Bits Bucket for March 12, 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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‘Former billionaire spouse turned vintner is now facing foreclosure…The Kluge Estate Winery quickly won critical acclaim for its bubbly vintages and red-wine blends…Perhaps intoxicated by her success, Kluge decided to expand aggressively. Over the past five years she took out $65 million in loans, according to public records. The money went into expanding wine production and building a super-luxury subdivision called Vineyard Estates, which was to include 24 multimillion-dollar homes with pools, outdoor kitchens, tennis courts, horse trails — and even space for private vineyards.’
‘That’s when the housing crisis hit. Vineyard Estates failed to draw buyers. Property values plunged…In 2009 Kluge put Albemarle up for sale. Sotheby’s International Realty initially listed it for $100 million. The figure was cut to $48 million in early 2010 and then to $24 million, where it sat until February’s bank foreclosure…By its ending, creditor Bank of America had repossessed the property for just $15.3 million.’
http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/112329/rise-fall-of-patricia-kluge?mod=family-love_money
‘Despite their financial troubles, Kluge and Moses continue to live in a home that many would consider palatial. It’s a $3 million Vineyard Estates property they had built on spec back in the days when it seemed as if no real estate deal, or vintage, would ever go sour.’
‘building a super-luxury subdivision which was to include 24 multimillion-dollar homes’
She had all that money and but just had to have more…
http://www.charlieglickman.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/tiny-violin.jpg
And Donald Trump wants to buy her old house…lowballing it!
Trump’s business adviser said Wednesday that Trump was negotiating to buy not only Kluge’s grand estate, Albemarle House, which a bank foreclosed on in January, but all of Kluge’s former real estate holdings outside Charlottesville near Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate.
Those include 200 acres of land adjacent to the estate that once had a nine-hole golf course designed by Arnold Palmer, a 900-acre vineyard and a failed real estate development where Kluge had planned to market luxury “farmettes” with their own grapevines.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/16/AR2011021606550.html
——————————-
Why do I think the Kluge wines would have sold for a lower price, but she didn’t want to “give it away”?
And would The Donald be using his own, or other peoples’, money to fund the purchase?
The hot daughters money.
Of course the well-connected get to use other people’s money- oftentimes through big bank’s, care of the taxpayer. All of the prime real estate will be sold off through sweetheart deals that you and I are not privy to. The big land deals are happening behind closed doors. Don’t be surprised when those who emerge with the cheap land, are the same people who were on the hook for the expensive land. It’s magic!
You have problem with Corporate Communist Capitalism©®™, comrade?
Unfortunately, everything I’ve seen so far supports what you’ve said, Grizzly.
“Donald Trump, a longtime friend of Kluge’s, has expressed an interest in taking Albemarle off Bank of America’s repossession roster. He has already bought up the 216 acre front lawn.”
A 260 acre front lawn?
Lol. These people are nuts.
It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to paint it.
A 260 acre front lawn?
They own a company Inc. that mows it…
Reminds me of… when I’m in Vegas… playing craps…. & winning… then… all of a sudden… out of the blue… I get seduced by the 10-for-1 hard-way bet… & put EVERYTHING on it.
And LOSE.
Too bad. So sad.
Then, go back to the room & raid the mini-bar.
The same thing happend to the Megabanks, however going back to the room was apparently not an option for them. Instead, they were able to extort an unlimited “marker” from the house by threatening to blow up the hotel in a violent temper-tantrum. They contiune to play and be the “big-shot” at the table as they guzzle free drinks and grope waitresses with wanton greed.
They also bribed local government officials to make them whole when the casino venture went bankrupt.
greed kills…
The vineyard bubble is popping in the Finger Lakes. Here you can pick up a very nice one for as little as $1.3M (just $70/ft2). It was a foreclosure, now a flipper. My youngest waited tables there years ago. Formerly Logan Ridge.
http://www.cabinstocastlesre.com/bin/web/real_estate/AR120631/COMMERCIAL_LISTINGS/WATKINS+GLEN/1299634169.html?ZKEY=&acnt=AR120631&action=COMMERCIAL_LISTINGS&inwindow=&hs_action=VIEW_DETAIL&listing_id=REAP0117392841&start=0&grp=ALL
“Endless Commercial Opportunities”
Actually, the end is here, now.
The wine bubble was an exceedingly annoying aspect of the housing bubble. Vineyards were been popping up everywhere, and they even had housing subdivisions with Tuscan names with grape vines planted out front. Gag.
“Were been?” LOL
“The wine bubble was an exceedingly annoying aspect of the housing bubble. ”
DISAGREE!! I’m picking up mad discounts at Winn Dixie. 2 for 1 bottles everywhere.
“Ahem, sir, that is a sipping wine.”
“Shit, my bad, you got any gulping wines?!”
LOL!
The buyers can convert it to producing Night Train or Mad Dog 20/20 to better fit the current era.
What do they say about putting all of ones grapes in one basket?
‘building a super-luxury subdivision which was to include 24 multimillion-dollar homes’
So many multimillion-dollar homes, so few multimillionaires to populate them…
I would never buy wine from such douchebags.
A little vinegar and water won’t kill you.
Speaking of wine, I spent last night soaking in the ol’ hot tub, drinking the finest boxed wine money can buy (Frank Franzia says that his boxed wines are “freeway aged” (aged from the time it leaves the vineyard until the time it arrives at the grocery store!)
Billionaire?
Foreclosure?
Tax write off.
She won’t be clipping coupons and turning off the cable.
“Billionaire?”
Well, you know what they say…If you want to make a small fortune in the wine business, start with a large one.
The article says that after the divorce, the lady got $1 million per year. Man, not even the strawberry picker was able to borrow 65xincome.
Posted most of this before, but think a lot of people don’t really understand the whole “pension issue.”
When I say that Wall Street and the Federal Reserve are responsible for the pension crisis, I’m referring to the boom/bust cycles that the Fed creates, and the “guaranteed” inflation, as the Fed tries to maintain a ~2% inflation rate, which they call “price stability.” The Fed’s tendency to bail speculators out of their foolish mistakes (the Greenspan/Bernanke put) made investors think that “they” would never let deflation happen, so the investors had no choice but to go all in.
If not for the bubbles, our commitments would be significantly lower. During the bubbles, city and state managers/legislators offer up compensation packages that cannot be sustained in a “normal” economy.
The problem is that our bubble economy has been going on for so long (since the early 80s), that everyone (govt management AND pension fund managers and actuaries) thinks the bubble economy is “normal,” and they plan accordingly. Those who thought it was unsustainable were forced out, as the returns they made were consistently lower than those who chased the bubbles and got the bubble returns. Also, as asset prices rose, unions would (logically) demand compensation increases to keep up.
BTW, in the situations I’m aware of, it’s not the reduced TAX revenue that is causing a problem with the pension plans. It’s the losses they saw during the “financial crisis,” and the lower returns on investments. The large pension funds do not rely on taxpayer funding, and taxpayers have not spent a single cent on the “pension crisis” experienced by these large funds (CalPERS and CalSTRS*). The pension funds, at lest the large ones I’m most familiar with (I’m not as familiar with independent municipal pension funds) get their revenue from the pension contributions that are paid by the employees and their employers, as part of their compensation packages. (the “taxpayer-paid” portion is referred to as the “employer contribution,” and it’s a very small part of the funding) Approximately 70% of the revenue is supposed to come from investments (the link below is from 2005, and it shows investment returns are 75% of projected revenue), and THAT is where the problem lies. It’s not about tax revenue, it’s about investment returns/losses.
The funds were super-funded in the late 90s (a bubble!), which is why they passed the pension boost for public safety personnel. The bubbles that resulted from the actions taken by the Federal Reserve and Wall Street are what have caused them to make such foolish mistakes, and this is why there is a “pension crisis.”
From the CalPERS link, who pays into the fund:
Member - $16.8
Employer - $17.0
Investments - $116.1
http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/lwp/Buenrostro%20(FINAL%20POWER%20POINT).pdf
——————
*The state pays ~2-3% of the employees’ (teachers’) wages to CalSTRS, from what I can tell. The rest comes from employees, the employers (as part of the compensation package), and investment returns.
http://calstrs.com/About%20CalSTRS/fastf...
There has been no large-scale bailout of these large funds. IMHO, any additional contribution requirements will end up being shifted to the employees; something I’ve been saying for a while, now.
————–
I think this is why I get so frustrated. It’s just that so few people actually understand how the system works, and why it’s in trouble right now, yet they are ranting and raving about things that aren’t even related to the cause of the problems. Again, it is NOT the unions who caused the problems, but the financial industry and the Federal Reserve (by creating bubbles, and then forcing negative rates on us when the funds need ~7-9% in order for the numbers to work out…which force the managers to move further out on the risk curve when rates are held so low for such an extended period of time).
This is why some of us are so infuriated. This is being labeled as “taxpayers vs. unions,” when that’s not the issue here. Why has Wall Street — the ones who caused the crisis — been getting bailouts, record bonuses and tax breaks, which cost taxpayers trillions of dollars…while public sector workers are being blamed in the media for causing the “pension crisis” and told they have to give up everything **they’ve worked for over the years** and were promised in good faith? IMHO, it’s an intentional diversion, and public workers are being made the scapegoats for the financial industry.
Sorry, but it’s B.S.
BTW, please check out the link to the Harvard presentation for CalPERS.
On page 22, you’ll see how the employer contribution dropped off. This was due to the internet bubble, and they (CalPERS) reduced employer contribution requirements at the same time they (public employers/legislators) increased benefits. The public workers BEGGED them to save this money for future contributions/a rainy day, but their employers — almost all of them — refused, and spent it instead.
=================
One more thing…during negotiations over the past 2-3 years, union members **have been making concessions in pay and benefits** because they are aware of the problems. People seem to be under the impression that union members have been getting raises, or that they are getting the same pay/benefits as they were during the bubble, but that just isn’t true in most cases. As unions renegotiate their contracts going forward, they will be giving things up, as would be expected. It’s just maddening that people are trying to blame the union members for our financial crisis. They are being made the scapegoats for Wall Street, and it needs to stop.
Good discussion. You also have to remember that public pensions (and public and non-profit finance in general) used to be consideded a totally separate thing than private finance. The former had different standards, was supposed to be dull and boring and was just expected to not make anyone that much money. Safe, but not so exciting.
And then finance changed.
It was one thing to be boring and safe when boring and safe got you 5% a year on average and exciting and risky got you 8% per year on average. But when boring and safe gets you 2% per year and exciting and risky gets you 15 or 20% a year the temptation to go with a little more risky. Especially when people change your compensation to get bonuses based on your total return. And when all these bonds that get returns that look like they must be risky are rated AAA which you are required to have as a large percentage of your portfolio. And besides if you do this for a while you might be able to get a job at one of those places that sells bonds to you for a few years and rake in a few million bucks before you retire. And so on. And so on. And so on.
And when all these bonds that get returns that look like they must be risky are rated AAA
Hey Hwy50 will rate them AAAA++++, for a certain
sum of moneyFEE, but really it’s just Hwy’s OPINION, so go ahead…sue me.+1
The bond rating entities are just like all the residential property appraisers who were told to “hit the numbers” if they wanted to continue to get business.
Thats fraud in most peoples book .
“That’s fraud in most people’s book.”
Of course, Wall Street reads different books.
Bill Gross at Pimco is divesting the funds from ANY muni or government bonds. Look out below !
*The state pays ~2-3% of the employees’ (teachers’) wages to CalSTRS, from what I can tell. The rest comes from employees, the employers (as part of the compensation package), and investment returns.
Isn’t the employer and the state the exact same? ( ie doesn’t the money come from the same place).
In this case, the state’s contribution is deferred compensation. It is similar to a company match on a 401K.
Comment by polly
2011-03-12 05:57:26
Good discussion. You also have to remember that public pensions (and public and non-profit finance in general) used to be consideded a totally separate thing than private finance. The former had different standards, was supposed to be dull and boring and was just expected to not make anyone that much money. Safe, but not so exciting.
And then finance changed.
—————————-
You hit the nail on the head, Polly.
I’m sure you probably know this already, but the “old, boring pension funds” had to get into hedge funds and other “non-traditional” investments in a big way. As one would expect, there was corruption involved, too.
—————–
It’s no surprise that eight of the nine investments worth $4.8 billion cited in a state lawsuit this month were in Leon Black’s Apollo funds, previously known to have paid a former CalPERS board member more than $40 million in “placement agent” fees.
……
A placement agent agreement with the firm of former California Public Employees Retirement System board member Al Villalobos was not signed until seven months after CalPERS invested $400 million in Parsky’s Aurora Resurgence Fund.
The lawsuit said CalPERS invested $400 million in Aurora Resurgence on or about Sept. 10, 2007. Aurora paid Villalobos $1 million on Jan. 1, 2008, the first of four $1 million payments due in January over a four-year period, totaling $4 million.
The lawsuit said the placement agent agreement between Aurora and Villalobos “was dated April 25, 2008, seven months after CalPERS made the solicited investment.”
Voluntary disclosure forms collected by CalPERS from private equity firms and released last January show that Parsky signed a 10-page letter from the Villalobos firm, Arvco, to Aurora to “confirm the agreement” between the two.
http://calpensions.com/2010/05/17/calpers-corruption-private-equity-pays/
==================
IMHO, the Federal Reserve is 90% responsible for this debacle because they have artificially suppressed rates for far too long, forcing more risk-averse investors into risky financial adventures.
This is why I get so upset about those who blame the rank-and-file union members. They had NOTHING to do with this.
“If not for the bubbles, our commitments would be significantly lower. During the bubbles city and state managers/legislatures offer up compensation packages that cannot be sustained in a ‘normal’ economy.”
What the Great Expansion giveth, the Great Contraction taketh away. All this noise about unions and pensions and such is A SYMPTOM of a contracting economy.
The pie is shrinking, the pieces are getting smaller - and everyone is fighting over these smaller pieces. This is the root of the problem as I see it. There were/are more promises of money than there is money to make good on these promises.
Somebody - a lot of somebodys - are going to have to do without. All the noise generated by this fact is part of the process of discovering who is going to get what.
The pie is shrinking, the pieces are getting smaller - and everyone is fighting over these smaller pieces.
Everyone is not fighting over these smaller pieces.
The pie has not shrunk for the top 5%, 1% and especially the top 1/10th of 1 percent of Americans. It has grown immensely.
We read the richest 400 Americans have the wealth equal to 1/2 of the American population or 155 million Americans. Now lets ponder those numbers. They seem to me to be a ratio that would come out of a third world dictatorship. They do not represent the American economic and political ideals that we grew up with. Our government is ours–the people’s. Our government is there to serve us as a whole, not just 5,000 of America’s richest families.
This wealth, along with opportunity and general well-being has been redistributed to the richest of the rich from the American middle class the past 30 years. This fact is proven by many sources. Google: Mother Jones income inequality
This goes beyond public pensions and unions. There has been a massive transfer of wealth and opportunity from roughly 95% of Americans to the top 5% with most transfer going to the top 1/10 of 1% and even much more to the top 1/100th of 1%. It is they who have taken. They are the takers and they want more.
But the takers taking more may be sowing the seeds of their own destruction. Greed and over-reach are stories as old as mankind. Icarus… A bridge Too Far…. Would public workers ever really protest for the average man if the public worker’s ox had not been gored? Would the average American worker take to the street if he had a good job with benefits? The takers beating down one group of Americans after another in hypocritical money and power grabs based on failed ideology is not something that will stand the test of time. They are not messing with poor Africans or Asians with no taste of decent lives or no access to the internet or information. The takers are playing a dangerous game, an old game of money and power grabbing but an old game with old rules that can now be broken.
These old games are breaking down as we speak in the middle-east. Information is no longer totally controlled by Pravda, CBS or FOX. Our corporate controlled MSM knows this. Why was there hardly any MSM coverages of the largest American protests in 40 years in America? Why was it one sided? I learned more from blogs than from all the MSM combined. And what I learned is that there is a glimmer of hope that Americans are starting to come together.
Some came together as the Tea-Party and some came together as the Wisconsin and other massive pro-union protests but what both groups have to realize is that both groups have a common enemy and the enemy is not us. The enemy is the corporate structure of our corrupted political system. Tea-Party people, they have taken your money too. They have taken your jobs and sent them overseas and not because USA can’t compete, or we have too many unions or regulations. I live in a country that proves it. Brazil has so many regulations, taxes, unions and labor protection laws that you can’t imagine but they protect their jobs. How? Tariffs, duties and laws that prevent off-shoring. USA should do the same.
I think more and more Americans will come together. Even many of those on the right are starting to question just what the heck is going on with our politics, Wall Street, bailouts, banks and the inequality of wealth. The worm is turning and the game is changing faster than the rules can keep up. We are seeing it in the Middle-East and we saw it in Wisconsin.
But as we see it we must remember that the pie has not shrunk for everybody. No, in fact the pie has grown for the corporations and the richest of the rich. Their pie is bigger than ever and it is bigger because they stole ours.
They stole our middle-class American pie….and they are enjoying it very much.
“Everyone is not fighting over these smaller pieces.”
“The pie has not shrunk for the top 5%, 1% and especially the top 1/10 of 1% of Americans.”
Okay, I’ll give yout that. Let me modify my original statement:
For ninety-five percent of Americans, the pie is shrinking, the pieces are getting smaller - and everyone within this VERY LARGE GROUP of Americans is fighting over these smaller pieces.
There.
Good post my friend Rio . Check out the Jon Steward funny tape I posted below regarding the insanity of that which is .
God bless you combo.
Another great post, Rio.
Combo,
Rio said it all.
We don’t need to fight with the other 95% of the population; we need to take back what is ours to begin with. We will not stand idly by while the top 1% plunders our country and our middle class. We will fight to the end, and there are far more of us than there are of them.
It is all about awareness of what’s really been going on. Too many people have been hoodwinked by out corporate-controlled media, but they are waking up. What’s been said about Walker is true, he pushed one too many buttons, and he’s alerted more people than ever to the real problem — income inequality, and the fact that most of those in the top 1% never even worked for that money, they simply skimmed it from our legitimate transactions, and engaged in backdoor deals with those in power. Their time is up.
These old games are breaking down as we speak in the…NBA / NFL / MLB / PTW…(Pro Tiddly Winks)
“The ticket prices are…TooDamnHigh!”
“Say what?,…you want us taxpayers-citizens to build you a new Billion Dollar stadium with Luxury-for-those-who-can-afford-’em Suites?”
What was the recent newly signed Lakers cable revenue projections? x3 Billion $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$…
BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
Ho ho, hah hah, hehehehehehe, BwaHaHaAhHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! (Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower™)
Forbes: 17 of 30 NBA Teams Lost Money Last Year
Dashiell Bennett
The NBA and its team owners just got an nice assist from Forbes magazine, whose annual valuations report claims that more than half of the league’s franchise lost money last year.
The owners insist that the economic model is broken and players will need to give back hundreds of millions in salary to keep the league afloat (and avoid a lockout.) And since no one is getting to look at the books, these estimated valuations are all that anyone has to go on.
And these numbers say the league is trouble.
Those at the top keep getting richer, of course. The estimated worth of the New York Knicks is up 12%, moving them past the Lakers as the league’s most valuable team. The Knicks are worth $655 million, or nearly twice the average of $369 million per team.
Exactly, Rio.
And to add insult to injury, they have TAX BREAKS for offshoring jobs.
“I’m referring to the boom/bust cycles that the Fed creates”
As I pointed out previously (but perhaps you missed), there were boom-bust cycles long before there was a Fed. This is documented in the Bible, and in California history; I am certain you have read the history of the gold rush! And there was a real estate bust in California (documented a few years back on the HBB, in an editorial by Robert Shiller, I believe) in the 1890s which was comparable to the current one, two decades before there was a Fed.
We can argue about whether the Fed’s attempt to smooth the business cycle has actually worsened the picture, but you cannot legitimately say the Fed causes the business cycle.
First and Second Bank of the United States.
Wiki.
PB,
Yes, I do understand that, but (IMHO) the central banks can exacerbate the booms and busts, seemingly “smoothing things out,” when in reality, they are storing more energy for an even greater event later.
“…they are storing more energy for an even greater event later.”
My impression is that nobody at the Fed could have seen that coming, though it is clearly visible now through the lens of the rear view mirror.
“Posted most of this before, but think a lot of people don’t really understand…”
We do notice.
Note to add: I don’t think the average person blames teacher’s unions for the plight of our country. i sure don’t. There is the element of holding gains (despite the claims of the article) that simply will not stand in a contraction.
Ca Renter . In response to your above post . My point has been all along that Wall Street Investment Middle Men had no right to
rate those Mortgage back securities AAA for all those years causing
not only a loss on the interest earned ,but a loss on the principal
that was used . I want restitution to those accounts from the
Wall Street Culprits for starters . It’s absurd that you see some minor fines from the SEC if you take the true loss in account . They wanted those Pension funds to make commissions on ,and than they had the nerve in some cases to bet against the bet .
Wall Street had no right to play with pension funds on investments that were actually so risky they should of been rated FFF (or will fail no doubt ). This is the big liability that I have seen all along and have been bitching about all along , Now they want to suggest its the teachers and public workers
fault now that you have the fallout from their darn Ponzi-schemes . The Bail Outs in every way it was a avoidance of the Justice and liability . Goldman’s shouldn’t of got close to 20 billion from AIG ,that money should of gone for restitution
to accounts that were ripped off ,like Government worker Pensions . Now they are attacking teachers and trying to take away all their bargaining rights in general Nation wide .
To re-capitalize these Wall Street criminals and give them power and avoidance of liability so they could live another day to reek their evil was the great Obstruction of Justice ,
This is a transfer of the harm and liability to the worker ,just has all these bail outs saved the creeps that were the Culprits .
Of course this has been the bail out scheme from day one ,
the stupid Paulson Plan no doubt . And Congress giving Hank Paulson trillions ,without any proof of his claims ,without any
regard for his conflict of interest ,just proves how in bed
the Politicians are with the Culprits . Hank Paulson was one of the biggest winners from the MBS market to the tune of
1/2 billion in a 7 year span of time . He was protecting himself and his stupid Company ,especially with that AIG BS.
I knew they would eventually try to take it out of the hide of the victims ,thats what these bastards do . I’ts just been
unacceptable from day one .
thats what these bastards do
Hey Wiz, is this too simple or what? ( Hwy’s just tryin’ to help some folks from needing to watch 72 HRS of MUrDoch’s “TruePaidProvoker’s ™” Faux News in order to gleen the “TrueDeceit™”)
“TrueAnger™” Our-Prioritized-Damage Summary:
Wall St. “Bidnessman” = “Good guys” + “TBTT” (Too-Big-To-Touch)
Public school K-12 Teachers = “Bad Guys” + “Destroying America!”
Wiz,
You are right on the money.
“…holding gains… that simply will not stand in a contraction…”
And then there was the Greenspan-inspired belief that through endless Keynesian smoothing, the business cycle had been abolished. Little did we know until it hit financial shores that all that smoothing to shield the world from financial risk merely served to build a financial tsunami that was (figuratively speaking) larger than the one that slammed into Japan yesterday.
As HW points out above, all our sandbags were deployed around Wall Street. The rest of us are just lowlanders.
“Financial Innovation” Calculus:
TBTF Inc. =
(”The Unmovable” + “The Unshakable” + “The Untouchables”) + 1
Seems like that ‘Keynesian smoothing’ lasted as long as we followed his theories. Surely you’re not calling Greenspan and Reagan Keynesians?
Comment by Blue Skye
2011-03-12 10:02:23
As HW points out above, all our sandbags were deployed around Wall Street. The rest of us are just lowlanders.
——————–
Which is why we need to reverse the tide. We can no longer be apathetic sheep. Time for us to turn off our TVs and set about fixing things.
“During the bubbles, city and state managers/legislators offer up compensation packages that cannot be sustained in a “normal” economy.”
Well you could give it back, in the form of increased pension contributions or (for retirees) health care contributions, to avoid having those worse off face devastation of their public services.
The pension issue varies from place to place. Those in California may be surprised to know that, for example, NYC teachers had their retirement age cut by five years in 2008.
That they get Social Security in addition to their pension.
That both those pensions (at any age and regardless of amount) are exempt from state and local income taxes (NYC has a local income tax too). Meaning a 55 year-old retire pays nothing in taxes, while someone earning far less pays quite a bid.
That those with 10 or more years of seniority pay 1.85% of their pay into the pensions. Up from zero. Those who had been paying zero, but became eligible to retire early when the deal was announced, didn’t have to pay anything for the years they paid nothing. New hires are forced to pay 5 percent, but there won’t be any because the schools are being gutted despite vastly higher spending than in California.
All NY public employees go 4 percent wage increases, compounded, in each of the past four years.
NYC’s estimated pension contributions for FY 2012: 40 percent of wages, including 33 percent for teachers (not enough) 67 percent for police and even more for firefighters.
NYC always had substantial taxpayer pension contributions, unlike some places, except for a couple of years under a deal Giuliani cut with the unions when he wanted to run for Senator and wanted a city budget with lots of goodies. So other places have had pension “holidays” that lasted years.
NYC’s state and local tax burden is vastly higher than California’s as a share of its residents’ personal income. Our public services aren’t great, and are being destroyed even so.
So it isn’t a national issue. The relative guilt of public employees and taxpayers varies from place to place.
WTE…Different states had different pension set ups no doubt .I believe it’s a National issue from the standpoint of the overall ‘Heist”,and the RE Ponzi scheme directly affected many pension accounts . A private pension I had is in total BK status right now for
instance and because of all the clauses in the contract I’m going to get pennies on the dollar ,but other pension plans had different set ups . In addition ,regarding a benefit I had regarding health care they just reneged on it totally . I just lose ,no way to change it .
But this transfer of liability scheme that is taking place is
objectionable . Wall Street is smiling with being able to shift the battle to taxpayer verses public worker .
.
The de-facto union of corporate top executives and directors is merely the most rapacious of all.
The de-facto union
Just because you use the word doesn’t make it equivalent in this discussion. There is a specific definition of the term “union” in use in this conversation. It involves dues, collective bargaining, striking, union bosses, etc. And the discussion primarily is focusing on PUBLIC EMPLOYEE unions.
None of those are a factor when it comes to “corporate top executives”
If those damn janitors weren’t making so much money(thanks to unions), we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Hey DrumBeater….. what kind of punishment do you think we should hand these janitors?
The de-facto union of corporate top executives and directors is merely the most rapacious of all.
Stay Focused! There are more prioritized UNIONS to be “TrulyAngry™” with: Unionized-Janitors/ K-12 teachers / mics-peon-worker unions…they are the ones DESTROYING America!
Well, the Corp Inc. Et al.,…kinda/sorta like to hang in the same “hood” too!
The Most Expensive Town in America
by Nancy Keates
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Last year, hedge-fund titan John Paulson paid $24.5 million for a 13,000-square-foot estate with a sandy beach, surrounding ponds, a 35-foot-wall of disappearing glass, views of the four ski mountains and a media room with leather seats. Chris Reyes of Chicago-based food and beer distributor Reyes Holdings paid $31.5 million for a 15,000-square-foot stone mansion with a gym, panoramic views, a caretaker’s apartment and an eight-stall horse stable. According to public records, Paul Edgerley, a managing director of Bain Capital, bought an estate in the exclusive community of Starwood a couple of weeks ago. The estate sold for $19.8 million after less than three months on the market, says listing agent Brian Hazen.
A 90-acre Aspen estate just went on the market for $48.5 million, listed by Joshua Saslove of Joshua & Co. Known as Jigsaw Ranch, it includes two main houses, a guest house and a log cabin gatehouse. The 21,000-square-foot main house took nearly 15 years to complete and was designed to look like a perched village. The second main house is 11,000 square feet and has an entrance reached from a walking bridge across a creek.
In 2008 Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich paid $36 million for a 14,300-square-foot house on 200 acres. A couple living in London snapped up a $10.5 million ranch in July; a $16 million home with 40 acres and a theater, gym with sauna and steam, private guest apartment, elevator and six-car garage, was purchased by a family from New Zealand.
Chuck Frias, an Aspen developer and broker who has a newly built $24 million home on the market, says the weak dollar has drawn interest in the home from house-hunters in Canada, Australia and Italy; he sold a $7 million house to a Chilean family in December.
In the past few days Aspen agents have reported showing homes to potential buyers from as wide a range as Russia, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Italy and Australia.
Ski Brasil, a Brazilian ski-tour operator with a winter presence in Aspen, runs three ads a week for 16 weeks in Portuguese in the local Aspen paper now. Eduardo Gaz, the company’s director of operations, estimates some 20,000 Brazilians ski in Aspen every season, some of whom own homes (many of whom won’t talk for tax reasons). Joshua & Co. real estate has taken out ads in Russian offering to show visitors around.
Francesca and Sal Amery, a British international banker, have lived for the past 20 years in the Middle East, New Zealand, England, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore and have owned homes in Malaysia, Singapore and England. They considered buying a home at a ski resort in Europe or New Zealand, but nothing measured up to Aspen when it came to meeting their checklist of wants: comfortable year-round living, a good education system, an airport, access to great medical facilities and an educated and diverse population.
“It is Adult Disney,” says Ms. Amery.
The lowest-priced single-family home on the market in Aspen is listed for $559,000. It’s located in a trailer park.
“A private pension I had is in total BK status right now for
instance and because of all the clauses in the contract I’m going to get pennies on the dollar ,but other pension plans had different set ups . In addition ,regarding a benefit I had regarding health care they just reneged on it totally . I just lose ,no way to change it .”
——————–
I am so sorry to hear this Wiz. This is so totally wrong. Is the PBGC covering it or?
Ca renter….No . I have already accepted it along with other
loss. Nothing can compare to the loss of a loved one in my view and that’s the loss I’m having a hard time getting over ,but time
heals .
Hugs, Housing.
Hang in there.
Wiz,
I often think about you and the grief you’ve experienced about your wife’s passing. Was just talking about it to my DH the other week, as a matter of fact. I am heartbroken about what you had to go through. If there is ever anything I can do, please do not hesitate to let me know.
Just know that you always have a standing invitation to join us for the holidays (or whenever you just don’t want to be alone).
Lots of warm wishes and hugs to you, Wiz.
Thank you my friend .
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=182129
Public unions are now threatening boycots. When police and firefighter unions are involved, that starts to smack of extortion.
Oh so what ,what do you think Wall Streets ongoing extortion is .
Boycotting is allowed and is legal . Stealing trillions after you destroyed the global economy by false ratings and bogus Ponzi
schemes ,just so you could get billions into few hands is not legal .
If I was God looking down on Civilization what would I think ?.. Would I answer the prayers for a couple thousand Mobster Money Changers and Price fixing Corporation Monopolies to be saved and prosper,
,or would I answer the prayers of 300 million that want to be saved?
My views on the Federal Reserve-Wall Street looting syndicate are well known in here.
in Montana the taxpayers guarantee the funding, which is where the rubber meets the road. So we are hardly disinterested parties.
I was opposed to wall street bail outs and am opposed to public pension/state government bail outs.
They AREN’T getting bailouts. They’re just trying to hold to their ability to bargain after having ALREADY CONCEDED to compensation cuts.
Get it now?
I was opposed to wall street bail outs and am opposed to public pension/state government bail outs.
Who’s on first?
Japan’s fiscal fix deepens ~ Fortune
Posted by Colin Barr March 11, 2011 12:48 pm
Today, concern over the human suffering in Japan naturally dwarfs any worry about how much it will cost to rebuild earthquake-hit areas.
But as the scale of the tragedy comes into fuller view in coming weeks, the impact on Japan’s unsteady economy and stretched fiscal position – and the implications for markets — will start to weigh heavier.
First, the facts. The quake, at 8.9 on the Richter scale Japan’s biggest ever, has killed hundreds of people. An oil refinery caught fire and residents near a nuclear reactor were forced to evacuate.
Japanese stock markets dropped and the cost of insuring against a default on Japanese debt rose 6%, according to CMA Market Data. Bond prices rose as investors pulled back from risky assets.
Like the oil spike that roiled markets in recent weeks, Friday’s quake offers yet another reminder of how vulnerable aging, slow-growing, debt-burdened economies are to a shock even in what is supposed to be a period of global economic expansion.
“Japan’s economic recovery has lost momentum and a large part of the reconstruction costs will add to the government’s significant debt burden,” writes Julian Jessop at Capital Economics. He writes that the disaster could make it even more painful for the latest Japanese government to take long overdue action to produce a plan that would put spending on a more sustainable track.
Economists responding to the news of the quake focused mostly on two issues: how bad the damage stands to be, and how big a burden rebuilding stands to impose on an already stretched nation.
All said and done, there is no other society in the world that could rise from such a tragedy the way Japan has and will. When you look at their situation - a densely populated country sitting on the precipice of essentially extinct/dormant volcanoes - you realize why they have historically been such a closed society. There is a sense of conforming, and looking out for the “greater good of society” in Japan like nowhere else in the world. Their stoicism and resilience is amazing. Even as a fan of multi-culturalism, I envy and admire the Japanese for being absolutely and totally mono-cultural, because in a time of disaster such as this one there is no room for selfishness or diverse opinions. My condolences to the affected.
B…b…but if diversity is our strength, as our politically correct indoctrination from birth repeats in a ceaseless mantra, then how can a society as homogenous as Japan possibly be so resilient, orderly, and cohesive?
if diversity is our strength, as our politically correct indoctrination from birth
This gets really interesting when you look at all the socialistic european countries that are touted as examples for us to follow.
Look at Denmark or the other Scandinavian countries. They do not let anyone and everyone in like we do, and embrace their cultures. Look at all the issues they had with the Turkish coming in after the forming of the EU….
if diversity is our strength
Now Sammy, Brazil’s jungle is full of diversity, Antarctica, not quite as much…
then how can a society… possibly be so resilient, orderly, and cohesive?
Example A: Penquin’s
Example B: Swiss Bankers
Example C: Rating Agencies the distribute AAA+++ ratings
Hwy play’s Randy Newman “Monk” Theme music:
It’s Jungle out there
Disorder and Confusion everywhere
No one seems to care - well I do
Hey who’s in charge here
It’s Jungle out there
Posion in the very air we breath
Do you know what’s in the water that you drink
Well I do - it’s amazing
People think I’m crazy cause I worry all the time
If you paid attention you’d be worried too
You better pay attention or this world we loved so much
Might just kill you…
I could be wrong now - but I don’t think so!
Cause there’s a jungle out there
there’s a jungle out there …
I share your admiration of the Japanese, yensoy. They are remarkable people, and their homogeneous society hasn’t hurt them, from what I can tell.
Oh hardly. Think of the rebuilding projects!
The Broken Window theory of economic stimulus has inevitably reared its ugly head in the wake of the Japanese quake/tsunami 1-2 punch.
If natural disasters are such great stimulus, why not just nuke some cities to achieve the same effect?
Radiation leaking from quake-hit nuclear plant.
FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - Radiation leaked from an unstable Japanese nuclear reactor north of Tokyo on Saturday, the government said, after an explosion blew the roof off the facility in the wake of a massive earthquake.
The developments raised fears of a disastrous meltdown at the plant, which was damaged by Friday’s 8.9-magnitude earthquake, the strongest ever recorded in Japan.
“We are looking into the cause and the situation and we’ll make that public when we have further information,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.
Edano said an evacuation radius of 10 km (6 miles) from the stricken 40-year-old Daiichi 1 reactor plant in Fukushima prefecture was adequate. TV footage showed vapor rising from the plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.
The quake sent a 10-meter (33-foot) tsunami ripping through towns and cities across the northeast coast. Japanese media estimate that at least 1,300 people were killed.
One has to question the wisdom of building nuc power plants near fault lines. I know, in theory it is impossible that anything can go wrong. In reality things don’t tend to line up with theory all that well as the latest empirical evidence in Japan goes to show.
One has to question the wisdom of building nuc power plants
Period. But, if it’s a bad idea, people will swear by it and demand it.
The problem is that nobody in a decision-making capacity can see disasters coming until after they happen; in the meanwhile, that relatively cheap power is great!
Anyone who has driven much around coastal California knows we also have nuclear reactors in earthquake zones (e.g. San Onofre, in North County San Diego).
Radiation fears from plant explosion
Stephen Cauchi and Cameron Houston
March 13, 2011
TWO nuclear power plants seriously damaged by Friday’s earthquake continue to release radioactive gas after a massive explosion, with radiation levels 1000 times higher than normal.
Officials from Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency insisted that a meltdown at either plant was unlikely, despite the evacuation of more than 45,000 homes. Late last night they increased an exclusion zone around the Fukushima No.1 power plant from 10 to 20 kilometres.
…
I think i live 14 miles away from las pulgas, NR i love the weather in o’side so i’m not budging yet!
Unfortunately, we all live down wind from this power plant.
Whenever we pass the power plant, I can’t help but wonder about “what if” scenarios.
Never liked it there, but don’t have much choice if we want to/have to live in SD.
Yes ,I don’t think they should build nuclear power on California fault lines either . This is a lesson ,and I was shocked at how into
nuclear Japan was . Japan is suffering and this is a horrible disaster for that Country .
Some guy on the boob tube was taking about a fault line from Northern California to Canada ,that is similar to the one in Japan that just hit ,that blows about ever 250 to 400 years . Than you got the Madrid fault line in the United States .
Mike Look at a earthquake map and you will see on the other side of the island almost no earthquakes….but you have a mountain range in the middle…
“The developments raised fears of a disasterous meltdown at the plant, which was damaged by Friday’s 8.9-magintude earthquake, th strongest ever recorded in Japan.”
I’m not all that knowledgeable about nuclear power plants, but don’t sub-critical masses have to be close enough to each other for them to cause a chain reaction? Wouldn’t moving them apart or removing them altogether solve the potential meltdown problem?
Am I missing something here?
I thought that they used rods to absorb particles to halt chain reactions rather than rely on pulling the radioactive materials apart. However, I’m guessing it takes a while for the heat to dissipate especially if the cooling system is damaged.
I’m also guessing that someone on the HBB knows enough to tell us what the risk it and why it takes so long for the risk to come down.
Yeah, okay, they use rods to absorb particles.
So push the rods in and abosrb some more particles. What’s the big deal?
I don’t care what anyone says. Nuclear plants = Really. Bad. Idea.
Calling all monsters.
It is time for all monsters to come to the aid of the people!
I think the big deal is that stopping the chain reaction doesn’t dissipate the heat, but like I said, someone here will know and (hopefully) share.
Here is my understanding: Once the fuel rods are “damaged”, they have been structurally compromised (melted) and have actually dripped (by gravity) downward and out of position to be either tempered by cadmium separation rods or proper cooling. Obviously such a problem would be self-perpetuating, thus the term “melt-down”. As the nasty nuclear “hot-stuff” forms a molten puddle in the bottom of the reactor it can generate enough heat to melt through anything (steel, concrete, whatever) and becomes impossible to contain. Quite simply, nobody can get near it.
“Calling all monsters.”
Everyone, please tune in your transistor radios to…
Rodan vs Godzilla
“To begin our journey, we must learn a little something about radiation. It is really very simple, and the device we use for measuring radiation levels is called a geiger counter . If you flick it on in Kiev, it will measure about 12-16 microroentgen per hour. In a typical city of Russia and America, it will read 10-12 microroentgen per hour. In the center of many European cities are 20 microR per hour, the radioactivity of the stone. 1,000 microroentgens equal one milliroentgen and 1,000 milliroentgens equal 1 roentgen. So one roentgen is 100,000 times the average radiation of a typical city. A dose of 500 roentgens within 5 hours is fatal to humans. Interestingly, it takes about 2 1/2 times that dosage to kill a chicken and over 100 times that to kill a cockroach. This sort of radiation level can not be found in Chernobyl now. In the first days after explosion, some places around the reactor were emitting 3,000-30,000 roentgens per hour. The firemen who were sent to put out the reactor fire were fried on the spot by gamma radiation. The remains of the reactor were entombed within an enormous steel and concrete sarcophagus, so it is now relatively safe to travel to the area - as long as one do not step off of the roadway and do not put nose in a wrong places……. ”
Take a motorcycle tour of Wormwood with a young lady and a Geiger counter. Plenty of photos and travelogue:
http://tinyurl.com/8fhft
Nuclear power plants AREN’T subcritical. They are critical. A nuetron hits a uranium nucleus. It splits up to give off:
–Daughter isotopes which emit alpha/beta/gamma radiation
–2 new neutrons (which go on to hit other uranium nuclei and they give off more neutrons: this is what critical means)
–HEAT. Lots and lots of heat. The heat boils the water to make steam and electricity.
The fuel rods are surrounded by circulating liquid water. The fuel is hot enough to boil it off, but more is circulated in. As long as there is liquid water, the reactor works normally. If there is a pipe break and the water runs out, the fuel just keeps heating up, like a pot on the stove where the water boils dry. It just gets hotter and hotter. Even if you shut the nuclear reaction down — that is, you take away neutrons so that there’s not enough to split more uranium so it’s no longer critical — there is still so much heat leftover that it’s enough to boil and melt everything in sight, including the fuel rods down. There are a lot of backup systems and a lot of extra water around, but the earthquake and tsunami wiped out the pumps that would pump the water there. That’s why the plant is in trouble.
Explosion at one of their fission plants yet they’re saying the risk of release has dropped? WTF!!!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_japan_earthquake
That’s why they have containment vessels.
If the containment is breached, we have another Chernobyl.
The nightmare scenario is if the concrete flooring of the containment facility has cracked– and given the explosions, it most likely did. If so, and there has indeed been the “meltdown” now being discussed, the reactive fuel burns through the containment vessel and enters the ground and …
D’OH!
“the reactive fuel burns through the containment vessel and enters the ground and …
D’OH!”
What’s on the opposite side of the earth from Japan? What’s the Japanese ‘China syndrome’? (It looks like Brazil to me. Watch out Rio!)
Hillary delivered some magic cooling potion so its all ok. Nothing a couple Obama speeches can’t smooooothe over.
Hillary should be pilloried for that statement. The coolant is WATER. Plenty of that around the plant, even if they have to pump in the ocean. They MAY have delivered some boron, which is something else.
But I thought Obama was going to heal the earth.
I posted a link to a website with plenty of interesting pictures. The gal that took the pictures has a dad who is a Russian nuclear physicist. Here are some details of the Chernobyl meltdown. Of course the Japanese reactors are not the same design as the Russian ones. I’m not suggesting the events are similar, beyond involving fission power:
“On the Friday evening of April 25, 1986, the reactor crew at Chernobyl-4, prepared to run a test the next day to see how long the turbines would keep spinning and producing power if the electrical power supply went off line. This was a dangerous test, but it had been done before. As a part of the preparation, they disabled some critical control systems - including the automatic shutdown safety mechanisms.
Shortly after 1:00 AM on April 26, the flow of coolant water dropped and the power began to increase.
At 1:23 AM, the operator moved to shut down the reactor in its low power mode and a domino effect of previous errors caused an sharp power surge, triggering a tremendous steam explosion which blew the 1000 ton cap on the nuclear containment vessel to smithereens.
Some of the 211 control rods melted and then a second explosion, whose cause is still the subject of disagreement among experts, threw out fragments of the burning radioactive fuel core and allowed air to rush in - igniting several tons of graphite insulating blocks.
Once graphite starts to burn, its almost impossible to extinguish. It took 9 days and 5000 tons of sand, boron, dolomite, clay and lead dropped from helicopters to put it out. The radiation was so intense that many of those brave pilots died.
It was this graphite fire that released most of the radiation into the atmosphere and troubling spikes in atmospheric radiation were measured as far away as Sweden - thousands of miles away.
The causes of the accident are described as a fateful combination of human error and imperfect technology.
In keeping with a long tradition of Soviet justice, they imprisoned all the people who worked on that shift - regardless of their guilt. The man who tried to stop the chain reaction in a last desperate attempt to avoid the meltdown was sentenced to 14 years in prison. He died 3 weeks later.
Radiation will stay in the Chernobyl area for the next 48.000 years, but humans may begin repopulating the area in about 600 years - give or take three centuries. The experts predict that, by then, the most dangerous elements will have disappeared - or been sufficiently diluted into the rest of the world’s air, soil and water. If our government can somehow find the money and political will power to finance the necessary scientific research, perhaps a way will be discovered to neutralize or clean up the contamination sooner. Otherwise, our distant ancestors will have to wait until the radiation diminishes to a tolerable level. If we use the lowest scientific estimate, that will be 300 years from now……some scientists say it may be as long as 900 years. “
Ms. Clinton accurately stated that the US had delivered coolant, in this case boric acid. Why is this such a talking point?
Because the report was that she said “coolant” and not boric acid. (Boric acid is B(OH)3 of some form.) Had the reporters been accurate and said “boric acid” in the first place, there would have been a lot less confusion. Boric acid is a neutron absorber, not a coolant.
“Nuclear power plants AREN’T sub critical. They are critical.”
(Words! Why do I have so much trouble with words?)
The FUEL for the nuclear power plants are in sub-critical portions. These sub-critical portions must be put close enough together for them to react with each other so they will cause a chain reaction.
Back to my original question: Why not just remove the sub-critical portions so they will no longer react with each other? Is removing them all that difficult a thing to do? If not, then why not?
The sub-critical portions may be hot and they may melt down to puddles, but if they are not close to other sub-critical portions then they will stop reacting and will thus cool down.
I don’t understand why this is all that complicated.
The fuel is NOT in subcritical portions! It’s ALL critical during normal operation. The neutrons are flying around hitting ALL the fuel rods. The heat from the fissions heats the water.
The way to take something from critical to subcritical is to prevent the neutrons from hitting anymore uranium. There is more than one way to do this. One is, yes, to separate the uraniums (fuel) far enough apart so something else intercepts the neutrons before they reach another uranium. The more distance, the less likely those neutrons will reach another U.
Another, more practical way, is to put some some interceptor in the way that stops neutrons instantly, so you don’t have to move the fuel far apart. That’s what the control rods are — a material that acts as neutron suckers. When you want the reaction to keep going, you take the control rods OUT of the reactor and let the neutrons fly. If you want to stop SOME neutrons and decrease the reaction, you put SOME of the control rods in to absorb some of the neutrons. If you want to stop the reaction entirely, you put ALL off the rods in at once (this is the “SCRAM,” and this happened immediately in Japan).
But as Polly said, even if you stop ALL the neutrons, the existing reaction products (daughter isotopes) are still producing heat. They will cool down, but it takes a long time, and simple air isn’t cool enough. You have to keep adding cool water. This is what they are doing now in Japan.
“The fuel is NOT is sub-critical portions!”
Yes it is. If if wasn’t then it could never be transported from where it is made to where the reactor is located.
And because it is in sub-critical portions the rate of fission can be controlled by such methods as described above.
Thanks for this explanation - it actually makes the most sense of anything I’ve read so far (the journalists following the story seem fairly clueless to what’s actually going on in these plants).
I was under the impression that reactors were actually built to withstand even a full blown core meltdown however…. We’re not talking about the possibility of the uranium melting down and breaching the floor of containment are we?
“We’re not talking about the possibility of the uranium melting down and breaching the floor of the containment are we?”
If the uranium were to melt down and form one large puddle then it seems to me what one would have is a very large (and very hot) critical mass of uranium. Now I cannot imagine design engineers that would engineer a reactor in such a way that would not prevent this from happening. Maybe the engineers would allow for uranium puddles from each fuel rod to form a puddle SEPERATE FROM other fuel rod puddles, but not allow a large puddle to form. They are not fools.
If that is the case then melted uranium is a problem that would be similar to a problem with any melted metal. Melted metals do not bore into anything and everything; They will only bore into things that have a lower melting temperature then they have. And they will only do this when they are hot enough.
Take away the critical mass of uranium fuel and you take away its capacity to generate a chain reaction, which means you take away its capacity to generate heat.
Does anybody here wonder why nuclear bombs just don’t spontainously explode? Here these things are - thousands of them - sitting about in all parts of the world, filled with enough nuclear stuff to blow the hell out of everything all on their own, but … they don’t.
Why is that?
It is because they do not have their nuclear stuff in a large enough critical mass to cause a chain reaction. The nuclear stuff is THERE; it’s just not there in the right configuration, it is not there in such a way so as to form a critical mass.
I just read the Japan reactors in trouble are 40 years old and have a design flaw in the floor of the containment unit that would allow any hot-enough material to melt right through and contaminate, well, everything.
“…Why not just remove the sub-critical portions so they will no longer react with each other? Is removing them all that difficult a thing to do? If not, then why not?”
Well, first you have to get to them.
Oh well….
According to STRATFOR ten minutes ago:
“Tokyo Electric Power Company’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power reactor No. 3’s emergency cooling system is no longer functioning, Japan’s nuclear power safety agency stated, Reuters reported March 12. The facility must secure a means to supply water to the reactor, a Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency official stated.”
“The fuel is NOT is sub-critical portions!”
Yes it is. If if wasn’t then it could never be transported from where it is made to where the reactor is located.
You’re talking about a refueling outage. I didn’t want to complicate the issue, so I said “normal operation,” which is what the plant in Japan was doing.
Latest news and its good: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/radiation-down-at-japan-nuke-plant/story-e6frfku0-1226020492032
As my first post stated they could lose the reactor but it looks like they will avoid a major health problem. we will know in less than 24 hours since it takes about 48 hours for the reactor to cool after shutdown.
My question is how many died when natural gas lines blew up, what about possible deaths at the refinery?
Also fogot a dam broke too, how many deaths and how much property damage from that?
So I guess:
1. No dams, too dangerous
2. No oil, rig and refinery danger
3. No coal, mine and pollution danger
4. No natural gas, pipelines explode, homes explode.
The fact that people cannot afford alternative energy and even those sources have environmental issues, i.e wind power kills birds etc, lithium batteries are dangerous, toxic wastes from solar cells, we will ignore.
By the way, maybe we should tell Obama not to build high speed trains they do not appear to tsunami proof. Added bonus of great shots of burning refinery:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365229/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-Fears-massive-death-toll.html
Actually, people can afford renewable energy. Renewables are built based on fixed price contracts over 20 years. There was a utility in Austin that modeled its retail contracts the same way. The price was more expensive up front but would not escalate. It is the usual balance between long term thinking and short term gains.
The risk in renewables is generally up front cost. Fossil generation risk comes from fuel volatility. Right now, there is plenty of natural gas, allowing generation prices that make renewables uncompetitive. However, gas prices are volatile and in a few years time will likely be more due to increased demand and depletion.
Not even close and that is why T. Boone Pickens dropped his big wind energy project.
Exactly, aragonzo. But you’re making too much sense here, so don’t expect a whole lot of response. Many people would rather sneer at “alternative energy” and insist on a more destructive option.
“By the way, maybe we should tell Obama not to build high speed trains they do not appear to tsunami proof.”
California is pretty-much tsunami-proof from SoCal through the Bay Area — especially the Great Central Valley, which is inland from the coastal range, whose peaks are far higher than any tsunami which has ever occurred on the planet.
Of course, if the goal is to show constituents how effective political leaders are at providing disaster relief, it could be efficacious to build the high speed rail line in a coastal plane which eventually is likely to be inundated.
Oh, hell yeah, nuke plants are safe. Unless they blow, of course.
Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, now Japan. But remember folks, they’re safe. Safe as houses.
This nuke plant didn’t blow. ONE of the containments may have blown, and we’re not even sure if it’s that yet. Three Mile Island didn’t “blow.”
Do you know anything about Chernobyl? ANYthing?
Oxide, you and I agree. Chernobyl is not the same type of reactor as Japan and was capable of much more damage. This will be one of the most serious accidents ever in the nuclear industry but will cause no where near the death and destruction of a dam collapsing even factoring any rise in cancer risk. What is amazing is after everything that went wrong including an 8.9 earthquake how little damage has occurred.
An we have a whole country not prone to earthquakes…
and we have Uranium…and we have lots of places that are sparsely populated…but we have millions of WUSSIES who are scared of very little minor problem imaginable.
—-
an 8.9 earthquake how little damage has occurred.
Are you willing to have the nuclear waste shipped past your neighbourhood? The risk in handling nuclear waste is most likely in the shipping and not the creation or storage. Given the amount of accidents that happen with rail and on the highway, it is only a matter of time before a spill occurs. How long will the spill site be a no-go zone?
we have Uranium
Not as much as you seem to think. Unless you want to get into waste reprocessing. That’s a whole nother kettle of fish. Sure, it may be or may not be the way to go, but it’s totally different than saying that we have lots of uranium.
The trouble is we don’t have very much of anything in the world and this is why I am one that does believe in the all of the above option. China has 38 years of coal at 2009 production and reserves. They fuel their economy largely with coal. They must be at peak coal. Any growth in China will have to be fueled with other people’s fossil fuels. By the way, U.S. has 245 years. Source hardcopy January 29, 2011, p.64 Economist.
“Are you willing to have the nuclear waste shipped past your neighbourhood? The risk in handling nuclear waste is most likely in the shipping and not the creation or storage. Given the amount of accidents that happen with rail and on the highway, it is only a matter of time before a spill occurs. How long will the spill site be a no-go zone?”
Good for you, aragonzo. But you can’t reason with people who think nuclear power should even be an option. Forget it. They’re gone.
“This nuke plant didn’t blow.”
I guess that depends on what the definition of ‘blow’ is.
Japan earthquake: Footage of blast at nuclear plant
11 March 2011 Last updated at 23:42 ET Help
There has been an explosion at a Japanese nuclear power plant that was hit by Friday’s devastating earthquake.
Pictures show a blast at the Fukushima plant and initial reports say several workers were injured.
Nuclear expert, Malcolm Grimston told the BBC that nuclear materials may have been able to escape.
You know they’ve been putting the things in the backs of moving naval vessels for about 50 years with no problems.
As Ambassador Fujisaki dissembles on CNN, “I would not characterize it (reactor 3) as a meltdown,” (after a meltdown was officially confirmed by NISA eight hours ago,) comes this from Reuters:
“Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant’s >>NUMBER 4 << reactor may be experiencing a meltdown, a Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency official stated, CNN reported March 12.”
By ERIC TALMADGE and YURI KAGEYAMA, Associated Press Eric Talmadge And Yuri Kageyama, Associated Press – 1 hr 6 mins ago
IWAKI, Japan – A partial meltdown was likely under way at a second nuclear reactor, a top Japanese official said Sunday, as operators frantically tried to prevent a similar threat from a nearby unit at the same facility following a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that may have killed 1,000 people.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters that a partial meltdown in Unit 3 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant is “highly possible.”
“Because it’s inside the reactor, we cannot directly check it but we are taking measures on the assumption of the possible partial meltdown,” he said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110313/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_earthquake
It can’t get any worse than to have a devastating tsunami on the back of a giant earthquake — CAN IT!?
One thing that is immediately obvious here: Nuclear reactions become very difficult to contain when the supporting infrastructure on which the reactor depends is suddenly rendered inoperative.
Japanese official says pumping system caused nuclear plant blast
By the CNN Wire Staff
March 12, 2011 8:00 a.m. EST
(CNN) — An explosion at an earthquake-damaged nuclear plant was not caused by damage to the nuclear reactor but by a pumping system that failed as crews tried to bring the reactor’s temperature down, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said Saturday.
The next step for workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant will be to flood the reactor containment structure with sea water to bring the reactor’s temperature down to safe levels, he said. The effort is expected to take two days.
…
“It can’t get any worse than to have a devastating tsunami on the back of a giant earthquake — CAN IT!?”
Kidding, right? We have celebrities going anti-Semitic. Take a number, and go sit over there. Next?
There’s way too much confusion about nuclear plants. There are still millions of people who think that the hourglass-shape cooling towers are where the radiation is. (It’s not.) The “containment” is one of three containments. If containment blows, the radioactive elements are still contained. People are saying this is Chernobyl. Not even close. Chernobyl is a totally different design and barely even uses water. “Meltdown” is not a total disaster either. Three Mile Island melted down, but the radiation (very little) released there was related to the piping system, not the reactor. I’ll take the word of the people in the know, not journalists.
Even then, this is probably NOT the death knell of nuclear. Keep in mind that it took an 8.9 quake AND a tsunami to bring it down. More people died in that Texas City refinery explosion and on the Deepwater Horizon.
Thanks Oxide, straightens things out for me!!
Oxy,
Chernobyl didn’t use much water? Seriously? What do you mean? How did they spin the turbines? Is it safe to presume that the cooling circuit and steam circuits are separate and both with their own redundancy?
They used a lot of graphite. Didn’t turn out to be such a good idea.
IIUC the Russkie plant at Chernobyl was a scaled-up version of Fermi’s old squash-court pile built during WWII at the U of Chicago. The graphite forms a moderator with the uranium “eggs” scattered about like a plum pudding. Cadmium strips formed the neutron-absorbing control rods. The sheer bulk of the graphite at Chernobyl was supposed to act like a backup heat sink should the power-producing water go away, the key word being “supposed”.
Fermi did acknowledge later that there was a chance that he’d spark a runaway reaction which could have rendered Chicago unihabitable. Worked out that way at Chernobyl.
See details in a great book by Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb.
http://www.amazon.com/Making-Atomic-Bomb-Richard-Rhodes/dp/0684813785
I’m not the Chernobyl expert, but…
In a regular plant, water does a few things. It is in the best temperature range to boil and turn turbines. It acts as coolant. It’s a liquid so you can move it around.
But the key thing is that water slows neutrons so that they are more likely to continue the fission reaction. (faster neutrons tend to fly right through a U without fissioning it.) If water gets too hot, it will boil away, which means no slowing and therefore less fissions. You will still have leftover heat and meltdown, but at least you won’t have fissions.
Chernobyl still boiled water for the turbines. But instead of water to slow the neutrons, they used graphite. However, when the graphite got too hot (long story how that happened), the graphite didn’t boil away. So you just had hot graphite still slowing neutrons, so you had more and more fissions, and more and more heat, exponentially. You can’t move the graphite away, you can’t boil it away, and you can’t stop the reaction. (They didn’t have the time to do that anyway.) That’s why Chernobyl blew, and it blew everything at once.
US and Japanese reactors don’t use graphite, therefore, they can’t blow the way Chernobyl did. All you’re seeing now is leftover heat. The more time passes, the more heat dissipates, and the safer the system will be.
Cripes on a cracker, I just got back from my gig and as expected, the steaming piles of justifications about nuke plants are stinking out the joint. aragonzo, looks like we are voices crying in the desert.
Friggit, oxide, I’m no expert on Chernobyl, but I do know a thing or two about nuclear radiation. It ain’t good. And I don’t have to justify myself to you, missy.
I repeat, nuke plants are a really. bad. idea. No matter where you put them. But let’s look at the fact that in Japan, nuke plants were located in earthquake zones. That alone ought to tell you humanity can’t handle nuclear power. Not now, probably not ever.
But of course, if it’s a bad idea, people will insist on it. And argue the merits, no less. Water vs. graphite or some such silly arse thing.
Feh. Patoeey.
Can’t we get Geraldo to go over there and report the real story?
When has Geraldo ever done that?
(I have to head out. Please keep calm, everyone.)
I heard he once reported live from the mountains of tora bora with enemy gunfire sailing right over his head…
Geraldo would NEVER stage a good bang-bang shot. Far too much integrity, and he turns up his nose at sensationalism.
Tax cuts moved people to shop in February
Tax cuts boosted retail sales strongly in February, but high gas prices could slow growth
WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans are using extra money from their tax cuts to buy new cars, clothing, sporting goods and electronics.
The reduction in Social Security taxes helped lift retail sales for the eighth straight month in February and by the largest amount since the fall. Still, higher oil prices threaten to chip away at consumers’ disposable income over the next few months.
“Consumers are back, but whether they will stay is the big question,” said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s in New York.
Retail sales rose 1 percent last month, the Commerce Department said Friday. Shoppers returned to department stores after snow storms kept many away in January. And they flooded car lots to take advantage of deals.
Consumers also paid more for gasoline. Turmoil in the Middle East has sent oil prices surging this winter. Pump prices jumped 9 percent in February to an average price of $3.38 a gallon, according to AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report. They have gone up even further this month. On Friday, the average price was $3.54 a gallon.
Tax cuts have helped to ease the shock of higher prices. The reduction in payroll taxes is giving most Americans an extra $1,000 to $2,000 this year.
I ran some numbers and I guessed that the SS tax cut ws equivalent to about a 3.5 to 4% pay raise for people with incomes under the SS contribution limit. To get a 1% increase in retail spending (small percentage of total spending and total income) is not all that efficient as a stimulus.
I doubt that was what the designer of the cut was hoping for.
Polly,
How does a 2% reduction turn into a 3.5-4% raise?
I figure a 2% reduction is a 2% raise.
What am I missing?
thanks
T
SS isn’t deductible from your income, so getting part of it back gives you extra cash and doesn’t increase your income based taxes at all. And, of course, I said that I was assuming a person who isn’t above the SS contribution limit, so for that person a raise would mean paying FICA on it too. 4 is probably too high. I can’t remember right now exactly what my assumptions were to get to 3.5%. However, if you add 28% (federal marginal, though maybe 25% is a better assumption) and 7% (FICA marginal) and 7% again (state/local marginal), you get 42% marginal tax saved. So how much of a raise do you need to get 58% of that to be 2%? I get 3.45% And there are places where 7% marginal for the state/local income tax is too low.
Oh, and some people have other expenses that may be proportional to their overall income like their own contributions to extra life insurance.
“Tax cuts moved people to shop in February”
LMFAO. How could anyone possibly prove that statement?
Again, isn’t gasoline included in retail reports?
Whoopee! 2K! A whole extra $166 each month!
“Wheat Has Worst Week in 2 Years Following Quake.”
“U.S. grain futures fell after an earthquake in Japan raised fears that the world’s third largest economy would slow commodity purchases, extending a sell-off in which wheat prices notched their biggest weekly loss in more than two years.”
LMAO! Japan had an earthquake so that made them lose their appetite for wheat? What about the rest of the world, did they also lose their appetite for wheat?
Luckily the other grain prices held up - Oh Wait! Their prices also fell by huge amounts!
Lol, it doesn’t matter what happens to prices there is always some “analyist” ready to “explain” why prices have done what they have done.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/42035865
I’m guessing the real cause of the pullback is the massive speculation on margin in the commodities pits. Somebody got overextended and had to jettison their position.
Ex-Fannie Mae Chief May Face S.E.C. Charges
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/03/11/ex-fannie-mae-chief-may-face-s-e-c-charges/?hpw
The notice sent to Mr. Mudd is the latest indication that the S.E.C. is ramping up its sweeping investigation into Fannie Mae and its sister company, Freddie Mac, which the government had to bail out. Mr. Mudd is so far the highest-ranking official to come under scrutiny.
fannie mae a scam?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs
What a joke. The SEC is a blind, toothless “watchdog” munching happily on the bone thrown it by the Wall Street burglars.
What ever happened to Raines?
That’s what I was wondering…
My father always used to invoke the name of Mudd when I was about to get in trouble. As in - if you do that, your name is going to be Mudd.
The housing market is static because it is priced far too high and they’re raising prices. Yeah. Seriously. M&T has had a dump on it’s REO roster for 2 years now at $300k. They just raised it to $400k.
“Ok Maaw…. our milk ain’t selling at $7 per 100#. Let’s knock down the fat to 1% and raise the price to $10. Makes sense right Maaaw??”
The housing market is currently constipated, thanks to overpricing and foreclosure foot dragging, but I can assure you from very personal experience that constipation eventually leads to a massive dump.
We’re not there yet, but we’re getting closer.
LOL!
—————-
FWIW, sales in our area seem pretty slow for this time of year. The $1MM+ market actually seems hotter than the mid-market, based on what I’m seeing.
Could be a little fluke, but things are sitting on the market this year that wouldn’t have sat for very long in years past.
Men while the lowlife scum Franklin Rains? sits back on his huge stack of hard “earned” money. Never to be touched.
Fannie Mae Ex-CEO May Face SEC Claims in Subprime Probe~ Bloomberg
Daniel Mudd, the former head of Fannie Mae, became the latest target in a probe by U.S. regulators of whether financial institutions were honest with investors about their exposure to subprime loans.
Mudd, now chief executive officer of Fortress Investment Group LLC (FIG), confirmed in a statement to Bloomberg News that the Securities and Exchange Commission notified him yesterday the agency intends to pursue civil claims against him.
Mudd, who was ousted when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were seized by regulators in September 2008, said he plans to submit a written rebuttal to the allegations.
The SEC’s investigation involves several people who were executives at Fannie Mae as the housing crisis deepened in 2007, according to two people with direct knowledge of the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity because the matter isn’t public. It focuses on the firm’s disclosures to investors as the financial crisis gathered steam in 2007 and 2008, the people said.
The SEC previously notified one current and one former executive of Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae’s smaller competitor, that the agency may file similar allegations against them. Donald Bisenius, Freddie Mac’s executive vice-president for single- family credit guarantee, will leave the company April 1, according to a regulatory filing. Anthony “Buddy” Piszel, who served as CFO from November 2006 to September 2008, resigned as CFO of CoreLogic Inc. (CLGX) last month.
I sense a little reverse discrimination here
March 10 – Financial Times (Alan Rappeport): “The number of billionaires in leading emerging economies has surpassed the number of those in Europe for the first time and is quickly closing in on the US, according to Forbes.
The US still has the world’s most billionaires with 413 individuals with a total net worth of $1,500bn. At the beginning of this year, the Brics countries– Brazil, Russia, India and China – had 301 billionaires, 108 more than in the previous year, and one more than Europe.
‘The global billionaires this year reflect what’s going on in the global economy,’ said Steve Forbes… As the world economy recovered, the number of billionaires rose to a record 1,210 in 2011, boasting a total net worth of $4,500bn…
I’m sure glad we’re making more billionaires and fewer janitors. Them damn janitors have really screwed up this economy.
Do not assume that those that do not have access to money and power would behave any differently than those that do. Greed and selfishness are found at all levels. Never confuse lack of opportunity with abstinence. The facts behind one’s virginity are important. My personal belief is that, unless an action is truly despicable, most people will do what they can get away with, and some are in a position to get away with more than others. Yes, some people really are garbage, but they come in all shapes and sizes, and are not limited to any particular job title or position.
…. damn janitors.
LOL
“Greed and selfishness are found at all levels. Never confuse lack of opportunity with abstinence.”
“Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together!” - A-Team of Banksters
No Mr Forbes ,emerging billionaires represents the stacked decks that are alive and kicking and the trickle up economics of the last decade .
A Red Flag On Reverse Mortgages
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/12/your-money/12money.html?_r=1&hp
fannie mae n bed with democrats:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usvG-s_Ssb0
March 10 – Bloomberg (Clea Benson): “Two years ago, 97% of senior citizens who took out reverse mortgages withdrew their home equity in small amounts at variable interest rates whenever they needed some extra cash. Today, more than 70% of reverse-mortgage borrowers choose to take the maximum amount of equity out of their houses in one lump sum and pay a fixed interest rate. The dramatic shift is the outcome of federal policy changes governing the secondary market for reverse mortgages, analysts say. Federal programs have pumped new investor capital into the reverse-mortgage industry, helping lenders such as Urban Financial Group Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. originate more loans.”
And the hits just keep on comin’….
i present to you the life of charles ponzi:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lujFPvXPTNc&feature=related
Ain’t Wall St sure gots a funny combustible V-H-183 cylinder engine?
It’s got lil’ pistons & medium size pistons and really, really huge pistons, during “idle” times, them lil’ pistons get more of the work load. But when there’s “enough” High Octane FUEL, you can hear those huge pistons start a workin’ for miles around! Of, course theys a lil’ nervous ’bout stomping down on the gas pedal while the fuel pump is a chattering & the fuel gauge is reading just above the letter E.
Yeah Red Ryder, this here is the Cotton Mouth in the Psycho Billy Cadillac…come on.
Hey OXy,
What do you know about Bill Gates’ nuclear reactor designs?
supposedly it doesn’t need enriched fuel and has no waste , as the fuel is 100% consumed.
he’s looking for a country that will allow him to build it.
‘Bill Gates’ nuclear reactor designs’
It’s probably built on top of a cotton mill design and has to be rebooted several times a day…
When it blows up, a large message is displayed blaming parts suppliers for the catastrophic failure.
Blue Goo of Death?!?
Quite literally too.
“Exploder has committed an illegal function and must be shut down”
Actually the technology looks really promising if you read the wikipedia on it…
My thought about the tragedy in Japan, other than sorry for those affected, is that how bad things are and how difficult recovery is will have a huge effect on perceptions of California as a place to live in and work.
Even 5,000 or 10,000 people killed and months of disruption, bad as it is, will send the message that a modern civilization with solid building codes (ie. not Haiti) can survive an earthquake, and while some will die the odds are you won’t.
On the other hand, if the quality of life and economic vitality of large parts of Japan are permanently diminished, some of those considering investing in real estate in California might have second thoughts. It doesn’t matter if your building survives if it is surrounded by a wasteland.
Frankly, the situation in Lower Manhattan is not an encouraging precedent nearly 10 years after 9/11. The last destroyed skyscraper was finally fully torn down a few weeks ago, the streets are still torn up and impassible, and the World Trade Center site is still mostly a hole with some rusted steel poking out of it.
http://zombiehunters.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=4103
To HBBers who live in earthquake zones like southern Cal or the New Madrid Fault Line - or who know people that do - now would be a good time to start making emergency preparations, starting with a bugout bag.
The “Ownership Society” cheerleader and Fannie/Freddie champion President George W Bush stated,
“I introduced two of the leaders today. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They will increase their commitment to minority markets by more than 440 BILLION dollars. I want to thank Leland and Franklin Raines for that commitment.”
Here he is rolling out his administrations pro-fannie and Freddie plan early in the bubble years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYvtvcBKgIQ
W did a great job of helping minority households sink their financial balance sheets by purchasing homes at peak bubble prices. Heck of a job!
W… Came to loan signings? How did he find time..
Gez when can this stop and oblama and you guys start taking ownership for problems… Great problems make great leaders…
And ur boy sucks… But give him time look at the mess he got right!!! Ha ha only a couple more bad speeches and he’s out..
“ownership society”…. the official Bush Administration policy. Fact.
Yep!
Not only that, but you have to remember:
“Don’t let those terrorists win…get out there and keep shopping!!!!!!” (paraphrased)
(Don’t even get me started.)
“Came to loan signings?”
That was unnecessary, given that Bubble-head Bush had access to the Presidential bully pulpit. What a maroon!
President Bush Signs American Dream Downpayment Act of 2003
Remarks by the President at Signing of the American Dream Downpayment Act
Department of Housing and Urban Development
Washington, D.C.
1:57 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all. Thank you for coming. Thanks for the warm welcome. It’s great to be back at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is not my first time here, nor will it be my last. (Applause.) I am here today because we are taking action to bring many thousands of Americans closer to owning a home. Our government is supporting homeownership because it is good for America, it is good for our families, it is good for our economy.
One of the biggest hurdles to homeownership is getting money for a down payment. This administration has recognized that, and so today I’m honored to be here to sign a law that will help many low-income buyers to overcome that hurdle, and to achieve an important part of the American Dream.
I appreciate Alphonso Jackson agreeing to step up and become the Acting Secretary of the Housing and Urban Development. I look forward to his Senate confirmation, a hasty confirmation. (Applause.)
I also want to thank Mel Martinez for doing such a fine job as the Secretary of this important organization. Mel brought integrity and honor to the office. He did a fine job on behalf of all Americans. And we honor you, Mel. (Applause.)
I want to thank all the hardworking officers and employees of HUD. I appreciate your focus and your dedication, your willingness to work on behalf of a better America. (Applause.) I thank very much members of the Congress who have taken time to come and join us for this important bill signing. Senator Wayne Allard from Colorado is with us. Senator Allard, thank you for your work on the floor of the Senate. (Applause.) Chairman of the Financial Services Committee, Mike Oxley, is with us. Congressman, thank you for coming. (Applause.) Congressman Jim Leach from Iowa is with us today. Congressman, thank you for being here. (Applause.) Congresswoman Katherine Harris, who had a lot to do with this bill getting passed, is here with us. Katherine, thank you for coming. (Applause.) Delegate Madeleine Bordallo of Guam is with us today. I’m honored you are here. Thank you for coming, Madeleine. I appreciate you coming. (Applause.)
I, too, want to pay homage to a man I call “Little Woody” — that would be Rob Woodson. He worked hard in the development of this policy. I think it is safe to say that he was the — he developed the concept for this policy, a concept embraced by my administration. I’m appreciative that Michelle is here. I also want to thank Dad for coming — Bob Woodson, who is a social entrepreneur, a person who cares deeply about every American having the right and a chance to own a home. Thank the Woodson family. God bless you all. (Applause.)
I want to thank the representatives of the consumer and housing groups that worked hard on this piece of legislation. I want to thank leaders of the national community organizations that are with us, and members of the real estate industry.
This administration will constantly strive to promote an ownership society in America. We want more people owning their own home. It is in our national interest that more people own their own home. After all, if you own your own home, you have a vital stake in the future of our country. And this is a good time for the American homeowner. Today we received a report that showed that new home construction last month reached its highest level in nearly 20 years. (Applause.)
The reason that is so is because there is renewed confidence in our economy. Low interest rates help. They have made owning a home more affordable, for those who refinance and for those who buy a home for the first time. Rising home values have added more than $2.5 trillion to the assets of the American family since the start of 2001.
The rate of homeownership in America now stands a record high of 68.4 percent. Yet there is room for improvement. The rate of homeownership amongst minorities is below 50 percent. And that’s not right, and this country needs to do something about it. We need to — (applause.) We need to close the minority homeownership gap in America so more citizens have the satisfaction and mobility that comes from owning your own home, from owning a piece of the future of America.
…
The Bush plan to deprive minorities of home ownership is working out beautifully.
The Financial Times
US homeowners’ racial gap widens
By Tom Braithwaite in Washington
Published: February 16 2011 19:34 | Last updated: February 16 2011 19:34
The gap in home ownership between black and white Americans is the widest since records began 16 years ago, according to an analysis of US Census Bureau data.
US home ownership fell from a peak rate of more than 69 per cent in 2004 to 66.5 per cent in the last quarter of 2010, its lowest level for 12 years. But the decline is not uniform, with African-American ownership declining to 44.9 per cent in the last quarter while white ownership fell to 74.2 per cent.
…
Lawd, forgive W, for he knew not what he was doing.
Good series of posts there, PB.
“Great problems make great leaders…”
Thanks to the sh!t tsunami W unleashed, Obama has the opportunity to show the world what a great leader he is.
Ownership? Try Debtorship!
There is nothing is housing that is worth getting up and going to work - all day everyday for 30 years in a high stress job…
The whole mess of living space is nuts!
Amen.
I see the Shadow Cast, I hear the Echo Effect…anyone else?
“It’s ALL there, just need to reassemble, in reverse order…see ya!”
George W. Shrub: “I am Finished with Politics”
“George W.
BushShrub: I am Finished with Politics, Fundraising pertaining to GOP, Campaigning and Showing up on TV”Author: James Nichols 01/31/2011
http://image.internetautoguide.com/f/auto-news/2010-hyundai-genesis-sedan-disassembled-on-its-new-interactive-website/27465436/2010-hyundai-genesis-sedan-disassembled.jpg
And yet the vegetables who voted for McCain will tell you the GOP stands for fiscal responsibility.
Where in logic is it assumed that if Republicans are bad then Democrats must by definition be good or visa-versa? Is it just possible they are both sides of the same bad penny?
Politicians are evil (with few exceptions).
Fixed it fur ya…
Reposting this link to a radio show from this past Thursday for anyone who did not yet get a chance to listen to the San Diego real estate serial bottom callers’ third bottom call in as many years:
When Will Local Real Estate Market Rebound?
By Maureen Cavanaugh, Hank Crook
March 10, 2011
San Diego has logged 11 consecutive months of increasing home prices, while much of the nation’s housing market continues to decline, a national tracking firm reported May 25, 2010.
What are the latest trends in the local commercial and residential real estate markets? Why are some areas of the market improving, while others are still struggling? Local real estate experts discuss what changes we’ve seen in 2011, and offer their predictions for what could happen in the spring and summer months.
Guests
Dr. Michael Lea, director of SDSU’s Corky McMillin Center for Real Estate
Matt Battiata, CEO and broker in charge of the Battiata Real Estate Group
Gary London, real estate economist with the London Group Realty Advisors
For the last 3 months my employment forecast was pretty vague and thought I’d be collecting unenjoyment after this project due to end this June. It looks like I have another 2 year gig coming up… where else but in the northeast. Municipal/public works construction is slow across the country and the northeast seems to be the only place with activity. I am fortunate indeed.
I might make mention that in just the last 3 weeks our firm announced they’ve signed multiple contracts for new work in FL and the Carolinas. This is out of the blue after months and months of no new contracts. It appears to be a developing trend but I’m not sure how strong a trend it is.
It’s the recovery!
Glad to hear things are looking stable for your work situation.
At least one Washington Post reporter seems to think that there will be another three week extension on the federal budget to avoid a shut down. My co-worker’s husband who works on the Hill still thinks there will be one eventually. My guess is that if there is a shut down, we will not get paid for the furlough days which has never happened before.
Oh and I don’t know how they figure out who is essential and who isn’t, but I just don’t see a government shut down right before taxes are due. The visuals of people sending in their money to a government that isn’t processing passports or accepting new Social Security applications is just too bad. So I’m going to go on a limb and say no shut down until after mid-April if the three week extension passes, but I wouldn’t bet a week’s pay on it.
Here’s how…..
On the Friday before a three-day weekend (President’s day would have been ideal), have the janitor’s turn off the electricity and heating/air conditioning. just before lunch.
Then put out an announcement on the P.A. “All non-essential personnel are allowed to go home for the day…….”
Make of roster of those who stay. Done.
what kinds of things do you build, EX?
Water plants, wastewater plants, highway facilities, DOT maintenance facilities, solid waste facilities.
Water plants, wastewater plants
Ha, I “sense_d” a connection between us!
i.e. your reasoning is very “Conductive” while “Others” seem to create to much “Resistivity”:
Thanks Hwy… what is your connection to W/WW?
Hmm… lab tech? Instrumentation tech or sales?
My company (which I’ve since sold) mfg’d the water sensor’s found throughout the US & some overseas markets…
Fantastic news about your job situation, exeter! Glad to hear it.
Horror Meister Stephen King Asks, “Why Don’t I Pay 50%” in Taxes?
And you know what? As a rich person, I pay 28% taxes. What I want to ask you is, why don’t I pay 50%? Why is everybody in my bracket not paying 50%? The Republicans will say, from John Boehner to Mitch McConnell to Rick Scott, that we can’t do that because, if we tax guys like me, there won’t be any jobs. It’s bull! It’s total bull!
http://reason.com/blog/2011/03/11/horror-meister-stephen-king-as
You can make an extra donation to the IRS if you don’t think you’re paying enough.
And the donation is tax-deductible!
Also, the reason to support the starving overweight masses would be?
Isn’t Reason magazine like a hard-core right-wing libertarian thing?
Since when did they start publishing hooey like this? Their standards are dropping.
PS :- It’s important to have standards in everything from adultery to zoology!
The reason the story is in Reason (which is indeed a tentacle of the Kochtopus) is because they were mocking King’s statement, complete with the official ‘if you want to pay extra taxes, go ahead’ comment that was repeated here.
Hmmm, when I was “rich” as defined by a person earning over $100k a year my OT was ALL taxed at a rate of 56% and that did not include sales and other taxes… I seldom bothered working overtime as the extra 10 hours a week came out to around $200 and a 50 hour week is a hell of a lot harder than a 40 hour one…
The “rich” in America pay a massive amount of tax. What peeves the working poor is that they have more left over to spend, and a few very nasty bankers paid off our Congress and Senate to bilk everyone out of trillions without a single criminal prosecution, but this is not about tax it is about fraud and corruption.
No, it’s also about taxes.
The very wealthy rarely “work” for a living; they skim from legitimate transactions at the bottom of the pyramid.
They never “earned” their money.
‘“Why Don’t I Pay 50%” in Taxes?’
Because your class owns the Congress, and the MSM propaganda apparatus.
This Tape will crack you up .
Jon Steward exposes the lavish lifestyle of the american public school teacher .
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jon-steward-exposes-the-lavish-lifestyle-of-the-american-public-school-teacher/
Notice the rage of the fox cheerleaders for wall street
Notice the rage of the fox cheerleaders for wall street
Yeah, the “TruePaidProvoker’s ™” was a foamin’ & droolin’:
“They_live_Lavish…”LAVISH!!!!!”
“They get off 2:30!!!!!!”
STOP! TheFAUX!…DROP! TheFOX!
STOP! TheFAUX!…DROP! TheFOX!
STOP! TheFAUX!…DROP! TheFOX!
HWY
The Wall Street creeps making billions work all year verses teachers.
The wall street creeps should have their contracts honored ,contracts should be honored ,unless it’s a teachers of course/
I know Wiz, that Bronze Bull on Wall St. STILL has mighty large & shiny balls, all that “polishing” …24/7…
http://indospectrum.com/images/photos/new-york-city-2/cd031_03May04_nyc_wall_st_bull_0177.jpg
Thanks Wiz, I especially liked the part about the the promised contracts.
Promised by who? Democratic legislators to their voting base?
Not sure the people of WI will have to be bound by that kind of silliness.
I guess contract law isn’t as sacred when it benefits the non-rich.
I love the idea that because bankers got away with ripping us off, then it is only fair other politically influential and connected groups should also get to rip us off. After all fair is fair!
If they were direct rip offs to pension plans ,than maybe it would be justice that they shouldn’t of gotten the funds they got .
The point is who wants to be ruled by Fats Cats and have all
political decisions influenced by them until they run the whole Country into the ground and the middle class is dead.
Of course there was some corruption in Unions and some adjustments are needed but the bigger power play of the
Fat cats /Corporate America /Wall Street ,is a wealth transfer that is a greater threat to the Majority .
No, we need to take away from the bankers what they wrongly took, and we need to give it back to the rightful owners — the working people.
Not a single union member I know thinks J6 should pay higher taxes. In every case I’m aware of, union members think Wall Street (and related entities) should be paying higher taxes. Essentially, if you make a living by speculating (especially with other people’s money), it’s time to pay up!
Apparently this nuclear problem is under red alert ,whatever that means .
I don’t know ,if they are issuing iodine tablets that kinda a sign of worry .
To better understand the income disparity in the US;
Between 1980 and 2005 80% of ALL new income went to the top 1%, the remaining 20% of income went to 99%. So it’s easier for the retardicans, here’s another way to put it. Say 10 people order a 10 slice pizza and one guy takes 8 slices, and before anyone can suggest he takes just 7 slices, some starving deluded retardican screams ‘thats socialism!’.
Who made the pizza?
Who bought the pizza?
“Who made the pizza?”
One of the guys with less than one slice.
Bingo, alpha.
Please stop calling health insurance reform “obamacare”. It’s not like Obama will be the doctor performing your next prostate exam. That’s just a common fantasy of retardican men.
I hate it when people equate “obamacare” (the law we got) with true single-payer, universal care.
And if you want to call it by the name of its originator, it should either be Romneycare or HeritageFoundationcare.
Romneycare + Democratic sponsorship = Obamacare
How about calling it what it is. A giant ripoff scam designed to further enrich powerful and connected health insurance companies by guaranteeing them millions of new paying customers?
How about if we call it Romneycare, as my impression is that there is little difference between the Massachusetts health care plan hatched when Romney was governor, and Obamacare.
You can anticipate two developments with Romney’s upcoming second run for the Whitehouse:
1) He will attempt to distance himself from the health care plan he inspired.
2) The attempt will fail miserably.
For those interested in the Fukinama power plant, here’s a couple posts from this guy’s twitter feed (US faculty in Japan):
“rdviii”
1. Reactor #3 at Plant #1, cooling system stopped about an hour ago. about 1 hour ago via web
2. Apparently, if they use seawater to cool the reactor, it’ll become all sticky, and they won’t be able to use it again. about 1 hour ago via web
3. Woke up to the news: using seawater to cool the most problematic reactor, and seem happy with the results. Have cooled it, for the moment. about 1 hour ago via web
4. That air goes through some sort of filter. 0.755 megapascals down to 0.555 megapascals. about 16 hours ago via web
5. They’re saying that one of the reactors had its internal pressure drop suddenly. The “dry well” part of the reactor is now venting? about 16 hours ago via web
Here’s the latest AP Dispatch on the nuclear (non)-meltdown in Japan.
Yaroslov Shtrombakh, a Russian nuclear expert, said it was unlikely that the Japanese plant would suffer a meltdown like the one in 1986 at Chernobyl, when a reactor exploded and sent a cloud of radiation over much of Europe. That reactor, unlike the reactor at Fukushima, was not housed in a sealed container.
WTF? Isn’t a container better?
“…a container…”
Too early to tell whether the inevitable containment will be of physical or political nature; if the former doesn’t work, you can expect the latter to be attempted, but it, too, will inevitably fail, thanks to the internet and modern scientific monitoring capabilities.
I’m struggling with the “partial meltdown” concept. Isn’t a nuclear meltdown pretty much a clean “either/or” situation?
Posted: 10:40 PM Mar 12, 2011
Partial meltdown underway at Japanese nuclear reactor
Japan’s top government spokesman says a partial meltdown is likely under way at second reactor affected by Friday’s massive earthquake.
wonder if anyone will report or graph Cessium - 137 levels around the reactors.
Chicken Kiev, anyone?
http://blogs.forbes.com/afontevecchia/2011/03/11/ny-feds-dudley-what-food-inflation-at-least-ipads-are-cheaper/
The clueless head of the New York Fed, and (naturally) a “former” Goldman Sachs bigwig, had no inkling that food prices are soaring, but tried to calm his audience by telling them iPads are getting cheaper.
So I’m thinking Japan’s time until economic recovery just got set back another decade. I base this conjecture on a sample of size = 1, namely the 1906 San Francisco quake. Though of smaller magnitude, the scale of devastation was similar, and the city did not recover much until after 1915 or so. This is well-documented in a book I read and highly recommend:
A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906 [Hardcover]
Simon Winchester
I am somewhat overwhelmed by the earthquake and tsunami footage coming out of Japan. Anyone who has been much exposed to Japanese people knows they have a very photophilic culture, and many apparently had their camcorders in hand at the point when the shaking started and when the waves turned cities into river beds. It is hard to imagine a more disastrous scenario, though I suppose a disaster of this scale hitting a Third World country would suffice.
But then we would not have all this phenomenal footage to provide direct insight.
Japan earthquake: Footage of blast at nuclear plant
11 March 2011 Last updated at 23:42 ET Help
There has been an explosion at a Japanese nuclear power plant that was hit by Friday’s devastating earthquake.
Pictures show a blast at the Fukushima plant and initial reports say several workers were injured.
Nuclear expert, Malcolm Grimston told the BBC that nuclear materials may have been able to escape.
My wife is upset to learn that she knows more about the NCAA basketball tournament than I do.
I suggested that anyone who thinks of the housing market as a spectator sport is likely to be somewhat backwards as regards NCAA tournament procedures.
I was watching the Japan disaster all night . Those people are in a lot of pain right now . Just the clean up of the Northern part of that Country is going to be something .