Bits Bucket for August 5, 2013
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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off to beauiful s. california today. maybe I’ll put in a few offers in carmel valley on a debt shack for 1.5 million?
Buying a house will get you where u want to be.
‘get you where u want to be’
With a HELOC-financed car purchase?
Of course, what’s a new house without a $60,000+ set of wheels in the garage?
Drive a Chevy or a Toyota? The neighbors will think you’re poor!
poser
You go $hitHouse Poet!!!
And here especially for $H:
A luxury toilet controlled by a smartphone app is vulnerable
“…it’s hard to imagine how serious hardened cybercriminals would be interested in this security hole…”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23575249
“off to beauiful s. california today. maybe I’ll put in a few offers in carmel valley on a debt shack for 1.5 million?”
It sounds like you are just the right person to do it, mogul. But stop thinking so small- buy SEVERAL. Go BIG, because you know that RE can never go down. But you’d better act fast and offer twice what they are asking, because you’ll be priced out forever if you don’t. Show everyone how incredibly smart and savvy you REALLY are- you show that Casey Serin who the REAL investor is. Snap ‘em up, Genius! Snap ‘em up…
I dropped out of college and educated myself reading Horatio Alger stories and watching Tom Vu videotapes. Now my real estate empire is worth millions.
Got it…real estate more better!
When you have to pay for your meals with HELOC money, you’re only qualified to go house shopping in Detroit, if that.
You are far better off by buying a 2014 Maserati Ghibli than a silly California Carmel Valley shack
Fiat on a Chrysler platform. I’ll take the house in Carmel, thanks.
Why buy a house today when prices will craaater 65% tomorrow?
Richmond, CA:
Jan 2006: $461K
Dec 2011: $156K –> -56%
Jul 2013: $202K
Queen Creek, AZ:
Apr 2006: $265K
Jun 2011: $104K –> -61%
Jul 2013: $159K
Gaithersburg, MD:
Nov 2005: $412K
Dec 2011: $290K -30%
Jun 2013: $322K
Tampa, FL
Aug 2006: $208K
Nov 2011: $97K –> -53%
Jul 2013: $116K
Because prices have already craaatered?
What about wages? Have wages already craaatered?
New Jobs Disproportionately Low Pay or Part Time.
http://news.yahoo.com/jobs-disproportionately-low-pay-part-time-162103614.html
“Average hourly pay fell 2 cents in July to $23.98 an hour.”
The article didn’t say, but I’m guessing that’s in nominal dollars.
I liked these two nuggets:
“This morning I put $1.35 worth of gas in my car because that is all the money that I had,” Wilkinson said via email. “It’s very difficult to survive on $30,000 (a year), and I am living paycheck to paycheck.”
and
“Not all July’s new jobs were low-paying. Local schools hired more than 10,000 teachers and other employees.”
First of all, not all teachers work in New York state. In our school district teachers start at $30K and max out at 60K after 30 years (plus they need a masters).
Also, I’m guessing that while 10,000 teachers were hired, that those weren’t 10,000 new positions. Heck, our small school district hires dozens of new teachers every year (they publish their photos in the local paper), mostly because of attrition. Some teachers don’t get their contracts renewed or they move onto greener pastures.
What about wages? Have wages already craaatered?
Cratering wages is the new normal.
And worse yet, The Blog Donkey demonstrated that housing prices are massively inflated once again. And prices will crater once again until they reach early 1990’s levels.
We watched credit expand and expand and expand for 40 years. A 30% decline over a few years isn’t cratering, it is the first step down a long flight of stairs. I imagine the Voices of Authority will tell us that we are recovering the whole way down, and those inside the bouncing ball will believe as long as they can.
Yet The Donkey paid 3x those prices. LOLZ
And just think, it has only taken about $85 billion each month in government intervention to raise it to its current level. Skate to where the puck WILL be- not where it is right now: How long do you think that can be sustained? What do you think will happen to prices when it stops? And it WILL stop- everything stops. What do you foresee happening then?
And just think, it has only taken about $85 billion each month in government intervention to raise it to its current level.
Technically, isn’t it Federal Reserve intervention?
Those examples you posted all provide great evidence of the protracted housing bubble dead cat bounce. But let’s compare notes once the Fed has ended QE3, before reaching any conclusions.
Or do you count yourself in the camp that believes they won’t end it, and the current discussion of doing so is a bluff?
I live in a place where house prices are just plain-old unaffordable. Experienced workers with “in-demand” degrees can’t afford to buy anything without two full-time incomes and free babysitting from the grand-units.
Looks like somebody (with massive government subsidies/control) priced themselves out of business.
Just like housing
Just like what is coming to health care
————————-
The Higher Education Bubble Begins To Burst
ParaPundit | July 28 2013 | Randall Parker
Check out this New York Times article on the beginning of the bursting of the higher education bubble. In the 2012-2013 school year enrollment in for-profit and community colleges dropped. Now enrollment in 4 year non-profit colleges has begun dropping too. A Wall Street Journal article makes similar points.
Some colleges will close. Others will shrink. The prestige racket will claim fewer victims.
The number of kids turning 18 has begun to contract. But an even bigger transformation is starting to take shape: the shift toward online learning.
I expect to a substantial shift toward online learning in order to save costs, speed up education, and get far greater convenience. Why go through college in 4+ years starting at age 18? A self-starting high school student can start earning college credits while in high school and during summer between high school school years. Then upon high school graduation they can shift to full time 12 month per year study and get a degree 2 years sooner at far lower cost.
The rise of massive open online courses (MOOCs) will let most students watch higher quality lectures than they can watch at which ever university they attend. The very best lecturers will reach tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of students rather than just dozens or a few hundred students. This ability to watch the best is one of the greatest aspects of online education.
Given the higher education sector’s monopoly position on labor market credentialing, how can they “price themselves out” of business?
Read some of the “law school is a scam” blogs and reader comments.
The lower tier law schools already have priced themselves out of business.
Amnesty for student loans!
Amnesty! Amnesty!
Yeah, there are only maybe 50 law schools where it makes sense to “buy the ticket” (pay tuition, even if scholarship included). I forget which publication stopped ranking schools below 50 and used “is it worth it financially?” as the key criteria, but that is the credited list. I’m sure people can look it up on Google or else find it on xoxohth or TLS.
‘Now enrollment in 4 year non-profit colleges has begun dropping too.’
Things continue on only so long before they decelerate, stop or reverse. Everything.
Some days it is very confusing to make heads of the news and observations we see around us. Years ago I did not realize many peoples were pulling equity out of their houses to fund their tertiary needs. The music stopped eventually for many of them. It is as if the delayed response reaction people have to things allows for the bubbles to grow until things sour. I do not think that demographically right now things are slotted for peak earnings and material acquisitions for the majority of the public. The overhead costs to get anything accomplished have grown dramatically whereas wages have gone into a narrower set of bands. I am trying to change jobs right now and am not very excited about it because of the economy and the general feeling I get that companies really do not want to have a payroll. The nature of work has gone back to it being just work. The belief in companies actually having a worker’s back is way gone.
And whats even worse We’ve never heard of anyone pulling equity out of their house to pay off their student loans…..
Which would have been the smartest thing to do, considering the student loan is collectable till you die.
>The belief in companies actually having a worker’s back is way gone.
That’s been gone since the 1980s.
The very best lecturers will reach tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of students rather than just dozens or a few hundred students.
—————————————————————–
yeah, but if these students are bastard children, they will not have the foundation of discipline and accountability necessary to take advantage of such opportunities.
not only bastard children Spook, a lots of people dont have good time management skills and would rather be forced to get out of the house and attend a class in person….
“A Lightning Rod in the Storm Over America’s Class Divide”
WASHINGTON — When Charles Murray and Richard J. Herrnstein’s book “The Bell Curve” appeared in 1994, it was denounced by social scientists, liberal pundits and a little-known Chicago civil-rights lawyer named Barack Obama, who in a commentary on NPR accused the authors of calculating that “white America is ready for a return to good old-fashioned racism as long as it’s artfully packaged.”
Anyone who remembers the firestorm over that 845-page doorstop’s dense arguments about race, class, genetics and I.Q. might be tempted to look at the cover of Mr. Murray’s latest book, “Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010,” and think, “Here we go again.”
But “Coming Apart,” which depicts members of white elites as hypocrites living in a bubble and the white working class as succumbing to moral decay, is hardly a flattering portrait of white people, let alone, Mr. Murray insists, a partisan barnburner.
“It’s not a brief for the right,” Mr. Murray said in a recent interview at the American Enterprise Institute here, where he has been a scholar since 1990. “The problem I describe isn’t a conservative-versus-liberal problem. It’s a cultural problem the whole country has.”
“Coming Apart,” which shot to No. 5 at Amazon.com immediately upon publication last week, has certainly prompted much conversation, if little in the way of consensus. David Brooks, a columnist for The New York Times, pre-emptively declared it the most important book of the year, saying, “I’ll be shocked if there’s another book that so compellingly describes the most important trends in American society.”
there’s more…
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/books/charles-murrays-coming-apart-the-state-of-white-america.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Ya think?
The book says little about the roots of Fishtown’s problems, but in conversation Mr. Murray doesn’t hesitate to name the villain. “The ’60s were a disaster in terms of social policy,” he said. “The elites put in place a whole set of reforms which I think fundamentally changed the signals and the incentives facing low-income people and encouraged a variety of trends that soon became self-reinforcing.”
What key is that dog whistle in?
The top colleges DO NOT NEED tuition at all. First off, they have a disproportionate % of students of the wealthy and mega-wealthy for whom 50k/yr is a drop in the bucket. They charge them at 50k but the real goal is to get the parents do donate money to the annual fund. The infrastrucure is paid for by bankers and CEOs, e.g. Meg Whitman or Bill Frist who will try “out do” each other. In many cases, alumni already have been donating for 25 yrs or more before the kids apply to the school. The acceptance rate for alumni kids at top colleges is very high. At Princeton it used to be nearly 50% of alumni kids accepted versus an overall acceptance rate of 12%. Meaning, non-alum kids had a <10% chance. Better have a perfect SAT or be a recruited athlete on a team that Ivies care about (lax, crew, squash). Preferably a combination of athletic + 1550 or better SAT + VP of student government.
The real problem is going to be at non-elite private schools and non-flagship state schools. How can George Washington U charge as much as an Ivy? Absurd. How can East Tennessee State stay in business of the TN legislature keeps cutting funds? Students won’t pay the higher tuitions at some point. And they will also figure out that even if they can “afford” the loans, the odds of the 4 yrs + debt being worth it from East TN State are basically 0%
“Students won’t pay the higher tuitions at some point.”
You’d think the fear of debt would kick-in? I started losing sleep when my student loans exceeded $12k, and by graduation it topped $22k, and I had an intermittent eyelid nervous twitch.
“The very best lecturers will reach tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of students…”
This would also “standardize” education. I haven’t decided if that is a good or bad thing yet.
I think it’s a good thing: why?
Take 400 lecturers teaching the same econ 101 class.
Assume that all students watch the video of the best lecturer as the base.
Now you have 399 professors who are able to NOT spend time preparing lecture materials, NOT spend time lecturing, etc. and they can hold more office hours for students, etc.
Done the right way, this kind of technology will INCREASE the amount of professor/student interactions, not decrease it.
Of course, it will be done the wrong way, and students will watch courses in between bong hits while laying in bed eating burritos, never bothering to take advantage of the increased office hours.
Wall Street Journal - House Weighs More Guest-Worker Visas in Immigration Bill:
“The proposal could provide somewhere near 400,000 annual visas for low-skilled immigrant workers … The sweeping immigration bill that passed the Senate in June created a new class of visas for low-skilled workers and increased the allotment of them annually, starting at 20,000 and maxing out at 220,000. Some businesses criticized that cap as too low.
A higher cap could prove popular among House Republicans and would please many businesses that rely on low-skilled labor … The outlines of the emerging bill drew protests from the AFL-CIO. Labor unions want to limit visas for low-skilled workers, saying the foreign workers compete for jobs with U.S. workers and put downward pressure on wages. Many businesses, by contrast, want no cap at all on the visas.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323997004578644252151913218.html
Labor unions want to limit visas for low-skilled workers, saying the foreign workers compete for jobs with U.S. workers and put downward pressure on wages.
God bless America!
Yet labor unions are all for amnesty and politicians that support amnesty…
They see the blue collared shamnesty recipients as potential new members. It won’t do the unions any good if the Mexodus resumes.
The unemployment rate is still officially above 7%. So this leads us to reason that we need MORE temporary immigrant labor?
“Manhunt suspended near Wauchula as gunman continues to allude capture
ABC Action News - 4 hours ago”
The above is a headline from the google news aggregator page with some Florida headlines. Can you say “alliterate”? Or is it “elliterate”? I’m so confused.
The reason why illiterate idiots can’t correctly spell “alliteration” eludes me.
Maybe they don’t want to be associated with homophones.
On the other hand, they are illiterate idiots…
You should see the howlers we get from Congressional office. Intern mistakes.
Any thoughts on how much farther up Treasury yields will go from here before the correction ends?
NOTE: The parenthetical percentage increases in yield shown below are roughly the mirror image of the drop in market value of the underlying bonds.
Aug. 5, 2013, 9:07 a.m. EDT
Treasurys fall ahead of ISM, new auction supply
By Ben Eisen
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Treasury prices fell on Monday ahead of the Institute for Supply Management’s nonmanufacturing report. The benchmark 10-year note (10_YEAR +1.08%) yield, which moves inversely to price, rose 3.5 basis points to 2.633%. The 30-year bond (30_YEAR +0.81%) yield rose 3 basis points to 3.718%, and the 5-year note (5_YEAR +1.54%) yield rose 2.5 basis points to 1.386%. Following a volatile week filled with data releases, this week will be relatively light on data. But the market will absorb new supply, including $32 billion in 3-year notes (3_YEAR +1.73%), $24 billion in 10-year notes, and $16 billion in 30-year bonds.
Bond Losses at Federal Reserve Top $192 Billion
The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries (^TNX) has surged 66% over the past three months. And bond investors, especially those with jumbo-sized positions, are getting hammered. How much money has the Federal Reserve lost?
http://www.etfguide.com/commentary/1095/Bond-Losses-at-Federal-Reserve-Top-192-Billion/
Treasury Sell-Off Compared to Past Examples
by Jann Swanson
Aug 5 2013, 1:10PM
Is the recent change in long-term Treasury yields the result of investors optimism about higher short-term rates down the road, or are they demanding more return on their long-term investment gamble? Two vice presidents in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York,s Research and Statistics Group looked at that question in a recent entry on the Bank’s Liberty Street Economics page.
Tobias Adrian and Michael Fleming said that recent long-term yields have risen sharply, going from 1.63 percent on May 2 to 2.74 percent on July 5, the highest level in exactly two years. As yields and prices move inversely, the recent sharp rise in yields has resulted in losses to the owners of Treasury securities which they put at -9.8 percent over a 42 days period The two point out that, “The decline is large by historical standards, but somewhat smaller than that observed in two-month windows in 1994 (-12.6 percent), 2003 (-14.4 percent), and other recent periods (for example, -10.3 percent in late 2010).”
…
broke ass loosers who will not be buying overpriced houses:
‘the number of millenials — adults aged 18 to 31 — living at home rose to 36 percent last year. that represented the highest percentage in the last four decades … in 2012, 56 percent of adults aged 18 to 24 lived in their parental home, pew found, as did 16 percent of adults aged 25 to 31. however, millenial males (40%) were significantly more likely than millenial females (32%) to live with mom and dad.’
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/more-men-than-women-live-with-their-parents-2013-08-02
They probably already heard the news don’t ya think Goonster?
What’s funny (and pathetic) is hearing some of the older people in my office wishing and dreaming about a housing “recovery” because they can’t afford to stop working in their 60’s and their debt shack is their single largest retirement “asset”, while simultaneously lamenting about their broke ass 20-30 something children who can not (and may never be able to) buy overpriced housing and rely on their parents for babysitting and financial support.
Broke
Ass
LOOSERS
It really is a dichotomy - isn’t it?
Older folks want high housing prices so they have an easy “nest egg” and an ATM and a retirement fund.
But complain because their adult and college educated children can not afford to move out of their house.
The easy money of the Fed and obama - forcing households to fight among themselves…
Older folks also want lower prices (offshoring), while still expecting their low-paid children to somehow earn enough money to pay all those Social Security taxes (and also pay off all the bonds that their parents borrowed for really nice bridges and stuff).
“broke ass loosers”
Wasn’t that a Bob Seger song?
Oh, that was Beautiful loser.
He wants to dream like a young man
With the wisdom of an old man
He wants his home and security
He wants to live like a sailor at sea
Broke ass looser
Where you gonna fall?
When you realize
You just can’t have it all
Bob Seger - Beautiful Loser Lyrics - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U86kmChYxoY - 146k
This one sounds a lot better.
BEAUTIFUL LOSER BOB SEGER - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TjWOVUZeJo - 140k -
That guy’s hairstyle is sure to land him the best job.
That will land him the womyn.
‘Supporters of the NSA surveillance program didn’t need an excuse for liking the idea of violating Americans’ privacy, but they’re pretty sure they found one with the new “terrorist threat” situation that led to a number of embassy closures. Now Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R – GA) and others are loudly championing the intelligence as vindication for their long-standing disdain for personal privacy, though at the core of it there is no evidence that the “threat” had anything to do with NSA spying on Americans.’
‘It’s telling that the only officials claiming to have seen the evidence behind the “threat” were already outspoken advocates of the surveillance state, while skeptics like Rep. Adam Schiff (R – CA) say there’s no reason to think the bulk metadata collection has anything to do with this putative plot.’
The Kenyan-In-Chief can pimp the FEAR just as effectively as W did.
Remember those color-coded threat level advisories?
It’s a good time to be a government contractor, somebody has to create the fear, manage the fear, and sell the fear. All paid for by taxpayers and with a fat layer of cream skimmed off the top.
Fear industry = BIG BUSINESS
…and Eisenhower knew it.
Is the Government Exaggerating the Threat of Terror for Political Reasons?
Washington’s Blog
August 5, 2013
The congressmen who take the most money from the military-industrial complex – I mean uber-hawks – like Lindsey Graham and Saxby Chambliss say that the new terror warning shows that NSA spying is needed, after all.
On the other hand, a variety of people – including former CIA agent Barry Eisler, and Guardian columnists Michael Cohen and Glenn Greenwald – say that the terror alerts are political theater to try to distract attention from the embarrassing leaks about out-of-control mass surveillance on Americans.
Who’s right?
Initially, it doesn’t matter whether or not there is a real new terror threat because the government’s mass spying doesn’t keep us safe . In fact, it distracts energy and resources away from actual counter-terror measures which would actually help to protect us … and thus makes us more vulnerable to terror attacks.
Indeed, if the risk of terror is increasing again, it’s because the government has squandered its intelligence resources on political shenanigans – and on counter-productive anti-terror strategies – instead of focusing on keeping us safe.
(It may also have something to do with the fact that the U.S. government is directly supporting Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Syria and many other countries.)
Of course, terror warnings have long been used for political purposes. For example, FBI agents and CIA intelligence officials, a top constitutional and military law expert, Time magazine, the Washington Post and others have all said that U.S. government officials “were trying to create an atmosphere of fear in which the American people would give them more power”. Indeed, the former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge admitted that he was pressured to raise terror alerts to help Bush win reelection.
The threat from Al Qaeda – while real – has been greatly exaggerated. Former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski – also a top foreign policy advisor to President Obama – told the Senate that the war on terror is a “a mythical historical narrative“. (And statistics arguably show that many terror attacks are actually carried out by non-Muslims.)
Is it entirely a coincidence that the current terror scare comes mere days after a new, widely-quoted Pew poll revealed that Americans are now more concerned about civil liberties than terrorism?
http://www.infowars.com/category/featured-stories/ - 70k -
Never let a crisis go to waste…
Said by somebody in the obama administration
It’s a good time to be a government contractor, somebody has to create the fear, manage the fear, and sell the fear. All paid for by taxpayers and with a fat layer of cream skimmed off the top.
“Kingdom of fear ” Hunter S. Thompson
Ol’ Sexy Chambliss is back at it again. Him and O belong in the same cell along with that Nazi offspring Sennsenbenner.
Add that corrupt jackass Ed Rendell.
If the dems and reps agree, nothing good will come out of it.
Sounds like the terror alerts that happened right before Bush was re-elected. The ones that Tom Ridge later said were politically motivated.
Rental Rates Continue To Erode Nationally
http://picpaste.com/pics/427fbfb44b67cd58f3693dd045cb9789.1375715591.png
If you think being a landlord is a wise idea, think again.
NYPD takes out one of Obama’s “sons”
“Court records showed he had been caught with a gun at least once before; his last brush with the law involved his arrest on a charge of attempted murder, after a rival gang member was shot in May.”
And reaction from the dead “child’s” aunt:
“Him, Trayvon Martin, it’s never going to end,” she said. “A child. Fourteen years old. Fourteen years old. Gone. Shot in the head. By police.”
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/nyregion/officer-fatally-shoots-armed-teenager-in-bronx-police-say.html
And reaction from the dead “child’s” aunt:
**************************************************************************
In the ghetto these black moms and “aunts” often function as buffers in the criminal activity of their young black male children. They know exactly what going on and get a cut of the loot.
*do not be fooled*
These black single mothers guilt their sons into trying to be the man of the house their moms never had.
“you’re lazy and sorry, just like your father; I shoulda had an abortion!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOo6leVkL-k
It’s not just black people in the “ghetto”. I went to high school with someone whose mom would roll joints for him to sell at school for $5 (because he couldn’t roll joints) and before he was old enough to drive would drive him around suburbia in the family station wagon to sell drugs. After he broke the rule of “don’t get high on your own supply” his parents also paid for a couple stints in rehab, legal bills for drug-related arrests, medical bills for drug-related health problems, and a funeral when he died of an overdose at the age of 26.
See that is the problem with where you grew up. Lower quality of underage drug dealer. Where I grew up, one of our high school age dealers had a lawn care business to cover his drug profits. He actually managed to convince his mother that he bought a car and a boat and a riding lawn mower with the profits off mowing a few (very few) of their neighbor’s lawns. As far as I knew, he never dipped in his own supply. Much too busy with the real business, the cover business and sailing. Helped that the mom was dumb as a post and they lived on the rich side of town so she could convince herself that he was getting really good tips.
Oh, when I was a kid, I just drove across the river and sold fake dope to people who were already blazed out of their mind. They got high off it.
Yeah, quality of underage drug dealer. Right hya.
Spook:
You’re doing it again. Blaming black women for the short-comings of black men. Where are the fathers to begin with? Apparently not married to their baby-mamas. Apparently nowhere to be found.
You’re doing it again. Blaming black women for the short-comings of black men.
——————————————————————-
Briffault’s Law:
The female, not the male, determines all the conditions of the animal family. Where the female can derive no benefit from association with the male, no such association takes place. — Robert Briffault, The Mothers, Vol. I, p. 191
—————————————————————-
What country you from?
What!
Here is a perfect example of Briffaults law in full effect:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/25/wade-mccree-michigan-shirtless-judge_n_3495859.html
The wife standing by her man, and the hoodrat gambling with the unborn child (which may not be his)
Demand For Housing in US Grinds Lower
http://picpaste.com/pics/42f661cf538695042c27ad795b1533c3.1375715750.png
Housing Demand has fallen to 17 year lows….. Now do you believe the media and realtors are being honest?
San Francisco Bay Area Rental Rates Crumble 5%
http://picpaste.com/pics/b76a04ee68b7e38be42c6f0fc7251b81.1375716266.png
So Goldman Sachs, its pointman Fabrice Tourre, and John Paulson put together a sham bet. They went out looking for marks. And they found them. The marks lost a billion dollars. For that, Mr. Tourre was found guilty of fraud in a civil case.
Do this market-making in blue suits and in pricey office buildings, and you make billions. Do it on a streetcorner and they arrest you. How many others like Mr. Tourre are out there? Based on the shockwave from the mortgage implosion / financial crisis, probably quite a few.
The Case Against Fabrice Tourre
Fabrice Tourre, a former Goldman Sachs trader, [ed. note: actually, vice president] was found liable for misleading clients by selling a mortgage securities investment that the Securities and Exchange Commission said was designed to fail.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/07/10/business/dealbook/20130710-fabrice-tourre-timeline.html?_r=0#/#time260_7573
Hallelujah! Finally!
It’s a start!
Now that he is banned from working in the biz, he has no reason not to point that stinky finger at his higher-ups. I wonder what the long arm of the law will offer him in exchange for one stinky finger?
This just into my spam boy:
Zillow Exclusive
Join President Barack Obama and Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff this Wednesday, Aug. 7 at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) for a conversation about the current housing market.
Moderated by Spencer, the President will answer questions submitted by YOU, Zillow’s users and social media community.
You could shape the discussion!
Send your question via video, Twitter or Facebook.
Video
Share your video question using #AskObamaHousing on Instagram or Vine. Prefer YouTube? Submit a link to your video on Zillow’s Facebook page
Twitter
Use #AskObamaHousing and tweet a question to @Zillow
Facebook
Submit a question on Zillow’s Facebook Page
Note: Users cannot submit questions via a mobile phone.
The virtual event will be streamed on
Zillow.com/WhiteHouse and WhiteHouse.gov
Why would the President be talking about houses with Zillow?
Box. Spam box. Sheesh. Need caffeine….
I was wondering what a “spam boy” was
Maybe the 2013 version of a pool boy.
I thought she was talking about the $hitHouse Poet.
Don’t be fooling around with the spam boy. He’s got cooties.
Oh honey, don’t I know it….
Eyewitness To Hastings Crash Reported “Giant Explosion”
Federal agency now investigating death of Rolling Stone journalist
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
August 5, 2013
Newly released transcripts of 911 calls made by eyewitnesses to the fatal crash of Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings describe the vehicle blowing up, with one noting that a “giant explosion” took place during the incident.
The reports are consistent with recently uncovered surveillance footage that appears to show the journalist’s Mercedes suffering several explosions before crashing into a tree.
After initially refusing to divulge the tapes, the Los Angeles Police Department was forced to release the 911 calls to San Diego 6 news channel yesterday after an FOIA request. Out of the seven calls released, three eyewitnesses described the car exploding.
Call one; “Caller reported an accident, the car exploded. Caller was transferred to the Los Angeles City Fire Department.”
Call two; “Caller reported a huge accident, and the car had blown up. Caller was transferred to the Los Angeles City Fire Department.”
Call three; “Caller reported a car accident occurred in front of his house, and the car is burning.”
Call four; “Caller reported a traffic collision, he is not involved, there is a possible fatality because there was a giant explosion that occurred in the median, unknown if anyone got out of the vehicle.”
Call five; “Caller reported a car is totally engulfed in flames.”
Call six; “Caller reported a large fire on the divider of the road, he is not sure if there is a car involved.”
And call seven; “Caller reported huge auto accident.”
Analysis of the surveillance footage of the crash shows three large explosions before the vehicle comes to rest and begins to burn, fueling speculation that Hastings’ car was booby trapped with some kind of incendiary device.
The LAPD’s response to San Diego 6 also indicates that a federal agency is now investigating the death of Hastings.
“To find-out who is investigating and why, this week Judicial Watch will serve additional FOIAs against the DOJ (AKA Eric Holders’ war on journalists), Department of Homeland Security’s HSI, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA), the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Secretary of the Department of Defense (DoD), and the Secretary of the Department of the Army (due to unchallenged threats made directly to Mr. Hastings),” writes Kimberly Dvorak.
As we reported last month, police and firefighters in the area have been given a gag order and told not to talk to the media about Hastings’ death.
Although the LAPD ruled out foul play days after the incident, automotive experts questioned why Hastings’ brand new Mercedes exploded into flames with such ferocity and why the engine was found 150 feet behind the vehicle.
Former counter-terror czar Richard Clarke reacted to the news by telling the Huffington Post that the fatal crash was “consistent with a car cyber attack.” Academic studies show that it is relatively easy to hack and remote control a modern day vehicle.
Hastings sent out an email to friends and colleagues 15 hours before his car crash stating he was “onto a big story” and needed “to go off the rada[r] for a bit.”
According to colleagues, Hastings was “incredibly tense and very worried, and was concerned that the government was looking in on his material,” and also a “nervous wreck” in response to the surveillance of journalists revealed by the AP phone tapping scandal and the NSA PRISM scandal.
After Wikileaks reported that Hastings had contacted them a few hours before his death complaining that he was under FBI investigation, other friends confirmed that the journalist was “very paranoid” about the feds watching him.
Hastings routinely received death threats as a result of his hard-hitting journalism, particularly in relation to his 2010 exposé of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal.
Serfs_up >PT Barnum • 10 minutes ago• 1 upvotes −+
Nothing to see here, move along. Your government loves you.
http://www.infowars.com/category/featured-stories/ - 70k -
Glenn Greenwald is next.
Listing #13008935
$430,000 (LP)
$430,000 (SP)
Price/SqFt: 376.86
SP % LP: 100.00 4539 N Vistapark Dr, Moorpark, CA 93021 Sold
Beds: 3* Baths: 2 (2 0 0 0) (FTHQ) Sq Ft: 1141* Lot Sz: 4860sqft
Area: SMP Yr: 1983
Imagine the losses and suffering for the sucker who paid that massively inflated price.
Nothing to see here, move along your government loves you.
Exclusive: U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans
6 hours ago
By John Shiffman and Kristina Cooke
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.
Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.
The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to “recreate” the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant’s Constitutional right to a fair trial. If defendants don’t know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence - information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.
“I have never heard of anything like this at all,” said Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor who served as a federal judge from 1994 to 2011. Gertner and other legal experts said the program sounds more troubling than recent disclosures that the National Security Agency has been collecting domestic phone records. The NSA effort is geared toward stopping terrorists; the DEA program targets common criminals, primarily drug dealers.
“It is one thing to create special rules for national security,” Gertner said. “Ordinary crime is entirely different. It sounds like they are phonying up investigations.”
THE SPECIAL OPERATIONS DIVISION
The unit of the DEA that distributes the information is called the Special Operations Division, or SOD. Two dozen partner agencies comprise the unit, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security. It was created in 1994 to combat Latin American drug cartels and has grown from several dozen employees to several hundred.
Today, much of the SOD’s work is classified, and officials asked that its precise location in Virginia not be revealed. The documents reviewed by Reuters are marked “Law Enforcement Sensitive,” a government categorization that is meant to keep them confidential.
“Remember that the utilization of SOD cannot be revealed or discussed in any investigative function,” a document presented to agents reads. The document specifically directs agents to omit the SOD’s involvement from investigative reports, affidavits, discussions with prosecutors and courtroom testimony. Agents are instructed to then use “normal investigative techniques to recreate the information provided by SOD.”
A spokesman with the Department of Justice, which oversees the DEA, declined to comment.
http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-u-directs-agents-cover-program-used-investigate-091643729.html - -
“…created in 1994 to combat Latin American drug cartels and has grown from several dozen employees to several hundred….”
Which is why it will not be disbanded nor the Mexican drug wars ended anytime soon.
It also makes no sense to some how conflate domestic terrorism with an act of war. If it’s domestic, and not perpetrated by a sovereign nation, then it’s ordinary crime. It may be horrific, but it is not in a different category from other types of murder, etc.
Latest Mike Whitney piece:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/02/housing-shifts-into-reverse/
From the article;
“According to Census data released last week, the number of homes that are currently vacant and being held off market is LARGER NOW than 2009
We concur with this as it is the result of moratoriums expiring and banks resuming foreclosure proceedings.
“QE Tapering on Track Despite July Jobs Dud
http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/2013/08/05/ex-fed-official-kohn-qe-tapering-on-track-despite-july-jobs-dud/
Just in time for when cratering demand accelerates.
“Do you really think it’s a good idea to pay a 40% premium over the price of a new house for a 20+year old house?”
No.
Only if the old house is stick-built, while the new house is a mobile home.
Both depreciate at the same rate.
July Records Biggest Inflows…Into Cash?
With the Federal Reserve’s bond buying, liquidity injecting, market inflating, volatility suppressing, confidence inspirng, economic supporting, media headline generating, program currently in full swing; one would assume that the daily pushes to new market highs are driven by massive inflows of cash into the equity markets. Well, that assumption would be partially correct.
Of course, this is clear evidence that the “Great Rotation” by investors, from bonds into equities, is upon us which will cause yields to rise as investors bet on a recovering U.S. economy. Right? Maybe not.
http://www.streettalklive.com/daily-x-change/1781-july-records-biggest-inflows-into-cash.html
The markets, both the gold and the general equities, anticipate the Fed’s every move and their reaction to the Fed’s pronouncements can cause them to gyrate wildly, depending on the interpretation of the message. According to the market place, the Fed is the end all, be all that drives everything financial. What happens when the the Fed loses control of their own balance sheet and the bond market takes them to the wood shed? It is beginning to look like we will soon find out if the bond market continues to hammer the Fed with higher interest rates. Once the inflation genie is let out of the bottle it is very difficult to stuff it back in, and it looks like the bond market knows this and is sounding the alarm.
Is The Federal Reserve Teetering On The Brink Of Its Own Economic Collapse?
The markets, both the gold and the general equities, anticipate the Fed’s every move and their reaction to the Fed’s pronouncements can cause them to gyrate wildly, depending on the interpretation of the message. According to the market place, the Fed is the end all, be all that drives everything financial. What happens when the the Fed loses control of their own balance sheet and the bond market takes them to the wood shed? It is beginning to look like we will soon find out if the bond market continues to hammer the Fed with higher interest rates. Once the inflation genie is let out of the bottle it is very difficult to stuff it back in, and it looks like the bond market knows this and is sounding the alarm.
http://www.buygoldco.com/federal-reserve-teetering-brink-economic-collapse/
What happens when the the Fed loses control of their own balance sheet and the bond market takes them to the wood shed?
They conjure more money out of thin air?
Fed fights back against ‘feral hogs’
By Claire Jones and Robin Wigglesworth in London and James Politi in Washington
Last updated: June 24, 2013 7:24 pm
Financial Times
“The former hedge fund manager [Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve] likened the market reaction to Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s signal that the bank could begin reducing its $85bn monthly bond purchases before the end of this year to the 1992 attack led by investor George Soros on the Bank of England. The latter led to the UK crashing out of the European exchange rate mechanism.
“Markets tend to test things,” Mr Fisher told the FT. “We haven’t forgotten what happened to the Bank of England [on Black Wednesday]. I don’t think anyone can break the Fed . . . But I do believe that big money does organise itself somewhat like feral hogs. If they detect a weakness or a bad scent, they’ll go after it.”
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9d8fa63e-dce6-11e2-b52b-00144feab7de.html#axzz2b8DAiNHa
Millenials are not buying cars, they are increasingly using public transit — living in cities and using the subway/light rail, etc.
Meanwhile, Boomers are cruising around their suburbs while wearing Depends.
—————-
“Indeed, young people don’t seem that interested in driving. Just 79 percent of people between 20 and 24 had a driver’s license in 2011, compared with 92 percent in 1983, according to the Michigan study.
Conversely, the oldest boomers are trooping down to the Department of Motor Vehicles in growing numbers to remain licensed to drive. Almost 93 percent of those age 60 to 64 had a driver’s license in 2011, up from 84 percent in 1983.
That helps explain why consumers age 55 to 64 had the highest rate of vehicle purchases in 2011, while the youngest age groups had the lowest rate. Even consumers age 75 and above bought cars at a higher rate than 25-to-34-year-olds and 18-to-24-year-olds, the Michigan study found.
“I have a son who lives in San Francisco; when I get a new car and I tell him what I got, he couldn’t care less,” Sivak said. “To him, it’s a means of getting from A to B. He goes into great lengths about taking a BART or bus, even though it takes him an hour longer. He does have a car, but uses it very rarely.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-05/automania-strikes-boomers-supplanting-kids-as-buyers.html
wish i could give up driving on weekdays, commuting via car in this city sucks.
still need the car(s) on the weekend tho, to visit my portfolio of $5,000 lots in estes park, breckenridge, vail, aspen, crested butte, telluride, etc.
We share a car, the only family on our block w/o multiple cars, even though the average age on our block is probably 60 and there are many retirees and olds who should never be driving anywhere at any time (terrible drivers). I would never actually want to be without a car entirely, but I think buying into the mindset that “getting to work = absolutely need a car” is a bad thing, hopefully a relic of the past.
Is it a chauffeured Rolls Royce Phantom?
wat?
u crazy. i like car.
I dont think i was ever without a car…Even when we lived in Manhattan my car was at my moms and i’d still drive it every few months,
Maybe if you live back east. Out here cars (and trucks - ugh) still rule. If you use our meager public transportation, expect it to take a loooooong time to get anywhere.
One time I had to serve on jury duty in downtown San Diego. There was an express bus I could take in the morning from Escondido to downtown and it was OK. Of course, on the first day I was dismissed early (around 10 AM) , so now I had to catch a bus to get back to my car parked at the transportation center in Escondido. The next express bus wasn’t scheduled until around 3 PM. So I had to catch a regular bus and had to switch buses twice to get back.
It took me almost 3 hours to get home.
The next day I drove my car and found a “reasonably priced” parking lot that wasn’t too far from the courthouse.
As for boomers buying more cars, well, they’re the ones with the incomes. It’s kind of hard to buy a new car on a lucky ducky salary. I’m not so sure that the young pups don’t want a nice set of wheels, they just know that they can’t afford them.
Yeah, right. That’s why when I go to the Bay Area I see tons of young people driving late model BMWs, Audis and other expensive cars.
Millenials can’t AFFORD cars.
Period.
A CNBC.com analysis of more than 120 of the nation’s largest state and local pension plans finds they face a wide range of burdens as their aging workforces near retirement.
Thanks to a patchwork of accounting practices and rosy investment assumptions, it’s not even clear just how big a financial hole many states and cities have dug for themselves. That may soon change, thanks to a new set of government accounting standards that could serve as a nasty wake-up call to states and cities relying on rosy scenarios and head-in-the-sand accounting.
Even less clear is who will pay to clean up the messes. Will it be the millions of retirees owed trillions of dollars in benefits, the bondholders who lent states and cities trillions more, or local taxpayers who may have to pay more to cover the shortfalls or see deeper cuts in public services?
I’m sure the pain will be spread around to everyone. The pensions will have to be cut because it’s absurd for retired people to bring home more than the average working person. Bondholders will end up making lower yields because the pension payments will still eat into the bottom line. Taxpayers will also have to pay more just because.
It’s also absurd for the the 1% to have more income than the bottom 50%, but that hasn’t stopped them.
You mean the ones who made the bad investments in the first place?
I want a better job. I just had a phone interview with a giant, evil company. I think it went well. Do you guys think I will get the job? Say yes!
It depends … how evil are you?
12 (or 7 or 3) other people also had phone interviews that went well. You might get the job. You might not. An interview that went well is no guarantee of anything.
That was not the answer that I gave you, was it? Try again.
No!
i hate u
hate is love, right?
no
no means yes?
I hope you score the gig, V. Good luck!
The large deciduous was heard shouting: “this is for Treevon!” right before it fell.
http://www.myfoxny.com/story/23042914/pregnant-woman-killed-after-being-hit-by-fallen-tree
The hindus, the native americans and the pagans have the right idea - Worship your tree god!
Thank god the woman was in NYC or she could have been killed by a Big Gulp or a styrofoam coffee cup instead of a falling tree.
Mayor Bloomberg attacks styrofoam in latest citywide ban - NY Daily …
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/mayor-bloomberg-attacks-styrofoam-latest-ban-article-1.1371041 - - Cached - Similar pages
Jun 12, 2013 … Even as Mayor Bloomberg’s large-soda ban faces an uncertain future, Hizzoner is moving ahead with the next target on his do-not-sell list …
Do you really need a program to find competent tree people? Sounds like Artie the resident has a pretty good grasp of the situation and his “I guess they can only do so much at one time,” proves he is a NYC resident.
“They need another program where competent people, tree people, to come around and assess which trees should be taken down, because it’s a mess,” said Delligatti.
“There are other trees, huge trees that are slanted, they’re tilted, they’re old the roots are coming up, I guess they can only do so much at one time,” said Artie Altierri, resident.
To her credit, it appears she made no judgements about the tree before it killed her.
The killings will continue until the logging stops.
(Signed) The Trees.
“Can’t we just get along?”
(Signed) A Lone Spruce
Rats leaving sinking ship?
WaPo to be sold to Bojos for $250 mil.
My mother confiscated a bong I had hidden in my closet when I was 16. Had I known she was gonna do that I would have thrown it out the window too.
phony
16 and dumb, glad I wasn’t alone. I got busted coming home from a concert. I had to take classes on the evils of drugs as my punishment by the PD. Just pot, but my parents branded me as a druggie. I outgrew it in a year or two. To this day, my mother thinks of me as the “bad seed”, when my “golden child” sister was a cheerleader into mini-whites. Go figure.
They had to find the RIGHT buyer………
Are plans on track to wind down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and to replace their roles in the mortgage market with another agency serving similar if not the same functions?
3 HRs ago
US
Obama to Seek Limited U.S. Mortgage Role
President Would Boost Private Lenders and Ultimately Replace Fannie, Freddie
The president will call for a continued but limited government role to backstop the U.S. mortgage market, as part of a strategy to ultimately replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with a bigger private-sector presence.
By Nick Timiraos, Carol E. Lee
Potential home buyer Deanna Wright surveys a kitchen at a June open house in Washington, D.C. The U.S. real-estate market continues to improve.
Bloomberg News
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama will call for a continued but limited government role to backstop the U.S. mortgage market, as part of a strategy to ultimately replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with a bigger private-sector presence, according to White House advisers.
In a speech Tuesday, Mr. Obama will begin making the case that a limited government guarantee is needed to preserve access to the long-term, fixed-rate loans that have become a staple of the U.S. housing market. But he also will call for ending the business model of Fannie and Freddie, which took on risks that benefited private shareholders during good times and saddled taxpayers with losses when the housing market crashed in 2008.
Fannie and Freddie, which received a $188 billion taxpayer bailout to help weather losses, should be replaced with a system in which “private capital must be wiped out before the government pays on any form of catastrophic guarantee,” said a senior administration official. Any government role should be “transparent and explicit,” the official said.
The administration hasn’t yet detailed exactly how that would work. A bipartisan Senate bill introduced in June by Sens. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) and Mark Warner (D., Va.) would create a new federal guarantor to back mortgages and charge lenders for guarantees, much the way the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. guarantees bank deposits to prevent bank runs. That bill has won backing so far from five Republicans and five Democrats in the Senate.
The White House proposal is likely to meet opposition from House Republicans, who have advanced a bill through the Financial Services Committee that would significantly restrict the government’s role in the housing market, ceding the positions previously played by Fannie and Freddie to private lenders over the next five years.
…
Outside of Wall Street, who thinks Summers is the “best man” for the Fed chairman’s job?
ft dot com
Global Insight
August 5, 2013 1:56 pm
Choice of next Fed chair opens old Democrat wounds
By Richard McGregor in Washington
Summers uproar uncovers unresolved tensions over finance industry
By his own subdued standards, President Barack Obama was agitated and emotional when he leapt to the defence of Lawrence Summers after being urged not to appoint his former adviser as the next chair of the Federal Reserve.
Members of Congress attending the meeting between the president and House of Representatives Democrats said the subject of Mr Summers injected an edge to an otherwise warm and friendly encounter last week.
But the fact that Mr Obama had to stand up for his former adviser in front of fellow Democrats only served to underline one thing – what a mess the search for a new Fed chair has become.
Mr Obama told the House Democrats that anyone examining the competing candidates to replace Ben Bernanke had to “slice the salami very thin” to find policy differences between them.
That is certainly not how many of his fellow Democrats see it. For them, the fight over the Fed has policy at its core, notably the need in their eyes to rein in powerful banks and resist pressure for financial deregulation.
Much has been made of the deep splits in a Republican party warring over national security and budget tactics in recent months. Mr Summers, however, is a symbol of unresolved tensions on the left that have lingered for decades, over the growth of the finance industry.
If that weren’t enough, the uproar over Mr Summers is partly personal, as all disputes over the former Treasury Secretary and president of Harvard University seem to be. Fairly or otherwise, many of his fellow Democrats just don’t like him.
The appointment has also been caught up in the gender wars. A few hours after Mr Obama’s short speech, 37 women Democrats in the House released a letter backing Mr Summers’ main rival, Janet Yellen, the Fed vice-chair, for the job.
The House letter followed another missive a week earlier signed by 20 out of 54 Democrats in the Senate also backing Ms Yellen, this time on the basis of her work as a regulator, and a fighter for policies buttressing the middle class.
Democrats in Congress have now gone home for the summer, having structured the choice in a way that could hardly be less favourable to Mr Summers, and more awkward for the president.
The women in the House have framed the decision as a choice between a perpetuation of the “boy’s club” in the White House, as one former female staffer described it, and the enlightened appointment of the first women to head the Fed in its history.
Ms Yellen’s Senate supporters have made it a choice between someone who saw the banking crash coming against a rival who not only missed it, but also, in their view, laid the deregulatory groundwork for it to happen in the first place.
Mr Summers, in the meantime, has been put in an invidious position. Some have questioned his lack of regulatory remorse for his past sins of deregulation. But could he really make his case for the Fed job with a Cultural Revolution-style self-criticism?
In truth, Mr Summers’ critics see a rejection of him as a repudiation of the financial revolution that started with the repeal under Bill Clinton’s presidency in the 1990s of the depression-era Glass-Steagall Act, separating commercial banking from securities trading.
…
Mortgage delinquencies take a sharp turn up
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100914292
And they’ll continue rising for as long as transactions occur at massively inflated prices.
phony scandals