Bits Bucket for September 2, 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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OT
Real Madrid (Big Spanish soccer club) paid Tottenham (English soccer club) 100 million euro in acquiring a Welsh player Garreth Bale.
How come a broke country and a broke club (for all practice and purpose) afford such a thing? It proves once again that money is fiction and we are still at the apex of the bubble that is the western economy.
Violently shaking my head this morning…..
I suspect that Real’s revenue stream (much like ManU’s) is international.
The NFL gets the lion’s share of its revenue from US broadcast rights. Real, like Barcelona and some English clubs, is followed around the world, not just in Spain. And unlike the NFL, the Spanish league doesn’t do revenue sharing. So while Real and Barca collect broadcast rights from the four corners of the globe, they don’t share that money with lesser soccer clubs.
Real Madrid is broke…in debt….and in normal economy it would have to declare bankruptcy and live within its means.
According to Wikipedia:
“The club is the world’s richest football club in terms of revenue, with an annual turnover of €513million ”
That hardly sounds broke to me. It’s far more than the NFL’s #1 revenue team, the Dallas Cowboys.
http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/business/2012/09/14/real-madrid-makes-more-money—but-less-profit
“Madrid says its net debt dropped from E169.7 million ($222 million) to E124.7 million ($163 million) as it comes in line with UEFA’s financial fair play requirements.”
Their debt is being paid off and is a fraction of their revenues. They don’t sound like they are going bankrupt to me.
The dissonance you’re detecting is that a fantastically wealthy entertainment company exists within a broke and imploding country.
Just underscores the power of “circuses” component of “bread and circuses.”
Detroit, Philly, Cleavland, Buffalo, Chicago are all broke…
Yet they all have billion dollar stadiums. Some have two or three of them…
Buffalo does not have a billion dollar stadium.
Toronto does. Resold to a cellphone company for $75 mil.
Was it the stadium itself that was sold or was it the name of the stadium that was sold?
Do you mean the naming rights?
Yeah, the naming rights. Keep the stadium for yourself and sell the naming rights to somebody else.
What’s in a name? Millions of dollars if it is done right.
(Think Donald Trump.)
If people really knew the economics of things like that, they’d take a flamethrower to them. Much effort is spent trying to obscure and hide the true figures. All the sunshine laws are worthless.
Because of TABOR it’s next to impossible to raise taxes in the Centennial State, as it requires a supermajority of voters to approve it. And they never do, except when a stadium is involved. The taxpayers opened their wallets wide of their own free will to pay for Coors Field and the replacement for Mile High.
The taxpayers opened their wallets wide of their own free will to pay for Coors Field and the replacement for Mile High.
People talk big about smaller gov, but they’ve gotta support the team!
Smaller gov for everything else.
Citizens paying for stadiums for private teams which they do not even get to share in the profits is hilarious.
Plus one.
First get the idea into citizen’s heads that having a team that “represents their city” is somehow important and then everything else should easily follow.
“Citizens paying for stadiums for private teams which they do not even get to share in the profit…”
Share the profit? Hell, they are made to pay again and again!
You can’t fix that kind of stupid.
Don’t forget the small town of Arlington Texas forking over $500 million for Jerry’s world.
Frisco Texas just announced they will pay $100 million to build Jerry’s practice field and offices.
I remember when that billion-dollar stadium first opened, I thought “What a chump Bill Gates is. Gates could have built a Wonder for himself too, but no-o-o-o, he had to go spend his billion immunizing sick kids in the Third World.”
Don’t worry, now that Texas only has to pay for 3 abortion clinics for 26 million people, it will pay for itself.
For DJ:
———–
“No one should have to work for free”: Is this the end of the unpaid internship?
“…Franklin is one of a growing number of disgruntled workers who have begun to challenge the fairness — and legality — of the unpaid internship, a fact of life for young Americans hoping to pad their resumes and gain experience. In June, a Federal District Court judge in Manhattan ruled that Fox Searchlight Pictures violated federal and New York minimum wage laws by failing to pay two interns working on the film “Black Swan.”
…..These lawsuits cite the Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires that an employer using unpaid interns provide training and gain “no immediate advantage” from the trainee. This criteria would appear to make most internships illegal; interns often perform menial, not meaningful, tasks.
… Still, there’s a long way to go before unpaid internships vanish. About half are in the public sector, where Turner says “the law is less clear,” since nonprofits often can code their interns as “volunteers.” Some colleges require internships, with most prohibiting interns from getting paid while they’re receiving course credits.”
http://inplainsight.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/02/20262899-no-one-should-have-to-work-for-free-is-this-the-end-of-the-unpaid-internship?lite
————–
This was done in the wrong way:
The word “intern” should have been changed to the word “student” and tuition fees should have been levied against the student just as tuition fees would be levied against students attending USC film school.
The study of film production undertaken by the tuition-paying student would include a “film project” and this film project would be whatever film that was produced. If the film is a commercial hit then the student gets a win and he gets to include this win on his diploma after graduation.
Why hire someone to work for you for free when you can set it up in such a way that he pays you for the priviledge?
(Some folks have no imagination whatsoever.)
One of the great Hollywood producers of the Forties (whose name I can’t remember) needed a crowd of people - essentially a crowd of extras - to appear in the background during a scene of a movie he was making so instead of hiring them (and thus paying them money) he set it up so they would be charged a fee for the opportunity of being able to take part in the making of in his movie.
Sounds like something Hitchcock would have done. Sort of like the old Tom Sawyer fence painting trick.
Roger Corman filmed a movie on the sly in a small southern town and put up signs advertising free BBQ at noon. He filmed the crowd gathering and the leaving disgruntled.
“…he set it up so they would be charged a fee for the opportunity of being able to take part in the making of in his movie.”
And the members of that crowd derived a benefit of participation in excess of the fee they paid to enjoy the opportunity.
How did this make anybody worse off? (I guess I just don’t get the whole rationale underpinning the nanny state…)
“No one should have to work for free”
So far as I am aware, nobody ever puts a gun to anybody’s head and forces them to take an unpaid internship.
But if you can’t get a job later without that internship, aren’t you pretty much forced to be someone’s slave?
You are both right, except…
There are millions of people who don’t even have the internship option.
So yes, it should be ABSOLUTELY ILLEGAL to work for free except for friends and family. (and I have my doubts about that)
Funny how businesses aren’t charities but expect to receive it.
“So yes, it should be ABSOLUTELY ILLEGAL to work for free except for friends and family.”
Why would you want to make people who are willing to work for free worse off by denying them the opportunity to gain valuable experience in a field that interests them?
I sponsored a HS volunteer (of working age) for a couple of weeks of work this summer. He had the chance to contribute something of value to the staff member he helped, and had a brief hands-on exposure to an area of work which might inform his future career choices.
Do you know what he would have done those two weeks if it were not for this opportunity? He would have sat at home playing video games or looking at Facebook — in other words, wasted his time.
So tell me again why unpaid work should be illegal under all circumstances?
Working for free is NOT an opportunity. It is theft of labor, plain and simple.
And it steals from 2 people. The moron who accepts the job and the person who needs the job.
Funny how businesses aren’t charities, but expect it in return.
“It is theft of labor, plain and simple.”
OMG…
I take it that in your neck of the world, all workers are interchangeable automatons and experience and credentials have no value in the labor market?
OMG?
Really?
Do you work for free at your day job?
Why not? Then why would you expect anyone else too?
There is name for that: hypocrisy.
“There is name for that: hypocrisy.”
Since you believe volunteer work is an abomination and should be illegal, I am guessing my household has logged a lot more ‘free work’ hours than you have.
You would guess right. What’s your point? You are more righteous than I?
I stopped doing volunteer work long ago when I found out most of it was a scam and most charities are self serving SOBs.
“You would guess right. What’s your point?”
My point is that if you are too selfish with your time to ever work voluntarily without financial compensation, then there ought to be a law which forbids anyone else from working without compensation.
No.
You could go to work at McDonald’s, take a menial job at the local discount retailer’s, go back to school and get another degree, borrow money from your dad and start your own business, live in your parent’s basement until the job market comes back, etc etc etc.
(And btw, I personally engaged in some closely-similar tactics to a few of the above early on in my adult life…)
You haven’t had to look for a low end job in while, have you?
Those jobs have waiting lists and the ones that don’t, do not even pay enough for the commute. That’s NO exaggeration.
I talk to managers and owners all the time. Those are the 2 biggest factors affecting low end jobs these days.
“Those jobs have waiting lists and the ones that don’t, do not even pay enough for the commute. That’s NO exaggeration.”
Why would anyone sign on to a job which did not pay enough to cover commute costs? That seems irrational.
No more irrational than working for free.
But to answer, because some cash flow is better than no cash flow and the hope is that something better will come along soon.
That is often not the case and eventually the employee has to quit with no better prospects.
“No more irrational than working for free.”
If their income doesn’t cover commute costs, then they are paying to work, which seems worse than working for free.
“But to answer, because some cash flow is better than no cash flow and the hope is that something better will come along soon.”
So in other words, they derive a benefit (cash flow) from the employment arrangement, even though the cash needed to pay their commute costs exceeds the cash received as income. How does negative net cash flow provide a benefit?
Still not getting your point, but I will refrain from making a personal attack just because your point makes no sense.
Of course it doesn’t make sense. Choosing between the lessor of 2 evils never makes sense. It just “is”. And it really sucks being stuck in that situation.
But some cash flow is far better than no cash flow for a short amount of time when it comes to work.
Again, working for free is theft. This is not some made up ideology, but the LAW OF THE LAND.
Any exceptions (again just for friends or family) is an abomination. Volunteer work is just another version of privatizing the profits and socializing the risks.
Old Economy Steven
“This is not some made up ideology, but the LAW OF THE LAND.”
Show us this law in writing, or we’ll suspect you are making stuff up.
Wouldn’t that law be the minimum wage law?
Or, if you want to be radical, there are a couple Constitutional Amendments which touch on the issue.
Old Economy Steven
Google: theft of labor by state
Every state has this law in one form or another. Yes, there are exceptions like volunteer work, but theft of labor is NOT some socialeest/commie talking point.
If a person finds themselves working for someone and not getting paid, is there any way out for them? If they volunteered to do this then they are part of a conspiracy to steal their own labor. Volunteers should be penalized and cast out.
“Wouldn’t that law be the minimum wage law?”
No that wouldn’t. The minimum wage law applies to paid employment, not volunteer work or unpaid internships.
“If a person finds themselves working for someone and not getting paid, is there any way out for them?”
There is no way out for those who are victims of their own dumbassery.
Several of the comments said that same thing, that these young people should “stand up and refuse to work for no pay,” etc. Of course that only works if everybody stands up at once to starve out the companies. Otherwise, there will always somebody who will take the jobs and experience, and companies know this and count on it. By this reasoning, pay can be driven to zero. For a more colorful description of the same principle, see Wrath, Grapes of.
Oh, and what do you call it when everybody stands up at once? Oh right, a UNION.
“Otherwise, there will always somebody who will take the jobs and experience, and companies know this and count on it.”
That there is the competitive free labor market in operation. What you don’t mention is that those who take on the unpaid internships in order to gain experience are also those who later will have a leg-up in the competition for paid positions in the same field.
Can you even hear yourself?
You are advocating unpaid labor. Have you lost your mind? Do you somehow think this will NOT come back around and bite you in the ass one day?! Seriously?
Of course you don’t or you would not have said such an incredibly stupid thing.
BTW, they don’t have a leg up. They’re just being used like rented mules.
“Can you even hear yourself?”
You are advocating a top-down, one-size-fits-all solution which presumes nobody could ever possibly benefit from voluntarily working for no pay. Are you going to ban working as volunteers for local PTAs, scouting organizations, churches, youth sports leagues, etc etc etc?
“Have you lost your mind? … Of course you don’t or you would not have said such an incredibly stupid thing.”
Kindly spare me the personal attacks and address my question, which is, why do you assume that anybody who works for no pay would willingly do so in full knowledge they are making themselves worse off?
This is not slavery, but rather an at-will work arrangement. Anybody who doesn’t like it doesn’t have to participate.
“You are advocating unpaid labor.”
Not all pay is pecuniary. If you gain valuable experience in an unpaid internship, you may be able to obtain qualifications for paid work which otherwise might not be within your reach. The net present value of an internship (including future paid work opportunities) may be positive even if the short-term earnings net of expenses is negative.
Note that going to college to attain the education necessary to enter a field is another form of “unpaid labor.” Will your law banning unpaid work also make it illegal to attend college?
“If you gain valuable experience in an unpaid internship, you may be able to obtain qualifications for paid work which otherwise might not be within your reach.”
Total bullcrap. The numbers don’t back this up. You are better off buying a lotto ticket.
See chart.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/06/do-unpaid-internships-lead-to-jobs-not-for-college-students/276959/
They are not rented mules if there is no rent paid. Who is backing these work for free people? They must be operatives for some international terrorist group, intent on shredding our society.
You are a dumbass if you work for free and they know it.
Since when is it illegal to be a dumbass?
Since every day.
The jails are full of them.
The jails are full of them.
True enough; but the fact that it correlates strongly with the tendency to be caught doing something illegal should not be confused with the dumb@ss trait itself being illegal.
I know more than a few hospice volunteers who would call that a profoundly ignorant accusation.
Thank you.
I know lots of volunteers who would say the same thing.
And they would still be wrong.
Volunteering is another form of privatizing the profits and socializing the ricks.
(don’t get me wrong. god bless hospice volunteers, but they really should be paid)
“…but they really should be paid…”
Why don’t you volunteer to pay them, then?
Why should I have to? Because I’m pointing out something wrong?
Shoot the messenger eh?
No, more like point and laugh at the village idiot.
God bless Hospice workers, but they really should be sent to reeducation centers, because not taking the grift for helping a sick neighbor erodes our society. Money should be direct deposited into their accounts to stop this madness. Not your money, nor mine, but from somewhere.
“Not your money, nor mine, but from somewhere.”
Right on! Somebody from somewhere should put up the money so that no American ever again has to lift a finger to help another without just compensation.
Not your money, nor mine, but from somewhere.
LOL… You’re on a roll, Blue!
I guess by your standards, my wife and I are both dumbasses, as we have served without pay at church, in youth sports leagues, at school PTA and other school volunteer capacities, in professional organizations, and (in my case) as a volunteer math literacy tutor in an inner-city nabe. I’m guessing if you totaled the cumulative value of the time we have contributed without pay in various volunteer capacities at any kind of reasonable estimate of the value of our time, it would easily exceed six figures.
Dumbasses make the American economy go round!
Pretty much, yep.
Not a dumbass, that would be too easy an explanation. People who do stuff for free are subversives. If you volunteer to do stuff you are then by definition working against the government. If the government wanted stuff they would pay for it and make you foot the bill. If you volunteer, you are against what the government wants.
“If you volunteer to do stuff you are then by definition working against the government.”
That thought never once crossed my mind back in my volunteer soccer coaching days.
a house is the best investment you will ever make.
You don’t need a Ivy league degree to succeed, stay away from bad locations and negioate a fair price.
Only thing that scares me now going forward is this administration, once again they demostrate (Syria) that Laurel and Hardy could do a better job?
Has John Kerry become completely unhinged? Whew, I’d like to be a fly on the wall during a recent conversation between him and the prezzy.
Never thought I’d see the day Kerry acts more hawkish than McCain.
You got that right Jose. Take care
Funny that he was once the ‘alternative’ to Bush.
We are presented with a choice of heads or tails but both choices happen to be on the same coin.
We may get to choose between heads or tails but the choice of the selected coin has already been made.
I was on a long interstate drive on saturday. happened to tune in kudlow on the radio. kudlow was in love with kerry and said that if kerry sounded like this he would have won in 2004. what a clustef8ck these neocons are? I hate them I hate them I hate them. Grrrrrrrr!
http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/john-kerry-1971-vs-2013/
“Funny that he was once the ‘alternative’ to Bush.”
I know, right? Something fishy about that. Kerry could have won, I remember during the campaign, someone from the Democrat organization in Sarasota called our local public radio station, all frantic about how they couldn’t get support or even a response from the Kerry campaign. They were pizzed, and felt like they were being hung out to dry after stumping for Kerry. They were wondering if he was trying to throw the election or something. I wondered, too.
Even an ardent liberal buddy of mine mentioned the other day that he was wondering if all the Swiftboat stuff mightn’t have been true after all.
if all the Swiftboat stuff mightn’t have been true after all.
Now that he’s warmongering, it lends credence to the idea that he was once a peacenik?
Sounds logical.
“Sounds logical.”
Of course it is! Just like Zimmerman was previously arrested twice for assault, but the teen he killed, who was never arrested, was the thug!
Or, “We have to save the unborn, but once born, they’re on their own!”
Or like Obomba, who doesen’t want the Syrians bombing the Syrians, so he is going to save them by bombing the Syrians? It didn’t make sense when a Rupublitard was in office, but now that a Dumbocrat is in the WH, it all makes perfect sense- to the liberal Dumbocrats anyway.
So where are those WMDs?
“It didn’t make sense when a Rupublitard was in office, but now that a Dumbocrat is in the WH, it all makes perfect sense- to the liberal Dumbocrats anyway.”
I don’t think you’re going to find many liberals that support bombing Syria.
One thing they have going for them this time around is the left wing constituency is no going for this kind of BS. The right is starting to crack, but still seems a lot more loyal to whatever crap the Republican party pulls.
Boils down to fear of losing again if they show anything but absolute unity, I think. If the next bunch of republican contenders is anything like the freakshow they fielded last time, they could be justified in that fear. We could end up saddled with Hillary.
One could take it another way: if what Assad is doing is bad enough enough to turn Kerry into McCain, then it must be pretty bad indeed?
I want to know more about the Assad/Putin bromance.
Assad runs a secular, non-terrorist government. One internet wag said that 97% of Syria’s citizens support Assad, but Western journalists don’t know that.
This is a put-up job, with Arab factions vying to overthrow him, supported by Israel and much of the West. It’s completely gross.
As to Putin, he is merely an ally. You’d have to go back to the 1970s and read about the pissing match that took place between the US and the old Soviet Union in the Middle East, with Afghanistan and other nations as monkey in the middle, where the CIA and KGB went in and stirred up religious fervor as a way to get the different Middle Eastern factions stirred up against each other. The result for us being Osama Bin Laden and 9/11 and beyond.
Generally, the way it turned out, we got the Arabs and the Soviets/Russia got Syria, Iran and some other territory. That’s the short, compressed version of what I read.
Assad runs a secular, non-terrorist government.
If you ignore his support of Hezbollah.
Basically, at this point in Syria’s civil war we’re watching Iran/Hezbollah fighting Al Qaeda. That’s why we don’t want to intervene too heavily.
We need a good advertising exec to put together convincing campaigns on how Al Quada are now the good guys we can support.
Where’s Don Draper when you need him?
This whole chemical weapons thing has a whiff of the Iraqi mobile weapons lab crap.
Just too funny….what the left ignores
———–
The image John Kerry WON’T want you to see…
The Daily Mail | 2 September 2013 | Anthony Bond
This astonishing photograph shows U.S Secretary of State John Kerry having a cosy and intimate dinner with Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
Kerry - who compared Assad to Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein yesterday - is pictured around a small table with his wife and the Assads in 2009.
Assad and Kerry - who was then a senator for Massachusetts - lean in towards each other and appear deep in conversation as their wives look on.
A waiter is pictured at their side with a tray of green drinks - which are believed to be lemon and crushed mint.
What right ignores:
http://www.sonic.net/~taryfast/destruction.html
The Bush Crime Family.
“Has John Kerry become completely unhinged?”
He’s in the State Department. He’s been bought just like Colin Powell was bought. If you look closely with your mind’s eye you can see the puppet strings. When he reads, stone cold expressionless, from the teleprompter you can tell they’re not his words. Same with Obama too, that astonished look of surprise when he hears the lying pronouncements coming out of his mouth.
The proletariat masses know their leaders lie, and they feign belief as long as their subsidized jobs continue to receive funding.
“Housing is massively overpriced irrespective of location. Why buy when you can rent for half the the monthly cost?”
Exactly. Then buy later as prices roll back to the long term trend or roughly 1997 levels.
HA
Going forward, I concur, but a lot depends on region of your target market, your age, financial position, and what the deal is. Way to many variables here.
With the massive manipulation of this housing market, we could be into another decade of this rollercoaster, so I would say do what’s best for you. Just don’t regret it, and look for a bailout. OPM, is just that.
Before you practice schadenfreude and attacks (way uncool), we got a fair deal and have no regrets.
You got ripped off by a few hundred thousand dollars. Everyone here knows it… except for you.
we got a fair deal and have no regrets.
If you have to convince yourself in your daily post, I do think you have regrets.
If the number of posts is to be used as a metric for self-delusion, what have you to say of our resident Housing Pimp?
what have you to say of our resident Housing Pimp?
Who has now taken to quoting himself in bold, and then agreeing wholeheartedly with his own statement in normal font.
In days of old, one would expect that type of behavior from the village idiot.
No regrets. We’re very happy with our home, thought we did ok in a price dip entry point, and are at peace.
I find it remarkable that people can’t agree to disagree. Try being an adult. Feels great.
Practice Mudita- happiness for other people’s happiness.
The above post addresses prayer walker and HA.
Take your own advice Dumb Money.
Besides the silliness of “hurting” students who want to go abroad to study and vacations outside India (not really a middle class thing anyways)…
India imports vast amounts of food and oil. And THAT is where it will destroy the poor and middle class.
—————-
India’s rupee fall stuns middle class
Japan Times | 09/01/2013 | Penelope Macrae
NEW DELHI – Indian student Appu Sharma was going to apply to a U.S. university to study economics but with the rupee on the ropes, he’s set his sights closer to home.
“I’ll do my BA here and maybe my postgrad abroad if the rupee improves — my family can’t afford to pay foreign fees now,” the 17-year-old New Delhi Class 12 student said.
With the currency hovering at record lows of nearly 69 rupees to the dollar and seen heading south, the estimated 300-million-strong middle-class are being forced to rethink many of their plans.
Holidays abroad are being jettisoned as India grapples with its “new normal” — a weak currency, growth at a decade-low of 5 percent, stubbornly high consumer price inflation and elevated interest rates that are stifling investment.
“Dollar on an escalator, rupee on a ventilator, nation in the ICU,” reads one Twitter joke that went viral in India, lamenting the nation’s economic trials.
Subhash Goyal, head of the Indian Association of Tour Operators, forecasts up to a 20 percent drop in Indian tourists going abroad this year and calls the situation “grim.”
“It’s the middle class which is worst impacted (by the drop),” Goyal said, adding: “People are already postponing plans.”
In late 90’s I had a college roommate from India. According to him within a year (in his sophomore year) his dad was forced to send 50% more just to cover the tuition because of the rupee devaluation. Poor kid did some odd job in campus.
I forgot only the poor kids work while at college.
International students can’t “legally” do odd job like American students. Only INS/ICE approved internships.
That sure hasn’t stopped the Mexodus!
“I forgot only the poor kids work while at college.”
IIRC, India still has a rigid cast system of social ranking, and it would surprise me to discover a lower cast member attending college. Recall that there’s four of them for each one of us. They’re not working for peanuts; they’re fighting over the shells.
Funny how the race to the bottom works sometimes.
Let there be no mistake or misunderstanding. All those Indian kids want to study in the USA because it will improve their chances of getting an H1-B visa.
Here’s a proposal that would upset an apple cart or two: H1-B visas are okay. You want to come to this country to work? Fine, you can come… just… YOU. No family, just YOU.
Why are you so against families? People have spouses and children, that’s only fair.
Don’t bring the h1b in the first place…only then no worries about families.
I have a family too. I have never been less than 400 miles away from them. I had to go to schools and follow jobs. I could only afford to fly to see them twice a year. And that was before the days of Skype and iPhones. Maybe the government can pay for me to cart my family around?
And many of the H1-B’s don’t have children…yet. They wait until they get to the US for that.
Oxide, have you seen this video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCbFEgFajGU
Direct quote (at 1:42 in the video): “Our goal is clearly NOT to find a qualified and and interested US worker. In a sense, that sounds funny, but it’s what we’re trying to do here.”
H1-B is a scam. Period.
In Syria, U.S. goal ‘not to get mocked’
Jewish World Review | 9/1/2013 | Mark Steyn
I see the Obama “reset” is going so swimmingly that the president is now threatening to go to war against a dictator who gassed his own people.
Don’t worry, this isn’t anything like the dictator who gassed his own people that the discredited warmonger Bush spent 2002 and early 2003 staggering ever more punchily around the country inveighing against.
The 2003 dictator who gassed his own people was the leader of the Baath Party of Iraq. The 2013 dictator who gassed his own people is the leader of the Baath Party of Syria. Whole other ball of wax.
The administration’s ingenious plan is to lose this war in far less time than we usually take. In the unimprovable formulation of an unnamed official speaking to the Los Angeles Times, the White House is carefully calibrating a military action “just muscular enough not to get mocked.”
Too late, the mockery has commenced.
The US fedgov has been doing a pretty good job of “gassing” its own people for years.
Starbucks blonde tastes good this morning because I am using their bandwidth to download the latest Yocto (Embedded Linux BSP development). Dylan 9.0.0.
True capitalist like me working on Labor day…But I finished 4200 yards in a 25-yard indoor pool all to myself this morning - no one is devoted / disciplined enough to get up early, work off fat, and get to work.
77 megs so far
Bill,
What are your losses on housing over the last 14 years?
yeah bill, what are your real losses on the stocks you keep bragging about?
I don’t even need to hear about all the losses, just one big one. I’m sure Bill is doing very well. He seems like he works hard and focuses on his money. But it is common gambler psychology to talk about the wins but not the losses.
I already mentioned my losses on stocks on Bits Bucket Aug 31 or Sep 1.
Losses on RE: $56,000 - on a house I purchased for $96,000 and change. Stocks: Roughly $36,000 and most of that between 2000 and 2003. That was about a 50% haircut.
Bill hasn’t had any losses on housing in the last 14 years. I just know how he did it.
“But it is common gambler psychology to talk about the wins but not the losses.”
Talk about and REMEMBER the wins and not the losses, and this, this selective remembering, is what keeps the casino industry strong.
No losses on RE for the last 17 years, to be exact. In the black on my current stocks and mutual funds. Started cashing in on gains in 2012 - took $10s of thousands of gains. And this year about $20,000 more in gains.
Sell high in order to buy the dogs, such as gold and emerging market index fund (VEMAX, a nice Vanguard admiral fund)
“VEMAX, a nice Vanguard admiral fund”
I thought emerging markets were dead?
Natch! That’s why I have greatly accelerated my purchase of them relative to VTCLX and VSGAX. VSGAX is a hotshot like a typical poseur on Venice Beach. The walls will come tumbling down for that one any month.
VEMAX appears to have been in accelerating plunge mode all year long. I suppose if you stagger your purchases over the near term, you can avoid the risk of catching a falling knife.
I think so. I think the next 6 months the emerging markets will do well relative to the US stocks. That could even mean stay at existing NAVs.
A true capitalist would have Hector and Jose on the pool job, and Bundeep and Sanjay on the Linux work.
My boss is not a true capitalist then. He lives in a nearby area, takes in somewhere north of $400,000 per year. I think his wife stays at home and is devoted to the kids. Never paid more than $2,000 for a car and prefers Camrys.
Never paid more than $2,000 for a car and prefers Camrys.
Then he’s driving some real POSs, for a well-off guy. You’d think he’d want a newer, safer car just for his wife and kids. Spend $10k and get a used Camry with working front and side airbags, anti-lock brakes, etc. You’re not getting that at $2k.
That was my first thought. Or heck, get a new Camry. It’s a heck of a lot cheaper than a Lexus, very affordable for a guy making 400K. And it will last for a long time. Just for LULZ I took a look at Cars.com for used Camries. 10K gets you one that’s 10 years old with 100K+ on the odometer.
The cheapest one I found was a 1993 with 240K miles and it was four grand.
He inspires me to keep my Toyota as well. It’s 10 years old. I hit a piece of tire on the 405 a few weeks ago - could not avoid it, and it tore the fiber board under my engine, which sometimes reaches down and scrapes the asphalt like a plow. I have to get some duct tape at some point to keep it in place…But things like that are about as much as I get. Replaced the front passenger visor as the old one was loose. Replaced the front left headlight bulb - that was about $10. I have less than $72,000 miles. Would love to have a new Chevy Camaro with the most powerful engine but no place to put it. My new apartment complex’s guest parking is always full. I’d have to park my second car in some residential neighborhood.
His Camrys are probably about the same in issues. Enables him to keep his house up. My low expenses enable me to buy Vanguard low expense index funds and gold.
My low expenses enable me to buy Vanguard low expense index funds and gold.
You know who really loves people like you, Bill?
Your heirs. I’m sure they’ll buy the Camaro, or it’s future equivalent, when you kick the bucket
You know who really loves people like you, Bill?
Your heirs. I’m sure they’ll buy the Camaro, or it’s future equivalent, when you kick the bucket
It’s true. Even if they shouldn’t.
A true capitalist would be driving a Rolls or a Bently and would set it up whereby sombody else would pay the bills.
An true, fully enterprising capitalist would go a bit furthur and set it up whereby the manufacturers of the cars would PAY HIM to ride around in it (and would also provide a chauffeur).
LOL! Good point. Bill and his boss aren’t “Capitalists”, they’re “hired hands”.
I can think of a lot of things to call a man who volunteers to work on a paid holiday for no added compensation for his corporate employer. Capitalist isn’t one of them. Unless he is admitting that his labor isn’t worth anything.
Even God rested on the Seventh day.
But as an atheist, the meaning of that phrase is lost on me.
More so because this is not “the seventh day”
But as an atheist, the meaning of that phrase is lost on me.
How long are you going to be dead? How many “good” years do you have left?
Just go buy the Camaro, while you can still enjoy it.
Just go buy the Camaro, while you can still enjoy it.
+1 You’ll look foolish driving one when you’re 75.
At that age i would be driving a Mercedes Benz instead. Evan a AMG CL65 is not inappropriate for today’s 75 y.o.
Assuming you make it to 75, and if you do that you still have all your marbles.
The way he works? He’ll have to make it past his first heart attack long before then.
Nice one. I betcha you cannot even swim 25 yards without wheezing and you never saw the produce section in any grocery store.
I’m not even a type a personality. I’m very quiet and I love it quiet. Voluntaryists tend to be non-aggressive, unlike you “progressives”
I’m very quiet and I love it quiet.
Is that why you’re always at the shooting range?
I’m constantly at the shooting range Alpha Sllop, 24/7…
riggggtht. In California I cannot have my AR-15 here. So try to see me with an AR-15 at any shooting range or let alone, anywhere in California. Genius. This is a big reason why I maintain an address in a Castle Doctrine state, although I am also in NannyFornia.
Man are you in for a big surprise.
Being a workaholic will kill you no matter how fit you are.
I’m sure you and others all have an anecdote about grandpa/uncle Bob who worked until he was 90, but the numbers don’t lie. There are very few people who are working past 70.
And there ARE fates worse than death.
Normally, I wouldn’t care, but here we are celebrating a day that reminds us the workaholics of the world would kill us all.
I’m not a workaholic. The stuff I am currently working on fascinates me. While consulting the last 4 years they would never let me work overtime and the work was such that you could not take it home. The people I work with are all 8 to 5 types and love biking, hiking, iPhones, etc. I love swimming and staying fit. When was the last time you heard someone killed by their own hobby?
Besides hobby of being a “lion tamer”
I never seen such a group of nattering nabobs (except possibly the yahoo finance posters). Advice: Eat prunes.
Plus I regularly see a doctor and get bloodwork done. I am told to keep on swimming the crazy yardage I do - that was what a cardiologiist said. My endocrinolgist says my cholesterol, triglycerides, blood sugar and TSH are great. So phhhhhttth! Also regular dental visits and keep the teeth healthy…
It’s a good thing you’re an atheist, Bill. I’ll leave it at that.
I’m not a workaholic. The stuff I am currently working on fascinates me.
That’s not a very convincing argument, Bill—workaholics typically love and are fascinated by their work. I should know, it runs in my family.
Not working overtime? Now that’s a much more convincing argument.
At that age i would be driving a Mercedes Benz instead. Evan a AMG CL65 is not inappropriate for today’s 75 y.o
That’s true. And luckily now they are starting to make AMGs in AWD so you won’t kill yourself in it with your 75yo reflexes.
Carl, you don’t understand. Bill’s master swimmer skillz will keep his reflexes sharp until he’s 100.
Yo, McScrooge, it’s a holiday.
“But I finished 4200 yards in a 25-yard indoor pool all to myself this morning - no one is devoted / disciplined enough to get up early, work off fat, and get to work.”
I rode my Ti Serotta 19-miles yesterday afternoon having to cut 5-miles from my usual route due to the large number of goat heads. The Garmin GPS said I averaged 17-mph; that’s roughly 50% in a 4-mph headwind, bright and cloudless solar radiation, 91-degrees ambient and 45% humidity, and drained both water bottles.
Goat
headsherds?Where do you live, rms?
Where do you live, rms?
Washington, Columbia Basin. I’m headed out in thirty minutes to ride the same route. Even more humid today with rain and lightening in the forecast for later tonight. Wet week ahead, so not looking good for bicycle commuting.
You’ve done well this morning rms. I drove a bit further back in the neighborhood on Saturday and was impressed with so many bike paths here. Although the mountain biking in Arizona beats the pants off of Californa
Just wrapped up a nice 19-mile sunset ride. It was a little breezy, but that meant spitting out fewer bugs. Average speed dropped to 15-mph due to the steady headwind. The desert is a strange place for wind direction…always shifting.
Re: Yocto: This is what you get when the open source fellas don’t debug their releases.
The last patch was on June 10, which fixed one bug out of three, but now I picked up two more:
tbitbake core-image-sato
ERROR: QA Issue: /home/yocto/meta-intel/common/recipes-multimedia/gstreamer/gst-va-intel.bb: Variable ALLOW_EMPTY is set as not being package specific, please fix this.
ERROR: QA Issue: /home/yocto/meta-intel/common/recipes-multimedia/libva/va-intel.bb: Variable ALLOW_EMPTY is set as not being package specific, please fix this.
Parsing recipes: 100% |################################################################| Time: 00:01:09
Parsing of 879 .bb files complete (0 cached, 879 parsed). 1215 targets, 47 skipped, 0 masked, 0 errors.
ERROR: No recipes available for:
/home/yocto/meta-intel/meta-jasperforest/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-yocto_3.2.bbappend
/home/yocto/meta-intel/meta-jasperforest/recipes-kernel/linux/linux-yocto-rt_3.2.bbappend
ERROR: Command execution failed: Exited with 1
Its now hip to live in your RV while working on you startup in San Fran: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/These-young-SF-professionals-choose-to-live-in-RVs-4778625.php
Is it down by the river?
Gold is currently looking like a bet on U.S. intervention in Syria.
Sept. 2, 2013, 7:15 a.m. EDT
Gold falls on planned U.S. vote over Syria
But futures pare loss after China data, with silver moving higher
By Michael Kitchen and Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) — Gold futures traded lower Monday as a U.S. military strike on Syria appeared to be less certain, though upbeat economic data from China helped gold pare its loss and pull other metals to a gain.
Gold for December delivery (GCZ3 -0.44%) traded $5.70 below its Friday close, for a loss of 0.4% to $1,390.40 an ounce.
In Friday trade on the New York Mercantile Exchange’s Comex, gold had fallen 1.2% for a third day of losses.
…
“What’s behind the meteoric rise in home sizes?”
Subsidies, subsidies and more subsidies.
Higher Mortgage Rates Could Revitalize Smaller Home Sales
By Jordan Wathen
September 2, 2013
It’s a billion-dollar question: Following a 30-year bull run in bonds and falling interest rates, can the housing market survive a rising-rate environment?
Rising rates have a direct impact on housing affordability. Mortgages at a 5.5% annual rate are 12% more expensive than at a 4.5% rate. At 6.5%, monthly mortgage payments are nearly 25% more costly than at 4.5%
As rates go up, the amount a buyer can afford to spend on a home goes down, all else equal. But will it put a damper on a real estate recovery?
The great American upsizing
Bond values weren’t the only thing going up over the last 30 years. Data obtained from the U.S. Census shows the average newly built American home swelled in size, too. The average home built in 1975 was 1,535 square feet. By 2010, the average build came in at 2,169 square feet.
What’s behind the meteoric rise in home sizes?
Interest rates could be to blame. In fact, when you look at a chart of home sizes by year, they seem to be inversely related to interest rates.
As interest rates fell in the late 1970s, home sizes grew. As rates rocketed in the early 1980s, home sizes contracted. After reaching a peak in the 1980s, mortgage rates have fallen precipitously, and homes have grown in almost every single year since.
The great downsizing
The question to ask ourselves is whether the future American home will look anything like the homes built in the last 10 years, when interest rates were almost always treading on record lows.
I’m not entirely convinced that rising rates are the end to rising home values across the spectrum. Americans have largely forgotten that a home built recently is some 40% larger than a home built in the 1970s. There isn’t a real, practical reason for the shift. We’ve just become accustomed to more space for the same number of people.
Many people could afford to live in smaller homes. Following the financial crisis, apartments added new tenants quickly. Vacancies fell to 4.3% in July, according to The Wall Street Journal. While it’s likely renters feel cramped in smaller apartments, it’s unlikely future homebuyers will need a subprime boom-style McMansion after moving out of a rented apartment space.
…
“What’s behind the meteoric rise in home sizes?”
The meteoric rise in obesity.
Meteoric rise in debt?
it’s unlikely future homebuyers will need a subprime boom-style McMansion after moving out of a rented apartment space.
That was in my thoughts when I bought my less-than 2000 sq ft inner-ring suburban house. McMansions will become scoffed-at symbols of a period’s excess. The haunted Victorians in a time of craftsman housing.
“What’s behind the meteoric rise in home sizes?”
In my part of the world, size=price and this means you keep the working poor out of the neighborhood.
While there are other reasons, my experience is that this is the main reason.
“…size=price and this means you keep the working poor out of the neighborhood.”
Suppose Uncle Sam decided there was not enough diversity in the nabe and required a minimum percentage of people of color (of Uncle Sam’s choosing) to locate there. Would that result in an affordability improvement, supersized houses notwithstanding?
Trick question.
Section 8, HUD, et al already exist.
My experience is that the poor can move into the more expensive neighborhood but they still can’t afford to stay. Maintenance being the biggest reason and running afoul of the local HOA being the other.
The other reasons from there in descending order are:
Personal legal issues
Personal legal issues
and
Personal legal issues
“Personal legal issues”
How exactly does that disqualify them from residency?
“Section 8, HUD, et al already exist.”
What I had in mind was this latest HUD initiative: billions of your tax dollars hard at work on racially integrating neighborhoods. Got grocery stories in your ‘hood?
Power Play
Team Obama Steps Up Racial Standards for Neighborhoods
Chris Stirewalt
Published July 23, 2013
The federal government is getting serious about pushing racial and ethnic diversity into America’s neighborhoods–and is using big data and big money to achieve its aims.
A new interactive database will help regulators, local housing officials and individuals take action on a newly proposed regulation that would require agencies to “affirmatively further” the inclusion of minority residents in white neighborhoods.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan announced the database and regulation at last week’s NAACP convention, saying the Obama administration was battling “a quieter form of discrimination” that was “just as harmful” as long-outlawed segregationist practices, like racially restrictive property covenants.
The problem now, Donovan said, is that prospective minority buyers are not being encouraged to move into predominantly white neighborhoods with top-notch schools, government services and amenities like grocery stories, etc.
The goal here then is to continue to prosecute at a high rate incidences deemed proactively segregationist – Donovan touted 25,000 individuals in the past 3 years being paid damages under cases reported to the agency or independently investigated by HUD – but to add in a mandate for diversifying neighborhoods.
The old way was to punish exclusion. The new way is to punish lack of inclusion.
…
Are you planning to hurry up and buy before rates rise further?
Mortgage Applications Fall, Rates Hit ‘13 High
Published August 28, 2013
Reuters
Applications for U.S. home loans fell for a third straight week as average mortgage rates hit their highest level this year, although demand for purchase loans increased, data from an industry group showed on Wednesday.
The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes both refinancing and home purchase demand, fell 2.5 percent in the week ended August 23, after sliding 4.6 percent the prior week.
The decline came as 30-year mortgage rates rose 12 basis points to 4.80 percent, the highest they have been so far this year, according to MBA data.
The survey covers over 75 percent of U.S. retail residential mortgage applications, according to MBA.
Borrowing costs have climbed by more than a percentage point since late May on the view that the Federal Reserve will soon reduce its monthly bond purchases, which have kept a ceiling on rates.
The Fed began the bond purchasing program nearly a year ago to boost a sluggish recovery in the U.S. economy.
Higher rates have dissuaded borrowers from refinancing existing home loans. The refinance index fell 5.4 percent last week, and the refinance share of total mortgage activity slid to 60 percent, the lowest since April of 2011.
The gauge of loan requests for home purchases, a leading indicator of home sales, held up better, rising 2.4 percent.
Housing has been a bright spot in the U.S. recovery, with prices rising steadily since early 2012. But economists expect the pace of that increase to slow as the year winds down.
A separate report last week showed sales of new single-family homes fell sharply in July to their lowest level in nine months.
That has injected some uncertainty into the debate about when the Fed will start slowing its stimulus. Markets largely expect the Fed to pull back next month, though many analysts say the U.S. central bank will think twice about highear long-term interest rates if there is evidence the rates are hurting housing.
Still, rates remain low by historical standards and most economists do not expect the higher costs to end the recovery altogether. In the short-term, it could also spur potential buyers to act before rates rise further.
…
“Are you planning to hurry up and buy before rates rise further?”
In a logical world this would make no sense and this is why it will probably happen.
How long will it take the greater fools who bought on this shaky logical foundation to realize they are victims of the REALTOR®s’ latest scam?
“In a logical world this would make no sense and this is why it will probably happen.”
I’ve had this discussion w/a realtor friend before. It really does happen, she was quite confident in her statement, and she’s been doing it for 23 years. Our discussion was in 2010 when rates were around 4.3. So I asked her if those who rush to buy when they smell rates rising aren’t just a short blip on the screen. She said no, if they keep going up, people panic even more. She works the Marin County area, so that might be a different animal, but I got the impression that she meant it’s true in most areas.
China housing always goes up.
CHINA NEWS
August 29, 2013, 1:19 p.m. ET
Chinese Cities Tighten Reins on Home Purchases
Moves Are Aimed at Curbing Resurging Prices But Analysts Doubt They’ll Work
By ESTHER FUNG
Beijing’s local housing bureau has made it tougher for property developers to presell apartments in recent weeks.
SHANGHAI—Major Chinese cities are turning to fresh measures to temper home-buyer enthusiasm amid a renewed surge in housing prices, but analysts say the moves are unlikely to halt the rise.
Beijing’s local housing bureau has made it tougher for property developers to presell apartments in recent weeks, giving approvals only to projects that have completed a sufficient amount of construction. Shanghai officials have called for tighter enforcement of restrictions on second and subsequent home purchases, while local media are reporting sharper lending limits in a number of cities.
Meanwhile, lenders in some areas are scrutinizing mortgages with a closer eye. In late July, China’s banking regulator asked banks to step up their supervision of housing loans and called on them to set aside reserves of at least 10% of their mortgage loans. As a result, some banks in Beijing have removed discounts on their mortgage loans for first-home buyers, state media have reported, while smaller banks in the city of Guangzhou have stopped issuing mortgages altogether.
The moves come in response to rising prices. Prices of homes included in a survey of 100 Chinese cities climbed 7.9% in July from a year earlier, according to data provided by China Real Estate Index System. China has been trying to tamp down speculative property purchases without smothering demand from those who want to buy their first homes.
Housing experts say the moves are unlikely to curb investor demand for property. “As with previous efforts to control supply, this may backfire and prices will still go up,” said Lin Bo, an analyst at E-House China, a data provider, about the local Beijing restrictions.
The moves also run counter to what appears to be a broader willingness at the national level to let the property market grow as the economy has slowed. China’s growth slowed in the second quarter to 7.5% on a year-over-year basis from 7.7% in the first quarter. Property is a major driver of Chinese economic growth.
“There is still positive sentiment for a boost in housing demand in September and October,” said Johnson Hu, an analyst at CIMB Securities, referring to the peak season for home-buying activity in China.
…
With unemployment up to 8 percent, where does the demand for Canada housing come from?
Homes less affordable, but Canadians keep buying
CP/THE GAZETTE August 27, 2013
The RBC affordability index for Montreal condos, bungalows and two storey-homes slid between .5 per cent and .7 per cent during the second quarter, bucking the national trend.
Photograph by: Richard Buchan , THE CANADIAN PRESS
MONTREAL/OTTAWA — Home ownership became more affordable in Montreal during the second quarter, but with resales down nearly 14 per cent below the 10 year average, the city’s housing market “has yet to display quite the same vigour as most other major markets,” a report published Tuesday by Royal Bank says.
The RBC affordability index for Montreal condos, bungalows and two storey-homes slid between .5 per cent and .7 per cent during the second quarter, bucking the national trend.
The affordability index measures the cost of servicing a home, including mortgage payments, utilities and taxes, in relation to a household’s pre-tax income. The higher the reading, the less affordable is a home to a particular family.Between April and June, home ownership become less affordable for the average Canadian, but that hasn’t stopped many from jumping into what may already be an overpriced market, the RBC report suggested.
RBC says its housing affordability index reversed course in the second quarter of this year in two of the three categories it measures — bungalows and two-storey homes — after generally improving during 2012. That means that on average, Canadians were paying more of their pre-tax income to service their homes compared to the first quarter of the year, although the index is still down from a year ago.
With Quebec’s unemployment rate exceeded eight per cent this spring, many Montreal “would-be homebuyers likely are still hesitant to enter the market at this juncture, unsure of their job situation,” the report said.
The unemployment rate rose above 8% this spring. The affordability of a Montreal condo and bungalow remains only “slightly above historical norms and unlikely to exert any undue stress.”
…
Canada, like the rest of the world, does not fudge their unemployment numbers.
Their 8% is more like our 6%.
The foreclosure crisis isn’t over
By Russell K. Snyder and Karen Lewis Young
August 09, 2013
Our region appears to be suffering from foreclosure fatigue. After dominating headlines since 2008, the mortgage crisis has all but disappeared from the news and the consciousness of the American public. But for the family down the street fighting to keep its home or searching for the next best alternative — and that family may be yours — the problem remains very real.
In fact, the continuing crisis affects us all, directly or indirectly.
The overall number of foreclosures in our region remains high, as banks take action on delinquent loans that have clogged their pipelines since before the 2012 National Mortgage Settlement. As of March, 6.5 percent of first mortgages in the Washington metropolitan area were in the process of foreclosure or at least 90 days delinquent, according to researchers at the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, compared with 8.4 percent at the height of the foreclosure crisis in December 2009 and about 2.5 percent nationally before the crisis began. In some distressed neighborhoods in Prince William, Fairfax and Prince George’s counties, the number of filings is especially high. Housing counselors at the Hyattsville-based nonprofit Housing Initiative Partnership (HIP) saw 91 new clients in April — its busiest month ever.
For families at risk of losing their homes, panic has turned to frustration. Unable to trust their lenders, many bounce from agency to agency looking for reliable information. Misinformation is rampant. Mortgage “rescue” scams target homeowners who are more than 60 days behind on their mortgages, particularly seniors and families with limited English proficiency. Unscrupulous companies, offering deals that are just too good to be true, often charge exorbitant fees, stripping wealth and leaving homeowners closer to foreclosure than before.
In these situations, it’s critical to know who you can trust for help. The best answer: HUD-certified housing counselors, who focus on a family’s personal and financial well being, help them develop a budget they can live within and explain options when foreclosure is threatened.
One size does not fit all circumstances.
When Luis Rodriquez’s landscaping work dried up and he fell behind on his mortgage, a counselor with the Latino Economic Development Center helped the Olney resident save his home with a $200,000 principal reduction and a financial action plan to prepare for the future. In the case of one Filipino family who asked that their name not be used because relatives did not know of their situation, a short sale was the better long-term option — both financially and emotionally. It took courage to make that decision, says their housing counselor, Song Hutchins of Asian-American Homeownership Counseling. “The perception is that Asian Americans are doing well,” she said, “but, in reality, many of them own small businesses and struggle to make their mortgage payments.”
The housing crisis affected all income levels in all parts of our region. “We have seen every economic group, from owners of $125,000 condos to $1 million homes,” says Marian Siegel of Housing Counseling Services. “This is not a poor person’s issue or a minority issue, but one that impacts the entire community.” Even people who have remained current may see their property values drop as the number of foreclosures in the neighborhood increases. It continues to weigh on the region’s recovering housing market.
“It may appear that the market is coming back, especially in D.C. where we haven’t had any foreclosures in two years because of the District’s mediation law,” Siegel said. “We’re bracing ourselves for an onslaught.”
…
deadbeat homeowners/squatters are keeping the auto industry afloat. most haven’t had a rent payment or house payment in 3-5 years and have a lot of cash to buy cars and shop at walmart.
“most haven’t had a rent payment or house payment in 3-5 years and have a lot of cash to buy cars and shop at walmart”
How can they stay indefinitely housed without ever making monthly payments?
We definitely are making a financial mistake, as our monthly, which we have faithfully coughed up month-in, month-out since 2005, is really putting a crimp on our lifestyle choices.
She did it! Congrats to Diana Nyad, finally making the swim from Havana to Key West. You go, girl! Awesome!
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57600985/diana-nyad-completes-historic-havana-key-west-swim/
Her fifth attempt. Proving that if at first you don’t succeed…
That’s some persistence!
And she was age 64 when she finally succeeded, after 35 years of trying. This story should be an inspiration to all of us who are frustrated in our long-term aspirations.
“This story should be an inspiration to all of us who are frustrated in our long-term aspirations.”
Or who are bummed at turning 48! (me)
Like my (84-year-old) mom would say, don’t feel bad — you are still young!
one person’s workaholic is another person’s hero! so inspirational that she didn’t quit after so many years. she persevered even though it had to have become a more difficult task as she aged. yes, pbear, what an inspiration indeed!!
About 2 months ago one of my guys who lives in Lake Worth had my f-250 parked in front of his house, a gentleman of hispanic decent came by in an old minivan, side-swiped the entire passenger side, bent the front bumper out in front of the truck and kept on going. They got half a tag and when the sheriffs dept. got there they said it would be almost impossible to find him or the minivan. They never did.
Fast forward to today. I get home from working this morning and my wife says she is going to run down to the Italian Ice place by Indiantown Rd. and Alt. A1A. She is sitting in a turn lane with her blinker on and a gentleman of hispanic decent comes around the corner evidentally doing a little over the speed limit and rear ends her. She gets out of the car and goes to his window which he will not roll down and asks him to get out of the car. He points at the side of the street and then takes off almost running her over and narowly missing the car that the gentleman who was not of hispanic decent chased him with for 5 blocks when he lost the hispanic gentleman who was driving like a crazy person according to him.
Well the Jupiter Police show up for this one and take the statements of the 3 witnesses and run the tag number which comes up expired belonging to a gentleman of hispanic decent who has no drivers licence or insurance and a Jupiter address where many hispanics live. They say they will look for the vehicle but there is not much they can do.
I only worked until noon today so I show up just after the police have left and get the vehicle make and tag number from my wife and take a little tour of the Jupiter hood on the other side of Indiantown Rd. that has a large undocumented immigrant population. After abut 15 minutes and many strange looks I catch a glimpse of a dirty white Ford expedition tucked back in the corner of a section 8 appartment. I pull in and sitting right next to the vehicle with a matcing tag number and description are 2 undocumented genleman of hispanic decent, one matching the decription my wife and 2 other witnesses gave to a t sitting on the ground next to it.
So I back out into the street, put one in the chamber and call the Jupiter Police. After 10 minutes 2 police cars show up and I point to where the vehicle is and where thegentlman were sitting and what appartment they went into. They go look at the vehicle and the Jupiter accident investigation officer comes back and tells me this…
That’s the vehicle but there is nothing we can do. We will konck on all these doors but I am telling you nobody is going to know anything. I ask… Can’t you tow the car? He says… No we can’t, that’s against the law it’s in a private driveway. I say… So he gets away with it, even though you know that’s him in that appartment. He says… I’m afraid so.
Well God bless Mexico cause America sucks!
dude that’s a real common story. California is full of people like this. But they carry the democrats to victory here every time.
Take a picture of them and send it to your wife to ID the guy?
Be careful, remember George Z.
It seems like they should be able to do something with the hit n run.
I asked the officer if he wanted me to go get my wife, he said no. I know I was looking at the dude, the cop knows I was looking at the dude and the dude knew I was looking at him.
As far as…
“remember George Z.”
Truck and car damage is not worth anyones life, that’s why I backed out onto the street and called the police. Now as I said, after I backed out I put one in the chamber. If the gentleman of hispanic decent had decided that my life was not worth him being arrested for hit and run or whatever other problems he may have had and decided to come see me with his friends in a place where I had retreated to he would have had mucho problemas.
Good for you for at least trying and remaining clearheaded. Sucks dude. I had a car totaled the same way years ago. Hit n run from behind, a few days of whiplash neck pain and a good financial hit.
I hate to get down on the cops but it sounds like they were being lazy or are so jaded at having gone thru it and seen nothing happen.
Sheee-it, I am sorry to hear that, jeff. You sure don’t deserve it. Back when I lived in South Florida, I knew a guy who used to work carpentry jobs from Ft. Lauderdale up through Palm Beach County. He told me there was quite a group of illegals from Guatemala living in the Lake Worth area, frequently there would be a crew of them working construction jobs that he was on.
I had a similar thing happen to me in Ft. Lauderdale back in the late 1980s. I was driving west on Davie Blvd. and some mestizo woman was driving a clunker on the other side going east. It was the weirdest thing, like everything went in slow motion, because I remember her looking over the median at me, then turning the wheel and coming up over the median right into the front side of my car. She couldn’t speak a word of English. When the cops came, they spoke to me, then to her, then came back to me and shrugged and advised me to just move on, no way I was going to get any satisfaction, she was uninsured, from out of the country, blah-blah, I should just move on and forget about it. Got the front bumper fixed on my own dime, not worth the insurance claim.
I’ll never forget the bitch, though. Real spooky how she almost deliberately came over that median, although the cops seems to think she was out of it. She was all twitchy, looked like an egg with long black hair and an inner tube around the middle, scurrying back and forth and pleading with the cops about something or other. I wasn’t as aware of the problem with illegals driving our roads at that time.
Only thing I could suggest would be to write letters to your political “representatives” and the local media.
That’s quite the injustice.
“That’s quite the injustice.”
It was right up until this. Evidently the illegal owner of the vehicle got some bad legal advise. The police officer called my wife and told her at 2:30 this afternoon after the hit and run vehicle had been found, the owner of the vehicle called in a stolen vehicle report. Also, although the police won’t do too much about these things that have happened to me they really frown on people calling in false stolen vehicle reports. Astonishingly, the owner of the vehicle who called in the stolen vehicle report matched the description of the dude driving the stolen vehicle when it was involved in a hit and run with my wife this afternoon.
I drove my wife over, she made a posotive identification, filled out the report and signed it. Although I will never be reimbursed for the money I am about to lay out and my wife’s neck and middle upper back are soar. This dude who was babbling about immigration papers and endangered peoples lives in his high speed getaway through a residential neighborhood after his hit and run accident is on his way to jail tonight.
I guess that should be sore not soar, it’s been a long day for only working til noon.
Well, good to hear the offender will be cooling his heels for a while, hopefully. I guess perspective is important too, and you seem to have it. There have been a couple-three large multi-fatal vehicle accidents in this area in the past few days. This is bent metal and your wife might have to visit a physical therapist for a while. But it could have been worse. Good work on helping take the offender off the roads.
FYI, the two crashes I referenced:
1) Driver of a flatbed truck slams into stopped traffic - 3 dead: http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-28/local/41519084_1_fatal-eight-vehicle-crash-delivery-truck-life-threatening-injuries
2) SUV crosses centerline - 6 dead: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/02/pennsylvania-highway-car-accident-_n_3855906.html
Whenever I see a Hispanic, I Stand My Ground and open fire. It’s the only solution.
That sounds really crazy on the face of it.
Does it matter if they are in the process of breaking your nose, punching your eyes, and lacerating the back of your head?
Details, details…
I don’t like to start losing the fight I picked before I shoot them. It hurts too much.
I just shoot ‘em immediately!
I find it interesting that you know more about the Martin-Zimmerman altercation than the jury which acquitted Zimmerman.
By what means did you acquire your superior knowledge of the case?
“I just shoot ‘em immediately!”
If true, then you belong in jail. I am confidant the George Zimmerman jury would convict you in such an instance.
“If true, then you belong in jail. I am confidant the George Zimmerman jury would convict you in such an instance.”
You have a confidant who gives you information that makes you confident the George Zimmerman jury would convict you in such an instance.
I’ve noticed libruhl MSM outlets (e.g. NPR) always refer to Trayvon Martin as an “unarmed black teenager” while never, ever mentioning that he was committing an act of aggravated assault at the point when he was shot.
Why systematically omit relevant details of the story?
I find it interesting that you know more about the Martin-Zimmerman altercation than the jury which acquitted Zimmerman.
I’m just not as trusting of the testimony of the shooter.
I’m just not as trusting of the testimony of the shooter.
And apparently also not very trusting of the testimony of the doctors that examined either of them.
According to “progressives”. at least six of them regulars on HBB, you are a racist if you complain about non-whites who ruined your property and get away with it.
Now you are just making crap up.
if you live in south florida, it’s a heck of a lot easier to just keep a low profile by not having nice stuff. oh, and be sure to not drive anything better than a $2000 camry.
“They got half a tag and when the sheriffs dept. got there they said it would be almost impossible to find him or the minivan.”
Half a tag + a minivan description + geography ought to greatly limit the set of candidate vehicles, assuming it is possible to match the half a tag characters against a license database which includes vehicle type.
The sheriffs dept. had no intention of looking for them and never did. The only way they would have been found was if they had hit a sheiffs wife’s car and then they would have been in jail within hours. However, we have an UPDATE on the most recent hit and run.
But god help you if you get pulled over and your tags are expired and you have no insurance!
Straight to jail!
My suggestion? Never mind, it involves very bad things. Accidental things that happen very late at night. Factory defects, you know?
Seriously, you need to contact the state AG and then the feds.
I always mention they have a gun in the back and were selling baggies of white powder.
August 10, 2013
Forced Diversity
By Don Sucher
Among the several hidden initiatives in the Obama Administration’s goal to bring “fundamental change” to America are plans, already being implemented, to use Federal power and Federal money to require greater “diversity” in each and every American community.
According to an article posted on Fox News Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Shaun Donovan, while speaking at the NAACP convention last month, spoke of a new policy called “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing.” This policy, according to Fox, requires HUD “to gather data on segregation and discrimination in every single neighborhood and try to remedy it.”
Remedy it how? Not by new laws passed in Congress, but by the bureaucratic tools long used by HUD — those of influencing zoning laws, housing finance policy, and infrastructure planning. Basically by telling state and local officials ‘if you want our help and cooperation you must…’ And if past HUD activities are any guide, along with the carrot will come a powerful stick.
Is it true, as Secretary Donovan reportedly said, that “no matter how hard a child or her parents work, the life chances of that child, even her lifespan, is determined by the zip code she grows up in”? And if a Federal bureaucracy decides that is so — and if their collected data points, in their judgment, to “segregation and discrimination” in a given “zip code,” is it then the Federal government’s job to move that child and their family to another zip code?
Obviously the application of such a policy would be a very “fundamental change” in the way American communities come to exist, change and grow. A change that would potentially affect the lives of every American no matter where he or she lives. And if such a change is even being considered — much less put in place — is this not something that needs to be discussed openly in the public square?
If the arguments used to support such an initiative are sound, they will stand scrutiny. If, however, they are flawed, the thoughts and experience of the many may bring that to light. In any case, in a nation whose foundation has been described as “government by the people and for the people” such discussion should be nothing less than a requirement.
…
Does the Obama Administration’s quietly administered plans to use Federal power and Federal money to force “diversity” on to every American community promise good or ill? Is race, as suggested by that initiative, the true determinant of where and how people live in today’s America? Or are choices made by individuals and communities of peoples the main determining factor? And perhaps most important of all — will people who have consistently exhibited one set of values suddenly choose to live by a different set of values just because the government has placed them in a new home — in a community whose underlying values may be very different from their own?
In a truly free society with a government “by the people and for the people” we should at least be able to have this discussion out loud and in public. After all, you can always decide to dynamite a Cabrini-Green when you discover that the thinking behind its creation was flawed. But what do you do when the spirit that created such a place has been forced into every town, village and city in the land?