The Housing Bubble

Crony Capitalism Comes Home

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: October 26, 2011

Whenever I write about Occupy Wall Street, some readers ask me if the protesters really are half-naked Communists aiming to bring down the American economic system when they’re not doing drugs or having sex in public.

The answer is no.

To put it another way, this is a chance to save capitalism from crony capitalists.

But, in recent years, some financiers have chosen to live in a government-backed featherbed. Their platform seems to be socialism for tycoons and capitalism for the rest of us. They’re not evil at all. But when the system allows you more than your fair share, it’s human to grab. That’s what explains featherbedding by both unions and tycoons, and both are impediments to a well-functioning market economy.

When I lived in Asia and covered the financial crisis there in the late 1990s, American government officials spoke scathingly about “crony capitalism” in the region. As Lawrence Summers, then a deputy Treasury secretary, put it in a speech in August 1998: “In Asia, the problems related to ‘crony capitalism’ are at the heart of this crisis, and that is why structural reforms must be a major part” of the International Monetary Fund’s solution.

The American critique of the Asian crisis was correct. The countries involved were nominally capitalist but needed major reforms to create accountability and competitive markets.

Capitalism is so successful an economic system partly because of an internal discipline that allows for loss and even bankruptcy. It’s the possibility of failure that creates the opportunity for triumph. Yet many of America’s major banks are too big to fail, so they can privatize profits while socializing risk.

The upshot is that financial institutions boost leverage in search of supersize profits and bonuses. Banks pretend that risk is eliminated because it’s securitized. Rating agencies accept money to issue an imprimatur that turns out to be meaningless. The system teeters, and then the taxpayer rushes in to bail bankers out. Where’s the accountability?

It’s not just rabble-rousers at Occupy Wall Street who are seeking to put America’s capitalists on a more capitalist footing.

“Structural change is necessary,” Paul Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, said in an important speech last month that discussed many of these themes. He called for more curbs on big banks, possibly including trimming their size, and he warned that otherwise we’re on a path of “increasingly frequent, complex and dangerous financial breakdowns.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/opinion/kristof-crony-capitalism-comes-homes.html - -

Realtors Are Liars®

I don’t see this type of enterprise as lasting too long. I just don’t think the numbers are going to be there for her. But she is after all fulfilling her lifelong dream. Gotta wonder how Dad would have felt about this investment w/the money he left for her.

“Susan Beattie Howolchak’s lifelong dream has been to open a school for healthy living with classes that range from clowning to Chinese energy medicine, and from massage therapy for horses to meditation.

She started to fulfill that dream late this summer, when she opened The Beattie Sanctuary at her 27-acre estate in the rolling hills of Pompey on Cazenovia Road. Her school offers classes in yoga and Qigong, cooking, flower arranging, meditation, cake decorating and Chinese energy medicine.”

“Howolchak and other family members bought the $575,000 Pompey home in November 2010 as part of a living trust set up by Howolchak’s father, Richard Beattie, who died four years ago. Her 80-year-mother lives in nearby Hamilton.

The trust is a key part of the family’s estate planning, and Howolchak said it gave her the financial security and freedom to set up the school.”

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/11/the_beattie_sanctuary_in_pompe.html

“When somebody shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” - Maya Angelou

On November 5 the OWS folks wants their followers to withdraw their money from the big banks. At this point - with all that is known about these banks - why is any OWS follower’s money still there?

Why is it there has to be some sort of set date for people to act in herd fashion to do what they should have been doing all along as individuals?

Everyone has a vote that they use everyday and this vote is called the dollar and this vote is cast every time one of these dollars is spent or deposited in a bank - or not deposited in a bank. But people - acting as lemmings - need some sort of movement to get them to cast their votes in blocks so as to “make a statement” when all the time they could have been making a statement as individuals.

A closely-watched pot never boils over.

Home prices heading for triple-dipBy Les Christie
October 31, 2011: 11:56 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The besieged housing market has even further to fall before home prices really hit rock bottom.

According to Fiserv (FISV), a financial analytics company, home values are expected to fall another 3.6% by next June, pushing them to a new low of 35% below the peak reached in early 2006 and marking a triple dip in prices.

Several factors will be working against the housing market in the upcoming months, including an increase in foreclosure activity and sustained high unemployment, explained David Stiff, Fiserv’s chief economist.

Should home values meet Fiserv’s expectations, it would make it the third (and lowest) trough for home prices since the housing bubble burst.

The first post-bubble bottom was hit in 2009, when prices fell to 31% below peak. The First-Time Homebuyer Credit helped perk prices up by mid-2010, but by the time the credit expired, prices fell again.

In the second dip, which was reached last winter, prices were down 33%before staging a mild rally that was artificially spurred as banks slowed the processing of foreclosures following the robo-signing scandal, which found that loan servicers were rapidly signing foreclosures without properly vetting them.

Now that the scandal is mostly resolved, lenders are speeding more cases through the foreclosure pipeline and back onto the market, weighing on home prices even further.

Earlier this month, RealtyTrac reported the first quarterly increase in foreclosure filings in three quarters. Even more discouraging: new default notices were up 14%.

There’s also a “shadow inventory” of homes in foreclosure that have yet to go back onto the market.

The specter that those foreclosed homes could flood the market at any time and drive prices significantly lower is a huge concern, said Mark Dotzour, an economist for Texas A&M University. “That’s the elephant in the room,” he said, noting that there are 6 million home currently in shadow inventory.
…

It’s turtles all the way down…until the turtles down at the bottom of the chain refuse to pay.

The euro zone crisis
The magic money tree
Oct 31st 2011, 12:37 by Buttonwood

IT IS hardly surprising that the markets are having second thoughts about last week’s euro zone rescue deal. The scale of the relief rally on Thursday was surely prompted by the fact that some deal was done, not by the (sketchy) details of the deal itself.

Take the three aspects of the deal - Greek debt write-down, bank recapitalisation and the boosting of the firepower of the EFSF. On Greece, a 50% writedown of debt is what many people had called for. But this is just a write-down of private sector debt (even then it’s not clear whether this can be achieved on a voluntary basis). A lot of Greek debt is now owned by official bodies who are not willing to take a write-down at all. So Greece will still be left with an 120% debt-to-GDP ratio by 2020, a level that looks unsustainable. The word “solution” hardly seems to apply.

Any Greek write-down would hit the banks which is why recapitalisation is needed. But the €106.5 billion being raised is a lot less than others thought necessary (including the IMF). Nor is it clear from whom the money will be raised or whether the capital ratio will be boosted instead by banks shrinking their balance sheets, a development that would be unhelpful for the European economy.

So we turn to the EFSF. Here is the biggest problem facing European leaders; they want to let Greece default and to stand behind Italy and Spain, without making a specific pledge that would upset their domestic voters.

The EU leaders really desire a magic “money tree” which would come up with a new source of wealth to deal with this issue. The French hoped that the European Central Bank would act as the tree, guaranteeing all Italian and Spanish debt. The Germans vetoed the idea. Of course, the ECB has no “wealth” of its own; European governments stand behind it. So an ECB bailout would be another back-door way of having the rest of the euro-zone support Italy and Spain, but without telling the voters. (The hope was that such an ECB commitment would act as a bazooka that did not need to be used. By itself, ECB backing might push down Italian and Spanish yields and eliminate the funding problem.)
…

Student loans in America
Nope, just debt
The next big credit bubble?
Oct 29th 2011 | New york | from the print edition

IN LATE 1965, President Lyndon Johnson stood in the modest gymnasium of what had once been the tiny teaching college he attended in Texas and announced a programme to promote education. It was an initiative that exemplified the “Great Society” agenda of his administration: social advancement financed by a little hard cash, lots of leverage and potentially vast implicit government commitments. Those commitments are now coming due.

“Economists tell us that improvement of education has been responsible for one-fourth to one-half of the growth in our nation’s economy over the past half-century,” Johnson said. “We must be sure that there will be no gap between the number of jobs available and the ability of our people to perform those jobs.”
In this section

To fill this gap Johnson pledged an amount that now seems trivial, $1.9m, sent from the federal government to states which could then leverage it ten-to-one to back student loans of up to $1,000 for 25,000 people. “This act”, he promised, “will help young people enter business, trade, and technical schools—institutions which play a vital role in providing the skills our citizens must have to compete and contribute in our society.”

Almost a half-century later these modest steps have metastasised into a huge, federally guaranteed student-loan industry. On October 25th the Obama administration added indebted students to the list of banks, car companies, homeowners, solar manufacturers and others that have benefited from a federal handout.
…

Does anyone recall what happened after American housing price gains vastly outstripped rent increases over a protracted time period?

Buttonwood
Golden acres
Why Kansas and Somerset farmers should toast the Chinese
Oct 29th 2011 | from the print edition

FARMERS tend to be a gloomy lot. “Worse than last year, better than next” is their characteristic response when asked about economic conditions. But they should be a bit more cheerful at the moment. American farmland values have doubled since 1990 in real terms; on the same basis British farmland prices are up by 135% over the past decade.

Even more remarkably, farmland prices have been much more resilient than residential and commercial property values in the wake of the credit crunch. British prices are more than 15% above their early-2008 levels.
…
The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, situated in the heart of America’s farm country, concluded earlier this year that the surge in farmland prices had been driven by a combination of low interest rates and high commodity prices.
…
But has the boom gone too far? Robert Shiller, a Yale economist who has presciently issued warnings about overpriced equities and houses, has already suggested that farmland might be the subject of the next bubble. In an article on the Project Syndicate website last March, Mr Shiller wrote that “there has been no increase in the supply of farmland, and the stories that would support a contagion of enthusiasm for it are in place, just as they were in the 1970s in the US, when a similar food-price scare generated the century’s only farmland bubble.”

Farmland has been a decent, if not outstanding, long-term investment. Since the Department of Agriculture first conducted a census in 1850, the value of farmland has risen at an annual rate of 3.4%. Since 1967 the annual rise has averaged 6.2%, according to David Ranson at Wainwright Economics, a consultancy. In real terms American farm prices have risen by 150% over the past century.

That gain has substantially outpaced food prices, a process that has accelerated over the past 20 years. What is also significant about the more recent increase is that prices have outstripped rents. In Britain the rental yield on arable land fell from 3.4% in the second half of 2003 to 1.75% in the first half of 2011, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. In America the Kansas Fed says that prices have risen by 40% since 2004; rents are up by just 17%.
…

EUROPE NEWS
NOVEMBER 1, 2011

Greek Vote Threatens Bailout
Premier Calls for Surprise Referendum Days After European Leaders OK Aid Deal
By ALKMAN GRANITSAS, MARCUS WALKER and COSTAS PARIS

ATHENS—Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou stunned Europe by announcing a referendum on his country’s latest bailout—a high-stakes gamble that could undermine the international effort to preserve the euro.

A “yes” vote in the referendum could deflate the massive street protests and strikes that threaten to paralyze Greece as it tries to enact a brutal austerity program to earn rescue loans from the euro zone and the International Monetary Fund.

A “no” vote, however, could bring down the government and cut off international funding for Greece, leaving the country facing a financial meltdown. The government expects to hold the referendum in January.

Some Greek government officials believe a defeat in the referendum could propel their country out of the euro zone. Many European policy makers fear that a messy Greek default could spark a financial-market panic that would particularly affect Italy, a major European economy that’s already struggling to retain investors’ trust.

Mr. Papandreou’s dramatic announcement, which he delivered late Monday in a speech to lawmakers, renders the outcome of Europe’s debt crisis more uncertain than ever. It comes less than a week after euro-zone leaders agreed on a “comprehensive package” of measures to keep Greece afloat, reassure financial markets and stabilize the region. That agreement was supposed to ensure that Athens avoids a unilateral debt default, restructures its debts in cooperation with bondholders, and cuts its budget deficit further in return for a €130 billion ($180 billion) bailout.

With the fate of the deal in the lap of Greek voters, the euro crisis is likely to dominate this week’s summit of the Group of 20 leading global economies in Cannes, France. For months, the U.S. government has been pressing Europe to resolve the two-year-old Greek debt crisis, which is undermining investor confidence in ever-growing swaths of the euro currency zone. The lingering uncertainty, in turn, has hurt confidence in global financial markets, and the looming referendum will only accentuate that.
…

Realtor® and “liar” are synonymous.

Calif. County Yearns For ‘The Way It Used To Be’
by Richard Gonzales
Morning Edition

Robert Frazier of Suisun City, Calif., is seen at home with a prototype of “The Pouch,” a sleeping bag attached to a fitted sheet, so that both fit over a mattress. He has a patent, but he doesn’t want to take production to China or India.
Enlarge Richard Gonzales/NPR

November 1, 2011

Part of a monthlong series

There’s a lot to like about Solano County, Calif., a collection of bedroom communities between San Francisco and Sacramento: great climate, diversity and until recently, very stable neighborhoods.

But it also has the second-highest foreclosure rate in the country. Its largest city, Vallejo, went bankrupt. And unemployment here is 11 percent, higher than the national average.

So it’s no surprise that at a recent local town hall meeting, the No. 1 topic was jobs and, frankly, how things just aren’t like they used to be. One speaker after another talked about the lack of opportunity, what they called unfair competition from China, and the disappearance of manufacturing jobs.
…
Like it was when I grew up. That theme came up all over Solano County. I heard it again when I went to see Craig Black on his five-acre ranch in a rural part of the county.

“It was kind of our dream home, something we always wanted,” he says.

His dream home isn’t more than 800 square feet, but hanging on to it is becoming a nightmare. Black, 39, is a sheet metal worker who looks younger than his age. But he has a bad back thanks to the demands of his job. Two surgeries later, he’ll need another one, too.

Black says he had to quit working about two years ago. With only one income, he and his wife fell behind on their mortgage payments. Black says he should qualify for a loan modification, but his bank doesn’t agree, judging from a stack of documents about half a foot high on his table.

“I have letter after letter: ‘If the amount due is not received by the specified due date, foreclosure proceedings may begin or continue,’ ” he reads. “And this is every month, and it just prolongs the process.”

To complicate matters, Black owes more on his mortgage than his home is worth. But he says he’s not worried about that because he would never walk away from the house. What he doesn’t understand is why he can’t get some help for a more affordable loan.
…

Federal mortgage overhaul put on hold

By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Updated: 10:11 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011
Posted: 9:39 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011

16 COMMENTS

I’m a deadbeat and I feel bad for people who think this program is actually going to help them. It has been 40 months since I have made a payment and I have watched the blogs from “holierthanthou” a##holes about how it is my fault our economy is in the toilet.
Well, in that 40 months, the bank has offered me 4,900 to sign a deed in lieu, and now I have received a letter about offering me up to 20,000 to do a short sale. (but, with no details)

diver4life
10:20 AM, 10/30/2011

So to all of you holier than thou’s, I say KMA. Look on the positive side, I have another 12-24 months in my home and your tax dollars will not be going towards me refinancing my underwater home. I will declare BK when the time is right and start over. I would have to do that any way, So, I am going to enjoy myself as long as I can…

diver4life
10:29 AM, 10/30/2011

Nov. 1, 2011, 10:22 a.m. EDT
Rich Class fighting 99%, winning big-time
Commentary: Reagan began class war in 1981, Buffett declared in 2006
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Yes, “there is class warfare, all right,” declared Warren Buffett. “But it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

Yes, the Rich Class is at war with you, with the 99%, a war against America. This class war actually started a generation ago, in 1981 when Ronald Reagan became president. Since then, the Rich Class has been winners. Big-time. And the 99% are the losers. Real big-time.

I am going to keep reminding you over and over of this Rich Class declaration of war and how they’re defeating America.

Why more reminders? Because, except for Buffett, the vast majority of the Rich Class really are engaged in a massive cover-up, a widespread conspiracy that includes the Super Rich, Forbes 400 billionaires, Wall Street bank CEOs, all their high-paid Washington lobbyists, all the Congressional puppets they keep in office by spending hundreds of millions on campaign payola and all the conservative presidential candidates praying the same Rich Class dogma.

Yes, Rich Class has been fighting a 30-year war to rule America

They’re fighting you, winning big-time, and you’re the loser. It’s just one generation since conservatives put Reagan in office: In those three short decades the income and wealth of the top 1% has tripled while the income of the bottom 99% of all Americans has stagnated or dropped.
…

Only in a bizarre world is this stuff taken seriously:

‘A few years back Representative Barney Frank coined an apt phrase for many of his colleagues: weaponized Keynesians, defined as those who believe ‘that the government does not create jobs when it funds the building of bridges or important research or retrains workers, but when it builds airplanes that are never going to be used in combat, that is of course economic salvation.’

‘First things first: Military spending does create jobs when the economy is depressed. Indeed, much of the evidence that Keynesian economics works comes from tracking the effects of past military buildups. Some liberals dislike this conclusion, but economics isn’t a morality play: spending on things you don’t like is still spending, and more spending would create more jobs.’

‘But why would anyone prefer spending on destruction to spending on construction, prefer building weapons to building bridges? John Maynard Keynes himself offered a partial answer 75 years ago, when he noted a curious ‘preference for wholly ‘wasteful’ forms of loan expenditure rather than for partly wasteful forms, which, because they are not wholly wasteful, tend to be judged on strict ‘business’ principles.” Indeed. Spend money on some useful goal, like the promotion of new energy sources, and people start screaming, ‘Solyndra! Waste!’ Spend money on a weapons system we don’t need, and those voices are silent, because nobody expects F-22s to be a good business proposition.’

‘To deal with this preference, Keynes whimsically suggested burying bottles full of cash in disused mines and letting the private sector dig them back up. In the same vein, I recently suggested that a fake threat of alien invasion, requiring vast anti-alien spending, might be just the thing to get the economy moving again.’

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/opinion/bombs-bridges-and-jobs.html?_r=2

Hi All:

RE OWS,

I have been trying to find a way that people can contribute to the goals/demands of OWS without having to physically show up to a meeting or protest (I don’t live near one and I don’t want to get recognized by anyone who might fire me anyway). I found this. It’s one of the major documents that’s forming around OWS, in addition to the Declaration from the New York group. It’s a wiki. I haven’t even read it yet, but I thought I’d post it here. It’s called the Liberty Square Blueprint. I hope this page is the real one; it’s hard to tell. I think they should rename it the Phuckya Pages, but I digress. Here it is:

http://freenetworkmovement.org/commons/index.php?title=Liberty_Square_Blueprint

Good news my neighbor has left to buy a foreclosure down the street! Has taken her 10+ dogs and the constant smell of dog#$!! So some landlords apparently don’t care what you do to their rental because after having all those dogs in the house ( Plus at least one cat) I can’t beleive a carpet cleaning will do much to get rid of the smell.

I talked to the neighbors’ moving helper/ friend and she wanted to know what my plan was? I said I had no plan I just rent. She said everyone needs a plan. Do what you love ( dog sitting ) ? I assume this is a mid-life going broke self re-evaluation type thinking because the bad economic times?

Read below for pasted ebay listing displaying even more stress and not CA but Oregon

Sempervivum tectorum, Common Houseleek, Hen-and-Chickens, Old Man and Woman, Roof House Leek
Hardiness:
USDA Zone 3 - 11

MOVING SALE, SINCE MY SLUMLORD HAS THROWN OUT ALL THE RULES ALLOWING ANYONE TO MOVE IN HERE AND DO ANYTHING AND MY CAT WAS POISONED I NEED TO GET RID OF STUFF TO MOVE. PLANTS WILL BE A MIX OF ROOTED AND UNROOTED ONES AS I CLEAR OUT MY POTTED PLANTS

ROOTED PLANTS ARE SHIPPED BAREROOT. UNROOTED PLANTS ROOT EASILY JUST BY PLACING THEM ON SOIL SURFACE.

DUE TO FEE INCREASES AND SHIPPING CHARGE INCREASES ALL ITEMS ARE NOW SHIPPED FREE - JUST LIKE YOU WANTED, BUT NO COMBINED SHIPPING DISCOUNTS CAN BE GIVEN ANYMORE, EBAY INVOICE WILL NOT ALLOW DISCOUNTS.

I DO SHIP INTERNATIONAL, I DO NOT ALLOW INTERNATIONAL BIDS DUE TO THE LACK OF SELLER PROTECTION HERE.

Since feedback is a bad joke on fee bay I do not bother with it, it doesn’t pay pay the bills, like that humongous fee bay/fee pay bill.

IF YOU LEAVE FEEDACK I WILL ALSO, DO NOT FEEL OBLIGATED, I CERTAINLY DON’T SINCE I AM NOT ALLOWED TO LEAVE FEEDBACK HERE

WANT A BETTER DEAL? CONTACT ME!

Go Jeep!

GM Sales Barely Rise, Chrysler’s Up 27%
By NATHALIE TADENA And JOAN E. SOLSMAN / WSJ

For October, Chrysler reported it sold 114,512 vehicles, up 27% from a year earlier. It was its best October sales figure since 2007. Truck sales increased 17% from a year earlier, while car sales jumped 60%.

Sales for the Dodge and the Jeep brands both grew 25%. The namesake line’s sales increased 28%.

The company saw strong demand for Jeep branded autos. The Jeep Compass set an all-time sales record, and Jeep Wrangler set an October sales record.

Jeep=Just Empty Every Pocket

The MegaInc.’$ x$2+ Trillion$ in Ca$h accumulation continues on unabated!

“Hurry, hurry, lower their taxes so they can hire more people, Agonie$ & Pain$…Help ‘em!”

304,000 Californians settle for part-time jobs
October 31st, 2011, posted by Mary Ann Milbourn

A lot of people aren’t just working part-time, many workers are holding down more than one job. The BLS said nearly 7 million people held multiple jobs in September — about 5% of all those with jobs.

One of the trends during this economic downturn is that so many people are working part-time who would rather have full-time jobs.

In September in California, 304,000 people were working part-time who usually work full-time, according to the state Employment Development Department. (The government defines full time as 35 hours or more a week.)

Schwarzenegger’s love child dresses as Conan

Joseph Baena dons a Halloween costume of the barbarian his father made famous:
Published: Oct. 31, 2011 \ By TIMOTHY MANGAN / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Joseph Baena, the boy that our former governor sired out of wedlock with the household maid, was dressed as Conan the Barbarian, one of his father’s most celebrated roles.TMZ had the photos and video. We mention it without further comment.

Boycott’$ ‘em!”

“My oh my…” says Br’er Wabbit… “It’s trouble that makes the monkey chew on hot peppers.”

Bank of America drops $5 debit card fee plan:
By Rick Rothacker / Reuters

(Reuters) - Bank of America Corp is dropping plans to charge a $5 monthly fee for debit card use, the bank said in a statement on Tuesday.

The second-biggest U.S. bank said the move was in response to customer feedback and competition. Bank of America was under pressure to make the change as rivals backtracked from plans to charge customers for using their debit cards.

“We have listened to our customers very closely over the last few weeks and recognize their concern with our proposed debit usage fee, [they might actually "move-their-money!" ;-)] David Darnell, the bank’s co-chief operating officer, said in a statement.

JPMorgan Chase & Co and Wells Fargo & Co last week decided to cancel test programs, while SunTrust Banks Inc and Regions Financial Corp said on Monday they would end monthly charges and reimburse customers.

heheeeheeeheehaahaaahaaheeehaahaaa… (Hwy50™)

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac executives get big housing bonuses

By JOSH BOAK & JOSEPH WILLIAMS | 10/31/11 11:32 PM EDT Updated: 11/1/11 12:57 PM EDT

The Obama administration’s efforts to fix the housing crisis may have fallen well short of helping millions of distressed mortgage holders, but they have led to seven-figure paydays for some top executives at troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the government regulator for Fannie and Freddie, approved $12.79 million in bonus pay after 10 executives from the two government-sponsored corporations last year met modest performance targets tied to modifying mortgages in jeopardy of foreclosure.

The executives got the bonuses about two years after the federally backed mortgage giants received nearly $170 billion in taxpayer bailouts — and despite pledges by FHFA, the office tasked with keeping them solvent, that it would adjust the level of CEO-level pay after critics slammed huge compensation packages paid out to former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines and others.

Securities and Exchange Commission documents show that Ed Haldeman, who announced last week that he is stepping down as Freddie Mac’s CEO, received a base salary of $900,000 last year yet took home an additional $2.3 million in bonus pay. Records show other Fannie and Freddie executives got similar Wall Street-style compensation packages; Fannie Mae CEO Michael Williams, for example, got $2.37 million in performance bonuses.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/67292.html -

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac executives get big housing bonuses

“Fannie and Freddie executives are being paid millions to manage losses,” Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), a longtime critic of the administration’s programs to rescue the housing market, told POLITICO. “By these same standards, I should be the starting forward for the Lakers. It’s completely absurd.”

“It is outrageous that senior executives at Fannie and Freddie are receiving multimillion-dollar compensation packages when they now rely on funding from U.S. taxpayers, many of whom face foreclosure or whose homes are underwater,” Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, who has led House Democrats in efforts to ease Fannie and Freddie’s restrictions on restructuring loans or lowering payments for mortgage holders who owe more than their homes are worth, wrote in an email.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1011/67292.html#ixzz1cTX07mQH

The government said Allied made substantial profits through the loans while it violated rules meant to protect HUD’s insurance fund and deceived the agency by originating loans for years out of hundreds of “shadow” branches that were not approved by HUD.

The deceitful practice was continued under Hodge’s direction even after several senior managers voiced concerns, the lawsuit said.

“Allied operated with impunity for many years due a culture of corruption created by Hodge, who eliminated the position of chief financial officer and other senior management positions, intimidated employees by spontaneous terminations and aggressive email monitoring, and silenced former employees by actual and threatened litigation against them,” the lawsuit said. “As a result, Allied was able to conceal its dysfunctional operations and maintain its profitable position in the mortgage industry.”

Allied operated 600 or more branches at once but only maintained two quality control employees in its corporate office, requiring branch managers to assume financial responsibility for their branches, the lawsuit said.

Feds sue mortgage broker, alleging lending fraud:
By LARRY NEUMEISTER - Associated Press | AP – 29 mins ago

NEW YORK (AP) — The federal government sued one of the nation’s largest privately held mortgage brokers on Tuesday, saying its decade-long fraudulent lending practices cost the government hundreds of millions of dollars and forced thousands of American homeowners to face eviction.

The lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan sought unspecified damages and civil penalties and named as defendants Houston-based Allied Home Mortgage Corp., founder Jim Hodge and Jeanne Stell, the company’s executive vice president and director of compliance.

“Allied thus operated its branches like franchises, collecting revenue while the branches were profitable, then closing them without notice when they were not, leaving the branch managers liable for the branch’s financial obligations,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit accused Stell of instructing branch managers how to answer questions from HUD auditors and said she acknowledged in an email that she instructed someone else to sign certifications that its branches met federal requirements because she knew they were false.

AS it focuses on patterns of behavior
IT focuses on patterns of behavior
FOCUSE$ on patterns of behavior
ON patterns of behavior
PATTERN$ of behavior
patterns of behavior
patterns of behavior
patterns of behavior
patterns
OF
BEHAVIOR

Go Trains! Go America!

‘Car Guy’ Bob Lutz Wants Federal Gas Tax…To Pay for Trains!
By Aaron Task | Daily Ticker – 5 hours ago

Although Lutz says Herman Cain is his favorite Republican these days, the former auto executive sounds a lot like Texas Governor and GOP Presidential candidate Rick Perry when he rails against “the increasing, and in my judgement, largely unnecessary [government] meddling in the private enterprise mechanism.”

Somewhat unpredictably, however, Lutz believes the government isn’t involved enough in repairing the nation’s crumbling infrastructure. Even more surprising, Lutz recommends a “graduated, rising” federal tax on gasoline to help give consumers more certainty about gas prices — and encourage them to buy fuel-efficient vehicles — with the proceeds (wait for it) to go to pay for upgrades of the nation’s aging rail system.

An American businessman complaining about too much regulation is hardly newsworthy these days. But a former car guy lobbying for a gas tax to pay for better railroads? Now that’s something different — and maybe even worth considering.

Aaron Task is the host of The Daily Ticker

Rick Sharga, an executive vice president with Carrington Mortgage Services. Oops, Rick left RealtyTrac recently.

Is a $200,000/year public union firefighter part of the 1%ers?

———————

Unions Stand with Occupy Movement in Oakland and Nationwide
AFL-CIO | Oct 31, 2011 | Mike Hall

The Alameda Labor Council and California Labor Federation are standing in solidarity with Occupy Oakland’s Nov. 2 Day of Action. In a message to activists, council Executive Secretary-Treasurer Josie Camacho says working families are “inspired by the spirit of the fight against Wall Street.”

This Day of Action will be a public demonstration of support for the right to peaceably assembly without interference, and against the growing wealth and income inequality created by Wall Street and the actions of the richest 1 percent.

Occupy movements continue to stay strong across the nation. In Montana, union members joined Occupy Helena protesters in a march and rally. Says Montana State AFL-CIO Executive Secretary Al Ekblad:

I think I am already sick of the Christmas commercials and it has barely started (a few early ones about lay away plans being available).

Niece and nephew are already taken care of. Other kids are too old for me to know how to shop for them, so they get gift certificates. Rest are adults and get the same gifts year after year. Is there a way for me to tell the commercial powers-that-be that they would be much better off trying to convince me to switch toilet paper brands than trying to sell me Christmas junk? Seriouly, cartoon bears worried about “pieces” on their behinds is better than this stuff.

Machiavelli updated for the modern world of business and politics.

The 48 Laws of Power

1 Never outshine the master.
2 Never put too much trust in friends; learn how to use enemies.
3 Conceal your intentions.
4 Always say less than necessary.
5 So much depends on reputation. Guard it with your life.
6 Court attention at all costs.
7 Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit.
8 Make other people come to you; use bait if necessary.
9 Win through your actions, never through argument.
10 Infection: avoid the unhappy and unlucky.
11 Learn to keep people dependent on you.
12 Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim.
13 When asking for help, appeal to people’s self-interests, never to their mercy or gratitude.
14 Pose as a friend, work as a spy.
15 Crush your enemy totally.
16 Use absence to increase respect and honor.
17 Keep others in suspended terror: cultivate an air of unpredictability.
18 Do not build fortresses to protect yourself. Isolation is dangerous.
19 Know who you’re dealing with; do not offend the wrong person.
20 Do not commit to anyone.
21 Play a sucker to catch a sucker: play dumber than your mark.
22 Use the surrender tactic: transform weakness into power.
23 Concentrate your forces.
24 Play the perfect courtier.
25 Re-create yourself.
26 Keep your hands clean.
27 Play on people’s need to believe to create a cultlike following.
28 Enter action with boldness.
29 Plan all the way to the end.
30 Make your accomplishments seem effortless.
31 Control the options: get others to play with the cards you deal.
32 Play to people’s fantasies.
33 Discover each man’s thumbscrew.
34 Be royal in your fashion: act like a king to be treated like one.
35 Master the art of timing.
36 Disdain things you cannot have: Ignoring them is the best revenge.
37 Create compelling spectacles
38 Think as you like but behave like others.
39 Stir up waters to catch fish.
40 Despise the free lunch.
41 Avoid stepping into a great man’s shoes.
42 Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter.
43 Work on the hearts and minds of others.
44 Disarm and infuriate with the mirror effect.
45 Preach the need for change, but never reform too much at once.
46 Never appear perfect.
47 Do not go past the mark you aimed for; in victory, learn when to stop.
48 Assume formlessness.

Fear! Fear! Fear! (Eyes tell ya, the “TrueFearMonger$™” just love’$ it!) OMG!

Don’t Raise Taxes or Cut Defense: Opinion
By Peter Morici, Senior Contributor to TheStreet , On Monday October 31, 2011
The following commentary comes from an independent investor or market observer as part of TheStreet’s guest contributor program, which is separate from the company’s news coverage.

Democrats appear intent on handicapping the national economy with higher taxes and imperiling national security by cutting defense. Those are the wrong places to solve the nation’s budget woes.

U.S. military hardware is aging and becoming less effective. Sons are manning fighters flown by fathers, and the typical Air Force bomber is 34 years old.

The number of Air force fighters has decreased from 3,602 in 2000 to 1,990 in 2011 and will fall to 1,739 at current funding levels. Similarly, the number of navy ships is down from 316 to 288, and will fall to 263. Sequestration would reduce those numbers much further.

Cyberwarfare and China, which is building a navy to challenge the U.S. in the Pacific, do not shift U.S. security challenges from one venue to another but rather add to the challenges.

Specifically, U.S. and allied dependence on Middle East oil will continue for another generation — even with the best efforts to develop alternative energy resources — and U.S. naval assets cannot be shifted from the Persian Gulf to counter China’s buildup in the Pacific. Economic and political upheavals in Europe and North Africa make the U.S. naval presence in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic even more vital.

Current Chinese military spending is only about 17% of U.S. base budget outlays, but China’s currency is widely acknowledged to be undervalued. Applying IMF Purchasing Power Parity exchange rates, Chinese spending is 27% of the U.S. base budget. Based on recent growth, China’s military spending would be 66% of U.S. levels in 2021 without sequestration, and 60% with sequestration.

China does not have troops, aircraft and naval assets tied up around the world with established commitments, and with defense spending at 60% of U.S. levels, it will seriously challenge the U.S. guarantee of security to Taiwan, Japan and even Australia.

To get the economy going and meet U.S. security commitments, the budget deficit must be tackled, but that begins with finally recognizing Social Security, health care and education must be reformed to absorb fewer, not more, national resources.

For the Federal Reserve, policymaking these days is about deciding which of two imposing evils to take on - a decidedly moribund economy or the increasing threat that inflation poses to battered consumers.
For much of the slow slog out of the financial crisis, the Fed which is meeting this week and will issue its policy statement Wednesday, has managed to train its gaze on jump-starting growth through its various quantitative easing measures.
But recent indicators show that inflation is posing an equally daunting threat that further monetary accommodation from the Fed might serve only to aggravate.
The pressure has come primarily through measures that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke likes to call “transitory” - namely, the volatile but steady rise of food and energy prices that don’t make up core inflation measures but usually impact consumers more.

Economists increasingly believe that while the so-called core Consumer Price Index (CPI) measure has remained around the 2 percent level that pleases the Fed, headline inflation that includes things such as groceries and gasoline is becoming a growing menace. The more inclusive inflation measure is at 3.9 percent and hammering at consumers, including the 14 million who remain unemployed.

“Contrary to some monetary policymaker protestations, we believe the rise in food and energy costs is highly unlikely to be temporary, although weaker global growth is likely to slow the rate of projected future gains,” Joseph A. LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank, wrote in an analysis.

Its almost like we need a dictator today:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/nine-year-old-girl-arrested-453619

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-01/lawmakers-to-propose-transaction-tax-for-financial-firms-modeled-on-europe.html

GOP opposes transaction tax, naturally, since their Wall Street pimps would have to pay up for all their algo-driven HFT trades that have driven retail investors (except for idiots) out of this rigged Ponzi market.

The Financial Times
November 1, 2011 7:28 pm
Creditors can huff but they need debtors
By Martin Wolf

Blessed are the creditors, for they shall inherit the earth. This is not in the Sermon on the Mount. Yet creditors believe it: if everybody were a creditor, we would have no unpaid debts and financial crises. That, creditors believe, is the way to behave. They are mistaken. Since the world cannot trade with Mars, creditors are joined at the hip to the debtors. The former must accumulate claims on the latter. This puts them in a trap of their own making.

Three of the world’s four largest economies – China, Germany and Japan – are creditors: they run current account surpluses, in good and in bad times (see charts). They believe they are entitled to lecture debtors on their follies. China, an ascendant superpower, enjoys berating the US for its imprudence. Japan, a US ally, is more discreet. Germany’s ambitions are closer to home. It wishes to turn its eurozone partners into good Germans, instead.

Yet creditors are vulnerable. Their economies have a capacity to supply goods and services that borrowers desire far larger than their own residents will ever buy. Deficit economies are mirror images: their capacity to supply such goods and services falls short of their demand. These surpluses and deficits are embedded in both kinds of economy.

Within creditor countries, the producers of tradeable goods and services are a powerful lobby for the supply of credit to debtors. Private funding will halt once financiers realise how bad their lending has been. Policymakers are then caught between throwing good money after bad or tolerating brutal adjustment, as their markets disappear. In punishing profligate borrowers, they also damage their own citizens.

This story lies behind what is happening to the world. It is behind the agenda of the European summit of last week and that of the Group of 20 leading economies this weekend. As Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, stated in a recent speech, it is the story behind all the crises since 2007: “Persistent trade surpluses in some countries and deficits in others did not reflect a flow of capital to countries with profitable investment opportunities, but to countries that borrowed to finance consumption or had lost competitiveness. The result was unsustainably high levels of consumption (whether public or private) in the US, UK and a range of other advanced economies and unsustainably low levels of consumption in China and other economies in Asia, and some advanced economies with persistent trade surpluses, such as Germany and Japan.” In brief: everybody helped make a mess and everybody has to play their part in fixing it.
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Now that we have finally morphed from the denial phase of the housing bubble stages of grief to the anger phase, I can’t wait for this to end. I take no pleasure in watching images of violence on American soil.

Attention Occupy Oakland and Bay Area Police: The Lessons of 1934
By Conor Friedersdorf
Nov 2 2011, 6:00 AM ET

In a past recession, an attempt to shut down the San Francisco waterfront showed the strategic and moral folly of turning violent

It is a volatile moment in the San Francisco Bay Area: galvanized by the Occupy Wall Street movement, the injury an Iraq War veteran suffered when police tried to clear Occupy Oakland from the streets, the 2009 killing of Oscar Grant III by a Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer, and a 2003 incident when police brutalized Iraq War opponents, activists are attempting a citywide strike Wednesday, when they’ll try to disrupt commerce and shut down Oakland’s port. “At meetings of Occupy Oakland, many of the people I spoke with watched the unfolding occupation with sympathy–but just watched,” Gabriel Thompson writes in The Nation. “It took the raid, the images of tear gas clouds and a bloodied Scott Olsen to get them into the streets.” Said Oakland Councilwoman Patricia Kernighan, “This is sort of a perfect storm of dysfunction.”

Before taking to the streets, Occupy Oakland protesters and the Bay Area police officers preparing to meet them would do well to look back at another tumultuous moment in the Bay Area: the summer of 1934, when longshoreman struggled to unionize ports along the West Coast. The strikes and confrontations with police culminated on July 5, 1934, also known as Bloody Thursday. Three were killed and 31 people shot as widespread rioting rocked San Francisco, and both police and longshoremen attacked one another with guns, riot sticks, and hurled objects. Those bygone events and Wednesday’s general strike are different in all sorts of ways. Most notably, the International Longshoremen Worker’s Union, which these days has a pretty sweet labor deal, is encouraging its members to work their normal shifts on the Oakland waterfront. Still, there are similarities and contrasts at which to marvel, and lessons to be gleaned.

The biggest takeaway: during the Summer of 1934, increasing the intensity of police attacks on strikers only stiffened their resolve, spreading solidarity and exacerbating disorder; and similarly, attacks on police officers that led to serious injury or the imminent danger of it bolstered their resolve, provoking the establishment to call in more force, eventually including National Guard troops with machine guns. Whether you’re an Occupy Oakland organizer or a police commander, the challenge is the same — in a volatile situation that could turn violent at any moment, the ultimate advantage usually redounds to the side that is seen as being attacked, and especially to the side that suffers a serious injury; the trick is persuading those under you, “Whatever else you do, don’t seriously injure or kill someone on the other side.” In 1934, even funerals were exploited for tactical gain.

My favorite account of the dockworkers strike comes from Endangered Dreams, Kevin Starr’s wonderful history of Depression-era California. He describes numerous engagements, almost all of them showing how violence tends to escalate. “As the long line of longshoremen attempted to cross over to the dock side of the Embarcadero at Pier 18, a detachment of mounted and foot-patrol police officers charged into the formation, clubs swinging. The longshoremen resisted with fists, bricks, and cobblestones. A number of officers were pulled from their horses,” he writes of one early street battle. “The police withdrew, regrouped, then fired tear gas. When a cluster of longshoremen made a move in the direction of Pier 20, police lieutenant Joseph Mignola ordered his men to fire their shotguns into the crowd. Fortunately, the distances were too great for fatalities, although many longshoremen were peppered with buckshot.”
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“…the consultants will determine what recompense wronged homeowners deserve.”

Whatever happened to using the court system to decide how to punish criminals?

4 million borrowers eligible for foreclosure review
By Brady Dennis, Tuesday, November 1, 4:06 PM

More than 4 million borrowers who have faced foreclosure since early 2009 will have the chance to have their cases reviewed for potential wrongdoing, federal regulators and some of the nation’s largest mortgage servicers announced Tuesday.

The reviews stem from a deal forged earlier this year in which 14 servicers agreed to hire independent consultants to evaluate whether borrowers suffered financial injury during the foreclosure process. If a review finds errors or abuses by the financial firms, the consultants will determine what recompense wronged homeowners deserve.

On Tuesday, servicers began mailing letters to the estimated 4 million borrowers whose loans were in the process of foreclosure between Jan. 1, 2009, and Dec. 31, 2010, detailing how to request a review of an individual case.

Officials at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which crafted the April servicer agreement along with the Federal Reserve, said the mailings would continue through the end of the year and be accompanied by a large-scale marketing campaign to make borrowers aware of the effort. Additional information is available at http://www.IndependentForeclosureReview.com or 1-888-952-9105.

Requests for review must be received by April 30, 2012.

“There is no cost to the borrower for this review,” Joe Evers, deputy comptroller for large banks at the OCC, said in a call with reporters Tuesday.
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“We the People,” Not “We the Corporations”
by Jim Hightower · October 27, 2011

A year from now, Americans will be caught in an unprecedented blizzard of presidential campaign ads. We’ll be blinded by the whiteout and buried in the storm’s negativity.

For the first time ever, most of this ad blizzard will not come from the candidates, but from ads secretly funded by huge corporations. This is because a five-man cabal on the Supreme Court issued an edict last year that perverts nature itself. In a case titled Citizens United, the five decreed that — shazam! — lifeless corporate entities are henceforth “persons” with more electioneering rights than … well, us real-life persons.

In a black-robed coup against our democracy, the Supremes ruled that a corporation’s money is “speech” and that CEOs may dump unlimited sums of it into their own ad campaigns to elect or defeat any candidates they choose.

Of course, Wal-Mart, Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil and the rest are nothing but legalistic constructs — really just pieces of paper issued by state governments. It’s a grotesque, Kafkaesque lie to say they are equal to — much less superior to — human beings. As a friend of mine puts it, “A corporation is not a person until Texas executes one!”
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Former Marine’s injury spurs vets to join Occupy movement
By Gary Strauss, USA TODAY
Updated 1h 52m ago

Occupy Oakland protesters carry off ex-Marine and Iraq War vet Scott Olsen after he was hit by a police projectile last week.

By Kimihiro Hoshino, AFP/Getty Images

Spurred by an injury to one of their own, military veterans are mobilizing to increase their presence and profile in the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Wednesday on Wall Street, the New York City chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War and dozens of other uniformed veterans known as “Veterans of the 99%” are expected to mass near Wall Street, where Occupy began Sept. 17.

Although they’ve been participating in Occupy protests throughout the country, vets say their ranks have been swelling since last week, when former Marine and Iraq War vet Scott Olsen sustained a skull fracture when he was hit by a police projectile at an Occupy Oakland protest . Although still hospitalized, Olsen, 24, is expected to make a full recovery.

“His injury has definitely galvanized veterans,” says University of Illinois senior Scott Kimball, who served in Iraq as an Army specialist. He’ll be helping coordinate today’s New York City event, which begins with an 11 a.m. march from Vietnam Veterans Plaza to Liberty Square.

“We’re getting calls from veterans across the country who are extremely angry and appalled that someone who served two tours in Iraq got injured as a well-behaved protester,” says Kimball, 27. “It’s rallying vets across the country. We’re just seeing the beginning of it.”

Interim Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan has said that the events leading up to Olsen’s injury would be investigated as vigorously as a fatal police shooting.
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Market Features
A Triple-Dip in Housing Could Get Ugly
By Debra Borchardt
11/01/11 - 08:02 PM EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet — Another drop in house prices? Dr. Dani Babb says it could be worse than some are saying.

Fiserv (FISV_) recently issued a report that suggests pent-up foreclosures are readying to flood the market and send house prices down another 3.6% by June.

This would be a new low of 35% off the peak prices reached in 2006. The analysis suggests that banks have been unable to pursue foreclosures as a result of the robo-signing scandal. Now the banks are getting close to moving past the scandal and since the job market hasn’t recovered, many homeowners may end up losing their homes.

Dr. Babb, the founder of the Babb Group and the author of several real estate books including The Accidental Landlord, says many analysts neglect to count what she call “sidelined” home sellers. These are homeowners that pulled their homes from the market because they didn’t like the price or had no buyers. Sidelined homes also include homes where deals don’t go through because sellers can’t get appraisals or the banks pull financing at the closing.

Babb believes these sidelined homes could swell the housing market’s inventory by as much as 25%. Add that to the glut of homes likely to hit the market come spring and she thinks the prices could actually come off as much as 37% from the peak. That’s a decline more in the range of 4-5%.

She also added that some homeowners that can’t get the modifications they that want are purchasing cheaper homes at lower interest rates as second homes. Then they walk away from the primary home and let the bank foreclose on the primary home while living in the secondary home.

“There are even blogs devoted to advising people how to go about doing this and which banks are the best suited for this stunt,” said Babb, who is a licensed real estate agent.

Ultimately, Dr. Babb thinks it’s best for the banks to unload the toxic inventory. “That’s the only way the market will eventually recover,” said Babb. “The artificial props have to go away for the homes to find their true values.”

Once the banks can get rid of the underperforming loans, they can begin to write new loans, she said. “For now, the banks aren’t willing to lend.”
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SD farmland values triple in a decade; experts say market forces different than in the 1980s
By Associated Press
10:12 a.m. CDT, November 1, 2011

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A rapid rise in South Dakota farmland values likely cannot be sustained, but a crash similar to the 1980s farm crisis is unlikely, industry officials say.

South Dakota farmland values have tripled in the past decade thanks to low interest rates and high commodity prices, the Argus Leader reported (http://argusne.ws/rYbkNW ) Tuesday. The value of agricultural land in the state has risen from $421 per acre to $1,374 since 2002.
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Gold bugs are counting on central banks revving up their money presses in an attempt to quell the Greek debt panic.

Gold firms as Greek debt fear returns
By Rujun Shen
SINGAPORE | Wed Nov 2, 2011 2:12am EDT

(Reuters) - Gold prices firmed on Wednesday, riding on renewed safe-haven demand as fears about Greece’s debt crisis returned after its government shocked the markets with a call for a referendum on a European Union aid deal.

Greece’s cabinet decided early on Wednesday to back Prime Minister George Papandreou’s proposal for a referendum on the EU deal, a government spokesman said.

U.S. gold rose as much as 1 percent to $1,729.4 an ounce, and eased slightly to $1,727.20 by 0314 GMT (11:14 p.m. EDT).

Spot gold inched up 0.4 percent to $1,725.09.

Meanwhile, the euro wallowed near a three-week low against the dollar, and Asian shares wiped out gains made during the huge relief rally last week that followed an agreement among European leaders to help reduce Greece’s huge debts.

“People who hadn’t realized before should realize now that Europe’s issues will continue to be troublesome and difficult,” said Jeremy Friesen, commodities strategist at Societe Generale in Hong Kong.

“There will continue to be risks, which will put more and more pressure on central banks, especially the ECB (European Central Bank), to be more accommodative, which will be bullish for precious metals.”
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Slim,

A few years back I had to deal with the neurotic $hi# dog collection issues of a neighbor who simply locked the poor beasts in cages, went off to work, came home eventually and got plastered, and let them bark. And bark. And bark. And bark. All day and all night for literally a year and a half.

Introducing myself nicely and asking for her cooperation got me threatened with a lawsuit for “harassment(!)”. Calling animal control didn’t work because she WAS the animal control officer for the district. Repeatedly calling her superiors in Resources Management didn’t work, nor did calls to PETA, Fish and Game, or the local sheriff (good old boy network, don’t you know…) although the sheriff did come by one night at 3 am and reported that all five were “barking their damned fool heads off….” but what could he do? She was the officer he reported it to.

What DID finally work was standing outside on my balcony at two in the morning recording each extended nightly barkfest on my webcam and then posting it to YouTube the next morning along with snide commentary and editorials about Kern Kounty Kronyism and the House of Misery its animal control officer maintained in our little valley. I may have made a few untowards comments about what she might be doing with all those dog in her off hours, too, as I recall.

Thirty or so episodes with amusing little backstories I supposed the beasts were trying to tell us about later, “Julie (Redacted’s) Barking Dogs” went viral with anti-bark fan clubs in Singapore, France, Brazil, all over the US, and Canada. People all over the PLANET hated those barking dogs! The Aussies were particularly forthcoming with possible “permanent solutions” for dogs that simply wouldn’t shut up– they’re quite businesslike about it, actually.

At the height of the postings, I was getting about 100 letters a week to the site thanking me for starting the exchange. (I’ll deal with your barking dog issue, if you’ll deal with mine sort of thing….) Hey, it was something to do all night long while I couldn’t sleep.

Anyway, the offending public servant finally met her comeuppance when out on a call, she tazed an 84- year-old obese lady who had been hoarding dogs and LEFT HER LYING THERE in the driveway for 45 minutes without calling 911 while they took her dogs away from her. The woman suffered a heart attack, and HER daughter was a lawyer, and a few months later, the house with Julie (Redacted’s,) barking dogs was back on the market as a failed flip –and no one has seen her since.

YouTube banned me for life when word of the site’s popularity reached the relevant county services gerbils, (on privacy issues, I think, although I never identified her by her correctly-spelled name, or published any geographical details that might identify where she lived. ) But it’s been quiet over there for the last four years as new FB after new FB attempts to turn a tear-down dogs’ nest in to a livable human habitation.

But they can’t. The place is haunted you see….

I highly recommend public shaming and persistence in presenting documented evidence of civic miscreance to those who pay the offender’s paychecks– in my case, recordings of the barking dogs played up close and real time into the County Answering service’s telephone answering machine at 3:30 in the morning every night for a couple of weeks. Along with the YouTube postings, a few office hour calls and affidavits, and a few well-slipped linkeypoos into the appropriate country websites….

At what point does a peaceful, Constitutionally-supported protest morph into an illegal blockade?

Port protesters split into groups, some head back downtown
By Kristin J. Bender, Cecily Burt and Sean Maher
Oakland Tribune
Posted: 11/02/2011 08:45:52 AM PDT
Updated: 11/02/2011 09:56:18 PM PDT

OAKLAND — Satisfied that they successfully shut down the Port of Oakland for day shift operations, peaceful protesters are beginning to thin out as hundreds head back downtown for a 10 p.m. meeting at the Occupy Oakland encampment.

The Pacific Maritime Association requested 200 stevedores to work the night shift at the port and those crews have arrived. The California Highway Patrol has also reopened the freeways around the port.

Before the sun set Wednesday, more than 4,500 arrived at the port and stretched several blocks down Middle Harbor Road leading into the port as they begin their attempt to shut down operations.

Port Director Omar Benjamin asked that everyone remain calm, respectful and safe. Police in riot gear arrived but there were no clashes between officers and protesters.

“Specifically, we ask that demonstrators allow port workers safe passage home,” he said. “Please allow our fellow 99 percent to get home safe to their families.”
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