Bits Bucket for July 21, 2011
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Mortgage applications see biggest increase in 4 months
(Reuters) - Applications for home mortgages surged last week, racking up the biggest increase in four months on a flood of refinancing demand as interest rates remained low, 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, spiked up 15.5 percent in the week ended July 15. It was the largest increase since early March.
“Ongoing turmoil in the financial markets primarily due to the sovereign debt crisis in Europe has brought mortgage rates back to their lowest levels of the year,” Michael Fratantoni, MBA’s vice president of research and economics, said in a statement. “Refinance applications have surged in response.”
The MBA’s seasonally adjusted index of refinancing applications soared 23.1 percent, but the gauge of loan requests for home purchases dipped 0.1 percent.
The refinance share of mortgage activity rose to 70.1 percent of total applications from 65.6 percent the week before.
Fixed 30-year mortgage rates averaged 4.54 percent, easing from 4.55 percent.
Perhaps they are trying to capture the mortgage interest deduction before this pet REIC tax giveaway ends?
Deficit Compromise Opens the Door for Huge Cutbacks in Mortgage Deduction
Published: July 20, 2011
By Steve Cook
Real Estate Economy Watch
The “Gang of Six” compromise on the federal deficit that has been endorsed by President Obama mandates the most significant reductions in the mortgage interest deduction in the 98 years it has been in effect.
A memo outlining the broad strokes of the plan obtained by Real Estate Economy Watch authorizes the congressional finance committees to “Reform, not eliminate, tax expenditures for health, charitable giving, homeownership, and retirement, and retain support for low-income workers and families” in order to achieve $1 trillion additional revenues.
Though exactly how the proposed budget reform package will affect the mortgage interest deduction won’t be known until the “Gang of Six” proposal is turned into legislation, significant changes for the MID are in store if it passes, and maybe not even then.
This afternoon Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reported ge got a call from Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf, who said the plan would take at least two weeks to score for cost and savings, putting the completion of that work just beyond the Aug. 2 deadline. Reid called the plan “wonderful” and said he does not want to diminish enthusiasm over it, but said alternatives still must be considered.
According to the latest estimates prepared by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, the mortgage-interest deduction will cost the government $99.8 billion in uncollected taxes this fiscal year and $107.3 billion in fiscal 2012. To achieve significant revenues, the compromise must reduce eligibility.
…
It is interesting to see the concept of things not taxed as being “government expenditures” creep into common usage. Like “debt reduction” meaning more debt, just not as much more. We seem to be getting better at double speak than our old evil enemy the USSR with their “peaceful coexistence”.
I’m not sure I’d call it doublespeak, Blue. It’s almost as if the country is developing a collective unconscious consensus of what taxes “should” be, and deductions or breaks or tax holidays are seen as deviations from what taxes “should” be.
Now, what taxes “should” be is up for debate. To make it easy, you could set a flat tax and eliminate deviations from that, but the consensus doesn’t seem to agree with that. Not all industries or incomes are create equal, so why should the tax structure be equal for them? Should Needs industries be taxed more? Or income from foreign markets, or the profit came from outsourcing jobs? Should passing down the family farm to Junior be taxed as much as Paris Hilton’s cash inheritance? I think the country is going to do some heavy thinking about this.
“Doublespeak is language which pretends to communicate but doesn’t. It is language which makes the bad seem good, the negative seem positive, the unpleasant seem unattractive, or at least tolerable. It is language which avoids, shifts or denies responsibility; language which is at variance with its real or purported meaning. It is language which conceals or prevents thought.
“Doublespeak is all around us. We are asked to check our packages at the desk ‘for our convenience’ when it’s not for our convenience at all but for someone else’s convenience. We see advertisements for ‘preowned,’ ‘experienced’ or ‘previously distinguished’ cars, not used cars and for ‘genuine imitation leather,’ ‘virgin vinyl’ or ‘real counterfeit diamonds.’”
(William Lutz, “Doubts About Doublespeak.” State Government News, July 1993)
“It’s almost as if the country is developing a collective unconscious consensus”
Concensus of a few regarding what should be is not a reference point for what is. I believe that is the failing of Narcissism, modern “science” and politics.
If there is a concensus, in my travels the theme is that government has grown into a corrupt and ravenous predator, that taxation and wealth transfer are beyond reasonable limits, and that the path of ruinous debt must be reversed. I suspect that is a polar opposite from what the concensus of the drones is over at the hive.
The mortgage interest deduction is welfare for the wealthy. Is that a sufficiently simple explanation?
The mortgage interest deduction is welfare for the middle class maybe, but not for the rich, unless you equate debt with wealth. You are not going to tax rich people more in general by removing it.
It is a government provided incentive to buy a house with debt.
The mortgage interest deduction is welfare for the middle class maybe, but not for the rich, unless you equate debt with wealth. You are not going to tax rich people more in general by removing it.
Thanks for your version of doublespeak.
Really, how do you figure? It helps my BIL in Jersey, with his $350K mortgaged house. He’d hardly be considered “rich”. My take is that anybody living in a mortgaged mansion is not rich, but is pretending to be with debt. I am thinking that rich people have obvious other ways to shelter any interest payments they may have for investment purposes.
So because you think that the truely rich have other ways to shelter at least a portion of their income, they don’t use the mortgage interest deduction too?
Really, how do you figure?
Usually with a calculator and math.
I’m not for the MID at all. Eliminating it will make for a more natural housing market. It will put the pinch on mostly middle class folks. The rich will shift strategy, should they actually live in houses they cannot afford like us common folk. I know there are lots of stories of hollywood mortgages gone bad, but the solidly rich people that I know do not borrow for their primary residence.
I know there are lots of stories of hollywood mortgages gone bad, but the solidly rich people that I know do not borrow for their primary residence.
A couple of friends died within a year of each other. They were husband and wife and the husband died first from cancer. Wife then grieved herself to death.
Wife’s mother lived with them, and, I heard, went back to Chicago to live with her other daughter. AFAIK, if the mother is still living, she’s in Chicago.
The house, in Oro Valley, Arizona, sold last year. Price was about $500k and the buyers paid cash.
First off, the wealthy usually have a shell corporation buy the house, from which they lease.
As they themselves, are also personally incorporated, they get tax break for the “business” lease.
The shell corp get the MID and the “occupants” get a business deduction.
Very often, they will also get a farm subsidy if the property is big enough and they have, say, “x” number of fruit tree on the property.
Now they’re getting three deductions.
Add to that, another business deduction as they also claim their residence as the place they do business from.
The rich do NOT EVEN live in our world and you can’t apply the rules for us to them or you will make some seriously wrong assumptions.
And yesterday they reported a big drop in home sales.
Layoffs Deepen Gloom - FT
Companies are laying off employees at a level not seen in nearly a year, hobbling the job market and intensifying fears about the pace of the economic recovery.
Cisco Systems Inc., Lockheed Martin Corp. and troubled bookstore chain Borders Group Inc. are among those that have recently announced hefty cuts, while recent government numbers underscore how companies have shifted toward cutting jobs.
The increase in layoffs is a key reason why the U.S. recorded an average of only 21,500 new jobs over the past two months, far below the level needed to bring down unemployment, which now stands at 9.2%.
I wonder who is hiring thousands of MBAs being produced in these MBA factories as part-time, full-time, executive, weekend MBAs etc. These colleges charge close to $100K to sell the degree and 2-3 years of your life. Are these MBAs getting the worth of their degree or are just waiting and repenting for loss of money/time.
I met a friend who did MBA after his BS in electrical and he says he was better off doing an MS in electrical and being hands on rather than this most non value added degree he got from a medium tired univ. ranked around 45-50 in the US. No jobs he mentioned. STarting salaries have dipped to 70-80K from a high of 12-130K a few years back.
Is this MBA backlash? Are these as good as BA now? Is it really worth getting MBA in these times?
Great expectations abound around the world.
Can China’s economy absorb 6 million graduates?
BBC
China’s economy continues to boom which means there are low levels of unemployment, but one of the big changes to the country’s job market in recent years is the increasing number of university graduates seeking work.
There are now six times as many graduates as there were a decade ago - over six million in total. The figure is the highest number of graduates anywhere in the world.
But while there are greater opportunities than before, the competition is getting tougher.
The real challenge is getting a good job.
This year, more than 1.4 million people applied for civil service jobs when there were only 16,000 positions on offer.
Despite only graduating last month, Zhang Hui Li said she had already applied for 30 jobs.
“Some of my friends have applied for more than 100,” she said.
The authorities are trying to slow down the expansion of higher education.
“They realise it’s a problem to produce students with high expectations,” said Zhang Dong Hui, an associate professor of public policy at Renmin University in Beijing.
China needs teachers and health care providers. It can use all the graduates in these fields it can get.
They can import Americans on H1-B!
Yes, people with high expectations are definitely the problem. The world stops functioning properly once peons start expecting material comfort.
But while there are greater opportunities than before, the competition is getting tougher.
The real challenge is getting a good job.
A trend we will see increasingly around the world is that only graduates from prestigious schools will be able to get a “good job” (and even that is not a guarantee).
All other college grads will have to settle for underemployment, doing work that high school graduates did in the not too distant past. In other countries, where higher ed is free to very low cost this won’t be too much of an issue, but in the super pricey USA it will be a big problem as graduates will be burdened with student loans to pay off.
Hmm…interesting implications for the higher ed industry.
“Despite only graduating last month, Zhang Hui Li said she had already applied for 30 jobs.
“Some of my friends have applied for more than 100,” she said.
I think wee need to worry more about our people who have applied for over 300 jobs and still can’t find work.
The majority of these 2nd, 3rd, 4th tier school MBA students will likely be disappointed. I transferred from private Xavier U’s MBA program to a state school to complete a MAcc both because I doubted the value of that degree and because my then-employer, TARP Bank was funding much of my tuition and required 3 years of subsequent employment with TARP Bank for tuition assistance to be fully vested.
I wonder who is hiring thousands of MBAs being produced in these MBA factories as part-time, full-time, executive, weekend MBAs etc.
As a graduate of one of these programs, I can tell you … nobody is hiring … and I got my degree in the still go go year of 2005. I went to the career fairs and the only people hiring were interested only in young 20 somethings with Bachelor’s degrees.
In our class of 35 students, only 3 were able to get a job (a young gal) or change careers. The two who changed careers were eventually laid off from their new jobs.
I suppose that with the way things are going, you’ll soon need an MBA to hawk cell phones at Best Buy or to be an assistant manager ($10/hr) at an Old Navy store..
Young Engineers get MBA’s if they want to make more money and move up faster at the company.
Older Engineers get MBAs if they want to get laid off
“Older Engineers get MBAs if they want to get laid off”
They get laid off either way.
Back in the early 1990s, I had an acquaintance who got an MBA in the University of Arizona’s entrepreneurship program. Very good program, BTW.
However, in the early 1990s, Arizona’s economy was in the dumps. This guy’s first post-MBA job was taking consumer surveys outside of a fast food restaurant. Needless to say, he was pretty disappointed in his employment.
I wonder who is hiring thousands of MBAs being produced in these MBA factories as part-time, full-time, executive, weekend MBAs etc. These colleges charge close to $100K to sell the degree and 2-3 years of your life. Are these MBAs getting the worth of their degree or are just waiting and repenting for loss of money/time.
I met a friend who did MBA after his BS in electrical and he says he was better off doing an MS in electrical and being hands on rather than this most non value added degree he got from a medium tired univ. ranked around 45-50 in the US. No jobs he mentioned. STarting salaries have dipped to 70-80K from a high of 12-130K a few years back.
Is this MBA backlash? Are these as good as BA now? Is it really worth getting MBA in these times?
I was one of those people. It’s been almost 10 years now since I finished my MBA. I also have a BSEE. It was mostly a cargo cult thing for me, but I don’t regret it. The company paid for it and it was worth the time for me.
One problem is that I was in a fairly large company and they were a dime a dozen. Now I’m in a smaller company of people who are very close to the product (rather than having many layers of management and management wannabes) and I’m finding them to be much more impressed by it. So we’ll see if it becomes more valuable for me in the future.
I wonder who is hiring thousands of MBAs being produced in these MBA factories as part-time, full-time, executive, weekend MBAs etc.
I have no idea about getting a job because I never really had one but for those who are smart and want to run your own business think about forgetting MBA’s or maybe even undergrad business degrees or even college if your business interest wouldn’t require it.
Read some books on your subject, on business, research, and start your thing small and work your butt off. I don’t thing an MBA, the the debt it costs will give you any advantage at all when it comes to certain types of small business start ups.
I’ve always had my own businesses. I have hard science and social science degrees which were probably just as useful to me as business degrees would have been.
During my MBA program there was a big emphasis on entrepreneurship, and a few profs told us to not count on getting a “job”.
This is good news the sooner these MBA grads can see that they have very little chance of becoming the next CEO of GS the better. Then maybe they will stop voting to give these MF tax breaks and roll back regulation, and credit for outsourcing jobs.
At some level, as long as CEOs get “lottery winner” compensation packages, there will be a surpluss of people trying to get those jobs, just like all those waiters who are trying to be actors in Hollywood.
Is this MBA backlash? Are these as good as BA now? Is it really worth getting MBA in these times?
You can learn much of what the MBA curriculum offers for free. Yup, that’s right. Free.
Here’s a book to get you started: The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business by Josh Kaufman. Your library probably has it.
My take: The business-y parts of the book are okay and the economic rationale for not getting an MBA parts are superb. But there’s a lot of what appears to be psychology dressed up in a business suit. And that stuff bored the heck outta me.
My son is graduating soon with his “B” branding and will be making $104,000 / yr. When I got mine I made an extremely well paid $32,500.
His fellow grads will be averaging it seems about $80,000 with some as low as $46,000.
It is a popular degree to combine with P.Eng or Acctg.
With the end of the obama stimulus money pork give aways - many local/county/state government officies are starting to lay off government workers - who have mostly been spared so far in this recession.
It was supposed to get people through until the “V” shaped recovery got state and local revenues back up. Similar to what we discussed yesterday relating to bank balance sheets and holding on to real estate.
Oops.
I’m not sure who the actual employer is (probably various contractors), but a radio report this morning said 9,000 people are getting lay off notices in the next few days because of the end of the last shuttle mission.
Ugh…..and much of that 9000 probably reside in two of the already most hard hit states of FL and CA.
Of all the dumb things America can do is to end the shuttle mission and lay those people off….
The space program has the highest ROI of anything the guvmint spends money on….plus these are the cream of the crop..so how many can get jobs as janitors tomorrow?
And their skills won’t be all that transferable.
I know a guy who worked on the Apollo program. When it ended thousands of engineers found themselves unable to continue working in their field. Some were so specialized that they couldn’t even find technical work at all. My friend tells me he knew guys that had to get jobs as (union) grocery store clerks and never worked as engineers again.
I’m sure china, N. Korea, and iran are hiring.
I’m sure china, N. Korea, and iran are hiring.
Nah, they’re doing it the old fashioned way: industrial espionage.
“I’m not sure who the actual employer is (probably various contractors), but a radio report this morning said 9,000 people are getting lay off notices in the next few days because of the end of the last shuttle mission.”
My uncle got his notice a few months ago for that very reason. Fortunately he was able to find work again (in the defense industry), but he knows he is one of the lucky ones, and that luck may not hold.
Sometimes getting laid off first is a boon.
“Layoffs Deepen Gloom”
Breathe deep the gathering gloom…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgakV8o8yJM
CA Tech profit up but 500 layoffs planned
- Newsday
CA Technologies’ latest earnings report had some good news for investors but some not-so-good news for employees.
Revenue and net income rose in its fiscal first quarter, but the company plans to cut up to 500 jobs, the Islandia-based software company announced Wednesday after the stock markets closed.
The Bottomless Stockholder Maw MUST. BE. FED.
It’s the invisble hand of modern capitalism baby! Hiring people is so 1990’s.
But then they act all surprised when individuals cut back on discretionary spending.
Dang it Mr. and Mrs. Consumer! Be confident, borrow and spend! China and Corporate America are counting on you!
These are critical themes for the HBB. I have reached the threshhold where I will likely never buy. While laid off I was able to pay my rent with half of my monthly unemployment. While working I am able to pay my rent with 14% of my monthly income.
As I find it reasonably possible to be laid off again within 5 months, why should I spend money on anything? And the REIC threats of rising rents induce, at best, a weak laugh.
“But then they act all surprised when individuals cut back on discretionary spending.”
And there it is, really. The rational reaction to uncertainty is saving, not spending. The more people that become rational, the worse the spending will be. Plus, the longer the uncertainty lasts, the more people have time to become rational.
Its that duration thing again.
You don’t need much duration. People sometimes wonder what would happend if consumers went on a spending boycott — ha ha how would the businesses like it then?
We already conducted that experiment — in September and October 2001, when everybody holed up after 9/11. The result wasn’t pretty. The $500/week crowd was pretty much all laid off for a couple months. Vegas pretty much shut down.
For Sammy:
Lawyer: Cop scanner ‘crosses line’
Civil libertarians are raising the alarm over the state’s plans to create a Big Brother database that could map drivers’ whereabouts with police cruiser-mounted scanners that capture thousands of license plates per hour — storing that information indefinitely where local cops, staties, feds and prosecutors could access it as they choose.
“It’s great for canvassing an area, say after a homicide if you are looking for a particular plate,” said Chelsea police Capt. Keith Houghton. “You can plug it in, and drive up and down side streets. It sounds an alarm if you get a hit”
Has a Sarah Connor feel to it…
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1353264
Feels like Sarah Connor and the Left Behind Series about religious Armageddon.
I think that is perfectly legal, but will be hard to fund.
Plates are public, in plain sight. People can already take photographs of things in public. The scale is what’s scary, but I find this to be reasonable.
I can see the smart crooks using it as an alibi.
Plates are public, in plain sight.
And not optional. That’s the difference.
It’s not something you can say “if you don’t want to be tracked, don’t have something to uniquely identify yourself”.
Ask yourself this question - what if it was a unique identifier required to be on each human, and publicly visible (as plates are)?
There is a long precedent saying that the government has the right to regulate vehicles driving on public roads. Those license plates are there for the benefit of the government. For law enforcement and tax enforcement.
Strangely, I’m not worried about this. Oh wait, no car. You’ll see me out protesting when they require bikes to have plates though. Then shoe licenses.
You’ll see me out protesting when they require bikes to have plates though. Then shoe licenses.
at least you can see where this heads. Riding a bike is a privilege (on public roads, just like cars..funny how that argument only applies to cars).
Oh, you’re walking on public sidewalks. Well, you need not only a license to be able to do that, but you’ll need to register each pair of shoes, and they must be uniquely identified.
Peoples’ disdain for cars blinds them to what’s actually going on here. We are free to move about the country, but only if the gov’t can track us and know exactly where we go.
What freedom!
It’s hard to view this as anything but the wet dream of a police state. If the information wasn’t being kept indefinitely, or was only kept long enough to act on a current search or arrest warrant, I might feel differently.
The Supreme Court ruled in the 1990s that keeping a data base on people who were not convicted criminals and for purposes other than directly related to their crime and conviction, by the police without their consent, was unconstitutional.
I know. It was an acquaintance of mine that won the case.
hm, interesting.
Realtors Are Liars
Realtors Are Drug Dealers:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-robert-morris-crystal-meth-20110721,0,2759430.story
What a pathetic POS. Realtors are drug trafficking now.
For Polly:
In an economy with 9.2% unemployment, job security is hard to come by. That is unless you work for the federal government.
An analysis by USA Today found the job security rate for government employees at many federal agencies last year was more than 99%. And these workers are more likely to die than to lose their jobs to a layoff or firing. The federal government only fired about one half of a percent of its workforce last year. The private sector in contrast fires about 3% of workers annually for performance.
Just to give you a few examples: At the Small Business Administration, which employs about 4,000, six people were fired last year but there were no layoffs. Seventeen employees died. Not a single federal attorney was laid off last year - there are about 35,000 of them. Just 27 were fired, 33 died. At both the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission, not a single employee was fired or laid off last year.
http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/20/what-does-it-mean-that-federal-workers-are-more-likely-to-die-than-lose-their-jobs/
“And these workers are more likely to die than to lose their jobs to a layoff or firing.”
Tentative conclusion: Many government workers are geezers?
The federal government has had a wave of retirements of people hired before 1980, and hasn’t been able to hire anyone decent for 30 years. The recession likely saved it from a personnel-related collapse.
We have lots of great people hired recently and when I was hired and during the years before I was hired. But, yes, a recession does make hiring for government workers easier since people value the security more so the low salaries are less of an issue.
And I don’t know anything about the SBA, but people in my agency can assuredly get fired. It doesn’t happen often because we hire good people, help them learn to do the job and don’t need to do layoffs because the amount of work that needs to be done is always growing. Always. We are going to be hurting if the people who are thinking about retirement actually do it over the next few years and we aren’t allowed to replace them. Actually we’ll be hurting even if we do replace them. Newbies can’t get through as much as people with 35 or more years of experience, no matter how smart the newbies are.
I have friends who work for HUD, and they were facing mass retirements not too long ago as the whole staff was hired at once back in the day.
And an entire division at the U.S. Census Bureau I used to work with retired at once.
since people value the security more so the low salaries are less of an issue.”
this higher salaries for private workers you always mention is only for the highly skilled like lawyers which I think you are.
Common labor is much cheaper in the private sector.
Engineers ? I don’t know? Does the government hire Engineers / I used to work for Aerospace and we had source inspectors maybe government workers? Totaly stupid but I think they all got laid off in the 1990’s
ISTR that satisfying ones idle curiosity by looking at the returns of the famous is the traditional way to get fired from the IRS in a heartbeat.
“Common labor is much cheaper in the private sector. ”
The federal government doesn’t hire a lot of common labor. State and local governments may, but the federal government doesn’t have a lot of call for it. Unless you are thinking of a few of the security types. Then again, standing outside all day in 100 degree heat wearing a black uniform and 30 pounds of gear while checking cars for explosives with a K9 “partner” isn’t the same as watching a bank of video screens from 11 PM to 7 AM
Unless you are thinking of a few of the security types.”
“Clerk at Social security ” have a relative large fat lazy and gets better pay than say a Bank teller and has been there 20 years. I would never beleive this person could last 20 years at any private industry.
“The recession likely saved it from a personnel-related collapse.”
This prospect is not yet out of the question, IMO. The flip-side of having a workforce where people are more likely to die than to retire is that workers who cannot afford to retire hang on until they drop. If the cohort of folks hired circa 1980 is too large, you could have a point when attrition coupled with a federal hiring freeze rendered many federal government agencies utterly dysfunctional. And I am sure many Republicans would cheer the day.
“The federal government has had a wave of retirements of people hired before 1980, and hasn’t been able to hire anyone decent for 30 years.”
That’s just B.S. Most of the best workers in my agency were hired since 1980. It would be better off if more workers eligible for retirement would retire now.
Federal “contractor” employees outnumber regular federal employees.
Schmidt Builder’s Supply Stores Shutdown
Topeka, KAN. (WIBW)—A Kansas-based builder’s supply business is closing up shop. After 40 years, Schmidt Builder’s Supply is losing their stores due to foreclosure.
Mike Tumey owns Go To Guys Roofing and Remodeling. Now, Tumey says he’s the one with no one to go to.
“It’s almost like they’ve turned their back, no one wants to answer phone calls, can’t get hold of anybody,” said Tumey.
Tumey recently spent more than $6 thousand at Schmidt Builder’s Supply in north Topeka. When he went Tuesday to pick his shingles and a gutter apron for a new roofing job, he left empty-handed.
“I feel like I’m getting robbed. How else do I put it? I already paid for material, come out of clients. That’s their money,” said Tumey.
Management has released no information after all six locations posted closed for business signs Wednesday. 13 News was there when Kaw Valley bank reps began cleaning house.
“It hurts, it hurts,” said former employee, Ron Miller.
Miller says it was a great place to work. He did so as a home designer for 17 years. Miller says Schmidt’s was forced into foreclose because lots of builders did not pay their debts.
“We weren’t able to pay ours too, got us into this financial shape.”
“I was completely blown away. Figure Schmidt’s been in business for over 40 years, reputable company. I would never expect that,” said Tumey.
Instead of working on a new roof Wednesday as scheduled, Tumey and his six-man crew are trying to survive with small jobs.
“I really don’t know what I’m going to do… didn’t see it coming,” said Tuney.
We reached out to the company by phone and personal visit. So far, no word if customers like Tumey will get their materials or a refund.
“I really don’t know what I’m going to do… didn’t see it coming,” said Tuney.
Sound familiar?
He paid before taking delivery? I thought it was usually the other way around if you had an account with a supplier. I could see during these tough times that the supplier might demand payment upon delivery, but who in their right mind pays before?
Don’t corporate credit cards extend the same consumer protections as individual’s cards? I take it he did not make the down payment on a credit card, or the issuer would have given him a refund on the undelivered items.
I’m pretty sure that “business” credit cards have the all same protections…
I don’t think they do. Consider the commercial for that blue commercial credit card hawked by the woman who opened up a store selling “beer…and wine…and cupcakes…(giggle!)”
Business cards have been hawked as aggressively as yesterday’s hot dogs.
There can only be one reason. The squid gets to squeeze more blood.
Business cards have been hawked as aggressively as yesterday’s hot dogs.
There can only be one reason. The squid gets to squeeze more blood.
I get business credit card solicitations on a regular basis. It’s great fun to scribble all over them, then use the postpaid envelope to fire them right back at the megabanks that sent ‘em.
One thing I learned the hard way in construction: cash and carry ONLY. Milestone payments for work done or eff off. Pay for materials upon delivery only. When the client wants to cut corners on code, walk. You won’t lose near as much as getting fined and losing any licenses you might have.
Construction is mostly a dirty, lying, thieving business. You have to look long and hard to find the honest ones and the first rule is CYA and do what ever you have to do to get paid.
Off topic alert. Good heavens, eco! What a varied and tumultuous life you have led! From the smartest guys in the room, to HP (IIRC), to construction, to coding! Be proud. They could drop you in Siberia, and within two weeks you would be self sufficient.
I can’t remember where I read this, but I subscribe to the philosopy completely. It went like this: “you must have one skill set for a thriving economy. One skill set for an economy in decline. And one that will carry you through the coming Stone Age.” Honestly, I think you’ve got that hat trick down cold (hope I’m using that term correctly). In fact, given all the awareness about self sufficiency, newly emergent over the past decade, I think you’d make a fortune with your memoirs. Or a how-to book. You do have quite the gift for expression.
One last fave quotation, this time from Cody Lunden (that guy on teevee who is the aging hippy on Dual Survival - my guilty secret -tickles me to listen to the dialogue between the hippy and the tough Army Ranger guy!): “The more you know, the less you need”.
As debt talks intensify, Obama opens door to short-term deal to buy more time. The Washington Post - 7-21-11
White House Spokesman Jay Carney says President Barack Obama is willing to take political heat from fellow democrats in order to get a debt deal completed. He also says the GOP needs to compromise for the good of the country.
The White House concession added to a whirlwind week in which negotiations appeared to be changing daily. At first, leaders were focused on a fallback plan that would raise the debt ceiling but do little to control future borrowing. Then they started considering an ambitious, but complicated, bipartisan strategy for raising taxes and cutting cherished health and retirement programs.
Progress scarce as debt limit impasse continues
By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press – 4 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Progress remains elusive as official Washington grapples day after day for a way out of a debt dilemma that has the government sliding toward a first-ever default on its financial obligations.
President Barack Obama met with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, at the White House for 90 minutes on Wednesday, but neither side would comment afterward.
…
…momentum on a separate bipartisan budget plan by the Senate’s “Gang of Six” seemed to ebb Wednesday as critics warned the measure contains larger tax increases than advertised and it became plain that the measure comes too late and is too controversial to advance quickly — particularly as a part of a debt limit package that already would be teetering on a knife’s edge.
Absent a breakthrough between Obama and Republicans, there is a hotly contested backup plan by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., that would give Obama broad new powers to obtain increases in the government’s borrowing unless blocked by veto-proof two-thirds margins in both the House and Senate.
Many conservative Republicans are in an uproar over the McConnell plan, and more than 70 House members signed a letter circulated by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, promising to oppose the proposal.
In a shift, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Obama would back a short-term deal to prevent a disastrous financial default on Aug. 2 but only if a larger and still elusive deficit-cutting agreement was essentially in place.
Officially, the president continued to push for a big compromise that would cut the nation’s budget deficit and extend the government’s tapped-out borrowing power above the current $14.3 trillion cap. Obama had threatened to veto any stopgap expansion of the nation’s debt limit, at one point last week even challenging House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., not to call his bluff about it.
On Wednesday, Carney said if a divided Congress and the White House can agree on a significant deal, Obama would accept a “very short-term extension” of the debt limit to let bigger legislation work its way through Congress.
Obama also is open to the McConnell plan, but it seems barely aloft due to fervent tea party opposition in the House. The hope appears to be that such an option will look a lot better to the House in a week or so, given the lack of other ideas.
What also is becoming clear is that time is running out.
The realistic deadline for agreement is this week, not next week, given the time needed to craft, debate, pass and work out possible differences in legislation between the House and Senate.
…
US debt downgrade may now be inevitable
With time running out, any debt deal may be too little, too late
~ MSNBC
As the stalemate over debt talks dragged on Wednesday, Congress and the White House may have passed the point of no return in avoiding a U.S. government debt downgrade.
If Uncle Sam loses his coveted AAA rating, the cost of borrowing goes up, the economy slows further and jobs get even tougher to find.
With hopes fading for a broad deficit-cutting package of spending cuts and tax increases, the White House Wednesday signaled that President Barack Obama could support a short-term extension of the U.S. borrowing limit as long as it was part of a broader long-term deficit reduction deal.
Though the Treasury has said it has enough cash until August 2 to keep paying the government’s bills, including interest payments on $14 trillion in debt, time is rapidly running out for a comprehensive deal. The most promising to date, proposed by the so-called “Gang of Six” senators, would involve painful cuts and controversial tax increases.
Even if a broad agreement could be reached this week, both sides would have to hammer out specific line items and then return to their respective caucuses to sell the deal.
The alternative is a deal that raises the debt limit temporarily to allow the Treasury to pay its bills. But bond rating agencies Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s have said such stopgap moves would jeopardize the government’s top-notch AAA credit rating.
“With the clock ticking, we doubt there is time to reach agreement on a comprehensive plan,” said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics. “Instead, we expect a smaller scale plan to be passed that cuts $1.5 trillion from discretionary spending over the next decade. … But it may not be enough to satisfy the rating agencies. The federal government is therefore still likely to lose its AAA rating within the next three months.”
Irony; if we stop expanding our borrowing, our credit rating will tank. Could there be any clearer signal that the banking mob are the brains of this outfit?
This is my thinking, the part about a tanking credit rating due to a curtailment of borrowing. This doesn’t make any sense at all if one stops to think about it a bit.
it is upside down
I imagine a creature with prokaryotic brain cells may need to stop and think in order to dedicate enough metabolic resources to produce such a thought. The rest of us need no such assistance.
Already been told what to think?
particularly when the same rating agencies were threatening to down grade Greece if they didn’t cut spending and stop borrowing.
expanding our borrowing,
There is NO plan is DC right now that stops our expanding of government and our borrowing to pay for it.
The plans everyone is arguing over just SLIGHTLY slow down the expanding and borrowing.
Yes, there are plans. Government worker COLA’s will likely be frozen for quite a while. (yeah, i know, whine, but keep in mind, rent skyrockets each year and the constant monthly nut of a 30-year house is nearly out of reach). I work in a section of gov that almost pays for itself, and even we are offering early retirement buyouts. Contractors and travel are being cut left and right.
By the way, even NO action will cut the deficit to near 0 in about 10 years. Just allow those Bush tax cuts to expire, allow the troops to come home, allow Obamacare to kick in as scheduled, and — forgive me for saying this — allow the older baby boomers to “move in with Jesus” and stop collecting SS and Medicare.
So obamacare is going to help REDUCE the defecit? Perhaps in some parallel universe.
FAQ from the CBO:
http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=524
Of course, if you google it, you’ll find a bevy of wingnut welfare (heritage foundation etc) disagreeing. But apparently Obamacare won’t raise the deficit either.
Oxy, I am sure you are sincere, but really, do you let the used car salesman do the math for you? How forcing people to pay too much for somethint they cannot afford reduces the federal deficit is too much of a stretch to be believed.
The CBO is not the equivalent of the used car salesman or Suzanne who researched “this.” If you had the economic advisors of the administration or someone working for the majority or minority on a particular Congressional committee, you could whine about partisanship. But the CBO is different. It is not “captured” and they regularly p-ss off everyone. Their numbers aren’t perfect, but they set out their assumptions clearly. CBO is non-partisan.
I’ll take your word for it, though it goes against common sense.
“Their numbers aren’t perfect, but they set out their assumptions clearly. CBO is non-partisan.”
Perhaps the CBO is non-partisan but the people telling them what criteria to use are partisan.
The people who give them a plan to score are partisan, unless it is a bipartisan bill in which case it is likely a compromise between two partisan positions. But the scoring - what will this bill cost or save over the next X years if it is implemented - are not partisan numbers.
So yes, the “criteria” they score which is the bill itself can be partisan. But they don’t get told what assumptions to make. That is a big reason why Paul Ryan sent out his proposal with scoring by a thinktank, not the CBO.
And they can certainly be wrong. With respect to the health care law there is a risk. It is too complicated for anyone to be 100% or even 90% sure. But it is not systematically partisan.
If nothing else, if they ever get a reputation for being partisan, they are all out of a job. Other places are much better at being partisan than they could be. The amount of brain power that goes into partisan in this town astonishes me. I’m very glad not to be a part of it.
I find it disturbing the number of comments lately regarding health care and wanting senior citizens to die and get out of the way. Have some compassion for others.
I find it disturbing the number of comments lately regarding health care and wanting senior citizens to die and get out of the way. Have some compassion for others.
Speaking as the offspring as someone who’s declining physically and mentally, I heartily agree.
Nick:
Let think this out………wanting them to die is not the same as them asking for a legal Dr Kevorkian to help them go.
They KNOW they are a burden and its costing a lot of $$$$, so why do we TORTURE our grandparents by forcing them to live longer then they want?
I want this for ME….when i want to go I want to be put to sleep with my family & friends around, and no one gets sued or arrested….
Why is this so wring?
Like you should talk.
I am disturbed by the attitude of younger adults who seem happy to throw the elderly into some kind of Logan’s Run Carousel once they appear to have outlived their usefulness. How sad, we may as well go all the way with Eugenics and start zapping the Handicapped and Mentally Challenged.
any, i am sure your friends and family would not want to be put to sleep together with you.
“US debt downgrade may now be inevitable”
We must destroy America, in order to save it.
“US debt downgrade may now be inevitable”
Or the Justice Department could finally put the screws to Moody’s, but Eric Holder’s too much a tool for that.
What will be funny is if they downgrade the debt and nothing happens.
Home sales on track for worst year since bust
Existing-home sales dropped in June, defying expectations for a rise in sales. ~ MSNBC
Sales of previously owned homes fell in June, defying expectations for even a slight pickup after a lousy spring selling season.
The National Association of Realtors said sales fell 0.8 percent month over month to an annual rate of 4.77 million units, the lowest since November, as cancellations of pending contracts surged. May’s sales were unrevised at a 4.81 million-unit rate.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected sales to rise 2.9 percent to a 4.90 million-unit pace. In the 12 months to June, sales dropped 8.8 percent.
What I have been saying all year…
Stick a fork in them. They are finished.
http://manassaspark.patch.com/articles/manassas-parks-credit-rating-drops-five-notches
pain in manassas
Arguably, Manassas Park has always been Manassas’s mouth breathing little brother.
Good thing the U.S. economy is decoupled from China’s, as it appears that China’s economy is tipping towards a recession.
July 21, 2011, 12:09 a.m. EDT
China manufacturing survey points to contraction
By Chris Oliver, MarketWatch
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — HSBC’s China “flash” manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to a 28-month low in July, indicating activity is now beginning to contract in an economy that’s seen as a barometer of global growth and a price-setter for many commodities.
The survey’s headline reading fell to 48.9, down from 50.1 in June, marking the first time the gauge has indicated a contraction since July 2010.
The preliminary version of the PMI’s output index also showed further deterioration, dropping to 47.2 in July from 49.8 in June.
HSBC economists said the PMI data seemed to indicate an industrial-production rebound seen in last month’s data was temporary.
“We expect industrial growth to decelerate in the coming months as tightening measures continue to filter through,” said HSBC economist Hongbin Qu.
…
Those lazy Chinese people. They need to import Mexicans to do the jobs that Chinesers won’t. They are so spoiled.
They aren’t lazy, but their collectively destiny is largely beyond any individual Chinese citizen’s control.
Which is pretty much true for any worker bee around the globe.
As for the Mexicans replacing the Chinese, I mentioned the other day that my brother used to work in procurement at Hanes. He was the one who explained to me that by international standards Mexican workers are “expensive” which is why you rarely see low value articles (like clothing) imported from Mexico.
I’ve been hearing about their coming recession for 10 years.
Eventually, it will, but no time soon. This is just more jingoistic distraction news from our own disaster.
Existing-Home Sales in U.S. Unexpectedly Fall 0.8% to a 4.77 Million Rate
By Bob Willis - Jul 20, 2011 1:30 PM PT
Sales of previously owned U.S. homes unexpectedly declined in June to a seven-month low as the industry struggled to overcome rising unemployment and foreclosures.
…
Existing-home sales have fallen since reaching an annual peak of 7.08 million in 2005, before the housing boom turned into a subprime-mortgage bust that helped dragged the U.S. into an 18-month recession.
…
There’s that word “unexpectedly” again.
“I don’t think that word means what you think it does….”
Did I not predict more “unexpectedly” last year?
With another 800K CA foreclosure notices projected through 2012, it sounds as though CA real estate investors are not likely to run out of foreclosure homes to snap up any time soon.
California: Ground Zero for America’s Foreclosure Crisis
New America Media, News Report, Ngoc Nguyen, Posted: Jul 21, 2011
SAN FRANCISCO — Ethel Gist bought her dream house and planned to retire to Antioch, Calif. Instead, the 70-year-old lost the house during the height of the foreclosure crisis, and now rents a place with her daughter and two grandchildren.
After he lost his three-bedroom home in East Los Angeles, Rene Lopez says his world has “shrunk.” He and his family of seven are crammed into a two-bedroom apartment. Lopez, who lost his job as a jeweler, is struggling to find work in a restaurant.
Dianne Pinkston, a self-employed tax preparer in Los Angeles, inherited the family house, only to lose it to foreclosure soon after. Pinkston still has a debt of $150,000 to pay off, but says she finds solace in her family and friends, and the fact that after the ordeal, she’s “still standing.”
Gist, Lopez and Pinkston are the faces of foreclosure in California — ground zero for the housing crisis. Since the start of the housing crisis, the Golden State has the dubious distinction of being first in the nation in the number of total foreclosures – more than half a million completed, based on data from Oct. 2008 to June 2011 from RealtyTrac.
The pace of foreclosures ebbed following the eruption of the “robo-signing” scandal, in which loan servicers approved foreclosures without looking at the underlying documents. Banks halted foreclosures over the last several months temporarily to overhaul their protocols.
But foreclosures are expected to pick up in the months ahead. An estimated 1 million foreclosure actions that should have taken place this year will now happen in 2012, according to Daren Blomquist, director of marketing and communications with Irvine, Calif.-based RealtyTrac.
“That’s not because 1 million people have avoided foreclosure over the long term, it’s because the process has slowed,” he said, noting that the time it takes to complete a foreclosure has doubled in the last four years from 154 to 318 days.
Bottom line: the foreclosure crisis is far from over.
Dimensions of California’s housing crisis
In California, an estimated 1.2 million homeowners have lost their homes to foreclosure since 2008. An additional 800,000 homes are expected to receive foreclosure notices by 2012, according to a report by RE-Fund California Campaign, citing data from RealtyTrac and Moody Analytics.
…
“Banks halted foreclosures over the last several months temporarily to overhaul their protocols.
But foreclosures are expected to pick up in the months ahead. ”
Yeah, we keep hearing this. How long does it take to actually look at the papers rather than pay someone to lie about it? I thought MERS was gonna ’streamline’ everything, just like all the deregulationists’ ideas will, if we’d just ‘get government out of the way’.
And why are they still robo-signing anyway? Something’s fishy in the MERSea.
Experts claim it only takes 1/100th or less the time to forge signatures on papers than it does to actually read and sign them.*
*I’m making this up.
Signed,
Professor Robo-signer Bear
one one hundreth? Like one percent? You can robo-sign some thing in about 2 seconds maybe 5 if you have to flip pages to find the place to sign it. Really reading documents take more than 3 to 8 minutes.
Ethel Gist bought her dream house and planned to retire to Antioch, Calif. Instead, the 70-year-old lost the house during the height of the foreclosure crisis, and now rents a place with her daughter and two grandchildren.
What banks gives a 70 year old a mortgage??
Oh yeah…
My unscientific sample of a year or so ago showed about half of the seniors in this community of mostly retirees (97+%) have mortgages. I kept expanding the sample size thinking I had encountered some sort of anomaly. Nope.
If a retiree does not have his house mortaged to the maximum amount possible then he is not managing his money properly.
/sarc
If a retiree does not have his house mortaged to the maximum amount possible then he is not managing his money properly.”
All they knew was inflation their whole lives they didn’t see the fork in the road
their older brothers and sisters who lived with deflation were gone.
the banks should have known better, some did I guess sold off the mortgages as fast as they could.
My father was given a mortgage on a new purchase at age 82.
He passed away two weeks later.
Well, the literal meaning of the word “mortgage” is “death pledge.”
Dianne Pinkston, a self-employed tax preparer in Los Angeles, inherited the family house, only to lose it to foreclosure soon after. Pinkston still has a debt of $150,000 to pay off, but says she finds solace in her family and friends, and the fact that after the ordeal, she’s “still standing.
How in the heck can you lose something to foreclosure soon after inheriting it? Did the parents go on a HELOC spree? Or did Dianne?
There are some parts to this story that are missing in action.
I wondered this, too. Maybe she had siblings she had to buy out.
Thank god the Chinese are about to enter a recession.
Oh wait…
How You’re Getting the Shaft From America’s Banks
By Shah Gilani, Contributing Editor, Money Morning -July 21, 2011
If there’s one thing the recent Bank of America Corp. settlement proposal demonstrates, it’s this: Calling the easy treatment that big banks have been enjoying in recent court and regulatory actions “a travesty of justice” is like calling the Grand Canyon a ditch.
In fact, the truth is this: Given the activities U.S. banks have been involved in during the past two decades, and the actions they’ve taken, we’d be justified in labeling these institutions as “criminal enterprises.” The billions of dollars in penalties the banks have had to pay during this stretch are evidence of such activities, but are really only token payments given the magnitude of the damage these enterprises have caused.
And until banks stop acting as criminal enterprises, and outside agencies thoroughly investigate and fully prosecute banks and their executives for criminal activity, we will continue to move towards government of the banks, by the banks and for the bankers.
The Bank of America settlement offers us a real-life illustration of what I’m referring to.
BofA is close to settling with 22 large investors over failed mortgage-backed securities (MBS). But it may only have to pay $8.5 billion to investors who claim that Countrywide Financial Corp. - which BofA acquired in 2008 - lied to them about the value of the mortgage-backed securities they purchased.
If you do the math, the Bank of America settlement would result in payments of less than 5 cents on the dollar. But what’s even more grotesque about this proposal is that it would “wall off” the bank from any other suits or losses on the pools in question - even though hundreds of other investors were also harmed by the sunken securities.
We’ll soon see if a court approves the settlement. All hell will break lose if that happens.
And it should. But that’s just one case.
The big picture is downright ugly.
“And until banks stop acting as criminal enterprises, and outside agencies thoroughly investigate and fully prosecute banks and their executives for criminal activity, we will continue to move towards government of the banks, by the banks and for the bankers”.
~ I have been reading this for decades and the very people that voters send to D.C. that could stop what the banksters do have not and will not. The system will never be mended until after it crashes. Seems to me voters have gotten just what they want, in our financial system. So until voters wise up, and I hold no hope of that, we’ll keep heading toward the dead end.
If only we had a viable third party whose platform wasn’t essentially designed by and for the elite.
Even if there was a viable third party they would be shut out by the GOP&DEMS. They agree wholeheartedly on that, they don’t want anyone else getting a piece of their pie.
How many people here are STILL enabling BofA by having some sort of account with them?
I give Citi 20 bucks a year for my credit card, but that’s about all they get out of me. I don’t think that’s going to enable their lights to stay on.
How many people here are STILL enabling BofA by having some sort of account with them?
Guilty as charged. I have had a credit card with them since they bought MBNA. I am reluctant to cancel it as it is by far my oldest credit account (21+ years). In my defense, I don’t carry a balance, so their earnings from me are limited to the Visa network transaction fees, and maybe selling my name to telemarketers.
pay cash
“I give Citi 20 bucks a year for my credit card, but that’s about all they get out of me. ”
Do you use it?
I have two credit cards that I use occasionaly, for travel or if I go on a spree (once a year or so). So yes, they do collect the transaction fees. At most, it’s $500 and I pay the bill as soon as I get it.
But let’s face it, I’ve had both cards for over 15 years, and I almost CAN’T cancel them. It’s worth the $50 to me to keep the FICO up.
As for carrying cash, I don’t want to carry more than $150 at a time.
Get another card?
Green Party
Yeah, but what about the investor’s responsibility to perform due diligence? I realize there are laws about fraud and such, but can you really just trust a seller to tell you all about the flaws of the thing they are selling?
“Moody’s says their AAA”. Yeah, but a casual observer can see that Moody’s is paid by the companies it rates, and that these securities are backed by something that is hugely overpriced. I dunno, I see fraud and sloppiness on everyone’s part in this fiasco.
This morning on CNBC there was a brief conversation about Dodd-Frank and why it is so opposed by Wall Street. The idea of standardizing complex securities and forcing them to be traded on open exchanges takes away a significant profit center for Wall Street.
As Cramer put it, the profit margin from jamming opaque securities into clients portfolios could easily be 10x the profit of generating standardized or transparent securities.
In other words, how are we supposed to be profitable if we can’t lie, cheat and steal?
“In other words, how are we supposed to be profitable if we can’t lie, cheat and steal?
This has been Corporate America’s mantra for 30 years.
California’s college system in decline, study finds
The state no longer is a leader in such areas as affordability, preparation of high school graduates and college-going rates, according to researchers at Cal State Sacramento.
By Carla Rivera, Los Angeles Times
July 21, 2011
California’s higher education system is in decline, with fewer students able to afford college, falling college participation rates and dwindling state support, according to a study released Wednesday.
The report suggests that the state, once celebrated nationally for its three-tiered system of public colleges, has lost status as a leader in such areas as affordability, preparation of high school graduates, college-going rates and investment in higher education. The analysis was by the Institute for Higher Education Leadership & Policy at Cal State Sacramento.
“This report demonstrates the consequences of resting on reputations and policies of yesteryear,” the study concludes. “California is nowhere near the leader on the measures of higher education performance that the nation’s governors and educational leaders have been tracking for over a decade. We are average, at best, and trending downward.”
…
Same thing happened in the CUNY schools in NYS.
Hint - the decline is not from money. It is from the state politicians demanding that the state school allow everyone in no matter if they are ready for college or not.
After a while - a CUNY diploma really meant nothing (or equal to a HS diploma)
I was talking to someone yesterday who works at a U about how insane universities have expanded in the past decade - new dorms, eateries, gyms, etc. - like mini cities. Turns out that that “quality of life” for undergrads is a determining factor in their accreditation!
Day before I talked with a girl who was working on her psych degree - and had just transferred to her third university in the pursuit of that degree. I can’t even wrap my mind around that. 3 schools? Psych? I was so tempted to ask what she plans to do with that degree once she got it (after maybe another school transfer or two). I’m sure I would have gotten the deer in headlights look.
The new facilities are sumptuous in many cases. Of course, most schools now charge 8K for room and board these days. A school my son is considering in Nebraska is offereing him a tuition free deal and the room and board is 5K per year. It’s a podunky teacher’s college in the Nebraska panhandle, but if he can get a few more scholarships it would be cheaper than a local community college.
Needless to say the Podunk State College doesn’t have any Taj Mahals.
Hint - the decline is not from money. It is from the state politicians demanding that the state school allow everyone in no matter if they are ready for college or not.
FWIW, the State U’s in Colorado do turn down applicants.
There are 4 state colleges where they can attend instead. The average ACT/SAT scores at the state colleges are much lower than those at CU, CSU, UNC or the School of Mines. Once of the state colleges, Mesa State, offers free tuition to Colorado residents with higher ACT/SAT scores.
Hint - the decline is not from money. It is from the state politicians demanding that the state school allow everyone in no matter if they are ready for college or not.
Here in Tucson, Pima Community College is headed the other way. It’s toughening up its admission standards and eliminating the lowest tiers of remedial classes.
Quoting a story in our local fishwrap:
Here are answers to some common questions about the planned changes.
How will the admissions process change?
Currently a student must fill out an application form and take a placement test before registering for classes.
When the proposed policy takes effect next summer, the student would be required to demonstrate through the placement test that he or she is at least at a seventh-grade level in math, reading and writing, said Chancellor Roy Flores.
Students would also need to show a high school transcript or GED scores within two months.
PCC is still considering whether to admit students who don’t have a diploma but have acceptable placement test scores.
Which remedial classes will be cut?
PCC would quit offering the lowest tier of remedial classes - Math 82, Reading 71 and Writing 70.
The chancellor and faculty advisory groups have said few students are successful in these classes.
Flores spoke of Math 82 as an example.
Students who place into Math 82 tested at grade levels one through five, Flores said. About 1,160 students placed into that class last fall semester, he said. That’s 18 percent of PCC students entering college for the first time.
Grade one through five? As in first through fifth grade? This is a class that starts with addition and subtraction of numbers smaller than 10? No one in the class is substantially beyond being able to do long multiplication and division by hand and some manipulation of fractions and percents?
Oh, dear. I think that is the platonic ideal of not ready for college level work.
Grade one through five? As in first through fifth grade?
That’s correct. And here’s another fun factoid, courtesy of the same story that I linked to upstairs:
“It costs about $6,600 to educate a full-time student at PCC. Local property-tax payers pay a large part of the cost.”
Speaking as one of those local property taxpayers, I’d rather see my dollars go toward educating those who can actually make the grade at Pima Community College.
That’s because US companies have no taste for US graduates. The maximum salary that a US company can pay is $5/day for a college graduate, so they only want Chinese graduates now. You can’t even begin to pay off that $100,000 student loan with the wages that can be paid by cash-strapped billionaire CEOs these days.
has lost status as a leader in such areas as affordability, preparation of high school graduates
That’s what happens when half of your K-12 student body can’t even speak English.
Anecdote time: (I think I shared this one before)
Some friends in North San Diego County (San Marcos) volunteered to be playground monitors at their child’s public school. One day they were approached by an “anglo” couple whose first words were: “Thank God! You speak English!” (The couple had just moved with their family from New Jersey). Apparently they were the only playground monitors who could speak English.
they are complaining? anglos are minority here.
Immigration Upended | Changes at Home
Better Lives for Mexicans Cut Allure of Going North
Economic, demographic and social changes in Mexico are suppressing illegal immigration as much as the poor economy or legal crackdowns in the United States.
By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: July 6, 2011
AGUA NEGRA, Mexico — The extraordinary Mexican migration that delivered millions of illegal immigrants to the United States over the past 30 years has sputtered to a trickle, and research points to a surprising cause: unheralded changes in Mexico that have made staying home more attractive.
A growing body of evidence suggests that a mix of developments — expanding economic and educational opportunities, rising border crime and shrinking families — are suppressing illegal traffic as much as economic slowdowns or immigrant crackdowns in the United States.
Here in the red-earth highlands of Jalisco, one of Mexico’s top three states for emigration over the past century, a new dynamic has emerged. For a typical rural family like the Orozcos, heading to El Norte without papers is no longer an inevitable rite of passage. Instead, their homes are filling up with returning relatives; older brothers who once crossed illegally are awaiting visas; and the youngest Orozcos are staying put.
“I’m not going to go to the States because I’m more concerned with my studies,” said Angel Orozco, 18. Indeed, at the new technological institute where he is earning a degree in industrial engineering, all the students in a recent class said they were better educated than their parents — and that they planned to stay in Mexico rather than go to the United States.
…
To the rest of Central America - Mexico is the place to be (the US of Central America)
It’s hard for most Americans to fathom, but Mexico is wealthy compared to most of Central America. Its GDP per capita is 3-4 time greater than most of its CA neighbors. Even Costa Rica and Panama fall short, while countries like Guatemala, El Salavdor, Nicaragua and Honduras are down right poor by comparison.
Mexico’s GDP per capita is even greater than Brazil’s.
That said, the Mexodus will resume the next time Mexico’s economy gets wobbly.
Certainly by now anyone breathing knows we’ll get QE-3. Most will cheer just knowing this time it will work! It won’t.
Jim Rogers: Fed Will Launch QE3 by Q3 -CNBC
International investor Jim Rogers expects a third round of quantitative easing by the third quarter of this year.
The head of Rogers Holdings expects this will happen “in the fall or early next year,” Rogers told CNBC, as FT Adviser reported.
“It’s the wrong thing to do but that’s all they [US policymakers] know to do. They are not very smart people so you better own commodities,” says Rogers.
“They will see things not getting better and will do what they do.”
“It’s the wrong thing to do but that’s all they know to do. They are not very smart people so you better own commodities,” says Rogers.
“They will see things not getting better and will do what they do.”
great quote.
“They are not very smart people so you better own commodities,” says Rogers.”
I don’t suppose China entering a recession will have any effect on commodities?
what do you substitute for rice?
Sloth meat.
The babies taste the best.
It’s easiest to kill them with a spear to the back of the throat while they’re yawning.
Oh it will work alright, just not for anyone outside of Wall St.
Another bubble about to pop…
Electric cars about to cost more in California
Los Angeles Times | July 21, 2011 | By Jerry Hirsch
It’s going to cost more to buy electric cars in California.
The state has run out of the $5,000 rebates it was giving people who purchased all-electric vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf.
“The government is saying that if you are an early adopter, be prepared to pay for it,” said Jesse Toprak, an analyst at auto information website TrueCar. He said there’s enough demand for electric vehicles to absorb some price increases and shrinking rebates, at least for the next year or so.
Nissan has sold 4,134 of the battery-powered electric cars this year. General Motors Co.’s Chevrolet, by comparison, has sold 2,745 of its Volt car, which is technically a plug-in hybrid because it runs on electricity for about 40 miles before a gasoline-fueled generator kicks in to extend the vehicle’s range. Chevrolet also is ramping up Volt production.
“The state has run out of the $5,000 rebates it was giving people who purchased all-electric vehicles such as the Nissan Leaf”.
Nissan just announced a significant($5-$6,000) price increase coming for the Leaf.Perfect timing.
ummmm…without the government handout they will cost less or not be made at all.
+
Too funny. The Chinese are NOT out friends. But businesses that do business with them find out the hard way.
Entire Apple Stores Being Faked in China
foxnews.com | July 21, 2011 | Associated Press
BEIJING – At first, it looks like a sleek Apple store. Sales assistants in blue T-shirts with the company’s logo chat to customers. Signs advertising the iPad 2 hang from the white walls. Outside, the famous logo sits next to the words “Apple Store.”
And that’s the clue it’s fake.
China, long known for producing counterfeit consumer gadgets, software and brand name clothing, has reached a new piracy milestone — fake Apple stores.
The Chinese are NOT out friends. But businesses that do business with them find out the hard way.
But, but think of all the money we save and how it shores up the bottom line and shareholder value.
Just because Brazil can make their own iPads doesn’t mean we should! IP theft and counterfeiting is just a small price to pay for the glory of globalization.
I know a lady who owns a bicycle manufacturing company that’s based in this country. Years ago, she outsourced some of her production to Taiwan.
Didn’t take too long for counterfeit versions of her products to start showing up on the market. And, she found out, they were produced by the company she’d outsourced to.
Read up on AMSC doing business in China can be bad for your financial health.
They should do what we do (U.S.) over in Asia, just don’t count the soaring cost of food in your inflation figures. I mean it’s a variable, they should stop eating pork and just eat rat or squirrel, until pork prices come back down. Like Greasepan said, if Americans can’t afford to eat steak they can eat hamburger instead it all equals out.
ITEM: Inflation Tough to Digest for Asia as Food Costs Soar From Pork to Onions (Bloomberg)
Asian cuisine may be too much of a good thing for some of the region’s central banks as policy makers grapple with the challenge of responding to spikes in the cost of staples from rice and pork to onions and chilies.
Pork prices jumped 57 percent in June in China, leading Premier Wen Jiabao to vow to curb inflation even as growth slows. India had to buy onions from arch-rival Pakistan this year for curries and Indonesia told spice lovers to grow their own chili as shortages stoked prices. A wider variety of diet and greater purchasing power for non-food items leave wealthier nations less vulnerable to food-cost spikes.
Food makes up more than 30 percent of inflation indexes on average in Asia, compared with about 15 percent in Europe and less than 10 percent in the U.S., according to Rabobank Groep NV. The sensitivity of their economies to swings in meat and vegetable costs means emerging-market policy makers need to raise interest rates more to stem inflation when global agriculture prices soar.
“People can’t change their diets overnight,” said Song Seng Wun, an economist at CIMB Research Pte in Singapore who has analyzed Asian economies for more than two decades. “All monetary policy can do is to try to contain what is perhaps a supply disruption issue from broadening to the wider economy.”
Rice, the staple food for about half of the global population, has surged 70 percent in the past year according to futures traded on the Chicago Board of Trade. The export price of rice from Thailand, the world’s biggest exporter of the grain, has jumped 23 percent.
meh…food prices are volatile.
we outsourced our jobs…may as well outsource our inflation.
let them eat mooncake?
(man…i’m on a roll)
Let them eat rice paddies.
Hedonics does indeed appear to be a convoluted way of saying let them eat cake.
Shoe leather comes from a cow, is that the fallback after hamburger gets too expensive?
What’s wrong with soy burgers?
What’s wrong with soy burgers?
In Brazil soy/fruit juice is cheaper than the fruit juice. I think it’s because soy is cheaper than juice and Brazil is knee deep in soy beans. Soy cooking oil is cheap too.
Soy juice? Is that like the water you squeeze out of tofu?
Soy juice? Is that like the water you squeeze out of tofu?
Related I’m sure. They call it soya and they mix it with fruit juice. It’s not bad but the orange one does not make a very good screwdriver.
7 billion eaters/breeders is about 6 billion too many for this planet.
“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell” — Edward Abbey
It all has to do with power.
Nations that have more people increase their economic power atleast until natural resources run thin. Thus you see tax breaks for having children and welfare etc.
Combined with
The darwinian theory of religion.
Religions that
1. Produce more followers
2. Convert more non believers
3. Kill more non believers
Combined with
Everyone wants to live forever and technology has increased life expectancy.
DHS Video Characterizes White Americans as Most Likely Terrorists
Big Sis fear campaign continues, but Americans are just as likely to be killed by peanut allergies than they are in terrorist attacks
Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com July 21, 2011
A new promotional video released by the Department of Homeland Security characterizes white middle class Americans as the most likely terrorists, as Big Sis continues its relentless drive to cement the myth that mad bombers are hiding around every corner, when in reality Americans are just as likely to be killed by lightning strikes or peanut allergies.
The video is part of Homeland Security’s $10 million dollar “See Something, Say Something” program that encourages Americans to report “suspicious activity,” which in every case throughout history has been a trait of oppressive, dictatorial regimes.
In the course of the 10 minute clip, a myriad of different behaviors are characterized as terrorism, including opposing surveillance, using a video camera, talking to police officers, wearing hoodies, driving vans, writing on a piece of paper, and using a cell phone recording application.
Despite encouraging viewers not to pay attention to a person’s race in determining whether or not they may be a terrorist, almost all of the scenarios in the clip proceed to portray white people as the most likely terrorists. Bizarrely, nearly every single one of the “patriotic” Americans who reports on their fellow citizen is either black, Asian or Arab. Imagine if the video had portrayed every terrorist as an Arab and every patriotic snoop as white, there’d be an outcry and rightly so, but this strange reversal must have been deliberate on the part of the DHS, but why? Is this merely political correctness taken to the extreme or is something deeper at work?
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the DHS’ own internal documents list predominantly white conservative groups as the most likely terrorists, such as Ron Paul supporters, gun owners, gold bullion enthusiasts, and a myriad of other comparatively banal political interests that are largely the domain of white middle class Americans.
This has little to do with the color of a person’s skin, and everything to do with the fact that white, middle class Americans are the biggest roadblock when it comes to Big Sis expanding its control over every facet of American society.
Psychopathic elitists eviscerating the white middle to lower classes, financially,psychologically and physically. Using, of course, other races as their proxies. The usual “divide and conquer” BS. Their worst nightmare is that folks of all races and colors would suddenly wake up and unite to rid the planet of the cancer that these psychopaths are.
But, in the end, there’s only one color that really matters, and that’s the long green.
Putting brown people with Foriegn sounding names in Gitmo is fine with the vast majority of Americans.
Putting white, middle class people named Smith in Gitmo would get citizens to question whether or not the government was doing the right thing.
The DHS is merely indoctrinating the country to accepting this as normal behavior.
If any has not read 1984 recently, it is available free on the Internet. Orwell explains exactly what the DHS is upto.
Our stewpid immigration policy favors immigrants who are too docile and scared to oppose whatever the “government” is trying to do right now. That gives government agencies free rein to expand their own authority. That’s only one of the reasons why the PTB is so fond of killing off the fundamentals of the American Way.
The Department of Homeland Security is by all means an enemy of the people.
I haven’t seen many riots in the US lately.
With this economy, it won’t be long.
Divide and conquer.
The video is part of Homeland Security’s $10 million dollar “See Something, Say Something” program that encourages Americans to report “suspicious activity,” which in every case throughout history has been a trait of oppressive, dictatorial regimes.
The first time I read 1984 I laughed when I read that the kids didn’t join the scouts, they joined the “spies” and were trained to fink on their parents.
Now it seems that scenario is getting closer to reality.
Banksters are the real terrorists.
“Financial weapons of mass destruction.”
- Warren Buffet
Don’t be stupid!
Be a Smartie!
Come and Join
The Nazi Party
(chorus)
Springtime for Hitler
And Germany
- The Producers
Home Sales on Pace for Worst Showing in 14 Years
By DEREK KRAVITZ AP Real Estate Writer
WASHINGTON July 20, 2011 (AP)
People are buying homes at the weakest pace in 14 years.
This year’s pace is lagging behind the 4.91 million homes sold last year — the fewest since 1997. In a healthy economy, people buy roughly 6 million homes per year.
Fewer first-time homebuyers are entering the market. Many can’t obtain a loan or meet larger down payment requirements.
Another problem is that a growing number of contracts are being canceled before sales are finalized, many because of lower appraisals that are scuttling loans. And the slowdown in hiring is making people think twice about taking on extra debt.
Buyers have canceled purchases after appraisals showed that the homes were worth less than the buyers’ initial bids. Millions of foreclosures have made it harder to get accurate appraisals that all parties can agree on.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=14114904 - -
“Buyers have canceled purchases after appraisals showed that the homes were worth less than the buyers’ initial bids.”
So much for Zillow’s or the UHS’s opinions about what the homes are worth!
Read this report last night. Found it interesting that appraisers are no longer being required to “hit the mark” all of a sudden.
The article I read also mentioned that the mortgaging lender didn’t have to accept the appraisal and could even declare a lower value than the appraisal if they felt the need. So are the banks just plain stalling on taking the losses on these lower priced sales as they sit on their pile of shadow inventory? Are they trying to control comps?
Another problem is that a growing number of contracts are being canceled before sales are finalized, many because of lower appraisals that are scuttling loans.
Expect to see a big downturn in the housing market.
Why? Because I recall reading the same story locally back in, oh, May or June of ‘05. Story said that a lot of Tucson home sales were coming undone because the appraisers didn’t agree with the lofty wishing prices. Which meant that the sellers would have to drop their prices or the buyers would have to bring more money to the closing table.
Since the “seller price cuts” and the “buyers with more money” dreams didn’t materialize, Tucson house sales started slowing markedly during the summer of 2005.
U.S. Consumers Relying on Credit
(Bloomberg)
Consumers in the U.S. are increasingly using credit cards to pay for basic necessities as income gains fail to keep pace with rising food and fuel prices.
The dollar volume of purchases charged grew 10.7 percent in June from a year ago, while the number of transactions rose 6.8 percent, according to First Data Corp.’s SpendTrend report issued this month. The difference probably represents the increasing cost of gasoline, said Silvio Tavares, senior vice president at First Data, the largest credit card processor.
“Consumers, particularly in the lower-income end, are being forced to use their credit cards for everyday spending like gas and food,” said Tavares, who’s based in Atlanta. “That’s because there’s been no other positive catalyst, like an increase in wages, to offset higher prices. It’s a cash-flow problem.”
Rising costs of food and gasoline are leaving Americans less money to spend discretionary items, slowing the pace of the recovery, Tavares said. Household spending accounts for about 70 percent of the world’s largest economy.
After-tax income adjusted for inflation fell 0.1 percent from January through May, according to figures from the Commerce Department. The drop came as Labor Department data showed energy prices rose 8.2 percent and food climbed 2 percent during the same period.
“It’s a cash flow problem.”
At least this guy gets it.
No cash = no cash flow.
No cash flow = no transactions.
No transactions = no economy.
“Household spending accounts for about 70 percent of the world’s largest economy.”
And these households are running short of money.
“And these households are running short of money.”
Gee, I wonder if that’s somehow tied to offshoring?
Those gasoline prices are downright corrosive to the consumer economy. Sure, they’ve backed off their highs but they remain elevated for what is quickly becoming a protracted duration. With stagnant wages all this did was buy the consumer a little more time.
Gar prices are already inching back up in my neck of the woods.
Despite the Big Lie from ivory tower NBER and the alleged rebound of ‘real’ GDP from recession lows, can anyone in gov/corp/media (besides maybe Nouriel Roubini) admit that the US is in a stagflationary depression? Why aren’t the stats of the ‘misery index’ quoted along side every weekly jobless claims report?
Oh, right. The big local story here is people camping out for the new IKEA grand opening next week…
“The big local story here is people camping out for the new IKEA grand opening next week”
They sure are hyping that.
I wonder how Jake Jabs (American Furniture Warehouse) stays in business these days. For those from outside Colorado AFW operates several huge furniture stores (the size of a Super Walmart) that sell mostly cheap junk that falls apart.
U.S. Consumers Relying on Credit
I thought they were supposedly deleveraging. What ever happened to that?
Their savings are gone?
The only deleveraging is coming from defaulting on debt not paying off the debt.
forced to use their credit cards for everyday spending like gas and food
I wonder how they can measure this. I can’t remember the last time I paid for gas or groceries using anything but a credit card, but I have the cash to back it up and am certainly not “forced” to use credit.
The article suggested it was inferred by the fact that credit card usage was surging over debit card use for these purchases.
Since there is no money in the checking (debit card) account it’s time to run up the credit cards!
More people sought unemployment benefits last week
By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER
The Associated Press
4 mins ago
WASHINGTON — More people applied for unemployment benefits last week, evidence that layoffs are rising and the job market is weak.
heat wave??
10 Mar 2011 … More people sought unemployment aid last week … WASHINGTON — The number of people seeking unemployment benefits rose last week. …
28 Apr 2011 … WASHINGTON — More people sought unemployment benefits last week, the second rise in three weeks, a sign the job market’s recovery is slow …
5 May 2011 … Consumers are spending more to fill the tanks, leaving them with less to spend elsewhere. As a result, many companies … The number of people applying for unemployment benefits last week jumped to an eight-month high. …
7 Jul 2011 … Fewer people sought unemployment benefits last week … That was more than double what economists had forecast. The Dow Jones industrial …
14 Jul 2011 … WASHINGTON (AP) — Fewer people sought unemployment benefits last week, an encouraging sign the job market may be slowly improving. …
How could this be…
Jobless claims rise above expectations
WASHINGTON | Thu Jul 21, 2011 8:45am EDT
(Reuters) - New claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, a government report showed on Thursday, pointing to a labor market that is struggling to regain momentum after job growth faltered in the last two months.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 418,000, the Labor Department said.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims rising to 410,000. The prior week’s figure was revised up to 408,000 from the previously reported 405,000.
The claims data covered the survey period for the closely watched nonfarm payrolls count for July. Initial claims dropped 11,000 between the June and July survey periods, suggesting a modest improvement in payrolls after June’s paltry 18,000 gain.
Where do these people get their “expectations” anyway? Does the US government even hire qualified personelle anymore?
Anyone with even an inkling of the world around them will tell you that you can not make predictions about what will happen in an open system. As long as jobs have the ability to leave the system with no limit, and foreign workers can enter the system with no limit, then you can STICK A FORK in the employment scene. No expectations other than “bad scene” can be set.
The bleeding will continue until there is no blood left.
UPDATE 1-Bionol Clearfield files for Chapter 7
(Reuters) - Ethanol producer Bionol Clearfield LLC filed for Chapter 7 liquidation in the U.S. district court of Delaware.
Court documents show that Bionol listed assets between $50-$100 million and liabilities of about $100-$500 million.
The company, which produces bio-based chemicals and fuels from renewable feedstock, listed about 100-200 creditors.
Bionol also said two other affiliated entities–BioEnergy Holding Co and Bionol Clearfield Holdco–filed for Chapter 7 liquidation with it.
Poof.
I imagine those with cash that want bionol type capabillities can scoop up this stuff for pennies on the dollar. Not a bad investment as US is requiring more ethanol per gallon.
East Bay News
Vanderbuilt Construction files for bankruptcy
BERKELEY, Calif. (KGO) — Homeowners beware– that’s the message from the bankruptcy of a Bay Area contractor. Now that company is facing new accusations that it forged signatures on insurance checks.
Castro Valley-based Vanderbuilt Construction filed for bankruptcy last month. ABC7 has been calling the lawyers who represented the owner for two days and have not heard back from them. However, ABC7 has heard a lot from angry homeowners who say they’re now left with unfinished work, and no way to pay for it.
The owners of a San Anselmo home tell ABC7 News that their insurance company, USAA, recommended Vanderbuilt Construction after a fire about a year ago. But Vanderbuilt didn’t finish the work, and when the homeowner called USAA to tell them, Vanderbuilt owner Mike Boshard had just filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Then they discovered the insurance checks had been cashed at Fremont Bank and they claim it was done with a forged signature.
“He’s protected civilly. If he has forged the signatures of some of these, as you’ve indicated, that is forgery and he has stolen money. I don’t know whether the district attorney will do something about it, but they will look into it,” said San Francisco real estate attorney Roger Meredith.
Homeowner Paul Chang says Vanderbuilt cashed $72,000 worth of insurance checks at Fremont Bank without the required endorsement of the mortgage bank, Wells Fargo. Another homeowner’s says Vanderbuilt did the same thing with her check for more than $259,000. There’s still about $60,000 worth of work left on Chang’s roof. In the meantime, they and their four girls are living with friends. At the bankruptcy hearing last week, Chang asked Broshard how he could cash the checks without all the signatures.
“He claimed power of attorney in the contract. But according to the contract, they have a limited power of attorney to cash in checks for work already done and they certainly don’t have power of attorney over Wells Fargo,” said Chang.
“Well he doesn’t have power of attorney for the mortgage company. I will assure you he doesn’t have power of attorney,” said Meredith.
Meredith says the homeowners should be able to recover money from Fremont Bank.
“If the homeowner’s signature is there, legitimately or not, but not the mortgage companies, the bank should be held liable because they did not pick up the required two signatures,” said Meredith.
The Contractors State License Board says requesting or receiving a down payment more than 10 percent or $1,000, whichever is less, is illegal. Fines are as high as $5,000 and could be a misdemeanor with up to $5,000 in fines and/or up to a year in jail.
We asked Fremont Bank about its practices for checks requiring multiple signatures. It responded with a statement saying privacy regulations prohibit disclosure of that information. The homeowners might have been able to get at least some money back through Boshard’s required licensing board bond, but because he didn’t pay it, the board says it was cancelled on July 14th, two days after the bankruptcy hearing.
Ron Paul was interviewed on PBS last night. I didn’t watch, but here’s the transcript. I posted most of it below:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec11/ronpaul_07-20.html
————-
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, on this question of spending and cutting, you’ve said you would bring the government’s budget into balance the first year in office you were president. We’re talking, what, over a trillion-dollar deficit. What would you cut?
REP. RON PAUL: OK. I would start with military operations overseas. They hurt us and they hurt our national defense. And we can save hundreds of billions of dollars when you add up all the militarism and all the foreign aid and all the mischief we create, why do we have troops in Korea and Japan - all these things. So you could save a lot. That wouldn’t be enough.
Then you’d have to start cutting spending on the programs that aren’t essential like the Department of Education. We spend a lot of money; it doesn’t improve education. The Department of Energy - we don’t need Department of Energy. All those subsidies in Department of Agriculture - we don’t need that. We don’t need the intervention of the Department of Commerce. You can go on and on.
But you don’t have to go and cut health care or medical - or Social Security in order to start getting our house in order.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But you have talked about dramatically scaling down or reforming Medicare and Social Security. And so what would those programs look like if you could wave a magic wand and make it the way you’d like it?
REP. RON PAUL: Well, I haven’t talked a whole lot about that. Most of the time, I talk about is, if we’d have acted responsibly, we wouldn’t be facing this crisis.
I would like to offer young people going into the workforce the chance to opt out, opt out of Social Security. But that won’t work unless you do these cuts I’m talking about, the militarism as well as all these departments that make no sense at all. You could do that, but politically, it’s difficult because the other day, when we were voting on this resolution for the budget - the debt increase, I said, there’s two groups: One group wants to - won’t cut a nickel out of the military and the other won’t cut a nickel out of entitlement system. And that’s why we’re at this point.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You’ve also spoken of big changes in Medicare, structural changes. How would you change Medicare?
REP. RON PAUL: Well, once again, I haven’t emphasized that at all. But I would want people to opt out of the system. I would want people to have medical-savings accounts. Young people should be able to opt out and build up a medical savings account and take care of their own programs.
But that won’t work unless you’re willing to cut spending. And I think the most popular place to cut is all this spending overseas and the corporate welfare in this country, because most of the money that we spend here that’s supposed to poor really helps the large corporations, say, the housing bubble. Who got help?
See, the rich got bailed out. They got bailed out both by the Congress and the Federal Reserve. And they were making all the profits. So it was - it’s corporatism that is so bad, whether it’s medicine or even in education or the military-industrial complex. It’s corporatism. That is the welfare that is huge compared to the welfare of food stamps.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But without some government regulation, which I know you are against, what’s to keep corporations from running - doing whatever they want?
REP. RON PAUL: Well, because I talk about a lot less regulation - I don’t like the regulatory agencies, but that doesn’t mean the free market doesn’t have regulation. The regulations in the free market are much stricter because if a company gets into trouble and goes bankrupt, the law - the economic law, which should be enforced by government, that company goes bankrupt. So instead of bailing them out, these companies should have gone bankrupt.
—————–
Oh, if we could only get rid of Social Security, then we could safely invest our retirement funds in Ron Paul’s unregulated, libertarian, they’d-never-screw-us-because-it-would-hurt-their-reputations Wall Street!
i haven’t a clue where some people get the notion that un-regulated, crony capitlaist, wall street banks are an example of libertarian free market principles.
Ron Paul’s magic wand would make it so, no?
And so what would those programs look like if you could wave a magic wand and make it the way you’d like it?
And how exactly would no regulation end crony capitalism? That reputation thing again?
i think you misread my post.
libertarian does not mean unregulated. regulations to improve competition would definately be necessary.
cronyism does not promote competition.
“regulations to improve competition would definately be necessary.”
Sounds good to me. Now how about regulations concerning food and drug safety, and environmental protection?
libertarian does not mean unregulated
My understanding of libertarianism is that it’s primarily about property rights and and keeping order (protecting property).
Income is considered property; therefore taxation is considered stealing. Exhibit A: “Tax breaks lett me keep some of my own money.”
Stick a fork in him, he’s done.
Every military family in the country will vote against him because what they will hear is he wants them unemployed.
Too bad. I would like to see a few of his ideas put into play although I think in the short term the corporatism would worsen before the free market had a chance to clean house. After all, this is a post bail-out world not pre-bail-out.
That is why current democracy is hopeless. Almost everybody will vote yes to spend other people’s money. The people vole no to him not because he would withdraw troops home but because he made these people find another career or have no job. I bet, if a vote to average everybody’s asset can be cast, it will surely pass, because more people will feel to benefit from it, then we will be closer to so called socialism.
The regulations in the free market are much stricter because if a company gets into trouble and goes bankrupt,
Okay, I know there are a lot of Ron Paul fans on HBB, but this alone is enough for me to want Paul out of politics altogether. So the only punishment for a company running amok is that the company might go out of business?
Remember those salmonella-tainted eggs from Iowa? IIRC rats got into the pile of chicken feed out in the hot sun. Lots of people were sickened, and quite a few died. So according to Ron Paul, the worst that would happen would be that the particular egg farm would go out of business. And that’s only IF that particular egg farm was identified and caught — and guess who identified the egg farm? The FDA/USDA that Ron Paul wants to cut.
And that’s just one regulation in one industry. I can see hundreds of industries cutting corners and leaving a pile of misery in their wake. Oh sure, they might go out of business, but the stats say that they won’t get caught, no manager is going to whistleblow for fear of losing his job, and the CEO who made the decision to cut corners will probably be retired by then anyway (with golden parachute). Sorry, Doc, I can’t agree here.
the context of the discussion is the bailout of TBTF banks.
he is saying that if free market economic principles were allowed then those banks would have failed.
he is not advocating a company’s right to sale poisoned food.
The no-regulation-needed fairy tale is just as ludicrous as the ‘in the Good Old Days, we rarely had recessions, and the few that occurred were quickly solved by the free market’ fairy tale.
Talk about wide-eyed idealists, believing in Hope and Change.
It’s a very poor argument. Just because something is the way it is today doesn’t mean something better could not have existed under a different system.
“Just because something is the way it is today doesn’t mean something better could not have existed under a different system.”
Exactly why we should return to FDR’s banking regulations and reforms, Glass-Steagall and all. No major recessions or banking scandals for 50 years, until we decided to deregulate the financial sector. Then it was back to business-as-usual for them: booms and busts.
I don’t understand why he wants to cut the Departments of Education, Commerce, and Energy. Aren’t those important interstate agencies that affect everyone? Also, isn’t it an enumerated power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce?
they may be “important” agencies that affect everyone but they do it by spending your tax dollars and producing negative results.
is our education system doing well? has it been improving?
is our energy situation under control? has it been improving?
hasn’t the federal govt used the enumerated power of interstate commerce as an excuse to control anything and everything?
oxide, saying that bk is the ultimate control is not the same as saying that people are free to break the law or cause harm to others with bk being the worst that could happen.
Charlie,
Your logic makes no sense. You are saying that we have problems with education, energy, and commerce. Then you conclude that the solution to these problems is to stop working on them. You are also arguing that the government is using the Constitution as an “excuse” to govern. No. That is their job, as enumerated by the law of our land. Do I come to work and use my job title as an “excuse” to produce documentation?
IMO, the problems we have education are due to underfunding, privatization, and too many illegal immigrant kids. Those are things that Congress partially caused, and it needs to address them.
The problems we have with energy are due to wasteful dependence on a form of energy that can only be purchased from other countries. I don’t think the states can independently come up with viable ways to reduce this problem.
And no, I don’t see the Federal government controlling everything through interstate commerce. I see them shirking their responsibilities in that arena. IMO, a Congressional candidate should have ideas for how Congress can improve their performance in this requisite area of activity, not how to quit doing their job altogether.
The problem with education is NOT the education. Therefore, getting rid of the education will not solve the education problem.
They should quit firing teachers and start firing students and their parents.
“Your logic makes no sense. You are saying that we have problems with education, energy, and commerce. Then you conclude that the solution to these problems is to stop working on them. You are also arguing that the government is using the Constitution as an “excuse” to govern. ”
You are putting words in my mouth. We have many problems in these areas that are caused by these agencies. They are clearly failing to serve their intended purposes so yes I support closing them down. No harm 1st, a different approach 2nd.
I am not arguing that the government is using the Constitution as an “excuse” to govern, I’m arguing that the govt uses the interstate commerce clause as an excuse to exceed its authority.
What does the department of Education do anyhow??
Charlie:
So you would shut down the agencies and replace them with something?
sure stop the harm firrst
Charlie:
Your replacement organizations. Would they have the same potential for harm as the other ones? Wouldn’t you just be reinventing the wheel?
Ron is talking about living with one’s means. If we had the money of course we should not cut them. But if one don’t, the he should cut until he within his means. If someone had a mortgage for a house with 4 bedrooms, plus a study and a exercise room etc. But he can not afford it, should he just prints his own money to afford it if there is anyone to accept it, or he should let the house foreclose and rent an affordable two bed room apartment instead?
Why can’t we raise taxes until the spending is within our means? Seems the Republicans never mention that an equation has two sides…
Department of Energy is more like a branch of defense. Sharks with laser beams and all that (actually planes with lasers, but sharks are next up).
The real meat and potatoes of DoE are the nukes. We at NREL and EERE are the b*stard hippie step-child of DoE.
Of the $29.5B requested from Congress for 2012, $11.8B is for National Nuclear Security Administration.
From the 2012 budget request:
“The EERE portfolio emphasizes work areas where the potential impact is largest, where federal funds are most critical. It balances investments in high-risk research with partnerships with private firms that speed the translation of innovations into practical business opportunities. The diverse set of technologies supported helps ensure that the US has many options for meeting its energy goals. Program management is designed to identify the best groups in the country to address these challenges and supports work in universities, companies, national laboratories, and consortia.”
since we are on the subject of free market principles:
as a free market libertarianesque individual i have a thesis that the corporate form of doing business is contrary to free market principles.
in order for a market to work properly one should be allowed to use his/her property for profit…but in doing so…one must be willing to assume the risk of loss assoicated with that use of property…poisoned food…lead in drywall…damage to the environment…etc.
yet…the corporate form of doing business provides “limited liabilty” to the owners of that business and limits their risk of loss associated with the profit generated from the use of property.
abolish corporations? (and the fed)
it would greatly inhibt the free flow of capital which would be a drag on growth…but the alternative seems to be far worse.
That’s right Mike.
Corporations rely on governments in developed countries in order to exist in the first place. Then, once they get rich, they start complaining that the government is “restricting” their ability to get even richer.
It’s like marrying your girlfriend, allowing her to bear and raise three of your kids while working full time, then divorcing her when the kids go to college because she’s “restricting” your ability to be single (ala X-GS).
It’s like marrying your girlfriend, allowing her to bear and raise three of your kids while working full time, then divorcing her when the kids go to college because she’s “restricting” your ability to be single (ala X-GS).
You make good points on a lot of stuff. You’re full of it on the X-GS thing.
Sorry Rio, but a smart woman knows better than to let a guy like X-GS off the hook. The dewd’s a hater.
“The dewd’s a hater.”
My impression is that he’s bitter because he was put through the shredder in the past.
Why would you assume that his ex was in the right? I don’t think you have enough information to pretend to know anything about what his relationship or divorce were like. H*ll, sometimes even those who were IN a relationship can’t make sense of what happened in a relationship or divorce!
You presume too much here.
I agree with Rio, you’re wrong about X-GS
I gotta pile on to defend X-GS from this unwarranted attack.
You all haven’t been reading long enough. That guy is a woman hater from top to bottom, and he uses his ex-wife as an excuse. Like all abusers, he likes to blame his victim. His half of the story is definitely not indicative of reality.
Here’s another gem:
I would like to offer young people going into the workforce the chance to opt out, opt out of Social Security.
Yeah right. I know EXACTLY what’s going to happen with this. 1. Most young people will declare that they are Masters of Their Own Destiny and opt out. Some will honestly intend to save that extra money for retirement. Most will use the extra money to buy a hot car and score with the chicks. You’re only young once.
2. Retailers will see that folks have extra income, and raise the rent, or gas prices, or bread prices, or health insurance premiums, or college prices, to what the “market” will bear.
3. People will be forced to pay those prices. If they chose not to pay, somebody else will.
4. People who DIDN’T opt out will be forced to opt out later, because when those prices go up, their income won’t cover the expenses. (this is the same reason why people who deal in cash can’t compete with credit cards)
5. As the next 30 years go by, people — even the ones who bought the hot car and have since wised up — will keep meaning — really! — to save for “retirement,” but they simply won’t be able to, in the face of being nickel and dimed out of most of their income. Rush Limbaugh and half of HBB will call them slackers and tell them to live within their means.
6. When they finally reach 62-65 and are unable to work or are fired for being too old (remember, Ron Paul would have done away with anti-age-discrimination), these people who all opted out will be broke and sick and out of work. Rush Limbaugh and half of HBB will tell them they should have lived within their means.
7. Some politician will promise to re-instate Social Security.
8. All those folks who were once young and strong and bragged about being Independent and Masters Of Their Own Destiny will immediately turn hypocrite and vote to be taken care of.
9. Social Security will be re-instated.
The gov may as skip the experiment and collect the 40 years of payroll SS tax.
I’m not going to get into this debate about opting out, but I swear this is a true story:
I recently ran into a guy I know who told me he is drawing his first SS check next month at 65. The reason; his financial adviser told him to draw it while he can still get it. He is retired, has a bunch of bucks in his IRA’s, etc. Told me he doesn’t need the money and is going to save all of it. Then he proceeded to tell me about the new car he is buying for his wife.
I don’t disagree with the idea behind opting out; I just don’t think it will work in practice. Yes, some people will blow the money, but i can easily see the responsible savers as collateral damage.
Your acquaintance could afford the car because he already had 40 years of good economy to make his pile. The young won’t be so lucky. They might have to opt out simply to pay college loans.
The total trust fund would last less than 5 years if people quit paying in. Of course, to even draw that money out, the USA would have to sell an extra $4 trillion-ish worth of treasuries into the market.
I remember the Bush/Gore debates where Bush was talking private investment account for SS money. Gore’s response was that Bush was promising the money to two people, the kids with their private account, and the Boomers that will be collecting that money.
The elephant in the room that no one wanted to point out was clear. The Baby Boomers will suck up every tax dollar that GenX and GenY can possibly pay in, and it will still not be nearly enough to pay for the retirement they’ve been promised.
The total trust fund would last less than 5 years if people quit paying in.
???????
According to obama - the checks may stop on 02 AUG
So much for the “lockbox”
There are plenty of jobs in America where people can “opt out” of SS. Now or in the past.
They put that money into their own accounts in their own names. Usually the company/insitution does it for them. Remember, we are talking 15% of you salary.
And they ALWAYS do better than if they had stayed in SS.
Off the top of my head - The Railroad Retirement Fund. There are many others.
Q: How do the average monthly Railroad Retirement and Social Security benefits paid to retired employees and spouses compare?
A: The average age annuity being paid by the Railroad Retirement Board (RRB) at the end of fiscal year 2008 to career rail employees was $2,510 a month, and for all retired rail employees the average was $1,980. The average age retirement benefit being paid under Social Security was over $1,085 a month. Spouse benefits averaged $740 a month under Railroad Retirement compared to $520 under Social Security.
www dot bnsf.com/employees/communications/bnsf_today/2009/03/2009-03-19-e.html
Next time, banana, post the whole thing please. You just posted the payout. Let’s look at the pay-IN, from the same link:
————-
The following questions and answers show the differences in Railroad Retirement and Social Security benefits payable at the close of the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2008.
^ Isn’t this BEFORE the stock market took its dive?
Q: How do Railroad Retirement and Social Security payroll taxes compare?
A: Railroad Retirement payroll taxes, like Railroad Retirement benefits, are calculated on a two-tier basis. Rail employees and employers pay tier I taxes at the same rate as Social Security taxes, 7.65 percent, consisting of 6.20 percent for retirement on earnings up to $106,800 in 2009 and 1.45 percent for Medicare hospital insurance on all earnings.
In addition, rail employees and employers both pay tier II taxes which are used to finance Railroad Retirement benefit payments over and above Social Security levels.
In 2009, the tier II tax rate on employees is 3.90 percent and on rail employers it is 12.10 percent on employee earnings up to $79,200.
^ well no wonder they get more out. They pay more in.
Q: How much are regular Railroad Retirement taxes for an employee earning $106,800 in 2009 compared to Social Security taxes?
A: The maximum amount of regular Railroad Retirement taxes that an employee earning $106,800 can pay in 2009 is $11,259, compared to $8,170.20 under Social Security. For railroad employers, the maximum annual regular retirement taxes on an employee earning $106,800 are $17,753.40 compared to $8,170.20 under Social Security. Employees earning more than $106,800, and their employers, will pay more in retirement taxes than the above amounts because the Medicare hospital insurance tax of 1.45 percent is applied to all earnings.
———-
Darn those facts.
WRONGO - damn those facts
With your OWN plan you would nearly get double what SS may/may not give you 20 years from now…
———————————————–
A model for Social Security reform
By Ray Holbrook with Alcestis “Cooky” Oberg
USAToday - 3/15/2005
The current debate about reforming Social Security reminds me of the discussions that occurred in Galveston County, Texas, in 1980, when our county workers were offered a different, and better, retirement alternative to Social Security: They reacted with keen interest and some knee-jerk fear of the unknown. But after 24 years, folks here can say unequivocally that when Galveston County pulled out of the Social Security system in 1981, we were on the road to providing our workers with a better deal than Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.
When I was county judge in 1979, many county workers were concerned about the soundness of Social Security, as many people are today. We could either stay with it — and its inevitable tax increases and higher retirement ages — or find a better way. We sought an “alternative plan” that provided the same or better benefits, required no tax increases and was risk-free. Furthermore, we wanted the benefits to be like a savings account that could be passed on to family members upon death.
Our plan, put together by financial experts, was a “banking model” rather than an “investment model.” To eliminate the risks of the up-and-down stock market, workers’ contributions were put into conservative fixed-rate guaranteed annuities, rather than fluctuating stocks, bonds or mutual funds. Our results have been impressive: We’ve averaged about 6.5% annual rate of return over 24 years. And we’ve provided substantially better benefits in all three Social Security categories: retirement, survivorship, disability.
Our plan vs. Social Security
Upon retirement after 30 years, and assuming a more conservative 5% rate of return, all workers would do better for the same contribution as Social Security:
• Workers making $17,000 a year are expected to receive about 50% more per month on our alternative plan than on Social Security — $1,036 instead of $683.
• Workers making $26,000 a year will make almost double Social Security, $1,500 instead of $853.
• Workers making $51,000 a year will get $3,103 instead of $1,368.
• Workers making $75,000 or more will nearly triple Social Security, $4,540 instead of $1,645.
• Our survivorship benefits pay four times a worker’s annual salary — a minimum of $75,000 to a maximum $215,000 — rather than Social Security’s customary onetime $255 survivorship to a spouse (with no minor children). If the worker dies before retirement, the survivors receive not only the full survivorship but get generous accidental death benefits, too.
• Our disability benefit pays 60% of an individual’s salary, better than Social Security’s.
“3/15/2005″
How is this plan doing today? Who guarantees the annuities?
Thank you for this, Oxy! I would never have come across it otherwise!
“But I would want people to opt out of the system. I would want people to have medical-savings accounts. Young people should be able to opt out and build up a medical savings account and take care of their own programs.”
So the same young people that can’t afford medical insurance are going to be able to build up a medical savings account. And it will keep up with medical inflation until they need it in 30 years.
As 2 houses I would buy today sit empty as they have for the last year or more, one owned by BofA and another listed as pre foreclosure. The headline reads….
Palm Beach County home sales up 9 percent in June from last year
By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 10:38 a.m. Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Palm Beach County’s existing home sales continued to climb in June with 1,184 transactions, a 9 percent increase compared to the same time last year, and the fourth consecutive month of sales topping 1,000.
“My phone is literally ringing off the hook,” said Scott Pressman a Realtor with Keyes Real Estate in Boca Raton. “Everyone believes Florida is a great bargain right now.”
Six of Florida’s 19 regions experienced annual single-family home sales gains, including Palm Beach, Miami and Broward counties
“The underlying reason for elevated cancellations is unclear,” said National Association of Realtors Chief Economist Lawrence Yun, who pointed to tighter lending standards, low appraisals and the economy as possible explanations. “Economic uncertainty and the federal budget debacle may be causing hesitation among some consumers or lenders.”
“Prices have been trending downward, but they’re not going off a cliff,” said Bill Hardin, a Florida International University professor and director of real estate programs at the school. “”Truthfully, this is one of the very good opportunities to buy because prices are down and interest rates are low.”
With sales up in Palm Beach County, inventory has been on the decline. A June report from the Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches found just eight months worth of inventory on the market compared to 15 months at the same time last year and 21 months in 2009. How those numbers will be affected by foreclosures and other distressed sales not yet on the market – so-called shadow inventory – is still unknown.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/real-estate/u-s-home-sales-fall-9-compared-with-1627376.html - -
His phone is ringing off the hook because of a nine percent increase in sales? Nine percent doesn’t typically translate into an “off the hook” scenario, now does it?
“Nine percent doesn’t typically translate into an “off the hook” scenario, now does it?”
Are you trying to say that this Realtor is not being entirely truthful?
Yesterday’s housing report said over 30% of sales nationally were cash sales and most of them were investors. Think of the deluge coming back into the market as soon as they realize they were way too early and they are now bagholders of toxic hot potatoes.
Question about “normal” housing markets:
My understanding is that, in one of those so-called normal single-family residential markets, 10-20% of the buyers are investors seeking houses to rent out. Another 10-20% are first-time homebuyers. Which leaves the rest of the market 60-80% to the move-up buyers.
Are my figures more-or-less correct?
My gut tells me your figures are right but let me find the link to the report I mentioned above.
CA, why toxic if the cash flow is positive?
I don’t know about you, but I don’t give a flying crap who Wendi Deng is.
Deng lunged while startled police officers were barely off the back foot.
Witnesses believed that if it wasn’t for that officer she would have continued round the table to finish the man off.
Wendi Deng defends Rupert Murdoch from attacker Link to this video
Maybe this will work.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/19/wendi-deng-charlies-angel-moment - 109k -
Yeah, my comment had to do with how the various media outlets are all a-twitter (no pun intended) about the paper tigress. Who cares? So she spared a decrepit old media mogul a little extra shaving cream in the face. Big deal.
Look her up on Wikipedia. Wow, she’s a fast mover in more ways than one!!
OK, I’ll bite. Maybe I do give a flying crap after all. Read up on her from a number of sources. Indeed, she is a fast mover, or at least a canny mover. Probably would make a helluva chess player. Gotta give her props. Given the unspoken competition between her and Rebekah Brooks, Wendi definitely won. This round, anyway. Bet she experienced some deep schadenfreude the day Brooks was arrested. I’d say that was a real two-fer. I think there’s a lesson to be learned here for women somehow.
OTOH, Brooks could yack major big time and still bring down the house of cards, so the game’s far from over. I would LOVE to know the deals that are being cut behind the scenes
Wendi met her first husband, Jake Cherry, as a teenager when he and his family were in China for his work. When it was time for Cherry to return to the United States, Wendi convinced he and his wife to sponsor her as an international student so she could attend college there. The arrangement lasted until Jake’s wife realized the two were having an affair and kicked them both out - after Jake confessed that he was in love with Wendi.
Wendi and Jake’s subsequent marriage ended after two and half years - she left him when she decided to get an MBA at Yale, apparently claiming that she could not see Jake as any more than a father figure
Ah you left out this key part “Nonetheless, she had been able to secure a green card through being legally married to Cherry.”
A little nookie for a green card. And Big V says all women are saints?
You left out another key part:
“Deng and Cherry’s marriage lasted 2 years and 7 months before they were legally divorced,[6] but he would later explain they only stayed together for 4 or 5 months,[5] after which he learned of the extramarital relationship Deng had with a David Wolf, a man closer to her age.”
Fast mover indeed: cheated with him, then cheated on him.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people are surprised that the behavior earlier with them may well be the same behavior later against them.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people are surprised that the behavior earlier with them may well be the same behavior later against them.
I’ve joked that my “fidelity failsafe” is that the only type of woman I would have an affair with is one who wouldn’t have an affair with a married man.
In Colorado:
Whenever a woman points out the obvious, such as “A lot of men have a very irrational fear of women”, someone like Colorado has to jump in and say “Big V says all women are saints”.
No dear, no one is a saint. The fact that no one is a saint in no way excuses the systematic abuse and character assassination of women. X-GS likes to pretend like he’s only picking on his ex-wife because she bought horses, but he is really picking on her because she is the most available woman for him to hurt. Guys like him pick on women soley because he sees us as easy targets.
He has launched his attacks against femininity regularly and without restraint. Let him defend himself against my oh-so-feminie retorts, he’s a big boy after all.
Guys like him pick on women soley because……
Why do gals like you “solely because” pick on men?
Rio:
Can you rephrase the question?
Whenever a woman points out the obvious, such as “A lot of men have a very irrational fear of women”, someone like Colorado has to jump in and say “Big V says all women are saints”.
Uh no … I said that because you basically said that all divorces were the husband’s fault. (” … if they were better husbands …”)
Colorado:
I picked up that phrase a couple years ago on the HBB when it became popular for certain commentators to say “she should have been a better wife” whenever there was a female FB who didn’t have a husband. I like to pull that one out of my back pocket and then watch those same individuals sputter and reach for a comeback.
And by the way, fearing a court system that hands over half your income and custody of your kids to your ex and her boyfriend is not irrational.
Colorado:
There is always something to be lost in divorce. The wife already has to fear being short-changed for the resources she puts into wifery/motherism, so the husband should have to fear something too. Otherwise, it becomes an unbalanced situation and there is nothing to stop him from becoming a tyrant.
“Otherwise, it becomes an unbalanced situation and there is nothing to stop him from becoming a tyrant.”
Some people are constitutionally averse to being tyrants.
Some marriages are based on mutual love and respect and fear does not enter into it.
To be honest, I’m surprise she didn’t let Rupert take the pie. It may have made him kick off all the quicker, leaving her, the wife, with the fortune sooner.
From my reading of Big V, polly is right. It’s the Magic Uterus theory. Only the women with babies are saints. If a woman is 40-50 and not married, then “something is wrong” with her.
It must be quite the internal religious conflict, choosing between the Octomom and Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar.
I just said that thing about 40-50 year olds as a way to piss of X-GS Fixer. I really meant to say that there is something wrong with anyone who would put up with him.
I suspect Polly’s “magic uterus” theory has more to do with a complete lack of experience in the realm of bearing and raising children. She seems to think it’s something that happens in your spare time, and that mothers do not deserve to be compensated. There may be a little jealousy in there somewhere too.
V, you are guilty of mindreading, jumping to conclusions and overreacting with regard to several posters at this board. Your projections of what Polly thinks are hilarious. Calm down and try to achieve some semblance of reason.
Elanor:
Once again, you haven’t been reading long enough. If you read a person’s comments over a few years, then you have more context within which to interpret their statements.
BTW: When you say things like “try to achieve some semblence of reason”, you automatically cause your target to hate your guts. That’s fine with me, I don’t mind hating people’s guts online, but I’m just saying.
I don’t mind hating people’s guts online
It’s plainly obvious that you do. Have fun.
So just another lying liar…
“How can the Republican majority in this Congress explain to their constituents that trillions of dollars in new debt is good for our economy? How can they explain that they think it’s fair to force our children, our grandchildren, our great grandchildren to finance this debt through higher taxes? That’s what it will have to be. Why is it right to increase our nation’s dependence on foreign creditors”?
“They should explain this. Maybe they can convince the public they’re right. I doubt it. Because most Americans know that increasing debt is the last thing we should be doing. After all, I repeat, the Baby Boomers are about to retire. Under the circumstances, any credible economist would tell you we should be reducing debt, not increasing it. Democrats won’t be making argument to supper this legalization, which will weaken our country.”
~ Harry Reid On the floor of the Senate in 2006
Yeah, not to mention that the money has already been borrowed and the jobs have already been donated to the rest of the world.
These people need to stop fiddling around and just cut it out with the “free trade” already. We can’t afford it. Why can’t they just go back to the rest of the world and tell them that we are going to need to revise our trade agreements. Trade agreements were always written on a 2-year basis, since senators get elected every 2 years. Today’s senator can’t lock tomorrow’s senator into a forever contract. Trade agreements, like anything else, are NOT permanent.
It is time right now to pull out of the free-trade fiasco so we can start paying down our debt.
The free trade zealots will scream that “protectionsim” will make things worse. But if we continue down this road it soon won’t be possible for things to get worse.
Well, it isn’t entirely fair to compare 2006 with now. The government needs to run deficits in recession to keep people alive, but should offset that with surpluses in booms. The Bush II administration was guilty of causing a massive “structural” deficit, which is why The Economist magazine held its nose and “endorsed” Kerry despite having nothing good to say about him and supporting the war in Iraq.
The question is this. Are we in a recession, relative to our average economic circumstances over the next 20 years, which means a defict makes sense this year?
Or is this economy, with its 9.2% unemployment and falling real wages, actually a typical economy going forward, one that ought to be associated with a balanced budget?
This arguement that QE is forcing our children to pay the debt is not completely accurate. If they are able to increase wages and maintain jobs w QE then they may have decreased the debt burden. Unfortunately all of the QE is flowing to the hands of the few leaving the many and their children to pay the debt. If the gov borrowed 100k per tax payer from the FED and handed it to them there would be massive inflation and the debt would be easier to pay off. The 100k would offset the increase in food and fuel prices. The dollar would collapse and more people would be employed assuming CHINA and others didn’t do the same thing.
2006 - in the middle of boom times. That would have been a good time to cut spending and increase taxes to reduce the deficit.
Does anyone know if there is an nonpartisan organization that endorses antiglobalist candidates?
Check with the FBI, they probably have a list somewhere.
Good one. That’s the truth, truth!
Just an aside here in Salinas area:
Just checked on sale of a house earlier this year. It was listed for about 8 months with price reductions and was still $75K-$100K over priced but it sold for $4K below asking($495K). A realistic price in say two to three years should be about $350K.
Last week I saw there was to be an open house on a house in Marina yesterday. No open house as someone jumped to pay $525K (house in escrow) as per RE. Several minutes later the RE called back (caller id) and said we could leave our name if the deal fell through. We declined and said that if there is an open house in the future we would take a look but had no intention of paying that price for a house in Salinas, Marina, Seaside or Monterey.
“A realistic price in say two to three years should be about $350K.”
And realistically the median income in rural Salinas is…?
I think your “realistic price” is way too high.
Postal Service to consider closing thousands of new post offices
~ Washington Post
The U.S. Postal Service is launching a major review of up to 3,600 post offices across the country for possible closure as it shrinks its network in light of declining mail volume.
On Tuesday, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe will release a list of post offices to be studied for closing, as well as announce “a new concept” for possibly replacing them, postal officials said Wednesday.
The Postal Service is expected to file a request with regulators within days for a formal opinion on the review.
Spokesman David A. Partenheimer declined to provide details on the review, but in an interview with The Washington Post’s editorial board earlier this week, Postal Regulatory Commission chairman Ruth Goldway said the number of post offices under scrutiny would be close to 3,600. Goldway said she expects some areas of the country to have more closures than others.
The review comes weeks after the Postal Service published the final version of regulations aimed at making it easier to shutter some of its 32,000 post offices. Despite some changes to the draft released in March, the final version preserved a key element allowing the Postal Service to target facilities that suffer from “insufficient customer demand” or where customers have other options for buying stamps and postal services.
Post offices should only be located within shopping malls. Malls should be required to provide space for a post office at a nominal charge. After all, this will bring in foot traffic for the mall too.
A lot of them are already located in strip malls, usually inside of another business establishment. Technically they aren’t full post offices as they can only receive mail, they don’t deliver it. The one closest to us is inside a mom-n-pop pharmacy.
The post office pulled the plug on the Syracuse area Carousel Mall’s p.o. branch a few months ago. The thing about malls, especially the megamalls, the elderly avoid them like the plague. Too much walking. I believe the newspaper reported that branch did not receive that much traffic.
Quick note to AZ Slim,
You said you wanted to bring your bike to DC. Honestly, I recommend against riding your bike here. We are not kidding when we say that DC is not bike friendly. The roads are full of heavy trucks and soccer moms on cell phones, the sidewalks are full of hundreds of pedestrians, and the metro is jam-packed with people and strollers even on weekends, and half the elevators and escalators are broken on any given day. There are very few bike racks, running red lights is a national sport; and bikes lanes are nearly non-existant (and don’t help anyway).
I do recommend RENTING a bike and toodling around on the Mall downtown.
I will be on a plane headed to DC this time tomorrow.
Thanks for the warnings, oxide. Sheesh. DC sounds like carmageddon.
And here in Tucson, we bicyclists like to complain about how bad things are here.
As for toodling around the Mall, that sounds like fun. Where do you rent a bike?
It’s easy to google, but try this:
http://www.bikethesites.com/
Single speed bikes run about $25 a day.
It’s not that there are NO bike trails. Rock Creek has a nice trail, and there’s a trail down toward the airport (right next to a major highway)
, and there are A FEW bike lanes on A FEW roads. But you have to know exactly where you’re going, or map it out really well. It’s not the type of city where you can expect to show up with a bike and expect 80% of the roads to be traffic free with a nice sidewalk, especially on a weekday. Best to map out what you want to do first, then decide if the distances warrant a bike.
Am I getting a whiff of “I’m too IMPORTANT to ride a mere bicycle! Or, heaven forbid, walk a few blocks!” coming out of Washington, DC?
Because it seems to me that the DC area has more than a few people who won’t stoop to doing anything as crass as using their own muscles to get from here to there. Instead, they have to use their oh-so-pricey show-off vehicles to get them there. Or they’re chauffeured around.
The thing is that there are people who ride bikes. Quite a few, really. But I have watched them and get the impression that they all are very experienced DC commuters and figured out how to do it before they started biking. Casual bikers spend quite a bit of time on the sidewalks which is not so great for pedestrians.
There is also a new thing called Capital Bikeshare. They have short term memberships and stations all over the place. I get the feeling it is easier to do with a smartphone, but google it to check.
You also could just check Craigs list and pick up something really cheap when you get here.
A lot of the Montgomery County busses have bike racks on the front, but I don’t think the DC ones do.
I hope you’re not referring to me in this invective.
I hope you’re not referring to me in this invective.
Nope! I’m referring to the self-important types who drive like the world needs to defer to them. Or they’re driven around. I’m sure you see more than a few of those folks in DC.
hey slim,
mammoth lakes aint dc but its pretty bike friendly, lots of stage races used to be held here
even i used to do century rides.
the hills here can be steep as pittsburgh but 5 x as long, the good part is the downhill on the other side.
one of my favorites used to be: getting a room in truckee and riding around lake tahoe and back to the room 100mi+
why bike in the city?
Try this one too…
http://bikewashington.org/visitor.htm
Car Tax! Car Tax!
So to cut down on crime that`s cars, hammers, machetes, knives, bullets, shoes, belts, aerosol cans and a background check to see if you are smart enough to own a circular saw that need extra taxes this week.
Man upset over computer repair bill charged with trying to run over Lake Worth store manager
By Michael Finch II Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 5:16 a.m. Thursday, July 21, 2011
LAKE WORTH — Police arrested a suburban Lake Worth man accused of hitting an Office Depot employee with his car after leaving upset over the price of a computer repair bill.
John D’errico, 40, was charged Wednesday with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, according to a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office Police report.
Palm Beach County Judge Edward H. Fine ordered D’errico held on a $5,000 bond.
D’errico allegedly became upset about a computer repair bill in the Office Depot on Lake Worth Road and Military Trail, and was in a dispute with the manager, the report said.
D’errico then left the store visibly upset, “screaming and cursing,” the report said. After leaving the store, he got into his green Oldsmobile Bravada, started the engine and drove it towards the manager who was standing in front of the store.
The manager, who was not named in the report, was “flipped over the hood and off the vehicle,” the report said.
The manager was transported to JFK Medical Center in Atlantis to be treated for injuries.
D’errico left the scene and was found at his Deer Path Lane home in suburban Lake Worth.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/crime/man-upset-over-repair-bill-accused-of-trying-1630482.html - -
The DOW is loving all this jobless recovery. Fewer jobs more layoffs equal higher bottom lines! The American voter it getting just what they voted for!
Jobless Recovery Bankster Extortion plan going according to plan. Sheeple please stay tuned to your favorite network for your next set of instructions/bankster demands. Keep spending until further notice.
Don’t forget lower wages!
U.S. Moves Toward Home ‘Rentership Society,’ Morgan Stanley Says
The U.S. homeownership rate has fallen below 60 percent when delinquent borrowers are excluded, a sign of the country’s move toward a “rentership society,” Morgan Stanley said in a report today.
The national rate, which stood at 66.4 percent at March 31, would be 59.7 percent without an estimated 7.5 million delinquent homeowners who may be forced into renting, according to Morgan Stanley analysts led by Oliver Chang. The lowest U.S. homeownership rate on record was 62.9 percent in 1965, the first year the Census Bureau began reporting the data.
“Taken together they are forcibly moving the country away from being an ownership society,” Chang, based in San Francisco, said in an e-mail. “This change is only beginning, and is moving the country towards becoming a rentership society.” (said Morgan Stanley analyst Oliver Chang.)
No word on how many of us renters would be buyers if only our government stopped propping up prices.
Bloomberg, July 20
“No word on how many of us renters would be buyers if only our government stopped propping up prices.”
That’s one aspect. But without stable jobs and incomes, why wouldn’t one expect the percentage renting to go up? Even if prices fall a lot, the percentage renting may still go up.
We’ve got bigger problems than that because without stable jobs and incomes how is the rent going to be paid?
There’s no shortage of housing, so people will mostly live somewhere, either through more doubling/tripling up, squatting, etc.
“The Corruption in Academic Economics”
INET’s Interview with Charles Ferguson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxtCn2GyqKc
There are eight vignettes of various topics
It’s not just happening in economics. Corporate donations to educational institutions are coming with strings attached from some. I suppose it’s one thing to put the name of a corporation on a new building, but when those same corporations influence faculty hiring decisions or curriculum, that cuts right to the core of academic integrity.
Under half say house worth more than mortgage
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Only 49% of respondents say their home is worth more than their mortgage, according to a July survey of homeowners conducted by the polling firm Rasmussen Reports. That’s the first time the number believing they had equity in their home was below 50% for two months in a row, though above June’s reading of 45%. In December 2008, 61% believed their home was worth more than their mortgage.
Wow — so I guess it is not just San Diego where 50% of homes with mortgages are underwater, then?
When they really start to realize it’s going to keep going down for the foreseeable future and that the bounce back is bull$hit. It will get far more interesting. Once 60-70% understand they are underwater, wonder what Big Nanny will propose to do do for them?
Because you can bet they are voters!
What can big nanny do? Pay off everone’s mortgage?
I think that’s a grand idea! The lose of their homes value occurred through no fault of their own. So it would only be fair, and things being fair is truly what it’s all about.
According to a USA Today article, the total mortgage debt in the USA is about 10 trillion. So what the heck! Let the Fed do a 10 trillion QE4 and pay off all the mortgages! They could even place a lien on the houses stipulating that they can’t be sold for X years!
I know, I shouldn’t give them ideas.
And if you’re a renter or don’t have a mortgage, well bless your little soul, good for you!
One thing I agree with combo: there won’t be any real debt forgiveness, just false hope to make sure the masses keep servicing their mortgages, until they run out of money.
“What can big nanny do? Pay off everone’s mortgage?”
At least some HBB posters have been conjecturing this for five years running already. If it was going to happen, wouldn’t it already have happened by now?
What would be fair about Uncle Sam paying off greater fools’ mortgages while poor, bitter, priced-out renters and new entrants to the housing market were left out in the cold? Wouldn’t it be more efficient for getting votes (less expense per vote) to simply hand every registered American voter $2K to do with as they please? (Non-voters would not qualify…)
Most may not realize the situation they are in unless they lose their jobs. Then they would be facing a real cluster….
Ok….cannot be “most’ if the headline in the article is correct. Let me correct that to “Many”.
Couple that with the story about everyone thinking their house is worth more than it would sell for.
World’s Most Valuable Company? Apple Has $50 Billion to Go
- New York Times
Look out Exxon. Here comes Apple.
The race for the world’s most valuable company is tightening. Exxon, the energy colossus, currently wears the crown of the most valuable company in terms of market capitalization. But Apple, with its rapidly growing empire of iPhones, iPads and Macs, is quickly closing the gap.
Exxon’s market capitalization, the combined value of all its shares, was $411.6 billion as of midday Wednesday. Apple’s was $360.7 billion, up more than $10 billion from a day earlier after reporting yet another stellar quarter of record sales.
Apple’s shares happen to be on a tear. Over the last year, they’ve risen 50 percent to $389.93. Exxon’s have done pretty well too. They are up around 40 percent during the same period, to $83.59.
This sort of thing used to interest me not long ago. Now I know how hollow all these things have been. Bring back Mark to Market, Remove easy money policies and ban funny accounting. Only then I will believe in those “values.”
Apple’s shares happen to be on a tear. Over the last year, they’ve risen 50 percent to $389.93. Exxon’s have done pretty well too. They are up around 40 percent during the same period, to $83.59.
As Steve Jobs’ health continues to decline, I think we’re going to find out just how dependent that company has been on him. Methinks that the post-Steve Apple won’t be the powerhouse that it is now.
I keep meaning to set up death watch lists on market websites for Jobs and Buffett. Not that I want either of them to die, but it will be very interesting to see what happens.
Something tells me that Berkshire Hathaway won’t be as revered after Warren Buffett passes away.
Here is a scary story about how Cisco got the US and Canada to put this guy in jail for a year because he brought a civil suit against them:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/07/a-pound-of-flesh-how-ciscos-unmitigated-gall-derailed-one-mans-life.ars
Oh and look, the Department of Homeland Stupidity was involved.
Genworth sinks 18% on home mortgage woes
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Genworth Financial shares sank 18% to $7.73 early Thursday after the mortgage insurer said it would post a net operating loss of 14 cents to 18 cents for the second quarter. Analysts had expected Genworth to post a profit of 24 cents a share, according to FactSet Research. In the pre-announcement issued late Wednesday, Genworth blamed “worsening trends” in its U.S. mortgage insurance business as homeowners fell further behind on making payments. Genworth cited “slow-moving pipelines of mortgages in some stage of foreclosure and delinquent loans under consideration for loan modification.” The stock is now down 45% over last 12 months.
Long-Term Unemployment, by State. WSJ
More than one in three jobless Americans were out of work for at least a year in a handful of U.S. states that appear to be disproportionately caught up in the nation’s long-term unemployment problem.
Lasting spells of unemployment have been problematic in the wake of the most recent downturn and in seven states the situation was particularly dire. In New Jersey, Georgia, Michigan, South Carolina, North Carolina, Illinois and Florida more than a third of unemployed residents had been out of work for at least a year in 2010, according to Labor Department data that is expected to be released later this month.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/07/21/long-term-unemployment-by-state/
Which brings us to the question of the day: Who is handling their debt crisis better, America or Europe? ~ Yahoo.com
Tempting as it may be to say “neither,” the fact Europeans are now willing to accept a default on Greek debt — selective or otherwise — suggests the Continent is ahead of the Colonies at this juncture.
“When somebody has debt that’s impossible to deal with, you restructure the debt,” says Howard Davidowitz, whose eponymous firm specializes in retail restructuring. “A lot of the debt has to be dead. Unless you restructure that debt, the problem will go on forever.”
Speaking of the situation in Greece, Davidowitz says “German taxpayers are not going to put up with this crap, nor should they.”
And the same can be said of American taxpayers.
“Eventually the American taxpayer will get so fed up with these bunch of morons in Washington — Republican and Democrat — they are going to demand we take real action with real numbers; cut thru the crap and start dealing with this debt and we can do it,” Davidowitz says. “Why did we say in U.S. ‘the bondholders can’t be hurt?’ What the hell was that about? It was all mad.”
Like most observers, Davidowitz expects Congress will come up with a short-term deal to at least temporarily raise the debt ceiling and allow the madness to continue.
“I think we’ll get something for six months, a deal these morons can get their arms around…and keep screwing around, kicking the can down the road and do nothing,” he says.
Listening to Howard Davidowitz on WBBR is gripping and entertaining. He’s the best out there.
“Eventually the American taxpayer will get so fed up with these bunch of morons in Washington — Republican and Democrat — they are going to demand we take real action with real numbers; cut thru the crap and start dealing with this debt and we can do it,”
What I see is people that are demanding low taxes, high sepnding on their sacred cows (SS, MC/C, DoD) and at the same time demanding that we stop the massive deficits.
People seem to be convinced that there is this giant line-item in the federal budget called “Fraud, Waste and Abuse” that sucks up a couple $ trillion a year. Oh, if we could just cut fraud, waste and abuse….
Wrong.
On AZ Central (AZ Republic’s Website) there was an article about the debt deal. One person wrote in that they can’t cut SS and MCare because those were promised. They can cut everythign else becasue it wasn’t promised…
Oh really? So, the Treasury didn’t promise to pay interest on savings bonds when it sold them? The military and other federal workers weren’t promised retirement? DoD didn’t sign multi-year contracts with suppliers, promising to pay? We didn’t promise out vets VA benifits? We didn’t promise in the Constitution to have federal courts and federal prisons? We didn’t promise hospitals they’d get paid when we made a law saying it is illegal for them to turn away patients?
All the stuff we’ve “promised” is well over $2.5T of the $3.5T a year budget. On $2T in receipts, we’d still be running a deficit even if we but all the non-promised stuff.
What I see is people that are demanding low taxes, high sepnding on their sacred cows (SS, MC/C, DoD)
While the overal budget deficit is close to 50%, Social Security, which is funded directly via the payroll tax, is only running a relatively small deficit ($45B per the CBO).
I don’t know why SS keeps getting tossed into the mix, given that it almost breaks even. The only conclusion that comes to mind is that the PTB want to use the payroll tax monies for another purpose.
DoD on the other hand is only tax funded about 50%, yet it is some sort of sacred cow that can’t be touched.
Social Security is only running a small deficit because the Baby Boomers have not yet started to retire in large numbers. Give it a couple years and Social Security will be running huge deficits, especially if unemployment stays near 10% and wages continue to lag inflation as many expect.
The reason SS is thrown in is becasue the ONLY reason it was created was to run a large surpluss to hide other government spending. It existed as a means of forcing people to buy government debt. If it does not continue to buy large chunks of government debt, then we’re pretty much screwed.
Whether you count it as $2.1T of income on $3.6T of spending, or you carve out SS and call it $1.4T income on $2.9T of spending, it is still a MASSIVE deficit.
Do you cut 20% from SS and 40% from Medicare and DoD, or do you cut 0% from SS, 60% from Medicare and 50% from DoD…. It is massive cuts any way you slice it.
“Give it a couple years and Social Security will be running huge deficits”
I agree that if we continue our death march to $500 a week America then all hope is lost and there will be no saving SS in its current form. Not sure if it will be in 2 years though, maybe 10-20.
From what I have read the projected SS short fall ofver the next 75 years is $3.7 trillion dollars, which is $49 B a year. I believe that number presumes that the “trust fund” will be repaid, but even if its not then we’re talking about 100B a year. Contrast that with the 500B a year we borrow to fund DoD.
Granted, long range projections are fairly worthless as no one can really predict what the economy will be like in the future, but you have to start somewhere
Lowest cost producer should always be used
Shareholder value being most important
Global trade a benefit
Lower taxes on rich and corporations so they “create jobs”
All implemented and mantras of the right for the past 30 years. We did it. It’s done. It’s not economic theory to be explored. We did it.
Will someone on the right please make a good case that implementing the above mantras of the right has been good for America and the American middle-class?
You don’t really think they care about the Middle Class, do you?
Politicians work for the rich… period.
Don’t be so cynical Darrell. The Democrats would not be demanding tax hikes on the rich if our votes didn’t matter.
You don’t really think they care about the Middle Class, do you?
The right said all of the above would help America and our middle-class. We did all of the above the past 30 years. I want the case to be made by someone on the right that all of the above has helped America and our middle-class.
If the case cannot be made (which it can’t) then we should step away from all of the above.
Proof is irrelevant Rio. The Tea Baggers will continue to clamor for more tax cuts for the rich and reduced gov’t spending while riding around on their Medicare paid for scooters, cashing their SS checks at the bank between trips to their Medicare paid for doctors. Can’t you see? They just want to go back to the “good old days” before socialism ravaged America.
Wow, not one willing to step up and support their god.
The problem of course is the # of Dems who really stand against such things can be counted on one hand. Most treat the above issues the way the GOP uses abortion, ie to get their flock to the voting booth. They don’t want to fix the problem because that would remove the sense of urgency to vote for them.
# of Dems who really stand against such things can be counted on one hand. Most treat the above issues the way the GOP uses abortion, ie to get their flock to the voting booth. They don’t want to fix the problem because that would remove the sense of urgency to vote for them.
I don’t think so because many Dems for decades thought it might work. That’s what they were told. Unlike abortion, that trickle down did not work is a new issue that many are just becoming aware of now.
Chiefs take key perk away from stadium’s game-day employees
Yahoo Sports -By Chris Chase
In the past, ticket takers and parking lot attendants at Arrowhead Stadium have had a nice perk of the job. After their duties were complete, they were allowed to watch the rest of the Kansas City Chiefs game from inside the stadium. Now the Chiefs are taking away the privilege.
Employees were recently notified that they would no longer be allowed to watch the game from the standing-only area they’ve gone to in the past. Ticket-taker Steve Warner explained the situation to Kansas City’s
“We were told that when we work and we are done, we are to clock out and leave the premises. [...] That’s when everybody was very, very, very upset. knowing that. When we go and work hard at the gates and knowing that it’s hot outside or freezing in January, even during the season, you get your benefit of going and watching the game.”
“You work hard, and plain and simple. We don’t get paid a lot of money. [...] Why take that privilege away from everybody?”
The team issued a prepared statement that provided little insight into the decision. “We’re working to develop policies and practices that provide the best possible experience for our fans and fair and appropriate compensation and benefits for our employees,” the team wrote.
Probably becuase they want to try to sell those standing-room only locations to paying fans rather than giving them away for free. In today’s economy, I bet they’ll be able to get enough people to take the jobs even without the perk.
+1
I’m surprised the Chefs still play in old, ancient Arrowhead. Why haven’t they threatened to move unless they get a new taxpayer paid Taj Mahal? Or is that a work in progress.
As for the perk being taken away, what a lack of class. Of course the rabid fans don’t care a whit.
Gosh, I hope the season is cancelled. Anthing to be spared the endless prattle about the Broncos and Tim Tebow.
The 1982 football season was shortened by a strike. Even though I was in Steelers-deprived western PA, life managed to go on.
And Australian rules football!
I’m surprised the Chefs still play in old, ancient Arrowhead.
It’s hard to improve on the design in elegant simplicity, line of sight, closeness to the game and noise level. They just spent a ton redoing the whole thing. I hear it’s like a new one.
http://www.fox4kc.com/sports/wdaf-new-arrowhead-stadium-072310,0,364586.photogallery
$375 million! Most of it paid by the taxpayers of course!
Welfare for the poor: bad!
Welfare for the rich: good!
Heck, the Hunt family didn’t get rich by writing checks left and right now, did they?
Blue Sky says,
“It is interesting to see the concept of things not taxed as being “government expenditures” creep into common usage. Like “debt reduction” meaning more debt, just not as much more. ”
I remember after the $700 billion over 2 years, Obama stimulus passed, Republicans started calling it 80% pork. To which, I would point out that it was more than 60% tax cuts. Since when did Republicans consider tax cuts to be pork?
Oh.. right… It isn’t targeted at the rich, so it is pork.
Shockingly, when you look in the federal budget you see entries for:
Earned income tax credit (EITC) 54,712 (million)
Child tax credit 22,659 (million)
Making Work Pay Tax Credit 13,694 (million)
Oddly, no entries for lowering the tax rates, lowering capital gains tax rates, etc. etc. etc.
Shockingly, when you look in the federal budget you see entries for:
Earned income tax credit (EITC) 54,712 (million)
Child tax credit 22,659 (million)
Making Work Pay Tax Credit 13,694 (million)
Oddly, no entries for lowering the tax rates, lowering capital gains tax rates, etc. etc. etc.
That’s because these are liabilities which must be paid out, independent of taxes collected.
Hey, another success story…
U.S. loses $1.3 billion in exiting Chrysler
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — U.S. taxpayers likely lost $1.3 billion in the government bailout of Chrysler, the Treasury Department announced Thursday.
The government recently sold its remaining 6% stake in the company to Italian automaker Fiat, wrapping up the 2009 auto bailouts that were part of TARP.
Fiat paid the Treasury a total of $560 million for the remaining shares, as well as rights to shares held by the United Auto Workers retiree trust.
Originally, the government committed a total of $12.5 billion to the struggling automaker, Old Chrysler and Chrysler Group. Of those funds, $11.2 billion has been returned through principal repayments, interest and cancelled commitments, the Treasury said. Chrysler paid back $5.1 billion in loans in May.
Even though that means $1.3 billion will not be recovered, the Treasury called it a “major accomplishment.”
Trust me, Fiat got the worst end of the deal. Just ask Daimler how much they lost when they sold Chrysler to Cerberus.
Just ask Daimler how much they lost when they sold Chrysler to Cerberus.
To refresh everyone’s memory, Daimler really took a bath. From CNN back in May 2007:
Daimler pays to dump Chrysler - German automaker will end up actually paying $650 million to unload Chrysler to end its exposure to billions in ongoing losses, health care costs.
Exactly, every penny Daimler paid for Chrysler went down the drain.
“U.S. loses $1.3 billion in exiting Chrysler”
That`s a lot of liquid lunches.
“U.S. loses $1.3 billion in exiting Chrysler”
It’s a rounding error. USA spent 20 billion in Afghanistan/Iraq in 2010 just on air conditioning. A/C. 1.3 billion to save a manufacturing strategic asset and all its suppliers.
The gov. will get that money back over the years in income taxes alone.
It’s a rounding error. USA spent 20 billion in Afghanistan/Iraq in 2010 just on air conditioning. A/C. 1.3 billion to save a manufacturing strategic asset and all its suppliers.
The only reason people get bent out of shape over this is because good paying jobs were saved. I swear some people won’t be happy until 90%+ of the workforce earns less than $500 a week.
2 wrongs don’t make it right.
In the same token, how much of the 20 billions spent on AC was provided by US companies/jobs? I bet it’s substantial.
2 wrongs don’t make it right.
What if neither is wrong? Or what if only one is wrong?
Surely the DOW can bust 13,000 by tomorrow, with all the good news $loshing about. QE-3 on the way baby! W.street knows it and they have guys inside the fed and tres.
Chinamex Closing Atlanta Office
GlobalAtlanta - 07.20.11
Chinamex USA, whose investment was lauded as a success that would draw more Chinese firms to Atlanta, is closing its office less than two years after opening its doors.
Employees have been notified of the Beijing-based firm’s decision to close the office, as have local economic development officials, GlobalAtlanta has learned.
The company operates a more than 14,000-square-foot facility on the ground level of the 201 17th St. building near Atlantic Station. The showroom displays an array of products - from jet skis to cell phones - manufactured in China’s Hubei province, which paid Chinamex to operate it.
Jorge Fernandez, vice president of global commerce at the Metro Atlanta Chamber, said he had been notified about the closure.
Losing companies the chamber and its partners worked hard to recruit is “part of the game,” but it’s never easy, Mr. Fernandez said. He visited Chinamex on trade missions to China and went to its Netherlands facility over the course of two years wooing the company.
“This is very disappointing in many aspects. We grew the relationships, there are jobs associated and when a business fails, it’s not a good thing,” he said.
He noted that Chinamex’s business model is complex and that its failure in Atlanta isn’t indicative of the company’s overall future. An operation established in Mexico similar to its original one in Dubai - focused on wholesale sourcing - has been doing well.
He noted that Chinamex’s business model is complex and that its failure in Atlanta isn’t indicative of the company’s overall future.
I can think of a few examples of companies with complex biz models that went poof. Enron readily comes to mind.
Obama Aide, Boehner Say No Debt-Limit Deal- Bloomberg
President Barack Obama’s spokesman and House Speaker John Boehner said there is “no deal” on raising the U.S. debt limit as all sides said they still lack a consensus on spending cuts and tax revenue.
This is going to get really ugly.
Republicans are really dug in on their “no tax increase” stance. Democrats are equally entrenched on thier “balanced aproach of tax increases and spending cuts”.
I don’t think the DoD, healthcare and AARP crowd yet realize that the spending cuts are going to be targeted at DoD, Social Security and Medicare/caid. They have to be targeted there since that is where the spending is.
I don’t see a deal happening until treasuries are heading north of 8% or 9%.
Good luck in getting reelected by voting for ss and medicare benefits.
cuts that is.
Putting pressure on an already lousy job market, the mass layoff is making a comeback. In the past week, Cisco, Lockheed Martin and Borders announced a combined 23,000 in job cuts. (See: Another Retailer Bites the Dust: Borders Doomed by Amazon Deal, Davidowitz Says)
Those announcements follow 41,432 in planned cuts in June, up 11.6% from May and 5.3% vs. a year earlier, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
Meanwhile, state and local governments have cut 142,000 jobs this year, The WSJ reports, and Wall Street is braced for another round of cutbacks. This week, Goldman Sachs announced plans to let go 1000 fixed-income traders.
If these trends continue, we may soon be talking about losses in the monthly employment data — not just disappointing growth, says Howard Davidowitz, CEO of Davidowitz & Associates
“Everything in business is confidence,” Davidowitz says. “You lose confidence and businesses can’t deal with that [and] who could have confidence with what’s going on in Washington?”
We have reqs. out for 20 people were I work saw it today at the weekly meeting. Mostly Chip designers would be nice to get some test people, but for better or worse our plan is to outsource most test and manufacturing jobs. just hire top talent chip designers I think its the way of the future. America will just hire top tier talent, all others either get low level private sector jobs or middle class government jobs . Much of our top talent in chip design comes from India or China , some from Europe, maybe 50% US born. The CEO likes to comment on this all the time he’s from Korea.
Unless you flood the country with Millions of immigrants, High level ones that can start new business, bring in cash for start-ups, etc. Unless the US can do that I think it will stall out and double dip.
It’s like a big ponzi scheme you need new young folks to work hard so the banks and government can feed off the labor.
Japan has rejected this approch and decided to spend deep into debt , Who knows what the US will decide to do? I think we need to rethink the economy to a slow / no growth model and not rely on growth growth growth.
“Everything in business is confidence,”
Wrong. It is customers with money willing and able to walk in the door and spend it. We’re not at a crisis of confidence.
We’re at the structural dead end of using ever increasing debt to replace wages as more and more jobs are offshored and trade deficits grow ever larger.
Come on! We should be celebrating the layoffs! Those people were probably well paid, and we all know that a low wage America is a strong America!
That’s fine with me if luxury homes (executive-style, whatever that means) drop to under $100,000 and Lexus ISF drops to $20,000.
The feds better paperclip some of those laid off NASA peeps. You don’t want some of those folks walking around pissed off.
I hope they move to a country that can still afford to pay for space exploration and do some good for the mankind.
“That’s fine with me if luxury homes (executive-style, whatever that means) drop to under $100,000 and Lexus ISF drops to $20,000.”
I’m up, pull up the ladder, eh? Well played!
Wow what a shocker! They did it again, except this time it’s new and improved!
ITEM: Greece gets new bailout deal, including contributions from private creditors
BRUSSELS (AP) — Eurozone leaders on Thursday agreed a sweeping deal that will grant Greece a massive new bailout and make radical changes to the currency union’s bailout fund, allowing it to act pre-emptively when crises build up.
The eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund will give Greece a second bailout worth euro109 billion ($155 billion), on top of the euro110 billion already granted a year ago.
Banks and other private investors will contribute some euro37 billion ($53 billion) to the rescue package by either rolling over Greek debt, swapping it for new bonds with lower interest rates or selling the bonds back to Greece at a low price. The eurozone will provide some form of guarantees to the new Greek bonds rated at “selective default,” so that Greek banks will be able to continue accessing liquidity support from the ECB.
In the case of bond rollovers or swaps, the new Greek bonds issued to the banks would have long maturities of up to 30 years and low rates, according to the Institute of International Finance, the group representing the private sector creditors. French President Nicolas Sarkozy estimated the rates would average 4.5 percent.
“For the first time since the beginning of this crisis, we can say that the politics annd the markets are coming together,” said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
The bailout to end all bailouts, I see…
Blackstone Profit Triples From Deals
(Bloomberg)
Blackstone Group LP (BX), the world’s largest private-equity company, said second-quarter profit more than tripled on gains in the value of its buyout and real estate investments.
Profit, excluding some costs tied to the firm’s initial public offering, increased to $703 million, or 63 cents a share, from $205 million, or 18 cents, a year earlier, New York-based Blackstone said today. That beat the 33-cent average estimate of 10 analysts in a Bloomberg survey. Earnings were helped by an accounting measure requiring Blackstone to recognize a larger share of profit in its real estate business.
Rising global markets have helped Blackstone, led by Chairman Stephen Schwarzman, distribute profits to investors by selling some of the companies it owns and taking others public. The firm has raised about $16.1 billion for a new leveraged- buyout fund and is seeking about $10 billion to make real estate deals.
“The real estate segment continues to benefit from improving fundamentals,” Daniel Fannon, an analyst at Jefferies & Co. in San Francisco, said in a note to clients.
You may recall that medicare fraud guy who was buying HOA foreclosures in the Tampa Area… well, he was arrested/jailed for breaking into a tenant’s home.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/property-manager-on-parole-sent-back-to-prison-for-breaking-into-tenants/1181731
“In addition to the prison sentence, Haught was ordered to attend an anger management course and pay $150 a month restitution towards the $9.7 million he still owes for the Medicare fraud.”
He will have that paid off in 5388 years.
Hot demand for Wellington apartments leads to construction plans
By Mitra Malek Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 4:30 p.m. Thursday, July 21, 2011
WELLINGTON — Apartments are apparently in hot demand in Wellington.
The owners of the Mall at Wellington Green want to start construction later this year on a complex - and recently won village approval to build even more apartments than they had originally planned.
Camden Court is expected to be a high-end rental community of 10 four-story buildings that feature elevators and perhaps even a dog park, community garden and tot lot.
“Rental demand has absolutely gone up, no question about that,” said Laura Pearlman, a rental specialist at Signature Service Realty Inc. in West Palm Beach.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/hot-demand-for-wellington-apartments-leads-to-construction-1632938.html - -
The top two U.S. companies managing prescription drug benefits are uniting in a $29.1 billion deal they say will help achieve key goals of the health care overhaul: reining in costs and improving patients’ health.
Express Scripts Inc. announced an agreement Thursday to buy rival Medco Health Solutions Inc. Together, they would handle the prescriptions of about 135 million people, more than one in three Americans.
There must be only 1.
Consolidation until you get to monopoly/oligopoly status, too big to fail, big enough to control congress.
As far as I can tell Medco either produces their own medications or contracts it out at high volumes and low margins. If you have Medco and fill your prescriptions locally the first thing they will do is hard sell you on doing the 90-day mail order through them. If they can talk you into it, it saves you significant money and I’m quite confident it saves them significant money, too. It’s an end-run around the profits of the drug makers that sell at retail prices and the margin of places like Walgreens that’s added on top of that.
Granted this is a terrible tragedy. But you just have to hate the MSM’s “everyone is a victim” mentality. People who ignore posted warning signs are victims of their own folly; please don’t blame it on record snowmelt.
P.S. My memory of a wonderful hike to the brink of Vernal Falls I enjoyed several years ago with my oldest son is destined to be forever dampened by the mental image of this tragedy. We decidedly did not cross over any barriers festooned with warning signs, as I always assume such signs are posted for a good reason.
Yosemite deaths a reminder of rivers’ risks
GOSIA WOZNIACKA, Associated Press, TRACIE CONE, Associated Press
Updated 08:03 p.m., Thursday, July 21, 2011
A man and a woman crossed this metal barricade above the 317-foot Vernal Fall on Tuesday, July 19, 2011 making their way over slick granite at the waters edge of the Merced River at the top of of the fallsl. The top of Vernal Fall is always treacherous, and is especially so this year because of the record snowmelt now under way. A metal barricade separates hikers from the river where it pools before crashing over the precipice. Photo: GosiaWozniacka / AP
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) — The deaths of three young tourists who were swept over a 317-foot waterfall this week in Yosemite National Park serve as a reminder of the deadly and alluring beauty of the raging rivers and streams across the West after a record winter snowfall.
As temperatures rise, the melting snow has engorged waterways, causing flooding and sometimes tragic consequences. Some states have seen an increase in water-related deaths that they blame on the surge in river flows.
…
July 21, 2011, 6:29 p.m. EDT
Audit of Fed finds conflict-of-interest weakness
By Greg Robb and Ronald D. Orol, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — A long-awaited audit of the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending programs on Thursday urged several reforms, including an overhaul of the central bank’s conflict-of-interest policies.
The Government Accountability Office found that many employees and contractors of the New York Fed were allowed to keep investments in companies that received Fed assistance.
…
New Jobless Claims in Perspective: Historically Ugly
By Dan Burrows | Jul 21, 2011
The economy has technically passed through its recovery phase into a new era of expansion, but you wouldn’t know it from the reams of pink slips companies are slapping on their workers.
New claims for unemployment insurance jumped again last week and have hovered above 400,000 for 16 straight weeks now. The latest data also came in worse than Wall Street’s average forecast.
Why economists as group should continue to be surprised by the lousy labor market is anyone’s guess. When it comes to firing people in the midst of an expanding economy, it really is different this time.
Read more: http://moneywatch.bnet.com/investing/blog/investment-insights/new-unemployment-claims-in-perspective/1859/#ixzz1SoPpvkTd
Don’t you just hate it when people try to concoct rational explanations for the behavior of the housing market?
July 17, 2011, 11:21 am
Mystery Mortgage Economics
As most of our attention is focused on the debt-ceiling crisis, another issue is coming to a head: whether prosecutors will rush to let banks off the hook for mortgage abuses in return for a modest settlement, without having done anything like a complete investigation.
I’ll leave the legal issues to others; what puzzles me is the economic argument being made for a rush to settlement:
Help me out here: why would accelerating the foreclosure process halt the slide in home prices?
I mean, let’s think supply and demand here. When you evict a family from a home, you’re adding that home to the supply of homes for sale. Yes, some evicted families will go out in search of new housing — but almost by definition, they won’t be able to buy or rent as much house as the one they were living in.
So this looks to me like an increase in housing supply not matched by an equal increase in demand. Shouldn’t this push prices down, not up?
…
Samurai sword tax.
Or would that fall under the machete tax? I don`t think the hammer tax would cover it.
Police: Hollywood man used samurai sword on girlfriend
By Ihosvani Rodriguez, Sun Sentinel
7:16 p.m. EDT, July 21, 2011
HOLLYWOOD —
A man attacked his girlfriend with a samurai sword when she refused to stay in her bedroom, police said.
The attack on Sunday was the second reported this week by a man using a large blade as a weapon.
Gil Camacho, 49, is facing an attempted first-degree murder charge for the samurai sword attack that took place in the couple’s home in the 6100 block of Wiley Street in Hollywood.
Then Camacho took the samurai sword from a nearby stand, removed the sheath and began striking Berrios, she told police, adding that she raised her arms to protect her face and neck, and felt the sword strike her bones several times.
On Tuesday, a suburban Boca Raton man charged with striking his wife repeatedly with a machete was ordered held without bond.
Video: Port St. Lucie teen accused of killing parents with hammer
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/hollywood/fl-samurai-sword-attack-20110721,0,4066741.story - -