Bits Bucket for November 5, 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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Screw the banks. Go credit unions (there’s that nasty U word again)
And mutual insurance company? And investment co-operative (ie. Vanguard)?
How about taking your business public through a small partnership investment bank?
All these things have gone away mostly in the past two decades, with the effect of increasing their executive’s pay. To take one example, New York’s Blue Cross Blue Shield was allowed to de-mutualize — in exchange for a payment to New York State that was used for wage increases for a powerful health care union.
I’m moving my money to JPM . Jamie is a big supporter of OWS.
“Dimon said he can understand their frustration with Wall Street and Washington, D.C.
“They’re right. In general, these big institutions of America let them down,” he said. “That’s not the same thing as to say that every bank was bad, every politician was bad. That’s where I would disagree.”
“America has become more inequitable in the last 10 or 20 years. That’s a fact,” he said. “I don’t personally think that’s a good thing. I’ve been a big supporter of progressive taxes.”
Bet he was wearing that smug smile all the while….
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2016674404_dimon3.html?syndication=rss
I’ve sat in on employee meetings where senior executives, who are making decisions extracting more percentage of profit from the employees and keeping it for themselves, address the employees in the MOST sympathetic of terms.
It’s smiling at you and talking soothingly while pushing the knife in your back.
Exactly. They’re con men. Nothing more.
Attended a company meeting of 75 - 100 salaried employees some 18 years ago. The company’s profit soared unexpectedly and employees like myself ( lower level technical) stood to get about $ 20 thousand bonus by the end of the fiscal year at the end of the month. The dog and pony show starred an overseas hq accountant who explained how newly discovered losses from an obscure project launched by the HQ president would wipe out all but a few hundred for each of us. Total silence, you could hear a pin drop. After about 30 seconds the smiling accountant turned to the VP and stated “Well, they bought that, didnt they, Tony”?
Please tell us they were punking you…?
Pretty funny if that was just a set up.
Absolute Truth. British owned supplier of special goods to the hot metal industry.. Sales took off on a products one of which repaired cracked coke oven ceramics without shutting down the ovens for a cold repair (which would cost tens of millions). Swore I would never work for a foreign owned company after that. Problem with that is that most companies here in N Ohio were bought by foreign companies for pennies on the dollar. The words “Well, looks like they bought that, Tony” took the place of a boat I had intended to purchase. Guess I was a little bitter.
” took the place of a boat I had intended to purchase”
Guy probably did you a favor.
You’re very likely right. Was nearly killed in a storm on Lake Erie not long after the Monty Python Bonus episode.
Trite and empty platitudes. Like a certain champion of hope & change who was bankrolled by George Soros and Goldman Sachs.
You seem to have forgotten that Barrack Obama received the VAST MAJORITY of his campaign money from individual donations over the Internet.
And that has benefited said individuals how, exactly?
“And that has benefited said individuals how, exactly?”
Well, it stopped the Supreme Court from being filled with even more ‘corporations-are-people’ traitors to America. And it stopped Palin from being a doddering old fool’s heartbeat away from the presidency.
Those two alone are worth it.
lessee…
The Cheney oil cartel has been corralled, the US is no longer toadying to the Saudis, certain longtime State Department “assets” of dubious loyalty have been removed from power, it’s no longer considered cool to walk around flashing one’s bling or pasting flag decals on one’s SUV, AIPAC has been marginalized, the military is downsizing, and no one’s heard word one from Suzanne (or Dubya, thank the gods,) in several years.
Shall I continue?
Bernanke says doesn’t matter. He will print some extra for BAC.
Credit Unions are charging for just having an account, unless your daily average is $500, and the interest rate on savings is .25. I’m not impressed with ours. They are becoming fee happy, too.
And what’s with 2.99% APR new and used car loans? No down and 90 days no payment… A bank masquerading as a cu. It’s clever marketing and an IRS gig.
Ours claims no REO’s, they don’t even need a dept. When I mentioned they probably sell the loans off to F&F, they we’re shocked I’d even say that about them. (I read an article in a periodical that talked about it.) CU’s are now a scam. We belonged to Litton’s back in the 1970’s. Different back then.
Not mine. No min balance. No charge to open an account.
Shop around. That’s what I did.
Same out here with Sac Credit Union, no min. balance, no charge to open account. I assumed that was the norm.
They certainly are, aren’t they?! My credit union just charged me a $2 fee for sending 1 sheet of paper (my statement) through the mail.
Posers
Don’t say that too loud, ours will run with the idea, the sob’s. If we change (just our operating fund accounts) and go elsewhere, the new place will check your FICO, and we don’t want to ding our credit scores (in 800’s). Lockh**d Fed CU isn’t what it use to be, that’s for sure.
We put our house money in TDAmeritrade because they carry really good private insurance on cash accounts (use to be up to $900K when we went with them). We did our homework.
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=201111041549dowjonesdjonline000549&title=ex-mf-global-customers-fear-margin-calls-after-account-transfers
Truly heartwarming to watch “investors” who trusted Jon Corzine (lib-dem governor & Senator from the most corrupt state in the union, and former Goldman Sachs CEO to boot) scrambling to get their money and deal with margin calls. $600 million in customer money remains missing, which in a non-banana republic would be cause for senior MF officials to be looking at serious prison time - but in our crony capitalist system the taxpayers will make good on the losses and Corzine & Co. will get off with a token fine, wait and see.
Apparently it’s not missing at all, Jamie found it.
NEW YORK (TheStreet) — Client money missing from MF Global(MFGLQ.PK) has been located in a custodial account at JPMorgan Chase(JPM_), Bloomberg reported, citing two people familiar with the matter.
http://www.thestreet.com/story/11300836/1/jamie-dimon-has-jon-corzines-missing-money-report.html
OK, that is just weird.
Too Connected To Jail.
To these guys, the financial system is a board game, based on rules and pieces they create.
“Jamie, I need 600 large. I’m good for it. I need a paper trail too.”
“No problem Jon, I’ll have it done tonight.”
I believe it. Some political angle - Dimon and Corzine are both democrats. Don’t think the Dems want to enter into next election with Corzine in courts…….
Dimon and Corzine will back whatever candidate of either party who will be most servile to the Masters of the Universe. Right now Dimon is courting Romney, or vice versa.
http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/obama_top_fat_cat_strays_C9qcrURkB9L9JkImemgBwL
You have a very strange fantasy life.
He has hired a criminal defense lawyer. I don’t know if there is any deposit insurance on the types of accounts that are missing funds, but if there is, there will be some compensation - which will be paid for through that insurance. I’m expecting jail time on this one. Whether it gets to Corzine will depend on the exact facts of the case, but using client deposit funds to back the firms own trades without permission is a clear violation and not too hard to prove. You just have to follow the bits. And plenty of people lower down the ladder will be willing to point prosecutors in the right direction to protect their butts.
Assuming that what we thing happened, actually happened, someone is going to jail.
Once again proving that suggestion by the media is conviction.
I put a caveat on this thing on purpose. If what we think happened actually happened. The “discovery” of the lost money may not be real. The idea that it was ever lost may not be real. Money crimes take a long time to figure out. You have to get down and dirty with the computers and the audits. The media should be more careful about announcing things that aren’t sure yet, but that could lead to totally unfounded speculation that is worse for everyone than putting out what they have with appropriate warnings.
The real problem is it means that almost anyone who follows this stuff at all can’t be on a jury. Then again, a lot of these trials are not done by juries. The accused is the one who has the right to a jury trial and they don’t always want one.
“…..anyone who follows this stuff can’t be on a jury.”
You would think that having jurors that can understand the testimony would something you would want on a jury, but you would be wrong.
“using client deposit funds to back the firms own trades without permission…”
According to a stock broker I know it’s likely that the account terms and conditions allow for such co-mingling. I don’t know if that’s the case with hedge fund depositers and he’s only one data point. Does anyone here have more insight?
This comingling of funds always worries me.
My retirement account has WF index funds. These are not mutual funds and not regulated by the SEC. They have a disclaimer at the bottom that ssy that these are Bank Collective Investment Funds and regulated by the offic eof the comptroller of the currency. My reading suggests that these can be comingled and my guess is that WF can use them for anything with this loophole. I actually plan on putting a small amount in these funds to see what kind of return they really have. My guess is that they are also charging some sky high hidden fees.
Hedge funds can put just about anything in their partnership agreements that people will sign. The idea is that once you are qualified to invest in hedge funds you are sophisiticated enough to read the darn document and decide whether you want to agree to it.
But backing a firm’s own securities trades sounds a little out there to me. And I thought that the customer accounts in question were self-directed which means they wouldn’t have been part of a hedge fund, or at least, there is very good chance not all of their money would have been in hedge funds.
“using client deposit funds to back the firms own trades without permission ”
How is this different from Bank of America switching those trillions in Merrill accounts to the FDIC-backed customer accounts? I’m not being sarcastic, I’m just curious. These look very similar to me.
” but in our crony capitalist system the taxpayers will make good on the losses and Corzine & Co. will get off with a token fine, wait and see.”
Ya think?
Barack Obama fundraiser at Jon Corzine home
By MAGGIE HABERMAN
4/5/11 7:12 PM EDT
President Barack Obama’s first New York event since he launched his reelection will be at the home of former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, with the former Goldman Sachs financier set to host a high-dollar, small dinner, an invitation to the event shows.
Tickets to the event, which sources said Corzine is co-hosting with another financier, longtime Obama backer Orin Kramer and his wife, cost $35,800 per person.
That event is the first of three the president will appear at in New York City on April 27.
The choice of Corzine’s home is notable, given his ties to the financial sector. The White House has made efforts in recent months to soothe frayed relations with the business community, after an election cycle during which some donors, unhappy with the push for Wall Street reform, claimed to be sitting on their hands.
After dinner there will be a reception for roughly 350 people at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, with tickets ranging from $2,500 a head to $25,000 per person. The highest level gets guests a spot at the VIP reception and in the photo line with the president.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/52618.html - 69k
But wait. These are people who are loved by the elitists such as Barbara Streisand, Bono, Beatty, Madonna, Sean Penn, Martin Sheen. So these politicians can do no wrong.
It’s a comedy gold.
Bon Jovi concert in Newark raises $2M for Corzine re-election campaign
Can you point to a single example of ANYONE sticking up for this guy after what he did? Where is the big Liberal Conspiracy?
I’m no liberal, but this kind of unhinged yammering does conservatives no credit.
House Approves 90% Tax on Bonuses After Bailouts
By CARL HULSE and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
Published: March 19, 2009
WASHINGTON — The House overwhelmingly approved on Thursday a near total tax on bonuses paid this year to employees of the American International Group and other firms that have accepted large amounts of federal bailout funds, rattling Wall Street as lawmakers rushed to respond to populist anger.
“If this stands, you will destroy the value of institutions where the government is an owner,” said Orin Kramer, who runs a hedge fund and helps oversee the New Jersey pension plan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/20/business/20bailout.html?pagewanted=all -
Is this from The Onion?
If not, it will soundly be defeated in the Senate or some other loophole will remove all the teeth out of it.
“Is this from The Onion?”
NYTimes
Published: March 19, 2009
The quote at the bottom is from Orin Kramer the hedge fund dude who helps or helped (I don`t know which) oversee the New Jersey pension plan and co-hosted the $35,800 per person Obama fundraiser with Jon Corzine at Corzine`s home this year.
It is from 2009.
I read it in full.
I suppose If this passes I’m going to have to cut back on my steeped-in cynicism response to everything and consider that Polly’s belief in the court system may actually come to pass.
Awww man, this is what happens when I read from the bottom up. Sorry.
“It is from 2009.”
Iknow it was, I searched Orin Kramer and that came up.
The heads up was for CarrieAnn, not you, jeff. For you, just can’t figure out why you bothered. It was a protest vote when the House realized that giving the bankers tons of money in a crisis hadn’t made them good human beings. It was never going to become law. If they had wanted to put conditions on the bail out, the time to do it was before giving Hank Paulson a blank check, not after.
” just can’t figure out why you bothered.”
Because Sammy Schadenfreude`s original post said…..
“but in our crony capitalist system the taxpayers will make good on the losses and Corzine & Co. will get off with a token fine”
I was trying to show who & Co was and how well connected they were. I just don`t think anyone who is hosting a $35,800 per person Barack Obama fundraiser will do jail time any more than one who did the same thing for a repub president would.
I hope all these plutocrat Obama donors had their money with MF Global.
Are the Greeks pushing it to the brink to get a better deal? It seems to me that it is in the best interest of the Greeks to get their debts written down as much as possible. The more they push it to the edge of collapse, the more of a write down they can force out of their creditors. The rest of Europe seems to be too stupid to accept that Greece is a perpetual black hole for money.
Whatever percentage write down of debt values the Greeks finally get, the other irresponsible European countries will expect. Greece will set the precedent. The moral hazard here is the attractiveness of being able to make debts disappear. Italy and Spain would also love to make as much of their debts disappear as possible.
Greeks like most Americans are relying on politicians to get us out of this mess. You know how that works.
Comment by MrBubble
“The Eagles the other day, then some other insipid band and now Bon Jovi?? While I appreciate your Yankovian oeuvres, can we please stop with the terrible music earworms? I know, I know, don’t read the posts. But I start reading and I find myself trying to figure out the song and step on a flaming bag of musical poo.”
“What’s next? Great White Lionsnake’s “Here I Go Again (Out of Home)”? Europe’s “Final Meltdown”? Poison’s “Talk Reatly To Me”?”
Poison? Did you say Poison?
Now Listen
Not a dime, I DON`T pay no rent
Three years since a payments been sent
Saturday night I like to make my girl
Out to a real nice dinner in my rent free world
Your always workin’ slavin’ every day
You need A BREAK from that same OL’ same OL’
You need a chance just to get away
If you could hear me think this is what I’d say
Don’t need nothin’ but a free house
How can I resist
Ain’t lookin’ for nothin’ but a free house
And it don’t get better than this
They say I spend my money on women and wine
But I haven`t paid the mortgage in a long long time
I’m really sorry about the shape I’m in
I just like my fun every now and then
Your always workin’ slavin’ every day
You need A BREAK from that same OL’ same OL’
You need a chance just to get away
If you could hear me think this is what I’d say
Don’t need nothin’ but a free house
How can I resist
Ain’t lookin’ for nothin’ but a free house
And it don’t get better than this
You see I raise a toast to all of us
Who are rent free every day
If wantin’ the good life is such a crime
Lord, then put me away
Here’s to ya
Don’t need nothin’ but a free house
How can I resist
Ain’t lookin’ for nothin’ but a free house
And it don’t get better than this
I really dislike Poison, but that’s awesome :-).
Heh… Poison poisoned 80’s metal. They were limp wristed dorks then and still are.
I gotta give Bret Michaels credit for finding a way to milk it for life when I’d have never thought that was possible. But yeah…of all the hair bands, why did it have to be him who is still in the spotlight?
“I am the Koch brothers’ brother from another mother” - Herman Cain
$cotus Clarice Thomas is still chuckling over eggs benadick somewhere in America.
(Lemuel Benedict, a retired Wall Street stock broker, claimed that he had wandered into the Waldorf Hotel in 1894 and, hoping to find a cure for his morning hangover, ordered “buttered toast, poached eggs, crisp bacon, and a hooker of hollandaise.”)
Alternation:
Eggs Blackstone substitutes streaky bacon for the ham and adds a “she’s-a-real-sad-tomato” slice.
“My oh my…” says Br’er Wabbit… “It’s trouble that makes the monkey chew on hot peppers.”
Herman Cain compares himself to Clarence Thomas
By Robin Abcarian / LA Times / 11-5-2011
The Republican has relished his role as racial contrarian. With the emergence of sexual harassment allegations, however, he suggests that his race may be to blame for the controversy.
Some of Cain’s high-profile defenders — notably Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh — revived the “high-tech lynching” metaphor.
Although Cain insists that race is not a factor in his candidacy, he barrels forthrightly into the topic in every speech. That is a stark contrast to candidate Barack Obama, who often treated the subject gingerly.
“The ‘oversexed black man’ is one of the most powerful negative charges,” said Niger Innis, a friend of Cain’s who runs the Congress for Racial Equality, a conservative group. “It has had a traumatic effect on the American psyche for 200 years.”
“Given the racial rhetoric periodically from the Republican Party going back to Nixon, where the ‘Southern strategy’ was used explicitly to fire up white racial resentment, it’s understandable that blacks have been solidly in the Democratic camp since 1964,” said Michael Dawson, director of the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture at the University of Chicago.
Dawson said that throwing around a racially explosive term like “high-tech lynching” has the effect of clouding the real discussion that should be taking place: “Were women sexually harassed? What were the charges? What were the settlements? What really did happen?”
Fed Officials May Prepare Ground for Further Bond Purchases, Survey Shows
By Joshua Zumbrun -
Nov 2, 2011 8:42 AM ET
Federal Reserve officials are probably engineering a third round of large-scale asset purchases, while they are unlikely to announce a decision today, according to economists in a Bloomberg News survey.
Sixty-nine percent of those surveyed say Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will embark on a third round of quantitative easing, or QE3, with a plurality of 36 percent predicting the move in the first quarter of next year, according to the poll of 42 economists from Oct. 26-31.
“We are becoming increasingly persuaded that QE3 is coming, this time focused on purchases of mortgage-backed securities,” said Dana Saporta, U.S. economist at Credit Suisse in New York. “The best guess is at this meeting they’ll try to build some consensus around the idea and lay the groundwork for eventual purchases.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-02/fed-seen-laying-ground-for-more-large-scale-asset-purchases.html - 147k
Still hoping you all will help vote me out of my line of work I’ve been in the last 26 years…Government contracting. The unemployment rate in the Beltway is on 6.1%. Socialism is thriving while private industry suffers because there is still a steady stream of OPM funding the socialism.
At act of voting for Ron Paul is not enough. An act of voting for a complete libertarian congress is not enough. It’s enough to elect Ron Paul and elect a libertarian congress though:
http://www.ronpaul2012.com/2011/11/04/ron-paul-campaign-statement-on-october-2011-unemployment/
In the meantime I keep getting head hunter calls for more government contracts. Hadn’t you had enough of wars and welfare spending?
Take out the wars - the unemployment goes up by at least 2 mil.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is costing us nearly $4 trillion:
http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2011/06/29/report-iraq-afghanistan-wars-cost-us-nearly-4-trillion-usd.html
That’s the same amount that Uncle Barry increased the federal deficit in only two years of his term.
Do you think $4 trillion jobs program to employ all the soldiers in those two countries is spent efficiently?
If Obama or one of the mainstream Republicans becomes Pres. in 2012 I will have another four good years in my government contracting. Alpha slob will vote for Obama and help me continue to have good economic times.
I could retire right now but I want to start leasing a high end BMW and also buy a used Mustang. I plan on having both cars in the city where I work starting in a year, drive the Mustang to work but drive the high end BMW otherwise. You don’t want direct hire colleagues to suspect you make a lot of money.
I will have another four good years in my government contracting.
So basically what yer saying is the US Gov’t citizen/peon$ are paying you to accomplish pert-near-nothing useful, right Bill. Interesting how you $pend your time.
I see more potential in software for smart phones than what I’m doing now for a living. But interesting that more job leads are opening up on the west coast in embedded software from San Francisco to San Diego. Of course right in the middle of my exciting project and I don’t want to leave in the middle of a project…
Do you think $4 trillion jobs program to employ all the soldiers in those two countries is spent efficiently?
I just don’t think this country is capable of spending efficiently. I was talking with this environment lawyer last week. She was going on and on about how we should be building new infrastructure and $hit like that. I didn’t say anything but I was thinking this woman has some balls……I know for a fact that she would be the first one with lawsuits and $hit for anything major that starts in our area.
This is the country where Kennedy clans tried to stop offshore wind farm and anyone who flies through O’hare knows a thing a two about how long it has taken for the modernization/expansion plan to materialize.
Well the answer is government CANNOT spend our money more efficiently than the private sector. It’s impossible. It is hilarious how I see people who favor tax increases over spending cuts when the fact is that there is a middleman to pay when your money is taken out of your paycheck and transferred elsewhere (whether on welfare, warfare, or infrastructure). That is why government spending is NEVER more efficient than when an individual himself spends.
People keep fooling themselves thinking that central planners have all the answers. Central planners do not.
Well the answer is government CANNOT spend our money more efficiently than the private sector.
Of course they can. Canada spends 10% of their GDP on healthcare and insures everyone. USA spends 18% of our GDP on health care and 1/3 of our population is uninsured or has joke insurance.
Dozens of governments around the world spend public money more efficiently on health care than we do our private health care money.
Long waiting times for health care does not equal efficiency.
IIRC Rio shared with us his experience with socialized care in Brazil. Long waits (the bogeyman the medical-pharma -insurancecomplex loves to scare us with) were not experienced.
It’s academic anyway. In 10 more years no one will be able to afford insurance or American style heathcare. Socialized healthcare awaits us whether we like it or not.
If you are talking about the runway they have been building for the past 20 years, thats pretty much a boondoggle as non of the airlines want it, need it, or want to have to pay for it.
Previously:
“Audit-the-Fed!”…pending
“Audit-the-Pentagon!”…gathering signatures
(The “TrueReduceTheDeficitNow!!!…Today!™” are still walking around 1600 Pennsylvania St. shakin’ their fists & stomping their feet$!)
On Jan. 1, our brave men and women in uniform will finally be able to come home with the dignity they deserve.
Perhaps equally important, ending the war in Iraq is a major step toward putting the United States on a more sustainable fiscal path.
What Iraq troop pullout means to the budget:
Lawrence J. Korb and Alexander Rothman, On Monday October 24, 2011
Lawrence J. Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, served as assistant secretary of defense in the Reagan administration. Alex Rothman is a special assistant at the center.
On Friday, President Obama announced that the United States would withdraw its forces from Iraq by the end of the year. In doing so, he followed through on his 2008 campaign promise to end the senseless and needless war in Iraq.
The most heart-wrenching costs of the Iraq war are human: 4,482 American lives lost, 32,000 U.S. troops wounded, and even in the most conservative estimates, more than 125,000 Iraqi civilians killed.
But the war’s economic costs have also taken an enormous toll on U.S. power and influence abroad.
Pentagon’s nightmare: $1 trillion in cuts
Since 2003, the Pentagon has spent more than $700 billion on the Iraq War. (Read: Left behind: Thousands of contractors)
When one factors in the future costs of veterans’ care and the interest on the federal debt, war costs jump into the trillions, an enormous expenditure of resources at a time when many domestic programs face brutal budget cuts.
Once the troops withdraw, the country’s Iraq-related expenditures should decrease significantly.
According to Obama’s fiscal year 2012 budget, total U.S. government funding for operations in Iraq will fall to $15.7 billion this year. That’s a drop of 76% from what we spent in 2010.
Moreover, these war costs will continue to decline.
In 2012, the Department of Defense will spend $11 billion to fund the last few months of the occupation and troop withdrawal. These expenditures should fall to nearly zero in 2013, leaving the United States spending just $5 billion annually on Iraq, assuming State Department funding remains stable at 2012 level of $5 billion.
The United States could not guarantee perfect security in Iraq, no matter how long it stayed. And it is unclear what the American military could have accomplished in the next year that it hasn’t been able to accomplish in the past eight.
[Audit-The-Pentagon! “TrueReduceTheDeficitNow!!!... Today!™” +
“TrueAnger™” social clubs now forming, hurry join your local area!Just call Congress, the one that's in power now, Today!]Pentagon budget ‘loaded with fat’
What is clear: foreign occupation comes at a tremendous cost to the American taxpayer.
If the United States is to retain its power and influence in the 21st century, we will need to refocus our nation-building efforts at home. Continuing to stay in Iraq would have done more harm than good.
It’s enough to elect Ron Paul and elect a libertarian congress though…..I keep getting head hunter calls for more government contracts. Hadn’t you had enough of wars and welfare spending?
You talk about living by the constitution and how you like Ron Paul. Ron Paul says the wars are unconstitutional. Yet you continually take jobs making money from the unconstitutional wars.
You talk the big talk but you don’t walk the big walk.
You talk the big talk but you don’t walk the big walk.
I’m guessing you’re like Mr. Buffet: you think you pay too little in taxes, but don’t check the box to send in extra money. Nobody’s preventing the people who think taxes should be higher from sending in more of their money…
Oh boy, the send-in-a-check talking point again. Look, it only works when everyone does it.
Oh boy, the ol “it only works when everyone does it” argument. Well, let’s try it, shall we?
I’m sure just as soon as everybody quits taking those government jobs Bill will, too. And once we quit spending all that money on government wars, I’m sure he’ll stop, too. He’ll stop once everybody else does, get it?
That’s the whole point, taxes have to be raised on those who can afford them. No one will pay them voluntarily, especially not the rich.
Remind me what GE paid in taxes for last year?
I’m guessing you’re like Mr. Buffet: you think you pay too little in taxes, but don’t check the box to send in extra money.
If you’re going to attempt to defend the indefensible, you have to come up with something better than that, or at least slightly related to the indefensible behavior you’re attempting to defend.
Right back at ya: If you’re going to attempt to defend the indefensible, you have to come up with something better than that, or at least slightly related to the indefensible behavior you’re attempting to defend.
Can’t you come up with something better than something analogous to “I win by decree”?
Supporting Ron Paul means never having to say you’re sorry.
That assumes he’ll never win, right? If he actually won I’m sure he’d do something to annoy most of his voters. It’s politically inevitable.
ReaItor-
Why do you encourage people to buy housing when prices are falling?
I gotsta eat.
Kind of sad to consider the two options are we continue to let them fleece people or we support them in the unemployment lines.
homeReal Estate News & Advice
Ask a REALTOR®
Is Now A Good Time To Buy A House? | REALTOR.com® Blogs
Q: I’m a first timebuyer….what is the first thing to look for after I see the house I want to buy?
–Anonymous, New Jersey
A: This is the right time to buy a house – Step 1 – go to a lender and have them tell you exactly the amount of home you can afford. Step 2 – find a Realtor Step 3 – tell the Realtor what you need in a home and what the lender says your price range is….
The agent will handle writing a contract for the house that you find and if they are a good agent – they will explain the process to you as you go.
Sincerely
Leah
Leah Layman is a Realtor® with Keller Williams Realty Augusta Partners in Augusta, GA.
A: Of course it’s a great time to be buying; many of my buyers are finding fantastic properties for less than what they’re paying for rent at this time. The first thing you need to do is to find a trustworthy lender representative in your area who can explain the various loan options availalbe at what interest rate before writing an offer, the type of financing you decide upon is written into a paragraph in the agreement of sale under Mortgage Contingency, and savy sellers will require that you are pre-approved before signing your offer. If multiple offers come to a seller at the same price, the strength of your financial commitment, and the type of loan, may be a factor in their decision to accept yours.
Janice Caputo is a Realtor® with Coldwell Banker Real Estate Services in Pittsburgh, PA.
Read more: Is Now A Good Time To Buy A House? | REALTOR.com® Blogs
Is Now A Good Time To Buy A House? | REALTOR.com® Blogs
15 Aug 2011 … I’m a first timebuyer….what is the first thing to look for …
http://www.realtor.com/blogs/2011/08/15/is-now-a-good-time-to-buy-a-house/ - 55k - Cached - Similar pages
A: This is the right time to buy a house – Step 1 – go to a lender and have them tell you exactly the amount of home you can afford. Step 2 – find a Realtor Step 3 – tell the Realtor what you need in a home and what the lender says your price range is….”
I don’t see anything wrong with this. That’s assuming that the Realtor doesn’t try to talk you into more aminities or a higher-price house.
You see “nothing wrong with telling a Iying reaItor what your price range is?
Are you friggin’ joking Oxy? SERIOUS?
I told a realtor what my top number was for renting once (my employer was going to pay the fee). We saw three places that day in the right area, all at the very top of my range or even above it. There was something tragically wrong with every one of them (above a store with holes in the walls, miniscule and in a basement, I don’t remember what was wrong with the last one).
A few weeks later I rented a small but workable apartment in a doorman building with included utilities for less than half my top number. Found the listing in a newspaper ad.
It was a good lesson.
Both agents de facto represent the seller. The buyer’s agent, the seller’s agent and the seller have the same interest - getting the highest price possible. The response is that the buyer’s agent is interested in putting you in a house. Well, again, the seller and his agent are interested in the same thing! Except they only have one house in mind.
When I first started thinking about buying real estate and encountered this, it puzzled and concerned me. I was assured “this is the way things are, it’s always been this way.”
I couldn’t ignore the fact though. It was an “emperor’s new clothes-esque” observation for me. It colored my whole approach to real estate and made me approach with caution. The initial warning bell served me well as I watched the skyrocketing house prices and curiouser and curiouser loan types.
Clear sky and 22 degrees overnight at the tip of Seneca Lake. Hard frost on deck. I’ve got some business in Phoenix to take care of, so it’s time to pull. The other fakers all left a month ago and I don’t like leaving the Blue Skye without a watchful eye for a week.
I’ve got a stack of Nav charts for the Trent Severne and Georgian Bay to pour over during ice season and of course the ever entertaining unwinding of the financial/real estate/political circus that we embrace here. Thanks everybody for your company!
Captain soon to be on the Hard,
Skye
Be Safe,…hope things go swiftly in Phoenix!
Thanks! It’s a custody hearing regarding my grandson. My SIL survived two tours, but the killing changed him and it became my daughter who was in danger. I too hope for a swift resolution, but we’ll do what we must.
Good luck! I have no idea what you may be going through, but good luck anyway.
Stay strong, Skye. Keep us posted?
These “wars” have done serious damage to the mental faculties of innumerable soldiers. I know of a young marine, home between tours, who does little else but get absolutely hammered drunk every day to try and erase the horrific memories of watching over half of the fellow men in his unit die.
One dirty little secret is that most units suck even in peacetime. Half my unit got hammered every day just to put up with the BS and nobody had seen anybody get killed.
My fondest drunken memories of the US Army is getting blistered and bowling across multiple lanes at Ft. Sill bowling alley.
FTA
Hwy gives x3 cheers to all those still surviving curmudgeon’s! Hip Hip!
Andy Rooney dies at 92; ‘60 Minutes’ longtime curmudgeon
Los Angeles Times - 48 minutes ago
(I liked that bit he did about all the gadgets deposited in his kitchen drawer)
If God lived on earth, people would break his windows.
Jewish Proverb
:-/
“When the ax entered the forest, the trees said, ‘The handle
is one of us!”
Turkish proverb
Hitomi Tsuyuki, 57, a Coto de Caza financial planner, stole $2.8 million from people, many of whom knew him through his father’s church.
He targeted victims who trusted him, including those recently widowed or in need of help because of memory loss and early signs of dementia, prosecutors said.
Others wrote to the court about their experience and how they were duped.
Sandi Kato, a psychologist from Huntington Beach who was a childhood playmate of Tsuyuki’s, told the judge that she invested $60,000, a sum that included $20,000 her father received as redress payment from the U.S. government for his internment during World War II.
Man gets 18 years for embezzling from elderly:
Published: Nov. 4, 2011 By VIK JOLLY / OC Register
He spent the money on his home in Coto de Caza, a vacation property in Mammoth, a golf club membership and on cars,
He’s not the first Tartuffe of course. My father was ripped off by a minister. I trust used car salesmen and temporary staffing recruiters more than I trust people who use religion to get ahead in life.
Congregants are called “flocks” for a reason.
http://confoundedinterest.wordpress.com/
Freddie Mac ONLY lost $4.8 billion in derivatives trading last quarter. Dig deep (again), taxpayers.
That was sarcasm.
Sammy?!
http://www.oftwominds.com/blognov11/collapse-of-corrupt11-11.html
In modern finance, high-risk “investments” (wagers) with high returns can be taken on without worry because any and all risk can be hedged to zero, even in super high-risk wagers.
And since even high-risk positions can be seamlessly hedged to zero, then there is no reason not to borrow money to increase the size of your wagers: since you can’t lose, then why not? Wagering in risk-free skimming with borrowed or leveraged money is simply rational.
Put these together and we see how a system based on risk-free skimming eventually leverages itself to the point that the slightest disruption can bring down the entire over-leveraged, over-extended system.
Why is this so? Every hedge has a counterparty who is supposed to pay off if the initial wager blows up. A system based on risk-free hedging is ultimately a self-organizing system which maximizes return by increasing bet sizes, leveraging/borrowing to near infinity and hedging every hedge as well as every wager.
This creates long chains of hedges and counterparties. Here’s an example based on an asset we all understand, a house. Let’s say someone buys a house for $1,000 down, something that was common in the housing bubble. That $1,000 is leveraged up to buy a $200,000 house via a $200,000 mortgage.
The “owner” of the house then buys a hedge to protect himself from the house losing value, so the risk is reduced to zero: if the value rises, the owner reaps the gain and if it declines, then he collects the payoff of the hedge from the counterparty, for example, a Wall Street investment firm.
The counterparty calculated the risk of real estate declining and then priced the hedge accordingly. There is some small risk that the loss will exceed the cost of the hedge, so the issuer of that hedge bundles similar bets and then buys a hedge or “insurance” from another player, who makes the same calculations of risk and return.
Meanwhile, the mortgage has been tranched (sliced into principal and interest and into various pools of risk) and bundled with other “low-risk” mortgages and sold to investors, who also buy a hedge against any loss in the tranch, for example, a credit default swap (CDS) which pays out if a borrower defaults. Those hedges are sold or “insured” with another hedges.
All of this debt and all of these hedges are based on a mere $1,000 of actual capital. The players who originated each hedge are similarly leveraged, because since risk can be lowered to zero, who needs capital?
“$1,000 of actual capital”
??
Perhaps it was a credit card advance.
“And since even high-risk positions can be seamlessly hedged to zero, then there is no reason not to borrow money to increase the size of your wagers: since you can’t lose, then why not? Wagering in risk-free skimming with borrowed or leveraged money is simply rational.”
First of all, I don’t think this guy understands what seemlessly means.
Second, is he aware that hedging high-risk positions is expensive?
Hedging has all sorts of issues related to it, but the real problem is with selling the high risk to someone who has no idea it is there and collecting a fee for “finding” them this wonderful investment opportunity.
Oakland cops put another Iraq/Afghanistan veteran OWS protester in the hospital. Keeping America safe for the 1%ers!
A second Iraq war veteran has suffered serious injuries after clashes between police and Occupy movement protesters in Oakland.
The Guardian
Kayvan Sabehgi, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is in intensive care with a lacerated spleen. He says he was beaten by police close to the Occupy Oakland camp, but despite suffering agonising pain, did not reach hospital until 18 hours later.
Sabehgi, 32, is the second Iraq war veteran to be hospitalised following involvement in Oakland protests. Another protester, Scott Olsen, suffered a fractured skull on 25 October.
On Wednesday night, police used teargas and non-lethal projectiles to drive back protesters following an attempt by the Occupy supporters to shut down the city of Oakland.
Sabehgi told the Guardian from hospital he was walking alone along 14th Street in central Oakland – away from the main area of clashes – when he was injured.
“There was a group of police in front of me,” he told the Guardian from his hospital bed. “They told me to move, but I was like: ‘Move to where?’ There was nowhere to move.
“Then they lined up in front of me. I was talking to one of them, saying ‘Why are you doing this?’ when one moved forward and hit me in my arm and legs and back with his baton. Then three or four cops tackled me and arrested me.”
Dang!
If those cops are not careful, tax payers may get upset enough to not agree to pay more taxes to provide those lucrative pensions.
“Why housing deserves a home in your portfolio”
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-housing-deserves-a-home-in-your-portfolio-2011-11-04
Want to read realtor lies? I suggest you all respond to the reaItor lies. http://www.mailinator.com is a great resource for getting new disposable emails quickly.
Users Mark Beardsley, HousingIsCollapsing, MortgageNational are our good friends.
Republican bigots are stumbling all over themselves now to level charges of racism against those who dare to suggest that the sexual harassment concerns about Cain might raise serious doubts about his candidacy.
Op-Ed Columnist
Don’t Call Herman a Monster
By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: November 4, 2011
…
Many of the far right’s worst racial demagogues are falling over themselves to help paint the picture.
Rush Limbaugh who once told a black caller to “take that bone out of your nose and call me back” slithered out from underneath his rock to defend Cain from “racial stereotypes” of “the real racists,” Democrats who would destroy Cain “à la Clarence Thomas.” He also added: “What’s next, folks? A cartoon on MSNBC showing Herman Cain with huge lips eating a watermelon?” Way to sneak that one in there, Rush. Obviously, this story needed some watermelon.
On Monday, Ann Coulter climbed off of her broom on “The Sean Hannity Show” to compare Cain to Thomas and to say that “if you are a conservative black, they will believe the most horrible sexualized fantasies of these uptight white women feminists.” She continued, that’s why “our blacks are so much better than their blacks” — “our” being the right and “their” being the left.
I know Media Attention Deficit Disorder is hard to treat, Ann, but seriously?
Furthermore, Cain still has some very powerful backers with their hands on his back — the billionaires David and Charles Koch, the Tea Party puppeteers. On Friday, Cain spoke at their Americans for Prosperity event, proclaiming: “I am the Koch brothers’ brother from another mother.” Indeed.
At this point, this all seems to be working in Cain’s favor.
His campaign told CNN that it had raised $1.2 million since the sexual harassment scandal broke on Sunday. And a new ABC News/Washington Post poll found that: “more than half of potential Republican voters say the controversy is not serious, fewer than a quarter say it makes them less likely to support Cain, and he’s running essentially evenly with Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination.”
On Monday, Cain ended a speech before The National Press Club by singing the gospel standard, “He Looked Beyond My Fault.”
They’re all looking beyond your faults, Mr. Cain. They all are.
I just heard today that Canadian citizens may be offered Tourist Visas to the USA that would allow for 365 days a year visits as opposed to the six months less a day that exists now. Does anyone know about this?
I understand that it is being promoted because of the high ownership of Florida, Arizona, and California properties by Canadians, the lack of services needed (and lack of trouble) for this group.
Personally, I think being in Florida from Nov to April is more than enough, but it currently would not allow for cross border shopping throughout the year.