Bits Bucket for April 7, 2013
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The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Pro-inflation propaganda newsreel, from April 1933
in 2009 i was pounding the table that the euro would fail. on several blogs. (i don’t remember if i was posting here again in 09). but i did eventually post here that it would fail before the big problems with it started to happen.
i was the only one that said that it couldn’t survive. there were some who said they didn’t ‘think’ it would work, (jimmy rogers was one). but most didn’t know or even thought it would work (marc faber was one).
not only did i say it couldn’t survive, but i said why and how you could tell if i was right or wrong. with a few minor exceptions, nothing in the last few years in the world economy has surprised me.
i talked about the euro because it seemed to be one of the biggest, or maybe the biggest coming event.
yes, it still exists, but i think most people now consider it a failure. and it could exist for many more years if they decide to prune the weaker countries, or continue the bailouts. but it is a failed currency. fractured fiats can’t work. they need sovereignty, among other things. sooner or later, when they get tired of saving it, it will cease to exist as the countries return to their original currencies.
i’m telling you this because i have something else to tell you that may be of interest to the investors on this blog. you won’t read it anywhere else. it’s in no book that i know of. it’s all mine, and i haven’t posted it anywhere else yet.
how would you like to have a good idea when the prices of certain commodities will rise or fall? do you think it would help you make better investment decisions? i can offer you something that is new, and will help you to better see what’s likely coming.
but it’s only worth my while to write a post on it, if at least a few of you (more than 2) genuinely want to see it. if enough want to see it i’ll take the time to post it in the next few days. if not, it’s no big deal.
it may seem a little involved at first, but once you understand it, it’s really quite simple. the concept is simple, but you’d still have to put in some work to get the benefit.
i already gave you a good tool to work out nearly any economic problem you can think of, with the caveman scenario. just scale it up to what’s necessary, and you can work out currencies or visualize problems like boom and bust cycles. of course the many of the lefties ridiculed me for it. but it’s valuable tool if you take the time and effort to use it.
let me know if you have an open enough mind to want to see something new..
TJ,
That’s what we are here for-to share ideas and to listen. I’m all ears.
“…of course the many of the lefties ridiculed me for it.”
The US dollar seems to be doing well. Four countries use it, so not all fractured fiats can’t work.
‘fractured fiat’ is my term. no one else uses it.
5 countries share our currency. i have said right on this board that shared currencies can work. a shared currency isn’t a ‘fractured fiat’.
How do you define a ‘fractured fiat’ then, if it is not just countries using the same currency?
How do you define a ‘fractured fiat’ then, if it is not just countries using the same currency?
i’ve said it before, right here, many times. i’ll say it one more time. fractured fiats have no sovereignty. to whom does the euro belong? a conglomeration of different countries with different economies. each one can easily get out of the euro if they want to (or get booted out). by contrast, how the does the USA get out of the dollar?
the euro is toast and the sooner every country goes back to their old currency, the better off they will be..
fractured fiats have no sovereignty.
That’s a reasonable definition; thanks. Must have missed it before.
the euro is toast and the sooner every country goes back to their old currency, the better off they will be..
For the countries having “austerity” imposed on them, yes, they would clearly be better off without the Euro.
For the countries that benefit from the Euro, not so much.
My forecast is that it is far more likely that the weak hands get pushed out (they apparently aren’t smart enough to leave on their own yet); I don’t expect that the remaining bloc will break up, as they have no reason to do so once the weakest countries are pushed out.
Shared currencies have sovereignty?
What exactly does Ecuador have sovereignty over?
For the countries that benefit from the Euro, not so much.
no country benefits from the euro, even though early on it seems like some do. that’s because the euro distorts the economy of every country that uses it. it will take time for it to show in the stronger countries, but it will.
Shared currencies have sovereignty?
shared currencies have the sovereignty of the country that issues it. panama has no sovereignty over the dollar. but they officially use it or ’share’ it. sharing a sovereign currency causes no harm to anyone.
Cyprus shares the Euro.
Cyprus shares the Euro.
it doesn’t ’share’ the euro, it’s part of the euro. it joined the EU in 2004.
Thinking about this some more, tj, it seems to me that the notion of sovereignty attached to a currency is a distinction without a difference.
Can you explain why you really think it makes a difference, and what difference it really makes?
Thinking about this some more, tj, it seems to me that the notion of sovereignty attached to a currency is a distinction without a difference.
there’s no difference between sovereign and non-sovereign?
Can you explain why you really think it makes a difference, and what difference it really makes?
can you explain why you think it makes no difference?
i’m not trying to be glib, but i don’t really get your objection.
Cypriot euro coins
Cypriot euro coins feature three separate designs for the three series of coins. Cyprus has been a member of the European Union since 1 May 2004, and is a member of the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union. It has completed the third stage of the EMU and adopted the euro as its official currency on 1 January 2008.
…
“Considering” something is opinion and not reality.
Wake me when it actually fails.
Your caveman theory (and Say’s Law-Not-Theory) was pretty soundly refuted by thoughtful posters of ALL political persuasions, mostly because your parameters were so broad and your assertions so ill-defined. If you’ve refined it and scaled it up, please do post a synopsis? I’d be interested to see what you’ve come up with.
Thanks.
anyone can say ‘is not, is not’. that’s not refuting anything. i’m not going to go through the whole thing again. if there’s something specific you’d like to refute, please do so and then i’ll make my argument against your position if i disagree.
“i’m not going to go through the whole thing again.”
Praise the Lawd for small mercies…
Praise the Lawd for small mercies…
and especially not for you. funny how respectful you were in your questions when you wanted my opinion on bitcoin. people should go back and look at it. but when you don’t want my opinion on something, you turn back into a smarmy little prick.
let’s just call each other names. because i promise i’ll never answer another one of your serious questions. dumbass.
i guess my previous answer is being censored.
i’ll tone it down a bit.
when you want to ask me serious questions, like the latest ones on bitcoins, you are always very respectful. that’s when you’re trying to get something from me. but when you don’t want serious answers to questions you become a jerk. that’s called being two-faced.
but the joke is on you, because i’ve never asked you a single question on anything. that’s because you’ve got nothing to teach me. i’ve got nothing to learn from you. never have.
on the other hand, you have asked me many questions. i’ll tell you right now i’m done ever answering any serious question to me from you. we can just snipe at each other. it will be much more satisfying to me than trying to help you understand anything.
“…and especially not for you. funny how respectful you were in your questions when you wanted my opinion on bitcoin. people should go back and look at it. but when you don’t want my opinion on something, you turn back into a smarmy little prick.”
I can’t recall ever asking for your opinion on anything, and I am highly selective when it comes to acting like a prick.
This is a scammer and post should be removed.
TJ,
I have been reading Ben since the BlogSpot days (2005?) and cannot thank all of you enough for your informed wisdom. Your wisdom is useful as NYC is now “booming” again (constrained supply). FYI, Marty Zwieg’s old apartment is for sale now - $125 million.
I had a late-night chat at Deutsche Bank in 1999 with an interesting German. He told me then that the Euro would never work, and that the Germans only accepted it because it was an attempt to make a “Final Reparation”. He correctly said that the Tax-dodging, “get it today” slacker ethos of the Latin South would drag down the Euro within 10 years. He was off by a few years. This is when the Euro was at 80. Maybe it needs to go back to that level.
How many different handles does tj post under?
Mister Pot, meet Mister Kettle.
Mister Kettle, meet Mister Pot.
How many handles do you post under?
How many handles does Exeter post under?
Your comment was way off the mark, Ol’Bubba.
For someone who has been posting here for seven or eight years, a change of handle to “freshen things up” is no big deal.
Cantankerous has had a few, but he sticks with them for literally YEARS: Get Stucco, Professor Bear, and now Cantankerous. That’s not very many at all in the broad scheme of things.
Contrast this with those who post with a different handle every few days or weeks—which does make it hard to keep track.
Contrast that with the number of people who post under one, and only one, handle.
Prime- did it ever occur to you that Professor Cantankerous Stucco’s multiple handles set a precedent that enables some posters to change their handles more often than they change their socks?
Way off the mark? I disagree. If you are going to use multiple handles then you lose the right to call out other posters for doing the same thing.
Ol’Bubba,
thank you. i ask Ben to tell us all how many handles he thinks i’ve used..
Professor Cantankerous Stucco’
Bubba, I guess I don’t recall who started using different handles first, and helped create the current environment.
But I do know for sure that I don’t find PB’s handles the least bit difficult to track (unless I’m missing some!)—unlike some other posters that I find impossible to track.
Regarding tj, I have no opinion one way or the other as to whether he has one or several handles, as I’ve never found myself wondering if another poster was really him.
It did take me a long time to figure out that several of exe’s multiple-personalities were him, though.
We could further reduce it to “Professor Cankerous” which I think has a nicer ring.
And why do some change their name almost daily?
I bet there is some supposed ‘higher cause’ that justifies the deception and bullying.
LOLZ. The audacity of liar like you to accuse someone else of deception.
“Ol’Bubba,
thank you. i ask Ben to tell us all how many handles he thinks i’ve used..”
tj = Ol’Bubba?
I’m shocked, shocked I tell you!
tj = Ol’Bubba?
I’m shocked, shocked I tell you!
why, you’re a regular sherlock holmes, aren’t ya? you probably think you’re john holmes too, right?
yer the kind of nitwit that goes through 7 tunnels on a train, and thinks a week has passed.
i’d sure like Ben to tell you how many ‘handles’ i’ve had here so you’d be proven to be the paranoid barney fife without enough brains to pour piss out of a boot, that you truly are.
Got anger management problems, tj/Ol’Bubba? There are professionals who can help you with that sort of thing…
got paranoid delusional problems Cankerous Ineffectual Bubble Blower? ask Ben how many handles i’ve used here. that should clear it up for ya.
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The only handle I have used on this blog is Ol’Bubba.
uh huh…. oliar
I had a late-night chat at Deutsche Bank in 1999 with an interesting German. He told me then that the Euro would never work, and that the Germans only accepted it because it was an attempt to make a “Final Reparation”.
it would have been good to ask him ‘why’ it wouldn’t work. if ‘final reparation’ was the reason for the euro, it was a pretty dumb one.
This is when the Euro was at 80. Maybe it needs to go back to that level.
it won’t work at any level. it will be a black hole of bailouts until they decide to let it die.
Care to bet on that?
make a bet on what? that there’ll be no more problems with the euro? sure! you think the problems are solved now? haha! man this will be easy money!
Wall Street Journal - Number of the Week: Youth Unemployment at 22.9%?
“22.9%: The unemployment rate for Americans under age 25, adjusting for the decline in the labor force since the start of the recession.
Perhaps no group has been hit harder by the recession and grinding recovery than the young. The official unemployment rate for those under age 25 is 16.2%, more than double the rate for the population as a whole. In percentage terms, unemployment has fallen far more slowly for young people than for the wider population.
Those figures actually understate the severity of the problem, however. The government only considers people “unemployed” if they’re actively looking for work. People who stop looking—whether they’re retired, in school, raising a family or living on friends’ couches — are instead considered “not in the labor force,” even if they would prefer to work given the opportunity.
When the recession began in December, 2007, 59.2% of the under-25 population was in the labor force, meaning they were either working or looking for work. Today, that figure has fallen to 54.5%. That may not sound like a big drop, but it makes a huge difference. If the so-called participation rate had remained unchanged, there would be 1.8 million more young people in the labor force today than there actually are. Counting those people as unemployed, rather than out of the labor force, would push the unemployment rate up to 22.9%.”
Cueing the NAR-scum to pimp about “pent-up demand”
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/04/06/number-of-the-week-youth-unemployment-at-22-9/
Cueing the NAR-scum to pimp about “pent-up demand”
I see pent-up demand everywhere: pent-up demand for JOBS!
Ha ha ha, this morning’s Phoenix paper business section has a graph showing sales the last two years. Down year over year from last year and also from 2011. Looks to be about 25 percent down. I’d post but no idea how to link. Same old story, prices up on decreased volume?
prices up on decreased volume?
Typically a good sign to GTFO… or go short.
PIC
Do you see price/volume movement the same for housing (illiquid, different dynamics to create new supply, etc.) as it is for stocks? Is there a better analogy?
I honestly don’t know how to answer that, RW; you’re correct that the dynamics are quite different, even radically-different, in terms of the time-scale, the liquidity, the replacement, the fundamental demand, etc.
Whether the volume/price relationship bears any resemblance in reality, I really don’t know. But it is a fun analogy. And perhaps that volume/price relationship is not so much a function of the underlying asset-class, as it is a function of basic human psychology. That’s possible, too. I’m not confident with arguing strongly for the analogy, but I can’t discard it out of hand either.
How about you? Can you suggest a better analogy?
Frankly, I just started trying to think of a different analogy this morning, and haven’t come up with one.
The biggest difference between the stock analogy and the housing analogy, is that people generally don’t just go to cash on the housing front (and not consume ANY shelter) the same way they can go to cash in the stock market (and not own any stock). Yes, you can sell your house and take the cash, but most likely you will either buy a different house, or rent (thus still consuming some housing).
The biggest difference between the stock analogy and the housing analogy, is that people generally don’t just go to cash on the housing front
I agree that those who go to cash in housing (and there are many of us here on HBB who did just that) still consume some other housing (rentals); but clearly it is a feedback path—we chose not to push up purchase prices, and instead push up rents instead.
I’d post but no idea how to link
Move your cursor (pointer) to the address bar of the page you want to link to, click the button on the right side of your mouse, the address will light up blue and a window will open,click on the word ‘copy’ in the window.
Now come here, write your post, then place your cursor at the spot where you want to insert the link in your post, click the right button on your mouse, and click ‘paste’ in the window that opens. Your link should appear.
You know how to fix it? Raise the minimum wage the way some want to. That spur hiring.
Id just settle for never hearing you’re “OVER QUALIFIED” ever again..
Lawrence Yun appearing live this morning taking viewer calls on C-Span’s Washington Journal
Good show. He’s forecasting rising long term rates. I wish the topic of the FSAB rules have on the shadow inventory would be addressed.
What percent of the CPI (consumer price index) is computed with the Equivalent Owner Rent index?
OER is 24.4%, and Rent is 6% (see page 2):
http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpifacnewrent.pdf
Back to the issue of my eighty-eight year old co-worker:
A lesson I learned from talking to him is that is one pays his dues in the early part of his career then he can cash in on what these dues bought him during the later part of his career. This isn’t exactly what he said but this is my conclusion.
If one plans his finances right his expenses should drop as the years go by while at the same time his income should go up. His income really goes up when he turns seventy because this is when Social Security kicks in and pays out the most, and with the kick-in of SS the amount of his free cashflow expands enormously.
This enormous expansion of free cashflow happens for two reasons:
1. There is no payroll tax on Social Security income. There is (at least in my case) about a ten percent payroll tax on my earned income. This payroll tax is income I do not get but nevertheless I pay income taxes on it just the same.
2. Federal taxes nip at up to 85% of Social Security income and State taxes (at least in California) give it a pass. This does not happen with earned income.
3. If one is married then the spouse gets to draw one half of the primary breadwinner’s Social Security income even if she had never worked.
Combining 1, 2, and 3 results is after tax income after age seventy that is almost double what is was before age seventy. What a difference a year makes!
And note: One’s expenses don’t necessairly go up at age seventy but one’s take-home income does. This means one’s free cashflow explodes on the upside.
If one is offered a 401K where he works then he (if he is old) can stuff up to $22,000 a year into the account and thus hide this money from the tax man until such time when he retires and must then take out a Required Minimum Distribution (RMD), and that’s when he has to pay the taxes.
But, get this: For as long as he has not retired from work he can stuff into his 401K up to $22,500 of his earned income AND he does not have to withdraw a RMD. If he can hide $22,500 a year from the tax man and at the same time not have to make a RMD then his tax bracket should end up being a lot lower than it would be otherwise.
It’s all good.
People piss and moan about the wealthy not paying taxes and then they go and on on about people incomes.
Wealth and income are not the same thing, and the two are taxed differently. In fact one - wealth - may not be taxed at all.
To acquire wealth you first must get by the tax man. And since the tax man goes after income you somehow must find a way to minimize this income. If you are seventy and are not retired then a 401K is one way of doing this.
(beating this to death…)
To obtain wealth one must obtain free cashflow. Free cashflow is cash one has left over after all his taxes and all his bills have been paid.
Free cashflow is tough to get because there are so many bills and taxes to pay. But once one arrives at a period of his life whereby his expenses fall off and his taxes fall off and at the same time his income increase THEN free cashflow become easy to obtain and, since it free to do with as one pleases, this free cashflow can become stored wealth. And stored wealth is not taxed in the way income is taxed.
(Ask Warren Buffett: He is one of the wealthiest people in the country and he pays almost no income taxes because his income is only a hundred thousand dollars a year, and it is this income - not his wealth - that he pays taxes on.)
I’ve been beating this to death for a while. This is a great way to think, however I see 2 flaws:
1) 401k/IRA are not the best ways to achieve this goal. Once you save up real money there are much better alternatives.
2) The best kinds of tax advantages never go to anyone who is an employee, the go to owners. All the “creative” parts of the tax code are meaningless to employees.
3) Your coworker is 88 is still works full time, as I understand it. YOLO. What’s he going to do with his money when he dies, take it to heaven? IMO, much better to be making (much) more money than he makes from working via owning a “small business” or sheltering the money abroad. Your friend doesn’t have any outside interests?
4) I think your friend screwed up somewhere along the way. Started too late, didn’t leave the employee world behind to make more aggressive (read: superior) investments, or had a wife/kids that put a crimp in his ability to build wealth.
1) 401Ks are good because they can shelter income for as long as you are not retired. You can stuff into a 401k (and thus shelter) up to $22,500 a year. Plus there is no RMD as long as you do not retire. This RMD rule is not true for an IRA; after a certain age (71 1/2 in many cases, 72 in other cases) one has to make a RMD and he has to pay taxes on this RMD.
3) Some people are not cut out for owning a small business. Some people are cut out to be employees. He is one of these people and so am I. Not complaining, just stating the reality.
4) My friend didn’t screw up nor did he start too late. He’s amassed several million dollars over his lifetime. It’s gone well beyond needing the money and has become a game.
401ks and IRAs are going to look very bad in a few years. When you put money in one of these, you are revealing your assets to the government. With the budget issues we have plus changing demographics (more retirees, less workers) this is a tremendously risky strategy. Also, for the 100th time I’ve said it on this blog… the things you can invest in with a 401k/IRA are much more limited and do not include the tools that savvy investors use to actually become wealthy. Your friend is basically a thrifty middle class guy who doesn’t have enough interests to make retiring worth it. He did well, but this is a very weird plan. And for savvy agressive investors, there are ways to do much better and still have a retirement.
Thank gawd this guy has figured out how to work so long and hard in order to die with such a huge stash. His grandson will appreciate his new Mustang GT and the extra cash for custom wheels and a few bags of weed a month.
3) Your coworker is 88 is still works full time, as I understand it. YOLO. What’s he going to do with his money when he dies, take it to heaven? IMO, much better to be making (much) more money than he makes from working via owning a “small business” or sheltering the money abroad. Your friend doesn’t have any outside interests?
This is the key point for me. First, I fully agree that staying active helps keep you young, and keeping your mind engaged is critical to aging well.
And I get that having reduced expenses and increased income may be quite appealing to many.
But I can also imagine a time in life where my time (a truly finite resource) is worth far more to me than even a significantly-increased income.
The “no RMD” trick is a nice one, though—I didn’t realize that. I’ll have to study up on that one to understand the limits; for example, can you work a minimal amount of time and still avoid RMDs?
1) 401k/IRA are not the best ways to achieve this goal. Once you save up real money there are much better alternatives.
Care to elaborate on this, joe? I have no idea what you are referring to… And what do you define as “real money” that should make one consider alternatives?
“The ‘no RMB’ trick is a nice one, though - I didn’t realize that.”
The trick is not retiring.
If you retire then you have to make RMDs after age 71 1/2 or 72, depending on when your birthday is. If you do retire and come back to work the you still have to make RMDs. If you do not retire and, say, stay and work part time then you do not have to make RMDs because you did not retire.
If you do not retire then two things happen:
1. You are not forced to make RMDs.
2. You can stuff up to $22,000 into a 401k.
If you choose both 1 and 2 then you get to shelter a lot of income that you would otherwise not be able to shelter. But you are not really doing without because the sheltered income that you do not immediately get to get your hands on is more than made up by the Social Security payments you will receive. And, as I described previously, there are certain tax benifits Social Security payments enjoy that earned income does not.
Think of turning seventy as away for one to double his pay simply because, well, simply because he turned seventy.
Doubling your pay and at the same time keeping your expenses the same makes for a lot of spending money.
If you do retire and come back to work the you still have to make RMDs.
How is retirement defined in that context?
“Retire and come back to work” doesn’t sound retired to me—is there a legal definition that you have to be careful about?
Still working seems like you’re still working—not retired.
One of the keys is to start working when there is no Medicare tax and Social Security tax is 1.5% and capped at the first $3,000 you earn.
If you retire then there is a certain legal thing that happens that declares you as being retired. If you do not do this legal thing then you are not retired.
This is all I know (or think I know) about the matter.
If a worker who is 71 retires then he must make RMDs from his 401K. If there is a million dollars in his 401K then the RMD he must make is $37,735.
If he chooses to not retire then not only is he not required to make a RMD of $37,735 he is also allowed to stick up to $22,500 into his 401k.
$37,735 plus $22,500 adds up to a $50,235 swing in his taxable income.
If he is 71 then he is drawing social security. If he began drawing social security at age seventy then he is drawing 32 percent more in social security that he would be drawing if he started drawing it at age 66. This drawing of social security more than makes up for the $22,500 part of the $50,235 401K swing described above.
These are some of the choices that he is offered. He can exercise these choices - all of them, part of them, or none of them as he so chooses.
“401ks and IRAs are going to look very bad in a few years. When you put money in one of these, you are revealing your assets to the government. ”
The government knows about any account you have associated with your social security number. Any off-shore accounts too assuming you aren’t willing to risk the wrath of FinCEN. When I brought my friends to the IRS service center a few years ago because they hadn’t filed taxes in three years, they told him about a non-interest bearing account in his name at a national bank (the account was based at a branch in California). As far as the lady behind the desk was concerned, he owned that money because his SS# was on the account. I told him that he could try to get the money from the bank, but there was no guarantee that the bank would agree with him when he didn’t even know the address of the person who opened the account using his name and social security number.
Joe is talking about equipment intense small businesses that you can pretend aren’t worth much because of the artificially accelerated depreciation of the greasy (and not greasy) machinery. Nice deal if you have a bunch of relatives you can actually trust to operate the actual business for you. Otherwise, it is a heck of a lot of work and no guarantee that the government will agree with you that the company isn’t worth anything much when you have gobs of free cash flow just because you are allowed to pretend that the brand new truck will be worthless in 4 years.
Combo,
I truly wonder why a 88 year old man has to think about building wealth! As I mentioned yesterday, the only thing I can think of is “the joy of working”.
What is there to game the system? I don’t know how much money he gets in SS every year (about 50k?). If this guy makes about more than the SS wage limit (110k), he would still end up making about 136k: 110k - 401k (22k) - SS & medicare - medical premium (around 2k, maybe more since he is still working) + 50k (ss benefits). He certainly did not double his take home pay.
One thing is certain he will not die a pauper.
I forgot that you said he is drawing a pension too.
One last question: What happens to this 88 year old’s 401k when he dies? Do the beneficiaries pay the 10% penalty upon withdrawal or they get to wait till they are 65 (or 70 or even 75) to starting drawing down? Somebody is gonna get the 50k swing in income.
I just checked the IRS website and it had the following tidbit
“However, a plan may require that the participant begin receiving distributions by April 1 of the year after the participant reaches age 70½, even if the participant has not retired.”
Here are two links… hope they come out ok.
401k Resource Guide–Plan Sponsors–General-Distribution-Rules!
401k-distribution-after-death
Interesting information in these sites, especially after death disbursements.
Thanks to combo for bringing this topic up. I learned something today!
“However, a plan may require that the participant begin receiving distributions by April 1 of the year after the participant reaches age 70 1/2, even if the participant has not retired.”
The term “may require” activates IF the participant is a 5% owner of the business (thIs is stated in the next paragraph of the link). If the participant has not retired and if he is not a 5% owner then he does not have to take a RMD.
If you retire then there is a certain legal thing that happens that declares you as being retired. If you do not do this legal thing then you are not retired.
I don’t think that’s correct, combo; I’ve never heard of having to “report” your retirement to anyone.
In my case when I retire I am allowed to collect a pension. I cannot collect a pension until I retire. My 88 year old co-worker does collect a pension although he is not retired because at the time he turned 71 1/2 the rules were different than they are now. He continues to collect his pension because he was grandfathered in.
Back to my case: If I retire then I can begin to collect a pension. Something happens to my status as an employee when I retire. Whatever it is that happens begins my pension but it also it activates the RMD requirement that begins the year that I turn 71 1/2.
“To acquire wealth you first must get by the tax man.”
It works nicely these days to get lucky and be born as a trust fund baby…
It works nicely these days to get lucky and be born as a trust fund baby…
I think that model has always worked nicely…
But it works much better in comparison to the alternatives when there are no jobs and those who are lucky enough to have jobs are heavily taxed to support those not lucky enough to have them. Why not offer middle class workers have options to park their scarce dough in tax havens and let the trust fund babies pay for Lucky Ducky’s support?
I don’t usually do HBB much on weekends, but this conversation about your coworker interests me. I agree with what your coworker says, generally, but I doubt it will work for someone with my or your timeframe (I think you are in your 30s). Things are going to change alot [sic].
As far as working until the day you die, I guess this is possible, but I really think the smart thing to do is have assets which do the work and do the tax-avoiding. “You only live once” is a common, awful cliche. It’s also true. There are so many things I want to do that I will never be able to do if I work until age 80. Therefore, I could see having a few “pet projects” when I’m older but not doing any serious work. Moreover, the whole idea IMO is to not need to work. Technically I don’t need to work now, as my lifestyle is middle class (or below) but my wife and I stack our cash, get tax-free gift money from each set of parents, and stand to inherit. But to achieve “escape velocity”, that is, the ability to really be “free” we both work. In particular, I “sell out”, doing a job I really don’t care for because it means long-term options and acquiring the assets needed in the future economy. Call it the Mittens Plan 2.0.
“(I think you are in your 30s.)”
Question: Why do you think I am in my 30s?
I’m confusing you with Carl Morris I think.
My point is that ~40 years from now (my relevant time frame for retirement) I don’t trust any of the current rules of the road to apply.
I think trusting in our current system is mistake #1. Your friend is old and I guess you’re older so it’s probably less of a concern. My concern is that showing the government assets is going to become an invitation for the government to tax or means-test in order to generate revenue.
The Baby Boomers as a group are a bunch of lazy, entitled locusts who are going to pick my generation clean (or die trying). Sorry, i don’t want to make it easier for them to do that.
“The Baby Boomers as a group are a bunch of lazy, entitled locusts who are going to pick my generation clean”
Where do you get this stereotype? IDK the Boomers you know, but the ones I know are hard working. Some of them are supporting kids and parents.
I think it is more likely that the Baby Boomers are going to get picked clean. And after the Boomers get picked clean, they will stay in the workforce because they have to. That will leave less room for the younger generations.
I met Combo a few years ago at Sarbucks. Older than thirty!
For the 88 year old, social security works for him. But unless we assume the generation z (offspring of manual laborers who become legal citizens) breed like rabbits and pay into social security and Medicare, entitlements are doomed.
Hardening back to the Laurence Vance article “Pay Up Or Die” on lewrockwell.com, I am opposed to social security and medicare ax action. But as long as I am being robbed at gunpoint, I anticipate I will get everything I paid in, plus interest, which I would have earned with my own investment allocation, whether or not I need the benefits I was forced to pay.
“For the 88 year old, social security works for him.”
Not only does social security work for him, he also gets to draw a pension.
He:
1. Draws a good wage.
2. Draws a good pension.
3. Draws social security.
And all three sources of his income are incremented up each year.
my question is… to what end?
So he gets to serve his employer until age 90 (or whenever) and he has what to show for it? I don’t understand. Is he going to build a monument to himself?
There are far superior ways to amass wealth and do better things in life, have some transcendent experiences before you go. If your income isn’t based on working full time as an employee, you have so many more options. That’s what I’d call #winning.
“Older than thirty!”
Wiser than thirty as well.
my question is… to what end?
Given his stated resources/assets, I think this model only really makes sense if you REALLY really enjoy your job—so much so, that you prefer doing it to the other things that you could be doing with your rapidly-passing limited time remaining on this earth.
Personally, I have far too many other interests that I could enjoy spending much more time at for this to make much sense to me.
That said, I actually do enjoy my job more in the past few years than I did back when I needed it far more… So who knows, maybe I’ll feel differently when I’m that age. But I doubt it.
Forgive myyouthful skepticism, but what full time job could an 88 yr old be doing?
Is he actually productive or just still there?
(I know this sounds awful,and I really don’t mean to come off as an a@@hole)
“My question is… to what end?”
One answer may be: “Because he can.”
If he’s got the money then he has the choices. Because he has the choices he gets to exercise his choices in the way that is most suitable to himself.
He and I both do the same type of work but we do it in different locations. If he structured his job the way I structured my job then he really works part time just as I consider my job as working part time.
Work part-time in a job that is easy to do and get full-time pay, plus draw social Security at the same time? Whats not to like?
Add in the tax shelter benifits of a 401K, the delaying of RMDs, plus add in the health benifits of the company’s health plan and it gets better and better.
That’s his view and it’s also mine. There are other views just as there are different strokes for different folks.
Combo age best guess, 62.
If he’s got the money then he has the choices. Because he has the choices he gets to exercise his choices in the way that is most suitable to himself.
I totally get that. If that is the most desirable and enjoyable approach for him, then I fully support him doing it.
Personally, I do like the idea of a part-time retirement gig as well; going from full-time to no-time is one of the problems with our work/retirement system, IMHO. I’m not sure that going from full-tilt to full-stop is at all healthy; for many people, it seems more like running your car into a concrete embankment.
Software development is one such skill much older people can do. It takes reasoning skills, experience (older engineers have seen many software problems before and know quickly how to fix them), and patience.
In my spare time on my flights I love to do Sudoku puzzles on my iPad. Good to keep the mind sharp as much as possible after age 50.
Moving away from high impact exercises such as running and getting into biking, swimming, body weight exercises like pushups and pullups can postpone bone deterioration so that one can brace himself in case of falls. Jack LaLanne switched to swimming longer in his later years because of joint pain from impact exercises in his earlier years.
Drinking paper-filtered brewed coffee can prevent diabetes. Drinking dealcoholized wine has been shown to reduce blood pressure.
Intelligent lifestyle choices can extend the years of your productivity to allow you to do work that you love to do and continue to earn the income.
I know more than a few people who love their work life more than their non-work life.
One thing I can say is that if all people above 70 did this the young graduates will have fewer job openings and thus fewer careers that pay a lifelong wage. Will we see lucky duckies that have a 4 year technical degree?
Of course, the work ethic of the young and interest in work is generally suspect, but I would like to think that there are prudent and capable younger folk in their late 20s and early 30s that could move into technically skilled jobs.
One could see the above in politics, state and federal govt. agencies. Now we see that in corporations too.
Jobs are not a zero sum game.
“One thing I can say is that if all people above 70 did this the young graduates will have fewer job openings and thus fewer careers that pay a lifelong wage.”
From what I have seen there is little danger of this happening, at least where I work. Many People I work with want out and they are willing - eagar - to leave at age 62.
My co-worker who is 88 and myself are two extremely rare exceptions.
Seriously, drop the sodium level for 3-5 days. Figure out foods that have low sodium and go way low on sodium for a few days. I discovered this “secret” after I had a super-high sodium meal and my blood pressure went up. That’s when I made the connection, and it works like clockwork.
I tried that before. And with my medicine got to the 90s over 60s. Yeah I think you are right. But I really restricted my diet by bringing my own lunch and eating ten servings of vegetables per day. I did not lay off meats. I just have a lunch habit going to restaurants.
Joe:
Take it from my LL he has 6 kids 12 grandkids a small house upstate and this 2 family house….
I cant imagine how boring his life would be with out all the things he has to do each month
So if you have the money then live life a little has he gone to Alaska yet? my parents did and loved it …..
Me id love to drive out to the west coast again even at $4 a gal. I’m not a flier person unless i have to be somewhere fast..
So if he didn’t have a lot of friends, family or activities…..then i guess the default is to work until you cant..
——As far as working until the day you die, I guess this is possible
1) social security when you receive it is taxed based on your retirement income.
2) if your wife didn’t work, was an illegal she would receive a portion of your SS, if she had worked for the Federal Government and drawing a pension even if she had forty quarters in private industry she can virtually get nothing of your SS.
1) social security when you receive it is taxed based on your retirement income.
It is taxed based on your income whether you are retired or not. And only up to 85 percent of it is taxed. And if you live in California then none of it is state taxed.
Plus there is no payroll tax.
Windfall provision?
Combo
I never knew about the 401 deferred RMD while working either.
In Canada we have an RRSP which you generally contribute to over the period of your working life. In the beginning you often defer taxes at say 25% and as you make more up to short of 50%.
When you retire (70 stat) you roll it over into a RRIF and then have to take out the principal in 17 years which is taxed at probably a less rate than during your working years (you have less income). Often the acquired mixed tax rate will equal your tax rate on payout. or close.
The bad news is we all die. The unpaid out RRIF (RRSP) is added to your income in whole (often in the hundreds of thousands) and is taxed at almost 50%. There is no way around this. The gov scopes up a huge profit on your death even if your tax rate was never much more than 30% all your life !
If your friend’s 401K is extended on payout would this concept also apply in the USA? Could he be shooting himself (sorry - his estate) in the foot?
Patrick, I also live in Canada, and when my mother died I inherited the balance of her RRIF. It was transferred to me in increments of less than 5K and I paid far less tax than I would have, had I transferred it in one lump sum.
Lola
The RRIF can be transferred to a spouse when doing the final T1 (death return) for the taxpayer without tax at that time.
Are you talking about the diposition of your mother’s estate - after the estate has been settled ?
I agree that taking out $5,000 or less at a time is less of a rate, but at year end all of those will be added together.
I am not sure if a spousal-like rollover can be done to a child.
How do you like the weather here today - assuming you are in Ontario !
Here’s some info that may be useful:
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/retirement/09/over-70-retirement-plans.asp
Scroll down to “Traditional 401(k)”
Note the term used here is “still working”. “Still working” in this case means “not retired”.
A person who retires and then begins working again is not “still working”. “Still working” for this purpose means never retired.
Patrick
In my mother’s case, she had about $9K left when she died. I paid 10% tax on the first transfer of $4999 and another 10% on the remaining balance of about $4000. Total tax about $900. Had the $9K been transferred in one lump sum, I would have been taxed at 20% = $1800 (double).
I’m not in Ontario, I’m in Alberta (Calgary) and the weather here sucks today, thanks
Freezing rain and snow, high of -3. Two weeks ago today I was sunning myself on a tropical beach, watching the catamarans on the ocean. Should have stayed there!
WH Warns of Sequestration ‘Headwind’ On Jobs
Apr 5, 2013 12:48pm
Alan Krueger, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said the jobs numbers released Friday are an example of the recovery, but he warned that sequestration cuts are a “headwind” on job growth.
“While the recovery was gaining traction before sequestration took effect, these arbitrary and unnecessary cuts to government services will be a headwind in the months to come, and will cut key investments in the Nation’s future competitiveness. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the sequester will reduce employment by 750,000 full-time equivalent jobs by the end of the year,” Krueger said in the statement.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/04/wh-warns-of-sequestration-headwind-on-jobs/ - -
Obama Caught in Bald-Faced Lie on White House … - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNBhue9OMTY - 240k - Cached - Similar pages
Feb 20, 2013 … Amazing - Obama Caught in Bald-Faced Lie on White House Sequester …
April 6, 2013 at 3:15 pm
Dropouts: Discouraged Americans leave labor force
By Paul Wiseman and Jesse Washington
Associated Press Writers
It isn’t supposed to be this way. After a recession, an improving economy is supposed to bring people back into the job market.
Instead, the number of Americans in the labor force — those who have a job or are looking for one — fell by nearly half a million people from February to March, the government said Friday. And the percentage of working-age adults in the labor force — what’s called the participation rate — fell to 63.3 percent last month. It’s the lowest such figure since May 1979.
Many older Americans who lost their jobs are finding refuge in Social Security’s disability program. Nearly 8.9 million Americans are receiving disability checks, up 1.3 million from when the recession ended in June 2009.
http://www.onenewspage.us/n/Business/74vspo593/Dropouts-Discouraged-Americans-leave-labor-force.htm -
Blame for anything that goes wrong in the economy from now on can be shifted to the sequester.
I wonder what cutting social security and medicaid and medicare will do for jobs?
Cause old people to return to the workforce?
I wonder what cutting social security and medicaid and medicare will do for jobs?
In the short run, increase job opportunities for morticians.
“In the short run, increase job opportunities for morticians.”
It would also have a self-reinforcing effect on reducing pension liability, as benefit cuts would most likely result in decreased future life expectancy and fewer years of future benefit payouts.
decreased future life expectancy and fewer years of future benefit payouts
Maybe that is where all that ammo the gubmint has been buying will prove useful.
Cyprus in Trouble because the EU siphoned out their money. In 2008 pre Euro they were strong, healthy and Prosperous, EU forced them into debt slavery.
Sunday, March 24, 2013 7:40
In 2008 they joined the EU and began using the Euro. The banks only loaned out 30% of their deposits before that time and made people put 30% down for a mortgage. They were very conservative with their banks and finances and were not affected by the 2008 crisis. They were fiscally responsible and a very healthy and prosperous country.
But once the EU got them to accept the Euro and become part of the EU only 5 short years ago. They went from being prosperous and fiscally sound to bankrupt in that short amount of time.
The EU began changing how they did business in the banks. They purchased huge amounts of Greek bonds and loaned out more money than their deposits. They went from fiscal soundness and responsibility to doing as all the other banks of the EU did, thus causing debt slavery to their citizens.
You could almost say……It appears the EU purposely committed the Cyprus citizens to become debt slaves and purposely had the banks become indebted to the ECB and controlled.
Now the EU wants to steal everyone’s money in Cyprus, when Cyprus would never be in this situation had they not joined the EU!
http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2013/03/cyprus-in-trouble-because-the-eu-siphoned-out-their-money-in-2008-pre-euro-they-were-strong-healthy-and-prosperous-eu-forced-them-into-debt-slavery-2602292.html - 32k -
Sounds like Cyprus used to have a stodgy old “Glass Steagall” type banking system, which of course served them well.
I’m very skeptical of the suggestion that all of their troubles were created in just a five-year period. That doesn’t pass the smell test.
Too many people. Way, WAY too many people.
http://www.voxxi.com/unprecedented-rally-immigration-reform/
Head ‘em up, move ‘em out, rawhide!
I am for the illegals having some rights but I don’t understand the R party’s suicide mission on what really amounts to be a D party voter registration.
shaking my head….
I think if an Illegal can walk into an immigration office fill out the forms and talk to a judge without an interpreter, that would be a good start to a US citizenship…
Yup. It certainly is a suicide mission for the RP.
When your base is poorly educated rural white octogenarians, sometimes a suicide mission is all you’ve got.
Leno: AP Replaces ‘Illegal Immigrant’ With ‘Undocumented Democrat’
By Noel Sheppard | April 03, 2013 | 01:23
The Associated Press announced Tuesday that it will no longer use the term “illegal immigrant.”
On NBC’s Tonight Show, host Jay Leno said, “They will now use the phrase ‘undocumented Democrat’” (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2013/04/03/leno-ap-replaces-illegal-immigrant-undocumented-democrat - 77k -
Ha! Great term! So true, Undocumented Democrat! I like that more than “future Democrat,” but both true.
‘Undocumented Democrat’
Undocumented Democrat is probably a more accurate description, given that a lot of them are already voting.
How about “illegal Democrat”?
What most chafes me about U.S. immigration policy is that while we go way overboard to accommodate illegals who wish to enjoy the fruits of America’s welfare system without paying taxes, I know many highly-skilled immigrants who struggle to navigate the shoals of legally obtaining permission to work and settle here. Our system seems designed to make it impossible for highly-skilled workers to legally work here, while making it relatively easy for the illegals to partake of many benefits of U.S. citizenship while earning tax-free income.
Maybe I am missing it, but shouldn’t we be making it easier for highly-skilled immigrants to settle here and make a positive contribution, and harder for illegals who strain our welfare system and take American jobs without paying taxes?
but shouldn’t we be making it easier for highly-skilled immigrants to settle here and make a positive contribution
Well said, PB. +infinity.
Why? Lol!
Big business benefits with a cheaper workforce that can’t complain.
You think we could have built soo many houses 2000-2007 with out undocumented workers from Mexico et al?
Why do we have tens of millions of illegal immigrants working in this country, and why are their employers not being punished?
Remember that a mega rich neighborhood needs a slum nearby to prosper! Otherwise where will they get their maids, the nanny, the gardener, the painter, the mechanic etc.
If the skilled get in then the ability of marginally skilled Americans earning way above their competency will get impaired. Think about the “sales type” people that occupy the top echelons of almost every profession that will lose their ability to command their current salary! This includes not only engineer, but also, teachers, professors, doctors, lawyers and accountants.
Yes I know a first generation Asian-American gal who is outspoken against amnesty for the same reason you bring up PB. It’s totally unfair for the educated people who go through the proper process. This is all about the coddling of manual labor - “Undocumented Democrats.” Because the educated foreigners do not bring future generations of voting Democrat. Many asian-American newcomers voted for Obama for sure, but their children will be against taxation.
How does doing so benefit politicians? Therein lies the answer.
“No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems — of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.
Many of the things the government does that may seem stupid are not stupid at all, from the standpoint of the elected officials or bureaucrats who do these things.”
– Thomas Sowell
The visa system
Not working
How to hurt the economy needlessly
Apr 6th 2013 | NEW YORK |From the print edition
FOR the first time in five years, America’s immigration service will hold a lottery to allocate the visas it makes available to foreigners recruited by private business to work in the country. This is because applications for the 65,000 H1B visas it issues to corporate America each fiscal year, starting on April 1st, were expected to exceed the number available by April 5th. Five days is not the record for reaching the cap on business visas. In 2007 it took one day and, in 2008, two.
The silver lining—that this is yet more evidence of a stronger American economy—sits inside a very dark cloud. The cap on visas is entirely arbitrary and unnecessary, and almost certainly imposes high economic costs on the country. As the chart shows—and as Michael Clemens, an economist at the Centre for Global Development, points out—in every year since 2003, even in the depths of the recent recession, demand from business for H1B visas has exceeded the cap, leaving companies unable to fill jobs that would have boosted the economy.
…
“Too many people. Way, WAY too many people.”
No, there is not enough people.
You Don’t Own Yourself – The Federal Reserve Does.
by Gary Vey for viewzone
After only 20 years things went from bad to worse. During Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, in 1933, the US was unable to pay its debt. The county was bankrupt. The private banks that made up the Federal Reserve demanded their money and Roosevelt responded. He had to use the only thing left of any value to pay the banks and continue doing business with them — the citizens of our country. Us!
Exactly how all this was orchestrated is too lengthy to be addressed here, but this much can be told. The original birth or naturalization record for every U.S. Citizen is on file in the official records in Washington, D.C. (you get to keep a copy!) and the property and assets of every living U.S. Citizen is pledged as collateral for the National Debt!
Within two weeks and three days each Certificate of Live Birth is to be filed in Washington D.C. Evidence reveals that there is even a Federal Children Department established by the Shepherd/Townsend Act of 1922 under the Department of Commerce that appears to be involved in this process in some way. Every citizen is given a number (the red number on the Birth Certificate) and each live birth is valued at from 650,000 to 750,000 Federal Reserve dollars in collateral from the Fed.
This kind of makes you feel a little different when you look at Federal Reserve Chairman, Bernanke, doesn’t it?
OK. Let’s take a pause to look at the Birth Certificates [below]. You will see the red numbers and you will see the fact that it is, in reality, a “Bank Note.” Congratulations — you and I are commodities!
Remember that “Bond” thing printed on the bottom of the certificate?
Birth certificates now appear to at least qualify as “warehouse receipts” under the Uniform Commercial Code. Black’s Law Dictionary, 7th ed. defines:
Warehouse Receipt. “…A warehouse receipt, which is considered a document of title, may be a negotiable instrument and is often used for financing with inventory as security.”
It is not difficult to see that a state-created Birth Certificate, with an ALL CAPS name is a document evidencing debt the moment it is issued.
Once a state has registered a birth document with the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Department notifies the Treasury Department, which takes out a loan from the Federal Reserve. The Treasury uses the loan to purchase a bond (the Fed holds a purchase money security interest in the bond) from the Department of Commerce, which invests the sale proceeds in the stock or bond market. The Treasury Department then issues Treasury securities in the form of Treasury Bonds, Notes, and Bills using the bonds as surety for the new securities.
This cycle is based on the future tax revenues of the legal person whose name appears on the Birth Certificate. This also means that the bankrupt, corporate U.S. can guarantee to the purchasers of their securities the lifetime labor and tax revenues of every citizen of the United States/American with a Birth Certificate as collateral for payment. This device is initiated simply by converting the lawful, true name of the child into a legal, juristic name of a person.
Legally, you are considered to be a slave or indentured servant to the various Federal, State and local governments via your STATE-issued and STATE-created Birth Certificate in the name of your all-caps person. Birth Certificates are issued so that the issuer can claim exclusive title to the legal person created thereby.
Sleep well, fellow slaves.
http://occupythefednow.com/category/federal-reserve/ - 124k -
Hazard
” Once a state has registered a birth document with the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Department notifies the Treasury Department, which takes out a loan from the Federal Reserve. The Treasury uses the loan to purchase a bond (the Fed holds a purchase money security interest in the bond) from the Department of Commerce, which invests the sale proceeds in the stock or bond market. The Treasury Department then issues Treasury securities in the form of Treasury Bonds, Notes, and Bills using the bonds as surety for the new securities.”
This hypothecation BETWEEN THE TREASURY AND THE FEDERAL RESERVE- do you know how it is actually done?
Are you describing the QE programs?
Your comments about each birth certificate having “bond” on them - can one of our HBB lawyers tell us why it is there? Polly, Joe?
How would “newbies” - immigrants be valued?
Hazard - your post is extremely interesting. Especially the part where DOC invests in stocks and bonds.
There is no central depositary of birth certificates in Washington or any place else. That is why it is actually a problem when state/county records have fires and/or floods and their records have not been digitized and backed up off site. This was a huge problem in the years after 2001 when a lot of states tried to increase the security of their driver’s license renewal process. I’d treat the rest of the excerpt with similar disdain if I were you.
Then there was that big fire in NYC in 2001, and the subsequent offer of $300/taxpayer in exchange for their federal identification number….
In Massachusetts it wasn’t even at a state or county level when I last got a copy of my birth certificate. I had to get the copy from the the town where my parents lived when I was born.
Google this.
Federal Children Department established by the Shepherd/Townsend Act of 1922 under the Department of Commerce
How does a birth certificate have value?
It is not the birth certificate, it is the bond on a commercial entity. At the time of registration, the Corporation of the United States, through its Treasury Department creates a bond. This bond is also known by the human’s name in capital letters. A strawman is created to be used in all legal, and financial matters. More on this later.
The bond number itself can be found on the actual Certificate of Live Birth, on the back of the document. Once the county birth record is received by the federal government, the bond is created. Once both of these actions occur, the federal government releases the Certificate of Live Birth announcing the creation of a new revenue source. The value of the bond is based on the power of the state to tax the future wealth, and property, of the human being named on the document.
There have been some prints of Individual Master Files (IMF) that show the bond placed on the newborn having a value of around $650.000 dollars. There is a catch however. Any profit which is created by the investment during the life, right up to the death of the individual, of every living, breathing, male or female, remains the property of the state. All property is considered to be owned by the Corporation of the United States. This is easily seen by the seizures without Due Process which occur daily.
Federal Reserve Act in 1913
One of the most crucial years in the history of the United States, both for the government and the American citizens was the year of 1933. It was only a mere twenty years after the passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 by Congress for the Corporation of the United States that the nation was buried in debt and had a serious lack of financial resources.
The foreign bankers served Notice to this fact to the government of the United States. The Roosevelt administration reacted between January through July of 1933. This whole subject is discussed further in the hub titled {The Corporation Of The United States Of America}. Since the year 1933 every birth or naturalization record for every citizen of The United States is filed in the official records in Washington D.C. This also makes all property and any assets belonging to every living, breathing United States citizen to be used as collateral for the national debt.
There has been information that has supposedly been received from several government agencies which state that the filed Certificate of Live Birth documents have actual instructions on the reverse of the certificate stating who, and in what time frame the document should be created and delivered.The first to receive the document is the County Health Commissioner, next in line would be the Secretary of State, the final copy is received by the Department of Commerce even though the documents themselves are not kept in their offices.
The time frame for each Certificate of Live Birth to be filed in D.C. is seventeen days. There is even evidence of a Federal Children Department which was established by the passage of the Shepherd/Townsend Act of 1922 under the Department of Commerce that is somehow affiliated with this process.
There have been IMF’s that track commercial activity in the billions attached to individuals earning around fifty thousand dollars a year. The government is utilizing both their name and assets to be used to trade in the drug, crude oil and various other commodities. This just proves that all property, both real and private property of every living, breathing American, is entrusted by Congress to provide collateral for the national debt.
During the year 1933, the Congress handed over control of all the post offices to the Secretary of the Treasury. Why would they do this? That is why the revenue is delivered to the government on April Fifteenth.
If you research into the Congressional Records of 1933 you will understand how the office of the Secretary of the Treasury is actually in control of the financial office of the Corporation of the United States. This office is in control of all revenue to the United States to make sure that the creditors (Bankers) who actually own the federal reserve,will be repaid all monies owed.
Secured Party applicant has to be filed in the region or State of their Birth.
The government states that well over twenty -five million UCC Financing statements have already been filed with UCC offices throughout the United States. Related commercial documents have been forwarded to the Secretary of the Treasury.
These facts have been gathered through information acquired through the CID of the IRS, FBI, Secret Service, Justice Department, the Department of the Treasury and the Secretary of State. They have all confessed that not one single properly filed UCC Form has been turned down or prosecuted under any criminal laws.
There have been revisions to the UCC Articles especially IX that states that the UCC financing statement of the secured party applicant has to be filed in the region or State of their Birth. When the file is recorded with the Secretary of the Treasury it must include a Charge-Back Instruction Notice, a 1040 ES form combined with a birth certificate.
The Secretary of the Treasury is the other party that holds an Interest. The Secured Party also needs to file a UCC financing statement and addendum with the UCC office in the state that the person resides in order to protect any property there.
People at the Treasury Department Analysis and Control Division of the IRS where they keep the files claim that the birth certificate does not have a Commercial Value. They do however admit that the Certificates of Live Births are real and are kept on file.
Others have declared that the Application for the Birth Certificate actually does have a Commercial Value which is determined by the ability of the Government to Tax any Future Earnings of the individual named on the documents. The Applications are not kept on file in D.C. itself, some claim they are filed in Puerto Rico, others claim it is Switzerland.
Redemption Of Your Strawman Account! Filing a UCC1 With The …
http://hubpages.com/hub/Redemption-Of-Your-Strawman - 99k -
YouTube The Rothschilds Exposed 1 3 - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26_D96UESe8 - 120k -
The Rothschilds Exposed 2/3 - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfA6q6BTzk0 - 127k -
The Rothschilds Exposed 3/3 - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47WM2BhklmM - 235k -
Ask Wesley Snipes where all this leads. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say about sovereign individuals now that he’s out.
Evidently if you don’t pay your taxes you are screwing up your $650,000 bond value.
“The value of the bond is based on the power of the state to tax the future wealth, and property, of the human being named on the document.”
Are the Rothschilds illuminati? Because I never see them at the meetings.
Hazard
If what your documentation says is correct then if you reclaim your UCC a Cyprus-like event couldn’t befall you.
This concept says that there really is a factual limit on the gov’s ability to borrow. Instead of fantasy.
However, I do weigh Polly’s comments heavily and would have to say that there is not enough data on the table right now. (for me anyways)
Thank you Hazard
I have often noted that Real estate agents that find a niche, make their best money in their 60’s and beyond . Experience does count for a lot sometimes.
“Experience counts for a lot sometimes.”
If I were to sell my house I would want the most experienced person I could find to handle my end of the sale. If the commission is the same whether I have a newbie or a pro why would I want to settle for a newbie?
The edge goes to the pro is the commissions are the same, maybe not if they are different. But the difference in the commission would have to be a lot to pursuade me to jump from choosing a newbie over a pro because there is too much principle (principle as in money) at stake.
“The edge goes to the pro is the commissions are the same, maybe not if they are different. But the difference in the commission would have to be a lot to pursuade me to jump from choosing a newbie over a pro because there is too much principle (principle as in money) at stake.”
Then the newish realtors must charge less to progress?
But how much less can he charge? If the comission is six percent and his end gets half of this six percent then he is left with three percent. And if he has a lot of expenses that eat into his end - his three percent - then his end approaches zero.
But how much less can he charge?
A lot of realtors will knock a percent or more off their commission to get your listing.
Then the newish realtors must charge less to progress ??
They must charge less to be able to compete…
in any business how do you beat your competition? quality and price rules.
What’s really going on in California
California imposed a new law on banks innocuously called “Homeowners Bill of Rights” which forces banks to switch over to a judicial foreclosure process, which they can opt to do on their own, but takes a year or more to renegotiate contracts and compensation structures for the foreclosure law firms who do all the leg work for the banks. And while those changes are being made… it makes it appear that foreclosures have slowed down dramatically in the state.
The reality?
Defaults (undeclared) are spiraling upward that yet have to pass through the foreclosure pipeline.
The truth?
California is still the highest foreclosure state in sheer volume and percentage.
The low-down?
Resale housing is still massively overpriced as a result of unprecedented interference by individual states and the federal government. The market distortions will be removed and the down draft will continue allowing the market to correct.
With millions of excess empty houses and housing demand at 17 year lows, housing prices have a long way to fall. A very long way to fall.
Here’s a really cool link too…
http://bit.ly/10yMxfA
in capitalism the private sector is suppose to be provided an environment to thrive and thus the govt gets high tax revenue. In CA they are trying to have govt lead and control the economy.
Jim Willie Interview 3/26/13 What is happening in Cyprus … - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5OBHqQkiAI - 212k -
where is our mugsy? he’s in cyprus…
the only way to revive the economy is get money in the pockets of the avg joe, not banksers.
There are not enough good jobs to go around anymore. Technology and outsourcing are main culprits.
most people will not work for a wage that just gets them by. They want a wage where they feel like they are getting ahead.How much per hour does it take to get you off the couch?
Also for people who have kids does it make sense to send one partner out for a lousy job when they have to turn around and pay a babysitter?
Asset appreciation is making up for lack of jobs. They have to keep it going.
most people will not work for a wage that just gets them by. They want a wage where they feel like they are getting ahead.How much per hour does it take to get you off the couch?
What they want and what’s available - two different things.
Putting on a tin foil hat now…I wonder if the visit by Dennis Rodman to NK was a trip orchestrated by his buddy Obamarx? Rodman sending a message to the moon-faced NK leader. I wonder if Obamao is secretly a defense hawk? I wonder if the threats by NK are phony and the leader is willing to sacrifice a few squadrons of NK troops to a tomahawk cruise missile at the climax of the drama. Then surrender? Wouldn’t it raise the king Obummer beyond his current God status? It would bring neo conservatives to Odummer’s side. More than fatso Christie.
This has always been about OhBummer.
Removing tin foil hat now.
It seems like just a matter of time when the n koreans will have to be confronted.
Dennis Rodman’s Awesome Friend
By Doug Bandow on 3.7.13 @ 6:08AM
Kim Jong-un thinks he has game, but he’s slow, overweight, and can’t jump.
Gone is Dear Leader and sophisticated fashionista Kim Jong-il, with his platform shoes, bouffant hair, and over-size sun glasses. However, son and Great Successor Kim Jong-un, though possessing more mundane sartorial tastes, is proving to be worthy of his official title. For Kim fils is fast becoming an international sensation, along with his wife, Ri Sol-ju, and U.S. basketball legend Dennis Rodman.
Kim, informally known among North Korea watchers as the Cute Leader, has broken the mold of his two totalitarian predecessors, attending prep school in Switzerland, following American basketball, enjoying Disney characters, and showcasing his attractive young wife with designer purse. All of this has given rise to speculation that Kim is a closet liberal — after all, how could he sample life in the West without falling in love with liberty?
Now the communist monarch is hanging out with Dennis Rodman — known as much for his off-court antics as his professional play. The two seemed to have a good time, with Rodman lauding the “epic feast” organized by his “friend,” who was an “awesome guy.” Rodman also called Kim’s father and grandfather, whose victims could fill the heavens, “great leaders.” But that only makes sense since Kim Il-sung, the founder of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, was officially known as Great Leader.
Obamao’s awesome friend. We will see if this makes Obamao’s second term.
We will see if this issue makes Obamao’s second term a megaGod term. Or it could just be a typical brain flatulence by a NK leader.
after all, how could he sample life in the West without falling in love with liberty?
Our oligarchies have no trouble with living life in the West & doing all they can to limit the liberty of others. Why should Pudgy differ from his betters?
Kim, informally known among North Korea watchers as the Cute Leader, has broken the mold of his two totalitarian predecessors,
Many Chinese have given this one a new nickname:
I was surprised to learn that even the PRC has “party schools”. I don’t understand why a frat house’s blog editor gets mentioned in international news, though.
It seems like just a matter of time when the n koreans will have to be confronted ??
Yep….The south has drawn the line in the sand….The sinking of that ship by the North wads their last free pass…If the North does anything, the south is going to hit them…We sent those B-2’s over there for a reason…Problem is, were dealing with a young man that is all full of himself…China is the key…I would not be surprised if the young man had a unfortunate accident…
Evidence as to who/what sank the Cheonan is far from conclusive (see wiki) and the world’s biggest war games (US/S Korea)were being held simultaneously in disputed Korean waters less than 90 miles away. Moreover, S. Korea had a history of “bumping” DPNK ships in those territories and had participated in at least one recent sinking.
The concern is not so much for KJU’s nuclear ambitions, as for DRNK’s propensity for marketing and selling contraband electronics, rocketry, and fissile materials to rogue nations and cartels. Personally, I am highly suspicious of US intent in this little media drama.
‘The dominant narrative would have you believe that the United States was basically minding its own business when North Korea began lashing out. On CBS Evening News (3/29/13), Major Garrett explained: ‘North Korean saber-rattling is common every spring when the United States and South Korea engage in military exercises.’
‘So there are “exercises” right next door, conducted by the world’s most powerful military, which possesses thousands of nuclear weapons; and then there’s menacing saber-rattling.’
‘While North Korea’s apparent threats are obviously troubling, one doesn’t have to be paranoid to take offense at those military drills. As Christine Hong and Hyun Lee wrote (Foreign Policy in Focus, 2/15/13): ‘The drama unfolding on the other side of the 38th parallel attests to an underreported escalation of military force on the part of the United States and South Korea. In fact, on the very day that Kim visited Mu Island, 80,000 U.S. and South Korean troops were gearing up for the annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian. For the first time in its history, this war exercise included a simulation of a pre-emptive attack by South Korean artillery units in an all-out war scenario against North Korea. Ostensibly a defensive exercise in preparation for an attack by the north, the joint U.S./South Korea war games have taken on a decidedly offensive characteristic since Kim Jong Il’s death. What’s more, a South Korean military official discussing the exercise raised red flags by mentioning the possibility of responding to potential North Korean provocation with asymmetric retaliation, a direct violation of UN rules of engagement in warfare.’
http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/04/03/north-korea-rattles-sabres-meanwhile-u-s-pretends-to-drop-nuclear-bombs-on-them/
War, god, guns, gays and abortions distract people from economy and jobs.
Perfect for any politician.
Off topic, but on guns, the Californa native Republicans I work with do not understand my newfound activism on RKBA. They are aghast that I own guns. I let one know I was shopping for an AR15. I can understand their position, being a native Californian. But I noticed in the mid nineties after moving from California how much more freedoms Arizonans had. While I hate cigarette smoke and consider secondhand smoke a violation of my right to life, I admired seeing more smokers in Arizona enjoying their freedom. So in the late nineties I somehow thought it would be cool to get a handgun, the started going to indoor ranges.
I think my colleagues who never lived in a red state would become like me, exercising more freedom “because they can,” if they moved to Texas, Nevada, Arizona, or the like. BTW, Arizona is in the top ten gun friendly states. Nevada is not. Another Eason I am thinking Nevada will go blue long before Arizona. I think everyone who is not on mind altering drugs, prescribed or not, should buy up ammo and buy up guns. 2nd amendment…use it or lose it.
Obamarx
HahahahahahahahahahahahaHa!
I thought that would get old after a hundred times, but it doesn’t!
“Obamarx”
“HahahahahahahahahahahahaHa!”
“I thought that would get old after a hundred times, but it doesn’t!”
Careful, you don`t want to go to the FEMA Farm.
They’re Coming to Take me Away Lyrics - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fn36l_z3WY - 219k -
Do you get better hallucinations with Peyote, Psilocybin, Mescaline?
The CIA always has the last word on the big questions. You would think by now most Americans could have figured this out. Problem is the CIA created many of our current list of crises years ago and are probably working on the next world-wide-panic as I type.
Kim Jong Un Gangnam Style
Investing in North Korea
It isn’t easy and may not be smart, but investing in Kim Jon Un’s reclusive nation can be done. (slide show)
Who says a college degree is a waste of momey?
http://www.theonion.com/articles/company-immediately-calls-job-applicant-upon-seein,31669/
This nearly brought me to tears it’s so painful….
The Economist writers seem utterly clueless that the real estate bubble never ended after the Fall 2008 financial collapse. To their credit, they do at least recognize a connection between the current string-pushing easy money central banking regime and bubbles. However, this insight is tempered by shallow-minded praise for the superficial and ephemeral impacts of Fed-engineered housing bubble reflation.
A world of cheap money
Six years of low interest rates in search of some growth
Central banks have cushioned the developed world’s economy in a difficult period. They have yet to boost growth as they had hoped
Apr 6th 2013 |From the print edition
NEVER in recent economic history have interest rates been so low for so many for so long. It is a safe bet that central banks in America, Britain, the euro zone, Japan and Switzerland will not be increasing short-term interest rates this year. Haruhiko Kuroda began his tenure at the Bank of Japan with a dramatic easing of policy on April 4th. Mark Carney, the new boss at the Bank of England, has licence to ease, too. It would be hardly surprising if rates stayed at the low levels of the past four years throughout 2014 (see chart 1). When rates were first cut to their current levels in 2008-2009, it looked like a temporary expedient; now it looks like normality.
Businesses and investors are still adjusting to this new world. Big companies have taken the opportunity to borrow in the bond markets, locking in cheap financing for years to come. But the cheap money has not led to the growth-igniting investment spree the monetary policy was designed to encourage. There are some signs of an economic revival in America. But the prospects elsewhere are bleak; Europe’s purchasing managers’ index for March showed a further fall in manufacturing activity while unemployment reached 12%, the highest since euro-area data were first compiled in 1995. In such a world monetary policies are likely to stay loose—even though, in their desperate search for yield, investors are rediscovering a worrying appetite for the kind of structured debt products that many thought had disappeared for good after 2008.
A breath of air
Low rates have some clear positive economic effects. The Federal Reserve has been buying mortgage-backed bonds as a way of forcing down yields and thus reducing the cost of home ownership. On March 29th the average rate on a 30-year mortgage was just 3.57%, not far above the 3.31% reached in November, the lowest since data started to be compiled in 1971.
A lower mortgage rate puts money into homeowners’ pockets when they refinance their loans (mortgage origination jumped by 39% to $1.75 trillion last year). It also encourages people to move. Existing-home sales were 4.66m last year, according to the National Association of Realtors, below the 5.04m recorded in 2007 but still 9% ahead of the total in 2011.
In addition, 366,000 new American homes were bought last year, the first annual sales increase since 2005. Higher sales prompted homebuilders to get busy: in February, permits for future construction reached an annualised 946,000, the most since June 2008. More construction means more jobs for builders and more sales for timber yards and brick factories.
Houses are not the only things people spend more on when borrowing is cheaper. According to Equifax, Americans took out 19.9m car loans worth $388 billion in the first 11 months of 2012; both figures were six-year highs. Total American car sales rose by 13.4% to 14.8m last year, the highest total since 2007. The number of people employed making cars remains well below the 1.1m of 2005, but it has risen from the 624,700 of 2009 to 788,100. The number of people employed processing credit transactions is the highest for almost four years.
Higher house prices have made people feel wealthier and more willing to spend. Low interest rates have also boosted share prices, with both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 reaching all-time highs in March. To see this as a return of animal spirits, though, may be premature; March’s data showed a sharp fall in American consumer confidence.
And untempered enthusiasms could be a danger. History offers plenty of prolonged periods of low interest rates that encouraged speculative booms, particularly in property. In Thailand in the mid-1990s a property boom fuelled by cheap dollar loans ended in devaluation and disaster. In Spain and Ireland in the early 2000s cheap euro-denominated loans resulted in another property bubble.
Excessively low rates help to create bubbles because they allow investors to ignore the cost of financing and concentrate on the capital gains if their strategy works; they let people forget risk and focus too much on reward. Encouraging the revival of a property market in the doldrums risks creating a boom that will simply lead to another bust. Bubbles may not have emerged yet. But if they do, the eventual task of returning to normal monetary policy will be made even more complicated.
This time round, the appetite for high returns that low rates are meant to bring about has been slow to arrive. Investors were so shell-shocked by the impact of the banking collapse of 2008 that they stuck to safe assets. But several years on, investors are getting more restless.
The key point is not that nominal interest rates are low. It is that, outside Japan, real (after-inflation) interest rates are negative—money stashed in a bank buys less when it comes out than it could when it went in. And not only are government-bond yields low: given the high debt-to-GDP ratios of many nations, they aren’t even all that safe. In the joke of Jim Grant, who writes a financial newsletter, instead of offering risk-free return they offer return-free risk.
So the expectation of prolonged low real rates is, as policymakers hoped, edging investors down riskier paths. Corporate bonds were their first port of call. In 2012 investors poured $535.2 billion into bond mutual funds worldwide, the equivalent of 95% of all net inflows into mutual funds that year, according to Morningstar, a research firm. By contrast $124.7 billion flowed out of equity funds.
…
“Economics is a bottom-up process that starts with individual decisions and behavior. “
In principle, yes.
But when the Fed leadership hides behind the curtain and pulls Wizard-of-Oz levers in an ultimately-futile attempt to lure greater fools on board the housing bubble bandwagon, the grass-roots rationality which enables free market capitalism to increase the wealth of nations is crushed and destroyed.
Existing-home sales were 4.66m last year, according to the National Association of Realtors, below the 5.04m recorded in 2007 but still 9% ahead of the total in 2011.
That’s odd. Someone keeps saying sales are at a multi-decade low.
I wonder why they feel the need to spread disinformation? (I bet it’s for a ‘higher purpose’.)
‘according to the National Association of Realtors’
Dec 13, 2011
‘Data on sales of previously owned homes from 2007 through October this year will be revised down next week because of double counting, indicating a much weaker housing market than previously thought. The National Association of Realtors said a benchmarking exercise had revealed that some properties were listed more than once and in some instances new home sales were also captured.’
“All the sales and inventory data that has been reported since January 2007 is being downwardly revised. Sales were weaker than people thought,” NAR spokesman Walter Malony told Reuters. ‘We’re capturing some new home data that should have been filtered out and we also discovered that some properties were being listed in more than one list.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/13/us-usa-housing-existing-revision-idUSTRE7BC26V20111213
I assume the Economist used the revised-down numbers. Were the earlier, higher sales numbers more likely to have been correct?
That’s odd. Someone keeps saying sales are at a multi-decade low.
Actually, RAL is correct in this. And he never said that SALES are at multi-decade lows, I don’t think—I believe he said that DEMAND is at 1997 levels (and falling).
A lot of investment funds have been effectively forced into the housing market by the actions of the Fed, by making other investment yields so unappealing. That shows up as sales, but is not end-user demand that is comparable to demand from the pre-ZIRP era.
The number of _mortgages_ taken out to buy new or existing homes is a much better measure of real demand. This data (from the Mortgage Bankers Association, no less) shows very clearly that volume is roughly at 1997 levels.
This data (from the Mortgage Bankers Association, no less) shows very clearly that volume is roughly at 1997 levels
Link?
“A lot of investment funds have been effectively forced into the housing market by the actions of the Fed, by making other investment yields so unappealing. That shows up as sales, but is not end-user demand that is comparable to demand from the pre-ZIRP era.”
Is it really difficult for these guys to recognize how much money they stand to lose once the QE3 MBS purchase program ends? Or do they delude themselves into believing this program will go on forever?
So are the hedge funds buying a lot of houses? Or is it hype?
Are foreign investors buying a lot of houses? Or is it hype?
Seems like the hedgies and foreign buyers are derided as inconsequential and/or fictitious at some times, and then blamed for distorting the market stats with their big money at other times.
Convenient, yet contradictory.
Just the facts, ma’am.
Neighbors to the North Emerge As Largest Foreign Investor In U.S. Real Estate
Canadian Investors Dominating Cross-Border Real Estate Investment Activity
By Mark Heschmeyer
February 20, 2013
As a handful of major deals this month attest, Canada continues to be the most dominant foreign investor in U.S. assets, with a total investment more than triple that of its nearest competitor country, according to Jones Lang LaSalle.
“Canada emerged from the recession in better financial shape due to its banks issuing recourse loans and suffering fewer hits during the mortgage meltdown versus other countries. These deeper pockets allowed Canadians to invest in U.S. real estate when values were most suppressed,” said Steve Collins, international director of Jones Lang LaSalle’s Capital Markets, who attended last week’s Association of Foreign Investors in Real Estate’s (AFIRE) annual Winter Conference in New York.
“For 2012, Canadian investment represented about a third of all foreign investment into the U.S., but this Canadian pipeline could slow as property values rise and our nearest neighbor realizes some of their gains,” said Collins.
Canadian pension funds accounted for the most significant cross-border activity into the U.S. in 2012, with the largest volume of activity reaching $2.11 billion executed by CPP Investment Board.
For three decades until 2005, Canadian pension funds were legally limited to a cap on the amount of investment they could deploy outside of the country. However with the elimination of the Foreign Property Rule (FPR), Canadian funds are now free to invest larger allocations.
Much of this investment activity has targeted retail space, with particular interest in coastal markets such as Seattle, San Diego and San Jose. While apartments, hotels and industrial properties have been the primary mix of deals so far in 2013 and newly formed Canadian REITs are emerging among the buyers.
…
Asian Investors Eye DC Real Estate
By: Jenny Chen
Washington, D.C. – In 2006 the U.S. housing market spiraled to an all time low, throwing roughly four million families into foreclosure. But our loss was another’s gain. Although the housing market is still merely 52% as strong as it was prior to the housing crash, according to the house sales website Trulia, Asian investors are snapping up U.S. real estate. They view the U.S. real estate market as relatively cheap and the U.S. government as relatively stable, says John Lin, president of Capstar Realty in Gaithersburg, MD. This fervent interest in U.S. properties is turning the real estate market in the DC area into much more of a seller’s market as properties in good school districts and booming business areas are sold soon after they go on the market. While Asian investors have always been interested in U.S. real estate, the recent increase in wealth among Asian countries has made it even more common for people to buy U.S. property.
But these Asian buyers are not actually buying homes for them to live in. The majority of Asian buyers are buying homes for vacation or for their children. “Many Chinese no longer want to leave China,” said Lin. “They have connections and benefits in China that they don’t want to leave.”
…
Real estate
Hey aspiring snowbirds: The Florida housing market could be rebounding
Andrea Cornish
Special to The Globe and Mail
Published Sunday, Apr. 07 2013, 9:00 PM EDT
Last updated Sunday, Apr. 07 2013, 2:01 PM EDT
The following article is from Canadian Real Estate Wealth Magazine.
Florida is known for its amusement parks, but no white-knuckle ride has been quite like the last real estate cycle. From 2004 to 2007, Florida experienced one of the biggest property booms in America. Lax lending policies coupled with borrower greed led to massive growth in a relatively short period of time. Despite the meteoric rise in prices, many believed the market couldn’t fall. But when the U.S. market imploded, Florida was one of the first states to crash. And, like the rest of the country, many watched helplessly as prices and demand plunged.
As ‘Foreclosure’ and ‘For Sale’ signs popped up like weeds, many Canadians – retired snowbirds and keen investors alike – started taking interest. Florida prices plunged more than 40 per cent peak-to-trough on the FHFA Index and top destinations such as Orlando experienced a 56 per cent drop in prices from an average $258,000 (U.S.) at the peak, down to $113,400 in 2011. Rock bottom prices and a high exchange rate made purchasing U.S. property an attractive proposition for northern neighbours. According to the National Association of Realtors, nearly a quarter of home sales in the 12 months ending in March 2012 were by Canadians.
…
The article corroborates a point I have frequently made here: That the FED’s ZIRP has blown a gaping hole in the finances of defined benefit (”final-salary”) pension programs. The article avoids mentioning the effect of rock-bottom rates on public pension systems, such California’s large public pension programs for teachers, CalPERS and CalSTRS. Under implausibly optimistic future return assumptions, these two programs have a combined unfunded liability of $173 billion, or about $14,000 per California household.
From The Economist article:
History has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums.
– Alan Greenspan
History has dealt far too kindly with Alan Green
slimespan.History has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums.
– Alan Greenspan
One of the great ironies of our recent monetary history is Greenspan saying this, immediately after ushering in an era of a protracted period of low risk premiums…
The full quote is even more interesting:
Thus, this vast increase in the market value of asset claims is in part the indirect result of investors accepting lower compensation for risk. Such an increase in market value is too often viewed by market participants as structural and permanent. To some extent, those higher values may be reflecting the increased flexibility and resilience of our economy. But what they perceive as newly abundant liquidity can readily disappear. Any onset of increased investor caution elevates risk premiums and, as a consequence, lowers asset values and promotes the liquidation of the debt that supported higher asset prices. This is the reason that history has not dealt kindly with the aftermath of protracted periods of low risk premiums.
Exactly. Funny, isn’t it, how the Fed takes no credit for financially engineering the protracted period of low risk premiums in which the economy finds itself quagmired.
“Any onset of increased investor caution elevates risk premiums and, as a consequence, lowers asset values and promotes the liquidation of the debt that supported higher asset prices.”
Isn’t current Fed policy all about maintaining ultra-low interest rates to support high asset prices?
This is a REPOST FROM LATE FRIDAY CONVERSATION which I think bears further discussion:
Comment by hazard
2013-04-06 06:13:03
“This sort of knee-jerk hysteria (on both sides of the issue) is precisely what allowed us to be led into Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“…When you honestly look at arms buildup within the Department of Homeland Security, what millions of people look at as staged national disaters to advance an agenda, a terrorist watch list that includes a large swath of American voters who obviously did not vote for the party that is in charge of this and their belief that they are being demonized and targeted with very little coming from this administration to deny this except for when you buy 1.6 billion rounds of hollow point bullets you get them at a cheaper price.
IMHO it has become cool to talk about 1) gun owners, 2) people who think government spending is out of control and a bad thing, 3) anti abortion groups, 4) anti gay marriage groups, 5) hunters, 6) veterans, 7) people who want the borders secured, white supremacists, lump them all into 1 category and call them “Tea billies” while painting a picture that at any minute could walk into a school and massacre children….”
Now you better understand the paranoia of the left during the Bush regime, and it’s a damned shame that the holdover mindset from that enormously regrettable era has infected the current efforts to address it. The only thing I can offer to counter the “bullet buildup” is that you’ll be glad we have them if the Mexican cartels, abetted by angry Chinese bondholders and the American gang diaspora, decide to stage a concerted invasion of San Diego and Tucson. Or an armed OWS/Black Panther coalition takes over CBS studios and preempts its fall lineup with populist screeds.
Please keep in mind that the current divisiveness is being stoked, whether consciously or no, to advance the interests of an increasingly militarized economy (if that’s possible). Every time commentary is tweaked toward the dire to make a point, every time the news script calls for ALARM!!!, it’s being done to sell some thing, to manipulate someone’s thinking, to divert money or influence, and to rouse the rabble to action. This is how civil wars are stoked, and we as citizens have a responsibility to self-monitor and strive for equanimity even in (especially in) the face of a leadership we question.
That said, the issues are too diverse to lump anyone into a broad category. Not everyone who supports unfettered gun rights is anti-abortion. Some gay couples like to hunt illegal aliens with the Minutemen. And I’ve heard that some veterans smoke marijuana, so you just never know….
“The only thing I can offer to counter the “bullet buildup” is that you’ll be glad we have them if the Mexican cartels, abetted by angry Chinese bondholders and the American gang diaspora, decide to stage a concerted invasion of San Diego and Tucson.”
I could see several more situations where I would be glad that some of my neighbors are well armed. I don’t really want to have to spend my hard-earned money on weaponry, nor my limited time at a shooting range training to kill someone. If it comes to that, I would much prefer having a non-lethal alternative that would take little training. In an ambiguous situation, I would be much more likely to use a device with non-lethal consequences than a gun.
“Or an armed OWS/Black Panther coalition takes over CBS studios and preempts its fall lineup with populist screed”
That would be entertaining.
“That said, the issues are too diverse to lump anyone into a broad category. Not everyone who supports unfettered gun rights is anti-abortion. Some gay couples like to hunt illegal aliens with the Minutemen. And I’ve heard that some veterans smoke marijuana, so you just never know….”
Excellent point. I know some quite liberal folks who have surprised me with their support of gun rights. They tend to be suspicious of government and the good intentions of police. They may have come to their views from harassing traffic stops or marijuana busts (theirs or someone they know).
How much do you think NAR, MBA and their consultants pay the owner of p.net to use his platform to perpetuate and advance their cause?
“Realtor charged with living off avails of prostitution”
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/business/Realtor+charged+with+living+avails+prostitution/8180012/story.html
These people are corrupt. But that’s what you get when the bar to entry is down at ghetto level.
Don’t Realwhores have to pay money and pass a licensing exam?
The number of long-term unemployed, 4.6 million, constitutes a population larger than Houston’s.
By comparison, last month’s additional 88,000 jobs can be written as 0.088 million, which is 100*(0.088/4.6) = 1.9 percent of the number of long-termed unemployed (better than nothing, I guess!)…
Long-Term Unemployed and Discouraged Workers Take Brunt of March Disappointment
Posted: April 5, 2013 at 9:40 am
The real terror of the March unemployment figures was not that the economy added only 88,000 jobs. Much worse than that is the lack of improvement in the situations of those battered the most by the halting recovery — the long-term unemployed and part-time and discouraged workers. So little progress has been made among these groups that it can barely be measured. And the best sign of a full-blown recovery likely will be when improvements occur across the broadest spectrum.
The number of long-term unemployed (those out of work more than 27 weeks) remained flat from February at 4.6 million, which is about the same as the population of all of urban Houston. These persons represent 36.9% of the entire unemployment pool. They put the heaviest burden on unemployment benefits, and as their plight reaches more than 99 weeks, many will have no benefits at all.
The other group that is ignored in the top line numbers is those who are involuntary part-time workers, which numbered 7.6 million last month. And 2.3 million persons were marginally attached.
…
Republican Congressmen are about to get a real-life schooling in pottery barn rules, sequestration version: They broke it, they bought it.
April 5, 2013, 12:03 p.m. EDT
Jobs numbers show sharp cuts in hiring
Commentary: Government spending cuts already sapping recovery
By Heather Boushey
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Sequester spring is not starting out well.
In a reversal of recent trends, today’s new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that employers have cut back sharply on hiring. Government cutbacks have already been slowing our nation’s economic growth and are now actively pulling employment downward, but the worst may be yet to come.
The sharp across-the-board cuts in government spending implemented March 1 are only beginning to show their ugly consequences. While it’s too early to know what the full impact will be on the unemployment rate, government spending cuts are already stealing wind from the sails of the recovery.
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Housing hangover
The recovery in housing is also showing up in the labor market. Construction employment rose in March, adding 18,000 new jobs for a total of 162,000 over the past year. Alongside new homes, however, consumers should be out there buying new furniture, garden supplies, and appliances. But employment in retail sales is down in furniture (-1,800), building material and garden supply stores (-10,100), and electronics and appliances (-5,700).
One issue may be that too many new homes are actually being bought by investors and are not owner-occupied. Thus, even though housing is recovering, it isn’t (yet) leading the recovery in jobs as it has in so many prior recoveries.
Even though unemployment is stagnant, the low rate of inflation means that those with jobs are seeing a rise in their real take-home pay, although it’s a small one. Over the past three months, wages rose by an annualized quarterly rate of 2.3%, just above the rate of inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, or CPI-U, which increased 2% over the past 12 months.
Based on Congressional Budget Office estimates, due to the combined effect of the payroll tax increase (800,000 fewer jobs in 2013) and sequestration (750,000 fewer jobs from March–December 2013), the U.S. economy will create 142,000 fewer jobs each month for the rest of the year. In January Congress allowed the payroll tax to revert to its usual level, eliminating the two-year tax holiday, and in March Congress allowed the so-called sequestration to occur, which will cost about 750,000 jobs over 10 months in 2013. Most of these jobs will be lost in the second and third quarters of this year, so we are only now beginning to see the effects. Without austerity, we might have seen a more robust number this month.
About five or six years ago, I had lunch with a good economist friend where we debated what the worst-case outcomes could be from the collapse of the housing bubble. My friend suggested that the worst that could happen would be an L-shaped recovery, one where employment didn’t grow enough to bring on full employment, but where employment grew just enough that policymakers could breathe a sigh of relief that things weren’t actually moving in the wrong direction. For years now, I have hoped that the lunchtime conversation wouldn’t be so prescient. With the sequester’s impacts yet to be felt, however, I wonder if we weren’t too optimistic.
In retrospect, is it fair to suggest that fears over sequestration hammering the housing market were greatly exaggerated?
How Will Sequestration Affect the Housing Market?
Author: James Paffrath
February 28, 2013
The most popular word on the U.S. Senate floor these days is “sequestration”, but what does it mean and, more importantly, how it will affect the housing market?
Sequestration is a fiscal policy procedure that attempts to fix the federal budget deficit through the cancellation of budgetary resources. Or, in layman’s terms, when the federal government needs to fix the budget, lawmakers approve a series of large budget cuts that apply to each government department.
The latest series of cuts go into effect on March 1st, and some federal housing officials are worried that the sequestration could spell doom for the housing market.
Last week, U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Shaun Donovan told a Senate panel that the massive government budget cuts would, “harm numerous families, individuals, and communities across the nation that rely on HUD programs.”
Among the many departments that will be affected is the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which plays a big role in mortgage industry. The FHA insures certain home loans, making them less of a risk for private lenders, and therefore, enabling more Americans to get approved for a mortgage. In fact, according to a report released last week, 23% of all mortgage originations in 2012 were FHA-insured loans. But if the agency loses staff – which it likely will have to due to the budget cuts – it could slow down how quickly applications are processed and how fast the agency can sell foreclosed properties that it owns.
And speaking of foreclosures, directors at the FHA and HUD claim that an additional 75,000 Americans will lose their homes to foreclosure in 2013 because of sequestration. That’s because one of the HUD programs scheduled to be cut is a foreclosure prevention counseling initiative.
Secretary Donovan told Senate, “Distressed households who receive counseling are more likely to avoid foreclosure, while families who receive counseling before they purchase a home are less likely to become delinquent on their mortgages.”
Housing officials also worry about the impact the cuts will have on mortgage interest rates. Low rates have been a driving force in the housing market’s recovery, and if the FHA-insured loans are reduced or eliminated, many prospective borrowers will be turned down for a mortgage.
Also, if government employees are in the process of purchasing a home, but lose their jobs, lenders may cancel their loan applications.
In either event, fewer loan approvals means that fewer homes will be sold, and therefore, the need for new construction will also decrease. HUD officials say that means many home builders, contractors, and construction workers who only recently got back to having steady work may once again be unemployed and looking for supplemental income.
These fears are especially alarming to people living in the Washington D.C. and Northern Virginia areas.
That’s because much of the local economy in these areas rely on people who work for the federal government, so if those individuals lose their jobs, it could affect home sales, construction, and the mortgage industry in D.C. and the surrounding areas.
Despite the concern, the U.S. Senate has no plans to cancel the sequestration, so only time will tell if the fears over a crumbling housing market turn into reality.
This sounds so far beyond stupid, that I am crying tears of joy over having missed it.
April 7, 2013, 12:53 p.m. EDT
Krugman-Stockman TV debate fizzles
By Greg Robb, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Reagan-era budget director David Stockman and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman climbed into the ring Sunday for a face-to-face debate on U.S. economic policy.
The joint appearance on the ABC News program “This Week” had been eagerly anticipated since it was announced midweek.
But the debate itself lasted about 15 minutes and floundered, mainly because the format allowed other guests, George Will, Arianna Huffington and Greta van Susteren, to interrupt.
Stockman and Krugman mainly only had time to stake out their existing positions.
…
April 6, 2013, 6:02 a.m. EDT
Critical Warning No. 13: Stockman’s ‘Apocalypse’
Commentary: If this sounds like advice to get out, it is
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Kaboom. David Stockman attacks America with Critical Warning No. 13. But the guy’s biggest problem is not his angry rhetoric. Stockman’s problem is he’s a truth-teller. Rare today. And not in denial.
His rhetoric in a recent New York Times op-ed piece ignites like Seal Team Six coming at you, flash grenades exploding, assault weapons blazing. No wonder he triggers wild angry, hatred and revenge.
Yes, he’s a truth-teller. And truth hurts, flushing out his enemies. Why? They’re sucking trillions from Americans. So you hate him. Counterattack. Big mistake. Don’t dismiss David Stockman. He’s no Kim Jong-Un blow-hard.
Stockman’s a patriot assuaging his conscience for having been a major weapon in the early launch days of Ronald Reagan’s “disaster capitalism” a generation ago. Today, even though Stockman says “the future is bleak,” at least he offers an eight-point plan to correct the “policies that have brought America to an end-stage metastasis,” while hedging his bet: It’s so “way out, so radical it can’t happen.” Yes, its DOA.
That’s also why Stockman is being attacked as a new “Dr. Doom” by celebrities like Nobel economist Paul Krugman. Still, you need a little background to see why Stockman’s new book, “The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America” is Critical Warning No. 13, as Wall Street pushes us ahead into the fifth year of an aging bull market, a fatal fifth year.
And why America’s 95 million investors will soon be losing big in the 21st century’s third mega market crash, another recession and $10 trillion more losses thanks again to Wall Street’s too-greedy-to-fail banks.
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This is kinda interesting:
‘Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Tuesday that she refuses to use email because it is “inefficient” and it “sucks up time.”… Napolitano said her email-less life also keeps her from being accused of seeing communications that may have come into her inbox.’
“I also don’t like the process where people could send you an email and then say, ‘See, you were told.’ Or, ‘You know this.’ And then it comes back two years later to say, ‘Hey you got this email,’” she explained.’
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/290311-napolitano-refuses-to-use-email
This is kinda interesting:
Interesting… and kind of brilliant, from a risk-avoidance POV.
By having real people brief her, nothing is officially on the record as to exactly what was said—e.g. exactly what she knew, and when she knew it is never part of the record.
Damn, I wish I could do the same. Email kills me.
My guess is that she uses email/texting for her private correspondence but not her business communications. A number of first-tier Hollywood writers do the same thing to avoid copyright and plagiarism accusations.
April 5, 2013, 2:50 p.m. EDT
Why it pays to sell in May
Commentary: Be ready to sell at the first sign of market weakness
By Mark Hulbert, MarketWatch
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (MarketWatch) — Investors should strongly consider cutting their stock exposure this coming May Day and parking the proceeds in cash until Halloween.
That advice comes courtesy of a famous piece of Wall Street folklore that is known by the adage “sell in May and go away.”
Unlike most of the other stories investors tell, however, the historical evidence in favor of this one is surprisingly strong. And deeper drilling into the data suggests there are ways to tweak the approach so that you don’t have to dump stocks entirely to capture some of the benefit.
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RPT-INSIGHT-After Cyprus, is Slovenia next euro zone domino?
Sun Apr 7, 2013 5:21am EDT
By Marja Novak
(Reuters) - Successive Slovenian governments have refused to privatise the country’s banks, which made disastrous loans to politically connected business interests and now threaten to drag the country centre stage in the euro zone debt crisis.
A span of unfinished apartment blocks in the Siska complex on the outskirts of Ljubljana is emblematic of the former Yugoslav republic’s woes, just as many such ghost neighbourhoods in Europe’s debt-choked south stand testament to the depth of the broader continent’s economic problems.
The rows of buildings, housing 833 flats in all, stand mostly empty, casualties of a property boom turned bust and a subsequent recession. Alongside, Vegrad, a company once led by a well-placed politician, also planned to build a hotel, but got no further than digging an enormous hole. An apt symbol, as Slovenia comes under growing pressure to seek a bailout to fill a financial hole, just as Cyprus did last month.
The countries are different in many ways, but they have at least two things in common: like Cyprus, Slovenia needs to recapitalise its biggest banks, and it does not have the money to do so.
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Trojan Turns Your PC Into Bitcoin Mining Slave
By Robert McMillan
04.05.13
5:58 PM
Photo: National Archives
Maybe it’s a sign of the Bitcoin bubble. Criminals are trying to take control of PCs and turn them into Bitcoin miners.
According to antivirus seller Kaspersky Lab, there’s a new Trojan — spotted just yesterday and spreading via Skype — that takes control of infected machines and forces them to do known as Bitcoin mining, a way of earning digital currency.
The Bitcoin digital currency system rewards miners (in Bitcoins, natch) for their number-crunching work, which is essential to keeping the anonymous Bitcoin currency system working. With the Trojan, hackers are forcing others’ machines to earn them money, and it can really put a strain on these machines. Victims might notice that their CPU usage shoots sky high.
Yesterday, the Trojan was spreading via Skype messages. In one Spanish message obtained by Kaspersky, the Trojan was supposed to be a “favorite” picture of the victim.
About two thousand people per hour were clicking on the website hosting the Trojan software, Kaspersky said. “Most of potential victims live in Italy then Russia, Poland, Costa Rica, Spain, Germany, Ukraine and others,” Kaspersky Researcher Dmitry Bestuzhev wrote in a blog post.
Once computer criminals have tricked you into downloading a Trojan, they have control of your computer, and there are a lot of things they could do. And the Trojan isn’t only used for Bitcoin mining, Kaspersky says.
This isn’t the first time a Bitcoin mining Trojan has popped up, and malicious software that flat-out steals bitcoins has been around for years. Two years ago, Symantec spotted a Trojan — called Badminer — that sniffed out graphical processing units and used them to crank out bitcoins.
A regular PC wouldn’t be able to do much Bitcoin mining on its own, but hackers could pretty easily register a group of compromised computers with a specific Bitcoin mining pool and point all of the systems there, according to Charlie Shrem, the founder of Bitcoin payment processor Bitinstant. “If he infiltrates a million computers, then it will pay off,” he said in an email message.
Bitcoins have been on a price surge lately. Right now, they’re trading at about $140, about ten times their value at the end of last year.
…
Love it. The rednecks with their multi-server mining setups must be gleeful.
April 8, 2013, 1:06 a.m. EDT · CORRECTED
Have Hong Kong stocks caught bird flu?
Commentary: Sectors sensitive to tourism exposed
By Craig Stephen
An earlier version of this column misstated the name of the disease which threatened East Asia 10 years ago. The illness is severe acute respiratory syndrome.
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Just how worried should we be about an outbreak of bird flu in China? Friday’s 610-point slide in Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index might look like an overreaction.
But markets hate uncertainty, and it is understandable investors are easily spooked on the 10-year anniversary of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
Back then, SARS infected 8,000 people and killed nearly 800 as the virus spread across the globe. Hong Kong, as one of the most densely populated cities on earth, was clearly not a good place to be.
It is too early to tell how serious the new strain of avian flu H7N9 is, but it is still worth assessing the potential fallout if China is sent into paralysis.
H7N9 is troubling, as it has mutated so that it is now harmful to humans. Over the weekend, the number of cases rose from 16 to 21, mainly in Shanghai. So far there have six deaths, which looks like an alarming fatality rate.
There has at least been no confirmation of the virus spreading from human to human, which was what made SARS so deadly a decade ago.
Authorities have sought to control the virus by culling poultry. Latest reports estimate that 98,000 chickens have been killed in Shanghai. The northeastern cities of Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou have all suspended live poultry markets.
Beyond what has been reported, there is also a sense of foreboding the news flow will inevitably get worse. After all, H7N9 is only the latest in a series of nightmarish pollution and health scares coming out of China so far this year.
Since the beginning of the year, Beijing has been dealing with thick smog, dubbed “Airapocalypse,” that’s even closed airports.
Shanghai, meanwhile, has had the ghoulish spectacle of dead pigs floating in a tributary to the Huangpu River, which supplies drinking water to its 23 million people.
As the number of pigs grew from a few hundred to 16,000, residents have had to accept official assurances that drinking water remains untainted. There has still been no explanation what killed the pigs.
The concern is authorities cannot be relied on to report the spread of the virus accurately.
While the government has said it has learned the lessons of SARS a decade ago, when information was initially withheld from the World Health Organization, doubts remain. After all, authorities did lasting damage to public trust after covering up problems with toxic baby-milk powder before the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
…
“However, high unemployment and government debt have already sent residents fleeing in large numbers – an estimated 225,000 annually for the past 10 years.”
Unless my math is wrong or the figures in this story are incorrect, then an estimated 2.25 million California residents have fled the state since 2003.
New tax increases in California stir debate about adding to exodus
By Joseph Weber
Published December 22, 2012
FoxNews.com
FILE: April 18, 2009: The skyline of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge appear above the evening fog in Sausalito, Calif. (REUTERS)
A vote last month that makes Californians among the highest-taxed residents in the country is sparking debate about whether the Democrat-back initiative will backfire, by forcing high-earners to join a long exodus from the cash-strapped state.
Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown successfully pushed the tax increase by suggesting that high-earners must shoulder the largest burden in bailing out the state, particularly its debt-ridden public school system.
However, high unemployment and government debt have already sent residents fleeing in large numbers – an estimated 225,000 annually for the past 10 years.
And the recently passed tax increase for individuals making more than $250,000 each year could further shrink the tax base for California, which for years has struggled with gaping deficits. The state, though, estimates the new hike will help close the deficit from a projected $16 billion shortfall earlier this year to roughly $1.9 billion by the end of fiscal 2013 next summer.
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Politics
Chart: The great California exodus
March 11, 2013 | 1:35 pm | Modified: March 11, 2013 at 1:45 pm
Conn Carroll
Senior Editorial Writer
The Washington Examiner
Earlier this month while making the case the California is rapidly becoming a feudal society, I wrote:
That California is dead.
According to a 2012 University of Southern California study on state demographics, you have to go back to the early 1990s to find a time when more Americans were moving to California than leaving it for other states. Thanks to high housing prices and a weak job market, California is now a net exporter of U.S. citizens to other states.
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Where have all the children gone?
Hospital nurseries in California aren’t as busy as they used to be. In addition to a reduction in people moving in, the birth rate in the Golden State has fallen below the sustainability rate for the first time since the Gold Rush.CLIFFORD OTO/Record photo illustration
By Kevin Parrish
Record Staff Writer
March 11, 2013 12:00 AM
This is a land of sunshine and flowers
This is a land where God’s greatest gifts come in showers
This is a land where peace, harmony and respect must be ours
- Written in 1915 by Anna Snell for the California Culture League “for the sake of our children.” Snell had founded the state’s oldest privately operated preschool in Stockton a few years earlier.
California has always been a place others dreamed about, a land of coastal beauty, majestic redwoods, lush farmland and awe-inspiring cities.
Until now.
More people are leaving than coming. In-migration has slowed. And, for the first time since the Gold Rush, the state’s birth rate has dropped below what population experts call the 2.1-children-per-family “sustainability level.”
In a report issued last autumn, the Manhattan Institute called current conditions the “Great California Exodus.”
Earlier this year, the University of Southern California and the Lucile Packard Foundation issued a report titled “California’s Diminishing Resource: Children.” One of its startling conclusions: The protracted decline in birth rates coincides with a rising tide of baby boomers entering retirement.
In the past, the USC study says, migration from other states and countries often propped up the state’s needs. That era is over.
Data reveal that San Joaquin County’s birth rates also are falling, although not as sharply as the state’s. Even Latino birth rates, historically high, are down.
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Trust in Gold Not Bernanke as U.S. States Promote Bullion
By Amanda J. Crawford - Apr 7, 2013 9:01 PM PT
Distrust of the Federal Reserve and concern that U.S. dollars may become worthless are fueling a push in more than a dozen states to recognize gold and silver coins as legal tender.
Lawmakers in Arizona are poised to follow Utah, which authorized bullion for currency in 2011. Similar bills are advancing in Kansas, South Carolina and other states.
The Tea Party-backed measures are mostly symbolic — you still can’t pay for groceries with gold in Utah. They reflect lingering dollar concerns, amplified by the Fed’s unconventional moves in recent years to stabilize the economy, said Loren Gatch, who teaches politics at the University of Central Oklahoma.
“The legislation is about signaling discontent with monetary policy and about what Ben Bernanke is doing,” said Gatch, who studies alternative currencies at the Edmond, Oklahoma-based school. “There is a fear that the government, or Bernanke in particular and the Federal Reserve, is pursuing a policy that will lead to the collapse of the dollar. That’s what is behind it.”
Bernanke has pushed interest rates to near zero since the 18-month recession that began in December 2007. The Fed said in March it would continue buying $85 billion in securities each month in a program known as quantitative easing that has ballooned its assets beyond $3 trillion and is aimed at keeping long-term borrowing costs low to support economic growth.
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Vietnam Crony Communists Resist Constitution Backlash
By Bloomberg News - Apr 7, 2013 9:38 PM PT
While filming a documentary about Ho Chi Minh as his compatriots battled U.S. forces in the 1960s, Tran Van Tan observed how the Communist leader’s embrace of a simple lifestyle endeared him to Vietnam’s poor.
Five decades later, Tan says the Communist Party’s leaders are more concerned with enriching themselves than adhering to Ho Chi Minh’s ideals. Abolishing the one-party system would lead to “healthy competition” and narrow the wealth gap, said Tan, 65, a retired civil servant who now sells tea in downtown Hanoi.
“There are people who don’t have enough food to eat, whose children don’t have enough clothes to cover their bodies in winter,” Tan said. “There are farmers who don’t have land. They are so poor, while many in the leadership are very wealthy. These leaders are so rich that even their children, grandchildren wouldn’t be able to use it all up.”
Tan is among more than 12,000 former bureaucrats, academics and rice farmers speaking out publicly against proposed constitutional changes that would strengthen the Communist Party’s grip on power. The unprecedented movement threatens to increase challenges to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung as he seeks to turn around a slowing economy which posted Southeast Asia’s highest level of bad debt last year.
“Even if this gets clamped down and turned back, it’s not gone. It’s a real threat,” said Ernest Bower, president of Fairfax, Virginia-based BowerGroupAsia, which advises businesses on operating in Southeast Asia. “The party will have to deal with this. If the system grinds down as these big decisions are made, that’s worrisome because it could create slower growth and growing discontent.”
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Tran Van Tan speaks truth to Dung!
Stocks are falling up again — today the DJIA is “down” to over 14,500…
Pessimism still abounds ahead of earnings season
U.S. stocks decline Monday as Wall Street extended losses following its worst weekly drop this year, with telecommunications leading the decline.
• Preview: Will retail sales join the spring swoon?