April 9, 2013

Bits Bucket for April 9, 2013

Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.




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317 Comments »

Comment by polly
2013-04-09 04:45:28

Found the card for the Rockville townhouses I mentioned yesterday in my shred box. Developer is D R Horton. They *start* in the upper $400s. Address is 15515 Thistlebridge Court, Rockville, MD - just barely south of the ICC. That is a lot of moolah to be that far out and not close to the Metro.

Builders aren’t doing such a great job at undercutting used houses at those prices. Oh, and they consider this a sale. A YOLO (you only live once) sale. Pay half a million bucks for attached product that will force you to spend an hour and a quarter (minimum) to commute to downtown? If that is living, I’ll skip it.

Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-04-09 04:50:58

And they’ll never sell. Just like anything else priced in excess of 60 per sqft.

More inventory. :-)

Comment by joe smith
2013-04-09 06:23:14

Sadly, they will sell. The only question is whether they’ll really get 500k after they throw in a bunch of freebies, pay the closing costs, etc. It’s not unusual in Maryland/NoVA for a place to “sell” for asking price after the builder throws in jacuzzi tubs, roof deck, an intercom system, and pays closing costs.

A bunch of partners here have sold their old condos from when they were associates. They all got at or above their asking prices. Sickening. We’re talking 400k for 2BR condoze in Arlington, Falls Church, Chevy Chase type places. These people aren’t out of the woods yet, they’ve mostly bought 3BR SFHs in the 700-800k range.

Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-04-09 06:26:33

No they won’t. Not at that price. In fact the price is precisely why housing demand is at 1997 levels and falling.

Look out below.

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Comment by joe smith
2013-04-09 06:38:32

I will post tax/assessment data for the new developments near me that have sold out. Sadly, they do get the asking price. And they’ve raised them 20-40k over the past 6 months, since the “recovery” meme took hold.

I’ll post when I have time to run searches and show you entire blocks of this “garage townhouse” crap that has sold. Believe me, I’m as perplexed as you about people paying this much to get this little.

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-04-09 06:43:18

Building new inventory and pricing at levels where it doesn’t sell isn’t “perplexing”.

Build, build and build some more. More inventory. No sales.

 
Comment by zee_in_phx
2013-04-09 11:59:33

Pimp.. please get a hold of yourself here.. i know cognitive dissonance can be a b i tch to handle but take a deep breath and accept the facts… houses are selling at ungodly inflated prices, you may not like it and stick your fingers in your ears but the fact remains what it is..

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-04-09 12:29:55

Housing demand is at 17 year lows and falling. Why? Because as you mentioned, prices are grossly inflated…. and falling…. even in Gotham they’re falling.

 
Comment by Avocado
2013-04-09 19:09:55

Prices are not falling in CA near the coast in the good towns. Last yr they went up over 20% for the low end homes.

 
Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-04-10 05:29:26

Prices are falling in $/sq ft regardless of location.

 
 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower©
2013-04-09 12:51:15

‘…“sell” for asking price after the builder throws in jacuzzi tubs, roof deck, an intercom system, and pays closing costs.”

I’m guessing the cost of all those extra consumption goodies goes into the federally-guaranteed principle balance on the GSE or FHA funded loan? What does it cost to guarantee a jacuzzi tub?

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Comment by oxide
2013-04-09 07:40:05

Good morning, our noogey noodly appendage! :mrgreen:

Joe, where are they buying these 3-beds for $700K?

Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-04-09 07:56:33

Good morning BirdBrain.

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Comment by joe smith
2013-04-09 09:09:57

Mostly Bethesda, sometimes McLean/Falls Church. Of course, after they buy for 700k (or thereabouts) they still go to town remodeling everything. I love hearing the war stories about cost overruns and contractors taking 2x as long as they estimated.

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Comment by Marshall
2013-04-09 11:45:26

I try and explain this to friends who are looking at buying. They borrow as much as possible, but conveniently forget that like a lot of new home owners, the spending is just getting started. Suddenly the old furniture, tv, place settings, etc just don’t cut it anymore.

 
 
 
 
Comment by joe smith
2013-04-09 05:58:08

Why would anyone pay that to live in the suburbs?

You can pay around that price and live in a vibrant neighborhood like this: http://picpaste.com/l2OU4U4T.jpg

(Taken on a walk last night with my wife after dinner. The nabe is Fell’s Point.)

Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-04-09 06:28:47

Why pay that price anywhere when renting the same square footage is half the monthly cost of buying it?

 
Comment by scdave
2013-04-09 07:46:06

Nice Joe….That town looks like it was built in the 20’s…

 
Comment by 2banana
2013-04-09 07:48:20

Because if you go two blocks in any direction you are in Mogadishu?

Because of insane property taxes?

Because of insane public unions that will keep on raising property taxes to infinity?

Because Baltimore is beyond bankrupt and nothing is going to save them?

Comment by spook
2013-04-09 09:14:45

Because Baltimore is beyond bankrupt and nothing is going to save them?
—————————————

No, because we won the souper bowl you dummy.

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Comment by joe smith
2013-04-09 09:16:01

That neighborhood (and everything within 8-10 blocks of it) is 90%+ white and asian. It’s not that close to the “dividing line” which is either Lombard Street or Orleans Street, depending on your opinion. Welcome to any city on planet Earth, go 10 blocks in some direction and you can go from the nicest neighborhood to a marginal area.

As for your other points, you lack any sense of nuance, not sure any argument would make sense. Enjoy your right/wrong, black/white world view along with the rest of the mouthbreathing brigade.

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Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 09:24:35

Welcome to any city on planet Earth, go 10 blocks in some direction and you can go from the nicest neighborhood to a marginal area.

That’s nothing. In Rio you can go from 2 million dollar 1st-world apartment neighborhoods to the 3rd-world hillside slums in 5 blocks.

 
Comment by AmazingRuss
2013-04-09 09:34:14

Don’t you get it! THEY’RE COMING FOR US! Black people in black helicopters with black boots. First they took our jobs, and now they’re sending robots to steal our medicine!

Wake up!

 
Comment by Pete
2013-04-09 10:39:21

“In Rio you can go from 2 million dollar 1st-world apartment neighborhoods to the 3rd-world hillside slums in 5 blocks.”

Went to Costa Rica last fall. There you’ll find those extremes on the same block. Landscaped mansion, tin shack, another mansion, etc.

 
Comment by AmazingRuss
2013-04-09 10:47:00

Same deal in Nipomo, CA. Mansion, meth lab, mansion, trailer, golf course, meth lab…

 
Comment by zee_in_phx
2013-04-09 12:06:37

An I thought Phoenix was bad, here at least I have make some effort crossing a median before getting into the ‘bad’ part of town.

 
Comment by Rental Watch
2013-04-09 16:39:26

There is a creek separating East Palo Alto and Palo Alto.

My wife lived in EPA along the creek for a time. My wife’s apartment was shut down once due to a meth lab being found in the building.

If I threw a football across the creek, it would land in the backyard of houses that easily sell for $2MM+.

This is among the steepest gradient of rich-poor that I’ve ever seen.

 
Comment by Carl Morris
2013-04-09 16:55:48

There is a creek separating East Palo Alto and Palo Alto.

I’ve heard you guys talk about this before, but now that I’m here I’m even more confused. I thought that the cheap stuff was always supposed to be farther from the water?

 
Comment by Resistor
2013-04-09 17:30:56

“That’s nothing. In Rio you can go from 2 million dollar 1st-world apartment neighborhoods to the 3rd-world hillside slums in 5 blocks.”

Ha!

I see your 3rd-world hillside slum in 5 blocks, and I raise!

In South Florida, there are multi-million dollar waterfront homes in slums.

One block. Hell, sometimes the same block.

Florida wins again!

 
Comment by Rental Watch
2013-04-09 17:51:00

“I’ve heard you guys talk about this before, but now that I’m here I’m even more confused. I thought that the cheap stuff was always supposed to be farther from the water?”

There’s not much in the way of water flowing through the creek…it’s more of a drainage ditch.

In any event, my parents (who grew up on the peninsula) always thought of EPA as the east side of 101, and were somewhat surprised when they found out that the City limits of East Palo Alto were actually on the western side of 101.

There was a big brewhaha when University Circle (big office development/Four Seasons) at University and the 101 was built, and one of the first tenants printed their business cards with “Palo Alto”, NOT “East Palo Alto” on them. EPA has had an image problem for decades that they are trying to shake, and despite nice new buildings, people didn’t want to be associated with the city.

 
 
 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-04-09 08:40:10

“Why would anyone pay that to live in the suburbs?”

1. All-cash Chinese or Canadian investors don’t care about location, as they are only buying for the sake of future investment gains.

2. Some folks missed the memo about how sequestration is going to hammer the DC-area housing market any day now.

Comment by scdave
2013-04-09 09:04:29

as they are only buying for the sake of future investment gains ??

Or, possibly just for the sake of preservation of principal….

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Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower©
2013-04-09 12:27:47

Come to think of it, international criminals laundering money into all-cash U.S. real estate investments probably care little about capital gains…

 
 
 
 
Comment by oxide
2013-04-09 06:10:46

http://www.drhorton.com/Where-We-Build/Maryland/Maryland/Division/Small-s-Nursery.aspx

3 bedrooms on 3rd floor — retirees will love it!
Ugly ulgy UGLY.
The commute is probably closer to an hour if you take Georgia Ave to the last metro.
Agree with Polly that $470K — for the low end model — is too high, especially for only three bedrooms.

Are they undercutting used homes? Zillow sez, the area is a strange mix of
1) $315K 50+y.o. 3-bed SFH.
2) $400K 3-4 bed split levels 1970’s SFH.
3) $625K 4-bed center-hall colonial SFHs; the McMansions of the 70’s.
4) $335 2-3 bed 1980’s small townhomes.

Definitely not undercutting. There are better places to spend $470K.

Comment by aNYCdj
2013-04-09 08:08:41

Dont forget the 4th floor attic access through the master bedrooms clost

3 bedrooms on 3rd floor — retirees will love it!

 
 
Comment by joe smith
2013-04-09 06:14:06

Those look like the same homes/same size they’re building near me (Athena Square by Ryan Homes). But those are 150-200k more. The scary thing is, those Rockville homes probably could’ve fetched buyers at 600k a few years ago. I hope people have learned a lesson now, but probably not!

You know everyone living there is going to have at least 2 cars, the congestion is going to be crazy. At the garage townhomes near me, the surrounding streets are full of cars because no one can fit 2 cars in those dinky garages. People with kids or grandparents living with them probably have 3-4 cars. Seems like a terrible quality of life just to get a shiny new kitchen and some slate in your shower.

 
Comment by Neuromance
2013-04-09 07:32:53

Remarkable. Those condos right by Tuckerman and Rockville Pike, on Montrose went nuclear during the bubble. I knew a fellow who paid like a 100K for one of them back in the late 90s. By 2005, they were averaging around 280-300. Now they averaging around 210-230 but with a lot fewer sales. According to the BLS inflation calculator, 100K inflation adjusted from 1999 to 2013 would be 139K.

These policies to maintain house prices at bubble levels only enrich Wall Street.

Comment by Sean
2013-04-09 07:50:51

Tuckerman/The Pike…..That’s my old neck of the woods, and condos are insanely priced there! You get a great view of them when you are bumper to bumper on the Rockville Pike!

 
Comment by Blue Skye
2013-04-09 07:59:48

It is not rape if you volunteer.

Comment by scdave
2013-04-09 08:10:45

LOL….

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Comment by Sean
2013-04-09 07:56:06

I live about 4 miles north of those townhomes in Olney. I’ll never understand why people would pay that much for a TH. Walkability is terrible, your neighbor is a new highway and you don’t even get the benefits of a better school district. Who is their target market for these places?

Comment by Robin
2013-04-09 15:36:24

Target market? Ask P.T. Barnum.

 
 
Comment by ecofeco
2013-04-09 08:13:52

There are people in my area who willing commute an hour+ to work.

Insanity.

 
Comment by Rental Watch
2013-04-09 09:00:49

I watched my dad commute for an hour+ each way for 40 years. I vowed to never do that. My commute is 5-7 minutes, and I was able to walk my daughter to the bus stop for school before I left for work. Good stuff.

 
 
Comment by 2banana
2013-04-09 05:18:44

Funny how these new factories and NEVER built in:

Union goon controlled states
Democrat states
High tax states

I just hope all the economic emigrants from these blue state “workers paradises” don’t try to change their new home into the hell hole they just left.

—————————

Airbus factory in Mobile could mean more jobs for South Mississippians
Sun Herald | April 8, 2013 | Staff and wire reports

Airbus is beginning construction on a new assembly plant in Mobile that could mean jobs for South Mississippi residents.

The groundbreaking ceremony was held Monday morning at the 1,650-acre Brookley Aeroplex industrial park, site for the new plant.

The $600 million factory is expected to employ 1,000 people once production of the Airbus A320 jet begins around 2015.

Comment by Combotechie
2013-04-09 05:35:57

If depends on who your are, what your role is:

If you are a customer then you want the most for your buck. To get the most for your buck then owners and employees will probably have to settle for less than they would otherwise.

If you are an owner then to get the most for your buck you will probably have to get it at the expense of your employees and your customers.

If you are an employee then to get the most the owner will probably have to settle for less and so will the customers.

This, generally, is how it is.

Comment by Blue Skye
2013-04-09 09:34:05

Unless you work for the government.

 
 
Comment by Jess from upstate SC
2013-04-09 05:41:12

The big BMW car plant in upstate SC keeps expanding ,and is a job almost every worker there loves , their energy is used to build cars , not fight the management.
And they are paid a very fair wage , and not unionized .

Comment by In Colorado
2013-04-09 06:15:35

From what I have read, the non union plants around the country pay the same as the union plants. When the Big 3 slashed wages for new hires, so did the non unions. So … if the unions are defeated and big 3 wages are decimated we pretty much know what will happen with wages at the non union shops, don’t we?

As for wage trends in South Carolina …

The median HH income is lower than the average (by $8K) and is falling faster than the national average

http://www.deptofnumbers.com/income/south-carolina/

Taking a look at food stamp eligibility, let’s compare SC with a state with a comparable population size (~5 million): Colorado.

SC had 936,000 people eligible for food stamps, and about 82% participated (~767,000)

Colorado had 584,000 eligible and a 69% participation rate (~400,000)

http://www.fns.usda.gov/ora/MENU/Published/snap/FILES/Participation/Reaching2010.pdf

But SC is a right to work state after all, so the results are not surprising.

Comment by joe smith
2013-04-09 06:33:11

Like Walmart, a lot of the places that move to the South/Midwest rely on their workers being eligible for EITC and other government bennies. Plus if you make under like 50k as a family, you basically pay NO income tax. You become the 47% that Romney was so concerned about. Meanwhile, the economic winners, the educated worker in a blue state making real money get to pay for everything. Which is fine, because they make multiples of what these flyover teabilly trash make.

I can’t imagine giving my prime years away for basically free. And make no mistake, if you make $15/hr or $20/hr, after you include all costs, you are basically working just to keep yourself alive to com back to work. If you work for someone else, making them money, and your take-home isn’t enough to bank down at least 50k after taxes and expenses, you are never going to “win” at anything. You’re just going to become Wile E. Coyote, running along until you realize that you just ran off the side of a cliff. From there, it is only downhill.

These people are happy making 30k (or whatever) while people in MD, DC, NJ, NY, CA fork over 80k to buy a Merc or Audi or BMW because they’re making 200k.

I will never, ever buy this “the meek will inherit the earth” idea. Happily droning along so you can get run over by a steamroller and never have any real assets to your name or to leave a legacy to your children/community? That’s some bizarre stuff. I’d rather borrow a gun from goon and shoot myself in the temple.

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Comment by joe smith
2013-04-09 06:41:11

BTW, I don’t mean to imply that anyone should pay 80k for a car, I’m just pointing out that the people making Audis in SC on the assemblyline will never be able to afford a new Audi even if they put 100% of their income towards the payment. And that, to me, shows these McJobs for what they are.

Great deal for the carmakers - I give them kudos. They played the labor market game and won. Meanwhile, taxpayers lose because the teabillies making $20/hr in a BMW plant will pay zero federal income tax most likely. LOL.

 
Comment by goon squad
2013-04-09 06:59:52

I will never, ever buy this “the meek will inherit the earth” idea. Happily droning along so you can get run over by a steamroller and never have any real assets to your name or to leave a legacy to your children/community? That’s some bizarre stuff. I’d rather borrow a gun from goon and shoot myself in the temple.

You do realize that not everybody gets to be an astronaut when they grow up, do you?

 
Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-04-09 07:14:44

You do realize that not everybody gets to be an astronaut when they grow up, do you?

When you’re a low-level lawyer with huge student debt, slaving away at a big firm with limited hope of making partner, you’ve got to keep telling yourself you’re smart and everyone else is dumb- for your own mental health.

Your Greek restaurants will fund your retirement (possibly in the federal pen for tax evasion).

 
Comment by joe smith
2013-04-09 07:26:31

I don’t have student debt. I’m not sure about the partner thing, but if you don’t make partner from here it means in-house at a client or else a cushy gov job where you can work a few yrs and then become a partner at a lower-ranked firm down the line.

My parents don’t directly know anything about taxes, they take advice from accountants/lawyers, they rely on advice but do nothing illegal. Moreover, if they start going after “small business” types, do you know how many diners/carryouts/pubs will go down? It’s not going to happen. Why do you assume these people would be liable on tax issues, they don’t prepare the taxes and they specifically hire lawyers and accountants who will avoid taxes *legally*. Yes, our tax system is a sham and all the “goodies” go to aggressive, well-capitalized businesses, both large and small. But of course, true “small businesses” usually don’t have the reserves or flexibility to make the appropriate adjustments, so the real benefits flow to small businesses that play ball like big business.

 
Comment by goon squad
2013-04-09 07:28:43

keep telling yourself you’re smart and everyone else is dumb- for your own mental health

I want to be Bill in Los Angeles when I grow up.

 
Comment by michael
2013-04-09 07:29:34

astronauts are loosers…its bill gates and steve jobs…they are the proper measure.

 
Comment by joe smith
2013-04-09 07:30:23

I think you guys are missing the big picture idea: These happy/content non-union workers building 80k cars are the kind of lazy people that the Mitt Romney types disdain. When you’re working for coolie wages, you are not going to be paying much (if any) taxes.

I’m not suggesting they *should* pay taxes on $15/hr income. I’m saying that we shouldn’t pretend that these are jobs that will actually help America balance its budget, pay for SS/MC, etc. These workers will be part of the 47%.

Moreover, Jess made it sound like these workers are going to be able to work these non-union jobs forever. Well, they better be, because on those wages you won’t be able to save much.

So, all hail SC (and the South, generally) where you can work til the day you die, making the “haves” wealthier while you yourself get the “benefit” of paying very low/no taxes (because you don’t make enough anyway). If this is America’s “future” I want to barf. Or borrow one of goon’s gunz.

 
Comment by it's hard out here for a pimp
2013-04-09 08:07:51

where you can work til the day you die, making the “haves” wealthier

Says the man who is primarily a mafia goon enriching his family (Romney or Romney like) not via guns but via laws.

 
Comment by cactus
2013-04-09 09:26:51

I think you guys are missing the big picture idea: These happy/content non-union workers building 80k cars are the kind of lazy people that the Mitt Romney types disdain. When you’re working for coolie wages, you are not going to be paying much (if any) taxes.”

The Chinese and Indians think exactly like you do and they won’t work cheap to make the 1% rich in America forever.

Mitt Romney types need to keep the work here for control of thier future wealth if nothing else.

Like Rome outsourcing it’s armies how did that work out ?

 
Comment by tresho
2013-04-09 09:28:09

Says the man who is primarily a mafia goon enriching his family (Romney or Romney like) not via guns but via laws.
Oh please.

 
Comment by ecofeco
2013-04-09 09:38:33

$15 hr at the BMW plant.

Google it.

Boeing is going the same route.

Do you really want aircraft made by people making $15 hr?

 
Comment by Rental Watch
2013-04-09 12:36:57

“I’m not suggesting they *should* pay taxes on $15/hr income.”

Why not?

How about 1%?

We need more people to care about how the government spends our money. The only way to do this is to have more people have a stake in it, no matter how small.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 12:54:47

We need more people to care about how the government spends our money. The only way to do this is to have more people have a stake in it,

Poor people pay a higher share of their income in total taxes and fees than do the super rich.

Most everyone already has their “stake” but just not their steak anymore.

 
Comment by Blue Skye
2013-04-09 13:12:49

The main problem with making $15 is living like you are making $18.

When I grow up I want to be “Lost on Seneca Lake”.

 
Comment by aNYCdj
2013-04-09 13:30:55

Well if my rent is $400 a month $15hr is just fine

Do you really want aircraft made by people making $15 hr?

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 13:31:20

The main problem with making $15 is living like you are making $18.

Maybe….
but buying meat is hard to beat and having heat is pretty sweet.

 
Comment by Steve J
2013-04-09 13:32:55

The main problem with $15/hr is healthcare.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 13:46:56

The main problem with $15/hr is healthcare.

I agree. From what I gather and read, Obamacare starting 2014 will make this problem much more manageable with subsidies for insurance.

Thoughts?

 
Comment by Pete
2013-04-09 16:09:22

“Thoughts?”

Well, I’ll be 47 next year, haven’t had insurance since I was in my twenties. According to the calculator from the Kaiser Foundation, my “unsubsidized health insurance premium in 2014 adjusted for age” would be $6440 (537/month).

Next up, the “maximum % of income the person/family has to pay for the premium if eligible for a subsidy” in my case is 4.7%, translating to a yearly premium of $892 ($75/month). My yearly income is just under $20K. If you make 40,000, you would pay no more than 9.5% of your income. Needless to say, I’ll pay the $75/month.

I entered the data as a single policyholder, which does not reflect my wife’s income. She has an excellent Kaiser plan, but it would cost me $400/month to get on it. Not do-able. My question is, am I able to get the single policyholder subsidy if we file our taxes jointly. Looks like I have some research to do.

 
Comment by Pete
2013-04-09 16:12:49

Here’s the calculator, if anyone’s interested:

http://healthreform.kff.org/subsidycalculator.aspx

 
Comment by Rental Watch
2013-04-09 16:25:20

“Poor people pay a higher share of their income in total taxes and fees than do the super rich.”

Really? Do you have a source for this assertion?

And don’t cherry pick one rich guy who had big capital loss carryforwards in one year cutting his tax bill in that year to nothing, or focusing entirely on people who made their money via capital gains (taxes which by the way have now gone up from 15% to 23.8%)

The last statistic I saw was that 87% of income tax receipts come from the top 10% of earners…this is among the highest, if not THE highest on record.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the tax code should not be progressive. I’m just saying that the low end should not be $0.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 16:43:27

Really? Do you have a source for this assertion?

http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/29/irs-high-income-personal-finance-taxes_0129_wealthy_americans.html

Forbes: WASHINGTON, D.C.–The 400 highest-earning taxpayers in the U.S. reported a record $105 billion in total adjusted gross income in 2006, but they paid just $18 billion in tax, new Internal Revenue Service figures show. That works out to an average federal income tax bite of 17%–the lowest rate paid by the richest 400 during the 15-year period covered by the IRS statistics. The average federal tax bite on the top 400 was 30% in 1995 and 23% in 2002.

Here’s just the State Taxes:

Wealthiest Americans Pay Half the Effective Tax Rate That Poorest Pay in State and Local Taxes; Middle-Income Families Also Pay More

http://www.ctj.org/taxjusticedigest/archive/2013/01/wealthiest_americans_pay_half.php

Soaking the Poor, State by State
source: The Corporation for Enterprise Development

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/02/soaking-poor-state-state

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/poor-americans-state-local-taxes_n_1903993.html

Nearly every U.S. state taxes the poor more than the rich, according to a 2009 report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. Overall, the poorest 20 percent of households paid an average 10.9 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes in 2007, while the top 1 percent on average paid just 5.2 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes, according to the study.

Total U.S. taxes are barely progressive, as shown in this table and chart from Citizens for Tax Justice. The bottom 99 percent pays a 27.5 percent total tax rate on average, while the top 1 percent pays an average 29 percent tax rate, according to 2011 data from Citizens for Tax Justice.

And the poor pay payroll taxes what 14% total which is lumped into the general fund so say the Repubs. So they are paying Fed taxes as well if the Repubs are correct.

 
Comment by Rental Watch
2013-04-09 22:44:03

Just because STATES generally have less progressive tax systems (sales taxes being the biggest culprit), doesn’t mean that the FEDERAL government should screw with the FEDERAL tax code to make up for it.

http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2012/04/who_pays_taxes_in_america.php#.UWT5A6sjqyo

The top 10%-20% pay approximately 4X the rate of the bottom 20%, even after including federal payroll taxes, etc.

 
 
Comment by oxide
2013-04-09 06:45:00

The goal is to pay workers so little that the workers are eligible for food stamps and Medicaid. In other words, get the government to chip in part of the workers’ pay, so you can pocket the profit.*

In the debate over health care, I’m surprised they didn’t pit employers (who should want single-payer/public option) against health insurers (who don’t). Imagine: Wal-Mart vs. Wellpoint Jello-Wrestle Match to the Death. That would have fetched a high admission price.

Similar situation for white-collar jobs. In that case you get someone else to subsidize the necessary higher education. Fed loans, state school taxes, or H1-B’s whose education is paid for by the government of Chindiasia. Anything other than expensive on-the-job training.

————–
*Bonus hypocrisy points if you can collect gov tax money in the form of Medicaid/food stamps, while simultaneously hatin’ on government as “business unfriendly” and charging “corporate tax rates which are the highest in the world.”

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Comment by joe smith
2013-04-09 06:50:52

Also, these factoryworkers in SC are part of the “47%”. You don’t really start paying federal income tax until household income goes above 50 or 60k (and even then, it is not much).

Meanwhile, it falls to people in blue states to fund the federal government. Which is OK because at least they’re not scraping by to begin with (although like most Americans, they spend too much, use too much credit, and don’t save enough). Still, better to start with a high income so at least you can devise a plan to save if you want to. Coolies slaving for BMW, “happy” or not, don’t have the option to save for a better life. What are they going to do, start saving change in a jar and study chemistry or computer science at night via correspondence course after working in the factory all day?

 
Comment by oxide
2013-04-09 07:50:17

What are they going to do, start saving change in a jar and study chemistry or computer science at night via correspondence course

Well duh, ya bootstrapper! This is known as the “get off your duff and improve yourself and get a better job” strategy. Most recently effectively employed in Fall 2011 in Zucotti Park, NYC.

 
Comment by it's hard out here for a pimp
2013-04-09 08:13:06

You miss the point entirely. Low wages should result in low prices of everything, including housing and health. Why does it matter how much you make if you can afford a decent life style even with your $10 an hour salary? Who’s preventing the low wages people live a decent life? It’s the government you voted for. Government is crazy about increasing the price of everything making it impossible for the little people to survive on salaries they earn.

 
Comment by ecofeco
2013-04-09 10:08:12

Government had nothing to do with it.

It’s called voodoo (supply side) economics and it was championed by neocons along with “less government” (oversight).

Once again I will explain how it works:

You raise prices when times are good due to scarcity of product.

You raise prices when times are bad due to scarcity of profits (sales).

You only ever temporarily lower prices to drive traffic, but raise them as quickly as you can once you’ve established traffic (sales) This is classic bait and switch.

All the time you cut corners everywhere you can until you get caught, but keep enough corporate customers that you never have to worry about J6P customers or government penalties.

 
Comment by tj
2013-04-09 13:53:35

Why does it matter how much you make if you can afford a decent life style even with your $10 an hour salary? Who’s preventing the low wages people live a decent life? It’s the government you voted for.

correct.

 
Comment by sfhomowner
2013-04-09 14:32:18

Why does it matter how much you make if you can afford a decent life style even with your $10 an hour salary? Who’s preventing the low wages people live a decent life?

As part of its 2012 report on rent affordability, the National Low Income Housing Coalition released a chart that’s been floating around the Internet. It shows that there isn’t a single state in the country where it’s possible to work 40 hours per week at minimum wage and afford a two-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent. (source: http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/paying-rent-on-minimum-wage/)

 
Comment by tj
2013-04-09 14:53:17

It shows that there isn’t a single state in the country where it’s possible to work 40 hours per week at minimum wage and afford a two-bedroom apartment at Fair Market Rent.

good chance it would have been if government had kept its subsidizing, bailout nose out of the market. but the real point is that minimum wage raises unemployment. not everyone needs a 2brm apt. sometimes a 1brm or even studio will do. sometimes people just rent a room for a while.

and if a kid that lives at home wants a job, how high a wage does he need? your type says no job is better than one below your arbitrary minimum. kid wants to work for 6 an hour. too bad. the libs say you have to give him 9 or whatever it is now. so the kid gets no work experience or training because the liberal do-gooders know what’s best. pathetic.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 15:37:00

and if a kid that lives at home wants a job, how high a wage does he need?

High enough to keep his Reagan-voting, laid off, 60 year old parents in generic aspirin, Old Crow and Ramen Romney Noodles.

 
Comment by tj
2013-04-09 16:00:20

High enough to keep his Reagan-voting, laid off, 60 year old parents in generic aspirin, Old Crow and Ramen Romney Noodles.

as always, the omniscient, wise rio knows what’s best for everyone. sorry kid, that ain’t enough money. no job for you. no training for you. no skills for you. the all-knowing rio knows what’s best. all follow him.

 
Comment by Rental Watch
2013-04-09 16:31:27

What about a studio apartment? One Bedroom?

 
 
Comment by cactus
2013-04-09 09:08:46

On the radio last night I heard a story somthing like this

“Kaiser Permenate has to use its record profits to hire more mental health care workers this is a win for everone including the union that is bringing you this story”

Unions are going to where the money is, Health Care

screw manufacturing it’s all wrung out

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Comment by oxide
2013-04-09 11:39:08

That’s going to get dicey fast. In one way, the union has an upper hand because you can’t outsource healthcare the way you can outsource a factory. But in another way, well, what happens if the nurses go on strike? They picket on the sidewalk while patients inside die from lack of care? Who will get the blame? The nurses or the corps?

 
 
 
 
Comment by joe smith
2013-04-09 06:03:57

Mississippi is either the poorest state in the country or very close.

LOL @ the South being “paradise” but all the states where people *want* to live being “hell holes”.

There is a reason the median income in Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts (etc) is twice what it is in Mississippi. It’s not unions. It’s because an educated labor force is necessary for some sectors/jobs more than others.

Comment by Albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 06:31:41

That is racist Joe. You are attacking the blackest state in the union with code words. Just thought I would do a MSNBC type attack on you. Actually, I agree with your point that it is the human capital of an area that makes that area succeed. Sweden is Sweden because of the high IQ of its population. It would do well under any economic system but it actually has done better after it dial back its socialism. Yes, they are highly educated but they are easily educated due to this IQ. It is not that they are spending much more per capita on education. It is the reason you and I disagree on immigration, I do not see the value to the country of importing low skilled and in fact low IQ people. We will just create more “hell holes” in fact we are, already, creating those places.

Comment by joe smith
2013-04-09 06:35:30

How do we disagree on immigration? I favor closing the border and coming up with a sensible plan to process people and have a pathway to citizenship. Not have people in limbo. Not have the externalities passed on to taxpayers.

I don’t know what exact #s you think are OK for immigration, but I basically want to skim off the best we can get from abroad and have a sensible policy, maybe a couple million immigrants per decade. With preference for people who have clean backgrounds and at least a basic education (which would suggest they can understand laws and find legit employment, probably learn English as well).

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Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 07:25:41

If that is your position then we do agree. It has been my position all along so I don’t know why you previously attacked me on immigration but it is good to agree.

 
Comment by michael
2013-04-09 07:34:18

” I basically want to skim off the best we can get from abroad and have a sensible policy, maybe a couple million immigrants per decade. With preference for people who have clean backgrounds and at least a basic education (which would suggest they can understand laws and find legit employment, probably learn English as well).”

you forgot…and vote democrat.

 
Comment by joe smith
2013-04-09 07:38:54

If you’re implying that blacks or hispanics have less potential to become educated workers, then I do disagree, the same things were said about Irish and Italians, who also had relative cultural poverty but who were assimilated over time. At a rate of 3-5 Mil legal immigrants/decade, that is a sustainable rate, at 1-2% of population. It should be spread around the world and prospective immigrants should pay the fees associated with running background checks and verifying identity. I have said I favor more balanced immigration - not primarily from central America or a handful of asian countries.

But what we really should do is have a secure border where we can at least hope to have an idea of who is here and some plan to make them citizens. The current plan favors big corporations, who can free-ride on cheap labor while passing externalities (criminality, unpaid taxes, ER costs) to taxpayers.

I do think we should have earned citizenship, possibly predicated on law-abiding and tax-paying status along with writing/writing basic English for people below, say, age 40. There should be a period for people to achieve this (8-10 yrs?) and, after that time, then I could see a push towards deportation.

 
Comment by joe smith
2013-04-09 07:42:16

you forgot…and vote democrat.
——————

I’m not a Democrat. I’d hope we’d gain political independents who want America to succeed and wouldn’t take either party very seriously.

 
Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 07:46:00

Also Joe, while I agree with your numbers about 200,000 per year and your criteria, nothing in the proposed bill will achieve that number or criteria. If we pass what the Senate is talking about we will have chain migration of low IQ immigrants and there will be millions per year. Family reunification must be taken out of the bill and that will not happen.

 
Comment by it's hard out here for a pimp
2013-04-09 07:50:18

Family reunification must be taken out of the bill and that will not happen.

You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

You are going to pluck out their best and the brightest but not their families?

 
Comment by it's hard out here for a pimp
2013-04-09 07:57:11

Meanwhile, it falls to people in blue states to fund the federal government.

Once the money priting stops, so will end the blue states’ funding the federal government.

 
Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 08:31:43

You are going to pluck out their best and the brightest but not their families?

If you are talking about their immediate families (wife, husband and children), no, they will come. But parents, bothers, sisters etc. and have the bill also apply to illegals many of whom are far from the best and the brightest, I do not want them to bring in their relatives.

 
Comment by it's hard out here for a pimp
2013-04-09 08:43:48

But parents, bothers, sisters etc. and have the bill also apply to illegals many of whom are far from the best and the brightest, I do not want them to bring in their relatives.

You may not want to bring them but some of them would like to come and stay. Let’s say the Parents or Siblings like to come visit their little scientist in the states. After visiting some would say screw it I am staying…..It happens a lot as a matter of fact. Are you saying that we shouldn’t even give visitor’s visas to the parents or siblings?

 
 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 08:28:19

Sweden is Sweden because of the high IQ of its population. It would do well under any economic system but it actually has done better after it dial back its socialism.

Sweden is Sweden because it practices well-regulated capitalism AND invests in its people, its country, and has strong safety nets that promote societal, economic, mental and physical health.

Sweden would not “do well” under any economic system just because they are “smart. Sweden would not have done well under Soviet Communism and Sweden would not be doing that well if they had totally followed the American model for the past 40 years. The Chinese have high IQs as well but faltered under their Communism. Americans are smart but are faltering under our perverted version of capitalism.

Sweden’s example of capitalism mixed with investment in its people and strong social programs is the model to learn from for countries interested in real success for their people imo.

If you’re implying that blacks or hispanics have less potential to become educated workers, then I do disagree, the same things were said about Irish and Italians,

Well said.

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Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 09:24:09

Go on to the web and look up the average IQ for Italians and then the average IQ for Swedes and you will see that the difference is quite minor. Then compare the average IQ for a Somali. You are talking about apples and oranges. That said there are plenty of Africans that do have a high IQ and would be a welcome addition to this country. But we need to ensure that only the best and brightest do come to this country. PC is a religion and that is the problem with this country, religious zealots on both sides are running the political parties and hence the country.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 09:28:10

PC is a religion

(But is smaller than the Religion of Racism)

 
Comment by tresho
2013-04-09 09:32:22

But we need to ensure that only the best and brightest do come to this country.
Some of the “best and brightest” who think they are leading this country, we would be better without.

 
Comment by ecofeco
2013-04-09 10:14:09

Ergo hoc, propter hoc.

Best and brightest does NOT necessarily guarantee higher standard of living.

Only specific polices do, i.e. reasonably regulated capitalism and investment in the citizens (health and education).

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 11:24:43

Best and brightest does NOT necessarily guarantee higher standard of living.

And math (as is success in life) is hard.

Like Math? Thank Your Motivation, Not IQ

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=like-math-thank-your-moti

People who were driven by their own interest improved their math skills the most. IQ or external factors such as parental pressure or grades didn’t create a lasting boost

“The growth in math achievement was predicted by motivation and learning strategies,” Murayama told LiveScience. “Given that IQ did not show this kind of effect, we think this is impressive.”

 
Comment by oxide
2013-04-09 11:44:21

That study was done on 5th graders in Germany. Sorry, but I believe that almost anyone of any IQ can learn 5th grade math.

How did they distinguish between “motivation” and “parental pressure?” At that age they are almost the same thing.

Let’s see the results of a study of say, 17-year old Calc 2 students. I think you’ll find that IQ has more of an effect. That’s assuming that you can even do the study without selection bias, because the lower IQ’s don’t even make it that far in math.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 12:06:31

Sorry, but I believe that almost anyone of any IQ can learn 5th grade math.

Anyone of almost any IQ can learn 5th grade math at the age they are while in the 5th grade?

I don’t understand.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 14:07:26

Let’s see the results of a study of say, 17-year old Calc 2 students.

I slacked off the semester of Calc 2 in college and was looking at between a B and a D depending on the final.

I had a study group that included 2 of the best students in the class. I worked my tail off. For a week, I lived and breathed Calc 2. The first day of the group I was asking the dumbest questions. By the end of the week I was the go-to guy of the group. I took the final and got my B.

I’m sure I didn’t have the highest egghead IQ in the class of over 40 students but I scored the highest grade on the final in the class. I was motivated and it was the only period of my life that I LOVED math.

Years later I recounted that story to a math professor and he said. “That’s the way math works if you really work at it”.

I think that’s the way life works a lot of the time too.

 
Comment by Happy2bHeard
2013-04-09 20:02:09

“How did they distinguish between “motivation” and “parental pressure?” At that age they are almost the same thing.”

I have to disagree. I got no pressure from my parents. I never got rewards for grades or punishment. I always enjoyed learning and I always wanted to be the best student (something I think I never attained). Consequently, the grade was its own motivation since it measured my success as a student.

 
 
 
Comment by michael
2013-04-09 10:07:01

“There is a reason the median income in Maryland, New Jersey, Massachusetts (etc) is twice what it is in Mississippi. It’s not unions. It’s because an educated labor force is necessary for some sectors/jobs more than others.”

wrong… median housing prices in those states are twice that of MS…and i bet if you could get just median house price for the highly populated areas it would be 3 to 5 times higher.

MS and SC is to some extent a great example of how allowing housing prices to crater may increase the US workers manufacturing competiveness abroad.

maybe.

 
 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-04-09 08:43:31

How else do you expect the factory owner to compete with Chinese sweat shop labor?

Comment by ecofeco
 
 
 
Comment by 2banana
2013-04-09 05:27:46

Read hope and change is coming…

Why A Cyprus-Like Seizure Of Your Money Could Happen Here
Forbes | March 25, 2013 | Steve Forbes

Don’t put it past our politicians to try it in a financial emergency. The breaking of contracts by the U.S. government, unfortunately, has happened before, and what’s under way in Cyprus shows that feckless politicos will continue to try such things.

In the early 1970s President Richard Nixon annulled contracts selling soybeans to Japan. This was done for domestic political reasons: U.S. soybean buyers had been complaining about the high prices, and Nixon felt keeping the product here would mollify them. Of course, the real reason that the prices of soybeans and other agricultural commodities were rising was that Nixon and the Federal Reserve were deliberately undermining the value of the U.S. dollar. (Japan responded by investing in Brazil, which became one of our major soybean competitors.)

In 2009 the Obama Administration pushed through a brazenly political restructuring of bankrupt General Motors and Chrysler, and huge payoffs were made to the United Auto Workers, a pro-Obama union, at the expense of bondholders. Banks signed off on the deal because they had no choice—their survival depended on the whims of Washington. Once again the courts turned their backs on this patently unconstitutional exercise.

Holders of Roth IRAs may be in for a rude shock. Their contributions have been made with aftertax dollars, with the promise that the ensuing benefits would be exempt from federal income tax. Slapping a special “emergency” levy on these assets will become an irresistible temptation for politicians as the pot of assets gets bigger. Impossible? Your Social Security “contributions” are made with aftertax dollars, and it was promised that those benefits would be tax free, but Washington started chipping away at that vow back in the 1980s. Today millions of Social Security recipients find a portion of their benefits subject to the IRS.

There are other ways, of course, for governments to get your money—the age-old one being inflation. The Federal Reserve has already stated that it wants to get inflation up to 2.5%. Put aside for the moment the impossibility of concocting a true price index—the Consumer Price Index, for example, allocates less than 1% of the cost of living to health insurance! Inflation, as John Maynard Keynes wrote nine decades ago, is a form of taxation—and, in this case, taxation without representation. Especially invidious is the fact that inflation hits lower-income earners disproportionately hard, as they spend a higher percentage of their income on fuel, electricity and other necessities. If you ever run into a Federal Reserve official, ask him how taxing the American people like this helps stimulate sustainable long-term growth. I’ve done it, and the official always gets flustered.

Congress might be tempted to propose something that has surfaced all too often in Europe: a wealth tax. In France, for instance, you tote up the value each year of everything you own and pay the government a 1% tax on the amount above a certain threshold. We have something of a precedent for that here, your local property taxes. A wealth tax would simply be an expanded form of that levy.

Comment by measton
2013-04-09 06:58:01

There is no need for a cyprus theft of money. We can just print money and slowly devalue it.

Comment by michael
2013-04-09 07:42:06

never underestimate the power of class warfare…once the 47% figure out that printing money is a tax on them…game over for the evil 1%ers.

Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 07:47:26

I hope you are the angel Michael because without him that is not going to happen.

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Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-04-09 08:53:14

Wait — I thought the 47% were the folks on the dole? Doesn’t printing money work to their advantage?

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Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 09:00:47

High inflation does not help poor people or working class people without hard assets whether they get money from a minimum wage job or from the dole. BTW, the days of the US being the reserve currency are very close to being done. This is just another tea leaf:

http://www.bullionstreet.com/news/china-buys-97106-tons-of-hong-kong-gold-in-february/4459

 
Comment by measton
2013-04-09 09:30:18

printing money would help the middle class only if it was used to create jobs and stimulate demand which would create more jobs and rising demand for labor might put upward pressure on wages. If it’s used to speculate on fuel and food prices and drive up housing it hurts them. We’ve chosen the later.

 
 
Comment by tresho
2013-04-09 09:45:41

once the 47% figure out that printing money is a tax on them…
Are you serious? That would take a heaping helping of “figgering” to make that change.

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Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-04-09 08:47:39

“Why A Cyprus-Like Seizure Of Your Money Could Happen Here
Forbes | March 25, 2013 | Steve Forbes

Don’t put it past our politicians to try it in a financial emergency.
…”

I won’t.

Secrets and Lies of the Bailout
The federal rescue of Wall Street didn’t fix the economy – it created a permanent bailout state based on a Ponzi-like confidence scheme. And the worst may be yet to come
By Matt Taibbi
January 4, 2013 4:25 PM ET

It has been four long winters since the federal government, in the hulking, shaven-skulled, Alien Nation-esque form of then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, committed $700 billion in taxpayer money to rescue Wall Street from its own chicanery and greed. To listen to the bankers and their allies in Washington tell it, you’d think the bailout was the best thing to hit the American economy since the invention of the assembly line. Not only did it prevent another Great Depression, we’ve been told, but the money has all been paid back, and the government even made a profit. No harm, no foul – right?

Wrong.

It was all a lie – one of the biggest and most elaborate falsehoods ever sold to the American people. We were told that the taxpayer was stepping in – only temporarily, mind you – to prop up the economy and save the world from financial catastrophe. What we actually ended up doing was the exact opposite: committing American taxpayers to permanent, blind support of an ungovernable, unregulatable, hyperconcentrated new financial system that exacerbates the greed and inequality that caused the crash, and forces Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup to increase risk rather than reduce it. The result is one of those deals where one wrong decision early on blossoms into a lush nightmare of unintended consequences. We thought we were just letting a friend crash at the house for a few days; we ended up with a family of hillbillies who moved in forever, sleeping nine to a bed and building a meth lab on the front lawn.

How Wall Street Killed Financial Reform

But the most appalling part is the lying. The public has been lied to so shamelessly and so often in the course of the past four years that the failure to tell the truth to the general populace has become a kind of baked-in, official feature of the financial rescue. Money wasn’t the only thing the government gave Wall Street – it also conferred the right to hide the truth from the rest of us. And it was all done in the name of helping regular people and creating jobs. “It is,” says former bailout Inspector General Neil Barofsky, “the ultimate bait-and-switch.”

 
Comment by ecofeco
2013-04-09 10:20:07

The banks already steal our money. Hidden fees, credit card interest rates for less than stellar credit, TARP, 0% interest money from the Fed.

Day late and a dollar short, cabana boy.

 
Comment by oxide
2013-04-09 11:50:44

Once again the courts turned their backs

When? Is there a Supreme Courtcase that HBB missed?

 
 
Comment by aNYCdj
2013-04-09 05:51:16

More police state news……..

Police Confiscate Man’s Guns Over Son’s Water Pistol Threat

Latest example of anti-Second Amendment hysteria reaches new level of absurdity

http://www.infowars.com/police-confiscate-mans-guns-over-sons-water-pistol-threat/

Comment by Northeastener
2013-04-09 08:58:45

And then the liberal gun grabbers wonder why the NRA and 2A supporters fight tooth and nail against gun registration schemes… at some point in their lives, almost everyone will become “ineligible” for one reason or another. What better way to take away law-abiding citizens right to bear arms than to make it increasingly likely they will trip up and have them taken away.

Comment by AmazingRuss
2013-04-09 09:37:50

The more the NRA acts like a hysterical child, the more power the gun grabbers gain. They’ll go the way of the GOP if they don’t get their act together.

Comment by Northeastener
2013-04-09 13:12:47

They’ll go the way of the GOP if they don’t get their act together.

No, they won’t. They are gaining membership every day. They are also receiving more money today than at any time in their history.

What have you done to protect your 2nd Amendment rights today?

Remember, the 2nd Amendment is what protects the 1st… if you think otherwise, then you’re just not paying attention.

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Comment by AmazingRuss
2013-04-09 17:25:32

Sure thing, Rambo.

 
 
 
Comment by Anon In DC
2013-04-09 18:01:08

Dad was right. Years and year ago when I was a kid he said the liberals wanted gun control so when citizens revolted against the high taxes the government would have the upper hand. It’s still the liberals’ plan. That and entitlements.

 
 
Comment by ecofeco
2013-04-09 10:22:54

How many times do I have to point out that New York, like CA, the 2 most EXTREME and moronic states in the country, does NOT represent the entire nation?

Comment by Northeastener
2013-04-09 13:18:14

How many times do I have to point out that New York, like CA, the 2 most EXTREME and moronic states in the country, does NOT represent the entire nation?

Sorry, but MD and CT just rammed through gun-banning legislation, including a requirement to register all “pre-ban” guns and magazines in CT. CT also just recently announced $25 million in additional funding to law enforcement to ensure compliance of the populace with the new gun ban, registration, etc.

If what I’m hearing has any credibility, it’s going to get real in CT very soon. Colt and Ruger will leave CT, removing tens of millions of dollars from their economy and thousands of jobs. Tens of thousands of previously law-abiding CT citizens will be considered criminals and felons. We’ll see if CT is prepared for what’s coming…

Comment by aNYCdj
2013-04-09 19:45:53

And of course none of this will apply to gangtas drug dealers and hardened criminals….

Mandatory 5 years and no bail for an illegal gun on a public street.

Like the kopperz are going to stand guard at public housing projects to confiscate all the scratched off serial number guns….yeah sure

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Comment by jose canusi
2013-04-09 05:59:29

RIP, Annette Funicello. Class act all the way. End of an era.

Comment by ecofeco
2013-04-09 10:41:16

The names and faces who dominated the 20th century are passing on.

 
Comment by Arizona Slim
2013-04-09 11:23:04

I’m not noticing an abundance of the same sentiment WRT the death of Margaret Thatcher.

Comment by tj
2013-04-09 14:01:13

I’m not noticing an abundance of the same sentiment WRT the death of Margaret Thatcher.

she was great, but the left hates her almost as much as ayn rand.

Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 14:18:29

the left hates (Margaret Thatcher) almost as much as ayn rand.

Apples and Oranges.

Margaret Thatcher was a doer and a great world figure. Ayn Rand was a blow-hard nut imo who admired and some think was a sociopath.

One reason why most countries don’t find the time to embrace her thinking is that Ayn Rand is a textbook sociopath. Literally a sociopath: Ayn Rand, in her notebooks, worshiped a notorious serial murderer-dismemberer,

…..Back in the late 1920s, as Ayn Rand was working out her philosophy, she became enthralled by a real-life American serial killer, William Edward Hickman, whose gruesome, sadistic dismemberment of 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker in 1927 shocked the nation.

Rand filled her early notebooks with worshipful praise of Hickman. According to biographer Jennifer Burns, author of Goddess of the Market, Rand was so smitten by Hickman that she modeled her first literary creation — Danny Renahan, the protagonist of her unfinished first novel, The Little Street — on him.

….What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: “Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should,” she wrote, gushing that Hickman had “no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel ‘other people.’” exiledonline dot com

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Comment by tj
2013-04-09 14:59:31

more lies promulgated by the duplicitous evil left.

show me where any of that BS is referenced. many people study serial killers without approving what they do, or liking them. let’s see the proof that she admired hickman or anyone like him..

 
Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 15:22:14

Saul Alinsky admired the mafia but it is ok to follow his tactics if you are a community organizer.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 15:51:04

more lies promulgated by the duplicitous evil left.

Read it and weep “Mr Austrian Economics”.

Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right
amazon dot com.

“A wonderful book: beautifully written, completely balanced, extensively researched. The match between author and subject is so perfect that one might believe that the author was chosen by the gods to write this book. She has sympathy and affection for her subject but treats her as a human being, with no attempt to cover up the foibles.”
–Mises Economics Blog
(American organization named for Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973). Its website states that it is “the world center of the Austrian School of economics and libertarian political) wiki

“A terrific book–a serious consideration of Rand’s ideas, and her role in the conservative movement of the past three quarters of a century.” --The American Thinker
(American Thinker is a daily conservative online magazine dealing with American politics, foreign policy, national security, Israel, economics,….) wiki

“….What did Rand admire so much about Hickman? His sociopathic qualities: “Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should,” she wrote, gushing that Hickman had “no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel ‘other people.’” exiledonline dot com

 
Comment by tj
2013-04-09 15:56:51

Saul Alinsky admired the mafia but it is ok to follow his tactics if you are a community organizer.

well said Dan.

 
Comment by Ben Jones
2013-04-09 16:22:59

‘no regard whatsoever’

Kind of like Obama, no? How many children did he have killed just the other day? Was it 10 or 12? But who’s counting at the White House? Just throw it on the pile of thousands of children and other innocents he’s murdered.

Instead of sitting on your high horse, putting down people that have been dead for half a century, maybe you should pay a little attention to the war criminal in chief who is killing people right now, today.

 
Comment by tj
2013-04-09 16:55:26

your claim is that rand admired hickman. she didn’t admire him. she drew the line at his degeneracy.

rand did not admire his sociopathic qualities. find it in her own words, not someone else’s accusations. you post hearsay and call it fact. not so.

here’s part of what of one response to the allegation:

“I am not suprised to see the Rand/Hickman thing being brought out as a weapon against Rand’s resurgence; it just shows how desperate the Left is right now.

There’s a certain irony here, too, involving hypocrisy on the Left’s part. In Journals of Ayn Rand, Rand is presented as clearly drawing the line at where the “admiration” ends, with the degeneracy and murders. (I’d add that while this was not Rand at her maturity, the Hickman story and her inversion of criminals into heroes in her fiction is best understood in the context of the trickster archetype, and the Nietzschean concept of the “transvaluation of values.”)

Contrast that with Rand’s criticism of the Left’s “admiration” for the very same subject, not for the virtues, but FOR the degeneracy.

From The Romantic Manifesto:

“…to escape from guilt and arouse pity, one has to portray man as impotent and innately loathsome. Hence the competition among modern artists to find every lower levels of depravity and even higher degrees of mawkishness–a competition to show the public out of its wits and jerks its tears. Hence the frantic search for misery, the descent from compassionate studies of alchoholism and sexual perversion to dope, incest, psychosis, murder, cannablism.”

it is truly the left that glorifies depravity.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 17:48:21

it is truly the left that glorifies depravity.
1943, Josef Mengele talking about Josef Stalin

find it in her own words,

I did: From her words and her biographer who’s book was esteemed by the right. Read it and weep:
“Other people do not exist for him, and he does not see why they should,” she wrote, gushing that Hickman had “no regard whatsoever for all that society holds sacred, and with a consciousness all his own. He has the true, innate psychology of a Superman. He can never realize and feel ‘other people.’”

 
Comment by tj
2013-04-09 19:15:43

i knew of hickman, but only superficially. rand has been misrepresented so many times before, that i believed she must have been misrepresented again. but if she really said some of the things she apparently did say about hickman, i have to admit (much as it pains me) that you are right. however, i am going to look into it further.

i can however disavow her as a person, without disavowing her philosophy. even before hickman there were some minor things i disagreed with her on. for instance, i’ve never agreed that selfishness is a virtue (rand), or that greed is good (gordon gekko). however, if you substitute those two words (selfishness and greed) for the word ‘ambition’, then i would agree with the statements. again, that i agree with rand on most things doesn’t mean that i agree with everything she said. there was a ‘better’ word for greed that gekko didn’t know enough to utter. for most people ambition and greed are similar enough to pass for each other, but they are different in important ways. ambition is good, greed is not.

anyway, for now i’ll concede that you are right. but i’m still going to look for the mistake. in my heart i don’t believe rand was a bad person, but i’m much less convinced now that she was as good i gave her credit for after reading some things that she apparently said about hickman.

i’m reading some who say that she drew a distinction at the murder and depravity of hickman. i’d love to find that distinction, but so far i haven’t been able to.

i’ll take back what i said about the left lying on this. but i reserve the right to take it back if i find evidence that she was taken out of context again.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 20:22:53

i reserve the right to take it back if i find evidence that she was taken out of context

Nice post. Fair post. And likewise…..neither of us has a monopoly on the truth on every issue. And the truth is not always the easiest thing to determine because sometimes….the truth lies somewhere between points of view.

 
 
 
 
 
Comment by WT Econonmist
2013-04-09 06:00:47

The marginal free market wage rate is zero. Fortuantely, those at the top are not in an actual free labor market, but in a rigged market in which they negotiate with each other.

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20130408/bushwick/doh-robertas-pizza-advertises-for-unpaid-intern-upsets-neighborhood

Comment by ecofeco
2013-04-09 10:24:45

Exactly.

The free market says you work for zero.

Or worse: company script.

 
Comment by Arizona Slim
2013-04-09 11:24:20

Key point from the story: “Roberta’s Pizza, the thriving trendy pizza restaurant on Moore Street that has played host to the Clintons among a number of notable guests, is attempting to profit off of free labor of so-called ‘interns’ in running their kitchen garden,” the flier decries of the pizzeria, which has indeed served Bill and Hillary Clinton.

“For having already contributed so greatly to damaging the gentrification of Bushwick, is Roberta’s so greedy as to expoit workers and flout labor laws, just to save a few measly bucks an hour?” the flier continues.

The poster refers to a Craiglist ad, which appears to have been removed from the site, but the internship is still listed on other job sites with a request that applicants contact Melissa Metrick, the garden’s manager.

Comment by ecofeco
2013-04-09 13:59:41

I’ll say it again: you should never work for free for anyone except your family and friends, and even then you should be choosy.

 
 
 
Comment by hazard
2013-04-09 06:22:30

Backed by the full faith and credit of the U. S. Government.

 
Comment by azdude
2013-04-09 06:24:23

bird dogging and options are making a comeback in the housing market.

 
Comment by joe smith
2013-04-09 06:46:51

I wonder why more lawyers don’t attempt to practice in a rural area since getting jobs with big firms is tough right now. I don’t know the answer. NY Times claims some rural counties are offering subsidies.
—————————
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/us/subsidy-seen-as-a-way-to-fill-a-need-for-rural-lawyers.html?hp&_r=0

In South Dakota, 65 percent of the lawyers live in four urban areas. In Georgia, 70 percent are in the Atlanta area. In Arizona, 94 percent are in the two largest counties, and in Texas, 83 percent are around Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio. Last summer, the American Bar Association called on federal, state and local governments to stem the decline of lawyers in rural areas.

Last month, South Dakota became the first state to heed the call. It passed a law that offers lawyers an annual subsidy to live and work in rural areas, like the national one that doctors, nurses and dentists have had for decades.

Such moves follow a growing call for legal education to model itself on medical training to increase practical skills and employability. They also come amid intense debate on the future of the legal profession, and concerns about a possible glut of lawyers. In the past two years, only about 55 percent of law school graduates, many with large student loans to repay, have found full-time jobs as lawyers.

Comment by goon squad
2013-04-09 07:07:19

Sounds like a great sequel to Northern Exposure.

East Coast 3rd tier law grad burdened with $250K of loanz, moves to Bumf*ck Prairie, Flyover, sets up storefront office and spends a decade helping local yokels with DUI’s, custody battles, domestic abuse, meth charges. The amount of LOLZ would be incalculable.

Comment by polly
2013-04-09 09:40:36

The traditional joke is that one lawyer in a small town will starve to death, but two can make a pretty nice living.

 
Comment by Pete
2013-04-09 16:14:17

“East Coast 3rd tier law grad burdened with $250K of loanz, moves to Bumf*ck Prairie, Flyover, sets up storefront office and spends a decade helping local yokels with DUI’s, custody battles, domestic abuse, meth charges.”

I’d watch that!

Comment by goon squad
2013-04-09 17:28:26
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Comment by Brett
2013-04-09 07:21:07

People have been moving out of rural areas for decades… Why would they wanna go back?

Comment by Steve J
2013-04-09 13:38:06

Oil.

 
 
Comment by it's hard out here for a pimp
2013-04-09 07:23:48

I wonder why more lawyers don’t attempt to practice in a rural area

Because they like spend money on expensive houses?

 
Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 07:35:26

It is much harder to specialize in rural areas. I have never wanted to do criminal or family law cases but I have done some pro bono. Areas that I have practiced in include natural resources law and securities law relating to natural resource firms. While it often brings me out to areas where you are happy to find a Walmart, I really like and need to live next to a major airport and have access to good food. However, you do learn where to find it. I can find live lobster in Delta, Utah. Actually, I mention that because a SI model mentioned she was from there and I was part of litigation designed to get the impact of a closed mine cleaned up. BTW, I was on the side pushing the clean up.

Comment by scdave
2013-04-09 07:59:57

BTW, I was on the side pushing the clean up ??

You mean you were on the side that was making some money :)

Comment by oxide
2013-04-09 08:28:20

Which side was the SI model on?

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Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 08:40:49

I think she would have been in grade school about then, if she was even in town. I looked up her background because her looks were so unique. She is Thai and Swedish. I think her father was a local Mormon, not sure if he met her mother on a mission or some other way.

 
Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 08:48:33

The town of Delta actually is very interesting. It has a bad smell to it because of the number of hog farms in the area, so a rural area does not always mean clean smelling air. The hotel I stayed at, had the biggest bed I have even seen. I really think it is because the cliental including polygamists. It is a green area due to irrigation and has some beauty and the Drum Mountains, a little way from the town, do have a lot of history to them, old gold mines from the old West. You feel you have step back into the 1880s when you are in those mountains.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 08:54:46

You feel you have step back into the 1880s

You sure it wasn’t 1861?

 
Comment by scdave
2013-04-09 09:08:24

old gold mines from the old West ??

Dredging ?? Is that what is contaminating the water…

 
Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 09:37:27

Hey Rio how are the slaves on the sugar plantations in Brazil doing? Apparently, there are not enough since you have to import ethanol from the US.

 
 
Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 09:42:57

Another link about sugar cane slavery and Brazil: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/mar/09/brazil.renewableenergy

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 09:52:45

Hey Rio how are the slaves on the sugar plantations in Brazil doing?

Almost as well as the unpaid interns and slave laborers in the USA I’d imagine. But do you think bashing Brazil to a born American is really that bothersome?

Does slavery bother you? You’ve explained today on this board how white’s are smarter than brown and black people. By definition, that means you believe whites are superior albuquerquedan. As usual you flail (at what seems to you grand) pronouncements but you fail to connect the dots or see the big picture.

Believing your race is superior to other races was the key mental illness that made slavery acceptable to so many racists throughout history. Is this not true? If it is not true then why is it not true?

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 10:00:19

Thank you albuquerquedan. So because of a 2007 article on exploited sugar workers and some bad Brazilian oil industry numbers, that means Sweden is successful because they are white? And because brown people are inferior? This is your logic?

You do realize how you are looking again today, no?

 
Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 11:03:07

I see that you should be writing Biden’s speech. Someone that does not agree with you wants to put blacks in chains. It is an over the top attack on a person because you have nothing else to refute what I say. My arguments are factual and you should care more about what is going on in present day Brazil, since it is something you can do something about. The story is from 2007 but it continues today and I have posted more recent articles.
I cannot change what happened in 1861. As a former Vermonter, I am proud we abolished slavery in 1777. I am proud of Vermont’s role in the movement to abolish slavery in the rest of the nation, at that time. I am also proud that on a per capita basis Vermont lost more men fighting slavery than any other state except Ohio. And the people involved in that war included my ancestors.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 11:18:10

you have nothing else to refute what I say.

I totally refuted what you said on race and on Sweden’s form of government not being that important of a factor in their success.

Someone that does not agree with you wants to put blacks in chains.

As like someone who does not agree with you would condone Brazilian “slave labor”? Or that Brazil or Brazilians as a whole would condone that? Or that Brazil has not made it a national priority to fight? Or that it does not occur in America?

It is an over the top…..

Like you implication Sweden would be successful under any type government because it was white? That’s not “over the top”?

you should care more about what is going on in present day Brazil, since it is something you can do something about.

Really? I can “do something” about it? And not get kicked-out? You obviously don’t know the laws regarding Brazilian green-card holders. This ain’t America.

 
Comment by Albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 11:41:50

I do not have time to respond to all of your false claims but lets start with one of the largest. I said Sweden would be successful under any system because it had a high IQ, you then change it to white and accuse me of saying it. You are so intellectually dishonest.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 12:18:15

I said Sweden would be successful under any system because it had a high IQ, you then change it to white

Give me a break with that coded obvious BS.

So I “changed” Swedes to being white? One of the lily-whitest demographics in the entire world? Swedes being whiter than white never crossed your mind?

And I changed Somalis to being black? I did this? You had no idea Somalis were almost ALL black and brown?

You are so intellectually dishonest.

 
Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 13:19:44

Asians also have high IQs, some even more higher than swedes but you ignore that. Sorry the issue is not black and white. I have always admitted that blacks on average have a lower IQ than whites. I used Somalis since we have admitted a large number to this country without thinking it through. We have also admitted large numbers from Sudan. Of course while the average IQ in Somali is around 84, the immigrants from Sudan come from a country where the average IQ is 72 on the world scale.The PC way is just to ignore this reality. I have seen numerous stories in PC papers about how these groups are not assimilating. However, the PC way is to blame the communities and the failure of the schools. Perhaps it is a challenge to assimilate someone with an IQ of 72 in a population with an average IQ of 100 or more. Perhaps, we cannot afford the cost of doing it anymore. However, we cannot even have the discussion because the religion of PC will not allow it to occur. Creating good public policy depends on being give good information. Our media refuses to do that usually because they are so PC.

 
Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 13:27:18

BTW, the silver lining is that the individual differences between the races far exceeds the gap between the races. Thus, we can and always treat people like individuals and not prejudge things like IQ. However, we should not expect the same group outcomes. The NBA is not racist because blacks are 80%+ of the league. In fact, affirmative action is practice in fact if not by policy. Similarly, I reject just because blacks are underrepresented in a particular profession it proves racism. However, true racism does exist because many people can not make the distinction I make in the first line of this post.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 13:27:40

Really? I can “do something” about (Brazilian politics/policies)? And not get kicked-out? You obviously don’t know the laws regarding Brazilian green-card holders.

What I mean is that I’m an American with a Brazilian “Permanent” Residence Card. (Brazil’s version of a “green-card”)

(I’m not a Brazilian with an American green card)

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 13:44:54

Asians also have high IQs, some even more higher than swedes but you ignore that.

No. You ignore my not ignoring that.

“The Chinese have high IQs as well but faltered under their Communism.”

RioAmericanInBrasil 2013-04-09 08:28:19

The point being, is that Sweden’s economic and political systems are just as important or even more important than their IQ’s for their success.

 
Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 13:47:55

And there is a way to get beyond race in a couple of generations and we would all benefit from it, well maybe not the race hustlers. If we had a policy that gave an economic incentive for people with low IQs not to have children and we applied it in a racially neutral fashion, within a few generations the gap between the races would have closed. We would as a society have less crime and less dependency and we would have moved beyond race. The result would be the mirror image of the movie idiocracy.

 
Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-04-09 13:57:22

And there is a way to get beyond race in a couple of generations

There’s another way too, and it’s actually happening:

Today’s younger generations barely recognize race, since they’ve grown up with so many mixed-race friends. A few more generations and we’ll look like a fatter version of Brazil.

Even some in the GOP are starting to realize this. Although most are still stuck in a 1950s racial mindset, like yourself.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 14:25:50

within a few generations the gap between the races would have closed. We would as a society have less crime and less dependency

We’d have less crime and dependency right now and today if even lower paying jobs offered a living wage and dignity.

I’ll bet a janitor in Sweden has better benefits and a better live than an American janitor.

We can’t all be “smart”.

 
Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 14:46:27

Even some in the GOP are starting to realize this. Although most are still stuck in a 1950s racial mindset, like yourself.

Eisenhower wanted equality of opportunity not forced equality. I feel the same. If that is the 50’s mindset I accept it. If you are implying I make judgments on some one’s race and treat them accordingly you are wrong. I do not accept any ideology or religions that makes me ignore facts. Every one should be treated as an individual but it does not mean that I have to ignore group scores like they do not exist.
Many of the younger generation believe what they are told by the pc police, not reality. That is why they accept that global warming is primarily manmade despite no warming for almost twenty years but rising co2 concentrations. Schools teach what to think not how to think. The core subjects are neglected while political correctness gets taught as fact. Many of our schools are more like re-education camps than schools.

 
Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 14:49:38

Today’s younger generations barely recognize race, since they’ve grown up with so many mixed-race friends. A few more generations and we’ll look like a fatter version of Brazil.

Do you mean poor and stagnating economically despite vast resources? Have you even looked at the per capita income of Brazil?

 
Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 14:57:59

“The Chinese have high IQs as well but faltered under their Communism.”
RioAmericanInBrasil 2013-04-09 08:28:19

Yes, and if I would have referred to communism as a failure of socialism you would have said that I confuse political systems with economic systems. No, you can create political systems that would hold back the Chinese but any economic or political system that does not shoot people for succeeding will result in success for the Chinese or the Swedes.

 
Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 15:04:36

Per capita income Brazil 2012 $12,000, the US $49,800. Despite this wage advantage, they grew even slower than the US last year. I guess we will be a fatter Brazil at least until we decline enough economically to be like them.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 15:32:39

Have you even looked at the per capita income of Brazil?

You mean the Brazilian per capita income that’s up about 25% since 2005?

http://www.theglobaleconomy.com/Brazil/indicator-NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KD/

Or are you thinking about the USA per capita income that is all the way back DOWN to about 2006 levels?

http://www.theglobaleconomy.com/USA/indicator-NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.KD/

Three comments albuquerquedan. Try to keep up. Alpha was addressing ethnic demographics not GDP but even then you are wrong about the big picture, numbers and trends.

The Brazilian GDP per capita has grown much faster than America’s has for 10 years. America’s has almost SHRUNK. See above. Did Brazil’s come from from a lower level? Of course! It’s BRAZIL dude.

Last point of Brazil because I don’t care what you think about it anyway and I’m not even Brazilian. Brazil’s GDP growth has been shared much more equally with its people. Most people have benefited. When USA grows, most benefits go to the rich………

However when the USA GDP shrunk, MOST of the burden fell on everyone but the rich. USA GDP shrunk but the rich still got richer! Dude that’s a farce. So why you bashing a once poor Brazil that is making economic reforms and good progress? Because they are not the “high IQ Swede type folks” or you just don’t like my politics?

Here’s your supply-side at work…..NOT:

This extraordinary growth of GDP per capita seen lately in Brazil is a consequence of income redistribution combined with robust economic growth. With a new middle class that emerged in Brazil since 2003, a greater share of the aggregate income has been distributed to households with a relatively high propensity to consume thus boosting mass consumption in the domestic market. Social income transfer programs were strongly pushed through by the government, and this is likely to continue in the coming years.

Will Brazil’s GDP per Capita Continue to Boom?

http://blog.securities.com/2010/12/will-brazil%E2%80%99s-gdp-per-capita-continue-to-boom/

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 15:59:15

Despite this wage advantage, they grew even slower than the US last year.

“Last year”…….Last year????? Brazil’s growth rate has beaten the pants of America’s for the past 12 years and you cite “last year”? And we are to take you seriously on ANY stats numbers and trends?

“Last year”??? Good grief.

Despite this wage advantage,

Wage advantage?? Brazil has no “wage advantage.” How many things in America are “Made in Brazil”?? Almost nada. Brazil is a high cost producer. Something they are working on.

 
Comment by tj
2013-04-09 16:09:42

Will Brazil’s GDP per Capita Continue to Boom?

GDP isn’t the economy. the economy can be improving while GDP is contracting, and visa versa. believing that GDP is the economy, is the same as believing in the broken window fallacy.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 16:22:06

GDP isn’t the economy.

I tried to point that out. In the USA, GDP is not the economy for 95% of Americans. Mostly only the rich in the USA benefit from rising GDP. However the rising GDP in Brazil has done a decent job “trickling down” to the people because the government MADE it trickle down with policy.

Again, from the above article:

This extraordinary growth of GDP per capita seen lately in Brazil is a consequence of income redistribution combined with robust economic growth. With a new middle class that emerged in Brazil since 2003, a greater share of the aggregate income has been distributed to households with a relatively high propensity to consume thus boosting mass consumption in the domestic market.

 
Comment by tj
2013-04-09 17:01:45

GDP is not the economy for 95% of Americans.

GDP isn’t the economy for any country. GDP isn’t the economy, period.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 17:51:24

GDP isn’t the economy, period.

GDP is a definite and important part of ANY economy. But it is how countries choose to use it, divide it and distribute it that can make or break economies and/or their middle class.

 
Comment by tj
2013-04-09 19:28:23

of course GDP is ‘part’ of the economy.

 
 
 
 
Comment by AmazingRuss
2013-04-09 09:39:25

Lawyers are generally fairly smart and fairly cultured. It’s hard to find interesting friends in rural areas if you possess these qualities, and most of them have moved to the city for better prospects.

Comment by Arizona Slim
2013-04-09 11:28:59

Back in 1980, I thought that living in a rural Wisconsin town would be really cool. And I lasted all of six weeks.

What got me thinking of returning to the city? A conversation I had with a local woman. She and her husband had moved to the town from elsewhere. She said that her husband, a pretty bright guy, hadn’t been challenged intellectually in YEARS.

I left shortly thereafter.

I don’t know what happened to that couple. Something tells me that they no longer live in that town.

Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-04-09 11:57:34

her husband, a pretty bright guy, hadn’t been challenged intellectually in YEARS.

Pre-internet, of course. Now you can be challenged intellectually, or not, pretty much anywhere.

(Comments wont nest below this level)
Comment by Arizona Slim
2013-04-09 12:45:12

Indeed it was pre-Internet.

 
 
 
Comment by Carl Morris
2013-04-09 17:19:39

Lawyers are generally fairly smart and fairly cultured. It’s hard to find interesting friends in rural areas if you possess these qualities, and most of them have moved to the city for better prospects.

I came from a rural area. There are plenty of people who like things slower and have no desire to go anywhere else, it’s true. But there are plenty of “interesting” people, too. What you generally won’t find is a critical mass of people who want to change everything to the way it is somewhere else. Those people already left.

 
 
Comment by Happy2bHeard
2013-04-09 20:22:35

“In South Dakota, 65 percent of the lawyers live in four urban areas. In Georgia, 70 percent are in the Atlanta area. In Arizona, 94 percent are in the two largest counties, and in Texas, 83 percent are around Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio.”

What percent of the general population is in those urban areas? Without that data, you can’t really say that there are too few lawyers in rural areas.

 
 
Comment by hazard
2013-04-09 07:02:30

The sequester free zone.

“5 days ago … And next Tuesday the Obamas will be seated in the East Room for a command performance “celebrating” Memphis soul music, an event will feature megastars Justin Timberlake and Queen Latifah.”

Backed by the full faith and credit of the U. S. Government.

Comment by AbsoluteBeginner
2013-04-09 09:11:08

‘Backed by the full faith and credit of the U. S. Government.’

I do not think it means what you think it means.

Comment by hazard
2013-04-09 13:07:19

Full Faith and Credit

A situation in which a government agrees to repay a debt no matter what. For example, if a bond is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States, the U.S. government must find some way to repay the bond. U.S. Treasury securities, Ginnie Mae bonds, and some other debt securities are call full-faith-and-credit bonds because they have this backing.

Municipalities may also attach full faith and credit to their bonds, but this means less than the credit of the United States.

full-faith-and-credit pledge
In a municipal obligation, a pledge of the full financial resources and taxing power of the issuer. A full-faith-and-credit pledge is an important element of general obligation bonds

Comment by hazard
2013-04-09 13:12:24

Full Faith and Overextended Credit

By Andrew G. Biggs
Monday, March 30, 2009

Filed under: Economic Policy, World Watch

The federal government’s long-term budget could bring about a financial crisis that surpasses the current one.

Who do you think is more reliable—the full faith and credit of the United States backing up Treasury bonds, or the McDonald’s Corporation, backed only by “billions and billions served”? By some market measures it is the latter, and for good reason. The price of credit defaults swaps guaranteeing payment on 10-year Treasury bonds has risen by 1000 percent since December 2007, with an implied 12 percent probability of default on government debt over the next decade, according to data from Credit Market Analysis. In the view of the markets, this makes U.S. government bonds a more risky proposition than debt issued by McDonald’s.

http://www.american.com/archive/2009/march-2009/full-faith-and-overextended-credit - 31k -

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Comment by AbsoluteBeginner
2013-04-09 14:30:13

Inconceivable.

 
 
 
 
 
Comment by Brett
2013-04-09 07:08:19

Of course it’s not a bubble!

———-

AUSTIN — Austin’s housing market is breaking real estate records as people are moving here from all over the country.

Sellers are told it is a good time to list. However, one homeowner KVUE spoke with says since the market is so hot, it’s difficult to find a contractor.

“This is not a bubble, this is not a bubble! the greater Austin chamber of commerce has done an incredible job of bringing companies here, employees to area, and that is only going to make it more in demand for the houses that are already on the ground,” said Cathy Coneway with the Austin Board of REALTORS.

Coneway says some areas of Austin are so hot, some homes are getting eight to ten offers on the first day they are on the market.

Comment by scdave
2013-04-09 08:02:14

A neighbor (Apple Engineer) just moved to Austin for two years…Kept his home here though…

Comment by Rental Watch
2013-04-09 09:45:11

“moved to Austin for two years…Kept his home here though…”

We found that this was a frequent source of nicer home rentals in the mid-Peninsula. People who left temporarily for work, and were willing to sign a short-term lease (18 months or less) only. Permanent rentals were generally much more poorly maintained, smaller, etc.

 
 
Comment by Sean
2013-04-09 08:07:01

I’m not an anti-media type, but all of this hype has to stop. I heard a breath of fresh air last week on WTOP (DC radio news station) when a RE agent said he had to tell sellers not to list too high, as good pricing early is still the key. “A lot of sellers think they can list for what they owe, then get upset when the listing price is recommended to be much lower, saying ‘but I heard on TV that real estate is HOT with multiple offers!’”

Honesty from a RE agent! I almost crashed my car!

Comment by oxide
2013-04-09 08:31:35

“A lot of sellers think they can list for what they owe, when the listing price is recommended to be much lower

THAT little tidbit is a bigger revelation than most would think. Come on sugah-Pimp, where are ya babes?

Comment by Pimp Watch
2013-04-09 08:42:48

Living in your empty skull, rent-free.;)

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Comment by Steve J
2013-04-09 13:40:53

Google fiber is coming to Austin.

Comment by aNYCdj
2013-04-09 20:35:41

I wish they would come to NYC….I have no clue when Fios will be here, so I had to get Clear wireless..not bad most days 4-5MB download sometimes as high as 9-10….

The only problem they dont sell outside antennas 2.5-2.7 GHz (most mobile stores sell are 2.4Ghz and wont work)… and my modem is in direct sunlight in the morning and it almost burned up on me, I have a cork board in front of it to soak up the heat…..still works fine but less signal.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 21:15:33

Google fiber is coming to Austin.

After they came to Kansas City first….Which reminds me of a thought I’ve had for 20 years and very much relates to housing.

It’s the “Kansas City/Pittsburgh” type live/work space that holds the future for many urban, independent-minded people.

10 years ago, an artist in NorCal was giving up. She and her roommate could not afford a space to work/live on their Starbucks wages.

I told them to move to a KC/Pittsburgh type city and work on their art and quit bi$%#ing because there, they could afford to rent a big enough space to live do their art.

They looked at me like I was from Mars. Well…… No more art now. Too expensive in Cali. Their art is fin. Over maybe because of the “need” to live in a “hip” place. Well how hip is that?

Here’s the point. Artists and high-tech shoe string start-ups should move somewhere cheap. SF, LA etc used to be cheap.

“Palm trees grow, rents are low”
1971 “I Am I Said” Neil Diamond

Not anymore dudes. It’s OVER. Artists need a place to work. The 20 year period of Cali/Austin being cheap are done. Move on. They have heat/AC, cable, bars, the internet and good looking folks everywhere.

Swallow your elitist pride and move somewhere you can afford. Bum Fk Ejypt HAS the internet. And a city like KC/Pittsburgh and other mid-major cities are more fun than you can imagine when you have some scratch in your pocket.

Your housing, car and health insurance costs will be half of Austin/LA/NY/SF etc etc. And “half” adds up. Last I checked “half” doubled every 2 months.

Oh, I forgot……you might have to move…….Gee, I never done that before.
Boa Sorte Amigos!

 
 
 
Comment by Carl Morris
2013-04-09 08:06:00

OK, so I’m in northern California for the first time ever this week. Stopped in at HQ for a few hours yesterday, will be teaching a class for the next few days at a customer’s HQ in San Jose. After work yesterday afternoon I drove over to Santa Cruz and up the coast to the Golden Gate bridge. Cool stuff. Silicon valley itself reminds me of LA and not in a good way. But there’s a lot to be said for lots of jobs.

Having said all that, I still don’t see what’s so special about the place that it’s worth selling your soul to live here? I did see one trailer park down the street from work, though…I should stop in and check it out :-).

Comment by scdave
2013-04-09 08:17:45

I did see one trailer park down the street from work, though…I should stop in and check it out ??

As always, it depends on where but a mobile Home will run you around $150k for a decent place….Space rent will be $800./Mo. and up…

Silicon valley itself reminds me of LA and not in a good way ??

Well, I would have to strongly disagree on many fronts but I will start with the main one…”The Weather”….

Comment by Carl Morris
2013-04-09 17:28:25

I know some people can’t stand any snow, ever. But I personally think Boulder’s weather is great. Just a bit too hot in the summer, maybe.

But San Jose reminds me of socal. Endless tracts of low rise office buildings and main artery streets in between. Endless traffic, interstates with a bunch of car parts/trash in the medians because traffic is so heavy nobody can clean anything up. A jillion entry level luxury cars with wheels black with brake dust and stressed out people behind the wheel. I don’t know, it’s just a vibe that’s similar to me.

 
 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 08:47:16

I still don’t see what’s so special about the place that it’s worth selling your soul to live here?

Well Santa Cruz is like Boulder by the ocean but has better weather and it’s 3.5 hours from Colorado type skying and it has UCSC, Cabrillo College, the best waves in mainland America, fishing, boar hunting, hippies, great libraries, high tech, makes wine and guitars and medicinal pot, live-music, is 1.5 hours away from SF and Big Sur, 40 min from SJC 10 min away from the SC mountains, 10 min away from Redwood trees has an educated population, clean air, extreme natural beauty, great food and fun and interesting people.

The only thing wrong with it is the people there call me a Republican.

Comment by sfhomowner
2013-04-09 09:58:34

I considered moving to Santa Cruz, but it is still a town that you have to drive from one place to another quite often.

Good waves, great weather.

 
Comment by Hi-Z
2013-04-09 10:15:02

“The only thing wrong with it is the people there call me a Republican.”

That’s a laugh and a half!

Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 10:52:08

“The only thing wrong with it is the people there call me a Republican.”

That’s a laugh and a half!

It is. And here is where the real laugh comes from. The laugh comes from the fact that the Republican party has been taken over by the extreme right - so much so that a person like me can be considered far left-wing by today’s out-of-step-with-America Republicans.

Historically, my policies are more centrist than left-wing.

Gun Control: Centrist to right. Example: I’m a former NRA member and I am not for an AR type weapon’s ban.

Abortion: Never would ask a women to do it and I’d try to talk her out of it.

Religion: I’m pro-religion. I’m an imperfect Christian.

Health-care: I liked Nixon’s ideas better than Obama’s. I also believe universal health coverage promotes bootstrapping. But I also believe single-payer with a private option is best because it delivers the product more efficiently and cheaper which is a desired aspect of capitalism.

Economics: I believe in small businesses and the working man as did the Republicans of the 50’s and 60’s. I’ve been a business owner/self-employed all of my adult life. I did it.

Monopolies: Bust them up as did Republican Teddy Roosevelt

Regulation: I’m for banking regulation as many of Ronald Reagan’s former staff members are supporting now.

Taxes: I’m for higher taxes on the very rich as we had under Repub Eisenhower and were raised under Repubs HW Bush and Ronald Reagan.

So historically speaking, where am I so “left-wing”?

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Comment by scdave
2013-04-09 15:27:46

I am about the same on everything you said there Rio…

 
Comment by Rancher
2013-04-09 15:57:47

Son, you are now officially adopted. I’ll
change my will tomorrow.

 
Comment by fishinla
2013-04-09 18:12:34

This reminds me of my experience - I would describe myself as a pro-capitalism centrist Democrat. When I lived in Southern Indiana I was a considered to be a foaming-at-the-mouth socialist, hell-bent on destroying God & Country. Now I live in LA and work in the entertainment industry, and am thought of as a reactionary, right-wind fundie. It’s all about context.

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 18:59:05

When I lived in Southern Indiana

So. Illinois here.
In about 1969 my family would cross (at “our own risk”) a decrepit and condemned bridge over the Wabash River to go to the YMCA in Vincennes Indiana. I remember my parents wondering if we should do it. Heck yea! We wanna go swimmin’ at the Y. (Not the river) We did it. I’m here.

Now I live in Brazil and crossing such a bridge still exists here but not there. (But there are no signs to worry us here)

My parents saw “Hair” in Evansville. I’m getting older and I love it.

 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-04-09 21:55:06

Rancher — LOL.

Rio — your problem may be that you like to poke holes in dogmatic posters’ arguments (also happens to be one of my better qualities, btw…). Folks with extreme world views instantly label you as their enemy if you dare to point out how stupid their points are.

 
 
 
Comment by tresho
2013-04-09 10:22:52

The only thing wrong with it is the people there call me a Republican.
I knew a Michigan Indian who ran a convenience store on a Sioux reservation, and the locals thought he was a Jew.

 
Comment by scdave
2013-04-09 10:39:14

You obviously know the area pretty well Rio…Must have spent some time there…

Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 10:56:16

…Must have spent some time there…

I lived in the NorCal Bay area for 14 years.

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Comment by MiddleCoaster
2013-04-09 11:59:03

Boar hunting?

Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 12:28:30

Boar hunting?

You can be in the woods hunting wild hogs on private property, with a guide or not, about 40 min outside of SCruz and San Jose.

Season: Jan-June and some permits available other times.

A lever action 30-06 with a 40 cal S&W backup works fine.

Also, The Bay Area has many other types of hunting within 2 hours.

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Comment by Rancher
2013-04-09 16:04:09

Rio, Heard about the Samoans who hunt pig
with knives and spears? No back-up either.

Meet two of them while in Jolan, backside
of the coastal mountains near Hunter Leggit.
They crawl on hands and knees through the
underbrush till they find their prey.

google: wild pigs, spears, CA

 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 16:12:15

Rio, Heard about the Samoans who hunt pig
with knives and spears?

I did hear about that. Wild……I never saw it though.

And no back up… Dang.

 
 
 
Comment by Carl Morris
2013-04-09 17:29:42

Well Santa Cruz is like Boulder by the ocean but has better weather and it’s 3.5 hours from Colorado type skying and it has UCSC, Cabrillo College, the best waves in mainland America, fishing, boar hunting, hippies, great libraries, high tech, makes wine and guitars and medicinal pot, live-music, is 1.5 hours away from SF and Big Sur, 40 min from SJC 10 min away from the SC mountains, 10 min away from Redwood trees has an educated population, clean air, extreme natural beauty, great food and fun and interesting people.

The coast is nice. But I’m talking more about where the jobs are.

 
 
Comment by Arizona Slim
2013-04-09 11:32:51

One of my college friends went on to become a tech millionaire. (He and three partners sold their startup to Cisco Systems for $25M.)

Any-hoo, after the big sale, Friend was visiting Silly Valley. He was in a Starbucks filled with self-important people talking about all sorts of important stuff.

And my friend had to use ever bit of self control he had to keep from laughing.

 
 
Comment by hazard
2013-04-09 08:24:14

Special Report: How the Fed fueled an explosion in subprime auto loans

By Carrick Mollenkamp

JASPER, Alabama | Wed Apr 3, 2013 1:13pm EDT

JASPER, Alabama (Reuters) - Thanks largely to the U.S. Federal Reserve, Jeffrey Nelson was able to put up a shotgun as down payment on a car.

Money was tight last year for the school-bus driver and neighborhood constable in Jasper, Alabama, a beaten-down town of 14,000 people. One car had already been repossessed. Medical bills were piling up.

And still, though Nelson’s credit history was an unhappy one, local car dealer Maloy Chrysler Dodge Jeep had no problem arranging a $10,294 loan from Wall Street-backed subprime lender Exeter Finance Corp so Nelson and his wife could buy a charcoal gray 2007 Suzuki Grand Vitara.

All the Nelsons had to do was cover the $1,000 down payment. For most of that amount, Maloy accepted Jeffrey’s 12-gauge Mossberg & Sons shotgun, valued at about $700 online.

In the ensuing months, Nelson and his wife divorced, he moved into a mobile home, and, unable to cover mounting debts, he filed for personal bankruptcy. His ex-wife, who assumed responsibility for the $324-a-month car payment, said she will probably file for bankruptcy in a couple of months.

When they got the Exeter loan, Jeffrey, 44 years old, was happy “someone took a chance on us.” Now, he sees it as a contributor to his financial downfall. “Was it feasible? No,” he said.

The Maloy dealership wouldn’t discuss the loan. “I got nothing to say to you,” an employee said.

At car dealers across the United States, loans to subprime borrowers like Nelson are surging - up 18 percent in 2012 from a year earlier, to 6.6 million borrowers, according to credit-reporting agency Equifax Inc. And as a Reuters review of court records shows, subprime auto lenders are showing up in a lot of personal bankruptcy filings, too.

It’s the Federal Reserve that’s made it all possible.

MONEY, MONEY EVERYWHERE

In its efforts to jumpstart the economy, the U.S. central bank has undertaken since November 2008 three rounds of bond-buying and cut short-term interest rates effectively to zero. The purchases of mostly Treasury and mortgage securities - known as quantitative easing and nicknamed QE1, QE2 and QE3 - have injected trillions of dollars into the financial system.

The Fed isn’t alone. Central banks from Tokyo to Frankfurt to London are running their printing presses overtime. The heavily indebted advanced economies are trying to reflate their way out of the prolonged bout of crisis and recession that crystallized with the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc in 2008. That crisis, of course, followed a nearly decade-long cycle of easy money and exotic financial products that itself began with the collapse of the tech-mania bubble of the late 1990s.

The Fed’s program, while aimed at bolstering the U.S. housing and labor markets, has also steered billions of dollars into riskier, more speculative corners of the economy. That’s because, with low interest rates pinching yields on their traditional investments, insurance companies, hedge funds and other institutional investors hunger for riskier, higher-yielding securities - bonds backed by subprime auto loans, for instance.

Lenders like Exeter have rushed to meet that demand. Backed by Wall Street banks and big private-equity firms, they have been selling ever-greater amounts of subprime auto loans in the form of relatively high-yield securities and using the proceeds to fund even more lending to more subprime borrowers.

PERFORMANCE ANXIETY

Less well-known upstart Exeter, founded in 2006 and based in Irving, Texas, is run by executives from AmeriCredit Corp, an auto-finance company acquired by General Motors in 2010. It reported $100 million in originations in May 2010. It expected to hit $1 billion in 2012 and $2.2 billion by 2015, according to the pitch book. The company has grown to 46 branches with 532 employees serving more than 6,600 dealers, from one branch and six employees serving 120 dealers in 2006.

In 2008, a Goldman Sachs Group Inc fund, through an investment in a private-equity fund, helped infuse money into Exeter. Then, in 2011, Blackstone bought its controlling stake, turbo-charging Exeter’s expansion as the Fed decided to keep pumping money into the economy. In October, Wells Fargo & Co, Citigroup Inc, Deutsche Bank AG and Goldman agreed to provide it loan commitments totaling $1 billion.

After the Blackstone deal, in particular, the push was on for Exeter to expand its loan book, according to a former employee. “Everybody was under extreme pressure to hit goals,” this person said. “Your job is in jeopardy. It was not sugar-coated.”

To win more business from dealerships, Exeter lowered its “holdback fee” - the small fraction of the loan amount that the lender keeps as a cushion against losses - to between $395 and $495 from about $795.

The August 2012 Exeter investor pitch book touts the firm’s “highly sophisticated risk management process,” which employs a “decision science” system underpinned by “predictive models.” The marketing book adds: “The end result is to deploy tools to management allowing for precision control over credit performance.”

This process results in customers with an average credit score of 556 and average annual income of $38,393, according to the pitch book. These borrowers pay an average interest rate of 21.4 percent a year. (Median U.S. household income was an inflation-adjusted $50,054 in 2011, according to the Census Bureau. On the widely used FICO credit-scoring scale, produced by Fair Isaac Corp, 640 or less is considered subprime.)

As for those Exeter clients who fall behind on payments, another former Exeter employee said, “they’re check to check.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/03/us-usa-qe3-subprimeauto-special-report-idUSBRE9320ES20130403 - 117k -

Comment by measton
2013-04-09 09:39:53

I just saw a story about banks offering 97mo car loans

 
Comment by ecofeco
2013-04-09 10:32:12

I have to laugh that this is now news all of a sudden.

This has been ongoing for 2 decades.

It’s one of the reasons the auto market collapsed. Instead of real world effects driving down car prices, thus increasing sales, sub prime loans with 6 year payments, kept prices high, thus exacerbating less cars being sold because of high prices.

Have I explained voodoo economics lately? (of course I did)

Comment by hazard
2013-04-09 12:58:20

How bout Dem student loans?

Comment by hazard
2013-04-09 13:01:54

Of course if the kids belong to the community, I guess in the end their student loans will too.

New MSNBC promo: “We have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents”

Melissa Harris-Perry video

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/04/08/new-msnbc-promo-we-have-to-break-through-our-kind-of-private-idea-that-kids-belong-to-their-parents/ - -

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Comment by ecofeco
2013-04-09 14:06:15

Same thing hazard and at one TREELION DOLLARS!

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Comment by hazard
2013-04-09 17:25:48

“Same thing hazard and at one TREELION DOLLARS!”

Should not be a problem, how much mortgage debt disappeared? 6 - 7 TREELION DOLLARS?

 
 
 
Comment by Steve J
2013-04-09 13:44:52

Without subprime loans, a huge portion of the population would be carless.

 
 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower©
2013-04-09 13:05:16

“…
The Fed isn’t alone. Central banks from Tokyo to Frankfurt to London are running their printing presses overtime. The heavily indebted advanced economies are trying to reflate their way out of the prolonged bout of crisis and recession that crystallized with the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc in 2008. That crisis, of course, followed a nearly decade-long cycle of easy money and exotic financial products that itself began with the collapse of the tech-mania bubble of the late 1990s.

The Fed’s program, while aimed at bolstering the U.S. housing and labor markets, has also steered billions of dollars into riskier, more speculative corners of the economy. That’s because, with low interest rates pinching yields on their traditional investments, insurance companies, hedge funds and other institutional investors hunger for riskier, higher-yielding securities - bonds backed by subprime auto loans, for instance.

Lenders like Exeter have rushed to meet that demand. Backed by Wall Street banks and big private-equity firms, they have been selling ever-greater amounts of subprime auto loans in the form of relatively high-yield securities and using the proceeds to fund even more lending to more subprime borrowers.
…”

Whad’aya know: Hair-of-the-dog stimulus measures to reflate credit bubbles result in larger, more dangerous bubbles than were there to begin with…

 
 
Comment by AbsoluteBeginner
2013-04-09 08:42:34

Those mf’ers! I figured out why the ‘Peanut Butter & Co.’ coupons they attach to jars of the peanut butter flavors get peeled off the supermarket shelf jars but the product hardly ever budges from the shelf:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10-Coupons-55-1-Peanut-Butter-Co-brand-16-oz-Exp-6-30-13-DOUBLE-/160993740889?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item257bf98859

I have some Ebay bucks to spend. Figure I should leverage the bucks into something I buy mucho grande of. No Trader Joe gift cards on Ebay. Is everything getting priced to perfection, including real estate, gasoline and peanut butter?

Comment by ecofeco
2013-04-09 10:34:44

No. There will ALWAYS be cheating, gaming and fraud along with the usual shortages and gluts.

 
 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-04-09 08:49:37

April 9, 2013, 10:04 a.m. EDT
If Europe had only listened to Thatcher’s warning
Commentary: Euro-skepticism Thatcher’s most relevant legacy
By Amotz Asa-El

JERUSALEM (MarketWatch) — “I am not prepared to accept the economics of a housewife,” said Jacques Chirac in 1987.

Margaret Thatcher, to whom the future French president was referring, was then at the height of her career, having already won her place in history as the restorer of Britain’s economic resilience, and the winner of the Falklands War.

Yes, her macroeconomic gospel was as controversial as it was resolute. However, her stance concerning European federalism in general, and the launch of the euro in particular — now seem prophetic, despite the misgivings of adversaries like Chirac.

Comment by AbsoluteBeginner
2013-04-09 10:17:41

“I am not prepared to accept the economics of a housewife,”

Huh? The first thing I thought when I read that was that Chirac did not want to get married for financial reasons. Didn’t see it as a dig on Maggie at first. Another reason why French are priced for perfection. Hope they enjoy the party, victor.

 
Comment by ecofeco
2013-04-09 10:39:10

The Euro is still around and will continue to be.

GB? No longer a global industrial player in any sense of the world. Finance and soccer teams and a still somewhat effective intelligence network. That’s about it.

The rest of the punters? Screwed just like J6P here.

Comment by AbsoluteBeginner
2013-04-09 13:15:27

Question for DC’ers. I may be in Washington DC around May 10th, having the afternoon to kill time with as I wait for my bus to take me back home from a hike. What is there to do around Union Station there? Any museums or anything like that? I’ll have my backpack with me too. Uh oh. Probably not gonna be easily perceived as just a non-terra-ist hiker?

Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 14:33:54

What is there to do around Union Station there?

Walk around The Mall. It rocks. See the Grant and Lincoln Memorial/Other War Memorials. The Smithsonian is free and you can go to the highest point for free I think in the old Post Office tower. I’ve walked around there with just a backpack and had no problem.

Just don’t be unshaven and look all shifty-eyed and nervous barking at yourself.

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Comment by Arizona Slim
2013-04-09 14:55:08

Agreed on The Mall. One of the best hangouts and people-watching venues in the United States.

 
 
 
 
 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-04-09 08:51:31

How is Megabank, Inc supposed to hook eurozone citizens on debt if they aren’t spending any money?

Jack Lew to Germany: Start spending, already
April 9, 2013, 8:56 AM

It’s likely to be a mere coincidence: U.S Treasury Secretary Jack Lew addressing the need for countries with budget surpluses to spur consumption, just a few hours after powerhouse Germany reported a jump in its trade surplus for February.

While meeting with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble in Berlin, Lew urged countries with positive trading figures to fuel domestic consumption in efforts to boost growth, in what appeared to be a hint to Germany, Reuters reported. Countries with trade surpluses export more than they import.

“The driver for economic growth has got to be consumer demand … policies to help to encourage consumer demand in countries that have the capacity would be helpful,” he said at a news conference, according to Reuters.

Comment by measton
2013-04-09 09:43:26

The consumer is dead Mr. Lew, hard to see in your ivory tower but true. Printing money will not increase lending because incomes havn’t increased and people already have piles of debt. People with money don’t want to borrow or spend because they see no demand.

Comment by Arizona Slim
2013-04-09 11:34:48

The consumer is dead Mr. Lew, hard to see in your ivory tower but true. Printing money will not increase lending because incomes havn’t increased and people already have piles of debt. People with money don’t want to borrow or spend because they see no demand.

We have a winnah!

 
 
 
Comment by hazard
2013-04-09 08:58:46

Obama criticized for using dated, disputed gun stat to sell background checks

April 4, 2013

As President Obama prepares to head to Colorado on Wednesday to push gun control legislation, some are calling into question the validity of a key statistic he’s using to tout his message on near-universal background checks.

During several speeches, Obama has said 40 percent of all gun purchases were made without a background check.

But that number is nearly two decades old and comes from a poll with a relatively tiny sample size. Gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association, as well as The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker,” are calling out the president’s stat, saying his numbers on background checks need a background check of their own.

During a speech last week, Obama asked, “Why wouldn’t we want to make it more difficult for a dangerous person to get his or her hand on a gun? Why wouldn’t we want to close the loophole that allows as many as 40 percent of all gun purchases to take place without a background check? Why wouldn’t we do that?”

The oft-cited figure, it turns out, was pulled from a 1997 study done by the National Institute of Justice. In the study, researchers estimated about 40 percent of all firearm sales took place through people other than licensed gun dealers. The conclusion was based on data from a 1994 survey of 2,568 households. Of those, only 251 people answered the question about where they got their guns.

PolitiFact tracked down the co-author of the study, Duke University professor Philip Cook, and asked him if he thought the 40 percent estimate is accurate.

“The answer is I have no idea,” Cook reportedly told PolitiFact. “This survey was done almost 20 years ago.”

The National Rifle Association has questioned the 40 percent claim and says it’s a misrepresentation by gun control advocates to trump up support for universal background checks.

Another problem with the study is the sample size, 251 people, which is relatively small, and the data is open to interpretation.

http://givemeliberty01.com/tag/national-institute-of-justice/ - 97k -

Comment by ecofeco
2013-04-09 10:44:02

Go to a gun show or look in the classifieds and see for yourself what’s true.

 
 
Comment by hazard
2013-04-09 09:01:37

Submitted by AnCapMercenary on Mon, 04/08/2013

PoliceOne.com Releases Survey of 15,000 Law Enforcement Professionals about U.S. Gun Control Policies

With Graphics
PDF of the Survey

March 2013 survey of police officers covered proposed legislation and attitudes about arming citizens

SAN FRANCISCO – PoliceOne.com, the leading online resource for law enforcement, today released findings from a national survey of police professionals that provide insight into the opinions of American law enforcement regarding gun control policies and the root causes of and potential solutions to gun crime in the United States.

The survey, which was conducted in early March 2013, received 15,000 responses from law enforcement professionals. It found that the overall attitude of law enforcement is strongly anti-gun legislation and pro-gun rights, with the belief that an armed citizenry is effective in stopping crime. Response percentages varied only slightly when analyzed by rank and department size. Among the results:

86 percent feel the currently proposed legislation would have no effect or a negative effect on improving officer safety

Similarly, 92 percent feel that banning semi-automatic firearms, or “assault weapons,” would have no effect or a negative effect on reducing violent crime

71 percent support law enforcement leaders who have publicly refused to enforce more restrictive gun laws within their jurisdictions

91 percent support the concealed carry of firearms by civilians who have not been convicted of a felony and/or have not been deemed psychologically incapable

Likewise, 80 percent feel that legally-armed citizens would likely have reduced the number of casualties in recent mass shooting incidents

38 percent believe the biggest cause of gun violence in the United States is the “decline in parenting and family values”. This was trailed by “overly lax parole and short sentencing standards” at 15 percent and “pop culture influence” (eg. violent movies and video games) at 14 percent

The survey was promoted by PoliceOne exclusively to its 400,000 registered members, comprised of individually-verified law enforcement professionals. Only current, former or retired law enforcement personnel were eligible to participate in the survey.

http://www.dailypaul.com/281140 -

Comment by hazard
2013-04-09 17:21:43

ecofeco

No comment on this one?

Comment by aNYCdj
2013-04-09 20:48:49

Its all BS they know where the guns are in dee ghetto…but are afraid to solve the problem.

 
 
 
Comment by 2banana
2013-04-09 09:06:14

With obama - it just never ends.

White House Rolls Out 3 Foreclosure Prevention Efforts
Realtor Mag | 4/9/13 | RealtorMag

The Obama administration announced the extension or debut of three programs aimed at helping distressed home owners avoid foreclosure. The three initiatives are:

Increasing outreach in the Making Home Affordable Program: The U.S. Department of Treasury is partnering with NeighborWorks America as well as the National Foreclosure Mitigation Counseling program to increase support for struggling home owners who seek assistance through the Making Home Affordable Program, which includes the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). HAMP reduces monthly payments by more than $540 each month, on average.

Informing the unemployed about programs: The Department of Labor will be encouraging American Job Centers to inform unemployed home owners about federal foreclosure prevention options that are available to them. For example, there is unemployment forbearance through HAMP that allows qualifying home owners who are unemployed to reduce or suspend their mortgage payments for up to 12 months.

HUD’s new Housing Counseling Office: The Department of Housing and Urban Development has launched a Housing Counseling Office, which offers at-risk home owners free or low cost information about foreclosure prevention and loan modification programs. It also offers general information on buying or renting a home, handling foreclosures, and how to avoid scams. The office is made up of a network of 2,500 HUD-approved housing counseling agencies.

“While we are encouraged that the housing market is on the path to recovery, our job is far from finished,” according to the White House blog. “There are still many struggling home owners who need assistance. By connecting eligible home owners with existing foreclosure prevention programs, our new counseling initiatives will enable more borrowers to remain in their homes and go a long way in ensuring a brighter economic future for these families.”

 
Comment by 2banana
2013-04-09 09:09:28

More free obama money.

Sorry, nothing for renters or people who pay their debts.

The 47% have spoken.

————————————

Foreclosure payments of up to $125,000 to start
MarketWatch | 4/9/13 | Steve Goldstein

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Payments to 4.2 million borrowers whose homes were in any stage of foreclosure in 2009 or 2010 will begin Friday, the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said Tuesday. The payments, which will range from $300 to $125,000, will be sent in several waves and are expected to be completed by mid-July. The regulators had previously announced the payments, which replaced a program that had consultants review foreclosures for errors. The payments come on mortgages serviced by 11 of 13 big servicers and will not prevent borrowers from taking any legal action related to their foreclosure. The regulators still have not reached agreement on ending the independent foreclosure review with OneWest, Everbank and GMAC Mortgage.

Comment by joe smith
2013-04-09 11:10:48

You realize that most of the 47% live in red states, right?

Comment by (Now that I'm "diversified") Jetfixr
2013-04-09 13:19:50

Call it “hush money”.

$125K is a drop in the bucket, compared to the losses the banks will be exposed to, if the full stories about MERS and the botched/gamed foreclosure reviews ever hit the maainstream.

See the series on “Naked Capitalism”.

 
 
 
Comment by cactus
2013-04-09 09:14:40

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-12/california-seizes-guns-as-owners-lose-right-to-bear-arms.html

CA seeks out and takes guns from owners who no longer Qualify to own them

Jobs of the future law enforcment

Comment by Northeastener
2013-04-09 13:25:45

CA seeks out and takes guns from owners who no longer Qualify to own them

Again with the confiscation… but but the government would never use a gun registration scheme to then confiscate those guns at a later date.

Right, CT? Right? You won’t try and confiscate all those semi-auto rifles and high-cap magazines down the road will you?

Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-04-09 13:46:43

Again with the confiscation

Actually it’s just a repeat of a month-old article.

Didn’t the NRA say after the most recent (or maybe the previous, or the one before that) mass gun slaughter, that the key was keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill?

Well, this is doing exactly what they suggested.

Or was it just a bunch of bull meant to delay and distract? And what they really want is no controls whatsoever?

Comment by Northeastener
2013-04-09 14:21:43

Is a husband slapped with a restraining order during a divorce proceeding a criminal, even if there was never a threat against the the ex-wife?

Is someone taking anti-anxiety medication mentally ill?

Conveniently, the states of CA and NY respectively have determined that these citizens don’t deserve the right to exercise the 2nd Amendment and have their property confiscated without reparation or due process.

Let’s be very clear, this is not a gang-banger felon with a history of violence looking to score a Glock or an institutionalized schizophrenic disconnected from reality and a danger to those around them. These are perfectly normal citizens who have, through the normal course of their lives, new become ineligible to bear arms…

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Comment by goon squad
2013-04-09 15:44:03

Is a husband slapped with a restraining order during a divorce proceeding a criminal, even if there was never a threat against the the ex-wife?

Another reason to stay single.

 
Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-04-09 15:52:02

These are perfectly normal citizens who have, through the normal course of their lives, new become ineligible to bear arms…

All your examples are exaggerations. Once the restraining order is over, you can possess a gun again.

I can’t find any examples of everyone who is on anti-anxiety meds losing their right to bear arms, except in the gun-nut files.

 
Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-04-09 15:55:04

Is a husband slapped with a restraining order during a divorce proceeding a criminal, even if there was never a threat against the the ex-wife?

“restraining orders based on a claim of actual or threatened violence or harassment prohibit the subject individual from buying, Imagepossessing or receiving firearms.”
-gunlawdotcom

Next distortion of the truth?

 
 
 
 
 
Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 09:17:44

Remember when I said that Iraq would be destabilized this year and that would lead to higher oil prices? The process has began: http://news.yahoo.com/iraqi-al-qaida-syria-militants-announce-merger-114411187.html

Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 10:07:07

Remember when I said that Iraq would be destabilized this year…. and there was no climate change, the Japan nuclear disaster was not serious, Romney was going to win because Rasmussen had him up in Oklahoma and whites were smarter than blacks?

Yes, we remember.

Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 12:16:06

I said climate change between 1978-98 was primarily natural and that is now being generally accepted. I never said the nuclear disaster was not serious just that it would never kill large number of people and it could be managed and it was. I never said Romney was going to win only that the race was not over in January as many on this board said. As far as the race, it is a fact that the average IQ of Africa is 75, and the average IQ of black Americans is 85 and average white average is around 100 with certain ethnic whites higher and certain ethnic whites lower. There is also a strong correlation between the success of countries and there average IQ. These are just facts, if you have data that refutes this fact please post it.

Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 12:17:39

there=their

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Comment by Happy2bHeard
2013-04-09 21:31:04

“As far as the race, it is a fact that the average IQ of Africa is 75, and the average IQ of black Americans is 85 and average white average is around 100 with certain ethnic whites higher and certain ethnic whites lower.”

I am not certain that the Africa number is fact. What percentage of the population was tested?

From Wikipedia , which references a report of “Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns” - “a number of biological factors, including malnutrition, exposure to toxic substances, and various prenatal and perinatal stressors, result in lowered psychometric intelligence under at least some conditions”

The American numbers are probably closer to reality, but how much of the effect is genetic and how much is environmental? American blacks may have had and may still have a higher exposure to lead, which is known to have a detrimental effect on intelligence.

Are the effects of environment passed to the next generation, even where environmental circumstances have changed? Before the ban on lead in gasoline, urban children were exposed to higher levels of lead. Are the children of the lead-exposed of lower intelligence than the children of those that were not lead exposed?

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Comment by Happy2bHeard
2013-04-09 23:26:42

Another consideration is that economic production is not the only measure of human worth and intelligence is not the only measure of genetic fitness.

There are people in Africa that have not developed AIDS in spite of having been infected with HIV. Differences in immune response could end up being vital to the survival of the species.

We would be wise to preserve genetic diversity.

 
 
 
 
 
Comment by tresho
2013-04-09 10:04:14

Detroit News: Mortgage fraud ringleader gets 13 years, to pay $96M
Detroit — About a decade ago, Ronnie Duke played in the fertile world of mortgages and the ex-con learned how to take advantage of lax rules and abundant cash.

From 2003 to 2007, he led a mortgage ring that ran up nearly $95 million in losses as it secured bogus loans that funded a lavish lifestyle for Duke and more than a dozen other associates.

“It was extremely easy,” he said Monday, moments after U.S. District Judge Julian Abele Cook sentenced him to 13 years in prison and ordered him to pay nearly $95 million in restitution and a $1 million fine.

Duke was facing up to 30 years in prison because of the size of the fraud.

After the hearing, Duke again admitted his complicity to a News reporter. But he said he didn’t get started in the mortgage business until he met some of his co-defendants, who were already in the mortgage business. And he laid part of the blame on a mortgage industry prodded by Wall Street to make loans that required little documentation and had little government oversight.

He may have stuck his hand deep into the cookie jar, but someone else left the lid off and wasn’t paying attention, he suggested.

“It started with the lenders,” said Duke, who dropped out of high school in ninth grade. “We got prosecuted, they got bonuses.”

Indeed, while some of the biggest lenders have gone bankrupt and their leaders left in disgrace, many are sitting free. At the height of the mortgage frenzy, top executives were earning tens of millions of dollars a year.

The fallout from the toxic loans helped drive the American economy into a deep recession in 2008. Many of the biggest lenders went out of business as capital waned and lending became stagnant. State and federal legislators, as well as the banking industry, toughened lending rules in the wake of the meltdown that Duke and his ring helped create. “No doc” loans, which required no formal documentation of income and other financial standards, no longer exist.

New restrictions cover appraisers and in Michigan, loan officers are now required to take a test and get a license.

“There are so many things in place now that weren’t in place then,” said Joanne Misuraca, executive director of the Michigan Mortgage Lenders Association.

But in 2003, Duke operated in a different world. He created fake title companies, hired former strippers to process loans and worked with hand-picked appraisers and others to run a ring that secured more than 450 loans across Metro Detroit.

Despite the convictions, the damage by Duke’s frauds continues: Homes still sit empty and foreclosures from Grosse Ile to Northville to Fenton have clipped property values.
Federal agents accused Duke and his co-defendants of arranging loans — targeting homes valued between $350,000 and $600,000 — and then taking a portion of the money for themselves. So-called “straw buyers,” whose income and credit history would be fudged in order to qualify, would get paid for their efforts, and initial monthly payments would be made.

However, those payments would stop, and in 80 percent of the cases involving homes, the residence would go into foreclosure.

Duke was a longtime criminal. Upon release [from prison], Duke moved into mortgages, and ran afoul of Michigan regulators who banned him from the mortgage business in 2006. By then, he had created a network of real estate agents, appraisers and others willing to forge signatures and submit phony documentation to secure millions in loans, according to federal prosecutors.

Comment by ecofeco
2013-04-09 10:48:54

Now think about the thousands of other “Dukes” out there up and down the process.

 
Comment by 2banana
2013-04-09 10:56:18

For $96 million - you could buy nearly every SFH in Detroit…

 
 
Comment by tresho
2013-04-09 10:20:37

Lansing, Michigan — The Michigan State Tax Commission voted Monday to investigate whether Detroit’s real estate tax assessments are exaggerated.

The unanimous vote of the three-member panel came with little discussion, except to outline the review’s path. An outside firm will be hired to do a random survey of about 500 city properties to determine if the city’s numbers are accurate.

The move was prompted by a February series in The Detroit News that exposed widespread over-assessments, rampant tax delinquencies and dysfunction in the city’s Assessment Division.

Chief assessor Linda Bade has said her office welcomes the review and pledged cooperation.

Critics have argued Detroit’s taxes are artificially high because assessments don’t include foreclosed properties that depress the values of surrounding parcels. City officials said they are obligated by law to throw out foreclosed properties during assessment calculations.

Local media have refrained from ’splainin’ the law that supposedly excludes foreclosures from used for tax assessments.

Meanwhile a FAR more important issue to this state: Michigan split as U.S. Supreme Court about to consider gay marriage ban

 
Comment by tresho
2013-04-09 10:32:49

Senate confirms Mary Jo White as new head of Securities and Exchange Commission.

White will be taking over at the SEC at a critical time. The agency still has much work remaining as it seeks to finalize rules required by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, particularly in the areas of over-the-counter derivatives and credit-rating agencies.

The agency is also behind on completing capital-raising rules required by more recent legislation, the 2012 Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, which relaxes certain securities regulations to help small businesses raise funds and go public.

The SEC has been stuck in a rut since Schapiro left in December, leaving the five-member panel divided between two Democrats and two Republicans.

Since then, the SEC has done little in the way of rule making.

Some, including Ohio Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown, have raised concerns that this “Wall Street bias” could harm the SEC, an agency that has been accused by some of striking weak settlements with Wall Street banks over their behavior during the 2007-2009 financial crisis.

Little is also known thus far about White’s views on securities regulatory policy and how she will direct critical rule-making, including a controversial plan to reform the $2.6 trillion money market fund industry.

The Senate’s vote on Monday only allows for White to fill out the remainder of Schapiro’s term, which expires in June 2014.

Obama had nominated White to both fill out Schapiro’s term and also to serve a full, five-year term at the helm of the SEC.

Comment by Bluestar
2013-04-09 15:27:08

Let’s see what she does about the insider trading being done by the 30 yr. veteran at KPMG (auditors) on the Herbalife, Skechers stocks. Another token fine I’m sure.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/09/us-herbalife-auditor-idUSBRE9380N920130409

Let’s just admit that all the referees are bought and paid for, from Moodys to S&P all the way down the line to the FASB and their willing minions at the worlds leading audit houses like KPMG.

 
 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower©
2013-04-09 11:35:01

Credit downgrades are the new black.

Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower©
2013-04-09 11:36:51

ft dot com
Last updated: April 9, 2013 7:08 pm
Fitch downgrades China’s credit rating
By Josh Noble in Hong Kong and Simon Rabinovitch in Beijing
A banker sorting a pile of Renminbi©NTI

China’s sovereign credit rating has been cut by a major international agency for the first time since 1999 with Fitch raising concerns on Tuesday that the country’s rising debt problems will require a government bailout.

Fitch downgraded China’s long-term local currency rating from AA- to A+, citing a number of “underlying structural weaknesses” in the Chinese economy, including low average incomes, lagging standards of governance, and a rapid expansion of credit.

The agency also warned of the growing risks from the rise of shadow banking, and said that total credit in China may have reached 198 per cent of gross domestic product by the end of last year, up from 125 per cent in 2008.

China has faced concerns over its debt levels since 2009 when state-owned banks unleashed a surge of loans to power the economy through the global financial crisis. The credit wave succeeded in keeping Chinese growth on track, but it led to bubbly housing prices and saddled local governments with mountains of loans that they are still struggling to repay.

“Ultimately we think China’s debt problem is going to require sovereign resources to resolve and debt will migrate onto China’s sovereign balance sheet. We don’t yet know what form this will take – central bailouts of local governments or of banks, perhaps”, said Andrew Colquhoun, head of Asia sovereign ratings at Fitch.

“Our base case is for a gradual rebalancing and resolution of the debt problem, albeit with the sovereign likely picking up some of the tab.”

 
 
Comment by 2banana
2013-04-09 11:46:56

Forward…

—————–

UNFIT FOR WORK: The startling rise of disability in America
NPR | 04/09/2013 | Chana Joffe-Walt

In the past three decades, the number of Americans who are on disability has skyrocketed. The rise has come even as medical advances have allowed many more people to remain on the job, and new laws have banned workplace discrimination against the disabled. Every month, 14 million people now get a disability check from the government.

The federal government spends more money each year on cash payments for disabled former workers than it spends on food stamps and welfare combined. Yet people relying on disability payments are often overlooked in discussions of the social safety net. The vast majority of people on federal disability do not work.[1] Yet because they are not technically part of the labor force, they are not counted among the unemployed.

In other words, people on disability don’t show up in any of the places we usually look to see how the economy is doing. But the story of these programs — who goes on them, and why, and what happens after that — is, to a large extent, the story of the U.S. economy. It’s the story not only of an aging workforce, but also of a hidden, increasingly expensive safety net.

For the past six months, I’ve been reporting on the growth of federal disability programs. I’ve been trying to understand what disability means for American workers, and, more broadly, what it means for poor people in America nearly 20 years after we ended welfare as we knew it. Here’s what I found.

Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower©
2013-04-09 13:36:27

Glad to see you are tuning in to NPR these days. Have you made your annual contribution to support their programs yet?

Comment by 2banana
2013-04-09 14:53:09

Yes - I paid my income taxes.

When NPR takes not ONE DIME from the taxpayers - then I will give my own money to them.

Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-04-09 21:49:24

Meanwhile, we will keep subsidizing your listening enjoyment with our annual contribution (plus some share of our federal taxes)…

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Comment by 2banana
2013-04-09 11:50:34

Yes we did!

—————————-

Where Have All the Workers Gone?
Townhall | 04/09/2013 | Pat Buchanan

That America created only 88,000 jobs in March, less than half the number anticipated, was jolting news, indicating the recovery that the White House has boasted about may not be at hand.

But in that March jobs report, there was more disturbing news.

While unemployment fell to 7.6 percent, the reason it fell is alarming.

Half a million U.S. workers (495,000) disappeared from the labor force. They dropped out. They are no longer even looking for a job.

Worse, this appears to be an inexorable trend. The participation rate of eligible workers in the United States has fallen to 63.3 percent, a level unseen since Jimmy Carter gave his malaise speech in 1979.

These folks, who have quit working and quit looking, who are they?

How do they support themselves? What does this surging dropout rate from the workforce portend for America’s future?

Disproportionately, the dropouts are young, black, Hispanic, female, working class. Some have gone home to live with their parents and may have re-enrolled in school to re-enter the job market better prepared.

In another shocking number, almost 9 million Americans ages 20 to 64 years old–nearly 5 percent of the working-age population — is receiving disability pay. Among workers 55 to 64, 10 percent are on disability. Few of those folks will ever enter the job market again.

With the Baby Boomers going on Social Security and Medicare at a rate of 300,000 a month, and scores or hundreds of thousands going on disability rolls and quitting the labor force every month, what kind of future are we looking at?

Comment by (Now that I'm "diversified") Jetfixr
2013-04-09 12:55:57

You can than your “Let them pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and the free-market/globalization will fix all ills” business leaders/1%er types.

Over 45 and laid off? Most of you won’t be able to find jobs as anything other than burger flippers. The ones with skills that are still useful will mostly find themselves as members of the “1099/contractor/self-employed”, whether they want to be or not. Mostly making 50-66% of what they were.

I personally know 30-40 aviation guys over age 50 who have been laid off since 2008-early 2009. Not a single one of them have found full time work. Talking with people in other tech industries tells me that things are pretty much the same in every other business.

Don’t blame Obama or Obamacare……….this trend was well underway a long time before Obama was ever elected. Of course, they were all told that they were sent packing because of the “uncertainties” created by the election of Obama. Everybody believes this BS. Mostly, IMO, it was to cull all of the old white guys, and replace them with younger/less experienced, less expensive help, and blame it on Obama, rather than actually admit the truth.

Comment by ecofeco
2013-04-09 14:15:46

Ongoing since the 1980s. Ask the steel/textile/auto/aviation/machinists/etc worker from then.

But them new-fangled com-puters where supposed to provide them there new jobs fer everyone! Which they did until the 90s when they went to India.

Then it was the Internet and then it was RE.

For of those who can’t see the pattern… please don’t operate heavy machinery.

 
Comment by goon squad
2013-04-09 16:58:51

blame it on Obama, rather than actually admit the truth

Because it’s so much easier to copy and paste a Drudge Report link.

Besides that, we like reading Pat Buchanan very much. His book “Death of the West” is excellent. The bedwetter media may have stamped him as a racis and anti-semit but he raises valid points.

Re-posting Drudge links raises nothing, other than the blood pressure of the mouth-breathers.

 
 
Comment by Steve J
2013-04-09 13:48:21

People on disability qualify for Medicare.

 
 
Comment by 2banana
2013-04-09 11:54:18

Four more years!

Can Hillary blame obama in 2016?

————————–

Those who don’t learn from history are bound to repeat it… Obama pushes sub-prime mortgages… again!
Flopping Aces | 04-09-13 | Vince

As virtually every conscious American knows, the United States economy took a body blow in 2008 with the financial collapse. Despite what anyone tells you, the collapse was 100% the product of government policies stretching back to Jimmy Carter and doubled down on by Bill Clinton. That policy, in a nutshell, was called the Community Reinvestment Act. The act “encouraged” banks and mortgage lenders “to help meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered consistent with the safe and sound operation of such institutions.” Essentially, banks were being forced to make loans in the communities in which their depositors lived.

Now, think about that. People put their money in banks in order to save it and maybe grow it a little bit. They want more security than what they might get by putting the money under their mattresses. Now, the government comes along and says that banks, rather than lending money in the safest and most profitable manner possible, must lend in particular neighborhoods, regardless of the opportunity to do so profitably.

But of course the government didn’t stop there. They then decided that banks were not making enough home loans to minorities and decided to force them to do so. So now, banks, not only have to lend in certain neighborhoods, but they have to make loans to certain people, regardless of their creditworthiness. By 2005 fully 22% of new mortgages had to be “special affordable” loans targeted at low income buyers.

Banks of course complied, with a wide variety of special loan products from zero money down to ARMs and no income verification. And just to make sure that banks were making the loans, the government, in the form of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were assuming the risk by buying the mortgages. If that sounds like a disaster in the making… it was. The resulting financial collapse saw the evaporation of trillions of dollars of citizens’ savings and investments, not to mention sending the economy into a recession.

The Obama administration believes the “recovery” is leaving too many people behind. As such, it has decided that banks once again need to be “encouraged” to make more loans to low income, high risk borrowers. But it’s not just encouraging banks to do so, it’s facilitating their doing so, in the exact same manner Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did before the collapse. Only now, instead of those two failed institutions playing the heavy it’s the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) that is putting taxpayer’s money behind the risky loans.

One would think with the economy still limping along with the injuries suffered in the derailment of a mere four years ago, that reality would replace ideology. Apparently not so much. This of course is a dance we’ve seen played out many times before. From Athens to Paris to Caracas, populist messages may bring electoral victory, but they rarely deliver economic victory. As Washington embarks on this suicidal populist train wreck, you may want to consider averting your eyes and figure out how to avoid getting crushed when the predictable damage begins…

Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower©
2013-04-09 12:24:30

“Community Reinvestment Act”

Bad policies never die…they just get recycled, again and again and again…

Comment by (Now that I'm "diversified") Jetfixr
2013-04-09 12:57:32

Call it the “Thor Plan”

When the only tool you own is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

 
 
Comment by RioAmericanInBrasil
2013-04-09 12:52:21

the collapse was 100% the product of

Any article that states the collapse “was 100% the product of” anything…..was written by a political hack or a moron.

According to Federal Reserve Governor Randall Kroszner, the claim that “the law pushed banking institutions to undertake high-risk mortgage lending” was contrary to their experience, and that no empirical evidence had been presented to support the claim.[116]

In a Bank for International Settlements (BIS) working paper, economist Luci Ellis concluded that “there is no evidence that the Community Reinvestment Act was responsible for encouraging the subprime lending boom and subsequent housing bust”, relying partly on evidence that the housing bust has been a largely exurban event.

[117] Others have also concluded that the CRA did not contribute to the financial crisis, notably, FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair,[118] Comptroller of the Currency John C. Dugan,[119] Tim Westrich of the Center for American Progress,[120] Robert Gordon of the American Prospect,[121] Ellen Seidman of the New America Foundation,[122] Daniel Gross of Slate,[123] and Aaron Pressman from BusinessWeek.[124] wiki

Comment by (Now that I'm "diversified") Jetfixr
2013-04-09 13:13:55

Don’t waste your time pointing out the facts.

How many of these CRA loans happened BEFORE securitization?

How many happened AFTER the banksters figured out how much they would make via securitization?

Very few of them happened, until the banksters figured out how they could privatize the gains, and socialize the losses.

Now, get back to pulling on those bootstraps.

 
 
 
Comment by hazard
2013-04-09 12:50:18

I will give you guys this who got on me about calling Deadbeats, well Deadbeats. There were people who got foreclosed on who were not in default.

“Just 53 homeowners fall into that category,”

To those 53 families, I apologize.

To the other 10s of millions of you who were in default yet continued to live rent free for years while crying foul, you are now and always have been DAEDBEATS!!!

1,100 borrowers to receive max $125,000 payment in foreclosure settlement

by Kim Miller

Federal regulators announced this morning that foreclosure reparation checks to 4.2 million borrowers will go out beginning Friday, including payments of $125,000 each to 1,135 borrowers.

Hundreds of thousands of Florida homeowners will receive the checks, including an estimated 50,000 in Palm Beach County.

The checks will be sent in several waves, beginning with 1.4 million on Friday. The final wave is expected in mid-July 2013.

The payout amounts are based on the level of wrongdoing and whether a home was ultimately repossessed by the bank.

For example, homeowners who applied for a loan modification but never received an answer will get between $400 and $800, while homeowners who had their home repossessed even though they weren’t in default will receive $125,000. Just 53 homeowners fall into that category, but another 1,082 homeowners who were foreclosed on despite being eligible for the Servicemembers Relief Act will also receive $125,000.

All 4.2 million homeowners in foreclosure during 2009 or 2010 will receive money even if they didn’t apply for it.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 8th, 2013 at 10:00 am and is filed under Florida economy, Foreclosures, Housing affordability, Housing boom, Mortgage fraud, Mortgages, Real estate bust. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Responses to “1,100 borrowers to receive max $125,000 payment in foreclosure settlement”

WOW Says:
April 9th, 2013 at 9:47 am
WOW. Reparation checks??????? For being irresponsible with money?????? Welcome to obama’s America!!

W. Bell Says:
April 9th, 2013 at 10:02 am
Unbelievable! One doesn’t make their payments and then gets a check from the government!!

Unbelievable!!

Carol Says:
April 9th, 2013 at 10:48 am
This is unbelieveable, let us reward bad behavior by paying someone. Dang…….. I struggled for years to get a modification and was quite unsuccessful, I continued to make my mortgage payment, because that was the right thing to do, if I had only known I could have received a check for 125K, I may not have made my payments! Welcome to Obama’s world people!

terry Says:
April 9th, 2013 at 12:07 pm
You idiots who are whining could never understand what these big banks have put us through……so until you do, why dont you stfu. I worked 2 jobs my whole life retired and put lifes savings into my property. My mortgage was sold to indymac bank……they wont let me sell my 4 x 80k lots and get out of debt. They plan on stealing it…….just google “indymac complaints” nuff said

hey Says:
April 9th, 2013 at 2:04 pm
NOBODY FORCED YOU TO SIGN ANYTHING TERRY!!!!

 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower©
2013-04-09 13:35:00

Dow 36,000 18,000, here we come!

This prediction is based on market fundamentals the technical qualities of the market’s advance.

April 9, 2013, 8:02 a.m. EDT
Why we’ll see Dow 18,000 before this bull run ends
Commentary: Market fundamentals to boost stocks through 2014
By Gene Peroni

CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa. (MarketWatch) — The U.S. stock market has proven to be adept at navigating some exceedingly challenging headlines over the past four years. Yet even now, under choppy conditions, the market’s direction is aligned with the bulls.

Based on the technical qualities of the market’s advance so far this year, the market’s risk/reward ratio remains attractive both short- and longer-term. I see the Dow Jones Industrial Average ending 2013 at between 14,750 and 15,100; by the time this cycle ends in 2015, the Dow will be at 18,000.

Comment by albuquerquedan
2013-04-09 15:00:18

Zimbabwe, the best stock market in the world for many years if you ignored inflation.

Comment by Michael Viking
2013-04-09 16:54:12

Quick question: if you were in Zimbabwe during this time and you had some savings. Would you rather your savings were in the stock market or in cash?

 
 
 
Comment by cactus
2013-04-09 13:49:18

By Diana Olick | CNBC

“Meanwhile, previously surging single family rents are flattening. Nearly 4 million more single-family homes have been added to the rental market since 2005, according to Trulia.com. Supply has finally caught up with demand, with single family rents up just 0.1 percent in March from a year ago. That has housing bears roaring again.

“In Phoenix-like Las Vegas, Florida, the Inland Empire, Central Valley et al-we now have a rental supply glut,” said Mark Hanson, a California-based housing and mortgage analyst.

“Wherever the institutional money has gone in and ravaged is high risk for housing investment or building. These regions have become highly volatile speculative regions in which prices can rise 20 percent one year and fall 15 percent the next. The insti’s have turned these markets into something I have never seen before…more like high-beta, speculative, volatile tech stock markets than housing markets.”

Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower©
2013-04-09 14:24:42

“…more like high-beta, speculative, volatile tech stock markets than housing markets.”

It’s not your grandma’s housing market, that’s for sure!

 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower©
2013-04-09 14:30:46

“In Phoenix-like Las Vegas, Florida, the Inland Empire, Central Valley et al-we now have a rental supply glut,” said Mark Hanson, a California-based housing and mortgage analyst.

NOBODY COULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING!!!!!

Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower©
2013-04-09 14:32:45

Has there ever been another time in history when so many too-clever-by-half investors thought they would be able to enrich themselves by making the same foolish investment mistake at the same time? (Except for Tulipmania, the South Sea Bubble, the Roaring Twenties stock market bubble, the Nifty-Fifty 1970s stock market craze, the Tech Stock Bubble, etc etc etc)

Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-04-09 15:57:05

Has there ever been another time in history when so many too-clever-by-half investors thought they would be able to enrich themselves by making the same foolish investment mistake at the same time?

Who says the hedgies didn’t buy low enough to still make money?

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Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-04-09 21:46:36

I’m sure that some of them did — especially the ones who were deemed too-big-to-fail and thus handed gobzillions in ZIRP loans at the point when the rest of the U.S. economy was flat on the floor.

 
 
 
 
 
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower©
2013-04-09 14:26:25

“Supply has finally caught up with demand, with single family rents up just 0.1 percent in March from a year ago. That has housing bears roaring again.”

For the record, our rent hasn’t increased since 2008. I’m thinking of asking the LLs to decrease it next year, given that our incomes no longer keep up with inflation in other consumption goods.

 
Comment by hazard
2013-04-09 17:12:16

Obama vows line-by-line budget review

Posted by Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor
November 25, 2008 12:13 PM

President-elect Barack Obama vowed today to get rid of federal programs that no longer make sense and run others in a more frugal way to make Washington work in tough economic times.

“In these challenging times, when we are facing both rising deficits and a sinking economy, budget reform is not an option. It is an imperative,” Obama said. “We cannot sustain a system that bleeds billions of taxpayer dollars on programs that have outlived their usefulness, or exist solely because of the power of a politicians, lobbyists, or interest groups. We simply cannot afford it. This isn’t about big government or small government. It’s about building a smarter government that focuses on what works. That is why I will ask my new team to think anew and act anew to meet our new challenges…. We will go through our federal budget – page by page, line by line – eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way.”

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/11/obama_vows_line.html - 55k

Feds pay for data they could have just Googled, audit finds

By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Congress’s top auditor said Tuesday that the Commerce Department has been charging other government agencies millions of dollars for reports that the other agencies could just as easily have gotten online, for free.

The Government Accountability Office, releasing its third annual report on duplication in the federal government, said 74 percent of all the reports held by the National Technical Information Service were available elsewhere, usually for free — and often just by a simple Google search.

“The source that most often had the reports GAO was searching for was another website located at http://www.Google.com,” the auditors said.

The reports don’t amount to much — the agency reported revenues of $1.5 million in fiscal year 2011 — but overall, duplication and waste are likely costing the federal government billions of dollars a year, the auditors said.

In one example GAO said the federal government paid for 679 separate renewable energy programs in 2010. The 2009 stimulus alone created or boosted 157 of the initiatives. Altogether, 23 federal agencies have renewable energy programs.

But the Government Accountability Office said it can’t even begin to measure how much overlap there is because the agencies don’t keep sufficient records to evaluate that.

GAO said the Defense Department has so many different branches that each pay separately for foreign language services, but if the department were to coordinate it could save hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/apr/9/search-error-audit-finds-feds-pay-data-they-could-/ - 95k -

Comment by goon squad
2013-04-09 17:46:37

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

And in case you missed that:

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

And again:

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

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

 
Comment by Anon In DC
2013-04-09 18:31:12

Yes, let these people and those that run the post office run health care.

Comment by Avocado
2013-04-09 19:12:49

I love how fools believe the gov is going to somehow “run” health care.

news flash: obamacare is HEALTH INSURANCE REFORM! you know, the guys who are stealing from us!

do you work for blue cross?? why do you love to let big corps bend us over?

got fear?

Comment by ahansen
2013-04-11 19:27:11

Yo, Avo!

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Comment by measton
2013-04-09 18:27:10

OH you have to love religion

Kirill head of the Orthodox church once likened Putin’s rule over Russia to a miracle of God and the president has said the Orthodox Church should play a bigger role in the country where faith runs deep after the fall of the officially atheist Soviet Union.

Russian legislators on Tuesday gave initial approval to a law that would make offences against religion punishable by up to five years in prison.

It makes one sick.

 
Comment by goon squad
2013-04-09 18:44:06

Current Drudge Report headline:

“SEQUESTER SOUL SHOW LIVE FROM WHITE HOUSE”

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/04/09/obama_sings_along_to_justin_timberlakes_rendition_of_sitting_on_the_dock_of_the_bay.html

Love, love, love your Drudge. Learn it, love it, live it.

Cus it’s all you have, and all you’ll ever know :)

Comment by hazard
2013-04-09 20:53:37

A pleasant faced man steps up to greet you
He smiles and says he’s pleased to meet you
Beneath his hat the strangeness lies
Take it off, he’s got three eyes
Truth is false and logic lost
Now the fourth dimension is crossed…

You have entered the Sequester Free Zone
Beyond this world strange things are known
Use the key, unlock the door
See what Justin Timberlake might have in store…
Come explore your dreams’ creation
Just don`t mention immigration…

You wake up lost in a FEMA camp
And on your arm there is a stamp
Big billboard looks like Obama
Your clothes are gone your in pajamas
No escape, no place to hide
The constitution has its ride

You have entered the Sequester Free Zone

 
 
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