January 29, 2013

Bits Bucket for January 29, 2013

Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here. And check out Chomp, Chomp, Chomp by a regular poster!




RSS feed

375 Comments »

Comment by Va Beyatch in Norfolk
2013-01-29 01:22:28

So it’s been a little bit since I’ve posted. Oddly enough, the commercial building that myself and a few friends rented for our hackerspace (a diy community shop) went through some drama. The owners ended up in prison for 15 years for historic tax credit fraud on another building along with conspiring with bankers in a fraud where they were given loans to buy bad properties from the same bank.

The new owner bought the $7 mil loan for $3 mil right before the news hit, and is now converting the building to ~120 luxury apartments.

It was wild watching it all go down. Now the bank fraud (Bank of the Commonwealth was the bank) stuff is slowly getting really close to city officials of Norfolk.

Housing prices have gone down, but rents are still high. Jobs are continuing to disappear, and the .mil cutbacks coming could rock the area pretty good.

Comment by Martin
2013-01-29 06:38:09

“Jobs are continuing to disappear,”

Well, with the new immigration reform bill more people would be coming. The demand for housing will go up as per the policy makers. This will create more construction jobs and banking jobs. More people will get hired. I don’t think it will work the way they are thinking.

Even today, 99.99% of people who get degrees from US stay here through legal immgration. Now they want to give a GC with the Diploma. US universities will become a way to get GC and many more people will enroll in US univ. now.

Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 06:41:07

An immigration bill isn’t going to create population. They’re already here and in fact many of the hispanics are leaving.

Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 07:16:31

The Mexodus has definitely slowed to a trickle, so much so that more Asians are moving to Aztlanifornia than Mexicans are at this point (and boy, was that obvious the last time I was in Silicon Valley). Of course, all it will take is another south of the border economic crisis and the spigot will reopen.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by cactus
2013-01-29 09:54:39

so much so that more Asians are moving to Aztlanifornia than Mexicans are at this point”

You have seen the future. I’ll be up there tomorrow. Day trip makes for a very long day.

 
Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 12:57:37

You have seen the future.

The office in Colorado is lily white by comparison. You go to Silicon Valley and you realize that you aren’t in Kansas anymore.

 
Comment by rms
2013-01-29 13:09:44

The office in Colorado is lily white by comparison. You go to Silicon Valley and you realize that you aren’t in Kansas anymore.

That’s what Jesse Jackson discovered when he recited his cracker speech there; not as much white bread as expected.

 
 
Comment by Albuquerquedan
2013-01-29 07:23:20

If it passes it will lead to chain migration and that is why the PTB want it they want to avoid this situation: http://www.startribune.com/188503971.html?refer=y
For a company like Walmart to survive, they need a surplus of labor. Had we not had essentially open borders for decades, wages would not have collapsed for blue collar jobs. Corporations would make less money but there would be fewer people receiving SNAP, medicaid, the EIC etc. We are up to 47% takers due to the governmental policies of open borders and unfair trade. The PTB know what is causing 47% of the population to be takers, in fact I would argue that Romney wanted to be president so bad that he announced positions such as labeling China as a currency manipulator and a tough position on immigration. I don’t blame anyone for doubting his sincerity on those issues but those are the policies needed to restore America. You do not need Obama care if employers have to compete for workers and offer decent insurance. We are putting a bandaid on the problem with more government programs what we need to do is address the trade issue and immigration and the rest of our problems with sort themselves out without a government bureaucracy.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by Albuquerquedan
2013-01-29 07:37:02

Part of the article above: Though some longtime residents are getting big mineral payments from the oil, others struggle to continue living there, even though wages are going up, too.

Gordon Weyrauch, manager of Williston Home & Lumber, said it’s hard to keep good employees even at $16 an hour: “Seems like when you get somebody that’s really good, there’s always another company stealing them away.”

A sign outside the local Wal-Mart advertises starting wages of $17 an hour.

Now, my final comments: oil field workers are making more than 100,000.00 a year and are now clearly producers and not takers but was it their fault that they once were takers or was it a system designed to drive down wages to a point where families cannot provide for themselves and then bribe them to continue to vote for the political supporters of the system with crumbs such as SNAP? Bread and circuses in the final days of the Republic.

 
Comment by Montana
2013-01-29 11:07:17

I hear there are lots of Mexicans in ND now too, maybe not in the oil fields though. But in construction for sure.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-01-29 11:08:08

We are putting a bandaid on the problem with more government programs what we need to do is address the trade issue and immigration and the rest of our problems with sort themselves out without a government bureaucracy.

Corporate Profits Just Hit An All-Time High, Wages Just Hit An All-Time Low

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/corporate-profits-just-hit-an-all-time-high-wages-just-hit-an-all-time-low-2012-6#ixzz2JOBmtF5B

 
 
 
Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 07:06:57

At what point will the US Green Card lose its luster if the PTB keeps exporting our jobs?

Though I could see this as a path for the richies to get an easy green card, since higher ed in the US is quite pricey and out of reach for other countries’ “middle class”.

 
Comment by ahansen
2013-01-29 07:33:20

I can see the business opportunities already.

“For $2,000 USD we drop you off over the border, provide you with a ready-made job history (including references!), and sign you up for the new amnesty, er ‘path to citizenship’. ‘Pay your fine and get in line’ for the Great American Cheese Giveaway! America needs workers. Call…

Comment by oxide
2013-01-29 09:30:31

It’s probably happened already, Allena. I wonder if Congress realized that just the very announcement this semi-amnesty is going to cause a fresh Mexodus flood, hoping to pretend that they were here all along before the border closes behind them.

Congress is evidently working out requirements, but has anyone mentioned learning English? Not just enrolling in a class, but actually passing an English test?

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by X-GSfixr
2013-01-29 11:00:09

Forget about the English test. Not gonna happen. If anything, there will be a requirement for gringos to learn Spanish.

In some Flyover areas, Spanish speakers are probably 1/4-1/3 of the population. No need for them to learn English.

So, you start seeing “Spanish speakers preferred” ads in all of the job listings.

Yeah, we used to have a country. It was great while it lasted.

 
Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 12:03:26

Another thing the Mexodus has done is kill the summer job for teens, especially when a lot of those jobs prefer Spanish speakers. Not so bad in my neck of the woods, but problematic in others.

 
Comment by Albuquerquedan
2013-01-29 13:03:53

And X and Colorado the problem that all the political hacks ignore is whether someone is illegal or legal, he or she still depresses wages. Yes, by screening you may reduce the numbers of criminals and people burdening your society, but you still have the problem of wage suppression. The new immigrants to CA are probably loaded with workers to depress wages in the tech world, they have already killed the wages for other jobs. Making people legal or admitting them legal does not change that. The Republicans in the debates were right on illegal immigration but then immediately endorsed more legal immigration. Only a very small number of immigrants will produce more jobs than they take. Let them in, but that will probably be 10% of what we are letting in now. Neither our wages or our environment cares if someone has gone through the process to get a green card only the absolute number of immigrants matters. Those that only care about the process do not really want to deprive the PTB of the surplus labor which means the PTB have fat profits while Americans have declining real wages.

 
Comment by Carl Morris
2013-01-29 13:52:27

you still have the problem of wage suppression

It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

 
Comment by Avocado
2013-01-29 16:40:08

If Bush, a Texan, with all 3 branchess in his control for 6yrs did nothing on illegals, you can bank on nothing being done. follow the money, big biz loves cheap labor.

 
 
 
 
Comment by ahansen
2013-01-29 07:20:56

Looking forward to your chronicle of this ongoing endemic mess. Please keep us posted on the coverups, connivances, and chicanery! Good to see you back, Beyatch.

Comment by Va Beyatch in Norfolk
2013-01-29 09:48:13

Ah will do. All this crazy stuff came to light during the court thing. They accused one of the people I paid rent to of having a giant metal wire contraption in the backyard made to threaten people of hanging. Also I didn’t know he had already been to court over holding their secretary at gunpoint in the stairwell for sexual favors. Got independent confirmation that was real.

I remember the FBI taking all the documents, and I remember the SEC meeting in our building as they took over the bank.

I actually went to the courthouse to watch part of the bankruptcy hearing. It was neat to see in person but the judge got super serious all of a sudden as he chewed out both sides. Awkward in a room with a small number of people. Mind was going, “Please don’t giggle. Please don’t giggle.”

Comment by ahansen
2013-01-29 16:21:33

LOL. Live courtroom (melo)drama far surpasses any show you can find on cable. Our municipal court judge in Malibu used to be one of the staff writers for Johnny Carson. Given all the local characters and our flamboyant character failings, it was by far the best ticket in town. And the courthouse in Kern River Valley is like something out of HeeHaw.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-01-29 07:41:00

“.mil cutbacks coming could rock the area pretty good.”

Do you have any details about what is coming down the pike?

Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 09:14:10

That Hampton Roads area of VA (Norfolk, Chesapeake, Hampton) is home to a lot of active duty military personnel, plus major contractors (SAIS, GD, LMCO, Northrop, AmSea, TMG, L3, etc etc etc)

Hampton Roads was one of the fastest growing areas in the U.S. during the Bush years, then the housing bubble hit, and now the sequester… they’re f***ed no matter what exactly happens. They had 2 bubbles at once. The military contractor bubble arguably bigger than the housing bubble, because the .mil bubble helped avoid a total collapse of housing prices.

Hamon roads is one area that will definitely “Crater!!!!”

And it will be good for the country.

Comment by Va Beyatch in Norfolk
2013-01-29 09:52:29

Yea. Quite a bit of denial, but the house I rented with friends when I first found out about the bubble — the sale price I think was $340K and now they are going for $250K in that ‘nabe.

My rent is going up. And I have a serious issue. Lots of friends have moved away. I’m fairly well entrenched in the local area, but am bored of it. I know the prices are much higher in DC, but my field (system admin/network admin/engineering type) is heavy in Northern Virginia. Heck, the struggling small company I work for — we keep our rack of servers up there.

I can’t browse local housing very long before I start looking at Ashburn and Herndon.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 10:27:16

At least you don’t have to worry about selling if you move. I forgot to include Newport News when I described the area. *All* of that area is going to crater. Most of the population was transatory anyway, as you mention. Cheap houses and lucky ducky jobs only… I give it 10 years for that region to collapse entirely.

 
 
 
 
Comment by sfhomowner
2013-01-29 09:08:17

Housing prices have gone down, but rents are still high. Jobs are continuing to disappear

This is a conundrum.

Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 11:02:12

No, it’s voodoo, er, “supply side” economics.

 
 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 10:01:13

“Housing prices have gone down, but rents are still high.”

Both are grossly inflated and falling as you noted. Sit tight.

Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 10:46:16

Will fall by 65%.

Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 10:51:22

Yes it’s very likely. Considering new housing inventory can be added at $55-$60/square foot, resale housing inventory has a very long way to fall indeed.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 11:10:49

I paid something like $67/ft^2 for my shack, not counting the garage in the sq ft-age. So I can believe $60 as the relevant figure. Not all construction is equal, though. The new construction I see for SFH’s is all balloon frame crap.

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 11:16:10

“The new construction I see for SFH’s is all balloon frame crap.”

We’re going to let this one hang out there for a while.

Take a look folks.

 
Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 11:37:15

should I have said platform frame?

My point was that no one builds with concrete block anymore, at least as far as I can see.

 
Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-01-29 12:00:25

I recently saw a house being built in Florida (!) with concrete block. You can still get it if you want it.

A lot of garages around here are built out of CB. I’m sure they’d build a house if asked.

Probably cost more than $60/sq ft, though. :wink:

 
Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 12:13:33

i.e. built out of sticks.

I don’t know much about building terminology, but I think it’s obvious that building with sticks is much cheaper than concrete block. And far more flimsy.

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 12:14:01

uh huh…. LOLZ

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 12:15:07

You’re so FOS you can’t walk straight.

 
Comment by rms
2013-01-29 12:53:30

“My point was that no one builds with concrete block anymore, at least as far as I can see.”

Not in seismic country unless there’s reinforcing steel bars. Areas subject to severe wind loading certain rely on CMU blocks though.

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 12:57:48

“Probably cost more than $60/sq ft, though.”

For suckers like you, of course it will. ;)

 
Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 13:26:27

I freely admit I don’t know construction terminology. I have been open minded and listened to what people in the business have told me.

My house is concrete block w/ brick. I was told by a friend that it would cost significantly more than the stick frame stuff they generally build these days. Same thing for plaster walls; much cheaper to use some chinese drywall.

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 14:17:50

“Not in seismic country unless there’s reinforcing steel bars. Areas subject to severe wind loading certain rely on CMU blocks though.”

Our structures are CMU nearly exclusively.

 
Comment by Avocado
2013-01-29 19:17:13

With all the permits and wages, I dont think you can build in CA for under $100 and that is if you play GC and sub it all out and buy all the materials.

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 19:26:10

Sure you could. And when you’re subbing, wages have nothing to do with a competitive bid.

 
Comment by rms
2013-01-29 19:33:27

“Our structures are CMU nearly exclusively.”

+1 And include reinforcing bars within that concrete.

The older unreinforced masonry is a real killer particularly the tall two story buildings. All that potential energy converted to kinetic energy has amazing crushing power.

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 19:38:48

Heh….. un-reinforced CMU structure would never make it past the building permit app.

 
Comment by rms
2013-01-29 23:56:05

“Heh….. un-reinforced CMU structure would never make it past the building permit app.”

+1 CMUs are designed specifically for reinforcing bars and concrete.

Unreinforced masonry usually means bricks and mortar. I had dinner one evening with my wife in former brewery, a nice theme with several polished fermenting vats, historical photos, etc. I noticed the roof trusses were not tied, and the second floor joists were not cable stayed, just poked through openings in the brick walls. We’d be crushed like bugs in there, or have our crushed limbs severed by the EMT responders. Heck, this was in seismic California too.

 
Comment by dustartist
2013-01-30 01:45:03

You’re safer in a wood frame structure with proper hold downs and shear walls than you are in a CMU structure. Have to watch out for the termite and water damage, but if properly done it’s a lot safer out here in earthquake country (socal)

 
 
 
 
Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 11:00:48

Now the bank fraud…

Jobs are continuing to disappear…

I’m sure there’s no conneciton there!

 
Comment by jane
2013-01-29 18:48:00

darn it’s good to hear from you.

 
 
Comment by oxide
2013-01-29 05:21:36

Anticipating domestic boom, colleges rev up drone piloting programs

nbc news …”While most jobs flying drones currently are military-related, universities and colleges expect that to change by 2015, when the Federal Aviation Administration is due to release regulations for unmanned aircraft in domestic airspace. Once those regulations are in place, the FAA predicts that 10,000 commercial drones will be operating in the U.S. within five years.

…At the moment, 358 public institutions – including 14 universities and colleges – have permits from the FAA to fly unmanned aircraft. …The government issues the permits mainly for research and border security. Police departments that have requested them to survey dense, high crime areas have been rejected.

…Among the possible applications: Monitoring livestock and oil pipelines, spotting animal poachers, tracking down criminals fleeing crime scenes and delivering packages for UPS and FedEx.”

Comment by Combotechie
2013-01-29 07:28:56

“… delivering packages for UPS and Fed Ex.”

Make them big enough and they can fly you to work.

Comment by Combotechie
2013-01-29 07:33:35

A video: “Rise of the Drones”, from Nova.

http://video.pbs.org/video/2326108547

Comment by Bluestar
2013-01-29 07:56:02

Did you notice how they went to great pains to hide the names of these assassins? What do you think would happen to you if you got your hands on the list of drone pilots and published their names on the internet? I would think you would find yourself in a CIA holding cell at a undisclosed location - never to be heard from again.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by X-GSfixr
2013-01-29 11:06:25

No, the drone pilot would find out where you live, and “accidentally” launch a Hellfire. Not that I would personally blame him. Fine, bootstrapping Republicans. they will take care of their problems themselves.

Really, I just don’t get this blind, irrational panic about drones. Functionally, not a nickels worth of difference between a missile being guided by a guy sitting in front of a ground console, and one being guided by an F-15 B/N.

 
Comment by mathguy
2013-01-29 11:28:48

X-Gs.. It takes hundreds of hours of flight training to get military fighter jet capable costing millions. Fighter jets cost hundreds of mullions. Drones are probably 1/100th the expense of fighter jets, and if one goes down, you don’t lose a pilot. Basically, lowering our human and financial cost to kill foreigners is good at home socio-economically, but the big concern is: will it cheapen the value of foreign lives?

It seems that our commander in chief is authorizing hundreds of military strikes with these drones with quite a bit of civilian collateral damage. You may not buy the idea of blowback, but I do… and further even the riled up angry foreigners we are currently killing on purpose probably would never have done anything at all in their lives to harm us stateside. Can you imagine living in that foreign country and having drones fire missiles at one of your A$$hole neighbors, but missing and killing your wife and children? The mix of grief, devastation, and rage would be unbelievable.

 
Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 11:59:10

but the big concern is: will it cheapen the value of foreign lives?

C’mon, we all know that they only hate us because of our freedoms. That we send drones into countries that are not at war with us, shoot missiles into their neighborhoods, ignoring the collateral damage of maimed and killed mothers and children … nah … that can’t be why they hate us.

Can you imagine living in that foreign country and having drones fire missiles at one of your A$$hole neighbors, but missing and killing your wife and children? The mix of grief, devastation, and rage would be unbelievable.

I sure can. And I can draw only a single conclusion: We are the bad guys.

 
Comment by polly
2013-01-29 12:09:21

I can see a reason to worry more. A drone is (or eventually will be) a lot cheaper than a guy in a military jet. As the price goes down, there will be more penetration of the market.

I, however, also don’t get the panic, though I think it is more outrage than panic. You don’t actually have a right to privacy for stuff that can be seen from the sky or the public road. Anyone who thought they did was just wrong. Protection from unreasonable searches (from the constitutional protection you have against unreasonable search and seizure) doesn’t include infinite air rights over your property.

 
Comment by mathguy
2013-01-29 12:13:42

Polly, I can’t cite the case, but here in San Diego there is a glider port on the cliffs above La Jolla. The (rich)locals seem to have won a case indicating that the gliders flying around their houses can’t take pictures of the nude ladies that like to lounge in the back yards… expectation of privacy from aerial surveillance.

 
Comment by polly
2013-01-29 14:45:46

But that is a private thing.

The constitutional protection is from government action. A right against private citizens may be based on CA law. Or the standards may just be totally different. And a government search for whatever (stolen goods, pot, a vehicle used in a crime, people violating water restrictions, etc.) is a little different than whether you have ownership of photos you took of people while they were behind walls on their property. Sounds like it should be the same, but I very much doubt that it is.

 
Comment by redmondjp
2013-01-29 14:51:26

Hmmm,
My inner 14-year-old may need to get me one of these newfangled drones . . .

 
Comment by mathguy
2013-01-29 17:28:56

I agree that it wasn’t an order against a government action, but it establishes some kind of a right to privacy from aerial observation. It’s funny because they didn’t say “you can’t look”, just “you can’t take pictures”.

 
Comment by polly
2013-01-29 19:22:34

Sorry, math guy, but you are ignoring the basic rule of legal interpretation - distinguishing between situations that are not similar to each other so that the rules for one don’t apply to the other.

Saying that a private person can’t take and therefore own images of people who are in a private space has zero meaning when you are thinking about the right of the government to observe behavior. No court would ever apply a rule from the first situation to the second situation. Never.

 
Comment by Avocado
2013-01-29 19:25:07

drones = sounds like outsourcing, robots instead of Indians.

 
 
 
Comment by rms
2013-01-29 07:50:54

Heck, why not save the expense and the environment and just hop in your Matrix clam-shell and count quatloos for a living? You could watch movie rentals without the home theater. The possibilities are endless.

 
Comment by X-GSfixr
2013-01-29 11:51:17

There has been some discussion about replacing flight crews with automated systems on the long haul freight routes…….like Beijing or Tokyo to Memphis, for starters.

Airlines? Not gonna happen. Although there could be an effort to replace two-man crews with single pilots.

The problem with all of this automation, is that it is being built on a system that is becoming a bigger house of cards all the time.

Can’t wait to see what happens when one of these GameBoy/XBox/MS Flight Sim-trained/$15K year pilots actually have to “FLY” the airplane.

As long as I’m observing it from the ground, and not a coach seat.

Comment by Dale
2013-01-29 12:56:10

“….there could be an effort to replace two-man crews with single pilots.”

Dave?…. What are you doing Dave?

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
Comment by oxide
2013-01-29 13:36:14

Who is flying a drone for $15K a year? An engineer in Mumbai?

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-01-29 15:44:22

Who is flying a drone for $15K a year?

I guess a ‘pilot’ could fly more than one drone at once. They’re usually on auto-pilot, just tune in for take-offs and landings. And emergencies.

 
 
 
 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-01-29 09:18:06

Perhaps drones could be deployed to make remote control deliveries of Bernanke bucks?

 
Comment by Neuromance
2013-01-29 10:20:41

An internet of airborne things
Networking: Enthusiasts dream of building a drone-powered internet to carry objects rather than data. Are they mad?
The Economist
Dec 1st 2012 |From the print edition

http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21567193-networking-enthusiasts-dream-building-drone-powered-internet-carry-objects

Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 11:08:47

The totally connected world that some folks dream of is a really, really bad idea.

William Gibson taught us this over 20 years ago.

Comment by Bluestar
2013-01-29 12:44:50

But how do you really control where technology want’s to go? Just look at what technology wants, it’s inherited exponential growth rate will eventually force a fusion of the manufactured realities of technium with human conscious. It’s only a few human generations away.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 15:40:36

If techonolgy was the only actor in human reality, I would consider that a worry.

But there are many, many other factors and influences.

Did you know the ancient Arabs and Greek had very precise clockwork computing machines?

Google “the Antikythera mechanism”

 
 
 
 
 
Comment by vinceinwaukesha
2013-01-29 06:47:12

Discussion yesterday about “can’t buy what you want, retail”. Let me explain why:

Tresho wanted a 100% polyester mens hoodie, unavailable retail anywhere other than blind luck at a kmart discontnued table. amazon.com for russell athletic mens technical performance fleece pullover hood and whip out $36 and its delivered in 2 days in your choice of color and size. Its hard to find 100% poly even on line. Cotton kills when its cold, but poly melts when it burns, I guess the legal team forces a balance of likely lawsuit costs and we’re stuck with cruddy 50:50 blends worst of both worlds. Also when did hoodies change from $9.95 slackerware to about 2/3 the cost of a cheap suitcoat jacket? Some of those hoodies are more expensive than a cheap suit at the local mens warehouse.

Anycdj wanted a usb A/B cable (stereotypical printer cable, I guess, also seen on external soundcards/mixers) and he found $5 ones online (but you’ll have to pay shipping) or $20 in the store. If you have amazon prime you get one for $5.99, delivered, total, no sales tax, in two days.

Macbeth, who’s observations of reality rarely match mine in numerous examples yesterday (seriously, what is up?), claims it takes 10-20 days for internet purchases, but with amazon prime you pay a (small) fixed annual fee for free 2-day delivery of numerous products (basically anything amazon sells directly rather than being a frontend for someone else, ebay style). Now amazon’s kind of a world wide default. If you research your “local” online market, you can do better. For my “IT” stuff I live within 1 day next-morning delivery range of one of the tigerdirect regional warehouses, so I pay for “regular” shipping but they’re so nearby that “regular” equals “next morning” unless I’m unlucky enough to backorder something from across the country (then it takes about 2 or 3 days.. 20 days is unthinkable). Mouser and MSC are also semi-local next morning deliveries, although you probably have no idea who mouser and msc are unless you’re involved in my hobbies. I’ve had excellent results with digikey too although not Quite as fast. I literally do not have time in my schedule with work and kids to get to the store quicker than next morning, so online is actually faster than retail for everything but the “OMG we just ran out of toilet paper like right now” emergencies. There’s a place called Seeeed studios who assemble electronic gear in China and ship direct in less than a week… from China to the midwest USA. Also I’ve had pretty good results with DX. “10 to 20 days” is … just LOL territory.

I REALLY needed a PCI-e ethernet card a couple months ago. Unobtanium in any form in the countrys 18th largest metropolitian area. Oh maybe there was a beige box reseller or a consultant or a used craigslist offer on the other side of the city, maybe, but shrink wrapped in a box? I was shocked that ethernet cards, which used to have shelves and shelves at best buy, are now unobtainable. Another weird one… my local auto parts place no longer stocks M12×1.75 oil drain plugs of the correct head design (the J shaped heads with poly gaskets, everything else leaks). Weird but true, gotta go on line now to buy an oil drain plug for a pretty stereotypical GM commuter car.

Retail is dead and decomposing and the worse it gets the less it gets used in a death spiral until all we have left for retail is fresh food produce / butcher stores and convenience stores. Imagine all those malls, empty.

Comment by oxide
2013-01-29 07:16:00

“athletic mens technical performance fleece pullover hood and whip out $36 ”

I found that product yesterday too, but tresho wanted a “full zip” while the Russell Athletic is a pullover.

Comment by rms
2013-01-29 07:36:33

“I found that product yesterday too, but tresho wanted a “full zip” while the Russell Athletic is a pullover.”

I like the Carhartt thermal-lined full-zip hoodie. Not cheap, but they block wind, are available in tall, and they last for years.

Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-01-29 11:27:25

thermal-lined full-zip hoodie.

Sounds great. I’m tired of the heat.

I’ll get excited in about 3 months when I’ll need to wear light-weight socks again.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by Avocado
2013-01-29 19:28:49

What is all this about Uruguay, being a expat hot spot?

 
 
 
 
Comment by Arizona Slim
2013-01-29 07:23:58

Retail is dead and decomposing and the worse it gets the less it gets used in a death spiral until all we have left for retail is fresh food produce / butcher stores and convenience stores. Imagine all those malls, empty.

I would tend to agree with the above. Have you seen this site?

DeadMalls.com

Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 08:11:23

All of our local indoor malls (those north of Denver) are dead as a doornail.

http://deadmalls.com/malls/foothills_mall.html

http://deadmalls.com/malls/greeley_mall.html

http://deadmalls.com/malls/twin_peaks_mall.html

What is interesting is that all three were pretty much replaced with an outdoor mall that has a single anchor store. I presume that the rents are cheaper at the outdoor mall (Promenades in Loveland), which hasn’t been all that successful either as there are plenty of unrented spaces and the property was foreclosed, though it remains in operation. Its expansion (AKA Grand Central Station) was cancelled.

Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-01-29 08:56:17

The death of the mall is the death of the small stores (often locally owned, unlike the anchor stores) in the mall. The anchor stores now just line up in a row at an outdoor strip-center ‘mall’, with few if any smaller stores around them.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by oxide
2013-01-29 09:13:04

I haven’t seen a local store in the mall since the early 80’s. I still fondly remember the little store that sold Hello Kitty pencils and stickers with the googly eyes. (Sticker trading was all the rage in the days before Facebook.)

Now it’s all chain stores. There are more Vicki’s and Express and Things Remembered — good god how many people need to engrave glass clocks and stuff to support one of these stores in every mall? — than Starbucks. And when a chain pulls out, in comes the eyebrow threading, the massage, and the gold buying.

 
Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 09:31:44

Now it’s all chain stores.

And chain restaurants with their artery clogging menus.

 
Comment by inchbyinch
2013-01-29 16:27:35

At one time, Things Remembered was a franchise, along w/ Hallmark stores. I would say 85% of the owners were wives of well off men, keeping busy doing something during the day.

I am switching my mgmt career to office and medical. Shopping Ctr Mgmt jobs are fading.

 
 
Comment by sfhomowner
2013-01-29 10:53:02

Why I can’t live in suburbia: I hate malls.

The fact that there are more and more popping up in urban areas is disturbing.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
Comment by AmazingRuss
2013-01-29 10:24:12

Malls were such wonderlands when I was a kid living in a cold part of the world. They almost always included an arcade. I still have a lot of memory video of Cinderella City that must date from 1970 or so.

You could see the writing on the wall in the early 90’s, though, as the upkeep started dropping off and the empty spaces started showing up.

 
 
Comment by rms
2013-01-29 07:28:39

Small bricks and mortar computer stores are a fixture of the past. Radio Shack or Walmart is now the place for popular pieces. High labor and property expenses combined with lean profit margins have driven these low-volume folks out of business.

Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 07:52:44

The days of the no name, generic PC assembled in a mom-n-pop store are over. I remember back in the early 90’s when pretty much everyone had a no name clone at home. Heck, we had those at the office too. Also, that biz model doesn’t lend itself to laptops or notepads, which can’t be assembled from a hodgepodge of parts in the back room like a tower PC. The final nail in the clone market’s coffin is that they can’t undercut HP or Dell anymore on desktops, which back in the day was the main reason to buy a generic clone.

Comment by sfhomowner
2013-01-29 10:55:41

The days of the no name, generic mom-n-pop store are over.

Let’s cross our fingers that the Internet will continue to give rise to more cyber mom-n-pop stores. Think Etsy, but on a larger scale.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
 
Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 09:04:37

If you have amazon prime you get one for $5.99, delivered, total, no sales tax, in two days.

Perhaps the main reason I have Amazon Prime. I can get all kinds of things from them for less than even WallyWorld, and in just two days the harried UPS guy drops it off at my front door. I even bought a box of AA batteries that way. And what I save on the sales tax more than pays for the Prime membeship, not too mention all the gas and wear and tear I save from trips to the store.

Comment by Avocado
2013-01-29 19:34:21

me too, but now CA has sales tax!

Not many sites can beat Amazon, I know a director at a large mfg, and he told me Amazon even sells some stuff below what they pay for it.

 
 
Comment by sfhomowner
2013-01-29 10:51:22

Retail is dead and decomposing

I just signed up with hukkster. I like it.

 
 
Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 07:04:00

Filed under: limey cokehead banksters

Bloomberg - Libor Lies Revealed in Rigging of $300 Trillion Benchmark:

“The scandal demonstrates the failure of London’s two-decade experiment with light-touch supervision, which helped make the British capital the biggest securities-trading hub in the world. In his 10 years as chancellor of the Exchequer, from 1997 to 2007, Gordon Brown championed this approach, hailing a “golden age” for the City of London in a June 2007 speech. Brown, who later served as prime minister for three years, declined to comment.”

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-28/libor-lies-revealed-in-rigging-of-300-trillion-benchmark.html

Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 11:15:25

Three. Hundred. Trillion.

I do believe that is the entire world GDP for the next… 60+ years.

In other words, pretty much the entire 21 century… and it’s just begun!

Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 11:44:23

Yeah, that’s what jumped out at us most from the article title.

For those pigmen, it’s all just pixels on a screen, except when they need to get bailed out of course. They should go drive around Slavic Village on Cleveland’s east side (once the epicenter of the subprime meltdown and the subject of an excellent series by the BBC) to see what happens when an entire neighborhood gets destroyed by adjustable-rate mortgages pegged to LIBOR.

 
 
 
Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 07:09:45

Filed under: social media is for social retards

Bloomberg - Workers Griping by Facebook May Lose Jobs After Ruling:

“Workers who gripe about the boss or their colleagues on Facebook may again be at risk of getting fired unless a U.S. appeals court decision is reversed.

The National Labor Relations Board ruled last year that employees can use social media to complain or comment on management, without retribution. The decision was among 220 issued in 2012 by the five-person board, three of whose appointments were ruled invalid last week by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington.”

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-29/workers-griping-by-facebook-may-lose-jobs-after-ruling.html

Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 07:20:19

When I remind people that what they post on FB can come back and bite them in the keister, they just shrug before posting an update telling their friends about how stoned they got the other day.

Comment by azdude
2013-01-29 07:22:23

Some people can think that far ahead.

Comment by Combotechie
2013-01-29 07:51:02

If you have a co-worker who is a pain-in-the-ass then FB could be quite useful. Just convince him that he should make a post.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
Comment by michael
2013-01-29 07:54:21

thus my “do not friend anyone at work policy”.

not that i would post anything about work to begin with…but who knows…simply talking about how much the federal reserve sucks could piss off your boss.

Comment by Albuquerquedan
2013-01-29 08:05:02

Especially, if you are working for helicopter Ben.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
Comment by oxide
2013-01-29 08:44:22

I have “no facebook at all” policy. Works pretty well.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by palmetto
2013-01-29 09:12:26

Me, too. I never understood the attraction and it was never my ambition to become one of Zuckerberg’s free assets.

 
Comment by michael
2013-01-29 11:53:23

we should set up an HBB facebook account and friend everybody here. would love to see some the HBB ladies’ bikini pics!

 
Comment by Carl Morris
2013-01-29 14:04:58

There’s been an FB group for a long time, but nobody posts to it. Good luck finding bikini pics.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/108043917435/

 
 
Comment by sfhomowner
2013-01-29 10:57:41

not that i would post anything about work to begin with

Yeah, but the occasional “the surf was epic” on a day when you called in sick can always trip you up….

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
 
Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 11:17:54

Silly people. Only corporations are people with rights.

 
 
Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 07:16:18

Filed under: the Bernank’s fake Recovery®

Bloomberg - D.R. Horton Profit More Than Doubles as Market Rebounds:

“D.R. Horton (DHI), the largest U.S. homebuilder by volume, said fiscal first-quarter profit more than doubled as demand for new houses climbed in a recovering real estate market.

Net income was $66.3 million, or 20 cents a share, for the three months ended Dec. 31, up from $27.7 million, or 9 cents, a year earlier, the Fort Worth, Texas-based company said in a statement today. The average estimate of 19 analysts in a Bloomberg survey was for earnings of 14 cents a share.”

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-29/d-r-horton-profit-more-than-doubles-as-market-rebounds.html

Comment by azdude
2013-01-29 07:20:26

what happens when the next bubble pops?

Comment by michael
2013-01-29 07:51:44

eric janszen over at itulip calls the timing…”period x”.

he seems to have extended his prediction to 2019.

this whole thing is really beginning to piss me off.

 
 
 
Comment by Bluestar
2013-01-29 07:20:08

Cool link of the day:

http://hint.fm/wind/

Many new high temperature records set yesterday. It’s been really warm and windy here in N. Texas the last few days which means there will likely be some nasty storms created when all this warm air crashes into the cold air to the north.

Comment by Albuquerquedan
2013-01-29 08:31:50

I have no problem with the record cold staying in Siberia:

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=131290&page=1

Like the wind chart and it really shows that both stories come down to the jet stream giveth and the jet stream taketh away.

Comment by Northeastener
2013-01-29 09:58:57

The last 2 weeks it’s been between hovering between 0 and 10 here in Mass… Amazing how warm and comfortable 30 degrees is after a cold spell in the single digits.

Comment by Ol'Bubba
2013-01-29 20:33:21

30 degrees is still “too damn cold”.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
Comment by rms
2013-01-30 00:04:21

For winter, I prefer high 20’s myself with the dew point several degrees less. No messy melting snow, and no slick ice the following morning and no foggy windows.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
Comment by Neuromance
2013-01-29 10:23:05

FTA:

“In truth, Siberia should be one of the richest places on Earth. Underneath its frozen ground, there are massive resources of oil, gas platinum, nickel, and gold. But everywhere you look, there’s poverty. That’s because corrupt businessmen and government officials are siphoning much of the wealth generated in Siberia out of the country. While Russia’s infrastructure falls apart, the corrupt are getting rich. “

Comment by AmazingRuss
2013-01-29 10:48:37

Sounds like home.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
Comment by Bluestar
2013-01-29 11:04:11

Building solid infrastructure is a bitch when the temperature is -0 or lower. Why do people want to live in such a cold and harsh place? The most you can operate heavy machinery is about 4 months a year because the permafrost turns to squish.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
Comment by X-GSfixr
2013-01-29 11:12:01

And we are different how??

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 11:34:43

We have CORPORATE Capitalist Communism whereas they just have communist corporatism.

See the difference?

 
Comment by X-GSfixr
2013-01-29 11:55:22

Thanks for clearing that up for me….. :)

 
 
Comment by snowgirl
2013-01-29 11:32:35

Sounds like the story of fracking coming to upstate NY.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
 
 
Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 07:22:31

Filed under: pill pushers pimping profits

Bloomberg - Pfizer Forecasts 2013 Profit Higher Than Analyst Estimates:

“Pfizer Inc. (PFE), the world’s biggest drugmaker, forecast 2013 profit of as much as $2.30 a share, higher than analyst estimates, after introducing two products with the potential to each generate more than $1 billion a year.

Full-year earnings excluding one-time items are expected to be $2.20 to $2.30 a share, the New York-based company said today in a statement. The top of the forecast range was higher than the $2.28 average of 19 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Fourth-quarter profit beat analyst expectations.”

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-29/pfizer-forecasts-full-year-profit-higher-than-analyst-estimates.html

Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 07:53:37

New York Times - Biotech Firms, Billions at Risk, Lobby States to Limit Generics:

“In statehouses around the country, some of the nation’s biggest biotechnology companies are lobbying intensely to limit generic competition to their blockbuster drugs, potentially cutting into the billions of dollars of savings on drug costs contemplated in the federal health care overhaul law.

The companies and other proponents say that such measures are needed to protect patient safety because the generic versions of biological drugs are not identical to the originals.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/business/battle-in-states-on-generic-copies-of-biotech-drugs.xml

Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 09:25:58

The companies and other proponents say that such measures are needed to protect patient safety because the generic versions of biological drugs are not identical to the originals.

As the number of well insured continues to drop and teh government programs stretch their budgets, there will be fewer and fewer customers for the expensive boutique drugs that big pharma makes. They need a new business model, but that of course means abandoning the current model which has made them rich as kings.

Comment by sleepless_near_seattle
2013-01-29 10:17:42

Other than the regulations surrounding prescription medicines, I’m wondering why they don’t do like food companies and private label their product, either as a generic brand or as a “supermarket-like” labeled brand.

Like canned corn for example. You can buy the Del Monte branded product, or the Safeway branded product.* Some people (who have full insurance, for example) will insist on what they perceive to be the premium product.

Long term, it would seem a better plan than lobbying government for “guaranteed” orders.

*I don’t know who actually supplies the Safeway branded canned corn, but you get the idea.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 11:37:25

The companies and other proponents say that such measures are needed to protect themselves from lawsuits safety…

There. Fixed it.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 11:38:40

Oh, and protect their monoploy.

 
 
 
 
 
Comment by scdave
 
Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 07:29:34

Filed under: they attacked us because they hate our freedoms (and other fairy tales)

Wall Street Journal - U.S. to Expand Role in Africa:

“The U.S. signed an agreement Monday with the West African country of Niger that clears the way for a stepped-up American military presence on the edges of the conflict in neighboring Mali.

The U.S. and France are moving to create an intelligence hub in Niger that could include a base, near Mali’s border, for American drones that could monitor al Qaeda-linked militants in Mali’s vast desert north, U.S. officials said.

The moves show the extent to which the U.S. and France are girding for what could be an open-ended campaign against the militants in North and West Africa.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323644904578270374130708196.html

Comment by X-GSfixr
2013-01-29 11:16:39

I dunno……might be a good investment, if a few drones keeps the crazies at home in their mud huts.

Nice practice for when they are used against the “Pry my gun from my cold, dead hands” types……

I keeed, I keeed…….

 
Comment by Ryan
2013-01-29 12:26:43

If they hate us because of our freedom then they must be starting to warm up to us after the last 12 years.

Comment by Pete
2013-01-29 16:30:55

Not bad.

 
 
Comment by Mot
2013-01-31 05:31:26

Hmm, Mali produces 50 metric tons of gold a year, Germany just told France to give back gold it hold for Germany in Paris at the rate of 50 metric tons a year for the net seven years, France invades Mali.

Simple.

 
 
Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 07:38:47

Filed under: because the path to Recovery® is unaffordable housing

Washington Post - Housing emerges as economic bright spot after years in the dark:

“The nation’s housing market is surging again after years of historic declines, and the unique forces powering its return could last well into 2013.

The number of homes for sale is at its lowest level since before the recession, sparking competition among buyers that has led to 10 straight months of price increases. The volume of activity is the highest since 2007.

“I said to my husband, ‘We’ll never see this again in our lives,’ ” said Tracy Lamb, who recently purchased a three-level home in Gainesville, in Prince William County. “I really did feel like we were going to miss out.”

http://m.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/housing-emerges-as-economic-bright-spot-after-years-in-the-dark/2013/01/28/68c4bd74-6700-11e2-9e1b-07db1d2ccd5b_story.html

Comment by rms
2013-01-29 08:00:45

“I said to my husband, ‘We’ll never see this again in our lives,’ ” said Tracy Lamb, who recently purchased a three-level home in Gainesville, in Prince William County. “I really did feel like we were going to miss out.”

Amid historic financial repression hurry up and buy a house?

 
Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 08:53:21

Hey, how else are they gonna get the Home ATM back online? Escalades are expensive!

Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 11:42:03

Nothing say “stupid” like an Esclade.

Except a Navigator. :lol:

 
 
Comment by sleepless_near_seattle
2013-01-29 11:03:27

We went to a few open houses this weekend. I can summarize what we both had as our takeaway from that experience in just a few words: “WTF are people thinking?”

We did see one house that was doable (at our salaries we could absolutely afford it), but when we sat down afterward and ran some numbers, keeping what’s going on in the job market in mind, it seemed insane to make the leap.

It is breathtaking to watch people (we see it over and over with coworkers, friends) work insane hours and stretch and stretch to rent from the bank for a few years, only to discover they really want to live someplace else.

No other way to say it, the NAR has brainwashed people into thinking they need to buy. Then again, if you like zombie-watching, spend a Sunday at some open houses…

Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 11:46:57

Most people ARE brianwashed to be perfect consumers.

This is MSM’s ONLY reason for existence.

Comment by sleepless_near_seattle
2013-01-29 15:20:51

Not only consumers, but outright debt slaves.

I wonder what percentage of them look at an amortization schedule on a $500k house. Assuming they pay as per the schedule, do they realize they are really renting for 10 years? Do they realize they’ll have spent almost $1M for that house after 360 payments?

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by sfhomowner
2013-01-29 15:41:00

I wonder what percentage of them look at an amortization schedule on a $500k house. Assuming they pay as per the schedule, do they realize they are really renting for 10 years?

Why you should not buy a house unless you are planning on staying for 10 or more years.

 
Comment by sleepless_near_seattle
2013-01-29 18:17:50

Agreed. But based on how often I see the same places show up on MLS, and the actions of those I know, I’m up against exactly the opposite…i.e. - people who choose to rent from the bank for 2-5 years.

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 18:53:20

“Why you should not buy a house unless you are planning on staying for 10 or more years.”

Pay an extra $300k plus interest because you’re staying for 10 years? LMAO.

 
 
 
 
Comment by oxide
2013-01-29 13:27:47

The image accompanying the article shows examples of the type of “three level homes” that the Lambs bought. Rows and rows of townhouses without a break. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, barely any yard, probably an HOA, 35 miles from the Washington Monument, un-renovatible for aging and mobility.

There is a similar complex in Montgomery County. A friend and I drove to the top of a small hill and looked over the scene. The place was still fairly clean and new, but it gave us bad vibes. He thought it looked like the streets of Calcutta; I thought the dozens of rooftops looked an illustration of a Dickens novel.

 
 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-01-29 07:39:29

Judging from Mr Market’s shrug, I suspect he has already called the Republicans on their sequester bluff.

ft dot com
January 27, 2013 6:17 pm
US faces fresh financial shock
By Stephanie Kirchgaessner, James Politi and Robin Harding in Washington

The $1.2tn in automatic spending cuts that US President Barack Obama once promised to avert are looking increasingly likely to occur because of entrenched politics in Washington, threatening a shock to confidence in the US economy.

Economists have long assumed that the so-called sequester – a budgetary mechanism passed in 2011 that takes effect on March 1 and slashes the Pentagon’s budget by $600bn over 10 years while cutting discretionary spending for government programmes by another $600bn – would be replaced or reversed by Congress.

Many saw a recent move by Republicans on Capitol Hill to extend the US borrowing authority as a sign of greater co-operation with the White House. But conservative lawmakers have recently made it clear that they were simply gearing up for another fight, and are prepared to take a hard line on the $1.2tn in cuts even amid objections from military hawks.

“I think the sequester is going to happen,” said Paul Ryan, the influential Republican congressman on NBC’s Meet the Press. While he and other Republicans are expressing regret that defence will take the brunt of the hit, a fact that the Obama administration has warned threatens national security, he and other Republicans say the reduction in spending is paramount.

Comment by michael
2013-01-29 07:49:29

“by $600bn over 10 years”

when did the “over 10 years” mantra start?

everything the government taxes or spends now is “over 10 years”.

wtf?

Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 07:55:20

Because if you take a small, single year cut, which has no serious impact on the budget, and multiply it times 10, it looks a lot bigger and they can posture and say “See, we’re doing something.”

Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 11:50:21

Exactly.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-01-29 08:17:59

Spreads out the pain over time and shares it with people not yet in office…

Comment by scdave
2013-01-29 08:54:55

Yep…+1 Pbear…Spot on….

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
 
 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-01-29 07:45:30

TPMDC
The GOP’s Big Sequester Bluff
House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)
Brian Beutler-January 28, 2013, 1:20 PM

The Republican Party has become awfully sanguine about the sequester. That’s not to say that they’re enthusiastic about the fact that it will cut government programs — particularly defense programs — across the board. But after losing back-to-back tax and spending fights — over the fiscal cliff and the debt limit — they’re telegraphing a willingness to let the sequester take an axe to the budget. Or at least that they’re more willing to let it hit than Democrats are.

“We think these sequesters will happen because the Democrats have opposed our efforts to replace those cuts with others-and they’ve offered no alternatives,” said the House GOP’s top budget guy, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Sunday on NBC’s Meet The Press.

“I’m pretty sure it is going to happen now,” House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) told Politico. “I guess the feeling is until everybody feels enough pain, we’re not going to do the things that we really need to do. And that scares me.”

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) recently told the Wall Street Journal that the sequester “[is] as much leverage as we’re going to get.”

Until Republicans lost the election, though, these same party leaders were putting on a much different face.

The sequester, Ryan wrote last year, “[will result] in a 10% reduction in Department of Defense programs and an 8% reduction in certain domestic federal government programs, such as the National Institutes of Health and education programs. Intended as a mechanism to force action, the imposition of the sequester would undercut key responsibilities of the federal government.”

Last year, Boehner repeatedly warned that the defense portion of the sequester would “hollow” the military.

The contradictory postures suggest that GOP leaders are fronting for conference conservatives who are restive about their leaders’ failure to force Democrats to accept more cuts to federal spending. It’s also a thinly veiled bluff.

Comment by Albuquerquedan
2013-01-29 08:14:42

Until Republicans lost the election, though, these same party leaders were putting on a much different face.

So that proves they are bluffing? The facts have changed, the sequester is the best deal from their perspective that they are going to get in terms of debt reduction. Obama wants more taxes in place of most of the cuts especially the social spending cuts. Sorry when it comes down between more taxes on those making more than $250,000 and accepting some cuts in defense spending, I don’t think accepting the cuts is bluff.

Comment by Happy2bHeard
2013-01-29 23:27:10

“the sequester is the best deal from their perspective that they are going to get in terms of debt reduction. “

I agree with you on this. They are unlikely to get more spending reductions in a renegotiation. They may get more debt reduction if they were willing to raise additional revenue - either through increased taxes or closed loopholes.

 
 
 
Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 07:46:41

Filed under: Katrina vanden Heuvel is a commie

Washington Post - Can the rising progressive tide lift all ships?

“The growing progressive coalition that helped elect President Obama has emerged at the end of a failed and exhausted conservative era. The media now chronicle the flailings of Republican leaders slowly awakening to the weaknesses of a stale, pale and predominantly male party in today’s America.”

http://m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/katrina-vanden-heuvel-progressive-coalition-can-restore-economic-opportunity/2013/01/28/275268f2-697e-11e2-95b3-272d604a10a3_story.html

Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 11:55:28

I’ve always had better jobs under a Democratic president.

Of course there is no correlation, but just sayin’… *shrug*

Quite a coincidence.

 
 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-01-29 07:47:22

CRATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-01-29 07:48:58

The Fed may as well stop trying to prop up the housing market, as their efforts are predictably failing.

Jan. 29, 2013, 9:00 a.m. EST
Home prices decline in November, Case-Shiller

By Ruth Mantell WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — U.S. home prices declined in November on seasonal weakness, with 10 of 20 cities seeing lower prices in the month, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index released Tuesday. The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city composite posted a non-seasonally adjusted 0.1% decrease in November following a 0.2% decline in October. “Winter is usually a weak period for housing which explains why we now see about half the cities with falling month-to-month prices compared to 20 out of 20 seeing rising prices last summer,” said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices. Despite the recent decline, prices were 5.5% higher than during the same period in the prior year, for the strongest year-over-year growth since August 2006, with increases in 19 of 20 cities. New York was the only city with a lower year-over-year result. “Housing is clearly recovering,” Blitzer said, noting positive trends for new- and existing-home sales. However, prices remain 30% below a bubble peak in 2006, according to Case-Shiller data. After seasonal adjustments, the 20-city home-price index rose 0.6% in November.

Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-01-29 07:51:38

Jan. 29, 2013, 9:48 a.m. EST
City-by-city look at U.S. house prices
By Ruth Mantell, MarketWatch

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Here’s a city-by-city breakdown of the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city composite, which showed a 0.1% fall in November, not seasonally adjusted.

Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 08:02:56

As we’ve stated all along…. the price correction resumed in October 2012.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-01-29 08:49:13

the price correction resumed in October 2012.

But…”After seasonal adjustments, the 20-city home-price index rose 0.6% in November.”

Sounds like the Fed’s plan is working.

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 09:07:56

Working to lower prices? Prices fell in November…. prices fell in October and December will show falling prices too.

The price declines have resumed.

“Housing prices are falling once again. If you buy a house now… you’re going to lose alot of money. ALOT of money.

 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-01-29 09:19:39

“Sounds like the Fed’s plan is working.”

Yep. Too bad they probably will not be able to continue making $40 bn / month in MBS purchases forever…

 
Comment by Albuquerquedan
2013-01-29 09:35:20

Keynes use to say in the long run we are all dead. The people doing this intend to being even richer when it does collapse and don’t really have any problem with the United States collapsing. They intend to rule the world so what happens to the U.S. is not their major concern.

 
Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-01-29 09:48:10

They intend to rule the world so what happens to the U.S. is not their major concern.

Sounds reasonable.

 
Comment by Rental Watch
2013-01-29 10:19:01

“not seasonally adjusted.”

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 10:20:39

“home prices declined”

 
Comment by Rental Watch
2013-01-29 11:01:18

“Prices declined in 10 of the 20 metropolitan areas in November on seasonal weakness, but they were up 5.5% from the prior year for the strongest annual growth since 2006.”

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 11:04:50

“Prices fell in November posting the second back to back month of price declines.”

 
Comment by Rental Watch
2013-01-29 12:47:23

You see trees…I see the forest.

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 12:56:22

I see your misrepresentations and expose them.

 
Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 14:02:34

“You see trees…I see the forest.”

RAL has some good ideas. He just isn’t that good at arguing them in a nuanced, substantive way. But he works in the construction industry, so I tend to think his general sentiments are quite valid.

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 14:15:36

Truth doesn’t need to be “argued”. It stands on its’ own.

 
Comment by Rental Watch
2013-01-29 17:24:51

Joe Smith:

About the only things that I agree with PW on are:

1. For a basic house, construction costs are pretty damn low relative to what a basic house frequently sells for ($50 per foot or less); and
2. People underestimate the cost to maintain a home, as they are always fighting age, wear/tear.

Which are the things he is best suited to know given his background.

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 18:17:20

You don’t know shit about my “background” but we have a pretty good idea of yours. It’s starts with b and ends with t.

 
 
 
 
Comment by rms
2013-01-29 08:07:55

“CRATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Lemme guess, triple-shot 8-oz Americano?

Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-01-29 08:16:03

Trader Joes limited edition Brazilian peaberry

 
 
Comment by CRATER!!!!
2013-01-29 08:52:00

:mrgreen:

 
 
Comment by palmetto
2013-01-29 07:59:54

So yesterday I posted a little rant about the Gangbanger 8 (immigration senators) being a bunch of sick perverts. Well, here we go. Looks like Menendez is under investigation for his penchant for underage hookers in the Dominican Republic:

http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/28/abc-fbi-menendez-camp-tight-lipped-about-senators-brewing-underage-prostitution-scandal/

Now, remember, Menendez had an illegal immigrant aide with sex offender status. You can’t make this stuff up.

Comment by Albuquerquedan
2013-01-29 08:21:56

My theory that has developed over the years is that the PTB love to put people in office who have these major character flaws. Then, if they ever buck the powers that be, they can pull the plug on them by releasing the information to the press. These stories seem to get little play when they are in the good graces of the PTB but get played 24/7 when they are on the wrong side. If someone opposing immigration “reform” had been accused of a similar offense, it would be on all the news stations all the time.

Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 09:02:22

We haven’t spent any time in Albuquerque so we don’t know what it’s like there, but take a drive down South Federal here in Denver to see the kind of third-world sh*thole that a neighborhood turns into when it is overrun with illegal aliens. See link to Denver Post editorial pushing for expansion of this below.

Comment by Albuquerquedan
2013-01-29 09:17:24

You have this issue covered Goon. I need to get back to work, but our area is by the airport. However, the subculture that comes with the illegals, seems to appeal to Native American and the native Hispanic children so despite their rich cultures which I enjoy, the parents have a problem keeping their children from going gangsta so it impacts the entire state.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
Comment by cactus
2013-01-29 10:04:04

in the Book “Flashback” the author has a futuristic description of a road trip from Denver to Santa fe NM.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 12:02:09

“My theory that has developed over the years is that the PTB love to put people in office who have these major character flaws. Then, if they ever buck the powers that be, they can pull the plug on them by releasing the information to the press”

That’s no theory Dan.

It’s fact.

 
 
 
Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 08:04:14

Filed under: coming soon to USA

New York Times - Chief of Egypt’s Army Warns of ‘Collapse’ as Chaos Mounts:

“Reacting to Egypt’s growing chaos, the head of the army warned on Tuesday of the “collapse of the state” if political forces in the country did not reconcile, reflecting growing impatience with the crisis from Egypt’s most powerful institution.

The worst of the turmoil, which has left at least 45 people dead, has been in Port Said at the northern tip of the Suez Canal. Egypt’s president, Mohamed Morsi, has imposed a monthlong state of emergency in the city and two others in the Suez Canal zone, calling on the army to regain control of security.

The state of emergency imposed by Mr. Morsi virtually eliminates due process protections against abuse by the police.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/01/30/world/middleeast/egypt-protest-updates.xml

 
Comment by Diogenes (Tampa,Fl)
2013-01-29 08:09:12

Diogenes farewell post.

I am posting today my last post on HBB. Over the past few years it’s been interesting from time-to-time, but, as of late, I have gotten less information and see way too much commentary I find mostly useless.
Yesterday, my several comments, one about the FED, that were deleted.

Writing on Blogs is always limited by the discretion of the HOST, in this case, Ben Jones. Why yesterday’s posts were NOT posted is only known by him. I simply wasted my time. Typically I see posts that refer to the PTB, a useless acronym for “Powers that BE”. Who are those people?
Without identifying the Shadow Government that works behind the scenes to corrupt the body politic, those comments to me are useless.

However, in the past, as I have posted what I call “Swindlers Lists”, the posts typically get deleted. Not refuted. Deleted.

The great cause of the HOUSING BUBBLE has been FED policies. They fed the monster with easy money, lax enforcement of Banking regulations and government oversight that was a buddy-system of keeping a blind eye on dubious practices. While housing prices DOUBLED in the course of a few years, Ben Bernanke, the Current FED Chairman, said it was due to economic “Fundamentals”. It was due to FED money policies, nothing else.
I will post ONE more FED article today. If it doesn’t post, then you will know that Ben has deleted that, too.
I won’t post any more.

It’s been fun for a while. Good luck to you all. I post on other sites where the censorship is less stringent. So, Ben, you win.
It’s your blog and you can control the content.
I don’t understand your criteria, though I have my suspicions. If you find the writings “offensive”, all I can say is that I’ve read posts by others that were equally offensive and not removed.
I just don’t like wasting my time or yours.
For the most part this has been a good experience and the Blog has been a good way to keep up with what is going on.
I simply don’t want to spend my time submitting my thoughts, only to have them disappear into the blogosphere. I find it counter-productive.

Best wishes to all of you (with the exception of my Nemesis’. You know who you are).
I may log on from time-to-time. I am simply choosing not to post.
For many, that will be a relief. That, and watching NPR.
I will do my final FED rail within the next couple of hours. So Long.

Comment by Ben Jones
2013-01-29 09:00:06

‘I will do my final FED rail within the next couple of hours.’

Don’t bother you ungrateful jerk, you are banned.

 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-01-29 09:21:01

For a final post, that was a long one…

Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 09:38:39

He wrote so much, yet managed to say almost nothing.

Comment by ahansen
2013-01-30 00:40:44

:-) The actual Diogenes can stop rolling over in his grave now.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
 
Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 09:30:51

I’ll always remember you as the poster who supported the Fugitive Slave Act.

Can someone fill me in on what happened yesterday? He’s quitting HBB because one or two posts didn’t go through?

Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 09:56:49

MYOB mollycoddle.

Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 10:28:53

What’s bad about asking if I missed anything?

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 10:32:48

Who said anything is bad? Mind your own fawkin business.

 
Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 10:48:05

Did I miss a new meme, possibly? That would be important. Dio was a foaming-at-the-mouth dingbat and his posts were like meme generators, even moreso than AbqDan. I mean, “Rasmussen is the best pollster” can’t even compare to the stuff Dio came up with!

 
Comment by Albuquerquedan
2013-01-29 11:01:55

Joe you miss more than you ever see. If the best you have on me after six years of posting is Rasmussen, I must be doing something right. A little angry today since the board does not like open borders as much as you do?

 
Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 11:16:49

Rasmussen was one example. I also noted that you’re far behind Dio in generating LULZ.

I don’t like open borders, I’m not sure where you’re getting that. ** I outlined what I’d like to see, including a closed border with real enforcement (including a wall/fence in the areas where appropriate). I’d like to see measures taken to identify who is here, deport anyone with a criminal background (maybe not misdemeanors but certainly felonies). I’d also like to see fees put in place to secure perm resident status and an exam required for full citizenship.

I kind of like the new policy that has been floated on the Hill, so long as they actually close the border.

I have also pointed out that immigration should continue but be diverse, including immigrants from asia and europe.

** Noticing that old white people are “demographically doomed” is not an opinion, it’s a fact, and it has nothing to do with being self-hating It means I realize that at some point I won’t have the advantage of being in the majority, so I’d better prepare accordingly.

 
Comment by Albuquerquedan
2013-01-29 11:34:39

I kind of like the new policy that has been floated on the Hill, so long as they actually close the border.

Open borders, a rose by any other name. And that is your agenda. Unlike Dio, I do not know if anything else you say is what you believe or what you are. Dio offended most everyone on this board including me. However, he was genuine about his agenda. It is Ben’s blog and he gets to make the rules but I will miss him more than I would miss you. Of course, that is damming with faint praise.

 
Comment by nickpapageorgio
2013-01-29 12:47:50

joe smith, reading both Dio’s posts and yours the IQ separation has to be at least 50 in Dio’s favor. You represent all that is wrong with our great country and you nauseate me. I hope everything you wish for in terms of heavy handed government comes to pass, it will be worth it in the end just to see the deer in the headlights look on your face when the troopers come a knockin…and when they do, remember, you wanted this. You are a decrepit snarling coward.

 
Comment by Dale
2013-01-29 13:20:20

I for one will miss Dio. A lot of common sense if not always the most tactful or politically correct.

 
Comment by palmetto
2013-01-29 14:04:54

Right on, Dale. I shall miss Dio, too. He was honest in his views, a quality not much appreciated anymore. Hence, his name.

 
Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 14:10:59

“joe smith, reading both Dio’s posts and yours the IQ separation has to be at least 50 in Dio’s favor. You represent all that is wrong with our great country and you nauseate me.”

And yet, Dio ended up on a pretty lowly run of society. I represent what is wrong with our country because I point out that both parties are extremely screwed up?

Is it also impossible for you to understand that it doesn’t matter what I try to represent. America has no future, at least not compared to what it accomplished in the past. We’re utterly reliant on fossil fuels and will continue to be so. The Koch Brothers fund “research” that shows it’s OK, that global warming is a lie, etc. We have an economy based on consumption. Nearly half the country voted for a guy who proudly dismantled businesses, stuffed them with debt, and then put his own money overseas. Our future generations are born to the lowest element of our society and then raised in a country that no longer values education or culture. I could go on and on, you get the point…

 
Comment by Albuquerquedan
2013-01-29 15:30:00

Yes, and all those problems will be fixed if we just let even more immigrants into the country. LOL.

 
Comment by jane
2013-01-29 20:45:12

Dio, I shall miss you. Your posts were thought-provoking. We would still be living with “the sun revolves around the earth” if all dissenting voices had been killed by executive order, after the Dark Ages.

The basis of science rests on a bedrock of dissent, which is tested by empirical observation (a.k.a., experimentation and argument about findings).

I was motivated to look up lots of facts about history and natural science from Dio’s posts. Nothing from you, joe, results in a quest for knowledge. Your writing is content-free.

Ham-fisted bullying towards those who hold contrary views is a characteristic of narcissistic personality disorder. Perhaps you would find the adoration you demand in a place more congruent with your sense of self-worth.

Why not consider slithering your way in to become the aide-de-camp to the guy who runs North Korea? You can tell yourself that the applause is for you; the position will provide you with plenty of quatloos to skim; and you’ll have job security for life. A route to inner peace, as it were.

 
 
 
 
Comment by sfhomowner
2013-01-29 11:02:11

I don’t understand your criteria, though I have my suspicions

Ok you said you weren’t going to post - but I sure would love to hear your suspicions.

 
Comment by Neuromance
2013-01-29 12:09:01

Rule #1 of Fight Club: Don’t talk about Fight Club.

Rule #1 of posting on forums and blogs: Don’t bitch about the moderation.

Seriously. Of the places I browse on the Internets, this faux pas seems to be the best way to get banned.

Remember: It’s not your website. If you write a bitingly incisive, brilliant post of the ages - write it in Notepad and save the file BEFORE posting in case the post doesn’t go through. I’ve written things I thought would have people sobbing at their monitors, standing up and cheering, or showering rose petals on their CPUs. But in reality elicited nary a shrug. Or perhaps even some hate.

Anyway. See Rule #1.

Comment by palmetto
2013-01-29 14:07:02

Very true, Neuromance. Voice of reason.

Comment by ahansen
2013-01-30 00:41:53

+1

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
 
 
Comment by Bill in Los Angeles
2013-01-29 08:14:14

Is it Brilliant or Moronic to buy Real Estate now? Viewpoint from a fan of Austrian economics.

http://lewrockwell.com/crovelli/crovelli75.1.html

Comment by Bill in Los Angeles
2013-01-29 08:25:05

I especially like his point that an asset such as a house cannot be hidden from the thugs who drool about raising taxes.

He did not mention it, but obviously a few lbs of gold coins is easy to hide from the thugernment.

A home owner is a sitting duck for property tax hikes. Home moaners in financially-troubled states, those who have big spending socialist engineering such as California, better beware.

Comment by palmetto
2013-01-29 08:41:50

Excellent, excellent article. And, this is a fairly young guy writing it, and the fact that it is so well written makes me more hopeful about the literacy of younger folks.

Comment by palmetto
2013-01-29 08:49:17

And, on a related note, here’s a nifty little article about Wall Street fleeing NY and CT for FLA, due to taxes. Of course, the one fly in the ointment is that FLA is heavy into taxing real estate, since it has no state income tax. It relies on property and sales taxes. Still, it’s an interesting development.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/wall_st_flees_ny_for_tax_free_fla_Q6e4qSDMUethpylfznC4tO

Where’s jeff? Paging jeff, your former home is moving south to join ya!

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by scdave
2013-01-29 09:04:04

Wall Street fleeing NY and CT for FLA, due to taxes ??

Well, the new increase in State Income Tax came front and center with this guys statement…You would not think that it would actually move the needle but at some point maybe some people will just say, thats it, I am out-a-here…

http://www.city-journal.org/2013/cjc0128tg.html

 
Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 09:18:17

Of course, the one fly in the ointment is that FLA is heavy into taxing real estate, since it has no state income tax.

Why aren’t they relocating to Wyoming? It’s supposed to have the lowest tax burden in the nation. No state income tax and low property taxes. It’s a veritable Randian paradise. And UW is dirt cheap, if they have kids. If Laramie and Cheyenne are too redneck for them they could even set up shop around Jackson Hole with the beautiful people.

Comment by palmetto
2013-01-29 09:22:59

“Why aren’t they relocating to Wyoming?”

I’m sure some are. Florida was used as an example in the article, but it’s basically a diaspora of sorts. I think Texas is also mentioned as a destination.

 
 
Comment by Bill in Los Angeles
2013-01-29 09:21:46

Palmetto, it is probably cheaper to rent than to own. i saw a nice two bedroom on the St. Petes Gulf view right on the sand for under $6,000 a month. not sure what the taxes on a $1 million beach front house in Fl goes for. it is on the white sand though.

 
Comment by palmetto
2013-01-29 09:26:29

Well, right now it’s sure cheaper for me to rent than to own. Although I would never spend $6,000 to be on white sand in St. Pete. Ever.

I would actually be very leery of buying property in Fla right now. Insurance is a b^tch.

 
Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 11:46:06

I’m sure some are.

I’m sure some own vacation property in Jackson, but I doubt they moved there.

I think Texas is also mentioned as a destination.

Texas also has sky high property taxes.

 
Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 12:07:05

Why not Wyoming?

Snow and cold.

In other words, the weak wouldn’t survive and if there’s one thing I know about Randians, it’s that when the going get tough, the Galt’s start whining.

 
Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 13:12:36

Snow and cold.

That plus Laramie and Cheyenne are dumps.

 
Comment by rms
2013-01-29 13:23:51

“Snow and cold.”

Don’t forget the wind!
http://aerofiles.com/WY-windsock.jpg

 
Comment by Carl Morris
2013-01-29 14:12:45

There’s a million reasons most people don’t like Wyoming. Sometimes it’s the weather but usually it’s the local culture and food choices available with such a small population. Social norms are also more important in small towns.

 
 
 
Comment by scdave
2013-01-29 08:59:24

A home owner is a sitting duck for property tax hikes..big spending socialist engineering such as California, better beware ??

Ever heard of Prop.#13 Bill ??

Comment by Bill in Los Angeles
2013-01-29 09:24:24

Yes and I voted for it when I was 19 years old. Read the article. municipal problems could change yourpermanent tax break.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by palmetto
2013-01-29 09:37:43

Absolutely. The Tallahassee Turds have been trying to figure out for decades how to amend the Florida constitution so they can institute a state income tax. Every once in a while the local public tv and radio outlets start agitating for it. So far they haven’t been able to do it, and since it would require something like 2/3 of the vote to do it (not sure, I’m just sort of lazily posting that figure), it’d be next to impossible. But hope springs eternal for the gubmin crooksters.

 
Comment by scdave
2013-01-29 10:38:34

municipal problems could change yourpermanent tax break ??

Muni problems cannot change state law Bill, a state law that was passed by “proposition” I might add…Even the money-grabbers in Sacramento have not figured a way around it although it appears that several members in Sacramento are spearheading a effort to put a modification to Prop.#13 on the Ballot with a split roll which will fail…

Now, if you are suggesting that the municipalities can raise your real estate taxes that can only really happen through a city vote and it does happen…We recently raised our real estate taxes in my muni to help the school district…

But, from a municipal stand point, why go through the effort to get the electorate to increase the real estate taxes…Just increase the fee’s and rates on EVERYTHING and you accomplish the same increase revenue goal which is EXACTLY what they are doing….

 
Comment by Pete
2013-01-29 16:57:41

“although it appears that several members in Sacramento are spearheading a effort to put a modification to Prop.#13 on the Ballot with a split roll which will fail…”

At some point, if things got bad enough, they MIGHT be able to make Prop 13 apply only to your primary residence. The bulk of the people that approved the proposition to begin with were voters who owned a home and were seeing outlandish tax increases on that property.

 
 
Comment by Young Deezy
2013-01-29 09:35:12

There’s a movement afoot to try and “reform” ie. eliminate Prop 13. I’m seeing more and more “Repeal Prop 13″ bumperstickers. You can probably guess what most of the people driving these cars look like. Most of ‘em seem to be stereotypical well to do liberal types, exactly the sort of people who would really gain little from a repeal of the law. Their client populations however, would get lots more gov’t cheese (in theory).

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by Rental Watch
2013-01-29 10:21:31

The “reform” that will take hold is a “only for primary residences” reform (ie. soak the commercial property and second home owners).

 
Comment by oxide
2013-01-29 11:05:04

Wait, Prop 13 isn’t just for primary residences? That makes Prop 13 on second homes sound like a tax break for the rich akin to MID.

I thought Prop 13 was mainly to prevent the elderly on SS from being taxed out of their paid-off homes.

 
Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 12:11:50

“Wait, Prop 13 isn’t just for primary residences? ”

No; this is the big problem with prop 13. The people who benefit the most are wealthy people who own multiple properties. It’s a form of handout for rich people.

This is very different than in most states with homestead tax benefit programs. In Maryland, you’ve always been limited to 1 house per married couple. They’re starting to crack down on people who have multiple homestead credits that have fallen through the cracks (e.g. houses from previous marriages, houses bought prior to marriage, etc.). It’s crazy that, prior to 2013, the only way the checked for multiple-homsteaders was looking for names to match up (maiden names and divorcee names thus falling through cracks). Now they are using SSN’s and matching them against IRS filings, where husband/wife must put down both SSNs even if filing separately.

 
Comment by sfhomowner
2013-01-29 12:19:44

Prop. 13 proponents initially touted the protections it offered California homeowners, but even in the year it passed, homeowners only got 24% of the overall tax refund. Today, the biggest beneficiaries of Prop. 13 are long-time commercial property owners.

 
Comment by Rental Watch
2013-01-29 12:45:37

The thing that really irks me isn’t the commercial property owners. Even if they aren’t residents of California, they need to pay income tax on the rental income for the rents generated by their California property. So they get a break on Prop 13, they get whacked on the rental income.

What irks me are people who own second homes in CA where they spend 179 days per year (officially), so they get the benefit of Prop 13, but pay no income tax here since it’s not officially their primary residence. You can imagine lots of games being played with this…primarily in places like Palm Springs–that are more easily accessible by car from places farther east (since they are in the eastern part of the state). I hear frequently of people who have plane flights that make it look like they were here for under 180 days, but then drive back other times, and use cash for all their purchases. Nice way to avoid “primary residence” status.

 
Comment by MightyMike
2013-01-29 17:02:24

I’m seeing more and more “Repeal Prop 13″ bumperstickers. You can probably guess what most of the people driving these cars look like. Most of ‘em seem to be stereotypical well to do liberal types, exactly the sort of people who would really gain little from a repeal of the law.

You see a car with a bumper sticker and then look at the driver and you can tell that the person is a liberal?

 
Comment by Bill In Los Angeles
2013-01-29 20:53:43

What irks me are people who own second homes in CA where they spend 179 days per year (officially), so they get the benefit of Prop 13, but pay no income tax here since it’s not officially their primary residence.

Yup. The alternative is most of the year by renting in California. It is very difficult to prove a person is renting in California and has any taxable income. Let’s assume I get a 401k distribution and it goes to my Arizona bank. On record I probably will get tax forms of my distribution with my Arizona address. Nothing about California on it. I could theoretically be in California 365 days and have my mail forwarded to California but my “ordinary income” would be in Arizona.

In fact I will do something like that when I retire. I will spend a lot of time in California, maybe not necessarily a year. Some other time I might spend a summer in Colorado. Or in Oregon. Whatever, they would not know my taxable distribution with my Arizona address on file.

 
Comment by Rental Watch
2013-01-30 03:26:53

“I could theoretically be in California 365 days and have my mail forwarded to California but my “ordinary income” would be in Arizona.”

It’s hard to live without a paper trail…

 
Comment by rms
2013-01-30 08:55:29

I remember reading about an out of state pro ball player being income taxed by California for the games played within their borders.

 
Comment by Rental Watch
2013-01-30 19:05:18

Happens all over the US. I remember an article about A Rod and the taxes he paid in all the states in which there was income tax.

 
Comment by Mot
2013-01-31 19:50:59

State of California put a lien on me when I didn’t file there and paid property taxes. Their reasoning that was that my “imputed income” had to be at least three times what I paid in property taxes so they sent me a bill for income taxes on that. With penalties and interest of course.

Took me a year to get all that cleaned up. I _hate_ ****ing California.

 
 
Comment by oxide
2013-01-29 09:38:23

Renters pay hidden property tax too…

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 10:06:29

….. and renting is still half the cost of buying at current inflated asking prices of resale housing.

 
Comment by Neuromance
2013-01-29 10:34:51

I wonder about the maintenance costs and taxes renters pay. Isn’t it possible there’s a bit of economies of scale going on?

You have a maintenance staff who is paid through rent. They provide for the upkeep of the physical property. So, the cost can be diluted over all the renters, rather than just one person bearing the entire cost for a structure.

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 10:38:55

Offsetting depreciation is a mighty big cost that home-debtors seem incapable of being honest about. Thousands of dollars thrown down a black hole in a single year and what happens? It still depreciates. lmao.

 
Comment by Bill In Los Angeles
2013-01-29 20:44:35

I think there is a huge economies of scale. My $950 2 bedroom apartment in Phoenix is among 50 to 100 units in the complex. Just two maintenance guys on the staff.

 
 
 
Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 09:32:53

How are you planning to hide your 401k and other stocks from teh “thuggernment”?

Comment by palmetto
2013-01-29 09:39:16

The “buggerment”?

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 10:45:52

You’ve certainly had buggery on the brain a lot here lately, palmetto :)

Did you know that Senator Lindsay Graham has never been married?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindsay_Graham

We don’t have any verifiable evidence that Sen. Graham has a penchant for 19 and 20 year old twink-boi Congressional pages, just years of whispered rumors. Ever notice how his male staffers all look like Abercrombie and Fitch models?

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 11:28:22

hmmm….. another family values closet queen?

 
Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 11:40:06

Senator Mark Kirk (Republican - Illinois) is a closet queen as well.

 
Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 13:23:49

To quote Seinfeld, “not that there’s anything wrong with that”

The closeted, downlow, married, “family values”, hypocrite Congressmen are just representing their base:

http://m.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-big-questions/201106/homophobic-men-most-aroused-gay-male-porn

 
Comment by palmetto
2013-01-29 14:19:30

“You’ve certainly had buggery on the brain a lot here lately, palmetto”

Lol, how can ya help it when they keep publishing these articles about Cardinal Mahoney and his merry band of rogue priests, Karl Rove’s adventures in the Wonderland of Washington, Menendez, Graham, etc., etc. There was even a really awesome screed about Rahm and Obama on the loose in the bathhouses of Chi-town. But, I keep reminding myself, Rome went that way, too.

When I lived in Miamuh, there was this old bulldog of an anchorwoman, Ann Bishop, at one of the local affiliates. Rumors swirled about her for years. And then I was at a media party one time, that she also attended, and watched all these pretty young things literally throwing themselves at her. It was rather obvious that it was about career advancement more than anything else. Pretty wild. I imagine Washington’s a lot like that.

 
Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-01-29 16:08:18

homophobic-men-most-aroused-gay-male-porn

Great link, g sguad. I always assumed this, it’s amusing to see the science back me up. They want to outlaw their temptation.

 
 
Comment by Bill in Los Angeles
2013-01-29 09:41:43

Those I can’t. Stocks tend to do better than metals in the long run. I regard this premium the payment for being visible. In addition to gold I suggest ammo and good quality liquor. You can store wine in commercial temperature controlled storage units for wine for a fee.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 10:53:33

401ks/stocks won’t work for my generation. There’s no way congress will be able to keep from one of these options: a) tapping into 401k’s/stocks to finance the entitlements of old people, b) means-testing social security/medicare, if it is even around in 40 yrs, or c) removing the tax advantages associated with retirement accounts. I can also see them putting a special tax on an employer’s matching contributions into a 401k.

Since most people don’t save much (if anything) for retirement, it won’t be that politically unpopular to do some degree of these things.

I’d rather make it look like I’m “losing money” or that I’m spending like the average J6P who blows 90% of each paycheck without fail. Therefore, to me, the only 401k contributions I’ll be doing are those which employers match, because that’s a 100% ROI almost immediately. Getting a few percent a year might work for you, since you’re retiring in 10 yrs or so, but for me, I can’t wait 40 yrs and pray that the gov’t doesn’t reach for my money. Unacceptable risk.

 
 
 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 10:09:01

A home owner is a sitting duck for property tax hikes.”

You better believe it mister.

Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 13:10:18

Got TABOR?

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
Comment by rms
2013-01-29 12:47:21

“A home owner is a sitting duck for property tax hikes.”

Heck, you should try being in business. “Let business pay for it” is the meme especially in California.

 
 
 
Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 08:14:33

Filed under: Hope and Change

Reuters - Stuck in reverse, Detroit edges closer to bankruptcy:

“The story of Detroit’s decline is decades old: Its tax revenue and population have shrunk and labor costs have remained out of whack. But the city’s budget problems have deepened to such an extent that it could run out of cash in a matter of weeks or months and ultimately be forced into what would be the largest-ever Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy filing in the United States.

Signs of decline are everywhere - in a rising crime rate, streets without lights and block after block of abandoned buildings. The murder rate of one per 1,719 people last year was more than 11 times the rate in New York City. The jobless rate is above 18 percent, more than twice the rate for the country as a whole.”

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE90R13O20130128?irpc=932

Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 12:21:34

Thank god decades of offshoring the auto industry had nothing to do with its decline.

Nope. No siree!

Comment by Hi-Z
2013-01-29 13:14:34

The auto industry was offshored by the American buyers, not by the US auto industry.

Comment by rms
2013-01-29 13:33:30

“The auto industry was offshored by the American buyers, not by the US auto industry.”

+1 I recall reading an 70’s article written by a big deal-maker, who was taking a few big-shots for a helicopter ride to survey an area slated for a new auto assembly plant. They also flew to an existing American assembly plant to observe its scale. The author quietly noted the vast number of worker’s Japanese cars in the parking lot.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
Comment by Carl Morris
2013-01-29 14:17:14

American buyers

American buyers responding to being treated as a captive audience by bad 1%er management.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
Comment by redmondjp
2013-01-29 15:06:46

And decades of city/county governmental mismanagement and corruption, that has nothing to do with it either . . .

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 15:44:23

“The auto industry was offshored by the American buyers, not by the US auto industry.”

Ever heard of Deming and the history thereof?

Long story short, they screwed themselves. Period.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
 
 
Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 08:20:03

Filed under: Forward

Weekly Standard - Obama to Fly Over 9 Hours Just for Speech on Immigration:

“President Barack Obama will fly over 9 hours tomorrow, round-trip from Washington, D.C. to Las Vegas, Nevada, just to deliver a speech on immigration, according to the president’s White House schedule. With Air Force One estimated to cost $182,000 per hour in flight, Obama’s trip — that is, only his travel to and from Vegas — will cost taxpayers over $1.6 million.

Obama has no other public events scheduled in Las Vegas but his immigration speech.”

http://m.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-fly-over-9-hours-just-speech-immigration_698171.html

Comment by In Purgatory
2013-01-29 08:26:39

This is why I always thought the argument that people have to reduce their carbon foot print is all bogus.

Comment by Bill in Los Angeles
2013-01-29 08:37:44

They are allowed to if they are socialists though.

Comment by scdave
2013-01-29 09:08:35

people have to reduce their carbon foot print is all bogus ??

How big is the DOD carbon foot print ??

They are allowed to if they are socialists though ??

Yeah…All those socialists at the Pentagon….

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 09:46:19

socialists at the Pentagon

They’re not socialists, they’re private-sector, for-profit, bootstrapping, rugged individualist, Galt Gulch, rags to riches, Horatio Alger, born in a log cabin, baseball, mom, and apple pie, makers not takers, Real American, restorers of our future, takers back of America, producer, job creator, the future’s so bright I gotta wear shades, government contractors.*

“contractors make up 70 percent of the Pentagon’s costs for delivering services, while federal employees make up just 30 percent”

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-01-14/politics/36343675_1_furloughs-or-other-actions-sequestration-civilian-workforce

* detailed as per No Meme Left Behind Act of 2013

 
Comment by Bill in Los Angeles
2013-01-29 09:48:56

I agree Dave. Although proper defense is constitutional, overspending is like a jibs program and is socialist. you can tell it is overspending when we meddle in other nation’s affairs that are clearly no threat to main street.

 
Comment by scdave
2013-01-29 10:41:33

They’re not socialists ??

That was my point Goon….

 
Comment by scdave
2013-01-29 10:44:40

overspending is like a jibs program and is socialist ??

Oh, I totally agree…So, those that live in all those red states vote for congressmen that pass socialists programs…All in the name of “defense” and “keeping-you-safe” of course…

 
Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 12:23:21

“Pork” is the name you all are looking for.

 
Comment by Albuquerquedan
2013-01-29 14:47:13

Yes, we are all getting porked.

 
Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 15:46:21

:lol: Yes we are. :lol:

 
 
Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 13:22:08

“They’re not socialists, they’re private-sector, for-profit, bootstrapping, rugged individualist, Galt Gulch, rags to riches, Horatio Alger, born in a log cabin, baseball, mom, and apple pie, makers not takers, Real American, restorers of our future, takers back of America, producer, job creator, the future’s so bright I gotta wear shades, government contractors.*”

Are you keeping a word file on your desktop at this point?

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 15:08:20

Certainly not. You’ll note that the order always changes and new memes are sometimes added. Sometimes it feels like Kerouac, stream-of-consciousness writing, sometimes like one of Faulkner’s endless, run-on sentences, and sometimes like the “cut-up” method pioneered by Bryon Gysin that influenced the literature of William S. Burroughs and the early songwriting of David Bowie.

We included this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future’s_So_Bright,_I_Gotta_Wear_Shades

because it was released in 1986 and fits perfectly into the second term of Reagan’s “Morning in America” sunny optimism also reflected in other pop songs of that era like “Walking On Sunshine” which was featured in the blockbuster Michael J. Fox film The Secret of my Success.

When you’re a bootstrapping government contractor, every day is walking on sunshine :)

 
Comment by ahansen
2013-01-30 00:57:30

Bravo, goonie. One of your better ones.

 
 
 
 
Comment by Pressboardbox
2013-01-29 08:53:28

The importance of the speech is akin to “God’s work”. No expense is considered too great. The future of humanity is at stake. Forward.

 
Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-01-29 09:07:51

He should take the bus!

Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 09:35:23

Yeah he should. Or better yet, he should hitchhike.

We had to post that Drudge link because 2banana has the day off today.

 
Comment by Northeastener
2013-01-29 10:08:03

Yeah, the short bus…

Comment by Take America Back!
2013-01-29 10:30:25

Yeah! And he should have to sit in the back of the bus!

And have a separate drinking fountain!

Et cetera…

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
 
Comment by MightyMike
2013-01-29 17:17:21

Weekly Standard - Obama to Fly Over 9 Hours Just for Speech on Immigration:

Does anyone here read the Weekly Standard on a regular basis. Even though it’s part of the Murdoch empire, I always thought that aimed for a higher IQ crowd than the likes of Bill O’Reilly. Writing stories about the cost of flying the president around seems to indicate the opposite, that they’re hoping to get the knuckle-draggers to read their magazine.

 
Comment by Avocado
2013-01-29 19:53:21

Isn’t he the president? at least the money is spent at home.

 
 
Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 08:35:24

Filed under: welcome to the recoveryless recovery

San Francisco Chronicle - US consumer confidence plunges on higher taxes:

“U.S. consumer confidence plunged in January to its lowest level in more than a year, reflecting higher Social Security taxes that left Americans with less take-home pay.

Taxes are rising at a time when wages and salaries are barely growing. The combination is expected to hurt consumer spending and slow economic growth.”

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/US-consumer-confidence-plunges-on-higher-taxes-4232078.php

Comment by scdave
2013-01-29 09:09:56

Nice post Goon…Thanks…

 
Comment by Albuquerquedan
2013-01-29 11:07:49

Found this in the same SF issue:

Fannie, Freddie to let some walk

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will let some borrowers who kept up payments as their homes lost value erase their debts by giving up the properties, helping Americans escape underwater loans while adding to losses at the mortgage giants bailed out with $190 billion of taxpayer money.

Nondelinquent borrowers with illness, job changes or other reasons they need to move will become eligible in March to apply for a deed-in-lieu transaction that erases the shortfall between a property’s value and the size of its mortgage. It follows a change in November that lets on-time borrowers sell properties for less than they owe, known as short sales, wiping out the remaining mortgage debt. Normally, the lenders could pursue people to recoup their losses.

Previous foreclosure-prevention programs were designed to help only borrowers on the verge of losing their homes, in effect penalizing those who kept paying.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Fannie-Freddie-to-let-some-walk-away-4230643.php#ixzz2JO9XB23Q

 
Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 12:50:56

“Taxes are rising at a time when wages and salaries are barely growing.”

Did they miss the last 30 years?

 
 
Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 08:49:59

Filed under: the war on wages for U.S. citizen working poor

Denver Post editorial - Right approach on immigration:

“The immigration reform framework unveiled Monday by a bipartisan group of U.S. senators outlines a rational approach to solving one of the nation’s thorniest problems, but no one should be celebrating just yet.”

Celebrating? Seriously, WTF? Who wants to celebrate this country turning into Mexico? Who wants to celebrate the Zetas? Who wants to celebrate MS-13?

“Yet we are hopeful that politics and demographics may finally push federal lawmakers to action, the way that conscience and good sense, unfortunately, have failed to do.”

Hopeful? And keep pushing the “bipartisan” meme. And make sure not to mention how the chain-migration laws will allow another 50+ million illiterate, third-world peasants to immigrate under family reunification provisions after the first 11 million are given amnesty. PUKE!

http://m.denverpost.com/denverpost/pm_9109/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=tzTELA7w

Comment by palmetto
2013-01-29 09:09:03

It’s called “Manifest Destruction”, lol.

 
Comment by Neuromance
2013-01-29 11:31:05

All your standard of living are belong to us.

 
Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 12:53:06

Welcome! To Fantasy Island!

 
 
Comment by Housing Analyst
2013-01-29 09:14:02

“Get what you can get for your house today because it’s going to be much much less tomorrow for many many years to come.”

Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-01-29 09:59:37

How many is many many?

Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 10:15:32

And your losses grow with each passing day.

 
 
 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-01-29 09:24:16

Follow-up on my request for info on how my friend might refi her underwater mortgage: Turns out she is ineligible for a H.A.R.P. refi.

I didn’t press for details, but this news made me curious about just how stringent the qualification standards are. She is a single soccer mom supporting herself and her young adult children on administrative assistant pay — not exactly a member of the 1% club.

Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 11:36:22

I have heard that if you are underwater because of a second mortgage (and remember, a lot of people bought with two loans during the bubble) that you are SOL. I suspect that this is the real reason why so few have taken advantage of HARP.

 
Comment by cactus
2013-01-29 12:04:39

Turns out she is ineligible for a H.A.R.P. refi.”

The government is here to help.. themsleves

 
Comment by Rental Watch
2013-01-30 03:28:54

Could be that her loan is non-conforming.

 
 
Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 09:53:26

Mike Whitney nails it again in this analysis of the alleged Recovery®

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/01/29/rally-time-on-wall-street-2/

 
Comment by Northeastener
2013-01-29 10:14:17

More good news from the tech sector: VMWare to cut staff.

VMWare reported solid 4th quarter earnings, but lowered 2013 guidance significantly, citing cutbacks in Federal spending and a difficult European economy. VMWare now plans to cut 7% of it’s workforce.

For those not aware, VMWare is a publicly traded division of storage maker EMC. EMC and VMWare are very big players in the Massachusetts tech economy…

Comment by Neuromance
2013-01-29 10:38:45

There’s a new technology generating buzz and hype. You’re seeing some repositioning (”happy-sizing”) among some tech companies as a result.

Network effect
“Software-defined networking” is inspiring hope, and hype
The Economist
Dec 15th 2012 |From the print edition

Those forecasting regicide think SDN will revolutionise today’s networks, which rely heavily on expensive, proprietary combinations of routers, network switches and software made by Cisco, Juniper Networks and other firms. Techies are still struggling to come up with a definition of SDN in language simple enough for humans to comprehend, but essentially it is the use of software that lets computer folk create networks they can reconfigure quickly and centrally without having to fiddle with individual routers and switches, which is costly and time-consuming.

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21568435-software-defined-networking-inspiring-hope-and-hype-network-effect

YMMV

Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 13:09:11

It would be cool if you could visually program the network. Connect the dots and set properties.

 
 
Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 11:34:03

Ya gotta love it. Now they don’t even wait to miss profit targets (while still making money hand over fist) before swinging the layoff ax. Now they start chopping because next year might not be as good as hoped.

Comment by Northeastener
2013-01-29 11:56:52

I thought you would appreciate that.

Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 13:06:29

“At least I have a job” should become our new national motto.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
 
Comment by rms
2013-01-29 13:05:44

I use VMWare (was Shavlik) patch scanning and pushing as well as their policy configuration management tools; great stuff for isolated SCADA networks. I also have VMWare sphere at home too.

 
 
Comment by Northeastener
2013-01-29 10:36:52

One more bubble to blame the government for… guns and ammo.

A friend I work with also happens to own a gun shop in NH. He’s been on vacation the last few weeks, but is now back and I had a chance to talk to him. Here is what he, a Class III firearms dealer, had to say:

* While talking to Federal (ammunition manufacturer) at the SHOT show in Vegas, he was told that unless he could commit to at least $100,000 in ammunition purchases per month, he would be cut from distribution. Only large players and cabals of smaller players combining resources are getting any distribution currently.

* Completed AR-15 lower receivers (including AR parts kit, stock, and buffer) are going for $1000+, if you can find them. These parts were worth approx. $400-500 prior to the latest proposed gun legislation.

*Complete AR-15’s (upper and lower receivers) are currently selling at retail for $2000+. These firearms sold for anywhere from $800-1200 prior to the latest proposed gun legislation.

* Century Arms Imports of Romanian WASR-10 AK-47’s that sold as late as December for $500 at retail are now $1000 wholesale. Figure $1300-1500 retail in the current environment.

* 5.56mm ammunition that sold for $00.25/round retail prior to the latest proposed gun legislation, is now selling for $1/round. If you can find it… I have been looking for over a month, in multiple stores ranging from Walmart and Bass Pro to the largest gun dealer in MA, and have yet to find any available for sale.

* Handgun ammunition of any caliber other than 9mm and .22LR has become scarce and has seen a 25% markup in cost. This includes .40 cal, .45, .380, etc., some of the most common calibers. My dealer friend has resorted to buying from Walmart and reselling it in his store. Unfortunately for him, Walmart has implemented a 3 box purchase limit.

* The shooting ranges are dead, as no one is shooting because of the cost and lack of availability of ammunition. This speaks of hoarding…

Either the US is about to devolve into a Syria-like civil war or there is a massive speculative bubble in firearms and ammunition currently.

Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 10:41:34

I heard ammo purchases are going to require a background check. It’s time to pull dad’s reloader equipment out of dry dock.;)

Comment by Northeastener
2013-01-29 10:54:23

Indeed. The next step in the gun-grabbing progressive playbook will be to regulate and restrict reloading components like bullets, primers, and powder.

 
Comment by Rental Watch
2013-01-30 03:31:37

When I was growing up, a neighbor had an AK-47 with high-capacity banana clips…yes, in CA, and yes, illegal. He resorted to buying ammo from less scrupulous gun shops, and reloading…although that’s a lot of reloading when you fire that many rounds…

 
 
Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 10:56:32

The shooting ranges are dead

We don’t patronize indoor ranges, so can’t speak to that. But we were hiking in the Pike National Forest southwest of Colorado Springs last weekend near a popular (free!) outdoor shooting spot, and over five hours heard a few thousand rounds pop off about a mile away and 1,000+ vertical feet below us. And these were not .22LR rounds, definitely some serious gunz down there…

 
Comment by X-GSfixr
2013-01-29 11:32:00

The answer is “B”. (speculative bubble)

Anyone who wants/needed an AR or AK already had one. Proof?

Wal Mart was selling ARs at a significant discount from MSRP just prior to the Connecticut shoot-em-up.

Nothing better than some saber rattling from the gun control crowd to perk up sales.

Can’t let a good massacre go to waste.

Fearless prediction…….12 months from now, you will still be able to buy all of the AR-15s and 30 round mag you want, at prices cheaper than today’s.

Comment by Pete
2013-01-29 17:15:41

“Fearless prediction…….12 months from now, you will still be able to buy all of the AR-15s and 30 round mag you want, at prices cheaper than today’s.”

Buy an AR-15 today and you will lose ALOT of money.

 
 
Comment by X-GSfixr
2013-01-29 11:34:02

A buck a round for 5.56mm?

LMFAO………I can feed my Garand cheaper than that.

Comment by Northeastener
2013-01-29 12:00:35

Exactly… I was buying Match .308 Win for my bolt action for not much more than that. It’s one reason I’ve stopped shooting the AR. I can’t replace the ammo I have and if I find it, the replacement ammo is ridiculously expensive.

We’ll need to give it 6 months and see where we are.

 
Comment by Northeastener
2013-01-29 12:40:46

A buck a round for 5.56mm?

Check this out… cheaper than dirt has 5.56, but look at the price for 300 rounds. I was paying around $7/per 20 round box of ball in Oct and Nov last year and $179/420 round ammo can of SS109 steel penetrator.

Comment by X-GSfixr
2013-01-29 14:47:04

Those guys seem pricy. Checked the .30-06, their price for 150 grain/M2 ball ( roughly)equivalent is 31 bucks.

I can go down to Wally World and buy my choice of their .30-06 stock for $19-22/box. All day.

I guess my “Mad Max” contingency plan is to lay low until all the AR-15 guys shoot themselves out of ammo.

Oh for the days when I was buying Columbian Army surplus .30-06 M2 ball, for $5/box. (I took a thousand…….)

(Comments wont nest below this level)
 
 
 
Comment by ecofeco
2013-01-29 14:09:23

Gun mfg and dealers are laughing all the way to the bank.

 
Comment by Avocado
2013-01-29 19:57:29

how about, idiots just buying guns and ammo out of fear.

spending is good for the economy

I have the same amount of guns I have had for 20 yrs. 2. no fear, just occasional quail hunting.

 
Comment by ahansen
2013-01-30 01:04:25

Clever, huh, how the Obama Admin is creating jobs in the gunz’nammo sector? Very sneaky, if you ask me….

(Maybe they could threaten to limit the number of bedrooms/bathrooms in all new housing, or propose a ban on McMansions?)

 
 
Comment by Neuromance
2013-01-29 10:44:26

These people hide behind complexity. Their cooperation in explaining the control fraud and financial time bombs they created should have been part of plea agreements, with their getting driven to the office to meet with forensic accountants, and at the end of the day, driven back to the minimum security prison.

Pay Still High at Bailed-Out Companies, Report Says
By ANNIE LOWREY
New York Times
Published: January 28, 2013

WASHINGTON — Top executives at firms that received taxpayer bailouts during the financial crisis continue to receive generous government-approved compensation packages, a Treasury watchdog said in a report released on Monday.

The watchdog, commonly called Sigtarp, found that 68 out of 69 executives at Ally Financial, the American International Group and General Motors received annual compensation of $1 million or more, with the Treasury’s signoff.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/business/generous-executive-pay-at-bailed-out-companies-treasury-watchdog-says.html?_r=1&

Rewarding people with multimillion dollar government salaries, after running their private companies into the ground. “How Uniquely American.”

Unreal.

Comment by Neuromance
2013-01-29 11:19:05

Creative destruction is in fact a necessary component of capitalism.

These executives think it’s fine to fire hundreds or thousands of people for higher share prices (read: personal profit) without batting an eye. But when it’s time for their delicate necks to feel the caress of the axe, they turn into touchy-feely socialists.

And the politicians they’ve bought support them.

Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 11:39:52

We posted that link yesterday. Yet another confirmation that “socialize the losses, privatize the gains” are the rules of the game for the pigmen.

Comment by X-GSfixr
2013-01-29 12:07:40

It’s the “Efficient Market” plan……

-Design the system to concentrate all of the money in a few places.

-Government then designs itself around optimizing revenue generation from where the wealth is concentrated.

-The two entities are co-dependent

We’ve all heard the Krill-Whale Plan. This is the “Efficient Market Whale-Whale Bi-lateral Reach Around and/or Circle Jerk Plan”.

The Wretched Refuse are the Pivot Men.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 12:47:04

Has anyone ever defined exactly what we mean when we say “wretched refuse”?

Some might say “lucky duckies” or “working poor” but I think it extends much further than that. A better definition of wretched refuse would focus on passive income & owned assets vs. earned income.

The wretched refuse is anyone who has more earned income than passive income and who couldn’t live more than a few years off of their assets (not including primary residence)(also, cars do not count as assets for the purposes of this analysis)(social sec and medicare do not count as passive income or assets, obviously)

 
Comment by X-GSfixr
2013-01-29 14:38:03

Wretched Refuse = The 47% + The Middle Class (X-GSfixr definition)

Call it the 90% of the population that pays income taxes.

 
Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 14:45:33

x-gs, your definition includes people who have little or no earned income (mostly passive income) and people who own a lot of assets. IMO, I don’t think such people have much in common with the wretched refuse. The wretched refuse is anyone who is absolutely dependent on a job for income. They can’t seek rent, they can’t act as a middleman, and they can’t live off of others’ hard work.

 
 
 
 
 
Comment by Neuromance
2013-01-29 11:12:07

Remember folks: No matter who the person, no matter how august their title or regal their bearing, they wipe their butts just like the rest of us.

Ex-Mich. justice pleads guilty to bank fraud
By ED WHITE, Associated Press
Updated 9:49 am, Tuesday, January 29, 2013

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — A former Michigan Supreme Court justice pleaded guilty to bank fraud Tuesday for concealing assets, including a debt-free Florida home, while urging a bank to let her unload a Michigan house in a short sale, claiming financial hardship.

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/crime/article/Ex-Mich-justice-pleads-guilty-to-bank-fraud-4232209.php

Also: She must be one of the non-connected. This seems relatively small potatoes. It’s like Lanny Breuer crowing about how many insider trading cases his office prosecuted till the interviewer pointed out they had nothing to do with the financial crisis.

How much more destructive and gigantic control frauds occurred at the top levels of the financial companies, for which those companies received trillions in bailouts and the executives paid multi-million dollar salaries from the public treasury for their troubles. Rather than finding themselves cooling their heels in prison for the vast frauds. And this woman is facing jail for a comparatively very minor offense.

Makes one wonder about how this country is really ruled, and by who.

“Laws are like spiders’ webs: if some light or powerless thing falls into them, it is caught, but a bigger one can break through and get away.” — Solon

Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 12:50:18

I seem to remember she was the chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court?

 
 
Comment by cactus
2013-01-29 11:57:29

renter nation

“What drives demand for single family homes is, ‘Oh honey, I’m pregnant,” says Buck Horne, a housing analyst at Raymond James.

But those words are being uttered less and less. Horne claims the shift in female education, marriage and fertility rates will drive rental apartment demand going forward. He points to a growing educational imbalance, that is, 3.1 million more women enrolled in college than men and 4 million more college-educated women in the workforce than men.

“That creates a structural imbalance in the number of suitable partners. Women leave college with good income prospects and are not finding suitable husbands and fathers,” says Horne.

Consequently, the millennial generation is delaying marriage and motherhood, and birth and fertility rates are dropping. The female fertility rate is at its lowest level in recorded U.S. history, according to the Centers for Disease Control/Raymond James research. 41 percent of children are born out of wedlock. Horne’s research finds single mothers prefer living closer in to cities and staying in full amenity apartment rentals. This all points to more structural, long-term demand for rental housing.

Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 12:24:44

Multiple children is now something done most frequently by the underclass in this country. If children are really the reason people have been buying as opposed to renting… home prices are in for an interesting trajectory.

Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 13:03:31

Multiple children is now something done most frequently by the underclass in this country.

I think even that is changing.

Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 13:19:47

Birth control should be plentiful and virtually free. We need at least a slight population growth (bc of entitlements) but people who make poor parents should be dissuaded. As for incentivizing responsible people to have children, I’m not sure there are good answers. The right already wants to defund public education.

The biggest problem with the notion of the younger generation supporting the older generation really isn’t the size of each respective cohort. There is a reasonable congruence between people who are 25-35 and people who are 50-60. The big problem is that the people who are now 50-60 will be living, on average, to nearly 80 yrs old. And you have to keep in mind that if there is only 1 of us for each of them, that is a VERY heavy burden to carry. Each one of us has to pay for one of them. All things considered, there are only a few workers per retiree at this point and the ratio is creeping ever lower.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by X-GSfixr
2013-01-29 14:34:31

“……will be living, on average, to nearly 80……..”

Maybe.

Much will depend on how many oldsters get thrown under the bus in the name of “austerity”, “balanced budgets” and “competitiveness”

None of the PTB will ever admit it. But that’s what they are thinking. And this is not unique to the US of A.

 
Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 14:51:18

And this is not unique to the US of A.

Indeed, the Prime Minister of Japan basically said that the elderly should do everyone a favor and keel over and die.

As for living until 80, I doubt many American lard butts will make it that far.

 
Comment by Avocado
2013-01-29 20:00:59

But in Fox News America, they want to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, who mission is to avoid unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

Like increasing the military budget then complaint we need guns to protect ourselves from the gov.

you cant fix stupid

 
 
 
Comment by sfhomowner
2013-01-29 13:05:57

Multiple children is now something done most frequently by the underclass

Lack of education (and access) about birth control and cultural/religious reasons are indeed a primary factor in big families, BUT

In many wealthier places, having more than 2 kids is a status symbol: if you can afford to buy a big enough house or apt. in a place like SF or Manhattan and pay for nannies and send more than 2 kids to private school it is a sign that you have made it.

I know many people (myself included) who might have chosen to have a 3rd kid, but did not for financial reasons. Also a reason many stop at one kid.

http://grist.org/population/2011-03-03-are-rich-americans-having-more-kids/

 
Comment by rms
2013-01-29 13:20:26

“Multiple children is now something done most frequently by the underclass in this country.”

We have a number of Mormon families here, and they tend to have large families, but it doesn’t appear to slow their economic success much. My wife’s friend has a stack of professional college degrees from their household. Nothing wrong with hard work that pays-off.

Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 14:35:22

Do you really think most women these days are going to want to be subordinate Mormon wives?

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by Carl Morris
2013-01-29 15:30:25

I don’t find them to be particularly submissive. I see that more in the fundys.

 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower©
2013-01-29 16:02:58

“I don’t find them to be particularly submissive.”

No kidding! My wife has quite a backbone, for one, which actually helps us get along, now that I am used to it after two decades of marriage.

My observation of LDS men is that they tend to be more passive than average towards their wives, and more aggressive than average outside the home around other people. Admittedly this perception is heavily biased by what I see in my wife’s immediate family relations.

 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower©
2013-01-29 16:06:47

It also seems that the majority of Mormon women in our SoCal circle have paid work in addition to the majority of household duties. The typical situation is for the husband to be the primary breadwinner and the wife to be a major support, providing income and service to the family, church and community. The exception is families where the husband either earns enough or has enough accumulated wealth so the wife can be a full-time stay-at-home mom.

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 16:20:54

“I see that more in the fundys.”

Bigtime. The entire North American evang-fundy movement is founded on adherence to patriarchal rules they attribute to the New Testament but don’t actually exist. Peck away at those rules and the entire rotten corrupt system falls apart.

 
Comment by Avocado
2013-01-29 20:07:28

Every time someone says “Mormon” I think of the South Park cartoon and laugh, same with “Scientology.” love that brilliant cartoon!!

 
 
 
 
Comment by vinceinwaukesha
2013-01-29 13:54:06

“Horne’s research finds single mothers prefer living closer in to cities and staying in full amenity apartment rentals. ”

So just to make it clear, the biggest threat to marriage today is the existence of “full amenity apartment rentals” not “Adam and Steve”. I hope the haters heads are spinning around at 1000 RPM after this one.

Also one very important credit/debt bubble issue carefully not mentioned by the article is “prime child bearing years” college educated women already have mortgage sized student loans… Can’t afford a “second” house payment sized bill. Assuming they’re in the 50% of grads who get a high paying college level job after graduation instead of being a waitress or bartender, the odds are currently about 50:50. In the olden days they had to choose between career and family, now they have to choose between degree and house, and 13 years of indoctrination by K-12 teachers that they MUST get a degree means this might finally be the stake thru the heart of the housing bubble. School-girls, “Buffy the vampire slayer” finally cast as the stake thru the housing bubble vampire… LOL.

Maybe the lesson is we’ll never be free of debt slavery, but over generations we’ll switch from property debt slaves to higher ed debt slaves.

Comment by X-GSfixr
2013-01-29 14:30:21

Tomorrow’s “Dream Man”:

-Has regular job……(any kind of regular job. “Contractor” doesn’t count)

-Full amenity apartment

-No College, Corvette, or Harley loans outstanding.

-Sexual orientation is negotiable :)

 
Comment by In Colorado
2013-01-29 14:44:59

college educated women already have mortgage sized student loans

Maybe the ones that went to pricey private schools. If you went to State then it’s more like car loan size.

 
Comment by Cracker Bob
2013-01-29 17:16:48

“13 years of indoctrination by K-12 teachers”

Yes, it is always the fault of public schools. Sounds like we have another fundy-homeschooler.

 
 
 
Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 12:05:06

Can we really trust Mary Jo White?

Everyone’s focusing on her time as a prosecutor, almost like they forget her ties to all the BB banks.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/nominee-for-sheriff-has-worn-banks-hat/

While Ms. White is a decorated prosecutor, she has spent the last decade vigorously defending — and billing by the hour — Wall Street’s biggest banks, as a rainmaking partner at the white-shoe law firm Debevoise & Plimpton. The average partner at the firm was paid $2.1 million a year, according to American Lawyer; but she was no average partner, very likely being paid at least double that. Her husband, John W. White, is a corporate partner at Cravath, Swaine & Moore. He counts JPMorgan Chase, Credit Suisse and UBS as clients. The average partner at Cravath makes $3.1 million. He, too, was a former official at the S.E.C. — he left Cravath to run the corporate division of the S.E.C. starting in 2006 just in time for the run-up to the financial crisis. He left in November 2008, a month after the bank bailouts, to return to Cravath.

It seems Mr. and Ms. White have made a fine art of the revolving door between government and private practice.

Comment by Bluestar
2013-01-29 12:58:13

Can we really trust Mary Jo White?
Corporations are people too (Mitt Romney).
She’s a modern day John Adams! Remember that time he defended the British soldiers after the Boston Massacre. Yes it’s the same John Adam that gave us The Sedition Act of 1798.

Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 13:14:03

I think this is something even more nefarious. John Adam’s wife wasn’t supplying the British soldiers with weapons, was she? Mary Jo’s husband is a Biglaw partner who is on the FASB committee.

 
 
 
Comment by sfhomowner
2013-01-29 12:14:06

In ‘Occupy,’ Well-Educated Professionals Far Outnumbered Jobless, Study Finds

You mean they weren’t just a bunch of unwashed, drug-using, conga-playing hippies? Wonder where we got that idea from?

Lobbyists Offer An ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Smear Campaign For Just $850,000

Comment by joe smith
2013-01-29 12:34:31

Here’s the memo where some lobbying firm offered to help the ABA discredit Occupy… http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/CLGF-msnbc.pdf

 
Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 13:14:12

Any discussion of wealth/income inequality or the idea of enacting a transaction tax on Wall Street trades was immediately quashed by the UK Daily Mail photo of the dude taking a dump on a police car.

Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 13:15:25

Some individuals and institutions deserve to be high-towered.

 
 
 
2013-01-29 12:40:29

@joe smith

I feel like there must be so many people like this in Washington (DC) - if you ever check out the biographies of congressmen or the people who run - for example - the Treasury Dept. - have all sat on the boards of giant corporations. They all have their own private investments and stocks and sometimes even companies - see Mitt Romney.

Surely this leads to a conflict of interests? Or does it make them more qualified to run those departments? Who knows — is there even a way to track such a thing?

 
Comment by Neuromance
2013-01-29 13:51:16

Remains to be seen if the debt-peddlers got too greedy and will break the system, or just create a persistent period of malaise.

Overdue Student Loans Reach ‘Unsustainable’ 15%, Fair Isaac Says
By Elizabeth Dexheimer - Jan 29, 2013 12:03 PM ET
Bloomberg

Delinquency rates on student loans made in the past two years stand at 15 percent in the U.S. as recent graduates struggle to find jobs, Fair Isaac Corp. (FICO) said.

The rate for 2010 through 2012 compares with 12.4 percent for loans made from 2005 to 2007, Fair Isaac’s FICO Labs said in a statement today, citing data from October. Average student- loan debt last year rose to $27,253 from $17,233 in 2005, and almost 60 percent of bank managers surveyed in December expect delinquencies to worsen in six months, FICO said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-29/overdue-student-loans-reach-unsustainable-15-fair-isaac-says.html

Comment by goon squad
2013-01-29 15:14:07

And the NAR-scum will never stop pimping about “pent-up demand” from those broke azz Lucky Ducklings living in mom’s basement. As soon as they get that promotion from sales clerk to assistant manager at the Gap they’ll all be buying $500,000 houses, right?

Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 16:16:18

The Goddamn NARscum liars. Hideous liars. And there are a few NARscum consultants right here on this blog. And they’re liars. You know who they are.

 
 
 
Comment by Albuquerquedan
2013-01-29 15:15:29

Quietly oil is pressing higher, you cannot print so much money without moving it, I think people should take those articles about fracking creating an oil glut with a grain of salt, the people writing them do not understand how much faster a fracked well declines than a normal one, of course that is true also about any horizontal well vs a vertical well, the treadmill goes faster and faster :

Jan 29 (Reuters) - Brent crude rose on Tuesday as supportive economic data and a weaker U.S. dollar helped lift oil prices.

Brent March crude rose 88 cents, or 0.78 percent, to settle at $114.36 a barrel, having traded from $113.07 to $114.49. (Reporting by Robert Gibbons; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

Comment by Albuquerquedan
2013-01-29 16:19:57

I wonder if the reporter reads this blog. I can’t disagree with anything he says since I have said it all on this blog over a number of months:
http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-sunni-discontent-syria-fears-feed-iraqi-unrest-144612246.html

 
Comment by Cracker Bob
2013-01-29 17:26:30

Just remember the Fox News rule:

When Obama is president, always use the Brent quote; when Bush is president, use the WTI (West Texas) quote which is $15.00 less than Brent.

 
 
Comment by mmrtnt
2013-01-29 15:58:23

Henderson sues developer, alleging arena plan was ruse to flip land

“Controversial Texas developer Chris Milam never planned to build a pro sports complex in Henderson as he promised to city officials and schemed with associates to get a sweetheart land deal while intending only to flip the property for residential development, according to a lawsuit filed against Milam by the city of Henderson on Monday.”

 
Comment by aNYCdj
2013-01-29 17:07:33

News Flash JC penny to eliminate 1000 high priced help:

http://www.businessinsider.com/jcpenney-salon-receptionist-layoffs-2013-1

JCPenney is eliminating salon receptionists company-wide, employees at the company tell us.

The receptionists are being let go on March 10, and some will be replaced by stylists “fresh out of school.” The idea is that the new hires will work their way into a station, explains a JCPenney stylist.

It’s unclear exactly how many people this will affect.

A large JCPenney salon can have eight or more receptionists who work there, says the stylist.

The total headcount could be upwards of 1,000, according to another JCPenney employee.

Salon workers were informed of the news today in what they describe as “secret meetings,” the employee tells us.

JCPenney CEO Ron Johnson is trying to turn things around for the embattled department store chain. He took the helm of the retailer more than a year ago. We’ve reached out to JCPenney for comment and will update if a representative gets back to us.

Work for JCPenney? Shoot me an email at kbhasin@businessinsider.com.

 
Comment by mathguy
2013-01-29 17:24:29

You guys might be interested in this:

http://marketdailynews.com/2013/01/28/attack-helicopters-let-loose-with-machine-gun-fire-over-miami/

Apparently full military urban assault training is now happening in US civilian urban areas. This has been reported in both Miami and Houston.

Note: They were apparently using blanks, but it seems the general population was not warned that this would be taking place.

Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 18:59:20

jiminy crips…… this is really disturbing. WTF??????????

Comment by moral hazard
2013-01-29 22:29:33

“this is really disturbing. WTF??????????”

Worse than that going on.

 
 
Comment by Mot
2013-01-31 23:19:26

That’s what the gun control push is about. 2nd Amendment was put in place for good reason.

Mao Zedong -Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

 
 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-01-29 19:28:57

Blackrock has a national TV campaign pimping I shares. I wouldn’t buy a cup of coffee from those creeps.

 
Comment by Resistor
2013-01-29 19:43:31
 
Comment by Housing Analyst
2013-01-29 19:45:38

“Falling housing prices to dramatically lower levels is bullish optimism.”

 
Comment by Resistor
2013-01-29 21:32:57

The turning, kids these days, and whatnot, etc. My parents hated Metallica, their kids hated Buddly Holly.

http://ghostly.com/releases/planet-high-school

Despite being accused as anti-human, repetitive, soulless, whatever, electronic music attracts the more devoted of idealists—the vinyl purist, the underground hero, the anonymous producer, etc. For Mux Mool, known to the government as Brian Lindgren, all his music connects to a certain outlook on life—basically, that the pre-established trajectory for adult life is being completely reimagined. He explains the concept behind his new album, Planet High School, this way: “Today, young Americans have very little to look forward to except endless war, endless debt, no Social Security, and [the fact that] none of us can live without the constant fear of poverty. We don’t need to have big houses and cars and a nest egg to get along. There’s nothing that says you can’t rent an apartment your whole life and not be happy.”

 
Name (required)
E-mail (required - never shown publicly)
URI
Your Comment (smaller size | larger size)
You may use <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> in your comment.

Trackback responses to this post