Bits Bucket for October 19, 2013
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
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Comment by azdude02
2013-10-18 07:52:04
what is the difference between money and currency?
fungibility.
Meaning that “money” (e.g. Bitcoin) is relatively more fungible (substitutible) than currency?
bitcoin is a currency, not money. it isn’t a commonly used currency, like the dollar. but it is a currency.
[Medieval Latin fungibilis, from Latin fung (vice), to perform (in place of).]
So i think we understand currency now. I guess in your mind u know with currency there isn’t really a difference from one bill to the next. Like flour is flour, pretty much all the same. I guess it would be exchangeable with a foreign currency too.
There must be a subtle difference with money. Money seems to be the storage of wealth. You might have all the wealth in the world but how do you transfer it? you might say well i’m rich. Well then Another person might say prove it. How do you buy goods or services? You need someway to transfer that wealth (money) to someone else in a widely accepted manner. you might have some other possession or service to offer but no wants it. Currency makes it easier and more efficient to do business.
guess in your mind u know with currency there isn’t really a difference from one bill to the next.
much more expansive than that.
There must be a subtle difference with money.
the difference isn’t really all that subtle. it’s just that people have used the two interchangeably for so long that they have forgotten the difference.
Money seems to be the storage of wealth.
it is currency that is supposed to serve that function.
How do you buy goods or services?
with currency, as most transactions are technically moneyless.
You need someway to transfer that wealth (money) to someone else in a widely accepted manner.
wealth isn’t money or currency. your wealth is what you are able to save that has value. wealth can, however, be expressed as a currency or in other ways.
Currency makes it easier and more efficient to do business.
that’s the purpose of a good currency. it has certain properties that enable it to do so.
could it be that money has intrinsic value?
Technically currency in itself is for the most part paper and its only real value is in what the next person believes it has.
Money in itself has other properties that could serve other purposes besides a transfer?
could it be that money has intrinsic value?
money has value, but i wouldn’t call it intrinsic. currencies have value either intrinsically or extrinsically (fiat).
Technically currency in itself is for the most part paper
currency can be just about anything.
its only real value is in what the next person believes it has.
true for extrinsically valued currencies.
Money in itself has other properties that could serve other purposes besides a transfer?
value is the most important property of currency. the store of its value and the ease of exchange, are the most important properties of a currency.
i meant to say “value is the most important property of MONEY”. sorry for the mistake.
well lets keep this going.
could it have to do with who says its ok to use it?
The govt says it ok to use its currency so it becomes the norm?
whereas money could technically be issued by anyone?
could it have to do with who says its ok to use it?
true for extrinsically valued currencies, but not true for intrinsically valued currencies and money.
The govt says it ok to use its currency so it becomes the norm?
yes, but then they usually destroy it through incompetence or outright criminality. too bad because fiat currencies could be the best of all currencies if they were run right and had a free market economy to work in..
whereas money could technically be issued by anyone?
now you’re getting it. but money isn’t really “issued”. another subtlety.
well I’ve got to step away for a bit but will think on it.
Could money be related to how you feel in regards to trying to trying to make value equivalent?
Could money be related to how you feel in regards to trying to trying to make value equivalent?
no.
remember your original question and my answer? fungibility. you should think on that.
which is more fungible, money or currency?
How about providing an example of money which isn’t a currency so those of us who are clueless can get a clue about your point?
examples are mostly useless. you have to have a good understanding of money and currency to see the difference in them.
it’s like the words pronunciate and enunciate. knowing the difference won’t make much difference in day to day conversation. one only learns the difference when it becomes important for some reason.
dictionaries won’t be of much help learning the difference between money and currency either. you have to know fundamentally what they are in order to see it.
Hah! I’m assuming that was sarcasm?
“examples are mostly useless. you have to have a good understanding of money and currency to see the difference in them.”
Your posts are mostly a useless waste of blog bandwidth.
Your posts are mostly a useless waste of blog bandwidth.
to the ignorant they are. get yourself firefox and put me on ignore.
I wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to point out how asinine your posts are.
quite a feat for someone who doesn’t even understand them.
Try not to overestimate your communication skills.
try not to over estimate your intelligence.
I’m at least smart enough to realize that money and currency are not mutually exclusive concepts.
Let’s clear this up and move on.
mon·ey
noun, often attributive \ˈmə-nē\
: something (such as coins or bills) used as a way to pay for goods and services and to pay people for their work
: a person’s wealth : the money that a person has
====================================================
cur·ren·cy
noun \ˈkər-ən(t)-sē, ˈkə-rən(t)-\
: the money that a country uses : a specific kind of money
: something that is used as money
: the quality or state of being used or accepted by many people
Those two definitions make sense. Although I never thought of money as wealth. It implies that, say, your stock index funds’ value is considered money. Interesting. But I do not say to anyone who can trace my address what my net worth is. Not in this era of envy where people hate those who did well with their investing.
Whatever it is, I want more of it.
What’s neat about being a banker is all I have to do to make money is to somehow find a way to insert my bank in the middle of a financial transaction in such a way that my bank (and I) will end up getting a cut from both ends of the transaction. If I can cleverly do this then few people will take notice, in fact if I am clever enough most people will thank me.
Life is good.
Mr. Banker…
Please explain how you profit from mortgages.
Thank you,
Housing Analyst
I profit with mortgages by convincing home buyers to send me large chunks of their paychecks to me every thirty days or so for thirty years.
If I can convince them to modify the terms so as I get more money every thirty days for longer than thirty years then that’s even better.
Best of all: Convince the homebuyer to send me as much money AS HE POSSIBLY CAN every thirty days for as long as he can then wait until such a time comes whereas he can no longer do so then foreclose on his sorry ass and toss him and his family out into the street. I will end up with years of thirty-day payments PLUS I will end up with the house.
“I will end up with years of thirty-day payments PLUS I will end up with the house.”
That’s the way to do it. If you can get the homeowner to cough up 29 years and 11 months of payments, encouraging him along the way to take cash-out financing so that he is hopelessly underwater at the point when the loan should be fully amortized, then cook up a financial crisis which results in him losing his job and the ability to pay off the loan, resulting in default and giving you the right to foreclose whenever you feel the urge, you have optimized the value of that mortgage loan!
P.S. For good measure, make sure the loan comes with a federal guarantee of principle, so that you not only get back the house but you also get made whole on the payments that were never made.
so that you not only get back the house but you also get made whole on the payments that were never made.
I don’t think that is factually accurate, PB.
The loanholder gets made whole on the principal, yes—but their loss on the principal depends on what they sell the house for after foreclosure. If they get made whole on the loan by the sale of the collateral, then there is no federal guarantee needed.
Plus I don’t think the banks are ever actually holding the federally-guaranteed loans on their books; I believe the federal guarantee is attached to the loan by Fannie/Freddie, when they bundle and securitize it. So the mortgages in the MBS trust pool have the guarantee, not random loans held by the banks.
Loss on the principal depends on what they sell the house for
It’s a loss even it the bank didn’t foreclose.
Do you really think you’re going to break even if you paid 1998-current prices? Seriously? And then double that loss when interest costs are included?
Housing is a horrible horrible loss.
I hope Mr. Banker is just a HBB nom de plume and not connected. I’ve heard enough about muppets and don’t need to be reminded.
Yeah, but a lot of other people need to be reminded a lot more.
We are muppets.
More gold bullion would be nice! At some point, perhaps $6 million, one can have enough assets to have several world addresses to diversify his own personal liberty. In case in any one, everything goes to hell in a hand basket, he can always go to another of his addresses. Having several world havens is the ultimate in individual liberty and the ultimate one fingered salute to those who think his wealth should be voted away at gunpoint, even though he worked hard to get his success.
Money is legal. Currency may or may not be.
keep pickn strawberries.
This sounds like one of those questions internet crank money gurus ask their followers, as if it holds the key to some bit of wisdom that only they can understand.
Here is the real answer: Who cares? The answer does not matter a plug nickel.
the answer could save your @ss someday. every bit of knowledge you have going into a deal makes you stronger.
the answer could save your @ss someday. every bit of knowledge you have going into a deal makes you stronger.
you will not change the mind of someone that doesn’t care to know..
Okay,I want to know, explain it to me.
“Okay,I want to know, explain it to me.”
Fuggetaboutit. tj couldn’t explain 1+1=2.
“what is the difference between money and currency?”
Like the difference between a fish and a fishing pole?
Either way, if you owe it, you will live a life of quiet desperation.
And you will go to the grave with the song still in you.
Many people where I rented in L.A. drive high end cars. Are they happy? Is the pretense to have money worth the envious looks from debt-free Toyota drivers?
A former colleague told me of an engineer he knew, had a Mercedes Benz. While driving home to his gated Manhattan Beach place, he noticed he was being followed. The car that followed did not go into the gate -it is guarded. After that, his friend got rid of the Mercedes Benz and bought an average car.
Better to wear faded blue jeans in this envious society and blend in.
Quiet desperation is the English way, not mine
good thinking. you’re close.
Let’s see if I can get close to what you’re thinking: money is an abstract concept related to transferrable value (ie. capital), and currency is a legal representation of money?
So, a certain amount of money can be exchanged for, say a lemon (sorry, daughter watching “Strawberry Shortcake”), and how much of each currency gets you that lemon depends on the exchange rate between the different currencies (based on the strength of the entity that is issuing the currency, and the amount of currency in existence)?
I guess I would say that currency is more fungible than money: you can interchange lots of currencies to get what you need, but you need the same amount of money to get that lemon. And the more currency an issuer prints, the lower the value of that particular currency relative to other currencies, but you still need the same amount of money to get your lemon.
Did I pass the test? I’m hoping I at least got a “B”…
Why would anyone brag about getting a “B” in Professor T.J. Dumbscheisst’s course in financial obfuscation?
Why would anyone brag about getting a “B” in Professor T.J. Dumbscheisst’s course in financial obfuscation?
Choose your own favorite response:
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-03-02 12:00:05
Ad hominem attacks are a time-tested propaganda tool…
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb Thrower™
2013-02-23 15:13:11
I guess hoping for a rational answer from a died-in-the-wool…
Comment by Cantankerous Intellectual Bomb-thrower
2010-08-18 07:34:44
…I suggest that you and Eddie step outside, roll up your sleeves, and settle this like men. The rest of us have a housing bust to discuss.
money is an abstract concept related to transferrable value (ie. capital), and currency is a legal representation of money?
drop the word ‘legal’ and you’ve got it.
So, a certain amount of money can be exchanged for, say a lemon (sorry, daughter watching “Strawberry Shortcake”), and how much of each currency gets you that lemon depends on the exchange rate between the different currencies (based on the strength of the entity that is issuing the currency, and the amount of currency in existence)?
no, all that is only about currency.
I guess I would say that currency is more fungible than money:
yes, much more fungible than money.
you can interchange lots of currencies to get what you need, but you need the same amount of money to get that lemon.
yes, that’s the idea. money for money is a difficult exchange.
And the more currency an issuer prints, the lower the value of that particular currency relative to other currencies,
that can be the case, as zimbabwe has proven. but that isn’t why our currency is losing value. our currency loses value for a different reason than ‘printing’.
but you still need the same amount of money to get your lemon.
in principle yes, although there is still a little more to it. everything is still a negotiation so it will still depend on what you can negotiate. but you’ve got the idea.
MikeMcAnus the realtor is involved in this conversation? A realtor? Seriously?
“MikeMcAnus the realtor…”
You’ll notice he didn’t bother weighing in on professor tj’s nonsensical posts on the nonexistent distinction between money and currency but instead piled onto tj’s ad hominem attacks against my attempts to expose his nonsense.
True to form for a Realtor®…
Said another way tj, without the concept of money, there would be no need for currency. And without the concept of money and therefore the existence of currency, the only way services/goods would be exchanged is through barter.
The concept of money (and the existence of currency), is the oil in the machine.
Said another way tj, without the concept of money, there would be no need for currency.
without money there could be no fiat currency because money is what gives currency value.
And without the concept of money and therefore the existence of currency, the only way services/goods would be exchanged is through barter.
barter and sometimes money for money which has very low fungibility.
The concept of money (and the existence of currency), is the oil in the machine.
yes, it makes transactions much more efficient.
True to form for a Realtor®…
They’re hopeless and helpless liars who can’t perform any useful function.
GOLD!!!!!????? (D’oh!)
India’s Gold Bullion Refineries “Near Closure” After Huge Investment
Monday, 10/14/2013 09:24
Gold bullion imports & scrap flows collapse, leaving refiners at start-2012 capacity use after $350m investment…
GOLD BULLION refining in India, the world’s heaviest end-buyer of physical gold, is running at only 25% of capacity according to industry data.
The same percentage of gold refining capacity as India’s industry reported in early 2012, this level of gold bullion refining now threatens to shut major plants, senior figures warn. Because after encouraging a swathe of new investment and capacity over the last two years, the government has imposed such strict anti-import measures in 2013 that the whole industry is suffering a lack of supply, whether of bullion, mined dore, or scrap jewelry.
Falling gold prices in India have also crimped local supplies of so-called “scrap” gold for recycling.
“Gold refineries are on the verge of closure due to non-availability of used jewelry,” the Business Standard quotes Harmesh Arora, managing director of NIBR Bullion. “Melting of jewelry scrap to convert into 24-carat gold has become a loss-making process and operational capacity has declined to an alarmingly low level.”
Gold imports to India fell to 6.7 tonnes in September, reckons French investment bank and bullion dealers Natixis, “well below the 69 tonnes imported during that month last year.”
…
Am I getting close?
Business
Gold Drop Uncovers Miners’ Debt Woes
Updated June 28, 2013 7:52 p.m. ET
The recent plunge in the price of gold is exposing the large debt loads that big gold miners, such as Barrick Gold Corp., took on during the boom years.
Gold miners are scrambling to cut costs, sell assets and shore up finances, as credit-rating services talk of debt downgrades that threaten to add to the already increasing costs of future borrowing.
In the second quarter, the price of gold posted its largest quarterly decline since the start of modern gold trading. Gold fell 23% in the period to close at $1,223.80 a troy ounce on Friday. Already, the price of gold doesn’t cover the overall costs of many gold miners. Plummeting share prices have made financing the shortfall through equity markets hard.
“If prices below $1,300 are sustained for more than two quarters, without significant changes to spending, I would expect we could see ratings downgrades,” said Donald Marleau, an analyst at Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services.
…
Gold is the only true money. Buy now, or get priced out forever!
Analysis: Lurching gold prices mystify traders, undermine confidence
By Frank Tang
NEW YORK | Fri Oct 18, 2013 12:21am EDT
Jewelry made from gold is laid out at Zorka, a jewelry factory, in Minsk April 26, 2012. REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko
(Reuters) - In the early hours of the New York morning on Thursday, when scarcely a few hundred lots of gold futures are usually traded, a wave of buy orders worth over $2.3 billion surged into the market.
Prices soared 3 percent in just 10 minutes, setting the tone for the next 12 hours of trade - and puzzling many traders and investors who have been rattled by a series of similarly abrupt, and largely unexplained, trade surges over the past two weeks.
While sudden swings in the price of gold are nothing new, the usual causes - a shock in economic data or a “fat finger” erroneous trade - don’t seem to fit. While the U.S. dollar had also tumbled on Thursday, bullion’s move was far more extreme.
Some are pointing at spin offs from today’s predominantly 24-hour electronic trading, with a far smaller number of market makers on the trading floor to match orders and provide liquidity.
The half-dozen mammoth orders whipsawed prices and disrupted trade in the CME Group’s (CME.O) Comex futures, a market already edgy about bullion’s fading safe-haven appeal and its lackluster performance during the U.S. budget impasse.
“What’s unusual about these moves is the price stays at a new level so that suggests it’s a natural buyer or seller,” Chris Concannon, executive VP of New York-based electronic trader Virtu Financial.
“This is moving to and setting a new price level, so it can only be done by someone who’s buying or selling substantial amounts and then holding.”
…
Gold price at two thirds of its all time high waits watchfully while stocks are at their all time high. The wolves outnumber the sheep. The agents of the wolves have direct access to our electronic accounts, thanks to brokerages sending in 1099s to the IRS.
The higher the amount of assets in stocks and stock funds, the more the wolves drool.
Gold bullion. The movable, hidable money!
There. Gold is money!
Questions for tj:
1) How much gold do you have to sell?
2) How far underwater are you on your holdings?
question for whacked out..
have you stopped beating your wife?
“have you stopped beating your wife?”
Touched a nerve, eh?
Keep up the propaganda strawman blather, tj, it greatly increases the quality of the discussion here. And maybe, just maybe, you will increase your gold bug cult following and find some greater fools on whom to unload some of your holdings.
Keep up the propaganda strawman blather
where’s the propaganda? where’s the strawman? someone asked a question and i answered. the only strawmen are in your childish attacks, i just answered them in kind.
it greatly increases the quality of the discussion here.
the quality was fine until you entered the scene.
And maybe, just maybe, you will increase your gold bug cult following
i haven’t been pumping gold.
and find some greater fools on whom to unload some of your holdings.
i’ve only mentioned one of my holdings in the years i’ve been here. and it’s above where i mentioned it, and i’ll be holding til the buyout. check back then bright boy.
“check back then bright boy.”
I look forward to your further illuminating posts, mystery man.
Is a one-month jump in home sales of 34 percent into September fairly typical?
yes didnt you hear yellen was entering the game?
See the post immediately below on the 34 percent in China home sales from August through September this year.
Sounds like they are nearing an epic bubble peak.
China Housing Sales Jump as Demand Defies Government Curbs
By Bloomberg News - Oct 18, 2013 2:45 AM PT
China’s home sales jumped 34 percent in September from the previous month, as the government refrained from adding to property curbs, emboldening buyers.
The value of homes sold climbed to 691.1 billion yuan ($113 billion) last month from 514.6 billion yuan in August, based on the difference between the National Bureau of Statistics data for the first three quarters of the year and the first eight months. Housing sales in the first nine months surged 34.5 percent to 4.54 trillion yuan from a year earlier, according to the data.
The government in March stepped up a three-year campaign to cool the housing market by ordering the central bank to raise down-payment requirements for second mortgages in cities with excessive cost gains. Some Chinese cities are facing increasing pressure to meet the annual home-price targets they set earlier this year, and to cap gains at the growth rate of local disposable incomes.
“Home sales have been gathering pace since the end of August after banks loosened lending” as the government tried to stem an economic slowdown, Luo Yu, a Shanghai-based analyst at advisory CEBM Group, said by phone. “Buying demand remains strong although more people are taking to the sidelines” after prices surged.
…
This bubble is gonna blow any day now!
Markets More: Features China Ghost Cities
2 Years After That Famous Report On Chinese Ghost Cities, Things Might Be Getting Even Worse
Mamta Badkar Sep. 19, 2013, 1:51 PM 871,571
China’s ambitious urbanization plan has helped create many ghost cities.
Two years after visiting some of China’s most infamous ghost cities and malls, Australian reporter Adrian Brown revisited them for SBS Dateline, to see if they had changed.
His tour of Tianducheng, the Paris replica that we reported on; the South China Mall; and Kangbashi in Ordos, China’s most famous ghost city, showed that they were still empty.
Tom Miller, a Chinese urbanization expert told Brown, it’s as though Chinese officials “basically draw a circle on a map and they build it, and then they expect people to go and move in.” The “gamble” is that cities might be empty now, but they will be filled up later, an argument Stephen Roach has previously made.
While some argue that this is symptomatic of a massive property bubble in China, this really shows the presence on individual property bubbles across China.
Click here to visit the ghost cities »
Is the Fed taper on or off the table? It seems to be the only factor investors care about these days.
Dollar Reaches Eight-Month Low Amid Bets Amid Bets on Fed
By Andrea Wong - Oct 18, 2013 2:13 PM PT
The dollar touched the lowest level in eight months against a basket of 10 major peers on concern political wrangling over the U.S. debt limit disrupted growth and will prompt the Federal Reserve to delay tapering stimulus.
The greenback had its biggest weekly drop in a month versus the euro after a deal in Congress this week ended a government shutdown and averted a potential default. Australia’s dollar and South Korea’s won gained as demand for higher-yielding assets rose amid data showing China’s economic growth quickened and a survey that forecast the Fed will delay slowing bond purchases until March. Carry trades rebounded amid lower volatility.
“You have this disruption, and it looks like there’ll be no Fed tapering this quarter,” Greg Anderson, New York-based head of global foreign-exchange strategy at Bank of Montreal, said in a phone interview. While the euro rallied versus the dollar over the past two days, “it’s Friday, looks like we ran out of steam.”
…
Is this even a question whether the fed will taper? The answer is clear, no they will not. What they will do is pump, pump, pump. They may talk otherwise, but they won’t ever pull away the punchbowl. In fact, they will begin further spiking soon.
“The answer is clear, no they will not. What they will do is pump, pump, pump.”
My read of the Fed’s rhetoric is that the taper is still on the table, but will not start until the labor market has sufficiently recovered, by their estimation.
Heard on the Street
Shutting the Fed’s Taper Plans
The Uncertainty the Government Shutdown and Budget Fight Have Injected Into the Economic Outlook Means a Delay in Winding Down Its Bond-Buying Program
By Justin Lahart
Oct. 16, 2013 3:51 p.m. ET
There will be no tapering over the months of uncertainty the Federal Reserve faces after Washington’s budget fight.
Economists are hopeful Washington’s shenanigans of the past few weeks have landed no more than a glancing blow on the U.S. economy. But hopeful isn’t the same as confident.
Enlarge Image
The direct economic effects of the government shutdown will likely be small. Assuming it ends by the weekend, it would shave about 0.3 percentage point off fourth-quarter gross domestic product growth, with much of the losses regained in the first quarter, estimates Joel Prakken of forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers.
Harder to know is how lost confidence has affected the economy, and to what degree its effects are temporary. Economists won’t have any real sense of that until December, when data from how the economy fared in November start filtering in.
If the numbers look good, Fed policy makers at their December meeting might feel justified in scaling back the central bank’s bond-buying program. But that would ignore one crucial consideration: With the budget deal funding federal agencies only through Jan. 15, and raising the debt ceiling only through Feb. 7, another battle could be brewing.
The Fed will probably want to avoid doing anything to discomfit markets until the risk of another showdown has passed. That pushes the likely timing for starting the tapering process to the Fed’s March meeting—the first that Janet Yellen, if she is confirmed as Fed chief, will preside over.
With the Fed buying $85 billion in Treasurys and mortgage bonds a month, by that point the Fed’s balance sheet will have grown to about $4.2 trillion, from the current $3.8 trillion or so.
Letting the bond-buying program continue at full tilt is, from the Fed’s perspective, hardly ideal. The policy-setting committee’s decision last month against cutting back purchases was a close one. One worry is that the longer the program is kept in place, the more it stokes a rush for high-yielding assets among investors. Another is that the larger the Fed’s balance sheet gets, the longer it will take to dial it back down.
…
Treasuries Gain on Bets Fed Maintains Stimulus After Shutdown
By Susanne Walker - Oct 18, 2013 9:00 PM PT
Treasuries gained for the first time in three weeks as investors bet the Federal Reserve will delay tapering bond purchases after Congress’s deal to end a government shutdown pushed the budget battle into next year.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year note dropped to the lowest level in 12 weeks amid speculation the 16-day partial federal closure curbed economic growth. Rates on bills due this month dropped from the highest since issuance as the agreement averted a potential default. The U.S. September payrolls report, postponed by the shutdown, will be released Oct. 22.
“Given now the government shutdown and the lack of reliable employment economic indicators, it will probably be the first quarter before the Fed even starts to think about tapering,” said Gary Pollack, who manages $12 billion as head of fixed-income trading at Deutsche Bank AG’s Private Wealth Management unit in New York. “Interest rates can be supported at 2.5-to-2.75 percent by the end of the year. To get below 2.5 percent, you’ll have to see some weak economic data.”
The U.S. 10-year yield dropped by 11 basis points, or 0.11 percentage point, on the week to 2.58 percent in New York, according to Bloomberg Bond Trader prices. It 2.54 percent, the lowest level since July 24. The 2.5 percent note maturing in August 2023 cost 99 10/32.
Yields on 30-year bonds fell 11 basis points on the week to 3.64 percent after touching 3.62 percent, the lowest since Aug. 12.
…
the ad on the side- battle of the 3800 pound cars……..
How many of you ghoulish realtors have an open haunted house today?
If the houses is not already haunted by the terms of the mortgage I stuck you with then I am not doing my job properly.
Nirvana to me means every house is haunted with a burdensome mortgage - which makes every day, for me, halloween.
(BTW, “mort” means “death”.)
Where’s my mules today….
Sleeping late on a Saturday, apparently…
Debt service can be so tiring.
Not if you are at the right end of it.
Your mules are praying to the head Donkey Deity to praise him for DonkyeyCare.
Hee Haw!
http://www.savethedogs.eu/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/sheila-intervento.jpg
By Louis Jacobson
Published on Monday, October 14th, 2013 at 3:44 p.m.
Obama continued, raising the debt ceiling “does not increase our debt. It does not grow our deficits. It does not allow for a single dime of increased spending. All it does is allow the Treasury Department to pay for what Congress has already spent.”
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2013/oct/14/does-raising-debt-ceiling-increase-our-debt/ - 34k -
U.S. debt jumps a record $328 billion — tops $17 trillion for first time
By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
Friday, October 18, 2013
U.S. debt jumped a record $328 billion on Thursday, the first day the federal government was able to borrow money under the deal President Obama and Congress sealed this week.
The debt now equals $17.075 trillion, according to figures the Treasury Department posted online on Friday.
The $328 billion increase shattered the previous high of $238 billion set two years ago.
The giant jump comes because the government was replenishing its stock of “extraordinary measures” — the federal funds it borrowed from over the last five months as it tried to avoid bumping into the debt ceiling.
Under the law, that replenishing happens as soon as there is new debt space.
In this case, the Treasury Department borrowed $400 billion from other funds beginning in May, awaiting a final deal from Congress and Mr. Obama.
Usually Congress sets a borrowing limit, or debt ceiling, that caps the total amount the government can be in the red.
But under the terms of this week’s deal, Congress set a deadline instead of a dollar cap. That means debt will rise by as much as the government spends between now and the Feb. 7 deadline.
Judging by the rate of increase over the last five months, that could end up meaning Congress just granted Mr. Obama a debt increase of $700 billion or more.
Republicans initially sought to attach strings to the debt increase, but surrendered this week, instead settling on a bill that reopened the government and included some special earmark projects, but didn’t include any spending cuts.
Democrats insisted that the debt increase be “clean,” meaning without any strings attached. They say the debt increase only allows Mr. Obama to pay for the bills he and Congress already racked up, and that it doesn’t encourage new spending.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/18/us-debt-jumps-400-billion-tops-17-trillion-first-t/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS - -
Mr. Moon Shot in Chief appears not to understand exponential math.
Borrowing does not increase debt. Of course.
Not borrowing is the end of life as we know it.
Whenever you catch someone being technically correct, but misleading, never trust them again.
It depends what the definition of is, is.
“All it does is allow the Treasury Department to pay for what Congress has already spent.”
Congress spent a lot since Obama got elected.
Mr. phony, don’t forget the left-wing myth that 2/3rds. of the stimulus was tax cuts. Under Obamanomics - when you add to the population the size of government should go down. During Obama’s first term, the population increased by 3.0% while the number of government employees fell by 7%.
The Census Bureau projects a U.S. population of 439 million in 2050, which is a 46% increase from 2007 (301.3 million). If we could keep Obama’s policies in place over this time frame the Federal Gov. should be less than 1/2 of it’s current size.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States
http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2013/01/24/the-growth-of-the-federal-government-1980-to-2012/
“During Obama’s first term, the population increased by 3.0% while the number of government employees fell by 7%.”
Government Job Loss: President Obama’s Catch 22
By Amy Bingham
Jun 6, 2012 2:03pm
The vast majority of the public sector job losses have come at the state and local level, where balanced budget requirements coupled with plummeting tax revenues have caused many states to parse back the payrolls.
Since Obama took office, 636,000 state and local jobs have been cut. In 2011 alone, 113,000 jobs were cut in local schools, 68,000 jobs were cut in local government administration, and 78,000 jobs were cut in state government administration, according to a Commerce Department report.
“It’s the public sector that’s the thing contributing to that entire overall decline of jobs since he took office,” said Heidi Shierholz, a labor market economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. “It just wipes out a huge share of the job growth.”
But while state and local jobs evaporated, Labor Department statistics show that the federal government , not counting the postal service, has grown by 143,000 employees during Obama’s tenure, a fact that Obama’s Republican rival Mitt Romney is quick to criticize.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/06/government-jobs-loss-president-obamas-catch-22/ -
You’re struggling to support your argument. Do the math: 143,000 new federal employees vs. 10+ million new citizens. In other words the lowest growth rate in over 100 years. It sounds like you think cutting state employees is bad?
Most of those new employees carry guns too. Boarder Patrol/Immigration, Homeland Security and defense contractors, all programs that are strongly supported (and funded) by Republicans.
Tell me more about how wasteful the tax cuts in the stimulus program were. I think it was a big mistake to focus so much on cutting taxes and the stimulus should have been 80% infrastructure and R&D with maybe 20% tax cuts for the bottom 1/3 of the working stiffs.
10+ million citizens…Are they paying taxes?
What about the #’s of contractors working for the federal government?
“Do the math:”
OK I will try.
$10.6 trillion + 10 million new citizens + 143,000 new federal employees = $17 trillion
U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ - 211k -
Since Obama took office, the total national debt has risen by nearly 60 percent.
“10+ million citizens…Are they paying taxes?”
Do anchor babies pay taxes?
What is the next carrot the FED dangles in front of the primary dealers to keep excess reserves on deposit?
Higher interest rates?
Or perhaps a stick of regulatory mandates?
Wait should I have said “lower interest rates”? I guess higher rates would make banks want to lend more / keep less on deposit.
QE3-forever to the rescue!
arent they saying that the banks are keeping excess reserves at the FED because they are paying interest on deposits now?
I’m not sure what the rate is but I had read 1/4 % somewhere.
So if they wanted to keep that money parked wouldn’t they need higher interest rates on the excess reserves to entice them?
Why does it need to be a carrot? Can’t it simply be the threat of massive fines/revoking their status if their reserves are deemed to be “inadequate”?
U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time
http://www.usdebtclock.org/ - 211k -
man that is just mind boggling. debt / us taxpayer of 148k? They will never dig out of that hole.
^^
You probably talked about this yesterday….my take is you hire the WRONG people….
What does it take to get into Yale and get a 4.0? It means to close your mind to any outside influence and dot every i and cross very t….you need to eliminate any critical thinking skills and focus all your energy on that 4.0 or 1600 on the SAT.
Isn’t it strange you never hear a former employee or even an intern talk about what we talk about here? Where are the articles I was frustrated working for Greenspan and he ignored all my advice of the coming financial collapse??
They Need people like me in their inner circle but we are excluded because we can think outside the box….so naturally Greenspan knows Nothing…i know nothing.
Alan Greenspan: What Went Wrong
The former Fed chairman on where the economy went wrong, where he went wrong—and Ayn Rand.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304410204579139900796324772
Isn’t it strange you never hear a former employee or even an intern talk about what we talk about here?
=======================
Capt. Miller: I don’t gripe to you, Reiben. I’m a Captain. We have a chain of command. Gripes go up, not down. Always up. You gripe to me, I gripe to my superior officer, and so on and so on and so on. I don’t gripe to you. I don’t gripe in front of you. You should know that, as a Ranger.
Dunblane: How UK school massacre led to tighter gun controlBy
Peter Wilkinson, CNN
updated 5:57 PM EST, Wed January 30, 2013
What happened at Dunblane?
Shortly after 9 a.m. on March 13, 1996, Thomas Hamilton, a 43-year-old former Scout leader, burst into the gymnasium of a primary school in the tranquil Scottish town of Dunblane.
Within minutes 15 children aged five and six had died in a hail of bullets. One died later in hospital. Their teacher, Gwen Mayor, a 44-year-old mother of two, died in the attack, reportedly while trying to shield her pupils. Two other teachers were also seriously injured while heroically trying to protect children. Hamilton turned one of his four handguns on himself and was found dead at the scene.
What was the reaction to the massacre?
The massacre, one of the worst incidents of gun violence in Britain, had a massive impact in Scotland, the rest of the UK and around the world. “This is a slaughter of the innocents, unlike anything we have ever seen in Scotland, and I think Scotland is going to have to come to terms with it,” said Scottish MP Helen Liddell at the time.
After the massacre, appalled residents of Dunblane and bereaved relatives demanded to know how a person like Hamilton could be allowed to own guns. A highly successful public campaign in the months after Dunblane against gun ownership culminated in a petition being handed to the government with almost 750,000 signatures, according to British media reports.
In response, then Conservative Prime Minister John Major set up a public inquiry to look into gun laws and assess ways to better protect the public.
What happened next?
In the wake of the 1987 Hungerford massacre, in which one lone gunman killed 16 people, Britain introduced new legislation — the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1988 — making registration mandatory for owning shotguns and banning semi-automatic and pump-action weapons.
Within a year and a half of the Dunblane massacre, UK lawmakers had passed a ban on the private ownership of all handguns in mainland Britain, giving the country some of the toughest anti-gun legislation in the world. After both shootings there were firearm amnesties across the UK, resulting in the surrender of thousands of firearms and rounds of ammunition.
Britain has never had a “gun culture” like that of the United States, but there were about 200,000 legally-registered handguns in Britain before the ban, most owned by sports shooters. All small-bore pistols, including the .22 caliber, were included in the ban, along with rifles used by target shooters. Penalties for anyone found in possession of illegal firearms range from heavy fines to prison terms of up to 10 years.
“It was one of the most shocking things that has ever happened in this country and it united the country in a feeling that we had to do something,” Gill Marshall Andrews, of the Gun Control Network, told CNN. “And I don’t think that it would have been possible to make the kind of progress that we have made without that tragedy.”
http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/17/world/europe/dunblane-lessons/ - -
And eventually they will learn that even worse things can happen to a country than an occasional madman finding a way to kill people. As, I suspect, will we someday.
LOL!
They’re a country with a long history, so they already know that.
Thanks all the same. I will keep my Glock, my AR-15, and my Colt45 and all my ammo (all are in the state of Arizona where I reside and pay Arizona income tax on ALL. My out of state income).
Bond, mortgage Bond:
http://www.fionafullerton.com/
Gloom and doom? Nonsense.
Falling housing prices to dramatically lower and more affordable levels is positively bullish!
Cheap gadgets, cheap cars, cheap food, etc. = good
Cheap houses = bad!
Can’t have this in America.
lower house prices are good for everyone except bankers on the hook, taxing authorities and the one trying to sell his house.
Not housing….but I had to share:
Found on a college website: (Look what desired trait disappeared from employers’ traits “most desired in job candidates.)
The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) do an annual survey of employers. Employers responding to this survey rate the importance of candidate qualities. The table below shows the top six qualities employers identified in 2003 and 2008:
NACE Job Outlook 2003
1. Communication skills (verbal & written)
2. Honesty/integrity
3. Teamwork skills (works well with others)
4. Interpersonal skills (relates well to others)
5. Motivation/initiative
6. Strong work ethic
NACE Job Outlook 2008
1. Communication skills (verbal & written)
2. Strong work ethic
3. Teamwork skills (works well with others)
4. Initiative
5. Interpersonal skills (relates well to others)
6. Problem-solving skills
i believe problem solving skills and critical thinking have moved up the scale since 08. too bad honesty and integrity have fallen off.
Honesty and integrity were long gone since Nixon’s reign. It is cool to lie and cheat. “Everyone” does it (note I used quotes).
I assume the ‘08 survey was done in ‘07, before things really went south. And I wonder where “strong work ethic” would sit today. I mean, when jobs are hard to come by, everyone has a strong work ethic. So it may well fall back down on their list of desirable traits.