Bits Bucket for January 15, 2012
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.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
To donate by mail, or to otherwise contact this blogger, please send emails to: thehousingbubble@gmail.com
PayPal is a secure online payment method which accepts ALL major credit cards.
Links
-
June 2025 M T W T F S S « Sep 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Photo Submission: hbbphotos@gmail.com
View the HBB Photo Gallery *updated 4/13/2008
Apparently, God was not on Tim Tebow’s side last night.
Now some good news: GOP Presidential candidate Rick Santorum will be appearing live on C-Span’s Washington Journal call-in program at 7am ET on Friday, January 20. Please call in with your questions and comments.
Did you see the freakish commercial by “focus on the family”? It was sickening. Dobson was pimping his warped theology using kids….. sometime in the first quarter.
Those programs have been around for years and are quite popular in the megachurches.
Whose congregants are called “flocks” for good reason.
Well I guess that charlatans ability to wow kids was hurt by the abolute failure of his prayers and the prayers of his followers to get the Bronco’s past the Patriots. At the end of the 3rd quarter Teebow had 69 yards passing and had completed something like a 3rd of his passes. I’m pretty sure on a good day I could complete 69 yards of passing offense with the receivers he has.
I’m sure the sermon today is how God works in weird and mysterious ways.
How people can turn their lives and their wealth over to these guys is beyond me.
I think it was the Salem witches. They put a “winning” spell on Brady.
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2012/01/13/mass-witches-assembling-to-end-tim-tebows-season-keep-tom-bradys-alive/
Timmy and the mediocre Broncos never had a chance. Had they won, it only could have been due to divine intervention.
Still, he served the NFL well, serving as a poster boy for them.I can only wonder many people tuned into Bronco’s games just to watch Tebow play.
I also wonde about the effectiveness of the John 3:16 commercial. ARe there really that many fence sitters left in the country?
My observation about converts to Fundyvangelicalism is that they tend to be converts from other denominations (as opposed to non believers), where they were either “lukewarm” or dissatisfied with what they heard from the pulpit . Another big source of converts are divorced Catholics who don’t qualify for an annulment and want to remarry in a church setting. Evangs and Fundies, in spite of their claims to be “Bible believing”, are rather lenient when it comes to divorce and remarriage, even thought the New Testament is very clear on the matter.
And the NT is clear on women who attend church shall have their head either be:
A) Shaved baled
or
B) Covered
There are more Christians in China than America.
All “converted” from official atheism in the last 40 years…
I’m guessing the Chinese believers embody the Christlike ideal far more than their American counterparts.
You guys don’t get prayer - do you?
Well, if you assume we are all here by random accidents and “survival of the fittest” I guess prayer would not make any sense.
Here is a hint -
Tebow doesn’t pray for a Bronco’s win or to ask God to help him throw better or that the other side has “issues” or even for a couple of TDs…
I know it’s kinda hard to understand.
I played many a sports game back in the day. Many with a prayer before the game. Nearly ALL the prayers were that no one gets hurt and that we ALL play our best (including the opposing team). I have never heard a prayer to God for our side to “win.”
You’re waaaaay out of your league again Banana.
Go READ the NT before embarrassing yourself anymore.
From the UK Guardian: Many Americans gave up hope last year – 2012 will be worse
“The year 2011 will be remembered as the time when many ever-optimistic Americans began to give up hope. President John F Kennedy once said that a rising tide lifts all boats. But now, in the receding tide, Americans are beginning to see not only that those with taller masts had been lifted far higher, but also that many of the smaller boats had been dashed to pieces in their wake.
In that brief moment when the tide was indeed rising, millions of people believed that they might have a fair chance of realising the “American Dream”. Now those dreams, too, are receding. By 2011, the savings of those who had lost their jobs in 2008 or 2009 had been spent. Unemployment cheques had run out. Headlines announcing new hiring – still not enough to keep pace with the number of those who would normally have entered the labour force – meant little to the 50-year-olds with little hope of ever holding a job again.
Indeed, middle-aged people who thought that they would be unemployed for a few months have now realised that they were, in fact, forcibly retired. Young people who graduated from college with tens of thousands of dollars of education debt cannot find any jobs at all.”
I talked to one of these forever laid off people at the gym recently. He told me he had paid off his house in 4…yes that’s not a typo….4 years because his manufacturing job w/all it’s overtime was paying him over $100k a year. I didn’t ask what years that was but had the feeling it was at least a decade ago . He said he’s pretty glad they did it that way because he was laid off first and almost left the state to stay with another branch of the company but his wife had a good job here still so he said no to the transfer offer. His wife was laid off a few months later. So now they’re both unintentionally retired. Luckily he retired w/a lucrative pension. He’s pretty happy he’s still got a mortgage free home. He told me he always thought he would work through his 60s. But now that he’s home he hasn’t thought about it once. Then he repeated, “Sure glad we paid off that home”.
There it is again. We all need to stay out of debt. Oh, and um having a job that pays over $100k probably also helps. I’m afraid that’s the bad news as more and more of those are gone.
Oh he also mentioned his industry before the “good years” had been a cyclical one were you’d work most of the year but would always get laid off in the winter months. But there had been 16 years w/o a layoff and an amazing amount of over time throughout those years so people had gotten used to the income flowing.
There’s the influence of loose credit which workers began to take for granted because they didn’t understand what was going on. They loosened their spending habits like it was never going to end because for so long it didn’t.
He told me he had paid off his house in 4…yes that’s not a typo….4 years because his manufacturing job w/all it’s overtime was paying him over $100k a year.
Good thing he wasn’t poor. A poor person would have burned through the cash and lost the house too.
Sorry CarrieAnn, but a man who retired with a great pension and a paid off house rather than take a transfer isn’t one of the “forever laid off” people being talked about in the article. Not even close. When you meet someone who is 53, hasn’t worked in 3 years, ran out of unemployment a year ago, and is rapidly using up his savings (including the money from his 401(k) on which he had to pay taxes and a penalty), then you have met one of them. I doubt they are still paying gym dues.
He will never work again, Polly, and it was not his choice to end it. Another thing, almost 1/2 the people at this particular gym do not pay the full ride. Some are members for virtually nothing. Our (those that pay the full amount) memberships help pay for theirs. They probably don’t have gyms like that in DC because in areas like that perhaps its about keeping the riffraff out more than extending a helping hand?
You know I didn’t really understand how someone who lost their job wasn’t one of the hurt if they’d made more conservative choices. He’s still living a very different life than he’d envisioned. It’s just that he’s not on the street because they’d been careful and made smart choices. Isn’t that the point many of us on this blog try to make? That we’ve got to get back to that.
And the people that article was discussing will be on the street (or a family member’s basement) if we can’t get demand up and get the economy going. A lot of people with reduced but steady retirement income and low expenses is not worthy of an article in a foreign newspaper.
Oh ok, you have to qualify as pathetic enough to be considered affected. Got it. Only the truly screwed are worthy of being discussed here.
My point was that his conservative ideals saved him. Sorry I didn’t check w/you first to see if that was ok.
Conservative ideals and 100K income and a pension. Remove any one of them or throw in a bit of bad luck and frugality can’t save you.
And I would not agree that liberals are incapable of frugality, although I am not certain that is what you mean.
H2H
And having that $100K income in a place where that sort of income is not the norm so that the house was inexpensive enough to pay off in 4 years when the extra cash became available. And probably lucky timing when they bought the house in the first place.
When the government is talking about raising the retirement age to 70 it is.
“…he was laid off first and almost left the state to stay with another branch of the company…”
Ah, but he DID have a choice.
I have an acquaintance who runs a car body shop. He says he can tell when times are tough as people will often take the insurance settlement check from a collision but not repair the car, choosing instead to drive around with a smashed bumper, door or fender. He also says that its been this way for years now, whereas before it was “cyclical”.
Must be tough times at body shops if this is how claims recipients are spending the $1000 checks they receive to fix scratches in the bumper.
I remember that happening in the 80s and 90s recessions and in the 90s, Massachusetts insurance agencies were able to get a law instituted so that checks had to be made out to the body shop and not the individual.
And yet Goon lots of our friends on FB still kneel before the chosen one, and 2012 will be no different. of course oprah and michael moore will not be there to help him that much
From the Denver Post: Net in-migration to Colorado from other states growing
“The two couples are among the 31,195 people the U.S. Census Bureau estimates relocated last year to Colorado from other states, after subtracting out those who left. The figures don’t include immigrants moving to the state from outside the U.S.
Colorado ranked fifth among states for domestic net migration, in total numbers, after Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Washington.
That’s an improvement from the state’s 10th-place ranking from 2001 to 2009.
Among 25- to 44-year-olds, the age group launching careers and forming families, Colorado was the most popular state for those relocating, said state demographer Elizabeth Garner.
Let Florida and Arizona have their retirees — Colorado is drawing people like the Klofs, both 32, and Sam, 30, and Isobel Brooks, 28.
Single-family housing permits have averaged at just over 8,000 a year the past three years, a far cry from the more than 38,000 a year pulled between 2003 and 2005, according to the Colorado Business Economic Outlook from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Colorado still has about 130,000 more housing units than it needs because of overbuilding last decade, Garner estimates. Even if in-migration holds up at current levels, it will take years for the newcomers to absorb the surplus housing.”
Yet the lying liar REIC keeps trying to push the lie that rents are rising here. No, they’re not…
If people are moving here, where jobs are scarce, I can only imagine how bad it is where they are coming from.
The number one use for computers at the public library is for job hunting. The library gets a steady stream of migrant types who get a library card just to use the PCs to search Craigslist for a job.
‘ The library gets a steady stream of migrant types who get a library card just to use the PCs to search Craigslist for a job.’
In Colorado, wasn’t it your spouse who reported that to you if I remember right? I have to admit, the wife and I would love to move to Colorado but we know how hard it is for us as outsiders to adjust to new locations. The job thing is another obstacle. I think some places “know” that everyone wants to live there and do not have to lift a finger. At this stage of our lives I tell my better half that as long as the area is safe and clean and quiet, I am game for many places.
“That’s an improvement…….”
Is it?
Another one is about to bite the dust:
Thursday a co-worker was telling all of us his plans for this year; He’ll retire in November - on is fifty-second birthday - and “do stuff I always wanted to do” such as go on cruises and visit places such as Italy and Greece. It’s not as if he hates his job; in fact he LOVES his job, so much so that he plans to come back as a contractor now and then, presumeably when the spirit moves him. The fact that the company has plans to shed thousands of employees doesn’t seem to bother him all that much.
He’ll be able to do this because his financial advisor told him that “he’ll be making more money retired than he makes now working at his job”.
He’s going to cash-out his pension and that, along with his 401K, will allow him to spend what he wants/needs and still the funds will keep growing because they will be “properly invested”.
He had stars in his eyes as he was telling us this, and from past experience I realize there is no way to reach him to offer another point of view.
Hmmm. Public employee? Monopoly utility? Government contractor?
Otherwise I’m surprised, as 52 is just on the wrong side of the screwed generation divide. His company must have been late to close its pension plan to new employees, or he must have started the job just before the 1980 to 1983 recession at age 23 or earlier.
Large communication company. He started working there when he was eighteen.
Otherwise I’m surprised, as 52 is just on the wrong side of the screwed generation divide.
I believe that number is 55 right now.
His attitude sounds big, fat, and Greek.
These investment advisors hold very persuasive seminars and are able to convince sheeple that it is in their best interest to cash-out everything they own and turn it all over to them for safe handling.
Once the sheeple have been “turned” they become advocates for the advisors and hint - often it’s more than a hint - that those who keep on working are rather stupid because interest rates are low thus the amount of pension cash-outs is high and thus one should seize the opportunity before the lucrative cash-out door has slammed shut.
and thus one should seize the opportunity before the lucrative cash-out door has slammed shut.
I don’t have enough information to assess his conclusion, but on this one particular thought he may have a point.
If in the future, then pension plan will be recognized to be underfunded, and measures taken to address that, it is possible that those who took full cash-outs will have been the wise ones.
I have a friend who ended up getting something like 23-cents on the dollar of his expected pension after it was taken over the PBGC.
With a cash-out at least you know what you are really getting. All other pensions are promises that can go poof (Fed gov’t pensions perhaps excepted) .
My dad took the cash out for his pension, probably for the same reason. As far as I know HP is still paying (legacy Compaq, legacy Digital Equipment), but it might not do it forever. He and my mom still rely on the retiree health insurance as their Medicare supplement plan.
I have a friend who ended up getting something like 23-cents on the dollar of his expected pension after it was taken over the PBGC.
I know a 30-yr plus telco worked who was stripped clean when Worldcom crashed. He’s lost that patriotic thing too.
Currently, the PBGC pay a max of $4,653.41/mth for those who retire at age 65.
Has anyone next to him had a serious health scare creating a life is too short attitude?
He himself had a heart attack a couple of years ago. It was fixed by triple stints inserted via a vein, artery - whatever - in his groin area.
Having had a heart attack before he was 50, he probably won’t make it much past 65.
Our local newspaper is always full of obits for people who don’t even make it to 60 (and remember, we’re the “fit” state). Not everyone is blessed with genes that increase longevity.
I just lost a high school acquaintance a few months ago. He was hiking the Appalachian trail when he went down. He was 51 years old and considered to be in good health prior to that incident.
CarrieAnn, sorry to hear about your high school peer. I was just up in Maine hiking the 100 mile wilderness this past late summer. Was that the area he succumbed?
“Having had a heart attack before he was 50, he probably won’t make it much past 65.”
I’d like to see stats to back this up. My friend’s dad had a heart attack in his late 40’s, and he’s now 85 and doing wonderfully.
Bingo!
Yeah, we did the same. Nothing like this guy but definitely the purse strings loosened. You just want to fit a few things in before what your doctor has warned could be a permanent downturn. When you don’t know if your time before a major medical incident is 3 mos or 3 years or 30 sometimes you accelerate the opportunities before they are taken away for good.
I believe that’s a pretty common reaction to that situation.
Heart attack in his forties. Retirement is his best option, good for him and poor example by you, combo. Should he stay on thru downsizing and the stress it produces?
He is in a good position workwise, the easiest job he has ever had is the one he is about to walk away from. The heart attack days should be behind him in that he has changed his lifestyle.
It’s not about health with him, at least that was my impression. It had more to do with the promises made, or implied, by the financial advisors.
The heart attack days should be behind him in that he has changed his lifestyle.
Not necessarily true. One of my co-workers’ GF just had her 3rd heart surgery. She’s in her 40s. The doctors say she actually has a strong heart. It’s just that her arteries and veins s*ck. She lives her life like it could be over at any time despite the extreme diet and lifestyle discipline. Seems that’s a good thing as she just went back in for that 3rd one over Christmas break.
Polly, little help here please.
Is signing foreclosure documents for others forgery?
By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Updated: 8:52 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012
Posted: 6:03 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012
The Nevada attorney general calls signing another person’s name on documents used to repossess a home “forgery” and a “scheme.”
Michigan’s attorney general launched a criminal investigation that includes whether “falsified signatures” were used in foreclosure cases.
But Theresa Edwards and June Clarkson were forced to resign their jobs as foreclosure fraud investigators for the Florida Attorney General’s Office, in part, for referring to so-called “surrogate signing” as forgery.
According to a Florida Inspector General report that cleared Attorney General Pam Bondi’s office of wrongdoing in the firings, the duo repeatedly used the word “forgery” in a 2010 presentation that included documents from the Jacksonville-based Lender Processing Services. The company complained and drew the attention of economic crimes boss Richard Lawson.
Lawson says in the inspector general’s Jan. 6 report that surrogate signing as it relates to Lender Processing Services, also called LPS, is not forgery, which requires an intent to defraud. The practice was authorized by the company, more
“Theresa Edwards and June Clarkson were fired for aggressively investigating these practices,” said Palm Beach County homeowner Lynn Szymoniak, who is in foreclosure. ” Are these practices really OK in the opinion of the chief financial officer and the attorney general?”
LPS processes paperwork for more than 50 percent of the nation’s foreclosures, according to a December lawsuit filed by the Nevada attorney general. The company has said it stopped surrogate signing after its own investigation uncovered it at a now-closed subsidiary company called DocX.
Still, tens of thousands of documents are affected nationwide and the forgery debate contributes to the foreclosure logjam that has stalled Florida’s economic recovery.
But the inspector general report details complaints about the duo’s work made by Lawson, some of their colleagues, and LPS.
Those complaints include disorganized paperwork, the lack of independent investigation, relying too heavily on two Palm Beach County homeowner advocates for evidence (including Szymoniak), being unprofessional, and using incorrect legal theory.
Professor backs state
“Because the surrogate signers were signing the documents as part of their jobs, and presumably believed that they had the authority to sign, they could not have committed fraud,” said Nova Southeastern Law professor Robert Jarvis. “Moreover, in most loan documents, the borrower expressly agrees that the bank, or the bank’s representatives, can take all steps necessary to protect its interest. This would include signing documents.”
Glossary
Robo-signer
Generally referred to as a bank employee who signs thousands of foreclosure documents regularly, swearing to the veracity of the information contained in them, but in reality does not have personal knowledge of the case.
Surrogate signer
Someone who signs another person’s name on documents after receiving permission to do so. Some attorneys say this practice is forgery and can also lead to notary fraud.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/foreclosures/is-signing-foreclosure-documents-for-others-forgery-2102340.html - 89k -
Shootin ducks
Is signing foreclosure documents for others forgery?
By Kimberly Miller Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 6:03 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012
29 COMMENTS
There cannot be one interpretation of the law allowing bank’s attorneys to submit false documentation in court and another interpretation requiring everyone else to submit accurate, complete documentation. Everyone must be held to the same standard.. Fraud is fraud and must be prosecuted
Edwards and Clarkson received rave reviews from their department. If they were fired for minor mistake made on a power point presentation, this should be investigated outside Florida’ political climate..
Kathleen Burt
3:50 AM, 1/15/2012
Location Address: 12385 CASCADES POINTE DR
Legal Description: BOCA FALLS PAR R LT 8
Apr-2003 15061/1189 $352,500 WARRANTY DEED
Type: D
Date/Time: 4/15/2003 09:02:16
CFN: 20030208530
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 15061/1189
Pages: 1
Consideration: $352,500.00
Party 1: LOWE DAVID N
LOWE GEORGIE E
Party 2: BURT MICHAEL
BURT KATHLEEN
Legal: BOCA FALLS R L8 L
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 1/28/2005 14:36:55
CFN: 20050055084
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 18073/1156
Pages: 2
Consideration: $50,000.00
Party 1: BURT MICHAEL
BURT KATHLEEN
Party 2: FIDELITY FEDERAL BANK & TRUST
Legal: BOCA FALLS R L8 L
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 12/30/2005 14:52:36
CFN: 20050796796
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 19740/1078
Pages: 19
Consideration: $110,000.00
Party 1: BURT MICHAEL
BURT KATHLEEN
Party 2: MORTGAGE ELECTRONIC REGISTRATION SYSTEMS INC
AMERICAN EQUITY MORTGAGE INC
Legal: BOCA FALLS R L8 L
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 12/4/2006 12:51:27
CFN: 20060669997
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 21150/377
Pages: 20
Consideration: $153,000.00
Party 1: BURT KATHLEEN
BURT MICHAEL
Party 2: WASHINGTON MUTUAL BANK FA
Legal: BOCA FALLS R L8 L
Type: MTG
Date/Time: 7/5/2007 14:30:38
CFN: 20070324253
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 21905/401
Pages: 14
Consideration: $10,356.21
Party 1: BURT KATHLEEN ANN
BURT MICHAEL L
Party 2: WACHOVIA BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
Legal: BOCA FALLS R L8 L
No LP filed by any bank but they should have paid the HOA cause…..
Type: JUD
Date/Time: 2/25/2010 17:54:34
CFN: 20100073712
Book Type: O
Book/Page: 23712/1243
Pages: 5
Consideration: $0.00
Party 1: BOCA FALLS HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION INC
Party 2: BURT KATHLEEN
BURT MICHAEL
Legal: BOCA FALLS R L8 L
I can`t recall who said it here but after reading the comments from this article I know they were right.
Hell hath no fury like a Deadbeat scorned.
California’s Penal Code Sec. 470(a) says “Every person who, with the intent to defraud, knowing that he or she has no authority to do so, signs the name of another person or of a fictitious person to any of the items listed in subdivision (d) is guilty of forgery.” The “subdivision (d)” says “Every person who, with the intent to defraud, falsely makes, alters, forges, or counterfeits, utters, publishes, passes or attempts or offers to pass, as true and genuine, (continued next)
Randy Frodsham
11:41 AM, 1/15/2012
(continuation) “or to receive or transfer certificates of shares of stock or annuities, or to let, lease, dispose of, alien, or convey any goods, chattels, lands, or tenements, or other estate, real or personal, or falsifies the
acknowledgment of any notary public, or any notary public who issues an acknowledgment knowing it to be false; or any matter described in subdivision (b).”
It is a tedious read, but it alludes that (continued next)
Randy Frodsham
11:49 AM, 1/15/2012
(continuation) “FORGERY is committed when the person signing the document does so for their own PERSONAL benefit. Very few, if any, robo-signers actually gain PERSONALLY from their actions beyond their employer being willing to retain them as employees. If you don’t robo-sign as instructed, then, as the Donald would say, “YOU’RE FIRED” (in this economy).
Randy Frodsham
11:54 AM, 1/15/2012
Professor backs state
“Because the surrogate signers were signing the documents as part of their jobs, and presumably believed that they had the authority to sign, they could not have committed fraud,” said Nova Southeastern Law professor Robert Jarvis. “Moreover, in most loan documents, the borrower expressly agrees that the bank, or the bank’s representatives, can take all steps necessary to protect its interest. This would include signing documents.”
Because the surrogate signers were signing the documents as part of their jobs, and presumably believed that they had the authority to sign, they could not have committed fraud,
Correct. Their bosses who knew what was going on should go to jail.
“Moreover, in most loan documents, the borrower expressly agrees that the bank, or the bank’s representatives, can take all steps necessary to protect its interest. This would include signing documents.”
Incorrect. They seem to think the phrase “all steps necessary to protect its interest” allows them to do anything they want. It doesn’t. Can they break into the house and hold the FBs hostage? Why not? The contract says “all steps necessary to protect its interest”.
Depends on the details of the fraud statute and/or common law interpretations in that jurisdiction. It is not at all uncommon (in business and government) for people who are authorized to sign a paper on another person’s behalf. Usually you would sigh it as “Polly Lawyer for Joe Bigshot” so that it is clear that the paper was signed by an underling who is authorized to sign for that person, but not always.
But a company can’t always just decide that it is authorizing underlings to sign for people at a certain level. If the statute requires that something has to be signed by a person at the VP level at a bank (you wondered why you can’t swing a cat in a bank without hitting a VP?) then it might not allow for underlings to do it.
A lot of the time when a statute really requires the actual person to sign something, it requires a notarized signature. A notary can’t seal that X signed something unless X actually signs it. But a state that wanted to make the signature of actual person X required could do it without requiring a notarized signature, it is just a very common way to make sure you are getting it.
Does that help?
Realtors Are Liars®
From Politico: Koch-backed group makes Solyndra ad buy
“Americans for Prosperity is going up with a $5 million ad buy against President Barack Obama on Solyndra.
The conservative group connected to the Koch brother oil magnates will spend $5 million for network and cable TV ads running Monday through the Jan. 24 State of the Union in critical swing states Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.
AFP also is paying more than $1 million for social media sites to display the ads, which begin: “We all know about Solyndra. The White House emails. The FBI raids.”
This will be the second major commercial attack for AFP tied to Solyndra, and Phillips said more are coming as the election calendar unfolds. “The president is going to continue this class warfare politics of envy message. Frankly, we wanted to remind citizens across the country that his record is very different,” he said. “It’s abusing taxpayer dollars to take care of his big donors, the guys who gave to his campaign.”
The Koch brothers are big enough that I expect Obama to go after them personally. There is all kinds of crap on these criminals.
They got out of MF Global right before the crash on insider tips.
They manipulate energy makets and strip wealth from citizens.
They buy off our politicians. In my state they got the University to sell off it’s power generating assets for pennies on the dollar in behind closed doors no bid deals. They got the state to change the rules on wind energy making 80% of the planned projects no longer economical.
The solyndria thing was a failure, but we should contrast it with how much support China and Europe give their solar industries and if we don’t compete or close our markets they will take all the technology and manufacturing capacity.
“The Koch brothers are big enough that I expect Obama to go after them personally.”
Dear God,
Please, please, please do whatever you can to make measton’s prediction come to pass. These brothers of another mother are a menace to all good Americans.
Sincerely,
(TryNotTo) GetStucco
These brothers of another mother
Lucifer?
This is really disappointing. All of those incidents along with all the $ that’s disappeared in two wars and tax cuts will be lost, in favor of this, on a lot of people….sigh….
Special place in hell for people like this. My mother during the early stages of Alzheimer’s paid the same bill fifteen times to the local heating oil company. The company put the nearly seven thousand dollars “on account”.
CHICAGO, Jan. 10 (UPI) — A judge has been asked to jail the head of a Chicago non-profit for failing to reimburse a disabled employee he is accused of exploiting financially.
CEO Robert Wharton of the Community and Economic Development Association of Cook County was suspected of taking more than $60,000 in loans from his secretary, Dorothy Hork, who was suffering from dementia, the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday.
Public Guardian Robert Harris charged in a court filing that Wharton got Hork to write him dozens of checks.
In a 2011 settlement, Wharton agreed to replay $78,000 to Hork but records show he subsequently defaulted on the agreement
Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/01/10/Judge-could-jail-Chicago-non-profit-head/UPI-27661326210650/#ixzz1jXLURpEU
Wouldn’t it be just great if this same sort of action could be taken against those who committed the same sort criminality on an EXPONENTIALLY greater scale.
Crazy talk, I know.
ROMNEY 2012!
I read an article yesterday about how Evangs and Fundies are already beginning to mobilize against Romney, to keep him from winning the nomination. The good news for Romney is that the Fundy vote is split between multiple candidates. The bad news is that they won’t vote for him if he does win the nomination.
Unless Ron Paul pulls of a miracle Obama will be reelected.
The bad news is that they won’t vote for him if he does win the nomination.
What if he gets a Santorum-type to run as his VP? (Which I assume he will.)
Or a Palin type?
A Palin type is more likely. If he wants to placate the fundamentalists, it’s better to choose a fundamentalist than a Catholic.
Huntsman?
Like Romney is going to go after criminals? Please…
Public utilities, biggest scam going.
Pacific Gas and Electric Co. diverted more than $100 million in gas safety and operations money collected from customers over a 15-year period and spent it for other purposes,
The audit was unable to trace exactly how PG&E spent the diverted money. But in a separate report on the San Bruno explosion released Thursday, the utilities commission staff noted that in the three years leading up to the San Bruno explosion, the company spent $56 million annually on an incentive plan for executives and “non-employee directors,” including stock awards, performance shares and deferred compensation.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/12/BAUS1MOSUC.DTL#ixzz1jXRLvf00
No kidding huh? I see the British owned National Grid is coming to your area. (Was it on the Cape?) Wait till you see how that’s gonna go.
When people start cutting back because their bills are too high they start charging a surcharge because they’re not making enough money. Of course, the legal authorities supervising our utilitiy companies see no problem in any of this.
…and yet people won’t self power their houses.
Morons.
Here’s a giant shout out to my 49ers! Best football game I have seen in quite some time.
I didn’t even watch the Denver/NE game. I strongly suspected Brady & Co. would slaughter the Broncos. Tebow, imo, possesses leadership skills and by all accounts is a fine upstanding young man. But as a quarterback he will be merely a footnote in NFL history.
All imo, of course.
Best football game I have seen in quite some time.
Sometimes all you need are two minutes; amazing comeback!
From the AP - Perry: Marines in video are ‘kids,’ not criminals
“GOP presidential hopeful Rick Perry is accusing the Obama administration of “over-the-top rhetoric” and “disdain for the military” in its condemnation of a video that purportedly shows Marines urinating on dead bodies in Afghanistan.
Perry tells CNN’s “State of the Union” that he thinks the Marines involved should be reprimanded, but not pursued with criminal charges.
Perry said “18, 19-year-old kids make stupid mistakes all too often and that’s what’s occurred here.”
At least he has the guts to speak out. This one’s going to be divisive. As a presidential candidate I imagine many will stay mum.
Perry speaking out about this incident seems out of line. It is a matter for the State Department to deal with, not out-of-the-running presidential candidates who cannot remember more than two federal agency names.
He’s pandering to the “kick butt” crowd, the ones who believe that our military can do no wrong.
Yeah, part of me wanted to take back what I’d written above because I do find the whole incident so inflammatory and distasteful. I do stand by my post below though that our own culture sends kids some pretty extrememly mixed messages and lately I think they get more of the negative messages than they do positive.
Do you remember the video where soldiers were naked and pouring whisky down one’s a**crack while another was down below them and it was pouring into their mouth? Yeah, doesn’t sound so much like fine young judeo-christian (or even upstanding muslim or budhist) principles to me.
Personally I’d love to throw the book at those soldier involved. But were they even taught how reprehensible that behavior is? Truly I can’t be sure anymore.
Am I the only one who finds it odd how much the act of urinating on the corpses has provoked outrage, as opposed to, you know, the actually killing them part?
I think that’s known as “rubbing salt into the wound.”
Do you remember the video where soldiers were naked and pouring whisky down one’s a**crack while another was down below them and it was pouring into their mouth?
Happily, no. I must have been lucky enough to have missed that one.
“Desecration, how does it work?”
I can’t believe people are seriously asking why this is wrong.
Wait… yes I can.
Happily, no. I must have been lucky enough to have missed that one.
Me too, but unfortunately now I have that image in my head. 8-P
18 year old retarded kids get the death penalty in Texas.
18 year old retarded kids get the death penalty in Texas.
That’s because they don’t pay taxes.
If an 18 y/o retarded kid murders an innocent person, I’d fry ‘em like the Sunday sausage.
Would you also fry a 6 year old for murder?
Sorry, Perry, but when “stupid mistakes” violate standing orders and well-understood Geneva Convention rules about violating the dead, and incite lethal rage against America and American troops, they are deserving of punishment severe enough to dissuade any other Code of Conduct-flouting knuckleheads with bad ideas and a nearby camcorder.
Urinate on Politicians, not soldiers.
Come on people.
violate standing orders and well-understood Geneva Convention rules about violating the dead
+1. Deciding to ignore something that I’m sure they are more than adequately trained on, as well as violate such basic decency makes me think they trained these “kids” a bit too well and turned them into something scary.
“… violate basic decency…”
On a battlefield?
Decency - basic or otherwise - becomes a bit scarce when there is a war going on all around you. Same with sanity.
Which is why we enforce military discipline and order.
And it is also why so many that have experience combat end up screwed up for the rest of their lives.
Obama has a lot of nerve, he being the Commander-in-Chief and pissing on every citizen of the United States.
Back before we turned 21 year old sergeants loose in Iraq and Afghanistan, we used to have senior NCOs who acted as the “adult supervision”, and who enforced military discipline.
Of course, that was back in the day when there was the real potential for becoming a casualty, or captured, if you were in the infantry.
Desecration of corpses aside, the fact that these morons are being allowed to take camera/smartphones in the field is not a sign of military intelligence.
I for one, would not want to be captured, carrying a camera with video of me and my buddies pissing on/violating enemy corpses. And these were reportedly USMC “Scout-Snipers”, their “best of the best”.
There is such a thing as “civilized war”. It doesn’t happen when you leave 18 year olds alone and let them make up their own rules.
The good news, if you are an 18 year old murderer, is that you now have a free pass to desecrate corpses in Texas.
http://news.yahoo.com/soldier-faces-hearing-afghan-over-suicide-071151504.html
I’m thinking most of the solid NCOs and soldiers got sick of the PC chickenshit and endless deployments and bailed. Now it’s starting to sound like “Lord of the Flies” at some of those isolated outposts. Stories like this - about a Chinese-American soldier bullied by his “brothers in arms” until he took his own life - make me sick. This is not what our military is supposed to be about.
violate such basic decency
Last night I watched a skit where Daniel Radcliff and the SNL bunch talked about staring at the computer screen watching a penis go in and out of someone’s butt. There was dialog in a new show where a waitress character remarked the person’s comment made her vagina go dry. There have been references to golden showers in more than a few shows I’ve watched. These shows are the new season hits. They’re evidently fully embraced.
So a few weeks of training is supposed to reverse every ubiquitous reference they see around them since they were little? That’s laughable. We’re the adults. And we’ve blessed lack of decency by accepting it wholeheartedly. You can’t have it both ways.
You can’t tell kids how cool it is to objectify others and then wonder why they make inappropriate choices. I’m sorry Prime. When you reference the world kids grow up in today, this behavior doesn’t surprise me at all.
I’m not sure I see the connection between risque lines on television and choosing to desecrate corpses…
You don’t? I’m literally astonished.
You need to spend a week or two in an elementary school, Prime. You’d change your mind very quickly.
I’ve witnessed second and third graders dry-humping chairs and each other in nearby schools. One girl was laying on the ground spread-eagled and asked boys to kiss her. One of these student’s favorite televison shows is Jersey Shore, according to the teacher.
I’ve talked to fourth graders (my own students) who can’t wait to get pregnant so they can be on MTV.
I’ve had parent teacher conferences where parents walk in reeking of alcohol and cigarettes, where parents strut down hallways dressed in drag (literally), where parents have teardrops tattooed on their faces for murdering people in prison.
These behaviors are not okay. The prevalence of them on television says otherwise. That blue- and white-collar crooks aren’t punished doesn’t help.
Television has contributed much to the destruction of today’s society. Ask any teacher and most will immediately and vociferously agree. Those that don’t work in high income neighborhoods.
If talking about sex makes you want to piss on a corpse, you just might be a necrophiliac.
More likely it’s just that especially in a war zone not much is sacred anymore.
Especially easy to picture w/kids that grew up in environments devoid of structure or boundaries.
It might very well. So might watching porn DVDs that Mom and Dad left on the living room table prior. (It also may encourage them to draw highly accurate organ-in-my-classmates’ mother’s mouth and “in-the-act” sexual scenarios on construction paper and on clipboards during 3rd period art class - but, hey, I digress.)
Or, it might not. Talking about sex may have mothing to do with pissing on a corpse.
Which leads directly to the point. Kids don’t subscribe to moral relativism. In their minds, if one bad behavior is okay, then all others (regardless of type) are also.
Often, their line of thinking makes more sense than that exhibited by today’s “nuanced” adult, who thinks it’s fine to commit adultery and theft, but that it’s criminal to piss on a dead enemy combatant.
I recall reading somewhere that about half of all couples rely on porn to “get into the mood”.
Kids don’t subscribe to moral relativism. In their minds, if one bad behavior is okay, then all others (regardless of type) are also.
The Boomer ethos of “whatever benefits me is moral” has contaminated society at large. A culture of lies and deceipt to get ahead at the expense of someone else, and absence of honor, integrity, or values, is the natural outcome.
Bullcrap “the boomers.”
“Whatever benefits me is moral” is the corporate credo, and the corps OWN this nation.
You need to spend a week or two in an elementary school, Prime. You’d change your mind very quickly.
Ok, Poser, your post did succeed in disturbing me.
I think I’m officially sheltered.
War? What War? Has one been declared that I’m unaware of?
As for the Golden Shower Platoon, the bigger issue is what the hell are we even over there for?
SV thinks it’s about Petro-Dollar hegemony.
“… the bigger issue is what the hell are we even over there for?”
Er, to get Ossma Bin Ladin?
If peeing on a few dead guys was the worst atrocity committed in this stupid war, then it might be a big deal. Shut the f*ck up, Obama and get back to lying to people’s faces.
“Er, to get Ossma Bin Ladin?”
Combo, please tell me you’re joking.
Thanks, Liz. My sentiments exactly.
We’ve more pressing matters than whether a few soldiers broke Geneva criminal code 3958545296283. We don’t give a sh*t about other criminal codes, so why care about this one? Because it serves our political beliefs? Because we’re anti-military?
Perhaps if societal leaders and government actually gave a damn about morals and ethics, there wouldn’t be innumerable crimimal codes to ignore and soldiers pissing on corpses.
I’m so sick of moral relativism. Really tired of it. Fifty years of behavioral “feel good” nuance/culture wars/whatever you want to call it - has resulted in where we are today.
Congratulations to all.
“Combo, please tell me you’re joking.”
Just a wee bit. The part that is not a joke is the opportunity for us to withdraw from the field under a banner that said “Mission Accomplished”.
This incident will haunt future generations of American soldiers, due to legitimizing such behavior in the eyes of our enemies.
Remember, they hate us for our rock-n-roll and our “freedom”.
We’re pissing on them there so they won’t piss on us here!
^That made me laugh. Out loud.
We’re pissing on them there so they won’t piss on us here!
+ SQRT(1^1000,000,000)
That’s hilarious.
I just want to say that this has probably happened in every war that has ever occurred on this planet. I don’t know that for sure, but I think it’s a pretty safe guess. Yes, it violates the Geneva Convention and yes people should be punished, but the only thing new is that there was a camera present AND somebody went public with the photos, which of course is orders of magnitude easier to do now than it used to be not so long ago.
We’re pissing on them there so they won’t piss on us here!
LOL!!!! OMG that was good, SV guy!
Baloney.
For heaven’s sake, Poser. Eat some prunes already….
come on guys dont you know any rednecks in trailer parks?
its just a cowboy pissssing contest, not desecration. the bodies were just in the way.
its just a cowboy pissssing contest, not desecration.
As in who made the best parabola?
Around here we’re partial to writing our names.
So you can shoot them, stab them, blow them apart, set them on fire, snap their necks, break their bones with no problems. But if you piss on the corpse, that’s beyond the pale. Right. This incident has elements of a “tempest in a teacup.” I just watched a video on LiveLeak of Afghan government forces desecrating bodies. They do it right by stabbing them, dismembering them, and crushing the skulls. All on video. So, I don’t think images of US snipers urinating on Taliban bodies is going to upset them terribly.
This will not irritate the anti-Taliban forces. Is it going to make the Taliban forces fight harder or more angry? I think our military campaign already peeves them mightily.
I do appreciate that we are in a propaganda war too. But if we’re hoping for propaganda to win this war, we’re already toast. The focus should be on making the Taliban forces combat ineffective. Assassinations and drone strikes are excellent at this, by absolutely minimizing collateral damage.
I think that the troops must be explicitly schooled in the fact that we’re waging a propaganda campaign here as well.
This incident has elements of a “tempest in a teacup.”
Yes it does. I think this is smaller than Abu Graib(?) by a fairly wide margin. It would be preferable that it hadn’t happened, but that’s war.
That any U.S. president can issue invasion of other countries without Congressional approval is an even bigger story.
We haven’t declared war via Congress since December 1941.
Constitution? What Constitution?
You must be talking about Libya.
For both Iraq and Afghanistan, Prez Bush DID get congressional (and UN) approval. In fact – with many of your favorite democrats voting “yes”
That any U.S. president can issue invasion of other countries without Congressional approval is an even bigger story.
The constitution says only congress can declare war, nothing about giving approval. It’s a lower hurdle. IIRC, the last war to be declared was WWII.
One interesting thing about this is that congress could declare a state of war exists. It was never contemplated that the US would have wars of choice.
Who’s says irony is dead?
I’m really saddened that some of you don’t understand why desecration of a corpse is bad thing.
Saddened and amazed.
Well, not too much.
Hope you all enjoy coming 4 Horsemen. The funny part is you’ll wonder why it happened.
I understand why it’s a bad thing. I’d just say on the continuum of everything that happens in war, it’s not as horrific as the media is trying to make it out to be. There are other much worse things to focus on.
I’d just say on the continuum of everything that happens in war, it’s not as horrific as the media is trying to make it out to be. There are other much worse things to focus on.
Some bad things in war are necessary, or unavoidable.
Desecrating a corpse should always be avoidable.
Young men do stupid stuff when unsupervised. Punish them, solve the supervision issue, and move on.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=200506
Romney and (corporate asset stripper) Bain: Fair Criticisms?
You do know that Bain owns Clear Channel, right?
Maybe you’ve heard of Clear Channel?
Meanwhile….
http://www.debka.com/article/21652/
http://www.cnbc.com/id/45977098
Fed “considering” another round of “Quantitative easing,” aka printing off a trillion more Bernanke Bucks to allow its Primary Dealer bankster accomplices to engage in a new orgy of speculative excesses and pay themselves obscene bonuses while deferring the financial reckoning day for their hubris, greed, and malinvestment.
Stay limber, Obama and Hollow Man GOP candidate supporters. You’re going to be grabbing your ankles along with the rest of us.
I’m sure that whoever sits in the WH will be compensated for any losses stemming from inflation
It’s a great time to have access to scarce cash borrowed at discriminatory (below market) interest rates only available to select too-big-to-fail institutions, in order to participate in asset market fire sales at the end of a brutal recession.
Even the little guy is going to get his share of the treasure, haven’t you heard?
“at the end of a brutal recession”
There’s an end?
There always is for the 1%s.
Until they create the next one.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/14/us-hungary-farright-demo-idUSTRE80D0PM20120114
The pre-WWII parallels between depression-wracked Europe in the 1930s and today are becoming increasingly obvious, and disturbing.
Masters of Finance = War profiteers
Again, it’s been 80 years since 1932-1933.
There are a few and perhaps several massive, (truly) unpredictable reversals coming within a decade.
Perhaps a near total loss of social and economic freedom for individuals as thorough debasement of morals and ethics suddenly “justifies” strongarm tactics.
Monetary/fiscal destruction will hardly be our only problem.
Anyone catch SNL last night? There were several quips about Ron Paul being crazy essentially reinforcing the idea he wasn’t a serious candidate. To the SNL writers I say, Et tu Brute’?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geQnTX6y07Y
CNN reporter Dana Bush got an earful from Ron Paul supporters who didn’t appreciate her blatant Ministry of Truth shilling against RP.
Can anyone who “gets it” kindly explain why ongoing and well-known eurozone debt crisis issues are still hammering U.S. stocks? I thought national stock markets were decoupled.
Casual observation: Fear, not irrational exuberance, seems to be driving the U.S. stock market so far in 2012.
JANUARY 13, 2012, 10:49 A.M. ET
GLOBAL MARKETS: European Stocks Slump On S&P Credit Downgrade Fears
–Stocks slump on reports of S&P downgrades
–Sources say the ratings firm could downgrade several nations
–The euro tumbles on the reports; peripheral bond yields rise
–JPMorgan’s fourth-quarter earnings add to the weakness
By Ishaq Siddiqi
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
LONDON (Dow Jones)–European stock markets erased gains to slump Friday amid fears of an imminent credit downgrade of several euro-zone countries, adding to disappointing results from U.S. banking giant J.P. Morgan Chase.
Friday’s afternoon losses came after the Standard & Poor’s ratings agency notified European governments that it is about to announce the downgrades in the credit ratings of France and a number of European governments as early as Friday, according to people familiar with the matter.
S&P declined to comment on the possibility of an imminent announcement on euro-zone credit ratings. However, European stock markets tumbled on the reports, and by 1533 GMT the benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 index was down 0.8% at 247.41. Nationally, London’s FTSE 100 lost 1.2% to 5601.39, Frankfurt’s DAX was down 1.5% at 6087.68 and Paris’s CAC-40 was 1.1% lower at 3166.32.
At the same time, the euro tumbled to a 16-month low against the dollar. The common currency dropped as low as $1.2647, from $1.2814 late Thursday. It was most recently trading at $1.2651.
In December, S&P placed 15 of the 17 euro-zone countries on watch for possible downgrade, citing new systemic stresses that are pressuring the euro zone’s credit standing as a whole.
Investors have been on edge for weeks wondering when downgrades might be announced, particularly for France. Crucially, a downgrade for France and other euro-zone countries will mean that the European Financial Stability Facility will lose its AAA rating, said Markit.
“This will raise its cost of funding and reduce its lending capacity; essentially, it will place its viability in serious doubt. Not to mention the forced selling of government bonds as a result of France losing its AAA status,” Markit added.
…
Once you correctly assume, imo, that control of all normal economic forces has been assumed by the DeathStar (FED), a clearer image begins to unfold.
Too many examples to list.
This book sounds really interesting. But I wonder how well the rocket-science financiers account for the influence of too-big-to-fail bailout policy on asset prices? If financiers know central bankers will step up to make them whole on their foolish gambles, the stochastic process driving asset values may no longer be a random walk, but rather more of a Poisson jump process. The jump occurs at the point of systemic collapse, when too-big-has failed instantaneously supplants too-big-to-fail.
Just thinking here while typing…
Setting a price on the future
The mathematics of markets
The formula that changed finance
Jan 14th 2012 | from the print edition
Pricing the Future: Finance, Physics, and the 300-Year Journey to the Black-Scholes Equation. By George Szpiro. Basic Books; 298 pages; $28 and £18.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk
OPTIONS and futures are almost as old as trade itself. From the farmer who sold his crop before the harvest to the merchant who bought at a set price in the future, the forerunners of today’s markets can be traced to ancient Greece and Rome. Yet for centuries these markets remained stunted because of a simple question of valuation. What is the right to buy next year’s olive crop worth? Answering this question took centuries of study of physics, botany and mathematics. When solved, it changed finance for ever.
The tale includes a fascinating succession of people who tried doggedly to master probability and markets. It is engagingly told by George Szpiro, a mathematician- turned-journalist, who flits between biographies and formulae. He begins with the futures and options markets of the tulip bubble of the 1630s. He looks at Napoleon’s attempt to regulate trading with a modern-sounding ban on futures contracts and short sales. And he explores those whom history has forgotten, such as Jules Regnault, a self-taught broker’s assistant who started working on the Paris Bourse in 1862. After seeing how share prices changed over time, he wrote a book on the subject and made a fortune trading shares. Regnault’s writings have been largely forgotten, but his work foreshadowed modern financial theory.
…
Wall Street analysis
In need of therapy
Exile on Wall Street: One Analyst’s Fight to Save the Big Banks from Themselves. By Mike Mayo. Wiley; 208 pages; $29.95 and £19.99. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk MIKE MAYO likes to ask blunt questions about issues that no one else will touch.
The violin dealers (the ones with $20,000+ Italian instruments to sell) keep telling me you cannot replicate the sound of a Strad in a modern violin. But it seems like a no-brainer that modern manufacturing technology will soon catch up to the old Italian masters.
Technology
Print me a Stradivarius
How a new manufacturing technology will change the world
Feb 10th 2011 | from the print edition
THE industrial revolution of the late 18th century made possible the mass production of goods, thereby creating economies of scale which changed the economy—and society—in ways that nobody could have imagined at the time. Now a new manufacturing technology has emerged which does the opposite. Three-dimensional printing makes it as cheap to create single items as it is to produce thousands and thus undermines economies of scale. It may have as profound an impact on the world as the coming of the factory did.
It works like this. First you call up a blueprint on your computer screen and tinker with its shape and colour where necessary. Then you press print. A machine nearby whirrs into life and builds up the object gradually, either by depositing material from a nozzle, or by selectively solidifying a thin layer of plastic or metal dust using tiny drops of glue or a tightly focused beam. Products are thus built up by progressively adding material, one layer at a time: hence the technology’s other name, additive manufacturing. Eventually the object in question—a spare part for your car, a lampshade, a violin—pops out. The beauty of the technology is that it does not need to happen in a factory. Small items can be made by a machine like a desktop printer, in the corner of an office, a shop or even a house; big items—bicycle frames, panels for cars, aircraft parts—need a larger machine, and a bit more space.
At the moment the process is possible only with certain materials (plastics, resins and metals) and with a precision of around a tenth of a millimetre. As with computing in the late 1970s, it is currently the preserve of hobbyists and workers in a few academic and industrial niches. But like computing before it, 3D printing is spreading fast as the technology improves and costs fall. A basic 3D printer, also known as a fabricator or “fabber”, now costs less than a laser printer did in 1985.
…
Meanwhile the genuine things sells for millions.
Selling a 300 Year Old Cello, NYT, 13 Jan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/magazine/bernard-greenhouse-cello.html?scp=1&sq=stradivari&st=cse
Isn’t one of the theories that the Strads sound comes from the specifics of the wood he was using (combined with other things)? Something about low precipitation making the tree growth rings close together and impacting the sound? Anyway, you aren’t going to get that from plastic or metal/glue combinations.
That was my thought as well.
“Fabbing” will give us quick and easy access to mediocre junk.
Personal fabbing and local fabbing stores will destroy China.
It will be like the desktop publishing explosion of the 80’s.
Recycling will become something everyone does as old items are fed back into the machine.
Large retail stores will disappear.
IP lawyers will flourish.
Yeah. I’m thinking that this technology is absolutely perfect for bobble head dolls and tupperware.
3D Printing Now Lets Us Manufacture Blood Vessels, Organs, Food
Have you heard how amazing 3D printing is? It’s a little hard to wrap your head around, at first. One might assume that 3D printing refers to printing images on three-dimensional objects instead of two-dimensional surfaces. In fact–and the reason scientists, designers and futurists are so excited about 3D printing–the new technology allows us to print actual objects. Until recently, 3D printers were slow, expensive and somewhat limited to replicating simple objects, but advances announced this week extend the possibilities of 3D printing well into the realm of science fiction.
The basics: 3D printing works by stacking differently shaped layers of matter on top of each other to create the desired object. (It’s not wildly different than a robot building a brick house using a pre-programmed digital blue print.) The thinner the layers, the more complex the objects can be. Using high powered lasers, new advancements allow scientists to work on a molecular level, and the results are stunning.
Blood Vessels
News emerged Friday morning that German researchers had perfected a method for printing human blood vessels, a key advancement in the development of artificial tissue. Though scientists have engineered biological materials successfully in the past using 3D printing technology, the new technique allows for a level of microscopic detail and complexity that stands to change everything from medicine to manufacturing. Capillaries specifically will help improve the likelihood of transplant donors accepting new organs.
Organs
Over the past few years, scientists created a method for custom printing vital organs like kidneys and bladders. The technology has improved dramatically, and this year, scientists successfully printed a heart the size of a quarter that started beating a few minutes after being printed. “Instead of using ink in the inkjet cartridge, we use cells,” Dr. Anthony Atala from Wake Forest explained to the CBC. “All the cells in your body are already pre-programmed. There’s a genetic code within all your cells that drives them to do what they are supposed to do if you place them in the right environment.”
“and this year, scientists successfully printed a heart the size of a quarter that started beating a few minutes after being printed. ”
Jeepers. Can they make a little person? This is the greatest invention since Pringles.
I had an entire mouthful of teeth and a fair amount of jaw tissue 3D designed and robo- “printed” while I watched. One of the four or five coolest things I’ve ever witnessed in my life.
Get ready, it’s gonna be amazing.
A friend of mine, who happens to be a seriously fine violinist, did a demo for me a few months back to compare some nice wood bows (including mine) to his carbon fiber bow. The take-home message: While the carbon fiber bow creates no technical limitations on the many different types of bowings my friend can execute, the wood bows project a readily discernible warmth of tone which the carbon fiber bow cannot match.
But with stuff like tennis rackets and pool cues, graphite seems to work much better than wood. Different materials are better for different things.
But it sounds like the next step is fabricating the material itself- ie making your own close-grained wood. They’re working on the molecular level. If they can make a working miniature heart, or blood vessels, they can make a wooden Strad.
My son’s Mech E lab has one. It is really cool technology, but it’s got some giant leaps to make to beat mass production in cost and materials. I think this technology is probably thanks to the space program, as I saw somthing much more advanced in a ……..
Cantankerous
I am familiar with this technology and agree with it’s potential. For the cost of equipment amortization, raw materials, power, and opportunity cost of capital employed anyone will be able to produce anything they want.
I wonder what China thinks of this American invention.
Funny thing about this printed object - it will be able (already can) to speak, move, and perform functions. Most of the production lost to China was inert. Move importantly the unit will be flawless and made of very strong materials.
RAL - Because I respect your comments I found your “should be ashamed” of prayer dialogue not one of your enjoyable posts.
“I wonder what China thinks of this American invention.”
A great opportunity to cash in on somebody else’s R&D investment in public goods?
(Not all) Realtors Are Liars
Falling prices in the blue chip hood of Georgetown.
Georgetown Home Prices: The Reality,
Wash Post 13 Jan.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/where-we-live/post/georgetown-home-prices–the-reality/2012/01/12/gIQAjnHJwP_blog.html
Fun fact: “The biggest loss was for a house on N Street NW (above), purchased for $2,495,000 in 2007 and sold last year for $1,975,000, 79 percent of the earlier value.”
Anon thinks falling prices coming to a price range and hood near you (Oxide) and anyone esle wanting to buy. Patience.
Million dollar home prices fall and downsizing buyers who would have bought them a few years back go where instead? Buyers who used to be stretched across a few price niches are now competing for homes in the lower niches while loose down payment regulations are still allowing the intro buyer who 20 years ago would only look at under 1500 sq footers to also be competing with all the rest of us. Prices at both ends of the price spectrum are giving up the ghost but while credit’s flying there’s still a few battlefields in between. These 3x median income size homes aren’t even being built even though this is the niche where the need is. I’m still seeing mostly high end homes built in the land of relatively cheap land.
Man, wish I could show the HBB a photo of the Robert Congel home going up. It is a monster and like I said before, it’s just a block away from another McMansion estate of his now up for sale, and 40 minutes away from his Skaneateles lake mega McMansion, one of the largest on the lake. He started building the current mostrosity right after Citibank released funds to restart the Carousel Mall expansion. Those funds had been frozen the past few years w/the courts deciding whether he had met his side of the contract or not.
“Buyers who used to be stretched across a few price niches are now competing for homes in the lower niches”
Yes, but I think the niche will expand as prices fall. Especially since in the past years more trade up places were built.
So in high cost markets (coasts) for example many “$700K” places will become “$500K” and so on down the line. Or if the number of units in the niche does not increase at least the size and quality of the units will increase since the pricing scale will move left much in the same way moving the decimal point left reduces a number (though certainly not in the same proportion.)
Cut me some slack - this is best good news housing story I could find early in the day and pre-coffee.
Didn’t mean to pick on you, Anon. It’s the growly bear reality my husband and I face every day as potential buyers in this still competitive niche. With QEIII on the horizon I fear this year will be another one of watching them all come on higher than we want to pay and then all sold to people who don’t see any problem assuming that mortgage payment and tax burden.
I agree. The article pickings are pretty slim lately. It’s crossed my mind that the cornucopia of info that we used to see on the blog and from MSM sources several years ago during the 2007/8 years may have been some of those short sellers who so richly profited from the crash. I noticed many have moved on now never to be heard from again.
Just decide not enter the market until post election 2012. Then just think about it after that.
That simple.
Meanwhile the genuine artilce sells for millions.
Selling a 300 Year Old Cello, NYT, 13 Jan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/magazine/bernard-greenhouse-cello.html?scp=1&sq=stradivari&st=cse
Big Government? Obama Has 273,000 Fewer Federal Employees Than Reagan
Every single Republican today talks about being a Reagan conservative. This is a conservative that believes in small government, reducing federal spending and ultimately runs a lean and mean government. They talk about this stuff in campaigns, but in practice they failed miserably.
http://www.politicususa.com/en/big-government-obama-reagan
What’s the per capita inflation adjusted cost?
I am in the camp to seriously reduce gov. spending. Within the last year I saw a human interest story in NYT about a florist at the State Department. The story focused on the Christmas decorations in the diplomatic rooms. Florist is a long tenured employeed. Earning ~ $100K plus benefits. Recently the new visitors center openned at the Capitol. The advertised salary for the tour guides? $50K - $70K plus benefits.
How many more (or less) employees does Obama have than Bush V2.0? Clinton? Just curious.
Big Government? Obama Has 273,000 Fewer Federal Employees Than Reagan
Oh please - the same line Clinton gave us.
All of the cuts/downsizing for your comparison are from the cuts of the military.
EVERY other branch of government has grown exponentially.
Including government spending as a percent of GDP.
Stop with the obama “I am a budget cutter” talking points.
FWIW, has any prez ended his term with fewer Federal employees than when he started?
Most of them end their term with a lot fewer volunteers.
“All of the cuts/downsizing for your comparison are from the cuts of the military.”
The article specifically says ‘non-military’ federal employees. You should read it before criticizing it. You might find it a real eye-opener.
Also, why are reductions of military employees not a good thing if you want to reduce the federal workforce?
Obama has about 850,000 more Federal contractors than Reagan. And despite the Cult of Ronnie espoused by the Elmer Gantry’s of the Establishment GOP, Reagan’s bromides about the evils of big government were rhetoric only, for the benefit of yahoos.
Wind-less storm brews over skyrocketing premiums
By Charles Elmore Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Posted: 8:25 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012
Linda Sapp’s reaction to her insurance bill was sticker shock: The annual premium doubled to $4,800, adding hundreds to her monthly mortgage payment.
Her first thought: “There’s no way I can afford my house.”
In Boynton Beach, retiree Thomas Spatafora is on a fixed income and said he has never filed a property claim. But annual premium increases just keep on coming from the state’s insurer of last resort, Citizens.
“How the hell much is enough?” Spatafora said. “They keep increasing the cotton-picking premiums. Are they going to price us out of existence so we can’t afford it?”
The ’storm without wind’
The effort to raise rates comes as about 10 percent of people in Florida and Palm Beach County still can’t find jobs. Meanwhile, 46 percent of South Florida mortgages are underwater, according to zillow.com - meaning people owe more than their homes are worth.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/money/wind-less-storm-brews-over-skyrocketing-premiums-2102585.html - 87k
Is there anything in Florida that isn’t hopelessly screwed up? $5,000 a year for homeowners insurance? I pay $800.
How have those Colorado hurricanes been to you?
Hey, it gets windy here
The real killer out here is hail. It can rip roof tops to shreds. And then of course there is the occasional tornado.
Just another benny of debt slavery.
Her first thought: “There’s no way I can afford my house.”
Her second thought: “Potential buyers can’t afford it either.”
http://www.aljazeera.com/video/europe/2012/01/2012115142513169663.html
Antigovernment protests in Romania against corruption, cronyism, and austerity measures demanded by the IMF and EU. Something tells me Europe is in for a hot summer.
Insurance companies, in FL, are capped on increased premiums. They now increase replacement costs to get their money. A 1970’s 2/2/1 850 sq.ft. can cost a homeowner $1,800/yr., because they estimate replacement @ $ 120,000. In reality, that house can be rebuilt for $ 40,000. Just another scam perpetrated by the bought and paid for Tallahassee republicrats.
This was a reply to Jeff’s article.
And then there’s the float. Insurance companies (along with everyone else that has money stockpiled) used to earn a lot of money off their float. Now they don’t.
So now insurance companies (along with eveyone else that has money stockpiled) have to get their money in some other way.
Didn’t insurance companies like to invest their “reserves” in Real Estate? LOL!
Does anybody remember the “millionaires in the making” portion of the msnbc.com website of 5 years ago whennthey would take some fat couple from Arizona and profile their equity and 401k amounts and protect they could retire at 55? I loved those
I was casually browsing the internets and came across a post about an investment firm buying a block of 75 to a 100 houses in LA, doing a little rehab, then reselling them after some very shoddy clean up. Is this sort of thing gaining any traction?
I’m speculating that the government-owned houses would likely be turned over to contractors who then gussy them up and resell them.
Bill Moyers has a great interview up on his new web site where he interviewed the authors of “Winner-Take-All Politics”, Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson on Engineered Inequality.
Look at the transcript and then check out the video. Hard facts, bad news for the rest of us, the 99.9%. Yes that’s right, 1/10 of 1% have seen the system funnel a astounding 1 out of 8 dollars of the economy to the ultra rich.
http://billmoyers.com/content/chapter-one-of-winner-take-all-politics/
Interesting, thanks!
Just finished watching the clip.
While Bill Moyers, Jacob Hacker and Paul Piersonthey discuss the issue of powerful lobbyists influencing congress they avoid identifying even one of these lobby groups; it’s just too hot unless you can afford to live on savings for the rest of your life.
Sharga’s firm is in the midst of a half billion dollar deal with a major U.S. bank to buy foreclosed properties.
No details on the deal until it closes, but those deals are still rare, despite investor appetite, because the banks would have to take bigger write-downs on the value of those properties than originally thought.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/45974215
BRIC Decade Ends With Record Stock Fund Outflows as Growth Slows
January 04, 2012, 7:07 AM EST
By Michael Patterson and Shiyin Chen
Dec. 28 (Bloomberg) — In the past decade, mutual funds poured almost $70 billion into Brazil, Russia, India and China, stocks more than quadrupled gains in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index and the economies grew four times faster than America’s.
Now Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which coined the term BRICs, says the best is over for the largest emerging markets.
BRIC funds recorded $15 billion of outflows this year as the MSCI BRIC Index sank 23 percent, EPFR Global data show. The gauge, which beat the S&P 500 by 390 percentage points from November 2001 through September 2010, has trailed the measure for five straight quarters, the longest stretch since Goldman Sachs forecast the countries would join the U.S. and Japan as the top economies by 2050.
“In emerging markets, we’re waiting for things to get worse before they get better,” said Michael Shaoul, the chairman of Marketfield Asset Management in New York who predicted in February that developing-nation stocks would fall this year. The $845 million Marketfield Fund has topped 97 percent of peers in 2011, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
BRIC indexes may fall another 20 percent next year, buffeted by the liquidity squeeze stemming from Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, Arjuna Mahendran, the Singapore-based head of Asia investment strategy at HSBC Private Bank, which oversees about $499 billion, said in an interview. Nations such as Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey may overshadow the BRICS in the next five years as they expand from lower levels of growth, he said.
BRICs Slowdown
“The slowdown we’re seeing in the BRICs will continue for most of the first half,” Mahendran said. “Compared to the U.S., corporate profits haven’t been that good as companies face higher wages, higher interest rates and currency volatility, and at best, we’ll only start to see the effects of monetary policy loosening in the second half of 2012.”
…
Fund outflow from BRICs? Seems like a good investing opportunity to throw more money in them!
Dr. Paul explains why governments hate gold. That means Socialists (qua socialists) are consistent to hate gold as well.
http://tinyurl.com/6nvayl8
Wait till hyperinflation springs forth from Zimbabwe Ben’s printing press. Gold will be confiscated a la FDR in coerced exchange for New Dollars.
http://www.testosteronepit.com/home/2012/1/5/greeces-extortion-racket-maxed-out.html
Greece’s extortion racket topped out. Pretty soon kicking that can further down the road is going to be breaking bankster toes.
http://news.yahoo.com/libyan-militias-clash-south-tripoli-203323779.html
The US spent over a billion dollars “supporting” the NATO military campaign to get rid of Gadaffi. Now our “allies” in that conflict are starting to fight over the spoils. Awesome. Darn that Law of Unintended Consequences….
Well, at least obama got congressional approval before he started military action there…oh wait…
http://www.endoftheamericandream.com/archives/bain-capital-owns-clear-channel-rush-limbaugh-sean-hannity-glenn-beck-michael-savage-etc
Relevance? Ol’ Mitt sat on the board and is still a major stockholder.
Damn that librul media!
Which investment class is more certain to lose an investor money: Stocks or real estate?
Stock funds dwindle
Associated Press | Posted: Sunday, January 15, 2012 12:00 am
The stock market ended up going nowhere in 2011 despite a bumpy ride, and investors continued to hit the exits. For the fifth year running, they withdrew more cash from stock mutual funds than they put in.
Bond funds continued to attract new cash. It reflects that investors are risk-averse after the Standard & Poor’s 500 index produced an average annual loss of 1 percent in the last decade, including dividend income. Volatility remains a big fear, with the 2008 financial crisis still a fresh memory.
“People look at stock returns, and see they have been poor for the past decade, and they don’t want to play the game anymore,” says David Santschi, executive vice president with TrimTabs Investment Research.
In 2011, the S&P 500 index ended up almost exactly where it started the year, although it returned 2.1 percent factoring in dividends.
It was a market that investors continued to shun. They withdrew a net $85 billion from U.S. stock funds last year, industry consultant Strategic Insight said on Friday. The string of annual net withdrawals extends to 2007. Over that stretch, investors have removed a net total of $328 billion.
…