Bits Bucket for January 11, 2011
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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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Good morning everyone.
I was relieved to wake up this morning to hear that Portugal will NOT be needing a bail-out. Phew! Europeans must feel so much better this morning. ; )
In a discussion about the MA Supreme Court decision U.S. Bank v Ibanez the following comment was made:
MA is the only state that doesn’t follow the UCC for mortgages.
Can Polly, or anyone else give me a down and dirty explanation of what the UCC is?
Also can anyone tell me in newbie language what a 144A is in bond purchases? Another site was reporting China was serripticiously providing Portugal w/a bail-out by purchasing bonds in this fashion thereby keeping the aid off the radar.
Thank you.
Did they suggest any reason why China would want to bail out Portugal?
In the final days a Madoff investor would gladly invest some of his huge “profits” back into the scheme if he knew that he could be broke by dawn were the party to end.
The curse of running a huge trade surplus. They have excess cash from their excess trade surplus. What else could they do? Loan money to Clownifornia? They are buying up natural resources as fast as they can.
If you run a huge trade surplus you always end up with other people’s IOUs. There’s always a chance that those other people will default on their IOUs. The more IOUs you hold the higher the chance of default. Ideally you want an even trade balance. Look at the German export model for example. Their banks loan PIGS countries money. They use that money to buy German goods. Now the PIGS are broke and German banks are full of PIGS’s IOUs. Now Germany either has to bail the PIGS out or, alternatively, let the PIGS fail and bailout their own banks instead. The Germans are smart when it comes to engineering, not so much when it comes to economics. Same goes for the Chinese.
Die Deutschen sind Magier, nicht Kaufleute.
keine, not nicht…
KooKooKrauts.
There’s lots of things the Chinese can do with their money, including lend it to other countries. But CarrieAnn was suggesting this was some sort of secret loan to prop up Portugal, not a normal debt purchase.
Sinister reasons aside, it is primarily a Chinese cultural habit to not attract unnecessary attention by chest-thumping. A pretty good habit, if I were trying to park a trillion dollars around the world.
Also, there could very well be a section of Chinese population who might not like news of their sovereign wealth being fed to the hog farm. Don’t forget that times are tough in China with food inflation and unaffordable houses. Keeping it out of the news might actually be something the Chinese government is doing for domestic compulsions than external.
Well Zero Hedge was suggesting it was being done in a way that would not draw attention to most investors. The implication was that it was a more under the radar option.
“…it is primarily a Chinese cultural habit to not attract unnecessary attention by chest-thumping.”
FAIL!
“They are buying natural resources as fast as they can”
And they are doing this buying with what? IOUs perhaps?
“And they are doing this buying with what? IOUs perhaps?”
I think they’re doing it with our IOU’s.
Chinese “needs” more land and food for its people. Guess where it is going?
Portugal? And California? (Actually, they have had a colony in California since the time it became a state — Chinatown, in San Francisco…)
It’s kind of like the company story extending endless credit for bankrupt workers, because if they don’t, they won’t sell anything and will go out of business. Classic extend and pretend.
When we were kids I remember many a Monopoly game going into overtime with the losing player going into debt to the winner. But that money was fake - just cheap printed paper…
Problem deferred, not solved. The ECB, China, and Japan just kicked the can down the road for another day. The fundamental debt crisis continues to worsen.
Thanks Natalie. Now the explanations help.
Paul Giamatti was just on GMA saying he was going to be playing The Bernank in some movie?!? Funny, he was saying he met him and he’s a tough read. If only an hbber was behind that script.
Reality…..stranger than fiction.
It’s an HBO movie to be made of this book (don’t miss the deflated price!):
Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System–and Themselves
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“The fundamental debt crisis continues to worsen.”
The worst thing is most of us won’t be dead when this sucker blows.
UCC = Uniform Commercial Code. It has been adopted by most states and governs the creation and perfection of security interests in collateral. Perfected security interests are senior to claims from general creditors. It generally relates to personal property rather than real property, but the two often work together as mortgages/deeds of trust often include more than just real property.
SEC Rule 144A governs private placements of securities to big boys (i.e, certain entities and investors that the SEC believes should be sophisticated enough to not need all the protections afforded to the public in a public offering). Private placements are much cheaper as disclosure is usually minimal and replaced with the execution of a one or two page investment letter in which the buyer says it meets the big boy requirements. It also was also intially designed to help get around the 2 year holding period previously required.
“MA is the only state that doesn’t follow the UCC for mortgages.” I have not read the case but this may be referring to the general rule that the security for a note generally follows the note under the UCC. Thus, if you have an assigned note, you may not need an assignment of the colleteral documents, which would be deemed necessarily assigned when the note was assigned. Even if states adopted the UCC word for word I would be hesitant to necessarily apply this concept to real property without further research. State law governing real property is usually more specifically covered in another section of the State code.
colleteral = collateral
Are they talking about Article 9 secured transactions? I never thought that applied to RE. As you say there’s always a separate statutory scheme for that.
Same here, although I haven’t looked at Art. 9 since law school. I remember Art. 9 covered things like auto loans and other forms of collateralized loans.
Yes. It applicability is a little sketchy to me unless the property at issue is related fixtures, assignment of rents, furniture, etc. Sometimes it is all combined in the mortgage/deed of trust.
I’ve mentioned a few times before that real estate law and the law of personalty (personal property) evolved under different court systems (when there were different court systems - law and equity). Even when the court systems merged, for a long time your pleadings were different depending on whether the property involved was personal property or real property. Most famous example of this is a case beloved of law professors (and hated by law students) in which the result depended on whether or not horse poop which had fallen on the road was personal property (because it used to be part of the horse which is personal property) or real property (because after falling, it was sort of part of the road).
The system of pleadings has been greatly simplified since then, but there are aspects of the old equity system that apply to transactions involving real property more often than you will see them in transactions involving personal property. If you contract to sell someone a particular parcel of land, you are likely to have to live up to that contract, not be able to substitute another parcel of equal value at your discretion. Such will not be the case if you promise to sell someone a particular truck load of carrots (as long as the new truckload meets all the other criteria specified in the contract). I think that transactions involving real estate often HAVE to be in writing to be enforceable. There are a few other things, but those seem to be the most significant to me.
The basic standard is that real estate law is usually a bit different than the law governing other commercial transactions.
Ah yes…the Uniform Commercial Code…..
Many parts of the law are reserved to the states, and there is no overwhelming Federal law on these subjects. However….
Did you think that state legislators sat around and dreamed up these laws by themselves?
No, an elite un-elected cabal of Law Professors get together and write these laws. They are then mailed off to the various state legislatures who are expected to “rubber stamp” these into their own state statutes.
A prime example is the UCC, which covers a lot of ground.
The UCC has 11 articles last time I checked.
Art. 1 general provisions
Art. 2 sales
Art. 3 commercial paper
Art. 4 bank deposits and credits
Art. 5 letters of credit
Art. 6 bulk transfers
Art. 7 warehouse receipts etc.
Art. 8 investment securities
Art. 9 secured transactions etc.
Art. 10 effective date and repealer
Art. 11 effective date and transistion provisions
UCC has the reputation of being the single most personally useful class in all of law school. The day about checks (on bank accounts) specifically. My mother told me to write “for deposit only” on deposited checks, and once she did, I generally followed her advice. My UCC prof told me why you should always write “for deposit only in account number XXXXX” on the back of checks. And once he told me why, I have never even considered skipping it.
That must be where I got it too.
Good morning.
I was relieved to wake up this morning.
Here’s the decision:
http://www.scribd.com/full/46491010?access_key=key-110ab87rl2gix0ou3ej6
I scanned it and it only cites to relevant sections in MA General Laws.
Thanks everyone that contributed on the UCC or Universal Commercial Code. I did also check Wiki just to get another viewpoint and history on the subject.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_Commercial_Code
http://cnyhomes.com/Listing/Search/info.cgi?mlnum=S246367
$179/sq foot. Pretty steep for the town of Onondaga, NY.
$949,000
Built 2001
2.58 acres
Avg listing price in Onondaga: $273,900
Median sales price in Onondaga: $112,000 (and apparently falling, down 36.9% yoy)
(numbers from Truliadotcom)
Total Tax: $26,209.00
Dear gawd - what insanity…
Isn’t that the truth! I make a good living but would have a hard time coming up with $26K every year for prop taxes. No wonder New York and New Jersey have such good public schools and California’s are in the toilet. That’s a huge chunk of change.
You can pay that in CA too….
I know the guy who “owns” this place….
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/18310-Bicknell-Rd-Monte-Sereno-CA-95030/19669156_zpid/
He’s paying $30K a year for property tax.
Welcome to the northeast.
Taxes CANNOT be that high out here. Eddie said so
It is so frustrating to see that there have been not many listings from the banks in the past 6 months or so. Either the banks are delusional that they will list the houses when prices go up or thinking that Fed would give them money for the losses and they would offload. Looks like hoarding the houses similar to hoarders in India who are sitting on stocks of Onions. They bring them to the market when prices go up.
Not happening this time in RE though in US for the next 3-4 years at least. The prices will go down further no matter banks sit on them or bring them to the market.
Martin
Methinks that the banksters are avoiding recognition of the losses. In the meantime, they continue to be the control frauds* that they are. Which means that, until they’re forced to recognize the aforementioned losses, they can keep on looting their companies.
—-
* A good explanation of control frauds can be found in William K. Black’s book, The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One.
Japan Joins China in Assisting Europe in Debt Crisis
(Bloomberg)
Japan plans to buy bonds issued by Europe’s financial-aid funds, its finance minister said, joining China in assisting the region as it battles against a debt crisis that prompted bailouts of Ireland and Greece.
“There is a plan for the euro zone to jointly issue a large amount of bonds late this month to raise funds to assist Ireland,” Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said at a news conference in Tokyo today. “It’s appropriate for Japan to make a contribution as a leading nation to increase trust in the deal. We want to buy more than 20 percent.”
As long as some dumb sucker keeps on backstopping or buying their bonds the spending spree will continue.
Greece for example cooked their books for years without anybody taking notice. If you loan out your money to entities like that you desperately deserve a haircut. I am talking buzz cut.
Anybody ever had a drug addict friend or relative being all desperate and panicked trying to get some cash out of you? They’ll promise you anything to get some cash right now. Next week they’re back for more, just one last time, I promise.
They’ll keep that crack pipe under full steam as long as they find an enabler.
Isn’t Japan the last country that should be taking on another country’s debt?
I think they have been forced to do so by the White House. This is part of the overall protection racket (see Russ Winter’s blog). The US is not in a position to be involved directly, yet it is not comfortable to unchecked Chinese involvement - so ask an “ally” to step in.
From Nic Lenoir of ICAP:
If you were worried about the Portuguese auction tomorrow fear not! Japan decided to be proactive fighting this latest break-out of European sovereign CDS rates and extend a very unselfish hand. Indeed how could one doubt their good intentions? All they want is to make sure their currency stops appreciating in order to keep the youth unenployment rate in Italy around 29%. Following China’s lead Japan announced they would buy European bonds. With only 200% debt to GDP ratio it makes sense for them to go ahead and chip in to help Portugal throw bad money after an even worse structural issue. China gets relatively little bad press for supporting European markets as conventional wisdom assumes their official 20% debt to GDP ratio is accurate. Other analysts much better informed on the subject than I am, in fact some even created a fund dedicated to benefit from when China’s economic miracle is exposed for the ponzi scheme it is, claim actual numbers are much closer to 120% but the people’s republic uses all sorts of accounting trickery and local government vehicles to disguise the true extent of its indebtedness. Japan however shall not benefit from the general public’s stupidity with debt levels well publicized. Indeed as we discussed many times before, Japan’s public debt is astronomical. To date they were able to keep growing their debt because they started their lost quarter century with a savings rate around 8%. That savings rate is now negative which means Japan will at some point in the future, when exactly is anyone’s guess, will have to rely on foreign demand to finance their debt. Now I don’t know for you, but if US Treasuries are considered toxic by a lot of fund managers out there, how many people do you really think will line up to buy 10Y JGBs yielding 1.18%? Obviously Japan’s announcement had not so much to do with their desire to rescue Portuguese finances, but instead is aimed in my opinion to the obvious secondary effect of weakening the JPY. That will work to temporarily slow down the fall of EURJPY, but when it comes to USDJPY it is exclusively driven by the 2Y UST/JGB rate spread. So if Japan really wants to weaken the Yen they might as well start dumping their 2Y treasuries. With the time interval between solvency crises shrinking exponentially as the eventual end game approaches, I have my doubts as to how much good will come from this touching display of Eurasian brotherly love. Perhaps is this why the Dollar index refuses to trade South this morning…
No, Mr. Krugman, You’re Eating America Alive
* by Neeraj Chaudhary
Here we go again. This week, Paul Krugman, the 2008 Nobel Prize winner in economics and the go-to guy for progressives who need a morale boost, launched another misguided attack on Austrian School economists. From his New York Times soapbox, he referred to the free-market Austrian “hard money” philosophy as a “zombie idea” that is inexplicably eating the brains of the voting public.
The attack would hardly be worth a reaction if it weren’t for the fact that the column did create a buzz. In the piece, he repeated a refrain that has become common for the empirically defeated Keynesians. Said Krugman, “many economists, myself included, warned from the beginning that [President Obama's original stimulus plan] was grossly inadequate.” He continued, “[a] policy under which government employment actually fell, under which government spending on goods and services grew more slowly than during the Bush years, hardly constitutes a test of Keynesian economics.”
When looking for zombies, the first place Mr. Krugman should look is in the mirror. He has one answer to every problem: eat more taxpayers. He isn’t even a true Keynesian. Mr. Krugman is the guardian of a system that died a long time ago. He is the walking undead of the New Deal era.
What Keynes actually said about government spending is that during recessions, governments should run budget deficits to boost aggregate demand, and during expansions, governments should run budget surpluses in order to save up for the inevitable recession years.
Now, whether you agree with this or not - and I happen to disagree with this approach - what we have actually done is run deficits, year-in, year-out, almost every single year for 40 years! And, as a result, we have accumulated a national debt approaching 100% of our annual gross domestic product.
Obama, Gore and Krugman all have nobel prizes.
nobel prizes are apparently a joke.
Krugman’s Nobel prize in economics had nothing to do with his liberal politics and was a reward from his peers for excellent, non-political research.
His political editorials for the past three years have been pointedly critical of Obama. Both Obama and Clinton left him off their Council of Economic Advisors, and ironically, he served on Reagan’s CEA.
http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/2921
The clowns who wrote the “black box models” that took down Long Term Capital Management (LTCM), and very nearly the entire global financial system, were Nobel Prize winners, too. Nobel should’ve stuck to making dynamite.
The Nobel Prizes in the sciences are generally well-deserved. However, the economics and peace prizes are sometimes given for the most peculiar reasons.
Yassir Arafat, Henry Kissinger, and Le Duc Tho are all Nobel Peace Prize winners.
At least Theodore Roosevelt won his the hard way, by negotiating a settlement of the Russo-Japanese war of 1905.
Unfortunately, the negotiated settlement lead to the Russian Revolution that deposed the Czar. It also completely embarrassed the Japanese people and fueled a strong hatred of the West and was a driving force in the militarism that took over Japan and lead to Pearl Harbor.
Without that peace settlement, who knows, two world wars may have been averted…
In other words, nobody is following either economic school of thought fully, so you can’t really blame either school. It’s like forgetting to put wings on your airplane and the blaming the Wright Brothers when your plane doesn’t fly. Well, DUH.
ANY economic model that does not include and make allowances for “gaming” and manipulating the market, is worthless.
We ended up with about 6 inches of snow, so everything is pretty much shut down.Local news reports several hundred auto accidents, it’s great weather if your in the auto body repair biz.
What if Bernanke announced that you can now pay your mortgage with snow?
dollars are becoming more like snow. we were driving yesterday looking at the amazing amount of snow here in the high sierra discussing this very concept.
snow, tuplips, dollars all can function as currency as long as the holders have experience that the currency is accepted.
confidence creates a temporary currency where scarcity creates a lasting currency.
we are fools to debase our own currency
Last night Colbert called this “The Weather of Northern Aggression”.
At this moment, Florida is the only state in the Union that doesn’t have some amount of snow cover. Even Hawaii (Mauna Kea) has snow, which it gets every winter.
I guess that’s why “global warming” has been dropped in favor of “climate change.” ANY change in the climate can be blamed on us.
Don’t. Just don’t.
The globe is warming and that measurable warming is the driver for climate change. The name was changed to “climate change” so that the layperson would see the obvious climate changes around him and wouldn’t just say, “It snowed a lot this winter, I guess there ain’t global warmin’!” But I suppose that’s a lot to ask for though.
The warming is occurring is not something that is evenly distributed, which might make it easier to understand. Alas, it is not, and that makes the concept a difficult thing to get straight in one’s head.
MrBubble
PS: This kind of comment has been cropping up the last few winters, but strangely not so much in the summers. Each time that I see one, I add this sort of rebuttal, but it certainly feels like a vox clamantix in deserto. But, I cain’t quit you, BiC!
If you think for one second that the PTB are trying to save our enviornment through “climate change” policy, I have entire countires (many w/ bridges) to sell you. One thing we can all bet on is “climate change”. It changes every day. bar. none.
We have had record breaking winters in 3 of the last 4 years, and last Summer didn’t reach 80 for a solid week till the last week of…. DRUM ROLL… JULY.
It is all about the money. Period.
Look to the Arctic for the most obvious signs of climate change:
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Look to the Arctic for clear evidence of climate change:
nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
“If you think for one second that the PTB are trying to save our enviornment through “climate change” policy, I have entire countires (many w/ bridges) to sell you.
Notice that I said, as usual, zero about climate change policy. Policy is a totally separate issue as opposed to the scientific evidence. Learn the difference.
“One thing we can all bet on is “climate change”. It changes every day. bar. none.”
That’s the weather, not climate. Learn the difference.
“We have had record breaking winters in 3 of the last 4 years, and last Summer didn’t reach 80 for a solid week till the last week of…. DRUM ROLL… JULY.”
The ol’ “It’s not hot at my house argument.” Lovely.
“It is all about the money. Period”
I don’t know about the funding w.r.t. climate change policy makers, but for the scientists, it’s far, far less about money than fame. And if you don’t think that a scientists wouldn’t get famous for finding evidence against climate change, you’re quite mistaken.
MrBubble
The Average monthly Sea Ice Extent measured from 1978
Cool Chart! Tankxs!
(Hwy squints glancing skyward at the tossed 8 minute journey of free sunshine…naw, we’re smart, we’ll think of something…just-you-wait-&-see!
http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php
It is always easier to have someone think for you… results may vary.
I am not saying it does not exist, what I’m saying is: Let’s look at this from an open eye perspective! All these jack-offs telling me to live in a mud-hut and pay up for all this damage done as well as future damage yet to be done are flying around in PRIVATE JETS, living in MANSIONS, and are catered to by BIG BUSINESS.
That alone is enough for me question the logic. A close friend told me many years ago that “global warming” would not make it mainstream until they found a way to make it profitable.
Some words to consider I found on a blog:
30 years ago, back in the late 1970s, the planet was going through an unusual cold spell. There were all sorts of crackpot scientists insisting that human pollution (particulates pumped into the atmosphere reducing the amount of sunlight hitting the earth) was going to plunge us back into a new ice age. So if you set your start point to 1979, you’ve set it at a time that was abnormally cold, and the ice pack was unusually large. Just getting back to ‘normal’ (whatever the heck that is) would mean a shrinking ice cap.
_________________________________________________
Cherry picking data is easy:
According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.
_________________________________________________
I’m not saying “climate change” doesn’t exist or is not man made, what I’m saying is this: Our planet is WAY too complex to think we can figure this out and point to just a couple behaviors and say if we fix this (or that) then WE ARE ALL SAVED!!! (YAY!)
Reminds me of a saying (despised) around here: “Now is the best time to buy!” No need to think about it….
Due to the contribution of human-created air pollution to global climate change, I would like to see a return to discussing the impact of pollution on climate and figure out what to do about it. Acid rain and pollution are terms that everyone can understand. And it would reduce the number of dumb comments about global warming.
Forgive me if this is a re-post. I waited.
“If you think for one second that the PTB are trying to save our enviornment through “climate change” policy, I have entire countires (many w/ bridges) to sell you.
Notice that I said, as usual, zero about climate change policy. Totally separate issue as opposed to the scientific evidence. Learn the difference.
“One thing we can all bet on is “climate change”. It changes every day. bar. none.”
That’s the weather, not climate. Learn the difference.
“We have had record breaking winters in 3 of the last 4 years, and last Summer didn’t reach 80 for a solid week till the last week of…. DRUM ROLL… JULY.”
The ol’ “It’s not hot at my house arguement.” Lovely.
“It is all about the money. Period”
I don’t know about the funding w.r.t. climate change policy, but for the scientists, it’s far, far less about money than fame. And if you don’t think that a scientists wouldn’t get famous for finding evidence against climate change, you’re mistaken.
OK… my reply got eaten. I’ve waited hours.
First off, where do you think climate comes from? The weather. Extended tracking of days, months, and years of WEATHER. Without it there would be no climate. Learn the difference? Whatever. Nice arguement to change the subject.
Second, scientific evidence which you believe like a holy-roller. Remember climategate? What data are YOU relying on? The cooked books of our esteemed scientists? Sounds like relying on the banks books to me.
Which rolls right into your “weather in my back yard” statement. The whole east coast has been frozen like my back yard. That is one big a$$ back yard Mr. Bubble. So now feel free to yank out the “one season doesn’t equal a trend” card that gets frequent use on this subject. Or complain about my spelling. Anything to skew the issue JUST LIKE HOUSING. I’m seeing a corelation here. Com’on it is FACT… like the fact you’ll be priced out forever if you DON’T BUY NOW. We all know how that is working out, eh?
We all know how the scientific community works. Whomever will fund the next 1-5 years of lab time gets exactly what they want. Just ask the makers of Vioxx.
Cherry picking data is easy:
According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.
Fame=jobs=success=money! What was your arguement here?
Ya know, I have read a lot of arguments against global warming, and none of them make any sense.
Shizo says you can extrapolate climate from a few days of weather because “climate comes from weather”. But climatologists have been tracking the weather for a really, really long time, and their data show a clear trend of global warming. If Shizo’s limited sample of weather days are sufficient for an extrapolation of climate, then surely the much larger body of evidence studied by actual professionals is also sufficient.
Shizo only notices that the east coast still gets cold in winter. Yes, Shizo, it hasn’t gotten so severe yet that there is never any winter any more. It will probably never get that severe. Humans would be long dead before it could ever get to that point. As a matter of fact, the increased moisture in the air (due to global warming) is manifesting itself as increased snow during the winter, which is exactly what climatologists have been predicting for, what, 40 years now?
“Climategate”. Yeah, I remember that. A few inappropriate e-mails were sent out by a professor. None of those e-mails had any content that would indicate global warming is not occuring. They were completely irrelavent to the question of climate change.
Or this one - You believe in science like a holy roller. Ummmm …by definition, one cannot believe in science like a holy roller, since science is always based on observation, and religion is always based on the lack of observation.
And now we have this - Oh yeah, climate change is a fact, just like (some nonfactual information or opinion) is a fact.
Shizo, et al.: I want you to know that a fact is something that is very well defined. It is mutually observable and not subjective. The “fact” of house prices always going up was never really a fact. It was a stupid belief that only a stupid person could hold. The “fact” of global warming, however, can be verified by anyone who wishes to check the mutually observable evidence.
I also want to caution you about your claims of “cherry-picked” data. Supposedly, scientists put their careers and personal reputations in seriously jeapordy beginning in the 1960’s, in exchange for nothing, just based on cherry-picked data. Why would anyone do that? You cherry pick some statistic about a seasonal increase in ice coverage in a certain spot, and then you say that climatologists do not dispute this fact? However, if climatologists were cherry picking for personal reasons, then don’t you think they would dispute it?
Climatologists and ecologists have, over the last 40 years, had NO REASON to make this stuff up. It has only caused them to suffer. They are doing it because they cannot look the data straight in the face and deny it!
OK, I have to reply to this. Why must everything climate (See, I CAN learn) related be so darn extreme?
Big V:
Ya know, I have read a lot of arguments against global warming, and none of them make any sense.
Who said I was arguing AGAINST global warming? I am a co-chair of our sustainable green team where I work. What I am arguing about is the way in which the info is gathered and presented as a way to control how we will end up living.
Climate change WILL be the reason why your thermostat will be controlled by your utility company in the near future. Like HOT showers? Too bad, your water heater will be centrally controlled as well. I am arguing that if I want to live in a house that I want an 85 degree temp in, and take a hot shower, that I should be able to do those things as long as I pay for them.
Climate change will be used to take away your choices. You want to end up living under the thumb of your utility company so they can force you to live the way they want you to?
The ACTIONS created by the data is what freaks me out. The amount of power to be had over people using this out of context is my threat.
So come on, let’s FIGHT about it…
Climategate was not a few emails so easily dismissed by BigV. As I remember the MOST of the data set was destroyed by SCIENTISTS so the numbers could never be verified or disputed. Borders on religion, one of my statements above… SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based.
It means that other academics are not able to check basic calculations said to show a long-term rise in temperature over the past 150 years.
The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation.
And more:
But climatologists have been tracking the weather for a really, really long time, and their data show a clear trend of global warming.
40 years is a long time? Based on what- MILLIONS of years of climate? Get some perspective. The reason why I stated that “my back yard” was so cold was to bait someone into this arguement. My 4 year observation holds as much weight as your “much larger body of evidence” when placed next to the fact (remember we are talking science here - and science says the Earth is millions of years old, presumably with a climate most of the time) that it is ONLY 40 years of data (that has been destroyed)!!! That is a nanosecond in our timeline of events, no? Did Suzanne reaserch this?
And this one: Shizo only notices that the east coast still gets cold in winter. I live in North Idaho an hour 1/2 from Canada, I know what winter is. But what I see online and on the news is that the east coast is PARALYZED and EMERGENCY MEASURES are being taken. This was the worst snowstorm since 1922? So what. I know swings happen, and extremes happen… These are used as PROOF of “climate change” as well as PROOF of none from the other side (of which everyone thinks I am aligned).
***Or this one - You believe in science like a holy roller. Ummmm …by definition, one cannot believe in science like a holy roller, since science is always based on observation, and religion is always based on the lack of observation. ***
ARE YOU FOR REAL? Why do you think I made that statement?
Big V:
Climatologists and ecologists have, over the last 40 years, had NO REASON to make this stuff up. It has only caused them to suffer. They are doing it because they cannot look the data straight in the face and deny it!
Why does anyone do the things they do? In fact I’d argue that the ever so precious climate data set was started in the 70’s when the Earth was in a cold-snap, thus even returning to “normal” (whatever that is) would be warming up. Also, I have read in a few places that the model used to present the warming case is based on the comparison of our climate to the models version. The model version is always daytime and always the same temp.
Here is my only claim on this matter: We don’t know squat for or against, we only regurgitate the crap that gets fed to us.
I refuse to agree with either side, but I know smoke when I see it.
Thanks for tha, Big V.
My Own Private Rebuttal:
“First off, where do you think climate comes from? The weather. Extended tracking of days, months, and years of WEATHER. Without it there would be no climate. Learn the difference? Whatever. Nice arguement to change the subject.”
So you do know the difference. But then why are you conflating the two, i.e. the fact that it’s been a cold summer has anything to do with with climate long-term? That’s the weather. If you want to understand climate, you must look at the trend. You must expand your Y axis.
“Second, scientific evidence which you believe like a holy-roller. Remember climategate? What data are YOU relying on? The cooked books of our esteemed scientists? Sounds like relying on the banks books to me.”
I was into paleoclimatology until last year. It’s hard to make a living at it. I’m not a holy-roller, just someone who has looked at a large swath of data and has been convinced that there is a general warming trend. I’m not even getting into what is causing it, because that’s another issue altogether. So called “climategate” is a red herring.
“Which rolls right into your “weather in my back yard” statement. The whole east coast has been frozen like my back yard. That is one big a$$ back yard Mr. Bubble”
Now you need to expand your X axis.
“So now feel free to yank out the “one season doesn’t equal a trend” card that gets frequent use on this subject.”
OK. I will. It doesn’t.
“Or complain about my spelling.”
I don’t believe that I made a comment concerning your spelling. Language is in flux.
“Anything to skew the issue JUST LIKE HOUSING. I’m seeing a corelation here. Com’on it is FACT… like the fact you’ll be priced out forever if you DON’T BUY NOW. We all know how that is working out, eh?”
This doesn’t even make sense, so I won’t deign to discuss it.
“We all know how the scientific community works.”
I highly doubt that you do. That’s like saying that you know how the Si-chip building community builds new chip sets.
Whomever will fund the next 1-5 years of lab time gets exactly what they want. Just ask the makers of Vioxx.”
Do you, or are you just listening to punditry? I am/was a scientist and it doesn’t work that way.
Cherry picking data is easy:
According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.
“Fame=jobs=success=money! What was your arguement here?”
This also makes no sense. I’m talking about fame in the scientific community. Scientists don’t really care about your recognition. Do you really think that Einstein was worried that you haven’t read or understood his Theory of Relavity? Hardly. Yeah, that Einstein. He made a killing!
“had NO REASON”
Psft, like they would bite the hand that feeds them.
So what I take from your personal rebuttal is this…
Expand my x & y axes. Yes, you are right, read above. My argument is that there is not enough y axis data to even begin to make the claims being made, sorry, but even 500 years of data is just too darn small. I could care less either way, like I said above, I’m worried about what this data will do to our choices when leveraged into daily living.
When you want to understand climate look at the trend. The trend is your friend, until it is not. Trends change. So then, where are we in this trend as this is the key to our climate control? Are we at the beginning, middle, or end? Can we change the trend? If these simple questions can’t be answered, then what the heck are we doing jumping to the conclusions we have?
Guess what? I don’t know the innermost workings of the scientific community. But after watching the last 10 years worth of lawyer ads looking to defend people from the umpteen drugs brought to market, cloned meat on its way to a store near you, GMO’s for consumption, as well as agent orange and a million other WMD created by your scientific community, I’d say I’m not much of a fan anyway. In fact, if we were to chart the “success” of scientists over the last 100 years, we’d see that it rides right along with climate change. So let me be the first to say that SCIENTISTS are the root cause of climate change.
So 500 isn’t enough, eh? Please look into “Cenozoic climate change”, particularly oceanic data presented by Zachos et al. and continental data produced by Chamberlain et al. and return better prepared.
Your facts concerning “climategate” are either willfully ignorant or blatant flasehoods.
“if we were to chart the “success” of scientists over the last 100 years” You are “conversing” over the “interwebs”! Perhaps you’ve heard of them? These, and many other wonderful products that have made your life possible have been brought to you by science. You’re welcome!
Why is it that when scientists bring the NFL into your home, it’s believable yet climate scientists don’t know sweet FA? Good gravy, we are in deep doo-doo.
None of your statements thus far has been correct and the discussion has degraded into a “he said, she said” diatribe. I suppose that could go on, but why bother? “Winning” an argument with you would be a Phyrric victory at very best and brain damaging at worst.
MrBubble
touche-
or is that touchy?
Look- I’m not pissed off that’s colorful emotion. If you can honestly say that the science is spot on, I’m happy for you as well as I. 2 floating boats meet storm, eh?
Thanks for the tattoo, too. Another generalization to compliment my generalization. I get it. I’ve just been stuck in my head for too long- but thanks for this web thinggy, sorry about the brain damage, I got good coverage, I think…
Like I said all aforementioned (is that a big enough word?) I think there is merit in both views, but both reek- it became POLITICAL. And that’s wherein lies my rub.
Shizo,
If it’s the politics that bother you, then I think you should attack the politics, not the science.
Your posts do indicate that you are suspicious of all science because you are worried that some of the knowledge it creates could be used for the worse. The same thing goes for all knowledge, since knowledge is power and power corrupts.
That’s all I have to say about it.
THANK YOU!!!!!!!! That is EXACTLY what I was trying to say but not getting there…
here my prep yo-
In summary, it is likely that a combination of processes - changes in land-sea distribution, ocean heat transport, orography and CO2 - are involved in the long-term evolution of the Cenozoic climate, and probably the climates of the earlier Phanerozoic. These processes operate over time scales involving tens or even hundreds of millions of years. It is evident that model simulations are sometimes in disagreement with the proxy climatic records, whilst the validity of such records may often be questioned. If a thorough and unequivocal reconstruction pre-Quaternary climates is to be achieved, these problems will need to be addressed by future researchers in palaeoclimatology.
WOW. It got really, really quiet in here.
Not even one of my questions were answered. How does that saying go?
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
Just because you pre-claim victory does not mean it is yours. And when was it a contest?
I really didn’t want to go here but your greater than thou, you can’t possibly think at my level BS just screamed for me to play.
kick rocks. I miss Alad. Goodbye to all the “regular” folk around here, it just got WAY too pretentious for me to hang around any longer. I just wish I had a piece of paper on my wall telling me how smart I am, like you. Other than that, it was nice to learn from people that know they can know more.
“science is always based on observation”
Science is NOT always based on observation. For example, no scientist has ever observed a Higgs bosom. They only ASSUME Higgs bosoms exist, because their mathematical models predict that they should exist.
You’re right. The Higgs-Boson has not been discovered. Nobody said that it has. Your point?
No way, he said bosom. I distinctly heard bosom. Wait…what were we talking about again?
And we talked about some old times
And we drank ourselves some beers
Still Renting After All These Years
The Trend Toward Rentals Shows No Signs of Easing—Even Among Those Who Could Easily Afford to Buy a Home.
By M.P. MCQUEEN
JANUARY 8, 2011.
Mortgage rates are near historic lows and homes are more affordable than they have been in memory. Yet some five years after the housing bust began, many people who could easily afford to buy are still choosing to rent.
Amanda Oberhausen of Alpharetta, Ga., near Atlanta, was enticed by low prices and incentives for first-time home buyers, and dipped her toe in the market last summer and fall. She looked at two-bedroom, 2½-bath townhouses—much like the one she was renting—selling for $100,000 to $150,000.
But as an account manager for a company that helps repossess printing equipment at defunct businesses, the 26-year-old couldn’t shake her concerns about job security and whether she would be able to sell if she had to relocate. Ultimately, after looking at four or five homes, some of them foreclosures and short sales, she decided to keep her $925-a-month rental.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704610904576031883869635632.html -
…homes are more affordable than they have been in memory. Somebody seems to be having memory issues.
They also seem to overlook the fact that because they are tying alleged affordability to historically low interest rates, any such alleged affordability vanishes as interest rates return to normal levels negatively impacting exit strategies.
“Amanda Oberhausen…the 26-year-old.”
She’s 26, and I didn’t hear anything about a husband or children. The very idea someone as unsettled as this would even consider buying a home is nuts. Any number of 100 things could change where she wants to be.
When married 32 year-olds who have decided where they want to spend their days, have saved up money, and have children approaching school age decide not to buy, then we are talking about permanent renters. Others should not even be thinking about it.
Entire cities have staked their future on buyers like her, it would be the death knell for condoze. In my own city the biggest buyers of condoze by far were single women and unmarried couples. The marketing to those groups was/is intense - seriously intense. As you point out though, there must be 100 things that could change for such buyers - so why the heck did they commit to such large loans!? It confounds me to no end.
Again, that’s nuts. After the 1980s bubbles, lots of couples my age got stuck in their one-bedroom co-ops and condos — with their two toddlers. Some had their marriages complicated by his and her condos, neither of whic could be sold. I’m amazed to see that pattern repeated.
The market for condos should be downsizing empty nesters seeking lower costs and maintenance burdens. That means they have to priced much lower than the houses those empty nesters are selling, and the common charges have to be low enough to avoid burdening people who are buying rather than renting precisely because they want their housing costs to be locked in.
Absolutely, condos should remain a niche product with those price/maintenance advantages intact. What we face today is anything but.
My question to condo owning friends and acquaintances that will even discuss RE is: “who do you imagine as the buyer (at a higher price point) of your place?”
The answers are always one of the following:
1. “I love this place and am not even thinking of moving. But should I change my mind, by the time I want to move prices will have more than rebounded.”
2. “Well, someone just like me of course. The world is teeming with young professionals like me, don’t you know? Why all my friends have good jobs.”
The market for condos should be downsizing empty nesters seeking lower costs and maintenance burdens.
Couple of nearby neighbors of my parents did just that. Husband was in a wheelchair. Wife was his cheerful caregiver.
She also was the caretaker for just about everyone else in the family. We Slims thought that she should have told a few of those family members to pull up their socks and care for themselves, but hey, that’s just us.
A few months after this couple sold their house and moved to the condo, Mrs. Cheerful dropped dead. My mother is especially upset about this because she thought that Mrs. C should have spent a bit of time looking after her own needs instead of spending 24/7 catering to others. Mom thinks that this tendency helped put Mrs. C in her grave.
Anyway, we have no idea if the husband, who needs care, remained in the condo by himself. We do know that, after they left my parents’ neighborhood, he wanted no part of moving into assisted living.
Well I could also see a reasonable demand for condos from families who simply can’t afford a SFH. Certainly the oversupply in many markets should drive the price on some of ‘em low enough that those whose employment is stable, but at a low income could consider them an alternative to renting an apartment.
The problem with condos for retirees/empty nesters, is that the extended family gets to listen to incessant bitching about the high (and going up all the time) condo fees.
Except on days like today, when the guys are out clearing the parking lots, streets and sidewalks of 9 inches of snow/ice.
Best condos I saw were the early ones. Simple, single story, little patio, easy parking right out front. Good for elderly or childless couples who didn’t want to deal with housing hassles. I’d still consider one of those if the price was right.
“In my own city the biggest buyers of condoze by far were single women and unmarried couples. The marketing to those groups was/is intense - seriously intense. ”
From what I can tell “ownership” was presented as a way to demonstrate your “adulthood” and financial savvy.
I also think there was a certain “fashion accessory” element, especially in and around NYC…
Housing is an almost p0rn like topic here, and since no one can (legally) get grandma’s fabulous rent controlled deal the housing competition has expressed itself in other ways.
Witness the rise of Williamsburg Brooklyn… years ago moving to the outer boroughs was nearly an act of social suicide. NONE of your Manhattan friends could be bothered to come visit you, so you were expected to go into Manhattan for socializing. But once too many of the self-defined creatives got pushed out they re-branded certain areas as more cool as a face saving measure.
Adulthood, financial savvy… and showing independence from the need to act as a baby machine to buy a man’s income.
“Housing is an almost p0rn like topic here”
I like that description. It’s gone from porn to a fetishization. Even to this day I hear people talk about kitchens and interior stuff in a way that makes you think they’re getting off on porn as they’re discussing.
“Ohhhh babyyyyyyyy………granite makes me so hottttttt……”
I did as 29 yr old single at the height of the bubble. I learned my lessons and got rid of it in 2008. Lost some money but considering it was a nice pad that I got to enjoy for 3 yrs, I would say it was a draw.
My 22-year-old son is enjoying his little condo that cost us $41K. There is a little risk in that he may want to move away, necessitating a sale with possible financial loss. But he’s able to pay his bills and save a little now. I wish that every young person could get a cheap condo and get ahead.
Wow, that’s mighty nice of you. I have some friends whose families bought them their starter homes. It sure helped since San Jose, CA prices appreciated faster than most working people could save.
Many years ago, ISTR that it was during the 1950s, my father’s parents sold their big house in the suburbs outside of NYC.
This house would now be considered big enough to be a McMansion, but it was better built. Grandma and Grandpa raised my father and his two siblings in that house. Grandpa’s mother, whom we called Granny, also lived there.
After Grandma, Grandpa, Granny, and Uncle Jim left that house, they moved into an apartment. They lived there until shortly Grandpa died and Grandma had to be moved into a nursing home.
My grandparents could have afforded to buy another house. Two, in fact. But they didn’t. Living at the apartment overlooking the Hutchinson River Parkway was just fine for them.
All of my grandparents eventually downsized from houses to apartment type buildings, and ultimately nursing homes before their deaths (save for one grandpa who died suddenly). I used to love visiting my “grannnymother” in her third floor Issaquah apartment with a balcony (and elevator).
Good girl, Amanda. Wait until they cost $80K.
A 3 bedroom, 1200 sq ft condo that we once owned in San Marcos, CA reached the mid 300K mark during the bubble (we paid 89K in 1988). According to Zillow its worth about 150K now.
I really would love to move to a small condo now . To me it seems like the perfect lifestyle for the stage of life that I’m in . In fact,I did buy
condo about 4 months ago but I haven’t moved to it yet. Suffice to
say that I got it cheap and I paid cash . My only problem is everybody I know doesn’t want me to move, including the family . I bought the place to live in ,not for investment . Also you have to be more worried about covering health costs the older you get . I’m healthy now but what about 10 years from now . I don’t know what is going to happen with medical costs .
I’m sure that Medicare coverage will be cut .
Had I known that all this jazz was going to happen I would of never retired because I was healthy enough to continue working ,now they don’t hire people my age .
You really can’t fault people who didn’t see the current state of affairs happening . People listen to the news and think all is well .
Could anybody say 20 years ago expect the current events of now ?
I always thought automation was going to take jobs .Also ,if changes
are slow people miss the implications of the slow gradual changes .
There were some people who were complaining 20 years ago ( States that were destroyed by out-manufacturing ) but the critical mass wasn’t high enough for people to pay attention .
Downturn’s Ugly Trademark: Steep, Lasting Drop in Wages
~ WSJ ~ SUDEEP REDDY
In California, former auto worker Maria Gregg was out of work five months last year before landing a new job—at a nearly 20% pay cut.
In Massachusetts, Kevin Cronan, who lost his $150,000-a-year job as a money manager in early 2009, is now frothing cappuccinos at a Starbucks for $8.85 an hour.
In Wisconsin, Dale Szabo, a former manufacturing manager with two master’s degrees, has been searching years for a job comparable to the one he lost in 2003. He’s now a school janitor.
They are among the lucky. There are 14.5 million people on the unemployment rolls, including 6.4 million who have been jobless for more than six months.
But the decline in their fortunes points to a signature outcome of the long downturn in the labor market. Even at times of high unemployment in the past, wages have been very slow to fall; economists describe them as “sticky.” To an extent rarely seen in recessions since the Great Depression, wages for a swath of the labor force this time have taken a sharp and swift fall.
Dale Szabo, who has two master’s degrees, lost a job as a manufacturing manager in 2003. In late 2005 he took a job as a school janitor: ‘I never dreamed I would be doing it. But I have to pay the bills.’
The only other downturn since the Depression to see similarly large wage cuts was the 1981-82 recession. But the latest downturn is already eclipsing that one. Unemployment has stood above 9% for 20 straight months—longer than the early 1980s stretch—and is likely to remain above that level for most of 2011, putting downward pressure on wages.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304248704575574213897770830.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us
Dale Szabo, who has two master’s degrees, lost a job as a manufacturing manager in 2003. In late 2005 he took a job as a school janitor: ‘I never dreamed I would be doing it. But I have to pay the bills.’
If he is working at a public school in MA- he is now in a public union.
Decent pay
Excellent benefits
Insane pension
Lots of time off
Great working hours (home by 4 every day)
Able to sell sick time back
Can’t be fired
etc.
All in all, he is probably do better than he ever has…
Our University of California service workers (gardeners, janitors, drivers) start at $10/hr. Better than minimum, but hardly enough to support a family. They work very hard because budget cuts necessitated hiring freezes. Our building janitor cleans all seven floors every night, and it’s a clinic building with hundreds of sinks to clean, not to mention medical waste to be dumped. On the other hand, they do get annual increases if they don’t get fired (and they are easy to fire if they don’t do a good job) and they get health insurance and a pension. All in all, they seem happy with their lot in life.
UC top executives are threatening to sue because their pensions are based on $245,000 annual income instead of their actual gigantic salaries. They say that it would be difficult to replace them because of their outstanding executive skills. Yeah, right.
He’s working in Wisconsin, not Massachusetts.
FWIW, where I live school janitors are paid about $12/hr.
Janitor work is for the young, because it’s pretty hard on your body, if you’re doing it right.
Survey time!
I have been with my current employer for almost 6 years. I have had 2 promotions during that time. I am still making less in base salary than I did in 1998 which was probably the highest base salary plus bonus year I have ever had. There are a few extra benefits that make up a portion of the difference, but not all of it. The vacation time is the same, but the hours are a bit less - not as much as you would think. I’d say I have finally got back to about even. Of course, my costs are far larger: rent, food, entertainment, etc. My lifestyle is definitely more restrained.
Next.
No basis for comparison. I was in school through 2005. Started work in 2006 and employed each year since. I made one job change in 2008 for a 10% raise, and have gotten 1% to 5% raises each year (although the last two years have been in the 1% range).
My standard of living has slowly risen.
Have been on the same job for 6 yrs this February. No promotion; 4 managers in 5 years. Not that I care about promotion, I want to quit this job badly. The only reason I haven’t is that the pay is awesome and I am saving quite a bit now that I don’t have a mortgage. However I have gotten raise 1%-5% each year for last 5 years. Some bonus too varying in $1500-$7500 range. Last year being the lowest.
I will most likely quit this year and take another position even if it means taking a contract position or a less pay.
I am spending more on organic food/wine/scotch etc but less on entertainment and eating out.
Adjusted for inflation, I earn about the same as I did in 1988, two years out of graduate school. Which is about what I expected.
I just got a bump up in my vacation. I’ve never worked huge hours, as parenting has been a priority until recently.
I’ve changed jobs three times since 1988 and have never been laid off or fired, so I’ve been lucky. I do not expect it to be so easy to change jobs next time, after age 50, whether voluntarily or not.
Oh — lifestyle.
Well, we bought a house in 1994 and have all that goes with it. And we spent a lot of money on the kids over the years — college, for example.
Otherwise no change. The next change is getting rid of the car after the kids have learned to drive. That’s the only reason I’m keeping it around.
“I am still making less in base salary than I did in 1998″
Ditto, and that’s in nominal dollars, adjusted for inflation I’m way behind. A new $30K+ “entry level car” isn’t even on my radar these days.
I’m just happy to have a job. And even this insecure job is looking a little insecure at the moment.
Joined the Navy in ‘86 and got shore duty in Hawaii from 90-93 where I worked all day and earned BSCS going to class nights and weekends. Got out of the Navy in ‘93 a couple months after graduation. First job I started at $30K. 5 years later I was up to $45k. I changed jobs for a huge raise to $65K in ‘98. By 2002, after another job change, I was up to $72K.
Tech wreck…..
Took a 10% pay cut to $65K. Spent about 5 years getting back to $70Kish, then switched jobs for a slight raise. Have spent another 4 years getting to my current $81Kish.
According to CPI, if you believe that, I’d need 218/181 = 120% the income to have kept up with inflation since 2002. So, take my 2002 peak of $72K before the tech wreck, multiply by 1.2 = $87K. So, despite actually making $9k a year more, I’m $6K behind in purchasing power from where I was before the tech wreck. I’m also 1 promotion higher up the chain of command from where I was then.
At least I haven’t had to take a pay cut in this recession… yet…..
In real dollars, adjusted for inflation, my income has steadily declined since my peak earning year, 1995. This past year my non-inflation-adjusted income was the lowest it has been since 1993. Health insurance costs have increased. When the rising cost of food, auto fuel, property taxes and pretty much everything else is factored in, well, I don’t even want to think about the drop in buying power. It’s a good thing I am in a high-income career and have been able to absorb the losses. It’s been sort of like the frog in the pot story.
My quality of life is better because I now work on a Saturday once every 3 months as opposed to every 3 weeks. That has made a huge difference in the amount of leisure time I have. When the health-care bubble bursts, I’m outta this boiling frog-pot.
I started working in the early 1980’s and have worked for maybe 15 different companies.
I had the most money in late 1980’s, single worked alot
made the most money in late 1990’s, dot com bubble
Now in 2011 less well off than before cash flow wise but It could be worse.
Don’t get many rasies here , other companies maybe 1-3% a year. vacation is 3 weeks a year including sick time.
No 401K match here.
Most places are 50% match of the first 6% I put in and vesting over 4 years.
Good medical benefits although they used to cost me much less back in the old days.
I think most people with the exception of government workers and CEO types are losing ground from 1980 to 2010 a 30 year time span. But stayed weathly with equity extractions, all gone now.
My husband’s employer has been very good to him. It has remained an uphill trajectory despite the years where things looked bumpy for a lot of other industries.
However, as he brings more home, the state, county and village taxes, insurance and cost of heating/elec usually seem to make up for whatever extra’s there and then some. He likes his job so he’s not going anywhere. I think it’s time for the barely working wife to consider an upgrade in job choices though.
Graduated from college in 2000 and after a few short term jobs that didn’t work out, began at my current employer in 2001. Started out doing data entry as a temporary employee. Have changed jobs or been promoted just about every year since. Have survived 2 rounds of layoffs recently and last year made about 6 times what I did in 2001.
I feel somewhat secure as I’m reasonably good at what I do and (probably more importantly) I’m in an industry that appears to be favored by the chosen few that direct our tax dollars. I won’t say which industry specifically for fear of retribution, but you can probably guess! In any case, I’m a dedicated saver as I realize I’ve been extremely lucky in my career so far. Hoping it continues, but doing my best to prepare for it to come to an end.
Just over 3 years in my current job. Base salary is almost exactly double what I earned in 1998. Stock plans add about 50% on top of that. Have rented all along, relocated 7 times during that time, and lived in 2 states and 3 metro areas. (4 if you count OC as distinct from LA.) Salary and career prospects would be considerably dimmer had I stayed put. Financial situation would be dire had I bought at any time in the past, say, 5 years.
Are you comfortable where you are? Is it good for your resume, in case the SHTF? Do you like stability and predictability versus new and different (and more stressful perhaps) things?
To thine ownself be true. Lots of people will say Jump! Try something new! Sometimes that is the right answer. Sometimes the wrong answer. People will almost always say go for the new thing. Almost reflexively. Like saying to someone lamenting a few extra pounds, that they don’t need to lose weight. They’re trying to be nice and supportive and tell you what they think you should hear.
If you’re not fulfilled in your job - if you want something new - will a new job give you that? Or can you find fulfillment outside of the job, and just have the job to pay the bills?
I don’t know what the right answer is. But, I think the right thing to do is to be honest with yourself and figure out if that desire for something new, some new challenge, will be fulfilled by a new job or something outside of work.
“Even at times of high unemployment in the past, wages have been very slow to fall; economists describe them as “sticky.””
Bullcrap. After each of the 5 previous recessions, many people were making anywhere between 20-30% less than their previous jobs with constant wage concessions and freezes even in good times.
The only groups who have had their wages stay sticky has been upper management and executives.
China overshoots loan target and more tightening to come
Aileen Wang and Koh Gui Qing
BEIJING (Reuters) - China overshot its bank loan target in 2010 and finished the year with money growth still running too fast, underscoring the need for more decisive policy tightening to keep inflation in check.
At the same time, a record $199 billion surge in foreign exchange reserves in the fourth quarter pushed China’s stockpile, already the world’s biggest, to $2.85 trillion, highlighting that money streaming in from abroad was complicating policy efforts at home.
Chinese banks issued 7.95 trillion yuan ($1.2 trillion) in new loans last year, the central bank said on Tuesday, more than the 7.5 trillion yuan that the government wanted for the full year. The broad M2 measure of money supply grew 19.7 percent, also topping the official target of 17 percent.
“Lending is still excessive and China’s process of monetary normalization has not finished yet,” said Wu Tujin, economist with Guosen Securities in Shenzhen. “That means China will still face high pressure from inflation and asset bubbles.”
“At the same time, a record $199 billion surge in foreign exchange reserves in the fourth quarter pushed China’s stockpile, already the world’s biggest, to $2.85 trillion, highlighting that money coming in from abroad was complicating policy efforts at home.”
Oh, the pain!
China has 2.85 TRILLION DOLLARS stockpiled and has received 199 BILLION DOLLARS this past quarter alone.
And this is considered a problem for China?
What China has with this stockpile of money are choices; China can do or not do with this money as it pleases.
What countries such as portugal has are lack of choices; Portugal cannot do what it pleases, it can only do what countries such as China allows it to do.
China has lots of money, these other countries desperately need lots of money. The advantage lies with China.
Cash rules.
Portugal does have a choice. It could pull an Iceland on its creditors. That would leave Spain, Germany, China et al in the dust. Advantage Portugal.
I don’t consider sitting on a huge pile of other people’s IOUs a big advantage. I would rather own stuff, like gold, oil, cars, factories, etc than sitting on a bunch of promises to get paid.
Most if not all of the PIIGS will end up defaulting, but they’ll soak up all the bondholder-bagholder billions they can get their hands on while they can find suckers to “lend” to them.
They can’t pull an Iceland…they are stuck on the Euro for the time being.
The loss of “the initiative” usually precludes the loss of a war. That’s true in battle and finance - global and personal.
Cash = “the initiative”. Don’t lose it!
China’s dollar holdings are being devalued every day thanks to the Fed’s never-ending QEs.
Yes, holding other people’s IOUs does bear some risk. This risk can manifest itself via money printing or outright default.
These IOUs, as you term them, are claims on assets. These claims are real. They can be redeemed at any time for assets just as the claims you hold in your wallet can be redeemed at any time for assets.
It’s not that easy. You remember when the Chinese wanted to buy certain companies and were shut down?
Yes, they can purchase stuff with those IOUs which then would lead to a (more) even trade balance. That would be good for their own population and their trading partners. That’s what would make sense, but they don’t. The longer you/they hold on to those IOUs the higher the chance that their purchasing power will erode or there will be an outright default (see PIGS or Iceland).
I’m going to go back to the premise that a global currancy war will cause inflation in natural resources and this will destroy demand for manufactured goods. China could be sitting on a lot of useless factories realestate and foreign gov debt when all is said and done.
The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, because they considered out oil embargo an act of war.
Makes you wonder what kind of knee-jerk economic/trade decision that the Chinese would consider an act of war.
In the fair town of Hamilton, NY most proabably to be purchased by a employee/student’s parent of Colgate University seeing as there aren’t too many other options for well paying employment in the acceptable driving radius…
http://cnyhomes.com/Listing/Search/info.cgi?mlnum=S246230
FYI - Colgate University in in the sticks
Total Tax: $16,599.00
$450,000.00 What is in the water there?
Who can afford this? Who wants to be a debt slave and a property tax slave? Sign right here!
The bubble is far from over.
That’s nuts. My daughter is at Colgate now (my wife and I both went there). At that price, I think they are looking for a wealthy, retired alum who either has more money than he knows what to do with or spent his college days drinking and can’t do math.
A house like that would list at about $750,000 around here, detatched garage and all.
2nd banana nailed it when he tried to explain that Hamilton is truly in the sticks. It’s absolutely surrounded by parcels and parcels of farmland which you can see if you zoom out of a google map of the campus. Nearby Earlville had 2 homes sell in the last quarter according to Trulia. Median price: $44k+
I honestly don’t understand why anyone would ever buy a house with such oppressive taxes. I would much rather rent for life. Over $1k per month just for taxes?
The rich tend be self-incorporated and their whole personal life is structured around corporate law.
This includes generous tax write offs.
I am not good enough to make this up.
Choose your own (foreclosure) adventure
by Kim Miller
Richard agonizes over his decision to walk away from his home
Fannie Mae unveiled a new website last week where struggling homeowners are encouraged to choose one of three characters and play out different foreclosure-related scenarios.
Called “WaysHome”, the interactive site uses actors to portray the characters, which include a single mom, a family-man considering walking away from his home, and a couple who are underwater and debating whether they should refinance.
After you choose a character, you follow along the person’s story line. The story pauses in sections, giving you choices on how to proceed.
For example, you can guide “Richard”, a father of three, to default on his mortgage and refuse to answer calls from the mortgage company.
Be forewarned, however, if you take poor Richard down this road, he will end up with ruined credit, a broken down truck, and living in a two-bedroom apartment with his three kids. Also, when he finally finds a job, he ends up losing it because of his bad credit score.
“In 2011, millions of homes will be at imminent risk of foreclosure,” said Jeff Hayward, Fannie Mae senior vice president, in a press release. “As we enter a new year, the company is expanding its efforts to help struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure.”
From the press release:
The WaysHome video is set in a neighborhood that has been hurt by the foreclosure crisis. Real actors play three residents of the neighborhood – each in financial distress. Homeowners select to play one of the residents and, as their stories unfold, make important financial decisions for them and see how the consequences of these decisions play out. Fannie Mae provides helpful tips, tools and links during the process and users have the ability to go back and revise their decisions should their choices lead to a negative outcome. Most choices lead to an immediate consequence followed by a related teaching point.
Anyone want to play?
http://www.KnowYourOptions.com,
“Be forewarned, however, if you take poor Richard down this road, he will end up with ruined credit, a broken down truck, and living in a two-bedroom apartment with his three kids. Also, when he finally finds a job, he ends up losing it because of his bad credit score. ”
Oh the horror! He’s renting an apartment.
Two questions:
What’s the correlation between his truck breaking down and walking away from the mortgate?
Why would he get fired from his job because of his credit score?
“What’s the correlation between his truck breaking down and walking away from the mortgate?”
That he can’t get a loan to buy a new F-350 to replace the old worn out one?
“Also, when he finally finds a job, he ends up losing it because of his bad credit score.”
Since when does J6P get fired because of bad credit? And I doubt that most J6P jobs even do a credit check before hiring.
Retail always does a light credit check.
So how do teens get a job in retail? They all have lousy credit.
No credit is different than bad credit.
Don’t they both translate into a low score?
<I.”Since when does J6P get fired because of bad credit?”
Since about 20 years ago to present.
EVERYONE get’s their credit checked for a job these days.
You have problem with Corporate Communist Capitalism©®™, comrade?
Homeowners select to play one of the residents and, as their stories unfold, make important financial decisions for them and see how the consequences of these decisions play out. Fannie Mae provides helpful tips, tools and links during the process and users have the ability to go back and revise their decisions should their choices lead to a negative outcome. Most choices lead to an immediate consequence followed by a related teaching point.
Wonder if:
1. Live in your house for three years without making a payment
2. Get some free Federal HAMP money
3. Live another year without making a payment
4. Declare bankruptcy
5. Live another year without making a payment
6. Start ripping out toilets and copper lines to sell on Craig’s list
7. Get paid $2500 for leaving the rest of the house intact
8. Move in to a new house bought for in cash from all the money you saved by not paying a mortgage/taxes/HOA fees for the last 5 years
Is an option in this game?
2 Responses to “Choose your own (foreclosure) adventure”
1. jeff saturday Says: January 11th, 2011 at 8:24 am
Don`t worry Richard, nobody knows who you owe the money to because there is a broken chain of title. Get a lawyer, go to ER Bradleys once a month for the forclosure happy hour and you can live there for years without paying a dime. Is this an option “WaysHome” adventure?
2. Get in the Game Says: January 11th, 2011 at 9:39 am
The government should spend our time and resources with an interactive SAVING MONEY game instead.
What nonsense!
“Also, when he finally finds a job, he ends up losing it because of his bad credit score. “
Yeah, that just makes sense. Why would anyone give a job to someone with bad credit? Why, they just must try and fix their credit and improve their lives, and we can’t have that!
What teaching point? That you’re effed if you lose your job? That you’re effed if need to move to a new job?
This is news?
Alcoa usually leads the earnings each quarter. Inasmuch as Alcoa outperformed, are we doing well overall this quarter because we export and license? Are we too myopic by focusing on domestic consumption? I think so.
Full of Bull -
yet AA is down 1.5% pre-market
Many times: markets = feelings
And AP headline was “Alcoa beats expectations by $.02.”
Alcoa missed revenue by $100 million. With energy costs going up, they’ll miss by more next quarter.
You really think any of the numbers aren’t fake?
Yeah, aluminum is all about the price of electricity. They closed the plant outside of Frederick once their multi-year electric contract ran out. Basicly, they couldn’t afford to smelt Al with market rate electricity.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/bangladesh-stocks-rise-after-fall-prompts-protests-2181507.html
Bangledesh Ponzi market rises 15% as fools rush in using borrowed money. Who thinks this is going to end well?
Bangledesh plunge protection team moves in
Oddly enough you can contact them at the same number as our PPT.
BINGO
“Many investors in the Bangladesh’s Dhaka and Chittagong exchanges are individuals with modest means who have taken out large loans to invest in shares to improve living standards.”
Disaster waiting to happen….
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/business/economy/11fed.html?ref=business
Meet the Fed’s QE2 twenty-something bond buyers.
What if the actual “bond-buyers” refused to buy on moral principal like the nuke launch men the military worries about?
The Primary Dealers (18 TBTF banks) are taking these Fed POMO kiddies, and US taxpayers, for a very expensive ride.
The New York Fed’s 20-some year olds who are in charge of the Open Market Operation (POMO) desk have made it clear it is everyone’s patriotic duty to front-run the Fed, courtesy of their “complex” algorithms and the full frontrunning cheat sheet for today’s last for the current schedule $7-9 billion POMO focusing on bond due 2016-2017. Those who wish to take no risk whatsoever should merely buy the 10 Cheapest bonds as predicted by Morgan Stanley’s treasury spline. Note that the November CUSIP is now cheapest to deliver and should therefore be on the Exclusions list. Also, not surprisingly the December 7 year auction is sufficiently underwater on a relative cheapness to sector basis, that if any primary dealers (PDs), a.k.a. TBTF banks, actually offer it for sale, then we know for a fact that the spreads on the bid/ask offered by the Fed are so large they more than offset capital losses on actual exit trades and should be sufficient for Ron Paul to demand a congressional inquiry into just how much the Fed pays the PDs in commission spreads in each and every POMO.
Yeah, I want a 20nothing tool to tell me how to live my life.
Not.
How bad is unemployment? Maybe these figures from Insider Monkey will help. ~ The Daily Reckoning
In 2006, there were 26.5 million people who received food stamps. In 2007, there were 26.2 million people in the program. So, the “normal” level of food stamp participation was around 26 million people. Things changed in 2008. The number of participants increased by 1.9 million. We were still in a recession during the first half of 2009. Food stamp participants increased by another 5.2 million people that year. There were then a total 33.4 million people receiving food stamps. The recession officially ended by July 2009, and one would expect the worsening to stop. But millions more who weren’t officially “poor” in 2009 became poor in 2010. When Republicans were trying to extend Bush tax cuts for the rich by keeping social programs hostage, 6.8 million more joined the ranks of food stamp participants. Now, there are more than 40 million people receiving food stamps, though to remove the stigma they don’t call it the “food stamp program” anymore. Now, they use debit cards to distribute the handouts and they call it the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Oh Snap!
Today, there are 14 million more people who try to get by using food stamps than there were in 2007. These are in addition to the usual suspects who have been using food stamps for years. These people aren’t your “average” food stamp participants - these are hardworking Americans who fell on hard times. Insider Monkey, your source for free insider trading data, compiled the list of states that are falling harder than the rest. Here is the list of top ten states with the highest food stamp participation rates:
10. Maine: 17.28 out of 100 receive food stamps
9. New Mexico: 17.33 out of 100 receive food stamps
8. Kentucky: 17.9 out of 100 receive food stamps
7. Michigan: 18 out 100 receive food stamps
6. Louisiana: 18.2 out of 100 receive food stamps
5. Oregon: 18.4 out of 100 receive food stamps
4. West Virginia: 18.41 out of 100 receive food stamps
3. Tennessee: 19.3 out of 100 receive food stamps
2. Mississippi: 19.4 out of 100 receive food stamps
1. District of Columbia: 19.7 out of 100 receive food stamps
Regards,
And remember food stamps are means tested, so until you burn your savings you don’t qualify…
As of July 1, 2009, there is no longer an asset limit for participants in SNAP. Previously, those aged 60+ could not have assets of more than $3,000 to qualify. In addition, the income guidelines have been increased. Nationally, the current income levels are $20,036 (gross annual income) for an individual; $26,955 for a couple and $40,793 for a family of four. Call the Mississippi Department of Human Services at 1-800-948-3050 to find out income levels in the state.
http://www.aarp.org/money/low-income-assistance/info-04-2010/find-out-if-you-or-someone.html - 139k -
Ahh, that’s changed. A couple of years ago I helped an elderly neighbor apply and there were means tests then.
Uh, they still do. They’ve just raised the means to reflect reality.
If you make 20k or less a year, you ARE poor.
A lot of big families working off the books in my neck of the woods.
Unit Size 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Maximum Benefit $200 $367 $526 $668 $793 $952 $1,052 $1,202
http://www.dhs.state.il.us/page.aspx?item=30357 - 24k -
“A lot of big families working off the books in my neck of the woods.”
Not surprising, given that regular, W2 type jobs are hard to find.
We had an interesting statistic in my neck of the woods. The school district did a survey and found that in the past 2 years 25% of district students were “homeless” for a period of 2 months or longer. The definition was basically that they did not live in housing provided by their parents. The most common arrangement was moving in with friends.
“The definition was basically that they did not live in housing provided by their parents.”
Truly scary.
So they come from dysfunctional homes but the teachers get blamed for all their problems.
Living within one’s social circles these people become invisible. You don’t meet them at parties, at the soccer games, etc.
For some reason my oldest child befriended many of these kids while in school. Contrary to the commonly held belief on this board they didn’t have Escalades nor have iPhones nor did they buy steak and lobster with their foodstamp cards (according to my daughter these people live off of mac-n-cheese and baloney sandwiches).
Eligible Food Items
Households CAN use SNAP benefits to buy:
Foods for the household to eat, such as:
— breads and cereals;
— fruits and vegetables;
— meats, fish and poultry; and
— dairy products.
Seeds and plants which produce food for the household to eat.
Soft drinks, candy, cookies, snack crackers, and ice cream are food items and are therefore eligible items
Seafood, steak, and bakery cakes are also food items and are therefore eligible items
http://www.gettingfoodstamps.org/whatfood.htm - 11k -
…….and were working 20-30-40 hour a week jobs (making about 2 bucks an hour, after expenses), just for a little money for clothes and spending.
The spoiled high school kid, with designer clothes, a BMW and I phone steroetype is getting a little old.
Used to be that a kid could make some decent money around here working construction during the spring,summer and early fall. Not anymore. Illegals killed that market. Ditto for most of the fast food jobs.
the “Dream Job” around here is making $10/hour in a call center.
Or sacking groceries, or working at Wal-Mart, alongside the late 50s/early 60s-something “gotta have medical insurance, even if it’s a crap plan” types.
There isn`t anyone living in their homes without paying the mortgage where you live either is there. And everyone who receives assistance needs it. It must be a special place compared to SE Florida. I commend your daughter for her good heart. My youngest has a friend whose family is now living in a hotel room. We try to do some little things for her that her parents can`t swing right now. A night at the movies or dinner, some clothes at TJ Max (my wife doesn`t go to Macy’s for herself or our kids) we aren`t rich, but the kid always make you feel like a millionaire for what amounts to very little.
In Colorado
The illegals and their ghetto Escalade, while sucking the U S taxpayer dry in So Ca is a reality. I live among the thieves. Your daughter knows families with solid morals, and that reflects well on you.
“The illegals and their ghetto Escalade, while sucking the U S taxpayer dry in So Ca is a reality. I live among the thieves.”
Thank you awaiting wipeout. So Ca must be a lot like Se Fla, at least at the Indiantown Rd. and I95 Winn Dixie where I shop. And it just so happens that there is a very large community of these people you speak of within a 5 mile radius of this location. Although the crowd I see is partial to nice new Toyota pickups and not so much the “ghetto Escalade”. I will now prepare for the YOU RACIST! comments that are sure to come.
You guys do realize that the best way to prevent fraud in poverty programs is to hire people to identify and punish the fraud or check up on the original applications so the fraudulent ones don’t get through. Unless you are just willing to get rid of food support programs for poor people and let ‘em starve when the charities run out of money.
The entire nation does not center around CA or NY, and the rest of nation is tired of this attitude.
For the rest of nation, people who get assistance effing DO NEED IT.
“the best way to prevent fraud in poverty programs”
That would be to make funding them them voluntary.
It is Not charity if you’re forced to give.
Why can’t people get that?
The goberment has no business being the, “giver of charity” that is the source of the problem, and the true fraud.
It is No different than being the provider of down payment assistance or creating no money down home loans.
Cheney-Shrub SHADOW Legacy Effect #3: “We left y’all with the worst POS economy in 80 years…see ya!”
Food Stamps = America’s #1 problem, stay focused / point your finger at the non-deserving who should feel the wrath of the “TrueAnger™” prognosticators.
x2 foreign Wars / 7+years = no Gov’t $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ waste
Baroke O’Bummer legacy: We made everything much worse, but we’re the champions of the little guy.
It was already getting worse. IIRC we were hemorraging 700K jobs per month at the end of the previous admin. Of course now that the stim bucks are going to run out we might get there again.
War Inc. replenishment’s / withdraws = -(diminished returns)
Housing related jobs all wrapped up together = -(labor shortage)
Made in USofA = -(”TruePatriotCEO™” hand-wringing)
JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!
but we’re the champions of the little guy
Wait, Joe “The Plumber” wants to add his voice how lil’ Opie ruined his chance at buying his plumbing “bidness”…
But millions more who weren’t officially “poor” in 2009 became poor in 2010. When Republicans were trying to extend Bush tax cuts for the rich by keeping social programs hostage, 6.8 million more joined the ranks of food stamp participants.
Amazing spin job.
Remind me again who controlled the House, Senate and White House during this time period??
Remind me again what legislation did the Dems shove down Bush’s throat, changing policies?
Cheney breaks the Senate’s 50/50 vote!:
“heheeheeeeheee…”
Remind me again who voted to keep tax breaks for offshoring jobs?
That’s right, REPUBLICANS.
FACT, not spin.
You’re welcome.
U6 = what, 18.5 pct or so, while the pct in many large subpopulations who need food stamps is on the narrowish range from 17-20 pct. I wonder if there might be a connection?
“1. District of Columbia: 19.7 out of 100 receive food stamps”
You have to admire the ability of those who need food to figure out where hand outs are most readily available.
Wall St.?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/business/11lawyers.html?ref=business
Judges Berate Bank Lawyers in Foreclosures
In numerous opinions, judges have accused lawyers of processing shoddy or even fabricated paperwork in foreclosure actions when representing the banks.
Judge Arthur M. Schack of New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn has taken aim at an upstate lawyer, Steven J. Baum, referring to one filing as “incredible, outrageous, ludicrous and disingenuous.”
But New York judges are also trying to take the lead in fixing the mortgage mess by leaning on the lawyers. In November, a judge ordered Mr. Baum’s firm to pay nearly $20,000 in fines and costs related to papers that he said contained numerous “falsities.” The judge, Scott Fairgrieve of Nassau County District Court, wrote that “swearing to false statements reflects poorly on the profession as a whole.”
More broadly, the courts in New York State, along with Florida, have begun requiring that lawyers in foreclosure cases vouch for the accuracy of the documents they present, which prompted a protest from the New York bar. The requirement, which is being considered by courts in other states, could open lawyers to disciplinary actions that could harm or even end careers.
Gee, I always thought forging signatures on foreclosure documents or swearing to false information was called forgery and perjury, both of which are criminal offenses, not merely errors that “reflect poorly on the [legal] profession.”
“swearing to false statements reflects poorly on the profession as a whole.”
Hey Judge - that is a CRIME. Why don’t you do your job and jail him?
Because when the entire financial system is built on systemic fraud and bogus numbers, treating crimes as crimes would bring the whole Ponzi scheme crashing down.
Exactly.
“Gee, I always thought forging signatures on foreclosure documents or swearing to false information was called forgery and perjury, both of which are criminal offenses, not merely errors that “reflect poorly on the [legal] profession.” “
They are, but not if you are a corporation.
Homelessness epidemic in Orlando:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/os-homeless-programs-overrun-20110110,0,2849189.story
“Homelessness is an epidemic now,” said Ernest Hamilton, executive director of the Rescue Outreach Mission in Sanford. “As soon as you expand, you’re full again, and you’ve probably got a waiting list.”
I guess they didn`t get the memo in Orlando.
By Jeffry Bartash and Ruth Mantell, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The U.S. recession that began in December 2007 ended in June 2009, making the 18-month slump the longest since the Great Depression, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.
From the article:
“These families have tapped out every resource they have — they’ve depleted savings, they’ve reached into retirement accounts, they’ve exhausted their credit limit,” said Brent Trotter, president and CEO of the Coalition for the Homeless
And the REIC and PTB want us to believe these folks will be at open houses in a few weeks!
“These families have tapped out every resource they have — they’ve depleted savings, they’ve reached into retirement accounts, they’ve exhausted their credit limit,”
“And the REIC and PTB want us to believe these folks will be at open houses in a few weeks!”
They were in 2005.
“I live my life one free cookie at a time” - FB
I would not waste anytime writing to Reid or anyone in DC
In his letter to Sen. Harry Reid, author Addison Wiggin observed: “The interest we’re paying on the current debt is forcing us deeper and deeper into the hole. According to the Treasury-direct.gov website, the interest payment on our debt was a massive $1.13 billion per day – for a total of $413 billion – in 2010.”
Wiggin also mentioned to Reid that the present public debt, if represented in a stack of $100.00 bill, would reach 9,721 miles into the sky! And we expect our kids and grandkids to pay that off?
~ Letter to Harry Reid.
Is that just publicly owned debt? ‘Cause the plan seems to be to default on money owed to the trust funds by the expedient of cutting SS benefits so much of that debt never needs to be paid back.
As in “poooooof”.
No way. TTT says we gotta raise the debt ceiling, often.
Earnings Hopes Lift Stocks, Euro Steadies- Reuters
World stocks firmed on Tuesday on hopes for a solid earnings season, while the euro hugged recent lows as the markets awaited the next day’s debt auction in struggling Portugal.
Hope springs eternal
“There’s a sucker born every minute.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-11/german-bunds-snap-three-day-gain-after-japan-says-it-will-buy-euro-bonds.html
It looks like the European Central Bank (ECB) is buying up most of the bonds offered by Portugal and Greece. The ECB is the buyer of last resort, unless the Fed has decided to bail out Europe, too. The interest rates the PIIGS are forced to pay remain unsustainably high. Crisis not contained, despite what the MSM would have you believe.
Judge orders Fed to deliver gold records for her review
Section: Daily Dispatches
GATA today scored a small but perhaps auspicious victory over the Federal Reserve in our lawsuit seeking access to the Fed’s secret gold files. The judge presiding over GATA’s federal freedom-of-information lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Ellen Segal Huvelle, granted GATA’s motion to order the Fed to produce in complete form for the judge’s private review 20 gold-related documents the Fed has sought to keep secret. The judge ordered the Fed to deliver the documents by Friday.
Through its lawyers, William J. Olson P.C. of Vienna, Virginia — http://www.LawAndFreedom.com — GATA has argued that the Fed’s production of gold-related documents has been so inadequate and the Fed’s arguments for keeping them secret so weak that the court should review the documents acknowledged by the Fed and order the Fed to answer 25 questions from GATA about the Fed’s search for relevant information.
While Judge Huvelle still could grant at any time the Fed’s motion to dismiss GATA’s lawsuit, her ruling today at least implies a little skepticism about the Fed and its tactics. Combined with today’s statement by U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, the new chairman of the House Financial Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Monetary Policy (http://www.gata.org/node/9495), Judge Huvelle’s ruling gives hope that the Fed’s enormous secret power to rig markets and bestow the most fantastic patronage on a parasitic financial elite can be brought to account eventually.
The judge’s order to the Fed to produce documents for her private review can be found at GATA’s Internet site here:
http://www.gata.org/files/GATAFedLawsuitCourtOrder-01-10-2011.pdf
Those who are skeptical of GATA’s complaint that the Federal Reserve is part of an international gold-price rigging scheme should reflect on the meaning of the Fed’s refusal to disclose all its gold-related records, records that include gold swap arrangements with foreign banks:
http://www.gata.org/node/8192
If the U.S. gold reserves are just sitting somewhere, inert, unencumbered, and unused for surreptitious market intervention, what’s the problem with full disclosure?
Financial journalists unafraid of aggravating the world’s financial powers should start putting gold-related questions to the Fed and other central banks and stop simply assuming that secrecy should be the normal order of things with central banks and gold.
Raymond Schillinger made a documentary called called Dreams For Sale: Lehigh Acres:
http://www.dreamsforsalemovie.com/full-version.html (34 minutes long)
Rick Perry Faces the Biggest Drop in Texas Revenue Since Oil Bust in 1980s
Governor Rick Perry, after touting Texas’s growth while holding down taxes and spending, faces the biggest two-year budget gap in state history and a challenge some compare to the 1980s, when an oil bust roiled the economy.
Texas’s revenue will fall 2.9 percent to $72.2 billion in the two-year fiscal period that begins Sept. 1 compared with the biennium ending in August, state Comptroller Susan Combs said yesterday in Austin. She said the state also faces a $4.3 billion deficit that must be closed by the end of August.
“The budget situation is as bad as it’s ever been,” said Billy Hamilton, a former deputy comptroller and now a municipal- finance consultant in Austin, the state capital. He likened the situation to a period of declining revenue several decades earlier. “The speculative bubble in oil popped in the 1980s, and we’ve just gone through another bubble in real estate.”
Texas is positioned to make spending cuts without raising taxes, Perry, a Republican, said in a statement yesterday. Texans elected Perry, age 60, to an unprecedented third term in November because they support his leadership approach, Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman, said yesterday by telephone. Texas is one of a handful of U.S. states with no income tax.
“Texas is one of a handful of U.S. states with no income tax.”
And selling your first borns left nut(after both of yours are gone) to pay your property taxes in TX is status quo.
Oh Yeah! My brother used to own an 80K house in Texas. Property tax bill was over $2000.
Kinda sounds exactly like the northeast. No more different than a harvey wallbanger and a screwdriver.
Texas is positioned to make spending cuts without raising taxes, Perry, a Republican, said in a statement yesterday.
You homework today will be to compare/contrast to what the democrat governors of CA and IL are proposing doing to solve their state budget deficits (hint: that are looking to massively raise something that rhymes with axes).
But Texas already runs on a bare bones budget; they rank 50th in per capita spending. But one party runs the state, so it should be pretty easy for them to reach agreement on cuts vs taxes.
Maybe they can cut the 100K+ salaries of all those HS foorball coaches ….
Nah! What am I thinking?
What are you?! Some kinda dang socialeest/commie?!
God will strike you down for EVEN thinking such a thing!
LOl! The no taxes pledge is fixin to run into reality.
Eliminating Medicaid is the only idea being floated now.
“Eliminating Medicaid is the only idea being floated now.”
Why am I not surprised?
Texas also has fees for everything to make up for no income tax. The emissions testing for cars every year is especially loathsome.
Inspection is $39, tags $69.
That’s cheaper than most states.
Brown wants to extend the present state income, vehicle license, and sales tax increases for the next five years, while introducing 12 billion in actual cuts to welfare, MediCal, UC/CSU, county fairs, parks, firefighters, child care, and executive/legislator support. This would close the deficit while waiting for the economy to improve. He doesn’t propose further cuts to the public schools, nor does he propose an increase in property taxes.
His problem is getting the Democratic state legislators to go along. He has a short honeymoon to get this done.
You’re homework for today, 2banana, is to tell us why a Republican controlled state is also $25 BILLION in the hole.
BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
“Texas is positioned to make spending cuts without raising taxes, Perry, a Republican, said in a statement yesterday.”
Brett might be able to get a deal on a rental after all.
Not if he stays in Austin, he won’t.
Where else you live in Texas?
Houston, Dallas and San Antonio are horrible!
$25 billion deficit and yet he was voted back into office.
Just like the Repubs were given more power after voting to keep tax breaks for offshoring jobs by voters who said… they needed jobs.
We deserve everything we have coming to us and it isn’t going to be pretty.
“Rick Perry Faces the Biggest Drop in Texas Revenue Since Oil Bust in 1980s”
Would Ben Jones be feeling deja vu all over again about now?
I will and am. I was there as well.
Let me tell you, it was serious hard times.
George Monbiot urged government intervention to solve the housing crisis by forcing rich home owners to take in lodgers
Monbiot jumps the shark
Smoke ‘Em If You’ve Got ‘Em; ILLinois needs your tax $$$:
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – Crippled by a massive deficit, Illinois has seen its bills pile up and its bond ratings fall. Now the state’s Democratic leaders are making a desperate effort, and fighting the clock, to fill the budget hole with an equally massive tax increase.
They want to boost the personal income tax rate temporarily by up to 75 percent, pushing the current rate of 3 percent as high as 5.25 percent.
In sheer percentage terms, the Illinois proposal could be the biggest tax increase on the long list of increases states have passed as they grappled with recent economic woes.
“I wouldn’t use end-of-days rhetoric, but it is definitely higher than we normally see,” said Kail Padgitt, an economist for the Washington-based Tax Foundation.
The move is as difficult as it is bold. The window for action may be less than 24 hours, before Democrats lose some lame-duck lawmakers and a slice of their majority when a new General Assembly takes over on Wednesday.
“There’s only one day left,” House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, said Monday night. Tuesday “is do-or-die.”
Republicans reject the concept completely. Rank-and-file Democrats are pushing back by proposing strict new limits on government spending or a slightly smaller increase, perhaps 66 percent instead of 75 percent.
Illinois faces starkly different outcomes worthy of its extreme situation, where a deficit of $15 billion has built up over the years as officials have repeatedly avoided serious action. If the increase passes, Illinois could vault out of its budget hole immediately — at least until the four-year increase ends — while making the state a much more expensive place to live and work. Or Illinois could lose the only viable solution leaders have come up with, leaving nothing on the table that could fill a deficit that amounts to half the money in the state’s key budget fund.
The increase, coupled with doubling the tax on cigarettes, could generate $7.5 billion a year, enough to balance the annual budget and begin chipping away at a backlog of unpaid bills. The state regularly falls months behind in writing checks to schools and universities, businesses that build roads or rent offices to the state, and organizations that provide a vast array of social services.
The move is as difficult as it is bold.
Rasing taxes is bold? Since when?
The real joke is in the revenue forecasts. Everything is linear and too optimistic.
Hmm, so you raise taxes on vice, thus driving down demand, while at the same time severely restricting the vice, thus driving demand down further, so the answer is to… raise the taxes again.
BMW has record year: Really?
http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20110111/BUSINESS/301110010/BMW-has-record-year-sees-better-times-ahead
In FL I drive past a few BMW dealerships on a regular basis. They are literally stuffing them with cars - putting cars in every nook and cranny on the lot, building multi-layer garages, bulldozing adjacent buildings and paving the land, etc. Is anybody actually buying the cars?
GM has a massive overflow of unsold inventory on their lots, too.
Car prices have skyrocketed. Even crummy 4 cylinder “entry level” SUVs have 30K stickers as do familiy sedans that used to sell for 20K just a few years ago.
As for the BMWs, they are pushing the leases on them (as everyone else is). Of course a lease on a 50K car will still be pretty steep.
The return of the lease is not surprising. The monthly nut on a 30K car is about $600 (assuming a 5 year loan).
How many families can afford two $600 month car payments?
Just out of curiosity, how many here grew up in a household with two cars? Particularly two newish cars that they were still making payments on. Even the families that HAD two cars, usually one of them was the older and therefore paid for one.
Of course back then loans were 2-3 years, not 5-7 like today.
And getting your car to last for 100k miles was somewhat unusual. But I’ve never bought a new car, and I’ve never had a car loan for more than two years. And it’s been at least 15 years since I’ve had a car note.
“And getting your car to last for 100k miles was somewhat unusual.”
Not unusual, but it did take more elbow grease as things would wear out and break more often than they do now. On the other hand there were fewer things to break.
We just purchased a 3/4 ton Chevy pick-up.
1975, 350 w/auto. No dents, no cracked glass, everything perfect. Original floor
mats, of course, it only has 60k miles and looks and smell like new. Cash $2.5k
Came with a $900 tool box and a $1,100 lumber rack.
My family didn’t have 2 cars until I was 7. If my mother needed to do non-walkable errands during the day, my grandmother had to come and take us. The first two second cars we had were hand me downs from grandma and grandpa. My parents might have paid a token amount for the second one. Only once did we ever have two new cars at the same time. The old car needed to be replaced. The newer car was a disaster (one of the engine mount bolts fell off for no apparent reason when it was less than two years old) and getting worse. My father told the toyota dealer that he was willing to buy two corollas right off the lot if the price was good enough. I think we got both of them (corollas back when they were still small cars, though not the smallest car available under any make) for $14K. Mechanics bills went way down though.
Luxury sales were up and most Fortune 500s made record profits last year.
Just not enough to hire people.
Maybe you haven’t read the CITI Plutonomy Report, yet.
I suggest you Google it and realize it’s no joke.
Welcome back the Middle Ages.
ZipRealty slashes staff, quits 11 cities to save $20 million
San Francisco Business Times -Technology, Residential Real Estate
ZipRealty Inc. will cut its sales and support staff by 25 percent and close offices in 11 cities, hoping to save $20 million in a “severe” real estate market.
The Emeryville company is leaving Fresno; Charlotte, N.C.; Minneapolis, Tucson; Virginia Beach; Hartford, Conn.; and five Florida cities — Naples, Jacksonville, Miami, Palm Beach and Tampa. Together those cities accounted for just 13 percent of ZipRealty’s revenue in 2010, and they weren’t profitable operations.
ZipRealty guesses fourth quarter revenue will be $26 million to $27 million, down 20 percent to 23 percent from a year ago.
Rare-Earth Ripple Effect Hits Gasoline Producers ~ WSJ ~
The skyrocketing cost of rare-earth metals from China is pushing up the cost of gasoline production in the U.S., the latest sign of the wide-reaching impact of Beijing’s decision to restrict exports of the minerals.
Prices for some of the chemicals refiners use to process gasoline have risen dramatically after China, which controls about 95% of the world’s rare-earth supply, said it would reduce export quotas for the metal by 35% for the first half of 2011. Beijing had already cut quotas by 72% for the second half of 2010.
“… China, which controls about 95% of the world’s rare-earth supply …”
Which was globally bought up by China using money sent to them by other countries.
Money = Worthless, unbacked, fiat IOUs.
I will take palladium over dollars any day.
China bought up rare earth supplies!? So far they were EXPORTING them, that’s the opposite of “buying up”. In fact they were exporting them for far less than what it would cost to produce in other countries, thus driving those manufacturers out of business.
The problem with IOUs is holding on to them and trying to make money by loaning them out instead of using them to purchase goods and services. They simply do not make a good store of value in the long run. You’ll see…
Haven’t they bought a lot of mines in Africa?
In other news, a bear farted in the woods and gasoline prices were expected rise due to excessive bear flatulence affecting oil prices.
A winter statistic
98% OF AMERICANS SAY ‘OH SHIT’ BEFORE GOING IN THE DITCH ON A SLIPPERY ROAD.
THE OTHER 2% ARE FROM SOUTH CAROLINA, AND THEY SAY, ‘HOLD MY BEER AND WATCH THIS HERE.’
Ha, I like that, maybe I need to drink more.
Myspace Layoffs Slated for Tuesday
Myspace, the social-networking site owned by News Corp., will lay off more than 500 employees on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the situation, as the business continues a major strategic overhaul aimed at buoying its dismal financial performance.
The layoffs will represent nearly half of the website’s staff. Reports of workforce cuts have been around for weeks, including one earlier Monday by …
Coming to facebook in next 5 years.
MySpace was quite the youth networking site a few years ago. Then it morphed into a site for musical acts. It got to the point where you’d ask a band what their MySpace was.
Nowadays, not so much. Even the bands have gone elsewhere.
Az Slim . I got to admit I was worried about you for a while when the
Arizona killings hit the news . Nice to see your voice posting .
You really get to know people on this blog . I was never connected
to a Blog until this one and I just came upon it by accident in the
early days of this Blog . A whole hell of a lot has happened since
the days of the heights of the real estate Mania .
Sometimes I really wonder how they are going to treat this period
of History in the History books.
I just got off the phone with a lady who once was my accountant. She still helps with bookkeeping issues now and then.
She said that she was at the Safeway center to do some grocery shopping. Before she went into the store, she stopped by Rep. Giffords’ Congress on the Corner event. She joked around with aide Gabe Zimmerman, who invited her to stay.
She begged off, saying that she had to do her shopping. So, into the Safeway she went. She was selecting tomatoes when the shootings happened.
Gabe Zimmerman was among those who were killed. And my acquaintance missed the same fate by two minutes.
Az Slim …that is way to close for comfort ,isn’t it . But the truth is it could happen anytime ,anywhere .This is just a short comment ,not designed to open up the subject against Ben Jones wishes .
A 1000 people running this website?
News Corp got hosed on that deal. Big time.
Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch.
The sad part, they could have made something out of it, but didn’t. So typical of the corporate mindset.
Synovus announces layoffs of 850, closing of 39 bank branches
WRBL - On Your Side COLUMBUS, Ga. –
Synovus, the Columbus-based banking company, announced layoffs of 850 people and the closure of 39 bank branches.
Calling the layoffs and closures “efficiency and growth initiatives,” company officials said Synovus is trying to “streamline operations, boost productivity, reduce expenses and increase revenue.”
WRBL News 3 has asked company officials how many of those jobs are local to the Columbus area and how many of the branch banks slated to close are in the area. So far, we have not gotten a response from Synovus officials.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. consumers continue to struggle to pay back home equity, auto and other loans as high unemployment drags on the economy.
The American Bankers Association said in a report released on Tuesday that the overall loan delinquency rate ticked up slightly for the second straight quarter. It had been dropping steadily since hitting 3.35 percent in the second quarter of 2009.
The overall rate increased to 3.01 percent in the third quarter of 2010 from 3.00 in the second quarter.
The ABA defines a delinquency as a payment that is 30 days or more overdue.
The association attributed the lack of downward movement to the unemployment rate, which remains high, but said delinquency rates are likely to improve soon.
xx
Good luck with that improvement soon. Say hellow to chronic underemployment, wage cuts, and rising costs for food and fuel. My guess is that the ABA will be surprised.
Does anyone seriously believe the banksters are providing honest data on their non-performing loans?
Heck no!
They’re not?!
I’m shocked. Just SHOCKED I tell you!
“The ABA defines a delinquency as a payment that is 30 days or more overdue.”
Interesting! That means that as long as I pay the minimums on my CC’s, etc that I can continue to amass more and more debt that it won’t be counted until I stop any payment in toto for 30 days or more.
Mayor says L.A is facing more furloughs, layoffs
With Los Angeles City Council members unable to reach agreement on where to make new budget cuts, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Monday threatened to order a new round of furloughs and employee layoffs.
The council’s Budget and Finance Committee was unable to reach agreement on a series of proposals to make up for a potential loss of $53 million in revenue because of the city’s inability to put together a lease-sale deal for its parking garages. Among the proposed new budget cuts are an additional 10 employee furlough days on top of the 26 already scheduled and eliminating a class of police recruits.
“If we are unable to speak with a strong voice from the Budget and Finance Committee, it makes it difficult to make a recommendation to the full City Council,” Councilman Bernard Parks said after the nearly five-hour meeting.
Parks chairs the committee and was unsuccessful in getting the four other members to reach agreement on any of the proposals.
At the heart of the discussion is the proposed lease-sale of nine city garages to private operators, a proposal that has been under study for two years.
In recent months, there has been a growing chorus of opposition to the proposal from some council members and a number of community activists.
Fed official worries bond-buying program could backfire if economy grows quickly
WASHINGTON (AP) — A member of the Federal Reserve’s policymaking committee suggested Tuesday that the Fed may need to scale back its $600 billion Treasury bond-buying program if the economy grows more quickly than expected.
But Charles Plosser, who becomes a voting member this year, is unlikely to sway the other members, based on speeches and minutes from the Fed’s last meeting.
Plosser, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, worries that the Fed’s program may soon “backfire on us” and spur inflation if “we don’t begin to gradually reverse course.”
Plosser has repeatedly spoken out against the bond-buying program. He has raised concerns that the risks — namely the potential for unleashing inflation — could outweigh any benefits to the economy. Plosser was not a voting member when the Fed adopted the program on Nov. 3, although he attended the meeting. Only five of the 12 regional presidents get a vote.
The regional bank president, who has been outspoken with his concerns about inflation, is likely to put pressure on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues to shrink the program.
Zimbabwe Ben’s multi-trillion dollar bond buying is the only thing between Wall Street and a collapse of years of systemic fraud. Gotta keep the Ponzi scheme going until the next Administration.
An overpriced vs. underpriced city list. I agree with the overpriced but most of the alleged underpriced cities are dying and probably have not hit bottom: http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/10/real_estate/overvalued_housing_markets/index.htm
There is a “no-arbitrage” condition in finance which suggests that “underpriced cities” reach that status for a reason.
I told you so…
Comment by yensoy
2007-12-19 06:24:24
…
Personally I think there will be a bifurcation in prices - essentials (esp food) will skyrocket while non-essentials will collapse. Pseudo-essentials like oil (there is a lot of consumer discretion when it comes to using oil) will stay about the same.
The above was my prediction of how things would move on the inflation front.
Fast forward to today…
I have stopped following monetary policy, interest rates, bond prices, Krugman, Bernanke etc. This is all BS. The Fed, politicians and economists are not stupid to realize the effect of flooding the markets with money. Of course they know what’s in store for us - yet they still continue to print… why?
I don’t think it is because of any secret deal with banks etc - yeah banks have a lot of power and stuff but even they are not stupid to run the economy into the ground.
The answer is the focus of the endgame of this economic death dance. It is to ensure Pax Americana continues for the next half century. The principal players are America on one side versus China on the other. The American side is silently supported by Europe, Japan, India and others. The Chinese, I believe, don’t have as many friends but have a lot of people on the team, a lot of money and a lot of control of how to use that money.
This is a drama that in the past was played with the USSR. Reagan and his economic theories were clearly broken, but they showed the strategic depth of the American system and how it would be impossible for the USSR to compete with America. It’s like a drinking contest - not healthy for either but the guy without the staying capacity dies.
The same thing is afoot today, except the opponent is China. Also, the Chinese system is way superior to USSR’s - it is strong, resilient and hyper productive, so they won’t be pushovers. In fact, it’s not entirely clear the US will even win, but really there is no other way but to duel because Chinese aren’t content with second place. And as we have seen, anything other than clear first place will be a body blow to the American standard of living.
The gambit today is to see how far the Chinese growth story can continue without collapsing internally (inflation, unrest) or externally (currency, trade balance). Do not forget that the US produces just about everything it *needs* - basically food and oil. US has enough clothing and shelter stock to sustain through a 5 year long siege if need be. What does China need? I think China needs, more than anything else, is for growth to continue at its blistering pace.
I give high marks to China for a lot of things it has accomplished - pulling a tenth of humanity out of poverty, making available all sorts of products at cheap prices (and I don’t mean LCD TVs, I mean surgical equipment, tunnel boring machines, etc). But I am reminded of my childhood when as an 8 year old I had an adult bicycle. I could somehow get on, but had no idea how to get off. I usually ended up in the bushes. Same could be the case with China.
Plus we can get our clothing from south of the border if China stops taking dollars as payment.
China’s success was built on cheap energy (coal fired) and cheap labor ten cents an hour. They are now paying a 1.00 an hour for unskilled labor and the world price for coal since they now have to import it to meet demand. They may still grow but the end to 10% growth per year is a lot closer than most people realize. Yet, factored into their stock market and economic plans is this 10% growth. It is a lot like the 7% rise in housing prices per year that was built into the computer models prior to the housing crash.
I have always viewed China as having a problem because of their
huge population . You reach a point where greater population produces so many problems that can’t be solved in a easy manner .
Ideally a population should only grow as fast as the resources are
available now and in the future for that population .I remember getting the lectures when I was young about only having enough children that you can support and sent to college ,also the lectures on the starving children in China so I would eat my vegetables .
One of my problems with the Globalism message is that America should feel responsible about Countries that are over populated because of religious beliefs or maybe just because within time all places become over populated . America is a young Country ,unlike
many Countries of the World . Combined with a number of other factors this allowed for America to grow in the manner it did
economically .
Of course any Country wants to upgrade their standard of living ,but I see no reason for trying to right a lot of wrongs by downgrading
Americans into poverty . Sure a lot of Americans were spoiled in the
Land of milk and honey, but is this amble reason for social injustices and a redistribution of wealth to a small percentage of the
population that has the control of Congress now and it was in large part due to a entire change to the long term structures that people
in the USA were relying on .
China is going to do what is good for China and is anyone surprised
that China manufactures don’t want to pay for the damages of toxic
drywall they sent us . Why this illusion that the inspections aren’t
faulty on goods from other Countries .
Whatever this grand experiment has been with the USA it’s being
attacked now ,but I say go back to when America functioned well and
you get a lot of answers as to what the solutions are that self-interest
groups don’t want to touch with a ten foot pole .
And the technology transfer…….what isn’t being stolen, is being bought for pennies on the dollar, with the vague promise to the MNCs and Banksters that “you’ll make it up on volume”.
Manufacturers worldwide have been giving hard-earned intellectual property to the Chinese, because it is supposedly the only “growth” market left. Ask the European and Japanese builders and designers of high-speed rail equipment how that’s working out.
Which of these three near-identical $3.5m luxury McCondos would you prefer?
5912 Shaw Lopez Row
San Diego, CA 92121
Beds: 3 On Redfin: 292 days
Baths: 4.5 Year Built: 2010
Sq.Ft.: 3,913 Lot Size: 10,353 sf
$/Sq.Ft.: $894 MLS#: 100018082
————————————————-
5938 Shaw Lopez Row
San Diego, CA 92121
Beds: 3 On Redfin: 292 days
Baths: 4.5 Year Built: 2010
Sq.Ft.: 4,053 Lot Size: 8,140 sf
$/Sq.Ft.: $864 MLS#: 100018084
Status: Active
Last Sale: -
Listing: Prudential California Realty
————————————————–
5924 Shaw Lopez Row
San Diego, CA 92121
Beds: 3 On Redfin: 292 days
Baths: 4.5 Year Built: 2010
Sq.Ft.: 4,083 Lot Size: 8,124 sf
$/Sq.Ft.: $857 MLS#: 100018083
Status: Active
Last Sale: -
Building for $50/sq and selling for $800/sq.
How’s sales volume doing these days?
“How’s sales volume doing these days?”
Going, going, gone…
Nix, nix, nix…
The Fed’s QE2 Traders, Buying Bonds by the Billions
The New York Times
Deep inside the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the $600 billion man is fast at work.
In a spare, government-issue office in Lower Manhattan, behind a bank of cubicles and a scruffy copy machine, Josh Frost and a band of market specialists are making the Fed’s ultimate Wall Street trade. They are buying hundreds of billions of dollars of United States Treasury securities on the open market in a controversial attempt to keep interest rates low and, in the process, revive the economy.
To critics, it is a Hail Mary play — an admission that the economy’s persistent weakness has all but exhausted the central bank’s powers and tested the limits of its policy making. Around the world, some warn the unusual strategy will weaken the dollar and lead to crippling inflation.
But inside the Operations Room, on the ninth floor of the New York Fed’s fortresslike headquarters, there is no time for second-guessing. Here the second round of what is known as quantitative easing — QE2, as it is called on Wall Street — is being put into practice almost daily by the central bank’s powerful New York arm.
Each morning Mr. Frost and his team face a formidable task: they must try to buy Treasuries at the best possible price from the savviest bond traders in the business.
The smallest miscalculation, a few one-hundredths of a percentage point here or there, could unsettle the markets and cost taxpayers dearly. It could also embolden critics at home and abroad who say QE2 represents a dangerous expansion of the Fed’s role in the markets.
“We are looking to get the best price we can for the taxpayer,” said Mr. Frost, a buttoned-down 34-year-old in a striped suit and rimless glasses.
They just don’t get it…….nobody without a job, or is getting hit with pay cuts/reduced hours/on call consulting positions, is going to be borrowing money anytime soon.
CITI Plutonomy Report.
They are no longer in touch with any reality.
And we know how that ends.
(Reuters) - California Governor Jerry Brown unveiled a budget on Monday that included “painful” cuts to state worker pay and social services and a plan to extend tax increases as the most populous U.S. state struggles to close a $25.4 billion deficit.
Brown, a 72-year-old Democrat who last week began his third term as governor 28 years after wrapping up his second term, faces a tough campaign to win approval of his budget plan from the Golden State’s fractious legislature.
Brown’s proposed cuts, like those of his predecessor, Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, come in response to a steep drop in the state’s coffers in the wake of a crippling housing market crash and recession that roiled financial markets and sent unemployment into the double digits.
“It’s going to be difficult,” said Ken Naehu, managing director at Bel Air Investment Advisors. “But he’s been there before so he knows what to expect, and he’s got a fighting chance to be successful.”
Brown said he would ask lawmakers to support a ballot measure to extend temporary tax increases that expire this year. He plans to campaign vigorously for the measure and is hopeful voters will endorse it in light of even deeper spending cuts if they reject it.
He ruled out borrowing to help balance the state’s books. “It’s better to take our medicine now,” he told reporters while unveiling his budget plan.
““It’s better to take our medicine now,” he told reporters while unveiling his budget plan.”
What? What did he just say? Did he say that out loud?
The thought crossed my mind that unless a potential seller ‘makes a serious attempt to sell a property for a extended period of time without success
how can they ask the Lender to approve a short sale ? Look at how many months the News was filled with articles on holding on to your property
until the market returns . The unrealistic homeowners were going along
with what real estate people were saying , the MSM ,the Fed was saying at the time ,etc.
There was a serious attempt to hide the facts involving this correction on real estate prices that was due to happen . Only now are you getting articles about real estate markets not likely to return to highs for 20 years .
Not more than a year ago many people I know would mouth a 3 to 5 year
time period for the real estate market to return . I would say to them
maybe 15 years is more like it . These people would look at me like I was nuts because People actually believe the MSM , the Feds ,the Politicians ,
the PR machine .
I suppose because people saw the Stock Market go back up again maybe
they thought Real Estate would follow .
‘One poor harvest away from chaos’
Millions of the world’s poorest people and the state of the global economy are threatened by the food price rises
Geoffrey Lean
Telegraph
‘Within a decade,” promised the top representative of the world’s mightiest country, “no man, woman or child will go to bed hungry.”
I’m in the process of reconciling bank statements. And here’s a real knee-slapper for you:
Statement has a message at the top saying, “Start the year saving!”
And, instead of touting higher interest rates on savings, the rest of the paragraph touts the institution’s auto loan rates.
Sigh.
As I’ve stated here many times, in our sick twisted banking thug run country, war is peace, spending is saving, slavery is freedom. A corporatists utopia.
You have problem with Corporate Communist Capitalism©®™, comrade?
After Hwy followed a fellow HBB blogger’s suggestion of “move-your-money”
the new Non-MegaBank Inc. Credit Union sent a 2011 Thank you!: Free $1,000 Accidental Death & Dismemberment (AD&D) insurance…still, everyone’s passbook savings rate is to die for!
Aw c’mon! We all know that in a consumer based society getting more for your money is “saving”.
Consumer-credit delinquencies tick up
Delinquencies on car, home-equity and personal loans up
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Consumer-credit-delinquency rates ticked higher in the third quarter of 2010 as the labor market “hit the pause button,” according to a report released Tuesday by the American Bankers Association.
The ABA’s composite ratio, which tracks delinquencies in eight loan categories, gained one basis point to 3.01% in the third quarter from 3% in the second quarter, according to the ABA. A delinquency is a late payment that is at least 30 days overdue.
“The economy just skipped a beat in the third quarter,” said James Chessen, ABA’s chief economist, in a statement. “It doesn’t move in a straight line, and neither do consumer-credit delinquencies.”
PhillyInc: Bankruptcy of Carbon Nanoprobes Inc. attributed to poor fund-raising environment
Eighteen months ago, entrepreneur Brian Ruby was practically laughing in the face of the recession.
He’d just moved his company, Carbon Nanoprobes Inc., to Chester County from the Seattle area after landing an equity investment from the Life Sciences Greenhouse of Central Pennsylvania.
The space in East Whiteland Township had a clean room in which the nanotechnology company would make probes that researchers could use on the tip of an atomic microscope for molecular imaging.
That October, BusinessWeek named Ruby one of 25 finalists for its annual America’s Best Young Entrepreneurs feature. The magazine noted the company with nine employees was transitioning from research to equipment sales and expected $1 million in revenue in 2010.
Instead, Carbon Nanoprobes filed Dec. 30 to liquidate under Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. According to documents filed in federal Bankruptcy Court in Philadelphia, the company had assets of just $38,650 and liabilities of $1.59 million.
The largest creditor is the Harrisburg-based Life Sciences Greenhouse, which is owed $531,749. Michele Washko, vice president of strategic services for the greenhouse, said that her organization, which was seeded with some of Pennsylvania’s share of the national tobacco settlement, has written off the investment.
As unfortunate as that may be, it’s also to be expected when investing in start-ups pursuing novel technologies.
So what happened between the euphoria of June 2009 and now? In an e-mail, Ruby confirmed what Washko told me: Carbon Nanoprobes was a victim of a poor fund-raising environment.
Even though it had landed more than $4 million from institutional and angel investors, Carbon Nanoprobes needed a lot more.
“We had an aggressive capital-raising plan that was powering our projections,” Ruby wrote. “Because of the condition of the capital markets, that plan did not come to fruition.”
As for what’s next, Ruby, 26, would say only that he was weighing his options.
Because of the condition of the capital markets, that plan did not come to fruition
It’s not the capital market, it’s the government. The investors/venture capitalists are just like banksters. They would have invested in these technologies if gobmit covered the losses a la banks. No gobmint, no money where success is not guaranteed.
It would be worth to see how wisely they spent the money. I belong to a group of budding entrepreneurs club and stories I hear about some of the failed start ups is quite breathtaking. Expensive rents, unnecessary perks to senior management, expensive parties, you name it.
The gist of the story is don’t trust anyone who hasn’t even managed his/her own finances with your hard earned money.
Ever.
Exactly.
Same with any MBA as well.
What killed them is that the IPO market hasn’t returend to 1999 insanity.
IF it looked like they’d be able to have taken this “high tech” sound-good company public, the venture capitalists would have been lining up to toss money at it.
But, retail investors just aren’t writing a blank check to their brokers demanding they buy high tech start ups for WHATEVER the insiders feel like selling for.
Dang retail investors not willing to buy crud companies that the Wall Street fraudsters want to foist upon them… They are destroying the economy by refusing to buy into the new bubble.
Observer-Reporter
84 Lumber Co. said Monday that it is closing three stores in the Midwest and South as it continues to feel the fallout of the poor housing industry.
Company spokesman Jeff Nobers said the company will close stores in Oklahoma City, St. Augustine, Fla., and Waveland, Miss.
He said the Oklahoma City store will be consolidated with the 84 Lumber store in Tulsa, Okla.; St. Augustine will be incorporated into the Orange Park, Fla., store; and Waveland will be merged with the Gulfport, Miss., store.
He said the three closings will affect about 14 people, who were offered the opportunity to move to the consolidated locations.
“These were stores in markets where we needed to consolidate because there is no business anymore,” Nobers said.
He said the company, the largest privately held supplier of building materials in the United States, has closed about 150 stores nationally since the housing industry contracted more than three years ago.
84 Lumber Co
Worst run stores - ever (at least the ones I have been in).
I don’t know how they stay in business.
since the housing industry contracted more than three years ago
Contraction? or Implosion?
Ain’t Flexi-English a wonderful thing…
“Hwy, don’t sweat the small things!”
I hadn’t realized that 84 Lumber was a national chain. They had a store in Saratoga CA which was always a mess. But it did have a lot of stuff if you were willing to take the time and explore.
I didn’t even realize they were still in business. Our local 84 has been closed for at least five years, and the site is still vacant. I hadn’t ever noticed a “for sale” or “for rent” sign on the property (haven’t paid close attention of late), so I figured it might be one of the assets tied up in bankruptcy. I know 84 still holds at least a handful of leins on real estate in the area, for which I doubt they’ll ever see a dime (since they aren’t the primary leinholders). If those are the “assets” on their books, one can see why they’re in trouble.
But there are 5 Home Depots and 3 Lowes within 5 miles of my house. Not to mention the Ace Hardware that is closer to my house than all of them.
Bank of Portugal Says Economy Will Shrink After Government’s Spending Cuts By Joao Lima - Jan 11, 2011
Portugal’s economy will contract this year as consumer demand drops and the government cuts spending, the country’s central bank said.
Gross domestic product will shrink 1.3 percent in 2011 and expand 0.6 percent in 2012, following estimated growth of 1.3 percent last year, the Bank of Portugal said in its winter economic bulletin. On Oct. 7, the bank forecast no GDP growth in 2011, a projection that didn’t take into account budget deficit- cutting measures announced by the government on Sept. 29.
“The Portuguese economy’s growth outlook will be significantly affected in the short term by the process of budget consolidation,” the Lisbon-based bank said in today’s e- mailed report. “Regarding the international context, it is still difficult to assess the degree of strength of the recovery of the world economy.”
Portugal is raising taxes and cutting wages as it tries to convince investors it can narrow its budget gap further after the Greek debt crisis led to a surge in borrowing costs for indebted euro nations last year. In November, Ireland became the second euro country to seek a bailout and the first to request aid from the European Financial Stability Facility.
78 missing as ‘instant tsunami’ hits Australia town
Intense deluge sparks 26-foot high wall of water; torrent heads toward Brisbane.
BRISBANE, Australia — Greg Kowald was driving through the center of Toowoomba when a terrifying, tsunami-like wall of water roared through the streets of the northeast Australian city.
Office windows exploded, cars careened into trees and bobbed in the churning brown water like corks. The deluge washed away bridges and sidewalks; people desperately clung to power poles to survive. Before it was over, the flash flood left at least 10 dead and 78 missing.
“The water was literally leaping, six or 10 feet into the air, through creeks and over bridges and into parks,” Kowald, a 53-year-old musician, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “There was nowhere to escape, even if there had been warnings. There was just a sea of water about a kilometer (half a mile) wide.”
The violent surge in Toowoomba brought the overall death toll from weeks of flooding in Queensland state to 20, a sudden acceleration in a crisis that had been unfolding gradually with swollen rivers overflowing their banks and inundating towns while moving toward the ocean. Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said there were “grave fears” for at least 18 of those missing.
Oil prices surge as panel says gov’t must do more to prevent for offshore drilling disasters ~ Sandy Shore, AP Business Writer
Oil prices surged Tuesday after a presidential panel investigating the Gulf oil spill said the oil industry and the government need to do more to reduce the chances of another large-scale disaster.
Benchmark oil for February delivery rose $1.80, or more than 3 percent, to $91.05 a barrel in midday trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The panel’s recommendations included increasing the liability cap for damages when companies drill offshore; increasing budgets and training for the federal agency that regulates offshore drilling and lending more weight to federal scientific opinions in decisions about drilling.
The report raised speculation that the government might slow down production in the Gulf of Mexico, which would lead to higher prices. “As it stands right now, this is a little bit of a concern in the oil patch,” PFGBest analyst Phil Flynn said.
Meanwhile, gasoline pump prices continued to climb, hitting a national average of $3.09 for a gallon of regular, according to AAA, Wright Express and the Oil Price Information Service. That’s almost 2 cents more than a week ago and about 34 cents more than a year ago.
No good news on the horizon either. Normally, brent crude is cheaper the WTI but now it is $6 to $7 dollars more. Just plug in the normal relationships and I can see gas going up 20 to 25 cents a gallon.
In other news, a rare type of galaxy was discovered and was expected to increase gas prices at the pump.
This, combined with increased bear flatulence, was cited as a major contributing factor to increased oil prices.
“It’s going to cost us more to deal with these new conditions,” said one oil industry official. “Along with the price of tea in China, market conditions are being affected and we’ll have to pass these costs on to the consumer.”
How about the businesses doing well with few customers year in and year out? Who needs many customers when your real business is laundering dope profits? From Florida to California seen it plenty. How ’bout some toot with your slice hombre?
As Arizona chief told me: “It’s time again to hit the rural gun and knife show to buy some firearms for resell to Mexican cartel buyers to supplement my meager Social Security disability checks.”
http://www.youtube.com/v/GqnjzONrPiA?
Lol! Mexican’s seem to have no problem flaunting the law, but seem all upset when someone legally sells a Mexican a gun in Arizona They want that made illegal. Boggles the mind.
Dennis Hopper’s Shot-Up Mao Fetches $302,500
“Mao” by Andy Warhol. Dennis Hopper, who died last year at 74, shot the screen-print during a wild night in the early 1970s, mistaking the picture for the actual Chinese leader. The work sold at auction at Christie’s International in New York for $302,500. Source: Christies via Bloomberg
An Andy Warhol print of Mao Zedong that the late actor Dennis Hopper shot up during a wild night in the 1970s sold for $302,500 at Christie’s International in New York today.
The price, which included buyer’s commission, was more than 10 times the high presale estimate of $30,000. “Warhol’s Mao: one plate” was among over 200 artworks Christie’s was selling from the estate of the actor, who died at 74 last year from prostate cancer.
The blue-faced Mao print went to investment banker Amed Khan, who bested several telephone bidders to acquire his first Warhol.
“I heard about it over the years,” said Khan, about the work. “It’s a remarkable piece of history.” Hopper shot the print twice when he mistook it for the actual Chinese leader, according to Christie’s.
Ahh, the 70’s…
You mean his character wasn’t just an act in Apocalypse Now?
“The first statistics are coming in and, to the surprise of a great many, Obamacare might just be working to bring health care to working Americans precisely as promised.
“The major health insurance companies around the country are reporting a significant increase in small businesses offering health care benefits to their employees.”
Forbes
“Home values have fallen 26 percent since their peak in June 2006, worse than the 25.9-percent decline seen during the Depression years between 1928 and 1933, Zillow reported”
http://www.cnbc(dot)com/id/41019790
Got to love our “Not-Depression Recession.”
Pepsi to stop making beverages in Baltimore
The Pepsi plant in Baltimore will no longer make soda, and the company plans to lay off 77 people as officials have decided to stop manufacturing operations — a decision they blame in part on a controversial new beverage tax in the city.
The last cans and 2-liter bottles of Pepsi-Cola, Diet Pepsi, Mountain Dew and other sodas ran through the production line Monday morning. Executives at Pepsi Beverages Co. told workers in meetings later in the day that production would be halted for good. Pepsi officials said they would work out details regarding the layoffs, including potential severance, with the local Teamsters union.
The company will continue most other functions at the plant on Union Avenue in Hampden. An additional 318 workers with positions in sales and in the warehouse will keep their jobs. Pepsi will continue making soda in other parts of the state and the Baltimore plant will get beverages from those facilities as well as others in the Mid-Atlantic region to distribute.
Kristine Hinck, a company spokeswoman, said a number of factors played into the closing of the production side of the business — including the 2-cent tax on bottled beverages passed by the City Council last year. The need to streamline operations was another factor in the decision.
Hinck also said: “Given the climate, making a beverage in a city where there is a beverage tax certainly doesn’t help.”
The tax was part of a package of new fees intended to help close a $121 million hole last year in the city’s $1.2 billion budget. City officials said earlier this month that they now face an $81 million gap in the budget.
Funny how increasing taxes often leads to less jobs and less revenue to the government…
Funny how many business can’t seem to operate if their taxes are more than zero.
They most likely moved because the city wouldn’t give them millions of dollars of tax breaks… like most large businesses do.
Hinck also said: “Given the climate, making a beverage in a city where there is a beverage tax certainly doesn’t help.”
Methinks that the above is a red herring.
Why? Because I seriously doubt that sales of beverages like Pepsi have fallen significantly since this tax went into effect. After all, people who drink stuff (and that’s one of the nicer terms I’ll use to describe such bebidas) like Pepsi are going to get their fix one way or the other.
Housing Market Slips Into Depression Territory ~ CNBC
As the economy revs back to life, with signs of hiring on the horizon, the housing market is being left behind like Macaulay Culkin in “Home Alone.”
In the past few years, we’ve all been careful to choose our words carefully, not calling it a recession until it fit the technical definition and avoiding any inappropriate use of the “D” word - Depression.
Things were bad but the broader economy never reached Depression territory. The housing market, on the other hand, just crossed that threshold.
Home values have fallen 26 percent since their peak in June 2006, worse than the 25.9-percent decline seen during the Depression years between 1928 and 1933, Zillow reported.
November marked the 53rd consecutive month (4 ½ years) that home values have fallen.
What’s worse, it’s not over yet: Home values are expected to continue to slide as inventories pile up, and likely won’t recover until the job market improves.
the housing market is being left behind like Macaulay Culkin in “Home Alone.”
Actually, 8 year old Kevin McCallister demostrated skills found lacking in the Housing Industry Inc.: Innovation & critical thinking.
Gold is the money of kings; silver is the money of gentlemen; barter is the money of peasants; but debt is the money of slaves.
Norm Franz
“Housing Market Slips Into Depression Territory ~ CNBC”
Yawn… wake me up when real estate always goes up again, if I live that long.
As the economy revs back to life, with signs of hiring on the horizon,
Mirage
Signs of hiring?????
“Signs of hiring”… you know. Like the unemployment rate dropping .3% because 500K people gave up even bothering to look for a job.
California is doomed. Brown won’t touch pensions or public unions as the unions control government. Expect more and more cut backs in service until CA provides NO services and funnels all taxes into pensions/unions. And then they will cry for a Fed bailout.
Democrats taking care of their own. We know how this will end.
———————-
Jerry Brown skips biggest budget problem: pensions
San Francisco Chronicle | 1/11/11 | Chip Johnson
It was no surprise to see Gov. Jerry Brown take bold and immediate steps to try to derail the state’s runaway budget, but the biggest obstacle blocking the tracks remains.
CalPERS, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, is still the 600-pound gorilla in the room.
At a Monday morning news conference, the state’s new governor laid out his plans to cut $12 billion in spending and raise $12 billion in revenue to present a balanced $84.6 billion budget in June.
Days after announcing the elimination of the office of the secretary of education, which operated at a cost of nearly $2 million last year, Brown said the only department spared reductions would be the state’s primary education system, which covers kindergarten through high school.
The 10 percent wage cut to union workers who had not settled on a bargaining agreement is but a drop in the bucket compared with the cost of providing retirement benefits to 1.6 million workers in 3,000 public agencies and school districts across the state.
In the case of the state retirement system’s top earners, including many police and fire departments, employee contributions to retirement plans have been minimal. Until last year, Oakland police officers made no contributions to their own retirement plan. And neither did the Oakland City Council.
“Expect more and more cut backs in service until CA provides NO services and funnels all taxes into pensions/unions.”
I dodge some crater-sized pot holes every day on my daily commute which are emblematic of where this kind of policy leads. My loverly wife heard just today from a mechanic that many of their customers nowadays come in for repairs due to hitting said monster-sized pot holes. I recently had a nightmare that I slammed into one at full speed and my front wheels were knocked off; I skidded to a stop on only my two rear wheels and the front of the chassis.
Why is it again that people pay over $500,000 for the privilege of becoming California home owners?
From Dow Jones
•Illinois House Committee Passes Tax Bill To Cut Deficit
•Illinois Income Tax Would Jump To 5% From 3%
•Illinois Corporate Tax Would Jump To 7% From 4.8%
•Illinois Bill Now Goes To Full House
Since Uncle Ben’s helicopters only dump fiat currency over TBTF banks, not bankrupt states, the people of Illinois have a choice: move out, bend over, or elect more responsible leadership.
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commodities/futures/
What Zimbabwe Ben’s printing press and twentysomething bond buyers hath wrought:
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commodities/futures/
“Zimbabwe Ben”
Weimeranke?
“Weimeranke?”
Top dog at the Fed
No talk radio for Chafee, and on-duty state workers, too
PROVIDENCE — No one is likely to confuse new Governor Chafee with his Republican predecessor, Donald L. Carcieri, and now here’s another way to tell them apart:
Chafee doesn’t plan to spend his own time on talk radio, and he intends to ban state employees from spending their state work time talking on talk radio, which was Carcieri’s favorite medium and an integral part of his communications operation.
Spokesman Michael Trainor said a directive will go out over the next day or so that reflects that new policy.
He said the policy emanates from a belief that talk radio is essentially “ratings-driven, for-profit programming,” and “we don’t think it is appropriate to use taxpayer resources” in the form of state employee work time to “support for-profit, ratings-driven programming.”
Trainor said the new governor will continue to talk to the news reporters for the local radio stations, and the nonprofit local NPR affiliate.
More evidence, as if more were needed, that America’s descent into a banana republic is well advanced. The head of the SEC - the so-called regulatory and enforcement agency that is guilty of either gross negligence or criminal incompetence in failing to detect or deter Wall Street fraud - earlier settled a slam-dunk case against Goldman Sachs for a slap on the wrist. Now it transpires that he also arranged a back-room deal with a Citigroup lawyer to go easy on two Citi execs accused of fraud. So much for “the most ethical Administration we’ve ever had.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-11/sec-watchdog-probes-enforcement-chief-over-citigroup-settlement.html
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s internal watchdog is reviewing an allegation that Robert Khuzami, the agency’s top enforcement official, gave preferential treatment to Citigroup Inc. executives in the agency’s $75 million settlement with the firm in July.
Inspector General H. David Kotz opened the probe after a request from U.S. Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, who forwarded an unsigned letter making the allegation. Khuzami told his staff to soften claims against two executives after conferring with a lawyer representing the bank, according to the letter. Jon Diat, a Citigroup spokesman, declined to comment.
… According to the letter, the SEC’s staff was prepared to file fraud claims against both individuals. Khuzami ordered his staff to drop the claims after holding a “secret conversation, without telling the staff, with a prominent defense lawyer who is a good friend” of his and “who was counsel for the company, not the individuals affected,” according to a copy of the letter reviewed by Bloomberg News.
What do you guys think of this? Termite buffet?
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1052-8th-St-Palm-Harbor-FL-34683/46945110_zpid/
1982.
Needs work.
Eco, please help me see what you see! To me, it looks nice. Across from park, next to the trail, nothing visibly falling apart. Other than the fact that it has a lot of wood in an area that is murder on wood. Because I don’t see what you see, I would be in the proverbial sheep to the slaughter scenario in assessing a house like this.
All I’d know to advise is to know the building code, and inspect the place yourself for compliance. Also go with a level and a square so you can see how far off the illegal aliens were while they cut the corners that even the foreman had not thought to cut. Make sure the studs and joists are spaced correctly and that they are sound, especially in the places where it wouldn’t occur to a FB to investigate. I’ve seen little hand held thingies that alert you to the presence or absence of studs behind drywall. Investigate the windows, that they open and close. How cheap is the heat pump? Jump up and down on the second floor with Mrs. Muggy on the first floor and see if the house keeps shaking when you stop jumping.
I hope exeter sees this. He’s a construction engineer or something similar. He’d REALLY know where to look for nasty surprises. I think he was the first one here to use the term “crapshack”.
Good luck. Did you take the high risk job?
Everyone except the environmental fear lobby must be cheering this news!
* BUSINESS
* JANUARY 12, 2011
California Thirst Quenched
Snow, Rain Boost Farmers, Ski Resorts After Drought, as Some Areas Mop Up
By JIM CARLTON
After three years of debilitating drought, California appears headed into a second straight wet year, giving a boost to ski resorts, farms and communities that languished during the dry spell in the fiscally troubled state.
Since California’s rainy season began Oct. 1, the state has received roughly double the mountain snowfall it normally gets, according to state estimates.
That means the rainy season is off to its best start in at least five years, with 16 of California’s 24 major reservoirs equipped with flood controls already beginning to release water so they can take on spring runoff, state water officials say.
The bounty is providing a shot in the arm to many local economies across California, the nation’s most populous state, which is struggling to recover from the recession.
Combined with last year’s abundant rainfall, officials of some water districts, including the Santa Clara Valley Water District in San Jose, Calif., have dropped mandatory rationing restrictions. That particularly helps farming-related businesses, which are more dependent on water than most other parts of the economy, economists say.
Ski resorts are reporting visits and revenue above what they had anticipated, said Bob Roberts, executive director of the California Ski Industry Association.
…
Another housing-market nightmare
By STEPHEN B. MEISTER
Last Updated: 12:16 AM, January 12, 2011
Posted: 10:10 PM, January 11, 2011
Last Friday, Massachusetts’ highest court handed down a decision invali dating two foreclosure sales because the banks couldn’t establish that they owned the mortgages at the time of sale. The decision is legally justified — but threatens the entire US home market, as it potentially throws into question title to millions of homes.
As one judge pointed out, “There was no apparent actual unfairness” to the long-out-of-possession homeowners — Antonio Ibanez and Mark and Tammy LaRace. In both cases, the borrowers were long in default and hadn’t even tried to stop the foreclosures.
Yet they now again own their homes. Why?
Read more: