The Housing Bubble

Why do we even superficially attempt to buy off failed governments and deluded martyrs who are willing to blow themselves up at the end of the day? If they do so without our draining dollars, would we not be the net winner?

Foreclosure activity slowed in first half of 2011
Report: Delays in bank processing push likely US foreclosures until 2012, stalling recovery

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The number of homes taken back by lenders in the first half of this year fell 30 percent compared with the same 2010 period, the result of delays in foreclosure processing that threaten to stall a U.S. housing recovery.

Banks seized 421,212 homes in the first six months of the year, down from 529,633 between January and June last year, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

The decline reflects lenders taking longer to move against homeowners who have fallen behind on their mortgage payments. The banks are working through foreclosure documentation problems that first surfaced last fall and an ensuing logjam in some state courts. Lenders also have put off on taking action against delinquent borrowers as U.S. home sales have slowed this year.

As the processing delays mount, however, so has the backlog of potential foreclosures — homes that otherwise would have been repossessed by lenders this year.

RealtyTrac estimates that 1 million foreclosure-related notices that should have been filed by banks this year will be pushed to next year. The filings include notices for defaults, scheduled home auctions and home repossessions — warnings that can lead to a home eventually being lost to foreclosure.

I am certainly glad all these big thinkers are popping up pointing out things the rest of us would have never seen coming!

Reinhart-Rogoff Warn Rising Government Debt Levels Threaten Global Economy -July 14 (Bloomberg)

Rising government debts pose a significant risk to economic growth and financial stability in the U.S. and Europe, economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff wrote in a column for Bloomberg View.

Nations historically have run into trouble when public debt exceeds 90 percent of gross domestic product, Reinhart, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, and Rogoff, a Harvard University professor, said. And by their reckoning, the U.S. and some European nations have passed that threshold.

“While we expect to see more than one member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development default or restructure their debt before the European crisis is resolved, that isn’t the greatest threat to most advanced economies,” they wrote. “The biggest risk is that debt will accumulate until the overhang weighs on growth.”

Shiller predicts 20% drop

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/20-drop-housing-cause-recession-2012-says-gary-161445494.html

What? The Bernake will have to talk to this fellow and set him straight.

‘Fiscal Reckoning’ Faces Nation as Fed’s Ammunition Exhausted, Fisher Says -(Bloomberg)

Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher said central bank efforts to boost the economy have reached their limits and the U.S. faces a “fiscal reckoning” that only lawmakers can resolve.

“Our great country now finds itself in a very difficult predicament,” Fisher, 62, said today in a speech in Dallas. “Congress can no longer carry on as before, oblivious to the deleterious effect of spending our, and the successor generations’, money with unfunded abandon.”

The regional Fed chief, who votes on policy this year, reiterated his view that the central bank has done enough and he’ll be among the first to advocate tighter policy if prices and inflation expectations rise. Fisher spoke a few hours after Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke told Congress that he and his colleagues are prepared to take new action, including buying more government bonds, if the economy appears to be in danger of stalling.

“There may be some things the chairman mentioned this morning — those are tinkering at the margin,” Fisher told reporters after the speech. “We’ve exhausted our ammunition, in my view” and expanding the Fed’s balance sheet from about $2.7 trillion to more than $3 trillion “might spook the marketplace,” he said.

“I do not personally see the benefit of more monetary accommodation even if the economy weakens further,” Fisher said. “Again, there’s so much liquidity out there, the question is, ‘What is the trigger to put it to work?’”

Flash Mobs Thwart Foreclosures in Spain (Bloomberg)
Dial-a-Pickets Pressure Spain to Change Home Foreclosure Law

Spain’s Parliament is investigating mortgage rules that mean homeowners remain saddled with debt after handing back their keys.

Luis Dominguez got up at dawn to take a 5 a.m. bus to join a human chain around a Madrid home threatened with foreclosure. Three weeks earlier, the crowd had come to him after he telephoned for help.

“I was facing eviction and they saved me from losing my home,” said Dominguez, 74, a pensioner with a walking stick in one hand and a five-foot placard saying “Stop Evictions” in the other. “I came today to show my gratitude and support.”

The 300 protesters, organized by a group called La Plataforma de los Afectados por la Hipoteca, or PAH, managed to win a reprieve for the property’s owner, a single mother with a disabled son. Rising unemployment in Spain may lead to 300,000 foreclosures this year and next, according to Adicae, a rights group representing bank customers.

Spain has become a battleground between banks hurt by a five-fold increase in residential mortgage arrears since 2007 and debt-laden homeowners who are appealing to the government to reduce the burden on those facing foreclosure.

“In large parts of the U.S., you can just walk away from your home and your debt, and that contributed to the country’s banking crisis,” Jordi Fabregat, a professor of management and financial control at Barcelona’s Esade Business School, said by telephone. “That can’t be done here, so the banks are protected from defaults during a crisis.”
Property Bust

Similar to Ireland, whose credit rating was cut to non- investment grade this week by Moody’s Investors Service, Spain’s economic crisis was driven by a credit-fuelled property bubble that burst. The housing boom that ended in 2008 left Spanish banks with 313 billion euros ($441 billion) in loans related to real estate activity as of June, according to the Bank of Spain.

This is starting to get really interesting, wonder how the “policy makers” will handle this?

ITEM: Italy Too Big to Bail Out as Crisis Enters ‘New Phase’(Bloomberg)

The euro’s fate may lie in the hands of Italian bondholders as the region’s debt crisis threatens to envelop the Mediterranean nation, according to Credit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank.

The CHART OF THE DAY shows Italy’s government debt burden, the euro area’s largest at 1.8 trillion euros ($2.6 trillion), dwarfs those of Greece, Ireland and Portugal, which already received bailouts, and Spain, which has the next-highest borrowing costs. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is under pressure from coalition partners to limit its contribution to sovereign bailouts. The European Financial Stability Facility currently has a lending capacity of 250 billion euros.

“If Italy gets to the point where its debt auctions start to fail and it loses access to the market, it becomes difficult to imagine who would have the kind of money that would be required to rescue it,” said Luca Jellinek, head of European interest-rate strategy at Credit Agricole CIB in London. “It’s undoubtedly bigger than the current scope of the EFSF.”

European Central Bank incoming President Mario Draghi said yesterday that the euro-area’s debt crisis has “entered a new phase” and policy makers must come up with a “clear” response to stop the contagion that threatens the survival of the region’s single currency.

It’s the marching of the frogs near Buckingham Palace…

New arrest in Murdoch phone hacking scandal

By REID J. EPSTEIN | 7/14/11 7:06 AM EDT
Politicodotcom
A former high-level News Corp. editor was arrested on Thursday, the ninth since January in the phone hacking scandal that is growing by the day, while Britain’s deputy prime minister said Rupert Murdoch should be “frogmarched” to Parliament to testify about the situation.

The latest developments come as the lead attorney for the company’s British newspaper subsidiary suddenly quit after 26 years. Tom Crone was responsible for vetting stories in The News of the World and the Sun, each of which stands accused of publishing reports based on illegally obtained information.

British news outlets have identified the man arrested Wednesday as former News of the World executive editor Neil Wallis, who served as the paper’s deputy editor and executive editor from 2003 to 2009, when the bulk of the hacking complaints took place.

The ridiculousness of this whole raise-the-debt-ceiling issue: see, there’s this central bank acting like a mob boss, saying “borrow more from us or we’ll kill ya!”

And then Wall Street starts threatening, Moody’s is threatening, the IMF is threatening, Obama is threatening, blah, blah.

STFU, every last one of them. It’s just an invented system, fer Chrissakes. They invent it, we rent it. It’s so easy to solve, just put a different system of debt free money issued by the government in place and life goes on.

Crikey, STOP with the hysterics already.

If Wall Street and the big corporate donors do not want a debt default, there will be no debt default.

It’s that simple. All this political posturing is just political kabuki theater.

The news media is breathlessly reporting on this stuff. And the politicians are responding in kind to having the spotlight, with all the acting. I guess there’s little other drama for the infotainment industry.

If it’s bad for Wall Street and the big donors, a debt default will not happen.

Another thought on “bubbles being based on virtual products”: If you can get actual cash for a virtual product (stocks, promises to pay (debt), other), then you have the makings of a bubble.

Real estate? I think demand is relatively consistent. But suddenly give all those who wish to buy the means to buy (aka debauched loans), and they will bid up the prices. I guess I’d call real estate a secondary bubble, resulting from the underlying bubble in debt purchases.

This is totally off topic.

Do any of you have thoughts about the value of a colonoscopy? Are they worthwhile or are they just another procedure that the medical community is pushing to generate revenue?

Have any of you had the procedure? If so then I’d be grateful to hear your comments.

Thanks.

Today is the big Capitol Hill hearing on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) will chair it. Warren will be in the hot seat for an entire day. She’s a very smart leader. I certainly hope she can keep the horde of ankle-biters at bay, and get the CFPB off the ground with full powers.

Warren’s primary focus with the CFPB is to eliminate the obfuscation in consumer contracts in the financial sector. So that consumers can know both the PRICE and the RISK of the product they’re purchasing.

It seems hard to argue with. However, there is big money in financial obfuscation. And those making money off of it have lots of hired guns. There should be fireworks today.

Food prices unlikely to fall: General Mills CEO

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Higher food prices are here to stay, General Mills Inc.’s GIS -0.46% Chief Executive Ken Powell said Wednesday, adding that it was unlikely that food prices will slip into a deflationary cycle as they did last year.

“It would be highly unlikely that we’ll see price declines,” Powell said during a meeting with investors. “The long-term trends are inflationary, not deflationary. You’re going to see pricing in a significant way.”

General Mills will rely entirely on higher prices to increase its sales for fiscal 2012, as overall sales volume is expected to fall. Last month, the company issued its outlook, which sees revenue rising in the mid-single digits.

General Mills warned that rising costs for ingredients and fuel will hurt earnings for the fiscal year, with the pain most acute in the current quarter. The company is raising prices to offset some of those higher costs, and is also counting on new products to continue to keep customers interested.

I was reading The Economist, and saw an interesting quote, which rung true: “Reforms will happen - after the whole system collapses.”

Especially, when there’s big money in not reforming the system. This is one massive obstacle to real reform.

Is gold money?
Dr. Bernanke answered incorrectly.

“Is gold money?” Rep. Ron Paul put the question to Fed Chief Ben Bernanke on Wednesday. .

“No. It’s a precious metal,” responded Bernanke - somewhat irritated.

After Paul interrupted him to mention the long history of gold being used as money, Bernanke said ”It’s an asset. Would you say Treasury bills are money? I don’t think they’re money, either, but they’re a financial asset.”

Bernanke is correct to say Treasury bills are not money. They are a record of debt…paper promises. The holder of these IOUs does, indeed, consider them financial assets.

But Bernanke just wasn’t thinking clearly when he lumped Treasury bills and gold together. While the bill is evidence of debt the physical gold is not. It is a thing of value - not a promise by anyone, nor a debt of any kind. It has been a respected medium of exchange and measure of value for millennia. Also, it meets Webster’s definition of money; “. . .gold, silver, or other metal in pieces of convenient form stamped by public authority and issued as a medium of exchange and measure of value.”

Webster’s unabridged dictionary also defines money as; “Any circulating medium of exchange, including coins, paper money, and demand deposits.”

The U.S. Mint makes gold and silver coins. They aren’t used in daily commerce because the intrinsic value of the coins far exceeds the nominal value engraved on them.

“Money” can be anything people use as media of exchange. Everything from cowry shells to cigarettes have served as money through the ages. Gold and silver coin have had the best track record over the longest period of time. So say the historians who’ve looked into the record..

Dr. Bernanke’s answer to Rep. Ron Paul should have been, “Yes - gold is commodity money.”

Until the 20th century it was generally understood that money was something of actual value. . .that is, gold and silver coin. Paper currency of various types was widely circulated with the promise of redemption in actual money. Eventually the paper notes took on the character of money, itself.

Weekly Claims Finally Show Decline in Weak Jobs Market
14 Jul 2011 By: AP

The Labor Department says that weekly applications dropped 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 405,000, the lowest level in almost three months.

The government says the total was increased by 11,500 state workers from Minnesota, who have filed applications because of that state’s government shutdown.

Even with last week’s decline, applications have now topped 400,000 for 14 weeks, evidence that the job market has weakened since earlier this year.

Applications had fallen in February to 375,000, a level that signals healthy job growth. They stayed below 400,000 for two months, then surged to an eight-month high of 478,000 in April and have declined slowly since then.

Fail everywhere….. What’s new, pcat?
//////////////////////////

President Obama has failed to live up to the expectations he created in the Arab world, according to a new poll released by Zogby International and the Arab American Institute Foundation. The poll also noted that most Arab countries view the U.S. less favorably today than they did during the last year of the Bush administration.

When President Bush left office, 9 percent of Egyptians had a favorable attitude towards the United States. After Barack Obama was elected, that number jumped to 30 percent. But today, only 5 percent of Egyptians surveyed said they have a favorable opinion of the United States and its president. Similar figures in Morocco, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates illustrate that the initial optimism in the region has been eclipsed by a widespread sense of disappointment.

“President Obama did not create the problems, but he created the expectation that the problems would be solved,” said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute.

“He sent a number of signals early on that U.S. policy would change: in his inauguration speech, in his al-Arabiya interview, and in his appointment of [former Senate Majority Leader] George Mitchell as special envoy,” said Zogby. “By the time of his speech in Cairo, the favorable ratings of the U.S. were at their highest ever.”

But figures from six Arab nations tell the same story: People in the Arab world are frustrated by the lack of follow-up. “You get credit for trying after 100 days, but after two years you don’t get credit for trying; you get credit for producing, and the production isn’t there,” Zogby said.

“I’m not faulting the president. He didn’t get a magic wand when he took office,” Zogby said. “Instead, he got a shovel to get out of a deep hole. Every one of the issues that he’s inherited has been more difficult than he or anyone else expected.”

Aaron David Miller, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, said that the results reflect a fundamental “clash of interests” between the United States and countries in the region, calling the results “a very old story, which Zogby has simply brought up to date.”

“The fact is that there is a huge disconnect between what we believe is the right approach in the region and what many of the people who live there believe is the right approach,” Miller said.

“The bottom line is that Arabs expect a fundamental change in policy, but that change will not be forthcoming. And therefore the story of the United States in this region is going to continue to be difficult, to say the least.”

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/07/20117313948379987.html

Big Pharma and the psychiatric profession teaming up to push anti-psychotic medications on the citizenry. On the other hand we do seem to have an overage of crazy people.

http://www.debka.com/article/21115/

Looks like the US and NATO are throwing in the towel on the Libya war. Not sure what’s worse: starting this war in the first place or leaving a vengeful Gadaffi in power.

Is Ben Bernanke A Liar Or Totally Incompetent?

The Economic Collapse
Feb 10, 2011

Bernanke’s track record of failure is absolutely stunning. Before discussing some of his most recent comments, let’s review some of the pearls of wisdom that Bernanke has shared with us in recent years….

2005: “House prices have risen by nearly 25 percent over the past two years. Although speculative activity has increased in some areas, at a national level these price increases largely reflect strong economic fundamentals.”

2005: “We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think what is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow consumption spending a bit. I don’t think it’s gonna drive the economy too far from its full employment path, though.”

2006: “Housing markets are cooling a bit. Our expectation is that the decline in activity or the slowing in activity will be moderate, that house prices will probably continue to rise.”

2007: “At this juncture, however, the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained. In particular, mortgages to prime borrowers and fixed-rate mortgages to all classes of borrowers continue to perform well, with low rates of delinquency.”

2007: “It is not the responsibility of the Federal Reserve – nor would it be appropriate – to protect lenders and investors from the consequences of their financial decisions.”

2008: “The Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession.”

http://therealnewsjournal.com/?p=5755 - 29k -

Borders on Brink of Liquidation -WSJ

Borders Group Inc. stood on the brink of liquidation after a recent offer for the bookstore chain from a private-equity investor fell apart late Wednesday.

Borders, which employs nearly 11,000 people, designated a group of liquidators as the opening bidders in a looming bankruptcy-court auction amid difficulties getting publishers to relax terms under which they ship merchandise to the U.S.’s second-largest bookstore chain, said people familiar with the matter.

The development raises the prospect that Borders will soon close all its remaining 399 stores and go out of business. No other suitors have so far emerged for Borders ahead of a Sunday bidding deadline.

Borders’s deal with the investor, Jahm Najafi, unraveled Wednesday after publishers and landlords owed money from the company complained that his bid would allow him to liquidate the bookstore chain after buying the business.

In western U.S., new hires fall 10 percent in May 2011, layoffs rise
Denver Economy Examiner

The number of new hires in the U.S. West, which includes Colorado, fell 10 percent, year-over-year from May 2010 to May 2011, as layoffs increased 17 percent during the same period.

According to the latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover report, released Tuesday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the West region’s labor markets performed more poorly than the U.S. overall. The number of new hires in the U.S. fell 4.5 percent from May 2010 to May 2011. During the same period, layoffs fell 1.3 percent for the U.S. During the same period.

The magnitude of the year-over-year declines in new hires was impacted at least partially by the hiring of Census workers during Springs 2010.

Good thing leadership is not our problem now.

“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”

- Senator Barack H. Obama, March 2006

Is Germany going to cave in on its insistence that private investors take some of the hit from the Greek financial debacle? Did President Obama calm down after walking out of the latest debt ceiling meeting?

As for the Obama walkout….this evens the score, doesn’t it. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor walked out of a meeting. Now, a frustrated president has done it. What next? Apparently the key players will be called to a weekend meeting at Camp David. If a deal isn’t struck before July 22 a substance will hit the fan that will be extremely untidy.

The hardest thing of all is to raise the debt ceiling in a way both sides can claim victory “for the American people.”

I personally know 4 people at 3+ YEARS.

Painful stretch: Florida foreclosures grow lengthier

By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 5:34 a.m. Thursday, May 12, 2011

The length of time from initial court filing to bank repossession in Florida - 619 days - is significantly higher than the national average of 400, according to a foreclosure report released today by Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac. The national average in 2007 was 151 days.

Rent free, as free as the wind blows
As free as the grass grows
Default and follow your heart

Live free and beauty surrounds you
The world still astounds you
Two years and counting so far

Stay free, don`t care if you`re laid off
Stupidity paid off
Because you bought in 05

Don`t pay, and life is worth living
But only worth living
’cause you’re rent free

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.”

Sarah doesn’t trust Obama

Neither do I.

End of the debt cycle
A similar picture in EURO-land and the US. For many decades the amount of money has been growing exponentially. All of this money demands interest which has to be satisfied in large part from productive labor. Productive labor is in a large part dependent on natural resources, food and energy, all of which are finte on a finite planet. These resources take larger and larger effort to extract as you can see in the ever rising price of various commodities.
It is an absolut mathematical certainty that exponential growth can not continue in a finite world/universe. The exact timing of the collapse is difficult to predict since various money printing and accounting tricks can hide the obvious for quite some time. Looking at all the evidence I can see today we’re are running out of accounting tricks within the not too distant future. If history is any guide, typically what follows is a time of great uncertainty and great conflict.
Personally I had the benefit to talk to some of my older realtives when they were still alive in the 1970s in Germany. Born around 1900 they lived through those “uncertain times”. One thing I gathered was, that not all was good in the good ole days.

Anybody noticed? Obama is getting some gray hair. I didn’t notice those when he ran for office.
Looking at before and after pictures, many presidents aged beyond their years while beeing in office.

20 Depressing Facts About the Housing Market
By Carla Fried | Jun 6, 2011

Here are 20 sobering statistics culled from the JCHS’ State of the Nation’s Housing: 2011. Unless noted, all data is for 2010.

15: Percent of homeowners underwater (mortgage balance exceeds home’s market value)

11.1 million: Number of homeowners with negative equity

$12.4 trillion: Total loss in real household wealth, 2006-2010

$6.3 trillion: Total real home equity, end of 2010

$8.6 trillion: Total loss in real home equity since 2006 market peak

2.2 million: Estimated number of mortgages in the foreclosure pipeline

67: Percent of homeowners in foreclosure who have not made a mortgage payment for at least one year

3.9 million: Increase in number of renters since 2004

74: percent of renters in early 2011 who say ownership makes more financial sense than renting

4.1: Percent decline in home prices in 2010

2: Metro areas out of 20 tracked by the Case-Shiller index that did not experience price declines in the 12 months through January 2011

30.7: Estimated percent of homes that sold for less than previous purchase price (2009: 25.4 percent)

14: Percent decline in new home sales (fifth straight year of double digit declines)

18: Percent of median household income needed to buy median priced home (2005: 32 percent)

9: Percent of median household income needed to purchase median-priced house in Cape Coral, FL in 2010 (2007: 38 percent)

38: Percent of median household income needed to purchase median-priced house in San Francisco in 2010 (2007: 76 percent)

17: Percent of households spending more than half of their income on housing

9: Percent of new loans with down payments below 10 percent

27.4: Percent of homes bought with all cash in 2010 (2009: 19.8 percent)

66.9: Percent of U.S. households that own a home (2004 peak: 69 percent)

http://moneywatch.bnet.com/economic-news/blog/daily-money/20-depressing-facts-about-the-housing-market/2841/ - 96k -

Damn, the Bernank hardly shuts his mouth now. The bankster boyz must be working him pretty hard.

- Bernanke: Deep Spending Cuts Could Derail Recovery- Reuters

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned Congress on Thursday that overzealous cuts to government spending could derail an already fragile recovery and said a U.S. debt default could wreak financial havoc.

Distribution Center Closing, Jobs Cut
wnep.com

A business in Lackawanna County PA. is closing its doors and hundreds will be left jobless.

Ocean Logistics at the Keystone Industrial Park in Dunmore PA. notified the state labor department that it will stop all operations at its warehouse by September.

That means 206 workers will be out of jobs.

The facility has been in operation for more than 50 years in the area. The warehouse processes health and beauty aids and distributes to A&P supermarkets.

More than 200 people work there, but come September 12, all those people will be out of jobs.

The state labor department received a warn notice this week from the company.

It said Ocean Logistics will no longer provide warehousing and distribution services to its sole customer. Therefore the Dunmore warehouse will permanently close.

Some folks in the area reacted to the layoffs.

“You know it’s sad to hear this because it’s been going on, and you don’t know where it’s going to end, and you hate to have to think it’s going to be a depressed area,” said Angie Richards of Dunmore.

“It’s always difficult when you hear about places closing and people losing their jobs. They said the economy is on the rebound but I can’t believe that when laying people off and closing places. It’s not easy,” said Larry Hickernell of Scranton.

This one’s got it all. Property management firm, corporate “compassion”, lost health insurance, no worker protection, unemployment, tragedy, love….

Man Gets Fired After Wife Gets Cancer

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/06/16/wife-gets-cancer-husband-gets-fired/?ncid=txtlnkuscare00000002

Massachusetts accountant Carl Sorabella had every reason to believe that his employer would grant his request for a more flexible schedule so that he could assist his wife, who had just been diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer and given only months to live. After all, he’d been with Haynes Management in Wellesley, for 13 years, and had just been given a raise in November.

But instead of a more accommodating schedule, he got a pink slip in response to his request, even though he had made it clear that he was willing to work nights and weekends to make up for the time he intended to spend taking his wife in for treatments and tests.

“It shocks me,” said Kathleen, Sorabella’s wife of 23 years. “People are supposed to help each other. I guess corporate America is different.”…

…Sorabella says that his boss told him they were thinking about laying him off anyway, due to “modifications in workforce requirements.”… He says that he later saw an employment ad for his old job with the same company…..

OAKES, N.D. — A plant that makes military equipment is closing in the North Dakota city of Oakes.

A spokesman for the parent company of JLG Industries tells the American News the plant will close Aug. 31, putting 56 people out of work.

Oshkosh Corp. spokesman John Daggett says the closing is prompted by “market dynamics” and will be phased in over the summer. Workers are not being offered severance packages or an opportunity to transfer to another plant but will get bonuses if they stay until the plant closes and meet certain conditions.

The plant was slated for closure two years ago but local and state officials worked with North Dakota’s congressional delegation to keep it open.

Mayor Monty Zimmer says the closure will “greatly impact” the town of about 1,700 people.

Team Obama need to pull a Bush and send some dough to the general population. Except this tmis in the form of plastic cards that can only be used at retailers.

Call it: The SNAP card, for… Shop Now Aggressively Please!

U.S. Retail Sales Stagnate as Unemployment Curbs Consumers
(Bloomberg)

Sales at U.S. retailers stagnated in June as rising unemployment held consumers back.

The 0.1 percent increase reported by the Commerce Department in Washington today compared with the median forecast of a 0.1 percent drop in the Bloomberg News survey of 80 economists. Excluding auto sales, purchases were little changed, the weakest performance since July 2010.

Total sales were boosted by an unexpected increase in demand at auto dealers that will not influence figures on consumer spending for the second quarter that the government will publish later this month. Increasing joblessness prompted stores like Target Corp. and Gap Inc. to sweeten discounts to lure customers as a dearth of jobs raises the risk that household purchases will have difficulty picking up for the rest of 2011.

“Consumers are cautious,” said Michelle Meyer, a senior economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York. “There is still pretty slow momentum. It still shows we’re in a fragile recovery.”

Hi.

I have decided to post the HBB to declare my new life’s goal. I think I will put it at the top of resume. Here goes:

“My goal is to use my skills as a molecular biologist and professional communicator to eradicate the human race.”

Any constructive input?

ITEM: In the second day of testimony in his semi-annual appearance before members of Congress, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has renewed the promise made yesterday that the central bank could put more monetary stimulus into play if the economic recovery stumbles.

This is “Fed-Speak” for - “We’re ready to roll with more Quantitative Easing if the economy doesn’t perk up.”

← Quantitative Easing means monetary inflating. It could ignite a serious round of price inflation. However, the huge shadow of deflation hovers over the scene as prices of big ticket items like houses and commercial property continue to drop. By some estimates real estate has another 20 percent to fall before buyers come into the market in force.

Does the Federal Reserve have the ammo to jump-start the economy if deflationary pressure doesn’t ease? We’ll find out.

Meanwhile across the pond…

Burglaries up 14% on last year, annual crime figures show British Crime Survey reports increase in domestic burglaries in England and Wales

“The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said: “After years of falling crime, these figures show the further progress people want is now at risk and there are some very worrying signs. “Burglary is up by 14%, domestic violence is up by a shocking 35%, violent crime is up, including a 38% increase in assault with minor injury.”

http://www DOT guardian.co.uk

How’s that Hope and Change working out for you now, limey wankers?

Realtors Are Liars

Anyone remember last year when “analysts” were predicting record auto sales due to “pent up demand”. Some were even predicting that 19-20 million cars would be sold.

Looks like they were wrong. Dead wrong.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-07-14/retail-sales-in-u-s-probably-stagnated-as-auto-demand-cooled.html

“Sales at U.S. retailers probably stagnated in June, reflecting declining auto demand and rising unemployment, economists said before a report today.”

“Sales of cars and light vehicle ran at a seasonally adjusted 11.41 million annual rate in June, down from 11.76 million in May and 13.14 million in April, according to researcher Autodata Corp. Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. deliveries each fell 21 percent from the same month last year, reflecting supply-chain constraints linked to Japan’s March earthquake, while General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. said sales rose 10 percent.”

I love how they blamed the drop in Toyota and Honda sales on the earthquake, as if there wasn’t plent of inventory on the dealer lots, and in transit, not to mention that Toyota and Honda assemble many of their models in North America with high domestic content.

How about … car sales dropped as prices rose dramatically while buyer incomes dropped?

Gotta save some monies…

Merck job cuts set to accelerate July 14, 2011 — By Tracy Staton- FiercePharma

Merck’s ($MRK) long-planned job cuts are set to accelerate. The company announced its intent to shed some 15,000 jobs by 2012 last year, but thousands of those jobs have yet to go. Sources tell Pharmalot that Merck plans to amp up its layoff process soon, probably early next month.

Merck announced the cuts in the wake of its 2009 merger with Schering-Plough. The idea was to save some $3.5 billion by slashing the payroll by 10% and shuttering facilities. Such an enormous restructuring plan takes time, of course, and as of March, Merck still had about 8,000 jobs remaining to be cut, Pharmalot figures.

Sign up for our FREE newsletter for more news like this sent to your inbox!

Now, the layoffs will speed up, the blog’s sources said. And they may not end with the announced 15,000. Company insiders tell Pharmalot that officials may want to cut the workforce even more than they had planned. Merck execs are combing operations for more ways to save money, they say. Merck itself declined comment.

heheeeheeeheehaahaaahaaheeehaahaaa… (Hwy50™)

Voters blame Shrub more than Obama for the economy:
By Holly Bailey | The Ticket – 3 hrs ago

Voters are increasingly displeased with President Obama’s handling of the economy, but a new poll finds most Americans still think George W. Shrub is responsible for the nation’s di$mal financial $tate.

A Country in Denial About Taxes:
Leonard Burman The Impertinent Economist

“Back in the olden days, we acknowledged that wars cost money and didn’t think that our children should pay the entire cost, with interest. (Imagine that!) There were huge tax increases to finance World War II and the Korean War, and fairly significant ones to pay for Vietnam.”

Hundreds scramble for Dallas County rental vouchers
by CYNTHIA VEGA and REBECCA LOPEZ WFAA July 14, 2011

DALLAS — At least eight people were hurt Thursday morning while scrambling to line up for a limited number of Dallas County rental vouchers — after waiting for hours in their cars.

People lined up Thursday morning to apply for Dallas County Section 8 housing vouchers. Dallas County sheriff’s spokesman Kim Leach estimated the crowd at about 5,000.

The office at the Jesse Owens Memorial Complex wasn’t supposed to open until 8 a.m., but some applicants started lining up at 10 o’clock Wednesday night.

Police kept people off school district property until the gates opened at 6 a.m. That resulted in a long string of cars lined up on the streets.

Doors were opened early.

Hundreds of people rushed the line, causing moments of unruliness.

“I started running and I slipped and fell,” said applicant Jordan Spivey, who suffered cuts and scrapes as she was caught up in the crowd. But she said she feels lucky that she wasn’t trampled.

“It was a madhouse,” said applicant Ada McKinsey, who was injured as the crowd closed in around the door. “People pushing, fighting.”

But authorities eventually gained control.

Seven people were treated by paramedics. None were taken to the hospital.

Report: Obama MIA in Latin America
By Paul Bedard USNEWS - July 14, 2011

Add Latin America to the list of regions upset with President Obama’s lack of follow-through on campaign and White House promises.

“Whatever changes Obama’s presence may have introduced into the White House, Latin America remains forgotten,” says prominent author and journalist Marco Gandasegui Jr. in a new and scathing report in the influential Latin American Perspectives. “Most observers agree that, for Obama, Latin America continues to be terra incognita.”

In his critical review of Obama’s presidency, the University of Panama professor says that Latin leaders, especially pro-Democracy advocates, have been let down by the administration. They expected Obama to lift the Cuban embargo, lessen the U.S. military influence in several nations and support democracy efforts. But so far, nada.

“After his two years in office, most observers in the region agree that the United States has yet to deliver in three areas: ending the Cuban embargo, respecting democratic institutions (Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador), and abandoning its military agenda (e.g., the Colombia Plan, the Mérida Initiative, and the Fourth Fleet),” writes Gandasegui.

“In the first two years of Obama’s administration Latin America was practically erased from the map in the White House,” he adds.

The Bernank’s head must be spinning… Is he or isn’t he?

Bernanke: No Plans Now for Bond Purchases (Bloomberg)

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke told Congress that the central bank isn’t currently ready to embark on a third round of government bond-buying to stimulate the economy.

“We’re not prepared at this point to take further action,” Bernanke said today, in response to a question from Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson, a Democrat from South Dakota. Johnson asked Bernanke why the Fed wasn’t immediately starting a new stimulus program given the weak economic recovery and rising unemployment.

Stocks fell, driving the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index to the lowest level of the month. The S&P declined 0.7 percent to 1,308.25 at 1:18 p.m. in New York after rising as much as 0.7 percent. Gold futures pared gains after reaching a record $1,594.90 an ounce.

In House testimony yesterday, he said the Fed still has tools to spur growth, and that “we have to keep all the options on the table,” driving share prices higher. Bernanke told Senators today that policy makers want to see if the economy rebounds as anticipated in the coming months, and that they are keeping a close eye on inflation.

Should the economy turn out to be weaker than expected, the central bank may provide more monetary stimulus, Bernanke said. A third round of quantitative easing, or QE3, is an option if a recent economic slowdown persists and deflationary forces re- emerge, he said.

News Corp. (Fox) charged by FBI for illegal wire taps etc..
Watch out! According to Glen Beck this was THE sign of the Armageddon!

Seriously, this is really big if it breaks up the Empire.

D.C. Firefighters To Help Police Streets?
NBC Washington - Jul 14, 2011

Firefighters are upset about a proposal asking them to help police streets so teenagers don’t get robbed.

Both D.C. firefighters and police officers are upset over a new program that forces the fire department to help fight crime.

For the past three weeks, D.C. Fire and EMS personnel have been parking their trucks at high crime neighborhoods.

“It’s to prevent things from bubbling up. The idea is that if you have a fire engine with adults there no one is going to commit a crime,” said D.C. Deputy Mayor Paul Quander.

City officials said they just want firefighters to call 911 if they see suspicious activity.

The D.C. police union and firefighters union say the plan is not safe.

“I think it is a disaster,” said D.C. Police Union spokesman Kris Baumann. “You’re putting untrained, unsupervised, unequipped firefighters in some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in town to perform a law enforcement function.”

Right now, the plan is to keep the policy in place at least through next spring.

Don’t worry boyz the Bernank will come though for you, just jerking your chain a little that’s all. Bidness as usual.

Wall Street sags on new Bernanke talk, Nasdaq off 1 percent

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Thursday as new comments from the Federal Reserve chairman dashed investors’ hopes for the chance of further stimulus and tech shares pushed the Nasdaq down 1 percent.

During a second day of testimony about the economy, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke reiterated that the U.S. central bank would be ready to inject more money should the economy get worse. But he told a Senate committee that the time had not come yet and noted inflation had picked up since late 2010.

Stocks had climbed on Wednesday as investors took Bernanke’s remarks before a House panel as signaling the possibility of more stimulus for the economy if the outlook worsens. The central bank’s most recent stimulative program contributed to strong equity gains since September.

“Bernanke has backed off considerably from what might have been more stimulus, and that made yesterday’s rally like eating sugar for lunch: Nothing more than a short burst of energy,” said Kent Engelke, chief economic strategist at Capitol Securities Management in Richmond, Virginia.

Prediction:

Playing hardball on the debt ceiling will blow up on the Retardicans.

Lawmakers snipe, Wall St. frets as deadline nears
Associated Press | AP – 2 hrs 29 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Testy lawmakers pointed fingers at one another and President Barack Obama on Thursday as negotiations over raising the national debt limit entered a perilous endgame. Wall Street eyed the standoff with growing anxiety, warning of catastrophe if the U.S. defaults on its obligations.

Obama’s blunt declaration that “enough is enough” as Wednesday’s talks ended did nothing to quell the rancor as a new day of positioning and posturing began.
…
Despite McConnell’s assertions that the debt problem belongs to Obama, fresh polling from Quinnipiac University suggested voters would be more apt to hold Republicans responsible than Obama, by 48 percent to 34 percent, if the debt limit is not raised. The same survey showed voters were about evenly split on whether they’re more concerned about raising the limit and increasing government debt, or seeing the government go into default and damaging the economy.

“The American people aren’t very happy about their leaders, but President Barack Obama is viewed as the best of the worst, especially when it comes to the economy,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of Quinnipiac’s Polling Institute.

That helps explain why McConnell put forward a plan that would give Obama new powers to overcome Republican opposition to raising the debt ceiling.

The proposal would place the burden on Obama to win debt ceiling increases up to three times, provided he was able to override congressional vetoes — a threshold Obama could manage to overcome even without a single Republican vote and without massive spending cuts. Conservatives promptly criticized the plan for giving up the leverage to reduce deficits. But the plan raised the prospect of combining it with some of the spending cuts already identified by the White House in order to win support from conservatives in the House.

In an interview with radio talk-show host Laura Ingraham, McConnell described his plan in stark political terms, warning fellow conservatives that failure to raise the debt limit would probably ensure Obama’s re-election in 2012. He predicted that a default would allow Obama to argue that Republicans were making the economy worse.

“You know, it’s an argument he has a good chance of winning, and all of a sudden we (Republicans) have co-ownership of a bad economy,” McConnell said. “That’s a very bad positioning going into an election.”
…

‘Depressed’ Ferret Flees Siberian Circus
The Moscow Times - 14 July 2011

A ferret has escaped a circus in the East Siberian city of Chita along with a monkey and a red-breasted parakeet — apparently because they all were feeling down due to bad weather.

“We believe the creatures have fled because of their depression — the rain in Chita just doesn’t stop,” the circus’ art director, Zhanna Lazerson, told Interfax on Thursday.

“We found the monkey in a doghouse in the morning, and the two animals were cuddling in their sleep,” she said. “But the search for the ferret and the parakeet goes on.”

She said the escape has added to the animals’ depression in the circus because the male parakeet was partnered on stage with a female parakeet who is now missing him.

The ferret is less missed, with Lazerson calling him a “terrible glutton, idle to the core.”

Nevertheless, the troupe hopes that the animals will return to their circus home once they get really hungry.

Weather forecasts say the rain won’t let up in Chita this week.

Google Shares Jump After-Hours After Search Giant Tops Earnings Forecasts- CNBC

Google shares jumped after-hours after the search giant delivered a blowout quarter, beating on both earnings and revenue. Google

Hang in there Mo, you can wear them down!

Qaddafi Lives Up to Wily Reputation - bloomberg

As foreign envoys converge on Istanbul to discuss yet again how to get rid of Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator is living up to his reputation for cunning by hanging on longer than any of them had predicted.

For all the early talk of days-not-weeks to the endgame, Qaddafi has survived four months of NATO bombings and confounded diplomats with his mixture of bluffs and threats. It’s the same bag of tricks Qaddafi has used to keep more than 100 tribes under control since taking power in a military coup in 1969.

“The man is a fox,” said Karim Mezran, a Libyan exile and a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna, Italy. “He’s adept at running rings around his enemies. He’s done it for decades and he’s doing it again.”

The future of the North African nation without Qaddafi and how to fund and arm the impoverished rebels trying to end his four-decade rule has been at the crux of the past four monthly meetings of the 22-nation Libya Contact Group. The Turks host the latest round tomorrow.

The problem is they’ve underestimated his resilience and, even if his eventual ouster is inevitable, he could hang on for months even amid fuel shortages, according to Mezran.

Since the last meeting in Abu Dhabi, Turkey has become the 26th nation to recognize the rebels’ Benghazi-based National Transitional Council. The U.S. is not one of them. Legislation to give rebels access to frozen Libyan assets is stalled in the U.S. Senate, adding to the prospect that the rebels will run out of cash to buy food and supplies.

The head moonbat does not want to go to Camp David…

Pelosi Says She’s ‘Almost Too Busy’ to Continue Listening to Debt Talks
Thursday, July 14, 2011

(CNSNews.com) – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she is “almost too busy” to continue listening to what is going on in the debt limit meetings at the White House with congressional leaders.

At a Capitol Hill press conference on Thursday Pelosi said, “Day in and day out, the president has respectfully listened, accommodated, engaged in conversation in a very informed way and he is the president of the United States. I know he’s busy.”

“I myself am almost too busy to continue listening to some of the things that are going on in that room,” said Pelosi. “So I know he must be very busy. But he has treated everyone there with great dignity. The only thing I hope he doesn’t ask us to do is go to Camp David. That goes beyond the pale. Driving down the street for these meetings is one thing –.”

New vault may be necessary to store unpopular dollar coins

BALTIMORE (ABC News Radio) - The U.S. Mint in Philadelphia is a big, noisy, busy operation, capable of minting nearly 2 million presidential dollar coins daily. But most of those coins go into storage, never seeing the light of day. Costing 32 cents apiece to produce, these manganese brass dollars have proven unpopular with a public that prefers paper.

ABC News went to one such storage facility, the Federal Reserve in Baltimore, where the coins are in plastics bags and cardboard boxes, stacked one on top of another, creating several aisles of presidential coinage worth millions of dollars.

In their most recent annual report to Congress, the Federal Reserve says the coins are piling up so quickly they will need to spend $650,000 to build a new vault in Dallas to hold them. Shipping the coins to the new secure facility will cost an additional $3 million.

Passed by Congress in 2005, the Presidential $1 Coin Act ordered the mint to make millions of coins to honor every dead president, but not even Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., one of the co-sponsors of the original bill, uses the legal tender.

“Do you use these things? Do you have any of these things in your pocket?” Reed was asked by ABC News’ Jonathan Karl while holding the dollar coins. “I don’t I tell you, but I like everyone else repeatedly use nickels, dimes, quarters. In fact I have a little jar in my car for the traffic meters.”

Reed and other senators sent a letter this week to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Mint Acting Director Richard Peterson asking for help in improving the program while eliminating waste of taxpayer resources.

Meanwhile, the coins keep coming off the production lines, already more than a billion made and counting. The Fed’s report estimates that they could have more than $2 billion in excess $1 coins by the time the program is expected to end five years from now.

Google Searches May Affect Memory: Yahoo News

Internet searches are making information easy to forget, as more people rely on their computers as a type of “external memory,” a study of Harvard University students found.

About 60 Harvard students were asked to type 40 pieces of trivia, such as “An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain,” into computers, and were told either the information would be saved or erased. People who believed the data would be saved were less likely to remember, according to the study published online by the journal Science.

The widely available Internet has made it an instant go-to library where facts and figures are easily found, the researchers said. The study suggests that search engines such as Google Inc. and databases such as Amazon.com Inc IMDb.com serve as an external “memory, where information is stored collectively outside ourselves,” they said.

“We are becoming symbiotic with our computer tools, growing into interconnected systems,” the authors wrote in the paper. “We have become dependent on them to the same degree we are on all the knowledge we gain from our friends and coworkers — and lose if they are out of touch.”

I will be flying in a week with the whole family, and I’m already getting pissed thinking about the security stuff.