Bits Bucket for July 24, 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.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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If you take on mortgage debt at current massively inflated housing prices, you’ll enslave yourself for the rest of your life.
“Debt is bondage.”~ Suze Orman, May 11, 2013
Don’t Be A Debt Donkey®
“Debt is bondage.”
Debt is freedom if you are positioned on the right side of it.
Somebody you don’t even know works hard at a job and this somebody you don’t even know sends to you part of his paycheck.
He works, you kick back.
What’s not to like?
Nonsense. Debt donkeyism is bondage.
“Debt donkeyism is bondage.”
Only if you choose to become the donkey. If you can work it so you become the rider of the donkey then it’s freedom.
The life expectancy of the donkey goes down when you load it with an elephant.
President Ford to NYC circa 1975: “Drop Dead….oh wait a minute”.
President Obama to Detroit circa 2013: Drop Dead…..”
That depends on if the donkey pays you.
Is this the part where your namesake’s most famous quote comes in? Isn’t it significant that this is the only thing he is remembered for? Glorifying hucksterism?
“That depends of if the donkey pays you.”
This is why you should choose the donkey with care.
Unless, of course, your donkey ride is insured by somebody else; In that case it doesn’t matter.
“Glorifying hucksterism.”
I didn’t glorify it, I just took advantage of it.
I did not give birth to the suckers, I just provided a way for them to willingly hand over to me what should have remained theirs.
All it takes is a song and a dance, and a pen and a dotted line.
Apparently you’re the only sucker who got suckered.
Donkeys are stubborn, and will sit down and bray when you are trying to get somewhere.
The burden of those wagons overcomes a donkey quite easily.
“He works, you kick back”.
People who don’t produce outnumber those who do.
It’s why our economy sucks. OPM is the name of the game.
Brought to you by bankers, lawyers, government employees, welfare bums.
This Is What It Would Look Like If You Dropped Manhattan Into the Grand Canyon
Interesting photoshop results -
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/arts-and-lifestyle/2013/07/what-it-would-look-if-you-dropped-manhattan-grand-canyon/6204/
That’s what the Grand Canyon would actually look like today if it wasn’t for those darn progressives.
Doublespeak is just too funny!
Pretty much, alpha.
Put Washington D.C. and Los Angeles in the Grand Canyon too and then pave over it, none of them would be missed.
*Except for the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Museum.
Don’t give our space alien invaders any ideas!
The lawyers must have been charging $500 a month to keep the process going. That is how much one guy I know paid for the last 4 years and it seems that’s what this woman paid.
To see the woman picket and the lawyer’s side of the story click the link and scroll down 40 stories on top stories list.
Foreclosure victim pickets her lawyer
By Chuck Weber/CBS 12
BOCA RATON– A woman who’s losing her home to foreclosure, picketed outside the office of her Boca Raton lawyer on Monday.
“Don’t go with this guy, don’t go with this guy,” Gail Zamore shouted at a passing driver.
Zamore held signs at the office of C. William Berger. Zamore says she paid Berger thousands, but only found out about the foreclosure auction sale of her Tequesta home two days after it happened.
Zamore says no one told her about the final court hearing in May, and she questioned her lawyer’s tactics.
“I did not get the help of $25,000 that I gave this lawyer,” said Zamore. “I received nothing– except my home is gone.”
CBS 12 visited the law office. We were told Berger was not available.
Berger called us later, and defended his work on Zamore’s case. He said he’s kept her in her home for more than 3 years. Berger said clients are generally advised not to attend the final hearing.
http://www.cbs12.com/news/top-stories/ - 457k -
Lawyers are scum. I once had a lawyer put in the State prison for 3 years , for stealing the funds for a house we sold. Even then he tried to slip out a year early, only because we carefully monitored his term he stayed put, served 3 years of a 12 year term…A rather satisfied feeling ,we must say..
That guy is scum to be sure. One of the only surefire ways to be disbarred is to co-mingle client funds with your own. The only other one I’ve seen is to commit perjury and that’s not easy because the gov’t has to prove you lied knowingly.
He should run for mayor.
“Lawyers are scum”
Indeed they are. And they support even bigger SCUM for political office.
“NEW HAVEN (AP) — Attorneys are lavishing hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions on Democrats running for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut, while giving the two leading Republicans less than $50,000 combined, according to an Associated Press review of campaign finance records.
U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy, a Democrat who leads all candidates with $2.75 million in itemized contributions by the end of last year, received about $445,000, or 16 percent of his total, from contributors who described themselves as lawyers or attorneys. Former Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz, another Democrat running for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Joe Lieberman, received $331,000, or 23 percent of her total, from attorneys. State Rep. William Tong, a Democrat, received $170,000, or 21 percent of his total, from attorneys.
Among Republican candidates, former U.S. Rep. Chris Shays received about $24,000 from attorneys, or 6 percent of his total contributions, and Linda McMahon received $21,000, or 8 percent.”
You realize that most senators and congressmen from BOTH parties are (or were) lawyers, right?
I have to agree. We had a court-appointed lawyer who handled an incapacitated family member’s finances- and he was just bilking, and bilking, and bilking, all the while talking about how he was working in the interest of the family member when in fact he was really working for Bank of America who held the trust account. I exposed this truth, and the fact that he was sponging off somebody’s misfortune, in a meeting we had with him. He turned red and immediately had hatred for me. I greatly enjoyed seeing that narcissist squirm.
Between the courts, the lawyer, and Bank of America, nearly all of the money was frittered away through bad investments and service charges (churn ‘em and burn ‘em), with no accountability whatsoever. In their so-called effort to “protect” the individual from being taken advantage of financially by family members (apparently it happens all the time, and I honestly understand though it would not have happened in our case), they succeeded in destroying the finances of this individual, and passing a financial burden onto our family. The court did not care. Apparently, Bank of America is their go to financial institution. I hope the attorney burns in hell, as well as Bank of America.
“Berger called us later, and defended his work on Zamore’s case. He said he’s kept her in her home for more than 3 years.”
That’s probably true. I know a guy who uses this tactic, paying a retainer to an attorney to keep him in the home. I guess it works if it’s cheaper than the monthly mortgage payment.
Wonder if she would have been better off paying the $25,000 towards the mortgage she promised and sign a contract to pay…
“Wonder if she would have been better off paying the $25,000 towards the mortgage she promised and sign a contract to pay…”
I think she probably paid less than the $25k to start with and the hood she lives in rents at are at least $2k a month. So at that she got 2+ years for free which does not count the cash out ATM money she got.
This was her story on the local news a couple of weeks ago. If you click the link they say she bought in the 90s and refied in the boom.
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 -
The kool-aid runs deep.
Lord help you if you own a house or a business in a city like this.
——————————
Stalled Motor City
Townhall.com | July 24, 2013 | John Stossel
MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry — the same TV commentator who said Americans need to stop raising kids as if they belong to individual families — had an extraordinary explanation for why the city of Detroit sought to declare bankruptcy last week: not enough government.
“This is what it looks like when government is small enough to drown in your bathtub, and it is not a pretty picture.” She says budget-cutting Republicans threaten to transform all of the U.S. into Detroit.
What? Detroit has been a “model city” for big-government! All Detroit’s mayors since 1962 were Democrats who were eager to micromanage. And spend. Detroit has the only utility tax in Michigan, and its income tax is the third-highest of any big city in America (only Philadelphia and Louisville take more, and they aren’t doing great, either).
Detroit’s automakers got billions in federal bailouts.
The Detroit News revealed that in 2011, the city had around twice as many municipal employees per capita as cities with comparable populations. Detroit’s water and sewer department employed a “horseshoer” even though it keeps no horses.
This is “small enough government”? Harris-Perry must have one heck of a bathtub.
And if you criticized them for it, politicians like former Mayor Coleman Young called you a racist. “To attack Detroit is to attack black,” Young said. That tends to shut critics up.
Lord help you if you own a house or a business in a city like this ??
It may not be the only city either;
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDAQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnbc.com%2Fid%2F100909014&ei=bdjvUdxFw5CJApKmgbAG&usg=AFQjCNGzVwMdkAmLdwXQY8DWQnbZLvCmQQ&sig2=DYr8dcBCaf-nMW0dt1e5SQ
Here it comes…
take care of those who put you in power (cough - public unions) and f*ck everyone else.
———————
Detroit not a one-off, aftershocks will be staggering: Whitney
Wednesday, 24 Jul 2013 | Matt Clinch | CNBC
Michigan. Detroit’s emergency manager Kevin Orr filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy making Detroit the largest city to file for bankruptcy in U.S. history.
As part of Detroit’s restructuring plan, Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr wants to treat general obligation (GO) bonds as unsecured debt. If that request is approved by the bankruptcy judge, the $3.7 trillion muni-bond market could be turned on its head, as would the long-held assumption that GO bonds represent a relatively risk-free investment.
Ultimately the bankers will win over the unions.
As always, everybody but the bankers gets screwed.
You would have to be insane to buy muni bonds today. And I don’t mean from the Chicagos and Philadelphias of the world. I mean even from some podunk county in Iowa. Cities and counties all over the country are going broke thanks to ridiculous govt employee costs.
Take your money and have a nice weekend in Las Vegas, you’ll have a better chance of getting a positive ROI than from municipal bonds.
The kool-aid goes VERY deep.
—————————
Detroit Mayoral Candidate Says City’s Plight Is Part Of A Conspiracy
Jalopnok | 7/23/13 | Ryan Felton
Posted on Wednesday, July 24, 2013 3:45:11 AM by Impala64ssa
In the city of Detroit, 60 percent of children reportedly live in poverty, 40 percent of the streetlights don’t work, police take about an hour to respond to any call, it filed for bankruptcy protection last week, and, according to mayoral candidate Tom Barrow, it’s all a lie.
“Chess moves are thought way in advance,” Barrow tells the local ABC affiliate WXYZ. Barrow was visiting the WXYZ studio to introduce himself to the public that may not know who he is, for a get-to-know-the-candidate-who-really-believes-all-of-your-city’s-problems-are-entirely-made-up segment. “These are really big claims you’re making…the way you’re talking, these problems are all made up,”
Obama causes welfare chaos in Detroit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfGLB8LO1aM
Never trust a woman with 3 slave names.
Is she still a slave?
Ask her master.
Obama?
Niqqa please!
Obama has no power:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PMujT74VuA
Billions in US taxpayer money for the Volt
Billions in US taxpayer money for the Telsa
And then BMW comes along all by itself.
Whatever government touches - it destroys.
———————————–
BMW’s New Electric Car Just Became a Major Problem [a problem for its competitors]
fool.com | July 23, 2013 | Katie Spence
On Monday, BMW announced that the U.S. base price for its all-electric i3 will be $41,350, not including any federal or state incentives. For General Motors’ Chevy Volt, and possibly Tesla Motor’s Model S, BMW’s move spells major trouble. Here’s why.
Bad news, GM
With a starting MSRP of $39,145 in 2012, the Volt was the best-selling EV, and it’s not hard to see why. Really more of an electric hybrid than a straight EV, the Volt combines a 9.3-gallon fuel tank with a lithium-ion battery. This combination allows the Volt can go an estimated 38 miles on pure battery before switching to regular fuel, which extends the range to an estimated 380 miles. Because of this combination, the Volt cuts down on range anxiety, which is still a huge deterrent to getting consumers into EVs.
Now, compare the above to BMW’s all-electric i3: According to BMW, the i3 has a pure-electric range of 80-100 miles, thanks to its lithium-ion battery, and has an optional range extender that lengthens that initial range by 80 miles. Plus, thanks to BMW’s eDrive technology, a driver can extend the initial range up to 124 miles by putting the vehicle in one of the “EcoPro” modes.
Right away you can see the problem. Not only does BMW’s i3 go farther on pure battery power, but with the purchase of the optional range extender, range anxiety goes way down. More pointedly, the base MSRP for the BMW is only $2,000 more than the Volt. I don’t know about you, but if I had to decide between spending $39,000 for a Volt, or $2,000 more for a BMW, I’m going with the BMW, hands down.
Tesla, this is bad for you, too
Cars in general are done as a high profit industry. They’ve become too easy to reliably manufacture. Moreover, younger people want better transit options and tend to want to live in urban areas. Boomers will also be downsizing transportation expenditures as they head to retirement.
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/07/yet-more-evidence-peak-car/6299/
That said, Teslas and Fiskers are truly innovative and awesome cars in their own right. Just amazing machines.
That said, Teslas and Fiskers are truly innovative and awesome cars in their own right. Just amazing machines.
All they have is a better battery techonlogy compared to others. They are not amazing machines…there are quite a few amazing machines out there…even a gas guzzling variety.
It is amazing that taxpayers are giving billions to high end car manufacturers so that they can build $100,000+ cars so that the wealthy 1%ers can buy them.
It is amazing that taxpayers are giving billions to high end car manufacturers so that they can build $100,000+ cars so that the wealthy 1%ers can buy them.
I see you are beginning to understand the agenda of the very rich: they are subsidized by a struggling middle class.
The free sh*t army does not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, income or money in the bank.
I see you are beginning to understand the agenda of the very rich: they are subsidized by a struggling middle class.
Tesla type S is fairly common in DC and IIRC it starts at under 70k. Comparable to mid/low level Merc or BMW, but a superior car.
Tesla type S is fairly common in DC and IIRC it starts at under 70k. Comparable to mid/low level Merc or BMW, but a superior car.
I don’t know if I’d say “superior”. The interior is kind of chintzy compared to Mercedes and BMW as far as I could tell. I think to save weight just as much as money. But a spectacularly good car considering the newness of the technology. Runs 12s at the dragstrip at any elevation. Up here that puts you in the AMG/M-car class for comparable performance.
“Teslas and Fiskers are truly innovative and awesome cars in their own right. Just amazing machines.”
The F-16 is also an amazing machine, but I can’t afford one of those either.
2012 Fisker Karma
MSRP: $102,000 - $115,000
How much does a F-16 cost?
Answer:
New, and to military specifications; around 17 Million U.S Dollars (not including ordinance or fuel)
Fisker is done. No point in even talking about it. Just use Tesla from now on for all comparisons. There can be only one Apple of cars.
non-conformist,
Where did you get that $$ for F-16s? Did you just pull that number out your ass? In 2004 it cost Israel $2.5 billion for 50 F-16s. Oh yeah, the American tax payer paid for those F-16s to Israel plus billions more for ammo, missiles and spare parts.
On the other hand we are selling Iraq 18 F-16’s for $165 million each.
http://nation.time.com/2011/09/28/sticker-shock-iraqi-f-16s-165-million-each/
Bluestar
“Where did you get that $$ for F-16s? Did you just pull that number out your ass?”
Put this in your @ss, waddle on over to wiki.answers.com and bitch at them.
Did I answer your question?
How much does a f-16 cost?
In: F-16 Fighting Falcon [Edit categories]
Answer:
New, and to military specifications; around 17Million U.S Dollars (not including ordinance or fuel)
“Used”, and with its weapons systems deactivated; closer to 2Million.
Destroyed, and in pieces scattering a field in Afghanistan; quadruple the top figure then add a couple of zeros for good measure!
Did we answer your question?
How much does a f-16 cost - Wiki Answers
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_a_f-16_cost - 71k -
Well it must be true since it’s on the internet.
Sorry about the slur, I use to work at lockheed so I just had to jump on that. If you had provided that link I would have been more restrained.
In 1995 most of the stuff on the internet was 90% real news, information and data. Then they polluted the net with Compuserve, AOL users and Drudge. It will only get worse I’m afraid.
The left is really pushing the “nobody wants to drive anymore” meme.
It’s laughable. They forget to mention that people stopped driving a lot right when gas went to $4/gallon. Hmmm… you don’t think that had something to do with it do you? Nah. It must be the desire of young people to take the bus instead of driving. And the funny thing is liberals actually believe this nonsense.
Yet on the other hand Obama’s campaign last year wouldn’t stop talking about how he singlehandedly saved Detroit. So driving is evil, but UAW goons who make the evil cars are heroes. Interesting.
What the left also forgets (conveniently) is the surge in work done from home over the past 10-20 years. There are millions of people who work remotely now, that did not do this 10-20 years ago. These are people who don’t commute and hence, don’t drive as much as they used to. So the miles driven per person drops. Liberals look at this and say AH-HA, people don’t want to drive anymore, let’s build a new train that nobody will use and cost $600B more than budgeted.
Your partisan drivel is appreciated by your masters.
There is a scary monster that looks like Saul Alinsky hiding under my bed.
Then buy it.
We look forward to your review.
I read another article about this car somewhere recently. It also mentioned the range extender. The range extender is a gasoline engine. In other words, if you buy the version with the range extender, you’re buying a hybrid car. However, the article that I read, just like this excerpt from fool.com, doesn’t call it a hybrid car. It’s interesting how the BMW marketing people were able to get these journalists to write about it in that way.
Really what’s being introduced is two models. One is an all-electric car. BMW will probably sell very few of these. Not many people are interested in all-electric cars at this point. The other model is a hybrid which will have to complete with the many hybrid models already available.
Also, 2banana, do you know for a fact that the German government hasn’t lent money to BMW or perhaps subsidized their research and development spending? I bet you that you don’t.
EVERY country subsidizes their auto manufacturers.
Germany pays for the health insurance of those BMW workers.
“Germany pays for the health insurance of those BMW workers.”
Wrong. Only the very poor get free health care, no different than Medicaid recipients here. Workers at BMW receive their insurance from the same place workers at GM do…their employer.
“Germany has a universal[1] multi-payer health care system with two main types of health insurance: “Law-enforced health insurance” (Gesetzliche Krankenversicherung) known as sickness funds and “Private” (Private Krankenversicherung).[2][3][4]
Compulsory insurance applies to those below a set income level and is provided through private non-profit “sickness funds” at common rates for all members, and is paid for with joint employer-employee contributions. Provider compensation rates are negotiated in complex corporatist social bargaining among specified autonomously organized interest groups (e.g. physicians’ associations) at the level of federal states (Länder). The sickness funds are mandated to provide a wide range of coverages and cannot refuse membership or otherwise discriminate on an actuarial basis. Small numbers of persons are covered by tax-funded government employee insurance or social welfare insurance. Persons with incomes above the prescribed compulsory insurance level may opt into the sickness fund system, which a majority do, or purchase private insurance. Private supplementary insurance to the sickness funds of various sorts is available.”
Damn unions!
How dare they build high quality cars and yet still make a profit for the shareholders while being well paid and taken care of!
Bad news for Tesla? Let us know when the BMW goes over 250 miles.
Or anyone for that matter.
I never saw this coming..
Concerned that tougher mortgage rules could hamper the housing recovery, regulators are preparing to relax a key plank of the rules proposed after the financial crisis.
The watchdogs, which include the Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., want to loosen a proposed requirement that banks retain a portion of the mortgage securities they sell to investors, according to people familiar with the situation.
Advocates of more stringent standards said that a broad exemption to the risk-retention rules would undermine the initial goal of imposing market discipline. “My sense is that Washington has lost its political will for serious reform of the securitization market,” said Sheila Bair, who served as FDIC chairman until 2011.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/easing-mortgage-curb-weighed-000300214.html
Many policy makers have no regard for the long term since Keynes noted, “In the long run, we are all dead.”
There’s a saying, “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” Nowadays, the old men simply try to enrich themselves and their cronies and damn the long term costs.
There’s a saying, “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
Might have more do with:
The government will demand an environmental impact statement for the planting of trees and a new “tree” tax, the minority groups in the area will sue because based on their statistic data their neighborhood already bears too much of the shading of the city due to racism, gays will demonstrate that not enough shade trees are being planted in the gayborhood showing obvious favoritism, public unions will demand that only they are allowed to actually plant the trees with outrageous overtime and a bonus kicker to their pension (or they will go out on strike).
The government will the demand a special inheritance tax on all planted shade tree - because it is not fair the old man’s grandchildren have shade trees when so many do not. The grandchildren will have to cut down all the trees and sell the lumber to pay the tax.
Eventually, the old man says, “FU, you can burn in the sun.”
How many trees have YOU planted, nannerz?
Love that quote, Neuromance.
A society that behaves thusly holds ethics and morals in high regard.
We don’t have that now. Nowadays, people think that law trumps ethics and morals. Once they realize that it’s really the other way around, we’ll have a society that thinks beyond it’s own hedonistic wants.
And when those at the top of the food chain don’t adhere to the “ethics and morals” they expect from us mere plebes, it’s hypocrisy.
Why we don’t have a system that honors ethics and morals (honor both in fame and money) is interesting to me.
We could very easily have that in an open society.
But we openly court the route of OPM and law breaking.
We excuse it by saying “everyone else is doing it, why shouldn’t I?”
Laws don’t encourage morals and ethics. In many instances, laws discourage morals and ethics.
Laws don’t encourage morals and ethics. In many instances, laws discourage morals and ethics.
You are a wise man MacBeth.
I don’t know about that, HA. I do the best I can…but still make plenty of errors and the occasional mess of things.
I do know that too many laws yields graft and a good number of people to do things to skirt the law.
Laws don’t encourage morals and ethics. In many instances, laws discourage morals and ethics.
Further to the point; it takes years of experience to understand this truth. And to be more accurate, laws increase law breaking. It’s the condition of man yet that doesn’t me we need more laws. To the contrary; fewer laws deflates mans desire to break them.
“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.”
The old men we have now are busy clearing the saplings and feeding them through the chipper.
Young “whippersnapper”: “Hey, c’mon, that’s my future shade tree!”
Grumpy old greedhead: “Shut your mouth! I don’t give a rat’s ass about your shade, I want some mulch for my 40 acre estate. Now, get off my lawn and go back to your pathetic part-time Walmart gig and keep leaching off us taxpayers with your damn food stamps, you scum.”
So, one of the big teeth of Dodd Frank is going to be pulled. Wait until they completely de-fang the Volcker Rule.
What will we be left with?
Thousands of pages of rules and regulations that impact every corner of the financial industry except the part that was the problem.
Bang up job, congress.
Borrowers in Obama housing program re-defaulting, watchdog says
By Les Christie @CNNMoney July 24, 2013: 12:08 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
Borrowers who received help through the government’s main foreclosure prevention program are re-defaulting on their mortgages at alarming rates, a federal watchdog said in a report released Wednesday.
Nearly 1.2 million mortgage modifications have been completed since the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) was first launched four years ago. Yet more than 306,000 borrowers have re-defaulted on their loans and more than 88,000 are at risk of following suit, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) found in its quarterly report to Congress.
In addition, the watchdog found that the longer a homeowner stays in the HAMP modification program, the more likely they are to default. Those who have been in the program since 2009, are re-defaulting at a rate of 46%, the inspector general found.
http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/24/real_estate/hamp-default/index.html?section=money_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fmoney_topstories+(Top+Stories) -
Buh but… Obama saved them! How can this be?
“Buh but… Obama saved them! How can this be?”
He saved Detroit too, I hope he doesn’t try to save me.
It will be necessary to destroy you in order to save you.
Obama once bit my sister.
“Big defense contractors are weathering the federal budget sequester far more easily than they projected, in part because they have gradually eliminated jobs over the past few years in anticipation of spending cuts.
Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest defense contractor, reported Tuesday that its profit rose 10 percent, to $859 million, during the second quarter even as revenue dipped slightly. Northrup Grumman and General Dynamics, two other large contractors, are scheduled to report results Wednesday.
With the Pentagon only a few months into sequestration, analysts said they’re not surprised that defense contractors’ earnings are holding up. Many contracts are booked years in advance and it will take time, analysts cautioned, for the spending cuts to show up in companies’ bottom lines.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/defense-firms-weathering-budget-cuts-more-easily-than-expected/2013/07/23/d23c4f7e-f3b9-11e2-aa2e-4088616498b4_story.html
“There are now 227,000 individuals and families on the waiting list for Housing Authority apartments, totalling roughly half a million people, and the queue moves slowly. The apartments are so coveted that few ever leave them. Only 5,400 to 5,800 open up annually.
The odds, never good, are getting worse. This year, after the agency began accepting applications online, the waiting list reached a milestone: for the first time, the number of applicants exceeded the 178,900 apartments in the public housing stock.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/24/nyregion/for-many-seeking-public-housing-the-wait-can-be-endless.html?pagewanted=all
“Are you talking me?” - Travis Bickle
Is commodities price fixing legal, so long as the perpetrator is a bank?
This story brings to mind the way Enron used to (legally?) manipulate electricity prices.
July 22, 2013, 11:35 a.m. EDT
Big Changes Ahead for Commodity Price Manipulation
By 24/7 Wall St.
Sunday’s New York Times story on the shenanigans played by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS) at its aluminum warehouse in Detroit is nothing especially new. What is new is that the Times has now found the story.
Goldman has been playing games with aluminum stockpiles since at least 2010, shortly after the bank acquired warehousing company Metro International Trade Services. In 2011, Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) filed a complaint with the London Metals Exchange (LME) accusing Metro of accepting aluminum for storage at its warehouses and then essentially refusing to let the stuff out.
The effect of Metro’s delaying tactic is to increase the amount of fees it - and Goldman - can collect for storing the aluminum and to raise aluminum prices. Users of aluminum, like Coca-Cola, can either wait up to 16 months to get a delivery or they can seek out aluminum providers like Alcoa Inc. (NYSE: AA) and Rio Tinto PLC (NYSE: RIO) and pay the higher spot price the producers demand. Consumers of course pay the final tab.
In 2011, Metro rented its aluminum warehouse space for $0.42 per ton per day. With capacity for 1.5 million tons, that alone works out to around $230 million a year. But the real money lies in the financialization of the warehouse inventory.
The Financial Times’ Alphaville blog has an excellent summary of how this entirely legal manipulation works financially. In short, when it looked like commodity prices would rise forever, passive commodity investors (speculators) like pension funds and exchange-traded products were willing buyers of either the physical commodity or the futures, providing both liquidity and profit for the banks, which could sell the derivatives to investors or hedge prices for an oil company or aluminum miner.
But the party may be over.
…
Got shadow inventory of aluminum?
This could not happen if the trusts were busted and the Sherman Antitrust Act enforced. Paging Teddy Roosevelt!
The House Edge
A Shuffle of Aluminum, but to Banks, Pure Gold
David Walter Banks for The New York Times
Aluminum ingots waiting to be shipped from a processor. Financial institutions like Goldman Sachs have used industry pricing regulations to earn millions of dollars each year.
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
Published: July 20, 2013 1018 Comments
MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. — Hundreds of millions of times a day, thirsty Americans open a can of soda, beer or juice. And every time they do it, they pay a fraction of a penny more because of a shrewd maneuver by Goldman Sachs and other financial players that ultimately costs consumers billions of dollars.
The story of how this works begins in 27 industrial warehouses in the Detroit area where a Goldman subsidiary stores customers’ aluminum. Each day, a fleet of trucks shuffles 1,500-pound bars of the metal among the warehouses. Two or three times a day, sometimes more, the drivers make the same circuits. They load in one warehouse. They unload in another. And then they do it again.
This industrial dance has been choreographed by Goldman to exploit pricing regulations set up by an overseas commodities exchange, an investigation by The New York Times has found. The back-and-forth lengthens the storage time. And that adds many millions a year to the coffers of Goldman, which owns the warehouses and charges rent to store the metal. It also increases prices paid by manufacturers and consumers across the country.
Tyler Clay, a forklift driver who worked at the Goldman warehouses until early this year, called the process “a merry-go-round of metal.”
Only a tenth of a cent or so of an aluminum can’s purchase price can be traced back to the strategy. But multiply that amount by the 90 billion aluminum cans consumed in the United States each year — and add the tons of aluminum used in things like cars, electronics and house siding — and the efforts by Goldman and other financial players has cost American consumers more than $5 billion over the last three years, say former industry executives, analysts and consultants.
The inflated aluminum pricing is just one way that Wall Street is flexing its financial muscle and capitalizing on loosened federal regulations to sway a variety of commodities markets, according to financial records, regulatory documents and interviews with people involved in the activities.
…
Even a manipulated speculative bubble funded by and encouraged by those who make the law will fall apart.
It did turn out that way for the South Sea Bubble, didn’t it?
Sooner or later Steve Cohen was going to go down. What’s interesting here is that while his company may be barred from managing external funds, he’ll probably still be able to trade his own. But would that cut him off from heavily obscured sources of insider info?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2013/07/24/the-government-is-moving-to-destory-legendary-hedge-fund-firm-sac-capital/
You know what’s funny (or sad) - People will throw their money at Cohen if he remains able to trade. Because now everyone knows he uses inside information rather than just having some nebulous “insight” or being lucky with his timing. It’s out in the open. If the SEC can’t get Cohen’s ability to manage others’ money revoked, they’ve just been neutered. It would be very sad (for markets, for America) but also hilarious.
In following the case, it does seem they’ve been very, very methodical and cautious in their approach, going after a number of smaller fish in or connected to the firm and moving up the ladder. So far they’ve had a most difficult time getting the smaller fry like Martoma to implicate Cohen, but something tells me that they’ve got something now that makes their case. Preet Bahrahara (sp) is involved, and he hates to lose.
In a way, it almost looks like a done deal, the way everything is laid out. Probably the firm will be dismantled and Stevie will be scot free to trade on his own behalf. I wonder if that will hinder access to insider info or make it easier for him? I guess, if he doesn’t have a firm, that makes it more difficult to pay for that info.
So if he is outed as a crook he ends up benifiting from this outing?
I like it.
If you like prison, sure.
U.S. NEWS
July 22, 2013, 7:30 p.m. ET
More Americans Living in Others’ Homes
By JOSH MITCHELL
The number of Americans living in someone else’s home for economic reasons rose in the past year despite an improving labor market, posing a challenge for the housing market and the broader recovery.
The number of so-called missing households—representing adults who would be owning or renting their own home if household formation had stayed at normal rates since the recession—has increased 4% over the past year, according to an analysis for The Wall Street Journal.
John O’Connor, second from right, splits time between his mother’s and father’s houses to save money. Here, Mr. O’Connor with family and friends.
There are now some 2.4 million such people, many of them living with their parents, but also seniors living with their adult offspring and people renting rooms in a home headed by an unrelated person.
John O’Connor, a 26-year-old lawyer in San Francisco, is one of them. Mr. O’Connor has split time at the homes of his mother and father in the Bay Area the past four years while attending the Hastings College of Law at the University of California, where he graduated last summer. He landed a job as an associate litigator at a local firm, but has opted to stay with his parents to avoid paying the city’s notoriously high rents.
Mr. O’Connor estimates that renting a decent one-bedroom apartment would cost him $25,000 a year, after taxes. Staying with his parents has given him more spending money and enabled him to start saving for a down payment on his own home. His sister is also living with his parents while working full time.
“Ultimately, I think the price is right—you’ve got all the amenities of living at home that you wouldn’t have otherwise,” Mr. O’Connor said of living at his parents’ homes. “The washer and dryer at your place, the full kitchen all the time, and you’re not living that rugged lifestyle. You get to eat steak and not ramen.”
…
Hope and change buyz…
Can’t wait to see what happens when obamacare is fully implemented.
Boardinghouses will make a big comeback, and be very popular among those who actually possess a brain.
Three square meals provided, full kitchens, baths, laundry. Cleaning provided.
The biggest roadblock will be small-minded government types and elitist snobs who automatically associate boardinghouses with Section 8 leeches.
Out of my eight great-grandparents, three of them owned and ran boardinghouses. So yes, I DO know.
I prefer to think of them as barracks for civilians, but yeah.
Speaking of boarding houses- I saw this article yesterday:
http://www.theatlanticcities dot com/housing/2013/07/it-time-bring-back-boarding-house/6236/
Is It Time to Bring Back the Boarding House?
from the article:
Around the turn of the last century, American cities were full of housing options that are largely nonexistent today: tenements, boarding houses, rooming houses, flop houses, single-room occupancy buildings or SROs – all variations on the idea of small living spaces at low cost. Some were rentable by the night. Some were built around shared amenities like showers and kitchens (or, as seen above, reading rooms). All of them contribute to our grainy picture of early urban America as over-crowded, flammable, and full of unscrupulous landlords.
By contrast, most American cities today regulate the low end of the studio market, setting it somewhere around a minimum of 400-square feet in size. Likewise, building codes set a ceiling on occupancy, capping the number of unrelated people who can room together under the same roof.
The effect, argues the Sightline Institute’s Alan Durning, is that we’ve outlawed the bottom end of the private housing market, driving up rents on everything above it. If we want to make cities more affordable, he proposes in a new ebook, Unlocking Home, we should look again at housing solutions that went out with the last century.
Excellent. Thanks, Bubba.
Most people in flyover would have no problem with the idea. It’s the nouveau riche (i.e. elitists) and communing with nature types living In The Big City that will try to prevent a boardinghouse comeback.
Big Government also hates boardinghouses. (What? No Section 8?! Wherever will all THOSE people live?).
No need to worry, all you Big Government types out there. No self-respecting taxpayer leech will denigrate themselves to live in a boardinghouse).
NOTE: ObamaCare will force a return of for-profit boardinghouses and a decline of Section 8.
Hello ObamaCare! Welcome back the years of 1880-1920
Section 8 distorts the rental market, of course.
Get rid of it, and options will rise and rental prices will drop.
(No, I’m not holding my breath. Too many lobbyists, lawyers and NAR types on the take).
Low-Income-Housing-Tax-Credit (LIHTC) apartments are the new rage now among socialists. Brand new apartment complexes that would other wise charge, say $1500 for a 2 bedroom, can be had for $400 if you are “low income”.
And what’s considered “low income”? $65K for a family of 4. So making $15K more than the median is no considered low income.
For Obamacare “low income” is $94,000 a year which is the threshold to get subsidies.
This goal of course is to have everyone dependent on govt for their day to day existence.
HOPE!!
Push WILL come to shove.
The first move will be to gut the military, rightly or wrongly.
Shortly afterward, it will be discovered that doing so wasn’t even close to enough.
“Can’t wait to see what happens when obamacare is fully implemented.”
May every Obama voter suffer unimaginable pain while dealing with govt run health care.
What the dolts who think O-Care = free care don’t understand is that, like in all communist countries, those with money get ahead of the line. Those without rot.
Why else do you think ObamaCare was implemented?
Not for the little guy, but for Leona Helmsley types. And their political whores.
If it were for the little types, the populace would have known full well what was in it, and have a chance to make their thoughts known.
Funny what freedoms people will relinquish in exchange for “security”.
O-Care has nothing to do with health care. It has everything to do with growing govt. When you are dependent on the govt for everything…housing, medical care, food, you will always vote for more govt.
That’s why O-Care exists. That’s why Obama has doubled the amount of people on food stamps. That’s why Obama has nationalized student loans. Slowly but surely, every aspect of an American’s life will be dependent on govt. Want to see a doctor? Govt is involved. Want to get a student loan? Govt is involved. Want to buy bread? Use your EBT card from the govt. Want to get a cell phone? Your govt issued phone is right there. Need a new place to live? Call the friendly folks over at 1-800-Section8 and they will happily find you the right abode.
What the dolts who think O-Care = free care don’t understand is that, like in all communist countries, those with money get ahead of the line. Those without rot.
As far I know, this is not a significant problem with Medicare. My maternal grandmother had nothing more than a very small Social Security check for the last 25 years of her life, was well taken care of by Medicare, and lived to be 91.
So why has Obama cut Medicare?
It is not government-run healthcare. Is Medicare government-run healthcare? You can choose your own doctor and get care as you see fit. All the government does is pay for it. People on Medicare can get supplemental insurance, or not. Explain to me how the government “runs” health care for the elderly when they can choose who, what, where, when and how they get care.
Obamacare is what we ended up with because no one had the cojones to take on Big Insurance. If you want to rant, rant about how a bunch of NYSE-listed big corporations are holding decent and affordable health care hostage in this moronic country.
#1 comment for today.
+1
‘Mr. O’Connor estimates that renting a decent one-bedroom apartment would cost him $25,000 a year, after taxes. Staying with his parents has given him more spending money and enabled him to start saving for a down payment on his own home. His sister is also living with his parents while working full time.’
A variance of the Oil City plan. Surprised we have not seen more commune-like places open up over the years to deal with housing cost pressures. Maybe ordinances and lack of cohesive participants is a probable cause?
Maybe Daddy needs to start charging rent…
Can’t. That’s your answer in many locales, Absolute Beginner.
Traditional boardinghouses are against the law in many places. If they were allowed to exist, OPM would be taken out of the marketplace. That is local, state and federal governments cannot allow.
Besides, THOSE people live in boardinghouses.
Why not make big money having THOSE people live in taxpayer-funded domiciles instead? That way, instead of working for money, we can become rich via OPM.
To quote someone else above, “He works, you kick back. What’s not to like?”
“John O’Connor, a 26-year-old lawyer in San Francisco, is one of them. Mr. O’Connor has split time at the homes of his mother and father in the Bay Area the past four years while attending the Hastings College of Law at the University of California, where he graduated last summer. He landed a job as an associate litigator at a local firm, but has opted to stay with his parents to avoid paying the city’s notoriously high rents.”
But wait a second. Weren’t we told yesterday that blue, progressive cities like S.F. is where people climb the income ladder the fastest? And we were told that young people would be nuts to move to Dallas or Charlotte because they’ll never climb up the ladder.
As I replied back to that, that’s all fine and good. You can go to S.F. and make 100% more money than in Dallas. But what good is that if the cost of living is 500% more than in Dallas? This guy is a perfect example of how that works. But why let facts get in the way of a good “San Francisco is awesome, Dallas is yucky” story.
John, you go ahead and enjoy life in progressive utopia. Maybe one day you’ll wear big boy pants and actually get to live on your own. I know plenty of people who live in Boston, Bay Area and NY who are in their 30s and still live in dumps even though on paper they’re “rich”. On the other hand everyone in the same situation in Dallas or Denver or Houston live in palaces. Funny how that works, huh?
FWIW, Denver is pretty “blue”. But even so, the young pretty things are hesitant to move out here, even though the place does cater to them. They do know that they will climb the ladder faster in the Bay Area than out here.
If you don’t care about climbing the ladder, this is a good place to be.
True, Denver is quite blue.
I spent a good chunk of time in Denver over the years. Always enjoyed myself. I thought it has a pretty good vibe for the youngns.
Seems like the perfect combination of cheap living and big city lifestyle with good job prospects. Yeah, SF is better career wise. But what good is making VP by 30 if you have to live in your mom’s basement while doing so?
The more important point is that, even though San Francisco is a big city with lots of big companies, there aren’t that many VP jobs to be had. If thousands of youg people move there right out of college with the hope of becoming high level exexcutives, the vast majority of them will be disappointed.
The more important point is that, even though San Francisco is a big city with lots of big companies, there aren’t that many VP jobs to be had. If thousands of youg people move there right out of college with the hope of becoming high level exexcutives, the vast majority of them will be disappointed.
It’s all relative. Considering the tech model of having HQ there and branch offices everywhere else, there are more VP positions there than anywhere else. The majority will always be disappointed.
But even better than making VP is being able to start something yourself. Sometimes it’s not possible unless you are where all the ingredients are plentiful.
Group think is one of the deciding factors in where people chose to live.
The smart play is to go to SF when you’re 23 live like a hobo for a few years, save some money, make the right connections, then move to Denver/Dallas/Fill in City more than 100 miles from an Ocean and live a normal life.
Naked Capitalism has more to say:
Four Headwinds to the US Housing Recovery
BTW, just sent this link to a friend who’s all hot to buy a house NOW! I’m advising him to keep his powder dry.
“renting a decent one-bedroom apartment would cost him $25,000 a year, after taxes.”
Rent is now taxed?
I think what he meant is that to come up with $25k in rent, you need to earn more (pre-tax) than coming up with $25k in mortgage payments.
Before and after.
Watch out below for falling BRICs.
July 24, 2013, 5:54 a.m. EDT
China stocks drop on downbeat data; India slides
By V. Phani Kumar, MarketWatch
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Mainland Chinese stocks fell Wednesday after a gauge of the country’s manufacturing sector dropped to a 11-month low, while Indian shares dropped after the country’s central bank further tightened its policies to support the rupee.
The Shanghai Composite fell 0.5% as investors digested preliminary data released by HSBC, showing China’s manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index slid to 47.7 in July from a final reading of 48.2 in June. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index ended 0.2% higher.
Both benchmarks came off their lows amid expectations that policy makers were likely to step in to support the economy, after a state-owned media report earlier this week cited Premier Li Keqiang as saying that Beijing wouldn’t tolerate an economic growth of less than 7%.
“As Beijing has recently stressed to secure the minimum level of growth required to ensure stable employment, the flash PMI reinforces the need to introduce additional fine-tuning measures to stabilize growth,” said HSBC’s chief China economist Hongbin Qu, in a statement accompanying the PMI data release.
…
Yet 3% growth is considered good in this country.
Hmmm.
Hope and Change
“President Obama’s job performance rating has plummeted 10 points in solidly blue California since February, an across-the-board decline that is steepest among his most fervent backers, according to the latest survey by the Field Poll.
A bare majority of California voters, just 52 percent, now approve of Obama’s record in office, with 35 percent disapproving and 13 percent holding no opinion, according to the poll of 846 registered voters in the state.”
http://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Obama-s-approval-rating-falls-in-California-4680870.php
As a second term president, Obama can now reveal his true form. Oh, the gnashing of teeth on the left.
To their credit, the left at least realizes they’ve been suckered, unlike the right that went full Stockholm Syndrome with Bush II.
How did you arrive at this?
To anyone who thinks, it was clear who Obama was before he was elected the first time.
To anyone who thinks a little slow, it should have been obvious Obama was before he was elected a second time.
Yet he was elected a second time.
How is this any different than the rubes who voted for Bush the second time out?
“Rubes” aren’t exclusive to one political party.
The decline in support isn’t due to the left. The left will support Obama if he goes on MSNBC and eats a live puppy and then slaps a woman anchor just for kicks.
His support is in free falls because moderates are abandoning him. These are the low info voters (as all moderates are) who are finally starting to wake up to what Obama really means. When these dolts get their health insurance premium and see a 50% increase, even a recent public school graduate knows who is to blame.
Too late though. You had a chance in 2012. You didn’t take it. May you suffer for decades to come as a result.
Neither of the parties gave us a better option in 2012.
Was Gary Johnson on enough states’ ballots to get the EVs to win in 2012?
Gary Johnson had 0% chance of winning. You knew that.
You had 3 choices when voting.
1. Obama
2. Somebody not named Obama, who could beat Obama
3. Somebody not named Obama, who could NOT beat Obama
You chose #3. Which is the same as choosing #1.
Every vote Ron Paul and Gary Johnson and whatever other 3rd party crackpot received was a vote for Obama.
Libertarians are socialists’ best friend because in every close election they help the socialist win. Good job guys, keep it up. Maybe in 100 years the libertarian candidate will break the 2% of the vote mark.
No I chose Obama because Mittens is/was awful and, as you note, Gary J wasn’t on enough ballots. If I voted merely to reflect my views, it would’ve been for Gary.
I don’t get why you assume that the solution to “Obama isn’t solving the big issues” is “vote for Mittens”. Obama is disappointing to me but most of Romney’s agenda only appeals to knuckle-dragger “boomer” white people. I’d honestly rather die and I don’t know many (any, really) smart young people who voted for Romney. Like, no one at my firm that I know of voted for Romney, although some did vote Gary. Fuc k Romney/Ryan, what a knuckle-dragging embarassment that ticket was. I’d vote for Obama any day over that. If the GOP ever gets real they’d have a chance at winning a national election again and winning some states outside the south/midwest.
Pure electoral cowardice, that’s all.
“I’d honestly rather die and I don’t know many (any, really) smart young people who voted for Romney.”
You need to get out more then.
College Degree:
51% Romney
25-29 38% Romney
So more than 1/2 of college graduates and around 40% of “young people” voted for Romney. Yet you don’t know a single one that meets both criteria? I think you need to get out a little more and expand your circle of friends.
By the way which part of Romney’s agenda did you think was only for knuckle dragging white boomers?
- Lower taxes?
- Less spending?
And how exactly did that differ from Gary Johnson again? Wasn’t he also for lower taxes and lower spending? You are so wrapped up in hating Republicans you don’t realize that your boy Gary basically had the same platform, but with legalizing pot thrown in.
If your views reflect Gary Johnson yet you voted for Obama you’re either a fool or a naive fool. Which is it?
Obama is disappointing to me but most of Romney’s agenda only appeals to knuckle-dragger “boomer” white people.
It’s probably the case in most elections that the Republicans do best with middle-aged whites while the Democrats do better with the young, the old and non-white people.
And how exactly did that differ from Gary Johnson again? Wasn’t he also for lower taxes and lower spending?
I think that Joe has stated in previous exchanges with you that he cares a lot about the so-called social issues like abortion and gay marriage.
I voted for Romney/Ryan.
Joe lives in Washington DC, where upwards of 90 percent of all people vote Democrat every single time.
He may very well not know any college educated young adults who are Republican.
Almost everyone in Washington DC is an adherent of group-think.
I don’t know many 30ish people that are Republican. Mostly I know independents or disinterested/disillusioned. Working in a law firm, obviously there are the more vocal people and they are usually the “consensus Dem” type, moderate on budget issues but liberal on social ones. There are also a fair number of libertarian types, esp. among the Rainmaker ranks. They were likewise disgusted with Romney/Ryan and infatuated with Gary J or Ron Paul. Most people roll their eyes at them but I do not, I think if we cut out a lot of the government’s market distortions it would be wonderful.
Wow, Romney won 51% of college educated, sweet. How did he do among PhDs/doctors/lawyers? Maybe 20% or something? (I don’t know, but it would be interesting to find out.) College degrees among people my age don’t mean much, essentially 100% of my HS went to college and probably 80%+ graduated from somewhere with some degree. We all know college is a joke these days. Heck, half of the law schools are jokes.
How did he do among PhDs/doctors/lawyers? Maybe 20% or something?
You can’t be this fooking stoopid to imply that professionals count more than others in the understanding of the world affairs.
We all know college is a joke these days. Heck, half of the law schools are jokes.
You are disproving yourselves. Do you even read before hitting submit? So is Ivy league education…Just look at the results.
How did he do among PhDs/doctors/lawyers? Maybe 20% or something?
It would probably be a lot more than 20%, possibly even a majority. You have to keep in mind that some doctors and lawyers are one percenters and would vote Republican because that’s the party that look after their interests.
“I don’t know many 30ish people that are Republican. Mostly I know independents or disinterested/disillusioned. Working in a law firm, ”
Once again, you need to get out and meet some new friends, maybe some non-lawyers? There’s a whole big wide world out there. Try exploring it.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2012-exit-poll
30-44 year olds voted 52-45 Obama. Maybe we have a different definition of “many”, but to me 45% of the voting public fits into that category. Seems to me like you’re confusing “many” with “most”. Or you assume that voting patterns for 30ish law firm types extrapolate out to 30ish types nationwide.
I’m in my 30s and in my circle of family/friends of my age group the breakdown is probably 65-35 Republican. Among dudes, it’s 85-15 Republican. Granted I am one of those evil rich white people (and by rich I mean I make more than minimum wage) and so are my peeps. So my data is somewhat skewed. My friends/family do this weird thing….work hard, make lots of money, get upset when the govt wants to take it and give it to someone else. Radical right wingers who hate the poor, puppies, women and of course Trayvon. Socially in my circle, nobody really gives a shit one way or another. Gay marriage? Meh. Abortion, yeah knock yourself out, just don’t expect me to pay for it is the general consensus.
The interesting thing is the peeps I know in their 20s are VERY conservative, at least on fiscal issues. They know what’s coming. They know SS and Medicare will never be there for them. They understand the current spending is unsustainable. I hear them talk and I think, well there’s some hope for this once great nation. But at the same time, I fear that by the time they get into power, it will be too late and the Hope Change-y types will have destroyed what’s left of it.
One thing is for sure….the sooner the boomers die off, the sooner we’ll have a chance to right this ship again.
“I think that Joe has stated in previous exchanges with you that he cares a lot about the so-called social issues like abortion and gay marriage.”
So he voted against his economic interests so that gays can get married. About as idiotic as people who vote for pro-life candidates that oppose everything else they believe in. Stupid is stupid.
“How did he do among PhDs/doctors/lawyers? Maybe 20% or something?”
I don’t know, you tell me…..
Doctors in the Senate:
Republicans:
Thomas A. Coburn (R-OK)
John Barrasso (R-WY)
Rand Paul (R-KY)
Senate Democrats: NONE
Doctors in the House of Reps
Republicans:
Rep. Phil Gingrey
Rep. Phil Roe
Rep. John Fleming
Rep. Diane Black
Rep. Charles Boustany
Rep. Bill Cassidy
Rep. Paul Broun
Rep. Tom Price
Rep. Michael Burgess
Rep. Mike Simpson
Rep. Paul Gosar
Rep. Andy Harris
Rep. Dan Benishek
Rep. Joe Heck
Rep. Nan Hayworth
Rep. Scott DesJarlais
Rep. Larry Bucshon
Rep. Tim Murphy
Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle
Rep. Renee Ellmers
Democrats:
NONE
But you’re right, no such thing as a Republican doctor out there. Cuz doctors iz smart n’ stuff and Republicans iz all dumn n’ such. Right?
“Heck, half of the law schools are jokes”
In that case why are so concerned with how lawyers voted? You are contradicting yourself and are too stupid to figure it out. Remind me never to hire you as my lawyer, you’d be eaten alive by the other side.
Where do you get your information about the Congress? Is it some Fox News website? There’s an MD in the House named Jim McDermott. He’s been in Congress since 1989. He represents the Seattle area - in your own state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_McDermott
Obama = Bush.
It’s no wonder people are disgusted. They should be.
Should the masses wake up (Republicans and Democrats alike), the Neocon-Progressive Party will be in real trouble in short order.
Until then, it’s Obama = Bush.
“Obama = Bush”
True. I remember clearly when Bush also
- nationalized the auto industry
- nationalized the health care industry
- nationalized student loans
- recorded every single phone call made and every email sent
- sent the IRS after political groups he didn’t like
- put a moratorium on any new oil drilling
- had 3 years of deficits above $1 trillion
- raised taxes on evil rich people
- doubled the number of people on food stamps
I had to abandon free market principles in order to save the free market system.
There is no such thing as a “free market” and never will be.
A lot of countries have “Ruling Councils” which vet and allow candidates to stand for election. Iran just had an election with candidates selected by its Supreme Council.
We have a ruling council too. Lawrence Lessig talks about it here.
“Henry David Thoreau: ‘There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.’ This. Is. The. Root.”
So long as the stock market goes up every day, why do earnings matter?
July 24, 2013, 6:30 a.m. EDT
Ignore the hype, earnings stink
Commentary: Cause for concern in the ugly reports
By Jeff Reeves
It is rare when I come down on the same side as the black helicopter crowd. Assertions that unemployment data are falsified or that America’s gold reserves are a fiction make me roll my eyes every time.
However, it’s hard not to agree with some of the doubters on one important issue lately: corporate earnings.
Earnings stink, plain and simple. And the fact that this story is squeezed from the headlines in favor of posts trumpeting new highs for the Dow Jones Industrial average makes you wonder if investors are really questioning what’s behind the highs, or just cheerleading the numbers on the big board.
…
‘wonder if investors are really questioning what’s behind the highs, or just cheerleading the numbers on the big board.’
It is as if there are two Americas. One that runs on momentum of pop and market impulse and then another that carefully harvests the other half and goads them to think short term.
“Borrowers in Obama housing program re-defaulting, watchdog says”
Borrowers who received help through the government’s main foreclosure prevention program are re-defaulting on their mortgages at alarming rates, a federal watchdog said in a report released Wednesday.
Nearly 1.2 million mortgage modifications have been completed since the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) was first launched four years ago. Yet more than 306,000 borrowers have re-defaulted on their loans and more than 88,000 are at risk of following suit, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) found in its quarterly report to Congress.
In addition, the watchdog found that the longer a homeowner stays in the HAMP modification program, the more likely they are to default. Those who have been in the program since 2009, are re-defaulting at a rate of 46%, the inspector general found.
http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/24/real_estate/hamp-default/index.html
Those programs were never intended to be of much help to the homeowners. They would have been better off if they’d walked away.
They would have been better off if they’d walked away.
Anyone who bought a house from 1998-current is better off walking away. Houses depreciate rapidly and when you over pay for one of these depreciating monsters, the losses skyrocket.
Correct, these programs were simply to aid: 1) incumbent politicians, 2) big banks, 3) people with money invested with big banks.
As far as special interests, it does not get more powerful.
Who in their right mind would live there?
—–
10 most expensive cities in the world:
Luanda, Angola
Monthly rent (luxury apt.): $6,500
International newspaper: $5.42
Cup of coffee: $3.88
Gas (per liter): $0.63
Oil has brought this southern African country vast riches, but high taxes and internal strife keep prices extremely high.
For Americans who come to work here, everything can cost top dollar. A pair of blue jeans will cost an average $204, according to consulting firm Mercer’s annual survey.
Such sky-high prices have created a big chasm between the haves and have-nots, with 40.5% of the population living in poverty according to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA.)
One thing that is relatively cheap here: gas, at an average of 63 cents a liter. But you’ll still pay a high price to take a taxi.
Who in their right mind would live in Austin?
Everyone who is moving here!
Btw, why are are you such a hater? You gotta get laid or something
Uh huh…..
Why are you such a liar? You gotta tell the truth or something.
if they pay you enough, you live there
Barack Hussein Obama
‘Coming soon to dozens of locations across the United States: America’s own ‘no-go’ zones where Muslims install their own courts, government, justice and punishment, much like the zones that already exist across the European Union.’
http://mobile.wnd.com/2013/07/coming-soon-americas-own-islamic-no-go-zones/?cat_orig=us
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/08/03/Obama-administration-paves-the-way-for-sharia-law
TL:DR
How can a religion get its own three branches of government, I ask?
It’s HuSSSSSSSAIN. Don’t forget to hiss it… this helps you frighten yourself even more. Spoken correctly, 3 times in a row, it will cause you to soil your Real American Underpants.
Again.
http://www.infowars.com/evidence-obama-born-in-kenya-goes-beyond-1991-brochure/
‘From (of all places!) National Review:
“The House is scheduled to vote on Wednesday on amendments to the FY 2014 Defense Appropriations Bill, one of which will be the LIBERT-E Act, which would prohibit the National Security Agency from collecting telephone and e-mail meta-data from American citizens who are not under investigation. Representative Justin Amash, a libertarian Republican from Michigan, introduced the amendment in an effort to curtail the agency’s controversial data-collection activities, which were disclosed earlier this year by fugitive ex-NSA-contractor Edward Snowden….
“Meanwhile, the Huffington Post’s Ryan Grim reports this morning that General Keith Alexander, the director of the NSA, has scheduled a meeting with several members of Congress in an effort to build opposition to the amendment.”
Amash and insurgent libertarian Republicans are threatening to sink the whole Defense Appropriations bill unless this amendment is passed — and they need your help! Call your congressional representative(s) today — the vote is on Wednesday!
Don’t know what number to call? Find out here:
https://www.numbersusa.com/content/congress/phone-numbers-and-mailing-addresses-memb.html
“one of which will be the LIBERT-E Act, which would prohibit the National Security Agency from collecting telephone and e-mail meta-data from American citizens who are not under investigation”
They got anything in there about Drones?
Second Air Force Drone Crashes, Self Destructs In Florida
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/17/2013 19:52 -0400
For the second time in a week, a Drone has been destroyed at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida. This morning’s crash - and later self-destruction - of the unmanned QF-4 drone ( a modified F-4 Phantom apparently used for target practice) on the east-side of the base caused Highway 98 to be closed “as a precaution,” for the next 24 hours due to fires resulting from the crash and a small self-destruct charge carried on board the drone. The charge is used to destroy the drone if it leaves its pre-approved flight plan. The last drone crash was last Wednesday morning when Tyndall destroyed a drone over the Gulf of Mexico south of Cape San Blas in Gulf County.
Wed, 07/17/2013 - 19:55 | 3763284 Dewey Cheatum Howe
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/07/17/colorado-town-concerned-about-surve...
The small Colorado town of Deer Trail is considering an ordinance that would create drone-hunting licenses and offer bounties for hunters who shoot down an unmanned aerial vehicle.
“We do not want drones in town,” Phillip Steel, a resident in town who drafted the ordinance and submitted it for approval by the town board, told The Denver Post. “They fly in town, they get shot down.”
Officials admit they have never seen a drone plane on the Eastern Plains, but they want to make a statement that they think using unmanned surveillance planes to spy on people in the United States is wrong. They say the ordinance is mostly symbolic. They also recognize it’s against federal law to destroy federal property.
“This is a very symbolic ordinance,” Steel told The Denver Channel. “Basically, I do not believe in the idea of a surveillance society and I believe we are headed that way.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-17/second-air-force-drone-crashes-self-destructs-florida - 118k -
QF-4 drones are old-school target drones, used for testing anti-air systems. F-4 Phantoms are heavy, fast, loud jets that guzzle fuel like a 5-year-old guzzles Kool-Aide. They were sometimes used for manned recon missions back in their prime but they can’t compete with today’s RPVs. I understand that there aren’t too many of these left and the USAF will be using old F-16s for target drones in the next few years.
These aren’t the peeping-eye drones you’re looking for. The F-4 was known as the “World’s Leading Distributor of MiG parts”.
The small Colorado town of Deer Trail is considering an ordinance that would create drone-hunting licenses and offer bounties for hunters who shoot down an unmanned aerial vehicle.
Wouldn’t it be funny if they shot one down and it crashed into and wiped out their one horse town?
“…from American citizens who are not under investigation.”
All American citizens are henceforth under investigation until further notice (or not).
House passes defense spending bill, rejects effort to cut off NSA surveillance program
Published July 24, 2013
The House of Representatives passed a $598.3 billion defense spending bill Wednesday, while rejecting an amendment to the bill that would have challenged the National Security Agency’s collection of millions of Americans’ phone records, in a debate that clashed privacy rights against the fight to thwart terror.
The defense spending bill passed 315 to 109. The amendment was voted down 217-205 on an issue that created unusual political coalitions in Washington, with libertarian-leaning conservatives and liberal Democrats pressing for the change against the Obama administration, the Republican establishment and Congress’ national security experts.
94 Republicans and 111 Democrats voted for the amendment, while 134 Republicans and 83 Democrats voted no.
The showdown vote marked the first chance for lawmakers to take a stand on the secret surveillance program since former NSA systems analyst Edward Snowden leaked classified documents last month that spelled out the monumental scope of the government’s activities.
It is unlikely to be the final word on government intrusion to defend the nation and Americans’ civil liberties.
“Have 12 years gone by and our memories faded so badly that we forgot what happened on Sept. 11?” Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the Intelligence committee, said in pleading with his colleagues to back the program during House debate.
Republican Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, chief sponsor of the repeal effort, said his aim was to end the indiscriminate collection of Americans’ phone records.
After the vote, Amash could barely hide his frustration, telling reporters: “Ask the American people if the House did the right thing.”
…
The amendment came within 12 votes of passing. Here’s the roll call vote by state:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/24/amash-amendment-roll-call-vote_n_3648737.html
If NYC voters write-in Carlos Danger for Mayor, will that vote go to Anthony Weiner?
That is a hard question.
I need to go deep to think about it.
ERECTION UPDATE: Pressure mounts on Weiner to pull out…
BA DUMP BA!
Weiner = Som Ting Tini
‘Carlos Danger’
I hope this guy wins. I need to feel better about how screwed up the workplace environment is. He would be a patron saint for every guy who behaves badly.
There is no hope for this guy. He ruined his career and even that didn’t change his behavior.
Well I guess we all knew it was coming:
Nearly One Quarter of Federal Foreclosure Prevention Participants Re-Defaulting on Mortgages
From CNN Money:
Borrowers who received help through the government’s main foreclosure prevention program are re-defaulting on their mortgages at alarming rates, a federal watchdog said in a report released Wednesday.
Nearly 1.2 million mortgage modifications have been completed since the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) was first launched four years ago. Yet more than 306,000 borrowers have re-defaulted on their loans and more than 88,000 are at risk of following suit, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) found in its quarterly report to Congress.
In addition, the watchdog found that the longer a homeowner stays in the HAMP modification program, the more likely they are to default. Those who have been in the program since 2009, are re-defaulting at a rate of 46%, the inspector general found.
Who’d have thunk it?
Follow these stories and more at Reason 24/7 and don’t forget you can e-mail stories to us at 24_7@reason.com and tweet us at @reason247.
To a government bureaucrat or democrat politician - a 46% default rate is a sign of success and evidence that this program needs MORE money.
I wonder how much taxpayer money was squandered on this subpar government effort.
What’s the official ROI on this?
Worry not. It will someday be successful as the government continues to expand and incomes continue to drop.
GM still owes $18B to taxpayers. Yet the MSM claims Obama’s takeover of GM was a financial success.
The MSM will somehow spin this as well to show that the mortgage bailout was a success as well. Just like the MSM is tripping over itself to not blame unions or Democrats - who have together run Detroit for 60 years - for the destruction of Detroit.
Many more private modifications have been made than HAMP modifications.
The number I saw was from mid-2012, where there were 1MM HAMP modifications as compared to 4.6MM modifications outside of the government program.
The redefault rate for the non-HAMP modifications was about 10% at that time.
I guess that makes sense. If the government is going to be taking the risk, you provide modifications to riskier borrowers as the article implies:
“The inspector general said it found some “clear patterns” in its own research. Homeowners who were most likely to re-default were the ones who received the smallest reduction in their loan payments or overall debt, were still underwater on their mortgage or had subprime credit scores and high overall debt at the time the modification took place.”
If the private lender is going to have to deal with a redefault, they probably only want to modify the loan and keep the borrower if there is a better chance that they can keep making the payments.
“When GM was bailed out in 2008 and 2009, the government said it was necessary to stop the industrial Midwest economy from collapsing.”
Posted: 11:09 a.m. Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Gov’t needs $95.51 per share to break even on GM
By TOM KRISHER
The Associated Press
DETROIT —
General Motors stock would have to sell for $95.51 per share for taxpayers to break even on bailing out the company, according to a government watchdog’s report released Wednesday.
That price is about three times what GM shares are selling for now, even after a 25 percent increase in the price so far this year.
“There’s no question that Treasury, the taxpayers, are going to lose money on the GM investment,” Special Inspector General Christy Romero, author of the July quarterly report to Congress, said in an interview.
GM needed the $49.5 billion bailout to survive its trip through bankruptcy restructuring in 2009. Since emerging from bankruptcy, the restructured company has piled up $17.2 billion in profits. In exchange for the bailout, the government got 61 percent of GM’s stock. It cut that to 33 percent in GM’s November 2010 initial public offering.
Taxpayers are still $18.1 billion in the hole on the $49.5 billion bailout, including interest and dividends, according to the report.
If the government sells its remaining shares of GM for the current stock price of $36.61, it would get just over $6.9 billion, meaning taxpayers would lose about $11.2 billion on the bailout.
When GM was bailed out in 2008 and 2009, the government said it was necessary to stop the industrial Midwest economy from collapsing. Chrysler was bailed out for $12.5 billion at the same time. Taxpayers wound up losing $2.9 billion on that bailout, Romero’s report said.
Detroit Worker Bonuses Approach Records on Rising Profits
By Keith Naughton - Feb 13, 2013 4:09 PM ET
In Michigan alone, the checks will contribute $350 million to the economy and generate 3,500 jobs, said Donald Grimes, a senior research specialist at the University of Michigan, who studies labor and the economy.
“This is a much bigger deal than the tax refunds people get,” Grimes said. “It’s a much bigger check.”
GM earned $5.48 billion in North America in the first nine months of last year and may have made $1.17 billion before interest and taxes in the fourth quarter, the average of four analysts’ estimates. That would suggest a profit-sharing payment of $6,600. While that would be shy of the record, it’s a sizeable sum given U.S. auto sales were 15 percent below 1999 levels, Dziczek said.
“The automakers are profitable now at much lower sales volumes,” Dziczek said. “That bodes well for the next few years of seeing checks like this.”
Last year, GM paid $7,000, Ford paid $6,200 and Chrysler $1,500.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-13/detroit-worker-bonuses-approach-records-on-rising-profits.html - 157k
Just found out that there will be no raises or bonuses this year at my little multinational, even though net profit is 25% of sales and is about $10B.
Thank Heaven we’re not Union!
But that’s unpossible!
Unless all those 10s of thousands of employees were all lazy slackers!
Check out this mansion that Bill Buckner paid $200k for in the ’80s:
http://sports.yahoo.com/photos/inside-former-mlb-player-bill-buckner-s-mansion-slideshow/#crsl=%252Fphotos%252Finside-former-mlb-player-bill-buckner-s-mansion-slideshow%252Finside-former-mlb-player-bill-buckner-s-mansion-photo-1374601860073.html
LOL, just LOL, at today’s inflated prices.
Like a wise man once said;
“I can put a $40,000 price tag on my 15 year old Honda Civic but there is no buyer. Not a single one.”
Did you see that house that he paid $200k for in the 80s? It’s amazing where housing prices have gone in the last 30 yrs.
(Probably also helps that the house is in the Grand Tetons or wherever - I don’t know the mountain west that well, but the scenery around that house is amazing.)
“amazing”
And you’ll be even more amazed how low prices go over the next 30 years.
I hope so.
I’ll probably be dead in 30 years.
Bless your heart.
“I feel that the NAR through its frantic hype of housing as an ‘investment’, propaganda and outright misrepresentation of facts has destroyed the sense of trust and crippled the RE market for decades to come. They have shat within their own lunchbox, as it were.”
~Beer And Cigar Guy, July 24, 2013
But when you buy a home you can paint the walls any color you want.
Renters can’t do that.
I bet I could…….. and get the landlord to pay for the paint too.
My landlord would come do the painting too. I’m fortunate to rent from some exceptionally nice people.
KEYYYYYYRAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH!
What was that!?
That was the sound of housing prices crashing through the floor in your neighborhood.
There ain’t nothing left but the cryin’, a life time of debt and a smoldering moon crater where your debt-shack once was.
“If you’re paying more than $40/square foot(new construction cost less depreciation) for a used house, you’re getting ripped off.”
“Real Estate Agent Charged With Scamming Investors”
http://losgatos.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/real-estate-agent-charged-with-scamming-investors-out-of-500k
These corrupt monsters can’t be trusted. Even the ones lurking and posting on this blog are ashamed to admit they’re used house pimps.
Who needs jobs when Obama is making history?
***
“Since February of 2009, the first full month of Obama’s presidency, 9.5 million Americans have dropped out of the labor force. Nearly 90 million Americans are not working today! That means that 1.3 Americans have dropped out of the labor force for every one job the administration claims to have created.
There are 15 million more Americans on food stamps today than when Obama assumed office. At the end of January 2009, 32,204,859 Americans received aid from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. As of April 2013, there were 47,548,694 Americans on food stamps. That means that more than two Americans have been added to the food stamp rolls for every one job the administration says it has created.”
I voted for Romney.
Don’t blame me! I voted for Kodos! - Homer Simpson
Hasn’t this BS about creating jobs pretty much died down since the election?
“There are 15 million more Americans on food stamps today than when Obama assumed office.”
OK, in 2000 there were 17,194,000 people on food stamps. In 2006, before we were even in a recession, there were 26,549,000, which went up to 28,223,000 by 2008. Perhaps you should include that data for a little perspective. Specifically, during the GW Bush “good times”, 11 million more Americans were added to the food stamp program, and over 9 million of those were before the recession hit.
http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/SNAPsummary.htm
The most pathetic defense of Obama is “yeah but Bush did it too”. I thought Obama was about change. What happened?
And let’s examine your stats (I’ll assume what you say is true).
17.1 to 28.2 is a 65% increase in 8 years. You savior on the other hand increased it by 47% in 4 years.
I know math is hard for you guys so I’ll break it down….Obama’s rate of increase in food stamp recipients has been 50% higher than Bush’s on an annual basis.
Now, you were saying about how Bush=Obama…..
How about the Long Math? Regular people have been losing income/purchasing power for several decades here. That makes more people fall below the eligibility line. Even then, the benefit is less help because food prices have gone up significantly more than Ipads. The fact that this statistic is going parabolic is due to something other than the titular head in place at the moment, and you don’t have a clue what that is.
History is like science and science is just a damn socialeest commie conspiracy!
“The most pathetic defense of Obama is “yeah but Bush did it too”
It’s less a defense of Obama and more a criticism of the data you choose to post and analyze to a politically partisan end. Not blaming Bush, I’m blaming you.
Up above you wrote that Obama doubled the number of people on food stamps. Now you post these numbers which say that the increase is less than 50%. Which is it?
“Sparta Realtor Defrauded Bank, Prosecutor Says”
http://hopatcong-sparta.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/sparta-realtor-defrauded-bank-prosecutor-says
Obama: Washington took its eye off economic ball
DARLENE SUPERVILLE, AP
2 hours ago
GALESBURG, Ill. (AP) — President Barack Obama said Wednesday that Washington has “taken its eye off the ball” as he pledged a stronger second-term commitment to tackling the economic woes that strain many in the middle class nearly five years after the country plunged into a recession.
Obama returned to the college campus where he gave his first major economic address as a U.S. senator, and he chided Congress for being less concerned about the economy and more about “an endless parade of distractions, political posturing and phony scandals.”
“I am here to say this needs to stop,” Obama said in a speech at Knox College. “This moment does not require short term thinking. It does not require having the same old stale debates.”
(and now for some “phony scandals”)
Some distractions also have thrown the White House off balance, including revelations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted political groups and the Justice Department’s seizure of journalists’ phone records. Foreign policy crises, particularly in the Middle East, have competed for Obama’s attention, too.
July 24, 2013, 6:30 a.m. EDT
Will your pension disappear, post-Detroit?
Create a ‘what if’ plan that assumes pension is cut by half
By Robert Powell, MarketWatch
State and local government workers with traditional pension plans might want to revisit their retirement-income plans in the wake of Detroit’s filing for bankruptcy.
As many know by now, workers and retirees for that troubled city, which has an underfunded pension liability of some $3.5 billion, face the possibility that their pensions could be reduced drastically in a worst-case scenario.
A hearing to determine whether a lawsuit by the city’s 20,000-plus retired public employees can block the bankruptcy is scheduled to be held Wednesday. (See Detroit retirees brace for pension cuts.)
But no matter what happens, experts say that now would be a good time for public-sector workers and retirees—especially those whose employers have underfunded pensions—to revisit their retirement plan, crunch out a few what-if scenarios, and adjust their current or planned lifestyle accordingly.
“Despite their having earned their benefits through years of employment, alarming headlines are shaking current and future retirees’ confidence in their retirement security,” said Richard Schroder, president of Anova Consulting Group, a Brookline, Mass., market research and consulting firm focused on the retirement-services space.
…
ft dot com
July 24, 2013 3:00 pm
Detroit: ‘They are telling us we have to dig our own graves’
By Richard McGregor in Detroit
A graffiti is seen on the roof of a vacant blighted home in Detroit, Michigan
Decades in the making, Detroit’s slow-motion path towards bankruptcy is suddenly coming in a frightening rush for people like David McLeod.
Days after the city filed for bankruptcy, the 52-year-old firefighter stood at an intersection with his wife and daughter, waving a placard and stuffing fliers through car windows protesting at public pension cuts.
“They are telling us we have to dig our own graves,” he said.
The announcement last week by Detroit’s emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, a Washington lawyer, that the city would file for bankruptcy has created predictable panic among some city workers.
But the filing, the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history, has also triggered relief and hopes in some quarters for a fresh start after decades of decline, depopulation, factory closures and service cuts.
“People are tired of relatives being left to die on their living room floors while waiting for emergency calls to be answered,” said Bill McGraw of Deadline Detroit, a local news website.
The early days after the filing have so far been navigated deftly by Mr Orr, a bankruptcy specialist, who has calmly delivered the grim message that the city cannot pay its $18.6bn in debts.
The high profile of Mr Orr, an African-American, has helped sell a message which would have been much less palatable coming solely from the Republican governor, Rick Snyder.
Detroit, a predominately black city, has long had a tense relationship with the state legislature and also the predominately white, and wealthier, suburbs surrounding it.
“The racial hostility is intense and palpable. It is really hard to underestimate,” said Tom Sugrue of the University of Pennsylvania.
…
HOPE!!
Obama’s 2011 speech described a Detroit that can only be described as a myth wrapped in a wish inside a dream. “This is a city that’s been to heck and back,” Obama said. “And while there are still a lot of challenges here, I see a city that’s coming back.”
Obama referenced “tough choices” made to bail out GM and Fiat-Chrysler and also hailed the birth of a new wave of high-tech employment. “We said American workers could manufacture the best products in the world. So we invested in high-tech manufacturing and we invested in clean energy,” he said. “And right now, there’s an advanced-battery industry taking root here in Michigan that barely existed before.”
The biggest factory in this supposed new trend, Massachusetts-based A123 Systems, had plans to employ 5,900 workers nationwide to build lithium-ion batteries. In Detroit, A123 Systems never employed more than 1,000. The Energy Department awarded A123 Systems a $249 million grant to boost production. It filed for bankruptcy in 2012 and was still receiving DOE largesse. A judge approved the bankruptcy in 2013.’
CHANGE!!
PRICE MANIPULATION!!!
Other than being wasteful and deceptive, I am missing the “shrewd” part of this maneuver. Without the monopoly power aided by printing press money borrowed at below market rates, it would lose the perpetrator money, as moving aluminum from point A to point B and back generates costs but no benefits other than artificially driving up the sale price.
This is the antithesis of the operation of Adam Smith’s free markets to the mutual benefit of consumers and producers. But then I suppose it gives Detroit forklift drivers something to do.
The House Edge
A Shuffle of Aluminum, but to Banks, Pure Gold
David Walter Banks for The New York Times
Aluminum ingots waiting to be shipped from a processor. Financial institutions like Goldman Sachs have used industry pricing regulations to earn millions of dollars each year.
By DAVID KOCIENIEWSKI
Published: July 20, 2013 1018 Comments
MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. — Hundreds of millions of times a day, thirsty Americans open a can of soda, beer or juice. And every time they do it, they pay a fraction of a penny more because of a shrewd maneuver by Goldman Sachs and other financial players that ultimately costs consumers billions of dollars.
The story of how this works begins in 27 industrial warehouses in the Detroit area where a Goldman subsidiary stores customers’ aluminum. Each day, a fleet of trucks shuffles 1,500-pound bars of the metal among the warehouses. Two or three times a day, sometimes more, the drivers make the same circuits. They load in one warehouse. They unload in another. And then they do it again.
This industrial dance has been choreographed by Goldman to exploit pricing regulations set up by an overseas commodities exchange, an investigation by The New York Times has found. The back-and-forth lengthens the storage time. And that adds many millions a year to the coffers of Goldman, which owns the warehouses and charges rent to store the metal. It also increases prices paid by manufacturers and consumers across the country.
Tyler Clay, a forklift driver who worked at the Goldman warehouses until early this year, called the process “a merry-go-round of metal.”
Only a tenth of a cent or so of an aluminum can’s purchase price can be traced back to the strategy. But multiply that amount by the 90 billion aluminum cans consumed in the United States each year — and add the tons of aluminum used in things like cars, electronics and house siding — and the efforts by Goldman and other financial players has cost American consumers more than $5 billion over the last three years, say former industry executives, analysts and consultants.
…
So, the government is supposedly looking for projects that will put people to work. Houses have the payback hangover / deleveraging event. Infrastructure is a vague term. Putting in roads can be politically difficult. But road improvement - specifically noise walls along all roads of a certain size - would be a large project with little objections and likely a lot of support.
Reduce noise, make roads safer, limit animal-vehicle collisions, and perhaps provide a new method to run electrical and telecommunications cables. What’s not to like.
And it actually provides something of value, something utterly lost on DC’s economic planners. And it’s hard to game.
There are trillions of dollars of infrastructure work needed from one end of this country to another.
The very same infrastructure that helped to create the middle class with jobs that paid well and physically facilitated greater opportunities for EVERYONE.
>…something utterly lost on DC’s economic planners.
It’s also something utterly lost on Wall St. (our real masters)
What will really come back to bite us on these rebuild-the- infrastructure programs has to do with what people who earn the money do with the money they earn. If they spend it on consumption items from, say, China, then China will be the place that ultimately benfits.
If ours is a seventy-percent consumer-based economy (or whatever the number is) then there should be a goal somehow attached to the rebuild-the-infrastructure goal that insures as much as possible that the money earned here - that is spent on consumption here - stays here to circulate a bit instead of immediately flowing out of the country to land someplace else.
Student loan horror stories
Big decisions made in college about student loans continue to haunt these graduates.
This couple owes $380,000
1 of 5
Name: Lisa and Heather Harden-Stone
School: Brooks Institute and Dowling College - 2010, 2011
Student loan balance: $380,000 combined
The Harden-Stones don’t believe they will ever earn enough to pay off their student loans.
Heather (on the right) got her masters degree from Delphi University in environmental studies in 2010 after an undergraduate degree in anthropology from a private college in New York. She works as an environmental scientist and still owes $80,000 for her entire college education.
“I really had no idea of the true cost of college. I just signed what I needed to sign and had no idea how much in loans I was taking out,” she said.
Lisa, left, racked up most of her $300,000 in loan debt from going to Brooks Institute, a top school for photography in California. Upon graduation, she discovered she’d never make enough money from photography to pay her loans. So, she got her MBA in marketing from Western International University and recently got a full-time marketing job.
“I just got caught up in the whirlwind of borrowing and borrowing and borrowing just so I could graduate,” she said.
I’ve heard stories about Brooks. Nice setting, but way too much to pay for a photo education.
Comment by Mr. Smithers
2013-07-23 15:39:57
[...]
Are you really this dense to not understand that real GDP has multiplied by 7 times since 1950, while the population has doubled? That means that the country is 350% richer today than it was in 1950 thanks to trade.
You may well be the most obtuse person on HBB.
Smithers, please review the basic math surrounding percentages.
“350% richer” is not the same as a 3.5-times increase.
A 100% increase is a doubling. A 200% increase is a tripling. So I think you meant to say that we are 250% richer today than we were in 1950, not 350% richer—which would require a quadrupling-and-a-half.
Well… Slithers isn’t very bright or honest……. And he’s here to champion the Federal Reserve.
He should replace the bearded Gideon gono
“Smithers, please review the basic math surrounding percentages.”
Don’t overtax his wee little brain.
Now when you’re in jail in Chicago on attempted murder, do all the other people who got arrested at the same time for murder give you a hard time? I mean are you allowed to hang out with the people who were succesful in their murder attempt?
Mugs in the news - Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-mug-photogallery,0,5488047.photogallery - 104k -
“…Honey get the gun!”
While the camera rolls, real estate scam artist, Sam Sulieman and his lovely wife beat the living sheet out of investigative reporter John Mattes. Mattes’ series on the Sulieman’s shady dealings apparently didn’t set so well with these fine citizens of San Diego.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH-DNkKj9sY
old news.
Slightly less old news:
July 22, 2010
Wife of Sam Suleiman, Rosa Barraza, to be arraigned today on multiple felony charges
Rosa Barraza, the wife of Assad “Sam” Suleiman, who gained national notoriety in 2007 for assaulting a local San Diego reporter, is scheduled to be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. today on felony charges of burglary, two counts of grand theft, and elder abuse.
In 2006, the husband and wife duo were being investigated by reporter John Mattes of Fox 6 San Diego, the local San Diego Fox Affiliate. On September 6, 2006, Mattes, along with his cameraman, went to the home of Suleiman and Barraza to confront the couple about multiple allegations of mortgage fraud.
When Mattes arrived on the scene and attempted to question Suleiman about his actions, Barraza angrily confronted him, threw water at him and the camera, and asked Mattes if he wanted to end up buried in Mexico. Suddenly, Suleiman intervened, and viciously attacked Mattes, throwing him to the ground, jumping on top of him, and beating him. Cameraman Dennis Waldrop caught the entire incident on tape, and Mattes wound up with broken ribs, and bites and cuts to his face.
Ultimately, Barraza pled guilty to misdemeanor assault and received probation, while Suleiman, who was facing far more serious charges, pled guilty to assault with a deadly weapon causing grievous bodily injury, and was sentenced to a year in county jail and felony probation on July 7, 2007.
Unfortunately for Suleiman, he was still on felony probation when he was arrested on June 30, 2010 on the same charges that his wife is scheduled to be arraigned on today. Because he is on probation, Suleiman has what is called a “probation hold”, rendering him ineligible to be released on bail while his case is pending. He has been in custody at the George Bailey Detention Center since his arrest.
Interestingly, both Barraza and Suleiman were represented in the 2007 assault case by Attorney Kerry Steigerwalt, who announced on June 30, 2010 (the same day Suleiman was arrested) that his firm, Kerry Steigerwalt’s Pacifc Law Center, would be closing its doors for good. Not two weeks later, on July13th, Steigerwalt substituted in as counsel of record for Suleiman. Barraza also worked for Kerry Steigerwalt’s Pacific Law Center in the Loan Modification Department as a loan processor from 2008 through 2009.
If convicted, Barraza faces up to 19 years in state prison, while her husband faces up 25 years behind bars because of the felony case he is currently on probation for.
Typical real estate investor. After he serves his year in prison for aggravated assault, he can resume his investing activities.
I’ll try to re-post this tomorrow.
“EXography: 19 U.S. cities have proportionately bigger workforces than bankrupted Detroit”
http://washingtonexaminer.com/exography-19-u.s.-cities-have-proportionately-bigger-workforces-than-bankrupted-detroit/article/2533338
Every place I have lived is a dot. I’m freakin’ out, man.
SF = 1 city worker per 28 citizens. Given their astronomical housing prices, govt jobs must pay pretty well there…