Bits Bucket for April 12, 2011
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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I heart Realtors.
Did you mistype “hate”?
No, he missed out “eat the s of”
BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Directly from?
Discouraged Workers Stop Fed From Taking Comfort in Jobless Fall
By Rich Miller -
Apr 11, 2011 11:21 AM ET
Some 6.3 million people have been out of work and looking for a job for more than six months. The employment-to-population ratio is lower than it was when the recession ended as companies have been slow to add to payrolls. And big sources of hiring in the past — government, health care and retailing — may not be able to reprise that role in the future as lawmakers limit outlays and consumers curb spending.
“The trends are a little bit scary,” said Nobel laureate Michael Spence, a professor at New York University. “There’s been a break in an important part of the social contract” for many Americans who are finding they can’t get ahead.
Gwen Robbins, a 61-year-old resident of Savannah, Georgia, is a self-styled 99er, so called because her 99 weeks of employment benefits ran out in January. Robbins, an office manager until December 2008, said she’s “applied for probably close to 400 jobs” since then.
‘Giving Up’
“I’m giving up on the private sector,” said Robbins, when asked if she’s continuing her search. Many companies seem more interested in hiring younger applicants, she said, adding that she now is seeking public-sector work with the city.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-10/discouraged-workers-stop-bernanke-from-taking-much-comfort-in-jobless-fall.html - 64k -
“There’s been a break in an important part of the social contract” for many Americans who are finding they can’t get ahead.
“I’m giving up on the private sector,”
Hold on now Gwen, on accounts of the “TrueAnger™” anti-democrapt/semi-repubican/quasi-myLiberty-rian is working to “protect YOU” (and “Global Free-Markets) by making sure most Americans will be able to prosper by landing more & more Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! from Multi-International CORPORATION Inc’s. like these good folks have in Danville, VA
Same Job, Same Company Inc.,…different GPS coordinates:
America: $8.00 per hour /12 days vacation/ bring your own toilet paper
Sweden: $19.00 per hour / 5 Weeks vacation / discount on cafeteria meatballs
Ikea’s U.S. factory churns out unhappy workers:
A union-organizing battle hangs over the Ikea plant in Virginia. Workers complain of eliminated raises, a frenzied pace, mandatory overtime and racial discrimination.
By Nathaniel Popper, Los Angeles Times /April 10, 2011
Residents thrilled at the prospect of a respected foreign company bringing jobs to this former textile region after watching so many flee overseas.
But it’s front-page news in Sweden, where much of the labor force is unionized and Ikea is a cherished institution. Per-Olaf Sjoo, the head of the Swedish union in Swedwood factories, said he was baffled by the friction in Danville. Ikea’s code of conduct, known as IWAY, guarantees workers the right to organize and stipulates that all overtime be voluntary.
The big difference is that the Europeans enjoy a minimum wage of about $19 an hour and a government-mandated five weeks of paid vacation. Full-time employees in Danville start at $8 an hour with 12 vacation days — eight of them on dates determined by the company.
What’s more, as many as one-third of the workers at the Danville plant have been drawn from local temporary-staffing agencies. These workers receive even lower wages and no benefits, employees said.
Swedwood’s Steen said the company is reducing the number of temps, but she acknowledged the pay gap between factories in Europe and the U.S. “That is related to the standard of living and general conditions in the different countries,” Steen said.
“That is related to the standard of living and general conditions in the different countries,”
Welcome to 3rd World USA.
I’m sure those $8/hr wrokers believe they are “middle class”, even though they qualify for food stamps to feed their families.
Shelby’s Corker McConnell: “Detroit makes crap cars, screw Ford, give us Kia & their pay scale and bountiful benefits! Hey, we’ll even toss in $$$$$$$$$$$$ millions of our Local/State good-citizens tax revenue deposits…to make it happen!
“…and into the final turn 3 at Talladega today, it’s the all white Kia-Ikea Rio taking the checkered flag! OK folks, the race is ’bout over but if you hurry you can still gets a 10% discount on your favorite low-cost American name brand beer owned by Canada & Belgium.”
Bugs: “eh, Hwy50 you got your runnin’ shoes on today?”
Daffy: “April 12th, post 86, Hwy50 gets blasted again!.”
Bugs: “eh, too late Hwy (bugs drags black hole across screen) here, jump in…I’ll try to send ‘em over Foghorn’s way…he useful in Sit-U-ashuns such as these.)
As Bill France said, “We’re in the entertainment business, not the racing business.”
I hardly know what to say. I am going to encourage my nieces to emigrate. They’d both fit in well in Sweden: tall, blonde and good-looking.
Do they have golf courses in Sweden?
Run Hwy, …RUN!
“Sweden: $19.00 per hour / 5 Weeks vacation / discount on cafeteria meatballs”
WHAT!?!
We don’t get a discount on those cafetria Swedish meatballs ~~ now that one really hurts.
Where the Hell is that Paul Ryan and his stupid budget plan ?
You know, back when I worked for a bank the coffee was free in the cafeteria. WooHoo, we worker bees really got to party down…
At my first law firm, there was a “soda closet” hidden on one of the lowest floors. As long as you didn’t mind drinking it warm, you were all set.
Where I work we get free pop, M&Ms, Pop Tarts, Oatmeal, granola bars and chips and other snacks.
Very bad for the waistline!
Mine too. It’s cheaper for them to provide food and drink that for workers to have to pop over to the kwik e mart and get a breath of air. It’s never altruism with these guys. Never.
when I worked in private equity in the 90’s, guys would do lines in the mensroom, we also had a fully stocked bar and pool table in the office. There was NEVER a shortage of weed, fun place to work until we blew up…
Coffee is not even free in my office. You have to pay $1.00 per cup in the cafeteria.
It’s free for closers, Overdog.
“It’s free for closers, Overdog.”
Did somebody get a set of steak knives last year?
I am always cobbling, but it’s still never enough.
As long as you didn’t mind drinking it warm, you were all set.
Oops. Sounds like someone wasn’t ever told about the “ice machine and plastic cup closet”
There was NEVER a shortage of weed,
wow man, far out
“There was NEVER a shortage of weed”
Good weed or bad weed?
Hah!
And free Health benefits from the Govt.
At my little home-based studio, I have to pay for all the goodies. Not only that, I have to cook too.
“Not only that, I have to cook too.”
Get to cook, Slim. Get to. Your new cooking mantra!
“Not only that, I have to cook too.”
Get to cook, Slim. Get to. Your new cooking mantra!
Gotcha! And I love how your cooking blog has a (expression of joy goes here) curry recipe. Thank you!
We had Thai curry Friday night, but we cheated hardcore. There’s a brand named Maesri that sells little individual cans of curry for 0.99. Everything is included, even the fish sauce that many people don’t have.
We made Massamun Beef, a sweet brown curry: open can, saute contents, add coconut milk, potatoes, carrots and beef (venison) (and pineapple?), cook rice (3 min to boil, 15 min to steam), fluff rice, serve and garnish with chopped peanuts. No more than 30 min, soup to nuts.
But that is the cheaters way. The real way takes a bit longer. Ate it with some broccoli for lunch today!
I totally get the concept of banksters as parasites, but poor folks? Who cares.
We should do a cost comparison. How much bail has been expended on the poor versus on bankster bonus payments? I’m guessing orders of magnitude difference in the banksters’ favor, and the poor didn’t throw away billions of other people’s money on bad loans, either.
War on the Weak
How the GOP came to view the poor as parasites—and the rich as our rightful rulers.
Last week the Republican Party sounded two distinct voices. First we heard the angry demands of the Tea Party, speaking through its hardline conservative allies in the House, pushing the government to the brink of a shutdown. But then emerged the soothing tones of Paul Ryan, the House Budget Committee chairman, who fashions himself the intellectual leader of the party, unveiling a budget manifesto he calls the “Path to Prosperity.”
…
One conservative making that point was Ryan. His citation of Rand was not casual. He’s a Rand nut. In the days before his star turn as America’s Accountant, Ryan once appeared at a gathering to honor her philosophy, where he announced, “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.” He continues to view Rand as a lodestar, requiring his staffers to digest her creepy tracts.
…
That Steen, she sounds like a genius!
I’m close to starting a gig with the FedGov that pays $10/hr with 52 weeks vacation. They told me so, in writing! No meatballs though.
Hey now, don’t forget to include your “sick-pay” benefits!
Fun article by Matt Taibbi in the Rolling Stone.
I enjoy the descriptive way that this guy writes as well as his content.
mikey Warning: This article is Rated PG - 13 for republicans and Teabaggers
Tax Cuts for the Rich on the Backs of the Middle Class; or, Paul Ryan Has Balls
Paul Ryan, the Republican Party’s latest entrant in the seemingly endless series of young, prickish, over-coiffed, anal-retentive deficit Robespierres they’ve sent to the political center stage in the last decade or so, has come out with his new budget plan. All of these smug little jerks look alike to me – from Ralph Reed to Eric Cantor to Jeb Hensarling to Rand Paul and now to Ryan, they all look like overgrown kids who got nipple-twisted in the halls in high school, worked as Applebee’s shift managers in college, and are now taking revenge on the world as grownups by defunding hospice care and student loans and Sesame Street. They all look like they sleep with their ties on, and keep their feet in dress socks when doing their bi-monthly duty with their wives.
Every few years or so, the Republicans trot out one of these little whippersnappers, who offer proposals to hack away at the federal budget. Each successive whippersnapper inevitably tries, rhetorically, to out-mean the previous one, and their proposals are inevitably couched as the boldest and most ambitious deficit-reduction plans ever seen. Each time, we are told that these plans mark the end of the budgetary reign of terror long ago imposed by the entitlement system begun by FDR and furthered by LBJ.”
Then he goes on to the meat of his subject…
http://tinyurl.com/3u7d364
Taibbi’s best description was from his local teabagger rally: he was stunned at the amoung of “medical hardware,” i.e. wheelchairs, walkers, scooters, oxygen tanks, hearings aids, and the like. Taibbi’s description made me wonder how much “medical software” — i.e. drugs — was present but unseen at the rally.
What [columnist David Brooks] doesn’t mention is that Ryan’s proposal also includes dropping the top tax rate for rich people from 35 percent to 25 percent. All by itself, that one change means that the government would be collecting over $4 trillion LESS over the next ten years.
Since Brooks himself is talking about Ryan’s plan cutting $4 trillion over the next ten years (some say that number is higher), what we’re really talking about here is an ambitious program to cut taxes for people like… well, people like me and David Brooks, and paying for it by “consolidating job-training programs” and forcing old people to accept reduced Medicare benefits.
In other words, Ryan’s proposal cancels out and doesn’t cut the deficit at all!
Taibbi’s best description was from his local teabagger rally: he was stunned at the amoung of “medical hardware,” i.e. wheelchairs, walkers, scooters, oxygen tanks, hearings aids, and the like. Taibbi’s description made me wonder how much “medical software” — i.e. drugs — was present but unseen at the rally.
Hearing aids aren’t covered by Medicare. And they cost a bundle. How do I know this? Because my father is almost completely deaf. And the hearing aid has never been of much help to him.
So, if Yours Truly ever gets a few bucks ahead, I want to start a foundation that will fund better, cheaper ways to augment the hearing of those who don’t have much. There has to be a better way.
“…they all look like overgrown kids who got nipple-twisted in the halls in high school, worked as Applebee’s shift managers in college, and are now taking revenge on the world as grownups by defunding hospice care and student loans and Sesame Street.”
I’m not the biggest Taibbi because his article he wrote on speculation was not even sort of factually correct, but even if I were it rubs me the wrong way when he is so scathing about some dude’s appearance.
This is real life buddy, not Hollywood. Some people are ugly, and some don’t dress well. Ryan’s ideas are easy enough to debate; there is no need to drag this down to 3rd grade level.
Some people are ugly, and some don’t dress well.
Your point is valid but I wonder if strictly form was what Taibbi was getting at.
Ugly people can look pretty when they have a heart, follow their own drummer and are sincere.
And pretty people can look pretty ugly when they are liars, hypocrits and tools.
According to PBS:
Ryan’s budget would cut $6.2 trillion in spending over the next decade and reduces the corporate tax rate to 25 percent. It also converts Medicaid spending into block grants and transforms Medicare into a privatized system for those 55 and younger.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/04/ryans-path-to-prosperity-met-with-immediate-opposition-1.html
So the 25% tax rate is for corporate tax, not for individuals. At least we have verification on that. Now the question is, 25% of what? 25% of some phanton profit which is magically much less than the profit — i.e. “earnings” — that the corporation reports to shareholders? 25% of revenue AFTER all those juicy tax breaks? 25% of what’s sitting in the Cayman Islands?
This is why we “need” to cut Medicare.
Richest gain with historically low income tax rate
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/09/BUFK1IT3D3.DTL#ixzz1JKs0a7Ds
For the well-off, this could be the best tax day since the early 1930s: Top tax rates on ordinary income, dividends, estates and gifts will remain at or near historically low levels for at least the next two years. That’s thanks in part to legislation passed in December 2010 by the 111th Congress and signed by President Obama.
“This is clearly far and away the most generous tax situation that’s existed,” says Gregory Singer, a national managing director of the wealth management group at AllianceBernstein. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
For the 400 U.S. taxpayers with the highest adjusted gross income, the effective federal income tax rate - what they actually pay - fell from almost 30 percent in 1995 to just under 17 percent in 2007, according to the IRS.
And for the approximately 1.4 million people who make up the top 1 percent of taxpayers, the effective federal income tax rate dropped from 29 percent to 23 percent in 2008. It may seem too fantastic to be true, but the top 400 end up paying a lower rate than the next 1,399,600 or so.
…The true effective rate for multimillionaires is actually far lower than that indicated by official government statistics. That’s because those figures fail to include the additional income that’s generated by many sophisticated tax-avoidance strategies….
That’s because those figures fail to include the additional income that’s generated by many sophisticated tax-avoidance strategies
That’$ Mu$ic to Hwy’s big bro’$ $mirk $mirking grin pla$tered between hi$ ear$!
According to Bloomberg, Ryan wants to lower both individual AND corporate rates to 25% max:
“Representative Paul Ryan’s proposal to lower the top individual and corporate tax rates to 25 percent would require Congress to eliminate more than $2.9 trillion worth of tax breaks over the next decade, according to a new analysis.”
“I’m close to starting a gig with the FedGov that pays $10/hr with 52 weeks vacation.”
LOL!
Awesome, Blue Skye—I never thought of it that way!
I worked for an American branch of a British company a few years ago. The British expats took the American holidays off in addition to the British ones.
They also got 5-6 weeks vacation. Us American workers? Two weeks after you had been there a year.
Freedom’s just another word for,
Very short vacations…
When I was in college, I backpacked around Europe a few summers, spending weeks or even months in places that intrigued me (and that I could afford- Greek islands and Paris being two such places), and in the back of my mind was always the thought that I should do this now, because I might never have the chance to do it again, once i got a ‘real’ job. I was always amazed to meet middle-aged and older Europeans doing the exact same thing, except they all had ‘real jobs. They just had 8 or more weeks vacation every year.
That was when I realized the US system was screwed up.
And even with only 2 weeks, the bosses and co-workers try to make you feel as though you got away with something. Big ol’ bucket of crabs we live in…
“That was when I realized the US system was screwed up.”
And those were the good old days.
I wonder how long until 75% of the US work force is earning less than $500 a week?
We could go a long way toward full employment if we had 8 weeks vacation instead of 2 and kept people on payroll instead of laying off. More people would be covered by company health insurance as well.
And we could knock the snot out of unemployment by reducing SS age.
Alpha, you must be old. Nowadays, college kids have to fill their summers with co-ops and internships, or they don’t have a competing for jobs with all the other guys who DID fill their summers with co-ops and internships.
This has been the SOP since about 1990. I spent my undergraduate summers in an ugly room with beakers and hotplates. Also, I needed that summer money to pay for part of next year’s college.
Few can afford to not work during the summers, much less rent hostels and buy plane fare on top of it. Who is paying for all these jaunts to Europe?
“Alpha, you must be old.”
Old? Mois? I’m in the forefront of the Slacker generation (Gen X- the greatest gen), graduated from HS in 85, and slacked my way through state U (took about six years to get my undergrad, but what the hell- it was $800 per semester for in-state). Had a blast all the way, graduated with no debt, and yes, I do pity those who came later.
It was also the heyday of early deregulation price competition for flights to Europe. People’s Express flew NY to Paris or London for around $200, IIRC, but you had to pack your own lunch (really).
I lived in dorms or cheap apts- my first apt was $200 a month, utilities included. Times were cheap for a slacker living in the college ghetto, with no pretense to being a ‘yuppie’.
Happy times…
Alpha, you must be old. Nowadays, college kids have to fill their summers with co-ops and internships, or they don’t have a competing for jobs with all the other guys who DID fill their summers with co-ops and internships.
I didn’t figure that out until my first job hunt. I’d spent my summers doing National Guard stuff instead of looking for internships. Got me through college with almost no debt, but I then had to rack up debt during an 8 month job hunt after graduation in 1995. Things were starting to pick up for experienced people at that point, but were still pretty lean for new grads with no applicable experience.
“That was when I realized the US system was screwed up.”
Me too, alpha. I hate our lack of vacation time to travel.
Month? french is harrd.
Come on Blue, we’ve been thru this already, the Gubmint is just paying you back what you loaned them.
I thought cheap immigrant labor and cheap overseas labor was a good thing?
How dare you connotate open borders with decreased demand for employment. I’m guessing you are racist.
LOL - God forbid I should be thought of as a racist. Bring them on…
“The employment-to-population ratio is lower than it was when the recession ended.”
Oh, has the recession ended? I must be behind in my news watching.
Way behind. We’ve completed almost a whole ‘nuther business cycle. Or something.
Uh……you do realize that there is a Swedish income tax rate north of 30% and VAT (value added tax) of 25% on virtually all goods and services purchased Sweden……right??
Maybe your $19.00 per hour doesn’t go as far as you think……
Maybe your $19.00 per hour doesn’t go as far as you think……
Maybe but still those Swedes get socialized health-care that ranks better than USA’s healthcare, a good pension, unemployment, retraining and disability system, a month’s vacation, lots of holidays and other great safety nets.
Then if a Swede wants to make more than that $19 an hour he can always get free college education.
The whole “socialist” region is also highly productive. USA? we’ve been punked.
Scandinavia, the Crown of Civilisation
http://www.vexen.co.uk/countries/scandinavia.html
Sweden, Finland, Norway et al have become a highly prosperous and stable region. They epitomize Europe’s society-first democracy and capitalism. They lead the world in many endeavours of Human development, science and social development.
I hear what you are saying but there is no free lunch anywhere on the planet…..
Perhaps in Sweden you are giving up some of the things we take for granted here in the US. I know of examples of business owners being jailed for going bankrupt in the EU region. Seems a little extreme to me…..
Plus it’s really cold……
This will all trickle up to the small business owners doctors hospital management, lawyers and upper middle class and lower class rich who make their living because of a strong middle class. This is something many GOP voting people don’t get. Note Dems on average aren’t much better if you look at what they do vs what they say but atleast there are a few who fight for the middle class.
I think there are more than “a few.” There were over 50 Senators who were willing to vote for public option health care, not the mention the hundreds of Dems who passed hundreds of bills which were then stymied in the Senate over the past two years.
I don’t want to be sidetracked by the few obnoxious headline-grabbers which are trotted out any given Sunday morning.
There could be more jobs going away for the contractors, mostly IT workers with new budget:
http://money.cnn.com/news/economy/storysupplement/finalprogramcuts.pdf?iid=EL
Maybe the end is coming to $80-90per hour jobs and to be reduced to $50-60, a sane level.
Just wondering how much that will actually save, vs. spending $1,000,000 for a pair of boots on the ground in the middle east?
Don’t forget those cruise missiles - they ain’t cheap.
As I’m finding out, that $80-90/hr contract job ain’t all that.
Subtract 30% plus right off the top for taxes. Then another couple of thousand a month for health insurance, assuming you are 30 years old, and can find someone that will actually write a policy.
As my accountant just told me, if all you have to sell is your labor, you are pretty well screwed.
After expenses and taxes, the government made more money off my work last year than I did.
$80-90 per hour is a $180K a year job if you work full-time.
$80-90K per year, on the other hand, isn’t all that if you have a family.
I’m “on call”. And my rate is approx half of $90/hr. Between my two “contracts”, I grossed a little over 60K last year. I’ll work 8-10 hr days, 6-7 days in a row, then twiddle my thumbs for 10-15 days.. It varies. Nobody flies in November thru January, so my billable time stunk.
Grossed around $60K last year. Even after my deductions, my Federal and State tax bills were $15K plus. No health insurance. Local sales tax is over 8% on everything, including groceries. So much for the poor not paying taxes.
Makes me wonder why I keep beating my head against this wall. Who needs the stress and aggravation, when the reward is so weak? I’ve gone from basic wrench turner, to Crew Chief, to Foreman, then to “Supervisor of Maintenance Operations” and it seems the stress and aggravation doubled on every step, but the compensation package never seemed to match.
I worked at McDonalds in High school, all I’d need is some recurrent training.
I’m sorta keeping my head above water. Good thing I don’t have a $1000/month rent payment, or a car payment, or own much, or have a bunch of credit card debt, or I’d be fooked.
I’m looking real hard at going overseas. The oligarchs in other countries at least know that their bizjet escape plan if/when the SHTF is dependent on the airplane not being broke.
Not here in the United Sucks of America. These rich effers around here don’t have a clue as to what it takes to make the world go round. They think that we’re all underworked, under trained, and overpaid, and that I’m the functional equivalent of a recent grad from the Shanghai Vo-Tech.
Every technical person in the USA, be it Aviation, IT, or whatever, knows the saying “We’ve been doing so much with so little, soon we will be able to do the impossible with nothing”. It isn’t going to take much now, for the wheels to fall off.
You heard it here first.
In Germany, McDonalds starting pay is 10 Euros an hour. That’s about $15hr.
Please….please….please….people…….stop omitting the VAT from your USA vs. Europe comparisons.
German income tax rates are somewhat similar to the US but there is 19% VAT on almost anything you purchase……
But what about the 8.25pc sales tax in much of the U.S.?
Exactly.
8.25 in much of the US? You must live in California and/or New York.
See here:
“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_States#Summary_table”
…for sales tax rates in the U.S.
…and Texas.
American Ghost Towns of the 21st Century
by Douglas A. McIntyre
Monday, April 11, 2011
There are several counties in America, each with more than 10,000 homes, which have vacancy rates above 55%. The rate is above 60% in several.
Most people who follow unemployment and the housing crisis would expect high vacancy rates in hard-hit states including Nevada, Florida and Arizona. They were among the fastest growing areas from 2000 to 2010. Disaster struck once economic growth ended.
1. Lake County, Mich.
Number of homes: 14,966
Vacancy rate: 66%
Population: 11,014
2. Vilas County, Wis.
Number of homes: 25,116
Vacancy rate: 62%
Population: 21,919
3. Summit County, Colo.
Number of homes: 29,842
Vacancy rate: 61%
Population: 26,843
4. Worcester County, Md.
Number of homes: 55,749
Vacancy rate: 60%
Population: 49,274
5. Mono County, Calif.
Number of homes: 13,912
Vacancy rate: 59%
Population: 12,774
6. Dare County, N.C.
Number of homes: 33,492
Vacancy rate: 57%
Population: 95,828
7. Dukes County, Mass.
Number of homes: 17,188
Vacancy rate: 57%
Population: 15,527
8. Sawyer County, Wis.
Number of homes: 15,975
Vacancy rate: 56%
Population: 17,117
9. Burnett County, Wis.
Number of homes: 15,278
Vacancy rate: 55%
Population: 16,196
10. Aitkin County, Minn.
Number of homes: 16,029
Vacancy rate: 54%
Population: 15,736
http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/112463/american-ghost-towns-21st-century-247wallst - -
American ghost-towns would like to thank their sponsors: KB Homes, Beazer, Tool Brothers, DR Horton, and most of all Countrywide.
Aren’t a lot of those in places that supposedly didn’t bubble?
How many of those are in places with a large number of vacation or second homes?
“Lake County is located in central Michigan, a few hour’s drive from the industrial cities of Flint, Pontiac and Detroit. It is in the heart of the state’s fishing district and has been a vacation destination since the early years of the car industry. Many of those second home owners are now gone. This has helped drive nearly 20% of the residents below the poverty level and the median household income to under $27,000 a year.”
All 10 of those counties are tourism-dependent. Some, like Dukes County, Mass- which includes Martha’s Vineyard- are still quite popular in season, so I’m not really sure what the significance of their vacancy ratings are.
Yes, at least four places on that list are second home meccas.
Yeah, you really have to have the pre-bubble numbers for comparison. Don’t get me wrong, the prediction is that second homes will tend to crater, because when people have to sell, they’re going to try and sell the second home first. But as far as the census bureau is concerned, second homes are ALWAYS vacant, whether they’re rented out 26 weeks a year or not.
Mono county got to be vacation homes..
Ditto for Summit County
Dare County, N.C is coastal. I would think it is vacation home heavy. Also, it averages 78 people per square mile. Hmmmm.
I think Dare County NC is near but I can’t place it. When those emergency broadcast things kick in they always mention it. Ah, it’s the Outer Banks area. 1.5 hours away, and totally full of huge ocean rentals.
Counties that have a lot of second homes (I live in one of them, but it wasn’t on the list — yet), also depend on the tourist dollar for a big chunk of their income. Vacant second homes = no money for the county. “Live by the tourist dollar; die by the tourist dollar.”
a misleading article?
i’m staring at the photo of mono county, does anyone recognize it? i don’t think it is even in mono county.
the vacant housing in this area is mostly vacation homes. my best friend lives in a neighborhood of 28 homes. he and his wife and dogs are the only ones living there. average price of a house there is ~$4M.
1 of the 28 is listed for $5.95M per zillow
And when they get put on the market, and make no mistake they will go on the market eventually, who is going to buy them?
Apparently high end houses in Aspen are selling. I guess the super rich need something to spend their tax breaks on.
“Apparently high end houses in Aspen are selling. I guess the super rich need something to spend their tax breaks on.”
Palm Beach housing market surged in 2010, and the pace continues
By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 7:37 p.m. Friday, April 8, 2011
PALM BEACH — Behind the towering ficus walls, amid the well-heeled denizens of Palm Beach, real estate quietly rebounded last year after a dismal 2009 as it became OK again to spend it if you’ve got it.
Single-family home purchases increased nearly 40 percent on the affluent island to 121, from just 87 the previous year. Condominium sales grew 35 percent to 267 in 2010.
Average prices on single-family homes also saw a boost, growing to $4.3 million from $3.8 million in 2009. Condo prices, a small chink in an otherwise straight-A real estate report, fell to $629,024 on average from $841,293.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/real-estate/palm-beach-housing-market-surged-in-2010-and-1387247.html - 85k -
Rich people from Los Angeles will buy them.
The rich people are coming!
If I were a sneaky low-down sniveling thieving copper-wire stripper these are the places I would visit.
Also, Dukes County, Mass is Martha’s Vineyard. Twice the population per a square mile than Dare county, NC. I always thought geography was fun. What county next?
Loving County Texas.
The only county in the US with no poor people.
I said long ago that Wisconsin cities and the small towns would get wacked by HELOC debts and job losses.
These so called conservative folks and builders didn’t build that many new McMahals that now stand empty but the FB of their existing homes sure as heck jumped on board the Home Equity Line Of Credit Express Freight Train of Financial Death… big time.
Coo Coo, and lookout, big time train wreck a’coming in FitzWalkerstan.
(Sung off key to the tune of that the Rock Island Line)
Wow….Thats all that I can say if those numbers are anywhere near accurate….
Realtors Are Liars
Srail Era Srotlaer
“oompah oompah bubble up your joompah”
http://www.funtrivia.com/askft/Question859.html - 17k -
Oh my word. Someone there said that realtors are liars.
Lying Realtors in the neighborhood kept Berkowitz from sleeping and in his deranged mind, he turned their lies into messages from demons that were ordering him to go sell houses. He later said that in attempt to quiet the demons, he began to do what they asked. Suzanne sold a home and in time Berkowitz became convinced that the Realtor was in truth, part of the demon conspiracy, with Suzanne being General Sellmo, commander in chief of the Realtors that tormented him.
ɹǝɐlʇoɹs ɐɹǝ lıɐɹs
“ɹǝɐlʇoɹs ɐɹǝ lıɐɹs”
That works for me… I think
I buried Angelo
“I buried Angelo”
Alive?
“I buried Angelo”
Alive?
Sunny side up.
Ah shoot, I just got it. Well played!
My brain went to “I had Sunny side up, I had Sunny side down, I had Sunny side all around” from Hot Dog! The Movie.
ɐɹǝ ʎon ndsıpǝ-poʍu ou ʎonɹ ɯoɹʇƃɐƃǝ¿
Srail Era Srotlaer
wonk uoy dnal eromyna gnikam ton ereht
L’immobilier sont des menteurs
* 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.
…
The Justice Department has led the effort to coerce an unwieldy mix of state attorneysgeneral and federal agencies to hash out a deal. People familiar with the talks say internal disagreements have at times left them outmaneuvered by the banks, which have resisted calls for any broad loan-principal write-downs.
“It sure looks like [regulators] are setting up the banks to be able to go out and say to the attorneys general, ‘You can’t touch us,‘” says Margot Saunders, a lawyer with the National Consumer Law Center.
I’m not a big believer in mandated principal cramdowns. I wonder whether there’s a big enough legal gap between “able to forclose” and “able to get title insurance” for FBs to negotiate either principal writedowns or key money or at least a legally binding agreement not to seek a difficiency judegement.
“I’m not a big believer in mandated principal cramdowns.”
Ditto. It sounds illegal on the face of it, and would potentially screw up the comps. It’s far better for banks to foreclose and resell homes where buyers defaulted on their contractual obligations, as this gives an accurate and honest picture of market value (particularly in terms of current ability to play).
In my little patch of central Tucson, I’m noticing more than a few foreclosures that are already vacant.
Some were bought as investments and were rented out and now the tenants are gone. I feel for those tenants, because they were probably paying their rent every month, then, poof! Time to find a new place to live.
Others were lived in by owners, and I can’t help thinking that, in more than a few cases, they were HELOC-ed to the nth degree. HELOCs were very big here. ISTR hearing that a lot of local car dealers were the beneficiaries.
What? Does this mean there aren’t going to be free houses out of “foreclosure gate”?
Let’s boil this down a bit. Somehow, we were led to believe that two completely separate things were going to be tied together; that sloppy paperwork (done way after the loan was made) was going to lead to write downs of loans. Who was going to pay for this? Has everyone involved forgotten that the loans were securitized? The banks don’t have the authority to cut deals for most loans, even if they wanted to, which they don’t.
What we’re really talking about here is Obama’s loan modification program. Remember that? The deal that only a handful of people wanted any part of? The fact is people don’t want the houses at the price they borrowed, and shaving $50 a month off the payment, or tacking a balloon payment on the note doesn’t appeal to many when they are 50% underwater and prices are still falling. And isn’t it relevant that most of the loan mods that were done eventually resulted in another default? Why doesn’t the media report that a huge number of these poor souls were using their house like an ATM?
What this amounts to is political theater, kept alive by a lazy media. Much ado about nothing, IMO.
The fact is people don’t want the houses at the price they borrowed, and shaving $50 a month off the payment, or tacking a balloon payment on the note doesn’t appeal to many when they are 50% underwater and prices are still falling. And isn’t it relevant that most of the loan mods that were done eventually resulted in another default? Why doesn’t the media report that a huge number of these poor souls were using their house like an ATM?
plus e^10!
The logic one never hears anywhere else.
Every where else it is a deep dark mystery why the HAMP program had such a low uptake. Even the genius banks at the Fed and at the Treasury Department seem entirely befuddled.
Meanwhile, squatters continue to squat (and spend on everything BUT housing).
“Meanwhile, squatters continue to squat (and spend on everything BUT housing).”
If I were a squatter
And you were a lady,
Would you marry me anyway?
Would you have my baby?
Well as many people fell out of their “trial modification” periods because the banks decided that they weren’t interested. Either the banks decided that the FBs were capable of making payments according to the terms that they had agreed to, or they decided that foreclosure would net them a better deal than writedowns sufficient to make the loan affordable. There was NEVER any chance that there would be enough borrowers between those two to have a significant effect on the RE market. So I’ve never considere HAMP a failure so much as vastly oversold.
“So I’ve never considere HAMP a failure so much as vastly oversold.”
My impression as well. What incentive was there for banks to take the writedowns on the loan mods?
Nothing. Being a good corporate citizen or some such nonsense. The only incentive was a few hundred bucks to subsidize the paperwork and I think they “earned” the right to get that long before reaching a final modification.
The only reason for them to do it was if doing a mod would save them more money than a foreclosure and sale. Well, since they didn’t own that many in the first place and the mod would immediately end all servicing payments from bond holders, that wasn’t going to happen. And for loans they did own, they feared the adverse incentives would encourage others to stop payments as well.
And, in the end, that just isn’t what banks *do*. Even if they owned the loans, thought they could id a few where it would make sense to do the modification and management understood that prices aren’t coming back any time soon (all highly unlikely) banks don’t just write down residential real estate loans. It isn’t part of their business culture.
And of course there’s the “tranch warfare” problem. Choosing to do a mod may have affected the holders of different tranches of bonds in different ways. It could be that choosing to do a mod would open one up to a suit by those bondholders who were negatively impacted.
Yup.
How about a vastly oversold failure?
This is just politics; a lot of media attention given to yet another meaningless govt. program. (You do recall it’s voluntary, right?)
But I’m trying to understand how the filing issue gets wound up with loan modifications. From the article:
‘A spokesman for the OCC said the pending orders…are expected to give banks 60 days to establish plans for ensuring their mortgage-servicing processes provide clearer controls to prevent the kind of documentation errors that brought foreclosures to a halt last fall.’
‘The action plans also will require servicers to hire more staff to better aid borrowers through loan modifications.’
‘Some state officials agree with the Obama administration’s view that a quick settlement has the best chance of providing immediate outreach to troubled homeowners.’
A “quick settlement”…”immediate outreach to troubled homeowners”. Sounds like the White House has found an easy answer, and it’s fast too! Sort of like a sound-bite during campaign season.
Then there is this little flip-flop: “Banks’ inability to move properties through the foreclosure process could further delay any housing-market recovery.”
Remember that during the 2008 election, “foreclosures had to be stopped”! Then, when this issue first appeared, everyone howled that housing could not recover if foreclosures were delayed. Arggh, why can’t the media at least hold up these inconsistencies to the light of day!
“Arggh, why can’t the media at least hold up these inconsistencies to the light of day!”
In a word: FIBI (for idiots, by idiots).
But I’m trying to understand how the filing issue gets wound up with loan modifications. From the article: And what does transportation funding have to do with the drinking age? Not a damn thing except for leverage. The feds thought that the filing issue was a big stick that they could use to beat modifications out of the lenders. Problem is, it’s NOT a big stick, it’s 50 small sticks, and I don’t think that there was ever a chance that they could get 50 AGs to sign onto ANY deal. Talk about herding cats. Now If they could get the Bust central “sand states” to agree, that would probably be good enough for government work, but even that is problematic.
How about a vastly oversold failure?
Very good aphorism for American housing 2001-2011…
x1 Taoist merit badge for Mr. Ben
“Who was going to pay for this? Has everyone involved forgotten that the loans were securitized? The banks don’t have the authority to cut deals for most loans, even if they wanted to, which they don’t.”
dunno bout that but here in Wisconistan, all of the heros and cowboys at Wells Fargo, M&I ( soon to become Harris Bank or whatever) and the local Sheriff have been mighty busy lately and they have been coming down hard on the local FB.
We are just beginning to see the issuance of summons and starting notices of deficiency judgements in the papers around here.
It appears that they aren’t messing around anymore with debtors and they ARE talking prisoners.
Hey mikey, when they show up at the door say’ins this here be the “Truereallyhonestwe’sthelegal
ownersnorobosignedtitleholders™” all’s they needs to do is Yell:“You Lie!”…grin…then slams the door on ‘em.
If you zoom in on the red bar graph that is part of the image which accompanies the article, you will see that “newly initiated foreclosures” have been running at an average rate around 250,000/mo since the beginning of 2008. So I guess the number of “newly initiated foreclosures” over the period from 2008-2010 must have been on the order of 250,000*12*3 = 9 million?
That sounds like more foreclosure proceedings than the MSM typically reports. Thoughts?
You can BANK on the entire economic situation being worse than the MSM is reporting.
I thought this was all about banks filing FALSE DOCUMENTS. You now, perjury?
Perjury? Something that is against the law.
Not to mention foreclosing on people who owned their houses outright.
I don’t see this as having any connection to FBs trying squat nor any right for them to do so. They can’t pay, then should be foreclosed and evicted. But it has to be done legally.
To allow banks to perjure and file false documents is nothing short of rule by corporate convenience and NOT law. In fact, it’s 3rd world government.
To allow banks to perjure and file false documents is nothing short of rule by corporate convenience and NOT law. In fact, it’s 3rd world government.
Unfortunately, you may have to let them do this. The reason is that a significant number, probably a majority, of the entities that the paperwork (note, mortgage, deed of trust) was supposed to pass through no longer exist (lenders that went bust).
So if you can’t establish that chain of documents (and if one or more of the entities doesn’t exist anymore, you never will), the borrower gets to stay in the home indefinitely……
It has also been found that many banks didn’t even forward the paperwork to the buyer of the packaged mortgages.
So if you can’t establish that chain of documents (and if one or more of the entities doesn’t exist anymore, you never will), the borrower gets to stay in the home indefinitely……
Fine. Is that not what the law states? Laws should be violated because of a bubble’s distortions of economic principles?
It seems that enforcing those laws would prevent future distortions of economic principles.
Faux job numbers could lead to real trouble
NY Post | April 12, 2011 | By JOHN CRUDELE
Deception is a dangerous thing. You never really know when a lie may turn on you.
Take, for instance, the Labor Department’s annual springtime boost in the faux jobs market. While it’s nice that the government thinks there is an employment boom coming, this won’t be a good development if that boom turns out to be imaginary yet still causes the Federal Reserve to prematurely tighten credit conditions.
Early this month Labor reported that 216,000 new jobs were created in March. It was better than Wall Street expected.
But the figure included 117,000 jobs that the department thinks, but can’t prove, were created by newly formed companies that might not even exist. In fact, the department is getting so optimistic about the labor market that it increased this imaginary job count from just 81,000 in March, 2010.
As I’ve been telling you for months, the spring always causes the Labor Department to goose its job-creation numbers. And maybe sometime in the future this process will be warranted. But during 2009 and 2010 these springtime assumptions — which are officially called the Birth/Death Model by Labor — led to major errors in the annual job count.
The next three months should be doozies. In April 2010, the Labor Department guessed that 188,000 jobs were created by these newly formed, maybe nonexistent companies; last May’s total job number was jacked up by a 215,000 guess, and June got an artificial boost of 147,000 jobs.
This year, Labor will likely be inserting even bigger faux job totals for each of those three months.
In other words, you still might not be able to get a job in the real world, but there should be plenty of fake jobs for the newspapers to write about and the politicians to brag about in speeches.
“In other words, you still might not be able to get a job in the real world, but there should be plenty of fake jobs for the newspapers to write about and the politicians to brag about in speeches.”
Why does the USA feel more and more like a scene out of Orwell’s 1984?
More faux jobs == double plus good.
Why do they use a “model”? Can’t they simply count new W-2s filed?
The “invented” jobs are supposed to be from new small businesses that aren’t in the survey yet and who probably get a little behind on their paperwork (and does the IRS release the number of new W-4’s filed)?. Seems to me that if you are so convinced that you are missing new businesses, that you should just stick to the household survey and leave it there, but that is just me.
Told you those 2 million jobs didn’t exist.
So much oil, so few places above ground to store it.
Hwy50: “Hey Goldy, what are all those over there?”
Goldy Inc.: “Oh those, those are our “Free-market” plan “B” storage tanks in the event that certain
manipulations“doing God’s work” commodity trades don’t fit our “expectation” models. It’s best if you just ignore that they even exist. It’s complicated, really.”Goldman spooks oil speculators with call to take profit:
By David Sheppard /NEW YORK | Mon Apr 11, 2011
(Reuters) - Long-term commodity bull Goldman Sachs (GS.N) warned clients on Monday to lock-in trading profits before oil and other markets reverse, with the bank’s estimates suggesting speculators are boosting crude prices as much as $27 a barrel.
Goldman said investors should close the “CCCP basket” trade it recommended in December, which encompasses bets on rising oil, copper and other commodity prices. The trade has returned clients 25 percent in four months.
Oil demand in America is down,
inventories are way up,
eventually supply and demand take hold in any market.
And when it does, speculators will get crushed and their actions will force oil well below the $27 premium…
Oil demand in Americas down=CHECK
inventories are way up=CHECK
2008 Replay=CHECK
The best cure for high prices is higher prices.
What’s demand for oil doing in the rest of the world? China alone is adding almost 20,000,000 cars a year to its national fleet.
China alone is adding almost 20,000,000 cars a year to its national fleet.
Oh, they are truly ANGRY! They have to pay premium price$ on extracted OPEC oil, on account’s they don’t $pend any 100’s of Billions$ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ of their citizen’s tax money to support a global-acquisition military fleet. The price they are forced to pay,…It’s killing them. :-/
Goldman rocks oil for second day:
By David Sheppard / NEW YORK | Tue Apr 12, 2011
THE GORILLA / (Goldenman$ucks Inc.)
“Goldman are the 800 lb gorilla in this market,” said Matthew Bradbard, trader and portfolio manager at MB Wealth Corp in Hollywood, Florida.
“What they say tends to happen, and traders know this. After central banks and governments, Goldman are number two. Their releases are the next thing traders look for … they’re a big player with a strong track record,” he said.
“Both inventories and spare capacity are much higher now and net speculative positions are four times as high as in June 2008,” Greely said.
Goldman estimated in a research note on March 21 that every million barrels of oil held by speculators contributed to an 8 to 10 cent rise in the oil price.
As unrest spread in North Africa and the Middle East, investors accumulated the equivalent of almost 100 million barrels of oil between mid-February and late March on top of their existing positions…
Goldenman$ucks has ol’ Hwy50 as cornfused as a baby in a topless bar! (…Knot!)
“there’s too much!”
“there’s not enough!”
“there’s too much!”
“there’s not enough!”
“there’s too much!”
“there’s not enough!”
Higher Oil Prices? Blame China
Noah Kristula-Green / April 11th, 2011
One topic that never gets discussed when conservatives bemoan high commodity prices is the role that China plays in driving up costs. A Goldman Sachs research report that FrumForum has obtained shows that at least some analysts on Wall Street foresaw this effect. The report, published in December of 2010, has done a good job of predicting the pressure on commodity prices we are currently experiencing.
The key story of the Goldman report is that both the partially recovering US economy and the rapidly expanding Chinese economy are competing for limited resources:
China now imports as much oil from Saudi Arabia as the United States.
The report goes on to explain how the China of 2011 is a much larger consumer of commodities than it has ever been before. Here are some statistics to consider: China now consumes 23% more oil, 63% more copper, 18% more cotton and soybeans and 29% more platinum than it did in 2007.
When there are limited resources but more demand, the only way to properly regulate and control them is through pricing:
We believe that the most supply constrained commodities – crude oil, copper, cotton, soybeans and platinum – are best positioned to capture the theme of resource realignment in 2011. And to reiterate, these commodities are also the market in which China and the other emerging markets are the most short, which will require a greater level of redirection.
We believe this redirection or rationing of limited supplies can only come about through higher prices.
This analysis isn’t just confined to the research provided by Goldman Sachs. Ben Bernanke also seems to believe this, as does Fed Vice-Chairman Janet Yellen, who made the case to the Economic Club of New York on April 11th:
Let me now turn to a discussion of the sources of the recent increase in commodity prices. In my view, the run-up in the prices of crude oil, food, and other commodities we’ve seen over the past year can best be explained by the fundamentals of global supply and demand rather than by the stance of U.S. monetary policy.
In particular, a rapid pace of expansion of the emerging market economies (EMEs), which played a major role in driving up commodity prices from 2002 to 2008, appears to be the key factor driving the more recent run-up as well. Although real activity in the EMEs slowed appreciably immediately following the financial crisis, those economies resumed expanding briskly by the middle of 2009 after global financial conditions began improving, with China–which has accounted for roughly half of global growth in oil consumption over the past decade–again leading the way.
Market manipulation?
I’m shocked. Shocked I tell you.
How else do you explain the
increasemanipulation inhousinggasoline prices?Manipulation going…up
Manipulation going…down
Like I’ve mentioned before, that “63% more copper” isn’t being made into anything, it’s sitting around in bonded warehouses, being used as “collateral” for loans invested in more profitable investments…..like real estate.
Call them “copper/commodities flippers”
It’s a copper flipper caper!!
Isn’t this a rerun from three years ago? Are attention spans really that short? Somtimes I think there is even less originality in the real world than in Hollywood.
“Are attention spans really that short? “
Is this a trick question?
Building boom over.
8 million jobs gone.
Repave America program gone.
Storage tanks overflowing.
The Giant Squid going short oil.
Get it on, it’s boating season already.
If the wildcat speculation market on houses has dried up and is currently pumping zelich, speculate on Black Gold and food.
Oil and munches in in folks!
Vampire Squid says “sell”, you sell (dammit). They make the rules. They cannot be stopped.
“boating season”
I wonder if we’ll see satellite pix of those ghost ships off the coast of Singapore again.
Google Earth has a ship tracking feature you toggle on. It only works with ships using the common industry tracking system, but it should be good enough to give you an idea if the ghost fleet is now working or not.
Whatever became of the myriad $10m+ home sales in San Diego that were taking place pre-2006? Perhaps the sellers are waiting for the red-hot summer sales season?
List: Top 5 priciest home sales for March, San Diego
See photos, descriptions of the most expensive closings for last month
By Lily Leung
Tuesday, April 12, 2011 at 6 a.m.
Here are descriptions and photos of the most expensive closings for San Diego County in February, according to the Multiple Listings Service, also called the MLS.
The list of properties was compiled by Realtor.com. Photos and details were compiled by the Union-Tribune.
- Courtesy of Eileen Anderson
1) 14165 Augusta Court, Poway (92064), sold at $3.7 million.
Sold: March 14
…
2) 6701 S. La Jolla Scenic Drive, La Jolla (92037), sold at $2.81 million.
Sold: March 24
…
3) 2375 Angouleme Court, San Diego, (92130), sold at $2.7 million.
Sold: March 17.
…
4) 6735 Rancho Toyon Pl., San Diego, (92130), sold at $2.3 million
Sold: March 22
…
5) 7420 Caminito Bassano West, La Jolla, (92037), sold at $2.1 million.
Sold: March 18.
…
Just did a bit of back-of-the-envelope (well actually, spreadsheet) analysis of the homes Redfin dot com shows as for sale on the San Diego County MLS, in terms of the list price distribution. Roughly speaking, on the list price range from $200,000 to $375,000 there are over 200 homes currently on the market for every $10,000 in price range (e.g., over 200 homes listed between $365,000 to $375,000).
It appears the distribution of San Diego home prices has been crushed by the housing bubble’s collapse — exactly as I predicted would happen several years ago.
Got selection?!
What was the distribution before it flattened to 200 homes/$10K? Bimodal?
Still waiting on “selection” here in the DC area. As I said before, I don’t want to be pressered into a bank-loan fixer upper because it’s the only one at that price.
I believe the key change is the range of greatest density has shifted down far closer to zero. My guess is that circa 2006, this would have been, say, $450K-$650K; now $200K-$375K.
Realtors Are Liars
Thank you for starting the thread on homeschooling yesterday, and the whackjob parents you’ve met. It was very interesting. Thanks to all who participated.
Actually, I was the one who started that thread:
“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.”
They don’t teach creationism in Texas.
There may be mention in text books, but teachers don’t give it any mention.
I recall reading that text books in Texas mentioned it as a viable scientific explanation. I suppose whether or not the teacher glosses over it is up to the teacher.
They don’t teach “Intelligent Design” either. It’s consider a “sex-ed” class with obscene graphics.
Sorry, In Colorado. I was doing my quick morning catch up, and evidently missed it. Please accept my apology.
LOL! No worries, I was just being difficult!
I’ve met A TON of whackjob parents who send their kids to public school, too. In fact you might even say they’re the root of why public eddication is so screwed up, at least in this state.
I had the honor of meeting a mother and her two young sons (11 and 9 years old) the other day who live way out in a largely rural area of Florida. These are the sort of people that Realtors are Exeter would look down on in contempt, his upper lip curling so far into his nostrils it would fuse there. These young boys were delightful. Had manners and intelligence and talked to me in a coherent way about their pets, their grandparents and their small family farm. White, Southern and home schooled, with obvious affection for their parents and grandparents. Of course, they lacked tatoos and piercings, and weren’t obese. Were they Christian? Probably, but the subject didn’t come up at all.
Oh stop your whining.
tee-hee!
I apologize fer bein’ such a jerk today. It’s difficult watching the US come apart in slow motion and it puts me in a foul mood.
I’m thinking we should start a HBB pool betting on when the country will break up into separate countries like the old USSR did.
I’m thinking we should start a HBB pool betting on when the country will break up into separate countries like the old USSR did.
Ha, Mr. Cole (age 9) asked just this /morning how old you had to be to own a ammo reloading “bidness”… (He’s begin’ to
scareinspire me…)Coming to America:
Hwy’s Horse-shoes & reloads
I doubt the country will break up, palmy. I’m guessing that the South would like to break off, but they are too dependent on juicy government money. Why, when the swine flu hit, the first thing that Texas gov Rick Perry — he of the occasional sidewise references to secession — was the first in line to order federal doses of vaccine. And didn’t the South try to break off once already? It didn’t go well.
Meanwhile, I don’t trust nice kind polite young white kids, at least not on appearance or manners. Oh, they will say Please and Thank You and they will faint if you say “f*ck.” But aren’t they exactly the type who grow up to write budgets which give Granny $15k and send her before the privatized Medicare Death Panel? Or worse yet, don’t those types grow up to be bankers?
And didn’t the South try to break off once already? It didn’t go well.
Hey, that remindsme today’s an offical “celebration” day in the-world-according-to-
garpHwy50Fort Sumter:
“You started it!”
“Did not!”
“Did So!”
“Did not!”
“liar!”
“scram!!!!!”
Cheers!
“Of course, they lacked tatoos and piercings, and weren’t obese.”
What country did you say they were from?
LOL, but I don’t really understand why the usual suspects got their boxers in a such a huge wad over “home schooling”. After all, before there was ever a public school system in the US, that’s how regular folks got an education, if they got one. Or neighbors pooled their resources and hired a teacher for their children. It was much the same in Canada, too, as I understand it.
When I lived in South Florida, we knew a guy who was a science teacher in the Broward County school system, but his kids were home schooled. It’s just a preference, what’s the big deal? He was mainly concerned about their safety.
The way things are going, I think some people are more concerned about preserving broken, dysfunctional systems than anything else. A lady I know had to take her kid out of public school and home school him for a while to bring him up to speed, since the teacher couldn’t even be bothered to give him the definitions of the subjects he was studying. How the hell can you study “math” if you don’t even know what it means? Those of you who are parents whose kids are having a rough time in certain subjects, just sit them down in a non-threatening way and ask them to give you the meanings of words like “math” “history “science” etc. Ask them to use those words in a sentence. Don’t be surprised if some kids haven’t a clue. And that’s not their fault, either, so don’t get mad at them. Help them get the subjects defined so they know what the heck it is they’re studying.
Well, it’s time.
We know several families who home school their kids and without exception, the kids are all “socialized”, are well ahead of their contemporaries in public schools, and are fun
to be around.
Most are rural, enjoy 4H, boy and girl scouts,
and participate in the local schools sports program.
The teenagers are taking advanced courses
at the Jr. college and all plan on college.
It seems to me that they’re way ahead by
going this route. And, of course, someone
is going to say they are the exception, and
they’d be right. The are the exception.
A good one.
And, of course, someone
is going to say they are the exception, and
they’d be right. The are the exception.
Someone does not need to. You just said it, as you describe your experience’s exceptionally often. It’s so exceptionally rare when you don’t that it makes me believe that you don’t understand your perceived reality’s exceptionality.
“Were they Christian? Probably, but the subject didn’t come up at all.” Why, oh why, would you stick this in here with no proof, a sort of back-handed “they were good so they must be god fearin’” comment? Why even bring it up at all?
Heckfire, maybe it was Rod and Todd Flanders.
“Why, oh why, would you stick this in here with no proof,”
To get a rise out of a fauxlitist or two. It worked.
But aren’t you being elitist by slyly asserting that because they are tattoo-less, non-obese, have manners and are are white, that they are Christian? Is that kind of attitude very Christian? Or am I missing something? I went through the indoctrination program as a lil shaver but decided to build my own bridge at a pretty young age, so it’s been a while since I spoke to Jeebus.
Okeley-dokely, Ned!
“Or am I missing something?”
Yes.
“Or am I missing something?”
Yes.
Is his last name Quintana?
“These young boys were delightful. Had manners and intelligence and talked to me in a coherent way about their pets, their grandparents and their small family farm. White, Southern and home schooled, with obvious affection for their parents and grandparents.”
That’s been (more or less) the impression I’ve got of some local homeschool kids that I know (but they’re not Southern).
From my standpoint, the era of hardcore Christian dominance of the homeschooling world is waning. More and more people are just trying to do the best thing for their kids in country where the very smart and the struggling-but-not-impared (for lack of a better word) are left to wither on the vine.
I think the controversy over the homeschooling thing is sort of two separate problems…
1) As more and more people opt out of public schools (whether through homeschooling or private schools) it makes it easier for people to feel that they have no self-interest in funding public schools, which can/will lead to an increasing downward spiral for public education and an even more dysfunctional future citizenry/workforce.
2) Homeschooling needs some sort of oversight to insure that kids are actually being taught.
Case in point: I have a relative in the mid-west with several children who he and his wife allegedly home school.
But they do not have to provide ANY proof that they are actually conducting home schooling lessons or that they kids are performing up to “grade level”.
BOTH parents were special ed students who barely graduated from (public) high school and are basically functionally illiterate.
Even if they are somehow able to educate their kids up to their level, it will mean the kids will be suited for nothing more than the kind of low wage low skilled work the parents perform.
The kids are clean and well behaved and their parents are loving and caring but blind to the fact that their kids need more education than they can realistically provide.
You won’t understand until you attend a homeschool networking meeting. I have no issue with homeschooling and still don’t. If you want to meet some really really strange, whacked out people drop into a meeting and you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Democracy cannot function without well-educated citizens. Not that it’s really functioning all that well anyways, but…
Most public education is limping along on a shoe string budget, and yet we bemoan the stupidity of the masses. Leaving education to (poorly educated) parents or the private sector will be the last nail in our country’s coffin.
“but blind to the fact that their kids need more education than they can realistically provide.”
Exactly. My mother was stay at home. She could have gotten me reading and doing basic arithmatic and through a certain amount of history if she had wanted to. But there is no math or science I did after 7th grade that she could have done herself, never mind successfully teach. And she didn’t know what a research paper was. And she loathed a solid chunk of the literature that a bright high school student should read. Not a dumb person, but she only finished one year of college before dropping out to get married.
Now, not all high schools are as good as mine was, but a lot of stay at home parents will not be able to provide all that is needed when the kids are teenagers. And once you admit the little darlings will have to go to high school, why not ease them into the process by starting with everyone else? Home schooling is going to be very limiting for a lot of families.
You won’t understand until you attend a homeschool networking meeting. I have no issue with homeschooling and still don’t. If you want to meet some really really strange, whacked out people drop into a meeting and you know exactly what I’m talking about.
They have those meetings at some of our local public libraries. And the above description fits many of the adults to a tee. I feel sorry for the kids.
If I had kids, I wouldn’t want them in a predatory environment, which is what way too many Florida schools provide. If that makes me a whackjob, so be it.
And when I say predatory, I’m not kidding. Both teachers and fellow students create a predatory environment, at least in our little corner of heaven. How predatory? How about being cornered by fellow classmates and violated by implements such as broomsticks and athletic equipment? (Real charming story, that one) How about gang-rapes at school social functions? (oops, excuse me, Richmond California rings a bell, too) How about teachers diddling their students? We’ve got three that I know of here in this part of Florida in the past three years. And that’s what’s reported. How about being beaten on the bus? (They showed some charming video of that on the news a couple of weeks ago) Shot at? Shaken down? Recruited for gangs?
These are not isolated incidents, btw. Not in this part of Florida. Every week there’s at least one, sometimes multiple school incidents on the news here. How can a child study or learn anything if he or she is worried about taking a pee or walking from one class to another without being violated or beaten or shaken down in some way? What about peer pressure to take drugs, have sex, etc.? Should a system that fosters this sort of thing be allowed to continue? I don’t think so.
“What about peer pressure to take drugs, have sex, etc.?”
Lock them in a dungeon?
If you don’t like public schools, send your kids elsewhere. It’s your choice.
“Should a system that fosters this sort of thing be allowed to continue? I don’t think so.”
But is the solution to withdraw from the school system and let it crumble or to try and find some way to fix it?
I’ll be brief:
1. middle school (7-8-9) in large city America is a hormonal insane asylum.
2. The density of Madison Ave. logo
brain-washingmarketing is magnitudes of order larger than anywhere else on earth.3. This might be the exact time Mr. Cole gets to be acquainted with his Ohio Amish cousins / NE-KS farm-dwelling cousins for more than just a summer drop-in.
I’m betting Mr. C. has a better grounding than any school you could send him to.
But learning how to deal with the arsehats is part of one’s education, too.
Ask him what HE wants….
Never bet against a home schooled kid in a spelling contest.
Just posted a SD Union Tribune article documenting the five most expensive San Diego County home sales in March 2011; these ranged in value from $2.1 million to $3.7 million. You can think of this as a very rough snap shot of high-end demand under recent market conditions.
By contrast, on the supply side, the San County MLS (or at least what is shown on Redfin) shows 735 homes listed in the $2m+ range and 249 of these in the $3.75m+ range. At the recent rate of sales, it would take (735-249)/(5*12) = 8.1 years to clear the pipeline of homes on the $2m-$3.75m price range, and infinitely many years to clear our the 249 homes on the $3.75m+ range.
Got high-end inventory glut?
10 Celebrities Who Lost Big Financially
In 2009, the IRS filed a put a lien on some of Cage’s property in Louisiana and said cage owed them roughly $6 million for purchases made in 2007. They weren’t talking about weekend splurges at Harrod’s, mind you, but a $15.7 million mansion in Rhode Island, the $8 million-plus Milford Castle in Bath, England, and a five-year, $7,700-a-month lease on a 1964 Rolls Royce SC III and a $3,600-a-month lease on a 2002 Rolls Royce Corniche. The burden forced him to sell two $3.5 million homes in New Orleans back to the bank for $4.5 million, an $8.5 million home in Las Vegas for $5 million, a $9.5 million Manhattan apartment for $7.5 million and — most crushing — a Bel-Air Tudor mansion he’d listed for $35 million for $10.5 million after it went into foreclosure.
Meanwhile, he’s also listed a $1.7 million home in Newport Beach, Calif., for less than $1 million and that $15.7 million Rhode Island home for $7.8 million. Cage sued his business manager for $20 million in 2009, which only led the manager in question to countersue, saying that he told Cage to spend within his means but couldn’t stop him from buying $33 million in homes, 22 cars, 47 pieces of artwork and a $276,000 skull of a Tarbosaurus dinosaur.
http://www.thestreet.com/story/11031940/4/10-celebrities-who-lost-big-financially.html
Those are some haircuts!
Just HOW many houses could a human possibly live in all over the world even if did have lots of money and could afford it (which Cage can’t)?
“House collecting” is a common hobby of the very rich. Even if they only spend 2 weeks per year in the house, they love collecting them. Kinda like some of them love to collect cars or mistresses.
Here in Tucson, there’s a section of town called the Foothills. The place is so-called because it’s just below the Santa Catalina Mountains. Nice views of the mountains and Tucson down below.
There are quite a number of trophy homes up in the Foothills. Some belong to the house collections of the very wealthy.
And, by way of a friend, I’ve heard that those wealthy folks have to hire people to come around to open and close the doors of the empty houses. Why? Because houses need to breathe. Occupied houses breathe naturally, what with all the people coming and going.
Many of those foothill homes are cira. 1960
Old homes with almost flat roofs , big property and probably a ton of deferred maintance.
unoccupied homes probably dry as dust out in Tucson.
Just checked it out on Google Earth.
Oh yeah. High dollar.
Why would Cage owe the IRS for purchases made in 2007? Is there an IRS sales tax on purchases that I have missed?
Probably paid for stuff instead of tax?
Poorly worded. The IRS put liens on his property for unpaid taxes.
Sounds like Cage’s real-life addiction (shopaholism) could produce a story to rival his classic rendition of an addict in Leaving Las Vegas.
And I was just envisioning his character in Raising Arizona winning MegaMillions, then going on a spending binge before crashing and burning.
“$33 million in homes”
Real estate investing run amok…
There are plenty of people who’ve come into money who haven’t the slightest clue how to manage it. So, they hire others to do the job for them. Unfortunately, the newly rich folks have no clue what to look for in a manager for their money. And, all too often, the managers are just as clueless.
Toni Braxton — medical problems.
Kevin Bacon/Kyra Sedgesick — Madoff scam
Shaq — a couple years too late playing Flip This House
Dr. J. — bad business deals
Bono — made $130 mil last year, lost $140 mil investing stock in Palm Pilot
Madonna — Didn’t sign a pre-nup with Guy Ritchie. But credit Richie, he only asked for 75 million.
Various idiot stars — more Ponzi schemes.
Michael Vick — dogfight conviction. He kept only $300,000 of the $6.8 million he made with the Eagles during the past two seasons. He still owes more than $20 million, and of course he lost his endorsement $$.
Wow, Michael Vick has to get by on $150K a year. At least Atlanta’s house prices are falling toward normal.
I guess I’m fortunate in that I came from a family with more than a few people who’ve been involved in the arts. Some of us do our art thing full-time. Others do it part time or as a hobby.
What’s really saved our artsy-fartsy hides is that we are also related to people who are quite adept at business. And they’ve been quite good at chewing our artistic ears about understanding income statements, reading contracts carefully before signing, and not being so enthralled with our creativity that we forget things like getting the painting done when the client expects us to have it done.
Alas, a lot of creatives don’t come from families like mine, with “Follow your muse!” being whispered one ear while “DO THE MATH!” is being hollered in the other.
Alas, a lot of creatives don’t come from families like mine, with “Follow your muse!” being whispered one ear while “DO THE MATH!” is being hollered in the other.
So, I have this dear old friend. From salt-of-the-North-Dakota-earth polish stock. Truly gifted musician while in his youth. “Get-n-ed-u-k-shun & Get-a-REAL-job & a wife & family”… drilled into him by
the Major & 1st Sargenthis parents. He did too. All of that, quite the success too! Top CFO of a major movie studio. 14-16 hr days, …for years. Bought recent mal-investment RE.We had beers together just a while back. His wife has gone all in witha culta sub-division of the Catholic’s, and is leaving him. He’s re-joined back into his music skills of his long past youth, playing in small venue’s. (He told me this with a deep sigh & a uncharacteristically despondent disposition.)Remember? :
Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.
The Road Not Taken
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one
less traveled bymost promoted,And that has made all the difference.
His wife has gone all in with a a sub-division of the Catholic’s, and is leaving him.
One of those groups that says that Benedict isn’t the Pope and insist the Mass must be in Latin?
I don’t think that poem really means what most folks think it means. He admits that he is going to tell the story in the future as if he took the road less travelled, but says quite clearly that “Though as for that, the passing there had worn them really about the same.”
The whole thing is about how folks justify their past decisions to make them seem better/more noble/more daring than they were. In the end, it was just decision and at the time there was nothing special about the choice (”And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black”).
Not as inspiring, but possibly more true.
And be one traveler, long I stood
It’s really not so complicated, for myself, it’s about making a personal decision, at a certain point in time, one choice that given the parameters of “Life”, might alter one’s whole experience in a way that results in that particular choice never being undone,…ever.
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
Poetry = Awesome kaleidoscopic POV
Woah! A dinosaur skull would rule.
That’s what I’m thinking. You can make fun of a guy for tossing $33million on houses; but to discredit him for tossing a quarter million on a dino skull?
You know a dino skull wasn’t high on your “if I came into $150 million…”, but it sure is now.
Whatever came of the bones of the Elephant Man? Might be able to get them at rock-bottom prices now!
Now we know why that guy is in every other crappy movie to come out in the last few years. He needs the cash and fast!
‘$276,000 skull of a Tarbosaurus dinosaur.’
More like a Tarposaursus there Nick.
You’re welcome.
Realtors Are Liars
I saw your acknowledgement, Realtors Are Liars.
Stop with the hate:
Hug a Realtor.
Srail Era Srotlaer
I buried Paul
No deal: Foreclosure mediation efforts falling flat
Less than 2% of PBC cases referred to mandatory mediation end in settlement
By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 9:57 a.m. Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Posted: 7:04 p.m. Monday, April 11, 2011
WEST PALM BEACH — Less than 2 percent of foreclosure cases referred to a mandatory mediation program in Palm Beach County ended in a settlement, leading attorneys from both sides of the table to call the court-ordered negotiations a failure.
The first substantial measure of the program in Palm Beach County was submitted to the courts Friday by the Palm Beach County Bar Association, which oversees the mediations for the 15th Circuit Court.
Between July and November, 3,252 foreclosures of homesteaded properties were referred to mediation. In just 51 cases, the homeowner and bank left with a partial or full written agreement, which could include a loan modification, deed in lieu of foreclosure, or short sale.
The mediation program was created by a Florida Supreme Court order in December 2009 as a way to clear the backlog of foreclosures. Lenders are required to pay for the mediations, which cost $750.
“We recommend our clients don’t go to mediation,” said foreclosure defense attorney Tom Ice, of Ice Legal in Royal Palm Beach. “After many frustrating experiences, we just think it’s a waste of time.”
All too often, mediation is one of those feel-good things that results in nothing positive or long-lasting.
Kind of like undeclared “police action” types of wars.
“We recommend our clients don’t go to mediation,” said foreclosure defense attorney Tom Ice, of Ice Legal in Royal Palm Beach. “After many frustrating experiences, we just think it’s a waste of time.”
Why would it be frustrating? Hmmm….
Bank = “Pay the money you owe us.”
FB = “If I had the money I would pay you.”
FB = “Can I get a loan modification and principle write down?”
Bank = “We will give you $50 off the monthly nut but tack it on the back end with interest and fees.”
Fb = “FU - that does not help. I can’t afford the monthly nut and the house has lost 50% of its value.”
Bank = “FU - and move out by Friday.”
FB = “Fu - I’m staying until the sheriff kicks me out 2+ years from now. From here on the spending spree will be fully funded with mortgage $$$ on things like flate screens, new computer, iPhone, useless crap from China, and a possibly jet ski.”
I was remebering when being upside down on a car loan was big deal. At least back then all you had to do was suck it up and finish paying off the car in a few years.
Bank = “FU - and move out by Friday.”
Later that week: Bank = “Uhhh…never mind on that whole sheriff and auction thing. We’ll get back to you. Meanwhile, any interest in that deal we offered you before?”
I’ve been seeing this plans like this more and more:
Unorthodox Investment Methods for Preppers
Here are a few unorthodox or unconventional ones that most people do not think about:
Real Estate Rentals – Buying real estate now? Are you crazy? No, not at all. You make your money when you buy not when you sell. If you buy real estate now you will be looking at the potential for the property to generate cash flow and huge tax write-offs. People always need a place to sleep and as long as society doesn’t completely collapse (which it generally does not) then real estate rentals are a good investment option. If the currency devalues then you can raise rents or you can modify the contract and demand payment in specie (gold or silver).
http://www.survivalblog.com/2011/04/some_investment_options_for_th.html
If the currency devalues then you can raise rents or you can modify the contract and demand payment in specie (gold or silver).
Yup, and your average paycheck-to-paycheck tenant has a stash of gold handy. Or he/she can easily pay your higher rent.
Get ready for the sight of a U-Haul pulling out of the driveway of an empty house, buddy.
Notice how they squoze the word “potential” in there? At least they included the words “cash flow” but, at least around these parts, there still is not much that is cash flowing.
There are still bizarre listing prices on multi-family that once reflected bubble time speculation or at least suggest that “potential” income producing properties are more valued than others. You’ll have to wait forever for rents to increase to produce cash flow, but they’re always listed as, and I quote, “a great investment!”
Why would anyone with this goal in mind buy a property that wasn’t cash-flowing from day one?
Because they haven’t been hanging out on the HBB.
Why would anyone with this goal in mind buy a property that wasn’t cash-flowing from day one?
Because, they musta seen the same lil’ RE signs Hwy50 saw out in the backwoods of the Inland Empire on my ways to Hemet, CA last weekend:
“Pick Your Payment!”
This doesn’t sound survivalist to me. I thought they stocked up on cigarettes and physical gold for barter, bought a homestead in the sticks outright along with the deed to the property, bought a gun as back-up for the deed and to chase off g-men wanting taxes, and in general wanted to pull OUT of the system without leaving a paper trail. Buying a rental for cash flow is plugging INTO the system and leaves a paper trail all over the place.
New paradigm, oxide. Keep up.
Hey, here’s a chance to ride the commodity wave! Just think when frogs become popular with the growing Chinese middle class.
Craigslist
Frog Business for Sale - $2500 (Eastern)
Date: 2011-04-09, 6:20PM EDT
Reply to: sale-chaw5-2315612554@craigslist.org [Errors when replying to ads?]
I am selling off the frog part of my business. I am moving in a few months and it would just be too much. All the info is on my site: http://colorbynumbercritters.webs.com/availablefrogs.htm
Thanks for your time.
Keywords: reptile reptiles frogs frog lizard lizards snake snakes color blue green red yellow dart poison
Frog business I wonder if its set-up in a rental ?
“I am selling off the frog part of my business. I am moving in a few months and it would just be too much.”
“Keywords: reptile frogs lizard… dart poison”
Sigh. Posts like this were made for OlyGal. Here’s to you, Oly, wherever you are (hoists Trois Pistoles in the air- she would approve;).
Absolutely gorgeous chameleon named “Special Ed” featured here. Hope this guy finds someone who will nurture these lovely little critters for him.
Procession of the Species. Here’s to you, Oly….
(sniffs back a sob)
A
Interesting:
http://www.youtube.com/user/fiercefreeleancer
…and there ya go.
I like the comments as well.
Good find.
This will make your jaw drop and blood boil…
—————————–
The Real Housewives of Wall Street
Rolling Stone | April 12, 2011 | Matt Taibbi
Why is the Federal Reserve forking over $220 million in bailout money to the wives of two Morgan Stanley bigwigs?
Most Americans know about [the official US] budget. What they don’t know is that there is another budget of roughly equal heft, traditionally maintained in complete secrecy. After the financial crash of 2008, it grew to monstrous dimensions, as the government attempted to unfreeze the credit markets by handing out trillions to banks and hedge funds.
Now, following an act of Congress that has forced the Fed to open its books from the bailout era, this unofficial budget is for the first time becoming at least partially a matter of public record. Staffers in the Senate and the House, whose queries about Fed spending have been rebuffed for nearly a century, are now poring over 21,000 transactions and discovering a host of outrages and lunacies in the “other” budget. It is as though someone sat down and made a list of every individual on earth who actually did not need emergency financial assistance from the United States government, and then handed them the keys to the public treasure. The Fed sent billions in bailout aid to banks in places like Mexico, Bahrain and Bavaria, billions more to a spate of Japanese car companies, more than $2 trillion in loans each to Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, and billions more to a string of lesser millionaires and billionaires with Cayman Islands addresses. “Our jaws are literally dropping as we’re reading this,” says Warren Gunnels, an aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. “Every one of these transactions is outrageous.”
…Goldman Sachs alone received roughly $800 billion in loans from the Fed. But upon closer inspection, Waterfall TALF Opportunity boasts a couple of interesting names among its chief investors: Christy Mack and Susan Karches.
Christy is the wife of John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley. Susan is the widow of Peter Karches, a close friend of the Macks who served as president of Morgan Stanley’s investment-banking division. Neither woman appears to have any serious history in business, apart from a few philanthropic experiences. Yet the Federal Reserve handed them both low-interest loans of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars through a complicated bailout program that virtually guaranteed them millions in risk-free income.
Christy is the wife of John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley. Susan is the widow of Peter Karches, a close friend of the Macks who served as president of Morgan Stanley’s investment-banking division. Neither woman appears to have any serious history in business, apart from a few philanthropic experiences. Yet the Federal Reserve handed them both low-interest loans of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars through a complicated bailout program that virtually guaranteed them millions in risk-free income.
How nice! When the rest of us go for a business loan but don’t show any serious history in business, we get laughed out of the bank.
It’s not what you know, it’s who you know that counts!
“When the rest of us go for a business loan but don’t show any serious history in business, we get laughed out of the bank.”
This reminds me of the SNL Eddie Murphy video when he dresses up as Mr. White and tries to get a loan with no collateral after the black guy in front of him gets denied.
“Pay us back… or don’t! We don’t care!”
“Neither woman appears to have any serious history in business, apart from a few philanthropic experiences. Yet the Federal Reserve handed them both low-interest loans of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars …”
I can’t wait to hear Bernanke ’splain this one.
What makes you think he will have to explain anything ??? I’m sure the MSM will bury this news under dancing with the stars drama.
Absolutely.
Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul will surely bring it up next time Bernanke’s in front of congress, ’sweatin’ to the oldies’, no?
“TrueAnger™” + “TruePathToProsperity™” advocates/disciples stay Faux News Inc. focused:
“Linda the lunch lady lives lavishly!”
“GE/WE pay nothing in taxes, because…we’re smart and your not!”
Yell!/Scream!/Holler!
repeat:
Yell!/Scream!/Holler!
repeat:
Yell!/Scream!/Holler!
Damn those school cafeteria workers! They always ruin everything! The janitors too…. They’ve drove the global economy off a cliff.
And the damn commie unions!
That’s right. And the damn poor people…. the way they treat the wealthy folk in this country is crime… a crime I declare. The poor need to be taken down a few notches.
Yet the Federal Reserve handed them both low-interest loans of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars through a complicated bailout program that virtually guaranteed them millions in risk-free income.”
Thus GOD’s WILL is made plain
How many of those loans were made to foreign banks due to some sort of kickback is what I want to know. GS walks in and says we can get you 10 billion in 0% loans and a guaranteed return in commodities and a guarantee of forgiveness if the gambling doesn’t pay off. You just give us a FAT commission.
You have problem with Corporate Communist Capitalism©®™, comrade?
David Weidner’s Writing on the Wall
April 12, 2011, 12:01 a.m. EDT
Bailouts for banks, free markets for us
Commentary: The foreclosure settlement is a big win for banks
By David Weidner , MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Hope Now, the industry program designed to reduce foreclosures, was supposed to be the bailout for the rest of us.
“Bailout” is probably the wrong word. For most homeowners facing default or foreclosure, the price of a loan modification is steep: ruined credit, fees, red tape and a less-than 50-50 chance they would receive a new mortgage that fit their budget.
Big banks got their cash immediately, and then government guarantees on any new debt they wanted to raise.
Now, it appears that the moral and economic gulf between the bailouts the banks got and the kind we’re getting is widening. A proposed settlement over foreclosure fraud between state attorneys general and big banks is tilted almost entirely toward the banking industry.
For one, mortgage servicers, mostly big banks, will have to call off foreclosures on homeowners who have applied for modifications, according to a draft of the settlement published last week.
It sounds good, until you realize that there are no restrictions on fees that often drive homeowners out, big banks will hire the consultants to “monitor” their foreclosure practices, the cost being shouldered by bank customers. The banks will also give them the criteria from which those “independent” analysts will judge them. It’s not even clear whether there will be penalties for fraud already perpetrated.
…
“The story of the past half century is that Americans found a way to extract money from future generations and leave them with the bill. What they have been enjoying is not prosperity, but luxury.”
~Christopher Caldwell.
More like the last thirty years, if numbers mean anything.
The national debt went from being paid down to rising under Reagan and trickle-down economics- which we continue to practice, despite its proven failure.
Well, failure for everybody but the rich…
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve had plenty of money extracted from me.
No need to even print stuff like this, of course we’ll have the largest deficit. We have a bunch of self serving spendthrifts running the show. Along with a bunch of extremely smart voters who keep putting them there. Keep on printing, we’ll be number one at something.
U.S. Deficit to Rise to Largest Among Major Economies, IMF Says
(Bloomberg) 4-12-11
The U.S. is set to have the largest budget deficit of major developed economies this year and should narrow it now rather than face tough adjustments in the next two years, the International Monetary Fund said.
The U.S. shortfall will reach 10.8 percent of its gross domestic product this year, ahead of Japan and the U.K., the Washington-based IMF said in a report released today. It estimates that President Barack Obama will need to cut the deficit by 5 percentage points of GDP in the next two fiscal years, the largest adjustment in “at least half a century,” to meet his pledge of halving it by the end of his four-year term.
“Market concerns about sustainability remain subdued in the U.S., but a further delay of action could be fiscally costly, with deficit increases exacerbated by rising yields,” the IMF wrote in its Fiscal Monitor report, published several times a year to analyze public finance development.
The IMF recommended “a down payment” in the form of deficit reduction this year that would make the government goal “compatible with a less abrupt withdrawal of stimulus later.”
The U.S. is set to have the largest budget deficit of major developed economies and strangely enough, the USA also has the lowest taxes on the rich and after all the loopholes and deductions, the lowest corporate tax rates of any major developed economy.
(but these things can’t be related I hear)
All’s eyes hear is the Inc.’s whining, pissing, moaning:
“we’re suffering,…suffering! oh, the agony”…
needwantmust have…tax reduction assistance,…NOW!!!!!”the lowest corporate tax rates of any major developed economy.
Yahoo News – Wed Mar 16, 2011
America to have the highest corporate tax rate in April
The world’s superpower is about to lead the way in yet another realm. Next month, America is set to bear the distinction of having the highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world.
According to a study by the Tax Foundation, America’s combined federal and state rate of 39.2 percent is only out paced by Japan’s rate of 39.5 percent – which Japan plans to lower next month. Without Japan in the lead, America’s 39.2 percent will render it the corporate tax rate leader in the developed world, aka the countries comprising the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailycaller/20110316/pl_dailycaller/americatohavethehighestcorporatetaxrateinapril
America to have the highest corporate tax rate in April
How is your ability to process data and remember things 2banana? We’ve been over this many times.
The Gap Between Statutory and Real Corporate Tax Rates
Actual taxes paid by consistently profitable Fortune 500 companies now is less than half the statutory rate
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_welfare/real_tax_rates_plummet.php
Corporations are now paying the lowest levels of taxes in the post-World War II era. In fiscal 2002 and 2003, federal corporate incomes taxes dropped to their lowest sustained level as a share of the economy since World War II. Only a single year during the early Reagan administration was lower.
Ostensibly, the U.S. federal tax code requires corporations to pay 35 percent of their profits in income taxes.
But of the 275 Fortune 500 companies that made a profit each year from 2001 to 2003 and for which adequate information to draw conclusions is publicly available, only a small proportion paid federal income taxes anywhere near that statutory 35 percent tax rate. The vast majority paid considerably less.
In fact, in 2002 and 2003, the average effective tax rate for all of these 275 companies was less than half the statutory 35 percent rate. Over the 2001-2003 period, effective tax rates ranged from a low of -59.6 percent for Pepco Holdings to a high of 34.5 percent for CVS.
Over the three-year period, the average effective rate for all 275 companies dropped by a fifth, from 21.4 percent in 2001 to 17.2 percent in 2002-2003.
America to have the highest corporate tax rate in April
Here’s the rest of the story:
source: brookings dot edu
The United States has the second highest corporate tax rate of the 30 countries in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). But because the United States has so many generous special tax preferences for businesses, it collects the fourth lowest corporate tax revenues as a share of GDP among all OECD countries.
US Corporations have so may shelters and deductions they don’t pay squat.
USA Has 2nd Lowest Effective Tax Rate in the Industrialized World
http://oneutah.org/2008/10/21/usa-has-2nd-lowest-effective-tax-rate-in-the-industrialized-world/
One of the worse lies perpetrated by Republicans for DECADES is that Corporate taxes in the US are among the highest in the world and they continue to heap this lie on top of so many others.
To know how high – or low – the effective tax rate is, you have to go beneath the top-line rate and account for all the loopholes, subsidies and write-offs – and the way to do that is by looking at corporate tax revenues as a percentage of a country’s GDP. That way, you know how much corporations are actually paying as a share of your overall economy – in other words, you know the real corporate tax rate, not the fake one advertised by top-line numbers.
And when you look at America’s tax structure through this lens, you see that even the Bush Treasury Department admits we have the second lowest effective corporate tax rate in the industrialized world (see page 42 of this report) US Treasury
Maybe this is why Ryan Paul wants to cut corporate tax rates but get rid of loopholes ?
Along with gutting medicare for anyone under 55
just wondering I hear so many half stories these days
I think the loopholes he wanted to get rid of were for working stiffs. ie state income tax, MID, etc. Not corporate tax breaks. Didn’t your read we are only the 4th lowest on corporate tax revenue vs GDP.
“I think the loopholes he wanted to get rid of were for working stiffs.”
To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher: The problem with placing the burden of taxation on the middle class is that you will soon run out of a middle class to tax.
Of course, by the time we reach that point the 1%ers will have moved on to their private islands with their private military forces and they won’t care if the USA burns to the ground.
Large corporations have legions of accountants and lawyers hired to find all of the loopholes. And they probably make the bulk of corporate income.
I suspect that small corporations pay closer to the 35% tax rate. And they are the ones that are expected to create most of the jobs.
Come on, guys! The time for this stuff is over.
We’ve got to get Real.
We’ve got to be Rational.
And we’ve got to ignore the fact that one tiny part of the population has made fantastic amounts of money for the last decade or more.
Now, let’s have a Mature, Reasonable conversation about how we can wring this money out of the middle class and poor.
Reasonable conversation about how we can wring this money out of the middle class and poor.
1. eliminate the Fast Food Inc. “value menu”
Exactly! Isn’t ‘value’ socialist? I think it is. Capitalists ream you good, and you like it!
Let’s keep brainstorming! How about this: Couldn’t children do something productive during recess, like pick cotton or sew soccer balls? Of course they could! They do it every day, all over the world.
Fun is fun, but we’ve got to get Real to support these low tax rates for the uber-wealthy.
1. eliminate the Fast Food Inc. “value menu”
Except in a Corporatist banana republic, our “guardians” are also our killers. And why would they not be? It makes them money no? Some of you right-wingers who think they know what America has become are so wrong about your basic beliefs that it is an insult to your innate but propagandized intelligence.
Study: Insurance companies hold billions in fast food stock
http://articles.cnn.com/2010-04-15/health/insurance.fast.food.stock_1_fast-food-investments-fast-food-industry-fast-food-stock?_s=PM:HEALTH
The fast-food industry has long been under fire for selling high-fat, high-calorie meals that have been linked to weight gain and diabetes, but the financial health of the industry continues to attract investors — including some of the leading insurance companies in the U.S., a new study reports.
According to Harvard Medical School researchers, 11 large companies that offer life, disability, or health insurance owned about $1.9 billion in stock in the five largest fast-food companies as of June 2009.
There’s a “potential disconnect” between the mission of insurance companies and the often-unhealthy food churned out by companies like McDonald’s, they write.
“The insurance industry cares about making money, and it doesn’t really care how,” …”They will invest in products that contribute to significant morbidity and mortality if doing so is going to make money.”
Rock and a hard place. The insurance companies collect premiums and have to figure out how to keep that money from being eaten away by inflation. They are not forcing people to buy fast food.
Disability insurance has a lot in common with pensions. They collect money over a long period of time with a payout at the end. And the payout period is unknown, with a range from 1 day to 30+ years. If life expectancy increases due to medical advances, the payout period may have been underestimated. If I were CEO of an insurance company, I would be continually worried about being able to pay out what was promised to beneficiaries. And my mindset would be that I could never have enough “profit”.
Union Cuts Needed to Avert State Takeover, Detroit Mayor Warns
(Bloomberg)
Detroit risks a state takeover and “control of our destiny” unless the city restructures its operations and employees agree to wage and benefit concessions, Mayor Dave Bing said.
Bing called today for the city’s 12,000 employees to pay more for health care and share in pension and other benefit costs as part of his 2012 budget proposal, saying, “Everyone must accept that times have changed.”
Detroit recorded a 25 percent decline in population –about 65 people per day — in the past decade, reducing the city to 713,777 from a peak of 1.85 million in 1950, according to the Census Bureau.
“We face challenges unlike any the city has ever seen, challenges that demand bold action,” Bing said in his budget presentation to Detroit City Council.
“We do not have the luxury of waiting for someone else to solve our problems,” he said in a prepared text.
Detroit, the largest U.S. city whose debt is rated below investment grade, warned investors in bond documents in March 2010 that it might have to consider reorganizing under Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. Bing later said insolvency was no longer an option.
Let’s see.
Detroit has lost HALF of its population under complete socialist democrat control in the last 50 years.
However, the number of public union goons has greatly INCREASED in this same time period. And the bennies and pensions and salaries have gone only up.
Step #1. Fire at least half the public union goons to at least get back to the same ratio.
“Detroit has lost HALF of its population under complete socialist democrat control in the last 50 years.”
I would say that Detroit lost half its population as the big 3 self destructed.
I would say that Detroit lost half its population as the big 3 self destructed.
The Livernois riots didn’t help matters.
And most of the guys making the decisions were die-hard Republicans, as I recall.
And industry making almost $100 BILLION annually implodes but has no bearing on the city it calls home.
Suuuure. Ye… ah.
However, to give credit where credit is due, the Detroit city gov turned out to be one of the most corrupt I’ve seen in long time.
Why the banks aren’t lending to businesses
April 12, 2011
The Treasury and the Fed have furiously pursued a closed monetary loop that purposely excludes all useful deployment of capital. The budget talks are just more evidence of that.
~ FORTUNE — Here is a business owner’s budget: How much revenue did we take in this quarter? And how much did it cost us to keep the doors open this quarter? How much is left over? Now we know how much we can spend — or save for the rainy day that always comes.
Here’s a politician’s budget: How much money is in the pot? What?! But my district needs three times that, so there’s certainly nothing left over for anyone else! What’s that you say? I didn’t come up with a proposal? Okay, we’ll build a bridge. To where? Who cares! Just build, baby, build! Votes, votes, votes! Oops, I mean jobs, jobs, jobs!
It should be lost on no American voter that the business of private enterprise is to remain in business and sock money away, taking steps to improve efficiency in order to maximize the difference between the revenues generated and what it costs to stay in business. The business of politics, meanwhile, is spending other people’s money to maximize the likelihood of getting re-elected. Please correct our thinking on this point if you find it flawed.
Right on cue last Friday, at the eleventh hour and fifty-ninth minute, our leaders once again proved they are every bit as capable of manipulating the public as the most seasoned Hollywood producer. Forget “cast of thousands” and the hundred million-dollar budget. Our drama had a cast in the hundreds of millions, and a budget in the trillions.
Earlier this year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid requested that the Treasury provide an estimate of how soon the debt limit will be reached, and “a description of the consequences of default by the United States.” Countering on cue, Secretary Timothy Geithner observed that the government only has “$335 billion of ‘headroom’ beneath the current limit” of $14.29 trillion.
Asian lady buys a house on speculation. Meth-head and his realtwhore wife go around looking for vacant properties to squat in and happen across this one. I’m smelling sitcom potential. Fox should jump on this s**t in half a second.
http://www.ocweekly.com/2010-11-11/news/newport-coast-squatters-christopher-wayne-robin-ann-duncan/
“My Name is Earl”
She bought the property four years ago with her sister as an investment and leased it to tenants
For their part, the Duncans are no fans of Le, whom Christopher calls “the Asian lady.” They say Le has annoyed them by not treating them with respect.
“The O.C.!”
Kobe on the left / Crissy Cox on the right
My guess is the neighbors TV are the 120″ HD 3D, if they can snag a pair of 3D viewing glass they can watch some interesting
pornpaid cable/satellite programs from their balcony,So perhaps the south will rise again and cotton will be king once more! Or we could bring back to the 70’s and wear polyester, no wait that takes petroleum.
Cotton prices heat up this summer
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — If you can’t wait to shed that scratchy wool sweater for a cool new cotton T-shirt this summer, prepare yourself. The price hikes on cotton goods that are coming your way will be decidedly uncool.
This summer, shoppers will be paying 10% to 15% more on all cotton products, according to a new industry survey.
“I can’t recall a time when we’ve seen this type of retail price [increase] on cotton products,” said Andrew Tananbaum, CEO of Capital Business Credit, which provides financing to clothing and home furnishing suppliers.
For years, raw cotton prices had been falling, keeping a lid on retail prices for shirts, socks, dresses, home furnishings and other cotton merchandise.
But that trend dramatically changed over the past year, as cotton prices soared to record highs following a global supply shortage.
As raw cotton prices surged, manufacturers and sellers have fought to insulate shoppers from paying more for cotton products.
But that trend dramatically changed over the past year, as cotton prices soared to record highs following a global supply shortage.
Newly hired less-than-black low-co$t
wage-$laveworker: “whys,siyes’em heffe, eye’s be a cotton-picker with ‘em legit-sitzen-papers!”I’m waiting to see when we all end up back in grass skirts and coconut shells. Or palm leaves.
With grass skirts at one end of the scale, and Brooks Brothers on the other, the trend is toward the grass skirts. And accelerating.
What inflation?
Sounds like the California legislature is just plain cruel!
Adult Day Health Care Closing
Sierra LifeNet Adult Day Health Center
Sonora, CA — The state’s tough budget times have hit Tuolumne County’s Adult Day Health Care.
The non-profit organization Sierra LifeNet took over the Adult Day Health Care program last August as part of the Tuolumne General Hospital transition. The California legislature is eliminating funding for Adult Day Healthcare as a Medi-Cal benefit effective July 1st. 95 percent of the people who are in Adult Day Health Care rely on that benefit. Because of this development, the Sierra LifeNet Board of Directors has decided to close the doors on Hospital Road effective April 29th.
“It is not only devastating, it is just unbelievable,” says Board member Kathryn Johnston. “The program has been here for 24 years and serves so many people. The community rallied last year and we raised $83,000 to help support the program through the first year of transition.”
Democratic senator wants Internet sales taxes
by Declan McCullagh ~ news.cnet.com
A Democratic senator is preparing to introduce legislation that aims to end the golden era of tax-free Internet shopping.
The proposal–expected to be made public soon after Tax Day–would rewrite the ground rules for Internet and mail order sales by eliminating the ability of Americans to shop at Web sites like Amazon.com and Overstock.com without paying state sales taxes.
Dick Durbin of Illinois, the second most senior Senate Democrat, will introduce the bill after the Easter recess, a Democratic aide told CNET.
“Why should out-of-state companies that sell their products online have an unfair advantage over Main Street bricks-and-mortar businesses?” Durbin said in a speech in Collinsville, Ill., in February. “Out-of-state companies that aren’t paying their fair share of taxes are sticking Illinois residents and businesses with the tab.”
At the moment, Americans who shop over the Internet from out-of-state vendors aren’t always required to pay sales taxes at the time of purchase. Californians buying books from Amazon.com or cameras from Manhattan’s B&H Photo, for example, won’t pay the sales taxes at checkout time that they would if shopping at a local mall–which is what Durbin means by giving online retailers an “unfair advantage.”
On the other hand, there are some 7,500 different taxing jurisdictions in the United States, each with a set of very precise rules describing what can and can’t be taxed and at what rate. That makes it challenging terrain for retailers to navigate.
On the other hand, there are some 7,500 different taxing jurisdictions in the United States, each with a set of very precise rules describing what can and can’t be taxed and at what rate. That makes it challenging terrain for retailers to navigate.
It’s called a computer, not too hard to navigate.
Now just imagine if they went after the corporate loopholes with such zeal. Chasing nickels and dimes whilst billions just float away.
Wow - ever imagine life without public union goons?
These people did. And it works really well.
Compare/contrast to Chicago.
———————
Reason.tv: Sandy Springs, Georgia - The City that Outsourced Everything
While cities across the country are cutting services, raising taxes and contemplating bankruptcy, something extraordinary is happening in a suburban community just north of Atlanta, Georgia.
Since incorporating in 2005, Sandy Springs has improved its services, invested tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure and kept taxes flat. And get this: Sandy Springs has no long-term liabilities.
This is the story of Sandy Springs, Georgia—the city that outsourced everything.
http://reason.com/blog/2011/04/12/reasontv-sandy-springs-georgia
Outsourcing like this is just a big kickback scheme.
City collects taxes.
corporations pay politicians for juicy contracts
Steal wealth from tax payer.
Instead of a lot of reasonably paid workers you have a lot of poor workers and a small number of sometimes out of state elite stripping wealth from the community.
Here in my state the gov wants to outsource energy generation for the university. The plan is to sell the generators that are now used for cogeneration (ie very efficient) to his campaign donors in a behind closed doors no bid fashion. Now what is the likelyhood that these plants will be sold for a fair price if there is no bidding. I’d say zero. Then we can expect the university to pay more for energy for the next 20 years. That will raise tuition. The workers at the plant will make less again making the local community poorer and the bonus money will flow to a small # of hands that reside out of state. It will be taxed at a lower rate as capital gains, and may not be taxed at all in this state. Take a look at all the theft in Iraq. Take a look at the Medicare advantage plans that line insurance pockets, ie they charge 15-20% more to provide the same service as Medicare.
Only a crazed left wing union goon lover would have an issue with this:
Since incorporating in 2005, Sandy Springs has improved its services, invested tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure and kept taxes flat. And get this: Sandy Springs has no long-term liabilities.
Wiki: “……an affluent suburb of Atlanta…..total 2010 population….. 93,853…..”
Apples and Oranges.
an affluent $uburb
an affluent $uburb
an affluent $uburb
an affluent $uburb
an affluent $uburb
an affluent $uburb
This “template” will work ALL across America, no problemo. Get a Faux News Inc. reporter down asap, we need this story to go viral!
Statistical outlier.
Can you believe it, still no takers.
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Based on recent rates, your monthly payment for this scenario would be around $279,470
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Bummer! I was hoping for 20% Go Team Barry! You can do it, if you can’t do it nobody can!
US deficit up 15.7% in first half of fiscal 2011
(AFP) – 2 hours ago
WASHINGTON — The US budget deficit shot up 15.7 percent in the first six months of fiscal 2011, the Treasury Department said Wednesday as political knives were being sharpened for a new budget battle.
The Treasury reported a deficit of $829 billion for the October-March period, compared with $717 billion a year earlier, as revenue rose a sluggish 6.9 percent as the economic recovery slowly gained pace.
The Treasury argued that the pace of increase in the deficit was deceptive because of large one-off reductions in expenditures made during the first half of fiscal 2010, compared with previous and subsequent periods.
Those included a $115 billion reduction in funds spent on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) — the financial institution bailout program — in March 2010.
But 2011 so far has also seen significant increases in spending on defense, Social Security, health and debt service, while receipts have not grown as fast.
“The jump in outlays mostly owed to a smaller estimated reduction in TARP outlays this year versus 2010,” said Theresa Chen at Barclays Capital Research.
However, she said, the trend shows that taxable income is rising at a 6.9 percent annual pace, and individual incomes taxes are up 20.6 percent, “consistent with general economic improvement.”
The figures came amid a sharp, politically partisan battle in Washington over cutting spending and raising taxes, with President Barack Obama preparing Wednesday to release his plan for reducing the long-term deficit.
He also faces a looming battle over increasing the country’s official debt ceiling, so that the government can continue to borrow to finance the deficit.
Depressions require spending. You do know that, dont you? If the gov did not spend, it get worse. If you want worse, you spend less.
US deficit up 15.7% in first half of fiscal 2011
Because US corporations and the rich pay the lowest effective taxes that they have ever paid since we’ve all been alive.
And large corporations and the very rich have done very well during this recession while the rest of of have been hammered. Look it up.
US taxes for the rich and corporations are historically very, very low.
Don’t listen to the B.S. jive coming from the greedy corporatist liars.
Blue, I saw your comment from yesterday. You are very gracious. There is a chance we’ll be up that way this summer.
Today, on DC news radio, a reporter spoke of the high number of sales in two local counties (PG and Montgomery). The sale numbers are equivalent to 2006, which he referred to as “the so-called ‘boom’ years”.
I like this radio station, but they routinely host housing market cheerleaders, primarily realtors. It has been many months, if not years, since I’ve heard anyone who is not a housing cheerleader, on that station.
Just reiterates the point that media is first a business to deliver people to advertisers. And they’re thus not going to irritate the advertisers.
I see Liar of the Decade Margaret Kelly, REMAX is back on TV lying again.
Can Suzanne be far behind?
The real inflation rate bring back the misery index: http://www.cnbc.com/id/42551209
It’s WAY higher than that, but it’s nice to see someone decided to run the numbers using the old system.
Happy tax season middle-class…….we’re paying way more of our income and net-worth in total taxes than corporations and the rich.
…the rich are significantly under-taxed compared to the middle class. That’s why I suggest that raising taxes on the very wealthiest taxpayers must be the first step toward restoring equity in our income tax system and ensuring the financial security of our children’s future.” Tom Bloch, son of H&R Block
http://www.philly.com/philly/business/US-taxes-are-too-low-should-be-raised-HR-Block-heir.html#ixzz1JMS8YLVd
Tankxs!
“TrueAnger™” + “TruePathToProsperity™” advocates/disciples have a funny way of “TruePrioritizing™” what is in their “TrueInterests™”
Realtors buy clothes, wear the clothes while hiding the tags, and then return the clothes.