Bits Bucket for July 10, 2011
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
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Here In Northern Ohio hings seem to continue on a downhill slide. Local bank refuses to extend a small HELOC that Ive had for 30 years. They wring their hands and say the government rules wont let them make any exceptions. I used a credit card to pay it off; interest went from 3.75 to 10.5 but avoided $800 in fees and an 8 percent rate. Bank would not let me talk to the local branch people Ive dealt with. Made me call an 800 number and talk to some strong arm type in Reno. Wanted all new info, last two pay stubs, last two years IRS filings, with attachments, photo ID, electronic appraisal, in person hard appraisal. Told them to take a hike, canceled the loan request and paid it off. Four days later they send a form letter saying my loan was denied. Maybe they want to charge me for having the audacity to ask for a loan. This may be a time bomb for people on the edge whose 10 year HELOCs are coming due. Had my balance been $60K ( like a lot of people around here) instead of a measely $8K I’d have walked. The young branch manager I talked to when I paid it off said theyre seeing more and more of these denials. He didnt know the outcomes; headquarters keeps them in the dark. When I advised him to get his resume up to date he went pale. His goodbye handshake was ice cold.
“When I advised him to get his resume up to date he went pale. His goodbye handshake was ice cold.”
Perhaps it dawned on him that it is a bit hard to justify keeping on branch managers who are making very few if any loans.
And in our economic “recovery” only McDonalds is hiring.
2 recessions ago, this was known as “McJobs” and became an official dictionary word that represented low wage, dead-end jobs.
This recession, even they aren’t hiring.
Perhaps it dawned on him that it is a bit hard to justify keeping on branch managers who are making very few if any loans.
Someone has to run the store. Of course that could simply be a $30K per year “manager” who is little more than a glorified teller.
You can always close stores which are making no money.
Multinationals that ship US jobs overseas don’t seem to understand that unemployed former employees can’t or won’t buy their products anymore.
It’s not their job to worry about their former employees.
Their job is to sell the product at whatever price the worldwide market will bear.
Sorry, there is much hand-wringing over this but I don’t see a problem.
Nobody who works at Tiffany’s or Harry Winston can afford the products that they sell there. So what? They are hired to do a job, and if they do it well, they get paid. That’s how it works.
Arguably, these people about whom much hand-wringing and chest-beating is going on don’t have any skills that they can sell on the labor market. They’ve been laboring (sic) under an illusion, and the veil has just been lifted.
Sorry, there is much hand-wringing over this but I don’t see a problem.
I do.
No one around the world can afford to buy all the crap being produced. The “producers” expect North America and the EU to do all the consuming, but that is becoming increasingly difficult. Meanwhile a massive debt time bomb is ticking.
Nobody who works at Tiffany’s or Harry Winston can afford the products that they sell there.
I see you’re catching on. As Citibank predicts we are becoming a “plutonomy” where only the superrich will have disposable income. Everyone else can live in a cardboard box.
Arguably, these people about whom much hand-wringing and chest-beating is going on don’t have any skills that they can sell on the labor market.
Many are skilled. The problem is that there are zillions of people in the 3rd world with Master’s degrees who will work for 1-2K per month.
I’ll stay anchored to my demand argument and say that if all you can afford is a BigMac, your coworkers will be red headed clowns.
They may be skilled but there is a worldwide market clearing rate. If someone will work for $1K per month then that is the going rate.
I could claim that my rate is $100K per hour but if nobody shows up to hire me at that rate then by definition, that is not the correct rate. It’s the wishing rate just like wishing prices for houses.
These people may “claim” that their skills are worth $5K per month (or whatever) but clearly that doesn’t seem to be the case.
That’s how basic Econ 101 - demand and supply - works.
You don’t need everybody to buy your product to stay in business. Just a few people.
For example, in Anytown USA, Company A lays off its employees. However, A still sells product because employees from Company B and Company C still employ workers, and A like that. Then B then lays off its workers, but that’s okay, because C is still employing workers, and those workers can keep both A and B in business.
From a profit standpoint, A and B are winners because they still sold product, but didn’t have worker expenses. Company C is the bagholder because C still has worker expenses. It becomes much more complex when you go global.
We still have a long way to go for this to play its course. We are only just now starting to see the effects. Workers feel the pain first. Then small businesses. Then the politicians. The ones where deserves the most pain are the ones who will feel the least pain, and will feel it last, if ever. Who’s that? The greedy multinationals. May Jack Welch conduct his leadership seminars in hell.
They may be skilled but there is a worldwide market clearing rate. If someone will work for $1K per month then that is the going rate.
And that is why the global economy will collapse. A world where everyone is a pauper cannot afford to consume the goods ands services it produces.
Why is it so hard for the 1%ers to understand that sharing some of the wealth has a multiplier effect that actually benefits them?
Anyway, I was just pointing out the falsehood of how “skills” will save the day. They won’t. As wages continue to fall consumption will also fall, and the death spiral will continue until the global economy goes splat as warehouses in Asia fill up with unsold goods that Americans and Europeans can’t afford to buy on their new 3rd world wages.
warehouses in Asia fill up with unsold goods that Americans and Europeans can’t afford to buy on their new 3rd world wages.
People here are such drama queens (with a lack of basic Econ 101 to match!)
No, the warehouses will not fill up because if they did, the prices would drop to the point where someone somewhere could afford them.
That’s the basic feedback loop in Economics. Prices drop till the market clears. It’s actually self-stabilizing unless some exogenous event (like a massive Housing Bubble) distorts everything. Even then, it reverses itself.
So, stop being such a drama queen.
No, the world will not collapse. No, the US will not have an apocalypse. We’re all going to muddle through somehow even if there is a boatload of pain that will be felt.
It’s always been that way and you can roll that with the pages from the first chapter of Samuelson and smoke it!
warehouses in Asia fill up with unsold goods
Cue our resident poet Hwy50ina49 dodge to pen a little ballad about The Golden $ack$ and The Inve$tment$ in $torage.
No, the warehouses will not fill up because if they did, the prices would drop to the point where someone somewhere could afford them.
You mean like house prices?
Yes, like house prices. They’re dropping and will continue to do so.
There’s a reason for the slowness. Firstly, they are not fungible assets so there’s a bit of fudge-factor right there.
Secondly, you don’t have central-banks trying to control netbooks and iPod’s the way they are trying with housing.
But the main driver has always been jobs. Location, location, location is a really just a fancy way of saying jobs.
As the old joke (among traders anyway!) goes, there are three parts to an “investment”:
[1] It’s a great investment.
[2] “I’m in it for the long-term.”
[3] “Somebody, anybody, please give me a bid.”
Why is it so hard for the 1%ers to understand that sharing some of the wealth has a multiplier effect that actually benefits them?
Lots of people place more value on their wealth relative to others than they do on the absolute value of their wealth. In other words it’s less fun being rich if everybody else is rich, too.
FPCSS, I understand niche marketing and supply and demand just fine so the Tiffany’s example makes perfect sense to me. However I’m surprised that you don’t agree that w/o the credit bubble in general prices (with the exception of certain limited commodities) will eventually have to fall.
Some companies will muddle through and some will fail and it all has to do w/how they plan cash flows as we deleverage. And then I do believe there are some discretionary item markets that will disappear completely as they are geared to serve a middle class whose purchasing power is falling.
Out of 3 grocery chains in the area, 2 are owned my hedge funds and their prices/quality mix show the need to skim for investors vs plugging profits back into the business. This is the reality I see for the future.
These people may “claim” that their skills are worth $5K per month (or whatever) but clearly that doesn’t seem to be the case.
That’s how basic Econ 101 - demand and supply - works.
heheeeheeeheehaahaaahaaheeehaahaaa… (Hwy50™)
For more than a century, economists have tried to explain such reasoning with their marginal-productivity theory of wages and more recently with a variation of it, human capital theory.
It is a safe bet that Bristol Palin, not yet 21, will earn this year and next a multiple of the income earned by her son’s pediatrician. Anyone who finds this amiss just does not like the verdicts of the free market, which sets those incomes.
Bristol Palin and How Society Establishes Value:
UWE E. REINHARDT, On Friday July 8, 2011
The theory of marginal productivity is taught every year to millions of college students around the world. It naturally fosters the idea that the prevailing distribution of income and wealth in a market economy reflects in rough-and-ready fashion the distribution of the contribution to society that people in different income classes make, where the “social contribution” is measured by willingness to pay for whatever actual contribution people make to society. We hear that doctrine cited regularly on television talk shows.
The basic idea is that in a competitive market, the owner of a resource — be it hours of labor with a particular skill, or hours of a celebrity’s glamour that can be shared with others, or a piece of capital equipment, or a natural resource — will be paid for it an amount equal to the value that one unit of that resource, added to those already employed, would contribute in the form of valuable output that the rest of society is willing to pay for.
Economists call this marginal value not because it is trivial, but because it is the value added by one unit of the resource (for example, one year’s labor) at the margin of an already existing number of units employed. This theory makes a subtle point not always well understood by non-economists.
Ms. Palin sells her services in a free market, and she purchases her son’s health care in a free market, paying directly or through private health insurance. That free market has spoken.
During 2009-10, The Associated Press reports, Ms. Palin was paid $332,500 by Candie’s Foundation, a nonprofit group, to appear in videos and print material to help raise awareness on the prevention of teenage pregnancies. According its Web site, the relatively small foundation “works to shape the way youth in America think about teen pregnancy and parenthood.” Ms. Palin has appeared on the television show “Dancing with the Stars,” signed on for a new television reality show and is said to earn $15,000 to $30,000 for each appearance on the speaking circuit. With the help of Nancy French, Ms. Palin just recently published her memoirs.
Would anyone be surprised if her income this year and next is three to five times as much as that of a typical pediatrician? Would an economist find anything amiss in such a multiple?
Probably not. The free market, they will argue, appears to judge the value that Ms. Palin adds to American society greater than that added by the typical pediatrician.
Even without the credit bubble, you have a central bank that inflates. In a true fiat economy (where the short-term interest rate is set by the free market not the central bank), prices for most things would fall as productivity gains accrue to the consumers. (You don’t need a gold standard. Just a free-market short-term rate — a subtle point totally lost on the goldistas.)
Instead, you have a system where by keeping prices “level” or “inflating”, the central bank steals all productivity gains.
That’s the rhetoric but factually true.
In any case, deleveraging is real, and prices will fall. Including wages because wages are nothing more than the “price of labor”.
“In any case, deleveraging is real, and prices will fall. Including wages because wages are nothing more than the ‘price of labor’.”
Well stated. The trick for survival is to somehow find an edge:
Choose to work in a non-right-to-work state instead of a right-to-work state.
Choose a job that cannot be outsourced.
Somehow convince your employer that you are a solution to his problems. Even better, convince him that you are the ONLY solution to his problems.
Learn where the bodies are buried.
That’s how basic Econ 101 - demand and supply - works.
Only if looked at as a religion. And economics is not religion. Capitalism is man’s invention to serve man. It was not invented for man to serve capitalism. There are reasons for nations and some have invested in themselves more than others.
If a nation decides to protect its people and its investment in its people from the “basic Econ 101″ inequities of globalization then it is free and able to do so.
Why is it so hard for the 1%ers to understand that sharing some of the wealth has a multiplier effect that actually benefits them?
Because it doesn’t benefit them! Sure, if there is a middle class, they are millioniares, rich. But if they let the poor die in the streets, they can be 10-millionaires, super rich! And that’s exactly what’s happened over the past 30 years.
As for the “benefit” of doing good and loving your neighbor and lifting all boats and giving to the poor and all that other Christian crap, the rich would respond “whatchoo talkin’ bout Willis?”
Supply and demand?
One word: stagflation.
“Lots of people place more value on their wealth relative to others than they do on the absolute value of their wealth. In other words it’s less fun being rich if everybody else is rich, too.”
It’s called pathological greed. Those kind of people are sick in the head, and evil. Think: Blankfein.
‘Instead, you have a system where by keeping prices “level” or “inflating”, the central bank steals all productivity gains.’
Spot on! And then they use their printing press technology together with bailouts and below-market interest rates to share the loot with Wall Street Megabanks.
Pretty good scam if you are on the inside…
‘Out of 3 grocery chains in the area, 2 are owned my hedge funds and their prices/quality mix show the need to skim for investors vs plugging profits back into the business. This is the reality I see for the future.’
Shirley not Wegman’s? Maybe Price Chopper and ?
“When I advised him to get his resume up to date he went pale. His goodbye handshake was ice cold.”
Sounds like you broke through the veil of denial he’d set up for himself.
Husband was telling me just this morning that many guys where works wax repeatedly of the return to normal being just around the corner. He believes its the reigning sentiment around here.
My sister tells me that a similar sentiment reigns true in Silicon Valley. The “prosperity fairy” is just around the corner, and will be sprinkling gold dust on everyone!
The geeks haven’t even figured out how to do their IPOs on a dutch auction basis so that they get to keep at least some of the giant run up in share price (over any reasonable valuation method) in the first minute/hour/day they are traded. Why they want to give money that should be in their own pool of working capital to the investment banks and their insider clients is beyond me.
I have very little pity for them.
Polly,
Stupid is as stupid does.
“Local bank refuses to extend a small HELOC I’ve had for thirty years.”
The local bank should pound sand. I suggest you structure your finances and your life so that they need you more than you need them - then let them twist. Do unto them before they do unto you.
“His goodbye handshake was ice cold.”
More to come. The size of the financial arm of our economy has grown to become huge and way out of line of where it should be.
IMO finance should be something to support and serve an economy, not the economy itself. I suspect the size of the financial arm is in for some heavy shrinking and the numbers of those associated with and employed by this arm are going to be considerably shrunk.
The End of the 40-Hour Work Week - Yahoo.com
The era of a 9-to-5 work week appears to be coming to an end.
Higher-level workers are increasingly being asked to put in 50 hours or more a week, effectively working an 8-to-6 work week at the very least, while lower income workers are often forced to work fewer hours but at jobs with irregular schedules, according to a comprehensive report from the Center for American Progress, which reviewed dozens of studies from the previous 30 years to understand the changing work/life struggles of the country’s labor force.
Driving these changes, as the center explains it, are companies turning lower-level full-time jobs into part-time employment to cut costs, savings that come at the expense of workers — and their families — losing the traditional schedules and financial benefits that come with full-time employment.
Some 38% of men in professional and management positions worked at least 50 hours a week between 2006 and 2008 up from 34% who worked those hours 30 years prior, based on government studies cited in the report. Women in higher-level positions experienced an even steeper change, with 14% working 50 hours or more in 2006 and 2008 compared to just 6% who did between 1977 and 1979.
These longer work schedules, which the center describes as being “ramped up versions” of what full-time employment once meant, were found to be particularly common on the higher end of the income ladder.
“Many of the highest-paying and highest-status professional jobs require very long hours — and, in today’s ‘winner take all’ economy, turning them down can extract a sharp wage penalty,” the researchers write in the report.
One of the ways we could respond to chronic unemployment and underemployment would be to reduce the hours for full time employment and to lower the retirement age. The situation we have now is increasingly very unhealthy.
Unless there is cap on hours that can be worked, how would that help? And if there was a cap, they would use that as an excuse to offshore even more jobs.
I am becoming increasingly convinced that we need to protect our markets (both jobs and goods). Everybody else does.
As for those who protest that it would start a “trade war”, they only buy our stuff when there is no other choice. If they can produce it themselves, even at a higher cost, that is what they do. The only ones who stand to lose anything are our “trading partners” or as I prefer to call them “our crack dealers”.
“I am becoming increasingly convinced that we need to protect our markets (both jobs and goods). Everybody else does.”
It’s difficult to impose tariffs on foreigners when they buy your bonds (hold your debt).
“Six Keys to Understanding the Issue”
http://tinyurl.com/3zlcjeq
Sometimes you have to quit cold turkey. If we don’t they’re gonna end up owning everything.
It’s gonna happen eventually once we lose our reserve currency status.
The whole “foreigners buy our debt” issue is overblown.
First, if we fix our trade deficit, the overall indebtedness of the nation will decrease, or at least stop growing.
Second, if there’s a debt crisis, the Fed can buy up bonds for awhile, to ease the transition.
The whole “foreigners buy our debt” issue is overblown.
First, if we fix our trade deficit, the overall indebtedness of the nation will decrease, or at least stop growing.
That’s a big IF. How does this support your statement it’s overblown. You’re acknowledging the issue here and saying there are ways to make it less of an issue, no? And “fix our trade deficit” is not a simple solution.
Second, if there’s a debt crisis, the Fed can buy up bonds for awhile, to ease the transition.
Like they already are?
So you are for forced retirement and forcing businesses to cut hours. Nice. Why do I see drab grayness in this?
That’s not what I said. Lowering the age at which people are eligible for retirement does not force people to retire sooner, but raising it does force them to try to keep working longer.
From a practical standpoint, someone older than 45 or 50 has little chance of finding a job if they lose the one they have now. Forcing them to try to work even longer until they’re eligible for retirement makes no sense.
My proposal doesn’t force businesses to cut hours. I’m arguing for spreading the available work over more workers. Why should we overwork one set of workers into their graves while another set of potential workers starves for lack of work?
Why should we overwork one set of workers into their graves while another set of potential workers starves for lack of work?
you assume they’re overworked. What about us that work full-time jobs and are happy about it? You’re suggesting hours (and money) be taken from us and re-distributed, no?
“I’m arguing for spreading the available work over more workers.”
I’m sure you all have heard of ‘Black Fridays’. The reason they were instituted was to spread the work out to a greater number of workers. Most unions have eliminated them now.
SD Greg, forcing more people to do the same work means the company has to pay benefits, especially health care, for more employees. So in order for forced reduction in hours to work, there would have to be universal health care or some other compromise on benefits.
Rather than reduce hours, it may be fairer and more effective to cut the payroll tax. Companies are rewarded for hiring more workers. Of course, that would kill SS, so I don’t know how to make up for that.
How many times do I have to post this?
Republicans block ending offshore jobs tax breaks | Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68R40I20100928
you assume they’re overworked. What about us that work full-time jobs and are happy about it? You’re suggesting hours (and money) be taken from us and re-distributed, no?
If you’re happy with the hours you’re working and the compensation for it, that’s great.
But how many are working more hours than they want and are being compensated the same or less than for fewer hours in the past? How many don’t have jobs because of the extra hours those other workers are working? That’s a lose, lose situation for both.
Higher-level workers are increasingly being asked to put in 50 hours or more a week
Pretty much anyone who is salaried is expected to do this.
At a social gathering last night I bumped into an acquaintance who is hourly and he told me that at his previous job they wanted him to work unpaid overtimes as well, even though he wasn’t salaried and it was illegal as hell.
while lower income workers are often forced to work fewer hours but at jobs with irregular schedules
My college daughter has a p/t retail job. Its not unusual for people to be sent home after just 1 hour into their shift if business is slow. Not a big deal for her, it just means less pocket money. But for someone who is juggling 3 P/T jobs to make ends meet it is a disaster.
In areas such as retail it has long been standard that the “full time” hourly workers are scheduled for a 35 hour week so that if they go over a few minutes here and there they do not go into over time. Going over 40 hours without management permission is punished.
“… they wanted him to work unpaid overtimes as well …”
This unpaid overtime is the price one has to pay to buy his job, and he gets to pay this price on the payment plan - one paycheck at a time - just as if would do if he was buying a product on time.
Buy a business and you get a regular pay check (in theory, at least). Buy a job and you get the same thing.
It used to be the price for the job one bought was paid for in one’s labor on and hour-per-hour basis - eight hours of work earned a worker eight hours of pay. Now the job is paid for on something more than an hour-per-hour basis, meaning one has to pay to them more hours to get the same amount of money.
This is in effect a pay cut but it doesn’t show us as as such in the numbers - except to the worker.
This policy also affects the unemployment numbers. A worker who works, say, fifty hours a week and gets paid for forty will replace one-fifth of a worker. If five workers do this then they combined will replace one forty-hour worker.
This is a twenty-percent reduction of the work force but it will not cost the employer a twenty-percent reduction of productivity, but it will save him twenty-percent in the form of labor costs.
Correction: A worker who works fifty hour weeks will replace one-fourth of a forty hour worker, not one-fifth.
Which means that if an employer can get his workers to work fifty hours a week instead of forty hours a week for the same amount of money then he can cut his work force by twenty-five percent without cutting productivity.
And he will do this because:
1. He can.
2. His competitors are doing it and he has to keep up with the competition.
“This unpaid overtime is the price one has to pay to buy his job”
And why shouldn’t we have children working in coal mines? They’re smaller and they fit better. When the gov impedes such economic options, they distort the market.
You bet your bottom dollar that forcing hourly workers to work overtime for free is illegal! I would not do it. No way. I get paid hourly and I get paid for the extra hours beyond 40. I have two feet and I will walk if a client ever imposes that on me. They never have in my eleven years of contracting. One discouraged overtime. So I worked only 40 per week and my own job shop gave me $4 per hour more in a raise.
Bill, it seems that you can seemingly find a job anywhere in the country on a week’s notice, you get paid highly enough to retire by age 50 on $100K a year if you chose to, you haven’t yet been outsourced, and you can walk at any time and find another job.
Exactly what magic skill do you have? My guess is that it takes a security clearance in a defense field.
It’s a status that will go away in time. I will be happier when the pool of jobs requiring my criteria cuts down drastically. Because I will know government spending will be cut.
Yes there is too much defense spending. And I will probably continue to find work in my field even in dwindling amount of jobs. Gates, the DOD head, agrees we have too much spending on defense.
We need to pull out of Afghanistan and all the middle east, stop any support at all for any foreign nation, whether financial or military.
We cannot afford it. But we are constitutionally bound to have a defense. I will continue in this type of work whether a private employee or a government employee. And I in fact was that for eleven years.
“We are constitutionaly bound to have a defense.”
Our Defense department used to be called the War Department.
When it was the War Department its primary function was defense. Now that its called the Defense Department its primary function seems to be war.
Maybe if we change its name back to the War Department we will end up being involved in fewer wars.
“I will be happier when the pool of jobs requiring my criteria cuts down drastically. Because I will know government spending will be cut.”
LOL. Sure, the guy who has built his whole life around chasing whatever job offers the most $, looks forward to his salary being involuntarily greatly reduced.
Are you sure you’re not just trying the cover the immense hypocrisy that someone, like yourself, who earns their living from the government, should espouse such anti-government libertarian malarkey?
You’d ream him if he said the opposite. Bottom line, you don’t like his philosophy and are going to try to make him look bad no matter what he says. The fact that he works in defense just gives you extra ways to try. Is that necessary?
“Is that necessary?”
Pointing out the hypocrisy in anti-government suckers of the government teat, be they TeaKoch partiers who want the gov to keep its hands off their medicare, or libertarian anti-tax zealots who earn their living off of taxpayers, is indeed necessary.
Carl, what I dislike the most is that Bill the Nomad has already made his pile — and makes no secret of it, in case you haven’t noticed. But now, Bill wants to take away the punch bowl, only AFTER he’s taken his drink from it.
I have asked Bill, several times, would he feel so free to encourage cutting defense spending if he knew he would lose his job? I don’t mean now, now that he’s made his pile. I mean, would he have cut defense spending 20 years ago, BEFORE he was finacially secure? Because that’s where a lot of young people are now. In response, I have received only tales of his swimmer’s body and hermit-like self-flagillation, or, more often, *crickets.*
It’s one thing to have a libertarian philosophy. It’s quite another to be a socialist, make your pile off the government teat, and then turn libertarian just in time to deny others THEIR chance to make THEIR pile. There is an old adage to describe that. It is “I’ve got mine, now F you.” And yes, that deserves to be reamed.
Hmm. I don’t know. I think I see what you’re saying but I can’t begrudge somebody taking advantage of legal, constitutional opportunities that exist at the time, even if they’re opposed to some of the things that lead to that opportunity existing. Seems like we’re all in that boat to a certain extent…many of our jobs wouldn’t exist right now if they’d let the banks crash, but that doesn’t stop us from going to them as long as the checks clear even if we think they should have let them crash.
“I have asked Bill, several times, would he feel so free to encourage cutting defense spending if he knew he would lose his job? I don’t mean now, now that he’s made his pile. I mean, would he have cut defense spending 20 years ago, BEFORE he was finacially secure? Because that’s where a lot of young people are now. In response, I have received only tales of his swimmer’s body and hermit-like self-flagillation, or, more often, *crickets.*”
Classic!!
I think I see what you’re saying but I can’t begrudge somebody taking advantage of legal, constitutional opportunities that exist at the time, even if they’re opposed to some of the things that lead to that opportunity existing.
Actually I don’t begrudge it either. But one would think the somebody would at least have the grace to shut his piehole.
Pretty much anyone who is salaried is expected to do this.
This is the part where I point out that your generalizations are overly general.
Maybe it’s different in CO. It’s certainly not that way at my company in WA. Most people in the office are older and have families/other commitments. Sure, there are times we need to put in a few extra hours, but on the whole, most employees work 40-45hrs/week, as they always have in tech.
Sure, some people put in a lot more hours, and they’re looked upon favorably for doing so. But the rest of us get positive annual reviews even if we don’t work 60hrs/week.
Being expected to work unpaid OT is quite common in the Fortune 500 which is why I avoid those employers like the plague. Everyone I worked at expected a lot more than 40 hours a week on a regular basis, its not a Colorado thing. My brother has bounced around big companies too and his experience matches my own: they lay off tons of people and the survivors are expected to pick up the slack, however much time it takes. He quit his previous job because his workload increased so much that he was putting in at least 60 hours a week, sometimes more.
I’ve had better luck lately with smaller employers, however what I’m hearing through the grapevine is that its becoming more common there as well.
Becoming? Half of the companies I’ve worked for in my life have tried to get me to work unpaid over-time.
Right now, the EEOC is backlogged by YEARS on labor violation complaints.
Top 2? Unpaid overtime and age discrimination.
Ye and the big OH doesn’t give a crap unless you are union or an Illegal.
Nary a peep of the hundreds a day labor law violations just on CL in NYC….all wanting you to be an “intern” at little or no pay…..then they expect YOU to have your own tools aka anew mac laptop no more using the company old computers to train on…nope…
“This is the part where I point out that…”
High on yourself much?
“The era of a 9-to-5 work week appears to be coming to an end.”
My father enjoyed 9-to-5, but it has never been part of the post-Greenspan landscape, so far as I can tell from the span of my adult working life.
“My father enjoyed 9-to-5, but it has never been part of the post-Greenspan landscape”
My father left the house @ 6:45 AM came home for 1/2 hour lunch 11:30 AM - 12:00 pm again for dinner from about 6 -7 PM and back to lock the place up and home for the night about 9:15 PM Monday - Friday 1/2 day Saturday and stopped in after church on Sunday for most of my childhood. Except for 1 week he took off every year in Nov. when he went hunting, or if it snowed and he was out plowing or a customer had car trouble and he had to go get them off the road, his days were longer. He owned a service station, he had 5 kids and he paid his bills.
Jeff
I just knew you came from good stock. Our childhood was similar, and at times my late father had 2 jobs. In retrospect, I should have thanked him for his work ethic, instead of my attitude towards both my parents. (Although my mother was more of an incubator.)
Thanks for the personal note Jeff. But your father was the owner, not an employee. Owners do work harder than employees - they have more skin in the game. So the 9-5 statement understandably doesn’t apply to your father’s case.
He bought the station from a man named Graves when I was about 3 years old. He ran it for many years before that and by what my sisters and Mom told me, his work schedule and work ethic were the same before he was the owner. From what I was told the man he bought it from did not have the same work ethic. He was never there.
Dare I ask … maybe your father enjoyed his job more than being with his family?
I ask because every workaholic I’ve ever met has ZERO family life. And he worked the long hours because they provided satisfaction, not because he was some kind of hero.
“I ask because every workaholic I’ve ever met has ZERO family life.”
The management ranks of the company I work for is filled with those with zero family life. They are totally dedicated to their careers and expect everyone else to equally dedicated and cannot understand why some choose to be othewise.
Once one of them wanted a very sharp craft employee fired because the employee was offered a promotion to management and turned it down.
Then years later these workaholics become astonished when the “ungrateful” company they dedicated their lives to downsizes its management ranks and they are given the axe.
I’ve seen it many times before and I expect to see it again in the very near future.
“Dare I ask … maybe your father enjoyed his job more than being with his family?”
You dare ask. I don`t know if there is any one answer to that. He grew up in the depression, I remember him telling the story of working all summer unloading ice with big prongs. His reward for the summer of work besides what he contributed to his family was a pair of football cleats for his senior year in high school. Maybe he was driven to make sure his kids had everything they needed, which we all got. But very little that wasn’t needed. Us kids always had decent bikes, clothes, birthdays and Christmases. Didn’t need to do hard labor for baseball gloves or cleats. He bought 1 new car while I was living at home, we had 1 black and white t.v. in the family room until after I left home in 1979. In fact I remember walking past a color t.v that had the Wizard of Oz on when I was 20 and saying… WTF that`s in color! Anyway we all knew he loved us all though in our house no one ever said it. He was always there for first communion and confirmations, he was a disciplinarian that very rarely had to discipline us, generally once was enough. He paid for 1 of my sisters and my brothers college education (the only 2 that went except for me and I was on a full scholarship) and all 3 of my sisters weddings although he had to start washing his hands 3 times a day 3 weeks before so they wouldn’t be stained on the wedding day. He very rarely saw me play little league baseball but never missed a football game I played in high school and beyond. So I don`t know, but I think he worked those long hours because providing for his family gave him a great deal of satisfaction. And to me, my brother and my sisters “he was some kind of hero.”
Appears to be coming to an end?
The only time I ever worked a regular 40 hours per week in my salaried jobs was my first professional job, starting in the very late 1960’s. The company was a regulated public utility (no competition, guaranteed profit). The hours were so regular I was able to car-pool most days with three other guys.
I jumped ship and worked for non-utilities the rest of my career. Never again worked just 40 hours. Never again car-pooled.
The trend to more hours started a LONG time ago.
I hear a lot of people say that, but in my high tech career I’ve only had one company try to get people to work a lot of extra hours. I left that company as soon as I could because they were so stupid about it…they wanted you to work extra hours even when there was nothing that could be done…just so they could show their bosses that they were pushing as hard as they could. I can’t abide that level of stupidity. Everywhere else 40 has been treated as plenty unless there’s an emergency, and that usually results in comp time later.
Cool only 2 trillion. These jackasses will never stop, of course the debt ceiling has been raised some 39 times in 94 years so everyone knew they would drive it up again. Spineless group of can kicking a-holes.
Boehner abandoning effort for $4 trillion in deficit reductions, will seek $2 trillion deal.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republican budget negotiators have abandoned plans to pursue a massive $4 trillion, 10-year deficit reduction package in the face of stiff GOP opposition to any plan that would increase taxes as part of the deal.
House Speaker John Boehner informed President Barack Obama Saturday that a smaller agreement of about $2 trillion was more realistic.
In a statement issued Saturday evening, Boehner said: “Despite good-faith efforts to find common ground, the White House will not pursue a bigger debt reduction agreement without tax hikes.”
The White House responded that Obama will continue to push to make as much progress on deficit reduction as possible.
Boehner’s statement came a day before he and seven of the top House and Senate leaders were scheduled to meet at the White House in a negotiating session and lay out their remaining differences.
A deficit reduction deal is crucial to win Republican support for an increase in the nation’s debt ceiling. The government’s borrowing capacity is currently capped at $14.3 trillion and administration officials say it will go into default without action by Aug. 2.
So even though Obama was ready to throw the middle class under the social security budget cutting bus, that wasn’t good enough for the rich to make a sacrifice they wouldn’t even feel. Heaven forbid that they might have to keep the Audi for an extra year before getting a new one. That’s an unreasonable expectation to make on them. Of course for everyone else to tighten their belts as their tiny SS benefits are reduced permamanetly, that’s A-OK.
It’s a good thing our President is a Kenyan, pallin’ around with Muslims Marxist, or who knows what he might have done to the middle class?
I guess deficits don’t matter.
Until they do.
There is now deal for $2M. Today they will attempt to reach agreement:
The biggest obstacles to an agreement remain.
Democrats want to shield popular domestic programs from huge cuts and say that any deal must include increases in tax revenue, including an expiration of Bush-era tax cuts on wealthier Americans.
Republicans — under pressure from Tea Party conservatives — reject any increased taxes and want curbs on popular benefit programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
including an expiration of Shrub-era tax cuts on wealthier Americans.
The MegaInc.$ & Wealthie$,…they’re $uffering $o!…hurry! reduce/eliminate their taxe$, hurry,… Cinder$ & Ashe$…Agonie$ & Pain$, help ‘em.
“TruePatriotCEO’$™” plead, plead, plead: “give u$ a tax repatriation holiday and we’ll bring the money back and start creating Job$! Job$! Job$!…”
“TruePathtoProsperity™” is their current 2012 political motto mantra…they have a plan…trust them…here’s their self-labeled “Bidne$$” card name: “TruePurity™”
Deficits don’t matter.~ Vice President R. Cheney, (r)
They don’t matter in the case of tax gifting. What do you guys think about that….. Looting the US Treasury(YOUR money) and gifting it to people who already have more than you can every imagine in ten lifetimes.
And it’s not like this money is there. They borrow hundreds of billions and hand it over to the unimaginably wealthy and we get to make installment payments, with interest.
These tax gifters are screwing every single wage earner. That’s me and you. All of us.
These tax gifters are screwing every single wage earner. That’s me and you. All of us.
No, no, no, we should be upset because a firefighter in Palm Beach makes 90 grand a year.
“No, no, no, we should be upset because a firefighter in Palm Beach makes 90 grand a year.”
And thats where the other class warfare demonstrates itself. Rather than championing the cause of your fellow peons, you side with those who keep you on the bottom rung and kick the ladder out from under the peons that are doing okay for themselves.
This phenomenon is one of the saddest things I’ve observed over the years. My financial future is a function of my contemporaries doing better than me. I will champion their cause every time.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/boehner-abandons-efforts-to-reach-comprehensive-debt-reduction-deal/2011/07/09/gIQARUJ55H_print.html
What a complete joke. Only a population as stupid as ours would stand for this Kabuki theater. If this isn’t proof positive that every single one of these jokers is owned by Wall Street, I don’t know what is. BOTH parties suck. BOTH parties are craven toadies to Wall Street and the corrupting power of its money and lobbyists. BOTH parties are irresponsible as hell. Wake up, sheeple, and look at where this is leading us: to national ruin.
Yup. Very little difference between the two, but the GOP is even worse, not that it matters in the big picture.
Sammy as I am sure you know the general population is deaf,dumb & blind, completely clueless as to what is happening in this country.
I was talking to a highly educated fellow the other day and he mentioned the debt ceiling and how it was imperative that it be raised. I asked why? He said because other wise we can’t pay our bill’s and we’d be broke.
I said so when you are spending and borrowing/creating money you don’t have and do not enough revenue coming to even cover the interest debt, I’d say we are already broke.
His response was it’s different when it comes the our national debt.
Huh?
Thank god for all these highly educated dim-wits.
“Thank god for all these highly educated dim-wits.”
Many people are educated beyond their intelligence.
The “story” being told around DC is that Boener was honestly trying for the $4 trillion deal, but he couldn’t get the tea party branch of the House to go for it if there was any increase in revenue at all. The deal that was offered in the $2 trillion version was something like 83% spending cuts and only 17% revenue increases (none of it by raising marginal rates, though fixing the hedge fund manager 15% rate was part of it). No idea what the percent break down was on the $4 trillion deal that was on the table - as far as I know none of the details leaked except that it included changes in SS.
Please note that in the past 3 or 4 “reduce the deficit” deals, the split has always included more than 35% revenue raising.
Let’s see if our “rating” agencies, who I’ve noted act like adjuncts to the TBTF extortion schemes against countries like the PIIGS, downgrade the US several notches as soon as whatever “deal” is announced by the Crybaby which includes half-hearted spending cuts with no new taxes - fiscal insanity in other words.
“These jackasses will never stop,…”
Are you suggesting that the right course of action at this point would have been a U.S. default?
This could have led to much higher interest rates and unemployment; do you consider such potential developments to be desirable?
the default argument is false. we take in more then 6 times what it takes to pay our debt.
obama’s 4T is false as well, he uses 12 years and that reduces 4T to 2 1/2. for the 2 1/2 he uses smoke and mirrors, false cuts in the future like savings from irag and afganistan.
the planned future cuts is what makes these deals no deal at all.
bush one fell for it.
So you are saying never stop, and drive the entire country into a much larger and far more painful default down the road? Great plan, fits right in with D.C’s. on going drive off the cliff.
Yeah this is my view too. We absolutely should NOT raise the debt ceiling. We need severe government spending cuts. $4 trillion is a start. But the unfunded liabilities are in the tens of trillions of dollars. I would have accepted the tax increase if it had a sunset after ten years in order to get the $4 trillion cut. Then in the next several years cut another $4 trillion adjusted for inflation. No spending increases at all.
my position is to no raise the limit, in fact to begin reducing it.
Raising the debt ceiling would be like giving free rent to a deadbeat renter who already trashed your place. Kick the worthless piece of $hit out already!
Either cut spending or raise taxes. The GOP “solution” of limitless spending combined with tax cuts (mainly for the wealthy) is completely untenable.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20110703,0,1163343.column?obref=obnetwork
Meanwhile, the Republicrat-orchestrated evisceration of the middle class continues.
Libs are pretty happy about this. The word this morning is that Obama didn’t cave on SS or Medicare after all. Obama played chicken with Boehner and Boehner blinked.
The best debt-reduction plan is to do nothing.
http://www.slate.com/id/2291054/
How Congress can balance the budget in eight years by literally doing nothing. This is not a joke.
By Annie Lowrey
“So how does doing nothing actually return the budget to health? The answer is that doing nothing allows all kinds of fiscal changes that politicians generally abhor to take effect automatically. First, doing nothing means the Bush tax cuts would expire, as scheduled, at the end of next year. That would cause a moderately progressive tax hike, and one that hits most families, including the middle class. The top marginal rate would rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, and some tax benefits for investment income would disappear. Additionally, a patch to keep the alternative minimum tax from hitting 20 million or so families would end. Second, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Obama’s health care law, would proceed without getting repealed or defunded. The CBO believes that the plan would bend health care’s cost curve downward, wrestling the rate of health care inflation back toward the general rate of inflation. Third, doing nothing would mean that Medicare starts paying doctors low, low rates. Congress would not pass anymore of the regular “doc fixes” that keep reimbursements high. Nothing else happens. Almost magically, everything evens out. ”
————
IMO, even better, hike a few tarriffs, deport a few more illegals so that those kids could mow the lawns, and pass a public option for health care, and the budget would balance even quicker.
“Obama’s health care law, would proceed without getting repealed or defunded.”
This is not true. Congress does have to “do” something to fund the ACA. They have to pass a budget that allows the agencies to implement the legislation - it isn’t like entitlement spending that doesn’t have to be explicitly funded.
And they HAVE to raise the debt ceiling. Even Paul Ryan’s budget (including medicare as vouchers increasing in size at a rate far slower than health care inflation) requires rasing the debt ceiling.
I think that “not being defunded” includes that Obamacare would be funded with regular budgets. And yes, they would raise the debt ceiling, but that’s cumulative debt, not the deficit ceiling.
Presumably by 2018 or 2019, they wouldn’t need to raise the debt ceiling anymore because the goes-outs would equal the goes-ins. The total debt would remain constant until somebody started paying it down.
From Motown to Ghost town: How the once mighty Detroit is heading down a long, slow road to ruin.
This was once the capital city of capitalism, the great roaring furnace at the very centre of America’s rise to world power and greatness. Stalin wanted to copy it on the banks of the Volga, but found he couldn’t replicate its spirit – or its cars.
Aldous Huxley’s great prophetic novel Brave New World was written on the assumption that the ideas of its founder, Henry Ford, especially that ‘history is bunk’, would one day take over the planet. He may yet turn out to be right.
Certainly, Ford’s desire for a world of vast mass-production factories in which the workers were paid enough to keep the economy going by buying their own products seems to be coming true. But nowadays it is mainly coming true in China and South Korea, and failing in Detroit itself.
Peter Hitchens stands in Belle Isle Park with the skyline of Detroit, Michigan, behind him
Peter Hitchens stands in Belle Isle Park with the skyline of Detroit, Michigan, behind him
America’s fabled rise to world power and wealth may only have been an overture to China’s seizure of world dominance.
The revolutionary artist Diego Rivera made a pilgrimage to Detroit to paint – in a gigantic, overpowering fresco – the very spirit of frenzied, unstoppable economic ferocity, ruthless, cold and majestic. Detroit’s original heart was crammed with some of the most exuberant and powerful buildings of the American mid-century: colossal, ornate theatres and cinemas, mighty hotels and department stores, all emphasising energy, movement, optimism and power.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2012971/From-Motown-Ghost-town-How-mighty-Detroit-heading-long-slow-road-ruin.html#ixzz1RhXrAsWA
Certainly, Ford’s desire for a world of vast mass-production factories in which the workers were paid enough to keep the economy going by buying their own products seems to be coming true. But nowadays it is mainly coming true in China
Can Chinese autoworkers really afford the cars they build? I kind of doubt it. Those cars are being built for China’s managerial and professional class, which is pretty much the situation now in the USA as well, where new hires in the auto industry are paid $14/hr while the cars they make cost on average a year’s wage for them.
I also doubt that Foxconn workers can afford to buy the iPads and other electronic toys they make.
China isn’t becoming like us, but the handwriting is on the wall: The masters of the universe want us to become like them.
Would Chinese workers WANT to build the cars they build? Chinese quality control leaves a lot to be desired.
It is interesting that they haven’t flooded us yet with their crappy cars. A few years ago it was seen as a done deal.
I’m sure Chinese workers would like any car. But most can’t even afford the deathtraps made for their market that wouldn’t be street legal in the USA or Europe.
The impression I got about the Chinese cars was that they really weren’t that much cheaper than other makes of cars, and the quality was likely much inferior.
Also, why bother, since the US car market is basically saturated?
The mystery of the Chinese consumer: In the first of a two-part series on Asian consumers, we ask what makes the Middle Kingdom’s shoppers tick
“LILY LI wears a lanyard with a little plastic card around her neck, even at weekends. It is a badge of honour: it shows that she has a white-collar job. (She is a secretary at Access Asia, a retail-research company in Shanghai.) She uses Apple earphones for the cheap Chinese mobile phone in her pocket, so it looks as if she owns an iPhone. And she drives to work, though it takes four times longer than public transport, just to show off her little car.
After decades of deprivation and conformism, Chinese consumers regard expensive consumer goods as trophies of success. In public, they show off. In private, they pinch pennies. The owner of a gleaming new BMW will drive around for half an hour to avoid a 50 cent parking fee. And she will hesitate to spend much on interior decoration, because only her family sees the inside of her flat.”
http://www.economist.com/node/18928514
“The impression I got about the Chinese cars was that they really weren’t that much cheaper than other makes of cars”
Once they bring them up to western safety standard that’s correct. In the end the cost of labor doesn’t have that big of an effect.
Just Look at the big 3, they got rid on tons of expensive employess through buyouts and and early retirements and replaced them with $14/hr Joes.
Did car prices come down? Heck no! Infact they inreased dramatically.
As the big 3 shed excess capacity they reduced the pressure to sell cars at fire sale prices to maintain market share.
Can Chinese autoworkers really afford the cars they build? I kind of doubt it. Those cars are being built for China’s managerial and professional class,
There are a lot of personal owned cars in China and this number is going up by leaps and bounds every month.
A car is still the access to middle class life. Cars are thought of and used differently in China than in the US. A car is a means to have a life on weekends - go to the family village, take kids around, get shopping done. Most folks continue to take public transport to commute to their day jobs.
Also, it’s not unthinkable for an autoworker (or anyone else for that matter) to moonlight on weekends as a private taxi operator. He might hang around supermarkets, give folks and their stuff a ride home, to make some extra money.
The government has stimulus packages in place to help people buy cars in certain areas (in others, like Beijing, new number plates are issued at a regulated rate leading to scarcity, to limit the number of cars on the road). Cars are available in a wide range of price points - starting around $3000 for the Cherry QQ, crossing $70,000 for the Audi Q5 and going up from there.
In summary, while the line assembly worker may not immediately buy a car today, we are not too far from the day that he does.
“In summary, while the line assembly worker may not immediately buy a car today, we are not too far from the day that he does.”
And then all the factories will be moved to the next 3rd world cesspool.
And then all the factories will be moved to the next 3rd world cesspool.
True, they may come back to the US.
Ding ding ding!
And Chinese workers will be outsourced as surely as Americans were. Do you think we’ll hear stories of Chinese jingle mailing the keys on their 46x income flats in Beijing?
Detroit may yet recover (although not in its current form.)
The price of land is low enough that there may very well be a revival. Maybe a young hipster-ish scene or some such. Dunno what the driving force would be though.
Water.
Yeah, theoretically possible although there are a lot of competitors for that particular resource.
You could argue Chicago too for similar reasons which has many many advantages that Detroit cannot boast of.
Agree Palmetto. Water and soil are the coin of the survivalist realm. Although, I have no idea what they would do in the winter, unless they chop down all the forests.
Might be better to build you bunker in an area with tiny gas wells (East Ohio) or a coal state, or a southern state.
Realtors Are Liars
More than half of county’s fire-rescue employees earn more than $90,000
By Jennifer Sorentrue and Adam Playford
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 4:57 p.m. Saturday, July 9, 2011
More than half of Palm Beach County Fire-Rescue’s employees were paid over $90,000 in the 2010 budget year, according to a Palm Beach Post analysis of the department’s payroll.
Twenty-eight of the county’s 50 highest-paid employees worked for the department, the analysis showed.
Six fire-rescue employees, including three special operation captains, were paid more in gross pay, which includes overtime and various allowances, than was Fire-Rescue Chief Steve Jerauld, whose gross pay totaled $180,724, The Post found.
One of those employees made more than $60,000 in overtime, and three made at least $30,000 through extra shifts.
The county’s top paid fire-rescue employee, Michael Southard, a former deputy chief of fleet maintenance, brought in $212,188 last budget year, but that was boosted by big payouts for unused vacation and sick time that he received because he was retiring after 30 years with the department.
Without payouts for the unused time, Southard said there was “no way I would have beat out the chief.”
Taxpayer watchdogs say the department’s salaries and benefits have ballooned out of control and want Palm Beach County administrators to cut them in upcoming contract negotiations.
The county fire-rescue department’s average base salary was $90,776 in 2010, and the average gross pay was $93,144. Those are averages for all of the department’s roughly 1,450 employees, from secretaries to the chief.
Still, Jerauld says the department is taking steps to cut the salaries of newly-hired firefighters and paramedics.
The county’s three-year contract with the firefighter’s union expires this year. Under the current deal, firefighters have received 3 percent raises each of the past two years, but agreed to hold salaries flat in the first year.
Jerauld said that first year’s concession was the first time the union agreed not to seek raises.
“I believe it reflected the union leadership’s acknowledgement of the difficulty economically the county was facing,” he said.
In the negotiations for the new contract, county administrators are seeking a 22 percent cut in the department’s pay ranges, although that would apply only to new employees.
The Palm Beach County Clerk and Comptroller’s Office estimates that each property owner covered by county Fire-Rescue pays about $580 for the service each year, making it one of the most expensive county agencies.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/more-than-half-of-countys-fire-rescue-employees-1594849.html?cxtype=rss_news - -
You posted this yesterday.
While it is scandalous, we have much bigger problems in this country, like offshoring and the banksters who can’t seem to stop raping us with QE after QE. A handful of overpaid firefighters is the least of our problems. Of course its much easier to tar and feather some overpaid firefighters than to actually go after the real culprits of our economic catastrophe.
According to the state comptroller of NY, Wall ST. paid almost 21 billion in bonuses last year. That’s the equivalent of 233,333 $90,000 per year firefighters (who actually do something useful)
According to the BLS:
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos329.htm
There were 365,000 firefighters and supervisors in the US in 2008 and their median wage for a firefighter was $44,260. There is also a table in that link that shows nationwide averages for most positions.
Palm Beach County’s wage scale is off the chart, but that is an issue for Palm Beach to deal with (and I hope they do).
Things like QE do affect everybody as it debases the currency and fuels inflation (just wait for $5 gas).
“You posted this yesterday.”
Yes I did late. I also posted a similar article with similar salaries about Martin county (just north of Palm Beach County) fire-rescue employees salaries a couple of months ago. Every time I post something like this it`s always “While it is scandalous, we have much bigger problems in this country, like”…. But this is where I live and this is what I see every day. Try stopping in at a Publix to get a sub for lunch on a weekday while you are covered in #### from busting` your @@@ while the 4 fire-rescue employees who are making $100k -$200k + benes are doing their grocery shopping for their 2 day on 3 day off shift in uniform with the $200k fire truck parked out front. You think I am making this up read the comments section of the article from the people that live here and pay these salaries.
There is one other thing some of you guys are missing about these salaries of firefighters, sheriff dept. etc. At least down here these budgets and salaries exploded as the property tax revenue from the housing bubble exploded. So if the property taxes were based on pure fantasy numbers, what are these budgets and salaries based on?
Martin County local governments add to list of those making $100,000 or more
January 16th, 2011 by TCPalm.com
Total: 1,880 full-time local government employees, 172 earned $100,000 or more in 2009-2010
Martin County Board of County Commissioners: 850 full-time employees, 93 earned $100,000 or more
$165,723: Cliff Appe, fire rescue bureau chief (former)
$158,122: Michael Moon, airport director (former)
$147,416: Theresa Padgett, fire rescue battalion chief (former)
$141,719: Taryn Kryzda, county administrator
$141,286: Scott Legg, fire rescue battalion chief
$141,028: James Worley, fire rescue battalion chief
$139,225: John Polley, utilities director
$138,792: Christopher Stabile, fire rescue lieutenant
$138,086: Joseph Beert, fire rescue lieutenant
$137,767: Wade Mallard, fire rescue battalion chief
$137,764: Kevin Kryzda, chief information officer
$136,839: Marc Ducote, fire rescue lieutenant
$136,601: Lowell Nance, fire rescue battalion chief
$135,649: Joseph Ferrara, fire rescue chief
$134,990: Horace Wiggins, fire rescue battalion chief
$134,576: Don Donaldson, county engineer
$133,509: Randy Spiegelhalter, fire rescue lieutenant
$131,652: Matthew Himes, fire rescue lieutenant
$131,531: Nicki van Vonno, growth management director
$128,641: David Zarker, fire rescue lieutenant
$127,282: Stephen Fry, county attorney
$126,982: Casey Hilton, fire rescue battalion chief
$126,643: Daniel Wouters, fire rescue division chief
$126,006: John Stipo, fire rescue lieutenant
$125,753: John Davidson, fire rescue lieutenant
$125,228: Larry Massing, building official
$125,054: Michael Lee, fire rescue lieutenant
$125,002: Karl Oneyear, fire rescue lieutenant
$124,460: Brian McGlothlin, fire rescue battalion chief
$124,404: Keith Colodny, fire rescue firefighter paramedic
$124,054: Ronald Walling, fire rescue lieutenant
$123,737: Robert Osterhoudt Jr., fire rescue lieutenant
$123,512: Jon Belding, fire rescue division chief
$123,430: Christopher Zambello, fire rescue lieutenant
$123,126: James Sorrells, fire rescue lieutenant
$122,915: William Topping, fire rescue lieutenant
$122,873: Matthew Fenex, fire rescue lieutenant
$122,840: Michael Stagmiller, fire rescue lieutenant
$122,761: David Graham, director of administration
$121,958: Gary Roderick, environmental quality manager
$121,499: Johnny Recca, fire rescue lieutenant
$121,451: Richard Wilde, fire rescue firefighter paramedic
$120,903: Krista Storey, senior assistant county attorney
$120,347: Dwight Caserta, fire rescue lieutenant
$120,085: Mark Bentz, fire rescue lieutenant
$119,795: John Richardson, fire rescue lieutenant
$119,584: Bryan Richardson, fire rescue lieutenant
$119,365: Charles Gordils, fire rescue lieutenant
$118,193: James Loffredo, fire rescue lieutenant
$117,517: Karen Warren, fire rescue lieutenant
$117,495: Roy Aufort, fire rescue lieutenant
$116,117: Thomas Shimanek, fire rescue lieutenant
$115,940: Rodney Robertson, fire rescue battalion chief
$115,778: Robert Udzinski, fire rescue firefighter paramedic
$115,704: Jonathon Cantiello, fire rescue lieutenant
$115,478: Kenneth Zottola, fire rescue lieutenant
$115,374: Wilfredo Rodriguez, fire rescue lieutenant
$115,116: Chrystal Haubert, fire rescue lieutenant
$114,939: David Acton, senior assistant county attorney
$114,926: Patrick Gallagher, fire rescue lieutenant
$113,894: Richard Demilt, fire rescue lieutenant
$113,469: Steven Czerwinski, fire rescue lieutenant
$113,206: Michael Harris, fire rescue lieutenant
$113,115: Chad Cianciulli, fire rescue lieutenant
$112,675: Kathleen Voneslinger, fire rescue firefighter paramedic
$112,335: Scott Button, fire rescue lieutenant
$112,087: James Ritchey, fire rescue lieutenant (former)
$110,853: Harry Ramsey, fire rescue lieutenant
$110,066: Brian Seymour, fire rescue lieutenant
$109,827: Stanley Hilton, fire rescue lieutenant (former)
$109,657: Richard Bellomy, fire rescue lieutenant
$108,749: Christian Montoya, fire rescue lieutenant
$108,067: Keith Holman, emergency management agency director
$107,877: Harry Bish, fire rescue lieutenant
$107,496: James Sherman, assistant county administrator (former)
$107,105: Martin Shell, fire rescue firefighter paramedic
$106,643: Bryce Currie, fire rescue firefighter paramedic
$106,346: Terry Rauth, deputy county engineer
$105,984: Robert McLendon, fire rescue firefighter paramedic
$105,809: Scott Schlawiedt, fire rescue lieutenant
$104,441: Richard Hunter, fire rescue firefighter paramedic
$104,342: Todd Tucker, fire rescue lieutenant
$103,627: Ted Robbins, technical services administrator
$103,493: Mark Marzucca, fire rescue lieutenant
$103,405: Paul Davidson, fire mechanic
$103,079: Harold Markey, general services director
$102,448: Denise Eldredge, project and services manager
$102,422: Jerry Rothgeb, fire rescue firefighter emergency medical technician
$102,242: John Blackard, fire rescue firefighter paramedic
$101,836: Paul Jones, fire rescue lieutenant
$101,088: William Greene, fire rescue firefighter paramedic
$100,581: Scott Webber, project engineer
$100,507: Sarah Woods, senior assistant county attorney
http://www.tcoasttalk.com/2011/01/16/martin-county-local-governments-add-to-list-of-those-making-100000-or-more/ - 63k -
heheeeheeeheehaahaaahaaheeehaahaaa… (Hwy50™)
How the hell did that post not get filtered out? Jeez.
While it is scandalous, we have much bigger problems in this country, like offshoring and the banksters who can’t seem to stop raping us with QE after QE. A handful of overpaid firefighters is the least of our problems.
So it’s not worth commenting on or addressing?
IMO this is the mentality that led us to where we are today. “Oh, it’s only a small issue/expenditure. Not worth worrying about”. Death of a million cuts.
Sure, there are bigger fish. But it’s silly to try to find the one “magic bullet” issue that will fix everything. It doesn’t exist. We have to address ALL the problems, big and small. And if you start with the small, it’s easier to work up to the big. In the mean time, you can raise awareness, build momentum, and get more people on board.
“Sure, there are bigger fish.”
The bigger fish have a printing press. They don`t come after the $50k no health insurance/ no retirement fund/ no pension crowd directly like Palm Beach and Martin Counties do to pay for this sh#t.
Taxpayer watchdogs say the department’s salaries and benefits have ballooned out of control and want Palm Beach County administrators to cut them in upcoming contract negotiations.
Place an American flag on their Hazardous duty work vehicles. Offer them scheme$ to inflate their retirement$ to 90% pay of their la$t year$ $alary.
Bob Lutz thinks: Sobered Unions: “There’s a new sense of realism on the part of the unions that boy, if you over-milk the cow she is going to drop over dead.”
“The OC!” Wealthie$ villagehood:
Brian Calle: Newport Beach cops get $5,600 to wash their motorcycles
By BRIAN CALLE / EDITORIAL / OC Register
“The sweet deal is part of the contract negotiated between the police union and the city – yet another creative example of public employee pay abuses at taxpayer expense.
As alarming as that may seem, this is only one example of special pay that inflates salaries and is often hidden from public view because of the stealth nature of negotiations.”
Newport Beach police officers, motorcycle officers included, are already well compensated. Many of them are budgeted to make over $175,000 a year in total compensation and have lavish pension benefits that promise 90 percent of salary after 30 years of work, allowing for retirement at as early as age 50. And they can take home even more in overtime pay. There is no need to further game the system with gimmicks like pay for washing motorcycles.
It pays well to wash your motorcycle if you are a cop in Newport Beach, where officers who patrol on motor bikes are paid an additional six hours of overtime every month simply for giving their cycles a wash. The special compensation equates to, on average, about a 5 percent pay hike for motorcycle officers, or about $5,600 a year in additional monies
“Assigned Motor Officers are responsible for keeping the motorcycle assigned to him/her cleaned and polished at all times. This work shall be performed outside of the regularly scheduled work hours; and compensated at the rate of six (6) additional hours overtime per month (six (6) hours at time and one half equals 9 hours compensation).”
Getting to the bottom of exactly the amount of money each motor officer is paid for washing his/her bike was problematic because the city only provided a broad look at motor officer salary information instead of specifics in salary, overtime and special pay for each of the eight motor officers and the one motor sergeant.
Nevertheless, if you take the average annual pay of a police officer in the traffic division at $109,139, then divide it by 2,080 work hours in a year, the hourly rate is $52. So overtime (related to cleaning motorcycles) would be $468 a month or $5,616 a year. That’s the equivalent of a 5.1 percent pay raise. There are a number of categories of special pay including: being bilingual, having a master’s degree, a commercial drivers license, fire mechanic certification, etc. (These special pays begin to add up.)
I’m not really asking everyone be wildly outraged over $500 bucks a month or condemn all police officers, I’m suggesting the outrage should really be focused on these deals, usually negotiated out of view of the public. These types of clandestine compensation agreements have great significance because they are ways to bolster pay and pension benefits without showing an outright pay raise for public employees. This special pay compensation category involves any number of things and special pay can be accumulated, meaning you could get a pay bump for washing motorcycles, a master’s degree and being bilingual (and more). The more special pay employees qualify for, the more money they pocket and the more they can potentially earn in retirement pension benefits.
NOBODY who saves lives and keeps dangerous situations from turning catastrophic or who CAN pick up the pieces after a catastrophe… is overpaid.
Nobody.
My god we are a nation of greedy a%holes!
http://www.rutherford.org/articles_db/commentary.asp?record_id=715
What about the proliferation of SWAT teams that are running roughshod over the 4th Amendment rights of innocent citizens, and whose blind reliance on “dynamic entry” or no-knock warrants greatly increases the chance of needless bloodshed?
Then we better start paying these guys $400k a year plus benefits.
10 Most Dangerous Jobs in America
by the Editors of Publications International, Ltd.
1. Logger
2. Pilot
3. Fisher
4. Iron/Steel Worker
5. Garbage Collector
6. Farmer/Rancher
7. Roofer
8. Electrical Power Installer/Repairer
9. Sales, Delivery, and Other Truck Driver
10. Taxi Driver/Chauffeur
Alas, very few of these sterling souls work for our fire and police agencies. And the corruption and cronyism therein is a national disgrace.
There is no reason on earth why a police or fireman should make more than 50K a year, or 30K in retirement.
None.
ahansen
You have a way with words. It`s a gift, in fact if you were not such a kind and honest person on all sides of all issues you could have been a very successful politician.
One of the main reasons why Jupiter Fl. is the town where I would like to buy. Also why I was so PO`d at the crooked Realtor on the HomePath house in Jupiter that I was “second in line” for 2 months ago.
Jupiter’s reverse osmosis process helps South Florida towns dodge the drought
By Jennifer Sorentrue Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 8:24 p.m. Saturday, July 9, 2011
Jupiter, the first government in Palm Beach County to use the technology, now has one of the largest reverse-osmosis systems in South Florida. Town officials decided to build the plant in the late 1980s, after studies showed an aquifer closer to the surface would not produce enough water to support future growth.
Jupiter’s utility can treat up to 70 percent of its water supply using the reverse-osmosis system.
“In Palm Beach County, they were the pioneer,” said Mark Elsner, administrator of water supply development for the South Florida Water Management District.
Most public utilities in South Florida draw water from the surficial aquifer, which is shallower than the Floridan Aquifer and is replenished by rainfall. During droughts, though, the fresh water in the aquifer is depleted, allowing subterranean salt water to creep into the system.
Once salt enters a utility’s well, it can take months or years before the water can be used again for public drinking. Sometimes the wells are lost forever.
The Floridan Aquifer, more than 1,000 feet deep, doesn’t need rain to replenish, Elsner said.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/weather-news/jupiters-reverse-osmosis-process-helps-south-florida-towns-1595521.html - -
The one time I was in Florida (at Disney) I was appalled at how bad the tap water tasted. My dog wouldn’t drink that swill.
” My dog wouldn’t drink that swill.”
You`re dog ever been 2 days without water?
He prefers Pepsi.
“He prefers Pepsi.”
I had a Labrador named Clyde, remember the dog who lifted his leg on the pot plant every morning. Anyway, I had Clyde for about 8 years before I went to rehab and that dog loved Budweiser. He was a party animal. Clyde was sober for 4+ years before he passed away.
Water varies wildly in Florida, even regionally. Around here, most of the water tastes like crap, stinks like rotten eggs and is extremely hard. Many people have reverse osmosis for drinking water and a water softener for their household water, as well as a carbon filter for the stench. And that’s if you’re on county water. If you’ve got a well, it gets worse.
But, a little bit east of here is an area called Balm and they have awesome water in most places, naturally filtered and pure, provided they’ve got a deep well. If that water bubbles to the surface in the form of a creek or spring, the kids can play in it with no worries.
In northern Florida, there are crystal clear rivers and springs and the water is fantastic, unless some agricultural or industrial venture ruined it.
The water here in Tampa is hard. It ruins the dishes in the dishwasher. I have to get a water softener at some point. I buy my own drinking water.
http://aquarain.com/
I got an Aqua Rain 404 water filter. Water tastes better and I have the assurance of knowing its far cleaner than out of the tap.
The thing about RO water is the process usually involves a 90% +/- reject rate. While the processed water is fantastic there is a lot of potential waste water. You can minimize the waste by reprocessing the reject water but overall it is a piss poor strategy when you have a very finite fresh water supply. A better strategy would be to process sea water. This would cost more money surely but the supply would be virtually limitless.
http://www.vindy.com/news/2011/jul/08/drug-raid-goes-bust/
The destruction of the Fourth Amendment continues apace, but the sheeple don’t even look up from their grazing.
I have a feeling the only way this will change is after several well-known and well-respected community residents (ex-military, perhaps) get killed defending their homes during a break-in (no-knock police raid).
People seem unwilling to get involved/take a difficult position unless there’s a concrete travesty to hold on to.
And that concrete travesty needs to be something that could just as easily have happened to them. In other words, it has to happen to one of “us” rather than one of “them”…
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak for me.
Martin Niemöller (1892-1984)
Ben, that demonic-looking old dude in the “refinance your house” ad is really creeping me out.
Spanish mortgage defaulters face debt nightmare
DANIEL WOOLLS, Associated Press
Published 03:44 a.m., Sunday, July 10, 2011
ALCALA DE HENARES, Spain (AP) — Inma Rodriguez lost her job, and now that she’s defaulted on her mortgage, she’s about to lose her home. But the nightmare doesn’t end there: Once creditors kick her out, she’ll still need to pay back the money she borrowed to buy her house.
It’s a mortgage anomaly seen in much of Europe, but especially acute these days in Spain, a nation grappling with an economic crisis triggered by the collapse of a real estate bubble. Since the 2008 property crash, more than 300,000 have been hit by the potential double-whammy of eviction and mounds of mortgage debt.
“It hurts so, so much,” says Rodriguez, choking up as she looks up at the ceiling of the home where she’s lived for 30 years and raised two children.
Under the terms of her contract, Rodriguez will probably have to pay almost half of her €200,000-plus ($290,000) bank debt, plus court costs and penalties after she leaves — in stark contrast to the U.S., where defaulters can return the keys to the bank and walk away from their debt.
Defaulters are a small minority in Spain — nearly 98 percent of mortgage holders are up to date on payments. But their plight is generating a wave of solidarity as unemployment soars to record highs: When an eviction appears imminent, demonstrators often gather by the hundreds outside the property to try to block it
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Spanish-mortgage-defaulters-face-debt-nightmare-1459775.php - -
Do they not have bankruptcy in Europe?
I’m no expert but the 2003 law did not have personal bankruptcy so they are “recourse loans”.
Might have changed but I do not remember seeing it.
Decades of socialism have turned southern Europe into a cesspool of cheats, deadbeats, and system-gamers. An advanced stage of hope ‘n change, if you will.
Oregon Legislature shut door in homeowners’ faces over foreclosures
Published: Saturday, July 09, 2011, 10:30 PM
By Brent Hunsberger, The Oregonian
You hear lots of talk about Washington’s supremacy over Oregon when it comes to doing business and avoiding taxes.
But after the recently ended legislative session in Salem, the average Oregon consumer might consider fording the Columbia River for good.
Although the Oregon Legislature wrestled with a number of issues this session, consumer protection was not one of them. Nowhere was lawmakers’ collective apathy more evident than in the way Washington and Oregon addressed the growing foreclosure crisis.
…
Let’s set the scene lawmakers ignored. Homeowners have been up in arms with how loan servicers have bungled mortgage modifications promised by the government more than two years ago.
Attorneys general in 50 states are investigating the practices of the nation’s largest lenders.
In Oregon, meanwhile, a number of judges have blocked foreclosures, at least once after the fact. They’ve found lenders in violation of state law for not recording each time a mortgage loan is resold, a securitization system that generated yacht-loads of profits for Wall Street.
The status of foreclosures in the state now hang in serious limbo while a case finds its way to the Oregon Supreme Court. That could take months.
If lenders actually sat down face to face with borrowers and worked out solutions, Oregon’s housing market might actually see more life. Instead, big banks are putting off having to record those loan losses on their books. Troubled homeowners are told repeatedly to resend the same information, discover their lender is foreclosing on them at the same time their loan is being modified.
…
Attorneys general in 50 states are investigating the practices of the nation’s largest lenders.
Once these Republicrat AGs have secured backroom promises of increased campaign contributions, trust me, these investigations will be wrapped up with slap-on-the-wrist fines, no criminal charges, no admissions of wrong-doing, and immunity from any future prosecution or consequences.
One kleptocracy, under God.
Instead, big banks are putting off having to record those loan losses on their books.
but, but, but…I thoughts the PMI insurance Inc.’$ don’t have to pay out $$$$$$ ’till the Mega’$ type their name on the “we’re-the-new-decider’$” title?
http://www.aipnews.com/talk/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=21352&posts=2
End Fractional-Reserve Banking!
+ a Kabillion
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/8627510/Syria-Secret-journey-around-a-nation-in-revolt-finds-protesters-are-not-flagging.html
Obama and McCain voters, this is what non-sheep look like. You aren’t fit to shine their shoes.
Ah the joys of homeowner’s association membership…
Neighbor vs. neighbor as homeowner fights get ugly
MICHELLE CONLIN, AP Business Writers, TAMARA LUSH, AP Business Writers
Updated 07:35 a.m., Friday, July 8, 2011
The Inlet House condo complex in Fort Pierce, Fla., was once the kind of place the 55-and-older set aspired to. It was affordable. The pool and clubhouse were tidy, the lawns freshly snipped. Residents, push-carts in tow, walked to the beach, the bank, the beauty parlor, the cinema and the supermarket. In post-crash America, this was a dreamy little spot. Especially on a fixed income.
But that was Inlet House before the rats started chewing through the toilet seats in vacant units and sewage started seeping from the ceiling. Before condos that were worth $79,000 four years ago sold for as little as $3,000. And before the homeowners’ association levied $6,000 assessments on everyone — and then foreclosed on seniors who couldn’t pay the association bill, even if they didn’t owe the bank a dime.
Normally, it’s the bankers who go after delinquent homeowners. But in communities governed by the mighty homeowners’ association, as the sour economy leaves more people unable to pay their fees, it’s neighbor versus neighbor.
“What the board is doing is trying to foreclose on people to force people out the door,” says Mike Silvestri, 75, who stopped paying his dues at Inlet House in protest over what he considers unnecessary and unaffordable assessments.
He and others say there were cheaper ways to deal with the rat infestation and leaky sewage that led the board to order up a costly plumbing overhaul. “They are bamboozling old people. I’m old, but I’m not senile,” he says.
…
Seniors are the target of scams even in the best of times.
Now that everyone can see the foreclosure crisis in its full glory, the proposed solutions all seem to rely on the (hated) government somehow waving a magic policy wand and making it go away. In particular, the solutions most often served up suggest that since the economy became so heavily dependent on housing, we need to get the construction industry and used home sales industry back into overdrive to solve the problem.
It’s not going to work, folks. Hair of the dog won’t cure the hangover from an unprecedented building binge.
To recover, California must get its housing in order
By Tom Elias
Posted: 07/09/2011 05:52:59 PM PDT
Updated: 07/09/2011 07:20:15 PM PDT
There’s one big reason why foreclosure reforms that strongly encourage banks to redo loans for “underwater” homeowners are a must for California, and soon: This state’s overall economy and employment levels simply cannot recover to pre-recession status until the foreclosure crisis ends.
And the tide of foreclosures has shown no sign of abating lately, particularly in previous high-growth areas like the Inland Empire, the high desert portions of Los Angeles County and several Central Valley counties that were among the fastest growing places in America through most of the last decade.
Places like Moreno Valley, Merced, Stockton and Fresno grew immensely in large part because of easy money made available by banks that demanded little or no down payment on houses and then sold off the mortgages they wrote, helping cause the Wall Street debacles of the past four years.
That’s had a wide impact; thousands of homes sit vacant after their occupants either were forced out via foreclosure or abandoned houses and mortgages when property values fell to where loan amounts topped home values, putting them figuratively underwater.
With so many houses vacant, there is little demand for new housing. That means there’s little or no new residential construction under way or in prospect, which has proven disastrous for businesses that sell everything from appliances to carpeting, lumber and concrete.
No other state over the past century has been as dependent on steady construction of new homes. That’s the main reason California’s unemployment rate skyrocketed from about 7 percent in 2007 to more than 12 percent last year and well over 11 percent today.
Economic forecasters don’t say so explicitly, but this is also why every recent prediction indicates this state’s recovery from recession will keep trailing after the rest of America.
Foreclosures and the resulting construction slump are also the main reasons California unemployment is almost 50 percent higher than that of Texas, the state to which we are most often compared. Texas has no serious foreclosure or walking-away-from-mortgages crisis, mostly because housing prices never skyrocketed they way they did here between 1990 and 2007. Few Texans are under water.
Meanwhile, the building bust is choking the job market. In the 12 months ending in mid-June, California lost more than 74,000 construction jobs, reports the federal Department of Labor. That was on top of similar losses in each of the previous three years. Last September, the Associated General Contractors of America reported California construction employment was off by almost 51,000 jobs from the preceding year. Put these numbers together, and they suggest the construction industry has lost more than 250,000 jobs in this state since the foreclosure crisis began.
That doesn’t even count all the out-of-work real estate brokers, carpet salespeople, air conditioning installers, furniture salespeople, fence builders and more.
Meanwhile, commercial and industrial construction shows some small signs of recovery, adding 10,000 jobs last April alone, for a net gain of about 5,000 construction jobs. In short, while commercial construction looked up a little, residential construction was still way down.
California has been so dependent on homebuilding for so long that its virtual disappearance has led to an inevitable nightmare. That’s also been disastrous for state government and its programs, from gang prevention to parks and highway maintenance.
Not only is there virtually no revenue anymore from capital gains taxes on real estate sales, but also folks who have been foreclosed upon often find their financial losses are tax deductible, further reducing the state’s tax take.
Said Ken Simpson, chief economist for the national contractors group, “The construction industry may have stopped bleeding as many jobs, but there is no sign that employment levels will bounce back. We are unlikely to see significant increases in construction for the foreseeable future.”
That means California needs actions that can somehow alter the foreseeable future. Foremost among these should be mortgage loan reforms, laws compelling banks to work with underwater homeowners on restructuring payments so that homeowners won’t be on the hook each month for more than they’d pay to rent something similar to their current houses. There are no signs Congress will do anything like this, so it may be up to state legislators to act.
Without this kind of move, there is no end in sight to the foreclosure crisis, high unemployment or the persistent recession.
…
The reason they keep saying this is because the rest of the economy is toast. As the offshoring juggernaut continues to steamroll the country increasingly all that is left are menial part time jobs.
Indeed. Mexifornia is toast. Look to the south, that’s the future of Mexifornia. With all the rich, cultural experiences the southern “neighbor” brings to the table.
http://www.blogdelnarco.com/
Indeed. The rot is spreading here, too.
Also, since California is so expensive (expensive housing, high taxes that don’t provide good public services, expensive everything else), it’s not well-poised to take any of the jobs that are being un-offshored.
Hwy’s clingin’ to this POV:
“YOU WILL NEVER HAVE AN ECONOMIC RECOVERY UNTIL THE MAJORITY OF
UNDERWATER“Paid-too-much” HOME OWNERS ARE NO LONGERUNDER WATER, categorized as “Paid-too-much” HOME OWNERS!”“…It’s $o $imple, BUT it’s the thing that must never be said!”
Why don’t all these unemployed construction workers go to work in the entertainment industry, that’s the new plan to “save” the good old U.S.of A. They just need to get ahead of the curve.
They could be the new Village People
It’s easier to get a job as an above-the-line actor in a major motion picture than one as a SAG carpenter.
You have to be born into the position.
Good luck with that. You know that’s not gonna happen
Another day, another non-profit…
Nashville, Tenn.- A state investigative audit has found that more than a million dollars is either missing or was misspent by a non-profit group. They were supposed to help people in rural parts of Tennessee get better access to medical care.
According to auditors, grant invoices and reports were falsified. The group overbilled the state for purchases. Nearly half a million dollars in grant money is unaccounted for. And more than $90,000 in unauthorized salary and benefits went to Keith Williams, the former CEO of the Community Health Network and his assistant Paul Monroe.
Dennis Dycus says one of the most glaring examples of waste was a computer system.
“We had a computer system that they spent $1,470,000 on that was fully operational but was never used,” said Dycus.
Dycus says it turns out the former CEO of the group got kickbacks from a software vendor, and after he abruptly resigned from the community health network, he went to work for that company.
http://www.newschannel5.com/story/15051709/audit-reveals-on-profit-mismanaged-money
Most of these non-profits or “private-public partnerships” are riddled with fraud, graft, and patronage. Probably the worse examples are in our so-called justice system, where local authorities work out sweetheart deals with everybody from the company that manages phone calls from prison (at exorbitant collect-call rates) to the mandatory drug and alcohol councilors summoned for every offense. Our for-profit legal (not justice) system is based on job security and lucrative contracts, not punishing the guilty or protecting society.
…and this is no exaggeration.
Damn overpaid firefighters!
Oh wait…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/8627785/Axe-hangs-over-Wall-Street-bankers-as-US-economy-continues-to-struggle.html
Axe Hangs Over Wall Street Bankers as US Economy Continues to Struggle (parasites who kill the host may be SOL).
They’ll just get another bailout while they hand out record bonuses to “retain talent”.
The theft and swindles will be a lot more brazen going forward. The banksters correctly reason that the mindless herd creatures who voted for their muppets Obama and McCain will only squeal helplessly as Wall Street and its Republicrat hirelings bend them over again and again.
It’s GOOD to be the Banksta!
Constitutional Nonsense on Debt
What the 14th Amendment really says about the debt ceiling and debt default. ~ National Review
Lo and behold! As we celebrated this Fourth of July amid the debt-ceiling fight, the netroots and progressive pundits suddenly discovered the Constitution’s relevance in fiscal matters. It doesn’t seem like that long ago — because it wasn’t that long ago — that they ridiculed the very idea of constitutional limits on Congress in economic policy making, and even mocked the GOP’s public reading of the Constitution at the beginning of the current session.
Of the new House rule requiring a statement of the constitutional authority for bills, Ian Millhiser wrote at ThinkProgress that “the constitutional lunatics are now in charge of the GOP’s asylum.” It was completely unnecessary for Congress to cite constitutional justification for its actions, Millhiser proclaimed, because “Article I of the Constitution gives Congress broad authority” and “leaves budgeting decisions almost entirely to the judgment of Congress.”
But now that the GOP Congress is exercising this “broad authority” — or rather, what has always been its basic authority — over the nation’s purse strings to press for spending cuts as a condition of hiking the $14 trillion debt ceiling by another trillion or so, Millhiser, the Huffington Post, and The New Republic have suddenly discovered that in at least this one instance, the Constitution supposedly limits Congress’s economic powers. Section 4 of the 14th Amendment, which states that “the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law . . . shall not be questioned,” makes the debt ceiling itself unconstitutional, their argument goes. Folks who were railing against the “unitary executive” a few years ago now argue that if Congress doesn’t give Obama what he wants, this section gives him the constitutional authority to issue new debt by himself; otherwise, there would not be enough money to pay the existing debt, and the 14th Amendment does not allow that.
Just a few months after arguing majestically about how the Constitution puts virtually no limits on the “judgment of Congress,” Millhiser now hopes the White House begins “seriously exploring whether the Constitution will save America’s economy from the GOP’s extortionary tactics.” And David Dayen of FireDogLake, who thought it was “silliness” for members of Congress to read the Constitution in its entirety at the start of the session, now thinks it’s okay to read this one little section. He urges Democrats to stop tussling with Republicans over spending and taxes and just go with “a strategy that works: reading the Constitution.”
But this tortured interpretation of the 14th Amendment actually shows why members of Congress — as well as the pundit class — should have participated in the public reading of the entire Constitution earlier this year. If they had done that, they might not have skipped over an essential passage regarding the power to borrow. Article I, Section 8 — the same part of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to tax, appropriate, and “regulate commerce . . . among the states” (long the Left’s justification for any regulation of activity, or in the case of Obamacare, the inactivity of not buying health insurance) — also explicitly states: “The Congress shall have power to . . . borrow money on the credit of the United States.”
The 14th Amendment doesn’t affect this power one bit. It applies only to debt “authorized by law,” and as Catholic University Law School distinguished scholar John S. Baker wrote recently in NRO, “Only Congress — not the president — makes law.”
“Only Congress —
not the presidentNot lil’ Opie (the non-Hawaiian) — makes law.”“but, but, but…”
“the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law . . . shall not be questioned,”
this can argued either way…one could say the current size of our outstanding debt puts the validity of the public debt into question.
if i was a creditor and i allowed the debtor to have unlimited credit…i would say the validity of that credit is definitely in question.
if i were the republicans….i would agree to raise the debt limit…but…any additional debt raised by the government must come from legitimate, verifiable, third party sources.
not the fed, not the SS administration, not secret offshore companies. perhaps.
i know the bastards would then just launder the money through foreign central banks…but maybe there is a way to limit or verify that legitamcy as well.
That is not in any way what “validity…shall not be questioned” means, and, presumably, you know that. Playing games with the general “plain language” interpretation of words that have clear legal meanings is silly.
Lawrence Tribe, a very well-respected liberal Constitutional scholar put the “we can keep borrowing because of the Constitution” argument to rest in a New York Times op-ed this week. The problem is leaving the president to decide which legally required spending he fails to make, not whether the Constitution lets him ignore the debt ceiling. That is what the “prioritized spending” that people mention refers to.
Besides, who the heck would buy t-bills whose validity is completely unclear. I wouldn’t.
Won’t be long before you hear the NAR crying that rates are to high and something needs to be done.
30-year fixed-rate mortgage rises to 4.60%
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The average rate on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose to 4.60% in the week ending July 7, up from 4.51% the prior week. Last year, the rate was at 4.57%. To obtain the latest rate, payment of an average 0.7 point was required. A point is 1% of the mortgage amount, charged in prepaid interest. “Mortgage rates followed Treasury yields higher over the holiday week but remain quite affordable by historical standards,” said Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist, Freddie Mac. The rate for the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage rose to 3.75% from 3.69%. The rate on the 5-year Treasury-index hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage averaged 3.30%, up from 3.22%, and the one-year Treasury-indexed ARM averaged 3.01%, up from 2.97%.
That’s still nothing. Get that sumbitch up 7%+ and then we have something to celebrate.
+1
I agree, enough with the artificially low interest rates. But 2012 is an election year, so no doubt, magic is still in the air.
“That’s still nothing. Get that sumbitch up 7%+ and then we have something to celebrate.”
My last conversation with the Realtor who has put our offers in the past couple of years went something like….
R) I don`t know as soon as anything decent hits the market it is selling.
j) What`s going to happen when mortgage rates hit 7%?
R) The market will crash.
You have to give the RealT_rd at least a few brownie points for understanding some basics.
In such matters, I always go back to my patron saint:
As Sheila Bair leaves the FDIC we should worry about who the replacement will be. This article by William K. Black (one of the guys who had to clean up after the S&L bubble, See his Wiki page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_K._Black ) points out how we can expect the new head of the people who will watching over the banks.
“If you like Sheila Bair you’d love Ed Gray and Tim Ryan – Part One”
http://www.benzinga.com/general/politics/11/07/1751337/if-you-like-sheila-bair-youd-love-ed-gray-and-tim-ryan-part-one
Well, I hear voices that tell me to eat meatball subs.
Not guilty and insane: Local defendants are getting out, rearrested
By Michelle Quigley and Charles Elmore
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 11:05 a.m. Sunday, July 10, 2011
James Michael Brown tells a bank clerk, “Are you ready to die?”
Bronson Antao says voices tell him to eat feces. He threatens to kill his family and holds a chair above his mother’s head.
Janice Fisher slashes the hand and forearm of an 87-year-old man.
All were found not guilty by reason of insanity of previous crimes in South Florida. All were released from mental hospitals. All were arrested again.
In Palm Beach County, at least 29 percent of defendants acquitted by insanity during the past 20 years have been rearrested - in as little as a week after the verdict, a Palm Beach Post investigation shows.
Insanity verdicts remain rare, less than one-quarter of 1 percent of criminal cases. But they are less rare in Palm Beach County than elsewhere in Florida. The county has sent more to state hospitals than any other during five of the past six years.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/ - 90k -
Budgets need to be balanced. If a judge is pressured to help balance a Law and Order budget and he can do so by transferring expenses to some other budget - in this case a Health Care budget - then that is what he will do.
This is my guess.
“Bronson Antao says voices tell him to eat feces.”
Whew! Voices only tell me, “Don’t buy a house!”
“Whew! Voices only tell me, “Don’t buy a house!”
As long as those voices don`t tell you to eat a house or ask a Realtor “Are you ready to die?” you should be OK.
In the past, they would have been remanded to a state mental hospital, but budget cuts all across the country over the last 20 years have closed 90% of the ones that used to be open.
Insurance cheaters call their luxury cars farm vehicles
Los Angeles Times
Meet the newest crop of farm vehicles: Porsche Carrera, Mercedes SL550 and BMW Z4.
One wouldn’t expect to see such high-performance roadsters pulling tillers, hauling fertilizer or spraying pesticides between corn rows, but if you believe their owners, these expensive vehicles are working alongside the John Deeres and Caterpillars of the world.
It turns out that some drivers of these cars are perpetrating an insurance fraud — claiming them as farm equipment to harvest hefty discounts on insurance premiums. At least that’s the assessment of Quality Planning, a San Francisco company that verifies policyholder data for auto insurance companies.
Auto insurers offer farm-use discounts of up to 20% to people using their vehicles nearly exclusively on a farm, where the chances of a collision, theft, or other mishap befalling the auto are lower than in urban areas.
Quality Planning looked at 80,000 vehicles for which a farm-use insurance discount was claimed last year and used geocoding to determine whether the address where the cars were housed was an urban or rural area and whether anyone was actively engaged in farming there.
About 8%, or 6,382 vehicles, were housed in ZIP Codes where less than 1% of the population engaged in agriculture, based on U.S. census data.
Among the vehicles it found was an Audi A4 classified as a farm vehicle in Brooklyn, N.Y., giving the owner a $389 annual insurance savings. A Cadillac Seville in Los Angeles also was listed as a farm vehicle, but the annual savings was only $61.
“Honest people end up subsidizing the insurance premiums of dishonest people,” said Robert U’Ren, senior vice president of Quality Planning.
He said the improper application of the farm-use discount is a money-saving move that’s done by both dishonest policyholders and insurance agents. It results in about $150 million of unpaid premiums annually.
Because farm use is seldom verified, “it is an easy tool that cheats can use to reduce the cost of auto insurance,” U’Ren said.
For the most part, State Farm Insurance relies on its agents to verify auto classification, but on occasion has its underwriters use Google maps to check whether the address of a vehicle receiving the rural discount corresponds to ranch or farm land, said Bob Devereux, the insurer’s spokesman in California.
Hmmmm…
If ones lies on an insurance policy doesn’t the lie invalidate the policy?
If there is a fast one being pulled here just who is it that is doing the pulling?
I’d think that if this high end “so called” farm vehicle was involved in an accident due to fault of the owner of this vehicle, the insurance company would not pay. As everyone is aware, to get any reasonable amount of money out of the insurance company is very difficult.
So this article is more about honesty and stupidity. The owners could save quite a chunk of money (50% on the premium) by having only the liability insurance.
The owners could save quite a chunk of money (50% on the premium) by having only the liability insurance.
Ahhh, there’s a possible explanation. You can’t go liability-only if the vehicle is financed. So really this might be a way to intentionally under-insure unbeknownst to the true owner of the vehicle.
Correct. It that “farmer’s” Mercedes is involved in a crash two counties away, the insurance company will be only too happy to point out the fraud and deny the claim.
Oh, so what a prized situation the insurance company finds itself in, the company and the agent who sells the policies.
What could be better for an insurance company that to write policies - and collect premiums on these policies - that they will never have to pay claims on.
And if there is a hit of fraud then who is it that is commiting the fraud? Is it the insurance company? The agent?
Why no; It is the person who claims to be true information on the document that he is signing. It is the guy who is taking out the policy and claiming, as he is doing so, that the policy is one thing while in fact it is something else.
So if someone has to take the fall it will be the guy taking out the policy. He signs the policy thus he takes the risk. And the agent and the company collect the premiums thus they get the rewards.
Sweet.
I wish they would have a low mileage discount…5000 mi/yr 33% off 3000 mi/yr 50% off
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/10/us-eurozone-italy-germany-welt-idUSTRE7691YP20110710?feedType=RSS&feedName=businessNews&dlvrit=56943
EU rescue fund not big enough to bail out Italy (next PIIGS domino to topple) - surprise, surprise. The Bernanke must be red-lining his printing press to spew out another trillion or so Bernanke Bux for yet another futile bailout to stave off the onrushing financial reckoning day and buy time for his Wall Street accomplices to engage in a final orgy of looting and speculation.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8628939/Italy-and-Spain-must-pray-for-a-miracle.html
The antidote for the US financial medias’ upbeat assurances that the mythical US economic recovery is picking up steam and we should throw all our savings into Wall Street’s Ponzi stock market.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-10/italy-s-consob-to-meet-after-july-8-market-declines-ansa-says.html
Why is it that bans on short-selling only cause a stampede out of overpriced stock market bubbles?
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150308256416101&set=a.99967331100.118431.18343191100&type=1&ref=nf
Sarah Palin tells Newspeak: “I can win.” Sadly, with an electorate as stupid as ours, she’s probably correct.
IT’S WHAT PLANTS CRAVE!
“Sarah Palin tells Newspeak: “I can win.” Sadly, with an electorate as stupid as ours, she’s probably correct.”
The question is, how many of the 57 states does Obama think she can carry?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwggusZYMQE
“Tea Party” darling Palin gives rambling defense of TARP and statist, corporatist central planning. RINO McCain must be so proud of his little protege.
Flash forward to today. Suddenly Palin is a born-again fiscal conservative. What a fraud, and yet the sheeple still fall for it.
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/170585-palin-warns-boehner-on-debt-ceiling
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has issued a stern warning to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) as Boehner sits down with President Obama Sunday night to negotiate a raising of the debt ceiling: don’t do it.
Palin, in an interview appearing in Newsweek, “made it clear that she’s against any deal that raises the debt ceiling and would hold House Speaker John Boehner’s feet to the fire if he agreed to one” according to the magazine.
“No, we have to cut spending. It is imperative, and I will be very, very disappointed if Boehner and the leaders of the Republican Party cave on any kind of debt deal in the next couple of months,” she said.
Palin last month told Fox News that she would be against any raising of the debt ceiling and favors holding the line and slashing spending across the board instead.
I’m all for slashing spending too. Start with tax gifting.
I would eliminate the corporate income tax.
Because you will lose all sorts of tax deductions, credits, tax loss carry forwards and the deals done just to use current losses against future profits after you fired 1/2 the employees in the takeover.
Good fod Jeff that talking point is SO 2008.
Obama was talking about the 57 states and territories that votes in the primaries. We don’t think about territories like Guam or Puerto Rico, but they started to look important in the close primary battle with Hillary.
Obama was on target.
BTW, his conversation with Joe the Plumber was 100% correct as well.
TTT Sez…
Geithner says hard times to continue for many
WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (GYT’-nur) says many Americans will face hard times for a long time to come.
He says President Barack Obama rescued the United States from a second Great Depression and will keep working to strengthen the economy. But Geithner says will be some time before many people feel like the country is recovering.
Geithner tells NBC’s “Meet the Press” that it’s a very tough economy. He says that for a lot of people “it’s going to feel very hard, harder than anything they’ve experienced in their lifetime now, for a long time to come.”
http://news.yahoo.com/geithner-says-hard-times-continue-many-150523958.html
Timmy Geithner tells the proles that hard times will continue for years. Meanwhile, sales of the highest end luxury vehicles (Mercedes, Rolls, Porche, etc.) are hitting new highs as the plutocrats use the Bernanke Put to make bets they can’t lose, thanks to the Fed.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-13/rice-advances-to-highest-level-since-november-2008-in-chicago-on-supplies.html
Stand by for riots in Asia, just like the ones that preceeded the 2008 financial meltdown.