The Housing Bubble

As somebody pointed out the other day, it does make you appreciate the benefits of a longstanding tradition of peaceful transition in power.

There has been riots in other places around the World ,but the
Egypt revolt is more like a Revolution ,a removal of the Power
that has been there for 30 years . I don’t think that kind of
revolution will take place in America ,but you never know . It’s
a interesting question ,anybody else have thoughts .

The revolution in the US will look different, as in secession or break-up. It’s inevitable, money is the only cohesive factor in the US. There are now numerous cultures and ethnicities clamoring for their piece of the American pie. They may get it, but the pie will be gone.

The protests in Egypt were entirely peaceful until the gov’t thugs arrived, so the term riot may be vague. Was the Iceland torch party a riot? How about the Tea Party march in September ‘09? It only takes a small percentage of the population rising up in protest to cause tipping points.

no revolution, just armchair revolutionaries.

“… anybody else have thoughts(?).”

I think we are in the midst of a secular change, a long-term transition, a Fourth Turning. It won’t be fun but it is sure to be interesting.

It’s good thing, in my view, because the road we were on these fast few years was the road to doom.

It’s becoming clear to me that bailing out the big banks was a luxury expense. Now the US is going to have to spend more money on the various forms of dole to keep their own people in check, and send food aid to keep other uprisings in check.

I wonder why Fannie and Freddie haven’t begun to sell their own shadow inventory yet. Instead of waiting for the big banks to buy back their trouble MBS for 80% haircut, they could probably sell to private bottom feeders for cash at 50% on the dollar. Before the poor houses depeciate beyond what anyone wants to pay. That would really push the banks’ buttons!

+ 1000 Palmy

” You say you want a revolution ….well we all want to change the World ….” remember that song .

tradition of peaceful transition in power.

many would argue that changing between one manifestation of the republicrat party to another is not exactly a “transition in power”

The revolution in the US will look different… It won’t be televised? … as in secession or break-up. ‘Cause that worked so well the last time….

The Tea Party is not real. It is the Koch Brothers and their Engineering Of Consent. I am no fan of Soros either.

I don’t see a revolution. I see the sheeples just as complacent as ever, until the end. Most folks I’ve met are not even in the theatre of the living or thinking, for that matter.

Housing is fueling the trouble, no doubt. High prices and rents are always win-win, right?

“These big guys are stealing all the money,” said Mohamed Ibraham, a 24-year-old textile worker standing at his second job as a fruit peddler in a hard-pressed neighborhood called Dar-al-Salam. “If they were giving us our rights, why would we protest? People are desperate.”

He had little sympathy for those frightened by the specter of looting. He complained that he could barely afford his rent and said the police routinely humiliated him by shaking him down for money, overturning his cart or stealing his fruit. “And then we hear about how these big guys all have these new boats and the 100,000 pound villas. They are building housing, but not for us — for those people up high.”

Maybe we could re-stage the conflict in Lehigh Acres? The molotov cocktails would be good for the place.

In a diverse country like the US, it would take alot more than bank bailouts at taxpayer expense and a shrinking middle class to get a supermajority all angry enough at one thing or person to unite in revolutionary protest. It’s just easier with a smaller population that is more unified racially, economically and socially/religiously. If we continued on this course for 50-100 more years though, could be interesting. Part of me is bummed I wouldn’t be around to see it.

It is also easier to target a guy who has been in charge of pretty much everything for 30 years than a government where the only folks who can stick around that long don’t have enough power to do anything on their own.

Just wait tell food prices go sky high with inflation kicks in and “the food stamps” for 43 million just will not buy enough for the dinner table. What then! Starving people can get pretty mad for their family!

a Fourth Turning. It won’t be fun but it is sure to be interesting.”

don’t 4th turnings often end in total war ?

“He had little sympathy for those frightened by the specter of looting. He complained that he could barely afford his rent and said the police routinely humiliated him by shaking him down for money, overturning his cart or stealing his fruit.”

This is one of the keys to the trouble in Egypt. The little guys have been looted on a personal level by the authorities for years.

Americans have been looted in aggregate. And we still have a lot to lose. We won’t be ripe for the kind of protests that Egypt is seeing until significantly more of us have nothing left to lose. I think we could see pockets of unrest in major cities as conditions worsen.

in northern va…there are still many many neighborhoods that the people living their couldn’t afford if they were buying their today. (hope that makes sense)

to me…that is still a huge sign that we have a long long way to go.

I know numerous young couples who think marriage is the rite of passage to homeownership. Most would be ashamed of renting. In my value system, that’s not a marriage that will stand the test of time.

meant…there.

If wages and housing costs were in line, it wouldn’t be as much of a problem. The root of the problem is that housing now takes a bigger chunk of income.

Massive inflation is a different problem and fosters a buy-it-now mentality.

Which leads me to the question - how could the fed not include housing in inflation figures during the runup? We were told it was a period of low inflation. Loose money policy was continued based on that premise. It is one thing to lie to the public. In some cases, I think it is reasonable. It is an entirely different thing to believe their own lie and base policy on it. Was this another tactic of the Bush administration to retain power?

And before all of the conservatives lay into me, the bubble happened on Bush’s watch with his Republican comrades in the Congress. Yes, some of the seeds were planted earlier, but it really took off in the 2002-2006 timeframe. And the prime objective of any politician is to retain power. I must say, the Republicans are being really open about this prime objective recently. I commend them for that.

M2 money supply(bank deposits plus physical currency) appears to have doubled in 5 years.

Consistent with another out of control banking system.

http://www.cbe.org.eg/sdds_excel/DomesticLiqu.htm

So Dodd and Frank are republicans? Who knew?

That didn’t take long.

Nice link, warlock!

happwbheard–Housing IS included, but only RENTS. The thinking is the PURCHASING housing is an investment/speculation. You gotta live somewhere, but you don’t have to buy.

Got it. So rents did not increase as fast as prices. And if they had somehow included monthly mortgage payments, the runup would have been muted by the creative pick-a-pay mortgages.

“Which leads me to the question - how could the fed not include housing in inflation figures during the runup? We were told it was a period of low inflation.”

You seem to think the fed is on your side.

Doh!

I forgot, COLAs are tied to the official inflation rate.

Inflation running at 6%. Go to John Williams site @ Shadow Government. Don’t be a sheep.Don’t believe the BLS.

I was intrigued to see in one of the recent links that Egypt was blaming China for killing their manufacturing.

“I was intrigued to see in one of the recent links that Egypt was blaming China for killing their manufacturing.”

Same goes for the Balkans. It is difficult to jump start any country with manufacturing incentives when China or Indonesia can do so much better for way less. Expect to see entire countries on welfare for some time. Left behind takes on a whole new meaning.

It is difficult to jump start any country with manufacturing incentives when China or Indonesia can do so much better for way less. ……………..
They can do it for less because they have no cost of R and D, no development costs. They steal everything from the Western Countries with an offer to make the Foreign companies “partners”. When the West shows them how it’s done, then they get booted out of the “partnership”, or a Chinese firm makes they products with another company.
This scam started with Clinton giving away our computer technologies for a payoff and a mouthing of “goodwill”.

Western Companies have stupid managers. They sell us out for a promise, with no guarantees. They all want to be first in line to get in on the Billion new customers. All they get is fleeced for their companies knowledge and technology.
Of course, it’s cheaper for China and India, aside from labor, we foot the bill for all the new creations…..like their bullet-train. Stolen from the French and Germans, under pretext of being “chosen” to build it for them.
Boeing will be next, along with Ford, GM, and every other moronic manager that thinks he is “expanding his market share”.
Mark my words.

Diogenes - what an excellent post. We are all crying about housing crisis when the real crisis is what Chindia is getting away with. Since the early 90s I have seen their highly educated engineers working in product development, manufacturing processes, etc here in Canusa. Within ten years the company mfg equip is sent to Chindia and the engineer goes home to run it. Numerous times this has happened. Free R&D means life time products - like water heaters to cars - only need cheap cosmentic research. They are even swiping our markets behind our backs once they know the customers by promising 30% less using their internal valuations that don’t reflect their true currency costs.

Now they have advanced this methodolgy to purchasing derelict companies for a song (80 million sales yearly for half a million) and moving their mfg to Chindia. This should be illegal.

They have perfected this from experience purchasing North American fixed assets (often government surplus) for 1% of original cost taking them apart and shipping them back to Chindia.

Remember when they purchased two of your brand new product offerings and you were hoping to get a billion other orders? They took one of them apart to reverse engineer it and the other one they used to see how it worked. Then they make it and sell it back for 70% less than we can make it for. Of course it’s useful life is only a year and the American made one was almost infinity, but what do Sheeple know.

Yes, 75% of Canusa’s economy is service - 3% agro - and about 12% mfg - and those percentages can provide for 100% of the population. But take away half the mfg capacity and give it away for free - Diogenes you are right - moronic managers (and gutless politicians).

I am tired of hearing that the Depression was lengthened by trade barriers. I opine that it was shortened because they gave the US engine breathing space to rebuild it’s market. Henry Ford was the best economist ever - pay well so they can buy your cars. The Canusa economy is literally half of the world economy. Yes, the war started but the economy was already spinning up.

Trade barriers only hurt guber corp dividends - not wages or mfg capacities of the protected country (alliance). If a lot of those lost factories were rebuilt with modern tech abiliity we can easily compete on a level playing field with Chindia. To heck with their future hamburger market. Behind appropriate barriers and with reasonable taxes Canusa can beat anyone.

Because WE are the market.

Great post, patrick!

I was actually surprised that Egypt had any manufacturing.

China is definitely winning the peace.

We need policy that protects our industry from unfair competition.

@Diogenes & Patrick from an earlier post about how Chindia benefit from stealing technologies developed here.

While I agree somewhat with what you say about weak IP protection for your inventions, all is not as simple as you think it is.

How about the fact that the US funds these research by poaching the best and the brightest of those countries human capital, pay for everything by fiat currency which is then stealthily devalued?

By devaluing you too have developed technologies by stealing it indirectly. Say for instance a big company funds a R&D effort by raising money in the international capital markets, this product takes some time like say 5 years to prototype, test, develop and market. By this time the Federal reserve has diluted the dollar by say 25% of its original purchasing power, so essentially you cheated your international creditors by paying in devalued dollars.

If you calculate the brain drain losses indirectly caused on other nations by immigration to the usa its worse. Because the USA did not spend a dime for the workforce educated by a foreign nation. Hence your aggregate cost of the R&D to develop something is even less perhaps something like 20-25%. It is like the NFLX business model, the ISP’s bear the cost of the bandwidth but NFLX pays none of the network costs.

Additionally, some of the researchers you employ over here to develop these technologies are not given green cards or other form of permanent residency but work on temporary work visas. These people sometimes are fired as soon as the company develops something or fail to get green cards due to the huge backlogs at immigration agencies. So they have no alternative but to go back. When they do, it is possible for them to find employment in similar industries. This return and their new jobs back home make it possible for companies in Chindia to offer similar or new products and services as competition.

It is not like Chindians are village idiots, they are huge advancing economies with several trillion dollar GDP’s and have world class talent.

Thus, it is off the mark to think that any advances have to come from America or Europe. otherwise it is stolen.
So really, there is not much of a case for you to complain.

Brachma - with respect I totally disagree with your supposition. Chindia brilliantly reversed the brain capital - they educated them, exported them to Canusa to pirate our tech (and learn the manufacturing processes to make them), and then repatriated them to Chindia along with the mfg equipment they worked on in Canusa (and if you can believe it - massive capital from the Canusa company who willingly went along with this scam just to get cheaper products - which they really haven’t because of the artificial Chindia currency valuation).

I have personal knowledge of this in several instances by large companies.

Currency depreciation is a point but I argue that it is against us because of the acceleration of the IP curve over the last 20 years (the period within this argument) which again Chindia is using in their favour only with their corporate co-operation of Canusa businesses.

Ask yourself how much it would cost to field a marketing and sales force to acquire a market the size that Chindia has gotten for almost nothing. Then add the R&D value.

What a ripoff. Our government’s eyes have been welded shut during this period.

I really doubt that there was a conspiracy model behind it. I do not know if a nation can brainwash intelligent people to go work in a distant land and then bring everything back. They are not robots. They are many who have settled down here in the USA and continue to live here and work here being productive citizens.

For an economy of Chindia’s sizes they do not have a weak currency peg. One never knows since it was never allowed to trade against the dollar freely. They cannot allow their currency to trade against the dollar as such if you own the global reserve currency and completely control its creation and velocity. Technically speaking if they allow the currency to float as you say, what prevents you from printing a bazillion gazillion dollars and then saying you now have bought the whole of Chindia for just 100K tonnes of ink? Nothing really. In fact for Chindia, the only reserve against an abusive currency such as the dollar is to peg it against the dollar.

Well, you could argue that its not fair. But really speaking how fair is it for the rest of the world to let you alone own the reserve currency, run uncontrolled deficits, pay for everything with your fake money that really is nothing but a piece of paper that devalues faster than one can blink?

Yes brilliant comparison, because socialized medicine doesn’t exist anywhere else??

What if that sector of the economy is already corrupt?

“What if that sector of the economy is already corrupt?”

What if the government looking to take over that sector of the economy while using its corruption as justification is already corrupt?

You know, Lehigh, we get that you like the health care system the way it is. You probably have access to great coverage. I do too. We are lucky. I am a little nervous about changing things, because I’m not sure if a new system would make things harder for me.

Then I listen to other people. LIke my friend who realistically only has access to a clinic. Just found out she has kidney disease. Doc did a bunch of tests to look for the usual suspects like diabetes. She didn’t have any of those. After all that rigamarole, he talked to her about medications and things. Found out that the damage is probably related to over the counter medication she used for a very painful condition over the years when she didn’t even have access to the clinic. Oops. Then, on her way out, what does the doc give her? A prescription for a higher dose version of the medicine that he JUST told her is damaging her kidneys even at the non-prescription level. Great health care.

This is woman who works two jobs, has a young son, and is caring for two elderly, infirm parents including a mother whose Alzheimer’s is so bad that she can’t remember to go to the toilet when she needs to. She and her husband are managing to keep that household running by some miracle, but it would be nice if she didn’t have to also be her own doctor because the only one she is allowed to go see is a moron. And if she had been able to access medical care in the 7 years since her kid was born, maybe she wouldn’t have hurt herself with the other medication in the first place.

I don’t understand all the health care naysayers.

Health care should be a fundamental human right. There might be corruption in a public option, it might even cost a lot of money, but it’s worth it. We’re talking about the lives of the people around us. Human beings. Isn’t that a worthwhile cause? Isn’t prolonging and making life better a core component of our civilization and perhaps even our whole purpose here?

Need something to cut so we can pay for the worlds best free public health care system? How about the military?

9/11 attacks killed 2752 people, and that’s justification for a strong military, right? How many people will die right here within our own borders -THIS YEAR- because some run-for-profit health care group won’t provide them needed coverage. How many people will die because they lack the cash required to pay for quality medical care?

Nobody is going to attack the US. China isn’t going to float over here with millions of people on container ships armed with AK47’s. Germany isn’t going to rise back up and try to take over the world. We live in a different time - a time where world war can’t happen without destruction on a scale too epic to imagine. We’ve got a fine and capable nuclear arsenal and a couple oceans separating us from anyone who might even possibly be a slight threat. It’s time we spent our money on saving life instead of extinguishing it.

I’m being idealistic here, but seriously, what the hell are we spending so much cash on the military for? Do we seriously need to blow billions of dollars on the newest fancy stealth fighter jet - when the enemies we face don’t even have an airport? America is -never- going to war with a developed capable country again (and if we -did-, all the fancy fighter jets in the world wouldn’t make ANY difference). WTF are we preparing for? Alien invasion?

Hell, lets leave the military out of this. I’ll pay higher taxes. Where do I sign?

I’m willing to listen though. Explain to me why a free health care system extended to every in-need American is a bad thing.

Because if you don’t have good health coverage, then it’s your own fault. Either you’re “lazy and don’t have a job” or you’re “choosing to buy Starbux instead of health insurance” or “you didn’t eat right” or “you didn’t swim 4 miles every day.”

So says the nice people when I turn my radio to “AM.”

We are lucky. I am a little nervous about changing things, because I’m not sure if a new system would make things harder for me.’

well I doudt it would make it easier for both people who have health insurance and those’s without. I view it more as a zero sum gain some win more some give up more. hopefully big health care providers loss more than I will but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Hopfully if we are all guaranteed health insrance I can give up my stressful job and do what I’ve always dreamed of Cloud watching

we have always carried catastophic health insurance. The premiums for our family has risen to 8k per year. then 1k per head deductible. Daughter breaks her pinky, 1k. Wife has uterine fibroids which will cause her to need a hysterectomy at some point. But the insurance wont pay for birth control; even though she needs it to make her symptoms bearable. They wont pay for my pain medication, cuz they want me to try another regimen (which btw they wont cover either due to one of the drugs being a tricyclic anti-d drug-no mental health benefits). They did not pay for a surgery that they pre approved which cost me 50k.

But we have an asset I dont want taken(house) the next time I end up in the hospital; I have tenuous health which has resulted in 4 surgeries(whiplash plus chest wall injury has lead to chronic pain that is intractable and gets so bad sometimes I cant work any full time job. Duck Duck Goose, baseball or shooting hoops with the kids can set me off. I used to be a hardcore surfer/swimmer/tri-athlete; now I also have osteoarthritis) so we keep paying. We qualify for Oregon health plan for the kids but need to let the private insurance lapse first; which puts my asset at risk for the interim.

Rock or hard place; something’s gotta give here! But our insurance has not been all that good to us; on the other hand they did help with 3 of 4 surgeries that would have broken the bank otherwise.

I know some blame me for my actions; it is just cuz I am lazy or lied on a mortgage app(neither is true BTW)that I took advantage of the housing bubble and am “lettting” my wife forclose on a property while I hold another asset free and clear. Hopefully we can do something to better our finances before we lose everything.

Any suggestions on a good 2 yr degree for my dear wife? Myself I need a masters by 2013 to continue teaching; thinkng special ed, math or maybe get a high school endorsement as managing a regular elementary classroom has proven too difficult(tried it twice/painfully failed twice).

I got my teaching license in the first place because being a vegetable broker/ truck farmer/ farmer’s marketeer got too hard after my accident; I thought teaching would be a desk job and easier on the body. Not so much the case…thank you for any suggestions as kind of at wit’s end. Gave up many career years with raising the kids and getting schooled; the bubble paid for all of that for us. However; counting blessings there cuz I was working 60 hrs/week with the vegetable job; getting hurt made me a better dad!

Explain to me why a free health care system extended to every in-need American is a bad thing.

Simple. Rights are not granted by government. They are GOD-given, not legislated. That’s how they are defined.
They don’t cost anyone anything other than having laws enforced.
Housing, Food, medical care, etc, all COST other people’s time and money. Nothing is free. Nothing.
What you end up with is a system of government sponsored stealing to take from one person to provide for another.
That is not the purpose of the Federal Government.

And most important, government run anything is always wasteful and makes a much more expensive, bureaucratic, outmoded, outdated and wasteful “system”. It is the basis of almost all graft and corruption. Look a Medicaid and Medicare. Fraud galore. WE can’t afford and shouldn’t be saddled with it.

I’ve still yet to meet a European or a Canadian who says they would prefer our health care system to theirs- and I’ve lived in both places. I’ve heard them complain about aspects of their systems, but I’ve never heard one say they’d prefer our type of system.

If anything they’re kind of both fascinated and appalled by our system. They find it unimaginable that we have to worry about losing our health insurance, or being unable to afford it, if we get sick or lose our jobs.

And of course their systems are way cheaper. But we can’t do it in America, because we’re ‘exceptional’.

Thank you, polly.

I find the trends to be disturbing. Health insurance premiums keep increasing, deductibles keep increasing, coverage is becoming more limited. If the trends continue, we will reach a point where more employers will drop coverage, more people will be uninsured, and even basic care will be out of reach for a lot of us.

At a minimum, emergency care should be free. Free clinics for the treatment of infectious diseases should be available everywhere. Prenatal care should be free - it has been proven to save money in the long run.

Very well. I won’t spell it out, but I thought of a way to distinguish the two parties.

One party was decribed as being “wholly owned,” and the other party was describes as containing “enough” that need to be bribed. I guess that if one party votes as a “whole,” and the other party shows a few (that is, “enough”) who differ from the rest of the party on occasional votes, then you can use that example as a method to determine which party is which.

HINT: it’s little easier to solve this problem if you limit yourself to the Senate.

If you limit yourself to the Senate, is your solution really universally correct?

Would Gore have started a trillion-dollar, mass-casualty war with Iraq? Does that count as a difference?

Carl, it’s been going in that direction for the last 4-5 years, but it’s really made a difference in the last 2 years. Members of the “wholly owned” party voted as a block. It was so rare for a Senator to break off the block that it would make the national news. This wasn’t really true for all legislation, but it was true for anything of import.

This is not how legislation was conducted many moons ago.

ISTM that we have evolved to where they are always campaigning for the next election. I would appreciate it if they would take a little time to govern before heading into the next election season.

McConnell’s stated objective is to ensure that Obama does not get re-elected. And it appears that it is the only objective.

If the Republicans manage to win control of the House, Senate, and Presidency in 2012, will they do better than last time? Or will they once again try to demolish Social Security and throw us all at the mercy of the masters of the universe? They are hell bent on repealing health insurance reform. Then they can institute some minor tweaks that will give the appearance of action but have no real effect on the trajectory of health care trends.

If the Republicans manage to win control of the House, Senate, and Presidency in 2012, will they do better than last time?

No. And I say that as someone who has even bigger problems with Ds.

Thanks, Carl.

I think the country does better when control of the Congress and Presidency are split between the parties. And I think we are better off when they have about equal time in control the White House, so the judiciary doesn’t become too lopsided.

I also think it is a measure of how badly the Republicans did (2000-2006) that the Democrats were able to win control of the Senate. With more Republican-leaning states, they should be a shoo-in for control there.

More zinc.

Watch out for those transaction costs, Prime.

Transaction costs?? Hmmm… I’m pretty sure I can melt them down for nearly-free in my garage. Not that I would, mind you, it being a federal offense and all.

Oh good point, though, polly—I definitely don’t want to pay shipping…

I have to, arizonadude. My engine is designed for premium, and boy can I tell if I don’t. Don’t think I didn’t try to go frugal. No car payments (12 yrs) helps the expensive colum.

There are a handful of cars that require premium, like any MINI Cooper or Clubman.

There are a handful of cars that require premium ??

Yep…My Toyota truck has a super charger on it….Sometimes, If I am going to a high altitude I actually add a octane boost to the premium gas…

Generally speaking “octane booster” is bogus. A gallon or two of E85 in the mix can do good things, though. If you’re the super paranoid type you can buy some xylene from the paint store instead. I ran 30% E85 for years when I was running a ton of boost in my Mitsu and had full control of fuel and timing. I had to clean the fuel filter shortly after the first time I did it but there were no other negative side effects for the remaining years that I did it.

Thanks for that info Carl…

I know Bad Andy ,the danger is that it would become permanent . But ,until they sort everything out there may be a need for some emergency funds and that would be the easy way to get it .

“But ,until they sort everything out there may be a need for some emergency funds and that would be the easy way to get it .”

The “Emergency” has been coming for yeeeeaaars!
The only emergency is they seem to have run out of other people’s money.

No, raising the gas tax would just rasie food prices, which would force government to raise the food stamp subsidy. And, no, less money for food doesn’t mean weight loss. It just means people will spend more on carbs. Less money makes people FATTER. (Of course, even if you taught them to eat healthy, they probably wouldn’t. Believe me, eating healthy is a difficult thing to do. Unhealthy food simply tastes better.)

“raising the gas tax would just rasie food prices”

I acknowledged that in my post. But I’d like to know by how much food prices would increase per $1/gal increase before taking a sales tax (or any tax for that matter) into consideration.

And I meant less money for gas, which would get them out waling and biking, so that they would have more money for food and not simply less money for food.

MrBubble

I’m eating homemade posole that I cooked with very little cost or effort at around $1.50 per meal, so good food can be inexpensive.

waling = walking
waling whaling AND waling wailing

Editor ate my != tags.

Mr Bubble ,others’………I just thought that adding a small sales tax would spread the pain out . Maybe I’m wrong ,maybe there are more benefits from doing the gas tax . What I really want is
living within the budget ,but I really want the Wall Street criminals to give back the money they looted .

It easily could be, but not all price increases are due to macroeconomic manipulation. Some of it is boring old microeconomic supply and demand.

As long as they don’t buy the actual FIELDS, China is welcome to all the American corn they can ferment into High Fructose Corn Syrup.* Corn is good only in whole kernal form. Other than that it’s tooth enamel poison and fitness poison.

———–
*HFCS is getting a bad rap, so now agribusiness is lobbying to change the name to “corn sugar” to fool us. B**sta***ds. I don’t know if they’ll make any headway, because corn sugar already applies to regular corn syrup, which has been around for hundreds of years. But I’m on the lookout…

Link to fake rice article:

http://veryvietnam.com/2011-01-22/china-makes-fake-rice-from-plastic-vietnam-reacts/

I wouldn’t put it pass China to do this . I got to tell you that plastic from China is weird stuff ….it smells .

How About No Oysters To Go With Your Plastic Rice?

– Thu Feb 3, 12:20 am ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – A survey of oyster habitats around the world has found that the succulent mollusks are disappearing fast and 85 percent of their reefs have been lost due to disease and over-harvesting.

Most of the remaining wild oysters in the world, or about 75 percent, can be found in five locations in North America, said the study published in BioScience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences.

An international team of researchers led by Michael Beck of the Nature Conservancy and the University of California, Santa Cruz, examined the condition of native oyster reefs in 40 ecoregions, including 144 bays.

“Oyster reefs are at less than 10 percent of their prior abundance in most bays (70 percent) and ecoregions (63 percent),” said the study.

“They are functionally extinct — in that they lack any significant ecosystem role and remain at less than one percent of prior abundances in many bays (37 percent) and ecoregions (28 percent) — particularly in North America, Australia and Europe.”

By averaging the loss among all regions, the researchers came up with an estimate that 85 percent of oyster reef ecosystems have been lost, but said that figure was likely low because some areas lacked historical records for comparison.

The study also did not include oyster reefs in parts of South Africa, China, Japan, and North and South Korea.

Other studies and observations in those areas “suggest that wild oyster abundance was much higher in the past and that reefs have declined greatly in abundance or have disappeared altogether,” the authors said.

I guess they’ll be making plastic oysters next!

Chinese lung oysters? They probably cough up a lot with all that air pollution. Add a little cornstarch…fry ‘em up!

Here in Tucson, Bookman’s is the best used bookstore.

As for new books, well, you’ve got quite the selection. There’s Antigone Books if you’re into to feminist/women’s/contemporary issues with a left-of-center focus.

Like mystery stories? Head on over to Clues Unlimited.

And what about academic/technical books? The U of A Bookstore on the University of Arizona campus is just waiting for you. They’ll order anything and everything and get it pronto-pronto. I used to work there, so, yes, I’m a bit biased.

For further bibliophilic fun, there’s the Tucson Festival of Books. The third annual is coming up next month, and darn if it isn’t at the same time as the KXCI-FM pledge drive. Which means that I’ll probably be tied up on the pledge phones and won’t be able to do much book-festing. Oh, well.

what’s lmao funny is that CAIRs website is promoting “freedom and democracy” in Egypt.

Why wouldn’t they promote “democracy”. Democracy is essentially mob rule. It gets promoted by all our “leaders” who haven’t got a clue about about what a Constitutional Republic the USA is supposed to represent with LIMITED government, specifically outlined in the Constitution.
We’ve gotten so far away from that the people here now think they can vote themselves just about anything, and the government is supposed to supply it…..like food, housing, healthcare…….none of which is jurisdiction of the Federal government.
Welcome the the land of “bread and circuses”. We are quickly following Rome’s ancient empire into a final financial collapse.
That’s where “democracy” takes you. Mob rule and riots.
Egypt’s getting off to a good start.
America’s experiment in “self-government” started off with a “tea party” as an act of defiance over exhorbitant taxes.
They at least had the good sense not to burn down their own town.

Constitutional Republic the USA is supposed to represent with LIMITED government, specifically outlined in the Constitution.
We’ve gotten so far away from that the people here now think they can vote themselves just about anything, and the government is supposed to supply it…..like food, housing, healthcare…….

“gotten so far away”

I know dude, we need to go back to 90% of us being farmers like when they wrote the constitution, and trihorn hats and where there wasn’t much difference between a wealthy and a poor man’s medical insurance. And what about this bs of women voting? And what about the slave thing that our “forefathers fought so hard to end”?

We’ve just gotten so far away from those days when they wrote that constitution thing. It’s just plain crazy.

No doubt!

I want to be singing “Bringing in the Sheaves, Bringing in the Sheaves! in church on sunday. Weez can put an whipping post out back so they can stone the wimmen when they show up with pants on!!! weez can get us some slaves too! A few dark skinned once. We can reinstitute beatings for ALL children under the age of 18… need it or not…. beatings every day.

It’s a conservative utopia!!!

“Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”

-Orwell

NickelBag, never a coherent thought of your own. Always rhetoric and quotes from others. THINK boy!

I am sure you enjoyed the Terminator quote I posted further down. That was gold baby!

THINK

I was saying a while back we should put all of the Money Changers and Monopolist on a island
with a big concrete money sign for them to worship (a little
take off on Atlas Shrugs with a different ending ).

I think Rand missed the importance of the worker bee in her analysis of the value of the Industrial /Innovation contribution . Did Rand even consider the fact that it is people who buy these products that these so-called creative people create and they are the worker bees building whatever is put out ? Now maybe cheating wasn’t in Rand’s analysis of what her idols would do ,
but Monopolies alway form if you don’t have regulations .

I always thought that the big theme of America was to bring
democracy to the Middle East and this would end all the violence,yet when you apparently have a people like the Egyptians asking for it the Powers that be would rather have
dictators pocketing billions while their people starve .

There can be a lot of stability in insanity .

I just think World wide you have a small percentage pocketing all the doe and this is behind a lot of the insanity .

I just think World wide you have a small percentage pocketing all the doe and this is behind a lot of the insanity .

Be careful about pocketing doe.

Sometimes, they have antlers. And even if they don’t, they can really put up a fight.

The islamists are the only ones stoking the flames of hatred and violence. A quote from the first Terminator comes to mind when I want to describe islamists who are determined to rid the earth of all infidels including all non muslims reading this blog. Substitute the word islamist for terminator:

“Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead. ”

That is what we are dealing with folks, like it or not.

‘the big theme of America was to bring democracy to the Middle East’

This is yet another area where the US policy is seen as hypocritical. Tunisia’s former president and party regularly received 90%+ of the votes as did Egypt’s. I could go on. And when the winners of the elections who don’t please the west, you can get results like Algeria.

I read this recently, from 2007:

‘The US ambassador in Belgrade said Serbian voters should turn their backs on the ‘extremists who would be happy to turn Serbia into an isolated island blinded by nationalism’ (3). Actually, the Western powers have helped to isolate Serbia… In short, Serbia presents too many opportunities to cover up the failures of Western policy in the region, and to bolster the West’s moral authority by claiming the mantle of defending human rights and prosecuting war crimes.’

‘The Western response to the election results was best articulated by Javier Solana. Solana welcomed the results by flagging up the fact that the Radicals did not win the majority of votes: ‘the majority of Serbs voted for forces that are democratic and pro-European.’ (4) But even the most ardent EU election monitor would be hard-pressed to use Solana’s new measure as a way of uncovering the difference in democratic value between votes cast in the same election.’

‘What Solana really means is that what counts as democracy is what the EU decides is democratic, and the democrats are those who are anointed by the international community, regardless of who actually receives the votes.’

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/boxarticle/2776/

‘The islamists are the only ones stoking the flames of hatred and violence’

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/multimedia/2008/02/gallery_abu_ghraib

Be sure and go through the photos, one by one. BTW, the US govt refused to release the worst of them.

“BTW, the US govt refused to release the worst of them.”

Didn’t they outsource that ‘work’ to the private sector? As is so often pointed out, the private sector works far more efficiently than the government does (e.g. US military services).

Israel with a population of 7.8 million including about 2 million Arabs who don’t much like the Jews, is surrounded by 22 hostile Arab countries with 60 times Israel’s population and with Israel being the size of Rhode Island, the Arab countries are 640 times bigger.

Now most of those hostile Arab countries don’t even say Israel has the right to exist and many have vowed to push Israel into the sea. Many have already tried more than once. They lost. Too bad. Starting wars has consequences.

Given those facts and the history of nuttball Islamists and of the Arab’s hostility towards the Jews, I come down on the side of Israel although they are far from perfect.

‘most of those hostile Arab countries don’t even say Israel has the right to exist and many have vowed to push Israel into the sea. Many have already tried more than once.’

Which countries vowed to push Israel into the sea, how many started wars? How many say Israel doesn’t have the right to exist? Do you have any facts to back this up, or is this more dark-skinned boogie-man stuff?

Interestingly enough, Egypt had at least a couple of wars with Israel. The big peace deal they signed came along with a couple Billion $s from the US per year; we’re up to $60 billion now. That money was used, among other things to oppress the Egyptian people.

‘I come down on the side of Israel’

Great, so you can start to pony up the money it takes to keep their war machine going, right?

Which countries vowed to push Israel into the sea, how many started wars? How many say Israel doesn’t have the right to exist?

Please see which countries were involved in the 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973 Israel wars, their motivations, the sequence of events and who started the conflicts and why. Please see: Hammass, Hezbollah and the current stance of Iran towards Israel. Arguments can be made on both sides regarding the above although I believe the pro-Israel argument holds most weight.

“Israel has no diplomatic relations with 36 UN member states, 20 of them members of the 22-member Arab League, while majority of the remaining states are Muslim majority countries.” wiki

so you can start to pony up the money it takes to keep their war machine going, right?

I guess I do every time I pay taxes.

or is this more dark-skinned boogie-man stuff?

Of course it’s complicated and emotional however the history, goals, actions and motivations of both sides lead me to land on the side of Israel. No side in this mess is 100% right. Skin color has nothing to do with it. I have a history of defending darker skinned people. I just don’t defend dark-skinned nuttjobs. (or white ones either)