Bits Bucket for March 3, 2011
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
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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Name:Ben Jones
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TTT Sez…
Federal support for home loans essential, Geithner warns.
The Washington Post
Two weeks after releasing a white paper on how to overhaul the badly battered housing market, Geithner said scaling back the federal role too far could make housing more costly, keep taxpayers on the hook for losses and handcuff policymakers.
“You would leave the government of the United States with a more limited set of tools to protect the economy and innocent victims in the face of the next severe recession,” he said in testimony to the House Financial Services Committee.
The nation’s housing finance system now relies almost exclusively on federal support for funding new home loans - through the taxpayer-backed housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration, which provides loans to home buyers without much money for a down payment.
“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-controlled companies that issued and guaranteed more than 71 percent of mortgage-backed bonds last year. Between those companies and Ginnie Mae, which guarantees loans insured by the Federal Housing Administration, the government backed nearly 97 percent of U.S. mortgages in 2009. “
I’m still not down with the idea that some Americans should be coerced into helping to pay for other Americans’ mortgages. As a renter, I particularly find objectionable the Obama Treasury Department’s policies to favor home owners and discriminate against renters. Aside from bad precedent, what is the legal basis for discriminatory housing policy at the federal level?
And still you can’t understand why taxpayers might not want to pay for the excesses of the public unions. That is very interesting that you just can’t seem to make that connection.
Would these include the “excesses” that the Wisconsin public unions offered to give up?
The Wisconsin bill goes beyond pay and benefits. I oppose the limitation on bargaining for working conditions, because it could impact both employee and public safety. Especially in light of the proposed OSHA budget cuts in the House - designed to emasculate the agency.
I also oppose the hidden, no-bid sale of public assets. It is a setup for political cronyism. I don’t understand how any conscientious representative could vote for it.
I don’t recall offering an opinion on that question, but thanks for pinch hitting for me.
For the record, I simply object to eliminating collective bargaining rights for the Wisconsin public sector union; what comes out of their bargaining is their business.
PB didn’t you read the post the other day
As a renter your vote won’t count.
I have toyed with the idea that only those who pay tax should have a vote—not a separate “poll tax” as we had in the past, but just any positive tax net of financial benefit drawn from the state.
This would prevent a democracy from falling as per the famous quotation (attribution uncertain, likely Tytler) with the majority voting themselves largess from the treasury. Those voting themselves net benefit would thereafter have no vote, so the system should stabilize, as others vote to take away their benefit.
Course, it is obviously nearly impossible to “net out” benefit when it comes in so many forms.
————————————-
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
I have toyed with the idea that only those who pay tax should have a vote—not a separate “poll tax” as we had in the past, but just any positive tax net of financial benefit drawn from the state.
I support that idea, but more to an extreme. Those who are net payers into the system (money in > money out). Everyone gets a vote, but those who are net contributors get a stronger say.
In my system, gov’t employees would be in the slightly disenfranchised group.
Haven’t you heard
Exxon is a person and you can’t deprive Exxon the right to vote.
Is this on a yearly basis or lifetime basis? At what point would folks on Social Security become disenfranchised? When they have collected more than they paid in or when their yearly Social Security exceeds yearly taxes paid in?
Do you include only direct payments, like Social Security, Medicare, UE - some of these have been (at least partially) prepaid? What about services, like police and fire protection? If you include them, you may end up with only those that make over 100K having a right to vote.
Do you make an exception for the military? This might be OK with the all volunteer army we have now. But if we need draftees again, it could forcibly disenfranchise people who we are asking to sacrifice their freedom and possibly their lives.
drumminj, are you proposing that net positives get 2 votes and everybody else get one? Hah, I could cancel myself out.
@Happy - there are certainly details that would need to be worked out in my system.
I wouldn’t count being on the receiving end of services available to all as “money out”, ie police and fire protection, use of parks, roads, etc. Just things like food stamps, child tax credits, tax rebates, etc.
UE is paid by employers (but managed by the state, as far as I can tell. This of course ignores the ARRA which promises more money for UE benefits, that I believe are paid for by fed, or perhaps are loans to states?). Social Security and Medicare are interesting ones. Perhaps you would become disenfranchised once your benefits exceeded your contributions (adjusted for inflation?)?
Military is an interesting one to think about…haven’t considered that.
And I imagine you’d all get one vote, it’d just be weighted. Though I’d prefer to change to a ranking/instant run-off system rather than our current “one vote, one candidate” system.
Nice to see that people who pay taxes have NEVER voted in their own self interest. How noble of you.
Why not just say only people that make $5 million dollars a year have the right to vote? Seems like only their votes count for anything anyway. And we all know they NEVER influence government policy in order to put money in their pockets.
Think of all the money we’d save on elections. Better yet, lets just do away with them, and go straight to Banana Republic.
Nice to see that people who pay taxes have NEVER voted in their own self interest. How noble of you.
Where do I make that claim? Where does Prime (if you’re not addressing me)?
You are saying that only taxpayers have the right to vote. Because people will vote to put free money in their own pockets, if it doesn’t cost them anything.
Once again, another slippery slope/big can of worms. Who gets to decide if YOUR contribution/tax bill is enough to let you have the “right” to vote. Are we going to have a “one dollar, one vote” policy? We have that now.
Besides, it’s wasting bandwidth discussing something that will never happen.
You are saying that only taxpayers have the right to vote. Because people will vote to put free money in their own pockets, if it doesn’t cost them anything.
Yes, #2 is correct. As far as #1, no, actually I say everyone gets a vote, just that the votes of net contributors are higher weighted.
Besides, it’s wasting bandwidth discussing something that will never happen.
I didn’t realize we weren’t welcome to suggest alternatives here that might be outside the mainstream. I guess we shouldn’t talk about ending Fannie or Freddie, removing corporate influence on politics, etc.
You’re also welcome to simply ignore the subject if you’re not interested.
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
Wow! What an amazing insight into world history. Except I can’t think of any examples whatsoever that actually fit this description of events. Can anyone else?
Or is it a crock?
Germany, Italy, Russia, etc.,
NO?
“Germany, Italy, Russia, etc.,
How do they fit the example?
“In my system, gov’t employees would be in the slightly disenfranchised group.”
It just occurred to me that legislators and judges are also government employees. Some of them might find themselves slightly disenfranchised.
I don’t get how you slightly disenfranchise them. Tie the weight of their vote to the percentage of income paid in? That could be interesting. It might serve to increase tax compliance. Or maybe not. Even now, with 1 citizen - 1 vote, a lot of people feel that their vote is worthless.
“Everyone gets a vote, but those who are net contributors get a stronger say.”
Would that mean that bankers who cast money into the sea, then were bailed out at the taxpayers’ expense, would go to jail?
Armageddon. Hello? You wouldn’t want to rent a piece of post-megabank-crash hell, would you. Don’t make me remind you about what you should do when the neighbor’s house catches fire…
After TARP. Why worry? It will cost a lot less than TARP. I would also agree that owners are looked upon as 2nd class citizen just because you aren’t making the bankstas richer.
geithner lies.
another bankster bailout by the administration of hope and change.
The dollar is getting killed. Oil is still sky high. We still pretend that we can afford this government that is massively overgrown at every level. The Chinese are saying they will transact trade in Yuan. The bailouts will stop when this charade comes to an end. It will be ugly. It will be painful. It will be “completely unexpected”.
“The Chinese are saying they will transact trade in Yuan”
Good! I’m sick of this country’s economic base being hollowed out by an overly-strong dollar.
I would believe that to by a myth. The dollar is plumbing depths it has never been to and I don’t see where that is improving our manufacturing. Trade policy and manufacturing regulations, not monetary policy, is the bigger culprit.
Most of us get paid in dollars so if it keeps going down we are all getting pay cuts.
Not completely unexpected. Only a question of when.
> Geithner said scaling back the federal role too far could make housing more costly
Huh?!? I thought the worry was exactly the opposite- that pulling back government support would cause further price declines.
LOL! Good point, Redrum.
Not only that, but it is also directly contradicted by the next clause “keep taxpayers on the hook for losses .”
If housing is going to become more costly (worth more) it should relieve taxpayers of part of the burden of F&F’s losses, shouldn’t it?
I suspect he used “costly” to refer to interest rates, not the cost of the houses.
“Costly” refers to the banks’ losses.
cost and worth are not equivilencies.
As evidenced by bubble and failures.
Price declines may be a function of cost of purchase money.
cost of housing goes up as a function of cost of money.
Prices rise as buyers figure out monthly payment affordability.
But cost of money is part of cost of home ownership
You pay less for the house, but the cost of the money goes up, theoretically balancing.
Might be true, might not!
What other asset does the government think it is in the national interest, to keep high-priced?
Is real estate unique in this manner?
Corn for one. Silk suits. Oil. Tuition.
Moral hazard and GM March 3rd, 2011 by maxkeiser
* In Latest Attempt To Boost Sagging Sales, GM Once Again Offering Interest-Free Financing On Numerous Models
MK: This was so predictable. In fact, we predicted it. The bailout of GM was, like the bank bailouts, morally hazardous. Corruption and ineptitude were rewarded; crowding out genuine competition (a hallmark of kleptocracy). The IPO was a money laundering exercise orchestrated by corrupt US government officials and Wall St. A huge piece of the deal was taken down by Saudi kleptocrats as part of the ongoing blood-for-oil scams. A huge piece of the stock offering sits in pension accounts that will experience a huge loss. Car purchase financing gimmicks like the one mentioned; adding more debt to America’s debt funeral pyre, increase pressure on foreign creditors to dump the dollar.
While I don’t disagree with this, it pales compared to the amount of money we burn on our military. Yet “fiscal conservatives” don’t seem to be bothered by the fact that we have to borrow hundreds of billions every year to fund a military that costs more than the rest of the world’s militaries combined.
Yet “fiscal conservatives” don’t seem to be bothered by the fact that we have to borrow hundreds of billions every year to fund a military that costs more than the rest of the world’s militaries combined.
Ron Paul is a fiscal conservative. And he’s bothered by that, and ran on a platform of bringing all our troops home from around the world.
I’m fairly certain that most (if not all) of his supporters feel the same way.
So I’d say “BS”. Many fiscal conservatives are very bothered by that, and in fact took steps to try to change it.
…until somebody tries to cut a military contractor program in their district. Then, bring on the waterworks about “jobs” and “suporting the troops.” Lockheed Martin spread their fighter jet project over 40 states in order to secure the steady votes of 80 Senators and 300+(?) Representitives.
However, I do have to give Congress credit; they did kill that fighter and that new engine (despite papering the DC Metro with propagandic ads for the engine.)
…until somebody tries to cut a military contractor program in their district. Then, bring on the waterworks about “jobs” and “suporting the troops.”
Link? Example?
“However, I do have to give Congress credit; they did kill that fighter and that new engine ”
Better than nothing I suppose. But just a drop in the bucket I’m afraid.
However, I do have to give Congress credit; they did kill that fighter and that new engine (despite papering the DC Metro with propagandic ads for the engine.)
Do Congress Critters ride the DC Metro? I thought that was a bit too downscale for them.
I’m not sure about actual Congresscritters, but the Congressional staff certainly rides the Metro, as does the military, judging from the Pentagon and Crystal City metro stops.
Drumminj, I’d have to go searching for you.
The F-35 isn’t dead. The fight was over a second engine supplier for the F-35.
The F-35 won’t be killed, because the future (smaller and cheaper) aircraft carriers of the US Navy and Great Britain (and possibly India and Japan) depend on the STOVL version.
Not to mention our friends in the USMC.
It’s no coincidence.
True fiscal conservatives are bothered. Look at Ron and Rand Paul, call me a lunatic, and move on with your head in the clouds.
Don’t kill the illusion, Andy. I meant “delusion”.
“True fiscal conservatives are bothered.”
And how many are those? I wish there were more, but they are a minority and are considered “fringe” by the GOP.
And how many are those? I wish there were more, but they are a minority and are considered “fringe” by the GOP.
Are you conceding that your statement was incorrect?
Is it our fault there aren’t more of us?
Please note that I put quotes around “fiscal conservatives”. These are the blowhards who campaigned on being “fiscally conservative” but who seem to be not be bothered by deficit spending when it benefits their constituencies.
I wasn’t talking about Ron Paul and the 2-3 other politicians who actually do care. I was talking about the jerks that the Tea Party faithful swept into office on the promise of “smaller government”.
“Is it our fault there aren’t more of us?”
Of course not. Especially when there isn’t even anyone on the ballot to vote for. Its only Corporatists, the “D” or the “R” after the name makes no difference.
“…the “D” or the “R” after the name makes no difference.”
+1
Unfortunately, one man’s fiscal conservativtism is another man’s layoff. It may feel good to cut off Lockheed, but those employees now won’t be buying food or gasoline or houses or stocks. The fundamental fact remains that with outsourcing, insourcing, and automation, there are simply too many people able to work for pay, and too little paid work to do.
” The fundamental fact remains that with outsourcing, insourcing, and automation, there are simply too many people able to work for pay, and too little paid work to do.”
This is the challenge. We are in a period of intense change. How can we provide for most of our citizens to have the means to support themselves with their labor? Too many of us are being left on the trash heap through no fault of our own.
We could to shift to a 35 hour work week. We could promote early retirement.
We could promote a job sharing system pairing older workers with young people entering the workforce. People on both ends of the age spectrum could benefit. Young folks could attend post-secondary school part time and work part time. Older workers could transition gradually to retirement, placing less burden on Social Security and pension systems.
Women with babies and young children could work part time benefitting their families with increased income and increased time. By continuing to work instead of taking years off from the workforce, they would be able to maintain marketable skills.
I like your ideas, Happy2bHeard.
One thing about stay-at-home parents is that it doesn’t really benefit the family if one of the parents is barely making enough to pay the extra taxes and childcare expenses, etc.
I favor getting back to a single-earner household.
Read Elizabeth Warren’s book, The Two-Income Trap, for some good insight.
http://www.amazon.com/Two-Income-Trap-Middle-Class-Mothers/dp/0465090826
“Yet “fiscal conservatives” don’t seem to be bothered by the fact that we have to borrow hundreds of billions every year to fund a military…”
You would be wrong; true fiscal conservatives are very bothered by the excessive monies thrown at the military.
Please note that I put quotes around “fiscal conservatives”. Yes, I am aware that there are a handful who are true, but that is all they are: a handful.
Most of the bozos who keep jabbering about cutting the budget won’t even touch the military budget.
I will agree that there are not enough fiscal conservatives amongst the republicans, sadly there are even less amongst the democrats. Thus, the miserable state of our economic situation.
The truth? Most of the DOD budget is SALARIES.
Measuring military power by the $ spent is meaningless, when that’s where most of the DOD budget is going.
Who are you going to put your money on in a fight? 10 guys who are the best professional fighters in the world, making a million dollars a month, or 10 THOUSAND amateur bar-room brawler types, making a thousand dollars a month.
Maybe we should outsource the DOD. But I don’t think the government wants two million unemployed guys, with insurgency experience, running around with guns and nothing to do.
Better to print money, and keep them as far away from the home front as you can.
“But I don’t think the government wants two million unemployed guys, with insurgency experience, running around with guns and nothing to do. ”
Hey, it worked great in Iraq!
Would you prefer not to have an armed force sufficient to protect the country?
How else can we protect the country except by providing sufficient armed forces?
In Latest Attempt To Boost Sagging Sales, GM Once Again Offering Interest-Free Financing On Numerous Models
Meanwhile, the car-free crowd just keeps on growing. I was chatting with a buddy last night, and he pointed me to the website of yet another bike culture publication. (Yeesh! Another one? I thought that Urban Velo had that market locked up.)
That isn’t exactly good news for the auto industry. But it is leading to some pretty funny videos.
It’s sort of like what we’re seeing with housing. People have begun to question the “American dream of homeownership” meme. Which can’t bode well for the REIC.
And a lot of people are going to join the “car-free” crowd, whether they want to or not.
While still having to live in a place that REQUIRES a car to live.
U.S. Postal Service Set to Default on Its Federal Debts
~Daily Finance
The U.S. Postal Service has warned that it will fall $6.8 billion short on payments it owes the federal government this fiscal year. In a presentation to a House of Representatives subcommittee on Wednesday, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe said the postal service won’t be able to pay its retirement and workers’ compensation obligations unless the government steps in.
The Postal Service is set to miss its expected September payment of $5.5 billion to fund medical benefits for future retirees, as well as a $1.3 billion payment — due in November — for workers’ compensation costs, Donahue said.
they are toast.When are they going to finally eliminate saturday mail.
when i was younger we lived in a rural area where the mail was only delivered 3 days a week, tuesday ,thursday and saturday. We survived.
we have never had mail delivery here in mammoth lakes, ca.
we get by
I believe it is the postal union that has kept alive the completely outdated concept of Saturday mail delivery. But don’t pick on them or somebody will have to make an Egypt analogy or compare people to Hugo Chavez.
I like getting Saturday delivery and would pay a little more to keep the USPS solvent. I really doubt that UPS or FedEx will deliver letters for 50 cents (or even 5 dollars).
That said the Post Office needs to get its costs under control. Unfortunately a lot of the decisions are beyond their control (See salinasron’s note below).
I like getting Saturday delivery and would pay a little more to keep the USPS solvent
Why not have Sat delivery offered as an additional option? Kind of like overnight delivery, or sat delivery for UPS? The sender can pay extra (or perhaps receiver - you could subscribe to the service).
the postmaster is now saying the postal service is too big too fail. lmao
“Why not have Sat delivery offered as an additional option?”
I seriously doubt that eliminating Saturday delivery will balance the Post Office’s budget.
“the postmaster is now saying the postal service is too big too fail”
Given that all civilized countries have one, he might be right.
I dont see why they don’t just let them raise their rates. If the Post Office is as irrelevant as some posters here believe, it shouldn’t affect them.
When I was making 25 cents an hour a stamp was 3 cents, and a postcard 1 cent.
What should it be now with a minimum wage of $7.25 to provide an equivilent sum to the postoffice?
Toms handy dandy inflation calculator.
http://www.halfhill.com/inflation.html
This is all about downsizing within the USPS and ending Saturday delivery. But the biggest issue is that the USPS over funds its retirement system and the government takes and spends that money. The USPS has asked the Postal commission to stop this practice and that is not allowed.
The US Gov is a fractional reserve bank and the margin rates are zero. All payouts are from the day’s deposits. Things are fine as long as deposits keep rising. When withdrawals start, there is a bit of a problem.
“overfunded pensions” Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, New Jersey’s public pension system is in trouble now because they were “overfunded” in the 90s, so the state decided to stop paying into them for a few years.
Are there any folks here who have “overfunded” their 401Ks?
Turn back the wayback machine, and remember how many companies became targets of the private equity/LBO sharks, because of their “overfunded” pension plans.
Blue Star airlines?
I am overfunded in my 401K, absolutely. Too large a percent of my modest assets are in this box.
Over funding a pension is a bad things?
Hello? Current events anyone?
Tinseltown finds Wall Street wanting in a genuine Inside Job
Alex Millmow
March 1, 2011
An Oscar-winning documentary should make economists uneasy.
THE film Inside Job by Charles Ferguson has taken the Oscar for the best documentary. Capturing the prevailing mood, Tinseltown has given Wall Street a serve, for Inside Job targets Wall Street bankers, market analysts and bond traders. If they ever saw it, they wouldn’t be unduly uncomfortable, because, as the documentary makes clear, these people are higher beings, answerable to no one.
Just watching it would send the rest of us off our Choc Tops, but the big question remains: how many will go and see a documentary about the global financial crisis? Usually economics is death at the box office, but this documentary is a sobering, fascinating account of the source of the crisis and the dynamics behind it (and sinister background music adds to the unease). The financial practices that laid the groundwork for the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression are detailed and those previously inexplicable derivatives and credit default swaps are fully defused. Viewers are guaranteed to exit fulminating against the incompetence and corruption of American legislators and with a fear that the ingredients for another meltdown remain.
Some leading American economic academics also attract flak. Narrator Matt Damon informs us that American financial industries pumped $5 billion into lobbying Congress, winning the support of Ivy League university economists for financial deregulation, and opposing congressional moves to regulate derivatives. Economists were enticed to say favourable things about financial engineering but they did not disclose that they were paid to say so.
And it gets worse.
Some of the economists who agreed to be interviewed by writer-director Charles Ferguson, like Glenn Hubbard, former chief economics adviser to George Bush, and Frederic Mishkin, former Federal Reserve board member, come across badly.
Mishkin is caught out twice, first by being exposed for writing a report titled The financial stability of Iceland and being paid $124,000 for it by business lobbyists. When the interviewer notices that the title of the paper has since been altered, Mishkin dismisses it as a typo. After only two years of a five-year term at the Fed, Mishkin retired to write a textbook, just two weeks before Lehman Brothers went bust.
When Hubbard, now dean of the Columbia Business School, realises where the interviewer is going by asking about the professor’s business consultancies, he abruptly brings the interview to a halt.
…
Inside Job backstory
Propaganda. Is the man who made the film a left wing nutcase?
No. He is a former business school professor and entreprenuer, capitalist to the core.
He left academia to start a computer software business. He was told by the venture capitalists that the had to have no other interests than the business, had to work night and day for five years without pay. Then, if and only if the business could go public and the VCs got a return on their investment, he would be paid $10 million.
He suceeded, and used the proceeds to fund another career making documentaries. And he went after the academic corruption he personally saw, and people who pay themselves $10 million every year while producing nothing of value.
Nice post. I can’t imagine dealing with the vulture capital, I mean venture capital, people. The egos must be off the charts.
Nice post. I can’t imagine dealing with the vulture capital, I mean venture capital, people. The egos must be off the charts.”
its not that bad, better than working for public corporations IMO. I work for a electronics company that has just gone public. Venture capital people are pretty cool compared to CEO’s who are mostly sciopaths elected by a board of directors to make money for share holders.
its not that bad, better than working for public corporations IMO
Agreed. As soon as the a company must answer to wall street/shareholders, things change drastically for the employees.
That’s when the penny-pinching begins, and the intangibles disappear.
“Academic” corruption? Show me an academe who pays himself $10 million. In fact, show me an academe who produces nothing of value. Even the books written by our proverbial Elizabethan historians have some value.
(True academes only, please. Not a bought-off university cheerleader economist.)
He was not referring to academics making $10 million while contributing nothing. He was referring to Wall Street traders.
“He is a former business school professor and entreprenuer, capitalist to the core.”
Oh my, sort of a reverse ad hominem isn’t it. How does that go to the argument? He is therefore above suspicion or reproach? Lots of businessman douchebags in nonprofits and advocacy of this and that. Look at Gates, Buffet, the Progressive Insurance guys. They feel no particular loyalty to there “class,” if they have one.
As I wrote below, it is not outrageous to note that the mandated extension of credit to the poorest and highest credit risks made it quite unreasonable to withhold the same credit to flippers and specuvestors.
He was told by the venture capitalists that the had to have no other interests than the business, had to work night and day for five years without pay.
Which is yet another reason why venture capitalists are called “vulture capitalists.”
The above scenario is totally unrealistic for all but a fraction of 1% of entrepreneurs. The rest of ‘em need to be paid on a regular basis.
Montana ….I call BS to this article . Lenders weren’t even giving loans
to minority qualified buyers or willing to invest in commercial
projects . To say that one little Institution under the radar was pressuring them to make crazy loans to whites ,blacks ,illegals ,dead people ,straw buyers and flippers and gamblers is BS . It became profitable for lenders to make these loans because they transfered the risk to
unsuspecting investors by mis-rating the risk .
The evidence that this authors contention is BS is the fact that
the toxic loans were sold in all neighborhoods as a massive Ponzi-scheme that hit all areas . If it was just directed at minority neighborhoods ,those would be the areas that crashed ,not the whole entire World . To try to transfer the blame to minorities is your classic distraction . Mozillo from Countrywide tried to make that claim when the bulk of his fraudulent loan packages where
the over 700k kind that many came from white neighborhoods .
Explain building tracts for investors to flip to each other in White neighborhoods ,or commercial projects overbuild everywhere .
Trying to blame this RE loan money Ponzi-scheme on poor black people for instance is pure BS and typical for the greedy money changers to blame the victims .Come on ,they didn’t rate the loan bundles proper because they were forced into making those loans
and they had to put the loss on the loan investors . I didn’t see a
Government mandate go out saying make loans to flippers ,unqualified white people ,build excess units everywhere so we can have oversupply ,give loans to straw men ,give refinance loans to white people that they can’t afford so they can get rich quick and have a ARM machine with their house . I didn’t see a mandate to give loans to white people so they can fund their retirement by the investment or a mandate to finance second, third and forth homes for the investment flipper class .
This guy is full of it . It was a large scale Ponzi scheme .
+100
Everyone has their scapegoat. The left blames the bankers, the right blames poor people, etc. Its real easy to blame Wall Street and DC, they should have known better. But they weren’t the ones out in the streets flipping homes, they weren’t the ones fraudulently inflating values to drum up business, and they weren’t the ones trying to convince everyone to own homes regardless of the financial sense it made. If Americans want to know who was really responsible for all this, they need to look in the mirror. It was a mass psychosis. In any decently run universe, probably half the people in this country would be in jail for the harm they’ve caused their fellow citizens. Carlin said it best:
“Now, there’s one thing you might have noticed I don’t complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don’t fall out of the sky. They don’t pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It’s what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you’re going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain’t going to do any good; you’re just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it’s not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public.”
Regarding Carlin comments . It gets complicated when you add
the factor of special interest group lobbying or bribes to the Politicians ,that determines a lot of their actions . It gets more complicated when the sheep are lied to . The sheep told the
Politicians they didn’t want TARP ,but they passed it anyway .
It more that the system is set up to foil the wishes of the Majority in favor of the money bribes of special interest . Any attempt to stop lobbying power has been defeated .
The polls are taken just to determine what PR to skew to the Majority ,or brainwashing ,or distractions to employ to take the heat off self interest groups ,like Wall street controlling the outcomes of laws or policy decision or tax policy .
If people hurt enough they rebel mindlessly and its easy to mis-direct their rage .
But if the banks had to start lending to the worst credit risks, it’s only natural that they would spread the wealth to anyone and everyone else in between, yes?
Of course it wasn’t all minority, low-income lenders.
No its not natural that they would spread the faulty lending everywhere ,unless there was big profits to be made and
risk to be transfered to unsuspecting investors by the securities
game . Than the Wall Street master minds thought of ways of duplicating loan bundles and selling those ,thus increasing the risk of greater loss ,than they thought of betting against what they transferred to investors .
“But if the banks had to start lending to the worst credit risks, it’s only natural that they would spread the wealth to anyone and everyone else in between, yes?”
Uh, no. At least I see no logic in that statement. They’re being forced to make some bad loans they’d rather not make, so this ‘naturally’ causes them to make tons more bad loans to flippers and scammers?
Nice try.
Makes me wonder why they installed Chris Dodd as the head of MPAA. Maybe he’ll rate future whistleblowing documentaries as NC 17 so nobody can see them.
to make sure there are no more “Inside Job” sequels.
There’s this thing called the Rest of the World. As in, the part of the world that isn’t America. It makes movies too.
And there’s this thing called the Internet. Which can serve as a means of getting the world out about a movie. Or distributing it.
In short, it wouldn’t be hard to do an end run around the MPAA.
“…but the big question remains: how many will go and see a documentary about the global financial crisis?”
The movie should have been named ‘Attack of the Insatiable Vampires’ or something like that. Vampires are still popular (I think?) and make a good metaphor for bankers. Full seats and a good dose of education.
Who gave Wall Street the free pass?
Published: Monday, February 28, 2011, 7:08 PM
Updated: Tuesday, March 01, 2011, 9:08 PM
Steve Duin, The Oregonian By Steve Duin, The Oregonian
As the heartland — On, Wisconsin! — continues to boil the tar and pluck the feathers for its teachers and other public employees, it was left for Hollywood to reassess our accuracy in scapegoating.
“Forgive me,” director Charles Ferguson said Sunday as he accepted his Oscar for “Inside Job”: “I must start by pointing out that three years after a horrific financial crisis caused by massive fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail. And that’s wrong.”
Ferguson’s blistering documentary details the evolution of deregulation and derivatives on Wall Street that eventually kneecapped the U.S. economy, with catastrophic fallout for small business, housing prices and, yes, union benefits.
The film is as critical of the Republicans who removed the restraints on those financial institutions as it is the Obama administration that continues to suck up to them.
But what is most infuriating about the documentary is summed up by A.O. Scott of The New York Times. “Inside Job” remains, Scott wrote, “the story of a crime without punishment, of an outrage that has so far largely escaped legal sanction and societal stigma.
When the stocks in the public square are reserved for public employees, you see, the scam artists on Wall Street remain free to contemplate their bad bets and million-dollar bonuses.
As anti-union fever builds, inflamed by such Republican governors as Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and New Jersey’s Chris Christie, the absence of a similar retaliatory mood against Wall Street is fascinating.
…
As anti-union fever builds, inflamed by such Republican governors as Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and New Jersey’s Chris Christie, the absence of a similar retaliatory mood against Wall Street is fascinating.
—————-
EXACTLY!
BTW, I’m working on a theory about why the public unions have been made the scapegoats. I think the no-bid deals in the WI budget plan are key.
As you know, PB, there has been a lot of talk about privatization of public assets. FWIW, unions might be the only entities out there who could make a stink about it, as they do tend to keep an eye on these things, as it might impact them (union jobs lost, and also a shrinking revenue stream for the govt entities who employ them).
Am working on getting more facts together, and will post it here if I find a smoking gun (and even if I don’t, I’ll write about that as well).
Your theory is no secret to the liberal blogs. The current bill in Wisconsin is about far more than busting unions — if it were, then why are police and firefighters exempted from being busted too?
The bill includes a provision to privitize Wisconsin state assets at the sole discretion of the governor (ie his puppetmasters). I suspect that the Koch brothers couldn’t give a rip whether a teacher pays 30% of 50% of her health insurance. They are trying to pass the thing under the cloak of busting those demon unions, while what they really want is to get their meathooks into juicy assets like roads and parking meters.
So, to all those conservative yahoos who think this is only about union-busting: DID YOU EVEN READ THE BILL? Is this what you all signed up for when you elected Republicans?
Thievery has a large wardrobe.
“…why are police and firefighters exempted from being busted too?”
A quick study of American union history will quickly reveal why.
Comment by oxide
2011-03-03 08:00:28
Your theory is no secret to the liberal blogs. The current bill in Wisconsin is about far more than busting unions — if it were, then why are police and firefighters exempted from being busted too?
The bill includes a provision to privitize Wisconsin state assets at the sole discretion of the governor (ie his puppetmasters).
——————
Yes, that’s what I was referring to WRT the no-bid deals in Wisconsin. But it’s not just Wisconsin. We’re hearing more and more stories about potential sales of our public assets in CA. It’s been bugging me for a long time, but this anti-union propaganda made me think there might be a link.
Will spend some time trying to get more info.
Just a note:
The union scapegoating makes as much sense as going to war with Iraq after a bunch of Saudis flew airplanes into some buildings.
a bunch of Saudis flew airplanes into some buildings.
do you think you can trivialize that attack on our financial center, the pentagon, and or govt a bit more?
“Our”? Are you in DC or NY?
Sanctimonious pandering is unbecoming.
He’s in Mammoth Lake — no govt buildings to be found.
What part do you consider “trivial”? All she said was that a bunch of Saudis flew airplanes into buildings, and we attacked Iraq (and another country, for that matter) in retaliation. This is a statement of fact.
If you disagree with it, why not explain why you disagree, rather than trying to belittle the poster by asserting, without any supporting evidence, that her point is ‘trivial’?
the attack was an attempt to bring down the united states of america. it hit our financial center, the pentagon and a third plane was headed for congress.
the obvious intent was to end the existence of our country.
i’m not saying ca_renter’s point is trivial i’m saying she is trivializing this three prong attack by saying “a bunch of Saudis flew airplanes into some buildings.” that is factually accurate much as it would be to say that we dropped a single object over hiroshima.
And the fox noise troglodytes got you hunkered down in a cave with your NewsMax windup radio and MRE’s.
Well, given our nation’s ongoing codependent realtionship with the sheiks and princes, someone out there must think it was trival.
All she said was that a bunch of Saudis flew airplanes into buildings, and we attacked Iraq (and another country, for that matter) in retaliation.
Actually, we attacked Afghanistan in retaliation. That much is a fact.
It’s speculation to say we attacked Iraq for retaliation of the September 11th attacks.
No there was a clear attempt to link 9/11 to Iraq and Al Queda to Iraq. That’s how it was sold to the American People along with a hefty dose of they have WMD they have WMD.
No there was a clear attempt to link 9/11 to Iraq and Al Queda to Iraq.
I agree the attempts were there to link 9/11 and iraq in the minds of the citizens. However I’d still say it’s speculation that the reason we invaded iraq was in retaliation of 9/11.
Presumably it was because of “teh WMDs” and failure to abide by UN resolutions.
Saddam switching to euros for his business dealings caused imbalances and friction whit the west
“…..end the existence of our country……”
Nope. The banksters and their paid fluffers in government are doing a fine job of it, all by themselves.
In fact, if they had been a little more discriminating in target acquisition, they might have saved the US from a world of hurt.
“And the fox noise troglodytes got you hunkered down in a cave with your NewsMax windup radio and MRE’s.”
Your point?
Comment by CharlieTango
2011-03-03 07:57:03
the attack was an attempt to bring down the united states of america. it hit our financial center, the pentagon and a third plane was headed for congress.
the obvious intent was to end the existence of our country.
——————
FWIW, I’m not so convinced that intent of the attacks were to “end the existence of our country.”
Different opinions on this topic, but what is NOT in dispute is that the attack on Iraq was connected to the “terrorists.”
http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020129-11.html
Do you think you can trivialize the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis even more?
there you go again,
i did not trivialize the deaths of anyone
Oxy,
Don’t you know only Chuckie has the right to accuse others of trivializing? He’s special.
Get with it girl!!
100,000,000 people die each and every year!
the deaths in IRAQ are part of that, are they not?
What about the other 99,000,000 million?
Who worries about them?
Are we (the U.S.) killing those other 99,000,000 people (using your numbers, I’ve not confirmed)?
6,000,000,000in the world, Life expectancy 60 years, means 100 million people die each year, does it not?
You cannot be for real….
“…the absence of a similar retaliatory mood against Wall Street is fascinating.”
No politician dares to speak out against Wall Street since they can easily out spend any possible oposition. Our Supreme Court made it possible, buying politicians = free speech. Only in America! Non of the sheeple seem to be too interested either. Too many distractions for now and the constant drumbeat of propaganda via the “news” channels. Full bellies generally make for poor revolutionaries, and so the looting countinues unabated for now. Everybody is too comfortable to do anything about it.
Once the federal budget blows up and we face severe austerity some might get the right ideas. Of course by then it is way too late. Typically only once the standard of living deteriorates below a certain threshold are people willing to risk everything. We’re still long ways away until the mood reaches the boiling point.
Full bellies generally make for poor revolutionaries
And judging by all of the land whales I see waddling around here it will be a long time before that changes.
“Full bellies generally make for poor revolutionaries
And judging by all of the land whales I see waddling around here it will be a long time before that changes.”
If the repukes in Wisconsin keep messing with the Peoples rice bowls and they’ll see “What’s for Dinner”… Crispy Critters.
I have to agree with you on that , NYCityBoy.
At this point, don’t those governors appear as pawns - playing the role of “bad cop” as Capital probes just how far they can squeeze? Until a concerted and purposeful resistence emerges to the status quo, they’ll keep pushing. If they push too hard they’re easily expendable, if they push it through they become “legends” and maybe even get rewarded with a run for the Oval Office. At least for now the “bad cops” are quite obvious and are being confronted, but what are the “good cops” up to?
At this point, don’t those governors appear as pawns
Yes, they do appear pretty bad, not like their noble counterparts that fled their own state to show just how little they were in the pockets of their public union constituency.
Good god are you zealots blind. They are all pawns, just to different kings.
No, not to different kings, the same king.
Why is it surprising that his majesty should have two separate reporting structures that he regularly plays off one another?
Sooner or later the other side will regain power in Wisconsin (governor, majority in both houses). When that happens, won’t they just repeal this law?
The unions should be out there organizing the grass-roots like never before. Fortunately, a union is also considered a “person” who can spend money to influence an election.
Stop bitching. Start planning (legal) revenge.
Sooner or later the other side will regain power in Wisconsin (governor, majority in both houses). When that happens, won’t they just repeal this law?
The only problem will be
when this occurs our power plants, highways, parks, public buildings etc will have been sold to their big money henchmen who will have long term contracts to suck as much blood out of Wi as possible.
Toll roads, higher energy costs, rents, fewer parks , higher fees.
These are all taxes, essentially they will allow the elite to tap directly into the tax payers wallet for decades.
+1 measton. The rich will allow the Democrats back into the store only after they’ve sold everything in it.
I see the cowardly Senate Dems running from town as their version of the filibuster. Taking a page from the 2009-2010 Republican Federal Senate playbook.
If they the balls, they’d declare the previous sale illegal and seize the property back through a forced buy-back. Give them the same price, minus some depreciation, and tell them they’ll get a 1% interest rate on the paybacks and like it.
Comment by measton
2011-03-03 10:59:08
Sooner or later the other side will regain power in Wisconsin (governor, majority in both houses). When that happens, won’t they just repeal this law?
The only problem will be
when this occurs our power plants, highways, parks, public buildings etc will have been sold to their big money henchmen who will have long term contracts to suck as much blood out of Wi as possible.
Toll roads, higher energy costs, rents, fewer parks , higher fees.
These are all taxes, essentially they will allow the elite to tap directly into the tax payers wallet for decades.
———————–
Bolded, so that those who don’t grasp what’s going on can see it again.
These are all taxes, essentially they will allow the elite to tap directly into the tax payers wallet for decades.
Which is what “privatizing” government is, and was ever, REALLY all about.
Democrats #1 contributor is not unions it’s Wall Street.
Getting rid of unions will just increase their dependence on big money. Both parties will drink at the same well.
Correct, at that point the difference bewteen the two parties will be reduced to platitudes such as abortion and homosexual rights.
Have you already forgotten that it was the Dems that tried to pass a bill to end tax breaks for offshoring and give those tax breaks to local business to hire?
A bill the Repub defeated?
No wonder we’re in trouble.
February 24, 2011, 8:27 pm
Investment Banking | Wall Street
After Exposé, Filmmaker Sees Little Change on Wall Street
By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN and MAC WILLIAM BISHOP
Will Wall Street win over Hollywood?
“Inside Job,” the Oscar-nominated documentary directed by Charles Ferguson, takes a piercing look at the financial crisis. Told through the lens of economists like Nouriel Roubini and investors like George Soros, the film lays much of the blame on Wall Street and a revolving door of regulators, many of whom came straight from the big banks.
With the Academy Awards to be presented on Sunday, Andrew Ross Sorkin of DealBook caught up with Mr. Ferguson to discuss what Wall Street thought of his work, regulatory reform and the filmmaking process. What follows is an edited version of the discussion.
Q. What type of reaction have you gotten from Wall Street?
A. Most of the people with whom I’ve spoken on Wall Street have reacted positively to the film.
Q. Despite the dim view that it often takes of Wall Street?
A. Yes, I would say actually because of the dim view that it takes of Wall Street. Of course, I am sure there are people who are very displeased by the film. But they haven’t spoken with me, I guess.
Q. Have you had any encounters with people who were in the film?
A. I had a rather interesting encounter with William Dudley, who is now the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York actually requested a screening of the film, and a meeting with me. He attended.
Q. What did he say?
A. Well, he said that he was broadly happy with and in agreement with the film, which surprised me a little bit. But he was in front of a bunch of his employees. That may have had an effect on the way he conducted himself. I don’t know.
…
Interesting.
BTW, thank you for recommending Inside Job to us on the HBB. After seeing it, I second your enthusiasm about the movie.
”Inside Job” bills itself as “the first film to expose the shocking truth behind the economic crisis.” It exposes whoremongering Wall Street traders, economic consultants who lie on their resumes and Hank Paulson’s conflicts. But it doesn’t answer what caused the crisis. Of course, it thinks it does. “This is how it happened,” the film confidently tells viewers…’
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=554044
I’m always suspicious when someone trys to “tell me” about what caused the “crisis” that has been spun to have begun in 2007. What was I blogging about in 2005? Were we not concerned, did we not address wall street, the GSEs, on and on?
There’s so much political spin these days, I don’t bother following this stuff. But like I said about “hollywood”; if these bleeding hearts are so sad about what happened, why don’t they stop walking away from their houses? Why did they just hire Dodd?
True, Ben, your blog was way out in front of all this, but I’m grateful that a Hollywood A-lister was willing to get out there and bring it to the masses who weren’t spending their days Googling “housing bubble.”
It’s funny how everyone has someone else to blame in this mess.I think they create that sense of chaos so no one ever focuses on the real issues.
I do want to see the movie as it has stoked my curiosity.Will rent it when it comes available.I’m not really into buying dvd’s.
‘everyone has someone else to blame in this mess’
Yes, and the guy who wrote this book has his angle. It’s predictable as the various themes fall along political lines. But how often do you hear, “they are all to blame”? It’s become such a dominate narrative that greedy FBs now indignantly lecture us on how they were “done wrong.”
And then there are the other players:
‘I had a rather interesting encounter with William Dudley, who is now the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. ..he said that he was broadly happy with and in agreement with the film’
I wonder why that is? And what about the appraisers? The big house builders? The NAR? Everyone is so happy to wrap this into a tiny bundle of blame (as long as we don’t actually DO anything about it) so we can get back to business as usual. I’m not buying it.
Yup, beware of one who points his finger. There is a bit of deflection going on.
“But how often do you hear, “they are all to blame”?”
Yup. The old group responsibility thing. “We’re all responsible” so nobody is held accountable. The same lame idiocy was stated right here on this blog last week relating to RealtorScum. Individual realtors are cool but NAR is bad. Riiiiiight.
They have begun to write the history, but it ain’t even over yet.
Sometimes “moving on” is not a good thing.
“There’s so much political spin these days, I don’t bother following this stuff.”
That’s entertainment; got popcorn?
‘That’s entertainment’
I dunno. How entertaining is it going to be when the loans being made today, overwhelming backed by the govt, go into default? What will they call that, the crisis of 2014?
I couldn’t come near being able to afford a house in Austin Texas in 1998. I know some of you found similar situations all over the country way before 2007. By defining the problem as some mortgage related paper disaster in 2007, these people are able to ignore the issue of housing prices. They can then justify all sorts of public policy to “save” the economy.
And that doesn’t even get into the coming collapses in China, Canada, Australia, etc.
Prices went off the chart completely by 2001 in VT, NH and eastern upstate NY. We sold our place in 1999 for 35% more than we paid for just 5 years earlier. It doesn’t sound like a big deal when you lay it up against the Great Housing Fraud years but it was huge in a post-industrial decline environment.
“What will they call that, the crisis of 2014?”
Probably. And I betcha the likes of Bernanke, Mishkin and Hubbard will say, ‘No one could have seen it coming.’
“And that doesn’t even get into the coming collapses in China, Canada, Australia, etc.”
I foresee a lot more future movies about the Great Financial Collapse of the Early 21st Century.
‘Prices went off the chart completely by 2001′
I should finish my experience along these lines; prices in Austin were nuts when I moved there in 1998. And then it really got crazy. This is what matters in a public policy context; the prices there are still insane.
But what does DC and other groups think is the solution to this problem? Easier financing, low down loans!!!
I guess my point is, that this film probably has great points about what wrongs were done on wall street. Other books can point to govt housing programs. Many variations; all correct in a way.
IMO what really matters, today in 2011, is why can’t we afford these houses.
“IMO what really matters, today in 2011, is why can’t we afford these houses.”
For the same reason a Nikes sell for $150; easily available lines of credit. At the risk of appearing to be Captain Obvious, the point cannot be overstated. We have what seems to be an endless supply of willing dopes ready to endorse a credit app and crooks willing to lend.
It’s not that hard to imagine what happens when you remove the crooks and slave masters from the process.
If the focus was on today’s problem, housing prices, instead of yesterdays blame game, some important issues become much clearer. It isn’t hard to grasp that most of the govt efforts (supporting and expanding GSE/HUD/VA lending, masking shadow inventory, delaying foreclosures) are taking us in the completely wrong direction.
It isn’t helping the economy, it isn’t helping families, it isn’t helping people facing foreclosure. In fact, it’s delaying our economic recovery. As these new loans go underwater and are defaulted upon, we’ll see much more damage done to all involved.
“Prices went off the chart completely by 2001 in VT, NH and eastern upstate NY. ”
I first got that queasy feeling in 2001 when a co-worker paid more for a studio in Brooklyn than friends had paid for a 2 bed 2 bath with EIK on upper Central Park West in 1998.
Exactly whyoung. It was 1999 that I first began to hear silly talk. The peak of the cycle should have been 2001. 2002 at the latest.
Insane prices still in So Ca for a one-story 1960’s rancher at $230/sf. Infestors aren’t dropping the price either.
I’ve noticed lots of “cash deal” articles. UHS are pooling resources and buying flips for cash. I was invited to join in, (against my own interest) and I told the LLP leader, they missed their window. Month after month, and the houses are sitting. What maroons!
I just want a home, not an investment. It’s actually a money pit, but I like the lifestyle, just not at any price.
It’s simple. The government is trying to support high house prices, because…….
-If everyone who has a mortgage ends up owing $250,000 more to the banksters than their house it worth, you are either going to have a nation of debt slaves, or everyone declaring bankruptcy.
-Either way, the possibility of the torches and pitchforks coming out gets a lot higher.
-If house prices collapse, many governments are going to have a hard time funding their operations, since raising taxes on people who actually have money is apparantly illegal.
-If prices collapse, all kinds of prices are going to collapse along with them. It’s going to be tough selling $35K cars or trucks, when a 1500 sf 3/2/2 is selling for $65K.
-Holding out the illusion of high house prices makes the banks balance sheets look better.
The fight is between those who will benefit from low house prices, and those who won’t. Those that won’t are doing everything in their power to keep them high, because they are totally fooked if they don’t. If half the population is fooked, it could very well turn the “beneficiaries” into members of the “fooked” group as well.
The short version…….the whole country is as screwed up as a football bat.
I spent 30 years as an appraiser for the State of California, (retired in 1982) and the one thing I can really be sure of is this:
Everyone wanted the appraisals to be high, including the buyers!
And there was pressure from everyone to make sure that the buyer could buy the property, and the seller could sell it!
Now, of course, everyone denies that was what was happening, and blame it all on the bankers.
If you wanted to buy a house during that time you did not want the appraiser telling you that the house was not worth what you wanted to pay, did you?
No one, no one, no one, was telling the appraisers to report a low value on the property! Period.
Comment by exeter
2011-03-03 07:37:39
Prices went off the chart completely by 2001 in VT, NH and eastern upstate NY.
——————
Same here in CA. The price of our house doubled between early 1998 and 2001…and then doubled again by 2004. By late 2005, it was up another ~$150K.
And people thought this was “normal.”
X-GSfixr-
You’re right, and you stated the reality well, but if there are no buyers to fund their scam, and homes for sale are just ON the market, not IN the market, aparently the market hasn’t found it’s equilibrium.
I was told by a decent UHS that there are no buyers out there for over $350K. People either think the market is heading down some more (So Ca) ,or they are scared they will not have a job next year. Add in salary deflation and inflationary pressures, and the residential market is constipated. Since we’re cash and need a home, we are willing to help with the movement, so to speak. Just not at $230/sf. That’s insane.
This Mexican stand-off is getting old.
Life boils down to money and P*SSY. You got the money you get the P*SSY. Tell Charlie he can use this if he wants. No charge.
Ben Jones
“these people are able to ignore the issue of housing prices. They can then justify all sorts of public policy to “save” the economy.”
It saves a way of life for a parasitic culture. It keeps the masses on the treadmill providing the flow of income/outgo that everyone who survives by taking a cut depends on for their existence. The size of the entitled class is immense. It really has been a grow or die situation here for a long time. Two years of zero growth and look at all the screaming already.
Houses are still way to unaffordable. This affects my age class now more than it used to. I am old enough to retire. I would need the SS entitlements to get by at some point down the road. I don’t expect it to be there. I cannot afford a regular “house”, despite having saved a huge % of my pay for a decade. High house prices are a force to keep me on the treadmill, so the others can feed off the flow.
I can get by through an alternative lifestyle that few could manage with their current skill sets and comfort levels. This is my escape hatch from the assylum. Most will stay, to pay for the house, because they do not have any other path in view. High house prices keep them in the system. High house prices are essential to our “economy”.
I disagree about your assumptions on SS. It will be there. It just probably won’t purchase anything.
Even if nothing is done to fix it, it should still be able to pay out 70-80% of the promised benefits.
‘It saves a way of life’.
Or it could be said it kicks the can down the road, delays the inevitable, etc. We’re doing a lot of this in the US these days.
‘High house prices are essential to our “economy”.
I’m sure that viewpoints like this are held behind closed doors in DC, but not put in such a straight-forward fashion to the public. Why? Because it wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny.
This gets to what I mean by ‘ignore the issue of housing prices…then justify all sorts of public policy to “save” the economy.’ In this line of thinking, big banks must be saved to ensure future credit. The GSEs are essential to the economic recovery, etc.
I have a different view; let’s put some wall street executives in prison. How about a nationwide round-up of thousands of crooked loan officers? That would do more to reform the system than anything.
Let’s liquidate the GSEs and sell off their inventory. It would stop the bleeding and put more affordable housing in the hands of families. I’m not saying what the role of govt in future housing markets should be. But accepting that house prices are still at bubble levels, and that affordability is necessary for a healthy economy, we could then debate what HUD should be doing, what down-payments should be and who would shoulder the risks.
Agree,
1. Fannie/Freddie should sell off the inventory with huge restrictions like primary residence and 20% down. I don’t want the bottom feeders — or worse, the banks themselves — to have first crack at the inventory only to flip it.
2. Private banks should have NO hand in the mortgages for those loans. I’m sure banks will whisper in Congress’s ear that they are well equipped to “handle” the mortgages for the poor masses. Congress would do well to show them the door.
‘Fannie/Freddie should sell off the inventory with huge restrictions like primary residence and 20% down.’
The GSE inventory is varied. Some can be financed, but others are not in condition to be loaned against. So a lot of houses are auctioned, with a significant number of those selling for cash. If the GSEs are financing it, I believe it has to be a primary residence.
‘I don’t want the bottom feeders — or worse, the banks themselves — to have first crack at the inventory only to flip it.’
To my knowledge, there aren’t any banks buying REOs. Acquiring them via FDIC maybe, but that’s buying the whole company.
The process is fairly open. Nobody has first crack. (The FDIC has been accused of that though.) They are looking for the highest dollar and the auctions can be sketchy. But IMO, it is inevitable that bottom feeders will buy a good percentage because financing just isn’t available.
If financing isn’t available, then let the prices drop until financing IS available. Isn’t this what we’re all waiting for now anyway? I want to see Detroit prices in DC!
Over 90 percent of nursing homes hire criminals
CBS News
More than 90 percent of nursing homes hired employees with criminal convictions according to a new government report obtained by CBS News.
Government investigators ran background checks on all workers who were employed on June 1, 2009 at 260 nursing homes across the country. The results showed 92 percent of the facilities hired at least one employee with a criminal conviction.
The report, by the Inspector General for Health and Human Services, also says that at nearly half of the nursing homes, “five or more individuals” with criminal backgrounds were hired.
Investigators found seven registered sex offenders employed in five different nursing homes. Overall 43 percent of the criminal convictions were for property crimes such as “burglary, shoplifting, writing bad checks.”
Forty-three states require nursing homes to conduct some kind of criminal background check. But, only ten states require both a state and FBI background check that would detect convictions in multiple states.
“On its face, it’s shocking,” said Janet Wells, director of public policy for the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care. She added, “People move from state to state and they may have an abuse record at another health care facility, that’s why we would prefer to see a national mandatory program.”
The new Obama health care law created a national program for states to standardize federal and state background checks for nursing home employees who interact with residents, but state participation is optional. Ten states including Florida and Missouri have received federal funds to begin implementing the new program. The government picks up the cost of conducting background checks.
The post housing crash reaction has been nothing but bogus
bail-outs to sectors ,bogus incentives to sectors ,bogus liability transfers
and bogus propping up corrupt financial systems . All this without any
look at the trade balances and tariffs and multi-national Companies
ongoing quest to dump the USA worker in favor of greener slave wage pastures . No talk of why the Health care costs are so high to the point
of stressing every financial sector . Just a bunch of bogus talk while
special interest bribes the politicians to pick the winners and losers in the fashion they see fit . Yep ,special interest just wanting tax policy and give-a-ways favoring them . And they can’t understand why all these
post financial crash remedy solutions aren’t working and the fear of a double dip recession ,while it’s still a jobless recovery .
‘The post housing crash reaction’
In my little blue collar town, where good jobs are extremely rare, the median house price is just under $300k. I would say the housing crash isn’t ‘post’ here yet.
I would say round one of the housing crash is done. I expect a second round and that second round will have to be bigger than the first to get housing costs back in line with incomes and inventory.
Yes, agreed.
And the second leg down will be lead by the govt sector going down. IMHO, this will end up being bigger, longer, and more damaging than the first leg.
Right Ben because people are holding on to the fake prices and not wanting them to crash to where they belong .
They were many evils for years that built up to the final mania
market that took place .
I have always thought housing and rents were to damn high even
30 years ago . My view is if housing takes more than 20 % of your income ,something is wrong.
I remember one boom cycle in the past they tried to blame a shortage of lumber as the culprit for absurd increases in RE
prices .
Every industry wants to get more of a percentage of the typical family budget .
In my little blue collar town, where good jobs are extremely rare, the median house price is just under $300k. I would say the housing crash isn’t ‘post’ here yet.
Same thing down here in Tucson. Our median income is around $32k. Median house price is still in the mid-100s.
And this town is bristling with “for sale” signs. Not to mention the “for rent” signs outside the houses that didn’t sell.
For me ,if someone makes 32 k a year ,the max they should be paying for housing would be 700 a month if you consider all costs (and that assumes that aren’t in debt in other ways likes 700 dollar a month car payments .)
If you have more income ,you debt ratio can be a little higher ,but not that much higher ,it can be higher because its offset by a greater tax advantage than the 32k income gets .
What can possibly justify qualifying FB’s on a 1% teaser rate
as if a projected imagine income is going to appear in the future and that higher income is going to appear within 6 months of the loan being made . The projected income was real estate goes up and that will take care of the lack of income . At east lenders years ago would qualify teaser rate loans based on the adjusted up interest rate ,not the teaser bogus teaser rates.
My problem is I know how they use to weight risk (or how they use to underwrite ).
How can you possibly justify acting like nothing is a risk and
nothing shall be rated as a high risk .
Those loan investors should of been getting a 25% interest rate for those loans that were high risk plus a huge down payment to offset the risk when the loans would go bad .
Just like insurance companies reserve the right to charge more if your high risk on your car insurance policy for instance .
I’m sure the governments loved the additional tax base they were getting from the mania prices on property taxes ,and Corporations loves the additional buying power the sheep had
using fake equity from houses ,or debt by credit cards beyond any reasonable limits or ability to pay back .
More than 90 percent of nursing homes hired employees with criminal convictions according to a new government report obtained by CBS News.
I understand the shock value of this, but once a “criminal” has done their time, we return them to society. Should they not be allowed to have jobs? Do we not trust them?
If we don’t trust them, why do we free them?
Pretty much every American is guilty of breaking a law (or numerous) on any given day. We throw people in jail for all kinds of petty things.
I would wager that nursing homes have higher hiring standards than congress.
Who else is going to do the work..ex-cons and illegal immigrants. Quick train, above minimum wage pay. Men under 40 without back & knee problems are best able to do the transfers, pick granny up off the floor and so forth.
Not all criminals are dangerous to society, and many go back to crime because they face employment discrimination. Our prison system in Ca use to have trade certificate programs, and gave people a chance at a new life when they got out.It was very successful. If someone wants a second chance, I’m all for it.
I understand the shock value of this, but once a “criminal” has done their time, we return them to society. Should they not be allowed to have jobs? Do we not trust them?
Yea? Oh really? Well let me tell you something. I agree.
Over 90 percent of nursing homes hire criminals
Which is why Yours Truly is grateful to have parents who want no part of being in a nursing home. Or an assisted living community. And I fully support them in that sentiment.
The new Obama health care law created a national program for states to standardize federal and state background checks for nursing home employees who interact with residents, but state participation is optional.
lil Opie, the (Non-Hawaiian) Islamist-Muslim-Kenyan-Indonesian Destroyer of America!…staying up late & working hard (and shredding States Rights too!)
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_NyJnBxAi5xE/RxDxdFJlqGI/AAAAAAAAABE/-VbYjQBW5lg/s400/yogi.gif
If the criminals can cross state lines, then the federal law ought to as well.
Agree, oxide.
* March 2nd, 2011 12:25 pm ET
Video: Wisconsin GOP Senator Glenn Grothman chased, trapped by hecklers
…
Despite President Obama’s call for a new era of civility in political debate, video has surfaced of a pro-union mob chasing Wisconsin senator Glenn Grothman, a Republican, around the state capitol grounds.
…
Well if Wisconsin Guv and his state political hacks want to cut costs. the easiest place is to start with themselves by sacrificing and setting an example. Seems to me it’s always do as I say and not as I do.
BINGO
But we know that those in executive positions are the real “producers” and deserve their pay!
Maybe they were playing tag?
Republitard strategy for saving America:
1) Loudly decry that we are collectively broke.
2) Continue to persistently demonize tax increases as a potential remedy.
3) Bust unions to kill two birds with one stone:
a) Eliminate their future pension obligations from the public balance sheet.
b) Crush the Democratic Party support base.
Editorial
The Hollow Cry of ‘Broke’
Published: March 2, 2011
“We’re broke! We’re broke!” Speaker John Boehner said on Sunday. “We’re broke in this state,” Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin said a few days ago. “New Jersey’s broke,” Gov. Chris Christie has said repeatedly. The United States faces a “looming bankruptcy,” Charles Koch, the billionaire industrialist, wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
It’s all obfuscating nonsense, of course, a scare tactic employed for political ends. A country with a deficit is not necessarily any more “broke” than a family with a mortgage or a college loan. And states have to balance their budgets. Though it may disappoint many conservatives, there will be no federal or state bankruptcies.
The federal deficit is too large for comfort, and most states are struggling to balance their books. Some of that is because of excessive spending, and much is because the recession has driven down tax revenues. But a substantial part was caused by deliberate decisions by state and federal lawmakers to drain government of resources by handing out huge tax cuts, mostly to the rich. As governments begin to stagger from the self-induced hemorrhaging, Republican politicians like Mr. Boehner and Mr. Walker cry poverty and use it as an excuse to break unions and kill programs they never liked in flush years.
On Wednesday, to cite just the latest example, House Republicans successfully pressured the Senate to approve a bill cutting $4 billion in spending just to keep the federal government from shutting down for the next two weeks. In a matter of days, the Senate will be forced to take up the House bill to make more than $61 billion in ruinous cuts over the next seven months, all under the pretext of “fiscal responsibility.” (At least the White House says it will be involved in the next round.) Many Republican governors are employing the same tactic.
But now voters are starting to notice the effects of these cuts and to get angry at the ideological overreach. A New York Times/CBS News poll published on Tuesday showed that Americans oppose ending bargaining rights for public unions by a majority of nearly two to one. And the poll sharply refutes the post-Reagan Republican mantra that the public invariably abhors all tax increases. Nearly twice as many people said they would prefer a tax increase to cutting benefits of public employees or to cutting spending on roads.
…
I always wonder whether the govt keeps 2 sets of books. One book, says that we are broke. The other private book says we are rolling in dough. The govt likes keeping the cookies off the books so that way they don’t have to share.
BTW, i did a poll with +/- 5% accuracy that says New York Times/CBS can kiss my $ss.
Calling anyone who does not take your side a retard is a personality disorder.
At the very least a partisan hack.
“…more than $61 billion in ruinous cuts over the next seven months…”
The federal budget is currently around $3.83 trillion according to Wikipedia. That $3,830 billion.
A $61 billion cut (1.6 percent) is ruinous?
A $61 billion cut (1.6 percent) is ruinous?
It’s a lot more than 1.6 percent for some programs and would be ruinous to some of those programs. Meanwhile, areas that need to be cut sharply are untouched.
Valid points in regards to military expenses. On the other hand many useless programs need to be eliminitaed all together.
” A country with a deficit is not necessarily any more “broke” than a family with a mortgage or a college loan.”
The author needs to review debt and deficit.
A country with debt is like a family with a mortgage. A country with a deficit is like a family that borrows more money to pay the mortgage.
If you define broke as needing to borrow to make ends meet until the next payday, then many governments have been broke for quite some time now.
If you define broke as not being able to borrow to make ends meet anymore, then they’re not broke yet it seems.
There are some difference. The house and down payment is used for Collateral, future income is also used as collateral for student loan. Is there any collateral for national debt? Can USA sell Alaska to repay its debt? If not, the loaner are big time fools.
vicever, you are the collateral.
Here’s the thing
If thousands of union workers are overpaid they spend that money in the community and businesses and other workers might see some of it.
If state money is giving to a small group of elite via tax breaks and the sale of state assets for pennies on the dolllar. The average citizen is unlikely to see any of it. In fact they will likely face tolls on their highways and higher electric fees.
If thousands of union workers are overpaid they spend that money in the community and businesses and other workers might see some of it.
So if we’re lucky, the public employees will give us back some of our money?
Do you not see the flaw in that?
By the way, giving “Tax breaks” is not equal to handing out money to people. It’s letting them keep more of the money that was theirs to begin with.
Do you have problems with people who are down with the O.P.P.?
Other People’s Purse-strings.
drumminj,
You’re making the (false, IMHO) assumption that these large corporations and financial entities are giving more than they take.
How well do you think they would do if they were headquartered in the countries they’ve been outsourcing jobs to, without the protection of U.S. law?
How well do you think they’d be doing without the U.S. (and it’s paid-for allies) guarding the shipping lanes?
How well do you think they’d be doing if they lived in countries full of diseases and always on the verge of social unrest and revolution?
How well do you think they’d be doing if they lived in a country that could “nationalize” them at a moment’s notice?
How well do you think they’d be doing without all the physcial, social, and legal infrastructure that we taxpayers provide?
These corporatists and financial elite benefit far more than any “welfare mom” or public union worker.
You’re making the (false, IMHO) assumption that these large corporations and financial entities are giving more than they take.
No, actually, I’m not. My comment was only addressing the public workers, not the corporations at all. Unless you’re talking about my comment regarding tax breaks, which is clear, given the distinction between a tax break and a tax credit.
You’re arguing against something I’ve not said at all.
These corporatists and financial elite benefit far more than any “welfare mom” or public union worker.
You’re making a classic strawman argument here. I’ve never argued for corporations. I’ve never said that corporations give more than a “welfare mom” or public union worker.
I agree that corporations benefit from our infrastructure, education system, and our system of laws.
I raised an objection to the comment of “hey, even though we may take money from you and give it to other people, if we give it to public employees, you might see a penny or two come back your way”. My whole point is I don’t want my money taken away in the first place. I don’t care who it’s given away to. Just because I may see a penny or two of it back doesn’t make it okay.
I’m against corporate bailouts. I’m against the “privatization” of government (ie funneling money through the government and giving it to private companies). I’m against our bloated military and our interventionist foreign policy. I’m against our governments running at a deficit and paying for everything with debt. And I vote accordingly.
You keep talking about the corporations. Most of us who aren’t saying “rah rah unions rah rah” aren’t. It’s not an all or nothing, nor an either-or. I don’t see why you, among others here, continue to frame it that way.
But you’re assuming that a dollar “saved” as the result of govt cutbacks will be a dollar in your pocket.
There are a lot of others out there looking to get that dollar before it ever has a chance of getting into your pocket. Many of these “others” would move the money off-shore, or spend it on speculative gambles. At least with public employees, the money IS going back into the economy. Not a penny or two, but almost ALL of it.
“If thousands of union workers are overpaid they spend that money in the community and businesses and other workers might see some of it.”
Trickle down doesn’t work.
Trickle down doesn’t work.
(Hwy glaces at his older brothers xmas “tax-bidness” card/calender)
Ha, that’s what I say to big brother: “Bro’ your the “trickle down” Society prognosticator, while’s I’m more the “trickle-it-around” Society type.
Union workers are pretty close to the bottom rung of the pay scale — even the ones making $75K or so. Trickle down doesn’t apply to the bottom.
This goes back to my Threshold theory. If somebody makes $500K a year, the first ~$100K of that trickles down pretty fast. The remaining $400K trickles directly to the Cayman islands.
Union worker pay trickles sideway .
Exactly, workers’ salaries aren’t “trickled down,” they’re trickled across.
U.S. workers are FAR more likely to spend their money in the communities where those taxes are paid. The financial elite are more likely to “invest” in commodities or in Chindia or Thailand or (latest “developing country” with slave labor and no environmental protections).
It’s all obfuscating nonsense, of course, a scare tactic employed for political ends.
“TrueFear™” is Job #1 for the GOP, it’s very applicable and sticks well on many, many things:
Marriage between adult human
animals“beings”immigrants
wacky tabaccaky
Pentagon funding
lack of black-goo oil
military lottery draft
people who don’t look/act/or think Repubican
birth-control
skateboarders
Wall St. “Godlike”-managed Social Security accounts
Did I mention raising taxes on Billionaires and the peon-subset Multi-Millionaires?…
Republitard strategy for saving America:
4) Exhaust Diplomacy before initiating a bloody Foreign War.
5) Perhaps/maybe/possibly/one day,…Modify (but not eliminate) Corpooration Inc. “No-Bid” Billion Dollar military contracts.
What happened to the good old days, when the Republicans were saying “cutting taxes will make the pie bigger”……
It did. But then someone stole the pie.
Economic Scene
Union Contracts, Not Pay, Are States’ Problem
By DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: March 1, 2011
When Ed Rendell became the mayor of Philadelphia in 1992, he started a fight with the city’s labor unions that will sound familiar to anyone who has been following the recent news from Wisconsin. In his inaugural address, Mr. Rendell, a Democrat, announced, “Philadelphia stands on the brink of total disaster.”
He told the city’s unions that they needed to accept less generous health benefits, fewer holidays and a pay freeze. The unions promised to strike. Mr. Rendell pointed out, frequently and publicly, that the city offered better benefits than private companies did. The public sided with the mayor, and on most issues, the unions eventually caved.
If you review the recent history of battles between unions and state or local governments, you’ll find similar stories. In New York, Rudolph Giuliani won big concessions. In Chicago, Richard Daley did, too. In Wisconsin — setting aside Gov. Scott Walker’s attempt to end collective bargaining — unions have already agreed to a significant cut in take-home pay.
It has become conventional wisdom to say that public sector unions are inherently problematic because they can use their political influence to win lavish pay from politicians. But that’s not quite right. The real problem with most union contracts for public workers is not the money — it’s almost everything else.
…
This sums it up nicely for me:
The solution today is not to cut both the pay and the benefits of public workers…The solution is to get rid of the deferred benefits that make no sense — the wasteful health plans, the pensions that start at age 55 and still let retirees draw a full salary elsewhere, the definitions of disability that treat herniated discs as incurable.
These changes…won’t address the immediate, recession-induced crisis. Dealing with the crisis will require dealing with the second failure of government: subpar performance.
…they have protected their worst-performing members, at the expense of both the taxpayers and the thousands of public workers who do their jobs well. Only recently, for instance, have teachers’ unions started to cooperate with serious efforts at teacher evaluation, and they are still not giving their full cooperation.
Everyone should be contributing to healthcare at this point. And increases should be merit-based. Private sector has been lucky to get 1-2% annual increases over the past several years - even with good performance (ok, maybe that’s just me and my company? Not likely.) I’ve heard the argument that, “Yeah, well private sector job salaries, benefits, and increases are always negotiated.” Really? Not in my world. Maybe I’m just a wuss, then, but I apply for a job and accept if I like the salary offered. I take the benefits that come with it (don’t and can’t tailor them for myself) and, though I’ve tried, I’m not exactly all powerful to get huge pay increases. If they say “no”, I have two options: accept it or quit. Can’t strike (I’m so firmly against anyone who strikes). Can’t call in someone to negotiate for me. It is what it is and, you know what?, I am grateful for what I have…even though I’d like to have (and think I am deserving of) more.
Also, there is a bit of musical chairs involved in all of this.
Private sector worker:
–gets 1-2% annual pay increase
–healthcare contribution goes up 10-15%
–taxes go up 10-15%
Does anyone else see the problem with this?
Another comment recently made to me by a teacher (and, mind you, I come from a family of teachers…my dad spent his whole career with one school district, my brother has - thus far - done the same) was, “Let’s see how the public likes it when they don’t have anymore “free babysitting” for their kids when we go on strike!”
First of all, defining teaching as babysitting is just, well, childish. Secondly, free? Really? So my $3500 annual school tax doesn’t factor in? Nor does the $3000 I pay annually because I have to put my son in before AND after care in order to work the hours I have to work? Odd definition of “free” imo.
I’ve seen how striking affects both families who have kids in school AND families of the teachers who are striking. My dad went on strike when we were little. I remember some very bad days during that time.
And increases should be merit-based. Private sector has been lucky to get 1-2% annual increases over the past several years - even with good performance
My ex works for the city of Tacoma. And she had guaranteed 5% increases for 5 years. The same was true of many of her coworkers.
They just followed the Wall Street playbook for determining compensation.
drumminj,
I know a lot of public sector employees, and almost all of them have taken pay and benefit cuts. Those who didn’t have to were lucky enough to have their compensation “frozen.” I’ve not heard of any public employer who has given their employees net increases over the past few years.
I’ve not heard of any public employer who has given their employees net increases over the past few years.
That’s fine. Doesn’t make my anecdote false or invalid. I know it to be true - it is not speculation.
The union bosses ought to take a page out of the banksters’ play book and generously fund both Republicrat and Demorat campaigns. Their Democratic favoritism is clearly biting them in the neck at the moment.
Largest unions pay leaders well, give extensively to Democrats
By John C. Henry, Center for Public Integrity
March 3, 2011 5:01 a.m.
On the surface, the fight between the governor of Wisconsin and organized labor is about balancing state budgets and collective-bargaining rights. Behind the scenes, hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to top labor leaders as well as campaign contributions to Democrats could be in jeopardy.
Union treasuries - filled by dues paid by union members - not only fund programs benefiting union members and their families. The money they collect also pays six-figure compensation packages for labor leaders and provides millions of dollars for Democratic causes and candidates.
The Center for Public Integrity found compensation for leaders of the 10 largest unions ranged from $173,000 at the United Auto Workers to $618,000 at the Laborers’ International Union of North America, and almost $480,000 for the president of the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees. The latter is the target of GOP governors in Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee and Kansas.
…
“The union bosses ought to take a page out of the banksters’ play book and generously fund both Republicrat and Demorat campaigns. Their Democratic favoritism is clearly biting them in the neck at the moment.”
Why should they fund Republicans that almost universally oppose workers rights?
That being said, the very limited - separate fund - for political contributions from my union has gone to members of both parties where it could be beneficial to my agency. When you do things that can be considered broadly beneficial to a representative’s constituents, sometimes you can make some inroads there. You don’t have to win over most of an opposition party, just enough.
You don’t have to win over most of an opposition party, just enough.
the union represents a group of people bonded by common employer. workers have a variety of political beliefs. how can you have an opposition party?
Technically their employers are the taxpayers. Their contributions are made to ensure that their employer has no say in what happens to them.
Technically their employers are the taxpayers. Their contributions are made to ensure that their employer has no say in what happens to them.
It is possible to do things that are in the interest of the public. One of the things a union can do is to help make elected representatives aware of those public interests too, not just those of the representatives corporate contributors. If representatives interests were more closely aligned with those of the public, then this informational effort might be a lot less necessary.
“Why should they fund Republicans that almost universally oppose workers rights?”
The answer is contained in your question.
they should not fund either side with members dues. members are not all democrats.
republicans do not universally oppose workers rights, thats ridiculous.
they should not fund either side with members dues. members are not all democrats.
Member dues are not used for political contributions. A separate fund, to which members may choose to make separate contributions beyond their union dues, is used for such political contributions.
republicans do not universally oppose workers rights, thats ridiculous.
I said almost universally. Can you name one pro-labor Republican?
But, there is not much real difference between making a contribution to a political campaign and “spending union dues on politics.” For example, during the 2004 presidential primaries many unions had several, in some cases far more than several, staff members in Iowa promoting their favorite candidates. They are full time staff members for the candidates’ campaigns. They are highly skilled, highly paid political operatives. Their salaries, benefits and expenses are paid by the unions.
Some people have done very detailed analysis of the use of union dues for politics. In 1974 Douglas Caddy wrote “The 100 Million Dollar Payoff” detailing how labor unions spent money to supported Hubert Humphrey in his bid for the presidency in the 1968 elections.
Not too many years ago Leo Troy, a distinguished professor of economics at Reuters University in New Jersey, gave testimony to a Congressional Committee outlining how unions spend about $500 million in dues dollars on politics each election cycle. link
“an you name one pro-labor Republican?”
the philosophy of limited govt and limited taxation leads to prosperity and opportunity for all, including labor.
there is a difference between labor and unions.
“Can you name one pro-labor Republican”
There are lots of Republicans getting a W2. Do you have to belong to a gang to be pro human?
the philosophy of limited govt and limited taxation…
There you go again, channeling Limbaugh.
There you go again, channeling Limbaugh.
I see. So if someone holds that philosophy, you’re unwilling to respect their ideas because you disagree. Instead, you’ll associate them with someone else, and then attack the person you associated them with.
Sounds like a legitimate argument.
“There you go again, channeling Limbaugh”
I didn’t realize he was dead.
You should be glad that she didn’t call you a racist. It happens quite frequently if you challenge their dogma.
the philosophy of limited govt and limited taxation leads to prosperity and opportunity for all,
The claptrap coming out of the far right just defies reality. I mean it’s amazing the stuff they spout that flies in the face of what is. How they can parrot the same B.S. with a straight face is beyond me. I will counter both points.
The rich have historically low taxes right now and the middle class is getting hammered.
It is now easier to to be upwardly mobile in countries with “bigger governments” than it is in America.
Social Immobility: Climbing The Economic Ladder Is Harder In The U.S. Than In Most European Countries
source: eutimes dot net and the OECD
Is America the “land of opportunity”? Not so much.
A new report from the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) finds that social mobility between generations is dramatically lower in the U.S. than in many other developed countries.
So if you want your children to climb the socioeconomic ladder higher than you did, move to Canada.
The report finds the U.S. ranking well below Denmark, Australia, Norway, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Germany and Spain in terms of how freely citizens move up or down the social ladder. Only in Italy and Great Britain is the intensity of the relationship between individual and parental earnings even greater.
For instance, according to the OECD, 47 percent of the economic advantage that high-earning fathers in the United States have over low-earning fathers is transmitted to their sons, compare to, say, 17 percent in Australia and 19 percent in Canada.
…The greater a nation’s inequality, the harder it is for its children to improve their lot.
That confirms findings by other researchers. “The way I usually put this is that when the rungs of the ladder are far apart, it becomes more difficult to climb the ladder,
“The rich have historically low taxes right now and the middle class is getting hammered.”
Which of those statements is correct?
Taxes are not historically low for the rich, nor for the middle class!
The middle class is not getting hammered, in my opinion, because we eat better, have better cars, more kids in college, better houses, and, in general, more toys than every before.
But, you may consider them to be hammered because the can not buy bigger and better things all of the time.
It is hard to say that you can not jump social status,if you look at the rich people in this country, and you look at the various racial groups in government, business, and society.
But that is just my thoughts , you may differ.
300% income increase in the top 5% over the last 20 years while J6P was lucky to even see a raise or keep his job, let alone one that was more than inflation, says you’re wrong.
10% UE while the Fortune 1000 reap record profits, says you’re wrong.
Double digit real inflation when J6P’s raises are single digit says you’re wrong.
Shall I continue?
“Taxes are not historically low for the rich…”
Ever heard of Google? A quick search says… you’re wrong.
GOP leaders seem determined to help put FB’s out of their misery. I totally agree with the idea of acknowledging failed programs and moving on.
GOP strikes at housing programs
A forclosure sign outside a home is shown. | AP Photo
Republicans plan to mark up four bills that will pull the plug on four foreclosure programs. | AP Photo Close
By MEREDITH SHINER | 3/2/11 7:56 PM EST
Congressional Republicans aiming to dismantle President Barack Obama’s agenda have set their sights on an easy target: housing programs that even Democrats, gearing up to fight the cuts, concede have been mismanaged.
In the House Financial Services Committee, Republicans plan to mark up four separate bills that will pull the plug on four programs designed to help struggling home owners stave of foreclosure: the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, and the FHA Refinance Program and the Emergency Homeowner Relief Fund.
While both parties acknowledge the serious flaws in these initiatives — particularly the Treasury-backed HAMP, whose results TARP Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky called “remarkably discouraging” Wednesday — Democrats are focused on “mending, not ending” programs designed to keep Americans in their homes and want to ensure that funds keep flowing to troubled homeowners. Republicans are driving full-speed-ahead on de-funding the efforts.
…
Maybe, just maybe, too many loan owners are too far underwater to be helped? Of course, nobody could have seen it coming…
This reminds me of the undertaker and his wife with whom we frequently (and freakishly) crossed paths on the course of our honeymoon. I asked him at one point how he felt about working with dead bodies for a living. His response was simply, “What’s dead is dead.”
White House plan to help borrowers could die in House
Thursday, March 3, 2011
The Obama administration’s main initiative to help struggling borrowers avoid foreclosure could soon be killed in the House, where many Republican lawmakers have complained about the program’s lackluster results.
The initiative, known as the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, aims to reduce borrowers’ monthly payments to affordable levels. When it was launched in March 2009, the administration projected that it would prevent 3 million to 4 million foreclosures before it expired in December 2012.
But the program is far off track, having permanently modified about 521,000 mortgages as of December. Republican lawmakers say the results are not worth the cost, which is why a House Financial Services subcommittee considered killing the program and three others at a hearing Wednesday.
…
How can banks/investors/the government afford to take a 60% haircut on everyone who’s under water? This is a mess with no easy solutions.
one word. TARP.
Bad Andy ,I agree with you on this one that this is a mess with no easy solutions . It’s a matter of who takes the loss ,or what percentage of the loss they take . It’s not so easy determining who takes the loss when homeowners are determining who takes the loss
by walking ,or just the fact they can’t afford the home loan they were given .
Usually a Industry passes a loss to the consumer by raising prices to
compensate for the loss . In this case the loss is so great it means
BK .Now the taxpayers own 90% of AIG ,a insurance Company that by all rights lost ,and their only option would of been to expose the fraud of the financial institutions they made the bets with .How could AIG pay Goldmans if it went BK and Goldmans had to wait in line like any other creditor that gets burned when a Company goes BK . The Fed chairman started out by making short term loans to the culprits using the bad paper as backing for the loans . That lead to out-right bails out and accounting rule changes
and passing bad loans to F&F at par value and the taxpayer backs the loss .and than all the incentive that are taxpayer paid .
They started out saying we were just going to make a 80 billion dollar loan to AIG ,and now the taxpayers are into a 200 billion dollar ownership stake (90% stock position ) . We bought AIG
just like we bought a bunch of bad paper we backed that was passed to the books of F&F .You can’ thank the Fed Chairman for
deciding to put Justice in his own hands . Also charging the banks nothing for interest is a form of bail out for that industry at the expense of savors ,inflation ,money driving up assets ,more loss to pension funds and you name it .
This has always been about how to transfer loss to taxpayers/society ,so the true liable parties get to avoid BK
or lawsuits for their liability .
If they prosecute the Culprits ,than what would that do to bail out schemes ,it would expose it for what is was and undo it .
This high leverage lending ,or betting against it ,was destined to fall because the reserves were absurd .Low reserves set the stage for Bk if the risk goes bad .Same thing with the FB buyers ,low reserves set the stage for being unable to pay if the leveraged risk goes bad .So ,we get all these distortions to save the culprits and
transfer the loss . Its just like you can’t make a bad loan good
for a FB ,the motive wasn’t even right for purchasing the house .
“This is a mess with no easy solutions.”
Originally it was a mess with a clear cut solution. As loans went bad, they get written off, and if that bankrupted the lender or their insurer then so be it. Bondholders could take what they get, and maybe sue some C-type execs for negligence in their duties.
It only became complicated when government intervened.
Right Al ,standing law at the time had the solutions ,the winners and losers was built into the cake . The problem is that the parties that knew they would be the losers decided they didn’t want to be the losers or the liable party . You right it was only complicated
by the government intervention .
The government needs to bail out a gambling mania riddled with
fraud from all angles ,I don’t think so .TBTP …to big to prosecute .
It only became complicated when government intervened.
———————
Which is why some of us were really fretting about the bailouts, years ago.
Live coverage: Fannie Mae CEO to speak in San Diego
Michael J. Williams on Thursday will headline USD’s yearly real estate event
By Lily Leung, UNION-TRIBUNE
Wednesday, March 2, 2011 at 4:46 p.m.
Fannie Mae’s CEO is coming to San Diego on Thursday. The U-T will be covering his visit.
Check back in with the Union-Tribune at 8 a.m. Thursday for frequent blog updates on what Fannie Mae President and CEO Michael J. Williams will say at the University of San Diego’s Burnham-Moores Center’s real estate conference.
Williams, who’s set to start at 8:15 a.m., will headline the function at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront.
It’s unclear what he’ll say during his 45-minute speech but people are curious if he’ll touch on the Obama Administration’s proposal to wind-down Fannie Mae and fellow mortgage giant Freddie Mac. (See the Wall Street Journal’s coverage of that here.)
…
bring the tar and feathers.
He is fairly new on the job. It is hard to blame the new guy knowing that Franklin Raines is somewhere on a tropical beach sipping Mai Tais.
Grrrrrr. Raines
Say goodbye to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
Peter Crabb — Northwest Nazarene University - Idaho Statesman
Published: 03/02/11
The U.S. mortgage market is undergoing major changes. The federal government will take a smaller role on the supply side, and perhaps even the demand side.
Government intervention on the supply side of the mortgage market began with the establishment of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae is the short name for the Federal National Mortgage Association started in 1938 as part of the New Deal legislation. The agency became a public corporation in 1968, but retained an implied government backing.
Freddie Mac is the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation created with government support in 1970. Both Fannie and Freddie have long bought mortgages from banks, thereby providing more liquidity in the mortgage market.
With these loan buyers standing ready, banks willing increased the supply of mortgage loans. The system had its intended effect of increasing available loans for home ownership.
From 1970 through 2010, mortgage debt outstanding grew an average of 9 percent per year. Despite this rapid rise in available credit the U.S. home ownership rate is only about 5 percent higher than in the 1960s. Even after the financial crisis, Fannie and Freddie make the market. These and other federal agencies account for 90 percent of all new mortgage loans. This could all soon change.
…
Financial collapse finger pointing continues: So many scapegoats, so little accountability…
Government officials share blame in meltdown
…
USA TODAY’s rogues gallery of major 2008 financial meltdown players is misguided, just as the biased Inside Job misplaced the blame on Wall Street’s financial mortgage industry, which was the result of the crash, not the cause.
Indeed, the rogues gallery for the cause begins with former president Jimmy Carter’s Community Reinvestment Act, which was used by former president Bill Clinton to have his Housing and Urban Development secretary, Andrew Cuomo, and then-Attorney General Janet Reno intimidate banks and mortgage lenders to lower standards for affordable housing. Of course, that was exacerbated by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac purchasing and reselling the toxic mortgages to Wall Street and others.
To complete the rogues gallery, congressional Democratic leaders Rep. Barney Frank and former senator Chris Dodd must be included for failing to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They helped perpetuate the affordable housing fraud, victimizing unqualified home buyers, which created the housing boom and bust — thus the financial collapse and foreclosures. Sadly, biased news media, Hollywood and left-wing ideologues end up being the false and superficial finger-pointers, when government is the guilty wild bunch.
Daniel B. Jeffs; Apple Valley, Calif.
Wow. Ignorance is thick in Apple Valley, Calif.
To disregard the governments role in this tragedy seems “thick” to me. There is plenty of blame to go around. Government provided the playground, Wall Street played in it.
Once again.
The CRA was basically dead, until the Wall Streeters figured out a way to cash in on it.
-Poor people are stuck in overpriced homes they can’t afford.
-Government is basically taking the hit.
-A whole lot of people in the mortgage and securitization industries got their money up front, and ran from the mess when it collapsed.
Follow the money.
Government provided the playground, Wall Street played in it.
And Wall Street designed it.
gov did th bidding of WS
Thus the blame still goes back to WS.
Do you really think those programs were started for the poor and middle class. No they were started as vehicles to off load toxic loans for WS.
U.S. Housing Market, More Trouble in Squanderville
Housing-Market / US Housing Mar 02, 2011 - 08:42 AM
By: Mike_Whitney
Housing-Market
Bob, Frank and Freddie all bought identical houses in the same neighborhood in 2004. Each man paid $300,000 for his home.
Bob paid the whole $300,000 in cash. Frank put down 10% (or $30,000) and took out a $270,000 mortgage. Freddie paid $0-down on a 100% mortgage.
In 2005, home prices rose by 10% which means that Bob made 10% (or $30,000) on his original investment. Frank made 100% on the $30,000 he put down. Freddie made the biggest windfall of all–he made $30,000 in “pure profit”.
Question: Which one these three men is most likely to be the banker?
If you guessed “Freddie”, you’re right. Banks don’t like committing capital because it limits profitability. This is why the big banks have fought so ferociously for deregulation, so they’re not constrained in the amount of money they can make (via credit creation) with little capital. Of course, when the banking system is propped atop tiny specks of capital, it becomes more wobbly and crisis prone. And, if asset prices suddenly nosedive–as they did when the subprimes exploded–the whole shebang can come crashing down.
…
Gotta love the HAMP ad at the top of this page at the time when Congress is debating whether to kill the program…
I found someone that is hiring:
http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/2011/03/02/20110302go-daddy-hire-350-nationwide-mainly-its-customer-call-centers.html
This could be good news.
Although I personally don’t use GoDaddy as my domain registrar, some of my clients have. And lemme tell you something: Getting through to GoDaddy’s customer support is a bear.
So, if they’re throwing more bodies at the problem, that could be a positive thing. Depends on how well the new customer support people are trained.
One more tip: When it comes to GoDaddy, domain registration is their sweet spot. Yes, they do try to be a web host. But here’s a lesson from the Slim Client File: They’re not so good at that. So, avoid their web hosting.
‘not so good at that’
My experience was the same with Media Temple years ago, and that was their core biz. Maybe they’ve gotten better.
I HATE GoDaddy.
Hey Professor-
Where do you find the time to post so much here?
Maybe it’s my imagination but it seems like 10-15% of the posts on any given day are yours.
he is a walking computer.
2 bit or 4 bit? (:>)
Usually before 6am.
he has a union job.
Not all Democratic leaders see the Obama foreclosure prevention programs as Obama administration Treasury officials see them.
Bloomberg
Treasury, HUD Lobby to Save Foreclosure Prevention Programs
March 03, 2011, 12:04 AM EST
By Lorraine Woellert and Rebecca Christie
March 3 (Bloomberg) — Obama administration officials launched a campaign to preserve as much as they can of $50 billion in foreclosure-prevention aid for homeowners amid growing criticism from both Republicans and Democrats.
“It’s very important to continue these programs given how difficult the housing market is right now,” Timothy Massad, the Treasury’s acting assistant secretary for financial stability, said in a conference call with reporters yesterday. Tens of thousands of borrowers are joining foreclosure-prevention programs every month, each saving more than $500 on their mortgage payments, Massad said.
The House Financial Services Committee is scheduled to weigh the future of the administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, and three other aid programs at a meeting today. Republicans want to eliminate funding for the programs, which both they and some Democratic lawmakers say have done more harm than good.
More than a dozen Democratic lawmakers unleashed their frustration onto Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan and a half dozen other administration officials yesterday during a closed-door meeting that lasted for more than an hour.
“This is an arbitrary, capricious system that kicks hard- working people out on the street,” Representative George Miller, a California Democrat, said in an interview after the meeting. “This administration cannot allow this to continue.”
…
My only comment to this is: what took so long for this to get noticed?
SEC Probe Examines Bank-Loan Practices
“The Securities and Exchange Commission is scrutinizing U.S. banks that have restructured troubled loans in order to make them appear healthier than they really are, according to people familiar with the situation.
Officials at the SEC are seeking information from an unknown number of regional and community banks with large concentrations of commercial real-estate loans”
online DOT wsj DOT com/article/SB10001424052748704728004576176950557490900.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLETopStories
Banks used HAMP as a token sideshow to fool the public and to extract the last few mortgage payment (a la combo). Meanwhile, they quietly unloaded their crappy paper to Fannie/Freddie. The quicker Congress kills these private/public partnerships, the better.
Agreed.
Spot on. Whenever Geithner touts the profitability of the bailouts, notice how the huge taxpayer infusion into the GSEs is not part of the accounting. This is Enron-style accounting: Offload the losses to some “offshore” entity where they will escape notice.
so should my friend fill out the application. Or ignore the bank? He has missed one payment. As written, he stands to lower his payment from 1900 to 1500 if accepted. This would allow him to stay in his house for a few more years anyway.
He is wondering if “permanent” modification means a new 30 year non-recourse loan; or something that changes back to original terms in 5 years.
Is he being suckered in order for Bofa to extract a few more payments out of him?
Also he wonders if foreclosure will take years to transpire.
Meanwhile, his loan company; Bofa, has whittled its sales down to 17 scheduled auctions in the entire state of Oregon; there were 1000s of sales on the Recontrust docket before! WE-can-trust RE-con-trust(new NAR cheer I am proposing) Yay for Recontrust; give us time and we wont pay a dime!
Why would repo action be so stifled and changed so drastically? Like Ben said; Bofa will be processing foreclosures in earnest following the moratorium. Just not in Oregon?
Our Trustee Sale number is no longer searchable. If they have executed no sales since last October; what happens to the NOD’s that have piled on to the dogpile in the last 6 months. When will they get back to scheduling TSales? Existing sales need to be re-done or rescheduled. New ones will also have to be scheduled.
This will take (how much?) time for FB’s like us to live rent free; custodians of the assets for the bank in exchange for rent free living plus the carrying costs like maintainance.
I’m not an attorney but can speak as someone who’s been through the process. The bank offered me a “permanent” adjustment to my mortgage payment. They did not agree to reduce the balance. Upon inspecting the paperwork they sent, they wanted me to pay 90 days of the new payment followed by a big balloon payment. The bank’s response to my questioning it was, “Just trust us. Make your ‘trial’ payments and we’ll determine if you’re eligible for a permanent reduction.”
Clearly it smelled like a scam and we made no further payments.
“…90 days of the new payment followed by a big balloon payment.”
Which of course the FB can’t possibly make.
So that’s how the scam works. Thanks for shedding the light. Do you think The One’s federal regulators are putting a lot of pressure on BofA to stop this practice?
I make no excuses for my decision to purchase when I did. My income was sufficient and I had money in savings. I did what was “right.”
When I could no longer make ends meet I offered to work out an arrangement with the bank. This nightmare process left us with false hope and nearly cost us $2,800 at a time we could least afford it…which is after I spent nearly a year draining my savings account to pay for my obligation.
When I could no longer make ends meet I offered to work out an arrangement with the bank. This nightmare process left us with false hope and nearly cost us $2,800 at a time we could least afford it…which is after I spent nearly a year draining my savings account to pay for my obligation.
My heart goes out to you, Bad Andy. What can we, the HBB community, do to help you get back on your feet?
I’m back on steady ground and I thank you for your thoughts! You’ve all been here to warn me about purchasing in the first place, and are still hear to listen to the aftermath. My home finally sold for $120,000 which is over $100,000 less than I paid.
This nightmare process left us with false hope and nearly cost us $2,800 at a time we could least afford it…which is after I spent nearly a year draining my savings account to pay for my obligation.
Bad Andy, Hwy50’s lil’ brother is you…every painful time consuming woeful communication false promise utter keystone-cop bank behavior step of the way.
Here’s his admitted “sit-u-ation” upon simple reflection 6 years AFTER the fact: “Bro’ I paid to much, ($340,000)…our needed x2 family incomes and 30 year non-long-term / New American job unstability…should have opened our eyes…
They’re renters, for the time being…
From yesterday’s conversation about the “fairness” of progressive income taxes.
——————–
Comment by drumminj
2011-03-02 17:29:19
The wealthy paying less than any time in the past 70 years isn’t relevant to any “fairness” on it’s own. Fair is presumably a function of how much one pays vs another. Comparing a single entity/group against itself 70 years ago doesn’t really allow for any evaluation of “fair”.
In this context, I don’t care who’s income increased and who’s decreased. The “why” of which direction it went (or didn’t) is certainly relevant.
If you go back and look at my initial comment, I was questioning the whole concept of trying to evaluate or base anything on the concept of “fairness”, and instead deferring to the rule of law and constitutionally-protected rights.
————————
I can answer that one.
The reason for the growing wealth disparity is largely due to the credit bubble (since the early 1980s), which has pushed asset prices higher relative to wages over the past few decades. Wage earners (who earn every paycheck in devalued dollars) have seen their purchasing power decrease, while the wealthy (asset holders) have seen their purchasing power increase.
Then, you have the hollowing out of our factories as large corporations moved plants overseas. Americans bought into the lie that “globalization would make them wealthy” (the sister lie to “unions are bad”) and continued to spend as if they still had good, secure jobs with rising wages. Wiz wrote a great post about it yesterday when he wrote about the “worker bees.”
Add to that the “tax cuts for the rich” which accelerates the compounding of wealth, and we get the wealth disparity.
In case anyone is going to make the argument that the rich “earned” their money:
We also need to distinguish wealth from income. Income is what people earn from work, but also from dividends, interest, and any rents or royalties that are paid to them on properties they own. In theory, those who own a great deal of wealth may or may not have high incomes, depending on the returns they receive from their wealth, but in reality those at the very top of the wealth distribution usually have the most income. (But it’s important to note that for the rich, most of that income does not come from “working”: in 2008, only 19% of the income reported by the 13,480 individuals or families making over $10 million came from wages and salaries. See Norris, 2010, for more details.)
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
———————–
It is the **wealth disparity** that is causing our economic woes. The wealthy have so much money, they are buying up commodities in order to hedge against deflation, and because they don’t know what else to do with it. They don’t want to build factories because they will have no customers — their customers are US, and we are tapped-out. So, they will starve millions of people and demolish the purchasing power of wage earners, because even though they already control so much of the world’s wealth, they still want more.
——————
NEW YORK, NY, Mar 02, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — Although the hedge fund industry endured some setbacks in 2010, including a handful of high-profile shutdowns and a government insider trading investigation, the industry continues to rebuild its asset base.
As of January 1, 2011, American hedge funds managed a combined $1.297 trillion. That’s $115 billion, or 10%, more than these funds managed a year ago, according to the latest Billion Dollar Club, AR magazine’s survey of American hedge funds managing $1 billion or more.
http://news.tradingcharts.com/futures/7/2/154313827.html
Correction: They are hedging against *inflation* when buying up all the commodities and other assets around the world.
BTW, can’t find in on the web, but a large financial firm (Morgan Stanley???) apparently bought a huge quantity of sugar recently. As if the reduced supply of commodities wasn’t bad enough, these capitalist pigs are now trying to force the prices even higher — starving people in the process — just so they can make their beloved “profits.” Prices will eventually crash when they realize there is no end demand at these prices (poor people can’t afford it!), but the damage they do in the meantime will be tremendous.
For those who worry about “socialists,” listen to this clip of Senator Sanders, and tell us specifically where you think he’s wrong. He’s one of a handful of politicians who actually “gets it.”
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/media/view/?id=b4831900-87ac-4650-8d25-653c917877b2
Karl Marx got it, too, in his time.
Yes he did, Montana.
The anti-socialists tend to be people who’ve never even read Marx. There is no way someone can read his work and then dismiss it out of hand.
“TrueAnger™” + “TrueDeceiver’s™ / TrueHypocrite™” + “TruePurity™”
+ “TrueReduceTheDeficitNow!™” = 2012 US Gov’t we-take-control-agenda-to-make everyone-like-us. (like, as in a clone-drone)
Drone | Define Drone at Dictionary com
the male of the honeybee and other bees,
stinglesspowerless and makingno honeylittle money.Stay focused!: Food Stamps are destroying America!
NOT:
Military Industrial Complex
Medical Industrial Complex
Wall St Financial Complex
Agri-”subsidized-Bidness” Industrial Complex
“Drill Here! Drill Now & Forever!” Black-goo Industrial Complex
MSM “Critically-Investigated-Shining-Truth” National Distribution Complex
(Hwy50, pauses looks for wine opener…)
They don’t need “end demand;” they just need a Greater Fool up the food chain to sell their sugar to. We learned that with housing.
At least the 17th century Dutch were polite enough to trade up a non-essential product like tulip bulbs. At least the 20th century American were polite enough to trade up some not-quite essential like dot-coms with no actual assets except for a redundant idea and a few electrons. Nowadays these greedy b*astards are trading up sugar, housing, corn(ethanol) and oil, while the people who actually need the sugar, housing, corn(ethanol) and oil all suffer starving in shacks. Maybe that’s why gold seems to have stagnated. The poor don’t need to eat it or live in it.
“We also need to distinguish wealth from income.”
Wealth, in general, can be easily moved about, it can take evasive action from those who want to tax it, from those who want to confiscate it. An exception is one’s house; one’s house is wealth that cannot be moved about and thus it is subject to being taxed, which is what property tax is all about.
Income, such as from a job, can’t be easily moved about as wealth can. This makes income an easy target to be heavily taxed and thus heavily taxed it is.
But the larger issue is: Wealth is a balance sheet item while income in something one would find on an income statement. These are two different catagories. Any earned money that can somehow escape the tax man and find itself on a balance sheet is largely home free from the clutches of the tax man.
Personally I have no problem with this situation. In fact my goal is to somehow transfer my income (what’s left after taxes) to investments with the hope that my money will grow without the tax man dipping his hand into and scooping out large chunks of it as he does very well to my earned income.
This seems also to be the goal of some of the very rich investors of our time. Buffet, for example, is very rich but only earns a hundred thousand dollars a year, and this hundred thousand dollars is what he pays income tax on.
Tax the income before it becomes “wealth.” It’s not at all difficult to do.
If the purpose of government is to protect lives, property rights and civil rights then it seems to me fair that a tax be levied proportionally on wealth; the more a person has, the more to protect.
Can any person reasonably object to paying 10 times more property insurance on their $1 million house than the person with a $100k house? How could anyone object to paying proportionally more tax based on how much they have that government has to protect?
But if you allow the government to tax your wealth then you are allowing it, for example, to dive into your savings account and scoop out some of your savings. Is this what you want?
Taxing the money generated by wealth is not the same as taxing the wealth itself. Nor should it be, IMO.
Allowing (?) government to tax income allows government to scoop out some of the wage earners’ paycheck.
I’m not saying that a tax on wealth should replace other taxes, but those that have more benefit proportionally more from the police, fire, justice (sic) and the armed forces of government.
Are there more police calls in Compton or the Hollywood Hills?
Are there more police calls in Compton or the Hollywood Hills?
I believe certain “Hedge-Fund” & “Bidness” CEO’s on Wall Street might be able to quickly give you a “correct” answer to you question.
That depends on where Charlie Sheen is living these days
Your presumption is that exponential wealth accumulation is as innocent as growing a ginomous “Snowball”
,…by & large it is not. Often is the case & history repeatedly demonstrates, that such wealth accumulation is the direct result of using quasi-legal deception to mark the wealth as innocently gained… i.e., it’s the result of “Bidness”. The 100’s of millions of tax-citizen people & Gov’t that protects that accumulated wealth (and it’s continued accumulation) does so at a cost of money & blood. Thus a question like the following might arise in the minds of the simple folks: “For Example: the x2 current foreign Wars being fought are directly punishing certain American Billionaires exactly how?”
I have to agree with Combo. Income generated by wealth should be taxed at the very least as much as income generated by labor.
The wealth itself is sort of taxed in the estate tax. Even then, at that point it is no longer wealth, it becomes somebody’s income.
I could live with 0% tax on stocks if they are held 1 year or longer and a 1% tax when buying stocks. I think that would cut down on high frequency trading. We have to get back to the investing mode and out of the speculating mode.
Oxide,
I agree completely with taxing ALL income at the same, progressive rates. That’s what I’m trying to say (maybe, not so successfully).
If we had a progressive income tax that would apply to ALL income, with a top marginal rate of say, 70% for everything over a million/year (could be smoothed earnings, but that’s another detail), I think our deficit problems would disappear rather quickly.
OTOH, I’m very opposed to taxing existing wealth, and even oppose estate taxes. Inheritance usually dilutes wealth (very few rich people have only one beneficiary), so that solves that problem. Also, what someone already owns is theirs to use as they wish, and IMHO, if it belongs to them, it belongs to their children (or whomever they want to give it to).
How could anyone object to paying proportionally more tax based on how much they have that government has to protect?
If that’s all the government consisted of, I might be inclined to agree with you.
However, the scope of the government at all levels FAR exceeds that. So that argument doesn’t seem relevant unless we cut much of gov’ts current “role”.
“Can any person reasonably object to paying 10 times more property insurance on their $1 million house than the person with a $100k house? How could anyone object to paying proportionally more tax based on how much they have that government has to protect?”
Sounds like kb is a flat-tax advocate.
Wage earners (who earn every paycheck in devalued dollars) have seen their purchasing power decrease, while the wealthy (asset holders) have seen their purchasing power increase.
And what has been the cause of this? If the cause is the devaluation of the dollar (my initial guess), then that doesn’t support a claim that asset holders have seen purchasing power increase, I don’t think.
But let me throw another question out there - without the asset owners, where do these jobs come from? How can factory jobs exist without someone owning the factory?
Then, you have the hollowing out of our factories as large corporations moved plants overseas.
Again, why is this? Cost of compliance? Regulations? You can’t just paint the “capitalists” as evil and say they should be punished without understanding what prompted them to move jobs and production overseas.
Add to that the “tax cuts for the rich” which accelerates the compounding of wealth, and we get the wealth disparity.
I really don’t see why the liberals continue to bang the drum on this one. EVERYONE who paid taxes got a tax cut. And I know you’ll counter with the cuts from the highest bracket (at what, 90% or whatever it was)…and you’ll suggest that was “fair” and what we have now isn’t. I’d argue the onus is on you to prove that any disparity/unequal treatment is justifiable and fair.
The liberals like to bang their drum about fairness. What is fundamentally unfair is that 47% of the population doesn’t pay taxes. How about we just start collecting from everyone? That would be fair wouldn’t it? Eliminate deductions and have a flat tax. Call it 10% or whatever you’d like. Maybe they would then say it’s unfair for the person making $500,000 to pay $50,000 when the guy making $50,000 is only paying $5,000.
I’m all for eliminating deductions, for EVERYBODY. Let’s see who blinks first, the poor or the rich. I suggest we start with the MID.
It IS unfair for the “person making making $500,000 to pay $50,000 when the guy making $50,000 is only paying $5,000.” Why? Because there is a certain threshold income we all need to cover the basics. That’s why there is a graduated system, where the $500,000 guy gets to keep most of his $50000 (lower tax) for expenses, while paying more tax on the remaining $450,000. He doesn’t need that extra $450K as much as he needs the first $50K.
I realize that “fair” may not be the best word here, but that’s the idea behind progressive taxation.
So you’re saying it’s OK that 47% of the population doesn’t pay ANY taxes?
A-ha, you’ve laid me a trap!
If 47% of the population doesn’t make enough to get them to that basics threshold, then, YES, I would be okay with it that they don’t pay income taxes.* What exactly the basics threshold is will be a debate for another day.
Perhaps you should question WHY there are 47% of the population not paying taxes. You can’t possibly believe that half of this country is lazy bums.
————-
*and no, do NOT give me that argument that “nothing’s stopping you from donating etc etc.”
I guess that brings us to what’s needed for the basics? I can and did live paying $500 in rent with utilities included. Take the bus, don’t drive and have a minimal grocery budget what’s that? $1,000? So we could just exempt the first $12,000? Minimum wage is more than $12K. Why should anyone be exempt from paying taxes?
WHY there are 47% of the population not paying taxes
Because the “progressive” folks keep lowering their taxes and grant more and more tax CREDITS for things like having kids?
Or is that too obvious?
So you’re saying it’s OK that 47% of the population doesn’t pay ANY taxes?
What happens when those 47% non tax payers buy:
Bread
Milk for their children-one-day-might-possibly-b-a-gov’t-soldier
An airplane/train ticket to visit their son/daughter at a military training facility in another State
A transportation device to their job with no payroll taxes
pay their no-tax-included electric/gas/water/sewer/trash monthly bills
(it’s possible this list might get a tad long, I’ll pause here for now.)
Sounds like the Nancy Pelosi talking points handbook. The fastest way to stimulate the economy is to extend unemployment. It’s a great bang for your buck! Give me a break.
Why should anyone be exempt from paying taxes?
1.Can you think of a American adult citizen who might not be able to pay any taxes?
(This a quiz testing you ability to think outside your self-inclusive box of human talents & skills)
2.If such a person should exist, what would you have them pay & how?
I can’t think of 47% of people who aren’t able to pay.
And I should state that flat broke and nearly homeless I still paid taxes!
Why should anyone be exempt from paying taxes?
x1 location:
LANTERMAN DEVELOPMENTAL CENTER
3530 W POMONA BLVD
POMONA, CA 91768
Beds - Total certified: 67
It’s full, yet still there are more non-exempt tax payers waiting to get in…
(This a quiz testing you ability to think outside your self-inclusive box of human talents & skills)
2.If such a person should exist, what would you have them pay & how?
OK, OK, I’ll give you a hint:
(Hwy50’s millionaire Tax-Expert Brother): “Anyone paying that kind of tax is…crazy!“
hwy …That poor person living on min wage should just give up their eating budget to pay a fair tax so the rich doesn’t have to pay more . How can you take from the rich and deprive them of their third Mansion ,its more fair justice to deprive the poor person of their food . Isn’t this all about fairness that everyone should pay the same tax rate …..The rich say ,”it isn’t fair I earned my money just like those lower class folk did .”How greedy can the lower class folk get to want to eat or have shelter .In fact I think oil companies should get 40 billion dollar
welfare payments from taxpayers to increase their profit margins because trillions aren’t enough . And tax loopholes for the rich that effectively bring down their tax burden is what the rich deserve . And the rich should get tax cuts for outsourcing .after all the rich can make more profit if we pay lower wages outside the Country ,who cares if it creams
the tax base or money spent here in the USA .
The rich person says ,”This tax unfairness is just killing me ,it’s just not fair .”
+a million, Wiz.
What is fundamentally unfair is that 47% of the population doesn’t pay taxes.
The poor pay more percentage of their income and wealth in total tax than the rich.
State tax, sales tax, property tax, utility tax, local tax, etc etc.
Where did all the money go?
So far there are only tentative projections — based on the price of housing and stock in July 2009 — on the effects of the Great Recession on the wealth distribution. They suggest that average Americans have been hit much harder than wealthy Americans. Edward Wolff, the economist we draw upon the most in this document, concludes that there has been an “astounding” 36.1% drop in the wealth (marketable assets) of the median household since the peak of the housing bubble in 2007. By contrast, the wealth of the top 1% of households dropped by far less: just 11.1%. So as of April 2010, it looks like the wealth distribution is even more unequal than it was in 2007. (See Wolff, 2010 for more details.)
The Wealth Distribution
In the United States, wealth is highly concentrated in a relatively few hands. As of 2007, the top 1% of households (the upper class) owned 34.6% of all privately held wealth, and the next 19% (the managerial, professional, and small business stratum) had 50.5%, which means that just 20% of the people owned a remarkable 85%, leaving only 15% of the wealth for the bottom 80% (wage and salary workers). In terms of financial wealth (total net worth minus the value of one’s home), the top 1% of households had an even greater share: 42.7%. Table 1 and Figure 1 present further details drawn from the careful work of economist Edward N. Wolff at New York University (2010).
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
This measures wealth at current prices, but are stocks or houses worth that?
One final general point before turning to the specifics. People who have looked at this document in the past often asked whether progressive taxation reduces some of the income inequality that exists before taxes are paid. The answer: not by much, if we count all of the taxes that people pay, from sales taxes to property taxes to payroll taxes (in other words, not just income taxes). And the top 1% of income earners, who average over $1 million a year, actually pay a smaller percentage of their incomes to taxes than the 9% just below them. These findings are discussed in detail near the end of this document.
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html
and the assumption here is that it is reasonable/correct to have people pay the same % of income.
I don’t think that is a “given” in any way. Please explain why that is fair/just/right? So two people pay vastly different amounts for the same service (roads, fire and police protection). One pays $1 while the other pays $10,000?
Agreed. Truly “fair” would be that we all pay exactly the same dollars in taxes.
If 5 friends go out to dinner and all order the same thing, should the richest friend pick up the whole bill or should they just split the bill by 5?
If I was very wealthy I would take my friends out and pick up the tab all the time. Those would be some good memories!
Ben should have a poll on here to figure out the average net worth of an HBB’r. It seems like some of the anger on here comes from being poor and scraping by. I could be wrong.
I think that might be true.
I think the common element is intelligence and income somewhere south of Hedge Fund Manager. The intelligence is sufficient to see that they’re getting screwed and be annoyed by it. There are plenty of people here who aren’t just scraping by, but we’re all getting screwed to some degree.
It seems like some of the anger on here comes from being poor and scraping by. I could be wrong.
So what you’re saying is that we’re average Americans?
I don’t think it has to do with a person’s personal wealth or income at all. Some people are innately capable of seeing when we’re being lied to and screwed over.
Please explain why that is fair/just/right?
Many have.
Well the poor person probably doesn’t use the roads, takes the bus, and lives in a shack.
The rich person invests in companies that all benefit from the US gov. Even when money is given to the poor it ends up in the hands of corporations as the poor spend it on food. Why is it that we give them food stamps and not just a bag of rice and beans and a multivitamin? A rich person benefits more from our military. More from our economic system and laws, more from our infrastructure and gov organization. A poor person doesn’t have much to loose.
There is just no way the top 400 earners in this country should pay effective tax rates of 16%. People in the upper middle class pay more people in teh top 2% pay a lot more. Only a lapdog would argue this.
Dear CA renter, …forget it, you dealing with “mindsets” that are cemented myopically on x1 focused belief and they will argue while standing in their own grave: “Keep your hands off of MY $tack!” …EVERYTHING else is secondary and beyond consideration of merits…
Gotta keep trying, Hwy. IMHO, this is literally the last stand for the middle class. If the financial elite manage to destroy the unions, it’s game over. They will own every last public asset in this country, and all the revenue streams in the future. We cannot let them take over this country. The unions are the last domino to fall, and I will not rest until we overthrow the corporate and financial interests who seek to enslave us even more.
Ca renter …..your take is how I see the situation .The elite has won so many battles in the last 10 years ,especially the last 3
years . But remember George Washington lost a lot of the first
battles ,in fact he was running most the time with the enemy
closing in on him for the longest time …..than the turn-a-round .
We can hope.
Thanks for all your great posts, Wiz.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
U.S. could reach debt limit in early April
Mannequin holding red word Debt
The Treasury Department is urging Congress to raise the ceiling so we don’t default.
Kai Ryssdal: I saw a study this morning that gave me pause. A poll by the Tarrance Group — which has worked with a lot of Republican politicians — shows big majorities of Americans — upwards of 60 percent — have no idea where the government spends most of its money.
The government gets a lot of the money it spends by borrowing. And pretty soon, that ability to borrow — the debt ceiling, it’s called — is going to run out.
Our Washington bureau chief John Dimsdale explains the next big hiccup coming for the federal budget.
John Dimsdale: The debt ceiling limits the government’s authority to borrow money. Congress has currently set it at $14.29 trillion. The U.S. could hit the limit as early as April.
Some lawmakers think it’s time to draw the line and stop government borrowing. But lots of economists say that would be a catastrophe, since the government couldn’t pay the interest it owes holders of existing debt. The U.S. would be defaulting on what are supposed to be ultra-safe Treasury bonds.
Fed chairman Ben Bernanke warns that’s a dangerous prospect.
Without that trust, investors might bolt and the U.S. would have to pay higher interest rates. University of Texas economist James Galbraith says all Americans would feel the pinch.
…
This has to be the most twisted logic of all. The way to cure alcoholism is more alcohol?
I am glad I am not that smart………………………
Good god, that talking point is SO 2009. You would have more success if you tried it on dumber people.
The way to cure alcoholism is to buy less ALCOHOL and buy more healthy food. Of course, to buy both alcohol and food, you use MONEY, because Money Is Fungible. The problem isn’t spending money; it’s what you spend money ON.
Rush Limbaugh has made many a million on this deliberate logical fallacy.
What’s the latest talking points? Spend till we drop dead?
What would like to spend more money on? Healthcare? Education?
Postal Service? Wars? Every yr we spend more than the previous yr and it hasn’t really helped or improved the masses.
What would you like to spend more money on? Tax breaks for oil companies? Weapons systems? Tax cuts for multi-millionares?
What would you like to spend more money on? Tax breaks for oil companies? Weapons systems? Tax cuts for multi-millionares?
Careful now, that’ll get ‘em to ponder & prioritize, and food stamps and mental health services might not make it on their list…
The latest talking points are the union thugs in Wisconsin.
If we spend less, dont we spend less and hence the economy falters? I thought I read you have to spend your way out of a Depression.
The whole concept is BS. Everybody knows there is no debt limit. It is all a charade to pretend that they actually have some limit to their madness. The only limit to our debt is when the rest of the world uniformly rejects the dollar and refuses to take it. And we have a lot of big toys that could potentially make them regret that day.
I agree, smoke and mirrors.if they have a printing press there are no problems.
It’s all about winning as mr sheen says.
Everybody knows there is no debt limit.
Hey, maybe your the one that has an estimate: What’s America worth in current US Dollars?, everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING (You can chuck the estimate for 310 million citizen/slaves!) Come on toss out your best ball park figure $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$…really.
Like the NFL Salary cap. Never seemed to keep Dan Snyder or Jerry Jones from spending money like drunken tourists on marginal free agents.
The way to cure deficits is more deficits. Oh yeah.
See my argument above. It’s not that you spend or borrow money, it’s what you spend that money ON.
this doesn’t make sense as a way to fix the deficit.
I like that idea. spend the money on ME, ME, ME.
Oxide is right.
There are some things (physical, social, legal infrastructure) that allow companies to produce and grow. Without those things **paid for by tax dollars,** nobody would prosper.
Again, if a country with no/low taxes and a weak government is the best way to grow an economy, NAME A SINGLE COUNTRY that has low/no taxes, no unions, and a thriving economy for with a solid and free middle class. Theories are all good and well, but if you can’t back your theory with acutal logic and facts, time to change your message, no?
Are these 60% who don’t know where the government spends its money, the same ones who whine when their Medicare and SS checks don’t come in?
In their defense, how could any mere mortal even begin to untangle how our “global security” appartus gets it’s funding? Bake sales?
IMHO, one big reason people throw up their hands when asked about where their tax money goes is because of that gaping hole of military budgets, shadow budgets, foreign aid, state department, etc.
Heck, if anyone asks they are quickly reminded: “it’s for your own good” - only wrapped in more flowery patriotic language.
SS will get paid, we just add it to our tab, then die of old age and the next generation follows on… If the planet gets too crowded, mother nature steps up and balances it. Populations exploded during the oil years, when oil is basically all used up, populations fall. Nothing happens overnight.
It seems to me like the Wisconsin showdown is about busting the Democrats’ political base, but perhaps this Republican speech writer knows better than I do.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Showdown in Wisconsin
Change union work rules
Commentator David Frum
Forget about pay and benefits. What’s at stake in Wisconsin is how state’s can operate with rules that govern how union’s work.
Commentator David Frum. (David Frum)
Kai Ryssdal: There are reports out of Wisconsin today suggesting a very slight thaw in the political standoff there. One of the absentee Democratic senators crossed back over the state line Monday to meet with the Republican leader. They talked, but apparently that’s about it.
Disagreement over pay and benefits for public employees are spreading. They’re front and center in the budget debates in Ohio and Indiana as well. Commentator David Frum has this take on what the discussion should really be about.
…
Northern Africa shields Europe (and North America) from sub-Saharan Africa.
http://takimag.com/article/europes_great_berm
Inside Job vs. the public employee unions:
“If the rich get to profit at the expense or everyone else, why shouldn’t we?”
The thieves are pointing fingers in a circle.
The oldest trick in the book. Use one wrong to justify another. Both of them can point at each other and say, “but, what about those guys?” If you disagree with the financial crooks you are a capitalism hating commie. If you disagree with the public unions you are a union busting, middle class hating, everybody should make $2 per day arch-conservative.
If there are going to be public unions (i.e. teachers) then they need to provide vouchers to the public so that they may find the best free market school for their kids. My take is that unions can only be beneficial when there is competition.
I just wonder why everybody keeps acting like the only public union members are teachers. I know you are not doing that but that seems to be a common theme on the HBB. Holding public unions accountable means you hate teachers. Just think of all of the bureaucracies that the public unions entail. This is a gigantic issue.
What do you think is a proper voucher amount for one student?
Should students get equal vouchers? Anything else would be discriminatory, but wealthy parents would scream.
Should parents be allowed to add-on to the voucher amount? That will just re-create a system similar to what we already have.
Should we simply ignore money altogether, but require that students pass entrance exams to be admitted to certain schools? (with provisions to expel smart but bad kids) That would eliminate almost all reasons to pay for private school (unless the kid truly wants the religious education).
I’m inclined toward the last option because it favors merit over money. However, you’ll end up with all the dropouts and stupid kids in one school where teachers will fear for their lives.
And this doesn’t even cover rural areas with too few students, and it doesn’t cover transport. There’s no good solution.
“Should parents be allowed to add-on to the voucher amount? That will just re-create a system similar to what we already have.”
Exactly. We’ll see a parallel to what’s happening in higher ed. Desireabe private schools will raise their tuition and everyone else will have to be content with for profit “McSchools” that will be staffed with H1-Bs that can’t even speak English.
Desireabe private schools will raise their tuition and everyone else will have to be content with for profit “McSchools” that will be staffed with H1-Bs that can’t even speak English.
So the solution is that no one can have nice things because not everyone can have them?
Desirable private schools will raise their tuition and everyone else will have to be content with for profit “McSchools” that will be staffed with H1-Bs that can’t even speak English.
———————————————————
Colleges have been like this for eons and no one is complaining about them. Jobs have rules. Schools have rules. They need to enforce the rules at schools and bring back the board of education…the paddle. Kids can’t learn if there are no rules. No discipline. All sorts of professionals wear uniforms. Why can’t kids in school do the same?
I would actually welcome H1′bs to teach my kids. At least they would be good at math and science. English language is way too overrated.
They need to enforce the rules at schools and bring back the board of education…the paddle. Kids can’t learn if there are no rules. No discipline. All sorts of professionals wear uniforms. Why can’t kids in school do the same?
agree
All sorts of professionals wear uniforms. Why can’t kids in school do the same?
Conformity is subtle thing, best nurture it’s growth in youth while resistance is yet tender.
My take is that unions can only be beneficial when there is competition.
Agree, as unreasonable/unsustainable unions must be able to “go out of business”, as would happen in the private sector (union or no).
How does a union “go out of business”? I’ve been doing business with the same skilled trades for years as did every project guy before me. Where do I procure manpower? How do I erect structural steel without an equipment operator with a crane ticket? How am I going to install 400′ of ductile ironpipe without steam fitters? Where do I get them if there is no union?
You guys are so clueless it’s pitiful.
“Where do I get them if there is no union?”
I suppose that they expect you find them on Craigslist
And that’s the level Know-Nothings want to bring society….. to a craigslist level. I can’t imagine the God awful mess that would ensue if their idea of utopia came to reality. I guarantee nothing would get built and if it did we’ll be paying to have it built again… correctly.
Craigslist? Try the local Sherwin Williams parking lot.
“Where do I get them if there is no union?”
Hoot! Where the union owns the turf, sure go to the union hall. Otherwise your project will die. Not fun going against the mafia.
In more civilized areas, call in contractors, get bids & etc. I’ve done multi million dollar projects without trade unions, but I know it is not possible (practical) everywhere.
Try that on public works projects….
Besides, as the CM we are the contractor.
Monkey see, monkey do…how old is that?
Realtors Invented Lying.
You think there were realators before there were politicians?
The oldest profession known to man is prostitution. The oldest professional lie known to man is, “baby, you are the best ever”.
Realtors lie better than prostitutes.
Politicians = prostitutes?
The oldest professional lie known to man is”.
“you go first…”
Which came first the Realtor or the lie?
It is a fixer up cave?
“It has granite countertops…….and granite floors……and granite walls……and granite ceilings…….”
I’m stealing this one, too.
“Which came first the Realtor or the lie?”
Both emerged at exactly the same time. It is know as……
A lying realtor….. What else?
BANGKOK (AP) — Investors disillusioned by the implosion of Wall Street titans, economic anemia in Japan, and a debt debacle in Europe have found abundant opportunities to grow wealth in industrializing economies like China and India.
But now, as angry populations roil one Middle Eastern regime after the next, and discontent over escalating food prices and lagging living standards is heard elsewhere in the developing world, investors are moving staggering piles of cash out of emerging markets — and back into what they hope are the relatively stable havens of the U.S., Europe and Japan.”
Emerging markets will have to raise interest rates to try and keep food inflation down. Higher interest rates = lower stock prices.
But, but, but,…America is on the precipice of Societal & Financial Implosion!
Please tune to quasi-Australian-American “TruePatriot™” Faux News for “Fairinsanity and UnBalanced” confirmation!
“and back into what they hope are the relatively stable havens of the U.S., Europe and Japan”
Its all relative. Plus those “industrializing economies” are utterly dependant on their first world customers to keep the factories and back offices humming.
Plus those “industrializing economies” are utterly dependant on their first world customers to keep the factories and back offices humming.
——————–
Something many people (especially the mouthpieces for the financial elite) tend to ignore.
Catus …Oh ,the old emerging markets play isn’t working is it .
Seems to be an increasing divergence between official unemployment numbers and Gallup’s numbers, why do I believe that latter?
http://www.gallup.com/poll/146453/Gallup-Finds-Unemployment-Hitting-February.aspx
I know unemployment is around 20% in CA.
You don’t even need a independent poll to know this. Auto sales remain stalled below replacement levels. I recall reading an atricle last year by some bozo analyst who claimed that due to “pent up demand” that 2011 sales would be close to 20 million (I almost fell out of my chair when I read that).
Pent up demand? Would I like a brand new car? You bet? Do I want a monthly payment? Heck no! Its a lot cheaper to fix a paid for, non junker used car than to buy a new one.
I have 135k miles on the 2002 pt cruiser.Still running great.
“Booms go bust. Wealth disappears. Debt does not. Someone, somewhere, sometime has to pay it. If not the borrower…someone else.” ~Bill Bonner
“Debt does not (disappear).”
Of course it does. Has Bonner never heard of Bankruptcy court?
in bankruptcy court the lender pays.
see, it’s all good.
“in bankruptcy court the lender pays.”
unless the banksters get a bailout. In which case the taxpayers pay.
I sincerely believe that most Americans don’t give a happy damn about our out of control debt&spending and the effect it will have on future generations.
Item:The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that the American public is divided about how far they should go in dealing with the economic crisis. In the poll, eight in 10 respondents say they are concerned about the growing federal deficit and the national debt, but more than 60 percent are concerned that major cuts from Congress could impact their lives and their families.
“more than 60 percent are concerned that major cuts from Congress could impact their lives and their families.”
I’m concerned because I don’t know that the cuts/solutions will be sensibly and fairly distributed and know that whatever happens it will impact my life and family.
“I’m concerned because I don’t know that the cuts/solutions will be sensibly and fairly distributed and know that whatever happens it will impact my life and family.”
It’s a given that the cuts will impact low to middle class families and won’t affect the rich one bit.
Cuts in spending anywhere in the pyramid affect the profitability and income stream of the rich. They do not just sell mansions to each other.
Well, if the gov’t stopped buying bombers and tanks, then yeah the rich would be hurt, relatively speaking. It won’t hurt the rich if the poor lose their foodstamps (unless they get mugged by someone who’s desperate)
Yes it will! You cut my little girl’s foodstanps and I guarantee you that she will cut back on her luxury spending. Se’ll put some of those big box stores right out of business, and the big developer behind them and the bank behind him too.
BTW, here is an article that confirms what I said earlier about Iran being up to its eyeballs in the disturbances across the Arab world:
http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=210564
I always appreciate your posts, Albuquerquedan. Thank you.
France to scrap tax cap for the rich
France’s premier says government will scrap a tax cap aimed at reducing tax burden on wealthy
PARIS (AP) — In a major turnaround, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his indebted government are abandoning a tax ceiling for big earners he once hailed as key to modernizing France and luring investors.
Critics say the cap, which ensures that no one pays more than 50 percent of annual earnings in tax, is a sop to the rich at a time of belt-tightening across Europe.
Prime Minister Francois Fillon said in a speech Thursday that the tax cap had been “an imperfect remedy” for the heavy tax burden on the rich and will be abolished in a sweeping tax reform this year.
The reform will maintain a wealth tax that has also come under fire, Fillon said. The wealth tax is based on overall assets, and rising property prices have pushed some middle-income families over its threshold.
Tax reform is a top government priority this year and may serve as an awkward bookend to Sarkozy’s presidential term. This tax reform may be the last big initiative by Sarkozy before presidential elections next year.
He pledged the tax ceiling while campaigning for the presidency in 2007, and it was among the first measures passed after his election. The reform resulted in euro30-million ($41.5-million) tax rebate for L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, Europe’s richest woman, drawing criticism from opposition parties.
“Critics say the cap, which ensures that no one pays more than 50 percent of annual earnings in tax, is a sop to the rich at a time of belt-tightening across Europe.”
And to think that the rich in the US weep at having to pay a marginal rate in the 30 percent range.
And to think that the rich in the US weep at having to pay a marginal rate in the 30 percent range.
How dare those folks complain about getting beat with batons, when there are people elsewhere getting chopped up with machetes!
Oh, I can imagine the rich having to decide between buying medicine or food. Oh the humanity!
Comment by drumminj
2011-03-03 11:57:05
And to think that the rich in the US weep at having to pay a marginal rate in the 30 percent range.
How dare those folks complain about getting beat with batons, when there are people elsewhere getting chopped up with machetes!
———————————-
But you oppose union members who stand up for their rights to have their contracts honored?
But you oppose union members who stand up for their rights to have their contracts honored?
since when? I’ve never opposed them standing up for their rights. Please cite where I do?
one person has an effective tax rate of 4% and another’s is 22%. the second household makes 3 times as much as the first.
how much more money do you want from household 2 relative to household 1.
(my numbers are strictly federal income taxes)
30%
The top 400 earners pay an effective tax rate of about half that and that only includes money not in Swiss Bank Accounts.
Gallup Finds U.S. Unemployment Hitting 10.3% in February
Underemployment surged to 19.9% in February from 18.9% at the end of January.
PRINCETON, NJ — Unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, hit 10.3% in February — up from 9.8% at the end of January. The U.S. unemployment rate is now essentially the same as the 10.4% at the end of February 2010.
Yet msm reports new applications for unemployment are down. Likely those with jobs have kept them but those without have exhausted benefits and don’t have new jobs.
Follow up to the story I posted yesterday on the non-profit pig making off with his golden parachute:
Key members of the Blue Cross Blue Shield board that gave the nod to then-CEO Cleve Killingsworth’s controversial $11 million severance have been public advocates for trimming soaring health-care costs — even as they sat on a panel that quietly approved the departing chief’s golden parachute.
Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce President Paul Guzzi has crusaded to lower health-care costs in his day job representing the interests of local businesses, many of which struggle under the burden of rising premiums for their employee health plans.
“Advancing payment reform to bring health-care costs under control” is one of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce’s top policy agenda items, Guzzi said in a statement in January. Guzzi made $84,463 as the Blue Cross board chairman at the time of the Killingsworth vote.
Personal Note:
A friend of mine, old time SAS programmer who worked for BCBS was told he was going to be let go if he didn’t agree to work “part time” . In other words, same pay, same hours, no benefits. He kindly informed them FU….
Personal Note:
A friend of mine, old time SAS programmer who worked for BCBS was told he was going to be let go if he didn’t agree to work “part time” . In other words, same pay, same hours, no benefits. He kindly informed them FU….
A virtual toast to your friend!
X2
Median home price drops to $425,000 in January: 52 percent of sales involve distressed property
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_17507598?IADID=Search-www.santacruzsentinel.com-www.santacruzsentinel.com
SANTA CRUZ — The median sales price for a single-family home in Santa Cruz County retreated in January to $425,000.
The median, the midpoint of what sold during the month, has been hovering around $500,000 for more than a year and half after plummeting from a peak of $774,375 in 2007….
…52 percent of the sales were either bank-owned or “short sales,” where the owner owes more than what the home is worth….
….Lower prices push prices lower.
Once a home sells at a low price, it will be used by appraisers to value the house next door, according to agent Ruth Bates of Thunderbird Real Estate.
She noted bank-owned and short sales at 52 percent is higher compared to the past three months, when it was 45 percent, and the past six months, when it was 41 percent.
She forecasts 40 percent to 45 percent of future sales will involve distressed properties, since they comprise 29 percent of the active market and 64 percent of the pending sales.
She sounded a cautionary note about future statistics.
“Some banks are now not identifying their listings as REO bank-owned, so it looks like a normal listing,” she said. “Many more flippers are buying properties on the county steps and then selling these as normal.’ “
SANTA CRUZ
Ha,
No one in
SANTA CRUZ_________________ wants to brag about their house being “worth” $215,000House votes to repeal unpopular business tax filing requirement in new health care law.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An unpopular tax filing requirement for businesses tucked into the new health care law would be repealed under a bill overwhelmingly passed by the House Thursday.
The provision would require millions of businesses to file tax forms for every vendor that sells them more than $600 in goods each year, starting in 2012. The requirement is projected to raise nearly $25 billion over the next decade by ensuring that vendors pay their taxes. But lawmakers in both parties say it could create a paperwork nightmare for businesses and the Internal Revenue Service.
The filing requirement is so unpopular in Congress that it is unlikely to ever take effect. The House voted 314 to 112 Thursday to repeal the filing requirement, with 76 Democrats joining all Republicans in voting to pass the bill. The Senate passed a similar measure last month, and attached it to an unrelated bill to help modernize the nation’s air traffic control system.
However, many Democrats and Republicans — and the House and Senate — disagree on how to make up the potential revenue, so the debate could drag on for months.
“Frankly, it is an attempt to repeal a provision of the health care bill that never should have been there in the first place,” said Rep. Dan Lungren, R-Calif., who sponsored the House repeal bill. “Let’s not make it a political football now.”
The filing requirement is so unpopular in Congress that it is unlikely to ever take effect.
why did it pass in the first place, then?
Nobody freakin read it before voting for or against.
Imagine having to send AT&T and the Office Depot 1099’s. Stupid joke made up by stupid politicians.
This is what I was thinking a 1099 for CostCo, Office Depot, Home Depot, HP, Verizon, ATT etc. Of course most of my filings would have had to be for purchases made at bigger companies which would be a giant headache for them and of little value since they most likely already file accurately?
Costa Mesa to lay off nearly half of city workforce, outsource services.
~ LA Times
The city of Costa Mesa plans to lay off more than 200 employees and outsource 18 city services by the fall.
The layoffs would cut the city’s municipal workforce by 43%. The City Council approved the layoffs in a 4-1 vote late Tuesday night, despite nearly unanimous opposition from the audience.
City officials said pink slips will go out in the next six months. The mayor blamed years of missteps by city staff and rising pension costs.
“This has been coming on for a long time, and we’re coming to a point that’s rock bottom,” Mayor Gary Monahan told the crowd of mostly city employees.
Do you ever read this blog wmbz?
Do you ever read this blog wmbz?
Sorry for the redundancy, you posts have seem to have a similar effect.
Hard R
Lol
Obama Says Gadhafi Must Quit, Sends Aircraft for Refugees
~ WSJ
President Barack Obama said Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi must leave office, and said he was sending military aircraft to the LIbya-Tunisia border to help transport Egyptian refugees home.
The deployment will increase the U.S. presence near the country at Libya’s edges as forces loyal to Col. Gadhafi continued to battle rebel forces for control of key territory around oil installations.
Mr. Obama said Col. Gadhafi should “step down from power and leave,” and said he was directing humanitarian assistance to the Libyan borders.
“There are tens of thousands of people trapped in the border now and we want to make sure they get home safely,” he said.
Hey, If I were Gadhafi I would tell Obama to step down!
Why would any head of a nation do what another nation wants him to do?
Be sure to kick a teacher today!
My mother’s a retired teacher. And, trust me, she knows how to return the favor, whether it’s a kick or a verbal barb.
She’s retired? Obviously she is very greedy.
She’s 85 years old and tending to my father, whose health is declining.
Slim, I was being 100% sarcastic. My apologies if that comment raised your blood pressure.
Layoffs At Pre-Recession Level; Job Openings Down 30%
~ INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY
Twenty months after the worst recession in decades, job creation remains anemic, weighing on economic growth and making it even harder for the long-term jobless to find work.
Don’t blame layoffs. They spiked in 2009 but have returned to pre-slump levels, according to Labor Department data. But job openings remain 30% below their level when the downturn hit in December 2007. Gross hiring is down by 843,000 jobs.
While the economy has grown modestly in recent quarters, hiring remains depressed due to uncertainty about future demand, concerns about government policies and efficiency gains that have let companies do more with less.
“It’s the drop in job openings, not the increase in job losses that is responsible for so much of the increase in unemployment,” said James Sherk, a labor policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.
Labor is expected to report Friday that the U.S. added a net 183,000 jobs in February, the most since last May. The jobless rate is seen ticking up 0.1 point to 9.1% as more people entered the labor force. Many of those new or returning job-seekers will likely find only disappointment.
More hiring, unemployment rate goes up.
Less hiring, unemployment rate drops.
It costs John Kunkle about $75 to fill up the gas tank in his Dodge Ram. That’s more than he can afford, so he’s had to postpone fixing the brakes.
“It’s really biting into my paycheck,” says the 53-year-old who lives in Ellenton, Fla. “It’s actually getting to where it’s not very safe.”
Nationwide, drivers spent $347 on gasoline in February, which is nearly 8.5% of median income, according to the Oil Price Information Service. That’s nearly 30% more than they spent in February of 2010 — and 74% more than two years ago, when they shelled out $200 on gas.
Still, gas prices remain shy of the record high reached in July 2008, when the national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline hit $4.11 and fuel accounted for 10% of consumer’s income.
Reminds me of a story from my Valet days. Guy pulls up in a BMW mufler is a little loud. I notice the tires have no tread. He says to me as he get’s out of the car in a quiet voice so his date won’t hear, watch it the gas pedal sticks and the brakes are a little soft. I start to drive toward the parking area and low and behold the gas pedal sticks and I hit the brakes and nada. Finally I use my toe to pull out the gas pedal and pump the brakes and come to a stop. When I drove it back I went about 1mph. He tipped me well and drove off, I often wonder what happened to that man and his date, mountain driving in that car would have been crazy, I imagine he used the engine for most braking. He put image before all else.
The squeeze is on, purchasing power is quickly eroding, and these are the kind of people that should be thinking about buying a house?!
Maybe an agent should step up and buy this guy some brake pads so he can get out to an open house?
“buy this guy some brake pads”
I’ll bet that it’s more the labor costs because he doesn’t know how to install them than the actual pads…
Got DIY skills?
Reminds me of a story from my Valet days. Guy pulls up in a BMW mufler is a little loud. I notice the tires have no tread. He says to me as he get’s out of the car in a quiet voice so his date won’t hear, watch it the gas pedal sticks and the brakes are a little soft. I start to drive toward the parking area and low and behold the gas pedal sticks and I hit the brakes and nada. Finally I use my toe to pull out the gas pedal and pump the brakes and come to a stop. When I drove it back I went about 1mph. He tipped me well and drove off, I often wonder what happened to that man and his date, mountain driving in that car would have been crazy, I imagine he used the engine for most braking. He put image before all else.
Yeesh! I may be a total pedal-head, but even I’m not impressed by a guy driving a car like this.
First hint: The muffler. Fella, if it’s too loud, replace it. Life’s too short to have to suffer with your noise. And I don’t mean the noise that’s coming out of your mouth.
“Nationwide, drivers spent $347 on gasoline in February”
We didn’t even spend half that much, even though I have a 75 mile R/T commute. Of course we don’t drive his and hers gas guzzlers.
Of course we don’t drive his and hers gas guzzlers.
Story from Slim’s adolescence: A family built a house near the Slim family’s and let’s just say that my folks took an instant dislike to them. Why? Because they were conspicuous consumers to the nth degree.
Well, along came the energy crisis of the early 1970s, and suddenly, our neighbors’ gas guzzling Oldsmobiles didn’t look so cool. They bit the bullet and downsized…
…to a Volvo. I think they kept one of the Olds cars, but my memory’s a bit shaky on that detail.
Well, my mother had a few things to say about that. Not to them, mind you, but to me and my dad. One of her favorite talking points was how our two VWs beat the pants off that Volvo when it came to gas mileage.
http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/no-mcmansions-for-millennials.html
no mcmansions for millenials!
According to John Williams of Shadowstats the household income today is below where it was in 1973.
If so, doesn’t it seem like the downward direction of housing on the Case-Shiller charts should continue well below what it was in the 1990’s when household incomes were higher?
The only two things slowing the falling housing prices are credit cards and the Fanny/Freddy?
It seems like the massive foreclosures held off the markets really shouldn’t have anything to do with it.
It seems as if incomes aren’t really playing much of a role yet.
The housing bubble really hasn’t popped yet, has it? Only a partial pop?
Some People might say the correction tends to overshoot on the downside, so going below the 1990’s house price levels is not overshooting if values are based on income, therefore, we have more than a long ways to go, unless wages rise due to inflation, but globalization prevents the rise of wages, unlike in the 1970’s.
The whole ponzi scheme is a house of cards held together by the continuation of China buying under threat of war.
I never imagined it could get this bizarre.
“I never imagined it could get this bizarre.”
Me neither.
“I never imagined it could get this bizarre.”
+eleventygazillion.
It really is. All of it. We’re back in that make-believe war is peace, debt is wealth, slavery is freedom idea that became self-evident mid decade. It’s very much like a re-run of the Bush years.
I never imagined it could get this bizarre.
So, how’s the: “…requires x2 steady incomes for 30 years” price template working out?
Run Hwy,…RUN!
The beat goes on …
Radio stations here in L.A. are running ads directed to underwater FBs that are promising financial miracles. Their telephone number is 1-800-FIX BANK. One minute on the computer brought me this:
http://www.complaints.com/2010/september/6/1-800_FIX_BANK_241380.htm
There is a saying in residential sales that if you want to know the seller, then look who they hired as their agent. Evidently the rocks in the seller’s head, matches the holes in the agent’s head. This write up in the MLS was just way over the top,imho. $2.295M (Nice home)
http://www.redfin.com/CA/Beverly-Hills/417-S-Rodeo-Dr-90212/home/6810672
This was in the forum of the BH house.
“Very interersting listing, to say the least. Propertyshark notes that Batya Stark Living Trust owns the property. Searched the name Batya Stark — she was an astrologer. Hence the semi-hippie, new agey feel to the listing. ”
“Looks like a nice house.”
Alice
OK, that does it. I need to put my eccentricity to some good use, and get rich!
….
Too funny!!! You’ve got to love the write ups in the photo portion of the listing.
“Yes folks, Wall Street is the “Comeback Kid” story of the 21st century. Like a terrorist in a horror film, Wall Street thrives on threats. Three short years ago, Wall Street was virtually bankrupt, a ward of the state. We could have jailed “just one” of them back then, when they were down for the count. Instead, we bailed them out! Made them richer. Gave them $13.7 trillion, loans, credits, cash, asset buyouts. Gave them keys to the Treasury. They didn’t just recover, they “ran the tables,” to use a blackjack/pool metaphor. Now Wall Street dictators have absolute power, ruling Washington, America, you and me.
Yes, America’s bankrupt, but the rich just do not care
Admit it, we lost the opportunity. Jail a bank CEO and Wall Street will miraculously reform? You’re joking, right? Wall Street got away with a “legal” bank heist. Today the should-be/would-be inmates are running the prison.
Wall Street’s corrupt banks have lost their moral compass … their insatiable greed has become a deadly virus destroying its host nation … their campaign billions buy senate votes, stop regulators’ actions, manipulate presidential decisions. Wall Street money controls voters, runs America, both parties. Yes, Wall Street is bankrupting America.”
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/four-time-bombs-that-will-blow-up-wall-street-2011-03-01
“Yes folks, Wall Street is the “Comeback Kid” story of the 21st century. Like a terrorist in a horror film, Wall Street thrives on threats.
And the right-wing supports the anti-American, anti-capitalist, thieving bastards because they dumb as dirt. Embrace it.
Really? Right-wing only?
Obama, Barnie, Dodd, Schumer, Rahm,….
Need more names?
Thorny foreclosure questions
Thursday, March 3, 2011; 9:46 PM
I never bought a foreclosure. I pay my mortgage faithfully. Now, is someone going to tell me a back-office clerk mishandled my title and their actions threaten my legitimate ownership? Will this mess hurt me when I try to sell my home?
That’s exceedingly unlikely. Chaos would ensue if the millions of solvent homeowners who purchased their home - or refinanced their mortgage - in recent years had their ownership thrown into question. Even if investigators conclude that land titles have systemically been registered improperly as the associated mortgages were carved up into mortgage-backed securities and sold to investors, government would be compelled to avert such chaos by legislating a fix to the system.
And then there’s the less-theoretical assurance provided by title insurance. Lenders require all borrowers to pay for a policy at closing. This protects the lender if there is a ownership claim against the title. (That’s commonly called a “cloud” on the title.) Borrowers can choose to pay extra to have that coverage extend to them as well. Title insurers promise to pay legal expenses to defend a title - or to compensate owners if they lose such a challenge.
…
Is this program as ‘worthy’ as the HAMP?
FYI, $50,000,000/44 = $1,136,363 per FB helped so far. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just buy each of them a home in La Jolla, CA and be done with them?
* March 3, 2011, 8:03 PM ET
House Republicans Vote To Cancel Two New Mortgage Programs
By Alan Zibel
House Republicans moved Thursday to cancel two new Obama administration programs designed to tackle the housing crisis, arguing that federal interventions to prevent foreclosures aren’t working.
The Republican-led House Financial Services Committee voted 33-22 on party lines to end two fledgling programs being managed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. They are designed to assist borrowers who owe more on their homes than the properties are worth and to provide temporary loans to the unemployed.
Republicans plan a vote to end the programs on the House floor next week. However, they are unlikely to succeed in the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats.
GOP lawmakers call the foreclosure-prevention efforts a waste of federal money, and say the banking industry should continue with its own efforts, which don’t require a federal subsidy. They also plan an attempt to end the Obama administration’s main Home Affordable Modification Program, but delayed a vote to do so.
“These programs, while well-intentioned, are actually doing more harm than good for many struggling homeowners,” said Rep. Spencer Bachus (R., Ala.), the committee’s chairman.
The FHA’s “short refinance” option, which was announced about a year ago, has been available since last September. It requires investors in mortgage-backed securities to reduce the borrower’s primary mortgage by at least 10% to help homeowners whose property values have fallen dramatically.
The program, however, has gotten off to a slow start. Only 44 loans have been refinanced as of mid-February, and only 245 applications have been submitted.
Republicans repeatedly asserted that the government has spent $50 million on the program so far. But the Department of Housing and Urban Development said the money has been set aside in case borrowers fall back into default and hasn’t actually been spent.
While Republicans call the effort a waste of money, Democrats and the Obama administration argue that the program is just getting started. “It is still in its infancy, but it is a tremendously worthy program,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D., N.Y.)
…
So much for the FB Wealth Exhaustion Program (FBWEP)…
Tierney: homeowner program an “abysmal failure”
Posted by Stephanie Vallejo
March 3, 2011 05:34 PM
By Theo Emery, Globe Staff
A federal program to assist homeowners facing foreclosure has been an “abysmal failure,” according to U.S. Representative John Tierney, who is urging U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to do more to help those in danger of losing their homes.
Tierney and other members of Congress met with Geithner and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan yesterday to discuss the program known as the Home Affordable Modification Program, which is meant to help homeowners stave off foreclosures.
Launched in 2009, the HAMP program was supposed to help three to four million homeowners at risk of foreclosure. But just over a half-million households are getting loan modifications, and almost 800,000 have had trial or permanent loan modifications canceled.
“These families deserve a fair shake from their mortgage lenders and servicers, many of whom are the very same large banks and investment houses whose reckless speculation caused the financial crisis in the first place,” the Salem Democrat said.
Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, said in his comments to the House Financial Services Committee yesterday that the program has floundered, and may actually do more harm than good. While supportive in the past, Barofsky said his support is “all but exhausted.”
…
Let’s see…
I have my doubts about the will of the govt to leave the mortgage market. Nothing would make me happier, though. We could finally get to the bottom and begin to form a *real* recovery.
You heard this from one of one of America’s most conservative newpapers:
OPINION
MARCH 4, 2011
Scott Walker’s False Choice
A group of radical Republican governors is working overtime to export the private sector’s short-sighted labor practices into the public sector.
By RICHARD TRUMKA
Close to 200,000 working Wisconsinites have been given the following option by Gov. Scott Walker: If you want to keep your job, give up your rights. If you want to keep your rights, you’re going to be laid off.
This is downright un-American. The governor’s choice is a false one, manufactured for political reasons.
The real question, the one at the heart of our economic debate, is this: Do we continue down a path that delivers virtually all income growth to the richest 1% of Americans, or do we commit to rebuilding a thriving middle class?
We believe to address this question, it’s crucial that we sit down at the table together and find a way to grow without taking more away from the middle class.
…
You prolly know who Trumka is, right?
What part of this proposal are you disagreeing with?
Do you believe that we are all better served by funneling our money to the to 1%, or do you believe we are all better served by reducing the wealth disparity that has brought this country (and the world) to its knees?