The Housing Bubble

Realtors Are Liars

REPORT AIR DATE: July 5, 2011

Raze the Roof: Cleveland Levels Vacant Homes to Revive Neighborhoods

PAUL SOLMAN: In Cleveland, Ohio, someone’s former home — since foreclosure, though, it’s been stripped of anything you can sell, is not even worth the price of the wood left behind.

So, down it goes, an ever more common answer to the housing crisis: Clear the blight for alternative use. Foreclosures hit especially hard here, hit especially early, and quadrupled in a decade, making Cleveland a test case of the tear-it-down approach.

Cleveland alone hosts some 13,000 vacant homes, and the numbers keep piling up.

GUS FRANGOS, Cuyahoga Land Bank: In the next several years, it’s probably going to be about 20,000, 30,000 more like this in the county.

PAUL SOLMAN: Gus Frangos runs the county land bank, created to put property back to productive use. But, 80 percent of the time, that first means demolition, $7,500 to level a place this size.

GUS FRANGOS: Naturally, we don’t want to be just demolishing stuff forever, but before you can stabilize something, you have to stop the hemorrhaging. And so we have to bury the dead.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec11/makingsense_07-05.html - 64k -

Is Murdoch losing his grip on Britain? Sounds like he more or less controlled the country, using the police to track by cell phone whomever he wished to attack- including politicians, and even the royal family- and using private investigators to hack into people’s email accounts and computers, and even break into their homes, with, until now, apparently complete immunity (even cooperation?) from law enforcement.

It makes one wonder what he’s been up to here in the US.

Perhaps his schemes and dreams for right-wing control of government will go up in smoke with his burning Rosebud.

Am I supposed to choose a side here?

===========
Pickens Losing to Koch in Billionaires’ Natural-Gas Feud
By Jim Snyder - Jul 12, 2011 6:40 PM ET (Bloomibergi)

T. Boone Pickens, 83, who’s been saying for more than a year that Congress was poised to pass his plan to subsidize natural-gas vehicles, may not have been expecting opposition led by fellow billionaire Charles Koch. …

Koch Industries Inc., Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) and the American Conservative Union all have weighed in since May against a Pickens-backed bill that would provide tax breaks to purchase natural-gas fueled trucks. The critics say it would provide unwarranted subsidies to companies such as Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (CLNE), a Seal Beach, California, maker of natural-gas fueling stations in which Pickens is the biggest shareholder.

“We do not believe government should be picking ‘winners and losers’ in the marketplace,” Phillip Ellender, president and chief operating officer for government and public affairs at Koch Companies Public Sector LLC, a subsidiary of Koch Industries, wrote in a June 23 letter to Congress.

Charles Koch, 75, is chairman and chief executive officer of Wichita, Kansas-based Koch Industries, which calls itself one of the world’s largest closely held companies. He is also a co- founder of Americans for Prosperity, a group that says it advocates limited government and opposes the natural-gas legislation.

Koch’s company imports crude oil, gains from ethanol subsidies and is in the fertilizer business, which benefits when natural gas is inexpensive, Pickens said.

“We oppose all government mandates and subsidies because they artificially skew economic signals about price and demand, thereby creating inefficiencies that divert resources from productive activities to politically favored ones,” Ellender said in an e-mailed response to Pickens. “To add a new subsidy in these times of increasing unemployment and economic hardship for so many Americans is irresponsible and bad public policy.”

==============

There’s so much arrogance here on both sides, I don’t know where to start. Government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers? Heck, gov does that any time they award a contract or a grant to somebody over somebody else, on a minute-ly basis. Oppose subsidies? I’m all for it. Let’s start with poltically favored ones like the ethanol subsidy and TARP and AIG. Skew demand? I notice that all of their money is from speculating in “needs” like crude oil or transport fuel or fertilizer for food. Constant guaranteed demand to buy a product that you “need” is a form of monopoly. Markets should be skewed away from monopoly.

The only advantage to all the robber-baron stories is that these guys are OLD. Murdoch is old, Ailes is old, the Kochs are old, Pickens is old, Cheney is old, Buffet is old, Soros is old, Volcker is old, Greenspan is old, even Phyllis Schafley is old. The younger generations parrot the old talking points well enough, but they seem not to have much innovation or business acumen of their own to keep it all going. They’re the type to blow the family fortunes, not add to them.

California companies fleeing the Golden State

California companies, including PayPal, have been expanding or relocating outside the Golden State. PayPal recently opened a facility in Arizona.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Buffeted by high taxes, strict regulations and uncertain state budgets, a growing number of California companies are seeking friendlier business environments outside of the Golden State.

And governors around the country, smelling blood in the water, have stepped up their courtship of California companies. Officials in states like Florida, Texas, Arizona and Utah are telling California firms how business-friendly they are in comparison.

Companies are “disinvesting” in California at a rate five times greater than just two years ago, said Joseph Vranich, a business relocation expert based in Irvine. This includes leaving altogether, establishing divisions elsewhere or opting not to set up shop in California.

“There is a feeling that the state is not stable,” Vranich said. “Sacramento can’t get its act together…and that includes the governor, legislators and regulatory agencies that are running wild.”

The state has been ranked by Chief Executive magazine as the worst place to do business for seven years.

“California, once a business friendly state, continues to conduct a war on its own economy,” the magazine wrote.

That is about to change, at least if Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom has anything to say about it. Newsom is developing a plan to address the state’s economic Achilles heels, and build on its strengths. It will be unveiled at the end of July.

“California has got to get its act together when it comes to economic development and job creation,” he said.

While not all companies investing elsewhere are doing so for economic reasons, some are shopping around for lower costs, lighter regulations, stable leadership and government assistance and incentives.

The most popular places to go? Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Utah, Virginia and North Carolina, said Vranich. All rank in the Top 13 places to do business, according to Chief Executive.

A friend of mine has had a house in Costa Rica for about 15 years now, he has told me for a long time how much was being developed down there. Appears another corporation has found the place. So long U.S.A.

Argyle plant will be closed - The Times Union

ARGYLE — Medical instruments maker Covidien, the former Tyco Healthcare, will close its Argyle plant in the next 12 to 18 months, eliminating 200 jobs.

Work will be shifted to an existing plant in Mexico and a plant being built in Costa Rica, a spokeswoman said.

The plant closing is the latest blow for the so-called Catheter Valley, where several medical instruments makers have produced catheters for decades.

In February, another catheter maker, C.R. Bard, said it would cut 200 of the 950 jobs at its Glens Falls plant in 2011.

A little bit of good news for some property owners, in regards to property tax’s.

ITEM: St. Johns water district facing major layoffs as director faces retirement
Before retiring, he must slash $46 million, reduce 130 jobs.
- Jacksonville.com

St. Johns River Water Management District officials detailed plans for far-reaching layoffs Tuesday at the same time the agency’s longtime leader announced retirement plans.

Kirby Green, the agency’s executive director for 10 years, agreed to stay until May but could leave earlier if a successor is in place.

One of Green’s last duties will be overseeing layoffs and spending cuts needed to shrink the agency’s budget from this year’s $255 million to the $209 million the district’s governing board tentatively approved Tuesday for a 2012 budget that takes effect Oct. 1.

The agency expects to cut about 130 of its 718 jobs — 18 percent of its staff — to save about $12 million, said Teresa Monson, a district spokeswoman. The cuts are driven by directives from Gov. Rick Scott and the Legislature to lower taxes and focus on the agency’s core duties.

The agency would lose “hundreds of years of institutional memory,” making it more difficult to manage the district, St. Johns Riverkeeper Neil Armingeon said.

“It’s a hard job, and I think it’s going to get nothing but harder, frankly,” Armingeon said.

Budget, taxes shrink

The agency is responsible for managing water resources in 18 counties, including issuing water-consumption permits to communities and businesses and protecting water quality.

The agency’s proposed 2012 budget lowers its property tax rate, so that the owner of a homesteaded house worth $200,000 would pay $49.69 in taxes, compared to $62.37 under the current rate. The agency’s $209 million budget also draws on leftover funds and money from sources including timber sales, cattle leases and permit fees.

So Ron Paul finally gets the chairmanship he wanted, finally gets some of his ideas taken seriously, finally gets discovered by the masses and the MSM, and now he’s going to quit?

Do you ever get the feeling you’ve been had?

Big Thinkers… We’re on it!

Big thinkers tackle debt solutions at Aspen Festival
- CNN MONEY July 13, 2011

President Barack Obama’s offer to reform federal tax policy would get a resounding thumbs-up from a number of the economic veterans who spoke at the 2011 Aspen Ideas Festival earlier this month.

Unfortunately for Obama, each would likely say tax reform by itself simply isn’t enough to resolve the debt crisis and get the economy on track.

At the festival, sponsored jointly by The Aspen Institute and The Atlantic magazine, many spoke enthusiastically about a list of recommendations for a debt solution hammered together last December by a bipartisan committee chaired by retired Senator Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.) and former Clinton administration economic adviser Erskine Bowles.

Those recommendations call not only for tax reform but for fixes to the budget process, Social Security, health care spending in the private and public sectors and an increase in mandatory retirement-savings programs.

Here is an overview of the comments from some of this year’s participants, a gathering of what The Aspen Institute calls the world’s “most inspired and provocative thinkers, writers, artists, business people, teachers, and other leaders.”

ALAN GREENSPAN, Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman

The deficit — not the debt ceiling — is the country’s true critical issue, said Greenspan, who went on to call the debt-ceiling debate a “synthetic,” or even false, argument because the government has already spent the money that’s part of the needed increase in the debt ceiling.

In many cases, Greenspan said many federal programs (such as Cash for Clunkers) have increased the deficit without creating long-term growth. The free markets should be able to correct themselves, he added.

He, too, supports the Bowles-Simpson tax reforms, which would lower corporate income tax rates while eliminating tax loopholes. However, a proposal to raise taxes for individuals who make over $250,000 simply “stokes class warfare,” Greenspan said.

AL HUBBARD, Former Economic Adviser to George W. Bush

Social Security has “to be put on sound footing” by increasing the eligibility ages and changing middle- and upper-class allocations, Hubbard said.

Defense spending “clearly can be made dramatically more efficient,” he added. Also, income taxes must be reformed by broadening the tax base and closing loopholes.

Hubbard offered some proposals on federal funding of state and local programs that are as innovative as they are controversial. He’s opposed to revenue-sharing programs from Washington to state and local governments. Additionally, he said some $600 billion could be saved if states funded and managed their own transportation, education, Medicaid and unemployment programs.

Hubbard said both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations didn’t do the economy any favors by trying to prevent a swift decline of home prices. Housing values should fall accordingly, and the markets will correct themselves, he said.

And unemployment benefits? “We pay people for up to two years not to work,” Hubbard said, “yet studies show that the majority of people get a job right before their unemployment runs out.”

Interesting new ad that has replaced the screaming mud-faced banshee:

Sharia Compliant Home Financing available today through Guidance Residential. A national lender with over $2 billion in contracts. Buy your new home or finance a replacement today.

Take advantage of these historically-low profits rates today by completing the form and an experience Account Executive will contact you immediately.

Historically low profits rates? Hey, at least they’re honest! Maybe there’s something to this sharia.

Florida’s governor Rick Scott.
Public workers here really hate him, (the usual suspects, cops, firefigthers, teachers, benefit recipients, etc.) especially the $100+K public pension crowd. Which makes me think that he’s doing at least a reasonable job. Any more info on that character other than that he took $X million in campaign contributions from XYZ corporation and is now passing legislation in their favor…I mean they all do, so that’s a given.

Hello everybody – I’m baaack!

Just completed the first summer session – finished my last math course I need for my degree…

I have a tale of a former co-worker from my days in Chi-ca-go, a Trump wannabe. He has several rental houses in the chi-town area, but all of them are big time losers. He has one purchased as a fixer-upper, where he “invested” $400k in it, not including his own labor. He says it may be worth $250k in the current market.

I like it when the RE people say “not including my own labor,” as if their labor is irrelevant. If you spend your time and effort taking care of a crap shack then why do these hours of your life not count for anything? The mindset of these RE fools is Hillary-ous.

Well, guess what. He bought a Florida crap shack for $20k cash, sight unseen. He is down there in FL right now realizing his mistake, says it looked lots nicer in the pictures. Built in the 40’s - ancient plumbing, electrical, windows, roof, etc… The property next door was purchased as a tear down and is now getting a new house. He doesn’t have the money to tear down and build new, so he probably will slave away with countless hours of his worthless labor, trying to fix up what should be torn down.

This example goes to show you the depth of this RE programming/brainwashing. Other than his little RE misunderstanding, he is a sensible and logical kind of guy. I have given up trying to talk sensibly with these people about RE. I do not have any deprogramming skills and I am OK with my limitations; so I let them spiel away until the diarrhea is frothing at the mouth. I’m glad to say this doesn’t bother me anymore; I now find it to be very amusing.

Differing Approaches to Debt Crisis
Bill Bonner
Reckoning from Paris, France…

“Panic in markets caused by debt crisis,” says the headline in the French newspaper, Le Figaro.

Which debt crisis, we wondered?

In Europe, no sooner was one can kicked down the road than another one showed up. Greece disappeared from the headlines. Italy took its place.

We haven’t studied the Italian problem in any detail. It may not be a problem at all. But the amounts are larger – too big to bailout, according to one report.

Europe seems to be taking a tried and true approach to its debt crises. It kicks the can down the road a few times. Then, when it has exhausted bad choices, it turns to a good one. Having run out of foolish and phony solutions, in other words, the authorities are taking up one that works. They’re telling Greece to drop dead. The latest news: Greece will be allowed to default.

Of course, you knew that was the thing to do from the get-go. Remember Gerald Ford’s famous reply to New York City in the ’70s? New York was on the verge of bankruptcy. So it appealed to Washington for a bailout. Ford, who had more sense than any major politician since, responded: Drop dead. And if he didn’t actually say that, he should have. For those were “les mots justes” – exactly the reply that the occasion called for.

Having no other recourse, NYC had to shape up. Which it did. It got rid of many of its unionized zombies…cut expenses…and the Big Apple was a better place for it. (It didn’t hurt that New York was also the center of America’s financial industry, which began a historic boom a few years later.)

Greece would be a better place too if its pols would stop spending more than the people can afford.

But now we turn to the other part of the world with a debt crisis – that part of the world which sits between the world’s two large oceans, and between the 49th parallel and the Rio Grande. Yes, dear reader, we are talking about the USA.

Yes, the USA still has plenty of bad choices to make before it is finally forced to make a good one. Sometimes a great empire goes broke. Sometimes it is defeated militarily. Usually, it suffers both calamities before coming to its senses.

So, dear reader, make sure you put yourself and your wealth out of harm’s way. And lay up a good supply of alcohol and anything else you might need to enjoy the show. It’s going to be exciting.

The problem for the USA, in a nutshell, is that there is no one to say ‘drop dead.’ New York had Washington. Greece has Germany. Philip II had Sir Francis Drake. Custer had Sitting Bull. But who does the USA have? Abroad, its armies meet no effective opposition. At home, its spendthrifts run wild.

Perhaps most important, it has a printing press with no lock on the door.

Eventually, bond investors will have their say. But that could be far in the future…long after the nation has done itself irreparable harm.

Yesterday, we reported that people are coming around to our point of view. They’re beginning to realize that these are not ordinary times. The recession was not ordinary…and we have no ordinary recovery. What’s more, the slump looks like it will last for years. Even the Secretary of the Treasury seems to see it that way.

Investors are still bullish. They’re heavily invested in stocks at very high prices. They see high earnings and no reason for the bull market to falter. What they don’t realize is that those high earnings are part of the problem. First, because earnings are ‘mean reverting.’ When they are low, they are likely to go higher; when they are high, they are likely to go lower. And second, because the earnings represent efficiencies which actually herald a weaker economy. A business increases its earnings by spending less on labor, for example. The result: working people find fewer jobs and earn less income.

Investors still don’t realize what is going on. They have largely recovered their stock market losses from the ’07-’09 crisis. But the economy has not recovered. Working households – especially those in the middle – still have huge losses on their houses. More than $7 trillion has been lost so far…and the losses continue to grow.

And it is harder than ever to find a good job. Two years after the recovery supposedly began, and real unemployment is going up.

Can QE3 be far away?

If we want to watch a movie we go to the Library and check them out. Of course they will not have the latest releases as soon as Netflix. On the other hand we don’t spend much time in front of the TV.

Netflix raising prices as much as 60% - LA Times

Video subscription service will no longer offer a $9.99 plan that lets users watch an unlimited number of movies online and rent one DVD at a time. Instead, those who want that combination will have to pay $15.98 a month.

The changes take effect immediately for new customers and in September for existing ones. Tony Wible, an analyst with Janney Capital Markets, estimated that 80% of Netflix’s 22.8 million U.S. subscribers currently use a DVD/streaming combination plan and will be affected by the price hike. The company launched a $7.99 streaming-only plan late last year.

Reactions to Netflix’s biggest-ever price increase were swift and overwhelmingly negative. More than 10,000 people had responded to the news on Netflix’s Facebook page by late Tuesday, nearly all of them critical.

“A 60% hike with no added value is outrageous,” said Courtney Penly, a 28-year-old limousine company dispatcher from North Hollywood. “Unless Netflix is going to offer its entire library via streaming, then I am canceling.”

Mortgage Applications Drop for 4th Week
- CNBC 13 Jul 2011

Applications for U.S. home mortgages fell last week for the fourth week in a row, hurt by a drop in refinance demand even as interest rates tumbled, an industry group said on Wednesday.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes both refinancing and home purchase demand, fell 5.1 percent in the week ended July 8.

The MBA’s seasonally adjusted index of refinancing applications lost 6.2, while the gauge of loan requests for home purchases dipped 2.6 percent.

The refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to 65.6 percent of total applications from 66.4 percent the week before.

Fixed 30-year mortgage rates averaged 4.55 percent, down from 4.69 percent.

U.S. Tackles Housing Slump .

By NICK TIMIRAOS
JULY 12, 2011.

Housing “hasn’t bottomed out as quickly as we expected,” President Barack Obama said at a White House town hall last week. Mr. Obama said housing remained the “most stubborn” problem facing the country and conceded that a raft of federal mortgage-aid programs were “not enough, and so we’re going back to the drawing board.”

Policy ideas include having taxpayer-owned mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac relax their rules for loans to investors, allowing those buyers to vacuum up excess housing inventory. In certain markets, Fannie and Freddie could hold some foreclosed homes off the market and rent them out to ease the property glut.

Officials also could sweeten incentives for banks to reduce loan balances for borrowers who are underwater, or owe more than their homes are worth.

Discussions are in early stages, and there isn’t consensus around particular ideas. A spokeswoman said the president and his advisers “are always looking at new ways” to strengthen the housing market but wouldn’t disclose details. “While we continue to consider the options available to us, it would be inaccurate to say we are proposing any of these particular ideas at this time,” White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said.

“As conditions change, some options that were below the line the way the market was 18 months ago might be above the line today,” said Peter P. Swire, who teaches law at Ohio State University and until last year was a top housing adviser to the White House.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304584404576440033488980192.html - 192k -

JPMorgan, Citigroup May Struggle to Boost Revenue - Bloomberg

JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. which report earnings this week, are under pressure to show that banks can increase revenue as the U.S. economic recovery sputters.

JPMorgan, which kicks off earnings season tomorrow, may say second-quarter revenue declined 0.8 percent to $24.9 billion, according to the average estimates of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Revenue at Citigroup, which reports results a day later, may fall 10 percent to $19.9 billion, with more than half of the decline tied to assets the company has tagged for sale.

“The street is going to be looking at revenue growth” that will be difficult for banks to produce in the current economic environment, Paul Miller, an analyst with FBR Capital Markets, said in a phone interview. “You need the economy to work, you need rates to go higher and you need to see continued improvement in credit.”

Boosting profit won’t be enough to impress investors, according to analysts including Miller, a former examiner at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. They already know that fewer borrowers are defaulting, allowing banks to bolster profit with funds that had been set aside for future loan losses.

JPMorgan, led by CEO Jamie Dimon, 55, may say second- quarter profit climbed 6.2 percent from a year earlier to $5.09 billion according to the average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Citigroup may say profit rose 14 percent from the same period last year to $3.07 billion.

Italy’s money problems make Greece’s look like chump change.

ITEM: UniCredit, one of the largest banks in Europe, is collapsing; trading in its shares halted, all of Europe is in a state of shock.

Italy, the third largest economy in the euro zone, is in a death spiral — the same pattern that drove Greece, Ireland and Portugal over the brink.

From - Martin Weiss

Tomorrow is a day-long hearing for Elizabeth Warren and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: http://www.consumerfinance.gov/

To get an idea of how the hearing will go, see the note from Mr. Issa (chairing the hearing), to Ms. Warren:

“In light of the inability of all members of the subcommittee to have an opportunity to ask you questions, and your unwillingness to provide direct and responsive answers to a number of important questions, the committee would like to further discuss your plans for the [CFPB], the design and funding of the agency, and the limited checks and balances that apply to it,” Mr. Issa wrote in last week’s letter to Ms. Warren.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2011/06/06/sparks-may-fly-when-elizabeth-warren-returns-to-hill/

Wonder if the D.C. brain trust will come up with an “austerity” plan for us? My guess is… hell no! It will be forced upon us, like it or not.

ITEM: Italy to bolster austerity plan, speed up approval
Italian markets calm following debt jitters as lawmakers accelerate austerity measures

MILAN (AP) — Italy will strengthen its package of austerity measures and get it through parliament by Friday, finance minister Giulio Tremonti pledged Wednesday as he sought to calm market fears that the eurozone’s third-largest economy would be swept into the European debt crisis.

Italian lawmakers were working to bolster the euro48 billion ($67 billion) in austerity measures that begin to take effect this year and aim to balance the budget by 2014. The Senate is set to vote on Thursday before passing off to the lower house.

“The decree to balance the budget will be reinforced for the entire four-year period, and will be approved by Friday,” Tremonti told a banker’s association.

While Tremonti’s remarks were clearly aimed at further reassuring financial markets that Italy was serious about its duty to reduce debt, Tremonti also said market losses in recent days were not a problem “of a single country but of the structure of Europe.”

“At this moment, we have more or less 40 percent of Europe under pressure,” Tremonti said.

Still, concerns about Italy’s high debt, dysfunctional political system and continued stodgy growth have focused attention on the country. Its financial markets have come under intense pressure in recent days, with bond spreads reaching new records daily.

Italy’s acceleration of the austerity measures has provided some relief, although analysts say sentiment remains fragile and volatile.

Prison doctor gets paid for doing little or nothing

By Jack Dolan, Los Angeles Times
July 13, 2011

Reporting from Sacramento — The highest-paid state employee in California last year, a prison surgeon who took home $777,423, has a history of mental illness, was fired once for alleged incompetence and has not been allowed to treat an inmate for six years because medical supervisors don’t trust his clinical skills.

Since July 2005, Dr. Jeffrey Rohlfing has mostly been locked out of his job — on paid leave or fired or fighting his termination — at High Desert State Prison in Susanville, state records show. When he has been allowed inside the facility, he has been relegated to reviewing paper medical histories, what prison doctors call “mailroom” duty.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-prison-doctor-20110713,0,5931598.story - -

Will Hope and Change support this. Nah - didn’t think so…

Balanced budget amendment headed to House floor next week Yahoo | 7/12/11

A balanced budget amendment will be considered on the House floor next Wednesday, The Daily Caller has learned from a senior GOP source on Capitol Hill.

House leadership gave the amendment its stamp of approval, when House Speaker John Boehner laid out three conditions for any deal on the debt limit to reporters Tuesday. Republican freshmen have been pushing the balanced budget issue for weeks. (Dems: We couldn’t attack Republicans if we agree to Medicare cuts)

“The spending cuts have to be larger than the increase in the debt ceiling,” Boehner said. “Secondly there are no tax increases on the table. And thirdly, we have to have real controls in place to make sure this never happens again. Real controls like a balanced budget amendment.”

The more conservative wing of the Republican caucus latched onto the balanced budget amendment early in the debt limit debate, arguing that it needed to be tied to any debt reduction deal. Supporters argue the amendment would lock in spending cuts for future Congresses.

It’s just a matter of when, not if.

Bernanke: Fed May Launch New Round of Stimulus

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Bernanke-Fed-May-Launch-New-cnbc-1033349863.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode=

As anticipated, Dr. Bernanke is hinting that he’s going to uncork “Quantatative Easing #3.” I don’t know anyone who is really surprised. If #3 doesn’t prompt the economic stimulus there will be a QE#4 and more as long as the printing presses at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing still function.

What do we common folk do? Depends on whether or not you cherish solvency. Stay liquid, avoid debt, make do with what you have. Some stores will close, certain banks will go under, economists will complain about “consumer slowdown.” But the deadwood must be cleared out of the economy before the rebuilding can take place on a solid base.

It’s a little like the Diet and Exercise mantra. Everyone knows it means we ought to eat less and exercise more. But it’s a hard sell. So is avoiding debt and living within one’s means.

“A man may run into debt, but if he gets out he does so at a walk.”

~Wylie Jones, S.C. Banker

400-500 layoff notices to go out

Hartford, Conn. (WTNH) - The Malloy adminstration says between four and five hundred layoff notices will be out by the end of the day tomorrow, with an official count by agency to be released by Thursday.

No numbers yet on cutbacks in the State Police, but the amount of money the Governor wants cut from the public safety department translates into over 300 jobs.

The head of the state police union says that the state is already under the statute mandated 1,248 troopers.

Malloy said, “I made it clear that there were no exceptions, the layoffs had to be delivered in such a way that they were broad based, and they are.”

The heads of the correction officers union locals are blowing the whistle and saying that Malloy is closing too many facilities and sending pink slips to too many prison guards.

Luke Leone, of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (A.F.S.C.M.E.), said, “We think it’s a recipe for disaster, they’re closing these prisons, they’re shipping the inmates to already overcrowded prisons…all four county jails; we have inmates sleeping on the floor now.”

Malloy says there’s plenty of room because the total prison population is way down.

http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/commodities/futures/

Commodities soaring on margin buying as Zimbabwe Ben’s debasement of the currency and war on the middle class shows no signs of abating. Prepare for a fresh wave of food riots and instability as US inflation is exported overseas. Russia’s Vladimir Putin, for one, has already lashed out at Bernanke, calling him a “hooligan” for his uncontrolled money printing. How much longer can the US currency remain the world’s reserve currency with the Fed’s Weimar Republic-style money-printing creating a Tsunami of hot money for the speculators?

TEA to lay off 178 workers
Thousands more pink slips to come for state workers.
Latest local news »

The Texas Education Agency said Tuesday that it is laying off 178 employees this week. Those are among the first of thousands of state government layoffs expected in the coming weeks.

The TEA decision has been months in the making, as the agency seeks to reduce its staff by 32 percent to cope with budget cuts ordered by the Texas Legislature, an agency spokeswoman said.

This week’s layoffs come on the heels of 91 layoffs by the agency in February, with another 74 people retiring, quitting or transferring this year.

At the start of the legislative session in January, lawmakers proposed a 2012-13 budget that a Legislative Budget Board analysis said would cut 9,600 positions statewide in an attempt to balance a budget that spends 8 percent less than the current one. By the time the Legislature passed a budget in late May, the board estimated that 5,700 state government jobs would be lost, a 2.4 percent reduction from 2011 to 2013.

The cuts were made to deal with reduced state tax revenue caused by the national economic downturn. The Legislature decided to cut spending by $15.2 billion rather than increase taxes or spend all of the $9.7 billion rainy day fund.

The budget board calculates jobs using full-time equivalents, or the number of positions equal to a full-time job, whether it is filled or not. The TEA layoff numbers are people actually losing a job, not full-time equivalents.

The TEA, which oversees pre-kindergarten to 12th-grade education and allocates billions of dollars to school districts, is bearing a large share of expected layoffs statewide.

It is reducing its operating budget by $48 million, or 36 percent, agency spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe said. The layoffs will account for the majority of the savings, she said.

“We’re like a school district in that the majority of our costs are tied up in payroll and benefits,” Ratcliffe said.

Fenton glass company to close production

The Fenton Art Glass Company has announced it will be shutting down production of hand-blown glass products within the next few months.

Fenton Glass, which is located in Williamsburg, W.Va., has been experiencing financial woes since 2007 when they first considered shutting down.

Now, four years later, the company has made the decision to cease production of glass at their 106-year-old factory.

“The market for our pressed and blown glassware has diminished. We cannot sustain the overhead costs,” said Fenton Glass President George Fenton.

Since Fenton Glass has been such a crucial part of Williamsburg, local citizens have expressed confusion and are upset by its imminent closing.

It is expected that most of Fenton Glass Company’s employees will lose their jobs when the main furnace of the factory closes in the coming months.

“Our employees have worked hard and efficiently, so this is a very sad day for us,” Fenton said.

World’s No. 2 Retailer’s Earnings to Fall 23%
13 Jul 2011 | By: Reuters

Carrefour, the world’s No.2 retailer, flagged a 23 percent drop in first-half earnings and said it was broadening an action plan, initially focused on France, with the aim of meeting its goal to grow profits this year.

The French group, hit overnight by the collapse of a merger plan in Brazil, said on Wednesday it made a first-half operating profit of around 760 million euros ($1 billion) as lagging performance in France and weak western European markets outweighed strong sales in Asia and Latin America.

Some day, maybe soon, you’ll be face to face with a realtor. And he/she will make a statement and you will reflexively think………… “realtors are liars.”

And you should.

http://blogs.forbes.com/halahtouryalai/2011/07/12/state-ags-never-had-a-chance-against-big-banks/

Forbes: State AGs never had a chance against the big banks (as if Republicrat AGs were ever really serious about pursuing mortgage and foreclosure fraud or upholding the law).

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/13/metals-copper-theft-idUSN1E76C0ET20110713

Secure your air conditioners. Soaring price of copper plus lousy economy means copper theft is becoming rampant.

Our bus system here in central S.C.is in the red year after year, stays in the red. The solution is always the same, raise taxes, never once do you hear them say, well lets the raise fares to what it takes to cover just the basic operating costs.

- Pierce Transit cutting nearly 190 positions amid budget shortfall
Tacoma, WA.

Pierce Transit began issuing layoff notices to 150 employees Tuesday as the agency continues to struggle with a $51 million budget shortfall.

“This is our third round of layoffs” in three years, CEO Lynne Griffith said. “This is the largest. I think it’s the largest in the history of Pierce Transit.”

The Board of Commissioners approved the staff reduction at its meeting Monday night, eliminating 188 positions. About 40 of those are currently unfilled, Griffith said.

The number of affected employees could shift this week because the transportation agency is asking for employees who want to voluntarily leave; it’s not offering buyouts. Twelve have stepped forward.

Also, because of the union’s seniority system, some people in jobs targeted for layoffs could end up filling other roles, Griffith said.

Employees being laid off will work their last day Oct. 1, weeks after Pierce Transit implements a 15 percent reduction in service.

There has been a 19 percent reduction in staff over the past three years, according to the agency. It has 995 employees, short of the 1,054 positions it’s budgeted for because of a hiring freeze.

Griffith said 31 percent of the layoffs have been at the management level and 27 percent at the administration level. Eighteen percent involved front-line jobs such as drivers, supervisors and mechanics.

Transit officials have reduced service by 35 percent in three years. The first round of cuts went into effect in mid-June; the next round will come Oct. 2.

Many of the lost routes went to East Pierce County, including Bonney Lake, Sumner, Buckley and Orting. Service also was reduced in Tacoma, Puyallup, Gig Harbor and the Parkland/Spanaway area.

The transit agency has said its budget woes were brought about by the ailing economy and the February failure of Proposition 1, which would have raised Pierce Transit’s share of the county sales tax by 50 percent.

Seventy percent of Pierce Transit’s revenue comes from sales tax.

From an article on taxes in today’s NYT:

“Only 23 percent of Americans benefit from the mortgage deduction, but 93 percent support it.”

File under - D for Ditech (People are Smart)

Austrian driver’s religious headgear strains credulity
BBC World News

An Austrian atheist has won the right to be shown on his driving-licence photo wearing a pasta strainer as “religious headgear”.

Niko Alm first applied for the licence three years ago after reading that headgear was allowed in official pictures only for confessional reasons.

Mr Alm said the sieve was a requirement of his religion, pastafarianism.

The Austrian authorities required him to obtain a doctor’s certificate that he was “psychologically fit” to drive.

The idea came into Mr Alm’s noodle three years ago as a way of making a serious, if ironic, point.

A self-confessed atheist, Mr Alm says he belongs to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a light-hearted faith whose members call themselves pastafarians.

The group’s website states that “the only dogma allowed in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the rejection of dogma”.

In response to pressure for American schools to teach the Christian theory known as intelligent design, as an alternative to natural selection, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster wrote to the Kansas School Board asking for the pastafarian version of intelligent design to be taught to schoolchildren, as an alternative to the Christian theory.

Awesome! (but stills uses those cheap co$ting ink cartridges, dang.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZboxMsSz5Aw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

(Hwy’s $enses “like-mindedne$$”)

“The assumption is that you cannot find a qualified man or woman to lead the university unless paid twice that of the Chief Justice of the United States. I reject this notion,” Brown said in his letter. “At a time when the state is closing its courts, laying off public school teachers and shutting senior centers, it is not right to be raising the salaries of leaders who – of necessity – must demand sacrifice from everyone else. These are difficult times and difficult choices must be made. I ask that you rethink the criteria for setting administrators’ salaries.”

New San Diego State president’s $400,000 salary draws criticism:
By FERMIN LEAL / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

LONG BEACH – California State University trustees on Tuesday approved a significant pay increase for the president of San Diego State University, the same day they voted to raise student tuition by 12 percent.

CSU Chancellor Charles Reed said pay for university presidents is relatively low especially when compared with heads of other public and private schools. University presidents traditionally are expected to be educators, business executives and fund-raisers for their campuses. Reed also said presidents’ salaries must remain competitive if the system wants to attract top candidates.

Another interesting day of political sniping awaits us as the Debt Ceiling Game plays on. Everybody knows the public debt ceiling will be raised. The sticking point is which of the major political parties will claim a victory for having saved the day and preserved the republic for another few months. This sophisticated technique is called “kicking the can down the road.” The objective is to kick it beyond the first Tuesday in November, 2012.

Economist Gary North is quite right; “The debate over the deficit is a sham. It is political theater. There is no majority in either political party to balance the enormous budget of the U.S. government. To do so would require a drastic shrinking of expenditures.”

North points out the big sinkholes are Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and the military, which constitute some 70 percent of the federal budget. The $1.6 trillion deficit constitutes 40 percent of the budget, so if it were eliminated there’s have to be some serious cuts in the big four expenditures. There are not many politicians in Washington willing to seriously consider balancing the budget any time soon. .

Article: Political Baloney

At least we are still on track…

Budget deficit on track to top $1 trillion
Budget deficit set to top $1 trillion for 3rd straight year, raising pressure for debt deal

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal budget deficit is on pace to break the $1 trillion mark for the third straight year, ratcheting up the pressure on the White House and Congress to reach a deal to rein in spending.

The deficit totaled $971 billion for the first nine months of the budget year, the Treasury Department said Wednesday. Three years ago, that would have been a record high for the full year.

With three months to go, this year’s deficit will likely top last year’s $1.29 trillion gap, according to an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office. But it is expected to come in below the record $1.41 trillion reached in 2009. The budget year ends Sept. 30.

For June, the deficit was $43 billion, below the $68 billion imbalance recorded in June 2010. Much of that improvement was due to a one-time drop last month in the estimated cost of education loans.

Soaring deficits have held up a vote to raise the nation’s $14.3 trillion borrowing limit. Republicans and President Barack Obama are at odds over a long-term plan to trim federal spending. Republicans have demanded steep spending cuts in return for voting to raise the borrowing limit. Obama and Democrats in Congress want tax increases to be part of the deal, which Republicans have adamantly opposed.

The government reached its borrowing limit in May. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has warned that if the limit is not raised by Aug. 2, the country will default on its debt for the first time ever.

But negotiations between the White House and President Obama are at a standstill as the two sides meet Wednesday for their fourth negotiating session in as many days. Obama has said the daily meetings will continue until a deal is reached.

A two-hour session Tuesday produced no progress. That prompted the top Republican in the Senate to propose giving Obama sweeping new powers to increase the limit to avoid default.

Here’s some good news for all the savvy/investor house snapper uppers…

20% Drop in Housing to Cause Recession in 2012, Says Gary Shilling
By Peter Gorenstein | Daily Ticker –

Stocks rallied Wednesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke suggested the central bank would go ahead with another round of stimulus — aka quantitative easing — if the economy continues to slump. In this scenario, the Federal Reserve would once again purchase assets to keep interest rates low in an attempt to support the economy and prop up asset prices.

So far, the Fed’s actions have done more good for asset prices like stocks (see: S&P 500 chart since 2009) while doing less to help the economy (see: June jobs report). U.S. gross domestic product grew just 1.9% in the first quarter of the year. For 2011 as a whole, the Fed forecasts U.S. GDP growing at 2.7% to 2.9%, which is lower than the plus 3% forecast they made in April.

Today’s guest, Gary Shilling, President of A. Gary Shilling & Co. and author of the Age of Deleveraging says another recession is brewing — no matter what action the Fed takes. “Economic growth here and abroad is slipping, making a 2012 recession a distinct possibility,” he writes in his July newsletter. And, “when you have slow growth it doesn’t take much of a shock to throw you in negative territory.”

Shilling says the shock to trigger the next recess is “another big leg-down in housing.” (An asset class the Fed has not been able to reflate.) As those familiar with Shilling know, his forecasts are generally bearish. However, in his defense, Shilling was one of the few economists who correctly predicted the dangers of the subprime mortgage market and its impact on the broader economy.

The problem with the real estate market remains excess inventory. Based on Shilling’s research, there are 2 million to 2.5 million excess homes in the country — a supply that will take 4-5 years to work-off. The result: Housing prices will fall another 20% and underwater mortgages will balloon from 23% to 40%, he says.

With housing slumping again, Shilling says recession is coming to a town near you in 2012.

U.S. Budget Gap Narrowed in June (Bloomberg)

The U.S. posted a monthly budget deficit of $43.1 billion in June, smaller than a year earlier and reflecting a decline in spending.

In June 2010, the shortfall was $68.4 billion, according to the Treasury Department’s monthly budget statement, released today in Washington.

A slowing economy and restrained job growth may limit tax receipts for the government, raising the risk that the budget deficit will reach a record this fiscal year. The shortfall underscores the urgency surrounding budget negotiations between President Barack Obama and Congress as the U.S. approaches a $14.3 trillion statutory debt limit.

“We need stronger economic growth to bring the deficit down or some restraint on spending,” said Gary Thayer, chief macro strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors LLC in St. Louis. “Unfortunately, we’re in a soft spot on the economy. We really don’t have a robust recovery.”

Good grief what a bunch of candy asses…

Shout of bounds?
No yelling at Obama today
By GLENN THRUSH & MATT NEGRIN | 07/13/11- Politico

A long-running tiff between the White House press corps and the West Wing over presidential access flared anew today when press secretary Jay Carney faced off with reporters over the right to shout questions at the president during debt talks.

Obama chafes at the time-honored practice of answering questions shouted at him during pooled, non-press conference events — and his staff has often opted for “stills sprays,” excluding print reporters or TV cameras who might capture Obama in the less than flattering non-act of snubbing a query.

When asked today why TV crews and print reporters were barred from the pool covering the White House meeting with congressional leaders on the deficit, Carney responded by pointing out that the administration has held two press conferences in the past two weeks and allowed TV cameras into the spray earlier this week.

“People shouted questions at him,” Carney added.

The White House Correspondents’ Association has protested exclusion of print and TV from pools — and several reporters in the briefing room took Carney’s comment as an annoyed expression of presidential displeasure with shouted questions.

“It’s an absurd reason to say that because we asked questions you’re not going to allow cameras in there. He’s capable of ignoring our questions. He does it all the time,” said Chip Reid of CBS.

Hey, I know lets pack up and get the hell out of there! What happened to that plan?

Obama, US viewed less favorably in Arab world, poll shows
- The Boston Globe

The United States is viewed less favorably in much of the Arab world today than it was during the final year of the Bush administration, and President Obama is less popular in the region that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to a poll released today (WED) by the Arab American Institute, a nonpartisan research and advocacy group.

Attitudes towards the US president and the United States as a whole have been growing increasingly negative over the past ten years due to the invasion of Iraq, outrage over Guantanamo Bay, and continued frustration over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, which has been tracking attitudes for a decade.

But the current poll is striking in that is illustrates how far Obama’s favorability has fallen in the region, after an initial optimistic spike when he took office.

“It’s because expectations were created that were not met,” Zogby said.

In 2008, the final year of the Bush administration, only nine percent of Egyptians had a favorable attitude towards the United States. A year later, after Obama took office, that number jumped to 30 percent. But now it has plummeted to just five percent of Egyptians who view the United States favorably.

Similar figures in Morocco, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates show that the United States is viewed less favorably now than the final year of the Bush administration.

In a worrisome sign for US policymakers who would like to enlist the region’s support in isolating the Iranian regime, the poll shows that the policies of Iran are viewed more favorably than the policies of the United States.

China has been a Godsend to Detroit. Even as Ford Motor, General Motors, and Chrysler have stumbled in recent years, the country has provided a nice boost to sales of American cars equipped with traditional internal combustible engines.

But when it comes to electric vehicles…well, China has its own plans.

The country is spending billions of dollars to develop home-grown battery and motor technology, hybrids, and full plug-in cars, trucks, and buses. And to protect its nascent industry, the Chinese central government has recently issued draft guidelines that limit foreign investment in certain electric vehicle components and require overseas firms to disclose intellectual property secrets to Chinese companies.

“China wants to place some serious restrictions” on foreign auto makers, says Kevin See, an analyst with Lux Research in Boston. “Clearly, the companies inside China are well positioned to benefit. China wants to protect its value chain all the way to the vehicle.”

The proposed restrictions have alarmed American officials. In an April letter to U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, Michigan Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow said the guidelines would block U.S. auto makers from accessing a potentially huge market for electric vehicles

Why do we trade with these guys again??? Oh that’s right it allows the elite to strip wealth from teh middle class here in the US.

MultiCare Health System to lay off up to 350 employees by fall
Posted By C.R. Roberts - Tacoma, WA.

MultiCare Health System, Pierce County’s largest private employer, will cut up to 350 employees from its network by early autumn.

“We will reduce our workforce by about 300 to 350 (full-time employees) out of our total workforce of 9,400 employees effective Oct. 7,” said spokeswoman Marce Edwards on Tuesday morning.

“These will not be across-the-board cuts, but instead careful, selected reductions in areas where cost-savings opportunities exist,” Edwards said.

“MultiCare Health System is facing major cuts in reimbursement from Medicare and Medicaid, as are all health systems across the country,” she said. “We also are seeing more laid-off workers seeking health care who have lost their health insurance due to the struggling economy.”

To minimize the need to layoff workers, the company has asked for volunteers, Edwards said.

The company will provide severance packages and health insurance benefits to affected employees.

“I’ve lost enough wages to cover a house payment,” says Jim Golombecki, “so I’m having to scrape.”

And that’s after only 12 days.

Mr. Golombecki repairs vending machines for a living. His main client is the state of Minnesota. He is hardly alone.

We can’t help but add to the file of front-line skirmishes in the fiscal meltdown of state and local governments this morning. Brace yourself. It gets weird.

Tempers are fraying in the Gopher State as a partial government shutdown drags on… even with the troopers still on patrol and the courts still open for business.

State parks are closed. So are the highway rest stops. It’s nearly impossible to get a driver’s license test. Prisoners aren’t accepting visitors. 22,000 state employees are furloughed.

“Where is your conscience?” pleaded a college professor yesterday in the city of St. Cloud, where Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton and several Republican lawmakers gathered for a “town hall” meeting.

“It’s not about you,” said the professor, “it is about us who sent you there.”

The scene was surreal. It was as if the governor and lawmakers weren’t at loggerheads over how to make ends meet in the new fiscal year. This was a previously scheduled gathering to discuss special education funding.

Those in attendance weren’t putting up with the charade. Still, it being Minnesota, the tone was polite.

How long the tone will stay polite may depend on how readily people can drown their sorrows. For among the little ways in which people are being affected is their ability to buy booze.

For owners of bars, restaurants and liquor stores whose licenses just expired — or are about to — this is a matter of whether they stay in business or not. No license, no ability to buy inventory.

“We have a permit to sell alcohol, we just don’t have a permit to buy alcohol,” explains bar owner Erik Forsberg.

“This doesn’t just affect retailers,” says Frank Ball of the Minnesota Licensed Beverage Association, “but wholesalers, and the manufacturers, and wedding parties, and church functions, and one-day liquor licenses for charity events, and festivals and the list goes on and on and on.”

Such is life as states and cities downshift into austerity. The new reality manifests in all sorts of unexpected ways.

~ Clipped from The 5Min. Forecast

Banks will no longer sell Savings Bonds
By Sandra Block, USA TODAY
Americans who want to buy a U.S. Savings Bond after Dec. 31 will need two things: at least $25, and an Internet connection.

The Treasury Department is scheduled to announce today that for the first time in 76 years, paper Savings Bonds will no longer be sold at banks and credit unions. Investors who want to buy Savings Bonds after Dec. 31 will need to purchase them electronically through TreasuryDirect, a Web-based program offered by Treasury’s Bureau of Public Debt.

The shift from paper to electronic Savings Bonds will save the government $70 million over the next five years, Public Debt Commissioner Van Zeck says. “That’s a real economic advantage to Treasury in these times when we really need to look at the cost of government programs.”

Treasury has offered Savings Bonds through TreasuryDirect since 2002, but acceptance has been slow. Of the $1.2 billion in Savings Bonds purchased from October 2010 to June 30, 2011, 11% were bought through TreasuryDirect.

What think ye ol’ HBBer’s?

(Hwy thinks the city ohfee$cials are like that “certain turtle” down in the Texas brazos bottoms: “That turkle, heez daid, …heez just don’t knows it.”

Michigan Woman Faces 93 Days in Jail for Planting a Vegetable Garden
by Colleen Vanderlinden / TreeHugger com

It just doesn’t get more ridiculous than this.

Her crime? Planting a vegetable garden in the front yard

About the City Ordinance

Supposedly, Bass is in noncompliance with a city ordinance that states that only “suitable” plant material is allowed on the lawn area of residences. When local media asked city planner Kevin Rulkowski what that meant, he said suitable means “common:” lawn, nice shrubs, and flowers. However, the city ordinance does not specifically state that those are the only allowed plant materials.

About Oak Park

This is not some gated community with HOA regulations. This is an ordinary, working class neighborhood in Oakland County, Michigan. Like nearly every other city in my home state right now, Oak Park is facing financial issues. Here at home, people are amazed that a cash-strapped city has the resources to investigate, charge, and prosecute a resident for something as innocuous as planting a vegetable garden.

Hey Bernake, what do you propose be done to FIX our fiscal problems? Since it’s clear what you have said over and over again would fix them, has not. What’s that? Print Mo Money? Wow, you must have a large brain and be from a fancy high dollar school.

Bernanke: U.S. default would cause ‘major crisis’

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — How much clearer can Ben Bernanke be?

The Federal Reserve Chairman has issued a stern warning to Congress repeatedly this year: if it fails to raise the U.S. debt ceiling by Aug. 2, the economic fallout could be “catastrophic,” “self defeating” and “dire.”

And yet, here we are in mid-July, with the country only three weeks away from a possible default, and Bernanke is repeating his warning again — this time in his semi-annual monetary policy report to Congress.

“Clearly, if we went so far as to default on the debt, it would be a major crisis because the Treasury security is viewed as the safest and most liquid security in the world,” Bernanke said, indicating such an event would raise interest rates and send shockwaves rippling through the entire global system.

And contrary to what some Republicans have proposed, just paying interest on the debt to bondholders may not preserve the nation’s pristine credit rating, Bernanke said.

“It’s possible that simply defaulting on our obligations to our citizens might be enough to create a downgrade in credit ratings and higher interest rates for us, which would be counterproductive, of course, since it makes the deficit worse,” he said.

Filed under: “Girls just wanna have fun…”

U.S. women beat France 3-1, score World Cup berth

The second semifinal Wednesday pits Sweden against Japan. The winners will meet for the title on Sunday.

Toss x1 back on ol’ Hwy Rio: Cheers!

Against Brazil Sunday, Team USA came from behind to win a thriller

I just got three new credit card offers and a letter from:

The Ministries of Prayer Master Zachariah
P.O.Box 38955
Los Angleles, CA 90038

He says if I will send him $25.00 he will pray for me and guarantees my prayers will come true, or my money back.

Sounds to good to be true! I know a full blown Prayer Master would not pull my leg. Decisions, decisions, A couple bottles of red wine or having my prayers answered…

Germany to fund new coal plants with climate change fund cash
Published: 13 Jul 11 17:12 CET

The German government wants to encourage the construction of new coal and gas power plants with millions of euros from a fund for promoting clean energy and combating climate change.

The plan has come under stiff criticism, but the Ministry of Economics and Technology defended the idea. A spokeswoman said it was necessary as the government switches from nuclear to other renewable energy sources and added that the money would promote the most efficient plants possible.

Funding for the initiative is limited to five percent of the energy and climate change fund’s annual expenditure between 2013 and 2016.

Annual funding for the new plants could total more than €160 million per year between 2013 and 2014 alone, the Berliner Zeitung newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The fund was first established to encourage nuclear plant operators to develop new, renewable forms of energy production. Now that nuclear power is to be phased out by 2022, the fund will pay for research into reducing carbon dioxide emissions from buildings, developing renewable energy sources and storage technologies for them.

Opposition politicians and environmental groups said the plan was wrong because it would promote what they argued were climate-damaging plants. They also worried that money earmarked for other valuable projects could be reduced as a result.

Doctors threaten Medicaid cutoff in Puerto Rico
By DANICA COTO

SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO (AP) - Physicians are threatening to stop serving nearly a million Puerto Ricans as a result of a dispute between the island’s government and an insurance company over reimbursements for treating poor people.

Gov. Luis Fortuno on Wednesday appealed to the doctors to avoid cutting off patients, saying it would be illegal. In an interview with WAPA, a local TV station, he also said the government will withhold two months of payments to the insurance company unless it settles with doctors, hospitals, laboratories and others.

Physicians say the company, Medical Card System Inc., owes them as much as $60 million. They plan to decide soon if they will stop stop seeing Medicaid patients until they get paid, said Dr. Joaquin Vargas, president of the Independent Practice Association, which represents 38 medical groups.

“If this payment does not occur, the services will be threatened,” he said. “It is a painful situation for us.”

The standoff began shortly after the government launched a revamped Medicaid program in October, promising patients extended hours, more access to mental health services and fewer pre-approvals required to see specialists. The program caters to those who make less than $800 a month and to the disabled.

So What are we going to do about it? Answer… Not a damn thing, we need their $upport.

CHINA MISSILE SALES
The Washington Times Online Edition

Newly released classified documents reveal China’s continued violations of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) with sales of missiles and parts to Iran, Syria and Pakistan.

A Sept. 18, 2009, State Department cable on the issue was prepared for an international meeting of the MTCR that year in Rio de Janeiro. The MTCR is an informal association of 34 states that seeks to limit exports of missiles with ranges greater than 185 miles and warheads heavier than 1,000 pounds.

Sent under Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s signature, the cable included a report on Chinese missile proliferation that on three occasions referred to a “lack of political will” by China to stop missile transfers.

“Chinese authorities and firms fail to conduct sufficient evaluations of missile-applicable transactions or to take steps to know their customers,” the report said.

Several cables, labelled “secret,” were made public on Monday by the anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks, showing Chinese violations or circumventions of the accord.

“Other firms that are aware of the vulnerabilities in China’s export-control system take steps to conceal sensitive transactions and avoid detection, including by adopting new names and falsifying shipping documentation. Additionally, some firms may take advantage of government connections to skirt Chinese regulations,” the cable said.

Among the violations were sales to Iran by China’s Dalian Sunny Industries, also known as LIMMT; sales of ballistic-missile goods to Syria; and transfers by Shanghai Technical By-Products International Corp. to Iran of ballistic-missile items.

Sanctions were imposed on two Chinese firms in 2009: LIMMT for sales of graphite, tungsten, gyroscopes and accelerometers; and Bellamax for steel alloys, gyroscopes and ball bearings.

Screw Moodys, who really gives a crap.

Moody’s Places U.S. on Review for Downgrade As Debt Talks Stall

Young Americans for Liberty club member Tony Burke, center, asks UC Irvine students to sign a petition to congress protesting the national debt on April 5, 2011 in Irvine, Calif. Photographer: Jebb Harris/Orange County Register/AP

Moody’s Investors Service put the U.S. under review for a credit rating downgrade as talks to raise the government’s $14.3 trillion debt limit stall, adding to concern that political gridlock will lead to a default.

The Aaa ratings of financial institutions directly linked to the U.S. government, including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Home Loan Banks, and the Federal Farm Credit Banks, were also put on review for cuts, Moody’s said in a statement today.

The U.S., rated Aaa since 1917, was put on review for the first time since 1995 on concern the debt limit will not be raised in time to prevent a missed payment of interest or principal on outstanding bonds and notes even though the risk remains low, Moody’s said. The rating would likely be reduced to the Aa range and there is no assurance that Moody’s would return its top rating even if a default is quickly cured.

“It certainly underscores the importance of passing the debt ceiling and not putting us in default status, and making sure there’s a longer term fiscal plan to contain spending and the deficit we’ve been running up over the last few years,” said Anthony Cronin, a Treasury bond trader at Societe General SA in New York, one of the 20 primary dealers that trade with the Federal Reserve. “Maybe it’s the impetus to say we’ll need more of a concession.”

From a company press release:

“Glass, Lewis & Co. today announced the launch of a new service designed to help institutional investors and plan sponsors recover their losses on private-label residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS). The proprietary research and recovery-facilitation service will help institutional investors assess their RMBS investments, identifying securitizations in which there is a high probability that loan origination misconduct has led to investor losses, and enabling investors with overlapping holdings to collectively seek recoveries. The service will benefit any institution with current or past exposure to RMBS investments.”

Calls for U.S. to investigate, prosecute News Corp

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/calls-u-investigate-prosecute-news-corp-grow-louder-184759182.html

As members of the British Parliament trumpet Rupert Murdoch’s decision to drop News Corp.’s proposed $12 billion takeover of BSkyB as a “victory,” there are rumblings from lawmakers in the United States that the company may have violated American law over the course of the phone-hacking scandal plaguing the company. And now members of Congress are beginning to weigh in.

How is this relavent?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Corporation#Holdings

News Corp is one of the, if not THE, largest owner of MSM, not in the world, but OF the world.

THEY were the largest champions of the RE bubble.

USPO mailboxes are not safe anymore…..

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2011/07/14/stolen-mailboxes-pose-id-theft-risk-to-valley-postal-customers/