The Housing Bubble

maybe someone should start another ponzi scheme via tulips again?

The outcome will be staggering when the spring recoils.

Report from the Rideau Canal in Upper Canada: Chaffey’s Lock is a 60s style cottage resort community. Everything is for sale. The bass fishing has been wonderful.

Low Interest Rates: Bad for Retirees, Worse for Gen X-ers
by Dan Caplinger Jul 27th 2013 6:00AM

For years, low interest rates have hurt retirees trying to generate enough income from their retirement savings to cover their living expenses. But the biggest impact from low rates on retirement prospects could well hit current workers, including those who are still more than a decade away from retiring, according to a recent study from the Employee Benefit Research Institute.

The Impact of Low Rates on Retirement Readiness

Obviously, for retirees who are living in part on investment income, low rates have an immediate impact on their standard of living. With few prospects to add to whatever they’ve managed to set aside in their retirement nest eggs, retirees are largely at the mercy of banks and other financial providers that determine how much interest they’re willing to pay their customers on their investment balances. With rates on certificates of deposit having fallen from around 4.5 percent five years ago to less than 1.5 percent today, according to figures from Bankrate, the roughly 3-percentage-point drop equates to about $250 less in monthly interest income for every $100,000 in savings a retiree has.

But for those who are counting on long-term returns from their investments to help them get ready for retirement, the EBRI study reveals an equally troubling trend. The study found that among baby boomers and members of Generation X, fully 25 to 27 percent of those who would have had adequate income to retire comfortably based on historically normal interest rates won’t earn enough investment income if low rates continue indefinitely.

In particular, the study looked at two assumptions, one under which bond rates had returns equal to the rate of inflation, and the second under which bond rates stayed at their current level below the inflation rate. In the first case, retirement-readiness rates dropped by about 10 percentage points, cutting the figures from 55 percent to 45 percent for the older portion of the baby boom generation, and from 57 percent to 47 percent for younger boomers and members of Generation X. The lower-rate scenario pulled success rates down even further, to roughly 40 percent for early boomers, 42 percent for late boomers, and 43 percent for Gen X.

The results varied a lot more when the study looked at income levels. For low-income workers, interest rates don’t matter very much, because even under current conditions, only 1 in 6 workers has enough saved to produce income to cover their expenses. As income levels rise, though, the impact gets larger, with the top half of income-earners seeing declines of 17 percentage points in their retirement readiness.

Will Rates Stay Low Forever?
…

Hey students: Start planning now. Senate deal means interest rates will go up
By Karoun Demirjian
Monday, July 29, 2013 | 2 a.m.
Washington —

Most of the Senate, including most of the skeptics, put aside their principled positions on student loan reform last week to back new interest rates in the name of achieving a bipartisan compromise to keep college affordable.

But Nevada’s college financial aid administrators aren’t so sure lawmakers ought to be congratulating themselves.

“It’s good for the short term,” Renee Davis, director of student affairs for the Nevada System of Higher Education, said. “But in a few years, the interest rate could easily go up — and that’s going to be more money that students will have to pay back after they leave school.”

A quirk in the way new student loan rates are calculated will likely saddle current middle schoolers with a much higher debt burden once they graduate from college — and financial aid advisers are warning would-be students and their parents to prepare for the hidden sticker shock.
…

Colorado concealed-carry permits see dramatic increase in 2013:

“More people than ever before are attempting to legally carry a concealed gun, and by no small margin. It’s 87 percent more. And while 2012 saw a sizable increase from 2011 of permit seekers, that figure pales in comparison to this year.

University of Colorado at Boulder professor Hillary Potter said the driving force behind permit seekers may be political. Others contend the skyrocketing numbers are a direct result of preparedness.

“More people are realizing they are responsible for their own protection,” said Richard Abramson, general manager of the Centennial Gun Club. Abramson maintains that by the time a violent crime has been committed, it is too late to rely on police.”

http://www.denverpost.com/legislature/ci_23750738/colorado-concealed-carry-permit-seeks-increase-dramatically-2013

Congress serves itself in second-home deduction
July 27, 2013 12:12 pm • By RICHARD RUBIN / Bloomberg News

WASHINGTON — Only a small percentage of U.S. taxpayers benefit from the ability to deduct mortgage interest on a second home. That group just happens to include many of the people who craft the nation’s tax laws.

Members of the congressional tax-writing committees are eight times more likely than the average American to own second homes with mortgages, casting doubt on their eagerness to curb the tax break, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Lawmakers are an ideal market for second homes: They’re wealthier than the typical person and they live and work in two places — their home states and Washington. That will shape their approach to revising the tax code, said Bill Allison, editorial director of the Sunlight Foundation in Washington, which promotes government transparency.

“What you end up seeing out of Washington is a real disconnect between how Congress lives in Washington, as one of the most affluent areas now, and how the rest of the country lives,” Allison said.

The Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees are exploring the first rewrite of the U.S. tax code since 1986, and the chairmen of both panels have promised to scrutinize every tax break. That examination will include the estimated $8 billion a year the second-home mortgage deduction costs as lawmakers try to lower marginal rates.

The lawmakers will start that process coming from a different financial place from many of their constituents. More than 40 percent of members of the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance committees have mortgages on homes other than their primary home-state residences.

Examples are Finance Chairman Max Baucus’s Capitol Hill townhouse, Rep. Tom Reed’s cottage on Keuka Lake in upstate New York and Rep. Sander Levin’s home on Martha’s Vineyard.

About 5 percent of all homes in the United States are second residences, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

Reed said he and his 11 siblings inherited the lake cottage in his district from his mother. That arrangement didn’t work well, and he borrowed money to buy them out. He now owes between $100,000 and $250,000 on the cottage and between $50,000 and $100,000 on his primary home in Corning, where he was mayor before coming to Congress in 2010.

“This longstanding tradition is something that if we move away from we should do it very carefully,” he said. “And we should do it in a very well-thought-out manner.”

The mortgage-interest deduction, with an estimated cost of $72 billion in forgone revenue in 2014, is one of the largest tax breaks in the Internal Revenue Code and the subject of a real-estate industry lobbying campaign to protect it.

Taxpayers can deduct interest on mortgages of up to $1.1 million on as many as two homes, a “main home” where they live most of the time and a second home. At least for voting purposes, lawmakers declare their primary residences in their home states. A rule that would constrain the deduction to primary residences would limit the break.

The Internal Revenue Service doesn’t require taxpayers to break out mortgage interest by home, and the agency doesn’t have data on the cost of the break. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center offers a rough estimate that repealing the deduction could generate $8 billion a year for the government.

The second-home break was one of the few Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential candidate, suggested could be ended to pay for lower tax rates. It’s one of the specific ideas lawmakers offer when asked what breaks should disappear.
…

Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!

“Amazon.com has been spending heavily to add more distribution centers near U.S. urban centers. Now it has to fill the warehouses with workers.

The online retailer plans to announce Monday that it has openings for 5,000 jobs at 17 facilities, a network that extends from Tracy, Calif. to Breinigsville, Pa. The figure could rise, as Amazon has plans to build more facilities.

The company pays around $11 per hour for jobs that consist primarily of picking, packing and shipping orders, according to its website.”

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/07/29/help-wanted-at-amazons-many-warehouses/

This article reminds me of Bush’s announcement on the Iraq war from the bow of the ship.

Originally published Saturday, July 27, 2013 at 8:05 PM
Housing is looking up, but from a deep hole
Don’t look for housing to return to the commanding position it held in the economy 10 years ago.
By Jon Talton
Special to The Seattle Times

Our long national housing nightmare is over.

Last week the government said sales of new houses in June reached their highest level since May 2008. The seasonally adjusted figure of 497,000 sales nationwide was up 38 percent from the same period last year and powered ahead despite higher mortgage rates.

Sales of previously owned houses declined a bit nationally in June but were still up 15 percent from a year ago.

The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city index posted its largest ever gain in prices for existing houses in April. The number of underwater mortgages, where the owner owes more than the house is worth, is down. Even shares of the big production housebuilders have recovered since 2010.

“Housing has contributed significantly to recent gains in economic activity,” one prominent economist said, noting that sales, prices and construction had all increased over the past year. “Rising housing construction and home sales are adding to job growth, and substantial increases in home prices are bolstering household finances and consumer spending while reducing the number of homeowners with underwater mortgages.”

This view carries weight, considering the economist quoted is Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve chairman, testifying before the House Financial Services Committee.
…

Housing market has buyers willing to use ‘aggressive tactics’
Home buyers willing to be aggressive
By Andrew Khouri
July 28, 2013, 5:12 p.m.
A Compton home for sale earlier this year. (Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times)

The frenzied market in real estate has prospective home buyers ready to gamble, according to a study.

Two-thirds of would-be homeowners would resort to “aggressive tactics” — such as paying the seller’s closing costs, bidding above the asking price or borrowing money from loved ones for a down payment — to get the home of their dreams, according to the survey by real estate website Trulia.

“Consumers are worried that mortgage rates and prices will keep rising before they buy, and many are willing to fight over the limited number of homes for sale,” Jed Kolko, Trulia’s chief economist, said in a statement.

According to the survey, 25% of respondents would bid 1% to 5% over a home’s asking price, and the same percentage would offer to cover the seller’s closing costs.

Trulia said young adults — ages 18 to 34 — are more willing to resort to tactics the firm labels aggressive, with 30% of those respondents willing to pay the seller’s closing costs and 31% willing to bid 1% to 5% over asking price.
…

July 29, 2013, 6:01 a.m. EDT
Home-builder stock volatility is part of recovery
Worries about rising rates scuttle the recent rally; investors get pickier
By Wallace Witkowski, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Recent volatility in home-builder stocks is more indicative of regrowing pains, as the housing market recovers, than a new housing bubble, according to analysts and fund managers.

While they have made great strides in the past year, home-builder stocks have become volatile recently as investors deal with mixed economic housing data, rising mortgage rates, and, in the cases of a few overheated markets such as San Francisco, worries that the market is setting up for another painful collapse.
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Let them eat cadmium:

“Estimates from state-affiliated researchers say that anywhere between 8% and 20% of China’s arable land, some 25 to 60 million acres, may now be contaminated with heavy metals. A loss of even 5% could be disastrous, taking China below the “red line” of 296 million acres of arable land that are currently needed, according to the government, to feed the country’s 1.35 billion people.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323829104578624010648228142.html

If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon - President Barack Obama

“A Bethesda man was beaten and robbed early Saturday morning in Adams Morgan by three men who yelled, “This is for Trayvon Martin,” before attacking him, police said.

Three black men approached an adult white male from behind while he was walking in the 1700 block of Euclid Street NW at 1:26 a.m. Saturday, police said.

Two of the men threw the victim to the ground and kicked him, (D.C. police spokesman Araz) Alali said. The three perpetrators then took the victim’s iPhone and wallet and fled.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/adams-morgan-hate-crime-was-motivated-by-zimmerman-verdict-police-say/2013/07/27/377a49ae-f702-11e2-a2f1-a7acf9bd5d3a_story.html

It comes down to this.

US economic history will be rewritten this week, as the most far-reaching methodological changes in years will add the equivalent of a country the size of Belgium to output in the world’s largest economy.

The most important change by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, to be announced on Wednesday, will be to start counting spending on research, development and copyrights as investment, and reflect pension deficits for the first time.

Combined they are expected to add 3 per cent to gross domestic product.

“We are carrying these major changes all the way back in time – which for us means to 1929 – so we are essentially rewriting economic history,” Brent Moulton, who manages the national accounts at the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

Drill baby drill!

The less oil Saudi Arabia sells - the less terrorism there will be.

They are scared. Oil is ALL they have.

————-

Prince Alwaleed sees shale threat to Saudi economy
MarketWatch | July 29, 2013 | By Summer Saidr

Saudi Arabian billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has warned that the kingdom’s petroleum-dependent economy is increasingly vulnerable as rising production of U.S. shale oil and gas decreases global demand for crude from members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

In an open letter dated May 13 addressed to Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi and several other ministers, said the kingdom won’t be able to fulfill its plan to increase its crude production capacity to 15 million barrels because of the shale threat.

The Peoples Republic of Lockheed Martin:

“A number of contractors and advocacy groups say the government has repeatedly inflated the share of contractin dollars awarded annually to small firms, masking serious problems in the procurement process that prevent small businesses from securing more government work.

During his run for the presidency in 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama emphasized small business, at one point saying that “it is time to end the diversion of federal small-business contracts to corporate giants.”

Nearly five years later, in her most recent management report, SBA Inspector General Peggy Gustafson said the agency’s top challenge is still that “procurement flaws allow large firms to obtain small-business awards and agencies to count contracts performed by large firms towards their small-business goals.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-business/small-business-contracting-numbers-inflated-by-errors-and-exclusions-data-show/2013/07/28/7fa2a4fc-f2f6-11e2-8505-bf6f231e77b4_story.html

Do You Want To Scare A Baby Boomer?
Economic Collapse Blog | January 17th, 2013 | By Michael Snyder

If you want to frighten Baby Boomers, just show them the list of statistics in this article. The United States is headed for a retirement crisis of unprecedented magnitude, and we are woefully unprepared for it. At this point, more than 10,000 Baby Boomers are reaching the age of 65 every single day, and this will continue to happen for almost the next 20 years. The number of senior citizens in America is projected to more than double during the first half of this century, and some absolutely enormous financial promises have been made to them.

So will we be able to keep those promises to the hordes of American workers that are rapidly approaching retirement? Of course not. State and local governments are facing trillions in unfunded pension liabilities. Medicare is facing a 38 trillion dollar shortfall over the next 75 years. The Social Security system is facing a 134 trillion dollar shortfall over the next 75 years. Meanwhile, nearly half of all American workers have less than $10,000 saved for retirement.

2. According to one recent poll, 25 percent of all Americans in the 46 to 64-year-old age bracket have no retirement savings at all.

3. 26 percent of all Americans in the 46 to 64-year-old age bracket have no personal savings whatsoever.

5. According to a survey conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, “60 percent of American workers said the total value of their savings and investments is less than $25,000″.

6. A Pew Research survey found that half of all Baby Boomers say that their household financial situations have deteriorated over the past year.

11. According to one recent survey, 70 percent of all American workers expect to continue working once they are “retired”.

12. According to a poll conducted by AARP, 40 percent of all Baby Boomers plan to work “until they drop”.

New research from the AARP also shows that those ages 50 and over are carrying higher balances on their credit cards — $8,278 in 2012 compared to $6,258 for the under-50 population.

16. Between 1991 and 2007 the number of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 that filed for bankruptcy rose by a staggering 178 percent.

18. In 1945, there were 42 workers for every retiree receiving Social Security benefits. Today, that number has fallen to 2.5 workers, and if you eliminate all government workers, that leaves only 1.6 private sector workers for every retiree receiving Social Security benefits.

27. In California, the Orange County Employees Retirement System is estimated to have a 10 billion dollar unfunded pension liability.

28. The state of Illinois has accumulated unfunded pension liabilities of more than 77 billion dollars.

29. Pension consultant Girard Miller told California’s Little Hoover Commission that state and local government bodies in the state of California have 325 billion dollars in combined unfunded pension liabilities.

32. Back in 2004, American workers were taking about 30 billion dollars in early withdrawals out of their 401(k) accounts every single year. Right now, American workers are pulling about 70 billion dollars in early withdrawals out of their 401(k) accounts every single year.

’so what’s the matter with atlanta? a new study suggests that the city may just be too spread out, so that job opportunities are literally out of reach for people stranded in the wrong neighborhoods. sprawl me be killing horatio alger.’

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/29/opinion/krugman-stranded-by-sprawl.html

this associated press piece was already posted here this weekend. some excerpts:

‘hardship is particularly on the rise for whites, based on several measures. pessimism among that racial group about their families’ economic futures has climbed to the highest point since at least 1987.

minorities have more optimism about the future after obama’s election, while struggling whites do not.

by race, nonwhites still have a higher risk of being economically insecure, at 90 percent. but compared with the official poverty rate, some of the biggest jumps under the new measure are among whites, with more than 76 percent enduring periods of joblessness, life on welfare or near-poverty.’

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Exclusive-Signs-of-declining-economic-security-4691671.php

C’mon out and play Stealtors.

The-fixr is going road-tripping to Colorado the second week of August

Anything interesting to do in Grand Junction? From what some of the pilot’s say, I need to go buy cowboy boots and a cowboy hat.

Damn…..and I thought I was going to Eagle…….

Compare and contrast two stories about the Hialeah, Florida shooting:

http://localozarks.com/motive-a-mystery-in-miami-area-mass-shooting-chicago-tribune/

“We dunno, we’re searching for answers”.

OR:

http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Fla-apartment-gunman-described-as-lonely-angry-4691628.php

“The gunman who went on a shooting rampage at his South Florida apartment building, killing six people, was a lonely man who spoke about having pent up anger, those who knew him said Sunday.

Pedro Vargas, 42, lived on the fourth floor of a barren, concrete apartment complex in the Miami suburb of Hialeah with his elderly mother. He rarely spoke with others there, and confided to a man who worked out at the same gym that he liked to work out his anger by lifting weights and trying to get big.

“He’d just say this was the only thing that would keep him normal, pulling out all the anger in the gym,” Jorge Bagos told The Associated Press.

Bagos said the gunman expressed frustration over bad experiences with women and losing all his hair from using steroids.”

The Houston Chronicle picked up their info from AP, but there it is: a simple case of ‘roid rage”, the same thing that drove the wrestler Chris Benoit to murder his family and then off himself.

Isn’t the use of these types of steroids against the law? That’s some bad stuff there. Guy was pizzed because he was having problems with women (can’t imagine why) and his hair fell out from the roids.

Funny how more isn’t being said about this. Guess it doesn’t fit the “we need gun control” meme.

Meredith Whitney famously predicted in December 2010 that “hundreds of billions of dollars” of municipal defaults would happen within the next 12 months. The good news is that Whitney’s call never materialized and the former banking analyst has since been widely criticized. In her new book Fate of the States, Whitney discusses the cause of the 2008 housing crash and forecasts boom times for the states that escaped the residential crash and burn. But investors and analysts are eager to get Whitney’s take on Detroit’s filing for bankruptcy protection — the largest in U.S. history — and revisit her notorious prognostication again. She called the filing “a game-changing event.”

When asked how Detroit’s situation will impact the muni bond market more broadly, Whitney demurred.

“Well let me turn that question back to you because you have more experience in the muni bond market than I do,” she says to The Daily Ticker’s Aaron Task in the attached video. “What do you think?”

When pressed, Whitney agrees with Task that cash-strapped cities and municipalities will likely pay high interest rates on their bonds from creditors, a situation that would dig local governments deeper into debt. She explains:

“In state constitutions there are caps on the debt service payments but not caps on the total debt outstanding that a state is allowed to carry. So when you have very low interest rates, and very cheap costs to borrow, you can borrow a lot. Now all of a sudden if your cost of borrowing has gone up by a factor of 2x, you’re hitting limits that are actually going to trigger a real downsizing for a lot of the municipalities that have been really going for broke over the last couple of years.”

It occurs to me that a good way to encourage your contributors to give you more is to threaten to pass something that they strongly oppose.

Why ‘PATH’ Approach to Fannie, Freddie Phase-out is Troubling
July 29, 2013, by Robert Freedman
Realtor.org

Lawmakers have been talking about reforming the secondary mortgage market since the housing bust but until now the effort has remained largely in the planning stage. No more.

In the House last week, the Financial Services Committee reported out a bill, called the PATH Act, that would phase out the two secondary mortgage market companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and make major changes to the way FHA conducts its business. “PATH” stands for “Protecting America’s Taxpayers and Homeowners.”

NAR has long called for replacing Fannie and Freddie while ensuring continued mortgage market liquidity in good times and bad through the maintenance of an explicit federal presence in the market. On that basis, the Senate approach, called the Housing Finance Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act, is the better starting point of the two.

It’s unclear how far Congress will get this year in taking the next step—that is, passing either of these bills in their respective chambers as well as considering other bills that need to be factored in, including bills that focus on FHA reforms.

http://speakingofrealestate.blogs.realtor.org/2013/07/29/why-path-approach-to-fannie-freddie-phase-out-is-troubling/

“Like diamonds are forever”, losses on depreciating assets like houses are eternal.

On Zillow, looking for a place to rent…….

Nothing better to show you that you are a new member of the “working poor” than trying to find a place to rent, using “old paradigm” budget numbers.

Nice 1 bedrooms aren’t too much of a problem. If you have any tools, or kids visiting/living with you, and you need two+ bedrooms, and/or a garage? And a single income? Welcome to Ft. Apache.

This is for oxy, SF, inch, and the rest of us lady unFBs:

Harvesting apples, nectarines, plums, Asian pears, strawberries by the bushel now. Peaches, apples, pistachios, black walnuts, melons, squashes, termaters and herbs next month and beyond.

Enough food to can, freeze, ferment to get me and mine through the winter at least. Try doing that on the balcony of your rootless rental apartment.

Hey Slithers…….

You’re a fraud. A bonafide fraud. If you respond, I’ll take back every word. Until then… You’re a fraud.

The Standells - Dirty Water with Lyrics - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7dGxVDwitE - 122k -

I’m wanna tell you a story
I’m wanna tell you about my town
I’m gonna tell you a big fat story, baby
Aww, it’s all about my town

Yeah, down by the river
Down by the banks of the river Potomac
Aw, that’s what’s happenin’ baby
That’s where you’ll find me
Along with liars, buggers and thieves
Aw, but they’re cool people

Well I love them phony scandals
Oh, D.C. you’re my home
Oh, you’re the number one place

Frustrated AP reporters (I mean they’re frustrated)
Had their lines all tapped (oh, that’s a shame)
But I’m wishin’ and a hopin’, oh
That Eric Holder ain’t blamed
He needs to take the Fifth or have it sealed under executive order or somethin’

Well I love them phony scandals
Oh, D.C. you’re my home (oh yeah)

‘Cause I love them phony scandals
Oh, D.C. you’re my home (oh, yeah)

Well I love them phony scandals (I love it, Bammy)
I love them phony scandals (I love D.C.)
I love them phony scandals
(Have you heard about Benghazi)
I love them phony scandals (Jay Carney is the man)
I love them phony scandals (Owww!)
I love them phony scandals (I’m in love with D.C.)
I love them phony scandals (Aww yeah)

“Real Housewives of New Jersey stars face fraud charges”

“By Richard Esposito
Senior Executive Producer, NBC News Investigations

Two stars of the TV reality show “Real Housewives of New Jersey” were hit with a dose of reality Monday when federal prosecutors charged them with 39 counts of fraud, alleging that they used fake paystubs, tax returns and W-2s to secure nearly $5 million in loans before trying to declare bankruptcy.”

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/29/19758540-real-housewives-of-new-jersey-stars-face-fraud-charges

Two police officers accused in Detroit robbery, assault

A photograph snapped by a citizen and distributed to the media led to the arrest of two police officers who allegedly robbed and assaulted two people last week, Detroit Police Chief James Craig said Monday.

The two men — one a sergeant and 20-year veteran of the Detroit Police Department; the other with the same rank in St. Clair Shores — allegedly wore their badges around their necks and drew their department-issued pistols when they robbed two men at an east side gas station on July 21, according to police. One of the victims was assaulted, Craig said.

The crime happened around 4:45 p.m. at a Citgo gas station on French Road. The two cops drove to the station together in a private vehicle, approached the victims with their guns drawn and badges hanging from their necks, Craig said.

“It’s alleged they stole money and a cellphone,” Craig said. Stair added that one of the victims was struck with one of the officers’ guns, although his injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.

“The Good Samaritan who took those photographs saw that something wasn’t right,” Craig said.

“Former Indiana and current Florida schools chief Tony Bennett built his national star by promising to hold “failing” schools accountable. But when it appeared an Indianapolis charter school run by a prominent Republican donor might receive a poor grade, Bennett’s education team frantically overhauled his signature “A-F” school grading system to improve the school’s marks.”

http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/emails-show-florida-education-chief-changed-indiana-grading-formula-to/2133801

Michigan - Ecorse mayor tracks down his stolen air conditioner … again

For the second time in seven months, thieves swiped the central air conditioning unit from the home of Mayor Darcel Brown.

According to Brown, the boldness of the theft is a symptom of reduced police staffing in Ecorse, a financially strapped city that until recently had been under the guidance of an emergency financial manager.

“I was asleep Sunday night when I heard a knocking sound,” Brown said. “I looked outside and there was a truck with my air conditioning unit in the back. I called the police, and they were there very quickly, but the truck had already taken off.”

Driving his own vehicle, Brown joined police in a search for the truck.

“We found the truck and an individual in an alley,” Brown said. “The AC unit was still on the truck.”

According to Sgt. Narda Bruno, within minutes after the truck was seized by police, the owner of the vehicle called to report it had been stolen.

“It wasn’t stolen,” Bruno said. “It was only reported as stolen after we found it.”

Bruno suggested residents should cover outdoor AC units with metal cages secured with heavy locks.

“Otherwise, they just lift them right off the concrete pad,” Bruno said. “If your unit is stolen, stay calm and get as much of a description of the people involved as possible. That would help tremendously.”

Times are tough when the world’s oldest profession goes flaccid!

Prostitution
Sex doesn’t sell
An old industry is in deep recession
May 25th 2013 |From the print edition
The mass-market end of the business

TIMES are tough for Debbie, a prostitute in western England who runs a private flat with other “mature ladies”. She does two or three jobs a day. A year ago she was doing eight or nine. She has cut her prices: “If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t still be open.” She says that she can now make more money doing up furniture and attending car-boot sales than she can turning tricks.

George McCoy, who runs a website reviewing over 5,000 massage parlours and individuals, says that many are struggling. Sex workers tell him they have been forced to hold down prices. Like other businesses, massage parlours and private flats are suffering from rising rents and energy costs. Even Mr McCoy’s website is under the cosh: visitor numbers are down by a third.
…

Berkeley libruhls aren’t friendly enough to Wall Street.