Bits Bucket for May 16, 2011
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
To donate by mail, or to otherwise contact this blogger, please send emails to: thehousingbubble@gmail.com
PayPal is a secure online payment method which accepts ALL major credit cards.
Links
-
November 2024 M T W T F S S « Sep 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Photo Submission: hbbphotos@gmail.com
View the HBB Photo Gallery *updated 4/13/2008
Realtors Are Liars
Nothing to see here, move along and pay your taxes.
The $4 million question: Why did health district turn down free land to pay its own Realtor for his?
By Stacey Singer Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 8:22 p.m. Saturday, May 14, 2011
As it prepares to build a $25 million replacement for its public nursing home, the taxpayer-funded Palm Beach County Health Care District has spurned an offer of nearly free land from the county.
Instead, it’s buying a $4 million commercial parcel owned in part by the district’s own real estate agent, Neil J. Gaeta.
The sale of that 7-acre parcel amid one of the worst real estate markets in Palm Beach County history was a major coup for Gaeta and his partners in Pointe West Riviera Beach. Just who those partners are is a mystery.
Adding to the deal’s mystery, Gaeta, the company’s president, a 40-year-old father of three young children, died on the same day he signed the contract.
Palm Beach County officials, who pay $15 million a year toward the nursing home’s operating costs, are unhappy about the deal.
“We tried to get them to do the nursing home on county property,” said County Commission Chairwoman Karen Marcus. “We were supposed to have a workshop on that in May.”
That meeting was postponed indefinitely at the request of Health Care District Chairman Jonathan Satter.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/the-4-million-question-why-did-health-district-1475637.html - -
Here in Tucson, we have yet another example of a business owner looking for a bailout. Story in yesterday’s fishwrap:
Owner of downtown landmark wants $6M in taxpayer money
Museums may redo Manning House
Predictably, local taxpayers aren’t too pleased with this idea.
Most government agencies, like may corporate departments, are run like fiefdoms. Interdepartmental co-operation is seen as a sign of weakness.
“Brother-in-law” deals are also very common and often the cause of most of the waste and fraud.
But I’m sure somehow govt health care will be different. Epic Fail, coming up!
But then there’s this:
Time Magazine
“For the sixth year in a row, VA hospitals last year scored higher than private facilities on the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index, based on patient surveys on the quality of care received. The VA scored 83 out of 100; private institutions, 71. Males 65 years and older receiving VA care had about a 40% lower risk of death than those enrolled in Medicare Advantage, whose care is provided through private health plans or HMOs, according to a study published in the April edition of Medical Care. Harvard University just gave the VA its Innovations in American Government Award for the agency’s work in computerizing patient records.
And all that was achieved at a relatively low cost. In the past 10 years, the number of veterans receiving treatment from the VA has more than doubled, from 2.5 million to 5.3 million, but the agency has cared for them with 10,000 fewer employees. The VA’s cost per patient has remained steady during the past 10 years. The cost of private care has jumped about 40% in that same period.
Kochtopus economists favor trading US gold for fiat money
U.S. should sell assets like gold to get out of debt, conservative economists say
Washington Post
With the United States poised to slam into its debt limit Monday, conservative economists are eyeballing all that gold in Fort Knox. There’s about 147 million ounces of gold parked in the legendary vault. Gold is selling at nearly $1,500 an ounce. That’s many billions of dollars in bullion.
“It’s just sort of sitting there,” said Ron Utt, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “Given the high price it is now, and the tremendous debt problem we now have, by all means, sell at the peak.”
Economist Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute said the federal government should consider the sale of interstate highways. Motorists would have to pay tolls to the private owners, he said, but the roads would likely be in better shape.
“Many of the world’s roads were originally built as toll roads, so it would hardly be revolutionary to return to that model,” Hassett said. “If it can work for the River Styx, why not the Beltway?”
The Koch’s donate a 100 million or so into think tanks and these are their best ideas? Sell gold worth billions to fix a trillion dollar debt problem, that it’ll fix it. Give some company a monopoly over a subset of commuters….I’m sure that will really help the commuters and the road as the commuters are sure to have the better lobbyists. I blame the media for printing this drivel.
There is an interesting media criticism blog called Beat the Press. Definitely from a liberal perspective, but numbers are numbers. Has a lot to say about the Washington Post, in particular.
Here: http://www.cepr.net/index.php/beat-the-press/
Oxide and measton, I think you both enjoy it.
Oh selling a small fraction of the stockpile at current peak prices probably isn’t a bad idea. But of course you couln’t sell anything like a large proportion of the supply without driving the price down. So I’d look and see whether those advocating such a move have a short position. And as you have pointed out, the stockpile isn’t big enough to cure the deficit. But it COULD buy a few more days beneath the debt limit and spur congress-critters to action.
Borrowing against the Federal pension and 401(k) funds is much easier….
“But of course you couln’t sell anything like a large proportion of the supply without driving the price down”
There’s no need to sell it on the open market. China wants to increase their gold holdings. They would be happy to swap it for 10% of their holdings of our treasuries.
Trade all our gold to China in exchange for a 10% reduction in our debt to them? Sounds reasonable. But I still think they’d pay more for the Grand Canyon. And maybe a few Great Lakes.
But I still think they’d pay more for the Grand Canyon. And maybe a few Great Lakes.
Hey, has America’$ net worth apprai$al been published?
I think we should sell all of our virgins, I really think we could pay off the debt quickly with this plan. The foreign elite would be willing to pay top dollar. We could also rent out our children or the less attractive virgins for manufacturing, they eat far less than even the asian slave labor. We could also lease out our military to countries facing popular uprisings. It looks like ERic Prince of Blackwater is already at this forming an 800 person unit for the UAE composed of foreigners. We could set up human hunting parks that would allow the elite the chance to shoot the sick and the poor.
Plenty of good ideas from the American E I.
We could work out a deal where all our bombers, submarines and carriers are in the shop getting the oil changed, when the PRC makes a move on Taiwan.
Sometimes I Wonder if the PRC really wants to make a move on Taiwan. Sure, they could take it, after trashing all the infrastructure that makes it valuable.
IMHO, their desire for Taiwan ISN’T rational, which makes it dangerously easy for others to misjudge just how strongly they feel about it.
It may be one of those deals where the status quo serves everyone involved.
-We get to continue to support Taiwan defensively. Gotta have a reason to buy more aircraft carriers
-The PRC has a convenient scapegoat to divert attention when needed
-The guys on Taiwan play both ends, and make bank.
Everybody’s happy.
We are far from peak prices and I can’t think of a dumber move to sell gold while we are still the reserve currency. As long as the rest of the world is dumb enough to accept our fiat currency for our bills we might as well keep on printing. When China will not accept our currency for their junk, then we have to decide to live without their junk or give them real money i.e. gold for the junk. Sounds like the PTB are getting ready to buy up the gold just before they allow the currency to tank. You can’t have a bubble when the powers that be have been actively trying to depress the price. They did not depress Internet stocks in the 90’s or the social Internet sites now, they did not try to restrain housing prices, they supported those bubbles to mask the decline in real wages. However, they have actively depressed gold and silver with paper sales, leasing of the real metals and even the selling of governmental stocks. How does the Great Britian’s sale or even the IMF sale look now? No Koch and Soros, two heads of the same beast you cannot steal the precious metals from me.
How does Great Britain’s sale or even the IMF sale look now? No, Koch and Soros, two heads of the same beast, you cannot steal the precious metals from me.
Fixed language: How does the Great Britian’s sale or even the IMF sale look now? No Koch and Soros, two heads of the same beast you cannot steal the precious metals from me.
Koch lowers government workers pay and Soros through open borders lowers the private sector. They both are enemies of the middle class.
Need to go have a large cup of coffee but here is the link I meant to paste above instead of the language twice:
http://www.goldstockbull.com/articles/fed-rate-hike-imf-gold-sales-soros-china/
KochSoros? Ouch!
How does Soros support open borders?
Of course if the government started selling significant ammounts of gold, that would drive down prices.
I know you are not going to like the source but try to concentrate on the message not the source: http://bearwitness.info/GEORGESOROSAGAINSTFLORIDA.aspx
I have to go for the day. I will try to check the thread tonight.
Koch lowers government workers pay and Soros through open borders lowers the private sector. They both are enemies of the middle class.
That pretty much sums it up. Plus Koch wants to buy up public infrastructure on the cheap and then charge us o use it.
New dinosaur-like life form: Kochtosoros. Or, Sorococcus, a new form of flesh-eating bacteria.
From what I see, he supports a wide variety of liberal and progressive groups- but none that call for open borders.
Of course, when your info comes only from unlinked, unfootnoted, unsourced web sites, which seem to view anything short of shooting suspected illegals on sight as ‘favoring open borders’, your opinion may be shaped accordingly.
I’ve gotta share some sad, breaking news, gang. Brace yourselves….
Trump Out- Will Not Run for President
Hairstyle can’t support national run,says bankrupt billionaire
(OK, I made the last part up)
I have no idea what’s up with my random post nestings today.
Alpha, why don’t you just look at the propaganda posted on one of his own sites: http://www.soros.org/search/results?SearchableText=immigration&go-btn.x=8&go-btn.y=9&quicksearch=true
Anything pro-immigration is good no matter where it occurs in the world anything restricting immigration, very bad.
What is amazing is how much the MSM ignores his role in the immigration debate. No one wants to cover it. Unless you can show that any of the factual information presented on the conservative sites is inaccurate, I think that there is nothing wrong with using them. Particularly, as most of this board knows the stories that the MSM does not cover are more interesting then what the do cover. Shadow inventory is a great example. How much MSM play did that get until recently?
I agree Soros seems to be very pro-immigration, including favoring rights for illegals- but he did grow up a Jew in central Europe during WW2, so you can imagine how this might affect his views on the subject. Just look at Ayn Rand- it made a nutcase out of her.
I also agree the MSM isn’t the always the most reliable source for information, but that doesn’t make unsourced websites accurate or reliable.
Here’s an article on the evil Soros- with footnotes! His kind must be stopped.
wikipedia
Soros’s role was crucial in the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.[55] From 1979, as an advocate of ‘open societies’, Soros financially supported dissidents including Poland’s Solidarity movement, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and Andrei Sakharov in the Soviet Union[44] donating $3 million a year according to Clark.[55] In 1984, he founded his first Open Society Institute in Hungary and pumped millions of dollars into opposition movements and independent media.
The River Styx? As far as I know that river was not a toll road. You paid the ferryman for his labor, not a toll collector. I admit I may be forgetting some of my Greek mythology. Does anyone recall a story about a person (or soul) who tried to enter Hades using their own boat? Did Orpheus use the ferry?
And the real question, of course, is can you fit a boat under the corpse’s tongue when you bury it.
Strauss-Kahn arrest: IMF chief may face new sex charge
BBC News
Now French writer Tristane Banon, 31, has indicated she is considering filing a complaint of sexual assault over a 2002 incident, her lawyer says.
Ms Banon says she was assaulted by Mr Strauss-Kahn when she went to interview him for an article she was writing.
“We’re planning to make a complaint. I am working with her,” Ms Banon’s lawyer David Koubbi told the AFP news agency. Mr Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers have so far not responded to the allegation.
According to Ms Banon’s version of events, Mr Strauss-Kahn said he would only speak to her if she held his hand.
He then touched her more and more intimately, and in the end she had to fight him off, she said.
The European Union says the scandal surrounding Mr Strauss-Kahn should not affect bail-outs for eurozone countries.
whoops- mixed up with my styrofoam coffin suggestion to Polly- I wonder where that post ended up?
“IMF chief may face new sex charge”
Y’know, for one minute there, I thought it said “sex change”.
I’m sure Mr. Strauss Kahn would support the plan I posted above to repay US debt. I’m sure he was just trying to take repayment of his debt when he attacked that maid.
The New Rationalism spreads to the Midwest…
Yahoofinance
In Wisconsin, the center of the state budget battles, legislators lobbied for the budget repair bill to allow politicians to sell any state-owned heating, cooling or power plant to anyone for any price at any time — without public approval or a call for bids.
You can guarantee that the sale of these plants will be closely followed by a giant increase in electricity rates. Just as the sale of highways will be followed by a giant increase in tolls. This is just a way for the elite to directly tax the citizens without having to pay off gov officials. Next they will sell all water and air to private interests and we can expect a monthly bill for breathing and drinking water.
It is the way of “economics”. Government will need public’s approval to raise rates, but private company do not. If the rate need to be raised due to uncontrolled printing process, it is the way to go. Government shifts the burden of raising rate or higher tax, but we get to pay one way or the other.
And of course the land for those highways was originally obtained throught the power of emminant domain.
…and paid for with tax dollars.
“Conservative economists”. I think this term needs to be closely looked at.
To me selling off long-term assets to meet current consumption issues doesn’t really sound a bit “conservative”.
IMO, the gold is not even a “long term asset”, rather it is a strategic asset, to be used in such an emergency as when nothing else would answer. Selling off the emergency stockpiles to support irresponsible spending is like opening the strategic oil reserve to keep down the price of holiday driving.
You are assuming that the government has some role in providing the infrastructure that allows society to function. They don’t. They assume that anything that allows people with large amounts of capital to make a profit off people who have to trade their labor for spending money is a good thing.
Once you apply that premise, it makes a huge amount of sense.
I find that, as so many people predicted, that now I am over 40, I have become more conservative. I have essentially become what used to be called a Rockefeller republican - stay out of the bedroom and government support for infrastructure that allows business to function - that includes roads and bridges and the power grid, but also human infrastructure since sick, illiterate people are not good workers. It also involves setting up certain structures/disclosures to address problems related to information inquality. Of course, what used to be a Rockefeller republican is now a moderate democrat. I changed some , but the world changed more.
“Of course, what used to be a Rockefeller republican is now a moderate democrat.”
Who woulda thought that Nelson Rockefeller was a commie?
Making sure that you have a healthy and literate populace? What was he? Marx’s long lost grandson?
Generally, I agree. But of course “government” doesn’t necessarily mean “federal government.” There are many tasks which could quite reasonably be done at the state level.
Assuming you can address the whole “race to the bottom” issue, yes, many things can be handled at a lower level. However, a lot of the information inequality stuff makes no sense at anything other than a federal level. No plausible reason that I can think of for 50 different disclosure standards for securities, etc.
stay out of the bedroom
The question for the “TruePurity™” repubicans is: “whose bedroom are they to stay out of?”
“Do as we say!, not as we’re caught doing…again”
If all those gays weren’t out there openly being gay, the gay-bashers wouldn’t get so darn tempted to do it themselves! (The true rationale- never openly stated by its holders.)
Indeed alpha. Those that moralize most loudly are typically the most amoral when given the lattitude.
I love to torture them with gay acceptance talk. You should see them, hem, haw, shuck and jive like they’ve got ants in their pants.
All of the gold the US owns, about $400 billion worth, is less than 3% of our federal debt.
And about a fifth of Boehner’s initial demand for cuts in exchange for raising the debt limit.
By the way, today is the day we exceed it. After today, we are juggling accounts. Krugman says that once the juggling is exhausted, the government would have to cut back by about 30% to keep going forward. I think you could cancel the entire defense department (all of it) and not reach 30%. I assume they are preparing contingency plans in case this actually happens. Wonder how close we will have to get before they leak the outline and what will be on it? It would almost certainly have to include cutting SS payments by a certain percentage. Medicare reimbursements too. Probably cut federal salaries by a percentage unless it would put people under the minimum wage. Guessing that Congressional salaries might be exempt as the executive branch doesn’t have the Constitutional right to mess with the legislative branch - though with the money just not being there, I’m not sure.
Gee, polly, why not just default on the debt? That is the best solution IMO. Tough titty for the investors. We’re headed toward third-world status right now, so we might as well go all the way, get it over with and THEN we can have a recovery. While we’re at it, pull all foreign aid, that’s a good one too. The shadow spy organizations are quadruplicated, cut that stuff out. Rush that 14th amendment modification through toot sweet, that’ll help, also. Heck, turn over the furniture cushions in the West Wing for spare change.
BTW, I spoke with my Rep’s office. Default is definitely on the table and there is some bipartisan support for it. Geithner doesn’t like it, of course, but then again, I’m sure defaulting might carry with it the threat of a shortened life span for him, courtesy of foreign financial interests.
Of course, Holder could start up some major prosecutions and go for some huge settlements, that’s another option.
Of course, Holder could start up some major prosecutions and go for some huge settlements, that’s another option.
Why Holder hasn’t done this by now is one of the great mysteries of our time. I mean, I know it takes time to build a case, but jeez louise, it’s not impossible.
Gee, polly, why not just default on the debt? Because for the most part that debt is held by the wealthy and powerful.
“Rush that 14th amendment modification through toot sweet, that’ll help”
How do you rush a 14th Amendment modification? It would take another Constitutional Amendment to change the 14th- and that’s hard to rush.
What percentage of the government’s total payments are for debt servicing? Whatever it is, it isn’t anything even close to 30%. I thought I heard or read 0.7% over the weekend, but don’t hold me to that. You’d have to stop paying on the debt and drastically cut SS payments and Medicare reimbursement rates and federal salaries, etc. Or you could keep paying the debt and cut other stuff even more sharply.
Sheila Bair had a partial summary of the result on one of the Sunday shows. If you default, you lose your triple-A rating. If US debt doesn’t have a triple-A rating, then there are boatloads of institutions that have to dump their US treasury holdings and find another triple-A rated bond to hold in its place since they are required to hold a certain percentage of their assets in triple-A rated securities. The dumping and looking for substitutes is what causes the financial chaos. I understand this enough to know it would cause a huge mess. I don’t know how big of a mess or exactly what shape the mess would take.
The are going to have to disclose what mix of non-payments they are planning if we get close to the deadline.
“Kochtopus economists favor trading US gold for fiat money”
They could sell it now when the price is high, then buy it back later at a discount after the strong dollar policy has run its course.
Selling all our gold results in a strong dollar?
The PTB want EU nations to sell their gold to pay their debts as well - just heard it on bloomberg radio yesterday. See you at AU2K!
A public road is the very definition of a “public good”
Making them private would exceptionally ill-advised.
Just listened to some Adam Carolla rants on LA. Awesome! The guy speaks sooth.
He is awesome. I had to stop downloading his podcasts, though, because I was getting too behind.
Going to walk out front and watch the Endeavour shuttle launch.
I just watched it while shoveling donkey-poo. It looked like it hit (or landed on) the sun about one minute into launch, after which I could no longer see it.
Clear day here, nice view 30 seconds after lift off. From there we can see the engine exhaust flame that leaves a white trail to space. I have seen a bunch of them and it`s still awesome to watch.
Envious. On the other hand, I get to hear it landing out in the Mojave at five in the AM. Always that moment of extreme disorientation here in earthquake-land….
And here in Tucson, we’re wondering if the return of the Space Shuttle will lead to the homecoming of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Because if it does, we’re going to do something that Tucson does quite well, and that is throw a big fiesta in her honor.
Oh, speaking of big fiestas, I went to 2nd Saturdays Downtown this past weekend. At one point, I thought the crowd looked a bit thin. And I mentioned this to a buddy.
Well, me and my big mouth. About a half hour after I opened The Troublemaker, people started pouring into Downtown. Had to have been tens of thousands of them.
Oh, BTW, this event is 100% funded by the private sector. So, yes, it can be done, and oh, will the people come out in droves.
Why school taxes are high in NY:
“Interim Superintendent Lawrence Zacher denied having an affair with director of operations Paula VanMinos, whose contract includes an unusual requirement that she be granted tenure or a $308,000 payment.”
I have to premise that this story comes out days after an audit shows $300k of school funds missing.
Zacher hired VanMinos. However, no one on the school board is taking responsiblity for knowing the unusual section of the contract was added. The district is already on their 2nd school lawyer in months as the first was let go due to his own affair w/a board member and other impropieties. This was one hilarious article. The Post Std reporters actually camped out at an apt the commenters kept referring to as the love nest on Skaneateles Lake. The reporters watched Van Minos go in in the evening and then watched her leave the next morning. They basically just outed them to their spouses but it was for the good of the district which is the 2nd poorest in our county and already being roiled by other scandals before this.
Van Minos, fired from her last position for not having taken the required testing was brought in by Zacher, the interim superintendent. She was then given the work of 3 people whose positions had been cut, given a $21k raise because of the extra responsibility she took on. However then she was given an assistant because she couldn’t handle the responsiblity. No reduction in her pay.
Commenters were piping up that Jordan-Elbridge wasn’t the only district with these problems and asking the Post Standard to keep digging.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/05/the_relationship_between_two_j.html
Note to male Salaried-Exempt/manager types:
Resist the temptation to “fraternize” with the subordinates. It NEVER, EVER turns out well. Even if you aren’t actually doing anything.
A public service announcement.
(Every time I think that progress is being made getting this message thru the thick skulls of the typical male, U.S. American, dipchitz like this keep stepping out to prove me wrong.
Well almost by definition, you don’t hear about the cases where it does turn out well.
…or settled out of court. Which is most of the time.
I’m going by personal observation.
It was going “well” for one guy I knew, until he got caught playing “hiding Mr Winkie” out in the back seat of his car, when a company VP (and his boss) walked by……
“It may be the purpose of your life is to be an example for other people not to follow”.
Most corporate office are riddled with inappropriate fraternization.
There is no telling how much sexual harassment lawsuits* are adding to the cost of goods and services, but I can guarantee you it’s a lot.
*i’m sure there is, but I’m not spending the rest of day looking it up.
I woke up nice -n- early. Then I fell back asleep.
Upon my second awakening, I looked at the clock and realized that I’d missed the 5:56 a.m. MST launch.
Dang!
Finally some progress….Now where is our clueless pres on this issue?????
Bet the ACLU will fight this based on a perceived hidden racist agenda
http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/New-London-Graduation-
Requirement-Speak-English-121883654.html?dr
Back when I was a young pup, I had a teacher who was, shall we say, of a different ethnicity than my own.
She was a stickler for proper grammar and pronunciation. And for the use of proper English.
I’ll never forget how she narrowed her eyes and glared at a kid who had the nerve to say “ain’t” in her classroom. I guess that kid was trying to score coolness points, but it didn’t work.
After letting an uncomfortably long silence grip the classroom, she slowly and carefully said the following:
“Ain’t. Is. Not. A. Word.”
I also had a teacher like that in 8th grade.
“She was a stickler for proper grammar and pronunciation. And for the use of proper English.”
But she used to say…..
It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought stupid, than to open it and remove all doubt.
The “hey is for horses” started in nursery school.
I don’t remember my one black teacher (from Jamaica, I think)being a stickler for grammar though her own usage was excruciatingly proper. I do remember that she had a very odd idea that if she made me sit with the worst behaved boys in the class that they would improve their behaviour. Of course, they just tortured me, and I was scared to death that whole year. When my parents tried to tell her this, she refused to believe that I was having any trouble at all. After all, “she is so good at fractions.” I have been told that it was, probably, a cultural issue. She thought they needed a good example to learn how to behave. It likely didn’t occur to her that misbehaving was their goal.
Intermediate school was horrible. Even junior high was better than 5th and 6th grade.
Oh, Polly.
’tis the lot in life of the clever, well-behaved little girl; “The good example.” Mean-spirited losers made our lives a living hell–for a time….
Eventually, I figured out how to co-opt the little buggers, and my social life took a turn for the far more vivid. Combining smart disciplined girls with bored, disaffected boys equals headaches indeed for those in authority. Of such is inspired anarchy born.
It took a long time, but I eventually got a few of them to see the advantage of having me around. It wasn’t the kids from 5th grade; by high school they were in a completely different set of classes, but the ones that were still around could see the advantage of a classmate that could get the history teacher on a full hour “current events” lecture by asking one question.
Then again, I also kicked one kid across the room in 8th grade (after he dumped my books) and he was the one who got sent to the office. To this day, I have no idea if the algebra teacher saw me kick him and ignored it or just saw me on the floor picking up my books with my victim rubbing his butt.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed person is… persecuted.
LOL
Personal Finance Daily
May 12, 2011, 3:14 p.m. EDT
Real-estate nightmare looms for retirees
Just five years ago, many financial advisers were cautioning baby boomers to not count on home equity to finance any part of their retirement needs. Today, according to Robert Powell, some retirement savers are staring down the barrel of a risky obligation.
Real-estate nightmare looms for retirees
With home prices falling for nearly five years, many Americans preparing for retirement now must consider what to do with their homes should prices continue to collapse and the equity in their homes — if they are still lucky enough to have any equity — completely disappears.
Read more: Real-estate nightmare looms for retirees.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/real-estate-nightmare-looms-for-retirees-2011-05-12 - 109k -
The active article is here
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/keep-your-house-from-becoming-a-retirement-burden-2011-05-12
Muchas gracias senor Realtors Are Liars.
You’re welcome Brother Jethro.
It used to be when you turn 65 (or around there) you had a huge…
Mortgage burning party!
No more mortgage! Life gets easy!
Now it looks like the baby boomers were partying the whole time and now have huge mortgages when they want to retire.
Something will give.
Either they will work until they die or they will walk away.
It isn’t just the boomers, it is my early-70s born generation too.
How else do you think this generation can afford a $50k SUV, vacations to Disneyworld, and two kids with the entire contents of a Toys ‘R Us sitting in the playroom?
Chile….. I think I know you. Did you open the Beantown office?
I’ve wondered about that - no, joined an existing office.
Was the office opened up by Matt?
Nope - this office predates my arrival by a few decades.
Ok. We are different firms it seems. I seem to recall another guy here “drowning pool” who I thought might work for the same firm as I. He seemed to know specific details of design of our water related projects.
I think overall that “pay it down” is the best advice, albeit not nuanced enough for our would-be financial advisors.
Partying - yeah right.
Incomes have trailed inflation every year since 1973. About 10% of every dollar saved disappeared to inflation every year in the 70s. Outsourcing of manufacturing began in the 80s. Once secure jobs at AT&T became insecure after the breakup. Even government jobs got RIFed. Downsizing became rightsizing. Local housing deflation occurred in Houston and LA. Pensions replace by 401Ks that became 201Ks when the dot bomb burst.
The pace of technological change increased. Careers disappeared or are on their way out - keypunch operators, travel agents, bank tellers, forklift operators.
Keep believing the boomers deserve their fate, if you wish. If I am still around in 30 years, I will be amused to see the next generation blame yours for all of their troubles.
Keep blaming unions, too. But be aware that if you choose the wrong root cause, you cannot fix the problem. Unions and their power have been in decline for 30 years, along with the economy. Perhaps we would do better if they had more power.
“Incomes have trailed inflation every year since 1973.”
Well it isn’t quite that bad. They’ve gone up a little in some good years, but down a lot in bad years, ending up down overall.
There were some real gains in the late 1990s. More than reversed now.
My mortgage burning party is less than 5 years away…
I want an invite to that party, Jim….
Lawyers in love?
This anecdotal evidence time won’t make your assumptions any happier, naners, but most of the educated Boomers I know (and that is a great many,) don’t even HAVE a house– they rent and put their children (and grandchildren,) through school. And increasingly, pay medical bills.
All that “partying” as you call it, (which we called trying to find and make a career in a time of deflation, inflation, insane demographic competition, and paying for the future benefits of the “Greatest” generation,) well, not that many of us could AFFORD a house, nor could we qualify for a mortgage; thus we never signed up for one. (Or else we got divorced along the way and ceeded the thing to someone else to worry about.)
Those of us who do own houses actually own them. Having lived through several real estate crashes in our lifetime, we saw the folly in taking on second mortgages, variable rate mortgages, condo mortgages, balloon resets, et al. Having paid our 25% down on ten-year mortgages, we “burned” the accursed things years ago.
My guess is that the HELOC crowd is largely composed of those born after 1964–who didn’t come of age in a time of social and economic turmoil and saw easy credit as a right, not a hard-earned privilege.
Anyone have figures on this?
Yeah. 5 recessions in the last 35 years, under-reported inflation and millions of jobs sent overseas was one big effing party.
And the “fun” isn’t over yet, you worthless freeloaders.
“Many Americans preparing for retirement now must consider what to do with their homes should prices continue to collapse and the equity in their homes — if they are still lucky enough to have any equity — completely disappears.”
Be grateful for an opportunity to do something for younger generations, by having their lower housing costs offset all the public debts, higher taxes, diminished public services and benefits and lower wages they are being saddled with?
How can home equity disappear if you pay off your house over 15 to 30 years? You can still live there, can’t you?
Exactly why I DO want to buy a house. Not as an investment, but because I do not want to be 70 years old living in a rental.
But many people my age (born in the late 60’s and 70’s) have not been able to buy a home unless they had some help from mom and dad (inheritance, trust fund, etc.).
So housing will have to crash way more than it has if people like me are going to have a shot at owning a place that we can pay off before we get too old.
How can home equity disappear if you pay off your house over 15 to 30 years? You can still live there, can’t you?
Growing number of consumers pay credit card debt before mortgage
By Ylan Q. Mui and Dina ElBoghdady, Published: May 13
A significant number of Americans are now willing to lose their house to save the stuff that’s in it.
That kitchen-table calculus provides a window into the deep-seated changes in consumer psyche wrought by the financial crisis. Traditionally, home loans have perched at the top of the payment hierarchy as families have strived to ensure that a roof stayed over their heads. But as Americans unload more than $100 billion in debt leftover from the economic boom, many households face a daunting question: What to pay off first?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/growing-number-of-consumers-pay-credit-card-debt-before-mortgage/2011/05/02/AFN5OV2G_story.html - -
A significant number of Americans are now willing to lose their house to save the stuff that’s in it.
Wrongo.
They are willing to lose their house and save their credit cards that will be needed to live once they walk away.
Paid off credit cards trump a few extra mortgage payments of a house they are going to lose anyways.
Yeah, well there’s door number three - a door that is rarely opened or even talked about - and that’s cash, as in pay-as-you-go.
People need to wake up and stop playing this debt game. Working hard and then sending a big chunk of one’s hard-earned money to strangers is nuts.
It is a good idea except you almost need a credit card to live nowadays.
To rent a hotel room, to rent a car, to start the rental application for an apartment, etc.
My “credit card” looks like the real deal, but it’s really a bank account card.
Some of us DO manage to use a CC as a payment device and still don’t spend more than we make in a month. When did carrying a balance become “normal”?
Some of us DO manage to use a CC as a payment device and still don’t spend more than we make in a month. When did carrying a balance become “normal”?
I agree, Jim A.
Matter of fact, I pay my card down to zero every month. I’d be willing to bet that a lot of other HBB-ers do so as well.
Well yeah they need to retain their ability to pay for food.
Wonder what the chinese will want from us…
——————-
Greek islands will not be offered as loan collateral, warns prime minister
The Observer | Sunday 15 May 2011 | Heather Stewart and Andrew Clark
Greece’s prime minister has hit out at fellow European nations for demanding “islands or monuments” as security for bailout loans ahead of a gathering of European finance ministers in Brussels on Monday to discuss the country’s ailing finances.
Despite the conviction in financial markets that Greece’s debts are unsustainable and will ultimately have to be restructured, eurozone ministers appear determined to top up last year’s €110bn rescue package while forcing the beleaguered country into an ever tighter fiscal squeeze.
Prime minister George Papandreou gave a hint on Saturday of his frustration over the terms being discussed by creditor nations, which include Germany and France, by suggesting that they might demand a mortgage over Greece’s historic antiquities – or even a lien over some of the country’s Aegean islands.
“Wonder what the chinese will want from us…”
If you are aware of their demographics, the answer is obvious — girls.
again see the repayment plan posted above.
That’s going to be a tough sell here in the USA, WT Economist.
While men in this country seem to have quite the thing for Asian girls, the same is not true of our women. They aren’t exactly hot on the trail of Asian men.
First you get the money….then you get the women.
“They aren’t exactly hot on the trail of Asian men.”
You mean they aren’t into patriarchal, authoritative men?
Who were spoiled by their mothers? (Not limited to Asian cultures.)
“…They aren’t exactly hot on the trail of Asian men.”
The ones living in PRC sure are. You’d be surprised how many American girls are over there “teaching English” and meeting the future leaders of the country. And marrying them.
Consider also, that having one’s Chinese son marry an American, move to USA for grad school, and BUY A HOUSE here is a time-honored way for new Chinese oligarchs to ferret their money out of PRC and into establishing a foothold in the American economy. (The $250K bond required for legal sponsorship=the price of livable home in California. Clever, huh?)
New husband becomes a citizen, gets his MBA, invests Maymay and Baba’s “retirement funds” in local real estate, and brings them over from the mainland to live with them in San Diego when things go weird back home.
As the global economy continues to tank, look for more and more US females to go husband-hunting abroad. Educated twenty-somethings don’t have the racial and ethnic hangups of many of their elders– and money, power, and connections will always be attractive.
I could see this when upper class Chinese are involved. Middle class guys might not have the same appeal.
Of course, the guys who aren’t getting any girls are the working class serfs. I doubt too many American girls are aiming that low.
Wonder what the chinese will want from us…
Somebody keeps bringing up the total value of the USA. I wonder what the total value of Taiwan is?
Somebody keeps bringing up the total value of the USA.
Go ahead, submit your best guesstimation!
Yesterday was a great day to be outside so my wife and I went to a few open houses. The Monterey area of Monterey, Pacific Grove, Carmel and Carmel Valley had some 50-60 open houses with most selling $900K up into the millions. We had yet to see a house that we liked as most were shoddy built and designed and that was true for the two that piqued our interest from the on-line descriptions. On the drive over to one we pasted another open house that
we knew nothing about, so on the way back we stopped in with the attitude of ‘what the heck why not’. Wow, no street appeal but what charm! Too pricy for now but it set a standard for any others we will see from now on.
900k for a shack huh? Madness…. sheer lunacy.
Curb appeal is overrated. As the owner of the house, you will not spend all that much time looking at it from the street. If it is nice from the inside and the backyard, that is for your benefit. The curb appeal is all for your neighbors.
There is a squat, beige painted brick house that I pass on my way to downtown Bethesda. I call it the ugliest house in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Decrepit trampoline with safety surround in the unraked front yard. It looks like it might be kind of cool on the inside.
Or drive down Strathmore Avenue in Garrett Park and see the brick houses, all looking alike, one after the other. Looks like junk from the outside, but those houses dont stay on the market for long. I saw one getting over $500 a square foot. DOM was about 10 days.
Well, but that is mostly a location thing, isn’t it?
Yeah, it is - just like the house you are describing. May be the ugliest house around, but it still has the desirable Bethesda address with access to Whitman HS.
Well technically that’s Garrett Park Estates. Which is not part of the incorporated town of Garrett Park. /snob
The first time our realtor drove us by the house we eventually bought, I refused to even go inside. The place was butt-ugly. It had these weird angled 2×4s holding up a deep roof overhang. They reminded me of flying buttresses. The garage had these little windows with painted shutters that looked like eyes staring at me.
She and my hubby persuaded me to take a look, and the place was much nicer inside than out. Twenty-one years later, it still isn’t the most attractive house on the block–nothing we can do about the fact that the garage is all you see from the street–but some landscaping, a new garage door and siding, and taking down the flying buttresses improved its appearance greatly.
So much for the “arab spring”
I wonder how the european home buyers are doing in North Africa? I saw many of them on the HGTV International - and most were all cash deals.
—————-
A taste of the future-Events in Egypt over the weekend do not bode well for what’s ahead
Jerusalem Post | 05/15/2011 | BARRY RUBIN
First the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood said it wouldn’t run a candidate for president and would only contest one-third of the parliamentary seats. Then, it said it wouldn’t run a presidential candidate and would contest 50 percent of the parliamentary seats. Even that is misleading, since it could arrange with other Islamist parties not to compete against each other, thus adding 5-10% more Islamists (a majority).
Now the Muslim Brotherhood says it will run a presidential candidate who might even conceivably win the election. Oh, but he will run as an independent.
Ah, but it’s okay because, according to Reuters, Abdel Moneim Abul Futuh, the Brotherhood’s candidate for president, is a leading “reformist member” of the Brotherhood’s Shura Council, its highest governing body. Right! He wants to “reform” Egypt into an Islamist state.
The bottom line is that for the first time this week, a Brotherhood takeover of Egypt in 2011 is really possible.
So here are our alternatives:
Best-case scenario: A radical nationalist president, Moussa, and a strong Islamist contingent in parliament that will have a big influence in writing the new constitution. Moussa is anti-Israel and anti-American, but might be restrained by his pragmatic streak. On the other hand, the need to play demagogue – he won’t have any money with which to subsidize more food, provide additional jobs or keep the Islamists happy, or even outbid them – pushes him toward adventurism.
Worst-case scenario: A Brotherhood president and parliament transforming Egypt into an Islamist state, fully backing Hamas, subverting US influence and that of other Arab states, and potentially waging a full-scale war with Israel.
Remember that President Barack Obama said that having the Brotherhood in government is okay with him. So I guess he’ll just watch the results of his handiwork and cheer them on.
A taste of the future was provided by the massive anti-Israel demonstrations in Cairo on Friday. Supposedly the rally was to protest sectarian violence in Egypt, but it turned into one favoring more sectarian violence next door.
Tempest in a faux teapot.
Muslim Brotherhood is akin to our Baptist Church. Lots of members, lots of schisms. Some espouse religious violence (Holy war in Iraq anyone? Kill all the OB-GYN’s?) Some get elected to high government positions. (Jimmy Carter? George W. Bush?) Lots of rhetoric and hyperbole. (Palin, Trump were running for high office, too. Lots of verbal restraint there….) Seems to me America’s adventures in the Middle East have killed a whole lot more folks than the MB ever did.
Unless you’re an Egyptian citizen, it’s not really any of your business who the country chooses in a democratic election, is it. Is it? You want the US fighting another of Israel’s wars now, naners? I mean we’ve only got three, er, two, er four going right now….
The National Association of Realtors is a crime syndicate
AS it focuses on patterns of behavior
IT focuses on patterns of behavior
FOCUSES on patterns of behavior
ON patterns of behavior
PATTERNS of behavior
patterns of behavior
patterns of behavior
patterns of behavior
patterns
OF
BEHAVIOR
You know what REALLY chaps me: When you go to an open house or you see a listing online, and they don’t know or don’t mention the school district. Yesterday we decided to see an open house on our way to an out of the way Mexican joint a friend recommended. When I asked the young Gordon Gekko RE mogul running the open house about the school district he said “You know, THATS a good question. I’m not too sure. I’ll find out and call you. Are you working with an agent?”.
See, my wife has told me to tone it down when I run into a moron Realtor, but the NY in me doesn’t allow people to try to run BS by me. Its just shocking because the school district is one of the first five questions people will ask about the place. Yeah, I know I can go online to the school districts website and find it, but seriously - we are gonna find out anyways, why not just tell us.
BTW - It was a decent townhome but not for us. Been on the market over 100 days with only a $5,000 price drop. I’ve told people the DC Metro area was softening up, and this is just the first crack.
“You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike”
That is what I think of when I see the town house developments in the DC area. Twisty little streets. Nearly identical facades. And you have to escape the whole thing to find anything other than more town houses. It would be OK if it was just a street or two within a more normal urban/suburban environment, but it isn’t. They go on twisting and twisting and twisting.
Ah! The old Colossal Cave game. Watch out for wits end!
That brings back memories.
I’d interpret his response to mean that 1) it’s not in a “prime” district and 2) he’s so anxious for potential buyers to harass that he’s desperate for your contact info.
What I hate is when an ad lists no information but the school district, like I’m supposed to know where it is. But then again I’m just curious what the shacks are going for and not really looking either.
“You know what REALLY chaps me: When you go to an open house or you see a listing online, and they don’t know or don’t mention the school district.”
I see that all the time around here. Having been following this market for three years, I now know just about all of the school boundaries, so you’d think any agent around here would too.
The quality of schools here vary widely, even within the same district. So if the house goes to one of the highly regarded schools, an on-the-ball agent typically lists the schools by name. Many just put the district number. Occasionally a house in a highly regarded school won’t have the school’s name, and I wonder if its because that agent was too lazy to look it up or fearful of being on the hook for a mistake.
I remember when Poway, CA’s main selling point was its school district. House ad’s woould proudly proclaim “Poway schools”.
I guess back then that was code for “No gang bangers or illegals”. I have no idea if Poway schools are still held in high regard in metro San Diego.
I have no idea if Poway schools are still held in high regard in metro San Diego.
”
yes they are, and they are very good at sports . My kids went there from Phoenix AZ and were way ahead of their peers in all subjects. I guess because the weather is ideal in poway ( a bit humid I think ) sports are pushed big time.
AZ is not known for its great schools so with Poway being worse what does that say? lots of school aid lunches in Poway so its possible I went to a low rent discrit school in Poway while I lived in a high rent district in Phoenix - Ahwatukee in the the kyrene district.
I pretty much know the boundaries too, and I have the school districts address generator thing bookmarked for easy access - BUT when the agent is trying to sell a house it is frustrating when they can’t mention OR have it written down:
1) The schools
2) The taxes
3) The HOA fees
Seriously, like I said Im gonna find out anyways, and which do you think is a better salesman:
A) “This is in the __________ School district which has great reviews and awards, with low HOA fees and taxes, which are $________ a month.”
or
B) “Ummm…..aahhhh…(insert insecure chuckle here) good question. Im not too sure. Are you working with an agent? I’ll call you and let you know”
or
C) “Wow! No one has asked me that before! Ummmm….let me go into the kitchen, it has granite counter tops, and check on that. The info, which is on the granite counter tops, should have it. Now where is that sheet…..its somewhere on these granite counter tops.”
For the most part, in the DC metro area, the school districts are the county boundaries. So you have the Montgomery County Schools, Fairfax County Schools etc… Although as others have pointed out there can be a big difference between the individual schools within a district.
E.U. Presses Ahead With Bailout Talks Despite I.M.F. Chief’s Absence
By STEPHEN CASTLE
Published: May 16, 2011
BRUSSELS — Despite the absence of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, European finance ministers pressed ahead Monday with talks expected to approve a bailout for Portugal and debate new aid to debt-strapped Greece.
But the scandal engulfing Mr. Strauss-Kahn cast a long shadow, depriving ministers of the advice of a powerful and experienced European with a pivotal role on the global financial stage.
A former French economy minister, Mr. Straus-Kahn was a member of the political generation that created the euro, someone who had the respect of the euro zone’s most senior politicians and officials.
And, though most diplomats expected him to leave the I.M.F. soon anyway to to run for president of France next year, the thought that he might now depart under a cloud increased concerns that the cosy arrangement under which a European gets to lead the fund is in doubt.
European officials insisted that the absence of Mr. Strauss-Kahn — to be replaced by a deputy — would not affect Monday’s meeting or policy toward Greece, Ireland and Portugal, the three euro-zone nations that have requested international assistance.
“There’s absolutely no question: Decisions which are under way will not be impacted and this will not have an impact on the programs being applied,” said Amadeu Altafaj Tardio, a spokesman at the European Commission, the executive of the European Union.
The I.M.F., he added, “remains a strong institution as it always has been and there will be full continuity.”
But even with Mr. Strauss-Kahn at the helm, Europeans have felt a hardening of attitudes at the I.M.F., where concerns have grown in North America about Europe’s internal policy divisions over the debt crisis.
…
Eric and Ashley update from yesterdays Bits. Tried a longer version earlier that didn’t make the team.
Walking Dozer by their house with Pod in driveway last night about 9pm. 2009 BMW pulls in, passenger side door opens and Ashley tells Erick (in not a nice tone of voice) ” I am going to (not audible) and you just stay the **** away from me.” She walks around the Pod and into the garage. Eric gets out of the BMW looking like a whipped puppy and follows (not too closely) behind. Large pile out at the road for Monday garbage pick up.
Could be some good resale stuff in that garbage pile. I’d wait for them to leave and check it out.
(As long as they don’t have kids still in diapers).
Its when the good times and easy money end that you find out what your marriage is made of.
“…….stay the **** away from me.”
Line item #1 on the ex-wife’s “Normal Operations” checklist.
Which is one of the reasons she’s the ex-wife, and I have a “Glamour Shots” photo of my right hand on my desk……
And most of them aren’t made to last.
My other favorite: it’s always the one with the original harebrained scheme that gets angry first when their doomed to failure from the git go master plan blows up.
Wondering about switching health insurance somehow:
Premiums: $8800/year
Deductibles $1000X4(3 of us met it last year so $3000)
50% presciption coverage (just not for the FDA approved meds I am prescribed for; nor birth control to treat wifes uterine fibroids)
annual Drug cost: $5000
So even if status quo; no new major changes/surgeries (having a cervical MRI tomorrow for neck pain that has continued past fusion surgery); health care for my family costs at least $17k per annum. Plus dental out of pocket. Wondering if I could do better.
We qualify for Oregon Health Plan for the kids; but there is a waiting list and the first qualification is that the kids start with no insurance. Which would put my (one paid for house)asset at risk should something happen while we run the kids without insurance.
Also I need several thou worth of dental work; and couple more for the family; and my daughter wants braces.
Facebook offers a no-cost dental van in Prineville(they put a data storage center/cooling center there; which is actually available to anyone(my mom overheard this at the grocery yesterday), not just P-ville students, so that is sounding great. Thanks, Mark Z.!
So I am trying to find a teaching job with bennies; but will likely not find one plus I need a masters to keep up my license by 2013 and have not pursued it yet.
Anyone wanna chime in on this one? My wife BTW, is a lunch lady and lives lavishly. Plus a P/T grocery checker.
We’ve been switched to a HD plan at work and its been nothing but out of pocket costs left and right. Our family dedictible is 3000, and we’re almost there. Soon we’ll see just how good our new insurance is. I have a hunch they’re gonna try to weasel out of everything.
Weasel out of it? What makes you a say thing like that?
Premiums: $8800/year
Deductibles $1000X4(3 of us met it last year so $3000)
50% presciption coverage (just not for the FDA approved meds I am prescribed for; nor birth control to treat wifes uterine fibroids)
annual Drug cost: $5000
So even if status quo; no new major changes/surgeries (having a cervical MRI tomorrow for neck pain that has continued past fusion surgery); health care for my family costs at least $17k per annum. Plus dental out of pocket. Wondering if I could do better.
Hate to break the news to you, but doing better is not going to be easy. It seems like the health “insurance” companies are trying to gouge us for as much as they can while they still can.
Sorry to be such a Debbie Downer on a Monday morning. And, yes, the quotes around the word “insurance” are deliberate.
Are you sure they don’t have rules that you can’t drop your coverage to lose it for your kids so you can get them on the waiting list for state subsidized coverage? They may not ask questions that go that deep, but it seems like an obvious inquiry when a family goes from having private, individual insurance to not having it. And I know you guys aren’t doing that well, but you seem to be able to afford to pay it since you are living in the house for free and collecting rent on the other one.
“uterine fibroids” = too much info
Well she can get em flushed out with a blast of hot water or get a partial hysterectomy. Her mom, auntie, sister have all had grapefruit sized growths removed. She has the uterus of a 3 month pregnancy; without a bambino. TMI????
I love my wife dearly; she works her ass off raising kids, working part time jobs; and the intolerable task of loving me.
I got lucky. $$ be damned you cant take it with you.
Which is why my folks are going to buy a little fiveclosure(well there are more than four of ‘em) for us to live in while we continue to receive rent payments from our tenant.
Its true our pensions lie in our parent’s wealth. I’m 42 BTW
Well we found out we now qualify for food stamps and need to drop the kids off our insurance for two months to qualify for Oregon Health Plan. But no guarantees regarding timely pick up after two months as there is a wait list and other beaurocratic stuff. but OHP may be our plan (just wont let the kids outside with their friends for awhile) Which includes dental, and no cost medical.
Scary to have them off the plan, cuz they tend to break bones and such, or heaven forbid an illness or hospital stay. Could come out of our paid for house. Which in my book seems to be doing OK for right now, as the proverbial mortgage burning party has already occurred. But I blew a $hitload of cash and regret it a bit.
We are still doing well all things considered. Got happy kids on the honor role. Folks just told us they are buying us a home and taking care of the payments and insurance until they pass; then we shall inherit their paid off home with my sis, of course, as well. they aren’t rich but they both have pensions, mom from teaching and dad from being an gs13 EE for Point Mugu Naval Base. So they still travel the world at will and live a snowbird lifestyle. They have been down under more times that I can count.
And flippin’ housing money has us flush with toys w/o helocs. Paid cash for a non-covered neck surgery, grad school (well at least a teaching license) cars w/o loans 2 late model CRV’s, truck and travel trailer, skis and bikes, sports equipment and a house full of furniture. Jacuzzi, etc. Laptops galore; 100 DVDs. And the list goes on. Sold two homes furnished as well(one guy bought it included in a rent to own deal but stole the furniture I agreed to sell him for 6k when he decided he was not buying the house after all; he did pour 17k worth of non-refundable down payment money so we did not pursue it). Spain for two months; ski passes, surfing trips to California, campground memberships. that’s what happens when you hand a 30 yr old half a million dollars; he don’t budget so well. Got to play landlord investor and It’s high time to learn new ways of austerity that’s for sure.
So we have lived large; time to live small. And its like the last 15 years we have been enjoying a semi-retirement; with the houses paying the bills. Enjoying the kids with two stay at home parents.
The music has stopped; gotta figure out something. Don’t want the dole; but since we qualify sure as heck gonna take it before a Heloc on the house. Houses were making us so much money it did not pay to work. 30k teaching job or 100k per year per house?? Plus rental income! Party time; now its over and let the flames begin. Money like water in the hands spilling out all over the dam place. Did not see the party ending or the HBB for that matter. Thank you for following my story guys; it’s an epitome of the FB to say the least, with a few twists cuz we ain’t belly up just yet as some sure are.
“My wife BTW, is a lunch lady and lives lavishly.”
I’m not very worldly, so what is a lunch lady?
Really? The person who scoops the meat shreds in gravy and plops it on the kids’ plates in the school cafeteria. Lunch lady.
I couldn’t associate “lunch lady” and “lives lavishly.” Not sure if that was humor, or another humble man living a lonely life of desperation.
She works at the cafeteria at a K-12 school. There are often minimum wage jobs with no benefits.
“She works at the cafeteria at a K-12 school.”
My kids said they’re called meal servers.
Welcome to the Real World of health care “insurance” costs.
One of the reasons why those of us who are not employed in a government or union-subsidized job are not all that sympathetic to calls for cuts in your pension benefits.
Those expenses you decry are what the (few,) rest of us get to subsidize–for you, and for your offspring–at the expense of our own health care. Add that 17K (plus whatever we subsidize for the cost of your actual care,) to your wife’s wages, and that goofy little “lunch lady” job pays pretty well doesn’t it–maybe even excessively so?
Most of the country already has a “single-payer” health care system. They just don’t realize how much it costs when we let the “insurance” industry define it.
“Add that 17K (plus whatever we subsidize for the cost of your actual care,) to your wife’s wages, and that goofy little “lunch lady” job pays pretty well doesn’t it–maybe even excessively so? ”
Uh … she doesn’t get any bennies at her job. They’re paying the 17K out of their own pocket. From what Mike was saying, they’re paying for everything. There is no juicy union job. His wife has two, no bennie part time jobs, which is typical of the bottom 50% these days.
I may be mistaken, but ISTR that Mikeinbend and his wife were both covered by union benefits at one time–and Mike, in particular, has used the health subsidy system extensively. It is only since they’ve been downsized that they’re coming face-to-face with what it really costs the rest of us to maintain their health “insurance” policy.
My point here (not directed specifically at our courageous poster but at the typical RE Speculator/contractor husband with a County Employee wife providing the family benefits,) is that these people generally have no clue what it costs for their out-of-pocket health care– and are horrified when they find out.
Moreover, we are all paying the price for them–so we might as well go single payer and cut out the insurance middlemen.
The costs are quite remarkable. I went from being covered by the employer to paying my own insurance. Cobra costs are at a minimum 400 bucks a month, just for me. My googling indicates this is around the average for one person. I’m in the process for applying for an individual health plan. That will hopefully be around 200 bucks a month, for basically a reduced rate at the doctor’s. I imagine someone with a family and a pre-existing condition is going to be paying several times this amount, if they actually manage to successfully buy coverage. The exclusions are insane. They can actually actually sell a policy that specifically doesn’t pay for a pre-existing condition. Remarkable.
I had no idea.
I sort of knew it was expensive, but the it was always masked by the employer paying it.
Wha…?
He said his wife has no benefits. That it pays near min wage.
You’ve lost me.
Subsidized? How do you figure? No more than any other jobs.
Mikeinbend, I don’t know if you can do better. You might be able to find something that covers more of your drug costs.
For my husband and I - 10K for premiums, $1300 deductible each. I never meet mine. In some years, he does. Ours is a company group plan for which we pay the whole premium.
We dropped our son this year. I figured we could buy him a lot of actual care for the extra $5K in premiums. If something catastrophic happens - like breaking a bone in 3 places with surgery and hardware to the tune of $32K (actual numbers for an event that happened in 2004) - he can declare bankruptcy. That is assuming that it is not an auto accident for which injuries would be covered.
It is ridiculous that a simple thing like fixing a broken bone could cost enough to bankrupt a 24 year old.
He may be able to get a catastrophic individual plan for about $100 per month with a $5K deductible.
ahansen
I never had anything but individual heath plan save for a few months as a teacher. Paid 50k cash for a discectomy that Blue Cross Blue Shield would not cover after they gave me the goahead w/ preapproval. Said microdiscectomy was experimental but that is what I was pre-approved for. Blindsided by that but not bankrupted….Yet That 50k would come in mighty handy right about now, but I blew that much frivolously as well.
But lived high on the hog with housing gains; always with private insurance. Never filed a single claim during my short stint as a covered teacher. Portability(1 time only) allowed us to get private coverage back.
Back from 12 days in central Portugal followed by 4 days in Barcelona. Here is my promised report, for what little it may be worth. I have tried to focus on economic observations, but it’s part travelogue too.
Portugal appears less prosperous than other European countries I have visited in the past 6 years: Italy, Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Greece (all pre-financial crisis/ bailouts). Of course, Portugal has long been the least well-off country in western Europe. Still, we found it to be a charming and beautiful place with hospitable people. We spent several days on the Atlantic coast, first in the pricey resort town of Cascais and then in the fishing town Nazare, which served as a good base for exploration. Then we went on to Lisbon for the remainder.
I have never seen the number of abandoned buildings—some of them long-empty—that I saw in Portugal, particularly Lisbon but also the much smaller town of Nazare. We saw multistory, once-beautiful office and residential structures that had fallen into disrepair. One block of three stately commercial or perhaps combined commercial/residential buildings on a busy street in downtown Lisbon had all the windows and doors bricked up and had splendid artwork covering the exterior walls. Some otherwise abandoned apartment buildings showed evidence of perhaps one remaining tenant, usually on the top floor. I read (in Rick Steves’ guide) that rent control has led many landlords to give up on trying to renovate or sell properties because it just doesn’t make economic sense to pour money into a building that won’t bring sufficient return on investment. Elderly pensioners will stay in their apartment until they die, and there is nothing the landlord can do but wait them out. There were signs listing some properties for sale or rent, but I would say the majority of the empty or nearly-empty buildings had no sign. Some new construction or renovation is going on in Lisbon, especially in its more affluent areas such as the Bairro Alto and Estrela. These areas also had fewer crumbling shells.
Most people live in apartment buildings, even relatively far from the city center, and miles outside of Lisbon proper I was a bit surprised to see high-rise apartment complexes. We did not see any new housing developments that appeared to have stopped in mid-phase of development, although we read that such places exist, possibly in the south near the Algarve, the big tourist beach area.
Despite the reported high rate of unemployment, we saw no evidence of loitering and never felt unsafe. There is a huge amount of graffiti virtually everywhere, though. Cork production has long been a big part of Portugal’s economy, and with the increasing use of either synthetic wine ‘corks’ or screw-top bottles, this industry is threatened. Vegetable plots small and large are tucked into every square foot of available space. With the abundance of fresh seafood and the excellent wines, it occurred to me that one could choose a worse place to spend the apocalypse.
Our innkeeper in Nazare told us the Portuguese government is so desperate for money that they are turning to demanding more taxes and fees from individuals. In the innkeeper’s case, her husband, a Canadian citizen who is receiving retirement benefits from Canada, has recently been billed for payments into Portugal’s social retirement system dating back to 2002, when they started their bed and breakfast. Never mind that he waived his right to collect retirement benefits from the Portuguese government when the business was incorporated. Portugal wants him to pay 15 years of payments into the system, nine of them retroactive. This amounts to over 12,000 euros of back payments. He supposedly can get it refunded after he has paid in for those 15 years (the owners aren’t expecting the gov’t to make good on this, of course). They have been advised to hire an attorney.
Lisbon has an efficient and quite beautiful subway system, and buses as well as trolleys run frequently. Rides cost less than 1 euro per trip if you purchase a daily or multiday pass. The streets bustle with people going about their business, and no hint of desperation or despair was obvious to my tourist’s eye.
There is an excellent road system, but all the best highways are toll roads operated by private companies. The tolls are high and consequently these roads are not congested, as most locals choose to avoid the tolls by taking secondary roads when they can.
Wind farms are numerous on the hilltops, often dwarfing a long-abandoned traditional windmill on the same hills.
I very much enjoyed my time in Portugal and would recommend it to anyone who has ever thought about visiting, or who is looking for a (somewhat) less-expensive alternate to Spain.
Barcelona was in many ways the opposite: cosmopolitan, prosperous, graffiti-free except on the ubiquitous roll-down corrugated metal security doors, and expensive. I liked the city, a lot. Nevertheless, it is good to be back home, despite the absolutely awful weather here.
So–how’s gold doing these days?
I’ve always been surprised at the amout of graffiti in europe. Even world-cities like Paris that are otherwise nice look like dumps due to all of the graffiti. I recognize this could be my shortcoming, as I see graffiti not as street art but as vandalism.
Back when I was a summer study abroad student in Spain, the host university had quite the tagging problem. It wasn’t just on walls. It was on desks, chairs, floors, anything that was stationery.
Fast-forward to the present day life of Slim in Tucson, Arizona. Here’s a bit of advice: If you’re a tagger, stay the heck away from the University of Arizona campus. Not only is the UA quite aggressive about the graffiti cleanup, they’re also quite diligent on the arrest and prosecution front.
Nice to know that U of A is on top of the problem. Appalling that back when you (and I) were college students, tagging was already so big.
It’s particularly puzzling to me that graffiti “artists” seem to think their work can improve a building that’s been around for centuries and already is embellished with real art. In Portugal, many buildings have partially or completely tiled exteriors that may be centuries old. It’s sad to see this art defaced with spray paint. Even sadder that no one bothers to clean it off. Or maybe they’ve given up after a few dozen times scrubbing down the building.
Some otherwise abandoned apartment buildings showed evidence of perhaps one remaining tenant, usually on the top floor. I read (in Rick Steves’ guide) that rent control has led many landlords to give up on trying to renovate or sell properties because it just doesn’t make economic sense to pout money into a building that won’t bring sufficient return on investment.
Well, a few days ago Big V informed us that any rent is better than nothing, and that there must be something wrong with any landlord who can’t figure that out. So I guess there must be something wrong with people in Portugal too.
I am glad you had a nice trip. Cascais is the town where I lived. I was about 1.5 miles north of the harbor, living in one of those big apartment complexes. I loved that apartment, it was very nice, 2 bedrooms 2 bath and had 2 balconies, hardwood and tile floors and a large kitchen.
Did you try the local wines?
Good, inexpensive wine coming out of Portugal now.
Wine- my second favorite commodity- continues its deflationary spiral.
Did I try the local wines! Every opportunity I could! And not a one of them bad. Cascais is a beautiful area.
The 2 things I miss the most, the people and the wine.
Following the discussions on some blogs on whether the IMF guy has diplomatic immunity or not.
Evidently, he only has immunity for “work related” matters.
Others are making the point that he does have immunity, since screwing people is standard procedure for the IMF.
At my first law firm I knew a member of an extremely wealthy French family. My officemate was the Italian foreign lawyer so I often had lunch with the foreign lawyer group.
He was somewhat newly married, and declared once that his primary responsibility with respect to faithfulness to his wife was to be discreet. As long as he didn’t humiliate her by making affairs public knowledge, he saw no issue with it at all. The idea of actually being faithful long term didn’t seem to occur to him. I’d say that getting charged with assault and attempted rape doesn’t qualify as discreet, so Mr Strauss-Kahn didn’t live up to this particular standard of the French upper class. Then again, I googled the former co-worker and discovered he is now living with a girlfriend and is paying over half a million dolllars a year to his ex-wife in alimony and child support. I guess he didn’t pull off the discreet thing either.
You have to love poetic justice.
“Discreet” is for losers
Signed,
Tiger Woods
Filed under: Trains can’t die in America!
Missed chance? Texas gets 500+ GE rail jobs
May 16th, 2011, by Mary Ann Milbourn / OC Register
GE Transportation has announced plans for a $96 million locomotive manufacturing plant that will create an initial 500 jobs in Fort Worth, Tex. by next year and up to 275 more later. The company will also expand its longtime Erie, Penn. headquarters, adding 250 workers.
Emissions requirements mean more new locos will be needed. Evidently a two stroke diesel (EMD has one) can be made to run cleaner than the predominant four stroke diesel engines. I’ve read that GE is playing a little catch up on this.
GE Transportation has announced plans for a $96 million locomotive manufacturing plant that will create an initial 500 jobs in Fort Worth, Tex. by next year and up to 275 more later. The company will also expand its longtime Erie, Penn. headquarters, adding 250 workers.
The GE Locomotive plant in Erie is/was massive. I think at one time over 5,000 people worked there.
It has gone through some hard times in the recent past. You could easily fit all these new hires there.
I wonder why GE is building an entirely new plant in Texas?
FYI - The Erie plant is 100% militant unionized. To the point of sabotaging their own products to make sure management understands their “point”.
All Aboard,…Amtrak!
“Adding 250, $12hr, no benefits workers.”
Fixed it for you.
Oops. Missed the rest of the numbers.
Make that 1000, $12hr, no benefits employees.
This is Texas.
Home of the $20,000 dollar rental mobile home, with the $50,000 F-150 King Ranch 4×4 parked outside.
Yeah, those anti-union Texans are sooooooo smart.
The right side of the Jib-Jab teeter-totter lost a heavy weight contender, awaiting to see the “re-balancing”…
Trump announces he will not run for president:
By Rachel Rose Hartman
Skeptics viewed Trump’s flirtation with a presidential run as a publicity stunt–aimed, perhaps, at boosting ratings for “The Apprentice” or the Trump brand generally. If that was indeed Trump’s motivation, the tactic didn’t work–viewership for Trump’s reality franchise fell off as campaign speculation swirled around its star. Meanwhile, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee–who announced on Saturday that he, too, was ruling out a 2012 presidential run–will hold on to a lucrative contract with Fox News. Huckabee had previously noted that a decision to run would mean “that I walk away from a pretty good income”–suggesting once more that a high-profile national political campaign may not be all that beneficial to an established media brand.
We needs mo money…
Treasury to tap pensions to help fund government
~ Washington Post
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has warned for months that the government would soon hit the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling — a legal limit on how much it can borrow. With that limit reached Monday, Geithner is undertaking special measures in an effort to postpone the day when he will no longer have enough funds to pay all of the government’s bills.
Geithner, who has already suspended a program that helps state and local government manage their finances, will begin to borrow from retirement funds for federal workers. The measure won’t have an impact on retirees because the Treasury is legally required to reimburse the program.
The maneuver buys Geithner only a few months of time. If Congress does not vote by Aug. 2 to raise the debt limit, Geithner says the government is likely to default on some of its obligations, which he says would cause enormous economic harm and the suspension of government services, including the disbursal of Social Security funds.
Of course, balancing the budget doesn’t even enter the conversation. Threats to throw the oldsters under the bus, the end of the world and all that. Sounds like a familiar movie.
Double Digit Inflation has Arrived
16 May 2011 By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
New inflation figures were released by the government last week, and the news was not good. The headline inflation number was 3.2% in the 12 months that ended in April. That is more than a percent above the Federal Reserve’s “target” rate of 2% and the first time it has been more than 3% in over than 2 ½ years. Of course, the accounting gimmicks used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) understate true inflation, so things look better than reality. Nonetheless, in the latest report from economist John Williams of Shadowstats.com, even the government’s own “official” numbers will likely show double digit inflation in the next three months or so. The reason is continued money printing in the form of another round of Quantitative Easing (QE) by the Fed to prop up the struggling economy. Williams said, “The underlying pace of official inflation is accelerating, and could move into double-digits in third-quarter 2011. Preceding or coincident with that likely will have been some move to QE3 by the Fed and intense—if not panicked—selling of the U.S. dollar and dollar-denominated assets. Such a circumstance could be a base from which a hyperinflation might begin to unfold with some rapidity.”
And get this, inflation is already in double digits, according to Williams, if it was calculated the way BLS did it more than 30 years ago. Williams said, “. . . based on reporting of 1980, the April 2011 annual inflation rate would have been about 10.7%.” But, the double digit inflation story is not the one the mainstream media likes to tell. Instead, it usually focuses on what the government calls “core” inflation that excludes food and energy. The “core” inflation rate is .2%. Who lives in a world where the core of existence is not food and energy? A .2% core inflation rate is both preposterous and insulting to anyone living in the real world.
“we might renege on “our” IOU’s”…Now that’s funny, of course we will, ain’t no ‘might’ to it.
Boehner Says U.S. Must Raise Debt Limit
May 16 (Bloomberg) — Jerome Powell, a visiting scholar at the Bipartisan Policy Center and former undersecretary at the U.S. Treasury, talks about the outlook for raising the U.S. debt ceiling. Powell speaks with Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television’s “InsideTrack.” (Source: Bloomberg)
House Speaker John Boehner said “it’s clear” the U.S. must raise its debt limit, responding to President Barack Obama’s efforts to secure backing to extend the government’s borrowing authority.
“At some point it’s clear to me that we have to increase the debt ceiling,” Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said yesterday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “And as we do, we’re going to do it in a way that addresses America’s long-term fiscal challenges.”
Republicans are seeking spending cuts and no tax increases in exchange for supporting a higher debt limit. The government projected this month that the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling will be reached today. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said that while he can juggle accounts for a time, he will run out of options for avoiding default by early August.
In an April 13 speech, Obama proposed a long-term deficit- reduction package of about $4 trillion over 12 years. It would include $2 trillion in spending cuts, $1 trillion in tax increases and $1 trillion in reduced interest payments.
Failure to increase the debt limit might disrupt the global financial system and plunge the nation into another recession, Obama said on “Face the Nation” in a segment taped May 11 in Washington for broadcast yesterday.
If investors “around the world thought the full faith and credit of the U.S. was not being backed up, if they thought we might renege on our IOUs, it could unravel the entire financial system,” Obama said. “We could have a worse recession than we’ve already had.”
We must destroy our credit-worthiness, in order to save it.
Mr. Obama,
There never was a recession in your world. It never ended in ours.
Republicans are seeking spending cuts and no tax increases
and no tax increases
andno taxincreasesThe poor, poor, wealthie$, the agony, the pain,… they’re $uffering $o.
Supply side theory says any tax cuts will be more than made up by the increased economic activity that tax cuts generate.
Supply-side theory taken to it’s logical conclusion thus means that the tax rate should be zero on everybody and everything.
And the government is paid for by the magic, candy-crapping unicorns, I guess.
“We’re losing money, but we’ll make it up on volume”
Eyes in Shock & Awe!
heheeeheeeheehaahaaahaaheeehaahaaa… (Hwy50™)
Secret Desert Force Set Up by Blackwater’s Founder:
By MARK MAZZETTI and EMILY B. HAGER / Published: May 14, 2011 / NYT
The Colombians had entered the United Arab Emirates posing as construction workers. In fact, they were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide, with $529 million from the oil-soaked sheikdom.
Mr. Prince, who resettled here last year after his security business faced mounting legal problems in the United States, was hired by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi to put together an 800-member battalion of foreign troops for the U.A.E., according to former employees on the project, American officials and corporate documents obtained by The New York Times.
The force is intended to conduct special operations missions inside and outside the country, defend oil pipelines and skyscrapers from terrorist attacks and put down internal revolts, the documents show. Such troops could be deployed if the Emirates faced unrest in their crowded labor camps or were challenged by pro-democracy protests like those sweeping the Arab world this year.
The U.A.E.’s rulers, viewing their own military as inadequate, also hope that the troops could blunt the regional aggression of Iran, the country’s biggest foe, the former employees said. The training camp, located on a sprawling Emirati base called Zayed Military City, is hidden behind concrete walls laced with barbed wire. Photographs show rows of identical yellow temporary buildings, used for barracks and mess halls, and a motor pool, which houses Humvees and fuel trucks. The Colombians, along with South African and other foreign troops, are trained by retired American soldiers and veterans of the German and British special operations units and the French Foreign Legion, according to the former employees and American officials.
In outsourcing critical parts of their defense to mercenaries — the soldiers of choice for medieval kings, Italian Renaissance dukes and African dictators — the Emiratis have begun a new era in the boom in wartime contracting that began after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. And by relying on a force largely created by Americans, they have introduced a volatile element in an already combustible region where the United States is widely viewed with suspicion.
The United Arab Emirates — an autocracy with the sheen of a progressive, modern state
Coming soon to a theater near you.
Go to the UAE and be turned into slave labor; try to leave, and get whacked by “Los Pepes in Abu Dhabi”.
Organized and trained courtesy of the US Armed Forces, and all those other upstanding “democracies”.
“Breeding pond scum” is our only growth industry.
Good God I am glad I didn’t sign up to move to Abu Dhabi.
Debt limit reached, US halts 2 pension investments
US hits debt limit, Geithner suspends investments in 2 big government employee pension funds.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Monday that he will immediately halt investments in two big government pension plans so the government can continue to borrow money.
Geithner informed Congress of his decision in a letter stating that the government had officially reached its $14.3 trillion borrowing limit. He repeated a warning that if lawmakers do not increase the borrowing limit by August 2, the government is at risk of an unprecedented default on its debt.
The debt limit is the amount of money the government can borrow to help finance its operations. The nation has reached its debt limit because the federal government has grown accustomed to borrowing massive amounts of money. The latest estimate is that it borrows 40 cents for every dollar it spends.
Republicans have said they will not vote to raise the borrowing limit until Congress and the White House agree on a plan to reduce the deficit through spending cuts. House Speaker John Boehner last week those cuts should be larger than any increase in the debt ceiling.
The deficit is the difference between what the government spends and what it takes in through taxes and other revenue. The Congressional Budget Office projects that this year’s deficit will total $1.4 trillion. That’s would nearly match 2009’s record imbalance and mark the third straight year in which the federal deficit has exceeded $1 trillion.
Vice President Joe Biden is holding negotiations with lawmakers over the types of deficit-cutting measures that need to be approved to win congressional approval of a higher debt limit.
Even though the government has reached its official borrowing limit, Geithner said unexpected revenue and bookkeeping maneuvers will allow the Treasury to continue auctioning debt for another 11 weeks.
Geithner has suspended pension payments in the past when Congress has held off raising the debt limit. The money that the two pension funds will lose will be replaced when Congress votes to raise the borrowing limit.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=186253
IMF head denied bail for forcible sodomy of hotel maid. Perhaps someday he and his ilk will be tried for forcible sodomy of US taxpayers as well.
All eyes on Dominique Strauss-Khan for his turn in the dock
IMF chief queues up with his cellmates before facing judge in packed Manhattan courtroom
Dominic Rushe
The Guardian, Tuesday 17 May 2011
Article history
Dominique Strauss-Kahn with his laywer Benjamin Brafman during the arraignment in New York.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, centre, with his laywer Benjamin Brafman, left, during the arraignment in New York. Photograph: Getty Images
There was a gasp from spectators when Dominique Strauss-Kahn was finally led into room 130 of the Manhattan criminal court. It wasn’t as if his appearance was unexpected. An international assembly of journalists had packed the narrow benches for the better part of a day waiting for the 62-year-old IMF boss. It was just that he looked so out of place.
Reporters stood and half crouched to get a better look before being ordered to sit down as Strauss-Kahn was brought in from a backroom in handcuffs. The French presidential candidate and alleged sex offender sat on a bench at the back of the room. He seemed to be trying to shrink himself into the corner as he waited his turn before the judge.
The proceedings started with a retinal scan, a relatively new procedure that is done in the court room. Strauss-Kahn’s cellmates lined up to have their pictures taken first. Some squinted, some widened their eyes as if in shock, some smiled, others looked defiant, one had to lift her long fringe out of the way as the cameraman moved in for her closeup. Strauss-Kahn stared into the lens looking angry, embarrassed and lost.
Looking a little like a Gallic Bernard Madoff, Strauss-Kahn wore a black mac and trousers. They would have appeared smart if they didn’t look like he had slept in them. There was little evidence of the flair and charisma that led to him being known as “the great seducer”.
Despite his slept-in appearance, DSK was still better dressed than his fellow prisoners. Most were 30-plus years younger than him, black or Latino, wearing baggy jeans and T-shirts and carrying baseball caps. All of the other middle-aged white guys in court were wearing uniforms or scribbling in notebooks. They were free to leave whenever they liked.
Most of the accused were on drug charges. Many were sent home on bail, one with a fine of $75, another with a few days’ community service. There were moments of humour. One man accused of drug possession was found with a batch of glassine bags – the packaging of choice for drug merchants. He said he used them to collect buttons.
Every seat was taken and no standing was allowed. Relatives of the accused were unable to find a perch, the accused themselves were told to wait in the corridor for their paperwork. Outside the room an international press pack lobbied for entry until eventually the authorities caved and allowed a few to line the walls.
…
This story is appalling to the point of moving me beyond disgust to incredulity. By contrast, at least Clinton and Spitzer had the decency to forge mutually consensual relations with their extra-marital partners.
I suppose the hypothesis that top bankers are “too big to jail” has been resoundingly disproved at this point.
WRAPUP 9-IMF chief denied bail, jailed in sex assault case
Mon May 16, 2011 9:36pm EDT
(PLEASE NOTE: Sexually explicit language in paragraph 9)
By Basil Katz and Edith Honan
NEW YORK, May 16 (Reuters) - IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn was denied bail and sent to New York’s notorious Rikers Island jail on Monday, a crushing blow as he fights charges that he assaulted and tried to rape a hotel maid.
Hours after his bail request was rejected, Strauss-Kahn was dispatched to a bare jail cell at Rikers, a dramatic fall for a man who oversees the world economy, has for long enjoyed a luxury lifestyle and was tipped to be France’s next president.
He is being held in protective custody in an 11-by-13-foot (3-by-4-metre) cell to prevent attack from other inmates, officials said late on Monday.
“This is not about isolating the inmate from any human contact,” said a spokesman for New York’s Department of Correction. “This is about preventing the inmate from being victimized or harmed in some way as a result of his high profile.”
Looking drained and tense, with a light stubble, Strauss-Kahn had earlier listened grimly in a Manhattan court as prosecutors detailed his alleged assault against the maid in a luxury New York City hotel suite on Saturday.
His lawyers say Strauss-Kahn, 62, is innocent. They tried to have him released on $1 million bail, but prosecutors convinced the judge he might flee to France and she ordered him held behind bars.
Strauss-Kahn faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
He is accused of attacking the 32-year-old maid when she went to clean his $3,000-a-day suite in the Sofitel hotel near Times Square.
“He sexually assaulted her and attempted to forcibly rape her. When he was unsuccessful, he forced her to perform oral sex on him,” Assistant District Attorney John McConnell told the court on Monday.
…
“The proceedings started with a retinal scan, a relatively new procedure that is done in the court room. Strauss-Kahn’s cellmates lined up to have their pictures taken first. Some squinted, some widened their eyes as if in shock, some smiled, others looked defiant, one had to lift her long fringe out of the way as the cameraman moved in for her closeup. Strauss-Kahn stared into the lens looking angry, embarrassed and lost.”
“The Chow!” –Tom Wolfe
And now, for something entirely different:
IMF chief Strauss-Kahn caught in “Honey Trap”
by Mike Whitney
Global Research, May 16, 2011
Information Clearing House
…
Strauss-Kahn had enemies in high places, too, which is why this whole matter stinks to high-Heaven. First of all, Strauss-Kahn was the likely candidate of the French Socialist Party who would have faced Sarkozy in the upcoming presidential elections. The IMF chief clearly had a leg-up on Sarkozy who has been battered by a number of personal scandals and plunging approval ratings.
But if Strauss-Kahn was set up, then it was probably by members of the western bank coalition, that shadowy group of self-serving swine whose policies have kept the greater body of humanity in varying state of poverty and desperation for the last two centuries. Strauss-Kahn had recently broke-free from the “party line” and was changing the direction of the IMF. His road to Damascus conversion was championed by progressive economist Joesph Stiglitz in a recent article titled “The IMF’s Switch in Time”. Here’s an excerpt:
“The annual spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund was notable in marking the Fund’s effort to distance itself from its own long-standing tenets on capital controls and labor-market flexibility. It appears that a new IMF has gradually, and cautiously, emerged under the leadership of Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Slightly more than 13 years earlier, at the IMF’s Hong Kong meeting in 1997, the Fund had attempted to amend its charter in order to gain more leeway to push countries towards capital-market liberalization. The timing could not have been worse: the East Asia crisis was just brewing – a crisis that was largely the result of capital-market liberalization in a region that, given its high savings rate, had no need for it.
…
LAW
MAY 17, 2011
Allegations Arise of 2nd Sexual Assault
Prosecutors Investigate 2002 Claim That Strauss-Kahn Attacked a Journalist
By DAVID GAUTHIER-VILLARS
PARIS—A New York prosecutor raised the possibility that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the International Monetary Fund chief who was arrested in New York this weekend on charges of attempted rape, may have acted similarly in a previous case.
Associated Press
Mr. Strauss-Kahn awaited his arraignment Monday in a New York court.
Assistant District Attorney John McConnell said Monday his office was probing allegations of “conduct similar to the conduct that is alleged in this complaint on one other occasion.”
A law enforcement official later said he was referring to French journalist and novelist Tristane Banon. On Monday, Ms. Banon’s mother, Anne Mansouret, alleged in a telephone interview that her daughter was assaulted by Mr. Strauss-Kahn in 2002 when she interviewed the French Socialist politician for a book. Ms. Banon was 22 at the time.
“She was assaulted,” Ms. Mansouret said. “It was a very traumatizing experience.”
A French lawyer for Mr. Strauss-Kahn didn’t return calls and emails seeking comment.
Ms. Mansouret—a Socialist politician who is seeking the party nomination for the 2012 presidential elections—said her daughter was taking legal advice to decide what to do next.
Neither Ms. Banon nor her lawyer, David Koubbi, responded to requests for comment. Mr. Koubbi on Monday told RTL Radio, a French station, that Ms. Banon planned to sue Mr. Strauss-Kahn.
Ms. Banon first gave her version of events in a 2007 interview with French television channel Paris Première. She said Mr. Strauss-Kahn grabbed her, became violent and ripped off her bra before she was able to escape from the Paris apartment where Mr. Strauss-Kahn had convened the meeting.
At the time, Ms. Banon told Paris Première she had decided against filing a complaint against Mr. Strauss-Kahn because she feared it would leave an indelible stain on her résumé.
Ms. Mansouret said Monday she had advised her daughter against filing a complaint. “I feared it would tarnish her reputation, that she would never find a job again,” she said.
Ms. Mansouret said she also feared a complaint would kick off a probe that would embarrass some of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s relatives. Ms. Banon is the goddaughter of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s second wife, Ms. Mansouret said.
Ms. Mansouret said on Monday she had spoken to Mr. Strauss-Kahn soon after the alleged 2002 assault against her daughter. Mr. Strauss-Kahn acknowledged his misconduct and apologized, Ms. Mansouret said.
“He told me he had lost his mind, blown a fuse,” Ms. Mansouret said. “He said he had acted on an impulse, that he believed it was an erotic game.”
…
Chart of the Day: The Grim State of Home Building
By Daniel Indiviglio
May 16 2011, 2:58 PM ET
Want to see what a bottom looks like in a chart? Look no further than the market for new home building. The National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo calculates a Housing Market Index, which provides a measure of how conductive the economy is to new home construction. As you can probably guess, it’s not a great time to be a home builder. In fact, it’s been an awful market since the boom peaked in 2005:
[CHART SHOWS UP HERE]
Rarely can you see the bottom of a trough so clear in a chart, but there it is. In mid-2005, the index was above 70. Since September 2007, it has only risen above 20 once — and that was only because the home buyer credit was expiring so some Americans were scrambling to beat the deadline.
Since winter, the index has become extremely stable. We learned today that it was at 16 again, for the sixth time in seven months. The bad news for home builders is that it probably won’t rise much in the near- to medium-term either. As long as distressed property sales remain high, buying and renovating an existing home is a bargain compared to breaking ground on new construction. So at the bottom of the trough this market will likely stay, until most of the massive inventory of foreclosures is worked through.
…
San Diego home prices are already at a level where there is almost no new end-user demand, yet this economist thinks we should root for higher (rising) prices to return. Go figure…
What’s Good For The Housing Market Is Good For America
By Tom Fudge
May 16, 2011
SAN DIEGO — My corruption of General Motors CEO Charlie Wilson’s famous quotation should really be a question: Is our still-depressed housing market really that bad for the economy? Marney Cox, senior economist with the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), seems to think it is.
The lagging home market is bad for construction and that’s bad for the economy.
…
Cox said low home prices may not be the cause of a bad economy but they are typically a leading indicator. Falling home prices lead us into recessions when things get bad. Rising prices lead us out of them when things improve. Simple economics also tell us that low home prices indicate a consumer base that’s still being tight with its money.
“If that’s true for that industry, could it also be true for a broader range of things, whether it’s automobiles or normal stuff you purchase at the store?” he said.
Borrowing against your home to buy consumer goods may not be a great idea, but Cox said it’s more simple economics. The greater your asset value the more likely you’ll be leverage it to spend on other things. And a country that’s isn’t consuming a lot of goods is one that will remain in a slow economy.
Cox added that the construction industry is very sensitive to the housing market. When home prices are high, construction jobs increase. In San Diego, 40 percent of the job losses we had during the recession came from the loss of construction jobs.
The moral of the story we hear from Cox is root for higher home prices. It may be bad for people looking to buy. But Cox suggests what good for home prices really is good for America.
So much for the red-hot SoCal spring sales season.
California home sales and prices fell in April
A weak home shopping season leaves sales in California down 6.1% and the median price down 2.4% from April 2010.
…
Sales fell statewide to 35,202 in April, a 3.3% decrease from March and 6.1% drop from April 2010, according to real estate research firm DataQuick of San Diego.
“What’s clear now is that 2011 is off to a slow start,” DataQuick President John Walsh said in a news release. “But it’s a little soon to write off the rest of the year.”
The median home price statewide was $249,000 last month, the same as March and down 2.4% from a year earlier. The median is the point at which half of the homes sold for more and half for less.
So-called distressed property — foreclosures and short sales — made up more than half the sales of previously owned homes last month.
Foreclosures amounted to 36.6% of the resale market, down from 39.1% in March and 38.1% in April 2010. Short sales, in which a lender allows a home to be sold for less than the outstanding debt on the property, consisted of 17.6% of the market, up from 17.2% in March but down from 17.7% in a year earlier.
Home sales in Southern California fell 5.5% to 18,344 units in April from a month earlier and 9.2% from April 2010. The median price paid for a home in the region fell 0.2% from March and 1.8% from a year earlier to $280,000.
In the Bay Area, sales fell 3.7% from March and 3.1% from April 2010 to 6,789 homes. The median price paid for all new and resale houses and condos in the Bay Area last month was $360,000, the same as in March and a 2.7% drop from a year earlier.
This sort of story gets old. It seems like we have been citing similar ones for years now.
April home sales hit lowest mark in 3 years
By ROBERT DIGITALE
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Published: Monday, May 16, 2011 at 5:16 p.m.
Last Modified: Monday, May 16, 2011 at 5:29 p.m.
April home sales in Sonoma County fell to their lowest level in three years as fewer sales of distressed properties caused the spring housing market to sputter.
Buyers purchased 349 existing single-family homes in April, down 9 percent from last year, according to The Press Democrat’s monthly housing report compiled by Coldwell Banker manager Rick Laws.
April sales fell almost 14 percent from March, the first such drop in five years.
The county’s median home price rose almost 5 percent from March to $329,460.
Virtually the entire drop in April sales was due to a decline in foreclosure properties and short sales, where homes are sold for less than the amount owed on the mortgage. The distressed properties made up half of all sales last month, compared to 56 percent in March.
For the year’s first four months, a total of 1,325 county homes have been sold. That is about the same pace as in 2010, a below-average year that ended with 4,300 homes sold.
The sales decline may have been caused by banks taking more time to put foreclosed homes back on the market or to approve short sales, said Laws. But the current pace of sales is not surprising, he said, given that the county still has large numbers of distressed properties and there has been little change in the economy.
“I don’t think any of us expected any earthshaking, humongous change,” Laws said. “We’ve got a long, slow climb in front of us.”
..