The Housing Bubble

limited to 100%

Not true. Go through a messy divorce and the losses (to the ex-spouse on the losing end) can easily exceed 100%.

She is making fun of Pimp’s constantly increasing predictions. The impossible number was deliberate.

“The impossible number was deliberate.”

That’s a very generous assumption.

The impossible number was deliberate.

Speaking of impossible numbers, weren’t we just discussing the possibility of a One Trillion dollar platinum coin to solve the debt ceiling? Sorry, I guess that isn’t impossible, rather improbable and ridiculous…

The impossible number was deliberate.

Yes

“150-200%!…The impossible number was deliberate.”

But not technically impossible.

For instance, suppose you lived in a non-recourse state, and bought a $500,000 home with 10% down ($50,000), borrowing $450,000. Now consider what would happen if the value of the home ended up dropping by $100,000, to $400,000, and you ended up having to go into default at that point, due to losing your job. Assuming your lender was not willing to let you off the hook and came after you with a deficiency judgment, you would be out of your down payment and owe an additional $50,000 — a 200% loss.

Why did you make that tragic error?

Because I’m too old to live in my mother’s basement.

Maybe you should have gotten out of your mothers basement at the appropriate age.

“I thought my ‘potshot’ seemed like a reasonable question:”

Of COURSE you did.

Why get a flu shot when you can take a potshot from slothie?

Needle, needle, deedle-do.

Because he didn’t pay a grossly inflated price.

Don’t be serial liar Alpo.

Because he didn’t pay a grossly inflated price.

So clearly, by your own admission, it’s not unreasonable to buy a house now, because at least some are no longer at a grossly inflated price.

Maybe you should update your sloganeering?

Why are some of our biggest housing bears buying houses now

1. Needed a place to live
2. Rising rents
3. I was getting old waiting for the bubble to completely pop (wanted to buy in 2003)
4. Rents and owning were comparable
5. Buying was 3X income

Would I have wanted it to collapse further? Heck yeah.
Is housing overpriced? Yes!
Did we need a place to live? Yes.
Are rents exorbitant where I live? Yes

1. You could have rented for a fraction of the cost of buying.
2. Rental rates are falling.
3. Your need for instant gratification is a problem for you.
4. This is a falsehood propagated by the math-challenged.
5. Nonsense. You know you paid >5x your income….. and we know it too.

‘So clearly, by your own admission, it’s not unreasonable to buy a house now, because at least some are no longer at a grossly inflated price.’

That’s your misrepresentation.

“I must have forgotten them”

Did you also forget trying to rally the troops for an attack on me? Did you also forget how disappointed you were when you couldn’t make that happen?

I have not forgotten. Oh there was no explanation, it was a list of criteria that I had that was met.

Did you also forget trying to rally the troops for an attack on me? Did you also forget how disappointed you were when you couldn’t make that happen?

Yes. I remember shouting “Follow me lads! Once more into the breach! Get the rascal!” But then you started crying so we felt sorry for you, and called it off.

That’s how I remember it.

It was because you were a pathetic gang of one.

“But then you started crying so we felt sorry for you,”

There was no “we” just you. A sad little alpha who like a child who couldn`t get the other kids in the neighborhood to gang up on someone and standing no chance on their own had to run home to mommy sloth.

Poor Alpo….. get’s another smackdown.

Ooo…kay. Someone’s got some childhood issues here, and it ain’t me.

Maybe a little therapy would help work these issues through, jethro. Who knows? Maybe you’d become a liberal, if you could lose your rage-aholism.

As we all know, you’re truth and integrity challenged Alpo my Real Estate Professional.

He can`t pay the mortgage on his 2004 Mcmansion with ‘debt forgiveness’.

“2004 Mcmansion ”

Wow, he got pwned. No joke. A ’00s McMansion in FL is about the last asset in the world I’d want to own. Almost anything else would be better. I’d even take a trailer in TN over that mess.

(This is not sarcastic)

I’m not sure I’d take an actual trailer in TN… more like, I’d take the money I saved by buying the TN trailer vs. the FL McMansion and use it for something else.

Of course pocketing the money saved would be good*. But think about it, even if you didn’t get money, at least with the trailer you don’t have 200k+ of mortgage debt keeping you stuck in Floriduh.

*Seems doubtful these people put more than 3% down. They might even have done zero down.

Or, looking at it another way, he is geting played by the big, bad bank.

Perhaps it’s a symbiotic relationship?

“Why should the banks foreclose and leave a house empty and subject to house-strippers?”

Assuming the principle balance on the loan was federally guaranteed, why should they give a flying fork about the collateral that nominally backs it up? That’s the taxpayer-owner’s problem…

Why should the banks foreclose and leave a house empty and subject to house-strippers?

Another one added to the lexicon. Housing Strippers.

Strippers who make house calls.

Current story on Boston dot com, “Man arrested for refusing to pay $700 bill at strip club”.

When did strippers get so expensive and when did it become a crime (vs. a civil matter) to default on payment of a service?

“Perhaps it’s a symbiotic relationship?”

Yes! The law may give the banks the right to take the home, but it doesn’t force them to evict, or to sell. Their job is to come up with the most efficient way of keeping the house sellable at some future point. If I were the foreclosee, I would fill that need, no questions asked.

“…$700 bill at strip club.
…
When did strippers get so expensive …”

Since banksters loaded with printing press money started whoremongering?

BREAKING: Bankers Into Prostitutes And Strippers
Joe Weisenthal | Oct. 15, 2009, 6:51 AM | 2,991 | 14

You are just not going to believe this “growing trend.”

Guardian: Kat Banyard of gender-equality pressure group the Fawcett Society told a Treasury select committee hearing into women’s role in the City of London that there was a growing trend in the City to use prostitution to entertain clients.

“We took extensive evidence from individual women who said it was becoming frequent for meetings to be held in lap dance clubs, and I also had women speak to me and say that prostitution was being used in client deals or in ways to generate business – and that all of this culture created a very hostile environment, as you would expect, for female employees of those firms,” she said.

One former City worker who gave evidence to the Fawcett Society said that while working for a top international investment bank in the City, she witnessed a senior manager looking for a brothel to entertain some Russian clients.
…

Withholding information is the hallmark of corruption.

And who else is withholding information? NY realturds. They begin withholding sales and price information in counties where the the inevitable began to occur. And they’re still doing it.

As for searching public records I have other things to do with my time. This blog already burns too much of my time.

I also resemble that remark.

And, lately, I’ve been doing an informal comparison of this blog with Facebook. Although FB’s overall tone is more upbeat and friendlier, I find the level of discourse to be much higher here. You need to back up your arguments with facts and figures. That seldom happens on FB.

You need to back up your arguments with facts and figures. That seldom happens on FB.

Depends on who your friends are. Mine are snopes-using types.

You need to back up your arguments with facts and figures. That seldom happens on FB.

Correct. I’ve asked 3 people on FB directly why their taxes are going up in 2013 (all claimed it was due to O’care) and they’ve either not responded to being called out, or they responded by saying they “don’t actually know” why but that it’s going to hurt. Which proves to me that the majority of folks aren’t longer term thinkers/planners either, if they’re just finding out about it on their first 2013 pay stub.

“I seem to recall that you did talk about people bragging at parties and at checkout lines at the store.”

I will be clean and sober for 25 years at the end of this month so I have not been much of a party goer during the bubble years. The cocktail party thing has been on this blog but I don`t remember from who. The checkout lines at the store were about SNAP (a subject I have dropped).

Anywhere you went from 2004 - 2006 people bragged about their house values going up forever and I personally knew plenty of them.

As for searching public records for the most part they were people who were in the Palm Beach Post with one sob story or another and always leaving out the hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity they had taken from their home before the bubble burst and they were transformed from Donald Trump to victims of the evil banks.

Christmas 1985.

That`s a long time to be a friend of Bill.

Congrats.

But aren’t both of you kinda…rage-aholics?

Isn’t that one of the dangers- transferring your compulsion, rather than dealing with it?

You’re contorting Alpo my Real Estate Professional.

What sort of prices are these renovated houses selling for?

Not sure, but probably $80k to $110k. No HVAC, just baseboard heating and one or two swamp coolers, but most of these fixers are getting dual-pane windows and upgraded insulation. The garage, if there is one, is usually a separate building with alley-only access. Overhead utility wires too.

The new spec-rancher is the way to go, IMHO, but they’re about $140k starting, so you need a job that requires a college degree.

Where are you, rms?

“Where are you, rms?”

Eastern Washington’s Columbia Basin in Ephrata near Moses Lake. It’s an arid hot/cold desert.

Maybe I need a new handle: RMS in WA?

Maybe I need a new handle: RMS in WA?

Or: rms_in_wa?

rms_in_ephrata

Used to go out to that Conagra plant quite a bit.

“…ephrata…”

Most folks have never heard of it. WA…connects the dots.

“Used to go out to that Conagra plant quite a bit.”

Lots of industries out this way due to cheap energy.

What’s the MSFT out there? Server farm? How long’s it been there?

“What’s the MSFT out there? Server farm? How long’s it been there?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/24/technology/data-centers-in-rural-washington-state-gobble-power.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

My guess is that they match….

IT guys log out.

“IT guys log out.”

+1 LOL

No reputable physician will prescribe an antibiotic without specific indication of bacterial risk or underlying infection; the risk of litigation is too high, and the public health consequences are too well-known.

Perhaps these people are buying them unprescribed on the online black market? Perhaps there is an underlying condition that indicates for prophylactic usage? Believe it or not, there IS some communication between public health agencies and the medical community, and the risk of super-bugs is extremely well-publicized.

Reputable physician? Perhaps an oxymoron?

My last two would prescribe or recommend pills prolifically.

Reputable physician? Perhaps an oxymoron?

My last two would prescribe or recommend pills prolifically.

Agreed. That’s why I avoid doctors.

A pleuropneumonia is nothing to sneeze at….

The people I’m talking about seem to get these secondary infections,and the antibiotics to ‘cure’ them, every time they get a sniffle and go to the doctor (which they do every time they get a sniffle).

I also had coworkers like this when I lived in Austin, and a good friend of mine is a chronic antibiotic-for-a-cold type, and he’s currently doing it in Tampa, so it’s not a regional thing.

They classify it as a sinus infection, and give ‘em the antibiotics. All the time.

“The secondary-sinus infection is the usual excuse”

Excuse? Glad you are not calling the shots on my health care buddy. Again, this is what we have to look forward to when low IQ political agitators begin calling the shots on an individual’s private health decisions.

Not sure about the rest of America, but I take antibiotics as little as possible, they have a tendency to wreak havoc on the bacterial culture of a person’s colon…But if I have a culture come back indicating a bacterial infection, I am damn well going to take them vs risk pneumonia or chronic sinusitis.

Antibiotics Ineffective for Most Sinus Infections, Study Finds

Feb. 14, 2012 — Antibiotics that doctors typically prescribe for sinus infections do not reduce symptoms any better than an inactive placebo, according to investigators at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

“Patients don’t get better faster or have fewer symptoms when they get antibiotics,” says Jay F. Piccirillo, MD, professor of otolaryngology and the study’s senior author. “Our results show that antibiotics aren’t necessary for a basic sinus infection — most people get better on their own.”

The study appears Feb. 15 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In the United States as many as one in five antibiotic prescriptions are for sinus infections, the authors point out. And given the rise of bacteria resistant to such drugs, they say it is important to find out whether this treatment is effective. Their results show it is not.

“We feel antibiotics are overused in the primary-care setting,” says Jane M. Garbutt, MD, research associate professor of medicine and the paper’s first author. ”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120214170902.htm

“Antibiotics Ineffective for Most Sinus Infections, Study Finds”

You are way out of your league, you have no idea what you are talking about. You and your statist progressive political agitators continue to obsess on the free markets and try to find ways to limit choice. Please try to mind your own business, the world will be nicer place.

I’m going to expropriate your antibiotics, nick. For the People!

I was given an antibiotic for a really, really bad cold/virus of some kind at the college infirmary my freshman year “just in case” there was also a sinus infection. I most assuredly did not ask for it. Less than 24 hours later I was admitted to the infirmary overnight having suffered two bouts of violent vomiting including one where I barely got out of my 9:00 AM physics lecture hall to be sick in the hallway. Other end of my digestive tract wasn’t too happy with the antibiotic either. I hope the physicians assistant who gave it to me got fired. What a menace.

As a bourbon fan, I’d like to know more. What ratio? The famous 2:1 work in this case, but in reverse?

I would say 2 parts bourbon, one part honey. Then a good squeeze of lemon juice. It should be a little syrupy in consistency.

It’s good when you’re not sick, too. It’s basically a hot toddy, but without the addition of hot water, which weakens the whole effect, IMO.

I’ve been criticized here for saying this, but contributing to a 401k above and beyond your company’s match seems like a bad idea to me*. Of course, as I explained yesterday, most Americans can’t budget and save for themselves, so perhaps 401k’s are somewhat like social security (which I think of as forced savings).

* the company match = free money, which it would be foolish to decline

seems like a bad idea to me

Why do you feel this way? Is it because of the lack of options in a given plan? If so, I must be fortunate because I’ve always had plans that were reasonable in terms of options and cost.

On the other hand, I’m no longer under any illusion that it will be taxed less upon my retirement.

Shoulda kept reading. Sounds like you stated the reasons below…changing tax benefits, means testing, etc.

I’m not a Teabilly or Galt Gulch-er but like you I do not trust the gov’t to look at ways to tap into 401k’s, change the tax benefits, or means-test SS/medicare over the next 3-4 decades. Anything you have in a 401k is documented. Even if a person could realize 3-4% growth* in their 401k for 30 yrs, I would question the advisability.

I trust the Federal Reserve will continue its aggressive policy of tapping into 401k’s, and otherwise debasing the dollar for an indefinite time. No need to do anything else to impoverish savers & future retirees.

I’ve heard a few possible “solutions” to this problem though none of them particularly seriously. The most common is the “opt out” 401(k) which has been around forever and, as you can see, still hasn’t gove anywhere. Plus it doesn’t do anything for people who borrow money against their 401k or do early withdrawals and can never realistically replace the borrowed money AND catch up to where they should have been on their retirements savings.

The most radical idea I have heard recently is a transportable defined benefit pension - you and each company you work for contribute in to it and a pension stream of payments comes out the other end. This is sort of silly as it is very similar to an expansion of social security, though without the disablity insurance portion. If we need to expand SS, then that is what we should do.

There are a few problems with individuals doing their retirement savings. The obvious problem is that a lot of people don’t make enough money to do it well. Another is that employers don’t want to pay anything to do it so the plans are all run by for-profit institutions for their own benefit (not the benefit of the employees using it). The companies don’t do much to protect the employees because, barring a scandal so huge that people refuse to work for them, retired employees aren’t their problem.

There is another issue that is rarely mentioned. If you are part of a large pool (as in a defined benefit plan for a large company) the amount that has to be saved/earned by the plan can use statistical modeling to figure out how much money will be needed. Some people may live to 100, but the overwhelming majority won’t and some will die fairly soon after retirement. They can adjust the amount that has to be in the retirement fund to account for this and the people who are in the plan are protected from running out of money if they live for a long time. If the individuals are responsible for their own savings, well, everyone has to assume they will live to 100 or more or they risk running out of funds. That means the amount saved for retirement will either be much more than was really needed, or a bunch of people are going to run out. Of course, your heirs can get the excess if you save enough to get to 100 and die earlier, but they aren’t responsible if you run out long before you cease to breathe. The taxpayers get to cover that with you ending up in a nursing home funded by Medicaid, or subsidized senior housing with food stamps.

Just another externality like the companies that pay so poorly that their employees all qualify for Medicaid and food stamps.

Joe, anything you have in any account that has your SS number on it is documented. Same thing for a business whether it is separate or you do the taxes on a schedule C (though for a business the exact value is less certain, obviously).

There is no particular reason to suppose that assets that are in a tax advantaged retirement account will be “counted” any more or less than any other account or property in determining future means testing for other programs.

To get Medicaid, you can’t even own a car above a certain value. Though in MA you are allowed to exclude the value of a prepaid funeral.

“They borrow at high interest rates that hurt them, in ways they knew to avoid when there was less scarcity.”

It’s not that the poor don’t think enough about money, or the busy about their time—it’s that they think about it too much. Shafir likes to cite a survey the researchers did at Boston’s South Station. They asked arriving train passengers what the starting fare is on Boston taxis. Rich travelers take more cabs than poor ones, but low-income respondents were much more likely to know what it costs to take a cab, because in thinking about the decision between taking a cab or a bus, a couple of dollars one way or another really matters. This attentiveness ensures that they have enough cash to finish the day, but all of these immediate distractions—deciding whether to buy a muffin or some other minor indulgences; comparison shopping cereal brands; calculating and recalculating expected expenses against a dwindling bank balance—threatens to leave no mental space to consider the bigger picture of managing finances for the long-term.

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/2012/12/new_year_s_resolutions_economists_on_how_to_make_better_ones.html

Which explains why pay day loan stores are now as numerous as fast food joints.

I remember being able to use that as a barometer in the late-80s - early-90s to know when you arrived in a bad neighborhood. Not as accurate these days. Either that, or it’s an accurate indicator of our dive into Lucky Duck/3rd world territory.

And yet, somehow, overpriced housing is still selling. Mad world.

Pay Day Loan Stores proliferate even in the OC, CA. Even in pretty good neighborhoods and especially in sketchy neighborhoods.

Sad, but rates are now under 100%/yr!

Romney paid $3M in one year alone. The unit of measure is dollars not rates.

Not ususual for Greeks who came to the US after WW2–they had been invaded and occupied.
Sounds very much like Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Children of PTSD patients often have a very rough childhood.

Seriously?

I just made that explanation up on the fly, hoping somebody would come along to point out my errors…

Yes, seriously. This has been pointed out by many, many articles. Matt Tabbi at Rolling Stones being the most prolific.

You can google them.

Matt Tabbi is a great writer and is always a step in front of media discovery. I respect and admire the guy.

“This has been pointed out by many, many articles. Matt Tabbi at Rolling Stones being the most prolific.”

Given that I came up with the above explanation off the top of my head, I am quite impressed with both myself and Matt Taibbi.

But I honestly can’t read his stuff any more, even though I am a kindred spirit. It’s too depressing — on par with the experience of attending a showing of Amour over and over again every weekend for a year.

It’s gonna get worse. And then it’s gonna get more worse.

You’ll see

It is worse. We are living it now.

The entire decade of the 1980s was persistent and effective whittling away of both civil and consumer rights that had been gained in the 1960s and 70s.

Which political movement is always the first to jump on the BAN wagon? Why do you think people want independence?

“We’ve had this hard freeze since Friday. And we’re getting seriously grouchy about it.”

Have you wrapped your plants with blankets, and maybe lay a drop light too?

Have you wrapped your plants with blankets, and maybe lay a drop light too?

Too late for that. And, quite honestly, I just got back from a trip to the great outdoors. Some frost damage to leafy plants in the veggie garden. That’s all.

“Too late for that. And, quite honestly, I just got back from a trip to the great outdoors. Some frost damage to leafy plants in the veggie garden. That’s all.”

I rented a small SFH in the Mission San Jose nabe of Fremont, CA for a couple of years. One winter in early February we experienced a bitter cold-snap that killed all but one of the tropical plants Mrs Landlord had planted; I had a large cardboard box in the garage, which I placed over the plant by the front door, and I placed my automotive drop-light in there too.

Drought. And the water tastes like sulphur in a lot of places. And fracking is just going to make it worse.

“A pox on both your houses!”

LOL, the House of Kennedy is already rotting from pox, big time. Chris Lawford’s conversation with his diseased excuse for an uncle was most revealing. Teddy did what he did immigration-wise with malice prepense. A real POS.

Never forgot reading that. I hope he’s roasting in hell.

Christopher Lawford’s “Symptoms of Withdrawal”

At the end he quotes his Uncle Teddy. Christopher, Ted Kennedy and a few family members had gathered one night and were having a drink in Mr. Lawford’s mother’s apartment in Manhattan. Teddy was expansive. If he hadn’t gone into politics he would have been an opera singer, he told them, and visited small Italian villages and had pasta every day for lunch. “Singing at la Scala in front of three thousand people throwing flowers at you. Then going out for dinner and having more pasta.” Everyone was laughing. Then, writes Mr. Lawford, Teddy “took a long, slow gulp of his vodka and tonic, thought for a moment, and changed tack. ‘I’m glad I’m not going to be around when you guys are my age.’ I asked him why, and he said, ‘Because when you guys are my age, the whole thing is going to fall apart.’ “

“Tarara Boomdea”

ROTFLMAO!!!! You just made my day with that handle.

‘Because when you guys are my age, the whole thing is going to fall apart.’

I’ve often wondered about that quote. One could look at it in a different light and surmise that perhaps he could have meant the whole Kennedy thing. Robert Jr seems to be having a bit of a meltdown on JFK conspiracy issue, but it could just be a bid for attention.

It’s almost shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations. Well, may take four or five, but I don’t think anyone’s much impressed with the Kennedy name these days, except maybe themselves and their sycophant camp followers.

J. F. Kennedy’s frothing anti-communist rhetoric and utter willingness to sacrifice democratic principles in pursuit of Daddy-Joe’s fascist vision (and little brother “Bobby”’s glib morality) damn near brought our country to nuclear extinction. Apologist Teddy Sorensen’s constant puff pieces in the popular press didn’t help much, either.

At least the CIA got to them before they blew up the planet.

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/08/reit-tax.asp#axzz2I4MdBup8

This goes into it pretty well.

Thanks for the info. I wonder how much of the entire US market is classified as REIT owned/controlled? There are quite a few varieties so I’m sure some will be affected by changes in the tax code more than others. I have always considered REITs as sort of a tax shelter in the way they juggled assets, capital and dividends.

From a single-family-housing perspective, REITs own very close to 0% of the market. That particular flavor of REIT is in its infancy.

In terms of the rest of real estate (apartments, office, industrial, retail), I’m willing to wager that the vast majority of real estate is held privately (non-REIT). Big assets (major malls, etc.), are likely to be held by REITs or other institutions, but smaller assets (which is most of the market) are most likely to be held by smaller partnerships.

Take one of (if not “the”) largest industrial REIT in the world, Prologis. They own $26.5B of real estate…WORLDWIDE. Candidly, while that’s a HUGE number, it’s not a large percentage of the total supply of industrial space in the world.

The biggest “tax shelter” that REITs enjoy is depreciation. And in that regard, I can see things like “component depreciation” come under fire (which allows different components of buildings to be depreciated over more specific useful lives–very handy for things like lab space, where lots of the interior improvements are expensive, with useful lives of less than 39 years). Other than that, I generally view REITs as a way to own recurring and generally growing cash flow that reacts well to inflation.

The REITs that I have stayed away from entirely are mortgage REITs…they have HUGE dividends, but don’t own real property, they are leveraged owners of mortgages…if their cost of borrowing goes up too fast, their dividends could get hurt quickly…I’m not sure how well they would react to inflation.

SFHs are a nightmare when it comes to scale. Unless you can buy entire subdivisions at a time, I think the mass ownership of SFHs is going to be looked at as a mistake a generation from now.

Has anyone seen the Penn & Teller “Bulls**t” show episode about lawns? There are some priceless moments where they follow a man whose job is to enforce HOA policies concerning landscaping upkeep. (it’s available on youtube if you want to watch it, just search “penn teller lawn bullsh**” and fill in the **’s)

SFHs are a nightmare when it comes to scale. Unless you can buy entire subdivisions at a time, I think the mass ownership of SFHs is going to be looked at as a mistake a generation from now.

David Dayen, formerly of Firedoglake, has a similar view. Here’s his article on this topic.

SFHs are a nightmare when it comes to scale

I don’t know. If you’re big enough to have your own full time crew of plumber, carpenter, electrician, HVAC, landscape guys, then you’ll save a lot of money by not having contract such stuff out.

I knew a guy like that, he was a very successful RE investor, but the real key was that he ’sold’ his houses as rent-to-own. It was your house when it came time to fix something, but if you quit paying him, you were out and he took the house back. He used his crew to fix up the houses he repo-ed, and the houses he bought to continue his enterprise.

Meant to add that I think his rent-to-own model could be the model for the large RE buyers. It works especially well when it’s harder for people to get mortgages.

I want to see how Elizabeth Warren does when she first gets a chance. I really, really want to see that. Might never happen, but I can still dream….

Anyone the teabillies don’t like is labeled a “progressive” (whatever that means…).

“Liberal” has been successfully trashed, so the liberals are turning to the word “progressive.” And so conservatives are trying to destroy that word too.

I don’t know if Progressive will survive the barrage that killed Liberal. I suspect it will. There weren’t many strong liberals to bolster the name, but Progressive still leans on the Rock of Roosevelt.

Obama isn’t communist/socialist either, but that hasn’t stopped brain dead teabillies for 5 years now…

Interesting. What would we label someone who raised taxes on the wealthiest Americans and then proceeded to raise taxes on the rest of us via the expiration of the Payroll Tax Cut, ostensibly to fund an “entitlement for the masses”, Social Security?

What would we label someone who champions the Affordable Care Act, aptly nicknamed “Obamacare”, the likes of which forced healthcare corporations to ignore the basic premise of actuaries whereby health insurance must now accept everyone who applies and must not charge rates higher for those who are sickest, essentially forcing the healthiest of us to subsidize the sickest while increasing premiums for all dramatically?

What would we label someone who champions taking away the rights of individuals for the “good of society”… with the likes of another assault weapons ban?

The man is much closer to a socialist than any other term currently in favor.

“Liberal” has been successfully trashed, so the liberals are turning to the word “progressive.” And so conservatives are trying to destroy that word too.

Of course they try, but how do they succeed? How did they get any credibility with the middle?

I thought the new buzz-label was Statist. That one sure popped up here in full force a few weeks back. I’m left wondering which AM radio host “coincidentally” changed his nomenclature recently?

Sleepless,

You were here in 07 when we were discussing statism and statist power structures, etc. It’s nothing new.

As I recall, some dude named Bluprint was part of the discussions. He’s probably still here with a new username. Who knows… Anyways….. statism, statist power structures and statist apologists transcend party lines and own our govt. They use the party duopoly and the media to divide in order to maintain their death grip on the legislative branch, revenues, spending, allocation of revenue, etc. Of course this is nothing new. We see it play out here every day as the paid debt-pimps use the left/right dichotomy to distract from the problem.

Actually, I mighta missed that one. There were fairly large periods of time in 2006 and 2007 that I wasn’t around much.

But I haven’t seen it used much since then, until now.

I don’t remember hearing it then, either. And I had the same thought as sleepless; some AM radio host changed his verbiage and all his barking dogs started barking.

So what’s a “statist” in this context? Someone who “owns the government”? What does that even mean?

You’re being obtuse Alena. You know precisely what I’m talking about.

The AGW hoax is very similar to this hoax (from wikipedia):

“The Piltdown Man was a hoax in which bone fragments were presented as the fossilised remains of a previously unknown early human. These fragments consisted of parts of a skull and jawbone, said to have been collected in 1912 from a gravel pit at Piltdown, East Sussex, England. The Latin name Eoanthropus dawsoni (”Dawson’s dawn-man”, after the collector Charles Dawson) was given to the specimen. The significance of the specimen remained the subject of controversy until it was exposed in 1953 as a forgery, consisting of the lower jawbone of an orangutan deliberately combined with the skull of a fully developed modern human.

The Piltdown hoax is perhaps the most famous paleoanthropological hoax ever to have been perpetrated. It is prominent for two reasons: the attention paid to the issue of human evolution, and the length of time (more than 40 years) that elapsed from its discovery to its full exposure as a forgery.”

Now, I believe in evolution but anyone that does not points to this 40 year fraud. Instead of going after China that is ruining the Earth’s environment we go after a beneficial gas. However, going after China is contrary to the globablists while AGW is promoting their agenda and justifying the transfer of wealth from the developed to the undeveloped world. Environmentalists that promote this theory are just setting the movement up to be discredited.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2261577/Global-warming-stopped-16-years-ago-Met-Office-report-reveals-MoS-got-right-warming–deniers-now.html

Just more distraction and deflections from the deniers. Here’s the real story:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/resolving-met-office-confusion.html

Well at least you linked to an award winning journalist:
“awarded the Golden Horseshoe award for the ‘most brazenly damaging and malign bad science of 2013’”

I read both articles before you even posted. However, with all the dancing around the issue in your issue they never get to the key question, how can you claim that man is primary agent for global warming when we have had almost 20 years of increased co2 emissions without any warming. They try to explain away the lack of increase by talking about la nina, reduced solar spots etc but natural factors were the primary reason for the increase to begin with. We had the most active sun in 8000 years for a period of seventy years, we had the PDO in warm phase and we had numerous large El Nino events all during the period from 1978-98, In the end they are only confirming what I said for six years,, almost 90% of the global warming during that period was naturally caused, the rest was manmade but at the time the AGW crowd try to say it was almost all caused by man.

Here is James Hansen’s record for predicting AGW:
http://www.c3headlines.com/2012/05/connect-the-dots-climate-model-failure-hansen-global-warming.html

BTW, CBIT looking out 6 to ten days you should be very happy in San Diego. If you live on the coast it is going to feel like July. Of course, in San Diego that is only the 70’s. If you live in New England bundle up.

This does not seem to have posted so I will try again:

http://www.c3headlines.com/2012/05/connect-the-dots-climate-model-failure-hansen-global-warming.html

“most active sun in 8000 years.” What isotope was used to calculate that proxy? According to Leif Svalgaard (Stanford University solar physics) total solar iridescence as been less than .1% for as far back as observational records have been kept.
http://www.leif.org/research/
http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=qFdb2fIAAAAJ&pagesize=100&view_op=list_works

So if the sun is not varying in energy output what is driving this PDO? Could it be the shrinking Arctic albedo is a stronger forcing agent and is the real driver of the PDO and AO phases? The arctic ice mass has dropped over 30% since 1979 and it takes decades for the polar currents to equalize the imbalances. We are not going to enter a new Ice Age with the surface of the Arctic 70% ice free.

To me it is a lot like how Chicago uses it health and safety laws. They love passing strict laws and many naive people think they have accomplished something when they are passed. But if you are politically well connected the laws do not apply to you. If you willing to bribe someone the laws do not apply. However, if you are a clean place to eat but do not do one of the above, you are run out of business. We take minimal amounts of pollutants out of the air in this country and many busineses close up and move to China and produce 100 x the pollution. Our environmental laws, which are needed, seem to be used more as a tool of the globalists than to make the entire planet cleaner. I do not care where it comes from I do not want mercury in my wild Alaskan salmon. So why are we not doing something about China?

The guy might have been able to get more for it. I think he priced low for speed of sale. He had won the chair in a business card draw at a networking event and just wanted the cash. I jumped on it pretty quickly as I had been looking out for an office quality (vs home office quality) chair for a while.

You really have to find the right person on CL. If the people who would be interested in your item don’t troll CL, it might not sell at any price. New in box and someone looking for exactly that item? You might be able to get a lot more than 25%, especially if it is something that can be easily moved in the trunk of a car.

Giving people a phone number to call will help a bit. Saying you will help load it into their car makes you seem like a nice person. I use the grammar and word choice of the ad to determine if I “trust” the person to meet them at their home and not have anything nasty happen - which is sort of dumb, but I can tell that I do it. If you live in a nice’ish area, give your zip code in the ad so people know that it is a safe place to go.

I know people who do just that. And those little wigglers just love that gar-bazh.

“meh, dan, that doesn’t bother me so much as one of the other barristers on this blog who claims to work for the fedgov, while posting prodigiously (and I DO mean prodigiously) during what I assume are working hours, at least for gubmin workers.”

eh heh….. and there is more to it than that. This we’re certain of.

“eh heh….. and there is more to it than that. This we’re certain of.”

Funny you should mention that, because I’ve been wondering about it myself.

You’re not the only one.

No divorces,no kids bratty or otherwise and no substance abuse problems. Keep trying poverty or immigration law attorney straight out of law school who is mad because he is unable to get a firm job so he rails against the system while he tries to payback his massive student loans.