The Housing Bubble

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.

“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.”

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.

When all of the shadow inventory finally makes it to market, it will likely do so at a deep discount, weighing on overall home prices and depressing values further, said Westerback.

http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/22/real_estate/foreclosed_homes_shadow_inventory/index.htm - 64k -

Homebuyers Hunker Down as Housing’s Drag on Economy May Worsen

By Kathleen M. Howley
Aug 22, 2011 10:56 AM ET

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.”

Falling Sales, Prices

The real estate market has been struggling after a federal tax credit spurred demand in the second half of 2009 and early 2010. Home sales last month were 9.1 percent below their level at the beginning of the economic expansion two years earlier, data from the National Association of Realtors show. As of May, home prices were 7.3 percent below the start of the recovery, according to the Federal Housing Finance Administration.

The share of mortgages with late payments in the second quarter rose to 8.44 percent from 8.32 percent the previous three months, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported today.

The degenerating housing market has confounded attempts by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to revive demand by lowering interest rates. The Fed purchased more than $2 trillion of mortgage-back securities and Treasury bonds in the last two years to hold down long-term borrowing costs.

Bernanke got the cheaper home-loan financing costs he wanted — last week, rates for 30-year fixed mortgages fell to 4.15 percent, the lowest in more than half a century, according to Freddie Mac. Still, rates that have been below 5 percent in all but two weeks of this year have failed to spur sales enough to support economic growth.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-22/homebuyers-hunker-down-as-housing-s-drag-on-economy-may-worsen.html - 99k -

The mystical and elusive “Job create tors”

Chuck Butler -

In 2005, the U.S. passed the Homeland Investment Act (HIA), which allowed U.S. Corps doing business overseas to bring back their profits to the U.S. at a reduced tax rate… The U.S. did this, because, those Corporations told the Gov’t that the money would be used to increase employment, which would help the economy… Instead they bought back stock and paid dividends…

Well… there’s talk of another HIA (HIA2) and once again the Corporations are touting increased employment… But something funny happened on the way to the forum… and the Washington Post has the skinny… Here’s the Washington Post…

“Some of the country’s best-known multi¬national corporations closely guard a number they don’t want anyone to know: the breakdown between their jobs here and abroad.

So secretive are these companies that they hand the figure over to government statisticians on the condition that officials will release only an aggregate number. The latest data show that multinationals cut 2.9 million jobs in the United States and added 2.4 million overseas between 2000 and 2009.

Some of the same companies that do not report their jobs breakdown, are pushing lawmakers to cut their tax bills in the name of job creation in the United States.

But experts say that without details on which companies are contributing to job growth and which are not, policymakers risk flying blind as they try to jump-start the hiring of American workers. “

Washington Post -

IBM chief executive Sam Palmisano has met a number of times with the president, most recently in July at a lunch with other executives to talk about jobs and the economy. IBM stopped giving its U.S. head count in 2009.

“We just made a policy that we would only break out global head count,” said company spokesman Doug Shelton.

Data from before 2009 showed IBM rapidly shifting workers to India. Dave Finegold, dean of the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, estimates that 2009, when the company stopped sharing its U.S. employment figure, also marked the first time the company had more employees in India than the United States. Finegold based his number on reports from the media, third-party groups and former employees who have tried to track the number.

To all HBB’ers in Colorado - wishing you well, and hope the earthquake this morning did not disrupt your lives, or cause you ill effect. Best to you.

Realtors Are Liars®

Nobody wants a strong currency
Steve Saville

The world of policy-making is dominated by Mercantilism and Keynesianism.

Under the Mercantilist way of thinking, the greater the level of goods exports relative to goods imports, the better. Or, looking at it from another angle, from the perspective of a Mercantilist a good policy is one that maximises the amount of money flowing into the country by maximising the amount of goods flowing out of the country.

Under the Keynesian way of thinking, spending drives the economy and recessions happen when mysterious forces — sometimes called “animal spirits” — cause spending to fall by too much. A great example of the Keynesian way of thinking is Paul Krugman’s recent claim that the global economy would be shifted onto a sustainable upward trajectory if the governments of the world began preparing for an alien invasion that never happens. The idea that an economy can be helped by consuming a huge amount of resources in a totally wasteful manner is consistent with Keynesian economic theory.

It’s not surprising, then, that a strong currency is anathema to most policy-makers. Currency strength will make life more difficult for goods exporters in the short-term, which is the only term that matters to most politicians, and persistent currency strength will tend to promote saving. In the real world, saving is the cornerstone of economic progress; but in the upside-down world of the Keynesian, more saving is bad because it means less immediate spending.

Due to the theories that guide their thinking, policy-makers will often panic if their currency achieves large gains against the currencies of their trading partners. For example, Swiss policy-makers recently began to show signs of panic in response to the Swiss Franc’s performance relative to the euro. As illustrated by the following chart, the euro, which had been weakening steadily against the Swiss Franc for more than two years, commenced an accelerated decline at the end of June. At its low point earlier this month, the euro had lost about one quarter of its value against the Swiss Franc (SF) in only 4 months.

In response to the performance depicted above, some Swiss policy-makers and influential business leaders have recommended that the Swiss National Bank (SNB) immediately set a lower limit of 1.10 for the euro/SF rate and then gradually increase this limit over time. In other words, the suggestion has been made that the SNB do whatever it takes to firstly prevent the SF from strengthening any further and secondly reverse the SF’s long-term upward trend.

We have some sympathy for Swiss exporters. It must be difficult to remain competitive when the currency in which your exports are priced weakens relentlessly against the currency in which most of your costs are denominated. However, any short-term solution that involves depressing the relative value of the SF is likely to have dire long-term consequences. The reason is that the only effective way to change the SF’s trend is to greatly increase the supply of this currency.

The SF’s value relative to the euro will fall if the SF supply is boosted to a sufficient extent, but the monetary inflation will promote widespread mal-investment and sow the seeds of an eventual economic bust. It could even sow the seeds of hyperinflation. The reason is that for the SNB to ensure relative weakness in the SF it will have to consistently inflate at a faster rate than the ECB, and the ECB could end up inflating rapidly as it desperately attempts to hold Europe’s monetary union together by bailing out banks and other bondholders.

The world’s monetary system appears to have degenerated to the point where there are no good options, meaning that economic hardship lies along every possible path. However, policy-makers could minimise the hardship by not entering, or withdrawing, from the ‘race to the bottom’ in which most currencies are presently engaged. This would be the best way to protect the savings that will be needed to fuel sustainable economic growth in the future.

We advise against holding your breath while waiting for the current gaggle of policy-makers to do the right thing.

###

Steve Saville
email: sas888_hk@yahoo.com
Hong Kong

Detroit faces increasing problems with squatters
Chicago Tribune | August 23, 2011

DETROIT— Detroit is facing an increase in complaints about squatters as foreclosures leave more homes empty.

City officials and residents say they’re increasingly seeing people take over empty houses and call them their own. Once they’re inside, officials say it’s difficult to get them to leave because the eviction process can take months.

Legally, the homeowner or banks can seek to remove squatters. If an owner isn’t around, neighbors who spot squatters can have a tough time getting them out.

City ombudsman Durene Brown has a thick stack of complaints about squatting received over the past two years. The newspaper reports that a few years ago about 100 people a year called with complaints about squatting; now, about 300 people a year make calls.

If the hurricane hits houses that are facing foreclosure and unoccupied, then they are likely to turn in into total losses.

And condominium associations will struggle to make the repairs when it is difficult to make assessments.

I am kinda gloomy today.

Sales of New U.S. Homes Probably Fell in July - Bloomberg

Purchases of new U.S. homes probably fell for a third straight month in July, pointing to lingering housing market weakness two years into the economic recovery, economists said before a report today.

Sales fell 0.6 percent to a 310,000 annual pace, the slowest in four months, from a 312,000 rate in June, according to the median estimate of 75 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Purchases last year totaled 323,000, the fewest since record-keeping began in 1963.

Builders are less inclined to start new projects as they face competition from cheaper existing homes and the prospect of foreclosures putting more unsold properties on the market. A jobless rate above 9 percent and limited employment growth indicate housing will weigh on the recovery even with mortgage rates at a record low.

“Real estate activity was very quiet through July,” said Robert Dye, chief economist at Comerica Inc. in Dallas. “Households and businesses are very much on recession-watch.”

The Commerce Department’s report is due at 10 a.m. in Washington. Projections in the Bloomberg survey ranged from 290,000 to 325,000.

Distressed properties, which include foreclosures and short-sales, have made up about 33 percent of all existing-home purchases since late 2008, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Sales of previously owned houses, which account for the bulk of the market, fell last month to the slowest pace since November, the NAR reported on Aug. 18. The 3.5 percent decrease reflected an increase in cancelations due to strict lending rules and low appraisals.

Just listened to an interview with Jon Huntsman. Then went and read his web site.

Just like the rest, either he is clueless, or pretends to be.

Pushes free trade because it creates millions of American jobs. Yeah, you moron, but it costs 10s of millions.

Pushes lower taxes on the rich… Same BS about needing to flatten the tax code and broaden the base. “We need more tax payers”. HELLO moron. Payroll taxes ARE taxes. Flatten the tax code by getting rid of payroll taxes and reating capital gains as income? Oh.. no. Ignore the regressive payroll and capital gains taxes, and just eliminate tax deductions and then use that revenue ot lower rates, putting more of the burden on the people with the least income while easing the burden on those with the most income.

So, how does he think business can function when US consumers will have even less money to spend? Oh.. that’s simple. He is writing off the US consumer. Focuses on the fact that only 5% of potential customers are in the USA. Imagine how great the world would be if we could drive the US population into poverty so they will work for a pathetic wage that allows us to undercut China and sell our goods to the rest of the world.

Really?

That is solution?

Oh, did I mention he is in favor of a balanced budget ammendment without revenue increases, that he nicely forgets to mention would require more than 50% cuts to Medicare and Social Security. Oh, wait. He doesn’t want to cut defense to get to the balanced budget without additional revenues… My bad. Call in 75% cuts to Social Security and Medicare. We don’t need no stinking US citizens buying anything when 95% of potential customers live outside the USA, and we can’t sell to those people until USA wages are so low that we can compete with Chindia.

And, he calls himself more electable than Bachman, Romney and Perry? Why? Oh, right. Because he is a morman, not a christian. He hasn’t gone on record saying evolution and global warming are lies. He hasn’t said that Bernanke printing more money to try to prevent economic collapse would be treason.

Really? That’s what he’s got?

Hope and change and four more years…

And from CBS!

————————

National debt has increased $4 trillion under Obama
cbsnews.com - By Mark Knoller

The latest posting by the Treasury Department shows the national debt has now increased $4 trillion on President Obama’s watch.

The debt was $10.626 trillion on the day Mr. Obama took office. The latest calculation from Treasury shows the debt has now hit $14.639 trillion.

It’s the most rapid increase in the debt under any U.S. president.

The national debt increased $4.9 trillion during the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush. The debt now is rising at a pace to surpass that amount during Mr. Obama’s four-year term.

Mr. Obama blames policies inherited from his predecessor’s administration for the soaring debt. He singles out:

“two wars we didn’t pay for” “a prescription drug program for seniors…we didn’t pay for.” “tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 that were not paid for.”

He goes on to blame the recession, and its resulting decrease in tax revenue on businesses, for making fewer sales, and more employees being laid off. He says the recession also resulted in more government spending due to increased unemployment insurance payments, subsidies to farms and funding of infrastructure programs that were part of his stimulus program.

Why is the stock market going up? The country is in recession. Obama is on Vacation. The housing market is in the tank and unemployment is ramphant. What is going on? The market should be tanking everyday.

This is why I am not in the market….

Debt vs product–a horror story

(Chart graphics)

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/bild-781590-251303.html

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/bild-781590-251299.html

Well, there are nuances to America, like to lead the Nation one is required to be a natural citizen [with a birth-certificate & live-birth witness who are not suffering from Alzheimer or pee-party-swift-boat funding$], talk about “old school thinking”! But to give it a Global fico $core and create a cause & effect financial t$unami, one just needs only to be a publi$hing CorpInc’$ CEO progno$ticator with a $uspect winning bet$ record.

“The company said only that $harma was eager to pur$ue other opportunitie$.”

heheeeheeeheehaahaaahaaheeehaahaaa… (Hwy50™)

Head of rating agency $&P stepping down
AP News / On Monday August 22, 2011

“McGraw-Hill’s statement did not mention of the Aug. 5 downgrade that sent shock waves through global financial markets and was sharply criticized by the Obama administration, which said the agency’s analysis was fundamentally flawed. Other major rating agencies have maintained their AAA ratings on the U.S.

It also did not refer to recent reports that the Justice Department was investigating whether S&P improperly rated dozens of mortgage securities in the years leading up to the financial crisis in 2008. Those reports sent McGraw-Hill’s shares tumbling last week.”

$&P’s “I’m the AAA+ Decider!”

[Deven Sharma (born 1956, Jharkhand, India) is an executive, and the president of Standard & Poor's, a Division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, providing independent credit ratings, indices, risk evaluation, and investment research.

Dr. Deven Sharma was born in the mining town of Dhanbad in Bihar (now a part of Jharkhand), India. His father R. N. Sharma was chairman of Bharat Coking Coal Ltd.]

Even Donald Trump says $&P is doing this for publicity.

“I can just see these guys sitting in their little office on Wall Street, or wherever they are, saying, ‘We’re going to take down the United States!’” he told Fox News. “Because they want the publicity, because they want to restore their reputation. They love it.”

Standard & Poor’s Seen Surrendering to Tea Party at U.S. Taxpayer Expense
Zeke Faux, On Monday August 8, 2011

‘Always Wrong’:

S&P kept an A- rating on Iceland until October 6, 2008, when the country’s government was forced to guarantee all domestic bank deposits after its currency plunged. The company reaffirmed its AAA rating for Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s financial products unit on Sept. 12, 2008, three days before the bank failed. It downgraded Bear Stearns Cos. to BBB on March 14, 2008, two days before JPMorgan agreed to buy the failing securities firm.

$tandard & make’emPoor, = “True$editionist$$erialEnabler$™”

“Boycott ‘em!” (& their Fee$ible Opinionbaiter$ Progno$tication$)

One thing about Sir Richard Branson . The rich mogul knows how to get rid of property. What was he & his family doing in the path of a hurricane , anways? Yeah , I am suspicious . My view may be tainted because I’m green with envy towards Rich mongrels like that . The only island I’ll ever have a chance of owning a part of is if I buy a cemetery plot on the water or whatever.

Picked up by the international press

—————–

Housing prices dirt cheap: Three-bedroom homes that can be yours for as little as $5,000
DailyMail.UK | 23rd August 2011 | Thomas Durante

For a prospective homebuyer, $5,000 may not buy much, but in one U.S. city, a dream home can be yours for just that amount.

Hundreds of homes in Baltimore, Maryland, are currently listed between $5,000 and $10,000, according to HomeDatabase.com.

And these homes are not meagre dwellings - some offer as many as three bedrooms and multiple bathrooms.

The Baltimore Sun reported that one of every 10 homes sold in the first half of 2011 are selling in the $10,000 range while two of every 10 are going for under $20,000.

Despite the prices, Baltimore and its suburbs are experiencing plummeting sales since the first-time homebuyer tax credit expired last summer.

The New Yorker
The Talk of the Town

Market Watch
Happy Birthday, Greenbacks
by Nick Paumgarten August 29, 2011

Last Monday was the fortieth birthday of the United States dollar as a fiat currency—that is, a currency backed not by a precious metal, or something solid like it, but by the promissory authority of a government. On August 15, 1971, President Nixon, after a secret meeting at Camp David with his economic advisers, closed the gold window and effectively ended the gold standard. Henceforth, the Federal Reserve would no longer exchange other central banks’ dollars, or anyone’s, for gold at a fixed price. Instead, it could print as much money as it felt it needed to.

Forty, as anyone who has turned it can attest, is, at best, an occasion for ambivalence and, at worst, a bracing peek over the top of the hill. For its four-decade birthday, last week, Paper Dollar, Jr., was confettied with grim statistics and hooted anew by goldbugs and critics of the Fed. The slide show of P.D., Jr.,’s life, to be sure, features some ugly bits—inflation, recession, rising unemployment, harmful speculations, ballooning debt. The regime of which the dollar is the centerpiece, in its role as the world’s reserve currency, is now teetering. It is a shadow of itself. Stooped and arthritic, it smells of mothballs and can no longer afford its beloved Swiss chocolates. It keeps forgetting our names and getting lost on the way home. Still, the average life expectancy for a fiat currency is twenty-seven years; so, by that measure, the greenback has had a good run. Speech! Speech!

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2011/08/29/110829ta_talk_paumgarten#ixzz1VrMJU5J0

I seriously hope Barry wins in a landslide next year his administration has made it so simple to see our future. Building wealth and capital preservation is not difficult once you know (for sure) the direction your nation is headed. I said it before and I ‘ll say it again, Obama will end up making the previous white house stooge G.Bush look like Hetty Green.

So next year please vote early and vote often! My pocket book thanks you in advance.

Teacher pension fund joins California auditor’s risk list
Associated Press

SACRAMENTO — The state auditor’s office on Thursday added teacher pensions to the list of high-risk issues facing California government.

The report by State Auditor Elaine Howle added the nation’s largest teacher pension fund because it can’t meet the costs of retirement benefits beyond the next 30 years. The pension funding problem was added to a list of risks that includes California’s chronic budget deficit, unfunded retiree health costs and prison crowding.

It’s a well-known problem. The California State Teachers’ Retirement System reported in March that it had 71 percent of the assets needed to cover retirement costs for its 852,000 members and family members. The estimated shortfall is $56 billion.

School districts and educators pay a percentage of each employee’s salary into the pension fund to pay for benefits, but the percentage has not changed for decades. As recently as 2001, the fund had 98 percent of the assets it needed, but benefit changes and economic slumps that hurt asset values have reduced that number.

Both the pension board and Gov. Jerry Brown have called for funding changes to shore up long-term finances at CalSTRS. The board of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which covers state and local government workers, can change contribution amounts on its own, but changes to CalSTRS funding require action by the state Legislature.

The report underscores what CalSTRS officials
have been saying for years, said Ricardo Duran, a spokesman for the fund.

“The issues are long-range ones, but the longer it takes to develop a plan, the more costly will be the solution,” Duran said in an email.

Failures Projected as Mortgage Insurers Struggle
by guest editor Gavin Magor August 22, 2011- Weiss Research

Mortgage insurers are in big trouble. Losses account for 154 percent of premiums earned. And they totaled a jaw-dropping $2.4 billion in 2010, thus threatening to destroy the mortgage insurance business, which is dominated by six groups.

The insurers are facing serious threats to their very existence as the financial crisis continues. So is it inevitable that they’ll fail? Certainly their struggle is a factor slowing the housing market’s recovery.

Weiss Ratings recently examined the 34 largest mortgage insurers’ performance through the first quarter of 2011. Subsidiaries of MGIC Investment Corporation (MTG), Radian Group (RDN), Genworth Financial (GNW), PMI Group (PMI), American International Group (AIG) and Old Republic International Corporation (ORI) wrote 80 percent of the $4.4 billion of premiums in 2010.

These same companies also recorded $1.7 billion or 71 percent of the combined $2.4 billion losses. United Guaranty Residential Insurance Co. (an AIG subsidiary) is the only large insurer that had a profit during 2010 and for the first quarter of 2011. And Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corp (MGIC) recorded a profit in 2010.

But unlike the pabulum and propaganda you’re getting from Washington and Wall Street these days, it’s the gospel truth. And some may even say that it’s what you need to see — right now — to protect yourself and your finances from the economic hurricane that’s about to strike our shores.

The title is America’s Financial Doomsday: Protect Yourself and Profit — click here to watch it now.

With losses of $618 million in the first quarter of 2011 and no sign of significant improvement in the economy for the remainder of the year, it appears that the $2.4 billion in losses mortgage insurers suffered will be matched in 2011.

These losses were not on the back of increasing premiums. In fact, it was exactly the opposite!

With $3.5 billion out of the $4.4 billion of premiums written by the largest insurers, only Radian Guaranty Inc, saw a rise in premiums, increasing 3.5 percent. The remainder of the companies had drops of between 6.4 percent and 21.6 percent.

So why does this matter?

Well, the losses and lower premiums are additional evidence that the housing crisis is nowhere near an end. In fact, without mortgage insurer guarantees, lenders might not extend loans to low down-payment borrowers at prevailing interest rates. And with government guaranteed FHA loans scarcer than ever, there may be nowhere for these borrowers to turn.

The bottom line: If insurance is not available at the lower end of the housing ladder, sales of existing homes face continued weakening.

Of the thirty four mortgage insurers reviewed in the Weiss Ratings’ study, only 6 (18 percent) were rated as having strong financials with 19 (56 percent) rated as weak, including all of the largest.

And from an investing perspective, a look at Weiss Watchdog, shows PMI rated D-, MTG rated D, and GNW rated C-. Not too enticing unless you can find signs that insurers are actively engaged to turn the tide.

Losses Mounting …
Cash Dwindling

With insufficient capital to meet state regulator requirements, PMI Mortgage insurance Co. may be unable to write any new policies. The company recently set up a new insurer specifically to write new business, but his company hasn’t written many policies so far. And according to the Associated Press, PMI’s CFO, Donald Lofe, indicated that the group may consider bankruptcy, although it has no immediate plans to file.

Capital and surplus — the dollars that remain after insurers subtract liabilities from assets — has been dropping for the 34 companies we examined, from $7.7 billion as of December 2010 to $7.2 billion as of March 31, 2011. Losses account for the vast majority of the $494 million (7.4 percent) drop in capital. On an annualized basis this would result in a further $1.5 billion or 21 percent drop in capital to around $5.7 billion.

For some insurers, the key to writing new business is continued waivers from the state regulators over the maximum 25 percent risk-to-capital ratio required. Both PMI and Old Republic exceeded this level during the second quarter of 2011.

The rate of losses is unsustainable. The only question is whether some insurers will stop writing business before they run out of capital. And even then their survival is on a knife edge.

With parent company stock prices dropping an average of 64 percent this year as of Thursday’s close and a price-to-book value of 35 percent or less for each of these stocks — Old Republic being the exception at 62 percent — it appears the markets are wise to be concerned.

Investors beware … speculators may see opportunities.

Best wishes,

Gavin Magor

Delinquent loans on the rise again, a grim sign for housing

August 22, 2011 | 7:01 am

It’s an ominous sign for housing. The percentage of homeowners who have missed at least one mortgage payment has risen for the second straight quarter, the Mortgage Bankers Assn. says.

Officials at the trade group expressed concern Monday that the sluggish economy may be creating another group of distressed borrowers.

“It is clear that the downward trend we saw through most of 2010 has stopped,” the Mortgage Bankers Assn.’s chief economist, Jay Brinkmann, said in a news release.

The second-quarter delinquency rate for loans on one- to four-unit residential properties increased to 8.44% of all U.S. mortgages as of June 30, up from 8.32% on March 31 and 8.25% on Dec 31.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/08/soured-home-loans-down-.html - -

On The Road Again lyrics
Songwriters: Nelson, Willie;

One, two
One, two, three, four

On the rise again
Delinquent loans are on the rise again
They`re not payin`like they never did before
Delinquent loans are on the rise again

On the rise again
Underwater like they`ve never been
Ain`t made payments since I don`t know when
And I`m so glad they`re on the rise again

On the rise again
Should have listned to some guy named Ben
They`ll lose their house but they just don`t know when
Delinquent loans are on the rise again

I think the markets are up this am betting bernake will do somthing to juice the economy, and I bet the market will tank on ben’s accounment because so far all the FED stimulas is very temporary.

Ben bernake should say somthing today from jackson Hole Wyoming

hid did the same thing last year QE2

To pay, or not to pay, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous Deadbeats,
Or to take arms against a sea of Robo signers
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
To pay your mortgage no more; and by a sleep to say we have not made a payment in three long years
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep; To live rent free
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub:
A free house For in that free house what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, This underwater mortgage
Must give us pause—there’s the respect, I am a victim
That makes calamity of so long life and a Liar Loan

When you think about it ,who is protected the most by Defense Dollars .

In theory whoever has a lot to lose is the greatest beneficiary of
Defense dollars .

If a person doesn’t have a car ,do they really want to pay insurance for a car they don’t have .

If you do a benefit analysis to determine the tax structures ,that might make more sense .

Right ,right ,Defense dollars protect freedom and the American way but to the degree that you have something to protect is the degree that Defense benefits the receivers .

If a person has a 100 dollar painting do they have less to lose than a
person who has a 1 million dollar painting they don’t want taken .

What is the benefit analysis in mass education costs ,or keeping crime off the streets for a functional commerial system .

I’m not saying a Defense isn’t necessary ,our freedom notions would be at stake ,I’m just saying who are the biggest beneficiaries of Defense dollars ,or tax dollars directed somewhere .

Why is it that the well placed preach the right to amass wealth ,when the tax dollars spent actually reduce their cost of doing business .

If taxes spent create more opportunity for the amassing of wealth ,than accordingly a opportunity cost tax is in order .

The rich use to pay more until they hoodwinked everyone into the concept that it wasn’t fair and they compared themselves with the man/women on the street . it really was a swiss cheese arguement
that didn’t include a benefit analysis of overall tax dollars .

God damn the Housing Crime Syndicate.

Inflation fears on top of stagflation have created plenty of incentive for metal thievery.

Thieves Target San Diego’s Historic Plaques
By Marissa Cabrera
August 23, 2011

From the Mission Hills neighborhood to Chula Vista, more than a dozen bronze plaques have gone missing.

San Diego Police Detective Mike Brenner is investigating 14 cases of bronze plaque thefts. He says there may be as many as 20 cases countywide.

Brenner says the crime spree started this summer in the Burlingame area between North Park and South Park. Most of the cases involve historic homes.

“The thing they are probably doing is trying to recycle them. I think bronze is about two-dollars a pound, so they’re not getting a lot. I think some of these signs go for five to six hundred dollars to manufacture,” he said.
…

One more time, come on everybody sing along.

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
If they don`t win you`re to blame
Cause it`s one - two - three - shots lookout
At the old ball game

FOX SPORTS Six people shot at summer league game

NewsCore Aug 23, 2011 3:22 AM ET

Six people were wounded, one critically, when shots were fired Monday night during a basketball game at a crowded Philadelphia recreation center, WCAU-TV reported.

Police said a lone shooter approached one of the courts at the Kingsessing Recreation Center about 8:45 p.m. local time and fired 11 shots towards center court during a summer league playoff game. About 500 people were reportedly in attendance at the event.

Five men and one woman were shot, with the most seriously injured person, an unidentified man, shot once in the stomach.

The other victims — four males, aged 18, 19, 21 and 23, and a 19-year-old female — were listed as being stable, with injuries to their lower extremities, at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Two police officers were among the spectators and they chased the suspect on foot, but no arrest was made, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

The police were able to recover a revolver that they said had been fired recently.

http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/Six-people-shot-at-summer-league-basketball-game-in-philadelphia-082211 - -

The American people thought they were going to benefit by the tax breaks to the rich ,rich Corporations ,Wall Street .For some reason the American people thought they were going to benefit by buying cheap crap from China. Also the American people thought that some
contrived increase in real estate was going to be their ticket to paying debt ,or paying to maintain life style .,or get rich quick .

One thing is sure that the sheep believed the PR campaigns until they were left with bare cupboards and joblessness and declining purchasing power ,and the worse ,debt with the value of the asset being creamed and promises being threatened .

The people were suckers ,they wern’t watching the takovers and system changes that would leave them in a minus status .

The American people bear some responsibility for being dead heads
not realizing a bunch of foxes were in the hen house .

Longtime Peoria printer closing up shop, unable to navigate sweeping changes in the trade

PEORIA —

A printer in business in Peoria since 1880 will soon close as a result of a lagging economy, changing technology and overseas competition.

The Edward Hine Co., 201 Morton St., a firm with a reputation for quality that produced high-resolution brochures and booklets for big clients like Caterpillar Inc., John Deere Co. and the University of Illinois, will sell off what’s left of its business later this week.

Hine is the latest casualty from pressures that have forced many U.S. print firms out of business. “Printing used to be the number-one business to be in. But it lost its glamor with the computer generation,” said Bruce Simpson, Hine’s sole owner since 1995 who started as a salesman for the company in 1969.

Between 1999 and 2009, 12,900 U.S. printers went out of business, according to Printing Industries of America, a Pennsylvania-based trade group.

“In Peoria, we’ve seen a lot of printers go down in recent years: companies like Smith, Logan and C&H,” he said.

A number of factors led to Hine’s closing. “A significant amount of work has gone offshore,” said Gary Wesley, Hine’s executive vice president and chief operating officer.

“If a company has lead time on a project, they can contract to have a job done in Asia, where the company buys wood pulp from Canada to make the paper at mills where there are no environmental controls. They run the job on a top-of-the-line press and ship it back in a floating bindery. When the ship arrives in a U.S. port, the order is boxed and ready to go,” he said.

Along with offshore competition, U.S. printers have seen other changes affect their business. More firms went to bidding out contracts on an annual basis rather than relying on the printer that had done their job before, said Wesley.

“As more companies adopted just-in-time inventories, you also had shorter press runs instead of storing a lot of literature in warehouses,” he said.

Wall Street Rallies on Fed Speculation, Data- Reuters

The Nasdaq added more than 2% Tuesday as stronger-than-expected data from overseas sparked buying before a keenly awaited speech by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke this week.

Dem Congresswoman Blames Black Unemployment On “Racism”

“When you look at African American males, 40% of them are unemployed, those under 30 years of age. I understand exactly the entire nation must be involved in this recovery but the black community is experiencing a great recession. That’s what we’re experiencing,” Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) told MSNBC.

“And all of the growth in the past 30 years, we see it slipping away. From home ownership, the middle class; it’s slipping away from our hands. And it has a lot to do with many issues. Racism, shipping jobs overseas, access — no access to technology. You know, the digital divide is there and many of the new jobs that’s what it requires. So, we have a problem.”

Power Play
Obama Leans Harder on Labor as His Fortunes Fall

By Chris Stirewalt

Obama Leans Harder on Labor as His Fortunes Fall
August 23, 2011| FoxNews.com

“The essential idea is that changes in the law for the first time really allow the labor movement to speak directly to workers, whether they have collective bargaining agreements or not.’’

In the past two election cycles, American labor unions have spent some $600 million helping elect and protect Democrats, most of it devoted to President Obama’s 2008 election.

But it may take an even larger commitment from labor groups to keep Obama in office. The latest Gallup poll shows Obama would be hard pressed to beat either of the GOP frontrunners, Mitt Romney or Rick Perry, or even those farther back in the pack, like Ron Paul. The cry from independents has become: Anybody but Obama.

The president is in the midst of a political crisis. While he has 15 months to stage a comeback, the weakening economy and Obama’s inability to connect with American voters on the issues that matter most have banished ideas about an easy re-election.

Unions are already gearing up for the struggle. The AFL-CIO is preparing to launch a huge new Super PAC that can use new campaign finance laws to raise unlimited donations and spend unlimited sums. The union sees this as a way not only to help keep Democrats in power but also reverse their declining membership numbers. It would be political action and organizing in one package.

Most importantly for the president, the money could be shifted quickly to different states or efforts depending on where the incumbent is in the most trouble: drop $10 million in Florida one week and then shift to Nevada the next. This would be a financial fire hose that could be quickly turned to douse the greatest threats to Obama’s re-election

Democrats are more important to Unions now than ever. Labor groups previously primarily relied on sympathetic politicians to help them with favorable rules for organizing private workplaces. But as private-sector union membership has collapsed in recent years, groups like the AFL-CIO have become increasingly dependent on government workers and their dues.

Why would Operation Twist not constitute Groundhog Day, if it was already tried back in the 1960s? And what would be the practical difference between Operation Twist and QE3 as alternative policies to suppress long-term Treasury yields?

Me confused (as usual)…

Up and Down Wall Street | TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2011
No Groundhog Day at Jackson Hole
By RANDALL W. FORSYTH
Don’t expect Bernanke to launch QE3 at the Fed confab in the clouds.

Why do the high and mighty have to take that description literally? It seems they can only get together to discuss profound ideas to solve the great problems of the day at a posh ski resort.

In January, movers, shakers and assorted celebs ascend the Alps to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. And in the waning days of August, the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank holds its annual forum in Jackson Hole, Wyo., where economic policy wonks gather to discuss — what else? — the state of the economy.

If ideas were the real reason for these confabs, they could be in places less fabulous. But to get the powerful to schlep somewhere out of the way, that place better be good, no, great.

Nobody but economics nerds used to notice the Jackson Hole shindig much until Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke started talking about policy prescriptions. Last year, most famously, he laid the groundwork for further asset purchases by the central bank. That became the $600 billion buy of Treasury securities known as QE2, so called for the second round of quantitative easing by the Fed.

QE2 was launched officially last November to stave off the perceived threat of deflation. In actuality, the main deflation was apparent in the stock market, where the Standard & Poor’s 500 had fallen over 13%. Now, with the S&P 500 down nearly 17% from its recent peak, the markets are looking for QE3.

Hoping is more like it. And those hopes seem unlikely to be fulfilled. Not only would Bernanke likely face significant opposition to further easing of monetary policy, he has to deal with opposition to what the central bank already has done.

That’s not from Rick Perry, either. The Texas governor and Republican presidential hopeful’s bluster that any further expansionary Fed policy would be “treasonous” is just that, bluster.

Far more influential are the three dissenters on the Federal Open Market Committee, including Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher, who objected to the policy-setting panel’s decision to announce its intention to hold its key policy interest rate, the federal funds rate, near zero until June 2013.

Given their objections to this announcement of the Fed’s intentions, it is difficult to see how Bernanke could announce more policy moves now to boost the flagging economy and markets.

After all, the FOMC merely stated its plans. While such an announcement is unprecedented, those plans could reasonably change according to circumstances. The FOMC also basically reaffirmed what already had been priced into the financial futures markets. So the Fed merely was saying out loud what the markets already were thinking.

By doing so, however, the monetary authorities helped encourage a significant flattening of the yield curve; that is a decline in longer-term interest rates relative to short-term rates.

With the Fed pegging the funds rate near zero through mid-2013, investors sitting in cash yielding nil would be encouraged to move to lengthier maturities. Which is what happened, with the 10-year Treasury briefly yielding last 2% last week. Importantly, the Fed’s pledge to keep the funds rate near zero was given greater credibility by some week economic data, such as the steep drop in the Philadelphia Fed’s regional index of manufacturing for August.

With the fed-funds rates hovering near zero, the Fed’s further policy options are limited but not eliminated. The markets’ hope is for Groundhog Day at Jackson Hole in which Bernanke announces a new QE3 similar to last year’s QE2. The odds of a rerun are virtually nil, given the mere announcement of holding the fed-funds rate unchanged has elicited the largest number of dissents on the FOMC since 1992.

Other possible moves would be far more subtle and mainly symbolic. The Fed could lower the interest rate it pays on excess reserves, which is currently pegged at 0.25%, to zero. One meme in the blogosphere complains about this supposed free money being given to banks for not lending. A quarter point in interest seems trivial, but these days two-year Treasury notes yield only 0.21%. But one market veteran observes that any bank that relies on making a few basis points parking its money at the Fed should as a profit center should just boost its checking fees instead.

Another tack could be for the Fed to reinvest its maturing Treasury and mortgage-backed securities in lengthier maturities, which ought to flatten the yield curve further in what’s been called Operation Twist 2.0. The Fed’s original Operation Twist in the early 1960s, named for the dance craze of the time, tried to boost the short end and lower the long end by Fed adjustment of its portfolio.

Nearly five decades and voluminous academic studies later, it’s still not clear Operation Twist worked. Indeed, the preliminary evidence on QE2 is ambiguous at best. Treasury note yields bottomed around the time the Fed started its purchases last November and rose thereafter until early 2011. Their yields plummeted after the Fed stopped buying on June 30 as signs of the deteriorating economy accumulated. So, it’s far from clear that even the U.S. central bank can distort the world’s biggest and most liquid securities market

Even so, Bernanke has also spoken of explicitly pegging longer-term Treasury yields, as the Fed did during the 1940s to help the Treasury finance World War II expenditures. One idea would be for the Fed to issue an implicit put option to investors. For instance, the central bank could say it would buy 10-year notes in whatever quantity to hold their yield under 3%. That level is well above the current 2.20%, making those puts out of the money. But such an assurance would make buyers more confident that if they bought notes yielding under 2%, their potential losses would be capped if yields rebounded. That theoretically could drive the yield still lower, say to 1.50%. A spread of about 1.25-1.50 percentage points is the historic norm between the fed-funds rate and the 10-year Treasury yield.
…

5.8 earthquake in DC area . Are the Gods trying to say something ?

L.A. Darling plans to lay off 140 in Corning, mayor says
Aug 23, 2011

CORNING, AR (KAIT) – Residents in Clay County Monday were concerned with the news that L.A. Darling, based in Paragould, announced to employees that 140 people will be laid off starting October 1st. According to Corning Mayor Dewayne Phelan, employees at the plant’s Gondola Division were told earlier this month they would be laid off. According to Phelan, the plant was not receiving enough orders to keep up with demand.

“October 1st, Darling is planning to layoff another 130 to 140 people, which would bring their workforce down to somewhere around 30 to 40 people,” said Phelan.

L.A. Darling has operated in Clay County for at least the last 30 years, Phelan said. The company manufactures metal store fixtures for retailers across the United States. Phelan said it’s important to maintain an optimistic tone despite the negative report from the company.

“They expect orders to come back. They’re not moving out any equipment, any machines or something like that. Small orders will continue to be built here in Corning,” said Phelan. “They expect orders to come back in within the first quarter of next year.”

The company also expects to extend a temporary layoff to 109 employees in the Corning plant. In Piggott, 50 employees are expected to receive extended temporary layoffs. In all, nearly 300 people will be affected by the layoffs.

“The economic impact is going to be so severe for Corning that the loss of residents is another thing we’re going to have to look at,” said Phelan. “If they find another job, I’m sure they’re going to be relocating themselves. To have them move away from Corning with already the loss in population due to this census, that’s a big concern.”

“I guess my main concern is the fact that there are a lot of companies in northeast Arkansas that are hiring right now. They have a lot of openings, and some of these people that are going to be looking for a job from Darling are some of the key people in Darling,” said Phelan.

Another “green jobs” creator bites the dust…

SpectraWatt files for bankruptcy, plans to stage asset auction
Rechargenews.com

Solar cell manufacturer SpectraWatt has filed for bankruptcy in the US courts and plans to auction off its assets.

SpectraWatt, based in Hopewell Junction, New York, has sought bankruptcy protection from its creditors under US Chapter 11 rules and wants permission to hold the auction next month.

The development is not a great surprise. In December, SpectraWatt announced it would it close its New York cell factory and lay off almost all its staff in response to “a large drop-off in demand” for solar cells.

The risk of SpectraWatt hitting the rocks has also been heavily trailed by Roth & Rau, the PV production-equipment manufacturer and a major supplier to the US firm.

In February, the German company took a one-off €12m financial hit attributed to the likelihood of insolvency at SpectraWatt, which is understood to have been trying to settle with creditors and find a buyer for itself for most of this year.

SpectraWatt becomes the second significant US solar group to seek Chapter 11 protection in a matter of weeks, after module and wafer-maker Evergreen Solar took the same route.

Like Evergreen, SpectraWatt was in line for millions of dollars in aid from local and federal grant schemes to support its PV manufacturing efforts, though it is unclear how much was handed over.

The company is a spin-off from chip behemoth Intel, which according to SpectraWatt’s website remains an investor along with Goldman Sachs and Solon, the German PV manufacturer that is experiencing problems of its own in the US.

As recently as November 2010 SpectraWatt was being lauded by the local business community, receiving a Business Excellence Award for operating the first solar-cell plant in New York, which it planned to build-out to up to 200MW of production capacity.

In ailing industry, Carmichael’s Windmill Nursery loses fight to stay in business sacbee.com Aug. 23, 2011

The trend is striking independent plant nurseries like caterpillars on cabbage: A combination of lingering recession, pressure from big box stores and back-to-back wet springs has swept countless small nurseries into a sea of debt the last four years.

Late last week, news of another victim circulated in Sacramento’s tightly knit gardening circles: Carmichael’s Windmill Nursery is closing.

“The economy is killing everybody,” Windmill owner Paul Niemann said. “We tried to fight it as long as we could. We had to eliminate some (product) lines (primarily in the gift shop) so we could keep plants in stock.”

Nursery industry officials blame the poor economy and bad weather.

As home construction came to a standstill, so did creation of new landscapes, the backbone of the nursery business.

“In our area, I personally believe the real estate market and the plight of the state workers have conspired against garden centers, just like they have for other retail segments,” said John Adams, owner of Roseville’s Sierra Nursery.

“I believe the same number of customers still came through the doors, but I saw a shift in projects from large trees and shrubs to more color (annuals and perennials) as part of the pattern. Smaller projects equals smaller purchases.”

Complicating matters were back-to-back cold, wet spring seasons. Instead of tempting gardeners to get to work, the bad weather kept them inside – and away from nurseries.

Serious ,hope all are well in earthquake zone that hit in VIrginia .

Woman ‘encouraged husband to have sex with 12-year-old girl so that she would get pregnant and they could claim more benefits’
By Paul Thompson - UK Mail

A woman encouraged her husband to have sex with a 12-year-old girl so that she would get pregnant and they could claim extra cash benefits.

Alicia Bouchard even sat and watched while her 26-year-old husband had sex with the underage girl at their Florida home.

According to an arrest warrant, the 41-year-old wanted the girl to fall pregnant so that she and her husband would have extra income from state benefits.

The sex and benefits scam began after the girl, who has not been named, told Bouchard that she was sexually active.

Mrs Bouchard is alleged to have persuaded her to sleep with her husband Matt, telling her that ‘the worse that could happen is you would get pregnant’.

Her husband told authorities after his arrest on under age sex charges that it was his wife’s goal that a pregnancy would lead to more income for the household.

Police began investigating the Bouchard’s after they received a complaint that the girl was being sexually abused.

The arrest report does not reveal how the 12-year-old girl came to live with the married couple, but is believed to be a family friend.

Mr Bouchard was arrested on sex abuse charges last October and has been held in jail ever since.

His wife’s involvement began apparent went investigators talked to the 12-year-old girl after she was placed in a shelter.

Investigators also obtained a letter Mrs. Bouchard sent to the girl after she was placed in a shelter.

In the letter, she apologised to the girl for forcing her to watch her and her husband have sex and also said it was a mistake to watch her husband have sex with the 12-year-old victim.

She wrote she was ‘dang sure [she] should not have allowed [her] to have sex with Matt.”.

Bouchard was booked into jail on charges of being a principal to sexual battery, soliciting sexual activity with a child and principal to child abuse.
Her bond has been set at $70,000.

Texas Sells Record $10 Billion Notes for Schools
(Bloomberg)

Texas will issue $9.8 billion of tax-exempt general-obligation notes today, the state’s largest short-term debt offering, to fund public schools.

Texas increased its annual top-rated tax and revenue anticipation note sale from last year by $2 billion to cover payments to school districts until the bulk of tax revenue receipts next year. The additional borrowing will compensate for the end of federal stimulus funding and property-tax collections that are below what was budgeted, said R.J. DeSilva, a spokesman for Comptroller Susan Combs. The state will direct more money to districts where property-tax revenue has fallen short.

State officials set the deal’s coupon rate at 2.5 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The note may price at yields of 0.30-0.35 percentage point, depending on the market, and whether investors of taxable funds also buy, said William Henderson, who oversees $16 billion of short-term municipal assets at BlackRock Inc. in Princeton, New Jersey.

Texas’s note deal “is the standard, cleanest, best-trading name in the industry,” Henderson said.

Last year, the state priced $7.8 billion of tax-exempt notes on Aug. 24 with a 2 percent coupon yielding an average interest cost of 34 basis points, or 10 basis points above an index of top-rated, one-year debt. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.

Looks like we have a construction jobs creator on the way…

Irene Forecast to Grow as It Moves Toward U.S.
By Brian K. Sullivan - Aug 23, 2011 - Bloomberg

Hurricane Irene is expected to grow into a major storm in the next day as it rips through the Bahamas before going ashore in North Carolina over the weekend and moving up the East Coast, possibly threatening New York and New England.

Hurricane warnings are posted for most of the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos islands as Irene, with top winds of 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour, threatens to gain strength and power over the next three days. It was 55 miles south of Grand Turk Island at about 2 p.m. New York time, according to a National Hurricane Center advisory.

The current track estimates Irene will go ashore in North Carolina on Aug. 27. Visitors to Ocracoke Island and Hyde County were being told to leave tomorrow and residents were being urged to go, according to ABC-affiliate WCTI-TV in New Bern, North Carolina.

“There is nothing between where Irene is now and the U.S. in keeping it from not intensifying further into a major hurricane,” said Chris Hyde, meteorologist with MDA EarthSat Weather in Gaithersburg, Maryland. “The water temperatures are warm especially when you get to the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is going to explode this thing.”
Possible Costs

Total losses from Irene may reach $3.1 billion across the Caribbean and along the U.S. coastline, according to estimates by Kinetic Analysis Corp. The National Hurricane Center estimates its top winds will peak at about 125 mph in two days, making it a Category 3 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

Those winds are strong enough to blow windows out of high- rise buildings, snap trees and crush older mobile homes, according to the center.

“We have a lot of time for people to get ready but we don’t have forever,” W. Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said today in a conference call. “There is a tendency for people to think of hurricanes to be southern things, but the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast states need to take the track of Hurricane Irene seriously.”

Predictions of where a hurricane may strike land are often inaccurate, the hurricane center said. The five-year average of error for predicting an event four days away is 200 miles, and for a five-day forecast, it is 250 miles.

Clow workers next in area layoffs
Aug 23, 2011

COSHOCTON — Clow Water Systems Co. announced Monday it will lay off 15 to 20 employees. This comes only days after Ansell officials said the local plant will close in November, displacing 50 workers.

“Our sales have slowed due to less demand in the market place and low forecasted sales in the fourth quarter of 2011 and early 2012,” said Mickie Coggin, corporate communications director. “Our business follows new housing starts to a high correlation, and they have been hurt by the sputtering economy and existing home inventories.”

The manufacturer of ductile iron pipe and fittings used primarily for water and sewer systems has 425 employees, and the layoff affects workers in the foundry and flange departments.

Foundry workers pour iron into sand molds, creating fittings that hold pipe together and adapt and let the different sizes of pipe work together.

Employees in the flange department use pipe and fittings to make different types of fabricated and customized joints in water and waste water applications.

The affected employees have a two-year contractual recall agreements if business should pick up, said Derek Dozer, human resources manager. The last layoff of about 60 employees was in January 2010, and all were given an opportunity to return.

“It’s not something we like to do,” Dozer said of the layoff.

In 2010, the company celebrated its 100th anniversary of operations in Coshocton.

Other businesses hit with layoffs recently include Kraft Foods of Coshocton, which produces Oscar Mayer bacon, and Ansell Occupational Healthcare, which manufactures protective gloves for the health care industry.

Hong Kong’s ‘Scary’ 7.9% Inflation May Fuel Wages Even as Recession Looms
By Sophie Leung - Aug 23, 2011- Bloomberg

Hong Kong’s inflation surged to the fastest pace since 1995, encouraging workers to press for higher pay even as the economy teeters on the edge of recession.

The consumer price index rose 7.9 percent from a year earlier after a 5.6 percent increase in June, the government reported on its website yesterday. Excluding distortions caused by a public housing subsidy, prices rose 5.8 percent.

Hong Kong’s economy will shrink again this quarter after a contraction in the three months through June that was caused by an export slowdown, Morgan Stanley and Daiwa Capital Markets say. Wage increases may add pressure on profit margins just as businesses including McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) report that they are grappling with increased rent and material costs.

“The headline CPI figure is pretty scary, and that will change inflation expectations among residents in a drastic way,” said Kevin Lai, of Daiwa, the most accurate of nine economists surveyed by Bloomberg News on gross domestic product for the second quarter. “The higher business costs and rising expectations for wage gains may force some companies to close and hasten the recession,” said Lai, who is based in Hong Kong.

The city’s inflation-linked bonds rose to as much as HK$107.30 ($13.76) on the stock exchange today, the highest since their debut on July 29. They closed up 0.3 percent at $106.90. The initial sale price of the notes, due July 2014, was HK$100.

Sounds like this moron has it all figured out…

Dem Congresswoman: “The Real Enemy Is The Tea Party”
- Real Clear Politics

“Let us all remember who the real enemy is. The real enemy is the Tea Party — the Tea Party holds the Congress hostage. They have one goal in mind, and that’s to make President Obama a one-term president,” Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) said at a Miami town hall with constituents.

So when the Bernake pops his head out of Jackson Hole on Friday, what happens if/when he does NOT announce the launching of the QE-111

DOW up over 300, buy now or be priced out forever!

Man Asks Pedestrian for $1, Then Stabs Him
Tuesday, Aug 23, 2011 |

Police are looking for a man who stabbed a pedestrian on Long Island after asking him for a dollar.

Nassau County police say the 27-year-old victim was walking on Nassau Road in Roosevelt Monday evening when the suspect approached and asked him for one dollar.

The victim said he didn’t have any money and continued walking.

Police say the suspect followed him and then pulled out a knife and stabbed him in the stomach and hand multiple times.

A passing motorist scared the suspect off. He fled, empty-handed, in an unknown direction.

The victim was taken to a local hospital where he was listed in stable condition.

The suspect is described as a black man about 5′7″ with a medium build. He was last seen wearing a red and black New York Yankees hat, black hoodie and blue jeans, police said.

Quake provides field day for Washington wise-acres

WASHINGTON (AP) — Minutes after Tuesday’s earthquake rattled Washington, smart-alecks began flooding the social network site Twitter with wisecracks.

“S&P has downgraded earthquake to a 2.0,” said one wag, taking a swipe at the rating agency that recently lowered the federal government’s credit-worthiness.

Several 140-character wits took potshots at GOP presidential contenders. “Rick Perry denies earthquake,” said one. Another had Michele Bachmann vowing to bring all U.S. earthquakes down to a 2.9 magnitude, a dig at her promise to lower gasoline prices. Still another said New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a large man, had just “jumped into” the presidential race.

One photo purporting to illustrate the “devastation” in Washington showed a slightly tilting trash can, while another showed a small plastic chair tipped over on a tranquil lawn.

President Barack Obama wasn’t spared: “There was just a 5.9 earthquake in Washington. Obama wanted it to be 3.4, but the Republicans wanted 5.9, so he compromised.”

This Time is Different

WORLD
Greenspan: recovery will be long and painful

1:13 PM Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, says that a lack of long-term investment is slowing down the US recovery. Gillian Tett, the FT’s US managing editor, analyses Mr Greenspan’s thoughts on how this economic downturn is different from those in the past. (3m 25sec)
Credits:
Produced by Lagan Sebert

Scenarios: Bernanke Jackson Hole speech could rattle markets

Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke speaks at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition luncheon in Washington March 14, 2008. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Steven C. Johnson
NEW YORK | Tue Aug 23, 2011 4:33pm EDT

(Reuters) - Whether the Federal Reserve likes it or not, its unprecedented monetary polices over the last few years have conditioned the financial markets to expect a helping hand when the going gets tough.

That’s why all eyes will be on Ben Bernanke, the central bank’s chairman, when he speaks Friday at the Fed’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

With the stock market mired in a month-long slump and both the U.S. and euro zone economies in danger of sliding into recession, investors are bracing for a possible repeat of last year’s performance, when Bernanke hinted the Fed would act if conditions deteriorated.

Two months later, the central bank began pumping $600 billion into the financial system through direct purchases of Treasury debt, a second round of stimulus that markets dubbed “QE2.”

While the jury’s still out on how effective these purchases have been, few are ready to rule out QE3 entirely.

Following is a look at what the Fed could do.
…

Hey, what do you guys and gals think about purchasing life insurance (whole life) as an investment? Worth it or not?

BTW, the company in question is New York Life. I just got their Weiss rating — an A, which is good — but I wanted other opinions.

Gotta love RP’s sense of humor!

Ron Paul: Perry made even ‘me look like a moderate’

Posted by Kai Ryssdal
on August 18, 2011 2:24 PM

This final note today. Ron Paul made a funny about the Republican presidential field today. Remember the other day we noted Texas governor Rick Perry’s displeasure with what the Federal Reserve’s doing about interest rates? Said printing more money between now and Election Day for political purposes would be “treasonous.”

Well, fellow GOP hopeful Ron Paul, the guy who wants us back on the gold standard and whose book is called End the Fed, said today Perry’s remarks make him look like a moderate.

Thought that was funny.