Bits Bucket for August 22, 2011
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
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AIDS agencies scramble for funds
Federal cutbacks force urgent appeal to donors
The agencies were notified by the state Department of Public Health this month that federal funding for AIDS prevention in Massachusetts would be cut by $4.3 million, roughly one-quarter of the state’s annual AIDS prevention budget.
“We are in a budget crisis with our federal government, and it’s unlikely there will be additional resources,’’ said Philip Finch, vice president of development at Fenway Health, which is losing $100,000 in AIDS prevention funding because of the cuts. That’s about 20 percent of what it spends on prevention.
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/articles/2011/08/22/mass_aids_agencies_scramble_for_funds/?p1=News_links
Quick review of the 990 filing shows that 9,023,496 of Fenway Health’s budget comes from “government grants”. A million and half goes directly to executive compensation for just seven employees. I am all for people getting the help they need but….
http://nccs.urban.org/
Some non-profits are just scams.
The people who work for them get very large salaries. Between that and “marketing” some get less tha 5% of the money they take in to the actual people in need.
Some magazines actually rate non-profits (Consumer’s Reports comes to mind).
The Red Cross scored very high.
The Red Cross is awesome. They were right there when I got burned out of my apartment a few years back. I don’t know what I would have done without them. An amazing organization, worthy of donations.
Same for my son when he got burned out.
Red Cross did exactly zilch for us when our house burned to vapor in ‘98. Repeated calls to their automated answering service netted not even a courtesy return, let alone needed used clothing, shelter, toiletries, emergency foodstuff.
Guess who stopped donating to Red Cross?
Before I went to MS to do post-Katrina reconstruction, I saw a presentation by a local man who’d been doing this on his own. Guy was the owner of a local construction company, and he took himself and his tools over to the Gulf Coast and got busy helping the locals rebuild.
He focused his efforts on the MS coastal community of D’Iberville. According to him, the Red Cross came there shortly after Katrina.
But their purpose in being there was to find a nice backdrop for a fundraising video. The locals, who were badly in need of help, weren’t too pleased about being used by the Red Cross. So, they ran the Red Cross outta town.
Ask a WWII vet about their coming home treatment by the Salvation Army vs. the Red Cross.
My wife works for a non-profit that banks cancer tissues for use in medical research.
The owner of the non-profit takes home a paultry $400K a year wage.
No wonder they don’t make any profit
My wife works for a non-profit that banks cancer tissues for use in medical research.
The owner of the non-profit takes home a paultry $400K a year wage.
In my last full-time job, I worked for one of the biggest fundraising organizations in Arizona. While my pay barely broke the $20k mark, and that was in the early 1990s, the big boys at the top were pulling down six figures.
And I wasn’t the only underpaid minion in this place. More than one of my coworkers shopped at yard sales and thrift stores. They had no other choice. I also heard a rumor — most likely true — that one of the clerks in the accounting office got food boxes from her church.
I left the employ of that outfit in 1994. Trust me, I’m not one of their regular donors.
And before I donate to any non-profit, I scrutinize how well the thing is run and how well the employees are treated.
In almost every situation, there is no such thing as the owner of a non-profit. There can be a founder. There can be a CEO. There can be a board of directors. There can be all sorts of people who make a lot of money and benefit from the existance of the non-profit. But they don’t own it.
There is only one type of situation that I am aware of in which stock corporations can be non-profit and in that situation there have to be all sorts of controls in place so that the owner can’t make any important decisions for the organization. And these organizations aren’t the ones that call you up asking for money.
As for the phone thing, whenever anyone calls me up asking for donations for anything, I always reply that I do not donate to organizations that raise money by telephone solicitation. End of conversation.
“Every great cause starts out as a movement, degenerates into a business, and ends up a racket.” Eric Hoffer
Maybe the CEO of a nonprofit makes a good living. Everyone else in the organization is expected to devote their life to the Cause for a decent but entirely unimpressive salary.
And this is different that every company/corporation how?
Hmmm, good point.
Agree! Our CEO for the united way was getting paid like $500k a year. Crazy
Lane
$1.5 million for 7 executives of a health care/prevention non-profit is peanuts. If you want to get those sort of services for less than that, you will have to make it a government entity - probably state or local level.
Peak “non-profit” executive pay?
At one time, great causes were served by charity. Somewhere along the line that changed to abounding executive centric schemes and a subculture of grant writers to dip into the rivers of money.
And fundraising from ordinary folk. Yep, there has been some great nonprofit entrepreneurship going on the past 30 years or so. Thinking of the Rocky Mtn Elk Foundation here in Montana. The founders really cleaned up.
We’ve had a proliferation of wildlife farms and rescue pig sanctuary types around here living large too.
We’ve had a proliferation of wildlife farms and rescue pig sanctuary types around here living large too.
Animal rescue is one of the biggest rackets going.
And, sorry to say, a lot of those so-called rescuers are actually hoarders. The animals live in terrible conditions.
Animal rescue is one of the biggest rackets going.
And, sorry to say, a lot of those so-called rescuers are actually hoarders. The animals live in terrible conditions.
”
like my neighbor with all the dogs and the smell and the flies
I can’t seem get away from them. She sits in the back yard smoking cigerettes, talking on the phone all day, Mexican maintance comes 2x per month by and blows Dog doo all over the place.
another reason to rent easy to move
The only animal rescue place I support is the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah. I have actually been there. My husband and I found ourselves driving right by it on our way from Bryce Canyon to the Grand Canyon North Rim so we stopped by for a tour. It has a beautiful location on 10,000+ acres.
This is an amazing place, folks. They care for thousands of animals, not just dogs and cats but birds, horses, donkeys, pot bellied pigs. There are something like nine houses for cats alone. They took in a lot of the Michael Vick pit bulls, most of which were rehabilitated and adopted out. The ranch is staffed by a combination of professional staff (around 400) and volunteers. The love shows in everything they do there. It is 100% funded by donations.
The only animal rescue place I support is the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah.
and there are hundreds and thousands of other animal rescues that do just as good of work.
PAWS up in Seattle is one - they handle/rehabilitate wildlife as well as cats and dogs.
“…somewhere along the line that changed to abounding executive centric schemes….”
The medieval Catholic Church never amassed obscene fortunes at the expense of its parish poor, right?
Charity was invented to assuage the consciences of the guilty–sort of a self-imposed socialism.
The difference in the origins of the words for “charity” are sort of interesting.
Caritas has its root in the word for love. You give charity because of your love for those in need. Both a very high aspiration (you are supposed to feel a particular way) and an easy way out (what if you don’t love them, not even in the emulating Jesus way?). In any event, your feeling toward the recipient is relevant in some way.
The Hebrew word is tzedakah and comes from the root tzedek which means righteousness. You give because you are a good person and the person who receives it has nothing to do with the process. If the poor are unworthy, well, that is irrelevant. And no one cares much about your feelings.
I’d love to know what the Arabic word is and its origin. Same thing for the other main languanges for other religions. It very interesting.
In Arabic, mandatory charity to be given out by every Muslim annually (if they can afford it) is 2.5% of their accumulated wealth, its called ‘Zakat’. Optional charity is called ‘Sadaqa’.
Instead of trying to explain these here I would refer the enquiring minds to ‘wikipedia’ or google.
BlueCross/Blueshield are non profits.
Are those the ones you’re talking about banana?
Don’t know about everywhere else, but here they also own for-profit subsidiaries which make the money for them.
I think he is talking about the Green Bay Packers. The Packers are the only non-profit, community-owned major league professional sports team in the United States
gee, and we were promised a vaccine by 1985.
and we were promised a vaccine by 1985 ??
Why work on such mundane things like finding cures…We have more important things to spend our money & time on, like war…
Not everyone is downsizing….
WASHINGTON - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is planning to nearly quadruple the size of his $12 million California beachfront mansion.
The former Massachusetts governor is planning to bulldoze his 3,009-square-foot home facing the Pacific Ocean in La Jolla, Calif., and replace it with an 11,062-square-foot home, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2011/08/22/romney_to_nearly_quadruple_mansions_size/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed6
Wow - that is almost an Al Gore house!
Why would anybody want to elect the guy who spends the most money?
And they begrudge Obama a week on Martha’s Vineyard. Sheesh. I’m not a fan of Obama, but I find the invented “controversy” over his vacation sickening beyond belief.
Perhaps he should be working on his ranch in Texas.
Or his ranch in California.
the notion that any president is ever “on vacation” is a rediculous one.
they do it to obama because they did it to bush because they did it to clinton becuase they did it to….blah…blah…blah…on and on and on…
I don’t think JFK got ridiculed for doing the same thing. Those were the good old days!
And they begrudge Obama a week on Martha’s Vineyard. Sheesh. I’m not a fan of Obama, but I find the invented “controversy” over his vacation sickening beyond belief.
Two things:
1. Obama tends to go to the “black” part of MV. Yes, there is one. It’s been a vacation spot for wealthy African Americans for generations.
2. Bill Clinton also took vacations on MV, where he was wildly popular with the locals. He was darn near a regular at the Black Dog saloon, and the people there ate it up.
But, then again, Clinton loved nothing better than a rope line. Guy would shake hands for hours if the Secret Service let him. Matter of fact, Bill Clinton still enjoys shaking hands.
As for Obama, let’s just say that hand-shaking along the rope line isn’t one of his favorite things. He’s more of an introvert, a la Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon.
yeah, stupid nonissue, just payback. BFD.
Who knows — maybe he knows more about not going broke than the average American politician?
I was thinking about that last night: Is the expansion simply to live larger, or is there a security angle?
is there a security angle?
In La Jolla?, what militant-skateboarders-against-Mormons-&-age95-senior-drivers.
Back in the day I had a classmate at UCSD who lived in La Jolla with his parents (this was in the 80’s). He told me that they were burglarized on a regular basis, even though there house was wired with an alarm system (the burglars would be long gone before anyone arrived).
“I was thinking about that last night: Is the expansion simply to live larger, or is there a security angle?”
There might be a security angle after adding a second story that blocks the views of the neighbors. Does La Jolla really need a second Mormon Temple?
GOP may OK tax increase that Obama hopes to block
Workers normally pay 6.2 percent of their wages toward a tax designated for Social Security. Their employer pays an equal amount, for a total of 12.4 percent per worker.
As part of a bipartisan spending deal last December, Congress approved Obama’s request to reduce the workers’ share to 4.2 percent for one year; employers’ rate did not change. Obama wants Congress to extend the reduction for an additional year. If not, the rate will return to 6.2 percent on Jan. 1.
Obama cited the payroll tax in his weekend radio and Internet address Saturday, when he urged Congress to work together on measures that help the economy and create jobs. “There are things we can do right now that will mean more customers for businesses and more jobs across the country. We can cut payroll taxes again, so families have an extra $1,000 to spend,” he said.
The 12-month tax reduction will cost the government about $120 billion this year, and a similar amount next year if it’s renewed.
That worries Rep. David Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, and a member of the House-Senate supercommittee tasked with finding new deficit cuts. Tax reductions, “no matter how well-intended,” will push the deficit higher, making the panel’s task that much harder, Camp’s office said.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney did not flatly rule out an extra year for the payroll tax cut, but he “would prefer to see the payroll tax cut on the employer side” to spur job growth, his campaign said.
The “Job Creators” need more tax cuts.
“That worries Rep. David Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, and a member of the House-Senate supercommittee tasked with finding new deficit cuts. Tax reductions, “no matter how well-intended,” will push the deficit higher, making the panel’s task that much harder, Camp’s office said.”
So maybe they will let the Bush tax cuts expire.
Romneys want to “enlarge their two-bedroom home because with five married sons and 16 grandchildren it is inadequate for their needs ??
Interesting how money has the ability to smooth over those rough edges of getting married and having a bunch of kids…
I wonder if he calls CA his “primary residence”, or if he is just another in the long line of folks who gets the long-term benefit of CA Prop 13 and nice oceanfront digs without paying income tax in the state, but who’s property value benefits from state services…
long-term benefit of CA Prop 13 and nice oceanfront digs ??
His real estate taxes on that place will be well above the average yearly income of most Californians…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-21/wall-street-aristocracy-got-1-2-trillion-in-fed-s-secret-loans.html
Bloomberg: Wall Street “Aristocracy” (Kleptocracy) Got $2 TRILLION in “Loans.”
Pat yourselves on the back, Obama and McCain voters. You made this brazen thievery possible.
This is great news!
Not because it happened but because we are hearing about it.
Spot on. The information age is a great time to learn what really transpires in non-public meetings involving top government officials.
“Pat yourselves on the back, Obama and McCain voters. You made this brazen thievery possible.”
Hardly. This brazen thievery goes all the way back to the creation of the Federal Reserve, an institution whose time has come to go.
Pat yourselves on the back, Woodrow Wilson voters. You made this brazen thievery possible.
Agreed. QE III which is already going on under the disguise of keeping interest rates low policy is the reason why gold is soaring, of course helped out by other countries printing currencies. One of the reasons, I am in the inflationary camp. Since countries such as China have learned our tricks, they will maintain at a minimum 8% a year growth, their stated lowest acceptable growth. China’s growth alone is now enough to prevent a world wide recession, they are about 30% larger now as an economy than they were in 2008.
Finally, oil is in a lot shorter supply than people seem to know hence the need to end the Libyan war. The UN Resolution, 1973, was for a no fly zone and only the protection of civilians, with an arms embargo on both sides. During the last few months, NATO engaged in massive airdrops of weapons to the rebels, coordinated airstrikes and bombed targets with significant civilian casualties despite having no authorization, all to end the war and start oil production. However, the amount of oil that will come to the market soon is not enough unless I am wrong on the world wide recession.
…but, but, but…I thought if you don’t vote for any of those 2 crime syndicates you’re throwing your vote away.
Interestingly Germany has 5 major parties. You think that would be better? Unfortunately they have almost the entirely same agenda:
1. enrich themselves
2. enrich their cronies
3. take huge donations from lobbyists
4. waste taxpayer money to enrich campaign donors
5. bailout banksters at taxpayer expense
6. save the EURO at tax payer expense (the EURO is an extremely expensive politician’s hobby in the entire EU across almost all parties)
7. raise taxes on the working class
8. cut benefits
9. promise a balanced budget AFTER they left office
10. blame the deficit on the guys that were in charge BEFORE them
See, in Germany you can vote socialist, communist, liberal, environmentalist or christian conservative and you get almost the same exact political agenda. Only the clowns in charge change, all else stays the same. Isn’t choice great?
Until there are Ron Pauls running in 51% of the House districts and 60% of the Senate races, Ron Paul would not be able to accomplish anything radical, outside of government shutdown. The only thing he could do is veto bills that came across his desk.
Unfortunately, a lot of the small government politicians in Congress are also social conservatives who want to legislate everyone else’s private behavior.
Do you have a Ron Paul type running in your House and Senate races, Sammy?
Almost everyone has a Ron Paul running for their House and Senate. Psst! (step closer) they are called LIBERTARIANS!
Millionaire insists on getting his money back from hedge fund.
Billionaire tells Fed he hasn’t got the money to pay him.
Fed says here (FAV).
WS dives.
Fed says here (QE2)
WS recovers. Fed paid FAV back.
Voo Doo economics.
Patrick …right on .
“That mirage has disappeared in the past five years.”
How Palm Beach County’s economy has suffered after real-estate bust
By Jeff Ostrowski Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 11:37 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 20, 2011
The collapse of the housing market has exacted a multibillion-dollar toll on Palm Beach County’s once-robust economy.
About $78 billion in real estate value has evaporated since the bubble burst. Also gone are 93,000 jobs, not to mention more than $4 billion in annual wages and $3.5 billion a year in taxable sales.
And by some reckonings, the Great Recession has delivered more meaningful, if less measurable, damage to the psyche of the middle class. The instant riches of the real estate boom, along with record-low unemployment, let middle-income homeowners enjoy a brief spell of sudden prosperity. That mirage has disappeared in the past five years.
Declining incomes are one symptom. The share of Palm Beach County families earning $50,000 to $150,000 a year fell from 49.2 percent in 2006 to 46.1 percent in 2009, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
More significant, the value of Palm Beach County real estate has plunged by a third in the past five years, according to the Palm Beach County property appraiser. After peaking at $233 billion in 2006, the value of all residential and commercial property plummeted to $155 billion this year.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/how-palm-beach-countys-economy-has-suffered-after-1768567.html - 87k -
Didn’t Madoff also wipe clean the Palm Beach elite?
“Didn’t Madoff also wipe clean the Palm Beach elite?”
Maybe he did but there is a new group of elite buying and remodeling on Palm Beach. I have 3 major remodels going on right now. One of them was purchased for $7 million and they are putting $2 million into it on Ocean Ave. Unfortunately only $60k of the $2 million is my end. It`s an old wood lath and plaster gut and $60k is the contract not the profit, but hey better than nothing.
Be ye notified that jeff saturday’s company does excellent work. Hire him if you’re anywhere near the Palm Beach area.
But is he cheap. Does he work for steak and potatoes or rice and beans. That is the question.
In the last year I have done several jobs that I lost money on. The big problem is I knew going in that I was going to lose money. But it is better to lose $3k on a job over 3 months and keep people paid make the tax deposits, insurance payments (workers comp-Liability no more health can`t afford it) than to lose $3k in a week paying guys who have been with me for years to sit home. In the last year they have also been paid to sit home.
“One thing is certain. You will see a collapse of this inflation and that will mean the end of the era you have known.” ~Vern Myers
There it is!
Happening right now, right in front of our eyes.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
I still remember the deflationistas shouting from the rooftops in the 70’s.
Reading Mauldin’s “Endgame” now. From that book, periods of deflation were commonplace historically, that is, until money became freely printable (dislodged from precious metals, etc.). Then periods of deflation were almost non-existent.
Is it different this time? My view is the same as others that I’ve heard…the Fed is trying like hell to create inflation…eventually they’ll be successful.
Realtors Are Liars®
Flip on TV this morning. CNBC. Flapping heads still going on and on about how we can’t afford entitlements, stimulus, monitary policy, yadda, yadda, yadda.
They just don’t get it.
Yeah, fiscal policy isn’t working, becuase we still have the same trade imbalances. They don’t get it.
Yeah, monitary policy isn’t working, because we still have the same trade imbalances. They don’t get it.
Yeah, government revenue is too low to provide all the entitlements we’ve promised. That is becasue WAGES ARE too low, and the top marginal tax rate is WAY too low. You know, those pesky trade imbalances.
If what you are doing brought you to the verge of financial collapse, why on earth would you think that the solution would be more of the exact same thing that got you to where you are?
Stupid: adjective.
Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different outcome.
Again….
Rebalance the balance of payments(trade deficit) and all this goes away.
Along with a lot of cheap goods, and cheap oil.
The market would normally take care of this by wiping out the value of our currency.
If what you are doing brought you to the verge of financial collapse, why on earth would you think that the solution would be more of the exact same thing that got you to where you are?
Insane spending levels?
Solution - bring down insane spending levels to just the crazy spending levels of the 2000s or just the mad spending levels of the 1990s?
But first you have to bring up wages and create private sector jobs by pluging the massive holes on our economy.
tariffs on imports and an 80% or higher top marginal tax rate.
THEN we can create some jobs, get some big wage increases, make people less dependant on government, THEN massive spending cuts.
If we do the spending cuts first, we plunge into deep, deep depression.
” 80% or higher top marginal tax rate.”
everything would go into municipal bonds.
driving rates lower…making local governemnts borrow more.
any capital not moved to muni’s would flee the country.
Tax munis. Tariffs on money leaving the country.
The alternative is to let the debt default and the money vanishes into the thin air from which it was borrowed.
the money would still leave…and it would never come back.
your solution would be just as bad as defaulting.
the money would still leave…and it would never come back.
Why the continuous unsupported, short, globalization apologist soundbites? The system failed us and you keep saying that’s the way it is and it can’t ever change. I live in a protectionist country and it ain’t falling apart. Surprised?
Higher top marginal tax rates and reasonable tariffs and the “money would leave”? “Never come back”? You are wrong. For every reason you can come up with that the “money will leave” there is a way to “make the money stay”.
It’s called laws, policy and incentives.
i support raising taxes on LTCG and dividends.
80% marginal tax on gross income would destroy the tax base.
i am speaking to his specific recommendations not his concept.
“tariffs on imports and an 80% or higher top marginal tax rate. THEN we can create some jobs”
At least we could all be on food stamps!
What?
You wouldn’t need to be on food stamps if we actually made stuff in America with American labor so Americans can afford to buy food based on their wages rather than having to rely on government handouts becuase there are no jobs.
Free trade, job offshoring, trade deficits, lower wages… THESE are the things that have created the need for food stamps.
You wouldn’t need to be on food stamps if we actually made stuff in America with American labor so Americans can afford to buy food based on their wages rather than having to rely on government handouts becuase there are no jobs.
So do you only buy american? Do you look at labels and even if it costs more, choose the locally-produced product? Buy from locally-owned shops/corporations?
Not making accusations - just curious, given the tone of your posts. It seems to imply that such things can only be accomplished via federal government intervention.
Color me suspicious, but I suspect that if we give the Feds even more of our money to play with, it won’t be spent much on things that create jobs for regular folks!
why is an 80% marginal rate necessary to achieve your goals?
why is an 80% marginal rate necessary to achieve your goals?
Wouldn’t you have asked the same question if he had said 70%? or 50%? or 40%? or 39%?
“Not making accusations - just curious, given the tone of your posts. It seems to imply that such things can only be accomplished via federal government intervention.”
History shows that it can only be acheived via federal government intervention.
What one person does, does not effect what the other 300 million people do. Sure, if the 300 million all volunteerd to only buy American… and if I pooped gold.
“why is an 80% marginal rate necessary to achieve your goals?”
Because trade imbalances exist domestically as well as internationally. They too must be closed off and reversed if we are to defuse the debt bomb without cascade default into depression.
I want to reduce the tax burden on the low end of the income scale (eliminating payroll taxes) to drive demad. we will still have massive SS, MC/C and DoD obligations, so someone has to pay. I think it should be the people that can pay without drastically decreasing demand in the market.
We need to attack the pools of money that exist now, to get that money back into the hands of the people with debt, so they can pay back that debt.
Because we need to begin paying down the national debt, in addition to providing Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and a (much) smaller DoD.
Because a select few people reaped insane profits from the disasterous supply-side economics, and the debt we have run up can not possibly be paid back without those people that currently have the money ending up with WAY less money.
Because a tax rate that high decreases the incentive to cut wages and offshore jobs in the name of eeeking out slightly higher corporate profits, most of which will be taken by the government anyway.
Basically, because that is what will be needed to restore balance to the economy while allowing debts to be repaid.
Wouldn’t you have asked the same question if he had said 70%? or 50%? or 40%? or 39%?
on wages? yes.
i do not want to destroy what is left of any form of a productive economy.
right now the professional wage earners (doctors, lawyers, engineers) do not need to be squeezed.
the folks you complain about reaped advantage from the FIRE economy. they were not wages or earned income but from passive investment income.
it’s the FIRE economy that is the enemy not the productive one…i distinguish the two in the tax base as the difference between earned and unearned or passive income.
it’s the FIRE economy stupid. (not really calling you stupid…just a revision of a famous phrase).
…wage earners (doctors, lawyers, engineers) do not need to be squeezed….it’s the FIRE economy that is the enemy…i distinguish the two in the tax base as the difference between earned and unearned or passive income.
OK, I’ll go for that along with the Bush tax cuts expired on 350K income and above. A compromise.
Why 350K? (those on the right would challenge) Why not another arbitrary number?
OK another compromise: 372K (see? I compromise unlike the Republicans)
i can stipulate to that.
what’s next?
My wife and I are getting older. We want our earned SS, Medicare, and quality-of-life in our old age.
Voted for Obama. Maybe a mistake as a lifelong Democrat.
Ron Paul is right. Who the hell appointed us as the world’s policeman? Bring all of our forces home.
I fear it was our collective societal ego, which, about now, seems to not have served us so well.
We are soon to be the #2 economy, then the ……..
“…bring down insane spending levels to just the crazy spending levels of the 2000s or just the mad spending levels of the 1990s?”
Only if you’re a wascally wepublican who wants the economy to crater to keep The One from getting re-elected in 2012.
You call it stupid, I call it insanity.
“Flapping heads still going on and on about how we can’t afford entitlements, stimulus, monetary policy, yadda, yadda, yadda…”
The sheeple are being prepped for what is about to come down upon them.
The sheeple are being prepped for what is about to come down upon them.
Unlike the rich…
We actually can afford entitlements, stimulus, monetary policy etc. We just need a pocket full of those very cool $5 trillion coins.
I am actually mixed on inflation vs deflation, but we cannot have SS, Medicare, Pensions, Welfare etc without it.
Our small businesses continue to fail at record rates and people are out of credit and money to buy stuff anymore. Jobs are still being off-shored and even with tax increases the net tax collected will continue to fall as the economy plunges into the abyss.
Unless we attack the trade imbalances directly, before they result in cascade default.
Like I said yesterday, for these people globalism is a religion, a matter of faith. They truly believe that it is possible to have a thriving economy while export the good paying jobs.
They believe in it without question, as to doubt it is heresy.
Globalism was a spendthrift’s holiday. Sobriety comes with an empty account book. The golden age of 80% of the population living off of the 20% can be considered over.
So it’s back to the golden age of 1% of the populace living off of the other 99%.
The golden age of 80% of the population living off of the 20% can be considered over.
This statement bears no relation to the American reality, today or yesterday. I believe such sentiment is nurtured by the PTB’s propaganda machine. I mean it’s so far out of whack of what our current and past behavior as a nation is/was that I wonder how Americans can fall for such throwaway lines that are fed to us by those with an agenda.
80% living of 20%? “Moochers and Producers”? Say what? I ain’t buying what you are trying to sell.
Let me tell you all something. Americans are hard working, highly productive people. 90% of all Americans would rather work at a decent paying job than take public scraps. It’s in our nature. We are not “lazy” as the super-rich propagandize us.
Being unemployed KILLS many Americans- kills our pride, our sense of self-worth, our health and our lives. To gut our economy and our jobs base and then to tell Americans we are “lazy” is self-serving hypocrisy and like kicking a down man in the face.
Why did we have full employment in the 90s? Only 4.4% unemployed because we’re lazy? The world’s highest productivity because we’re lazy? People going into serious debt to educate themselves, sending out 100’s of resumes, spending years job hunting only to take a Wal-Mart job because they are “lazy”?
No Koch Bros and FOX. I ain’t buying what you’re trying to sell me.
You can assume an agenda of moochers and such all you want, the simple fact is that a 20% slice of the population is the tax mule fleet. Transfer programs flow from them to those above and below. The nag looks to have a saggy back. All the borrowing it takes to keep the wheels turning says to me things will change.
“…90% of all Americans would rather work at a decent paying job than take public scraps.”
Make that 75% and I’d agree.
…20% slice of the population is the tax mule fleet…..Transfer programs flow from them to those above and below.
As is often the case, you are talking about the “what” (unbalanced tax receipts and distributions) but I am talking about the “why”. (America’s grossly unequal wealth and income distribution)
Anyone can see the “what” but the “why”, although more easily obfuscated through Koch/Fox type propaganda, needs to be identified and rectified.
The “why” is much more important to this argument than the “what” because the “what” is caused by the “why”. Not vice-versa.
The only way to change the “what” is to fix the “why”. Only harping on the “what” can’t solve the problem of the underlying “why”.
Not opposed to pondering why, but practicality requires a sense for what is so as to navigate, and especially what is next.
Shut up and take a 10% pay cut or we outsource your job to Chindia. What ya gonna do?
I don’t see what can be done to prevent this other than a full scale trade war with tariffs and more currency manipulation.
In the US you counteract trade imbalances by currency devaluation and in the EURO zone by either bailouts and/or default. Those seems to be the path of least resistance.
“I don’t see what can be done to prevent this other than a full scale trade war..”
already happening.
In my humble opinion Darrell and Rio are right . We really have no other choice but to take some drastic measures . If you understand what the problem is ,than you can than work on what the solution is .
This brainwashing of give up for the investment class/industrial complex/wall Street is absurd . My God, telling people that they should be happy with a 30% reduction in their income when prices have raised 20% for example is absurd . Some people have long term obligations based on their prior salaries and that won’t help the debt situation one bit ,as Darrel said . Debt problems are solved by ability to pay . Further reducing peoples ability to pay is just a recipe for disaster .
These clown are trying to create generation warfare also to keep the eyes off their motives .
Expect more brainwashing and faulty solutions from the talking heads and PR machine .
A big time mess was created that will only get worse if proper action isn’t done . Corruption is everywhere .
I’m sick of shills on TV and their PR campaigns of what the
lobbyist solutions are .Its all about transfering the pain to the people least able to take that pain.
I don’t think people have a good idea of how bad it would
be for the middle and upper middle class to vanish by a slow death .
This is in one of the MOST left leaning districts in one of the MOST left leaning states.
Yes kiddies - obama is in trouble.
—————
In the Race to Succeed Weiner, a Surprising Anger at Obama
New York Times | August 21, 2011 | MICHAEL BARBARO
Of all the places to hear fulminations against President Obama, one of the least expected is the corner of 71st Avenue and Queens Boulevard, in the heart of a Congressional district that propelled Democrats like Geraldine A. Ferraro, Charles E. Schumer and Anthony D. Weiner to Washington.
But it was there that Dale Weiss, a 64-year-old Democrat, approached the Republican running for Congress in a special election and, without provocation, blasted the president for failing to tame runaway federal spending. “We need to cut Medicaid,” she declared, “but he won’t do that.” She shook her head in disgust. “He is a moron.”
After nodding approvingly for a time, the Republican candidate, Bob Turner, signaled for an assistant to cut off Ms. Weiss. Frustration with Mr. Obama is so widespread, he explained later, that he tries to limit such rants to about 30 seconds, or else they will consume most of his day.
“It’s endemic in the district,” Mr. Turner said. “You can’t stop them once they get started.”
The Sept. 13 election for the Ninth Congressional District seat became vacant this summer when Mr. Weiner quit over an online sex scandal. The race was widely viewed as a sleepy sideshow — a mere formality that would put David I. Weprin, a Democratic state assemblyman and heir to a Queens political dynasty, into a seat known for its deep blue hue.
Instead, the race has become something far more unsettling to Democrats: a referendum on the president and his party that is highlighting the surprisingly raw emotions of the electorate.
National Democrats, alarmed by a poll that showed the contest far closer than anticipated, are privately fretting that even a close outcome in a working-class swath of Brooklyn and Queens may foreshadow broader troubles for the party in 2012.
Dale Weiss, a 64-year-old Democrat is obviously an undercover tea party racist nut job.
Dale Weiss
Perhaps she was offered a “TrueAnger™ / “TrueDeceiver’s™” “Joe-the-plumber” repair discount.
That’s you’re hope we know. Just keep championing the Evangelical candidates Bananas. We are.
Exactly, as if Democrats are going to vote for Bachmann or Perry. Heck, even moderates won’t vote for those whack jobs.
i’m not a moderate and i want vote for those whack jobs.
want = won’t
“That’s you’re hope we know.”
No not really, in fact I saw your post on how you love Evangelical candidates that run on abortion. I bet you do and I don`t understand it. Why anyone would come out and say there should be no abortions ever under any circumstances or say gay people should not be allowed to get married is waaaay beyond me. I believe in God, but I am more of a let he who is without sin cast the first stone Prodical Son kinda guy. Now I don`t think abortion should be celebrated or used as birth control but IMHO it`s really not up to any man or woman to tell someone what they can do with their life. Now having said that if it`s a womans right to choose (and I know this will draw fire) I think the man or boy involved should get some say in the end result also. Example: An 18 year old girl gets pregnant. She goes to her 18 year old boyfriend and says.. I am not going to ruin my life, I am getting an abortion. He has to say OK. Fair enough. She could also say… I am going to have this baby and you are going to pay your share until this child is 18 whether you like it or not. Wait a second. I am not saying he can make her have an abortion but if he does not want the responsibilties of being a father and would rather she had an abortion but she doesn`t want to and the DNA test says your on the hook bud, what`s up with that.
I guess I am a gov. borrowing $trillions more than it takes in Illegal immigration SSI fraud don`t like people living for free in houses for years bailed out banks $100k life long pensions for 42 year old fireman kind of right wing nut.
Ask yourself these simple questions;
Why are candidates running on a platform of interfering with the civil rights of citizens?
What does that say about the person campaigning?
What does that say about the person who votes for creeps like this?
Why is sex and religion interjected into discourse?
All I can say is stay on those subjects because it’s going to unleash a can of whoop ass on those making the mistake of campaigning on it.
Prodical Son
Prodigal Son
If she decides not to have an abortion, but he stays in the picture, makes sure that everyone knows he is the father and then refuses to agree to an adoption while she doesn’t want to raise a baby, I believe he has all the same rights to force her to pay support that she would have had over him. He can be the custodial parent who receives child support from her rather than the other way around. The only difference is that he has to make it known that he is the other parent and he doesn’t have a say over whether there is an abortion.
And I realize that in reality the abortion decision often is the one that matters. I also realize that a guy doesn’t always know if sex has led to a pregnancy, but that is the way the biology falls. Condoms have been around for a long time.
” Condoms have been around for a long time.”
Both men and women should know that. Now I personally could not ever think about not taking care of a child that was mine. Hell I am taking care of a cat my oldest daughter moved back home with and then moved out and left behind. And I don`t like cats, but I think it`s my cat now. Could have been worse and I guess still could be. My current neighbor who is my age (51) is raising his 2 year old grandson.
Those against abortion can put their money where their mouth is. They can save a life by adopting the child or contract with the mother to pay for the child’s upbringing, including educational expenses.
Seconded.
+1
Me too.
And Jeff - Kudos to your neighbor for raising his grandson. Not an easy road at 51. Standing ovation.
Az Slim- Kudos to you for taking care of your parents.
I’m heading in that direction. All the years my sister way playing my mother’s compassion for free $ (helps support grandchildren), she needs it now for a post hip surgery caregiver, and doesn’t have much left. My sister is a pos.
Now having said that if it`s a womans right to choose (and I know this will draw fire) I think the man or boy involved should get some say in the end result also.
Draw fire? Fire? Are you kidding? Do you know what you just said? Man…
(but it does make some sense)
A workable solution, if you are going to collect a ($100k at 42) retirement check..you’s better be retired and prove it each year with your tax forms, otherwise you will get your first check at 65.
$100k life long pensions for 42 year old fireman
JS we feel your (our) pain. Well said.
For those of you who don’t know, this is a right leaning district in a centerist state. If you didn’t have a woman as leader of the Democrats in the House, the Dems would have kept Weiner in until the next election. He almost lost the last one as it was.
This is a true Tea Party district. Increase Medicaid for todays’ seniors, but cut taxes and “spending.”
Look at the odd shape of the district….ya figure it was made to be a whitey only district?
71.0% White, 4.4% Black, 14.6% Asian, 13.6% Hispanic, 0.2% Native American, 2.2% other
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York%27s_9th_congressional_district
Dale Weiss, a 64-year-old Democrat, approached the Republican running for Congress in a special election and, without provocation, blasted the president for failing to tame runaway federal spending. “We need to cut Medicaid,”
LOL, 64 years old saying “we need to cut Medicaid”. Medicaid? Why not Medicare? Oh yea, because Medicare is her cheese in less than a year while Medicaid is someone else’s problem.
Somebody Else’s Problem (also known as Someone Else’s Problem or SEP) is an effect that causes people to ignore matters which are generally important to a group but may not seem specifically important to the individual. wiki
It’s because Medicaid is for the undeserving poor. If they had any self respect, they wouldn’t be poor and wouldn’t need Medicaid.
She paid into Medicare all of her life, so she deserves it.
It’s the old “pull youself up by your bootstraps”, Prosperity Gospel, American meme. I deserve what I have because I have earned it. I worked hard, chose the money making career, took care of my health, so I deserve it. The poor are lazy, uneducated, fat slobs and deserve to be poor. Evidence to support this meme abounds. You can always find poor folk who are lazy, uneducated, fat slobs. And you can find plenty of examples of hard working folks who do well. Counter evidence also abounds, but those are outliers and can be ignored.
There are lots of good arguments against Obama, but this woman is just a crank. Unfortunately for the Dems, the right has managed to wind a lot of cranks up lately, and it looks like a repeat of the 1930s is now in the works…
Unfortunately for the Dems, the right has managed to wind a lot of cranks up lately,
It might not be “unfortunately for the Dems”. Right now the Dems best friend’s might be the wound up cranks. Look at the Republican Presidential candidate clown posse. You have to admit there are some real oddballs there.
The wound up cranks are causing a lot of people to wonder about what the heck is going on with the Republicans. Just look at the Tea-Party’s poll numbers. They have cratered in just the past 6 months-especially after the debt-ceiling stunt.
The wound up cranks are causing a lot of people to wonder about what the heck is going on with the Republicans. Just look at the Tea-Party’s poll numbers. They have cratered in just the past 6 months-especially after the debt-ceiling stunt.
True confession: I was raised by Republicans. They weren’t your religious fundamentalist, get-the-government-out-of-everything Republicans. Matter of fact, I can remember having quite the discussion with my parents about gun laws. Dad, then an avid marksman, was very adamant about my obeying those laws, even if we Slims didn’t agree with them.
Oh, I should also mention that my parents were — and still are — avid environmentalists. They’re also very strong supporters of public education.
When did the NYT get bought out by Murdoch?
Take me out to the ballgame
Take me out to the crowd
Wear body armor and watch your back
I don`t know if you`ll ever come back
Cause they shoot, shoot shoot for the home team
They`ll beat and damage your brain
Cause it`s one - two - three shots lookout
At the old ball game
Police: Two shot in Candlestick Park lot after Raiders-49ers tilt
NFL.com Wire Reports
Published: Aug. 21, 2011 at 01:47 a.m.
Two men were shot and wounded in the parking lot of Candlestick Park after a preseason game Saturday night between the San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland Raiders, police said.
The shootings occurred around 8 p.m. PT, shortly after the 49ers’ 17-3 victory, police Sgt. Michael Andraychak said.
The victims are a 24-year-old man, who was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries, and a 20-year-old man, who was hospitalized and was expected to survive, Andraychak said. Their names have not been released.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that police were holding a suspect soon after the shooting. San Francisco police Sgt. Frank Harrell described the suspect to the newspaper as a male adorned in Raiders clothing, adding that he was discovered on a party bus in an RV section of the lot.
The Chronicle reports that the 24-year-old victim was wearing an “(expletive) 49ers” T-shirt. He was in critical condition with two to four gunshot wounds to the stomach Saturday night at San Francisco General Hospital, according to the newspaper.
The 20-year-old victim was discovered near Pole V in the Candlestick lot, suffering from superficial wounds to the face, according to the newspaper. He was in stable condition at the hospital.
The Chronicle also reported that a third man, a 26-year-old from San Rafael, Calif., was hospitalized with life-threatening injuries after he was assaulted and knocked unconscious in a restroom at Candlestick during the game, according to police.
The violence was not the first involving a San Francisco sports team’s game this year.
In March, San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow was severely beaten by two men in Los Angeles Dodgers gear outside Dodger Stadium after the teams’ season opener. He remains in a San Francisco hospital in serious condition with brain injuries. Two suspects have been charged in the case.
“The Chronicle reports that the 24 year-old victim was wearing an ‘(expeletive) 49ers T-shirt’.”
Lol. He wore this T-shirt at a 49ers game in the heart of 49er territory?
Sounds like a case of attempted suicide.
Third world cultural enrichment.
Nothing says total loser like shooting someone after a meaningless pre-season game.
Leave the gun at home, stop drinking, and maybe just go to enjoy the game.
“total loser” = attempted murderer
Good job with the lyrics jeff. I’ll be passing that on to some of my baseball-loving friends.
“We are being told that we should expect an influx of new inventory in the last quarter of 2011 to first quarter of 2012,” said Hooker, whose firm specializes in bank-owned homes. “It will be a bumpy 12 months ahead.”
By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 10:39 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 18, 2011
The inventory of homes for sale in Palm Beach County was down to an eight month supply in June, a 46.5 percent decrease from 2010 and down 62 percent from 2009, according to the Realtors Association of the Palm Beaches.
That may change soon. Forbes, as well as Realtor Dean Hooker, owner of Pompano Beach-based Southeast REO, said banks are preparing to release more foreclosures for re-sale.
“We are being told that we should expect an influx of new inventory in the last quarter of 2011 to first quarter of 2012,” said Hooker, whose firm specializes in bank-owned homes. “It will be a bumpy 12 months ahead.”
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/real-estate/palm-beach-county-home-sales-slump-in-july-1759060.html - 83k -
My brother (lives in PEI, Canada) sold his house a couple of weeks ago. He had listed it $ 217 K and sold for $ 214 K plus he threw in the appliances. The new buyers came over the other day to do some measurements, and while they are in the living room they inform my brother that the buyer’s agent told them all the furniture was included in the sale. Anyway he talked to the agent and the agent claims the buyers were lying. It’s not in the sales contract, so my brother thinks the new people were seeing if he would give up any of his furniture cheap.
“My brother (lives in PEI, Canada)”
He is truly blessed. God’s country.
If its Ikea let em have it…..but Ethan Allan…no way
Ethan Allan is junk, imho. It use to be OK with great marketing behind it, but is now Chinese cr*p. When we bought our house full of furniture we looked there, but instead went with Century, Bernhardt, Drexel Heritage, Thomasville,etc…
I cut a deal across country with a retailer, after I did my local shopping . Saved 40% off quailty stuff. I’m done with that expensive adventure. I’ll be divorced! LOL
A lot of the firms we purchased from have since started to manufacture in China, too.
The American made stuff will outlast me. Well made with pride. Those were the days.
1. Is the house “sold’ or just under contract?
2. Move out any furniture now your brother does not want to part with…
3. Cause more “negotiation” is coming your brother’s way on this house…
4. Just wait until the “inspections” happen
Under contract; closing day is Thursday. He will have everything moved out into storage by then. (His new place won’t be ready until mid Sept - he’s moving to an apartment then. In the interim he’s going to couch-surf at our sisters’ cottages.). I suppose there could be some issues with the final walk through, but I think if they did a home inspection they would have brought it up already. He painted the whole house before he put it up for sale and didn’t even put his pictures back up, so there wouldn’t be holes in the walls. The house is only 6 years old so everything’s still in good shape.
The furniture’s not in the contract so he doesn’t have to worry about it. If they walk at the last minute, they lose their deposit.
He really decluttered before he listed, I was amazed because he’s a pack rat. He had already dismantled his cabinets, shelving units etc and put them in storage, before it went up for sale.
He must have an out of province buyer. I could never imagine an east coaster behaving that way. Too friendly.
I agree, PEI is God’s country - and people.
Yep, the buyers are from Iran. Maybe they thought they were still at some Persian bazaar.
There was another prospective buyer from China - they set up appointments three times to look at the house and didn’t show up each time. After that, their agent fired them - told them to find another agent. Apparently they didn’t want to look at the house in the rain (we’ve had a lot of rain here in Eastern Canada this summer) -must be a feng shui thing.
Wifey’s experience with Chinese buyers is they would use her to show them houses then switch to another agent of the same ethnicity to present an offer on the house they wanted. She only had a few such buyers in her 12-year career, but the outcome was always the same.
In Ca., anything not in writing isn’t enforceable in a real estate transaction. I assume that’s pretty universal. Plus the furniture isn’t real property (i.e. attached to the house/land).
Typical of an Agent playing people (if it’s even true). I’m licensed, and Broker educated.
Can’t wait to hear Barry’s new jobless creation plans, once back from the rich white folks play ground…
- General Electric is moving its 115-year-old X-ray division from Waukesha, Wis., to Beijing.
In addition to moving the headquarters, the company will invest $2 billion in China and train more than 65 engineers and create six research centers. This is the same GE that made $5.1 billion in the United States last year, but paid no taxes–the same company that employs more people overseas than it does in the united States.
So let me get this straight…
President Obama appointed GE Chairman Jeff Immelt to head his commission on job creation (job czar). Immelt is supposed to help create jobs.
I guess the President forgot to tell him in which country he was supposed to be creating those jobs!
Poor GE Inc., Pfizer Inc., BMW Inc.,…et.al.,… they’re $uffering $o’s. Cinder$ & Ashe$, Agonie$ & Pain$…
“…if you tax them less, they can hire more people.”
President Obama appointed GE Chairman Jeff Immelt to head his commission on job creation (job czar). Immelt is supposed to help create jobs.
When I first read about that months ago I couldn’t help but wonder: What is he thinking?
It used to be that they tried to sneak news like this out without anybody noticing.
The fact that it’s done openly now means they don’t care, or they are going to use it as leverage for another “Tax Holiday/Amnesty”
X-GS’s idea = A corporation can’t incorporate itself in the US, without employing 51% of their employees in the US. (Based on head count, not on salaries)
XGS=Brilliant! -
And tax foreign corporations that do business in the US.
I guess the
Presidentthe law legislating Congress forgot to tell him in which country he was supposed to be creating those jobs!Congress has the authority to talk to these fella’s as well, but the repubican & weeParty tea toadlers / “TruePathtoPro$perity™” / “TrueReduceTheDeficitNow!! Today!™” / “TrueAnger™” / “TrueGridLok™” seems to be “binky-fixated” on de$troying a war time US President [lil' Opie (the non-Hawaiian)] & strong-arming incandescent light bulb laws.
Silly wabbit, Trix are for kid$!
$torage! $torage! $torage!
filed under: “Iffin we can’t u$e it just now, we don’t want anyone else to as well!
For years Goldman’$ Cogentrix $olar $ervices, LLC held exclusive rights to develop solar plants on nearly as much federal land in Nevada as all other companies combined — even though the firm had neither written plans nor inked agreements with utilities to buy the power they proposed to make.
AP Exclusive: Cogentrix solar applications denied
AP Exclusive: BLM rejects Goldman$ucks-owned company’s solar applications in Nevada
Jason Dearen, Associated Press, On Saturday August 20, 2011 / AP News
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Federal land managers are rejecting a Goldman Sachs-owned company’s applications to develop solar projects on public lands in the sun-drenched Nevada desert; years after the subsidiary filed more claims to build glimmering solar farms than anyone else.
Cogentrix, which mostly operates coal-and-gas-fired power plants in the eastern U.S., had no solar development experience prior to filing its applications and never produced plans for the vast swaths of land on which it had filed claims.
While many companies filed claims on public lands that never became real projects, Cogentrix was the most prolific. At one time the company had locked up nearly half the land for which applications had been filed in Nevada, despite a dearth of plans or utility agreements. To date, not one of the company’s proposed projects has been approved by BLM.
BLM’s staff was inundated with hundreds of applications for solar claims, leading to years of delays as the agency kept its focus on oil and gas leases. Now, even after years of planning and environmental review, not one megawatt of solar power is being sent to the grid from the millions of acres of publicly owned desert in the Southwest.
Here’s what Goldenman$ucks had to say:
“Michael DuVally, a Goldman Sachs spokesman, declined to comment on the rejected applications. He said Cogentrix had turned its attention to another solar project on private land in Colorado.”
Things like this are not supposed to happen in the independant fiefdom of FitzWalkerstan! But I’m sure the Koch brothers will find jobs in their private power plants for those losing theirs.
“The bear market is back. By our reckoning, the Dow should fall below 5,000 before it is over. Most likely, it will not be a short, quick collapse. Instead, it will be a long battle…stretched over many years…with the feds fighting over every inch”
~ The Daily Reckoning
Exactly how large is the housing market’s shadow inventory? This article suggests 4-5 million, but something I posted yesterday provided an estimate of $1.2t in bad household debt on 6.5 million homes that were either foreclosed or in delinquency. I guess it is hard to come up with an accurate estimate of inventory that lurks in the shadows — what I used to refer to as the American banking system’s “elephant under the living room rug” in my posts of several years ago.
P.S. For the arithmetically challenged, 47 months of shadow inventory is nearly 4 years — i.e., it would take from now through July 2015 to clear 47 months of shadow inventory, based on the rate of home sales in second quarter 2011, before the debt ceiling deal and the subsequent renewed stock market panic and meltdown. The housing market sure is improving quickly these days!
Shadow inventory improves but still threatens housing recovery
By Les Christie August 22, 2011: 6:58 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — An ominous cloud is hanging over the housing market: Millions of distressed properties could be put up for sale at any moment, potentially adding to the glut of unsold homes that are already on the market and depressing home prices even further.
But there is one glimmer of hope in this otherwise ominous scenario. A recent report from Standard & Poor’s found that the time it would take for banks to purge all of this so-called “shadow inventory” from the market (through foreclosure sales, mortgage modifications and other measures) shrunk to 47 months during the second quarter, a significant drop from the 52 months it estimated for the first quarter of this year.
The report also found that the total dollar value of the loans on these properties — known as non-agency loans because they are not backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or the Federal Housing Administration — also fell to $405 billion at the end of June from $433 billion three months earlier.
“It’s good news that things are starting to slow down and we’re getting closer to the end of the problem,” said Diane Westerback, Managing Director of Global Surveillance Analytics for S&P. “It could mean a gradual recovery for the market.”
S&P said the decline was helped by stabilizing liquidation rates and by fewer borrowers falling behind on their mortgage payments as the economy slowly recovered during the quarter. The firm also said tightened lending standards over the past several years has helped reduce the likeliehood of defaults among recent homebuyers.
Yet, the housing market still has a long way to go. S&P estimates that there are still a total of between 4 million and 5 million homes, including those with agency-backed loans, in shadow inventory, an amount that continues to jeopardize the housing market’s recovery, according to Westerback.
…
Like I said yesterday, there are tons of unlisted, unoccupied, defaulted houses all over the state of NY, VT and DE.
This goes unreported.
47 months? 52 months? Both are an eternity to the paycheck-to-paycheck FBs counting on a quick return to boomtimes. Depending on one’s locale the meter already reads 36 to 60 months at least.
It is an eternity for those waiting for the second leg down of massive price correction too.
“Slap some bacon on a biscuit and let’s go! We’re burnin’ daylight!”
Wil Andersen
It’s worth noting that California home prices continued to decline during the last real estate bust through 1996 or so, five years after the NBER officially dated the end of the early-1990s recession.
Unless it’s different this time, given the Great Recession officially ended in June 2009, similar timing would suggest California home price declines will bottom out in 2014 or later.
Great info, PB. Thank you.
2014 is too long for us to wait, but it’s a data point for us.
“Let lose the
houndshyena’$!”An “opportunistic” real estate fund managed by Newport Beach property investors KBS gained ownership of two northern California business properties through foreclosure after buying the mortgages at deep discounts.
O.C. investors seize 2 business properties
August 22nd, 2011, by Jon Lansner / OC Register
The KBS Strategic Opportunity Real Estate Investment Trust — planning to have 20 percent of its portfolio in “opportunistic” situations — took over:
* Roseville Commerce Center in Roseville, with 113,342 square feet in five “flex industrial” buildings and an six acres of partially developed land. KBS bought the non-performing $14.7 million loan, secured by the center, in September for $5.9 million. As of June 30, 2011, completed buildings in the center were 39% occupied.
* Iron Point Business Park, a 211,056-square-foot, five-building office complex in Folsom. KBS acquired the $25.6 million non-performing loan on the park for $19.8 million in March. As of June 21, Iron Point was 37% occupied.
KBS has initiated lea$ing effort$ at each property.
Commercial real estate investing is on the way back. CoStar noted these trends in the industrial sector recently:
However, absorption of warehouse space remains roughly half what analysts would expect given the overall rebound economic growth since early 2010. “Overall, this is a good, but not great, recovery,”
The shadow inventory is highly unevenly spread. NY is 10+ years based on their sales pace. Other states are less than 47 months.
Non-judicial vs. judicial is the main dividing line as to how quickly the foreclosures will get burned through.
In Baltimore, homes for $10,000 — and less
Housing prices continue to fall through much of the region, with some of the most striking examples in city neighborhoods
By Jamie Smith Hopkins, The Baltimore Sun
Andrew Wells is hoping to buy a Baltimore home for around the cost of an old car: Less than $10,000.
Turns out he’s in good company.
One of every 10 city homes sold during the first half of the year — about 275 in all — fell in that price range. Twice as many sold for under $20,000.
Often foreclosures, these properties are usually in bad shape but seem like deals to real estate investors and the occasional hopeful owner-occupier — such as Wells.
“I don’t have to worry about trying to get a loan,” said Wells, 40, a bill-processing technician who works in Annapolis. “That was the purpose of me searching in that price range. I could buy something, pay cash, and I could live in it and renovate at the same time.”
Almost exclusively a city phenomenon — very few homes in Baltimore’s suburbs sold for less than $10,000 — it’s a market that has expanded rapidly. More city homes sold for less than $10,000 between January and June than in all of 2009 and 2010 combined. Dozens of city neighborhoods had at least one such sale this year.
As very cheap homes change hands, average sale prices in Baltimore have plummeted. Seventy city neighborhoods saw average prices drop more than 20 percent versus a year ago, according to a Baltimore Sun analysis of data from Metropolitan Regional Information Systems. That’s half of the neighborhoods with enough sales to allow for comparison.
Fewer than 10 percent of suburban communities around Baltimore experienced an average price decline that large. Prices in the region dropped 6 percent on average.
But with the city’s faster-falling prices have come more buyers. Sales rose in more than half of the city’s neighborhoods compared with the first six months of last year. Sales rose in fewer than 40 percent of suburban communities.
Still, both the city and suburbs have areas where sales are down sharply since the federal tax credit of up to $8,000 for first-time homebuyers expired last summer. The number of homes sold during the first half of this year fell more than 20 percent in one of every five city neighborhoods and suburban ZIP codes, according to the Sun analysis.
Six years since the peak of the housing bubble, the Baltimore region doesn’t look as if it has recovered from the slide that followed.
The number of homes sold in the first half of the year is down nearly 50 percent from the level in the first half of 2005. Prices still are dropping in most communities. And at least some of the places where prices rose on average this year are actually seeing values fall — but buyers are using their greater purchasing power to get better homes, pushing the average upward.
Almost exclusively a city phenomenon — very few homes in Baltimore’s suburbs sold for less than $10,000
There is a reason for that…
They don’t call it Baltimorgue for nuthing!
It’s great to see people like Jacalyn making lemonade out of Megabank, Inc’s many lemon loans.
Meet a San Diego short sale negotiator
Jacalyn Blank, short sale negotiator in Clairemont — Earnie Grafton / Union-Tribune staff
Written by Lily Leung
11:24 p.m., Aug. 21, 2011
More on Jacalyn Blank
Occupation: Owner of Short Sale Solutions in Clairemont.
Age: 27
Hometown: Born in Los Angeles. Has lived in San Diego for 15 years, off and on.
Background: The company, which was under another name before, has been open for four years and has specialized in short sales for 1½ years.
Family: Son, Jasper, 5.
Education: UC Santa Cruz.
Facebook: facebook.com/sdshortsalesolutions
Phone number: (866) 593-7755
Jacalyn Blank gets paid to challenge the banks every day.
By 4:30 a.m., she chats up reps on the East Coast and then moves her way west, debating lender valuations of homes and pushing for concessions.
The 27-year-old Clairemont resident does all this to help her clients close on short sales, tedious transactions in which lenders accept less than what the borrower owes on the home loan.
The short-sale negotiator, a rarity a few years ago, became necessary as short sales became lengthy and complicated.
Blank, who owns Short Sale Solutions in Clairemont, recently sat down with the Union-Tribune to talk about her work with buyers and sellers.
Q: What does a short-sale negotiator do?
A: That’s the person who puts together the financials of the homeowner who wants to do a short sale.
The negotiator works with the seller’s agent and the buyer’s agent and puts together a short-sale package for the bank.
Once it gets there, the bank assigns that file to its own negotiator. I work with that person to go over the terms of the sale, what fees the bank will pay, what fees they won’t pay, the price they will approve and how long we have to close.
Q: Why are negotiators involved?
A: They were pretty rare a few years ago. Now it’s something people expect. In the past, it was agents doing it on their own. (Some still do.)
There was a time when short sales were easily approved, because the banks didn’t see any other options and they didn’t have legal teams explaining how they were going to go after people for deficiency balances.
But now lenders have all have these departments in place. There are full loss-mitigation centers, like Bank of America, for example. They have one in Simi Valley … a headquarters just for short sales. It’s like a university-sized building.
So it’s a different ballgame now. It’s been made corporate. Short sales got harder, so negotiators became necessary.
…
There are full loss-mitigation centers…They have one in Simi Valley
Is it near Ronnie Raygun’s “Indemnified” Presidential Library?
I use to live in Wood Ranch, a higher end cluster of PUDS across the road from the RR Library. (Simi Valley, Ca). When I was brainwashed, I use to feel so “American” visting there. I’ve come a long way, baby!
They changed the “CountryWide Way ” street name to “National Way” when BOA took over the university sized building. That piece of property is on a hill with views, and is beautiful.
They are nuts, everyone knows you increases taxes to expand growth…
ITEM: Spain cuts property tax to try to boost growth - BBC News
The collapse of the property market left many homes unsold or unfinished
Spain has announced plans to try to tackle the severe problems facing its housing market.
The government will temporarily halve the sales tax on new homes to 4% to try to stimulate its construction sector.
Spain’s economy was plunged into recession following the collapse of its once-buoyant property sector.
The government is also hoping that building projects will help create jobs and cut the unemployment rate, which is one of the highest in the eurozone.
‘Exceptional measure’
The sales tax cut is one of a number of measures that was agreed at a cabinet meeting. The measures are designed to boost Spain’s weak economic growth rate and generate revenue to help it cut its deficit.
The reduction in tax, designed to stimulate the construction sector, would last until the end of the year, a government spokesman said.
“This is a temporary and exceptional measure,” he added.
There are also new measures to bring forward corporate tax payments and cut health spending on brand-name drugs.
Job measures
It is hoped the move to cut drug costs for regional government via the introduction of a new generic medicines bill will save 2.4bn euros.
A further 2.5bn euros could be raised by front-loading tax payments from large businesses until 2013.
The government said the various measures would make it easier to hit deficit targets this year.
Economy Minister Elena Salgado also said that, next Friday, Spain would approve measures to stimulate jobs.
“We are going to carry on taking measures to stimulate and favour growth, which will strengthen those we already have in place, in the labour market,” she said.
They want more houses? Someone posted the other week that Spain’s overbuilding (per capita) put CA to shame. I wonder if the ran this little gimmick past the Germans first?
‘Cept, it’s the Germans that overbuilt all those houses in Spain….
The government will temporarily halve the sales tax on new homes to 4% to try to stimulate its construction sector.
How is that going to help if they have a bazillion foreclosures?
The government will temporarily halve the sales tax on new homes to 4% to try to stimulate its construction sector.
A federal 8% SALES tax on selling a house????
Yes - those promoting a VAT know what they are doing.
On the other hand, car sales are taxed and cars cost more than some houses in Baltimore.
“They are nuts, everyone knows you increases taxes to expand growth…”
I know you like playing stupid, but it does grow old.
Taxes, in isolation, do not cause growth. However, taxes on those with more money than they will spend, combined with lower taxes on those that will spend, could indeed cause growth.
Let’s think about the USA for a minute.
Is our problem that the store shelves are bare, so we need to encourage investment in new factories and stores and get more products on the shelf? To do that, we’d need low taxes on those with money to invest.
Is our problem high interest rates because there is too little money for those clamoring to borrow? If so, then we’d need low taxes on those with money so they can lend more.
Or, is our problem the opposite of that? Too many goods and not enough money in the hands of potential customers? In this case, perhaps we… okay.. this is going to sound totally insane…. perhaps we should return to a tax structure more like the 1950s with a 4% payroll tax instead of 15%, and 91% top marginal rate instead of 35% with capital gains only 15%.
Okay, okay… pretty dumb I know. Lower taxes on people that need money, and raise them on the people that have too much? What am I thinking? I must be insane!
“I know you like playing stupid, but it does grow old.”
your spiel and you arrogant position that you are right and if we disagree we are stupid gets pretty old
80%+ tax rates and big tarrifs ?? sure i’m stupid for not agreeing. i get it now, just took a zillion posts by saying the same thing to make me see the light.
darrell_in_phoenix provides a pretty well thought out argument for his positions. Do you have a well thought out rebuttal as to why it’s wrong? Have you considered his argument or will you maintain your opinion regardless of what facts/arguments are presented that you may not have been aware of or not considered?
Classic government mandated redistribution of wealth thinking.
Classic government mandated redistribution of wealth thinking.…unfortunately is what is needed after 30 years of classic corporate mandated redistribution of wealth thinking.
Supply-side, globalization, tax cuts for rich/corporations is not just theory anymore folks. 30 years. Three decades. It didn’t work out well for most of us.
They were wrong and now they are employing every tool at their disposal to re-write history and take your eye off the ball of what has just happened to America.
“them on the people that have too much”?
Really? Who decides who has too much? Where does your train of thought come from? I’ll bet you have “too much” and certainly more than you need. So step to the plate and send your check to Washington, they are great money managers!
Who decides who has too much?
Nations, governments and people do it all the time. It isn’t like we’re making this stuff up or something.
Where does your train of thought come from?
The annals of history? Economic cause and effect? Seeing the results time and time again when wealth inequality goes off the charts? And comparing those results to what America has become?
It’s math and its consequences. That’s all. Believe me, if great wealth inequality had historically shown that it also benefits the poor and the middle-class I would be the first screaming from the mountain top supporting tax cuts for the rich. Seriously I would. Whatever would benefit the most people I would be for and if supply side had proven to do so I would be its great defender.
I have no agenda. I’m not poor and I don’t even live in America now. I get first-world health/dental/vision/acupuncture insurance for $150 a month and “free” if I can’t pay that. I OWN my home because I earned it through my own businesses. I’m not looking for a handout or anything “owed” to me. But I love America and I see the results of the corporate/super-rich takeover the past 3 decades and it’s horrible. How can you all defend a system that for 30 years has hurt our country? How?
From Walter Williams:
During the first year of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, he called for increasing federal spending to $10 billion while revenues were only $3 billion. Between 1933 and 1936, government expenditures rose by more than 83 percent. Federal debt skyrocketed by 73 percent. Roosevelt signed off on legislation that raised the top income tax rate to 79 percent and then later to 90 percent. Hillsdale College economics historian and professor Burt Folsom, author of “New Deal or Raw Deal?”, notes that in 1941, Roosevelt even proposed a 99.5 percent marginal tax rate on all incomes more than $100,000. When a top adviser questioned the idea, Roosevelt replied, “Why not?”
Roosevelt had other ideas for the economy, including the National Recovery Act. Dr. Reed says: “The economic impact of the NRA was immediate and powerful. In the five months leading up to the act’s passage, signs of recovery were evident: factory employment and payrolls had increased by 23 and 35 percent, respectively. Then came the NRA, shortening hours of work, raising wages arbitrarily and imposing other new costs on enterprise. In the six months after the law took effect, industrial production dropped 25 percent.”
Blacks were especially hard hit by the NRA. Black spokesmen and the black press often referred to the NRA as the “Negro Run Around,” Negroes Rarely Allowed,” “Negroes Ruined Again,” “Negroes Robbed Again,” “No Roosevelt Again” and the “Negro Removal Act.” Fortunately, the courts ruled the NRA unconstitutional. As a result, unemployment fell to 14 percent in 1936 and lower by 1937.
But I love America and I see the results of the corporate/$uper-rich takeover the past 3 decades and it’s horrible.
Cheers mate!
[Anxiously awaiting until the “TrueEvangelical'$™” gets to be "We're The Decider's!"]
“But I love America and I see the results of the corporate/super-rich takeover the past 3 decades and it’s horrible. ”
+1
Let’s just cut taxes for everybody. We can run bigger deficits.
Columnist Pat Buchanan remarks, “The nation Obama leads is facing a deficit-debt crisis that comes of an inescapable truth: Whether we are talking about commitments to go to war to defend scores of nations or commitments to entitlement and Great Society programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, earned income tax credits, food stamps and Pell grants, we Americans have handed out promissory notes we no longer have the means to meet.
“We can no longer deliver what we have promised.”
Let’s see …
We have to borrow 1.7T a year to pay for wars, welfare and other gov’t programs.
IIRC we had to borrow about $50B (because of the payroll tax holiday) to fund SS.
And yes, I know that down the road SS will be short, but it won’t be anything like the deficits we have to cover the rest of the budget with today.
Why are “conservatives” so hell bent on raiding SS to pay for their pet projects?
The raiding has already occurred. Now they want to shut it down because my contributions were robbed?
Because they want to use the payroll tax revenues to pay for more wars.
Why are “conservatives” so hell bent on raiding SS to pay for their pet projects?
???
LBJ was the president who combined SS with the general treasury to cover the costs of the Vietnam War…
Before that - SS money was actually held is a seperate account.
My old friend Banana got caught lying again…….
———————————————————————–
http://www.ssa.gov/history/InternetMyths2.html
Q1. Which political party took Social Security from the independent trust fund and put it into the general fund so that Congress could spend it?
>A1: There has never been any change in the way the Social Security program is financed or the way that Social Security payroll taxes are used by the federal government. The Social Security Trust Fund was created in 1939 as part of the Amendments enacted in that year. From its inception, the Trust Fund has always worked the same way. The Social Security Trust Fund has never been “put into the general fund of the government.”
Most likely this question comes from a confusion between the financing of the Social Security program and the way the Social Security Trust Fund is treated in federal budget accounting. Starting in 1969 (due to action by the Johnson Administration in 1968) the transactions to the Trust Fund were included in what is known as the “unified budget.” This means that every function of the federal government is included in a single budget. This is sometimes described by saying that the Social Security Trust Funds are “on-budget.” This budget treatment of the Social Security Trust Fund continued until 1990 when the Trust Funds were again taken “off-budget.” This means only that they are shown as a separate account in the federal budget. But whether the Trust Funds are “on-budget” or “off-budget” is primarily a question of accounting practices–it has no effect on the actual operations of the Trust Fund itself.<
My old friend Banana got caught lying again…….
Keep reading…
Same webpage too. Any big words I need to explain the meaning to you?
Please post your apology.
www dot ssa.gov/history/BudgetTreatment.html
—————-
In early 1968 President Lyndon Johnson made a change in the budget presentation by including Social Security and all other trust funds in a”unified budget.” This is likewise sometimes described by saying that Social Security was placed “on-budget.”
Believe me I read it thoroughly. You got caught again.
I’m confused. Both of your sources say the same thing.
From 2banana:
“In early 1968 President Lyndon Johnson made a change in the budget presentation by including Social Security and all other trust funds in a ‘unified budget’”
From RAL:
“Starting in 1969 (due to action by the Johnson Administration in 1968) the transactions to the Trust Fund were included in what is known as the ‘unified budget’”
I can’t even keep up with what’s being argued over anymore let alone who’s right.
And they are now fighting to allow the payroll tax holiday to expire. Because that is money paid by poor people so it doen’t matter to the economy, despite the fact that a huge majority of the people who see that cut as significant, spend every penny of it, thus increasing the velocity of money.
But let the Bush tax cuts that also have a real impact on the wealthy expire? Well, that is taxing job creators and will make the economy collapse because keeping $0.60 of profit after expenses just isn’t worth it while keeping $0.65 of profit after expenses is the perfect motivation to create more jobs (except that it isn’t if there isn’t any demand).
It is getting so predictable that it is almost sad.
“It is getting so predictable that it is almost sad.”
Almost???
Demand? We don’t need no stinking demand.
We create our own demand with hyper-speculative bubbles.
Colorado
Sort of like the Spaniards. They grabbed the Aztec gold, which wasn’t enough to pay for their European wars, while almost only one province foot the entire Spanish economy’s bill.
Allow me to clarify what I meant by “raiding SS”.
I’m not talking about borrowing the surpluses that have been collected.
I’m talking about the right wingers who want to completely disband and shut down SS, even though it is by far the best funded federal program and use the payroll tax for something else (wars)
is facing a deficit-debt crisis that comes of an inescapable truth: Whether we are talking about commitments to go to war to defend scores of nations or commitments to entitlement and Great Society programs
Cheney-Shrub Legacy Effect #3: “We left y’all with the worst POS economy in 80 years…see ya!”
From a chart [McClatchy-Tribune] yesterday comparing co$ts:
$38 Billion tax-payer/citizen monie$:
1. x2 years of air conditioning for US Servicemen in Afghani$tan
or
2. 40 years of Federal funding for Amtrak
Allllllll aboarrrrrd Amtrak!
While Amtrak does tend to fare better under the Dems than the Reps, the truth is that proponents of the industry are becoming increasingly concerned over the lack of coordinated progress coming from this administration. Despite the press given to the (now stalled) high speed rail initiative, the current system is merely limping along - bolstered by only smallish orders for long overdue replacements. That’s not good, especially since the Decider did his best to finish them off. If a real plan doesn’t come along soon - the next Rep administration could very well deliver the coup de grace.
These proxy wars are becoming as nationally corrosive as the Cold War.
especially since the Decider did his best to finish them off.
An evil U$ National passenger Train-rail $ystem didn’t look so bad politically on this day, right?
9-12-2001
coordinated progress?
I’m not a member of any organized political party, I’m a Democrat! — Will Rogers
Maybe there will be something forthcoming in September? Let’s see a plan, even if it gets whittled down, they need to get a workable plan for today’s situation out there ASAP.
As shaky as the rolling stock situation might be, they need to address the very serious issue of exactly which routes they want to serve over the longer term and who will pay what to keep them maintained to passeneger train standards. In short, is offering this service going to be a national priority or not?
When Hwy’s big bro fender-bended the family wagon one Saturday night, all the sibling teenage drivers where reluctant to ask
CongressMa & Pa to “borrow” it for many, many weeks. [mostly it was to avoid a "Anger" i$$ue]They need to abandon the idea of a half-azzed “National” system, and do things RIGHT in the transportation corridors that make sense…….Northeast Corridor, and California for starters……maybe NEC and the Great Lakes/Chicago region later.
Makes zero sense to pay $400+ for an Amtrak ticket from Chicago or LA when you can fly the airlines for half that, and be there in 4 hours, instead of two days later.
They also need to forget about using the current NEC line.
I’m not too familiar with the geography of the area, but they need to build a new main, high speed line from Boston, through Newburg/Poughkepsee-Allentown-York, PA-Fredrick, MA, Reston/Dulles Airport VA., with spur/branch lines (preferably ones that already exist) going into the city centers. Trying to build high speed rail into city centers is basically nuts
+1 Ejohn…I agree…
I think local rail should be funded out the wazoo, but a national highspeed rail system is currently a huge waste of money, considering the cost to fly halfway across the country is about $1000 roundtrip.
And if the price ever goes up because of oil we can just drive our cars.
We can’t meet with out current tax structure and trade imbalances.
Why assume the answer must be to slash spending when that is sure path to depression, when trade tariffs, elimintation of payroll taxes, and a MUCH, MUCH steeper curve progressive income tax has a chance of avoiding depression.
Tax the super-rich or riots will rage in 2012
MarketWatch
A recent IMF report looked at “the causes of the two major U.S. economic crises over the past 100 years, the Great Depression of 1929 and the Great Recession of 2007,” writes Rana Foroohar, an economics editor at Time magazine.
“There are two remarkable similarities in the eras that preceded these crises. Both saw a sharp increase in income inequality and household-debt-to-income ratios.” And in each case, “as the poor and middle-class were squeezed, they tried to cope by borrowing to maintain their standard of living.”
But the rich “got richer, by lending, and looked for more places to invest, bidding up securities that eventually exploded in everyone’s face. In both eras, financial deregulation and loose monetary policies played roles in creating the bubble. But inequality itself — and the political pressure not to reverse it, but to hide it — was a crucial factor in the meltdown. The shrinking middle isn’t a symptom of the downturn. It’s the source of it.” Today the consequences of the meltdown still haunt us — there’s more to come.
There’s enormous “political pressure not to reverse” inequality till it “explodes in our faces.” We deny the inequality between rich and the other 99%. The rich are addicts. More is never enough. They thrive on greed, blind to the needs of others. Worse, they have no commitment to America as a nation. From Forbes billionaires and signers of “no new taxes” pledges, to Mitch McConnell’s un-American willingness to sabotage the economy to deliver on his main promise to make Obama a one-term president.
1. Warning: High unemployment is a global ticking time bomb
An earlier special report in Time, “Poor vs. Rich: A New Global Conflict,” warns that a “conflict between two worlds — one rich, one poor — is developing, and the battlefield is the globe itself.”
Just 25 developed nations with 750 million citizens “consume most of the world’s resources … enjoy history’s highest standard of living.” But now they face 100 poor nations with 2 billion people, many living in poverty, all demanding “an ever larger share of that wealth.” A British leader calls this a “time bomb for the human race.”
2. Warning: Tax cuts for the rich increase youth unemployment
In a New York Times column, Matthew Klein, a 24-year-old Council on Foreign Relations researcher, saw the parallel between the 25% unemployment among Egypt’s young and the 21% for young Americans: “The young will bear the brunt of the pain” as governments rebalance budgets. “Taxes on workers will be raised, spending on education will be cut while mortgage subsidies and entitlements for the elderly are untouchable.” And more tax cuts for the rich.
3. Warning: Rich get richer on commodity inflation, poor get angrier
USAToday’s John Waggoner warned: “Soaring food prices send millions into poverty, hunger.” The “rise in food prices means a descent into extreme poverty and hunger, warns the World Bank.” One Pimco manager warns that commodity inflation exposes “the underlying inequalities and issues related to the standard of living that boil beneath the surface.”
4. Warning: The super-rich are blinded by their addiction to money
In “Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest American Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (And Stick You with the Bill),” David Cay Johnston warns that the rich are like addicts, and to “the addicted, money is like cocaine, too much is never enough.” Recent data: 300,000 Americans in “the top tenth of 1% of income had nearly as much income as all 150 million Americans who make up the economic lower half of our population.”
5. Warning: Politicians are corrupted by this super-rich addiction to greed
In “Washington’s Suicide Pact,” Newsweek’s Ezra Klein warns: “Congress is careening toward the worst of all worlds: massive job losses and an exploding deficit.” And the debt-ceiling drama just made things a lot worse. Millions of jobs were lost during Bush years, his wars, tax cuts for the rich. Yet, today the GOP is in total denial of that legacy, blinded by an obsession to destroy Obama’s presidency, no matter the consequences.
6. Warning: Soon the revolutionaries will rage, then dominate ‘Third World America’
Yes, we are ripe for a surprise revolution. In “Third World America” Arianna Huffington warns: “Washington rushed to the rescue of Wall Street but forgot about Main Street.” Now Bernanke’s promise of cheap money through 2013 is just one more “free lunch” to the richest 1%. Meanwhile, “one in five Americans unemployed or underemployed. One in nine families unable to make the minimum payment on their credit cards. One in eight mortgages in default or foreclosure. One in eight Americans on food stamps. Upward mobility has always been at the center of the American Dream … that promise has been broken… The American Dream is becoming a nightmare.”
Only higher taxes and bigger government can prevent riots!
Please do your part.
Tired of city life are ya?
It isn’t just higher taxes and bigger government.
It has to be higher taxes and more government regulation targeted at reversing trade imbalances. We need to close the trade deficit, bring manufacturing jobs back ot the USA, raise the wages of workers, convert our debt based economy back into a wage based economy, get people off government assistance by reversing the “economic progress” of the last 30 years that have created an ecnomy where 1/7th the population must live on food stamps.
We need to give people hope that they can repay thier debts and have a cmfortable life before they walk, the debts have to be written off as uncollectable, and we cascade default into depression.
Only higher taxes and bigger government can prevent riots!
2banana, Think logically and a little out of the box. Higher taxes do not have to mean bigger government. If the government collects $20 from a rich dude instead of $10 the government didn’t get “bigger”. Not at all. The same size government now just has $10 more to pay it’s debts. But the government did not get bigger in fact, compared to its revenue the government just got smaller.
Therefore raising taxes on the rich would in fact reduce the size of government relative to its revenue. Our government would become more efficient (smaller) and be more able to meet its obligations.
If the government collects $20 from a rich dude instead of $10 the government didn’t get “bigger”. Not at all. The same size government now just has $10 more to pay it’s debts. But the government did not get bigger in fact, compared to its revenue the government just got smaller.
When any government collects more in taxes/borrowing - it grows and grows and grows.
It NEVER says - oh looky, more money. I think we should pay off some debt or save for a rainy day.
The only time a government gets smaller - is when it is FORCED to.
Every time we have a surplus/reserve, the Republicans use that as a defacto example of Americans being “overtaxed”.
Then proceed to cut the taxes of their constituents, aka the banksters and 5%ers.
“Therefore raising taxes on the rich would in fact reduce the size of government relative to its revenue. Our government would become more efficient (smaller) and be more able to meet its obligations.”
There’s not a good record of that having happened in the past. Government always grows, and the more you feed it the faster and bigger it grows.
When any government collects more in taxes/borrowing - it grows and grows and grows. 2Bananna
Government always grows, and the more you feed it the faster and bigger it grows. Bill in Carolina
I do not consider paying debt and funding existing, promised programs as “growing” government. Mechanisms can also be put into place on new revenue to make only that happen. Mechanisms can also be put into place to reduce Defense spending to match letting tax cuts for the rich expire therefore it’s not “growing” the government.
There are ways to make it happen but it will take serious compromise, not the inflexibility being shown by the current radical wing of the Republican party.
Let’s see, higher taxes do not have to mean bigger government, nor does the article call for that.
Higher taxes on rich and lower taxes on the working class is mentioned. Given the theory that the rich are hoarding too much and the poor can’t eat, makes some sense. Would you care to disprove the theory that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer? Or perhaps you believe that a growing class of starving poor won’t mind the indulgences of the rich?
How about this, lower taxes on the poor and increase them on the rich. The net should be an increase in tax receipts. The rich should voluntarily forgive some of the money they are owed by governments. Government should be shrunk as well, until there is actually a surplus and the remaining debt can be payed down.
Then the rich might be able to go on enjoying the benefits of being part of society. It’s in their own best interests.
Don’t forget that “super rich” = someone who makes $150k+/year in earned income, regardless of all other circumstances.
Where’d you get that idea?
Where’d you get that idea?
the lefties on this blog. The targets change daily, but it’s often the 10%ers or the 5%ers, both of which include those making $150k+ annually. Sometimes it’s the 1%ers, but that hasn’t been the case lately.
In all cases, those actively working for that income (in contrast to passive income) are in the crosshairs. I think that’s an important distinction to make.
How would you know super rich when you think $150k is wealthy?
You have no idea. None.
It’s not that we think $150k is super wealthy, and in any case, I thought Obama called for $250k as statistically the top 1% of earners in the US. Whatever. $150k combined is still top 9%.
It’s that we simply care more about the plight of those in the bottom 70% than we do the top 30%. As soon as the bottom 30% comes up a bit, then we will have time to worry about the upper middle earners. Sorry man, you’ll just have to fend for yourself for a while.
It should be over $400k per year.
Trade imbalances do not persist long-term. They result in excess debt build up, and the trade imbalance that created the debt prevents it from being paid back. If trade imbalances do not reverse, the debt defaults and must be written off as uncollectable, the money created by that debt vanishes back into the thin air from which it was borrowed into existance. Money poofing into nothing causes people to lose faith in money, and that results in depression.
We can attack the trade imbalances and reverse them ourselves.
OR, if we do not, they will correct themselves with cascade default, mass poofage, economic collapse.
“The owners of this country know the truth: It’s called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
-George Carlin
stewie
I loved George Carlin. NPR has a great interview, where he goes into his youth and his military career. (search the archives)
More Hope & Change coming at ya like an Olympic snowball!
APNewsBreak: No 2020 Olympic bid for US
EDDIE PELLS, AP National Writer / Monday, August 22, 2011
The U.S. Olympic Committee has notified all interested cities that it will not submit a bid to host the 2020 Olympics, a person familiar with the negotiations told The Associated Press on Monday.
Good, the Olympics are an economic black hole that only enriches the IOC.
I agree. Didn’t Montreal finally finish paying off the costs of its Olympic hosting a few years ago?
It only took them 30 years.
And now organizers have to deal with the threat of terrorism. Oh what fun!
It means the fix is already in and they can’t come close to getting enough bribe money together in time to submit a bid.
“…Singh also said that while an anti-corruption watchdog will help, it will not solve the problem. He says corruption cannot be removed in one stroke, and the complexity of rooting it out is not being appreciated.”
Like eyes mentioned, everywhere, everywhere,… boil, boil, toil & trouble$!
India: 1.1+ Billions
China: 1.34 Billions
U$: 314 Millions [and on the verge of total financial implo$ion+collap$e!]
Hurry, hurry, revoke your U$ citizenship & head for the exits, Now!
India Anti-Corruption Protests Grow:
Anjana Pasricha | New Delhi / August 22, 2011
“We have made it clear that all concerned individuals should convey their concerns on different aspects of the bill to their representatives in parliament and to a Standing Committee. The Standing Committee has the power to propose any amendment or amendments. We are open to a reasoned debate on all these issues,” Singh stated.
Under mounting pressure from the protests, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says the government anti-corruption bill, called the Lokpal, is a “working draft” that can be changed. He says those who have differences with the bill should go through parliamentary procedures.
One of the civil society activists on the frontlines of the campaign, Arvind Kejriwal, explained to a huge audience why the government bill will not remove petty corruption, which affects ordinary citizens.
He says when people go to a government office, they have to pay a bribe or run from pillar to post (spend unnecessary time). He says they are demanding that jobs such as issuing rations cards, getting pensions, birth certificates and more should be done within a time limit or attract a penalty for concerned officials.
The government has not agreed to bring all officials under the proposed watchdog saying this would need a vast new machinery. The government also points out that the prime minister and sitting judges are immune from prosecution in Western democracies to protect them from becoming mired in lawsuits by political opponents.
I’m in and out of this blog anymore, so I don’t see responses to my posts sometimes until much later. In response to Polly from Friday:
Comment by polly
2011-08-19 11:20:46
…You didn’t figure out the tax adjusted mortgage payment before you bought? Really? I would think it would be at the top of your list before buying. I would never buy without knowing how it would effect my after tax monthly expenses:
$X is what I used to pay in rent.
$Y is what I will be paying in cash to cover the same expenses as $X in the new place.
$Z is the tax adjusted cost of the same figure.
It just makes sense to know that sort of thing before buying, doesn’t it?
The short answer is…no. I didn’t calculate out the tax adjusted mortgage payment. I didn’t slice and dice and look at it a million different ways before I bought. What I did look at was:
A) could I afford the monthly fixed mortgage amount (which, btw, is cheaper than my rent used to be)?
B) could I afford the taxes and insurance?
C) could I afford the utilities?
D) would I be able to keep up with maintenance? and
E) could I continue to save money, even if less than I did while renting?
The answer was “yes” to all. As far as I’m concerned, deductions are bonuses on top of all of it. Which means if MID is done away with, while pissed, it won’t affect my ability to stay in the house.
In addition to A thru E above, what was also “at the top of my list when buying” was the neighborhood and I got into a great one. One of the best in this school district.
I think I went about it in a very responsible manner, even if I didn’t get down in the weeds to find out after tax comparisons.
If $X and $Y show that your new mortgage payment is sufficiently cheaper than rent (though for apples-to-apples you really should compare again PITI minus Insurance plus maintenance), then the more complex $Z may not be worth computing.
Not worth computing? Really?
It might not be enough to keep you from deciding to buy, but I think it is worth knowing what the pre- and post- tax effect of buying a house is. It is a big purchase. You are potentially putting yourself in debt for a long time. It is a big thing. A few minutes with a calculator and a few tax forms should not be a big burden when making a decision like that.
And eastcoaster, I didn’t ask you about a “million different ways” in my question. I just asked if you figured out both the cash outlay for replacing all the costs that are subsumed in rent (PITI, HOA if any, cost of maintenance, cost of higher utilities and whatever else) and the after tax financial effect of those same costs. I can’t imagine not wanting to know that sort of thing.
It sounds like you bought within your means and that your income is too low to have much risk of the AMT messing things up, so I don’t see many surprises coming your way (unless the inspection missed stuff), but I don’t get ignoring it completely. Don’t get it at all.
polly, I was just saying that if you already _know_ you are coming out way ahead even ignoring the tax benefits, knowing precisely how much further ahead you are coming out due to the tax benefits may not be as important.
That’s never been the case for me, so I too have always computed the post-tax net effective costs.
But if housing got cheap enough, I might buy without doing that computation. That seems unlikely in my area, though.
Is the QE-3 getting ready to slide down the gangway…
U.S., Europe Stocks Rally on Expectations for Economic Stimulus
(Bloomberg)
U.S. stocks rallied following a four-week slump while European stocks rebounded from a two-year low on speculation the Federal Reserve may act to stimulate the economy. Brent oil sank, while the Swiss franc and yen weakened.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index advanced 1.5 percent to 1,140.01 at 10:26 in New York. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index added 1.4 percent, reversing an earlier drop of 0.8 percent. Brent oil slipped 1.5 percent as Libyan rebels swept into Tripoli. The franc depreciated against all 16 of its major peers. The cost of insuring European government debt increased for the fifth day. Gold jumped 1.3 percent to a record.
The four-week rout in equities has wiped out more than $8 trillion in global stock values before central bankers from around the world prepare to meet in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Record-low yields on U.S. Treasuries show traders expect Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to signal a third round of asset purchases. Libyan rebels captured two of Muammar Qaddafi’s sons in the battle to end his 42-year rule.
“Eyes are clearly pointing to Bernanke’s speech on Friday,” Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Philadelphia-based Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, which manages $54 billion, said in a telephone interview. “People are of the belief that there’s an increasing likelihood of a new quantitative easing program. We hold no expectation that we’re going to see that. The hurdle remains pretty high. I’m a little concerned that if get some rally on that expectation and it doesn’t come through that the equity market would be set for a decline.”
Sounds like the cargo cult is back at it. Surely there will be another air drop?
No news is good news.
Dollar wavers as stocks jump on lack of bad news
The Associated Press
Posted: 11:38 a.m. Monday, Aug. 22, 2011
NEW YORK — With no fresh economic reports out Monday to remind investors that the U.S. economy has slowed, stocks are rising and the dollar is trading in tight ranges.
http://news.yahoo.com/economy/ - 114k -
Hmmm…. guess they missed that report showing a huge jump in mortgage deliquency.
12.87 vs 12.84 is a “huge jump”??
It’s almost in the noise IMHO.
What’s this? I thought the enlightened baby bloomer crowd was all saved up, from their savvy investments and RE so they could retire without leaning on uncle sugar.
ITEM: Social Security disability on verge of insolvency
- Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security’s disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency.
Applications are up nearly 50 percent over a decade ago as people with disabilities lose their jobs and can’t find new ones in an economy that has shed nearly 7 million jobs.
The stampede for benefits is adding to a growing backlog of applicants — many wait two years or more before their cases are resolved — and worsening the financial problems of a program that’s been running in the red for years.
New congressional estimates say the trust fund that supports Social Security disability will run out of money by 2017, leaving the program unable to pay full benefits, unless Congress acts. About two decades later, Social Security’s much larger retirement fund is projected to run dry, too, leaving it unable to pay full benefits as well.
Much of the focus in Washington has been on fixing Social Security’s retirement system. Proposals range from raising the retirement age to means-testing benefits for wealthy retirees. But the disability system is in much worse shape and its problems defy easy solutions.
The trustees who oversee Social Security are urging Congress to shore up the disability system by reallocating money from the retirement program, just as lawmakers did in 1994. If Congress does not act, the disability program will collect only enough payroll taxes to pay about 85 percent of benefits after the trust fund is exhausted in 2017.
Even if Congress does act, the combined retirement and disability trust funds are projected to run out of money in 2036, the trustees say. The new congressional report estimates the combined fund would run out of money in 2038. At that point, the combined programs would collect enough in payroll taxes to pay about three-fourths of benefits.
Claims for disability benefits typically increase in a bad economy because many disabled people get laid off and can’t find a new job. This year, about 3.3 million people are expected to apply for federal disability benefits. That’s 700,000 more than in 2008 and 1 million more than a decade ago.
“It’s primarily economic desperation,” Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said in an interview. “People on the margins who get bad news in terms of a layoff and have no other place to go and they take a shot at disability,”
Claims for disability benefits typically increase in a bad economy because many disabled people get laid off and can’t find a new job. This year, about 3.3 million people are expected to apply for federal disability benefits. That’s 700,000 more than in 2008 and 1 million more than a decade ago.
“It’s primarily economic desperation,” Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue said in an interview. “People on the margins who get bad news in terms of a layoff and have no other place to go and they take a shot at disability,”
Back when I lived in Pittsburgh, I visited the house of a friend-of-a-friend. He was on some sort of disability and said that there were all sorts of people in cars who’d park outside of his house. Apparently, they were checking up on the guy to make sure he was as disabled as he said.
ISTR that the guy wasn’t incapacitated, but he was having significant trouble walking. Can’t remember if he was in some sort of lengthy recovery from an injury, but I think it was something like that.
I think this was covered yesterday
Speaking for myself, I never thought that being 45 or 50 made me “unemployable”, either.
A lot of people we working, even though they qualified for “disability”. But when you have no job, and no prospect for getting one in the forseeable future, you do what you have to do.
It’s a “no jobs” problem, not a “lazy American” problem.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security’s disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency.
SSI added in the 1970’s Often used as a unemployment insurance when older workers can’t find jobs and now they want to funnel more money from the original Social Security trust fund into this black hole.
so Social security is welfare another transfer of payments under government control. maybe 401K plans can be sipioned off like this why should only workers have money ? its not right we all live in the USA.
Southern California grocery workers authorize a strike
Over 90 percent of workers voted on Friday and Saturday to authorize a strike, far in excess of the two-thirds vote required, the United Food and Commercial Workers union said.
Mickey Kasparian, the president of UFCW Local 135, said a federal mediator would continue to work toward a resolution, but a strike could be called in five or six days if there were no positive developments.
“If we don’t get a deal, we’ll take this fight to the streets,” Kasparian said.
Mike Shimpock, a spokesman for UFCW Local 770, the biggest of the seven union branches that are poised to strike, said there are no talks scheduled with the supermarkets.
The union is obligated to give the companies at least 72 hours notice before workers can strike, he said.
In 2003, southern California played host to the longest work stoppage in the history of the U.S. grocery industry. That bitter, four-and-a-half-month standoff shifted more than $1 billion in sales, and the loyalty of some shoppers, to competitors.
That bitter, four-and-a-half-month standoff shifted more than $1 billion in sales, and the loyalty of some shoppers, to competitors.
And I bet the union members blamed their employer for this rather than their own behavior…
Yep, that’s when we started to shop at Trader Joes and the small chains. Now we’re hooked on Fresh & Easy, Sprout’s, and other small chains, all non-publicly owned.
The customer and technology can do their job, and we don’t get paid. Let’s get a clue here union members. Not exactly skilled labor. I hope your days are numbered.
We had to let our Kaiser policy go at $1,200/mo. No empathy for these unions in our home.
Verizon’s union employees quit their strike after just two weeks and are back on the job, still without a contract.
Trader Joe’s parent company employees quite a few union workers back in Germany.
Steve J, I didn’t know that. Interesting tidbit. Thanks.
But the poor union members will have to pay $9 per week for an individual policy or $28 per week for a family… cry, cry, cry…
Sprout’s and TJ’s. Higher prices but better quality meat and produce.
Funny, these are non skilled workers, easily replaced, seems like a bad time to ask for a few more dollars a month.
Trader Joes is laughing all the way to the bank.
The only ones I worry about are the butchers….they could easily taint some meat or fish by just being careless. There are always a few people in any organization you REALLY need to keep happy.
AV0CADO
I agree. With over 12% unemployment (MSM%) in Ca, these unions are idiots to push to hard. The replacements are lining up.
How much skill does it take to scan a box of moon pies?
Stocking a shelf or ordering isn’t too hard either. Get over yourselves. High school/college age employment.
Fed could launch ‘Operation Twist’ instead of QE3 - The Buzz
cnnmoney - Paul R. La Monica,
The Federal Reserve may have one last thing it can do to help stimulate the economy that wouldn’t necessarily be considered “treasonous” by a certain presidential candidate.
Time for Ben Bernanke to put on his dancing shoes?
With the global financial markets convulsing yet again, some experts are suggesting that the Fed could try and calm things down by bringing back a tool it used in the 1960s called “Operation Twist.”
That name was partly a reference to the popular dance craze and hit Chubby Checker tune. But it also was a description of what the Fed wanted to do: twist the so-called yield curve by selling short-term bonds and buying longer-term securities. That would bring short-rates up and long-term rates down.
Of course, the Fed already tried something similar late last year with a second round of quantitative easing, a program to buy bonds that was dubbed QE2. In fact, the San Francisco Fed published a paper earlier this year comparing QE2 to Operation Twist.
While many Fed critics have blasted QE2 for failing to help the economy, it’s still telling that some on Wall Street are desperately hoping the Fed will soon try something else.
After all, Congress has proven itself to be unwilling to address short-term economic problems. And Europe is a cluster-(word that rhymes with truck).
That leaves the Fed. And despite the fact that it has pledged to just sit tight and leave short-term rates near zero until 2013, some experts don’t think Bernanke and Co. will really remain so passive. Hence, the calls for Operation Twist. But why now? Besides the whole markets imploding thing?
Well, Bernanke prepared the market for QE2 last August during a speech at the Kansas City Fed’s annual econopalooza in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Guess what? Bernanke speaks at Jackson Hole next Friday. So it’s no wonder that some investors are hoping that Bernanke will twist again like he did last summer. (I’d watch Bernanke, Dallas Fed president Richard Fisher and others take part in “Dancing with the FOMC Stars!”)
Jackson Hole Central Bankers Reflect on QE2 Amid Pressure for New Stimulus (Bloomberg)
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has big shoes to fill this week when he speaks at the Federal Reserve’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming: His own.
Last year, Bernanke hinted that the Fed might embark on a second round of asset purchases to bolster the recovery, kicking off a 28 percent rally in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of stocks that ended in a three-year high on April 29.
Now, any boost to the economy from the Fed’s $600 billion of bond buying is hard to detect, with growth slowing to a less- than-1-percent annual pace in the first half, the U.S. losing its top credit rating from S&P and stocks falling about 18 percent from their peak.
The deterioration — coupled with a government that’s cutting spending and showed itself to be “dysfunctional” ahead of the debt-ceiling expiration this month — increases the pressure on the U.S. central bank to show it can and will help expansion, according to Neal Soss, chief economist at Credit Suisse Holdings USA Inc.
Policy makers this month pledged to keep their benchmark interest rate near zero until at least mid-2013 and also said they “discussed the range of policy tools” available, signaling they may add to their record stimulus.
Bernanke will be making “a major speech and the chairman knows the whole world is watching, so if he chooses not to say very much, the markets and the economy in some broader sense would be disappointed,” said Soss, a former economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “It’s absolutely critical that the Federal Reserve portray itself as having some relevance to the economic problems the society faces.”
The most honest thing Bernanke could do is go up on the podium, stare blankly for a few moments (hopefully the mic will have a little feedback noise), throw up his arms and say “sorry world, I got nuthin”, followed by a hasty retreat.
I suppose a little panic would ensue by those that actually believe the Fed can fix anything.
“sorry world, I got nuthin”
LOL
Last week Marxist Waters said that black folks where getting tired of waiting on Obama. I have no idea what they are waiting for him to do.
ITEM: Tea Party Group Slams Rep. Waters Over ‘Straight to Hell’ Outburst
August 22, 2011 - Fox News
A national Tea Party group urged Democrats to adhere to their own calls for civility after Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters told a restless crowd over the weekend that the “Tea Party can go straight to hell.”
Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin, who lead the Tea Party Patriots, suggested President Obama should step in to put a check on the overheated rhetoric.
“We’ve had Democrats calling American citizens ‘terrorists’ and ‘hostage takers,’ and now an elected Democratic representative says that we can ‘go straight to hell.’ The president and all leaders of the Democratic Party, who have called for civility in the past, are neglecting to censure their own. Is civility only required from their opponents?” they asked in a statement. “Perhaps it’s time for a new-NEW era of civility. … The president’s silence on these latest violations of civility has been deafening, but not surprising.”
Waters was ratcheting up her rhetoric as she and other lawmakers are confronted with the epidemic of joblessness in their home states. The California Democrat last week told a Detroit crowd that she was frustrated with the Obama administration’s approach to the economy, urging voters to “unleash” her on the White House.
But at a forum in Inglewood, Calif., on Saturday, Waters directed her ire at the Tea Party.
“I’m not afraid of anybody. This is a tough game. You can’t be intimidated. You can’t be frightened. And as far as I’m concerned, the Tea Party can go straight to hell,” she said.
Video of her remarks was captured by the ABC affiliate in Los Angeles.
But at a forum in Inglewood, Calif., on Saturday, Waters directed her ire at the Tea Party.
“I’m not afraid of anybody. This is a tough game. You can’t be intimidated. You can’t be frightened. And as far as I’m concerned, the Tea Party can go straight to hell,” she said.
Good for her. It’s about time that the Democrats stopped trying to be so nicey-nice. They need to get in touch with their inner LBJs. Or, for a bit more combativeness, Andrew Jackson.
Hwy’s middle sis: “sugar & spice & everythings nice”, until…you gave her a reason to grab your hair, then not so much…
I’d pay good money to see a cage match between Maxine Waters and either Palin or Bachmann.
Too funny - it is just too funny. I guess civility goes one way…
—————————————
Obama Calls for a New Era of Civility in U.S. Politics
NYT - January 12, 2011 - HELENE COOPER and JEFF ZELENY
TUCSON — President Obama offered the nation’s condolences on Wednesday to the victims of the shootings here, calling on Americans to draw a lesson from the lives of the fallen and the actions of the heroes, and to usher in a new era of civility in their honor
It was one of the more powerful addresses that Mr. Obama has delivered as president, harnessing the emotion generated by the shock and loss from Saturday’s shootings to urge Americans “to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully” and to “remind ourselves of all the ways that our hopes and dreams are bound together.”
“At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized, at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do,” he said, “it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds.”
I was there.
Actually, I wasn’t in the basketball arena when the President gave his speech. Reason: I was carrying bike stuff. And camera stuff. Way too much baggage to bring into McKale Center, and I’ve heard that the Secret Service is pretty strict about such things.
So, I went over to Arizona Stadium and sat outside with the cool kids. (It was a bit chilly that evening.)
Any-hoo, I got to talking with the couple sitting behind me. Being an avid music fan, I really got animated when the Jumbotron came on and showed a couple of hands playing a piano. Rather workmanlike jazz piano, but nothing special.
The vocalist who sang along with the keyboardist wasn’t the sort I’d go home to e-mail KXCI’s music director about. Well, the couple and I started talking about the Tucson jazz scene (where is it, anyway?) and before you know it, the formal event started.
It began with “Fanfare for the Common Man” played by the Tucson Symphony (Wait, that’s our symphony? Dang, that hornist is good! Where’d they find him?)
Then the speechifying started. I was especially impressed with Daniel Hernandez, the Giffords aide whose quick thinking at the scene likely saved the Congresswoman’s life. He rendered first aid until the paramedics arrived. And now-former University of Arizona President Robert Shelton. (Now, Bob, I thought your wife was the speaker in the family.)
I thought that Eric Holder, Jan Brewer, and Janet Napolitano gave real yawner speeches.
Then up came the President. Big applause in McKale and Arizona Stadium. My thought? “Okay, buddy. This better be good.”
So, skeptical Slim sat down and began listening to The Speech. And, damn, this guy’s really lighting up. One of the best Obama speeches in a long time.
Of course, the place went wild when he announced that Gabby had just opened her eyes. After all we’d been through as a community since the previous weekend, we needed to express our joy, and oh, did we ever.
Afterward, I left the stadium, unlocked my bike, got everything and myself back on it and rode home. It was really starting to get cold, and I kept saying “Gabby opened her eyes!” to my bike. That helped me warm up just a little.
Well you have to remember the democraps are the party of care, compassion and diversity. The republicant’s are vile and evil. Once you embrace this philosophy you may be able to understand this more clearly. It takes a village you know.
Hmm. A couple of quotes from Harry Truman:
“Richard Nixon is a no-good lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he’d lie just to keep his hand in…(Nixon is) the easiest man to beat”
“I don’t think the son of a bitch [Vice-President Nixon] knows the difference between telling the truth and lying.”
Republicans whining about name calling………now that’s rich.
Maxine Waters told a restless crowd over the weekend that the “Tea Party can go straight to hell.
I wonder what percentage of the Tea Party thinks Maxine is getting a little too uppity. 3%? 40%?
Here in Tucson, the rush to build student housing near the University of Arizona continues. The latest from our daily fishwrap:
Real estate: Developer will avoid minidorm argument
The Arizona Daily Star’s online comment strike force is already on the case. Selected comments:
Allen says, “Yeah, good luck. I’m not sure the market is there for students in that particular area. South of 22nd becomes $hitsville pretty quick, and has little connection with the U of A. There’s far too much to the North, East and West with untapped high vacancies.
“It’s hard to keep 3 bedrooms rented for $650 in that area (south of 22nd) right now. Section 8 is king, even on nicer properties, and even that isn’t cutting it. Take my word for it.”
JH weighs in with, “Students who know each other now get together and rent individual homes closer to the U. There always seems to be something available for the kinds of students he is targeting. I agree with Allen that the location and concept will be a hard sell. But good luck to him.”
Adds eagle-eyed Otto,”If it’s not within the jurisdiction of the campus police I wouldn’t let my kids live there. There was enough trouble on the west side student housing complex. I was happy when the kids moved back within a block of campus. This developer is getting the Tucson hustle.”
And, last but not least, here’s Slim: I was bicycling around the campus area this past weekend. Although school starts today, there are still plenty of vacancies right around the university. I wish this developer a lot of luck.
If there’s one violent crime perpetrated against the residents of this new complex, and in that part of town, such a thing is quite likely, it’s all over. The next thing you’ll hear is the sound of leases being broken all over the complex.
Bundesbank: “Mein Entschluss: Anschluss-Plus” - Germany Reveals The European Annexation Blueprints
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/22/2011
We were wondering how long it would be before Germany, following in the footsteps of such luminaries as Hank Paulson and Tim Geithner, would formally announce to the world that with it now openly calling the shots in Europe, it would be its way or the mutual assured destruction way. We just got our answer courtesy of the just released August Outlook from the Bundesbank, in which the German national bank lays out the framework of the upcoming European anschluss play by play, as Germany prepares to roll out the Fourth Reich welcome mat without ever spilling a drop of blood. After all: why injure the soon to be millions of debt slaves? To wit from the report: “Unless and until a fundamental change of regime occurs involving an extensive surrender of national fiscal sovereignty, it is imperative that the no bail-out rule that is still enshrined in the treaties and the associated disciplining function of the capital markets be strengthened, and not fatally weakened.” Translation: “we will gladly help everyone out… in exchange for a little of that vastly overrated fiscal sovereignty… Did we say a little? We meant all of it…”
Here are the salient points from the just released Bundesbank manifesto of Mutual Assured Anschluss or else:
Overall, there is a risk that the originally agreed institutional framework of the monetary union will increasingly become eroded.
As noted, there is but one proposed solution:
Unless and until a fundamental change of regime occurs involving an extensive surrender of national fiscal sovereignty, it is imperative that the no bail-out rule that is still enshrined in the treaties and the associated disciplining function of the capital markets be strengthened, and not fatally weakened.
You want your stupid brilliant monetary union? Fine.
You want us to pay for it? Sure.
The cost? Your “extensive” national independence.
My guess is the Germans don’t want this plan any more than anyone else. They just need the rest of the EU to reject them via this plan as an excuse to part ways.
Number of Delinquent Mortgages on the Rise Again
Monday, 22 Aug 2011 | CNBC.com
After several quarters of improvements, the number of U.S. homeowners who are late on their mortgages increased in the second quarter, according to a survey by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).
The second-quarter mortgage delinquency rate rose to 8.44 percent of all mortgage loans outstanding, according to the MBA’s Mortgage Deliquency Survey. That is an increase of 0.12 percent from the previous quarter, but is still down 1.41 percent from the same period a year ago.
“While overall mortgage delinquencies increased only slightly between the first and second quarters of this year, it is clear that the downward trend we saw through most of 2010 has stopped,” MBA’s Chief Economist Jay Brinkmann said in a statement. “Mortgage delinquencies are no longer improving and are now showing some signs of worsening.”
The delinquency rate includes loans that are at least one payment past due, but does not include loans in the process of foreclosure.
Foreclosure starts, which make up 0.96 percent of all loans, were down 0.12 percent from the previous quarter. Loans in the foreclosure process fell to 4.43 percent, down slightly quarter-to-quarter and year-over-year.
“The good news is the continued decline in long-term delinquencies, those mortgages that are three payments or more past due,” said Brinkmann. “The bad news is that drop is offset by an increase in newly delinquent loans one payment past due.”
Overall, 12.54 percent of all U.S. mortgage loans outstanding are either late in payments or in the foreclosure process, and that is up 0.23 percent from the previous quarter. That’s still down 1.43 percent from the same quarter a year ago, and off a peak of around 14 percent.
The data suggest that persistently high U.S. unemployment rate is making it harder for people to keep up on their mortgage payments, and offer a grim outlook for a housing sector.
“Overall, 12.54 percent of all U.S. mortgage loans outstanding are either late in payments or in the foreclosure process,…”
According to this table 993 - Mortgage Characteristics–Owner Occupied Units: 2009 in the 2011 Statistical Abstract of the United States, there were about 50.3 million mortgages outstanding in the U.S. as of Fall 2009. Using that as a rough estimate of the total number of mortgage loans outstanding today, the 12.54 percent in late payments or foreclosures translates into 12.54*50.3/100 = 6.3 million mortgaged homes in present or future foreclosure shadow inventory territory — right in line with other figures I have been reading recently.
South Dakota schools cut costs with 4-day week
Tough arithmetic: Shrinking state support has South Dakota schools flocking to 4-day week
IRENE, S.D. (AP) — When the nearly 300 students of the Irene-Wakonda School District returned to school this week, they found a lot of old friends, teachers and familiar routines awaiting them. But one thing was missing: Friday classes.
This district in the rolling farmland of southeastern South Dakota is among the latest to adopt a four-day school week as the best option for reducing costs and dealing with state budget cuts to education.
“It got down to monetary reasons more than anything else,” Superintendent Larry Johnke said. The $50,000 savings will preserve a vocational education program that otherwise would have been scrapped.
The four-school week is an increasingly visible example of the impact of state budget problems on rural education. This fall, fully one-fourth of South Dakota’s districts will have moved to some form of the abbreviated schedule. Only Colorado and Wyoming have a larger proportion of schools using a shortened week. According to one study, more than 120 school districts in 20 states, most in the west, now use four-day weeks.
The schools insist that reducing class time is better than the alternatives and can be done without sacrificing academic performance. Yet not all parents are convinced.
“The kids are going to suffer,” said Melissa Oien, who has four children in the school and serves as vice president of the parent-teacher organization. “Of course they will. They’re missing a whole day of school.”
The same thing was done in rural districts in AZ. So far, it doesn’t appear to be a disaster.
I don’t see why it would be a problem. If some folks are worried they will not be getting enough class time, why not load them down with home work? I certainly remember most of my teachers were not shy in that department.
I think it makes a lot of sense in rural districts where most of the young students will have someone at home on Friday, but it might make more sense to take Wednesday off.
If we start to see it in urban and suburban districts, I think we will see a lot of parents looking for Friday off. This will hit the working poor hard. And it could lead to lots of things from an increase in latchkey kids to a restructuring of work weeks.
This is a boon for football teams.
To be filed under “Duh!”.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/44230121
“Boomer Retirement Could Slow US Recovery: Fed Study”
USA becomes Food Stamp Nation but is it sustainable?
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Genna Saucedo supervises cashiers at a Wal-Mart in Pico Rivera, California, but her wages aren’t enough to feed herself and her 12-year-old son.
Saucedo, who earns $9.70 an hour for about 26 hours a week and lives with her mother, is one of the many Americans who survive because of government handouts in what has rapidly become a food stamp nation.
Altogether, there are now almost 46 million people in the United States on food stamps, roughly 15 percent of the population. That’s an increase of 74 percent since 2007, just before the financial crisis and a deep recession led to mass job losses.
At the same time, the cost doubled to reach $68 billion in 2010 — more than a third of the amount the U.S. government received in corporate income tax last year — which means the program has started to attract the attention of some Republican lawmakers looking for ways to cut the nation’s budget deficit.
While there are clearly some cases of abuse by people who claim food stamps but don’t really need them, for many Americans like Saucedo there is little current alternative if they are to put food on the table while paying rent and utility bills.
“It’s kind of sad that even though I’m working that I need to have government assistance. I have asked them to please put me on full-time so I can have benefits,” said the 32-year-old.
She’s worked at Wal-Mart for nine months, and applied for food stamps as soon as her probation ended. She said plenty of her colleagues are in the same situation.
So are her customers. Bill Simon, head of Wal-Mart’s U.S. operations, told a conference call last Tuesday that the company had seen an increase in the number of shoppers relying on government assistance for food.
About forty percent of food stamp recipients are, like Saucedo, in households in which at least one member of the family earns wages. Many more could be eligible: the government estimates one in three who could be on the program are not.
“If they’re working, they often think they can’t get help. But people can’t support their families on $10, $11, $12 an hour jobs, especially when you add transport, clothes, rent.” said Carolyn McLaughlin, executive director of BronxWorks, a social services organization in New York.
The maximum amount a family of four can receive in food stamps is $668 a month. They can only be used to buy food — though not hot food — and for plants and seeds to grow food.
Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all made efforts to raise awareness about the program and remove the stigma associated with it.
In 2004, paper coupons were replaced with cards similar to debit cards onto which benefits can be loaded. In 2008 they were renamed Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits though most people still call them food stamps.
Despite the bipartisan support for the program in the past, some of the recent political rhetoric has food stamp advocates worried.
Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich last year derided Democrats as “the party of food stamps”. And Republican leaders in the House of Representatives propose changing the program so that the funding is through a “block grant” to the states, rather than allowing it to grow automatically when needed due to an emergency, such as a natural disaster or economic crisis.
In some parts of the country, shoppers using food stamps have almost become the norm. In May 2011, a third of all people in Alabama were on food stamps — though part of that was because of emergency assistance after communities were destroyed by a series of destructive tornadoes. Washington D.C., Mississippi, New Mexico, Oregon and Tennessee all had about a fifth of their population on food stamps that month.
“Food stamps have traditionally been insulated from politics,” said Parke Wilde, professor of U.S. food policy at Tufts University. “But as you look over the current fiscally conservative proposals, the question is, has something fundamentally changed?”
She’s worked at Wal-Mart for nine months, and applied for food stamps as soon as her probation ended. She said plenty of her colleagues are in the same situation.
And Wal-Mart, being one of the world’s richest corporations, can’t afford to pay these people enough so that they don’t need food stamps? I’m not buying it.
Food stamps = another “subsidy” to corporate “parasites”.
Along with:
-Any expenditure on the US armed forces on operations outside of the Americas.
-Public supported schools and universities.
-The civil court system.
- The transportation system (with the possible exclusion of the freight rail system.
- Our so-called immigration “policy”.
I could go on………
I could go on………
oh, please do…
Income limits1 $ 1,174mo $ 14,088 yr … FS max $200 a month
So she qualifies $9.70 an hour for about 26 hours..4 1/3 weeks equals about 112 hours mo…. very close
But if she gets a raise or more hours she loses them..
USA becomes Food Stamp Nation but is it sustainable?
I seem to recall reading that we spend 100B a year on foodstamps and free school lunches. That is a drop in the bucket of the federal budget, especially when you consider that we spend $20B a year to A/C tents in Afghanistan.
The military budget simply dwarfs what we spend on foodstamps, yet there is constant handwringing over SNAP but seldom over the military budget.
“The military budget simply dwarfs what we spend on foodstamps, yet there is constant handwringing over SNAP but seldom over the military budget.”
But that military budget is all that stands between Israel and the crazed hoards who are struggling to survive against runaway commodity prices that ironically are being driven upward by our central bankers money printing.
So the solution would be more “stimulus” money correct?
Federal Stimulus Funds for Nevada’s Green-Industry Grows Trees, But Few Jobs August 22, 2011| FoxNews.com
The Clark County Urban Forestry Revitalization Project was given $490,000 of stimulus money.
A federal stimulus grant of nearly $500,000 to grow trees and stimulate the economy in Nevada yielded a whopping 1.72 jobs, according to government statistics.
In 2009, the U.S. Forest Service awarded $490,000 of stimulus money to Nevada’s Clark County Urban Forestry Revitalization Project, aimed at revitalizing urban neighborhoods in the county with trees, plants, and green-industry training.
The project produced only 1.72 full-time jobs.
According to Recovery.gov, the U.S. government’s official website related to Recovery Act spending, the project created 1.72 permanent jobs. In addition, the Nevada state Division of Forestry reported the federal grant generated one full-time temporary job and 11 short-term project-oriented jobs.
It also resulted in the planting of hundreds of trees — which critics say is about the only good thing that came out of this stimulus project.
“Looking at the failure of the stimulus to live up to its promises, not just in Nevada, but throughout America, I think the question becomes ‘is there any good use of stimulus money?’” said Douglas Kellogg, communications manager for National Taxpayers Union, in an email to FoxNews.com.
A Nevada state official has a simple explanation for the low job growth.
“If the question is ‘was this a job-creating project?’ the answer is ‘no, it wasn’t,’” said Bob Conrad, public information officer for the Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. “It was one of a number of projects that we do believe helped improve natural resources in the state.”
Conrad said the $490,000 is being used for a number of projects. Those projects include tree inventories, salaries for staff at the nurseries through the Nevada Division of Forestry, plant material and plant supplies.
“The goal obviously was to make trees available to local government entities, parks, schools, things like that, at our state nursery,” said Conrad. “We basically grew and provided about 2,000 trees to these local entities.”
The grant also funds Spanish-language training for Hispanics in the landscaping and tree care industry to “develop employability skills and increase job retention.”
Conrad could not say how many, if any, jobs were created by that training.
Oh sure, SC, loads of trees..NV not so many.
Gov’t Tree$ for NV = “evil!”
“Diz ALL the Gov’t’s fault!” woe is U$, woe is U$,… wmbz type day # 4,786
So, on reflection, the trees that NV does have certainly seem to have tolerated & survived quite a bit of Hope & Change!
Pinus longaeva, the NV Great Basin Bristlecone Pine, is a long-living species of tree found in the higher mountains of the southwest United States. The species is one of three closely related trees known as bristlecone pines and is sometimes known as the Intermountain or Western bristlecone pine. One member of this species, known as Methuselah [NV], is thought to be the oldest living non-clonal organism on Earth.
Does Bernanke have a bazooka in his pocket? I guess we will know soon enough…
Aug. 22, 2011, 7:00 a.m. EDT
Bernanke ready for action, but when is in doubt
Central banker to deliver key speech Friday
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is expected to use his highly anticipated speech from Jackson Hole, Wyo. to stress that he is willing to ride to the rescue to stabilize the economy.
When, is a different matter.
“Ben Bernanke is a student of history, and he is not going to be the central banker that lets financial markets melt down and the economy go into a depression,” said Mark Gertler, a professor of economics at New York University who has co-written research with the Fed chairman, who’s due to speak at 10 a.m. Eastern on Friday .
Gertler said all options are on the table, including another round of asset purchases, or quantitative easing. In the first round of bond purchases between Dec. 2008 and March 2010, the Fed bought $1.7 trillion of mostly mortgage securities, and in the second round between November and June, the central bank snapped up $600 billion of Treasury bonds.
“QE3 is an option if there is a significant downturn in the economy or extraordinary stress in financial markets,” Gertler said.
Bernanke may move despite a hostile political environment — Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry said QE3 would be an “almost treasonous” action — and dissent within the Fed’s own ranks.
More asset purchases would also be controversial among economists.
The Federal Reserve voted to hold interest rates at zero, and indicated it would keep rates there through the middle of 2013.
“It would be a mistake to signal an inclination to move ahead with another round of asset purchases. The inflation rate is moving up and is close to the upper bound of the Fed’s informal target,” said Marvin Goodfriend, a former senior Fed official and now an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
Core consumer price inflation rose at a 1.8% year-on-year rate in July.
“We are in a period of extreme uncertainty of the direction of the economy. If ever there was a period where wait-and-see was called for, this would be it,” Goodfriend said.
…
To offset this view, note that economists who believe in psychological economics are also likely to believe in the psychological value of an element of surprise. An unanticipated QE3 announcement would fall into this category.
Euroview: Jackson Hole Probably Won’t Deliver
Aug. 22, 2011
Hamstrung politicians give Bernanke and Trichet nearly impossible policy task in Wyoming.
“An unanticipated QE3 announcement would fall into this category.”
NO. Doing absolutely nothing would fall into this category. Sometimes doing nothing is the perfect solution.
“Sometimes doing nothing is the perfect solution”.
Very true but meddlers can’t “do” nothing, and the sheeple want “something” done. Even though they are sincerely clueless as to what.
I just don’t think we can manipulate interest rates and the value of the currency sufficiently to get our way back to prosperity.
Boomers May Stall Stocks for Decades: Fed Paper
By Vivien Lou Chen - Aug 22, 2011 - Bloomberg
Aging baby boomers may hold down U.S. stock values for the next two decades as they sell their investments to finance retirement, according to a paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
“U.S. equity values have been closely related to demographic trends in the past half century,” adviser Zheng Liu and researcher Mark Spiegel wrote in a paper released by the bank today. “In the context of the impending retirement of baby boomers over the next two decades, this correlation portends poorly for equity values.”
The equity-price-to-earnings ratio of U.S. stocks tripled from 1981 to 2000 as Americans born between 1946 and 1964 reached their peak working ages, Liu and Spiegel said. Overseas investors’ demand for U.S. stocks might help mitigate the effect of a baby-boomers’ sell-off, yet the impact would probably be limited, they said.
“Foreign demand for U.S. equities is unlikely to offset price declines resulting from a sell-off by U.S. nationals,” they said.
Unless, of course, they’ve had to cash in their 401Ks prematurely.
Besides, I didn’t think the sheeple owned enough stock in their 401Ks to matter. Which means that depressed stock prices for the next 20 years will be due to something else.
Can’t imagine what that would be, with all of this highly paid, high powered, “Masters of the Universe” management of the economy we are seeing………
Mix in a little inflation and you too can be made to feel rich as the stock market climbs ever so higher.
“Boomers May Stall Stocks for Decades: Fed Paper”
The over-weight elephant in the room.
Why can’t the Fed (aka “buyer of last resort”) simply buy up as much stock as is needed to prop up prices? Who needs them retirees to keep the prices up on a permanently-high plateau, when the Fed has a license to print fiatscos and use them to snap up whatever assets it wants whenever it wants to snap…
or am I missing something?
Homebuyers Spooked by Stock Volatility
By Kathleen M. Howley - Aug 22, 2011 -Bloomberg
Sanjay Jain called his real estate broker four days ago to cancel a deal to buy a three-bedroom home in Folsom, California, unnerved by another plunge in the most volatile equities market on record.
“Seeing what’s happening on the stock market made me think that it’s not a good time to be buying a home,” Jain said. “I’m going to wait and see.”
As the U.S. economy shows signs of sputtering, instability on Wall Street is sapping the confidence of would-be property buyers, said Karl Case, co-founder of the S&P/Case-Shiller home- price index. That means housing, which aided every recovery except one before the most recent recession, may deepen its five-year drag on growth.
“There’s a dramatic effect on an economy when a major sector is flat out,” said Case, professor emeritus of economics at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. “If housing takes another leg down, it’s an accelerator. It’s going to make a recession happen faster and deeper.”
Home sales in July fell to the lowest point this year, the National Association of Realtors said in a report last week. Applications for mortgages to buy homes dropped to a 13-month low in the week ended Aug. 12, even as borrowing costs tumbled, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index sank to the lowest since the recession.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/44229642
“Consumer Debt Forgiveness May Be Needed: Roach”
Hey, that was my plan like 4 years ago. Since then I have woken up and realized it is a temp fix. If we do not address the trade imbalances that created the debt in the first place, the debt will just come right back.
Now I beleive that a stupid little thing called “a job with a good wage” is a MUCH better way of fixing ills than a 1-time debt forgiveness/write-off.
Globalization, if properly managed, could have been one of those “rising tide lifts all boats” deals.
“Properly managed” meaning that US manufacturers not be forced to compete against countries manipulating exchange rates and pursuing mercantilist policies to grab market share.
Or coming up with international government standards for manufactured products. Too many times, we’ve given a free pass for countries to export to our (what used to be huge) market, not recognizing that various local government regs made it unprofitable for our manufacturers to design and manufacture unique products for much smaller markets.
But, as it should be obvious to everybody by now, we’re giving “Einstein” pay to government and business leaders with “Bozo the Clown” talent.
So who’s on deck after Mo gets the ax?
ITEM: Libyan Rebels Advance on Qaddafi Compound
Libyan rebels said the 42-year rule of Muammar Qaddafi has ended as opposition fighters battled remaining pockets of loyalist troops in the capital.
Rebels for a time held three of Qaddafi’s sons captured during the advance into Tripoli, although one of them, Mohammed, later escaped from house arrest, according to Al Jazeera.
Rebels encountered areas of resistance in the capital today, with heavy fighting at Qaddafi’s Bab Al Azizia compound in southern Tripoli. The rebels control 90 percent of the capital, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters in Washington.
While the rebels hadn’t yet taken full control of the capital, “the era of Qaddafi is over,” Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of the rebel’s National Transitional Council, said today at a news conference in Benghazi. He called on rebel fighters to avoid reprisals, respect human rights and treat prisoners of war well.
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron said today that “Qaddafi must stop fighting, without conditions — and clearly show that he has given up any claim to control Libya.”
So who’s on deck after Mo gets the ax?
——————————
Libyan Draft Constitution: Sharia is ‘Principal Source of Legislation’
heritage.org | August 22, 2011 | Lachlan Markay
The dust has not yet settled over the Libyan capital of Tripoli since rebels took control over the weekend. But already, a draft constitutional charter for the transitional state has appeared online (embedded below). It is just a draft, mind you, and gauging its authenticity at this point is difficult. There is also no way to know whether this draft or something similar will emerge as the final governing document for a new Libyan regime.
As both the Morning Bell and Washington in a Flash noted today, Heritage Fellow Jim Phillips recently pointed out that Islamist forces “appear to make up a small but not insignificant part of the opposition coalition,” and must be prevented “from hijacking Libya’s future.” Parts of the draft Constitution allay those fears, while others exacerbate them.
Much of the document describes political institutions that will sound familiar to citizens of Western liberal democracies, including rule of law, freedom of speech and religious practice, and a multi-party electoral system.
But despite the Lockean tenor of much of the constitution, the inescapable clause lies right in Part 1, Article 1: “Islam is the Religion of the State, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia).”
lmao… heritage.org
You go man….lol
Ra$h Limpbaugh$: $cratch, $cratch, $cratch…
“lmao… heritage.org”
Crowd: Let’s get back to the THE CONSTITUTION!!!
Some guy: the Constitution supports education, even children of illegals!
Crowd: Let’s BURN THE CONSTITUTION!!! BUT DON’T CUT MY MEDICARE!!!
Medicare and education of illegals is not in the US Constitution.
Oh, thanks!
I have an original idea.
Why don’t we just stay the hell out of this process completely?
Let’s try it, just once……..
Since World War 2, we always seem to pick the wealthy and/or corrupt elites to influence/support, at the expense of the Mainland Chinese/Iranian/Vietnamese/Middle Eastern version of Joe 6 Pack.
““Islam is the Religion of the State, and the principal source of legislation is Islamic Jurisprudence (Sharia).””
your tax dollars at work, leading from behind, its good to support a thinking that wants you dead or part of islam!
“……support a thinking that wants you dead, or part of Islam!”
Are Christians that insecure/uncertain of their own message that they feel that are at war with Islam?
IMO, the Fundie Islamists and the Fundie Christians are two puppies from the same litter. Our way, or the highway. Do things our way, or we will destroy you. If you aren’t with us, you are against us.
“IMO, the Fundie Islamists and the Fundie Christians are two puppies from the same litter. Our way, or the highway. Do things our way, or we will destroy you. If you aren’t with us, you are against us.”
And I would add, “Our hatred of you is at our core”.
“stop,…news from General Sherman @ Atlanta today Mr. President…stop” (2 September 1864)
Another
awkwardlyamazingly executed play from the Hope & Change play book:“…Lil’ Opie hands off to the US Navy, who laterals to NATO, who tosses it down field to the self-eligible rebel-receiver, aka, the “Center” Mustafa Abdel Jalil…”
The $cramble for Acce$$ to Libya’$ Oil Wealth Begin$:
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
Published: August 22, 2011
Even before Libyan rebels could take full control of Tripoli, Foreign Minister Franco Frattini of Italy said on state television Monday that the Italian oil company Eni “will have a No. 1 role in the future” in the North African country.
Italy in recent years has relied on Libya for more than 20 percent of its oil imports, and France, Switzerland, Ireland and Austria all depended on Libya for more than 15 percent of their imports before the fighting began. Libya’s importance to France was underscored on Monday when President Nicolas Sarkozy invited the head of the rebels’ national transitional council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, to Paris for consultations.
Most oil companies involved in Libya denied to comment Monday or said they would wait to see how the security situation evolved before sending their personnel into the country.
[Goldenman$ucks only comment]: $torage! $torage! $torage!
Perhaps hurricane Irene will pound the Florida coast this coming weekend and “create” some new construction jobs.
Red Cross closing Waseca chapter to save money
WASECA, Minn. (AP) - After 94 years, the American Red Cross in Waseca is closing its doors as part of a nationwide cost-cutting strategy.
The chapter’s current director is Jane Frye. She says the closure won’t mean the organization’s presence will end. She says the Red Cross will still provide disaster-related services and CPR classes, but the details still need to be worked out.
She predicts the price will go up for certain services.
Red Cross chapters are also being consolidated elsewhere. Goodhue and Winona counties will combine to form one chapter. Freeborn and Mower counties will also unite.
“If the US Government was a family, they would be making $58,000 a year, yet they spend $75,000 a year, and have $327,000 in credit card debt. They are currently proposing BIG spending cuts to reduce their spending to $72,000 a year. These are the actual proportions of the federal budget and debt, reduced to a level that we can understand.”
-Dave Ramsey
he forgot one fact:
the family are master counterfeiters.
Who also have an unlimited ability to tax their neighbors, and put tariffs on all the stuff being delivered by the Fedex and UPS guys.
Market Pulse Archives
Aug. 22, 2011, 4:09 p.m. EDT
Goldman shares drop on Blankfein attorney news
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS -1.96%) shares dropped Monday just before the closing bell following a Reuters report that Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein has hired high-profile Washington defense attorney Reid Weingarten. Shares of Goldman Sachs closed down 4.7% at $106.51 a share. Weingarten has represented such clients as former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers and former Enron accounting officer Richard Causey, according to the report.
Some folks will do anything to get out of a parking ticket.
sure glad Buffet got out of this one before it tanked.. wasn’t his warrants at $115 a share?
x3 cheers to ill-legal immigrant…yeasters!
BWAHAHAHicHAHAHicHAHAHAHAHicHAHAHic* (DennisN™)
Sugar-filled galls on Southern beech trees in the Patagonia region of South America are attractive to a species of yeast, Saccharomyces eubayanus, that somehow made it to Europe where it fused with S. cerevisiae to form lager yeast, the microbe responsible for fermenting ice cold lager beer.
Beer mystery solved! Yeast ID’d:
By John Roach
Ice cold beer: In these dog days of summer, few things are better. So, let’s raise a glass and toast Saccharomyces eubayanus, newly discovered yeast that helped make cold-fermented lager a runaway success.
The yeast, in the wild, thrives in ball-shaped lumps of sugar that form on beech trees in Patagonia of South America. Its discovery appears to solve the mystery of how lager yeast formed. Until now, scientists only knew about the origins of ale yeast, which makes up just half of the lager yeast genome.
Yeasts are microscopic fungi that feast on sugar, converting it to carbon dioxide and alcohol via the process of fermentation. Ale yeast, S. cerevisiae, has been doing this throughout the history of beer, which stretches back to at least 6,000 B.C. in Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization.
But ale yeast does its magic at relatively warm temperatures. In the 15th century, Bavarians started cold-fermenting beer in caves, a process known as laagering.
“The ale strains were probably poorly adapted to growing in that environment and that opened up an opportunity when S. eubayanus came on the scene,” Chris Todd Hittinger, a professor of genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, explained to me.
The cold-adapted yeast likely reached Europe as stowaway when trade with South America took off in the 1500s, he and colleagues report online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Now, all we need to do is figure out how to make champagne out of Chinese Flying Carp.
The Phillips Curve conundrum is back: It’s hard to maintain both low unemployment and low inflation.
Hey, Rick Perry: Printing Money Is Patriotic
By James Kwak
Aug 16 2011, 3:44 PM ET 245
Monetary stimulus isn’t “treason.” It’s Ben Bernanke’s job. And it’s high time for the Fed chair to do it.
The U.S. economy is in bad shape. A growing pile of economic data–slow GDP growth, falling employment, falling consumption–only confirms what more than twenty million people who can’t find full-time jobs already know. Yet Congress and the White House are unable or unwilling to do anything about it. As spending from the 2009 stimulus bill peters out, fiscal policy is hurting the economy, and the Republicans’ unanimous insistence on spending cuts is keeping it that way.
But some Republicans are not content with preventing fiscal policy from reducing unemployment. They also want to intimidate the Federal Reserve–a historically independent agency–from using monetary policy to reduce unemployment. Yesterday presidential hopeful Texas Governor Rick Perry said that it would be “treasonous” for Ben Bernanke to “print money” to attempt to stimulate economic growth.
The Fed has a dual mandate to protect both employment and prices. They’re doing abysmally at the first.
In these economic circumstances, “printing money” is Ben Bernanke’s job. The Federal Reserve has a famous dual mandate: maximum employment and stable prices. Right now, they’re doing fine at one and abysmally at the other. This chart shows excess unemployment for the past sixty years: the difference between the unemployment rate and the “natural” rate of unemployment estimated by the CBO (currently 5.2 percent). The only other time excess unemployment climbed above 4 percent, in 1982, it fell back below 2 percent within five quarters. This spring was the ninth quarter since excess unemployment first passed 4 percent, and it’s still at 3.9 percent. The Fed itself estimates it will be well above 3 percent through the end of this year.
…
Can a True Patriot help me out here? How does a True Patriot substantiate comments, like “let’s get back to the Constitution?”
Do amendments count? Interpretation? Supreme Court? Or just the paper thingy?
News flash: Fed’s war on small savers scheduled to continue at least until 2013…
MARKETS
AUGUST 22, 2011
Living in a Low-Rate World
Borrowers Benefit, Savers Suffer as Interest Rates Fall; Mixed Blessing for Firms
BY MATT PHILLIPS
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has put the financial world on notice: Brace for two more years of rock-bottom interest rates.
That is great news for borrowers, but it promises rough going for anyone seeking returns from fixed-income investments—from retirees to giant pension funds to companies sitting on record amounts of cash.
It has been almost three years since the Fed cut its key rate to almost zero, and on Aug. 9, the central bank said rates are likely to remain there until at least mid-2013. Rates for everything from Treasury bills to money-market funds are near zero.
…
No wonder foreclosure homes sell at a discount. How would you like to move into your dream home, only to later notice the unmistakable and permanent aroma of dog urine permeating the indoor air?
Trashing Foreclosed Homes In Yakima
By Heather Walker
Story Published: Aug 22, 2011 at 6:33 PM PDT
YAKIMA — You’ve heard the stories of homes trashed by owners angry over a foreclosure. That destructive reaction is not just happening in the most depressed housing markets, it’s happening here. The distressed homeowner may be lashing out at the bank, but it’s the neighbors who really pay the price.
From the outside it’s a nice home in nice neighborhood, but soon after the foreclosure notices started arriving, the owners took their rage out on the inside.
“Fair warning, sometimes there may be some feces, dog urine, they may break some things,” said realtor Frank Lopez as we entered the house.
Inside there were all of those things including animal droppings on the kitchen stove. It’s easy to see the mess was intentional.
Frank Lopez has been a realtor in Yakima for more than six years. He says the trashing has been happening since he started working, but it has gotten worse in the last year as more homes in Yakima have been handed over to the banks.
The damage being done to these homes isn’t cheap either it ranges anywhere from $2,000 to $12,000 and it’s happening more and more often.
The previous owners are no doubt hurting the bank with their destruction, but they are hurting their neighbors even more.
Kirk Goodwin lives a couple houses over from the house and was trying to sell his home.
“It’s not a good selling point to have a foreclosed home in the neighborhood,” he said.
…
Yakima, WA reminds me of Merced or Modesto, which are low-class agriculture based cities in California’s central valley. Tattooed white obese trash and a very generous helping of Mexican laborers, both more than willing to steal anything not bolted to the ground.
Is it really possible that anyone working in the banking industry is just waking up to the reality of millions of homes in shadow inventory destined to hit the market over the next decade, putting steady downward pressure on home prices?
Short-sell your REO inventory now, or get priced in forever!
In the Region | New Jersey
Banks Ease Stance on Short Sales
Marc Steiner for The New York Times
Short sales like this one advertised in Red Bank are becoming preferable to foreclosure, even among some bankers.
By JILL P. CAPUZZO
Published: August 19, 2011
STANDING by while her mother was evicted from her home in Tinton Falls for the few thousand dollars she owed in mortgage payments in the 1990s had a big influence on Kim Hale and her career choices. A new nursing school graduate at the time, Ms. Hale said she had had no idea how to help her mother, who was “too embarrassed to reach out to anyone.”
“If I knew then what I know now, she would have fought, and she’d probably still be in that house,” said Ms. Hale, 45, who is now a real estate agent with Exit Realty in West Long Branch, specializing in short sales. She says she focuses on short sales — they are about 70 percent of her work — because she wants to offer distressed homeowners the best possible outcome.
Ms. Hale is one of many brokers who have positioned themselves as short-sale experts. Which makes sense, as nearly 4.3 million American homeowners are delinquent on their mortgage payments, 124,910 of them in New Jersey, according to data released last month from LPS Applied Analytics. An additional 121,258 New Jersey homes are in foreclosure, which makes New Jersey the state with the fourth-highest percentage of delinquent loans.
A short sale — when a lender agrees to accept less than the outstanding balance on the mortgage — is an attractive alternative to foreclosure, which takes longer and more severely affects a homeowner’s credit rating.
These days it is even starting to dawn on long-reluctant banks that there is value in short sales, which promise higher returns than foreclosures (not to mention the benefit of keeping a house from abandonment). In fact, in states like New Jersey and New York — where the foreclosure process has halted in the 11 months since a court order forced banks to restructure their mortgage procedures — the short sale has for the time being become practically the only alternative.
As a result, it is now banks themselves that, in growing numbers, are indirectly providing brokers with leads on potential short sales.
“The banks are definitely becoming friendlier to deal with, especially as they realize there’s so much shadow inventory out there that hasn’t even reached the market yet,” said Bill Flagg, a broker with ERA Queen City in Scotch Plains, referring to the very institutions that once made the process difficult. Today, half his office’s business is in short sales or foreclosures, he said.
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Face of foreclosure: Foreclosed properties are on the rise in San Juan County
By COLLEEN ARMSTRONG
Islands Sounder Web site editor, Editor
Aug 10 2011
Greg Johnson’s construction business was booming. He was building houses, selling them and turning a high profit.
Life was good until the nationwide real estate market downturn hit the San Juan Islands.
“I was out of sync with the gyrations of the market,” said Johnson (not his real name). “As the economic tidal wave crested in Puget Sound, I realized there was no way we were getting out of this in 12 months. This was a five- or six-year thing.”
A review of the Islands’ Sounder and Journal of the San Juans legal notices for the past two years shows the number of bank-owned foreclosures at a higher number this year than last. Local realtors agree that there are more foreclosures hitting the market this year.
A story of foreclosure
Jennifer Wallace, assistant manager of Washington Federal in Eastsound, said the typical homeowner she sees experiencing trouble with mortgage payments is someone whose income is directly related to the economy, like a realtor or builder.
“You can’t generalize it, but that’s what we’ve seen up here,” she said. “People related to the housing market were hit the hardest.”
Johnson knows that better than most.
Since the mid-1990s, the long-time Orcas resident had been running a successful construction business as well as building spec homes and quickly selling them. In 2004, he built a house on Orcas, found renters, and then moved to Arizona for a new job. His renters were able to pay until serious medical problems caused them to miss several months’ rent.
“I left Tucson in 2006, right when the mortgage crisis had hit there,” he said. “We bought a house down there, and we were actually able to turn $50,000 in profit on the heels of the disaster. I was extremely lucky. I got a little too big for my britches when I got back to Orcas. Instead of kicking my renters out, I bought another piece of land and built another house to live in.”
In addition to carrying mortgages on two homes, Johnson’s construction business slowed. He went from making $10,000 a month to around $5,000. He put both homes on the market and hoped for the best.
“I kept relying on the former market to turn around,” he said. “I had not expected the national downfall. At the end of it all, I had close friends and attorneys whose opinions I respect, telling me that I just had to turn my back on these properties. Even with any money I might have gained down the road, I would do so much better starting at zero.”
Johnson says he negotiated with the banks for a while, but didn’t qualify for many of the deals.
“Both of the banks offered me suspended payment options, where the interest would accrue but the payments were suspended,” he said. “But the hitch in the giddy-up is that I was self-employed. I couldn’t tell them what my income would be. The banks told me to lie and just tell them a number. That was shocking.”
Johnson lost his rental house in 2009. His second property foreclosed in 2010, at which point he also filed for bankruptcy. He soon moved off the island.
“I’m the poster child for this not working out,” he said. “I was a little ashamed of all of it. But I had older, wiser people telling me: this was just business. I had one too many houses. If I had just stayed with the one house and kicked the renters out, this would never have been an issue.”
He says the most difficult part of the foreclosure process was watching houses he had built be turned over to someone else.
…
“…plunging by $164,165 compared to a year ago…”
Ker-plunk!
Home prices take a dip
Prices take a dip while homes stay on the market longer.
By Mark Kellam, mark.kellam@latimes.com
August 19, 2011 | 3:55 p.m.
The local real estate market took a wild ride in July. The average length of time a home stayed on the market in Glendale grew by a month compared to the previous year, from 3.5 months to 4.5 months, according to Keller Williams Realty, which tracks local real estate statistics.
The rise was caused by a jump in new listings, combined with a drop in new sales, said Keith Sorem, a Keller Williams Realtor who compiles local real estate information every month.
There were 129 new listings in July, up from 106 the same time a year ago. New sales dropped from 87 in July 2010 to 75 last month.
Also, the average residential sale price in Glendale took a big hit in July, plunging by $164,165 compared to a year ago. The average price was $452,614 last month, down from $616,779 in July 2010, according to the Keller Williams report.
Sorem said an abundance of smaller homes were sold in July, pushing down the average price. The average size of a home sold in July was 1,375 square feet, and seven of the homes were less than 1,000 square feet.
At the same time, the number of deals involving bank-owned homes jumped from seven to 17, according to Sorem.
In Burbank, the news was not as dramatic. The average sale price was $502,224 in July, compared to $508,132 a year ago. The number of bank-owned properties involved in transactions grew from nine to 13.
The number of new listings dropped by 14 in Burbank, from 85 to 71. And there were 63 new sales in July, up from 51 the same time a year ago.
Short sales, in which lenders let owners sell their homes for less than what they owe on their mortgage, rose from eight to 11 in Burbank, but dropped from 16 to 12 in Glendale.
Sorem said cities across Southern California are reporting the same volatility reported in Glendale last month, but what surprised him most was the spike in bank-owned homes that were sold.
“This could be a one-time thing,” Sorem said. “We’ll just have to see what happens next month.”
Paul Habibi, real estate professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management agreed. He said the steep drop in median home prices is also probably an anomaly.
He added that because banks are lifting their foreclosure moratoriums and they are starting to get distressed houses off their books, more bank-owned properties are going to be sold.
…
Notice this story is about something which played out in July — before the debt ceiling deal and the U.S. stock market’s subsequent wild ride in August.
I predict a lot more “wild ride” stories to come over the next five or so years as the housing bubble lurches through its death throes.
Is Bernanke planning to give the QE3 heroin addicts another fix come this Friday? I guess we will know soon enough…
Markets Could Be Making a Losing Bet on More Fed Easing
Published: Monday, 22 Aug 2011 | 2:15 PM ET
By: Jeff Cox
CNBC.com Staff Writer
Investors betting that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is about to come to the rescue with another round of monetary easing could be setting themselves up for a major disappointment.
Bernanke’s much-awaited speech during the central bank’s gathering at Jackson Hole, Wyo., later this week is setting up as a potential lose-lose situation: The chairman may not provide the market’s desired signal for a third round of quantitative easing [cnbc explains] —or QE3—and even if he does it may not help.
That’s the sentiment of a number of economists and strategists, despite a Monday market rally that appeared to be fueled by speculation that Bernanke will ride to the market’s rescue at the same time and under similar circumstances in 2010.
“The market’s sending a signal to Bernanke saying, ‘We want QE3 and we want it this week, or we’re going to hammer you and the market will get absolutely killed,’ ” said Keith Springer, president of Springer Financial Advisory in Sacramento, Calif. “The stock market is addicted to QE.”
Then, as now, Bernanke faced pressure to act after the market slid 17 percent in the summer of 2010 amid fears of European sovereign debt [cnbc explains] contagion and a double-dip recession [cnbc explains] in the U.S. The market has dropped nearly the same amount since coming off its early May 2011 highs and as one economist after another cuts projections for growth this year, to levels near 1 percent.
In 2010, Bernanke used his Jackson Hole speech—normally a low-key affair that vaguely charts the central bank’s direction well into the future—to indicate that additional asset purchases were on the way to stimulate growth.
In November, the Fed announced $600 billion in Treasurys purchases that sent stocks on a sharp upward trajectory for eight months and kept interest rates at a relatively low level.
But since the summer slump, the S&P 500, while up about 6.5 percent since the Jackson Hole speech, is actually about 4 percent lower than when the second round of easing officially began.
The slowdown will add more drama to the direction Bernanke signals at Jackson Hole.
“We believe Bernanke’s Jackson Hole speech will include a detailed discussion of the potential for more easing through large-scale asset purchases,” Goldman Sachs economist Zach Pandl wrote in a note. “A variety of indicators suggest many investors already expect more QE.”
…
Luckily I didn’t cash out of all my long-term Treasury-denominated mutual funds when Pimpco cashed out last spring.
P.S. This story helps explain why U.S. equities and bonds tanked from roughly 1966 through 1982, as they were apparently in a Fed-funded bubble before hand.
Is the Fed Going to Revive JFK’s Operation Twist?
By Elizabeth MacDonald
Published August 10, 2011 | FOXBusiness
The markets took another sickening leg down this morning, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average breaking down to the 10,800 range as fears France may be downgraded shot through Wall Street.
And now Street talk is putting pressure on the Fed to do something, after it released its Federal Open Market Committee statement yesterday indicating a sharp negative revision to its economic outlook, and noting it would keep the fed funds rate low “at least through mid-2013,” amid unusually high dissension from some of its voting policy makers.
The Fed, though, did not indicate it would extend its debt-monetization policies, where the Fed has already bought $1.6 trillion in Treasuries, and nearly $900 billion in mortgage-backed securities, helping to blow out its balance sheet to $2.9 trillion.
It may not need to, as the 10-year note is now breaking down toward an unheard of 2% as investors flee to this safe haven. That will help drive mortgage rates lower in a moribund housing market.
But what about keeping it there permanently, to revive the deadweight housing market that’s behind all this economic chaos and a possible double dip in 2012?
Is Operation Twist 2.0 just around the corner?
That’s what economists and traders are now talking about. The Fed could still re-enact a version of Operation Twist from the 1960s, nicknamed after the dance move made famous by Chubby Checker (its second round of quantitative easing mirrored this program).
To battle a recession back then, upon taking office, President John F. Kennedy convinced the central bank to sell short-term Treasuries and use the money to buy long-term bonds, described by San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank researchers Titan Alon and Eric Swanson,
The move sought to ramp up yields on shorter bills, which would attract capital from overseas and backstop the dollar.
And buying longer-term bonds would hopefully lower long-term Treasury yields to stimulate long-term investments, which San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank researchers Alon and Swanson say it did, by 15 basis points.
In doing so, JFK and the Federal Reserve sought to battle “cross-currency arbitrageurs,” who were converting U.S. dollars to gold (the U.S. was still on a gold standard then), and using the proceeds to buy higher-yielding European assets, Alon and Swanson note. Gold was pouring out of the U.S. into Europe, at several billion dollars per year, alarming the White House. Operation Twist involved the auction of just $6.9 billion in new 18 month, short-term debt, with the proceeds going into purchases of notes at least five years in maturities.
Because it was so small in scope, it was difficult to judge its success and so got mixed reviews.
However, Bernanke mentioned Operation Twist in a famous 2002 speech about the dangers of deflation before the National Economists Club in Washington, D.C., where he also noted the benefits of “a money-financed tax cut is essentially equivalent to Milton Friedman’s famous ‘helicopter drop’ of money.”
Here’s what Bernanke said back then:
“An episode apparently less favorable to the view that the Fed can manipulate Treasury yields was the so-called Operation Twist of the 1960s, during which an attempt was made to raise short-term yields and lower long-term yields simultaneously by selling at the short end and buying at the long end. Academic opinion on the effectiveness of Operation Twist is divided. In any case, this episode was rather small in scale, did not involve explicit announcement of target rates, and occurred when interest rates were not close to zero.”
And here’s what he also said:
“Historical experience tends to support the proposition that a sufficiently determined Fed can peg or cap Treasury bond prices and yields at other than the shortest maturities. The most striking episode of bond-price pegging occurred during the years before the Federal Reserve-Treasury Accord of 1951.”
Bernanke applauded this program: “Prior to that agreement, which freed the Fed from its responsibility to fix yields on government debt, the Fed maintained a ceiling of 2-1/2 percent on long-term Treasury bonds for nearly a decade.…The Fed was able to achieve these low interest rates despite a level of outstanding government debt (relative to GDP) significantly greater than we have today, as well as inflation rates substantially more variable. At times, in order to enforce these low rates, the Fed had actually to purchase the bulk of outstanding 90-day bills. Interestingly, though, the Fed enforced the 2-1/2 percent ceiling on long-term bond yields for nearly a decade without ever holding a substantial share of long-maturity bonds outstanding. “
“To repeat, I suspect that operating on rates on longer-term Treasuries would provide sufficient leverage for the Fed to achieve its goals in most plausible scenarios.”
…
Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/08/10/is-fed-reserve-operation-twist-20-around-corner/#ixzz1Vp9gfdck
Listen up Rich people and Rich Corporations there is a little problem here. Remember the old saying ,”Ask not what your Country can do for you but what you can do for your Country.”
We made a little miscalculation on what was really sustainable for
you to amass in wealth for the last 30 years . You saw us for the suckers we were ,and I got to give it to you ,you were smart . You gutted the manufacturing base and outsourced job ,what did you net by that move ,another 10 to 15 % ? And the way you declare BK to pass off your retirement obligations to the government ,just brilliant .
And the tax breaks you got ,you just asked for more ,and you managed to talk the government into paying for more and more things that you should of paid for . And that profit by debt slaves idea was a real money maker ,while reducing benefits you gave employees and
never mind wages that keep up with inflation ,thats Main streets problem …right? And the price fixing was just one great move ,why
compete when that keeps prices lower and people would get more value for their hard earn buck . You just want competition with wages based on the lowest you can find …somewhere in this World .
It’s a real bad problem ,the current state of affairs . I know that your bottom line is profits and power ,but shit, Main streets bottom line is eating.
And make no mistake that the health care costs aren’t sustainable ,but I just don’t think the answer lie in raising the costs
even more .
That housing bubble really created a mess ,but don’t worry ,you guys came first in being protected .
The point is that the heist isn’t working out so well for most the people and tax dollars are insufficent .
I suggest that a voluntary give up would be advisable ,you know share the pain . I’m just saying to you guys what you say to the sheep .I love your PR campaigns where you advise the sheep on how pain is good .
I know that you don’t like the word “rigged ” ,but lets get serious ,what else can you call it .
L
I could go on and on ,but the point is that you sucked everything dry
and it ain’t going to work . I propose that you all raise about 10 trillion
to help out ,its just not sustainable otherwise . All these people going into poverty just isn’t going to be pretty and taking their promises
just isn’t going to fly . Main Street isn’t buying it . I know ,I know it isn’t fair ,after all we promised that you would get to keep the heist ,but its not working . We can’t rationize burning people on promises and not providing basic Government services and all that
Jazz just to keep you filty rich . You benefited from people thinking that they would get their little pie ,so you can understand that you would of hauled in less had they thought their pie would end up being deprived in the end .
It’s not like you don’t understand the concept of giving up ,you preach it all the time to the sheep .
letter from a concerned person who doesn’t like stacked decks