Bits Bucket For December 12, 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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Student protests: this time, police come prepared as anger boils over
More coppers and fewer protesters made the day’s outcome all but certain – just like the vote inside Parliament
o Michael White
o The Guardian, Friday 10 December 2010
o Article history
Student protesters and police in Westminster Student protesters and police clash in Westminster. Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA
“Whose streets? Our streets,” student demonstrators roared around Westminster’s chilly streets. But no, not really, not this time. Police chiefs are like bank regulators. After making such a bad job of regulating last month’s Millbank demo in London’s government quarter, they were determined to be better organised today.
…
The look on camelias face was priceless as students attacked her car.I couldnt imagine living with that woman for 1 hour.
Two tickets at the Royal Theater: 80$
Rolls Royce limo and driver for the night: 1000$
That look on your wife’s face when your car is attacked by rioters: priceless
It serves as a reminder to elite thugs that life could get real bad for the very quickly.
Corporate elite and the pandering fools who support them take note.
I guess you must not invest in any stocks since all corporations are evil, no?
“I guess you must not invest in any stocks since all corporations are evil, no?”
I can think of plenty of reasons to not invest in the rigged stock market these days. It does sound as if you are advocating investing in corporations regardless of their behavior as long as the ROI is acceptable.
Not sure I’d call Charles & Camilla “elite thugs.” Gruesome stiffs, maybe, but not evil people.
It has worked for me. I don’t urinate in my one beer.
Doh! “one” = “own”
Worked both ways, bill—I certainly wouldn’t urinate in my one (LAST) beer!
Bill,
You are not the corporate elite nor will you ever be, irrespective of what they’ve promised you.
Embrace your peonage. It is your past and future. Just like the rest of us.
I embrace my returns in my stock funds. Also my ESPP. Average cost about $5 per share, current price above $8
I embrace my children. Average cost, a lot, but rewards beyond description.
You’re not a corporate thug Bill. Nor will you ever be. Not even remotely close.
Good chance sombody already urintated in your beer if you drink Mexican imports.
What did they do in my Negra Modelo?
Charles is a climate thug idiot.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/off-with-their-heads-shouted-the-crowd-as-charles-and-camilla-met-rage-in-regent-street-2157412.html
This is the best, and quite possibly the funniest, description of the boring lives of Camila and Charles before the mob attack on their Royal Rolls Royce. Given the huge costs of maintaining the parasitic royal family, while austerity and hardship deepen among ordinary people, incidents of public rage directed against members of the aristocracy are probably going to increase.
The Royal family is much like the Eiffel Tower, a tourist attraction.
The US has to make due with Sara Palin and Kate Gosselin
Ms. Palin and Gosselin may be part of American entertainment, but I don’t think they really count as tourist attractions. Being a tourist attraction means that people travel to places they otherwise wouldn’t go to be near/catch a glimpse of/feel close to the major life events of the person involved. If you don’t generate significant hotel and restaurant revenue just by existing, you aren’t a tourist attraction.
pAlien and Gosselin are white trash like the rest of us. They should be treated as such.
The monarchies *were* the corporations before there were corporations. Think East India Company. They are wealthy beyond imagination, oppressive, shadowy and arrogant.
In the old days in India there was a guy named AGA KHAN I believe and anyway he used to parade his wares down the main drag gilded elephants showing off his women on scales balanced with their weight in diamonds everybody seemed amazed and happy. Blisfull days indeed
Compared to the parasitic banksters, the royals are pikers.
LOL!
“The Rolls-Royce has reinforced windows, but the passenger window on Camilla’s side was wound down, reportedly enabling a rioter to push a stick through and prod her in the ribs.”
Tis but a flesh wound…….
Not sure why that’s funny to you.
Maybe because its an “over the top” story.
Wasn’t the last regicide in Britain against a King named Charles? Seems like a bad name to bestow on royalty there. It just has bad karma IMHO.
The global warming hoaxers in London must love it, NOT. Temps dropped to where they were in !649. Cromwell was in charge. There is a statue of him in Westminister. He took off Charles’s head.
Their elders will remember that the Queen Elizabeth I refused to leave London during the blitz.
from Wiki:
Elizabeth publicly refused to leave London or send the children to Canada, even during the Blitz, when she was advised by the Cabinet to do so. She said, “The children won’t go without me. I won’t leave the King. And the King will never leave.”[67]
She visited troops, hospitals, factories, and parts of Britain that were targeted by the German Luftwaffe, in particular the East End, near London’s docks. Her visits initially provoked hostility. Rubbish was thrown at her and the crowds jeered, in part because she dressed in expensive clothing which served to alienate her from those suffering the privations caused by the war.[7] She explained that if the public came to see her they would wear their best clothes, so she should reciprocate in kind; Norman Hartnell dressed her in gentle colours and never black, in order to represent “the rainbow of hope”.[68] When Buckingham Palace itself took several hits during the height of the bombing, Elizabeth was able to say, “I’m glad we’ve been bombed. It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face.”[69]
Which one of leaders do you think would do this for us? Everyone will be quaking away in their nuclear proof bunkers.
um… Queen Elizabeth I was dead and burried for centuries by the start of WWII. Queen Consorts, like George VI’s wife Elizabeth don’t get numbers. She was a queen my marriage, not by birth, unlike her Daughther Queen Elizabeth II.
I actually think that our leaders handled themselves well in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. But it’s remarkable how quickly they adapeted and started using that tragedy to pursue their pre-existing agendas.
Good story. But the Queen has absolutely no leadership responsiblities whatsoever. I think that’s an important difference.
A quick clarification.
I think you mean Queen Elizabeth (later known as Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother) who was married to King George, the brother of King Edward who became The Duke of Windsor.
Queen Elizabeth the first was the daughter of Henry the Eighth.
Queen Elizabeth the Second is the current Queen of England.
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother married into royalty, so is not considered a regent or ruling Queen.
Tedious stuff, eh?
The British Royal family still has significant investments and intelligence networks around the world.
Do not underestimate them.
Even more tedious…..
Scotland wasn’t part of a United Kingdom during the reign of England’s QE I.
So the present Queen is QE II of England BUT QE I of Scotland.
Mailboxes in England and Scotland are stamped with the different titles.
DennisN
I love that!
Knew that QE1 was duking it out of Mary, Queen of Scots, and knew that James, son of MQS became King James of both, but never picked up on that little detail.
Makes total sense!!
Our current “leaders”, crouching behind their regiments of bodyguards, could do with a bit more of the spirit of Elizabeth I’s speech to her troops at Tilbury, when the Spanish Armada was offshore and she had been warned against assassination. Here’s what that good queen had to say, as she rode among her subjects:
“My loving people,
We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit our selves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood even, in the dust.”
Let tyrants fear, indeed.
Bear, thanks for your encouraging words on Friday night. But I will never consider real estate a “career”, just a fun hobby that pays a little bit.
It sounds like Australia’s banking industry succeeded in watering down their national banking reform to a favorable level for Megabank, Inc.
Win for major banks
* Peter Taylor
* From: Herald Sun
* December 12, 2010 9:48PM
Treasurer Wayne Swan’s move to ban exit fees has been broadly panned.
AUSTRALIA’S biggest banks will be privately celebrating rather than lamenting the Federal Government’s banking reforms, industry experts say.
The initiatives - intended to enhance competition - will do little to undermine the dominance of the big banks but deliver potentially lucrative new sources of funding, analysts believe.
Despite airing concerns about some of the initiatives unveiled yesterday by Treasurer Wayne Swan, the banks are likely to be deeply pleased with aspects of the reforms, they say.
A series of analysts told BusinessDaily the most significant initiative - allowing lenders to issue covered bonds - would principally benefit the major banks.
Covered bonds are secured against pools of assets, meaning investors who own the bonds can effectively pick over the carcass of any institution that fails before depositors get their cash back.
The Government is extending its deposit guarantee scheme so savers face no risk of losing their money if a lender collapses.
Banks have been lobbying for the right to issue covered bonds. While Canberra will cap the amount of covered bonds any lender can issue, the reform is expected to help the banks cut their reliance on expensive “wholesale” funding from overseas institutions.
Credit unions and building societies will be allowed to issue the bonds, but Nomura analyst Victor German said small institutions, unlike the big banks, would struggle to find enthusiastic investors.
…
Oz’s Megabanks have a familiar business model (borrow from the central bank at below-market rates, and loan out to household at monopoly interest rates, pocketing the spread).
* BUSINESS
* DECEMBER 12, 2010, 3:41 A.M. ET
Australia Overhauls Banking Rules
By GEOFFREY ROGOW
SYDNEY—Measures to rein in Australian banks fell short of public expectation Sunday when the government said it would improve banking competition in Australia but wouldn’t directly punish the country’s four dominant banks.
After months of threats, Australia’s government on Sunday introduced a series of measures aimed at improving banking competition in a country where four large banks are raising lending rates despite bumper profits. Treasurer Wayne Swan said the government will inject an additional A$4 billion ($3.94 billion) into securitization markets, while also allowing the issuance of covered bonds. In addition, the government will empower a key regulator to prosecute price signaling on rates from large banks, while a government guarantee of deposits will become a permanent function of the banking system.
Banking competition in Australia has been a hot topic in the past month after the country’s four largest banks each raised home-lending rates beyond a 0.25-percentage-point increase by the central bank in November. The four banks hold nearly 90% of the country’s mortgages on their books, with standard home-lending rates now above 7.67% for clients of each of the big banks, compared with a 4.75% cash rate for the central bank.
…
I believe banks have failed to do their math on this one. True in theory higher rates should equate to higher profit, but given higher rates have also contributed to very high defaults, perhaps as many as one in 7 for a given year, and given each time a person or business defaults they are effectively taken out of the consumer pool for a decade and thus not qualified (or desired?) to become customers again, banks have been unable to repay the Federal Reserve without bailouts. Same seems to be true for other types of debt such as mortgage, car, boat and business…
“…but given higher rates have also contributed to very high defaults, perhaps as many as one in 7 for a given year…”
Isn’t that the point where the federal mortgage loan guarantees come into play (to make the banks whole on defaulted loans at the taxpayers’ expense)?
Pretty much a coin toss .. Heads I win Tails you lose.
Now you are catching on!
But of course the federally guaranteed mortgages are absolutely essential to preventing systemic collapse (never mind that they represent yet another systemic wealth transfer from the U.S. Treasury into the coffers of Megabank, Inc).
They’d have a great business, if they could just get rid of all their customers….
You think you’re joking.
I don’t know how many businesses I’ve seen that consider their customers and employees “cost centers”.
I.H.T. Op-Ed Contributor
A European Economic Tsunami?
By DESMOND LACHMAN and DALIBOR ROHÁC
Published: December 10, 2010
In 2007, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, spent most of the year assuring markets that the U.S. sub-prime mortgage loan problem would be contained. In an all-too-similar manner, the European Central Bank president, Jean-Claude Trichet, now keeps asserting that Europe’s sovereign debt crisis does not pose a significant threat to the overall European economy, let alone to the global economy.
American policymakers would do well to disregard Mr. Trichet’s sanguine remarks and brace themselves for a European economic tsunami that is all too likely to seriously derail the fragile U.S. economic recovery.
Among the surer signs that a currency arrangement is approaching the end of its useful shelf life is when policymakers are forced to vehemently deny the possibility of any change in that arrangement.
…
No no no, PB. All is well. The Eurozone crisis is contained. Nothing to see. And you should be out this fine Sunday morning spending your contry into prosperity, like all the other good consumers.
The Next Financial Order
Europe’s Inevitable Haircut
Barry Eichengreen
2010-12-09
BERKELEY – What once could be dismissed as simply a Greek crisis, or simply a Greek and Irish crisis, is now clearly a eurozone crisis. Resolving that crisis is both easier and more difficult than is commonly supposed.
The economics is really quite simple. Greece has a budget problem. Ireland has a banking problem. Portugal has a private-debt problem. Spain has a combination of all three. But, while the specifics differ, the implications are the same: all must now endure excruciatingly painful spending cuts.
The standard way to buffer the effects of austerity is to marry domestic cuts to devaluation of the currency. Devaluation renders exports more competitive, thus substituting external demand for the domestic demand that is being compressed.
But, since none of these countries has a national currency to devalue, they must substitute internal devaluation for external devaluation. They have to cut wages, pensions, and other costs in order to achieve the same gain in competitiveness needed to substitute external demand for internal demand.
The crisis countries have, in fact, shown remarkable resolve in implementing painful cuts. But one economic variable has not adjusted with the others: public and private debt. The value of inherited government debts remains intact, and, aside from a handful of obligations to so-called junior creditors, bank debts also remain untouched.
This simple fact creates a fundamental contradiction for the internal devaluation strategy: the more that countries reduce wages and costs, the heavier their inherited debt loads become. And, as debt burdens become heavier, public spending must be cut further and taxes increased to service the government’s debt and that of its wards, like the banks. This, in turn, creates the need for more internal devaluation, further heightening the debt burden, and so on, in a vicious spiral downward into depression.
…
Thus bankruptcy is the ONLY viable option for these countries.
Hear, hear. Taxpayers should not be bailing out banks and foreign bondholders.
Can they go bankrupt while on the euro?
I think everyone has to go bankrupt together.
Sinking under the waves as the band plays on.
I don’t see how being on the Euro limits their ability to default. Sovereign nations don’t really go “bankrupt”, since their is no world court with a bankruptcy code for them to seek protection under.
They merely re-negotiate their obligations down to a bearable level.
Being on the Euro would not seem to prevent them from forcing a haircut onto their creditors.
The only thing that being on the Euro prevents is the escape-hatch of printing/inflating their way out of the crisis. The US still has that option, but no country on the Euro does—though I suppose the ECB could try to do it for all of them.
I wasn’t sure how much power they had ceded to the ECB in order to be on the euro. Could they not be expelled from the euro if they defaulted?
Sure they could be expelled from the Euro. But if they have finally realized that default is in their best interest, they will also have realized that exiting the Euro would be as well. Leaving the Euro is the path to rapid economic improvement.
The irony of the Euro is that the “captured” countries are prevented from the one mode of economic adjustment that has historically worked time and time again to spur recovery: exchange rate adjustments to weaken their own currency relative to others, that naturally tip the balance toward local production relative to foreign production, and thus improve the local economy.
The irony of the Euro is that the “captured” countries are prevented from the one mode of economic adjustment that has historically worked time and time again to spur recovery: exchange rate adjustments to weaken their own currency relative to others, that naturally tip the balance toward local production relative to foreign production, and thus improve the local economy.
Yes, just like Zimbabwe!
“Yes, just like Zimbabwe!”
Ok, good point–there clearly are limits.
Apparently you also have to possess sufficient social stability and system of law for the outside world to want to invest in your country.
Don’t throw me in that briar patch!
Despite all rhetoric and punditry, the Eurozone and thus the Euro, will be preserved.
The 3 major market in the world are the US, China and European Union. Aside from the squabbling, the Europeans are smart enough to know they need to keep a cohesive economic union or be buried.
This is their stress test.
Someone forgot the poor lender in all this talk of debt forgiveness
By Jeremy Warner Economics Last updated: December 10th, 2010
A number of European banks lent money to Ireland during the property boom (Photo: Bloomberg)
Since when has it been acceptable practice to run away from your debts? Well right now the idea seems to be all the rage. Eminent economists from around the world have come together to agree that that the only way out for the eurozone’s beleaguered peripheral economies is to “restructure” their debts – a polite term for default.
This has long seemed to me to be an inevitable event – I won’t use the word “acceptable” – for some of these countries are essentially insolvent. Ireland, Greece and Portugal, possibly Spain too, are way beyond the point where the crisis is merely one of temporary liquidity difficulties. There is a good reason why nobody outside the IMF and the eurozone core will lend to these countries except at penalty interest rates, and that’s because they know they won’t get their money back.
…
Perhaps rather than lending at penalty rates, not lending would be a better choice. Our credit based economy is a scourge on the world right now. Loans were given against inflated assets and when the assets deflated back to more realistic numbers, the loans defaulted, since the loans were to have been paid with further appreciation.
Debt is great on the way up as you can leverage your profit. On the way down it works the opposite, magnifying the losses.
What folks need to start understanding is that when money is loaned and not repaid, this is the same as simply printing money and giving it away. From here forward, either the money already given away must be funded with printed cash if the creditor is to be made whole or the creditor must accept their loss. inflation or collapse.
“…not lending would be a better choice.”
Apparently many lenders agree with you.
Tears are streaming down my face at the thought of these “poor lenders” getting burned by their reckless speculation and lending policies.
Everybody has been leaving the party, to avoid being stuck with the check.
Now it’s down to the banksters and the government/taxpayers. The banksters are trying to hand it to the government/taxpayers, but the decision makers in government can’t decide what they are more afraid of……..the banksters and their money, or J6P and his rope, pitchforks and torches.
Not true—their actions prove that they are WAY more afraid of losing the money that the banksters give them.
I’m not without sympathy. But figuring out who was likely to pay you back was SUPPOSED to be their core competency. It was the illusion that they figured out a way to ignore that which has gotten us all into this mess.
UNBOUND ECONOMY
10 Dec 2010
Don’t Hedge A Crisis
Allowing European debt to fester and grow through dubious theatrics can only make it worse
By Kenneth Rogoff
Now that the european union and the International Monetary Fund have committed €67.5 billion to rescue Ireland’s troubled banks, is the eurozone’s debt crisis finally nearing a conclusion?
Unfortunately, no. In fact, we are probably only at the mid-point of the crisis. To be sure, a huge, sustained burst of growth could still cure all of Europe’s debt problems — as it would anyone’s. But that halcyon scenario looks increasingly improbable. The endgame is far more likely to entail a wave of debt write-downs, similar to the one that finally wound up the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s.
…
And Latin America has come back from it. It took time and has not been easy, but it happened anyway.
The lesson? Not everyone should be loaned money.
Court fight over ‘robo-signer’ depositions
Published: Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 1:09 p.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 1:09 p.m.
SARASOTA - The ACLU of Florida filed a motion today appealing Sarasota Judge Rick DeFuria’s decision not to allow a law firm to put depositions of so-called “foreclusure robo-signers” on its web site.
The motion in Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal asked the court to reverse an injunction directing Christopher Forrest and The Forrest Law Firm, of Tampa, to remove video depositions of mortgage robo-signers from YouTube, and barring Forrest and others from distributing the depositions, according to a statement from the ACLU.
Forrest represents Sarasota homeowners Peter and Barbara Morlon in a foreclosure proceeding.
“Putting the videotaped depositions of “robo-signers” on YouTube gives the world an opportunity to see how the practices of banks and title companies are affecting homeowners facing serious financial problems,” Howard Simon, ACLU of Florida Executive Director, said in the statement. “This is a public service that shouldn’t be subject to a court-imposed gag order.”
…
Last year I went against the grain and joined the ACLU. While I’m appalled at a lot of what they do, like their crusades against venerated religous symbols, they are virtually alone in challenging the relentless encroachment on civil liberties from all quarters, government and private.
Your principled approach is admirable, Sammy. I, too, have considered joining the ACLU, though some of the causes they have championed over the years have been revulsive.
A friend of mine took a civil rights case all the way to the Supreme Court.
Cost: 5 years and $40,000.
Your average person cannot afford this.
They don’t call it the “Bill” of Rights for nothing.
How about everyone send the ACLU a Christmas card? If they receive 3 or 4 million cards they will have to hire people, and waste their resources, to open them so as to not miss any donations from the fools and libs who support them. hahahahahaha
Good interview with Paul Craig Roberts(former assistant treasury secretary) on maxkeiser.com. He says it like it is in regards to the banksters. They own the government, no question about it.
You have problem with Corporate Communist Capitalism©®™, comrade?
Bernie Madoff’s son, Mark, commits suicide. NYPost
Bernard Madoff’s son Mark was found dead in the living room of his SoHo apartment this morning — hanging from a black dog leash on the two-year anniversary of his father’s stunning downfall, officials said.
Officers were called to 158 Mercer St. at 7:28 a.m. after Mark’s father-in-law reported the grisly find — the 46-year-old Madoff hanging fully clothed from a pipe in the apartment ceiling, police said.
Answer: a good start.
Not cool. This man’s death deprived his innocent two-year-old of a father. Don’t be so quick to judge and condemn. Suicide is a terrible tragedy, especially in cases where the victim may have been wrongly accused or persecuted.
Are you suggesting Mark Madoff has been wrongly accused and/or persecuted?
I have no idea if Mark Madoff has been wrongly accused or not. Even if he was in on the scam, I take no pleasure in his death, or the fact that his son is now fatherless.
OK, who are you and why are you using Sammy’s moniker?
I think we have found the limits of Sammy’s Schadenfreude.
Sammy, I salute you for seeing the human side of this—e.g. the impact on his two-year-old’s future.
Madoff’s posh apartment has an exposed pipe on the ceiling?
It was a six million dollar LOFT apartment- that pipe was part of the loft ‘look’. Turned out to be quite useful, too. And sturdy.
Wombats, you missed the discussion at the end of yesterday’s bits bucket.
Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives
By LOUISE STORY
NYTimes
On the third Wednesday of every month, the nine members of an elite Wall Street society gather in Midtown Manhattan.
The men share a common goal: to protect the interests of big banks in the vast market for derivatives, one of the most profitable — and controversial — fields in finance. They also share a common secret: The details of their meetings, even their identities, have been strictly confidential.
Drawn from giants like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the bankers form a powerful committee that helps oversee trading in derivatives, instruments which, like insurance, are used to hedge risk.
In theory, this group exists to safeguard the integrity of the multitrillion-dollar market. In practice, it also defends the dominance of the big banks.
The banks in this group, which is affiliated with a new derivatives clearinghouse, have fought to block other banks from entering the market, and they are also trying to thwart efforts to make full information on prices and fees freely available.
Corporate socialism?
Corporate Communist Capitalism©®™
Nope, no collusion here.
I thought this was a description of the Establishment GOP leadership.
U.S. Posts $150.4 Billion November Budget Deficit ~ WSJ
WASHINGTON—The U.S. government ran its 26th straight monthly budget deficit in November amid wrangling over a package that would extend big tax cuts to Americans trying to recover from recession.
The Treasury Department, in its regular budget monthly statement, said the government spent $150.4 billion than it collected in the second month of fiscal 2011.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected a shortfall of $126.5 billion. November is traditionally a month for deficits.
$1.8 TRILLION annual run rate. That’s one way to eliminate the possibility of long-term deflation!
We’re fooked.
The wealth envy crowd are a sad lot, they trudge through life convinced that the people that have more money that they do must have come by it in nefarious ways. Must have taken advantage of some poor slob for their greedy gain.
The evil rich are to be loathed, they(the envious) could not make it so nobody else should be able to. The rich do no good, they don’t give their time and money to communities, they don’t build companies and hire workers, they don’t support charities, they don’t create foundations for medicines, arts etc… They beat the poor and ignorant out of their time and effort purely for their gain.
I say we take all the super rich folks money and redistribute it to the deserving. Starting with the 535 in D.C. I’ve lost count how many millionaires and billionaires are there in D.C. of both stripes?
Anyway, the wealth envy crowd will go to their graves having never realized their sad dream. It isn’t going to happen, find something else to be miserable about.
This should be used in classrooms as an example of the straw man argument.
Is taxing the wealthy a few percentage points more in order to greatly reduce the deficit really the equivalent of expropriation? Or do deficits not matter when the wealthy might have to repay them? Does the job of paying down deficits always fall on the middle class?
See there’s an opportunity for you, set that class up, you are expert at it! Heck you may get rich.
“Does the job of paying down deficits always fall on the middle class?”
Of course it does! Haven’t you been paying attention to the game plan? Privatize the gains, socialize the losses, bailouts for the rich, more taxes and fees for everyone else.
C’mon, Citibank already proved that a plutocracy is good for the USA. And we know the banking clan is always right.
This (wmbs’s am radio regurgitation) should be used in classrooms as an example of the straw man argument.
(and an “argument” ignorant of numbers and percentages relating to American historical averages of wealth distribution)
(wmbs’s am radio regurgitation)
Sorry. I meant wmbz’s.
It wouldn’t hurt to take income in excess of $250,000 after-deduction tax rate from 35% to 39%, which would help the deficit.
And I guess you’d like to slaughter their children after you’ve seized their property, so great is your wealth-envy! (The wmbz straw man, kids.)
Because high marginal tax rates are equivalant to infanticide? The world didn’t end in a Ragnarock of rioting bankers and trust fund kids in the 50s, 60sand 70s when tax rates were vastly higher. It’s not that the rich are evil, nefarious or venal, just the simple facts that they can afford it, and at a deeper level that for the most part they haven’t invested all the extra money that they’ve been allowed to keep since Regan became presidend in productivity improvements to make the rest of us more productive. Instead they’ve shipped jobs overseas, or lent the money out to the rest of us, remaking the US as some sort of South American debt peonage economy.
Why do you hate America, Jim?
I don’t hate America. I don’t even hate the rich. But we are currently living far beyond our means, and projections are that will only get worse as we age. Part of the solution to that is likely to be higher taxes. And the well off can more easily bear that burden than the poor.
Jim, I’m with you. My posts were sarcastic examples of wmbz’s straw man, which I had been mocking earlier in the thread. Read the previous ten or so posts and it will (hopefully) make sense.
Sorry, my irony/sarcasm detector is on the fritz.
The wealth envy crowd are a sad lot, they trudge through life convinced that the people that have more money that they do must have come by it in nefarious ways.
Uh, because they have? Current events much?
There’s a Biblical component to this:
“And again I say to you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” - Matthew 19:24
I’m not trying to Bible-thump, and in modern society it is certainly possible to become wealthy without looting others, but the point is, there’s a long history to this concept.
I may be incorrect but I have never heard of Bernie ranting against his yearly pay raise. Or does he refuse it, or give it to charity?
Item:Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), a socialist, said “greed is like an addiction” and compares it to heroin and nicotine. “This reckless uncontrollable greed is like a disease,” Sanders said.
Sanders asks how can anyone be proud to call themselves a “multimillionaire?”
And more importantly, how can any self-respecting wage earner(most all of us) morally defend the actions of multi-millionaires?
There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with being a multi-millionaire, as long as you came by the money honestly.
Of course, as the saying goes, behind every great fortune lies a great crime.
There are plenty of examples of business leaders who have prospered, while making the lives of their employees and customers better. The old “rising tide lifts all boats”.
The Banksters/Wall Street/Economics crowd have been working at cross purposes to J6P’s and the country’s prosperity for 30 years. They’ve gotten richer, coming up with different angles to screw people out of their money.
I could list the ways, but I’m not sure there’s enough bandwidth.
Exactly.
Being wealthy is not a crime. How you got that wealth and what you do with it are what makes the difference.
And unfortunately, the crooks rule the roost.
Does Sanders’ desire to dictate equate to greed? His lust for power is considerable.
Bernie himself is very ashamed to be a multimillionaire.
I don’t know what Sanders did with his COLA in the past, but there was no pay raise in 2010, and will be none in 2011.
Sanders’ net worth is estimated to be between negative $234,989 and positive $444,996, based on required filings. opensecrets.org/pfds/overview.php?type=W&year=2009&filter=S&sort=A
Do you dispute his statements on greed? I don’t.
Sounds to me like Bernie has plenty of money. Really, how much does a person ‘need’?
As to greed I’m not sure it is addictive, but then again I am not greedy.
Who cares if he’s rich? As long as his policies are beneficial to the middle class (and I’m not saying they are), then his personal wealth is irrelevant.
Shhhh, bill. No facts. It makes them confused.
At least no fake facts. What is a fact? How do you know? Were you there? Do you know the guy? Are bank balance sheets facts? Are any published numbers facts? Just checking.
Sanders could be entirely destitute but that fact won’t change a thing in the empty skulls of ideological idiots.
I’m sure he deserves every penny of his yearly raise for having the cojones to stand up to the banksters.
+1. I’m no admirer of socialists, but Bernie seems to at least have true principles and the public interest at heart.
As much as I hate to admit it, I agree with you.
I know you mean well, Sammy, but you really ought to think about what you post before you hit that “Add comment” button.
I know you mean well, Sammy, but you really ought to think about what you post before you hit that “Add comment” button.
He did. Harder than most.
Bucking trend, Bolivia lowers retirement age to 58
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) - Bolivia enacted a law Friday lowering the country’s retirement age to 58, bucking a global trend in which countries push people to work longer to counteract the burden on national treasuries of rising life expectancy.
Critics say the law, which also nationalizes the pension system and generously extends coverage to the poor, is overly ambitious and unsustainable.
Leftist President Evo Morales signed the bill surrounded by members of the powerful Bolivian workers federation, which helped draft the law.
Bolivia’s current retirement age is 65 for men and 60 for women.
“We are fulfilling a promise with the Bolivian people. We are creating a pension system that includes everyone,” Morales he said at the signing ceremony.
Look for the economy tanking and spiraling deficits, followed by an urgent appeal to the IMF who will in turn force these policies to be reversed in return for a bailout.
Same gameplan that has been repeated for over 50 years now.
Unless, of course, if Bolivia is home to some important minerals in demand in China.
Unless, of course, if Bolivia is home to some important minerals in demand in China.
They are, they’re the ‘Saudi Arabia of lithium’. They also have a lot of nat gas. They should become a wealthy country in the near future, assuming they can handle the ‘curse’ of resource wealth.
South America was kept deliberately destabilized for most of the 20th century so that they could be exploited for their natural resource.
That game is almost over.
That’s it. I’m moving to Bolivia.
Ich bin ein Bolivar!
“That’s it. I’m moving to Bolivia.”
Good for you. I’m thinking of moving to another planet.
Kid, the next time I say, “lets go someplace like Bolivia”, let’s GO someplace like Bolivia.
Critics say the law, which also nationalizes the pension system and generously extends coverage to the poor, is overly ambitious and unsustainable.
The nationalization of private pension plans seems to be a world-wide trend.
The idea was even floated in America by a few democrats,
Does it come with confiscation of existing private plans?
Miller, dem of No Ca, held hearings 2 years ago on confiscating all 401ks and Iras with a fruitcake woman economist from NYU named Gillarducci.They had more meetings in Sept 2010. The Fed would pick up $4 trillion. Barry and the rest of the socialists and Acorn loved it.
With most large private pensions defaulting and having to be rescued by the PBGC, we have it by fiat accompli.
Ah we will let Bolivia have preferential trade status and allow their planes full of coca to pass without inspection……gotcha America
Why the age distinction between men and women? If anything, women statistically outlive men: therefore, they should retire at a later age.
Toujours la politesse..
Widows in the US can receive full Social Security at age 60 without ever having a job (provided they were married at least 10 years).
I lived in La Paz for a year when I was 12 and have to say I think everyone in my family really liked Bolivia. Of course at the time there was only the Airport on the Alti Plano and looking at Google Satellite there is a whole big city up there now, but at least in the mid 70’s it was a really nice place to live.
A lot of Latin America was like that in the 70’s. Today I wouldn’t set foot in most of it.
“You really just have to keep moving forward. There is no such thing as going back. Moving forward is less painful if you can get past the fear and grab the good moments as they appear.” ~CarrieAnn@HBB, 12/11/10
It is meaningful expressions like these that make the current uncertainty less uncertain. Thanks Carrie.
You’re welcome exeter.
Thanks from me too, Carrie. Sentiments like that are useful and comforting in times like these, when darkness seems to be closing in all around.
This place is an absolute foreclosure nightmare - kind of like the Lehigh Acres of the east coast:
http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/local/west-volusia/2010/12/12/deltonas-foreclosure-crisis.html
“The idea, to put it bluntly, is to maintain the current system and pay people just enough to survive so that the system itself doesn’t collapse from bankruptcy or into popular rebellion.”
~Anthony Wile
Forgot to take into account that future standard of “survival” would include basic necessities such as cell phones, cable, designer clothes, etc. An impossibly high standard has been established. The old “formula” no longer works - not without handing out ridiculous amounts of money.
Bling is my Constitutional right, especially when you get tapped to pay for it.
Forgot to take into account that future standard of “survival” would include basic necessities such as cell phones, cable, designer clothes, etc. An impossibly high standard has been established. The old “formula” no longer works - not without handing out ridiculous amounts of money.
A cheap cell phone can cost less to keep than a land line, and is more useful IMHO.
And this business about “high speed internet” being a luxury.
To apply for any kind of decent job in the US, you need:
-a permanent address
-internet, to apply for positions on line, and
-MS Office, because everyone wants to get your resume in MS Word.
FYI….JC Penney has the latest wrinkle in HR software. You do an online questionaire, and if you don’t “pass”, it give you an immediate “Don’t go away mad, just go away”…..
No more waiting around for a couple of weeks to see if they want an interview. Guess this is what passes for “progress” nowadays.
And even worse, filing out one long online form, only to have to fill out a duplicate one… AND submit your resume.
Automation, how does it work?!
But yes, you’re right X-GSfixr, without Internet access, you are in the ghetto.
You also left “a car” because 90% of this country doesn’t have public transport.
Sears does the same, but if you pass and get an interview, good luck getting the job (especially in The O.C.)
A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives.
The men share a common goal: to protect the interests of big banks in the vast market for derivatives, one of the most profitable — and controversial — fields in finance. They also share a common secret: The details of their meetings, even their identities, have been strictly confidential.
Drawn from giants like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the bankers form a powerful committee that helps oversee trading in derivatives, instruments which, like insurance, are used to hedge risk.
In theory, this group exists to safeguard the integrity of the multitrillion-dollar market. In practice, it also defends the dominance of the big banks.
The banks in this group, which is affiliated with a new derivatives clearinghouse, have fought to block other banks from entering the market, and they are also trying to thwart efforts to make full information on prices and fees freely available.
Lock in derivatives contracts
Pocket the money when you win.
Government bales you out by buying your crap bets when you screw up.
Nice work if you can get it.
I thought cartels were illegal?
Palpatine made them legal.
Well, you see, it’s not “technically” a cartel, right? And “technically” there’s no collusion, either.
Ever heard of The Business Roundtable?
Bernie Sanders tells is as it is:
http://c-span.org/Watch/Media/2010/12/11/HP/R/41812/Sen+Sanders+Holds+8+12+hour+Tax+Cut+Filibuster.aspx
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/liamhalligan/8196283/Market-alarm-as-US-fails-to-control-biggest-debt-in-history.html
Out-of-control U.S. Government spending, funded by massive debt and Helicopter Ben’s profligate money-printing, is starting to set off alarm bells in international markets.
“The US government is now servicing $13.8 trillion (£8.7 trilion) in declared liabilities – making it, by a long way, the world’s largest debtor”.
Read though that from GDP perspective, Japan has double the debt of US.
As others have mentioned in the past on this board, the party will continue until it suddenly stops.
Just like the rating agencies reputation, the US Dollars reputation can disappear with shocking speed.
Now that’s what I call inflation!:
The $100,000 chocolate bar of our youth is gone.
But don’t be sad! Russell Stover is marketing a take off on the nostalgic brand as a $1,000,000,000 (billion dollar) chocolate bar this season. An illustration of Santa is on the bill art so perhaps it is more special.
Coming soon: the Helicopter Ben Zimbabwe Edition $1,000,000,000 candy bar, paid for with a crisp new billion-dollar bill fresh off the Fed’s injets.
lol!
“actual Hershey’s chocolate bar contains only 4 to 10 percent chocolate, and even organic chocolate bars generally list raw cane sugar as a primary ingredient”
http://www.sunjournal.com/bplus/story/952822
In Mexico in the 70’s the 100 Grand Bar was known as “Un Millon” (One million). This was when the UDS was equal to 12.5 pesos.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40626200/ns/world_news-the_new_york_times
BEIJING — Liu Yang, a coal miner’s daughter, arrived in the capital this past summer with a freshly printed diploma from Datong University, $140 in her wallet and an air of invincibility.
Her first taste of reality came later the same day, as she lugged her bags through a ramshackle neighborhood, not far from the Olympic Village, where tens of thousands of other young strivers cram four to a room.
Unable to find a bed and unimpressed by the rabbit warren of slapdash buildings, Ms. Liu scowled as the smell of trash wafted up around her. “Beijing isn’t like this in the movies,” she said.
Often the first from their families to finish even high school, ambitious graduates like Ms. Liu are part of an unprecedented wave of young people all around China who were supposed to move the country’s labor-dependent economy toward a white-collar future. In 1998, when Jiang Zemin, then the president, announced plans to bolster higher education, Chinese universities and colleges produced 830,000 graduates a year. Last May, that number was more than six million and rising.
It is a remarkable achievement, yet for a government fixated on stability such figures are also a cause for concern. The economy, despite its robust growth, does not generate enough good professional jobs to absorb the influx of highly educated young adults. And many of them bear the inflated expectations of their parents, who emptied their bank accounts to buy them the good life that a higher education is presumed to guarantee.
“College essentially provided them with nothing,” said Zhang Ming, a political scientist and vocal critic of China’s education system. “For many young graduates, it’s all about survival. If there was ever an economic crisis, they could be a source of instability.”
I’m glad this problem of well-educated young people with scantjob prospects is confined to China.
Oh, wait….
Maybe they should have asked us how that move to a “white collar, knowledge based, economy” worked out.
Those stooopid chicoms, don’t they know gold is in a bubble? Or so say the cereal bubble callers. LOL!
Chinese gold imports are on a pace to quintuple this year, according to figures from the Shanghai Gold Exchange. Last year, the Middle Kingdom imported 45 metric tons of gold. Through October of this year, the figure was 209.7 metric tons.
Meanwhile, the volume of gold traded on the exchange is up 43% from a year ago.
“Uncertainties in domestic and global economies, and increasing anticipation of inflation, have made gold as a hedging tool very popular,” says exchange chairman Shen Xiangrong.
Coupled with the news we mentioned yesterday — Chinese regulators approving the first mutual fund to invest in gold-backed ETFs — we see Chinese gold demand is going to a whole new level.
Clipped from The 5Min. Forecast.
Asians have learned the hard way to trust gold over governments.
Analysis examines what it’s like to be a ‘rich’ family in America
In the heated battle over extending the expiring Bush-era tax cuts, a single number has emerged from the crossfire: $250,000. It’s the annual income that President Obama and others have repeatedly used to define what it means to be “rich” in America today. And even though a tentative deal has been reached on the cuts, $250,000 is etched in the minds of policymakers and pundits as the number that separates the middle class from the wealthy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/10/AR2010121004197.html
“Taxes ……take a large bite out of earnings” (and don’t forget tolls, user fees,etc.)
And J6P making $50K/year pays the exact same rate as the guy making $250K.
We reached a tipping point last week. My youngest daughter reached the point where she was working at Sonic for “free” (after subtracting the costs of getting to/from work from her income).
So much for instilling a “work ethic”.
And J6P making $50K/year pays the exact same rate as the guy making $250K.
Haven’t you heard? It’s because 250K is like the same amount of money as 50K.
There really is not much difference when you run the numbers and stuff.
Thanks for clarifying that. I feel a whole lot better.
How will the family that makes $250,000 a year cope with the loss of the Bush tax cut? From the article:
“In reality, to make ends meet, this couple would have to cut back on discretionary expenses - take a pass on a new suit, skip an annual vacation and drop some activities for the children.”
The horror. (This is after justifying all sorts of upper-middle class bling as standard necessities. And positing that the family lives in one of the most expensive areas of the country.)
nnn stuff…. yeah. frickin socialist commy bastardses.
High School/College students tend to be very left leaning and for every socialist policy.
Until they get their first job and see just how much government takes.
Then they start to add it up - “you mean I work half my day just to pay the government before I see a cent.”
Yep - welcome to reality. And the social security and health care that you pay so dearly for now will be bankrupt when you need it.
So how kewl is it having the first black president now?
Oh please, no one has half of their paycheck withheld.
Let’s see:
Federal 30%+
State 0-9% (depending on state)
County 0-4% (depending on county)
State 0-5% (depending on city)
Social Security 15% (yes - you include the part your employer pays on your behalf)
I am up to 55% without even breaking a sweat.
Now add in when you actually want to spend the money:
Sales tax
Property Taxes
Car Registration Taxes
Gas Taxes
etc.
BS. I’ve never had city or county taxes withheld from a paycheck, nor have I NEVER had 30% federal withholding (And I’ve lived in high tax California). To imply that some kid with a 40K job straight out of college will have this much withheld is PURE BS.
I’m sure there are places where you pay city and county income tax, but they are the exception and not the rule.
Just as a matter of observation, my W-2s (during the periods where I have been a working stiff, and not scrabbling out a living as a 1099′er) include boxes for Federal, State, County and municipal withholdings.
So it’s got to happen SOMEWHERE.
I’ll warrant that when I lived and worked in New York, all of those boxes had numbers in them. Odds are New York is not the only place in the country where that happens.
“some kid with a 40K job straight out of college”
Pause for laugh. Sorry, that’s one of the harsh truths you learn when you graduate… you don’t get 40K right out of college.
I make more than $40K and my federal income taxes run about 12%. My benefits cost me more than income, SS, and Medicare taxes. I am married with 1 dependent, so that skews my results a bit from the single person. But I still don’t believe 30% unless you are making more than $600K or so. I ran that number through the IRS withholding calculator, so I am pretty confident in it.
Including the employer’s portion of SS is silly. You are accounting for it twice. If my employer did not have to pay it, I could be paid more, but that is not the same as deducting it from my paycheck. There is no guarantee that I would see an equivalent raise if it suddenly went away. If someone is self-employed, then they do have to account for both halves, but then they are probably filing estimated taxes and not seeing it taken from their paychecks.
So how kewl is it having the first black president now?
Way cooler than your comment.
He’s the greatest thing since food-stamps.
He’s the greatest thing since food-stamps.
Are you on them?
“Are you on them?”
Not yet. I voted for Ron Paul.
“So how kewl is it having the first black president now?”
I seem to remember paying taxes under the white presidents, too.
Actually, she’s a die hard Tea Partier/Republican/Obama hater.
She doesn’t pay that much in taxes. Just Social Security
Her employer, however, think that it’s smart to schedule the kids for 5-8 hours, then send them home after an hour and a half. Which means she grosses about ten bucks. Not to mention having to make up any cash shortages in her drawer, lest she be written up and fired.
(she was worried about this…..I was walked away from my MickeyDees Assistant Manager job in the middle of the evening rush, and NOBODY has ever asked about it, much less help it against me).
He can get away with this because there aren’t that many job openings, and people can’t do math anymore.
Out here in flyover, 10 mile drives into town for whatever feeble jobs exist are not uncommon. So you are spending three bucks out of that 10 just getting there. Plus insurance and wear and tear on the car.
Parents need to wake up and tell their kids that working at minimum wage is just a subsidy to Mr-Hero-Small-Business-Owner. The sooner parents wake up to this fact, the better off we all are.
The people that complain about the “lazy kids playing Playstation all day” might want to run the numbers.
Oh, ouch. The cutting of hours is a really nasty trick.
That’s happened to my son too. Employees are treated so badly nowadays.
Analysis examines what it’s like to be a ‘rich’ family in America
Analysis examines what it’s like to be a hypocritical “conservative” in America.
GOP hypocrisy on tax cuts, unemployment benefits
http://www.contracostatimes.com/ci_16772911?source=most_emailed&nclick_check=1
Why does the GOP leadership only cry broke when it comes to doing something for Americans who don’t have their own K Street lobbyist?
Is there no end to the hypocrisy?
…Republicans are fighting for the top 120,000 wage earners to each get a check of $3 million. While at the same time, arguing that there is no money for Americans whose very survival depends on subsistence payments of a couple of hundred dollars a week.
There is something very, very wrong with this picture.
Most of the GOP-proposed tax cut would go to people making more than $500,000 per year — which the Congressional Budget Office has said would do virtually nothing to stimulate the economy.
…Trickle-down economics has not worked.
Just ask the 15 million of our countrymen who are out of a job.
The same politicians who refuse to lend a hand to struggling, out-of-work Americans, are shamelessly fighting tooth and nail to extend the Bush tax cuts for the richest among us.
I would willingly give my pi$$y little “tax cut” away, if it meant that the BushCo “temporary cuts for the Top 2%ers goes away.
As I’ve seen repeatedly (as recently as 3 days ago), the 2%ers will let their Trophy Wives drop six figures on “designer” crap at the drop of a hat, but bitch endlessly about paying the serfs a decent wage.
OTOH, maybe that’s a sign they have their priorities straight. Their trophy wives are pretty hot……
As I’ve seen repeatedly (as recently as 3 days ago), the 2%ers will let their Trophy Wives drop six figures on “designer” crap at the drop of a hat, but bitch endlessly about paying the serfs a decent wage.
Sometimes I feel like I live in Czarist Russia. We all know how that ended.
I dunno. I would have thought that there would have been a Bankster/Hedge Fund building/limo blown up a long time before now.
Either Americans still can’t add 2+2, or the Wussification plan is complete.
Both.
Its the Wussification. It’s done. The elite could rape our wives and daughters and we would fall all over ourselves justifying it.
History shows that some sort of feudal society structure is pretty much the mean.
There’s a reason for that. It takes 2 to tango.
So again, to remind everybody, while I often castigate the rich, the dirt poor sycophants who defend them are also to blame.
But the only the rich have the resources to create large scale change. For the poor, self improvement is often no guarantee of anything being better. Despite popular myth.
Let’s get rid of Barry’s Tzars. Eliminate the Dept of Education. No money to NPR. Eliminate subsidy for domestic ethenol and Tariff tax on Brazilian ethenol. No subsidy on wind or solar. Let’s see I’m up to over $300 billion a year. No subsidy for home buyers.Dump Freddie and Fannie.
I have seem some trophy wives lately, and let me tell you, they weren’t first place. lol
Next thing they will label all those who rented the last seven years “rich.” the more mobile you are, the easier it is to maintain a high income level. My income would have dropped to zero if I did not switch clients over one weekend and 2000 miles.
Nah, they will label who have more money than they could spend in 1000 life times as rich and who don’t have to worry about haveing a job like you do. Your relatively measly net worth does not place you in that rarefied crowd.
If $250,000k per year isn’t rich, then how come less than 3% of the population makes that much?
Math, how does it work?!
Because 97% of the population is poor? Can you retire on 250K and in the words of Forrest Gump “Not have to worry about money” with a 250k nest egg?
You can’t even buy a modest house in most major metro areas with 250K, at least not in a safe neighborhood.
A nest egg? No.
But the discussion and context is about annual income. $250,000… annual income.
Big difference.
$250,000 annual income, $250,001 annual expense, result misery. Wealth is how much you save, not how much you earn. I work with plenty of people in Silicon Valley with $150k+ incomes and zero or even negative net worth. There are bums on the street who are (financially) better off than my officemate, for instance.
It sounds like condos may soon become far more affordable, due to the loss of eligibility for FHA financing. Why this is a problem is quite the mystery to me, as I thought affordable housing was a federal government policy goal.
Some condo owners may lose FHA financing
Their ability to sell or refinance their units could be hampered if their condo projects missed a key deadline for recertification.
By Kenneth R. Harney
December 12, 2010
Tens of thousands of condominium unit owners around the country may not know it, but their ability to sell or refinance could be jeopardized by a rolling series of federal government deadlines.
On Wednesday, an estimated 2,200 condominium projects missed an eligibility deadline involving sales or refinancings using Federal Housing Administration-insured mortgages. The deadline was originally set by FHA for recertification or approval of these projects, but at the last minute the agency agreed to extend eligibility for most of them — 23,000 projects — into next year, with a series of rolling expiration dates. A group of 2,200 condo projects around the country received extensions only until the end of this month.
What this means, say lenders and condo experts, is that unsuspecting unit owners nationwide could suddenly be cut off from an increasingly important source of mortgage money. In some markets where FHA accounts for 75% or more of first-time home purchases, condo sellers could be severely handicapped. In parts of the country with heavy concentrations of condos, such as California, Florida, New England, Washington, D.C., and the urban Midwest, the effects could even depress sales prices.
“This is a travesty” unfolding, said Jon Eberhardt, president of Condo Approvals LLC, a national consulting firm based in Torrance. “You’ve got thousands of people out there with no idea” that FHA financing could evaporate for them in the near future.
…
“unsuspecting”
There’s a version of “unexpected” again.
Perfect! Now condos will fall to reasonable prices and will be bought by people with 20% down. What a concept!
Condos.
Here is some REIC propaganda that needs debunking. It is patently false that only the federal government could provide for mortgage balance writedowns. The logical alternative is to ask the deep-pocketed gamblers who lost money on their real estate investments to shoulder the losses. Don’t ask broke taxpayers, who are already enjoying loss of income and investment wealth, to eat the losses from foolish mortgage investments. In particular, don’t ask taxpayers living in America’s heartland to assume the losses on still-overpriced California housing.
Under pressure Fannie, Freddie reluctant to cut loan amounts
By Kevin Smith Staff Writer
Posted: 12/08/2010 07:46:26 PM PST
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are being pressured to participate in a federal short-refinance program.
The program requires lenders to reduce the principal on a mortgage loan before refinancing that loan into a Federal Housing Administration product. The aim is provide help to borrowers who are current on their mortgage payments but owe more than their homes are worth.
Would Fannie and Freddie’s participation help stabilize the San Gabriel Valley’s struggling housing market?
“I think anything that anyone will do to give away more money will help people … but the underlying question is how are you going to pay for it?” said Tom Adams, owner of Century 21 Adams & Barnes. “Fannie and Freddie can’t write down principal balances unless someone gives them the money. And it can only come from the federal government.”
…
They are doing everything to avoid having to create another RTC.
And they are failing.
Fair Game
The Nerve to Say No
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
Published: December 11, 2010
DECIDING what to do with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the taxpayer-owned mortgage giants that helped set the financial crisis in motion, will be a huge job for Congress next year.
The man in the middle of that melee is likely to be Joseph A. Smith Jr., the commissioner of banks for North Carolina since 2002. In November, the Obama administration nominated him to head the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Fannie and Freddie’s regulator.
Last Thursday, Mr. Smith’s confirmation hearing took place. Beyond prepared remarks, Mr. Smith said little at the brief and sparsely attended hearing. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, questioned Mr. Smith about his plans for the agency and asked him to reply in writing. On Tuesday, the committee will consider the nomination.
Mr. Smith’s bona fides are many. He has both industry and regulatory experience: before he became commissioner, he was a lawyer in private practice and a general counsel for Centura Banks, now a unit of RBC Bank.
When he has testified before Congress in recent years, he has shown a keen interest in saving taxpayers from institutions that are too large and interconnected to be allowed to fail.
In March 2009 for example, he told the Senate Banking Committee: “As we work through a federal response to this financial crisis, we need to carry forward a renewed understanding that the concentration of financial power and a lack of transparency are not in the long-term interests of our financial system, our economic system or our democracy.”
…
Sounds hopeful. Let’s see if this guy has the guts to take on the moneyed interests who pretend to support the free market while blackmailing the taxpayers into backing their bad investments.
If Obama succeeds in overhauling our national banking system to shield American households from the Megabank, Inc’s Fed-funded, too-big-to-fail, systemic kleptocracy, I will not only vote for him, but I may even volunteer to work as a 2012 campaign worker.
Nominee to Oversee Fannie and Freddie Is Named
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
Published: November 12, 2010
WASHINGTON — President Obama will nominate North Carolina’s chief banking regulator to run the federal agency that regulates and controls the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the White House announced Friday.
The nominee, Joseph A. Smith Jr., who is North Carolina’s banking commissioner, would take charge of the Federal Housing Finance Agency as the administration and Congress prepare to determine the fate of Fannie and Freddie and overhaul the government’s role in housing finance.
Mr. Smith, 61, is a leading advocate for increased government protection of mortgage borrowers, helping to create and execute a series of pioneering state laws and regulations in North Carolina. He has also been a vocal critic of federal regulators for failing to police abuses by national banks.
If confirmed by the Senate, he would take a central role in reshaping the federal government’s relationship with the mortgage industry. The administration is scheduled to release an initial proposal in January, generating what could be years of debate.
“Mr. Smith brings to this position both tremendous expertise and a deep commitment to strengthening our housing finance system for the American people,” President Obama said in a statement announcing the nomination.
…
Keep dreaming. I’ve seen this movie before and it doesn’t end well.
A “Banking Commisioner”? What a joke. We need a drug dealer or a pimp or at least somebody honest.
At least somebody with some REAL creed cred, right?
As in “Main St.” not Wall St.
“street cred”
Guess I’m not drinking enough today
So Mr. Smith goes to Washington…
As far as I can tell, he will be one of the few of the VIP people in DC who brings sensibility and a clear thinking process to the table. I am very surprised that someone with his views was even nominated for this position. (How did that happen?) I’m guessing his success will be marked by the length of his tenure. A short tenure means moneyed interests prevailed.
The Fed? Ron Paul’s Not a Fan.
By SEWELL CHAN
Published: December 11, 2010
…
Here’s some of what he (Ron Paul) wrote:
The Beginning of the End
“The day the Fed came into being in 1913 may have been the beginning of the end, but the powers it obtained and the mischief it caused took a long time to become a serious issue and a concern for average Americans.”
The Gold Standard
“Whenever I talk of a gold standard, there are always people ready to accuse me of having some obsession or fixation. Fetish is a word thrown around. In fact, I’m only observing reality: the idea of sound money in most of human history has been bound up with gold money.”
A Full-Time Counterfeiting Operation
On Mr. Bernanke: “There is something fishy about the head of the world’s most powerful government bureaucracy, one that is involved in a full-time counterfeiting operation to sustain monopolistic financial cartels, and the world’s most powerful central planner, who sets the price of money worldwide, proclaiming the glories of capitalism.”
New Money Out of Thin Air
“Only the Federal Reserve can inflate the currency, creating new money and credit out of thin air, in secrecy, without oversight or supervision. Inflation facilitates deficits, needless wars and excessive welfare spending.”
Fed Chairmen He Has Known
“Being in Congress in the late 1970s and early 1908s and serving on the House Banking Committee, I met and got to question several Federal Reserve chairmen: Arthur Burns, G. William Miller and Paul Volcker. Of the three, I had the most interaction with Volcker. He was more personable and smarter than the others, including the more recent board chairmen Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke.”
Low Interest Rates
“Artificially low interest rates are achieved by inflating the money supply, and they penalize the thrifty and cheat those who save. They promote consumption and borrowing over savings and investing. Manipulating interest rates is an immoral act. It’s economically destructive.”
The Bailouts
“Today, there is no principled opposition to the corporate bailouts and the Fed’s trillions of dollars of new credit and the takeover of insurance, mortgages, medical care, banks and the auto industry. The arguments have only been over amounts, financial vehicles, and which political group gets to wield the economic power. If there is no moral argument against the economic takeover of America, there will be no resistance to the dictator who rules over our lives with an iron fist.”
The Obama Legacy
“For the same reason a disease cannot be cured by more of the germ that caused it, the inflation and debt accumulation of the Obama years will not inflate our way out of it. This depression will likely last and last.”
The main concern I have with him is that the changes he proposes will have the effect of “locking in” the gains of the banksters.
Aren’t the gains already locked in? For instance, I don’t see how you can turn back the clock on the huge advantage Megabank, Inc enjoyed due to trillions in Fed funding available at roughly zero percent lending rates for making 2009 fire sale asset purchases when the rest of the country was under the proverbial bus. How can you legally reclaim the huge profits the banksters enjoyed without making a bad situation worse?
Socialism
Yuck.
Crony capitalism - now that’s “yuck”
Hopefully you all have laid in at least a one-year supply of popcorn, as the showdown between Ron Paul and the Fed is going to be one for the history books.
“Planet of the Banksters”
“Don’t look for it Taylor…you may not like what you’ll find”
Later…..
“…..we finally really did it. YOU MANIACS!!!!! YOU BLEW IT UP!!!!!……”
Ron Paul just flat-out rules.
Sam, are you sure you’re not my long lost twin?
Sheeeeeesh, I cannot believe how you think…luv it.
I wrote-in Ron Paul for President. Do I get a hug too?
Thanks to regulatory neglect, the garden is overgrown with weeds.
Posted on Sun, Dec. 12, 2010
PhillyDeals: Kill off the Fed? History provides lessons
By Joseph N. DiStefano
‘End the Fed” is a book by U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas). Last year, Paul introduced the Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act in Congress. Last week, Republicans named him head of the House committee that monitors the Fed.
Is Paul, a free-market, hard-money advocate, really going to kill the central bank? He backpedaled a bit, telling Bloomberg TV he would “not really, not right up front” kill the central bank. “But obviously that’s the implication,” he concluded.
Last time the United States ended its central bank, Andrew Jackson was president, and the central bank was in Philadelphia, which fell right into a long financial depression, along with the rest of the country.
…
A big divide among economists is between conservatives who say that markets are natural and efficient and that government should get out of their way, and liberals who say that markets are inherently unstable and, as Nawrocki says, “have to be tended like a garden” by vigilant regulators.
…
Last time the United States ended its central bank, Andrew Jackson was president, and the central bank was in Philadelphia, which fell right into a long financial depression, along with the rest of the country.
For the next 70 years, the United States rode a boom-and-bust cycle that lured many of our ancestors here to opportunities in factories, mines,
and trade - then kicked them into the streets in the howling depressions that froze business in the 1850s, 1870s, and 1890s.
Impossible! Booms and busts are created by central banks and regulators. A free market would never have them, I’m told.
Your point that ending the Fed would be no panacea is well taken.
I’m not sure the 1800s, a period of tremendous U.S. national expansion featuring severe social dislocation and economic upheaval, is representative of what might occur if the current crisis-manager-Fed-based banking system were replaced with a system that made it more difficult for banks making stupid gambles to get the Fed to reimburse their gambling losses.
My impression is that by smoothing out the business cycle, central bankers unwittingly reduce the severity of periodic booms and busts at the expense of creating greater, more severe recessions every sixty or so years. We might even consider using the dreaded “D” word to describe the 1930s recession and the one we are currently experiencing. Whether this is better or worse depends on whether you prefer more frequent shallow recessions or less frequent deeper ones.
It seems important to recognize that the banking industry has turned the Fed into their own personalized bottomless ATM machine. Whatever systemic revisions are undertaken from here, whether they involve ending the Fed or merely reforming it, should address the extreme degree to which the financial system exploits the Fed’s predictable crisis response mechanism to create a “heads-we-win, tails-you’re-screwed” perpetual wealth transfer from the Fed’s printing press into the the bankers’ bonus pool.
…
also from the article linked to by PBear (as was my post above)
“To critics like Ron Paul, the Fed is an inflationary money-printing machine hijacked by free-spending, debt-addicted bureaucrats; only free money markets using a tangible currency (like gold) brings sustainable growth and prosperity.
But power abhors a vacuum. Kill the Fed, and behind it stands the Treasury, beholden to the president; and Congress, scared of voter retaliation if it attempts something painful, like balancing the budget.
The Fed is subject to public pressure - the president appoints its chairman, local business owners and bankers and nonprofit bosses man the boards that appoint many of its members - but it is insulated from direct political dictates.
By ending the Fed, Paul and other Fed-killers, instead of strengthening free markets, would put more financial power right in the hands of our politicians.
Do we trust them?
Which gets back to my question for the “End the Fed” set: If so, what then?
Perhaps I should read the book…
Ron Paul Explains How He’ll End the Fed
Posted Friday, December 10, 2010 1:28 PM | By David Weigel
He laid it out in an interview with Bloomberg, his first since becoming the Monetary subcommittee chairman in waiting. The question: Will you end the Fed?
All I want to do is legalize that and if nobody cares, if nobody likes gold and silver, in paper assets and put their savings accounts in paper money. ‘
That would be the end of paper money he knows that. It would also limit the money supply and crimp growth badly. But one couldn’t inflate their real assets and pay back with depreciated paper like they have been doing and are trying to do again.
I remember somthing about a ” Cross of Gold ” from american History I think someone wanted to include Silver back then.
Ha now its just paper backed by faith in the treasury.
Gold price of a dollar, circa 1965 = (1 oz)/($35) = 1/35 oz.
Gold price of a dollar, circa 2010 = (1 oz)/($1400) = 1/1400 oz =
1/40 X (price in 1965).
The gold-denominated value of the dollar has hence dropped by about (1 - 1/40) = 39/40 = 97.5% since 1965.
Only thing we have to fear is certainty
By JONATHON M. TRUGMAN
Last Updated: 4:54 AM, December 12, 2010
Posted: 10:31 PM, December 11, 2010
Ben Bernanke told the nation last week he was “100 percent certain” he could control inflation.
This is the same Fed chairman who prior to beginning his latest bond-buying binge, known as QE2, told anyone who listened that it would lead to lower interest rates and to more affordable borrowing costs.
Since Nov. 4, one day after the Federal Reserve’s FOMC meeting where QE2 was launched, bonds have plummeted, sending yields on Treasuries skyrocketing from approximately 2.5 percent to an astounding 3.2 percent. Clearly this is not exactly what Bernanke and the Fed were hoping for.
When Captain Ben embarked on QE2, Treasury yields were appropriately trading at or close to record lows across the yield curve, with strong depth of market and robust volumes and very low volatility. It was a well-functioning market.
So the Fed chief’s actions are like taking a supermodel in for plastic surgery: All you can do is mess up a good thing.
…
“sending yields on Treasuries skyrocketing from approximately 2.5 percent to an astounding 3.2 percent.”
3.2 percent is “astounding”??? Still low by an astounding margin in a historical sense is more like it.
My take is that this jump is just the result of people who were front-running the Fed getting out all at once. When you have a “no lose” bet like the one the Fed told all the traders about, these things tend to happen. Markets are like that.
The captain of the Titanic was 100% sure that he was going to have an uneventful trip to New York.
Does Bernanke think he controls all the drivers of the inflation phenomenon?
December 12, 2010
The economics of cancer
Don McNay Special to the Register
The Richmond Register
Sun Dec 12, 2010, 10:00 AM EST
FRANKFORT — Two seemingly unrelated news events took place last week.
It was Jimmy V Week on ESPN. The Jimmy V Week focused attention on cancer research supported by the V Foundation.
The V Foundation is named for Jim “Jimmy V” Valvano, the former North Carolina State basketball coach and ESPN announcer who died in 1993.
At the same time, word slipped out that in 2008 Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve Board advanced several trillion dollars in bailout money to companies all over the world.
American dollars were used to prop up “too big to fail” banks in countries we never even heard of.
Bernanke conveniently kept the trillions hidden from the American public until the Fed was forced to disclose the information to Congress.
I’ve complained since Day One about the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. That bailout turned out to be chump change when compared to what Bernanke was throwing around. The Wall Street bailout was passed by Congress and some Congressmen lost their seats over their votes to approve it.
Bernanke gave away way more money … and in total secrecy!
Cancer research is another area where we are spending chump change. Cancer victims don’t have Bernanke to act as their “Secret Santa.”
President Obama, who lost his mother to cancer, made a campaign pledge to increase cancer research spending. Yet the budget for the National Cancer Institute is roughly $6 billion.
Compare that to what we are spending on Wall Street banks.
Bernanke and the Federal Reserve spent $290 billion on mortgage securities from the German Deutsche Bank and $287 billion on mortgage bonds from Credit Suisse, a Swiss bank.
Germany and Switzerland are not part of the United States.
Cancer is.
…
Screw the poor! After all, what can they do about it?
The problem with the Fed suggesting that it can control the motions of the planets, the sun and the moon: Anything that subsequently goes wrong in the economy is automatically assumed to be the Fed’s fault.
Only thing we have to fear is certainty
By JONATHON M. TRUGMAN
Last Updated: 4:54 AM, December 12, 2010
Posted: 10:31 PM, December 11, 2010
Ben Bernanke told the nation last week he was “100 percent certain” he could control inflation.
This is the same Fed chairman who prior to beginning his latest bond-buying binge, known as QE2, told anyone who listened that it would lead to lower interest rates and to more affordable borrowing costs.
Since Nov. 4, one day after the Federal Reserve’s FOMC meeting where QE2 was launched, bonds have plummeted, sending yields on Treasuries skyrocketing from approximately 2.5 percent to an astounding 3.2 percent. Clearly this is not exactly what Bernanke and the Fed were hoping for.
When Captain Ben embarked on QE2, Treasury yields were appropriately trading at or close to record lows across the yield curve, with strong depth of market and robust volumes and very low volatility. It was a well-functioning market.
So the Fed chief’s actions are like taking a supermodel in for plastic surgery: All you can do is mess up a good thing.
…
“When Captain Ben embarked on QE2, Treasury yields were appropriately trading at or close to record lows across the yield curve”
This article is ignoring the fact that the simple reason that rates were at record lows was that all of the traders front-running the Fed drop the prices of Treasuries up before the Fed embarked on QE2. It seems obvious enough that they are likely willfully ignoring it in the interests of making a political statement.
“drop” should have been “drove”
Sounds like Connecticut is matching state unemployment benefits to federal W-2 forms. Expect more states to do the same.
——————————–
Conn. hopes to recoup $2.5M in unemployment fraud (IRS will “take” it from fed tax return)
WTNH | December 12 , 2010 | WTNH Affliated
Hartford, Conn (AP) - Connecticut officials say hundreds of people have defrauded the state by collecting $2.5 million in unemployment benefits they do not deserve.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell says state labor officials recently mailed notices to more than 800 people, giving them 60 days to repay or prove they do not owe the money.
Connecticut is also now partnering with the Internal Revenue Service to collect that money from the individuals’ federal tax refunds if they do not willingly repay it.
Labor officials use programs to compare newly hired workers against those receiving unemployment benefits, and also match quarterly wage data against the jobless claims.
$2.5 mil /800 = skosh over $3000 each.
Might I suggest that the Connecticut and IRS tax people who are going to spend taxpayer man/hours on this program might be more productively used auditing a few hedge funds/banksters?
Unless it’s not about the money.
I’d be surprised if they were able to collect a tenth of that.
Poor people are, well… poor.
Getting back to real estate…
A pie-in-the-sky condo complex in downtown Phoenix has been completed and put back on the market - at prices half of original list prices. But that’s still a cut from $2.8 million down to $1.4 million. And as the article states, “Even with the new pricing, challenges remain. The average resale townhome in Phoenix goes for just $66,000…”
Anybody in Phoenix know about these Chateau-on-Central condos?
http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/12/12/1452490/urban-phoenix-mansions-reborn.html
Also in the article is an interesting factoid about Carl Icahn…
In Las Vegas, investor Carl Icahn paid $150 million early this year for the unfinished, $2 billion Fontainebleau Las Vegas hotel/condo resort and plans to wait for the economy improve before resuming construction.
In Las Vegas, investor Carl Icahn paid $150 million early this year for the unfinished, $2 billion Fontainebleau Las Vegas hotel/condo resort and plans to wait for the economy improve before resuming construction.
Wow - 7.5 cents on the dollar.
So to be seen in your local market?
I think he may have overpaid. A steaming turd on sale is a shitty deal.
I live one mile away from the ‘Chateau’, and often drive visitors over there for a laugh. On my drive-by last month the units in the rear (west) were unfinished.
The units are 3-4 stories high, some with turrets clad in copper. Completely out of place amid palm trees, and vacant lots.
Nearby homes/condos are less than $200k.
Bagehot did not advocate discriminatory lending to banks at below-market rates on sh!tty collateral, but rather lending at high rates on good collateral. The WaPo editorial seems overly eager to overlook these important qualitative details.
A ’scandal’ at the Fed
Friday, December 3, 2010
WHEN PANIC seizes the financial system, a central bank must be the lender of last resort. This is not the same as bailing everyone out, in the sense of rescuing insolvent firms through permanent infusions of taxpayer dollars. It’s the extension of short-term lifelines, secured by recipients’ assets and payable, with interest, in a matter of weeks or months. Until private channels of interbank credit revive, the central bank should lend freely at a high rate to solvent firms, on good collateral, just as Walter Bagehot the 19th-century British intellectual, first recommended more than a century ago. And with some variations, that is basically what the Federal Reserve did during the Great Panic of 2008, sparing the U.S. and world economies possibly irreparable harm.
…
As I’ve said, socialism for the rich and free (to eff you up the rear) market for the rest of us.
“the central bank should lend freely at a high rate to solvent firms, on good collateral, just as Walter Bagehot the 19th-century British intellectual, first recommended more than a century ago. And with some variations, that is basically what the Federal Reserve did during the Great Panic of 2008, sparing the U.S. and world economies possibly irreparable harm.”
WTF????
Ok, I for one think that Bagehot’s advice is sound.
But it is FAR FAR from what the Fed did. What they did instead was to lend at a zero rate, to insolvent firms, against worthless collateral.
I guess Bernanke figured that if was unwilling to let any of the big firms fail, that the quality of the collateral did not matter.
Actually, Bagehot didn’t say “at a high rate” either; I believe his phrase was “at a penalty rate”. In other words, those who had painted themselves into a liquidity trap corner could get out of it, but they would be made to pay for the privilege.
The Fed on the other hand gave them negative rates, since they could take the low-rate loans and buy higher-yielding Treasuries with them.
Exactimento, amigo! Guaranteed profits are schweet if you can get them…
And that’s what you get when housing always goes up. Now if I could just figure out where I filed that guarantee…
There is a tremendous MSM preoccupation with the question of whether the Fed’s Fall 2008 crisis response was appropriate, with tacit agreement to ignore the systemic regulatory failures that created perfect storm conditions for panic to ensue. And nobody is asking why only select large financial institutions were allocated low-interest loans which enabled them to snap up assets at fire-sale prices when the rest of the country was paralyzed by panic with no low-interest emergency lending to fall back on.
Eyes on the Fed
Fed made $9 trillion in emergency overnight loans
Top recipients of overnight loans made by the Federal Reserve under special program that ran from March 2008 through May 2009.
By Chris Isidore, senior writer
December 1, 2010: 6:05 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The Federal Reserve made $9 trillion in overnight loans to major banks and Wall Street firms during the financial crisis, according to newly revealed data released Wednesday.
The loans were made through a special loan program set up by the Fed in the wake of the Bear Stearns collapse in March 2008 to keep the nation’s bond markets trading normally.
The amount of cash being pumped out to the financial giants was not previously disclosed. All the loans were backed by collateral and all were paid back with a very low interest rate to the Fed — an annual rate of between 0.5% to 3.5%.
Still, the total amount was a surprise, even to some who had followed the Fed’s rescue efforts closely.
“That’s a real number, even for the Fed,” said FusionIQ’s Barry Ritholtz, author of the book “Bailout Nation.” While the fact that the markets were in trouble was already well known, he said the amount of help they needed is still surprising.
“It makes it very clear this was a very serious, very unusual situation,” he said.
…
It’s different this time!
“It makes it very clear this was a very serious, very unusual situation,”
Yet the recovery is going to be swift and smooth just like after every other “garden variety” recession as Eddie once said.
DJIA = 12K by year-end, or bust!
If the interest rate was that low charged by the Feds and they still made
9 trillions that shows you just how much cheap money they loaned out.
“In addition to the loan program for bond dealers, the data covered the Fed’s purchases of more $1 trillion in mortgages, and spending to back consumer and small business loans, as well as commercial paper used to keep large corporations running.”
I’d still like to see detailed data on the consumer credit card debt bailout. I used to get card offers almost daily back when the punch bowl never ran dry; I’ve only seen one or two in the previous couple of months, IIRC.
Reading this story gave me a better understanding of the dangers of deflation.
Snowstorm wreaks havoc, barrels east; Metrodome roof collapses
By the CNN Wire Staff
December 12, 2010 — Updated 2143 GMT (0543 HKT)
(CNN) — A powerful snowstorm barrelled east through the Midwest on Sunday, bringing with it more precipitation and gusty winds and leaving behind a trail of significant damage, large snow drifts and subarctic temperatures, according to the National Weather Service.
Winter storm warnings and advisories Sunday extended as far west as Illinois, as far east as Pennsylvania, and as far south as northern Alabama and Georgia.
Meanwhile, residents of the upper Midwest who braved at-times blizzard conditions on Saturday faced the prospect Sunday night of wind chills dipping, in spots, as low as 30 degrees below zero. This comes after up to 23 inches of snow fell in parts of Minnesota and as many as 18.5 inches in Wisconsin since Friday.
After prompting the closure of highways in Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota and elsewhere a day earlier, the storm caused havoc with air travel Sunday. About 1,200 flights in and out of Chicago’s O’Hare airport had been cancelled as of 2 p.m. (3 p.m. ET), with delays for travelers heading to and from the Windy City averaging around 45 minutes, the Chicago Department of Aviation said in a statement.
The headaches, though, went far beyond Chicago, with excessive delays reported as far east as New York City’s John F. Kennedy Airport, Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport and Boston’s Logan Airport, according to Flightstats.com.
The pounding snow caused the roof of the 64,000-seat Metrodome in Minneapolis to “deflate” Sunday morning, Minnesota State Patrol spokesman Lt. Eric Roeske said. Workers wielding shovels could be seen clearing the roof of the heavy white stuff, while photos from inside the darkened stadium showed much of the field covered with snow that fell from a gaping hole in the dome.
“Obviously the weight of the snow would affect how much air pressure is necessary to keep that roof up,” Roeske said. “Something caused that air pressure not to be strong enough or high enough to keep that roof at its normal position.”
…
Can you imagine what if this had happened during Monday night’s game?
Metrodome Roof Collapse Caught on Video
Dec. 12, 2010
The Minnesota Vikings and New York Giants will play on Monday night in Detroit after the Metrodome’s inflated roof collapsed in a snowstorm. Video courtesy of Fox Sports.
Fail. The metrodome wasn’t in Egypt.
Here’s a thought for Minnesotans who did not make the mistake of buying a home at bubble prices, and hence have some spare cash available for an out of town trip: Visit San Diego, and enjoy some SoCal warmth for a change!
Heat hits 91 in San Diego County
By Gary Robbins, UNION-TRIBUNE
Originally published December 12, 2010 at 7:15 a.m., updated December 12, 2010 at 2 p.m.
San Diego, early today.
A combination of high pressure aloft, low humidity and weak offshore flow has sent daytime highs 10-15 degrees above normal in parts of San Diego County, and some temperature records could be tied or broken by the end of the day, the National Weather Service says. The winds, though not strong, have pushed enough pollution offshore to produce a thin but distinct band of hazy brown air on the horizon that’s especially visible from the Oceanside area. And in some places, the relative humidity is below 20 percent.
…
Raging snowstorm wreaks havoc across US midwest
Winter storm cancels 1,400 flights in Chicago, collapses stadium roof in Mennesota (SIC) and is linked to at least four deaths
* Associated Press
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 13 December 2010 10.19 GMT
I think those who cry “socialism” nowadays in light of America’s real situation are actually missing some important intellectual capacity compared to those who point out such things as wealth and income inequality, corporate power and a stacked deck.
I don’t know if this missing capacity is caused by ignorance, a biased view or something more.
I’m just plain dumb.
But we already have socialism. For the rich.
Why they mean is “not for everyone else who isn’t rich.” ‘Cause, well, they don’t deserve it.
Why? They aren’t rich.
“It goes up to 11.”
I don’t know if this missing capacity is caused by ignorance, a biased view or something more.
Like they’re part of the Kochtopus? The well-funded takeover and neutering of the libertarian/populist/third party threat to the PTB?
lewrockwell.com/gordon/gordon37.html
RIO ……It’s outright brainwashing so the Fat Cats can keep the gravy train stacked deck . We were extremely productive in this Country after World War II when the high tax bracket was taxed at 80 % .When you see how people were lured into buying into the Real Estate Ponzi-scheme, which was insane ,it’s no problem to see how the PR campaigns these days are to convince people that it’s best to support the Corporate thugs and
Monopolies and it’s only fair to not tax the higher brackets in spite of them not having any loyalty to the American job base anymore .
One talking Head was saying today that Americans should produce expensive items and high tech items and shouldn’t produce the lower priced items that jobs were out-manufactured/ outsourced to other producers . What a crock of BS they are peddling ,yet people except these absurd statements so they won’t demand more out of Fat Cats and
Bankers .The entities that run the show are of the mindset that if they
have a willing horse they ride it and they simply try to brainwash by absurd
counter-points .Oh right ,if we give a tax break to the top 5 % that will
help small business ,sure bet . People just aren’t thinking .The top 5 % has nothing to do with small business . It’s a outright joke .
It’s called the “patronage” and when you no longer have any new “frontiers” to conquer or “wilderness to tame” where the disgruntled, adventurous and “uppity” can make their living or fortune and be left alone by the older inbred aristocracy, this is what a nation reverts to.
As some have pointed out, there still opportunities out there…but only if you have the capital to develop it. Bootstrapping from nothing is and always was, a myth or an event as likely as winning the Lotto.
“It’s called the “patronage” and when you no longer have any new “frontiers” to conquer or “wilderness to tame” where the disgruntled, adventurous and “uppity” can make their living or fortune and be left alone by the older inbred aristocracy, this is what a nation reverts to.”
I *think* you’re saying we have a mature economy. And the mature, wealthy elite have all the $$$.
Anyways, if you still think that we need to be nice to the wealthy elite so that they’ll be nice to use, you’re in for a very long, rough life, irrespective of what is broadcast by VomitRadioWMBZ.
sounds like be nice to the republican so they will be nice to you.
With your approach, your right, it will never happen.
One talking Head was saying today that Americans should produce expensive items and high tech items and shouldn’t produce the lower priced items…What a crock of BS they are peddling
That is one of the common, dangerous crocks.
It’s saying that we need not produce 95% of the stuff that is bought. How is that working out?
These talking heads will go down in American history as MORONS.
But those same talking heads might go down as heroes to the looting robber baron traitors. Unless…
“That is one of the common, dangerous crocks. ”
I totally agree, Rio. IIRC, it has been almost ten years or thereabouts since I first heard that it was OK for us to offshore all of our manufacturing sector, and that we would replace all of the lost jobs by creating new “knowledge worker” jobs.
How is that working out for us?
I was thinking the other day about the jobs situation, and a great analogy occurred to me: imagine that you are standing on the bank of a river, right after a bend. The current is undercutting the bank, but from where you are standing above, everything looks ok—after all, you’re still standing on grass, right? And things feel ok right up until the ground crumbles under your feet, and you are suddenly in the cold, fast-flowing waters.
Our worsening jobs situation has been hidden all of this time by the creation of mis-allocated jobs in the bubble sectors. Suddenly those jobs are gone, and the fact that the river-bank has been undercut for some time is now visible. And the bad news is that they are not coming back; you can’t rebuild that river bank by shoveling dirt into the rushing waters.
Somehow the MSM has missed that the government measures taken to keep the housing market from bottoming out have inadvertently helped to keep private mortgage lending shut down, as no lender wants to loan against collateral whose value is likely to fall further. In fact, the only willing lenders seem to be those which can push losses off on taxpayers, through federal mortgage loan guarantees, or can otherwise afford to operate at a perpetual loss, thanks to government life support.
* THE OUTLOOK
* DECEMBER 13, 2010
Housing Shaky as Lenders Tighten
By NICK TIMIRAOS
Economists are worried that the housing sector may be heading into another downdraft as mortgage lenders continue to tighten already restrictive lending standards.
Such a scenario seemed less likely earlier this year, when home-buyer tax credits fueled a surge in sales. But sales have plunged in the second half of the year after those credits expired. New and existing home sales were down by more than 25% in October from a year ago.
Meanwhile, applications for mortgages have hovered near their lowest levels in more than a decade since May, even though mortgage rates have tumbled to their lowest levels in 60 years, with average 30-year, fixed-rate loans bottoming at 4.21% in October.
…
Economists say lending standards typically ease at this point in the business cycle as banks look for new business. But that isn’t happening now because private lenders have ceded the market to government entities Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration. Those agencies, saddled with losses, are under heavy political pressure to avoid taking any new risks. “The general feeling is, ‘Let them be as tough as they want,’ ” says Guy Cecala, publisher of Inside Mortgage Finance.
During the third quarter, 13% of bank loan officers surveyed by the Federal Reserve reported that standards had grown tighter, while fewer than 4% said standards had loosened.
“Right now, we’re in that vicious cycle where we tighten, which makes things worse, so we tighten, which makes things worse,” says Bob Walters, chief economist at Quicken Loans. “How do you get out of that cycle? Folks in government are going to have to stand in and make some calls.”
…
Outside the Box
Dec. 13, 2010, 12:01 a.m. EST
Five reasons to love Bernanke
Commentary: It’s time to give the embattled Fed chief some respect
By Michael Shulman
ROCKVILLE, Md. (MarketWatch) — The Federal Reserve’s quantitative-easing program has been bashed by opponents who are portraying Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke as public enemy No. 1.
Bernanke is keenly aware of this and recently appeared on “60 Minutes” to defend the controversial QE2, which involves the purchase of $600 billion in bonds.
Opponents have widely criticized the program as simply printing money out of thin air. Bernanke claims the policy will not lead to inflation and said he isn’t ruling out more quantitative easing. That has some politicians and armchair economists painting him as one of the biggest villains of the recent downturn. Read about the top 10 Wall Street villains of 2010 on InvestorPlace.
Bernanke has been vilified by critics, but not by me. I love him, and here are five reasons why:
…