallout where the NAR has to address the chicanery in their nationally themed ads. Something to the effect that it is “safe” to come back to housing and owning/financing a house will not be a trap. Alas, probably will never hear those kind of ads until the NAR is truly desperate.
It’s tough for me to let a NAR post past without commenting.
NAR is a legalized crime syndicate….. a government created racket no different than Microsoft in that laws protect and gaurantee their revenue stream. Until the protection racket is removed or they are infact indicted under RICO, we will never hear a single truthful word from NAR.
wha….?
“NAR is a legalized crime syndicate….. a government created racket no different than Microsoft in that laws protect and gaurantee their revenue stream.”
Link please.
Link to what? A word for word cut and paste?
You need to *think*. Not a link.
Why waste my energy on thinking? I can just read blog posts like yours all day and get all the facts I need . . . wait a minute, or are those opinions? hmmmm, no sarcasm tag, exeter must really believe everything he/she writes.
All right flatlander, who’s paying you to troll?
With any luck you’ll be gone after the election.
“Why waste my energy on thinking?”
Thank you for establishing the fact you need to be told what to think. Typical GOP’er.
Um, exeter is the troll this time, trying to get people to rise to his bait. It worked!
Bile, long ago you established the fact you haven’t the capacity to think so this is nothing new to us.
He he, funny thing is I’m not getting all political - I hate that chit.
yeah… uh huh… lmao.
They can spoof Marathon man with a buyer strapped to a chair asking “Is it safe? Is it safe?” over and over again while the Realtard hovers over them with dental torture devices saying “It’s safe. It’s very safe.”
Suzanne will not understand when you say “Marathon Man” was a movie.
further drama from page 2..
..After the eviction notice was taped to the door of her house in Williamsport, Md., near Hagerstown, she sold every piece of jewelry her mother left her - including a platinum and diamond ring passed down in her family for generations - to hire lawyers, she recounted.
They told her “‘do not leave the house unoccupied for any reason..
[page 3]
The case is pending in federal court in Maryland.
Scavengers swoop in and clean the bones. She may have to borrow
money for boxes.
“She may have to borrow money for boxes.”
Sounds like there won’t be much left to box up.
If you have been out of work for over 2 years and you are living in a closet, maybe it`s time to think about lowering your standards from ” the lowest level position for me”
October 26, 2010 06:00 PM
60 Minutes Takes A Look At The 99ers Of Silicon Valley
By Susie Madrak
“60 Minutes” and correspondent Scott Pelley went to several communities in search of the 99ers, but we didn’t expect to find such a crisis in Silicon Valley, the high tech capital that many people hoped would be creating jobs.
If you want to understand why the economy is stalled, come to San Jose, Calif., and talk with 99ers like Marianne Rose. “I remember it coming close to like six months. I was saying, ‘I can’t believe I’m out of work this long.’ Then the year mark hit. And I just started just panicking seriously. Now that it’s over two years I can’t believe it. I just, I can’t believe it,” she told Pelley.
Rose was a financial analyst at a real estate firm. Age 54, she’s single with a grown daughter. After being laid off with about 100 co-workers, she spent her savings, lost her home and finally found herself sitting in a truck with her dog and all of her possessions.
She made a desperate call to a friend and found refuge upstairs in the home of strangers, her friend’s brother and sister-in-law.
“Well, I can say that probably the lowest level position for me has been now to apply for a clerk, a county clerk and I just realized the competition is pretty stiff out there,” she replied.
Asked what she meant by stiff competition, Rose explained, “There’s a lot of people, speaking of the county. I had applied to those clerk positions. There’s actually four positions that were open. I found there were over 2,000 people that applied for those four positions.”
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/60-minutes-takes-look-99ers-silicon-v - 128k -
“Rose was a financial analyst at a real estate firm.”
In other words; At age 54 Rose has no relevant work experience.
I think the key part is she is 54.
We need a Public Option, badly. Too many people are in the sweet spot where they have just enough experience to be good workers, but they are too old to be healthy and too young for Medicare, hence too expensive to insure. The current system gives us Job Lock and Locked Out of a Job.
Which is one of the reasons why Slim hasn’t even bothered with the job market for, oh, about 10 years. One look at my going-gray head, and would be employers are thinking “high health insurance costs.”
I am convinced my ‘baby’ sister lost her job because her health insurance for herself and her family cost her employer more than insurance for their youngster or Medicare set employees.
Age discrimination complaints have been setting new records each year for the last decade.
I think the key part is she is 54.
Right. And why would I ever hire a 54 year old women when I can hire a 23 year old girl right out of college for half the price? AND I can mold her more easily to the corporate culture.
This is why all worker protections should be gutted because they’re socialism and interfere with the market.
Why would I hire a 23 yo girl out of college when I can outsource the job for a fraction of the cost and take home the difference as a bonus? You’re such a socialist Rio.
OK right….truth is you do her behind the wifes back…..
why else would you hire an airhead chicky poo to represent your company………
AND I can mold her more easily to the corporate culture.
I saw that when it aired. They interviewed a boomer woman who made 200K a year back in the day, who was now picking cans out of the garbage. Either she or the reporter mentioned “Getting there early to beat the homeless guy” which made my stomach churn. She pissed it all away and now your gonna take from the homeless?
Wasn’t she a mere cube dweller (70K?) living in someone’s finished attic? 70K doesn’t go far in Silly Valley.
IIRC the big salary person was a guy who was an HR bigwig before getting laid off. One would think that if anyone could have seen the writing on the wall, it would have been him.
I may have had them mixed up. I know about living in an expensive city and getting a lower paycheck, but the last thing I want to do is spend money I don’t have nor will ever have.
You haven’t meet too many HR VPs…
Luckily no - There is a reason I sit behind a bullet proof door at work. I don’t want to deal with those cubicle folk.
Sean, did you go to the auction you were talking about? How was it?
Since she has nothing to keep her in the area. Why not move away to a place that might have better job opportunities and a MUCH lower cost of living. I have never understood the mentality that, ‘I must stay where I am no matter what’. I know people that will completely drown economically before they are willing to look out of the region for a job.
Hagerstown MD is a two-hour drive from DC with no traffic. She’s already in the boonies. $834 is pretty rock-bottom for a mortgage payment. For comparison, a nice 1-bedroom aprt in Ohio is $725 a month. Unless she moves to a trailer park in Tornado ally, she can’t do much better.
It takes money to move. It takes money to get a new lease and hook up utilities. And it costs even more if you are recently from out of town. Money they don’t have in the first place.
That’s why.
I am fortunate to have friends and relatives who would take me in all over the country. I could start over in a half dozen cities and have a place to crash until I could find work.
Moving to a strange town where you know nobody is a recipe for homelessness.
The common thread I see is that people expect to be able to find work fairly easily. Consequently, they don’t cut back soon enough or hard enough and burn through their resources too quickly. By the time they realize how bad their situation is, they may not have the resources to move. I have been guilty of this a couple of times in my life.
None of them expected to be 99ers. A lot of them have borrowed against their 401Ks. Most of those will end up relying on Social Security, even though they spent most of their working lives saving for retirement.
$12hr or less will NOT move you out of that closet.
Debt Collectors Accused Of Fake Courtroom, Judge
http://tinyurl.com/267m9ov
This is further proof of the general lack of critical thinking skills within the American public. These are the same people that put me down for being a “non-voter”.
Jeez. These guys are sending fake sheriff’s deputies to pick people up, and then take them to a fake courtroom with a fake judge, and pretending the whole thing is real. They need to go to a real jail for a long time.
They need to go to a real jail for a long time.
At minimum, they need to be sued for an amount sufficiently large to cover ALL the debts of the people to whom they did this.
It says something about the morals of this country when you think of the number of participants needed to pull this off, yet none of them spoke up sooner about how deeply wrong the scheme was.
Who criticized you for not voting, the dumb debtors or the fake sheriffs?
The jokes just write themselves…
Struggling woman has to sell Obama letter to help pay for house
NY Post | October 31, 2010
A struggling mom who wrote to President Obama about her financial hardship and received a handwritten response from him saying, “Things will get better!,” has had to sell the letter to an autograph dealer to help pay for a house.
Jennifer Cline, 28, from Monroe, Mich., wrote to Obama describing how she and her husband had lost their jobs in 2007. She wrote, “I lost my job, my health benefits and my self-worth in a matter of five days.”
that one inspired me.. Here’s the half baked idea:
Suppose you are a collector, but can’t afford to buy stuff. There have to be millions of such people.
On the other side are people who own very nice, valuable things they’ve collected, but need money. However they hate to sell their stuff.
Instead of a sale, the buyers/sellers agree to a rental agreement on the collectible.
People could possess and show off their fine art, coins, cars, baseball cards.. whatever they enjoy collecting .. at a fraction of the cost.
“whatever they enjoy collecting .. at a fraction of the cost.”
Not so crazy. I am resolved that I cannot afford to be married again.
Just shop carefully for the right person, Blue Skye. Don’t collect them like expensive trophies.
‘Instead of a sale, the buyers/sellers agree to a rental agreement on the collectible. ‘
Almost like staging with furniture in a house.
Whoever finds a way to match people, and gets a workable framework nailed down.. insurance.. transportation.. security.. liabilities.. could make a ton of money in commissions.
“…has had to sell the letter to an autograph dealer to help pay for a house.”
Maybe Obama could become a robo-signer, and help lots of people buy houses by sending them letters.
Very funny. ;-0
It wouldn’t help. Henry Paulson’s robo-sig is on most Federal Reserve Notes and it doesn’t increase their value as “collectable”.
I just went through my wallet and noticed lots of John Snow and Henry Paulson signatures but NO Tim Geithner ones. I can’t beleive they aren’t printing vast piles of new notes these days - why aren’t any bearing the TTT imprimature?
Because TTT bucks are all stashed in the banks, they never “trickled down” to the J6P schlubs.
I’ll give her a penny for the letter from Obamao.
I can’t imagine she got more than the cost of a happy meal for it.
She sold the Obama letter for what? One more month? She would be better off keeping it.
At least now I know what to do if I ever get into financial trouble. Slowly piece out anything of sentimental value to family members, pack as much as possible into retirement accounts, declare BK ASAP, and start over with one car and one crate of memoribilia. I could probably repair my life in the same time someone else would string themselves along to a slow ruin.
And if you’ve got student loans try to pay them off at the expense of more unsecured debt at least a year or two prior to filing.
Oxide, many, many people NEVER recover. It’s why most people try to hang on as long as possible.
I wouldn’t recommend it.
It’s all about job security. Most people can muddle through hard times if they have a half way decent job.
Jobs that that were instead, sent offshore. Jobs that the repubs refused to repeal tax breaks on for being offshored.
Oxide, you’re probably right. But we have that clearance thingie. If we demonstrate failure in financial probity in this town, we risk losing our clearances, and our ability to work. I am much too timid to even think about it, let alone hazard it.
Somebody on this board wrote something really insightful that went (paraphrasing) : “In a ZIRP environment, ANY job WHATSOEVER has an infinite rate of return”.
“A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman, of the next generation.” ~James Freeman Clarke
I recall that parts of Obamacare — which used enormous amounts of political capital — won’t kick in until a two years after Obama is up for reelection. Some parts won’t kick in until after Obama leaves office.
Ergo, The One is a statesman?
The insurance companies are all raising rates now.
No kidding. Some friends were talking about their increases at a party this weekend, the increases they mentioned were not small, most sounded equivalent to an extra tank of gas a month for singles, and two or three for the family plans. People are going to feel this.
Indeed they are, Steve J! But it’s not Obamacare that’s raising them. H companies are acting on the threat. They know full well that they won’t survive the winter, so they are making hay while the sun shines. (They are likely using those premium hikes to buy off politicians in the hope of keeping the status quo.) This is nothing new. The credit card companies did the exact same thing just before the CC reform kicked in.
This is why Obamacare was such a risk. Obama knew full well that the worst times — rate hikes just before the reforms take effect — are going to hit right at the time of his re-election. Yet he persevered anyway.
Maybe Obama hasn’t accomplished enough for a lot of people, but he STARTED a lot of things, even if he won’t be around to see the finish. What do you know, a President who cares about more than his money and re-election and his ego.
I predict that more than a few health insurance companies will be out of the health insurance business in the next few years.
Matter of fact, I just read a biz mag article (I think it was in Forbes) which said that Wellpoint is getting itself out of health and into dental.
Not that dental care will be the cash cow that they hope it is. A lot of dentistry is paid for by individuals, rather than insurance, so it’s a lot more price sensitive.
And, since the housing ATM was shut down, a lot of dentists are hurting. Reason: HELOC money isn’t paying for cosmetic procedures the way it once was.
Don’t ascribe genius where foolishness explains.
Believe me, Blue Skye, I’m not. I’m talking about Barack, not Sarah.
Slim, Wellpoint employees had better dust off their resumes now. Even if Wellpoint survived and went into dental, the dental market is much much smaller than overall health.
“The insurance companies are all raising rates now.”
And they were what? Dropping rates before?
Which is when I realized that Obama and the democrats (note: the little “d” is intentional) were clueless too.
Which is where I tend to agree with republicans, but not for the same reasons…….no plan is better than the half-azz plan that they passed.
The democrats pass a plan which basically gives the insurance companies a license to print money, while at the same time, giving the republicans an issue that they can be repeatedly beaten over the head with. Effing brilliant.
no plan is better than the half-azz plan that they passed.
In the short term maybe however now the debate has changed. If Obama’s healthplan does fall apart, I don’t think the Republicans can dismantle it without offering viable alternatives now.
BTW: Have you looked more into that Kansas state healthcare pool plan?
And: The Chiefs are not lousy anymore. Yesterday’s game…even Len Dawson said he’d rarely seen one like it.
U.S. home prices expected to slide another 8%
cnnmoney November 1, 2010
The robo-signing controversy is just another issue that the already sluggish housing market didn’t need — but most analysts do not think it will have far-reaching impact.
Nevertheless, the housing market still faces many problems: a weak economy, sluggish hiring, tight mortgage underwriting, falling home prices, and slowing sales.
Then there’s the potentially disastrous number of foreclosures that may occur over the coming years.
“The market faces much bigger problems than the robo-signing issue,” said Mike Larson, a housing market analyst for Weiss Research.
Prime among them are declines in home prices. And while cheaper homes are good for buyers, they also speak to a housing market that won’t stabilize.
Fiserv, a market analytics company, has scaled back its home price projections considerably. In February, it forecast national price gains of about 4% through the end of 2011. The company’s latest prediction is for a 7.1% drop in prices between June 30, 2010 and June 30, 2011.
In fact, after five months of gains, prices in the 20 largest metro areas fell 0.2% in August, according to the latest S&P/Case-Shiller report.
The good news is, “There’ll be no vicious, self-reinforcing spiral down,” according to Mark Zandi, chief economist with Moody’s Analytics.
‘Prime among them are declines in home prices. And while cheaper homes are good for buyers, they also speak to a housing market that won’t stabilize’
The press just doesn’t get it; prices are stabilizing - downward to where they need to be.
Well, you’ve been seeing past the “news” for a long time. The mainstream media will only report what has already settled into the consciousness of their readers.
Hey, journalists are FB’s too! This has got to be hard on them..
I recently read a book by a DC area journalist who was very upside down on a home purchase. Sorry I don’t recall the name of the book, but ISTR that his family would have been better off renting. And he all but admitted that in the book.
“This has got to be hard on them…”
Also good to bear in mind that FB journalists face a moral hazard incentive to paint lipstick on the pig of underwater pricing. The more the masses realize how far prices have declined, the less the prospect current owners will be able to find a greater fool on whom to unload their devalued Faux Chateaus.
I think it’s just that they are impatient. I’m impatient too. How about increase FHA down payments to 10% and raise mortgage interest rates to speed the stabilization process.
This is good. I’m watching lots of price reductions in Sacramento. Some friends of mine were going to make a $45,000 lowball offer on a short sale house initially listed at $230,000. I suggested that we wait until it was on the market at least a month. They’ve reduced the price twice in two weeks to $205,000. Now the lowball offer looks reasonable.
“U.S. home prices expected to slide another 8%”
Where do they get 5,8,12 or 15% ? Do they have a dart board that goes from 0% to 15% ? Some of the lower end stuff I see is probably at or close to the bottom, but some of the decent middle end has a good 40% drop from what it is listed at now. Well I guess I answered my own question, that would make it a 20% drop.
“U.S. home prices expected to slide another 8%”
It might be good to go back and see what these guys were saying before housing prices took a 50% dump in many markets formerly referred to as ‘a bit frothy.’
“There’ll be no vicious, self-reinforcing spiral down,”
Seems like we are already in one, no?
Comments like this one make me wonder whether Zandi will follow the likes of Lereah into history’s dustbin of failed economic prognosticators…
Maybe the markets Zandi follows are different than San Diego’s. I just got some data off RedFin a couple of days back on current 4br single-family homes on the MLS for San Diego County. There is no shortage of homes on the market going into the ice-cold holiday season: 4811 homes with 4 or more bedrooms, with list prices on the range from $99,000 to $61 million.
The subrange from $455,000 to $970,990 especially grabbed my attention: There are 1560 homes on this range, implying there are about three 4br+ homes for each $1000 difference in price (1560/(970.990-455.000) = 3.0). The subrange with the greatest density (above 3 homes per $1000) is between $600,000 - $900,000 — the density peaks at about 3.4 homes per $1000 right around the conforming loan limit of $729,750.
This is a bonafide crush of 4br+ SFR inventory at prices below $1m, and I doubt there are many folks looking in the $455,000+ range at the moment. It seems like this would create a lot of downward pressure on prices, especially with so much shadow inventory that has yet to hit the market, but perhaps experts like Zandi know something I don’t.
“The robo-signing controversy”
Well, I was born a Robo-signer`s daughter
In a condo on a hill in Butcher Holler
They needed him, cause they had HAMP
Daddy`s hand would always cramp
He signed his name to make a robo’s dollar
Nothing a match can’t solve.
Zandi ought to know. His company rated the subprime mortgate AAA.
Florida property Tax question:
Owner is out of state and taking up bankruptcy. The property taxes are due to the county, probably NOT to be paid by the owner for 2010.
Can the county foreclose before the bank can, for the back taxes? Or will the county let the bank do all the heavy lifting, then come collect back taxes after the house is sold again? Me thinks the tax issue will come to a head before the bankruptcy and bank foreclosure can happen. The mix will be interesting soon enough.
Exciting times!
there was a story the other day about banks stepping in and paying FB’s overdue property taxes (and utility bills, iirc) to avoid the tax lien.. So, i do think there’s a chance the govt could “own” the home and banks don’t want that to happen.
The story was spun so that banks, which later hired people to try to collect the tax money from the delinquent FB’s, were made to appear as evil, private tax collectors.
I bought two bank-owned properties over the past two years in California. In both cases the title reports revealed county property tax liens, and the banks paid the back taxes before I bought them. So it looks like the county just let the liens sit there until the banks found buyers. Too bad the county didn’t try to collect them earlier.
Bank can’t deliver clear title until the taxes are paid…
Most states/counties have annual “tax sales” of properties that are not current with their taxes. Investors “buy” the property for the amount of tax, penalty and interest due. Then the owner of record has some amount of time, typically a year, to pay what’s due plus additional interest. This money goes to the investor. If there’s a mortgage on the property, the bank will almost always pay what’s due to protect its interest.
It’s mostly unimproved lots that are owned free and clear that are lost through this process. The owner might have died, or now has no use for the property and knows he/she has little chance of finding a buyer, and the annual tax is a burden to them. So they let it go.
Thats how it works here in IL, except the investor doesn’t “buy” the property per se, more like s/he buys the “tax lein”, after which the property OOR has a certain amount of time to pay off the lein, or else the investor can foreclose.
In ca I believe they can auction your house after 5 years of delinquent property taxes.
Thanks for the input folks, that was a big help.
Pontiac, maker of muscle cars, ends after 84 years.
DETROIT — Pontiac, whose muscle cars drag-raced down boulevards, parked at drive-ins and roared across movie screens, is going out of business on Sunday.
The 84-year-old brand, moribund since General Motors decided to kill it last year as it collapsed into bankruptcy, had been in decline for years. It was undone by a combination of poor corporate strategy and changing driver tastes. On Oct. 31, GM’s agreements with Pontiac dealers expire.
Even before GM’s bankruptcy, Pontiac’s sales had fallen from their peak of nearly one million in 1968, when the brand’s speedier models were prized for their powerful engines and scowling grills.
At Pontiac’s pinnacle, models like the GTO, Trans Am and Catalina 2+2 were packed with horsepower and sported colors like “Tiger Gold.” Burt Reynolds and Sally Field fled the law in a Firebird Trans Am which raced through the 1970s hit movie “Smokey and the Bandit.”
“Little GTO, you’re really lookin’ fine
Three deuces and a four-speed and a 389
Listen to her tachin’ up now, listen to her why-ee-eye-ine
C’mon and turn it on, wind it up, blow it out, GTO…”
(Sigh)
From Wiki.
Most contemporary road tests used the more powerful Tri-Power engine and four-speed. Car Life clocked a GTO so equipped at 0–60 miles per hour (0–97 km/h) in 6.6 seconds, through the standing quarter mile in 14.8 seconds with a quarter mile trap speed of 99 mph (159 km/h). Like most testers, they criticized the slow steering, particularly without power steering, and inadequate drum brakes, which were identical to those of the normal Tempest.
A 6.6 second 0-60 time isn’t all that much to shout about these days. Many ordinary sedans do this. The GTO’s handling and braking would probably cause a safety recall campaign now. Time marches on.
they criticized the slow steering, particularly without power steering, and inadequate drum brakes,
4 wheel drum brakes on an overweight/overpowered vehicle in the rain was just a lot of fun.
0-60 is all about traction and the tires kinda sucked back then. The 99mph trap speed tells me that it was a fairly powerful car that was probably a lot of fun to drive for its time…as long as you didn’t need to stop quickly.
I bought a 1965 GTO new.Red convertible.
You’ve gotta remember that 0-60 in 6.6 secs was practically unheard of then. It was much faster than almost anything else.
As for weight, the car only weighed about 2700 pounds, about the same as a small car today. Definitely not clumsy.
Similar-size cars today weigh 1000 pounds more. This hurts acceleration and handling a lot.
As for handling, I recall driving a friends much-vaunted 1965 Mustang on a ski trip. Rounding a curve I’d been around many times in my GTO, I almost lost it ! The GTO far out-handled the Mustang. To this day I can’t figure out how the Mustang got its reputation. I’d take a GTO any day.
Pontiac (and Saturn) are long gone. 18 months ago the local Pontiac dealer told me that GM was no longer accepting orders for new Pontiacs.
I can still hear the ghost of my grandmother yelling from the backseat of my GTO for me to slow down as I sped down Independence Blvd. in Charlotte, dragging the Mustang in the lane next to me (after all, I tried to convince my grandmother, he revved his motor at me, and obeying the law of the jungle, I HAD to respond. It didn’t cut any ice with my grandmother!)
I still have my 94 Trans Am that I bought new. Debating about garaging it for 20 years and see what happens then, or just sell it for what I can get out of it now. The car is in great, but not perfect shape. By no means a ‘collector’ car at this point, I mean it is still my daily driver, haha!
If I find a foreclosed house with 3 garages, maybe I’ll keep it around. Heck , why wait, I can park in the foreclosed driveway down the street, free storage….
About time. They’ve only made 2 things worth buying in the last last, the Solstice and the G8.
But I really hated the tacky plastic, fake, boy racer interiors.
British house prices are falling again: http://www.cnbc.com/id/39945294
BTW, palladium prices continue to move up strongly.
There are millions of Americans that think this Nov. 2nd will bring about big change…It won’t!
Expecting a big change tomorrow?
“There are 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. At the very most, about 100 of those seats are actually ‘in play’ – meaning that they have a chance to change hands.
“So that means that we are going to see at least 335 of the exact same faces when the U.S. House of Representatives begins a new session.
“The cold, hard reality is that our current system greatly, greatly, greatly favors incumbents.” ~American Dream
(This is an interesting survey of 12 polls that show Americans are really, really, ticked off and want change. But it throws cold water on our hopes by showing that the system is designed so that we can never “throw the rascals out” en masse and start afresh. A lot of us will send the same people right back to Washington to pick up where they left off.)
India predicts 40% leap in demand for fossil fuels
NEW DELHI (AFP) – Premier Manmohan Singh told India’s energy firms on Monday to scour the globe for fuel supplies as he warned the country’s demand for fossil fuels is set to soar 40 percent over the next decade.
The country of more than 1.1 billion people already imports nearly 80 percent of its crude oil to fuel an economy that is expected to grow 8.5 percent this year and at least nine percent next year.
Demand for hydrocarbons — petroleum, coal, natural gas — “over the next 10 years will increase by over 40 percent,” Singh told an energy conference in New Delhi.
“India needs adequate supplies of energy at affordable prices to meet the demand of its rapidly growing economy,” he said, as rising Indian incomes spur industrial demand and more people buy energy-guzzling cars and appliances.
So much for cuttting global warming emissions?
Fecundity will outrun efficiency every time.
actually…more efficiency creates stronger demand.
google Jevon’s paradox.
“So much for cutting global warming emissions?”
Nah, California’s ballot initiative to reduce carbon consumption will more than offset this.
lmao this cr@p wont make a dent in the real problem.Designed to raise more revenus for govt.
They subsidize gasoline in India, so not sure how they can predict this.
2 words: Tata Motors.
And to further reduce it: the “Nano” in particular. (yes there really is Tata car named the Nano and yes, that was a bad joke)
The Nano is a 3 cylinder car that is affordable to a huge percentage of the Indian population.
Check out there website.
“…their…”
sheesh
Well the election is over. Brazil has its first women president. (with quite a past) She follows in the footsteps of President Lulu a “socialist” former shoeshine boy with a 4th grade education. The election seemed much less bitter than the one going on America.
Ex-guerrilla wins Brazilian presidency
http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/global-filipino/world/11/01/10/ex-guerrilla-wins-brazilian-presidency
BRASILIA, Brazil - Dilma Rousseff’s victory Sunday in an election runoff to become Brazil’s first female president owed more to support from her mentor, outgoing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, than her own political prowess.
As his handpicked successor, the 62-year-old benefited from Lula’s rousing campaigning, charisma and, most importantly, voters’ trust that she will keep his policies in place.
A former guerrilla who was jailed and tortured in the 1970s for belonging to a violent underground group trying to overthrow Brazil’s then-military dictatorship, Rousseff earned the nickname “the Iron Lady” in later life for her Margaret Thatcher-like determination.
Rousseff was born in December 1947 in the southwestern state of Minas Gerais to a Bulgarian immigrant father and a Brazilian mother.
After becoming an active militant opposed to the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985, she was arrested in January 1970 and sentenced to prison.
After nearly three years behind bars, during which she was tortured, she was released at the end of 1972.
In 1980, she became involved in a leftwing populist party, the Democratic Workers Party, but left it in 1986 to join Lula’s Workers Party.
Twice divorced, Rousseff has one daughter, Paula, and became a grandmother in September.
Kind of sad when uneducated Marxists do a better job of running their country than mother and apple pie American politicos do in their own.
“College education” is overrated and we have plenty of that.
School of hard knocks is hard to find, but then again employers won’t even talk to you if you don’t have a college education for their menial entry level jobs.
Yep. We suffer form the “map is the terrain” and “the view from the ivory tower.”
One day God was looking down at earth and saw all of the rascally behavior that was going on. So He called one of His angels and sent the angel to earth for a time.
When he returned, he told God, ‘Yes, it is bad on earth; 95% are misbehaving and only 5% are not.
God thought for a moment and said, ‘Maybe I had better send down a second angel to get another opinion.’
So God called another angel and sent him to earth for a time. When the angel returned he went to God and said, ‘Yes, it’s true. The earth is in decline; 95% are misbehaving, but 5% are being good.’
God was not pleased. So He decided to e-mail the 5% who were good, because he wanted to encourage them, and give them a little something to help them keep going.
Do you know what the e-mail said?
Okay, I was just wondering, because I didn’t get one either.
So He decided to e-mail the 5% who were good, because he wanted to encourage them, and give them a little something to help them keep going.
Do you know what the e-mail said?
“It’s an amBUSH lil’ Opie, and by the way, I was having pineapple cocktail the day you was born/created by your mother, you know the 1st one, the one from Kansas,…she made me really proud of mothers married to Kenyan Muslims!
I posted on here last week about going to a RE auction, and I went yesterday for the first time. Quite an interesting experience. Got a pep talk from the VP of the auction company about how it’s “a great time to buy” and that RE is cyclical. Music pumped thru the room just prior and they had good looking ladies running around in nice business suits. Everything sold, a few run down crack houses in Baltimore for between 3K to 10K. The house I was looking at sold for 250K. Most were going about double the opening bid price, still well below the “value” listed on the PowerPoint. I’ll probably go back again if there is a house I am interested in, since there were about 200 people there but only about a quarter actually bidding. Most were just curious on how it worked, like me.
It is a great time to buy….my house.
- American bagholder
Boxer Commercial ~ California
http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=ytff-&p=%3E+http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DixiYZ9DPk8o
Ambac Skips Interest Payment, Warns of Bankruptcy
NEW YORK—Ambac Financial Group warned Monday it may file for bankruptcy by the end of the year if it is unable to reach an accord on a pre-packaged bankruptcy agreement with its debtholders.
The announcement came as Ambac, a bond insurer that sold protection on mortgage securities, said its board had voted to skip an interest payment on senior notes due in 2023. The payment was due to be made Monday; if the insurer hasn’t paid in 30 days, it would be in default and its debtors could accelerate the maturity of the notes.
Robert J Genader
Total Compensation
$9.88 mil (#144)
5-Year Compensation Total
$21.903 mil
Robert J Genader has been CEO of Ambac Financial Group (ABK) for 2 years. Mr. Genader has been with the company for 21 years .
Running out of options, Fed prepares to jolt economy
Ben BernankeMuch of the media’s attention is focused on Election Day. But another event Tuesday could have a far greater effect on the one overriding issue that looks likely to lead to major Republican gains.
The Federal Reserve, at a meeting of policymakers Tuesday and Wednesday, is poised to take dramatic steps to jolt the economy awake. With Ben Bernanke and Company running out of conventional tools to address the slump, the moment is one of the most crucial since the downturn began nearly three years ago.
The Fed has already pumped money into the economy by buying over $1.7 trillion worth of Treasury bonds, but this week it’s expected to announce an additional $500 billion purchase, and may indicate a willingness to buy more.
Some analysts see pitfalls to the move. “The greatest risk for the Fed in taking this action is that it could extend the economy’s funk by giving a sense that either no one is in charge or that the people who are in charge can’t get it right,” David Shulman of the UCLA Anderson Forecast told the Washington Post. “The whole psychology of that could leak back into the economy.”
Out here in the small business world, there’s been a lot of talk about incentivizing the federal government to purchase more from small business. After all, small business is responsible for much of the job growth in the U.S. economy.
However, there are significant problems with how the feds define small business. And the size of the businesses that the feds actually do business with. Hint: A lot of those “small” businesses aren’t so small.
Not to mention the fact that a lot of small businesses are already hot on the federal contracting case. They know that the feds buy just about everything.
But there’s a lot of competition for the federal dollar. I recently attended a GSA seminar in which one of the presenters said that the number of small businesses interested in doing business with the feds has increased threefold. Something about a slow economy and sluggish buying in the private sector.
My company tried to get on the supply schedule but our pricing model didn’t fit theirs. If you sell widgets or charge by the hour it’s much simpler.
This “jolt” won’t even register with Joe 6 Pack.
Hello, long time lurker, infrequent poster here. My spouse made a two minute video for a contest. It stars Ben Bernanke as the evil villian. I Know What You Printed Last Summer
Update from the Triangle:
-Several houses are for sale in our neighborhood. The one across the street finally sold after being on and off the market for a year. I think the original price was $209,000 and that it sold for around $180,00. The houses down the street seem to start as FSBOs and then after months, give up and go with an agent.
-It seems that everywhere we go, there are more “for sale” and “for rent” signs. Two houses down, the elderly couple moved out and into assisted living. The house was for sale for almost a year. It never sold, but the sign has been gone a few months and someone moved in. Another neighbor thinks the owners moved back into the house.
-People still seem to think that “it’s different here.”
-Some friends (that live here) are trying to sell their one bedroom condo in Chicago. They gutted and completely remodeled it last fall. It’s been for sale for a year and they’ve dropped the price from over $100,000 to about $50,000. The wife says she doesn’t “want to give it away,” but she doesn’t want to keep it and rent it out, like her husband suggests. They can still drop the price and break even, but I don’t think she really believes me (or their realtor) when we say the market is toast and to dump it while they can. I don’t think being a long distance landlord for years sounds like a good idea, while hoping the value goes back up.
“I’m not hurt. Are you guys hurt?”
Too funny!
“Some friends (that live here) are trying to sell their one bedroom condo in Chicago. They gutted and completely remodeled it last fall. It’s been for sale for a year and they’ve dropped the price from over $100,000 to about $50,000.”
Not sure about the city, but that would be quite the haircut by Chicago suburban standards. Wow. Assuming its a fairly safe neighborhood and not too far from one of the colleges or universities, their price is almost getting low enough to the point where it might be attractive for parents of a student to buy it. I’m not suggesting this as “an investment”, but as an alternative for families who would otherwise rent a place for their student off-campus. Cost of living in the dorms at University of Chicago range from $6600/yr. to $7758/yr.
Cute video! Good job.
Personal income falls in September
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Personal income registered an unexpected dip in September, while spending by individuals grew at a slower rate than expected, according to data released by the federal government Monday.
Personal income fell 0.1%, the Commerce Department said. The drop in personal income was a sharp reversal from a revised 0.4% increase registered in August.
According to the Commerce Department, spending by individuals increased by 0.2%.
The holiday season is upon us; time for some economic cheer to brighten your year’s end:
Nov. 1, 2010, 12:01 a.m. EDT
The grim reaper is back
Commentary: Market declines could be more severe after FOMC
…
I expect continued weakness in the U.S. economy, and the declines could even become severe after the FOMC decision, the election, and quantitative easing. Sell the news is a high probability, and should influence near term direction. My longer term forecasts suggest a Greater Depression is an equally high probability over time too.
…
The immediate concern is, regardless of economic conditions, that margins will be squeezed because corporate America finds it very difficult to pass on higher costs to a consumer base that is suffering from so much unemployment. Some people will be able to pay higher prices, but most will not. Therefore, the weak dollar, because of QE2, influences commodity prices higher and puts a squeeze on corporate margins that reduces the outlook for earnings growth going forward.
BINGO
People will spend more on food and fuel less on manufactured goods. This will cause further unemployment more stimulus. Repeat this cycle over and over until?
Repeat this cycle over and over until?
They’re spending ALL their money on food and fuel? Inflation in the things you need.
And now, far too much of our food is imported. So even our necessity dollars are going overseas.
Manufacturing activity surges in October- AP
Manufacturing activity expanded last month at the fastest pace since May, driven by demand in the United States and abroad for cars, computers and other goods.
“We’re really in uncharted territory here”.
LOL! WTH do we care about that for, damn the torpedo’s, full speed ahead!
~ Fed Puts Stamp of Approval on Riskier Assets
NEW YORK (TheStreet) — The Federal Reserve is expected by investors and economists to announce a second round of bond purchases, or so-called quantitative easing (QE2).
Investors need to understand that QE2 will have a major influence on their investments. The most important aspect is that quantitative easing will help fuel a demand for riskier assets.
More specifically, quantitative easing will aid a shift toward growth stocks at the expense of bonds and value stocks. QE2 won’t affect the direction of the stock market, though that will remain strong, as much as it will alter the market’s internal leadership.
Now let me back up and explain this in detail. Over the past several weeks, the Federal Reserve has made its QE intentions clear. I’m surprised the group hasn’t taken out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal.
The Fed’s main problem is that the economy is still grinding its wheels, as Friday’s GDP report shows, and interest rates are already at 0%. As a result, the central bank now plans to inject money into the economy by buying enormous amounts of U.S. Treasuries.
The only question now is how much? The general consensus on the Street is that QE2 will clock in around $500 billion, although some say it could be as much as $1 trillion. We’re really in unchartered territory here.
Washington (CNN) — The number of Americans who say things are going badly in the country, at 75 percent, is higher than it has been on the eve of any midterm election since the question was first asked in the mid-1970s, according to a new national poll.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday also indicates that the economy remains, by far, the top issue on the minds of Americans. Fifty-two percent of people questioned say the economy’s the most important issue facing the country.
“That’s more than the deficit, education, health care, terrorism, energy, illegal immigration and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq combined,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “No other issue was named as the country’s top problem by more than 8 percent.”
The economy has been the issue most on the mind of Americans in CNN polling since the end of 2007.
Fifty-two percent of people questioned say the economy’s the most important issue facing the country.
“That’s more than the deficit, education, health care, terrorism, energy, illegal immigration and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq combined,”
Cheney-Shrub Legacy Effect #3: “We left y’all with the worst POS economy in 80 years…see ya!”
From “in the bag” to “in the tank”?
Local agents’ income tanks with the market
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-10-01/classified/ct-mre-1003-umberger-20101001_1_commission-splits-agents-brokerages
That was then: Real estate agents in Chicago say that before the housing bust, their median income was $91,000.
This is now: The same agents say their median income last year was $50,000.
In this dreary economy, many people would be doing handsprings to be earning $50,000, but the numbers pretty much tell the tale of what has happened to the local real estate market, said Anne Brindle, publisher of Chicago Agent magazine, a trade journal.
“The most surprising thing to me was that 80 percent of the agents said they negotiate their commissions on deals, and from a consumer standpoint that’s interesting,” Brindle said of the survey results.
Brindle said commission splits aren’t openly discussed in the business, and agents jumped at the chance to compare notes. “That was such a popular topic. Our traffic just spiked up.”
Baby, Mom Killed When Dad Truck Plows Into House
LOS ANGELES(AP) – Investigators in Los Angeles say a man purposely crashed his pickup truck into a house where his newborn baby girl lived, killing the infant and her mother.
The white Cadillac Escalade pickup truck plowed into the home at 11:42 p.m. Sunday, stopping six feet inside a bedroom where the 19-year-old mother and her 6-day-old daughter were apparently sleeping.
Detectives tell KTLA-TV they don’t believe it was an accident.
Officer Mike Lopez says early Monday that the driver, who is the infant’s father, has been arrested.
Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that many of those big, flashy Escalades are driven by stupid people?
It’s not just you. In fact, my friends grow tired of hearing my hypothesis that you can gather much about one’s personality by how, and what, they drive.
I have found great correlation with Hummers, myself. I see more of them running yellow lights, egregiously rolling stop signs, and exhibiting general douchebaggery than just about any other vehicle (and personality) type.
Click and Clack of Car Talk fame once noted similar behavior from VW Jetta drivers.
LOL. Another observation of mine: the Prius has surpassed the minivan as most aggravating vehicle on the road. I cannot count how many times I’m stuck behind one going slow in the left lane…
Heh heh…funny, here the minivan is irritating because some thirty something woman is determined to get junior to his karate lesson despite her hanging a bit too long over her post luncheon latte and so is attached like velcro to your car’s backside trying to get you to move along a tad faster.
I know the type after being a passenger in that minivan one too many times (trying very hard not to leave my fingernail marks in her dashboard)
“Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that many of those big, flashy Escalades are driven by stupid people?”
I’d be embarrased to be seen in one.
Of course they’re driven by stupid people. Who in their right mind would pay $70k for a Suburban covered with plastic bling?
White Cadillac Escalade? If he could afford that, he could have afforded to raise the kid.
Crashing your car into a building is such an odd way to murder someone. You aren’t sure of success and it ties you to the scene of the crime due to the car’s registration.
I don’t see how this could be a problem, just go to uncle sugar and get some free money to fund any short falls…
US Public Pensions Face Day of Reckoning
1 Nov 2010 ~ Financial Times
In 2006, US regulators, reacting to the 2000 stock market crash and the so-called “perfect storm”, implemented broad rules for corporate defined benefit pension plans on liability valuation and financial reporting (SFAS 158), and on funding (the Pension Protection Act).
Today, there is a similar focus on the epic underfunding of defined benefit plans at US state and local governments, estimated at $1,000 billion to $3,000 billion, as accounting regulators have proposed more prominent disclosure of shortfalls on sponsors’ annual financial statements. Some observers caution, however, that the new principles will fall short and merely perpetuate current methods which greatly understate governments’ pension liabilities
The US public sector, excluding the federal government, employs more than 19 million people – 15 percent of the labor force – and their pension plan assets, according to the Federal Reserve, were $2,557 billion in June 2010, down from $3,198 billion at year-end 2007.
15% of the labor force working for the govt. That ensures 15% of the labor force giving their time, money and energy to Democrats every election. Pathetic and disgusting.
And 15% of the labor force working for the govt means 15% of the labor force is dead wood. 15% produces nothing, innovates nothing, invents nothing, improves nothing. What a waste.
What about the millions in the employ of the US military? Don’t they tend to vote GOP?
I know several people who work for the government and vote Republican, in fact probably as many as I know who vote Democratic. One in particular is a total dittohead (you’d like him), who was flabbergasted when I pointed out the wasteful government spending he was echoing Rush in railing against probably included the salaries of both his parents, himself, and his sister, all of whom worked for the government. He had never connected those dots before. The rest of his government-employed family are raving right wingers, too.
As usual, the Republicans get plenty of votes from those whose interests they don’t represent. That’s the advantage of appealing to the dumb and the prejudiced.
It’s open enrollment season for benefits right now. I wonder how government employees feel about Obamacare, while they simultaneously sign up for health coverage paid for by…oh, never mind.
Right after 9/11 many pilots got their pensions redefined. I would think that this is an example of how pieces will fit when everything falls apart.
Does anybody have any suggestions regarding the CD ROM drive (E) disappearing in “My Computer” using Windows Vista? Also, when I insert a disc into the drive, it does not recognize it, though the door opens and closes. I’ve tried a few suggestion I found on the internet, which worked temporarily, but I’m back to square one, and cannot use the drive.
I tried RUN-REGEDIT and deleting upper and lower filters under CLASS then restarting. I’ve also tried CONTROL PANEL-DEVICE MANAGER-USB Controllers-Scan for Hardware changes. Nothing is working.
How old is the drive? It may be time to purchase a new one. I had one that ’seemed’ perfect, but a tech expert called it ‘marginal’. I bought a new one for 30 dollars and no problems ever since. So may be a quick replace will solve your issues.
A new hard drive? I think this is a software problem.
You identified your own problem: Windows Vista.
New CS drive, they do go bad.
USB external drives are cheap.
I’ll add that I’m not sure I’ll ever buy another Windows PC after this latest screw job by Microsoft. There are countless other people running Windows 7 or Vista having the exact same problem, and Microsoft has put out several bogus “Fix It” downloads which don’t work. My guess is it is a conflict between Windows Media Player and the computer manufacturers CD/DVD software, with the end result beyond a “f*** you” to the customer as each companies respective software wages war against each other inside a device which is no longer functional due to said battle.
I’m with ya on the bailing on M$, Grizz. I’m looking into some sort of laptop for my next computer. And it may well be one of those fruity thingies from that company in Cupertino.
You’d be buying into the cult thing. I’d run with Ubuntu Linux.
I have very, very FEW problems with Vista and Win 7. Let’s just say I have a LOT of experience.
Dell, on the other hand, is still making cheap crap and cutting corners.
As with all PCs, you still have to make sure you have the latest updates to all drivers and firmware. Just because it came from store an hour ago, doesn’t mean it has the latest and greatest.
Check to see if the computer bios can see the drive. That is, when you turn it on hit f2/f10/delete or whatever to get into setup. It should be listed with the drives.
Also, put a CD in with a label, and observe it’s position. Close, give it a bit, then eject. If the label is in the same position then the disc didn’t spin, probably is an issue with the spindle motor.
That used to happen w/my Windows ME software on a Dell computer. Never had the problem w/my Hewlett Packard running Vista nor this Toshiba running 7.
Btw, I know plenty of people who do war w/their Apples including the head of a major university’s IT dept.
“Does anybody have any suggestions regarding the CD ROM drive…”
Probably a firmware update issue. Is it a Dell?
It’s a Toshiba. It’s only two years old.
Identify your hardware first, and try this driver list:
http://tinyurl.com/atbfd4
Yeah, probably firmware. ESPECIALLY if it’s a Dell.
First, check your BIOS setup. If the motherboard sees it, then it’s a driver/firmware problem with Windows.
If so, first delete the driver in Device Manger and then let Windows try to reinstall it.
If that doesn’t work, you will have to go the mfg website and get manually install the latest driver.
If that doesn’t work, it’s given up the ghost and you need new a one. And I mean a new(er) one, and not the same model.
That will be $100 please. Where do I send the invoice?
A Dream House’s Difficult Birth
Four architects, seven years and millions later, a Carmel property nears completion WSJ.com
By their own admission, Mark Feldberg and Emilyn Page aren’t the easiest people to work with. And when it came to building their new home, the couple knew exactly what they wanted.
Getting what they wanted meant the early exit of three architects, the passage of seven years (and counting) and a budget that grew from $400,000 to about $6 million to build the house, courtyard, sculpture garden and three avant-garde tree-houses.
What Mr. Feldberg wanted was something that lived up to his childhood memories visiting the 35-acre DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Mass. What Ms. Page wanted was a barrel-shaped roof like one on a house she’d seen in Maine. The result: a 6,000-square-foot steel and glass structure that looks like a long glass bracket nestled against a steep forested hill. Unlike almost every other home set against a hill, however, this one faces the hill itself, its glass expanses overlooking the courtyard and straight into the forested hillside. Mr. Feldberg said the unusual position maximizes views of the forest.
“To take a 6,000-square-foot house and nestle it into the hillside-it was tough,” says Paul Byrne, the fourth and final architect on the project. Mr. Feldberg, a 58-year-old Hollywood screenwriter-turned-investor, said Mr. Byrne was the only one who understood his vision; plus “he can handle criticism,” said Ms. Page. (”The goal post was always moving, but it was fun,” Mr. Byrne says.)
http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/a-dream-houses-difficult-birth.html?bust_cache=1
Its an interesting house, but nowhere near $6MM interesting.
Here’s the telling line…
“To take a 6,000-square-foot house and nestle it into the hillside-it was tough,” says Paul Byrne, the fourth and final architect on the project.”
I’ll bet he tells all the clients that.
Hey Paul, they’ve been doing it for the last, oh… 2 thousand years.
After the Fed and Election: What’s Next for Wall Street?- CNBC
There’s little argument that this week’s election and Fed meeting are hugely important for the direction of the market. But what happens next?
Dow 12k.
DJIA 11,125 +6
If it keeps moving up in 6 point increments, it will take
(12,000-11,125)/6/30 = almost 5 months to hit 12K, and Eddie will lose his bet, and that will be sad.
Whichever way it’s going to go, I bet it goes faster after the election.
If it keeps moving up in 6 point increments, it will take
(12,000-11,125)/6/30 = almost 5 months to hit 12K
Tomorrow is just another day in the TAO…place your bets…
“Let’s get real, the U.S. is bankrupt. Neither spending more nor taxing less will help the country pay its bills.”
-Boston University Professor Laurence Kotlikoff Bloomberg Aug 10, 2010
+1
How about spending less? Families do it all the time to balance their budgets…
I won’t hear of it! Manipulation of the money supply is our way to prosperity!
We went bankrupt in the 1980s when we became a net borrower instead of lender. Voodoo, er supply economics and all that.
Good afternoon,
Long time, daily lurker, post very rarely. Live in Chandler, AZ. Dear hubby and I recently visited the Silicon Valley after being away 5 years; we used to work and live in Santa Clara, CA; owned a home (i.e. paid rent to the bank). Both were laid off from our jobs 7 years ago, but luckily we got new jobs in AZ and have been here since then.
A couple of things happened during that visit that got me thinking and are causing me anxiety. We caught up with a lot of the folks we knew and still lived in the Bay area. All of us are in our late 30s/early 40s (38-42 age group). Every single couple/household had one person unemployed and the person has been unemployed for at least 1 ½ to 2 years – with no hope of finding a job in the field that they used to be in. All of the people we know own homes; every one of them is underwater. Everyone is waiting, hoping that the economy will somehow come back and things will get better. The couple that is still employed used to send the 2 daughters to private school – no more. The family lives in a rental now and the girls attend Cupertino public schools.
There was empty retail space in all corners of Sunnyvale, Santa Clara and San Jose. Restaurants we used to go to are either gone out of business or had almost no patrons when we went in the evening. Dealerships that we purchased our cars from are gone. It was very depressing and unsettling to visit these places after 5 years.
I have been reading this blog for several years, and I am thankful for the information I have been reading here. I don’t think the jobs are coming back unless the outsourcing/free trade is stopped as well as in sourcing/bringing temporary workers on H1/L1 visas is stopped. Even with new folks elected in Congress tomorrow, I think it will take a good 10 years before things turn around. The corporations and the banks are simply too powerful. They would rather squeeze out efficiencies from existing workers, hire young workers, bring in cheap workers, or offshore jobs than keep employees in their late 40s, 50s and 60s employed.
All of the people we visited were filled with anxiety about how to re-finance their houses, save for their children’s colleges, and their own retirement. They have all depleted their 401k accounts and other savings, maxed out their credit cards. And they are worried about losing health insurance. COBRA is too expensive. Even if one spouse is still working, it’s only a matter of time before he/she loses his/her job. And they are too young to retire and too old to go back to school and claim to be a RCG (recent college graduate when applying for a job. We advised all of them to consider moving out of the Bay area to some place cheaper like AZ/TX/NV/OR while they can. Get out from under their homes – sell / walk away, and start fresh. The question though, is that what will they do when they get there. It’s not like there are any jobs in AZ/OR/NV in the high-tech fields; it’s just that it’s cheaper.
Some are immigrants and are seriously considering moving back to where they came from – India / China. The problem with that is that there is serious competition for experienced – level jobs in India / China. Every Indian / Chinese who has exhausted all options here in the U.S is thinking about or has jumped ship, and gone back home. I have heard that experienced folks are not getting jobs now in Bangalore. 40+ is considered too old in India. If you had some cash, you could start a venture of your own, but good luck jumping through the regulations and bureaucracy in India. Also, inflation is now rampant in India. The Indian government stopped subsidizing petrol (gas) and costs for everything have spiraled. The govt. also pulled back the stimulus they had applied 2 years ago. So purchasing a 1000 sq. flat in a suburb of a big city now costs more than the equivalent of $300K. If you bought something a long time ago, you were lucky.
The other point is the kids are around 8-12 years old and reluctant to go back home; life in the Bay area with their friends, good schools, great weather, Yosemite and beaches is all they know. Settling in Bangalore / Mumbai is not easy for the kids. I heard stories about how families tried to move back home to India, and ended up coming back to America because the kids were traumatized/ had nightmares / could not adapt. I also worry about the impact of such moves on the kids even if they grow older, throughout their lifetime. But the parents calculate that the kids can come back to the U.S in another 8-10 years when they are older and go to graduate school in the U.S and take out student loans (the kids are citizens since there are born here) if needed. So some are going to force the kids to go back home.
I am filled with anxiety when I think about my friends. What will happen to all the people who are unable to finds jobs? There is too much competition even for the low-end jobs. One friend told me she applied to Walgreens in Santa Clara for a clerk position – the manager told her that 400 people had applied. I have offered them to come and live with us while they figure out what to do next; but no one has taken up that offer so far. They seriously believe the media spin on local TV/Mercury News/national news and think it’s only a matter of time before things turn around and things will go back to the way they used to be in the late 90s and early part of this decade. For the sake of these individuals I met and others all over the country, I pray and hope things get better. But somehow I doubt that.
Left,
What professions were your friends in? The “low-end” jobs are the most competitive considering the UE rate at that end is much higher, so I’m not sure that’s the right strategy.
Whatever is going on right now seems very disjointed. Eddie reports yesterday that they had a 2.5 hour wait at the restaurant. Every place I went in Eugene, OR this weekend was dead (except for U of Oers out for Halloween parties - GoDux!). I’m convinced, based on how they keep closing at 10PM on the weekends, one place is going to be out of business within a month.
OTOH, I spoke with a mortgage broker friend who says her biz is gang-busters with not only refinance, but also first-time buyers.
Not sure OR is a good option, unless they already have a job lined up. We already have too many people coming here without jobs adding to our unemployment rolls…and yet my friend is doing well selling mortgages. I don’t get it…
Sleepless,
They are in the software applications / hardware design / design automation fields.
You are right, OR is not the right place. Neither is AZ. There are so few decent paying jobs left anywhere in the country. They are going to have to make some very hard decisions real soon. And it is heart-breaking to see the anguish on their faces.
We were lucky that we were forced to move out of the Bay area a few years ago - it was hard at first but it has worked out. Hopefully, they will find the strenght to make the decisions that are right for them and their children.
LeftCAin2004,
Thanks for posting this summary. My wife and I had left Bay Area in 2003 and moved to OR. In hind sight it appears to be the best decision.
Occasionally my wife feels that grass is greener on the other side. She thinks that all the people in CA (particularly Bay Area) are cashing out big bucks and moving to China / India with huge salaries and comfy jobs. I am sure your description above will be very educational for her.
BTW I was in Bay Area for 8 years before I left. I have several friends there who are in a similar position as described by you. I feel Bay Area currently is where Detroit was a few years ago. This might be too strong of an assessment but only time will tell. Here is an interesting article:
http://legacy.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20070319-0842-usa-subprime-detroit.html
Zak,
Yes, you definitely did the right thing by moving to OR. I can relate to how your wife feels; I used to think the same way. But this trip was an eye-opener.
One of my ex co-worker got laid off 2 years ago. He has tried hard to find a job as a design engineer; no luck. He has contacts, yet no job. So he became a realtor, thought he would make money that way. Well, in the last year, he has only sold 2 homes. He is lucky that his wife still has a job as a marketing manager. But they are falling behind on the house payments. Daughter now goes to public school, no more private school.
Another couple also pulled the son and the daughter from the private schools. Wonder how those private schools are doing now. Three of the couples we knew decided not to have any more children - so they each have only 1 child.
One couple - both husband and wife were laid off - they decided to get in the home renovation business. They thought they would do good; so far in the last 2 years, they have renovated and turned around only 2 homes. That did not help much financially. So they have stopped making payments on the house. This after putting in over $300K in a $800K home. At some point, they will lose the house and the $300K that they put in it.
Again, everyone is hoping against hope that things change and go back to the way used to be when they were all employed, housing prices always went up, and they could have frequent vacations - trips to wine country, HI, Europe. It is just sad.
from the Detroit article:
““Once we’ve seen the last person leave Michigan, then I think we’ll be able to say we’ve seen the bottom,” he said.”
ouch
Tomorrow, have them all vote GOP/“TrueAnger™” PeeParty tea toadlers = All their “problems” solved. Really, seriously…
Plan “B”: “Convert to Mormons & buy GOLD! GOLD! GOLD!”
Can it be any simpler?
come back to the U.S in another 8-10 years when they are older and go to graduate school in the U.S and take out student loans (the kids are citizens since there are born here)
BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
I should not have read your piece. Pretty depressing.
I am little younger than your age group but in the same field. I am in the Midwest so I think we are somewhat sheltered for now. It’s not going to last though. I am convinced that I will have to compete with Indians and Chinese in salaries so I have adjusted my expectations accordingly. In the meantime I am earning a decent salary and saving as much as I can. Unfortunately the savings may not mean much if Bernanke gets his way. Indeed we are doomed. The elites ruined us all.
I am in the Midwest so I think we are somewhat sheltered for now.
The Midwest will be the last to go.
Thank you for the report on India. It’s hard to imagine unemployment in India.
Thanks for that report LeftCAin2004.
Good luck to all of us. We’re going to need it.
“I am filled with anxiety when I think about my friends.”
So am I because I was counting on your friends to support me in my retirement.
Liesman & Santelli on w/ Kudlow. Bill Fleckenstein piped in via video. It’s actually a calm discussion of QE.
LeftCain2004
Thank you for your post .I share your worry over the unemployment
situation that is growing if anything here in the USA . I have a Nephew
who has 2 kids who calls me weekly who has not be able to get re-employment ,his wife works but it’s not enough income for basic needs
for a family of 4 .
Thank God you moved to a area you could survive in that was cheaper .
So many couples were dependent on the two earner family in the Bay
area ,so even one person not being able to replace their job can
crack the finances .
I loved your post that described the condition a lot of people are in .
Housing,
Yes, we are lucky we moved to a cheaper place. It was hard at first but it had worked out. Good luck to your nephew. Hope something works out for him soom.
I really wonder what is going to happen to everyone. What do these companies / bankers plan to do? Screw Americans so hard that they have to beg for food/shelter? Aren’t they ashamed of what they are doing to their own countrymen? I just don’t get how a high-level manager/director/VP can go home and go to sleep or get up and look at him/hersle fin the mirror in the morning, knowing that they just laid off a hard-working, educated, decent American?
It can’t be all about the bottow-line. How many millions do you need to live your life? And all these politicians - talking about unrelevant things; when the only thing that m,atters should jobs, jobs and jobs.
The repubs just voted down a bill in September to repeal tax breaks for offshoring jobs. A bill that would have given those tax breaks to local businesses instead, for hiring.
Voted. Against it. (reuters, september)
Yes, it IS all about greed.
I really wonder what is going to happen to everyone. What do these companies / bankers plan to do? Screw Americans so hard that they have to beg for food/shelter? Aren’t they ashamed of what they are doing to their own countrymen?
Don’t worry so much. Tomorrow the Republicans will gain power.
And they’ve shown that they care about us regular Americans.
“Don’t worry so much. Tomorrow the Republicans will gain power.
And they’ve shown that they care about us regular Americans.”
Don’t need a bible shoved up my azz!
Left
The power brokers don’t want the new structures and systems
that profit them to be challenged or changed ,in spite of all the problems they created by their lack of regard for the people of
their Country .Corporations will do anything that the Government
allows them to do in the name of profit ,and some industries were
forced into the new way of doing business or they couldn’t compete .
Companies underfunded their pension plans and Government underfunded their pension plans ,while at the same time Health
Care monopolies raised the price adding a great amount of
extra cost to industry . The net result from monopolies is price fixing and than various monopolies start trying to get into bed together to try to insure both their interest .
A industry that has cheaper foreign labor will have advantage over one who doesn’t ,so cheap foreign labor once it’ started will
eventually force all industry to follow suite or dye a slow death .
Than it all becomes one big monopoly that you have to have foreign
labor in order to compete .The gov. should of put the proper tariff on anything
outsourced or manufactured out-side our borders .
The situation is really absurd at this point .I’m sure there are a lot of unknown variables going on .Also they changed the incentive
programs for the CEO’s that made them more short term in
motive .Also Wall Street is only concerned about the profit motive of business because that is what they sell ,the increased stock price
“I’m not saying Fox supports terrorists. I’m saying Fox inspires them.”:-)
BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
Ho ho, hah hah, hehehehehehe, BwaHaHaAhHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! (Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower™)
6 Terrorists Inspired by Fox News and Glenn Beck:
By Jim Edwards | October 28, 2010 www bnet com
“By all accounts, the advertiser boycott of Fox News Channel over the ideological fuel it provides to right-wing extremists is going nowhere. Only Zurich Financial Services has said anything about it on the record: they’re “reviewing the situation.”
It was a quixotic quest, but not an unreasonable one given the way Fox — and Glenn Beck in particular — seem to be inspiring conservatives to engage in armed civil war with their liberal neighbors. Perhaps advertisers don’t know quite how extreme Fox and Beck have become: The recent incident in which a Kentucky county campaign coordinator for Senate candidate Rand Paul stomped on the head of a female protester is not an isolated example. Here are six actual terrorists inspired by Fox News. They have killed six Americans and wounded six others between them. (Seven, if you count the woman who took a sneaker to the skull from Paul’s man)”:
More often than not, early in the season when the odds are like 100 to 1, i walk by a casino sports book and put $100 on the Giants to win the series, or the 49ers to win the Superbowl.
Last year I did, and gave the ticket to a friend as a gift.
not this year..
but it’s always nice when the underdog, whoever it might be, comes out on top. Congratulations, Giants.
Just got a phone call directly from WASHINGTON (according to my caller-ID). Picked it up, and it was none other than the former Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, imploring me to vote for Gollum’s candidate (canned recording, of course).
GUESS WHAT? I ALREADY VOTED (”ABSENTEE” BALLOT) — FOR JERRY BROWN. AND MY LOVELY WIFE, WHO NORMALLY VOTES REPUBLICAN, VOTED FOR SOME THIRD-PARTY CANDIDATE IN DISGUST!
I didn’t point out to my wife that on net, our household cast a vote in Brown’s favor.
I guess you really don’t like Jerry Brown.(sarcasm off) Is the winner of the Governor’s race really the winner? I don’t envery anyone in that job given the current situation in California.
Jerry Brown will try and get rid of the Prop 13 protections.If you’re an overpaid liberal public employee you love it. The only way that we can control the bastards is keep the money away.
You didn’t fill out her ballot? You’d never fit in flyover country!