Bits Bucket for July 21, 2013
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
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Pippa Malmgren:
http://www.pippamalmgren.com/146.html
China plans to back Yuan with gold
“Some say, inflation is now dead. People are still swayed by the idea that the magnitude of debt is so great that it overwhelms these efforts. They are not yet convinced that the monetary stimulus is working. The fact that food, oil and other commodity prices are down, well at least for the last ten minutes, is further proof (for them) that there is no inflation. Though oil above 90 bucks is not exactly cheap. High food and energy prices continue to bear down on real people worldwide. Production closures due to cost overruns and shortages guarantee high prices for a long time to come.
The most interesting piece of the puzzle is that the Chinese have emerged as the biggest buyer of gold, mainly in large off market. They want the Yuan to emerge as a hard, gold-backed currency in a world where everyone else has chosen to inflate and devalue. The recent bilateral currency deals with Australia, France Russia and Singapore, and many others, reflect this desire to displace the USD as the world’s reserve currency. It may be an interesting and long race between the Chinese reaching for convertibility and the Western central banks straining credibility.”
Gold bulls have a rare chance to double up now. Gold bears will have a hard time doubling down from a record profit. Meanwhile, apparently the Indians and everybody else in the emerging markets recognizes a good deal when they see it. As inflation pain continues to make headlines from high tomato prices in Brazil to the same for onions in India, no emerging market investors have any illusions. Inflation for them is here for the duration. A gold backed Yuan is increasingly sounding like a sensible idea.” - Pippa Malmgren,
China plans to back Yuan with gold
a well run fiat doesn’t need to be backed by anything. look at the norwegian currency. it’s very strong and backed by nothing. what makes a fiat currency strong is a strong economy.
in a country with free markets and an honestly run fiat, you could bury the money for ten years and when you dug it up you would be able to buy more gold with it than when you buried it. the true cause of price inflation is a weakening economy, not monetary inflation.
Is the Norwegian economy very strong?
Where is their airbus? Where are their iPads? Where is their Google? I would expect their properly run fiat economy to be better than several European nations combined.
Fish + oil = trade surplus in perpetuity
Where is their airbus? Where are their iPads? Where is their Google?
if they stay the course they’re on (rolling back socialism), they will eventually get those kinds of innovations. if they get more efficient at production, their currency will rise enough for it not to matter who produces the oil and fish. their strong currency would be able to buy those products cheaper than anyone else. (if they had the strongest currency)
“Where is their airbus? Where are their iPads? Where is their Google?”
Yeah but they have “FREE” health care, so it’s all good dude.
Yeah but they have “FREE” health care, so it’s all good dude.
It’s not free. Norway spends 9% of their GDP on their health-care which covers everybody and they live longer than Americans.
America spends 17% of our GDP on health-care, does not cover everyone, and bankrupts and hog-ties our fellow citizens. So it’s all good dude.
America spends 17% of our GDP on health-care, does not cover everyone, and bankrupts and hog-ties our fellow citizens.
why is that?
Because we have 23 layers of middlemen between our doctors and our wallets?
Norway’s population is under 5 million. I think their industries are doing fine relative to its size.
Norway’s leaders are smart enough to understand that exploiting natural resources, especially oil, leads to prosperity. The leaders of pretty much every country on earth understand this.
Except one.
Norway’s leaders are smart enough to understand that exploiting natural resources, especially oil, leads to prosperity.
yes, the production of oil leads to prosperity. the production of any useful, labor saving product leads to prosperity.
“Norway’s leaders are smart enough to understand that exploiting natural resources, especially oil, leads to prosperity. The leaders of pretty much every country on earth understand this.”
Norway isn’t propping up the middle east awaiting Jesus’ return.
It’s their abundance of oil, not their Keynesianism policy, that is the reason their economy is doing so well.
Look at South Dakota. Very low unemployment rate just like Norway, but all because of the energy industry. The workers in South Dakota are enjoying the U.S. Keynesianism while much of the rest of the U.S. is not.
It’s their abundance of oil, not their Keynesianism policy, that is the reason their economy is doing so well.
it’s the production of their abundant oil that helps them. it’s also the start of producing other useful products that’s helping them. it’s the slow rollback of keynesianism/socialism that helps them. they are rejecting socialism. the more they reject it, the stronger they will get.
The workers in South Dakota are enjoying the U.S. Keynesianism while much of the rest of the U.S. is not.
they are enjoying the fruits of their production, not keynesianism.
It’s also their small population, which makes their government more accountable. See post below.
the production of oil leads to prosperity.
For the few, perhaps, but not necessarily for society as a whole. Ever heard of the curse of resource wealth?
For the few, perhaps, but not necessarily for society as a whole.
yes, for society as a whole.
Ever heard of the curse of resource wealth?
ever heard of gulliver or may poppins. they’re about as factual as your ‘curse’.
ever heard of gulliver or may poppins. they’re about as factual as your ‘curse’.
Here, pj, this is called backing up your points:
sorry alpo, but it’s no curse. there’s nothing mysterious about why some countries with resources don’t do well. i’ve explained it right here.
most countries will do well by exploiting their resources. the ones who don’t are too authoritarian or socialist. the bigger the resource, the more socialism it takes to overcome its benefits.
there is no curse, or ‘paradox of plenty’. as a matter of fact, it almost sounds like the author is attempting to debunk it. he says what the ‘curse’ refers to, but it doesn’t sound like he agrees that there really is a curse.
The author is wikipedia.
Could real world examples like Nigeria, most of central Africa, Russia, Libya, Iraq, etc, all of which are resource rich but have low overall standards of living, possibly suggest that resource wealth can actually be a curse?
The author is wikipedia.
no, the author is a person that gets wiki’s permission to post or add to an article.
Could real world examples like Nigeria, most of central Africa, Russia, Libya, Iraq, etc, all of which are resource rich but have low overall standards of living, possibly suggest that resource wealth can actually be a curse?
no. people that believe in curses believe in minstrels, myths, fantasies and witch-doctors. all of those places are steeped in ignorance. it’s like zimbabwe running a fiat currency. a total joke.
Norway has a Sovereign Wealth Fund where the surplus wealth produced by Norwegian petroleum income is held, with a current balance in excess of US$ 700billion, or over $145,000 per capita.
Norway is also the world’s leading producer of Norwegians. You can look it up.
what’s your point?
“a well run fiat doesn’t need to be backed by anything.”
Stop trying to pop gold bugs’ peace-of-mind bubble!
The last “gotcha” in monetarist economics is that it still requires a central bank.
Milton Friedman also was a strong proponent of the same thing, monetary policy. But monetarists are opposed to expansionist money supply, which is what’s going on. Does Norway have monetarism? Who does? While I think monetarism is far better than Keynesianism, it’s politically not feasible. Austrian economic policy - based on hard currency and no central bank) is so politically infeasible that no one applies it either.
Too many wolves voting on what’s for lunch and we are doomed to suffer the Keynes policy, which will increase the spot price of gold.
fiscal policy is much more important than monetary policy.
consider..
what would happen if interest rates were infinite? answer: borrowing would become impossible. but people would still work, produce and buy things.
what if taxes were infinite? answer: no one would work. everything would collapse.
If interest rates were infinite, people would NOT work. They would have money market funds and just spend the excess (infinite) amount deposited as interest.
if interest rates were infinite, no one could afford to buy money market funds in the first place.
if you want to say that some people would already own them, fine, but many people wouldn’t and those people would need to work.
i was only talking about lender interest rates. savings interest would have to be something less than infinite.
do you see the point i’m making?
do you see the point i’m making?
We rarely do. Your points seem to be statements that you hold to be self-evidently true, but most people do not.
We rarely do.
YOU rarely do.
Your points seem to be statements that you hold to be self-evidently true, but most people do not.
i can back up what i say with reason and logic. you rarely do.
i can back up what i say with reason and logic. you rarely do.
Yes, your point about infinite interest rates, that you had to immediately walk back (”i was only talking about lender interest rates. savings interest would have to be something less than infinite”) was a tour de force of reason and logic.
i didn’t walk anything back. explain how my clarification was not logical.
“explain how my clarification was not logical.”
Why limit the discussion to infinite interest rates? For good measure, why not increase the scope to consider infinite-sized deposit account balances, infinite worker lifetimes, or infinitely long periods until when QE3 ends ?
Why limit the discussion to infinite interest rates?
i didn’t. i included infinite tax rates.
For good measure, why not increase the scope to consider infinite-sized deposit account balances, infinite worker lifetimes, or infinitely long periods until when QE3 ends ?
because none of that compares monetary policy to fiscal policy which is what i was talking about.
The Founder’s, having already been through this fiat rigmarole, were clear on what constitutes money.
yes, they were clear on what money is. but even the founders didn’t fully understand how fiat currencies work. they only saw the failures. they didn’t know that fiats could work if run properly.
Which isn’t the case when you have dishonest, stupid and or self serving leaders, which is all we have experienced.
The smaller the country, the more accountable the politicians are and the more the population gives a hoot about proper government policies, Keynesian or not.
TJ made a good case for decentralizing the U.S. government and making the federal government very weak. This was the whole purpose of having independent states within the U.S.
So if the Polly’s and Oxides, and Alphas want a big nanny state and the high taxes while the Smithers and others want no taxes, there would theoretically be places for them to enjoy their politics.
The reality is that the lab experiment of dozens of different states with various government philosophies would clearly show which thrives and which does not, and being in the union it would make it very easy for people to vote with their feet. So the “progressives” who were worried about this made the federal government very powerful to stop this show casing laboratory experiment. Sad.
“the Polly’s and Oxides, and Alphas want a big nanny state and the high taxes”
They do.
“Smithers and others want no taxes”
Slithers only cares about keeping the Federal Reserve in power. Just like our blog socialists.
A gold backed Yuan is increasingly sounding like a sensible idea.” - Pippa Malmgren,
Pippa doesn’t have the greatest track record:
“In October 2011 she appeared in several news websites with an interview[3] she gave the german online journal Deutsche Mittelstands-Nachrichten in which she proclaimed that Germany would leave the joint european currency Euro and would go back to the D- Mark, stating that she believed that there were already new D-Mark notes being printed.[4]”
wikipedia
So if the Polly’s and Oxides, and Alphas want a big nanny state and the high taxes
I want a country here half the states aren’t racist redneck states with civil liberties for the few, vigilante justice, official religions (evangelical christian, of course), and jim crow laws. Hence, I oppose states rights.
The states have a long and terrible record of respecting peoples’ constitutional rights and civil liberties.
The states have a long and terrible record of respecting peoples’ constitutional rights and civil liberties.
then you can move to another state or get the law struck down or change it. if it’s the federal government, the only out is to move out of the country.
if it’s the federal government, the only out is to move out of the country
Or, um, “get the law struck down or change it”.
The reality is that the lab experiment of dozens of different states with various government philosophies would clearly show which thrives and which does not,
We don’t need no stinkin’ lab experiments. The Social Democracies kick our butt.
The 2012 Legatum Prosperity Index TM
A unique global inquiry into wealth and wellbeing
http://www.ibtimes.com/worlds-top-10-most-prosperous-countries-859412
1. Norway
2. Denmark
3. Sweden
4. Australia
5. New Zealand
6. Canada
7. Finland
8. Netherlands
9. Switzerland
10. Ireland
11. Luxemburg
12. USA
The Institute derives its index by analyzing eight categories: economy, education, entrepreneurship and opportunity, governance, health, personal freedom, safety and security, and social capital.
Or, um, “get the law struck down or change it”.
Much easier to vote with your feet. Especially if the deck has been stacked against you for any reason. Sometimes the easiest way for good productive people to make a difference is to go away. Of course that does involve a period of pain for those left behind who stacked the deck in the first place.
Much easier to vote with your feet.
Assuming you live in a country where you can easily move yourself and your property from state to state, with your rights being respected along the way.
Ask a black man who tried to move across the South in the 50s how well that worked under states rights.
Or, um, “get the law struck down or change it”.
see Carl’s answer below. much much harder to get federal laws changed.
much much harder to get federal laws changed
Harder than getting your car and u haul back from some local yokel sheriffs dept in rural Mississippi if you live in another state and had it seized as you passed through, on trumped-up charges, in a states rights union?
Harder than getting your car and u haul back from some local yokel sheriffs dept in rural Mississippi if you live in another state and had it seized as you passed through, on trumped-up charges, in a states rights union?
keep asking me stupid questions and i won’t even answer your serious ones.
why is that a stupid question
Because it came from a stupid person.
5 apples for 3 people = good economy
3 apple for 5 people = bad economy
3 apples for 3 people = Norway
WHY DON’T YOU AND ALL AND YOUR LIBERAL FRIENDS JUST MOVE THERE.
No, You would rather screw this country up as much as you can
instead.
Tantrums don’t help your cause, nor does finger pointing.
My thesis is there is no country with a diverse and large population and polarized politics with struggles between socialists on the left and socialists on the right that can ever have a properly run fiat economy.
Who wants to argue with me on this?
fiat economy
technically, there’s no such thing as a fiat(currency) economy because a currency can never ‘be’ an economy, only used by one. same thing for gold and other metal by weight currencies. gold isn’t an economy, it just can be used as a currency.
if you truly meant a ‘fiat economy’ you’re talking about a dictatorship. if you have a dictatorship, there won’t be much of an economy to kill in the first place.
it is socialism/communism/keynesianism that kills economies. it doesn’t matter what type of currency they use.
we could use gold as a currency again, it’s just that it could never be as efficient as a well run fiat. gold would have roughly its same value over time. but an honest fiat with a good economy would gain in value over time. THAT would be good for everyone.
Okay. Keynesian economy. Ours is arguably that.
yes, our keynesianism keeps moving us deeper into socialism. no matter what the GDP numbers say, our economy continues to worsen. there’s no such thing as a ‘jobless recovery’.
i’ve said repeatedly here than GDP isn’t the economy. of course almost no one will agree with me on this.
GDP isn’t the economy. of course almost no one will agree with me on this.
I agree. Most of the GDP growth only benefits the rich, so our “GDP growth” does not represent the health of the economy for most Americans.
Most of the GDP growth only benefits the rich,
wrong again. growing wealth benefits everyone, but i wouldn’t expect you to know that.
growing wealth benefits everyone,..only when everyone’s wealth is growing.
This is not the case in America.
Eroding middle class falls to 51%, survey finds August 23, 2012, LA Times
The core American belief that a large sector of the public enjoys economic and social mobility is not necessarily true anymore, a Pew study says.
August 23, 2012|By Rebecca Trounson, Los Angeles Times
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://stephenpruis.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/chart-wages-vs-productivity-1024×5811.png%3Fw%3D1024&imgrefurl=http://stephenpruis.wordpress.com/2012/12/30/its-time-for-labor-unions-to-get-off-their-asses/chart-wages-vs-productivity-1024×581-2/&h=581&w=1024&sz=155&tbnid=Azo4CoL2v3oHvM:&tbnh=69&tbnw=122&zoom=1&usg=__wPnATmSFhiH81muxXn8juspfJvA=&docid=3_guJivZYCC7JM&sa=X&ei=I2rsUf20LIzu8ASLmYHIDg&ved=0CDcQ9QEwAw&dur=1697
>wrong again. growing wealth benefits everyone, but i wouldn’t expect you to know that.
Thousands of studies easily found on google show that in this country, that hasn’t been true for decades.
But my favorite one is this: http://www.halfhill.com/inflation.html
i know what happens to the wealth. do you?
i know what happens to the wealth. do you?
Yes.
What happens to wealth in the USA:
It gets redistributed from the middle-class to the rich due to supply-side/trickle-down, proven to have failed lunacy.
It gets redistributed from the middle-class to the rich
so it gets stolen from the middle class and given to the rich. how does that happen?
due to supply-side/trickle-down, proven to have failed lunacy.
the true failed lunacy is socialism/communism/marxism.
the true failed lunacy is …hoping right-wingers will even look at facts that conflict with their proven-to-have-failed dogma.
what makes a fiat currency strong is a strong economy.
Kind of. I think what makes a currency strong is a strong country…which includes a well run economy and lots of resources and/or value added production. Somebody here years ago described a unit of fiat as being the same as a share in a company, only in this case it’s a share in a country. Makes sense to me.
Kind of. I think what makes a currency strong is a strong country…
the two amount to the same thing.
which includes a well run economy
a classic mistake Carl. ‘running’ and economy implies controlling it. don’t think of it that way. think instead of a strong economy that doesn’t get interfered with. such an economy will strengthen and grow.
and lots of resources and/or value added production.
where the resources come from doesn’t really matter. they can actually come from a different country. the key in your statement is in ‘value added production’. that’s where the strength comes from.
Somebody here years ago described a unit of fiat as being the same as a share in a company, only in this case it’s a share in a country. Makes sense to me.
it’s easy to think of it that way, but it’s not really accurate. government can never be a business because it doesn’t feel or respond to market forces.
‘running’ and economy implies controlling it. don’t think of it that way. think instead of a strong economy that doesn’t get interfered with. such an economy will strengthen and grow.
Tomato, Tomahto. It still has to be regulated carefully or it will turn into something that does not strengthen and grow.
it’s easy to think of it that way, but it’s not really accurate. government can never be a business because it doesn’t feel or respond to market forces.
Perhaps your vision of “stock” is a little narrow. I can see how a country could issue stock and call them dollars. Doesn’t mean I think government is a business.
It still has to be regulated carefully or it will turn into something that does not strengthen and grow.
certain forms of regulation are necessary to protect the rights of others. regulation on pollution is one example. but largely, an economy grows much better with much less regulation than we have now and with much lower taxes.
I agree, except for a few areas where we need more GOOD regulation. Such as Glass-Steagall or a modern equivalent.
but we only needed glass-steagall because we put the taxpayers on the hook with the FDIC. without the FDIC there’d be no reason for glass-steagall. and we are in a much worse situation now because of the FDIC. they don’t have near enough money to cover deposits if banks start to fail en-mass.
We need politicians who are not morally bankrupt.
TJ, do you have any clue why the FDIC was created?
I swear your posts make it seem like you are still in college.
oh boy, at long last you want to play..
TJ, do you have any clue why the FDIC was created?
yes, but if you think YOU do, tell me and we can discuss it.
I swear your posts make it seem like you are still in college.
smarmy little personal attacks won’t help you.
“…smarmy little personal attacks won’t help you….”
Translation:
They laughed my thesis out of the program.
will the losses of the next housing bust be passed on to taxpayers again?
I was for the S&L disaster and was this last time.
What do you think?
Im not saying Zimmerman is a racist, Im just trying to point out that you need a license to hunt down criminals and Zimmerman did not obtain one.
yes, that’s true and has been true for a very long time. but you stated that GZ was coon hunting, and that made it sound like you thought he was a racist hunting black men.
Law enforcement has long had this “license” to LEGALLY shoot and kill unarmed black males by claiming “I feared for my life.”
yes, and now they’re doing it to everyone, not just blacks.
The “Castle Doctrine” made “coon hunting” without a license legal on private property.
yes, and i agree with it. i can’t tell if you do or not.
“Stand Your Ground” is an attempt to expand this privilege from law enforcement to the adult law abiding population in the PUBLIC area.
i view the right to self defense as an absolute. if someone is being attacked, they have the right to defend themselves no matter where they are.
Trust me, I know we got a “coon problem”; I just got robbed last August 14th!!!
i’m sorry to hear that.
Zimmerman was TRYING to solve the problem. Did he do the correct thing?
he didn’t make the best moves, but none of that gave martin the right to attack him.
Not this time; but that is the nature of men. We try to solve problems even though we sometimes make mistakes, and/or make things worse; I know because I am one of them.
this shows profound understanding.
We are still learning.
true.
Which side of this argument are you on? And who is your opponent?
Which side of this argument are you on?
i believe the right to self defense is absolute.
And who is your opponent?
anyone who wants to limit the right to self defense.
Self defense is one of the most fundamental individual right one can have. Which is why Obama, Holder and the MSM despise it. They loathe anything that gets in the way of complete govt control over the individual. This has nothing to do with Traevonn and everything to do with advancing govt power.
agreed, Mr. Smithers.
“They loathe anything that gets in the way of complete govt control over the individual.”
In what sense is giving criminals the right to attack law abiding citizens without fear of getting shot in legal self defense tantamount to ‘complete government control’?
It seems like the control in this case would be handed over to criminals, most of whom presumably do not hold down government jobs.
The scarecrow.
My right to self defense is absolute. And your right to self defense is absolute. It does not matter what type of firearms I have or how many rounds my magazines hold. No one has any authority to forbid me to defend myself with my Glock 17 or my AR15 (which are two big reasons why I remain an Arizona resident), although commited to work in the OC for several years.
Self-defense is a matter of degree. Do I get to burn down my neighbor’s house because his barking dogs disturb my sleep?
Where do we draw the line? Isn’t law enforcement an excuse not to take the consequences of our own self-defense?
How long have your neighbor’s dogs been disturbing your sleep?
Not since I burned down their house….
Self-defense is a matter of degree. Do I get to burn down my neighbor’s house because his barking dogs disturb my sleep?
self defense is not a matter of degree. evidently you don’t understand what self defense is.
My right to self defense is absolute
If a 3 year old squirts you with a squirt gun, do you have the right to shoot him dead? He’s attacking you, right?
And evidently YOU don’t understand nuance.
I suppose one could consider the barking of a neighbor’s dog to be life threatening under certain circumstances, but I’m not sure the courts would agree.
your ‘nuance’ is nonsense.
Pig strays onto a neighbor’s property one night and uproots an entire season’s worth of plantings. Neighbor confiscates pig as compensation.
Pig’s owner and sons approach in the middle of night in attempt to retake illegally-confiscated pig. Warning shots are fired and returned; somehow in the exchange the neighbor’s son is shot and killed….
The county sheriff is married to the neighbor’s cousin.
The neighbor’s son had long been bullied by the pig owner’s uncle.
Thus began the Hatfield/McCoy family feud. Who acted in self-defense here?
If a 3 year old squirts you with a squirt gun, do you have the right to shoot him dead? He’s attacking you, right?
another nonsense argument. you don’t understand what self defense is either.
Warning shots are fired and returned; somehow in the exchange the neighbor’s son is shot and killed….
Who acted in self-defense here?
you don’t give enough information to know who acted in self defense.
And once again, you rest my case.
Nuance is why we have a court system to define and interpret fault.
And once again, you rest my case.
you didn’t make your case. the investigators gather the evidence and the courts decide guilt or innocence. but that doesn’t diminish one’s right to self defense. again, the right of self defense is, TO ME, absolute. but of course that hasn’t been true in this country for many years. and it’s a major reason we see crime like flash mobs and the like soaring here.
“Pig strays onto a neighbor’s property one night and uproots an entire season’s worth of plantings”
A man walked into a bar, leading an alligator by a leash. He asked the bartender, “Do you serve lawyers here?”
“Sure do,” said the bartender.
“Good,” replied the man. “Give me a beer, and I’ll have a lawyer for my alligator.”
you don’t understand what self defense is either.
I just wanted to know what an absolute right to self defense is.
Liberals can always find a “gray” area, just like defense lawyers.
I just wanted to know what an absolute right to self defense is.
no you didn’t. your agenda is to confuse the issue with complete nonsense.
Liberals can always find a “gray” area,
The real world has a funny way of having lots of gray areas.
Communists love to spin words and turn it all around to give credence to thugocracy.
confuse the issue with complete nonsense.
If I pursue somebody and they attack me, do I have the right to shoot them if I fear for my life?
If I am pursued for a length of time by some stranger, even after I have run from them, do I have the right to shoot them if they close in on me and I fear for my life?
If I pursue somebody and they attack me, do I have the right to shoot them if I fear for my life?
yes
If I am pursued for a length of time by some stranger, even after I have run from them, do I have the right to shoot them if they close in on me and I fear for my life?
if they are closing in and close enough to physically attack you, yes. if they aren’t that close, no.
So if one person is pursuing another person, they both have the right to shoot each other if the one closes in on the other, and the other pulls a gun out?
I got a CCW and took training. You get the rundown on what you can do and cannot do in the states with castle doctrine. Castle doctrine includes your home and your car. In man cases lethal use to kill the attacker is justified if you ink your life is in danger.
I weigh 165. So a 190 lb person threatening me in my apartment in Arizona to the point where I think my life is in danger, well I could shoot to kill regardless of whether that person has a gun.
So if one person is pursuing another person, they both have the right to shoot each other if the one closes in on the other, and the other pulls a gun out?
only the person attacked and/or in fear of his life has the right to shoot. once there is a shooting, the courts will have to sort it out.
“If a 3 year old squirts you with a squirt gun…”
It wasn’t a three year old, it was a six year old, and he had one of those yard long pumper water rifles. Neighborhood picnic. Not satisfied to douse me, he held it by the barrel and whacked me on the back of the head with the water filled butt.
Rather than extinguish the worthless little rug rat’s life, I carried him on my shoulder to the compost pile and stuffed his shirt with wet slimy decaying leaves, leaving him there to cry for his mommy. This was a brat that I had on occasion watched for his parents in their times of inconvenience. His father considered my action unjust, and has never spoken to me again. The boy grew up to play the piccolo, so I heard.
once there is a shooting, the courts will have to sort it out.
Oh. Thanks for clearing that up.
and he had one of those yard long pumper water rifles…
…it was dusk, and I had been out patrolling the neighborhood for some vandals who had been destroying mailboxes, breaking into cars. In the twilight, I mistook his “long pumper water rifle” for the real thing, and I shot him dead, fearing for my life.
-Sounds justifiable to me.
If I am pursued for a length of time by some stranger, even after I have run from them, do I have the right to shoot them if they close in on me and I fear for my life?
Don’t know. What I do know is if you’re a kid visiting a new neighborhood and find yourself in that situation and can and do easily outrun your pursuer, why not just run to your dad’s house and let him handle it?
why not just run to your dad’s house and let him handle it?
What if he got lost? Doesn’t seem unlikely in a strange neighborhood at night, with a stranger pursuing you. And then he panicked when Zim closed in on him. Hard to imagine he’d set up an ambush when we’re told he wanted to get home and do his drugs (that were never found in his system). And when he wasn’t armed.
Don’t know
Well, that’s one of those big gray areas isn’t it? The ones that argue against “an absolute right to self defense”, that some claim, especially under stand your ground laws.
Charles Krauthammer
Opinion Writer
The Zimmerman case: A touch of sanity
By Charles Krauthammer, Published: July 18
“No justice, no peace,” chants the telegenic mob. In a civilized society, however, where the mob doesn’t rule, justice is defined by the verdict that follows a fair trial. It’s the best that humans can do.
And in the case of George Zimmerman, we have a verdict. It followed a trial every minute of which was seen by the world. Nothing secret, nothing hidden. Where in the trial was there racial bias? What evidence of the case being tilted toward the defendant because the victim was black? What sign of any racial animus in the jury?
Those undeniable realities have not prevented Benjamin Crump, attorney to the victim’s family, from placing Trayvon Martin in the tradition of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers.
This is a disgrace. Those were race crimes of the most savage and undeniable kind. To compare those to a shooting deemed by an impartial jury after a fair and fully open trial as a case of self-defense is to desecrate their memory and to trivialize centuries of real, brutal, bloody race hatred.
…
FWIW, you might say that Trayvon Martin is the Terri Schiavo of his day.
What I mean by that is that BOTH factions are equally culpable of getting people worked up over “social” issues while they pick the pockets of the citizens and go about other nefarious business, like wars and bubbles and bail-outs and the surveillance state, etc. Typical criminal diversion tactics. Shrub and his merry band of neo-cons (Karl Rove et al) worked that game pretty well. But the neolibs aren’t too shabby at it, either. “Right to life” is so yesterday, except for in Texas. The most up to date issue to be used as a diversion is race, in fact some pundits have opined that Zimmerman prosecution was nothing more than a cynical ploy to get out the black vote for Obama in 2012.
Gun control and Stand Your Ground laws and Voting Rights laws are secondary to the central “social issue” of race.
It’s sort of interesting to look at it from that standpoint. Also note both incidents used to inflame the emotions around these social issues happened in Florida, a battleground state.
Keep the peeps fighting amongst themselves.
are equally culpable of getting people worked up over “social” issues while they pick the pockets
Your were leading the pack of alarmists, predicting riots and jury lynchings if Zim walked. Well , he walked, nothing much really happened, and now you’re talking about how everyone gets over-excited by these distractions?
I assume you’re honest enough to include yourself in the group of the overly excitable and easily distracted?
‘Keep the peeps fighting amongst themselves’
That’s pretty much all alpha sloth is interested in.
Here’s something about this trial that I haven’t seen mentioned; I didn’t hear much evidence that the guy was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The court system is stacked in favor of the accused, and it’s a high standard of evidence to put someone in prison. I would think minorities would cherish that fact as minorities are often accused of crimes.
But for the fact that those laws are applied unequally depending upon one’s socio-economic status.
‘But for the fact that those laws are applied unequally depending upon one’s socio-economic status’
An opinion that true or not, has no bearing on the guilt or innocence of any one accused. A jury is tasked to consider only the evidence presented in court. From a casual observance of what some posters here say, we’ve can fill a few miles of casks with sour grape whine.
That’s assuming the guilty are even brought to accounts for their misdeeds. See: Wall Street c. 2007
That’s pretty much all alpha sloth is interested in.
So I’m an agent for the PTB, arguing that we should raise taxes on them?
Nah! Just a flunkee agent of the communist wing.
Mistrial?
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/07/20/new-accusations-against-zimmerman-jurors-as-sheriffs-office-admits-it-allowed-unsupervised-access/
I thieved this from Zero Hedge, who apparently picked it up from Yahoo! Finance. The article itself is profoundly bizarre and the comments are hilarious at times.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-20/confessions-keynesian-debt-serf?page=1
Sick. That’s just sick if it’s authentic but I don’t believe it’s real. Some of the downright absurdities are glaring. He paid $2,000 for sparky to install some recessed cans? Seriously? There are other dead giveaways too. Multiple paragraphs sprinkled with the word “home” instead of house. Women, effeminate men and realtors call houses “home”. Not Joe6Pak.
This is an article drafted and published by the HCS (lying realtors, mortgage brokers, etc) which makes it all the more sick.
You seem to know quite a bit about effeminate men.
You’re a realtor and effeminate? Imagine that.
From the posters of the article:
“despite our best efforts to discern the thinnest thread of satire, sarcasm or self-deprecating humor, it appears that the author of the article was dead serious.”
I completely disagree. Looks as though the author bought a house, is shocked at how much he’s spending and doesn’t like it. But he figures, at least for the sake of an amusing article, that he should find that one silver lining in the cloud. I couldn’t find one commenter there who agreed with me, but I stand by my opinion.
Yeah, I thought the irony was readily apparent. Part of the irony being that what he was saying was true (consumer spending driving the economy), although he was stating it ruefully.
Will the financial aftereffects from the Detroit bankruptcy more closely resemble a ripple or a tsunami?
ripple they will print some money and throw some towards the union supporters.
July 19, 2013, 10:03 pm
We Have to Step In and Save Detroit
By STEVEN RATTNER
For months, the question in many minds has been not whether Detroit would file for bankruptcy, but when.
But while Detroit’s decision this week to enter bankruptcy might make it easier to improve the city’s fiscal position, it will prove far tougher to design and implement an effective restructuring for Detroit than it was to put General Motors and Chrysler through Chapter 11.
That’s partly because municipal defaults are handled under a different section of the law — Chapter 9 instead of Chapter 11. The latter, which governs companies, includes a provision that allowed General Motors, the city’s largest company, to take a quick, 39-day rinse in bankruptcy.
Cities must go the slow route, almost certainly at least a year in Detroit’s case. Such lengthy bankruptcies are costly, not just in fees but more so in distraction for city officials and uncertainty for local businesspeople.
More important, Detroit is in far worse shape than the auto companies were in 2009. Its steadily declining population has meant falling tax revenues and, because it is difficult to cut expenses as quickly as revenues slip, six consecutive years of deficits.
…
This is all so very confusing. Didn’t St. Barrack of Chicago declare that he saved Detroit from going Bankrupt last year? Next thing you’ll tell me he also lied about no new taxes for anyone making under $250K.
Its a lot like Greece and the EU. You’ll have to repeatedly save it every couple of months, in perpetuity.
Cities, states, countries, civilizations come and go. Look at the ruins of all the once-thriving abandoned cities and city-states of the ancient (and even not so ancient) world. It happens. Why should Detroit, or for that matter, any city that currently exists be any different?
Cities, states, countries, civilizations come and go.
poor societies need the work ethic to survive. it seems as a society gets wealthier, it loses its morality.
“it seems as a society gets wealthier, it loses its morality.”
I’m glad you said “seems”. It’s when a society gets poorer that it loses its morality.
It’s when a society gets poorer that it loses its morality.
a society gets poorer because it begins to lose its morality.
free markets can’t work without standard morality.
The fish rots from the head.
The fish rots from the head.
you’re even wrong about that.. as usual.
You should see the comments section. The ratio of let Detroit get its just dessert vs. saving it were about 20 to 1. The NYT quickly removed the op ed from the front page. It was gone inless than one day. Typically op eds remain on a few days. You can still read but you just have search for it in past articles. The also are have not added any more comments.
Guess that that trial balloon was a flop.
The also are have not added any more comments. =
They also have not added any more comments. Sorry pre-coffee. And the stop adding comments after 400 of them.
“The NYT quickly removed the op ed from the front page.”
I haven’t seen the MSM exonerate Meredith Whitney yet.
she was on the tube calling for more edu spending- childless or clue less?- look at school spending in your county/sate it’s a big multiple of gdp/population
Public education is a direct function of local school boards, which are elected by their LOCAL populace.
90% of public education’s problems are the direct result of the local voters.
“Public education is a direct function of local school boards, which are elected by their LOCAL populace.
90% of public education’s problems are the direct result of the local voters.”
Then we should be able to easily eliminate the US Department of Education. Right?
Wasn’t this RATner guy involved in saving detroit 4 yrs ago?
ha-ha, Rattner’s a Wall Street shill and was heavily involved in pension funds. Survived a scandal due to powerful friends.
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/02/19/steve-rattner-rehab/
Yeah, he’s “rehabilitated” all right. You just know he must have a client or two with grubby fingers in the the Detroit pension funds.
Having said that, in the matter of pension funds, my humble opinion is that pensioners should get paid before any investors do. Always. About time investors took their lumps.
“We Have to Step In and Save Detroit”
If I recall, sizzurp posted an article yesterday from Salon where the righteous journalist opined that Detroit should be merged with its more prosperous suburbs, his reason being that many who lived in those suburbs fled Detroit as it started to decline and they owe those pensionsers something because the pensionsers (cops, firefighters, other public servants) served them while they lived in Detroit.
As if. How absurd can that get? I was born in NY and lived there for my formative years. Yes, indeed, I did benefit from city services while I lived there as a kid, so did other members of my family. Does that mean if NY gets in trouble in the future, I should get a bill from NY to contribute toward the pensioners who may get stiffed?
What about folks who moved to the Detroit suburbs from somewhere other than the city of Detroit, should they be responsible for Detroit pensioners?
BTW, some of the surrounding areas of Atlanta are trying to break free of the city because they’re tired of being shaken down on behalf of the urban core.
At this point, if I had a property in the Detroit ‘burbs, I’d sell it ASAP if I could and move on.
‘from each according to his abilities, to each according to his union pension agreement’
Although if I was a retired Detroit LEO, I’d be pretty pizzed after having stuck it out in the most dangerous city in the US, only to get stiffed in the end.
They are going to get what they deserve.
Public unions are largest political campaign donors
The also imitated with violence any political opposition
No democrat can win without public union support and money
Democrats pay back the public unions with sweetheart contracts
Democrats think they can raise taxes to infinity to pay for their public union promises
Detroit has over 60 years of unbroken democrat rule
Retired public union goons deserve everything coming to them.
Although if I was a retired Detroit LEO, I’d be pretty pizzed after having stuck it out in the most dangerous city in the US, only to get stiffed in the end.
cabana boy, wake up. The 1960s are long gone. You’re having some kind of flashback.
Now go fetch my towel.
We Have to Step In and Save Detroit
———————–
Let me translate:
Detroit (and nearly all public union goon + free sh*t army cities) vote 99-2 for democrats.
In Detroit alone - we are talking about 700,000 reliable zombie democrat votes.
They can NOT be made to suffer for the consequences of democrat policies.
Why, they might wise up! Even vote for something else.
Better to keep them on the democrat plantation and save them.
Didn’t we already “save Detroit” when we bailed out the auto industry?
“Didn’t we already “save Detroit” when we bailed out the auto industry?”
That’s what I thought.
I’m waiting to get one of those dividend checks from the taxpayer “bailouts”.
30 years of sending car making jobs offshore destroyed Detroit.
30 years of sending car making jobs offshore destroyed Detroit.
you libs sent them offshore.
30 years of sending car making jobs offshore destroyed Detroit.
you libs sent them offshore.
Republicans block ending offshore jobs tax breaks Sep 28, 2010
Reuters) - Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic bill on Tuesday to end tax deductions enjoyed by companies that close their U.S. plants and move overseas.
With a largely party-line vote of 53-45, Democrats failed to muster the 60 votes needed to clear a Republican procedural hurdle against the measure, which would also give employers a tax break to hire new U.S. workers.
And 2 years later:
Republicans Filibuster Bill Ending Tax Breaks For Shipping Jobs Out Of Country!
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-johnson/44432/republicans-filibuster-bill-ending-tax-breaks-for-shipping-jobs-out-of-country
Corporate America | Legislation | Taxes
by Dave Johnson | July 20, 2012 - 8:49am
Senate Republicans today FILIBUSTERED to block a bill ending the tax breaks companies get when they send our jobs out of the country — and giving a few breaks to companies that hire here. The question now: will this get reported to the public? Will they be told this was a Republican filibuster, or just that “The Senate” “blocked” the bill? And will we ever know which companies — and countries — paid Republicans to kill this bill.
you libs sent (jobs) offshore.
In a pigs eye.
Republican Record on Shipping American Jobs Overseas
http://thegavel.democraticleader.house.gov/?p=5433
While House Democrats are working on a “Make It In America” strategy to create jobs right here in the United States for American workers, Republicans have blocked efforts to clamp down on tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas.
During the 2000s, U.S. multinational companies cut their work forces in the U.S. by 2.9 million while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million. [Wall Street Journal, 4/19/11] Yet in the last 18 months, Republicans have voted 13 times:
against considering Democratic efforts to prevent or discourage the shipping of American jobs overseas and to crack down on offshore tax havens; and
in favor of pro-outsourcing measures.
For the last decade, Republicans have fought to keep, and even expand, corporate tax loopholes that reward outsourcing of American jobs and hurt American families and the economy (fully detailed here). President Obama noted in 2010, “Over the last four years alone, Republicans in the House voted 11 times to continue rewarding corporations that create jobs and profits overseas – a policy that costs taxpayers billions of dollars every year.” [10/16/10]
2011-2012
Since taking control of the House in 2011, Republicans have voted:
For the GOP Job Outsourcers’ Bill of Rights that makes it easier for corporations to send American jobs overseas and weakens the rights of middle class workers – allowing employers to relocate their operations to punish employees for exercising their rights to organize, demand better benefits and safer working conditions, and ensure a full day’s pay for an honest day’s work. [Vote 711, 9/15/11, AFL-CIO]
Against the Democratic budget that rewards companies that choose to invest in or bring back jobs to America with a 20 percent tax credit, eliminates tax advantages for companies moving jobs overseas, as proposed by President Obama, and closes loopholes that allow businesses to avoid taxes by sheltering earnings in foreign tax havens. [Vote 150, 3/29/12]
Against considering the Bring Jobs Home Act – the President’s proposal to reward companies that choose to invest in or bring back jobs to America with a 20 percent tax credit, and to eliminate tax advantages for companies moving jobs overseas. [The Record, Vote 456, 7/10/12]
Against stopping businesses that outsource American jobs from receiving a 20 percent business tax deduction. [Times Republican, Vote 176, 4/19/12]
Against stopping companies that ship jobs overseas from taking advantage of the repeal of the medical device tax. [Vote 360, 6/7/12]
Against ending government contracts that reward corporations that ship American jobs overseas. [Release, Vote 19, 1/25/11]
Against considering the U.S. Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act to help revitalize a U.S. call center industry that has lost over 500,000 jobs just in the past six years. The measure includes incentives to reduce outsourcing by requiring call centers to notify the Secretary of Labor at least 120 days before relocating outside of the U.S., and giving preference in contracts to employers who keep their call centers at home. [Paramus Post, Vote 381, 6/19/12]
etc. etc. etc.
“30 years of sending car making jobs offshore destroyed Detroit.”
Actually I will offer to share the blame here. I grew up driving the crappy cars the Big Three Detroit automakers made when they had a monopoly lock on automotive production. I watched my dad blow his hard-earned money on regular visits to the mechanic, in a futile attempt to nurse his POS Detroit junkers back to health. And the first car I regularly drove, a Chevy Impala, is the last one that ever broke down on me while I drove it.
Then in the early 1980s a company called Honda Motors started manufacturing cars. They took suggestions on quality control from an American named W. Edwards Deming who first tried to sell his ideas to the captains of American industry where he was roundly ignored. The first Honda I owned was already old and rusty when I purchased it, but it lasted me about another 100,000 miles with very few mechanical problems. My wife and I have subsequently owned four more Japanese cars since the first Honda I bought back in the 1980s. Call me unpatriotic if you want, but the Japanese auto manufacturers were clever enough to set up production here in America — buying Japanese supports American jobs!
If you want to play the blame game, then a good place to look would be the captains of the American automotive industry, both union bosses and management, who became so complacent during the period when they had an oligopoly lock on the market that they let their product standards slip. They seemed to assume that if they made a crappy product that broke down in less than five years, consumers would be forced to replace it with another piece of crap sooner, bringing more profits to the Big Three. Armed with W. Edwards Deming’s insights, the Japanese auto companies kicked their butts.
Senate Republicans blocked a Democratic bill on Tuesday to end tax deductions enjoyed by companies that close their U.S. plants and move overseas.
yep, you’d rather see that no one has a job than keep the deductions. you really have no clue how ignorant you are. if companies can’t keep going by hiring overseas, they won’t make it and you’ll get NO taxes from them.
During the 2000s, U.S. multinational companies cut their work forces in the U.S. by 2.9 million while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million. [Wall Street Journal, 4/19/11] Yet in the last 18 months, Republicans have voted 13 times:
yep, all due to high taxes and increasing regs that keep our labor noncompetitive.
“weak the rights of american workers”.. the battle cry of a true communist.
tell me, what ‘rights’ does a worker have? he has the right to quit if he doesn’t like his job. he has the right not to take the job in the first place. and since it’s the employer’s money, it’s his right to fire the worker at any time for anything.
all the rest of it is drivel as well. you don’t make arguments. you just post liberal trash.
you’d rather see that no one has a job than keep the deductions.
Read above. You are attempting to argue using one of the Red herring fallacies:
Straw man – an argument based on misrepresentation of an opponent’s position[66]wiki
if companies can’t keep going by hiring overseas, they won’t make it….
Really? Tell that to Germany with their “high taxes”, “socialism” and their strong unions.
The Secrets of Germany’s Success
What Europe’s Manufacturing Powerhouse Can Teach America
July/August 2011
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67899/steven-rattner/the-secrets-of-germanys-success
As Americans fret about their economic decline, Germans are celebrating their country’s success as a manufacturing juggernaut. Obama’s former auto czar explains the key to Germany’s export boom — and how the United States can emulate it.
As the eurozone’s biggest economy, it was Germany’s job to stabilize the system when the first signs of financial trouble appeared. Instead, it did precisely the opposite. Whether the euro survives depends on Frankfurt finally assuming its role as leader.
As Americans fret about persistent economic challenges, particularly high unemployment, a nearly opposite mood pervades Germany. Neither the economic crises in the rest of the eurozone nor the instability in the Middle East has dampened a deep-seated conviction among German business leaders and economists that two decades after the costly reintegration of East Germany the country has reestablished its position as an economic juggernaut.
….By the time U.S. President Barack Obama was telling Americans in his January 2011 State of the Union address that the United States needed to double its exports, Germany had quietly become the world’s second-largest exporter (after China). Indeed, Germany’s exports have contributed two-thirds of the country’s economic growth over the past decade and have driven its GDP per capita to increase faster than that of any other major industrialized country.
yep, all due to high taxes and increasing regs that keep our labor noncompetitive.
We lowered import tariffs to to almost nothing - you know, to make the rich get richer.
GATT, NAFTA, MFN. The economic history of your country is your friend. You should bone up on it.
what ‘rights’ does a worker have?
In America today? Not to many compared to the recent past. That’s why we’re screwed by the uber-rich.
Do workers have rights?
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-09-03/news/bs-ed-labor-law-20120903_1_legal-rights-employer-american-workers
State of labor law has eroded to the point where employees with grievances have severely limited options. September 03, 2012|By Michael Hayes
For more than 75 years, American workers have had legal rights to work together to improve their jobs and their workplaces. But the effectiveness of these rights has diminished over the past 30 years, and now it’s questionable whether they’re meaningful at all. Should those rights be revitalized, or should employment rights and policies move in a new direction for the coming years and decades?
….The current disregard of workers’ rights and interests is all the more surprising — and disappointing — because the strength of worker rights has a direct impact on other key questions, such as all Americans’ standard of living, their retirement security and income, and access to health care. As worker rights have eroded, these other aspects of Americans’ quality of life have also declined. And that’s no coincidence….
….The influence of union agreements led to features of American workplaces and life that are familiar to most Americans, though for many those things no longer exist. For decades, pay increases were annual or at least regularly granted. Most American workers also had guaranteed pensions or other retirement payments to be provided by the employer, a key part of the “three-legged stool” (Social Security, retirement benefits of employment, and personal savings) approach to lifelong earnings. Employer-provided health insurance also became common.
July 21, 2013, 12:26 PM
Detroit Mayor Doesn’t Rule Out Federal Bailout
By Sudeep Reddy
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing on Sunday left the door open for a federal bailout after the city’s bankruptcy filing, saying the nation’s response would “set a benchmark” for aiding other struggling cities.
Asked directly whether Detroit would seek a federal bailout, Mr. Bing said “not yet.”
“I think it’s very difficult right now to ask directly for support,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“I have gotten great support from this administration. I’ve got great support from a lot of the different departments within the administration,” Mr Bing said of the Obama administration. “They have been helpful, but now that we’ve done our bankruptcy filing, I think we’ve got to take a step back and see what’s next. There’s a lot of conversation, a lot of planning, a lot of negotiations that will go into fixing our city.”
More than 100 urban U.S. cities “are having the same problems we’re having,” Mr. Bing said. “We may be one of the first. We are the largest. But we absolutely will not be the last. And so we have got to set a benchmark in terms how to fix our cities.”
Mr. Bing said Detroit first needs to develop a plan to invest any money it would receive. He said he would be more specific in the coming weeks about his discussions with the federal government. “I’m not sure exactly what to ask for. I mean, money is going help, no doubt about that, but how much?”
Republican Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, appearing on other Sunday news programs, also left the door open for federal bailout money. “If the federal government wants to do that, that’s their option,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” But he added, “I don’t view that as the right answer.”
…
What are the implications of this bankruptcy filing for owners of muni bond debt in other hollowed-out Midwest cities?
Detroit bankruptcy rattles muni bond investors
Matt Krantz, USA TODAY 2:46 p.m. EDT July 19, 2013
(Photo: Bill Pugliano, Getty Images)
Story Highlights
Muni bond investors are fearful of the affect of Detroit’s bankruptcy
Detroit bonds had been trading down ahead of the news
High-yield muni bonds are not reacting strongly to the news, yet
Detroit’s bankruptcy protection filing is introducing the word fear to the vocabulary of investors who have sought shelter in the municipal bond market.
Already, municipal bond owners and the cities themselves are wondering if the long reputation that municipal bonds were a safe place to be is a faulty assumption now that Motor City has filed.
Hardest hit so far have been Detroit’s pension fund taxable securities, which are trading for between 30 cents and 40 cents on the dollar, says Matt Fabian of Municipal Market Advisors. But the real test for the municipal bond market will come next week as individual investors assess their positions and decide if adjustments are needed, he says. “Detroit’s paper is taking it on the chin,” Fabian says. “But the question is if retail (investors) sell off (municipal bonds beyond Detroit) next week or the week after …. it takes them longer to react.”
…
“Detroit’s bankruptcy protection filing is introducing the word fear to the vocabulary of investors who have sought shelter in the municipal bond market.”
I haven’t seen the MSM exonerate Meredith Whitney yet.
“What are the implications of this bankruptcy filing for owners of muni bond debt in other hollowed-out Midwest cities?”
Poof! Poof! Poof!
Although, never put it past TPTB to come up with some “creative” solution. I think the Salon.com article has foretold the shape of things to come. Detroit is about to get a lot bigger, as they graft the suburbs onto it. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised. The taxpayers will be on the hook. What, no tax base in Detroit? No problem. Just conscript the suburbs.
Just conscript the suburbs.
One of the smartest things my city ever did was make itself an “urban county”, in which the city and county are a unified single government. Minimized duplication of services, and made white flight to nearby low-tax ‘townships’ (essentially just suburbs that proclaim themselves ‘cities’, living off the job and entertainment base and infrastructure of a nearby city while paying no taxes for doing so), a much longer commute.
Nearby Louisville and Cincinnati are both full of ridiculous little townships and whatnot, and their school systems and governments are far less efficient, and often more corrupt because of it. Don’t ever think smaller equals less graft.
To me this is a real world example of the problems with secession. It never logically ends, and you end up with a million little fiefdoms with various rules of law.
Analysis: Detroit filing sends benefits warning to other cities
Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr waits to address the media during a news conference about filing bankruptcy for the city of Detroit in Detroit, Michigan July 19, 2013. REUTERS/ Rebecca Cook
By Tiziana Barghini
NEW YORK | Sat Jul 20, 2013 10:03am EDT
(Reuters) - Many U.S. cities have a much better economic outlook than struggling Detroit, but the Motor City’s bankruptcy filing on Thursday should still set off alarm bells elsewhere as the cost of paying retirement benefits swells.
In recent decades, many municipalities have provided their workers with generous retirement benefits, both pensions and health coverage, often in lieu of pay increases. But this has created an unsustainable future burden for budgets that has only been exacerbated by the loss of real estate and other tax revenue in the financial crisis.
In particular, cities like Chicago and Santa Fe, New Mexico, have worryingly high pension liabilities compared to revenue, investors and analysts say.
Detroit’s bankruptcy was years in the making, a result of severe financial mismanagement and a unique decline in Detroit’s population triggered by job losses in the auto and other manufacturing industries, and the exodus of many residents to neighboring areas as the crime rate soared.
…
“Detroit’s bankruptcy was years in the making …”
Yeah? Well that’s why it was so appealing to the PTB, not the bankruptcy part but the “years in the making” part.
I’m sure wall street made a bunch of cash in its efforts to help sink detroit.
And it’s a good bet that Wall Street isn’t finished.
Exactly! And the Rattner article above certainly proves it.
People piss and moan about tax-and-spend policies but don’t react the same way about borrow-and-spend policies. This is because tax-and-spend causes immediate discomfort to taxpayers while borrow-and-spend doesn’t.
Politicians understand this but apparantly taxpaying voters don’t - or at least enough of them don’t. Or maybe they do know but don’t really care.
Hmmmm
By your logic - the states with the highest taxes should be the most solvent.
Exhibit A: California
Exhibit B: New York
It is ALL about the spending.
And make no mistake about it…. the average Joe is getting crushed under the weight of NY’s heavy burden. Crushed.
Bond Issues by government entities have long been tools of the politically connected to shoulder the burden of development costs on the backs of the taxpayers at their own behest; i.e stadiums, transit systems, and beach restorations, and school expansions. Just another way to privatize the profits (for the franchisees who benefit from them) and socialize the costs. The GF’s who vote for these are impoverishing themselves for the sake of immediate gain through longterm debt; not unlike FB’s. Its all about Bread and Circuses. We are the greatest slave nation in the world- the best fed, best medicated, and best entertained. So go back to Dancing with the Stars, American Idol, and Monday Night Football and leave the thinking to people who can. Rant off.
“Go away! I’m ‘baitin’!”
Posted: 1:42 p.m. Sunday, July 21, 2013
Autos troubles, race at root of Detroit collapse
By SHARON COHEN
The Associated Press
“I think it (the fiscal disaster) was inevitable because the politicians in Detroit were always knocking the can forward, not confronting the issues, buying off public employees by increasing their pensions,” said Daniel Okrent, a Detroit native who wrote a Time magazine cover story on the city in 2009. “They were always kind of confronting the impending crisis by trying to make it the next guy’s crisis.”
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/us/article/Autos-troubles-race-at-root-of-Detroit-collapse-4677774.php -
public unions + the free sh*t army + long term democrat rule = ruin and bankruptcy
It is really simple mathematics.
How do you educate(de-program) the rest of the country to wake up and smell the coffee?
When the EBT cards don’t work they’ll figure it out.
Machine Gun Fire From Black Hawk Helicopters Flying Over Miami …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV4MnhWlnMQ - 149k - Cached - Similar pages
Jan 27, 2013 … Machine Gun Fire From Black Hawk Helicopters Flying Over Downtown Miami video black hawk miami gun fire machine gun military drill news
caban boy, let us know when the your bogeyman equals the $17 TRILLION scam pulled by Wall St.
Dang I wish there was an editir!
The quote sounds kind of like the whole nation. They just got a head start.
“They were always kind of confronting the impending crisis by trying to make it the next guy’s crisis.”
And that’s different than how things work anywhere else because…?
Chicago.
The next Detroit.
Public unions + free sh*t army + long term democrat rule
——————
CPS to lay off 1,036 teachers
Chicago Tribune | 7/19/13 | Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, Kim Geiger
Citing a $1 billion budget deficit, Chicago Public Schools will lay off more than 2,000 employees, more than a 1,000 of them teachers, the district said Thursday night.
About half of the 1,036 teachers being let go are tenured.
The latest layoffs, which also include 1,077 school staff, are in addition to 855 employees—420 of them teachers–who were laid off last month as a result of the district’s decision to close 49 elementary schools and a high school program.
CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll said the district was “scraping the bottom” of reserves to provide financial relief and had made cuts in other spending before making layoffs.
Yep, I do think Chi-town is on the way to being another Detroit, unless they can stop the bleeding, which it looks like they’re trying to do, so it may work out.
Moody’s downgraded their bonds, if memory serves, and the most interesting thing about the announcement of that downgrade was the fact that Moody’s mentioned the violence in Chi-town. I thought that was interesting, in light of the comments about crime in Detroit and why people fled the city. I imagine Moody’s is sending a bit of a warning, because high crime rates are probably the major factor in losing tax base.
Moody’s Downgrades Chicago’s Debt Rating
By Ward Room Staff & Associated Press
Thursday, Jul 18, 2013
Illinois’ $97 billion pension problem isn’t doing any favors for Chicago.
Moody’s Investors Service late Wednesday downgraded the city’s debt rating from Aa3 to A3 because of the city’s “very large and growing” pension liability
Moody’s says Chicago has a $19 billion unfunded pension liability, and will face “tremendous strain” in future operating budgets as city officials try to meet funding requirements and public safety demands.
http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Moodys-Downgrades-Chicagos-Debt-Rating–215980021.html - 142k
“because high crime rates are probably the major factor in losing tax base.”
Mugs in the news - Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-mug-photogallery,0,5488047.photogallery - 102k - Cached - Similar pages
Detroit not alone under crushing pension obligations
Todd Spangler, Detroit Free Press 5:27 p.m. EDT July 21, 2013
Detroit filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection July 18.
(Photo: Romain Blanquart, Detroit Free Press)
Story Highlights
- Detroit is the largest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy protection
- Growing unfunded debt on benefits to current and future retirees at heart of Detroit’s woes
- Baltimore, Los Angeles also struggling with how to pay for these promises
WASHINGTON — Detroit may be alone among the nation’s biggest cities in terms of filing for bankruptcy, but it is far from the only city being crushed by a roiling mountain of long-term debt.
At the heart of Detroit’s problem is a growing unfunded debt on benefits owed to current and future retirees — some $3.5 billion, according to its emergency manager, Kevyn Orr — which mirrors a circumstance being seen across the U.S.
From Baltimore to Los Angeles, and many points in between, municipalities are increasingly confronted with how to pay for these massive promises. The Pew Center for the States, in Washington, estimated states’ public pension plans across the U.S. were underfunded by a whopping $1.4 trillion in 2010.
…
All blue cities that have all sorts of government workers and pensions.
snicker snicker
Perhaps the best way to describe the Detroit bankruptcy is “canary in the coal mine.”
Detroit bankruptcy: Is it a warning sign for America? (+video)
How Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has dealt with financial crises in the state – and how he will handle the Detroit bankruptcy – could hold lessons for the rest of the US.
By Mark Sappenfield, Staff writer / July 21, 2013
State-appointed emergency manager Kevyn Orr (r.) and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (l.) address reporters during a news conference on Friday in Detroit. On Thursday, Detroit became the largest city in US history to file for bankruptcy.
Gov. Rick Snyder (R) of Michigan could be forgiven for sounding like a bit of a cheerleader when discussing Detroit’s bankruptcy Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“I’m very bullish about the growth opportunities of Detroit,” he said.
On one hand, finding the silver lining of perhaps the worst fiscal disaster in the history of America’s cities is his job – it’s hard to imagine Michigan truly thriving so long as its largest city is an economic millstone. Yet, on a much more personal level, it seems like Governor Snyder sincerely believes he was built for this.
A businessman who was elected during the depth of the recession, when Michigan stood as America’s worst-case scenario, Snyder has made sweeping changes to the public sector in the state – from pensions to health care. Detroit, in many ways, is the final exam he has been preparing for since taking office.
Indeed, considering that Detroit’s bankruptcy could drag out through the 2014 election, how Snyder is seen to manage it could be crucial to his reelection prospects. But more broadly, how Detroit and Michigan navigate their seismic changes could hold lessons for the country. All the problems that the city and state are facing are looming for states from Illinois to California.
In that way, Snyder’s big moment could offer a hint of the sort of belt-tightening that could lie ahead for many parts of the country.
Want your top political issues explained? Get customized DC Decoder updates.
For now, pension and health care benefits will be safe through the end of the year for Detroit public employees, Kevyn Orr, the emergency manager appointed by Snyder, told the Detroit Free Press Friday.
The move is designed to offer a period of stability before what could be a time of enormous fiscal upheaval.
Thomas Berry of Livonia, Mich., who retired from the Detroit Police Department six years ago after more than 34 years on the job, told USA Today that the remaining months of 2013 will be “huge.” “You’ve given me five months to evaluate,” he said. “We’re going to sock away more and maybe spend a lot less.”
Spending a lot less without gutting city services is what the Detroit bankruptcy is all about. The city faces $18.5 billion in debts.
It is a situation that Snyder will be familiar with as governor. When Snyder took office the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System (MPSERS) faced an unfunded liability of $45 billion. Last September, Snyder signed a bill that addressed the problem by something akin to the voucher system critics accuse Rep. Paul Ryan (R) of Wisconsin of proposing for Medicare.
Under Snyder’s plan for MPSERS school employees receive $2,000 as well as up to 2 percent in matching contributions to a 401(k) plan. Under the law, school employees must also contribute more of their own money toward health care, and school districts cannot spend more than 24 percent of payroll on pensions.
The plan reduces MPSERS’s unfunded liability to $30 billion.
Illinois, by comparison, has a total unfunded liability of $100 billion for its pensions, and Gov. Pat Quinn (D) has suspended all pay for state legislators until they address the issue.
…
Seems even the Teamsters and other unions are not happy with Obama care. It’s nothing like what was promised. What a surprise
The Teamsters and two other major unions sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi this week, writing: “When you and the president sought our support for the Affordable Care Act, you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat.”
The union letter continued: “The unintended consequences of the ACA are severe. Perverse incentives are already creating nightmare scenarios: First, the law creates an incentive for employers to keep employees’ work hours below 30 hours a week. Numerous employers have begun to cut workers’ hours to avoid this obligation, and many of them are doing so openly.”
The letter concludes: “The impact is two-fold: fewer hours means less pay while also losing our current health benefits.”
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/19/a-union-cloud-over-obamacare/#ixzz2ZgrpMUAf
May these union goons suffer for decades to come for their stupidity.
If the union goons are against it, shouldn’t that be a point in its favor?
the unions were for it before they were against it. Smithers is right. i hope your union buddies are enjoying what they voted for. and if you think this is bad. wait until we get single payer from this fiasco. that was you libs plan all along wasn’t it? don’t worry, you’ll get what you want. there are too many ignorant people voting here not to.
that was you libs plan all along wasn’t it?
Damn! You’re on to us.
don’t worry, you’ll get what you want
Good, I like that.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/21/north-carolina-unemployment/2571889/
This interesting for a number of reasons.
1) The jobless “recovery” continues.
2) You feel sorry for the jobless but they have time demonstrate rather than hunt for work?
3) If I could not find work from a business I would do domestic service off the books. I think in coming years we’ll know the US has hit bottom when everyday people like school teachers, and middle class people like Polly, etc have servants the way it was for many people in the 19th century in the US and the way it is in India and Mexico today. People with even modest means have the poor for servants.
One of the huge differences between conservatives and liberals.
Conservatives are more than happy to live under the same laws they want for everyone else.
Liberals expect to be exempted from the laws they expect everyone else to live under.
Just like Al Gore and his “old growth douglas fir” beams he had installed in his mansion, while trying to limit every one else’s availability of them. Also don’t forget Robert Kennedy Jr. flying around in his private jet lecturing everyone else on how to “save”
energy.
Also don’t forget Obama’s endless golf trips which the MSM so easily ignores. How much fuel does that use up?
Al Sore’s jet aircraft spewing out thousands more carbon footprints than a standard Toyota while he jets to places to speak in favor of closing up American businesses.
>Conservatives are more than happy to live under the same laws they want for everyone else.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA you are such a liar. (the hallmark of the GOP these days)
http://www.ringoffireradio.com/2013/01/04/republican-sex-offenders-and-gop-perverts/
http://www.archive.org/stream/ListOfRepublicanOffenders/RCC_djvu.txt
Companies have always been free to cut hours.
This is not Obamamcare, this a concerted effort by the oligarchy to show who is really boss.
And this is the proof: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/health/health-plan-cost-for-new-yorkers-set-to-fall-50.html?pagewanted=all&_r=3&
This is not Obamamcare, this a concerted effort by the oligarchy to show who is really boss.
ah yes, that bastion of honesty and integrity, the NYT.
i challenge you to back up any of that drivel with some logic. please go ahead and prove how much you know.
that bastion of honesty and integrity, the NYT.
You are attempting to ignore facts by utilizing a:
Genetic fallacy –” where a conclusion is suggested based solely on something or someone’s origin rather than its current meaning or context.” wiki
The NYT is reporting the facts put forth by NY State insurance regulators. Disparaging the source of the article (the NYT) does not alter the underlying facts.
From the NYT article posted above:
…….State insurance regulators say they have approved rates for 2014 that are at least 50 percent lower on average than those currently available in New York. Beginning in October, individuals in New York City who now pay $1,000 a month or more for coverage will be able to shop for health insurance for as little as $308 monthly. With federal subsidies, the cost will be even lower.
Supporters of the new health care law, the Affordable Care Act, credited the drop in rates to the online purchasing exchanges the law created, which they say are spurring competition among insurers that are anticipating an influx of new customers.
Tell me again why we can’t cut a cent from food stamps again….
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/it_on_y22owkLpsldSAjDVC9isjM
“Food stamps are paying for trans-Atlantic takeout — with New Yorkers using taxpayer-funded benefits to ship food to relatives in Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Welfare recipients are buying groceries with their Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards and packing them in giant barrels for the trip overseas, The Post found.
The practice is so common that hundreds of 45- to 55-gallon cardboard and plastic barrels line the walls of supermarkets in almost every Caribbean corner of the city. “Everybody does it,” said a worker at an Associated Supermarket in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn. “They pay for it any way they can. A lot of people pay with EBT.” Customers pay cash for the barrels, usually about $40, and typically ship them filled with $500 to $2,000 worth of rice, beans, pasta, canned milk and sausages.”
From the article:
“Still New Yorkers say they ship the food because staples available in the states are superior and less costly than what their families can get abroad.”
So what do you say, Smithers? Maybe there’s a money-making opportunity lurking about here somewhere?
If you want the stop the practice then take the profit motive out of it.
“If you want the stop the practice then take the profit motive out of it.”
Hmm, sounds like regulation.
DRATS!
“Hmm, sounds like regulation.”
Or competition.
the jamaicans, hatians, dominicans will all be usa citizens within 10 years via chain migration laws, so we may as well start paying to feed them now.
forward
“They pay for it any way they can. A lot of people pay with EBT.” …said a worker at an Associated Supermarket
“A lot” eh? How many is that EXACTLY? After all, even though I trust the work of min wage worker who has NO access to records, it would be nice to confirm what “a lot” really is.
And what are the rest paying with? Surely not their OWN money?
Housing’s Sideline Buyer: The New BigFoot?
Chances of a Bigfoot sighting might be just as good as finding any meaningful number of sideline buyers, even here in Orange County, California. The theory is that buyers who’d been hovering in the shadows would leap forward once interest rates spiked. (In a recent interview on Bloomberg in June, I explained why the sideline buyer will turn out to be as mythical as our big footed friend.
http://loganmohtashami.com/2013/07/18/housings-sideline-buyer-the-new-bigfoot/
I’m sure the boomerang buyers are salivating at the mouth to enter the casino again and get some more free equity.
Bit once twice shy…I would have to say boomerang buyers are a rare breed at this present time, they still need time to sweep up their mess that was left behind
all they need is a job and they can get an FHA loan with 3.5% down or a usda rural loan with zero down.
How much time do they need? They have lived rent free for ~ 3 years. I’m sure they saved a few bucks towards a new house.
I have the feeling that significant numbers of past mortgage borrowers are not yet in the mood to be fooled again (by federal policy or unscrupulous mortgage originators). ”
It amazes me that economists and pundits continue to treat housing as a pillar of the economy. I completely disagree in this regard. Housing functions as a barometer of the economy not a principal piece of it. Economies which rely on the housing industry for sustainable growth are destined for failure via steep corrections.
Sideline buyer myth needed to be squash, that’s all I heard for months and months. If there was ever a time for this ridiculous myth to be legit it was these last 4 months and in matter of fact mortgage purchase apps broken their uptrend and went negative.
As California goes, so does the nation?
Fake Signs On Bay Area Highways Say Drones Looking For Speeders
“At CHP we definitely do not have drones. We use radar, lidar, pace, we have planes and we have helicopters, but we do not have drones,”
Sorry if a this is a repost.
Is California cash buying slowing down?
Ever since the May/June mortgage rate increases how did it impact the sizable California cash buyer, if any. A cash buyer doesn’t have to worry about mortgages except when these rates affect the larger housing market.
http://ochousingnews.com/news/is-california-cash-buying-slowing-down-a-little
Cash cannot compete with cheap credit.
Trudat ^^
Blue
Very true. What we found is
cash is a less hassle deal ( and may be a higher net) for a home that the FHA
may not accept “as is”.
The roof and overall condition of the house could not pass FHA inspection, and that put us in the driver’s seat. The owner had a higher net w/ us. Not everyone is willing to add 203K debt and wanted to do weekend projects for years. For us, 3 months and it was done, prior to moving in.
We’re dying in this joint. Moving is a nightmare.
“We’re dying in this joint.”
Yes you are. And not in the way you think.
lol
“A cash buyer doesn’t have to worry about mortgages except when these rates affect the larger housing market.”
Unknown factor: How much of the money used to execute ‘all cash deals’ is borrowed (i.e. other people’s money)?
Rise of the Warrior Cop
WSJ: Time to Reconsider the Militarization of American Police
July 19, 2013, 7:09 p.m. ET
By RADLEY BALKO
On Jan. 4 of last year, a local narcotics strike force conducted a raid on the Ogden, Utah, home of Matthew David Stewart at 8:40 p.m. The 12 officers were acting on a tip from Mr. Stewart’s former girlfriend, who said that he was growing marijuana in his basement. Mr. Stewart awoke, naked, to the sound of a battering ram taking down his door. Thinking that he was being invaded by criminals, as he later claimed, he grabbed his 9-millimeter Beretta pistol.
The police say that they knocked and identified themselves, though Mr. Stewart and his neighbors said they heard no such announcement. Mr. Stewart fired 31 rounds, the police more than 250. Six of the officers were wounded, and Officer Jared Francom was killed. Mr. Stewart himself was shot twice before he was arrested. He was charged with several crimes, including the murder of Officer Francom.
The police found 16 small marijuana plants in Mr. Stewart’s basement. There was no evidence that Mr. Stewart, a U.S. military veteran with no prior criminal record, was selling marijuana. Mr. Stewart’s father said that his son suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and may have smoked the marijuana to self-medicate.
Early this year, the Ogden city council heard complaints from dozens of citizens about the way drug warrants are served in the city. As for Mr. Stewart, his trial was scheduled for next April, and prosecutors were seeking the death penalty. But after losing a hearing last May on the legality of the search warrant, Mr. Stewart hanged himself in his jail cell.
The country’s first official SWAT team started in the late 1960s in Los Angeles. By 1975, there were approximately 500 such units. Today, there are thousands. According to surveys conducted by the criminologist Peter Kraska of Eastern Kentucky University, just 13% of towns between 25,000 and 50,000 people had a SWAT team in 1983. By 2005, the figure was up to 80%.
The number of raids conducted by SWAT-like police units has grown accordingly. In the 1970s, there were just a few hundred a year; by the early 1980s, there were some 3,000 a year. In 2005 (the last year for which Dr. Kraska collected data), there were approximately 50,000 raids.
A number of federal agencies also now have their own SWAT teams, including the Fish & Wildlife Service, NASA and the Department of the Interior. In 2011, the Department of Education’s SWAT team bungled a raid on a woman who was initially reported to be under investigation for not paying her student loans, though the agency later said she was suspected of defrauding the federal student loan program.
In 2006, 38-year-old optometrist Sal Culosi was shot and killed by a Fairfax County, Va., SWAT officer. The investigation began when an undercover detective overheard Mr. Culosi wagering on college football games with some buddies at a bar. The department sent a SWAT team after Mr. Culosi, who had no prior criminal record or any history of violence. As the SWAT team descended, one officer fired a single bullet that pierced Mr. Culosi’s heart. The police say that the shot was an accident. Mr. Culosi’s family suspects the officer saw Mr. Culosi reaching for his cellphone and thought he had a gun.
Assault-style raids have even been used in recent years to enforce regulatory law. Armed federal agents from the Fish & Wildlife Service raided the floor of the Gibson Guitar factory in Nashville in 2009, on suspicion of using hardwoods that had been illegally harvested in Madagascar. Gibson settled in 2012, paying a $300,000 fine and admitting to violating the Lacey Act. In 2010, the police department in New Haven, Conn., sent its SWAT team to raid a bar where police believed there was underage drinking. For sheer absurdity, it is hard to beat the 2006 story about the Tibetan monks who had overstayed their visas while visiting America on a peace mission. In Iowa, the hapless holy men were apprehended by a SWAT team in full gear.
In my own research, I have collected over 50 examples in which innocent people were killed in raids to enforce warrants for crimes that are either nonviolent or consensual (that is, crimes such as drug use or gambling, in which all parties participate voluntarily). These victims were bystanders, or the police later found no evidence of the crime for which the victim was being investigated. They include Katherine Johnston, a 92-year-old woman killed by an Atlanta narcotics team acting on a bad tip from an informant in 2006; Alberto Sepulveda, an 11-year-old accidentally shot by a California SWAT officer during a 2000 drug raid; and Eurie Stamps, killed in a 2011 raid on his home in Framingham, Mass., when an officer says his gun mistakenly discharged. Mr. Stamps wasn’t a suspect in the investigation.
What would it take to dial back such excessive police measures? The obvious place to start would be ending the federal grants that encourage police forces to acquire gear that is more appropriate for the battlefield. Beyond that, it is crucial to change the culture of militarization in American law enforcement.
Consider today’s police recruitment videos (widely available on YouTube), which often feature cops rappelling from helicopters, shooting big guns, kicking down doors and tackling suspects. Such campaigns embody an American policing culture that has become too isolated, confrontational and militaristic, and they tend to attract recruits for the wrong reasons.
If you browse online police discussion boards, or chat with younger cops today, you will often encounter some version of the phrase, “Whatever I need to do to get home safe.” It is a sentiment that suggests that every interaction with a citizen may be the officer’s last. Nor does it help when political leaders lend support to this militaristic self-image, as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg did in 2011 by declaring, “I have my own army in the NYPD—the seventh largest army in the world.”
The motivation of the average American cop should not focus on just making it to the end of his shift. The LAPD may have given us the first SWAT team, but its motto is still exactly the right ideal for American police officers: To protect and serve.
SWAT teams have their place, of course, but they should be saved for those relatively rare situations when police-initiated violence is the only hope to prevent the loss of life. They certainly have no place as modern-day vice squads.
Many longtime and retired law-enforcement officers have told me of their worry that the trend toward militarization is too far gone. Those who think there is still a chance at reform tend to embrace the idea of community policing, an approach that depends more on civil society than on brute force.
In this very different view of policing, cops walk beats, interact with citizens and consider themselves part of the neighborhoods they patrol—and therefore have a stake in those communities. It’s all about a baton-twirling “Officer Friendly” rather than a Taser-toting RoboCop.
http://www.dailypaul.com/293327/wsj-time-to-reconsider-the-militarization-of-american-police -
We have developed a new “Dispenser/Enforcer of Justice” class, with it’s own “everybody wants to kill you” mindset.
As anybody with half a brain cell knows, certain “types” get into law enforcement”
My brother was the exception to the rule (college grad with BS degree). Of the 40-50 guys in his class:
-60% came straight out of the military (MPs or infantry)
-Almost all of the remainder were 2-3-4th generations “sons of cops”
Not saying that this is a problem. But don’t look to the cops for “diversity” in mindset.
“But don’t look to the cops for “diversity” in mindset.”
Wouldn’t think of it. I would take a long look at who is funding all these SWAT teams. You buy the kids toys and they’re going to play with them, like the over weight PBC Sheriff sniper down here that looked like a bail of hay hiding in center field at Yankee Stadium ready to take his shot at some dude who had a fight with his girlfriend as the rest of his team deployed. The dude answered the door when they knocked. Or the Juno Beach SWAT team that leaped over the fence to get the drop on some 60 something year old tourists from Europe when they were playing there music too loud at 1 am. For the most part these SAWT teams are a solution looking for a problem.
From the article
“According to the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Department of Homeland Security has handed out $35 billion in grants since its creation in 2002, with much of the money going to purchase military gear such as armored personnel carriers. In 2011 alone, a Pentagon program for bolstering the capabilities of local law enforcement gave away $500 million of equipment, an all-time high.”
Excellent post. Thanks for sharing. One way is to decrease crime by eliminating the people who commit it. As someone who support free market policies and limited government think the Republicans whom generally support 10 to 1 over the Dems. are missing the boat on the abortion issue. Heck I would pay extra taxes to pay for abortions. Break the cycle of irresponsible kids (often government dependent) have kids.
Another way would be to decriminalize some of our more pointless laws.
Went to Home Depot today. They sell storm doors that are really anti-burglar doors, but crafted to look nice.
As someone who grew up in a very low crime area my obvious solution is to move to where special doors and bars aren’t needed rather than pay to install them. But I’m always curious about the people who stick around in dangerous areas…what’s their motivation? They grew up there and don’t want to leave? They can make enough money there to justify staying? They just don’t realize that you don’t have to live like that?
Or is their area usually not that much higher crime than mine, but they just worry more than I do?
They just don’t realize that you don’t have to live like that?
——————————————————————-
Carl, I don’t know how old you are, but there was a time when it did not cost a lot for a white person to live in a “good neighborhood”. Seems to me the removal of restrictive covenants and other assorted “equal housing laws” raised the cost of housing; in addition to producing a “churn” which keeps people moving.
Who benefits from this?
I’m mid 40s. Keep in mind I come from the rural Rocky Mountains. Yeah, it was and still mostly is really white, but I honestly think anybody could get along there is they were willing to follow local social norms. I tried to sell it to a black friend of mine in the army and he agreed I was probably right but said he couldn’t do that to his kids.
Cost of moving keeps them there.
People can’t just buy a house like a pair of shoes.
“Heck I would pay extra taxes to pay for abortions.”
It would be cheaper to pay for birth control for every woman of childbearing age.
I wonder what it costs to muster a 12 person SWAT team to attack some dude growing pot in his basement?
Enough to keep the budget for the paramilitary hardware.
Here is a direct link to the video interview of my nominee for The Beat of the month.
“I will fight them, this is my home”
“I asked for a modification”
Woman’s foreclosure highlights need to be proactive
By Chuck Weber/CBS 12
TEQUESTA– Gail Zamore is fighting foreclosure, even though her home has just been sold.
Zamore knew her Tequesta home was in foreclosure for more than 3 years, but she says the sale notice came two days after it already happened.
“I had no inclination what was going on,” said Zamore. “Nothing. So you can imagine how I felt.”
Zamore says when she tried for a loan modification.. the bank told her to stop making payments.
She did, but Zamore says she never heard back from the bank.
Brian Korte, a West Palm Beach attorney specializing in foreclosures, said this was common several years back.
“She should have saved the payments, not spent the money,” said Korte. “Because if they ultimately turned her down for a modification, she could have caught up on her mortgage payments across the board.”
Korte says procedures have since improved. His advice?
“Get paperwork in early,” said Korte. “Follow up very cleanly and clearly with the bank in writing. That way if there are any disputes, you’ve got a piece of paper. A phone call is not going to protect you against the banks.”
Zamore says she wants to keep fighting, until she exhausts all her legal remedies.
http://cbs12.com/news/top-stories/stories/womans-foreclosure-highlights-need-proactive-8884.shtml?wap=0 - 436k -
Nice house, and well kept up. Probably wouldn’t have been so if she was kicked out three years ago and the strippers were to descend on the place.
Somebody got a win out of this. She probably thought, over the past three years, it was her. Apparantly it wasn’t.
“Nice house, and well kept up. Probably wouldn’t have been so if she was kicked out three years ago and the strippers were to descend on the place.”
Not in that Tequesta hood. I would have loved to buy that house 4 years ago when she stopped making her payments so she could get her modification. That would have been 3 years of rent or about $62k that I wouldn’t have had to pay to DBLLs in the same area who didn’t pay their mortgages either.
But looking at the bright side, it has been 13 months since my last DBLL recieved a $1,700.00 rent check from me and his Tequesta home was a short sale after I split without him ever being able to rent it out to another UNKNOWN TENANT. I am sure he is missing that $22k pretty badly.
Our city might be facing bankruptcy but hey we got state of the art trashcans. WTF.
Onondaga County spent federal stimulus on two $4,000 trash cans, wants 300 more
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2013/07/onondaga_county_buys_4000_trash_cans.html#incart_m-rpt-2
“Onondaga County’s Deputy County Executive Matt Millea would like to use state money to buy as many as 300 more and put them all over Syracuse. That could cost more than $1 million.”
“Millea is proud of the “Big Belly” solar trash cans - even though each one costs about 21 times more than a traditional municipal can.”
I think it would be best to just give Matt Millea $500k to go away, have him split it with his brother in-law who probably owns “Big Belly” solar trash cans and call it a day.
Police: South Fla. man killed 2-year-old son
July 21, 2013 03:07 EDT
MIAMI (AP) — A father of nine faces second-degree murder charges after throwing his 2-year-old son against a wall.
Television station NBC 6 South Florida (http://bit.ly/12Wdnzh) reports that police have arrested Angel Luis Villegas in the death of the child.
Authorities say Villegas was frustrated with his son, who had been battling a cold and vomiting after every meal. On Tuesday, when the child threw up at dinner, police say Villegas threw his son on a bed in a rage, causing the 2-year-old to hit his head against a wall.
The following day, the 29-year-old father found his son unresponsive, lying still on the bed, police said. The child was taken to a Miami hospital, where he was declared brain dead.
Villegas is being held on $110,000 bond for child abuse and attempted murder charges.
We need a “Medieval Beatdown Amnesty Day” for this special breed of scumbag.
At least his other eight kids are safe now.
“A father of nine…”
That’s quite a litter for a 29-yr/old.
Welcome to Chicago — now give me that iPhone
By Rosemary Regina Sobol
Tribune reporter
10:55 a.m. CDT, July 21, 2013
Two visitors to Chicago received a rude welcome to the city Friday when one was robbed by a group of city teens and the other was punched while trying to help, officials said.
The two visitors – a 15-year-old Florida girl and a 51-year-old Michigan woman – were both walking on the Mag Mile Friday evening when the older woman was robbed of her iPhone by a group of eight juveniles, officials said.
The woman who was robbed, who wanted to be identified only by her first name Tammy and did not want her hometown published, said she was visiting Chicago to see relatives and to run the Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon Sunday. She checked into a hotel and she, her sister, and their 70-year-old mother went out shopping.
“We had only been in town four hours and I got robbed,” Tammy said with the hint of a laugh during a telephone interview Saturday evening. “Welcome to Chicago.”
According to a police report, about 7 p.m. Friday in the 700 block of North Michigan Avenue, the teens grabbed and held Tammy while one of the teens took her iPhone from her pocket.
After feeling her iPhone being pulled from the pack pocket of her jean shorts, Tammy grabbed the boy who took it by the backpack and held on until police got there two or three minutes later.
“He just kept saying, ‘We didn’t take your phone, you white b——, leave us alone,’ ” said Tammy.
“I don’t think it was racial. I just think they targeted anyone whose phone they could get.”
The Good Samaritan from Florida, during a telephone interview Saturday afternoon, said she was with her mother and had been taking a stroll on Michigan Avenue to look at the shops when they noticed three women, two of whom appeared to be in their 40s or 50s and one who looked to be in her 60s or 70s.
They were about 15 feet behind when they noticed three boys “creeping toward” the women, and one of the boys appeared to gesture to someone else, said the 15-year-old Florida girl.
“All of a sudden seven more teens came and got close to the women,” she said.
Then she noticed one of the boys ripping an iPhone from a pocket of one of the three women, so forcefully that the victim said: “Give it back,” but they denied they had it, said the girl.
“The rest of them swarmed around her to disorient her,” and began to become more physical and push the women against a small metal fence around some shrubs, the girl said.
With a rush of adrenaline, the Florida girl said she decided to step in, against her mother’s wishes.
“They felt endangered, but I’m a person who tries to help and I wanted to help the lady,” she said. “My mom tried to stop me three times.”
The Florida girl screamed at them: “Give her back her phone,” and a teen girl yelled back that they didn’t have it.
“That’s when the girl charged at me” and punched her, hitting the Florida girl’s head and ear, causing a big bump, bruising and swelling, she said.
Passersby noticed the ruckus and called police, who got there soon and arrested the teens, she said. Police asked her if she wanted an ambulance but she declined and placed ice on her wound.
The victim, who was scratched during the incident and had some bleeding, was “very pleasant” and spoke to the girl afterwards. “She was thanking me and was very kind,” the girl said.
“We were so grateful that she helped,” Tammy said.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3045566/posts -
Realtors are back to there dishonest, lying talk once again….. yet they continue to complain about their reputation.
“there”
Crooks always blame the victim.
The mafia should get the contract for “teen crime reduction”.
(Can blacks join the mafia? No, but let me quarterback this anyway)
Set up some flash mob bait in an area where the “teens” can be trapped. When they attack, beat them with baseball bats, load em in a van, cut their Achilles tendons using a garden tool, dump em on the edge of the ghetto.
Ever seen a limp mob?
Neither have I.
You’re welcome.
Test
Didn’t work
Cries of Betrayal as Detroit Plans to Cut Pensions
Stephen McGee for The New York Times
Gloria Killebrew, 73, a retiree who cares for her husband, J. D., in Dearborn, Mich., on Friday.
By STEVEN YACCINO and MICHAEL COOPER
Published: July 21, 2013
DETROIT — Gloria Killebrew, 73, worked for the City of Detroit for 22 years and now spends her days caring for her husband, J. D., who has had three heart attacks and multiple kidney operations, the last of which left him needing dialysis three times a week at the Henry Ford Medical Center in Dearborn, Mich.
Now there is a new worry: Detroit wants to cut the pensions it pays retirees like Ms. Killebrew, who now receives about $1,900 a month.
“It’s been life on a roller coaster,” Ms. Killebrew said, explaining that even if she could find a new job at her age, there would be no one to take care of her husband. “You don’t sleep well. You think about whether you’re going to be able to make it. Right now, you don’t really know.”
Detroit’s pension shortfall accounts for about $3.5 billion of the $18 billion in debts that led the city to file for bankruptcy last week. How it handles this problem — of not enough money set aside to pay the pensions it has promised its workers — is being closely watched by other cities with fiscal troubles.
Kevyn D. Orr, the city’s emergency manager, has called for “significant cuts” to the pensions of current retirees. His plan is being fought vigorously by unions that point out that pensions are protected by Michigan’s Constitution, which calls them a contractual obligation that “shall not be diminished or impaired.”
Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan, a Republican who appointed Mr. Orr, signed off on the bankruptcy strategy for the once-mighty city, which has seen its tax base and services erode sharply in recent years. But the governor said he worried about Detroit’s 21,000 municipal retirees.
“You’ve got to have great empathy for them,” Mr. Snyder said in an interview. “These are hard-working people that are in retirement now — they’re on fixed incomes, most of them — and you look at this and say, ‘This is a very difficult situation.’ ”
…
POLITICS
July 21, 2013, 7:57 p.m. ET
Change of Heart Over Detroit
Opponents Slam Governor’s Turnabout on Bankruptcy; He Saw No Other Option
By MATTHEW DOLAN
Detroit is littered with empty lots and abandoned buildings, such as the Brewster-Douglas housing project. The city filed for bankruptcy Thursday.
DETROIT—In 2011, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said bankruptcy wasn’t an option for the city of Detroit. Two years later, he changed his mind, deciding that it was the Motor City’s only remaining move.
How Michigan voters view Mr. Snyder’s decision last week to sign off on the nation’s largest municipal bankruptcy filing—a courageous stand or a disappointing flip-flop—could help decide the Republican’s political future. It comes on the heels of the governor’s controversial signing in December of right-to-work legislation, a move followed by a sharp drop in his approval ratings below 50% in recent polls.
As Detroit’s plight worsened, Mr. Snyder’s opinion on bankruptcy shifted earlier this year—before his move in March to appoint Kevyn Orr as the city’s financial manager, said a person familiar with the matter.
In an interview Friday, Mr. Snyder said he had no doubts in the final hours before the Thursday filing. “This was clearly the right thing to do. There weren’t viable options left,” he said. “What would happen if we didn’t do what we did? Today would be a worse day than yesterday.”
Detroit could remain in the hands of a bankruptcy judge in 2014 as the governor gears up for an expected re-election race. Battles among city-worker retirees, bondholders and others over who gets paid could be ongoing.
“After repeatedly promising he would not lead Detroit into bankruptcy, Gov. Snyder’s failed leadership and broken promises will be fresh in voters minds in 2014,” Michigan Democratic Party Chairman Lon Johnson said in a statement Sunday.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder says ‘this was clearly the right thing to do.’
Michigan Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer, also a Democrat, said Mr. Snyder’s changed position “means he has an enormous credibility issue,” though she added in an interview she was unsure if Detroit could have avoided bankruptcy.
“The governor did the right thing, not the political thing here,” the speaker of the GOP-dominated Michigan House of Representatives, Jase Bolger, said Sunday.
Mr. Snyder isn’t worried about political fallout, said his spokeswoman. The “governor was clear that he wanted to avoid bankruptcy and use [it] only as tool of last resort,” spokeswoman Sara Wurfel said Sunday by email. “That’s what the last two years have been about, exploring all other options.”
In an interview Sunday on NBC, Mr. Snyder said: “We worked hard on the process because again that’s something to be avoided.” He added he isn’t “happy to be in this situation.”
…
Why not make the pensioners whole and stiff the foreign creditors?
MARKETS
July 21, 2013, 5:16 p.m. ET
Detroit’s Bust Stings European Banks
UBS and Others Are Hurt by Motor City Deals Dating Back to 2005
By DAVID ENRICH and JOHN LETZING
CONNECT
Detroit’s broken finances are intersecting with the troubled European banking industry, causing further distress for both the Motor City and its European lenders.
The situation demonstrates the ways in which European banks are still paying the price for flawed decisions made in the run-up to the global financial crisis. The trouble dates back to 2005, when Detroit was trying to find a way to replenish its depleted pension funds for municipal workers and its police and fire departments. The city turned to a giant Swiss bank, UBS AG, for help.
UBS, leading a group of banks from around the world, sold more than $1.4 billion of bonds, known as “certificates of participation,” for Detroit. Big chunks of that deal, and another the next year, went to European banks that, in the heady precrisis days, were venturing far from home to find assets that offered lucrative interest rates and appeared to be relatively low-risk.
But last week Detroit filed for bankruptcy protection, squeezed in part by the ill-fated bond deal and related transactions. The city’s creditors include not just UBS but also nationalized banks in Germany and Belgium. They hold debt that once was worth hundreds of millions of dollars but today is worth a fraction of that, likely adding to huge losses that the banks and taxpayers in those countries already have suffered.
The situation also is a reminder of how frothy boom-time financial markets helped spread risk around the world.
“I think you’re going to see more of these Detroit-type situations” involving banks that aggressively pushed into lucrative but ultimately risky deals, said William Mahnic, an associate professor of banking and finance at Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management.
In Munich, a government agency charged with unwinding a nationalized German bank’s assets is holding Detroit debt with a face value of about $200 million, according to a spokesman for the agency, FMS Wertmanagement. A nationalized Franco-Belgian lender, Dexia SA, is holding another large chunk, according to people familiar with the matter.
Thanks to the financial crisis and its fallout, UBS has already endured about $50 billion in losses and a Swiss government bailout, and is in the midst of dismantling a big part of its investment bank.
Now it faces even more losses. Following heated negotiations with Detroit’s emergency manager in recent months, UBS and another lender, Bank of America Corp.’s investment-banking unit, agreed to accept less than what they are owed under a hedging transaction that accompanied the bond deal and that had become a heavy weight around Detroit’s neck.
…
“But last week Detroit filed for bankruptcy protection, squeezed in part by the ill-fated bond deal and related transactions. The city’s creditors include not just UBS but also nationalized banks in Germany and Belgium. They hold debt that once was worth hundreds of millions of dollars but today is worth a fraction of that, likely adding to huge losses that the banks and taxpayers in those countries already have suffered.”
The Wall street investment bankers swindled the world.
2:48 pm Jul 21, 2013
Markets
Investors Struggle With Cash Conundrum
By E.S. Browning
Charles de Vaulx has an investment idea: cash.
That may seem an odd choice, since cash earns less than inflation, making it a money-losing proposition.
But Mr. de Vaulx, who oversees $17.8 billion as chief investment officer at International Value Advisers in New York, has been boosting his cash position. He is having trouble finding stocks he considers cheap and won’t buy overvalued stocks. He considers bonds even more overvalued than stocks, leaving him perched on a lumpy cash pillow.
Other value-oriented investors have made similar choices, led by Berkshire Hathaway Inc. BRKB +0.29% chief executive Warren Buffett. Mr. Buffett is sitting on $49 billion, his biggest cash hoard ever, according to Berkshire’s latest quarterly report.
It is an odd spectacle. Teams of respected investment pros are scouring the world for stocks and bonds they can buy on the cheap, and coming up empty. They are left holding some cash, telling their investors and shareholders they prefer to dilute their returns now rather than risk losing a lot by buying near the top.
Other money managers — probably the majority — scoff at that. Sure, they say, stocks are more expensive than before, but the growth outlook is still good. Anyhow, alternatives such as bonds and gold look even worse. Those who try to beat the market every quarter can’t believe that anyone would accept below-market returns while waiting for the market to shift.
But value investors such as Mr. de Vaulx won’t buy stocks based on promises. Influenced by Benjamin Graham, the father of modern stock analysis, value investors buy based on businesses’ asset values and measurable past performance. Promises mean little to them.
…