Bits Bucket for April 11, 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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Place your bets folks. QE3 to be or not to be? I am 99.9 percent sure of the answer. Print baby print!
Weimar endgame ~ April 11th, 2011 by maxkeiser
* Premarket Summary: Inflationary Hysteria
One word (well technically two) can describe what is going on in the electronic pre-market arena right now: inflationary hysteria. Gold is at a new record, wheat is surging, corn is at highest since 2008, crude at a new 30 month high, silver is at $41.10 – a new fresh post Hunt high, beans surging, etc, etc, etc. Essentially everything is bid, following news first reported on Zero Hedge that PIMCO is betting the farm that either inflation is about to go parabolic and force bondholders to dump everything, or that the Fed will have no choice but to pursue another round of QE, sending gold to $2,000 and unleashing the Weimar endgame.
Americans to Fed: prices are too high
By Daniel Trotta
NEW YORK | Thu Apr 7, 2011 6:38pm EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - On the streets of America, the debate over inflation is over. Prices are too high and rising too fast, many people say.
“The government says inflation is low, but that’s not what I’m seeing at the grocery story,” Jorge Alberto, an 88-year-old retiree in Miami, said walking out of a supermarket. “My pension is being put to the test.”
Policy-makers at the U.S. Federal Reserve largely agree that promoting economic growth is still more urgent that constraining a nascent pick-up in consumer prices.
“I don’t think the Federal Reserve has a clue about us little people,” said J. McKeever, an instructor at the Montessori Institute of Milwaukee.
“I am very frugal, so I watch what I spend. And what I have noticed in recent months is that I have less money before than I used to, while making the same amount of money and having to pay for health care,” she said.
Across the country, Americans tell of a disconnect between the real economy they live in and the macroeconomic picture as described by economic indicators.
“There are no salary increases and you know you have the pressure at work to cut, but on a personal level everything else keeps going up. You never seem to be able to catch up,” said Paty Peterson, 50, of suburban San Francisco.
U.S. households are facing higher prices for staple products such as Tide laundry detergent and Hershey chocolate bars as cocoa, sugar, oil, wheat, corn and other commodity prices climb.
Major consumer products makers have said in recent weeks that they will be raising prices including Procter & Gamble Co (PG.N), which said it would raise laundry detergent prices 4.5 percent in June. Kimberly-Clark Corp (KMB.N) is raising prices on diapers, baby wipes and toilet paper as much as 7 percent.
“My grocery bill is up 30 percent over last year,” said Cheryl Holbrook, 47, who educates her seven children at home in Mobile, Alabama. “We have to pinch every little penny and make it squeak”.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/07/us-usa-economy-inflation-idUSTRE7367BZ20110407 - 79k -
“My grocery bill is up 30 percent over last year,” said Cheryl Holbrook
Be quiet serf! Now get out there and upgrade your iPhone!
And in related news, Verizon upgraded me to 4G for $10 a month LESS as long as I start a new contract.
In other words, more % of wages are going towards Needs. In the flight to quality, Needs is the new quality. And there goes the standard of living…
“And there goes the standard of living …”
The standard of living went some years ago. We are just now feeling the effects of its leaving.
Something to do with WILLINGLY sending trillions of dollars of wealth (in the form of “worthless fiats”) and trillions of dollars of unearned wealth (such as infrastructure and the jobs that go with this infrastructure) to to various other countries.
We pretended we still had a high standard of living because we pretended we had the money to support this high standard of living. But now we can’t pretend anymore.
“now we can’t pretend anymore.”
Pretending is promising to pay later. Later does come a knocking.
“The standard of living went some years ago.”
Correct, it was propped up with cheap and EZ credit.
One man’s EZ credit, is another man’s loan that is unlikely to be repaid.
One man’s EZ credit, is another man’s loan that is unlikely to be repaid.
Yup, it worked until the houses stopped appreciating.
One man’s E-Z loan, is another amount the taxpayer will be responsible for. -fixed it for ya’.
Our (illusion of) standard of living has also been maintained by the importation of inexpensive goods produced in countries with slave labor conditions, no worker or environmental protections, and currency manipulation.
drove by a gas station by my house on Saturday night…$ 3.89 a gallon.
on Sunday afternoon…$3.91 a gallon.
michael
I hear you. I paid $4.50 for premium yesterday, after paying $4.25 last week.
(So Ca) The bill came to $77. I’m driving a lot less.
Awaiting
Is your name CHRIS KAHN?
Drivers start to cut back on gas as prices rise
By CHRIS KAHN The Associated Press
Posted: 7:47 a.m. Monday, April 11, 2011
NEW YORK — With the price of gas above $3.50 a gallon in all but one state, there are signs that Americans are cutting back on driving, reversing a steady increase in demand for fuel as the economy improves.
Gas sales have fallen for five straight weeks, the first time that has happened since November, according to MasterCard SpendingPulse, which tracks spending at 140,000 service stations nationwide.
Drivers start to cut back on gas as prices rise
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Drivers-start-to-cut-back-on-apf-3477801693.html
I paid $3.40 for regular.
Gas:
I borrowed a friend’s tiny Toyota truck last week and had to fill it for him. I had not filled a gas tank in a year or so. Wow. $4.20 a gallon turns those wheels pretty fast. I don’t see how drivers do it. I could almost feel the money being vacuumed out of my wallet by the House of Saud (and Canadian strip miners and people like Tony Hayward)!
Food:
Food prices are going up in my experience. Before we started the garden at our home last year (the Free Farm in SF and the garden at Stanford are still going strong!), we were buying Italian flat-leaf parsley once a week at $0.89. It is now $1.09. Good thing I squished all of those nasty spittle-bugs betwixt my fingers this weekend!!
Az Slim–
I agree with your bike comment and community. But everybody I ask always says that they don’t need help. Hope they’re not just too proud to ask!
BTW - The wife and I have a food blog if you are ever interested.
MrBubble
Az Slim–
I agree with your bike comment and community. But everybody I ask always says that they don’t need help. Hope they’re not just too proud to ask!
BTW - The wife and I have a food blog if you are ever interested.
Thanks for your kind remarks, MrBubble. I’d be very interested in learning about your food blog.
As for the cyclists, keep asking them if they need help. Sooner or later, someone will.
Definitely will keep offering!
We are the Food Fixers. It’s more of our food diary than our “mission statement”, but it helped me find our favorite recipe for homemade English muffins this weekend!
MrBubble
not sure how open you are to suggestions but if you want to make something thats super delicious…google “nordstrom’s tomato basil soup recipe”.
it rawks!
Definitely open. Our tomatoes seeds have sprouted and will need more recipes than last crummy season, I hope. We’ve used the toms for the cream of tomato soup in the New Best Recipe Book and this Andalucian gazpacho recipe on-line. So good!
Perhaps having SEVEN children has something to do with her financial difficulties.
I have 2 of my own, and I can tell you that even if prices stayed the same, my clothing and grocery bill would be up over last year due to their growing up.
I can’t imagine multiplying my experience 3.5 fold.
Serf just go to the bank and borrow money to make up the difference. It’s so simple
Relax, people. That little bit of inflation is just temporary according to the new maestro in charge of that stuff. He is an expert and you are not, so get back to work (or not).
Larry?
Do you see what happens, Larry?
I have to call BS on this “food inflation”. The BLS data clearly shows that if you eat at home there has been no increase in cost over the past year! This whiner is obviously unwilling to make substitutions to keep her budget in line.
And as for the cost to get to the store, why have you not cut your trips in half like every other patriotic American?
snark off/
Soon package sizes will be so small you will be able to fit a whole shopping trip in your pockets.
I found this delightful visiting England a couple of years ago. All the cereal boxes were tiny…
That could be a commentary on American portion sizes which in a general sense could use a little clipping.
isn’t smaller portion helpful to reducing obesity in the country?
If nothing else, the reduced quantities in packaging is screwing up all my mother’s old recipes.
1 can of “X” in 1970 had a lot more in it than one can of “x” in 2011.
All she needs to do is buy that IPhone and download an app that corrects the ratios for the smaller packaging.
And in related follow-up news, remember a couple days ago I posted the story of the lady who complained that her “pound” boxes of spaghetti were now 13.25 oz, and were not enough to feed her 9 kids.
Well yesterday I was in the local store and checked on the spaghetti, and guess what. Regular pasta still comes in 16-ounce boxes. However, the whole wheat all-natural health-conscious eco spaghetti comes in 13.25 ounce boxes. I conclude two things from this:
1. Companies are more likely to play downsizing games with their new yuppity eco-healthy products. I’ve noticed this with more than pasta.
2. The lady was obviously buying the eco-healthy pasta. She needs to go back to regular pasta, or make do with a few ounces less. (actually based on the calories, she could do with half as much.)
“Companies are more likely to play downsizing games with their new yuppity eco-healthy products. ”
And some people will also consciously pay a premium for anything that is spun as healthier, purer, exclusive or cooler.
On a related topic, I’ve noticed that the unit pricing on grocery store shelves is inconsistent in a way that I suspect is intentionally “deceptive”… for example, for two different brands of the same product one tag will have the price as per/ounce the other per/quart… making it difficult to make quick comparisons. Anyone else noticed this?
“Anyone else noticed this?”
Yes. I recently moved to Europe, and the pasta shows price per kilo (e 1.70), as does the parmesan cheese (e 25.50) and the six pack of beer (e 2.50). No quarts, hogsheads, or barrels, thank god.
They sell beer by the kilo and not by the liter?
Should parents be more concerned to buy organic which less unstudied chemicals are used. I say unstudied that I mean that there is no long term study about those chemical effect on human race after hundreds years of exposure. Adults are grown and less prone to these chemicals and children are not. I just recently switched to more expensive products after hearing some stories how they grown chicken within 20 days and I am a little worried. I also heard that the age for girl’s first period decrease by years, I doubt there will ever be any research to study the food involvement in this phenomena but I seriously suspect there is.
This is a little off-topic, but it is something to be considered.
If you are concerned about your children’s health and exposure to toxic matter, follow Dr.Merocla.
http://www.mercola.com/
Let’s put together a recipe book: 101 ways to serve shoe leather.
With modifications in case you need to use sofa leather. Get ‘em cheap off craig’s list.
Not on furlough. Glad of it. But the Metro ride was awful this morning. Two track systems are hopeless. Four are necessary if you ever expect to maintain the tracks or deal with accidents, sick passengers, etc. My grandfather (the civil engineer one) would have had a field day with the idea of a tranportation system that requires massive delays in both directions if there is any issue at all in one direction.
“My grandfather (the civil engineer one) would have had a field day with the idea of a tranportation system that requires massive delays in both directions if there is any issue at all in one direction.”
What is with people and rubbernecking? And sometimes all it takes is a guy changeing a flat! Sheesh! Fortunately my commute doesn’t require getting on the freeway.
But hey, they’re doing a little better. If there’s a problem at a station in the middle of the system, they used to single track ALL the trains around the problem station. Now, they send one train only to the station before the problem station, and only send the next train ( that is, every other train) all the way through. That way, people who don’t want to go that far don’t have the wait, and fewer trains single-track.
Of course, it took them 15 years to figure this out.
Four tracks is impossible. They’d have to widen the tunnels, now way.
Three of our busiest commuter lines use three tracks - with the middle track acting as the inbound or outbound fastrack depending on the time of day.
Four tracks is a bit much with today’s signal technology.
Oxide,
I think you will find the situation you describe only at stations that have a place to move trains from one track to the other and not all of them do. All the trains were single tracking on the red line this morning due to a passenger incident at Bethesda.
What is with people and rubbernecking? And sometimes all it takes is a guy changeing a flat! Sheesh! Fortunately my commute doesn’t require getting on the freeway.
It’s different when you’re a bicyclist. If I see a fellow cyclist working on a flat tire, I slow down and ask if he/she has everything needed for the job.
Most of the time, they don’t. But when they need to borrow a pair of tire levers or a pump, I’m happy to stop and lend mine.
That’s one of the great joys of bicycling — it’s a real community builder.
“What is with people and rubbernecking?”
That’s what horns are for. No mercy, unless of course the backup is caused by a real accident. I once had a guy in front of me come to a full stop and sit there gawking before I let him have it.
That’s what horns are for.
Clearly you didn’t grow up in the Seattle area.
I’ve sometimes wondered whether with more cars metro could go to “skip stop” service like Chicago used to have. Of course the easiest way to reduce congestion would be to build pedestrian tunnels between the Farraguts and between metro center and gallery place.
They are too busy working on the Silver Line now, don’t ya know!
LOL. Nope, drummin I didn’t. And while I’m all about being patient (or at least trying to be) with other drivers, I find people in the NW seem afraid to use their horns.
It’s probably because most people get their feelings hurt when you honk at them. I can’t tell you how many people cut me off to squeeze in front of me to get to that next exit and then flip me off when I honk at them. Never mind that there’s a mile of space behind me.
You can tell a lot about people by how they drive. Not much consideration and not much taking of responsibility out there.
I can’t tell you how many people cut me off to squeeze in front of me to get to that next exit and then flip me off when I honk at them. Never mind that there’s a mile of space behind me.
It’s funny you mention this. I have a funny story along these lines.
Had a guy cut me off in the Costco parking lot (made a left turn out in front of me, causing me to slam on the brakes to not hit him). I tap the horn twice.
He puts the car in park and gets out and comes and starts swearing at me…. “you gonna bust my b*lls for that???!?” followed by a bunch of 4 letter words.
I agree completely. People in Seattle 1) don’t use their horns, and 2) aren’t very considerate and don’t take responsibility for their driving
In the Rocky Mountain region I find most people avoid using the horn and assume anyone quick to use it is a jerk from the coast. I tend to think that mountain west culture subscribes to the “speak softly and carry a big stick” philosophy.
You know how we always bag on the “every kid’s a winner” concept on this site? I think the effects of this are evident in drivers. People seem loathe to admit they can do any wrong.
People seem loathe to admit they can do any wrong.
I’ve been known to make all sorts of “mea culpa” expressions when I screw up on the bike. More than a few drivers have found them to be rather funny.
Which is good, because this is Arizona, after all. I’d rather have them laughing than shooting.
In the Rocky Mountain region I find most people avoid using the horn and assume anyone quick to use it is a jerk from the coast. I tend to think that mountain west culture subscribes to the “speak softly and carry a big stick” philosophy.
Little horn use or swearing in AZ although driving is worse than Cali. in Cali horn use and finger flipping is common. They have little fear in CA as it’s a police nanny state.
I expect if a Cali driver started honking and finger flipping in AZ bad things would happen.
I’ve been on a mission of late. And that mission is to learn how to be a better cook.
Being of the “buy ingredients with as little packaging as possible” persuasion, I haven’t noticed huge price increases of late. Maybe it’s because I’m substituting “from scratch” ingredients” for packaged goods — I don’t know.
But I do find that I’m having much more fun in the kitchen. And, ever so slowly, my cooking is improving.
+1. I’m using the bulk food section at my local grocery and loving it. I have noticed some price increases in some items such as beans, however.
I got to have White House Mess navy bean soup over the weekend. It is delicious. I’m thinking I might have to try it on my own. I think I have a big enough pot for the recipe.
I got to have White House Mess navy bean soup over the weekend. It is delicious. I’m thinking I might have to try it on my own. I think I have a big enough pot for the recipe.
The White House Mess divulges recipes? Eeek! Breach of secrecy! Put ‘em in Quantico with Bradley Manning!
Polly, the combination of Mess, Navy big enough pot reminds me of the collection of Army Recepies that we used to have here. The standard recepie serves 200, which would be a big pot.
Yeah. Not the same. I think this one is scaled down to get you to one iteration of the least used canned ingredient. It calls for one 14 ounce can of diced tomatoes. I think the text said 10 servings, but that must be regular size. We got little tiny cups - maybe 3 ounces which isn’t a real serving of soup in my opinion.
Then there were the boxes of White House m&m’s…I assume they are the same as regular ones except for the packaging. Didn’t bother to open mine.
“And as for the cost to get to the store, why have you not cut your trips in half like every other patriotic American?”
Actually, why don’t they? I’m waiting for the day when reducing spending and waste will be patriotic.
U.S. households are facing higher prices for staple products such as Hershey chocolate bars as cocoa, sugar, oil, wheat, corn and other commodity prices climb.
=======================
Bernake is putting all us fatsos on an inflation diet. He’s going to lower our BMI by making fudge unafforadable.
Except that we’re all gonna be eating more Mac-n-cheese.
The good old box mac and cheese dinners (an occasional secret comfort food vice) have gotten much more expensive and rarely go on good sales anymore…
Swore off ramen after college… in spite of still being really cheap, just can’t face them anymore.
buddy of mine in college lived off of cookies for almost two weeks…those butter/sugar star shaped little cookies.
apparently for a while they were alot cheaper than even ramen.
Low interest rates are hurting the retirees more than increases in the price of pasta.
Thank goodness we have both the Fed looking out for us along with the “best health-care in the world”. It’s nice that they really care about us American people.
From the article above: Americans to Fed: prices are too high
Eileen Reilly, 72, a retired resident of the Chicago suburb of Geneva, said higher gasoline and food prices have forced her to ….stop taking pills for a liver condition…
“My doctor said I could die if I don’t take them,” Reilly said, rolling her eyes. “I told him that I’m 72 and I’ll be dead soon as it is. Besides, it was either the pills or the car and the dog. And I need the car and I love the dog.”
You must be so glad you left the USA. I’m still working on my exit plan.
You must be so glad you left the USA.
I’m kind of glad and kind of sad and when I think about America’s current direction, I’m kind of mad.
Rio,
Can you explain a bit about how you ended up abroad and what your long term thoughts are about being an expat?
I’m curious both about the practical and emotional aspects of making such a move.
thanks.
Me too.
The “Trump-Palin” ticket will be the last straw (whether they win or not)…….the final, apocalyptic sign that “Idiocracy” was a documentary in disguise.
The 2008 election was proof positive that IDIOCRACY has overtaken us.
“The 2008 election was proof positive that IDIOCRACY has overtaken us.”
We’ve been there for a while my friend. I just think we’ve finally slipped over the point of no return, hence the need for an escape valve.
Step 1: Procure a foreign passport, because once the SHTF in the US, most other nations will slam the door in our collective faces if we ask to move there.
My advice to anyone: If you have the right to claim foreign citizenship (without having to renounce your US citizenship) … do it!
Because the Harvard lawyer beat the broadcast major and beauty queen???
how you ended up abroad and what your long term thoughts are about being an expat?
I ended up in Rio because of my spouse’s widowed, ill Brazilian mom, a chance to increase my net-worth building a house on a long-time owned lot in a good neighborhood, a chance to explore a different business, a promise made and the search for change and adventure.
Closing a business, uprooting, moving your belongings, building a house with cash, learning a difficult language and dealing with Brazilian culture and customs when one is middle-aged, takes more money, patience, time, effort and marital investment than I had imagined or wanted to expend.
I’m glad I did it and right now I’m glad I’m here but I miss the USA, my friends, family the food and culture too. The internet makes it easier to stay in contact with America though.
Expats can have great times abroad but sometimes feel the truth that they are not living among their own culture and people. But that can be a good or bad thing depending on what one is looking for and values.
I know many Americans who will never leave Brazil and I know some that would go back to the USA tomorrow if they had a good opportunity to do so.
“Because the Harvard lawyer beat the broadcast major and beauty queen???”
+1
LOL!!
“I need the car”
I think that somebody’s got her “needs” and “wants” columns mixed up.
You need your health, unless you want to get all existential and argue that if you don’t have your health then you won’t “need” anything in short order.
You do not need a car. It might take longer to do stuff, you might have to make multiple trips, you might have to borrow one, you might have to take public transportation, you might have to ride share, your might have to ask a friend for a lift, it might take longer to do things without one, it may be inconvenient, but you do not NEED a car.
As I was saying…
Americans to Fed: prices are too high
Fed to Americans: Go f*** yourselves, you stupid sheep. This is what you voted for; this is what you deserve, this is what you’re going to get. We are going to inflate away all public debts and obligations while our Republicrat accomplices protect us from the audit Ron Paul is demanding.
But isn’t Helicopter Ben saying that inflation isn’t “problematic”? If anyone knows what’s happening in the economy, Ben does! (sarcasm off)
Our Ben is better than their Ben.
Isn’t that how we avoid a Depression? the gov has no choice but to keep spending?? right?>?
Does anyone know the source for these eye-popping figures?
- Five million homes already reclaimed by lenders since the onset of the financial crisis;
- Thirteen million more to be forced out by 2015.
Booyah!
Putting the ‘Own’ Back In Homeowner
By allowing borrowers to write off the interest on their mortgages, the IRS is incentivizing homeowners to drag out their payments for years. There’s a better way.
By ARKADI KUHLMANN
If the financial crisis revealed anything about homeownership in this country, it’s that “ownership” is too often a misnomer.
Since the crisis began, more than five million homeowners—people who thought they’d achieved the American Dream—have seen their houses reclaimed by lenders. Thirteen million more will be forced out by 2015. That’s hardly the kind of security one associates with owning.
…
The number of these 18 million homes which are completely out of commission, unavailable for rent or sale, is astronomical, and putting a squeeze on for sale and for rent inventories. Mark to fantasy has a way of corn-holing the little guy just looking for a roof over his head. Death to Megabank, Inc.!
“…putting a squeeze on for sale and for rent inventories. Mark to fantasy…”
Anything that can’t go on forever, won’t.
I prefer yours but I fear mine:
“Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”
Those FRNs being stored for me in the local savings institution in binary form are looking a little wilted and deformed.
I’m surprised the blog participants are discussing this more. I’m more and more convinced that this shadow inventory is very real and much larger than one can imagine.
IMHO, the shadow inventory doesn’t just include houses in foreclosure. It also includes houses that were offered for sale, but didn’t sell. Seeing a lot of that here in Tucson.
Nowadays, said houses are being rented out “until the market improves.” (That translates into “when prices start going up again,” and to that I say, “Rotsa ruck!”) Or they’re just sitting there empty.
I am aware of quite a few of those around here that fall into that category and that’s why I always say it will be the fear of further job losses or perhaps a big move in inflation before those places will shake loose.
********
renting the home until the market improves when the owners’s will then sell
How about a nice stiffy instead of a deal?
* BUSINESS
* APRIL 11, 2011
Icelanders Reject Deal to Repay U.K., Netherlands
By CHARLES FORELLE
For the second time, Icelanders voted down a deal to repay Britain and the Netherlands billions of euros lost in the island nation’s 2008 financial collapse—at once a bold popular rejection of the notion that taxpayers must bear the burden for bankers’ woes and a risky outcome that will complicate Iceland’s efforts to rejoin global markets.
…
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
My theory is that they will be bludgeoned into eventual submission by the tools of economic domination/persuasion: WTO, IMF, BIS, etc.
I hope that I am wrong about this. And even if they eventually cave in to the demands of the banksters, at least they showed a lot more spunk & fight than the rest of the developed world.
Icelanders, I salute you!
“Icelanders, I salute you!”
They saluted themselves. Just like the early American revolutionaries. Before 1913, when the Fed took over the country.
Britain will be forced to invade and liberate Iceland for the bankers.
Good for Iceland! To heck with privatize the gains and socialize the losses!
The losses were already socialized. They were socialized to the governments that bailed out their own people who lost money in the Icelandic banks. The question now is whether Iceland repays those governments (like Britain) for the original outlay.
Don’t make this more idealistic than it is. The individuals who made money off taking a risk on the foreign banks and then “lost” when the banks went under, have already been bailed out. This is just about where the socialized losses finally fall.
“This is just about where the socialized losses finally fall.”
No end to the financial bust until the bagholder identification process is finished…
No bagholder left behind?
You have the “bagholder” and “behind” part right, at least.
Don’t make this more idealistic than it is….The losses were already socialized. They were socialized to the governments that bailed out their own people who lost money in the Icelandic banks.
Even though someone “socialized” the losses, it was not Iceland so far that did it. Therefore it is Iceland that I would give the idealistic props.
Because why would it be any less idealistic for Icelanders to refuse to payback foreign governments that bailed out bondholders than it would be to refuse to bail out the bondholders directly?
Would not the stand Icelanders are taking be equally idealistic in either case?
Or did Icelanders ask Foreign governments to bail out the bondholders with the promise that Icelanders would repay the foreign governments? I don’t think they did.
I see your point, but I just can’t see not bailing out the government of the UK as being quite as idealistic as not bailing out the people who got high interest rates from your irresponsible bankers. It is fairly easy to see it as a, “well, if that is what YOU wanted to do,” kind of thing.
Still, the UK and the other governments will think twice about running to the rescue in similar circumstances in the future, so there is some effect.
Yeah, Polly. It’s the difference between buying lottery tickets and buying last weeks lottery tickets.
Moot, but funny…
A Warning for Economy Addicts
4/8/2011 5:13:02 PM
A government shutdown would delay the release of economic data and that’s keeping WSJ’s Ahead of the Tape columnist Kelly Evans awake at night. But does anyone else care?
Next big shut down scare will probably be in October. I don’t think they can actually do more than posture about the debt limit. It is too dangerous. They can’t yell and scream about how all this borrowing means that higher bond yields are just around the corner that that increase would be the end of the world and then do the one thing that will guarantee higher bond yields kick immediately. Well, they could, but I don’t think they will.
However, the fight over the next budget is going to be ugly. Really, really ugly.
“They can’t yell and scream about how all this borrowing means that higher bond yields are just around the corner that that increase would be the end of the world and then do the one thing that will guarantee higher bond yields kick immediately.”
If they do, it could create a great arbitrage opportunity which I am sure vampire squids and hedge funds will be quick to exploit.
Except for the timing, I agree. There’s likely to be SOME form of CR (Continuing Resolution) in October IMHO. I don’t think that Congress has passed all the required appropriations bills on time in the last 20-30 years.
But they will want it to start sooner than it generally does. They want the fight and they want it public. October is better timing for that than December. And it isn’t an election year, so a CR to keep the reps from having to do a hard vote right before an election isn’t a factor. I don’t expect it will blow up right on October 1st, but I do think any continuing resolution will be pretty short term and the hard fighting will happen earlier than normal.
I certainly think that one of the reasons that the came to an agreement Friday was that both sides wanted to save their ammuntion for the BIG fight later this year.
Oh, and by January, the Republican presidential nomination process will be in full swing, so October through to Thanksgiving is the perfect time to eat up the media attention. I don’t know if the process is quite that calculated, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it is.
* LIFE & CULTURE
* APRIL 9, 2011
The Man Who Predicted the Tsunami
After studying ancient rocks, a Japanese geologist warned that a disaster was imminent—to no avail
By PETER LANDERS
The giant tsunami that assaulted northern Japan’s coast surprised just about everyone. But Masanobu Shishikura was expecting it. The thought that came to mind, he says, was “yappari,” a Japanese word meaning roughly, “Sure enough, it happened.”
“It was the phenomenon just as I had envisioned it,” says the 41-year-old geologist, who has now become the Japanese Cassandra.
Dr. Shishikura’s studies of ancient earth layers persuaded him that every 450 to 800 years, colliding plates in the Pacific triggered waves that devastated areas around the modern city of Sendai, in Miyagi Prefecture, as well as in Fukushima Prefecture.
One early tsunami was known to historians. Caused by the 869 Jogan quake, its waves, according to one chronicle, killed 1,000 people. Dr. Shishikura had found strong evidence of a later tsunami in the same region, which probably took place between 1300 and 1600.
“We cannot deny the possibility that [such a tsunami] will occur again in the near future,” he and colleagues wrote in August 2010. That article appeared in a journal published by the Active Fault and Earthquake Research Center in Tsukuba, the government-funded institute where Dr. Shishikura works.
He was beginning to spread the word. Plans were under way at his center to hand out maps so people would understand which areas were at risk. Dr. Shishikura had an appointment on March 23 to explain his research to officials in Fukushima.
Dr. Shishikura’s boss at the center, Yukinobu Okamura, had even mentioned the results at a 2009 meeting of an official committee discussing the safety of nuclear-power plants. Dr. Okamura says the idea of beefing up tsunami preparedness didn’t go anywhere.
…
Predicting that Japan would have a major earthquake, and an associated tsunami……yeah, that’s really going out there on a limb.
About as far out on a limb as the guys that predict that there will be F-5 tornados somewhere in Tornado Alley.
“About as far out on a limb as the guys that predict that there will be F-5 tornados somewhere in Tornado Alley.”
Yeah and with my luck it will probably land on my house too.
Just up the road, in 1984, one of those danged things wiped an entire town off the map up the road. It killed 9 and injured 200 in while they all were all asleep.
Therefore, mikey and his semi-tame pet squirrel Rocky, always scan the skies for ominous black clouds and are prepared to grab the peanuts and head for the basement.
Sleep with one eye open Rocky and don’t forget to grab Toto.
I hope his research consisted of more than just “there was one in 869 and again between 1300 and 1600, therefore we are due.”
“Yukinobu Okamura, had even mentioned the results at a 2009 meeting of an official committee discussing the safety of nuclear-power plants. Dr. Okamura says the idea of beefing up tsunami preparedness didn’t go anywhere.”
Wow. They are more Americanized than I thought!
Radioactive Tuna Fish Migrating From Japan To U.S. Waters
Will Charlie Tuna get rejected because he glows in the dark?
We’re all screwed.
This is good news! For tuna.
Lol.
Greenpeace should spread a rumor that whales too are radioactive.
“Greenpeace should spread a rumor that whales too are radioactive.”
With all of the radioactive barrel waste, hot junk plus the sunken nuclear sub wrecks lying on the ocean floor, the whales are probably so hot, that they’re already glowing like goldfish when observed from the space station.
If Jonah were about to be gobbled by the whale today, he might be well advised to be at least wearing his lead lined underwear.
The real question is how much of their radioactive intake was iodine (very short half-life) vs cesium (very long half-life) vs other even more scary isotopes.
I’ve not seen any date on this yet.
There is no data on this yet. It’s a known unknown.
But reasonable people can make their engineering estimates.
- How much radioactive water has entered the Pacific Ocean near Fukushima, and how much at what points in time?
- How large a share of the world’s ocean is that amount of water?
- How rapidly would the radioactive material diffuse (or would it, for some list of reasons, remain highly concentrated)?
- How many tuna will come anywhere near an area with a significant concentration of radiation before it is too diffuse to matter?
- How many critters down the tuna food chain will get exposed to radiation before it is too diffuse to matter?
- How many of the tuna that ingest any significant quantity of radiation will make it across to U.S. waters?
My guesses:
1) There will be detectable blips in the levels of radiation found in tuna.
2) They will be too small to have any health consequences.
Caveat: I’m not an expert on this subject; just a reasonable person who knows a MSM scare story based on junk science when I see one.
IIRC tuna have a long life - many being caught are very old. So I would hazard a guess that short-half-life radioactive materials would decay inside the tuna before most are caught. Naturally this doesn’t apply to tuna caught right now in the immediate neighborhood of northern Honsu.
“So I would hazard a guess that short-half-life radioactive materials would decay inside the tuna before most are caught.”
But that only pertains to the short-half-life radioactive materials that make it to the inside of the tuna. Since the radioactive water was dumped in from the shore and since the tuna migrate far off shore, I’m thinking we are talking a short half life of a very limited amount of radioactive material inside the tuna…
A girl radioactive tuna walks into a bar and a guy asks the bartender “So, who is she?” The bartender tellys the man “Sushi” to which the guy replies “I just said that, so who is she?”. “Right.” Says the bartender…
Correct me if I am wrong but if a radioactive element has a long half-life then it couldn’t be all that radioactive, could it?
A short half-life means it is rapidly decaying and is rapidly throwing off radiation - that’s why it has a short half-life - but a long half-life means it is slowly decaying and is slowly throwing off radiation, no?
And if it is slowly throwing off radiation then it shouldn’t be all that dangerous, should it?
My, oh so limited understanding is that slow radiation is something the human body can cope with, but it cannot cope with large, massive doses of radiation. Large massive doses of radiation kills massive amounts of cells all at once and overwhelms the body’s cell-regeneration capabilities but small doses don’t.
At least this is how I understand it.
Naw. The real question is how much of anything radioactive (especially of longer than 8 day half life) they ingest, and the extent to which it remains in the part of the flesh people ingest.
Yum - radioactivity and mercury make for a taste sandwich!
If you are afraid of radiation in the tuna, I will be glad to eat your tuna sandwich for you. I will be far more worried about mercury than radiation, and I don’t worry about the minuscule mercury content in tuna, whose effects are buffered by selenium, either…
With a slathering of rBGH Mayo and GMO bread from Monsanto!! Eat up!
Radioactivity is extremely easy and cheap to detect. I doubt these fish will end up at Costco but it is very likely seafood prices will go down. No silly, prices always go UP!
We’ve been eating mercury laced tuna for decades. What’s a little radiation?
Sushi Science: Fear, Not Radiation, Seen As Risk
by Jon Hamilton
April 5, 2011
Morning Edition
A Tokyo tuna wholesaler adds slices of fish to his stall on March 23. Fish prices have plummeted in Japan amid fears that radioactive material leaking from the damaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant may have contaminated the animals. But experts say there’s no risk right now and that fish is safe to eat.
Every day, hundreds of tons of fish and seaweed are bought and sold at Tokyo’s seafood markets. The markets are still bustling, but prices have fallen sharply amid concerns that some products might be contaminated with radioactive material leaking from Japan’s troubled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. How likely is that?
…
Meanwhile, sales of geiger counters have been brisk.
Not to mention iodine tablets. So many Californians have bought them that there are not enough on the world market to satisfy demand in areas of Japan where there is an actual need.
I still have mine from after 9/11 when MA was very concerned about terrorist threats to the Plymouth Pilgrim Nuclear Plant. In the event of a nuclear radiation leak, the Sagamore Bridge would be closed because it routes traffic way too close to the plant. That meant every single person leaving Cape Cod would be crossing the canal via the single remaining bridge, the Bourne, a 2 lane passage. I’d be stuck on that island w/2 very small children for days. I bought the tablets.
Too bad the efficacy doesn’t remains constant over that much time.
The entire fish is safe to eat - both the tails and all three eyes.
Leave it to Megabank of America to try and foreclose on a blind woman who never missed a mortgage payment.
WHEN WILL AMERICA FORECLOSE ON THESE SCUM BANKS?!
One Woman’s Foreclosure Fight: Is Victory In Sight?
by Chris Arnold
April 11, 2011
Morning Edition
If there’s a poster child for someone who should not be facing foreclosure, it’s Debra Dahlmer.
Dahlmer, who is retired and legally blind, has never missed a mortgage payment on her home. She lives in Gloucester, Mass., in a modest house with her 80-year-old mother and several small, well-fed dogs.
But Dahlmer says that for a year and a half, her lender — Bank of America — has been losing her documents and dragging out the process. And lately, the bank’s been threatening to foreclose.
“Are they going to take my house even though I’ve always made the payments?” she asks.
…
‘And she says she doesn’t know what she would do if she lost this home that has housed her family for nearly 50 years.’
there’s your trouble…
+infinity
Here’s why:
The bank told her that’s because Dahlmer has been making smaller payments through the government-sponsored foreclosure-prevention program. And Bank of America told her that if she doesn’t pay the difference by the end of July, it would start foreclosure proceedings.
In other words, a three-month trial mod followed by a balloon payment. How is this even a modification? And how can HAMP allow banks to call it such?
But, oh, by the way, what is this little nugget?
She lives in Gloucester, Mass., in a modest house with her 80-year-old mother and several small, well-fed dogs…And she says she doesn’t know what she would do if she lost this home that has housed her family for nearly 50 years.
What did you do with the refi money, Debra? (medical bills?)
Maybe she and her husband bought the house from her mother?
Did the banks get paid by FedGov just to make the trial mod, with no incentive for them to make it permanent?
How lazy of NPR: Massachusetts property records are all on line. I searched the deeds in under a minute, discovered that there have been 10 mortgages in the past 16 years on the property in her name.
Now, some may be discharges (doubtful, as those are listed as discharges and not mortgages); but she is a classic serial refinancer.*
* Perhaps: I used to spend an hour or so on each of these types of cases, documenting the evidence and sending letters to the editors. This time I saw all the classic evidence and didn’t dig further: the editors always respond with a “we’ll look into it” but never do so. So I could be wrong. But I doubt it.
Ah ha I heard that story this am starts off with chacter building of this poor Blind lady and her over fed dogs.
I thought there maybe more to this story than NPR would let on
and I heard on NPR the Bank made her loan modification permanent
Moral of the story there are no morals anymore
So like many, she fell out of the HAMPer. I wonder whether she fell out on the “We don’t think she needs help,” side or the “We don’t think she can be helped.” side. Because it’s a very small basket.
“What did you do with the refi money, Debra?”
ahh yes…the question that is never asked in these sob stories.
maybe she used some of it to feed her well fed dogs?
Why did the government set up their loan mod programs to encourage homeowners to take actions which would increase their future foreclosure risk? Is the Treasury Department colluding with Megabank, Inc to screw over American households?
Good background finds people.
But still, the question remains: Did she or did she not miss payments?
If she is blind, don’t tell her.
Financial markets
Too big to fail
Apr 10th 2011, 21:29 by S.D. | BRETTON WOODS, NEW HAMPSHIRE
SIMON JOHNSON, former IMF chief economist and now professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, has been one of the more vocal critics of the coziness of the ties between the financial sector and the government, particularly in the United States. He spoke on Saturday evening at INET’s conference in Bretton Woods on a panel on “Too Big to Fail” (or, more formally, the regulatory challenge posed by large, complex financial institutions). He has lost none of his vim. Worth a listen:
…
I know several guys who went from corporate or the airlines, to the FAA.
One set-in-stone FAA policy is that you CANNOT be assigned to any kind of oversight position of you former employer for (at least, as I recall) 2-3 years, minimum.
A common-sense, no-brainer to me. Makes you wonder why it isn’t a government-wide policy.
Realtors Are Liars
Politicians are Corrupt.
Bankers can’t get by with 0% return, or even 8% return. They must needs have 12% return, and that return must needs rise every year. IMO that leads to both corrupt politicians and lying realtors.
And voters are smart!
Until there are publicly funded elections and politicians corruption shall continue.
My email communication with a certain realtor; file under “liars.”
Hi ***,
It was nice meeting you today at my open house.
We put the unit on the market yesterday and this was my first open house. There is an unit right next door (smaller unit and not as an open layout, even though it is brand new and it is an elevator building) what had an asking price of $510K and got under contract right away.
Little did she know about this new invention called the internet, on which one could obtain a lot of information. For example, the “under contract” she referenced was really that someone put down $2,500 to “reserve” the unit. No contract has been signed yet. In addition, the next door building is a new construction, and still has four identical floor plans on the market, each asking below $500.
Also, a little digging showed that she also overstated the square footage of the unit by over 10% (public deed says 949 sqft, advertising says 1100). When confronted with this information, she responded:
Yes, I was referring to *** which is right next door. By the time we priced our unit we based it on the 02 unit [which, BTW, are the units asking below $500k] in that building, which faces the street with the same southern exposure and similar layout. The ones in the back are indeed under $500K but are very dark and can not compare. And the 02 unit on both 3rd and 4th floor are listed just over $500K. Even though that building is new and has elevator, we felt that we have a better layout (their door opens to the small kitchen and is narrower) and a decent size deck and the maintenance is low. So we felt those are the closest comparables.
* * *
As for the size of the unit, we went by the old listing when it was on the market when the current owners bought it in 2005. I have other buyers pointed it out for me too so I have changed it to 949 sqft, even though I will do a measuring since I feel it is bigger than that… No the deck is not included and should not be.
I have no intention of buying 949 sqft for $500k; I think anyone who does is crazy and stupid, even if the units are located right next to NYC.
NJ Renter,
Thank you for informing us of that Realtor Lie. It merely makes the multi-volume book of Realtor Lies a little larger.
This made me think if the original version of Miracle on 34th St., more specifically the apartment the nice lawyer lives in that has a direct view of the parade route. I shudder to think how much that unit would have fetched at the top of the bubble.
I didn’t know that the appraisers adjusted comps upward based on “which way the door opens” or “southern exposure”. But what do I know?
Appraisers adjust the price upward at the request of Lying Realtors and mortgage salesmen.
You should know that by now.
my wife’s unit got a 40k bump for being located on the periphery of development, backing up to a nice scenic pasture rather than backing up to other units
Comment
Mike, is there a way to see all your past
comments about Bend RE in the last 3-4 months? I have a friend in Bend who is in
trouble and I’d like to share your posts.
Thanks
Rancher, there is an HBB-specifc search-engine at
www dot inksex dot com
You can search by a specific poster name there.
Hope this helps…
“And the worst is almost certainly yet to come.”
And in that case, I’m certain there’s never been a better time to buy!
The budget
Done deal
Apr 9th 2011, 4:57 by E.M. | WASHINGTON, DC
THE phrase “at the eleventh hour” seems to be taken quite literally in Washington. At midnight on April 8th the federal government was due to shut up shop, when the latest of the six stopgap spending measures it has been subsisting on this year in lieu of a budget expired without replacement. Despite weeks of negotiations the Republicans who run the House of Representatives and the Democrats who run the Senate seemed unable to agree on how much the government should spend, and on what, for the remaining six months of the fiscal year. It was not until 11pm that the two sides announced they had reached a deal to avert a government shutdown.
…
And the worst is almost certainly yet to come. Within the next five weeks, Congress will have to raise the ceiling it imposes on the federal government’s debt. Many Republicans have indicated that they will not do so unless the Democrats agree to much more sweeping spending cuts than the ones that have proved so difficult to square away this week. As one senator put it while waiting to vote on the budget deal, “The debt ceiling is going to be Armageddon.” One hopes she did not mean it literally.
And of course there is at least some question about how many law makers will balk at voting for this agreement.
So let me get this straight, the lawmakers that are worried about more debt from spending are going to vote no on raising the debt ceiling…so they’re worried about too much debt that in the future will rise to such high levels it will cause the U.S. to default…but if they vote no to raising the limit next month the U.S. will default.
What’s the difference?
One seems slightly more willing to face the reality sooner rather than later that this can’t go on forever? Problem is we know they’re full of crap, too, because they are selective about when they are supposedly ready to face reality.
Per Erin Burnett, we could just pay our debt off if we wanted to (http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2011/04/11/cnbcs-erin-burnett-national-debt-problem-our-revenue)
United States is “…a very wealthy country. If you look at our assets, we could pay down the debt tomorrow. We choose to borrow because we can borrow at incredibly low interest rates.”
So what’s the big deal?
Well the PROBLEM is that the wealthy, who would have to shoulder much of the burden, as they did when we paid down the debts we generated fighting WWII are reluctant to do so. And in these days of money politics, they have become powerful enough that if they don’t want it, it doesn’t happen.
I dunno, in summer 2006, Richard Pombo (R-CA) suggested that the US sell off Teddy Roosevelt Island* for luxury condos. That would have raised several million bucks right there. Maybe they can rent out the top of the Washington Monument for private parties too.
I’m all for selling lower Manhattan back to the Indians, or to the Saudis.
Think how entertaining Sharia Law in lower Manhattan would be. They would be hacking off hands and heads 24/7/365.
And televise it. Call it C-SWORD
Buttonwood
The foolishness of crowds
Investors tend to chase the latest fad
Apr 7th 2011 | from the print edition
IF YOU see a crowd outside a department store it is reasonable to assume that there is a sale. If you see a queue outside a bank there is a good chance that nervous depositors are trying to withdraw funds. In both cases the actions of other people send a signal that may be useful for others to follow.
But does the wisdom of crowds apply to investment? At the peaks it certainly pays to head in the opposite direction from the masses. Bubbles occur when the population develops an enthusiasm for a particular asset class, whether it be technology stocks in the late 1990s or houses in the mid-2000s. The story goes that in 1929 Joseph Kennedy liquidated his portfolio when he heard that a shoeshine boy (in some versions, an elevator boy) was giving stock tips.
Bubbles are relatively rare, however. In the normal course of events, following the crowd may be more profitable. After all, bond-market vigilantes are supposed to keep a wary eye out for inflation, while the stockmarket ought to give an early indication of coming recessions.
…
Cataclysmic earthquakes/tsunamis are rare too, but that’s no excuse not to remain vigilant. (reference: your earlier post of the Japanese stone tablets)
Maybe that’s what we need, stone tablets: “when housing prices exceed ~2.5x your income - rent”
Unfortunately, a lot of people confuse accidentally investing in a bubble with skill and talent.
what’s the saying….i’d rather be lucky than smart?
Always said by someone who isn’t smart enough to know that luck is fleeting.
There is swarm theory describing what you just described here. Unfortunately the conclusion is quite disturbing. It claims individual who join the swarm get maximum chance of survival and it is usually the most efficient way to survive the environment. When it comes finance or housing, I think the swarm will create laws suit them best thus anyone else left on their own. One example will be mortgage deduction.
It’s actually more of a smarm theory…
+1
The “wisdom of crowds” was always an oxymoron.
Emphasis on the “moron” part.
Same with ‘common sense’. (Like the kind that says slash government spending during a depression.)
Got gold?
The Federal Reserve
Off message
Ignore the hawkish rhetoric. The Fed isn’t about to tighten
Apr 7th 2011 | Washington, dc | from the print edition
WHEN the Federal Reserve put its monetary foot to the floor two years ago, it had plenty of company. These days America increasingly looks like the outlier. Emerging markets have been tightening for months—China’s central bank raised interest rates again on April 5th. As The Economist went to press, the European Central Bank (ECB) looked likely to raise rates for the first time since 2008. The Bank of England has been agonising over whether to do so too. The Bank of Japan has turned the monetary taps on, but its circumstances are somewhat special.
…
Poor writing. How is America the outlier when 3 of the 4 examples they gave also had not done anything but spun rhetoric about tightening?
Just bought a set of 2010 “America the Beautiful” 5 X 5 oz. silver quarters from one of the Mint’s approved dealers. Wondering if anyone else picked up a set.
Editorial
Banks Are Off the Hook Again
Published: April 9, 2011
Americans know that banks have mistreated borrowers in many ways in foreclosure cases. Among other things, they habitually filed false court documents. There were investigations. We’ve been waiting for federal and state regulators to crack down.
Prepare for a disappointment. As early as this week, federal bank regulators and the nation’s big banks are expected to close a deal that is supposed to address and correct the scandalous abuses. If these agreements are anything like the draft agreement recently published by the American Banker — and we believe they will be — they will be a wrist slap, at best. At worst, they are an attempt to preclude other efforts to hold banks accountable. They are unlikely to ease the foreclosure crisis.
All homeowners will suffer as a result. Some 6.7 million homes have already been lost in the housing bust, and another 3.3 million will be lost through 2012. The plunge in home equity — $5.6 trillion so far — hits everyone because foreclosures are a drag on all house prices.
The deals grew out of last year’s investigation into robo-signing — when banks were found to have filed false documents in foreclosure cases. The report of the investigation has not been released, but we know that robo-signing was not an isolated problem. Many other abuses are well documented: late fees that are so high that borrowers can’t catch up on late payments; conflicts of interest that lead banks to favor foreclosures over loan modifications.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/opinion/10sun1.html - -
What I don’t get is how there could ever be a 50 state, national settlement for this. Title and foreclosure laws vary widely, as do the politics and inclinations of the attourney’s general of the states. As much as the banks would LIKE a 50 state solution I just can’t imagine it happening. And I’m not sure exactly how much help the commerce clause would be, after all land is only very rarely tranfered interstate.
The commerce clause (should the gov’t want to apply it to cases like these) would work fine. People use the phone and internet to sell land don’t they? Well, the commerce clause has been so broadly interpreted that communication via those methods crosses state borders, even when calling someone in the same state.
I’m guessing that the gov’t doesn’t want to get involved though. No need to put a bunch of specialized lawyers out of business.
I guess I should give up on the quaint notion that the word “interstate” is supposed to MEAN something. Kind of like “for limited times” when talking about copyright.
“And I’m not sure exactly how much help the commerce clause would be, after all land is only very rarely tranfered interstate.”
They could sue/prosecute, but if the real story ever gets out about how bad the banks are screwed up, it will become obvious to even the densest among us, that they should have been sent down the poop chute in late 2008.
Now, the government is an “investor” in more ways than one, and anything that threatens to make their “investment” look stupid and worthless reflects badly on the government decision makers.
So rather than run the risks of banks declaring actual bankruptcy, a settlement will be cludged together so everyone can proclaim “victory”.
Any more doubt the banks own the government?
Anyone? Anyone?
Stiglitz Calls for New Global Reserve Currency to Prevent Trade Imbalances
By John Detrixhe and Sara Eisen -
Apr 10, 2011 12:51 PM ET
The world economy needs a new global reserve currency to help prevent trade imbalances that are reflected in the national debt of the U.S., said Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.
A “global system” is needed to replace the dollar as a reserve currency and help avoid a weakening of U.S. credit quality, said Stiglitz, a professor at Columbia University in New York. The dollar fell to an almost 15-month low against the euro last week, and the U.S. trade deficit widened more than forecast in January to the highest level in seven months.
“By taking off the burden of any single country, we don’t have to have trade deficits,” Stiglitz said in an interview in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. “Things would be much worse if it were not the case that Europe was having even more of a problem, but winning a negative beauty pageant is not the way to create a strong economy.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-10/stiglitz-calls-for-new-global-reserve-currency-to-prevent-trade-imbalances.html - -
Eff globalization. With a stick.
To late. WE’RE effed.
we don’t have to have trade deficits
…makes no sense to me at all. China sends a lot more widgets to the US than the US sends to China, period. If these yahoo masters of the universe try to pretend equality by re-calibrating the currency by fiat, people will simply trade in widgets and burn the currency a la Weimar.
How about “Bennie Bucks”? They come with a packet of extra zeros you can stick on later should you need a higher denomination.
Gonzales is caught in the conundrum that faces many of Colorado’s 250,000 jobless workers. Jobs are posted online and applications are accepted online, yet the chances of landing employment from an online ad are very low. Making matters worse, few companies bother anymore to respond to the hundreds or even thousands of online applicants.
“You are lucky to hear from the employer at all unless you are considered for an interview,” said Larissa Fillingham, 29, of Denver, who is looking for a full-time job teaching secondary-level social studies.
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_17807081
I saw an article the other day that basically said that if you are unemployed for more than 6 months in your field, that you are considered “damaged goods” and are for all practical purposes unemployable and no one will hire you. It also doesn’t help to over 50 either.
if you are unemployed for more than 6 months in your field, that you are considered “damaged goods” and are for all practical purposes unemployable and no one will hire you.
I was unemployed for 9 months, but was able to get back on the wagon, so perhaps it’s a trend but it’s surely not true for everyone.
However that was at the start of this whole thing, ending almost 2 years ago now.
It’s always been easier to find a job when you have a job.
A lot of people still think that companies only layoff their bad employees
From my recent job search in Colorado I agree that the national job boards have become almost worthless. I did find Craigslist more useful than you would think, though, which is where I found the job I actually took. The majority of the “good” listings that I found were at the company websites themselves, usually after hearing from somebody I knew at the company telling me to check them out.
One pattern I noticed was that there were 10-20 jobs that seemed perfect in the local area, that were reposted repeatedly the whole time I was job hunting, and I never heard anything on them. I suspect they are still being listed today. That was odd and a bit frustrating, and is probably similar to what the guy in the article is complaining about. The worst offender in tech right now for that seems to be Google.
The job that got back to me quickly and I eventually accepted was only posted once that I saw.
Amazingly, I found my current job on Monster.com.
Just for kicks, I routinely apply for jobs for which I am a good fit. I rarely hear anything back from them.
I used to have better luck with jobs posted on the Rocky Mountain Internet Users Group, which used to be almost exclusively technical jobs. Lately it seems tech jobs are in the minority on that board.
Interesting that non-menial jobs are being posted Craigs list.
Interesting that non-menial jobs are being posted Craigs list.
It might just be a Boulder thing…they seem to use that to weed out people who might want to be paid to move. And they are posted in the engineering section, which I notice in other town’s Craigslist job listings is more for just PE license stuff.
I got my current gig on Craigslist. And the last one, too. It’s not a menial job, but not rocket science, either. But it is not one most people really want to do or can do.
Congrats on finding a new job, Carl!
Thanks…been working again for about 6 weeks.
I worked for a company that would advertise openings before a layoff in order to fool the workforce into thinking there wasn’t going to be a layoff.
Interesting thought, I hadn’t considered that.
No. He faces the same problem the other 15,000,000 unemployed do: there are NO effing jobs!
There should be not doubt that congress will raise the debt ceiling. Some are guessing by a thousand billion. However the CBO says it will need to be closer to two thousand billion to carry us into 2012 at the rate “we” are spending. Great going big gubmint, keep printing those fiats’! The show is getting more and more interesting.
~ Dead Ahead: America’s Ultimate Budget Battle
by Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D.Monday, April 11, 2011
If you think last week’s battle of the budget was brutal, wait till you see what’s coming next!
Within just a few weeks, the U.S. government will hit its debt ceiling of $14.29 trillion — and if Congress fails to raise it, the consequences will be far-reaching:
The Treasury Department will be denied legal authority to borrow more money. It will stop payments on bond principal and interest. It will discontinue Social Security checks, cease paying out Medicare benefits, and even cut back veterans benefits — a far bigger blow to millions of Americans than virtually any government shutdown.
I think we should have a budget battle at least once a week.
If the spenders get tired of the battles then maybe they’ll stop the spending.
I think the D.C. circus should stop clowning around and raise it to 20 trillion right away, It will get there in the future anyway. Balanced budgets and spending cuts are not going to happen in any significant way. So let’s really party!
Naw, I want every one of these guys who insists on spending more than what we have to have to fight for every dollar.
The easier it becomes for them to blow through money the more money they will blow through.
Yesterday Neuromance suggested that the holders of imploding mortgages are wholly responsible for the foreclosure debacle; and that he/she would be interested in finding out how many exactly there are. Answer seems that 10 million foreclosures could occur before this is over.
As for Bofa, the addresses of foreclosure bound mortgages can be found at recontrust dot com. Seems they do repo business for BofA in at least 13 states. From the addresses given the mortgage holders can be identified via county records.
However, imploding mortgage holders can’t really help expedite matters because it is the bank that decides when ownership transfers occur, and the longer they wait the more people will stay in place while taking a payment holiday.
Being as slow to foreclose as molasses in January exacerbates things as they are giving imploding mortgage holders cause to stay. Quick action on their part and most delinquent borrowers would indeed move on more quickly; by choice or because they dont own it anymore! Moving out does not cause foreclosures to occur in a timely fashion; so why not wait out the banks actions as they are not explaining their (in)action and holding all the cards close to the vest.
They are not informing; but they sure are jacking up user fees in other areas: credit card yearly fees; checking account fees etc. They are not hiring armies of agents to clear their books and taking title back on these millions of imploding mortgage holders.
My wife (and I) holds an imploding mortgage. We were ready to move last November. Bank rescheduled the sale five times; then cancelled it completely last month. Now Bofa is adding previously cancelled sales back to its Trustee Sales lists. Deschutes county had about 600 sales cancelled; 317 sales are back on as of last night; scheduled for August. So another 4-6 month reprieve handed out by the banks without explanation. We are waiting to see when wife’s sale will be rescheduled. But it looks like the bank will end up giving us about one year after our first scheduled sale date and two years in total.
If delinquent borrowers like my wife had no reasonable expectation of staying on for years; they would have moved on and out. But the banks’ behavior has been unpredictable at best; prolly reprehensible would be a better way to describe it. their delinquent borrowers, for right or wrong, are paying them back in kind, and hold no more blame than the banks, and certainly are without ability to expedite things.
Is an eviction notice required in your state, or will they just send the cops to throw you out on the street without your stuff?
According to quick research; foreclosee has 10 days to vacate after a typical non-judicial foreclosure. No eviction notice and a 10 day warning. After which a complaint of non-compliance would bring out the sheriff, I assume. If it is not automatic procedure for the sheriff to come out for the new owners to confirm vacancy
Non-judicial foreclosures were cancelled by judges in Oregon; briefly, it turns out as Bofa is now rescheduling them a few weeks later. But what a feeling to see the auction date of our “home for now” go from impending in a week to total disappearance! And now not at least till the end of August.
Now wondering if they will have to go judicial on any of the cancelled sales, especially in my wife’s case as it has not been resurrected yet, as have 1/2 the others that had been cancelled. The new dates are set for late August. After some legal review, I assume, by the bank.
“If delinquent borrowers like my wife had no reasonable expectation of staying on for years; they would have moved on and out.”
And by moving on and out they would have left the bank with an empty house. The bank benifits when occupants stay because:
1. A house that is lived in holds its value longer than if were left vacant for an extended period of time.
2. The houses next door and down the street also hold their value, which means the mortgages held by the bank on any of these houses also hold their values.
3. Because ones decides to Stay And Not Pay doesn’t necessairly mean that he doesn’t owe the money. Somewhere down the road the bank may go after today’s Stayers But Not Payers.
4. The option of whether the occupants gets to stay or not is given to the bank. If/when it is convienent for the bank to toss the occupants out into the street then that is what the bank will do.
Of course, lenders are also responsible. And politicians ultimately so, for the legalized bribery that is lobbying and campaign donations, by which they willingly allow themselves to be bought by the highest bidder.
I was just curious about the number of individuals involved. Ten to fifteen million homes with a certain percentage being “owned” by more than one borrower. So, it seems like ten million individuals seems to be in the ball park.
“The length and severity of depressions depend partly on the magnitude of the ‘real’ maladjustments, which developed during the preceding boom and partly on the aggravating monetary and credit conditions.”
Gotfried Haberler, Prosperity and Depression, 1937
Conn. schools brace for potential teacher layoffs
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Hundreds of Connecticut teachers have been warned they could get pink slips later this spring, leaving some parents worried about larger class sizes next fall and whether reform efforts might stall in their city schools.
State law requires school districts to notify non-tenured teachers by April 1 if there’s a possibility they could be laid off, but in stable budget years, those notices are later rescinded as budgets are settled.
This year, education officials say job cuts are inevitable in some districts. Municipal finances are strained and state leaders are unsure whether Connecticut can match last year’s state aid to local districts — and they’ve almost guaranteed there will be no increases to keep up with inflation, just as there haven’t been for the last two years.
“This coming year, misery will have plenty of company,” said Joseph Cirasuolo, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents. “One community after another is adopting zero-increase budgets. And with no increase in the state money and no increase in the locals, something’s got to give.”
About 700 public school teaching jobs disappeared last year throughout Connecticut through retirements, attrition and layoffs. It marked the first dip in about a decade, leaving about 52,700 full- and part-time positions on the books statewide.
I wonder if all this has something to do with the huge Millenian generation now out of school and into college.
Which raises the question of what all of those investors in off-campus housing are going to do after the kiddies graduate. Here in Tucson, quite a few apartment complexes are being proposed due to the endless pipeline of students that will keep coming to the University of Arizona.
However, a quick look at demographics will show that there was a surge of births about 20 years ago. Then things started to tail off.
Furthermore, tuition at schools like the UA keeps going up, up and up again. And the word is getting out that there aren’t that many jobs out there. Imagine graduating with close to $100k in student debt and no employment prospects in sight. That’s happening already.
So, methinks that some of our local developers are about to get a rude awakening.
Texas considers highest speed limit in nation ~ Associated Press
As lead singer of Van Halen, Sammy Hagar once crooned, “I can’t drive 55.” To show how far things have come, now some Texans aren’t happy about only driving 80 miles per hour. The Legislature is considering raising the maximum speed limit to 85 mph, highest in the country.
The Texas House of Representatives has approved a bill that would raise the speed limit to 85 mph on some highways. The bill now goes to the state Senate, the Austin Statesman reports.
We suspect Sammy, shown at right back in 1995 when California raised its speed limit from 55 mph to 65 mph, would be pleased.
Texas currently has more than 520 miles of interstate highways where the speed limit is 80 mph, according to the Associated Press. The bill would allow the Texas Department of Transportation to raise the speed limit on certain roads or lanes after engineering and traffic studies are conducted. The 85-mph maximum would likely be permitted on rural roads with long sightlines.
Some car insurers, however, oppose the bill:
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, high speeds were a factor in about one-third of all fatal crashes in 2009. The faster you’re traveling, the greater the distance needed to bring your vehicle to a complete stop and the longer it takes a driver to react to emergency situations, according to IIHS. If an accident does occur at a higher speed, there is a strong likelihood that the crash impact will exceed the protection available to vehicle occupants.
On top of safety concerns, speeding increases fuel consumption. Every 5 mph you drive over 60 mph is like paying an additional $0.24 per gallon for gas, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
At higher speeds the air drag becomes the limiting factor. It increases with the ^3 (cube) of the speed. So assuming the same car & everything else, doubling your horse power roughly yields a 25% increase in speed.
On distance travelled an increase from 80 to 85 would require 12% more work. Usually engines run more efficiently the higher the load, so the fuel consumption would go up a bit less than 12%, maybe 10% or so.
A lot depends on the gearing as well. Certainly I don’t think that my old non-overdrive equipped Volvo 144s could have made it to 85 without over-reving the engine.
Many years ago, Car and Driver magazine proposed a “MPG speed Limit”
Basically, you can drive as fast as your car can maintain (say) 30 mpg.
Makes sense to me; it puts all the incentives where they need to be. Like your monster SUV? No problem, but you can’t drive it over 60.
Build a low drag, high tech, 2.0 liter coupe/sedan that gets 30mpg at 90 miles per hour?
Build it, pass this measure, “….and the people will come, Ray…..”
Many years ago, Car and Driver magazine proposed a “MPG speed Limit”
<snip>
Makes sense to me;
Except that speed differentials are the factor when it comes to safety/accidents. Given this type of “limit”, people could be going very different speeds, whereas mph keeps traffic roughly moving together.
I’m looking at from a strictly “what would be better to encourage, from a fuel savings alone” standpoint. And you would restrict it to rural Interstates, with adequate sitelines
(and year round deer hunting seasons Thks, Hwy..
).
To make it work, it would require traffic/lane discipline, and common sense that is in short supply around here. See the typical “squatting in the left lane, 10mph under the limit while yakking on a cellphone” example, pretty much every time you get on the highway.
While in Germany, left lane squatting is viewed as a social offense, like farting during a funeral. And in Germany, they mandate brakes, tires, etc. whose performance meets/exceed the max speed of the car.are re
One nice thing about running 90mph plus. You better be paying attention to your driving. In fact, at those speeds you are pretty much forced to.
Everyone is already doing 85 in those 80 mph sections.
This is really about raising the limit to 90.
There is also no cell service in those areas.
I wonder how low mpgs drop on a pickup at 85 mph? I’ll bet its below 10.
A little 4.7 liter, 2wd, short bed, standard cab Dakota consistently gets around 17-18, running 80-85.
So rumor has it……
I have a small pickup and gas mileage is excellent at any speed under any condition except extreme head winds.
City: 23-25 avg mph - 40
Hwy: 25-28 avg mph - 75
Sammy Hagar once crooned
Sammy does a lot of things, but “crooning” isn’t one of them.
Clearly you’ve never caught my lounge lizard act….
The 85-mph maximum would likely be permitted on rural roads with long sightlines.
Corvette (steer horns on front) + 85mph + night + x1 “unseen” animal…crossing just ’bout…now!
In Germany, after driving the Autoban with no speed limit, I asked a colleague what happens when one of their little deer crosses the raod and gets hit at 200+.
He said they’d scrape both you and the deer up with the same shovel.
Shoulda beeen driving a Made in USA Chevy Corvette
Google : “230 mph Corvette crash Texas Mile”.
And he walked away……
I recall seeing a picture a couple of years ago being passed around the car boards on the web of a BMW that was going pretty fast and hit a deer. If I recall correctly, the feet were sticking out of the grill area and the whole body appeared to occupy about a two cubic foot area on one side of the motor. Odd and disturbing picture.
5 Problems With Ultra-Low Interest Rates
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/04/5-problems-with-ultra-low-interest-rates/237038/
A Crack in the Great Wall-mart: Watch Out for Rising Prices from China
http://www.goldshark.com/kaspars-comments/item/95-a-crack-in-the-great-wall-mart.html
Amazingly enough, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody use the term “The Great Walmart of China” yet.
PIMCO now betting against U.S. government debt ~ April 11, 2011
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The world’s largest bond fund began betting against U.S. government debt last month on the expectation that shaky finances will jolt interest rates higher.
PIMCO, through its outspoken co-chief investment officer, Bill Gross, have been raising alarms about a lack of buyers for Treasuries once the Federal Reserve ends its own bond purchase program, also known as QE2, in June.
In February Gross revealed his ultra-bearish view on the United States by dumping all of his fund’s U.S. government-related debt holdings.
The portion of PIMCO’s $236 billion Total Return Fund held in long-term U.S. government debt, including U.S. Treasuries, declined to “minus 3″ percent in March from zero in February and 12 percent in January.
In a short position, an investor sells a borrowed security on a bet it can buy the bond back later at a lower price.
Cash equivalents, including Treasury bills and other debt with maturities of less than a year, rose to 31 percent of the fund’s assets from 24 percent in February.
PIMCO also expects the lingering U.S. budget deficit and the Fed’s easy monetary policy will fuel faster inflation and hurt the dollar.
These victims stories are like shooting ducks.
Fla. unemployment: Jobless locals dread squeeze on benefits
By John Lantigua Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 9:06 a.m. Monday, April 11, 2011
Posted: 5:55 p.m. Sunday, April 10, 2011
WEST PALM BEACH — Doug Pugh was laid off in 2009, after nine years with his employer, and collected state unemployment benefits for 26 weeks.
The benefits have expired. But Pugh, a Greenacres father of two teenagers, can remember when he first became jobless and how that $550 every two weeks helped.
“I won’t tell you it went real far, but it was still a lifesaver,” said Pugh, 59, who was interviewed at the Workforce Alliance center in West Palm Beach, where he is still trying to find full-time employment. “That money kept the lights on.”
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/fla-unemployment-jobless-locals-dread-squeeze-on-benefits-1390299.html - -
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 12/7/2006 13:32:54
CFN: 20060678643
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 21169/716
Pages: 5
Consideration: $459,376.20
Party 1: PUGH DOUGLAS R
PALLOWICK NANCY A
Party 2: CITIFINANCIAL EQUITY SERVICES INC
Legal: PBF 10 N DRFLD B18 L5-8 BL
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 6/29/2007 15:04:00
CFN: 20070316883
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 21890/1810
Pages: 5
Consideration: $15,864.19
Party 1: PALLOWICK NANCY A
PUGH DOUGLAS R
Party 2: CITIFINANCIAL EQUITY SERVICES INC
Legal: PBF 10 N DRFLD B18 L5-8 BL
From today’s Houston Chronicle
Schools scramble after budget ax falls on security
Budget cuts have led two Harris County constables to cancel their security contracts with several area school districts, leaving the districts scrambling for a fix to cover the end of this school year and beyond.
Most parents and educators say going without campus cops is not an option, but the cancellations could not come at a worse time for schools, which are facing severe funding cuts from Austin.
Cy-Fair is facing the loss of a 38-deputy contract with Precinct 4 Constable Ron Hickman. Galena Park will lose its existing 11-deputy contract with Precinct 2 Constable Gary Freeman.
In both cases, the districts reimburse the county for 80 percent of the $91,000 cost of a deputy’s salary, benefits and equipment. The full cost of the deputies come out of the constables’ budgets, and the reimbursements from the school districts go into the county coffers.
Hickman’s contract with Cy-Fair, for example, represented a nearly $3.3 million expense on his $29 million budget this year; the district’s cost would have been about $2.7 million.
Harris County Budget Director Dick Raycraft, whose office has worked with constables to implement the county’s deepest spending cuts in years, said the school contracts were the first to go because districts can levy taxes to hire police, unlike, for example, civic clubs.
“Most parents and educators say going without campus cops is not an option …”
This is a truly sad statement.
It still blows me away (I read a similar story a few months ago) that K-12 schools in Texas need full time cops. I guess it just highlights how sheltered we are in our little burg.
Maybe that’s why so many families down that way home school (I mean, they already teach creationism in Texas public schools, right?). I recall when I once described homeschooling to a European acquaintance. He was blown away by the concept.
The “homeschool” cult is a real live freak show of incredibly stupid and delusional people.
In many cases, I would agree with the above.
Case in point: There were some neighbors of my parents who homeschooled their kids. One of them was (briefly) put in the neighborhood’s public grade school, and, to put it very nicely, she was a total whack-job.
The school politely informed her parents that she was a disruption, and would they please find schooling for her elsewhere? Yours Truly also attended this same school, and that was Back In The Day. Let’s just say that, from my own experience, getting kicked out of this school was pretty hard to do.
The other kid was a musical prodigy. From what I can tell and from what other neighbors have told me, she came through the homeschooling experience just fine.
Went to Yale’s music school at age 15, and then went on to a four-year college and graduated. She’s now a professional violinist and has played with many major orchestras.
So, in short, it depends on the kid.
It depends, RALiars
My SIL pulled my nieces out of a high income but soft ciriculum HS, and homeschooled for higher education. My nieces got accepted to top Universities. They got more out of homeschooled experience (Jr College Science classes as an example) then in public HS. My SIL is not a hippie. She’s very successful.
Generally, the students are fine. It’s the parents who are complete wackjobs. We thought we might try the homeschooling route and went to a couple meet and greets as homeschooling is a networking and shared resource kind of gig. Both of us were horrified from the nutjob parents we met. I’d say a majority of them were bigoted, white and poor pretending to be middleclass. Most were evangelical creepazoids pretending to be Christian yet most of them were living the OT/Little House on the Prairie/Amish extreme.
Both of us were horrified from the nutjob parents we met. I’d say a majority of them were bigoted, white and poor pretending to be middleclass. Most were evangelical creepazoids pretending to be Christian yet most of them were living the OT/Little House on the Prairie/Amish extreme.
As someone who occasionally thumbs through a copy of Practical Homeschooling at the library, I can’t help but agree. It’s almost as if these people are trying to shield their children from the Big, Bad World by keeping them in this homeschooling bubble.
An aside about the gal who became the professional violinist: Mom reports that she no longer lives at the homeschool down the street. And she no longer wears the long skirts and long sleeves that the girls wore in and outside the house. (Mom thought that the family belonged to some sort of ultra-conservative religious sect.)
Mom says that Ms. Violinist visits the neighborhood, it’s in a hot little red convertible. And let’s just say that Ms. Violinist is a very attractive young lady who doesn’t mind showing off her attributes.
Certainly the perception is that in the majority (though far from all) of cases, it’s all about what the parents are afraid the kids WILL learn in public school, not what they’re afraid the kids WON’T learn there.
Jim, see AZslims bubble comment.
They’re going to learn it sooner or later. You did, I did, we all did. Well it’s starts right at home anyways and most parents are deathly afraid to be frank *about themselves* and the world with their kids. Anyways that wasn’t my point. The more these people (my brothers family is one) withdraw from society, the more cult-like they become. And make no mistake about it…. withdrawing from society is diametrically opposed to their (and my) religion.
“The more these people (my brothers family is one) withdraw from society, the more cult-like they become. And make no mistake about it…. withdrawing from society is diametrically opposed to their (and my) religion.”
Depends on what society you’re withdrawing from. I personally reserve the right to withdraw from a society of fattooed (my coined word for obese tatooed lards), pierced, knuckle-dragging, grunting meatheads. If that makes me cult-like, paint me pink and call me Shirely.
P,
Nobody is preventing you from joining a cult. Have at it. The question is; Would these same people withdraw from society if they had no offspring? Likely not.
Ex, these people ARE society, or at least a large segment of it. I’ve withdrawn from them to the degree that I can. No desire to associate. I believe in freedom to associate or not. Forced association is what the old Soviet Union was all about. No thanks.
Home school - I know a family of geniuses all home schooled then onto a private HS. Top scores in HS and mind blowing SAT’s. So it all depends on the teacher.
“Nobody is preventing you from joining a cult. Have at it.”
So withdrawing from that which one finds incompatible or intolerable constitutes joining a cult? Wow, that’s pretty twisted. I’m sure many who have sought relief through the act of divorce would not agree with you. However, I have observed that individuals who are parasitic, bullying, or engage in otherwise victimizing or predatory behavior tend to scream to high heaven when people wish to avoid or not associate with them.
My daughter’s High School has a Sherriff’s Department substation in it. In rural NE Kansas.
Out of which they spend most of their time giving D.A.R.E. lectures, searching lockers for non-existant drugs (not that there aren’t any users; none of them are stupid enough to take them on school property), writing traffic tickets, and knocking the living crap out of the Krispy Kremes.
They don’t really need full time cops, but then again, the gang problem is nothing compared to other cities because there are full time cops.
Like I said, wait until the UE benefits run out then combine law enforcement cutbacks with desperate people.
Fun times. Fun times. If you like high crime, that is.
$91k is a lot for a deputy…Harris County’s pay scale isn’t that good:
TENURE RANK MONTHLY SALARY ANNUAL SALARY
YEAR 1 DEPUTY VI $3,386 $40,643
YEARS 2-4 DEPUTY V $3,724 $44,699
YEARS 5-7 DEPUTY IV $3,988 $47,860
YEARS 8-10 DEPUTY III $4,224 $50,689
YEARS 11-13DEPUTY II $4,437 $53,248
YEARS 14-16DEPUTY I $4,658 $55,889
YEARS 16+SENIOR DEPUTY$4,982 $59,800
The 91K includes overhead. Still seems a bit steep though. How much does it cost to operate a cruiser? I suppose that pension and insurance costs are non trivial as well.
Cops in schools don’t get cruisers. And they buy thier own guns/ammo.
–Why you shouldn’t really listen to me. I was idly looking back at some old posts, and I found an interesting prediction that I made here in April of 2006:
If the market starts EXPECTING high inflation or high fed funds rates to fight inflation, fixed mortgage rates will deamand a very high premium. Add to this a large number of defaults raising the default risk and I have NO doubt that we’ll see >10% mortgages within 3 years.
It’s educational and important to see just how WRONG you have been in the past. Hopefully that will make you cautious about betting everything on any sort of prediction of the future.
No one could have seen quantitative easing coming.
If I had I would have locked in higher interest rates on long-term CDs back in 2006 and 2007.
And picked a bank that didn’t fail.
Surprisingly enough the FDIC has made an “absorbing” bank honor the interest rates promised by the failed bank going forward. I believe the FDIC has the authority not to do this.
The day WaMu failed they were offering a 13 month CD at 5%. I waltzed in with $100K and said “I’ll take one”. Morgan/Chase honored this CD rate, although this promotional rate offer didn’t survive Morgan/Chase’s ownership more than another day or two.
I don’t think the FDIC is obligated to even pay interest accumulated on your CD.
I’m guessing Henry Paulson may have seen it coming…
It’s educational and important to see just how WRONG you have been in the past
It’s not that you were wrong, per se, just that your assumptions didn’t hold up. The gov’t has gotten so involved that many reasonable predictions were off because of the intervention/lack of a rational market.
Once the casino opened, there was no point in making predictions. At this stage it’s all about riding the trend.
“The gov’t has gotten so involved that many reasonable predictions were off because of the intervention/lack of a rational market.”
Bingo! It’s hard to predict when the government will rewrite the rule book from the sidelines as the game is in progress.
Oh it wasn’t so much that I didn’t think they’d TRY. But just like the bubble itself, the interventions to bring-it-back-or-at-least-slow-it-down have gone on longer than I thought they could.
“rational market”
Rational? I think expecting rational behavior from humans is a fundamental mistake.
that we’ll see >10% mortgages within 3 years.
I was hopeful for 14+%,…but in a abstract sorta way. I was also hopeful that Ford would not die @ $1.55, now there my fingers might’ve got burned, but not amputated.
We’ll never see 10% mortgage rates. Because the rest of the economy will go down the crapper before we ever get close to them.
You will probably see low interest rates, but 20-30% down payments
Check this out. Median home price predicted to be at $95k come May. I thought everyone wanted to live in Phoenix. Just for some perspective, high median price in Phoenix was $265k achieved in the third quarter of 2005. Look out Deeetroit…….
http://www.armls.com/Libraries/STAT_…2011.sflb.ashx
live in Phoenix
Actually, I’ve manage to miss/completely-avoid heat congestive “paradise” since my convertible MG days back in 1978, ‘xcept for one brief stop-over at the airport on my way to Salt Lak in 2003, the terminal was nice,…and cool.
(There are some great places just 50 miles outside of Phoenix…NESW)
I visited PHX a few weeks ago, after not having been back for years. It’s really sad but instructive to see what happens when you base an entire economy on growth, and nothing else. Besides being hot and dusty, there is little about the place that would lure me back, even from the deep abyss of Minnesota winters.
There is no sense of community there, nor any culture, purpose or reason for existence beyond cheap retail experiences to be had at the big box stores and chain restaurants located on nearly every corner. There are no natural constraints to limit the endless subdivisions that seem to crop up weekly. “Lifestyle” there seems to consist of purchasing big, cheaply built concrete and tile houses that hopefully won’t degrade as quickly under the relentless sun – within the latest “planned community” placed on cheap land on the outskirts of the City. Then you drive no less than an hour each way to your job in the core of the City, stopping within the degrading and crime infested core just long enough to purchase gas and quickly walk across the hot asphalt parking lot to your work, hopefully without being panhandled to by the trailer trash that seem to occupy the core areas.
We visited some outlying areas like Cave Creek, and it’s even worse. Out there it seems like every 45 to 50 year old male is trying to live a life that they are in no way able to actually afford. The standard accoutrements of said aging male being either a chromed up Harley, or an extended cab pickup truck with chrome grill.
Never have I wanted to leave a place so badly. Northern AZ, nice place. Southern AZ, good too. Phoenix? Not so much.
You’ve pretty much described every city between the west bank of the Mississippi river, and the east shoulder of I-5/US-101.
Pretty much!
There is no sense of community there, nor any culture, purpose or reason for existence beyond cheap retail experiences to be had at the big box stores and chain restaurants located on nearly every corner.
Which is why Yours Truly spent just one winter living in Phoenix. I found the lack of community to be very off-putting.
Tucson? Well, you’ve read my tales about this place. It’s got community every place you look. And even in places where you don’t.
oxide -
I apologize for not having time to do this on Friday, but I wanted to thank you for being respectful on Friday and showing a great amount of decorum. It’s a good person who’s willing to treat someone with such respect even though they may heartily disagree with them.
thank you drumminj. One man’s “keeping his own money” is another woman’s “government spending…”
Looks like we dodged a bullet. Time will tell.
A month or so ago we put in a cash offer on a short sale house. Initially the sellers rejected it, but earlier this month came back and asked if we were still interested at our price. We were told that the sellers and the bank were seriously considering our offer. Several days went by when we heard little to nothing except they dropped the price of the house to $9K above our offer, a hefty drop for the area. Sure enough another offer came in, and the listing agent tried to get a bidding war started. We stuck to our guns, however, the other party caved to the pressure and got the contract.
So… soon we will have a nice new low comp working in our favor!
Excellent strategy! Stay the course!! Soon they are gonna just give it away.
Chances are my place will be put on the block in the next sixty days. So, from the perspective of a soon-to-be seller, a valid cash offer is going to carry a lot of weight with me. After all, the decision to move on has been made - lingering and gambling will only prolong the agony.
Incidently, my neighbors have begun to notice my steatlhy preparations to move. This despite doing it gradually and at very odd times of day. Anywho, this has led a few to actually urge me to rent it out. Sadly, the landlording gene skipped our family, I’ll take my lumps and move on - onwards and upwards - or so I hope.
What preparations are you making (what do I look for in my neighborhood)?
First place, watch the garbage. An increase in big garabage bags and/or boxes is a tell tale. (my avoidance measure is to dump my garbage immdeiately before the scheduled pick ups)
Second, in a SFH neighborhood watch garages, in condos watch the storage lockers. Sudden increases, or even decreases in crap might preclude a move. (my avoidance measure is to keep empty tubs and boxes in my storage area to give the appearance that the net volume of crap hasn’t changed)
Then watch for people scurrying around with boxes at odd hours - like late weekday evenings and early weekend mornings.
edgewaterjohn
Thanks for the cautions. Interesting.
When we were getting ready to list our first home, we ordered a small dumpster, that was stored in our driveway, and I swear to God, our neighbors went dumpster diving to see what we were throwing out. 80% was electronic magazines, and related stuff. I could not believe how nosey our neighbors were. My husband (who saw it regularly) asked them to refrain and show some dignity. Even the loan guy for our buyer went through our dumpster.It was there for 2 weeks. Unreal.
“…urge me to rent it out.”
There you have it. People might complain about all the money printing and debt, but the reality is they support all efforts to keep the market value of their houses as high as possible whether they be gov’t spending or the acts of fellow owners. Renting your place allows them to hold onto the illusion that market values haven’t changed a little bit longer.
Yeah, the comps have been ugly but most have been “distressed” sales, mine will not be a distressed sale.
As our host has often pointed out, at some point people just have to move on - house prices be damned. This one is going to leave a mark, there’s no doubt about that. But to borrow a phrase from my pilot friends: “any landing (house sale) you can walk away from is a good one”.
“…mine will not be a distressed sale.
Good to hear. I hope you do well.
I hate moving.
What that realtor did is sickening…. downright sickening.
What do these guys know that the rest of us don’t which makes their investment advice so desirable?
market pulse
April 11, 2011, 11:21 a.m. EDT
Hedge funds see record inflows in February
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Hedge funds saw record inflows in February as institutional investors allocated more money to the industry, BarclayHedge and TrimTabs Investment Research said Monday. Managers pulled in $34.9 billion in February, leaving industry assets at $1.73 trillion, the highest level since October 2008, the firms added. Funds of hedge funds, which allocate money to a range of managers, raised $7.3 billion in February, the heaviest inflow into this niche since March 2008. Commodity trading advisors, known as CTAs, pulled in $7.5 billion, the heaviest inflow since June 2009. Equity long-bias funds posted a “particularly huge inflow,” while macro funds took in money for the eighth straight month, the longest streak of all fund strategies, TrimTabs and BarclayHedge said. “Flows are doubtless following performance,” Sol Waksman, president of BarclayHedge, said in a statement. “Public pension plans — many of which are underfunded — are devoting much more capital to the hedge fund space.”
“Flows are doubtless following performance.”
Which means the flows are feeding on themselves, which makes the game a very dangerous one to play at this stage.
“Funds of hedge funds…”
Why does that ring a bell? Oh yeah…
Fund of Funds
A fund that invests in other funds. This may allow the investor to achieve additional diversification, but it may be overlapping and the investor may pay more in expenses than the additional diversification is worth, since they are paying expenses to the fund of funds and the funds the fund of funds invests in. According to “The Great Crash”, fund of funds were very popular in the boom era of the 1920s before the Great Depression. However, fund of funds nowadays may not indicate market euphoria.
Paging Faster Pussycat, Sell Sell: TRANSLATION NEEDED, PLEASE
Peter Brimelow
April 11, 2011, 2:21 a.m. EDT
Bears, bugs still respect the bull
By Peter Brimelow , MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Stocks stall scarily at post-Crash highs — but top-performing veteran bears and gold bugs still respect this bull market.
Dow Theory Letters’ Richard Russell posed the problem Friday night:
“Everyone wants to know whether the stock market is on the edge of a correction. Maybe the Trannies are providing a hint.…”
Trannies aren’t known for their subtlety.
An interesting article from the Mexican media about how the Mexican cartels are moving into the SW USA. (In Spanish)
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/758241.html
Decapitated bodies and random shootings coming to a neighborhood near you soon.
The “code” that made civilians and children off limits seems to be crumbling.
It crumbled a long time ago.
I also read an editorial in the Mexican newspaper that gloated over the news that its spilling over onto our side of the river.
“We told you so” was the title of the editorial.
Basically, the Mexican media blames the USA for their drug cartel problems, as we consume the drugs and sell guns to their cartels.
“Basically, the Mexican media blames the USA fo their drug cartel problems, as we consume the drugs and sell guns to their cartels.”
They do have a valid point, IMHO.
“Basically, the Mexican media blames the USA for their drug cartel problems, as we consume the drugs and sell guns to their cartels.”
They do have a valid point, IMHO.
Indeed they do. And I see the results of this here in AZ all the time.
yeah, the debbil made them do it. That’s us. We’re the debbil. We make them do bad things.
Except “we” weren’t around when they were ripping the hearts out of thousands of people a day to appease their bloody gods, nor were we around when their other heritage, the vicious inquisitors, were strangling folks with Torquemada girdles.
Screw ‘em. They’ve got to blame someone. Might as well be Uncle Sam. Like they’re incapable of restraining themselves from criminal acts.
as we consume the drugs and sell guns to their cartels.
and they only have power because we won’t legalize and regulate it here.
It sucks that the violence is present, but maybe it will force us to re-evaluate our approach, just like what happened with prohibition.
I agree.
maybe it will force us to re-evaluate our approach
Just had a ’70’s Nixon flash-back:
“Hemp maniaaaaa awaaaaaaawwwwaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“We are the party of Law & Order!”
2+ oz = criminal, baaaaad criminal!
blames the USA for their drug cartel problems, as we [consume] the drugs and [sell] guns to their cartels.
Revenue & Consumption, see what happens when democrapts & repubicans utilize myliberty-arians circle-of-me-ism
Everyone sing together now,…
“We are F_A_M_I_L_Y!”
ISTR a TV ad a few years ago. The visual was a coffin being lowered into the ground and the audio was something like: “If you thing drugs don’t kill, think again. When you buy illegal drugs you support the gangs who have killed xx people in (Columbia?). And in the background was a crawl of names…
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/
What is happening in Mexico is horrifying, and largely ignored/sanitized by the MSM.
WARNING: GRAPHIC PHOTOS.
Thanks, Sammy. Excerpt from the Beat:
It is no accident that youth who do not have many employment or educational opportunities, or expectations of personal and social progress, see the figure of the drug lord as a successful model. “It is better to live 20 years with money, women and cars, than 60 years old, sick and poor,” is the idea that has permeated many of the young Mexicans who are recruited by organized crime.
Poverty, unemployment and lack of educational facilities are generating a ready reserve army for the various criminal groups, which offer salaries for those without any horizon of hope in their lives.
Not only are drug lords co-opting the youth, but also police and soldiers, professionals and businessmen, investors and financial speculators and, above all, the political authorities, all of them lured by easy money.
This can easily be our future… and may yet.
OUR drug problem pretty much stems from lack of gainful employment. Who in their right mind is going to work a deadend part-time McJob for $10hr when they easily can make $100+ a day for sitting on their ass selling something in demand?
Coming soon to a country near you….
Video: Australia on China’s property market and ghost cities (about 15 minutes long).
http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2011/04/chinas-property-market-and-ghost-cities.html
That’s a good find.
Wow, the amount of overbuilding is stunning, dwarfing anything in the U.S. It makes Miami look like it has a housing shortage in comparison. The air quality looked pretty horrible too.
In one of the empty cities, they showed a large shopping mall that had been largely empty for 6 years! That pre-dates the crash of the U.S. housing bubble which was first to go.
Maddening was that they are demolishing affordable housing to build millions of apartments that will sit vacant because the people cannot afford them. Also mentioned was that payment for the new units is 50 percent up front with the balance due in 3 years.
A quote from a Hong Kong analyst on the vacant units, “If they bring prices down close to zero, I’m sure some people will move in.” He also mentioned that there are around 64M vacant apartments in China.
When the crash comes and China reduces/stops building, it could be hard times for those that have been furnishing the raw materials to China.
Another story from Mexico, dealing with the frustration parents feel over losing their children to the violence and overall insecurity that is permeating Mexican society.
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/758243.html
The sad thing is, Mexico is very much a yes, sir/no, ma’am kind of country. Kids don’t mouth off to their elders the way they do here, and if you’re an adult, you mind your manners around everybody. It’s as if “por favor” is the national slogan.
That’s something that seems to be lost on a lot of American tourists, who view Mexico as Party Central when they go down there. You should here what the Mexicans say behind their backs. It isn’t nice.
Very true.
Some days I just don’t have the stomach to bring up El Universal’s home page. Having lived 12 years in Mexico City it breaks my heart to see what has happened down there.
I lived there in the 70’s and early 80’s. While it was no paradise, it felt safe. People would be murdered and such, but I knew no one personally who had been victimized. Now when I get back in touch with friends it’s always: “Did you hear about fulano*? He/She was/was almost mugged/kidnapped/murdered.”
*fulano is a kind of slang word in Mexico, a kind of generic name that is a cross between Joe 6 Pack and John Doe. Sometimes used in full form (Fulano de Tal). There are also variants: Mengano and Perengano.
Mexican society tolerates the corruption and rot that has permeated all aspects of their social and political structure. We’re not so far behind. Every Republicrat voter also has displayed a tolerance for corruption and rot.
“and if you’re an adult, you mind your manners around everybody. It’s as if “por favor” is the national slogan”
I love you AZ Slim, but I live among them right now. They don’t know the meaning of morals, or law and order,imho.
Mexicans must change their modus operadi once they become criminal invaders.
I love you AZ Slim, but I live among them right now. They don’t know the meaning of morals, or law and order,imho.
I’ve seen the same sort of behavior here in Arizona. It seems that, once they come here, they pick up the worst aspects of the ugly American.
OTOH, the longtime AZ Hispanic residents are absolutely horrified at the behavior of the newcomers. “No tienen respeto” is a favorite sentiment.
Slim,
Most Americans I know of Hispanic decent were raised with a different mindset. I personally think the Mexican culture isn’t very sophisticated.
Although I must admit, when I was younger, I had the hots for Ricardo Montalban. I”d roll on a Corinthian Leather Sofa w/ him any day. (He died in 2009)
We have a big influx around here.
Not so much violent crime, but their respect for other people’s property is, at best, “casual”
Around here, you try to pay cash for any big ticket, easily walked-off-with items. Too easy to get your home/address info otherwise. And for God’s sake, don’t any shop install your car stereo. You won’t have it for long. This is common knowledge among the 17-20 year old set, but Best Buy and the cops haven’t put 2+2 together yet.
Seems that it’s not really stealing, if you steal it from a gringo. just tell your Mexican friends that you are looking for, say, a big screen TV, and poof! It magically appears, at 80% off list, as long as you have cash.
And the multitude of Mexican restaurants, who open shop for 6-12 months, until they get nailed for collecting sales taxes but not sending them to the state. They then close shop, and open up 3-4 weeks later with a new name, and new management.
“their respect for other people’s property is, at best, “casual”
Amen, brothah! That’s exactly it, and it marks them for who they are. Their presence on a mass basis in this country is a reflection of those in office, on both sides of the aisle. Like attracts like. I guess the US didn’t have enough bad cats already.
They can go to the US or anywhere they want, but they can’t get away from themselves. Must really suck big time not to be able to get away when you bum yourself out.
I don’t care who it is, when any population has a 20% influx of total strangers who don’t speak the language coming into a community within a 3-5 year time span, there’s going to be “friction”.
It used to be we had immigrants who wanted to leave the old country, and it’s backward ways, behind. (Example: we had a lot of Vietnamese immigrants come here back in the late 70s, early 80s. One of the things they did was to start giving their “American born” children “American” names (Charlie and Matt are two of them I work with). A small gesture, but it was noticed. That, and if they displayed a flag other than the US flag, it was a South Vietnam flag, usually by the South Vietnam Vets.
Now, they are all bringing their BS with them.
What it amounts to is vast swaths of American business have their business plans built around paying minimum wage or less pay scales.
What happens when you loose the middle class. America in a decade or two.
Is the mortgage interest deduction (aka welfare for the wealthy) headed for the chopping block in Obama’s budget proposal?
* POLITICS
* APRIL 11, 2011
Obama Puts Taxes on Table
By CAROL E. LEE And DAMIAN PALETTA
WSJ’s David Wessel profiles President Obama’s deficit-reduction plan that would cut into entitlements and raise taxes on those making at least $250,000 per year.
President Barack Obama will lay out his plan for reducing the nation’s deficit Wednesday, belatedly entering a fight over the nation’s long-term financial future. But in addition to suggesting cuts—the current focus of debate—the White House looks set to aim its firepower on a more divisive topic: taxes.
In a speech Wednesday, Mr. Obama will propose cuts to entitlement programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, and changes to Social Security, a discussion he has largely left to Democrats and Republicans in Congress. He also will call for tax increases for people making over $250,000 a year, a proposal contained in his 2012 budget, and changing parts of the tax code he thinks benefit the wealthy.
“Every corner of the federal government has to be looked at here,” David Plouffe, a senior White House adviser, said Sunday in one of multiple television appearances. “Revenues are going to have to be part of this,” he said, referring to tax increases.
…
I still think that Congress is going ahead with a “stealth repeal” of the MID by the clever ruse of raising the standard deduction.
The IRS removed the deduction for housing taxes for non-itemizers this year.
That would be Congress. Agencies can’t change a rule of that magnitude and impact by themselves.
The IRS removed the deduction for housing taxes for non-itemizers this year.
Well, sort of. The housing taxes deduction for non-itemizers was temporarily allowed for 2008 and 2009.
That’s a great idea Dennis. Excellent. They can’t be accused of “attacking the dream of “homeownership”. Watch the Realtor Crime Syndicate move another step lower on the food chain if Congress is successful.
Drain-Liquidity-From-Pond-NOW
Is PB ready for my cynicism this morning?
Congress’s plan to repeal most tax deductions.
1) Continue to raise the standard deduction.
2) Make the argument that the high std. deduction does away with the need for most itemized deductions.
3) Repeal most itemized deductions: MID, prop. tax, state tax.
4) A few years later, start lowering the std. deduction again, claiming a “need for more revenue”.
“Is PB ready for my cynicism”
Always…
Note AMT already does away with most of these for high earners so this is really putting more of the tax burden on the middle and lower middle class.
Just like the idea that we tax incomes over 250 more but must keep capital gains and dividend taxes low. Shift tax burden to upper middle class and lower class rich ie doctors lawyers athletes, middle management, anyone who reports most of their income via a W2 form. CEO’s Hedge Fund Managers and the elite pay much lower tax rates.
Note AMT already does away with most of these for high earners so this is really putting more of the tax burden on the middle and lower middle class.
are you disputing PB’s commentary that the MID is “welfare for the wealthy”?
BTW - I think you’re on-target with your comments here.
Actually, for the really wealthy, AMT isn’t an issue. If you have enough income taxed at 35%, even a lot of deductions won’t get you down below 28% of your AMT base income.
Excellent political camouflage for a move they really need to make to level the regressive nature of the mortgage interest deduction…
the regressive nature of the mortgage interest deduction
I have a question.
You see the terms “progressive” and “regressive” used to characterize taxes, each with a bias against a particular group.
Is there anything in the middle of the scale?
“Is there anything in the middle of the scale?”
Sure: Hammer the middle class…
Progressive and regresssive are relative terms. It isn’t really correct to use them in an absolute sense.
So, saying that the morgage interest deduction is regressive is a short cut for saying that it mostly benefits upper middle class and wealthy citizens and, as a deduction, is more valuable the higher your marginal tax rate is.
The better way to put it is that the mortgage interest deduction makes the tax system more regressive than it would be without the mortgage interest deduction. But that is a mouthful and not usually bothered with.
Similarly, sales taxes are more regressive than income taxes (because poor people spend all their money and therefore their overall tax rate in comparison to their income will be higher under an overall sales tax than would be the overall tax rate in comparison to income of a wealthy person who does not spend all her income.) People often use the short cut phrase, “Sales taxes are regressive,” which is a less precise way of saying the same thing.
Does that help?
Progressive and regresssive are relative terms. It isn’t really correct to use them in an absolute sense
Polly, I understand the meanings of the terms.
My point there was that I’ve never seen someone suggest a tax benefits people equally (or impacts). I’m wondering if such a term exists to describe that, and also lament the fact I never hear anyone ever identifying that as the goal.
A special term to describe a change that leaves the distribution of burden exactly the way it is in comparison to income? As a practical matter there is no such thing. It would be called no change to the law.
A special term to describe a change that leaves the distribution of burden exactly the way it is in comparison to income?
no, you’re absolutely misunderstanding.
“progressive” and “regressive” aren’t used in comparison to the current tax structure. One could use those terms to describe proposed taxes in a situation where there is currently no tax levied.
Since each of those terms imply a bias to one side or the other, what is the term to describe a tax that does not have a bias for/against a particular part of the economic spectrum, either w.r.t. income or wealth?
And I’m telling you they are used that way, but the use is implied rather than explicitly spelled out. People say “X would be regressive” when what they really mean is “X would be regressive in comparison to what we have right now.” The look like they are being used as absolutes, but they aren’t. They are almost always being used in comparison with the current system. Sometimes they are being used in comparison with the speaker’s preferred system that exists in the privacy of their own mind, but they are *always* relative. The words don’t mean anything as absoluites.
“I still think that Congress is going ahead with a “stealth repeal” of the MID by the clever ruse of raising the standard deduction.”
That would be fair to renters.
Quite.
I had a conversation not long ago with a friend (single male professional of average income, “owner” of a modest 1950’s ranch house in a mid western neighborhood that never went over $100k) who told how he loved his MID and how good it was for the middle class.
Had to explain to him that his neighbors, couples with children, most likely did not benefit as he did because of the standard deductions for more people quickly changed the tax situation.
aka welfare for the wealthy)
Like I said the other day - own your bias, rather than hide behind the “oh, I’m just facilitating discussion”.
“I’m just facilitating discussion…”
Glad you are finally catching on.
Aspen house sells for record $1852/sq ft.
http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20110411/NEWS/110419992
Kids say the darndest things.
“You guys are evil.” rt dot com
In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine the Canadian declared he had no interest in trading in to become an American.
“Canada’s the best country in the world. We go to the doctor and we don’t need to worry about paying him, but here, your whole life, you’re broke because of medical bills. My bodyguard’s baby was premature, and now he has to pay for it. In Canada, if your baby’s premature, he stays in the hospital as long as he needs to, and then you go home,” he said. “You guys are evil.”
“You guys are evil.” quote above in Rolling Stone mag by Canadian pop sensation Justin Bieber describing American health-care system.
“You guys are evil.”
We are evil. We invade other countries based on lies and we are in the process of destroying our middle class to benefit the top 1%.
And now the drug cartels are muscling in on our side of the border. They will pay off our cops and operate with impunity.
First we bomb them into submission.
I hope that statement is slang talk by a spoiled kid. Americans are not evil. They have helped every country in the world and get abuse in return. I am proud that Canada is standing side by side with you guys in Afganistan and Libya. (In fact I think I heard that the air war is being led by a Canadian general in Libya).
I wish I would have thought of Realtors are Liars moniker - I just had one in my office - yech.
“Americans are not evil. They have helped every country in the world and get abuse in return.”
I used to believe that canard. We are an imperialist nation, and that’s why we are hated. Any charity we disburse is seen as little more than blood money.
I have an acquantance the worked for GD, at the site that made the cruise missiles. During Gulf War I the staff was whooping it up as the reports of the first Tomahawk kills were reported. He reminded them that while it was a war, that people were being killed, and that was nothing to celebrate so cavalierly, as if it were a mere touchdown.
We’ve spend untold billions developing means of inflicting the maximum number of casualties on our “opponents”, and minimizing them on our side.
On of the not-so-swell effects of this, is that it makes the decision to go to war a lot easier, when you don’t have to worry about facing 20 thousand parents with dead sons and daughters.
How many people are we losing in Afghanistan/Iraq per week? 10-15, maybe? We’d be losing that many, if we had all those guys going out getting crap-faced every weekend.
I hope that statement is slang talk by a spoiled kid. Americans are not evil.
Patrick, I think it was part slang talk but I also think it was mostly to describe our health-care system and not a description of Americans as a whole.
IMO, there are aspects of American health insurance practice that do fit some definitions of “evil” as in morally reprehensible, harmful; injurious and characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering.
And thank you for the compliment the other day.
Get off it Pattycake. You know exactly what I’m talking about it. And Colorado stated it eloquently.
I have an acquantance the worked for GD, at the site that made the cruise missiles. During Gulf War I the staff was whooping it up as the reports of the first Tomahawk kills were reported. He reminded them that while it was a war, that people were being killed, and that was nothing to celebrate so cavalierly, as if it were a mere touchdown.
An admirable sentiment, but I’ll admit that at that moment my wife and all my friends in my old unit were there and I was quite happy to see maximum casualties (unless they surrendered) on the other side and minimum on my side. And were I in the same situation again I’d probably still feel the same way.
$5 seems to be the magic number that should/could cause some drivers to change their habit’s.
Gas Prices Climbing Toward $5 Per Gallon
CHICAGO (CBS) – At one time, $5 per gallon gas seemed like a far-fetched idea, but that is no longer the case.
As CBS 2’s Roseanne Tellez reports, as of Monday, the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline in the Chicago area is $4.11, compared with $3.71 a month ago, and about $3.10 a gallon at this time a year ago.
Some experts say $5 per gallon gas is possible by Memorial Day.
Drivers Monday morning were practically numb to the price spikes.
“What are you going to do?” said Shannon Thompson. “We’ve become so gas-dependent in this country. There are so many SUVs. I mean, I’ve had a hybrid. It worked great. Right now, I’m just going to deal with it.”
“It’s painful,” said Lamar Magee. “You’ve got to make a decision on where you drive and where you go nowadays.” He said he is “definitely” making changes to his routines.
Magee says it will cost him about $120 to fill up the 30-gallon tank on his van.
But even that pales in comparison to the big rigs. Truck driver Mark Kanarowski says his truck holds 200 gallons.
“It’s got to be a huge expense for the company,” Kanarowski said. “I went to St. Louis over the weekend to fill up my own car, and I was paying about $4.13 a gallon. It hurts.”
A limo driver shared his thoughts as he filled up his tank at the Des Plaines Oasis.
“Normal-sized tank, big price – when you get done at the pump, it’s killing business, and a lot of one-way trips now,” he said, “like I’m going to get somebody this morning, and I’m not bringing him home. His wife will probably bring him home, because everyone’s trying to save a little bit here, a little bit there.”
The Lundberg Survey says the national average for a gallon of regular unleaded as of Monday was $3.76. That is up 19 cents since March 18, and up 91 cents since this time last year.
The sharply rising prices hearken back memories of the summer of 2008.
That year, oil prices were driven well above $100 per barrel, and in June of that year and gas prices were well over $4 a gallon. The highest record price was $4.34 per gallon, set July 2008.
No one is eager to break that record. But with no end in sight to the turmoil in the Middle East, analysts say we’re likely to do just that – and just as holiday travelers hit the highways for Memorial Day weekend.
I’m already hearing my pickup owning friends begin to whine, and gas out here is still under $3.50. If it was as expensive as in other locales they would be screaming.
I sold the Jeep (17mpg) and bought a Mazda (30mpg) 2 months ago. If there is one thing we get from this HBB, it is foresight. Funny thing, the guy paid over BB for my Jeep because it was a 6 cyl.
Our gas in CA is >$4.15 for reg.
I thought you owned a jetta diesel or was it a Hummer??
There was a post here yesterday that said drivers are finally cutting back on mileage.
“The highest record price was $4.34 per gallon, set July 2008. No one is eager to break that record.”
I am. We’re number one! We’re number one!
Oh wait: “Gas prices worldwide: Norwegian gas is double U.S. price - Mar. 10″ … from money.cnn
We’re not number one! We’re not number one!
Silver has gone up to fast, I think a pull back is past due, but I’ve been wrong before.
Yellen Says Commodity-Price Rise Doesn’t Warrant Policy Shift
Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Janet Yellen said the increase in food and fuel costs will have only a temporary impact on inflation and consumer spending and warrants no reversal of record monetary stimulus.
the increase in food and fuel costs will have only a temporary impact on inflation
easy to say when you exclude food and fuel from your inflation calculations…
IMF cuts U.S. growth rate, crank-up QE III:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-11/imf-cuts-2011-u-s-growth-forecast-on-oil-lackluster-pace-of-job-gains.html
“Fed officials also said a rise in commodity prices signaled the deflation risk has diminished and they were unlikely to expand the bond purchase plan.”
I love these guys.
The rise in commodity prices is certainly not due to a widespread rise in wages which would cause a rise in demand. At least not domestic demand.
Methinks the REAL REASON they are not going to expand the bond purchase plan is because they are getting too much flak for doing so.
The Fed, in the past, was able to easily lend about the globe some thirteen-trillion dollars because nobody outside certain circles knew they were doing it. Now everybody knows - now everybody is suddenly paying attention - and we, the unwashed masses, are not happy, and this makes the Fed very uncomfortable because the next thing you know we, the unwashed masses, will demand from our elected officials that the Fed and their seemingly limitless powers be reigned in.
Hence we get to see Ben Bernanke on 60 Minutes a few weeks ago “explaining” what he was doing and why he was doing it. And we also suddenly get to hear hints of regular press confrences to be held in the future by the Fed to “explain” the Fed’s position.
Events are progressing right along as they should, IMO.
Follow what they do not what they say.
Obama was suppose to be the left’s Ronald Reagan. He was suppose to move the country to the left just like Reagan moved it to the right due to a strong economic recovery but his recovery has fallen flat on its face: http://republicmainstreet.wordpress.com/2010/10/16/reagan-jobs-recovery-vs-obama-recovery-in-pictures/
He is looking like he will move it to the right just like Jimmy Carter. Sarah Palin may not be conservative enough in 2012. Of course, George Soros says we can borrow more. He also wants a world currency. Couple more years of Obama and he will get the latter wish. If we aren’t borrowing in dollars, we are in worse shape than Greece.
Of course, George Soros says we can borrow more. He also wants a world currency.
I can see how one could help lead to the other.
Soros wants a one-world government. And he’s well on his way to getting it.
“If we aren’t borrowing in dollars”
Then the game is over.
International subway terrorists are back at it…Can’t we all just get along!?
Explosion Hits Central Subway Station in Belarus
Anton Motolko/Reuters
A victim of a blast in a Metro station in Minsk, Belarus, on Monday was carried out on a stretcher.
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY and MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
Published: April 11, 2011
MOSCOW — An explosion tore through a subway station near the office of the authoritarian president of Belarus during evening rush hour on Monday, killing at least two people and wounding numerous others, according to news agencies.
The cause of the blast at the station in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, was not immediately clear.
Several witnesses told The Associated Press that the explosion occurred just as passengers were leaving a train in the Oktyabrskaya station about 6 p.m. The station is located in the center of Minsk, very close to the offices of the government, including those of President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko.
News agencies reported smoke pouring from the station’s exits as bodies were carried out of the station on stretchers.
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Chris Kahn, AP Energy Writer, On Monday April 11, 2011, 12:46 pm EDT
NEW YORK (AP) — With the price of gas above $3.50 a gallon in all but one state, there are signs that Americans are cutting back on driving, reversing a steady increase in demand for fuel as the economy improves.
For five consecutive weeks, Americans have bought less gas than they did a year earlier, according to MasterCard Spending Pulse, which tracks the volume of gas sold at 140,000 service stations nationwide.
For the week of April 1, drivers bought about 2.4 million fewer gallons than they did one year earlier, or 3.6 percent. That was the biggest decline since December, when people were staying home because of snowstorms.
Before the decline, demand was increasing for two months. Some analysts had expected the trend to continue because the economic recovery is picking up, adding 216,000 jobs in March.
“More people are going to work,” said John Gamel, director of gasoline research for MasterCard. “That means more people are driving and they should be buying more gas.”
No Mr. Gamel don’t look at unemployment rates look at labor participation rates. Then you will see the truth.
yahoo.com/news/Drivers-start-to-cut-back-on-apf-3477801693.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=5&asset=&ccode=
Something to think about:
As gas prices rise the demand (and thus the prices) for gas-guzzling cars will decline and the demand (and the prices) for gas economy cars will rise.
If the miles you drive each month or each year or whatever are few and you are thinking of buying a car then it might be a good idea in this environment for you to think of buying a gas-guzzler rather than an economy car.
I was out on an errand during lunch and noticed 6 new for sale signs in front of houses near our neighborhood. 3 of which were in a row, another that I know was a foreclosure has just had a new roof etc. and it’s for sale sign reads 0% down, creative financing. Looks like the big spring sale season is cranking up around our neck of the woods.
Also I very rarely eat at a junk food restaurant, but I stopped by a Wendy’s and ordered a single with cheese and mayo only, a medium drink and fries. Cost $6.71 There was a young couple eating with their 3 kids so I’m guessing lunch set them back over $30.00. Junk food has gone way up since I last ate at one.
Burgers are getting pricey. Then again, so is everything else.
Burger King : $1 for single burger with razor thin bacon. Still cheap and nasty.
I prefer a local happy hour, 1/2 off apps and a $2 beer.
Chevy Recalls Cruze After A Steering Wheel Falls Off ~ WSJ
General Motors is recalling certain Chevrolet Cruze compact cars to make sure their steering wheels were put on tightly.
Imagine turning your car’s steering wheel, or giving it a gentle tug, and having it break away from the steering column. Now you’re speeding along holding the suddenly useless wheel.
It sounds like a vision from a cartoon, or every driver’s nightmare. And it happened to at least one driver of a 2011 Chevrolet Cruze compact car last month, and General Motors Corp. is recalling 2,100 of the cars as a result.
While the recall affects a relatively small number of vehicles, it is an unpleasant development for Chevrolet, which has been riding high on the success of its new small car. Chevrolet sold 50,205 Cruzes through the end of March. That’s well short of the 76,821 units Toyota sold of the Cruze’s main rival, the Corolla, but it is ahead of the 37,379 Cobalts Chevy sold in the same period. The Cruze replaced the Cobalt and is supposed to be a departure from that uninspired model.
In documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the car maker said it traced the problem with that particular car to a case in which the wrong wheel was put in a car and replaced later in the assembly process with the correct one. But the new wheel wasn’t attached properly, the car maker says.
I was thinking of getting a Eco Chev Cruze for the 42 miles to the gallon. I might have to rethink.
Wait a year to see if this was an abberration.
Check out the Ford Fiesta, tiny and cheap, but not bad for the $.
The Audi 5 dr TDI is the way to go if you have $30k. 43 mpg and fast.
WH: Obama regrets vote against raising debt limit
WASHINGTON(AP) – The White House said Monday that President Barack Obama regrets his vote as a senator in 2006 against raising the debt limit — a vote he’s now pressuring Congress to take.
Obama “thinks it was a mistake,” presidential spokesman Jay Carney told reporters. “He realizes now that raising the debt ceiling is so important to the health of this economy and the global economy that it is not a vote that, even when you are protesting an administration’s policies, you can play around with.”
The country will reach the current debt limit of $14.3 million by May 16. If Congress doesn’t raise it, the government would not be able to make debt payments, leading to an unprecedented default of the national debt and driving up borrowing costs for the government, U.S. companies and consumers, the Treasury Department warns.
He realizes now that raising the debt ceiling is so important to the health of this economy and the global economy that it is not a vote that, even when you are protesting an administration’s policies, you can play around with.
He realizes now that to not raise the debt ceiling means stopping the musical chairs game…and all the chairs are gone. As a Senator he was allowed to ignorantly assume there were still at least some chairs.
Who took my chair?
Has he apologized to himself yet?
Well, I guess it had to happen sooner or later, but my family has reached capacity and we’re cutting, cutting, and cutting. I am also starting a 2nd, part-time job this week. It’s flexible, and work from home, so I won’t miss any time with my kids.
Let’s see:
Car insurance - UP
Food - UP
Day care - UP
Gas - UP
Internet - UP
Phone - UP
Water - UP (way, way up)
Electricity - UP (way up)
Rent - flat (Thank God)
Garbage - flat (love those guys)
These are things that I want to do, that the wifers doesn’t want to:
ditch a car, ditch a cellphone, ditch the internet at home, pull one kid out of daycare
What are you going to do with the kid not in daycare? Free range it?
You asked a question about places to go that might have more support for education than Florida over the weekend. You should at least look at Maryland. There are places that could use your skills (you work in failing school turn arounds, right?). I’d look at Prince George’s county and the Baltimore area. That wouldn’t force you to live in the DC price bubble, though the commute still wouldn’t be pretty.
And, as you know, I agree that such a choice has to be a last ditch kind of thing given your seniority in FL. But it might be worth looking around just to see if there are opportunities.
PG County!? Hah!
I’ve been luckier than some.
Car insurance - Down (just a little0
Food - UP
Day care - N/A
Gas - UP
Internet - Unchanged in 5 years
Phone - Got rid of land line. Mobile is unchanged.
Water - little change
Electricity - little change.
Muggy, I wish you the best of luck with the battle. You visiting NY this spring? That offer for a cookout cruise for Muggy & Co still stands. And the price is right.
Rent = $600/season = eight months
Car Insurance = down with one less vehicle. Insurance on a motor home is silly cheap.
Food = The price of my favorite scotch has not changed in the last 5 years. I really do not understand. For the rest, I cook more and eat out less to keep budget flat.
Internet = included
Phone = flat
Water = included
Electricity = included
Propane = not up too much yet. Will buy 100# in May.
Garbage = LOL, that used to be $90/quarter. Now included.
We ditched our cable, kept the internet. You can pull a lot of shows up over the internet. Hubby has a fleet vehicle but can’t use it on the weekend. He also couldn’t transport any family members in it. We went w the single vehicle but had a big yard w/a location walkable to downtown. So we didn’t feel stuck if he needed the car. Even when we still had 2 vehicles, I learned you can put quite a few groceries in the bottom of a double stroller and stop for ice cream back on the way if you’ve picked the right location.
Before people had cellphones, public phones were ubiquitous. Not anymore. I’d consider it may be possible for your wife to be stuck somewhere on the side of the road w/your 2 kids alone w/o phone accesss. Personally, I’d ditch the home phone first.
Being teachers, I’ll bet you’ll figure out all sorts of creative ways to fill the voids. Maybe the best part of all that walking w/my young kids was meeting all the other young families in my neighborhood. Besides right now that period was one of the happiest times in my life. And so many people knew us I always felt safe walking.
Life is good at the top of corporate America. CEO pay rose 12% last year, bringing the average compensation to $9.6 million in 2010, based on a report and study done by NY Times. That’s definitely a lot of money at a time when middle class wages haven’t increased for a generation and unemployment remains near 9%.
The highest paid CEO in the U.S. last year was Viacom’s Phillipe Dauman who raked in $84.5 million, thanks to one-time stock awards. Ray Irani of Occidental Petroleum follows on the list with $76.1 million, a 142% pay increase over 2009. Oracle’s Larry Ellison, who was displaced at the top of the list this year, took a pay cut but still brought home $70.1 million. (He also remains the third-richest American, with a net worth of $39.5 billion
Good Time Bad Times You Know I’ll take my share. With the middle class dieing all around I still don’t seem to care.
Damn union janitors!
Pay as you go cell phones are cheap, ~$8.50 per month if you don’t use it a lot. Used to be you could get one without having to refill the minutes every three months, but I don’t know if they are still available. It’s certainly cheaper than a land line, and unlike a cell phone with a contract, you can stop the bill any time if you want to ratchet down further.
My comment slipped down a bit more than I thought it would, my comment was in response to Muggy’s comment, “These are things that I want to do, that the wifers doesn’t want to: ditch a car, ditch a cellphone, ditch the internet at home, pull one kid out of daycare…”
Thomas & Betts considers closing Iowa plant
Memphis Business Journal
Monday, April 11, 2011, Manufacturing
Thomas & Betts Inc. could shutter a plant in Iowa and move production to facilities in Tennessee, according to reports.
Industry publication Plastic News reported Friday the electrical parts marker is considering closing its 135-employee plant in Clinton, Iowa, that primarily makes injection molded electrical boxes for residential use. Production has dropped more than 40 percent since 2008 as residential construction has plunged, Plastics News reported, citing company officials.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=183980
Iceland to Banksters: Bite Me
REYKJAVIK, Iceland—Voters in Iceland have rejected a government-approved deal to repay Britain and the Netherlands $5 billion for their citizens’ deposits in the failed online bank Icesave, referendum results showed Sunday.
With about 90% of the votes counted, the “no” side had 59.1% of the votes and the “yes” side 40.9%. The result reflects Icelanders’ anger at having to pay for the excesses of their bankers, and complicates the country’s recovery from its 2008 economic collapse.
This alleged “deal” would have saddled every man, woman and child with about $16,000 worth of debt to pay off to greedy depositors in Europe.
Yes, I know, the argument goes that Iceland “owes” these people this guarantee. And Britain and the Netherlands have threatened to sue. There’s only one problem with suing: The court they have available to them to sue in has no jurisdiction in Iceland; ergo, any judgment that is obtained there is unenforceable.
Never mind the unlawful acts taken by Britain and others thus far, not to mention the pure idiocy of those depositors. If you remember, Britain effectively declared Iceland a terrorist nation during the meltdown in an attempt to recover their money. That was an act of war.
Then there’s the fact that these “accounts” were paying interest well over the norm at the time. Fitch had downgraded and anyone else who had bothered to look was well-aware that the entire game was a Ponzi scheme and unsustainable.
If you buy into a ponzi scheme and it collapses before you get “yours”, the blame is yours - not someone else’s. In this case there’s simply no argument to be had - the foreign creditors who wish to make a claim should do so to the bankrupt estate of the firm that ran Icesave, and recover what they can.
There’s no argument available that such a debate should involve the people of Iceland funding the profligacy of those banksters who ran a private institution into the ground. That Iceland’s Parliament has twice tried to ram this down the throats of the Icelandic people is cause for the entire lot of them to be tossed out of office and replaced with those who actually pay attention to the will of public.
After all, they did make their opinions loudly known not all that long ago.
So did the Icelandic-FDIC stick the Brits and Dutch with their loss? Who “guaranteed” what to whom?
Seems like the Icelanders aren’t buying into the “World Economy”, and aren’t taking “heads I win, tails you lose” lying down.
Which means they need to be crushed, lest it upset the “Master Plan” for the world economy.
Question. How hard is it to move to Iceland?
“Question. How hard is it to move to Iceland?”
Just find yourself a nice Icelandic woman and marry her!
Becoming a citizen looks pretty difficult. But, as in most countries, I bet you could move there more easily if you could get an employer to say they need you. You have a valuable skill, Fixer. There could be someone who wants to hire you.
This is for citizenship. Have to live there for 7 years first.
http://www.ehow.com/how_6497203_become-icelandic-citizen.html
Icelanders elected politicians who were in bed with the bankers, and regulators who turned a blind eye to massive banker malfeasance. Sound familiar? So from that standpoint, their populace, like ours - the mindless majority, anyway - bears some culpability for the banking collapse.
Just sold my old boat towing 1989 suburban, it was just sitting most of the time. Have smaller boats now and the price to fill it’s 35 gallon tank was not one of my favorite experiences. Down to two cars now, my trusty 1987 Mercedes 300-SDL (Diesel) and my wife’s 1998 Mercedes E-320 wagon.I do all the maintenance and repairs so that cost is low and I can keep them running until my times up. Insurance is not very high due to their ages so that’s a good thing.
I’ll fill that 100 gal tank on mine in a few days. Ouch. At least I don’t own a house!
I bought an inflatable this spring, for fishing and running ashore to the nude beach.
Nissan Leaf’s restart problem
FORTUNE — The much-anticipated Nissan Leaf battery-powered sedan has been hit with its first mechanical malfunction, acknowledged over the weekend at headquarters in Japan, a problem affecting an unspecified number of vehicles that can prevent the vehicle from restarting.
According to Nissan, the problem resides in a sensor in the air conditioning system. If the sensor is activated “it will illuminate a warning light on the instrument panel” and the may prevent the car from restarting once it’s been shut down.
Nissan described the number of vehicles affected as “a small number.” The Japanese automaker said it is investigating to discover the “root cause” of the failures and what actions to take. So far Nissan hasn’t issued a recall because the malfunction has no bearing on vehicle safety.
But the number has to be small simply because the number of Leafs sold so far is small. Leaf went on sale globally in December; only 452 have been delivered to date in the U.S. The car is built in Japan.
Technical glitches aren’t unusual at the start of production of new vehicles, though anything relating to Leaf is bound to draw more scrutiny than a new vehicle with an internal combustion engine since Leaf belongs to the vanguard of modern electric-vehicle technology.
With battery power only, the Leaf differs from gas-electric hybrid models like the Chevrolet Volt and Toyota Prius, which are equipped with internal combustion engines that work in tandem with batteries.
Leaf, which costs about $33,000 not counting a $7,500 federal rebate, is the first mass-produced family-sized pure electric. It has four doors and seating for five. It can travel up to 90 miles on a single charge, though that figure could be lower depending on style of driving, temperature and other factors.
Sounds like a software glitch.
Laughed my ass off when I read this. It reminded me of my favorite movie: Office Space. Speaking of that movie, going to watch it with my equally obsessed office space buddy on Wednesday prior to the Hawks-CRY-nucks game. Gotta get in the right mood.
Sounds bad. I’d furnish a link, but the MW web site is not responsive…
Marketwatch dot com
JAPAN IN FOCUS
Tokyo upgrades crisis to ‘Chernobyl-level’
Japanese nuclear-safety authorities raise their assessment of the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant to the highest level, rating the same as the Soviet Union’s 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
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ASIA NEWS
APRIL 12, 2011
Aftershock Upsets Effort to Repair Plant
By YUKA HAYASHI And MITSURU OBE
TOKYO—An aftershock that shook Japan’s northeast region temporarily shut down power supply and makeshift cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi plant Monday, highlighting the vulnerability of the crippled facility a month after a massive earthquake triggered the nation’s worst nuclear-power crisis.
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OPINION
APRIL 11, 2011
The Constitution Doesn’t Mention Czars
Unaccountable White House aides are a product of a broken cabinet-nomination process. This is not the form of government the Founders intended.
By GEORGE P. SHULTZ
A pattern of governance has emerged in Washington that departs substantially from that envisaged in our Constitution. Under our basic concept of governance: (1) a president and vice president are elected; and (2) the departments of government are staffed by constitutional officers including secretaries, undersecretaries, assistant secretaries and others who are nominated by the president and confirmed for service by the consent of the Senate. They are publicly accountable and may be called to testify under oath about their activities.
Over time, this form of governance has changed. Presidents sometimes assume that the bureaucracy will try to capture a secretary and his or her immediate staff so that they will develop a departmental, rather than a White House, point of view. So presidents will name someone in the White House to oversee the department and keep a tight rein on its activities.
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How to create inflation which “no one could have seen coming”:
Fed Plays Down Inflation
Top Fed officials sent a clear signal that the Fed is unlikely to follow the ECB in lifting interest rates from rock-bottom levels soon, playing down the idea that soaring commodity prices will lead to broader inflation.
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Gollum could borrow from the fed at no cost, and buy foreign currencies…masters of the universe!
Sounds like foreclosure talks are crashing.
HOMES
APRIL 12, 2011
Critical Signs in Foreclosure Talks
By NICK TIMIRAOS
Hopes are fading for a far-reaching settlement between regulators and banks over improper home foreclosures as some regulators press ahead to reach their own settlements with banks that others involved in the talks deem weak.
The dispute pits federal regulators against state attorneys general, who are seeking stiff penalties and comprehensive changes in the way banks foreclose on homeowners and modify loans. Advocates of tougher sanctions accuse federal banking regulators, including the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Reserve, with going easy on the banks.
Federal regulators are on the verge of sending their orders, and federal and state officials are scrambling to maintain an uneasy alliance as talks reach a critical point and test whether there can be a universal settlement.
Banks’ inability to move properties through the foreclosure process could further delay any housing-market recovery. Over the past two months, differences between federal and state officials emerged over the proper remedies to potentially fraudulent foreclosure-filing practices. Those divisions have raised the prospect that states and federal agencies may ultimately issue their own orders independently.
Already, there are signs of discontent. A letter sent Monday to the Federal Reserve from 22 current and former members of the board’s Consumer Advisory Council called the proposed consent orders “profoundly disappointing” and said they leave “too much discretion” to mortgage companies. They fail to impose penalties, the letter said, for their wrongful conduct. A Fed spokeswoman declined to comment.
Meanwhile, officials on all sides played down concerns that federal regulators’ pending enforcement actions could undercut states’ and other federal agencies’ efforts to push for stronger sanctions. “The steps that have been taken by regulators … should coordinate well with the progress we’re making with the state attorneys general,” said Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan in an interview.
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