Bits Bucket for December 31, 2010
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The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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I’ve made some good headway since Christmas on reading one of my gifts, Griftopia by Matt Taibbi. I am starting to think that books about the financial crisis should be rated for decency, the way that movies are rated. This one is definitely an NC17; it is not so much that the language is occasionally colorful enough to give a sailor pause, as that the acts of financial fraud described in this book which played out in recent years at the very core of the American financial system are so heinous and outlined so vividly that the book would shock any decent person to the core.
I strongly recommend anyone who wants to know the details of how the housing bubble happened, and how the Fed was surreptitiously culpable, should buy a copy of this book and read it as soon as possible — but don’t say I didn’t warn you about how appalled any decent person will feel as they read it! I guess none of this should be surprising, given the Fed’s license to carry out its affairs hidden from view and without accountability to the American people, above the Constitutional rule of law based on a system of checks and balances in governance. Reading this book will make you feel like you have lost your virginity again.
‘Griftopia’: The Financial Crisis Easily Explained
by NPR Staff
November 6, 2010
All Things Considered
Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America
By Matt Taibbi
November 6, 2010
In 2008, Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi was hanging around with the rest of the press corps after one of John McCain’s campaign speeches.
The Arizona senator and presidential candidate had railed about skyrocketing gas prices. “He was going into his whole drill-baby-drill routine,” Taibbi recalls. “The press corps were all joking about it afterward.”
As if the current price spike was a result of America’s failure to drill in Gulf of Mexico, they laughed. “Do we actually know what’s causing the spike in gas prices?” Taibbi asked. Silence followed. “Nobody knew the answer,” he says. “I didn’t know the answer.”
“It occurred to me, here we are covering an exploding economy — and none of us have any idea about what actually caused any of it.”
Since then, Taibbi’s columns have been a destination for those trying to understand what happened in the aftermath of the financial meltdown. His new book, Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids and the Long Con That Is Breaking America, tries to make the subject even clearer in the colorful language Taibbi’s readers know well.
“All these big institutional investors essentially got sold oregano when they thought they were buying weed,” Taibbi tells NPR’s Guy Raz.
Meet The ‘Vampire Squid’ Of The Financial Crisis
“What the mortgage bubble was all about was big banks like Goldman Sachs taking big bundles of subprime mortgages that were lent out largely to low-income, highly risky borrowers,” Taibbi says, “and applying this kind of magic-pixie-dust math to these bundles of securities and slapping AAA ratings on them.”
This wasn’t the worst of it, of course. While Goldman Sachs was selling these bundles, “they turned around and placed massive bets against the mortgage market knowing that it was going to collapse.”
“They took suckers like AIG, and they placed massive bets that this stuff was going to fail, and AIG stupidly took the bet and that’s what ended up blowing them up,” Taibbi says.
In Taibbi narrative, Goldman Sachs often plays the villain’s role. “They had an extraordinary amount of political influence that was over and above the other banks,” he says. “No other bank has the same record as Goldman Sachs does in terms of taking former executives and placing them in high-ranking positions in the government.”
Or, as Taibbi put it in one of his early columns, “The world’s most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”
A Financial Journalist For The Rest Of Us
Taibbi took a lot of heat for that column, particularly from financial journalists. He admits it was a difficult time.
…
‘As if the current price spike was a result of America’s failure to drill in Gulf of Mexico, they laughed. “Do we actually know what’s causing the spike in gas prices?” Taibbi asked….’Nobody knew the answer,” he says. “I didn’t know the answer. It occurred to me, here we are covering an exploding economy — and none of us have any idea about what actually caused any of it.’
Here’s a tip Matt; there is this thing called a housing bubble. It’s a financial mania - look it up. And it’s going on around us. Can you afford a house where you live? Can your friends or co-workers? As financial manias come apart, all sorts of things turn ugly. That’s the “answer”.
Yes, yes, let’s all focus on the evil bankers. But here’s a few stories we don’t see much. What about the greedy buyers, that bought multiple houses when one would do, drove prices up, promised to feed the squirrels, etc? What about the NAR, the appraisers, the loan officers, the developers? What about Bob - freaking - Toll?
More to the point; what about the regulators, the congress that was in charge of oversight, the Federal Reserve that played such a huge role and was just given MORE power!
I guess it’s so much easier to make money these days coming up with new ways to throw mud at Goldman Sachs. It doesn’t really hurt them and they are so rich/connected they don’t give a damn anyway. But meanwhile, in the real world, we have a sh*t load of problems to resolve and going on about squids ain’t gonna get us there.
Oh, and a lot of us would settle for being able to afford a house.
“I guess it’s so much easier to make money these days coming up with new ways to throw mud at Goldman Sachs.”
You have to admit he has a pretty good business model, but I agree that a narrow focus on the bankers role in the crisis tends to short change the willing participation of FBs in the greed fest. The latter story detailing the role of Main Street mommas and poppas in the mess is just so much less exciting than blaming the whole situation on a few greedy, all-powerful, evil bankers.
FWIW (and I’ve said this before) I think that a lot of people jumped on this bandwagon because of what was happening in their own lives.
They were “downsized”.
The replacement job paid a lot less.
They couldn’t find a new job because they were “too old” (read ‘Bait and Switched’ for an interesting account of this). They graduated from college and couldn’t find a job.
etc.
So they have a friend who is making a killing being a realtor or a mortgage peddler. Or maybe the friend was flipping houses and making a six figure income in the process.
I’m really not surprised that so many people jumped on the bandwagon. Their friends and acquaintances were making a killing and hardly breaking a sweat while they were folding sweaters at The Gap.
I’m not saying that it was the right thing to do, but I understand why they did it. Just like how I could understand why someone who has lost half of his/her income might file for a BK if they have a lot of debt.
Ben,
All of what you wrote is absolutely true, but these greedy FBs would not have been able to speculate like they did if not for the banks/lenders/Wall Street (and the regulators who are totally guilty of benign neglect, at best).
We all have to realize, though, that the FBs were truly ignorant for the most part. Also, with the decimation of the middle class and the growing wealth disparity over the past few decades, the only way for most people to get a leg up was to do what all the other “successful” people were doing — speculating and “making leverage work for you.” For far too many people, working for a living has been like taking one step forward and two steps back, unless you were supplementing your income with housing credit (debt) or stock market/housing bubble profits.
While the FBs were certainly guilty of making foolish decisions, it was difficult for them not to when they were witnessing every dull bulb making hundreds of thousands of dollars flipping real estate. In the meantime, if they didn’t already own, they were watching truly epic price increases every year — putting them further and further behind — and it went on for so many years that eventually, even the most prudent began to question their sanity, and too many finally jumped in when it looked like they had no other choice.
“that the FBs were truly ignorant for the most part. ”
Unfortunately, we all have to realize that many of of cohorts in the country just don’t have the mental IQ (though bad luck or bad choices) to draw connections that many of us find self-evident. Too much Jersey Shore and Survivor, not enough math and financial education.
The vast majority of this country is inhabited by people who are just “financial victims”, they don’t understand any of this stuff, the trust what the banks tell them, and they are continually taken advantage of. Not saying that it’s the banks fault (or that they shouldn’t do it), but, that’s simply the way it is.
As such, a huge population of today’s FBs made foolish decisions that they didn’t even realize they were making. There are also some speculators (who were more sophisticated) and greedheads.. But I’d argue that’s not the majority.
“As such, a huge population of today’s FBs made foolish decisions that they didn’t even realize they were making.”
No free pass here. They are products of years of educational consumerism through the media, schools, parents, etc and the repeal of RESPONSIBILITY for their actions. Buying houses frivolously was just an extension of buying cars, coach handbags, plastic surgery.
“…trust what the banks tell them…”
Not so much any more these days, I suspect.
The vast majority of this country is inhabited by people who are just “financial victims”, they don’t understand any of this stuff, the trust what the banks tell them, and they are continually taken advantage of.
The vast majority are not victims - they are fools. Fools and their money have been parted since time immemorial.
I have a problem with the attitude that we should all be expected to be financial and investment experts. There are thousands of people who work for investment banks who spend all of their working lives and much of their downtime studying investment and finance. Can even the smartest among us be expected to keep up with them in our spare time? Am I also supposed to be an expert in medical matters so I can second guess my doctors? On top of raising a family and monitoring my children’s education? And maintaining my house and car?
I contend that the most diligent of us cannot be expert in every field. We have to delegate some of these decisions and tasks to those who have the time and inclination to become exceptional. We neeed people who are specialized in agriculture, maintenance, education, psychology, art, and music.
The beauty of the pension system - and the reason that I continue to support Social Security - is that we did not all have to manage our retirement savings. The danger of 401Ks is that there are many of us who are not savvy enough or dedicated enough to compete in the financial arena. There are many smart people who want to spend time volunteering in their church or community, instead of figuring out how to make their investments grow. Should they be relegated to poverty in their old age? Or should we value their contribution to society enough to provide a reasonable level of support?
‘…the only way for most people to get a leg up was to do what all the other “successful” people were doing — speculating and “making leverage work for you.”’
The unsavory choice between personal austerity among those willing to sit out the mania versus diving in head first to enjoy the good life until the day the music dies is a timeless dilemma.
Many were told repeatedly that they were “stupid to not do it” and I’m sure see friend after friend show off their new high end BMW took its toll.
How come it didn’t take a toll on some of us?
I call BS on this.
Fair enough — if you don’t realize by now how thoroughly I enjoy hyperbole, then you haven’t read enough of my posts. I suppose those of us who have studied the Life Cycle Model know enough about consumption smoothing to avoid unpleasant bumps when the economy tanks.
“How come it didn’t take a toll on some of us?
I call BS on this.”
So you’re sayingthat all these realtors, mortgage brokers and flippers didn’t make lots of money while the getting was good?
The real losers where the suckers who took out toxic loans to buy a house to live in that they couldn’t really afford because they saw prices soaring into the atmosphere and really did wonder if they would be priced out forever.
Just be glad you were smart enough to see through the ruse.
FWIW, my brainy sister (IQ of 140+) tried to make me become a flipper. I resisted and she told me I was a fool.
So even the veryt smart were suckered into this. IIRC even Issac Newton was conned into a bubble.
so well put. Bravo!
“Unfortunately, we all have to realize that many of of cohorts in the country just don’t have the mental IQ (though bad luck or bad choices) to draw connections that many of us find self-evident. Too much Jersey Shore and Survivor, not enough math and financial education. “
Which is pretty much the history of the human race in a nutshell and why the PTB can get away with what they get away with.
Or as the old saying goes: “Why do they do what they do? Because they can.”
While the FBs were certainly guilty of making foolish decisions, it was difficult for them not to when they were witnessing every dull bulb making hundreds of thousands of dollars flipping real estate. In the meantime, if they didn’t already own, they were watching truly epic price increases every year — putting them further and further behind
Sorry CA renter, but I’m calling BS on this. I had no difficulty at all sitting out the lunacy. FBs ended up being FBs for a lot of different reasons, but greed, stupidity, and personal financial irresponsibilty top the list, from what I’ve seen.
“More to the point; what about the regulators, the congress that was in charge of oversight, the Federal Reserve that played such a huge role and was just given MORE power!”
They’ve all been bought off by the banksters- that’s Taibbi’s point. One that needs very much to be brought out into the open and examined.
this looks like a good spot to jump in. as far as we know, the borrowers were not forced to sign the bank IOU’s. they were glad to get the money and get in on the game. and “the game” of profits just like the big boys experienced was the attraction. much like the legal responsibility of having an “attractive nuisance” in your yard that the neighbor kid breaks his arm on. the homeowner is held liable, not the stupid kid. in much the same way, the banks made availabe the easy money that resulted in pain and suffering of biblical proportions. since they provided the “nuisance” it could be argued they should be held liable.
but it’s all just spilt milk and lawsuits now anyway.
Ben, Happy New Year to you!
True, but we don’t give drug dealers a pass while only blaming drug users.
I’m puzzled by the idea that either it’s the banksters’ fault, or it’s the FBs’ fault. I think they’re all to blame. People are creating a false dichotomy. Attacking one of the groups doesn’t mean I’m saying no one else was to blame- why would it?
If anything, it’s the people who constantly want to blame the FBs that are most guilty of this. I don’t know any posters here who think this was all and only the banksters’ fault, but there seem to be many here who think it’s only the FBs’ fault. Interesting, I think, and revealing.
‘that’s Taibbi’s point’
Big wall street firms actually own the Fed. And I haven’t heard this guy or many others call for an end to the Fed.
I will throw my 2-cents in about here….Lets not forget that historically we had about 62% owner occupied housing….That ballooned to 68% +-…..Thats a lot of new roof tops and they built it in nowhere land because people would (Quoting Ben) “drive until you qualify”….It could not have happened without the catalyst “Easy Money”….My vote for the culprit at the top of the pyramid;
Greenspan…….
‘My vote for the culprit at the top of the pyramid; Greenspan’
I’d probably second that, and I was on his case as much as anyone in 2005 - when he was relevant. But what we are seeing, IMO, is a re-write of history with a spin on current public policy. For instance, we aren’t looking much at manias and the harm they cause. If we were, the role of central banks would be in the spotlight. But it’s not; it’s robo-signers, etc. This stuff happened AFTER the bubble, and I can see that the problem of house prices is ignored by the media and govt. Note that the govt gets away with trying to prop up house prices and minting new FBs in the bargain! We should be outraged by these policies coming from our elected leaders right now - today, but instead we get daily headlines about these poor FBs, who, by the way, stopped making payments they signed up for!
Completely lost are the mortgage broker tables at the hispanic flea markets. The 25 YO mortgage broker who had 14 houses, 11 of which he had never seen. The boosterism of the NAR! How about this dude:
”On a recent Monday evening in suburban Philadelphia, two dozen sober-suited executives huddle around a giant conference table for the weekly “ops” meeting inside the nerve center of Toll Brothers, the hottest homebuilder in America…Suddenly co-founder and CEO Bob Toll bursts in and starts firing questions at his brain trust…Finally, with his paranoia assuaged, Toll allows himself to do what he loves best: ratchet up prices.’
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/04/18/8257004/index.htm
This article: ‘Weakness in Housing? Forget It. The November numbers put to rest the pessimists’ claims that the market is popping or about to. If anything, it’s gaining steam.’
http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/dec2005/pi20051220_1661_pi001.htm?chan=search
Now look at the first comment:
‘Nickname: hs Review: I was trying to buy my first house and have met some seller’s agents.One of the agents told me she owns several houses in CA, and the other one told me he buys houses every year. Those are the ones who are still telling you: housing price won’t go down, but will go up. You should buy now. Can you believe them???’
There’s plenty of blame to go around. What we do next is the important topic, and IMO it’s being drowned out by this chorus of tiny violins.
‘My vote for the culprit at the top of the pyramid; Greenspan’
I’ll 2nd that as well. There were a TON of people who were responsible, in one way or another. But very few (almost none) of them could do anything to change the course of the impending disaster; the only thing that they could do was make sure they (personally) were in a good position when the music stopped. Bankers/RE agents/MTG brokers.. I put most of them into this category.
However, there were a few, of which Greenspan was by FAR the most powerful, would could have (and had a responsibility to do so) stopped this in it’s tracks. Into that group I’ll put the “big wigs”, Greenspan, Bush, etc..
None of those folks needed a single line of legislation to be written, all they needed to do was use the power of their office to cool down an obvious mania! Greenspan didn’t even need to raise rates (although he probably should have faster and earlier).
If Greenspan had said (circa 2003) “It has become obvious that the housing market is becoming detached from underlying values, and that should this continue, we will have a large systemic risk in the banking system and, more importantly, an impending crash in home prices in the near term projections”.
That’s all it would have taken. Every newspaper in the country would have headlined “Fed president sees overheated housing market crashing” and the mania would have been stopped cold.
Instead, you have these same folks doing the opposite; talking up a massive bubble; using the power of their office to make the crash bigger and more painful for America. That’s inexcusable, especially for Greenspan, because it was his JOB to know better.
Here’s another oldie but goodie for those looking to re-live the days when we were all considered “kooks” for our views on housing.
I really like the part at the end when DL talks about Shiller and then about being called the Devil. I hope he understands why people called him that now!
http://money.cnn.com/2007/03/01/magazines/fortune/nar.fortune/
“…it’s robo-signers, etc.”
Blaming them is akin to blaming the car flying through the air for ‘causing’ tornado damage.
LMAO.
“Oh, and a lot of us would settle for being able to afford a house.”
Subprime mortgages, Goldman Sachs, suckers like AIG, the NAR, the appraisers, the loan officers, the developers, Bob Toll, Angelo Mozillo and his friends, LLs collecting rent while not paying the mortgage, 1-2 or 3 years of living in a house without paying, broken chains of title, Robo signers,1st time HB tax credits, HAMP, etc.
After all of that you are correct, in the year 2011, I would settle for being able to afford a decent house in a decent neighborhood.
Happy New Year Ben Jones.
I hope it is a great one for you.
With all of this garbage going on I’m surprised that the housing market hasn’t frozen up completely.
If I were a potential buyer I would be too scared to even contemplate buying anything at this point. Between the potential for capital losses, fraud and losing my job buying a house is the the last thing I would want to do.
“I’m surprised that the housing market hasn’t frozen up completely.”
It is nearly frozen as I type. Take away government life support measures, and I suspect the housing market would quickly morph into a tundra.
Well BJ I’m not going to read the rest of the thread B4 responding because I have some strong opinions about this issue.
In the absence of the banking elite, the Great Housing Fraud could not have gotten two feet off the ground. This cannot be overstated. There wouldn’t have been 5 house speculators, no Bob Hole, none of it. And how often have we personally experienced the incentive of $$$? Look no further than our “allies” in the fraudulent “War on Terror”. We funnel national treasure in any one direction….. and then we watch people dance. That’s precisely what the banking elite did with a very basic human need; shelter. And the same $$$ from the same criminal banking elite was funneled to govt. entities that are there to serve as an impediment to debacles like this. And what happened? People danced and the impediments were taken off the table.
Money talks and bull$hit walks. And the fact we have none of the money merely eases the efforts of those who do. The winner took all. We are the losers and until we admit we have nothing and a small group of thugs have it all, we will continue to be used like the dumb peons we are. Money isn’t evil but the things we do for it are. And so are the thugs we labor for. They own it all…. the capital, the production capacity… all of it. It’s time we admit this and let go of the lie that we’ll gain entry into inner circle. It’s never going to happen for you, me or our offspring.
Well, they don’t own me. Sure they take some rent, but I am not enslaved by them and I do not need or want what they have. The “peons” you mention sold themselves pretty cheaply. No pity.
Oh you’re a peon alright. Just like the rest of us. That fact hasn’t dawned on you yet.
I agree. Unless you can quite your job and not worry about how to pay the bills you are a peon.
Exactly. Isn’t called being a “wage slave” because it sounds cute.
exeter ,I posted my post below that tends to agree with you before I saw your post.
“Oh, and a lot of us would settle for being able to afford a house.”
Some folks in DC are working hard behind the scenes in an effort to pass Wall Street residential real estate investment losses on to new end-user buyers in the form of artificially inflated home prices.
“Some folks in DC are working hard behind the scenes in an effort to pass folks in DC residential real estate investment losses on to new end-user buyers in the form of artificially inflated home prices.”
I can`t stop “folks in DC” or Wall Street or people who payed way too much for a house and live there for years for free. At this point I would settle for being able to afford a house at a reasonable price. Just one.
We still need our modern Juvenal to write it all up as a tragicomedy, with everyone the fool. I see it as a cross between Glengarry Glen Ross and Mars Attacks!
‘a tragicomedy’
I think the housing bubble is the biggest comic event in history. It may not seem like that now, but when the tears are dry, we’ll have a good laugh.
“…when the tears are dry, we’ll have a good laugh.”
Shame on me for seeing the humor in so many stories before the tears are even dry.
I’ll just never forget sitting in my home one afternoon in a home that was near pay-off (7 years or less if I went back to work) when I fielded a cold call from Chase.
No I didn’t want to borrow money. No, my cash flow was fine. No I didn’t want to fix up the house anymore than my husband’s income already provided. No we didn’t need a new car. We already had one. It was the nicest car we’d ever owned. There was no need to upgrade. No we didn’t want to go on a European vacation. Look bud, we don’t need your stinkin’ loan. We’re doing just fine w/the ones we’ve got. (and then finally when the guy just wouldn’t shut up) You know what? You’re the devil.
Click!
then there’s ahansen’s story.
The bankers worked pretty d*amned hard to trip us up.
It takes some willpower and moral fortitude (that most people lack) to not play the game when you see your neighbors living it up, buying luxury cars you could only dream of owning (using conventional finances) taking fancy vacations, etc.
And when the bubble was in full swing and kept going and going and going, even I began to doubt whether it would ever pop.
“It takes some willpower and moral fortitude (that most people lack) to not play the game when you see your neighbors living it up, buying luxury cars you could only dream of owning (using conventional finances) taking fancy vacations, etc.”
Sorry, I’m not buying it. It only takes common sense. Anybody who thought home equity loans were free money is stupid. How could they possibly skate around the inconvenient truth that it’s a loan which they would need to start paying back immediately following the first draw? If they wanted to bank that newly found equity, or put it to use, then they needed to sell the house.
Well obviously common sense is in short supply these days, wouldn’t you agree?
“Anybody who thought home equity loans were free money is stupid.”
They didn’t believe it was “free money”, they just believed that the bubble would never end (equally foolish) and that they could serially refinance with equity extraction until the day they died, upon which their heirs would either sell the house and payoff the loan, or maybe pick up the baton and keep on running.
Never underestimate the masses willingness to believe something that is “to good to be true”. Its in their nature, they way thay are wired.
“Never underestimate the masses willingness to believe something that is “to good to be true”. Its in their nature, they way thay are wired.”
Those who voted for The Messiah certainly oughta know. Isn’t that right, In Colorado?!
Exactly CarrieAnn. There was ENORMOUS pressure on the public to borrow, borrow, borrow and I don’t think qualifying requirements were ever more lax in my lifetime.
“Do we actually know what’s causing the spike in gas prices?”
More to the point
You know Hwy had no idea what was going to really happen after going under-cover back in the ’70’s infiltrating “TrueBeliever’s™ / “TrueDeceiver’s™” “come-join-us!” groups of humans in “collective ecstasy”. Still Hwy did “witness” a recurring self-reflective phenomena across all types & breath of people during the events at places like EST & NonSciencetology: No one ever mentioned the word: CULT!
As Mr. Cole’s 3rd grade teacher stresses in his essay’s & writings: Give an example!
For example:
GoldenmanSucks Inc. (SCOTUS person) = “TrueFinancialCult™” / “TrueSerialLiquiditist™”
“Don’t have Equity?, Well lets see, is that a “problem” or a “worry”?”
“Extract the “solidified” Equity in your home & use it to “leverage” your efforts to become “Wealthy!” …in a rather “accelerated” manner. Moreover, gratified appetites are a today sensation… after all, Tomorrow’s reappraisal, may-never-come-to-see-the-light-of-day!,…until you yourself & “Others” are… “long-gone!” “
Did you get through any others? Looks like 2011’s going to be a reading frenzy.
I only own three of the books on the list I posted, so that shouldn’t take too long; the length of my unread book collection always tends to vastly exceed the list of books I have read.
Got it. When you said it was, IIRC, your “holiday reading” I thought wow he’s either a speed-reader or really ambitious. I’ve gotten about 2 chapters into the one I’m reading. Too many distractions…the HBB being one of them! Powder on the mountain being the main one, though…
The Vampire Squid and its mate, the Kochtopus, have got America in a bear hug.
I wouldn’t assume AIG was a sucker.
I’d like to see what hedge fund the ceo had his money in or where he got his next job before I’m willing to call him a fool.
and applying this kind of magic-pixie-dust
maththinking to…“magic-pixie-dust” = “Shazam!”
Poor Islamic country needs desire to become Democratic country: Shazam!
Debtpeople need “Equity” for 2nd /3rd /4th home loan: Shazam!
grocerydotcom needs billions $$$$$ for grocery delivery company: Shazam!
Mother needs larger milk delivery system 42DDD: Shazam!
Father needs “enhanced” stiff fishin’ rod: Shazam!
Kids need digital 24/7 “on demand” entertainment system: Shazam!
Deteriorating Corpooration Inc. needs AAA rating for “continued-existence” loan: Shazam!
China needs to feed bond addiction: Shazam!
Global Financial Inc. needs Billions of “TrueMicroDebtZombies™”: Shazam!
While the TBTF bankers are rightly seen as the prime villains of the piece, they had lots of witting and unwitting accomplices. I put the lion’s share of the blame squarely on the voters and so-called citizens of this country, who for decades have perpetuated the Republicrat duopoly’s crony capitalism, corruption, and malgovernance. We have become a nation of heedless, self-absorbed, amoral sheep, mostly devoid of principles and with a vastly inflated sense of entitlement. It is no coincidence that the elected officials that the sheeple send to Washington are almost uniformly on the make and on the take. Until the sheeple feel the consequences of their own fecklessness, and take responsibility for their own actions and inaction that brought about this state of affairs, we as a nation are screwed.
‘I put the lion’s share of the blame squarely on the voters and so-called citizens of this country’
I agree, because when you start looking for responsible parties, the list is so long that it’s obvious there is no accountability in DC. So who’s to blame for that? And who is going to clean DC up? The two parties?
Ben, that’s the most frustrating thing. The clinical definition of insanity, it is said, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. The sheeple may rail about being “victimized” by unscrupulous banks, but election after election they troop in and mindlessly return the banksters’ Republicrat henchmen to office, presided over by a statist, Hollow Man Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum like Obama or McCain. Then the sheeple wonder why the promised “hope ‘n change” never materializes, the plutocrats get more obscenely rich, the regulators and enforcers turn a blind eye, and the rule of law only seems to apply to the ordinary people. Yet they’ll be duped all over again in 2012.
I put the lion’s share of the blame squarely on the voters and so-called citizens of this country, who for decades have perpetuated the Republicrat duopoly’s crony capitalism, corruption, and malgovernance. We have become a nation of heedless, self-absorbed, amoral sheep, mostly devoid of principles and with a vastly inflated sense of entitlement.
I disagree. The American people are not as bad as that. We must remember that we live in a Republic where our elected politicians bear responsibility to the people who elect them. There is a social and political contract in a Republic where the politicians must rise up and do what’s best for the country in spite of what special interest and influence wants. It is not the job of the people in a Republic to run their government. It is the job of those who they elect.
It is my opinion that the social contract in our Republic has been violated today to the greatest degree in the past 100 years.
Most the corruption we have seen has come from the top down and has increased greatly. Whereas hundreds went to jail in the S&L crisis, none have gone during the housing bust which was orders of magnitude a greater fraud. This is not the fault of the American people.
We must remember that we live in a Republic where our elected politicians bear responsibility to the people who elect them.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA! Rio, I think Polyanna has hacked into your Internet account.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA! Rio, I think Polyanna has hacked into your Internet account.
LOL, Of course it’s not perfect…but I did say this too:
It is my opinion that the social contract in our Republic has been violated today to the greatest degree in the past 100 years.
And I totally agree with yours and Ben’s 2 party criticism but just HOW can we get around this totally stacked deck??
‘just HOW can we get around this totally stacked deck’
I’ve long felt that things have to get bad before people wake up. Not that I wanted it that way, but having volunteered in politics I could see that voters like the easy way out.
One way forward; we should be more open to candidates that up until now have been labeled ‘fringe’ or ‘extremists’ by the media. Real change will never come from people the MSM considers “safe.”
I call bull$&!/ on this. We have very little control over what our government does. Case in point: MA voters repealed the tax on alcohol in the last election. So what did the politicians on beacon hill do to make up the revenue? They increased the sales tax to 7% from 6.75% effective Jan 1. Bottom line, no painful cuts to state budget, the masses get their alcohol untaxed, and we all get higher taxes on consumption. Not quite what most of us were thinking when we voted to repeal taxes. It’s a rigged game and we’re on the losing side.
“Banks Found Guilty Of Foreclosure Fraud
As a result of the recent investigation launched by the Florida Attorney General’s office, Bank Of America, GMAC Bank, JP Morgan Chase, and others, have all been found guilty of foreclosure fraud.
Depositions by the banks employees revealed that the banks have been forging, falsifying, and fabricating documents in order to foreclose on millions of homes owned by unsuspecting American homeowners.
Additionally, Wells Fargo Bank has admitted to 55,000 counts of perjury in submitting false affidavits to the courts in its efforts to fraudulently foreclose on homeowners.”
ht tp://ww w.stockmarketsreview.c om/realestate/2010/12/28/banks-found-guilty-of-foreclosure-fraud/
A Zeuszuggestion(tm) :
1. Reintroduce the Guillotine.
2. Reintroduce the Guillotine to each guilty banker’s neck.
3. Put the events on Pay-per-view with suitably scantilly-clad cheerleaders.
4. Warm up the blade with Hank “lex luthor” Paulsen’s chromedome.
5. Take PPV revenue and pay off ripped off investors/ budget deficit
6. Problems solved …and nothing but rainbows and unicorns from here on out.
“Depositions by the bank’s employees revealed that the banks have been forging, falsifying, and fabricating documents in order to foreclose on millions of homes owned by unsuspecting American homeowners.”
“… in order to foreclose on millions of homes owned by unsuspecting American homeowners.”
Time out! Not trying to defend the banks here, but “unsuspecting American homeowners”?
Really? Are people who stop paying on their mortgages really “unsuspecting American homeowners”?
Don’t they IN SOME TEENIE-WEENIE LITTLE SMALL WAY have a lot to do with losing their homes.
‘Are people who stop paying on their mortgages really “unsuspecting American homeowners”
Ties in with what I posted above; the media has turned this thing into “evil bankers against the world.” (Never mind we just loaned them billions, cough cough). I run into this all the time in the foreclosure biz. I had this one guy; second home (one isn’t enough, ya know). He said, ‘the “bank” wouldn’t modify MY loan.’ He could just as well have said, the bank wouldn’t give me this house for half what I borrowed for it.
I’ve had it with this meme about the poor FBs and the evil bankers.
“I’ve had it with this meme about the poor FBs and the evil bankers.”
I have a sneaking suspicion the information cascade is just getting started. 2011 is likely to be the year the anger phase of the housing bubble stages of grief kicks into overdrive. Populist politicians take heed, as opportunity knocks for you to transform this populist anti-bank anger into political hay.
P.S. I personally agree with you (and Shakespeare before you) that both borrowers and lenders are culpable.
(husbandry; management of one’s money)
And before this;
Look thou character. Give thou thoughts no tongue.
…
Give every man thy ear but few thy voice.
Take every man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy.
We’re on a roll at Ben’s HBBlog !
I love the smell of of coffee, high finance and Shakespeare in the morning.
Ben you got it right.
I think the media is making the people who overbought out to be victims.I think that we will see huge fines against the banks and eventually loan modifications via principal reduction for all the victims.Then party on again.
“I think the media is making the people who overbought out to be victims.”
People who are portrayed as victims will pay money to the MSM in return for this status. But they won’t pay money to the MSM that portrays them as dummys.
“Look thou character. Give thou thoughts no tongue.”
There is a beautiful irony in those lines, as Shakespeare quite generously gave his thoughts tongue for all future generations to enjoy.
Also a little ironic since Shakespeare gave those lines to an obnoxious, syncophantic politician. Polonius was a court official.
I don’t think the advice is bad (obviously) but given the person who says them, there is no reason to believe they were ideals near and dear to the heart of the Bard. Just things that he thought a father who didn’t trust his kid to make good decisions might say to the young man as he was taking off for Paris. Also remember, that if Laertes was the same age as Hamlet (I don’t recall there being any support for that in the text) he was 30 years old. There is lots of support for Hamlet being 30 in the play itself.
Shakespeare meant in-person communication. Readers of his plays choose to do so.
as Shakespeare quite generously gave his thoughts tongue for all future generations to enjoy.
HBB rating:
“R”…NC-17Thanks for helping put this all into perspective. Enough with the bank bashing. What a horrible World this would be if you could sue people for simply allowing you to voluntarily make bad decisions. It is not the Bank’s job to protect the US economy or the masses. It is the government’s. Way too many on here are just lead around by leashes in the dog and pony show, easily fooled by distractions.
To a certain extent, placing culpability strictly on Banks for causing the housing debacle is myopic. Much is the same for credit card debt. Yes, the banks encourage over-leveraged borrowers to continue their bad behavior, but rates, fees and penalties are there to overcome the losses on bankruptcy protection. However, student loan debt earns them the moniker of vampire squids wrapped around the face of humanity. With the help of a corrupt government, of course.
The banks control the gov and the FED. So I lay the blame with the banks. They also are the experts you see in the msm reporting. They control the rating agencies via bribery.
When the average home buyer gets pumped full of sunshine from Greenspan the president, the msm, to realtors, to rating agencies, to financial advisers I blame the banks. Now speculators don’t get sympathy.
“It is not the Bank’s job to protect the US economy or the masses. It is the government’s.”
And who, exactly, constitutes this “government” of which you speak?
“It is not the Bank’s job to protect the US economy or the masses. It is the government’s.”
Yep, a government of the bank, by the bank, for the bank.
“my comments are not necessarily my opinion,
and are for entertainment purposes only”
Way too many on here are just lead around by leashes in the dog and pony show, easily fooled by distractions.
Like that TARP one?
I have no sympathy for the banks. Only an idiot or a con man loans money to some one when they have neither verified their means to repay nor care.
But I also have no sympathy for anyone who hasn’t made their mortgage payments and expects some sort of amnesty. They should consider themselves lucky if they just get to walk away.
But I am not surprised this started with false documents (NINJA loans) and is ending with false documents.
“… in order to foreclose on millions of homes owned by unsuspecting American homeowners.”
Time out! Not trying to defend the banks here, but “unsuspecting American homeowners”?
Really? Are people who stop paying on their mortgages really “unsuspecting American homeowners”?
Don’t they IN SOME TEENIE-WEENIE LITTLE SMALL WAY have a lot to do with losing their homes.
————————-
Was just going to post the same thing until I saw yours, combo.
Right on.
‘Are people who stop paying on their mortgages really “unsuspecting American homeowners”?’
I’ve seen far worse, really, just in my personal circle of friends and colleagues; for instance, the young lady whose former-Countrywide-employee boyfriend stopped making payments on his San Diego investment property the moment it no longer penciled out as a money maker. Multiply his scenario by millions and you have a flood of underwater investment properties drowing the American landscape.
“…the young lady whose former-Countrywide-employee boyfriend stopped making payments on his San Diego investment property the moment it no longer penciled out as a money maker.”
Sounds like a smart guy–even smarter if he got in with no money down. Maybe an alumnus of the “profits are privatized, and losses are socialized” school of American business?
“Banks Found Guilty Of Foreclosure Fraud”
More painful wrist slapping soon to occur, I assume?
I swear, there may be no wet noodles left in DC.
I think you can rationalize the “unsuspecting” part of unsuspecting homeowners if you interpret it to be unsuspecting that there was a valid legal defense to the foreclosure action. Also, it seems that a lot of banks had the houses in two tracks, the provisional loan modification and foreclosure. In addition, some people who thought they were paying a modified amount, are getting foreclosed on when they don’t expect it because of some weird assumption that the various different departments at the banks talk to each other. How odd.
“Also, it seems that a lot of banks had the houses in two tracks, the provisional loan modification and foreclosure.”
Gotcha Catch-22.
Wells Fargo Bank has admitted to 55,000 counts of perjury in submitting false affidavits to the courts in its efforts to fraudulently foreclose on homeowners.”
Gosh, only 55,00 counts of perjury? How dare we blame the banksters for anything? They were just ‘doing their jobs’. The law is for the little people.
This quote was obviously false, so I went and looked at the Article to see who wrote it. My suspicions were confirmed.
Matt Brockman -
About the Author:
The Homeowners Revolt.Com has 14 years experience in Civil Litigation. 25 years experience in Mortgage and Real Estate Investment Acquisitions. Mortgage/Foreclosure Specialist M.B.A. Business Administration. Toll Free: (877) 356-2528. We have the forms you will need along with a tutorial that will walk you through step-by-step and show you how to fight your foreclosure and WIN!
The real agenda attached, which is what I have been saying for how many months now? Do you really think bankers are more sleazy than this type of sewage?
http://www.thehomeownersrevolt.com/
“This quote was obviously false, so I went and looked at the Article to see who wrote it. My suspicions were confirmed.”
Have you disproved the quote or just attacked the straw man/messenger?
So your position is that uncited ridiculous sounding statements contained in slanderous adds written by biased persons whose mission is to profit by having mortgages wiped clean for dead beats must be considered true unless proven otherwise? Unbelievable.
Note that the “article” said it was “admitted” but contained no cite to any Wells representive or documents that allegedly made or contained such admission. I probably wouldn’t even have commented if it said “alleged.” The article was just inflammatory noise with no substance, and in certain places you could tell it was the insane ramblings of a mad man.
from the Washington Post:
“Wells Fargo said it is submitting additional affidavits for roughly 55,000 foreclosures pending in 23 states, but said it does not have any plans to halt foreclosure sales. ”
Submitting additional affidavits because the first 55,000 were LIES/perjury. I would go to jail if I knowingly and repeatedly lied in an affidavit, much less if my business model involved lying in them en masse, as will be shown to be the case. (Actually it already has been shown to be the case.)
But don’t worry, Natalie, your precious, much-maligned banksters won’t do any time. Doing time is for the little people.
This is exactly the type of thinking that worries me about people being mislead by sleazy lawyers and FBs that don’t want to pay for what they buy. Obviously Wells would never admit to “submitting false affidavits to the courts in its efforts to fraudulently foreclose on homeowners.” How can someone read such outrageous statements and not have a light bulb go off in their head. Even guilty ppl would never make such statements. At most, they may have admitted that some language in their form affidavits may have proven in accurate upon further investigation. As a practicing attorney, I can tell you that what happens is that the lawyers draft the forms setting forth what legally must be certified, and most people sign them without reading them carefully, regardless of what you tell them. To think that is unique to bankers is insane. Show me one statistic showing Walmart or government employees are more likely to read what they sign. This is just pure prejudice.
In today’s journalism, a press release is treated exactly the same as any other story.
A press release saves the MSM on having to hire a reporter.
I’ve seen press releases generated by the company I work for that was filled with quotes and such as though an actual interview was conducted by a reporter and was printed in the MSM word-for-word.
The MSM in effect acts as a mouthpiece for the company and is rewarded not only by having the reporter’s work all done and packaged up for them but, in the case of the company I work for, some advertising revenue is also thrown their way.
It’s a win for the company and it’s a win for the MSM. The one who loses is the one who seeks the ever-elusive Truth. For this Truth thingy the seeker needs to extend his search a bit.
First- Natalie, thank you.
Secondly- Bill in Carolina
Press Releases compose such much of what passes as news it’s mind boggling. The saddest part is sheeples buy into it.
Thus supporting the points I made above.
The MSm has become a mouth piece for corporate America with little or no journalism. Unfortunately for many this is their main source of information. Thus I blame the banks.
In today’s journalism, a press release is treated exactly the same as any other story.
So, remind Hwy what types of liquid drinks can be “flavored” by adding High-Fructose-poisonSyrup?
Coffee? Tea? …bubblegum Kool-Aide?
The MSm has become a mouth piece for corpoorate America with little or no
journalismcritical thinkingI don’t exactly know how this absurd business model started that
” real estate always goes up “, and how that became the basis
for lending and the actual breach in duty to underwrite loans
and mis-rate security risks . My point being, had the loans been
disclosed for the “junk ” they were the borrowers would not
of been able to even get the money to begin with (at least not on a low down basis ) There are restrictions on a lot of accounts that they can’t even be invested in anything but AAA grade. Apparently from what I have
read the Rating Agencies didn’t do any meaningful investigation on what they were rating and the Investment pools relied on their Ratings .It also becomes apparent that the secondary market was relying on the long term reputation/low risk of prior loan markets in spite of the dramatic change in the underwriting to no underwriting ,fraud is ok, and liar loans are the name of the game .
Years ago they use to make “Hard Money Loans ” and those loans
were made not on the buyers ability to qualify but they were based on the equity in the property .Usually those loans were made at about a 60 to 70 % or less loan to value ratio and
the investors didn’t care if they went into foreclosure because
the loans were made based on the risk being lowered because there was enough equity to cover a foreclosure and these loans were made at high interest rates and high fees .
My understanding is that this junk loan business with sub-prime borrowers, that had always been around, turned into the main stream business model ,but they were giving out these sort of loans on low down loans and not rating them accordingly. Sheer madness as far as loans made that would result in a major loss on the foreclosure in the long term .
It than becomes clear at a certain point that people like Mozillo
went to bail after he pumped up the value of his worthless loans
(that later defaulted at a 80 %or more rate ,sheer fraud ) and
Goldmans suckered AIG in on their bets against what they were selling as AAA stuff at the other end of their investment middle men gigs .
It’s like saying that it would be acceptable to market a car that had faulty breaks and not have any liability in the matter because the car buyer bought the car and it doesn’t matter that they are going to kill a bunch of people on the road . At one point the famous car company knew about the risk and sought to cover it up ,of course they deny it and they didn’t see it coming .
Since when did it become acceptable to carry out a massive fraudulent money lending scheme and breach all duty as lenders or middle men ,yet say
its the fault of the investors because they are Big Boys and they should of figured us out because it’s all a con job ?
Of course the money making schemes from high places couldn’t of gained steam had the Borrowers rejected the speculation market and not bought into the absurd sell to a greater fool
scheme and it’s clear that many borrowers committed fraud
also and had no intentions of paying on the loan long term .
Of course this absurd money making Ponzi-scheme wouldn’t of gained life had the regulators done their job or Congress for that matter . Check and balance was just non-existence and still isn’t operative .
……It was a very strange real estate market and it became a Speculation Mania that was destined to crash .The MSM was rah rah real estate at the
time and people were running around like zombies repeating the talking points of “real estate always goes up” and” buy now or be priced out forever .” Had I known at the time that they were making the kind of loans they were I could of told you that it was going to crash and it was going to crash hard . In fact, when
I did find out that this was the kind of lending that was going on
my mind raced with visions of the crash ,but I never expected all the bail outs .
IMHO ,the Money Changers and Middle Men had no right to throw this lending fraud on the World . Don’t mess with real estate ,it’s the biggest investment the sheep make .
The sheep zombie majority can be brainwashed and controlled
by con artist players in high Places ,especially when Congress is
on their side .
IMHO ,it’s unacceptable what they did and I can only say if the public is deprived of the truth they can be lead off the cliff .
The Banks have a big problem because these borrower clowns can walk and they are holding the bag if law is followed , unless the Government
wants to give them more bail outs and breach their duty to
lock them all up . It’s clear that a big PR campaign has been devised from day one to take the heat off the extent of the
Money Changers crimes to the BEE HIVE. The problem is simply that these crime are so big and on such a massive scale that
Justice is somewhat impossible . I don’t care if some speculation borrower has to give up a house they could never afford to begin with . Having a house is not a entitlement in life
and it’s to bad the home buyers didn’t reject this contrived by lending fraud Mania and the REIC contributed to the home buyers downfall also with this false market .
One of the biggest reasons why the Money Changers had no right to do what they did is because you can’t harm such a high
percentage of the BEEHIVE without destroying the entire BEEHIVE and harming the innocent .
I keep on going back to the fact that mis-rated securities is fraud and the buyers would not of been competitors that drove up the
real estate prices had the securities been rated F and you wouldn’t of had investors interested in funding something so absurd as a person who didn’t qualify who was relying on real estate going up under a media supported Mania riddled with fraud . The corruption has tipped the scales and now has reached the point of having the potential to destroy the BEEHIVE . Yes ,we have to move on to homes that are affordable and loans have to be made based on prudent lending standards or we will never be able to have a secondary market
again that the government doesn’t have to supplement .
Natalie, I prefer prejudice against the banks to your bias in favor of the big investment banks. But it doesn’t matter.
Bankers are just like other people some are assholes some are not. I know many honest, hardworking bankers.
“
BankersEconomists are just like other people some are assholes some are not. I know many honest, hardworking economistsbankers.”I doubt that any of them have risen to the top at jpm or gs or other giants.
There should of been a reasonable expectation on the part of
home-buyers that were in competition on real estate that the home buyers they were competing with were qualified and the
demand was real and not contrived by faulty lending/fraud . Prices were driven up by fraud ,not qualified true demand .
If it was true that only 5 people qualified for that million dollar
tract home instead of the one thousand that went for it by faulty lending they would of had to lower the price to get it sold not raise the price because 995 false borrowers were able to bid .
Residential real estate appraisal is based on the “Market Approach” ,which is based on a willing and “able’ borrower in a
arms length transaction without any evidence of fraud in the transactions . You can’t go on fake demand from borrowers who
are given loans based on faulty lending that were funded by money that was obtained by fraud by mis-rating of loan risk ……OK ……no question about it ……..fraud market …Ponzi
Scheme ….call it what you want .
Which came first …the chicken or the egg ? It interesting to note that when the market crash begin the main problem was
places like CountryWide were left holding the bag on billions of dollars of loans that they couldn’t pawn off anymore to the secondary market and that’s when Mozillo started screaming
the Government had to do something .
The crash in real estate is simply the evidence of the prices going down to what they would of been at had the fraud not occurred .
FBs that don’t want to pay for what they buy.
It’s not personal.
“It’s just business…..”
FBs who dare to think that contract law can work in favor of the little guy. Natalie and her ilk think contract law is for the big boys, the little people are supposed to live by some higher morality that seems to involve bending over and grabbing their ankles.
But it only makes sense because “natalie” is a paid apologist for the banking thugs that robbed us blind.
Of course natalie is a paid apologist for the banking thugs that robbed us blind ,doesn’t everyone know that ? Oh, now she is going bite my head off now and say how dare I say this and I must be prejudice because shes Jewish and all the other diversions she comes up with . Natalie is entitled to her opinion I guess……just as a clever defense attorney would be defending a serial killer ,everybody is entitled to a defense .
“How can someone read such outrageous statements and not have a light bulb go off in their head. ”
Click…BOOM!!
Hey, a bulb just went off right there IN MY HEAD. Natalie is exactly correct. My mistake.
Sorry, Mr. Paulsen. Here let me dust that off…sorry about the bruise. Here…let me superglue your coconut back on. Whoops! backwards, dang!
Try it again. THERE..looking good. Whaddaya think? Mr. Paulsen…..Mr. Paulsen? Hello?
The Lender agent loan officers were helping the borrowers commit fraud . Do you really think that borrowers know how to fill out those loan applications to make them conform to the loan requirements ? The buyers were a bunch of dead heads thinking that the Bank wouldn’t give them a loan unless they qualified ,or they thought who cares what I lie about all that matters is I get the loan so I can roll the dice like my neighbor did .
It’s also faulty to qualify people on some teaser low rate like 2% and to keep putting the interest on the balance which ends up being nothing more than a leverage game that blows up on the borrower …unless real estate always goes up .
These high leverage games that are played by the big guys with
a lot of resources behind them isn’t suitable for the average Joe on the street but they trickled down to the loan buying public while trickle down jobs just never seemed to happen .
The money changers these days are criminal thugs ,in spite of
Natalie knowing some wonderful hard working bankers .
The real victim is whoever put up these loan funds under false pretenses or a borrower who didn’t commit loan fraud who had a reasonable expectation that the prices were based on true market demand and qualified buyers .
They simply aren’t busting the parties responsible for this historic Ponzi-scheme because to admit liability on the financial
crimes would all of the sudden set the stage for where the liability falls criminally/legally . Look at the Car Company ,’We don’t have a break problem ,we just have a car mat problem .”
Get real everybody ,this lending fraud and all the financial
instruments of leverage lurking in the shadow world of the Great
Wall Street gambling Casinos will be looked at from a Historic view as the rock that sank the ship . The big guys are just trying to transfer the liability and acting like it was a Black Swan event
that they couldn’t see coming when they were the creators of
the scheme to begin with . Obstruction of Justice on a discovered financial fraud of epic size ,
Howell: Top 10 movies of ‘10
Published On Thu Dec 30 2010
Peter Howell, Movie critic
You could never completely trust the screen in 2010.
Looking through my annual year-end list of favourite movies, I’m struck by how many of them involved dreams and/or altered realities.
From the fiery secrets of Incendies, my top pick, to the head games of The Social Network and Black Swan, to the flat-out mindflips of Inception and Exit Through the Gift Shop, that glowing rectangle brought both uncertainty and wonder.
It might be simple coincidence. But I take it as a sign of frazzled times, where nerves are frayed, identities are blurred and truth is a matter of opinion — and negotiation.
The social and cultural ramifications of this ferment are still being felt, and debated. But there was no equivocation in cinematic terms; it all made for great times spent in the dark, especially those inside TIFF’s glorious new Bell Lightbox.
Here are my Top 10 movies of 2010, followed by 10 runners-up:
…
2. Inside Job: The exposé of the decade, guaranteed to educate and entertain, but most importantly, to enrage. Charles Ferguson cuts through bafflegab to deliver home truths about the global economic crisis, which has cost $20 trillion and millions of lost jobs, all while the wreckers count their bonuses.
…
What? Kick-Ass only got a ‘runner-up’? What a jip!
Megabank, Inc’s robo-signer financial innovation (aka fraud) is gonna come a cropper.
I’d like to offer a year-end word of thanks to the editors at the Wall Street Journal for supporting their journalist staff’s efforts to shine a bright light of humor on all the filthy, fraudulent cockroaches in the financial sector. I’m planning to keep my dead tree subscription for as long as they offer it.
* MARKETS
* DECEMBER 31, 2010
Dead Soul Is a Debt Collector
Deceased Woman’s Name Was Robo-Signed on Thousands of Affidavits
By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG
————————————————————————–
Back From the Dead
Details about Martha Kunkle, whose name appeared on thousands of affidavits used to collect credit-card debts
* Died in 1995
* Name was used by employees who worked with her daughter
* Minnesota’s attorney general is investigating numerous buyers and collectors of consumer debt for falsifying affidavits
—————————————————————————
Martha Kunkle has come back to life.
She died in 1995. Yet her signature later appeared on thousands of affidavits submitted by one of the nation’s largest debt collectors, Portfolio Recovery Associates Inc., in lawsuits filed against borrowers.
Some regulators complain that the use of Ms. Kunkle’s name reflects an epidemic of mass-produced, sloppy and inaccurate documentation in the debt-collection industry. Lawsuits have surged as more borrowers fall behind on payments and collection firms turn to courts to get what they are owed.
After being sued for fraud, Portfolio Recovery Associates decided in early 2008 that any documents bearing Ms. Kunkle’s name had “defects” and shouldn’t be used when trying to collect debts, a company spokeswoman said.
Last July, though, lawyers for Portfolio Recovery Associates sought a court judgment in a lawsuit against a Seattle woman for $2,892.10 in credit-card debt and interest that she allegedly owed. It was a cookie-cutter case, except for one thing: To vouch for the debt’s validity, the Norfolk, Va., company included an affidavit signed by Martha Kunkle.
The spokeswoman said the document was “inadvertently used by our outside counsel” because of “human error,” adding that the suit was dropped later “upon review of the case.”
The company said Ms. Kunkle’s name isn’t on any other affidavits submitted to judges since early 2008 by Portfolio Recovery Associates or outside lawyers who handle most of its debt-collection cases.
“When you see corner-cutting like this, it’s alarming,” Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson said about the Kunkle case. Ms. Swanson is investigating numerous buyers and collectors of consumer debt for falsifying affidavits. A spokeswoman for the company, the second-largest debt buyer in the U.S. by revenue, said the company is unaware of the investigation and declined further comment.
…
More taxpayer money for struggleing CA victims:
http://www.sacbee.com/2010/12/31/3289935/plan-to-help-struggling-california.html
‘Funded with almost $2 billion in federal dollars, the “Keep Your Home California” program was announced last February. It was supposed to start Nov. 1. The delays have generated criticism from advocacy groups and some elected officials.’
Is there any way for renters to get their snouts into the feeding trough on this $2 bn in federal largess for home owners, only?
“Is there any way for renters to get their snouts into the feeding trough ”
Of course there is! Just stop by and visit your local Realtor! She’s done her research, so rest easy while you sign your life away to buy an overpriced California crapshack!
Its just sickening…..Victim my ass….
“The unemployed homeowners can get up to six months’ worth of payments, at up to $3,000 a month.”
Wow, up to $3k/month?
I couldn’t imagine being bound to a $3k monthly nut for shelter. Sorry, no sympathy from me.
If courts demand proper paperwork, they make it much more expensive to collect money from dead beats. If it is much more expensive to collect money from dead beats, it is less profitable to buy their debts. If it is less profitable to buy their debts, the debt can’t be sold. If the debt that is not paid can’t be sold, then maybe, just maybe, the original lender will think twice about making the loan in the first place.
Will mortgage rates come back down again after the Souper Bowl?
mortgage
Mortgage rates rise to end year
By Marcie Geffner • Bankrate.com
It was a quiet week for mortgage interest rates as lenders, loan brokers and borrowers indulged in holiday festivities and year-end vacations a world away from the daily turmoil of financial markets.
Mortgage rates for Dec. 29 2010
The benchmark 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage rose 6 basis points this week, to 5.02 percent, according to the Bankrate dot com national survey of large lenders. A basis point is one-hundredth of 1 percentage point. The mortgages in this week’s survey had an average total of 0.44 discount and origination points.
The benchmark 15-year, fixed-rate mortgage rose 10 basis points, to 4.39 percent. The benchmark 5/1 adjustable-rate mortgage rose 8 basis points, to 4 percent.
…
Watching these guys try to will interest rates to some “magic” level is like watching the quasi-homeless at the 7-Eleven down the block play their scratch-offs (lottery tickets) right at the cash register while the rest of us just try to pay for our Slurpees.
This reminds me of a story my brother told.
He was at a store early one morning 9 am or so and there was a homeless guy in front of him doing a happy dance on his way up to the register holding a giant can of beer. The guy plunked down a handfull of change hardly able to control his glee. The clerk looked up at him and said back again already you must be doing well out there.
Two 40’s before 10 am.
Excellent description edgewaterjohn!
Analysis: California’s “girlie men” get last laugh
By Jim Christie
SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Dec 30, 2010 12:48pm EST
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor of California with a bang, toppling Governor Gray Davis in 2003 in a historic recall election seizing on voter anger over the state government’s finances.
Now the Hollywood icon and former body builder is preparing to leave office bruised and battered by the state government’s ongoing financial woes and warfare with lawmakers he bashed with gusto and famously called “girlie men.”
But they’re getting the last laugh.
Lawmakers may be unpopular with voters but they have focused their disappointment on Schwarzenegger, a cautionary tale for incoming Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat elected last month over Republican and former eBay Inc Chief Executive Meg Whitman. Schwarzenegger could not run again for governor due to term limits.
Brown takes office on January 3 and already is busy addressing the ugly state fiscal situation that helped slash Schwarzenegger’s standing with voters to about the same dismal level as that of Davis before they gave him his pink slip.
It’s a sharp contrast with the goodwill Schwarzenegger had when he strutted into the state capital in Sacramento vowing to take down its special interests and blow up its bureaucracies.
…
“Brown takes office on January 3 and already is busy addressing the ugly state fiscal situation…”
Sure, Brown’s lips are moving, but at the end of the day dependent families like “OctoMom” Nadya Suleman and her 14 children are entitled to front row access at the trough. Nothing will change that, IMHO.
***
“Octomom’s California home may be sold to porn king”
LOS ANGELES — “Octomom” Nadya Suleman and her 14 children could avoid being evicted from their suburban home if the mortgage holder cuts a deal with a top maker of pornographic videos.
“Octomom” Nadya Suleman and her 14 children could avoid being evicted from their suburban home if the mortgage holder cuts a deal with a top maker of pornographic videos.”
Sounds like she’s found a new career!
The political attraction of the idea that greenhouse gases should be addressed at the state level is one of those peculiarities of California politics that is hard to fathom for someone who didn’t grow up here smoking the local varieties of weed.
Arnold Schwarzenegger: It’s a wrap
By Patt Morrison
January 1, 2011
The governor who needs no introduction is now in need of a sendoff. Seven years after the flukiest of political events put him in Sacramento as the state’s chief executive, Arnold Schwarzenegger, arguably one of California’s quirkiest Republicans, is handing the top job over to one of its quirkiest Democrats — Jerry Brown. As befits a larger-than-life state, its over-the-top movie star governor has presided over immense budget deficits and scored some legislative triumphs, like the bill that mandates cuts in greenhouse gases. He has also, mirabile dictu, gotten Californians to use a word as long as his surname: “infrastructure.” As Schwarzenegger departs Sacramento’s 95814 and returns to the 90210, he leaves with approval ratings about as low as the man he booted from office, and with unflagging Schwarzeneggerian enthusiasm for whatever’s next. The big-picture matters of his legacy are under scrutiny elsewhere in this newspaper; this interview is about the details.
…
I can’t recall any other state where the governor typically gets a nick-name: “the Governator” or “Governor Moonbeam”.
Brown comes from a long-lived family - his parents lived into their 90’s - but he sure doesn’t look that healthy in recent photos. Anyone ready for Governor Gavin Newsom?
The Gavinator?
Arnold failed in his attempt to fight the unions.He should have followed through but instead he caved to business as usual.
How about “Governor Narcissist” for the incoming Florida guv? Taxpayers off the hook for the many festivities, but geeze…
http://www.cfnews13.com/article/news/2010/november/174738/Govelect-Rick-Scott-to-bring-back-inaugural-ball?cid=rss
Happy New Year, everyone!
Wishing you all a very happy, healthy, and rewarding 2011.
Here’s hoping the Fed/govt finally back down from “supporting the housing market.”
But how else would they pass on Megabank, Inc’s residential real estate gambling losses to prospective future generations of unsuspecting FBs?
Happy New Year to you too and to everyone.
The furniture saga continues. Six new pieces came in. What with the reorganizing I’ve been doing, 8 pieces have left so far. I just managed to rearrange things enough to get rid of number 9. Some friends with a need for easy receipt organizing have agreed to take number 10. 11 and 12 are small enough that I will be able to take them to a donation center myself. I admit that many of the pieces leaving are smaller than the ones that came in, but a 2 to 1 ratio is a win in my book.
Number 13 is identified and it probably could go, but I’m going to wait to see if it ends up being useful somewhere. I’m not quite done with the reorg yet.
The discipline of a one bedroom apartment, even a fairly big one, is a beautiful thing.
Kiss 4% mortgage rates goodbye
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The era of near 4% mortgage rates has ended after a quick rate rise since early November. But some industry experts think that may be a good thing for the flagging housing market.
The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate has risen to 4.86% from 4.17%, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly mortgage market survey. In the Bankrate.com weekly survey, the rate has risen to 5.02% — crossing the 5% mark for the second time in three weeks — after being as low as 4.42% as recently as early November.
Rates haven’t been this high since May and forecasters now predict them to remain between 5% and 6% for all of 2011.
“You can kiss those record lows goodbye,” said Greg McBride, chief economist for Bankrate.com.
Keith Gumbinger of HSH Associates, a provider of mortgage information said that the market reached a new plateau.
“I don’t think we’re going back to a 50-year low anytime soon without an economic collapse,” he said. “Rates will probably never revisit those levels.”
http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/30/real_estate/mortgage_rate_spurt/index.htm
Faber Says Long-Term U.S. Treasuries Are `Suicidal’ Investment
Faber, who advised investors to buy U.S. stocks in March 2009 as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index began a rally of as much as 86 percent, said U.S. Treasuries are a “suicidal” investment.
Government bonds are likely to decline, said Faber, who publishes the Gloom, Boom and Doom report. After bottoming in December 2008, the 10-year Treasury yield rose as high as 3.9859 percent in April on government measures to stimulate the economy. Concern about a second recession in three years sent yields lower through October.
“This is a suicidal investment,” Faber said in a telephone interview from St. Moritz, Switzerland. “Over time, interest rates on U.S. Treasuries will go up. Investors will gradually understand that the Federal Reserve wants to have negative real interest rates. The worst investment is in U.S. long-term bonds.”
I think the only one who likes treasuries right now is the fed since they can print more money to make up for losses.
The primary dealers made a killing frontrunning the fed.Jamie dimon and others have a hotline to the fed for insider information.That should be illegal.
Jamie Diamond and the others have a hotline alright, but it’s used to tell the FED what do.
I just don’t know how these guys think that rising interest rates are going to be good for stocks.
Everything is a bubble now stocks treasuries gold real estate Rising rates is the pin that will deflate these. My guess is China and the FED will continue to be buyers.
I just don’t know how these guys think that rising interest rates are going to be good for stocks ??
They have accomplished what they wanted…Basically eliminated the volatility and pumped the market back up….I suppose only the elusive Black Swan can derail this thing now….
Or a planned crash.
As stated above when the banks and elite have converted all the bad paper they were stuck with when the music stopped they will be read for deflation and higher interest rates employment be damned.
If you want to know the direction of treasuries just monitor how many the large banks hold.
who publishes the Gloom, Boom and Doom report
(Hwy edits for personal chronological clarity)
The Boom & Zoom / Gloom / Doom & Broom Inc. report
“Faber Says Long-Term U.S. Treasuries Are `Suicidal’ Investment”
But nonetheless, isn’t this where the Fed is pouring in money as buyer of last resort, to support T-bond prices and suppress long-term interest rates? ‘Don’t fight the Fed’ seems logically to be the Treasury investor’s rallying cry…
The only worry might be whether the Fed will either change its mind about pursuing this policy, or otherwise find them unable to continue it. At that point, l-t T-bond investors better be positioned close to the exit door, or else prepare to get trampled as the masses race from the burning building.
My guess is that once the banks are whole the FED will be willing to see a large dose of deflation. Interest rates will rise at that time. Given the BS info out there it’s hard to know when this will occur but I don’t think it is around the corner.
Except deflation tends to suppress interest rates without market intervention (inflation has the opposite effect, as the bond market tries to price in an inflation premium on top of fixed nominal returns).
You’re talking about a free market.
What we have is a heavily manipulated market.
The Fed needs inflation. Inflation pays the bills.
Chicago’s Daley Says Pension-Overhaul Law Will Bring Record Tax Increase
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley accused his fellow Democrat, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, of imposing “the largest property-tax increase in the history” of the city by signing a pension-overhaul bill into law.
Quinn’s action places “a tremendous burden on Chicago taxpayers” to bolster the pension funds of public-safety employees, Daley said yesterday in a statement.
“The governor took away the opportunity to fix the legislation before he signed it,” Daley said. “The direct result of the governor’s actions will be a massive property-tax hike for Chicago residents of at least $550 million, or about a 60 percent increase in our current property-tax levy.”
or about a 60 percent increase in our current property-tax levy.” ??
That should do wonders for stabilizing housing prices….
“or about a 60 percent increase in our current property-tax levy.”
Yikes!
60%?!
Stick a fork in that RE market. It’s done.
Federal Real Estate Swelled in 2009 Ahead of New Push to Purge Inventory. ~ FoxNews.com
The federal government picked up thousands of new buildings in 2009, a real estate spree which raises questions about the Obama administration’s commitment to savings billions by shedding excess property.
President Obama over the summer signed a memorandum ordering department heads to “identify and eliminate” unneeded properties, with the goal of saving “no less than” $3 billion by fiscal 2012. The order followed a similar efficiency pledge made by former President George W. Bush in 2004.
While the administration claims it’s making serious headway toward that goal, a recent inventory from the Federal Real Property Council showed that 2009 was a banner year for gaining — not selling — federal property.
“The federal government must improve its real property asset management,” the report declared, calling on Washington to push harder in getting rid of buildings and land it’s not using.
“The federal government picked up thousands of new buildings in 2009…”
I’m pretty sure this was left out of the accounting for the profitability of the TARP?
I wonder what the total value is of all those buildings. Maybe we can give ‘em all to China to settle our debt.
Maybe we already did.
A lot of the new buildings are “needed” to comply with Homeland Security rules that certain functions have to take place in secure buildings. For example, if there isn’t enough space to keep cars away from the buildings they are vulnerable to car bombs and not considered secure. They will get rid of the old stuff when people move into the new stuff.
” Homeland Security rules…” (aka Homeland Stupidity Rules)
Foreclosure Reportedly Ruins Couple’s Finances ~ CNN Money
Yet another nightmare story has emerged involving a mistaken foreclosure. Bank of America reportedly put a Connecticut family’s home in foreclosure despite the fact that the couple never missed a payment — and was actually in the process of refinancing their mortgage with the bank.
According to CTWatchdog.com, Shock Baitch and his wife Lisa (Friedman) Baitch wanted to refinance their mortgage with Bank of America, but a bank representative reportedly put the couple into the Home Affordable Modification Program, the Obama administration’s much-maligned foreclosure prevention initiative.
The program was created to help struggling borrowers. Unfortunately, the Baitch’s weren’t struggling.
Those sorry Biatch’s. lmao.
FB Catch-22: To qualify for a loan mod, you need to miss payments. But missing payments qualifies you for a foreclosure.
It’s like when you were a little kid, and your big brother announced, “Its opposite day: No means yes, and yes means no.
Do you want me to hit you?”
Still catching up. My thanks to Exeter, Oxide and DennisN for their comments and insights yesterday, which are always thought provoking and help me to clarify my thinking.
Going back up to see my long time friends over Easter weekend. As Ex said, and I paraphrase, ” If your plan B is to go farm in upstate NY, you need a Plan C”. I quite agree, but happy to engage with my friends as they started imagining a “Plan B” track to begin with. Always before, it was “next year we’ll make the money all back (right here)”. I guess heating oil price is as good a framework as any to use as an assessment tool for a sustainable lifestyle.
In re this matter of Plan B and Plan C, DennisN observed you gotta make a choice between nice weather and plentiful water. Water is the ‘must have’ factor that drives all subsequent trade offs, IMHO. What might be best would be to have enough of a hard freeze every Winter for Mother Nature to do her job of culling vermin and bacteria. The all around Oil City location winner might have winters characterized by one or two months of hard freeze, coupled with lots of available water that is close enough to the surface be hand pumped if need be.
(You talented engineers will probably be able to dream up a hand pump that uses some as yet unutilized principle of physics to vacuum up water from 200 feet beneath the ground with one stroke of the handle! When you do, patent the heck out of it everywhere in the world, and consider a strategic alliance with the Mossad as your intel and enforcement arm!)
I spent a lot of time deciding where I was going to retire/await armageddon when the bubble was near its peak in 2005/2006.
Amazingly enough I’ve traveled in or worked in 38 states. I had at least a snapshot of much of the country. It didn’t take too long to cross-out most of the country. The SW? Permanent drought. The NE? Harsh winters, taxes, unions, and liberals. Texas? Not my style. The midwest? Harsh winters and boring. My short list quickly came down to the pacific NW and maybe VA/NC.
Naturally YMMV when considering my own personal selection criteria. Some people actually like NYC, Texas, and Florida. I’m happy for them.
I ended up selecting Idaho due to low taxes, low cost of living, and conservative politics.
“I ended up selecting Idaho due to low taxes, low cost of living, and conservative politics.”
Idaho receives more than they pay in tax revenue, thus a welfare state. There’s your “conservative” politics for ya.
I would be interested in seeing any real data to support your often-voiced assertion that Idaho is a “welfare state”.
More than 2/3 of Idaho is owned by the Federal Government. As a landlord, they spend lots of money here to maintain and operate this land. Surely this doesn’t qualify as “welfare payments”, but rather payroll for the rangers and other staff that serve as the “property managers” for the absentee US landlord.
The US Navy has operated a submarine base on Lake Pend Oreille since WWII. Hull designs and sonar systems can be developed and tested there, far from the prying eyes of hostile intelligence agencies. Naturally the Navy spends money there into the local economy, but that is payment for goods and services. Hardly a “welfare payment”.
A large USAF training and operations base is at Mountain Home. Much infrastructure and payroll is paid by the USAF there, but again this is payment for goods and services. Hardly a “welfare payment”.
The premier nuclear reactor design and construction facility in the US is the Idaho National Laboratories outside of Idaho Falls. All of the reactors for the US Navy are designed, tested, and built here. There is a huge payroll of scientists and engineers paid by the Federal government, but again this is payment for goods and services. Hardly a “welfare payment”.
Why are all of these facilities in Idaho? A short reason is that the conservative people in Idaho are friendly to the military and friendly to nuclear power. Hence the powers that be locate and maintain the facilities where they are welcomed, rather than harrassed by NIMBY neighbors.
Dennis,
Speaking of Nuclear power & Idaho, are you familiar with Arco’s history?
I chose Montana for my retirement location for many of the same reasons you chose Idaho. I have always loved the Challis/Salmon area especially.
“Often voiced assertion”? I merely called you out on your worn out liberal/conservative-black/white nonsense. We working folks in boogeyman “liberal” new england are supporting you “conservative” deadbeats…. at least in 2005 and I’ll wager it’s always been like that.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/press/show/22659.html
Idaho received $1.21 in welfare for every $1.00 they paid. Idaho is a welfare state. And look who couldn’t wait to move there and jump on the welfare bandwagon. That’s what your conservatism means…. freeloading…. it’s what you “conservatives” accuse everyone else of doing.
Typical conservative hypocrisy.
All eyes got to say is: Idaho is a Bea-U-ti-ful state, Kooskia north on a motorcycle,… early summer…oh, yeah…
Nice country to visit for a spell…
(Hwy starts singing: “All my life I’ve been awanderin’,…and just when I think I’ve reached the end,…that ol’ road,… it’s starts a bendin’ and I wonder, what’s around the bend?…”)
Aren’t you concerned about water rights in Idaho?
Robert Shiller still bearish on housing
http://survivalandprosperity.com/2010/12/29/robert-shiller-still-bearish-on-housing/
Here it is, the “Hurry! It won`t last” Listing of the day.
486 Dover Rd Tequesta, FL 33469
$184,000 Price Reduced
5 Bed 2 Bath 3,584 Sq Ft
Drum Roll…………..
Days on site 582 days
whoa
But I have to ask, just how bad of shape is it in?
“Double-dipping is common for public-sector ‘retirees’ who take on additional work” kdesa@mercurynews.com
Retirement is a loosely defined term for many Silicon Valley civil servants, who as young as age 50 can begin drawing their pensions even while performing other lucrative jobs on the taxpayer dime.
Newly retired Santa Clara County Fire Chief Kenneth Waldvogel becomes the latest example next week, when he returns to work as a contractor, earning up to $108,480 for the next six months — on top of his $200,000 annual state pension — while the county searches for his replacement.
He joins five other retired Santa Clara County officials who have recently been hired back and are benefiting from a practice critics call “double-dipping.” Meanwhile, the fire chief in the city of Santa Clara has been working under such an arrangement since 2004, when he retired at 53, then immediately returned to his old job, where he continues as a part-timer earning $100 an hour.”
I’m not against people getting another job after they retire. Many have to.
But not back where you used to work. “Retired” means just that. Done.
Having loaded up on a bunch of silver years ago in the $5-$6 dollar range as a little Ins. Makes me feel pretty good today! Happy New Year! I look forward to the $50 mark! Go BB! Print,baby,print! The masses are counting on it, to save them.
I look forward to
$50being the mark!National trends could drag down D.C. area housing market’s gains
By Dina ElBoghdady
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 30, 2010; 11:55 AM
Although Washington area housing has outperformed the national market , which has been devastated by the twin ills of unemployment and foreclosure, the question going into a new year is whether the rest of the country can follow the D.C. area into recovery - or whether the local market will be dragged down by national trends.
Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, estimates that 4 million homes were in foreclosure or on the brink of it heading into this year. That’s in addition to the 6.2 million homes that were foreclosed upon between 2007 and 2010. Together, those 10.2 million foreclosures are equivalent to the populations of North Carolina and Vermont combined.
Clearing these homes off the market is key to a recovery, because foreclosures tend to drag down prices nearby. As 2010 drew to a close, foreclosures and other distressed properties made up about one-third of existing home sales, according to the National Association of Realtors. Home prices were 26 percent off their 2006 peak.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner cited all these factors as challenges in the year ahead when he testified before the Congressional Oversight Panel in December.
“The most important thing that’s going to affect the trajectory of house prices, the overall number of foreclosures, the ability of people to stay in their home, is what the government is able to do to get the unemployment rate down much more quickly,” Geithner told the panel.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/30/AR2010123002103.html -
Now where did I leave the world’s smallest violin?
What a shock, nobody wants a gubmint subsidized POS!
Chevy Volt, Nissan Leaf post small December sales
250-350 Volts, less than 10 Leaf sedans sold in December as electric cars ease onto market
DETROIT (AP) — This was the year General Motors Co. and Nissan made good on their promise to bring mass-produced electric cars to the market. But don’t count on seeing one in traffic soon. Sales so far have been microscopic and they’re likely to stay that way for some time because of limited supplies.
GM sold between 250 and 350 Chevy Volts this month and Nissan’s sales totaled less than 10 Leaf sedans in the past two weeks. Production for both is slowly ramping up.
We’re waiting for the Tesla Model S to become reasonable, after its debut in 2012. 300 MPC (charge) and quicker recharging time by far, due to better battery technology. And the car is a beauty.
Oh, and PB, thank you for all your great links.
“GM sold between 250 and 350 Chevy Volts this month ”
Not to worry!
GE to buy 12,000 Chevy Volts
Last Updated: November 11. 2010 4:57 PM
Christina Rogers / The Detroit News
General Electric will convert half its 30,000 worldwide fleet of vehicles to electrics, including purchasing 12,000 cars from GM beginning with the 2011 Chevrolet Volt, the company said today.
http://detnews.com/article/20101111/AUTO01/11110441/GE-to-buy-12-000-Chevy-Volts - 70k -
The Volt sounds like a great car for $42,000 bucks, goes 25 miles on a charge then the gas engine kicks in to carry you another 250 or so. The smart set should be flocking to buy one. What with the $7500.00 gubmint carrot dangling on the hood.
My understanding is that it was 40 miles on a charge. That would work for a lot of people. The price is still way too steep of course. If they could get it down to around 20K there could be a real market for it.
The Tesla Model S is a REAL electric car. Tesla is in partnership w/ Toyota.
“Sales so far have been microscopic and they’re likely to stay that way for some time because of limited supplies.”
Uh, might this be the actual reason so few sold? I checked the website of the local Chevy dealer and they have no Volts in stock.
Freom what I have heard they are fetching far above MSRP.
They have 50,000 on the wait list.
Seriously if you think massive inflation is coming there is no better investment. It’s like buying half the gas you’ll need for the next decade and storing it in a tank only a lot less messy If you buy solar panels (prices have fallen significantly )you can have your transportation costs for the next 10 years locked up. I’m waiting for the Focus electric, then we’ll have two.
“They have 50,000 on the wait list.”
Kinda like condos in Miami in 2005.
50,000 isn’t that big of a number. There are easily enough hard core greenies out there to buy 50,000 Chevy Volts. Heck, there’s enough of them in Metro LA alone. Heck, there’s practically a Prius on every corner there.
“If you buy solar panels (prices have fallen significantly )you can have your transportation costs for the next 10 years locked up. I’m waiting for the Focus electric, then we’ll have two.”
Some one else who gets it.
Electric car+home power=more economic independence
But let’s buy a 17mpg Escalade look-a-like or Behemoth-150 instead and then complain about energy costs, shall we?
In our temp ghetto apt in So Ca, the Escalade is the choice of the illegals, along with the Expedition. Go figure.
“It’s what El Jefe’ drives!”
nobody wants a gubmint subsidized POS
Leaf: $32,500
-$7,500.00 Federal
-$5,000.00 State
_________________
$19,500.00
100 miles per 18 hr charge @ $5.00 CA rates
Looking forward to renting one from Enterprise Inc. in San Diego soon!
Just sittin’ & waitin’…just sittin’ & waitin’…
Could be the price. I do expect sales to pick up as oil crosses the $100 per barrel threshold.
Pretty much.
There are plenty of decent sub-30k cars that now get 30+mpg.
I think next summer will be a great time to “snap up” a lightly used Suburban or 400 HP pickup truck. You might even be able to do a direct swap for 4 cylinder subcompact!
I don’t know if gas will go back down to the $2 range again though.
I do and the answer is: never again.
…I meant at $2.
$2-$3? The new norm.
$3+ has been shown to be the pain limit of American drivers.
ecofeco
Asia’s demand is increasing. More cars.
I’m unsure of “Peak Oil”, but I’m afraid $5- will sound cheap in a few years, imho.
An electric car will not be an option.
Coming soon to a Florida neighborhood near you:
FB vrs FB gladiator match!
Neighbor vs. Neighbor in Florida
Among the casualties housing storm is the neighborliness of certain communities where residents live close together, some of them paying mortgages and homeowner-association fees, and some not.
Nice to see the current administration has done so much to ‘change’ things…
More big paydays at Fannie, Freddie.
December 31, 2010
The housing recovery has stalled, but the gravy train rolls on for the government-appointed saviors of the housing market, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The top executives of the taxpayer-backed companies stand to make millions of dollars in salary, deferred pay and long-term incentive awards for 2010 – including substantial sums that are performance-based, at least in name.
Fannie covering?
Fannie (FNMA) CEO Michael Williams and Freddie (FMCC) chief Charles Haldeman each stand to make some $6 million this year, going by company filings that broadly outline 2009 pay and 2010 guidelines.
Using the same data and assuming no one got a pay cut — we can’t risk having the talent leave, after all — their top lieutenants could make between $2 million and $3 million each.
This for a year in which the companies saw their shares delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, posted $28 billion in losses through three quarters and ran their tab at Treasury to a startling $150 billion. Your taxpayer dollars at work.
These entities are gov run, no gov employee should make more than the president.
Well, I know Fannie always trumpeted how they were a “private” company. I wonder how many other government-chartered corporations are really wolves in sheep’s clothing?
All of them?
They’ve all been corrupted by corporate cash.
Clueless U CA executives threaten to sue for higher pensions. They sent this letter on Dec. 9. Let’s see if the even more clueless CA legislature can stop them.
http://www.montereyherald.com/local/ci_16964115?nclick_check=1
As I stated the other day, they way they will pay for this is to cut the pensions of the rank and file.
This is where most of the anti-pension agitation is coming from across the country.
Hello
I am an infrequent poster but regular reader for several years now. I live in a village outside of Kalamazoo Michigan. The house across the street was owned by a landlord who lived in one unit and rented out the other three. He eventually moved to a house outside of town so he could raise dogs. He did not keep a close eye on things–his most trusted tenant was a meth cooker/dealer. He poisoned two apartments with these activities and the landlord could not rent them out as he wouldnt have a professional cleanup crew come it. He lost the house about 6 months ago. HUD owns it and has sent one crew into to secure it. Yesterday a single fellow was in the house inspecting it–I introduced myself. He was with a company that had purchased it and “hundreds” of other homes like it. He was there to tell his company whether the home was worth keeping or not. I told him all about the meth labs–he seemed quite surprised–HUD had said nothing about this. I told him I would continue to tell every prospective buyer I see at the property about its past–I want it torn down. We have a lot of unkept old stock that needs to be torn down.
The house across the street
I told him I would continue to tell every prospective buyer I see at the property about its past
Put up a sign in your yard: (For when you not available to ”xplain” things)
LOOK! Across the Street…QUICK!——->
Former Meth house for Sale! …Cheap!
Your lucky day!
What`s this world coming to when you can`t even trust a meth dealer to keep an eye on things.
I don’t see any problem here at all, sounds like a typical well run gubmint program to me…
What people pay into Medicare won’t cover costs.
Amount is only a third of medical benefits they’ll receive, adding to growing gap.
WASHINGTON — You paid your Medicare taxes all those years and think you deserve your money’s worth: full benefits after you retire.
Nearly three out of five people say in a recent Associated Press-GfK poll that they paid into the system so their benefits shouldn’t be cut.
But a newly updated financial analysis shows that what people paid into the system doesn’t come close to covering the full value of the medical care they can expect to receive as retirees.
Consider an average-wage, two-earner couple together earning $89,000 a year. Upon retiring in 2011, they would have paid $114,000 in Medicare payroll taxes during their careers.
But they can expect to receive medical services — from prescriptions to hospital care — worth $355,000, or about three times what they put in.
This statement makes a lot of assumptions.
Note if we had a nationalized health care plan like Europe Canada or Japan we would spend 50% less per person and that gap would seem much smaller.
Oh yes, nationalize everything, that’ll fix all our problems.
Who said anything about nationalizing “everything”?
The facts are the facts. Other nations spend half of what we do and get better outcomes, plus everyine is covered.
Of course we can’t have a single payor system. That’s pinko communism! Its much better to continue being raped by our private, for profit healthcare system.
Who said anything about nationalizing “everything”?
Well. why not? If government has the magic touch to make everything cheaper and better in health care, why not in every industry?
The facts are the facts. Other nations spend half of what we do and get better outcomes, plus everyine is covered.
The facts, as always, are cherry-picked by the big government set. For example, if you ignore the thousands of people who die annually in the UK while on waiting lists for treatment for their conditions, then yes you can say everyone is covered.
Of course we can’t have a single payor system. That’s pinko communism! Its much better to continue being raped by our private, for profit healthcare system.
Old Soviet-era joke: What’s the difference between communism and capitalism? In capitalism, man exploits man. In communism, it’s the reverse.
Ok here’s the gauntlet
Show me a statistic from any journal that suggests those in the UK have shorter lives than those in the US.
The life expectany in UK 79 yrs of age that in teh US is 78. We are spending twice as much but don’t live as long.
“Well. why not? If government has the magic touch to make everything cheaper and better in health care, why not in every industry?”
I hope you don’t cook that way.
Most grownups already know that the proper amount is what makes things works and more is NOT the obvious solution.
What we have for health care in this country is both the laughing stock and nightmare of the industrialized world.
“Well. why not? If government has the magic touch to make everything cheaper and better in health care, why not in every industry?”
No one said that either.
But the fact remains that the current dysfunctional, private for profit system that we have costs twice as much per capita compared to what is spent in other countries, countries which have better outcomes and longer average lifespans.
Why not emulate what works everyplace else? Why stick stubbornly to a system that is proven to be expensive, inefficient and unsustainable?’
I correspond with people outside the US and they are universally flummoxed by our horrible system that is the number 1 cause of personal bankruptcy in this country. A system that keeps getting worse, where if you’re lucky enough to be insured you probably have a “high deductible plan” where you have to pay out of pocket the first $3000 (or more) of your familiy’s health care costs on top of the huge insurance premiums? How is this even remotely considered acceptable?
Have we become that scared of the “socialism bogeyman”?
“Have we become that scared of the “socialism bogeyman”?”
Is this a trick question?
Ok here’s the gauntlet
Show me a statistic from any journal that suggests those in the UK have shorter lives than those in the US.
I have already cited to you statistics that elderly mortality (at ages 80+) is much lower in the US than anywhere else. This, of course, is the age group where people have the most contact with the health care system. The difference in life expectancy at birth (78 in US vs. 79 in UK, or whatever) is hardly significant and can be due to any number of factors other than health care.
Fact: The facts are the facts. Other nations spend half of what we do and get better outcomes, plus everyone is covered.
Counter: The facts, as always, are cherry-picked by the big government set.
New buzz words! “cherry-picked” !
When those who don’t have any stats to back up their argument and have been shown legit stats that argue against their position those stats are…………..(can I get a drumroll please??) “cherry-picked”!
But cherries are good! Trust me! Really good.
So here’s some more cherries. The following countries spend way less than the USA and cover
everyone.Britain France Norway Netherlands Canada Japan Germany Belgium Sweden Finland Australia New Zealand Italy Denmark Ireland Switzerland Spain
Portugal …………and………. get this….San Marino!
That’s a lot of cherries!
everyone.
LOL I mean EVERYONE, not
everyone(I musta been thinkin bout USA when I crossed out “everyone” being covered.)
I hope you don’t cook that way.
Most grownups already know that the proper amount is what makes things works and more is NOT the obvious solution.
I don’t cook by mixing together 18,000 ingredients, making a horrible tasting mess, and then deciding I need even more ingredients.
Nor do I cook in such a way as to force hundreds of millions of people to eat my concoctions, whether they asked for them or not.
I love cherries. I was overpaying for good tasting food at Stew Leonards tonite and I swiped and ate two cherries from bulk storage bin.
I love cherries.
“I don’t cook by mixing together 18,000 ingredients, making a horrible tasting mess, and then deciding I need even more ingredients.
Nor do I cook in such a way as to force hundreds of millions of people to eat my concoctions, whether they asked for them or not.”
But that’s example the system we have now.
“…exactly…”
Sorry, lot’s of fireworks on my street tonight.
There is no such thing as a free market in medicine. What we have now is a hybrid that strips wealth from you the customer and from you the tax payer. A nationilzed system would cost you less. We spend 7k per person the others mentioned spend about 3500, but don’t let facts affect your opinion.
There is no such thing as a free market in medicine
Not with people like you in charge. You seem to think that if you say this enough times, it becomes true. It isn’t.
What we have now is a hybrid that strips wealth from you the customer and from you the tax payer. A nationilzed system would cost you less. We spend 7k per person the others mentioned spend about 3500, but don’t let facts affect your opinion.
Measton, first of all, yes some parts of health care in the US are obviously in a pricing bubble, because the government has distorted the system so badly. This is not an argument for expanding government control, any more than the housing bubble was an argument for expanding Fannie and Freddie.
Secondly, your statistics are BS because they don’t take into account quality of care, access to care, cost shifting from public to private plans, and piggybacking of other countries via differences in the patent laws. Other than that, you’re right on the money.
“Secondly, your statistics are BS because they don’t take into account quality of care, access to care”
Oh please. It has been established that other countries have superior outcomes and longer lifespans.
And as for all that R&D, look at what’s being advertised on TV: ED pills.
I know a surveyor who sired a deadbeat daughter on welfare who has never produced anything other than children with emotional and/or physical problems. She consumes public resources on a level so disgusting that few people at work can endure the details because it ruins their day. Disability and medicaid better not run short of money, or she’ll set the countryside on fire. And there are plenty more just like her in this fine country.
Yes. They’re called “bankers” and “corporation.”
France braces for annual New Year’s car torchings
PARIS (Reuters) – France will deploy extra police and keep vandalism statistics under wraps on New Year’s Eve to fight what authorities say has become an annual “sweepstakes” of disaffected youths competing to see who can burn the most cars.
Youths in depressed suburbs of French cities have been torching hundreds of vehicles on New Year’s Eve and Bastille Day since the early 1990s. Police say the annual rite has turned competitive, with youths tracking the news in the first days of the new year to see which neighborhood did the most damage.
“I have decided to put an end to the competition, the sweepstakes, and will longer publish the number of burned vehicles,” Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said this week, adding that publishing statistics encouraged vandalism.
Youths = muslims in French PC talk
Eddie’s DOW 12k prediction for end of the year has FAILED. He chided others who questioned his self-proclaimed ability to predict the future, and even posted the nauseating “it feels so good to be right” before the verdict was even in. Well, there can be no denying now that Eddie was WRONG.
Well… he didn’t say end of WHICH year…
Geez Grizz….the market doesn’t even close for another 2 hours. Who can tell what may happen?
There can be no denying that were he posting today, Eddie would be spinning his hardest to convince us that his prediction was almost right, and hence successful.
“Close” counts in horseshoes, hand grenades & printing extra dollars!…
The image of DeadWrongEddieTard stammering, ducking and weaving makes me laugh.
11,577.51
Commodities Beat Stocks, Bonds, Dollar in 2010
Commodity prices beat gains in stocks, bonds and the dollar this year as China, the biggest user of everything from cotton to copper to soybeans, led the recovery from the first global recession since World War II.
So Natalie, why didn’t you tell us about this? Then we could have made some real money, instead of settling for those crummy stock returns.
Uncle buck is looking a little weak in the knees today. Au&Ag are shinning, must be that damn bubble again.
Item: Liberal Star Blogger Ezra Klein: Constitution ‘Has No Binding Power on Anything’; Confusing Because it’s Over 100 Years Old.
Must not take much to confuse this dumb ass.
Constitution ‘Has No Binding Power on Anything’
Cool, then there’s no basis for the government to tax us or tell us what to do! Free at last!!
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-31/former-treasury-chief-paulson-loses-1-million-on-sale-of-washington-home.html
Hank Paulson, the “former” Goldman Sachs honcho who presided over the disastrous economic policies of the BushObama (there’s no difference) Administrations from 2006 to 2009, is officially an FB, having lost a cool million on the sale of his Washington DC house. I’m sure his “former” Goldman employers will find a way to more than cover his loses, given the top cover he gave Wall Street to loot the productive economy during his tenure as Secretary of the Treasury.
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it.”
Frederic Bastiat
That describes the corporatist states of America to a T.
It’s now the Government’s job to look out for the banks who’s job is not to look out for the people or the economy.
Leading Democrats: Congress, Senate Owned And Run By Bankers infowars dot net
The Democratic Chairman of the Agriculture Committee yesterday announced to the press that “The banks run the place,” in reference to the US Congress. He is the second notable elected official to speak out in recent weeks over the gross and institutionally corrupt conflict of interest on Capitol Hill.
“I will tell you what the problem is,” Collin Peterson told the New York Times, “they give three times more money than the next biggest group. It’s huge the amount of money they put into politics.”
…Peterson’s warning mirrors that of Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who just a few weeks ago uttered the same rarely acknowledged truth.
“And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place,” he said.
“He is the second notable elected official to speak out in recent weeks over the gross and institutionally corrupt conflict of interest on Capitol Hill.”
Hey, that’s two. I call that progress; It’s two more congressmen than we had a few weeks ago.
Now as for the remaining 533 …
Hey, that’s two. I call that progress; It’s two more congressmen than we had a few weeks ago.
I forgot to note the article was from 09
Rats.
Dec 30 (Reuters) - Few know better than former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson how the struggling U.S. economy has battered home prices.
As former President George W. Bush’s top economic adviser, Paulson played a lead role battling the U.S. housing downturn and deep financial crisis it sparked.
But last week it got personal.
Paulson sold his three-bedroom home in a tony Washington neighborhood last week for close to a third less than his initial asking price and more than $1 million below what he paid for it more than four years ago.
The villa-style home near the official vice president’s mansion and the National Cathedral sold for $3.25 million on Dec. 21. Paulson put it on the market for $4.6 million in April, later lowering the asking price to $4.15 million, according to real estate industry records. He paid $4.3 million in August 2006, according to government records.
“more than $1 million below what he paid for it more than four years ago.”
So it was a short sale.
If I had a smiley face I would have put it here.
“So it was a short sale.”
I doubt it.
He likely just sold at a loss, and he will simply note that loss on his taxes to offset his other taxable income. $1-million, no sweat.
“He likely just sold at a loss,”
That`s why I needed the smiley face. I didn`t figure the GS man would need a short sale for that piddly amount of money.
Paulson sold his three-bedroom home in a tony Washington neighborhood last week for close to a third less than his initial asking price and more than $1 million below what he paid for it more than four years ago.
YES!! YES!!! YES!!! He’s down to 699 million dollars now.
Henry Paulson:
His net worth has been estimated at over US $700 million. wiki
Paulson pocketed 1/2 billion in a short amount of time and he was one of the big players at Goldmans during the boom . No question that he was a conflict of interest party that had no business becoming the Treasury Sect. when his own actions could of had liability in the scheme of things regarding the Great Housing Boom loan swindle .
Everybody should of realized that when Hank Paulson walked onto the stage that the little guy was doomed and Justice would be denied .
Someone asked Hank Paulson one time ,”Are you concerned with
moral hazard with the Tarp Program ? Paulson proceeded to describe how they saved the World from a financial meltdown . I think Paulson saved himself and that’s the joke .
Happy New Year to all, even the Soros Commies. Don’t drink and drive.
I’m tired tonight but it’s 10:30pm on News Years Eve. The fastest year of my life. We passed on a party but thinking about walking 10 min to party with 2 million of my closest friends on Copacabana Beach, Concerts $1.50 beers! 25 min of fireworks! (but no John Phillips Sousa)
I think I’m gonna go. They show it on TV in the USA too. Look for me!!
I’ll be wearing brown shorts, sandals and a white t-shirt!
Thanks Ben and posters for another great year on the blog!
Happy New Year!!!!!!
http://www.wavemagazine.net/arhiva/14/ent/copacabana.htm
U.S. Treasury Met Goldman Sachs on Fannie, Freddie in November
By Rebecca Christie - Dec 30, 2010 4:15 PM PT
U.S. Treasury Department officials met in November with a group of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. executives to discuss Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-sponsored enterprises that have been under government control since 2008.
…
Happy New Year to all . I’m thinking about my predictions for 2011 and I have 2 mindsets ,the best possible and the worse possible and it all depends on
if you are blessed or not blessed by the Powers that will pick and choose who will win and who will lose .The majority has to take their power back and get rid of bums running this Country for starters ,so wake me up when that happens because until then we are just going to witness a Mad Mad Mad World that revolves around the interest of a small percentage of people controlling the decisions.