Bits Bucket for February 20, 2011
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The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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This is what I like: A good ole’ fashioned political showdown, complete with Arab protestors milling around outside a dictator’s government center…
WAIT A MINUTE, THOSE ARE WISCONSINITES!
Coming soon to a state capitol building near you. Got popcorn?
* POLITICS
* FEBRUARY 19, 2011
Wisconsin Democrats Keep on the Move
By DOUGLAS BELKIN And KRIS MAHER
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker addresses the anti-union bill protests at a press conference. Video courtesy of Fox News.
Journal Community
MADISON, Wis.—State Democratic senators, holed up in out-of-state hotels, gave no timetable for a return to the capital, putting on hold a fiscal bill that would limit collective-bargaining rights for most state workers.
“When we go back is ultimately up to the governor’s willingness to sit down and talk about this and come up with some sort of resolution,” said Sen. Jon Erpenbach, who fled with 13 colleagues on Thursday to deprive Republicans of the needed quorum to pass the measure. He spoke by phone from a Chicago hotel, where he planned to stay Friday night.
Pro-union demonstrators plan another day of protests at Wisconsin’s state capital. They’re protesting Governor Scott Walker’s budget proposal calling for unionized public employees to pay more for pensions and health insurance.
But Republicans, surrounded by thousands of raucous protesters singing and chanting on the Capitol grounds, offered little hope of compromise.
“The protesters have every right to have their voices heard, but I’m not going to be intimidated into thinking I should ignore the voices of the five-and-a-half million taxpayers,” said Republican Gov. Scott Walker.
…
This is turning into operatic material.
I’m looking forward to the moment the TeaParty rank and foul realize the union-student protesters are protesting the exact same corporate cronyism and civic disempowerment — and all hades breaks loose.
But writ as Opera Buffa or Grand Tragedy? THAT is the question….
HInt: Recall that those who are now confronting a penurious retirement after a lifetime of hard work are the same generation who burned down banks in the sixties.
All comedy is tragedy done better.
It’s an old rule of theater craft that comedies are harder to pull of than tragedies because you need both — woe is he/she/it, and let’s laugh at the concept.
What’s the old saw?
Comedy=tragedy+(time/perspective)?
Certainly all the characters are in place here, as is an appropriately expansive scenario. But once the BSD’s start trying to take ownership of the righteous indignation on both sides, THAT’s when the fun begins.
Me? I’m just appreciating the chess game as it all unfolds. That, and watching it snow….
So, what’s for dinner, Puss? I’m doing a left-over crispy duck stir-fry with bitter greens from my garden. (Getting a head start on the Barossa Grenache.)
I soaked some chickpeas earlier, and I got me some eggplants and some Meyer lemons so I’m gonna go with a green salad, home-made hummus, baba ghanouje, and some freshly baked pita.
Some friends are coming over, and they are bringing the wine. Good times!
You can bet that if both sides ever started to realize they were really against the same boogeyman that the PTB would immediately change the topic using the MSM. There would be a flag/abortion/environmental issue that would gain all the coverage. Either that or another Paris Hilton sex tape would be found.
“Some friends are coming over, and they are bringing the wine. Good times!”
Cooking for two kids; first vegetarian fare for my (vegetarian) daughter, later fish for my carnivorous son.
And my glass of Zinfandel is already half-empty!
Well, tomorrow’s a holiday.
And people talk about vegetarian as if it were a bad thing.
I grew up vegetarian and I’m a mean cook at that (even if I’m not vegetarian now.) It’s called spices and it requires that you understand the arsenal.
I once had a “famous” sous-chef in my apartment — he was banging this friend of mine but that’s neither here nor there — and I told him I’d pay if he named a spice I didn’t possess. In return, he had to “comp me” (which is industry term for a free meal.)
He picked “juniper berries”.
FAIL.
I asked him if he wanted to double down. And he agreed.
He picked “star anise”.
FAIL.
Aah, nothing like some fabulous free meals. The free part is the best!
Winter savory?
Faster…you must have shopped at Adrianas Caravan in Grand Central market….My GF used to work there…..
Juniper berries, star anise? I grow both here on the ranch.
Epizote? Morels…?
It will become more entertaining when the violent mobs here start to look like the ones burning down other nation’s governments.
Seriously, though, is it really going to require violence to fix this mess? Somehow, that doesn’t really surprise me…
You can bet your @ss that, should a revolution gain steam using the internet, our government would attempt to shut it down just as fast as Egypt did.
Supposedly, there is already discussion about them wanting that ability. I am sure it would just be for the “duration of the emergency.” Right…
It’s an interesting contrast. Supposedly, the Egyptians and apparently a large portion of the Arab world, want some form of “representative government”. I doubt it. I think they just want a better life than they have now, like everyone else. I don’t think they really care how things are run, so long as they get a bigger piece of the pie, so to speak.
But, assuming they want “democracy”, I find it glaringly ironic that the people usually claiming to be “for the people” and big on “democracy” are now doing everything they can to prevent the people’s rule.
Democracy is about taking the votes and supporting a form of majority rule. We didn’t like how the group in Washington voted the last time around so we got rid of them.
Now, in Wisconsin, since the minority party can’t get its way, they don’t want “democracy”. They want to game the system so they can win at any cost.
And yet, people like Nancy Pelosi are cheering them on as if they are folk heroes for thwarting the “will of the people” for the sake of their Democrat supporters. It’s not about Freedom and Democracy, it’s about fleecing the taxpayers for the benefit of your supporters and your party. It’s depressing to watch it all.
I would try for a RECALL election for those Senators that refuse to show up to vote on pending legislation. They obviously don’t care to do the job their were elected to do…..vote on pending legislation.
Does WI even have a procedure for recall elections? Not all states do.
Yes, they do and two senators have groups calling for their re-call already.
‘Now, in Wisconsin, since the minority party can’t get its way, they don’t want “democracy”.’
The American system is also about protection against dictatorial rule, and I would say a governor hammering unions at a point when their membership is severely weakened by a brutal recession comes pretty close to a dictatorial power grab.
The American system is also about protection against dictatorial rule, and I would say a governor hammering unions at a point when their membership is severely weakened by a brutal recession comes pretty close to a dictatorial power grab.
How is that dictatorial when the state legislature gets to vote on it (which is why the senators fled the states)???
If that’s not a representative form of government - elected officials voting on an issue - I’m not sure what is?!
senators fled the state
sFTFM
Never mind the teachers also taking the kids from the classrooms and using them as “pawns to parade them down the streets marching in order to obey their teacher’s. No problem of missed days at schools, assignments, no learning.
The teacher’s always come first, the kids second. You have a problem with this?
Did it ever occur to you that maybe those “kids” have valid opinions of their own– and the right to express them? Just because you felt pwned as a youngster doesn’t mean that everyone else does. No teacher can “take a kid out of the classroom” for a political(!) event without the parents’ signed permission, liability release, and informed consent. And if you’ve ever tried to get a school kid to participate in any sort of civic event, you’ll know that if they’re not into it, it ain’t gonna happen.
I would argue that this is PRECISELY the sort of learning event that creates informed and active citizens later on. Teaching in the real world.
Who is teaching the kids when the teachers are gone? O yes the tooth fairy flew in. Now that’s reality!
“…Who is teaching the kids when the teachers are gone? ”
Looks like we may be about to find out….
What I don’t get about this whole story is, why is Madison out in front of Berkeley in the protest movement? What is the size of Wisconsin’s budget hole? — a paltry $3.6 billion over the next two-year budget cycle, according to state officials.
By contrast, Governor Brown puts the current CA budget gap at “over $25 billion.” You’d think those forward-looking Berkeleyans would be able to read the handwriting on the wall, and protest in anticipation of the cuts that are certain to come down the pike.
Anybody for Barry power ? Eh? Eh?
more buyer’s remorse
MADISON, Wis. — The executive board president of the Wisconsin Law Enforcement Association has issued a statement on the organization’s website expressing regret for the endorsement of Gov. Scott Walker in the governor’s race.
In a post dated Feb. 16, Tracy Fuller writes, “I am going to make an effort to speak for myself, and every member of the Wisconsin State Patrol when I say this … I specifically regret the endorsement of the Wisconsin Trooper’s Association for Gov. Scott Walker. I regret the governor’s decision to ‘endorse’ the troopers and inspectors of the Wisconsin State Patrol. I regret being the recipient of any of the perceived benefits provided by the governor’s anointing. I think everyone’s job and career is just as significant as the others. Everyone’s family is just as valuable as mine or any other persons, especially mine. Everyone’s needs are just as valuable. We are all great people!!” The full statement can be found at http://www.wlea.org.
Thanks for your reports from WI, Mikey.
May the workers finally triumph over the capitalists who caused our economy to fall off a cliff. IMHO, this feels very much like our (the middle class’s) last stand.
Diogenes, I feel this is just the same as the minority party in the U.S. Senate holding everyone hostage with a filibuster or at least getting a partial compromise by threatening to conduct one. It’s the only leverage they have. The Senate Dems wisely stepped back from changing the filibuster rules back in December because they’ve been in the minority before and they know they’ll be there again sooner or later.
The Senate Dems stepped back from the filibuster reform because they would need some Republican votes to pass it, and they certainly didn’t have that.
Before 2006, when the Dems were in the minority, they still voted for cloture. That is, they didn’t filibuster all that much, partially because the Dems couldn’t hold the caucus together enough to filibuster and partially because the Dems were “keeping their powder dry,” thinking the Republicans would return the favor if the R’s were ever in the minority.
The only real filibustering the Dems did was for a couple of VERY radical lifetime judges, and for the Bush tax cuts. For the judges, the R’s threatened “nuclear option” to get rid of the filibuster altogether but that was diffused by the Gang of 14. The Bush tax cuts were eventually “rammed down our throats” by the very same procedure that was used on pieces of the new health care law. For both filibusters, the dems were blasted by the “liberal” media. At the time, it didn’t get much attention because big businesses were too busy happily packing away profit from outsourcing. The little guys were happily borrowing to invest in housing. We all know how that turned out.
The R’s and the media have won the battle. Nowadays instead of blasting the R’s for a two-year non-stop filibuster, the media now simply accepts that we need “60 votes” to pass anything.
Oxide, it’s my understanding that under some circumstances Senate rules can be changed with a simple majority vote.
The news articles at the time talked about how some Dem senators were nervous about the future consequences and would have voted against the measure if it had been brought up for a vote.
IMPEACHMENT only takes a simple majority ! Case in point, Barry gets impeached. Vote is tied in Senate. Biteme votes for impeacxhment and he becomes Pres. Priceless
It’s (the Wisconsin protests) depressing to watch it all.
Depressing? Why? No matter who’s side you’re on it rocks. Americans are finally getting off their butts and protesting stuff. That’s part of the process of Democracy too. There are many aspects of Democracy other than elections that influence the political process and protest at least used to be one of them. And “will of the people”? I’m reading the new Gov. might have sold Wisconsin a pig in a poke during his election. And exempting the firemen and cop unions in this bill? What kind of BS is that?
Seems a lot of the people are making their voices heard in Madison. Is that bad? Were you “depressed” when the Tea Party corporate tools were protesting against the public option when polls clearly showed “the will of the people” supported it? One can’t have it both ways and remain credible.
I have very mixed feelings on public unions but, here’s what I’d offer if I were the those Wisconsin public unions:
Don’t give up the right to collective bargain. Now how could a union ever cede that point? It can’t and still remain a union.
But, I’d offer to take larger pay cuts and less benefits than the bill proposes. That way both sides save face, the state saves money but the union is not busted completely.
Well said Rio.
We have finally seen the “anger phase” of the housing bubble stages of grief begin to hit the masses. Fortunately for myself, I think I have largely worked through my own anger issues by now, thanks in no small part to Ben and the other posters here bearing with my occasional rants over the past couple of years.
Right on, Rio. That is, in fact, the way to solve it.
There’s a certain resentment on behalf of private sector workers such as myself who have no union, no benefits, etc., not to mention constantly taking it in the shorts in terms of pay, taxes, etc. I can’t believe what comes out of my paycheck sometimes. And it frosts my naked patootie when I see govmint workers get lots of cheese and the perception is that they’re not sharing the pain with the rest of us.
Thus you have lots of working class folks behind the union busting movement. I’m not saying it’s right, but it’s a way of pitting the people against each other and getting folks to vote for their own execution.
Your solution has an elegant simplicity. It would work. My hat’s off to you.
They shouldn’t have to “share the pain” that private sector workers are now enduring. They FOUGHT for their rights, while apathetic and ignorant private sector employees (not you, Palmy) bought into the lies which claimed “unions are bad,” and “debt is wealth.”
The private sector workers are 100% responsible for their dwindling compensation packages **precisely because they weren’t willing to step up to the plate and bargain collectively,* AND because they either backed or sat idly by while the PTB “globalized” us to death.
The wealth is there; it’s just been shifted UP.
The division of power doesn’t lie between private and public sector employees; it lies between capital and labor — always has, and always will. Until more people grasp that fact, the middle class in the U.S. will continue to fade out.
The Teabaggers came to Madison, Wi to stage a counter-protest in support of Scott Walker.
There were so many of them bused in by Americans for Prosperity that they could have saved their time and money and held their entire support rally in a freakin’ old AT&T telephone booth this time !
Woo-hoo!!!!!!
Rio,
Just FYI:
They DID offer to take pay cuts and cede bennies– several months ago. This is about the collective bargaining issues and untoward corporate control of the Statehouse on the unionist side, and who ends up paying for poor people’s health care on the other.
Let me explain what this is really ALL about as far as union leaders like Beil are concerned……Part of the bill that takes much or the collective bargaining rights away from the unions. This is true, but what REALLY has Beil up in arms is that his workers would no longer be REQUIRED to belong to the union.
Right now, state and gov’t employees in Wisconsin are not required to be in the union, but they are required to pay union dues whether they are or not. Those dues are deducted AUTOMATICALLY from gov’t employees paychecks and sent on to the union. The new law would eliminate this and the employees could be free to be in the union, but they would have to write a check EACH month for their union dues.
They could also choose to NOT write a check, not be in the union, and keep that money themselves. The union KNOWS many will choose to keep their cash and the unions will soon be broke, with no money to send to the Democrat Party each election. THAT is what has the union leaders scared to death, their gravy train is coming to an end.
Scott Walker has always done what he says he is going to do, I would be shocked if he caves now.
My understanding is that they did that Rio the main issue for GOP is doing away with collective bargaining and unions in general.
I like you have mixed feelings about public unions, but the working class in this country has taken it in the A## for too long and they are totally outgunned financially. Most Dems and GOP are bought and paid for. It will only get worse if there are fewer voices and power bases. The consolidation of corporate America and Wall Street and MSM has concentrated wealth and power in fewer hands. Russ Feingold who I consider to be one of the few honorable politicians was recently taken out by a heavily financed opponent. Russ was no friend to the PTB and repeatedly pointed out bad stuff in bills pushed through by both parties. That voice was silenced.
But, I’d offer to take larger pay cuts and less benefits than the bill proposes. That way both sides save face, the state saves money but the union is not busted completely.
——————–
Perhaps they’re not offering up more benefits than what the bill is requiring, but they DID offer up pay and benefit cuts. The Gov. didn’t want to hear about it.
That’s what gets me angry — the MSM makes more of an issue about the “pay and benefits” when that point was already ceded. What they’re fighting for is the right to bargain collectively which, as you’ve pointed out, is the entire point of having a union.
Oops, as I read down the thread, just saw that others had pointed this out.
Perhaps they’re not offering up more benefits than what the bill is requiring, but they DID offer up pay and benefit cuts. The Gov. didn’t want to hear about it.
Right. I know they offered those before. I’m saying that they should offer more now in this phase of the protests and negotiations.
It might allow them to keep the right to collective bargain.
well, diogenes, ever heard of the phrase “tyranny of the majority”? or why the bill of rights was added to the original constitution?
ever heard of the phrase “tyranny of the majority”? or why the bill of rights was added to the original constitution?
Is public employee pay a right protected by the constitution or the bill of rights? Is it a basic/fundamental human right?
Pay for work preformed IS a basic human right.
Despite how bad things are, the courts have often ruled in favor of reasonable rates of exchange for goods and services and against the extremes of gouging and less than market rates for compensation, especially under duress.
Again, as the reasoning goes, the pay and benefits union shops enjoy are made possible by the political power of collective bargaining. When one person opts out– like the FB’s who don’t pay their HOA dues — the rest suffer. And the taxpayer ultimately picks up the slack when the system collapses.
Similarly, when someone chooses to enjoy the benefits of, say, a health care system that keeps them safe and healthy whether or not “use” it or care to pay into it, the rest must pick up the slack for them.
Cue bono?
Hint: It ain’t you and me.
Pay for work preformed IS a basic human right.
I won’t argue against that. No one’s trying NOT to pay union employees. Simply trying to get them to contribute more towards their pensions/retirement/insurance, no?
Are you saying that if they did that, they’d not be getting a “reasonable rate of exchange”?
I don’t know about Wisconsin’s government retirement program, but I do know about my state’s and in my state, the employees contribute a LOT of their paycheck to their retirement.
More than most 401k plans.
But the unions had previously agreed to the new pay structures, but the state rejected it, insisting on giving up bargaining rights as well.
That when the union said “hell no.”
“The protesters have every right to have their voices heard, but I’m not going to be intimidated into thinking I should ignore the voices of the five-and-a-half million taxpayers,” said Republican Gov. Scott Walker.”
Yeah right you lying GOP/RNC/REIC backed /Anti-American Corporate Koch Schill/crony hiring Tosa boy. There were nearly 70 thousand students and working class people standing in the snow in dead of Wisconsin winter at their own expense and personal risk on the peoples lawn in front of the capitol telling you and your Teabagging cronies plus your union busting game plan to “Go Straight To Hell Gov.”
The people ARE the government and they only ALLOW freaks like you to borrow or run it until you fool them or fook up, Your Royal Magesty, Scott the First, by the Grace of Koch of the Corporate Amerika and of the RIC.
Had you pulled this trick this summer, and the people had been alerted in time enough, you’d have needed 3 Military Police divisions of your National Guard…just to direct the freakin’ traffic away from Madison.
The entire State of Wisconsin would have been under seige AGAINST you and your ilk….and it just might well be YET.
You see Scott Walker, politics and the Peoples business in THIS state isn’t REALLY your typical sports “Winner take All” mentality. It ISN’T like some stupid football game, where the crushed losers slouch off the field humbly and quietly, while you victorious clowns celebrate, do whatever you want and then arrogantly re-write the Football Game Rules to your advantage for the next scheduled rumble. No Scotty, feel free to you flatter yourselves but it ALL doesn’t work exactly the way you hoped or imagined.
Those Good American Citizens standing in the cold and snow try to appreciate and particpate in their Government all the times, win or lose. You and your REIC/Koch brothers backed cronies may sit in there comfy in Capitol Building, while holding the titles of govenor and such, while welding a lot of damaging and frighening Power but you DON’T scare them into silence and immobility. The people want to look at and read the Laws you write on Monday nights and try to cram down their throats on Thursdays. Drat those Damned American Commoners.
Those people in the streets and surrounding their Capitol Building caught YOU and your GOP Agenda mischief, moblized and flipped on a National Light expose you and your fellow cockroaches for the entire nation and world to see you and your anti-union game plan/powergrab.
If you GOP Clowns EVER want or dare to call the National Guard against the People at a state capital, let it be in Madison.
It’s really great for business at lan’s Pizza & Salad place and any blood …would run downhill.
“Grace of Koch of the Corporate Amerika and of the RIC.”
Kock on one side, Soreass on the other. What’s the dif? If the Kocks didn’t exist, the Soreasses would have had to invent them.
Soros is about to be on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS- right now.
The top TWO major contibitors to Scott Walkers governor campaign were.
1. The Realtors and builders groups.
2. The Koch bros.
Check you facts
Google is your friend.
The top TWO major contibitors to Scott Walkers governor campaign were.
Serious question:
Is that relevant when it comes to what the majority of the taxpayers/voters have said they want?
“Is that relevant when it comes to what the majority of the taxpayers/voters have said they want?”
There goes that football game mentality again…When it comes to GOP Corporate Sanctioned Tryanny ~~ NOTHING is relevent.
You can tell others to be good slaves and serfs because the you and the PTB say so…
That CRAPOLA and BS doesn’t mean squat to me
“Is that relevant when it comes to what the majority of the taxpayers/voters have said they want?”
Were you as respectful of the winning voters’ wishes when they twice elected Presidents who campaigned on giving us universal health care?
Mikey doesn’t believe in majority rule unless the majority is with him.
Obama for Dictator! At least for a while, like Hugo Chavez.
BiC-
Here you demonstrate a serious lack of both logic and nuance– like Fox calling Jewish refugee Soros a Nazi. It’s this sort of willful ignorance and outright distortion that keeps a democracy from working in the first place. Educate yourself– as a patriot and as an American?
The majority didn’t want blacks and women to vote.
The majority thought evolution was apostasy.
The SCOTUS majority just handed our democracy over to the corporate oligarchy– and is now reaping the result.
As you well know.
This isn’t about issues, it’s about procedure and parity under the law.
What did the voters really vote for? Was it policy or personality? Which policy? Candidates usually run on multiple policies. Which one resonated with the voters?
Did the Wisconsin voters vote for “throw the bums out” (hope and change)?
Which voters turned out for the election? Usually it is those that are riled up and not those that are thoroughly disgusted or apathetic.
I am highly skeptical when any elected official claims a mandate for a specific action.
You can tell others to be good slaves and serfs because the you and the PTB say so…
dude, where the F is this coming from? Are you channeling exeter or something?
Sure, it matters who funds a candidate’s campaign, as they’ll likely be beholden to them. I get that.
However, if the people want something, and the candidates are actually enacting the will of the people (unlikely, I know), then what does it matter who the elected folks are beholden to? If it’s the will of the people, it’s the will of the people. Regardless who is in the chair casting the vote.
Were you as respectful of the winning voters’ wishes when they twice elected Presidents who campaigned on giving us universal health care?
Sure. I disagree with them, and will continue to do so, but I recognize that I live in a democratic republic.
I also choose not to get involved in politics in municipalities I don’t live in as I don’t feel it’s my place - that should be left up to the people who actually live there. So, even though I still get calls and emails from organizations in Texas, I respectfully decline to sign their petitions and to email/call local representatives.
Want to continue to try to challenge my integrity and attack me as a person rather than the actual issue at hand?
The majority didn’t want blacks and women to vote.
Are you really saying that public union pensions (and the unsustainability of them) is analogous to blacks and women having the right to vote?
To Bill in Carolina
“Mikey doesn’t believe in majority rule unless the majority is with him.”
Well, as a small kid, I lived in the deep South long enough to really understand that evil trusim in their quaint old saying that goes…
“Everybody loves a good lynching ~~ except the victim”
I’m sure that any and all of you gang mentality Southern Boys get my drift and know exactly where I stand with when an a un-fair fight or the gang mentality breaks out.
“…Are you really saying that public union pensions (and the unsustainability of them) is analogous to blacks and women having the right to vote?”
What do YOU think, drum?
Let’s not conflate arguments here, okay? We’re talking about the tyranny of the majority and perceived disproportionate corporate influence in the public sector.
DID he win by a majority? (I can’t find the information)
And is IS he serving the will of people when it’s plain as day who his biggest contributors were? (rhetorical question)
We’re talking about the tyranny of the majority
And you appear to be taking that to mean that the majority can’t have it’s way if the minority disagrees.
Tyranny of the majority is an issue when that majority seeks to infringe on the rights of the minority. That’s why we have a bill of rights - to protect against just that.
I fail to see how the current situation relates to that. Who’s rights is the majority seeking to infringe? What protected rights?
And eco, it’s not just about the governor. It’s the legislative body that’s going to vote on it, right? If they have the votes to pass it, then it is the will of the majority (as far as our democratic republic is concerned).
Again, his donors are irrelevant if his votes align with the majority. It may be for different reasons (beholdenness to donors), but the will of the majority is still being served/enacted.
Again, is it? The majority of people didn’t want TARP, but what happened?
Would you then conclude that the majority of people actually wanted TARP?
Let me tell you, 70,000 people marching in the freezing cold MEAN BUSINESS.
As for the 5 million, that’s the TOTAL pop. of Wisconsin. Only ~345,000 are of working age. (best I can find)
Statically, for every one person who openly expresses and acts on a belief, there are 3 more who sympathize. (I will be honest and say I’m not sure if this is current accepted statistical procedure, but was when I was in school)
So… what majority? Or better yet, which majority?
In this case, “the majority” is not the issue. This is about union busting and corporate influence.
The union benefits, the pensions, whether teachers and firemen make too much money vis a vis the general public, are NOT THE ISSUE HERE. Those have already been conceded as fair and necessary compromises in this instance. At issue is the right of the people to band together to bargain in their own self-interest– to self govern, as it were, in the face of overwhelming cronyism in their government. Right up our HBB alley, neh?
Please try to look beyond the partisan talking points and consider the larger implications of this confrontation?
Ultimately, it’s about by the Citizens United ruling and the looming health in$urance crisis– and who is going to pay for it.
And it’s not going to go away.
ahansen is correct. This is a union busting move. The governor is not interested in compromising over wages and benefits, which the unions have offered. He is interested in making sure they can’t even come to the table to negotiate.
It is not about balancing the budget. The governor was instrumental in passing tax cuts that morphed minor budget problems into a crisis whith which to bludgeon the unions. He has exempted the police and firefighters because they supported his election effort. I heard one firefighter state that he is worried they will be next if the governor succeeds this time.
I don’t understand the connection to the health insurance crisis, though. We may see stronger support for a public option if both government and private employers continue to reduce their spending on health insurance for workers.
The connection is that there is a projected $2-3B WI. budget deficit over the next decade after the federal stimulus funding for Medicaid expires in June.
Please try to look beyond the partisan talking points and consider the larger implications of this confrontation?
I’m amused whenever I’m accused of following any partisan talking points. I have no clue what the talking parts of either major party are (R or D), and I don’t fall any either of those camps. Any points I make are my own, not parroted, and not inherited.
So, feel free disagree with what I say, but please don’t condescend to me in that way. It implies you don’t think I’m capable of coming up with my own opinions or ideas, and that there’s no conviction behind my beliefs.
I do believe individuals should have the right to band together to bargain, but honestly I don’t think that should apply to government workers. There’s no way for the government to really go “out of business”, and as such it’s not a free market where the system can right itself if it gets out of balance.
Considering collective bargaining in the private sector, I think it’s fair, however I think that laws regarding monopolies should apply to monopolies on labor as well. It’d be “collusion” if companies band together to limit wages (see the case in California recently). I believe unions should be subject to this as well, as they can have a monopoly on labor and these monopolies can have the same destructive impact.
I think it is interesting that the TSA workers are getting the right to organize. There are many things they won’t be allowed to negotiate, including wages and benefits. But they will be able to negotiate some work rules, like shifts.
If government workers can’t organize, who will represent their interests? Their employer? That doesn’t seem very balanced.
Were you as respectful of the winning voters’ wishes when they twice elected Presidents who campaigned on giving us universal health care?
“Sure. I disagree with them, and will continue to do so, but I recognize that I live in a democratic republic.”
So you agree we should have universal health care now?
So you agree we should have universal health care now?
I fail to see how that follows?
Does it concern you that the top contributors to Obama were the Wall street banks?
As were McCain’s
Note with the removal of unions the elite just gained another leg up on the shrinking financial voice for the middle class and working citizen.
Note that includes most middle management, doctors , most lawyers, accountants, engineers, scientists well just about everyone that is not a CEO Hedge Fund specialist or Wall Street Titan.
When America was young there were many competing corporate interests that quarled and kept the system honest. Through consolidation we have moved to a smaller and smaller # of companies controlling most industries. Many conglomerates control big slices of multiple industries. This consolidation of purpose and finances has left the average American a sitting duck, most have been plucked and boiled already.
The top CORPORATE contributors.
The ACTUAL top contributors were the people, donating through his website.
Another good post, measton.
Freakonomics says money “hardly matters” in elections.
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/mccain-the-media-money-and-montesinos-and-obama-too/
COUGH *bullcrap* COUGH
“…isolate the impact of money…”
There is no such thing. Not in our society.
Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Steve Forbes. Certainly there are candidates who have outspent their opponents and still lost. And these examples are all business people with little to no experience campaigning.
I do question if this is still true. Citizens United may have changed things and PACs may be more influential now than historically. And I am not certain that the spending of PACs was accounted for in their analysis.
Still it is interesting that double the money spent got a 1% increase in the results at the polls. That could be enough in a close election. A large majority of elections are not very close.
What they conclude is that money follows winning candidates rather than money elects candidates. Money is the bellweather, not the driver.
The unexplored question is whether big money donated to election campaigns buys influence. I think most of us would guess that it does. And I think big donors also expect to gain influence with their donations. So if Citizens United hides big donors from public scrutiny, does it also lessen the influence they think they are buying?
There are indeed examples of candidates who out spent, but lost.
But those are OUTLYING examples. Not the majority.
But was it the spending that drove the win or was it the perception of a winning candidate that attracted the money (which was then spent)?
If I am the builders association in a state and there are 100 races to which I could donate, which will I choose and how much will I contribute to each one? I will probably choose the close ones, the ones in which my dollars will have the biggest effect.
If I am a community activist, I will choose to spend my time in a similar fashion.
“I do question if this is still true.”
One need look no further than the Faustian bargain the Obamanites made with Megabank, Inc to find your answer.
“If you GOP Clowns EVER want or dare to call the National Guard against the People…”
Funny, I thought LBJ was a Democrat.
LOL, Bill. Don’t confuse anyone with facts, now.
LBJ: “He poorhouse ruint ‘em”.
You’re must be thinking Ohio and having wet dreams about Kent State again Bill.
Take a cold shower.
This is 2011, in front of God and the capitol buiding Madison, Wi and the whole world is already watching.
See what I mean about the same folks who burned down banks in the sixties?
Right arm, Mikey!
Screed of the week. Right there.
Scott Walker and his cronies are all bald faced lairs.
Don’t take mikey’s word, just read the Truth-O-Meter in the Milwaukee State Journal, the largest newspaper in Wisconsin:)
http://tinyurl.com/5w4txjv
The entire State of Wisconsin would have been under seige AGAINST you and your ilk….and it just might well be YET.
Didn’t a majority of Wisconsin voters put him into office in the first place?
Short memories - when Obama said,”We won !’.Pelosi and Reed jamed their bills down the GOP’s throats and said F.U. Live with it. Fire all the protestors who forged the sick notices. Take away the med liscenses for the Drs and nurses who wrote them. There has to be consequences !
Protests are highly contagious in the Twitter age…
* ASIA NEWS
* FEBRUARY 21, 2011
Call for Protests Unnerves Beijing
BY JEREMY PAGE
BEIJING—Chinese authorities detained dozens of political activists after an anonymous online call for people to start a “Jasmine Revolution” in China by protesting in 13 cities—just a day after President Hu Jintao called for tighter Internet controls to help prevent social unrest.
…
If there is a God in Heaven, please, please, please make this foul-mouthed ruffian lose his race for the Chicago Mayor’s office. I’m not even convinced he actually satisfied the residency requirement to run, though I realize he is effectively above the rule of law by virtue of his baptism into the inner circle of DC politics.
* POLITICS
* FEBRUARY 19, 2011
Emanuel Seeks Outright Win Tuesday
By KEVIN HELLIKER
Mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel campaigns Tuesday in Chicago.
CHICAGO—Rahm Emanuel headed into the final weekend before Tuesday’s mayoral election hoping to win 50% or more of the vote and avoid a runoff.
During an hourlong debate Thursday night, three candidates for mayor took turns attacking Mr. Emanuel, portraying him as a carpetbagger, an anti-immigrant zealot and a self-serving operator whose personal fortune was derived from political contacts rather than hard work.
But Mr. Emanuel never became defensive or displayed any of the combativeness that had characterized his tenure as a Democratic congressman and more recently President Barack Obama’s chief of staff. In his closing remarks Thursday night, Mr. Emanuel praised his three opponents as “very good public servants that I consider friends.”
His magnanimity reflects the cautiousness and confidence of a candidate who—every poll suggests—will easily win the most votes in Tuesday’s nonpartisan election, barring some final-weekend gaffe. If he reaches 50%, he would win outright and be spared an April 5 runoff with the second-place finisher.
But political observers here say Mr. Emanuel is far from certain to emerge Tuesday night as Chicago’s next mayor. Before retiring Mayor Richard M. Daley began his decades-long reign here in 1989, the city had a long history of unexpected surprises in the weekends ahead of city elections.
Twice, the final weekend provided crucial surges for the late Harold Washington, Chicago’s mayor from 1983 to 1987.
“The last weekend is crucial in Chicago politics,” said Paul Green, who is director of policy studies at Chicago’s Roosevelt University.
…
The article is right: polling in Chicago misses many important voting blocs. Not too many telephones in graveyards these days.
Vote early, vote often.
I too hate rahm but believe me when I tell you that there is no other viable candidate. They remanining candidates are the sorriest bunch of kwame impersnating losers I’ve ever seen. I think many in the city think that rahm will at least be able to keep the status quo while the rest will lead us straight down a path to detroit. The candidates are that bad which is why rahm is leading with a large margin.
Are you in Chicago, legal eagle?
Just looking for some context- locally you get the chapter and verse whereas outside of the area we just get some of the headlines and soundbites.
From the perspective of someone in the Chicago ‘burbs, I think Legal Eagle has summed it up well. Everyone is POed about the parking meter deal, but the candidates math skills demonstrated with regards to most of the other issues seem to get a bit fuzzy.
Ive been living in the city proper since 95. The rest of the candidates are all a bunch of hacks. Two of the three main contenders are machine politics hacks, one guy Chico made a million dollars a year ‘lobbying’ for outside companies to get city contracts. Another brings up reparations. Still another candidate blames Rahm for the failure of congress to address a path for illegals to citizenship. The other candidates remind me of senator clay davis from the wire. All speech and no substance. Rahm is at least a northsider with no real entrenched loyalties. He’s a north shore suburban guy aka wealthy and educated and is the only candidate who wants to cut pensions which believe me are totally corrupt and absurd in this ciy. Our city is turning into manhattan where the underclasses are being pushed out to make way for younger more educated urban minded folks (no necessarily wealthier aka hipsters) and rahm is a reflection of that. We lost 200,000 people last decade and bt for the younger urban folk it probably would have been tens of thousands more. The city is a wealthier more urban place and the middle class is nearly gone all in the suburbs. Of course it is not totally an urban paradise but the census trends clearly reflect the change and the other candidates are a step backwards. They remind me of kwame thinking this is still some crappy gritty urban place where anything goes. Its not anymore. Its a more compact high density urban place filled with young people.
I’m almost positive Legal is from Chicago as is I (note the wonderful English I learnt on the city streets).
Trust both of us. Rahm is Abraham Lincoln compared to the rest of the clowns running. But that’s not saying much.
Remind me to never move to Chicago.
Why is our President getting involved in State issues?
———————————-
The president’s political machine worked in close coordination Thursday with state and national union officials to mobilize thousands of protesters to gather in Madison and to plan similar demonstrations in other state capitals.
Their efforts began to spread, as thousands of labor supporters turned out for a hearing in Columbus, Ohio, to protest a measure from Gov. John Kasich (R) that would cut collective-bargaining rights.
By the end of the day, Democratic Party officials were working to organize additional demonstrations in Ohio and Indiana, where an effort is underway to trim benefits for public workers. Some union activists predicted similar protests in Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. [...]
The White House political operation, Organizing for America, got involved Monday, after Democratic National Committee Chairman Timothy M. Kaine, a former Virginia governor, spoke to union leaders in Madison, a party official said.
The group made phone calls, distributed messages via Twitter and Facebook, and sent e-mails to its state and national lists to try to build crowds for rallies Wednesday and Thursday, a party official said.
He is trying to compensate for his absolute ineptness in dealing with the banksters.
“Why is our President getting involved in State issues?”
That’s his thing.
State issues…, or Union Issues?
What ineptness?
He’s functioning perfectly since he’s indebted to them. Surely you can’t be that clueless!
Text of VP Biden’s once-top-secret union speech
March 5, 2009 5:12 pm
Vice President Joe Biden, who’s been touting the Obama administration’s commitment to government transparency so much that he couldn’t remember the recovery.gov website name last week, gave a speech to the AFL-CIO’s Executive Council today where few working people can afford to go — the newly-redecorated Fontainebleu Hotel in Miami Beach. (Discount rooms available now online for $399 — each night.)
REMARKS BY THE VICE PRESIDENT TO THE AFL-CIO EXECUTIVE COUNCIL ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Fontainebleau Hotel, Miami Beach, Florida, 11:10 A.M. EST, March 5, 2009.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. (Applause.) Hey, thanks for the welcome. You make it believable. (Laughter.) I tell you what, it’s like visiting Jimmy Williams in Philadelphia. (Laughter.) Hey, it’s good to be — at least in my best comfort zone, man. The best place for me to be my whole career is surrounded by organized labor. And I know how to say “union.” (Applause.)
And old joke, Mr. President, you know, you go home with them that brung you to the dance. Well, you all brought me to the dance a long time ago. And it’s time we start dancing, man. It’s time we start dancing. (Applause.)
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/03/biden-unions.html - -
I don’t know but it looks like at least some of his base may be flopping on him.
Checking out interviews with a few rappers this morning whose lyrics and ideas sound rather hbb inspired. Sounds like people in the streets may soon be waking up to what’s going on.
The musical lead in on this first interview says Obama is corporate owned w/words like: Just behind the scenes the elite are pulling the strings. In the second interview: “The media is the right hand of the ruling class.” “Obama being the continuation of George Bush is an understatement.” He goes on to explain how they were both just cogs in the machinery.
Rapper General Steele/New CD: America’s Nightmare
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRE3d5ovuXI&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Rapper M-1(sorry,not a fan of his band’s name which I won’t include)
Popular song: Propoganda. You can’t fool all of the people all the time but if you fool the right ones, the rest will fall behind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jsAiY-CSNY
Wow…he’s as articulate as…well…as rap!
How come mostly poor people wind up in prison….well duh General maybe they have no clue how to read, write and speak English….
M1 still doesn’t get it…The best thing that can happen to America is when black people commit crimes at the same rate as white people…now who can be against that goal?
Is it culture or poverty that correlates with crime rates?
Crime creates poverty, almost directly. Criminals drive business and good citizens out of the Neighborhood and invite more thugs in. You wouldn’t invest money into a business in a “bad neighborhood” and neither would I. You wouldn’t buy a house in one, either.
therefore, if you don’t contain the criminals, you will have rising poverty. Just as bad money drives out good money, criminals drive out the law-abiding citizens.
CRIME creates Poverty.
A very touchy subject.
While I often try and champion the poor and their lack of opportunities and justice, I will also have to agree that the poor are often their own worst enemy.
Not only on an individual basis, but cultural as well. They will ACTIVELY work to hold back their friends, neighbors and even their own children from bettering themselves.
I’ll bet none of you thought you would ever hear me say that, did you?
But until we create an environment of REAL opportunities and equality under the law (not BY law, but under current law) and not one of privilege that we have degenerated into, we’ll never really know which of the poor will try and which will not.
We already know what the privileged will do.
“CRIME creates Poverty.”
Ever been to Newport Beach?
“criminals drive out the law-abiding citizens.”
Diogenes, it sounds like you are describing the creation of blight more than the creation of poverty. The law-abiding citizens didn’t necessarily become poorer.
“They will ACTIVELY work to hold back their friends, neighbors and even their own children from bettering themselves.”
This happens among poor, rural white folk as much as among poor, urban black folk. And it is a problem. But as we are seeing among recent college graduates who are mired in debt, education doesn’t necessarily result in a better life. One of the great tragedies of the educational debt crisis is that the most ambitious of the poor have also been entrapped, sometimes without having any credential to go with it. Some of the private vocational schools have gone out of business leaving their students in the lurch.
It is a necessary struggle that is playing out in Wisconsin, one that will come to all of our states. At some point, there is no more money (credit) for families, for cities, for state governments whose income fails and whose spending is excessive.
What a shame though to have the President’s stooges sent into the crowd, not unlike Mubarick’s stooges throwing stones during the protests in Egypt.
Nice false nonequivalency you got going there. It is Governors’ Walker and Kasich who are the moral equivalent to Mubarak in this mess. They and the GOP guard started this and the wage earners will end it.
The stooges were sent in on the side of the protestors, not the side of the state gov. So the Egypt analogy doesn’t quote hold. Whatever. I heard that Teabaggers were bussed in as well. I hope this doesn’t turn out like Bleeding Kansas did.
The Tea Baggers showed up on Saturday. One carried a sign that said, “Sorry we’re late. We have to work for a living.”
All union members are thugs.
One carried a sign that said, “Sorry we’re late. We have to work for a living.”
Hah, that’s funny
“All union members are thugs.”
That`s not true!
Some are drunks.
One very thoughtful and creative little HS girl carried the best sign for the Walker, the Teabaggers and the GOP earlier this week.
It read…
“If you can read this sign, thank a teacher”
I believe the kid’s sign was little too complicated for Scott Walker and the Teabaggers but all things considered, I seriously hope and trust that this her simple but powerful message, ISN’T totally above the heads of some on this board.
(I’ll also wager that that little public HS educated girl with her sign can type, spell and manipulate the English language a lot better than old mikey too.)
All union members are thugs.
And remember Bill…..they are all either 100% with you or against you, and that means 100% of the time for certain.
Because to try to think otherwise might burn too many calories.
“All union members are thugs.”
Does that include St. Ronnie Reagan, president of the Screen Actors Guild?
Hee hee, this is too easy.
“If you can read this sign, thank a teacher”
My mother taught me to read, actually. And to write, before I was “taught” such things in school.
Can I thank her instead, since she really deserves the credit?
“Hee hee, this is too easy.”
Yeah, it was pretty easy to show how foolish your statement was.
“If you can read this sign, thank a teacher”
My mother taught me to read, actually. And to write, before I was “taught” such things in school.
Can I thank her instead, since she really deserves the credit?’
Yes absolutly, drunninj, wonderful ~~ You are one unique child.
Oh…Make sure she gives you a little Gold Star, a Grahman Craker and some milk too. Tell her mikey said it was okay.
(Nice girl, but about as sharp as a sack of wet mice.)
drumminj=UniqueChild. I like it!
your teacher, nonetheless.
“If you can read this sign, thank a teacher”
So if you use a bathroom do you have to thank a plumber? If I eat a hamburger do I have to thank a butcher? If my roof doesn`t leak, do I have to thank a roofer? Where does it end? Do I have to thank everyone who has a job that they are payed to do that has affected my life? Or do I just have to make sure they all don`t have to contribute anything to their retirement fund or pay for any portion of their health insurance? Or is that just teachers and butchers? Or is it firefighters and roofers? And what about that roofer? What if my roof does leak? Do I still have to thank him? Or do I just have to make sure he doesn`t have to contribute anything to his retirement fund or pay for any portion of his health insurance? Just wondering.
Well. (she sniffs) You certainly don’t need to thank your English teacher.
OMG….Hut-two-three-four! Hut-two-three-four! Hut-two-three-four! Halt! About-face! Hut-two-three-four! Hut-two-three-four! Hut-two-three-four! Hut-two-three-four!
Now we have a small army of conservate mental giants ,all dazed and confused, trying to figure out the deep, deep mysterious and hidden meaning behind her liburl sign…
“If you can read this sign, thank a teacher”
Sorry, didn’t really mean to drain 1/2 the Tebaggers brain power in here.
(Next time I’ll post the picture of the girl and her sign and they’ll just have a blank stare)
Sheesh~~it’s like I posted a quadratic equations or something !
I am really and truly sorry Ben Jones and the rest of the HBB people. I will stop it right now and won’t do it anymore.
I will behave….just as soon as I stop laughing at them.
I promise I will.
I repent!
“Well. (she sniffs) You certainly don’t need to thank your English teacher.”
I know. I am one of those knuckle draggers. My opinion shouldn’t`t even count. Probably the reason I have busted my butt for over 30 years, payed ALL of my bills and taxes, never had anything repossessed or foreclosed on. Never had anyone (besides myself) pay for health insurance for myself or my family. Done countless hours of work for people less fortunate than I am (mostly single moms and gasp, 2 older ladies who were life partners and good friends of ours) but could not afford to pay for it and were never asked to.
So I should just shut up and listen to those of you who speak and write beautifully.
Nah.
“Sorry, didn’t really mean to drain 1/2 the Tebaggers brain power in here.”
Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals
RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.)
You write beautifully, too, JS, and I always make a point of thanking you for your jaw-droppingly excellent parodies.
But like all of us, you occasionally post a (horrors,) teeny misspelling or mis-punctuation which, when we moderately disagree with a position and can’t control our itching smartass-retort fingers, inspires the more pedantic of us to leap upon it like turkey vultures on roadkeel.
Only with love.
ahansen
I have a feeling you are one of the people in this world that I disagree with on certain positions and would still love spending time with.
And I will gladly take a “smartass retort” (If I said that right) from you anytime.
Enjoy your Sunday evening.
P.S.
I am now going to look up the word pedantic.
Now we have a small army of conservate mental giants ,all dazed and confused, trying to figure out the deep, deep mysterious and hidden meaning behind her liburl sign…
Mikey, you discredit yourself by stupid to ad hominem attacks like this.
Clearly anyone who disagrees with you is not only “conservative”, but you sarcastically call us “mental giants”.
Wow, I really want to engage in any kind of discourse with you here, and certainly want take all your comments seriously and consider them thoroughly.
Now, compare your responses to those of ahansen, who clearly is on a different side of the issue, yet manages not to attack the individual and keeps her comments civil.
Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals
RULE 5: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions. (Pretty crude, rude and mean, huh? They want to create anger and fear.)
——————————————————————–
But it’s rule #1 in the GOP conservative playbook. And it’s wearing thin.
And I guess I should look up “apostasy.” But I’m guessing it’s some kind of illegal party drug, like ecstasy.
But it’s rule #1 in the GOP conservative playbook. And it’s wearing thin.
Exeter. I try not to get sucked into arguing with you both for the “mud wrestling with a pig” factor as well as that I think in real life we’d probably get along pretty well.
However…I’ve never seen you need a mirror more badly than you did when making this statement. You are the king of ridicule. I always assumed you just owned that, I never thought I’d see you accuse somebody else of it as thought they did it more than you.
Drum–
I’m not on any “side” of this issue, as my previous posts (which I’ve neither the time nor the inclination to reiterate,) demonstrate.
Personally, I don’t believe that public servants should have the right to collective bargaining, but this issue goes beyond the politic into the realm of our survival as a nation–and how we choose to structure our ideologic foundations.
I don’t take that lightly.
Thank goodness we don’t live in “the world according to drumminj’s expectations.” How f***ing boring that would be…
This will all be moot when the dollar collapses.
Some people are buying gold. Midas found out that you can’t eat gold. Pismoclam on the other hand, is buying lead circa 38spc and 357mag. For protection only. hahahahahaha
That’s what cowards do.
But our Kenyan leader told us, ‘If they bring a knife we’ll bring a gun!’
“Why is our President getting involved in State issues?”
For the same reason the RNC and the republican governers assocation is. In fact they started this.
Why is our President getting involved in State issues?
Because he wants to lend support to his Socialist friends.
But to be perfectly honest, I don’t think Obama understands that States are separate parts of the government in the Federal system.
His vision is that he is charged with controlling everything that happens at all levels of government. The concept of State’s rights is just an inconvenient vision of a by-gone era. His vision is that of Centralized power with a bunch of Czars that answer only to him, to dictate to everyone else what we will do. So forget State issues. Those are just lines on paper.
…. because you’d much prefer the corporatists to rob you blind. That way you’ll personally guarantee your own economic demise.
it took me a while but now i get your meaning.
if we don’t allow the govt employee, and unions to rob us blind then the corporatists will, thanks for looking out for us Obama!
You’ll never be welcome into the inner corporatist circle. Peons are disallowed.
Charlie Tango,
Labor (ALL workers) is on one side, and capital is on the other.
Which side are YOU on?
Socialists, Commies, Liburls, Thugs, students, Mexicans, Blacks, upity women, Arabs, godless pagans and so on all surround you…
Meanwhile, the danged meteors keep falling on your heads and they’re getting bigger and bigger. They’re everywhere, they’re everywhere.
Sheesh….no wonder the great right wing reactionary white, pink and fat, American’s GOP dinasaurs and wooly mammoths are getting frightened and are currently stampeding screaming…
The Corprations will save us, the Corporations will save us, they will give us shelter !!
“Socialists, Commies, Liburls, Thugs, students, Mexicans, Blacks, upity women, Arabs, godless pagans and so on all surround you…”
I know.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/booking-blotter-736966.html - 44k -
Just to clarify. I have friends that represent every group you have mentioned except for Commies and godless pagans. Or if any of my friends are Commies or godless pagans, they haven`t mentioned it. On top of that, I am related to a couple of “upity women”.
“He who oppresses the poor to increase his wealth and he who gives gifts to the rich — both come to poverty.” Proverbs 22:16
Because it is an issue that effects our core principles as a nation?
Because it is an issue that effects our core principles as a nation?
that justifies meddling in local politics?
I get paying attention, and perhaps talking about how issues with the federal government might be similar, but states are meant to be sovereign.
If not, why don’t we just dissolve all state governments and rule at a federal level?
Hardly local, drum.
Witness all the jabber on the media, the busings in of partisans, the heated conversations we’re having right here on this forum.
The “Koch Brothers” are everywhere, as are public service unions. The Pension Tsunami is upon us and Madison is a testing grounds for our National Downsizing.
Moreover, I would argue that American “States” in this time of mass communications, e-commerce, agri-monopoly and global corporatism, are largely a quaint and irrelevant designation that cause more consternation than than they prevent.
Understand that the above is in no way an argument for more federal regulation, just the recognition that what happens in Wisconsin (or Iowa and New Hampshire during primaries, or California environmentally,) affects the entire country perhaps more than it did when the original colonies were chartered….
Having seen for myself the tyranny of small town power structures and good-ol-boy governments as rule of law, I, for one, am grateful for some form of standardized expectations of behavior and practice enforced by federal authority. This whole war lord thing sucks if there’s no one to step in and say, “Hey, Local School Board, Egyptology isn’t ‘Satanism.’”
It’s a balancing act. And THAT’s what we’re seeing played out in These Troubled Times all across the planet.
* POLITICS
* FEBRUARY 19, 2011
Public-Pension Fight Surfaces in California
By JIM CARLTON
Gov. Jerry Brown talks with reporters Friday. He has called for raising public employees’ pension contributions.
SACRAMENTO, Calif.—Fighting over spending on public employees has shut down the state capitol in Wisconsin, sent police officers marching in Hartford, Conn., and sparked the largest public protest ever in Trenton, N.J. Now, it is complicating California Gov. Jerry Brown’s plan to close a $26.6 billion budget gap.
Mr. Brown, a Democrat, wants the legislature to authorize a ballot initiative that would ask voters to approve the extension of a temporary tax increase as part of his plan to deal with the state’s deficit.
But some businesses say they won’t support a tax referendum unless Mr. Brown agrees to tackle a public-employee pension overhaul as part of his fix.
“Without pension reform, my clients feel it is virtually impossible to change the fiscal situation,” said lobbyist Terry McGann, whose clients include insurers and construction subcontractors.
Many union allies of the governor are just as adamant in opposing any pension overhaul tied to the budget.
Analysts say Mr. Brown chose the initiative route because a tax extension wouldn’t attract the two-thirds of lawmakers required under California law to approve tax increases. He now faces a mid-March deadline for securing the legislature’s approval for putting the measure on a June ballot. Missing the deadline could sink the tax extension and complicate efforts to grapple with the deficit.
Mr. Brown needs the support of a handful of Republican lawmakers. Some business groups are pressuring their GOP allies in the Democrat-controlled legislature to make a pension overhaul the price of their votes.
The state’s annual retirement costs for public workers have risen to about $6 billion a year, from $1 billion in 1990 and $2 billion in 2000.
…
When the airlines went bankrupt in the 90’s and early 2000’s, mainly to shed pension obligations, the result was packed planes, nickel and dime fees and shoddy service. But travelers are accepting it because “they have to fly.”
We are now seeing the same thing with state governments. The end result it will be the same as the airlines: shedding pensions, nickel-and-dime fees and government service even shoddier than before. Of course, the rich will do just fine because they’ll buy their way out of any situation, but as for the poor (there won’t be much middle class), they’ll probably applaud small government with the same breath as complaining about potholes, ask where “their” unemployment checks are, and be the first in line for what’s left of Medicaid.
Isn’t deregulation great?
Ned Ludd, call your office.
I’m afraid the unemployment checks are running out. No more extensions. All that “stimulus” money, and the results have been dismal. Locally, in my neck of the woods:
Dec. 10: 11.6%
Nov. 10: 12.3%
Oct. 10: 11.5%
Sept. 10: 12.2%
unemployment just runs up and down around 11.5 to 12%.
At least, that’s what’s being counted.
Immediately north of here:
Dec. 10: 13.0%
Nov. 10: 13.5%
Oct. 10: 12.7%
Sept. 10: 13.1%
Oddly enough, the immediately north section had LOTS of new housing developments in 2004-2006. Construction is dead.
A lot more “street people” here in the Tampa area. New panhandling laws to keep them from begging on the streets.
Happy days are here again.
Yeah, I used to see this type of panhandling only in Tucson, where one person paces around on the median strip next to the left turn lane. I dislike it, have no respect for it either. I keep my windows rolled up and ignore them. We paid our dues.
That style of panhandling is everywhere in Boulder and seems to be worse than normal this year.
We have it at about any gas station of your choice. Just try to pump gas without somebody accosting you for money to help them out of some kind of fabricated “jam”.
“…unemployment just runs up and down around 11.5 to 12%.”
And that’s on the good side of town.
And the bad side of town is coming soon to a neighborhood near you.
“We are now seeing the same thing with state governments. The end result it will be the same as the airlines: shedding pensions, nickel-and-dime fees and government service even shoddier than before.”
I am still waiting for my official drivers license from Kalifornia. I paid for my new one last OCTOBER. I have called the DMV, god I love that department, and they have continued to send me paper extensions while assuring me my hard copy is on the way.
And speaking of potholes, we have some of the worst roads here. I have been on better roads in Africa. And yes I pay my fair share of taxes, believe me. One of Obamas America Reinvestment plans, the one with the patriotic looking highway signs, apparently was supposed to make me feel better somehow. My reaction then was are you fuck!ng kidding me? I’m supposed to feel grateful for something I’ve already paid for? F you.
It is high time to roll back all of the BS subsidies and artificial barriers to reality. The currency collapse will see to this.
This system is so fuck#d up it makes me sick.
Southwest never went bankrupt.
Never bankrupt. Highest on-time ranking. Highest safety record.
Another great example of how good management makes the difference.
We are now seeing the same thing with state governments. The end result it will be the same as the airlines: shedding pensions, nickel-and-dime fees and government service even shoddier than before.”
yep lower standard of living all around now that the borrowed money is going away
Good post, oxide.
Just for grins, I used R to fit an exponential model to those three data points:
log(y) ~ a + b*(annual retirement costs for CA public workers)
It fits pretty well (for just three data points), with an estimated instantaneous growth rate of 0.0856. That may not seem like a big deal, except it implies that pension costs since 1990 have been doubling every 8 years on average. Projecting at the rate of increase over the past two decades out to 2020 gives:
1990 $1bn
2000 $2bn
2011 $6bn
2020 $12bn
Luckily, we still have the option to leave California without having to sell a money pit here, or I might be concerned.
If something cannot continue forever (grow exponentially) it will stop.
That was basically my point; we are at the point where it has to stop in the next decade or sooner.
That was basically my point; we are at the point where it has to stop in the next decade or sooner.”
Will it stop peacefully? Like WI ? happy times ahead for CA.
PB,
Aside from the pension boost enacted unde Gray Davis (raising the formula from 2% @ x years to 3% @ x years (which I thought were totally irresponsible and unsustainable from the very beginning), why do you think the pension costs have risen so steeply?
Just wondering if you have any insight on this.
Thanks!
Is housing the worst possible investment yet?
Housing portfolio boss resigns from CalPERS
Published: Saturday, Feb. 19, 2011 - 12:00 am | Page 6B
Another top investment officer has left CalPERS.
James G. Lasher, who was hired two years ago as senior portfolio manager for housing, resigned effective Friday, according to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.
No reasons were given. But CalPERS lost several billion dollars on housing when the market collapsed, and housing is being de-emphasized in a just-approved overhaul of the pension fund’s real estate portfolio. Instead, CalPERS will concentrate mainly on existing, income-producing commercial properties.
CalPERS spokesman Clark McKinley said that in the past year, Lasher had mostly been working on investments not related to housing.
Earlier this week, CalPERS confirmed the resignation of two senior portfolio managers who worked in the fund’s private-equity unit.
– Dale Kasler
Not yet but in a few years (at least for NY, CA, etc.)
You and your wife will be owning one sooner rather than later.
I can’t help but mention the conversation between Chris Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics and Pimm Fox on WBBR yesterday. In essence, Whalen stated housing is a disaster and prices will continue to fall for another 10 years. Pimm had to pull a “what about” out of is a$$ and say, “Well Rockland/Orange counties in NY have the lowest default rate”, as if to state NY is different without saying so.
I mostly agree with Whalen but sooner or later for most people here there will be “lifestyle” issues.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again for most places roughly around 2014 would not be a bad place to pick up a house. Not gonna be a stellar investment just a house to live in.
I agree with both you and Whalen — i.e., 2014 might not be a bad time to catch a falling knife, as they will be close enough to the ground at that point to not risk losing much money, but a glance across the Pacific at Japan should suffice to demonstrate that once fallen, knives can stay close to the ground for upwards of two decades. Given a flood of baby boomers who will be looking for the opportunity to downsize their family-sized nests into right-sized retirement housing over the next two decades, coupled with a smaller, poorer cohort of new entrants to the U.S. housing market, it’s not like there is going to be a severe shortage of McMansions over the next twenty years, even if every home builder in the country stopped building tomorrow.
But they didn’t. This brief Spanky Monkey upturn has made them build more.
Oh, the humanity!!!
Gen Y is larger than the boomer generation- 80 million to 76 million (and actually, the 76 million figure is for all births, so it over counts the boomers, many of whom have gone on to the great love-in in the sky).
Of course, Joe Gen Y can’t get a job and has a 100k student loan.
So what Bear is saying is that housing on the low end — and closer in to the downtowns — is going to remain high for a while because demand will be high, both from baby boomers who are downsizing 10 years after they should have, and Gen Y and/or H1-B who finally got their down payment together.
I for one do not want to buy a decrepit McMansion with no yard, a dictatorial HOA, and an hour commute, even at a low price.
seems like a plan live light, lots of cash gigs, collect some welfare food stamps medicaid…and default on the student loans…because if you start to make too much $$$ you wont be better off.
I apologize if this WSJ article was linked earlier.
“Retiring Boomers Find 401(k) Plans Fall Short”
online dot wsj dot com/article/SB10001424052748703959604576152792748707356.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read
“Since the housing and financial markets began to collapse, about 39% of all Americans have been foreclosed upon, unemployed, underwater on a mortgage or behind more than two months on a mortgage, says Michael Hurd, director of the Rand Corporation’s Center for the Study of Aging.”
2014 is when I think inflation will start kicking into high gear.
If it kicks into any higher gear than it already is, it’s going to strip those gears.
Big surprise about the 401s. It’s hard to save when your wage hasn’t kept up with inflation for the last 30 years.
Alpha, do you have a reference for those numbers? If true, this is a game changer in the rhetoric.
“This brief Spanky Monkey upturn has made them build more.”
Any builder whose ass gets reamed due to building at this juncture deserves it, for being short-sighted and for believing Bearspanke, who has so far proven wrong on everything he said.
Any bank that loans over 50% to value deserves to be spanked. Too bad SBA and Dept Ag are still in the house loan biz. Then they shovel it off to to Freddie and Fannie.
eco- It’s from wikipedia:
“In the United States, the actual “Echo Boom” refers to the surge in live births starting in 1982. This new “baby boom” period spanned thirteen years, continuing through 1995.[8][9][10][43] Today, there are approximately 80 million Echo Boomers.[9]”
“Seventy-six million American children were born between 1945 and 1964 ”
–
The larger number of the echo boomers is even more glaring when you note that the baby boom generation is nineteen years long, while the echo boomers are only counted for thirteen years, for some reason.
Like I said, America is better off demographically than almost any other developed country. There’s no reason to gut social security, unless we get collectively hoodwinked by the PTB and their lackeys.
“Not yet but in a few years…”
At the risk of pushing my customary Devil’s advocacy role a step too far, what is the real world constraint that will force an end to extend-and-pretend sooner rather than later?
Showing the struggle that follows foreclosure
By Sam Allis
Globe Staff / February 20, 2011
Marshall Cooper, 75, protested a bankers convention in Boston last October. His story of facing post-foreclosure eviction is featured in ‘We Shall Not Be Moved.’ (Kelly Creedon)
…
caught in a sea of distressed sales:
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/02/20/3416531/antelope-home-sellers-trapped.html
“The Rossittos put up their 1,900-square-foot home for sale in November for $250,000. After getting little response at three open houses, they cut the price to $240,000.
That’s about $125 per square foot. The average listing price for foreclosures and short sales in the Antelope area is $99, according to MetroList MLS.”
And I wouldn’t pay more than $80/sqft for a spec home.
After getting little response at three open houses, they cut the price to $240,000
If someone thought the 250k was too high, but was okay with 240k, I’m thinking they’d simply make an offer at 240k.
I imagine that there’s a ~10% range or so where people would be willing to counter under asking. As such, you’d need to drop considerably more than $10k to get beyond the range potential buyers have already shown is too high.
“If someone thought the 250k was too high, but was okay with 240k, I’m thinking they’d simply make an offer at 240k.”
You and I might, but based on some of the sales I’ve seen there seem to be a lot of folks who “don’t want to offend the seller” or think “well, that’s the price so I guess if we want it that’s what we have to pay.” The vast majority of people don’t like tough negotiation.
Agreed. My brother’s house sat unsold for 6 months about 3 years ago. I told him to lower the price, but he didn’t want to “give it away”, but in the end he listened to me. The Realtor tried to talk him out of it, but the price was lowered by 15K (I told him to undercut everyone else in the neighborhood with a comp).
It sold in 2 weeks.
Then I told him to rent (He was moving to a metro Raleigh exurb). His new employer was willing to pay his closing costs. I told him he could kiss his 20% down payment goodbye if he bought at that time.
Fast forward to today: New comps in his neighborhood are selling for 70% of what he paid. So not only did he flush his 40K down payment down the toilet, he’s underwater.
It could have been worse. He could still be stuck with the old house, making two payments (yes, he bought the new house before selling the old one). Good thing too as his wife was laid off from her teaching job.
Good. We don’t want dumb teachers working teaching our kids.
Exhibit eyes foreclosure crisis
By Jerry Kronenberg
Saturday, February 19, 2011 - Updated 1 day ago
Photojournalist Kelly Creedon aims to put a human face on Boston’s foreclosure mess with “We Shall Not Be Moved,” a multimedia exhibit that opens today to document seven Hub families’ struggles to keep their homes.
“I wanted to paint a more intimate portrait of how people are personally impacted by this crisis— and how these people have used the experience of foreclosure to become politically active,” said Creedon, whose exhibit is premiering at Dorchester’s Codman Square Health Center.
The free exhibit mixes photos, audio and video to tell both homeowners’ stories and the efforts by activist group City Life to keep people in their homes.
…
…
“I wanted to paint a more intimate portrait of how people are personally impacted by this crisis”
So why don’t they meet with some of us, and see what we’ve been doing to, “cope.”
unde = under
Whoops! That was supposed to go under my response to PB.
————
My response to Muggy’s post is:
Amen, brother!
Did they ever ask that 75-year old why he hadn’t paid off his house?
They deserve to be evicted. No sympathies whatsoever.
Best quote: “I know some people were cheated, but I also know that lots of people used their houses as ATMs during the housing boom,” market watcher John Anderson said. “So, I think it’s good that (Creedon) is doing this as an art project rather than an economics project.”
But it’s not really an art project, it’s one of those shovel-ready stimulus projects: ” Creedon, a 33-year-old photographer who financed her yearlong project with a $10,000 National Endowment for the Humanities grant.” Your tax-dollars at work.
It’s OK.
I’m down with the NEH. It’s all small potatoes compared to the Defense Budget.
They should just shut down all foreign bases and let those countries defend themselves but you’ll never hear a conservative defend that particular stance.
BORING!
That’s not true. I’m very conservative but think we need to stop providing military protection for rich countries (e.g. Germany, Japan, Korea, et al.). We keep bases in places like Germany to supply logistic support and stopovers for our wounded coming back from places like Iraq. If Germany wants to be our ally, why don’t THEY pay for the bases and let us use them when necessary?
The biggest mistake we made after the fall of the USSR and Warsaw Pact was retaining and indeed expanding NATO. NATO should have thrown a wild “Cold War Victory Party” around 1994 and then disbanded.
A military alliance with “everybody” ends up being no military alliance at all.
Faster….We should get let foreign bases stay but require the countries pay for it….if they refuse then bring our people home.
My guess is that those bases aren’t there to defend those foreign countries, but rather to assert our control over various parts of the world. You know…let them know who the BIG MAN around campus is.
continued: …so that we can maintain access to resources around the world, and assert our dominance vs. anyone who tries to stop us.
Speaking of stimulus projects, stimulus money was used to four-lane the highway leading into my town. The project was started BEFORE all the right-of-ways were acquired. The four-laneing has been halted, and the project has ended up in court. Until it’s settled, we have to play dodge ball around hundreds of construction barrels, and maneuver the confusing route of new and old roadway, and the businesses whose entrances and exits have been turned into mazes have lost god-only-knows how much business.
Before getting the right of ways?
Dear lord.
Dio,
Think of it as a living history contribution to our national archives– much as is this blog. 10K for a year’s worth of compilation and interpretation is a small price to pay for the record it leaves.
Maybe someone in a future position to make a difference will view it and be forewarned….
At 10K for a full year of labor, she was pretty cheap. At 40 hours per week, that is less than $5 per hour.
As someone here says, “GTFO.”
Sounds like jumpmaster dialect.
“We Shall Not Be Moved” will be open from 4-7 p.m. today at the Great Hall,”
“If I don`t pay my rent, my @ss and all my belongings are on the street” is open 7 days a week and 365 days a year.
And ain’t nobody gettin a government grant to tell that story.
“If I don`t pay my rent, my @ss and all my belongings are on the street” is open 7 days a week and 365 days a year.”
LMAO. Good line Jeff.
Now that’s funny.
Good one.
Why is it that the federal government openly discriminates against renters, especially given that we have a Democratic administration in the White House and renters tend to heavily overlap with one of their key constituencies (”the poor”).
How do Democrats believe they stand to benefit by discriminating against poor renters?
How do Democrats believe they stand to benefit by discriminating against poor renters?”
What you don’t qualify for section 8 ? Renters credit?
I don’t either but that’s how government deals with poor renters the middle class is another story
Excellent, Jeff!
Posted on Sunday, 02.20.11
Mortgage crisis
Homeowner associations step up foreclosure filings
Strapped for money to pay for property maintenance, many associations are foreclosing on owners who don’t pay fees, then renting the units to bring in cash.
Don Urquhart is with the homeowners association at the Quadomain Condominiums in Hollywood, which has foreclosed on some residents who haven’t paid fees.
PATRICK FARRELL / MIAMI HERALD STAFF
By Donna Gehrke-White
Special to The Miami Herald
As Don Urquhart says, no one wants to throw a neighbor out of his home. But that is exactly what some have had to resort to doing in South Florida.
When dozens of owners quit paying maintenance fees at Quadomain Condominium in Hollywood, Urquhart and other leaders stepped in and starting filing foreclosure notices.
“It’s not fair for your neighbor to pick up your share,’’ says Urquhart.
Move over, banks.
Condo associations – hard hit by the meltdown in property values, financially drained by owners who either quit paying fees or walked away from their units entirely – are protecting their interests aggressively, often by foreclosing on delinquent units, then renting them out to raise money for maintenance.
…
This is just so awesome I’m lost for words.
Then what do you think about the Nampa-Meridian Irrigation District in SW Idaho? Every property owner in their district gets an annual irrigation bill based on acreage. When clueless homeowners fail to pay, they put a lien on their house. After three years of liens, the NMID forecloses on their house. The local paper here in Boise covers these sob stories every year shortly after the billing cycle is over.
Many of these bills are for only about $40 a year, but homeowners mistakenly think because they aren’t getting any irrigation water delivered that they therefore don’t have to pay the bill. They get a rude awakening when they get home from work one day to find the sherrif auctioning off their house.
This is also so awesome!
I love me my schadenfreude and these ‘tard stories are like a smorgasbord!!!
That’s a beautiful system. I sure wish they put a similar one into effect in SoCal, as we could clear out lots of deadbeats in no time flat…
Many of these bills are for only about $40 a year…
That doesn’t sound sensible. You’re saying that this NMID is foreclosing in some cases over ~ $120 in unpaid bills? Can’t something be worked out? Doesn’t it cost a lot more than $120 to go through the whole foreclosure process?
MMike,
The owners had their chance to pay the bills. They got reminders from NMID, sent certified mail. How many chances should they get?
Yes Mike it is a small amount, but 3 years is a long to “work something out”.
Here’s a link to a story about the NMID auctions.
http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/08/11/1299384/nampa-meridian-irrigation-district.html
Voluntarily joining a HOA is equivalent to self
imprisonment in a maximum security prison. Why
anyone would do this just makes my head swim.
Ironically, the HOAs may have more legal standing to foreclose than the ‘we’ve got the note somewhere’ banks do.
O-oh, MERSy MERSy me…
Unfortunately in many places HOAs are not very voluntary. Local governments see them as a way of off-loading responsibility onto individuals. In order to get a permit to develop a subdivision around Boise, the developer has to establish a HOA charged with maintaining the local parks and streetlights. This way the city can skate on such responsibilities. We’re lucky we got the county highway department to assume responsibility for street maintenance in our sub. But our annual HOA dues are $300 and that includes all the irrigation water you care to use April-October.
Exactly DennisN.
There isn’t a single number in this article. I wonder how much the condos cost, what the fees are, what the rent payments are, and whether these luxury condos will resort to accepting Section 8.
Several people have asked me when I’m going to buy a house, or worse, suggest that a single woman like me belongs in a condo. I have resorted to being rude.
“Several people have asked me when I’m going to buy a house, or worse, suggest that a single woman like me belongs in a condo. I have resorted to being rude.”
We often get that “Houses are a bargain now. Why aren’t you buying?” comment. I tell them when all the older boomers in town start downsizing at the same time, then I’m swooping in. I get to watch the look of abject fear cross their face and then they walk away. This town is ~20% older boomers.
If you really want to cause fear, instead of “downsizing,” use HBB Kim’s fantastic phrase: “moving in with Jesus.”
Oh, that one is sweet. Missed that one on the first go round. : )
That is just so awesome. How did I miss that?
Oh, sweetie, you don’t need to be rude. You need to say things like, “I went to Cambodia on vacation. Where did you go?” or “Too bad you can’t afford expensive dinners any more. I sure hope that house is working out for you”.
Just drop by with an expensive bottle of wine in your Ferrari. That’ll end all the “suggestions” and if not there’s always, “I’m sure you can’t afford this bottle so you should save it for a special occasion.”
There are sooooooooooooooooo many ways to “handle” the situation.
Live well and make sure you enemies know it.
Word.
Isn’t that a divorce axiom?
“…Live well and make sure you enemies know it.”
Is a good way to get your arse handed to you on a plate.
Not in my world.
You don’t have County there, Rancher?
No hungry lawyers in the Big City?
Never employ help?
No resentful yahoo neighbors?
Have no transportation corridors running nearby?
Have on-site 24-hour surveillance and goof-proof emergency response?
Cool!
Live quietly, stay rich.
Advertising your “wealth” in any way at all is very bad strategy.
Unless you are certain of your privacy. Those saps who post ads on millionaire matchmaking sites are asking to be ripped off.
I will never forget my dad telling me about an older couple. The man was a wealthy rancher. They lived cheap, drove an old pickup, socialized at senior citizen centers. A few years later I asked my dad what happened to them. He said they both passed away, leaving their wealth to their only son, in his 40s. Well he met a floozy and spent all that was left. Once you are gone, you are not around to care about what happened to the symbol of you - your wealth.
“Advertising your “wealth” in any way at all is very bad strategy.”
For sure ~~ everday now, I expect some hot little number down the Tampa/St Pete location or her b/f, to be actioning BIT’s shrunken head(or whatever) for sale on ebay.
Correct.
We have small town lawyers who are pretty good.
Had as many as 37 employees at one time, all on profit sharing and better than union wages.
All my neighbors are good people, as we
try to be for them.
One: I-5 miles away, can’t hear it.
Very fast response from the city police
We like living quietly. In a small town,
everyone knows who’s made it and who hasn’t. Just a fact of life. A friend of mine, a rancher, is probably worth more than
100 mil, another owns more than 50 mil
in commercial RE, to them it’s not the money, it’s the GAME. The first mil is the
hardest, after that you hire people to help
with the grunt work. Once you get over
5, you’d have to be a total idiot to lose it.
Of course, if you tell the average American you went to Cambodia for vacation, they’ll pity you. ‘You poor thing, if you owned a home you could have afforded to go to Myrtle Beach.’
Been there, done that. Was bored within the hour.
Seriously, what do people see in it? It’s nice but it’s just so blah.
I’d rather go hiking in the Sawtooth Mountains, which fortunately is only a 2 hour drive from my place in Boise.
Myrtle Beach is not for intelligent people…just transpose a few lines:
California gurls, we’re unforgettable
Daisy dukes, bikinis on top
Sun-kissed skin, so hot, we’ll melt your popsicle
(Oh-oh, oh-oh, oh)
(Oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh)
California gurls, we’re undeniable
Fine, fresh, fierce, we got it on lock
West Coast represent, now put your hands up
(Oh-oh, oh-oh, oh)
(Oh, oh-oh, oh-oh, oh-oh)
Sex on a beach
We don’t mind sand in our stilettos
We freak, in my jeep
Snoop Doggy Dogg is on the stereo
Just ask them up front how much market value they have lost on their money pit since the 2006 housing crash, or better yet, offer to look up the current value of their house for them on Zillow in case they pretend to be clueless. (Caveat: I don’t recommend you do this if it is your boss who is chiding you into buying a home…)
FFPS, unfortunately, I’m living it up with cheap wine and Toyota. I live Where the Jobs Are, and for rentals I’m competing with military housing allowances and Section 8 subsidies. ie, the rent is too damn high.
PBear, luckily the boss hasn’t pushed too much. We did fall into talk and I just said I’d been following housing for a while and I therefore I know enough to make my own decision. The boss was too busy complaining how crazy it was that her own vacation home on the shore had been appraised “too low.”
The one co-worker that pushed owns a condo near work and a SFH way out. Her husband (also in the office) just pushed for a raise and was rejected.
On another co-worker’s computer I saw an icon labeled “mom’s refinance.” This guy is also blithely looking at buying a ski condo in The Mountains, mountains far enough away that he has to fly there.
These are people with advanced college degrees.
Oh, fer’ cryin’ out loud, you people haven’t learnt how to handle bosses?
Tell them that you can’t afford it, and when they pay you more, you will “think about it”.
Talk about killing four birds with one stone!
Jeebus. What’s wrong with you people?
My boss and others in his circle tried to suggest I should buy a home circa 2006. In response, I shared my view of the looming real estate crash and politely suggested he consider selling off his five or so rental properties.
These days, we don’t discuss real estate much any more.
JPMorgan Says Lehman Left It ‘Goat Poo’ Collateral
February 18, 2011, 5:30 PM EST
By David McLaughlin
(Updates with Lehman’s response in sixth paragraph.)
Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) — Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. tricked JPMorgan Chase & Co. into holding onto collateral that the bankrupt investment firm internally described as “goat poo,” according to a court filing by JPMorgan.
JPMorgan was stuck with Lehman’s worst securities backing $25 billion of loans as Lehman was sold to Barclays Plc in September 2008, JPMorgan said in its filing yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. Lehman described the collateral as “toxic crap” and “goat poo” to be scattered “in other people’s backyards,” JPMorgan said.
“Only later was JPMorgan able to determine that the position in which it unexpectedly found itself was the result of collusion and deception” by Lehman and Barclays, JPMorgan said.
The accusations appeared in amended counterclaims against Lehman in its lawsuit against JPMorgan. Both companies are based in New York.
Lehman accuses JPMorgan of siphoning billions of dollars from Lehman, leading to it collapse in September 2008. London- based Barclays bought Lehman’s broker-dealer unit after Lehman’s bankruptcy filing.
Kimberly Macleod, a spokeswoman for Lehman, and Mark Lane, a spokesman for Barclays, both declined to comment.
The case is Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. v. JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, 10-03266, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
It’s fun to watch two turds wrestle, I LOVE it!!!!!!!! Of course, only the lawyers will profit here. But, if the lawyers can keep it going long enough to exhaust the turds, I’m all for it.
Let’s hope the turds eventually get flushed down the toilet…
Your imagination is sorely disappointing.
I was envisioning a full on poo-match where the winner stuffs the “stuff” down the loser’s throat. Cue the barfing and the slinging of the upchuck, and then you have a real party going.
But then I have a very vivid imagination and if you don’t believe you, you can ask my mom.
“goat poo,”
How does that asset rating compare to the ’shitty’ rating Goldman Sachs internally gave to the toxic mortgage assets which they helped John Paulson package up and sell to those poor, unsuspecting German investors?
Aren’t all MBS and CRBS in the “goat poo” category these days?
People who live under the outhouse shouldn’t throw poo.
When did grown men start saying “poo”?
“Florida needs tougher steps against real estate fraud… For instance, it took the division two years to investigate Miami broker Donald Charnin, who was accused of pocketing security deposits.”
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/article1152455.ece
You make it sound like fraud is a crime. That’s so 1990’s.
Really. The guy was just “monetizing” others’ misfortune. Give the guy a break.
Holy cow…. A 35% federal tax charged on foreign earnings for US companies?
————————
As Fortune reports that Apple is one of a number of U.S. companies with significant profits generated in international markets that continue to sit abroad as the companies prefer to not pay the 35% federal tax charged on such foreign earnings.
To address this situation, Apple and these other major players are reportedly stepping up lobbying efforts to try to get the federal government to offer a one-year “tax holiday” that would allow them to bring the profits back to the United States while only being subjected to 5% tax, with the rationale being that the money could be put to work in the U.S. to stimulate the economy rather than simply sitting in foreign bank accounts.
A group of tech, pharmaceutical and energy giants is readying a major lobbying blitz for a tax holiday that would allow them to bring home the estimated $1 trillion they’ve got parked overseas at a steeply discounted rate, Fortune has learned.
The campaign is still in its planning stages, but sources close to the effort say Oracle, Cisco, Apple, Duke Energy, and Pfizer are among the major players looking to bankroll a coordinated, sustained pitch to sell policymakers on the idea. Their aim is to win a one-year tax amnesty on their foreign earnings, allowing them to repatriate that money at a tax rate of about 5%, instead of the 35% they face now.
International markets have become increasingly important to Apple as iOS devices have proliferated around the world. In fact, Apple reported that during its most recent quarter, 62% of its revenue came from international sales. Consequently, billions of dollars in profit are being generated overseas each quarter, and Apple has been loathe to turn over 35% of those sums to the U.S. government.
Corporations have won the “right” in the Supreme Court to the same “free speech” that individuals have. Fair enuf, then let them PAY the same taxes that individuals have to pay if they work overseas.
An interesting concept - responsibility coming with rights? How very un-American, or should I say, un-corporate! Hehehe…
Seriously, I agree with you. These corporations have become Undead - all the “rights” and no responsibilities - the law doesn’t apply to them.
They will spend a year lobbying for the holiday, claiming they will create “jobs.” They will pocket the money for a year and create NO jobs… …just in time for the 2012 election. Then they will beat the “jobs” drum again to make that tax holiday permanent.
If Congress falls for it, oh happy day for them. If Congress sticks to its guns, it wouldn’t surprise me if these evil corporations threaten to move the company out of the USA altogether. Why stay? They’ve already outsourced all the USA jobs and stripped-mined the USA market for all its blood anyway, and the developing world now has electricity and flush toilets. Perfect! The time has come for them to leave Mama USA behind, to make the products in rice huts in Cambodia and sell to its primary market: China/India.
China/India are about to see the other side of outsourcing.
Nailed it!
There are actually companies who specialize in moving money tax free from country to country. They take advantage of tax agreements and tax havens.
wrong they don’t take advantage of tax agreements and tax havens. They create tax agreements/ loopholes, and tax havens. THEY OWN GOV. Not just here.
http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1249465620080812
Over half of all corporations, foreign and domestic, pay no federal taxes in any random year.
Ya gotta love it. The US military scrambles around the world keeping it safe for Corporations and their profits, but poor underemployed Joe 6 Pack is expected to pick up the tab. As the British would say: Brilliant!
the 2011 spring market will be a crushing bust and another leg down, as we get one more step towards price discovery.
No home-buyer tax credit, more confusion than ever about robo-signing/title issues etc., as well as the potential elimination of QE2 in June. I was down in the Savannah, GA area recently, the number of stalled/dead subdivisions was mind-boggling. Houses priced at $400m up where the median household income is maybe $45m a year. I guess everyone wants to be in rural GA, as well as CA, NV, FL, NY, MA, et al. It must be tough to be a bullish realtor…
One of our area MLS listing sites offers a tab for homes whose price dropped this week. It always gets cleaned out on Saturday night and starts anew on Sunday mornings. Today there are 8 listings which start at $174,500 and move downward in price from there. Apparently everyone else isn’t going to be giving their house away even the owners whose little boxes of sunshine have been up for sale for a year or longer.
“the 2011 spring market will be a crushing bust and another leg down, as we get one more step towards price discovery.”
I’ll second that. The games with inventory continue to cloud the issue though. I’m seeing inventory build in some states in a very big way, yet others seem to be flat or falling. But I concur… there are only a few low-lifes playing the denial game anymore.
“the 2011 spring market will be a crushing bust and another leg down, as we get one more step towards price discovery.”
It sure feels like that. Superbowl is over, warm temps this week melted just about all the evidence of snowmaggedon a couple weeks back, and still only three open houses in my town today.
I’m thinking the “union issue” is going to spread like wildfire if the unions fail in WI. If so, ALL workers — public and private — can expect to see massive cuts in wages and benefits. What are they going to do, move to a different employer?
I’ve long said that the govt sector will lead the next leg down, and that it would be much bigger than the blip in 2008.
IMHO, the next leg down is about to begin…
It’s tough to have any price discovery with the FED buying up bad debts and gaming the interest rates, along with Fannie and Freddie still providing loans to people who haven’t got the wherewithal to save a few thousand dollars. You can have any price you want a ZERO percent interest and no money down. That’s would got us into this mess.
We need to get the government out of the lending business so that interest rates and mortgage terms find some market valuations. As the FED tries to prevent this and games the markets, its tough to figure it out.
I am wondering what the Phoenix household income is. Let’s say a couple, one is a nurse, the other a worker at Luke AFB. $80,000? Then they could get into a $200,000 house. Of course, if they think prices will continue dropping in Phoenix, they would wait. I am at the point where I could pay cash for a $200,000 house and have a lot of net worth to sit out a depression. But I fear commitment.
“Let’s say a couple, one is a nurse, the other a worker at Luke AFB. $80,000?”
I thik they’d make more than that. I know nurses that make 80K alone.
Problem is that couple isn’t “representative”. I’m thinking more along the lines of an underemployed construction worker and the wifey works at Target.
And then loses her job.
The big question of the future will be how many McShacks can a typical unemployed family afford? And how can The Powers That Be change the definition of “afford” without having to increase employment or decease housing prices?
This is from the Wikipedia entry on Maricopa County:
The median income for a household in the county was $45,358, and the median income for a family was $51,827.
It appears that this is from the 2000 census, so the numbers today might be a bit higher due to inflation. On the other hand, the REIC is very important to the AZ economy, so the median family income has probably declined significantly in the past few years.
Though you might see a lot of expensive SUVs cruising on the freeways, Phoenix is not a high income area. The typical family income is usually around the national median, currently around $50,000.
But your sample numbers are reasonable in one respect. The ratio of house price to family income you imply is 2½, which is what was typical before the bubble. The national average was around 3 and that made housing in Phoenix more affordable than many other places. That, in turn, is what helped the population to grow so dramatically for decades. People moved here for nice, affordable housing, not necessarily the weather (a common misconception).
This is why it was very foolish for people to believe that high house prices were good from the AZ economy. If a family had to pay $300k for a standard suburban 3/2 in a mediocre neighborhood, inward migration from other states would eventually decline, and the Arizona economy, which relies heavily on that migration, would suffer.
IIRC, the average Phoenix sales price is under $120,000 on houses being sold. That would kind of indicate house prices are in line with current incomes at this time. Yet people are not realizing job security these days.
Intel announced a née production facility coming to Phoenix and bringing 500 jobs.
New.
How many of those jobs will be going to Americans vs. visa/green-card holders? Just asking… somehow, corporate America doesn’t seem big on the whole “job creation” thing these days… maybe it’s that slave sages are just cheaper to pay, especially when an executive needs a bigger weekend yacht!
IIRC, the average Phoenix sales price is under $120,000 on houses being sold. That would kind of indicate house prices are in line with current incomes at this time. Yet people are not realizing job security these days.
Intel announced a née production facility coming to Phoenix and bringing 500 jobs.
It may be that house prices will undershoot on the down side, with the median dropping below $100,000. There are a lot of empty houses all over the county and many thousands of foreclosures in the pipeline.
Also, 500 good new jobs are always nice, but there are over 4 million people in the Phoenix area, so it won’t have a big impact.
How many of those jobs will be going to Americans vs. visa/green-card holders?’
foundry work ugh the scientists will be heavy in the green card department the workers not so much.
Dangerous work nasty chemicals that can eat bone or burn when exposed to air.
Actually MightyMike, the numbers will probably be LOWER.
Diogenes, Palmy, et. al., good to see you posting on this beautiful Florida morning. I have a question for the Floridians: How long do I have to live here before I can be completely annoyed by snowbirds and their mumblings (It’s not like this up in Bahston)?
I feel like a made man this year (year six, approaching seven).
Too soon?
Once your continuous stay in Florida completes two full summers you’ve earned the right to be justifiably annoyed by those snowbirds.
Prior to that you’ll only be annoyed.
Oh, jeebus, Muggy, don’t get me started on this lovely Florida morning.
Mumblings? Actually, I’ve been noticing some peculiar phenomena lately on behalf of the older snowbirds and retirees and I am hoping someone with a background in health or gerontology can explain it to me:
1) Staccato grunting. I can’t tell you how often I’m running into this lately. It’s sort of like people talking to themselves and not knowing it. I’ll be in a store or at a yard sale and all of a sudden I’ll hear this “Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh-uh” and look around to see that it is coming from the aged person next to me. It’s really weird. It’s like instead of humming under their breath, they’re grunting instead. WTF IS that?
2) A weird chemical or licorice type odor, which I suspect comes from ostomies? All I gotta say is, if that’s what it is, ostomies are pretty widespread. I’m not trying to be mean, but it is actually difficult to carry on a conversation with someone exuding that odor, although I suppose the alternative is worse.
And finally, I’m also learning that the children of some of these retirees are only to happy to dump their parents on the community in which they are living. In some ways, I can understand, but there seem to be a lot of older folks who really shouldn’t be on their own. You can kind of see that some of these folks were probably considered “eccentric” in their more youthful days. But as they get older, it turns into “bat-sh*t crazy”.
What’s really scary, however, is when you see these folks driving the wrong way down the street. I witnessed two accidents in the past three days, one was major, a snowbird couple in their late 70s from Connecticut bought the farm, plowed right into the back of an SUV and tied up the main drag here for hours.
Yup, yes, and wow.
This morning an old guy PUSHED by my wife (holding our 1 year old) in a parking lot to get to his door first so he didn’t have to wait for my wife to put our baby in the car.
If I end up in jail for going 800lb. gorilla on one of these guys, make sure you call in any sheriff favors you have so I can hop on the HBB once a week or so. Lol (sort of)…
“I’m also learning that the children of some of these retirees are only to happy to dump their parents on the community in which they are living. In some ways, I can understand, but there seem to be a lot of older folks who really shouldn’t be on their own. You can kind of see that some of these folks were probably considered “eccentric” in their more youthful days. But as they get older, it turns into “bat-sh*t crazy”.”
My in laws are in their 80s and living in condo cluster of mostly older owners, and many of my husband’s friends’ parents are at this point. This is a very stubborn group. There may have been many offers to live with or near the children but any loss of independence for them often just represents one more step closer to the end. The elder sometimes acts desperate to not take that step. The elders also don’t want to lose the network of friends that may still be around. And it may be hard to learn the ins and outs of a new area at that age. It’s harder for them to “start over” in a place they don’t know. For some kids getting in the face of the family matriarch or patriarch and saying I’ve got to take some of your power away is more than they can handle. It seems to take some crisis before they are pushed to act.
Then again I have a friend that is a chef in one of those expensive elder care facilities. He talks about this one woman who doesn’t say boo but spends most of her time staring at the door. No one ever comes to visit her or take her out. That image really haunts me.
“He talks about this one woman who doesn’t say boo but spends most of her time staring at the door. No one ever comes to visit her or take her out. That image really haunts me.”
That is a horribly sad story, Carrie Ann.
And you’re right about the old folks. My dad (RIP) was just like that before he passed. He had no business living on his own, but INSISTED that we not help him (I would still go over to his place to clean every week, and he would protest the whole time…mostly for show, at the end).
My step-FIL is 90, and we’re dealing with this issue right now. He’s lived in the same place for ~40 years, and has no intention of leaving.
I have no concept about becoming a “made Floridian” to use the Mafia lingo. I was born here and have spent most of my entire life here in this mosquito-infested swampland.
ALL of the Yankee vermin disrupt my life and annoy me, most especially those from NY and NJ. Canadians aren’t much help, either.
As I once wrote in response to what is happiness to a Floridian?
Happiness is 100,000 New Yorkers headed back home with a Canadian under each arm.
Aside from over-crowding and bad manners, most of the Yankee folks are used to paying tribute to their home State governments, so when arriving here, they think we “underpay” and are happy to vote for increases on everything and everybody but themselves, which usually doesn’t work out like they planned. When I was in grade school Florida had a 4% sales tax. It went to 5, then 6, 6.5, 7. Added hotel/motel taxes, etc. And naturally, they want everything to be like it is in the place they left ;behind to come down here.
Message from the rest of us: If you don’t like it here, please go back.
But unfortunately, being “native” isn’t going to be a feeling that anyone has anymore, I’m afraid. We have become so overgrown and overpopulated that the old Florida I knew as a child (with 7 million residents) will never return.
Approaching 3 times that level with crowded towns and roads, I am reminded of a commentary made by author John McDonald. He said, back in the 70’s, that Florida would continue to attract people from all over until we reached about 30 Million. Then, it would be so crowded and so overstressed, that people would no longer want to live here. I see that day coming in the not to distance future.
Conclusion: You can start feeling put upon and annoyed about a year after you get here but expect those feelings to grow as time goes by.
When you feel you have no impact and no say, whatsoever, in the governance and happenings in your own hometown, then you are a true Floridian.
Sorry to hear that, diogenes.
We native Californians have to deal with the exact same thing.
I guess I am used to snow birds in Phoenix to notice them in Tampa. I do see New Jersey, Michigan, and New York plates, but they may belong to students at USF.
Why we are in trouble;
an excerpt from an article by Addison Wiggins at the daily reckoning. The article contrasts the BIG D with the current financial and political environment:
“As went the stock market, so went the economy. Whatever gains had been goosed by New Deal spending evaporated.
By 1939, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau conceded to Congress: “We are spending more money than we have ever spent before, and it does not work… After eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started… and an enormous debt, to boot.”
We’re not saying history is destined to repeat itself. But the parallels are pretty obvious, and ominous. And there’s a modern-day twist.
“We will not be adding more to the national debt,” declared President Obama on Tuesday, speaking of his proposed 2012 budget, and its projections over the next 10 years.
See, the president is relying on the notion that spending would come into balance with revenues by 2017 – something he and his aides call “primary balance.” But their idea of spending excludes something very important – interest on the national debt.
That’s not insignificant. It was 4.6% of federal spending in fiscal 2010. But in the fantasy world of “primary balance,” it doesn’t count.
In the real world… and we’re using the White House’s own figures here… we’d still add $627 billion to the national debt in 2017, all in interest expense. By 2018, the annual cost of interest on the debt would exceed that of Medicare. And from 2017-2021, interest payments would total $4.5 trillion.
Which would balloon the national debt to $26.3 trillion. (As of this morning, it’s $14.1 trillion.)”
And yet, we see all the hand-wringing in the Media about trying to cut back 60 Billion, from an originally promised 100 Billion, minimum. Shill senators and their friends in the press call it “draconian”.
We are doomed.
“And yet, we see all the hand-wringing in the Media about trying to cut back 60 Billion, from an originally promised 100 Billion, minimum. Shill senators and their friends in the press call it “draconian”.”
It isn’t possible to cut enough to balance the budget, unless they eliminated SS and Medicare (while continuing to collect the payroll tax) and gutting the military budget.
Its either default or serial Qauntitative Easing.
We are doomed indeed.
I can’t even begin to start on everything that is wrong with that article.
How far will your $250K go in the Rochester area?
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20110219/BUSINESS/102190318/0/SPORTS/How-far-will-your-250K-go-Rochester-area-?odyssey=nav|head
“Built in 1993, the 2,270 square-foot home was expanded with a new kitchen less than three years ago. The kitchen features the best in new construction with Brazilian cherry flooring, a 10-foot island with quartz counter tops. The appliances are stainless steel.
The kitchen opens to a great room area with a French door to the landscaped backyard area. The master bedroom is next to an indoor spa room with a hot tub.
The lower level is finished with a Jacuzzi tub bathroom. It adds 700-plus square feet of living space that’s not included in the square footage.
The home is well updated and the west side tends to offer more bang for the real estate dollar than the east side when it comes to amenities and size. However, the home is in an area of less expensive homes.
Annual taxes on this property are 8,163.“
Instead of living in Rochester, why not just put a fork in your eye and be done with it?
Rochester? Why not Oil City, PA?
Clearly, the weather is just plain nicer in Upstate New York, especially in the winter.
“Annual taxes on this property are 8,163.“
So why do middle class people still live in New York state? Are the jobs that good?
Those are the kind of property taxes you see in Texas, but Texas has no income tax. Did New York get rid of theirs?
“Did New York get rid of theirs?”
Ha! Good one, Bill.
New York getting rid of their income tax- I had to look at the calendar to make sure it wasn’t April 1.
The weird thing, BinC, is at least face to face, no one complains. And sometimes I hear in response to a complaint about how bad things are “if you don’t like it you can always move”. If the American Revolution had been left to NYers we’d be bowing to the Queen. I’m convinced in some neighborhoods, those $20k+ tax bills are paid w/the same pride one drives their Mercedes SUVs.
There’s one neighborhood offering new construction of similar size in the $270-$290k’s here but the location is horrible. Then we’ve another area of new construction in the $300s which might be ok if you liked postage sized lots and no trees in the entire neighborhood. (Did I move away from the coasts only to live in clear cut asphault jungles?) From there we move into $400k’s and above for anything new. There is a lot of custom stuff still being built in varying locations further out. I have come to dub them the survivalists from downstate but I have no idea how true that is. It’s just that the homes are on multi-acre lots, the homes are set way back on the lot and are monstrous. I think they come to wait for Armageddon.
Muggy, my home town gets similar wisecracks. I guess if I did not grow up there and have a smile as I thought about my past there, I would deride it too. I betcha most people here did not grow up in Santa Barbara (I did not, but SB is probablymuch better than where they grew up!
“Annual taxes on this property are 8,163.” Is that a typo? The house is listed unsold at $225k, meaning the house is probably worth less than 200k. It kind of sucks to pay off your mortgage and still pay taxes, insurance and maintenance costs which are higher than comparable rent.
The home I rent is worth about $180k and my landlord pays over $9000 a year in taxes. And just to be clear I would never pay that much for it. There’s just too much they’ve let go but homes on the streets in the vicinty have been selling in this price niche.
9k divided by 180k is 5%.
The taxes are too damn high!
But it’s not that simple. When in New England we just had taxes. Yes a single bill that covered all. I paid $1300 for my home on a wooded acre w/in bicycling distance to the water. But here we have county taxes due about now and school taxes due at the end of July I think (School taxes alone can be over $10k for some of the larger homes. They’re probably around $5k on this home.) and then if you’re in a village there’s village taxes. Village taxes are $1500 - $1800 alone.
Here in Idaho, an owner-occupied house worth $180K would pay roughly $1,100 in annual property taxes. That’s much more reasonable.
My eastern WA spec house is worth $181k according to the assessor’s office, and I pay $2,200/yr, which includes a school levy.
You guys are starting to get a taste of the Northeast/New England thing. Back in 2005 when I said you could buy a small operating farm (100 acres tillable, milking parlor, etc) for $40k before the bubble, I meant it because it was fact. It was reality. Why? Taxes. Plain and simple taxes. Property taxes will crush you here. Combined with depopulation makes RE very “affordable”….. until the tax bill arrives every August. Add the post-industrialization decline layer and you have a massive $hitSandwich prepared especially for the chronically underemployed native. The arctic circle like winters and duration keeps most sane outsiders out.
http://larouchepub.com/pr_lar/2011/lar_pac/110218indonesia_food.html
Indonesia Fights Globalized Agro-Food Speculators
Feb. 18, 2011 (EIRNS)
The two-day ministerial meeting of the G-20 nations which began Feb. 18 in Paris, put the topic of the deadly menace of food-commodity hyperinflation, on its agenda. Indonesia, for one, demanded action against speculation. In opposition, came a chorus of defenders of “markets,” including even Cargill and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, directly.
“We want the G20 forum to put pressure [on the markets] so there would be no speculators, or any financial or non-financial industries, who speculate on food commodities,” said Indonesian Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo, reported by the Jarkarta Post Feb. 17, on a briefing given to reporters in Jarkarta Feb. 16, before Agus departed for Paris.
“…[A]t the G20 level, for the long-term, we want the countries to pool funds in one specific fund to increase food productivity, but for the short term, we must deliver the message to financial and non-financial industries which speculate on food prices, as well as futures trading industries, so they do not destabilize prices.”
Indonesia, with 250 million people, the fourth most populous country in the world, suffered crop losses from bad weather in 2010, and is rocked by food hyperinflation across the board, from rice to chilies.
All measures show food speculation volume going off the charts. According to European Union data, non-food “investor” players in commodities increased their involvement in markets from $15 billion in 2003, up to $300 billion in 2008, and now that figure is soaring to the sky.
Too bad, but “don’t touch the markets,” was the message from Cargill, and others of the global agro-food cartel, including from their government flunkey officials in the Obama Administration and in London. Paul Conway, senior vice president of Cargill, the world’s largest agro-company, and completely private, was quoted in a defend-the-killer-markets review in the Feb. 17 Wall Street Journal: ” ‘Speculators are always an easy target, but speculators didn’t cause food prices to rally in the second half of 2010,’ he said. ‘The more you have different types of players trying to use the derivatives markets, the more they reflect the true price of the commodity.’ ” Conway insisted that blame be restricted to bad weather and natural disasters.
Likewise, a spokesman for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange itself (CME Group), David Lehman, responsible for innovating new futures betting opportunities, spoke out to say that blame for food-price volatility is to be placed on too much “demand growth,” and lack of “transparency” in emerging markets.
French President Nicholas Sarkozy, host of the Paris meeting, and rotating chair for this year’s presidency of the G20 and G8, has said that food-price inflation will get special attention, with a meeting in June; and there was talk of a “working group” to be commissioned at the G20 meeting.
““We want the G20 forum to put pressure [on the markets] so there would be no speculators, or any financial or non-financial industries, who speculate on food commodities,” ”
These people truly do not understand the commodities markets; speculating and hedging are two sides of the same coin. The hedging is important for risk management and risk-reduction for both producers and consumers of the commodity.
Get rid of one, and you unavoidably get rid of the other, and increase risk for a number of market participants.
Now that said, I am ALL in favor of regulation of the markets to prevent manipulation and cornering by market participants. I saw some stats recently about the trading volume of some of the commodities vs the production volume and real inventories, and it definitely disturbed me to see how much trading there was of non-existent comodities. I don’t see the value in that.
Amazing ain’t it?
Thanks for posting this, NoVa.
Couldn’t agree more, with some exceptions for a **VERY highly-regulated,** and transparent group of “certified” entities who could assisting with hedging…maybe.
OTOH, perhaps some price volatility might be a cost worth paying if it kept prices lower, overall.
IMHO, all basic necessities should have safeguards against speculation that grossly distorts pricing.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Fuzzy-compromise-threatens-apf-3737136899.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=2&asset=&ccode=
‘PARIS (AP) — The world’s dominant economies on Saturday struck a watered down deal on how to smooth out trade and currency imbalances many say exacerbated the financial crisis, but the difficulty in getting vastly different economies like China and the United States on the same page doesn’t bode well for the Group of 20 rich and developing countries as a forum for global decision making.’
‘At the heart of the debate about imbalances is the realization that a decades-long global economic order centered on the U.S. buying exports from the rest of the world and running huge trade deficits, while countries such as China and Germany accumulate vast surpluses, is no longer tenable.’
‘In the years before the meltdown, countries with trade surpluses plowed money into mortgage and other investments in the United States, driving up their value and exacerbating the crash when the bubble eventually burst.’
These are supposed to be the bright people ‘managing’ the global economy? I remember hearing this big plan back in the 80’s; anyone with common sense could see this wouldn’t work out. Now it’s blowing up, and is too late to do much about it.
Note; a ‘bubble’ is mentioned, but not much serious reflection on why we shouldn’t let these things happen in the first place. And as many have mentioned here over the years, the Federal Reserve probably allowed the stock and housing bubble to run in order to mask these imbalances. The central banks have presided over a disaster, and it’s time to reconsider their existence, IMO.
There’s a story I’ve been reading to my daughter called the emperor’s new clothes.
Those that sold this travesty are the tailors.
The king and his minions are the politicians and people.
HBB is the boy at the end.
One story I’ve heard is that the always present fear of deflation may have played a roll. Technology really had teh potential for severe deflation. The PTB chose to pump up the foreign consumer to offset these deflationary forces. The Western consumer was of course maintained with the credit wand. Unfortunately it’s midnight and the spell is broken.
I’m still trying to understand why deflation is considered to be such a bad thing.*
It balances things out. We can’t have prices going to the sky forever.
People who fear deflation claim that the “deflationary spiral” will destroy us, but I’ve never heard of a country that was killed by deflation. By inflation? Yes, but never deflation (unless I’m missing something?).
When prices drop to levels where it makes sense to buy again (and that level is very rarely zero), buyers will move in and set a floor under prices; providing a much more stable foundation from which **real** growth can happen.
This isn’t rocket science, but so few seem to get it.
*IMHO, inflation favors asset holders, who tend to be the wealthy. Deflation favors labor, because their wages are stickier than asset prices on the way down. That means that workers would gain purchasing power at the expense of the wealthy…and (IMHO), this is the REAL reason they won’t allow deflation to happen, at least not if they can help it.
“…the difficulty in getting vastly different economies like China and the United States on the same page…”
Since when have creditors and their debtors ever been on the same page?
‘In the years before the meltdown, countries with trade surpluses plowed money into mortgage and other investments in the United States, driving up their value and exacerbating the crash when the bubble eventually burst.’
Sounds like a very deserving group of greater fools to end up as bagholders in the credit bust.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110220/ap_on_re_as/as_china_jasmine_revolution
I wonder if this means China will be raising interest rates again very shortly.
I’m sure the Chinese worker bees are sick of working their asses off and living worse than they did under communism, not even able to afford to put food on the table, while watching the managerial and political classes live it up.
They are censoring the internet over there, so knowledge of the democracy movement in the Middle East is probably not wide spread in China.
In related news, the Feds are lobbying for and “internet off” switch, only to be used in case of “emergencies”.
“They are censoring the internet over there, so knowledge of the democracy movement in the Middle East is probably not wide spread in China.”
There’s always that “word of mouth” thing.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2011-02-20/iceland-president-blocks-bill-guaranteeing-5-billion-u-k-dutch-deposits.html
Iceland President Blocks Bill Guaranteeing $5 Billion U.K., Dutch Deposits
By Omar R. Valdimarsson - Feb 20, 2011
Iceland’s President Olafur R. Grimsson refused to sign a $5 billion accord struck in December with the U.K. and Netherlands to repay foreign depositor losses and said the bill must instead be put to a referendum.
Grimsson, whose announcement comes after 44 of parliament’s 63 lawmakers passed the bill, said he was responding to popular demand for a plebiscite after more than 42,000 of Iceland’s 318,000 inhabitants signed a petition asking him to block the accord.
“There is support for the view that the people should once again, as before, act together with the parliament as the legislator in this matter,” Grimsson said.
Today’s announcement marks the second time Grimsson has rejected an agreement designed to compensate the U.K. and Netherlands for depositor losses stemming from the October 2008 failure of Landsbanki Islands hf. His Jan. 5, 2010, refusal to sign an earlier accord prompted Fitch Ratings to cut Iceland’s credit grade to junk. Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s give Iceland’s debt the lowest investment grade.
The latest so-called Icesave accord, named after the high- yielding accounts offered by Landsbanki, would cost the state about 47 billion kronur ($404 million), while the remaining debt will be covered using the proceeds of Landsbanki assets, the negotiating committee representing Iceland said in December.
‘Significant Risk’
Though the latest Icesave accord is “significantly improved,” it still carries “significant risk,” according to Valdimar Armann, an economist for Reykjavik-based asset manager GAMMA. A slide in the krona, currently shielded by capital controls, could as much as triple the final cost, he estimates.
The central bank has said it plans to start easing capital restrictions, in place since the end of 2008, sometime after March. The government has also indicated it wants to tap international debt markets again as 713 million euros ($976 million) of debt comes due in 2011.
A referendum on Icesave will be held as soon as possible, Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir said today. The previous bill was rejected by 93 percent of voters in March last year. According to a January poll, 56.4 percent of the 800 voters polled backed the December Icesave agreement, Frettabladid reported on Jan. 25. The newspaper didn’t give a margin of error.
It is unclear whether the British and Dutch will be willing to resume talks should the bill be voted down in a referendum, Finance Minister Steingrimur J. Sigfusson told reporters. He plans to contact his counterparts in the two European Union members later today, he said.
Ratings Outlook
More than 350,000 British and Dutch Icesave account holders risked losing their savings when Landsbanki collapsed along with the rest of Iceland’s over-leveraged banking system in 2008. By passing the bill, lawmakers had hoped to pave the way for the island’s return to the international bond markets.
Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch indicated last month they would consider raising their ratings on the island’s debt should Icesave pass.
The 2008 failure of Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank hf and Kaupthing Bank hf led to the collapse of the currency and forced Iceland to go to the IMF to get a $2.1 billion loan, with a further $2.5 billion pledged by Nordic nations.
I’m more inclined to invest in Iceland now.
Not sure how?
I’m more inclined only if the plan gets permanently deep-sixed. The banksters have lost this round, but not yet the game.
I would bet that Iceland caves eventually, though I hope that I am wrong.
What would it take for Iceland to tell those who invested in their banks and lost to stick it, in terms of the risks involved?
Can the U.S. potentially use this kind of strategy (a sort of national version of walking away from a mortgage that is too large to ever hope to repay it)?
Can the U.S. potentially use this kind of strategy (a sort of national version of walking away from a mortgage that is too large to ever hope to repay it)?”
sure
I would expect very bad things if this happened but eventually a new growth period would begin.
Yep.
Do you think the Obama Administration would ever dare to hold a referendum on TARP or all its other bailouts and “quantitative easing”? The Icelandic government obviously feels some accountability toward the wishes of their populace, which is emphatically not the case with Obama and the Republicrats, who are solely responsive to the TBTF banks.
MSM commentators are getting all hysterical over the proposed GSE phase out. Listen up, folks: Just because there is a white paper out there doesn’t mean anything is likely to happen for years to come, if ever. It also seems entirely possible that Congress will create another mortgage market Frankenstein monster to replace them. A turd by any other name would smell as rank.
The proof is in the pudding, as they say, and don’t hold your breath for any pudding actually to be cooked. Meanwhile, expect more kicking, screaming and temper tantrums to come from REIC commentators, coupled with used home sellers trying to frighten their clients into buying soon, before low-cost GSE financing disappears forever.
Changes at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac could transform mortgage landscape
The Obama administration aims to phase out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and to cut the FHA’s market share.
By Kenneth R. Harney
February 20, 2011
Reporting from Washington —
Fixed 30-year mortgage rates in the 5% range? Minimum down payments below 5%? Jumbo-sized home loans for high-cost markets at regular interest rates? Kiss them goodbye — possibly sooner than you might guess.
Take a snapshot of today’s mortgage market conditions and frame it. It’s highly likely you’ll never see anything like these favorable combinations of rates and terms again. That’s the inescapable conclusion emerging from the Obama administration’s white paper on possible remedies for the two ailing giants of housing finance — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — along with events underway in the national economy.
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1. If it happens it will be phased in over 100years or
2. It will be replaced with something worse.
Only when the banks have offloaded the vast majority of their bad paper on the tax payer will they allow a real crash to occur.
We are definitely on the same page here; makes me wonder why Harney has his underwear in such a tight knot.
Agree, measton.
That being said, I’m guessing a LOT of risk has already been offloaded to the govt, which is why I think this idea is being bandied about. They need to get the sheeple warmed up to the idea, and then they will pull out in a year or two, IMHO.
Seems like an easy way to boost sales. Tell everyone the age of fixed-rate 30 year mortgages is about to end, and a lot of people will rush to ‘lock one in’.
Never mind that prices will fall should such a thing happen. People rush to buy when interest rates are low, don’t they?
Is anyone in the mood for yet another California ballot initiative?
Give voters a voice in solving California’s budget crisis
Assemblywoman Wilmer Amina Carter
Posted: 02/19/2011 10:14:32 PM PST
We are at a pivotal point in legislative discussions regarding the budget. The governor has outlined a plan that severely cuts programs and extends some temporary tax measures. No one is happy with the steps needed to balance the state’s budget.
Constituents are streaming through my capitol office to talk about their priorities. Cities want to hang on to redevelopment agencies and enterprise zones. Educators fear the consequences of further cuts to our schools. Programs transitioning families into working, tax-paying members of the community are fighting to save child care subsidies that allow parents to remain in the work force. Family members of those with developmental disabilities fear the loss of services will send their dependents into institutionalized care. All these programs depend on now-scarce state dollars.
I hear the fear and appreciate the pain program reductions will cause. But I believe we are all missing the key point. The governor’s proposal hinges on a special election in June to extend a package of temporary tax measures for five additional years.
The governor pledged that taxes would not be raised without the consent of the voters. Most urgent now is the need to place the package of tax extensions on the June ballot.
But that requires a two-thirds vote of the Legislature. Some of your elected representatives oppose allowing the question of temporary tax extensions to go to the voters; however, voters are the ones who will feel the impact of curtailed programs, eliminated services, and a postponed economic recovery.
Voters deserve the opportunity to choose how to finance state government.
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to extend a package of temporary tax measures for five additional years.”
Temporary like the 1/2 cent sales tax to help rebuild after the San Fransico earthquake ?
It won’t be temporary and it won’t be the last emergency tax increase we will see.
I once owned a Townhome and every year the HOA would go up due to Extreme shortages of funds. Now the Townhomes have lost 50% since I sold in 2006. I wonder how much of that is because of the 435 dollar per month HOA fee ?
Ca might not be much better than that Townhome , always broke or at least claiming broke and always raising taxes. I wonder if only the working suckers with W2’s have to pay up though ?
years from now I expect to be long gone from CA and just as appalled by it’s crash as I am about the ex Townhome I used to own.
Of course years from now there probably won’t be any place left to run too….
My understanding is Cali was done in by too much voter control, and not enough representative control. Prop this and Prop that. The voters have Propped themselves into a corner.
Yes, and some of these voters (like my MIL) don’t understand that when you pass a propostion that requires issuing bonds, you are adding debt to the budget.
I had to explain this to my *very Republican* MIL. Bonds are debt!!!!!
Cuts aren’t enough to balance California budget
On the State Budget
February 16, 2011
Welcome to California, circa 2012. Schools will give up on small class sizes. Cops will be scarcer. College tuition will soar by 7 to 10 percent. State workers will face more furloughs. Precocious 4-year-olds will have to wait until their fifth birthday to start kindergarten.
This bleak and broken level of public service could happen if $14 billion in tax extensions and increases sought by Gov. Jerry Brown aren’t approved by voters in June. It may sound like fear-mongering by tax proponents, but consider the source: the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.
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Welcome to California, circa 2012. Schools will give up on small class sizes. Cops will be scarcer. College tuition will soar by 7 to 10 percent. State workers will face more furloughs. Precocious 4-year-olds will have to wait until their fifth birthday to start kindergarten.”
Kinda like what happened to private sector workers ? no retirement, no job security, no rasies, let go at 50.
That doesn’t make it right but might make it inevitable. No money how can all these services be paid for ? Stick it to the rich ? good luck with that.
Emigration of millions of young educated workers might help, could cause some inflation and other things like pollution but the state would have a big juicy tax base again.
or the state could cut.. and the streets will never be clean again
1. Require people who employ illegal immigrants to pay for ALL of the costs associated with them AND all of their dependents (illegal or “anchor babies”). This includes education, healthcare, food stamps/housing assistance, infrastructure costs, and the cost of administrating this program. This would include covering the pension costs for all the employees that serve the illegal immigrants and their children.
2. Eliminate Prop 13 protection except for a single, primary residence. Only if LLs are willing to abide by rent control laws that tie rent increases to property tax increases, would there be a possible exemption.
3. Eliminate Prop 13 protection except for a single commercial site or parcel of raw land (no more than 5 acres).
4. Eliminate the inheritability of Prop 13 protection IF the heir intends to step up the cost basis for cap gains purposes upon sale (different taxes, I totally understand, but under current law, they can “double dip” by claiming a high cost basis for cap gains purposes, and a low cost basis for prop tax purposes. They should have to choose one or the other.
5. Eliminate loopholes that allow trusts/LLCs and other entities to pass along Prop 13 protection on commercial or investment properties. Any sale should trigger a reassesment at market rate.
After doing the above, if the budget isn’t fixed, we can discuss raising taxes and/or cutting wages/benefits in the public sector.
Typical Americans:
“Lisa and Stephen Furry splurged on a getaway at a four-star hotel but haven’t paid the mortgage on their North Hollywood home since September. A financial planner helps them with a reality check.”
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-money-makeover-furry-20110220,0,2396237.story
“I don’t quite understand why they bought the house,” Hartman said.
I don’t quite understand how they qualified for a mortgage.
“Lisa, too, needs to get at least a part-time job. Because she cared for her mother for nine years, Hartman suggested she look for work helping the elderly.”
My bet, SSI paid her to be a caregiver; she’s never going to work a real job.
Caregiving isn’t a REAL job?????
Most caregiving doesn’t pay a real wage.
“The couple’s pets, which include a rabbit, cost about $200 a month.”
Possibly a “rent-to-own” rabbit? Priceless!
“Things have gotten so bad that Lisa recently borrowed $200 from her 7-year-old daughter’s savings account to cover household expenses.”
At least there’s one saver in the family!
U.S. politics
Soros: Obama has lost control
President has allowed Republicans to take over domestic political agenda, he claims.
“We have $80,000 in credit card debt…”
This is reality, not the $6,200 “average CC debt” crap we’re fed by the MSM. Professionals typically crater with $150k or more!
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“Deciding when to file for bankruptcy” -latimes
Dear Liz: My husband and I are struggling with whether to file for bankruptcy. We have $80,000 in credit card debt, which has ballooned because of high interest rates and our [sic] paying only the minimum. My husband and I were both laid off in 2008. I collected unemployment for not quite a year and still have not been able to find work. My husband found a job after a year and a half, but then was injured at work and faces another four to six months of recovery, so he is receiving only 67% of his former wage. Now we can’t keep up with our bills. We have stopped paying three of our credit cards and are getting hounded to no end. We are trying to sell our house but even that is not selling. We have nothing left. No retirement, no savings, just debt. We are drowning. We both have such a hard time with the idea of filing for bankruptcy, but is it time?
Answer: People can sometimes avoid bankruptcy if they seek help early enough. If they’re able to pay more than the minimums on their credit cards, for example, they may be able to use a legitimate credit counselor’s debt management plan to pay off their debt.
But debt management plans require that you have at least some disposable income. If you can’t keep up with your bills or find employment, that doesn’t describe your situation.
“We have $80,000 in credit card debt…”
This is reality, not the $6,200 “average CC debt” crap we’re fed by the MSM. Professionals typically crater with $150k or more!
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LATIMES: “Deciding when to file for bankruptcy”
Dear Liz: My husband and I are struggling with whether to file for bankruptcy. We have $80,000 in credit card debt, which has ballooned because of high interest rates and our [sic] paying only the minimum. My husband and I were both laid off in 2008. I collected unemployment for not quite a year and still have not been able to find work. My husband found a job after a year and a half, but then was injured at work and faces another four to six months of recovery, so he is receiving only 67% of his former wage. Now we can’t keep up with our bills. We have stopped paying three of our credit cards and are getting hounded to no end. We are trying to sell our house but even that is not selling. We have nothing left. No retirement, no savings, just debt. We are drowning. We both have such a hard time with the idea of filing for bankruptcy, but is it time?
Answer: People can sometimes avoid bankruptcy if they seek help early enough. If they’re able to pay more than the minimums on their credit cards, for example, they may be able to use a legitimate credit counselor’s debt management plan to pay off their debt.
But debt management plans require that you have at least some disposable income. If you can’t keep up with your bills or find employment, that doesn’t describe your situation.
Just do it!
Work injury, unemployment, burned through savings. Abandon hope all ye who enter here.
* RETIREMENT PLANNING
* FEBRUARY 19, 2011
Retiring Boomers Find 401(k) Plans Fall Short
By E.S. BROWNING
The 401(k) generation is beginning to retire, and it isn’t a pretty sight.
The retirement savings plans that many baby boomers thought would see them through old age are falling short in many cases.
The median household headed by a person aged 60 to 62 with a 401(k) account has less than one-quarter of what is needed in that account to maintain its standard of living in retirement, according to data compiled by the Federal Reserve and analyzed by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College for The Wall Street Journal. Even counting Social Security and any pensions or other savings, most 401(k) participants appear to have insufficient savings. Data from other sources also show big gaps between savings and what people need, and the financial crisis has made things worse.
This analysis uses estimates of 401(k) balances from the end of 2010 and of salaries from 2009. It assumes people need 85% of their working income after they retire in order to maintain their standard of living, a common yardstick.
Facing shortfalls, many people are postponing retirement, moving to cheaper housing, buying less-expensive food, cutting back on travel, taking bigger risks with their investments and making other sacrifices they never imagined.
“Inevitably, we find that, for the average person, there is not enough there,” says financial adviser Paul Merritt of NTrust Wealth Management in Virginia Beach, Va., who has found himself advising many retirement-age people with too little savings. “The discussion turns out to be: What kind of part-time work do you want to do after you retire?”
He has clients contemplating part-time work into their 70s, he says.
Tax-deferred 401(k) retirement accounts came into wide use in the 1980s, making baby boomers trying to retire now among the first to rely heavily on them.
The problems are widespread, especially among middle-income earners. About 60% of households nearing retirement age have 401(k)-type accounts, according to government data, and those represent the majority of most people’s savings. The situation is less dire for those in a higher income bracket, who tend to save more outside their 401(k) accounts and who have more margin for error if their retirement returns fall below the recommended 85% figure.
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The Neo-Malthusians who claim we are going to soon run out of food clearly aren’t thinking outside the box.
* LIFE & CULTURE
* FEBRUARY 19, 2011
The Six-Legged Meat of the Future
Insects are nutritious and easy to raise without harming the environment. They also have a nice nutty taste
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ISTM we should be eating the creatures we don’t want to share the planet with.
Sounds like around 2.3 million foreclosure homes may hit the market over the course of the next two years. And that is only those which are currently in the pipeline; could go quite a bit higher based on new foreclosures to come.
Longer foreclosure process takes an average 17 months
By Julie Schmit, USA TODAY
Updated 1h 49m ago |
The average U.S. borrower in the throes of foreclosure hasn’t made a mortgage payment in 17 months, up from nearly 11 months two years ago — and the time frame may get even longer.
Banks and mortgage servicers, who collect payments for lenders, are taking more time to complete foreclosures because of huge volumes of defaulted mortgages. Other factors include time-consuming reviews for loan modifications and additional delays that followed revelations late last year about improperly filed foreclosure documents in tens of thousands of cases.
Last year, the number of days that the average borrower in foreclosure went without making a payment stretched from 410 in January to 507 in December, says LPS Applied Analytics, which tracks 37 million mortgages. Before the foreclosure crisis, the norm was more like 250 days, says Herb Blecher, LPS senior vice president.
“Loans are spending longer in the process,” Blecher says.
Nearly 2.3 million homes were in foreclosure at the end of January, according to LPS.
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