Bits Bucket for March 16, 2011
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
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Angry voters oust Miami-Dade mayor in special vote
MIAMI (Reuters) - Voters in Miami-Dade, one of the most populous U.S. counties, removed Mayor Carlos Alvarez from office in a special vote on Tuesday triggered by popular anger over a hike in property taxes.
With 707 of 829 precincts reporting, official results showed 88 percent of voters backed the effort to oust the once-popular mayor, who is his second four-year term.
It was the biggest such ouster, or recall, of an elected official before the end of his official term since California voters tossed out Democratic Governor Gray Davis in 2003.
A Republican, Alvarez was first elected mayor in 2004 and re-elected in 2008. County commissioners can now either appoint an executive to serve out his term through late 2012 or call a special election.
The Miami-Dade recall bid, spearheaded by a billionaire anti-tax crusader, is the latest in a growing number of similar such attempts across the country to remove officials from office by voters angered by everything from taxes to the salaries of elected officials and union rights.
Miami-Dade County, which includes Miami, is home to about 2.5 million people.
The Cuban-born Alvarez came under criticism last year when Miami-Dade, saddled with record high 12 percent unemployment and the same budget deficits faced by many local and state governments, introduced a property tax increase to help fund vital services including police and public schools.
The 14 percent tax hike was imposed despite double-digit declines in real estate values as south Florida was hammered by the U.S. housing and mortgage foreclosure crisis.
Norman Braman, an auto dealer mogul listed by Forbes magazine among the 400 wealthiest Americans, bankrolled the petition drive that led to Tuesday’s vote. Local media reports say he has spent about $1 million on the effort, which he orchestrated through two political action committees.
Braman, known in Miami for leading a campaign to halt a 1-cent sales tax increase for mass transit improvements in the late 1990s, strongly opposed a baseball stadium deal and the property tax rise forced through by Alvarez.
“We’ve been hit hard,” he told Reuters in an interview in January.
“The federal government is cutting taxes, state governments have cut taxes to stimulate the economy. But here we’re doing the opposite — we’re raising them,” he said.
Alvarez, 58, was also criticized for raising salaries for some county employees as well as backing a deal to use nearly $350 million in public funds to build a new stadium to house the Florida Marlins baseball team in Miami’s Little Havana district.
Miami politics has long been a huge source of entertainment. Cronyism is rampant. I guess Alvarez didn’t get the memo that it isn’t acceptable during economic downturns.
But, at least these guys put on a good show for their constituents.
Yes, I have been one of those angry voters. A 14% property tax hike AND $350 million for a new baseball stadium at taxpayer expense. Flush that turd!
Miami is great to visit. I can’t imagine living there.
Visited for the first time last weekend. I agree about not wanting to live there. It seemed to be pretty crazy. First place I’ve ever been in Florida where the sidewalks weren’t rolled up by 6 p.m. on a Sunday night. There were people outside everywhere looking like they actually had places to go and people to see well into the evening.
I know there’ a lot of Latin culture there and Spanish is spoken everywhere, but was somewhat shocked when I went into one of the major malls in the area and a customer service woman at Sears couldn’t speak enough English to tell me where the men’s department was.
know there’s a lot of Latin culture there and Spanish is spoken everywhere, but was somewhat shocked when I went into one of the major malls in the area and a customer service woman at Sears couldn’t speak enough English to tell me where the men’s department was.
Por favor, donde esta el departamente por hombres?
We’ve lost Miami–it’s not really the U.S. anymore. Flying through the airport is painful and sad. See the future.
Money is fungible.
Jack pours a bucket of water over a bridge into a river. The water mixes with the rest of the river. On some rapids on the river, a kayaker is drowned in an undercurrent. Downstream, farmers divert the river water to irrigate a rice crop to feed the world’s poor. Is Jack a murderer, a savior, or both?
A county puts Issue #6 on the ballot to raise ambulance fees. They put up signs that Issue #6 will support schools and libraries. Meanwhile, their new state-of-the-art courthouse is nearing completion. What are the sick people who ride the ambulances buying?
A mayer quietly backs a $350M stadium, but when he asks for taxpayer dollars, he advertises it as going to the cops and teachers.
Money is fungible.
NFL owners have strong sense of entitlement–this is a great read:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nfl_housing_plan_owners_get_the_keys_fans_get_the_bills/2011/03/15/ABVOyCY_story.html?wprss=rss_homepage
Jerry Jones truly is an ass.
Tankxs!
I filed it my “The Bad, The Worse, The Ugly” folder, looks like I’ll need x2 days to sort it the way things have been of late…
The NFL owes fans a season. Why? Because the fans paid for it, that’s why, and this isn’t 13th-century France, and a season ticket package is not a wheat levy. They paid for it with outrageously priced seat licenses, as well as bond issues for stadiums, tax abatements, and sweetheart leases, not to mention all kinds of gratis services from cities and counties, right down to free snow removal.
If the fans don’t get a fair return on the public funds and favor lavished on owners, here’s what they should do: sue. That’s right. Attorneys general in every state that houses an NFL team should draw up suits to force the league to play, or repay what they owe
Money is fungible.
——————
Thank you, oxide.
“It was the biggest such ouster, or recall, of an elected official before the end of his official term since California voters tossed out Democratic Governor Gray Davis in 2003.”
Hey, I recall hearing Ray Charles on the radio:
My bills are all due and the baby needs shoes and I’m busted
Cotton is down to a quarter a pound, but I’m busted
I got a cow that went dry and a hen that won’t lay
A big stack of bills that gets bigger each day
The county’s gonna haul my belongings away cause I’m busted.
I went to my brother to ask for a loan cause I was busted
I hate to beg like a dog without his bone, but I’m busted
My brother said there ain’t a thing I can do,
My wife and my kids are all down with the flu,
And I was just thinking about calling on you ’cause I’m busted.
Well, I am no thief, but a man can go wrong when he’s busted
The food that we canned last summer is gone and I’m busted
The fields are all bare and the cotton won’t grow,
Me and my family got to pack up and go,
But I’ll make a living, just where I don’t know cause I’m busted.
I’m broke, no bread, I mean like nothing.
as well as backing a deal to use nearly $350 million in public funds to build a new stadium to house the Florida Marlins baseball team
How did the Billionaire “Cult” Sport Society CONvince the citizen/taxpayer they did not have the money-funds $$$$$$$ all by themselves to provide for their own “Lookie-Me-I-Own-a-Pro-Sport-Team” amusement with Suite?
Where’s your team spirit Highway?
“Where’s your team spirit Highway?”
Don’t you love ‘Mericuh? Where else can you get jingoism in its crystalline form?
Eyes left in Kentucky!
Churchill Downs Incorporated.
Yeah, this taxpayer-funded “stadium” stuff (for wealthy players and owners, etc.) always gets me riled up.
Hah the auto dealer guy worked to stop the mass transit funding tax increase. Go figure.
Hah the auto dealer guy worked to stop the mass transit funding tax increase.
Like those lowly bus riders are going to be his customers any time soon. Sure, buddy. They ride the bus ’cause they can’t afford cars. And their numbers are growing all the time.
He doesn’t care about the current bus riders. He wants to prevent anyone else from getting the idea that riding the bus just might be more convenient than taking the car.
Bank of Japan emergency funding hits nearly $700B
TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s central bank continued to flood money markets with cash on Wednesday, bringing its total emergency funding to nearly $700 billion as it tries to soothe fears about the economic impact of the catastrophic earthquake, tsunami and unfolding nuclear crisis.
The latest offer of Bank of Japan funding came as stock markets bounced back from a steep sell-off that sent the benchmark Nikkei down 20 percent over two days to an almost two-year low. The index finished up 5.7 percent at 9,093.72.
The Bank of Japan conducted emergency operations for the the third day in a row, bringing its total liquidity injection to 55.6 trillion yen ($688.3 billion) since Monday. By flooding the banking system with money, it hopes banks will continue lending and meet the likely surge in demand for post-disaster funds.
“Bank of Japan emergency funding hits nearly $700B”
If printed cash can solve any problem, then why even bother using a number for the amount? Just say: “There will be enough money to get the job done.” Isn’t that the way Bernanke says it?
Somebody commented yesterday on FDR using Keynesian stimulus with no apparent negative result. It is disheartening to see such intellectual dishonesty among otherwise sharp people; they sell an agenda.
To say that one can use large amounts of borrowed or printed currency to stimulate using the GD1 as an example is wrong on two major fronts:
1) The dollar was indeed significantly devalued in an effort to keep nominal prices even, gold went from $20-$30-ish /ounce overnight and it wasn’t because the gold got more valuable. Keeping nominal prices up doesn’t do much good if one can’t find a job to pay the prices, sound familiar?
2) The current situation can’t be compared to the stimulus of GD1 because we don’t know the end game. The end game for the Keynesian folly then was WWII and the destruction of the productive power of every major competing economy in the world. Combine that with the governance of the pragmatist Eisenhower and the US was allowed to climb out of the hole in the 50s.
I know this all will fall on ideologically deafened ears but the US goverment and the Fed are the true enemy to prosperity here long term, not the bankers. Send all banking fraudsters to jail, fine, but without the enabling largess given to banks the market would have indeed corrected their malfeasance. Anyone who voted for a Republitard or a Democrap in the last 10 years can look in the mirror and take some of the blame.
Fed = Banksters
Sorry to seem ignorant, but what is the distinction between “the Fed” and “the bankers”?
You never seem ignorant GS.
Fed= government empowered institution with a balance sheet accountable to nobody and audited by nobody. IMHO the Fed is being set up to be a “bad bank”. Congress can act to diminish or eliminate the Fed.
Bankers are generally employees but sometimes officers of large corporations that have bought and paid for votes in congress. The largest of the banks own the balance sheet of the Fed. There are also smaller banks that do not benefit from a relationship with the Fed or a purchased senator, these banks go out of business or are swallowed by one of the bigger banks. Congress can act to the benefit or detriment of these institutions.
I guess the two have regulation by congress in common, but the Fed controls the money supply to the banks, both small and large so they must be differentiated.
My best solution to this problem is energy as money but I’m pretty sure there will be anarchy or revolution before we come to that common sense.
not energy = money; the ability to control energy = money.
so…kiss a carrier captain if you can.
Congress can act to the benefit or detriment of these institutions.
x1 one “total” “Bidness” revocation…ought to get their attention.
“Combine that with the governance of the pragmatist Eisenhower and the US was allowed to climb out of the hole in the 50s.”
Top income tax rate under ‘the pragmatist’ Eisenhower: 91%
That’s my kind of pragmatism! Bring it on!
(Oh, and if Eisenhower wasn’t a Keynesian, what, pray tell, was he?)
Top income tax rate under ‘the pragmatist’ Eisenhower: 91%
Compared to today’s right wing, hypocritical, corporatist, fascist nutballs, Nixon, Eisenhower, Ford, Dole etc. were all “socialists”.
Heck, even Nixon wanted a national health plan way more “socialist” than Obama got.
In “communist” Nixon’s own collective and lefty words:
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2009/September/03/nixon-proposal.aspx
Early last year, I directed the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to prepare a new and improved plan for comprehensive health insurance. That plan, as I indicated in my State of the Union message, has been developed and I am presenting it to the Congress today. I urge its enactment as soon as possible.
The plan is organized around seven principles:
First, it offers every American an opportunity to obtain a balanced, comprehensive range of health insurance benefits;
Second, it will cost no American more than he can afford to pay;
Third, it builds on the strength and diversity of our existing public and private systems of health financing and harmonizes them into an overall system;
Fourth, it uses public funds only where needed and requires no new Federal taxes;
Fifth, it would maintain freedom of choice by patients and ensure that doctors work for their patient, not for the Federal Government.
Sixth, it encourages more effective use of our health care resources;
And finally, it is organized so that all parties would have a direct stake in making the system work–consumer, provider, insurer, State governments and the Federal Government.
BROAD AND BALANCED PROTECTION FOR ALL AMERICANS
Upon adoption of appropriate Federal and State legislation, the Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan would offer to every American the same broad and balanced health protection through one of three major programs:
–Employee Health Insurance, covering most Americans and offered at their place of employment, with the cost to be shared by the employer and employee on a basis which would prevent excessive burdens on either;
–Assisted Health Insurance, covering low-income persons, and persons who would be ineligible for the other two programs, with Federal and State government paying those costs beyond the means of the individual who is insured; and,
–An improved Medicare Plan, covering those 65 and over and offered through a Medicare system that is modified to include additional, needed benefits.
One of these three plans would be available to every American, but for everyone, participation in the program would be voluntary.
The benefits offered by the three plans would be identical for all Americans, regardless of age or income.
“Top income tax rate under ‘the pragmatist’ Eisenhower: 91%”
Eisenhower was a pragmiatist, IMHO, because he believed that the war debt should be paid down, thus the high tax rates. The economy supported those rates because competition from other developed nations was limited by precursory carpet bombing.
I beg to differ on your opinion that compared to todays Repugs Eisenhower was socialist, todays pols from both majors are far and away more socialistic on the whole than in any previous generation, and I include the Tip O’Neil years in that. How else can you explain their crowing about a 80 billion budget cut over 10 years?
Are they kidding us? 8 billion/year is only 0.6% of the annual deficit. There is only one exit to this mess barring true and deep austerity or dictatorial asset confiscation and that is currency devaluation.
If you aren’t buckled in you may be injured in the crash.
todays pols from both majors are far and away more socialistic on the whole than in any previous generation, and I include the Tip O’Neil years in that.
No way.
I just posted a site and quotes from Richard Nixon that proves you wrong when it comes to healthcare for the people. Nixon’s plan was way more “socialistic” than Obama’s.
And:
Almost 1/2 of the Congress Republicans voted in favor of Medicare in 1965 wiki answers
And:
almost 83% of the Republicans voted in favor of the Social Security act of 1935.
And poll after poll show that Americans are much more left leaning than we are governed. For example MOST Americans wanted a public option. Did our “socialist” politician’s throw us that small bone? No. Why not if they’re “socialists”.
And: The polls show American’s support collective bargaining rights for Americans.
And Americans want more protections for our jobs.
This whole thing of USA has “gone socialist” is claptrap propaganda to enable the fascists to steal the last shirt off our backs. And then for us to blame the “socialists” that ain’t there.
Eisenhower was a pragmiatist, IMHO, because he believed that the war debt should be paid down
How does the contrast with Cheney-Shrub’s “Shock & Awe” policy goals?
See my comment below about socialist fascism vs. capitalist fascism.
One was an attempt to make out nation more secure, the other an attempt to make our nation more secure while enriching themselves and as many cronies as possible.
Eisenhower the pragmatist:
” [Eisenhower] was a moderate conservative who continued the New Deal policies, and in fact enlarged the scope of Social Security…”
wikipedia
__
Spin that, dude.
Is there a disconnect between “moderate conservative” and pragmatism?
Eisenhower paid down war debt, a very pragmatic thing to do. This century luckily the budgetary restraint has been removed and as long as the Fed can always and forever expand its balance sheet we’ll all be millionaires eventually. I can’t wait for my first six figure SS check.
Another spin would be to comment that as opposed to hopefully changing president Eisenhower didn’t believe in candy crappin’ unicorns (TM) thus a pragmatist, or maybe just a pessimist.
“Anyone who voted for a Republitard or a Democrap in the last 10 years can look in the mirror and take some of the blame.”
Anyone who didn’t vote also gets a share of the blame.
LOL, the best line today!
can’t wait for TTT to come out and warn the BOJ that all that printing could cause inflation….my guess is he already has his folks making calls.
Just as BB’s printing is exporting inflation to our neighbors, BOJ’s printing will have an inflationary consequence in the US?
with all that new money…instead of paying x for the concrete to rebuild that bridge they will be able to pay x +1.
I think you mean with all that reconstruction there will be more demand for concrete which will raise prices until someone decides to make more concrete which will expand supply to more closely match the new demand.
Not everything is about QE and you don’t actually think Japan is going to decide not to rebuild their country because the extra demand might inconvenience the rest of the world, do you?
i think central banks should print as much money as it takes to fix all their problems.
Comment by michael
2011-03-16 08:26:06
with all that new money…instead of paying x for the concrete to rebuild that bridge they will be able to pay x +1.
—————–
Likewise, for those who will choose to leave Japan on a fairly permanent basis will have x+1 to buy houses in the U.S.!
Why donate anything to the relief when bankers just overshadow your help with endless keystrokes? My $25 means nothing.
Then don’t donate money. Send some Chinese made toothpaste,…oops that might not help either, probably make things worse for ‘em.
Alan Greenspan: Stimulus hurt recovery
WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) — Massive government intervention to save the economy is to blame for the lagging recovery, Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Tuesday.
Greenspan argued for less government intervention to get the recovery rolling and businesses investing in equipment and plants.
“What we need to do now is to calm down; let things move by themselves,” he said at a forum at the Council of Foreign Relations. “And indeed the rate of activism has decreased significantly and the ratio of capital flow has inched back up.”
Some economists blame Greenspan, who served as Fed chair from 1987 to 2006, for keeping interest rates too low for too long and for failing to sound the alarm that Wall Street was over-leveraged and running wild.
But with Republicans in control of the House, Greenspan’s views are starting to gain an audience again. Many Republicans share his opinion that intervention has created uncertainty and deterred private sector investing.
Greenspan targeted deficits created by the $787 billion 2009 Recovery Act as the main culprit behind the current sputtering recovery.
Why are deficits to blame?
Greenspan said the Treasury Department’s borrowing “crowds out” companies from finding similarly low interest rates to borrow funds for capital investments on equipment and plants.
Why doesn’t Greenscum just shut his piehole and retire? Or is the Rothschild crowd trying to squeeze every last drop out of him.
Figures he’d be speaking at a CFR forum. Worst collection of scum on the planet.
“Why doesn’t Greenscum just shut his piehole and retire.”
Because he misses being referred to as “The Maestro”.
Once these guys get addicted to the limelight they can never just merely step aside and walk away.
“Why doesn’t Greenscum just shut his piehole and retire.”
Because he misses being referred to as “The Maestro”.
Once these guys get addicted to the limelight they can never just merely step aside and walk away.
Your HBB Librarian is reading a book. Again. It’s called Griftopia, and the author is Matt Taibbi.
The chapter on Greenspan refers to The Maestro as an aho, so you can conclude that Matt Taibbi isn’t among his fans.
Long story short: Taibbi says that Greenspan got to where he was by playing politics, and playing it very well. He wasn’t that good of an economist or that deep of a policy thinker. But he was quite the social climber.
For him, it paid off. For the rest of us, not so much.
(Hwy50 still hopes he’ll voluntarily sent it back to the Queen…)
“But he was quite the social climber.”
You just described 98% of ALL politicians.
Nowhere near qualified to make real life important decisions that affect people lives, but quit good at hiding their sociopathic need for control.
If they ever get around to indicting any of the crooks, he’ll be there testifying on their behalf for a fee, like he did for Charles Keating.
He already killed the economy. It’s long past time for him to shut up or die.
We need to put a right to affordable and decent deficits into the Constitution.
“Greenspan said the Treasury Department’s borrowing “crowds out” companies from finding similarly low interest rates to borrow funds for capital investments on equipment and plants.”
Absurd. Businesses have been borrowing money at ultra low rates like crazy. They are sitting on piles of cash. They aren’t using it to buy plants and equipment because there isn’t any demand for what they would make with the plants and equipment. At some point they may use the money to buy some one else’s plants and equipment, but that isn’t adding capacity and will most likely end up in more job losses.
Small qualifier: big businesses, not small.
They already are and have been buying up smaller businesses resulting in more layoffs.
Not only buying up other plants and companies, but buying up commodities in order to hedge against inflation — which seems to be everyone’s fear right now.
Let us not forget that Reagan essentially fired Volcker (who was appointed by Carter), and replaced him with Greenspan, because Volcker wasn’t an ‘adequate deregulator’.
Local construction company will close after 78 years
Larry O. Collins Inc. cites lack of projects, more competition
~ The Columbian, Clark County Wa.
After 78 years in the commercial building industry, the Larry O. Collins Inc. construction firm is calling it quits.
The pipeline of local projects has all but dried up while competition for work and bonding costs continue to increase, factors that contributed to the decision to close the still-solvent Vancouver company, said Casey Collins, one of three principal owners.
“Closing was a decision we had to make while we could still satisfy all of our debt,” Casey Collins said.
At the peak of Clark County’s commercial construction boom, Collins said Larry O. Collins Inc. generated about $8 million a year in gross sales. Over the last few years, the company has struggled to keep its balance sheet in the black.
Public contracts to build state, county and city projects were the bread and butter of the firm’s portfolio. The work has decreased with dwindling municipal budgets, Collins said.
It has also become cost-prohibitive to purchase construction bonds, which skyrocketed in cost during the post-building boom as a growing number of general contractors failed to meet their contract obligations.
“They want you to sign over every asset you have,” Collins said. “It doesn’t matter that I’ve never had a claim.”
The situation and the shortage of projects poses too much risk for Larry O. Collins to remain in business.
“You’ve got so many contractors bidding for so little work right now,” Collins said.
“Closing was a decision we had to make while we could still satisfy all our debt.”
There always seem to be this “debt” thing behind these closings.
I see this as something of a success story. I mean, it is possible that some of the public contracts were for buildings that didn’t really need to be built, but deciding not to build them isn’t his job. As a business, he expanded and worked while there was demand for his services that could be satisfied while making a profit. Now that he can’t do what he does for a profit or breaking even, he is closing up shop and doing it before he has to screw over any of his creditors.
Isn’t this what a business is supposed to do?
he is closing up shop and doing it before he has to screw over any of his creditors.
…Isn’t this what a business is supposed to do?
It’s what I thought and still think.
“Isn’t this what a business is supposed to do?”
Do you mean that a business is supposed to borrow-and-spend during the boom times and then go bust when the boom ends because of the debt that accumulated due to all the borrowing?
How about expanding with internally-generated funds during the boom times then they wouldn’t have a mountain of debt to drag them under when the boom turns into a bust?
If they can’t expand with earned money during the boom times then they really shouldn’t be in business, and the next downturn is sure to take them out.
78 years of credit expansion.
… is now imploding.
Why is it that “debt” is always the way we fire up the economy? It always ends badly.
This construction firm probably was paying to little for non-union workers, that’s why they failed.
This construction firm probably was paying to little for non-union workers, that’s why they failed ??
From the article;
Public contracts to build state, county and city projects were the bread and butter of the firm’s portfolio. The work has decreased with dwindling municipal budgets, Collins said ??
My experience is “All” government contracts require prevailing wage certification…In other words, even if you are non-union, you must pay your workers the union rate…
So they failed because too few bubble induced tax dollars mixed with too high union or equivalent wages forced them into an unprofitable and possibly insolvent situation.
Don’t be silly, budgetary constraints are only for the private, non banking sectors.
Don’t be silly, budgetary constraints are only for the private, non banking sectors.
Tell me about it.
Just spoke with my mother, who’s a retired public school teacher in eastern PA. And still a member of the teachers’ union, BTW.
She went to her school’s retirees’ luncheon today. Word is that they won’t be marching on Harrisburg — yet. But stay tuned. They’re about to raise their teacher voices.
I think I’d better plan a trip to PA soon.
If Mom gets arrested at a demonstration, someone will have to look after my dad. Not to mention bailing my mother out of jail.
One of my brothers once was arrested on a charge and successfully lobbied my sister to front him bail money.
My other little brother told me when we discussed it, “If I’m ever arrested I’m not asking anyone to bail me out; I’m going to sit there in my orange jump suit and think seriously about what I’ve done.”
Luckily I don’t think his loving wife would allow him to follow through with his plan.
Greene County cement plant to close; 100 employees affected
March 16, 2011~ CBS 6 Albany,NY
CATSKILL — The Holcim Cement Plant in Catskill announced today it will be closing its doors in a few months.
The plant is one of the largest employers in Greene County.
According to the VP of Corporate Communications Robin DeCarlo, the move to close the plant on by June 13 will affect approximately 100 hourly and salaried employees.
Holcim is one of the nation’s leading manufacturers and suppliers of cement and mineral components.
It took over operations at the plant in 2008, but have since struggled financially during the recession.
The company says it will “mothball” the plant, meaning it will end production and secure the plant so future operations at the plant are possible.
Cement plants were a great play 10 years ago.
This cement plant was probably paying too little to non-union workers, that’s why they failed.
They were themselves participating in a concrete benefit plan.
Dis concrete galoshes go out of style?
Same thing happened in China with ALL the companies that built the Three Gorges Dam.
dude, I didn’t get it the first time.
I can’t tell what you are satirizing.
That’s OK, sometimes I can’t even tell myself.
Cool.
With the dollar remaining weak John Williams of Shadowstats had this to say in a special report, “The U.S. economic and systemic-solvency crises of the last four years only have been precursors to the coming Great Collapse: a hyper-inflationary great depression. Such will encompass a complete collapse in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar; a collapse in the normal stream of U.S. commercial and economic activity; a collapse in the U.S. financial system as we know it; and a likely realignment of the U.S. political environment.” ~Kingworld News
John Williams continues:
“Outside timing on the hyperinflation remains 2014, but there is strong risk of the currency catastrophe beginning to unfold in the months ahead. It may be starting to unfold as we go to press in March 2011, but moving into a full blown hyperinflation could take months to a year, beyond the onset, depending on the developing global view of the dollar and reactions of the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve.
Prerequisites to the crisis unfolding include: the Federal Reserve moving to monetize U.S. Treasury debt; the U.S. dollar losing its traditional safe-haven status; the U.S. dollar losing its reserve status; the federal budget deficit and Treasury funding needs spiraling out of control. The Fed moved to monetize Treasury debt in November 2010.
A much-diminished U.S. dollar safe-haven status has become evident in early March 2011, along with serious calls for a new global reserve currency. The economy is not in recovery and should display significant new weakness in the months ahead, with severely expansive implications for the federal deficit, Treasury funding needs and requisite Fed monetization of debt.
As the advance squalls from this great financial tempest come ashore, the government could be expected to launch a variety of efforts at forestalling the hyperinflation’s landfall, but such efforts will buy little time and ultimately will fail in preventing the dollar’s collapse. The timing of the onset of full blown hyperinflation likely will be coincident with a broad global rejection/repudiation of the U.S. dollar.
With no viable or politically-practical way of balancing U.S. fiscal conditions and avoiding this financial economic Armageddon, the best that individuals can do at this point is to protect themselves, both as to meeting short-range survival needs as well as to preserving current wealth and assets over the longer term. Efforts there, respectively, would encompass building a store of key consumables, such as food and water, and moving assets into physical precious metals and outside of the U.S. dollar.”
“a hyper-inflationary great depression”
My guess is he is right on this, and it will most likely come complete with brown shirts and Gestapo, the whole shooting match. The only remaining question is whether we will have capitalists or socialists running the show.
Neither of those groups stands a chance in such a scenario, they are both too expensive.
Feudalism then?
Don’t folks with an advanced case of what we’re catching usually embrace fascism? Not that I believe it could happen here, at least not that I would stay alive to see it.
Don’t folks with an advanced case of what we’re catching usually embrace fascism? Not that I believe it could happen here,
How can you not believe what has already happened? We now have, in the least, “Fascism-Light”.. “Sucks Great, Less Killing”
Fascists seek to organize a nation according to corporatist perspectives, values, and systems, including the political system and the economy. wiki
I agree with the fascism thing, but will it be socialist ala Germany 1930s or capitalist ala Saudi Arabia.
but will it be socialist ala Germany 1930s
Germany was never “socialist” under Hitler. It was fascist and used the word “socialist” in its misleading name to fool the people at the beginning. It worked.
Kind of how the right want’s to now fool the unknowing into thinking that Nazism was “socialism”.
They don’t want us to know that it was Fascism–close to what USA is becoming in our corporate/government takeover of the American society, politics, and economy. (Without the genocide)
My thinking friends,
USA ain’t socialism. If it were democratic socialism as practiced in Northern Europe you’d have universal healthcare with no fear of going BK because you got sick. You’d have more unions protecting your jobs and wages. You’d have more laws protecting your jobs, you’d have less income inequality AND you would have a greater chance to improve your wealth and class than you have now in fascist USA.
Much of “Socialist” Europe has greater upward mobility than does the corrupt, failed, fascist American Crony-capitalist, TBTF joke.
Much of “socialist” Europe is better at capitalism than the USA.
If it were democratic socialism as practiced in Northern Europe you’d have universal healthcare with no fear of going BK because you got sick. You’d have more unions protecting your jobs and wages. You’d have more laws protecting your jobs, you’d have less income inequality AND you would have a greater chance to improve your wealth and class than you have now in fascist USA.
Hey, maybe it’s a “change’s in latitude, change’s in attitude” / jimmay buffett sorta thing.
Let’s try an “experiment” with x1 state, CSofAlaska seems the right sorta geographical location to start. Alaska as Sweden…does it matter Rio that they get extra revenue monies per capita from oil extraction?
So you believe that in Germany in the 30s that each successive year did not see greater and greater government control of the means of production?
Wow.
So you believe that in Germany in the 30s that each successive year did not see greater and greater government control of the means of production?
Wow. Your missing the big part. Government control of means of production as in Nazi Germany did not and does not fulfill Socialism’s main tenant and requirement of vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.
Socialism: a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole. dictionary dot reference dot com
a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property merriam-webster
Check this out people. Now which are we closer to?
Socialism vs Fascism: Fascism is a government controlled by and in the service of big business to ensure subservience of the masses to business interests and desires for aggrandizement and bigger profit.
Socialism is a system of government which control in various ways business activities and often own part of them in the service of the masses, focusing on the welfare of the people rather that of the corporate elite. newsflavor dot com
If you asked your average German in the 30s they would say that the government control was for the glory of the fatherland, not big business. By the very definitions you cite I stand by my point. BTW, I don’t agree entirely with that definition of fascism because it skips a step in the development of the final solution and doesn’t place any of the blame on a persistently willing and supportive populace.
I will say though that your citation makes me think we are much closer to the capitalistic version because I don’t see most Americans buying into the idea that government control of all aspects of life is a good thing.
Thank you, Rio.
We already have capital/communists running the show.
Other than that, everything’ll be fine.
scary stuff…even if he’s just half right.
Such will encompass a complete collapse in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar; a collapse in the normal stream of U.S. commercial and economic activity; a collapse in the U.S. financial system as we know it;
“….Complete collapse in the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar.”
U.S. Dollar complete collapse compared to what? Collapse in a vacuum–all by itself? Or collapse relative to the Euro? The Yen? The Yuan? (yawn) Why would the U.S. dollar collapse relative to its competing major currencies and if it did why would it not take them down with it?
A major currency collapse would have to be relative to other major currencies correct? And yet if all the major currencies collapsed how is there any effectual relative collapse or would I then need to buy my Chinese blender with a bucket of honey?
How about gold? Can you eat gold or is there enough of it to base even one major currency on it?
I don’t know if he has, but to make a strong case for a Dollar collapse John Williams of Shadowstats would have to well address the above questions.
maybe he thinks the collapse will occur after a new world reserve currency is established?
i still disagree with his conclusions simply because we have alot more guns and ships and tanks than other countries. and as i have stated before…the ability to control energy is money…or better yet…the source of merika’s power.
good or bad.
maybe he thinks the collapse will occur after a new world reserve currency is established?
Yes but if he thinks that then he is not taking into account your valid point of our military’s role in supporting our power and dollar.
With our power, including our military, would America ever allow a new world reserve currency to be established with the probable result being the destroying of the the U.S. Dollar?
Probably not…unless TPTB controlled the new currency, too.
Shadows Stats is good for their… stats.
Their articles are utter crap.
Yeah, I didn’t realize they were such tinfoil hatters. Makes me kind of question their stats, now.
I randomly checked some of their stats and sources. Most are good, but like everything else, to be taken with a grain of salt.
My method is to use several disparate sources and find the clustering.
“U.S. Dollar complete collapse compared to what?”
Compared to things that you want to buy with it.
Compared to things that you want to buy with it.
Compared to what?
You want a list?
Gasoline, veggies, milk, eggs, electricity, LPG, motors, cars, appliances, paint, clocks, wood, medical care, concrete, to name just a few to get you pointed in the right direction.
Labor should stay relatively cheap if you don’t required union workers or their mandated equivalent since the US worker is competing with those in Malaysia. Workers in Brazil compete with those in Malaysia as well but are significantly better protected by their government.
See that? I just found a good purpose for government. I wonder if the US constitution says anything about this. It is so antiquated I’m sure the FF wouldn’t have addressed that.
Compared to what?
You want a list?
Gasoline, veggies, milk, eggs, electricity, LPG, motors, cars, appliances, paint, clocks, wood, medical care, concrete, to name just a few to get you pointed in the right direction.
Sorry, I thought you’d get the point. The us Dollar would collapse compared to what means of exchange?
The us Dollar would collapse compared to what means of exchange?
Collapse compared to what. The Euro? The Yaun? The Yen? A Bucket of honey? Gold? Why would the dollar collapse without those collapsing? The Euro and Yen are “stronger”?
And if those collapsed it wouldn’t matter if the dollar collapsed.
That was the whole point of my post. If you re-read it you may see it.
OK, I’ll try again, maybe you’ll get it this time.
Let’s say the USD is 25% of the worlds reserve currency, be it blips or CHC, let’s also say that JPY is 10% of world reserves, that the Yuan is another 10% and the Loonie is 5% more.
For the purposes of this exercise we then have 50% of world currency represented by these 4 currencies, simplified I know but I’m trying to make it simple so it can be understood.
Now let’s say the US dilutes through printing or borrowing the total outstanding USD reserve by 20%. Japan in order to respond to the recent disaster expands by 30%, a huge amount. China tightens rates, decreases the growth of lending and expands by only 10%. The Canadians being rich in commodity exports (and back bacon) only need expand by 5%.
Now again I realize this is simplified but surely you can see that the USD loses value against the other currencies in this scenario. This is because total reserve currency from these five countries (what was once reported as M3) has grown by 18.4% but the US portion of the total has nearly doubled. Being the biggest game in town rubs both ways.
Please tell me this explains that, and I won’t need to go into why the cost of goods expressed in whatever currency is purely dependent on the cost of materials and energy used to produce said goods in said currencies, and that more and more the US is most effective as a producer of new dollars.
The short answer to your question is, the dollar devalues against every currency that can’t keep up with our reckless borrow and spend mentality.
Do you really believe that a dollar created by printing or borrowing creates a new dollar of wealth? If you buy the idea that borrowing to pay extended unemployment benefits was a net benefit to the economy and/or the middle class then you might not understand fraction reserve banking well enough. Maybe you could look it up on Wikipedia.
Please feel free to carry this mini-thread forward tomorrow, I’d really like additional input from other posters.
I would like to take a moment and call hyperinflation has already occurred, in the same way a glass of water is already spilled at the moment it is knocked off a table.
The act of massive credit expansion over the last 30 years WAS the inflationary force. Today deflation seems more probable as the credit bubble collapses.
We are only at the first inning…
Too obvious.
Agree with you, GH, that the inflation has already happened. We are at the **peak** of the credit expansion, IMHO, not the nadir.
a collapse in the normal stream of U.S. commercial and economic activity
A Plan “B” that oughta lower the price of Oil.
Deepest sympathy for the Japanese.
I am in monumental study mode till the end of April. Thus, following your always astute collective commentary as time permits. Regrettably, my sparse instances of posting will be reduced even more for the duration.
Wish me luck.
“Deepest sympathy for the Japanese.”
Thanks for that, jane. Indeed, they deserve our sympathy and any support we can give. The thought of those 50 brave, dear people who tried with all their might to avert disaster for their countrymen has affected me deeply. Some, if not all of them are probably doomed.
It shows the Lloyd Blankfeins of the world for the contemptible, disgusting leeches they are.
Palmetto,
Whenever you have the opportunity, take a look at what the combination of science, technology and hubris can bring upon the innocent:
http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/essay/chernobyl
Thanks, cobalt, I’ve got to go out for a bit right now, but I’ll watch it when I get back. I did see some clips of Chernobyl children born with birth defects, last night. It gave me a pretty heavy heart, much in the same way that Christopher Hitchens’ article on future generations affected by Agent Orange in Vietnam did. I don’t think I would have the fortitude to care for a stump that screams 24/7. And yet there are parents in Vietnam who do just that.
Hubris. That’s the word. We can’t have things like nuclear energy or gen-mod food as long as hubris exists.
It looks like Paul Fusco, the owner of the images/website, is the the same guy who gave us the quirky 80’s sitcom “Alf”. I laugh to it on HULU while treading sometimes.
Check out the movie Permanent Midnight to get the behind the scenes on the show.
“Permanent Midnight” Thanks, Steve J. I will.
Alf:Have I ever lied to you?
Kate: Well, yes, you have.
Alf: I meant today!
I was devastated after the Willie Tanner / gay hookers & crack thing broke. I loved that show.
http://www.kultkolumne.de/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/max-wright-_alf_star-_on_crack1.jpg
Looks like a setup.
Maybe he didn’t know it was crack or that the hooker was really a man.
Whenever you have the opportunity, take a look at what the combination of science, technology and hubris can bring upon the innocent
http://indospectrum.com/images/photos/new-york-city-2/cd031_03May04_nyc_wall_st_bull_0177.jpg
I’m pretty sure that Lloyd Blankfein is busy making righteous bucks shorting the Japan economy and the guy probably gets a boner every time there is another explosion at the nuke plant. The world would be better off without Lloyd Blankfeins. God can do his own work.
I heard the same, that the operators at the nuclear plant are takng in fatal doses of radiation, but that since their homes and families were destroyed in the quake anyway, they don’t really care.
are takng in fatal doses of radiation, but that since their homes and families were destroyed in the quake anyway, they don’t really care.
This Japanese spirit of sacrifice is very noble and admirable. It might become essential.
I’m very scared for Japan. When Chernobyl needed to be entombed in concrete they essentially forced hundreds of radiation danger ignorant soldiers to do it. They died.
Japanese are not ignorant to the current peril. I just read a helicopter canceled a water drop because of high levels of radiation.
If that thing needs to be entombed who’s going to do it?
Send us old/middle-aged, formerly middle classed, divorced guys.
If you look at it realistically, what have we got to live for? Things have sucked since we entered the workforce in the mid 70’s and they just keep getting more fooked up. And it beats retirement living in a cardboard box.
In the army I was a good shot but a bad runner. We all knew if the time ever came that we needed one person to sacrifice themselves holding off the enemy until everyone else could escape, that would be me.
If that thing needs to be entombed who’s going to do it?
I vote we send in the banksters!
Good luck — been there, done that.
We will look forward to a flood of posts from you after you finish passing through the eye of the needle.
Good luck Jane, and as another who reads voraciously but posts infrequently I appreciate your sentiment.
Jane,
If you apply the same thoughtful analysis to your studies that you do to the topics on this board, you’ll sail through like the champ that you are.
Stay focused. Take frequent walks out of doors. Come back and keep us honest when you’ve dissertated.
Good luck!
What’s Jane studying?
The 50 men are being rotated with another 50 men and yet another 50.
They are not receiving fatal doses. The radiation peaked and has gone back down. It seems to be rising and falling, thus giving the disaster crews time to go in and work without killing themselves.
NHK TV (English version) has the latest, although there is government restriction on the reports they are getting.
And only 1000 barrels of oil per day were leaking from the gulf oil spill.
I am taking everything they are saying with a grain of salt, the japs don’t want to instigate a mass panic in massively populated relatively nearby cities like tokyo. Mass panic is VERY bad for japan right now. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if these brave workers are going into that plant knowing full well it’s going to kill them. My hats off to anyone who would willingly walk into that nightmare. Multiple explosions, radioactive fuel exposed to air in cooling pools, possible full blown meltdown. It’s hell, these people are walking into hell - willingly - to save lives.
Absolutely. They are true heros. I cannot imagine what they are going through right now. God bless them.
realtors lie.
Why….. why I think you’re right. Realtors do lie! That means realtors are liars.
“That means realtors are liars.”
And some of them have really bad breath too!
So realtors lie and many of them stink too. Stinkin’ lyin’ realtors.
Glinda, the Good Witch of the North:
“She wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.”
the Scarecrow:
What have you learned, Dorothy?
Dorothy: ”
Well, I have learned that Realtors Are Liars and I think that it, that it wasn’t enough just to want a big house with granite counter tops and a swimming pool and it’s that if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than a house I can afford. Because if I could never afford that McMansion in the gated community, I never really lost it to begin with!”
Glinda:
“She had to find it out for herself. Now, that Uhaul will take you home in two seconds!
Now think to yourself ‘I can`t pay that loan.. I can`t pay that loan.. I can`t pay that loan..
+1 Jeff.
You could write similar screed about the execs and CEO’s and bondholders where 7% return was just not enough.
7% return not enough?
What is this “enough” thing that you speak of?
Don’t you know, there will never be “enough”?
You get to swing for the fences every time when you are TBTF.
With the assurance that if the ball doesn’t clear the fence or even if you go down swinging, you will automatically get another turn at bat.
“‘I can`t pay that loan.. I can`t pay that loan.. I can`t pay that loan..
Oh, Jeff. You so EXCELLENT!
jeff, that was awesome!
Seems so, sometimes they lie for their interests, most-times they lie against yours.
Lucy: “Hwy50, you’re such a BLOCKHEAD!”
WTH is a “living wage”?
Denver City Council endorses pay raise for elected officials
~The Denver Post
After spirited debate Monday, Denver’s City Council voted 10-3 to tentatively approve a 6.6 percent raise for the next sitting council and every other elected official — an increase to be delayed for half of their four-year terms.
The city is facing a $100 million budget shortfall for the 2012 budget and has a structural budget problem that, if not addressed, could balloon into a $500 million deficit by 2030.
Many council members think the meager increase would not affect that problem and that denying a raise would be symbolic rather than practical.
“The substance of passing this has virtually zero impact on the budget,” said council president Chris Nevitt. “I was sent here to do a job to get things done. I much more prefer substance over symbolism.”
The raise, up for final approval next Monday, would be delayed for the first two years of the four-year term and kick in with a 3.3 percent raise in July 2013 and the second part of the raise in July 2014.
Denver is the only large city in Colorado that pays its council members a living wage — $78,173 a year, plus about $30,000 in benefits.
The raise would give the council members an annual salary of $83,332 by July 2014. The council president makes about $10,000 more.
The mayor’s salary will grow to $155,211 from its current $145,601. The salaries of both the clerk and recorder and the auditor would be $134,235, up from their current $125,924.
Government is the problem.
Tru dat
Hey, maybe they’ll form a union because they are just way overworked and underpaid!
“WTH is a “living wage”?”
Apparently its $78,173 a year, plus about $30,000 in benefits.
The living wage is unobtainium, the ever receding target.
‘Course I always thought that it was based on the poverty level for a family of four.
…also a moving target.
$22,050 in 2010. I think it may have been as low as $20K even in 2005 or 2006. Yup. It is accelerating up like crazy. Like a rocket.
…also a moving target.
Keep folks poor is the target, they just have to keep movin’…
Ask me how many smart phones my wife observed in a WIC office while accompanying a young family friend who was applying for benefits.
(hint, my wife was the only one in the room without one)
Also, why is it that the living wage and the poverty threshold only move up? Is there some sort of voodoo relationship there? I mean, a dollar today is the same as a dollar in ‘05 right? Right?
I don’t mind the $78K in salary, but how the heck did they arrive at $30K in benefits? That must be a helluva pension.
Over 20k of it is probably their health benefits.
That’s what I figured. Why can’t the Republicans attack the health insurance companies instead of the union bosses? Lower the price of health insurance and the cost of public workers will go down automatically. Ditto for housing.
As long as governments and large corporations are willing to pay whatever the insurance companies demand costs will continue to climb.
oxide ….attack price fixing monopolies like Health Care ,they
wouldn’t think of it in spite of the absurdity of this sector stressing the entire economy and will continue to do so .
As long as governments and large corporations are willing to pay whatever the insurance companies demand costs will continue to climb.
Meanwhile, those of us who are self-employed continued to get screwed over. And, oh-joy-of-joys, I just found out that my “health insurer” is owned by…
…Goldman Sachs. It just got an exemption from the 80% of premiums must be spent on care requirement that’s a part of the new “heath care reform” bill.
I’ve been in contact with a reporter who’s writing a story about health insurance problems. Reporter, who appears to be a freelancer, has been battling bronchitis.
And I’ll betcha money that she’s toughing that one out without going to the doctor. Something about not wanting to have that show up in a doctor’s notes. Where an insurance company can use it against you.
Where an insurance company can use it against you.
That’s part of their Health Plan “Profit” strategy. That, and seeing how many elderly people pay their over-priced bill x3 times…by accident.
I’ll betcha money that she’s toughing that one out without going to the doctor. Something about not wanting to have that show up in a doctor’s notes. Where an insurance company can use it against you.
Americans would have to be nuts to tell their doctor if they were sick because if they did, they might someday get denied the best healthcare in the world.
Americans would have to be nuts to tell their doctor if they were sick because if they did, they might someday get denied the best healthcare in the world.
Yet these same people scream about how “Obamacare” is the root of all evil. No that they have a clue what “Obamacare” actually is.
But like everything else Obama ObamaCare places no real caps on what can be charged, nor does it state what quality of coverage must be provided.
My guess it is a lot like the Credit Card laws, where rates continued to be unlimited with plenty of exclusions, or the new dispute with debit cards where price caps were placed, but nothing was done to ensure the same level of transaction size could continue etc.
What would have been wrong with CostCo etc being able to sell a single member the VERY same policy they give their employees at the same cost and with the same protections which BTW is the preferred model for insurance and appears to work well in the US? What would have been wrong with forging a buying group and buying insurance with all the same protections employees get? The insurance companies would all have the same choice to insure the group or no one.
Comment by oxide
2011-03-16 08:33:08
That’s what I figured. Why can’t the Republicans attack the health insurance companies instead of the union bosses? Lower the price of health insurance and the cost of public workers will go down automatically. Ditto for housing.
———————–
Excellent question!
Perhaps it’s because the insurance companies contribute to their campaigns, but the unions generally do not?
The NFL dude who claims he is “a modern day Slave”‘ , makes a base wage of over 10 mil. a year . look at the photo of him , you will understand . He could not count to 10 by the look of’em
I sympathize with the players, many of whom do serious, permanant damage to their bodies and brains over the course of a VERY short career. But I HATE it when people try to equate mere economic hardship, or in this case a merely disadvantageous deal, with the HORROR that was chattel slavery. At it’s very best, slavery was a system of forced labor created by kidnapping and enforced with torture. If you can quit, it isn’t slavery. In the end, I think that sort of statement is extreemly disrespectful of those who DID live through slavery.
+1 Jim. He could walk away tomorrow if he wanted. Oh sure, he’d probably give up his juicy contract, but the point is, if he walked away they can’t get him and bring him back.
“I sympathize with the players, many of whom do serious, permanant damage to their bodies and brains over the course of a VERY short career.”
True, but the simple answer is don`t play. They don`t have to play in the NFL, they can apply at Home Depot.
Minimum Salary
The CBA makes sure that it sets a minimum NFL player salary. The minimum salary is determined every year by the CBA. The minimum NFL player salary for a new player was US $295,000 in 2008 which went up to US $310,000 in 2009. This minimum NFL player salary, set by the CBA, increases as you start gaining experience in the league by completing seasons.
This is the lowest paid team in the NFL
the Kansas City Chiefs
$ 81,829,650 Total payroll
$ 1,410,856 Avg. salary
$ 560,000 Median
http://content.usatoday.com/sportsdata/football/nfl/salaries/team - 142k -
Looking at the median and average salary numbers, at some point the lower paid players are going to have to strike against the higher paid players because they are going to have more $ than the owners.
Tom Brady making $ 8,007,280.00 a year besides signing bonus with a backup guard making the minimum $310,000 ? That guy could just start throwing look out blocks. That being when a pass rusher has a clean shot at the QB`s blind side and the lineman yells. LOOK OUT!
I’m sorry, I just had the bad desire of actually wanting to see that. A couple years ago, some defensive guy barely grazed Brady’s leg, and Brady whined and pranced like a nancy-boy until the referee threw him a “roughing the passer” flag just to shut him up. I’ve taken bigger hits on the subway. I never did forgive Brady for that (sez the Peyton fangrrl).
it’s too bad Main Street doesn’t have the power to throw look-out blocks to Wall Street.
Tom Brady making $ 8,007,280.00 a year besides signing bonus with a backup guard making the minimum $310,000 ?
You have a point but:
The NFL blind side guards and tackles are highly paid with the left tackle being the second highest paid position on the team on average. Why? Because they protect the QB’s blindside.
A backup guard or tackle would never intentionally allow a free hit on the QB because he wants to make a lot of money someday.
It’s also true that linemen tend to have somewhat longer careers than QBs or receivers. Yeah they get hit every play, but usually from a standing start at short distance.
“A backup guard or tackle would never intentionally allow a free hit on the QB”
That was a joke, not the look out part but
intentionally allowing a free hit on the QB part. The look out block happens all the time at all levels, even with the holding they allow those highly paid left tackles to get away with now. But as oxide has pointed out it doesn’t much matter in the NFL anymore. A couple of more years and a couple of more rule changes and the QBs in the NFL will be wearing flags. Can`t hit the legs and you can`t touch the head. They take anything else out and they are going to have to hang orange flags from their hips to grab.
I sympathize with the players, many of whom do serious, permanant damage to their bodies and brains over the course of a VERY short career.
A neighbor is a former CFL player. He did quite a bit of landscaping work for me after I moved into the Arizona Slim Ranch.
Guy had a heart of gold and did heavy labor with very little effort. He was proud of how easy heavy jobs were for him.
Alas, he had many health problems, and I seldom see him around the nabe. When I do, he appears to be quite ill. Probably not long for this world.
I can’t help thinking that the genesis for his current poor health came from his football days.
BTW, I know one of his teammates from college. Guy runs a city recreation center near here.
In the rec center’s office is a picture of him with his Baltimore Colts teammates from their championship season in the early 1970s. One time, I asked him if he still saw his former teammates. His answer: “Yes — the ones that are still alive.”
I recall reading that the average lifespan of NFL players is 50 years.
While the hits they take no doubt play a role in their early demise, there is another factor: a lot of these guys weight 300+ lbs, and I’l bet it gets worse in retirement. And even the guys who actually have to move are incredibly bulky.
When I see American football players huffing oxygen on the sideline after a single play I can’t help but wonder: These fat guys are supposed to be athletes?
Of course there’s no way any with a normal, healthy build could be competitive at that game.
” These fat guys are supposed to be athletes?”
O line and interior D line on most NFL teams, yup huge 300 lb fat athletes. Tight end and defensive ends, usually tall strong fast guys. Running backs and linebackers 5 ft. 10in - 6ft. 2in 190 lb to 240 lb chiseled fast athletes. DBs close to a normal healthy build (except chiseled) but super quick and fast.
PS
They would all make about $10 an hour at Home Depot.
My brother played for a Big 12 school. Went to as couple of bowl games.
He was an all state middle linebacker in high school, but as soon as he shows up to camp, they red-shirt him, and tell him to gain at least 50 pound……..never mind what we told you when we were trying to recruit you, you are now a blocking tight end.
Put on the weight, and felt like crap. Looked like crap too. After three seasons of that, he walked. Of course, being a highly rated jock, his jock buddies still worked it out, eventually got his MBA.
The whole big time college sports mafia is a joke. Those guys are professionals in everything but name. College football is nothing but a big apprenticeship program for the NFL, paid for with public money.
The whole big time college sports mafia is a joke. Those guys are professionals in everything but name. College football is nothing but a big apprenticeship program for the NFL, paid for with public money.
And a former University of Michigan president agrees with you.
Read James Duderstadt’s book, Intercollegiate Athletics and the American University. Among other things, he proposes that college teams be spun off as for-profit subsidiaries.
BTW, I had the pleasure of meeting him at U-M Homecoming last fall. I praised him for being such a troublemaker. He and his wife both appreciated the compliment.
They would all make about $10 an hour at Home Depot.
Funny anecdote.
A few seasonas ago the Broncos ran out of running backs due to injuries, so the recalled a guy they cut the previous season. Turns out he was working in a cell phone kiosk at a local shopping mall.
” Running backs and linebackers 5 ft. 10in - 6ft. 2in 190 lb to 240 lb chiseled fast athletes.”
Like I said, the guys who actually move aren’t quite that big, but they are still pretty bulky for their size. Of course you need that bulk to survive the tackles and hits. A 5′10″ soccer player usually weighs 160 lbs, but would never survive getting tackled by two 300 lb guys. Of course he plays 45 minute halves without being subbed, and would never survive if he weighed 190+ lbs.
College football is nothing but a big apprenticeship program for the NFL, paid for with public money.
Nope. No corporate welfare there!
No big deal; its not like he compared it to the hollowcau$t.
move along please
LOL. The “living wage” thing used to be a New Party local-government initiative. They hyped it everywhere and I see it in RFPs now and then, but it’s supposed to mandate the wages govt contractors pay their employees.
So now government employees themselves have co-opted it? That’s rich.
Killdozer II - the return.
The Massad guy is hilarious!
Watchdog says TARP helps perpetuate “Too big to fail”
Wednesday March 16, 2011
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The watchdog panel for the $700 billion bank bailout faulted the U.S. government for the last time on Wednesday, saying the program helped underpin the perception that federal authorities will always prevent troubled financial firms from failing.
In its final report on the bank bailout, the panel attacked the government for not being transparent enough and not articulating clear goals for its foreclosure prevention program.
It also said federal intervention transformed the notion of ‘too big to fail’ into a stark reality.
“Very large financial institutions may now rationally decide to take inflated risks because they expect that, if their gamble fails, taxpayers will bear the loss,” said the report authored by the Congressional Oversight Panel.
Stigmatized for bailing out Wall Street at the expense of ordinary Americans, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, known as TARP, used billions of dollars in taxpayer money to prop up major financial firms, including Citigroup and Bank of America.
Timothy Massad, the Treasury official in charge of the bailout program, said it was “simply wrong” for companies to think that the government would provide assistance to bail them out in the future. The Dodd-Frank financial reform bill “makes it clear that we should not use taxpayer funds for that,” Massad told reporters.
Isn’t the Congressional Oversight Panel Elizabeth Warren’s old outfit? I wouldn’t expect them to say anything else. Also remember that TARP was engineered by Henry Paulson.
They already bailed them out to the tune of trillions . To even suggest
that no future bail outs from taxpayers is acting like the first bail out out wasn’t absurd and should be corrected in that they owe the money to the taxpayers . I want the money back ,with interest .
Yesterday Oxide mentioned how useless the language from the Japanese “officials/authority is regarding the condition of the event.
Look at this headline in the NYT:
“Japan Says 2nd Reactor May Have Ruptured With Radioactive Release”
Do they mean the containment vessel?
If so, why don’t they say so?
Who can forget the wonderful nuggets we all received last year in this country? Do we forget when our corrupt government was telling us that no more than 1,000 barrels per day would be coming out of the Gulf oil spill?
Realtors might lie but governments kill with their lies.
What about all of the bogus info propagated by our government during (and still highly disinformed to this day) the “financial crisis”? Governments lie. Its what they do. We can’t handle the real information.
Governments will always lie at the behest of their Corporate masters.
It’s important to remember that there are actual people in these governments who do the lying. And they should be muzzled, arrested, tried and if found to have deliberately misled, meet the same fate as murder accomplices.
It is also important to remember that there are some very stoopid people in these governments.
And please remember, this is the MEDIA headline. Those a-holes usually hear what they want to hear.
Translating from Japanese can only make it worse.
I think if you read all the reports a tube from the container vessel has been damaged and now steam that would normally be contained is flowing directly into the atmosphere. It seems to be what lowered the pressure within the reactor but also raised the level of radioactivity around the reactor. But information is so scarce it is hard to know. Particularly since the sources are sometimes in conflict. The good news is that the plants have been shutdown since Friday. The nuclear reactions are slowing everyday so the generate less heat everyday and so a complete meltdown grows more remote even without seawater being added. That said I hope they can continue to add water to increase the safety margin.
“The nuclear reactions are slowing everyday so the generate less heat everyday and so a complete meltdown grows more remote even without seawater being added”
Then why exactly do spend/used fuel rods need cooling? Those have been out of comission for YEARS and yet they still need cooling. I am no nuclear engineer, but maybe things are not as simple as you assume they are.
They are having major problems with the spend fuel rods that have been sitting in some big “swimming pool” for years. Unfortunately the cooling system for these pools has also failed and the rods are becoming exposed. Apparently those things need cooling for years or even decades.
I don’t have any of the answers, but its propably not as simple as taking a batch of cupcakes out of the oven and letting then cool off for a few minutes/days/weeks.
Because they never stop completely. BTW, as someone pointed out on this blog that is true about granite. However, their cooling needs are so low that they can be stored outside with greatly reduced containment, thus the local problem. However, they would never be hot enough to melt through a containment wall. I am not sure how long the fuel rods have been out of the reactor. There is at least circumstantial evidence that a refueling occurred at that plant recently. Which means that both the fuel rods in the plant and in the ponds are as hot as they ever could be at the start of this, more “bad luck”.
“The nuclear reactions are slowing everyday so they generate less heat everyday and so a complete meltdown grows more remote even without seawater being added.”
I don’t want to hear that! What I want to hear is how we’re all gonna die!
A realistic judgement of a critical situation tends to be more useful that wishful thinking.
I think it is a realistic judgment. However, I do think the Japanese Government and utility is hiding information because they do not want to answer at least these two questions:
1. Were they slow to put sea water on the reactors because they were too concerned about the economic cost of losing the reactors?
2. How the hell did they run out of fuel to run the pumps, couldn’t the military deliver fuel in a timely manner?
Most everything bad that has happened, occurred due to the fuel rods being exposed, which created more hydrogen, radioactivity etc. and I think it could have been avoided by an earlier use of sea water. Just my opinion and second guessing but it should be investigated.
I had those thought too, dan. I was asking a friend: there are several huge nuclear companies in the world. Why aren’t they flying in batteries or extra diesels? Where are the French, who really love their nukes? Where are the Chinese, who are building plants all over the place? Surely they have helpful equipment to send? Meanwhile, these poor Japanese are on their own.
My friend answered with a snide remark about Obama not responding to the Gulf oil spill. Like that’s going to help?!?!
Flying them in is one thing. Getting them to the reactors when all the local infrastructure is destroyed/buried/swept away is something else.
From everything I’ve been seeing, I’ll bet they are putting in a better performance than our guys would, under the same circumstances.
Radiation at the plant has dropped from 400,000 microsievert to microsievert per hour but you cannot find that news from the U.S. MSM.
“I hope I never see when things are as bad as our newspapers make them sound.” -Will Rogers
I realize this message has been reported through the same media you’re pointing out enjoy and expand on a good crisis, but I think the emporer’s speech about not giving up hope really was a turning point.
“a tube from the container vessel has been damaged and now steam that would normally be contained is flowing directly into the atmosphere. It seems to be what lowered the pressure within the reactor but also raised the level of radioactivity around the reactor.”
so my heart attack will prevent cancer?
“so my heart attack will prevent cancer?”
You have to be alive to get cancer I suppose.
See, death prevented you from getting cancer. Death is a miracle cure for all ailments!
Life is a fatal disease.
so my heart attack will prevent cancer?
Iffin’ your on horseback in the sage brush of West Tay-hoss, it just might.
The best information is coming from the Nuclear Energy Institute. (nei dot org) They are the pro-nuke lobbying group, so take it for what it is. They at least have their vocabulary right. Apparently 1 and 2 are stabilizing as long as they keep pumping the water in, but there will be a low-level steady release of radiation until the fuel is cool enough to stop producing steam.
The fires at #4 don’t appear to be caused by fuel, but they need to keep putting out fires to make sure the fuel is not adversely affected. What puzzles me is that they are removing panels from the outer building of 5 and 6 to avert hydrogen buildup. There shouldn’t be any hydrogen in 5 an 6, but they are taking precautions.
The fires that keep erupting at #4 are from a cooling pond for waste rods. There are over 400 of them in one pond. There are 5 other ponds in that plant holding waste.
Cooling pond is dry…energy output and heat go up.
Poof….fire with nasty stuff in teh smoke.
The reactors are the least of the worries. At least one of those plants is running with shredded plutonium warheads as fuel. Burning enriched plutonium is a bad thing.
Pump problems are due to the mixed electrical system…part of it is 50hz…part is 60hz. The replacement generators that arrived to power the pumps had plugs that didn’t fit.
Backups were washed away or destroyed by the wave.
Screwed sideways…but Hawaii will get it worse than California.
Posts seem to be delayed even more than usual but this site talks about the drop of radiation from 400,000 to 1500 microsieverts at the plant:
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/78704.html
Sorry if information posts twice, I wanted this attached to my earlier comment but it has not posted.
“why don’t they say so?”
Because power at all levels believes that those they rule can’t possibly handle/understand the truth.
Anybody read “Demons and Dogs” about Japan?
There nuclear history is…. i was going to say bad , but i guess it’s similar to the lying everybody else does.
the japanese always seem so techincally savy, but…..
are they complete boobs trying to cover up their mistakes?
In 1995, there was a major leak at Monju, a fast breeder reactor. The authorities (as represented by Donen which managed Japan’s nuclear programme) said it was “minimal.” It wasn’t. Instead it was the largest accident of its type ever. In the world.
Still as Alex Kerr points out in his excellent Dogs and Demons that was nothing that couldn’t be dealt with by “hiding the evidence.” Donen staff edited the film of the accident, taking out the 15 minutes that showed the actual damage and releasing only five minutes of very innocuous material.
However this level of secrecy was nothing next to what happened in 1997. Then drums filled with nuclear waste exploded at the Tokai plant just north of Tokyo. This was – or should have been – a particular worry given that only three years earlier it had been discovered that 70kgs of plutonium (enough for 20 bombs) had been lost in the plant’s pipes at some point.
Yet Donen simply pretended everything was fine. Managers pressurized workers to say the fire was under control when it was not and mis-stated the amount of material leaked by a factor of 20. But that’s not all. Incredibly, says Kerr, “on the day of the explosion, 64 people including science and engineering students and foreign trainees toured the complex… and no one ever informed them of the accident.”
The list of the madness is almost endless. There was the later accident at the Tokai plant which degenerated into uncontrolled fission (something it took the authorities seven hours to figure out as they couldn’t find a neutron measurer) and revealed that for years workers had been disposing of nuclear materials with buckets (rather than dissolution cylinders).
Then there were the 2,000 drums of radioactive waste stored in drums in pits filled with rainwater, and most surreal of all perhaps, a PR video produced by Donen to show that plutonium is not as dangerous as the activists say. Kerr quotes the storyline: “A small character named Pu… gives his friend a glass of plutonium water and says it is safe to drink. His friend, duly impressed, drinks no less than six cups of the substance before declaring ‘I feel refreshed!’”
Many secrets on (included 11 leaks of tritium in two and a half years) Donen was sort of shut down. I say sort of because it actually just carried on as before. Same staff and same ethos. Just with a different name – Genden.
For more on all this I strongly suggest reading Kerr’s book (it was written in 2001 but remains one of the best books I have ever read on Japan). But for now we should just note that it isn’t particularly reassuring. That’s particularly the case given that officials now say that current levels of radiation are “hazardous to human health.” When even the Japanese government is telling people “Please do not go outside. Please stay indoors. Please close windows and make your homes airtight,” it seems reasonable to worry.
I think that the unseen crimes of Corporations ,for the sake of
avoidance of liability or increased profit margin, is rampant today
and poses a public threat on many levels . From the car break cover
ups to financial crimes of mis-rating of securities ,to toxic drywall
and dog-food ,and God knows what else, Corporations aren’t a friend
of the consumer . Human decency is going going .
With CEO’s salaries off the chart and the pump and dump rah rah of Wall Street ,the consumer isn’t getting value for the dollar and regulation and check and balances seems to be absent . Fines are min. and a profit motive risk is taken in screwing the public ,as was seen in the Financial sector with the RE housing Ponzi scheme .
Behind this nuclear meltdown drama no doubt cost cutting measures will be discovered .
When Government and regulations are at the service of Big Business, instead of a check and balance that acknowledges
that power corrupts and entities don’t perform with the public welfare in mind ,the problems are increasing .
It has become fashionable to say that profit margins come before all public good and consumer protections . Talk about Corporations
serving to bring humanity back to the Jungle ,and these are the Entities that are in bed with Government and are calling the shots .Is it any wonder that rather than really address the Health Care
Monopoly our Government made it possible for them to fleece us more .
The Rein of the Corporations ,who are considered a person by
our Highest Court in the Land .
It’s been rampant since the beginning of recorded history.
Obama housing aide to be mortgage banking lobbyist
By Corbett B. Daly
WASHINGTON
Tue Mar 15, 2011 6:58pm EDT
Federal Housing Administration Commissioner David Stevens will take the helm at the Mortgage Bankers Association after he steps down next month, the MBA said on Tuesday.
The trade group said Stevens, who announced last week that he would leave his post sometime next month, would become its president and chief executive officer in early May. It said he would leave government on March 31.
The Mortgage Bankers Association represents more than 2,400 firms in the nation’s real estate finance industry, including Bank of America (BAC.N), JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N), Citigroup (C.N) and Wells Fargo (WFC.N).
Stevens, who took office in July 2009, has been a key player in ongoing negotiations for a comprehensive settlement between U.S. authorities and banks over allegations mortgage servicing firms improperly handled foreclosure paperwork.
An administration official said Stevens signed a pledge when he took office not to lobby any official for the remainder of the Obama administration and not to speak on official matters for two years with anyone from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which houses the FHA, if he left government.
“He must - and will — abide by this agreement,” the official said, adding that Stevens also agreed not to have any contact with his new colleagues at the mortgage group while still in government.
Critics said Stevens would still have access to key officials throughout the government, including key players at the White House and the Treasury Department, even if he is not personally involved in lobbying them.
His knowledge of both the issues and the players will help the Mortgage Bankers Association navigate critical policy changes taking place in Washington.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-usa-housing-obama-lobbyist-idUSTRE72E9FU20110315 - -
Why not propose a moratorium on all lobbying on the behalf of lenders/banks? Those guys screwed up so badly that there is no credibility whatsoever in any request by those industries. Its like a little kid who wanted a BB gun then went and shot up all the windows in the neighborhood. Who cares what the kid wants after that? Put him in “time-out” for a long while.
May we please include the NAR in that moratorium?
Unfortunately, that kid is good for a lot of money.
Money is fungible:
A man wants to contribute to a homeless shelter. There is a rumor that shelter employees tend to pilfer and embezzle direct monetary donations, so the man chooses to buy “stuff” for the shelter. Since he’s not sure what “stuff” the shelter needs, he offers to pay the electric bill at the shelter. Staff now can’t take the money for themselves, so they spend it on food and blankets for the homeless.
A candidate is campaigning for re-election to Congress, and solicits donations from supporters. By law, a big secret company can’t contribute to the campaign directly, but the company offers to buy television time to support the candidate. The manager is very happy this; TV airtime was his largest expense, and now he can spend the money on candidate travel.
Money is fungible.
“Why not propose a moratorium on all lobbying on the behalf of lenders/banks?”
Because it is unconstitutional.
That’s filthy dirty, total conflict of interest. Nothing new, but still wrong. It’s just another example of how the Obama administration is as owned by the financial sector as the GWB and Clinton administrations.
It’s also an example of why federal salaries need to be competitive, and why there needs to be a rigid wall between certain types of public sector and private sector employment. Any time there’s any type of regulatory function involved, the period of separation should be so long as to render contacts in previous employment meaningless.
If this was “W” we would have pages of crap about
how evil he is…. But zero for oblama… Why?
Oh ya he is cleaning up the mess… 4 years and out..
Next!
Instead we get hundreds of pages about where Obama was born. The American MSM mostly provides information by accident, and usually out of context.
His knowledge of both the issues and the players will help the Mortgage Bankers Association navigate critical policy changes taking place in Washington.
How helpful would he actually be…if…the #1 “policy change” was that Gov’t & Corpoorate Officers had to be “Ethical & Professional”
Run Hwy50,…RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you love that, then you’re going to love this:
Former FCC Chairman to Be Top Cable Lobbyist
online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704662604576202482069001232.html
Japan says may seek direct U.S. military help to cool reactors
TOKYO, March 16 (Reuters) - Japan may seek direct U.S. military help to end a crisis at a quake-damaged nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan, the chief government spokesman said on Wednesday.
Cool, we’re gonna smart-bomb it.
put it on the no fly list
Or chastize them with a No-Fly zone. But only if we can get everybod else to agree. And a letter from the security council.
FINALLY. Those plants needs two things badly: Water and power, especially power. Something the military is very good at.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if the US supplied power to the nuclear plants using batteries charged from a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier?
Apparantly they’ve already shipped generators to the plants. But the electrical connections that they’d need to make are in water-filled basements.
They have generators but they can’t plug them in???
Did a bit of googling: “The reactor core and associated coolant, control, and protection systems, including station batteries and any other necessary support systems, must provide sufficient capacity and capability to ensure that
the core is cooled and appropriate containment integrity is maintained in the event of a station blackout for the specified duration. The capability for coping with a station blackout of specified duration shall be determined by an appropriate coping analysis.” — 10 CFR 50.63.
The Federal government has regulations for a reason.
Apparantly the “specified duration” for battery power in the US is 4 hours, as opposed to the 8 hours the Japanses plant was designed for.
The carrier Lexington (CV-2) used it’s turbo-electric engine plant to supply power to Tacoma for 30 days or thereabouts, back in 1929-30.
No reason you can’t do the same with a nuke powered surface ship or submarine. Unless it is docked inshore, and you are worried about more tsunamis.
OTOH, if you played your card right, you could use a tsunami to get the ship/sub a lot closer to the on-shore reactors.
Surf’s up……..
Nevada’s boom ends in record number of empty homes
By CRISTINA SILVA, Associated Press Cristina Silva, Associated Press – Tue Mar 15, 12:29 pm ET
LAS VEGAS – The promise of palm tree groves and low-priced real estate lured Alan and Katherine Ackerly across the Rocky Mountains from Denver to Nevada in 2004, where thousands of new houses beckoned brightly as any neon sign.
They came to buy their retirement home. But the real estate bust took its toll, with a flood of short sales and foreclosures in the market, and last month the Ackerly’s dream home was foreclosed on, too.
“I pretty much gave it back to them,” said Alan Ackerly, a 57-year-old electrician who stopped paying his mortgage because he owed more than the house was worth.
The Ackerly’s home is now among a swelling number of abandoned houses in Nevada. There were 167,564 empty houses in the state last year, according to newly released U.S. Census data, more than double the number in 2000. The number of vacant homes represents about one out of every seven houses across Nevada.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110315/ap_on_re_us/us_nevada_housing - -
Obviously, he came to borrow, not to buy.
UBS Is Being Investigated Over Possible Libor Manipulation
By JACK EWING
March 15, 2011, 11:09 am
UBS said Tuesday that United States and Japanese regulators were investigating whether the Swiss bank had tried to manipulate a benchmark used to set interest rates around the world.
The bank, based in Zurich, said it had been subpoenaed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Justice Department in connection with an investigation into whether the bank had tried improperly to influence the London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor.
The news of the investigation was buried in UBS’s 430-page annual report, on Tuesday, the same day that Deutsche Bank issued its yearly report to shareholders.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/ubs-says-it-is-being-investigated-over-possible-manipulation-of-the-libor/ -
Reported yesterday and what do they mean “might have tried?”
note to Ahansen
you took a slider down upper dry creek, at your age? what were you thinking? skiing around with an ice axe or spikes on your gloves or ski poles would make you a menace, try this instead.
when you are exposed, take off one ski pole strap ( i use left ) and replace it with a simple strap around your wrist and pole that will keep you from loosing the pole but allow you to slide your hand town the the basket above the tip. if on your back use an elbow to get on your stomach then with both hands on the pole above the basket, lay on it and dig it in to self arrest. practice this as well.
my SIL, who is a server at Skadi now, robin, blonde, 56, lean, in case you remember her from friday night, in 1980 she slid down rock garden, on the way to dave’s run and hit her head on a boulder. her brains were exposed and she now has a metal plate in her head.
at mammoth self arrest is no joke.
cya
Great tip! Thanks.
Demo bindings not cranked down hard enough. (I guess they didn’t believe me when I told them I was aggressive.) Took an ice berm hard at 90 degrees near the top, pre-released, and bit the pickle big time. Lost both poles, both gloves, my goggles, a boot and one ski on that one– and simply could not overcome inertial spin on all that ice. (Why they invented anti-glisse fabrics –as I was so abruptly reminded.)
But, oh, CT, it was spectacular! It took three kindly bystanders to gather up my debris. I think everyone was surprised when I popped back up laffing and cursing like a maniac– and all without a scratch.
This time….
My respects to the lovely Robin. If you’re gonna work dinners in that town you almost NEED a metal plate in your head.
Cheers!
PS.
At my age, indeed.
Pshawww on your presumptions, you whipper-snapper. Meet me up top and I’ll leave Atomic-tracks all down your back. In fact, the two equally “elderly” lady friends I met at dinner and I decided to streak Dave’s next year.
For a Good Cause, of course.
i would rather have a back rub then have you ski on my back
But, oh, CT, it was spectacular! It took three kindly bystanders to gather up my debris. I think everyone was surprised when I popped back up laffing and cursing like a maniac– and all without a scratch.
Woo-hoo for ahansen! You go, girl!
But be safe out there — please? Pretty please? With a cherry on top and extra ice cream on the side?
we used to have lunch on hair jump which is good viewing for skiiers doing sliders down cornice bowl.
we often thought we needed cards to hold up to rank the sliders on a 1-10 scale.
i’ve seen spectacular, i’m too practiced at self arrest to claim a spectacular slider myself. i’m happy that you were able to jump up and curse like a sailor.
too bad your so liberal, otherwise i’m sure i would like you a lot.
btw steve searles (the bear whisperer) is an old friend of mine. have you met him? i knew him when he was more of a bear hunter then a bear whisperer.
haven’t seen one in months, haven’t’ had one in the house in years :d
i just read my last comment,
my best friend is a liberal (we argue a lot)
my best friend is a liberal (we argue a lot)
Right now, there’s a song in heavy rotation on KXCI called “Another One Like You.” Or something like that.
It starts out as an argument between a liberal gal and a conservative guy. There’s all sorts of name calling that only gets funnier as the song goes along.
By the end of the song, they’re madly in love with each other.
Palmetto,
It might be possible that I owe you an apology from yesterday.
I am sorry I called you Shirley and I didn’t mean to suggest that the earthquake/tsunami damages aren’t serious.
Lip
Surely you didn’t mean to call her Shirley.
I’ve got a pretty thick skin, but what really got me was that you didn’t paint me pink before you called me Shirley.
My SIL is shown working diligently in the bowels of the Treasury in this video. He’s the one nearest the reporter with only the top of his head showing for most of the first segment.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/42092643
dude,
Your sister-in-law is a he? Far out.
Who cares about the trans-gender nature of his SIL. The real question is can he/she sabotage the printing press?
lol…i caught that too.
SIL = Son in law
In this case SIL stands for son-in-law, but I’ll let him know you think he has trans gender possiblities.
Too funny! I was mistakenly assuming your post had early-morning issues, not son-in-law issues.
As evidenced by the quality of internship he scored, I have few if any SIL issues. Once he gets to Wall street and is infected with the evil banker virus, who knows?
As evidenced by the quality of internship he scored,
FalseRegulated Wall St. greed-generation machine = Intact
Unaudited FED Inc. Corpoorate Charter gang enabler = Intact
Surging “TotalAmericaNation” value = Intact
x2 “long-term” secure incomes required for family mortgages = Intact
Long-Term “secure” low-paying no-health-insurance American Jobs, jobs, jobs = Intact & Increasing
Mules & water & guns needed by “new pioneers” to cross over middle America’s economic “Death Valley” = Intact & Increasing
I still must tell you Hwy that I think the consumerist smart phone/$20 movie every weekend/new car every 2 years/etc. lifestyle is more to blame for this than any other single cause.
the consumerist smart phone/$20 movie every weekend/new car every 2 years/etc. lifestyle is more to blame for this than any other single cause.
I hear ya dude, but I know good educated folks who do/have none of that “crap” and still need x2 incomes for a modest mortgage. What happened there? :-/
They probably decided they would never live west (or east, or north, or south) of a specific predetermined imaginary line on a map.
As we approach the red-hot spring sales season, I note that the news so far this year has been rife with stories about revolution, civil war, budget woes, a collapsed US housing market, catastrophic natural disaster, and nuclear meltdown.
Which of these fear factors most puts you into the mood to buy a home?
Give us duct tape for our UHS mouth, and a fair deal (based on the froth seeping out), and it puts us in a great mood. Now, if the right house, at a fair price, would just materialize.
“Which of these fear factors most puts you into the mood to buy a home?”
It doesn’t seem to be dissuading the prize hires of my loser boss who are in a rush to buy a house when they get here, even with the possibility of furloughs. The propaganda and programming runs deep.
Yeah, most people I know transferring or job hopping out of this area, and there have been quite a few, already have their new home on the other end, even before putting this one up for sale.
In several cases where we seriously considered a home, the retired/retiring owner already had their homes in the other state and were 1/2 moved out of this local home. I know the realtors were handling snow removal, yard upkeep and general maintenance while the house was being shown and until closing. Handled like an REO except it wasn’t. It’s amazing how many times taxes were behind though while they just went out and took on another household elsewhere.
You forgot higher food and fuel prices. For the average potential housebuyer those carry a lot of weight in the decision making process, even if they are of minimal concern to central bankers and members of the financial press.
Stock market crash
I wonder if this will slow down high end sales ?
I dunno. Is the house easily modified into a hardened target? Given how the year is going, I expect zombie hordes by Thanksgiving at the latest.
Uncertainty around the world can hurt local housing market
* By Allison Bruce
* Ventura County Star
* Posted March 15, 2011 at 10:33 a.m.,
updated March 15, 2011 at 2:18 p.m.
Uncertainty isn’t good for a housing market, and these are days marked with a lot of uncertainty.
Home sales remained slow in February for Ventura County and Southern California, with prices relatively flat as many people continued to wait to see what will happen with the economy, jobs and housing prices, a real estate information service reported Tuesday.
Looking forward, the continued fighting in Libya, devastation in Japan, rising oil prices, high prices of gasoline and food, and other headlines might seem distant when it comes to putting a home on the market, but they can have an effect as well, said Kirk Lesh, senior economist with the Center for Economic Research and Forecasting at California Lutheran University.
Higher oil and gas prices affect people at the pump, as well as push up the price of goods as the costs for transportation and petroleum-based products increase, he said. Those all cut into people’s budgets, making house payments harder to manage.
There is additional uncertainty about what the disaster in Japan will mean for the world economy, what unrest in the Middle East and North Africa will mean for oil prices, and how so many other factors, from $4 gasoline to higher airfares, will play into people’s lives, he said.
…
Funny but true: I did not come across this article until after I had pieced together a similar post (the one with a gobzillion or so links to various shades of gloom).
Nice laundry list of disasters, but not one word about the real cause of uncertainty in houing: the steady loss of job security and location security. Buyers do not need to be bombed or nuked. They have been bleeding to death for 30 years.
“the steady loss of job security and location security”
Both factors should mean that prices will have to come down more before people should consider buying. However, given the volatility with employment and wages, prices need to come down even more to justify owning versus renting.
And the fact that half the workforce make less than $500 per week. Those folks won’t be buying a house anytime soon.
It’s an established fact that the last few bubbles over the last 2 decades were created to cover up the loss of real job security and earning power.
S&L. Tech/dot com/Y2K. Residential RE. All were manufactured. I know. I was there.
But I thought people ‘cocooned’ after 9/11, ’snapping up’ houses to do it in, precisely because the world was a scary place.
Yeah, and then that world o’ housing busted up, and we had to come out of our cocoons, and…
…start talking to each other.
The shadow inventory is real. 3 dumps I’m interested in have been empty for over a year with no apparent effort to market them.
“…3 dumps…”
Is there visible evidence to suggest they are properly maintained? If yes, who is maintaining them? If no, do you expect the physical deterioration to eventually be reflected in the price an end-user buyer pays?
Case in point in east Ventura County (So Ca). An REO on a secondary throughfare was originally listed at $450K about 9 months ago. I previewed it, and it needed roughly $40K to make it nice, and bring it up. It got an offer at $378K list, looking for a back up offer.
Another REO close to it listed at $460K and is down to $400K, still unsold. It needs $60K-$70K, and we’re DIY’ers. This home is 200 sq ft bigger. Both with pools.
Speaking with other buyers (I don’t disclose my knowledge base) they are not willing to over pay either. They aren’t emotionally attaching themselves to anything. It has to make sense.
RE still falling in our area
good
Hi cactus.
Yep, prices are falling, and overpriced homes are sitting. Here’s a tale of chutzpah. A short sale came on the market today within our price range. You have until the end of the weekend to submit an offer. Creating urgency or arrogance? WTF?
They already got an NOD, and it doesn’t look like a SS pre-approval. I hope they sink.
“You have until the end of the weekend to submit an offer.”
With the option to repeat the strategy for any number of successive weekends if there is no offer in hand by the end of this weekend…
Two of them were winterized, the other is in disasterous condition. It’s value is in the salvage range. I like it because it has a half acre pond on it for my bass hobby and there’s a new 20×40 structural slab cast at the head of the driveway that I could put a Butler building on to store …… excavating equipment? septic hauling truck? Some type of cash only business.
I see the empty houses when I walk the dog. They’re unoccupied and always dark, and there is no “For Sale” sign in front. Curiously the yards are well maintained.
Some might be owned by specuvestors. There is a house like that 3 doors from us. It is furnished and the owners show up 3-4 times per year.
What the hell are these people doing buying houses and leaving them empty? I’m still somewhat mystified by this “buy and hold” investment strategy. How do you make money this way? I’ve heard the phrase “Well, when the market comes back…” come out of these people several times. Good luck with that, nobody’s gonna want your 1200 sq. ft stucco sh!tbox for 500k ever again.
I don’t know? Good question, Deezy. I was told recently to stay away from a maintained empty I was looking at and researching. A cop owned it, and the neighbor said to stay away. Evidently, he pulled his gun out when hearing there was interest in the home a while ago. (Not my inquiry.) Yikes!
FYI…. the 3 shacks I’m looking at are all owned by SkankOfAmerica.
Evidently, he pulled his gun out when hearing there was interest in the home a while ago.”
And when the state cuts their pensions ? Gun comes out again ?
What the hell are these people doing buying houses and leaving them empty? I’m still somewhat mystified by this “buy and hold” investment strategy. How do you make money this way?
You don’t make money. If anything, an empty house will cost you. Bigtime.
Recall yesterday’s tale about the nearby house that had been empty for almost eight months? A crew ripped out the fascia and drip edges yesterday. I figured that this was prep work for roof replacement today.
Heard hammering about an hour ago, and now, all is quiet. They might have left to buy materials for the roof, but I don’t know.
Methinks that this project is costing the absentee landlord a pretty penny. And it comes right after he was making zero money from rent for, well, almost eight months.
“Good luck with that, nobody’s gonna want your 1200 sq. ft stucco sh!tbox for 500k ever again.”
In our case they paid 275K for a 3000 square foot box (the 2000 sq ft boxes in th hood go for 180K). But I too am puzzled. They’ve owned it for 3-4 years now. Originally I heard that one of their adult children was going to move in,but that never happened.
So 3 to 4 times per year we see them show up in their SUV with Virginia plates, they hang around for about 2 weeks, and then leave. Their yard is always pristine and is kept up by a landscaping firm.
Well ever is a long time, but certainly when you add holding costs…Say it takes 20 years for the nominal price to match bubble peak. Interest costs would mean you were behind where you’d be if you sold now. Especially if you dafaulted through bankruptcy.
“How do you make money this way?”
Perhaps they are assuming that by the time QE3, QE4, QE5, etc etc etc have been executed in endless succession, real estate will be always going up once again.
Economic Report
March 16, 2011, 9:04 a.m. EDT
U.S. housing starts approach record low
Building permits hit new low in February
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — New construction of U.S. housing units plunged in February, erasing a sharp gain in January and coming close to an all-time-low level.
Starts fell 22.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 479,000, the Commerce Department said. This is just 0.4% above the record low of 477,000 units set in April 2009.
The decline in starts in February was the largest since March 1984.
January starts were revised higher to a 618,000 pace from the 596,000 previously reported. The 18.4% jump in January was due to an 87.4% surge in apartment starts, which analysts attributed to special factors.
As a result, economists were expecting a decline in February — but nothing close to the actual drop. Analysts polled by MarketWatch had forecasted starts to fall to a 570,000 rate.
…
Russian Tschernobyl team not allowed to enter Japan.
Russia is trying to help by sending a team of Tschernobyl veteran nuclear experts to the stricken reactor. They are currently waiting in Chabarowsk, Sibiria to get permission to enter Japan.
It increasingly looks like the Japanese are not better at managing crisis than the fools in charge of the Katrina disaster.
I guess they’d rather be dead than owe someone a favor. Seppuku time!
Or the current fool
The clueless idiots associated with the Katrina debacle had a much easier job than Japan does. And they still couldn’t deliver.
The clueless idiots associated with the Katrina debacle had a much easier job than Japan does. And they still couldn’t deliver.
Yeah, ISTR hearing that they did a heckuva job.
I can tell you from my first-hand experiences in MS that “heckuva job” was a very nice way of putting it. Very nice.
Yup. Hurricanes are unusually conscipuous on radar and satellite, often for days and days. Earthquakes - not so much.
Would YOU want the Chernobyl team near your plant?
How much help would experts on graphite moderated reactor be when dealing with a boiling water reactor. What I was wondering was if the Japanese start rotating crew in and out 50 at a time to minimize exposure, how long before they ran out of operators with experience on that particular design? I’m sure some of the crew can be “turn the valve I tell you to” guys, but I’m guessing that you want at least some people on site who actually know what they’re doing. And I’m guessing that there are only a few hundred of them around.
“Tschernobyl”? Is that like the czar/tsar thing?
french claim japan is hiding full scale of disaster…as if they would not hide it if it happened there.
The French are very proud of their Breeder reactor program, Of course all it takes is one oopsie.
breeder = nuclear Ponzi scheme
“breeder = nuclear Ponzi scheme”
Would you mind terribly explaining this comment?
Got a source or link for this? I would be interested in reading…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366670/Japan-earthquake-tsunami-French-claim-scale-nuclear-disaster-hidden.html
Damn.
France is the world leader in commercial nuke. We exported the expertise and equipment to them in the 70’s and 80’s and they perfected it.
“We exported the expertise and equipment to them in the 70’s and 80’s and they perfected it.”
except for the question of where to store the waste for the long haul.
“except for the question of where to store the waste for the long haul.”
Sounds like a bidness opportunity for Corporate America!
I saw INSIDE JOB last night
Best quote: ” We have a wall street Government”
thought the movie was ok but we have been talking about the stuff in the movie for 6 or 7 years.No big surprises.
“No big surprises.”
True dat. But an Academy Award winning movie about what the HBB has covered for seven or so years is somewhat of an epiphany.
It’d be a good movie for members of Congress to watch, if they could tear themselves away from financial sector lobbyists for more than a couple of minutes.
no doubt they might learn something about economics if they watched it.Congress is like puppets on a string for goldman.Larry summers is a piece of work, eh?
“tear themselves away from financial sector lobbyists ” How big a campaign contribution will YOU give them to sit through it?
“How big a campaign contribution will YOU give them to sit through it?”
I think it’d be a lot more fun to show up at a constituent meeting, lock the doors, make them sit through it with their constituents, then let their constituents ask the questions after the movie.
I had to rent it x2 days from RedBox,…watched the deleted scenes!
(Talking about the number of Ranger Rovers seen in Iceland at the frenzy peak)
Best Quote: “Range Rover = Game Over”
Range Rover- Pshaw. Give me a 101 FC.
I always wonder how many of these new Range Rovers have or even could rove an actual range…
On the deleted scenes, go to the third interview with Satyajit Das. Interesting comments and observations on bankers and banking.
Thank you fellow HBBers for providing me with some talking points at the county commission meeting to discuss the upcoming vote on a sales-tax increase referendum. The packed meeting was lively, to say the least, in which many of my supporters were there to inject their two-cents’ worth. The commissioners ended up canceling the referendum. The current commissioners are fully aware that even though I lost the election, I carried the western precincts (aka “the Redneck Precincts”), and that one of the reasons they won was because the college students, who were mobilized to go en masse to the polls and vote for Obama, also voted for them as an afterthought. Looks like we have the county commissioners on the run now. (Maybe that’s why they’re considering a bill to outlaw guns inside the courthouse!)
Socal sales flat in feb:
http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-home-sales-20110316,0,3751684.story
“Many real estate professionals find little reason for optimism as the spring selling season nears.”
Look who the gloomsters are now: Used home sellers and home builders.
It’s because they’re going out of business and filing for BK.
Headlines this morning on money dot cnn dot com
HOUSING’S STILL A MESS
Stocks slide on U.S. housing data
America has 8% more millionaires
Inflation alarm bells ring on producer costs
Gas prices finally notch down
America has 8% more millionaires… who are suffering along with everyone else, (there whine has a different type of pitch, hear it?)
Something about not “feeling” rich, wasn’t it?
Something about not “feeling” rich, wasn’t it?
How can a man feel rich when someone is richer than him? It’s human nature. I mean in America, only Bill Gates is really rich. The rest just want to be like him. Rich always want more.
This is a mental burden all “rich” people must bear and it’s sad for them so we should help them.
We could make a it a law that 200 million is the max on anyone’s personal wealth. That way all these super-rich can honestly tell everyone that they are as rich as they ever possibly could be because it would be true.
That way they will “feel” as rich as they ever could and then they’d sleep better at night.
What’s the Latin word for numerical commaitis?
(Bill Gates, age10, with braces & video camera, but before MS DOS & 98% of American “Bidness’s” forced to pay for it’s…revision #86+ improvments!)
$48,980,327,146.00+
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myxIpsDrVtg
az loses 50% of construction jobs:
http://hosted2.ap.org/azmes/788acee4e023427bbfc19d9278ac9378/article_2011-03-15-construction%20employment/id-31a4747ad2314ccc97eb1e2014952996
Considering the amount of overbuilding, it could be worse.
“The group released the numbers to support its push for measures to increase construction. It wants measures to boost private sector construction, cut regulations and red tape that can delay projects and public infrastructure investment.”
With a glut of property, you don’t need more private sector construction.
If these building groups want more public infrastructure investment, maybe they shouldn’t support tea bag governors that return funds allocated for infrastructure projects.
If these building groups want more public infrastructure investment, maybe they shouldn’t support tea bag governors that return funds allocated for infrastructure projects.
Funny how it never occurred to those guys driving around in their F-350s (with a herd of illegals huddled in the truck’s bed) that they are the real welfare queens.
As long as the banksters get out before the serfs it’s all good…
Foreign bankers flee Tokyo as nuclear crisis deepens
Published: Wednesday, 16 Mar 2011
(Reuters) - Foreign bankers are fleeing Tokyo as Japan’s nuclear crisis worsens, scrambling for commercial and charter flights out of the country and into other major cities in the region.
BNP Paribas , Standard Chartered and Morgan Stanley were among the banks whose staff have left since Friday’s earthquake and tsunami, and now a nuclear plant disaster, according to industry sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
Expatriate staff at most foreign banks in Tokyo make up a small portion of the total, by some estimates less than 10 percent. But many are often in senior positions so their departure can have a significant impact.
And while Japan’s investment banking market is famously tough, it’s an essential place for large banks to be and can produce hefty fees.
“The foreign banker presence on the ground in Tokyo now is very thin and depending on how long it takes them to return there could be lasting implications of that,” said one banker. “Every time there’s a washout of foreigners in Japan they never quite return in the same numbers.”
With bankers joining the growing exodus, private jet operators reported a surge in demand for evacuation flights which sent prices surging as much as a quarter. One jet operator said the cost of flying 14 people to Hong Kong from Tokyo was more than $160,000.
“I got a request yesterday to fly 14 people from Tokyo to Hong Kong, 5 hour 5 minutes trip. They did not care about price,” said Jackie Wu, COO of Hong Kong Jet, a newly established private jet subsidiary of China’s HNA Group.
RADIATION FEARS
Radiation leaking from a crippled nuclear power plant spread panic across the country, emptying out Tokyo’s normally bustling streets. Scores of flights to the city were halted and embassies warned citizens to leave or avoid the region.
Gather ‘em up and use them to cool the fuel rods….
Gee, that’s too bad. The banksters are so cold and bloodless, they could have been put to good use to keep the fuel rods on ice.
the cost of flying 14 people to Hong Kong from Tokyo was more than $160,000.
…but included free drinks and a snack…
With bankers joining the growing exodus, private jet operators reported a surge in demand for evacuation flights which sent prices surging as much as a quart
Warren’s Omaha Beach NE “theme” for 2011:
Planes / Trains & Automobiles!
They shouldn’t let them back in, they will better off.
meh…they’ll be the first ones let back in.
They did not care about price,” said Jackie Wu, COO of Hong Kong Jet”
Bankers don’t care about money after all there is always more available to them via bailouts
Let’s see if the bastards can outrun the yen carry trade collapse!
POMO operations that should make u cringe:
http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/fed-buys-last-weeks-treasury-auction/23880
the law of easy money:
http://www.economist.com/node/14215012?story_id=14215012
The money quote:
“All these rules failed and the scheme collapsed. Law was exiled and died in poverty. The French state’s finances stayed weak, helping trigger the 1789 revolution. The idea of a “fiat” currency was perceived to be the essence of recklessness for another two centuries and the link between money and gold was not fully abandoned until the 1970s, when the Bretton Woods system expired.“
Egypt going back to time and repression to deal with crowds demands?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599205919000
Gotta pay for talent:
Why have CEO salaries skyrocketed over the past 20 years? Much of the blame lies in the practice of compensation benchmarking, say the authors of a study to be published next week in the American Journal of Sociology.
Benchmarking is a standard practice in American corporations. When setting pay, compensation committees use peer groups of executives at comparable firms to establish a “fair” market wage their CEOs. But according to the study, led by sociologist Thomas DiPrete from Columbia University, a few CEOs each year “leapfrog” their peers by getting huge raises that have little to do with the performance of their companies. Other companies then use the oversized pay of leapfroggers in subsequent benchmarks. Over time, this ratchets up pay for everyone through a “contagion effect.”
The researchers say that the finding broadens the debate about what is driving CEO salaries upward. Opinions on the subject have generally fallen into two camps: those who think CEOs are overpaid because of failures in corporate governance at individual firms, and those who think CEOs are paid what they deserve based on the profits they deliver to shareholders and a “superstar” labor market. However, this study shows that ill-gotten raises for a few CEOs can lead to “legitimate” pay increases for others. “[T]he linkages among firms produced by the benchmarking process guarantee that firm-level governance failure becomes a factor in the environment of other firms,” the researchers write.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/1870895/benchmarks_and_leapfrogs_drive_up_ceo_pay/index.html
Thank you for this.
Figures there might be a “legitimate” mechanism for this,…hiring a compensation board of directors with emphatic friends might produce a stress-test of their “Professional & Ethical” behavior.
Exactly the same as the public employees who claim that their salaries are below average for similar public employees. And their unions say bring them up to at least average or above average.
And they all ignore the fact that if you raise anyone’s salary the average goes up, and another raise is needed.
The way to solve that is to drop someone’s salary, and then the average goes down, and no raise are needed. LOL
This is only a symptom (or result depending on how you look at it) of a small cadres of corporate executive officers having wrested control of the companies and procedures from shareholders back in the 1980s while neutralizing the SEC and other watchdog agencies.
The benchmarking is flat out collusion and a PR front to try and legitimize it.
Is it even possible to embarrass a pig?
Another Republican bill would repeal a part of Dodd-Frank that requires public corporations to disclose the median pay of all their employees, the total pay of the chief executive officer and a ratio comparing the two numbers.
This so-called “sticker shock” provision promised to be embarrassing to CEOs whose pay often dwarfs that of lower-level workers by multiples unseen in other nations.
Math gets tough when comparing big numbers to small. They might have to hire a fifth grader or two to comply.
The GOP staff memo said complying with the provision would be too costly and time-consuming for companies.
http://wallstreetandtech.com/articles/229300998
Sorting a list and picking the middle number is hard when the list has an even number of entries. There is no middle number! It’s like…an insolvable problem or something.
Let me guess…the program that could sort the lower numbers has no access to the data that makes up the larger numbers?
With this information it is impossible to deny the GOP/ConservativeCorportists primary purpose is to advance the cause of the wealthy elite at the expense of everyone else.
That’s funny, I would have thought defeating a bill to end tax breaks for offshoring jobs would have been the obvious factor.
My bad.
But it get’s better…
http://www.senate.mo.gov/11info/BTS_Web/Bill.aspx?BillID=4124271&SessionType=R
“Jane Cunningham, a Rethuglican (of course), has sponsored a bill in the Missouri congress that will disillusion you a little further today. Behold, SB 222!
This act modifies the child labor laws. It eliminates the prohibition on employment of children under age fourteen. Restrictions on the number of hours and restrictions on when a child may work during the day are also removed. It also repeals the requirement that a child ages fourteen or fifteen obtain a work certificate or work permit in order to be employed. Children under sixteen will also be allowed to work in any capacity in a motel, resort or hotel where sleeping accommodations are furnished. It also removes the authority of the director of the Division of Labor Standards to inspect employers who employ children and to require them to keep certain records for children they employ. It also repeals the presumption that the presence of a child in a workplace is evidence of employment.”
Children under sixteen will also be allowed to work in any capacity in a motel, resort or hotel where sleeping accommodations are furnished.
That part worries me. Bigtime. Why? Because I have visions of adults, well, chronological adults, taking advantage of the kids.
Is it even possible to embarrass a “TrueAnger™” pig?
Nope, never.
They don’t call them “sociopaths” without a reason.
Never mind this war on the working man, man! There’s a war on Christmas out there that needs to be fought.
The Gays are attacking Christmas! Everybody to the barricades!
Oh dear Martha help us! The gays!!! THE GAYS!!!! Look what they’ve done to our Christmas!!
Don’t forget the flag-burning crisis.
It is becoming increasing clear that the FED is doing all it can to try influence everything from treasuries to the stock market casino.
I think one thing known for sure is that if treasury yields rise substantially it is going to kill the housing recovery.
So if we all of a sudden have a break out in stocks and money flows out of treasuries and yields rise it puts the FED in a strange situation.
Do they buy more treasuries and try and get yields down or do they rely on the wealth n the stock market to help housing?
One thing we know for sure, treasuries are being sold to primary dealers and then sold to the FED.Instead of the FED buying directly from the Treasury the primary dealers at NYFED are used as a middleman costing taxpayers millions.
I am starting to think this will be QE until we get real estate prices going up again.
A Real Estate recovery requires prices to go down, not up.
If the Fed looses the war to keep interest rates low, a lot of things will fall down.
not in a lot of peoples minds.Real estate prices need to turn around and go up for any recovery to gain a foothold.
Like how for an addict NOT taking the next hit seems like a horrible solution to their problems.
How else can low paid Americans have a home unless they can serially refinance into negam mortgages (while pulling a little equity out each time)?
Welcome to Bizarroworld
yep the american economy runs on home equity and the stock market.
Today
Freddie Mac’s Former Chief May Face S.E.C. Action
The former chief executive of Freddie Mac may face a civil action as the government ramps up an investigation of disclosure practices at the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, people briefed on the investigation said.
The executive, Richard F. Syron, a former president of the American Stock Exchange and now an adjunct professor and trustee at Boston College, has received a so-called Wells notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission, an indication the agency is considering an enforcement action against him
2004
In an interview, Freddie Mac’s former chief risk officer, David A. Andrukonis, recalled telling Mr. Syron in mid-2004 that the company was buying bad loans that “would likely pose an enormous financial and reputational risk to the company and the country.”
Mr. Syron received a memo stating that the firm’s underwriting standards were becoming shoddier and that the company was becoming exposed to losses, according to Mr. Andrukonis and two others familiar with the document.
But as they sat in a conference room, Mr. Syron refused to consider possibilities for reducing Freddie Mac’s risks, said Mr. Andrukonis, who left in 2005 to become a teacher.
“He said we couldn’t afford to say no to anyone,” Mr. Andrukonis said. Over the next three years, Freddie Mac continued buying riskier loans.
Mr. Syron contends his options were limited.
“If I had better foresight, maybe I could have improved things a little bit,” he said. “But frankly, if I had perfect foresight, I would never have taken this job in the first place.”
Mr. Andrukonis was not the only cautionary voice at Freddie Mac at the time. According to many executives, Mr. Syron was also warned that the firm needed to expand its capital cushion, but instead that safety net shrank. Mr. Syron was told to slow the firm’s mortgage purchases. Instead, they accelerated.
Those and other choices initially paid off for Mr. Syron, who has collected more than $38 million in compensation since 2003.
oh poor you…
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/business/05freddie.html?_r=1&hp
Nuclear Information Gap Spreads Doubt, Fear
by Liz Halloran
Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan has reportedly demanded that executives from Tokyo Electric Power Co. answer the question: “What the hell is going on?”
Enlarge STR/AFP/Getty Images
March 16, 2011
The uncertainty that has gripped Japan in the days since its nuclear crisis began is erupting into public and official anger over the lack of reliable safety information.
…
And what if those executives come back with, “We’re all f@cked. That’s what the hell is going on…”?
Get out of Tokyo now! Foreign Office tells all Britons to evacuate Japanese capital as French say stricken reactors are out of control.
~ UK Mail
Hwy can only wonder what the headlines are goin’ be in Pakistan…one day, sooner than anyone wants to admit.
I find it quite interesting the media is blaming the stock sell off on japan.Could it simply be that the marker is way overbought because the FED is the only one pumping money into it and the thought of QE ending has people sh@ttting themselves?
If the Japs shove some hundreds of billions of US Treasuries onto the market to raise pin money, will the FED loose control over interest rates for a time? Could be interesting.
They might have to do QE 18? zimbabwe ben studied the depression.
When it comes to retreating, the French are the masters!
Hey Steve j,… Hwy50’s “team spirit” Anecdotal Evidence:
BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
Fear and loathing of David Stern:
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports Mar 15th
“…And once Sterling fires those coaches and scouts, he often stops paying the balance of their contracts. He dares them to sue. Some can, and do. Some can’t afford the legal fight and end up settling for pennies on the dollar.
Now, Kim Hughes tells the story to the Racine (Wis.) Journal-Times about how Sterling didn’t pay for his prostate cancer surgery as a Clippers assistant coach several years ago. Clippers players contributed much of the $70,000 needed to take care of the costs that weren’t covered by Hughes’ medical insurance.
Several Clippers paid the bill for cancer surgery on an assistant coach, but the NBA cares. Sure it does – about Stern’s power, about his ego. The NBA has taken over USA Basketball and the Naismith Hall of Fame. It’s creating an infrastructure to control and make money off amateur and summer basketball through iHoops. The NBA has mobilized resources and staff to indoctrinate basketball cultures in the Far East, Europe and beyond.”
The NBA Cares, …they care, about you, …the fan, they care!
Hwy cues George Carlin you tube video…
Basketball sucks. Its a sport for freaks.
The stories of past NFL players-turned-walking (or not walking) wounded are heartbreaking and endless. The great Earl Campbell can barely stand up. Neither can the great Wilber Marshall. Or the great Dave Pear. Or the great Wally Chambers. John Mackey, the legendary Colts tight end, suffers from frontotemporal dementia and lives in full-time assisted living. Ralph Wenzel, an NFL guard from 1966-73, also suffers from dementia and can no longer dress, bathe or feed himself. Ted Johnson, a former Patriots linebacker and only 38 years old, shows early signs of Alzheimer’s disease.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/01/25/pearlman.football.concussions/index.html?iref=allsearch
“It’s the sport of kings….better than diamond rings…Football (football)”
My “TrueCost™” repubican millionaire brother would lay odds that the “League-of-ProSports-makes-profits-Inc.” sends them a hand written Christmas card every year.
Building permits fall to all-time low
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The housing market just can’t seem to catch a break.
The number of permits issued in February for future housing construction fell to a new all-time low, according to a government report released Wednesday.
Building permits fell to an annual rate of 517,000 permits last month, down 8.2% from a revised 563,000 in January, the Commerce Department said.
That was the lowest level seen since the government started tracking the figures in 1959, and much worse than economists had expected.
Uncertainty about the job market and rising gas and food prices are still keeping potential home buyers on the sidelines, even as mortgage rates and home prices are at attractive lows.
“It’s consumer nervousness,” said David Crowe, chief economist with the National Association of Home Builders. “It’s a fragile recovery to begin with, and then you throw in high energy costs, new uncertainties about Congress, and it’s just enough to spill over the glass again.”
“It’s consumer nervousness,” said David Crowe, chief economist with the National Association of Home Builders. “It’s a fragile recovery to begin with, and then you throw in high energy costs, new uncertainties about Congress, and it’s just enough to spill over the glass again.”
Maybe, just maybe, it’s a lack of good paying jobs. I’m sure the National Association of Home Builders loves cheap, illegal labor, but Globalization cuts both ways.
maybe just maybe its a glut of existing homes on the market?
True, they overbuilt. But if people had decent jobs they might actually buy those houses.
I am seeing more people still trying to do short sales and get rid of what they have.
Protester shot point blank in the head as five are killed in violent clashes in Bahrain. ~ UK Mail
Demonstrators said two protesters were dead and officials said a soldier had been killed in the troubles that focused on Pearl Square. Tear gas filled the streets and black smoke rose from the square as tents belonging to protesters were set on fire.
Nelson questions Scott’s delay in starting foreclosure prevention program
by Kim Miller
Palm Beach Post
Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, is trying to find out why a $1.05 billion foreclosure prevention program has yet to open statewide.
The federal program, called Hardest Hit, gave its first pot of money to Florida more than a year ago and was supposed to be available for all homeowners to apply for last month.
Lee County has had a pilot program going since the fall.
But Gov. Rick Scott has delayed the plan for unknown reasons, with his spokesman saying last week that “Governor Scott’s staff continue to review the program with staff from the Florida Housing Finance Corporation. No final decision has been made regarding the future of this program.”
Florida is the only state of the original five to receive funding that has not implemented a full program.
“Every day the state waits, people are losing their homes,” Nelson said today.
Nelson wrote a letter to Scott Feb. 18 asking for an update on the status of the program. He wrote another letter today to Len Tylka, chairman of the Florida Housing Finance Corporation, which is overseeing the program.
The board is scheduled to meet Friday and Nelson is asking it discuss the delay.
“My staff had informed me the goal was to roll the program out statewide by the end of February,” Nelson’s letter says. “But that deadline has come and gone. Meantime, my office is hearing from constituents who want to apply to save their homes. And as you know, these funds don’t require money from the state.”
The White House Blog
President Obama’s 2011 NCAA Brackets
Posted by Jesse Lee on March 16, 2011
As he does every year, the President filled out his brackets predicting the winners of the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments, but discussing it with Doris Burke of ESPN, he began with a call to stand with the people of Japan:
“One of the things I wanted to do on the show was, as people are filling out their brackets — this is obviously a national pastime; we all have a great time, it’s a great diversion. But I know a lot of people are thinking how can they help the Japanese people during this time of need. If you go to usaid.gov — usaid.gov — that will list all the nonprofits, the charities that are helping out there. It would be wonderful for people to maybe offer a little help to the Japanese people at this time — as they’re filling out their brackets. It’s not going to take a lot of time. That’s usaid.gov. It could be really helpful”.
I recommend International Relief Teams, which is the outfit that I went to MS with for the post-Katrina reconstruction.
I can speak from personal experience when I say that, in an IRT project, every “t” must be crossed and every “i” must be dotted just so. Nothing but the best effort will do, even if you’re a volunteer.
what is the payout ratio?
Cooling ponds are now receiving water: http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/16_45.html
Something does not add up. How hard to send a guy in a protective suit with a hose and put it in the pool? They are not telling us everything.
Fraud Settlement Gift to Big Banks?
http://www.propublica.org/thetrade/item/in-proposed-mortgage-fraud-settlement-a-gift-to-big-banks/
Nope. No corporate welfare there!
Damn janitors!
“TrueAnger™” + “TruePurity™” are busy bashing teachers-as-targets, no distractions please, what’s the harm if they NEVER get around to throwing their anger at it…non-wasted lip-service?
The proposal “seems astonishingly generous to the second-lien holders,” said Arthur Wilmarth, a law professor at George Washington University. “And who are those? Of course, they are the big mortgage servicers.”
And who owns the big mortgage servicers? The biggest banks.
Throughout the financial crisis, we have heard plenty of intoning about the sanctity of contracts.
But this suggests that the banks, with the authorities’ tacit approval, think contracts are for thee and not for me.
Now that they scared people enough to sell their stocks, I guess they can start telling the truth: http://www.cnbc.com/id/42107252
This market has been ripe for a selloff for a long time.I imagine goldman already went short as they tell you to buy netflix.
Different and conflicting news.
– 26 mins ago AP
WASHINGTON – The chief of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday that all the water is gone from one of the spent fuel pools at Japan’s most troubled nuclear plant, but Japanese officials denied it….
….Jaczko did not say Wednesday how the information was obtained, but the NRC and U.S. Department of Energy both have experts on site at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex of six reactors. He said the spent fuel pool of the complex’s Unit 4 reactor has lost water.
Jaczko said officials believe radiation levels are extremely high, and that could affect workers’ ability to stop temperatures from escalating.
Japan’s nuclear safety agency and Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the complex, deny water is gone from the pool. Utility spokesman Hajime Motojuku said the “condition is stable” at Unit 4.
“TrueAnger™” + “TruePurity™” = “TruePriortizethesuffering™”, “Bidness” tax breaks first,…mental health services,… near to last.
Michigan bill would impose “financial martial law”:
Posted by Stephanie Condon
Repubican Gov. Rick Snyder has also proposed eliminating $1.7 billion in tax breaks for individuals while cutting $1.8 billion in taxes for businesses to spur job growth. Much of the $1.7 billion in new tax revenue would be “coming from retirees, senior citizens and the working poor,” the Free Press wrote in an editorial.
“It takes every decision in a city or school district and puts it in the hands of the manager, from when the streets get plowed to who plows them and how much they are paid,” said Mark Gaffney, president of the Michigan State AFL-CIO. “This is a takeover by the right wing and it’s an assault on democracy like I’ve never seen.”
Under the legislation, the Michigan Messenger reports, the governor could declare a “financial emergency” in towns or school districts. He could then appoint a manager to fire local elected officials, break contracts, seize and sell assets, eliminate services - and even eliminate whole cities or school districts without any public input.
“It takes every decision in a city or school district and puts it in the hands of the manager, from when the streets get plowed to who plows them and how much they are paid,” said Mark Gaffney, president of the Michigan State AFL-CIO. “This is a takeover by the right wing and it’s an assault on democracy like I’ve never seen.”
I know from having spent several young adult years in MI that such things will not go over well.
Michiganders are generally upbeat and pleasant people. Yes, that’s true. Despite all the things that have gone wrong in that state, most of them are delightful to be around.
But I’m warning you: Do not annoy Michiganders. Just don’t. They’ll turn on you like, well, a pissed-off Wolverine. Or an angry Spartan.
Those damn union janitors again!
There isn’t anything offensive on the face of this, and it’s not aimed at brutalizing retarded kids as you imply.
When a person goes bankrupt, they are at the mercy of the judge.
When a town or county goes bankrupt, they are at the mercy of the state. Town and county governments only exist at the pleasure of the state government, at least around here.
You don’t get freedom (democracy) without responsibility.
“TruePriortizethesuffering™”
while cutting $1.8 billion in taxes for businesses
You don’t get freedom
(democracy)from free-range mental patients without social responsibility for “others”…either.What’s your point Hwy? Is it really that cutting business taxes is intended to cast our disabled adrift to live down by the river? Do you have a point that can be expressed without the emotional hotbuttons?
“TrueAnger™” + “TruePurity™” = “TruePriortizethesuffering™”, “Bidness” tax breaks first,…mental health services,… near to last.
Hwy50’s code/aporhism for: “Fiscal Conservatives” & “Compassionate Conservatives” & Tea Party’s Reduce-the-Defict-NOW! Anger is misplaced as well as are their list of societal “Priorties”…H’smhO
(Hwy’smosthumbleOpinion)
Is there an emotional hotbutton for: “What would Jesus do?” …could you please post it.
oops,…Aphorism :-/
In modern usage an aphorism is generally understood to be a concise statement containing a subjective truth.
It seemed like you were making fun of my daughter, and I was ready to give you a poke, but you were just TrueAporhic.
No problem here on the central coast with our nuke plants, right? My sister who lives in Grover Beach (just bought in Jan) called and said that the public health department is handing out free KI tablets. And the beat goes on, and the beat goes on…..
They have always had a program to hand out free tablets.
Nukes, dead zones in the gulf, cows feed antibiotics to stay alive, Monsanto, dust bowl, not enough oil, fresh water shortage, wall st gov… yep, downhill from here. So have a drink and find a pretty girl.
Nukes, dead zones in the gulf, cows feed antibiotics to stay alive, Monsanto, dust bowl, not enough oil, fresh water shortage, wall st gov… yep, downhill from here. So have a drink and find a pretty girl.
OK but I’m not going to mention any of that stuff to her.
OK but I’m not going to mention any of that stuff to her.
Ha, the things that are youth give-me’s…
(Hwy spontaneously kisses a girl just before the amusement parachute ride drops…down. (girl:”why’d you do that?”)…”I was thinkin’ we might not make it…all the way…down)
It’s all good,…sometimes it’s even more.
Nuclear Reactor Boy’s Tummy Ache
“This is genius. Watch this…. This was made by some Japanese to help small children to relax and not to worry…”
http://modernmarketingjapan.blogspot.com/2011/03/nuclear-reactor-boys-tummy-ache.html
There is a simple solution to the Japanese nuke mess….
What is the solution?
Send in the union janitors!!! They’ll scare the heat right out of the reactors!!
Send in Joe-the-Plumber, then he’d really have a “legitimate” beeyach for lil’ Opie about how his “Bidness-taxes” are just-gonna-kill him!
Cue vintage Saturday Night Live sketch, circa 1979.
You can’t put too much water in a nuclear reactor.
If destroying infrastructure is so great for the economy, why don’t countries just bomb their own cities to provide economic stimulus? Of course, there would have to first be a mandatory evacuation order and ample time and effort to make sure the cities are vacant before bombing commences.
The Financial Times
Hit to Japan’s economy will be ‘limited’, says Yosano
By David Pilling in Tokyo
Published: March 16 2011 17:35 | Last updated: March 16 2011 18:45
Japan’s growth will barely be affected by the earthquake and tsunami, and the economy may even expand faster than expected, its economy minister believes, as spending on rebuilding shores up output.
…
This does not work well in the US since most of the responsibility to rebuild is placed on private insurers and those without insurance are admonished for not carrying insurance and told to take a hike…
If destroying infrastructure is so great for the economy, why don’t countries just bomb their own cities to provide economic stimulus?
Because “uncontrolled” Health Insurance Premium$ are more humane. :-/
Japan’s growth will barely be affected by the earthquake and tsunami, and the economy may even expand faster than expected, its economy minister believes, as spending on rebuilding shores up output.
See? They and we have all the money in the world. It’s just we don’t get to print it nor allocate it.
But we’re being brainwashed to accept a sweet little thing called austerity. Because we’re “socialists”. Our jobs are secure, we have long, lazy vacations, cradle to grave free healthcare, nursing home care, all that free education and great benefits.
It’s time 95% of us “socialists” bite the bullet because we have it too good and besides, the owners of our media and multi-national corporations say so.
Population of community outside Anchorage surges:
By Melanie Eversley, USA TODAY
“The Matanuska-Susitna Borough, equivalent to a county just north of Anchorage, boomed by 50% to 88,995. The area includes Wasilla, the home of former governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin,..”
“…adding that national retail chains have located in that area in the last decade.”
Sarah “The Rogue/Maverick” Barracuda + Wal-Green’s = “A bridge to somewhere!”
more comedy:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=3000010599&play=1
The radioactivity level is about 1/400 of the level it was about a day ago but the U.S press has the sky falling: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/16/us-japan-quake-level-idUSTRE72F9K720110316
Just for ratings or another agenda?
Looks like all is safe. I don’t understand what the big deal is about. A couple of burning fuel rods or whatever. All standard operating procedure. Maybe you want to give ‘em a hand.
Partial electricity scheduled to be restored within a few hours to the plant, air drops of water possible due to reduced radiation making it safe, and ground operations soon starting to fill spent fuel pools. Yes, panic is called for, sorry to question panic at a time of falling radiation:
http://english.kyodonews.jp/news/2011/03/78798.html
* ASIA NEWS
* MARCH 17, 2011
A Long, Painful Reckoning
…
The number of dead and missing after Japan’s twin earthquake and tsunami stood late Wednesday, officially, at 12,920.
In reality, Japanese widely agree, the toll of last week’s disaster is likely much higher. In Miyagi, a coastal prefecture that bore some of the tsunami’s worst destruction, officials estimate the toll there alone will be in the tens of thousands.
Accounting for the gap between the official and true count are places like Otsuchi, until March 11 a town of about 15,000 people on Japan’s northeastern coast.
Japan won’t declare someone missing unless they have been reported missing. In Otsuchi, where Friday’s tsunami is believed to have swept away entire neighborhoods and families, no one is left in many cases to report names. About 5,000 people were evacuated. Otuchi’s dead number 221, officially. Seven are declared missing. That leaves more than 9,000 uncounted.
The effect is repeated in towns up and down the coast in the prefectures including Miyagi, Iwate and Fukushima. Survivors in Minamisanriku, a town in Miyagi washed nearly clean of its houses, believe about half of its 17,000 residents are gone. Press reports suggest roughly half of the 23,000 people of Rikuzentakata, in Iwate, are unaccounted for. In Onagawa, a seaside town where 106 residents are officially counted dead and 125 officially missing, residents believe about half of the pre-tsunami population of 10,000 will ultimately be counted as lost.
…
Housing starts see biggest drop since 1984
A construction worker works on one of a number of new single family homes in a subdivision outside San Diego as building returns to San Marcos, California March 8, 2010. REUTERS/Mike Blake
WASHINGTON | Wed Mar 16, 2011 9:55am EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Housing starts posted their biggest decline in 27 years in February while building permits dropped to their lowest level on record, suggesting the beleaguered real estate sector has yet to rebound from its deepest slump in modern history.
Groundbreaking on new construction dropped 22.5 percent last month to an annual rate of 479,000 units, according to Commerce Department data released on Wednesday. This was just above a record low set in April 2009 and way below the estimates of economists, who had been looking for a smaller drop to 570,000.
January’s figure was revised up to 618,000 units from 596,000. But that did not change the tenor of the report, which confirmed that the sector is failing to recover despite interest rates near record lows.
Building permits, a hint of future construction demand, fell to a record low of 517,000 units from a revised 563,000, and were down by about 20 percent from levels seen in February 2010.
Housing was at the epicenter of the financial crisis of 2007-2009.
One key impediment to the sector’s recovery is a vast backlog of unsold inventory, while a shaky job market has also made consumers reluctant to embark on any major new financial commitments. Making matters worse, a glut of foreclosures, stalled in recent months by revelations of improper loan documentation, is depressing the market.
…
The mere suggestion that outlaw financial activities might be reined in by Warren’s CFPB has banksters foaming at the mouth.
Phantom Rogue
How can the CFPB be raging out of control when it hasn’t done anything yet?
By Timothy Noah
Posted Wednesday, March 16, 2011, at 8:48 PM ET
On March 16 the House Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee held an oversight hearing about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Committee Chair Shelley Moore Capito (R.-W.Va.), called it “one of the most important hearings this subcommittee will hold this Congress.” Its urgency was underscored by a Wall Street Journal editorial that appeared that same morning calling the CFPB “a bureaucratic rogue.” Members of Congress complained that the CFPB was unaccountable to the congressional appropriations process; too heavily influenced by politics; indifferent to the “safety and soundness” (i.e., solvency) of financial institutions; and an all-around bureaucratic nuisance. Sitting in the press section, I began to feel guilty that I’d never before written about this regulatory monster.
Then I remembered: The CFPB hasn’t done anything yet.
…
This ought to yield some Republican campaign contributions from the banking lobby.
House Republicans propose watering down consumer bureau’s top job
Republicans accuse Elizabeth Warren, who is overseeing the launch of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, of overstepping her position. In testimony, Warren defends the bureau and strives to ease their fears.
By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times
March 17, 2011
I thunk the Fed was the “cop on the beat.”
Elizabeth Warren squares off with GOP
Elizabeth Warren testifies on Capitol Hill | AP Photo
Warren defended the young agency, arguing that it could have mitigated the foreclosure crisis. | AP Photo Close
By MEREDITH SHINER | 3/16/11 1:36 PM EDT
Consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren squared off Wednesday against a panel of skeptical Republicans who have fought the consumer protection agency she has been in charge of creating since last summer, when it was mandated by the Wall Street reform law.
Republicans have always considered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which President Barack Obama signed into law last summer, to be Exhibit A on government overreach and have never had much affection for Warren, who was a watchdog for the federal bailout of Wall Street. And the GOP-majority House Financial Services Committee showed that this stance hasn’t softened.
Lawmakers grilled Warren on who would oversee the bureau, whether Congress should have more oversight and if the agency is worthwhile. They also pressed her about her involvement in a pending case in which all 50 state attorneys general are demanding settlements from the nation’s largest banks for faulty foreclosure practices.
But Warren argued that had her new agency existed before the 2009 financial meltdown, “we would not be in the mess we are in today.”
“If there had been a cop on the beat, … if there had been a consumer agency in place, these problems would have been caught early,” she said. The CFPB’s mission, she added, is to be “a cop on the beat that American families can count on.”
…