Bits Bucket For December 13, 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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Yoo-hoo — LA_Investor_Girl, ya still out there somewhere after all these years of patiently watching and waiting to pounce on deals?
Luxury home prices are still heading down
While Southland housing values overall have rebounded from recent lows, those in the upper end of the market may not yet have hit bottom. Some experts don’t see a turnaround for at least another year.
By Lauren Beale, Los Angeles Times
December 13, 2010
On its glittering surface, the Southern California luxury housing market still has plenty of pizzazz.
A 48,000-square-foot Versailles-style estate in Bel-Air that sold for $50 million is believed to be the highest-priced sale in the nation this year. Actor Sacha Baron Cohen spent $18.9 million on a Mediterranean villa in the Hollywood Hills, a record for that area.
These trophy deals, however, are masking a larger malaise in the luxury market. Most mansions put up for sale are lingering for months without nibbles from buyers, real estate agents say. And although Southland home prices overall have rebounded from lows hit last year, the luxury market is still trending downward.
The troubles at the top may seem small compared with the huge housing declines seen in areas such as the Inland Empire. But a turnaround in the luxury market was the first indicator of recovery in the 1990s down cycle. And many experts say the housing market won’t be healthy again as long as mansion prices are falling — which could be the case for at least another year.
“Good locations will be the first out, and luxury is generally in good locations,” said economist John Burns, who heads a real estate consulting firm in Irvine.
Why the continuing funk? Analysts say the foreclosures and short sales that depressed home prices in general are finally catching up with the high-end market. The day of reckoning just took more time.
“Formerly affluent people who borrowed far too much money” are running out of staying power, Burns said.
Grampa used to call these high rollers “broke at a higher level”.
The megabanks would be the epitome of your grampa’s theory.
As I leanred in Montana, “If I am going to broke, I want to go broke in style!”
Didn’t learn to spell learned though
Looks like a transposition error, IMHO.
House prices fall faster as estate agent predicts worse to come
By Ian Cowie Your Money Last updated: December 13th, 2010
House prices fell by 3 per cent – or nearly £7,000 – during the last month, according to Rightmove – Britain’s biggest online estate agent, which forecasts they will fall by more next year.
Rightmove claims to advertise 90 per cent of the properties on the market and says that national average asking prices have now fallen in five of the last six months. It predicts worse to come next year as the housing market is hit by fears of rising unemployment, increased forced sales, interest rate increases and lenders’ reluctance to advance mortgages.
This is a bleaker prediction than the industry consensus – although some predict house prices will fall by 10 per cent next year – and follows last week’s report by Halifax, Britain’s biggest mortgage lender, of the first annual fall since November, 2009. It said house prices fell 0.1pc last month, meaning prices in the three months to November fell 0.7pc compared with a year ago. That compared with gains of 1.8pc on the month and a three-month annual rise of 1.2pc in October.
However, Rightmove reckons there will be winners as well as losers. 2011 will be a good year for buy to let landlords, buyers with substantial deposits and homeowners with good job security who wish to trade up the property ladder. Losers will include forced sellers, tenants and would-be first time buyers who cannot save up substantial deposits.
…
But all real estate prices are, um, hemispherical!
UK housing prices are still astronomical!
They had better not get rid of that mortgage deduction on thier income tax.
How do you like these RE shills. If you don’t buy this overpriced crap that makes you a loser. I like to think I am a winner precisely because I never purchased any RE.
If you don’t buy at these prices you are a racist. If you don’t use your credit card you are a ——-. Well, you’ve got the message.
Home Sellers Forced To Slash Asking Prices
11:09am UK, Monday December 13, 2010
Steph Oliver, Sky News Online
House sellers have slashed asking prices by 3% during the past month - making it the worst December performance for three years.
All regions have seen month-on-month falls in asking prices
Average asking prices fell by nearly £7,000 pounds to £222,410 pounds in the four weeks to December 4, according to new research by property website Rightmove.
It is the biggest December fall since the 3.2% drop in 2007 after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
The latest decline means asking prices in 2010 have virtually stoodstill - only increasing by 0.4%.
The fact that many would-be buyers do not have the ability to proceed and some homeowners find themselves in a position where they are forced to sell, drives prices down.
…
If a reduction of three percent is considered slashing, what will they call a reduction of 50%?!
Metrodoom
T’wasnt snow that imploded the Metrodoom.
Is this not third grade math?
Homesellers warned to drop asking prices by 5% if they want to find a buyer
By Becky Barrow
Last updated at 8:27 AM on 13th December 2010
Homesellers will have to slash the asking price of their property next year to find a buyer, a report warns today.
In a further blow, it predicts that just 600,000 people will manage to sell, a massive drop on the boom years when around 1.7million homes changed hands every year.
…
There goes the value of the comps, and the value of the comps is what backs the mortgages held by the lenders.
When the comps go down in value then the value of the mortgages also go down in value and the holders of these mortgages sooner-or-later have to take balance sheet hits.
All is seemingly well UNTIL the day the balance sheet hits have to be taken - then there is felt a sudden POOOOF as enormous sums of money suddenly vanish into thin air.
Note: Values gradually erode - as a PROCESS - but balance sheet writedowns happen all at once - as an EVENT. The process of value erosion can be disguised by a policy of Extend-and Pretend, but eventually reality raises its ugly head and writedowns are forced on the lender. In the meantime the lender (if he is lucky) is offered TIME to suck in investors in order to unload shares of its failing entity to the public.
All with the blessings of the U.S government, of course.
“Values gradually erode - as a PROCESS - but balance sheet writedowns happen all at once - as an EVENT.”
Exactly. It is similar to a building that sits for years at the edge of a gradually-eroding sandstone cliff. At the moment the building finally goes over, it happens very quickly, after which many will be heard to say, ‘no one could have seen it coming.’
But they can all hear it crashing on the rocks below.
used to be a “mark to Market” method of accounting banks had to use back in 2006 I think it was
I think that went away mark to Fantasy probably makes mortgages easier to sell off
No evidence or even signs of hope in NYC lately for meaningful price cuts. The boom lasted longer than I thought it could and same for the “collapse.” You could find something not too crazy in car-dependent parts of Jersey, but anywhere reasonably close (60 mins commute each way) or on a train line, forget it.
Investment Analysis
Measuring US house price changes
by GLOBAL PROPERTY GUIDE
Dec 12, 2010
To understand what the latest US house prices mean, it helps to know something about the data.
It is very difficult, actually, to measure house price changes. Houses differ - in age, location, number of bedrooms, building style, house size, lot size, etc. A 300 sq. m. penthouse in New York City isn’t a 300 sq. m. Florida beach front villa.
Technical issues abound. An increase in the quality of new houses may increase average reported prices, even if existing home values remain unchanged. In addition, property sales in a given year can be skewed say, toward high-quality houses. That messes the results.
Another problem is infrequency of sales. Houses are usually sold once in several years. Less expensive houses, as it happens, tend to be sold more frequently, again skewing results.
Because of these complexities, different house price measures show different results.
…
Woman’s Foreclosure Nightmare: ‘Like A Black Hole’
by Chris Arnold
December 13, 2010
State prosecutors from all 50 states are investigating the country’s largest banks, to learn whether they have been foreclosing on thousands of Americans improperly.
The banks say they do not seize people’s houses without justification. But NPR has uncovered a case that might suggest otherwise. In fact, the homeowner in this case was actually the victim of a scam run by one of the bank’s very own employees. But despite that, the bank moved to foreclose anyway.
…
Sounds a lot like what I just read in Michael Hudson’s new book, The Monster: How a gang of predatory lenders and Wall Street Bankers fleeced America — and spawned a global crisis.
This book describes the shenanigans that were par for the course among SoCal-based subprime lenders, many of which were owned/control fraud-ed by Roland Arnall.
Subprime is not a Crime
How much money was spent lobbying for less regulation? And where? And what happened to one of the architects of the whole crises? Watch to find out.
Just a few months after she bought her house, Keyser says, a loan officer at the local Countrywide office called her and pushed her to refinance.
“He didn’t ask for me to come to the office or anything like that,” she recalls. “We had a couple of phone calls, and he came to the house. So this guy walked in with another very nervous-looking fellow who was supposedly a real estate person.”
Keyser is a single mom and an art teacher. She’d already been a homeowner. And she put down a $100,000 down payment when she bought the house.
But she readily admits that she’s not very sophisticated with legal paperwork, and was probably too gullible.
She says the Countrywide agent got her to sign a bunch of papers. It turns out that he was running what’s called an equity-stripping scheme, where he got her to borrow more money — and he put it in his own pocket.
Asked how much money he took from her, Keyser says, “$165,000 — the entire equity of the house.”
Wow.
But she readily admits that she’s not very sophisticated with legal paperwork, and was probably too gullible…….
Boo. Hoo. Another sob story about another sucker. If she’s not really very sophisticated with “legal paperwork”, she probably should have asked a professional about the documents she was signing.
I would bet she spent more time figuring out what was the best deal on a can of beans than she spent reviewing the documents.
Why is it someone can spend hours and days figuring out the best deal on a new laptop or an electronic gadget, and can’t spend any time or effort to review a financial transaction that revolves around hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Cry me a river.
Maybe she did ask a professional and they conned her as well.
Maybe she couldn’t afford a second opinion professional.
To say anyone does not have the right to reasonable expectations of honesty from a seller is ridiculous.
And she WAS just flat out conned.
Why do you support crime?
Well, she signed the docs, so technically the bank is correct, no?
Metro Atlanta foreclosure notices fall in December, but annual record set
4:02 am December 13, 2010, by Henry Unger
Foreclosure notices in metro Atlanta fell 30 percent in December from a record level in November, according to data released Monday by Equity Depot.
For all of 2010, a new record of 127,140 notices was set, eclipsing last year’s record by 8.6 percent, Equity Depot said. Foreclosure notices this year were 60 percent greater than they were in 2008.
“With decreased property values and continued high unemployment in Georgia, it’s hard to forecast any decline for 2011,” Barry Bramlett, president of Alpharetta-based Equity Depot, said in an email to the AJC.
…
Bank of America Restarts Foreclosure Sales
By George Gombossy | Last updated Dec 12, 2010, 11:50 am
Bank of America – after freezing tens of thousands of foreclosure actions because of fraudulent paperwork – says it has straightened out its documentation process will will soon restart foreclosure sales.
“We have identified areas of our process that can be improved and while we make these improvements, it’s important that we move ahead with efforts to reduce the number of abandoned properties across the country,” said Barbara Desoer, president of Bank of America Home Loans, in a Friday statement. “The properties can drag home values in neighborhoods and slow the eventual recovery of the housing market.”
…
“it’s important that we move ahead with efforts to reduce the number of abandoned properties across the country,””
Ah, _finally_ someone points out in the MSM that the slow foreclosure process is bad for neighborhoods. Empty houses do no one any good, neither former owners, neighbors, potential buyers, lenders, local government, etc etc etc. The only people that they are good for are squatters.
Empty houses are tremendous value to “bandos”. Free rent for everyone. But the real question is why they are empty or abandoned? It’s probably because they trashed them already.
From what i’ve seen, until a foreclosure is actually filed and a sheriff’s notice sent, the “occupants” seldom vacate the property.
We have people living in million dollar condos here in Florida that haven’t paid a mortgage payment in 2 years. They are in no hurry to leave. they defy the bank to force them out.
I have seen a lot of abandoned houses, where the “owner” was in some stage of “reconstruction” when they realized they couldn’t flip it for a profit or the building department tagged them for not having a permit. They just quit and left the house. I guess the bank needs to get title somehow to liquidate them.
Good luck with that. It seems the Courts don’t know what to do about the lost or missing papework.
Improve the process or correct it? I do believe most of these foreclosures should happen quickly, since the debtor has failed to pay. That said, the paperwork was such a mess out the gate that there has to be some discretion by a judge in these matters.
Poor BoA. Caught between a rock and a 2 hard places.
Non-performing loans on one hand and some very POd investors on the other. And now investigations at all levels.
Too bad. So sad.
Bank of America to sell $1B in toxic paper
By JOSH KOSMAN and MARK DeCAMBRE
Last Updated: 4:23 AM, December 13, 2010
Posted: 10:11 PM, December 12, 2010
Bank of America, the country’s No. 1 mortgage lender, battling to fix or get out of more than 1 million past due home loans, has put at least $1 billion of the toxic paper on the block, The Post has learned.
Buyers for the loans, which BofA has already written off, are circling. Bids are due by the end of December, sources said.
The sale of the block of mortgage assets, which includes loans and mortage-servicing rights, seems to signal that Chief Executive Brian Moynihan, who has said he will battle to clean up the mess, thinks the best way out is through a sale.
“This is a big sale,” one person familiar with the situation said yesterday.
The asset sale is part of a larger effort by the bank to unwind a trove of assets in the wake of the blockbuster purchases of Countrywide Financial and Merrill Lynch.
BofA, of Charlotte, NC, declined to comment.
…
Sell to the open market - 5 cents on the dollar
Sell to the Treasury with Taxpayer money - 100 cents on the dollar
“Sell to the open market - 5 cents on the dollar”
Sell to “approved buyers” - 5 cents on the dollar
Yes, i believe that’s correct. Didn’t bennie b. buy up all the bad loans with taxpayer funds, without the consent of Congress, a violation of the Fed Act of 1913? Funny how all the media covered this as very creative and aggressive monetary policy that saved the world.
The Fed is only allowed to buy FEDERAL debt. How did he come to the conclusion he could lend money based on private bank loans with bad collateral?
Makes sense….B of A sells all the bad loans to some obscure company that does the dirty work of foreclosing, kicking out the occupants and liquidating the asset…
Is this basically a proposed sale of uncollected debt to repo men whose business is collections?
Bud: Credit is a sacred trust, it’s what our free society is founded on. Do you think they give a damn about their bills in Russia? I said, do you think they give a damn about their bills in Russia?
Otto: They don’t pay bills in Russia, it’s all free.
Bud: All free? Free my ass. What are you, a fuckin’ commie? Huh?
Otto: No, I ain’t no commie.
Bud: Well, you better not be. I don’t want no commies in my car. No Christians either.
This is the way car defaults have been handled for decades. Don’t pay and someone comes looking for your car in the wee hours. I feel bad for folks stuck in this position, but it is simply not healthy for them, the banks, the community or the economy at large to have folks living in homes they obviously cannot afford.
BuyersVultures for the loans, which BofA has already written off, are circling.Be respectful for the vultures, they are indispensable and keep the world clean, so the disease may not be rampant and kill the most on the surface of the earth.
The “vultures” you are talking about is actually recycling the resources and put them in good use.
Vultures clean up the messes left behind and help the messes from getting worse.
If a vulture is feasting on something then that something is already dead.
Cities, counties lose big bucks as banks get tax breaks on repossessed homes
December 12, 2010|By Mary Shanklin, Orlando Sentinel
Local governments across the state are losing revenue because banks are getting the homestead-exemption tax breaks intended for the homeowners whose properties the lenders have repossessed.
Homeowners qualify for Florida’s homestead exemption — a tax break intended for people who live in the house they own — on Jan. 1 of each year. Once a homeowner qualifies for the exemption, that property gets a tax break of at least $750, even if the house changes hands by the time its tax bill arrives in the fall.
The result: Banks are paying less in property taxes than they would otherwise because they inherit the previous owner’s homestead exemption when they foreclose on a property.
“I never thought about that before, but you’re absolutely right: They’re getting an exemption,” said Lake County Property Appraiser Ed Havill, whose county will lose about $300,000 in property taxes this fiscal year to banks getting homestead exemption on foreclosed properties. “The banks are not likely to contact us about that.”
…
Banks is people?
If corporations are have the “free speech” rights of people in campaign contribs, then perhaps it’s not such a big leap.
Banks is people?
If corporations are have the “free speech” rights of people in campaign contribs, then perhaps it’s not such a big leap.
Why is this even a question? Even our Supreme Court has come to the conclusion that corporations (instruments of wealth) have some of the same rights of people and in some cases more. This definitely includes banks which now directly represent great wealth that used to be the taxpayer’s.
Our Supreme Court has even said wealth itself is entitled to the “free-speech” of unlimited and secretive campaign contribution and more. So wealth, for a lack of a better word IS PEOPLE, and therefore entitled to the same respect and rights of people. And why wouldn’t it?
Think of a large stack of $100 dollar bills and compare it to an unemployed former factory worker who’s net worth is not even 2% of that stack of $100 dollar bills. Who should public policy favor, the unemployed man or the wealth? Which is the asset and which now is the liability and which represents more “people”, the money or the single broke person? It has become that clear and that simple. If courts and Congress can see the beauty of its simplicity why cannot we?
We must free ourselves to think only in numeric, economic terms now. Societies, community, family and our people’s welfare do not trump wealth today and even those obsolete terms of “family”, “community” and “society” reek of collectivism.
Wealth is the answer to all of our problems, desires and questions. All else is a form of socialism and the clap-trap of lazy, deadbeat people who used to have jobs.
Too bad they can’t be jailed like people for the crimes they commit.
They get asked tough questions and given stern looks during congressional hearings. They sure gave it to that Llyod Blankfein, I bet he is still quaking in his boots.
They also get a few ‘tsk tsk’s when handed giant checks to cover their bad management.
Banks is people?
“MegaBanks are a collective cast shadow of a group of very small short-sighted mainlymenfolk with voracious appetites that uncontrollably drool on themselves even while they sit contemplatively on their john, pondering the contents of their next great flush.”
Corporations were granted “personhood” (the term they used) by the Supreme Court in the 1886 ruling in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. This case, supposedly, had declared corporations to be “persons,” and thus had given them access to the same rights as human begins. (it did)
It arouse from a railroad case pertaining to corporate rights versus individual rights. (the dispute was between a railroad and an individual over right of way)
1886.
in-depth investigation
Bank employees admit mistakes in foreclosures
By Michelle Conlin, Associated Press Updated 1:07 PM Saturday, December 11, 2010
The new victims of the foreclosure crisis are people who shouldn’t even be in it.
They are the folks who are current on their loans or maybe even owe no money on their homes.
But if they get caught in the mess that starts with bank robo-signers, who may go through hundreds of foreclosure affidavits a day without verifying a single fact, the victims lives will be tossed upside down.
Homeowners in Florida, Nevada, Texas and Pennsylvania have filed lawsuits alleging that they were victims of mistaken foreclosure. In many of those cases, the bank went so far as to haul away belongings and change the locks on the wrong homes.
Former bank employees have testified they knowingly pushed through foreclosures on the wrong people.
The banks say they are reviewing their mortgage and foreclosure procedures and most people involved in foreclosure deals were behind on their payments. As for people wrongly caught in the foreclosure net, they say they are reviewing those cases, too.
But what emerges from court filings, depositions, and interviews is that once the bank places you on its foreclosure assembly line, it becomes nearly impossible to get off.
…
Mistake?
So you do it and it’s a crime. They do it and it’s a mistake?
Cake, anyone?
U.S. Cities May Consider Defaults as Property-Tax Revenue Falls, CBO Says.
Cities and other local governments may see property-tax revenue decline, forcing some to consider defaulting on debt and seeking bankruptcy protection, the Congressional Budget Office said in a report.
A 27 percent decline in housing values from June 2006 through June 2010 hasn’t yet driven down tax rolls of cities, counties and school districts as property collections rose 31 percent during the same period, the budget office said in the Dec. 9 report. That is expected to change, because property taxes, which generate a fourth of revenue, lag behind changes in home prices by three years, the report said.
If you are in munis - you are playing with fire.
jerry brown will help you.
Kind of ironic that corporate junk bonds may be the safest ones to own right now. Munis may default: corporate good bonds are at risk to rising interest rates. I’ve read several articles discussing junk bonds and most make the point that the weakest companies were washed out over the last couple of years and those that have survived to the present may in some metrics be “stronger”. A 10%+ yield on a fund like JNK sounds tempting to me.
DennisN,
Correct, and Yields on muni’s should respond accordingly. At least where JB’s are concerned, there’s no false pretense they can’t go under?
They can and often ‘do’ ( even in the ‘best’ of times ) During the dot.com meltdown we were running 10-12% default rates ( mostly telecoms etc. ) The difference being, you were being adequately compensated for risk. It’s always part of the game.
Muni’s? Not so much.
We all know where this will end - bankruptcy. Why do they prolong it? Because no one has the guts to take on the city’s unions.
—————————
Less Than a Full-Service City
WSJ - 12/13/2010 - Matt Dolan
Plan for Detroit Would Pull Resources—and Population—From Blighted Districts
DETROIT—More than 20% of Detroit’s 139 square miles could go without key municipal services under a new plan being developed for the city, with as few as seven neighborhoods seen as meriting the city’s full resources.
Those details, outlined by Detroit planning officials this week, offer the clearest picture yet of how Mayor Dave Bing intends to execute what has become his signature program: reconfiguring Detroit to reflect its declining population and fiscal health. Yet the blueprint still leaves large legal and financial questions unresolved.
Do you think big cities (Detroit, Miami, LA, etc.) are considered too big to fail and therefore will be showered in tax payer largesse? Alternatively Congress might let the dice fall where they may. This would include big cuts by the bankruptcy judge to union salaries & head count, pension benefits and bond/bag holders.
I think Congress will initially act tough and then cave in like so many times before, kicking the can once again.
Do you think big cities (Detroit, Miami, LA, etc.) are considered too big to fail and therefore will be showered in tax payer largesse?
No - not with their heavy democratic/union turnouts and republicans controlling congress. Maybe something on a state level.
They may get a few bones for some cover but 2011 will be the year of cities either:
Cutting and living within their budgets
Going bankrupt
Is the true definition of bankruptcy not being insolvent, but rather living within your means?
I have seen a lot of discussion on “starve the beast”, but so far it does not work, because the beast has a credit card with no apparent limit.
My guess most of this will happen during the 2012 - 2018 time frame, when it looks likely at least for now we will have a Republican President, Congress and Senate, so I do not see a lot of help coming from the treasury.
What? You don’t like George Bush’s third term?
Can you believe the DemoNuts are going to pass W’s tax cuts and increase spending?????
NOLA certainly proved too-big-to-fail!
Rip down the shacks and plant a forest.
Which begs the question: What exactly did these municipaliies DO with all the extra money generated by the RE bubble? It’s not like house values have retreated to pre-bubble levels in most areas. Certainly some of the difficulty can be explained by the construction of new infrastructure that was built on the assumption that people would actually move in to all that bubble-housing. But I suspect that won’t account for all the money that the’re spending. So what sort of fixed costs have they added? How much of that can they cease?
Stuff like this:
http://tinyurl.com/3xuym7s
Building 250M dollar city hall buildings in 2nd tier cities (West Palm, in this example). There’s becoming less and less reason to have a city hall building at all anymore.
Typically, the massive spending occurred in construction and hiring. Neither of which did ANYTHING to make the world better for the citizens.
What exactly did these municipaliies DO with all the extra money generated by the RE bubble?
In the NE - it went right into public union salaries/benefits and pensions and hiring more government workers.
Some states (like PA) DOUBLED pensions in one year without any debate (because revenue was just rolling in and the stock market was up). It seemed like the right thing to do. No one thought about the lean years.
The pension gift does not go away in bad years. And public unions will never give up their “hard won” benefits without a massive fight.
2banana,
Over the last 6 mos. to a year I often asked how much of the meltdown was attributable to the Housing Bust and how much of this would have occured with or -without- it?
I never got an answer. With each passing day it becomes more and more obvious this collision course was inevitable. And like the Bust itself, home prices needn’t plummet necessarily, simply stop going ‘up’ was catalyst enough.
Even “Not going up in double digits” would have been enough to start a lot of cities circling the drain.
Maybe build a huge stadium for a billionaire and Dallas Cowboys to play in?
The Silverdome didn’t panout to good. Cost 55 million 1975, sold last year 583,000. Yesterday dome trouble again the metrodome. HUNTing for entreprenures! Just trying to keep a roof over your head is getting to be difficult
I thought Jerry Jones financed that deal all by his lonesome. Did the city of Arlington somehow guarantee the deal? I would assume that JJ would be more credit worthy than Arlington.
Excerpt form an article in the San Diego “North County Times”, July 9, 2006
The Dallas Cowboys will tie up to a new fence post for the 2009 season. They will ditch their longtime home in Irving, Texas, and relocate to an Arlington site next to the Rangers’ Ameriquest Field.
Arlington’s ante is capped at $325 million for the $650 million facility. The city’s funds will be raised by increasing its taxes on sales, rental cars and hotels.
But the Cowboys’ playpen is tied into a 700-acre, $600 million retail development wedged between the two sports venues. Among the upgrades accompanying it — which also aids the Cowboys’ new stadium — is an $800 million expansion of nearby Interstate 30 and other roads and bridges leading to the complex.
Arlington is lending the Cowboys another hand in recently approving a 10 percent ticket tax and $3 parking fee for all events at the new football stadium.
Those funds will help the Cowboys pay their share of the freight.
The retail development between the two stadiums was canceled by the way.
In fact, the city wants to close down all businesses around the stadium for Super Bowl weekend and just recently, outlawed all street vendors within a 1 mile perimeter of the stadium.
An ordinance making it illegal for anyone convicted of prostitution from entering the Entertainment District was voted down(I think they were afraid of angering some high rollers).
Nope. No welfare for the rich there. No siree!
Don’t they generally issue bonds for the stadia? No one is paying for that out of general tax revenue.
You are correct the city upped the sales tax and designated a portion to pay the bonds that were issued to build the stadium.
Since the city consficated the land, it generates no property taxes and all sales tax generated is rebated directly to Jerry Jones.
The city is responsible for all infrastructure improvements which added another $200 million in debt.
Fun fact - the city consficated the mineral rights below the stadium from land owners which due to natural gas discoveries amounted to a 20+ million dollar bonus to Jerry Jones.
Thank god the rich don’t need welfare and are able to amass their fortunes from just hard work and ingenuity or one might find that situation… slightly hypocritical.
But how are those bonds repaid?
Here they built a minor league ball park, a couple aquatics centers, hired more planners, ‘n’ stuff. There was talk of a regional performing arts center but that is TU for now.
The admins know that the booms don’t last, so they and their nonprofit cohorts hustle projects through as fast as they can..
In Montana,
Or as we say in OR, “Tide me over til’ the good times come back projects”.
There was a bumper sticker in Texas in the mid 80-s that said something like: Lord, give us $20 oil again
And we won’t P— it away this time.
Spokaneman,
I actually recall seeing those! I’ll wager Ben does too. It was just uncanny how when The Bust Came To Portland all of a sudden developers got all benevolent and whatnot?
Let’s see.., I’ve got a half-built/half-foreclosed loft development on (1) side of town, a new performing arts center on the ‘other’ side might just be the ticket! Lol.
What exactly did these municipaliies DO with all the extra money generated by the RE bubble?
Lots of pet projects and “beautification” programs down here in Florida, followed by lots of UNION employee graft……pay increases, benefit increases, early retirements, more subordinates, bigger staffs, and lots and lots of “meetings” with taxpayer subsidized rooms and meals.
That all needs to go in reverse now, but the “public” employee sector has an army lining the battlements and aren’t going to give up easily. They Need all the increased costs, so they will cut back on Library, Park and public facility services.
Risky Borrowers Find Credit Available Again, at a Price
Credit card offers are surging again after a three-year slowdown, as banks seek to revive a business that brought them huge profits before the financial crisis wrecked the credit scores of so many Americans.
The rise is striking because it includes offers to riskier borrowers who were shunned as recently as six months ago. But this time, in contrast to the boom years, when banks “preapproved” seemingly everyone, lenders are choosing their prospects more carefully and setting stricter terms to guard against another wave of losses.
For consumers, the resurgence of card offers, however cautious, provides an opportunity to repair damaged credit and regain the convenience of paying with plastic. But there is a catch: the new cards have higher interest rates and annual fees.
Lenders are “tiptoeing their way back into the higher-risk pool of customers,” said John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education at SmartCredit.com.
In extending credit again to riskier borrowers, lenders are looking beyond standard credit scores, on the theory that some people who may seem to be equivalent credit risks on the surface may show differences in spending or other behavior — like registering on a job Web site — that suggest variations in their ability to keep up with payments.
Industry consultants, in their attempt to feed the demand for finer classifications of borrowers, have coined new labels to describe different borrowers with similar credit scores.
One is “strategic defaulters,” whose credit scores were damaged because they walked away from a home when its value dropped below what was owed on the mortgage. These borrowers made a bad bet on real estate but may otherwise be prudent risks because they make a good living.
Similarly, “first-time defaulters” once had a strong credit record but ran into financial trouble during the recession. Typically, these borrowers fell behind on some sort of loan payment after losing a job, not from taking on too much debt.
By contrast, there are “sloppy payers,” who pay only some bills on time; “abusers,” who are defiant about paying; and “distressed borrowers,” who simply do not have the means to pay.
The goal is to weed out the latter groups to identify consumers whose credit scores are blemished but who still have the money to pay their bills.
Now that the losses have stabilized, lenders have set out to revive their card businesses, and mail offers to riskier borrowers are roaring back.
HSBC mailed more than 16 million card offers to this group in the third quarter of this year, Citigroup 14 million and Discover 10 million, all roughly tenfold increases over the same period last year, according to Synovate Mail Monitor, a market research firm. Capital One’s rate rose fiftyfold, to 22 million.
Many of the new lower-end cards start with high interest rates and annual fees, because new federal rules limit the ability of lenders to change the terms after payments are missed. Capital One, for example, is offering low-end cards that carry interest rates of 18 percent or higher and annual fees of up to $50.
The response to the card campaigns has been strong, with roughly 4 percent of these riskier borrowers submitting applications. That is about 10 times the typical response rate for the group, though that may be partly explained by the absence of offers over the last two years.
There is a price for anything.Business is so desperate they will loan to a corpse.
This loosening of credit does not extend to mortgage loans. WSJ reported today that mortgages are more difficult to get unless you have stellar credit.
I guess automakers are loaning to anyone once again.They get so desperate for business that they have to lower their standards.
Methinks that, within a year or less, the repo business will be booming. Reason: Car dealers don’t take lightly to payments being missed.
People with low standards are thier business.
Wages are shrinking. Manufacturing jobs are disappearing. Service jobs barely pay more than minum wage.
Even new hires at the auto makers start at $14/hr.
These are the people who buy cars now.
“These are the people who buy cars now.”
There are the people who used to buy cars.
“Methinks that, within a year or less, the repo business will be booming. Reason: Car dealers don’t take lightly to payments being missed.”
What if the car dealers didn’t own the defaulted paper? Lets say the automobile version of Fannie did, and they were specifically instructed not to repo just as the GSE were. Away would go car payments along with mortgage payments - soon eveything would be free!
Mostly the people I’ve seen driving the shiny new autos here are the retired set. (boomers)
*************
“Even new hires at the auto makers start at $14/hr.
These are the people who buy cars now.”
“Even new hires at the auto makers start at $14/hr.”
Nope. $12hr. $10-12hr is the current entry level for most retail and factory jobs these days.
And no raises. Ever.
$14hr will NOT buy you a new car. Oh, you might be able to drive it off the lot, but you aren’t going to keep it for long.
TCM
I used to get all kinds of offers for CC’s in the mail. To date, I have not received a single offer in the past few years. Has something to do with my refusal to pay on certain medical bills. My FICO went from over 800 to not good enough for the current CC offers. I kinda like it this way. As long as none of my CC banks are taking back these accounts, I don’t care. I may consider doing more of these “medical strategic defaults” from time to time, to maintain my we-don’t-bother-this-guy-with-CC-Offers status. Now there is a new category for these banksters.
Fun times, I’m in Greensboro this week doing FAT on a big new production machine, half my team got stuck in Atlanta on the way east. So much for ATL as a “safe” winter layover.
Happy Monday HBB, be safe out there.
I’m sure it wasn’t ATL weather. I suspect it was the planes from the upper midwest that couldn’t take off due to the snow. If they can’t get to Atlanta, they can’t take off from Atlanta.
ATL is a MAJOR hub and the first to feel the effects of delays from other regions.
Lovely insomnia care of sinusitis/allergies. A shedding 140+ lb beast doesn’t help.
I’m calling BS on these high commodities prices, and the forecasts for even more gains in 2011. They are going to kill what little economic growth might even exist.
goldman should start providing lube at the pumps.
Grizz,
Good Lord, what BREED is that thing!? I knew there was a reason I have a 14lb. Shih Tzu as an office mascot. Take care of that!
A shedding 140+ lb beast doesn’t help.
I assumed he was talking about his wife.
He’s an Akita. I took him in for his rabies booster a few days ago and he’s 142 lbs. He’s a big teddy bear.
What are you talking about Griz? The other economy is doing just fine!
The economy for the rest of us? Well heck no we aren’t going to get a break.
What’s the first rule of ruling? Always screw the poor, because after all, what can they do about it?
Ahh…it is finally the real Christmas season in DC - pajamagram has started running “sponsorship announcements” on the public radio station. Seems like a less than completely creative solution to the problem to me. I am so delighted that Hannukah was early this year. Being done feels like a real victory.
I’ll probably be around a bit less frequently for the next two weeks. I’m working the nice quiet week between Christmas and New Year’s so I’m on vacation between now and then. There are a heck of a lot of errands that seem to need catching up on. Now, where does one go for passport photos again? It was easier in New York.
“Now, where does one go for passport photos again?”
Try Kinkos or Walgreens.
The Post Office.
Most AAA offices offer passport photos if you are a member. But you don’t own a car IIRC.
I have a car and AAA. But It is still a pain to get to the office. I might end up there anyway. Like I said, it was easier in NYC. You just walked down the street and places had signs out front that said they took passport photos inside. No need to plan. No need to worry. Just walk in. I think I might have gotten my last set in the underground shopping area of the World Trade Center. Sigh.
With the increasing disappearance of film processing there aren’t as many passport photo places left in NYC these days.
polly,
Well, Happy Hannukah all the same!
Thanks. Best part is that it was so early this year that not only are all the gifts delivered, but all the bills have arrived and been paid. Totally done. I still need to do tips at my building, but that is about it. And I can spend Christmas going to a movie (TRON?) and finding an open Chinese place.
And I can spend Christmas going to a movie (TRON?) and finding an open Chinese place.
You know what? That sounds like *my* kind of Christmas!
polly,
It’s been kind of an early New Year’s resolution for me. There is one (1) Jewish guy ( 25 y.o med. student ) in our entire reserve squadron. He travels five HOURS one-way to be a part of the Unit. Great kid.
In all the time he’s been there, I’ve never really made an effort to reach out to him other than as a fellow G.I and it’s become something of an embarrassment. Really.
I work around a lot of Jews and never really made the effort to understand even the most basic aspects of your religion. None, well other than a handful of tired and off-color Cath/Jewish jokes. So before I “read the Koran!” ( I thought it would be a nice gesture to at least have a rudimentary grasp ) Hey, it only took me like 3 decades?
A movie and Chinese food is a traditional Jewish / Non-observant christian ritual for 12/25.
DinOR,
Well, have a good time with it. I think you will be surprised at how many things are *not* in Judaism vs. Christianity. My old synagogue had a breakfast lecture/discussion once in which the topic was can you be a good Jew and not believe in God. I think we eventually decided that you could, but it made things a bit harder. I don’t think you get that sort of conclusion in Christianity or Islam. Heaven? Absent. The idea that your religion is the correct one for all people? Not at all. There are some very clear differences. And that is before you get to all the surface stuff with holidays and traditions and stuff.
Costco.
You should check out the underground Pentagon City Mall. Dunno if there’s picture stuff there, but it’s big and there’s a metro stop right in Crystal City, IIRC.
Here’s a mall directory: http://www.simon.com/mall/malldirectory.aspx?id=157
Risky Borrowers Find Credit Available Again, at a Price. ~ nytimes
Credit card offers are surging again after a three-year slowdown, as banks seek to revive a business that brought them huge profits before the financial crisis wrecked the credit scores of so many Americans.
The rise is striking because it includes offers to riskier borrowers who were shunned as recently as six months ago. But this time, in contrast to the boom years, when banks “preapproved” seemingly everyone, lenders are choosing their prospects more carefully and setting stricter terms to guard against another wave of losses.
For consumers, the resurgence of card offers, however cautious, provides an opportunity to repair damaged credit and regain the convenience of paying with plastic. But there is a catch: the new cards have higher interest rates and annual fees.
Lenders are “tiptoeing their way back into the higher-risk pool of customers,” said John Ulzheimer, president of consumer education at SmartCredit.com.
Having to pay an annual fee is probably a useful “signal” for people who do not handle credit well. It must give you at least some reason to pause and consider if you actually want the new credit line. Personally, I would never take a card with a fee again, but then I’m pretty sure I’ve paid interest on a credit card no more than once or twice in my life and probably less than $5 or $10 total. If a fee can remind the folks that regularly pay interest that the darn things aren’t free, the companies are probably doing them a favor.
Many people have bad credit from layoffs and medical bankruptcies and NOT from mismanagement.
Many. 10% “official” UE is very bad and there is certain NO deflation when it comes to medical bills.
Those cards are a path back to building credit. A brutal one. But there really aren’t that many ways any more.
Here we go again! The banks are like drug dealers to the financially insane credit addicts or (FICA).
And the Treasury is the World’s largest meth lab.
This, of course, will lead:
To accusations of racism and red-lining
To government investigations
To government programs
To government pressure on companies
To government guarantees to companies on this debt
To a new debt bubble
The circle of life…
The Swami
TIP-toeing people! Let’s not get all wrapped around the axle here? In any loan port. there’s room to juice the yld. if done so judiciously!
Did they say “anyone that can fog a mirror”? Anyone regardless of their legal status in the country? I happen to think it’s a good sign. There’s hookers offering $20 bidness down on 82nd ( that doesn’t mean we’re buyers necessarily? ) Chill.
The circle of life…
Not so much. It’s more of the American “business cycle”. It exists solely to support the “rake” that Banksters, brokers and traders of paper can skim off the transactions.
If we could eliminate the rake, they cycle wouldn’t run the same course.
But just like Vegas, only a privileged few get a “license” to skim off money from the rest of us.
“For consumers, the resurgence of card offers, however cautious, provides an opportunity to repair damaged credit and regain the convenience of paying with plastic.”
Oh, PLEASE Sir, may I have another?
The best thing that may have happpend to these people was to have their credit cards yanked away from them which forced them to live within their means - meaning they had to make the best of what they could afford to buy with the money they had or to somehow learn to do without.
I notice a lot of the cards have transaction fees for balance transfers.They say 0% for a year but you have to pay a 4% transaction fee.So it is really 4% for a year not 0%.Same old deceptive BS.
I went out looking for a couple shirts over the weekend.the retailers have the biggest scams.they will have a high msrp on the ticket and then have it marked down 50%.they want to make you feel like you are getting a great deal.Bottom line is what does the shirt actually sell for.
I guess the lemmings are buying ipads this year.
And to think that I struggle to get by with just one credit card. (Snark-snark.) What’s worse, I deprive the credit card issuer of all sorts of revenue because I pay the card off every month.
You, sir, are a “deadbeat” borrower. You should be banned from having ANY credit cards. How will Lloyd Blankfein buy another place in the Hamptons with the kind of business you are providing?
Have you no shame, sir??
Considering the poor merchant is charged between 1.5% and 3% depending on how large their business is and what it’s nature is, I would say the credit card industry is still charging you 20% APR for the use of your card (more if you pay quickly). The price is built into the products you buy.
Try carrying around a wad of cash and use it to really screw them. I do and I have noticed a lot of other folks do too!
Oh, PLEASE Sir, may I have another?
Combo, were you reading this Horsey cartoon?
http://blog.seattlepi.com/davidhorsey/archives/231359.asp
My CC statements arrived and said that I didn’t have a minimum payment because no payment was required for Dec. Any thing to get people to spend more than they make. I just shook my head in disgust and paid it in full as usual.
I get December statements with messages like that too. However, the credit card companies continue to charge interest.
Again, MANY people have bad credit from layoffs and medical bankruptcies, and NOT mismanagement.
MANY.
Now we know they are just making stuff up:
“Job gains around the country offset higher foreclosures and helped reduce the nation’s economic stress in October to an 18-month low, according to The Associated Press’ monthly analysis.”
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/AP-analysis-Economic-stress-apf-3029346239.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode=
You too can become stress free as a Dominoes pizza delivery dude. So what if the “job” does not provide a living wage. Living in your car has many advantages including reduced piti expenses.
and as much pizza as you can eat.
Have you tried the new dominoes pizza they were raving about?Tastes horrible, papa murphys is way better.
Making your own pizza from scratch is the way to go. You get costs down to about $1. There must be a good profit in running a pizza joint.
I buy bulk bread flour and those 1 lb. metal-foil bags of yeast.
Here’s a dough recipe that I use.
http://www.annamariavolpi.com/pizza_recipe.html
you are hard core my friend.Never tried to make my own pizza yet.I use to make a lot of pizza bread.I have bookmarked your recipe and will tey it.The old lady likes roundtable pizza.they are about 20 bucks each.I tend to buy take and bake for about 10 bucks each.
To save money during these uprecedented tough times I usually order a pizza delivered to a nearby foreclosure then wait in the bushes with a ski-mask…
Making your own pizza from scratch is the way to go.
Thanks DennisN for the food tips. I think it was you who was talking about homemade sauerkraut once and I thought, “homemade sauerkraut”? I can’t find sauerkraut here so I went online and made my first batch of homemade sauerkraut and it rocks.
I have enough for about another month but it’s too hot here till about April to make more as it shouldn’t be over 76 degrees or so I read.
Hey, I’m going to eat some now.
Hints on cost containment…
Buy block mozzarella and shred it yourself. Use the coarsest shredder you have. Block cheese lasts much longer in the refer than pre-shredded, and costs less too.
Del Monte “garlic & onion” pasta sauce works OK for pizza - $0.86 per 26.5 oz can.
Pre-sliced black olives are a rip-off. Get whole pitted black olives and slice them with your egg slicer. Then use the egg slicer to cut the mushrooms too.
I guess I’m a world-class cheapskate.
Rio,
Sadly my first batch of sauerdraut was a bust. It’s too dry here and when I followed a recipe the batch dried out, the fermentation stopped, and then it rotted. Presumably it’s much more humid in Rio than here in the Rocky Mountains high desert. I’ll have to find a way to either add water during fermentation or prevent drying out with a sealed container with one of those brewer’s airlocks to vent the CO2.
But having cheap pizza is a must!
Pizza is one of the 4 basic food groups, along with salt, bacon, and alcohol.
“I guess I’m a world-class cheapskate.”
And I for one saluate you for it, Sir!
Sadly my first batch of sauerdraut was a bust. It’s too dry here and when I followed a recipe the batch dried out
I looked at few online instructions and basically used a hybrid method using a big enameled soup pot with a weighted plate on top and adding brine until it rose about an inch and a half above the plate for the airlock and then the whole thing covered with a trash bag. In a dry area, I would just check it every day and add new brine to keep the brine the same couple inches above the plate. I read to use non-iodized salt.
I’ve also just read about a hot weather fast 1-4 day method using whey as a starter.
I’m going to try the pizza thing. I have to figure how to say and find yeast. Thanks.
“Pizza is one of the 4 basic food groups, along with salt, bacon, and alcohol.”
Don’t forget sugar…
RE Sauerkraut - There’s a great book on traditional preserving techniques: Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation (ISBN 1933392592)
fast 1-4 day method using whey as a starter.
That makes sense. Normal sauerkraut recipes use spontaneous malolactic fermentation from nothing more than shredded raw cabbage and salt. A live-culture whey could serve as a malolactic starter - or perhaps you could use some live-culture yoghurt.
No saurkraut? But I thought lots o’ Germans settled in South America.
No saurkraut? But I thought lots o’ Germans settled in South America.
I know. They did. Mostly in the south, not Rio. But I am sure there is sauerkraut in Rio too. Where? I don’t know but I’m sure it’s expensive. All specialty foods are here.
(I just remembered Downtown (Centro) has a German restaurant)
DennisN
My Mother gave us her William Sonoma Bread Machine and we’ve been baking *Gluten-Free Bread (*real, not elected). We’re starting to price out bulk flours to bring down the cost per loaf. WS is my Mother’s level, not ours. I appreicate the hammy-down.
Sorry dude. Cheap does not automatically equal good.
Every home made pizza I’ve ever eaten tasted like hammered dog crap.
There is special flour that is used for pizzas. That’s the base to good pizza.
(did you know there are 50 different types of flour?)
It is a buttery disaster. Ugh.
Don’t forget chocolate. Definitely one of the basic food groups. Along with fat, sugar and alcohol.
Have you tried the new dominoes pizza they were raving about?Tastes horrible,…
I gotta agree. I had the misfortune of eating a piece of their new thin-crust pizza. Worst pizza I’ve had in quite a while, way worse than their old version. I contemplated shorting their stock after I ate it.
I contemplated shorting their stock after I ate it.
Yeesh! It’s gotta be pretty bad if you’re going to short the stock.
Papa Murphy’s (Irish name of course): the absolute best pizza. Happy to be east of SoCal so I can enjoy it again.
Didn’t I say that minuscule job gains would be touted as “improvement?”
That sure didn’t take long.
Silver UP 3% early on today giving the silver shorts yet another fit of depression.
Real estate looks ghastly in light of silver don’t yas think?
Correct me if I am wrong, but I think as long as investors don’t demand delivery of bullion the big trading houses can be short indefinitely without it costing them much money. They borrow money at 0.25% and can stay short as long as they want. They didn’t have to cover at $15, $20 or $30 and that won’t change even if it hits $100.
Correct. Problem for the shorts is that metal owners are now demanding delivery of the silver. Mark my words: many paper silver owners entrusting third party depositories with their metal will be wiped out when it is understood that there is maybe 1/100 of the paper contracts that can be settled with actual silver.
No need to mark your words. Most of us have read these slogans where you read them already.
Taking delivery is for chumps, those with actual money to spend. Is it a stretch to imagine that the net worth of the pool of speculators is less than zero, and that the bulk of the hot money is borrowed at low interest. Players do not want to take delivery, that kills the churn.
“Taking delivery is for chumps…”
Perhaps. Not taking delivery has an increasing probability of making one a broke chump.
Perhaps you have missed the massive and rampant economic theft that now defines the global economy? Redistribution of wealth from the masses to the banks is theft by taking.
Americans are well hallmarked by a marked absence of concern for pretty much all meaningful dangers as well as a surplus of trust in areas that should require utmost caution. The result of the summation of apathy, ignorance, and religious devotion to acknowledging only perceived positives. Americans forget they are but food for wolves in an economic sense.
Trusting a bank to secure your assets indicates that even after the abject theft that banks have perpetuated upon the masses you continue to believe said banks to be “honest”. Just look at the losses one has sustained in cash kept within a bank in terms of buying power(100% loss). Taking your metals will be as easy as emergency legislation.
I believe you are in error to maintain anything but fear in said financial counter-parties(banks).
“Just look at the losses one has sustained in cash kept within a bank in terms of buying power(100% loss).”
Huh? I have some cash in the bank, and as far as I can tell, it has not lost 100% of its buying power. My rent (largest expense) hasn’t gone up, fuel for my car is up only a little, my insurance costs have not changed dramatically, food is up some but certainly not 100%.
Where is my 100% loss of buying power again?
lint, I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that I have been working at securing my freedom from the dangers that ruin your sleep for longer than you have been a cognitive adult, and that I was taught how to do so by those with relevant experience rather than slogans.
I’m suggesting that a chump is one who gets caught up in the sure thing of the day, puts his own security at risk out of fear or greed, and looses it to the gamers, all the while sure that only one outcome is possible.
when the housing bubble burst, the game was up.
Two of America’s biggest problems are crony-capitalism and wealth-inequality. There is nothing being done to fix these problems so how can we pull out of this morass? Our numbers are reaching Mexico status which is not in line with our American ideals and history no matter how hard the PTB try to rewrite both.
http://www.vpr.net/episode/50068/
…The United States inequality coefficient has been growing steadily in the last two decades and is now about the same as Mexico.
…I am a firm believer in capitalism when it comes to markets providing incentives for performance. However, the notion that this translates into a right for endless wealth accumulation is a betrayal of true capitalist ideology as well. Let us not forget that part of the reason for democratic capitalism to emerge in America was to provide an antidote to the hereditary aristocracy of Great Britain.
It is therefore bitterly ironic that a country which was formed to counter huge land and wealth accumulation of empires is now subservient to the desires of the rich. What is wrong with sharing a small percentage of their excess fortunes with the society that has helped them reach those levels of prosperity?
Inequality Is Our Economy’s Core Problem—That’s Why Taxes Matter
http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/12/income_and_wealth_inequality_isnt_an_ideal_its_the_core_problem.html
Americans want to know what happened to the economy and how to fix it. At least Republicans have a story - the same one they’ve been flogging for thirty years. The bad economy is big government’s fault and the solution is to shrink government. Here’s the real story. For three decades, an increasing share of the benefits of economic growth have gone to the top 1 percent. Thirty years ago, the top got 9 percent of total income. Now they take in almost a quarter. Meanwhile, the earnings of the typical worker have barely budged.
The vast middle class no longer has the purchasing power to keep the economy going. (The rich spend a much lower portion of their incomes.) The crisis was averted before now only because middle-class families found ways to keep spending more than they took in - by women going into paid work, by working longer hours, and finally by using their homes as collateral to borrow. But when the housing bubble burst, the game was up.
Of course, when people impoverish themselves by spending beyond their means, and do not win the lotto to make it all good, the blame lies with those who have saved something.
Of course, when people impoverish themselves by spending beyond their means, and do not win the lotto to make it all good, the blame lies with those who have saved something.
Yep. You nailed it again. Middle-class wages have dropped for 30 years. Middle-class have lost benefits, health-care, job security and dignity. Factory jobs and service jobs have been shipped to China. The top one percent’s income has risen to 25% from 9% in 20 years. Health-care has become a joke and its costs along with housing, and education have surged the past generation BECAUSE?
(can I get a drumroll?)
Because people have spent beyond their means………??
Yes Rio, we middlers have enabled all of this by our willingness, eagerness, to go into debt. Without our taking on of personal debt none of what you describe could have happened. Without this expansion of credit, the offshore manufacturing boom would not have been possible. ‘Funded by personal debt primarily in the good ole US of A. Bankers and CEOs have merely skimmed the cream off the top of this transaction of fools. We can afford our SUVs and jet skis and lawn furniture, but poor little Mr. Middle cannot afford health care.
Without our taking on of personal debt none of what you describe could have happened.
Of course an also destructive form of it could have happened. It all could have happened even with traditional debt levels, albeit slower.
Without this expansion of credit, the offshore manufacturing boom would not have been possible.
As to a “boom” maybe. But of course it could have happened in a lesser but still very destructive form even with consumers utilizing rational levels of debt. Why couldn’t it have? It just would have been a slower process with less magnitude.
And who extended this credit while at the same time waging a psych-ops type systematic campaign encouraging massive levels of debt and materialism? Gee, it was the same people wasn’t it? Some of us can shrug off the non-stop consumerism psych-ops but to expect everyone to be able to do so, is to not appreciate the workings and vulnerability of the human mind. These manipulating people know how the human mind works and use this knowledge to their selfish advantage.
Bankers and CEOs have merely skimmed the cream off the top of this transaction of fools.
Wrong: There is no “merely” to what those criminals did and are doing. They intentionally set up the fraudulent system and encouraged, enabled and almost pushed people to partake in a system that in the end would crush the middle-class. Then after the middle-class was crushed they demanded IOU’s from the middle-class to bail out the Banks that crushed them.
You have not come up with a credible argument that it is “all our faults because we spend too much” and you will not be able to. It it partially true? Yes, but nowhere near the main cause of our situation.
There is hell to pay after an epic episode of manic greed. Blaming our mania, and the consequences, on the psych-ops of supposed dark overlords rather prevents us from taking the first steps to regaining our freedom.
Debt is slavery and Mr. Middle volunteered. You are only allowed to be a victim Rio, until you become a grownup.
Blaming our mania, and the consequences, on the psych-ops of supposed dark overlords rather prevents us from taking the first steps to regaining our freedom.
Foreigners, and informed Americans know about American’s “dark overlords” in the banking, marketing, media and advertising. They comment on it. The first steps to “regaining our freedom” would be to acknowledging them because they are there.
You can’t fight against something if you are ignorant to its existence.
Debt is slavery and Mr. Middle
volunteeredgot Shanghaied.You are only allowed to be a victim Rio, until you become a grownup.
You are only allowed to remain oblivious Blue Skye, until you become informed.
And again:
You have not come up with a credible argument that it is “all our faults because we spend too much” and you will not be able to. It it partially true? Yes, but nowhere near the main cause of our situation.
@Blue Skye
Look, I never took on any debt I couldn’t handle. Still I am a victim, we all are. My tax dollars, which are extracted from me by force, are given to the criminals on Wall Street. These people are stealing my (and your’s as well) money and there’s very little I can do other than leaving this country. Of course that wouldn’t do much good since this new class of criminal and their political accomplices are operating world wide (EU/Euro for example).
Add to that global wage arbitrage (exploitation of slave labor) and the circumvention of various laws (like environmental protection) and we are all either victims or predators. The predator class is about 1% of the population; the remaing 99% allow this to go on out of complacency, fear, ignorance or indoctrination (Beck, Palin & Co).
Blue Skye,
I’ve shared this previously, but holds as true today as it has in the past:
2 years back I attended a “Meet your Rep” event and HC came up. One gal ( career nurse ) spoke in hushed tones. She shared that most ppl she spoke w/ that said “They couldn’t even come -close- to affording healthcare premiums” ( had cell phones for every mbr. of the family, his & her SUV’s and took regular vacations )
It’s all about priorities. Oh and please elaborate on how the credit expansion paved the way for offshoring. I really think you’re on to something there!
It’s all about priorities.
The perils of the American dream
http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/12/11/business/7594728&sec=business
The Americans have been so good at marketing and advertising, they have made consumerism and marketing into an art and the Americans bought into it.
It’s about the pursuit of the American dream which Hollywood and savvy marketing have enticed us with over the years. That American dream constitues a nice house in a middle class neighbourhood, sons who drive to college, daughters who are trendily dressed in class.
They take annual holidays and are up to date with the latest trends and lifestyle. They go after the latest gadgets that technology has spawned. Sounds familiar? But that lifestyle has also incurred high household debts which in some cases has resulted in foreclosures in the United States.
Some 30 to 40 years ago, the manufacturing sector was the mainstay of the American economy. It now accounts for 12% of US jobs. ..
My god. Someone is out of with reality here and isn’t Rio and his facts.
Wages are stagnate for 30 years while prices continued to rise and yet you blame “overspending?”
Can I live in your reality free world?
eco,
Far from a reality free world. My point is that we must first extinguish dependancy on the parasites.
The Wall St. parasites far outnumber all the others combined.
Tax breaks alone for the rich and corporations far outnumber the amount spent on all welfare combined.
Yes I agree we must extinguish the parasites. But you think it’s the poor or avg person. And you are WRONG.
Tax breaks alone for the rich and corporations far outnumber the amount spent on all welfare combined.
Are you crazy? Math just pisses them off.
I came here to chew gum and kick ass… and I’m fresh out of gum.
My healthcare costs are quite low in America. All one has to do is not have medical insurance and learn to negotiate with medical providers. Many medical providers are giving medicare rates to the uninsured.
One must shop providers and refuse to deal with those that accept medicare rates but will not give same rates to the cash patient.
Health doesn’t last forever you know.
At the Cowboy’s game last night they had a bunch of old player to celebrate 50 years of playing football.
Most of the player from the 60s and 70s could hardly walk at all.
Paying premiums that increase at 20 to 30 percent a year also indicates that one can easily become broke just by paying medical premiums. Once a person is in a state of poverty their health can be expected to rapidly decline. Medical insurance premiums are going up because 10’s of millions of insured people are electing to no longer participate in the insurance scam that has reduced quality care and increased the cost for it.
55M people are uninsured which leaves 250M that will elect to not be insured in the future as the cost of insurance rises to unimaginable levels.
Dump medical insurance and let the financially suicidal pay for the insurance company’s (banks) executives super high standard of living.
Spoken truly like someone who has never had a major medical problem. Try paying for any sort of extended treatment or major procedure in cash. (If you can, you must be well-heeled indeed, and so your advice is meaningless for most Americans who don’t have hundreds of thousands in cash lyin’ around…)
“Spoken truly like someone who has never had a major medical problem.”
Definitely.
Have a friend who was diagnosed with MS… the drugs that keep it at bay, and her in the workforce, cost more in a month than their mortgage payment.
Desperately hanging on to the hope they can stay employed and keep their health insurance.
The unexpected can happen, and anyone who claims they are wealthy enough to pay for medical needs with cash should be smart enough to realize that insurance is a necessity to protect their family and assets. (Unless of course some billionaire is a lurker…)
20K per year thats what it costs me plus employer to insure myself and dependants on a PPO plan
lots of money I go to the doctor maybe 1x a year
almost what I pay in yearly rent
The banks thank you for your contributions.
Without the massive expansion of credit, I think the middle class would have recognized its eroding purchasing power earlier in the game.
Would the outcome have been any different? Would there have been some great groundswell against the technological and geographic outsourcing of middle class jobs? Would the PTBs have recognized that without the American middle class consumer the game is largely up?
My guess is no, we would have been where we are today, justn 20 years sooner.
We were, and then they changed the rules and hid the real numbers.
People DID realize they were getting screwed and then, like now, there was nothing they could do about it.
Watched the Coen Brothers film, A Serious Man, last night and it was stunning to see how modestly dentists, doctors, professors lived in the 1960s. Some of their homes would fit in today’s McMansion master bedrooms. We’ve super sized everything, and now we can’t get up.
We have a winner.
“What is wrong with sharing a small percentage of their excess fortunes with the society that has helped them reach those levels of prosperity?”
I think we have. I’ve seen lots of people buy and extract large sums of money from houses over the last 6 years. In fact they were not rich at all. However they spent in 6 years more than most of them would ever earn in a life time and guess who is going to pay the bill?
Let the government redistribute the wealth as you want, but in 20 years the majority of the money will be held in strong hands by those that understand it!
“I think we have.”
Please try harder when attempting a strawman.
The fact is that the wealthy corporate elite have never in history paid such a small amount of their gains in taxes than they do today. FACT
Strawman can be one thing, poorly worded perhaps another?
By several credible estimations, Phony & Fraudie will cost upwards of $1 tril. Are we arguing that corporations that were in fact under-taxed ran up that tab?
I think Ron’s point should be allowed. IMHO.
Let the government redistribute the wealth as you want, but in 20 years the majority of the money will be held in strong hands by those that understand it!
Like the bankers, crony-capitalist thieves and Wall Street? Those clowns don’t “understand” money. We just had to bail our their incompetent, criminal sorry a@#es. If that’s “understanding” money then I’m a damn genius.
And you’re wrong about 20 years. It took 80 years for the USA’s wealth inequality to reach Mexico’s level after that last great “re-distribution” when a depression did its job.
And it’s only a “redistribution” to levels held when America was most prosperous. That is the dirty little secret the super-rich don’t want you to remember. Our current wealth-inequality is not the norm. It is an extreme and destructive. Don’t defend it because “there’s nothing we can do about it anyway”. That’s how they want you to feel. BS.
And instead of “redistribution” we can call it a “re-redistribution”.
because it’s just giving the middle-class back the wealth that was stolen from it.
“…those that understand it!”
Does that include understanding how to capture your regulators in order to allow you to rout money directly from the U.S. Treasury on to your balance sheet?
“The crisis was averted before now only because middle-class families
found wayswere offered “Single Deposit Transaction” incentives by “TrueProfit™” / “TrueFinancialCult™” Corpoorations,…to keep millions upon millions upon millions of folks spending more than they took in…”and ironically, we got a government that mirrored the morals of the populace…
Take it a step further…. we have a populace that mirrors the amorality of the corporatocracy/Wall Street.
Um, I don’t think Washington (or the financial sector for that matter) one day took a look at labor unions grabbing more than they should, and with great exasperation threw down their towels declaring “why bother”.
Nope, just can’t see it happening that way.
But I can picture the reverse.
A history lesson. Pages 168-169 Gangs of America
The most important development came in 1972, when Frederick Borch of General Electric and John Harper of Alcoa spearheaded the formation of the Business Roundtable, an organization made up exclusively of CEOs from the top 200 financial, industrial, and service corporations. Because of the composition of its membership, the Roundtable occupied a position of unique prestige and leverage. It functioned as a sortof Senate for the corporate elite, allowing big business as a whole to set priorities and deploy its resources in a more effective way than ever before.
(ed. yes, that does mean “collusion”)
For example, in 1977, major corporations found themselves divided over a union-backed legislative proposal to reform and strengthen federal labor law and repeal the right-to-work provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act. Some members of the Roundtable, such as Sears Roebuck, strongly opposed the legislation because they believed it would provide leverage to their low-paid workforces to unionize. On the other hand,
members whose workforces had already unionized, such as General Motors and General Electric, saw no need to oppose the legislation. However, after the Policy Committee of the Roundtable voted to oppose the legislation, all the members of the Roundtable joined in the lobbying efforts. Political scientists mark the defeat of the legislation as a watershed.
Pesky, pesky facts.
The most important development came in 1972, when Frederick Borch of General Electric and John Harper of Alcoa spearheaded the formation of the Business Roundtable,
Interesting. The early 70’s is when things started to sour for the American middle-class as well.
It was no coincidence.
The Business Roundtable was created to do many things, not the least of which was to counter-act and neutralize consumer and worker rights and increased propaganda and lobbying.
There is no shadowy PTB. This is the group that has made our current society the disaster that it is.
There is no shadowy PTB. This is the group that has made our current society the disaster that it is.
No? IDK.
Why couldn’t the Business Roundtable be just a tool of a shadowy PTB?
They ARE the PTB.
Interesting article about banks unfairly getting homestead property tax exemption on foreclosed property tax bills.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/os-banks-foreclosure-tax-break-20101209,0,1849976.story
“More foreclosures, home-price drops on tap in 2011″
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/more-foreclosures-home-price-drops-on-tap-in-2011-2010-12-13
Are there going to be home-price drops in 2011?
Did the little piggy cry wee wee wee all way to his underwater home?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F_G2zp-opg - 129k -
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee Weeeeeeeeeee Weeeeeeeeeeeee
Madoff death proves that banksters are not completely useless:
They make nice pendulums.
Yet you have debt and insurance which both enrich the bankers to substantial degree.
Don’t forget the boost to enbalming-fluid sales, cremation-gas, and casket-makers. Dead Bankster Boom. That would be the kind of economic stimulus America could believe in!
It’s really been eating at me that this is a guy that turned his father in when he found out he was embezzling. Meanwhile, the grift goes on in plenty of other games in town without incident, even though at this point it goes on in plain sight and with plenty of us understanding the score.
Did he turn his father in, or did he throw him under the bus to divert attention?
Madoff’s 2 sons were his PRIMARY assistants in his business. Do you REALLY think they didn’t know what was going on?
Bernanke Get to DA CHOPPA, we got no dollars need to drop some more. Come on we’ve got to get out of here! Helicopter Ben to the rescue.
Greed is back on Wall Street, and it’s a GOOD THING! Forget about mortgage fraud and massive giveaways of monies from the U.S. Treasury to Megabank, Inc and focus on how you can get in on the New Year’s bull market!
Dec. 13, 2010, 2:40 a.m. EST
Welcome back, bull market
Commentary: Greed returns to Wall Street, and it’s about time
By Jon Markman, MarketWatch
SEATTLE (MarketWatch) — Like the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano signal the start of spring, the return of hostile takeovers and one-day IPO doubles heralds a return of the bull market to Wall Street.
Two years ago at this time, it was “Get me out of IBM at any price, stat!” Now Chinese dot-coms are jumping 150% before the coffee cools, and corporate boards are hoisting the Jolly Roger to prey on wounded rivals.
This sentiment swing is much clearer than any statistical review could be. Forget that stocks have walked up and down the unchanged line in the past week like prisoners on a chain gang. The fact is that the smell of greed is in the air, raising the curtain on a new year likely to brim with excess and more excess.
…
“one-day IPO doubles ”
A one day IPO double only means that the investment bank stole 50% of its client’s operating capital. Nothing more or less.
Wrong Polly. It also means the market is fast approaching a “mania-top”.
Assuming that the market is still an efficient resource allocator/distributor at that point.
market pulse
Dec. 13, 2010, 11:05 a.m. EST
Fed buys $7.79 bln in U.S. debt; bonds stay down
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — … After the announcement, the broader bond market stayed down.
Isn’t this less than would be expected under their $600B announcement?
I thought the announcement was for $600B over 8 months, or about $75B/mo. If this report is for a week, then it is less than half (1/2.4)of the expected weekly purchase rate.
Which begs the question: did the Fed cut purchases last week to let rates bounce up for political reasons?
“…did the Fed cut purchases last week to let rates bounce up for political reasons?”
That was my question of a day-or-so ago. In particular, is the Fed expressing its opinion in the bond market on the tax cut proposal?
Yeah, I wondered the same thing last week when rates bounced, but read your comment too late to discuss, PB…
It is interesting that their weekly release of the purchase data seems to confirm that speculation.
If anything, I would expect them to buy MORE Treasuries when the price was lower than anticipated, and less when the price was higher than anticipated (e.g. their manipulation is less needed). They seem to be doing the opposite of what I would expect based on their stated intentions.
It seems like it has been years already since HBB posters had a blast mocking those who bury St. Joseph’s statue in their yards to help move a money pit on to the next unsuspecting knife catcher. I’ve said it before and I will probably eventually say it again, but all you need to do to sell a home is to lower the asking price to a level where someone is willing to buy it. No creativity nor magic is necessary.
* DECEMBER 13, 2010
Desperate Times, Desperate Measures
How do you sell a house in this market? By being really creative.
By AMY HOAK
…
A Little Magic
Some homeowners and agents want to feel like they’re doing everything they can to make a sale, and that can include dabbling in superstition, religious beliefs and other ancient customs.
Displaying oranges during showings, for example. Oranges are associated with good fortune in Chinese culture, says Cindy Lin, general manager of Staged4more Home Staging and Redesigns, a South San Francisco company that helps sell homes with decorating and other techniques.
Another tactic: sprinkling salt over the doorway. Vanessa Sidi Wells, an agent who deals in luxury real estate around Miami and Palm Beach, Fla., says it “might be an old wives tale, but I wouldn’t want a black cat to cross my path, so why not the salt?”
On the more spiritual side, some sellers bury statues of St. Joseph in the yard to help facilitate a sale. The origins of the tradition are unclear, but Phil Cates, founder of StJosephStatue.com, thinks it likely originated in a story about a nun in the 1500s. The nun buried a St. Joseph medallion to help her find land to build a home where she and four poor women could live, Mr. Cates says. At some point, the medallions were replaced with statues.
…
The nun buried a St. Joseph medallion to help her find land to build a home where she and four poor women could live
And now people bury it to sell over priced crap shacks…
Most would like to bury it head-first in their Realtor’s fat bum.
How do you sell a house in any market?
Lower the price until it sells.
“How do you sell a house in any market”
How do you make a millon dollars in Real Estate?
Start with two million dollars.
That’s sort of like owning a boat!
“How do get a 2 million dollar boar? Start with a 1 million dollar boat.”
Nearly 50 percent of Florida mortgages underwater or near underwater
by Kim Miller
A CoreLogic report released this morning shows 46.4 percent of Florida mortgages are in negative equity, while another 4 percent are nearing negative equity.
Negative equity, also called being underwater or upside down, is when the amount owed on a mortgage is greater than the home is worth.
In Palm Beach County, 43 percent of homes are in negative equity with another 4 percent near negative equity.
Nationwide, 22.5 percent of all residential properties with mortgages were in negative equity at the end of the third quarter of this year, down from 23 percent in the second quarter.
Historical data for Florida and Palm Beach County was not immediately avaliable.
“Negative equity is a primary factor holding back the housing market and broader economy,” said Mark Fleming, cheif economist with CoreLogic. “The good news is that negative equity is slowly declining, but the bad news is that price declines are accelerating, which may put a stop to or reverse the recent improvement in negative equity.”
Meanwhile in Tucson, that pesky law prof, Brent White, is at it again. And now he’s writing books:
Underwater Home: What Should You Do if You Owe More on Your Home than It’s Worth?
From his website:
Underwater Home is both an emotional and practical guide for the underwater homeowner. Professor White explains when it makes financial sense to stay in your underwater home and when it makes sense to get out. He explains your options and gives you the facts that will empower you to make the best decision for your family, free from guilt or fear, and with clarity, confidence, and peace of mind.
Damn near 50%. Wow.
Judge in Va. strikes down federal health care law
By LARRY O’DELL The Associated Press
Posted: 12:23 p.m. Monday, Dec. 13, 2010
RICHMOND, Va. — A federal judge declared the Obama administration’s health care law unconstitutional Monday, siding with Virginia’s attorney general in a dispute that both sides agree will ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
U.S. District Judge Henry E. Hudson is the first federal judge to strike down the law, which has been upheld by two others in Virginia and Michigan. Several other lawsuits have been dismissed and others are pending, including one filed by 20 other states in Florida
A federal judge declared the Obama administration’s health care law unconstitutional Monday, siding with Virginia’s attorney general in a dispute that both sides agree will ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
That’s one small step for “conservatives”, one giant leap for a public option.
Be careful what you ask for.
Eliminate the requirement for people to get insurance, but maintain the prohibition on excluding people with pre-existing conditions, and the private insurance market goes POOF!
Single payer here we come!
POOF? That’s all? Just POOF?
How about these instead?
Kaboom!
Ka-pow!
Wham!
Ker-flewie!
You say that like it’s bad thing.
So they go poof.
First, that is not going to happen. Their profit margins get eaten up a little bit and that’s about it.
Second, so what if they go away? Guess what? That means either doctors and hospitals lower their costs, or they too, go out business.
Downward pressure on costs and prices isn’t just for RE.
If I’m understanding this decision correctly, the judge struck down the part of the law that requires us to buy health insurance. From the private insurance industry. I’m sure said industry isn’t too happy about this decision.
Me? I’m so happy I think I’ll go turn a cartwheel out in the living room. Anything that brings us closer to the end of the private health insurance industry’s stranglehold over us is a good thing, IMHO.
OK, The Health care lobby spent hundreds of millions crafting Obamacare. On the other hand The Chamber of Commerce, Tea Party candidates all spent millions to repeal it. So what will the health care industry do to protect the parts they put into the law? I bet we see the whole thing turn into a interstate cross border system. States will set the rates, the state with the highest rates and most lax restrictions will become the new insurance capital of America. (See Visa/MC for example note where they incorporate vs. where they do billing). Don’t be surprised to see Arkansas or Oklahoma make a play for the deal.
“Obama’s Deal” A Documentary online (was on cable too) about the Healthcare Bill playing on the PBS Frontline website. Yeah, the Lobbyists won!
“Sick Around The World” same show online and very, very interesting. Universal Health Care does work better than what we have now, which is an expensive fooking mess.
What will obama do when the other 56 states rule like this on obamacare?
The individual mandate is just a de-facto tax increase. IANACL (I am not a Constitutional lawyer) but they’ll probably need to call the individual mandate a “fee” or some other window-dressing-esque verbiage and the ship will continue to sail.
Federal hybrid, diesel tax credits on new cars end this month
USA Today
We don’t want to be alarmists, but if you’re still on the fence about the whole hybrid thing, the clock is running out fast to get a tax credit.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005, which gave birth to the Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit, expires at the end of this year. As far as we know, there is no expected tax incentive for 2011. At the very least, the dollar amount of the credits is up in the air if any new legislation is enacted at all.
The termination will also affect some diesel-powered vehicles, such as the Mercedes-Benz ML320, that also get credits under the law. The $4,000 tax incentive on the compressed-natural-gas-powered 2011 Honda Civic GX will also go away.
Those $45k Chevy Volts are just gonna fly off the dealerships now.
Especially when you cat get lightly used V8 Mercedes and turbo BMWs for under 25k now (lightly used by my standards anyway).
Let’s see….. a 45k Chevy volt vs. a used Mercedes at 25k.
With a 20,000 lower investment (excluding the savings on sales tax and finance charges, dealer prep, etc) you could, at present fuel prices, drive (at 15 mpg) approximately 100,000 miles with the difference. 20000/3.00 per gallon x 15 mpg -
At 20,000 miles per year, you can drive for 5 years, sell the car for 15,000 and buy a motorcycle when gas gets to $5 per gallon.
Or, you could spend try to recover 20,000 from a used Volt that by then, no one will want.
good luck with the OBAMA motors plan. Of course, the primary buyer is the US taxpayer, so it really doesn’t need to make any mathematical sense, does it??
The Volt is DOA. Honda and Nissan will eat its lunch.
It was a stunning thing to me, when the government sacked Rick Wagoner and replaced him with Fritz Henderson. Henderson went on a Sunday morning talk show, Meet The Press I believe, and said that Wagoner was his good friend and mentor. I thought, is this the best way to get a new direction for GM?
It’s very similar to having the acolytes of Rubin and Paulson running the Treasury and the federal financial apparatus, and staffing said institutions. They’re just going to continue more-of-the-same policies. I mean, instead of stories about Wall Street being beggared, the architects of the financial crisis being ruined and going to jail, we hear about record bonuses on Wall Street.
And nothing really changing.
There REALLY needs to be a shakeup in DC for things to improve significantly.
Yeah, but who won American Idle this week?
So, how long can the federal government continue to run $1.3+ ($1.5 next year if the tax cut agreement passes) trillion a year deficits?
Interest rates have started creeping up already.
Dollar continues to slide as commodity prices climb in dollar terms. We’re going to get inflation without matching increases in wages making it even harder to haouseholds and businesses to service their debts….
It is clear we’re in the eye of the storm between head-fake collapse prevented by maximum government intervention, and the real collapse that happens when the government runs out of tricks and itself is swallowed by debt….
What I’m trying to figure out is, what form will the collapse take? Hyperinflation that destroys the purchasing power and standard of living of savers while showing the borrow and spenders the errors of their ways, or defaltion that rewards savers while punishing the players in the borrow and spend, burry yourself in debt crowd?
“Hyperinflation that destroys the purchasing power and standard of living of savers while showing the borrow and spenders the errors of their ways, or defaltion that rewards savers while punishing the players in the borrow and spend, burry yourself in debt crowd?”
Hyperinflation will not be the choice of the Fed; it is too helpful for debtors, and too harmful to lenders and moneyed interests.
Deflation will not be allowed by the Fed; they are far too fearful of it.
What other options are there?
How long? Until the next world war.
So maybe we should tell them.
Rich people have no idea what you’re thinking
http://bodyodd.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/12/13/5624389-rich-people-have-no-idea-what-youre-thinking
Wondering why your fat cat boss seems so clueless about why you don’t want to work extra shifts during the holidays? It could be because he can’t understand the dour looks you keep throwing his way.
Upper-class people are less adept at reading other people’s emotions than their lower-class counterparts, according to a new study published in the journal Psychological Science.
In other words, if you’re looking for a little empathy, you’re more likely to get it from a poor person than a rich one (just ask Bob Cratchit).
In a series of studies, more than 300 upper- and lower-class people were asked the interpret the emotions of people in photos and of strangers during mock job interviews.
In both cases, those with more education, money and self-defined social status weren’t nearly as adept at figuring out if a person was angry, happy, anxious or upset as their lower class colleagues.
“One of the negative side effects of that is that they’re less concerned and less perceptive of other people’s needs and wishes. They show a deficit in empathic accuracy.”
Kraus admits the results he and his colleagues came up with “scare us a little bit”…
Scary yes, surprising no.
It’s well known that “I’ve got mine, so up yours!” is prevalent in the well off. Now, an interesting study would be to do this study with kids, then see where they are 20 years later. Does lack of empathy for who you’re screwing over let you get ahead more easily? Or does getting ahead lead to a lack of empathy?
Often it leads to prison unless you come from a wealthy family that can buy you out of trouble.
What. A. Surprise.
The next thing you know, they’ll discover that rain is wet! Truly, a miraculous age of enlightenment we live in!
Dumb question of the day:
Has fraudulent accounting to hide losses always been SOP on Wall Street, or is this particular financial innovation an artifact of the Enron era?
I would venture that bank-book-cooking is the second-oldest profession.
Is that what allows you to afford the services of the oldest profession?
1500 people went to jail for the S&L crisis.
I think that gave us semi-honest bankers for about a generation.
For this current bank crisis - no one has gone to jail even though it is at least a magnitude order higher in fraud.
SOP and then some.
Folks making 9 million dollars year need a 400K tax cut because they benefited the most the past 30 years. Duhhh.
38.7 percent of all of the nation’s income growth went to the richest 1 percent from 1979 to 2007. The entire bottom 90 percent received 36.3 percent, a smaller share of income growth than the top 1 percent.
Our torn social contract
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Our-torn-social-contract-by-Brian-Cooney-101123-824.html
Our nation is drowning in debt, and we have the highest income inequality of any advanced industrial country. Yet Republicans demand that taxpayers with an average income of $8.4 million get a tax cut of $370,000.
Take it from Warren Buffet: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
In the face of very high unemployment, increasing poverty, homelessness and hunger, and growing numbers of people without health insurance, Republicans advocate cutbacks in social spending and repeal of Obama’s universal health insurance plan.
This destructive agenda is the culmination of a 30-year class war waged by the GOP and a wealthy elite against American working people. Let’s reflect on how we got to this point.
Markets create very unequal incomes. We accept such inequality because we believe that the prospect of greater income and higher status motivates people to work hard at producing goods and services that make us all better off. In the words of John F. Kennedy, we want “a rising tide [that] lifts all the boats.”
But what if a minority becomes vastly wealthier with little or no benefit to the rest of society? The measure of our income as a nation is the Gross Domestic Product — the dollar value of all the goods and services produced by American workers. What if the GDP grows steadily for decades while incomes rise only for an already affluent minority?
That’s what has happened here since 1980. The GDP per capita rose from $25,640 in 1980 to $43,714 in 2008 (in 2005 dollars). This growth was fueled by a steady rise in productivity (output per work hour) over the same period.
Yet, according to the Economic Policy Institute, 38.7 percent of all of the nation’s income growth went to the richest 1 percent from 1979 to 2007. The entire bottom 90 percent received 36.3 percent, a smaller share of income growth than the top 1 percent. The richest 10 percent received nearly 2/3 of the income growth, while the bottom 20 percent received almost nothing.
In the words of John F. Kennedy, we want “a rising tide [that] lifts all the boats.”
And JFK was a pretty wealthy guy. ISTR that he could have afforded to be president and not take a salary.
JFK did not take a salary while president. Neither did Herbert Hoover.
“A millionaire by age twenty-one, Kennedy was our wealthiest
President. The only President besides George Washington to decline his salary, he donated his to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, the United Negro College Fund and Jewish organizations.”
From: Page 67
“Lives of the Presidents: Fame, Shame (and What the Neighbors Thought)”
by Kathleen Krull, read using the “search inside” feature at Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/015200808X/
Mr. Hoover’s personal policy throughout his public career was to accept no compensation for any public service, though when he worked for the Government as Secretary of Commerce and President, he was required by law to accept a salary.
In an interview with Charles Scott, editor of the Iola (Kansas) Daily Register in January, 1937, Herbert Hoover explained:
“I made up my mind when I entered public life that I would not make it possible for anyone ever to say that I had sought public office for the money there was in it. I therefore kept the money that came to me as salary in a separate account and distributed it where I thought it would do the most good. Part of it went to supplement the salaries of men who worked under me and whom the government paid less than I thought they were worth. Part of it went to charities.”
“And JFK was a pretty wealthy guy.”
Back in the late 50s Joseph P was upset with John F for spending $50k/month on incidentals.
“Markets create very unequal incomes.”
Is that with or out crony capitalism and heads-we-win/tails-you’re-screwed bailouts?
“Markets create very unequal incomes.”
Is that with or out crony capitalism and heads-we-win/tails-you’re-screwed bailouts?
The article continued:
In an advanced capitalist economy, nearly all workers depend on getting jobs from a minority that controls the capital that funds workplaces. So there is a great imbalance in power between labor and management.
Such imbalance, left unchecked, leads to inadequate compensation and poor working conditions for employees. This weakens the sense of solidarity necessary for a healthy society. It’s hard for workers to feel that “we’re all in this together” if their health and welfare is at the mercy of managers whose only concern is the bottom line.
To check this imbalance, capitalist democracies have relied on several institutions. They created publicly funded social insurance programs (e.g. social security and Medicaid) to protect citizens from the worst effects of fluctuations in the labor market. They legislated minimum wages and workplace safety.
They supported labor unions to give workers strength in unity against the powerful minority of investors and managers. One of FDR’s greatest achievements was passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, which enshrined the rights of laborers to form unions and engage in collective bargaining.
This was a period during which workers’ share of America’s total income kept pace with economic growth, and union-negotiated wages and benefits enabled many factory workers to join the middle class. There was a social contract in effect: Labor and management were cooperating for the common good.
This social contract had some degree of bipartisan support until the election of Reagan in 1980.
Reagan’s election marked a radical shift in conventional wisdom about the role of government in a capitalist society. …
…The only legitimate function of government was to enable markets to flourish. Private enterprise could handle everything else. Under Reagan and Bush, large tax cuts and unfunded wars left government without the resources for an adequate social safety net. GDP growth slowed to only 1.92 percent per year.
President Obama is hinting at compromise with Republicans on tax cuts for the rich. He seems intent on making nice with the managerial elite who worked against him in the recent election.
What a sad contrast with FDR. Campaigning for a second term, he told a throng at Madison Square Garden: “Never before in all our history have these forces [Organized Money] been so united. . . . They are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred.”
This growth was fueled by a steady rise in productivity (output per work hour) over the same period.”
I would bet this is because of the computer and internet.
frees up workers to do more productive creative work …..
besides flipping homes I mean
No, it came from downsizing, offshoring and wage freezes.
I know. I lived through it.
As I’ve said, a society that puts a price on everything, values nothing.
In the face of very high unemployment, increasing poverty, homelessness and hunger, and growing numbers of people without health insurance, Repubicans advocate cutbacks in social spending and repeal of lil’ Opie’s universal health insurance plan.
“Heheeheheehee,…see ya!” (anonymous Shrub somewhere in Tayhos)
Worse, they succeeded in keeping tax breaks for offshoring jobs, but still blame poor people for being lazy.
News Hub: Housing Still on Edge as Credit Tightens
Dec. 13, 2010
Nick Timiraos discusses worry among economists that the housing market could be headed toward another downdraft as mortgage lenders tighten credit.
there shooting themselves in the foot tightening up credit.
What is the driver behind tightening credit though? Wall Street is making record bonuses. The federal government buys well over 90% of mortgages. The federal government has made it clear that the health of banks is the most important part of the economy and they will shovel as much public money to them as necessary.
Who or what is forcing banks to tighten credit? I don’t deny it’s happening. I just looked at three banks sites and it looks like downpayments are running around 10-13%. The closing costs are apparently listed on the web site for at least one of them. What’s the driver? Just the government saying they won’t buy mortgages unless they meet certain criteria?
Fewer Homes `Underwater’ Last Quarter as Foreclosures Rose
The number of U.S. homes worth less than the debt owed on them dropped in the third quarter, largely because of mounting foreclosures rather than a rise in property values, according to CoreLogic Inc .
More Underwater Homes Slip Through Cracks and Become Foreclosure Statistics. Shadow Looms:
-fixed the headline for ‘em.
~ Never happen, and even if they said they were, they wouldn’t!
Banning Big Wall Street Bonuses Favored by 70% of Americans
More than 70 percent of Americans say big bonuses should be banned this year at Wall Street firms that took taxpayer bailouts, a Bloomberg National Poll shows.
The problem is that the remaining 30 percent could by the other 70 percent a thousand times over. And our government doesn’t work for free - wink, wink.
buy.
More than 70 percent of Americans say big bonuses should be banned this year at Wall Street firms that took taxpayer bailouts,
That is pretty amazing actually, and hopeful.
70% of Americans agreeing on something like this could indicate a seachange of attitude.
I bet it’s because of my posts last week.
Like Wall St. or the government care what most people think.
Like Wall St. or the government care what most people think.
Sometime what they “care” has nothing to do with it, about every 80 years.
1770’s, 1860’s, 1930’s………
I’m not holding my breath.
I’m not holding my breath.
That might be a good sign for returning change. If you don’t believe it, then the foes of equality and egalitarianism most certainly don’t either.
George Santayana, who, in his Reason in Common Sense, The Life of Reason, Vol.1, wrote
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Rooted in the philosophies of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and many others to follow,
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_said_Those_who_ignore_history_are_bound_to_repeat_it#ixzz1839z6wkO
Pesky history again.
Cake?
Comment by GrizzlyBear
2010-12-13 06:21:18
“I’m calling BS on these high commodities prices, and the forecasts for even more gains in 2011. They are going to kill what little economic growth might even exist.”
I used to think the same.
However, consider this. There are 7x as many people in Chindia as the USA. If we’re consuming $120 a day per person and they are consuming $1 a day per, all we need to do is get them to $5 a day to more than consume the excess resources resulting from inevitable fall in the standard of living in the USA… by say 25%.
In order for them to consume 5x as much per person, we would have to buy 5x as much useless Chinese garbage at WalMart and I think we are already maxxed out. Now if wefare checks quintupled in value, all bets are off.
DARRELL!
Dude! Where you been? Welcome back.
Rep. Ron Paul, G.O.P. Loner, Comes In From Cold
Jim Cole/Associated Press
Ron Paul in November 2007 campaigning for president. He is considering another run in 2012.
By KATE ZERNIKE
Published: December 12, 2010
WASHINGTON — As virtually all of Washington was declaring WikiLeaks’s disclosures of secret diplomatic cables an act of treason, Representative Ron Paul was applauding the organization for exposing the United States’ “delusional foreign policy.”
For this, the conservative blog RedState dubbed him “Al Qaeda’s favorite member of Congress.”
It was hardly the first time that Mr. Paul had marched to his own beat. During his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, he was best remembered for declaring in a debate that the 9/11 attacks were the Muslim world’s response to American military intervention around the globe. A fellow candidate, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, interrupted and demanded that he take back the words — a request that Mr. Paul refused.
During his 20 years in Congress, Mr. Paul has staked out the lonely end of 434-to-1 votes against legislation that he considers unconstitutional, even on issues as ceremonial as granting Mother Teresa a Congressional Gold Medal. His colleagues have dubbed him “Dr. No,” but his wife will insist that they have the spelling wrong: he is really Dr. Know.
Now it appears others are beginning to credit him with some wisdom — or at least acknowledging his passionate following.
After years of blocking him from a leadership position, Mr. Paul’s fellow Republicans have named him chairman of the House subcommittee on domestic monetary policy, which oversees the Federal Reserve as well as the currency and the valuation of the dollar.
…
C-Span is about to get a lot more entertaining!
`Shadow’ Lenders’ Emergency Fed Loans Benefited Biggest Banks
The Federal Reserve gave more support to the world’s biggest financial companies, including Barclays Plc , Citigroup Inc. and Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, than the direct loans it disclosed this month in response to congressional mandates.
Government Unions vs. Taxpayers
The moral case for unions—protecting working families from exploitation—does not apply to public employment.
By TIM PAWLENTY ~ WSJ
When Americans think of organized labor, they might think of images like I saw growing up in a blue-collar meatpacking town: hard hats, work boots, tough conditions and gritty jobs. While I didn’t work in the slaughterhouses, I did become a union member when I worked at a grocery store to help put myself through school. I was grateful for the paycheck and proud of the work I did.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703766704576009350303578410.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
We live in a democratic republic. ANYONE working for the government should do so at the sufferance of the citizens. If congressmen or governors displease us, we vote them out. The same “lack of tenure rights” should apply all the way down to all government employees at all levels of government. If a clerk at the DMV is rude to you, he should be summarily fired and tossed face down in the gutter where he belongs.
Never mind them blizzards and frigid temperatures; global warming is real. Reminds me of when people say “I know this church is true;” “I know this climate change is real” has a similar ring to it. One man’s science is another man’s religion.
Snow storm snarls Midwest: Is US facing another extreme winter?
A giant snow storm wreaking havoc on the Midwest is sending blasts of frigid air plunging toward the Southeast. Sound familiar? The atmospheric dynamics are still somewhat of a mystery.
By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer / December 13, 2010
Atlanta
The driving early snow storms and piercing cold winds blasting the Midwest, South, and East coast – throwing commutes, air traffic, and football schedules into chaos – are the result of poorly understood atmospheric dynamics that may upset predictions of a milder winter for the eastern half of the US.
Scientists at the University of Wisconsin in Madison are among those trying to understand the mysterious interplay between Pacific and north Atlantic weather phenomena that threaten to dunk the Eastern US into a second year in a row of 1970s style blizzards and cold snaps.
“At this point, this winter looks similar to last winter,” says Jonathan Martin, an atmospheric scientist at Wisconsin. “The next question is, why does it look similar, and we’re currently not in a position to say definitely what’s going on. There are some interrelationships between big pieces of circulation anomaly that feed into one another, including an anomalous pattern over Greenland that’s tied into convection in the tropical Pacific Ocean.”
…
Never mind them blizzards and frigid temperatures; global warming is real.
But massive global trends don’t always exactly correlate with the seasonal realities of St. Louis.
NOAA: 2010 Tied with 1998 as Warmest Global Temperature on Record
Summer 2010 the second warmest on record, Arctic sea ice continues its 14-year decline
Global climate CHANGE. Is that better? Not to mention overall each year is warmer, your one month makes a trend logic is why we are in trouble.
ps. 91 in San Diego this week!
“ps. 91 in San Diego this week!”
Did you notice how warmer climates correlate with higher housing prices? It’s because everyone wants to live in a warmer clime. If Greenland’s ice shelf melts, their real estate values will skyrocket. Would this be a tragedy in your estimation?
Harmonic imbalance, how does it work?
Asynchronous oscillation, how does it work?
2nd Law of Thermodynamics, how does it work?
Jr high psychics is be hard.
Q#$&*) Q#*)$&_ magnets, how do they work?
“One
man’swoeman’s science is another Corpoorations religion.”Carson “quite self-consciously decided to write a book calling into question the paradigm of scientific progress that defined postwar American culture.”
The overriding theme of Silent Spring is the powerful—and often negative—effect humans have on the natural world.
Lies, Lies, Lies
The New Foundation of the Financial System
Bill Bonner
Reporting from Baltimore, Maryland…
Let’s begin by thinking about this, a quote from The Daily Bell:
“The problem with where America is now is that the country has been built on one lie after another for the past decade and the lies show no signs of slowing down.”
And then, there’s this from Charles Hugh Smith via Marc Faber:
“[T]he status quo would collapse were systemic fraud and complicity banished… They have become the foundation of the US economy and financial system…”
You will recall how Goldman Sachs wowed the whole world with its dazzling trading. Day in, day out…the traders at Goldman made money. The firm turned in “perfect” trading quarters, with not a single day showing a loss.
Surely, one of the junior traders would have miscalculated at least once? Or a seasoned old pro, after a well-irrigated lunch, take his fat finger and hit the wrong button? Nope. Not once did Goldman’s trading machine err. It was uncanny. Almost unnatural.
Who was on the other side of those trades, we wondered? Trading is a zero sum game. One side wins. The other loses. So some poor schmuck must have taken a loss for every gain earned by Goldman’s geniuses. Imagine him taking his lumps day after day…and still coming back for more. How could anyone stand so many losses? What kind of fighter could take that kind of beating and still be on his feet? And yet, there were no major new bankruptcies announced during that period. How was it possible? Who was losing all that money?
We were perplexed.
But now we know who the schmuck was…the poor sap was us! Had it not been for Senator Bernie Sanders from the Green Mountain State, who insisted that the Federal Reserve expose its shenanigans to the outside world, we would never have known what had happened to the Fed’s $3.3 trillion in bailout cash. Now we know. Goldman helped itself 212 times - roughly every business day - during the 12 month period beginning in March ‘09, all the while telling the world that it needed no bailout.
Lies, lies, lies…
“Goldman helped itself 212 times - roughly every business day - during the 12 month period beginning in March ‘09, all the while telling the world that it needed no bailout.
Lies, lies, lies…”
Cluck, cluck, cluck… (loudly clucks tongue).
now there telling everyone to buy stocks again.Biggest crooks out there my friend.
“GoldmanSachs” is just a logical construct. The people there are interested in one thing, and it is perfectly normal and natural - they are interested in their own personal gain. The system which allows them to continue to gain is put in place and allowed to flourish by politicians.
People need to understand at whose feet the ultimate blame needs to be placed. If we don’t want continue looting of the public treasury, we need to understand root causes of the American economic crisis.
Lies, Lies, Lies.. yeah!
Great Thompson Twins song!
Nope. No “nefarious” acquisition of wealth there. No siree!
Based on this, we really should have total and unquestioning respect for the rich and wealthy! Otherwise we’re just envious and jealous and that is so… declasse’.
GoldenmanSucks behaves exactly like my personal financial adviser:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3092/2833346196_7c46db1c38.jpg
Nearly half of elderly in U.S. will face poverty ~ MSNBC
64.6% of black Americans and 32.7% whites will face poverty, study says
Mark R. Rank, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said the results of his research contradict popular beliefs about the economic stability of America’s elderly population.
Elderly black Americans are almost twice as likely as whites to sink to the poverty level, according to the study. It estimates 64.6 percent of black Americans and 32.7 whites will face poverty.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40645099/ns/business-us_business/
Nearly half of elderly in U.S. will face poverty
Half of elderly to face poverty.
Banks and rich bailed out and protected.
Republicans want to cut social security and safety nets.
That’s quite a recipe there.
Ain’t that America!
“Reduce the Deficit NOW!” + “Extend Shrub’s wealthy tax credits perpetually!” = we’re “Compassionate CONserveMYwealthican’s”
You left out “…and keep tax breaks for offshoring jobs while blaming the poor for being lazy.”
They were obviously lazy and mismanaged their money.
Losers!
Here’s another story that says really nothing, but sounds all sorts of dramatic. Define “poverty”. They don’t. I assume that means the US govt. standard of today that if you make less than 15,000 a year you are poor.
Old folks, with paid off houses, a small savings account, and a check from Uncle Sammy will be deemed as “living in poverty”, but with very low expenses from having worked and saved all their lives, it should be a very comfortable living. This assumes, of course, that the FED doesn’t destroy their nest eggs with hyperinflation.
But I really think the story is really scary, with no supporting data, as usual. Just the reports of “experts”.
Oh, wait. you mean all these old folks still have mortgage payments at 65 and didn’t save any money?? That just can’t be so. It must be the fault of “society”. We need the government to do something.
oh, and sense we are filling up Ben’s blog with all sorts of extraneous socialist propaganda, i figured i’d pull a piece from Wikipedia to see what they have on the subject:
Overstating poverty
Homeless American
When you hear that someone is “poor,” it brings to mind images of a person who may be homeless and malnourished. Fortunately, however, that description is not reflective of the majority of individuals labeled as poor by the federal government. The 2000 Census indicates that 73% of U.S. poor own automobiles, 76% have air conditioning, 97% own refrigerators, 62% have cable or satellite TV, and 73% have microwaves. There are many homeless and malnourished individuals in the United States, but the poverty thresholds are high enough to include many individuals who live with some modern comforts.
Instead of being homeless, almost half (46%) own their own homes with most of the rest renting their homes. On average a poor person in this country lives in a home with 1,228 square feet (114.1 m2) which they often own, and as noted the home is likely air conditioned, with a refrigerator, cable or satellite TV, a microwave not to mention many other comforts.[48] Cox and Alm[49] conclude that if the American poor formed a country of their own, they would be as well-off or even slightly better-off than the typical family in most European countries.
Non-cash income is ignored when measuring poverty rates. Welfare benefits provided in-kind such as food stamps and public housing are excluded. Even though such benefits may raise the standard of living for recipients, they, by definition, remain impoverished under federal guidelines.[50] On the other hand, benefits provided in the form of cash, such as social security benefits, are included in income. This explains, in part, why the poverty rate for older Americans is lower than the poverty rate for younger Americans.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2008 Consumer Spending Survey, reported purchases by the poorest fifth of Americans are more than twice as much as reported income. Specifically, the poorest fifth of Americans reported $10,263 of income on average, but reported spending $22,304.[51] How this group could spend, on average, more than twice as much as it reported as income is unclear. Possible explanations include significant amounts of unreported income, borrowing, and the spending of previously accumulated wealth. A 1993 study of low income single mothers titled Making Ends Meet, by Kathryn Edin, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, showed that the mothers spent more than their reported incomes because they could not “make ends meet” without such expenditures. According to Edin, they made up the difference through contributions from family members, absent boyfriends, off-the-book jobs, and church charity.
According to Edin: “No one avoided the unnecessary expenditures, such as the occasional trip to the Dairy Queen, or a pair of stylish new sneakers for the son who might otherwise sell drugs to get them, or the Cable TV subscription for the kids home alone and you are afraid they will be out on the street if they are not watching TV.”[52]
According to Cox and Alm, poverty rates might be misleading because they merely measure the number of people living under the poverty line, but do not tell us qualitatively how well-off the average people below and people above the poverty line are, thereby potentially providing a distorted picture of people’s well-being in that country.[49] This means that a country with a higher rate of absolute poverty is not necessarily a country of average worse-off people, or even a country of some very poor and some very rich people: While there is about double as much poverty in the US compared to many European countries,[6] average Americans might turn out to be much better-off than average Europeans: Bergström and Gidehag of the Swedish libertarian think tank Timbro provide data indicating that the average Americans are in fact rich by European standards.
But I really think the story is really scary, with no supporting data, as usual. Just the reports of “experts”.
I know. With suspicious “intellectual” graduate degrees and stuff.
The author might not have even been one of us.
But I really think the story is really scary, with no supporting data, as usual. Just the reports of “experts”.
Agreed, lacking data it’s conjecture.
Agreed, lacking data it’s conjecture.
You live in America and you doubt it?? Why?? From what I’ve seen 1/2 is optimistic.
Nope. No numbers here. And not researched by Washington University in St. Louis, either.
Elderly black Americans are almost twice as likely as whites to sink to the poverty level, according to the study. It estimates 64.6 percent of black Americans and 32.7 whites will face poverty.
“There are historical differences between whites and African-Americans. In all age groups, African-Americans are more likely at lower paying jobs and have much less assets,” Rank explained.
As with income poverty, the study which was published in “Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services,” showed a sharp racial divide in poverty.
While 58 percent of those between 60 and 84 will at some point fail to have enough liquid assets to allow them to get through unanticipated expenses or declining income, African-Americans were found to be 2.4 times more likely to experience asset poverty.
The study also highlights the role of education in the financial future of the elderly, Rank said.
Nearly 50 percent of people with less than 12 years of education are likely to experience poverty, compared to 20.5 percent with more than 12 years.
the numbers are basically crap because the don’t define: POVERTY> and i don’t care if they have a stack of “DEGREES”, most college professors are leftists with a particular viewpoint they try to reinforce by fitting the data to fit the facts.
There’s an interesting article on poverty on Wikipedia that DEFINES what is often considered “poverty” and makes a mockery of this PUFF piece. I posted a portion here, but it did not post.
so go look it up yourself.
They don’t count foodstamps as “income” and don’t count money from other sources other than what is reported. if you have a paid off house, 15,000 in claimed income and other sources of support, you are living better than most people in the world, including EUROPEANS, so these people are NOT poor.
Poverty is easily defined by… the Census.gov
Google, how does it work?
most college professors are leftists with a particular viewpoint they try to reinforce by fitting the data to fit the facts.
I kno.
and the worstest part is that they got alot of that highfalutin “education” stuff. and they keep throwing around math and numbers at us
Radio talker Neal Boortz describes British youth who are protesting the government’s long overdue austerity program:
“These are spoiled rotten British Euro-weenie punks with all of the answers to all of the problems facing their country. They are pathetic little pasty-faced babies who are afraid that their grand entitlement ride might get to be just a little bumpy. They’ve been launching paintball attacks, smashing windows, vandalizing property including the Prince’s limo and government buildings. Why? Because they can. Because it’s fun. Because this is what children do when you take their pacifier away from them.”
That Neal really has a talent for name-calling.
Yea, old Boortz gets carried away, but then again it’s the way some radio talkers generate listeners. Always trying to turn a buck.
I guess I’ve been hangin’ around NCE (non-commercial educational) radio for way too long. I just don’t get the point of all the name-calling.
It’s what bullies do best.
“These are spoiled rotten British Euro-weenie punks with all of the answers to all of the problems facing their country. They are pathetic little pasty-faced babies who are afraid that their grand entitlement ride might get to be just a little bumpy.
Perfect. This is grand. This is what one of his ilk would say when rattled.
Nothing scares blowhard, right-wing, criminal, apologist mouthpieces such as Neal Boortz more than people rising up to the man.
Get ready for more.
The real irony is that he is describing himself.
That self loathing must strike at the most inopportune times and cost a fortune in booze!
Or is it prescription drugs these days? I should send an email to Rush Limbaugh and see what the expert has to say.
People urging a return to sound money are still considered crackpots by political leaders, the mainstream news media, and a majority of Americans - but as the U.S. dollar loses its status in the world economy the idea of returning to an honest money system is gathering steam.
“The fiat-money, central banking system has been around for 100 years and has reached the end of its manipulative life. Central banks around the world de-linked from gold some 40 years ago and this has gradually ruined the credibility and value of the world’s reserve currency, the dollar. Now Russia, China and even South American countries are trying to remove themselves from dollar dependency. There is much talk of re-linking paper money to some sort of underlying commodity so that governments (like the US) cannot spend themselves into oblivion.”
~~ What next for the dollar?
Going down to 18 here in central S.C. tonight with a wind chill around 10-12. The heat pump is out gunned, fire place is loaded and ready to fire off. We have a repeat tomorrow night, then a little reprieve. It’s well below our typical temps for this time of year, haven’t had to wear long johns in a while.
The tree is up with it’s little clear light’s, first real tree we’ve had in years, it does smell great!
18? That’s balmy
Try 20 below (very rare out here, but it does happen)
18? That’s balmy
90 today with humidity so thick you could spoon it. It feels like a jungle or something.
I’m not bragging. I don’t like it that much as I sit in my little den with my 5200 btu energy star window unit beautifully humming. I’d say Rio has 7-8 months of weather that I like (65 to 80 degrees.)
‘WPB FL.
Unprecedented’ hard freeze
could drop morning wind chill to 13
Shelters will open at 7 p.m.; farmers are bracing for record lows; and the zoo is making special arrangements to keep animals warm.
This weather is so odd….it was 47 degrees here in Boise this afternoon. Supposed to go down to 39 degrees tonight.
There’s just something wrong about it being colder in SC, GA, and parts of FL than Boise in mid December.
Agreed. We are getting rain in eastern WA right now, which is making one heck of a mess given the snow and ice still present.
Kleptocracy, alternatively cleptocracy or kleptarchy, from Greek: κλέπτης (thieve) and κράτος (rule), is a term applied to a government subject to control fraud that takes advantage of governmental corruption to extend the personal wealth and political power of government officials and the ruling class (collectively, kleptocrats), via the embezzlement of state funds at the expense of the wider population, sometimes without even the pretense of honest service. The term means “rule by thieves”. Not an “official” form of government (such as democracy, republic, monarchy, theocracy) the term is a pejorative for governments perceived to have a particularly severe and systemic problem with the selfish misappropriation of public funds by those in power.
You have problem with Corporate Communist Capitalism©®™, comrade?
“In an era where forecasts by permabears have gotten ample attention and vindication, few are as disturbing as this: a world recession until 2018.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-12/recession-lasting-until-2018-worth-exploring-commentary-by-william-pesek.html
So I guess BofA will keep repo’d homes off the market until then.
I guess they will keep ‘em off the market until they crumble into dilapidated desuetude?
Well, they can’t possibly lose to the other banks. This is about banks, not homes, dammit!
Well after all, this is about saving banks, not people.
At least until their investors bankrupt them in court.
“Funding one means greater borrowing and the way to do it is by tapping private-sector cash, Japan-style.”
I’m lost. It hasn’t worked in Japan, but we should follow their lead?
Is there some reverse currency psychology going on here? Since the US has done the opposite (loans from China instead of its own people), and that hasn’t worked, doing the opposite of that will now work? (somehow, in spite of Japan’s failure to stimulate?)
Comment by pressboardbox
2010-12-13 13:29:25
“In order for them[Chindia] to consume 5x as much per person, we would have to buy 5x as much useless Chinese garbage at WalMart and I think we are already maxxed out. Now if wefare checks quintupled in value, all bets are off.”
Ummm…. I think you miss the point of us consuming less and them consuming more.
Why could they not start buying, using, then trashing some of those cheap products themselves?
They are. Internal Chinese demand is now self sustaining.
Internal Chinese demand is now self sustaining.
Don’t say that. It makes some people mad.
They’re already “mad”.
I have now had the economy claim the lives of 2 acquaintances, both suicides.
Both from being too poor. Both just regular hard working guys trying support their families.
Excuse me if I have little patience for the neocon brand of compassion of some of you posters.
Now ask me if I effing care what you think care.
ASK ME!
Curious, were firearms used?
No. A bank account and loss of income was.
Now you have piqued my curiosity. How does one end it all with a bank account?
I’m too pissed for a witty answer.
Sorry.
WOW!
(Hwy looks for an old school video: The Fisher King)
A central theme of the film, … is grace and forgiveness.
“Who amongst us believes “The Holy Grail” was Golden? you sire?…(quite on the set!), for the noble Knight of the Right, Sir Glenbeckinstan speaketh!
Indeed Sir Galahad.
Wow. Sorry, bro. Or bro-ette. (But I think it’s bro.)
“Yves Smith, whom I respect, posted the following at naked capitalism:
Tomorrow, a group of homeowners is meeting with Iowa’s attorney general Tom Miller, who is leading the 50-state effort which is investigating foreclosure and mortgage lending abuses.
This group is presenting a letter to Miller asking them to prosecute bank executives for mortgage fraud and wants to show broad-based support for this idea via having concerned citizens sign it.
Here is the text of their letter:
Dear Attorneys General,
We, the undersigned thank you for investigating fraudulent and illegal foreclosure practices by the nation’s biggest banks.
Your investigation is the best hope for homeowners and communities since this crisis began. Americans are watching. Our expectations are high that we will see justice for the millions of families who have lost their homes, the millions more who are at risk of foreclosure, and the neighborhoods across the country devastated by falling housing values and vacant properties as a result of widespread mortgage fraud.
The bank executives who committed fraud should be prosecuted. Any settlement needs to go beyond fixing paperwork, fully addressing ongoing abuse and ending the flood of unnecessary foreclosures.
We demand that any overarching settlement agreement contain mandatory loan modification programs, including principal reduction for owner-occupant families facing foreclosure and remedies for those families who have already lost their homes.
Now is the time for bold leadership from the nation’s Attorney Generals to hold big banks accountable for the damage they have done to families, communities and the nation’s economy.”
The letter is at crimeshouldntpay com
I haven’t been able to keep up with you all, so excuse me if this has been posted already, I thought some of you might like it.
May have been posted before - post date is 2/10/2009 - but still worth considering. The question of zombie banks.
Zombie Firms And Zombie Banks
Thomas F. Cooley, 02.11.09, 12:01 AM EST
http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/10/recession-tarp-japan-opinions-columnists_0211_thomas_cooley.html
Thomas F. Cooley, the Paganelli-Bull professor of economics and Richard R. West dean of the NYU-Stern School of Business, writes a weekly column for Forbes.
* REVIEW & OUTLOOK
* DECEMBER 14, 2010
The Bond Rout and the Fed
The rise in bond yields is a sign that the economy is improving.
The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee meets today amid lots of chin-pulling and moaning about the recent rout in the bond market. Wasn’t the idea to reduce bond yields? What’s going on out there?
Count us among the optimists who think this is good news, a sign that markets are concluding that the economy is improving as major policy obstacles recede and the risk of deflation vanishes, if it ever existed.
The bond rout is hardly surprising given the previous rush to Treasurys in the anticipation of the Fed’s second round of quantitative easing and the summer deflation scare. (See nearby chart.) Treasury yields hit historic lows, and a correction is hardly surprising or worrisome unless you bought in at the yield bottom. The return to a more normal yield curve is good news to the extent it makes investors look to assets other than government bonds. Banks should see higher earnings, too, boosting their ability to repair their balance sheets. Even corporate junk bonds are suddenly in vogue.
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Provided long-term rates keep increasing, the Fed’s policy is certainly going to work to help make housing more affordable!
Enjoy your dollar’s worth of spam (the edible sort)!
The value of a dollar
Kai Ryssdal talks to photographer Jonathan Blaustein about his “Value of a dollar” project, where he photographs a dollar’s worth of various types of food.
The MSM hasn’t run out of unaffordable housing price cheerleaders just yet.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Fewer “underwater” homeowners, but housing outlook still murky
Fewer homeowners are “underwater” these days, meaning they don’t owe more on their mortgages than their houses are worth. But that news isn’t as good as one might hope. Mitchell Hartman reports.
Kai Ryssdal: We got one of those economic reports this morning that seems like good news, until you dig just a little bit deeper. Fewer people are underwater on their homes; that is, owing more on their mortgages than their houses are worth. A company called CoreLogic says the percent of homeowners in that predicament fell half a percent in the third quarter. If only the story were that simple.
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