Bits Bucket for August 24, 2013
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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If you take on mortgage debt at current massively inflated housing prices, you’ll enslave yourself for the rest of your life.
“Debt is bondage.”~ Suze Orman, May 11, 2013
Don’t Be A Debt Donkey®
Sell high so you can buy low. Sitting on any asset class that has been outperforming the others the last three years? What asset class has been underperforming the last three years? Emerging markets and gold mining. High yield long term corporate bonds are crashing, so be ready to load up on them.
equity is a game changer.
Works well if you are the guy running the Game. Maybe not as well if you the one that is being Gamed.
“Works well if you are the guy running the Game.”
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac delaying billions in write-offs: watchdog
By Jim Puzzanghera
August 19, 2013 | 8:53 AM
… recipients Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been avoiding billions of dollars in potential … losses by delaying the use of … government watchdog agency said … has allowed Fannie and Freddie to delay … 5. The write-offs would eat …
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-fannie-mae-freddie-mac-losses-mortgages-housing-20130819,0,3284192.story - 152k -
Will Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ultimately have to come clean when they are eventually wound down, or will the government-sponsored shell games continue?
If equity is based on price and price is based on the availabilty of borrowed money then it follows that equity is based on the availability of borrowed money.
It doesn’t matter whether or not you borrowed the money that supports the price but it does matter if most everyone else borrows the money that supports the price because it is everybody else that decides what the price should be.
You had your say as to what the price should be when you bought, but afterwards you have no say in the matter whatsoever. Instead other people - total strangers - are the one who have a say in what prices should be and these other people’s say in the matter is largely backed up with borrowed money - which means if they can land a loan then get to buy and if they can’t land a loan then they don’t. And if enough of them don’t then prices will go down and as they go down they will take your equity down with it.
When the economy was in the expansion mode (a mode that it was in for several decades) money was easy to get and this easy-to-get money made it easy for the average household to run a surplus, and some of this suplus was invested in the buying-up of houses.
But now the economy is no longer expanding, instead it is currently contracting. And this contraction is erasing the surpluses households used to run. And the results of this erasing of the surplus is being felt in the economy as a whole and sooner-or-later it will be felt in the housing sector of the economy (which, as some suggest, may be happening at this very moment).
We should count our lucky stars that the all-cash Canadian and Chinese investors are around to snatch up U.S. residential real estate investments at the point when the U.S. household sector’s surplus has shrunken to nothingness.
“And this contraction is erasing the surpluses households used to run.”
P.S. After I take my long-term savings off the top, I let my lovely wife run our household finances. At this point I am thinking of getting more involved in the effort, as our household surplus has shrunken to nothingness in the wake of the Great Recession. Given flat pay and rising taxes and living expenses, I am not whatsoever surprised to see this happen, despite no appreciable change in lifestyle. But it does entail the need for a change in household financial management towards greater thrift.
I tend to view us as representative middle-class Americans — that is, if our surplus is vanishing, it is probably happening the same way to millions of others.
Not yet for me…..still saving the same if not more while living the same life-style. Not confident it will last long though….
When the economy was in the expansion mode (a mode that it was in for several decades) money was easy to get and this easy-to-get money made it easy for the average household to run a surplus, and some of this suplus was invested in the buying-up of houses.
It expanded only for the 1%.
Money wasn’t easy to get but it but WAS easy to BORROW.
The avg household hasn’t run a surplus since the expansion began. The 1% got rich at the expense of the rest of us. Borrowed money is not surplus.
After 2 decades of stagnate wages and millions of jobs sent overseas, flipping houses became the only way J6P could replace the missing income, and that turned out be a suckers game if he stayed in too long.
Basically Combo, you aren’t wrong, but you are still using the language that got us into this mess. Language that disguises the Wall St crimes that cost us, the taxpayer, several trillion dollars and STILL only benefited the rich.
“Money wasn’t easy to get but it WAS easy to BORROW.”
Easy to borrow = easy to get. One does not have to necessairly earn the money he spends, he only has to get it.
“One does not have to necessairly earn the money he spends, he only has to get it.”
True.
“The avg household hasn’t run a surplus since the expansion began.”
Probably they did, but they probably immediately turned right around and either upped their standard of living, spent it on junk or “invested” it in RE.
If they invested it in RE then they most likely did not do this all at once but rather they did it on the installment plan, as in how-much-a-month. And if they chose the installment plan then they not only commited their current surplus but they also committed any future surplus. And this worked as long as there was a future surplus but began to stop working as soon as this future surplus dried up. And here we are.
Oh, and don’t forget the concept that having equity in one’s home means not managing one’s finances correctly, or whatever. The One-pecenters and Wall Street may have PRESENTED this idea but it was Joe6Pack who BOUGHT into it.
“…still saving the same if not more while living the same life-style.”
Congratulations on achieving my long-term goal.
The gig is up for us, thanks to increased living (and lifestyle) expenses coupled with falling take-home pay. I’ve discovered that once your kids are out of diapers, there is a period of lower child-care expenses, followed by rising costs through the teenage and college years. We are in that window of rising costs at the moment.
I am lucky to have a very adaptive spouse (e.g. she has increased her paid employment in response to the cash shortage), so barring unforeseen disaster, I believe we will be able to adjust as needed.
“The 1% got rich at the expense of the rest of us.”
The 1% got rich because they invented or discovered ways to convince the rest of the population to work hard so as to make as much money as they can and then send large chunks of this hard-earned money up the line until it reached their coffers.
They, the One-percenters set up the Game, set up the rules of their Game, and then convinced the Ninety-nine-percenters that it is everyone’s best interest that they play.
People who do not want the One-percenters to end up with so much money should stop sending them the stuff.
“…should stop sending them the stuff.”
It’s hard with so many forms of institutional confiscation going on.
They need you more than you need them. You have the power, all you have to do is to make a conscious decision to use it.
They, the One-percenters, spend many millions of dollars because they expect to get many billions of dollars back. You can’t do anything about the many millions that they spend but you can do something about the many billions that they expect to get back.
Your dollars, your choice, your advantage.
I tend to view us as representative middle-class Americans — that is, if our surplus is vanishing, it is probably happening the same way to millions of others.”
I only save 15% in my 401K thats it. Kids are expensive.
I agree with Combo on this. People gripe about bank bailouts, then turn around and take a B of A credit card or debit card out of their wallet, or take out a mortgage loan with Wells Fargo. They need took in the mirror. I stopped banking with the big guys years ago. I have no credit cards, and I try to shop at small stores who I’d like to have my money. I am starving the beast as much as I can, but I don’t see a lot of people following suit. My own family is part of the problem.
“You have the power, all you have to do is to make a conscious decision to use it.”
Should we…
1) stiff the I.R.S.?
2) leave the country?
3) stop working for The Man and sell our labor on the black market?
4) demand all future payment in Bitcoin?
What exactly are you suggesting?
I interpreted that to mean stop borrowing money from them and paying them interest.
Our monthly interest payments as a share of household income probably land us in the bottom 5% of American households by this measure of expenditure. We generally tend to avoid paying the banksters anything we don’t have to pay. For instance, we own all three of our automobiles free and clear, and don’t own a falling knife real estate investment financed by an underwater mortgage, either.
I am paying $0 interest now per month. I don’t plan on ever paying interest again. I don’t like it. I hope to never take a loan out again in this life.
“I hope to never take a loan out again in this life.”
+1 Ditto!
You had your say as to what the price should be when you bought, but afterwards you have no say in the matter whatsoever. Instead other people - total strangers - are the one who have a say in what prices should be
Just as true of stocks as of houses, no?
Didn’t you recently buy some stocks?
Works well if you got location, location, location. California coast, Florida gulf coast.
Florida gulf coast
Did you ever check out the Florida Atlantic coast? I’ve been all over each, and I much prefer the Atlantic side. The Gulf coast is swampier, more provincial, and has nastier water, IMO (the Gulf is like a saltwater Great Lake, with a lot of ‘deregulated’ countries dumping all their pollution into it ).
Nicer sand on the Gulf side, maybe, but that’s about it.
I never got to the Atlantic side. Someone says there are high rise buildings from Miami up to Georgia on that side. I did not see for myself.
Gulf coast - three words: Siesta Key Beach!
I prefer Key Biscayne. Beach town feel, pop over the bridge and you’re in downtown Miami.
This would be a fantastic time to liberate some of your cumulative home equity gains in a move-up home purchase!
MAKING THE MOVE UP
Turnaround in home values finally frees many to sell and seek bigger residences
By Lily Leung
12:01 a.m. Aug. 24, 2013 Updated
4:24 p.m. Aug. 23, 2013
Amount that San Diego County home sales rose in the $300K to $800K range in July compared with a year ago
Tina and Guiller Villafranca knew they had outgrown their 1,800-square-foot townhome in Eastlake when overnight family visitors crowded the property and Tina’s mother-in-law, who stayed there often, wanted her own suite to escape their allergy-inducing cat.
“It was just tight quarters. We had to get something bigger,” said Tina Villafranca, a 32-year-old registered nurse. The household also includes a 2-year-old son and a dog.
Through creative planning and lots of saving, the Villafrancas recently upgraded to a new single-family home in Chula Vista that’s double the size and more than double the price.
Move-up buying — virtually dead during the recession — has resurfaced in San Diego County. Property owners like the Villafrancas have been emboldened by rising home prices to list their homes and re-enter the market themselves.
Rising home values have meant more borrowers have emerged from negative equity, giving them the chance to break even or make a profit when selling.
San Diego County sales in the $300,000 to $800,000 range, generally the move-up category, rose nearly 50 percent in July compared with a year ago, figures from real estate tracker DataQuick show. Sales in the entry-level market, below $300,000, fell 25 percent in July, compared with a year ago.
Remaining home inventory also provides clues of a more-vibrant move-up market, said Norm Miller, real estate professor at the University of San Diego. The number of homes on the market between $500,000 and $800,000 is at a four months’ supply, which is “very, very healthy” compared with a year ago, when it was six to eight months.
Movement in the trade-up market “is important for the overall economy,” Miller said, because those sellers tend to pay more visits to home-improvement stores to get furnishings and appliances.
…
3,600 square feet? Too small for a mother in law, two year old and a married couple…
Ha! In 1950s the average home size was anywhere from 900 square foot to 1100. Americans got fatter. Number of people in 1950s households was huge.
In our houses in the early 60s I had to share a room. This was common in the old days. People just were not …um…bright? enough to allocate 900 square foot per person in the 50s.
FWIW, the single story ranch my parents bought in Fountain Valley, CA in 1963 was almost 2000 square feet. It had four bedrooms and two baths. And the monthly nut was less than 1/2 week’s pay for my tool and die maker dad. That same 50 year old house, according to zillow, would fetch 600K today.
Sales up nearly 50%? All backed by FRAUD FRAUD FRAUD. Especially in California. These don’t sound like cash buyers. Not living cramped in 1800 sq feet with a MIL.
Has anybody seen or know of any film or video that NASA claims was taken inside the lunar module while it was on the moon?
All Ive been able to find is a single photo of Armstrong with his helmet off inside what is claimed to be the LM?
All the moon walk and lunar rover photos, film and video is all fine and well; but where is the video/film record of what they said and did when they re-entered the lunar module as it sat on the moon?
What do the first two men to walk on the moon talk about after they get back in the ship and take their helmets off?
Since it was 1969, they were probably talking about the N.Y. Mets and the Chicago Cubs.
There a lots of pictures of the moon taken by the astronauts but I don’t see why one should expect to see many pictures taken of the inside of the lunar module.
One doesn’t have to be on the moon to photograph the inside of a lunar module so I don’t understand why they would waste their time (and their film) doing so when the had the moon waiting for them and their cameras just right outside the landing module.
“There a lots of pictures of the moon taken by the astronauts but I don’t see why one should expect to see many pictures taken of the inside of the lunar module.”
I’m pretty sure it was cramped and uncomfortable in there, and they couldn’t wait to get out until they landed and were able to walk about.
Photographing the interior of my car is the last thing I would consider doing on a long trip, but to each her own.
Above all, showing photos of my car to somebody as proof that I drove all the way to Alaska and back would hardly suffice to convince a skeptic, who could easily argue that I never really drove there and the photos of me with Denali in the backdrop were photo-shopped.
I’m pretty sure it was cramped and uncomfortable in there, and they couldn’t wait to get out until they landed and were able to walk about.
————————————————————————–
How uncomfortable is 1/6th gravity?
You would only weigh 35 pounds. Unlike on Earth, in space you can utilize the entire area of a vehicle. I suspect “housing” in space is better described in cubic feet than square feet.
Disclosure: Yes I am one of “those people” skeptical of the official Apollo moon landing record. I am not claiming a landing did not happen; but that the record the public was given is inaccurate because it contains a number of anomolies.
Regarding the Lunar Module my suspicion is due to the fact that 1/6th gravity is more difficult to fake than “zero gravity”. Tossing objects, pouring water… would look very different in 1/6th gravity; could you fake it?
In addition, and this is just speculation on my part; can an astronaut accurately “soft land” a space vehicle manually after 2 or 3 days in “zero gravity?”
Up until Armstrong did it on the moon, all landings were basically free fall experiences with no “piloting” by the astronauts.
Even more recently, did shuttle pilots really “fly” the shuttle back to Earth?
Or did computers do it.
After a week in “zero gravity” would your movements be a bit “herky jerky” coming back down to Earth?
“How uncomfortable is 1/6th gravity?”
It depends on your tolerance for bad smells and your degree of claustrophobia when trapped inside a small spacecraft traveling thousands of miles from home.
Plus with the recent moon mapping mission one can see the left over parts on the moon and the landing site and the footprints. There is no wind on the moon so the footprints are still there.
For a good read the “electric universe” or the electric sun. Fascinating stuff.
Electric sun
Why couldn’t Hollywood have made up all of this so-called “evidence”?
They could have. But Hollywood is full of people and most of these people (especially Hollywood people) have a hard time keeping secrets, so it is a good bet that all this so-called evidence isn’t so-called at all otherwise the secret that it was all made up would have long, long, long ago been outed.
Comment by Whac-A-Bubble™
2013-08-24 08:37:09
Why couldn’t Hollywood have made up all of this so-called “evidence”?
————————————————————————
In 1969?
Not only would technical issues have been a problem, but citing “game recognize game”, too many producers would have known the trick; or later used it in their own movies.
In 1/6th gravity I should be able to easily do a hand stand, a one armed push up, lift a fellow astronaut with one hand…
In other words, It has nothing to do with keeping secrets.
Also, even though we have received a mountain of proof for the Apollo landings; the proof we did not receive when collated creates a pattern that may reveal a “picture” of what really occurred.
For example, any images of stars taken from the lunar surface better be correct because, and I gotta say it; some white people will stay up all night after work checking such photos in order to determine where on the moon you must be in order for such a photo to be produced.
You better get the fake correct or white people will “pull your card”
Ive said it before and I will say it again; you can’t fool white people unless they want to be fooled. A huge part of white culture is figuring things out and understanding how things happen.
This blog is an example. Remember when people used to come here and claim there was no housing bubble?
Its just the way y’all are. And I’m glad.
What other culture has “murder mysteries” as an artistic genre’?
See what I mean?
So far as I can tell, plenty of white people are fake. Plenty of ‘em.
“It’s just the way y’all are.”
I had the great fortune to be in the living room with my Great Uncle Rudolph in small town Kansas while watching the first moon walk. During the entire broadcast, the dude kept muttering under his breath, “They made this movie in Hollywood. A man CANNOT walk on the moon.”
One doesn’t have to be on the moon to photograph the inside of a lunar module so I don’t understand why they would waste their time (and their film) doing so
————————————————————————-
Combo, if something suddenly went wrong, wouldn’t a TV transmission be useful incase the astronauts were “incapacitated?
If they had enough band width to televise the moon walk, why not a 15 minute debrief video with MC after they re-entered the LM?
or with each other?
Its difficult to accept that the first two men to walk on the moon have no film/video record of themselves inside the LM afterwards talking about it, high fiving each other, shaking hands… after all, you can’t see their faces during the moon walk because of their mirrored visors.
Is that a “white thing?”
“What do the first two men to walk on the moon talk about after they get back in the ship and take their helmets off?”
‘Gawd it stinks inside these suits!’
I would imagine there are frequent discussions of flatulence.
They talk about the giant Transformer they found up there. He was Optimus Prime’s little brother, SubPrime.
BA DUMP BA!
Smithsonian Air & Space in DC has a lunar lander and a black and white video shot as the lander landed on the moon.
“We need further lines of defense — lines of defense that reflect our interdependence, our common purpose, and our mutual responsibility for the global economy,”
Lagarde Calls for More Global Coordination as QE Exits Loom
By Sandrine Rastello - Aug 23, 2013 4:59 PM ET
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde urged policy makers to work more closely together as they plan eventual exits from unconventional monetary policies, endorsing swap arrangements between central banks as an instrument to weather instability.
While there’s no agreement about the impact of measures taken by central banks such as the Federal Reserve or the Bank of Japan, officials need to better understand the potential spillovers, Lagarde said in prepared remarks for an annual Fed conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. If the scaling back of stimulus creates renewed financial turmoil, some countries may not be able to withstand it on their own, she said.
“We need further lines of defense — lines of defense that reflect our interdependence, our common purpose, and our mutual responsibility for the global economy,” Lagarde said at the event sponsored by the Kansas City Fed. “Swap lines — along the lines provided by major central banks early in the crisis — can help,” and the IMF stands “ready to provide policy advice and financial support,” she said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-23/lagarde-calls-for-more-global-coordination-as-qe-exit-plans-loom.html - 138k -
“… officials need to better understand the poteneial spillovers …”
Well that gave to me my first laugh of the day. Since the track record of these officials in understanding potential spillovers (or understanding much of anything else) has been quite dismal I don’t plan to bet much of my money on the outcome.
At a Fed Conference, Views Differ Sharply on Stimulus’s Effect
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
Published: August 23, 2013
New York Times
But the conference, convened by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, underscored again the striking divide between academics, where skepticism is widespread about the benefits of the Fed’s asset purchases, and policy makers, where confidence is equally widespread.
Policy makers tend to view these critiques as triumphs of theory over reality.
Academic economists, in turn, say policy makers are claiming credit without presenting evidence.
Mr. Bernanke chose not to attend the conference as he prepares to step down in January, and no other Fed official spoke in his place.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/business/economy/at-a-fed-conference-views-differ-sharply-on-stimuluss-effect.html?_r=1&
“Policy makers tend to view these critiques as triumphs of theory over reality.”
Archetypical policy makers and MSM financial writers alike are easily duped by academic mumbo jumbo.
When the economy was in the expansion mode (a mode that it was in for several decades) money was easy to get and this easy-to-get money made it easy for the average household to run a surplus, and some of this suplus was invested in the buying-up of houses.
What? Trillions of dollars of bailouts wasn’t good enough?
Go jump off a cliff, Lagarde.
“We need further lines of defense — lines of defense that reflect our interdependence, our common purpose, and our mutual responsibility for the global economy,”
^ Supposed to have pasted and replied to this.
“…endorsing swap arrangements between central banks as an instrument to weather instability.”
One world government of the proles, by the banksters, for the banksters, here we come!
The Confidential Memo At The Heart Of The Global Financial Crisis
Greg Palast
August 23, 2013
When a little birdie dropped the End Game memo through my window, its content was so explosive, so sick and plain evil, I just couldn’t believe it.
The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak’s fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet. When you see 26.3 percent unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears.
The Treasury official playing the bankers’ secret End Game was Larry Summers. Today, Summers is Barack Obama’s leading choice for Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the world’s central bank. If the confidential memo is authentic, then Summers shouldn’t be serving on the Fed, he should be serving hard time in some dungeon reserved for the criminally insane of the finance world.
The memo is authentic.
I had to fly to Geneva to get confirmation and wangle a meeting with the Secretary General of the World Trade Organisation, Pascal Lamy. Lamy, the Generalissimo of Globalisation, told me,
“The WTO was not created as some dark cabal of multinationals secretly cooking plots against the people… We don’t have cigar-smoking, rich, crazy bankers negotiating.”
Then I showed him the memo.
It begins with Larry Summers’ flunky, Timothy Geithner, reminding his boss to call the Bank bigshots to order their lobbyist armies to march:
“As we enter the end-game of the WTO financial services negotiations, I believe it would be a good idea for you to touch base with the CEOs…”
To avoid Summers having to call his office to get the phone numbers (which, under US law, would have to appear on public logs), Geithner listed the private lines of what were then the five most powerful CEOs on the planet. And here they are:
Goldman Sachs: John Corzine (212)902-8281
Merrill Lynch: David Kamanski (212)449-6868
Bank of America: David Coulter (415)622-2255
Citibank: John Reed (212)559-2732
Chase Manhattan: Walter Shipley (212)270-1380
Lamy was right: They don’t smoke cigars. Go ahead and dial them. I did, and sure enough, got a cheery personal hello from Reed – cheery until I revealed I wasn’t Larry Summers. (Note: The other numbers were swiftly disconnected. And Corzine can’t be reached while he faces criminal charges.)
It’s not the little cabal of confabs held by Summers and the banksters that’s so troubling. The horror is in the purpose of the “end game” itself.
Let me explain:
The year was 1997. US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was pushing hard to de-regulate banks. That required, first, repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act to dismantle the barrier between commercial banks and investment banks. It was like replacing bank vaults with roulette wheels.
Second, the banks wanted the right to play a new high-risk game: “derivatives trading”. JP Morgan alone would soon carry $88 trillion of these pseudo-securities on its books as “assets”.
Deputy Treasury Secretary Summers (soon to replace Rubin as Secretary) body-blocked any attempt to control derivatives.
Full article here
http://www.infowars.com/category/featured-stories/ - 73k
“…in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet.”
This is why I expect Larry Summers to get the nod for next Fed chair, as Yellen is not a member of this club.
Too much political noise about Summers…I would still bet its Yellen…
The conventional wisdom is that the next Fed Chairman will be Summers or Yellen. My bet is that next Chair will be someone else.
My guess is that it will be some dark horse candidate. Summers has too much baggage to pass Senate confirmation hearings and Yellen does not have President Obama’s ear.
“My guess is that it will be some dark horse candidate.”
Could it possibly be the Fed insider whose speech in early-2006 warned real estate investors about the incipient tightening which led to the first wave of Housing Bubble collapse?
July 31, 2013, 5:18 PM
Who Is Don Kohn?
By Victoria McGrane
President Barack Obama Wednesday threw a third name into the mix for the increasingly hot race to be the next Federal Reserve chairman: Donald Kohn.
Mr. Obama mentioned Mr. Kohn’s name during a closed-door session with Democratic lawmakers, along with the two people widely considered to be the front-runners for the job: Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and Janet Yellen, who currently holds the No. 2 spot at the Fed, behind Chairman Ben Bernanke. Mr. Bernanke is expected to step down when his term expires at the end of January.
Mr. Kohn, 70, has been included in many lists of second-tier possibilities in the parlor-game of who Mr. Obama would pick to replace Mr. Bernanke, but he hasn’t gained as much attention as the two perceived front-runners.
…
Outside of Volkeresque appointment, does it make any difference?
Hats off to the Fed’s PR machine if the whole Summers vrs. Yellen showdown turns out to be a political smoke screen for a dark horse candidate.
Unelective politics is far more intriguing than elective politics!
“…does it make any difference?”
There is potentially a huge difference between leadership by big name academics, who govern by appeal to harebrained macroeconomic theories, compared to Fed insiders, who might base their decisions on long-time practical experience.
I’ve read Obama is a bit of a sexist and Yellen has no chance.
Yellen does not have President Obama’s ear ??
But Yellen has one ingredient that neither Summers nor Kohn have..And, politically, its a very powerful ingredient for a person who is clearly qualified…I say Yellen…
I’ve read Obama is a bit of a sexist and Yellen has no chance ??
Yeah, his persona is narcissistic but that is in front of the camera and on on the golf course with the boys…My hunch is Michelle does not tolerate it much…
Brings to mind the punchline from a joke my junior high school girlfriend once told me:
Little Boy: “I have one of these.”
Little Girl: “I have one of these, and my mom says that I can use it to get as many of those as I want.”
I posted this the other day.
Definitely bears repeating.
Oh yeah, and an “I told ya years ago.”
It’s such a crying shame to see so many alpha-male primates loosing their political standing, merely for claiming what Mother Nature tells them is their God-given right. If only we could re-institute polygamy, this unfortunate situation could be reversed.
Is Feel’nHer a big NPR contributor or something? Thanks to sucky NPR reporting, the first thing that comes up in this article about Filner’s resignation is his gas-laden diatribe about “lynch mobs” and “political coups.”
Never mind the 18-or-so* reputable women who came forward to say how he sexually harassed them in a professional context, who don’t get mentioned at all in the opening lines of this “story.” We may as well forget about them, as it is all about poor Bob Filner and how he was unfairly hounded from office by the media.
Nobody put a gun to his head and forced him to resign without due process.
* It’s hard to pinpoint the number, as a new accuser has come out in the press at a rate of about one a week this summer.
San Diego Mayor Bob Filner Announces His Resignation
by August 23, 2013 6:10 PM
Mayor Bob Filner of San Diego speaks at a news conference in July.
Bill Wechter/Getty Images
Embattled Mayor Bob Filner on Friday announced that he would step down at the end of the month following allegations by more than a dozen women that he sexually harassed them.
With equal measures of remorse and defiance, Filner, speaking before the City Council, apologized to his supporters and to “all the women I have offended.”
“I had no intention to be offensive, to violate any physical or personal space,” he said.
“I never had any intention to be a mayor who went out this way,” he said.
But Filner described his forced resignation a “political coup” and said it had been orchestrated by a “lynch mob.”
He said “not one allegation” of sexual harassment against him had been proved.
“I have never sexually harassed anyone,” he said.
In conclusion, Filner said: “The hope still lives and the dream shall never die.”
…
This guy should be tarred-and-feathered for his “the lynch mob forced me to resign” apology to the City of San Diego.
do you think him and weiner talk a lot?
They probably exchange photos regularly.
The only ‘monster’ in this story lives on inside Filner’s trousers.
San Diego Mayor Bob Filner resigns — but says he faced ‘lynch mob’ hysteria
By Greg Botelho, CNN
updated 9:25 PM EDT, Fri August 23, 2013
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: Filner says he was forced out due to a “coup” based on “rumor and innuendo”
NEW: His remarks left people inside City Hall stunned, a source says
NEW: Council president says the deal ” allows our city to begin to heal”
18 women have publicly accused Filner of sexual harassment; 1 has sued
(CNN) — San Diego Mayor Bob Filner is resigning in the face of a torrent of sexual harassment claims — though he’s not going out quietly.
City Attorney Jan Goldsmith announced around 3:45 p.m. (6:45 p.m. ET) that the City Council, during a closed-door session, had accepted the terms of an agreement with Filner that was reached after three days of mediation talks.
Filner submitted a “signed resignation” that “the city has accepted” in a 7-0 vote by council members, Goldsmith said. That resignation will take effect at 5 p.m. Friday, August 30.
After that vote, Filner spoke at the City Council meeting — his first extensive public comments in weeks — and began by offering a “deep apology … to all the citizens.”
“The city should not have been put through this,” the 70-year-old mayor said. “And my own personal failures were responsible.”
A short time later, though, Filner went on the defensive. While admitting that his behavior toward women was inappropriate at times, he insisted that he “never sexually harassed anyone.”
In the process of “trying to establish personal relationships,” the mayor explained, “the combination of awkwardness and hubris, I think, led to behavior that many found offensive.” He added, “Not one allegation … has ever been independently verified or proven in court.”
“But the hysteria that has been created … is the hysteria of a lynch mob,” Filner said, criticizing an environment in which “rumors become allegations, allegations become facts, facts become evidence of sexual harassment which have led to demands for my resignation and recall.”
Blasting politicians and members of the media who “unleashed a monster,” the mayor said, “The hysteria ended up playing into the hands of those who wanted a political coup — the removal of a democratically elected mayor purely by rumor and innuendo.”
…
Monster in his pants?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUnO4gK_56g
See he is not an alpha male. Alphas would not have problem attracting and having discrete multiple relations with beautiful women. Alphas won’t go groping aesthetically challenged women. Clinton, Filner, Spitzer, Carlos Danger are at best boys who never grew. IMO they are perverts but since they are support womyn to abort, the womyn folk give them a pass.
Stop the #waronwomyn
“Clinton, Filner, Spitzer, Carlos Danger”
I think I am beginning to see a pattern here: THESE GUYS ARE ALL DEMOCRATS!
Oops…a black businessman blew my up my theory.
What Really Killed Herman Cain’s Campaign
Dec 5, 2011 12:00 AM EST
In the end, it was Herman Cain’s ego, not the women, that killed his campaign. In this week’s Newsweek, Michael Tomasky says it’s all part of the GOP’s fatal arrogance. Plus, David A. Graham explains Cain’s bizarre Pokémon quote.
Mainly because they are supposed to be “friends” of womyn.
Why stop with Cain? There’s Vitter and the senator who took the wide stance….I am sure there are more….but these are evil men, I thought we all knew that?
I am surrounded by female colleagues on a daily basis, some of them quite attractive to me. But I have yet to slap one of them on the arse, lick one of their faces, or use a headlock to encourage their interest in me.
I simply fail the red blooded American male politician litmus test.
Before you start “feeling” your womyn colleagues, I suggest you get the word out that you are for abortion, equal rights, equal wages and all that jazz. You would be surprised how successful you will be on your new hobby.
“I suggest you get the word out that you are for abortion, equal rights, equal wages and all that jazz. You would be surprised how successful you will be on your new hobby.”
I don’t stand a chance in this business. Luckily I also have no interest in it.
“Alphas would not have problem attracting and having discrete multiple relations with beautiful women. Alphas won’t go groping aesthetically challenged women.”
Sad but true.
Alphas never have to pursue.
I find it disturbing that America’s political system makes it so easy for guys like this to get elected to high office.
The end of Mayor Filner: Character at City Hall matters
By U-T San Diego Editorial Board
6:43 p.m. Aug. 23, 2013
San Diego Mayor Bob Filner’s undoing was by his own hand — a Filnerian lock around his own neck.
It would have been nice to think that, in resigning effective Aug. 30, Filner had finally realized he had lost the moral authority to lead. In reality, he simply took the best deal he could get.
In a resignation speech to the City Council on Friday afternoon, he apologized to his former fiancée, to “all the women I offended” and to his supporters, but then lashed out at the “lynch mob” politicians and media who he said drove him from office and, in doing so, “unleashed a monster.”
“I have never sexually harassed anyone,” he said. He said he never intended to offend anyone and blamed his behavior on a “combination of awkwardness and hubris.”
Not exactly the tail-between-his-legs departure that would have been appropriate, but classic Filner, portraying himself as victim to the establishment’s conspiracy.
More than anything else, the past nine months proved one thing: Character matters. San Diegans demand it in the region’s most powerful political leader.
Filner’s short reign as San Diego’s 35th mayor was calamitous even before the allegations about his behavior toward women became a flood last month.
The FBI inquired into a possible pay-to-play scheme in which the mayor was exacting more blood from developers whose city permits had already been approved and who had already paid the requisite fees.
Questions had been raised about expenditures charged to his taxpayer-paid credit card and about his four-day trip to France, with his security crew and then-fiancée in tow, to give a three-minute speech to protesters rallying against the government of Iran.
There were his constant battles with City Attorney Jan Goldsmith, whom Filner could not abide simply because Goldsmith is a Republican who takes seriously his role as the city’s lawyer.
Filner bullied his own staff, the City Hall bureaucracy and even his political colleagues on the City Council. The campaigner who had promised the most open administration in city history turned out to be the mayor who lied to the press and public.
He threw monkey wrenches into important city projects, delayed almost everything at City Hall through his obsessive micromanagement and embarrassed the city no end, as when, during an April trip to Mexico City intended to build relationships, he demanded that his Mexican hosts speak English.
But it was not until mid-July, when three of his closest political supporters first revealed the bare outlines of the sexual-harassment scandal, that Filner’s world began to collapse.
The stream of tawdry allegations from credible women caused political friends and foes alike to condemn his behavior and demand that he step down. The business community aligned against him, as did many women’s groups and other organizations. The broader public, relieved in the previous two years or so that San Diego was finally shedding its pension-crisis reputation as Enron-by-the-Sea, had to see the city suffer new national embarrassment over the Groper-by-the-Sea.
…
“Access to power must be confined to those who are not in love with it. ” — Plato
Will the dip in new home sales be enough to lead the Fed to postpone the taper?
Perhaps if the big Wall Street funded and propagandized national-level builders would try lowering their prices, they could sell a lot more?
Aug. 23, 2013, 11:00 a.m. EDT
New-home sales slump to lowest rate since October
Stories You Might Like
Goldman Sachs banker arrested, charged with rape
Gold scores gain of nearly 2% for the day and week
Fed should keep buying MBS until ready to end QE
By Ruth Mantell, MarketWatch
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Sales of new homes slumped in July with each region seeing sizeable drops, raising questions about the recovery in the housing market.
New-home sales fell 13.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 394,000 in July, the lowest rate since October, the U.S. Department of Commerce reported Friday.
Rising mortgage rates may be behind July’s drop, though the monthly data are quite volatile and economists had expected some pull back after sales gains in recent months. Longer-term trends point to continuing growth: new-home sales in July were up 6.8% from the year-earlier period.
…
And isn’t July one of the better months for home sales? Not gone out to get the paper yet, but I doubt this’ll be the headline or even get a mention.
This is easily the most important story today, this week, or in the last several months.
it was bad weather.
I blame the sequester
Oh right…once the sequester ends, home sales can get back to normal again.
new homes sales are generally 15% of the overall market.When resales prices started going up I noticed people starting to find new home prices competitive again. People will generally pay a little more to have a new home that no one has ever lived in.
With new home sales going down it definitely shows something is up.
EVERYONE NEEDS TO READ OR REREAD “THE SECRET” RIGHT NOW!
This is the key part of the story, IMHO:
“Longer-term trends point to continuing growth: new-home sales in July were up 6.8% from the year-earlier period.”
I.e., there is a rising trend in new home sales, despite monthly ups-and-downs. The rising trend in home sales suggests the Fed should be able to taper without derailing the housing recovery. At any rate, the taper is already priced into long-term interest rates at this point. There is a good chance that no further long-term rate increases will happen on the official taper announcement, given the amount of warning they have already sounded on the plan.
As for July, that is the month I will buy a home in Phoenix
“This is easily the most important story today, this week, or in the last several months.”
I submit the only-recently told* story of the bond market crash that has been unfolding since May 2, 2013 is more important. Though the drop in home sales is a natural consequence, it is a secondary development.
* I’ve been posting on it since May, but the MSM only recently picked it up.
Bill Fleckenstein: Bond Market Could Experience ‘Train Wreck’
Friday, 23 Aug 2013 08:08 AM
By Dan Weil
The bond market may be in big trouble, but we won’t know for sure until we see how it reacts to a pullback by the Federal Reserve from its plans to taper quantitative easing (QE), says Bill Fleckenstein, president of Fleckenstein Capital.
“The Fed has lost control of the bond market,” as interest rates have jumped since Fed officials began talking about curbing QE, he tells CNBC and Yahoo’s Talking Numbers.
“But we won’t know that for certain until the Fed is unable to taper or tapers a little and then has to untaper and then the bond market doesn’t rally to a new high.”
The 10-year Treasury yield has soared to 2.89 percent from 1.66 percent May 2.
…
The MSM has, in my recollection, been about two years behind the blog.
“Goldman Sachs banker arrested, charged with rape”
And this is news because…?!
Clearly, the excess housing inventory is weighing on the market.
Why build more houses when there are 25 million excess empty houses just sitting?
We are heading into Fall….Then winter….Watch the employment, manufacturing and shipping numbers closely…
as the next presidential turnover starts to get closer the numbers will get worse and worse.
I predict that as the next Presidential turnover starts to get closer and closer the numbers will get better and better.
“For every thing there is a season …”
US dollar weakening threatens runaway inflation - Rickards
11/04/2013
The United States risks importing uncontrolled inflation through its deliberate efforts to weaken the dollar. ‘Currency wars’ expert James Rickards says such scenario ultimately threatens the global monetary system.
James Rickards, author of ‘Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis’, told the RBS Macro Conference in London that the world was witnessing the early blows of a battle that could last for years but which no one would win.
He said the US Federal Reserve, Bank of England and Bank of Japan had implicitly agreed to simultaneously weaken their currencies by turning on the printing presses and so gain an advantage over emerging market rivals.
“In the 1930s, countries devalued sequentially, like thirsty soldiers passing around the canteen. Today the US, Japan and the UK are saying ‘let’s all ease together, lets not fight currency wars among ourselves but fight them with the rest of the world’”.
…
Lies!
Tough choice:
Would it be better for the Fed to throw retirees and foreign creditors under the bus by steeply devaluing the dollar, or to protect the value of the dollar and keep the 20-somethings buried in student debt, jobless, and living in their parents’ basement?
The way things are being run we will probably end up with both outcomes.
Given that senior citizens stand to lose the most in a dollar devaluation, and they vote in much larger numbers than 20-somethings, I’m thinking the logical choice from a pragmatic standpoint would be to throw the 20-somethings under the bus and protect the value of senior citizens’ nest eggs.
Oh wait…
QE is good in the short term they say. When does the short term finally catch up to the long term?
There is a new baby panda at the National Zoo!!!
Nothing else matters.
How can we afford another mouth to feed with the sequester?
Check for cyborg status and Chinese spycams and listening devices.
Baby pandas pay for themselves with donations and stuffed toy purchases.
I move that we transform the pandas into stuffed toys.
Cheaper to feed.
Unfortuantely for the panda it must serve out a life sentence behind bars simply because of what it is - which is a panda.
Actually, the last one got sent back to a panda preserve in China to live out the rest of his life trying to make more baby pandas. No bars that I am aware of. Just lots of bamboo and sex (if he can manage to figure out how to do it - they aren’t very good at it).
So does Elmo but we’re still kicking money into Oscar the Grouch’s can. And guaranteed no way that panda paid for itself when the costs are all factored in. I bet there were scads of vets on watch around the clock, high costs facilities, monitoring, testing, etc. etc.
Huge shocker here, folks!
“All your Facebook posts are belong to us!”
POLITICS
Report: NSA pays tech companies for data
Published August 24, 2013
The Wall Street Journal
The National Security Agency has paid millions of dollars to reimburse technology firms for complying with requests for user data, according to documents from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden shared with the Guardian newspaper.
Microsoft (MSFT +7.29%), Google (GOOG -0.40%), Yahoo (YHOO +0.32%) and Facebook (FB +5.30%) all supply user data to the NSA based on secret ordered from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court under a program known as Prism. Although U.S. law mandates compliance, the government usually helps pay for it.
U.S. law allows firms to seek reimbursement for complying with law enforcement records request. U.S. telecommunications companies have been reimbursed for giving the government data related to U.S. phone calls and Internet traffic, former intelligence officials say. Silicon Valley is no different when they hand over data on users’ social media accounts, according to the latest Snowden documents.
The document, an NSA newsletter dated December 2012, says that the tech companies faced extensive costs for meeting new certification demands following a secret court ruling. The Obama administration Wednesday declassified the October 2011 ruling, which found the agency violated the Constitution for three years by collecting tens of thousands domestic communications without adequate privacy protections.
“Last year’s problems resulted in multiple extensions to the certifications’ expiration dates which cost millions of dollars for Prism providers to implement each successive extension – costs covered by Special Source Operations,” the document says, referring to a division of the NSA.
…
It would be interesting to see a movement of some sort encouraging everyone who makes a post of any type to include in their post the word “bomb” or some other equally amusing word.
I take my cue from the mayor of San Diego and tell attractive women I am a sex bomb.
true (and not very interesting) story. my kids laughed at me because as I jumped in the pool, I yelled “CANNON-BOMB”. Oops, I meant “cannonball”.
“Equity” in a depreciating asset like a house is a fallacy. It doesn’t exist.”
Correct.
sure is nice to spend it. I don’t think you’ve ever had any.
You go Debt Donkey.
This was a pretty good call — just five weeks early.
Now how about that predicted stock market collapse?
March 21, 2013, 9:42 a.m. EDT
Bond crash dead ahead: tick, tick … boom!
Commentary: ‘Investors have no idea what’s about to happen’
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — The latest InvestmentNews cover is so powerful you can actually hear sirens atop a flashing neon billboard, megawarning in huge bold type: “Tick, Tick … Boom!”
…
“Houses depreciate no less rapidly than an automobile.”
True but the total losses are much greater on a house.
So it only sold for $5.249 million less than they listed it a couple of years ago. What’s $5,249,000 to a couple of Hollywood stars?
The assessed value is admittedly kind of interesting:
Taxable Value
Land $846,387
Additions $2,045,715
Total $2,892,102
Taxes (2011) $32,728
Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell bail out of their Malibu beach house
Actors Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell sell their Balinese-inspired Malibu beach house, for sale or lease frequently since 1995, for $9.5 million.
The traditional-style house is reached by a brick walkway and surrounded by lawn and mature trees.
CAPTIONS
1/8 By Lauren Beale
July 26, 2013, 7:32 p.m.
After a couple of years and price cuts, actors Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell have closed up their longtime Malibu beach house, selling it for $9.5 million.
Entered through a gated courtyard, the Balinese-inspired house backs up to sand dunes and the ocean. The 4,200-square-foot house, built in 1978, was redesigned and renovated in 2005. There is a screening room, an office and a detached guesthouse. The master suite features floor-to-ceiling windows and a beachfront balcony for a total of four bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms.
Hawn, 67, was a hit with television viewers in the late 1960s for her role as a regular on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.” She won a supporting actress Oscar for “Cactus Flower” (1969) and was nominated for lead actress in “Private Benjamin” (1980).
Russell, 62, will star in the upcoming comedy “The Art of the Steal.” His raft of credits includes the 2006 version of “Poseidon,” “Stargate” (1994) and “Overboard” (1987), in which both he and Hawn starred.
The property, which has been for sale or lease frequently since 1995, was listed two years ago at a high of $14.749 million.
…
It’s only late August, and there are a total of 2,661 homes showing up on Redfin.com for all of San Diego County. Since there are north of 3 million residents and on the order of 1 million households in San Diego County, this is on the order of 1 listing per 376 households — definitely on the low end of the range since I started watching the market almost ten years ago.
Can’t say what this portends, but it seems like this must be a terrible time to make one’s living as a San Diego Realtor™, as there just aren’t enough homes on the market to go around.
Does Trump University offer a major in Real Estate Scam Artistry?
New York Attorney General sues Donald Trump for $40M, claiming ‘Trump University’ fraud
Published August 25, 2013
Associated Press
FILE- In this May 23, 2005 file photo, real estate mogul and Reality TV star August 25, 2013: Donald Trump, left, listens as Michael Sexton introduces him at a news conference in New York where he announced the establishment of Trump University. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is suing Trump for $40 million, saying that “Trump University” didn’t deliver on its advertised promise to make students rich, but instead steered them into expensive yet mostly useless seminars. (AP Photo)
ALBANY, N.Y. – New York’s attorney general sued Donald Trump for $40 million Saturday, saying the real estate mogul helped run a phony “Trump University” that promised to make students rich but instead steered them into expensive and mostly useless seminars, and even failed to deliver promised apprenticeships.
Trump shot back that the Democrat’s lawsuit is false and politically motivated.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman says many of the 5,000 students who paid up to $35,000 thought they would at least meet Trump but instead all they got was their picture taken in front of a life-size picture of “The Apprentice” TV star.
“Trump University engaged in deception at every stage of consumers’ advancement through costly programs and caused real financial harm,” Schneiderman said. “Trump University, with Donald Trump’s knowledge and participation, relied on Trump’s name recognition and celebrity status to take advantage of consumers who believed in the Trump brand.”
…