Bits Bucket for June 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
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Lenders repossessed fewer homes in May
Bank processing delays led to drop in homes entering foreclosure process, repossessed in May
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The number of U.S. homeowners who were put on notice for being behind on their mortgage payments fell in May to the lowest level since 2006, the result of a slowing housing market and lingering delays in banks’ foreclosure process.
Mortgage lenders, many of which are still working through foreclosure documentation problems that surfaced last fall, also took back fewer properties in May, the second monthly decline in a row, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.
The delays continue to push the 2 million U.S. homes already on banks’ books or in some stage of foreclosure further into limbo and put banks on track to repossess about 200,000 fewer homes this year than in 2010, the firm said.
“The problem with that, even though it sounds better, is that all of those foreclosure auctions we should have seen this year roll into next year, and that means it’s going to take that much longer for the housing market to recover,” said Rick Sharga, a senior vice president at RealtyTrac.
The pace of homes entering the foreclosure process and those ending up as bank-owned properties began slowing sharply last fall, when allegations surfaced that many banks relied on erroneous documents when they foreclosed on thousands of homes.
Banks can hardly give away the foreclosures they currently own. They are in no particular hurry to get more on their books. Extend and pretend is alive and well.
Why did youz guyz CONvince me into not buying a home with no money down?
I could be living rent free and doing a lot better then i am today.
Sorry about that. We screwed up by thinking there were some kind of rules that would apply. We were wrong. Next housing bubble we will all know what to do and get it right.
I tend to agree with Ben that you can’t reasonably expect to live rent-free forever in a home with a defaulted mortgage. But I suppose if you were resigned to a future life as a renter, then it would make good financial sense to start off by a period of rent-free ‘home ownership.’
Two wrongs do not make a right. Not paying you obligations is another way of stealing. My morals would not allow me to do that? I would not participate in any of it.
SUGuy’s morals abatement or Goldenman$ucks?
Is there a way to validate the comparative “collateral” financial damage$?
But SUguy this is the reality of today.
So yes I AM a Bitter Renter….LOL
I couldn’t do it either, SUGuy. But I have started to consider what the numbers that would do it mean to me and my family’s existence and choices.
Us too. You don’t know how magenta all this free living has made us. We have been paying rent, waiting out this bubble. I don’t even want to think about how many of our future neighbors are living free, while we will write out a check for 100’s of $1,000’s. Unless there is a blanket forgiveness of delinquent payments, in the end, it is my belief our moral compass and decisions will put us in a better place.
I understand the business element of the defaults, but SUGuy, you’re not alone.
It kills me when I go to view a home in a distressed sale (way overpriced still), and the car in the driveway is pretty new and high end. Not to mention, the plastic surgery the wife has had. Sorry, we’re not paying for it.
Yeah right…… everyone has a price…. everyone will whore at a certain number…. everyone.. me, you, all of us. Let’s lay this sanctimonious moralizing BS to rest once and for all.
pffffffft..
Yeah, I’ve kinda been wondering that myself. Every time I pay the rent, in fact.
Why did youz guyz CONvince me into not buying a home with no money down?
I could be living rent free and doing a lot better then i am today.
Banks can hardly give away the foreclosures they currently own. They are in no particular hurry to get more on their books. Extend and pretend is alive and well.
Tell me about it!
I was bicycling home from a meeting last night. Went past a house that had been a student rental dump for almost five years.
I’d heard through the neighborhood grapevine that the place had originally been purchased to house some young Prince or Princess attending the University of Arizona. And the kid’s friends.
I can remember one of the next-door neighbors saying that she heard a screaming female voice from inside the house, and that worried her. I don’t know if the neighbor picked up the phone and dialed the magic number (911), but I do recall that she wasn’t too happy about these kids.
Any-hoo, graduation was a month ago, and, shortly thereafter, the kiddies bailed on the house. They left quite a yard-ful of tall weeds. And a piece of junk furniture out on the public sidewalk. I used the City of Tucson’s code enforcement reporting form to report this unkempt property.
As per its custom, the city got on things right-quick. The weeds were cut to the nubs, the house was cleaned, and the living room window curtains were left wide open.
And you should see the busted out piece of drywall in the living room. Looks like someone bounced a television off the wall.
Over the weekend, I saw a guy with a clipboard walking around inside this house. I figured that he was writing a repair estimate.
Well, last night, I noticed the addition of an AZ REO, Inc. “For Sale” sign to the front yard. Not to mention the aforementioned drywall damage in the living room. That’s still there too.
Methinks that the buyer of this place will be in for quite the repair adventure.
Just for giggles and grins, I went to the AZ REO, Inc. website. Since the aforementioned house didn’t have an info-flyer tube below the “for sale” sign, I was curious about price.
Let’s put it this way: Finding such information on this website is a frustrating experience.
Less Talk and More Action: Prof. Shiller’s Rx to Revive America’s ‘Animal Spirits’ By Stacy Curtin | Daily Ticker –
This may come as no surprise, but confidence in the housing market remains weak. The National Association of Home Builders today released its June housing market index, which fell to 13 from 16 in May; any rating below 50 signals negative sentiment about the new-home market.
“Builders are being squeezed by the continuing weakness in existing-home prices — against which they must compete — as well as rising material costs,” NAHB Chairman Bob Nielsen, a home builder from Reno, Nev, said in the organization’s press release. “In addition to the ongoing impacts of distressed property sales on home prices, appraisal values and consumer confidence, rising costs for materials such as roofing, copper, wallboard, vinyl siding and other components have made it extremely difficult to construct a new home and sell it at a price that covers the costs.”
Such negative sentiment, and all attitudes in general, go a long way to explaining how this country found itself in such dire economic straits, says Yale Professor Robert Shiller, author of Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism among other titles.
From 1997 to 2006, home prices rose nearly 10 percent a year, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which Shiller co-developed with Karl Case. Those kinds of numbers “generated pervasive optimism and complacency,” Shiller wrote in a New York Times op-ed over the weekend.
As is always the case, all good things must eventually come to an end.
“Economies have had booms and busts in the past, but this one really got out of hand,” Shiller tells Aaron and Henry in the accompanying interview. People were buying “McMansions” and sometimes even second and third homes; it was not a “sensible boom”.
People have sobered up since those drunken days and the idea of buying a new home — or any home for that matter — just isn’t what it used to be. (See: Shiller: Housing Could Fall Another 25% But Is Harder to Predict Than the Weather)
Back in 2005, most people expected the value of home properties to appreciate by 7 percent a year until 2015, according to an annual survey of home-buyer attitudes conducted by Shiller and Case.
Today people believe the value home properties will only appreciate by 3 percent a year over the next decade. With rates for a 30-year mortgage just above 4 percent, buying a home clearly isn’t all it was once cracked up to be.
“So, it won’t be surprising if new home sales remain abysmally low and few jobs are created in the hard-hit construction industry,” Shiller wrote in The Times. “And it shouldn’t be a shock if the personal savings rate stays at around 5 percent, as it has recently, up from around 1 percent in 2005. This would mean that consumer spending will not drive a strong recovery.”
Shiller’s Rx
What the economy needs now is less talk and more “action” on the part of both parties in Congress and President Obama’s administration.
Shiller has two remedies, but has little confidence that either will materialize in the near future:
1) another stimulus package.
2) another really big idea, like the New Deal of the 1930s.
But, in the midst of all this pessimism, he does believe there is one bright spot for the U.S. economy and financial markets: Despite these weaknesses, the U.S. is still the world’s #1 economy. “We really do lead the world in financial innovation and it really grows economies and the whole developing world understands that now and so they look to the U.S. for leadership.”
“We really do lead the world in financial innovation and it really grows economies”
We really do lead the world in steroids, and it really grows race horses.
Hey. Stop that. I like ATMs.
Wasn’t that what he meant?
Yeah, Wall Street’s “financial innovation” saw unwary “investors” in Europe and Asia buying up bundled toxic-waste MBSs rated AAA by our so-called rating agencies who were (and still are) in bed with the TBTF shysters who turned debts into “assets” and hived off their massive liabilities onto taxpayers, thanks to the mindless herd creatures who vote Establishment Republican and Democrat every election. This financial innovation isn’t “growing economies”; it is looting productive physical economies, sinking entire populations under the weight of unpayable debts, and rewarding unchecked parasitism and avarice at the expense of the dwindling productive segment of the population.
“financial innovation” + parasitism = “TrueSickledCellAnemia™”
(those with mortgage$ subject to a lethal do$e)
Well stated. Financial innovation simply means more and more innovative ways to strip wealth from the rest of society and gather it in the financial sector. Not only does it concentrate wealth there, but it attracts some of the top mathematical minds, who could be doing productive work, instead of working for the suit wearing legal mafia.
What other productive work? NO space program to speak of. NO massive rebuilding our our infrastructure requiring innovative engineering and materials. Very little R&D by the big corporations. Only so much room at the universities and weapons mfgs.
Brainiancs have to pay the rent, too.
We really do lead the world in financial innovation
It really bothers me that Shiller is cheerleading this. He should be identifying “innovation” as one of the biggest reasons we’re on the cusp of financial abyss. He is one of many that has advised our government to move into the double down postion. Or maybe he’s just on someone’s payroll making these statements for the masses? So hard to tell from the prole position whether these people believe their own BS.
Maybe you missed the movie “Inside Job”. The point they made at the end of the film was that there is a corrupt army of academics pushing this sh*t 24/7 and they are on the payroll of Wall St. They are the architects of our destruction.
there is a corrupt army of academics pushing this sh*t 24/7
You create$ & hire$ “TrueCitizenPatriot$™”, …you got ‘em…enjoy.
You’re right. I’d skipped the movie after hearing there wasn’t much new discussed there for those of us that had followed it all along. Should pick it up for specifics though. Thx.
You’re right. I’d skipped the movie after hearing there wasn’t much new discussed there for those of us that had followed it all along.
I watched “Inside Job” a few weeks ago. Quite frankly, it was just a rehash of what we’ve been discussing for lo these many years.
Now you sound like Charlton Heston!
“Get your hands off me, you damned dirty ape!”
I have shown “Inside Job” to three undergrad finance classes I have taught since the movie was released in March. I tell the students that for this ship to ever get righted people their age have to 1.) understand the implications of the fleecing of the American Public and 2.) get madder than hell about it and 3.) get involved in changing the system, whatever that means.
To my surprise I have gotten several students that really seem to understand the gravity of the situation.
Young adults really do want to know why this society is FUBAR for millions of its own citizens and are more than capable of grasping complex concepts.
Good for you and good for them. Bravo.
At the heart of the hippie and counterculture movement of the 1960s, their message was the essentially the same: big money lies and steals from you and WILL hurt you.
ecofeco
It’s funny you bring up the counter-culture of the 1960’s. A lot of what they preached has truly hit home. Monsanto and their Frankenfood is an example. My Doc can’t believe the food allergies and sensitivities he is diagnosing these days. GMO related issues, but hey, profits and collusion are doing well.
The FIRE sector runs this country. When I saw the list of who funded the Anderson School at UCLA, it woke me up. All special interest. Objective studies and news releases, I think not!
Was in Spokane last week on business. It is one of my favorite places to visit. The falls at the center of town are a spectacular natural feature in the middle of what appears to be a livable city. Based on my limited impression, potential drawbacks include the disconnection of greater Spokane from the cultural opportunities offered by a contiguous large urban area; by contrast, the connectedness of the SF Bay Area or SoCal offer myriad cultural opportunities if you seek them; and the winter, which I have never experienced. My hunch is that Spokane might have a long, cold winter to counterbalance summer days when it is already light outside at 4:30am.
Do you like living in Spokane? Anyone who lives in California naturally spends part of their days contemplating avenues of escape, if it gets to the point where you can no longer stand California living.
P.S. Regarding “Inside Job” and similar accounts of the fleecing of America: My opinion is that the snowball of Main Street anger towards the perpetrators of the financial collapse has only begun to roll off the top of the hill. The HBB crew has been way ahead of at least the public face of top economic policy makers and MSM financial pundits on almost all developments in the housing bubble collapse to date, and I don’t expect it to be any different in this area.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair
““We really do lead the world in financial innovation and it really grows economies” No Mr. Shiller, it destroys economies, that is why were are in the pickle that we are in. Mr. Shiller is very good at analyzing what happens five years in arrears.
“Such negative sentiment, and all attitudes in general, go a long way to explaining how this country found itself in such dire economic straits,…”
I guess the economic malaise is entirely due to negative sentiment, then — and has nothing to do with being collectively broke?
…or lied to, cheated and stolen from by Wall St?
“So, it won’t be surprising if new home sales remain abysmally low and few jobs are created in the hard-hit construction industry,” Shiller wrote in The Times. “And it shouldn’t be a shock if the personal savings rate stays at around 5 percent, as it has recently, up from around 1 percent in 2005. This would mean that consumer spending will not drive a strong recovery.”
So is he saying that saving money is bad, and profligate spending is good?
Saving for a rainy day has worked out well for an army of Asian savers, whose households are collectively in far stronger financial shape than the American household sector.
But then I suppose ‘financial innovation’ doesn’t work as well if households have savings on their balance sheets, as a parasitic banking industry finds weak hosts make far easier marks for their various forms of ‘financial innovation.’
There has never been a better time to be a bear.
Shiller: Recession Risk ‘Substantial’
June 15, 2011
Noted economist, Robert Shiller of Yale University, says the global economy is at a “tipping point”, and the U.S. faces a “substantial” prospect of a double-dip recession. Shiller speaks with WSJ’s Simon Constable. Image from Associated Press.
I thought it was a good time starting in about 2006. Then I was right in 2008. Then I was wrong again when we decided to repeal gravity. Hopefully I’m right again now that gravity has objected.
IMO he had little to offer other than restructuring morgages. Changing our direction lies far less in changing public confidence/perception and more on a complete revamping of oug gov.,financial inst, how we deal with debt and personal responsibility of ones finances. Socializing losses can no longer be accepted etc..
Shiller has convinced me even more so that buying a home is a high-risk, highly-leveraged gamble. He makes a great point, that borrowing at 4% to purchase a home that is expected to only return 3% per year wouldn’t be rational.
Further, even though his surveys suggest that people expect home prices to increase 3% per year for the next decades, aren’t home prices actually dropping? It seems like irrational exuberance is alive and well, as expected price increases still exceed realized (negative) increases. Perhaps at the point when expected increases are lower than what is likely to actually materialize, it will make sense to consider buying once again.
Been watching the Greek channels here in Cyprus. Last year the commentators look bemused but this year, they look worried. Riots and default jitters are starting to take their toll.
The riots are only happening because they don’t have American Idol there. It could never happen here. We are totally safe.
It’s worse than that. In 2008, 95% of the electorate gave their explicit sanction to the Federal Reserve-Wall Street looting syndicate and their creatures in the Republicrat kleptocracy to continue bending them over and keep the rigged casino “economy” roaring along on Bernanke Bucks and fictitious valuations. Our population is too dumbed down and docile to look out for themselves.
“In 2008, 95% of the electorate…” -but, …its got electorates?
It’s what plants crave!
I believe a majority of Amercians were against every TARP, bailout, buyout, stimulus, Federal Reserve zero interest rate, open discount window for banks, etc. Where was the explicit sanction? You mean from all those experts who said “Henny, Penny the sky will fall if we don’t do this?”
Well the sky fell anyway (ongoing), those programs just kept the sky pieces from hitting certain special interest groups and political cronies.
No, Sammy believes that we have two choices.
1: Vote for Ron Paul.
2: Vote for Lloyd Blankfein.
No gray area, or gray matter either.
Cracker Jim,
You are right - I distinctly remember the media reporting that elected officials were getting a very clear message from their constituents that a majority opposed TARP.
Phone calls, letters, emails.
Fat lot of good that did.
I believe a majority of Amercians were against every TARP, bailout, buyout, stimulus, Federal Reserve zero interest rate, open discount window for banks, etc. Where was the explicit sanction?
There aren’t that many Ron Pauls running in Senate, congressional, state, and local elections. And some of those who are fiscal conservatives are so far to the right socially that I could not support them.
The 19th century was a bad time for women. First your father owned you and then your husband did. Educational opportunities were severly limited. Women were disenfranchised politically and financially. Young women today think we could not return to those times, but I think we could easily slip back there if we are not vigilant.
Ron Paul isn’t perfect (who is) but he’ll be my write in candidate regardless.
Sound money is step #1 in any meaningful rebirth.
Any sound money policy that a President proposes requires the cooperation of Congress to become law. Is there any sound money candidate in your congressional or Senate race?
No, Sammy believes that we have two choices.
1: Vote for Ron Paul.
2: Vote for Lloyd Blankfein.
A vote for pro-bailout, statist, corporatist candidates like Obama and McCain, and virtually every other candidate from either party, was indeed a vote for Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon.
I distinctly remember the media reporting that elected officials were getting a very clear message from their constituents that a majority opposed TARP.
Letters to Congress ran 99 to one against TARP, according to the GAO. But what carries more weight with our bought-and-paid-for political elites: lobbyist donations and lucrative post-political employment, or the opinions of the rubes on Main Street? The “very clear message” came from the fact only five percent of the voters supported Ron Paul, and the rest voted for the status quo, i.e. raping taxpayers and future generations while facilitating the swindles of the Wall Street banks and corporate cartels.
Sound money is step #1 in any meaningful rebirth.
+1. Sound money, end the Fed, and end needless (and ruinously expensive) foreign entanglements. Abolish the creepy Patriot Act, and start taking the Constitution and Bill of Rights seriously.
“…start taking the Constitution and Bill of Rights seriously.”
LOL.
Yeah. Right.
Weirdo.
I hate to say it but they have “Greek Idol”. It’s on on Saturdays but it doesn’t stop them from raising hell
The riots are only happening because they don’t have American Idol there. It could never happen here. We are totally safe.
Yup, just like they’re safe up in Vancouver.
Are you saying hockey isn’t more important?!
Thanks for your observations, Mugsy.
Perhaps this year, people are beginning to realize these things aren’t just going to magically disappear with time.
Stay safe!
Yield on the Greek 2 year is up to 30%.
There has never been a better time to buy Greek bonds. (prof Bear quote during the last Greek crisis).
Well, he was right at that time. Just that today is even better, in fact it’s getting better all the time.
I am not convinced that they will default. The EU puppet masters know that the feces will hit the rotary device if they do. They will pump in whatever amount of money is needed to keep that from happening. Greece is relatively small, so it can be done.
Once Spain or Italy are up, then things get dicey, they’re too big to bail. I mean it is just a matter of time but they can still kick the can. They haven’t run out of road yet. Same is true in the US. I would bet, as long as there’s any road left the can will be kicked.
It should be called “Big Enough to Extort” instead of “Too Big to Fail”.
Well if Greece goes, can the other PIIGS be far behind?
Don’t forget the biggest blue-ribbon winning pig of the whole fair.
Buying their bonds appears to be a coin-toss bet on a bailout: heads you win, in the event of bailout; tails you lose, with no bailout.
The last Greek crisis is the current Greek crisis. Just because the MSM puts on the blinders for extended periods of time, doesn’t imply that an unresolved crisis is over.
MSM has been studiously downplaying this. The financial oligarchs who own them must be terrified.
If the Greek story is presented in the U.S. with the proper spin then the PTB can get the U.S. lemmings to peacefully go along with what the Greeks are protesting.
The MSM needs to spin the Greeks in an unfavorable light so the U.S. lemmings will not want to identify with them.
The Obama Administration has already sunk billions into Eurozone bailouts, and put US taxpayers on the hook for untold billions more. US banks have at least $41 billion in exposure to bad Greek debt, which the champion of Hope ‘n Change will be happy to foist onto the dumb, docile American taxpayers.
To date, most people seem content with slamming the Greeks and their response - at least based on the comments following stories about Greece online.
So from that it appears that compliance is assured. It’s tough to find posters who see the Greeks as frontline warriors in a larger struggle. Iceland was too small and remote to strike a chord globally, but Greece isn’t.
I don’t see the Greeks as “frontline warriors.” Maybe back when the 300 Spartans made a stand against 20,000 Persians, but not now. What I see instead is the ugliness that comes when fiscal reality catches up with the parasitic entitlement mentality inculcated by decades of corrupt socialist misrule. What the rioters are really saying is “To hell with the country, I want mine.” Although I will admit to a fondness for Riot Dog.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFd0hztEUWk
Presenting the Legend of the Riot Dog of Athens.
Can you comment on the level of disruption? I know you aren’t actually there, but can you tell? Are people able to go about their business, but there are anounced protests that sometimes become more of a problem? Or is it harder to predict than that?
Polly: What happens is that Athens closes down when these strikes happen. They’re announced but they cause huge amounts of disruption. We were blocked into the airport at Iraklion, Crete last spring due to protests. It’s very spooky to be in the middle of that when you’re picking up your rental car.
Here on Cyprus they’re sweating as tens of billions of euros of Cypriot bank money was used to purchase Greek debt. The estimate is that if Greece defaults, Cyprus’s economy will suffer a loss of 2% of its GDP in a few months. They’re not talking about what they would do to make up the losses. Lots of Greeks have been moving their cash here over the last year thinking they had a safe haven but it doesn’t take long for tsunamis to cross the Med.
Thanks. Very disturbing. I did not realize they were dealing with strikes large enough to shut down the city.
And, yes, I imagine that Cyprus would have huge problems if Greek bonds are not paid.
A close colleague of mine is from Cyprus. I tried calling him multiple times today….. no answer.
Youtube has some clips that will show you how things are going in Greece. Hard to find on MSM. Get ready for more.
No bottom in sight for home sales in most of SC
Just two of 15 markets grew; 31% drop in Midlands sales
~ The State Newspaper
Home sales in Columbia and statewide are still struggling to find a bottom during a sputtering economic recovery.
Midlands-area sales plummeted 31 percent to 569 in May compared to the same month last year, according to figures released by the S.C. Realtors trade group. Statewide, sales fell 17 percent with only two of 15 markets showing gains.
Sales in the Hilton Head area increased 23 percent, with Beaufort gaining about 6 percent. The Orangeburg area fared worst with a 48 percent decline in sales, followed by the Piedmont with a 34 percent drop and the Pee Dee with a 31 percent decline.
Last May, home sales were elevated as first-time home buyers scrambled to take advantage of an $8,000 federal tax credit. Buyers who put contracts on homes by April 30, 2010, were given until June 30, 2010, to close. That could skew number comparisons until July.
Median home price held relatively steady statewide at $150,000, and bumped up 6.5 percent in Columbia to $146,276. Homes also are taking about a month longer to sell than last year – nearly 5 months on average statewide and an average of four months in Columbia.
Orangeburg was a really nice place to live in the 60’s.
The Orangeburg massacre[1] was an incident on February 8, 1968, in which nine South Carolina Highway Patrol officers in Orangeburg, South Carolina, fired into an aggravated but unarmed mob protesting local segregation at a bowling alley.
Three men were killed and twenty-eight more injured,[2] hitting most of them in their backs. After the shooting stopped, two others were injured by police in the aftermath and one, a pregnant woman, later had a miscarriage due to the beating. The incident pre-dated the Kent State shootings and Jackson State killings.
Orangeburg, SC
Then:
Great Bar-B-Que
Summers spent swimming at the country club pool
Little League baseball
99% Anglo-Saxon schools with great, committed teachers
Lots of pretty girls
Beautiful, well-kept neighborhoods
Active downtown
Leave the doors unlocked
Now:
Great Bar-B-Que
Riot at the IHOP (see You-Tube)
Schools are 85% urban
Downtown dead
Baby day care at high-school
A murder every week
Bars on windows
Yes, it was a nice place in the 60’s
schools are 85% “urban”? lol
Sounds like Orangeburg has always sucked, but in very different ways.
Sales in the Hilton Head area increased 23 percent
heheeeheeeheehaahaaahaaheeehaahaaa… (Hwy50™)
Current Congre$$ is coming to the re$cue!:
“Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!”
The poor, poor wealthie$, they’re $uffering $o!
Most Expensive Housing Markets
http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/112942/most-expensive-housing-markets-cnnmoney?mod=realestate-buy
vienna, va - median home price $ 525,000
BNOBPOF!
San Jose is more expensive on average than San Francisco, and SF really has run out of land.
Nearly Half of US Think New Recession Is Coming: Poll
NBC
The nation’s gloom over economic conditions poses a serious threat to President Obama’s re-election chances, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
The survey shows that nearly half of all Americans, and two-thirds of Republicans, believe the country is headed back into recession. A 54 percent majority disapproves of Obama’s handling of the economy.
“The public is incredibly pessimistic about the future,” said Peter Hart, the Democratic pollster who conducts the NBC/WSJ poll with his Republican counterpart Bill McInturff.
Added McInturff, “The president has substantial advantages, but is still in for a difficult race.”
President Obama’s overall job approval dipped back to 49 percent from 52 percent in May. That signals that the popularity boost he received after the special forces raid that killed Osama bin Laden has faded.
Nearly Half of US Think New Recession Is Coming
and the other 1/2 own businesses and are lying so as not to scare off their clients.
; )
I was gonna say the other half weren’t aware the old one had ended.
Exactly.
Pretty much. Once again, the thought of a prolonged downturn is simply outside the realm of possibility for most people alive today - at least those under 80 or that don’t live in pcokets of enduring poverty.
Realtors Are Liars
Abolish. The. Fed.
stop the presses,
close the discount window
recover interest on our national debt paid to the fed that they didn’t earn
conduct a real audit
prosecute the criminals
publicly stone the Realtors.
Now you’re talking!
Yo. start your own cause in your own thread dude. (laughing)
Realtors steal pens and pencils at open houses. I witnessed it yesterday! LMFAO
Yes I Can!
Realtors are NOT liars. They just have an alternate view of reality.
Realtors are Liars, or Buyers are Liars? You decide.
http://weirdnews.aol.com/2011/06/15/idaho-house-snakes_n_877249.html
“When they bought the house, the Sessions signed a document that noted the snake infestation. They said they had been assured by their real estate agent that the snakes were just a story invented by the previous owners to leave their mortgage behind.”
How stoopit do you have to be to sign a document disclosing the snake infestation and then cry foul afterwards?
It was reported they actually stayed in the house 3 mos before abandonning it. (shudder) God bless them, I’d leave my husband before I stayed in a house like that w/my family.
Just goes to show you people will believe what they want to believe despite the obvious.
Hate to bring up “Nazi” references again, but a bunch of people didn’t believe what was happening “in the East”, right up to the time they got jammed into the rooms with the sprinkler heads.
Assume people will screw you, until proven otherwise, is one of my personal “Rules to Live By”.
Hate to bring up “Nazi” references again
Screw Godwin and his stupid “law”. Who died and made him Elvis anyway?
Maybe Realtors just stretch the truth to the point where it is flat-out inaccurate.
‘Lying listings’ fool more homebuyers
By Jay MacDonald • Bankrate.com
Flat-out false
Yes, Realtors are desperate to sell homes in a stagnant market with mounting inventories. But descriptions of houses these days can be flat-out inaccurate
“These days, with the greater demands on the market, we probably are seeing more strangeness and stretching the truth,” Boyd says. “It’s frustrating for buyers when the expectation and the reality are two totally different things.”
“If I accurately call a guy’s house a dump, how long do you think I would have that listing?” he says
http://www.bankrate.com/finance/real-estate/lying-listings-fool-more-homebuyers-1.aspx - 68k -
Beware the hidden tattoo, gun wielding one’s as well exeter’s cousin!
Published: June 16, 2011
Police: Realtor fired gun to scare away people being loud
By KRISTY CHU / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
MISSION VIEJO – A 65-year-old Realtor has been arrested on suspicion of discharging a firearm in a negligent manner after police say she fired a gunshot to scare people talking loudly near her home.
“she fired a gunshot to scare people talking loudly near her home.”
I bet they were talking loudly about Lying Realtors.
Fannie Mae offers bonus to Realtors to drive sales of its foreclosed homes
By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 5:15 p.m. Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Federal mortgage backer Fannie Mae hopes to energize sales of its repossessed homes with a new $1,200 bonus to Realtors and an extension of closing cost help to homebuyers.
Tuesday’s announcement came as a June 30 deadline approached for homebuyers to earn up to 3.5 percent of the final sales price on a home to put toward closing costs. That offer is now good on contracts closed by Oct. 31.
The $1,200 bonus to the selling agent only applies if the buyer plans to live in the home. Investor sales are not eligible.
“I think it will make a difference,” said Joe Bettag, broker/owner of Coastal Properties in Jupiter. “Anytime you provide incentives in the market place, it creates a sense of urgency.”
Last year, Fannie Mae offered a $1,500 inventive to agents who closed deals between late September and Dec. 31.
Some Realtors said Tuesday the new incentive is an effort to clear inventory before more foreclosures hit the market.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/foreclosures/fannie-mae-offers-bonus-to-realtors-to-drive-1539588.html - -
This is from the comments section of this article. Is this possible?
I have a Fannie owned mortgage and I came home one day and found a Fannie contractor in my home taking pictures. It seems Fannie slipped a “security instrument” paragraph into my documents that allowes them to enter my home anytime they wish for any reason.
You are a fool if you buy a Fannie home.
Your mortgage is the largest purchase of your life and its the only product you aren’t allowed to shop around for who you owns or services it.
Read the fine print
1:21 PM, 6/15/2011
Nah, same quote in…
http://story.albuquerqueexpress.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/d867a54a6fc00b3b/id/46155852/ - -
Holy moly! Did you call a lawyer? That was a blatant civil rights violation.
Downtown Vancouver Rocked By Stanley Cup Post-Game Riot
Vancouver Sun
VANCOUVER — Angry Canucks fans are on a rampage, smashing windows, looting and torching cars and dumpsters on the streets of downtown Vancouver.
More than three hours after the Stanley Cup final loss, police are moving up Howe St. toward the crowd massed at the Chapters book store on Howe and Robson.
They are very gradually pushing the crowd North up Howe.
Police spokeswoman Jana McGuiness warned earlier that police are about to escalate their response.
She said they will be igniting flash-bangs, which make loud noises and spray.
“What we’re doing right now is bringing in hundreds of police officers.”
The message is, you need to leave.”
Officers armed with canisters massed on the corner of Granville and Robson. It is not clear whether it is tear gas or pepper spray
They are protected by shields, batons and masks.
The Canadians are famous for their . ‘Go on home now , eh” approach . Don’t think the cops even carry guns , mostly . wonder how convincing that is . Sure would not work here in the USA
Yeah, North America is still safe turf for the bankers. The Greeks riot to protect their country and North Americans riot over the failings of over compensated athletes.
Maybe next time they should lose in game six.
Riots also broke out in Vancouver after the Canucks lost to the New York Rangers in Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Final in 1994.
http://sportingnewsradio.com/nhl/riots-break-out-in-vancouver-after-canucks-loss-2-66522/ - -
California to suffer housing shift, UCLA forecasters say
Demand will grow for urban rental units by the coast and shrink for single-family homes inland, resulting in fewer construction jobs and no boom for some areas hit hard by the housing bust.
By Alana Semuels, Los Angeles Times
June 15, 2011, 1:03 a.m.
UCLA forecasters have seen the future of California’s housing market, and it looks like this: more apartments near the coast, fewer McMansions in the desert.
That prediction is based on several factors, including expectations that rising fuel prices will encourage people to live closer to jobs along the Southland coast and in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The state’s population is also skewing younger, meaning there will be more demand for urban rental units and less demand for suburban cul-de-sacs, according to the quarterly economic forecast released Wednesday by UCLA’s Anderson School of Business.
“The incremental demand for housing is moving more into multifamily housing,” said Jerry Nickelsburg, senior economist with the forecast. “Many of the younger generation have been buffeted by the boom and bust in the housing market, and see value in living closer to work.”
http://www.latimes.com/business/realestate/la-fi-econ-forecast-20110615,0,3144669.story - -
Wont be long before peoples backs are against the wall and HOA’s will have to let the 5 bedroom Mc Mansions turn into rooming houses or half way houses
or even be “given away” for next to nothing if you agree to have your grand parents live in them with you… actually not a bad idea except i doubt there are any bedrooms on the first floor….hmmmm convert those Gift wrapping rooms?
“…fewer McMansions in the desert…”
It’s not like there is a current shortage of McMansions in the desert!
Gee, how many ways can one say - location, location, location?
Too Big to Fail Ends With Wave of a Magic Wand: Jonathan Weil
By Jonathan Weil Jun 16, 2011 (Bloomberg)
In the words of Sheila Bair, the departing chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the era of too-big-to-fail banks isn’t just ending — it’s already over. Consider her statement two weeks ago, in a news release heralding the creation of a committee to advise the agency on how to deal with large, dying financial firms:
“Congress has given the FDIC a tremendous amount of responsibility to ensure that financial organizations formerly deemed too big to fail will no longer receive taxpayer funded bailouts.”
Formerly deemed, huh?
Maybe Bair didn’t express herself clearly or was giving voice to her inner hopes. Either way, it’s hard to believe she convinced anyone that the government wouldn’t rescue Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. (C), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Morgan Stanley (MS) — to name just a few — amid a crisis that threatened to take down the global financial system.
The capital markets sure don’t seem to buy it. Otherwise, the bonds of these banks would be trading for a lot less, as would their stocks. Bank of America and Citigroup, whose shares fetch much less than the net assets on their balance sheets, might be dead already.
The basis for Bair’s assertion rests in the FDIC’s new powers under the Dodd-Frank Act passed by Congress last year. The act, it’s worth noting, didn’t even pretend to end too big to fail at Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, both of which are in government conservatorship almost three years after they were seized, or American International Group Inc. (AIG), which is still majority-owned by the Treasury Department.
GM will get rescued again sooner than anybody thinks is my prediction.
the bailout madness will stop one way or the other
end tbtf b4 it ends us
end tbtf b4 it ends us
Hey now, quit flashing those young repubican “TrueFiscalConservative™” gang tattoo’s!
History shows, repeatedly, that the only way this situation ends is badly.
Without overwhelming opposing force, the big money parasite/predators will continue until they kill the host.
“Congress has given the FDIC a tremendous amount of responsibility to ensure that financial organizations formerly deemed too big to fail will no longer receive taxpayer funded bailouts.”
So long as firms of systemically risky size are allowed to exist, there is no guarantee that Congress will not bail them out again during a panic, as happened when the TARP was passed. Hence firms which have achieved systemically risky size will continue to enjoy lower financing costs, on the assumption that they would be bailed out in a moment of panic.
What changes in the rules of the game could change these fundamentals?
What changes in the rules of the game could change these fundamentals?
Master Yoda: “ummmm, lost your moral compass have we young padawan?”
Straighten up and fly right!
Hwy plays Nat King Cole singin’:
A buzzard took monkey for a ride in the air
The monkey thought that everything was on the square
The buzzard tried to throw the monkey off his back
But the monkey grabbed his neck and said– Now listen, Jack
Straighten up and fly right
Straighten up and fly right
Straighten up and fly right
Cool down, papa, don’t you blow your top.
Ain’t no use in divin’
What’s the use in jivin’
Straighten up and fly right
Cool down, papa, don’t you blow your top.
The buzzard told the monkey “You’re chokin’ me
Release your hold and I’ll set you free
The monkey looked the buzzard right dead in the eye and said
Your story’s so touching but it sounds just like a lie
Straighten up and fly right
Straighten up and stay right
Straighten up and fly right
Cool down, papa, don’t you blow your top.
Land of the Free? New York and California come out at the bottom of individual freedoms study. Thursday, Jun 16 2011
New Hampshire, South Dakota and Indiana ranked at the top
It might be the ‘Land of the Free’, but some states certainly aren’t living up to the words of America’s national anthem.
New York, New Jersey and California are the least free in the U.S., based on an index of public policies affecting your individual freedoms.
The rankings are based economic, social and personal freedoms of Americans - and include measures such as taxes, government spending and regulations.
But New Hampshire, South Dakota and Indiana are the most free states in the U.S., according to Virginia think tank the Mercatus Center.
New York is by far the least free state and has had ‘the most interstate emigration of any state over the last decade’, the ‘Freedom in the 50 States’ report said.
The state also has ‘by far the highest taxes in the country’ and ‘only Alaska has more government debt as a percentage of the economy’.
New York’s smoking and gun laws are ‘extremely’ strict, cigarette taxes are the ‘highest in the county’ and ‘motorists are highly regulated’.
The report recommends New York should legalise same-sex partnerships, cut spending, privatise transport systems and cut taxes.
Category weights: The rankings are based on factors such as taxes, government spending and regulations
Category weights: The rankings are based on factors such as taxes, government spending and regulations
California ‘aggressively interferes in the personal lives of its citizens’ and ‘needs to cut government spending’, the report said.
It added that labour laws are ‘extremely strict’ and the state’s ‘liability system almost reaches the abysmal quality of the Deep South’s’.
But New Hampshire’s gun laws are ‘among the most liberal in the country’, government debt has fallen and ‘effective retail-tax rates on wine and spirits are zero’.
It is also the only state in the U.S. with no seatbelt law for adults, but ‘home-school laws are slightly worse than average’, the report said.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2003910/New-York-New-Jersey-California-come-individual-freedoms-study.html#ixzz1PRIcOEEE
Just had to poke fun a little bit at NYs gun laws. One of the biggest problems 10-15 miles out from this city is hunters on your property. Several of my horse owner friends have had problems on their land. One can’t put her deer colored pony out during the season because he’s been shot at several times. One has a retired relative regularly go back on their property to patrol. You can post No Trespassing all you want but they feel you’ll never catch them.
“New Hampshire’s gun laws are ‘among the most liberal in the country”
What does that mean?
link
Q: What do I have to do to buy a gun in New Hampshire?
A: Go to a gun store, a gun show, or a private party selling a gun, and give them money.
Q: How do I get a license or a permit to buy a gun?
A: You don’t.
Q: Can I carry a pistol or revolver openly, say in an exposed belt holster?
A: Yes. Furthermore, you do not need a License to Carry
Q: Where can I and can I not carry? What about banks, bars, and hospitals?
A: By state law (RSA 159:19), the only place you can’t have a gun is a courthouse or courtroom.
Q: Who can get a concealed carry license?
A: With some rare exceptions, anyone who isn’t prohibited by law from possessing a gun is generally issued a License to Carry.
Wait, does this mean the property owners, (like say, banks) can’t restrict your right to carry a gun onto THEIR property? That seems strange to me.
Special Open Season.
LOL, sloth.
I never smoked a cigaret, so I really really appreciated the lack of a fog in night clubs and restaurants when i had a dj gig….
———————————-
New York’s smoking and gun laws are ‘extremely’ strict, cigarette taxes are the ‘highest in the county’
Which was, in fact, the official reason for the ban. Worker protection.
Smoking band increase our freedom since I now have the freedom to enjoy restaurants, theaters, clubs, pubs, and many other public facilities without feeling like I spent the night licking ashtrays.
while I see you point, when I decreased my smoking, my nose became more sensitive, but once you go after one set of people ie smokers, then they will move after another such as alcohol, I dont drink so I would give a *hit, see where this road takes us. as for worker protection, if the worker does not like smoke at a bar, they can go somewhere else, I have told the same to friends of mine who do not drink, go work in a F’in bar if you dont want to be around alcohol
For most dj’s Jan Feb & March are quite dead…Not many people get married or have high school reunions in winter…..so the only other way to make any money was say at a smoke filled Irish bar.
————————————
if the worker does not like smoke at a bar, they can go somewhere else
Is this is that Koch brothers funded study?
Yes, the Mercatus Center is indeed a tentacle of the Kochtopus, hence my surprise that they would use the word ‘liberal’ in any positive- at least to them- way (’liberal gun laws’).
Someone at the center needs a refresher course in KochSpeak. ‘Liberal’ is always and everywhere bad. They should have said ‘conservative, all-american gun laws’.
South Dakota - where you are “free” to wait 3 days to have a legal abortion at the state’s only clinic that provides them and required to visit a “pregnancy help” center, whose sole purpose is to dissuade women from getting abortions.
the US is in a stagflationary depression
+1
A stagflationary depression means … what?
What are the consequences? Here’s a list:
1. Cash is tight which makes cash the king.
2. Good paying jobs are tight which makes money flow tight which makes cash the king.
3. Debt sucks and the rent that needs to be paid on debt will suck you dry of all your cash, thus those who have the cash are allowed to free themselves of debt and those who don’t have the cash are destined to remain as debt slaves.
Cash gets one out of debt and thus fress him of debt slavery thus, once again, cash is the king.
Your lessons make more sense by the day.
Cash gets one out of debt and thus frees him of debt slavery thus, once again, cash is the king.
(old order Amish saying in latin):
constantia et aqua
My version is constantia et aqua vitae.
I never decline it. (an old Latin student joke;-)
“Old school” chaps:
“Ever de$irele$$, one can see the mystery, ever de$iring, one can see the manife$tation$”
Lao Tzu
Debtde$ire suck$ and therentvital energy that needs to bepaidexpended ondebtde$ire will $uck you dry of all yourcashvital energy, thus those who have vital energycashare allowed to free themselves ofdebtde$ire and those who don’t havecashany vital energy left are destined to remain asdebtslave$ of de$ire.Buddha
I had a bowl of stagflation for breakfast. It was just yummy (yet a little pricey at the same time).
“All Aaaaboard! Amtrak!”
In a “grow or die” world - stagnation is depression. We just need the passage of a little more time to see that.
I went window-shopping yesterday in Palm Harbor, FL. I’m tempted to make an offer on a house, but probably won’t. I am still not seeing capitulation, only hangers-on. I’m tempted because the house backs to a preserve and will never be developed (ha! famous last words in FL) and truly has a beautiful nature view (for real, hard to get in Pinellas)
Many of the houses we looked at were in disguising condition. One dude had his gym chit everywhere and didn’t have the AC on — windows open in 93 degree, muggy-ass weather. So freaking gross. I nearly chunked.
I feel awful when I go through widow/widower homes. One lady was all by herself and it was obvious she’d given up… only surrounded by boxed up memories and pictures of happier days. Those places remind me that a house may not only be a place to raise your family, but someday may become the start of a coffin. She was so happy to bullshit with us, with anybody.
Also, put away your gotdamn cats! Nobody wants to see fluffies raw chow and litter boxes. WTF.
And, also, a few people turned us away because they “weren’t ready to show.” My realtor said, “don’t list your house if you’re not ready to take knocks on the door. In this market you can’t refuse any showing.”
Did anyone see the newest episode of “Real Estate Intervention”? The couple had a townhouse/condo thingie on the market. There was junk everywhere (the stager said they were on their way to being hoarders). Their bed was in the living room because there were about three large bird cages occupying the master bedroom. The sunroom was dubbed “the cats’ litter box room”.
They were asking $799K for this mess (oh yeah, $550 monthly HOA fees). The stager did an amazing job (moving boxes and boxes of their crap shouldn’t have been in her job, but she and her crew did it). In the end the couple was all happy-happy to get $650K and get out.
Good stuff Mugz. Thank you.
Paul Ryan, US House said the GAO’s estimate of the US “unfunded” liabilities is $99.4 Trillion.
Ryan / Rubio that’s the ticket
Rubio? You’re kidding right? Another hog at the trough:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/senate-candidate-marco-rubio-in-foreclosure-tangle-over-tallahassee/1103299
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/legislature/records-show-marco-rubio-spent-thousands-with-gop-credit-card/1075692
Palin / Jeb Shrub Jr. III
“You have my word on it.” Joe Isuzu
Woohoo!!! $900k per household right now. Since an unfunded liability is really just debt, the government has effectively borrowed $99 trillion from citizens expecting future entitlements. All federal revenue for 2011 is forecasted to be about $2.2 trillion so the government’s debt to income ratio is over 50 to 1 when you add the unfunded liability to currently outstanding treasury debt. Considering that prudent mortgage lending has historically been associated with approximately a 3 to 1 debt to income ratio, the U.S. government may be the largest FB of all times.
Over what time frame? What is the estimated income (under current tax laws) that matches that time frame?
You really need the supporting information.
All sort of number get wonky when you multiply them over an infinite timeframe.
I probably owe the Thruway Authority about $20K for my trips over the next 50 years. I wonder if i should just pay it all up next time I am at the toll booth?
Good luck getting a receipt for that.
And I would very much like to know what “unfunded” means in this context. Not funded yet? Not funded under current revenue projections? Not funded assuming the economy is growing at 1.8% per year but never any more? Not funded assuming that health care costs continue to go up at a stupid percent per year forever?
The details actually matter. And Ryan has proven himself to be untrustworthy when it comes to details like this. His projections about his own budget plan assumed that unemployment would go down to something absurd like 3% (might have been even lower) incredibly quickly and stay there forever.
The initial post said it was a GAO study so don’t think Ryan had much to do with the assumptions used. These types of studies use many assumptions, GDP growth rate, size of future labor force, amounts collected in future medicare tax under current policy, projected future payouts based on medical cost growth rates, etc, etc, so best to look at multiple studies. Dallas fed pegged the unfunded liability at $105 trillion in a study published about a year ago. Some private research groups have placed the figure in the $50-60 trillion range. The smallest estimates I have seen are in the $45 trillion range. This is the first time I’ve heard of a government study putting the figure at $100 trillion. Usually the government like to paint a more rosy picture. Whether the actual number is $50 trillion or $100 trillion it doesn’t matter. Neither amount can be paid so it won’t be paid. The government will default on promises made to the citizens.
Good point.
The liability may only be $50 trillion at $450k per household.
The government will
defaultdistort on promi$e$ made to the citizens at home & elsewhere.(Hwy plays Van Morrison,…album: Tupelo Honey / Song:”(Straight to Your Heart) Like a Cannonball”
“Waiting for the sun to shine…”
Or assuming that we continue to spend unsustainably more than we get in taxes, until we can’t even cover interest out of revenues. You can get real big numbers if you assmume that we are incapable of paying taxes at the rates that we did under Nixon or even Reagan.
C’mon guys, if you’re going to get all bent out of shape over “unfunded” liabilities over the next however many years, you should also be extremely excited about the “unrealized” income as well. With no inflation, no change to the tax code, and no GDP growth the federal government will collect $110 trillion in taxes over the next 50 years. Woo hoo! Numbers are fun!
There’s no point even discussing the “unfunded liabilities” until we know the assumptions behind that number. Simply saying “we have $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities” doesn’t mean anything by itself.
Simply saying “we have $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities” doesn’t mean anything by itself.
Shhhh, pipe down…they’re this [.] close to scramming from US terra firma.
“C’mon guys, if you’re going to get all bent out of shape over “unfunded” liabilities over the next however many years, you should also be extremely excited about the “unrealized” income as well.”
One should get bent out of shape over the unfunded liability. That liability is what exists when looking at all future expenditures minus all the future taxes collected to support the programs under current policy. The unfunded liability is the present value of the future deficits to the medicare and social security program if current policy is extended. As such, it is the pool of money required today, invested at some assumed interest rate, the public plans usually assume 8%, so that when combined with future taxes, the plan can meet all future payouts. If you don’t have that amount of money invested today, the unfunded liability grows annually by the amount of the investment income that was assumed to be earned, but not realized. In the Dallas fed’s analysis it was determined that income tax collections would need to be increased by 60%, into perpetuity, to cover the unfunded liability.
“That liability is what exists when looking at all future expenditures minus all the future taxes collected to support the programs under current policy.”
If this is true, then wouldn’t the unfunded liability be infinite? If we’re truly looking at ALL future expenditures minus ALL future taxes then there’s no time constraint. If there’s no time constraint and we run a deficit every year then our unfunded liability is infinite.
How dare you use basic logic and scientific method, Max!
Figures don’t lie, but liars figure.
Let me cherry-pick the paramaters, and I can make a set of number “prove” anything I want them to.
Hey, you’re my kind of guy! Spreadsheets are a blast!
GAO’s estimate of the US…
Well, now come on, what’s their e$timate figure$ on the U$ a$$et side?
It’s a my$tery Charlie Brown!
(Hwy anxiously awaits…)
Ho ho, hah hah, hehehehehehe, BwaHaHaAhHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! (Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower™)
These ‘unfunded liabilities’ are simply Medicare. All the numbers show is that our current health care system is doomed. We will eventually have universal single-payer coverage, simply because there is no other way.
Wanna bet? There may be no other LOGICAL choice, but that doesn’t mean squat in this country.
If there is some way to make it worse, a way will be found.
Or we will effectively have no Medicare and most folks dropping dead before 70, which solves the SS problem as well.
Repossessions in Palm Beach County up sharply from last year
By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 8:19 a.m. Thursday, June 16, 2011
Banks ramped up repossessions of Palm Beach County homes last month, with more than 1,100 going to auction while much of the rest of the country continued to experience a foreclosure lull.
Experts at the Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac, which will release May foreclosure statistics today, said banks are strategically restarting their foreclosure proceedings in specific markets depending on housing inventory and sales.
“There have been some wild swings in the numbers,” said RealtyTrac spokesman Daren Blomquist. “It’s been a little bit of a roller coaster ride.”
Blomquist said some new foreclosure filings may be on hold until after a settlement is negotiated between lenders and the 50 state attorneys general. The group, led by Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, is working on a deal that would compensate homeowners for banks’ foreclosure wrongdoing.
Jeffrey Lampert, a Royal Palm Beach-based attorney who represents homeowners in foreclosure, said he has seen an increase in new law firms taking over bank representation.
“I think it’s been a matter of regrouping, getting it together, and now it’s back to court,” Lampert said. “Now that they’ve found other law firms, they are moving ahead with their plans
“RealtyTrac estimates there is a 25-month supply of foreclosed homes for sale nationwide. In Florida, the supply is 16 months.”
If there is a 25-month supply of foreclosed homes for sale, how many months supply is there total?
Realtytrac lists 121 bank owned homes in Jupiter Fl. 33458 listings, which is not even all of Jupiter. Not pre-foreclosure or auction, just bank owned.
Of these 121 bank owned homes 16 are listed for sale. One house that I would buy at the same price a similar bank owned house in the same neighborhood sold for last month, has been listed pre-foreclosure and sitting empty since Sep. 2010.
“RealtyTrac estimates there is a 25-month supply of foreclosed homes for sale nationwide. In Florida, the supply is 16 months.”
So Florida has a far smaller supply of REOs than the national average? Those numbers seem a little skrewy, no?
From an article on health news dot com yesterday:
American Life Expectancy Dropping
“Geographically, the lowest life expectancies for both sexes were in counties in Appalachia and the Deep South, extending across northern Texas. Counties with the highest life expectancies tended to be in the northern Plains and along the Pacific coast and the Eastern Seaboard, with longevity being the highest in the states of Colorado, Minnesota, Utah, California, Washington, and Florida.”
That can’t be we don’t have socialized medicine like Canada Europe and Japan????
I read an article the other day saying that rising co pays are making insurance companies rich not by raising money but by getting the insured to do without health care. Expect this trend and the continued decline in life expectancy to continue.
Forget rising copays, the future is in high dedictible plans (1500/3000). That really keeps people away from the doctor, especially when they have to cough up $100+ per office visit.
“TruePatriotCEO™” + “TruePatrioticInsuranceCorpooration$Inc.™” + Medical Indu$trial Complex Inc. utilizing $cams & $chemes to extract monie$ from American citizens???? Ha!
And when the “allowable amount” that counts towards your deductible is significantly less than what the doctor bills, it is hard to ever get to the point that they start paying anything unless you have a serious illness.
You can also throw in caps that don’t keep up with inflation.
Get an autoimmune disease that requires regular therapy and your benefits might be gone when you develope lymphoma or have an MI.
In the freemarket utopia the doctor will say no money no tx.
How many people who buy insurance understand that this can happen and how quickly it can happen? I’d say less than 10%. There is no such thing as a free market in medicine and insurance.
Forget rising copays, the future is in high dedictible plans (1500/3000). That really keeps people away from the doctor, especially when they have to cough up $100+ per office visit.
Many years ago, when I lived in Pittsburgh, I had one of those joe-jobs that didn’t offer health insurance. Well, wouldn’t ya know it, one of my coworkers got sick. And he had to go to the doctor.
My coworker lived in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, and there was a guy practicing there named Dr. Cohen. Real old guy — old as the hills, in fact.
Anyway, my coworker went to see this doctor, and the doc charged him all of five dollars. Reason: My coworker wasn’t in a job that offered health insurance, and the job paid next to nothing.
I was told that Dr. Cohen also charged the same five-bucks-a-visit to the unemployed, and Pittsburgh had many of those during the 1980s.
I saw a couple doctors like that in the 70s and 80s. Definitely old-school.
Health insurance is no longer worth it. The people who need it can’t afford it and those that don’t are throwing away their money.
I’ve concluded that health insurance is just a protection racket. A topic that’s very much front and center in the book I’m reading now — Get Capone.
It is and it isn’t. For some people, it works. It was a good idea when it first came out as it really did help control costs for people.
But yes, it has become a protection racket of the most heinous kind. Life and death.
Interesting. This quote from the Wikipedia entry makes it sound like it goes higher up the chain than just insurance companies:
“”The warrior caste, supposedly society’s protectors, often become protection racketeers. In times of war or crisis, power is easily stolen from the many by the few on a promise of security. The more elusive or imaginary the foe, the better for manufacturing consent.”"
I’ll be brief:
heheeeheeeheehaahaaahaaheeehaahaaa… (Hwy50™)
China’s “Born in the USA” Frenzy:
By ZHANG YAN / ECONOMIC OBSERVER / WORLDCRUNCH Zhang Yan / Economic Observer / Worldcrunch – Wed Jun 15
The temptation of a ‘born in the USA’ child
Giving birth to a child abroad is not a privilege reserved to the stars and the very wealthy. An increasing number of expectant middle-class parents also fancy giving their children passports that they can feel proud of. “The return on investment is higher than robbing a bank,” the consultancy agent tells women such as Liu. When Chinese children are born in America, they automatically become U.S. citizens. Once they reach 21, their parents will be able to apply for green cards and emigrate.
Going to the United States to give birth and taking a foreign born child back to China usually proves relatively easy. The difficult part starts only later, as Song Jingwen is starting to understand. Because her son has a U.S. passport, the law does not allow him to be registered in his mother’s local area, which means that he will not be automatically admitted to Chinese schools. Song will have to register him as a foreigner, and pay an extra fee. His access to education and health care also faces a lot of constraints.
“Some parents obtain fake birth certificates for their children, or cheat the Chinese Embassy to get them Chinese passports. But then they can’t get visas or go abroad,”
Good catch, Hwy!
But, but, but I thought the streets in China were paved with gold and that all the smart young people (especially American born Chinese) were going to move back to the motherland? Why would these people, who already live in the world’s new promised land, want US Passports for their kids?
Because US passport is easier to receive than Australian and Canadian.
I thought it was fairly easy to immigrate to Canada if you had money.
Over the last few years (last decade or 2 I think?) it has gotten very hard for an American to emigrate anywhere.
ESPECIALLY Canada.
I thought it was fairly easy to immigrate to Canada if you had money.
You can in fact,…buy$ your way into Canada. It’$ the law.
I had no luck. I wanted out of the US back in 2004 and I need a pile of money to bring with me and a job to go to.
Yeah, become a U.S. citizen and sign up for a share of that unfunded liability!!!!!
Reckon you don’t give much merit to that ancient Chinese genetic habit: “Patience”
Are you preparing to renounce your citizenship, Mr. Bean?
Think of the money you’d save!
Eventually I will Alpha, but not just yet. I can provide my own SS and medicare.
Pelosi’s Wealth Skyrockets
By Kevin Bogardus, The Hill
June 15, 2011
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) saw her net worth rise 62 percent last year, cementing her status as one of the wealthiest members of Congress.
Pelosi was worth at least $35.2 million in the 2010 calendar year, according to a financial disclosure report released Wednesday. She reported a minimum of $43.4 million in assets and about $8.2 in liabilities.
For 2009, Pelosi reported a minimum net worth of $21.7 million.
http://nation.foxnews.com/nancy-pelosi/2011/06/15/pelosis-wealth-skyrockets - -
cementing her status as one of the wealthiest members of Congress.
They always leave out the x5 infants passing behind her apron skirt.
“House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) saw her net worth rise 62 percent last year, cementing her status as one of the wealthiest members of Congress.”
Wow, she’s a better investor than Hillary.
Wow, she’s a better investor than Hillary.
Not to mention those previous Texas Ranger’s Stadium builder$!
Members of Congress. They’re just like us!
This is only a story because Pelosi is a Democrat.
Almost ALL members of Congress are millionaires.
Millionaires don’t give a rats behind about J6P. Never have and never will.
Oh, That`s how it works.
Page 1
Fannie Mae / Freddie Mac
Single Family Uniform Instruments1
With processes and procedures defining actions required for the Mortgage Note and
Security Instrument being identified in the document titled, “Amicus Curiae,”2 we will now
address Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The writer will not YET address Fannie Mae’s Principal & Interest Only Splits. This writing
is limited to the MERS required changes to the Single Family Uniform Instruments (The Security
Instrument) to incorporate MERS as “Nominee for Lender.” Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s
Single Family Uniform Instruments in all 50 states are numbered as Forms 3001 to 3051.
Additionally, the document titled “Authorized Changes to Security Instrument for MERS” can be
found at: http://www.freddiemac.com/uniform/doc/unifmersauth.doc, which provides
direction on how to modify Forms 3001 to 3051 to incorporate MERS as “NOMINEE.”
(Alabama’s MERS required modification to the Security Instrument as example)
“MERS” is Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. MERS is a separate corporation that
is acting solely as a nominee for Lender and Lender’s successors and assigns. MERS is the beneficiary
under this Security Instrument. MERS is organized and existing under the laws of Delaware, and has
an address and telephone number of P.O. Box 2026, Flint, MI 48501‐2026, tel. (888) 679‐MERS.3”
We shall try to identify MERS as an agent named as “nominee” to each party claiming
ownership of the Mortgage Note with rights of enforcement to the Security Instrument
throughout negotiation of the Mortgage Note to subsequent purchasers. Prior to negotiation
and indorsement of the Mortgage Note, MERS must have established an agent relationship as
acting solely as a nominee for Lender. In replacing the statement, “Lender is the mortgagee
under this Security Instrument,” with, “MERS is the mortgagee under this Security Instrument,”
it appears the lender owns the Mortgage Note and MERS as an agent for the lender owns the
Mortgage (Security Instrument). For the argument to proceed we shall assume that actions thus
far are in compliance with all applicable laws, however unlikely. Thus we have the Lender being
the Owner and Holder of the Note with rights as Holder in Due Course to enforce the Mortgage
Note and the Security Instrument if perfected of record in MERS’s name as “Agent” for the
Lender.
1 http://www.freddiemac.com/uniform/unifsecurity.html#highlights
2 http://www.scribd.com/doc/45894095/Amicus‐Curiae‐NJ‐R2‐Lr1
3 http://www.freddiemac.com/uniform/doc/unifmersauth.doc
© Copyright j.mcguire@swbell.net P O Box 1352, Bedford, Texas 76095‐1352 Page 2
MERS claims if the lien is perfected in MERS’s name and registration is maintained on
the MERS system then perfection extends by agency relationship to a subsequent purchaser of
the Mortgage Note. When the Mortgage Note is indorsed “In Blank” to a subsequent purchaser
and that subsequent purchaser fails to identify oneself then they are nothing more than an
“Unidentified Indorsee.” Similar to MBS securitization, there is a series of purchases required of
the “Mortgage Note” and each of these purchases requires indorsements upon the face of the
Mortgage Note. The Uniform Commercial Code section 3‐203 in part, states, “negotiation of the
instrument does not occur until the indorsement is made.” Consequently, the “Unidentified
Indorsee In Blank,” by remaining unidentified, has not indorsed the Mortgage Note to a
subsequent purchaser, and any additional “Unidentified Indorsee In Blank” would lack any
authority to indorse the Mortgage Note and the lack of these indorsements is a failure to
negotiate. As such, Holder in Due Course with rights to enforce the Mortgage Note was not
obtained. With an “Unidentified Indorsee In Blank” remaining unidentified, there cannot be an
agent relationship between MERS and any unidentified party or any subsequent unidentified
parties, and as a result the Security Instrument is rendered a “NULLITY.”
Scenario 1. As an agency relationship cannot exist between MERS and an “Unidentified
Indorsee In Blank” the lien once perfected in MERS name as agent has lost perfection as MERS
now represents an unknown party.
Scenario 2. As an agency relationship does not exist between MERS and an “Unidentified
Indorsee In Blank” the “Unidentified Indorsee In Blank” cannot assign/transfer/etc any type of
agency relationship to a subsequent “Unidentified Indorsee In Blank” and again perfection in
MERS name is lost as MERS represents an unknown party.
The Uniform Commercial Code and the states equivalence allow for proving up the Mortgage
Note by adding the missing indorsement so that rights to enforce the Mortgage Note can be
achieved but proving up the Mortgage Note will not repair the nullification of the Security
Instrument.
The Elevator Version:
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have purchased an “Unsecured
Mortgage Note” that lacks proper indorsement.
http://www.ourlemon.com/docs/Fannie%20Freddie%20R1%20Lr3.pdf - -
I’ve got a special new idea for HBB members only.
-Everybody go buy a house, I’ll be the mortgage broker.
-I’ll “register” them with MERS, but I won’t send on the original paper.
-The mortgages get securitized and “sold” to someone else. Preferably Gollum Sucks, Fanny/Freddie, or some hedge fund, or “Sovereign Investment Fund”
-While all this is happening, I get out the Zippo, and BURN all of the “original” documentation.
Result: “Free” houses for 5-20 years
Won’t work. E$crow paper$ get “notarized” ;-/
“In replacing the statement, “Lender is the mortgagee
under this Security Instrument,” with, “MERS is the mortgagee under this Security Instrument,”
it appears the lender owns the Mortgage Note and MERS as an agent for the lender owns the
Mortgage (Security Instrument). For the argument to proceed we shall assume that actions thus
far are in compliance with all applicable laws, however unlikely. ”
O-oh, MERSy MERSy me…
Too big to jail.
He’s accused of overseeing and promoting the opportunity through his company called “The Greatest Vitamin in the World.”
(Hwy wonders if any of the victim$ obtained a home-moaner loan from MegaBank$ Inc.?)
TV pitchman accused of bilking 220,000 out of $52M:
AP News
During the course of the $cheme, the government says at least 220,000 victims were defrauded of nearly $52 million.
Federal prosecutors say Donald Lapre is charged with 41 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and promotional money laundering.
Wiener announces he’s stepping down and w/in seconds the newschannel trots out footage of the porn star who was asked to lie about their online relationship.
A fine example of someone who thought he was untouchable being brought down when people in the know decided to allow truth to see light. Can’t wait till the masses soon realize we can do the same w/those further up the food chain. Will probably start to happen as those that are paid off are thrown to the wolves as things unravel.
So Wiener is untouchable?
Online relationships.
Ok, that was if your question included the double entendre.
If you asked that seriously, I said he “thought” he was untouchable. He apparently wasn’t even close to untouchable. I still think the big boyz could go down. But let’s face it there are a lot of other people around them that are protecting them because they are benefitting from the relationship. Change that relationship and that’s when the canaries will sing.
“My oh my…says Br’er Wabbit”… “It’s trouble that makes the monkey chew on hot wieners.”
BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
Around my house it is…….
Ant-nee was a loud mouthed punk, but the voters in his district can easily find a carbon copy of wennie boy.
I gotta give props to the Ds here…I didn’t expect them to pressure him and I didn’t expect him to go. A lot of Rs wouldn’t have left over this one, I don’t think.
“…saying the hackers are just looking to show off and get as much attention as possible.”
They’re smirking now, just like “osama-n-a-pakistan-mansion” was…
“My oh my…says Br’er Wabbit”… “It’s trouble that makes the monkey chew on hot peppers.”
CIA website goes down, hackers claim responsibility:
Reuters News
Although the group, also known as Lulz Boat, fashions itself more as pranksters and activists than people with sinister intent, its members have been accused of breaking the law and are wanted by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.
It’s actually LulzSec and they also took down the Senate website. LulzBoat is just their joke.
They also took down Sony earlier this month… 4 times.
Yeah, having the NSA, CIA, FBI using Fed Inc. endle$$ funding$ looking for a phosphorescence hacker gopher, while they’re using night vision and a Remington 700 and “other” assortment of tool$…smart.
Kellogs Stagflakes. They’re GGGGrrrrrrrr-r-rr-eat!
The poor, poor wealthie$, they’re $uffering $o!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDC0qcf0kzE
“The money you give won’t just save a life, it’ll save a lifestyle”
The box now contains only 3.2 ounces of flakes, but it still costs $4.29 a box.
you get…what you…pay$ for.
Interesting……… The power of advertising technology, I guess.
Turned in a Hertz rental car last week. To get a receipt for my expense report, I had to give my e-mail address.
Now suddenly, all of the pop-up ads here on the HBB are Hertz ads.
I went to the camera-lens rental website that AZslim mentioned the other day to see what it was about, and for a couple of days all I got were ads for that site.
Seriously, X, call a lawyer.
That’s why I have a couple of throw away yahoo accounts, to register for websites so i can post comments let em spam meeeeee…
but Ben has my real email…I trust him
For the politically astutene$$ eyes only! Enjoy!
Where’s the birth certificate?! Where’s the Saudi-prince-of-evil’s body?!
New low for Jimmy Carter: 99 cents
June 16th, 2011, by Brian Martinez
Hardcover editions of President Jimmy Carter’s book, “Beyond the White House,” are for sale at 99¢ Only Stores in Southern California, according to this week’s advertisement by the retailer.
The book, published in 2007 by Simon & Schuster, had a retail price of $26.
Popular opinion, academic historians and political scientists rank Carter among the worst presidents in recent history. However, his stature as an ex-president has grown as he has worked to help the poor in Third-World countries across the globe.
We went to the 99¢ Only Store at El Toro Road and the 5 freeway in Lake Forest and nabbed our own copy. Aside from Carter’s book, we found these other political publications on sale for just a buck:
“The Obama Nation” by Jerome R. Corsi (More on Corsi below)
“Looking Forward” by President Franklin D. Roosevelt
“40 More Years: How the Democrats Will Rule the Next Generation” by James Carville and Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza
“Third Term: Why George W. Bush (Hearts) John McCain” by Paul Begala
“Speaking of Freedom: The Collected Speeches” by George H.W. Bush
“President Ronald Reagan‘s Initial Actions Project” by White House staff
“The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008″ by Bob Woodward
All for 99.9 cents.
No limit.
Such a deal.
Back to Corsi, the right-leaning rabble-rouser who has written several books attacking Obama. His newest book, ‘Where’s the Birth Certificate? The Case That Barack Obama Is Not Eligible to Be President,’ was recently listed at No. 6 on The New York Times best-seller list for hardcover non-fiction.
What’s interesting is that there was a little dagger next to his name on the list, indicating that many of the sales were in bulk.
Total Buzz will be counting just how long it takes for those bulk copies to end up at the 99 cents store.
Posted in: Democrats • Miscellaneous • Jimmy Carter
U.S. Mint Tells CNBC: Fort Knox Is a Closed Facility
by Robert Wenzel Economic Policy Journal
Is there any gold in Fort Knox?
Steve Liesman is reporting that Congressman Ron Paul is calling before his House Subcommitte on Monetary Policy representatives from the U.S. Treasury Department and the U.S. Mint to testify at a subcommittee hearing on June 23 about the authenticity of the nation’s gold that is supposed to be held at Fort Knox.
This is great news. But get a load of this. Liesman, as part of his story, requested permission to film at Fort Knox, he reports the response:
As a postscript to the story, CNBC asked for a tour of Fort Knox to film the gold… An official at the Mint told us that not he was not aware that any member of Congress had toured the facility since [1974]….Fort Knox is “a closed facility,” the official said.
What the hell does that mean? Bottom line: CNBC was not allowed a to tour or to film at the facility.
Ron Paul wants a full audit of the gold supposedly at Fort Knox. According to a Treasury document, Liesman reports, it would cost only about $15 million to conduct an audit. The process would take about 30 minutes to verify the gold content of each bar, or 350,000 man hours; to do that would would take 400 people working for six months, according to the document.
Marvin the Martian (pointing death-ray gun): “Take me to your gold depository!”
Foghorn: “Hey, hold on there son, just a dog-gone cotton-pickin’ minute…”
Bugs: eh, listen little alien dude, forget$ about Fort Knox, TN,… there’s more gold in them thar hills of Cali-for-i-a & Alaska, then’s ever been stacked in blocks.”
Foghorn: “Yeah, that’s right, here we’ll send along our extraction expert to help you out,… (loud whistle, yelling:) say Yosemite, get over here pronto,… we has a $special job fer ya!”
I bet Obama stole it.
Nah, he’s not that smart!
2 million$ & Nobel Peace prize says he smarter than you!
LONDON – After six months under virtual house arrest, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange acknowledged Thursday that his detention is hampering the work of the secret-spilling site. His supporters accused Britain of subjecting him to “excessive and dehumanizing” treatment.
The 39-year-old Australian is living at a supporter’s rural estate as he fights extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning over claims of rape and sexual molestation made by two women.
Assange’s bail conditions require him to observe an overnight curfew, wear an electronic tag and report to police daily.
His supporters released a video to The Associated Press condemning the conditions. In it, WikiLeaks associate Sarah Harrison accuses authorities of treating Assange “like a caged animal.”
British prosecutors, who initially opposed bail, say the strict conditions are necessary because the claims against Assange are serious and he is a flight risk.
Barrister and legal commentator Carl Gardner said that although Assange’s freedom of movement is constrained, “he can move around, he can make public appearances. He is at liberty in the most basic sense of the phrase.”
The video also claims police have set up surveillance cameras near the house to record license plates of visiting cars.
Vaughan Smith, who owns the 600-acre (240-hectare) property in eastern England, called it a “pretty intrusive regime” and said three cameras had appeared near the property since Assange came to stay.
Assange, who roamed the globe before his arrest in December, told the AP that he had become “a fixed target” for snoopers.
“It is easy to conduct surveillance against me and anyone I talk to,” Assange said. “We take steps against this, but it is costly and time-consuming.”
He said his house arrest had been “the single largest impediment to our work, with the possible exception of the illegal blockade being conducted by the major U.S. financial institutions against us.”
Some U.S.-based banks and financial services have refused to handle payments to WikiLeaks.
Is it possible he was given option of hard jail time in Sweden vs living at estate. You have to love our freedom and democracy?? Where are the big revelations against banks Julian
GS appears to be trying to clear its name.
The compelling Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report on the financial crisis is wrong, the bank says. Goldman Sachs didn’t have a Big Short against the housing market.
But the size of Goldman’s short is irrelevant.
No one disputes that, by 2007, the firm had pivoted to reduce its exposure from mortgages and mortgage securities and had begun shorting the market on some scale. There’s nothing wrong with that. Don’t we want banks to reduce their risk when they see trouble ahead, as Goldman did in the mortgage markets?
Nor should shorting itself be seen as a bad thing. Putting money behind a bet that a stock (or bond or commodity or derivative) is overpriced is necessary for the efficient functioning of capital markets. Short-sellers can keep prices from getting out of whack and help deflate bubbles.
The problem isn’t that Goldman went short and reduced risk - it’s how
FROM NYT - NICE REVIEW OF THE SQUID
finance.yahoo.com/news/Misdirection-in-Goldman-nytimes-699794505.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=8&asset=&ccode=
Goldenman$ucks Inc. (SCOTU$ person) = “TrueFinancialCult™” / “True$erialLiquiditist™”
“She wrote a long note, on a short piece of paper” Traveling Wilburys
Pretty much the way it is, and since the majority of voters are morons, they will keep voting for the same BS artists over and over again. D.C. loves it, wall street loves it and the middle class get screwed.
Article: The systematic financial pillaging of the middle class – Millionaires don’t feel rich unless they have $7.5 million while 45 million Americans live on food stamps. Another 50 percent cannot come up with $2,000 in the next 30 days.
~ Posted by mybudget360 in bailout, banks, bubbles, corporate power, crooks, economy, gambling, i-banking, market history, middle class, millionaire, wall street.
For over 30 years the debilitating shrinkage of the middle class has been papered over with access and use of debt. Debt in every form; mortgage debt, credit card debt, auto loans, and student loans. Yet debt is not wealth. Americans are facing a financially nightmare where 1 out of 3 has no savings. This should come as a little surprise since the per capita income in the country is $25,000. Many workers are simply getting enough out of their stagnant paychecks to pay the monthly bills.
Of course much of the real wealth has been systematically looted through bailouts and crony capitalism. There was a time when the government and even Wall Street benefited by a growing U.S. middle class. Now all you hear from banking executives is how much cheaper it is to outsource American jobs at the same time their pay keeps soaring. Why don’t we outsource their job? The problem of course is a deep capture of our political system and a perfect fusing of Wall Street and the government. The middle class is slowly floating away as inflation created by the Fed bailouts of the too big to fail banks causes more and more financial pain.
The poor, poor wealthie$, they’re $uffering $o!
Extend $hrubs tax cuts!, Cut Corpoorate$ Inc.$ taxe$ now! Hurry, hurry!!!!!
Drill baby, drill!
Fukushima: It’s much worse than you think
Scientific experts believe Japan’s nuclear disaster to be far worse than governments are revealing to the public.
~ Dahr Jamail 16 Jun 2011 12:50
“Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind,” Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, told Al Jazeera.
Japan’s 9.0 earthquake on March 11 caused a massive tsunami that crippled the cooling systems at the Tokyo Electric Power Company’s (TEPCO) nuclear plant in Fukushima, Japan. It also led to hydrogen explosions and reactor meltdowns that forced evacuations of those living within a 20km radius of the plant.
Gundersen, a licensed reactor operator with 39 years of nuclear power engineering experience, managing and coordinating projects at 70 nuclear power plants around the US, says the Fukushima nuclear plant likely has more exposed reactor cores than commonly believed.
“Fukushima has three nuclear reactors exposed and four fuel cores exposed,” he said, “You probably have the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactor cores because of the fuel cores, and they are all in desperate need of being cooled, and there is no means to cool them effectively.”
TEPCO has been spraying water on several of the reactors and fuel cores, but this has led to even greater problems, such as radiation being emitted into the air in steam and evaporated sea water - as well as generating hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive sea water that has to be disposed of.
“The problem is how to keep it cool,” says Gundersen. “They are pouring in water and the question is what are they going to do with the waste that comes out of that system, because it is going to contain plutonium and uranium. Where do you put the water?”
Even though the plant is now shut down, fission products such as uranium continue to generate heat, and therefore require cooling.
“The fuels are now a molten blob at the bottom of the reactor,” Gundersen added.
While I don’t trust the government of Japan, I trust Arnie Gundersen even less.
Let’s start with his resume-padding. The only reactor he was ever licensed on was a 100 watt (yes, one light bulb) room temperature research reactor at a college. His only experience in the nuclear industry comes from working in the licensing department. His credentials are basically an undergrad degree. He has zero actual experience with large power-generating reactors.
His current job? Expert witness against nuclear power. That is, the more hysteria he generates, the more he gets paid.
And he usually gets the facts wrong. He’s declared some dowright nutty things, such as prompt-criticality explosions occuring in the fuel pool (not possible), or winds blowing south that will make Tokyo uninhabitable (never happens). The reactors and fuel pools are cooling off, slow and steady. And while it’s kind of shocking to state this, the solution to pollution really can be dilution. Pump the bad water into the ocean. It’s really damn big.
Fukushima is the perfect analogy of our economy.
We’re Fukushimaed
Vermont capital residents approve wood-heating system
By John Curran, Associated Press
MONTPELIER, Vt. — Vermont’s capital city is going ahead with a plan to expand state government’s wood-fired heating system into city schools and government buildings.
Montpelier voters approved the plan Tuesday, saying yes to a $2.75 million bond issue to help finance a $20 million biomass project that would hook up City Hall, the police and fire stations and two schools to the wood chip-burning system that’s been heating the Statehouse and other state buildings for more than 20 years.
The vote was 963 in favor, 609 against.
So-called biomass heating plants — some public, some private — already exist in St. Paul, Minn., Seattle, and Concord, N.H., while a handful of other municipalities are exploring the idea, including at least five in Vermont.
The technology has gained favor with the rise of oil prices and concerns about climate change. Supporters say burning wood, wood chips or other plant matter would reduce costs, air pollution and reliance on foreign oil.
Critics, meanwhile, note that some studies — including one last year by the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences in Massachusetts — have found that wood-burning power plants emit more greenhouse gases than coal.
“It’s one more thing that’s helpful with our big problem, which is that we’re running out of liquid sources of petroleum and it’s controlled by people in foreign countries that don’t particularly like us, and it’s expensive,” said William Schlesinger, president of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies. “The idea of trying this, seeing if it works, recognizing that it won’t be the only solution to the problem, is a great idea.”
Even better, they could import the abandoned houses from Detroit! Win, win!
heheeeheeeheehaahaaahaaheeehaahaaa… (Hwy50™)
Chinese on Global Homebuying Spree as Local Markets Tighten:
By Kelvin Wong, Nichola Saminather and Hui-yong Yu / Bloomberg
June 14 (Bloomberg) — On a sunny Saturday in early June, Larry Zhou strolled the floor of a property exhibition in Hong Kong, wondering whether it was time to buy another home — not in the city, where residential prices have soared 50 percent in the past two years, but maybe in Thailand or Malaysia.
The two-day event that lured Zhou and 3,000 others is one way that China’s blossoming wealthy and middle classes are finding investment properties and second homes around the world — exporting a real estate boom that has driven up prices 26 percent in Shanghai last year and 28 percent in Beijing, and bolstering markets around the world. In cities with established Chinese populations, like Sydney, Singapore, and San Francisco, Asians on homebuying tours meet brokers such as Betty Chan, who markets herself on her website as “Las Vegas’ #1 Chinese Lady Real Estate Broker.”
Investors are grabbing everything from $68,000 foreclosed condominiums in Florida to $2 million beachfront villas in Vietnam, a buying spree fueled by China’s surging wealth that mirrors the country’s expanding influence in markets for gold, oil and food. The search for overseas property accelerated in the past seven months as the governments in Hong Kong and Beijing imposed purchasing and financing limits, steps that are starting to cool off domestic markets.
“The purchase restrictions in China drove them overseas, while they look for investments to counter the inflation,” … “Some of them will buy homes considering better education opportunities for their kids, while others look for immigration options.”
The government on Nov. 19 increased stamp duties on homes sold within six months of purchase and mandated higher down payments on those costing HK$8 million or more. Hong Kong, which broker Savills Plc says is the world’s most expensive place to buy an apartment, reported the number of home-sale transactions fell for a fifth straight month in May amid rising mortgage rates.
As global economies recover following the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in September 2008 and the ensuing financial crisis, more investors in Hong Kong are willing to explore newer, riskier markets in their quest for higher returns
In the U.S., Chinese buyers have helped support home sales and prices in Silicon Valley and Hawaii, while they are an increasing presence in Las Vegas and New York, according to local brokers. They accounted for 9 percent of U.S. home purchases by foreigners in the 12 months ended in March of both 2010 and 2011, up from 5 percent in 2009
“TrueBambooLie™” speeds on, unabashed!
Circumventing Currency Rules
“If the son or daughter doesn’t have enough money, what happens is the parents or grandparents from China will help them fund the deal,” he said. “In most places, it’s all cash. They just transfer the money, like, boom.”
“Most of these buyers are rich and they have their trade companies or rep offices in Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur or Singapore,” … “Those places don’t have currency controls, so they can pay via their companies’ offshore accounts.”
The Extinction of Retirement
Michael Pento
Euro Pacific Capital
Posted Jun 16, 2011
For the better part of a century the foundations for a semi-comfortable retirement for many Americans have rested on the financial pillars of rising real estate and equity prices, positive real interest rates on savings, the continued solvency of public and private pension plans, and the reliability of national entitlement programs (Social Security, Medicaid). But in the last few years, the economic sands have fundamentally shifted and these pillars are no longer sturdy, some have cracked completely. For many Americans, the traditional idea of a comfortable retirement, filled with golf carts, cruises, and fishing trips, is going the way of the dodo bird.
Over the last decade incomes and job growth have stagnated, causing savings rates to drop. According to Jim Quinn author of the Burning Platform, 60% of retirees have less than $50,000 in savings. Such sums won’t last very long, especially when consumer prices are up 3.2%, import prices are up 12.5% and commodity prices are up 35% year over year. What’s worse, any savings placed in a bank will pay next to zero interest and will likely not even pay for the fees associated with the account. With cash savings essentially non-existent, the other pillars of income take on paramount importance. But these former bastions of financial security are being washed away by a torrent of red ink.
For years the essential Ponzi-like structures of Social Security and Medicare were concealed behind positive demographics. But once taxes collected from current payers fall short of the required distribution owed to current recipients, the ruse will be laid bare. That day is now in the foreseeable future. With insolvency a real and present danger, at least a consensus is now forming that Social Security must be structurally altered if it is to survive.
According to the Social Security Administration, in 2008, Social Security provided 50% of all income for 64% of recipients and 90% of all income for 34% of all beneficiaries. With these numbers, it’s not hard to see how even small cuts will spark big protests. Now try cutting the $20 trillion prescription drug program and the $79 trillion Medicare entitlements and watch the political sparks fly! However, given the realities, it’s hard to see how the program can escape deep cuts.
In the past many retirees could count on accumulated stock market wealth to help fund retirement. Not so much anymore. As of this writing, the S&P 500 is now no higher than it was in January of 1999. For over 12 years the major averages have gone nowhere in nominal terms and have declined significantly in real (inflation adjusted) terms. The dreams of becoming rich from investments have crashed along with Pets.com and Bernie Madoff. Then there is always the supposedly-safest asset of all-a retiree’s home.
Despite a misguided faith that real estate prices could never fall, they have done just that… with a vengeance. According to S&P/Case-Shiller, the National Home Price Index has declined some 30% to levels not seen since the middle of 2002. And prices are still falling, with the rate of decline accelerating. The National Index dropped 4.2% in Q1 of 2011, after dropping 3.6% during Q4 2010. This means that only those retirees who have owned their homes for at least 10 years have any hope of selling at a profit. Ownership of significantly-longer periods may be needed to have built up significant equity.
That leaves public and private pension plans. But here again there are serious issues. Let’s just look at state public pension shortfalls. According to the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, “States report that their public-employee pensions are underfunded by a total of $438 billion, but a more accurate accounting demonstrates that they are actually underfunded by over $3 trillion. The accounting methods that states currently use to measure their liabilities assumes plans can earn high investment returns without risk.” Huge returns without risk? Bond yields are the lowest they have been in nearly a century! What world are these states living in? With few options, the states will undoubtedly look to the Federal government (taxpayers) for a bailout. Failing that, cuts are inevitable.
The sad facts are; Americans are broke, the real estate market is still in secular decline, stock prices are in a decade-long morass, real incomes are falling, public pension plans are insolvent and our entitlement programs are structurally unsound. If the pillars that seniors have relied on in the past fail to miraculously regenerate (and there is certainly no reason to believe they will), all that most retirees will have will be freshly printed greenbacks that come from a never ending policy of federal deficits and an obliging Federal Reserve. Unfortunately, the inflation that will result from such a policy will sap most of the purchasing power that those notes possess. In other words, for most people retirement is now an illusion, and many Americans will find themselves working far longer, for far less real compensation, then they ever imagined. The quicker we realize this, and plan accordingly, the better off we will be.
“financial pillars of rising real estate and equity prices, ”
Wait, I thought retirement was supposed to be like a “3-legged stool,” pension, savings and social security. Somehow home eq slipped in there.
That took the place of the pension…and then the savings, too. Can it do all three?
Got that right.
Home equity? Really? So what, they pensioners were going to cash out and live in their cars? Or take out loans and put their houses up as collateral?
What a joke. A home equity loan used to be called what it is - a loan with your house as collateral. Putting up your house as collateral, in your dotage, for a loan to take a vacation or buy a new Lincoln Town Car (RIP), would have been considered the height of imprudence.
It is a triumph of marketing that the euphemisms for these things have won widespread use in the housing bubble lexicon.
I think the idea might have been: sell the big house, buy a condo someplace warm and cheap and put whatever is left over into the bank.
It’s all double-plus good!
Welcome back to the 19th century.
Now get back to work granny!
This article is spot on.
As I’ve stated, retirement is entirely a western 20th century idea. There is a new definition of the word retirement and it’s nothing like the definition our parents are familiar with.
Hope&Change…
One of the few bastions of relatively unfettered enterprise within the belly of the beast — Washington, D.C. — is about to fall.
The nation’s capital is home to a bustling taxicab business — some 7,300 licensed cabs. That works out to 12 cabs for every 1,000 people — a mighty favorable ratio compared to Chicago’s 2.4 or New York’s 1.6. As a result, D.C. has some of the lowest fares of any major U.S. city, according to a recent survey by the trade publication Chicago Dispatcher.
But not much longer. The D.C. city council appears on the verge of throttling this vibrant competition and twisting it into a government-enforced cartel, by introducing an abomination known as taxi medallions.
Want to drive a cab in the capital? You gotta get a medallion — a very special kind of license — affixed to the hood. They’ve been the law for decades in New York, Chicago and elsewhere.
These days in New York, a medallion costs $700,000. In Boston, $400,000.
Since D.C. plans to issue only 4,000 medallions under this proposal, 3,300 cabs would presumably be mothballed. What’s more, the system’s been rigged so that established companies will pay only $250 for their first medallions. Newer operators will have to fork over up to $10,000.
Endangered species
The Small Business Association of D.C. Taxicab Drivers figures about four out of 10 D.C. cabbies will be thrown out of work.
If you’re planning a trip to the nation’s capital, make it soon. Getting around once you get there is about to cost a whole lot more.
~ Clipped from The 5Min Forecast
If you’re planning a trip to the nation’s capital, make it soon. Getting around once you get there is about to cost a whole lot more.
Thanks for the warning. I think I’ll bring my bicycle.
“Getting around once you get there is about to cost a whole lot more.”
Having lived there for years, the Metro is easy to navigate and the city was pretty bike-able.
As I’ve said, it’s the local governments that are the most anti-small business, intrusive and oppresive.
“We were able to, under President Obama’s leadership, turn this economy around.” ~ Debbie Wasserman Shultz
~~Delusional disorder: Is a psychiatric diagnosis denoting a psychotic mental disorder that is characterized by holding one or more non-bizarre delusions.
~~Delusional disorder: Is a psychiatric diagnosis denoting a psychotic mental disorder that is characterized by holding one or more non-bizarre delusions.
Cheney-Shrub: “We’ll be greeted in Baghdad, Iraq as US GI’s were in liberating France from German control!” or something like that…
That reminds me. Where ARE those WMDs?
IDK, but hey, Shrub flew over Baghdad at 30,000 feet personally looking fer ‘em!
Mission decomplished!
Winnebago profit falls 80% - Market Watch
Winnebago Industries Inc. WGO -20.45% fiscal third-quarter profit slid 80%, sharply missing estimates, as the motor home company experienced a drop off in demand for its vehicles.
Citing macroeconomic headwinds, Winnebago Chief Executive Bob Olson said the retail market for motor homes “softened” during the quarter, noting the company “remained concerned the current recovery appears to be slowing.”
The recreational-vehicle maker has returned to profitability in recent quarters, after a rocky recession period when consumers slashed spending on travel and leisure. Yet rising fuel prices this spring and an uncertain economic climate heading in the second half of the year has emerged as a new challenge for Winnebago.
So maybe these leviathans are an anachroism in the age of $4/gallon gas?
Plus, isn’t the target market retirees? You know, those people who had their pensions converted into 401Ks and then they got to watch the lost decade where the performance was 0% over 10 years?
Dirty little secret about motor homes and camper trailers: they are built like crap and cost a fortune to repair and maintain.
Nooz from Tucson: The technology parks that broke ground after the housing bubble broke aren’t doing so well. Story in this past Sunday’s fishwrap:
UA seeks to settle default in tech parks
From the story:
The University of Arizona is asking the state Board of Regents to approve a second settlement of a default by homebuilders involving the UA Science and Technology Park and the nascent Arizona Biosciences Park.
Finalization of the agreement will resolve an impasse that has held up some infrastructure development at the Bio Park for nearly a year, UA’s chief of research parks said.
To which I say:
I used to work in the same building as the chief of research parks. That was back about 20 years ago, and he had a different job then. The consensus of many in our building — including Yours Truly — was that he was a self-important blowhard who’d be nowhere nearly as powerful in a much larger town than Tucson.
Most “director/administrators” of charities or special projects, are.
US vows to hunt down, kill new Al-Qaeda leader
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States will seek to hunt down and kill new Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri just as it did his predecessor Osama bin Laden, the top US military officer said Thursday.
“There is not a surprise from my perspective that he’s moved into that position,” Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told journalists after the Egyptian leader was named the new Al-Qaeda chief.
“He and his organization are still threatening us, and as we did both seek to capture and kill — and succeed in killing — bin Laden, we certainly will do the same thing with Zawahiri.”
The United States will seek to hunt down and kill new Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri just as it did his predecessor Osama bin Laden, the top US military officer said Thursday.
I thought assassinations were “illegal” in the US?
Torture is. Killing is just dandy…..
Killing is just dandy…..
I swear I recall there was a law on the books that we (the US) could not order the assassination of another head of state..and perhaps that’s the loophole.
Tho it’s clear the rule of law means nothing in this country. Neither our politicians nor most of the electorate respects the constitution other than as some antiquated ideal….
I thought assassinations were “illegal” in the US?
I believe you answered your own question:
“I thought assassinations were “illegal”…in…the US?”
(Or do you know something of his where-abouts that your not saying?)
perpetual war.
But after that we’ll have perpetual peace and it will all be worth it.
What does $700 billion$…per year… mean to any other eCONomy on earth?
We might throw a nuclear lowball offer on a house next week. I am testing my realtor’s will; it’s a reputation-damaging figure!
He legally has to present it, yes?
Could you prove it if he doesn’t?
Have the seller sign the written offer, accepting, rejecting or countering. Do NOT trust the realtor to tell you the truth.
Most annoying article titled “Should you really live within your means?” -ridiculously presenting an argument for NO:
http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/112944/living-within-your-means
The article comments are really smacking the author with the proverbial 20-pound trout. A sampling:
This is one of the worst “Advice” columns I’ve seen. Who wrote this? The Credit Card industry?
For many, that’s going to mean a home appliance cardboard box in their future.
“45% of GOP Primary Voters Say It’s Bad for Party If Palin Enters Presidential Race”
Only 45%?
The republicant’s are as insane as the democraps , but Barry is the incumbent and is nearly BJ’ing wall street to get mo money. Palin stands NO chance, they have no one at this point, but since most of the population of our country is delusional it really makes no difference. Default heading our way, sooner or later! Voters are smart!
Palin / Jeb Shrub Jr. III
“You have my word on it.” Joe Isuzu
Immunity? Indemnity? What does it matter? Their ProFEEsional’$, the wheels on the ethical bus go round & round, round & round…
BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
Strauss-Kahn told police in New York he had immunity:
Reuters News / By Michelle Nichols
When told detectives wanted to talk to him about “an incident in the city at a hotel,” Strauss-Kahn was silent and then about 15 minutes later said, “I have diplomatic immunity” and asked to speak with someone from the French Consulate.
“These handcuffs are tight,” he added.
Ho ho, hah hah, hehehehehehe, BwaHaHaAhHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! (Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower™)
Michigan AG issuing CRIMINAL subpoenas against mortgage servicing providers who repeatedly purjured themselves with robo-signing and other falsified documentation? The idealist in me wants to believe that a few honest officials still maintain a commitment to integrity and public service. The realist in me expects this AG, like virtually all the other state AGs looking into fraudclosure rackets, will enter into a slap-on-the-wrist settlement as soon as the financial services sector ups their campaign contributions.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=188317
LANSING- Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette today announced that he has issued criminal investigative subpoenas against national mortgage servicing support providers in an expansion of his office’s investigation into questionable mortgage documentation filed with Michigan’s Register of Deeds offices during the current foreclosure crisis.
June 16, 2011, 7:00 AM ET
More Homes Listed and Lingering, Data Show
By Nick Timiraos
…
Realtor.com figures showed that median asking prices fell in May by 1.6% after posting two months of increases. The drop could have come from more lower-priced homes being added to the mix, or it could signal that sellers dropped prices after a soft start to the seasonally strong spring sales period. Median asking prices had increased by 6.7% in April from March and by 2.2% in March from February after falling for nine straight months.
Some of the largest declines in asking prices came in Chicago and Tampa, Fla., which were down 5.7% from April, and in Phoenix (down 5.4%). Listing prices increased in just 10 of the 146 markets, including Denver and Washington, D.C.
Sellers in many markets face competition from foreclosures and other distressed sales. Others don’t feel as if they can lower their prices below the amount they owe on their mortgage. Real-estate agents say that many buyers, meanwhile, are concerned about further price declines and have been demanding deeper discounts from sellers
The S&P/Case-Shiller index showed that home prices fell in March to their lowest level since home prices first began their downward slide nearly five years ago.
A separate set of indexes published earlier this month by CoreLogic Inc. showed that home prices in April were down 7.5% from one year earlier. But when distressed sales were excluded, prices were down by 0.5%.
The median time that inventory had been listed for sale on Realtor.com was higher than year-ago levels in 111 markets, offering another gauge of the housing market’s softness. In Miami, the median sale listing had been posted for 138 days in May, while in Denver, the median sale listing was just 39 days old.
39 days? Denver must be paved with gold.
Perhaps if home owners in mortgage default can just hang on until the fall, the Rapture will take them away before the bank finally gets around to foreclosure proceedings.
June 16, 2011, 9:27 a.m. EDT
Foreclosures slowdown only extending the pain
Foreclosure activity dropped to a three and a-half year low in May, according to RealtyTrac’s latest count. But RealtyTrac’s Rick Sharga says that is not something to celebrate.
…
Extend the pain. Pain is good. Pain is weakness leaving the System.
With pain you get money bleed, with money bleed you get pain.
You get blood money. Blood money slowly bleeds out from the FBs and slowly flows onto the bank’s coffers.
The bank’s coffers are empty. This simply will not do! These coffers are to be - must be - refilled! The PTB says so, therfore it must be so, therefore it will be so!
So who should do this refilling? Who’s blood money should be sent to the banks, blood money sucked from the FBs or blood money sucked from the taxpayers?
Yawn…
Biggest banks face capital clampdown
By Brooke Masters and Patrick Jenkins in London
Published: June 16 2011 22:22 | Last updated: June 16 2011 22:22
Global regulators are poised to set a new tiered regime of additional capital requirements for about 30 of the world’s biggest banks, in the latest effort to ensure the next financial crisis can be contained.
The regulators plan to place each institution into a “bucket” carrying a particular surcharge based on bank size, global reach, structural complexity and whether other banks could absorb its business. Banks could move between categories as their size, structure and risk appetite change.
…
Just say no to TBTF banks!
The Financial Times
Why the sign must say: no UBS in the USA
By Thomas Hoenig
Published: June 16 2011 23:06 | Last updated: June 16 2011 23:06
Politicians and regulators in the US, Britain and Europe are concerned about relative advantages and disadvantages in the global financial system. The real outrage, however, is that taxpayers have seen billions in lost wealth due to fundamental flaws in this system’s structure and incentives that have yet to be addressed.
For example, it is persistently rumoured that some major international banks, including Switzerland’s UBS and Barclays in Britain, are considering moving their investment banking operations to another country. In the case of UBS, such a move could help them escape Switzerland’s new 19 per cent capital requirement. Recent news reports, however, suggest that Swiss regulators may even favour UBS moving its investment banking activities abroad, so that their government no longer would face the risk of bailing out a company that is twice the size of the Swiss economy. Speculation about this then raised a question, posed in an editorial in this newspaper: “Any takers?”
Based on the current US financial structure and regulatory framework, my answer would be a clear “no!” Of course, a foreign bank could base its investment bank’s headquarters in the US. But once here, why would they not expand into commercial banking, to gain full access to the public safety net of deposit insurance and the Federal Reserve discount window? Any such move would then bring the liability of yet another systemically important bank able to take excessive risks.
…