Bits Bucket for January 18, 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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Canada Tightens Mortgage Lending Rules to Curb Household Debt (Bloomberg)
“This government understands the importance of not taking on more than you can afford and the dangers of ongoing debt,” Flaherty, 61, told reporters today in Ottawa.
Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced steps to tighten record household borrowing amid concern rising debt levels could threaten the economic recovery.
Canada will shorten the maximum amortization period for government-insured mortgages to 30 years from 35 years, and lower the maximum amount homeowners can borrow against the value of their homes to 85 percent from 90 percent, Flaherty said in a statement released today in Ottawa. The changes take effect March 18.
The government will also remove its backing for home-equity lines of credit starting on April 18.
A case of closing the barn door after the cow already got out?
Or are they worried about keeping the median house price in Calgary near 400K? No bubble here folks!
Too little, too late.
FYI - The Canadian government already has passed a TARP type bailout for their banks.
It is going to end badly - with the loonie taking a huge it.
Canadian personal debt already surpassed US by some measures.
90% of the worlds mining/resource companies are based in either Vancouver or Toronto….we are smack dab in the middle of a long term secular commodity super-cycle that typically lasts 15-20 years - and there is a HUGE amount of wealth creation up there right now
In short, I think Canada RE and in particular the Loonie is safe for the time being
a few years down the road though, once the resource cycle is over, it will likely end in a spectacular bust….ala Houston circa early eighties.
Any real demand for all those things canadian that are pulled from the earth?
Or is it just massive speculation?
Or are things different there to justify $1 million olympic condos?
The Canadian RE boom will hold as long as Ottawa keeps loosening mortgage credit!
Oops.
The commodities boom will hold as long as the global economy is expanding exponentially!
Oops.
The commodities bubble will last as long as worldwide interest rates are held near zero for anything and everything!
Well, one out of three ain’t bad. That zero interest rate thing seems to be slipping though. Not sure the thin fabric will hold for your 20 year “super cycle”.
National debt: The ugly facts ~ CNNMoney
The facts are ugly. The federal debt, which has averaged less than 40% of the total economy, now represents more than 60%. It’s likely to hit 100% in a little over a decade.
You want more? Here’s more.
Pretty much every impartial analyst has declared the situation unsustainable. And many European countries have already been hit by nervous credit markets worried about their debt levels.
Bottom line: If Congress and the president fail to make changes to current policies, the United States will experience some form of a fiscal crisis.
Not a pretty picture. And yet policymakers continue to drag their feet.
When it comes to fiscal policy, the political system is stuck in posturing mode.
Sorry, the abominable $858 billion tax deal President Obama struck with Republicans last month, in which both sides piled on more to the public debt and called it a win-win, does not qualify as my kind of fiscal compromise.
It just won’ be possible to make the kinds of cuts needed and there won’t be tax increases to cover the gap. They’ll continue to borrow and spend regardless of who is in charge, and there will be annual QEs to finance it, destroying any buying power the middle class has left, unless you work for the Federal Gov’t, whose employees will receive generous COLAs while everyone else swirls down the toilet drain.
What COLA increase? COLA’s were just frozen for two years. It’s not a huge sacrifice, but expenses in the DC area ARE going up. A 1.2% COLA increase won’t make a dent in a 12% rent increase.
But to be honest, the pay freeze, hiring freeze, and flat budgets (espeically in Defense) will help deflate the DC housing bubble. Fewer jobs will mean no more wave of pretty young things flooding into the DC area, meaning no demand for new housing. Mass retirements and move-outs will help too.
They weren’t frozen for 2 years. The 2008 increase was based on Sept 2008 CPI of 219. A year later, CPI was 216. 2 years later it was 218.4.
Remember $4+ a gallon gas? That is what SS has been based on for the last 2+ years.
Federal government yearly pay increases are not calculated based on the CPI because they are not COLAs. Never have been. They are supposed to be a slow catch up to get federal wages in line with private sector equivalents.
Did ya miss the news about recently frozen federal employees raises?
And yes, SS was frozen last year and is supposed to remain so for 2 years.
CPI? Get serious. The CPI is worthless crap.
I think that once inflation really heats up that the federal COLAs will be back.
” I think that once inflation really heats up that the Federal COLAs will be back”
If inflation really heats up then the federal COLAs should be back. Or am I missing something here?
“If inflation really heats up then the federal COLAs should be back. Or am I missing something here?”
Yes, you are.
Private sector workers don’t get COLAs.
I’m only familiar with COLAs, in regard to pensions. Do fed workers get raises? or is that what the COLAs are for? BTW, I don’t consider step increases (or the yearly pay increases Polly was referring to) raises. Most civil service jobs start at extremely low salaries. The annual increases are earned thru seniority.
Civil service jobs start at extremely low low salaries? Are you sure Kirisdad?
A lot of people around here seem to think that due to anecdotal local evidence that government workers make fat banks while the avg civil servant retiree can afford caviar and champagne.
flat budgets (espeically in Defense) ??
Are base closures on tap again ?? I suspect they are and when they occur they usually cripple the local economy that surrounds it…
I saw on the NewsHour that the Defense budget isn’t quite flat, but it’s going to up less than they thought. They aren’t cutting operations, I think they are mostly cutting contractor R&D (i.e. very expensive pork).
“Are base closures on tap again ?? I suspect they are and when they occur they usually cripple the local economy that surrounds it…”
Like I said a few week ago, being in the Military is the current “good paying blue collar job”.
Last summer I visited my old stamping ground of Alexandria, La. England AFB (where Daddy was stationed) was closed back in the 1990s (I don’t remember the exact year). Without the base, Alexandria has become a ghost town.
As I pointed out last week, most americans are totally clueless.
70% say “do not increase the debt ceiling”.
BUT…
75-80% say do not cut Social Security, Medicare, education, justice, national parks.
If we assume VA, federal pensions, unemployments, transportation, etc are on the list of do not cut. Then if we assume the “offset by income” like flood insurance, crop insurance, national forests, etc are also on the list. Then we assume that they do not want us to default on our debt so we have to add on interest on the debt…. We come up with about $2.7T of the $3.7T budget.
If we cut 50% from everything else…. DoD, Dept of State, anything close to Welfare (like food stamps, housing subsidies, foster care), FDA, CDC, energy, science, etc…. Well, then we’d reduce the deficit from $1.5T to $1T…. assuming these cuts did not effect revenues or other spending. The 50% cut to DoD alone would but a couple million more people out of work and add 1.5% to the unemployment rate.
people tend to think DoD spends a bigger %, and forget it employs their kids.
People also believe aid to the poor and foreign aid are exponentially larger than they are.
It comes down to two words: senior citizen. That’s who gets the spending. And that’s who has also been in favor of lower taxes for the past 30 years.
True. If you add up everthing that even smells like Welfare…..
Medicaid: $265 billion
Food Stamps: $80 billion
HUD: $47 billion (includes $20 billion for sec8 housing subsidies and like $20 billion for other public housing)
TANF: $17 billion
Child Nutrition Programs: $17 billion
Total: $426 billion… Or about 1/4th of the projected 2011 deficit.
This web site:
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/welfare_budget_2010_4.html#usgs30240
puts welfare are $557 billion but they are including unemployment but not Medicaid. They also include tax credits like HAMP, EIC, home buyer credits, per child tax credit, etc, etc, etc. Even their inflated numbers are only 1/3rd of the deficit.
I love these people who like to choose who gets it . How about the rich ,why don’t you ever suggest going after them WT economist .
TARP - $700 BILLION first round
I think the 2008 TARP $700B was repaid less about $40-$45B.
TARP was repaid with money borrowed from the FED who turned around and bought the bad debts from the Wall St. so they could “repay” it.
Thank you ecofeco for exposing their little tricks .
How much of a deficit is SS running these days? I suspect that compared to all the money we burn on wars of agression that it’s chump change.
Your suspicions are not correct. Spending on entitlement programs for the elderly ( including Medicare ) is almost twice as much as defence spending. Of course, the defence budget is bloated and loaded with waste, but SS and Medicare alone have the ability to wreck the finances of the nation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2007.png
Yes, but I asked about the deficit, not the total spending. SS and Medicare are funded through their own dedicated taxes, defense spending is not.
I think Colorado said deficit we are still paying into SS and Medicad what is it compared to payments?
Unless the government just mixes all taxes together, which is what I suspect they do, it should be easy to compare inflows to outflows.
FY 2010 SS had a $76 billion deficit. They were projecting about $120 billion shortfall for FY 2011 before the tax cut. The 2% reduction in SS tax will add $112 billion in deficits for CY2011. If we count 3/4ths of CY into the FY, then that would add $84 billion. So, let’s call it a $200 billion shortfall for FY 2011.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost something like $1.1 trillion over the last 10 years.
So, before the tax cut, the SS deficit was going to be more than the wars, and with the tax cut, the deficit is about twice the cost of the wars.
“The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost something like $1.1 trillion over the last 10 years.”
So what does DoD spend the rest of the money on? According to wikipedia we spend $600B+ annually on “defense”. Times ten years that’s 6 trillion. An expenspve “jobs” program if you aske me.
The current SS deficit is small, only 41 billion.
I think your numbers are very out of date.
From SSA.Gov website
“Social Security expenditures are expected to exceed tax receipts this year for the first time since 1983. The projected deficit of $41 billion this year (excluding interest income) is attributable to the recession and to an expected $25 billion downward adjustment to 2010 income that corrects for excess payroll tax revenue credited to the trust funds in earlier years. This deficit is expected to shrink substantially for 2011 and to return to small surpluses for years 2012-2014 due to the improving economy.”
I wonder what 109 billion on “OTHER SPENDING IS ” .
Don’t forget Medicare! Public Option or Single Payer would make a huge difference by funneling premiums out of private insurance, where the young and healthy and employed are, and into Medicare/Medicaid, where the old and sick and poor are.
“Single Payer”
Everyman is not a single person.
I’m big on single payer ,go for cutting the costs of Health Care
as a means of reducing the weight of the deficit . The new Health Care bill really didn’t lower costs over all . If that isn’t
done the weight will be to much for all generations . As a senior I should be charged more (I hate to say that ) or the system should be means tested . Even my 87 year old neighbor agrees with that ,believe it or not . This is a cracking the back situation
as far as medical costs go and it’s only going to get worse .
The whole Nation should be getting more into preventative
health care ,something that hasn’t been pushed really for decades . It’s been the big drug industries pushing take a pill for everything . Life style matters ,what you eat matters ,exercise matters . Not to say that there isn’t medical conditions beyond ones control that the person needs the medical system .
I live around a bunch of healthy older people that rarely use the medical system ,but if you examine the reason ,its their lifestyle .
Preventative care is a budget buster.
Someone who drops dead in their fifties or sixties is far less costly to the taxpayer than someone who survives into their nineties, culminating with those eight years in a nursing home and the grand finale of two months in the ICU.
Medicare doesn’t really pay for long term care nursing homes,assisted living ,unless your talking about some of the welfare programs . These are the costs that take a huge amount of the remaining funds of the seniors . I know a guy that just couldn’t afford it for his wife so he went to nursing
training and took care of her himself for 10 years until her death . I know women who became major care-takers of their husbands for years when they became bed ridden . I know a guy who was paying 50k a year to take care of his wife in assisted living for 10 years because her malady was beyond anything a layman could handle . These days those costs would be more like 70k a year . Some people have assisted living insurance ,most don’t .
You guys don’t get it on what is payed for and what isn’t .
I said “the taxpayer” because I was thinking of Medicaid as well as Medicare.
Wizard,
They may not get it, but in his example, the 2 months in the ICU (with the procedures that certainly would go along with such a stay) could easily double the health care spending on that person in his/her lifetime.
Wouldn’t pulling insurance from one premium pool lower the deficit even if costs were the same?
True Polly ,that sort of hospital stay (a ICU stay ) would be the sort that would crack the back ,no question ,or even a expensive operation could do it no doubt .
it would be interesting to note how many seniors end up in a ICU extended stay verses the kinda care I usually see that is being given . I know a senior that was operated on for lung
cancer (small spot on the bottom lope ) and was only in the hospital for 5 days and it wasn’t ICU care .
Another big cost no doubt is when they have to bring on the air machine (whatever they call it ) or any machine that keeps a person alive until they can recover ,if they can . This can be a very good life-saving measure if it allows for a person to return to normal functioning ,verses being a vegetable who is just kept alive .
They may not get it, but in his example, the 2 months in the ICU (with the procedures that certainly would go along with such a stay) could easily double the health care spending on that person in his/her lifetime.”
so its just a matter of time before this isn’t done anymore on the government dime
“so its just a matter of time before this isn’t done anymore on the government dime”
Agreed, assuming we can get past the death panel rhetoric. This type of end of life care is exactly the sort of thing that an analysis of effective treatments would show to be of little use despite its enormous expense. In addition, many people would make a specific choice to skip it, if their doctors could get paid to have the conversation with them.
Most of the seniors that I talk to would not want to be kept alive as a vegetable for instance . But I think most people would want to be saved if they were having a heart attack ,younger or older .If you have cancer and medical intervention can add many years to your life ,most people would agree with that ,such as the senior I told you about who had cancer surgery on her lung .
I think the back breaker is expensive procedures that only add two months to your life for instance .
What everyone fears is that the health care decisions of rationing will put some to their death when medical prevention could of extended a meaningful life for years ,verses the true
terminal . How would they ration ,based on age ,but some really old people are really healthy so you can’t do it based on age .
Do you ration based on the wealth of the patient and only those people get life extend measures ? Do you ration based
on the health insurance companies need for profit that month ? Do you say anybody over 60 gets cut off from medical care .
I mean when you start talking rationing you can start getting into some pretty scary talk .
But anyway doesn’t this go back to the very nature of a insurance system ,the healthy pay for the unhealthy or the ones
that end up having costly procedures just like people that have car accidents are paid for by the people that don’t .
But anyway ,if the health care costs continue to rise ,its not just going to be a issue that it’s to expensive for seniors ,it will be a issue that its to expensive for anybody except the rich ,
So, if health care could be cut by 50% over all ,like other countries have been able to do it ,than it just means more lives are saved because of the reduced costs overall .
You know ,this rationing talk can go so far that than what comes next is the talk about how long is a person entitled to live on this planet even if they have health . Than you get into talk about who must die because they are not productive enough and on and on . And who will be the decision makers .
If they really want to advise the truly terminal of their options ,
that doesn’t seem wrong ,but that would be providing you would actually trust the Doctor the gave the terminal diagnosis
. You have commercial on the TV right now in which a patient talks about how they got the terminal diagnosis from one doctor ,went to another clinic and they saved their life .
The key to controlling costs is preventive care. That is a case of BUD every 4 days. hahahahahaha
“But highly leveraged economies, particularly those in which continual rollover of short-term debt is sustained only by confidence in relatively illiquid underlying assets, seldom survive forever, particularly if leverage continues to grow unchecked.” - Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff from their new book, This Time is Different.
“…short-term debt is sustained only by confidence in relatively illiquid underlying assets…”
The kind of assets that are safe as houses?
Somefing’s gotta give; what’s it gonna be?
Good grief, you might think these bondholders could see the writing on the wall.
Item: Blockbuster Asks for More Cash
Blockbuster Inc. is asking creditors to put up more money to help it exit bankruptcy protection, prompting a debate among bondholders about whether to invest further in the struggling video chain or put it up for sale, people familiar with the matter said.
When Blockbuster filed for Chapter 11 protection in September, the company already had agreed to turn ownership over to its creditors. But after poor holiday sales and new estimates for a costlier turnaround, the company is asking bondholders for an additional $200 million to $250 million to be used after the chain exits court protection.
They need to change the name to WalletBuster. Or perhaps BankBuster.
Cars: Argentina’s new piggy bank
Desperate to save money, Argentines are buying cars in record-breaking numbers.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Hernan Valdez and his girlfriend Milagros Garin are the proud owners of a new Peugot. It’s a gray compact, immaculately clean, and still has that new car smell two months after they drove it home from the dealership.
A year from now, it still might smell new. Buenos Aires has a public transportation system akin to New York, so Valdez says they plan to use the car on weekends and holidays, if at all.
“It’s very uncomfortable to drive in Buenos Aires — commuting to work is very crowded and there’s lots of pollution,” Valdez said. “Most days we plan to leave it parked and travel by subway or bus.”
Argentines are buying cars in record-breaking numbers this year, but not necessarily because they’re burning to drive. With currency markets uncertain and inflation expected to reach 30 percent in 2011, Argentines are trying to find places to park their savings.
“Those who can buy property, but those who can’t buy cars,” said Valdez, who traded in the used car he bought last year for the new Peugot. Valdez, who works as a financial analyst for an international bank, said many of his friends bought cars this year too.
Fueled by record soy and corn harvests last year as well as strong Brazilian demand for Argentine-made cars and manufactured goods, Argentina is one of Latin America’s fastest growing economies. Its GDP is forecast to grow between 7 and 9 percent this year.
Yet Argentina also has Latin America’s second highest inflation rate, next to Venezuela. The national statistics agency reports annual inflation at 11.1 percent, but private analysts say Argentina’s actual inflation rate is closer to 26 percent and set to increase with government spending ahead of next year’s presidential election.
In the past, Argentines adapted to inflation by buying American dollars, but a weakening dollar doesn’t make that a secure option today. Especially since other currencies, such as the Brazilian real, have been gaining against the dollar.
With banks only providing 8 percent annual interest rates, Argentines are turning to cars as virtual savings banks. In most places in the world, a new car depreciates in value as soon as it leaves the lot, but not in Argentina.
For example, an Argentine consumer can buy a car for 50,000 pesos, use it for one year, and sell it the next year for almost the same price or more. In Europe or the United States, cars leave about 20 percent of their value when they leave the lot, said Hernan Dietrich, owner of one of Argentina’s largest car dealerships.
“Here the loss is absorbed by inflation and the equation balances out,” Dietrich said. “So many people have decided to buy a car if they don’t have another way to save.”
Chronic inflation doesn’t give people incentives to save. Many reason it’s better to have a car than watch their money disappear in the banks. Yet for higher income earners with access to credit, there’s an added incentive to spend.
I’ve suspected that’s why prices in this area are still holding.
“Those who can buy property, but those who can’t buy cars,” said Valdez.
Doesnt a car lose at least 10% of it’s value as soon as you leave the lot? I have never looked at a depreciating asset as an investment.
Still a good deal if inflation is 20%
I saw this same phenomenon in Mexico during the 70’s and early 80’s. Except there the cars actually appreciated, because new car prices would rise 60% or more every year.
For those who couldn’t pay cash there was a finance mechanism called “credit circles”. A credit circle meant that you would almost certainly not take delivery immediately and would probably wait an average to two years to take delivery (on a 4 year credit circle) and in the worst case you would have to wait the entrire credit circle period.
Why not just buy gold?
I wondered that as well.
Buying a depreciating asset because it will depreciate slower than your currency is really a pretty sad statement…
Especially if you can’t eat, smoke, or drink it.
Vacuum packing ciggies, and hoarding small bottles of spirits - that’s real currency for real hard times. Easier to acquire, transport, protect and exchange than even gold - if it got down to that.
Because it’s easier to buy a car, and you can actually use it?
Don’t forget that an expensive car brings considerable bragging rights, not to mention chicks.
No subtle “millionaires next door” here!
I guess because you drive and even sleep in your car.
Shouldn’t the author be subtracting the effects of that inflation from Argentina’s anticipated GDP?
Does the US?
A “confounding” inflation rate jump across the pond…
Inflation jumps to 3.7% - and it’s set to get worse, raising fears of soaring interest rates. ~ UK
Mounting pressure: As the cost of living continue to soars, the Bank of England is under pressure raise interest rates in a bit to stop rising inflation getting out of control
The annual rate of inflation, the consumer prices index, jumped from 3.3 per cent to 3.7 per cent - confounding experts who had expected a 0.1 per cent hik
What’s the U.S.A.’s balance sheet look like? Are we solvent?
Technicaly yes, but many of the assets on the sheet are pretty il-liquid. National parks, nuclear weapons, and the like. I mean we COULD sell them, but it would be a bad idea.
As long as you have a printing press you are technically solvent.
As long as you have the ability to tax future production, you are technically solvent.
People forget that the Treasury bond is really a claim on the ability to tax your future income and assets. If a small-business did the same thing, we would call it factoring your receivables.
Future income is an asset that can be sold off.
“Future income is an asset that can be sold off.”
Yup, just ask any FB!
“Future income is an asset that can be sold off.”
Like the Chicago parking meters.
After a rocky start hurt their bottom line, Chicago’s new parking meter operators are raking in more than $1.1 million a week and expect even more revenue next year, according to internal company documents obtained by the Chicago News Cooperative.
The parking meter company projects total revenues of more than $75 million and net income of about $58 million in 2010, after a second round of rate increases go into effect across the city on Jan. 1. In the first 10 ½ months of operation ending Dec. 31 of this year, the company expects $32.7 million in net operating profit, for a 70 percent profit margin.
Financial experts who reviewed the data say Chicago could have made out much better in the long run had it just kept the meters. The private company, Chicago Parking Meters LLC, paid the city $1.15 billion in February for the right to reap all parking fee revenues for 75 years. Under the deal, rates immediately quadrupled at most of the city’s 36,000 meters.
The source that provided the documents to a reporter said the parking lease value was a matter of great civic importance and the company’s profits should be made public. But the source wished to remain anonymous for fear of retribution from the private meter company or the city. The Chicago News Cooperative verified the authenticity of the documents.
Wished to remain annonyous for fear of retribution — ya betcha’
Yesterday in downtown DC, I saw a big sign outside a parking garage: $10 because it was a holiday. That cost less than Metro (which had delays AGAIN this weekend for upgrades). A few hours later, the parking garage next door had lowered its price. The public wins, as do the downtown businesses.
And yet Chicago allowed one company a monopoly on parking meters. So much for free-market competition. Whom do you have to sleep with to get THAT deal?
Financial experts who reviewed the data say Chicago could have made out much better in the long run had it just kept the meters.
Those “experts” would include virtually every resident of Chicago and surrounding burbs, who almost unanimously knew it was a Very Bad Idea to sell off a revenue stream for a one-time lump sum.
Trust me on this one. Elanor. It had to be a political favor.
Brilliant! The private company can quadruple rates when it would be politically infeasible for the city to do it. Some people will choose public transportation instead, reducing traffic congestion, gas consumption, and pollution.
nuclear weapons, and the like. I mean we COULD sell them ??
Don’t need to sell them…We just lease out the service (protection)…Problem is we don’t charge anything for the lease…In fact, we pay them instead of them paying us…
Oh, I guess you DO understand NATO.
I just had a vision of the US and North Korea fighting over “turf.”
Solvent? Maybe. Liquid? No.
A country (or a person, or a company) can be deemed solvent but still may not be able to pay its bills because it cannot transform its assets into cash.
It is cash that pays the bills.
One can price his assets to any value he cares to (something that is now going on with banks) but when it comes to actually converting the assets into cash then Mister Market steps in with his opinion of what the price should be.
As long as we are the reserve currency we can create as many dollars as we need with a key stroke. That is why betting on cash, (at least dollars) will not work in the long term. When our government wants inflation it has both the tools and the will to create it. Of course, true prosperity is another matter all together.
“As long as we are the reserve currency we can create as many dollars as we need with a key stroke.”
Which is why I foresee lots of QEs in our future, along with the associated “side effects”.
Good, then all our money problems are solved and all this worry about bankruptcies is a waste of time.
“then all our money problems are solved”
Notice that I mentioned “side effects”.
Given the current scenario:
UE, low rates for savers, banks sitting on RE inventory, bonds and stocks in a casino mode, emerging markets on a path to Tunisia:
What options are really there for someone to grow:
–can’t invest anywhere.
–can’t change a job.
–just cannot grow. It has beenlike this for the past 4 years and maybe like this for another 5 years. Almost 10 years of our life get screwed with no value addition.
Would inflation fix this? Not in real dollars.
It’s these “side effects” that is preventing the money-dropping helicopters from taking flight over the masses.
Scroll down a bit and take a look at some of today’s posts and see for yourself if there is or is not a shortage of money, a shortage of cash.
“It has beenlike this for the past 4 years and maybe like this for another 5 years. Almost 10 years of our life get screwed with no value addition.”
If this is indeed the case, then what you’re describing Martin, is nothing short of a Depression.
Too many are looking for concrete signs of a depression: soup lines, Okies, etc. But down the road it will be the duration of this event, and not some stock market level, that will make it seem so.
Just so you can get in touch with Depression II, you need to understand the age we live in. In DP1, there were no food stamps, no unemployment insurance, no mortgage do-overs, no Social Security programs, etc.
True enough, there are no soup “lines”, but Food Stamp programs (SNAP) is at an all-time high, I believe 42 Million.
If there were not food stamps, do you think you would see “soup lines”?? If there were no UEM ins, do you think you would see more pan-handling on the street than in the past?
I’m seeing foodbanks at capacity, more panhandling, leading to more “ordinances” to stop it, more customers at thrift stores and worst of all, rising food prices due to commodity speculation and rising fuel costs.
The concrete signs are there. It’s just that we have a little more cover in the form of government programs that conceal the facts. Unfortunately, all levels of government are over-extended and the Programs are going to get cut back. Then you may see more in the way of people on the street….we’ve got Yankees, rather than Okies, but it’s about the same thing.
“It’s these “side effects” that is preventing the money-dropping helicopters from taking flight over the masses.”
I agree that is the case, for now. Once no one is willing to loan money to Uncle Sam all bets are off.
And FWIW, we are seeing some early “side effects” like rising gasoline prices, even though demand is still slumping.
I wasn’t really looking for the liquidation price of federal courthouses, post offices, etc. I’m looking for, as someone posted already, the value of assets we can tax in the future, especially intangible assets, our JPL’s our Cal Tech’s and MIT’s, Merck, ADM. Is there anything unique we make? In 1946 we were basically the only game in town if the world wanted anything. China’s got stealth aircraft technology now, apparently. Can our edge in health care equipment/research be similarly whisked away?
Citigroup Gain Masks Flawed Mortgages Sold to Freddie Mac
As Vikram Pandit celebrates his first full-year profit as head of Citigroup Inc., an old nemesis clouds the bank’s future: defective mortgages.
Three years after bad home loans helped trigger the recession and six weeks after the government cashed in the last of its $45 billion Citigroup investment, the New York-based bank is still selling mortgages that violate quality standards, according to an internal Freddie Mac review obtained by Bloomberg.
Fifteen percent of the performing loans Citigroup sold to the government-owned mortgage-finance company in the second half of 2009 and the first half of 2010 had such flaws as missing appraisals or insurance documents or income miscalculations, according to the review of 375 mortgages. The target for defects should be about 5 percent, said Tim Rood, a former executive with Freddie’s sister agency, Fannie Mae, and now managing director at Washington-based advisory firm Collingwood Group LLC.
cramer is pimping C again. This POS is more like an option at this point.
I just used the CAN and the citi certificates were real handy.
Oh ,now they call BAIL OUTS “Tax payer Investments ” . I din’t want to have a 92% ownership stake in AIG ,that insolvent piece of shit
Company that made 400 billion in CDS investments that they didn’t have the reserves to back .
I would like to ask the question , since when has it become acceptable for the Government to have a ownership stake in overpriced assets that the elite want to unload . It started out with loaning the insolvent money and than shifted to the taxpayers owning the overvalued junk . This is nothing more than a transfer of the loss to the new bag-holder .to the taxpayers ,and now that means that the taxpayer and future generations will be deprived of what they have coming to them .
I tried to warn you guys years ago that Plan A was keep the wealth of the elite and investment class and transfer the pain and loss to the masses ,who were already screwed by the crash of the housing market .
Products of the Past
You know what else is a product of the past? Solar panel manufacturing in Massachusetts. The state gave Evergreen Solar at least $45 million in subsidies. “Green” technologies got help from the federal government too – in the form of tax breaks. But last week, the company said it was moving its manufacturing business to…China!
*** And guess what else is a product of the past – Paul Krugman. The New York Times columnist tries to explain the division in US politics as a split between Republicans, who want less government and more liberty, and Democrats, who want more government and more fairness.
Yeah, yeah…
In Krugman’s simpleminded world…it is a struggle between good and evil…smart and dumb…progress and backsliding. He sees the democrats as the good guys. The republicans are bad guys.
Such a simpleton’s world must be a comfort. You don’t really have to do much thinking. Everything is black. Or it is white.
Too bad for Krugman, but most of the world is actually gray. If the republicans were so squarely in favor of limited government and liberty, how come they didn’t actually cut government spending when they had the chance? They ran the show for years. And during those years government spending went up faster than it did under the democrats.
A look back over the last 100 years finds trends that go way beyond republican or democratic administrations. Almost every year, the reach of the federal government expanded. More people were covered by more programs…with more debt and spending obligations pushed farther into the foggy future. Now, according to Prof. Laurence Kotlikoff, the full measure of that unfunded, largely off-the-books, debt is over $200 trillion – making the US government, effectively, insolvent. And that didn’t get there just because of democrats.
Nor will electing a republican make it go away.
And guess what else. If you look at the situation here in France, you see much the same thing. The cultural references are different. The debaters use different words and different concepts. There are no republicans…no democrats. And yet…except for the fact that France no longer has imperial aspirations…the situation is much the same. The government has promised everything to everybody.
Look…according to our new Daily Reckoning theme…political parties, voting, the blah, blah of partisan debates…as well as Paul Krugman…
…they are all almost irrelevant…all “products of the past”…
…relics…emblems…icons…symbols…
…full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing.
The real trends are bigger than that. What is at stake here is a model of government that began with Otto von Bismarck. It is a model in which the state supposedly serves the interests of the citizens. (Under the previous model, there were no citizens…just subjects who owed a duty of obedience to the sovereign…and in exchange received protection.) In Bismarck’s model, citizens give up a portion of their output…and stand ready to protect the state with their lives. In return, the state gives them the right to participate (through elections etc)…provides protection from foreign states and domestic outlaws…and makes sure that their physical needs are taken care of.
This model seems to be headed for bankruptcy. The big question is: when the state is unable to provide the benefits it has promised…what will happen? Will the masses accept less? Or will they revolt? Or will a new model evolve…peacefully?
Stay tuned.
Regards,
Bill Bonner,
for The Daily Reckoning
“This model seems to be headed for bankruptcy. The big question is: when the state is unable to provide the benefits it has promised…what will happen? Will the masses accept less? Or will they revolt? Or will a new model evolve…peacefully?”
In spite of their NFL induced, pickup truck driving bravado Americans are sheeple. They will bend over and take it, while repreating that “it will make America strong” {but not for them}.
“This model seems to be headed for bankruptcy.”
Wasn’t Bismarck in power a very long time ago? If “this model” has been around for such a long time, it may go bankrupt some day. On the other hand, that day may long after we’re all dead and buried. The most likely change will be some small adjustments, such as increasing payroll taxes on high-income people or raising the retirement age a couple of years.
Kaiser Wilhelm II fired Bismarck in 1890.
If I recall correctly, weren’t those “tax breaks” were converted into direct government grants to stimulate the industry and create American jobs? Are these companies really so stupid as to dump jobs and pocket the government cheese?
I predict a “bipartisan” law to prevent this. Or better yet, just allow a “government takeover” of industries that take government cheese and run. If private industry won’t create jobs, then let the government do it for them. For those who scream “socialism,” remember that the industry brought it upon themselves.
sht they probably paid off the politicians to right the tax breaks that way.
Corporate America owns the gov period.
George Stephanopolis: “The unexpected airline rate hikes”.
Yeah….unexpected…..yeah….that’s the ticket.
Followed by the unexpected drop in passenger traffic of course. Look for more capacity cutting by the airlines.
Locally there’s a storm raging over the expansion of O’Hare airport. It seems the airlines want to back out of promises, made during the boom of course, to help finance expansion. The traffic just isn’t there in their eyes. This is worlds apart from the thinking only a few years back.
Delta is planning a 7% increase in 2011.
Curiously, traffic at Denver International is at an all time high. Doesn’t really mean much though, as Denver is a secondary hub. Take United away and other than Southwest and Frontier there isn’t much left.
Nice to see you rich folks are doing the “heavy lifting”. Shop on…
Rich Raise Consumer Spending With Little Help From Middle Class
Sales are up at Tiffany & Co. and Coach Inc., buoyed by demand for $6,000 diamond pendants and $1,200 leather handbags as a stock-market surge pads the wallets of the wealthy.
Rich shoppers are driving an increase in consumer spending, bolstering a recovery that masks reluctance among less affluent Americans to join in.
At the other end of the economic spectrum, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest discount retailer, reports “everyday Americans” are living paycheck to paycheck as they await an improvement in job prospects.
“The heavy lifting is being done by the upper-income households,” said Michael Feroli, a former Federal Reserve economist who is now chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. “They’re the ones benefiting the most from the stock market rally, and they’re spending.”
The uneven progress in household expenditures, which account for about 70 percent of the economy, helps explain why Fed policy makers likely will keep interest rates near zero and complete a second round of Treasury purchases. Unemployment averaged 9.6 percent last year, the highest rate since 1983, even as the expansion gathered speed.
Sounds like tinkle down economics still has some stubborn adherents at the Federal Reserve.
“The heavy lifting is being done by the upper-income households,” said Michael Feroli, a former Federal Reserve economist.. “They’re the ones benefiting the most from the stock market rally, and they’re spending.”
Considering Ronnie’s been worm feast for almost seven years, and considering the “progressive” nature of the current administration - that’s saying a lot, eh?
Too bad luxury goods are almost invariably made overseas, or by small specialty shops employing few people even in the best of times.
Trickle down economics = emperors new clothes
There is no such thing.
The other great one is we can’t increase taxes on those that create the jobs
Ignoring the fact that the jobs are being created in China. Ignoring that you also need customers with cash to create jobs.
tinkle down economics ??
LOL……..
“Sales are up at Tiffany & Co. and Coach Inc., buoyed by demand for $6,000 diamond pendants and $1,200 leather handbags as a stock-market surge pads the wallets of the wealthy.Rich shoppers are driving an increase in consumer spending, bolstering a recovery that masks reluctance among less affluent Americans to join in.”
Somehow I miss how my shopping for a $6K diamond pendant and a $1.2K leather handbag (probably both made overseas) is bolstering the recovery in America. How many people did I help with those purchases?
How many CORPORATIONS did I help with those purchases?
Oh great, now the MSM is going to force feed us that the middle class is irrelevant. It was only a question of time.
And the feed the Rich psychology will continue . Oh ,it wouldn’t be fair to tax the rich more in spite of them being the class that
benefited the most by the 10 year decade of fake wealth creation .Oh lets keep the casinos and bail out the Investment cartel because they just deserve their 5 mansions and ask not what they can do for their Country that allowed the fleecing .
It really gets down to the point that the elite are not a value add on
because there isn’t enough of them . This PR campaign that what threatens the rich ,threatens the masses is just BS . Are the elite creating jobs to the extent they need to be created …no . And when you say that this 10% that pay higher taxes are supporting everyone else your full of caca .
Its the volume of spending from the 80% that keeps the economy going ,supports the tax base on all kinds of taxes other than Federal income tax and keep many industries going ,until they decide to out-source the jobs of course .
The idea that Wall Street stock investment is the main stay of America is pure ca ca talk .You have to be mostly a production Country and investment is a side bar if anything .
When times were sane ,most people were advised to put 10% of their earnings into investments and savings . When our Nation had a better power balance only 10 % of the Nations wealth was considered something that Wall Street should get their hands on .
Now they have set up a system that simply feeds Wall Street ratios
that exceed the real position a balanced economy would give Wall Street investment . Its just like when more dollars went to housing than was sane ,as a bogus get rich quick bubble, it toppled the balance .
Its just like when more dollars go to Health Care than is balance for a economy than there isn’t enough for other needs . For God sakes health care is more than rent .This is the power of price fixing monopolies that want to throw on a society their version of
costs that defy capitalism ,or even sanity . In other words ,do you think people would pay for rent and food before health care . But this insane Society wants you to pay $1400.00 a month for a family of 4 (or even more ) and have that insurance policy (that half the time you don’t even use if your younger) and give up being able to pay rent and
food costs . If capitalism was operative ,people would choose food and rent and screw the health care .
I have said many times that they were only taking about 10% from me when I was young involving health care (of course the employer was paying part of it ). In fact the employers often times were paying full coverage on dental also for a reasonable price .
The power elite with their stupid bribed Politicians are just running the Country into the ground just so certain portions of the economy can keep up with their fleecing .It;s insane and they are pitting generation against generation and expect the government to pay for all the unbalance ,which isn’t possible .
Even Buffet said “Tax me,tax me .” This is a guy that knows darn well he fleeced the system for years to get the wealth he got in a stacked deck system and now hes saying “Tax me “,after the robbery already took place by the stacked deck . Instead the power brokers want to take it out of the hide of the masses ,and in many cases this will serve to throw people into poverty,who otherwise could of obtained part of the American dream .
The idea that Wall Street stock investment is the main stay of America is pure ca ca talk
You nailed it Housing Wizard
Let them eat cake.
My brain just goes around in circles when I read stuff like this.
The imagery of “doing the heavy lifting”, as if to say those folks who had their stocks boosted by FED money printing, who are now converting gains for no work or effort in TANGIBLE ASSETS, actually are performing some kind of useful work.
I hear this phrase used by politicians a lot, too. Most have never lifted more than a finger and usually its been the middle finger at working-class America.
We have witnessed the FLEECING of America by the Banksters and their minions, who just reported, again, record bonuses, for simply pushing market prices higher, while providing no useful gain in output to support the higher prices. If you have “securities”, however, you can convert them to Land, commodities, Jewelry and new Jet aircraft, Yachts, and private islands in the Caribbean.
Yea, it’s really hard work.
Diogenes .
Really we having gotten away from what supports the
functioning of a society or a economy ,its the worker bees really .Suffice to say that it isn’t creating overpriced real estate to sell to one another or creating stock market bubbles or any other investment that the idea is get something for nothing .
It was important for the government to bust the Corporate/Wall street takeover and return America to its functioning status .Instead trillions have been wasted keeping the stacked deck alive ,while at the same time expecting that the toll will be taken from the worker bees
and the rest paid for by government ,that can’t afford this degree
of cost to pad the pockets of such a small % of the population ,that are raiders and traitors to this Country anyway .
Wall street/Corporate America/Elite actually want big government in terms of paying for things they don’t want to pay for and they want government to give favorable stacked deck breaks and supplements to them ,but never mind the government being there
to help the worker bees who are the true productive base of a
economy . In the Elites mind ,if people are thrown into poverty ,the government can supplement them ,don’t take from their profit margins .
I was around when the Nation was functioning in a somewhat balanced way so I remember what the ratios where for any given industry as it related to costs and percentages of costs . It was sane ,it was sane ,for the longest time it was sane .
The “New Deal ” that screwed the worker bees was brought on
slowly and very hidden because of the diversion of the housing boom . Look at how lopsided our economy is now as your
post above me shows .
It can’t go on people ,it simply can’t go on . GS isn’t doing Gods Works ,its the worker bees and its always been the worker bees .
CITI Plutomony Report.
Google it.
In the meantime, would anyone like some cake?
Marie Antoinette is alive and well.
Welcome back to the 18th century!
One Failed Harvest Away From Collapse?
Like many environmentalists, Lester Brown is worried. In his new book “World on the Edge,” released this week, Brown says mankind has pushed civilization to the brink of collapse by bleeding aquifers dry and overplowing land to feed an ever-growing population, while overloading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide.
If we continue to sap Earth’s natural resources, “civilizational collapse is no longer a matter of whether but when,” Brown, the founder of Worldwatch and the Earth Policy Institute, which both seek to create a sustainable society, told AFP.
What distinguishes “World on the Edge” from his dozens of other books is “the sense of urgency,” Brown told AFP. “Things could start unraveling at any time now and it’s likely to start on the food front.
“We’ve got to get our act together quickly. We don’t have generations or even decades — we’re one poor harvest away from chaos,” he said.
“We have been talking for decades about saving the planet, but the question now is, can we save civilization?”
In “World on the Edge”, Brown points to warning signs and lays out arguments for why he believes the cause of the chaos will be the unsustainable way that mankind is going about producing more and more food.
Resources are already beginning to be depleted, and that could cause a global “food bubble” created by overusing land and water to meet the exponential growth in demand for food — grain, in particular — to burst.
Two huge dustbowls have formed in the world, one in Africa and the other in China and Mongolia, because of soil erosion caused by overplowing.
In Lesotho, the grain harvest has dropped by more than half over the last decade or two because of soil erosion, Brown said.
In Saudi Arabia, grain supplies are shrinking as a fossil aquifer drilled in in the 1970s to sustain domestic grain production is running dry after years of “overpumping” to meet the needs of a population that wants to consume more meat and poultry.
Global warming is also impacting the global supply of grain, which Brown calls the foundation of the world food economy.
Every one-degree-Celsius rise above the normal temperature results in a 10 percent fall in grain yields, something that was painfully visible in Russia last year, where a seven-week heatwave killed tens of thousands and caused the grain harvest to shrink by 40 percent.
Food prices soared in Russia as a result of the poor harvest, and Russia — which is one of the top wheat exporters in the world — cut off grain exports.
Different grains are staple foods in most of the world, and foods like meat and dairy products are “grain-intensive.”
It takes seven pounds (3.2 kilograms) of grain fed to a cow to produce a pound of beef, and around four pounds (1.8 kilograms) of grain to produce a pound of cheese, Brown told AFP.
In “World on the Edge”, Brown paints a grim picture of how a failed harvest could spark a grain shortage that would send food prices sky-rocketing, cause hunger to spread, governments to collapse and states to fail.
Food riots would erupt in low-income countries and “with confidence in the world grain market shattered, the global economy could start to unravel,” Brown warned.
But Brown still believes civilizational collapse can be averted, if there is a mass effort to confront threats such as global warming, soil erosion and falling water tables, not military superpowers.
“World on the Edge” can be downloaded free-of-charge at http://www.earth-policy.org/books/wote.
The world has always been one bad harvest away from starvation.
Usually - the innovation of mankind has avoided or mitigated that risk.
However, most starvations are human induced. Usually at the hands of a socialist government.
Another good question is why is In Saudi Arabia (and others) growing grains and chickens in the middle of a desert?
And why is the United States taking corn and other foodstuffs and making fuel?
why is the United States taking corn and other foodstuffs and making fuel ??
Money ??
why is the United States taking corn and other foodstuffs and making fuel ??
Money ??
Without massive government subsidies - it makes no economic sense.
Without massive government subsidies - it makes no economic sense ??
Like I said….Money…
Because Iowa is the first state in the Presidential primaries.
Bingo!!
2banana, the way you throw around the word ’socialist’ makes me believe, like Inigo Montoya, that the word does not mean what you think it means.
Example: the gov’t of Great Britain in the 1850s ordering Irish farmers to grow potatoes and only potatoes, for export. No one can claim that was a socialist government. Likewise the USSR’s confiscating private land from peasant farmers. Who here thinks that Lenin and Stalin were socialists?
Socialism = government ownership/management of the means of production and allocation of resources.
Both of your examples
Obamacare
Obamamotors
etc.
FYI - the USSR stands for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Double Banana either is intentionally misleading you all or is just too lazy to look up the definition.
Simply, “Socialism” is where WE THE PEOPLE own the means of production. That’s all.
2banana, the way you throw around the word ’socialist’ makes me believe, like Inigo Montoya, that the word does not mean what you think it means.
lol, Ya think?
CAPITALISM AND THE BEE HIVE >
IMHO…..Capitalism would be the system that would create the highest motive and innovation ,if it was regulated capitalism .
The Government would be needed for a variety of functions
such as …….
(1) Providing for the Common Defense . Also this would include police ,law enforcement ,etc.
(2) Government would be the regulators which would include
commerce regulation ,trade regulation ,banking regulation etc.
(3) Government would need to be Monopoly busters for the welfare of the Beehive .
(4) Government would need to run the mass education
system ,and maybe the health care system if private industry continues with their price fixing Monopoly .
(5) Government would need to be the enforcer against any
industry or person or corporation that violates the rights
of the individual or the constitution . The Judicial system would have to be Government run .
(6) Government would need to be the entity that handed out welfare programs that private charities didn’t cover .
(7) Possible that Government would have a role in Utilities at least in terms of regulation .
(8) Government has had the function of the road builders
(9) Government might need to step in regarding emergencies
(10)Government would need to be responsible for Foreign Policy and Foreign matters ,for the welfare of the BEEHIVE .
(11) Government would need to be the tax collectors .
Governments function would be to serve the BEEHIVE ,and the peaceful functioning for the entirety of the BEEHIVE .
But the Beehive would run under capitalism to achieve the highest production . People would be rewarded based on
productive contribution .
None of what the government function would include helping Fat Cats ,or passing favorable taxes or creating stacked
decks for any industry ,or bailing out failure institutions ,or criminals .
Let them eat bugs!
Dutch scientist advocates bugs as a green superfood
BBC
Dutch scientist Arnold van Huis has advocated bugs as a healthy, green, alternative food, saying it is time to break old eating habits.
Insect dishes could be the answer to the global food crisis, shrinking land and water resources and climate-changing carbon emissions, he argued.
“Children don’t have a problem with eating insects,” he told Reuters.
Prof van Huis gives lectures, tastings and cookery classes with a master chef who prepares Dutch-farmed bugs.
The problem for adults is psychological, he said, and “only tasting and experience can make them change their minds”.
Insects are a long-established food in some parts of the world such as Mexico and Thailand.
The professor at Wageningen University said insects had more protein than cattle per bite, cost less to raise, consumed less water and did not have much of a carbon footprint.
Sorry, I don’t eat organs and crawly legs. And bugs aren’t much else.
How about shrimp, crawfish, shell fish - pretty much the same thing and all awfully yummy?
Bugs can’t taste all that much different, inside their exoskeletons its all muscle (protein) - should cook up much like the aforementioned critters.
I had a dog that never missed a chance to eat a black ant. I never saw him eat any other bug, but I probably saw him eat twenty or thirty black ants on different occasions. It always made me think maybe they tasted good.
He sure seemed to think so, and he was a damn smart dog, and a somewhat picky eater. You could give him a cheeseburger, and when he was done, there would be one or two perfect, unchewed pickle slices on the floor. And nothing else. But he sure did enjoy an ant.
Dogs don’t like pickles and they usually don’t like salad . My dog
wants to eat ants also and sometimes worms . Dogs don’t like fruit that much either .
You may already be eating creepy crawlies. The law changed last week, so watch labels for cochineal dyes in your food and makeup. They are used to make bright reds.
Yup, I know about that. I don’t own makeup and I do look at ingredient labels. At least they are ground up bugs.
I could set up a bug ranch in the basement, buy some mini Lasso’s and branding irons in case they are taken by bug rustlers. I could train a praying mantis to heard the bugs around.
“Get a-long, little meal worm, get a-long”
“Two huge dustbowls have formed in the world, one in Africa and the other in China and Mongolia, because of soil erosion caused by overplowing.”
i watched the karate kid (2010) a couple of weeks ago. there is a scene where dre’s mom sends him to mr. han because there is no hot water. mr. han comes to their apartment and tells dre the hot water is not broken…you have to turn this switch…wait 20 minutes for the water to heat up and then take your shower.
“turn switch…save planet”.
hollywood’s self loathing is so apparent they must portray china as a beacon of environmentalism.
Lester Brown, meet Thomas Malthus. Oh, you already know each other?
Every one-degree-Celsius rise above the normal temperature results in a 10 percent fall in grain yields, something that was painfully visible in Russia last year, where a seven-week heatwave killed tens of thousands and caused the grain harvest to shrink by 40 percent. ”
move grain production farther North
most of this is selling fear clean water shortages are real though
“World on the Edge” = “Henny Penny, the sky is falling! We need more taxes before it is too late!”
“Every one-degree-Celsius rise above the normal temperature results in a 10 percent fall in grain yields, something that was painfully visible in Russia last year, where a seven-week heatwave killed tens of thousands and caused the grain harvest to shrink by 40 percent.”
This is very misleading…..there is a huge difference between a one-degree celsius rise (or even a few) and a “seven-week heatwave.” An overall warming of the climate would extend the growing season in northern climes allowing the growth of different crops and possibly more than one crop per year, thereby benefiting agriculture.
Also…..”caused the grain harvest to shrink by 40 percent”. Does this mean the seven week heat wave was ony four degrees above the normal temp (i.e. 40% / 10% per 1C = 4 C.
“There is no subtler, no surer means of over-turning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency.” ~John Maynard Keynes.
This is what our new S.C. governor did her first few days on the job! We all need gubmint jobs.
Governor Nikkie Haley has bestowed substantial salary increases on several of her office staff. A 4.8 percent hike for a spokesman, a 36 percent increase for her lead lawyer, and several other hikes in salaries for key staff members send a puzzling signal to taxpayers who thought the state was facing a budget crisis and even state employees would have to do without pay raises until the emergency is solved.
Haley says, “We’re living within our means and we’re not borrowing from other agencies.”
That’s not altogether the point. It’s the MESSAGE received by South Carolina citizens who are having trouble making ends meet. Their living standard dips while her office staff prospers.
She’s running the govmint on an Indian model. And I don’t mean Native American.
Not to worry I’m sure she will slash the salaries of other state employees and tax others to pay for it.
Governor Nikkie Haley has bestowed substantial salary increases on several of her office staff ??
What else would you expect out of a physically conservative republican…..
physically conservative
Careful, Dave. That can be taken many ways.
Did you mean to say “fiscally conservative?”
LOL
Yeah..My bad..Grammar is not my strong suit..
Lawyer advises foreclosed clients to break back into their homes
By Nate Jackson, Los Angeles Times
January 14, 2011
The Earls, all 11 of them, had been evicted from their Simi Valley home. Attorney Michael T. Pines pleaded with a Ventura County Superior Court judge to let the family back in.
Jim and Danielle Earl had fallen behind on their mortgage payments after a business reversal. But the six-bedroom house that they shared with their brood had already been sold to an investment company, Judge Barbara A. Lane pointed out. The eviction would stand.
Incensed, Pines vowed to hire a locksmith and enter the vacant house illegally.
“I’m going back there,” Pines declared, gripping the lectern. “And I hope I get arrested.”
“I certainly hope not,” Lane shot back. “That is a blatant disregard of this court’s order.”
With Pines, the threat at the October hearing couldn’t be written off as courtroom theatrics. The 58-year-old attorney admits to breaking into homes at least half a dozen times, including one before with the Earls, leaving the clients to squat in their homes while he defends their legal right to possession. His unconventional methods have gotten him fined by a judge in San Diego, arrested in Newport Beach and threatened with contempt — and jail — in Ventura.
Being kicked out of you home is bad enough.
But it can get worse.
Getting arrested and having your kids taken by Child Protective Services comes to mind…
taken by Child Protective Services comes to mind ?
Likely going to end up there anyway…9 kids
The debt slaves are just not playing along with the plans of their masters.
obey your master
I read up about these losers. They were serial refi homemoaners, and they have spotty employment pasts. Most of the kids are foster kids, which gets them income from the state. I do not believe they could afford that home to begin with if not for their “creative” incomes. I use to live close to their neighborhood, which is a professional level income area. I have no compassion for these guys, and their Lawyer should be disbarred, imho.
One more thing. Theses guys were behind on payments, and said the bank was wrong on the balance, and they were trying to get a mod. They had refi’d themselves into a debt hell from what I read. Nice vehicles, upper middleclass living, and no real hard work to get there. People like these do not deserve sympathy. Throw their toshes in jail.
Sounds like they would make perfect bankers.
I hear this is more common in Westlake village through Calabasas than Simi more lawyers on the 101 corridor
Rich people don’t scare as easy as Middle/poor working class
“His unconventional methods have gotten him fined by a judge in San Diego, arrested in Newport Beach and threatened with contempt — and jail — in Ventura”.
> I would say it’s fair to call B&E “unconventional” if they have been evicted what is their ‘right’ to legal possession? I see more jail time in Mr. Pines future.
http://www.voiceofpayments.org/ht/display/ContentDetails/i/3997303 - 34k -
Jeff,
Thank you for digging this article up. I read that medical business was a family affair, and the “mother” was involved on a pt basis.
Wow, 43 foster kids since 2001, IIRC. Ca has some issues with their foster care program, imho.
What a dysfunctional set of parents.
Heaven help those foster kids because they are gonna need all the help that they can get.
From the link:
“Several years ago, the Pennsylvania native [Pines] abandoned his legal career to become a real estate broker specializing in distressed properties. Pines contends that he became a victim of mortgage rip-offs and the housing market crash, which led him to investigate what he describes as unethical lending practices. Pines said he was inspired by the tales that he heard to take on clients again in 2010.
Pines has at least six properties in foreclosure, owes banks more than $2 million and has filed for bankruptcy protection. The trustee is trying to sell Pines’ law offices in Encinitas, Calif., because the attorney hasn’t made loan payments in more than a year.
‘I filed bankruptcy myself because I stopped paying,” Pines said. “I followed my own advice. I said I’m not going to let the banks steal from me.’ ”
———–
Well, I’ll be switched…
Foreclosures in Colo. mountains scaling record heights
By Jason Blevins
The Denver Post
Posted: 01/12/2011 01:00:00 AM
The crush of foreclosure filings in mountain communities continued through 2010, eclipsing not just the records from the previous year but the fallout from the formidable crash of the mid-1980s.
While 2009 foreclosures elevated as struggling owners of second homes jettisoned deflated properties and timeshares, foreclosures in local worker bedroom communities fueled new records in 2010. Towns such as Gypsum, Eagle, Glenwood Springs, Carbondale and Rifle — all of which relished a robust real estate boom in the “roaring aughts” — last year endured soaring foreclosures as the dominant construction industry withered and real estate prices plummeted.
“When the economy and construction slowed down starting in 2008, many of the residents lost jobs, had little or no other income, and could no longer afford their mortgage payments,” said Gypsum-area broker Laurie Slaughter, who has seen home values in some parts of Eagle County drop as much as 50 percent in the last year. “Because they also were upside down on their home values, . . . they had no choice but to short sale their home or walk away.”
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_17071031?source=pop_section_business - 125k -
The prices in those mountain communities, especially the ones close-ish to the I-70 ski resorts, reached ridiculous heights. They made Boulder look cheap and affordable.
I have a buddy who built a dream home in Evergreen for 700k owned a condo in Keystone and was thinking of buying one in Winterpark that was in foreclosure a year or two ago. I had to back off on comments. It won’t end well.
States Warned of $2 Trillion Pensions Shortfall
Tuesday, 18 Jan 2011 Financial Times
US public pensions face a shortfall of $2,500 billion that will force state and local governments to sell assets and make deep cuts to services, according to the former chairman of New Jersey’s pension fund.
The severe US economic recession has cast a spotlight on years of fiscal mismanagement, including chronic underfunding of retirement promises.
“States face cost pressure, most prominently from retirement benefits and Medicaid [the health programme for the poor],” Orin Kramer told the Financial Times.
“One consequence is that asset sales and privatisation will pick up. The very unfortunate consequence is that various safety nets for the most vulnerable citizens will be cut back.”
Mr Kramer, an influential figure in the Democratic party and still a member of the investment council that oversees the New Jersey pension fund, has been an outspoken critic of public pension accounting, which allows for the averaging of investment gains and losses over a number of years through a process called “smoothing”.
In addition to the grabbing of Generation Greed, I believe that public employee pension funds assumed significant inflation — which both boosts nominal returns (interest rates, stock appreciation) and reduces pension benefits.
I think a lot now have COLA adjustments negating the effects of inflation.
Eventually - cities and states will have massively increase taxes and have NO services. You pay extra for that.
All tax money will go to public union pensions.
Yeah - that is going to work.
One consequence is that asset sales and privatisation will pick up
You can bet this was all part of the plan.
Say good buy to your favorite parks.
Get ready for unfavorable sell with lease back options on state buildings. See Arizona is an example.
Get ready for toll roads and GPS monitoring done by private companies.
We have a winner.
It was indeed, the plan all along.
This so-called plan of the Master Planners is simply to keep systems alive that profit them and let the rest of Society battle over the scraps while they move on to greener pastures .
This whole picture is getting more and more absurd by the minute
I’m just wondering if there isn’t some undisclosed variable going on here that is creating this insanity .It was insane to watch them bail out banks and than have them flaunt bonuses at us . That industry should of been paying restitution for years actually and all the ill-gotten gain should of been used for restitution .
http://www.cnbc.com/id/41119014
“World Needs $103 Trillion in New Credit: WEF”
“Credit levels ‘need to double over the next 10 years,’ a rise of $103 trillion, to support consensus-projected economic growth, according to the World Economic Forum.”
“Globally, financial protectionism may constrain cross-border financing, a key to the provision of sufficient credit in the next decade, as global imbalances persist.”
“the US will need to draw on global savings by up to $3.8 trillion in 2020 without a big increase in its savings rate, according to the report.”
“Despite widespread deleveraging, a number of ‘hotspots’ – i.e. segments where credit levels grow in excess of sustainable levels – will persist, while new ones emerge. By 2020, these will include retail credit segments in countries representing almost half of the global GDP,”
Seems to me like they are starting with a couple assumptions like their assumed global growth rate and that massive trade deficits will continue. They then say what that will require….
I’d go a step further and ask, now is that reasonable? Will consumers that are already maxxed out on credit, be able to continue to grow their debt load? If not, then the trade deficits can’t continue. If the trade deficits can’t continue, then we aren’t going to see the global growth rates that they are assuming.
When the logic is sound but the conclusion is impossible, the assumptions must be wrong.
“to support consensus-projected economic growth”
Let us simply agree to be prosperous, and it shall be so.
Repudiate the debt. All of it. Worked for Iceland.
Do the FBs get their houses free and clear?
Just give me a month before the world repudiates all debt so I can LOAD up on loans.
The system is rotten and needs scrapped. Repudiate the debt. Tell the Morg and Govmint Sachs to shove their securities in every existing orifice they’ve got.
“World Needs $103 Trillion in New Credit: WEF”
I hope the fed has a lot of paper and ink stockpiled, those printing presses are going to get busy!
Debt is money. Seriously, that’s what it has come down to. They’re not creating money, they’re creating debt. “You owe us” is the operating basis.
Good word. mor·i·bund
–adjective
1. in a dying state; near death.
2. on the verge of extinction or termination.
Jan. 16, 2011, 11:05 a.m. EST
Housing: U.S. economy’s Achilles’ heel
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Housing typically leads economic recoveries, but this time around it’s slowing the economic recovery.
Eric Rosengren, the president of the Boston Federal Reserve Bank, called the housing market “moribund” in a speech Friday.
“I expect housing will not provide as much support to this recovery has it has in previous ones,” Rosengren said.
CIBC World Markets chief economist Avery Shenfeld was even more pessimistic, saying he believes the weak housing sector will be a drag on consumer spending in the second half of the year.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/data-to-show-housing-as-economys-achilles-heel-2011-01-16 - 96k -
No. Lack of jobs is the US’s Achilles heel, but lack of decent jobs is the death knell.
Eugene Ely’s historic landing, 100 years ago
San Francisco Chronicle January 17, 2011
One hundred years ago Tuesday, Eugene Ely, a 26-year-old automobile racer-turned-aviator, landed a fragile-looking biplane on the deck of the Navy cruiser Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay and made flying history.
It was the first time an airplane had landed on a warship, and it marked the start of naval aviation.
Ely, a civilian the newspapers called “a daring birdman,” kissed his wife, saluted the officer of the deck, shook hands with the ship’s captain, had a glass of nonalcoholic punch and took off again, bound for a landing field at what is now the Tanforan Shopping Center in San Bruno.
“I believe the performance of Ely spells a new chapter in aviation history,” wrote Capt. Charles F. Pond, commanding officer of the Pennsylvania. “There can hardly be too much said in praise of it. It was simply marvelous.”
Ely’s flight, which came only seven years and one month after the Wright Brothers flew their first plane, was in every way historic. Though Ely had flown a plane from a Navy ship off Hampton Roads, Va., in 1910, no one had ever landed aboard a ship.
Self-assured pilot
Ely, a self-taught pilot who represented the Curtiss Airplane Co. was just the man for the job. “If I did not believe I could do it without injury to myself or my machine, I would not attempt it,” he said.
The Curtiss firm had a primitive “flight deck” 130 feet long and 32 feet wide built on the stern of the Pennsylvania at Mare Island. Canvas screens were rigged on each side to catch the plane if it missed the deck. The major problem was how to stop the airplane, which would land at a speed of 50 or 60 mph.
The solution was to rig up 21 ropes across the deck, with a 50-pound sandbag attached to each end. The ropes were designed to catch a hook rigged under the plane and stop it - a primitive version of the tail hook system used on aircraft carriers today.
Well-promoted event
The Pennsylvania was anchored 300 yards off San Francisco’s Folsom Street wharf, surrounded by small boats. The event was heavily advertised - it was part of a big air show in San Bruno - and a crowd of perhaps 75,000, “a vast multitude” the papers said, was on hand aboard boats and along the bay shoreline to see Ely’s flight.
After warming up his Curtiss biplane - which resembled a bicycle or tricycle with wings - Ely took off from the San Bruno field at 11 a.m. He’d practiced on land over and over. “I was sure of success,” he said later.
Just in case, though, he wore an improvised helmet and strapped two bicycle inner tubes over his shoulders to help him stay afloat in case he crashed in the water.
The day was overcast and hazy, the air full of coal smoke, and visibility was poor. Ely flew at about 1,200 feet over Hunters Point and then spotted the ship. The improvised flight deck “looks to a man in an aeroplane to be no larger than an ordinary plank in a floor,” he said.
The landing
Ely had wanted to land into the wind, but the ship was anchored in such a way that he had to land with the wind on his tail, which was potentially dangerous.
He came in at a speed of about 60 mph. To the assembled multitude, it seemed easy.
“With a graceful dip and a final whir of the engines, the beautiful craft settled upon the platform with the ease of a feather which had been wafted by some stray air current,” The Chronicle reported.
After the plane came to a halt, Ely saluted the officer of the deck. “Come aboard, sir?” he asked.
There must have been a thousand guests aboard the ship. After an hour, and a small reception in the officers’ wardroom, Ely started the plane’s engine again, “and with another graceful sweep, disappeared into the upper air currents … (as) thousands of persons who lined the wharves and decks of steamers raised cheer upon cheer in a grand ovation to the nervy aviator,” The Chronicle said.
Thank you for posting this ! I was a sailor on the U.S.S. Constellation, and before that the Independence, back in the 1970s.
And only 11 years later, the collier Jupiter was recommissioned as CV-1 USS Langley. As observers noted after the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac, all the battleships of all navies immedately became obsolete.
I’ve worked as a tech rep. aboard Midway, Enterprise, Nimitz, Carl Vinson, and Theodore Roosevelt.
Off topic, but……..
Is it just me, or is anybody else irritated that Congress and the US Navy have stopped naming carriers after “battles” and historic Revolutionary War/early 19th century ships, and are now naming them after politicians/Presidents?
Naming a carrier after Harry Truman made me want to vomit. He was openly hostile to the US armed forces, and of US Naval Aviation in particular.
Regardless of how they name them, I think that they are becoming as obsolete as the battleships they displaced. They are useful for intimidating weak or third-world adversaries but very exposed when confronting a technologically advanced enemy possessing cruise missiles or submarines. But the Navy seems to crank out a new one every few years, just like they did with battleships in the previous century.
“had a glass of nonalcoholic punch and took off again”
MADD would be proud.
I haven`t had an alcoholic beverage in almost 23 years. But I used to belong to DAMM. Drunks against mad mothers.
Wasn’t that the organization started by Joe-Bob Briggs ?
25 this past Christmas.
Congratulations exeter!
WBBR Bloomberg interview this morning with analyst from Argus Research (I’m paraphrasing)
“Housing prices doubled (inflation adjusted) nationally from 1996-2006. Prices in hot areas were up 300 to 400 percent. There is no reason to suggest that the market won’t take all those gains back and then some. That entire sector of the economy is deleveraging and I would not be looking for income or capital gains from that sector for the foreseeable future.”
There is no reason to suggest that the market won’t take all those gains back and then some.
ISTR reading that the market taking all the gains back is what happened in Japan.
My older son came home on leave over Christmas, changing duty stations from Okinawa to Jacksonville, NC. It was great to have him around. I drove him down to NC this past weekend, and picked up a couple of the base rags. If I can find them again, amidst the hastily packed and unpacked bags, I’ll read through them and post a real estate synopsis tonight.
One thing I noticed, spending a week near Parris Island (after his graduation from boot camp - rented a house in Front Royal) and spending a couple days near Jacksonville - at these two places, at least, there is a concentration of ex-military. Despite what the histrionic left leaning press would have you believe, having a concentration of former military personnel in an area is nice. People have manners and show courtesy. The teenagers do not assault the senses. The adults can read and write, and are involved in the area. And the blight of gangsta culture is absent. At least in the areas where the former military folks settle. As a bonus, housing is reasonable - except for the blight around DC.
Son is balanced, content, full of energy, and is delighted with his terms of employment. He’s been in long enough (two and a half years) to have gotten the stars out of his eyes. The military is not an eight hour a day gig. He has always been a hard worker. He now really treasures his time off. If he were unemployed or underemployed, I don’t think that would be the case. He has found a good fit.
I did raise him to problem solve on his own, and not to be a whiner. But he ran with it, and he made his strengths work for him. I don’t know the mechanism, but at this point in his life, he has come to the understanding to avoid debt at all costs. He’s saving quite a lot (according to him - I do not open his bank statements) and understands that the key to happiness is avoiding the monthly nut. So, his objective is to put enough by to live free and clear when he gets out in order to concentrate on his avocation - painting.
He’s gotten a fair bit of independent income from commissioned art while in the Marines. Who would have thunk?
Hi, jane, thanks so much for a great post. Sounds like both you and your son have done well. Good on ya both! Live long and prosper.
He’s gotten a fair bit of independent income from commissioned art while in the Marines. Who would have thunk?
I’m not at all surprised. I’ve known of more than one case where someone joins the military and develops talents in art, music, and other areas that have nothing to do with his/her MOS.
where someone joins the military and develops talents in art, music, and other areas that have nothing to do with his/her MOS
US Military has the most musicians in all of America. Really!
Indeed it does. And, wanna know about a tough outfit? As in, really hard to become a part of, even if you’re good?
I’m talking about the United States Marine Band. Tougher to get into than Juilliard.
Hi Jane:
I worked at WSIB 1490 am ..as a radio dj…it was owned by a husband and wife who were both drunks. one night she plowed into the station sign out front and i have a picture of me hugging that bent station sign….They were more interested in drinkin then their station so we all did our own thing eg: not following the format…and made them money…
Jane,
Thank your brave, bright, and honorable son for serving this once great country. It’s people like him that make it safe for us to sleep in our beds at night.
My step didn’t have a stellar career, but the Marines certainly improved him, after a very bad start as a teen. He was very lucky to get in.
In Montana
Good to hear your boy got his stuff together. You ought to be proud. Not every teen turns their life around. Thank him for serving this once great country. My nephews are serving in Afghanistan right now. One is a pilot. What a hell hole.
Buddy of mine in high school was joining the Marines (family tradition)
Recruiter was in the living room with the papers talking with the family……older brother mentioned that he was in the Corps.
Conversation went something like this…..
Recruiter: “How long were you in?”
John’s brother: “Four years”
Recruiter: “What did you come out as?”
J’s Brother: “Private First Class.”
Recruiter: “Didn’t take no sh#t off anyone, did you?”
Recruiter: “Didn’t take no sh#t off anyone, did you?”
Haha…yeah the step came out an e3 after 5 years. He didn’t have many deployments for some reason.
It’s funny how a lot of times, you know what the story is, just by knowing a few of the details.
“I don’t know the mechanism, but at this point in his life, he has come to the understanding to avoid debt at all costs. He’s saving quite a lot (according to him - I do not open his bank statements) and understands that the key to happiness is avoiding the monthly nut. So, his objective is to put enough by to live free and clear when he gets out in order to concentrate on his avocation - painting.”
Just wait ’till a hottie starts playing his clarinet; the expenses will increase, and his spare time will decrease.
Obama to Order Review of Regulations to Identify Those Inhibiting Growth
President Barack Obama will order a review of U.S. regulations to remove or overhaul those that inhibit economic expansion without helping consumers, advancing his outreach to the business community.
Obama wrote in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal today that he’s mandating “a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive.” He said the initiative is part of an executive order he will sign today codifying a “balanced” approach to regulation.
The president has sought to counter perceptions that his administration is insensitive to business interests, appointing a former corporate executive as his new chief of staff and planning to speak to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce next month. While the American recession ended in June 2009, employers have yet to step up hiring enough to pull the jobless rate below 9.4 percent.
“This order requires that federal agencies ensure that regulations protect our safety, health, and environment while promoting economic growth,” Obama wrote. “We are seeking more affordable, less intrusive means to achieve the same ends.”
Is our President now reduced to playing in the attic with old relics? What a change two years makes.
Hopefully he doesn’t accidentally discard something of historic value while he’s up there, say a Glass-Steagall 1932 edition, or an original Mark-to-Market guide book.
You’ll have to ask the previous president about those.
I think they were sold off in a garage sale.
I’d be a lot happier if they would just do a legitimate cost/benefit analysis of any new regulations.
I my experience, new government regs over estimate the benefit by a factor of two, and underestimate the costs by about a factor of five.
“Safety Management Systems” are the latest and greatest farce. Now, we have to make a manual on how we are going to analyze/calculate safety factors. Or hire consultants to make one, who, by coincidence, are the same people who lobbied the FAA to mandate SMS to begin with.
Of course, nobody has ever done an analysis of how many hazards are created by guys sitting at a desk doing paperwork, vs actually out in the shop, actually looking at the airplanes.
Trying to implement a law without turning it into “The Consultant Full Employment Act of 20…” is a real challenge.
If he next says “The era of big government is over,” I am going to just drink just enough JD to barf up a lung…
Food regulations and regulators…while not mentioned outright in that quote…is one area they really ought to leave their mitts off, especially after what happened to them in the last decade.
More fodder for the masses.
Obama- WSJ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703396604576088272112103698.html?mod=mktw
The review will be carried out by the corporations that are regulated. The new laws will then be written by these same corporations and signed by their bought and paid for politicians.
a review of U.S. regulations to remove or overhaul those that inhibit economic expansion without helping consumers,
This reminds me of GS-fixers comments that “every aviation regulation is backed up by a smoking hole in the ground.” I thought that helping a consumer is the reason that a regulation was written in the first place. That is, ALL regulations help consumers. So, I’d be interested to see what all these useless regulations are.
I’d be interested to see what all these useless regulations are.
I seriously doubt you will see it except perhaps in an increase # of smoking holes in the ground and raped retirement accounts. The MSM will post nothing on the actual repeal. Or it will be articles written by corporate think tanks telling us why having lead in our toys is actually good for us.
If you really scratch the surface, EVERY regulation has a “smoking hole in the ground”, that led to the regulation being written.
In my experience, the guys that bi#ch the most about regulations are the same guys who cut corners on safely flying/maintaining their airplanes. Assuming the same in other business relationships has served me well.
The FAA has all kinds of ways that you can fly, and cut all the corners you want……as long as you aren’t flying passengers.
X-GSfixr, I am a (former) private pilot and I bi#ch about regulations, and I did not cut corners flying or maintaining airplanes. Reason: I did not want to die.
Plus, there are a lot of smoking holes in the ground made precisely because people violated FARs. (Eg JFK Jr). What do you do then?
Most of what I saw about FARs was that every time there was a major accident, the FAA would make some useless new rule which was a real pain in the a$$, and probably wouldn’t have prevented the accident, but allowed them to tell the media that they were “doing something.”
How are things going to be fixed thinking “Guys are violating the regs, so let’s fix the problem by doing away with the regs?”
I don’t give a crap what a guy does in his airplane, as long as
- It’s only the pilot (or his family) flying.
- I don’t get my ass sued off, or my license pulled by the FAA, for something that had nothing to do with the crash.
I chose a long time ago to work only on Bizjets. Mainly because the airplanes are operated/maintained by full-time professionals, with realistic operating budgets.
I’ll get out of the business, before I start working General Aviation. Too many people fixing their own airplanes, too many people bitching about their $60/hr bill, too many guys looking for someone to sue, too many “Im a Doctor/Lawyer/Small Business owner” types that think their expertise in one field automatically makes them experts in mine.
X-GSfixr,
Why get rid of regs? You said it yourself: “I don’t give a crap what a guy does in his airplane…”
I would love to see aviation downsized to the point where most flights would be charters. This would give passengers more of a chance to chat with pilots and mechanics. Back in the 90’s an American Eagle flight crashed near Charlotte. The pilot had told the dispatcher he thought the weather was too dangerous and he didn’t feel qualified to handle it. The dispatcher said tough, we have to stick to the schedule. If a few passengers had sat in on the preflight briefings, do you think they would have taken off?
Safety comes from people educating themselves, talking to each other and being careful– not from government edicts.
I’d be interested to see what all these useless regulations are.
Oxide, have you ever visited a law library?
If not, please do so. Pick a random volume of the CFR off the shelf and start reading.
Government finds up to half of Americans under 65 have preexisting conditions
By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 18, 2011; 12:04 AM
As many as 129 million Americans under age 65 have medical problems that are red flags for health insurers, according to an analysis that marks the government’s first attempt to quantify the number of people at risk of being rejected by insurance companies or paying more for coverage.
Count me as one of them.
And that’s why, at great risk to my health and finances, that I stick with the crummy insurance I have. Because I know that the scarlet letters, PE, will mark me as someone who will be billed a fortune for a new policy.
If things go far enough, everyone will have a pre-existing condition — at least DNA that shows they are pre-disposed to something or another.
I have 90/140 high blood pressure. That wasn’t even considered high blood pressure not too long ago, but I went to two doctors and the NIH website and all agreed it needs to be brought down. But that means that as they age, almost everyone will have high blood pressure.
And, of course, being mortal is a universal pre-existing condition bound to have health insurance consquences at some point.
This is why the rest of the world has a one payer system, and why we’ll have one here, eventually.
The insurance industry sure didn’t mind collecting premiums from the baby boomers when we were all in our 20s and 30s, but now that we are getting to an age where we might actually file a claim? Under the bus we go………
Unless we want the country to shift all it’s wealth into the insurance and health care industries.
I’m starting to get cold-calls from local medical providers. Evidently, business isn’t so good lately. Seems that all that staff they hired to “game” the insurance companies payment system becomes a big expense, when nobody has insurance anymore.
I’m starting to get cold-calls from local medical providers. Evidently, business isn’t so good lately. Seems that all that staff they hired to “game” the insurance companies payment system becomes a big expense, when nobody has insurance anymore.
And they’re asking for the privilege of treating you, rather than your working on their airplane?
They are reminding me that they haven’t seen me in a few years.
They are reminding me that they haven’t seen me in a few years.
Thanks for clarifying. Now I can look forward to hearing from all the expensive doctors I ditched. Not to mention the pricey dentist.
WT- I had 140/90 regularly for years, often higher. After one year on Avapro, I am usually hypotensive and now cut my 150mg. tablets in half. -
Tried a dozen others before finding out that this works great for me. It is pricier but worth it.
Good Luck and research.
That is partly because any complaint whatsoever, expressed even casually to one’s physician, will lead to rejection by potential health or disability insurers as a “pre-existing condition”, if the physician is so unwise as to actually document the symptoms in the patient’s medical record.
That is partly because any complaint whatsoever, expressed even casually to one’s physician, will lead to rejection by potential health or disability insurers as a “pre-existing condition”
With the current system, Americans would be crazy to tell their doctors they were sick or something crazy like that.
Tell me about it.
Several years ago, my doc put me on cholesterol meds. Not because my numbers were bad, but because of my family history.
Fast forward to 2010. Lost job, no health insurance. Applied for a policy with BC/BS. Rejected, because of “weight” “blood pressure” and “History of high cholesterol”.
Realistically, the only way you can “beat” the system is to fall over dead from a stroke or heart attack the day after you are unable to work anymore.
All this “all life is sacred” stuff aside, the reality is the current system considers you a liability once you’ve hit age 50.
Eventually, our medical system is going to look a lot like the rest of the country. The top 5% of the doctors giving state of the art care to the top 5% of the income bracket, and the rest of us fighting over the scraps. Over 50, you are screwed……kids with no insurance and leukemia? Be prepared to see the counter at your local convenience store covered with donation jars. Million dollar ICU bills for preemie babies? Expect a separate policy to cover pregnancies, that nobody in serf-land will be able to afford either.
I see what your seeing Mr X-GSfixr . Why do you think I keep on saying I want to go by a massive heart attack or be eaten by a bear . The system can be changed for the better ,but I think that there is so much resistance to it . I actually paid for someone to have a operation this year ,and I paid for emergency dental surgery for someone else . I can’t afford to do this anymore ,what if I need some medical procedure in the future .
I still think the answer lie in a National health care system run by the government in which the government is the price fixer .
Private industry is just going to add 30 to 50% more to the
costs . I also thing that they should charge the first 2 thousand of costs per patient per year because this would eliminate people just going to the Doctor for nothing thinking its government paid , if they switch to a government system .
Maybe 25 years from now we can switch back to a Private
system . In other words extreme imbalances required extreme measures .
Go with the heart attack…;-)
I wondered if we’d hear from you tonight.
Heart attack is still too painful for me. I’d prefer cardiac arrest - fatal arrhythmia. Sudden drop in blood pressure followed within seconds by loss of consciousness and death in about 10 minutes. As I watched the paramedics restart my husband’s heart and sat with him for 10 days in ICU, I wondered if I had saved him for a worse fate somewhere down the road. That was in 1997. The intervening years have been good and my husband is glad to be here.
Here is an excellent article about one of the causes of the Civil War.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo199.html
Good article, thanks. What has been taught for many, many years now is there was only once cause/reason for the civil war, truth be damned.
What has been taught for many, many years now is there was only once cause/reason for the civil war, truth be damned.
Of course there wasn’t a single cause of the Civil War, or as some like to call it, “The War of Southern Treason”.
Even if boiled down as far as one can, there were at least main 2 causes of the Civil War. Those being:
1. The smarmy southern leaders were immoral, greedy, racist slavers.
2. And 2, they were too ignorant to realize they were about to get their big head’s handed to them on a blue plate.
That cause being???
It was okay to use slave labor, as long as you were only raising tabacco, sugar, cottton, and other crops raised exclusively in the south. But, once they tried to bring in Kansas, Missouri and other mid-west wheat and corn states as slave states that would have directly undercut northern farmers of these crops… well, that was just not acceptable.
Missouri was a slave state
Kansas wasn’t a “wheat state” in the 1850s. It was considered the same way as it is now ……. a “wagon-over” state to get to California/Oregon/Southwest.
If those damn Missouri slave-owning hillbillies had stayed out, all those abolitionist New Englanders would have stayed away too.
And don’t go all “Outlaw Josey Wales” on me. It’s Revisioist history. Sorta like the “we weren’t fighting for slavery, we were fighting for States Rights (to own slaves)”.
Bloody Bill Anderson was a Kansan, who got run out of Kansas for being a criminal. Which of course, meant he was a 1-A recruit, as far as the slave-owning Missourians were concerned.
Bloody Bill Anderson was a Kansan, who got run out of Kansas for being a criminal. Which of course, meant he was a 1-A recruit, as far as the slave-owning Missourians were concerned.
Rock Chalk Jayhawk!
They call themselves “Tigers”, because “Slave-Owning Bushwacking Scum” wouldn’t fit on their jerseys.
Arizona, are you listening?
“This threat to use “force” and “invasion” against sovereign states, by the way, was a threat to commit treason. Article 3, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution defines treason as follows: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort” (emphasis added). Lincoln followed through with his threat; his invasion of the Southern states was the very definition of treason under the Constitution.”
The Confederate attack on Fort Sumter was the opening of hostilities, and certainly constituted ‘levying war against them’.
That attack was the reason the South lost the Civil War. Had they just sat there and done nothing about Fort Sumpter, Lincoln would have had no causa bella and it’s difficult to see how he otherwise could have instigated military actions against the South.
After a few years the Federals would have gotten tired and abandoned harbor forts like Sumter and Pulaski and sailed away. The South would have “won” without the need for any fighting at all.
That attack was the reason the South lost the Civil War.
An excerpt from a book I’m finishing reading:
“The basis of Lincoln’s conduct is now no secret. He was determined to restore the Union, using, if necessary, all the men and resources of the North for that purpose. But an embarrassing fact was that the North at the beginning was not united for offensive purposes; and the President (Lincoln) completely understood the foolhardiness of entering on such a stupendous conflict without a unanimous nation at his back.
Only one thing would produce this unanimity: an act of aggression by the South, an armed attack on the Union. Above all other wars, the side that struck the first blow in this one would reap a great disadvantage….
…This was one of the imponderables that Davis, less sensitive, did not gauge. Such an affront, Lincoln knew, would unite the North in an instant and bring all the people to a furious understanding of what these strange performances at Montgomery (The Alabama Southern secession convention) implied.
Up to April, the Montgomery deliberations had half angered the North, half amused it. “
page 105, Statesmen of the Lost Cause by Burton J. Hendrick, Literary Guild of America, 1939
Very interesting, DennisN. I like the idea of wars being fought by prolonged standoffs– accompanied by verbal battles, perhaps– with a minimum of actual shooting.
DennisN. I like the idea of wars being fought by prolonged standoffs– accompanied by verbal battles, perhaps– with a minimum of actual shooting.
Me too but the Civil War was not destined to ever be one of those kinds of wars.
The “prolonged standoff” on the issue of slavery lasted from July 4th, 1776 until April 12, 1861.
And it tore the country apart and the South was, by far, most at fault and their “lost-cause/state’s rights” history revisionism BS be damned.
The South did have some good general officers but none compare favorable to Hiram Ulysses Grant.
The “prolonged standoff” on the issue of slavery lasted from July 4, 1776 until April 12,1861.
No, actually a lot of progress was made during that period as Northern states got rid of it and abolitionist movements gained momentum in the South.
Had they just sat there and done nothing about Fort Sumpter, Lincoln would have had no causa bella and it’s difficult to see how he otherwise could have instigated military actions against the South.
All those years ridin’ the circuit ol’ Lincoln musta learned the legal & moral importance of why “he who resorts to violence first in order to propagate their “truth-vision” for all humanity”… kinda placed themselves in a weaker “diz-the-real-real-truth” position don’t-cha reckon?
A. Lincoln, shrewd, bully, war monger, clingin’ to the wrong “Long-Term”…National “Truth”
” prolonged standoffs– accompanied by verbal battles”
“I fart in your general direction”
Uh yeah there’s that.
Yeah, Cheers to all you “TruePatriot™” “TrueTruthSlayer™”…hanger-on’s!
BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
4 million Self-propagating black
human slavedog like workers used as profit machines for 12 southern States wealthy white elite to maintain their cigar smokin’, peanut crackin’, whiskey sippin’ sweet sweet summer days, …year after year, after year, after year…From the 16th to the 19th centuries, an estimated 12 million Africans were shipped as slaves to the Americas. (see Slavery in the Americas) Of these, an estimated 645,000 were brought to what is now the United States.
By the 1860 United States Census, the slave population in the United States had grown to four million.
Schwarzenegger: ‘I Was Addicted To Being Governor’
Dismisses low popularity as ‘just a snapshot’
LOS ANGELES (CBS) —Arnold Schwarzenegger is pulling no punches in his first formal interview since leaving office, claiming that the highest office in the state left him “addicted” to its power.
In a recent sit-down the former governor granted to the Austrian newspaper Krone, Schwarzenegger estimates that his seven years as governor cost him about $200 million – $70 million of that in lost movie roles.
Schwarzenegger also laments the fact that Hollywood salaries have dropped since he left the business.
He said his abysmal popularity rankings were “just a snapshot” and that “they would have rocketed to the top” had he not been forced out of office by term limits.
Nowhere in the transcripts from the interview posted on the newspaper’s website did Schwarzenegger face any questions about alleged favoritism in his decision to grant clemency to the son of former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez.
“Politicians are like diapers. They should be changed often, and for the same reason.” — attributed to Mark Twain.
The problem of course is that you’ll still be wearing Wall Street Brand Diapers and will end up with a horrible rash.
> Tough words from Up-Chuck, I say put up or shut up Chuck, go ahead and “force” China to do anything.
Ahead Of Hu Visit, Senators Push China Trade Legislation
As Washington prepares to roll out the red carpet for President Hu Jintao’s state visit, three Democratic senators have introduced legislation aimed at punishing China for what they call a repeated failure to correct the value of its currency, which they say creates a negative impact on U.S. trade.
Senators Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Bob Casey, D-Pa., unveiled the Currency Exchange Rate Oversight Act of 2011 Monday. The legislation would tighten the reins on Treasury Department decisions to cite a country for unfair currency manipulation, give more power to stiffen penalties on an offending country’s exports and allows for prohibitions on companies headquartered in offending countries receiving federal government contracts.
“China’s currency manipulation is like a boot on the throat of our economic recovery,” Schumer said in a statement. “We are sending a clear message to the Chinese government: if you refuse to play by the same rules as everyone else, we will force you to.”
All of this was obvious to anyone working in manufacturing fifteen years ago. You know, back when manufacturing was the dirty, polluting, red-headed stepchild and we were all going to be “knowledge workers”.
US manufacturing was sacrificed on the alter of “free trade” and expanding the markets of the Multinational Corporations.
Saw this first hand at one of the aerospace OEMs………can’t sell anything in China unless you “share” the technology. So off it went. Worked great for the shareholders and suits; for a few years, they got pumped up sales and share prices. Until they quit buying your stuff.
Not such a good deal for everyone else. And now the Chinese are using the technology they received gratis to build stuff that may only be 70% as good, but costs 20% as much.
Deep Layoffs Take Effect In Camden
CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) — Some police officers are turning in their badges in one of the nation’s most impoverished and crime-ridden cities.
Deep layoffs began in Camden Tuesday.
Up to one-fourth of the city government’s workforce is expected to lose their jobs.
About half the police force and one-third the firefighters were expected to lose their positions.
Police officers began turning in their badges Monday as it became clear that no last-minute deal was going to save many jobs.
Firefighters are planning to march to City Hall.
Mayor Dana Redd is planning a noon news conference to talk about the layoffs in a city facing a huge budget deficit and declining state aid.
What is not mentioned is that there did not have to be ANY layoffs.
However - public unions would rather see half their “brothers” thrown into the street than give up any insane union benefit or pension…
There will be no fix to those situations until states/cities/etc can declare bankruptcy and offload the pensions.
States should be proactive about this right now, trying to get the people to vote to make public union pensions illegal and convert them to 401(k) type plans where the public’s obligation to the employee ends as the door hits them on the way out.
Pensions aren’t the ONLY thing destroying city and state finances, but it’s one of them.
Ok than why doesn’t Congress/President/Military get rid of their Pensions also . How do yo offload a pension and turn it into a 401k
Does a defined pension has some kind of present value that
can be determined and converted into a 401k plan ?
If layoffs were other than by seniority, a deal would have been made.
LONDON (AP) – A former Swiss banker was on Monday due to hand over files to WikiLeaks which he alleges detail attempts by wealthy business leaders and lawmakers to evade tax payments.
Rudolf Elmer, a former employee of Swiss-based Bank Julius Baer, told Britain’s Observer newspaper on Sunday that the documents include details of about 2,000 accounts held in offshore financial centers. He says the account holders include “high net worth” celebrities, business leaders and lawmakers from the U.S., Britain and Asia.
Lawmakers? Ya don’t think that might include some congresscritters?
Earnings Signal Brighter Days Ahead for Brokers- Reuters
The performance of big online brokers may be improving after a poor 2010 as a trading rebound and a better economic outlook boosted quarterly profits at TD Ameritrade Holding Corp and Charles Schwab Corp.
U.S. Builder Confidence Held Back by Lack of Credit
Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) — William Rudin, chief executive officer at Rudin Management Co., talks about New York City’s real estate and the outlook for commercial property. Rudin, speaking with Betty Liu on Bloomberg Television’s “In the Loop,” also discusses the firm’s investment strategy and operations.
Confidence among U.S. homebuilders stagnated in January, reflecting a lack of credit that threatens to hold back construction this year.
The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo sentiment index registered a reading of 16, the same as the past two months and less than the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, data from the Washington-based group showed today. Readings below 50 mean more respondents said conditions were poor.
Developers Lennar Corp. and KB Home, which this month reported a fourth-quarter profit, are cutting costs as elevated unemployment limits demand and mounting foreclosures add to the supply of unsold properties. At the same time, sales are projected to recover from last year’s post tax-credit slump, helped by falling prices and low borrowing costs.
“Housing remains very weak,” said Paul Dales, U.S. economist for Capital Economics Ltd. in Toronto, who had forecast the index would hold at 16. “There’s still excess supply and demand is weak, and that’s going to be the case for a while. It’s no surprise builders aren’t doing a lot of building and their confidence is low.”
If you idiots would return to lending nearly unlimited amounts of money to anyone with a heartbeat, we could start selling some houses again.
I would not doubt that there is some truth in the last paragraph.
Bronx Cemetery Workers Blast Layoff Decision
By: NY1 News
Workers who say they’ve been forced out of their jobs after joining a union rallied Monday outside Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
Protesters armed with signs blasted the layoffs announced by the cemetery, which is outsourcing its landscaping work to temporary employees.
Workers recently voted to join a local teamsters union but say the cemetery laid off 23 employees after just one negotiating session.
Union members say lot owners in the cemetery will suffer.
“What is this board members doing, that they’re allowing this to happen after cries from the workers? We’ve been crying to management, please take a look at what’s going on inside the field, field management. And nothing’s being done. But now we’re being asked to leave, or take a pay cut,” said one worker.
In a statement, Woodlawn Cemetery says it couldn’t reach an agreement with workers through negotiations and has never tried to bust a union.
Woodlawn claims the number of people who choose to be cremated has risen sharply in the last 25 years, making for less work for grounds-keeping employees.
I think these guys are making a grave mistake.
I think these guys are making a grave mistake.
lol And digging their own grave.
Bankruptcy of U.S. is ‘Mathematical Certainty,’ Says Professor & Former CEO of Nation’s 10th Largest Bank »
(CNSNews.com) - John Allison, who for two decades served as chairman and CEO of BB&T, the nation’s 10th largest bank, told CNSNews.com it is a “mathematical certainty” that the United States government will go bankrupt unless it dramatically changes its fiscal direction.
Allison likened what he sees as the predictable future bankruptcy of the United States to the problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose insolvency he also said was foreseeable to those who studied their business practices and financial situation.
“I think the first thing we have to realize is where we’re going and to face it objectively,” Allison told CNSNews.com, when asked about the trillion-dollar-plus deficits the federal government has run for three straight years, the more than $13 trillion in federal debt, and the $61.9 trillion long-term shortfall the government faces (according to the analysis of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation) if the government is to pay all the benefits it has promised through entitlement programs.
“If you run the numbers, on all those numbers that you just talked about, which I think are accurate, very accurate, in 20 or 25 years, the United States goes bankrupt,” said Allison. “It’s a mathematical certainty.
“It reminds me very much of that story I told you about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae,” said Allison. “We were running the numbers, and Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae went bankrupt, and we got there. In 20 or 25 years, the United States goes bankrupt.
“Now, countries don’t go bankrupt the way companies do,” said Allison. “They don’t file bankruptcy. They usually hyper-inflate. They print a bunch of paper money, or they become Third World economies like Argentina–unless we change direction. So, we absolutely have to change direction. And the irony of that is it requires an interesting combination. It requires both discipline, but it also requires a focus on growing our economy. And it means a fundamental philosophical change from where we are today, from the idea of redistributing wealth to the idea of creating wealth.”
Yeah, let’s hear some more about that “creating wealth” stuff.
These guys are never going to get it. All the “wealth creation” in the past 30 years has gone to the upper 5%, who then proceed to hire accountants and attorneys to dodge taxes, or better yet, hire a Congressman or two to make the accountants jobs easier. Then, invest their money overseas, because the ROI is better over there.
I’ve heard some on this blog say that only taxpayers should be allowed to vote. How about we make a law where you can’t be a citizen, or be incorporated here, if the majority of your wealth/investments are overseas?
Got a problem with a Chinese subsidiary? No copyright protection in China? Take it up with the Chinese courts. You’ve been stiffing Uncle Sam and your fellow citizens for years, and now you want us to bail you out of your own crap-bag.
All the “wealth creation” in the past 30 years has gone to the upper 5%
“Diz, poor, poor, lil’ Richie Elite…your weak sufferin’ children…shameful the hurt they endure.”
McCarthy Presses for Gun Control With Support Weak
U.S. Representative Carolyn McCarthy has been pushing to crack down on high-powered weapons since her husband was gunned down in a mass murder on the Long Island Rail Road in New York 17 years ago.
She’ll try again today, introducing legislation that would ban the ammunition clip used in the Jan. 8 Arizona shooting rampage that left her colleague, fellow Democrat Gabrielle Giffords, fighting for her life, and killed six others.
McCarthy, 67, faces a lonely fight. Polls show the public has grown less supportive of gun restrictions as Americans increasingly worry about the government encroaching on personal freedom. That sentiment, combined with the peril of taking on the gun lobby, dims prospects for legislative curbs.
I like Chris Rock’s solution - bullet control. “At $5K per bullet, there are no innocent bystanders.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuX-nFmL0II
Score a win for the GIABO – Tunisia, the workers and savers of Tunisia have thrown the Speculator Bank Squid dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali out. Will America’s workers and savers do the same to Lloyd and Jamie?
~ Max Kieser
Americans are starting to watch their spending more carefully as gasoline prices stay at levels not seen since October 2008. The national average for a gallon of regular hit $3.10 on Monday, according to AAA, Wright Express and the Oil Price Information Service. That’s about 12 cents more than a month ago and 35 cents more than a year ago.
There are signs that consumers are making trade-offs, like skipping a dinner out or a movie, because they have to spend more to drive.
“It’s one of the reasons why we think of higher commodities prices as more of a threat to demand than inflation at this stage of the game, because it’s forcing cutbacks elsewhere in the economy,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial. “One of the things I’m concerned about is how high will prices go.”
Swonk estimates gasoline prices are affecting the spending habits of more than half of U.S. drivers. She noticed consumers starting to make trade-offs in November and December. “As we moved into December, even some of their gift purchases were curtailed as prices at the pump continued to escalate,” she said.
“One of the things I’m concerned about is how high will prices go.”
But, but I thought this was a deflationary environment.
It was… until government made sure it wasn’t.
There is massive slack in the production chain, meaning no inflation in the “cost added”. However, the raw commodities are much easier to manipulate with cheap money printed out of thin air and passed out for near 0% interest.
As long as wages are deflating, “core” prices (luxury services) will remain low.
Every now and then the truth is revealed:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/7384572.html
Holiday spending ‘record’ not as good as it looks
Inflation, population growth both left out of official $462 billion figure
The $462 billion figure reported by a trade group last week handily tops the $453 billion peak reached in 2007, before the economy took a nose dive.
Although inflation has been tame over the past few years, holiday spending would have had to clear $478 billion to signify spending was back to pre-recession levels.
How unexpected.
British couple sentenced to eight months in Spanish prison for building retirement villa on protected land
A British couple have been sentenced to eight months in prison and ordered to demolish their Spanish villa for breaching planning regulations.
David and Janet Hartshorn illegally built a large house on protected land near the Costa del Sol town of Torrox, a judge ruled.
The judge is expected to suspend the prison sentence, as jail terms of two years and under are usually suspended for first time offenders in Spain.
Speaking at the property under threat of demolition, Mrs Hartshorn said she had not yet been informed of the judge’s ruling.
‘This is terrible news,’ she said. ‘I am very upset by this. We haven’t been told anything about the result of the court case. We have a meeting with our solicitor tomorrow..
‘The house was built nine years ago and people are still building houses illegally round here.
‘We will definitely appeal. My husband has said he will take the case all the way to to the European Courts to save the house.’
Judges in Spain make their sentences known in written rulings rather than at hearings in open court.
Those rulings are then made known to the parties involved through their solicitors.
Defendants do not attend a sentencing hearing as they do in UK courts and the ruling was published in reliable local newspaper Malaga Hoy yesterday.
The judge ordered them to demolish the house and pay a fine of €5,400 (£4,500).
The couple built the 2,580sq ft house on land which only had permission for a house one tenth that size.
In September 2000 they bought a third of an acre of land in Pago de Santilla, near Torrox, on which there was already a tiny ruin of a house of 320 square feet.
torrox
Torrox, just east of Malaga on the Costa Del Sol, is a popular spot for expat Brits
In June 2001 they applied for planning permission but were told they could not build anything bigger than the ruin.
The judge’s sentencing report said: ‘However, the accused have built a family chalet-style home with a new storey, basement, swimming pool and asphalted exterior perimeter, with an area of approximately 240 square meters (2580 square feet).’
In January 2004 the town hall in Torrox ordered the Hartshorns to stop the building work ‘but despite this the accused continued to carry out the work’, which finished in July 2004, the judge added.
In September 2006 the town hall issued them with a fine of €73,092, which the couple are challenging.
The judge in Malaga said it is not possible to grant the house retrospective planning permission because it is on protected land.
He concluded that it was ‘inconceivable’ that individuals should build on land which is protected by law from development.
Retirement retreat: David and Janet Hartshorn spent three years building a home that contravened Spanish laws
Retirement retreat: David and Janet Hartshorn spent three years building a home that contravened Spanish laws
The first British couple to have their Spanish property demolished were pensioners Len and Helen Prior.
The Priors’ £550,000 retirement villa was flattened by bulldozers in January 2008 after a court ruled it was illegally built.
The couple, from Hurst, Berkshire, had been granted a building licence for the three-bedroom home by the town hall in Vera, Almeria, on the south coast.
But the higher regional body, the Junta de Andalucia, said the licence was illegally granted and issued a demolition order.
The Priors, both 66, are still waiting for compensation from the town hall for its mistake.
Thousands of British expats live in Spain fear their homes are under threat because of similar breaches in planning regulations.
Many houses with building licences, the Spanish equivalent of planning permission, are under threat as the licences should never have been granted.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1348255/British-couple-sentenced-8-months-Spanish-prison-building-villa-protected-land.html#ixzz1BQEgwe3l
But I bet they got the land really cheaply since it was illegal to build anything larger than 350 sqft on it.
The couple built the 2,580sq ft house on land which only had permission for a house one tenth that size.
A 258 sq ft house? Even a Japanese family would think that would be way too small…
Actually, there is a bit of rounding. The article says they could have built a house no larger than 320 sqft, which is the size of the building that was on the property when they bought it.
They break the law and now they’re surprsied and their only defense is “everyone is doing it?”
They must be ex-bankers.
Record Food Prices Cause Africa Riots, Stoke U.S. Farms
The same record food prices causing riots in Algeria and export bans in India are allowing President Barack Obama to combine the biggest-ever U.S. farm exports with the tamest inflation since the 1960s.
Jan. 13 (Bloomberg) — Abdolreza Abbassian, senior economist at the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, discusses global food prices. The Rome-based FAO said last week that its world food-price index rose to a record in December, topping a previous all-time high set in June 2008.
Global food costs jumped 25 percent last year to an all- time high in December, according to the United Nations. Countries probably spent at least $1 trillion on imports, with the poorest paying as much as 20 percent more than in 2009, the UN says. In the U.S., the largest exporter, retail food rose 1.5 percent last year and will gain as little as 2 percent in 2011, the Department of Agriculture estimates.
Governments from Beijing to Belgrade are boosting imports, limiting sales or releasing stockpiles to curb food inflation. Higher prices will push U.S. agricultural exports up 16 percent to a record $126.5 billion this year, according to a USDA forecast. While U.S. consumers haven’t been squeezed so far, grocers from Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. to SuperValu Inc. have said they plan increases. Commodities will keep rising, according to a Bloomberg survey of more than 100 analysts and traders.
“We are absolutely spoiled,” said Jason Britt, president of Central States Commodities Inc., a research and analysis company in Kansas City, Missouri. “We have the luxury that we spend a small percentage on food. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see larger bites of our incomes used.”
What is this “tame inflation” bullcrap?!
“While U.S. consumers haven’t been squeezed so far”
Who are they kidding?
The price per package has not increased, but the quantity per package has decreased. Tuna used to come in 6 ounce cans and now comes in 5 ounce cans. 5/6 the quantity for the same price is a 6/5 increase - 20%. Ice cream used to come in 2 quart containers and now comes in 1.5 quart containers - a 25% increase in price/volume.
Why Obama May Be Wall Street’s New Best Friend ~ CNBC
January 18, 2011
Candidate Obama was an anti-tax cut, pro-regulation, anti-big business populist ready to take on Wall Street and any fat-cat CEO who stood in his way. President Obama? A bit of a different story.
The president’s tack to the middle began with a trickle last year when he made some key concessions on health care policy and financial reform
But since the November election, after which he famously described his Democratic Party’s defeat as a “shellacking” at the hands of reformist Republicans, the move has become even more pronounced.
The post-campaign president has hired Wall Street insider William Daley as his chief of staff in an apparent means to ingratiate himself with the leaders of corporate America, struck a high-profile bargain on tax cuts, and now has put burdensome job-killing regulations on the table.
While it remains to be seen how sincere the president’s conversion is, it’s been a winning ticket for investors so far.
“I’m very happy with the outcome. Now I can kick back.”
Short sales spike across S. Florida in 2010
By Paul Owers
Sun Sentinel
Posted: 2:42 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 15, 2011
The number of homeowners completing short sales rose sharply across South Florida in 2010, following the release of government guidelines designed to simplify the process.
But real estate agents and housing analysts say other factors besides the new rules have largely driven these transactions over the past year.
Many potential buyers have steered away from foreclosed homes since foreclosure freezes began last fall, concerned that the deals would be delayed or canceled while lenders investigated possible wrongdoing by so-called robo-signers. As a result, banks have been more willing to approve short sales.
Even without the effect of moratoriums, lenders have warmed up to short sales, realizing they can dispose of properties more quickly and make $30,000 to $50,000 more per sale than they could by foreclosing on a home, said Peter Zalewski, principal at CondoVultures.com, a Bal Harbour-based consulting firm.
“My experience was very positive,” said Fernando Incarnacao, 54, who recently arranged a short sale on his three-bedroom Parkland home. “I’m very happy with the outcome. Now I can kick back.”
He owed about $321,000 and hoped to avoid foreclosure, so he listed the home with real estate agents Michael Citron and Rosy Baron. They worked with lender U.S. Bank to complete a $230,000 deal that closed Jan. 5 after less than four months.
There were 16,767 short sales in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties last year, up 49 percent from 2009 and 437 percent from 2008, according to CondoVultures.
In a short sale, the homeowner gets approval to sell the property for less than what’s owed on the mortgage, and the lender typically forgives the difference.
The transactions are seen as a key to reducing the massive inventory of available properties, which will go a long way to solving the nation’s housing woes, now heading into a sixth year.
The most recent figures from Zillow.com show that roughly four in 10 single-family mortgages in South Florida are worth more than the homes, making short sales one of the only viable options for “underwater” homeowners who need to move.
In the past few years, though, sellers and buyers complained that lenders took several months or longer just to consider short sale offers. Frustrated buyers walked away during the delays, and properties lingered on the market, prolonging the housing slump and the recession.
To address those concerns, the U.S. Treasury last spring introduced a voluntary program called Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternative, which included a series of guidelines governing short sales.
The rules call for lenders to approve or deny offers within 10 business days. Also, sellers, loan servicers and investors who own the mortgages receive financial incentives for completing the deals.
Sellers don’t have to repay any of the remaining debt and also get $3,000 in moving expenses. Servicers get $1,500, while investors owning the first mortgage receive a maximum of $2,000 for allowing up to $6,000 of sale proceeds to be distributed to less senior mortgage holders.
The guidelines were supposed to take effect by April 2010, but some lenders didn’t start following them until the summer, Treasury spokeswoman Andrea Risotto said.
“It’s still pretty early in the program’s life,” she said.
Some real estate agents remain skeptical.
Terry Story, a real estate agent for Coldwell Banker in Broward and Palm Beach counties, said the Treasury program hasn’t meant anything to her clients.
“I haven’t heard of any success stories with it,” she said.
Douglas Rill, an agent for Century 21 America’s Choice in West Palm Beach, said lenders seem to be approving more short sales because they realize it makes good business sense. Also, he said, a new automated computer system that banks use is expediting the process.
Joe Kohn, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer, agrees that some banks are getting better at executing short sales. Still, no lender that he has worked with on a transaction has stuck to a 10-day deadline.
Default!
When you have more debt than you can pay, it is always best to own up…default…hang your head…say you’re sorry…promise not to do it again…
..and go about your business. And do it as soon as possible.
Whence cometh this august advice? From the pages of history - recent…and not so recent.
In the second half of the 19th century, the Arab states borrowed heavily from Europeans. The Ottoman Empire was an anachronism. The modern state had already been developed by Napoleon and Bismarck. Meanwhile, in America, the War Between the States sealed the fate of the founding fathers’ republic. The limited government of Jefferson became the runaway military government of Lincoln…and later the all- powerful social welfare state of Franklin Roosevelt.
Back in the Old World, in the 19th century, modern technology gave Europeans a huge advantage over their neighbors. The Ottomans - who governed from the Balkans to Morocco - were being left behind. Their economies were less productive, so they lacked the tax base needed to sustain modern armies. So, they brought in European entrepreneurs and European capital to build railroads, canals and other improvements.
Then, as now, declining economies were supported by more dynamic ones.
“China’s lending hits new heights,” says a headline at The Financial Times today.
China has the most dynamic economy in the world…with $2.8 trillion in reserves, most of it in dollars. It is lending money all over the world. It is America’s biggest creditor. And now it is helping wobbly European nations go deeper into debt too.
Foreign money comes at a cost. When the Ottomans couldn’t pay, they tried austerity…and then borrowed more. The natives grew restless under the austerity measures. The debt grew larger too…as more and more money was needed to support previous borrowing.
Soon, there was no way out. Backed by better armies, the Europeans foreclosed. France’s general Bugeaud laid waste to Algeria’s fertile plains. Later, France found a pretext to invade Tunisia. Italy took Libya. Britain invaded Egypt. Soon, Europeans were in control of all of North Africa…and much of the Levant.
Lesson # 1 - don’t borrow from foreigners.
Lesson #2 - if you get into trouble, don’t borrow more from the foreigners. Default.
And we return to our theme…
Next, it was the Europeans’ turn to be the borrowers. They got into a nasty, pointless war in 1914. The French borrowed from the English. The English borrowed from the Americans. The Germans couldn’t borrow, so they printed money.
Then, when the war was over…everybody waited to get paid. The Americans waited for the English to pay. The English waited for the French. And the French waited for the Germans. The Huns were supposed to pay reparations, but they were broke…so they printed more money. In the end, after many disasters, no one got paid…neither the Americans, nor the English, nor the French. Instead, they all suffered a worldwide depression and then another worldwide war.
Same lessons: if you can’t pay; don’t try; don’t pretend. Default.
And now the European states are in debt again. Not because of war, because of the social welfare system…aging populations…and bank debt. They cannot pay. So they try austerity measures and borrow more. The Chinese and Japanese are the latest benefactors.
In the US…the problem is similar. The government runs at a loss. Debt mounts up. The states implement austerity efforts; they have no choice. The central government, like Germany, prints money.
Now, both America and Europe are the Old World. Their social welfare model is failing. It was developed as a response to the needs of the nation state in the early days of the industrial revolution. It was suited to an era with expanding populations, fast-growing wealth, large pools of factory labor and almost unlimited resources. Governments needed to keep the urban masses under control. It was no good to provide them with security, insist that they obey the laws, and let it go at that. The politician that promised only a dollar’s worth of benefit for a dollar’s worth of taxes was soon replaced by one who promised to give back $1.20…or $1.50. In theory, this made perfect sense. Once government became recognized as the servant of the people, rather than their master, the people had a right to get their moneys’ worth. And then, why would anyone willingly submit to the authority of a government if it delivered no more than the citizen could get on his own? Why allow yourself to be forced to pay into the government’s social security program, for example, if it paid out no better than a private plan? Or, if the government’s health care system delivers no more or better service than you can get from private plans, what’s the point?
The promise of government’s social welfare projects was that they would take money from the few rich and the many as yet unborn in order to give it to poor and middle class voters. That is, voters thought they could get something for nothing. And, for a very long time, governments could deliver. They simply relied on the next wealthier, larger generation to make good on promises made to the previous one. It worked for 150 years. But now the next generations are often smaller. And maybe poorer. The old live longer. And there are more of them. The rich are too few to pay the bills. The rate of growth has slowed down. The return on additional inputs of debt have turned negative, while trillions in unpaid debt and commitments comes due.
Again, governments in the Old World have borrowed and promised too much. But rather than default honestly and openly, (forcing the people who lent imprudently to take the losses) they try to put the burden of the losses onto the innocent citizen…and the unenlightened investor.
He will pay higher taxes. He will get less in services. His money…his savings…his pension - all will be devalued by inflation. If he has stocks…they too will likely be sold off in the financial crises to come.
But let’s look at another, more recent example. Iceland.
You may remember, two years ago Iceland was a mess. Its banks had borrowed, lent, and speculated recklessly. Iceland’s feds squirmed and winced. At first, the government decided it would do what Ireland was doing. It would rescue the banks…that is, it would bail out the banks’ lenders with public funds.
But when the public caught on to what was going on, a referendum was held. Voters rejected the bailout as if they were voting against sin itself. More than 90% of voters cast ballots against a taxpayer bailout. We were impressed. We wrote about it. The “Patsy Revolt of 2009″ we called it.
Unable to stick the voters with the losses, the government left the banks to default.
Was this the end of the world? Did Iceland slip below the North Atlantic waves…joining the Titanic on the chilly, dark bottom of the sea? Did commerce break down? Did the Icelandic money become worthless? Was this the “end of time”…the apocalypse forecast in the Bible?
Nope.
“Iceland is doing better than anyone could have hoped,” reports Bloomberg.
Inflation fell from 18% down to 5% last year. The cost of insuring Icelandic debt fell to less than a third of the price in early 2009. Unemployment is barely 6%.
“Thanks to its rescue plan,” says the IMF, “the recession in Iceland has been less deep than expected and not worse than in the other countries deeply affected.”
How did they achieve this? Are the Icelanders smarter than the Europeans?
Not exactly. They tried the typical dead-end solution. The trouble was, no one would lend Iceland more money. And once the public revolted, after realizing that it would be left holding the bag, the Icelandic feds had no choice. They had exhausted all the bad ideas. They were forced to go with a good one.
The foreign debt was consolidated into a few banks…which then went broke. The remaining banks were left intact, ready to keep the country’s financial machinery in business.
Lesson learned: got too much debt? Default quickly. Make it clean. Make it fast. Make it work.
There. That’s all the advice we’re going to give today. Any European or American government that would like more details could contact us on our mobile phone…if we had one.
Regards,
Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning
The probelm is, it isn’t interest on the debt that is bankrupting us. Interest on our $14 trillion in debt is… what? $200 billion of our $2.5T annual defict?
Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, DoD. This is where $2.2 billion of our $3.7 trillion in spending goes.
Is that Bill Bonner with a long o or a short o?
The best solution from day one was to let the banks Investment houses fail ,and certainly
let AIG fail for their stupid 400 billion in Credit Default Swaps bets . Should of let GS wait in line with all the creditors of AIG ,instead of the Government taking the lost and GS getting the 20 billion . It would of served justice in that a Investment house that sells junk to their investors and than dupes a Insurance Company with no reserve
to cover them should fail to get this ill gotten gain .
I don’t even know if that wasn’t just a fake set up from day one because it isn’t like a Insurance Company to offer full payment on a insurance claim when they find out the securities they were insuring were mis-rated .
What is the value of having a unregulated gambling casino of bets that Wall Street can make money on that doesn’t put working capital into the economy for purpose of needed investments . What value is the leverage value if the asset value fails ,or was fake .
The Iceland people where smart not to accept this you take the BS of
paying for the excesses of a industry that was simply opportunistic and creepy .
I’m not saying that some retribution would not of been in order after the failures of these entities ,and FDIC would of had to be shored up
no doubt ,but at least we wouldn’t of had these BS bail-outs that are in the trillions going to the wrong parties ,who are also avoiding liability for criminal infractions . Instead of F&F buying up junk mortgages at par value and putting the loss on taxpayers ,the loans would of failed and the Government might of had to be a lender for a while ,but it would of been on new loans .
I would suggest that the public demand all the money back . I would suggest that the Culprits be forced into exile .Maybe we can put them all on a island and they can tear themselves apart ,but we will throw in a big money sign that they can worship made out of concrete .
I would suggest that the public demand all the money back
And more.
Right ,we should get interest for the time they had the money ,at a very hight interest rate of course . What am I talking about ,these jerks should be in jail .
http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/azelections/articles/2011/01/18/20110118arizona-budget-brewer-proposals.html
Arizona budget looking sketchy….
“Gov. Jan Brewer’s proposed budget hinges on several gambles, the biggest one being that the federal government will let Arizona drop Medicaid coverage for 280,000 people despite the federal health care overhaul’s two-year prohibition against eligibility changes.
Even if Brewer does get federal clearance, she may have to fend off an anticipated court challenge based on state constitutional grounds to her proposed suspension of Medicaid coverage for the 280,000. That’s most of the Arizonans who are covered by a voter-approved expansion of eligibility above levels used by most states.”
So, we passed a constitution ammendment increasing the number of people covered. Then last year’s healthcare reform says if we reduce the number of people eligable, we lose Medicaid funds.
So, the governor’s plan is to ignore the state consitution, and assume Obama’s administration is going to let us cut spending without cutting out Medicaid funds? Really? That is the plan?
“The coverage suspension would begin Oct. 1 and save the state an estimated $541.5 million, or half of the $1.1 billion shortfall ”
Ohs no’s… And it is still only half the problem.
You really have to love the readers commetns:
“That is Brewer for you - attack health care and schools. How about wastefull spending Brewer????
The sales tax increase was so she didn’t have to cut education - now she wants to cut education and Medicaide.”
Hello??? Education, healthcare and prisons are 87% of the state budget general fund. Add on debt payemtns are you are at 89%. The deficit is 11.5% of the budget. We’d have to cut EVERYTHING else to absolute 0 to balance the budget without cutting the big 4.
Holy schmolly….
Did a little more research. Total personal income in AZ for CY2009 was $217 billion. Our FY is June-May, we’re off 5 months, but total personal income taxes paid in AZ was $1.5 billion for FY2009.
That is a net effective state income tax rate of 0.7%.
No wonder we have a $1.1 billion deficit.
They are going to make all these cuts in vital services ,cut wages ,pensions ,you name it in a inflating economy ,yet leave the health care costs high ,trillions in bail outs to banker criminals ,leave the off-shoring and faulty trade balances and tariffs , sell our national treasures ,throw the older people under the bus ,give bankers zero interest while depriving savers and fixed income people of yield ,while
the private sector/government job base is actually more approaching 20% unemployment ,while we all get to see Wall Street have a banner bonus year ,while at the same time extending tax breaks to the rich ,while they are still raising the deficit ,while cutting welfare programs .
Some times I think I must be dreaming that these are the decisions that are being made .
San Francisco Chronicle January 18, 2011
While other cities are slashing employee benefits, Berkeley is slated to add one more: paying for sex-change operations.
The City Council is poised to vote tonight to set aside $20,000 annually for city workers’ gender-reassignment surgery. The procedure is not covered by the city’s two health insurance providers, Kaiser and Health Net.
“We offer all kinds of benefits to our employees. This brings our benefits in line with what’s just and fair for the transgender community,” said City Councilman Darryl Moore, who originally proposed the idea in 2007.
The benefit would allow employees to collect the money before the operation. To receive the payout, employees would have to have lived as the opposite sex for at least one year and undergone hormone therapy. They also would have to have worked for the city at least a year.
NO elective surgery should EVER be covered by insurance. And it doesn’t get any more elective that that.
Argg … the all knowing greenspan. They knew and pretended otherwise
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703959104576082313921593064.html
This has been brought up before, but it’s always good to remind everyone. Good find bob.
There was very lively debate here last year or 2 years ago about whether they knew or not.
When in doubt, pretend not to notice…
This is the best quote
William Poole, then president of the St. Louis Fed, knocked down the idea of the Fed tackling asset-price bubbles. “It seems to me that that would change the whole nature of the pricing mechanism in asset markets. And I think it would be a terrible idea in a market economy to have a government agency setting capital asset values.”
At this point all asset values are determined by the FED and their gang of vultures.
Oh now they are beginning to realize that the Feds shouldn’t be Wall Streets Bitch .
Economic Report
Jan. 18, 2011, 10:42 a.m. EST
Home-builder sentiment index stuck for third month
By Steve Goldstein, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — A measure of home builder sentiment in January remained unchanged for the third straight month, a poll released Tuesday showed, demonstrating the continued glut of supply of housing after major price declines and a wave of foreclosures.
The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo housing market index, which measures confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes, stayed at 16 in January.
Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected the gauge to pick up a point, to 17, and the figure is in weak territory in any event. The seasonally adjusted index is designed so that any number over 50 indicates that more builders view conditions as good than poor — something that hasn’t been the case since April 2006.
…
Here is a nice little clip on the Dylan Ratigan show in which they are talking about the Swiss banker giving the leaks on the documents of the rich ripping off everyone .
Interesting : a third of the money of the World is being sheltered in accounts like this by the rich who avoid taxes . The discourse is just starting to change in England regarding the rich .
Clip called– FORMER SWISS BANKER GIVES WIKILEAKS DOCUMENTS
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31510813/#41223903
If you can’t pull it just go to Dylan Ratigan and they show you the clips of the day .
There is another good tape on the Dylan Ratigan show list of tapes at the
left side which is called “Building a better economy “.
Dylan Ratigan interviews a expert who has some interesting things to say about Globalism ,and there is a interview with the San DIego Mayor on how he cut pension costs of government workers
These are short tapes maybe 7 to 10 minutes .
But by far the tape called “Former Swiss Banker gives Wikileaks
documents is pointing to what we have been saying here for a long time .
There is another good tape on the Dylan Ratigan show list of tapes at the
left side which is called “Building a better economy “.
Dylan Ratigan interviews a expert who has some interesting things to say about Globalism ,and there is a interview with the San DIego Mayor on how he cut pension costs of government workers
These are short tapes maybe 7 to 10 minutes .
But by far the tape called “Former Swiss Banker gives Wikileaks
documents is pointing to what we have been saying here for a long time .