Bits Bucket for March 22, 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
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Never Trust A Realtor. EVER.
Nor a banker either! Both were in the scam mode selling houses with no down/teaser ajustable rates, negative amor. rates, etc all for fast fees, commissions, with “real estate always goes up and you can refiance anytime it does change direections” All going to hell now!
Agreed Jerry.
Maybe you can direct your venom toward shiny suited mortgage salesmen by donning the name “Mortgage Salesmen Are Criminals”.
I don’t want to read the words “republican” or “democrat” today. Do you think its possible?
Can we substitute the words corporate and individual to accurately characterize the paradigm?
Or more accurately, corporation and serf.
How about “whore” and “prostitute”?
I think you mean pimp and whore.
How about Republicrat, or Democan? Castor and Pollux.
Republicrats maybe? We have the best democracy money can buy.
And which of the two parties consistently works to maintain Big Money’s hold over our political system?
Which one says there should be no limits on political campaign funding, no disclosure of who’s doing the funding, etc?
Ummmm…can you say both. Don’t buy into the blue party’s rhetoric. They want that money too.
They are all forced to go for the money- that’s how the game is currently played.
But the dems have consistently tried to publicly fund elections, limit campaign spending, limit donation sizes, reveal who is doing the donating, etc.
And they are consistently opposed by the repubs.
Neither party is perfect, but that’s a key difference, if ‘the best democracy money can buy’ is the problem.
But the dems have consistently tried to publicly fund elections, limit campaign spending, limit donation sizes, reveal who is doing the donating, etc.
This is true. This is big. This is ignored by those who’s position it weakens.
They’d rather take their money from Soros with no questions asked. Please don’t play the party game with me. The vast majority of Democrats and Republicans are despicable.
“They’d rather take their money from Soros with no questions asked.”
Link? Example?
“The vast majority of Democrats and Republicans are despicable.”
Yeah, that’s what you get when you have a system where big money runs things. The system the republicans consistently defend.
Correct. The conservative mantra has always been empowerment of the corporate elite at the expense of the tax paying wage earner, irrespective of their denial of that mantra.
Two sides of the same corrupt coin… Both take money from the corporations and we get to vote for which ever one we think the least worst choice.
@GH- But who forces that situation by opposing any and all campaign finance reform, sunshine laws, etc?
You can’t screw the pooch, and then say the pooch doesn’t work.
The democrats had majorities in the Senate and Congress along with a Democratic President and yet when it came right down to it they still could not get the votes. In many ways at least the Republicans are at least up front about their loyalties, yet the democrats also take huge campaign contributions from the very same.
Neither party is perfect, but this is hard to morally relativize:
wikipedia
Later in 1988, legislative and legal setbacks on proposals designed to limiting overall campaign spending by candidates is shelved after a Republican filibuster. In addition, a constitutional amendment to override a Supreme Court decision fails to get off the ground. In 1994, Senate Democrats have more bills blocked by Republicans including a bill setting spending limits and authorizing partial public financing of congressional elections. In 1996, bipartisan legislation for voluntary spending limits which rewards those who bare soft money is killed by a Republican filibuster.[2]
In 1997, McCain-Feingold bipartisan bill sought to close soft money and TV advertising expenditures but the legislation was defeated by a Republican filibuster.
Those filibusters kind of destroy the ‘the dems had the majority and the presidency and did nothing’ argument, no?
“Those filibusters kind of destroy the ‘the dems had the majority and the presidency and did nothing’ argument, no?”
No, not at all. Talking about ‘88-’97 doesn’t explain why Dems, if they’re really so all about campaign finance as you all suggest, couldn’t pass any campaign reform or changes during Obamas first years with a Dem House, Senate, and President but at the same time could pass Obamacare. As evidenced by Obamacare, the Dems had the #’s to pass anything they wanted during that time. They chose not to enact any campaign reform b/c they are just as full of sh1t and bought off as the Repubs.
No. While the Dems are no favorite of mine, the Repubs actively work to screw J6P.
Defeated repeal of tax breaks for offshoring jobs.
Are seeking to seriously weaken child labor laws.
Consistently seek to weaken environmental laws.
Are tyring to weaken the new baking regulation board.
Are trying to weaken the new consumer watchdog agency.
This is the CURRENT ACTIVITY of the Repubs.
So if you believe the 2 are the same, you are of course welcome to your, hopelessly uninformed, opinion, but I’ll take the lesser of 2 evils every time.
“Are tyring to weaken the new baking regulation board.”
Is nothing sacred?
(bankers)
Banker man banker man bank me a slice of the pie
I don’t want any ‘New’ agency. In fact, Get rid of the Dept of Energy ($40 billion spent but no new energy!) Also Dept of Education and HUD, trillions flushed down the toilet. There, I feel better.
And it’s a comforting fact that you have no say it at all.
Ok then think of HEMP and ways to legalize it……kool
The paper and oil industry will never let that happen. The paint industry, maybe…
Probably not, liz. It appears that economics, politics, and even philosophies of living have polarized into two groups with almost no middle ground at all.
I guess we could have more obesity talk:
http://www.publichealthadvocacy.org/bubblingover.html
——
“OVERVIEW .. This landmark study provides important scientific evidence of the direct contribution of sugar-sweetened beverages to California’s $41 billion obesity epidemic.
…Data came from the 2005 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), which interviewed more than 43,000 adults and 4,000 adolescents from every county in the state….
..FINDINGS. Regardless of income or ethnicity, adults who drink one or more sodas or other sugar-sweetened beverages every day are 27 percent more likely to be overweight or obese.”
——
The article has a separate page of policy recommendations for soda which look remarkably like what they did for cigarettes: educate the public, get it out of the school vending machines, and tax the heck out of it.
Yes, I read yesterday’s discussion about obesity. It reminded me of housing: so many victim stories, so few actual victims. There are people who are obese because of medical problems, and those who are obese because they are eating badly. The trick is separating the two.
Even this is enough to fire up the political engine. You have the “government doesn’t have the right to dictate how I live” crowd,* and you have the “if government is paying for your health care then yes they do have some say” crowd. And then you have the junk food lobby** against those taxes.
However, there is one thing coming out: we are at least getting the idea that it’s carbs and sugars that make us fat, not fat. (it’s not that simple, but we’re on the right track.)
——-
*I’ve already seen this commercial from the junk food lobby:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQMJJAaY-3g
An overweight mom in a grocery store decries government regulating what we eat. She’s got healthy stuff in the cart, but she says ONLY “soft drinks, juice drinks, sports drinks, even flavored waters!” The website is for “nofoodtaxes dot com.”
“Food” taxes? Nobody is taxing your pineapple, lady! And I wouldn’t call a flavored water “food.”
** Thank good the corn lobby is busy with ethanol, or they would be involved too.
You forget the newly invented corn sugar
Ack!
It’s not just the sodas, it’s what goes with the sodas.
A big fat hamburger plus fries plus a soda is known as a “value meal” in the land of fast food - a staple in many areas.
It would make sense for fat people to drink sodas every day if sodas are what automatically go with the rest of the two-thousand-or-so calories.
Being a farmer market rat, I’m always pretty stunned when I I am reminded at just how much crap we eat in America. The day before New Year’s I was in the grocery store and saw the soda aisle blocked full with of pallets of Coke and Pepsi. I asked the guy stocking: “Do people really drink all this stuff?” He answered, Oh yes, this is the second time we’ve been here today.
I also read that when McDonald’s introduced their apple and walnut salad, McDonald’s instantly became the largest single buyer of apples in America. And that’s the apple salad. I don’t even want to know how many cows they go through in a year.
Watch the YouTube video on how they make chicken mcnuggets. I can’t believe they are allowed to sell them.
link?
In a September 21, 2009 column titled “The Moral of the Story,” New York Times Ethicist Randy Cohen wrote an article titled, “An Anti-Tax Argument that’s Hard to Swallow.” He wrote,
Such errors of reasoning might be seen as intellectual, not moral, failings, but it is difficult to extend that benefit of the doubt to Americans Against Food Taxes, which describes itself as “a coalition of concerned citizens —- responsible individuals, financially strapped families, small and large businesses in communities across the country.” As was reported in The Times, A.A.F.T. looks like a veiled industry organization; calls to a media contact listed on the group’s Web site go to the American Beverage Association. This smells like Astroturf, or corporate lobbyists posing as a grass-roots organization. It is entirely suitable for interested parties to participate in public debate; it is not suitable to conceal who’s doing the debating
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Americans_Against_Food_Taxes
“It is entirely suitable for interested parties to participate in public debate; it is not suitable to conceal who’s doing the debating”
That’s why I keep pointing out the work of the Kochtopus. They sure won’t do it themselves, for some reason.
… A.A.F.T. looks like a veiled industry organization; calls to a media contact listed on the group’s Web site go to the American Beverage Association. This smells like Astroturf, or corporate lobbyists posing as a grass-roots organization.
It’s worth learning more about what astroturf groups are and how they operate. For a very readable introduction, I recommend Wendell Potter’s book, Deadly Spin.
With regards from your HBB Librarian…
Does anyone know if there is a reason diet soda and regular soda from the same company are always the same price? I don’t know exactly how they make the artificial sweeteners, but it seems unlikely that the costs mirror the cost of HFC to the point where the market price to maximize profits is always identical.
I don’t doubt that the companies have a policy to keep them the same, but I’m just not sure what the reasoning is.
Retail prices have less to do with the costs of materials than people sometimes think… (for example, in apparel the cost of materials for a similar “high and low” end item - such as a t-shirt - will only be somewhat higher.) Cost differences in labor, shipping (time on a boat v. air freight), etc. can be a bigger factor.
And I suspect that for sodas… 1) the average consumer sees them as pretty much interchangeable and 2) due to the frequent promotions/sales it’s easier to keep prices level across flavors/brands.
The markups on sodas are really high: “A fast food soda that sells for $1.29 costs the restaurant about ten cents, a markup of more than 1200 percent.” (Fast Food Nation - 2001)
Exactly. They are priced based on what the market will pay. The actual product cost is mere pennies for either formula.
But that is what I was pointing out. Costs don’t determine price, but input costs can effect which price is profit maximizing. I suppose that the advertising costs in either case may dwarf the input costs, but at a guess they spend different amounts on advertising for diet vs. regular. So why doesn’t that input cost effect the profit maximizing price for the two produicts? The prices are always the same - even the sales happen on the exact same days and for the exact same discount.
And I beg to differ on the assertion that people see the two types of flavored water as interchangeable. I would bet that people who regularly drink one, rarely drink the other.
And I still want to know why the companies *want* them the same. In the current atmosphere it could be part of a strategy to fight any possible version of the sugary drink tax, though I’m not sure how. However, these proposals are very new and the price parallels have existed as long as I can remember.
It could be to avoid being accused of favoring certain demographic sub groups (I’m guessing white women drink a lot more diet soda than hispanic men do). It could be to avoid being accused of favoring certain areas of the country more than others (from the Southerners that I have known, there is less of the diet stuff consumed there than in the Northeast, for example). But is that the real reason?
Oh, and anyone who occasionally likes a regular soda but wants to avoid HFC? Kosher for Passover soda doesn’t have it because corn (and all its derivatives) aren’t allowed. I know a number of people who aren’t even Jewish who will buy some of the Kosher for Passover bottles and not buy soda again all year because they are avoiding HFC. Same thing for ketchup. No HFC if it is ok for Passover.
I think there are some sugar-based colas at Hole Foods and the like, year ’round. Are there kosher versions of all the major soft drinks?
How about the theory that diet sodas (and other artificially sweetened ‘treats’) actually cause obesity and diabetes?
‘They’ say that the moment your tongue senses sweetness, your body releases insulin. When this insulin turns out not to be needed, ie the expected sugar in the bloodstream was not actually there, then eventually your body quits responding properly to the triggers to release insulin. It’s been fooled too many times.
In Europe, soft drinks and beer are often priced the same.
And sans taxes they’re priced the same here too.
Perhaps interchangeable was not the correct word… but sweet bubbly non-alcoholic beverages are similar enough that any difference in pricing would probably call unnecessary attention to the differences without adding any competitive advantage.
A 1200% (or thereabouts) markup is substantial… most products are happy with 100% markup.
And yes, people tend to drink one type (diet/regular) but if there was even a consistent 5 cent difference they might begin to wonder why…
In some places people will pay a premium for “Mexican” which is sweetened with sugar instead of HFCS. Kosher-for- Passover coke is also sweetened with sugar.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine-archive/june-2009/food/coke-vs-coke/overview/coke-vs-coke-ov.htm
Steve J. — Back in the early 80s while I was in collge, you could get a 12 pack of Weideman’s for $2.99. At 25¢ a bottle that was CHEAPER than soda. Of course now that I’m older, my motto is more “life is too short for cheap beer.”
Back in the early 80s while I was in collge, you could get a 12 pack of Weideman’s for $2.99
I remember. Longnecks, reddish paper label, a great beer on a Sunday. (in a Sunday dry state)
Polly I would love to see them tax HFCS and no tax on real sugar products….well we all want all natural…right?
In the current atmosphere it could be part of a strategy to fight any possible version of the sugary drink tax,
“I remember. Longnecks, reddish paper label, a great beer on a Sunday. (in a Sunday dry state)”
+1 Except we drank Black Label.
“Are there kosher versions of all the major soft drinks? ”
The rules on grains are different during passover.
“The rules on grains are different during passover.”
Yeah, I meant to say ‘kosher for passover’. I think most soft drinks are kosher, no?
A lot of foods are Kosher, you just have to look for the Kosher symbol -
http://kosherfood.about.com/od/guidetokosherfoodlabels/ss/symbols.htm
“Back in the early 80s while I was in collge, you could get a 12 pack of Weideman’s for $2.99″
Yes! Out here in Ca I only saw cans. A 24-pack for 4.99. Good times. I haven’t exactly become a beer snob, but I’ll never drink that stuff again.
My recollection is that there are kosher versions for a lot of them, but I don’t know about all. I think it is more insteresting to ask why they do it at all.
The thing is that the equipment has to be completely cleaned for the switchover or the people who decide who gets a stamp won’t certify it. I have no idea how often that equipment gets that level of cleaning. If they do it once a month no matter what, then all they have to do is time the March or April (or earlier - what is the manufacturing lead time on soda?) cleaning to when they want to start their kosher for Passover run. If that is the case, the only issue is switching to actual sugar and paying the certification place (and they are already familiar with operations because the normal stuff is regular Kosher anyway).
Trying to be an optimist, lets say that a similar level of cleaning (and the shut down associated with that cleaning) is a regular event in all the plants that make the syrup and bottle the soda. I don’t know what percentage of the soda that is sold is purchaed by people who keep Passover strictly enough to care about HFC (and don’t just skip bread and cookies and rice and pasta, etc.). Shall we over estimate and guess maybe 0.5%? We’ve already asserted that the actual ingredients are not a significant input cost for soda, and that is probably still true if you use sugar, not HFC.
Sorry. Not coming to any obvious conclusion on this one. No idea why they do it or why they would refrain from doing it. Maybe the kosher certifiers won’t OK them on the rest of the year if they don’t do a Passover run? Just goodwill with a fairly small community that would moan and complain if they couldn’t drink soda during Passover? It seems odd to me to cater to such a small group.
The trouble with the longnecks was that, being returnable, you had to make sure no one walked off with a bottle. And you had to dump out and save the half-drunk ones filled with cig butts.
You had to be a responsible drunk. I guess that’s what college is all about.
Soft drinks in this country are so plentiful that it is more of a commodity pricing system.
For the most part. materiel, mfg, pkgng, shipping/distributing and advertising are the same price for the large companies.
Also, most soft drinks are mfg’d locally by a franchisee (like beer distributors) and like most franchises, there are contractual obligations to pricing as determined by corporate HQ.
If you notice, you will also see that soft drinks are also seasonally and holiday priced.
A lot of people other than Jews are buying Kosher products as there is a perception (justified or not) that there is extra vigilance and purity.
NY Times “For Some Kosher Equals Pure” 01/12/2010 (couldn’t get link to copy for some reason…)
And I’m pretty sure that Kosher certification requires on-going monitoring.
“I don’t doubt the companies have a policy to keep them the same, but I’m not sure what the reasoning is.”
The reason they do it is because they can.
Coke and Pepsi dominate the soft drink market. Anyone else who appears on the scene will be driven out.
People ask for certain products by brand name. Smokers don’t ask to buy a pack of cigarettes, they ask to buy a pack of Lucky’s, or Marlboros, or whatever.
People are a bit less picky when it comes to soft drinks, they don’t seem to mind buying either a Coke or a Pepsi. But they don’t like to venture very far out in their selections from these two brands.
Price isn’t all that much a consideration; there’s the enduring psychological effect of advertising that will overcome price considerations. A person drinking a Coke or Pepsi is having a Coke or Pepsi experience - something that goes beyond the mere drinking of the Coke or the Pepsi. One doesn’t get that experience drinking an RC Cola because millions of dollars hasn’t been spent in promoting an RC Cola experience.
Price isn’t all that much a consideration; there’s the enduring psychological effect of advertising that will overcome price considerations.
Thank you combo.
The same can be said for the home buyers buying too-expensive houses during the constant “buy a house now” propaganda and bubble madness.
Not all Americans are can be as “smart” as us.
“they don’t seem to mind buying either a Coke or a Pepsi”
Really? I mean, they are both pretty gross, but people don’t determine a marked difference in taste? Well, I suppose that these are the same people who can’t tell the difference between diet and non-diet and “can’t believe it’s not butter”. No taste buds apparently.
I used to go for Coke for a hangover, but now I just don’t get hungover anymore. Ahh, the halcyon days…
Although I still like a good sarsaparilla and ginger beer every now and again.
What really makes me crazy is when parents supply their children with Coke & Pepsi. A jolt of sugar and caffeine, for kids? Get them hooked on the stuff early. Fruit juice isn’t much better. Much better to give kids an apple and an orange, they actually have to chew (exercise), and the fiber helps to slow down the sugars hitting the blood system.
millions of dollars hasn’t been spent in promoting an RC Cola experience
Maybe not lately, but I still remember the “me and my RC” jingle from the 1970s or early 1980s, whereas offhand I can’t think of any Pepsi jingles. (I can think of several Coke ones, though.)
Pepsi is more focused on the bulk-to-bar/restaurant market these days and is giving the service/entertainment industry much better deals than Coke.
Yes, I read yesterday’s discussion about obesity. It reminded me of housing: so many victim stories, so few actual victims.
So “few victims” in housing? I’m floored. How about most our country and economy are for sure victims. Did you see “Inside Job”? It simplifies who are the villains and who are the victims. The victims outnumber the villains about 100,000 to 1. The villains are on Wall Street the victims are your neighbor.
There are people who are obese because of medical problems, and those who are obese because they are eating badly
That’s it? The two causes? 2? There are a lot of really weird things about America that Americans don’t even realize until they live somewhere else. Like TV commercials and other propaganda. 20 years ago Brazilians would tell me you guys are nuts with all your food commercials and you know what? They were right. Americans advertise crap food about 5 times more than they do in Brazil. And 80% of the food advertised is processed and contains high fructose corporate corn poison.
And another thing weird about America that leads to obesity is the stress level and the time on the job required by America the “land of the free”. Study after study shows Americans are stressed to the limit because of money, jobs, healthcare etc. When you really compare it to other developed countries, America has a really crap thing going on these days. No vacations, working weekends, no raises and constant, CONSTANT propaganda to shove sodas and burgers down our throats.
They have brainwashed us to think such strange things such as soda should be part of our diet. Now us skinny, enlightened people may feel we are superior because we see above it all but that is not the way human nature and entire societies work and function. There ARE victims of propaganda period.
I’m telling you, from being away for almost 3 years now I see a lot of weird things about America and one of them is the American corporate propagandized diet. Combine that with the American corporate induced abnormal stress level and it is no wonder many Americans are frazzled, frayed and fat.
Who spends more on advertising (through all channels- print, radio/TV, direct mail, internet), the food and beverage industry or the pharmaceutical industry?
I’m guessing the food and beverage industry, but I bet Big Pharma isn’t far behind.
Big pharma probably spends more on lobbying.
Not sleeping enough is also an issue.
RioAmericanInBrasil
Excellent post! One of the best to this blog in years.
I think your essay should be front page reading in the
Wall Street Journal.
I am convinced that if Americans just gave up half of
the sugar crap they eat overall medical costs would
drop exponentially.
I hear you Rio ,you have summed up so nicely what I was trying to say yesterday . All these Corporate Entities could care less about the health of the Nation . We are viewed as consumers that are tricked into consuming whatever crap they want to market . We are tricked into high stress lives and quality is a thing of the past .
The Authority figures are paid off shills and the MSM only talks about what the Powers that Be endorse .
I know so many people that are frazzled ,frayed and fat ,as you
said . The fact that some people are able to avoid the pitfalls is
great ,but not everybody can combat it . Financial stress can cause people to start stuffing their face . On top of everything else in the USA the moral compass is lacking and they just want to give people pills to mask their problems .
People do want to heal themselves but it’s difficult when your in a insane World where black is white and white is black ,dogs sleeping with cats, greed is good ,etc. etc. It’s each persons responsibility to get healed ,but they make it really difficult .A lot of really young people I talk to are really confused .
We do not have a society that actually promotes health . It’s each persons choice ,but this Society is laying out all the
holes to drop into along the way .
State-of-the-art psychological warfare is what it is.
+1 Rio…. Coming to Rio is the new slogan…You gotta room for rent ??
Oxide:
Does anyone know where we can find the actual ingredient lists for say 30- 40 years ago?
What did they put in Entennmans cakes and what is in them today?
Did they all use real sugar? say in TV dinners, no corn starch, or BHA or BHT added as preservatives..
Was there always sugar or corn syrup in jars of spaghetti sauce?
HFCS, invented in the late 1960’s was not common till the early 90’s. So, yes, 30 or 40 years ago they were using real sugar. You can still find real sugar products, but you have to search aggressively. The organic movement of the last several years has provided a lot more products without HFCS.
Ive got a pepsi fridge at our clubhouse that I stock with soda. I’ve been trying to think of a good alternative, but I really can’t find much. We have a water cooler already.
kegerator?
“OVERVIEW .. This landmark study provides important scientific evidence of the direct contribution of sugar-sweetened beverages to California’s $41 billion obesity epidemic. ”
I have to call BS on this one once again. People need to get off the couch and exercise, you have to burn more calories than you take in…Very simple. Carbs and sugars are fine unless you take them in massive quantities, you need them for energy. You also need fats and oils contrary to what we have heard from so called health experts over the last few decades.
Move your a$$ America! Just say no to the food police…Look what the heath dictatorship in this country has done to smokers, it has nothing to do with health, it’s about revenue and control.
How about “Republicant” or “Demorat”? Are those allowed?
“…I don’t want to read the words “republican” or “democrat” today. Do you think its possible?”
No.
Can I still say the word communist?
Obama is bombing Muslims, yet I still hear white people claiming he’s a Muslim.
WTF this brotha gotta do to prove he ain’t a Muslim?
(((shakin my head)))
Yeah, that’s only a token bombing, like an under cover cop comitting some petty crime not to reveal himself. He’s lacking the fire, passion and steadfast commitment his predecessors was displaying when it came to bombing Muslims. He got to do a lot better to convince me. Lucky for him there’s still Iran, so there’s a chance for him to redeem himself.
Maybe cover-up all his school records?
much of the mid-east conflict boils down to shiite vs sunni.
muslims don’t discriminate, they kill muslims too, he’ll have to try something else to prove he’s not a muslim, maybe standing up for isreal?
Fighting three wars against Israel’s enemies isn’t enough?
That small country sure does have a lot of enemies!
It’s a tough neighborhood!
The birthplace of three of the world’s major religions sure is full of hatred and strife. Coincidence?
I assure you alpha…human beings are capable of being just as brutal without religion as they are with it.
michael– Yes, but religion* helps in the building of large brutal groups, instead of brutal individuals.
*as can any similar sort of ideology that proports to have all the answers.
Fighting three wars against Israel’s enemies isn’t enough?
No, because he didn’t start the 2 real wars. And anyone can chuck a couple hundred missiles these days without it being a “war”.
I don’t think Afghanistan has ever has the means to be a threat to Isreal.
war-
1 noun, verb, warred, war·ring, adjective
–noun
1.
a conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation; warfare, as by land, sea, or air.
How is this not a war again?
How is this not a war again?
It is a war according to the dictionary.
But by American standards it kinda really sucks.
“I don’t think Afghanistan has ever has the means to be a threat to Isreal.”
How about as host to al-qaida?
“But by American standards it kinda really sucks.”
Why is it the Swiss don’t have the same terror problems we do?
Why is it the Swiss don’t have the same terror problems we do?
I know huh?
Not it was a threat to the heroin supply….we had to get rid of the Taliban cause they were against drugs, and burned the poppy supply….
I don’t think Afghanistan has ever has the means to be a threat to Isreal.
Why is it the Swiss don’t have the same terror problems we do?
Terrorist organizations have to keep their money somewhere!
war-
1 noun, verb, warred, war·ring, adjective
–noun
1.
a conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation; warfare, as by land, sea, or air
Ronnie “kick-theirtbutt” Raygun fit’s that definition:
The Invasion of Grenada, codenamed Operation Urgent Fury, was a 1983 U.S.-led invasion of Grenada, a Caribbean island nation with a population of just over 100,000 located 100 miles (160 km) north of Venezuela.
Hamas and the PLO have killed more Isrealis than Al-Quada.
Al-Quada hijackers were armed with box cutters. I bet they couldn’t have hijacked an El-Al plane with box cutters.
I bet they couldn’t have hijacked an El-Al plane with box cutters.
They wouldn’t have gotten on the plane, period. El-Al has very good screening. And it’s done without the use of X-rays or pat-downs.
yet I still hear white people claiming he’s a Muslim.”
I hear that too Some people just believe what they want to beleive. Makes life simple for them.
I still hear white people claiming he’s a Muslim.
Even though those people are ignorant, their ignorance will lead some of them to a greater breakthrough and evolutionary progress.
Because now they think they live in a country that has not only elected its first black president, but also its first non-Christian president.
So the ignorant people now perceive America as making even more social progress than it actually has.
Ignorance is strength.
I think I’ll have some t-shirts made up with O on them and the phrase: “O bomb a nation” We voted for HOPE to CHANGE the world.
+1 Now THAT’S funny!
Didn’t he get some award in the not so distant past? Something like a Novell Award? A Piece of a Prize made of Monel?? Dave Lobell Sports Award? Something to do with dy-no-mite?
At this point, I don’t even think that he deserves the First Annual C. Mongomery Burn Award for Outstading Achievement in the Field of Excellence.
Any commentary out there on the Treasury MBS sales yesterday. I assume they had already offloaded the garbage for full equity onto the national bad bank (AKA the Fed).
I guess my first take is that this will cause mortgage rates to fall near term. Comments appreciated.
Maybe we’ll discover how much they (we really) overpaid.
Price discovery must be avoided at all costs!
This bunch sold yesterday was sold for a profit. There was some conflict of interest since it also benefits AIG, a wholly owned subsidiary of Uncle Sam Inc.
You could replace them with “crookedcan” and Crookedercrat”
Okay, here in Wisconsin, we shall use the terms…
a Walkeristan and a peon
How about majority party chosen by the electorate and whiny losers? ( at least until the recalls)
dude,
In Wisconsin, we always try to have a little Winter fun, especially our wonderful young people that Walker and the Fitzgeralds got all politically fired up.
http://tinyurl.com/485mysx
We don’t wine and dine somebody that crosses us GOP~~ We WILL RECALL your sorry asses.
How are those recall petitions going?
Here in Arizona, they’re going just swimmingly. There are recalls going against our governor and against Russell Pearce, the legislator who’s behind such legislative gems as SB-1070.
Walker and the Fitzgeralds, aka the “they’ll-never-recall-us!” gang from Compromise, WI
“Winning the election by 2% means we get to put our “TrueAnger™” + “TruePurity™” Chinese made imported boot heel on the throats of who we please, like the lady working in the school cafeteria, useless & overpaid!
In case nobody has yet pointed this out in the MSM, you can have home prices artificially propped up by the GSEs at unaffordable levels, or you can have a recovery in home sale transactions volumes, or you can have a return to prudent mortgage loan underwriting standards, but you can’t have all three!
or you can have a return to prudent mortgage loan underwriting standards ??
“Prudent” would be a gross “understatement” and I am not just talking about home buyers….
Gah, why don’t the frackin’ MSM EVER connect those dots???
I going to guess “corporate censorship.”
buy now before prices go up:
http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/22/autos/japan_earthquake_car_prices/index.htm?source=cnn_bin&hpt=Sbin
…Right…because there aren’t enough American and Korean fuel efficient cars to fill the gap. Give me a break. Many Japanese cars aren’t even manufactured in Japan.
But the parts supply chain has been disrupted.
GM already closed a US plant due to parts shortages. And Toyota and Subaru have slowed production in US plants.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12780368
Parts for electronics will may also become an issue.
Yeah, I got a set of NGK iridium spark plugs for my wife’s car the other day (an ‘03 Neon). Oddly enough, it also has a wiper motor made by Denso, so yeah, the American car companies will hit by this too.
Headlines in Greenville paper include TD Bank to auction mountain, lake properties. Over 100 mountain properties will get the auction process. TD Bank adquired these bad loans when they took over Carolina First. Auction will be held by Tranzon Integrity Partners from March 30 and April 20. Some will be online and others will be live. So get your mountain property.
Also a few pages in, the article is titled “Greer State Bank to take steps mandated by regulators- Bank agrees to increase capital, strengthen real estate loan porfolio” And yess that is a long heading for an article. So what does the president of the bank say in the article? “While this is disappointing news for us to share with our shareholders, customers and community, the consent order is a direct reflection of one of the most difficult economic and banking environments since the Great Depression.” President Harper seems to have a problem with reality.
Since Greer was big in the mountains real estate and in commercial real estate, the bottom is about to fall out of that market for western North Carolina. The TD auctions will cause a price drop which will drag banks like Greer closer to their fate.
Does anyone know anything about these online auctions? That is new to me.
I G, here’s the link.
http://www.tranzon.com/search.aspx?listing=TranzonCompany&Id=23&text=Tranzon%20Integrity%20Partners
The main page has numerous listings, many in places I’ve never heard of (Holly Ridge and Bolivia, NC?). You can also search by state and property type. Too bad you can’t search by ZIP code.
Have you heard anything recently about how the Cliffs communities are doing? One of them is where the first Tiger Woods-designed golf course is/was being built.
If you’re playing on a Tiger Woods-designed golf course, watch out for those irate wives wielding golf clubs!
That sounds more exciting than sand traps!
Where’s Erik Estrada?
Supreme Court Lets Fed Bailout Records Release Stand
Published: Monday, 21 Mar 2011 | 10:39 AM ET
By: Reuters
The Supreme Court let stand a ruling that the U.S. Federal Reserve must disclose details about its emergency lending programs to banks during the financial crisis in 2008.
A group representing major commercial banks had asked the high court to reverse a ruling by a federal appeals court that required disclosure of the lending records.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/42193298
Yeah, I know. Who do you think is going to get kicked off Dancing With the Stars next?
Kirstie Alley?
But yes I agree with the Supreme Court. I want to know whom my tax money is rescuing.
liz pendens ,lol . Right in the middle of the most compelling news stories in ages they made Charlie Sheen top news .
“It said the appeals court ruling threatened numerous federal programs that depend on keeping commercial transactions confidential and could unjustifiably harm the reputation of banks that borrowed from the Fed’s discount window.”
Sure…the bank’s reputation.
The fact that the Feds gave short term loans to every so called
financial entity around ,including foreign financial entities ,financial entities that weren’t regulated ,Insurance Companies and you name it ,based on high value on junk paper , i can understand why they want this information kept confidential .
By the Feds acts the taxpayer was put in the position of giving bail outs or these Entities would of defaulted on these short term loans that were given so easy leading up to Tarp .
200 billion to AIG ,and now the taxpayers own 90% of that Company that paid off on Credit Default Swaps that they could of gotten out of based on fraud involved in the transaction .
It’s absurd that the Feds made loans to any entities that weren’t regulated Banks IMHO .
This BS about Good bank/Bad Bank ,lets take the loss portion and put it on the taxpayers and get rid of Bad Banks fraudulent junk
was the game plan .
I would of said to Hank Paulson “,If you have a good bank and a bad bank ,it looks like the bad bank took the good bank down ,so let the prosecutions and lawsuits begin . ” But the Feds complicated
everything by putting the taxpayers in the position that these entities would of defaulted on those short term loans anyway .
I don’t like it when the Feds put the taxpayers in a blackmailed position were we were damned if we did or damned if we didn’t.
200 billion to AIG ,and now the taxpayers own 90% of that Company that paid off on Credit Default Swaps that they could of gotten out of based on fraud involved in the transaction . ”
yea what’s up with that ? certain people designed the CDO’s to fail, then bought insurance on them, and we taxpayers paid off the insurance.
Lucky is what they were. If I tried that by burning my house or boat do you think I would get paid off ?
Well, you might get a roof over your head and 3 meals a day. Probably get stuck with a roommate, though.
I still can’t figure out how that was legal.
There was a Marine Insurance Act passed in the 1700s (sorry, I’ve lost the exact date) that was enacted because many people were buying insurance on ships and cargo that they had no direct business with, purely as speculation on their failure.
Needless to say, there was some eventual conflict of interests and “gaming” of the system, i.e pirates were given specific route information or ships were sabotaged or deliberately wrecked.
So there was 300 years of common international law that said betting AGAINST something when you stand to profit from it’s failure was neither kosher nor civilized, ESPECIALLY when it came to finances.
Now do you see how corrupt it all is?
It’s the taxpayer’s money!!!!!!!
By the Feds acts the taxpayer was put in the position of giving bail outs or these Entities
Wrong the middle class was put in the position of giving bail outs to the elite. Taxes were cut under GW and the dividend and capital gains rates and taxes on the elite remain at very low levels.
Well banks (and others) SHOULD be reluctant to borrow from the discount window. Perhaps a little shame will decrease moral hazard. OTOH the reaction of others to emergency borrowing can turn temporary cashflow problems INTO an unsolvable balance sheet catastrophe. IMHO that part of the problem is that the Fed and Treasury and others STILL haven’t acknowledged that we’re in a mass casualty situation and triage is necessary. Even the Fed and FDIC and treasury don’t really have pockets deep enough to save everybody. Better to save a few, and leave the rest to the tender mercies of their creditors.
It’s was more like it was a set up so they could buy time until they could arrange the bail outs . There was a lot of picking and choosing of the winners and losers . In my book this was all Obstruction of Justice ,and the AIG thing was just insulting . This whole thing about putting out the money and ask questions later
was absurd ,especially when no requirements where put on
these Entities . Than all the additional bail outs ,in part
regarding F&F purchasing known junk paper from these entities ,the amounts are in the trillions by now ,not just 700 billion . F&F became one big dumping ground for BAD BANKS junk . If you do something in steps ,maybe it won’t be noticed .
But ,no matter how hard they try to cover up this major Ponzi-scheme of fraud and faulty lending and try to act like it was
just some economic black swan due to something you couldn’t see coming ,the truth leaks out ,but they are hiding so much .
Real estate agents are liars. Just thought I would point that out today
No. REALTORS are liars.
what is the difference?
Anyone can be a real estate agent but only a card carrying member of National ASSociation of Revisionists can be a Realtor aka RealTurd.
or National Association of Racketeers
One pays association dues…
And adheres to marketing ploys and techniques(lies) uniformly so that it becomes a monopoly and a racket.
The company doing the auctions is Tranzon Integrity Partners. So integrity is their middle name. That should make rusty feel better.
I have not looked them up on the internet but they probably mention “integrity” a few times.
I looked them up on the website. They are local folks. I plan to contact them to see about that auction.
On what will they blame the next month of slow home sales at low prices? I’m guessing an earthquake, a tsunami, a nuclear meltdown, high gas prices due to a new outbreak of war in the Middle East, or perhaps all four.
Home sales fall and prices drop in housing market for beginning of the year, winter may be to blame
News Wire Services
Tuesday, March 22nd 2011, 4:00 AM
Housing prices have reached their lowest level since April 2002, with a median price of $156,100.
Sales of previously owned homes plunged last month and prices hit their lowest level in nearly nine years, implying a housing market recovery was still a long way off.
Sales fell 9.6% in February from January, snapping three straight months of gains, said the National Association of Realtors. The decline was the largest since July 2010, for an annual rate of 4.88 million units.
Economists had expected a decline of only 4% to a 5.15 million-unit pace. Economists say a healthy pace per year is 6 million.
…
“what will they blame the next month”?
fear of radioactive spinach?
New “green” business idea: Get gov grant money to develop roofing shingles that convert radioactive fallout into electricity for charging our Prius and Volts.
Lets face it sales are ALWAYS slow in the dead of winter. In fact, I would argue that January and February sales are a small enough proportion to total sales that they really should be ignored. It’s far, far too easy for them to be affected by things like short sales taking so long that houses that would have closes in October close in January instead.
Exactly, Jim. This MSM news is a waste of space and no revelation of any kind.
Irwin Kellner
March 22, 2011, 12:01 a.m. EDT
Breaking up is hard to do
Commentary: Fed’s love affair with easy money must end
By Irwin Kellner, MarketWatch
PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. (MarketWatch) — The Federal Reserve’s love affair with easy money must end — the sooner the better.
In the face of overwhelming evidence that inflation has become a clear and present danger, the central bank continues to insist that easy money and low interest rates are de rigueur for today’s economy.
Its rationale is simple: The economy is still struggling, unemployment remains high, and the markets are reeling from a series of global shocks — the latest being Japan’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis.
If prices were stable, there would be no question that the Fed is on the right course. But prices are not stable: From basic commodities to wholesale right up to retail, prices are jumping.
…
“From basic commodities to wholesale right up to retail, prices are jumping.”
Prices can jump but that doesn’t mean sales will jump along with them. It takes MONEY to pay for these higher prices.
If people do not have the money to pay for the higher prices then some things - a lot of things - will not be sold.
Don’t you have to factor in the new fear of shortages that seem to
be seeping into the information wave . Humans love to buy when they think shortages are in the near future ,even if it’s false . But ,even though Japan only supplied about 4% of our food imports no doubt
their food problems will create some panic . Anyway, shortages could very well be a real factor today ,but than again…….
“If people do not have the money to pay for the higher prices then some things - a lot of things - will not be sold.”
Like houses maybe?
And cars.
If people do not have the money to pay for the higher prices then some things - a lot of things - will not be sold.”
yea it will be deflationary in the end. Like Mexico we will spend more of our cash on food, rent and energy, less on cars , eating out, vacations, etc.
If your paid in dollars and the FED wants a cheaper dollar , you just got a pay cut.
Hello stagflation!
Ain’t we lucky we got ‘em? Good times!
Stagflation never really went away. It’s been present to varying degrees since the 1970s.
It’s just been more intense lately.
If long term mortgage rates were to rise 1% that would increase the carrying cost for a mortgage by 20%….The impact on the saleability of the shadow inventory would likely be another 20% leg down along with driving more property that is now servicing their debt underwater…My bet would be Q3 and counting even in the face of higher inflation and high unemployment….Welcome to stagflation…
What are you talking about ? The new iPad is cheaper, the price of a Kindle has come down considerably, laptops and flat-panel TVs cost a lot less than they did several years ago. Stuff like food, housing, medical care, energy, and education are “volatile”. You can’t consider them when calculating inflation !
*snerk*
The Fed will cause millions to default on their credit cards since almost all new ones are variable interest rates….on the OLD DEBT
Yes the old debt interest will go up..a flaw in the New Credit Card laws
Only fixed rate interest old debt can’t be increased.
They are even more screwed then we all think.
It`s funny that this came out the same day in the same paper.
“Home sales, prices rebound”
By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 10:48 a.m. Monday, March 21, 2011
Then there is this.
Lake Worth city manager says city lacks money to pay for current level of service
The city is facing a budget crunch in part because the taxable value of city property has dropped 47 percent from 2007 levels, to $1.1 billion last year, and are expected to drop further this year.
By Willie Howard Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 9:46 p.m. Monday, March 21, 2011
LAKE WORTH — A smaller part of Lake Worth Beach would be covered by lifeguards and the city library would be open 10 fewer hours a week under a proposal to lay off 79 employees to balance the 2012 budget.
Layoffs are being proposed as part of City Manager Susan Stanton’s multi-part plan to close a projected $4.6 million budget gap for the year that begins Oct. 1.
The proposed staff cuts would save an estimated $1.2 million and would include six full-time employees at the library, seven street maintenance workers, six lifeguards (three full-time and three part time), seven custodial workers and 17 grounds maintenance/cemetery workers.
“The current levels of service are no longer sustainable,” Stanton said. “We’re not going to have the money to pay for it.”
The city is facing a budget crunch in part because the taxable value of city property has dropped 47 percent from 2007 levels, to $1.1 billion last year, and are expected to drop further this year.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/lake-worth-city-manager-says-city-lacks-money-1338331.html?cxtype=rss_news - -
That shadow inventory of foreclosures are not generating much tax revenue either.
Was the “Home sales, prices rebound” headling in the RE section? ‘Cause in most papers that’s filled with puff pieces and RE spokesman.
That’s certainly the case here in Tucson.
“Was the “Home sales, prices rebound” headling in the RE section?”
No, Money section.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/real-estate/home-sales-prices-rebound-1336983.html
MOST POPULAR HEADLINES
Home sales, prices rebound
What job crunch? Many spots remain empty in Palm Beach County
Savings time: More Americans plan to salt away tax refunds
NextEra CEO says nuclear plants well-prepared for disasters
Companies filing more lawsuits over credit card debt in South Florida
The Phillips Curve is back!
Irwin Kellner
March 15, 2011, 2:39 a.m. EDT
Decisions, decisions
Commentary: Fed faces tough choice between jobs and prices
By Irwin Kellner, MarketWatch
PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. (MarketWatch) — Decisions made by the Federal Reserve as early as Tuesday will determine whether the recent jump in oil prices will eventually lead to more inflation, another recession — or both.
Tuesday’s meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) could well turn out to be the most important in a long time. It comes at a point where the economic recovery is at a delicate stage, caught between the upward tug of prices and the downward push of unemployment.
Since the money mavens have a mandate to keep both inflation and unemployment low, you would think that the conclusions reached by the FOMC at Tuesday’s confab will be a slam-dunk. You would be wrong.
Congressional mandate notwithstanding, achieving both objectives at the same time is not as easy as it looks. As a matter of fact, it is downright difficult.
…
Here, we can save them some trouble. Higher food and fuel prices WILL lead to another recession. I wouldn’t want them agonizing over that little detail when they have so much of God’s work to do!
Folks oustide their universe are tapped.
Speaking of recessions that are supposedly rebounds, the number of competitive youth soccer teams playing this spring season here in the Centennial state has nosedived. When I ask around why, what I’m hearing is that families are cutting back and those $1000+ per year annual fees are getting axed from upper middle class family budgets.
No local benefactor thats willing to step up and help these kids ?? Key word is “willing”…I am sure there are plenty of very wealthy people around…Or, maybe turn to the local banks who have had their butts goosed with free money for the past two years….
It sure wasn’t a 1000 bucks a season when I was a kid.
Those damn kids nowadays. They destroyed the global economy.
1k does seem like a lot of money for junior to play soccer.
$1000 is on the cheap side. There are clubs that charge $3000 a year or more. They have fulltime coaches who are paid a salary.
That said, there are cheaper rec league options, but at the “competive, travelling team” level it aint cheap.
I think I would rather buy both kids a ski pass for the season for $1000.
An expensive traveling team should be reserved for the wealthy. Middle class families should not be shelling out that kind of money just to play soccer. So this is good news that it is getting cut out of family budgets. Perhaps people are getting back to living within their means.
Middle class families should not be shelling out that kind of money just to play soccer ??
I would prefer to see them spend it on the kids then the way some spend it on themselves…
I would rather they save it for a rainy day or pay off some of that massive debt.
…in fact, I would say that there is far too much structured activities for kids these days. I think it saps their creativity. We didn’t have that back in the 70s and earlier. I don’t think a budding soccer superstar will be at a huge disadvantage because they didn’t have a high paid coach at the age of 12.
…in fact, I would say that there is far too much structured activities for kids these days. I think it saps their creativity. We didn’t have that back in the 70s and earlier.
Indeed we did not. We had to figure out how to organize activities for ourselves.
Take, for example, my neighborhood’s kickball game. We played in a cul-de-sac near my house, and man, we really got into it. Sometimes the games ended in screaming arguments, but, hey, that was us trying to assert ourselves.
At one point, I proposed the idea of a kickball training camp for all of us, but none of the other kids were interested. Too organized.
soccer superstar will be at a huge disadvantage because they didn’t have a high paid coach at the age of 12 ??
Never seen a “high paid” coach of twelve year olds in my life but as far as paying a coach something, would you feel the same about lets say, music lessons ??
“An expensive traveling team should be reserved for the wealthy. Middle class families should not be shelling out that kind of money just to play soccer. So this is good news that it is getting cut out of family budgets. Perhaps people are getting back to living within their means.”
WTF business of it is yours? Any other rules you got for “middle class families”??
Get a life.
Here’s a question for you, IC. What income level would you consider to be upper middle class for a family?
$50,000 is upper middle class if you work with your hands, and/or belong to a union. $300,000 is upper middle glass if you push computer keys.
“An expensive traveling team should be reserved for the wealthy. Middle class families should not be shelling out that kind of money just to play soccer. So this is good news that it is getting cut out of family budgets. Perhaps people are getting back to living within their means.”
Our club is “cheap”: $300 a year. My son enjoys it a lot so we think its worth it. $3000 a year? forget it! Yet there are hundreds of “elite” clubs on the east coast that fit that are that expensive. They like to brag about how many of their “alumni” are Olympians and Pros, especially those playing overseas.
And don’t ask me about hard it is to get into the Olympic Development Program (ODP). And its also very expensive. Soccer is indeed a rich kids sport in the US/
Also, FWIW, I would guess that the median HH income on our team to be the low to mid 100’s.
Soccer is indeed a rich kids sport in the US
And, in places like Brazil, if you’re rich, you have to work extra hard to prove yourself to your fellow players. Because the rich kids aren’t considered to be of the same level of player as the poor kids from the favelas.
“the number of competitive youth soccer teams playing this spring season here in the Centennial state has nosedived. When I ask around why, what I’m hearing is that families are cutting back and those $1000+ per year annual fees are getting axed…”
Its happening here too.
the number of competitive youth soccer teams playing this spring season here in the Centennial state has nosedived.
A Brazilian told me:
In America, soccer is the sport played by the “rich” and loved by a few. In Brazil it’s the sport played by the poor and rich and loved by everyone.
The USA won’t win the World Cup until they play soccer in the hood.
In other words, never.
The USA won’t win the World Cup until they
playpay,…salaries $$$$$$$$$$$$$ equal to the NBA & MLBWhere’s all the “talent” & their parents & their “agents”?
(Hwy’s got a bet on that state of affairs with a Scottish Holigan/Grifter/bar drinking poll shooting,…friend.)
I thought the Brazilian rich were into car racing, polo and yachting and may be some beach volleyball.
I thought the Brazilian rich were into car racing, polo and yachting and may be some beach volleyball.
They are. In general the poor are into soccer more. But the rich still watch futbol almost as much as the poor.
And there are still quite a few rich that still kick it around at the beach with their friends.
Now the super-rich? IDK. I don’t hang with them much.
I thought the Brazilian rich were into car racing, polo and yachting and may be some beach volleyball.
Yeah, we all know what the Brazilian’s are into, and none of those things you mentioned are happening after a certain hour of the
dayevening.Soccer will never take off in the US because there are no commercial breaks during the game.
the number of competitive youth soccer teams playing this spring season here in the Centennial state has nosedived.
Good.
Maybe now the “soccerization” of America’s youth will come to a halt.
We need to stick with the good old American games; football, baseball, basketball, cow-tipping, etc.
Don’t forget dodgeball!
There is no inflation. The prices for iPads, Kindles, laptops, and flat-panel TVs have been falling steadily.
Food, energy, housing, medical treatment, and education don’t count.
Price of electronic products tend to go down regardless of inflation or deflation.
Hows ’bout Hospital/Medical Industrial-Complex Inc. “device” equipment?
Same as the DOD devices. They *always* go up.
Electronics are about to go back up.
China builds 85% of ALL consumer electronics, but Japan and Thailand have the most chip plants, with Japan having more than Thailand.
Rot roh.
Electronics are about to go back up.
China builds 85% of ALL consumer electronics, but Japan and Thailand have the most chip plants, with Japan having more than Thailand.
I’ve been thinking of buying some new lenses to go with my camera. But, in light of the above news, those old lenses that I bought years ago still work with the DSLR. So, guess what. I think I’ll keep using them for the time being.
Maybe the Census Bureau can help us get a handle on the shadow inventory.
Nearly 20% of Florida homes are vacant
Yahoo Finance
On Thursday, the Census Bureau revealed that 18% — or 1.6 million — of the Sunshine State’s homes are sitting vacant. That’s a rise of more than 63% over the past 10 years.
The vacancy problem is more dire in Florida than in any other bubble market: In California, only 8% of units were vacant, while Nevada, the state with the nation’s highest foreclosure rate, had about 14% sitting empty. Arizona had a vacancy rate of about 16%.
In Florida, the worst-hit county is Collier — home of Naples — with a whopping 32% of homes empty. In Sarasota County, 23% of the housing stock sits vacant, while Lee County (Cape Coral) has a 30% vacancy rate. And Miami-Dade County has a vacancy rate of about 12%.
…and that’s not even counting the one’s infested with suatters.
Or with black mold……
Meanwhile, DR Horton, the developer at my parents’ new complex, keeps on building houses that are “snapped up” before they’re anything more than a plan on paper. Madness. And poor old Mom and Dad have to put up with construction noise and dust every day.
Costs of crusade pile up: http://www.nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/costs-of-libya-operation-already-piling-up-20110321?mrefid=mostViewed
This does not even include the cost of the F-15E we lost.
Its called economic stimulus. Replacing that plane will save thousands of jobs. We need to crash more $100m jets and break more stuff. Get out there and do your part - smash a window today, you will feel better.
“We need to crash more $100m jets and break more stuff. Get out there and do your part - smash a window today, ”
I’m told that explains the half century of prosperity we SHARED under FDR’s programs. By the some of the same people that laud Bastiat.
Oh, we’re up to a half century now. First the period from 1945 to 1968 was 40 years, now it’s 50 years. The alpha-sloth rendition of economic history gets funnier and funnier.
Actually it’s been over a half century, because we still have social security, medicare, minimum wage, workplace safety, environmental protection, and many other of his (and similar) reforms in place. Although most are weakened.
We haven’t reverted back to feudalism yet! Give ‘em a few more years…
LMAO…..
Well done Liz!!!
My car got wrecked up pretty good yesterday. Does that count? No injuries, except to the rear bumper, most of the driver’s side and a tire.
The perpetrator got off with only about a quarter of her car damaged.
Glad you didn’t have a injury with the accident Elanor .
Me too, but couldn’t you have done just a little more damage? We need a quota system.
liz…. that’s just a lawsuit waiting to happen!
We build things that blow things up so we can build “more” things that blow things up…Its what we do best don’t ya know ??
Like the Ford Exploder!
Thanks for the link. That Richard Lugar may be the only guy in Congress concerned with the cost of our latest war. I can see why the Tea Party has targeted him in next year’s Republican primary. He may have a little common sense.
“Since we don’t yet know the length, magnitude, or degree of U.S. involvement, any cost projections are going to be very rough estimates at this point,” Cooper said.
Now, when Halliburton Inc. says it’s got a “No-Bid” $$$$$$$$$$ contract to start painting a green-stripe around Tripoli, they’ll be in to some serious calculations!
The sad part is that the oilfield services part of Halliburton is a very good outfit. Too bad that part of the company isn’t running the whole show.
What does this board think of this calculator:
http://realestate.yahoo.com/calculators/rent_vs_own.html
Before I found this board, I reached the conclusion that we were in a bubble by comparing rents to cost of buying. Last year due to relatively low housing prices in the Albuquerque area, the $8000 credit, need for tax write offs and relatively high rents, I bought a small energy star rated house. BTW, even with us breaking 40 year old cold records, heating bill under $50 and I use gas to heat hot water.
However, I think in most of America houses still are too high but does the board believe that by restraining the release of the shadow inventory and QE the PTB could manipulate the ratio to create a buy signal. I think it is the game plan just wonder if the board believes they can pull it off.
However, I think in most of America houses still are too high but does the board believe that by restraining the release of the shadow inventory and QE the PTB could manipulate the ratio to create a buy signal. I think it is the game plan just wonder if the board believes they can pull it off.
Arizona Slim concurs with the above re: the buy signal.
However, here in Tucson, I don’t see a whole lotta buying going on. Except for those “infestors” who still think they are going to get rich by buying and renting houses.
Man, that infestation is a stubborn one. Don’t know what we can do to kill it off.
Not bad. It covers the basics, but making assumptions on maintenance could be a serious “gotcha.”
You should figure major HVAC or roofing, plumbing, electrical, slab/foundation, problems within the first 10 years.
Egypt’s burning down the house. (Or at least the Interior Ministry- good way to ‘lose’ all those records of who tortured who, who stole what from where, etc, before they ‘go democratic’ and the beans get spilled.)
The assisted the US in interrogation of prisoners.
Yeah, better burn that, too.
Businessweek
..”Contango isn’t the only reason commodity ETFs make lousy buy-and-hold investments. Professional futures traders exploit the ETFs’ monthly rolls to make easy profits at the little guy’s expense. Unlike ETF managers, the professionals don’t trade at set times. They can buy the next month ahead of the big programmed rolls to drive up the price, or sell before the ETF, pushing down the price investors get paid for expiring futures. The strategy is called “pre-rolling.”
“I make a living off the dumb money,” says Emil van Essen, founder of an eponymous commodity trading company in Chicago. Van Essen developed software that predicts and profits from pre-rolling. “These index funds get eaten alive by people like me,” he says.”
…”These days, the Wall Street banks are more like those grain traders than you might think. They have equipped themselves to take delivery of raw materials when they choose to, so they can wait for the commodity price to rise without having to roll contracts, giving them another advantage over ETF investors. Goldman owns a global network of aluminum warehouses. Morgan Stanley (MS) chartered more tankers than Chevron (CVX) last year, according to shipbroker Poten & Partners. And JPMorgan Chase (JPM) hired a supertanker to store heating oil off Malta last year, likely earning returns of better than 50 percent in six months, says oil economist Philip Verleger. “Many, many firms did this,” he adds, explaining that ETF investors created this “profitable, risk-free arbitrage opportunity” when they plowed into commodities….”
Sheep ahoy!
Morgan Stanley (MS) chartered more tankers than Chevron (CVX) last year,
Ho ho, hah hah, hehehehehehe, BwaHaHaAhHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! (Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower™)
“These f@!king Guys!,” Jon Stewart.
SUPPLY & DEMAND …cannot, I repeat, cannot be manipulated in a FREE MARKET eCONomy. Besides that would be “unprofessional” as well as “unethical”
(Hwy50 turns up the volume): ‘Who let the Doggs out!…”
So renting a supertanker and filling it with heating oil is risk free? Hmmm, that’s news to me.
It is when you have enough power to game the market and have more insider information than most people.
I slinked around the net a bit until I found the original article.
It’s from July 22, 2010, but that doesn’t make it any less of a good read.
Go here:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_31/b4189050970461_page_3.htm
Supply and demand?
HAHAHHAHAHHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAA
Seriously, does anyone still believe in supply and demand?
How else do you explain the decline in housing prices?
How do you explain shadow inventory?
How else do you explain the
declinemanipulation in housing prices?Manipulation going…up
Manipulation going…down
Heard a news story on the radio this morning in Tampa. Poor lady was given 60k dollars from the city and another 30k dollars from another organisation to put her in an empty house in a specific community here in town. (I dont remember the name yet, something ‘estates’)
The builder of the community has gone bankrupt, and now the house is appraised for ZERO dollars due to the chinese drywall in it.
90k of our tax dollars to put a woman and her family in a house, only to see it all gone to waste…how many times did this scenario unfold across the country?
ZERO dollars?
Wow.
ZERO dollars?
Is that adjusted for inflation?
Is that adjusted for inflation?
Yes, it started out at $200,000.
They didn’t allow any consideration for the land itself? I suppose the value of the land could be equal to the estimated cost of demolishing the house and hauling away the toxic debris. Result = zero.
There have been programs like that here in Tucson.
Some sort of money came to town that would be used to fix up foreclosed houses. ISTR reading that the cost to fix each house was around $200k. (That’s a pretty nice house here in the Old Pueblo.)
Next step was to find people to buy these places, which aren’t in the better parts of town. I don’t know how that part’s going, but I do know that a lot of these houses are on the South Side, which, even in the best of times has a lot of gang activity and crime. Not the sort of area that people are hankering to live in.
“Heard a news story on the radio this morning in Tampa.”
Already problematic…
“Poor lady was given 60k dollars from the city and another 30k dollars from another organisation…90k of our tax dollars”
‘Another organization’
How is that ‘our tax dollars’?
‘Given 60k from the city’.
How? Under what program?
Get your personal anecdotes straight.
A few years ago, the city of Houston had a new $30 million dollar computer system built… that didn’t work.
In this same decade, they found there was major problem in the city criminal forensics dept… which brought 4000 criminal cases into question most of which will have to be retried, not to mention the secondary lawsuits brought for wrongful convictions.
It goes on a lot.
We just sold our mom’s pasadena condo for 75k under asking price and now the battle of the room sized persian rug is on between my sister and me. cashin’ in on the bubble is a pipedream!
now the battle of the room sized persian rug is on between my sister and me.
Tell her it was made in Iran by Muslim children with small fingers.
“…now the battle of the room sized persian rug is on between my sister and me.”
Settle it with a coin toss, and don’t forget that John Gage dollar.
There are less risky, more equitable strategies for settling this. For instance, both parties can decide what the rug is worth to themselves personally (as Kim suggested below). Upon revealing bids to each other, the person with the higher subjective valuation pays off the person with the lower subjective valuation and keeps the rug. Neither party is made worse off (e.g. through losing a coin toss bet).
Cut the rug in half.
“now the battle of the room sized persian rug is on between my sister and me”
Each of you write on a piece of paper how much the rug is worth to you in cash. The person who wrote down the higher number has to immediately pay the other person the amount that that other person wrote down.
Beautiful. A variation of this strategy works for getting kids to agree on drink portions. Kid A pours, kid B chooses first.
“…condo for 75k under asking price…”
If it makes you feel any better, if we kids ever have to sell our childhood home (in the Midwest), it will command a price far below $75K.
Midwest developer’s equivalent of “There Will Be Blood” milkshake:
Endlessly build new subdivisions farther and farther out from the city center, leading to ongoing collapse of older housing (both figuratively and literally).
“Endlessly build new subdivisions farther and farther out from the city center”
Even with $5 a gallon gasoline?
Even with $5 gas because some people are just stubborn.
“Even with $5 a gallon gasoline?”
Nobody could have seen it coming!
Mmm, cadmium!
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Tween-Brands-to-limit-toxic-apf-2140111726.html?x=0&.v=4
“Last July, Tween recalled about 137,000 pieces of jewelry that had been made in China due to unspecified high levels of cadmium. While test results from that recall have not been publicly released, some of the five other cadmium jewelry recalls orchestrated last year by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission involved pieces that were more than 90 percent cadmium, according to laboratory testing conducted for The Associated Press.”
90 percent cadmium! Was this intended to be worn by members of a heavy metal band?
Damn regulations!
Oh wait…
Reading a bit further reveals, low and behold, government regulations are the reason manufacturers are using the cadmium in the first place:
“That law, as well as those in three other states, was enacted after an AP investigation revealed that some Chinese jewelry manufacturers were substituting cadmium for lead, the use of which Congress clamped down on in 2008 following a string of imported product safety scandals.”
Uh, no. They we’re flat out trying to get away with substituting one illegal metal for another.
A Fed’l Reserve banker confirms what we’ve been preaching for years.
Debt will do you in if you load up with too much of it.
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The U.S. debt situation is at a “tipping point,” Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher said on Tuesday, and urged the U.S. central bank to refrain from any further stimulus measures.
“If we continue down on the path on which the fiscal authorities put us, we will become insolvent. The question is when,” Fisher said in a speech at the University of Frankfurt.
Is this a hint that there might not be “Quantitative Easing #3″ later in 2011? Hardly anybody will believe that. One thing for sure, Mr. Fisher’s remarks in faraway Germany will resonate at home.
I had the privilege of hearing Fisher speak at the University of Arizona business school last year. At the time, he was test-driving the “end too big to fail” speech that he delivered a few weeks later.
His speech got a very nice reception here in Tucson. And, speaking of receptions, I went up to him and introduced myself. Said that I was a freelancer and that I thought that the U.S. government’s focus on jobs being the only way that one could make a living was misguided.
The freelance economy has been growing by leaps and bounds, and, although life isn’t perfect out here, we freelancers are making a living. (Just don’t get us started on the individual health insurance market. Just don’t.)
Fisher heard me out, and I appreciated that. Now, whether his hearing me out actually translates into a looking beyond the employment mentality remains to be seen.
“SOME” of us freelancers are making a living.
It’s ‘common sense’ time.
Time to end the tax breaks for the wealthy.
What are you, some kinda dang socialeest/commie?!
How dare you pick on a class of people that have only increased their income over the last 30 years by measly 400% while seeing their taxes drop by almost 50%?!
Yer just jealous!
Let me ask you a simple question. If I am a debtor and I decide to take a loan, can I declare that I will only pay 1% interest?
Of course not! you will say. The fact is that I actually can pay out 1% interest if someone is willing to lend me at 1%.
Same thing with the US Govt. Whatever we might say about it, the fact remains that some large lenders are willing to lend to the US at rates close to zero. The US would be a fool to not take up this offer (even if the majority of the lending is from “expanding the Fed’s balance sheet”, a good fraction of it does come from our benefactors the Chinese).
When does this gig end? When the Chinese no longer are willing to lend at close to zero. But when that happens, the renminbi will move correspondingly higher placing the US domestic industry in a much more competitive position than today. And that should be the goal for where we are headed.
Of course not! you will say. The fact is that I actually can pay out 1% interest if someone is willing to lend me at 1%.
Right. But we also have a printing press…so if all else fails that someone can be us, right?
yensoy said, “…But when that happens, the renminbi will move correspondingly higher placing the US domestic industry in a much more competitive position than today…”
Perhaps you didn’t see this?:
“Conventional wisdom is that a weakening currency is a boon for economic growth and exports; however, history does not support this view.
For example, during the 20-year period from 1971 to 1991 - often referred to now as an economic miracle - the Japanese yen tripled in value against the dollar, an average appreciation rate of about 10% per year. This increasing purchasing power enabled the Japanese to enjoy steady economic growth and rising living standards. Over that time, Japan’s GDP grew at an average rate of 4.5% and net exports increased fivefold. Government debt as a percentage of GDP fell slightly to about 20%.
Over the following 20 years, from 1991 - 2011, the Japanese economy has been dead in the water. Yen appreciation slowed considerably, with the currency rising by approximately 50% against the dollar, or about 2.5% per year. However, over that time, the Japanese economy and net export growth essentially stagnated, with GDP growing by less than 1% per annum and government debt exploding to over 120% of GDP.
The real problem for Japan is that in the aftermath of the bursting of the stock and real estate bubbles, the Japanese government refused to allow market forces to repair the damage. Instead, it based its foolish approach on restricting the rise in its currency to maintain exports to the United States. In this cart-before-the-horse worldview, Japan assumed its economic growth was a function of its exports. In reality, exports flow from economic growth…”
http://financialsense.com/contributors/peter-schiff/quake-response-puts-yen-on-the-line
Adjustable rate mortgages are back ~ cnnmoney
After accounting for nearly 70% of all mortgages issued during the boom, ARMs vanished during the bust, totaling just 3% of the market in 2009. Now they make up 5% of all mortgages issued, and Freddie Mac predicts 10% by December.
Behind the comeback is a simple fact: ARMs are a great bargain right now. The most common ARM loan currently has a rate of 3.5% compared to 5% for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage.
“For anyone with a high likelihood of moving soon, the 5/1 is a great product,” said Michael Fratantoni, vice president of research and economics for the Mortgage Bankers Association. “It’s a well understood product too; there’s not a lot of danger with it.”
So why isn’t everyone grabbing an ARM?
Well, because fixed-rate mortgages are seen as safer because they carry the same rate over life of the loan. Borrowers always know what their payment will be.
But with ARMs, interest rates change over time. For example, the 5/1 ARM — the most common loan — has the 3.5% introductory rate for the first five years. After that, the rate adjusts annually.
That sounds kind of dangerous, but look deeper. On a $200,000 mortgage, the monthly ARM payment at 3.5% would be $898 compared with $1,074 for a 30-year, fixed-rate loan at 5%.
That’s a $10,560 difference after five years, when the ARM would adjust. At that point the ARM rate could jump to a worst-case scenario 8.5% and the monthly payment to $1,538.
“For anyone with a high likelihood of moving soon, the 5/1 is a great product,” said Michael Fratantoni, vice president of research and economics for the Mortgage Bankers Association. “It’s a well understood product too; there’s not a lot of danger with it.”
For anyone with a high likelihood of moving soon, there’s this thing called renting. I’ve heard that it works really well.
Seriously. NO ONE should buy if they are actually planning on staying somewhere for only five years. The enormous up front costs obliterate any notion that you will save over renting.
and if rates are 8.5% in 5 years you probably lost >20% of you homes value so you will just stop making whatever your mortgage is and then move on. Yes, a 5/1 Arm makes sense. Just go 3% down.
Chrysler Pushes Dealers to Hire More Sales Staff ~ Bloomberg
Chrysler Group LLC, the U.S. automaker operated by Fiat SpA (F), is pushing its U.S. dealers to hire more service workers and salesmen to help the company boost vehicle sales 32 percent this year.
“While it’s still early in the calendar year, now is the time to act,” Peter Grady, vice president of Chrysler’s network development and fleet, said in a memo to dealers this month. “Hiring additional personnel in preparation for the spring market is essential for success in 2011.”
Chief Executive Officer Sergio Marchionne is targeting global sales this year of 2 million vehicles, including 1.57 million in the U.S. The Auburn Hills, Michigan-based automaker has begun selling new or revamped models including the Chrysler 300 large sedan, Dodge Durango sport-utility vehicle and Fiat 500 subcompact.
Chrysler, aiming to boost U.S. deliveries by 45 percent this year, has been working with its 2,311 dealers in the market to extend store hours and add quick-lube services. In February, Marchionne said 80 percent of the automaker’s U.S. dealers were operating profitability, the highest percentage since 2000.
Okay, show of hands from the HBB car shoppers: Who’s in the market for a new Chrysler?
Do they make bicycles?
I’m looking to get rid of mine. 2008 Town & Country. Piece of junk. Will never buy another Chrysler again.
Two hands down on buying any car.
Not no way, not no how!
I am not in the new car buying market period. The last brand new vehicle I bought was in 1989.
Who’s in the market for a new
ChryslerJeep?Waiting for post “Memorial Day” my-price-or-no-sale-at-your-Jeep-joint June negotiation ping-pong tournament. (Thinkin’ of using Over-Taxed payment tactic.)
I was unaware that they were still making cars. Seriously. I thought they had died off in the 80’s.
Report: More than 10 percent of California school districts are in financial trouble. Contra Costa Times
SACRAMENTO — Nearly 2 million California students attend school in financially troubled districts, according to a report released Monday by state schools Chief Tom Torlakson.
“As disturbing as these numbers are,” he said in a prepared statement, “unless the Legislature moves to place the governor’s tax extension plan on the ballot, they are just the tip of the financial iceberg facing school districts up and down the state.”
Torlakson released interim status reports for California schools through October, which showed 13 districts — including Hayward and John Swett in the East Bay — with “negative” certifications, meaning they might not be able to pay their bills through the end of next year.
Nearly 100 districts — including the Emery, Oakland and Mt. Diablo districts in the East Bay — filed “qualified” certifications, signaling that they may not meet their financial obligations through 2012-13. But three of the struggling districts were able to improve their budget outlooks in their second interim reports filed last week.
The Hayward district dug itself out of its fiscal hole to file a “qualified” report, while the Emery and Mt. Diablo districts pushed themselves to “positive” certifications.
“We’ve had to make extreme cuts to maintain positive certification,” Mt. Diablo Board President Gary Eberhart said when trustees approved the district’s report March 15.
Mt. Diablo’s certification, however, is contingent on
unions accepting furlough days and health benefits cuts that haven’t yet been negotiated. The board approved a three-year budget that drops from $297.5 million this year to $270.5 million in 2011-12, including an anticipated loss of $349 per student if the tax extensions fail.
The Hayward district’s qualified budget will immediately revert to negative if the extensions fail, district officials said.
Why don’t we cut prison budgets before school budgets? Do we really need to spend $50k per year to keep someone in prison?
I can live off of half of that and be very comfortable in a great town!
“Why don’t we cut prison budgets before school budgets? ”
I don’t know the answer, but I wonder who has more lobbyists.
Also, you don’t need to pay someone to guard you, which isn’t exactly cheap.
“I can live off of half of that and be very comfortable in a great town!”
Living can be considerably less comfortable if the likes of John Albert Gardner III are on the loose.
Actually we need to spend MORE money on prisoners…..
Take away all their activities sell the gym equipment on ebay and we force them to read,write and speak English or they serve every last day of their sentence.
You want out early read the New York Times in front of a parole board.
I know its a radical idea but nothing else has worked to stop recidivism.
Suppose one combined your idea with providing the means to obtain an education behind bars; it could be a powerful combination.
The tricky part is to offer genuine rehabilitation opportunities without enticing would-be takers to deliberately commit crimes in order to qualify.
Report: More than 10 percent of California school districts are in financial trouble. ~ Contra Costa Times
SACRAMENTO — Nearly 2 million California students attend school in financially troubled districts, according to a report released Monday by state schools Chief Tom Torlakson.
“As disturbing as these numbers are,” he said in a prepared statement, “unless the Legislature moves to place the governor’s tax extension plan on the ballot, they are just the tip of the financial iceberg facing school districts up and down the state.”
Torlakson released interim status reports for California schools through October, which showed 13 districts — including Hayward and John Swett in the East Bay — with “negative” certifications, meaning they might not be able to pay their bills through the end of next year.
Nearly 100 districts — including the Emery, Oakland and Mt. Diablo districts in the East Bay — filed “qualified” certifications, signaling that they may not meet their financial obligations through 2012-13. But three of the struggling districts were able to improve their budget outlooks in their second interim reports filed last week.
The Hayward district dug itself out of its fiscal hole to file a “qualified” report, while the Emery and Mt. Diablo districts pushed themselves to “positive” certifications.
“We’ve had to make extreme cuts to maintain positive certification,” Mt. Diablo Board President Gary Eberhart said when trustees approved the district’s report March 15.
Mt. Diablo’s certification, however, is contingent on
unions accepting furlough days and health benefits cuts that haven’t yet been negotiated. The board approved a three-year budget that drops from $297.5 million this year to $270.5 million in 2011-12, including an anticipated loss of $349 per student if the tax extensions fail.
The Hayward district’s qualified budget will immediately revert to negative if the extensions fail, district officials said.
As the United States struggles to fix its ongoing jobs crisis, could it learn a thing or two from Germany?
That country’s government painted a rosy economic picture yesterday, saying the early part of 2011
That volatility has triggered debates both there and here about whether spending cuts or old-fashioned Keynesian policies have proved more effective—with the usual suspects lining up on each side.
But here’s the thing: Through it all, no one disputes that employment levels—though lower than America’s during the boom years—have during the downturn held remarkably steady, relative to the United States
range of analyses suggest that steps taken by German policymakers and employers, both before and during the recession, successfully limited the damage the downturn was able to do on the country’s labor market.
First, Germany has focused very directly on protecting existing jobs. Through its “kurzarbeit” program, the government provides subsidies to employers who avoid laying off workers during periods of low demand; instead bosses are encouraged merely to reduce the hours that employees work. Employers themselves have also created more flexible arrangements with their workers: Under a system of “working time accounts,” employees work overtime without additional pay when demand is high during boom times, then during the downturn work shorter hours, again at regular pay. The system helps everyone better weather the ups and downs of the economy without the need for layoffs.
A new study [pdf] released last week by the Brookings Institution found that the “working time accounts” system helped keep joblessness down. A more suggestive finding of the Brookings study, though, is that the greater stability of the German jobs economy comes from the measured pace of its expansion. During the boom years, the Brookings researchers found, German companies cautiously avoided ramping up hiring—meaning, in turn, that they didn’t need to scale back as drastically once things went south.
For U.S. employers to adopt ideas such as the kurzarbeit program or working time accounts would require a far-reaching change of philosophy. Here, even the most aggressive jobs strategies—stimulus spending, for instance—are much less direct. They aim to boost economic growth, under the theory that doing so will lead naturally to job creation. That’s usually a safe assumption, but it means that if for some reason the growth strategy fails, the jobs strategy fails too. That’s largely what happened last year, when anemic growth kept unemployment sky high.
Some argue there’s also a more deeply rooted explanation for Germany’s relative success in holding onto jobs. As the Washington Post’s Harold Meyerson has written, Germany’s manufacturing firms still hire large numbers of domestic workers, rather than turning to lower paid foreign workers as many of their U.S. counterparts do. That’s not because German execs are inherently any more civic-minded than American one—instead, they’re acting under the constraints of Germany’s “co-determination” system, which aims to ensure that corporate boards contain an equal number of labor and management representatives. Here, by contrast, organized labor is fighting to avoid seeing its clout reduced still further.
yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110322/ts_yblog_thelookout/ich-bin-ein-example-what-we-can-learn-from-germany-about-jobs
Paul B. Farrell
March 22, 2011, 6:55 a.m. EDT
New Civil War erupts, led by super rich, GOP
Commentary: ‘Shock Doctrine,’ Reaganomics trigger explosive class war
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Yes, “there’s class warfare, all right,” warns Warren Buffett. “But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Yes, the rich are making war against us. And yes, they are winning. Why? Because so many are fighting this new American Civil War between the rich and the rest.
Not just the 16 new GOP governors in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Florida, and across America fighting for new powers. Others include: Chamber of Commerce billionaires, Koch brothers, Forbes 400, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform — which now has 97% of House Republicans and 85% of the GOP Senators signed on his “no new taxes” pledge — the Tea Party and Reaganomics ideologues.
Wake up America. You are under attack. Stop kidding yourself. We are at war. In fact, we have been fighting this Civil War for a generation, since Ronald Reagan was elected in 1981. Recently Buffett renewed the battle cry: The “rich class” is winning this war. Except most Americans still don’t realize they’re losing, don’t see the prize at stake.
…
Wake up America. You are under attack.
We are. We have been. And it’s not by the blacks or gays or unions. We are being attacked by the very-rich. Attacked. They are winning.
We can run but we can’t hide.
And I’ll tell you one thing. 90% of you Republicans have a lot more in common with the Democrats than you do with the richest of the rich and corporations that are playing you like a cheap, Chinese fiddle.
They laugh at you with derision aboard their private yachts. They mock your gullibility at the same time they are making plans to manipulate you to take stands detrimental to 90% of your fellow countrymen.
unfortunately a lot of Dem politicians have a lot in common with the GOP politicians ie they feed on the same money. Thank you Supreme court for saying money is free speech and corporations are people.
Rio:
And a big part of it is the dumbing down of music the flooding of ignorant rap hip hop and clueless airhead pop music…
We have never had a time when music by real musicians were so discouraged on the radio….
We are. We have been. And it’s not by the blacks or gays or unions. We are being attacked by the very-rich. Attacked. They are winning.
And a big part of it is the dumbing down of music the flooding of ignorant rap hip hop and clueless airhead pop music…
We have never had a time when music by real musicians were so discouraged on the radio….
Well, come to Tucson and become part of our little ole community radio station, KXCI. We play a little bit of everything, including rap/hip-hop and a bit of airhead pop. Case in point: David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust” is on right now. That one got done to death on pop radio back in the seventies.
Getting back to the rap/hip-hop thing for a minute: I’m on the KXCI music audition team, and I’ll have to say that getting this genre on the air is tough. Because of its foul language and misogyny.
Yes, we are willing to do the “bleep” thing so that we can play good songs on the air, but jeepers, some of that rap/hip-hop stuff would be nothing but “bleep-bleep-bleep.” That’s hard on the ears.
And believe me, the people that are listening to our station don’t hesitate to call the studio line to unload on the deejays. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve never left the ranks of the off-air volunteers to become a deejay.
As for discouraging real musicians, man, we are inundated by them. Every day, two post office crates full of CDs come into the station. Some of it, quite frankly, is best used for resting one’s coffee cup on, but there are some gems too.
That’s just the stuff that comes in the mail. We’re also called, e-mailed, tweeted, and approached in person by local musicians wanting airplay. Some of them, like Calexico, have gone global. Others are perfectly happy to play the local club circuit and go no further.
Slim We have very little of that in NYC…Maybe WFUV but NPR PBS has hogged up all the high powered frequencies years ago to shut out the public voices like your little station….that’s why we need to defund all public radio unless its really IS for the public good and the public can actually use the airways like the FCC intended.
And I will disagree about rap music being misogynist. Song writers write about the women in the front row…now if the women are bitches, ho’s & sluts well who’s fault is that? Its the women’s fault for being in the front row and to give these rap artists plenty of material to write songs with.
Imagine if Barry White, Luther Vandross or Smokey came on stage and said I wanna F**k all you bittches and ho’s tonight what would you do?
and I’ll have to say that getting this genre on the air is tough. Because of its foul language and misogyny.
They know they are loosing. They don’t understand who is winning. They think it’s the middle class union workers, or minorities, or the gov that’s winning. The reality is that gov is just a tool that has been taken over by the rich. The middle class and minorities are loosing. The upper middle class and lower rungs of the elite will loose as well.
Follow the money, that tells you who is winning and right now the money is being concentrated in a smaller and smaller # of hands.
which now has 97% of House Republicans and 85% of the GOP Senators signed on his “no new taxes” pledge — the Tea Party and Reaganomics ideologues.
heheeeheeeheehaahaaahaaheeehaahaaa… (Hwy50™)
“TrueAnger™” + “TruePurity™” = “Grab the cafeteria lunch lady, drag her outside…you,…you did this to America!!!!!!!!!!! Now, …now, we’re gonna make you paaaayyyyyyyyy… with your job & your $alary & your stinkin’ gold-plated health benefits!”
Kind of amazing what a little Enron accounting can do:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Fed-says-2010-payment-to-apf-1556654909.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=6&asset=&ccode=
Fed is earning alot of money on its $2 trillion portfolio. However, the fed’s price risk is around $1.5 billion per basis point. It won’t be fun if rates rise dramatically.
Enron didn’t invent this. Ol’ Kenny boy just knew some people who showed him the ropes.
Chavez says capitalism may have ended life on Mars
March 22, 2011
CARACAS (Reuters) - Capitalism may be to blame for the lack of life on the planet Mars, Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday.
“I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet,” Chavez said in speech to mark World Water Day.
Chavez, who also holds capitalism responsible for many of the world’s problems, warned that water supplies on Earth were drying up.
“Careful! Here on planet Earth where hundreds of years ago or less there were great forests, now there are deserts. Where there were rivers, there are deserts,” Chavez said, sipping from a glass of water.
He added that the West’s attacks on Libya were about water and oil reserves.
While Chavez is a “Character” he’s right about deforestation, pollution, overfishing and over farming.
Many anthropologists believe that many deserts were created by the same problem in the ancient past and many “cities” were abandoned because of pollution.
Passing on a little housing gossip here… DH’s coworker has a friend doing a short sale on a condo in Chicago. He paid around $240K (had a little down payment, but not much). He got a short sale offer for $39K and his bank accepted it.
Not sure of any further details. As I understand it, there are some condos in Chicago that are difficult to sell right now because the buildings and/or associations in which they’re housed don’t meet the requirements to have Fannie/Freddie/FHA back the loans on them. I’m not certain, but this sounds like it could be one of those cases.
I’m not bringing this up because the buyer is getting a good deal (in fact, it may NOT be a good deal if too many neighbors aren’t paying their HOA fees and this buyer gets slammed with an expensive special assessment down the line - or if he has difficulty reselling it). I am posting this because its not often I hear of lenders taking this kind of a haircut (unless its on $1MM+ properties), at least not around here.
Egads. That is quite a haircut, or should I say a scalping?
Down in SW Florida where I was visiting family last week, I heard of a formerly $240k condo sold for $66k.
Wow, that’s awesome. It sounds like someone is starting to get real.
The one short-sale situation I know of in some detail in my area is not so heartening:
Bought in 2006 for near $200K. Listed now for a year and a half, with steady price reductions. One offer came in early on, for $160K. BoA did not reply in a timely manner, and the offer was withdrawn.
Almost a year later, another offer, this time for $100K. BoA countered for something close to $200K. They must have gotten a seriously-delusional BPO (Broker’s Price Opinion).
The only question is whether they will get real about accepting a short-sale, or get around to foreclosing first. They don’t seem to be in a hurry to do the latter; AFAIK, they have not even gotten around to filing a NOD.
I have a hunch that it is BPO’s that are so downright delusional that are freezing the pipeline.
Crib Chatter had a link to a list of “black listed” condo buildings a few weeks back. The list was proported to have been from a “too big to fail” bank’s list of condo buildings here in the city that they would no longer write mortgages for due to a number of reasons - too many renters, insufficient reserves, etc.
That list was long! A search of the Crib Chatter archives (about a month back) should yield the story and the link. Condo buildings were listed by name if they had one, and otherwise by address.
This is a huge local story because of the sheer volume of buildings on that list. The story included a few stories of buyers and sellers stymied by this issue and strongly suggested that many more owners were pretty much trapped for the duration - unless of course someone takes the hit - as evidenced by your story here.
“He paid around $240K (had a little down payment, but not much). He got a short sale offer for $39K and his bank accepted it.”
That’s a percentage reduction off the last sale price of
(39/240-1)*100 = -84%. I guess not everyone wants to freeze to death in Chicago anymore?
State universities face deepening cuts ~ MSNBC
Growing budget problems mean even tenured professors could be at risk
Wisconsin government workers aren’t the only ones feeling the pinch because of budget cuts. Governors of cash-strapped states are now putting public colleges on the chopping block.
Forty-three states have cut higher education since the start of the recession in December 2007, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. And many states are now considering more drastic measures such as closing departments or entire campuses, curtailing student enrollment and laying off staff — even tenured professors.
Tuition hikes are inevitable, so students will be paying more for more crowded classrooms and fewer services.
Nevada’s Board of Regents met March 11 to discuss the dire situation in the state’s universities after a rough week. Hundreds of protestors gathered on the Las Vegas Strip to oppose school cuts earlier in the month, and Moody’s Investors Service identified the University of Nevada at Las Vegas as the most likely candidate to declare “financial exigency,” similar to bankruptcy.
UNLV “is on the brink” of such a filing, says Edith Behr, vice president at Moody’s and one of the authors of the report.
Education is for the rich alone don’t you know. It’s easier to manipulate an ignorant population.
I will always point to rap and hip hop music and it being Katrina flooded 24/7 for that exact purpose
Tenured professors getting canned? Let’s hope it hits the freshwater economics schools hard.
Karma’s a bitch.
Gary Shilling: Stocks Aren’t Safe - Tech Ticker
The stock market is rising because the Fed’s free money policy is making it –but the economic recovery is much less than meets the eye, Shilling says.
He’s got that RIGHT!
Rio, thanks much for the response yesterday! Really interesting that the diet change and being in a more walking-oriented lifestyle had such a huge effect on you!
Really appreciate you sharing that…
I think the walking lifestyle alone will do it for most. People who rely on public transportation walk miles a day more than us car folk.
Not that I don’t think the average American diet is shite.
Yeah, there’s been much written on why the peoples of many a foreign land don’t hang out at the gym for hours on end or rely on reduced fat foods to stay trim. They all pretty much conclude that it’s the amount of walking, stair climbing, biking the do in the course of a typical day. Exercise is second nature, not planned.
There is always a housing bottom one year out, at least according to the serial bottom caller brigade. And all extrapolations off recent price trends soon go up. In fact, it appears that U.S. housing prices have achieved a permanently high plateau.
WSJ Blogs
Developments
Real estate news and analysis from The Wall Street Journal
* Real Estate News: Housing Discounts Expected
* March 22, 2011, 11:31 AM ET
Economists: No Home-Price Recovery This Year
By Nick Timiraos
U.S. home prices won’t hit bottom until next year, according to a survey of 111 economists and other housing analysts by MacroMarkets LLC. The survey shows how economists have continued to delay their expectations for a housing recovery.
The analysts expect home prices, as measured by the S&P/Case-Shiller national index, to fall an average 1.4% in 2011. The survey was conducted during the first two weeks of March.
The quarterly survey shows how attitudes for a housing recovery have soured: Last June, economists expected prices would gain by 1.3% this year. “The sentiment among our expert panel regarding the U.S. housing market outlook continues to deteriorate,” said Robert Shiller, the Yale University housing economist who co-founded MacroMarkets.
Panelists expect home prices to gain by 1.3% next year. Mr. Shiller attributed the “uninspiring” forecast to “persistently weak” economic fundamentals — high unemployment, a large and growing supply of unsold homes, and tighter mortgage credit.
Around one-third of panelists expect home prices to increase in 2011. Bill Cheney, chief economist of John Hancock Financial, and Abdullah Yavas, and professor of real estate at the University of Wisconsin, are calling for a 3% annual gain. Another dozen economists, including the National Association of Realtors’ Lawrence Yun, expect home prices will be flat for the year.
The remaining half of all panelists expect prices to decline. The most bearish forecasts, from Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and Gary Shilling, president of A. Gary Shilling & Co., call for an 11% decline this year.
…
It is increasingly obvious to me that the majority of the economics profession (at least the portion which is followed by the MSM) has no clue about the implications of a collapsed housing bubble for future U.S. housing prices. Perhaps they should consider whether the U.S. is really that different from Japan; I think not.
The housing market will recover after some time after the 2012 Souper Bowl.
U.S. housing analysts: market bottom in 2012
March 22, 2011 02:15PM
Robert Shiller
Most U.S. housing analysts now expect the market to hit bottom some time in 2012, marking yet another delay in the predicted rebound in nationwide home prices.
…
I see brown squirts in the housing market.
Is Housing Really in Recovery?
Published: Tuesday, 22 Mar 2011 | 3:00 PM ET
By: Diana Olick
CNBC Real Estate Reporter
During one of my reports today on how gas prices could affect the housing recovery, one of the anchors asked me if I really believe there is a housing recovery right now.
That’s a very good question.
Yesterday, the Realtors chief economist questioned it himself.
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The Ten Things Everyone Should Know About Science
(FT, you may need to register, but it’s free)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/2299fd16-9701-11dc-b2da-0000779fd2ac.html?ftcamp=traffic/email/regsnl//memmkt/
Awesome, thanks.
http://www.glennbeck.com/2011/03/22/beck-clear-case-of-economic-terrorism/
sabotage at jp morgan, what will they think of next?
i know it’s against the law to watch beck because he’s so off base but the seiu really wants to shock the system.
Years ago, I had a boss who was as flaming a liberal as she could be. But she had a real thing for listening to Rush. So did her husband.
When I was in the car with her, I’d get all apoplectic about having HIM on the radio. But she’d just sit there and chuckle. Because she and her husband enjoyed parodying HIM to each other.
Report: Puerto Rico delegate top spender in House
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico’s nonvoting congressional delegate was the biggest spender last year in the U.S. House of Representatives, a nonpartisan foundation says.
Pedro Pierluisi claimed $2.1 million in expenses, topping House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by $257,000, according to a report issued Monday by the Sunlight Foundation, which promotes government transparency.
The report said Pierluisi spent almost $1.2 million to pay his staff, nearly $174,000 on printing and reproduction, and more than $59,000 on travel.
Congressional representatives’ expenses are picked up by U.S. taxpayers.
Dennise Perez, Pierluisi’s spokeswoman, said Tuesday that the costs reflect that the Pierluisi represents nearly 4 million constituents in the U.S. territory, several times more than are found in any U.S. congressional district.
She also noted that air travel is the only option when Pierluisi visits the Caribbea island, about 1,550 miles (2,500 kilometers) from Washington.
Perez said about 2 million copies of Pierluisi’s newsletter are printed and distributed at least three times a year, and it is the only means of written mass communication he uses.
link preeze!
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CB_PUERTO_RICO_DELEGATES_EXPENSES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-03-22-18-37-55
http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/obama-kucinich-randpaul-libya/2011/03/22/id/390339?s=al&promo_code=BEA0-1
WAR, what is it good for?
absolutely nothing!
How about “broken window” economics?
Anyone else see this? The vampire squid gets whacked!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703410604576217023625225138.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories
There is no shortage of quack theories about what the economy “needs” these days. And remember when anyone who suggested the Fed propped up the stock market was labeled a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist? Nowadays it is common knowledge that they prop up the market, as confirmed by this lovely lady’s article in the Wall Street Journal.
* AHEAD OF THE TAPE
* MARCH 23, 2011
The Fed Places Stock in the Bull Market
* By KELLY EVANS
When it comes to the U.S. stock market, what goes up apparently must not come down.
That at least is how the Federal Reserve seems to approach monetary policy these days. Officials are famously leery of intervening when the stock market looks frothy (or irrationally exuberant), but not when it is sinking. The stock market’s swoon last summer, after all, helped prompt the Fed’s current bout of government-bond buying.
As the June 30 end date for that $600 billion program looms, Fed officials have so far made it pretty clear they want to wrap it up as planned. Should a change be in store, they will have to start laying the groundwork pretty soon, lest markets be taken by surprise. That is why Fed watchers will be paying particularly close attention to speeches in coming weeks, especially comments from Chairman Ben Bernanke.
His next chance to drop a hint comes Wednesday, when Mr. Bernanke is scheduled to speak about community banking.
Still, any big pronouncements now seem unlikely. Whether that changes in subsequent speeches may be largely determined by the stock market.
Quite simply, the market has become a key Fed tool in boosting growth and (at least in theory) in generating jobs in the short term.
Indeed, home prices are falling again, gas prices rising and many households remain cut off from credit or wary of using it like they did to fuel spending during the boom. “You simply cannot afford to have home prices and equity prices slump together for any length of time,” says Moody’s Capital Markets Chief Economist John Lonski, or growth prospects would quickly sour.
…