Bits Bucket for May 24, 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
~ Clipped from The Daily Reckoning May 22, 2011
So far, the big sell-off has not even begun. But it could start any day. Maybe Friday’s numbers reflected the new trend. Maybe not.
But just so we get to say ‘I told you so’ here is what we expect:
1) Stocks will be weak…maybe a big sell-off in the summer months. Investors will begin to realize that the economy is not as healthy as they thought. And the effects of QE2 will wear off.
2) The Great Correction, combined with the feds’ battle against it, will continue. Economic reports will be mixed and confusing as a result. But no clear, real recovery will begin.
3) The Fed will announce new measures - QE3. These could come anytime, but will most likely follow a new crisis. For example, a default by Greece…or a sharp break in the stock market.
Analysts say the punky figures are not confined to the US. The entire world is slowing down. Emerging markets are being forced to try to control inflation. Europe is worried about what happens when Greece defaults - which is coming soon. And the US is suffering from the worst housing slump in its history. Prices are already down 33%…more than one out of four homeowners is already underwater…and prices are falling at the rate of about 1% per month.
This latest bit of information is worth a pause. The total value of US housing stock is about $20 trillion. So, a 1% loss equals $200 billion. That’s $9 billion every working day.
Now, say there are about 100 million wage earners. This puts the losses per day at about $90 per day per wage earner. The typical worker takes home about $2,500 per month - by our calculations, barely more than he loses in housing prices.
And here’s another fact to toss in front of you this morning. In 1980, US federal, state and local debt per person declined at the rate of $2 per working day. As recently as 2000, debt declined again - at the rate of $4 per day.
But never have we seen anything like this. Government debt per working person is now increasing at $115 per working day. And that doesn’t include the build-up in social welfare obligations.
Add housing losses to government debt, and the typical working person’s balance sheet is deteriorating at the rate of $205 every working day.
The poor lumpen! He rolls out of bed this morning. By Friday evening he’s $1,025 poorer! How long can that go on?
And here’s another thing. Seniors are supposed to be protected from inflation by COLA (cost of living) adjustments to their Social Security payments. But the feds compute the CPI as they choose. And they make their adjustments when it pleases them. The result is a big lag between the supposedly inflation-proof Social Security payments and the actual costs of living that old people face. According to a study done by a senior group, the post-65 population has suffered a real loss of purchasing power of 32% over the last decade.
This is a serious situation. The average household is desperately trying to hold onto its standard of living. It has not had a real, substantial hourly wage gain in 40 years. Prices are now rising faster than income - both for people who are working and for people who are retired.
And those people who own a house are losing wealth, collectively, at the rate of about $200 billion a year.
In a way, of course, this is good news. The whole point of the Great Correction is to wipe out bad debt, eliminate bad investments, and reduce living standards to a level people can afford.
“The poor lumpen! He rolls out of bed this morning. By Friday evening he’s $1,025 poorer! How long can that go on?”
Better yet, how long can that go on when seventy percent of this economy is depending on that “poor lumpen” to spend, spend, spend???
“Better yet, how long can that go on when seventy percent of this economy is depending on that “poor lumpen” to spend, spend, spend???
Which is the inherent flaw in the Robber Baron, Crony system that some people insist on calling “Capitalism”. Workers around the globe have never been so productive and yet the global economy is threatening to collapse due to lack of demand.
The problem is indeed that the system depends on workers spending to purchsase the goods and services they make. Unfortunatelty they are paid so poorly that they must go into debt to “consume”. The problem is that the lumpen around the globe and the governments that represent them can’t pay back the debt. So we work our keisters off and yet we are getting poorer by second.
Karl Marx must be laughing his head off somewhere.
Ah yes, since his solutions didn’t turn out that well, people have forgotten all about that “contradiction” Marx identified. Particularly since ever-rising debt levels seemed to have solved it.
The U.S. is a consumer’s paradise, not a worker’s paradise. All you have to do to bring the PTB to their knees is not spend, and in particular not spend what you don’t have.
I am doing my part.
“All you have to do to bring the PTB to their knees is not spend”
A simpler truth has never been spoken yet we’re all afraid to be collateral damage.
I keep thinking of that analogy of layoffs happening in waves like peeling an onion. We never got to the 2nd and 3rd layers before Bush/Obama stopped the peeling process. When it’s restarted, at what point of the downsizing does my family’s income get taken out.
If I’m frugal, it’s because I still fear this.
Unfortunately, the PTB have placed a lot of layers of middle-class employees between our not-spending and themselves.
What I am coming to realize is that no matter how much I save, it will not be enough to overcome inflation.
I learned a long time ago that I can only spend money once. It has always made me cautious with my spending.
“prices are falling at the rate of about 1% per month.”
5% mortgage rates sound pretty good, until you consider adding that 5 to 12. Kinda like 1980!
I think the problem is those darn clerical workers are letting us down!
According to the formula, COLAs are based on increases in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). CPI-Ws are calculated on a monthly basis by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Treasurer says he would call bond houses, warn against lending to Illinois
BY HANNAH HESS • hhess@post-dispatch.com
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. • Illinois chief fiscal officer said Monday he is willing to dial up the bond houses and finance companies to alert them that lending the state more money, as Gov. Pat Quinn has proposed, would be a “major risk.”
‘ ‘If I need to send letters o the rating companies to tell them the treasurer of Illinois is opposed to more borrowing, I’m going to do that,” said Republican Treasurer Dan Rutherford.
Quinn, a Democrat, warned that without borrowing vendors and service providors would be left unpaid. In a statement, he challenged Rutherford to identify schools, state vendors and non-profits that should “continue to operate — or close their doors — while they wait for payment from the state.”
The backlog of unpaid bills will reach $8 billion by July, Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka recently estimated.
Rutherford says the debt from past borrowing has soared to $45 billion in recent years, which amounts to $10,000 for every household in the state. As a result, Illinois has the second-worst credit rating in the nation, above only California, he added.
What’s the problem? After all, the EU “solved” the Greek debt crisis by lending them even more money. I’m sure Illinois can solve its problems by borrowing even more money.
As long as you never have to pay it back, what’s the problem?
Maybe they can succeed and create their own currency to undermine.
Isn’t that the ratings agencies’ job? Oh yeah, right.
Realtors Are Liars
Realtors are Great.
90% of the realtors in this town are gone, the ones left are mostly good people
90% of the realtors in this town are gone,
90%?
just a wild guess, but i bet i’m right,
in 2007, there were hundreds of them in our small town
now there are a handful
we dont need them and 6% is ridiculous, why sheeple pay it is beyond me. I paid 4% once an 5% once and still felt raped. But I tried FSBO and was blackballed.
Unless you are in a red hot market or willing to seriously undercut the competition, FSBO is tough thanks to the NAR and MLS monopolies.
Because of the rapture?
Realtors are Great Big Fat Liars.
The US is in a stagflationary depression
realtors are, uh, oh, never mind…
Cash is a liar! Realtors are kings! (*ducks head and runs*)
Debt is sla….well, you know.
Cash is …
(scarce?, missing?)
Concentrated in the hands of the few?
“Concentrated in the hands of the few?”
Ain’t it da truth. And the concentration intensifies as those who have so little are somehow pursuaded that they should send what little they have to the few that have the most.
A fool and his money are soon parted
Which goes to show that the PTB are not intested in “making pies” as they often claim but would rather hog the few pies around or themselves. The are fine with “redistribution of wealth” as long as the money into their pockets.
When I ponder this I can only conclude that its not absolute wealth that the elite 1%er’s seek, but rather it is power. I loved the opening scene in the Fellowship of the Ring movie, where Galadriel narrates the origin of the rings, especially when she gets to the “Kings of Men” at the end “who above all else, desire power”. IMHO, that was spot on.
Anyway, having a vibrant, healthy, educated and informed middle class means you have to share power with them (ever notice how most modern revolutionaries have middle class backgrounds?). The upper class seeing the middle class as a threat that needs to be contained is nothing new.
As we already know, and as the banksters are actually admitting in their “Plutocracy” white papers, we are already making the switch away from a middle class based , “consumer” society. Notice how there is no wailing nor gnashing of teeth over weak auto sales. The only reason they worry about house sales is the threat of default on underwater mortgages.
The best film reference I can think of to represent the attitude of the 1%ers is Augustus Gloop in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
As we already know, and as the banksters are actually admitting in their “Plutocracy” white papers, we are already making the switch away from a middle class based , “consumer” society. Notice how there is no wailing nor gnashing of teeth over weak auto sales. The only reason they worry about house sales is the threat of default on underwater mortgages.
The threat of default on underwater mortgages? I think it’s gotten well beyond the threat stage.
Local case in point: University of Arizona prof’s book, Underwater Home, which is getting international news coverage. As did his white paper, which the UA’s PR machine hyped to the nth degree.
Sire, the peasants are revolting!
You’re telling me!
in the printer?
Yielding 0% despite rising inflation, thanks to the global war on cash.
We’ll have to see who wins. I’m not as sure as others. I see no way cash will outperform other investments, though there is a possiblity that other investments will outcollapse cash.
Stagflation….Yes
Depression….No…At least not yet…
Depression is declared in the rear view mirror.
Foreclosure flood may not have crested yet
More than 4 million seriously delinquent borrowers are at risk
By John W. Schoen
Senior producer
msnbc.com msnbc.com
updated 5/20/2011 8:44:26 AM ET
If the national foreclosure crisis were a baseball game, we would be in about the top of the sixth. And we may have to go to extra innings.
Since the housing market peaked in 2006, some 6.5 million homes have been lost to foreclosure. There are likely another 4.3 million more homeowners who are “seriously delinquent,” meaning they are more than three months behind in their payments, according to data released by the Mortgage Bankers Association this week. Many of those homeowners will soon enter the foreclosure pipeline.
That means the flood of people falling behind on their mortgages — due to exploding mortgage payments, job loss or other reasons — may have peaked. But those 4.3 million “seriously delinquent” homeowners have yet to receive foreclosure notices, which means the river has not yet crested downstream.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43099849/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/t/foreclosure-flood-may-not-have-crested-yet/ - 71k -
I wonder what the conversion rate was to get the 6.5MM homes lost to foreclosure? In other words, there were _____MM homes seriously delinquent, ultimately 6.5MM were lost to foreclosure. Others cured, ended in a short sale, were restructured, sold, etc.
Be prepared - Like a Boy Scout!
—————–
Could you survive a money meltdown?
Fox 19 | 5/23/11 | By Ben Swann
Chris and Amy Taylor aren’t really worried about zombies. They are, however, concerned about something much more likely happening. The U.S. dollar crashing.
Chris says in 2008 when the housing market crashed, their lives were turned upside down.
“We had to short-sale our house and downgrade and so, it’s kind the way we need to be able to stand on our own.” says Chris.
“We’ve got things like jelly and peanut butter, pasta and canned chicken, juice boxes. Things that last and have a long expiration date on them and we will rotate them out with the other food that we have,” said Amy Taylor.
The Taylors are not alone. Jeremy and Katie Smith live in Anderson Township. They too are preparing for a possible crash of the U.S. dollar.
They’ve got a garden and of course food storage of canned goods, dry goods and water.
“I would say that we are being wise in what we are doing,” said Katie Smith.
What the Smiths are doing is trying to read between the lines. Out of control national debt, inflation on the dollar, high gas prices. A system they believe is unsustainable.
Anderson Township is the Cincinatti area.
This is probably a very good part of the country to hunker down. Warm enough that you can deal with winter, cool enough that you’re not overrun with bugs, good ground for a basement, fresh water nearby, good growing season, decent soil, etc.
Good for them for bailing early, before the rush. And, as one HBBer pointed out, I hope they stock up on cigs and small bottles of booze, and perhaps heat blocks to boil water. That is the best currency.
“This is probably a very good part of the country to hunker down. Warm enough that you can deal with winter, cool enough that you’re not overrun with bugs,”
Cincinnati can get very hot and very cold, and change very quickly. Not much in-between.
A better place to “hunker” down would be the hill/lake country of Tennessee. Think Knoxville. Much more moderate climate and plenty of water, timber, etc. Not so good for growing crops, though.
That being said, Cincinnati is geographically located to be near large amounts of fresh water, agricultural land, timber, and not too far from the coal fields of the cental Appalachians. Heck, Ohio produces enough oil on its own to sustain the state.
While Ohio has a reputation of being a bland state, it is quite probably the most self-sufficient state in the Union.
I loved Ohio when I lived there. The private sector company that employed me, not so much.
When in doubt, follow the Amish. They know which locations can sustain the agrarian culture.
I will walk to Santa Barbara area (Hollister Ranch), eat avocados, olives, food from the sea, and live like the indians did naked!! Sounds fun.
Not far enough away from LA gangland.
You will soooooo be eaten by bugs….
I’m not sure that stockpiling perishables is the way to go. I lived once in an economy with a worthless currency. There was no mass starvation nor rioting, but a some people hoarded gold, silver and sturdier currencies.
I lived once in an economy with a worthless currency. There was no mass starvation nor rioting, but a some people hoarded gold, silver and sturdier currencies.
Same with Brazil with 4 collapsed currencies between 1986 and 1994. I don’t think many Brazilians hoarded beans or peanut butter and I know they didn’t hoard 1/2 pints of Jack. They hoarded real estate and US dollars.
(Maybe Americans should be hoarding Brazilian Reals.) Nahhh
“They hoarded real estate and US dollars.”
Do they have durable property ownership rights in Brazil?
How long is Jack Daniels good for in an unopened bottle?
good? never
try some Maker’s Mark
Do they have durable property ownership rights in Brazil?
Yes.
As far as Jack, it’s great in Brazil. They don’t have Makers Mark here. I wish they did.
So we should take financial advice from the Taylor’s??? Seems like they are the last people we should take advice from.
“A system they believe is unsustainable.”
TBTF has proven is quite sustainable.
In other news, a headline indicates that we’re likely to see a rally on Wall Street today.
Lol, it’s SO predictable.
Well, I heard that Europ fixed all its problems overnight, so that is taken care of. We *deserve* a rally.
Seems if just watch the price of silver, you can predict the market. I think silver is watching the printing of money to make Wallstreet go up.
Time for dips to buy…
I think the dips are buying internet social sites. The smart money knows we are at peak just about everything in natural resources. I think that the invasion of Iraq was somewhat tied to peak oil. Just think of the trouble Saddam Hussein could cause today if he had the power to remove 3 million barrels of oil of the market. We would be dealing with $10 a gallon gas.
This may also be the reason for gutting the middle class. No middle class means much less oil consumption.
And those middle classes are so demanding of a rule of law. It’s quite inconvenient to the mega-rich, who want to be able to use their hotel maids as they see fit, then jet off to meet with the other oligarchs, without any constraints forced on them by the little people. Like in an Ayn Rand novel.
Like I said in another thread, it’s power that oligarchs want, not money. Power to flaunt the law. With enough power you can take what you want with impunity. Laws are for the proles.
How long until the idea of “steady state economies” becomes a household word?
The smart money knows we are at peak just about everything in natural resources.
The opponents assert that substitutions will take care of that, preserving our way of life. Plywood made from scrap wood instead of oak, and dogfish instead of cod, for example. Insects instead of shrimp. You get the idea.
That’s good eatin’!
Plywood made from scrap wood instead of oak
We already have that. Cf. bubble condos.
“somewhat” tied to oil???
the middle east is ALL about oil. Africa, has no oil. Get it.
Africa, has no oil. Get it.
Last time I checked, Libya and Nigeria were both in Africa. And they have oil.
I thought Libya had oil.
Africa has no oil? Don’t tel that to Shell, BP, Exxon, Total, Haliburton, Schlumberger, etc.
Interesting article on Florida and poorly constructed houses: http://www.newgeography.com/content/002245-condo-culture-how-florida-became-floridastan
“Buildings designed in Texas, Ohio, Georgia, and elsewhere populate the Florida landscape. These buildings have almost no roof eave at all, as if the fierce Florida sun didn’t matter. The skin-tight stucco may not be Portland cement plaster, because dryvit (an acrylic latex substitute for stucco invented after World War II to quickly rebuild Europe) has become a popular substitute. The windows are set at the outside of the wall, with no shading at all on the glass. The effect is that the building looks as stretched tight as a balloon.”
No-eave, flush-window, fake-stucco or , token gables, and 9-10′ ceilings. You can tell it’s bad just by looking at it.
Some good lines in that article:
“Designed to prevent neighbors from meeting or children to freely play, these contemporary cracker box condos sullenly sweat in the heat. “
Wow! Sounds like a great place to live! Honey, stop the car!
“the building looks as stretched tight as a balloon.”
ugh, that’s it….like a balloon about to as-plode. They built those everywhere I guess.
Climate matters. Expecting designs and construction practices that work in AZ or MA to work just as well in FL was the height of stupidity. When you see Florida homeowners preparing for a hurricane by nailing plywood to window frames that have FAKE shutters, you know the designers weren’t really thinking. Considering that FL is humid, hot, and most building have AC, shouldn’t the vapor barrier be installed against the OUTER surface of the wall to prevent condensation in the walls?
The writer - what a ponce! He must be British to express that much disdain for the houses of the common folk. Too bad because there should be a decent premise buried in there somewhere. Oh wait -read the byline. Not (necessarily) British, just an architect. He should have been able to write a decent article about what the architecture of Florida housing should be, but instead chose to be a jerk.
————————
These buildings have almost no roof eave at all, as if the fierce Florida sun didn’t matter.
————————-
They have a roof eave - it’s just that people like triangular roofs better than hatted roofs. What good does a roof eave do that’s 10 feet away from the nearest window? Possibly because hatted roofs are ugly, and they’ve not been updated to look like anything other than a ’50s ranch. They also don’t have room for storage and are a pain to put A/C venting and other things in when the roofslope is low. Cast the first stone at thyself architect.
The windows are set at the outside of the wall, with no shading at all on the glass.
———————–
I’ll give you that, but how much extra shade is a 2″ difference going to make? Sure it’s great when the walls are thick like old Spanish architecture, but most homes don’t have thick walls. Anyways, the sun moves across the sky. If it’s going to cast directly on a window that is outset, then 30 mins later, it’s going to cast directly on a window that is inset a few inches.
Unfortunately, such a combination frequently admits water into tiny cracks and crevices, and the water has no way to seep out.
——————-
Such a combination of window placement, plaster, and roof overhangs??? What?? Your logic doesn’t flow well. How would inset windows (which would have a thick sill that rainwater would sit on) lead to less water intrusion in an otherwise equally built home?? Are the homes in Europe equally moldy? I’m sure they didn’t have that rigorous of standards throwing up prole houses post WWII.
———————-
When entering the bland, beige entry hall, however
———————-
What? If the entry way was painted crazy yellow, would there be less mold? Is there something architectually wrong with having an entry hall in Florida?
———————————–
Buildings designed in Texas, Ohio, Georgia, and elsewhere populate the Florida landscape
———————————-
All 3 of these states suffer from hot and wet in the same way that Florida does. Freakin’ Georgia touches Florida. Is there some change at the state line that impacts Florida housing?
Like I said - interesting premise about what housing for different climates should look like rather than the same bland boxes built all across the US, but the good article about it will be written later and probably by someone else.
I think most of the writer’s points are correct: eaves do shade the building and windows beneath, especially when they’re large. Inset windows do keep the sun off them- particularly if they are well inset. But I think a lot of these flush designs may have more to do with hurricane insurance requirements, rather than coping with the typical daily climate- two things that don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand.
The traditional Florida house- one-story concrete block with a flat roof and deeply inset windows, usually covered by an awning that can become a storm shutter- is probably the best overall design for their climate, if you don’t mind getting flooded by the occasional hurricane storm surges. A roof with large eaves is probably much more likely to be ripped off in a storm.
I think that the lack of eaves in modern construction is as simple as bigger eaves = more square feet of roofing. Often it also means more land, because houses are often built on lots with minimum setbacks, and the setback is probably measured from the eave. So even if eaves save you $400/year in AC, they add $3,000 in initial cost. So not happening.
My point exactly. You (and Jim A) just wrote a better article about Florida housing architecture than the original writer did.
Stucco homes are very rare in Texas.
Brick homes are what has been mostly built in the last 50 years.
Partially fired “Mexican brick.” Our neighbor in Dallas once showed us how the brick wall of his house would flex slightly when he pushed hard on it.
BTW, “Mexican brick” will absorb water. A kid showed that in a science fair exhibit.
All masonry absorbs water. that’s why there are weep holes at the bottom of brick houses. unfortunately, most of the time they fill with dirt because the soil isn’t graded properly.
New Mexico does it well, passive solar, flat roofs catch rain water, trombe walls, solar hot water, swamp coolers…
This “safety of your beliefs in numbers” concept is not lost on the Mormons, nor on economic forecasters, for that matter…
Prophecy Fail
What happens to a doomsday cult when the world doesn’t end?
By Vaughan Bell
Posted Friday, May 20, 2011, at 3:32 PM ET
Preacher and evangelical broadcaster Harold Camping has announced that Jesus Christ will return to Earth this Saturday, May 21, and many of his followers are traveling the country in preparation for the weekend Rapture. They’re undeterred, it seems, by Mr. Camping’s dodgy track record with end-of-the-world predictions. (Years ago, he argued at length that the reckoning would come in 1994.) We’ve yet to learn what motivates people like him to predict (and predict again) the end of the world, but there’s a long and unexpected psychological literature on how the faithful make sense of missed appointments with the apocalypse.
The most famous study into doomsday mix-ups was published in a 1956 book by renowned psychologist Leon Festinger and his colleagues called When Prophecy Fails. A fringe religious group called the Seekers had made the papers by predicting that a flood was coming to destroy the West Coast. The group was led by an eccentric but earnest lady called Dorothy Martin, given the pseudonym Marian Keech in the book, who believed that superior beings from the planet Clarion were communicating to her through automatic writing. They told her they had been monitoring Earth and would arrive to rescue the Seekers in a flying saucer before the cataclysm struck.
Festinger was fascinated by how we deal with information that fails to match up to our beliefs, and suspected that we are strongly motivated to resolve the conflict—a state of mind he called “cognitive dissonance.” He wanted a clear-cut case with which to test his fledgling ideas, so decided to follow Martin’s group as the much vaunted date came and went. Would they give up their closely held beliefs, or would they work to justify them even in the face of the most brutal contradiction?
Advertisement
The Seekers abandoned their jobs, possessions, and spouses to wait for the flying saucer, but neither the aliens nor the apocalypse arrived. After several uncomfortable hours on the appointed day, Martin received a “message” saying that the group “had spread so much light that God had saved the world from destruction.” The group responded by proselytizing with a renewed vigour. According to Festinger, they resolved the intense conflict between reality and prophecy by seeking safety in numbers. “If more people can be persuaded that the system of belief is correct, then clearly, it must, after all, be correct.”
…
See Y2k
Lots of food, generators, etc. for sale in 2001…
Here in Tucson, a guy set up something called the Y2k Information Center. And it folded during the summer of 1999. Reason: Lack of interest.
OTOH, we have friends who paid off their mortgage, cashed their investments, took all their cash out of the bank, bought a year’s worth of survival food, water purification tablets, guns, ammo, etc. They were convinced.
Y2K was a legit threat with reasoning more solid than “the spaceships are coming to get us.” I suspect that disaster was not by “spreading light,” but by freshly graduated computer science majors who worked pretty hard to reprogram vital systems.
There is something uniquely American about the infatuation with predicting the end of the world. We even have a “mainstream” denomination, Seventh Day Adventism, which is built around predicting that the end is imminent (and has being doing so for almost 200 years)
None of the original Reformers were obsessed with the end times, at least nowhere near the degree found within American Evangelicism.
As to why American Evangelical Movement (I use the adjective “American” to distinguish it from the Lutheran denominations, as Martin Luther referred to his church as “Evangelical”) is so infatuated, I am uncertain. My best guess is that it is somehow tied to the belief in American exceptionalism and triumphalism, that Americans are God’s chosen people who live in a world surrounded by evil, and that He will intervene directly (the Rapture) to rescue them. It only makes sense that he do it now. Of course thats what Miller was saying back in 1844 to what would eventual become the Adventist Church.
Color, your knowledge of NA church history is impressive.
Colo:
I have to say here that the KJV is certainly filled with references to the end-of-days– as is the Christian RSV. Indeed, I would argue that the whole Lutheran theology is based upon Jesus’ supposed return to the planet Earth, thus the need to proselytize on behalf of His second coming.
Just because it’s not a shrill as the Evangs doesn’t nullify the presumption.
The Mormons hedge their bets by never attaching a date to their doomsday forecasts. The latter-days might end tomorrow, or they might last for millenniums to come, but the stopped-clock doomsday prediction is destined to be right whenever judgment day happens.
Ditto for the rest of Christendom: In the first couple of centuries after Christ’s death, the belief was that the Dies Irae was soon to come. Two millenniums later, many of the faithful still wait patiently.
The early Christians, who were persecuted, were definitely hoping that the second comong would be soon. They didn’t believe in the Rapture as Evangelicals understand it, but had more a of vision in tune with the Jews’ understanding of what the Messiah’s arrival would be like (not surprising, since many were also Jews).
I don’t think anyone was making predictions back then on when He would return. Probably more like wishing He would just hurry up and come back.
Little did they know that by the year 300 the Emperor himself would be a Christian and that Christianity would sweep Europe, Norther Africa and the Middle East. For all we know in 100-200 years China will be the biggest Christian nation in the world and the Pope will be Chinese.
“I don’t think anyone was making predictions back then on when He would return. ”
I think Jesus made a prediction:
Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
No one knows the day or the hour - Matthew 24:36
That is a controversial passage. Seen explanations, blah, blah the greek “genos” word means this or it means that, etc. I suppose that if I were a first centruty greek it might make more sense to me.
And as others have said, there is belief that some of the scriptures were writtem later, in the second century. It would be kind of silly to predict Jesus was going to return in the past when he didn’t. YMMV.
You just put the Requiem in my head. That is not a bad thing and better than what was there before, so thanks.
Mormons are really good at stockpiling supplies and preparing for the apocalypse in whatever form it arrives: drought, plague, nuclear, etc etc.
In the year 7510, if Gawd’s a-coming he oughta make it by then.
Only 214 days ’till Christmas!
For some reason that made me remember an old song that went someting like: “In the 2525 … if man is still alive …”
Who sang that?
Something like “Zeigler and Evans”. Not sure about the spelling.
A duo called Zager & Evans performed it. It was a big hit back in 1969.
Thanks Slim. I would usually retaliate if In CO’s song were more of an ear-worm, because I have a nuclear option; however, Mozart is still rattling around in my head.
Mozart is still rattling around in my head.
Coming up next, Sir Simon Rattle conducts Mozart Arias.
Hey, we should be so lucky to see the demise of having to pay taxes.
Cognitive Dissonance = Donald Trump thinking he could really attain the presidency of the U.S.
Retirement.
Is anyone buying at today’s prices socking away enough for retirement?
Not local but….Talked to a friend moving out of state. They sold their home here a few years ago. Rented ever since. Smart. Sounds like they’re on the ball. Home here sold for $325k. Bought new home for $400k. Ok, there are the lower taxes there. He’s in education. She’s never worked. Kids hitting college soon. Do professors make that much over six figures?
I have a few more stories like this.
If we’re worried about socking away for retirement but are competing against people that are just worried about making the payment and nothing more we will continue to be outbid. Are these the 2030 FB’s? Will their numbers be so great that the gov will rescue them?
Or perhaps these people are fatalistic and feel under the current path, they will be destitute anyway. Perhaps they feel being in the crowd of critical mass where everything is falling apart, perhaps possession will be 99% of the law. Is it true that like a J28 racing sloop, once the economy leans too hard-a-lee the boat will just bounce back up to center? Or are these buyers going for broke w/thought?
I like hanging tough because it’s keeping my options open. And I think we’ll see some fireworks this fall. Still I’m sometimes nagged by the thought I may be missing something.
Offline for a while. Look forward to reading your thoughts this afternoon.
Live below your means
Have a back-up plan
Stay healthy
Work to you die
Did I miss anything?
Stay healthy
Especially important in the money-sucking, monopolistic, corrupt, banana republic, BS health “care” system of America.
So it’s so simple everyone. Just “stay healthy”.
Just say ‘No’ to cancer and heart disease!
And eat your ketchup!
Well - at least we don’t have to buy our blood on the black market…yet
—————-
Bulgaria’s black market in blood is flourishing
yahoo/ap | 5/23/11 | VESELIN TOSHKOV
Her 85-year-old husband needed immediate surgery but doctors told her to find blood for the operation herself. So Slavka Petrova swallowed her anguish and went to haggle on the black market outside the national blood clinic.
It’s a grim reality for patients and families in Bulgaria, …
…In the streets around the blood clinic, a dozen men sit smoking on benches or in cafes, on the alert for people in need. They don’t have to wait long.
“Even before I had decided what to do, three men stood in front of me and one asked me what blood group I was looking for,” Petrova, an 82-year-old former government employee, told The Associated Press.
The price can be prohibitive.
“When they told me that this would cost me euro250 ($355), I thought, my God, this is my whole pension,” she said. “I went mute for a while and they decided to lower the price to euro200 ($285).”
Once a deal is struck, a donor hanging out nearby — or at most a phone call away — is summoned, and turns up at the blood clinic masquerading as a relative. He gets a proof of donation certificate and sells it to the desperate family.
Well commercial blood banks of the kind that are common in this country are illegal in many places. THAT’S why we don’t have black market blood.
Bulgaria, Romania, Albania- that’s vampire country.
Yeah - cause making something illegal shuts it down and removes all black markets.
May I direct you to the local black market drug/gun/cigarette/high flow toilet dealers?
PS - Bulgaria is socialized health care! The government is supposed to take care of you. It is the law!
PSS - I can tell even worse stories from other eastern block countries with “free” socialized health care.
“Bulgaria, Romania, Albania- that’s vampire country.”
At least they don’t have Vampire Squids.
PSS - I can tell even worse stories from other eastern block countries with “free” socialized health care.
Dude that’s rad! Tell it and I can raise yours with much worse
stories from your sicko health “care” system.
And yours ain’t even “free”.
That’s right. Only slackers and the lazy get sick.
you forgot to enjoy it.
don’t they always?
My wife and I have lived on one income or less since we were married, so yes we have saved.
But will it make a difference? There was a New York Times opinion piece about Generation Greed 10 or 20 years ago, directed to its less irresponsible members, that was titled “You Saved but They Didn’t So Now What?”
It argued that if corrective measures were taken right away, with some sacrifice we’d be OK…
For the last 30 years, jobs and careers have been decimated by layoff, offshoring, mergers, downsizing and wage cuts. By the MILLIONS.
Yeah, they didn’t save because they were slackers. Sure.
20 years ago fresh out of school with my first job I managed to save 20% or 25% of my gross pay. Living in San Fran. Even working my way through school I managed to save a little. They were slackers.
Because you are the prefect example of life well lived?
Some of those who saved got bit by medical issues, unemployment, 401Ks that turned into 201Ks, plain bad luck. The folks who worked for Enron and had their 401Ks mandated to be invested in company stock got burned big time.
If you are sitting pretty now, it took a combination of hard work, good planning, and good luck. Did you choose the right career? At various times in the last 40 years, chemistry, engineering, computers, teaching, and other good careers have had hard times. If your timing was bad, the career that looked like a winner as a freshman was a loser at graduation.
Did you get a job at a company that is still in business? When I graduated from college, if you got a job with AT&T, you were set for life. AT&T was broken up in the 80s and telecommunications has undergone extreme changes since then. Government jobs were the absolute safest. The end of the Cold War put an end to that.
If your timing was bad, the career that looked like a winner as a freshman was a loser at graduation.
That’s me.
Professors can get their kids free or greatly reduced college tuition at the institution where they teach. And college professors often keep their positions long past age 65. So that may help your friends.
I forgot about the kids and their tuitions. Good point.
Sounds like they’re on the ball. Home here sold for $325k. Bought new home for $400k”
Maybe they worry about inflation ?
I waited to buy until a couple of weeks ago. While I wasn’t convinced that prices wouldn’t go down more, I was fairly convinced that further falls would be relatively minor in my market (5%? 10% maybe?). I personally decided that waiting for the last potential 5-10% wasn’t worth it to me. If it did materialize, I could handle the fall both emotionally and financially.
I found a home to buy that will work for my family for a long time, and we could afford it (meaning that we will still be able to save as much for retirement/kids college, etc.). We are cutting in some other places for at least the first year, as we get used to the higher monthly cost (trying to eat out less, more judicious about vacations–not renting a car, for instance when visiting relatives, spending less on “stuff”–waiting an extra year or two to replace computers, no new gadgets, etc.).
Overall, we expected to be looking for 6-12 months to find a place after casually looking for the better part of 5 years. We found a place that hit on all cylinders within a couple of months, so we acted. I was skeptical on using a realtor to help us (I thought long and hard about Redfin), but ultimately, we worked with a local, who helped us find something off-market.
Through my process, I found advice from my business partner to be most apt. Look for a long time in the markets in which you are interested, so that you have the context in which to determine which home has the right features for you in the price range you can afford. When you find something that you REALLY want in a price range that you can afford (and is reasonable), act.
I’d be thinking the same thing if my area would ever get around to falling. I’m starting to wonder if “where the jobs are” will ever fall significantly? Or if we have/will take this big fall, but it will *all* happen “where the jobs aren’t”? I still don’t think there enough income here even with the jobs to support the prices though, so I still hold out.
Where are you Carl? I’m in the part of Silicon Valley where the money is (near Sand Hill Road). Even here the prices fell by 25% or so…
Did prices not even fall by that where you are???
I’m in Boulder, CO. We’ve hiccuped a bit here and there, but I don’t think we’ve ever fallen yet (although that may have changed in the last few months and I just haven’t heard about it yet). As soon as you get 20 miles or so outside of town there have been some drops, but in town has held up amazingly well. The locals think it’s due to the college and “everybody wants to live here”, but I think it’s mostly the decent paying jobs.
Decent jobs, good lifestyle, but also slow/no growth attitudes. My understanding is that it is tough to get projects approved in Boulder. I’m guessing that supply never really took off there, and so markets were always pretty tight from a supply/demand perspective.
Do you feel that in 2005-2007 prices in Boulder were more indicative of cheap money than a tight market? It can be hard to differentiate the two (frankly, impossible), but gut feel matters, especially if you’ve lived there for a while. My overall perception is that the housing bubble was primarily a credit bubble, manifesting itself as higher home prices by virtue of artificially created demand, and that in places where crazy credit was frequently obtained became the most out of whack in terms of prices relative to incomes. So, if you were in a market where there wasn’t a lot of development, and Option ARMs/Subprime/Liar Loans weren’t as pervasive as the bubbliest markets, and there are decent paying jobs, then I can see how the fall would be less pronounced.
I guess the big question is:
If the Great Recession didn’t cause prices to fall in Boulder, what will?
Do you feel that in 2005-2007 prices in Boulder were more indicative of cheap money than a tight market?
I don’t know, I’m just not enough of an RE expert to even guess. As with most of the rest of the state, the big runups happened quite a while ago, I don’t think we got a big jump mid-decade like the places that did it because of the easy money. I just thought we’d have to fall before now. I think if we’re ever going to fall, it has to be at the very end because we’re one of the last dominoes. Or else we won’t because there are jobs.
Looking at this map:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111494514
…on the median income section it makes it look like rural Wyoming and Colorado are rich. Makes no sense to me at all.
Well you’ve hit my two big points: Buy a place you’ll be comfortable in for decades, and don’t spend so much that you’re not saving.
While you mow the lawn and go to Home Depot on your weekends, I surf.
Small lawn…home has almost no work to be done. I don’t surf though, so I’ll be hosting parties, and spending time with my kids.
CarrieAnn,
Years ago I bought a house that was advertised for sale at $185K. I wanted the house and told my RE to flag it because I wasn’t going to pay that price as one of the owners had taken a job far out of town and the wife stayed waiting for the house to sell. All the people looking where rushing across town to buy houses with all the newest upgrades. I put in an offer of $127,500 and was turned down. Six months later and after numerous weekend open houses I got the call that the house was mine. My wife and I stayed in that house for 18 yrs while raising our family and only moved when she got promoted to a job further away.
During our working careers we always knew that to have a good retirement that we would have to take care of ourselves so we always banked every raise and live a good existence by buying old cars and driving them until they gave out, fixed repairs on the house ourselves and went camping for most vacations. Today I’m retired and my wife soon will be and we can buy and do what we want but will always remain grounded.
That’s a great story Salinas. My husband and I did similar and our first house was $135k. What I’m afraid of is hyperinflation or a ‘29 type crash.
I guess if I wasn’t afraid of those things I’d have bought at least one of 3 different houses by now.
Yep. You make your money when you buy not when you sell. Though these days. I guess you don’t loose as much when you buy carefully. Think the days of making moneny on RE are gone for a long time.
Eerily true. Bought in 1987 for $110k and since have put in an equal amount in upgrades. Never HELOC’d, low taxes, no payments. Insurance and taxes still a drain. Very content.
Fear inflation, but we have expected it for three years. Pretty sure when it comes with a vengeance, it won’t sweep RE prices along with it.
Got Shadows?
OMG, Bob Dylan is SEVENTY?!
“But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned.”
Not only is he 70, he’s still alive. Along with Keith Richards and Nikki Sixx.
So is my gal, Phyllis Diller. Born in 1917, she’s 94. I appreciate her humor, she’s a pianist, and an artist. She wants to be remember as being kind. She said that was her “religion”.
Bless Phyllis’s kind heart!
Nikki Sixx is SEVENTY?!!!!
No, just alive. That’s miracle enough.
How old is Hurricane Carter?
Has he learned to sing yet?
I’m sorry, but his uber-nasal voice on those 1960s songs was hard to listen to. Guy should have stuck to songwriting and left the singing to others.
I’ve come to realize 2 things about singing.
1. There are good singers. (Good pitch, timing and phrasing)
2. There are those with a good voice. (the sound, timbre, resonance, richness etc.)
3. There are a few who have both. Dylan didn’t and especially now, does not.
Bob Dylan answered his critics on his singing a long time ago when he said he as a good singer (he rarely missed a note and it was very true in the past) but his “voice” was marginal. I would tend to agree.
Now his early harmonica playing was just awful. Bad. Nothing like Neil Young’s at all.
Bob Dylan answered his critics on his singing a long time ago when he said he as a good singer
Correction:
Bob Dylan answered his critics on his singing a long time ago when he said he WAS a good singer
Dylan / message / poetry:
Well the deputy walks on hard nails and the preacher rides a mount
But nothing really matters much it’s doom alone that counts
And the one-eyed undertaker he blows a futile horn
“Come in” she said
“I’ll give you shelter from the storm”.
I’ve heard newborn babies wailing like a mourning dove
And old men with broken teeth stranded without love
Do I understand your question man is it hopeless and forlorn
“Come in” she said
“I’ll give you shelter from the storm”.
In a little hilltop village they gambled for my clothes
I bargained for salvation and they gave me a lethal dose
I offered up my innocence and got repaid with scorn
“Come in” she said
“I’ll give you shelter from the storm”.
Well I’m living in a foreign country but I’m bound to cross the line
Beauty walks a razor’s edge someday I’ll make it mine
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born
“Come in” she said
“I’ll give you shelter from the storm”.
nice
From the WSJ:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303654804576341603462686900.html?mod=ITP_moneyandinvesting_0
“Anyone playing down the importance of housing at this point in the business cycle is missing the point: Housing is the business cycle.”
“That is how Edward Leamer, a University of California, Los Angeles, economist, put it in a 2007 paper, and his point is pretty well-illustrated today. It is no secret housing and consumer spending have become increasingly important to economic cycles in recent decades. Yet economists and policy makers haven’t fully understood the implications.”
The rest is behind a pay wall. But what is basically described is a consumer debt binge run amok, with housing as a driver, that will take decades to recover from. So while the stunning paucity of new home sales may be a good thing — we aren’t building unneeded housing — underwater mortgages mean less consumer credit and thus less spending.
Yet economists and policy makers haven’t fully understood the implications.”
No but WS CEO’s and Hedge Fund managers do and they pay the economists and policy makers to believe what they are told.
For the WSJ, if you google the title of the article you can usually see the whole thing…
Shhh!!!
(P.S. Ditto that for off-limits FT articles…)
“Housing is the business cycle.”
The fact that the U.S. macroeconomy is recovering, even as housing remains in the toilet, puts the lie to that proclamation. Somebody ought to take a close look at how much of Leamer’s funding comes from real estate interests before putting any stock whatsoever into what he says.
Well the stock market is up, but employment and wages are recovering slowly, if at all. If you removed the unsustainable ammounts of stimulus from the economy, employment and payrolls wouldn’t be improving at all. So I wouldn’t characterize the current macroeconomy as “recovering,” in any meaningful sense.
Exactly.
From yesterday’s WSJ online:
Nearly Half of Americans Are ‘Financially Fragile’
“The more surprising finding is that a material fraction of seemingly ‘middle class’ Americans also judge themselves to be financially fragile, reflecting either a substantially weaker financial position than one would expect, or a very high level of anxiety or pessimism’
How can they just conflate people in “substantially weaker financial positions” with those that are anxious and/or pessimistic?
We see plenty of evidence everyday that not a few people in “substantially weaker financial positions” are not the ones that are anxious and pessimistic. On the contrary, it’s those with skin in the game and something to lose that are anxious and pessimistic.
+10
There is no way that a survey like that would put me in the financially fragile group. I know I’m not financially fragile. But with my pay and number of working days subject to the whims of Congress, I’ve been feeling a bit pessimistic, at least as compared to 3 years ago. The information isn’t really all that interesting unless they tie it into consumer behavior and therefore into the overall economy. Perhaps that was later in the article?
I recall reading not too long ago that the old advice to have 6 months plus of living expenses saved up in the bank was obsolete, because your credit line was your emergency fund…
Even with no debt and cash savings, I feel financially fragile. Not sure what it would take to feel financially stable, short of being in the top 1%.
Truth be told, I would feel more stable if I lived in a paid-off house.
Ben, maybe that’s a good weekend topic: what would it take for folks to feel financially stable? How much is that based on emotion? Is it even possible to be financially stable in these times?
From yesterday’s WSJ online:
Nearly Half of Americans Are ‘Financially Fragile’
“The more surprising finding is that a material fraction of seemingly ‘middle class’ Americans also judge themselves to be financially fragile, reflecting either a substantially weaker financial position than one would expect, or a very high level of anxiety or pessimism’
“what would it take for folks to feel financially stable? How much is that based on emotion?”
I like that topic idea. I had that very conversation with my old graduate advisor last week. He’ll never retire since he has a mortgage and his kids can’t get decent paying jobs and he has to support his in-laws until they snuff it. Luckily he is one of the best at what he does, likes it AND has tenure. But he doesn’t feel secure.
And even though we have no debt, are saving 50% of our salaries, have cash and PMs, rent a small place and could squeak by on my salary, we are still going to pay a huge amount in child care when the wife goes back to work. My job could end at any time (at will = sword of Damocles) and if she quit to raise the bambino, we’d have zero jobs and they seem hard to come by. And I’ve had female friends try unsuccessfully to re-enter the workforce after a couple years off to raise a child.
So we’re paying someone else to raise our child just because the future is so tenuous (in our minds). Tear down the wall.
MrBubble
“Even with no debt and cash savings, I feel financially fragile.”
Hyperinflation can consume savings like a fire in a box full of fireworks
+1. It all assumes things don’t get worse. I currently feel like I’m plodding along at a good pace, increasing my savings with each paycheck to add to my base “recommended” savings.
So, I don’t feel financially fragile (and won’t, assuming things stay as they are) but not knowing GovFedTreasury’s moves over the next 5-10 definitely has me feeling a bit…fragile.
Yes, the thought of hyperinflation coming in and consuming things at a much higher rate than planned for after I’m too old to do anything about it plagues me regularly.
I think this is what I was referring to when I asked above if people are saving enough for retirement. Yeah, if the status quo holds we’re all good. No worries. It’s the unknown that makes me not want to agree to a mortgage which is affordable under today’s premises.
Hmm…that idea about stockpiling Jack Daniels is sounding better and better.
The trick is to keep it stockpiled.
In the mid-70’s, one Denver-based real estate developer confided to me that he had lost $250 million dollars in the previous few years. This was at a time when I was making perhaps $4.00 an hour doing audio production, and I was aghast that he could be so cavalier about such a reversal of fortune. Here retired people living on fixed pensions were literally afraid of being thrown out into the streets as inflation ate away everything they’d ever worked for; and the Ford administration was reduced to feebly addressing the situation with “WIN” buttons. (Whip Inflation Now.)
“My God!” I said to him. “How can you just sit here and not freak out every time you think about it?”
“No big,” he told me. “When this is all over, I’ll just go out and make some more.”
It was at this point that I realized that no matter how well-prepared anyone is for “whatever,” when that “whatever” hits, you’re only as good as your attitude. Hyperinflation (which is what I believe we’re headed for in this decade,) will destroy the Baby Boomers and rend our country’s social fabric as surely as the Viet Nam war and concurrent domestic riots did.
Those of us who listened to our grandparent’s stories of the Great Depression and took their proscriptions to heart will probably do better than those of us who over-relied on The Government to keep things running, easy credit, cheap consumables, and “net worth,” to the exclusion of social ties, self-sufficiency, and the ability to make lemonade out of lemons. In any case, it’s going to be a huge shock to all of our systems when we realize that most everything we counted on is now as evanescent as our one time pipe dreams.
I am not optimistic about my generation’s ability to weather the coming storm– and there certainly is no great affection for us among the generations that have followed — but I take comfort in the fact that at least we will have left you all with a cautionary legacy:
They also serve who stand only to provide a bad example.
“Nearly Half of Americans Are ‘Financially Fragile’”
No surprises here. The Fed reloaded Megabank, Inc with the electronically printed dollar equivalent of poker chips, loaned out at zero percent rates, which they in turn get to loan out on miserly terms to America’s small businesses and households at so-called ‘market rates.’ The fact that the Fed can get away with this, and pretend to be part of the government in the process, certainly makes me feel financially fragile.
I’m going with fragile.
The homeless populations in my city has increased by 25% as reported in the newspaper today. A newspaper not known for anything but mindless cheerleading, so this is really saying something.
I live just a few steps away from a city park. After being gone from the park for several years, the homeless are back in droves.
And, just beyond the western boundary of this park is an auto body shop with a homeless camp on it. You can see the camp from the street.
Will do bodywork for food?
Sorry to say, but the homeless in the camp next to the body shop look to be too far gone to do any sort of work. They appear to be quite mentally ill.
And, since they’re out on the streets, they self-medicate with drugs and/or alcohol. Pretty tragic situation.
And, since they’re out on the streets, they self-medicate with drugs and/or alcohol. Pretty tragic situation.
Public mental healthcare is commie. The free market will take care of it because of all the profit to be made.
Let’s also not forget hat 72 million people of the 156 million workforce make $500 a week or less.
“Fragile” is sugar coating their situation. Desperate and one paycheck from the streets is more like it.
Maybe they thought Fra-gee-lay was a town in Italy.
And their definition of “financially fragile” was laughably benign:
The survey asked a simple question, “If you were to face a $2,000 unexpected expense in the next month, how would you get the funds you need?”
Make that a more realistic $20k or $50k, and I would bet the number rises to 75% or more. Hell, I have 3x my annual salary in savings and still feel fragile. That money would go very quickly in a medical emergency, even with insurance.
May 23, 2011, 12:01 a.m. EDT
Illinois plan to cut mortgage debt is making waves
Would helping hand for ‘underwater’ borrowers make a difference?
By Ronald D. Orol, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — A pilot program close to getting off the ground in Illinois seeks to use $100 million in taxpayer dollars to help potentially thousands of troubled mortgage holders in the state who owe more than their homes are worth.
Backers of the program, which needs the approval of the U.S. Treasury Department to move forward, argue that it will stabilize neighborhoods, reduce foreclosures, help the economic recovery and ultimately cost taxpayers nothing. Opponents insist it will leave taxpayers on the hook and drive better-off homeowners to engage in so-called strategic default, leading to more foreclosures and less stability. Read more on the higher costs associated with strategic default.
At issue is a proposal by Mercy Housing, a non-profit group that’s seeking to set up a mortgage stabilization fund using $100 million in capital from roughly $7.5 billion in taxpayer funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/illinois-plan-to-cut-mortgage-debt-is-making-waves-2011-05-23 - 99k -
” to help potentially thousands of troubled mortgage holders”
You can blow away the tip of the iceberg, but iceberg is still there.
Aren’t they talking about delaying payments to state contractors in Illinois?
Trickle down the drain…
Paul B. Farrell
May 24, 2011, 12:01 a.m. EDT
Reagan insider: GOP destroyed U.S. economy, Part 2
Commentary: Tax cuts, wars, rates, dollar, new crash coming
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — “My G.O.P. destroyed the U.S. economy.” Yes, that is exactly what David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote in a New York Times op-ed piece. Not “is destroying,” the GOP has “destroyed” the U.S. economy, setting up an “American Apocalypse.” And it’s getting worse.
…
We’re simply deferring massive tax increases into the future, unfairly and immorally putting huge debt burdens on future generations.”
That will change has too
In this new “Triumph of Politics Over Economics” we see America at a crossroads, struggling to redefine itself. Politicians have become the new economists. Politicians and their big money backers and lobbyists now rule the American economy like banana-republic dictators. Stockman calls this corrupt system the new “crony capitalism.” The old capitalist economics that made America the world’s greatest superpower no longer exist.
Today, professional economists are no more than hired guns for politicians with myopic ideologies and huge bankrolls that make it easy to justify lying, cheating and stealing from investors, workers, consumers, savers and taxpayers. Capitalism has morphed into a monopoly ruled by politicians who are serving a wealthy elite. Competition is a joke. Democracy is a farce. “We the People” no longer exists.
This says it all right here.
Consolidation has made corporations and big money stronger while labor and small business weaker. They have gained control of all levels of gov president congress courts regulators. The people do not believe in the system and this will in the end destroy capitalism and democracy in this country.
They have gained control of all levels of gov president congress courts regulators.
They have gained control of all levels of gov president congress courts regulators.
They have gained control of all levels of gov president congress courts regulators.
“Tune out, turn off, and save a frog.’”
I recommend a reading of David Stockman’s book, The Triumph of Politics. True, it’s yet another one of those “true believer goes to DC and becomes disillusioned” books, but he makes good points about how our political system really works.
And, if you’re looking for a similar type of book from the other side of the political spectrum, check out George Stephanopoulos’ All Too Human. It’s about his years in the Clinton White House. Let’s just say that it’s unlikely that he’s on Bill’s Christmas card list.
With regards from your HBB Librarian…
Thanks, Slim. I’m gettin’ ‘em both.
Commodities Modernization Act
Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act
The nails in J6P’s coffin while zombie plutocracy stalks the nation.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2011-05-24-mortgage-defaulters_n.htm
This was a topic of discussion just a day or two back.
Banks/lenders don’t make money unless they lend. If they figure out that strategic mortgage defaults don’t imply future risk of default, then they’ll figure out how to price & loan accordingly. This won’t carry the stigma the banks keep threatening it will.
Bankster Needs…
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/fXYbCSiA7TaTJt7EyZegdQ?feat=embedwebsite
How to win friends and influence farmers vote 101
nitro-canola & oil in one punch…
Pawlenty repeats call to end US ethanol subsidies:
WASHINGTON | Tue May 24, 2011 / Reuters
The president of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association said on Monday the group welcomed reform of ethanol subsidies but the “massive amount of federally funded petroleum incentives” must also be targeted.
“Iowans look forward to Governor Pawlenty further detailing his plans to ‘phase out’ petroleum subsidies, perhaps in a speech in Houston, Texas,” said the group’s president, Walt Wendland.
I’ll be brief:
Oil speculators charged with price manipulation
By Steve Hargreaves May 24, 2011
New YORK (CNNMoney) — Federal regulators charged five oil speculators Tuesday with manipulating the price of crude and making a $50 million profit from the scheme.
The alleged scheme took place between January and April 2008, a time when oil prices were gradually climbing toward their all-time record of $147 a barrel set in the summer of 2008.
The speculators charged in the suit are Parnon Energy Inc. of California, Arcadia Petroleum of the United Kingdom, Swiss-based Arcadia Energy, James T. Dyer of Australia and Nicholas J. Wildgoose of California.
Gee where is GS, and the rest of the WS banks. Probably using these firms as proxies.
The speculators charged in the suit are Parnon Energy Inc. of California, Arcadia Petroleum of the United Kingdom, Swiss-based Arcadia Energy, James T. Dyer of Australia and Nicholas J. Wildgoose of California.
Does this mean we’re about to go on a wild goose chase?
I am shocked to find gambling in this establishment!
Shocked, I say.
If I lived in Tornado Alley, I would carefully consider whether and how to implement the recommendations in this report. It’s not so much that I am scared of twisters (though I am), but that I would not feel right about not taking available measures to protect my family.
FEMA 320 - Taking Shelter From the Storm: Building a Safe Room For Your Home or Small Business
Third Edition
* Why is the term “safe room” being used instead of “shelter”?
* What is new in the third edition?
Cover of FEMA 320
Having a safe room in your home or small business can help provide “near-absolute protection” for you and your family or your employees from injury or death caused by the dangerous forces of extreme winds. Near-absolute protection means that, based on our current knowledge of tornadoes and hurricanes, there is a very high probability that the occupants of a safe room built according to this guidance will avoid injury or death. A safe room can also relieve some of the anxiety created by the threat of an incoming tornado or hurricane. Our knowledge of tornadoes and hurricanes and their effects is based on substantial meteorological records as well as extensive investigation of damage to buildings from extreme winds. All information contained in this publication is applicable to safe rooms for use in homes as well as in small businesses.
…
FEMA can fund up to 75 percent of the eligible costs of each project.
…and you only have to hope and pray the whole family is home to utilize that shelter instead of down at the Home Depot or over at Aunt Sallie’s house w/the slab when the tornado hits.
The backlash begins:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/karoli/wisconsin-accountability-board-approves-3-g
Wisconsin Accountability Board Approves 3 GOP Recall Elections
Not that it matters… The good old boy system, is nation wide,always has been, not just us southern folks.
Your Money: Billions in Stimulus Funds Paid to Tax Delinquent Contractors
May 24, 2011 12:18 PM
ABC News’ Devin Dwyer (@devindwyer) reports: The federal government awarded $24 billion in Recovery Act funds to contractors and vendors who owe millions in unpaid taxes, a new Government Accountability Office report has found.
The nonpartisan watchdog agency reported Tuesday that at least 3,700 recipients owed more than $750 million combined in unpaid federal taxes as of Sept. 30, 2009. They represent 5 percent of all recipients of the so-called stimulus funds.
“For many years now, we’ve known that a small percentage of federal contractors and grantees who get paid with taxpayer dollars shirk their responsibility to pay their taxes,” said Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan. “Now the executive branch should get on with it and actually debar the worst of the tax cheats from the contractor workforce.”
Levin, who chairs the Senate Permanent Investigations Committee, plans to hold a hearing on the report this afternoon.
“That such a huge amount of the stimulus money went to known tax cheats should be a wakeup call for Congress,” said Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the committee’s ranking member.
The GAO said their report likely underestimates the total amount of unpaid taxes owed by stimulus recipients. Federal law does not require government agencies to check the tax compliance of prospective grantees.
The report singled out 15 cases of “abusive or potentially criminal activity” for further investigation by the IRS.
One nonprofit health care organization reportedly owes $4 million in payroll taxes and has repeatedly submitted “dishonored checks” to the IRS to pay the bill. An unnamed security company, which received over $100,000 in Recovery Act funds and still owes more than $9 million in taxes, reportedly paid debts to other creditors but not the IRS and has repeatedly violated federal labor laws.
The report singled out 15 cases of “abusive or potentially criminal activity” for further investigation by the IRS.
One nonprofit health care organization reportedly owes $4 million in payroll taxes and has repeatedly submitted “dishonored checks” to the IRS to pay the bill. An unnamed security company, which received over $100,000 in Recovery Act funds and still owes more than $9 million in taxes, reportedly paid debts to other creditors but not the IRS and has repeatedly violated federal labor laws.
And, if a friend’s experience with them is any guide, the IRS is like a doggie with a bone. It won’t let go.
Mortgage rates in Great Britain may rise to 8%: http://www.cnbc.com/id/43146937
In my opinion, creation of the CFPA would be one of the most important watchdogs to come out of the financial crisis, even in its hobbled form, under the control of the Fed. And Warren is the perfect person to lead it.
If the Republicans block the CFPA and Warren, they will be hanging themselves politically. While the dollars will continue to flow from the financial sector lobby, they will lose votes. Look at Meg Whitman v. Jerry Brown.
Elizabeth Warren and House Republicans clash over consumer agency
By Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times
May 24, 2011, 4:26 p.m.
House Republicans have been adamant since last year that they don’t like the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — and they also made it apparent they don’t like Elizabeth Warren, the Obama administration advisor who is helping launch the agency.
…
After unsuccessfully trying to get her to say whether she believed consumers had an obligation to educate themselves about financial products, a frustrated Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said, “Mr. Chairman, I give up.”
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-elizabeth-warren-20110525,0,777294.story
From the link above: A tense exchange between Warren and Representative McHenry: “McHenry countered that he had never personally called anyone and that the agreement was merely a promise from the subcommittee’s staff that they would try to accommodate her schedule.
“Congressman, we had an agreement,” Warren said.
McHenry responded, “We had no agreement. You’re making this up.”
Representative McHenry’s contributors :
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00026627&cycle=2010
I know who I believe in this exchange.