The Housing Bubble

Item:Growth Stocks May Fizzle in Rebound as Market Favors Value

The strongest sign the U.S. economic recovery is accelerating may be coming from the stock market.

> I guess all the unemployed are investing in the stock market, that’s how it’s works in a jobless recovery.

Home front: Uncertainty over foreclosures still persists

Your home’s value this year depends largely on whether the company down the street decides to hire again.

The region’s overall real estate prices rose slightly throughout 2010 to a median of $187,500 from $181,505 at the end of 2009. But despite that gain, which reversed two years of steep declines, economists aren’t sure whether that momentum will continue this year.

Their safe prediction? Prices will remain flat.

David Crowe, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders, spoke Jan. 25 to the general membership meeting of the Charleston Trident Home Builders Association in North Charleston. He was upbeat about the housing market foreseeing slow but steady growth in the industry this year and next.

“Why is it that at the end of 2010 we still don’t feel like we’re going anywhere?” said David Crowe, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders, who last week spoke before an audience of construction professionals in North Charleston.

Crowe said that while other parts of the economy have thawed, a chill of uncertainty still hangs over the housing market. Market experts are eyeing job growth and foreclosures, saying they could either push the region’s real estate sector forward or send it spiraling into a second round of recoil.

Worries over home values renewed last week when a closely watched home-price index announced ominous news: nine major cities, including Charlotte and Atlanta, just hit their lowest values since the last housing boom.

US ‘losing credibility by the day’ on Egypt: ElBaradei

The United States is “losing credibility by the day” in calling for democracy in Egypt while continuing to support President Hosni Mubarak, leading dissident Mohamed ElBaradei said Sunday.

> Were we credible in the first place?

Russia Moving to Gold Standard? Written by Christian Gomez

With the value of the U.S. dollar exponentially declining since the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913, it comes as no surprise that many world leaders and international economists have expressed their desire for a new world reserve currency. In light of the global financial crisis, Russia may be moving toward a sound economic solution — gold.
On Monday, January 24, the First Deputy Chairman Georgy Luntovsky of the Central Bank of Russia (CBR), announced plans to purchase over 100 metric tons of gold every year — increasing the bank’s gold reserves by 13 percent in 2011.

Last year alone, the CBR expanded its gold holdings by 23.9 percent to 790 tons. Why the sudden increase? “The current set of reserve currencies and the main reserve currency — the U.S. dollar — have failed to function as they should,” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told a Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit on June 16, 2009, adding that he would like to see the Russian ruble become a global reserve currency.

Medvedev’s desire for the ruble to be a global reserve currency, or part of a new economic world order, may not be the only reason for the sudden gold increase. With the signing of the Customs Union treaty last month, the leaders of Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan agreed to establish a free-trade zone among themselves with a common currency. The Customs Union — set go into effect on January 1, 2012 — has been regarded as the economic restoration of the Soviet Union.

A new gold ruble could serve as the basis for a common currency between the three old Soviet republics, much as the former Soviet ruble once was.

Between 1924 and 1947, the fourth Soviet ruble was regarded as a gold ruble. During this period the State Bank of the Soviet Union minted gold coins and printed paper currency backed by gold, though individual Soviet citizens were barred from exchanging their paper rubles for gold — a policy emulated by President Franklin Roosevelt in his 1933 Executive Order 6102, which forbade U.S. citizens from “the hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion, and Gold Certificates.”

It would appear that Moscow is now taking a page from the past as it seeks to strengthen its monetary unit.

The Exodus Begins as Egypt Erupts

The State Department is preparing to evacuate thousands of U.S. citizens from Egypt on chartered planes as rioters threaten to overturn the ruling regime of Egyptian President Mubarak.

http://market-ticker.org/

Since 2005 the Egyptian Pound has been pegged to the United States dollar, and the nation has undergone a cumulative 45% inflation rate in the last three years imposed on it by our Central Bank and profligate Federal spending, which Bernanke has been all too eager to monetize.

With a per-capita GDP of about $2,700 it’s people are 1/17th as capable of producing income as those of The United States on average and well-below other nations such as China ($4,300) and Belize ($4,500) that are commonly regarded as quite poor.

The nation’s people are clearly incapable of absorbing a 45% increase in their cost of living and this has largely played into the causes of the current uprising.

It is true that there is grave risk of the populism in Egypt turning into something we will like even less than Mubarak, but that’s not really the point. Neither Thaddeus or anyone else really stand for Representative Government when it comes to the Middle East; if we did we would not have tolerated decades of “Emergency” legislation out of Egypt and their refusal to honor basic human and political rights.

Yet we have not only done so, we have funded Egypt with both weapons and money, some of which they are using against their own people today.

The facts are this: We’re largely responsible for what’s happening over there. We have, through our abuse of our status as the world’s reserve currency and the pegs maintained by other nations, forced inflation into other countries instead of taking the hit ourselves. Our Federal Reserve and Treasury continue to claim that there’s “no inflationary pressure” but that’s a lie. There has been enormous inflation but we have shifted it onto the backs of other people and literally forced them to eat it, both in China and through other nations with currency pegs, such as Egypt.

America “loves” these pegs, especially in the oil-producing nations in the Middle East. Through them we get to enjoy oil that doesn’t cost $300/bbl as a consequence of our money printing. We get to force others to swallow the ever-increasing loads of monetary inflation that our government and Federal Reserve emit upon the world. This is our definition of “stability”: We print, you starve, we enjoy it.

Egypt Spurs Jump in Developing Money-Market Rates

Money-market rates in developing nations are increasing at the fastest pace since 2008 as central banks from China to Brazil lift borrowing costs and banks hoard cash on concern unrest in Egypt will destabilize the Middle East.

Hope&Change…Suckers

White House quietly exempts pampered politicos
The Washington Times

If you would like to know what the White House really thinks of Obamacare, there’s an easy way. Look past its press releases. Ignore its promises. Forget its talking points. Instead, simply witness for yourself the outrageous way the White House protects its best friends from Obamacare.

Last year, we learned that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) had granted 111 waivers to protect a lucky few from the onerous regulations of the new national health care overhaul. That number quickly and quietly climbed to 222, and last week we learned that the number of Obamacare privileged escapes has skyrocketed to 733.

Among the fortunate is a who’s who list of unions, businesses and even several cities and four states (Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee) but none of the friends of Barack feature as prominently as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

How can you get your own free pass from Obamacare? Maybe you can just donate $27 million to President Obama‘s campaign efforts. That’s what Andy Stern did as president of SEIU in 2008. He has been the most frequent guest at Mr. Obama‘s White House.

Backroom deals have become par for the course for proponents of Obamacare. Senators were greased with special favors, like Nebraska Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson and his Cornhusker Kickback and Louisiana Democrat Sen. Mary L. Landrieu and her Louisiana Purchase. Even the American Medical Association was brought in line under threat of losing its exclusive and lucrative medical coding contracts with the government.

Unrest in Egypt Unsettles Global Markets- NYTimes

For investors, it is what is known as an exogenous event — a sudden political or economic jolt that cannot be predicted or modeled but sends shock waves rippling through global markets.

I have to give Barry credit for one thing, he knows his priorities.

(Washington) While Cairo Burns, Obama Parties

The Washington A-List was out in force Saturday night at the farewell party for senior adviser David Axelrod, with a roster of guests featuring Cabinet secretaries, big shot journos and – President Obama.

As revolution threatened to sweep Egypt and possibly other allies – with the horrifying prospect of Islamism replacing reliable friends – the president was on view partying with the IN crowd.

The skepticism beyond the Beltway about whether Washington is just one big Love-In certainly gets fed by the sight – as conveyed by the press pool report – of reporters like ABC’s Jake Tapper, NBC’s Chuck Todd, National Journal’s Major Garrett, and John Harwood of CNBC and the New York Times emerging from a bash with the president that was held to toast his chief political fixer and leading spinmeister.

I understand why reporters would do this – other than the admittedly pathetic notion that, gosh, it’s fun to party with the president of the United States! It is pretty good for building sources and getting inside dope. But man, it ain’t easy smacking the White House with tough stories all the time if you’re getting invited to their exclusive parties, now is it?

TTT Sez…

Global inflation is “not high on the list of concerns” of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. So he told the annual gathering of the World Economic Forum.

Of course not. Why would it be high on the list of your concerns when you’re comfortably ensconced at a five-star hotel in Davos, Switzerland, eating bonbons and discussing matters of little concern to the hoi polloi?

We can think of one reason: In the world’s most populous Arab country, and the world’s biggest wheat importer, just 1,629 miles to the southeast… people are taking to the streets.

“Food prices and inflation are crucial issues in Egypt,” says Ann Wyman, head of emerging markets at Nomura. “It’s something you’re seeing in the popular response.”

That “popular response” brought out the tear gas and water cannons today. The government has cut off Internet access. At least seven people have been killed and 1,000 arrested since the “popular response” erupted on Tuesday — when protesters began demanding the resignation of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

Food prices in Egypt have risen 21% in the past year. But why should that bother the folks gathered in Davos?

~ Clipped from the 5Min Forecast.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110131/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_egypt_protest_daily_life;_ylt=Apg2yhysNSzMsgIm2E7hRqAXIr0F;_ylu=X3oDMTN2aDBrZjY1BGFzc2V0Ay9zL2FwLzIwMTEwMTMxL2FwX29uX3JlX21pX2VhL21sX2VneXB0X3Byb3Rlc3RfZGFpbHlfbGlmZQRjY29kZQNnbXByZG5iZQRjcG9zAzgEcG9zAzgEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNlZ3lwdGlhbnNzdG8-

Thank God we have a 2nd Ammendment.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-30/rice-rebounding-from-two-year-drop-as-u-s-crop-falls-to-lowest-since-1989.html

Get ready for food riots to spread to Asia.

From Bloomibergi today (excerpts):

“[by Hugh Son] Bank of America Corp.’s investment banking division set aside about 10 percent less for employee compensation than a year earlier as revenue slipped, said two people with direct knowledge of the decision.

Managing directors in areas that underperformed compared with 2009 saw pay shrink by as much as about 20 percent…

About 20 percent to 30 percent of bonuses are in cash that vests in one year, and the rest will be in stock and cash that will take longer to receive… That compares with as little as 5 percent cash for 2009 bonuses, when the firm was under the jurisdiction of Kenneth Feinberg, then the Obama administration’s special master on compensation. The bank repaid $45 billion in U.S. assistance in 2009.

Year-end awards typically make up the majority of compensation for investment-bank employees… JPMorgan’s investment bank set aside enough money to pay an average of $369,651 to each employee for 2010, or 2.4 percent less than in 2009, according to the company’s year-end financial statements. Goldman Sachs’s pool equates to an average of $430,700, a reduction of 14 percent. Morgan Stanley cut the investment bank’s compensation pool by 2…

Wall Street firms’ soaring pay over the last three decades incentivized traders to disregard risk and limited regulators’ ability to lure talent to police banks, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission wrote in a 545-page book published this week. As firms felt the need to compete for talent with “aggressive incentives,” total compensation at U.S. banks and securities firms climbed to $137 billion by 2007.

Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman said in November that Wall Street must fix a culture that contributed to the financial crisis by idolizing individual employees and giving them incentives to take outsized risks.

Fixing the culture will require “creating a compensation system that better aligns or balances shareholders’ interests and the broader society’s interests with the individual’s interests, and changing the perception that it’s the individual that’s the hero,” said Gorman, 52.”

Soaring pay incentivized traders to disregard risk and limited regulators’ ability to lure talent to police banks.

There’s a reason that the government has to offer benefits and job security. The government regulators need to “retain talent” too, just to keep up with the greed of the private sector. And it doesn’t apply only to Wall Street. (Although, I admit, this defense only applies to high-skill regulators, not the graft on state or local level.)

“The ability of governments to control the spread of ideas is not keeping pace with the ability of the Internet to enable people to communicate ideas.” ~Gary North

U.S. Auto Sales May Reach Second-Fastest Rate in 17 Months

U.S. automobile sales in January may have reached the second-fastest pace in 17 months, aided by rising business spending and consumer confidence.

Muni Madness: David Walker Says “Yes” to Bankruptcies, “No” to Bailouts
Jan 31, 2011 by Aaron Task in Newsmakers

Now that the State of the Union has been addressed, let’s turn our attention to the state of the states. Huge budget shortfalls in California, New York, Texas and Illinois - not to mention Meredith Whitney’s appearance on 60 Minutes - have grabbed headlines and raised fears that municipal bonds will be the next debt shoe to drop.

Meanwhile, a recent report by Moody’s suggests other states such as Hawaii, Mississippi, Connecticut and W. Virginia are really in the worst fiscal shape when unfunded pension obligations are taken into account, as CNN reports.

“The reality is: at all levels… government has grown too big, promised too much and waited too long to start to restructure, says David Walker, founder of the Comeback America Initiative and former U.S. Comptroller.

As is his wont, Walker has strong opinions on the subject of state budget woes and related proposals, including: the potential for a Federal bailout of individual states and/or a pathway for states to file for bankruptcy.

“The Federal government owes more than it has already; it has its own huge debt and deficit problem,” Walker says. “The last thing it should be doing is bailing out the states because nobody is going to bail out America.”

So that’s a firm “no” on a Federal bailout.

But Walker does believe states should have the option to file for bankruptcy, noting city and county governments already have that option.

Bankruptcy “should be the absolute last resort and I’m not advocating it,” he says. “But it’s a tool that should be in the toolbox in order to encourage people to deal with problems sooner rather than later.”

Losses at Afghan Bank Could Be $900 Million ~ The New York Times

KABUL, Afghanistan — Fraud and mismanagement at Afghanistan’s largest bank have resulted in potential losses of as much as $900 million — three times previous estimates — heightening concerns that the bank could collapse and trigger a broad financial panic in Afghanistan, according to American, European and Afghan officials.

The extent of these losses make it clear that keeping the bank afloat — something the government has said it is determined to do — would require large infusions of cash from an already strained budget.

Banking specialists, businessmen and government officials now fear that word of Kabul Bank’s troubles could prompt a run on solvent banks, destroying the country’s nascent banking system and shaking the confidence of Western donors already questioning the level of their commitment to Afghanistan.

The scandal has severe political and security implications. Investigators and Afghan businessmen believe that much of the money has gone into the pockets of a small group of privileged and politically connected Afghans, preventing earlier scrutiny of the bank’s dealings.

Moving from Canada to Cario 14 days before the riots!

This could happen anywhere - there is only about three days worth of inventory in Amercia’s food supply chain.

———————–

Egyptians Stock Up on Food, Water as Protests Rage
AP/AOLNews | 1/31/11 | Ryan Lucas

After 24 years in Canada, Rafik and Leila Baladi moved back to Cairo two weeks ago to settle down.

Now, like many other residents of the Egyptian capital, they’re stocking up on bottled water and essential foodstuffs as chaos engulfs this sprawling city of some 18 million.

“We just don’t know what is going to happen,” said Leila, who along with her husband was pushing a shopping cart loaded with frozen chicken breasts, fava beans, milk and other items at a grocery store in central Cairo. “People are terrified to death.”

Everyday life in Cairo has been turned upside down by the largest anti-government protests in decades in Egypt, which began last Tuesday and have surged since.

At grocery stores across the city, people stocked up on food, water and other supplies Sunday. Stores in the neighborhoods of Zamalek, Mohandiseen and Dokki were running short of many items, especially bread and bottled water. At one store, water was selling for three times the normal rate.

But with banks closed and many ATMs out of cash, some are already feeling a pinch in their pocketbook.

“We can’t get any money out and we have less than 1,000 pounds ($170) in cash at the moment so we’re buying what we can now and we’ll try to get by,” said Rafik Baladi, a 59-year-old musician and writer.

Across the capital, work has all but come to a standstill. Downtown, where the protests are centered, nearly all shopfronts are shuttered and windows either boarded up or painted over. Across the Nile in Dokki, only a smattering of pharmacies, coffee shops and eateries were open for business.

Ah, you spend billions on a wall intended to keep out the wandering hoards… and they go and get medieval on your ass:

Yes,it’s a catapult. It’s being used by marijuana smugglers to launch their cargo across the border from Mexico into Arizona.

It’s nine feet tall and sits on a flatbed towed by an SUV. A Mexican army officer says it was capable of launching 4.4 pounds of pot at a time.

We can only imagine how long this was going on. It was finally broken up last Friday when U.S. National Guardsmen spotted the contraption and called Mexican investigators.

They seized the catapult and about 45 pounds of pot… but the intrepid entrepreneurs got away, no doubt to launch from somewhere else.

~Clipped from the 5Min.Forecast

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/jan/30/seeing-red-pac-is-down-on-scott-brown/

Another RINO who duped the Tea Party.

Consumer Spending in U.S. Rose More Than Estimated

Consumer spending in the U.S. rose more than forecast in December, capping its strongest quarter in more than four years.

Exxon profit up 53 pct, best quarter since 3Q ‘08

NEW YORK (AP) — Exxon Mobil earned $9.25 billion in the last three months of 2010, its most profitable quarter since the record third quarter of 2008.

The largest publicly traded oil company said Monday that net income grew 53 percent in the fourth quarter as it produced more oil to take advantage of higher prices.

Financial crisis of 2015.

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aFS_rMMEjqHw&pos=10

“The fundamentals haven’t been addressed at all,” Wilkinson, a London-based partner at consulting firm Oliver Wyman, said in an interview at the Hotel Morosani Schweizerhof. “The things that caused the previous crisis — loose monetary policy and trade imbalances — they’re actually bigger now than they were then.”

Gretchen Morgenson summarizes the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission’s findings. Nothing the HBB doesn’t know, but it’s still a good article. She emphasizes how it is likely that another financial crash will happen, given inadequate reforms.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/business/30gret.html?_r=1&ref=gretchenmorgenson

“Finally, if it’s comic relief you’re after, turn to Page 105 for an interview with Angelo R. Mozilo, former chief executive of Countrywide Financial, a lender that profited by roping unsuspecting borrowers into poisonous loans. Mr. Mozilo, the commission said, described his company as having “prevented social unrest” by providing loans to 25 million borrowers, many of them members of minority groups. Never mind that throngs of these loans have resulted in foreclosures and evictions. “Countrywide was one of the greatest companies in the history of this country,” Mr. Mozilo maintained, “and probably made more difference to society, to the integrity of our society, than any company in the history of America.”

You cannot make this stuff up.

Do further bailouts lie ahead? Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, seems to think so. When the government stepped in to save Citigroup in 2008, “it did more than reassure troubled markets — it encouraged high-risk behavior by insulating risk-takers from the consequences of failure,” he said in his report to Congress last week.”

Germany halts health fund payment
Country withholds $270m after claims that billions of dollars from fund fighting killer diseases may have been misused.

Germany has said it is suspending its annual payment of $270m to a global health fund tackling the three of the world’s biggest killer diseases, following allegations of corruption.

The country’s development ministry said its pledge to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria would be withheld pending an inquiry into accusations that billions of dollars may have been lost from the fund and the controls to monitor it were inadequate.

“We have initiated a special enquiry and stopped all German payments into this fund until further notice, meaning that payments for 2011 have not been made yet,” a spokesman for the German development ministry said.

Earlier this week the Associated Press reported that the fund’s new investigative unit had found $34m in misappropriated funds due to faked invoices and forged signatures in Mauritania and Mali.

* The Wall Street Journal
* U.S. NEWS
* JANUARY 31, 2011

Home Prices Sink Further
Declines Reported in All 28 Major Metropolitan Areas; Unsold Inventory Piles Up
By NICK TIMIRAOS

Home values are falling at an accelerating rate in many cities across the U.S.

The Wall Street Journal’s latest quarterly survey of housing-market conditions found that prices declined in all of the 28 major metropolitan areas tracked during the fourth quarter when compared to a year earlier.

The size of the year-to-year price declines was greater than the previous quarter’s in all but three of the markets, the latest indication that the housing market faces considerable challenges.

Inventory levels, meanwhile, are rising in many markets as the number of unsold homes piles up.

Home values dropped the most in cities that have already been hard-hit by the housing bust, including Miami, Orlando, Atlanta, and Chicago, according to data from real-estate website Zillow.com. But price declines also intensified in several markets that so far have escaped the brunt of the downturn, including Seattle and Portland, Ore.

Falling prices are a reflection of weak demand and tight credit conditions that reduce the number of potential buyers.

“There are just not a lot of renters with confidence, with a down payment, with good credit, and without a lot of additional debt,” said John Burns, a homebuilder consultant in Irvine, Calif.
…

Trudy Rubin of the Philadelphia Enquirer talks about a 2005 Cairo uprising that was quashed by Mubarak. She spends her time in places like Egypt and Iraq talking to the people and immersing herself in the region.

http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/trudy_rubin/20110130_Worldview__U_S__needs_to_get_on_the_right_side_in_Egypt.html

When I was a 16-year-old high school kid in 1972 we were required to work on a campaign for our government class. I walked over to a campaign headquarters in my blue collar Detroit neighborhood run by a young Princeton student, Trudy Rubin. The place was empty. I spent a month working and talking with her. Brought my dad over to volunteer too. A quiet, bright girl, she served as a role model for me. She wanted to be a journalist - I hadn’t thought about what I wanted to do with my life.

There has never been a better time for a visit to Egypt. Get your holiday tour package on discount!

The Financial Times
Companies evacuate but holidaymakers stay
By Roger Blitz and Sarah Mishkin
Published: January 31 2011 15:14 | Last updated: January 31 2011 15:14

Companies and governments have begun airlift operations to evacuate foreign nationals out of Egypt, although tour operators said there were no plans for a large-scale repatriation of holidaymakers, as demonstrations continued against the president, Hosni Mubarak.
…

“11:20a
BREAKING
Crude-oil futures top $90 a barrel”

Ruh-roh — double-dip recession, here we come. Sorry for those folks who optimistically bought SUVs on the dip in oil prices…

Comment: The events in North Africa, added on top of the unresolved Eurozone debt crisis, suggest the financial crisis is gaining steam. Given that the Fed & the PPT have bigger fish to fry than propping up the value of U.S. housing, these international geopolitical developments may signify yet another nail in the housing bubble’s coffin.

Brent crude just traded through $100…

“Jobs are back! But the pay stinks”

http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/31/news/economy/low_wage_job_growth/index.htm?iid=RNM

There are two problems with the jobs recovery to date. Employers haven’t added enough jobs. And those they have added aren’t particularly good ones.

“Growth has been concentrated in mid-wage and lower-wage industries. By contrast, higher-wage industries showed weak growth and even net losses,” said Annette Bernhardt, policy co-director for the National Employment Project. She said that growth has been far more unbalanced than during previous job recoveries.

Of course, we already knew this.

During a visit to some friends near Santa Barbara, one of them mentioned that Bank of America had refinanced the interest only loan on her overpriced home to a 30 year fixed without an appraisal.

She was really amazed that they would do something like that.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that they gave her a loan without the appraisal to keep her from discovering how much her home price had fallen.

Interesting strategy by the banks.

“Affluent women expect to be more active than their male counterparts in retirement, but they are also more worried about outliving their money, according to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch study.

“It’s a very serious phenomenon and it shows we have a lot of work to do,” he said. “That group can’t stay at 60 percent (identifying themselves as conservative) throughout their lives and achieve their goals or help our economy.”
“

http://www9.comcast.net/articles/finance/20110131/BUSINESS-US-RETIREMENT-STUDY/

My grandmother lived to be 103. She spent most of her life in a small town in Iowa and did not work after marriage. With a paid off house, I’m sure her expenses were low until she had to move into a home at 93. I expect to work until I am in my 80s. With all of the volatility in the world, how could I retire at 65 and expect to have enough to last into my 90s?

Oh yeah, and big surprise that Merrill Lynch is worried about people not investing in the market. We won’t be “helping our economy”. Whose economy?

Better in than out: African country set to make breaking wind a crime
Causing a stink: The government of Malawi, led by Dr Bingu wa Mutharika, are planning to outlaw breaking wind

Breaking wind is set to be made a crime in an African country.

The government of Malawi plan to punish persistent offenders ‘who foul the air’ in a bid to ‘mould responsible and disciplined citizens.’

But locals fear that pinning responsibility on the crime will be difficult - and may lead to miscarriages of justice as ‘criminals’ attempt to blame others for their offence.

One Malawian told the website Africanews.com: ‘My goodness. What happens in a public place where a group is gathered. Do they lock up half a minibus?

‘And how about at meetings where it is difficult to pinpoint ‘culprits’?

‘Children will openly deny having passed bad air and point at an elder. Culturally, this is very embarrassing,’ she said.

VIENNA – The control systems of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear plant have been penetrated by a computer worm unleashed last year, according to a foreign intelligence report that warns of a possible Chernobyl-like disaster once the site becomes fully operational.

Looks like some unknown will cause Irans nuc’s to go up in smoke? The article sounds like something that can be used later to deflect blame. Hmmmm

Another sign that people aren’t spending the money so freely. Check out this email I received today:

“I put together two offers for XYZ employees (please see below) during the month of February that I think everyone will really like. If you or anybody have any questions, please refer them over and I’d be more than happy to answer anything that might come up.

Thanks for everything and I look forward to working with you and the XYZ crew!

Regards,

Eli Madden.

Colorado Avalanche v. Anaheim Ducks
Saturday, February 5th at 1:00 pm
Pepsi Center

Upper level corner: only $22 each (usually $40)
Lower level corner/end: only $50 each (usually $94-$102)
Club level: only $50 each (usually $100-$113)

There are NO taxes or fees”

Pretty decent discounts. Looks like they are running short of customers willing to pay full price.

Retirement funds: All state workers will pay for fixes
More than $16 billion needed after recession ~ THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Teachers, law-enforcement officers, state workers and other Ohio public employees must give up more than $16 billion to fix their financially beleaguered pension funds.

Most will have to work longer before they can retire. Many will have to pay more for their pension. Some retirees will see reductions in their annual cost-of-living adjustments.

And the 1.7 million active and inactive state pension-fund members, beneficiaries and other recipients could be hit up for even more sacrifices.

The state’s five retirement systems finalized plans last week to restore fiscal health to pension funds battered by economic recession, rising health-care costs and changing demographics. And in the no-new-taxes atmosphere currently enveloping Ohio, the burden was placed entirely on state workers - in contrast to earlier versions of the plans that could have cost taxpayers more than $1billion.

“There’s absolutely no room, philosophically or otherwise, to ask the taxpayers via school levies or income-tax levies or whatever the case may be, to foot a higher bill,” said state Rep. Lynn Wachtmann, chairman of the House Committee on Health and Aging.

“In my opinion, I think the taxpayers are extremely generous already.”

Can anyone else recall when San Diego’s local economic ‘experts’ assured us that the housing crash would not sink the economy, thanks to other industries like tourism that would carry us through hard times?

I questioned the suggestion back then, and now I see that I was right, while the experts’ predictions have succumbed to Montezuma’s Revenge.

San Diego Suffers Cruise Blues
By Tom Fudge
January 27, 2011

SAN DIEGO — The Broadway Pier on San Diego Bay just got a face-lift that cost $28 million. You can see it in the sleek new terminal building. Quite a contrast from the B Street pier, just a block north that still makes use of an old cotton warehouse as its terminal. Port officials say B Street will be spruced up as well. But with the cruise business being what it’s been, you wonder why they’d bother.

The new terminal building on San Diego’s Broadway Pier is part of a $28 million face-lift the pier got, despite an erosion cruise ship business. January 26, 2011.
Photo by Tom Fudge

Above: The new terminal building on San Diego’s Broadway Pier is part of a $28 million face-lift the pier got, despite an erosion cruise ship business. January 26, 2011.

It’s been a bad month for the San Diego cruise ship business. Carnival Cruise Lines just announced it would move its San Diego-based ship, the Spirit, to Australia in 2012. This bad month follows a bad couple of years. Carnival pulled its other locally-based ship, the Elation, in 2010. San Diego saw its cruise ship port calls drop by one third last year. This year they’re expecting business to be cut in half.
…

Tiger Woods Dubai Golf Resort Halted as Luxury Market Struggles

Work on a Tiger Woods branded golf resort in Dubai has been halted by developer Dubai Properties Group, which cited a struggling luxury property market.

“The decision was based on current market conditions that do not support high-end luxury real estate,” Dubai Properties, a unit of Dubai Holding, said in a statement via mobile-phone text message today. “These conditions will continue to be monitored and a decision will be made in the future when to restart the project.”

Hundreds of developments in Dubai have been canceled or suspended after the financial crisis drove away speculators and caused lending to dry up. In October, Dubai Properties said it was reviewing the 55 million square-foot (5.1 million square- meter) Tiger Woods Dubai “in line with market dynamics and demand.”

Eco-funny snow humor…

—————–

Snow covers new LED stoplights
phillyBurbs.com

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A green policy has left some Philadelphia drivers unable to see green — or yellow, or red.

City councilman Frank Rizzo says the new light-emitting diode traffic light bulbs in city stoplights were completely coated by snow and ice as he was driving to work Thursday, preventing drivers from seeing the signal. The city started using bucket trucks Friday to clear the snow away.

Mark McDonald, a spokesman for Mayor Michael Nutter, says the LED lights are energy-efficient and help save money, but burn cooler than the old incandescent bulbs, meaning snow that covers them does not melt as quickly.

Boston Plans to Raise Taxes on Nonprofits.

BOSTON—As cities and towns across the nation face increasing budget shortfalls, many are frantically searching for alternative sources of revenue to avoid facing cuts and layoffs. Real estate taxes, however, remain the predominant revenue base for many municipalities.

Two new developments have heightened interest in Payment in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT), a program with the goal of coaxing local nonprofit institutions to pay their fair share for basic services such as police, fire, and public works, to defray some of the revenue pressure. Boston’s PILOT Task Force released a 128-page recommendation after a two-year review of its existing PILOT program. The Policy Focus Report by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy reviewed PILOT on a national scope.

According to the Lincoln study, “at least 117 municipalities in 18 states” have used PILOT in the last decade. The largest cities included, “Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. Boston has one of the longest standing and the most revenue productive PILOT programs in the country.”

Boston brims with prestigious universities and hospitals. All of them are 501(c)(3) entities, which means they are exempt from property taxes. Many of them also have over the years amassed more prime real estate in their expansion and have thus removed that land from the city’s property tax base.

In Boston, 52 percent of land is tax exempt but 64 percent of its revenue comes from property taxes. Boston’s total levy is $1.4 billion with a budget deficit of $140 million. If all the tax-exempt properties were to pay taxes it would generate an additional $347 million. Instead, the city collected $31.6 million from its fiscal 2009 PILOT program, with $16.2 million from Massport (Massachusetts Port Authority), $8.6 million from educational institutions, and $5.5 million from medical institutions.

I see this well oiled gubmint machine is working smoothly. At this rate some folks will be pushing up daisies before they see any money. Perhaps they should add another czar.

Item: 91,000 Gulf oil spill claims, just 1 final payment

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. – BP’s compensation fund for Gulf oil spill victims has issued a final settlement payment to just one of the thousands of people and businesses waiting for checks, records show, and that $10 million payout went to a company after the oil giant intervened on its behalf.

BP won’t identify the business, citing confidentiality, but acknowledges it lobbied for the settlement. The amount far exceeds smaller stop-gap payments that some individuals and businesses have received while they wait for their own final settlements.

The Gulf Coast Claims Facility was set up in August to independently administer BP’s $20 billion compensation fund in the aftermath of its April 20 oil well blowout off Louisiana.

As of this weekend, roughly 91,000 people and businesses had filed for final settlements, but the fund’s administrator, Washington lawyer Kenneth Feinberg, has said those checks won’t start rolling out until February at the earliest. Thousands of people have received some money to tide them over until a final settlement amount is offered, but only that one listed as paid on the facility’s web site has so far received a check.

‘Pharaoh’ and his half-Welsh wife are worth £25 billion

Dubbed ‘the Pharaoh’ for his 30-year iron rule, President Hosni Mubarak is said to have amassed a fortune of £25 billion for his family.

Mubarak, 82, his half-Welsh wife Suzanne and sons Gamal and Alaa are seen in Egypt as symbols of nepotism and corruption with properties and business interests worldwide, including London.

The First Lady keeps a firm grip on Egypt’s leading social circles and is often pictured at diplomatic and charity events in stylish outfits alongside dignitaries’ wives including Carla Bruni.

Her charity donations total millions of pounds a year, though rumours have swirled that some of this money has found its way into her bank accounts. As her profile in the state-controlled media has soared, critics have likened her to French Queen Marie-Antoinette.

Critics say the closest their sons have got to ordinary Egyptians was when they were driven past them in limousines. Both sons have been linked to arms-dealing.

Mubarak has survived at least six assassination attempts and fears have also been growing that he plans to groom the more political Gamal to inherit the throne.
Will first family flee to London (and Selfridges)?

When a Cairo newspaper claimed on Tuesday that members of President Mubarak’s family had fled, speculation spread that they were on their way to Britain.

The newspaper reported that Gamal Mubarak, the president’s son and possible successor, had boarded a private jet bound for London, taking his family and 97 pieces of luggage with him.

Egyptian baggage handlers at Heathrow were also quoted as saying that they had seen President Mubarak’s wife Suzanne, who is half-Welsh and holds a British passport, at the airport.

Real estate agent and family get tossed off flight

Fun quote from the story:

Bradley, who owns a real estate firm in Marin County, said she called a United customer service executive two weeks before the Honolulu flight to ask what she needed to do to make sure she’d be able to use the infant carrier. She said she was told to simply let United employees know when she checked in, which she did. But when she boarded the Boeing 777, she discovered the rows in economy seating were too close together to accommodate the Graco Snug Ride infant carrier, which is approved for airline use.

Here’s a question for this brain pool.

With 78M Baby Boomers starting to retire, and many living in two-story McMansions, they will probably need to downsize into one-story floor plans. When do you think the exodus will start picking up steam?

Do you think the BBer’s are planning that far ahead to begin with?

BREAKING: Federal judge rules Obamacare unconstitutional

The full text of the decision from Federal Judge Roger Vinson is not available yet, but according to reporters who’ve seen the decision, he’s ruled the entire Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. The ruling favors of the 26 state attorney generals challenging the law. The judge ruled the individual mandate that requires all Americans to purchase health insurance invalid and, according to the decision, “because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire Act must be declared void.”

200GB to 25GB: Canada gets first, bitter dose of metered Internet

Metered Internet usage (also called “Usage-Based Billing”) is coming to Canada, and it’s going to cost Internet users. While an advance guard of Canadians are expressing creative outrage at the prospect of having to pay inflated prices for Internet use charged by the gigabyte, the consequences probably haven’t set in for most consumers. Now, however, independent Canadian ISPs are publishing their revised data plans, and they aren’t pretty.

“Like our customers, and Canadian internet users everywhere, we are not happy with this new development,” wrote the Ontario-based indie ISP TekSavvy in a recent e-mail message to its subscribers.

Chinese increase oil search in US
(UKPA) – 11 hours ago

China’s state-owned offshore oil and gas company is intensifying its search for oil in the western United States.

CNOOC announced it will pay 570 million US dollars (£359m) for a one-third stake in Chesapeake Energy’s drilling project at an emerging oil field in north-east Colorado and south-east Wyoming.

Chesapeake, an oil and natural gas company based in Oklahoma City, will operate the project, while CNOOC will pay two-thirds of the project’s drilling costs, up to an additional 697m US dollars (£440m).

In October, CNOOC paid 1.08bn US dollars (£681m) for a one-third stake in a Chesapeake drilling project in South Texas.

Both deals give CNOOC access to shale deposits, an emerging source of oil in the western United States.

Over the past several years, drillers such as Chesapeake have learned to tap vast amounts of natural gas in these shale deposits, and more recently they have learned to adapt the new technology to also produce oil.

Engineers have learned to drill down and then horizontally into layers of shale and they then pump a slurry of sand, water and chemicals into the well to crack the rock and allow oil and gas to escape.

The process, called hydraulic fracturing, is raising concerns that it could contaminate drinking water. The Environmental Protection Agency is studying the safety of the process.

The Chicago REIC hasn’t said much about this growing mayoral campaign issue, which is kind of odd considering the inventory they have to move here in the city over the coming decade. So many condos and bungalows to move, do they really think foreign expats will buy them all?

If Chicago loses residency requirement, kiss middle class goodbye, Daley says
By Fran Spielman City Hall Reporter Jan 31, 2011 02:42PM

Without a residency requirement for city employees, Chicago would kiss its middle-class goodbye, Mayor Daley warned Monday, arguing that other major cities lived to regret it.

“If you go to Cleveland, if you go to Detroit, if you go to New York, if you go to Philadelphia — talk to all those mayors. They’ll tell you they lost all their middle class,” Daley said.

“Everybody fled the cities—especially public employees. In Detroit, they live in Ohio [and work for] the police and fire departments. In San Francisco, they live in Arizona some of `em. They live all over. They don’t live in the city.”

Last month, mayoral candidates Gery Chico and Rahm Emanuel responded to a Fraternal Order of Police questionnaire by saying they were open to letting police officers live outside the city.

‘Gay people were probably abused as children’, says Ground Zero mosque’s new imam. ~ By Daily Mail Reporter

The new imam at the Ground Zero mosque has has sparked fury after declaring that gay people were probably abused as children.

Abdallah Adhami is also quoted as saying that people who leave Islam for other religions should be jailed.

His controversial views were published in a lecture posted on his non-profit website, Sakeenah, and have already drawn criticism from human rights groups who have slammed him as ‘ignorant’.

According to the New York Post Adhami, 44, said being gay was a ‘painful trial’ which comes as a result of past trauma.

He said: ‘An enormously overwhelming percentage of people struggle with homosexual feeling because of some form of violent emotional or sexual abuse at some point in their life. A small, tiny percentage of people are born with a natural inclination that they cannot explain. You find this in the animal kingdom at some level as well.’

Adhami was named Imam and senior adviser of the proposed mosque by Park51, the organisation behind it.

Fred Sainz, a spokesman for gay rights group the Human Rights Campaign, said the comments were ignorant and hateful, and questioned his ‘greater judgement’.

Plans for the mosque on the site of the former Twin Towers caused controversy from the outset.

Goldman’s Tourre cannot delay SEC case, judge says

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc vice president Fabrice Tourre lost his bid to delay depositions in a U.S. regulator’s lawsuit accusing him of misleading investors about a product linked to subprime mortgages.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Jones upheld a January 26 order by a different judge, which allows scheduled depositions to begin Tuesday in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit against Tourre.

The defendant had argued it would be unfair to subject him to depositions because his lawyers have yet to review 300,000 documents, and he has yet to receive documents from Germany’s IKB Deutsche Industriebank AG, an alleged victim of his supposed fraud. He also sought to delay depositions until his motion to dismiss the SEC lawsuit was addressed.

How much worse can it get in Queensland?

Thousands face evacuation as severe cyclone bears down
Daniel Hurst
February 1, 2011

Thousands of north Queensland residents could be forced to leave their homes later today as authorities prepare for the arrival of severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi.

Authorities are also planning to evacuate two Cairns hospitals, with patients facing the prospect of being moved to Brisbane by Hercules aircraft.

State disaster co-ordinator Ian Stewart said mandatory evacuations could be carried out today along the coastline from Mossman near Port Douglas down to Cardwell.

Mr Stewart said low-lying areas could be at risk from storm surge triggered by Cyclone Yasi, expected be an upper level category-four system when it crosses the coast late tomorrow night.

This stretch of coastline includes Cairns, with fears that low-lying areas will be swamped by storm surge associated with the cyclone.

“It’s about a quarter of a million [people living] in the total area, but obviously not all of them live at the front in the storm-surge areas,” Mr Stewart said, urging people not to be complacent.
…

Renting is the new black.

Home Ownership Hits Lowest Level Since 1998
Posted on January 31st 2011

In spite of ongoing foreclosure moratoria and other administrative delays that you might expect to keep homeowners – even the distressed ones – in possession of their homes for longer periods of time, U.S. homeownership rates hit a 13-year low at the end of 2010[1]. While some analysts believed that homeownership might actually rise slightly in the wake of the robo-signer fiascos that threatened to stall many lenders’ foreclosures indefinitely, the Census Bureau reported this month that homeownership fell another 0.4 percent in the final quarter of 2010, bringing homeownership rates to a point not seen since before the turn of the century.

Not surprisingly, rental vacancies have also seen a sharp decline in recent months as homeowners either willingly or unwillingly are compelled to find places other than their own homes to stay. In fact, nationwide, rental vacancy rates are currently at 9.4 percent of available units, which “represents the biggest quarterly decline in rental vacancies…since the [Census] Bureau began tracking the data.” 35-44 year-olds are the most likely to relinquish their homeownership at this time, and the western states have the lowest homeownership rates with an average of 61 percent.
…