The Housing Bubble

open up a margin account today and load up on FB shares tomorrow?

“open up a margin account today and load up on FB shares tomorrow?”

Then invest your stock market wealth gains to buy SFR rental housing on margin. You can’t lose on this gamble, as both real estate and stocks always go up.

Baby needs new shoes!

You know what is sad? There are people doing this very thing.

I bet Suzie knows a lot about bondage.

That’s for sure. Supporting a bunch of depraved freaks, along the lines of the SS and Stalinists. This is how it starts, folks. And you don’t see American citizens demonstrating en masse in public areas, so I guess that means we’ll bend over and take it.

“bend over and take it”

With glee, as demonstrated by the herd of morons chanting “USA! USA! USA!” in the streets of Watertown, MA after the imposition of martial law.

We’ve been bending over and taking it for quite a while now. And at the same time there’s no shortage of young people willing to sign up a serve in our military machine.

When they can’t find work, they pretty much have to.

Just saying that they don’t seem to have any moral qualms about serving the biggest imperialist machine since the Roman Empire.

And at the same time there’s no shortage of young people willing to sign up a serve in our military machine.

And if there ever is, that’s where the student loan forgiveness comes in.

“With glee, as demonstrated by the herd of morons chanting “USA! USA! USA!” in the streets of Watertown, MA after the imposition of martial law.”

nice.

“With glee, as demonstrated by the herd of morons chanting “USA! USA! USA!” in the streets of Watertown, MA after the imposition of martial law.”

By refusing to bury the elder bomber in Cambridge, the “progressives” proved once in for all how cruel, vile and hateful they are. Not that I had any doubt….

progressives=neo-cons=governments=crntral planners

Yeah, but did you hear him sing his hit single, “Let the Eagle Soar” (”Like she’s never soared before….”)

With polarized districts (most state legislatures have created “safe” R and D seats) there is no way guys like Cantor, Boehner, et al are ever getting voted out.

FISA is safe. Sad but true.

I’m sure there’s a certain inertia at DOJ re FISA. It’s just too convenient and useful of a tool for them, slowing down that train would be difficult if not impossible. It really would take Congress removing the tool to change DOJ’s course. As said above, that’s not happening anytime soon.

This Verizon record discovery revelation relates to the Patriot Act, under Bush 43. Obama is just the continuation.
R&D= A two headed snake
All this two party bickering, gives me a headache.

“All this two party bickering”

It may give you a headache, but it results in clicks, page loads, and ad displays. And it keeps the sheeple parked on their couches watching their TeeVee, so they can see more ads to buy sh*t they don’t need.

“Government is the entertainment division of the military-industrial complex” — Frank Zappa

Thanks for that blast from the past, goon. And thank you, Polly, for your steady voice of reason amidst the hysteria.

Watching the Rovians squirm and squeal after failing to make any of these “scandals” stick is almost worth the heartbreak we suffered watching W et al destroy what was left of the First and Fourth Amendments. Repairing the mess will take decades, but I’m encouraged at what appears to be this administration’s long view.

To be honest, all these supposed curtailments of my liberties haven’t affected me one iota. The systemic incompetence is maddening, but I attribute that to the orientational change this country is undergoing as it copes with the transition to an electronics-based society.

but I’m encouraged at what appears to be this administration’s long view.

You gotta be kidding, right?

To be honest, all these supposed curtailments of my liberties haven’t affected me one iota

Well it affects someone somewhere…especially the brown moosleems types..But it’s OK, right?

‘Watching the Rovians squirm and squeal after failing to make any of these “scandals” stick’

I’m glad you are enjoying it so much! See, I’ve got a Verizon phone and since you put it that way, I can see I’m not concerned about my privacy, but naively falling for a Rovian mind trick. I feel almost silly for not realizing that when Obama said he was for transparency, he meant people like me should be transparent, not the government. That would explain why he jails whistle blowers, hides his emails, etc. Golly, you have completely turned me around by invoking Rove. I can see clearly now that door to door, exploratory cavity searches are the price of freedom!

when Obama said he was for transparency…

“We Are Making Every Effort To Be Transparent,” Says President

“My administration doesn’t have any secrets, and from now on, neither will you.”

To be honest, all these supposed curtailments of my liberties haven’t affected me one iota. The systemic incompetence is maddening, but I attribute that to the orientational change this country is undergoing as it copes with the transition to an electronics-based society.

Are you living in an alternate reality? What’s the current administration doing to repair the 1st and 4th amendment mess? It’s putting the pedal to the medal and making things worse and worse. Grabbing all the Verizon info? This administration is taking the Patriot Act to 11.

I also find it funny that you’re able to whitewash the “systemic incompetence” as coping with an electronics-based society. Why doesn’t that very same argument explain W’s destroying of the 1st and 4th? Seems like you have a double-standard. If your liberties aren’t affected by one iota now, they weren’t affected by a 1/10 of an iota when W was in the office destroying everything.

Jeebus.

Your phones have been monitored since their invention, (ever hear of “party lines”?) So have your emails. Your written communications can be opened and tracked with or without a warrant (you don’t think your local post carrier knows who and what your interests are?) and don’t even get me started on parcels and packages sent across borders, state or otherwise.

Forty years ago, long-hairs were in the sights of authorities seeking to keep the public order, twenty years ago it was rapperz and white militias. Up until recently it was Mexican immigrants and international financiers. This last decade it’s “moosleems” bearing crock pots and disaffected suburban geeks with Daddy issues.

My point is, one of the realities of living in a technological society is that in order to take advantage of their benefits we must also give up a certain presumed privacy. You drive on a highway, you have to obey the traffic laws. You shop in a marketplace, you follow the accepted customs and laws and rules of order. These are purposely fungible and often enforced selectively (and sometimes even at cross-purposes with each other) depending upon perceived public threat.

Most of the time, a disheartening few draw attention to the inequalities. Some of the time there is a public uproar (which is generally based on a hugely incomplete understanding of the underlying issues and exploited by special interests with a financial interest), and occasionally there results a social movement to address the imbalance (see: gay rights and the election of Barack Obama).

Sometimes there is change, most oftentimes there is simply more ineffectual regulation translated through the court system and enforced with varying degrees of enthusiasm by local agencies.

But over the course of a generation or two, we get assimilation and evolution and life going on. If we’re lucky, we can manage to stay out of harm’s way during the messier times of transition, though that requires partially removing oneself from the fray. Throughout it all, we can count on the general incompetence of any enforcing agency to keep the majority of us from scrutiny– assuming we live discretely, pick our battles judiciously, and attack passive aggressively.

I’m in my sixties now and I’ve surely paid my dues to the Libertarian “Movement”. I’ll put my bona fides as an advocate of anarcho-pacifism against anyone’s on this board. But long years of confronting The Man have taught me the difference t’ween sh!t and fly specks — and this is one of those times.

I’m simply urging a readjustment of the rhetoric coupled with a little more historical perspective.

Thank you for carrying on.

“…they weren’t affected by a 1/10 of an iota when W was in the office destroying everything….”

You’re right, Michael, they weren’t.
But my country’s treasury was looted, a massive Soviet-style “security” apparatus was codified, and monies that should have been used to advance our scientific understanding and address our infrastructural and social issues were instead diverted to a small international oligarchy of cronies whose personal interests may or may not have coincided with the best interests of the United States of America.

The Obama admin, in spite of its many false-starts and feckless meanderings, has at the very least begun to dismantle the international aristocracy that threatened our republic, if not the planet. Predictably, they don’t like it, and predictably their media arms (IE, all of them) have roused the mindless to rabble. I’ve chosen not to play in their world and to keep partisanship out of the equation. To a self-satisfying extent, I’ve succeeded.

JFTR-
Though I have indeed been dragged from my bed in the middle of the night by jack-booted thugs under color of authority, they weren’t from Obama’s Negro Army.

The most recent revelations are NOT about wiretapping or reading e-mails. The information is what numbers called what other numbers and the duration of the calls. The information the Guardian released says it is only for wired service, but since it also included providing information for the cell tower we can assume with reasonable certainty that a similar order went out for cell phones. Isnt’ that disturbing enough?

By the way, one of the arguments for this not being an illegal search is that you volutarily gave that information (who you called, how long you talked and where you were or what cell phone tower you were near) to a third party - the phone company - so that you no longer have a claim to the privacy of the information. I have heard of ONE person who has some power over this mess and who has said that she has doubts abotu this interpretation of the third party doctrine - Justice Sotomayor.

By the way, Google does read your gmail e-mails, or at least has an algorithm that mines them for key words so they can charge more to target ads to you during your google searches.

The best possible spin I can put on this (and it is hard to find one, but if you want to at least consider how someone might have come up with the idea that it was necessary) is that they really want the information for some identified numbers that they think are being used by people plotting something. Of course they then want all the information about the numbers that number called and whoever those people called, etc. As if the people they want to monitor are like a phone tree for notifying everyone if the little league games are cancelled that afternoon because of rain. But they decided they can’t restrict the search that way because that would be giving the numbers they suspect of being used by people connected to terrorist activity (the numbers are classified) to the phone company. And with computers, it is easier to get everything and then just trace the stuff you need rather than risk releasing the identities of the phone numbers they care about to Government Relations Employee Number 6 at Verizon. Actually, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that is the way it happened. Odder things have happened when dealing with classified information.

“To be honest, all these supposed curtailments of my liberties haven’t affected me one iota”

Come on in officer, I’ve got nothing to hide. I am a foot soldier, a true believer and member of the Ideology in power…for now.

Hippies used to call the cops pigs, burn their draft cards and protest authority. Now, in their 60’s and 70’s, along with their younger indoctrinated disciples, they have become the man, an extremely paranoid version of the man intent on using every part of the law enforcement industrial complex against their political enemies.

What’s next you ask? A continuation of the “Fundamental Transformation of the United States of America”. My guess would be neighbor against neighbor paranoia (state minders), then a Chavez style chilling of the “free” press and “free” media.

In the words of Jack Reacher: Remember…You wanted this.

“Hippies used to call the cops pigs, burn their draft cards and protest authority. Now, in their 60’s and 70’s, along with their younger indoctrinated disciples, they have become the man”

Hippies were always a very small percentage of those who were young in the 60s and 70s. Few of them have gained access to the halls of power. Most of those who became the man were already conservative in outlook and did not participate in protests.

Your phones have been monitored since their invention, (ever hear of “party lines”?)

Yes, I even had friends with them. We knew they were party lines and that others could pick up an extension and hear. I don’t really call that “monitored”. We also thought that for the government to listen in they had to get a warrant. I’m fine with them listening if they go through the proper legal channels and get a warrant. I’m not fine with them deciding to listen in without any oversight.

I understand Google mines my emails; it’s a contract I agreed to. I don’t want the government mining my emails, or Google sharing my emails with the government. I didn’t agree to that. They should get a warrant if they want to see my particular emails. Same with my phone.

I understand what you’re saying, I just disagree. IMHO we’re sliding rapidly down the slope; the proverbial frog in the heating up water. Liberties given up can typically only be regained through violence and nobody wants that.

To be honest, I’d be kind of flattered if somebody found me interesting enough to spy on.

There were warrants. FISA court warrants. That is the problem. Most warrants you can at least find out after the fact hwo the information was obtained so you can object to it being used at a trial. I think the FISA court is entirely secret. There can’t be any review of the warrant. That is the problem.

And again, nothing that was revealed today has anything to do with listening in on all the conversaions of all the Verizon phone calls. It is just the meta information. If they want a wiretap beyond that, they have to go back to court. They aren’t doing that for the whole damn country.

You guys know the drill:

If you’re the paranoidal type, Tor is your friend. Subscribe to radical periodicals and blogs of all ideologies concurrently. Send conflicting emails. Avoid googling words like “…(redacted)”. Use bitcoin. Save sensitive conversations for face-to-face and/or learn a private sign language. Don’t use cell phones or credit cards for questionable interactions. Don’t mail dope. Don’t expatriate “sensitive” materials. Better yet, don’t plot violent overthrow of the US government and solicit helpers for your cause. Especially on youTube….

Monitoring communications and tracking purchases is a given in our society; it’s hardly a state secret. But take comfort in our vast numbers and massive individual inconsequence. Like gangsters convicted on tax charges, the data base will only be mined retrospectively if Someone, Somewhere has an axe to grind on your behind. So strive for obfuscation.

That is all.

‘the data base will only be mined retrospectively if Someone, Somewhere has an axe to grind on your behind’

Besides all the “boiling frogs” and “slippery slopes” issues, there’s this: are we so short sighted we don’t remember J Edgar Hoover? He used to have dirt on so many politicians that he would approach one and say, “Senator, your enemies might have knowledge of your gay affair, and I can help you keep it quiet.” The obvious implication was Hoover might release this information to the Senators enemies and therefore, he better do what he’s told. Hoover had untold numbers of politicians in his pocket and stayed in power for decades.

Remember Elliot Spitzer? He was gaining in popularity and openly ready to take on wall street. Suddenly, bam, a prostitution scandal and he’s done. There have been suggestions that the leak came from a Bush wiretap. But even if it wasn’t, it’s an example of how private communications can be used to destroy people who endanger the powers that be. It’s important to consider that we are accepting intrusions that might change history for the worse.

You’re preaching to the choir here, Ben.

IIRC, I was one of the three Americans screaming bloody murder over Bush’s reinstitution of the same domestic spy program we’d finally legislated out of existence after Nixon’s excesses. I’m also one of the few I know who has publicly supported Wikileaks and lobbied for the sainthood of Bradley Manning.

And yes, the people of this country give up their personal autonomy far too easily, all in the name of “defense” and “security”.

Just saying, I’ve seen far worse infringements than the media sh!tstorm we’re getting now — and to anyone who’s been paying attention, it’s hardly news.

The best possible spin I can put on this

I’m glad you can work hard to put a positive spin on this. Do you also work hard to put a positive spin on things other administrations have done?

It’s really sickening to be sure. The FISA tool is way too useful for DOJ to stop using. And Congress (both parties, both Houses) lacks the balls to pass legislation to stop it. People will hem and haw but both parties support FISA. They’ll just attack each other when they’re not the ones running the Executive Branch (DOJ).

Thank you, Joe.
Your eyes are wide open.

How do we know its useful?

It seems even when the FBI is tipped about a terrorist they ignore it and instead focus on the political enemies of the state(eg Fox News reporter Rosen rather than Boston Bomber Tsarnev).

appeals courts, and Supreme Court would strike the law down very quickly.
</i?

You have too much faith on these political hacks.

If the Supreme Court somehow found that slavery was Constitutional, then the law would stand.

But, sorry to say, Ben is not the arbiter of what is or is not lawful in the US (excluding the blog.) If the legislative branch passes a law that does something, then yup, it’s OK until the judicial branch says otherwise. Repugnant or no.

Until the judicial branch says otherwise OR the people elect a congress and president that will change the law. That is how our system is set up.

Ben is not the arbiter of what is or is not lawful

Ben IS the arbiter. Him and his central planner buddies have been playing with nation’s money for far too long.

I used to think this way too young paduwan, but it’s become obvious that our resident trolls have no interest in intelligent discourse. If they were, they would learn from the MANY times their points have been invalidated and seek out new sources of corroborated information. Instead, they choose to will fully live in a bubble where their few sources of “information” about the world only tell them the fairy tale they want to hear.

Hat’s off for fighting the good fight, but as a dear friend once told me - “A man convinced against his will, is not.”

Therein lies the problem, with “the” being the definite article and “a” being the indefinite. The future, as well as all of our geographically and economically differentiated locales should dictate the latter.

There is no one fairy tale unless you are Tommy. Who?? -

More retire with mortgages, card debt
June 5, 2013, 10:47 AM
By Alicia H. Munnell

With a contracting retirement income system, rapidly rising health-care costs, and the prospect of long-term care expenses, one would have thought that people approaching retirement would be paying off their credit card debt and closing out their mortgages. But surveys suggest that people are entering retirement with more debt than ever before and relying on borrowing to cover expenses in retirement.

According to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, in 2010 54% of pre-retirees and 41% of those 65-74 had a mortgage on their home. And the median amounts of these mortgages were not trivial – $97,000 for pre-retirees and $70,000 for new retirees. About 41% of pre-retirees and 32% of new retirees also had outstanding credit card balances (median balance about $2,200) and installment loans (median balance about $11,000). About 9% of pre-retirees and retirees faced debt payments that exceeded 40% of family income.

The high levels of debt were driven by housing. During the housing bubble, financial institutions encouraged homeowners to think of their house as a cash machine. In response, they took on more housing debt during their working years and approached retirement with considerable housing debt.
…

Sources and uses of equity extracted from homes
Alan Greenspan* and James Kennedy**
+ Author Affiliations
*Greenspan Associates LLC
**Federal Reserve Board, e-mail: jkennedy@frb.gov

Abstract

In this paper, we present estimates of the disposition of the free cash generated by home equity extraction to finance consumer spending, outlays for home improvements, debt repayment, acquisition of assets, and other uses. We estimate free cash as cash available net of closing costs and repayment of other mortgage debt. We have also extended the quarterly data series for gross equity extraction, presented in our earlier paper (Greenspan and Kennedy, 2005), back to 1968.

Key words
Mortgage equity withdrawal
wealth effect
consumer spending
savings rate

JEL codes
E21
G21

© The Authors 2008. Published by Oxford University Press. For permissions please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

As long as the Chicoms don’t expect to ever be paid back, it’s all good.

The only smart folks who took home equity loans were foreigners who came here, bought a home with zero down, and immediately took out a 125% HELOC, and returned to their home of origin.

So what ARE the sources and uses of the equity, whac-bear? We don’t have access to the full article, and this abstracts doesn’t list them.

(15 years ago, the abstract would have had the list. Now article abstracts are like movie trailers to get us to buy the article.)

People who took out 125% Heloc and paid off their student debt with it then got foreclosed on! ……yeah like how many were that smart?

The only smart folks who took home equity loans were f

We used Kosmo a time or two…

I don’t remember what it was but remember thinking that the minimum delivery amount seemed too low to keep that model going for long.

Hence the recent stories about the increase in baby boomer suicides. It’s only a matter of time before some of them decide to opt against self-checkout and try to take as many bodies down with them when they go.

Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

Sent to me from my mother. She just turned 75.
Medicare Part X
“NEW SENIOR PROGRAM….
New Medicare Program
You’re a sick senior citizen and the government says there is no nursing home available for you.
So what do you do?
Our plan gives anyone 65 years or older a gun and 4 bullets.
You are allowed to shoot four Politicians.
Of course, this means you will be sent to prison where you will get three meals a day, a roof over your head, central heating, air conditioning
and all the health care you need! Need new teeth? No problem. Need glasses? That’s great. Need a new hip, knees, kidney, lungs or heart?
They’re all covered.
As an added bonus, your kids can come and visit you as often as they do now.
And who will be paying for all of this?
It’s the same government that just told you that you they cannot afford for you to go into a home.
And you can get rid of 4 useless politicians while you are at it.
Plus, and because you are a prisoner, you don’t have to pay any income taxes anymore.
“…. Is this a great country or what? “

“Its one thing to be poor, when its all you have ever known…Its quite another to have been doing fairly well and have everything wiped out…”

That’s why they’re trying to make the descent as slow as possible. If things don’t get too bad too fast, the current 20 somethings are likely to accept their reduced lifestyle as they become 30-40 somethings, because it’s all they’ve known.

Moderately amusing Wittbelle, except that is implies that Medicare pays for long term care in a nursing home. It doesn’t. That is Medicaid.

“the current 20 somethings”

See also numerous recent articles about less of them having cars or even drivers licenses. Stoodent Loanz are a big factor in this, as is the fact that car ownership/insurance/maintenance is just too expensive for the Lucky Ducklings.

I think the graduating classes of 2009 and 2010 may have been surprised/shocked/pissed off at their unexpected economic realities, but the younger kidz are beginning to understand what the New Normal is.

These precious little snowflakes may have had their self-esteem unjustifiably fluffed since birth, but if they’ve never held real jobs as adults, they’ve never attained a level of comfort that the 40-50-somethings were so wounded by losing.

“Its one thing to be poor, when its all you have ever known…Its quite another to have been doing fairly well and have everything wiped out…”

There’s a huge difference between being broke and being poor since those who are broke typically regain their footing as a recession gives way to growth whereas the poor remain so despite something such as an inheritance windfall that is quickly frittered away.

“Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.”

What is murder but an extroverted suicide? (From some Python skit)

Gawker’s also great at making stuff up about crack videos of mayors they don’t like.

What absurd is anyone would even defend government propoganda.

The Depression resulted in the “safety nets” that are in place today, preventing people from falling into dire straits. Credit is also much easier to get and abuse today than it was in the 30’s, It’s possible that the unemployment rate, while near the rate it was during the Depression, is not having the same visible impact as it did. Just sayin’.

Think about how absurd what you’re saying is.

Shadow Stats is not a blog.

The Dust Bowl crisis in a primarily agrarian economy obviously aggravated those GD numbers.

I’ll bet he made a lot more money working than what UE gave him. When I was laid off I learned that my UE benefit would have been about 25% of my lost paycheck. It wasn’t a viable option so I hustled and found a new job, Of course it helps to have marketable skills.

“5% of the workforce suddenly switched from being good, respectable, hard-working folk to a bunch of lazy slobs who want to sit around, play Xbox and collect government checks ??”

Not quite. That workforce was always a bunch of lazy slobs. But they had no choice other than to work. In comes Obama and tells these people, don’t worry, I got your back, no need to work anymore. Obama has made the rules so lax to get welfare, you basically need a pulse and not much more.

“I’ll bet he made a lot more money working than what UE gave him. When I was laid off I learned that my UE benefit would have been about 25% of my lost paycheck. It wasn’t a viable option so I hustled and found a new job, Of course it helps to have marketable skills.”

Depends on the state. In WA state, UI pays about $38K a year. You don’t have to pay FICA tax on UI so that’s the equivalent of a job paying $40,000 a year.

So say your option is make $40K by doing nothing or make $50K by doing something. A lot of people will take a $10K pay cut for a 2 year vacation. And it’s not really $10K either. You have no costs for transportation to work, no costs for daycare/babysitters, etc.

And you have 2 years during which you can have a side job off the books or have 2 years to start a business while having a guaranteed income if it fails. As long as the business makes no profit, you’re not breaking the law.

Smithers is lying. From the Washington state website:

The total amount of benefits potentially payable on your claim is found by taking the smaller of:

26 times your weekly benefit amount or

1/3 of the total gross wages in all four quarters of your base year.

From earlier in the same page:

In Washington state, the maximum weekly benefit amount is $604. The minimum is $143.

So, unemployment in WA is between $3718 and $15,704 if you claim it for the entire 26 week period. But it can’t be more than one third of your wages from your “base year” unless that means you would get less than $143 a week.

Even if you assume that the person is eligible for 52 weeks of benefits (that extra funding is phasing out) it is no more than $31,408 for a year and you would have to have had an annual base salary of over $94,000 to get it.

It could have sworn it was $700. Maybe I’m thinking of a different state.

Fine so $604 a week still works out to $33,810 a year equivalent of a job where you’d pay FICA of 7.65%. Not a bad gig for doing nothing all day long. It’s a great incentive to NOT look for work.

Not quite. That workforce was always a bunch of lazy slobs. But they had no choice other than to work. In comes Obama and tells these people, don’t worry, I got your back, no need to work anymore. Obama has made the rules so lax to get welfare, you basically need a pulse and not much more

Take a look at this graph.

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000

Unemployment was a nice low ~5% at the beggining of 2008. It was up to 8% in January 2009, when Obama took office. It reached its maximum - around 10% - in October of that year.

It doesn’t really make sense to blame Obama for that dramatic rise in unemployment. The painfully slow recovery is another matter.

You still didn’t read the part where in order to get the maximum benefit, you have to have an original salary of over $90K a year. Most people are getting a lot less.

And get laid off at the right time, correctly predicting when Congress would extend unemployment benefits.

Fine so $604 a week still works out to $33,810 a year equivalent of a job where you’d pay FICA of 7.65%. Not a bad gig for doing nothing all day long. It’s a great incentive to NOT look for work.

Yeah, but the Toyota write up guy isn’t getting that much. Maybe a Software Engineer laid off from Microsoft might, but he’d probably get another job.

As Polly pointed out, the benefit is at most 1/3 of your wages. Hardly an incentive to not work.

And in most states the UE benefit is far less generous.

Smithers is lying.

Like bananaboy, he constantly spews lies and canards.

Like bananaboy, he constantly spews lies and canards.

Actually 2banana is reasoble compared to mirther.

Sorry to feed the troll folks,

But I just came off UI a few months ago. As an independent contractor, I assure you I payed for every dime of the UI I took out the previous year and a half contract I worked.

And you DO have to pay taxes on your UI. It counts against your total income, so if you worked the first six months of a year and then got UI for the rest, they add the total up and tax you on that - you better hope you witheld enough from your UI checks(the default is to do like 10% witholding - you have to ASK them if you want nothing witheld) or you’ll end up owing the IRS at tax time.

Guys I’m pretty sure he’s just a 19 year old kid, about where I was at that age, listening to Rush “vicodan” Limbaugh, and lapping it up.

Then one day when I was having a hard time finding a job and Rush told me that “There will be no job loss from NAFTA. The majority of all laptops are still made in the US.”

Having disassembled my 386 laptop many times I KNEW that few to none of the components were US made. Rush Lied to me.

The same way Hannity, O’reilley, and everyone working for Rupert Murdoch does on a daily basis - by omitting crucial little facts that would completely alter any thinking person’s conclusions if they were known/considered. Using classic post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning, etc.

biggvs richardsvs:
How the heck did you collect UI when “independent contractors” don’t pay UI, at least not in Florida. UI is an EMPLOYER paid tax paid to the state based on W2 wages paid to cover state UI program. FUTA (federal UI) is based on the same W2 wages paid. Something doesn’t jive with your description.

One of the risks of taking just any job instead of collecting UI is that it may negatively affect one’s ability to get back into a job similar to the one that was lost. Taking a retail job degrades the resume of a software engineer. And the hours spent working at the retail job take time and energy from the SE job search.

At the same time, the retail job may be harder to get than another software engineering job. The retail establishment may prefer someone with experience in retail and rightly perceive the SE to be overqualified and likely to leave as soon as a SE job is found. In a tight labor market, there may be more qualified retail candidates available.

Volunteer or freelance work in one’s chosen profession do not have the same negatives as starting at the bottom in another line of work, especially a low status occupation that a HS kid can be trained to do in a couple of hours.

In this job market, the unemployed are being discriminated against. For many employers, being unemployed is a strike against a candidate. With many candidates competing for scarce jobs, an employer can afford to use employment status to weed out candidates. And they can use that as a criteria in place of some other protected attribute, such as age or race.

It is not just a dollars and cents calculation on the part of the unemployed person.

..wrong wrong wrong the autopsy proved he really did have vitiligo, a skin pigmentation disease…..maybe passed it on to his kids?????

and tattoos….

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/07/showbiz/jackson-death-trial

Full autopsy…interesting reading….
http://www.autopsyfiles.org/reports/Celebs/jackson,%20michael_report.pdf

So was the sperm donor.

Sperm donor credibly rumored to be Mark Lester, now a physician who played the title role in the 1968 movie version of “Oliver”.

Mark Lester

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/actor-dna-test-prove-fathered-jackson-kids-article-1.1335527

I thought it was Mark’s brother, Moe, that did it.

http;//www.breitbart.corn/obama-once-bit-my-sister/

obama-once-bit-my-sister/

She must be a b!tch.

I know math is hard for liberals

You mean the math where you cut taxes, increase military spending and balance the budget?

Please don’t feed the troll. Anyone who needs to resort to labeling people “Liberal” isn’t worth your time. Someday it will be found to be an Autism spectrum disease or something like that.

LOL

“The Military budget is the southern Republicans Welfare program…”

Really?

http://about.bgov.com/2011/11/18/bgov-special-report-defense-spending-state-by-state/

I didn’t know the mid-Atlantic states, California and the greater Seattle area were considered part of the South. You learn something new every day.

Yessir….those Southern Republicans rake the military spending in. Oh wait….

http://www.pbs.org/now/politics/defensemap.html

Evil Red State Military Spending…

Georgia:
Federal contract spending $6,850,338,000
Department of Defense spending $5,690,309,000

Alabama:
Federal contract spending $5,488,321,000
Department of Defense spending $4,594,457,000

Texas:
Federal contract spending $19,424,005,000
Department of Defense spending $13,149,553,000

COMPARE THAT TO….

California
Federal contract spending $32,842,383,000
Department of Defense spending $24,078,267,000

You were saying scdave…..