July 26, 2013

Weekend Topic Suggestions

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Comment by 2banana
2013-07-26 04:49:48

Surrender to the obama housing bubble v2.0

Buy a house. Buy two.

At 8x income

Take the cheap and easy money.

Leverage yourself to the hilt. Debt is good.

Housing always goes up.

And it will fund your retirement, trips to Europe, new BMW, college for the kids and a boob job for the wife.

And if it all goes wrong. You are a victim and deserve a bailout.

Comment by Resistor
2013-07-26 05:14:24

Big Everything wants to foam the runway with your face. To their credit (summoning P.T./Combo), they’ve attracted plenty of volunteers.

You can volunteer to be the foam or do the Blue Plan… or go BFE fixr/Alpha-style.

 
 
Comment by non-conformist
2013-07-26 05:07:25

Should Sydney Leathers run for NYC mayor?

Comment by 2banana
2013-07-26 05:31:24

Carlos Danger says (in a text) YES!

 
Comment by Amanda Bynes
2013-07-26 05:51:53

I live in New York City, I’m voting for Anthony Weiner

 
Comment by Ol'Bubba
2013-07-26 05:52:39

Sydney Leathers sounds like the name of a, oh, never mind…

Comment by 2banana
2013-07-26 07:07:56

It is amazing the huge amounts of corruption the free sh*t army will ignore

in order to

keep the free sh*t flowing…

 
Comment by Whac-A-Bubble™
2013-07-26 07:11:06

tranny?

 
 
 
Comment by (Still) Waiting for the Fall
2013-07-26 05:28:05

Deja Vous all over again…
Flipping houses back in the news.
Pass the koolaid.

http://tinyurl.com/mtx3mzz

 
Comment by non-conformist
2013-07-26 06:00:20

What “Phony” Scandals is Obama Talking About?

By Alan Caruba
Thursday, July 25, 2013

It is absolutely astonishing that Obama could refer to “phony scandals” when the list of genuine scandals keeps growing. Despite the best efforts of the mainstream media to deflect attention from them, they have become a constant factor from Obama’s first term to his second. To dismiss them as “phony” is a display of arrogance that is breathtaking.

In May, writing about the revelations that the Justice Department (DOJ) had seized the telephone records of Associated Press reporters and editors without informing them, Wall Street Journal columnist, Peggy Noonan, observed that “A President sets a mood, a tone. He establishes an atmosphere. If he is arrogant, arrogance spreads. If he is too partisan, too disrespecting of political adversaries, that spreads too. Presidents always undo themselves and then blame it on the third guy in the last row in the sleepy agency across town.”

This DOJ’s actions are not a “phony scandal.”

Noonan was particularly prescient because, when the Internal Revenue Service scandal involving the deliberate denial of tax exempt status to conservative groups became known, the White House said it was the work of a few rogue employees in the Cincinnati office. That has since unraveled to reach right up into the office of the highest political appointee in the IRS and, in all likelihood, it reaches into the White House.

The IRS scandal is not a “phony scandal”

Already filed and forgotten is the “Fast and Furious” scandal, the name taken from an ATF program intended to track weapons bought in the U.S. and “walked” into Mexico. In the process, the ATF lost track of hundreds of firearms, some of which were used to kill a U.S. Border agent and countless Mexican citizens. “Fast and Furious” was back in the news on July 5 when the Los Angeles Times reported that “A high-powered rifle from Fast and Furious was used to kill a Mexican police chief in the state of Jalisco earlier this year, according to internal Department of Justice records.” To stop further investigation of the program, Obama issued an executive order.

“Fast and Furious” is not a “phony scandal”

The greatest scandal of all in the minds of many Americans is the terrorist attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya in which our ambassador and three members of his security team were killed on September 11, 2012. Staged on the anniversary of 9/11, the White House claimed it was “spontaneous” and the result of some video no one had seen. Ongoing House investigations have since revealed that orders were given that closed down any effort to protect and rescue those under attack. The White House has refused to say what the Commander-in-Chief did the night of the attack.

Benghazi is not a “phony scandal”

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/56798 - 36k -

Comment by goon squad
2013-07-26 06:32:49

If you question the actions of Chicago Jesus you are a racist.

Comment by Housing Analyst
2013-07-26 07:04:37

Jesus just left Chicago and he’s bound for New Orleans.

 
 
Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-07-26 06:34:05

Yawn. The IRS has now been shown to have targeted liberal groups, too. Fast and Furious started under W. The Benghazi thing is just a bunch of Monday morning quarterbacking.

Those are all, indeed, fake scandals. That’s why they’re all fizzling out, except on the right wing websites.

Remember, it was the Right’s ridiculous obsession with Monica Lewinsky, and Whitewater, and other non-stories, that led them to lose Clinton’s second mid-term elections. You’d think they’d have learned their lesson with the scandal-mongering, but it’s really all they have left.

Comment by goon squad
2013-07-26 06:58:23

Keep apologizing on behalf of the “most transparent administration in history”

Comment by AmazingRuss
2013-07-26 10:05:37

When the right is a whacked-out shrieking caricature of it’s former self, the left looks pretty attractive.

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Comment by Wackford Squeers
2013-07-26 10:25:19

Nancy Pelosi is pretty attractive.

 
Comment by AmazingRuss
2013-07-26 12:47:10

Quite a step up from Janet Reno.

 
 
 
Comment by non-conformist
2013-07-26 06:59:37

“.Fast and Furious started under W.”

False

I have to go but I will say, what a big lump you have under that carpet. :)

Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-07-26 07:09:59

what a big lump you have under that carpet.

wikipedia:

ATF gunwalking scandal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Operation Fast and Furious)
Jump to: navigation, search

“Gunwalking”, or “letting guns walk”, was a tactic of the Arizona Field Office of the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). They ran a series of “gunwalking” sting operations[2][3] between 2006[4] and 2011[2][5]

Who was pres in 2006?

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Comment by Rental Watch
2013-07-26 14:30:13

Operating Fast and Furious was done without the knowledge of the Mexican authorities and was much bigger than earlier “gunwalking” operations that were done WITH the knowledge of the Mexican authorities.

How it is spun depends entirely upon the “side” you are on.

Just like with NSA warrantless wiretaps.

They were appalling to Democrats when done by Bush theoretically under war powers. They are now OK to Democrats when done by Obama since they were made explicitly legal through the FISA amendments put into place by Bush in 2007 (and extended by Obama in 2012).

“Gunwalking” is either a good idea, or a bad idea.
Warrantless wiretapping is either a good idea or a bad idea.

Political affiliation shouldn’t matter.

 
Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-07-26 15:25:50

How it is spun depends entirely upon the “side” you are on.

And you’re the one who just spun it, as did Jethro before you.

I never said it was good or bad, I just pointed out that the whole enterprise started under W, so it’s not really Obama’s horrible scandal.

 
Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-07-26 16:32:33

They are now OK to Democrats when done by Obama since they were made explicitly legal through the FISA amendments put into place by Bush in 2007 (and extended by Obama in 2012).

Well, in one situation, the rule of law is being followed, with oversight by the various branches of government, in the other situation, it’s not. That’s a pretty big difference.

 
Comment by non-conformist
2013-07-26 18:10:44

President Obama Falsely Claims Fast and Furious Program “Begun Under the Previous Administration”

Sep 21, 2012 11:39am

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/president-obama-falsely-claims-fast-and-furious-program-begun-under-the-previous-administration/ - -

Good article from Sharyl Attkisson on the phony “Fast and Furious” scandal.

A primer on the “Fast and Furious” scandal

By Sharyl Attkisson
June 26, 2012 10:54 PM

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-57461204-10391695/a-primer-on-the-fast-and-furious-scandal/ - 133k -

Uh oh;

June 17, 2013 9:30 AM

Sharyl Attkisson on computer hacking: “I’m outraged”

ByAmanda Cochran

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57589559/sharyl-attkisson-on-computer-hacking-im-outraged/ - 79k - Cached - Similar pages
Jun 17, 2013 …

Sharyl Attkisson: ‘I think I know’ source of computer breaches

By Erik Wemple, Published: June 18 at 8:22 am

“I think I know” who breached the computers, Attkisson told O’Reilly, though she insists she’s not “prepared” at this point to disclose the culprit.

What Attkisson was prepared to say at this point is that the invasion appears related to her work as a journalist. From the transcript:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/06/18/sharyl-attkisson-i-think-i-know-source-of-computer-breaches/ -

Watergate Was For Amateurs: Justice Department Spied For Months On Associated Press Reporters

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/13/2013

“secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.”

The AP story which must be read to be believed:

The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into how news organizations gather the news.

In all, the government seized those records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012. The exact number of journalists who used the phone lines during that period is unknown but more than 100 journalists work in the offices whose phone records were targeted on a wide array of stories about government and other matters

“There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters. These records potentially reveal communications with confidential sources across all of the newsgathering activities undertaken by the AP during a two-month period, provide a road map to AP’s newsgathering operations, and disclose information about AP’s activities and operations that the government has no conceivable right to know,” Pruitt said.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-13/watergate-was-amatuers-justice-department-spied-months-associated-press-reporters - 232k

 
 
 
 
Comment by 2banana
2013-07-26 06:37:01

Amazing all the Obama appointees taking the 5th on all these phony scandals

Comment by Ben Jones
2013-07-26 07:14:50

Since he mentioned the housing bubble…

‘In a landmark speech littered with historical references, the US president argued that the “basic bargain” at the heart of the US economy - that those who worked hard could build a better life for themselves - had lain in tatters when he became president, because many jobs were relocated overseas and technology rendered others obsolete.’

“A housing bubble, credit cards, and a churning financial sector keep the economy artificially juiced up. But by the time I took office in 2009, the bubble had burst,” he said.’

‘He warned that if the US continued to “muddle along” then the American dream of betterment - the “founding precept” of each generation being wealthier than the last - would die a slow death.’

“Our founding precept about wide-open opportunity and each generation doing better than the last will be a myth, not reality,” he said.’

‘However, he said that the US had finally weaned itself off its “addition to foreign oil”, saved the auto industry from collapse, and started attracting foreign investment instead of losing its business overseas.’

‘ It has also cracked down on banks, and changed “a tax code too skewed in favour of the wealthiest Americans at the expense of working families” so that it asked “those at the top to pay a little more”.

‘President Obama’s speech comes ahead of a series of key deadlines, when the US government will be forced to raise its debt ceiling, or consider more controversial tax hikes and spending cuts in order to avoid a government shutdown.’

Comment by Dirk Diggler
2013-07-26 17:00:25

Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Now what are you going to do to get the 9 million workers out of jobs since you took office back to work? The ones that are no longer counted in your phony unemployment #’s.

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Comment by ahansen
2013-07-26 15:08:40

Noonan, the Nixon apologist, remains a supercilious twat (and I use that word in the British sense, not necessarily the gender-specific one.)

Why anyone in the media takes her seriously has always been a huge mystery to me. She’s in the same league as Phyllis Schlafly and Sarah Palin, only with the intellectual pretensions of a Bill Buckley.

 
Comment by Dirk Diggler
2013-07-26 17:13:21

I mentioned about “fast and furious” on this blog a while back and was chastised. Oh your reading too much “faux” news etc. Soon the chickens will all come home to roost. Same with Solyndra.

Comment by Dirk Diggler
2013-07-26 17:18:58

The TRUTH shall set you free.

 
 
 
Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-07-26 06:13:44

or go BFE fixr/Alpha-style.

I used to live on the beach. The first year or so I was Jimmy Buffet, always on the sand with a cold beer in my hand. Then after a while, the thrill wore off, and I was some guy paying too much to live near something I really didn’t use much more than the tourists who came once a year.

Culturally, the beach town was far more BFE than my current college town perch in Flyover.

 
Comment by 2banana
2013-07-26 07:09:37

Guys don’t live in a beach town for culture…

Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-07-26 07:16:33

Yeah, I guess we should define exactly what BFE and Flyover mean. There’s plenty of BFE on the coast (especially Florida;).

Is Flyover inland America, or everywhere between the major cities?

Comment by goon squad
2013-07-26 07:32:24

Flyover is between the coasts, with the exception of David Brooks’ “Bobos In Paradise” type locations. Anywhere that coastal elitist bedwetters would feel uncomfortable could be considered Flyover.

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Comment by Carl Morris
2013-07-26 08:16:18

Anywhere that coastal elitist bedwetters would feel uncomfortable could be considered Flyover.

That’s a pretty good definition. To me it’s everywhere that nobody would live if they didn’t need to in order to be near income/resources or family.

 
Comment by Wackford Squeers
2013-07-26 09:58:11

Although coastal, I would consider Corpus Christi or South Padre Island to be flyover. Same for Daytona Beach or Panama Beach. Bedwetters just don’t visit places like that, unless they are filming on location.

Coastal elitist bedwetters are typically found in Manhattan, within/near the DC Beltway, or in proximity to the 405 freeway in Los Angeles.

 
Comment by Housing Analyst
2013-07-26 10:55:58

Did you wet your bed again?

 
Comment by alpha-sloth
2013-07-26 13:58:53

To me it’s everywhere that nobody would live if they didn’t need to in order to be near income/resources or family.

I’m confused. Flyover is where no one would live if there weren’t jobs there, or overpriced cities are where no one would live if there weren’t jobs there?

Coastal elitist bedwetters are typically found in Manhattan, within/near the DC Beltway, or in proximity to the 405 freeway in Los Angeles.

Yep, throw in San Fran and Boston, and I think you have the true, original definition of what is and isn’t Flyover. People who overpay to live in BFE’s on the coast just like to pretend they’re not living in Flyover.

 
Comment by Carl Morris
2013-07-26 14:09:16

I’m confused. Flyover is where no one would live if there weren’t jobs there, or overpriced cities are where no one would live if there weren’t jobs there?

Most cities are flyover, too. The ones that aren’t seem to have a citizenry of people who mostly love it there and assume everybody wants to live there and would if they could afford it.

 
 
 
 
Comment by Free Carlos Danger
2013-07-26 10:13:45

I really didn’t use much more than the tourists who came once a year.

Same goes for people living in “cool” cities. I lived in one of the so called cool cities. Most of my life and anybody I knew, was work, friends, bars and collegues. I used the ammenities the city had to offer as much as the tourists who visit evey 2 years.

 
 
Comment by Whac-A-Bubble™
2013-07-26 07:13:03

Are U.S. stocks and housing destined to keep going up for the foreseeable future?

Comment by Whac-A-Bubble™
2013-07-26 07:14:25

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but you have to admit that asset prices have had a hell of a run this year. Just look at those 30%+ annual price increases on California housing, for instance. Snatch up ten houses and you can become a millionaire by this time next year.

 
Comment by Rental Watch
2013-07-26 09:04:39

I fear that the next bubble is a US stock market bubble. I think housing will slow down as development restarts (assuming that banks don’t get 2005/2006 crazy again with lending).

 
 
Comment by Whac-A-Bubble™
2013-07-26 07:24:31

Does the Fed have excessive influence on asset prices?

July 26, 2013, 6:01 a.m. EDT
It’s time to stop listening to Bernanke
Commentary: Does the Fed have too much influence on equities?
By Howard Gold

Remember those great commercials from the early 1980s for the now-defunct brokerage E.F. Hutton? “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen,” was the famous tag line.

Well, today’s version of E.F. Hutton is Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Whenever Bernanke speaks, investors and traders stop what they’re doing and listen with rapt attention.

And sometimes, they act on his words, as they did a month ago, when Bernanke’s musings about the possible end of the Fed’s latest bond-buying program (QE3) started a massive selloff in stocks and bonds.

But market pros and the media pay far too much attention to the Fed chairman’s utterances. Not that they’re unimportant; as I wrote earlier this year, the late Martin Zweig called Fed policy “the dominant factor in determining the stock market’s major direction.”

Comment by Whac-A-Bubble™
2013-07-26 07:35:43

July 26, 2013, 10:31 a.m. EDT
IMF staff: Fed should not taper until next year

By Greg Robb

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The Federal Reserve should maintain its $85 billion-a-month asset purchase plan into early next year, given the weak growth outlook, according to the International Monetary Fund’s staff assessment of the U.S. economy released on Friday. The IMF staff has forecast only a 1.7% annual growth rate for the U.S. economy in 2013, well below the Fed’s forecast of a 2.3%-2.6% rate. Many analysts think that the odds are high that the Fed will slow down the pace of its asset purchase program in September. The IMF said that the benefits of the Fed’s quantitative easing continue to outweigh the costs. But it added the central bank must continue to monitor carefully for signs of “financial market froth.”

 
 
Comment by goon squad
2013-07-26 07:50:24

The higher education bubble is popping (and about f*ing time it did)

But regardless of what happens, there will be student loan bailouts

Wall Street Journal - Student Drought Hits Smaller Universities:

“Enrollment rates for numerous smaller and lesser-known colleges and universities are falling this year, due to a decline in the U.S. college-age population, years of rising tuition, increasing popularity of Internet courses and a weak job market for recent graduates.

After decades of growth, college enrollment nationally dropped 2.3% this spring”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323971204578628230654653180.html

Comment by goon squad
2013-07-26 08:03:33

see also this from 3 days ago - parents shell out less for kids in college

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324144304578622343932131354.html

 
 
 
Comment by cactus
2013-07-26 09:13:21

Will the home mortgage market ever go back to the way it was 20 years ago ? Will econmic growth ever get above 2% ?

If not how will growing Goverment debt be paid back ?

Comment by Housing Analyst
2013-07-26 09:53:15

Prices will. Clearly prices have a very long way to fall yet.

Beware.

 
Comment by Ben Jones
2013-07-26 10:03:22

‘Will the home mortgage market ever go back to the way it was’

Anything’s possible:

‘Before Fannie and Freddie were taken over by the government in 2008, they operated in a kind of legal limbo. They were for-profit companies, helping to funnel money into the housing market. But they had an implicit guarantee that if they got into trouble, the government would bail them out.’

‘Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker says that has always been a problem. He says “almost everybody would say” that it’s not appropriate to have “private gain and public losses.” “This implicit guarantee is incredibly inappropriate,” he says.’

‘Corker, a Republican, and Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia have crafted a plan to gradually do away with Fannie and Freddie, while handing one of their functions over to a new government agency…Meanwhile, House Republicans, led by Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas, have crafted an alternative bill. It would move the government even further out of the mortgage market, leaving only a limited role for the Federal Housing Administration to help first-time homebuyers and low-income families.’

‘But Warner told a gathering at the Bipartisan Policy Center on Wednesday that the House approach is a political nonstarter. He said Hensarling’s bill is an “ideologically pure exercise which will never have a single Democrat ever support it.”

Now who benefits the most from government backing of house loans? It ain’t you and me because house prices have skyrocketed. Let’s see; who makes money writting these enormous loans and don’t have to step in if they fail? Why, it’s the big banks. Why don’t some Democrats here explain to us why pulling a guarantee that benefits the biggest banks will ‘never have a single Democrat ever support’?

Comment by Housing Analyst
2013-07-26 10:51:19

Why don’t some Democrats here explain to us why pulling a guarantee that benefits the biggest banks will ‘never have a single Democrat ever support’?

Go take a 3 week vacation, develop a new career and come back and ask when you retire….. and there won’t be an answer then either.

Cleptocrats will do anything to keep their guy safe. Just like retardicans. To be fair, O is the worst of all bought and paid for presidential whores in the history of the US. He’s a monster who’s nearest rival is the previous bought and paid for whore.

But do you really believe there is any sincerity by Corker? The Housing Crime Syndicate has plants in both parties. Sen. Isaakson is a realtor himself. I’m sure there are others but picking good guys and bad guys out of the corrupt duopoly is a fools game. And accepting the duopoly is downright idiotic.

Comment by AmazingRuss
2013-07-26 13:16:44

Just wait until you see the NEXT bought and paid for whore!

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Comment by Rental Watch
2013-07-26 13:28:58

“Why don’t some Democrats here explain to us why pulling a guarantee that benefits the biggest banks will ‘never have a single Democrat ever support’?”

I’m not a Democrat, but based on a conversation that I had with a former exec at one of the GSE’s, once the free money stops flowing, the politicians will get fewer photo ops with the happy new renter-turned-debtor, who would never have gotten a loan without the lower interest rates subsidized by the largess of the US government.

 
Comment by cactus
2013-07-26 16:33:48

liars Poker

.This chapter is a free excerpt from Quicklet on The Liars Poker.

.Chapter 6 details the explosion of the mortgage market during the years 1981-1986, and the subsequent collapse of the Solomon mortgage department.

In October, 1981, lights began to flash on the desks of the mortgage traders. It seemed as if suddenly every S&L manager in the country wanted mortgages. This wasn’t far from the truth.

In 1979 interest rates risen sharply. So S&Ls were in the unfortunate position of paying 14% on new deposits, while taking in just 5% on old home loans. The entire industry was on the verge of collapse. So congress implemented a tax break which could save the industry.”

 
 
 
 
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