Bits Bucket for October 14, 2011
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Why Slovakia is still a big problem for the euro zone
Posted by Michael Schuman Friday, October 14, 2011 at 2:59 am
So after creating a giant kerfuffle on Tuesday by voting down much-needed measures to expand the powers of the euro zone’s $1 trillion bailout fund, Slovakia’s parliament reversed course and voted for those very same reforms a mere two days later. That means the euro zone can now use the European Financial Stability Facility (or EFSF) to buy up sovereign bonds and recapitalize banks – reforms seen as crucial tools to combat the contagion rampaging through Europe.
So all is happy in euro land, right? Not really. Yes, the snafu in Slovakia ended positively for the euro. But the way it played out showed what might be the most dangerous flaw in the entire monetary union.
That flaw is the way domestic politics can hold necessary euro zone reforms hostage. Because the parliaments of all 17 euro members have to approve any major crisis-fighting decision, such as this expansion of EFSF powers or the second Greek bailout, politicians in every euro zone capital can use euro zone policy to settle domestic political scores, achieve political goals, or pander to local voters. That seems to be what happened in Slovakia. The EFSF measure passed on a second vote because the main opposition party, Smer-Social Democracy, switched sides and voted in favor. And it just so happens that in return, the party got an agreement from the outgoing coalition government for early elections – elections the Smer could very well win. So from where I sit, it looks like the Smer played this perfectly – capitalizing on a split in the ruling coalition over euro zone bailout policies to extract a political win.
…
I’d be surprised if there weren’t some other quid pro quo elements to this deal, involving Slovakia’s banking and economic relationships with the EU and the ECB.
As I’ve said before, the answer is always money.
In this case, the question is “What does Slovakia get in exchange for going along with the rest of the EU?”.
I predict dozens of former Congresscritters offering their services as negotiation consultants. Horsetrading, backslapping, bridges to nowhere, and other less printable exchanges of favors has been SOP in America for centuries.
Actually, the currency would be worth more now that if an extra $4t or so hadn’t been created from thin air in support of the Fall 2008 bailouts, but a good politician never lets the facts stand in the way of his talking points.
Mitt Romney’s defense of bank bailouts is further proof he’s like Obama: Rick Perry’s team
BY Aliyah Shahid
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Originally Published:Thursday, October 13th 2011, 8:55 AM
Updated: Thursday, October 13th 2011, 11:19 AM
Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry has been trying to dub rival Mitt Romney, right, as ‘Obama lite.’
Michael Kovac,Darren McCollester/Getty
Rick Perry’s campaign is pointing to Mitt Romney’s defense of the Wall St. bailouts as the latest sign that he’s President Obama’s Republican twin.
“This is just one more example about how Mitt Romney has more in common with Obama and the Democrats than with the Republicans,” the Texas governor’s spokeswoman Catherine Frazier told the Daily News.
Romney defended parts of the bank bailout program during the Republican presidential debate on Tuesday, arguing it was necessary to “keep the entire currency of the country worth something.”
…
Do you think think Perry’s characterization of Romney as ‘Obama lite’ is legit?
Yes. It’s totally accurate.
No. This idea is absurd.
Who knows?
As if Perry wouldn’t have bailed out the Banksters had he been Prez.
What a joke.
As for Obama lite, I seem to recall posting in yesterdays’s Bits Bucket that 65% percent of the jobs created in Texas since 2007 (and probably the ones that pay a living wage) under Perry’s watch were gov’t jobs.
Perry isn’t Obama lite ….
He’s Obama heavy.
Meh….. a bible quoting bigot is the purity test for the new GOP.
Mother should I trust the government.
Mother should I trust those who enslave us?
No, and they’ve already broken our balls.
“They’re gonna send you home to mother in a cardboard box”
I saw this quote and it made me guffaw. Absolutely Goebbellian Big Lie level (note: No Godwin, merely discussing a tactic) in its falsity.
How pray tell, does printing money preserve the worth of the currency?
“How pray tell, does printing money preserve the worth of the currency?”
So far as I am aware, restricting the supply of a commodity (e.g. dollars) makes its price (”worth”?) go up, while increasing the supply of a commodity cheapens its “worth.”
Perhaps Romney’s economic advisers have other ideas, as they are both macroeconomists.
Wow - I’m sure glad someone else pointed this out - I thought I was the only one who could see the obvious. Truly Orwellian - “We had to print(create) more fiat money out of thin air or the money would lose its value.”
Either he is too dumb to understand even the most basic economic principles, or he is intentionally perpetuating a really really evil lie upon the American people.
Conclusion either way: Not qualified to be President.
No, but maybe he could apply for Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
“Either he is too dumb to understand even the most basic economic principles, or he is intentionally perpetuating a really really evil lie upon the American people.”
There is truly nothing I can stand less about a politician than when I can’t figure out whether they are truly dumb, or merely pretending.
G W Bush and Ronald Reagan were both masters of the art.
October 14, 2011 3:31 AM
Stocks Retreat as Treasuries Halt Slump, Metals Fall
(Corrects job title in eighth paragraph of story first published on Oct. 13.)
Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) — Stocks fell, halting the strongest rally over seven days in the U.S. since March 2009 and pulling European shares down from a two-month high, and the euro weakened as the European Central Bank said forcing investors to take losses in bailouts is a risk to financial stability. Base metals slid and Treasuries snapped a six-day drop.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 slipped 0.5 percent at 9:30 a.m. in New York as JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped after reporting a decline in earnings. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index lost 0.9 percent, after closing yesterday at the highest level since Aug. 4. The euro depreciated versus 13 of 16 major peers and the cost of insuring against default on European government bonds rose. Lead, nickel and copper led commodities lower.
The ECB said the involvement of the private sector in euro- area bailouts through forced investor losses would have “direct negative effects” on banks. JPMorgan Chase, the second-largest U.S. bank, reported an approximately 33 percent profit decline excluding a $1.9 billion accounting benefit as earnings from investment banking and trading slumped.
“Any disagreements on how we come out of this crisis will generate pressure on markets and specifically on the financial sector,” said Luis Benguerel, a trader at Interbrokers in Barcelona, Spain. “We are coming from a solid rally in recent days on the hopes that the debt crisis may be nearing a resolution. Anything that may divert that process will generate renewed instability.”
…
Solyndra, Eric Holder(Fast and Furious),
Crickets….Chirp,Chirp,Chirp,….from the left
I don’t know anything about Holder, but Solyndra was not a left/right issue. It was one of the poster children of a global mania green energy Ponzi scheme. Free energy, write your check to me. Most everybody fell for this all around the globe and many true believers are surviving and sucking at the government teat. We continue to build these monuments to illogic. Any objections then or now? Why did Solyndra collapse? The explanation must be that it is Obama’s fault. Couldn’t have been a mania. LOL.
GE just announced that they’re opening a solar panel factory in Suburban Denver. The bulk of their Corporate Welfare (to the tune of $20m) is coming from the city of Aurora. They’re bragging about creating $300+ jobs.
Indeed, Solyndra’s technology was a bet on the price of silicone. The technology works great but the glut of cheap imported panels hit them about 3 year’s ahead of projections.
Right now the only US uranium processor of nuclear fuel is in the same boat. They spent hundreds of millions in federal dollars to build new processing plants that just don’t make economic sense now that shale gas is $3.50 MCF. The tax payers will be stuck with this bill too.
Pay no attention to those major democrat campaign donors who got these multi-billion dollar loans…
all those trips to the white house…
no one could have seen it coming…
The corruption is plain to see. The lack of outcry for justice is plain to see. Could it be there is a general lack of innocence among those “lawmakers”?
Just look up George Kaiser and his visits to the white House.
It was one of the poster children of a global mania green energy Ponzi scheme.
Please do not use the phrase “Ponzi scheme” again until you learn what it means.
Solyndria was a failure, but there’s no evidence that it was a confidence game, much less the particular type of con called a Ponzi scheme.
If you want to slander the green energy industry, call it a con, bad business, or bunch of nut jobs eco freaks. Don’t call it something that it clearly isn’t.
I meant Ponzi scheme. Consider the implications if you please. In this case, the taxpayers are forced to input greater and greater amounts of money, even if they are not part of the mania, and it gets funneled back to original investors, who borrowed the money from the taxpayers in the first place. Ponzi Plus.
“That word doesn’t mean what you think it means” - Inigo Montoya (The Princess Bride).
Here is a textbok definition (from wikipedia):
“A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation.”
You can say that Soyndra was fraud, but it certainly wasn’t a Ponzi scheme even If hyperbolers insist that it was, since it never paid any returns. That the taxpayers got stuck holding the loan guarantees is bad, but that doesn’t make it a ponzi scheme.
Yes, about my all time favorite movie.
I meant Ponzi scheme.
Just tell me I comb my hair funny and the argument is over.
Got incoherence?
His Rush talking points record has a skip
Repug Rep. Darrell Issa, who has accused the administration of “political interference” to benefit a solar energy company, has falsely claimed that a letter he wrote to the Energy Department on behalf of a California car maker merely requested a decision — “yes or no” — on the company’s loan application. In fact, the California Republican wrote to “express support” for the company’s loan to develop an electric car. He wrote that approval of the loan would “greatly assist a leading developer of electric vehicles in my district” and “promote domestic job creation throughout California as well as in other states.”
http://factcheck.org/2011/10/issa-sought-yes-on-loan-request/
unc you are a tool. Fast and Furious is just the continuation of a Bush program. Don’t you see the problem? The people who dream up this stuff are lifetime employees of the DEA, ATF and DOJ. Doesn’t matter who’s in the White House or Congress because this kind of behavior is systemic in our country now. You want something to bitch about why don’t you pick on the Patriot Act and the horrible National Security Letter provision. National Security Letters make this other stuff peanuts.
Why is the White House trying to shut up Sharyl Attkisson and her
reporting of Fast and Furious?
Oh yes Sharyl Attkisson. She’s quite the news personality. Caught her on C-SPAN this week with a in depth interview. Looks like she auditioning for Faux News. If you check her out you will find that she is one of those kooks who think having children vaccinated is dangerous. She jumped on the Michele Bachmann crazy train with that hit piece.
Attack, attack, attack, the old standby tactic of the left,
just like the defense attorney going after the character of
the witness.
Interesting that you didn’t deny that Attkinson is an anti-vaccinaction kook.
I assume you are a scientist? All she was doing was reporting
other theories on Autism.
Which the AMA had debunked. Since you defend her, I assume that you agree with her.
Solyndra was allowed to go out of business, unlike many financial firms I could name.
May I also remind the peanut gallery of the $180 Billion bailout of AIG for no reason at all. Or of the $700 billion give it to me no-strings-attached suggestion by a former exec of Goldman Sachs. Or of the decade long bonanza for “homeland security” contracts, not the least of which was owned not by a donor to the Vice President, but by the Vice President himself.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but they should at least make for shutting one’s piehole.
Those who are not playing the “my party is better than yours” game do not have to shut their piehole. Corruptions do not cancel each other out, except for party minions.
The Solyndra story only has legs because of the widely held sentiment that renewable energy is for sissies.
Drill, baby, drill has the same resonance as our previous Decider’s invitation to bring it on. See also Jimmy Carter’s sweater.
The sheeple don’t care or understand what life will be like in 40 years when the world population hits 10 billion.
The age of hydrocarbons will end whether we like it or not, in a few decades or a few centuries.
Now back to Dancing With The Stars…
The age of hydrocarbons will end much sooner becasue of get mine first negative energy ROI stupidity.
Because melting ice caps and rising sea levels are but economic externalities?
“History shows again again how nature points out the folly of men.”
- BOC “Godzilla”
“The age of hydrocarbons will end much sooner becasue of get mine first negative energy ROI stupidity.”
Won’t having the price of hydrocarbons go up dramatically (e.g. in the event of an actual shortage) also dramatically shift the ROI computation of today’s panel purchase?
BTW, Blue Skye, can you point me at a credible economic analysis showing that solar panels have a negative ROI? Serious question—I’d like the understand the argument better. Thanks!
Solar panels have a negative ROI?
Maybe 30 years ago. Solar now competes with grid average.
Except, WAIT! The grid is only to keep increasing in price, isn’t it? (that’s a rhetorical question)
May I also remind the peanut gallery of the $180 Billion bailout of AIG for no reason at all.”
there was a reason, lots of important investors ( Goldman Sachs for one) bought mortage insurance knowing it would fail they would not be paid off if AIG failed
they were made whole on their bets against the housing bubble one example http://www.propublica.org/article/the-magnetar-trade-how-one-hedge-fund-helped-keep-the-housing-bubble-going/single
So government/corporate corruption IS bad. So you DO agree with the OWSers.
See? We all can get along.
What percentage is $500 million (Solyndra) of $2 TRILLION? (Wall St)
Ever heard the old saying “Penny wise, but pound follish?”
Now I’ll be the first to admit that Solyndra was flat out wrong and those responsible should be prosecuted, but it trully is a molehill compared to the mountain of Wall St. corruption.
Oh, and the White House broke no rules or laws. (so far as we know)
Realtors Are Liars®
The lunatic is on the grass.
lol
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/os-house-sales-101211-20111013,0,3205311.story
Local home resales slip as ’shadow inventory’ shifts
The mix of existing-home sales in the Orlando area shifted away from foreclosures last month, with more “normal” sales than in recent months, according to a new report by the Orlando Regional Realtor Association.
The area’s median price of $115,000 last month was up slightly from August and 10 percent higher than September 2010.
Yet even at a time of near-record-low interest rates — 4.19 percent on average for a 30-year mortgage — September’s 2,054 sales were down 14 percent from August’s total and 18 percent from a year earlier.
Meanwhile, the inventory of available houses in the core Orlando market hit a six-year low, falling below 10,000 for the first time since December 2005.
Mark Humphreys, who specializes in Longwood-area home sales, said he expects to see lenders dump a lot more foreclosed properties on the market soon. The region’s large “shadow inventory” of foreclosed homes is definitely still out there, he said.
How buyers react to the unfolding market remains to be seen, he added. “Most buyers time their purchases for after the turn, when they see interest rates and prices go up,” Humphreys said. “That’s when they buy.”
Are there any homes left to foreclose on in the Central Valley?
IRVINE
October 12, 2011 10:36pm
The foreclosure tsunami continues to roll across the Central Valley virtually unabated.
http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=19560 - 45k -
“foreclosure tsunami continues to roll”
Roll?
Roll Tide Roll?
Team Deadbeat?
Deadbeat cheerleaders?
Mumbo Jumbo tell your Sis
Sixty payments we have missed
You don`t like us we can see
Three more years We’ll live for free
Goooooooooo Deadbeats!
Stand up, sit down,
Scream and shout!
Why won’t the banks
Come kick us out?
Rah! Rah!
Sis boom bah!
Because we’re doing them a favor?
Ha! Ha! Ha!
“Why won’t the banks
Come kick us out?”
Woman on ‘60 Minutes’ has foreclosure dismissed
By Christine Stapleton Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 7:03 p.m. Tuesday, April 5, 2011
WEST PALM BEACH — A judge dismissed the foreclosure case against Lynn Szymoniak, the Palm Beach Gardens lawyer featured Sunday on 60 Minutes
Other irregularities appeared as Szymoniak continued reviewing her documents, including an addendum, called an allonge, that appeared to have been cut and pasted together before being copied and a sworn affidavit signed by Linda Green, a prolific robo-signer.
Although Szymoniak’s findings did not make it into evidence in her own case, they have been used in a presentation by the Florida attorney general, which is investigating foreclosure fraud. If the case is refiled, Cullen intends to use them.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/foreclosures/woman-on-60-minutes-has-foreclosure-dismissed-1378008.html?sort=desc - 86k -
Legal Description: HORSESHOE ACRES WEST REPL LOT 12 BLK 5
Apr-1998 10392/0989 $392,800 WARRANTY DEED SZYMONIAK LYNN E
Date/Time: 7/18/2001 09:36:59
Consideration: $220,000.00
Party 1: SZYMONIAK LYNN E
Party 2: FIRST UN NAT BK
Legal: HORSHOE AC W. RPL B5 L12 BL
Date/Time: 9/15/2004 17:18:11
Consideration: $270,269.69
Party 1: SZYMONIAK LYNN E
Party 2: WACHOVIA BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
Legal: HORSHOE AC W. RPL B5 L12 BL
Date/Time: 1/3/2005 11:28:53
Consideration: $415,000.00
Party 1: SZYMONIAK LYNN E
Party 2: USA SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
Legal: HORSHOE AC W. RPL B5 L12 BL
Date/Time: 2/15/2006 08:27:13
Consideration: $780,000.00
Party 1: SZYMONIAK LYNN E
Party 2: OPTION ONE MORTGAGE CORPORATION
Legal: HORSHOE AC W. RPL B5 L12 BL
Consideration: $780,000.00
Goooooooooo Deadbeats!
So where did all the money come from and where did it go?
We are talking $780,000.00…more than most people make in 20 years…
We are talking $780,000.00…more than most people make in 20 years…
Wow. I just did the math and you’re right 2banana. (Now I know why you always stick up for unions)
“I just did the math and you’re right 2banana.”
I don’t think the math is quite right. The original purchase presumably was not a cash-out deal.
So, assuming each loan paid off the prior loan (as is typical), she would have only pocketed $780K - $220K, or $560K.
But’s it’s still a lot of money to walk away with.
Where’s the money go, Lynn??
“Where’s the money go, Lynn??”
She spent it, of course. Now I’ll repeat my question:
Why can’t the bank throw Lynn out?
“Why can’t the bank throw Lynn out?”
Because they screwed up and lost the paperwork?
“Because they screwed up and lost the paperwork?”
And that ‘paperwork’ they lost is the proof they own the property. Shall we just skip that stage when we foreclose on people? If so, then I’m going to foreclose on some beach estates in Hawaii. I always wanted one of those. Why not two or three?
I know Lynn. The bank refiled for the foreclosure within the 30 days so nothing has really changed.
The first foreclosure was a complete mess with the robo signers and other crazy stuff. Deutche hired new lawyers and they may do the paperwork right this time. (or not).
Not sure why this article from April came up today but perhaps Deutche bank reads the blog.
“Not sure why this article from April came up today but perhaps Deutche bank reads the blog.”
Local bankster propagandists keep a list of red herrings for quick use?
“I know Lynn”
How long has it been since Lynn has made a payment to stay in that REALLY nice house in Steeplechase? Four- five years? What did Lynn do with the refi money? How is she doing with her other properties that she refied? What did she do with that money?
Why can’t the bank throw Lynn out?
Don`t you mean….
Why can’t the bank throw Lynn out yet?
Goooooooooo Deadbeats!
“I know Lynn.”
Any chance you could get her to make a guest appearance on the HBB one weekend?? That would be awesome!
The DOW looks primed for another parabolic move into the stratosphere. Oil is up almost $10 per barrel in the past week. Who needs jobs?
Bets on impending QE3, which would be required because things are in the crapper, so prices will rise, so buy before you’re priced out. It’s an amazing dynamic.
Gotta love these deflationary pressures. I’m off to the store to pick up some $2/lb rib eyes
“$2/lb rib eyes”???
Can’t get them for anywhere close to that around Seattle!
“Unemployment is going to continue to get higher. Inflation is going to continue to get higher. And, rather than trying to pretend that the situation is not as bad as it is we need to accept how bad it is, because then we have a better chance of recognizing the mistakes that we’re making.”
Peter Schiff
la la la la la I can’t hear you!
My eyes are closed, so I’m invisible!
what a turkey!
So a SkankOfAmerica default(or short, not sure which) came on the market that is 5 minutes walking from my brothers shack. Priced at $39k, I emailed my brother and said it might be a worthwhile rental shack and “many of these will are sold for half of asking”. He writes backs and says “It’s a real dump. I can’t imagine why it would be that cheap”.
The delusion runs deep.
UH probably a Meth house? So buy it and hope the new tenants dont find out?
dont ask dont tell…
Interesting, but I won’t touch it. #1. It’s not my country and #2. Foreign permanent residents of Brazil can’t protest against Brazilian government policies. (we don’t get free college tuition either)
Occupy Wall Street… then Brazil
http://itdecs.com/2011/10/occupy-wall-street-then-brazil/
“The Arab spring may have been helped by social media, but the Occupy Wall Street movement has been entirely fuelled by social networks from the start. And now the movement is coming to Brazil with plans for ‘Occupy Brazil’ protests from Saturday the 15th.
…Will social networking lead to a big change in Brazilian society?”
It’s all ready started. I e-mailed Carlos Latuff the Brazilian cartoonist and he made me a couple of cartoons. Check em’ out.
http://twitpic.com/6yrdt1
http://twitpic.com/6ydnps
I like this one too.
http://latuff2.deviantart.com/art/False-Prophets-Big-Profits-9384428
I could be wrong but I think this property belongs to Robert Congel who also owns a huge sprawling manse on Skaneateles Lake. He is the developer of Carousel and other northeast area malls. He is building a new place in the same town as this property. The new place strikes me as so oddly located. It is right on top of a busy noisy highway intersection and overpass. Usually not where you build million dollar properties.
Most interesting thing about this listing. Not the 8500 sq feet, not the $2mil price tag. No, it’s the $43,400 per year tax bill. FM school district must love this place. They get $30k a year from this single resident.
http://cnyhomes.com/Listing/Search/info.cgi?mlnum=S260690
my wife and I got off the airplane in Syracuse, so naturally she insisted we visit the Carousel Mall. So we did. We had absolutely no trouble parking. There were no line-ups in the mall. I wondered who owned it. Thanks CarrieAnn.
I have no idea why people would want to buy houses back there with property taxes like that. Crazy stuff!
i couldn’t turn a station on AM talk radio without a replay of the “Jews control Wallstreet” quote by ONE PROTESTER out of tens of thouands on one given day!!! Now the whole thing starts to come full circle as it is seen clearly now that Jews put up a Black Obama to do their bail-out bidding started by Texan Bust #2. THE WEALTHY MUST ENSURE A HEALTHY HAPPY MIDDLECLASS RULES AMERICAN POLITICS AND THE AMERICAN ECONOMY. “what good is being rich if you can’t take your dog out for a walk at night or drive the family for vacation, or feel safe whereever you go?” Many of the rich LAUGHED at this “STUPIDITY.” Notice how our rich, wealthy, LIBERAL buddies out there AVOID these Occupants like the plague! The well-healed PURCHASED the POLITICIANS, REWROTE THE LAWS TO STOP DEPRESSIONS, and STOLE EVERY DIME THAT WASN’T UNDER GUARD BY A PITBULL OR A SOLDIER! Now, they own it all,eliminated the middle class. we are Mexico…
Hola!
The Scorpion and the Frog
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog
Very astute rms…
Our local Occupy Fort Worth movement is camped out at a public park in downtown. A democrat city councilman had a port-a-potty delivered to the site. We told him we didn’t want it or need it as the local Cabbies have donated time and gas to shuttle us to other public restrooms for free 24/7. We are not going to be co-opted by the politicians.
my daughter-in-law said that the Occupy Wall Streeters have left Washington Square Park filthy.
they need to clean it up
Dear Gawd - another war.
—————————-
Obama sending combat troops to central Africa to aid fight against rebels
CNN | 10/13/11
President Obama has deployed combat troops to central Africa to aid in the fight against the Lord’s Resistance Army. In a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner, Obama says 12 troops with “appropriate combat equipment” were deployed on October 12 and approximately 100 in total will be deployed including a second combat team and headquarters, communications and logistics personnel. The forces will provide information and advise and assist “select partner nation forces,” Obama explains. The troops will not fight except in self-defense.
“Send lawyers, guns and money…”
“…the chit has hit the fan.”
Great song.
100 troops. Wow, that’s more than Libya.
Sounds like a normal day for Special Ops.
Aw, c’mon. They’re just “advisers.”
Seems ya need to have an “angry” talk with Sen. Jim Inhofe, (R-Oklahoma) Slipperybanana.
Go US Commando’s , Go lil’ OPie!
Obama orders U.S. troops to help chase down African ‘army’ leader
By the CNN Wire Staff / Fri October 14, 2011
The U.S. troops backing the operation “are primarily comprised of Special Operations Forces,” according to the Pentagon.
Obama noted that the group “has murdered, raped, and kidnapped tens of thousands of men, women and children in central Africa” and “continues to commit atrocities across the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan that have a disproportionate impact on regional security.”
One conservative member of Congress, Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Oklahoma, weighed in to support the effort.
“I applaud our nation’s military for making this a priority and taking the steps outlined in our legislation that will eventually protect the children and people from Joseph Kony’s reign of terror,” Inhofe said.
Obama’s plan in dealing with the LRA calls for increasing “protection of civilians,” apprehending or removing Kony and senior LRA commanders from the battlefield, promoting the “defection, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of remaining LRA fighters” and increasing “humanitarian access.”
Representatives of 34 groups in the LRA-affected areas of northern Congo, Central African Republic, and Southern Sudan wrote Obama in December, applauding his commitment to tackle the problem and urging him to deal with the group, according to Human Rights Watch.
I was listening to Jim Rogers this morning (however so briefly) on CNBC. He noted the explosion in M2 money. Of course, the explosion in M2 does nothing for inflation without strong monetary velocity. I understood monetary velocity to be down, but I wasn’t sure how far down it was.
So via the wonderful workings of Google, I got here:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M2V?cid=32242
Which shows the velocity of money going back to the late 50’s. It is striking that velocity is down where it was during the 50’s, and far below the trendline of increasing velocity over time.
If there is any small movement in velocity…watch out on inflation…
Rental Watch
“If there is any small movement in velocity…watch out on inflation…”
The M2 flood is a trickle within today’s M1 because it is one purchase, just like taxes because it is advanced to satisfy leverage and long term cost mitigation, doing nothing for you or I.
Until someone realizes that only new markets will power up factories (recovery of what has been lost ?) can velocity return.
Those markets can only materialize thru aggressive R&D or trade barriers.
Once traditional patterns reappear I totally agree with you - and the Fed will not be able to do anything about it.
Just a tip to the wise. Keep your Passport up to date. You might find medical tourism maybe your best insurance.
Obama kills major part of Affordable Health Care Act. HHS scraps CLASS program because healthy Americans won’t buy insurance. Maybe the whole thing will go down in flames before the election if the Supreme Court will rule against the mandate. Free market rules!
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/14/us-hhs-class-idUSTRE79D5PN20111014
It won’t be long (5 years max, probably less) until crappy HD plans are considered “unaffordable” by employers. At that point they’ll switch us to HSAs only and make an annual contribution to them (which will slowly disappear).
At that point we will reach critical mass as only the elite will have access to healthcare. Medicare and Medicaid will be dismantled (especially if we give the GOP the keys to the car).
As to what happens at that point … who knows? Riots? Or will Joe 6 Pack just continue stuffing his face with empty calories while watching Dancing With The Stars, knowing well that there is no future for him?
In one of my daughters semester abroad languages classes they discussed stereotypes. The stereotype for Americans is that we are fat and violent.
The stereotype for Americans is that we are fat and violent.
Ya know, the funny thing about stereotypes…
Right?
“Ya know, the funny thing about stereotypes…”
Does that include stereotypes of certain ethnic, religious, and cultural groups?
Spain’s credit rating cut by S&P:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/44897109
Bank Seizure Night festivities:
Banks closed in Ga, NC, NJ, Ill; 80 failed in ‘11
Regulators shut down small banks in Ga, NC, NJ, Ill; makes 80 US bank failures this year
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Banks-closed-in-Ga-NC-NJ-Ill-apf-411993996.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=1&asset=&ccode=
The folly of having one currency for 17 countries that have widely divergent agendas is now becoming apparent. I’d be surprised if the euro in it’s current form lasts much longer.