Bits Bucket for September 9, 2013
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Poland just “socialized” half of their private pension plans.
Buying the votes of the free sh*t army is expensive.
And it will be one day soon tried in America by the democrats - for the children and because it is only fair. They won’t touch any union pension plans though…
—————————
On Poland and Detroit: Not For The Faint Of Heart
Sept. 7, 2013 | Ann Barnhardt
Back to finance. Poland did exactly what I and a few others have been warning about for years with regards to private retirement accounts and pensions. Poland confiscated 50% of all private pension funds last week. PRIVATE pensions.
As Warren Pollock and I have been screaming, one of the largest chunks of collateral left in the system is private retirement money, both in the form of 401(k)s and IRAs and in private pension accounts. In the U.S., the latest data for 2012 shows that there are now $10.5 Trillion in private 401k and IRA holdings, with another $9 Trillion in pensions and annuities.
The regime has been fairly open about its plans to “nationalize”, read CONFISCATE, this collateral and implement a system of “mandatory retirement savings accounts”, which will be just another confiscatory redistribution into the hands of the oligarchs and their cronies. This what Poland just did. This is what MF Global was in its essence. This is what Cyprus was, except the Cypriot confiscation was done to demand deposit accounts instead of retirement accounts, which is now termed a “bail-in” – but it is all of the same stripe, namely the utter destruction of the notion of private property and the redistribution of all wealth into the hands of the oligarchs. In Poland, the private pension paradigm has now also been destroyed because no one will want to put money into a private pension after this knowing that it can and will be stolen by the government at any time with zero redress.
ZeroHedge has a piece up on this that is very good, but allow me to riff on it a bit. Poland has a “debt ceiling” that prevents it from issuing debt over 55% of GDP. By confiscating and stealing (“nationalizing”) the Polish citizens’ private pension money, they are now booking that money as a straight-up cash asset on the government’s balance sheet, thus “freeing up room” against the GDP-to-debt threshold so that the Polish government can … issue more debt and spend, spend, spend.
Now here’s the terrifying part. The US debt-to-GDP ratio is over 100%. $15.5 Trillion dollar economy; $16.0+ Trillion in debt. The day Obama usurped in January 2009, that ratio was 70% or so. This massive increase in debt is 100% intentional, being executed will full malice of forethought, and is called the “Cloward-Piven Strategy”.
As MFGlobal proved, derivative counterparties (in that case JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs) now enjoy a bullet-proof, legally protected but utterly morally illicit super-priority. The derivatives counterparties go to the front of the line BEFORE THE LINE EVEN FORMS. Bankruptcy doesn’t even begin until AFTER these counterparties move on a failed company, government, bank or fund and have looted it for any remaining collateral AND have terminated all non-beneficial contracts with said entity completely outside the conventional Rule of Law. Dodd-Frank is what set this up. THIS is what Dodd-Frank is all about and why it exists. Everything else is window dressing.
Note that I said that state and local governments are a huge holder of these derivatives. Detroit is the poster child for this dynamic. Detroit was massively allocated into interest rate swaps which were marketed to them as a hedge against rising interest rates. We now know that the LIBOR rate has been manipulated for years by these very banks, and we also know that the big banks, especially Goldman and JPMorgan, send their own people into the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department in order to do their will. So, the big banks sell interest rate swaps as a “hedge” against rising interest rates and then make @#$% sure that interest rates move to and then stay at zero, thus guaranteeing a massive profit on the interest rate derivatives they have sold to their prey. In Detroit, now utterly insolvent, the big bank counterparties are at the front of the line and the Detroit city employee pension funds have been confiscated and sent to the big-bank counterparties who now have statutory super-priority thanks to Dodd-Frank.
You know, nannerz, while I agree with you that public pensions must be reformed to eliminate the more egregious abuses, it amuses me to see your constant harping that this is somehow a Democratic phenomenon. It’s not.
Police, prison, fire personnel are notoriously as hardcore rightist as it’s possible to get in this country, and the fact that you gloss over this time and time (and time and time and time and time) again merely reinforces your bias as a party hack. It adds nothing to the conversation and serves merely as divisive noise. There’s plenty of that in this country already.
Please stop?
Nannerz has gone nutz. You cannot reason with someone with such a brain-wasting disease as he.
Just don’t feed the troll.
A former east bloc country submerges back into the murk of collectivism.
“And it will be one day soon tried in America by the democrats - for the children and because it is only fair. They won’t touch any union pension plans though…”
Physical gold, OTOH, is movable, hide-able wealth
“Physical gold, OTOH, is movable, hide-able wealth”
Not when there’s a paper(less) trail of transactions and with most stores of value these days there is. Why do you think our friendly Federal Fan Belt Inspectors and their spooky compatriots harvest billions of bits right off the vine? It’s not for the scintillating conversations between unshaven lovers of pyrotechnics but rather to follow the buck (billions of them) and see where it stops.
At this point, if your stores of value are not high-speed, low-observable entities then you’re going to be in for a rude shock.
First came the loans, then the insurance, often times these days the job, and now LOVE.
http://money.cnn.com/gallery/pf/2013/09/09/credit-score-dating/5.html
Not judging one way or the other, but man am I glad I found my girl when the only thing she cared about me was my “ambition” and all I cared about was her “drive”.
I suppose that the next step will be a “birthing” license, which you won’t be able to get if you have a poor credit score.
Gods, I hope so.
The birthing license or the criteria to get one? ( being a good debt donkey)
“I suppose that the next step will be a “birthing” license, which you won’t be able to get if you have a poor credit score.”
Geez, that sounds ray-cyst.
Perhaps a good credit score is her only standard when it comes to dating, and that would be good, because she is going to need a little help finding someone. Woof woof!
Looks like crooked banks are too-big-to-fail, and slime-ball bankers are too-big-to-jail.
“Not a single senior executive from any Wall Street bank faced criminal charges from the crisis, either. And the government’s deadline for filing most charges will expire this month..”
Inside the End of the U.S. Bid to Punish Lehman Executives
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/inside-the-end-of-the-u-s-bid-to-punish-lehman-executives/?google_editors_picks=true&_r=0
At a closed-door meeting in early 2011, Wall Street regulators were close to throwing in the towel on their biggest case.
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s eight-member Lehman Brothers team, having hit one dead end after another over the previous two years, concluded that suing the bank’s executives would be legally unjustified. The group, noting that prosecutors and F.B.I. agents had already walked away from a parallel criminal case, reached unanimous agreement to close its most prominent investigation stemming from the financial crisis….
But Mary L. Schapiro, the S.E.C. chairwoman, disagreed. She pushed George S. Canellos, who supervised the Lehman investigation as head of the S.E.C.’s New York office, to explain how executives who presided over the biggest bankruptcy in United States history could escape without a single civil charge.
“I don’t get it,” she said during a tense exchange …..“Why is there no case?” she continued……“The world won’t understand.
She was right. Five years after Lehman’s collapse hastened a worldwide economic panic, the government faces lingering questions about the decision to spare executives like Richard S. Fuld Jr., who ran Lehman for 14 years until its demise. Not a single senior executive from any Wall Street bank faced criminal charges from the crisis, either. And the government’s deadline for filing most charges will expire this month..….
What are you complaining about? Just yesterday you posted here that Obama gets “a pass.” You are one of the reasons no one is going to jail.
Just another example of “critical thinking” that no one else is sophisticated enough to grasp…
About the political and economic policies of the past five years: Cui bono?
Look, politicians require two things: Money and votes. They get money from big contributors. They get votes from constituents. If they don’t molest the big contributors, they continue to get money. The incumbency rate shows they continue to get votes.
The average person has no idea how politics or Wall Street works. So, they don’t vote against their local representatives. So that keeps the votes coming. Not prosecuting the offenders keeps the money coming.
Now that is the way it should be done.
Compare/contrast to the democrat/progressive way like in Chicago, Philly, NYS or Illinois…
——————
State budget outlook improves
Herald Tribune | 9/6/13
Florida Gov. Rick Scott, anticipating a healthy budget surplus next year, says he wants to cut taxes and fees by $500 million during his re-election year.
The annual forecast, which is required by the state constitution, has plenty of good news for Scott and the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature.
Scott, during an appearance last week before a conservative group, first pledged to use the state’s anticipated surplus on cutting both taxes and fees. The idea was immediately endorsed by top Republicans in the Florida Legislature.
The annual forecast, which is required by the state constitution, has plenty of good news for Scott and the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature. It shows that the state continues to recover from the depths of the Great Recession and there is no need for budget cuts in the near future.
“I’m thrilled the Governor has made tax relief a priority,” he said in a written statement.
Scott, during an appearance last week before a conservative group, first pledged to use the state’s anticipated surplus on cutting both taxes and fees. The idea was immediately endorsed by top Republicans in the Florida Legislature.
“The Governor is committed to returning $500 million to Florida families in this budget and we look forward to working with the Legislature to make this a reality,” Melissa Sellers said.
“Scott, during an appearance last week before a conservative group, first pledged to use the state’s anticipated surplus on cutting both taxes and fees. The idea was immediately endorsed by top Republicans in the Florida Legislature.”
Will these mopes NEVER learn? The first thing you do with a surplus is pay off debt. You don’t do anything else, you pay off debt. When debt is paid off, THEN you can talk about cutting taxes and fees. You’d think he’d learn from Bush’s disastrous move. But, elections are coming up…
There’s gotta be pain associated with debt otherwise the debt won’t be cut.
Also, if there does happen to be some debt pain then this debt pain will have be more intense then the pleasure offered by a tax cut.
If the majority of voters are made up of the how-much-a-month crowd then the pleasure offered by a tax cut is what you will end up with.
There’s a lot more than $500 mil in surplus projected for next year. All Scott is doing is rolling back the increases that Charlie Crist put in instead of making cuts. I think it’s a fine idea.
“The Governor is committed to returning $500 million to Florida families in this budget and we look forward to working with the Legislature to make this a reality,” Melissa Sellers said.
While I like the idea of returning surpluses to taxpayers (it’s mandatory here in the Centennial State) I wonder how much “relief” the average family will receive, vs. the 1%? Here in Colorado TABOR was written to insure that the middle class would receive the bulk of any TABOR mandated refunds.
Is it really a surplus if the state still has debt? I don’t think, if you owed $10,000 and had a $5,000 windfall, you’d consider that a surplus.
And the neat thing is, whether you’re a state or an individual, if you pay down debt, then your payments decrease. Theoretically, anyway.
If Scott paid down the debt, then it could follow that, for example, the Florida sales tax percentage could be decreased. Or other fees, like the annual auto reg fee, that’d be a relief.
Look at it the how-much-a-month way; if your debt payment is $100 a month and you get a $5,000 windfall, that is a $4,900 surplus. Use that as a downpayment on something really cool.
Unfortunately, Skye, that’s the way many people look at it. And that’s how they get into even more trouble, then later on sit gazing at their navels murmuring “wha’ hoppen?”
On a totally unrelated note, today the google ad placement algorithm is showing me an ad for the Thirty Seconds to Mars i-Tunes download. For once it came close to nailing it, I snuk a peek at the Closer to the Edge video last night. Don’t care much for the more recent work, though. Still, it beats the heck out of the real estate related ads.
I guess the algorithm gods haven’t yet figured out how to parlay an interest in Clovis, Kennewick and the Solutreans into a relevant ad. Spear points, anyone?
This reminded me of something I read this weekend. I have always wondered how all these twenty-somethings are not only affording $50k+ trucks, but the $15k in aftermarket parts, etc. they are dressing them up with. I happened upon a post on a forum where a guy was selling a 2012 diesel truck with around 10k miles on it and a ton of aftermarket stuff. The question was asked why somebody would be selling something so new and be taking over a $20k loss when you consider depreciation and aftermarket parts. The seller chimed in that he was 27 and was $600k in debt. That just blew my mind.
That is stunning. Incredulous.
This reminded me of something I read this weekend. I have always wondered how all these twenty-somethings are not only affording $50k+ trucks, but the $15k in aftermarket parts, etc.
Why would anyone want to hot rod a stupid truck? When you’re done it’s still a poor handling, ponderous truck.
For the same reason people want to dump good money after bad in a depreciating asset like a house….
Dumb. Borrowed. Money.
When you’re done, it’s still a depreciating, costly to maintain, money losing house.
Cool eh?
Why would anyone want to hot rod a stupid truck? When you’re done it’s still a poor handling, ponderous truck.
Sometimes the funnest hotrod is the one nobody expects…and that you get to drive every day.
Why would anyone want to hot rod a stupid truck? When you’re done it’s still a poor handling, ponderous truck.
I could care less about that. To each their own. I am just staggered by the debt people are carrying.
“..couldn’t care less..”
“For the same reason people want to dump good money after bad in a depreciating asset like a house…”
HA, haven’t you ever wanted to have friends over for a cup of tea and a baked treat so you can show-off your place full of nick-naks while your conquest (significant other) is at work?
Heh…… ironically, we are known as the “no stuff” couple. You won’t find nick nacks, junk or extras anywhere here.
“..couldn’t care less..”
thanks. If i caught your other post early enough my standard reply would be posted: If you could care less, why don’t you? Most people don’t respond…
Is it really a surplus if the state still has debt?
Agreed, the debt should be paid off first.
Gov. Scott cut millions from Florida’s environmental management agencies in the last few years. This should be a great opportunity for a free market solution right?
“A state agency charged with protecting water and wildlife is preparing for a $10.8 million cut for 2014 that will “severely reduce or eliminate scientific sampling that monitors state waters for dozens of species of harmful algae,” including Karenia brevis, the organism that causes red tide.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission met this week to plan for an expected 5 percent cut that would pull another $839,000, or about 50 percent of the funding for the harmful algal bloom program. That program monitors the Southwest Florida coast for events like red tide blooms (Karenia brevis), blue green (cyanobacteria), and an amalgamation of various species that contribute to what an Aug. 23 FWC report calls “superblooms.”
During a time when local business owners, politicians, tourists and residents are calling for more money to clean polluted waters in the Caloosahatchee River and along the coast, state agencies such as FWC are preparing for more budget cuts. Forty-two officer positions will likely be cut, with 35 of those being layoffs. More than $600,000 for Lake Okeechobee restoration work and $854,000 in manatee rehabilitation will be cut.”
http://www.news-press.com/article/20130907/NEWS0105/309070026/Water-quality-effort-would-undermined-by-budget-cuts
“The rush of fresh water, both from the lake and its own river basin, has had an immediate impact on the St. Lucie River estuary to the east. Life in and around it has come to a standstill this summer — one recent afternoon, boats could be tallied on one hand. Fishing piers sat forlorn. Any fish capable of swimming away have already done so. Salinity in the estuary is at zero percent, said Mr. Perry, of the Florida Oceanographic Society. The bay, which abuts picturesque downtown Stuart, is about as inviting as someone else’s filthy bath water.
“Advisory,” read the warning signs around the estuary. “High bacteria levels. Avoid contact with the water. Increased risk of illness at this time.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/us/lake-okeechobee-in-florida-a-polluted-bubble-ready-to-burst.html
Ok, it looks like the department got a budget cut, then decided internally that algae monitoring was the LEAST NECESSARY thing they did, and decided to cut it by HALF! In other words, lots of administrators who didn’t want to lose their slice of the pie doing cushy paperwork pushing jobs decided that instead of spreading a 5% cut around evenly, they would just axe algae monitoring.
So yes, the governmental bureaucracy in florida seems corrupt. Not very surprised. Not really a screw the environment spin for the government if the agency is the one deciding the cuts.
I agree. If we could just stop wasting money measuring stuff the problems will either disappear or fix themselves. Let’s do the same thing to the EPA, DoE and the Labor Dept. because they never have any good news to report anyway. Who wants to just hear gloom and doom stories while the stock market is at record levels anyway?
The typically liberal argument.
If you cut one inefficient bloated government program by even 5%…
Then we will end up like Somalia and have dirty air and starve kids and kick grandma in the street…
You must have thought I was joking, I’m not. Just get rid of all of them; EPA, FDA, DoE, HUD, Labor, Education, DoT, FCC, FAA, USDA… they are just puppets for corporate America anyway protecting their monopolies.
Hear no evil, see no evil. I’m so tied of all the bad news and scare stories.
“Then we will end up like Somalia and have dirty air and starve kids and kick grandma in the street…”
Don’t care if it rains or freezes as long as I have my plastic Jesus?
I don’t get it.
Does Edward Snowden have a personal drone kill list?
How many little brown children has he killed?
—————–
Edward Snowden nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
Politico - July 15, 2013
A Swedish sociology professor has nominated Edward Snowden for the Nobel Peace Prize, saying that awarding the former NSA employee would correct Nobel Committee’s mistake in giving the award to President Barack Obama in 2009.
According to a translation of the letter published by the Daily Mail and RT.com, Umeå University professor Stefan Svallfors wrote the committee that Snowden has made the world safer in releasing information about United States surveillance.
“Edward Snowden has - in a heroic effort at great personal cost - revealed the existence and extent of the surveillance, the U.S. government devotes electronic communications worldwide. By putting light on this monitoring program - conducted in contravention of national laws and international agreements - Edward Snowden has helped to make the world a little bit better and safer,” Svallfors wrote.
Referencing the Nuremberg trials of Nazis, Svallfors says following orders is not an excuse for acting against human rights and freedom, and he praised Snowden’s courage in leaking the information.
Svallfors also noted that Obama was a past recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, which he called a correctable mistake.
“The decision to award the 2013 prize to Edward Snowden would - in addition to being well justified in itself - also help to save the Nobel Peace Prize from the disrepute that incurred by the hasty and ill-conceived decision to award U.S. President Barack Obama 2009 award,” Svallfors said.
I like the idea. I’m all for it. Would be a stinging rebuke to Obama.
Svallfors also noted that Obama was a past recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, which he called a correctable mistake.
It seems that the Euros are wising up to the fact that Americans, whether Republicans or Democrats, are first and foremost Imperialists.
Depends on which Euros you’re talking about. The Eurocrooks don’t give a crap, they’re pretty much of the same stripe. The ivory tower beard-strokers are experiencing some dismay, however.
“The ivory tower beard-strokers…”
+1 I like your bad attitude!
ty,ty. However, I probably should have said “chin-strokers”, which would include the beared and the beardless. I don’t know what’s happened to the folks of good old Viking stock. They’ve gone completely milquetoast, at least the men have. Very little reaction when their women get bullied, raped, gang-banged or whatever by Muslim immigrant men. More hand-wringing and chin-stroking.
I don’t know what’s happened to the folks of good old Viking stock. They’ve gone completely milquetoast, at least the men have.
I predict that won’t last forever. Northern Europeans get so conflicted sometimes, but when they decide to kill people they’re really good at it.
How many of those European countries did not have their own run at Imperialism?
Maybe the Swedes are a bit embarrassed to be thought of as suffering from white guilt for giving our CINC the prize even before his first inauguration. Very presumptious. Maybe they want to restore a bit of respect to the prize?
Obama got the Nobel for having run the epic three-year campaign that culminated in the first African-American being elected to the White House– given America’s pre-eminence and founding doctrines, an historic achievement for people around the whole planet. It was also given to him for not being Bush or Clinton (or so they thought at the time).
The Peace Prize is a whole separate committee from the rest of the Nobel Prizes, and is awarded as a political statement and to encourage a more expansive world-view in the recipient’s home government. See: Henry Kissinger
Asset bubbles supporting a phony recovery work until they dont.
Amazingly, people not in the free sh*t army don’t like living under progressives and their forms of socialism…
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Right-to-Work States Attracting More Citizens, Wealth
CapCon | 9/3/2013 | Tom Gantert
Eight of the top 10 states that saw an increase in personal income from new people coming to those states were right-to-work states, according to an analysis done by the Tax Foundation.
Michigan lost $14.4 billion in personal income from 2000 to 2010 and was 45th overall. Michigan became a right-to-work state in March. Only Ohio (46th), New Jersey (47th), Illinois (48th), California (49th) and New York (50th) did worse. All six of the bottom states did not have right-to-work laws during those 10 years. New York lost $45.6 billion in personal income in that time period.
Florida did the best gaining $67.3 billion in that 10-year span.
Nick Kasprak, an analyst with the Tax Foundation, a nonpartisan tax research foundation based in Washington, D.C., said the analysis is based on the adjusted gross income from IRS 1040 forms. The study was not conducted specifically to address right-to-work versus non-right-to-work comparisons.
“People have hundreds of reasons for moving from place to place, including, but not limited to, home prices, jobs, the local economy, weather, taxes, relationships, whatever,” Kasprak said in an email.
“The big population growth is mostly occurring in the right-to-work states,” Grimes said in an email. “Economic theory supports right-to-work states out performance in terms of the number of jobs and the population; in terms of ‘earned income’ per person or per worker it is not as clear that right-to-work matters very much.”
Non-right-to-work states prosper when the companies have a monopoly whereas right-to-work states prosper in a more competitive world, Grimes said.
“That is why unions thrive when their employer is a monopolist like the teachers union and school districts, or electric utilities in the private sector, but they don’t do very well in organizing, or sustaining their membership in highly price competitive industries like grocery stores,” Grimes said.
States like Florida and Texas attract people not just because they are right-to-work states but they also have a low tax burden, Moody said. For example, Florida and Texas don’t have a personal income tax. Florida was ranked No. 1 in the survey; Texas was No. 3, adding $17.68 billion.
“The fact people are choosing those states is the ultimate expression of what economists call ‘revealed preference,’ ” Moody said. “Basically, you just watch what people do. Rather than hypothesis, you can sit back and watch people vote with their feet.”
“The fact that people are choosing those states is the ultimate expression of what economists call ‘revealed preference’.”
It depends on who is doing this choosing. If a company decides to move its work force to Texas (as the company I work for is doing) then the ‘revealed preference’ is revealed to be those who want to keep their job.
They do not choose to move to Texas but they do choose to keep their jobs, so Texas is where they end up - not by preference but by necessity.
These right-to-work states don’t have to convince employees that they should move there, they only have to convince those who run large companies that they should move there.
Move large companys there and the employees will follow.
And the incentive for a large company to move to a right-to-work-state is:
(drum roll)
It’s a right-to-work-state!
Power shifts to from the employee to the employer in such a state which adds to the incentive for an employer to want to move there.
Meanwhile, more people are on foodstamps in Texas than in California.
When I briefly lived in Texas what really stood out to me was the grinding poverty. It gave the place a 3rd World like feeling.
It gave the place a 3rd World like feeling.
Just what relocating businesses are looking for!
‘When I briefly lived in Texas’
What part of Texas was this?
Meanwhile, more people are on foodstamps in Texas than in California
———
Isn’t this a good thing, or are you only rah-rah lucky duckies in some abstract sense? The minute someone does something for them, you turn into 2Banana.
BTW, in absolute numbers, CA rules food stamps again:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324000704578386910572298122.html
But Texas has a higher percentage of residents than CA, but Oregon and NY have higher percentages than Texas on foodstamps.
Yay for helping people who are hungry out.
CA has way more people on welfare than TX. Yay for helping them out too. Texas should have more.
San Antonio.
Isn’t this a good thing
It’s good that they get the help they need, but bad that they need it in the first place.
In Colorado: That MUST be a mistaken/manipulated statistic. Last I saw, California housed over 1/3 of the entire nation’s welfare population. Also last i saw, some ridiculous % of the population was on food stamps.. something like 20-40% . I also just saw that labor participation rate is at it’s lowest level since 1970s something like 67%. Texas may be poor, but the whole nation is going the way of welfare/foodstamps, not just texas.
It gave the place a 3rd World like feeling.
Every city has a locality or two like that.
Texas may be poor, but the whole nation is going the way of welfare/foodstamps, not just texas.
Agreed, it’s what happens when you hollow out the economy. My original remark was a rebuttal to the assertion that “right to work” states are the land of milk and honey.
I visited my sis a few years ago in metro Dallas. We stopped by the local Walmart to pick up a few things and was surprised when on the way out they checked our shopping bags to see if they matched our receipt. That was a red flag for me, as I have never seen that done where I live.
‘San Antonio’
When I was a still a child I heard that from San Antonio south was northern Mexico. I got lost driving through there once and went through mile after mile of ghettos with bars on the windows. You can find some of that in any large Texas city, but it is bad in SA. The further south and west you go, the more it’s like Mexico. What are you supposed to do? It’s been that way for centuries.
I drove through West Texas once on interstate 10 with a detour to Big Bend, very empty place could go an hour without passing another car.
Park was nice.
So all these corporations are moving jobs to Texas for the same reasons that they move jobs to Mexico. And If other states want to prevent that job loss, they can make themselves more like Mexico.
Food stamps are great!
Except for the massive amount of fraud.
———————-
9 charged in $3M dollar food stamp fraud case
WPRI | Sept 5, 2013 | Dan McGowan & Time White
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Food stamp fraud is a “significant problem” in Rhode Island.
That was the message U.S. Attorney Peter Neronha sent Thursday when he announced that nine people are facing criminal charges for allegedly defrauding the federally funded Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program out of more than $3 million.
During a two-year undercover investigation, Neronha said eight Rhode Island residents and one New York man were found to be illegally allowing food stamp recipients to use their EBT cards to obtain cash in exchange for a large surcharge at five Providence convenience stores.
Six people were charged by way of indictment, including Mustafa Al Kabouni, 52, Cranston; Mohamad Barbour, 53, North Providence; Mohamad Amir Al Kabouni, 43; Mohamad Eid Al Kabouni, 22, Cranston; Amir Rasheed, 33, Flushing, NY; and Karuna Mehta, 43, North Smithfield.
‘moving jobs to Texas for the same reasons that they move jobs to Mexico’
If that’s true, why don’t they just move straight to Mexico?
‘And If other states want to prevent that job loss, they can make themselves more like Mexico’
Or just lower their taxes. It costs less to live in Texas so a dollar goes further. BTW, the reason parts of Texas are like Mexico is because Texas used to be part of Mexico. Add legal and illegal immigration and you get what it is today. There are also plenty of Texans of Mexican descent that have strong work ethics, dislike big government, etc.
If that’s true, why don’t they just move straight to Mexico?
I suspect that the main reason is that they need the experienced workforce that will move to Texas but can’t/won’t move to Mexico.
BTW, the reason parts of Texas are like Mexico is because Texas used to be part of Mexico.
That was a long time ago.
Mexico is a terrible place to do business. I can see you aren’t familiar with how Texas developed. San Antonio was a little village when the battle at the Alamo occurred. The Anglo/German population had been given land grants further north in what became New Braunfels, Austin, etc. Having been there a few generations, this area was not much like Mexico and isn’t today. Much of the towns from San Antonio south were more or less Mexican and are now distinctly south Texan. The closer you get to the border, the more influence there is.
Places like Dallas/Ft Worth are relatively new and are their own kinda Texas. Same with west Texas towns and cities.
Especially when the far left public union goon states destroy all their small businesses….
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Small Businesses Not Adding Workers Like They Used to
Wall Street Journal | 09/07/2013 | Kathleen Madigan
It’s well known that job growth has been lacking in this recovery. One reason for the disappointment is that small businesses aren’t adding workers like they used to.
Economists at Goldman Sachs explored the shift in hiring by business size using the Labor Department‘s Business Employment Dynamics survey. Although the BED data lag, the Goldman economists found small firms (defined as businesses employing less than 1-49 workers) have indeed underperformed medium and large companies whether underperform is defined as “a slower rate of job growth during the recovery relative to other firm size classes or a failure to regain the absolute magnitude of job losses incurred during the recession.”
What people who are not employers don’t realize is the amount of paperwork, regulation, and money it takes to hire someone. I promise opinions would change in a hurry if people could just see that.
As an employer, I’m not really interested in adding more employees anytime soon. Too much uncertainty to go through all of that paperwork and money just to have to let someone go later. I have a bigger burden and so do my employees as a result.
+1 Combo…Companies are driven by bottom line…In the current job environment, most will move…In many instances, they don’t have much of a choice…
If a company moves to Texas to save money on employees eventually they will move again to an even cheaper place like China.
The cheese is in motion ( from the incredibly stupid book “Who Moved my Cheese”)
I don’t understand the big deal about right to work states. There are unions in Texas. Texas is a low tax and relatively low cost of living place. The taxes are low because people there don’t like taxes. There have been many pushes for a state income tax and the people have always rejected it, last I heard. What’s wrong with that? It’s like Joe complaining about Houston and zoning; it’s called self determination and political independence.
One thing some probably don’t know is there is a strong work ethic in Texas. When I worked for a dotcom, we had employees in Austin and California. I’d call the California employees at 10 AM their time and they’d still be in bed. And they’d get pissed off that I had woke them up.
Who cares? I fail to see how it relates to housing.
I don’t understand the big deal about right to work states.”
I think its mostly for hourly workers.
One thing some probably don’t know is there is a strong work ethic in Texas.
But aren’t all the Texans from somewhere else? Ditto the Californians?
As for Californians not starting until 10AM, a lot of that has to do with avoiding rush hour. And it works the other way too. I knew people that started work at 5AM to beat the traffic.
I knew people that started work at 5AM to beat the traffic.
Me too. But it is true that you can’t schedule early meetings with the Californians (cue SNL music) even taking into account the time zones.
‘a lot of that has to do with avoiding rush hour’
I think in this case it was straws up their noses the night before.
No, the cost of doing business in China has increased dramatically because of inflation. Add the cost to managing a remote operation in another country on the other side of the Pacific, the cost and time delay for shipping goods, etc, and many businesses are bringing operations back to the states or Mexico from China.
Loan Size to Be Cut for Fannie, Freddie
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323893004579059392441311868.html
Look out below CA home debtors and Debt Donkeys.
“It would be counterproductive to make changes to the loan limits before private capital is fully engaged,” said Gary Thomas, president of the National Association of Realtors.
Looks like the NAR is the first to piss-n-moan.
There is nobody more corrupt than NAR. Nobody.
One of the issues I’ve had with NAR and some elements of the FIRE sector is that they hide how they are paid.
When I’m dealing with a car salesman, retail salesman, any other service provider - I know how they’re paid. Either directly or via a commission.
The NAR business model of having a salesperson listing the house and having the “field” salesperson bringing potential buyers to the house actively deceives the buyer. He thinks “his” realtor is working for him. And it is true that neither listing nor buyer agent gets paid till the buyer purchases the house. But the deception is this - the buyer’s agent’s interest and the buyer’s interests are not aligned. The buyer’s agent gets a commission based on the sale price of the house, as does the seller’s agent. They buyer’s interest is in a lower price but “his” agent and the seller’s agent get paid more on higher sales prices. So their interest is in a higher sales price.
And how often does a typical buyer purchase a house? A few times in a lifetime? The agents are doing this every day. So they have much more information and training in getting the buyer to do as they wish.
If this deceptive conflict of interest were fixed, I think there would be less skepticism of the NAR. I don’t know if this type of conflict of interest exists in any other profession.
Big yawn. There was an article out the other day about how jumbo loan rates were at or below conforming loan rates. Now accessibility might be different (making it harder to get a loan), making it harder to get that cheap debt…this is a good thing.
“Now accessibility might be different ”
Thats the point Rental Pimp.
It’s still a big yawn. Conforming debt limits haven’t slowed people buying above the limits. Only the very worst borrowers will be excluded. Again, this is a good thing.
And alot more borrowers will excluded as the limit gets lowered.
See? You really can catch the drift if you try.
Good news! Jumbo loans have lower rates now! At least last week they did.
Who cares when nobody can qualify for a non-GSE jumbo.
You mean the avg family doesn’t have 150k down pmt?!?
A Lesson from Australia: Republicans can learn from Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s campaign
National Review | 09/08/2013 | John O’Sullivan
Today’s edition of the Australian contains a brilliant analysis by the paper’s main political correspondents, Dennis Shanahan and Sid Maher, on how the campaigning strategy used by the Liberal party won Australia’s federal election for (now Prime Minister) Tony Abbott. It has all the marks of authoritative inside briefing.
That Abbott’s campaign was brilliant is not disputed by either Labour or the media. There’s a reasonable argument that the implosion of Labour’s campaign helped Abbott to a larger victory than he might otherwise have gained. But it is common currency that by the time the election was announced, Abbott was on course to win a substantial victory (almost) whatever happened.
That’s a big change from most of the past four years after Abbott became leader of his party by one vote. He was then regarded by his Labour opponents, by the country’s cultural establishment, and by most of the media as a primitive, radical, extreme, and unelectable right-winger. These forces kept up a steady drumbeat of hostile criticism along these same lines. Labour certainly believed its own propaganda; so did the media; and some of Abbott’s own party were at the very least spooked by it. Ruthlessly and unremittingly negative, it might have been inspired by the Tammany bon mot: “Say what you like about negative campaigning, at least it’s more honest than positive campaigning.” Most political consultants here and in Oz also think it’s more effective than positive campaigning.
Most conservative parties and leaders face something like the same negative cultural stereotyping as Abbott did. This undoubtedly puts them at a disadvantage and gives their opponents a leg-up in an election. The answer to it is neither to rage wildly against it nor to surrender nervously to it — a response that Australians call the “cultural cringe.” The first reaction makes voters nervous that the potential prime minister is too irresponsible or prejudiced to be trusted with the highest office; the second reaction makes even those being appeased contemptuous and dismissive. Even if such appeasement is rewarded electorally, it usually ensures that the incoming government will be too compromised by its concessions to achieve much in the way of conservative reform.
I’m sure that the GOP will nominate another unelectable Robber Baron or maybe a wild eyed Fundamentalist in 2016.
Something to keep in mind: what other countries call “right wing” by our standards would be “left wing”. For instance, Abbott is not calling for a repeal to Australia’s universal healthcare system.
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. controls most (over 2/3) of Australia’s news and media so it’s not quite right to claim the media was against Abbott. Other than that most of the facts are correct.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_Australia
Please also note PM Abbott is a big supporter of Obama’s plan to attack Syria.
But it is for the children!
————————
Tally in Illinois grant-fraud probe so far: 13 charged, $16M embezzled
ChicagoSun-Times | September 9, 2013 | CHRIS FUSCO
The U.S. attorney’s office in Springfield has been busy the past few years investigating a variety of fraud schemes involving state grants. Thirteen people have been charged so far, six who have pleaded guilty.
Two of them have ties to President Barack Obama. One is the daughter of his controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Another was chief of staff to Obama’s longtime friend Eric E. Whitaker when Whitaker was Illinois’ public health chief.
In all, prosecutors are alleging a total of $16 million in fraud involving state health or commerce department grants and contracts.
Here’s a brief look at each of the criminal cases that have been filed, which prosecutors built with help from the Chicago offices of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Internal Revenue Service, as well as from the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office’s inspector general:
Defendants: Margaret A. Davis and Tonja Cook, of the Chicago chapter of the National Black Nurses Association
“Fannie, Freddie Masking Billions Of Dollars In Losses: Internal Report”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/19/fannie-report_n_3779180.html
And when these corrupt organizations get shutdown, and they will, the allowable maximum amount available for an individual mortgage will shrink dramatically which will drive resale housing prices ever lower.
Look out below.
The former Inspector General for TARP just ca$hed in, big time:
http://jenner.com/people/NeilBarofsky
The buy-in for partnership at a firm like that is ~2.5-3MM. He got his for free. Probably a similar deal to what Tom Perrelli (former #2 at DOJ behind Eric Holder) got at the same firm last yr. Profits Per Partner at a firm like that are roughly $2MM/yr, meaning that an _average_ partner there rakes 2MM. People who come in from the top gov’t jobs often negotiate a better deal and they rake in higher fees anyway bc the banks line up to get “advice”.
Revolving door system… both parties are complicit in it… one moment these guys are regulating the Too Big To Fail banks, the next minute they are billing the banks $1000/hr (sometimes more) to advise them how to get around the regulations.
LOL, ‘murka.
You mean it is not for the children????
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/business/barofsky-tarps-watchdog-to-join-jenner-block.html?_r=1&
LOL @ our democracy.
The democrats will come after 401ks, IRAs and private pension plans in the not too distant future.
They will leave union pension plans alone.
The left sings all day there is no difference between a Mitt Romney or Barack Obama or a democrat or republican (specifically when obama and the democrats are in power).
But there are worlds of differences.
———————
Personal Retirement Accounts Are Great…
Townhall.com | September 9, 2013 | Daniel J. Mitchell
Most Western nations have huge long-run fiscal problems because of unfavorable demographics and misguided entitlement programs.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is that dozens of nations have fully or partially shifted to mandatory private savings as a pro-growth way of modernizing bankrupt tax-and-transfer Social Security systems.
But good news in the short run doesn’t mean good news in the long run if greedy politicians decide to loot the wealth accumulated in personal retirement accounts.
That’s already happened in Argentina and Hungary, and now it’s happened in Poland. Here’s part of a Financial Times report about the government stealing money from private pension funds.
“Poland’s government on Wednesday took an axe to part of the country’s pension system in a bid to bolster public finances. Premier Donald Tusk said that part of the country’s obligatory pension system run by private funds would be dramatically revamped, with 120bn zlotys ($37bn) in government bonds held by the 14 funds being transferred to the government pension scheme and cancelled… The funds will keep control of the 111bn zlotys they hold in equities and current benchmarks will be loosened. The funds will be banned from investing in more government debt. Tusk said that the millions of Poles currently enrolled in the privatised system would have the choice of staying in the scheme or of transferring their assets into the government-run pension system. Market reaction to the long anticipated move was negative. The Warsaw Stock Exchange, where the private funds, known as OFEs, have a big presence, was down by more than 2 per cent. Yields on 10-year Polish government bonds jumped to 4.75 per cent, the highest in a year.”
Here is some interesting polling data from an article on the political preferences of young Americans.
“51 percent of Millennials believe that when government runs something it is usually wasteful and inefficient, up from 31 percent in 2003 and 42 percent in 2009: “Hardly a ringing endorsement for a bigger government providing more services.” There’s more: 86 percent of Millennials support private Social Security accounts and 74 percent would change Medicare so people can buy private insurance. Sixty-three percent believe free trade is a good thing. Only 38 percent of Millennials support affirmative action.”
Wow, 86 percent of young people support personal retirement accounts. That’s very encouraging, particularly since the general population supports this pro-growth reform by a more-than 2-1 margin.
In December 2015 I can take most of my Roth IRA principle out. That’s about $191k. And I also stack movable, hide-able assets in the form of gold. I’ll risk my traditional 401k the way it is.
350,000 Debt Donkeys in Arizona Received $$$ To Throw Away On Underwater House
http://www.azcentral.com/business/realestate/articles/20130830arizona-families-housing-aid.html
Meaning there will be 350,000 defaults coming soon in AZ.
So much for organic housing growth.
More high tech whats going on ?
(Reuters) - Molex Inc, a maker of electronic connectors and cable assembly products, said privately owned energy and chemicals conglomerate Koch Industries will buy it for about $7.2 billion.
The deal for $38.50 per share in cash represents a 42 percent premium on average to the Friday closing prices of Molex’s two classes of publicly traded shares, Molex said.
Molex will become a standalone unit of Koch Industries and will continue to be run by the company’s current management.
Koch Industries, which owns brands such as Brawny paper towels and Dixie Cups, is controlled by brothers Charles and David Koch, two of the world’s richest men.
William Blair & Co and BDT & Co are financial advisers to Molex, while Goldman, Sachs & Co provided a fairness opinion and other financial advice, the company said.
(Reporting by Bijoy Koyitty in Bangalore; Editing by Maju Samuel)
..
Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.
Hmmm…Molex might be able to temporarily bring tech production to its knees if it wanted to…I assume there is always a second source, but they make a ton of the connectors that make everything work.
More conservative wins…
More private health care and less immigrants?
But diversity is our strength…
—————————–
Norwegians vote; shift to the right seen as likely
Associated Press | Sep 9, 2013 9:58 AM EDT | Nils Mylkebost and Malin Rising
Norwegians cast ballots Monday in a parliamentary election that could see the power in the oil-rich nation shift for the first time since 2005 to a center-right coalition, including an anti-immigration party.
Despite Norway’s strong economy and low unemployment, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s center-left coalition has been trailing in opinion polls for months. The Conservative Party, headed by Erna Solberg, has seen a surge in support amid pledges to increase the availability of private health care and cut taxes on assets over $140,000.
The conservatives have said, for the first time, that they are prepared to form a coalition government with the anti-immigration Progress Party, which appears to have lost support since 2009 but is still the third largest party in Norway.
pledges to increase the availability of private health care
Doesn’t sound very “free-market” to me…
I’m pretty sure Norwegian conservatives are to the left of US Democrats.
Again….
Why is the government directly involved with driving housing prices to unaffordable levels under the guise of helpfulness?
Answer: Consider the low interest rates of these days a trap. The ones who take out ARMs will fall into the debt trap. the feds want more and more people in debt and hope the same people beg for mercy (and bigger government).
Home values rise(not really), but millions still drown in debt
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100995592
continues to hamper the housing recovery.
Who else cringes natively when you hear the term “housing recovery”?
Just use the correct definition.
“A housing recovery is falling housing prices to dramatically lower and more affordable levels by definition.”
Wake up because rebubble 2.0 collapsed.
A bubble has not “collapsed” when no one around you even admits that a bubble exists. None of the people that I’ve discussed housing with seem to believe that there is a re-bubble at this moment, though many now casually use the term “housing bubble” when discussing 2007.
“Rising mortgage rates probably won’t slow the housing recovery because new families are being created and homes are still affordable, Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) Chief Financial Officer Tim Sloan said.
“We don’t believe that the recent increases in mortgage rates are going to in any way, shape or form snuff out the housing recovery,” Sloan said today at an investor conference in New York. “When you look at any sort of statistics in the demographics in terms of household creation as well as household affordability, they are still very attractive and should drive a continued recovery in the housing business.”
Gotta love the bankers…..say anything to make a buck!
Full article:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-09/wells-fargo-says-rising-rates-won-t-snuff-out-housing-recovery.html?cmpid=yhoo
Hmmm…..
Wells Fargo’s CFO sees drop in mortgage business
Wells Fargo sees noticeable decline in its mortgage business, due to higher interest rates
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/wells-fargos-cfo-sees-drop-162834679.html
Syria:
u.s.a. says he wants Syria to turn over control of its chemical weapons.
russia says it will put forth a plan for syria to put its chemical weapons under international control.
syria accepts russian proposla.
u.s.a. now says it’s not good enough with Susan Rice upping the warmongering rhetoric.
why does this president seem to be hell bent on starting WWIII? this is frggin’ nuts!
no congressional approval…no UN…no middle east coalition.
one could say this is inentional distracton and obama will soon back down…but uniting Russian and Chinese against us…plus destroying our international credibility is a huge price to pay for some political distraction.
why does this president seem to be hell bent on starting WWIII? this is frggin’ nuts!
It makes one wonder what is behind all this.
1. get Iran.
2. Qatar and Saudi - oil and gas pipelines.
3. Petrodollar Hegemony
4. Israel.
5. just some imbicile president who doesn’t want to look bad.
6. proxy war with Russia
something or someone is pulling the strings. this is not about an alleged gas attack a civilians. an attack that i think obama himself has said is only 95% sure it was Assad and whose on intelligence agency says there is no smoking gun.
no one i talk even knows about all the interest involved…it’s mind boggling.
Move #4 to #1 and I think you about have it right.
Also #3 is tied to the US bond market now so the Petrodollar might not be as important anymore. Have you noticed how many nations have signed bi-lateral currency agreements in the last few years; ChinaRussia, ChinaVenezuela, JapanChina.
“Also #3 is tied to the US bond market now so the Petrodollar might not be as important anymore. ”
i was thinking about that too…why risk a proxy war with russia/china to save the petrodllar when all they need to do is dump their treasuries.
Saw an article recently that discussed German spy agency communication intercepts from Syria. Syrian army field commanders repeatedly asked higher command for permission to use chemical agents against insurgents. Those requests were always denied by higher ups in Damascus.
The thinking now is that either field commanders took matters into their own hands and used chemical agents on their own, in violation of standing orders with Damascus, or it was FSA insurgents creating a “False Flag” chemical attack to broaden the war and incite Western governments to intervene more actively.
I wouldn’t put it past Syria to “leak” these intercepts as proof the government was not using chemical agents, but which is more likely given the Saudi/Qatari/US push for intervention?
1. Rogue field commanders using chemical agents against orders.
2. Saudi-backed Al Qaeda extremists using chemical agents to create an excuse for active Western intervention.
3. Syrian government dis-information campaign to cover the use of chemical agents against the FSA and civilians.
Here’s a conspiracy theory:
We’ve got all the oil we need now with fracking, so we can GTFO of the Mideast. But as we go, we start some civil wars within their major countries (Iraq, Syria, Egypt, maybe Iran and Turkey) and within their religion (shiite vs sunni).
Keep ‘em off our back and fighting amongst themselves for the next century or three. And make our oil more valuable when they blow up their own oil fields and mine their own straits.
“no one i talk even knows about all the interest involved…it’s mind boggling.”
Deep down they know, but their pastor has herded them well, and they’re just not ready for discovery.
Still standing his ground! Maybe he was enjoying some purple drank?
George Zimmerman’s Wife on 911 Tape: ‘I Am Really, Really Scared’
abcnews
George Zimmerman punched his father-in-law in the nose and threatened to shoot him and his wife, according to 911 tapes of a domestic incident today.
Zimmerman, acquitted in July of the murder of teenager Trayvon Martin, was handcuffed and detained and is being questioned by police in Lake Mary, Fla., according to Lake Mary Police Chief Steve Bracknell. He has not been charged because his wife refused to press charges or give police a sworn statement.
Shellie Zimmerman called 911 shortly after 2 p.m. today and reported that her husband assaulted her father, Colin Morgan, and was waving a gun around and threatening her and her relatives, according to police in Lake Mary, Fla.
In the 911 call, Shellie Zimmerman tells a dispatcher that her husband was in his car raging, adding “he continually has his hand on his gun and he says step closer…” When Shellie Zimmerman trails off the dispatcher asks “step closer and what?” to which Shellie responds “a Step closer and he’d shoot us.”
Just stop it!! There is no way this man could have a mean bone in his body. Here are 327+ reasons why poor George Zimmerman is being harassed by his ex-wife.
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2013/09/09/breaking-george-zimmerman-arrested/
Let’s see if we can get a Zimmerman for Congress movement started. Are all you guys with me?
Are all you guys with me?
Yes! It’s perfectly normal to have one gun-related violent incident a year.
Besides, he was clearly defending his Constitutional right to control his women-folk.
Housing Bubble Is Re-inflating
BY Richard Suttmeier | 09/09/13 - 10:54 AM EDT
NEW YORK (TheStreet) — Homebuilder stocks were the market leaders until May 20 when the PHLX Housing Sector Index (HGX) (170.76) peaked at 210.01, up 22.6% year-to-date at that time. The index set a 2013 low at 164.03 on Aug. 15, down 4.2% on the year and down 21.9% from the May 20 high. The index is now down just fractionally on the year.
As the homebuilders rallied into May, my recommended strategy was to book profits on strength as these stocks became extremely overvalued. On May 17, two days before the housing index peaked I wrote, Homebuilders Downgrades Continue. With the builders at or near multiyear highs booking profits was the prudent strategy for investors.
I live and work in Tampa, and Florida leads the nation in all-cash home sales at 66% of sales last month. The buyers are investors who convert homes to rental properties, foreign buyers and folks buying vacation homes. This is shutting out entry-level homebuyers, who have difficulty getting approved for mortgages.
…
when QE 4 is announced they will expand the bond buying program and get yields back down so people can buy more of a house and banks can continue to liquidate their homes.
‘when QE 4 is announced’
The Fed is making it clear to everyone QE is ending soon. Bet otherwise if you want.
you know its hogwash. some event will come up and it will continue.
I realize you don’t pay attention to my posts, but here’s my opinion. The 14 or so central banks that have been doing this for years have caused imbalances all around the world. Currencies, stocks, bonds and real estate. Risk was distorted and people dived in. Now, in typical style, they are closing the barn door too late. But they can see it must be closed.
Akron mayor foreclosed on, says he wasn’t notified.
Probably because he isn’t on speaking terms with his ex-girlfriend & co-owner.