Bits Bucket for March 25, 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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Realtors Are Predatory.
Realtors and bankers are the same species?
I wish Chris Hansen would do a segment on them.
They could put hidden cameras in a “bait open-house” and catch realtors saying stupid realtor catch phrases.
“Real estate always goes up.”
“Buy now or get priced out forever.”
“Renting is just throwing away money.”
“There has never been a better time to buy.”
“It’s different here, because everyone wants to live here.”
“All real estate is local.”
Did I miss any?
Two Ways for the US to Go Broke ~ Bill Bonner ~ The Daily Reckoning
From what we can tell from the newspapers, the US housing market got very bad news yesterday. New house sales dipped to a record low. Never before since they began keeping records a half century ago have so few new houses been sold.
Naturally, house prices are falling too. Why is that? Because the housing industry built and sold today’s houses yesterday. A credit bubble takes from the future. Now we’re in the future. Naturally, there’s not much here. It’s already been taken away…used up…built…spent…consumed. We’ve got yesterday’s houses on the market. And today’s. And tomorrow’s.
Which shows how ridiculous the feds can be. First, they nationalized Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae…to keep them from going broke. Then, they bought mortgaged-backed securities by the boatload…and lent money at zero interest rates…to re-flate the banking/mortgage industry. Then, they tell us that we (the taxpayers) are making money on those securities. Yes, we’re supposed to make a profit as they are sold back into the market!
But now the housing market is in a double dip, and a report in today’s news tells us that Fannie and Freddie may be hiding $100 billion in losses.
Our advice: if you buy a house today, mortgage it heavily. Long term. Fixed rate. Your house will go down in price…but your mortgage may disappear completely.
Another thing taking a beating today is Europe’s periphery debt after the Portuguese voted against austerity. To put this into perspective, there are only two ways to go. When you borrow too much money from the future, you either have to pay it back or you go broke. The Portuguese were trying to pay down their debts, by cutting “services.” But it’s harder to cut services than you might think. Modern democratic welfare states are built on a fraud - that the government can give people more in services than they pay for. Typically, the government takes the extra money from groups that are politically weak - such as the next generation, which doesn’t get a vote.
Citizens don’t like it when the government tries to cut back. And when a majority of voters are on the taking end of the exchange - getting more from the feds than they pay in taxes - it’s very hard (maybe impossible) to impose “austerity” measures.
What the Portuguese election is telling us is that many governments will go broke before they pay down their debt. At least, that’s what it implies…
The US situation is a little more complicated. We have the world’s reserve currency. Our debt is largely held by foreigners. And it is denominated in a currency we alone control. So, we have the ability to go broke in two different ways.
We can do it the old-fashioned way, that is, by being unable to pay our bills when they come due.
Or we can do it the inflationary way - by paying our bills in a currency that is not worth as much as the stuff we borrowed.
Clearly, the second way is the preferred approach. It’s what the feds are aiming for. It’s a major reason the Fed is pumping $4 billion per day into the world economy. And it’s an additional reason to keep interest rates at zero - even after, by the feds’ own reckoning, the emergency is past.
In short, you can cheat your creditors in two ways. You can default honestly. Or you can inflate.
The trouble with inflation is that it is like a bad dog. It doesn’t come when it is called. And when it does come, it comes on so fast it knocks you over. Then, it goes into the house and tears up the furniture.
Japan hasn’t been able to get the cur in the door in over 20 years of calling. And when it came to Argentina, Zimbabwe and Weimar Germany, it what such a nuisance they wished they had never whistled.
But there’s Ben, Tim, and all the rest - dog lovers, everyone of them.
Nice article. It’s interesting that he recommends buying a home with a 30 yr loan, but I guess that makes sense since you can pay it off with cheaper dollars.
doesn’t wages have to go up for that to make sense?
The idea is that wages may not go up in real terms, but will nominally. Works fine since the debt ins’t affected by inflation until the banking lobby needs it to happen.
My guess is wages will not go up nominally and if there is an increase it will be more than overwhelmed by inflation in food and fuel medical care tuition cuts in services fees tolls etc etc.
Agree with that, measton.
The only reason I can see for buying a house as an inflation hedge is to protect/preserve your wealth in comparision to *other* currencies. IOW, we might end up being one of those countries where only rich locals and rich foreigners get to own houses. The rest of us can live in mud huts on the outskirts of town, kept out of the way of our masters by a series of fences and security patrols.
You can pay it off if you got a good paying job. Long term debt vs. short term/low wage job market. These 2 items are incompatible. House prices have to fall to meet the new 10-12 dollar/hr job wage.
Nice article. It’s interesting that he recommends buying a home with a 30 yr loan, but I guess that makes sense since you can pay it off with cheaper dollars.
And that’s precisely why I took out that kind of mortgage.
These same articles also suggested that building a new house is not wise , when so many almost new ones are available for a lot less money.
That would drive a stake in the hearts of all spec house builders , as in the last decade it was a given that one could build a new house and sell it at a big profit.
That would drive a stake in the hearts of all spec house builders ??
That would ?? It already has…Spec builders do not exist anymore…At least around here…
We still have them, and they are still making money in many cases, as are the flippers.
Not sure I totally agree…if the used home was built between 2002 - 2007…chances are…it is poorly constructed. I would build a new one before buying any of the ones built during the mania. There are a few exceptions I am sure.
A simple alternative would be to buy a used home built pre-bubble.
“Because the housing industry built and sold today’s houses yesterday.”
Nice summary of why the ravages of the bubble will be around for a while to come!
The auto industry tried to cannibalize future sales for years. They finally threw in tha towel and sales fell 40%+ from their highs and seem to be stuck at the 12 million unit per year level.
I keep reading about “pent up” demand for new cars, but unless you have the income those even a $20K subcompact is out of reach for over half the workforce. Even in my upper middle class neighborhood its becoming visually obvious during the dog walk that people are keeping their cars much, much longer than in the past. I’m no longer seeing people trading their cars in every 2-3 years. Even the cubicle farm crowd is beginning to see the beauty in a paid for vehicle, and understands that occassional maintenance and repair costs are small when compared to a new monthly nut.
Back when I was growing up, I noticed that my parents were in a distinct minority when it came to car ownership. Not only did they pay cash for their vehicles, they drove them until they could no longer be driven. They also were very careful drivers — less wear and tear, as my dad liked to say.
I don’t know how they construct the numbers for “pent up” demand, but it is reasonable to assume that they use people buying cars at similar rate to the rate they did in the past (whether is it 20% of households buy a car each year or 5%) and also looking at either real household formation or an assumed rate of household formation. Any cars sold that are less than their formula assumes, is pent up demand.
Lets assume for a moment that the analysis is more sofisticated than that. That they divide the population into smaller segments. And the assumption is that households with 2 adults buy a new car every 3 years which would mean (in a 2 car household) replacing each car after about 6 years of use. What if they decide to hold onto the cars for longer than 6 years? What about 9 years? Over 30 years under the old scheme, they would buy 10 cars. Over 30 years in the new one, they would buy 6 and be fairly close to needing another. Does that mean they have “pent up demand” for 3 cars? Really? And do what with them? Decorate the driveway? They changed their consumption. Unless the people who would have otherwise bought their used cars can afford to buy new ones, there is no lost demand for new cars in the scenario.
The basic idea is that there can be a little pent up demand (see their need for another car in a year and a half in my example above), but not much. Once you go through a consumptrion cycle, it is over. People who used to buy a car every three years are not going to start buying a car every year to make up for the cars they didn’t buy when they started to keep their cars longer.
Now, if you are still in the very beginning of the situation and people have not reconciled themselves to the new consumption pattern, you might have something going on. Maybe. But we aren’t really at the beginning. We aren’t 30 years in, either, but as has been said here before, duration matters.
The thing I find interesting about the car market is the trickle down effect. As long as there are lots of folks buying new cars every 3 years, there are plenty of good used ones available. However if they stretch to 6 years then the supply of used will dry up and the people who normally buy the 3 year old cars will have to either buy newer or older.
Assuming that newer is not an option, the those buyers are forced to look at older cars (say 6 years old) and force those buyers either forward or backwards. My general observation is there are normally plenty of older cars (8+ years) hanging around on used car lots; this could be the supplier that makes up for the lack of new sales.
I’m seeing asking prices for used cars at pretty high levels. asking prices for 6 year old cars (at dealers) that are 50%+ of what they cost new. I remember when it only took 2-3 years to see that sort of depreciation. What I’m also seeing on 2-3 year old cars are prices as high as 80% of what they cost when new. Even defunct brands like Saturn and Pontiac are holding up.
The used car guys are seeing it.
The guy I bought my beater truck from, says that 2 years ago, there were all kinds of 3-4 year old cars with 70-80K miles available at the auctions, and were cheap.
Says that now, he has to pay the same or more money for 4-6 year old cars with 120-140K on them.
I’m in the market for a cheap beater in the $2,000 range and I’m finding absolutely nothing in that category that doesn’t have some kind of major defect or is well over 10 years old. I bought a 1986 Ford Escort in 1994 for $500 that had no defects and lasted me 3 years with very minor problems. I’m I wrong here? I would expect a car with high miles and maybe some minor cosmetic and or mechanical problems. The best thing I’ve found is a 16-year-old Dodge Intrepid with 120,000 miles, no A/C (in florida) and a paint job that looks like someone took sandpaper to 3/4ths of the vehicle.
And ^^this^^ is the reason we had “Cash for Clunkers.” It had nothing to do with environmental protections, and everything to do with getting affordable, used cars permanently out of service.
People were buying beaters for $2000 in 1980s. We’re talking Ford Fiestas here. True beater. It doesn’t make sense that the new prices could double and yet beater prices stay at $2000. I think it was only while people were flush w/cash, ummm, I mean, credit, dumping new stuff into the market and the used car market was flush w/inventory that the $2000 beater price could be held.
“Our advice: if you buy a house today, mortgage it heavily. Long term. Fixed rate. Your house will go down in price…but your mortgage may disappear completely.”
And now for his next trick, The Great Bernanke will make your mortgage completely disappear.
By the way, that was also one of my predictions for 2011
The government will come out with their new CAMP program (can`t make your payment, don`t worry about it nobody can)
One of them already came pretty close when that guy won the lottery and got his house out of foreclosure.
I believe I said a homeless man in Miami would win the lottery and buy a condo on the beach.
The US is already broke. And has been for 3 decades.
We became a net debtor nation in the 1980s.
Yea! Ray gun nomics.
Household wealth down 23% in 2 years - Fed
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The average American family’s household net worth declined 23% between 2007 and 2009, the Federal Reserve said Thursday.
A rare survey of U.S. households, first performed in 2007 but repeated in 2009 in order to gauge the effects of the recession, reveals the median net worth of households fell from $125,000 in 2007 to $96,000 in 2009.
Titled “Surveying the Aftermath of the Storm,” the report offers a broad look at how the financial crisis impacted individual households.
It is widely known that the 2008 financial crisis resulted in the vaporization of trillions of dollars in household wealth. But Federal Reserve officials said Thursday the new report offers a look at exactly how hard the recession hit families, and how they reacted.
The numbers paint a stark picture.
Families that owned stock saw their portfolios drop by more than a third to $12,000 from $18,500, on average. The value of primary real estate holdings decreased by an average of $18,700.
And families took on more debt, pushing median total debt levels to $75,600 from $70,300. They also made less money. Media household income dropped from to $49,800 from $50,100.
Funny how things look a lot brighter if you look at means rather than medians.
funny, if they would have been allowed to fail…i may not have had a job but would be getting 16% on my savings. i could have lived with that.
How would your savings survive the ‘let it all fail’ period?
It would have failed AND you would STILL be getting nothing on your savings.
16%? I can’t even remember the last time I saw a savings rate of any kind that high.
So they have fewer dollars, but the dollars they retain (speaking in terms of life’s necessities) are weaker. So that’s a double hit to purchasing power.
Those here that said houses might some day cost $10,000, but no one can afford one, might be on to something.
There will be some that can afford one. But they’ll already have all they want. All of us will have bought, or decided to never buy, or be dead by then.
I imagine it’s a lot worse than 23% if you remove the top 1% from the calculation.
It’s a median, not a mean, so taking away the top 1% will change things, but not by that much.
Median is certainly far better than averaging, but it still just smooths out the bad news that half of the workforce makes less than $25k a year.
Which means the poor now outnumber the middle class.
Median household income is $49.8K. In some households there is only one worker. From the info provided, you can’t deduce that the median worker only makes $25K.
I’m not deducing from anything. I’m reporting from an article posted here last week.
Google “72 million americans make less than 25,000″ or variations thereof.
Texas budget could cost 600,000 jobs
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Texas could see more than 600,000 jobs disappear if lawmakers adopt the $83.8 billion budget that will go before the state House late next week, according to a state agency.
Harsh spending cuts in the budget could cost more than 263,500 private sector jobs and 343,000 government positions over the next two years, according to estimates released Wednesday by the Legislative Budget Board, a bipartisan committee.
This projection, which is based on mathematical calculations, runs counter to the pro-job push underway by Gov. Rick Perry and Republican lawmakers.
The budget slashes spending by nearly $23 billion, or 12.3%. The drop reflects the loss of federal stimulus money, but it also includes a $4.5 billion cut in state spending. Education, social service agencies and public health providers would see major funding decreases.
Democrats immediately pounced on the report, using it to argue that lawmakers should tap the state’s rainy day fund and take other steps to save the jobs.
“The voters did not elect us to eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs,” said Rep. Mike Villarreal, a Democrat who requested the report. “We can’t grow the Texas economy with a budget that destroys jobs, hurts neighborhood schools and makes college more expensive.”
Somehow, I doubt any Texas High School football coaches will get the ax. Math and science teachers? They’d better polish up their resumes.
23 billion in cuts, huh? So much for the “strong Texas economy”. And I thought our 1 billion deficit here in the Centennial state was bad (and it is). Adjusted for population difference the Colorado deficit would be 5 billion.
All my math teachers in my Texas high school were football, volleyball, or basketball coaches.
Rarely had a math class on Fridays.
Teachers lined up in Dallas to take a $10k bonus to get layed off last month.
What did you do during math class on Friday?
Blocking dummies for the football squad.
Really, this obsession with football by the ex-Confederacy confuses me.
My little brother played for a Big 12 school. When he was being recruited, Texas schools, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma State took it to a new level. They are Sports Vocational Schools, with a college attached.
Went on a recruiting trip with him, and he could have gotten a “virgin sacrifice”, if he had just asked. Too bad me and his dad went along.
Went to the mall and played video games. We had an open campus.
You mean ex-confederacy and Pennsylvania and California.
All my math teachers in my Texas high school were football, volleyball, or basketball coaches.
My worst high school math teacher was the geometry teacher who also was on the football coaching staff. And, trust me, he wasn’t the head coach. He couldn’t have carried the head coach’s clipboard.
My best math teacher was a lady named Gerry Ford. We kids got a lot of laughs out of her name because you-know-who was President at the time.
My high school math teachers were Drivers Ed. Instructors. Equally bad and boring at both.
Here in NY, $10Bil gets you 10,000 jobs. Let’s just call that $1Mil per job cut. In Texas, $20Bil gets you 350,000 government jobs, or $60K per job. Sounds like Everything is Bigger in NY!
“NY Governor Andrew Cuomo revealed his 2011-12 budget this week that will eliminate $10 billion deficit without raising taxes or borrowing money. However, 9,800 state workers could lose their jobs as part of the plan.”
link: nyjobsource.com/cuomocuts.html
There is already a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth on the local radio stations about how laying off some teachers will create a teacher shortage in NY. Amazing.
I suspect that NY will be less of an attractive welfarecation destination in future.
Sounds like the NY cuts include some capital spending and cash outlays for services and possibly a lot of contractors while the Texas ones mostly cut state employed staff.
“This projection, which is based on mathematical calculations…”
LOL! According to MY mathematical calculations, the $23 Billion budget reduction will cost 343,000 government positions but will INCREASE non-government positions by about the same amount.
Do they really expect people to believe this stuff?
Even at minimum wage that many people cost $5 billion in salary alone. And the staffing places don’t work without getting their cut. Unless they are able to send the positions overseas, it is going to cost a pretty penny to replace the employees with contractors.
Replace?
You said that there would be an approximately equal increase in non-government workers. You weren’t talking about contractors replacing the fired government workers? What are those new people going to do? Build houses? The dollars are magically going to find their way into other private activity? You didn’t mention tax cuts, just budget cuts.
“…but will INCREASE non-government positions by about the same amount.”
Kinda like what happened in the Great Depression years?
Oh wait…
Even the FED gets it? No way:
“In one of the paper’s more surprising claims, Kocherlakota suggested that extending unemployment benefits — sometimes seen as adding to the jobless rate because it can discourage those receiving benefits from actively seeking jobs — actually reduces it.”
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Feds-Kocherlakota-Bubbles-end-rb-2259074219.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=7&asset=&ccode=
The problem with not extending benefits: When their are no jobs, you create deep hardship for those who don’t have one.
And you will have even fewer jobs as the flow of money is reduced.
Unemployment benifits keeps the money flow going. When money keeps flowing then you have an economy. When money stops flowing the economy grinds to a halt.
Take a look at Cleveland and Detroit. At one time lots of money flowed into and out of these two places. Now it doesn’t.
And when the money flow stops altogether then you get a ghost town such as Bodie, CA.
Are you suggesting a “ghost country” in the future? A place where ALL spending stopped until the national debt was paid in full and ALL personal, corporate and municipal debt was added to the national debt bring it to a staggering 60 trillion dollars - yes defaulted personal and business debt becomes national debt if not repaid (see Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal).
Bottom line is we are swirling around the bowl right now and the less money in circulation the less jobs, taxes etc leading to the next leg down.
On this one I agree with Helicopter Ben…
Bodie, CA
found it!
“yes defaulted personal and business debt becomes national debt if not repaid”
In a socialist/banksta utopia. Consider Iceland for a reality check.
Ah, ghost towns. They were one of the scourges of my bicycle touring days.
New Mexico, April 1987: I was on the high plains, east of Springer, and I was beating into one helluva headwind. Damn thing had me slowed down to a crawl.
Then, look up ahead! Trees! Buildings! It’s a town!
So, as best I could, I picked up my speed and pedaled toward it. I was hoping to find a place where I could get out of the wind, possibly stay overnight, and continue eastward the next day.
Unfortunately, that town was no more — damn!
So, back into that wind. I found another place up the road — wasn’t much more than a store and a few buildings. Proprietor of the store flagged down every customer until she found someone who could give me a ride out of there.
My saviors were a mother and son heading to Missouri. They unpacked and repacked the hatch of their Ford Pinto so they could carry my bike. And off we went, all the way to Clayton, on the NM-OK border.
Ahh, the High Plains.
Not the End of the Earth. But you can see it from there.
Bodie, CA
Well combo, iffin your Jeep breaks down in Bodie, “Cash-is-King” & “wait!-I-have-a-cell-phone” might not even save your sorry arse… until someone happens to happen along…
Kocherlakota needs to get his fat lazy butt down from the ivory tower. You can’t even collect UEI without actively looking for a job.
At least 3 jobs, that is. Every. Single. Week.
And while they don’t check every week, they do spot check, especially if you have to file for an extension. You HAVE to send in your report the first 4 weeks when you extend.
American Idol was just awesome last night.
Yes, it was!
Did Sanjaya win?
Nah, it was that Taylor Hicks dude…..
If they want me to watch, some night they need the contestants to perform songs by “Tenacious D”.
I would watch that.
March 25, 2011, 12:01 a.m. EDT
Housing is dead; it can’t hurt the economy
Commentary: We’ve already lost everything we had to lose
By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – Housing is dead. There is no doubt about that. Housing is as dead as a door nail.
…
Housing is just too small to do any real damage to the economy any more. How small is it?
New construction is at the lowest level since World War II.
Residential investment has fallen to a 2.2% of gross domestic product, compared with the long-run average of nearly 5%. The record low was reached in 1933 at 1.1%. Residential construction employment has fallen from 2.5% of all jobs to 1.6%. Housing has little direct impact on the economy.
True, another downturn in home building or sales would undoubtedly lead to more job losses among construction workers. It could lead to lower prices, which could mean more foreclosures and more losses in home-equity wealth.
As tragic as those outcomes would be to individuals, they wouldn’t push the economy into a recession, as they did in 2007. In terms of housing’s impact on the economy, we just don’t have that much left to lose. We’ve already lost $8.3 trillion in wealth.
…
“New construction is at the lowest level since World War II.”
Unless you’re in the southern part of Hillsborough County, Florida, where the USDA has partnered with the county to build sprawling subsidized housing developments. Down payment? Why, it’s your own labor! No cash needed! Can’t bend and lift? No problem! There are minor tasks you can do to fulfill your labor down payment! Need a job? Well, you’re SOL, because there’s no jobs here in South Hillsborough, unless you want to stoop for the farmers. Or work a low-wage health care job. But we got food stamps, welfare, road-side junk selling and of course, there’s always drugs.
This has to be seen to be believed, and even then, it boggles the mind. I seem to recall someone here in the blog posting a few years back about deliberately re-locating lower income people from the cities to the ‘burbs. What are these people gonna do when the gas is so high they can’t commute, when the benefits and subsidies run out, which seems to be in the not to distant future? I guess TPTB will breathe a sigh of relief that they’re not rioting in the cities, which seems to be the point of the whole evil mess.
The USDA has some kind of similar scheme running down around Wichita.
Unfortunately, my oldest is looking into it. She’s pretty much fed up with ghetto living, especially since the baby is getting bigger.
She’s taken to carrying my Glock, as 2-3 times a week she is stalked/followed by packs of guys driving metal-flaked POSs with 22’s, and getting hit up with the “Yo mama/mamasita, whassup” line……
Diversity is overrated.
“Diversity is overrated.”
Got to keep the country filled with the “right” ( = White) kind of people right? Cause of course, the “right” kind of people don’t committ crimes…Tell me again who runs the corporations and Wallstreet?
“Tell me again who runs the corporations and Wallstreet?”
Wall Street is quite diverse, MK, and brown people at the top have been fairly active in all sorts of shenanigans, particlularly Indians. And then there’s Stanley O’Neal.
“Stanley O’Neal”
WOW, you can only name one out of the hundreds involved huh?
Sorry, but 100% of the a-holes that pull this crap happen to have darker skin tones. And it’s all three of my daughters, not just her.
And I neglected to mention the more “R” and “X” rated comments. These little perverts have been watching too much porn on the internet, and are convinced that every woman in America will jump on their pee-pees, if they are crude/nasty enough.
I hang around aviation guys, so disgusting talk doesn’t shock me. But some of the crap these guys say to women they don’t know out on the street really shocks me.
I guess I’m old fashioned that way. Too bad they never run their mouths while I’m standing there next to them.
“WOW, you can only name one out of the hundreds involved huh?”
Pandit, Rajaratnam, Singh, Gupta, Blankfein, etc., etc. But (sigh, explaining as if to a small child), my point was that Wall Street is far more diverse than people realize and as I have often said, the whole racial thing is soooo 1970s. Welcome to the brave new world of globalization, where the only color that really matters is the long green.
“These little perverts have been watching too much porn on the internet, and are convinced that every woman in America will jump on their pee-pees, if they are crude/nasty enough.”
Yup. Misogynistic knuckle draggers.
“Sorry, but 100% of the a-holes that pull this crap happen to have darker skin tones.”
“(sigh, explaining as if to a small child)”
“the whole racial thing is soooo 1970s.”
The White man’s perspective, still more important than everyone’s else…..
I didn’t see anything in that post about keeping the country filled up with the right (white) kind of people; it was more about freedom from sexual harassment. That said, I can’t say that white sexual perverts are any better than those of another color, and sometimes, they are a lot worse.
That’s why you make it a gated community. With barbed wire on the top. Then when it gets bad, you throw up the guard towers.
‘We’ve already lost everything we had to lose’
No mention of a bubble or mania, or house prices going through the roof year after year. It’s simple; was there a bubble? If so, it’s gonna collapse. AISMT, the first question one should ask if it is a bubble is, when did it start? That will tell you a lot more about where it’s going price wise.
Another thing in all this; every penny of money the system spent to keep the bubble from collapsing has been and will be wasted. In fact, much of what is being done will make the recovery slower and weaker.
‘We’ve already lost $8.3 trillion in wealth.’
It wasn’t wealth dummy…
“‘We’ve already lost $8.3 trillion in wealth.’ It wasn’t wealth dummy…”
THAT, is a point to be made over and over, and not just in housing.
It’s like the public employee unions arguing that public services aren’t being gutted to pay pensions due to all the retroactive pension enhancements that were passed. It is because Wall Street corruption led to a fall of stock prices.
Maybe the corruption is what made those prices so high to being with.
‘We’ve already lost $8.3 trillion in wealth.’
Yeah, I know exactly how they feel.
Many years ago, when the Lotto was at $220 million dollars, I bought $2 in tickets at a gas station and LOST!!
Yup, I lost it all, everything, the entire enchilada.
I bought $2 in tickets at a gas station and LOST!!
Even that financial disaster was unable to prevent you from getting something-like-stucco in Walkeristan, WI.
“Even that financial disaster was unable to prevent you from getting something-like-stucco in Walkeristan, WI.”
Yup, the US Gubermint even gave me my 1st mobile home as a child. A ruck, a Special Forces poncho liner and a M-16 Mattel toy to protect it.
Never get so confortable in any hoch that you can’t easily and quicky pick up your shit, Zippo the place and walk away without looking back.(booby traps not included)
Mikey, I bet since you were in Nam, todays wars seem like arguements to you?
Once again because I love the line…
“”The enemy,” retorted Yossarian with weighted precision, “is anybody who’s going to get you killed, no matter which side he’s on, and that includes Colonel Cathcart. And don’t you forget that, because the longer you remember it, the longer you might live.”
Catch-22
Yossarian to Clevinger
Got that right.
“if it is a bubble is, when did it start?”
I have a pre bubble reference. My GF was conscripted by the US Army during WWII. He went through the Panama Canal and happens they were looking for Mechanical Engineers, so they kept him for two years. It was either that or deportation back to Scotland. They paid him, let’s say the equivalent of GI pay, and GM saved every penny of that while she waited in Buffalo. She clerked to get by. After the war they used the money to build a nice little house all cash, white picket fence and all that for $10K. We sold that house two years ago for $180K. I bought a similar house in 1978 for $26K.
Two years GI pay now would be something around $50K, no? Average house price has fallen to $200K? Some downward potential left IMO.
It was at one point in time. Money did change hands.
Too bad most of it either went up in smoke, or ended up as commissions or bonuses.
“We’ve already lost everything we had to lose”
Not until
1) The GSEs are dead as doornails.
2) Prices have bottomed out (they haven’t).
We’ve already lost everything we had to lose
Yeah, it would be great if it were true. But there must be somebody that will have to take more losses if we get true price discovery. Otherwise we wouldn’t be working so hard to avoid it.
You mean those Level 3 mark-to-fantasy, weapons of financial mass destruction, “assets?”
Please
Does this # include jobs lost producing building materials, the financial transactions involved in buying a house, the Wall STreet sale of MBS, the purchasing of furinture to fill such houses, the insurance, the maintenance. I suspect it’s still a good chunk of GDP.
Staggering number of Americans turn to food banks:
Now that’s change we can believe in. (I know, W caused it all).
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/os-national-food-insecurity-20110324,0,1538507.story
“(I know, W caused it all)”
Despite Henry Paulson’s failed attempt to cover it up, the recession did start on W’s watch (December 2007), and the financial crisis went into overdrive during the last of his eight years of office (remember when Wall Street collapsed during Fall 2008).
So I think you are pretty close to spot on; Obama has basically been trying to clean up the large steaming piles left behind by the eight-year-long Republican elephant parade that preceded his tenure.
PB,
Yes it started under W (with the Dems in charge of Congress). Both parties contributed to this mess.
My question is what has the Obama Admin done to make things better? IMO everything they’ve done has contributed to a bigger gov and bigger deficits.
During the W Admin a friend of mine used to rail about the deficit and how “Bush lied people died”. Now our deficits “every month” equal what the annual deficits used to be and we have Obama dropping bombs on Libya (and no one knows why).
Both sides suck and the only politicians with any cojones are the newly elected Tea Party folks, especially two females.
“…Obama dropping bombs on Libya.”
HBB poll of the day: On what date will the U.S. first have armed “boots on the ground” in Libya, and not just to rescue a downed fighter crew.
Winner receives +100 points.
Predicting things that have already happened is easy if you have all the inside information.
The day of the 1st march against Obama’s warmongering…
The US and Great Britian have had troops in Libya for several weeks now.
The question is now - which oil company will get the rights to Libyian oil??
Which oil company? Too easy. Rhymes with BP.
BP & Total.
Re: the Souper Bowl: Its all just a ploy to get you to watch the commercials.
I think the commercials are just a ploy to get you to watch the boring game.
And that’s the key word: Boring.
Tie one political hand behind you back, then put it all together:
(It has to be completely assembled. This is a timed test.) GO!
http://image.internetautoguide.com/f/auto-news/2010-hyundai-genesis-sedan-disassembled-on-its-new-interactive-website/27465436/2010-hyundai-genesis-sedan-disassembled.jpg
“with your so called GOP Front TeaBagging libertarian Corporate Funded Koch suckers”
Just don`t call them fat.
“Both sides suck and the only politicians with any cojones are the newly elected Tea Party folks, especially two females.”
Well at least some people in Wisconsin has had a good taste of them and have “seen the light” with your so called GOP Front TeaBagging libertarian Corporate Funded Koch suckers and they are presently working hard in an attempting to “un-elect” them with Recalls.
Lets see if the rest of the country is prepared to stand against them and has the guts to grab these homegrown American traitors by the testicles and twist hard enough until they quit and slither back under their rock with their corporate Koch bros.
Hugs
‘prepared to stand against them’
I could write a long post about my experiences in politics, and why I came to believe that the two party system is flawed and operates on a divide and conquer principle. But let me say this, as a working man, who has always been a working man: the Democrats used to stand up for the working class. They abandoned us a long time ago. Remember NAFTA? The World Trade Organization? We’ve become so used to having our jobs exported that we don’t even think twice about it anymore. If you believe in the two party system, the whole thing depends on opposition. That there is balance in the decision making process, and that somehow what’s best for all will come out of this confrontational arrangement. What I’m saying is, who stands up for working people, all working people, and fights against globalism in DC?
IN Wi and I suspect nationally
Corporate Donations - Doesn’t include private donations from CEO’s and elite.
DEM - 65%
GOP - 70+%
Union donations
DEM 12%
GOP 1%
Now who do you think the GOP and DEMS listen to.
Only a few buck the trend. Feingold was one of them and they spent heavily to get him removed, because we didn’t have enough multimillionairs and boot lickers in gov.
Union donations
DEM 12%
GOP 1%
what kind of unions? public? or private employee? I think that’s very relevant information.
Campaign finance reform is the only way to break the headlock the rich have on our government.
Hillary did not become a multimillionaire from campaign finance.
“Hillary did not become a multimillionaire from campaign finance.”
How did she?
“How did she?”
Must have just washed in over the transom.
“Must have just washed in over the transom.”
Sounds kind of like vague innuendo. Is that all it takes nowadays?
“How did she?”
Some kind of land deal. And some kind of miracle trade in chickens, or hogs, or some such…
And of course, all those speaking fees between 2000 and 2008 or thereabouts. What do they pay? Couple hundred thousand, to just show up and tell rich people what they want to hear?
“Some kind of land deal. And some kind of miracle trade in chickens, or hogs, or some such…”
No, they lost money in the land deal- Whitewater. The question was whether she should have represented various interests involved in it before the state regulators. She claimed she barely had anything to do with it, it was just her law firm, etc. Big money was never involved.
And the commodities deal made her about 100,000$. A nice chunk, but not multi-millions.
She and Bill have made their money mostly from books and speaking engagements. Not exactly a high crimes or misdemeanors.
I still think campaign finance reform is the best way to lessen big money’s grip on our political system. It’s constitutionally difficult to prohibit speaking and writing. But such money-makers are available to far fewer politicians. Campaign funding is what gets them in the door- and keeps them there.
Although perhaps we could ban politicians from employment in industries they have regulated (or deregulated!) for a certain amount of time after they leave office. Something like a non-competition clause,if it’s constitutional. Maybe that could work for paid speeches, too? Books are too general, and should never be banned, except maybe a ban on them being bought en masse by industries that the pol dealt with while in office. If that’s constitutional.
She and Bill have made their money mostly from books and speaking engagements. Not exactly a high crimes or misdemeanors.
True confession: One sleepless early morning, I tuned my radio to the BBC World Service. And who should be speaking to a British audience but former President Bill Clinton.
Mind you, I was the sort to yell at his State of the Union addresses back when he was President. And, when he visited Tucson in 1999, I gave Air Force One the single-fingered salute as it flew over our fair city.
In the interest equal time, I also unloaded quite a bit of invective on George W. Bush’s speeches. He must have known, because when he came to Tucson, Air Force One did not fly over the Arizona Slim Ranch, and that’s very out of character for USAF heavy metal. Those planes fly over here on a regular basis.
Anyway, back to me in the wee hours of the morning, listening to Bill Clinton speak in London. At first, the voice sounded familiar. Sort of like a blast from the past.
Then I started listening to the speech. I say this as someone who’s never been a Bill Clinton fan, but the guy is one heckuva speaker.
books and speaking engagements.
Book deals, rather than book sales, maybe, I wonder. Being the adequate paranoid that I am. The speaking thing sticks in my craw. These guys and gals are still on the payroll of the USA, for life, elder statesmen. Making millions on the side speaking to supporters/supportees. Statesmen for hire just doesn’t sit well.
“I gave Air Force One the single-fingered salute as it flew over our fair city.
In the interest equal time, I also unloaded quite a bit of invective on George W. Bush’s speeches.”
Slim’s a gal of my own heart: An equal-opportunity critic.
Sorry Lip, but the Dems were NOT in charge of Congress. To do that, you need a super majority and they didn’t have one in either chamber, let alone both.
They had a technical majority. What that’s you say, splitting hairs? Well, no. When your majority is less than 5%, you really don’t control anything in Congress… or any other legislature or organization for that matter.
So why do the Republicans seem to be able to get what they want even when they don’t have a super majority?
Blue Dogs. *shrug*
Seriously, I’m not sure. My guess is there’s a LOT of blackmail going on.
Republican strategy seems rest on bullying and intimidation and when you ARE the law….
“My question is what has the Obama Admin done to make things better?”
There was the HAMP program… oh wait!
Obama has basically been trying to clean up
Man, I would love to have some of what you drinking…….
You can get some at Trader Joe’s for under $5 a bottle.
That cheap? I will get mine today…….
Will I see rainbows too?
The double rainbow guy has been upstairs by the Pennsylvania tornado guy.
Yup as far as I can tell he went in with the original agenda planned for him long before the crash. All that political capital wasted on a health law that will either collapse under its own weight or be rescinded after the next election.
Would it have REALLY been that hard to put the economic issues first and worry about that when things were better for everyone?
GH,
That was done intentionally, IMHO.
Our financial masters were getting very worried about the Tea Party, back when they were protesting against bailouts for banks and FBs, and when the TP was “joking” about pitchforks and heading over to Wall Street, etc.
The Dems brought out “healthcare reform” and the Republicans co-opted the Tea Party and changed the focus from being anti-bailout/banker to being anti-healthcare, anti-taxes, anti-labor.
People who think this was an odd coinicidence aren’t paying attention to what’s really going on.
Other than his contribution as a Senator, Obama didn’t create the mess. Don’t see how anyone could possibly argue with that fact. However, he’s done an awful job cleaning it up. I’m sure some die hard supporters will definitely argue with that.
I just hope someday soon this country will wake up and realize neither party is on our side. Neither is good. Both are bad. Arguing about who is less bad is a waste of time and exactly the distraction the PTB are hoping will continue.
It’s not what you don’t know that will get you, it’s what you are sure of, but just ain’t so.
the eight-year-long Republican elephant parade
Ha, a John Kennedy’s pre-election zinger: (As I remember it) ;-):
“…and what is their symbol? An elephant… like the one’s in a circus…hooking trunk to tail, walking around and around and around in a circle…smiling & shitting all the while.“
“…smiling & shitting all the while.”
Unfortunately the task of cleaning it up normally falls on someone else.
Unfortunately the task of cleaning it up normally falls on someone else.
I wonder who will end up with the task of cleaning up after 12 years of Bush and Obama?
16 yrs of Bush and Obama.
I think it will be Palin.
WE ARE DOOMED INDEED………
It feels like it is too early in this cycle for a real hero, too many Americans still having their head in the sand.
“It feels like it is too early in this cycle for a real hero”
At this point not even Superman or Capt. Marvel could save us.
Shazzam!
It feels like it is too early in this cycle for a real hero
Reagan was just a nutball actor that only appealed the far right until the Iranians took hostages and nobody came up with an acceptable solution. Then he became “Reagan”. We’re only one good crisis away from “Palin”.
I wasn’t thinking Regan in the cycle, more like FDR.
“16 yrs of Bush and Obama.”
Did you mean 40 years of Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama?
YEGADS! WE’RE FRACKIN’ DOOMED!!
There are no Republicans. There are no Democrats. Just corrupt corportate-owned politicians. You really don’t get it? The whole “parties” thing is just a distraction. Kind of like who to root for in the Souperbowl. Who really gives a shit?
“Forbes magazine says Koch Industries is the second-largest private corporation in the United States with interests in pipelines, refineries and a host of other businesses.
The magazine’s ranks Charles and David Koch at 24th in the list of the world’s richest people, with an estimated net worth of $17.5 billion.
The company came to public attention in 2010 when New Yorker investigative reporter Jane Mayer published an article titled Covert Operations, in which she characterized the brothers as “primary underwriters of hard-line libertarian politics in America.”
The brothers help fund the Tea Party organization, a right-wing political movement in the United States.
Mayer reviewed tax records that showed the pair poured more than a $100 million into dozens of “seemingly independent organizations,” which Mayer says amount to the “subsidization of a pro-corporate movements.”
“Many of the organizations funded by the Kochs employ specialists who write position papers that are subsequently quoted by politicians and pundits,” Mayer wrote.”
Billionaire Tea Party financiers register to lobby Alberta government.
http://tinyurl.com/4st2mx7
“The whole “parties” thing is just a distraction. ”
So what’s the alternative, liz? Armed revolution? Or electing St. Ron Paul (He Who Is Perfect, And Is In A Political Party, But It Somehow Doesn’t Count) as dictator?
Or vote in the libertarian Kochtopus- which of course has no ties to big biz?
I’d settle for a dictatorship by anybody with some common sense.
And I’m scared that a lot of people would agree with you.
“I’d settle for a dictatorship by anybody with some common sense.”
Exactly. The history of dictatorships in a single line.
And yet so few of those dictators display that common sense once they obtain power.
But then it’s too late, isn’t it?
Even if they do, the next one almost never does. And changing your mind requires lots of blood.
what could be worse than the leadership/ lack of representation we have currently?
“what could be worse than the leadership/ lack of representation we have currently?”
Consult a history book, or read the world news. I’m sure a survivor of a concentration camp could describe a few ways a dictatorship can be worse than what we have now.
“And I’m scared that a lot of people would agree with you.”
Whiich is why my family is claiming its dual citizenship rights.
Tell that to some innocent Libyan dirt farmer who just got a cruise missile up his ass.
“Tell that to some innocent Libyan dirt farmer who just got a cruise missile up his ass.”
He probably could tell you a few things about how bad dictatorships are, too. Libyans would know.
Yeah,
ifwhen wehadhave a dictatorship itcould have beenwill be an American.In fact, here’s just such an occurrence:
associated press
One of the pilots parachuted into a rocky field and hid in a sheep pen on Hamid Moussa el-Amruni’s family farm.
“We didn’t think it was an American plane. We thought it was a Gadhafi plane. We started calling out to the pilot, but we only speak Arabic. We looked for him and found the parachute. A villager came who spoke English and he called out ’we are here, we are with the rebels’ and then the man came out,” Hamid Moussa el-Amruni said.
The pilot left in a car with the Benghazi national councill, taking with him the water and juice the family provided. They kept his helmet and the parachute.
A second plane strafed the field where the pilot went down. Hamid Moussa el-Amruni was shot, sustaining shrapnel wounds in his leg and back, but he could still walk. He used an old broomstick as a crutch and said he held no grudge, believing it was an accident.
I’d settle for some good old fashion arrests and jail time for the grifters in government. Round them all up and sort them out later.
“Round them all up and sort them out later.”
Ooh! This dictator thing is catching on!
IMO, start at the top and work your way down.
“start at the top”
So…start with the banksters, then move down to their government lackeys.
Sounds good to me!
There’s a lot in between what we have currently and a dictatorship. How about just not voting Democrat or Republican? Vote for someone else. ANYONE else. I don’t care if they’re Libertarian, Green or Independent. But at the very least, stop voting for the same system that we already have and we all agree isn’t working.
“Round them all up and sort them out later.”
Don’t be so excited to give up innocent until proven guilty and the right to a speedy trial.
Oh well, I guess we will just have to be content with our bankster-ocracy then. Keep the ky handy.
“innocent until proven guilty”
Of course, but: Nobody leaves the building until we figure out who done it.
Vote for politicians that will institute campaign finance reform. Vote against those that oppose it.
There’s a simple, peaceful, democratic way to take back our government, without resorting to dictatorship, as attractive as that option is…
“I’d settle for a dictatorship by anybody with some common sense.”
Oxymoron alert.
So, you’d be willing to have Sarah Palin as your dictator? John Boehner? Dick Cheney?
Be careful what you wish for.
we already have a dictator. It’s called Goldman Sachs.
here’s a towell PB…your cognitive dissonance is showing again.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds (and Republicans).
Small mind and republican are synonymous.
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds (and Republicans and Democrats).
ahhh…much better.
michael —
Please don’t thwart my efforts to stir the Republitards who post here from going into their ritualistic rants. You are spoiling a great entertainment opportunity.
Got popcorn?
sorry…my bad.
Please don’t thwart my efforts to stir the Republitards who post here from going into their ritualistic rants. You are spoiling a great entertainment opportunity.
And here i actually thought you were serious about not meaning to offend anyone when you said that a week or so ago. Yet here you are again, back at your old ways, calling people names.
Weak.
I personally could not stand George Bush. He was a poorly spoken bafoon who did untold damage to the world. Of all the terrible things he did though, setting us up for 4 years of Obama?
And who set us up for Bush? If Clinton had done the right thing when caught with his hand in the cookie jar Gore would have been president all that time.
“I personally could not stand George Bush. He was a poorly spoken bafoon who did untold damage to the world.”
Would that be the poorly spoken buffoon sr. or jr.?
Please don’t thwart my efforts….
Calling yourself the HBB Professor when acting like the 2nd grader with a personality disorder is really funny.
If you think personality disorders are unusual among professors, I guess you haven’t met very many in your day?
And 4 years of Nomamma sets us up for another Reagan. He’s the New Carter.
“If you think personality disorders are unusual among professors, I guess you haven’t met very many in your day?”
LOL
Academia=Asperger’s asylum
+1
Of all the
terriblesilly things he did though, setting us up for- 4 -…8 years of Obama?heheeeheeeheehaahaaahaaheeehaahaaa… (Hwy50™)
“LOL
Academia=Asperger’s asylum”
Thanks for the late-night chuckle, ahansen!
Half the workforce makes less than $25k a year.
That’s food bank and food stamps zone.
It’s hard to live on a McJob.
The above posts are cracking me up . You people are on a roll . There is a lot of truth in humor ,and humor is resorted to when options are limited ,or seem limited ,or can’t be perceived yet .
But, Ben Jones post that was serious made a lot of sense to me (Ben’s post is about 60 posts above me ) ,
I contend that the answers can’t be totally perceived yet ,or at least how they will exactly unfold ,and there might be variables that we can’t perceive yet .
AHEAD OF THE TAPE
MARCH 25, 2011
Will Home Builders Trip in a Double-Dip?
By KELLY EVANS
The double-dip in housing may partly stem from the disappearance of first-time buyers.
Housing markets have been looking pretty grim lately. This week alone, data showed the pace of new-home sales fell to a near 50-year low in February while sales of previously owned homes also slumped. The median sales price of a new home is back to 2003 levels. The uptick in activity last year spurred by the first-time home-buyer tax credit, in other words, was a head-fake.
…
Kelly Evans may claim he (she?) was “ahead of the tape,” but he(she)’s a whole year behind HBB. We KNEW that $8K tax credit was a sham.
And the first time buyers didn’t “disappear.” They already bought — in 2005 to 2007. By historical standards, they should have still been renting and saving for that down payment thingy.
‘The uptick in activity last year spurred by the first-time home-buyer tax credit, in other words, was a head-fake’
It was also a complete waste of tax moneys. But worse, it delays a true recovery and…
convinced a bunch of people to buy houses who will now default.
March 24, 2011, 2:45 PM
Why the Homebuyer Credit Didn’t Work
By Bill Bischoff
Do you remember that wonderful federal income tax credit of up to $8,000 that was supposed to jump start the nation’s housing market?
Skeptics (like me) thought the homebuyer credit was doomed to failure, and we were right – big-time!
Two and a half years later, sales in most residential markets are still anemic and prices are still falling.
The real estate gurus at Case-Shiller expect more bad news: prices could fall another 15%-25%.
Sadly enough, the pessimists at Case-Shiller have proven to be among the few experts that you should believe anymore. The latest home sales numbers from February give them additional credence. Sales are still falling and so are prices.
…
“Sadly enough, the pessimists at Case-Shiller have proven to be among the few experts that you should believe anymore.”
Pessimist = any economist whose forecasts are not consistently optimistic when seen through the rear-view mirror.
Sure got some action going in Poway CA, homes were selling and bidding up a year ago.
Olive park pl and community 400K for old and small homes.
It was also a complete waste of tax moneys. But worse, it delays a true recovery and…
convinced a bunch of people to buy houses who will now default.
Not me. I won my 4k fair and square and have the title in-hand :-). Now I gotta stay another year and a half to avoid having to give it back, though. Part of the reason was to walk to work and now I have to drive since I had to change jobs :-(.
Kelly Evans may claim he (she?) was “ahead of the tape,” but he(she)’s a whole year behind HBB. We KNEW that $8K tax credit was a sham.
And that’s another “ahead of the tape” notion that we were right smack on the money about. That’s why this blog is such a treasure.
Thank you, Ben, for continuing to provide this space for us to…
…vent, rant, rave, laugh, joke, josh, tell stories, and all the other things that we do.
Remember, people, it’s not just a blog, it’s a community.
Yes it is, Slim.
EUROPE NEWS
MARCH 25, 2011
Spain Takes Turn in Debt Spotlight
By MARCUS WALKER And JONATHAN HOUSE
Portugal’s admission that it will probably need a financial bailout raises a question that will shape the outcome of the euro zone’s debt crisis: Is Spain next?
The cost of saving Spain, a €1.1 trillion ($1.56 trillion) economy, would dwarf previous bailouts and could test the financial strength of Europe as a whole.
…
U.S. News
Cal. Gov.: It could get ‘much, much worse’
Published: March. 25, 2011 at 7:10 AM
39th California Governor Jerry Brown Swearing In Ceremony
Jerry Brown, shown after he was sworn in as California’s 39th governor Jan. 3, 2011. UPI/Ken James
LOS ANGELES, March 25 (UPI) — A projected $26 billion budget deficit means fewer services for California’s elderly, sick and poor residents, officials said.
Gov. Jerry Brown Thursday signed into law a group of bills that would reduce expenditures by $11.2 billion from the 2011-2012 budget, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Brown was negotiating with Republican lawmakers to drum up support for the other part of his budget plan — asking voters to renew expiring taxes.
“This is an order of magnitude tougher than the cuts that we’ve seen in recent years,” said Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a think tank that advocates for low-income families.
But things could get worse, Brown said.
“It’s going to be much, much worse if we cannot get the vote of the people and the tax extensions,” Brown said.
…
unions are still getting their money.
Those damn union janitors. Their $12/hr wages are bankrupting this country!!
That’s right. American won’t be strong again until 80% are earning mimum wage and the top 1% control 80% of the wealth.
Yes…. The Conservative 6 Point Plan to Strengthen America
- Export Jobs…… Raising exports is a good thing!
-Shutdown Social Security….. Wither in the vine says Newt!
-Shutdown Education Dept….. “It helps us compete!”
-Shutdown Police depts….. “Damn streets aren’t mean enough”
-Raise taxes on wage earners…. “Because businesses are overtaxed!”
-Privatize Medicare so insurance companies can really invoke death panels. “Oh you’re sick? Sorry. We’ve cancel your policy. DIE.
Rah rah rah!!! Don’t burn our flag! We’re going get you dirty little brown people!
“until 80% are earning mimum wage and the top 1% control 80% of the wealth.”
Won’t be long now…
Wall STreet elite and CEO’s are still getting their 10 lbs of flesh from the starving public.
“It’s going to be much, much worse if we cannot get the vote of the people and the tax extensions,” Brown said.
I wonder about this? The cat’s out of the bag on pensions in CA.
Will the voters again approve a sales tax increase that was supposed to be temporary?
Not this voter.
Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, a think tank that advocates for low-income families.”
I wonder how much a executive director of the California Budget Project pays ? And who pays for it ?
I can see why the sales tax cut back could be devestating to Jean Ross
Do you want to know how much she “pays” or “is paid”? Because I just looked up her 2009 salary. Hint folks, the salaries of a number of the executives of non-profits is public information. Ms. Ross earned $137,319 as executive director of that organization in 2009 and nothing from any related organizations (if it even has any). She has been working there as the executive director since it was started in 1995. The org has 9 full time employees and 5 part timers. It spent less than $3000 on fundraising expenses in 2009 and less than $4000 on lobbying (at a guess that might be the cost of handing out glossy reports to legislators). Its compensation budget went up all of $25K for all 14 employees from 2008 to 2009.
First rule of ruling. Screw the poor, disabled and elderly. After all, what can they do about it?
Notice how it wasn’t necessary for Brown to rescind any collective bargaining rights in order to achieve $11 bn in budget cuts?
Gov. Jerry Brown OKs $11 billion in budget cuts
Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau
03/25/11
(03-24) 04:00 PDT Sacramento - –
Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law billions of dollars in cuts to state programs and services on Thursday as opportunity narrowed for a bipartisan compromise to solve California’s $26.6 billion deficit.
Brown acknowledged that negotiations had dragged on too long to hold a special election for tax extensions and increases on June 7, his preferred date. Democratic leaders late Thursday were waiting for a splinter group of Republicans to hand over their written list of demands - changes in regulations, pensions and other areas of state government - over which they’re willing to lend their support for a special election sometime in June.
In a ceremony at the Capitol, Brown signed 13 bills that make $11.2 billion in cuts and shifts in state spending that were approved by the Legislature last week. He did not sign other spending-cut bills passed by lawmakers, though, as he is waiting for the Legislature to pass the full package.
…
All he had to do is eliminate public services.
Tell me Prof, wouldn’t you agree to a 20 percent cut in pay if you didn’t have to work anymore? All the unions will take that offer. They’ll throw in a 50 percent pay cut for future employees.
Remember, in NYC in the 1970s teachers did not teach, the police did not prevent crime, the transit workers did not maintain the system, and the sanitation workers did not pick up the garbage. But the pensions were paid. We’re heading for Round II. The rest of America is in for a big surprise.
You have scared me. Thanks for getting my Friday morning off to a good start.
I never would have thought Brown would be able to cut anything from the California budget.
Can prop 13 be next??
It’s moot. Prop 13 only matters when prices are rising, not when they are dropping like a rock.
Not true. Many of my neighbor’s houses are valued at 1/6th - 1/8th of my house for taxing purposes. They’d get a LOT more money if they got rid of Prop 13, even if those houses were valued at 1/2 of mine for tax purposes.
What money and from who?
Recession his “Freaknik”, yo:
http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/freaknik-bids-for-comeback-885244.html
None…. as in $0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000
None… as in we pay $0.00… yet receive a $4.1 BILLION $US Dollar tax rebate
None = “Good Corporate Inc. US SCOTUS “person” citizen”
GE/WE PAY nothing in taxes, because…we’re smart and your not!
“TrueAnger™” advocates/disciples stay focused:
“Linda the lunch lady lives lavishly!”
But Nobody Pays That
G.E.’s Strategies Let It Avoid Taxes Altogether:
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
Published: March 24, 2011
General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010.
“While the financial crisis led G.E. to post a loss in the United States in 2009, regulatory filings show that in the last five years, G.E. has accumulated $26 billion in American profits, and received a net tax benefit from the I.R.S. of $4.1 billion.”
“The assortment of tax breaks G.E. has won in Washington has provided a significant short-term gain for the company’s executives and shareholders.”
A review of company filings and Congressional records shows that one of the most striking advantages of General Electric is its ability to lobby for, win and take advantage of tax breaks.
“Over the last decade, G.E. has spent tens of millions of dollars to push for changes in tax law, from more generous depreciation schedules on jet engines to “green energy” credits for its wind turbines. But the most lucrative of these measures allows G.E. to operate a vast leasing and lending business abroad with profits that face little foreign taxes and no American taxes as long as the money remains overseas.”
“…Such strategies, as well as changes in tax laws that encouraged some businesses and professionals to file as individuals, have pushed down the corporate share of the nation’s tax receipts — from 30 percent of all federal revenue in the mid-1950s to 6.6 percent in 2009.”
(but, but, but,…)
Company officials say that these measures are necessary for G.E. to compete against global rivals and that they are acting as responsible citizens. “G.E. is committed to acting with integrity in relation to our tax obligations,” said Anne Eisele, a spokeswoman. “We are committed to complying with tax rules and paying all legally obliged taxes. At the same time, we have a responsibility to our shareholders to legally minimize our costs.”
General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010.
The company reported worldwide profits of $14.2 billion, and said $5.1 billion of the total came from its operations in the United States.
Its American tax bill? None. In fact, G.E. claimed a tax benefit of $3.2 billion.
Disclosure:
(Hwy50’s big brother is a “TrueBeliever™ / TrueDeceiver™” “Professional” tax advocate of this type of Corporate Inc.,…”good citizen” behavior. In fact, it has given him a permanent facial grin that is a an exact duplicate of the snickering angry-smile of Cheney & a steady income.)
I feel so good knowing that I pay more income tax than GE.
Sorry about your brother, Hwy. You can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family.
Tankxs Elanor…
“He is what he is, ….” (and he does “other things” that makes him a lot worse than that too!)
There’s that darn “concept” climbing back in through the kitchen window again:
“free will”
If we lowered corporate taxes, we would end up owing GE even more money!!
You act like there’s something wrong with that!
What are you, some kinda dang socialeest/commie! Don’t you know we owe the corporaitons our very life and soul!
Why, they hung the very moon!
In any given year, half of all large corporations, both foreign and domestic who do business in this country, pay NO income taxes.
Poor, poor, oppressed and overtaxed corporaitons.
But Hwy is right, they get away with it because… they’re smart and you’re not.
San Diego pension settlement talks collapse
Differences prove too great at single negotiating session
By Craig Gustafson, UNION-TRIBUNE
Originally published March 23, 2011 at 12:57 p.m., updated March 23, 2011 at 6:52 p.m.
Talks between city officials and labor leaders over a global settlement that would end San Diego’s protracted pension problems have been called off — at least for now.
The negotiations ended after a single brief session with a state mediator who informed both sides that they were too far apart to reach any meaningful resolution over myriad pension-related issues.
With the support of Mayor Jerry Sanders and the City Council, City Attorney Jan Goldsmith initiated settlement talks with the goal of lowering the city’s annual pension costs and ending nearly all pension litigation while cementing certain retirement benefits for workers.
Union leaders said the city failed to make an initial settlement offer so there wasn’t much to talk about.
“We were incredibly cautious about the concept of global mediation at the beginning, but eventually came around to the idea that this was a viable way to resolve our differences,” said Brian Marvel, president of the Police Officers Association, in a statement. “It is unfortunate to see the city is unable to present a feasible proposal. Last week’s stalemate only seems to reinforce that City Attorney Goldsmith’s suggestion of mediation in the first place was merely political grandstanding.”
…
Critics say mayor’s pension plan is flawed
DeMaio, others question the projected savings
By Craig Gustafson
Thursday, March 24, 2011 at 8:26 p.m.
A proposed ballot measure by Mayor Jerry Sanders and City Councilman Kevin Faulconer that would overhaul retirement benefits for city workers took shots from both sides of the political aisle Thursday as it begins a difficult road to the June 2012 ballot.
Councilman Carl DeMaio, who is crafting a separate pension-related measure for the same ballot, called it “a toothless tiger” that doesn’t go far enough to fix the city’s pension problems. Taxpayer advocates were disappointed that the measure calls for a different set of rules for public safety pensions, a major driver of pension costs. And at least one labor leader said the city will have difficult recruiting and retaining workers if the measure passes.
The ballot measure is the latest in a long line of initiatives that have gone through City Hall or before voters since 2002. That’s when a deal was approved to boost pension benefits while simultaneously underfunding the pension system — creating a massive debt former city leaders then hid from investors and earning San Diego the moniker “Enron by the Sea.”
…
PROJECTED SAVINGS FROM BALLOT MEASURE
Figures from San Diegans for Pension Reform, an organization created by Mayor Jerry Sanders and Councilman Kevin Faulconer.
Fiscal year, total taxpayer savings (cumulative)
2013: $8.3 million
2017: $141.3 million
2022: $439.3 million
2027: $836.7 million
2032: $1.15 billion
2040: $1.58 billion
“2013: $8.3 million
2017: $141.3 million”
At a glance, those numbers look wildly cooked.
PTB SOP, wow the peeps with voodoo projections. When you’re using spare change to fill your gas tank naturally they think you’ll be in awe of anyone who can make projections all the way to FY 2040!
Ya gotta love how those savings explode from the millions into the billions as you go off into the distant future, even though there has been no history of this sort of thing ever before occurring. Maybe they are taking into consideration a shrinking future San Diego city workforce, in light of severe cutbacks in future pension perquisites?
Common sense would indicate that like any other account or transaction, pension payments must be based on the actual balance of the pension account. If the balance goes up then pension payments can go up, but if the balance goes down then payments must follow. This idea of using a ratchet approach and locking peak levels then going after tax payers for the balance is not cutting it.
I have seen posts indicating that pensioner contributed “sufficient” amounts to balance the pensions so by their own admission, the funds are not in deficit and NO tax money is needed, which is GREAT news both for tax payers in San Diego and the pensioners, so I think all this talk about raising taxes is obviously absurd. If on the other hand the defense is “it was all stolen by banksters” go after them not us.
Keep in mind also that the growth rates pensions were based on were created by fraud by the very same banksters now accused of stealing it. Year after year 8 - 20% gains. Not sustainable …
Excellent point. If the pension system is underfunded, there is lots of blame to go around, but the taxpayer should be pretty low on the list.
You would probably see more co-operation from the workforce on pensions, if they weren’t utterly convinced that any “savings” generated will end up in the pockets of the banksters, and/or other related pi$$boys.
Very true, GS.
As a matter of fact, if not for the bailouts of bankers, I think union leaders would be much more flexible about the compensation issues.
It’s just that rewarding the bankers who caused the pension crisis, and then villifying the workers for expecting their contracts to be honored just doesn’t sit right with most union workers. Why should it?
“And at least one labor leader said the city will have difficult recruiting and retaining workers if the measure passes.”
Same old tripe! Someone needs to call their bluff. Getting rid of the old hard liners is like cutting out a cancerous tumor. New blood can add new life and new ideas into a public organization.
Tried living on $25K or less a year lately?
I’ve worked with a lot of low wage earners and “customers service” and “quality” are NOT in their vocabulary. For that matter “vocabulary” is not in their vocabulary.
Ever seen the movie “Idiocracy?” THAT’S what you get with low wages.
It’s NOT unions’ (nor anyone else who still has a pension in this country) fault that their pensions were gambled away on Wall St and underfunded at the same time.
With 20% real unemployment and little hope of improvement, attracting and retaining worker bees is not a problem.
X-GSFixer had a post yesterday about his daughter trying to live on less than 25K.
Sometimes, no job is better than any job. Nobody but a fool works to lose money and nobody at all can keep that up.
I watched the Sneetches with my son last night. Awesome.
“Then, when every last cent of their money was spent,
The Fix-It-Up Chappie packed up. And he went.
And he laughed as he drove In his car up the beach,
“They never will learn. No. You can’t Teach a Sneetch!”
that’s a great one, Muggy! wait till someone invents a machine that quickly removes tattoos.
Did they Sneetches make thneeds; those fabulous things that everyone needs? A sweater, a sock, it also fits nicely right over your ….
It’s just tough luck about the environment….when the profit centers are figurin on biggeren…..I mean the truffula trees.
I guess that is the Lorax, which could also be educational and fun.
The larger message is so pervasive that even 2nd graders get it. Raping the environment in the name of profit is bad and the giving environment will stop giving if you take away a keystorne species…and we, collectively, are the little boy holding that last little truffula seed…..
You should check out Rango when you get the chance.
“He who controls the water controls everything”. Also huge banking commentary that almost inappropriately made me laugh out loud in the theater it was so hbb.
Me? I watched the first half of Arizona vs. Duke. And I made the colossally stupid error of walking away from that one at halftime. I thought for sure that Duke had the Zonies zoned out.
Well, good thing that basketball games have two halves, because the Wildcats schooled the Blue Devils in the second. And they accomplished what I was hoping my beloved Michigan Wolverines would do — send Duke home.
Was hoping to see Duke win the whole thing only so I could boast about how tough my Wolverines played them! But similar to Ohio State, I’m physically unable to cheer for Duke so I was even happier seeing the Wildcats handle them.
Was going to make a weak attempt at tying this post back to housing somehow, but I got nothing. Go Blue!
That’s okay, Max. We still have Ohio State to root against.
And root against them we will!
Go BIG Blue!
We’ll take care of Ohio State for you guys tonight.
Home prices are going down!
Yup, go (Kentucky) Wildcats! And the Arizona Wildcats will be back in action tomorrow.
* MARKETS
* MARCH 25, 2011
Fannie Report Warned of Foreclosure Problems in 2006
By CARRICK MOLLENKAMP And NICK TIMIRAOS
Fannie Mae was warned in a 2006 internal report of abuses in the way lenders and their law firms handled foreclosures, long before regulators launched investigations into the mortgage industry’s practices.
The report said foreclosure attorneys in Florida had “routinely made” false statements in court in an effort to more quickly process foreclosures and raised questions about whether some mortgage servicers or another entity had the legal standing to foreclose.
The report found no evidence that borrowers were improperly placed in foreclosure.
“Fannie Mae took the necessary steps to address the specific issues identified by the 2006 report and regularly evaluates and enhances oversight of its retained attorney network,” said a Fannie Mae spokeswoman.
…
Too close to home; or how the bankruptcy of a bookstore chain affects one Chicago suburb (i.e., mine!)
The Borders bankruptcy proceedings have been discussed here on HBB. It appeared that the Borders close to my home–the one where my husband and I spent many a winter afternoon having a coffee, a snack and reading magazines–would be spared. We not only hung around there, it was our go-to place for buying books, magazines, maps, CDs etc etc. And, a very popular store among the citizens of our area.
Yesterday’s Trib Local carried the very unwelcome news that “our” Borders will be closing by the end of May. Apart from my personal grief, the town leaders are highly concerned about the loss of sales tax revenue. It turns out that Borders is one of the top ten sales tax revenue producers for the village of Wilmette.
On April 5 we will be voting on a local referendum to raise the property tax for the public elementary/jr high school district. Only 20% of households in the district have school-age children. Of course, the excellent public schools here are a factor in keeping the housing stock desirable, which in turn keeps property tax revenue robust. But now, due to the closing of a single bookstore, our town will either have to cut services or raise fees. Or both. So who wants to vote in a guaranteed property tax increase at this time? Certainly not moi.
Then there is the abundance of taxing bodies, all clamoring for their share of the property tax pie. Illinois averages ten separate taxing entities per property tax bill–more than any other state. We also have a number of single-school districts. Where I live, the high school levies a separate tax from the elementary school district. The chances of any of the currently separate taxing bodies joining forces to cut down on duplication of administrative costs? Zilch, according to the people who follow politics in this state more closely than I do.
Sometimes it makes me want to crawl under a rock. Or better yet, emigrate.
“It appeared that the Borders close to my home–the one where my husband and I spent many a winter afternoon having a coffee, a snack and reading magazines–would be spared.”
We got the same song-and-dance act here. Just yesterday my wife said they would shut their doors for good soon.
Here in Tucson, the Borders stores aren’t exactly what you’d call beloved. They’re more like big boxes that happen to sell books.
And, furthermore, when they first came into town, they put several locally owned, indie booksellers out of business. We locals haven’t forgotten that.
So, what bookstores does Slim patronize? Here goes:
1. Antigone Books on 4th Avenue — It’s proudly feminist, and it has the most hilarious greeting card selection in town.
2. UofA Bookstore on campus. They stock just about every Arizona author’s book that exists. And, if you’re looking for something they they don’t have, they’ll order it lickety-split. (Disclaimer: I used to work there.)
Yup, I know. Short list. But I’m very fussy when it comes to bookstores.
The best bookstore around here is probably the independent Chestnut Ave. Bookstall in Winnetka. But they don’t have a coffee bar.
Recently I discovered an amazing shop in an alley in Evanston that sells used and rare books. It’s a rabbit warren of room leading into room into branching corridor of rooms, all filled with antiques, overstuffed chairs for reading, and junk. As well as lots of books.
It would be great if someone wanted to open a bookstore in the old Borders space. But the mall developer gets final say on who occupies the space.
And every one of those taxing bodies thinks their little budget increases don’t matter. However, when you add it all up the collective is astounding. If one adds up all outstanding debt plus unfunded liabilities (unfunded liabilities are just another form of debt) at the fed, state, and local level, the typical American household has (depending on the state of course) a debt to income ratio of around 15 times just based on government debt pledged to the household income. Prudent mortgage lending standards have typically been about 3 time debt to income as an example.
The only house I’ve ever owned is in Illinois, so my only good look at the breakdown of a property tax bill is here. The library, village, park district, county, township, two school districts, water reclamation district, and others I’m sure I forgot all get their cut.
I think all of the Borders will eventually close, so your predicament will be causing this discussion all over the country.
I’m losing two near me, one near the Metro station (walking distance) and the big one in the Mall a few miles up the road. E-mails from Borders suggest I go to Silver Spring instead. Yeah, right. Not unless I’m there already for another reason.
I like browsing the donation shelves at the library and the friends of the county library association sells donated books at a few locations. Other than that, I really don’t have room for more books. No space for more bookcases.
More evidence that Borders grossly overexpanded during the bubble years. Two closing near you, two closing near me, why were bookstores in the same chain built so near each other in the first place? There’s a lot more overhead in operating a bookstore than a Starbucks. Where am I going to get my gardening/shelter magazine fix now? I’m certainly not going to subscribe! Hey, maybe I can suggest to Starbucks that they install a magazine rack.
Donning my Mournful Michigan Alumni hat, I say this with a heavy heart: I still miss that original Border on State Street in Ann Arbor. Dang, that was a store.
The Borders-thing that ate the old Jacobson’s department store on Liberty Street is just a cheap imitation.
Honestly, the one right on the edge of DC in an area with dense retail and dense urban houseing (along with VERY expensive single family urban housing) is physically close to the other one which is a huge store in an upscale suburban mall, but they aren’t that close if you consider how long it takes to get from one to the other. Driving involves going through downtown Bethesda, going between NIH and Bethesda Naval Medical Center and crossing over the Beltway - easily half an hour if there is any traffic at all. Both are fairly close to Metro stops but going that way would take at least as long if not longer.
But I agree they were and are overbuilt. But I think the larger problem is that people went to drink coffee and read magazines, but didn’t buy that much. Or browsed, saw something they liked and ordered it for less off Amazon. And they put a huge emphasis on trying to get your information for selling to their “partners.” Now the partners have facebook pages and groupon, why would they pay Borders for the information?
The Tax Foundation, a Washington (D.C.) research organization that advocates for lower taxes, estimates that 3.5 percent of household income went to property taxes in 2009, compared with 2.9 percent in 2005. The median property taxes paid on homes increased to $1,917 in 2009 from $1,614 in 2005.
We spent about 2%, and just hair above the national median of $1917. The median in out burb is about $1200.
5% here. F’ing Clownifornia!
Of course, most of our neighbors paid 1/10th of what we paid. F’ing Clownifornia!
Is this democracy?
The Wisconsin Republican Party, apparently stung by a blog post written by UW-Madison history professor William Cronon, has responded by asking the University of Wisconsin-Madison for copies of all of Cronon’s office e-mails that mention prominent Republicans or public employee unions.
Cronon revealed the GOP’s Freedom of Information Act request in his Scholar as Citizen blog post late Thursday evening along with a lengthy, and typically scholarly, defense.
In his inaugural blog post on March 15, Cronon, one of the UW’s academic stars, had sketched the apparent influence of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a shadow conservative policy group that works with Republican state legislators, on Gov. Scott Walker’s legislative agenda. It was the first time the respected professor had used a blog format and he was, to put it mildly, surprised by the response. The blog generated more than half a million hits. For many of his readers, it was the first time they were aware of the organization and its involvement with conservative legislators around the country.
Billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, major Walker campaign contributors, provide funding support for ALEC.
The Cap Times has also covered ALEC and its influence on legislators.
In his most recent blog post dated March 24, Cronon called upon the Republicans to withdraw their open records request in the interest of academic freedom.
“I find it simply outrageous that the Wisconsin Republican Party would seek to employ the state’s Open Records Law for the nakedly political purpose of trying to embarrass, harass, or silence a university professor (and a citizen) who has asked legitimate questions and identified potentially legitimate criticisms concerning the influence of a national organization on state legislative activity,” Cronon wrote.
The Republican request, filed two days after Cronon’s March 15 post appeared, asks for “Copies of all emails into and out of Prof. William Cronon’s state email account from January 1, 2011 to present which reference any of the following terms: Republican, Scott Walker, recall, collective bargaining, AFSCME, WEAC, rally, union, Alberta Darling, Randy Hopper, Dan Kapanke, Rob Cowles, Scott Fitzgerald, Sheila Harsdorf, Luther Olsen, Glenn Grothman, Mary Lazich, Jeff Fitzgerald, Marty Beil, or Mary Bell.”
I’ve known Bill since we were both students at Memorial High School here in Madison. This negative attention he’s drawn from Wisconsin’s Republican Party is especially surprising, given that he’s known as a centrist, and very deliberately non-political. Those who know him are well aware that ideas, not ideologies, drive his thinking and academic interests.
http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_54c271b2-56e6-11e0-b524-001cc4c002e0.html
“Billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, major Walker campaign contributors, provide funding support for ALEC.”
“The Republican request, filed two days after Cronon’s March 15 post appeared, asks for “Copies of all emails into and out of Prof. William Cronon’s state email account from January 1, 2011 to present which reference any of the following terms…”
Behold your future, America, in the embrace of the Kochtopus.
(Nota bene- It sounds like they don’t like criticism.)
Sounds like he’s FOILed. JMO, but he shouldn’t be using his own “public office” to wage a personal and political slur campaign, not on the public dime. Is this perhaps our own PB?
I’m Everyman.
“he shouldn’t be using his own “public office” to wage a personal and political slur campaign,”
So professors at public universities don’t have free speech rights? Even on their blogs?
Are we not through the looking glass? Demanding email records of political foes? Or in this case, someone who simply reports on actual political activity, which those involved appear to want to keep hidden.
It is impossible to tell from the article if there is wrong doing. Plus it is written with strong bias. I am saying that if one is in public office (on the taxpayer’s time clock) that personal liable or political party hate ranting might be inappropriate if done through the public office, on the taxpayer’s computer, on a blog under the seal of the State University, etc. Might. Free speech sometimes is compromised by employment, ethics and such.
The “private sector” that Republicans seem so enchanted with don’t seem to mind butting into my personal time (and personal e-mail accounts), when it suits their purposes.
Every Salaried-Exempt I know is a de facto 24/7/365 employee, no matter what the job description says.
Go ahead Republicans, keep running your playbook, and open that Pandora’s Box (by criminalizng your opponents……you all know where this thing is heading)…… I’m sure there is a lot of stuff on supposedly “private” e-mail accounts that you don’t want seeing the light of day, either.
He posted it on his personal blog. Then submitted it to the NYT.
No UW seal.
They are fishing to see if he talked politics on his computer at work, and to intimidate him.
You really want to set the bar this low?
The gov can go through your email anytime you say anything against it???
Could they then go through every democrats email on this basis?? When power shifts will the Dems be able to go through every republicans??
My dad was a telecom/computer guy way back. I remember him saying “Never, never put anything on any computer that you do not want everybody to see.”
What’s next ?
Never ever say anything the gov doesn’t like.
Never ever go to a protest
Never visit a blog that goes against the gov?
Never vote for the party out of power?
Hello Sadam! We Love you.
It’s easy to see why you got 99% of the vote again.
“He posted it on his personal blog.”
Then I hope he had the presence of mind to keep his university correspondence clean and can give Goliath the middle finger.
Then I hope he had the presence of mind to keep his university correspondence clean and can give Goliath the middle finger.
Oh, brother. Back when I was in the employ of universities, they were hotbeds of gossip, backstabbing, nastiness, you name it.
This was before e-mail came into widespread use, mind you. After e-mail came along, the game got taken to a whole ‘nother level.
As for the people who are demanding these e-mails, I hope that they’re extra nice to their IT staff. Why? Because IT people tend to work when other people are not on the computer system. Think late nights and early mornings. The perfect times to copy files from some blankety-blank’s hard drive.
Koch Industries has recently signed up to lobby the Alberta government on energy and resource development policy issues, as well as taxation and economic development. Apparently they plan to:
“…add value by providing quality services and products our customers desire and value in a way that is compliant with all laws and regulations.”
However, they did not disclose what they hope to achieve by lobbying the Alberta government.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/Billionaire+Party+financiers+lobby+Alberta+government/4496250/story.html
It sounds like they’ll be creating game changing paradigms by leveraging existing synergies and using award winning techniques in the field of excellence.
It sounds like they’ll be creating game changing paradigms by leveraging existing synergies and using award winning techniques in the field of excellence.
I’d say that you just won the HBB buzzword bingo contest, ecofeco.
Billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, major Walker campaign contributors, provide funding support for ALEC.
the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a shadow conservative policy group that works with Republican state legislators, on Gov. Scott Walker’s legislative agenda.
Got “TrueAnger™” + “TruePurity™” ?
It does a “TrueDeceiver’s™” Legislative body good!
Sorry his blog is not on a UW web site.
http://scholarcitizen.williamcronon.net/2011/03/15/alec/
So let’s recap Blue Skye
If you have a blog that’s critical of gov
The Gov can look at your emails to dig up dirt on you.
I wonder how Ben feels about that??
I don’t know much about it but it doesn’t sound good. This morning I watched the der Speigel TV report about the “kill team” GIs in Afghanistan. Online, of course, I doubt ‘merikans will ever see what these guys were doing on TV. The president just started a war after consulting with the Arab League and the UN, but not congress. The same prez can jail and execute anyone without a trial. Did I leave anything out? Oh, yeah yesterday I heard a family member was told his job of 20 years is going to China.
Kind of snafu here in the good ol’ US of A.
One assumes that thousands of Tea Party activists will quickly mobilize to defend this professor’s constitutional rights. Right?
There is strong case law about this (Tinker), and the prof. should be fine; there was no disruption to school functioning. Even if the Gestapo said he did it “during school hours” that would be very hard to distinguish since profs basically live their jobs.
Honestly, we should all be a little concerned about the MO of these mofos.
Hmm, where have we seen this before?
OK measton, the guy reads logical and sincere. Thank you for your presentation. When you satnd up to bullies, you need to keep your nose clean, and expect to be left with little more than your feet under you and a face you recognize when you shave in the morning.
No that’s why we have courts
Of course when the courts fail or are bought and paid for then you get violence. See third world for examples.
Did I mention that my health care premiums went up from 2000.00 a year to 4000.00 a year.
glad to help in anyway: http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/health-care-law-unions/2011/03/24/id/390680?s=al&promo_code=BF14-1
“It is inappropriate that a bill sold to the American people as healthcare legislation would contain a sweetheart deal for unions and Hollywood, and it is grossly inefficient that in troubling economic times, the American taxpayer would be asked to subsidize the healthcare costs of massive corporations.”
Read more on Newsmax.com: $5B Hollywood Handout Bankrupting Obamacare
Inflation? What inflation?
Seriously, when does hyperinflation start? 25%? 50%? 100% 1000%?
“Seriously, when does hyperinflation start?”
-about two months ago.
I am in awe of the stock market. I did bail out 3 weeks ago.
Nuclear plant still not under control, market doesn’t care.
PIIGS having another hicup, no problemo.
War in the ME, so what?
Federal deficit at 11% of GDP, yawn.
Illinois and Clownifornia broke, big deal.
I wonder if the end of QE2 will also spell the end of some irrational exuberance in the markets? If that be the case of course we would see QE3 in quick succession.
Any thoughts?
Thoughts? No. I am trying not to think about it. It is extemely challenging. Beer kinda works.
Ok. I read somewhere today that the recovery (completely subsidized and fabricated and fake) is so strong that all those things pale in comparison. That is the kind of thinking that we are up against. That is joe sheeples’ belief a’la the MSM. Watched Idol lately?
They are “managing consumers’ expectations.”
Videos like this one sure put me in the mood for buying a home along the California coast. Watch out for those deadly, invisible, radioactive particulates wafting in with your pleasant coastal breezes!
New Video Shows Smoking Reactors
March 25, 2011
Japan’s defense ministry releases video footage of smoking reactors at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. Video courtesy of Reuters.
It’s all contained! The video must be edited by a bunch of liberal, America hating, tree hugging, homosexual, fear mongering nazis/communists.
We should get the gov to go through their email, bank accounts, and bed rooms. This stuff must end!
That radioactive smoke is good for the recovery. They just have not figured out why yet.
“The video must be edited by a bunch of liberal, America hating, tree hugging, homosexual, fear mongering nazis/communists.”
Wow, that’s a pretty wide brush.
Flawed housing data might mask depth of woes
Critics say Realtors’ monthly report overly optimistic ~msnbc.com
Two high-profile reports on home sales this week confirmed that the housing market is still mired in a deep slump with prices still falling and sales activity sluggish at best. In fact, the market may be in much worse shape than even those numbers suggest.
Figures from the National Association of Realtors that are among the most closely watched indicators on the housing market have been called into question by economists who say they may overstate existing-home sales activity by up to 20 percent.
The issue is more than just an academic dispute among economists. Without a working barometer, it’s hard to see the next storm coming.
“It’s very important for the industry but also for policy makers,” said Mike Fratantoni, head of research at the Mortgage Bankers Association, one of the groups that is challenging the Realtors’ data.
“Folks at the Fed and at the Treasury and anyone involved in economic policy throughout government are very concerned about the health of the housing market. So if your primary indicator is giving you an overly optimistic reading, that’s cause for concern,” he said.
The Realtors, a trade group of licensed real estate agents and brokers, concede that there has probably been some “upward drift” in its numbers since the unprecedented collapse of the housing market in 2006. But Realtors spokesman Walter Molony says the group’s data still accurately track the monthly ups and downs of home sales, providing valuable insight into sales trends.
“In terms of broad market characterizations, it’s really not that big of a deal,” said Molony.
But if the data is as badly flawed as critics fear, it could be a big deal for home buyers and sellers because it could mean prices are more likely to head even lower. That’s because an unrealistically optimistic assessment of the pace of home sales could be artificially buoying home prices.
The possible breakdown of the barometer couldn’t come at a worse time for the housing industry. After signs of life last year — helped by generous government tax breaks—there are ominous signs that those incentives simply pulled future sales forward.
The issue is more than just an academic dispute among economists. Without a working barometer, it’s hard to see the next storm coming.
Ummm, ’scuse me. I think that one of the HBB-ers has been working on a pretty good prototype. We’ve been giving that person lots of good suggestions.
Might mask?
I think I’ve just hurt myself laughing.
Might!?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/25/opinion/25fri1.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha211
by the time my links get posted it’s already old news but hey NY state is having pension problems too! move over california the pensionistas are getting edging out the leaders.
I’m sure millions of gobermint lovers will think this is a grand idea.
Uncle Sam Considers Taxing Motorists for Miles Driven
March 25, 2011| FoxNews.com
As if fuel taxes and rising gas prices weren’t causing enough pain at the pump, Democrats seeking to raise new revenues to support federal spending on highway maintenance are considering taxing motorists for the number of miles they drive.
The Congressional Budget Office lent credence to the idea in a detailed report released this week, saying that taxes on vehicle-miles traveled — or VMT taxes — would be a fair way to charge motorists for the real cost of using the nation’s highways and would encourage more efficient use of the highways than fuel taxes.
“Judging from estimates of the costs of highway use, a system that charged for all such costs would have most if not all motorists paying substantially more than they do now — perhaps several times more,” the report said. “Such a system would maximize the efficiency of highway use by discouraging trips for which costs exceed benefits.”
The report said VMT taxes “would create incentives for people to limit highway use to trips for which the benefits exceed the costs, thus reducing or eliminating overuse of highways and helping identify the economic value of investments in highways.”
But the report also said challenges remain in trying to implement a system that included installing metering equipment in all of the nation’s vehicles.
“Having the devices installed as original equipment under a mandate to vehicle manufacturers would be relatively inexpensive but could lead to a long transition; requiring vehicles to be retrofitted with the devices could be faster but much more costly, and the equipment could be more susceptible to tampering than factory-installed equipment might be.”
Gas tax has a similar effect and is much easier to manage. Also has the added benefit that heavier vehicles that likely get worse fuel mileage and do more damage to roads are taxed more. However, VMT taxes would create a whole bunch of jobs, red tape and fraud so I’m sure it’ll get done.
They’ve been trying to do the same thing to the airplane business for years. Replacing fuel taxes with “user fees”.
And, like every other government “trust fund”, the money magically seems to disappear when it comes time to actually spend it.
Of course, you will be billed the “user fee”, even when the only reason you are a “user” is because of the government regs.
Oh boy, wmbz I truly dislike the times I find myself in disagreement with you, but this is sadly one of those.
“Uncle Sam Considers Taxing…. FoxNews.com”
WOW! Stunning! ….it’s this close [..] to being a Federal law!
(This Federal FEAR fact was brought to you by our Corporate Inc. “Truephearmonger’s™”: wmbz & “TruePaidProvoker’s™” Faux News Inc.
“Democrats seeking to raise new revenues…”
I guess you don’t see a problem with this becoming LAW considering the current “TrueAnger™” + “TruePurity™” repubicans that control the Congress are 98% going to go along with their “idea”, right?
Don’t think,… just keep posting for MUrDoch’s “True Chupacabra™”, keep ‘em coming…
If they eliminate the gas tax I’m all for it. Wish the auto insurance co’s would do the same thing, charge you for miles driven, time of day, which roads driven. Would result in much better risk based pricing, at least for those of us who are lower risk. For those who get GPS’ed from the bar to their home at 2am not so much.
Or anyone who has to drive between work locations 60-70 miles apart, like yours truly.
That $12/hour job I’ve been looking at at the Walmart Tire Center is looking better all the time.
Keep dreaming. You’re overqualified and probably too old as well.
True.
Some columnist was making a point the other day. Who should be the most “employable” people in the workforce?
22-23 year old College grads, or at least you would think.
What is their unemployment rate? 20%? That should tell anyone everything they need to know about the job market in the USA.
As noted before, the only people being hired are the 30 year olds, with 15 years of experience and the exact training that the employer is looking for, who will work for 12 bucks an hour, with no or minimal benefits.
Ah tree-hugger bait.
The damage done to highways is not linear with respect to the weight of the vehicle. I don’t know this for a fact and am willing to be corrected, but the fuel use varies inversely with vehicle weight. Thus the larger vehicles are doing damage exponentially but only getting charged linearly. That would put me in a camp for “use fees”, but only marginally.
In the end, really, I don’t care what they gubmint did with the money. I agree that it would most likely get spent poorly. But they could put it up Charlie Sheen’s nose for all I care. There would be less money spent driving and that’s money wouldn’t be being used to fund regimes that hate us, befouling the environment, allowing people to use generational resources through sloth, might end up cutting a few pounds of some people, and promoting public transportation and ride sharing. I ride a bike. Charge all you want.
MrBubble
All that said, I had another bike crash and it feels like I broke my foot. So much for the long ride this weekend!
[I know that the price of food and goods would go up. But food is already under-priced compared to the rest of the world. I don't have a solution to that other than the work that I do at the free farm to feed the under-served. Kumbaya!]
PS: I usually get into trouble with ex-GSFixer for this line of argument since he has to drive far to work, but is there a reason that moving closer is not an option if the job is an offer you can’t refuse?
I still can’t get a contract, or a full time offer out of these people. Haven’t been paid for February yet. Needless to say, doing anything like signing up for an apartment lease doesn’t make sense.
Right now, it’s marginally less expensive to do the commute. While I send out resumes again.
Their latest plan is to offer me a minimal monthly retainer, and an increase in my hourly rate after I work “X” hours. In exchange, I give them “priority” when their airplane needs worked on.
This contractor thing isn’t working out so well. Besides my quarterly payments I made last year, I found out I need to write the IRS and state another $6000 worth of checks.
Accountant says that if all you have to sell is labor, you are kinda fooked.
So essentially, with lower pay and no insurance, minus vastly increased expenses to generate that lower income, I basically made about $5/hour last year.
Probably would have been money ahead last year by drawing unemployment, surfing for porn, and eating Cheetos. Or just gone ahead and moved into that palatial cardboard box I have parked beneath the I-70 overpass.
“I still can’t get a contract, or a full time offer out of these people.” Ah, you did say that before. Sorry I made you repeat yourself. That sucks.
“I found out I need to write the IRS and state another $6000 worth of checks.” The hits keep on coming. Hope that you have your health. Cripes.
Good work on the last two lines. Needed that laugh with my brokeass foot!
If there’s a bad idea to be implemented I am sure they’ll do it. I am sure the makers of the tracking devices paid their tribute to the congress critters, so its OK. Increasing the fuel tax would pretty much accomplish the same thing, but that would be too easy.
Have to agree with you, Mike.
This smells an awful lot like lobbyists from the “meter” companies are working their way through congress.
This idea sucks! (and we don’t drive far)
Why not just imbed the GPS chip into the person’s body. Then you can tax his azz for moving around in his living room.
Just like the rental car companies!
Hey we agree
This is a really bad idea
It costs more.
It give gov the abillity to know where you are at all times
It reduces the incentive to conserve gas.
Hey maybe they could just turn it over to a Hedge Fund who could then charge you a toll for any road you drive on.
I like the personal chip too. They could tax the air you breath.
I’m sure government vehicles would be exempt from a tracking device.
I’m sure the semi trucks (owned by large corporations) would be exempt.
Wait, does it have to be a GPS? I don’t especially like that idea. Couldn’t it just be a total miles driven calculation, although I’m not sure that this idea is a good one at all in the first place. I was being reactionary in the post above…
Having some surgery done next week that won’t be covered by insurance. The dr’s office calls me today to verify the appointment and let me know the amount that will be due the day of the visit ($6,758). They let me know I can put it on any credit card.
I, of course, ask if they offer a cash discount if I don’t put it on a card. The woman’s response? “Well, because you scheduled the surgery on such short notice, we can offer you a payment plan!”
Ummm….I think you missed the point, dear.
Pretty sad that they have no problem with the bank taking what, a $150 or so cut of the transaction, but won’t provide an incentive for me to pay with a check.
I hope that your surgery goes swimmingly and that your recovery will be lightning-quick.
But, as for the cash discounts, they do exist in the medical field. I’ve gotten them. What I suggest you do is call the doctor’s office back, tell them that they can have 100% cash next week, no credit card companies involved. Then ask for the discount.
With the way things are these days, even doctor’s offices are hurting for business. If they can get it with no hassle from credit card issuers or insurance companies, they’d probably be delighted to have you as a patient.
But then again, I could be wrong. Arrogance seems to be dying a very slow death in the health “care” field.
Also mention that you are not using insurance. That saves at least 60 days for them.
I once had surgery and after paying for it in cash, the Dr. told me that if had told him in advance of no insurance, he would have knocked of $1,000 or 20%. I made payments and they did not charge me interest. (20 years ago)
And It can’t hurt to ask, the worst thing they can say is “no”.
And you might need to talk to the office manager who might have more of a clue about what you were truly asking for (a mutually beneficial discount).
The person you talked to is probably a scheduler/receptionist with little experience with people who actually could pay in full and a lot of experience with people who have no other option but a payment plan.
I got a cash discount on my son’s braces
had to go to a couple doctors before I could get the deal
It was the doctor who decided not the office help
It was the doctor who decided not the office help
Which reminds me of a story from the Arizona Slim File: Back when I was living in Pittsburgh, I needed surgery. And I was a poor young Slim without health insurance.
The low-income clinic doctor who diagnosed my problem and urged the surgery ASAP wrote a very nice letter to the surgeon that explained my situation. Surgeon only charged me 1/3 of his usual fee and said that I could pay him over time without his charging interest.
Oh, one more thing: If I had health insurance, it would have been a two or three day adventure in the hospital. With surgery done under general anesthesia. But, without the insurance, the surgery was done in an outpatient clinic with local anesthesia. And everything turned out fine.
Don’t forget that if you are uninsured you are likely paying the Surgeon 2 or 3 times what a similar patient with insurance would be paying. That, to me, is criminal, but it is the way it is.
I’ve found that, for a lot of things, but not all, the words “I can’t afford that!” turn mandatory procedures into optional ones. Of course, this doesn’t work in all cases, but the truth is, there’s a lot of unnecessary surgery out there.
Find out if the rate for the process, if covered by insurance, would be capped by they insurance company. There is no reason to pay any more than that, particularly if you are paying faster.
Here’s a link to the abstract of a paper which questions the value of the traditional no-prepay-penalty 30 year fixed-rate mortgage. The full paper in pdf format is found via a link on this page.
http://mercatus.org/publication/do-we-need-30-year-fixed-rate-mortgage?utm
CHICAGO (WBBM) – Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel says Chicago remains in a foreclosure crisis. Emanuel says the foreclosure crisis is far from over. He says the latest statistics show Chicago has the second largest number of vacant foreclosed properties in the nation.
“We need a coordinated investment strategy to help our neighborhoods, and invest, and bring all the tools we have, both in the public sector, the private sector and at the neighborhood group, to help us deal with this crisis that is affecting not parts of the city, but every neighborhood block by block,” Emanuel said.
Emanuel says the city needs to expand its Troubled Buildings Initiative to help private developers with financing to rehab properties, provide affordable housing, and put the properties back on the tax rolls. He says he will be looking both to banks and community groups to help the effort.
and bring all the tools we have
Psst, Emanuel…you forgot already? Mr. Maywhor you only need x1 tool to fix ALL your problems: The Federal Reserve Inc.’s “discount window” still has the neon sign flashing: “abremos”
(Slide in front of that funky lookin’ guy with the “Golden” GS emblem on his blazer and drool dripping from his lips, …at least it looks like drool.)
There’s that word “crisis” again. TWICE in the first two sentences!
“crisis”
A politician’s stock-in-trade…
The guy talks like an ACORN activist…
Spoiler alert:
If Rahm EVER runs for the WH, I look forward to working as hard as a behind-the-scenes mole can work at destroying his prospects as I did to keep Meg Whitman (aka Gollum’s candidate) out of the California statehouse.
There are certain candidates whose ascendancy to high office I simply cannot stomach.
Good for you, PB.
Given the FEDS abillity to pump up the markets in teh face of
Massive destruction in Japan
Nuclear leak
Major instabillity in ME
Continued fall in housing
Rising food and fuel prices
Major unemployment
Is there ANY doubt that they timed the collapse in 2008? Seriously they started raising interest rates to build up the pressure then GS and others triggered a sell off.
They can’t control what will eventually happen but they obviously have some control over the speed and timing.
Volume really dropped off this week after op-ex Friday last week. Not much conviction behind the numbers seen this week.
Your posts and WT Economist’s scare me the most.
Because they are most on target with my own worst paranoid fears.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/42265558
US banks in ‘cash for keys’ talks
Here in Tucson, the foreclosures don’t appear to be happening until long after the homeowner has vacated the premises. Or, if the house was bought as an investment, the tenants have moved to some other place and the landlord is nowhere to be found.
So, who picks up the cash?
What’s the point if they’re not going to sell them?
“What’s the point if they’re not going to sell them?”
Oh, hold them until the market turns around.
This is ludicrous. And Carl is exactly right. Banks already have a raft of empty houses they’re not marketing.
Overheard at work:
“I am calling Pyramid Financing because I bought my home and refinanced last year and I haven’t received my 1098…”
He’s now OTP talking about a “million dollar unit”.
LOTS of amateurs still out there…
GOPOFC&CC = “The Grand Old Pimps of Fiscal Conservatives & Compassionate Conservatives”
What nary a mention of Jeb? …wells eyes reckons this is their “A” team
“A” as in… Assault
“A” as in… All
“A” as in… Americano’s yearning for:
“A” as in… Amnesty
Nevada GOP gambles on making caucuses count:
AP News
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour courted the state’s top Republicans and talked to donors this week. Romney will address the Republican Jewish Coalition Winter Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas on April 2. Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty and The “TrueRogue™” Sarah The Barracuda have traveled to the state for fund raising dinners and private meetings.
(Hey now, this sounds so,…democraptic!):
BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
“They don’t know what they are doing because they have never done it before,” said Heidi Smith, also an RNC representative.
The Nevada GOP has been in disarray for years. Republican Jim Gibbons, the state’s governor until last fall, faced a series of scandals while in office, and Sen. John Ensign won’t seek another term, dogged by ethics allegations.
Republicans do see signs of hope. Clark County GOP Chairman Frank Ricotta said his local party, which includes Las Vegas, has grown from 200 to 900 members since 2008.
“Things are exponentially building,” he said.
My wife has finally acknowledged and agreed that renting is a good thing and that we will be renters for a very long time. Basically everybody we work with is breaking down and almost all of them have a house around their neck.
“Basically everybody we work with is breaking down and almost all of them have a house around their neck.”
What does “breaking down” mean? What is it that they are doing?
Sure, here we go:
One teacher friend has moved into her parent’s house and abandoned her house. She cannot afford the repairs and she bought well before the bubble.
A different teacher friend moved in with another teacher to help pay the mortgage.
A couple is trying to figure out how to divorce. At the center of their misery is a house they are at least 100k underwater on. They have kids and don’t think they can afford separate apts.
Two families (that I am close with) bought small houses during the bubble and can’t really fit in their current homes. It is really stressing them out. The worst being a 2/1 that converted a garage to a 3/1… they just had their third child.
Thank you, Muggy.
Man, I just fielded one of those conversations this week myself. This couple is probably a bit older than your friends and is at the peak of his career. He makes well over $100k and works in the pharmacy field. This week they had their rings off and she was saying it was over because he doesn’t understand what she needs.
I love my friend but she spends money like water and self-admittedly they are broke. Imagine strong 6 figures and broke! They have not lived in a high cost of living area in 10 years. I had to tread so lightly on that phone call. (sigh) It’s just such a tragedy to watch it unfold.
And like your post, they’re hardly in the minority. Even some of my still “happily married” friends have bristled at their husbands’ attempts to curb spending. For some of us, we had well paying careers that we gave up later in life when the kids came along. So I suppose having to ask DH if it’s ok to spend is really hard to adjust to. The bottom line is these women really don’t understand the big picture and are making concerned spouses all the more miserable.
“What does “breaking down” mean? What is it that they are doing?”
Betcha their sex life is lousy too.
***flashing/breaking*** Faux News Inc. says it’ll be worse in America…”just-you-wait-&-see” …for additional information please upgrade your cable to “Faux News Inc. Premium Platinum” for $69.99 USD
Up to 1 Million Have Fled Ivory Coast Crisis, U.N. Says
By ADAM NOSSITER
Published: March 25, 2011
“The massive displacement in Abidjan and elsewhere is being fueled by fears of all-out war,” a spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees told reporters Thursday in Geneva, estimating that 700,000 to one million people had already left their homes.
“Bus terminals are overcrowded with passengers desperate to get seats on vehicles heading to northern, central and eastern parts of the country where there has been no fighting so far,” an agency spokeswoman, Melissa Fleming, said.
!
“Nails’ worst experience was at a foreclosed home in Tampa. The homeowner had shot himself in bed and the body was not discovered until it had decomposed. Although it was gone by the time Nails got there, bodily fluids had seeped through the mattress and box springs and into the carpet. A dead raccoon had fallen through the rotten ceiling onto the bed. The owner’s dead cat was in the living room. ”
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/article1156204.ece
Ack!
Father of Year?
Quadriplegic Mother Granted Visitation Rights
Her parents, who care for her, are waging a court fight on her behalf for visitation rights. :
LOS ANGELES (KTLA)
Dorn was healthy when she went into labor at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
During delivery, Abby began bleeding and went into cardiac arrest starving her brain of oxygen.
Medical personnel were not able to resuscitate her for nearly 20 minutes, according to the Cohens and their lawyers.
The trauma left her in a minimally conscious state, according to the neurologist who examined her during legal proceedings.
Dan Dorn divorced Abbie a year later.
Dan Dorn maintains in his legal papers that it is not in his children’s best interest to see their mother now.
A $7.8 million medical malpractice settlement funds her treatment.
Dorn, who is seeking child support from Abbie’s estate, stated in court documents that he has not told the children what happened to their mother because they are too young to understand. He says he will consider taking the children to see Abbie when they are older — if he receives medical evidence that she will be able to communicate with them
That is a horrible story! What a son of a b***h!
first one like this on cl here:
http://daytona.craigslist.org/reo/2286383206.html
This is one of the few times I wish Eddie’s denialist posts still showed up here. It would be SO over-the-top entertaining to see him defend his beloved Las Vegas against The Economist’s abundant evidence that the local economy is in the crapper.
America’s property market
On a losing streak
The effects of America’s worst property crash go very wide
Mar 24th 2011 | LAS VEGAS | from the print edition
TO THE many dubious distinctions of Las Vegas, add one more: foreclosure capital of America. According to RealtyTrac, a property-listings firm, one in every ten homes in the city was in some stage of foreclosure last year, almost five times the national rate. In North Las Vegas, a poorer suburb, the figure was one in five. These statistics would be even grislier were it not for lenders’ inability or reluctance to eject all those who are in default at once. People who have managed to hold onto their homes are far from lucky: property prices are around 60% below the peak they reached in 2006, leaving 70% of homeowners in the area owing more on their mortgage than their property is worth. (Nationally, the proportion of homes that are “under water” is a still-awful 23%.)
All this makes Las Vegas the most extreme example of the many cities in America’s sunbelt that grew rapidly thanks to the cheap and abundant credit of recent decades, only to suffer fearsome property crashes during the subprime crisis and the ensuing recession. The ten most foreclosure-afflicted cities in the country are all in Arizona, California or Nevada, notes RealtyTrac. Of the ten most foreclosure-prone states, only one—Michigan, with its car-related problems—lies outside the sunny south and west. As these places are now discovering, it is not just unfortunate property-owners who feel the reverberations of such monumental busts, nor are their effects confined to pocketbooks.
The signs of the crash are everywhere in Las Vegas. The city’s outer suburbs are eerily quiet, thanks to the preponderance of unsold and foreclosed homes. There are few lights in any windows, and few cars on the roads. Banners and boards advertising hugely discounted housing flap and rattle mournfully in the desert wind. In North Las Vegas every second house on some streets carries a “For Rent” sign, offering rates of as little as $150 a month. One or two houses on each street have been boarded up and abandoned. Even on the city’s famous “strip” of cavernous casinos and high-rise hotels, the razzle-dazzle is marred by the grey concrete hulks of abandoned building projects.
…
Slip-slidin’ away…
March 25, 2011, 10:00 a.m. EDT
In charts: House-price slide and more
Weekly graphical representation of top indicators
By Steve Goldstein, MarketWatch
Home-price gap widening
Why buy a new home when a used one is so much cheaper? That’s the question prospective buyers face when they look at the above chart, showing the growing gap in prices (even on a three-month average to account for one-time distortions).
…
Overheard a real sweet conversation in the past week. A long time commercial realtor had just goten her residential license. Her friend asked how it was going. She wasn’t too happy. She said it took way longer than commercial to make deals happen and every seller “thought they owned the Taj Mahal”. She also described the market as quiet. Personally I’d blame the Taj Mahal owners who “never think they should redo their tired floors” when they insist on their stubbornly high price.
Interesting that commercial was perceived as so much stronger around here. That would explain a lot. Anyone think its cuz businesses will recognize and write off losses quicker than an SFH owner?