Bits Bucket for December 4, 2013
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
To donate by mail, or to otherwise contact this blogger, please send emails to: thehousingbubble@gmail.com
PayPal is a secure online payment method which accepts ALL major credit cards.
Links
-
April 2024 M T W T F S S « Sep 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Photo Submission: hbbphotos@gmail.com
View the HBB Photo Gallery *updated 4/13/2008
I will jell
without a fail
YOLO!
–Yellin
Have you ever noticed the tendency of markets to tank shortly after turnover at the top of the Fed?
I don’t get it. Do you mean “gel” or “jail”.
Who’s she gonna jail? You know the answer.
If you take on mortgage debt at current massively inflated housing prices, you’ll enslave yourself for the rest of your life.
“Debt is bondage.”~Suze Orman, May 11, 2013
In other words, don’t buy housing at these massively inflated prices. Don’t Be A Debt Donkey®
If you’ve been thinking of the East Bay as an affordable alternative to buying a home in San Francisco you might be disappointed. 2013 has been particularly kind to this area, bringing home prices closer to their pre-crash 2007 peak. This growth, of course, has positive and negative ramifications: on the one hand, it means restored equity—a boon to underwater mortgage holders, and the resulting opportunity to refinance for lower interest. But on the other hand, the uptick in prices coupled with low inventory makes the East Bay a seller’s market, leaving many hopeful buyers out in the cold.
http://blog.sfgate.com/ontheblock/2013/12/03/east-bay-home-prices-up-as-much-as-56-in-2013/#18483101=0&18485103=0
Are you the other personality in HA?
‘the’?
There’s a whole peanut gallery full of his alts.
Stop your sanctimonious whining. I have one username and one username only. Ask Jonesy.
I come home and see 300 plus posts. That’s gotta mean Lola’s on the prowl. High net worth individuals love to troll housing blogs even when they’ve already paid all cash for their houses in foreign lands.
That’s is if he/she is telling truth….
hint: she’s not.
She’s gone round the bend recently and is now full on openly advocating socialism.
I also think she’s got some weird connection to the Catholic Church. Maybe after being fired by Reagan from her air traffic controller job, she became employed scrubbing the Cristo Redentor.
Home sales continued to be strong in a number of major cities in November, with preliminary local data indicating that the country’s housing market is still rebounding.
The number of homes that changed hands by way of the MLS system in greater Toronto last month came in 13.9 per cent higher than a year earlier, the Toronto Real Estate Board said Wednesday.
Detached homes in the downtown 416 area code saw a 23.9 per cent jump in sales, while 12.7 per cent more existing downtown condos changed hands. There was a decline in sales of semi-detached homes downtown, while townhouses had softer sales growth.
The average selling price for all types of homes in Greater Toronto was $538,881, up 11.3 per cent from a year earlier. The MLS Home Price Index benchmark, which seeks to account for any change in the types of homes that are selling, rose 5.7 per cent.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/housing/rebound-continues-in-canadas-housing-market/article15758162/
The Bank of Canada has some words of warning for those betting on a crash in Canada’s housing market: Don’t bet on it.
As they held their policy steady today, Governor Stephen Poloz and his central bank colleagues said the market is certainly stronger, but that’s at least partly because home buyers are taking advantage of low mortgage rates before they rise again.
“The housing sector has been stronger than expected but is consistent with updated demographic data and a pulling forward of home purchases in light of favourable financing conditions,” the Bank of Canada said as it held its benchmark overnight rate at 1 per cent and again gave no signal on the path of interest rates.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/top-business-stories/a-word-to-the-naysayers-bank-of-canada-sees-no-housing-crash/article15758714/
I can ask $40k for my 12 year old Honda Civic but who’s buying?
Answer: Nobody
For the same reason, Housing demand has cratered to 17 year lows and continues to fall.
Americans looking to buy newly built homes evidently brushed off concerns about the government shutdown in October, pushing up sales to their highest level in fourth months.
New homes sold at an annual rate of 444,000 in October, up 25.4% from 354,000 in September, the government said Wednesday. Economists polled by MarketWatch forecast sales to total a seasonally adjusted 419,000 in October.
The sharp improvement in home sales follows earlier reports on Wednesday showing a stronger-than-expected increase in private-sector hiring in November and rising exports in October, perhaps evidence that the U.S. economy is growing faster.
The positive reports have spurred renewed speculation that the Federal Reserve might scale back its bond-buying stimulus strategy as early as this month.
Demand for new homes in October was strong across the country, with double-digit percent gains in all four major regions. Sales climbed 34% in the Midwest, 28% in the South, 19% in the Northeast and 15% in the West.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/new-us-home-sales-leap-25-in-october-2013-12-04
U.K. house prices rose in all regions of the country for the first time in more than six years last month as low mortgage rates helped the property revival to broaden, Hometrack Ltd. said.
Values across England and Wales increased 0.5 percent from October, the London-based property researcher said in a statement today. Prices jumped 3.8 percent from a year earlier, the most since October 2007.
Nationally, new property listings fell 3.5 percent in November, the steepest decline since January, while the number of new buyers registering with estate agents climbed 3 percent. In the past six months, demand has grown 10.6 percent as supply fell 0.6 percent, Hometrack said.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-02/u-k-house-prices-rise-for-10th-month-as-low-rates-spur-demand.html
It’s good to see housing demand collapsing globally.
You’re just sour grapes since you missed the recovery.
And get used to that 12 year old Honda Civic, because you’ll be living in it.
Recovery?
The definition of a housing recovery is dramatically lower and more affordable prices by definition.
Considering housing prices have resumed falling as a result of collapsing sales, you’re right. We’re in a housing recovery.
You are two poles of a bipolar person! Because you don’t call Amy names.
Hello Donkey.
I ran across an interesting read that describes the so-called “Liberal Elite”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_elite
they may support busing and oppose school choice and vouchers, but send their children to private, parochial or racially homogeneous wealthy public schools
Yup. As summarized by an anecdote I read somewhere:
“A college education gives you the correct attitude about minorities, and the means to move away from them”
+1 Goon
I mentioned this here before some time ago. My ex-squadette got her masters at the U Michigan Ford School of Public Policy (after undergrad at U Pennsylvania). I used to visit Ann Arbor and went to several dinner parties with other people in her masters program. I can’t recall a single one of them ever mentioning having a job that earned a profit or created a tangible product. They all “worked” in academia, for non-profits, for government (i.e. Teach for America) or for magazines/journals that nobody reads. The source of their incomes was either from foundations or government.
Well, if they were enrolled in a public policy school that shouldn’t be a surprise. Also, don’t you work for the government, goon?
“don’t you work for the government”
As a bootstrapping, for profit, private sector, American exceptionalist, invisible hand of the free market, government contractor.
We build shit that kills people.
They build nothing, except bigger government.
The source of their incomes was either from foundations or government.
As is yours.
Lola!
We build shit that kills people.
They build nothing, except bigger government.
That kills people and takes care of people.
They win.
“We build shit that kills people.
They build nothing, except bigger government.”
You have perfectly summarized where all the money goes, and why it will keep going there.
There is only ‘us’ and ‘them’. There can be no others. There are no other options.
You have perfectly summarized where all the money goes
Hate the game, not the player yo.
I’m making more money than I’ve ever made in my life, thanks to “folks” (I love that term, widely used by GWB, and embraced by Obama when he wants to sound “folksy”) like Joe Smith who litigate on behalf of government contractors.
If I stick around long enough and all the olds retire or die, they might just have to make me Program Manager, LOLZ
What is the main missing ingredient with a private school vs. a public school ?? Answer; Discipline
I remember long ago in parent orientation the following comment from a administrator;
Your children are here by invitation…The rules will be followed or they are gone…My particular experience was that the school had kind of a three strikes rule…Three strikes and your gone and it carried through the entire 4 years of high school…Fist fight was 2-strikes…
And, by-the-way, it did not matter how much dough you had…I personally witnessed a big donors grandson get tossed his freshman year…
With that said, being able to introduce even the minimal amount of discipline into the public school system that the private system has is impossible with the ACLU there to the defense of every claim of prejudice…
“The rules will be followed or they are gone”
My public school education was like that (three decades ago). But the rules subsequently changed.
Last time I checked, my HS alma mater, at of least some of whose graduates from my era went on to top colleges or universities, had lost its accreditation.
What is the main missing ingredient with a private school vs. a public school ??
Privates can reject problematic students. Plus, since they charge, usually large tuitions, it also weeds out the less desirable students from poorer households. Thus, they don’t need to offer remedial education or teach foreign kids to speak English.
We had a guy who served as the Principal at our parochial school, and he had many years experience at publics. He said that running the parochial was a breeze, because of the quality of the student body. In his own words they were smarter and better behaved (because of how they were raised), so enforcing discipline was a rare event which mostly consisted of reminding the boys to tuck in their white uniform shirts.
In Colorado
My nephew’s father is a well educated irresponsible bum. (even a Law School Grad) My nephew needed a secure environment and some tutoring, since his home life almost destroyed him. A private HS took him into their dorm and under their wings free. Now he on his way to a bright future in Engineering, leaning towards medical device technology.
There are exceptions, of course. But the student body demographic at St. John’s School was VERY different from the public high school my kids later attended. No gang bangers (which are rare in Loveland), meth heads or other detritus at St. Johns. There were a few “poor kids” on scholarships, but they would lose those in a New York minute if they caused any trouble, and at the school it was one strike and you were out. And it happened.
I’d say that the typical St. John’s student is from a household where the parents are college educated and have a six figure household income. Which is kind of sad, as once upon a time Parochial Schools were affordable. And the price has shot up at St. John’s since my kids attended, as in tripled, as the Parish subsidy has all but vanished and costs have soared. It’s even more elite now than it used to be.
Plus, since they charge, usually large tuitions, it also weeds out the less desirable students from poorer households ??
No so in my particular case…50% of the student body was on full or partial scholarship based on ones demonstrated ability to pay…
No so in my particular case…50% of the student body was on full or partial scholarship based on ones demonstrated ability to pay…
Not all private K-12 schools have such deep pockets or endowments.
I have heard of some parochials that do, usually they were beneficiaries of some well heeled parishioner’s will. But from what I have seen they are the exception.
Parochials used to be dirt cheap in part because the teachers were nuns. That isn’t the case anymore. Teachers are now laypeople and they are often paid wages comparable to those paid by local public school districts.
I agree Colorado…I do know that around here its not uncommon but thats here not necessarily everywhere…
My sister, nephew, and niece became homeless, staying with grandma temporarily. The private school saw a bright young man, who needed a hand, and stepped up. Pretty damn cool, using the endowment to help a deserving kid.
My soon to be ex-bil is a pos. I don’t care if he was raised in Beverly Hills. Trash is trash.
You think that impresses anyone here?
“My soon to be ex-bil is a pos.”
Please feel free to expand on this theme with a short paragraph or long sentence.
I don’t think race realism is a bad thing. A high % of asians is required these days to attract the HYP admission committee’s attention and to ensure that the HS has good facilities and meaningful AP classes. This is why you see diverse public schools like TJHS-S&T (VA), Walt Whitman (MD) and Stuyvessant (NYC) send literally 3 dozen kids to HYP every year.
As far as whites, not all are created equal–this is race realism as well. There are many more catholics and evangelicals than jews or seculars (most WASPs are now essentially secular), but who gets the top jobs? Who owns the assets in this country? Who makes the rules? It’s the latter, not the former.
Note — I’m not saying any race/ethnicity is better than another, just that there are very real differences. It would be stupid to expect otherwise (shitlibs).
Downlow Joe has entered the building.
Liberace!
I think you should just post as Liberace. It’s an awesome handle.
Sounds just like Joe
Another interesting read, this time it’s about the Power Elite:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_elite
All your base are belong to government contractors:
“Over the past 30 years, an influx of deep-pocketed CEOs, executives and company founders have helped drive the transformation of the area from a buttoned-down capital into the most highly educated and affluent place in the country.
They may see the nation’s capital as “the epicenter of everything,” as one of Dabbiere’s colleagues put it, but they’re not necessarily interested in politics. Rather, they’re creating and selling companies in fields such as biotech, cybersecurity, cloud computing and data mining. If they sell to the federal government, they’re more likely to see Uncle Sam as another client, rather than as a platform to change the world.
In recent years, the Washington area has seen a dramatic rise in “1-percenters,” households that make about $400,000 or more. Their ranks have jumped 65 percent in the past decade, from 32,000 people to 53,000.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/tech-entrepreneurs-renovation-of-hickory-hill-signals-new-business-guard-remaking-dc/2013/12/01/dfbf3c46-2c4f-11e3-8ade-a1f23cda135e_story.html
In the long run, we are all debt:
http://takimag.com/article/in_the_long_run_we_are_all_in_debt_james_miller#axzz2mLRtZJTD
“Most would call Carter irresponsible for throwing his money away and racking up a huge debt. I have a different take. What normal people might call reckless, I call a boon to the economy.”
The phenomenon of massive debt illustrated by the demise of a minor washed up pop star. Great article.
The US has reached the Fat Elvis stage. It’s going to die sitting on the toilet trying to squeeze out the ACA.
There is a certain irony in Lola screaming to high heaven about Reagan, all the while Krugman is his/her Messiah’s mouthpiece. SPEND MORE!
If you even looked up the article or its author, you would have not been surprised to see that the article demonizes Krugman.
James E. Miller is Editor-in-Chief of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada.
According to Sourcewatch, The Mises Institute is a think tank which was founded by Lew Rockwell and advocates the Austrian School. An Austrian school think tank hating on Keynes? Sun rises in east, details at 11.
‘economists like Larry Summers and Paul Krugman have argued the U.S. economy is really, in fact, in a permanent slump, with high unemployment and slow growth the norm.’
‘So are we heading up, or heading nowhere fast? Is the U.S. economy really in a permanent slump?’
“There are signs that indicate we are,” CNBC.com senior editor John Carney, who has written about this debate, tells us in the accompanying video. “Wage growth for most Americans has been very low for a very long time, and it seems that we only get to full employment, which should be the normal status… in a bubble.”
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/is-the-u-s–economy-in-a-permanent-slump-143352956.html
Let’s keep listening to the guys who say we ain’t got a chance. Nothing ahead for us but $500k houses, food stamps, fake wars with aliens, and never ending decline.
Yeah, abandon all hope, ye who enter here. It’s all bad, there are no solutions and it will never get better. So just go into more debt.
I just saw a graph on Bloomberg this morning that said there has been no wage growth since 1987…
Krugman should be demonized. He’s a tax and spend moron. The liberal answer is always the same. Mo money, mo money, mo money. Enjoy Detroit.
The US has reached the Fat Elvis stage. It’ll die sitting on the toilet trying to squeeze out the ACA.
US in in an iraq and an ACA place. It will never get out of it.
Actions have consequences, MOFOs!
“… sitting on the toilet trying to squeeze out the ACA.”
Lol.
“Squeeze out” = “pass it”, as in we need to pass it so we can find out what is in it.
Wish I could take credit for that metaphor, but I got it from an article about Google being compared to a Fat Elvis. Brilliant.
http://takimag.com/article/google_as_fat_elvis/#axzz2mLRtZJTD
“Maybe when Google dies on the toilet while trying to squeeze out a worthwhile software program, we will be nostalgic for the way they once were. Maybe we’ll use Google impersonators for searching. In the meanwhile, here, have some Quaaludes, guys.”
We still have’t completely Pass Iraq yet.
Combo, I have visions of Nancy looking into the toilet bowl now. I do not know if I am going to be able to post later so this is for Rio, who does not know the difference between a fact and his own conclusion or more likely a left wing talking point. Yesterday, I posted about job creation under Reagan 24 million during the recovery and the average real time earnings increasing during his presidency compared to a job creation rate under Obama being half and real earnings dropping. The press today is trying to brag about 215,000 jobs but that just keeps up with population growth. He responded with a list primarily made up of conclusions. The most glaring example is asserting that Reagan gutted the economy. Common sense would tell you if Reagan created 24 million jobs and raised real wages, he could not have gutted the economy. Similarly, he concluded that Tip was easier to negotiate with than the Boehner. Obama renege on a grand bargain with him. This time he just refused to negotiate. That worked out well for the country since delaying Obamacare would have been the correct thing to do.
No, Rio Obama does not know how to negotiate or compromise. Reagan and Clinton were good at it and the number of agreements they struck with the opposing party is proof of that. Obama after the 2010 election did not move to the center like Clinton did after 2004, he moved further to the left and the anemic recovery is the result of that decision.
Have a good day on the beach Rio, try not to get mugged like we are by Obama.
Why not go back before Reagan to the real problem, FDR.
Lola is just a disgruntled fired air traffic controller holding a grudge these past 30 years. His Messiah is proposing no solutions.
To continue with the Elvis metaphor, he is eating a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich and popping more ludes on the toilet.
Do like his guy Krugman says, SPEND MORE.
“I have visions of Nancy looking into the toilet bowl now.”
It’s their mirror.
The most glaring example is (Rio) asserting that Reagan gutted the economy. Common sense would tell you if Reagan created 24 million jobs and raised real wages,
This a glaring example of Albuquerquedan’s cognitive dissonance and lack of ability to see past his narrow politics to see long term trends and the underlying reasons for consequences. Or his comprehension is way off.
I wasn’t saying ”Reagan gutted his economy” as in not producing jobs during his time in office. Rather I repeatedly said that 30 years of Reagonomics/Supply-Side/TrickleDown economic policies have gutted the American economy. It took decades. That is a long term phenomenon, not a short-term one. Reagan tripled America’s debt and had a country that had not been gutted by 30 years of Supply-side tripe. Reagan had an economy that was sick but not yet gutted. So sure, Reagan’s economy ended up well but Reaganomics was just beginning.
Now Albuquerquedan is doing two things with his false statement above that he often does.
1. Albuquerquedan ignores and twists what other’s say or ADan does not have the bandwith to comprehend English. Or his politics make him see things that are not there.
2. Albuquerquedan fails to see past snapshots in time to grasp the big picture. ADan seems to think that every new president gets to press a “reset” button and all the past economic policies and their results disappear.
So again:
I wasn’t saying ”Reagan gutted the economy- his” as in not producing jobs during his time in office. I repeatedly said that 30 years of Reagonomics/Supply-Side/TrickleDown economic policies have gutted the American economy. That is a long term phenomenon, not a short-term one - something that Albuquerquedan has shown time and time again that he is incapable to understand or unwilling to acknowledge due to politics. Or he simply tells twists what other’s say hoping readers will not notice. But I notice.
30 years of Reaganomics have gutted today’s American economy.
30 years of Reaganomics have gutted today’s American economy.
This can’t be denied.
Facts:
1. A ReaganOmics/Supply-Side “Economics” main tenet, plank and requirement is to funnel more money to the rich. (The supply) Under the theory that the rich will create jobs and money that has been funneled to the rich will “trickle down” to the middle-class and poor.
2. We DID it. For 30 years we have been redistributing wealth to from the middle class to the rich. The rich are WAY more rich now than 10 years ago, 20 years ago and 30 years ago. Why? Because public policy has been slanted to favor the rich’s wallet for 30 years. (Reagonomics at work)
3. It did not work. The promised wealth did NOT trickle down at all. In fact the middle-class is almost destroyed because of Reagonomics/Supply side economics. We did it. It did not work period.
Fact:
30 years of Supply-Side/Reaganomics have gutted today’s American economy.
Lola,
You post some of the most fact free facts ever written here.
30 years of Supply-Side/Reaganomics have gutted today’s American economy.
No it is not 30 years of Reaganomics it is twenty years of promoting Chinese growth over our own which benefitted the big banks. That is not Reaganomics and while it has been bipartisan, the person most responsible for it is Clinton. Reagan is not even a player. Greenspan did not begin creating bubbles with cheap money until Clinton. It has been one bubble after another since then. True supply side economics makes a country more competitive not less competitive. Due to the Fed since 1992, we have encouraged going into more debt particularly mortgages with artificially low interest rates and no money down. Demand side economics not supply side economics.
The fact that you can not see the difference speaks volumes about your thought process or lack there of.
No it is not 30 years of Reaganomics it is twenty years of promoting Chinese growth over our own which benefitted the big banks.
What planet do you live on? Funneling money to the Rich, benefiting banks/corporations and “free-trade” are the basis of Reaganomics. China was the “free-trade” baton passed from Reagan to Bush then to Clinton. Reaganomics is the philosophy which started our offshoring path to ruin.
Here. Learn something from the arch-conservative, Supply-Side worshiping Cato Institute:
Reagan Embraced Free Trade and Immigration
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/reagan-embraced-free-trade-immigration
….another aspect of Reagan’s record that should not be forgotten was his commitment to keeping America open to trade and immigration.
….Reagan’s heart and head were clearly on the side of free trade. While president, he declared in 1986: “Our trade policy rests firmly on the foundation of free and open markets. I recognize … the inescapable conclusion that all of history has taught: The freer the flow of world trade, the stronger the tides of human progress and peace among nations.”
It was the Reagan administration that launched the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations in 1986 that lowered global tariffs and created the World Trade Organization. It was his administration that won approval of the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement in 1988. That agreement soon expanded to include Mexico in what became the North American Free Trade Agreement, realizing a vision that Reagan first articulated in the 1980 campaign. It was Reagan who vetoed protectionist textile quota bills in 1985 and 1988.
During Reagan’s eight years in office, Americans eagerly expanded their engagement in the global economy. In 1980, the year before Reagan became president, Americans spent a total of $334 billion on imported goods and services and payments on foreign investment in the United States. By 1988, his last year in office, American spending in the global economy had nearly doubled, to $663 billion. If Reagan was a “protectionist,” it had no discernable effect on the ability of Americans to spend freely in the global marketplace. Fittingly, one of the major federal buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue is named the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.
You posted it yesterday and I responded to it yesterday. Nothing wrong with good trade agreements and immigration that benefits the US. Ellis Island was an orderly process that set back anyone that would be a burden on the US. Canada has tough environmental laws and fair labor laws, there has not been a giant sucking sound from entering an agreement with them. Reagan made a mistake compromising over immigration. He wanted tough border enforcement and active efforts by employers to verify legal status. After he left office, border enforcement stopped and an illegal document industry developed without any effort to stop it. He is not responsible for the lack of enforcement. Those that say the ACA is the law seem to have no trouble with Clinton, Bush and Obama not enforcing Reagan’s law. Obama sues any state that tries to enforce what Reagan wanted but leaves cities that frustrate the law alone.
No, facts are stubborn things Rio and they are not on your side.
Reagan is not even a player. Greenspan did not begin creating bubbles with cheap money until Clinton.
That’s funny. Reagan almost tripled the national debt. Reagan also saw the greatest total increase in federal debt to GDP since WWII including Obama’s projected final added debt/GDP figure.
In terms of total increase in “federal debt to GDP” under U.S. presidents in the post-World War II era, Republican presidents during their terms have contributed far more to the debt load of the nation than Democrats.
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/steve_clemons/assets_c/2012/10/Total%20Increase%20in%20debt%20to%20GDP%20overall-103309.php
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/gop-presidents-have-been-the-worst-contributors-to-the-federal-debt/264193/#comments
facts are stubborn things Rio and they are not on your side.
Of course the facts are on my side. Here are five BIG facts on my side in this discussion.
1. sup·ply-side adj.
Of, relating to, or being an economic theory that increased availability of money for investment, achieved through reduction of taxes especially in the higher tax brackets, will increase productivity, economic activity, and income throughout the economic system. thefreedictionary dot com
2. We’ve implemented the above definition of Supply-Side for 33 years.
3. SupplySide (ReagonOmics) only worked as planned for the rich.
4. ReagonOmics/SupplySide did not fulfill its promise to the middle-class.
5. In fact Supply/Side has almost destroyed America’s middle class and jobs/tax base while the rich are WAY richer than 30 years ago when supplySide became America’s economic model.
It can all be summed up in one sentence: Reagan succeeded and Obama has failed and Rio cannot deal with that reality. No matter how he tries to twist facts that is the reality. It was said in communist Russia that a historian was a person that could predict the future due to the constant re-writing of history in a communist nation. You can’t re-write the history to take away the income growth, the taming of inflation, the creation of 24 million jobs. Once year of Reaganomics produced more jobs than three years of Obamanomics. So I will not waste my time discussing the reality that America already has made a judgment on, Reagan remains popular and Obama is floating in Pelosi’s toilet.
It can all be summed up in one sentence: Reagan succeeded and Obama has failed
It can all be summed up in one sentence: Obama inherited an economy gutted like a fish from 30 years of supply-side economics began by Ronald Reagan.
Didn’t Reagan once say that he thought the trade deficit was a great thing because it meant that Americans were rich enough to buy lots of stuff from overseas?
So Reagan’s term was fine, cause he created jobs and improved the economy? That leave us with what, from 1989 forward. That’s half Clinton/Obama and half Bush/Bush. And didn’t the first Bush raise taxes and get in trouble for it because of Read my lips no new taxes.
Lola and the rest of you die in the wool liberals take the cake. You are so in love with the Messiah when you really ought to be pillorying he and Clinton. You are all like the girlfriends who hate the other girl your boyfriend cheated on you with rather than hating the guy who cheated on you, your Boyfriend Obama.
Pure poetry.
And to quote the Dead Milkmen:
“When I die
That’s how I wanna go
Stoned and fat and wealthy
and sittin’ on the bowl”
Are Detroit city worker pension cramdowns a done deal?
I say yes. But there’s going to be lots of theater before the final curtain.
Yesterday at 9:53 AM
A Shocking Thing Just Happened in the Detroit Bankruptcy Process
By Kevin Roose
By their nature, bankruptcies are rarely orderly events. That’s especially true when it comes to the bankruptcies of cities, which are much rarer than the bankruptcies of companies. Municipal bankruptcy problems include figuring out what to do with financial obligations not just to suppliers, landlords, and other private-sector creditors, but to thousands upon thousands of retirees holding public pensions. The good news for retirees is that lots of states have laws making their pensions untouchable, even in a worst-case scenario where a city has to shed millions or billions of dollars in debt very quickly.
Today, it looks like Detroit — the biggest American city ever to file for bankruptcy — might break the unbreakable rule.
In approving the city’s bankruptcy plan today, Judge Steven W. Rhodes surprised everyone by ruling that Detroit’s pensioners, who are owed about $3.5 billion in unfunded liabilities, could see their pensions cut in the bankruptcy process. This wasn’t supposed to happen — Michigan’s state constitution specifically forbids this kind of pension cut for public workers — but Judge Rhodes ruled that a federal law allowing the cuts could supersede the state law banning them.
Whether or not the Detroit pension cuts end up happening — and it’s likely that they will, in some form and amount — today’s decision represents a major development for the entire country. Four cities in California, for example, are currently wrapped up in negotiations about whether they can cut pensions as part of their bankruptcy petitions. These other efforts to shed debt by cutting pensions might ultimately fail, or be overturned by the Supreme Court. But now that hosing pensioners is possible in Detroit, there’s not much to stop other cities from trying to do the same thing when they run into trouble.
…
And they laughed at Merideth Whitney… She wasn’t wrong, she just couldn’t foresee the depth of this orgy of malfeasance that governments would engage in to try to salve the pustulent chancres they caused. There are no real leaders in this world anymore. Non of them are even worthy of a decent funeral, much less a monument.
Yep….
There are two components to being right: 1) Right about WHAT is going to happen, and 2) Right about WHEN it’s going to happen.
Of the two, #1 is most important….
Of the two, #1 is most important….
#1 is most important in that, if you get it wrong, it carries more weight than #2 to say what happened was “unexpected.”
There are no real leaders in this world anymore. Non of them are even worthy of a decent funeral, much less a monument.
Pope Francis
Pope Francis denounces ‘trickle-down’ economic theories in critique of inequality
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/pope-francis-denounces-trickle-down-economic-theories-in-critique-of-inequality/2013/11/26/e17ffe4e-56b6-11e3-8304-caf30787c0a9_story.html
….Although Francis has previously raised concerns about the growing gap between the wealthy and the poor, the direct reference to “trickle-down” economics in the English translation of his statement is striking.
…The phrase has often been used derisively to describe a popular version of conservative economic philosophy that argues that allowing the wealthy to run their businesses unencumbered by regulation or taxation bears economic benefits that lead to more jobs and income for the rest of society. Liberals and Democratic officials have rejected the theory, saying it is contradicted by economic evidence.
Church types are irrelevant
Church types are irrelevant
Irrelevant……Right.
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world’s largest Christian church, with 1.2 billion members. wiki
Church types are irrelevant ??
Pretty broad stroke there Billy-Boy..The world would be better off with many more like him…
Though he was never ordained to the Catholic priesthood, Francis is one of the most venerated religious figures in history.
He is known as the patron saint of animals, the environment..
Francis’ father was Pietro di Bernardone, a prosperous silk merchant. Francis lived the high-spirited life typical of a wealthy young man…
While going off to war in 1204, Francis had a vision that directed him back to Assisi, where he lost his taste for his worldly life.[4] On a pilgrimage to Rome, he joined the poor in begging at St. Peter’s Basilica.[4] The experience moved him to live in poverty…
Lola, you’re not altar boy material.
The only visions that are real are the visions from your very eyes that can certainly be corroborated by other eyes (in case of hallucinations, which can happen in case of drugs, stress, wishful thinking, LYING, and so on).
Tell me, how come faith healers do not heal amputees?
they can work till 70 like private sector workers
pension- french word meaning getting paid not to work
I couldn’t agree more. In fact, why not recall them and get some of those street lights fixed?
Someone said Detroit was in service insolvency, as in no or drastically reduced services. The first thing to cut is pensions for the folks that got the city to that stage. As in, NO pensions for those who served on city council, “executives”, etc.
It costs money to buy new streetlights. Besides, more than a few of those pensioners may be past their working years.
Plus they will be pissed if they don’t get their pensions.
It’s not a good idea to have a work force filled with bunch of pissed-off employees.
Whack the pensions of the execs. That oughta pay for a few street lights.
Lol, bring in Mitt Romney, Michigan’s son. He’ll fix it.
pensioners can eat cake!
Buy a house and make some real cash.
I’m just being totally sarcastic, I have no ideas for a solution to Detroit, frankly, I don’t think there is one. Yep, you can cut the pensions, but ultimately, I think the pensions evaporate eventually. And really, what’s anyone going to do about it?
Detroit should be made into a museum, an object lesson, as it were.
bring in Mitt Romney, Michigan’s son. He’ll fix it.
I don’t want Romney and his half-assed solutions. Democrats might just steal it and take it national.
“I don’t want Romney and his half-assed solutions. Democrats might just steal it and take it national.”
Tell me about it, lol. Two Republicans, Romney and Roberts, largely responsible for the ACA.
But I digress.
For Detroit, as long as we’re into passing coercive laws, here’s the solution: forcibly relocate the American music industry to Detroit, under IRS penalty and Obama finger wagging.
Heck, why not go all in? Make the entire American entertainment industry relocate to Detroit. Under penalty of IRS and Eric Holder.
Nena - 99 Red Balloons (Lyrics) - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sq1K2gc5xsE - 140k -
Ninety-nine GM plants
Union jobs are going bye
Panic lads, it’s a red alert
The jobs are going somewhere else
The printing press springs to life
Opens up one eager eye
Focusing not on the why
Ninety-nine GM plants go bye
Ninety-nine Decision Street
Ninety-nine advisors meet
To worry, worry, super-scurry
Bail Detroit out in a hurry
This is what we’ve waited for
Union votes is what we’ll score
The President is on the line
As ninety-nine GM plants go bye
Auto workers on TV
Building super SUVs
Everyone’s a Union worker
Everyone’s a pensioner
With orders to identify, to clarify and classify
Scrambling in the summer sky
As ninety-nine GM plants go bye
Ninety-nine dreams I have had
Every one a Union job
Now it’s all over and I’m standin’ pretty
In this dust that was a city
If I could find a souvenir
Just to prove Detroit was here
And here it is an empty plant
I think of you and file disability
All the credit to Obama if it works, all the blame to Romney and Reagan if it fails.
Wait, wait, help is on the way!
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/04/21750977-truck-carrying-extremely-dangerous-radioactive-material-stolen-in-mexico
extremely-dangerous-radioactive-material-stolen-in-mexico
I will go ahead and call a BS on that one right now. They will do anything to distract.
BINGO
“Detroit should be made into a museum, an object lesson, as it were.”
It has.
Detroit: a city in decline - in pictures
Detroit has become the largest city in US history to file for bankruptcy after state-appointed emergency manager Kevyn Orr asked a federal judge for municipal bankruptcy protection. The city, once famous for its motor industry, has in recent times become synonymous with urban decay
theguardian.com, Friday 19 July 2013 04.39 EDT
…
Wow…The abandon Michigan Central Train Station was pretty stark…
I will go ahead and call a BS on that one right now. They will do anything to distract.
Speaking of which…I’m at HQ in CA again this week, and every morning I see the TV while getting some breakfast at the hotel. I can’t believe how hard they are pumping this Paul Walker accidental death. Even in the car enthusiast community nobody cares that much.
Yeah. I’m sure the homedepot crowd built that one too.
Yeah but if you can get ahold of that porsche yellow racing paint and do up your calipers, your car will be equally as fast.
The Gov’mint has a huge distraction Rolodex.
If it’s any consolation, several of my co-workers are in their 60’s and not planning to retire. They need to keep working to support their loan-laden underemployed Gen X-Y kids and associated grandchildren-under-10.
You’re in the same group.
Dec. 4, 2013, 12:01 a.m. EST
Retirement saving: the Great Divide
About half of boomers on track to meet basic retirement expenses
By Andrea Coombes
Only about half of boomers are saving enough to cover at least their basic retirement expenses — as are about 45% of Americans overall — but the news is even worse for younger savers, according to a new study that asked people to detail their savings habits and retirement plans.
Fifty-two percent of boomers, 41% of Generation X and 39% of Generation Y savers are on pace to meet at least basic retirement costs — including housing, health care and food. And a portion of those savers are also saving enough for discretionary items, such as travel.
But the retirement outlook for the rest of savers is “fair” or “poor,” and will require either modest or significant changes to their planned retirement lifestyle, according to the study by Fidelity Investments.
…
The future belongs to Lucky Ducky.
A study funded by an investment company. How impartial.
Good to see you, Slim. Was starting to wonder.
I googled for other news stories to see if Fidelity had a hard dollar figure for what they considered “retirement expenses.” Because I’m really tired of them reporting retirement costs as a % of income, as if everyone makes the same income.
Nope. As usual, Fidelity thinks were aren’t saving enough. We should be forking 15% of our income over to them.
The idea is usually that a person needs 70% or 80% of the income that they have while working to have the same standard of living in retirement. A lot of people experience a sharp decline in their standard of living when they retire. They may not be living in poverty, but the assumption is that the much lower standard of living is not desirable.
Here ya go;
http://cl.exct.net/?ju=fe601c727d64057c771d&ls=fe1b1d777d6c017e741275&m=fefc1172766306&l=fed1157376640678&s=fe35157277640d7d711074&jb=ffcf14&t=
Detroit now has twice as many pensioners as employees
50 years ago it had twice as many active workers as retirees
Detroit has $18 billion to $20 billion in debt and unfunded pension and health care liabilities
“Detroit now has twice as many pensioners as employees”
+1 FWIW, they’ve gone Japanese.
Our course that shouldn’t matter, because people’s pensions are pre-funded while they are working and then left as they are rather than retroactively enhanced.
Cough.
Detroit is America’s pension canary in the coalmine.
Yep…I think you are correct Pbear….Its going to the supremo’s for a final decision IMO….There is so much riding on it must go to them…And, it has “huge” ramifications decided either way…If the pensioners win, municipal credit markets will implode for any city underfunded…If pensioners lose, your going to have millions of retirees in serious trouble…
Either way, there is big trouble ahead for someone…
Government pensions no longer sacred
By U-T San Diego Editorial Board
5 p.m. Dec. 4, 2013
Dec. 3 may prove a landmark day in the history of the pension crisis hammering local and state governments around the United States. A federal bankruptcy court judge ruled that pensions of Detroit’s employees can be reduced to help Michigan’s largest city stabilize its finances.
Previously, struggling local governments had assumed that pensions couldn’t be touched because they were given strong protections in their states’ legal codes or constitutions, as is the case in Michigan and in California.
But Judge Steven W. Rhodes held that federal bankruptcy law trumps state law, and that under federal law, all the creditors of a bankrupt government must be treated in “fair and equitable” fashion. Thus, the contracts governing retirement benefits are as subject to dissolution as other government contracts.
Obviously, the Detroit ruling has vast resonance in California, where many local governments can barely make ends meet because of the high cost of retirement benefits, and where Stockton and San Bernardino have declared bankruptcy,
In Stockton, city leaders’ recovery plan shields pensioners from any cuts while pounding holders of city bonds. The only remaining bond creditor — the Franklin Templeton mutual fund — opposed the plan because the fund would take more than a 99 percent hit on its $35 million in city bonds while pensioners were fully protected. In San Bernardino, city leaders have gone a different route. Reflecting their goal of reducing pension obligations, they have stopped paying the $2 million a month the city owes the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.
San Bernardino’s approach suddenly seems the practical one — not Stockton’s.
If Judge Rhodes’ ruling withstands appeals and becomes a national precedent, struggling cities and school districts will have far more leverage to win concessions from public employee unions. Once union members internalize the fact that their pensions are no longer sacrosanct, they will understand the importance of working with local governments to keep pensions affordable in the long term.
…
Meh. That’s a pittance compared to Chicago, and to the state of Illinois.
To me that was easily the biggest story of yesterday. I checked CNN and they had lots about how some celebrity died crashing his $200k car.
The I got mines crowd needs to be asked “are you sure?”
That was a $500,000.00 car and you had to be well connected to get your name on a list for purchase.
I know this because a big money guy in my Town of 800 people had one. This gentleman was quite the investor. He owned several developments around the State and the Porsche was just one of the many fab autos that resided in his stable.
Alas, after the “unexpected” economic crash, the car disappeared (so did his properties) and he is now living in an even smaller Town in a 5th wheel trailer.
What most impressed me was seeing him drive this car with 10 cylinders producing 600 HP and a carbon fiber chassis on our local dirt roads.
“Are Detroit city worker pension cramdowns a done deal?”
Attention please…will Detroit’s finest, and heroes, please step to the front of the line. It’s going quick, so don’t hesitate.
Some paid off judge will overturn this. What I read said the BK judge found they did not bargain in good faith, but that was excusable.
What I read said the BK judge found they did not bargain in good faith, but that was excusable ??
Thats not how I read it…My understanding is he rejected the union claim of bargaining in good faith because the judge said that its impossible for the city to bargain, in the interest of a resolution, when you have 100,000 creditors…
Here are the numbers I want to see……..
What are the pension costs when its all based on salary, and nothing more no OT sick days etc added in…..and retroactively to the day they retired….
What are the costs when the CPI is only what they get in interest. if you get .25% in T bills well that is your CPI, not 3% compounded
Who will it harm? only the ones that gamed the system first.
You’ll never see these figures. They are masters of obfuscation. Typically they’ll throw out stuff like the average benefit of our members is 5 grand a year, but not tell you that this includes all outliers like people getting $100 a month who skew the averages.
Is Bitcoin the new invisible, untouchable, unverifiable, ephemeral, possibly imaginary gold substitute?
Here is a question for anyone who is smart enough to be flocking into Bitcoin in order to diversify out of dollars in anticipation of the Fed taper. If QE3 is what has driven a sizable number of investors to dump their dollars for Bitcoin, won’t the taper, which reduces QE3, also reduce demand for Bitcoin, leading to a lower price (in dollars)?
Yes, but do you think they will taper?
If they don’t, the Taper will prove to be the most long-heralded and often-discussed policy change that never went into effect in the history of the Fed.
Fed’s Williams: Only taper when sure economy on right track
December 3, 2013, 6:10 PM
(This blog post has been updated to reflect the fact that Williams is not a voting member of the FOMC in 2013.)
The Federal Reserve should only taper when it is “completely confident” the economy is on the right track, said John Williams, the president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, on Tuesday.
In an interview with Reuters, Williams said when the Fed reaches that level of confidence, it should announce an end date and a total purchase total for the program.
…
They won’t taper! It will be a world wide one time wealth tax on the rich and on savings accounts (Ira, 401,etc). Then let the spending run amok anew.
No need to directly confiscate, that just riles up the masses. Just print more money and steal from the value of their savings. Much easier.
Yep…
Is Bitcoin the new gold?
- Digital currency Bitcoin has soared in value over the past year. Is it a good investment or just the latest fad?
- Fluctation in online currency Bitcoin allows Norwegian man to cash in four-year-old investment to buy apartment in Oslo
- A potential flaw in Bitcoin’s code could allow ’selfish’ miners to monopolise the profits
Photo: GETTY IMAGES
By Kyle Caldwell
9:41AM GMT 04 Dec 2013
Finding an investment that protects your capital when stock markets plunge is no easy task for investors.
Could a new “digital currency” called Bitcoin, which last week briefly became more valuable than gold, be the answer after soaring in value over the past year?
The strong returns, mainly made over the past three months, have not gone unnoticed. Earlier this week it emerged that the Royal Mint was considering issuing physical Bitcoins, which could force the Government to accept them as an official currency.
Bitcoin, an online currency that was created by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009, has soared in value over the past three months, with a single Bitcoin rising from $100 to more than $1,200. Investors have flocked to the currency amid fears that America’s central bank, the Federal Reserve, will begin to unwind its money printing policy, formally known as quantitative easing, in the coming months.
This is expected to lead to both shares and bonds falling in value as global stock markets have been propped up by the Fed’s aggressive policy.
…
“Bitcoin…Investors have flocked to the currency amid fears that…the Federal Reserve will begin to unwind its money printing policy…”
This is way into the stupid zone.
This way to the stupid zone.
We need “Stupid Free” zones to be declared so we will have a place to hide.
The problem with stupid free zones is that no one would be allowed in them.
∆
The Switch
Here’s what critics miss about Bitcoin’s long-term potential
By Timothy B. Lee
December 3 at 10:37 am
On Sunday, Business Insider’s Joe Weisenthal admitted he was rethinking his former view that Bitcoin was a “currency for clowns.” But Matt Yglesias still isn’t convinced that Bitcoin is anything special:
I don’t know if Bitcoin is going to set the world on fire, but I think this analysis overlooks the characteristics that give the financial network the potential to do so. To see what Matt is missing, it’s helpful to go back to an analogy I made a couple of weeks ago: the early Internet. The Internet of the 1980s was a small, strange and inhospitable place. Reading Bart Gellman’s dispatch from the Internet circa 1988, it’s easy to imagine sober-minded people wondering why millions of dollars of taxpayer money are being spent so a few thousand nerds can argue about their favorite science fiction franchises and send each other glorified telegrams.
And indeed, if you’d asked a nerd from the early 1990s what the Internet was good for, they would have struggled to give a compelling answer. Many nerds had half-baked ideas for revolutionary Internet applications. Others were pushing crazy theories about the Internet becoming a global free speech zone unencumbered by governments.
Most of those specific ideas turned out to be wrong, as we discovered when the dot-com bubble collapsed. And the anti-government ideology of some early Internet users didn’t have very much to do with its success. But obviously that didn’t mean the Internet as a whole was a fad. What made the Internet special wasn’t any specific application, but the fact that it provided general-purpose infrastructure for moving information around the world that was open for anyone to use. Crucially, it was designed in a way that made it easy for others, like World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, to extend the network’s functionality.
…
It is interesting there is some evidence that people are already dumping bitcoins for real gold and silver, the PTB cannot be happy about that:
http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-black-friday-results-2013-12
Bit coin and Bitcoin stories are a waste of bandwidth worse than Lola’s Reagan rants.
I like the Reagan rants….I can’t take the democrats are better $hit.
Rio articulates for me why I despised Ronald Reagan. My head was immersed in my studies during the Reagan era, yet whenever I heard The Great Communicator give a speech, I had an instinctive reaction of revulsion. I knew his “It’s morning in America” schtick was total B.S. but did not have the time or energy to analyze it.
“immersed in my studies during the Reagan era”
I was immersed in the Onwentsia swimming pool every summer of the late Reagan area. You can only dream…
I’ll take Ronald Reagan any day over the characters before or after him. You could find work and you could get a decent
fixed income return and also make money in stocks. What were mortgage rates, 6 or 7 percent and nobody was claiming the sky is falling in. The rates were only really high when he first stepped into office, of which Volker had to fix the mess left by the nail banger Jimmy.
When I finally emerged from the long tunnel of medical education in 1986, there were few good positions available. So I spent another 2 years doing a fellowship. Mortgages, stocks, investments of any kind were a distant dream. My peak earning and investment years were during the Clinton era.
My peak earning and investment years were during the Clinton era.
So was the start of sky rocketing health care costs.
I bet Bama Bergundy reading from teleprompter gives you goosebumps all over. Tingly, perhaps?
A mortgage is a dream huh?
You’re heard here folks….. Donkeyism at its’ finest.
“I’ll take Ronald Reagan any day over the characters before or after him. You could find work and you could get a decent fixed income return and also make money in stocks.”
I mentioned the Reagan Ranch calendars to a co-worker, “Who the heck would want one?”
He replied, “Things felt right back then…the world was right.”
I bet Bama Bergundy reading from teleprompter gives you goosebumps all over. Tingly, perhaps?
If that was directed at me, the only goosebumps are from a cold chill.
of which Volker had to fix the mess left by the nail banger Jimmy.
1. Carter, not Reagan first appointed Volker.
2. Without Volker, there most likely would have been no taming of inflation and no Reagan recovery.
3. Therefore, Carter greatly fixed “his own mess” which included a huge monetary mess enacted in the earlier 70’s, before Carter even took office.
Carter fixed his own mess by getting voted out of office.
Your also admitting with your own words that there was a “Reagan recovery.
Your also admitting with your own words that there was a “Reagan recovery
Of course there was a Reagan recovery. There is also a weaker Obama recovery.
The difference now is there will never be a strong recovery in America as it is, because Supply side has destroyed us structurally.
Here’s the difference in Real Estate terms:
Reagan inherited a serious fixer upper with “good bones”. It was very ugly but structurally sound. He then borrowed the money to fix it up cosmetically, but at the same time began a 30 year run of no one taking care of the “bones” (structure) of the house and actually began to undermine the foundation of the house by selling the dirt around the foundation and giving the proceeds to him and his rich friends.
Obama inherited a tear-down that the city refuses to be allowed to be torn down, and is desperately being held up by throwing good (but borrowed) money after bad.
“Things felt right back then…the world was right.”
…While War Games, Red Dawn, and The Day After played in the background.
Obama inherited a tear-down that the city refuses to be allowed to be torn down, AND REBUILT and is desperately being held up by throwing good (but borrowed) money after bad.
“…While War Games, Red Dawn, and The Day After played in the background.”
+1 Exactly right.
Trust me, I had to hold my tongue. Fly-over country.
…While War Games, Red Dawn, and The Day After played in the background
Those first two were some good movie. The other one was hype. Also recommended is By Dawn’s Early Light with Powers Booth.
Like Reagan started, not finished the Cold War. You Reagan haters can’t be dissuaded.
You Reagan haters can’t be dissuaded.
I’m not sure if that was directed at me given the reference to my comment, but the point (which I thought was obvious) is that the tenor of the country suggested that the world was definitely NOT right, contrary to what rms’s friend allowed himself to believe.
Not directed at you sleepless, just a tag on comment that your movie references brought about.
Now if the tenor wasn’t right based on those movies, what do The Walking Dead and World War Z say about the Obama era.
Haha. Haven’t seen those but if they’re like 28 Days Later, perhaps a little more fanciful than I think people thought things were back then.
And again, it wasn’t strictly meant as a play on the Prez at the time but a play on a guy who seemingly found his Messiah, that apparently allowed him to be at peace with the turmoil at the time.
“…a waste of bandwidth…”
You’re entitled to your opinion, but I see this as one piece of evidence on where current monetary policy has led and continues to lead us.
Maybe an article or two, but it’s clearly just an internet fad. Not serious and not on 99 percent of people’s radar. My two bit ions, but I’d appreciate more articles on the Detroit bankruptcy.
(Not that I don’t appreciate your work posting. You’re a better man than I).
In case you miss the logical flaw in this guy’s spinoff of Roubini’s recent “bubbles almost everywhere” announcement, I’m happy to point it out: The absence of Roubini’s mentioning a particular bubble does not imply its nonexistence. For example, anyone who has watched home prices in California cities whose names start with Sac or San knows the Housing Bubble returned to California with a vengeance.
These 17 countries may have housing bubbles. If they pop, God help us all.
Posted by Neil Irwin on December 2, 2013 at 1:39 pm
There just might be a new housing bubble in Canada and other countries that sidestepped the last boom and bust. (Photo: Bloomberg/ Brent Lewin)
Nouriel Roubini was one of the most presciently pessimistic analysts of the global economy in the run-up to the global financial crisis. And now he thinks it’s happening again.
Roubini doesn’t see bubbles in the places where they were most severe in the pre-2008 period. He doesn’t mention the United States or Spain or Ireland. Rather, Roubini sees housing prices getting out of whack in quite a few small and mid-sized nations that are well-governed and managed to avoid the worst economic effects of the financial crisis: Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France, Germany, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the London metropolitan area in the U.K. He adds some key emerging markets that show the same dynamic: Hong Kong, Singapore, China and Israel, and major urban centers in Turkey, Indonesia, India and Brazil.
In this view of the world, a better question might be where in the world is there NOT a housing bubble (the answers, apparently, are the United States, southern Europe, Russia and all of Africa).
Roubini’s argument boils down to this: The major economies have been growing only slowly. Yet with low interest rates and aggressive central bank action across the globe, there is a giant pool of money that has to go somewhere. That somewhere has not been productive new investments, like companies building new factories. Rather, it has come in the form of people taking advantage of cheap credit to bid up the price of existing real estate in cities from Stockholm to Sydney.
It seems notable that the bubble markets of the last cycle don’t fit this story. It’s mostly the countries that managed to avoid price runups last time that are experiencing it now. Here, for example, is the price of new homes in Canada over the past decade:
…
Did you dump your long-term bonds yet?
Bloomberg News
Treasuries Advance for First Time in Week as Fed Purchases Bonds
By Susanne Walker December 03, 2013
Treasuries rose, pushing 10-year note yields down for the first time in a week, as the Federal Reserve made two purchases in its program to spur the economy by buying government debt.
The benchmark note yields increased earlier amid bets a Dec. 6 report forecast to show growing U.S. employment will reinforce arguments for the Fed to reduce its bond purchases. The central bank bought $4.7 billion in Treasuries in two operations, only the second time this year it has purchased government debt more than once in a day.
“Bonds are rebounding a bit after coming under pressure,” said Adrian Miller, director of fixed-income strategies at GMP Securities LLC in New York. “The market is still trying to find equilibrium before the employment data. It’s a market that’s trying to position itself ahead of that number.”
…
Don’t miss the secret message coded into the URL for this Bloomberg article: treasuries-near-cheapest-since-11-versus-stocks-on-fed-outlook
Bloomberg News
Treasuries Decline on Bets Jobs Report to Back Fed Taper Outlook
By Anchalee Worrachate and Lukanyo Mnyanda December 04, 2013
The U.S. Treasury stands in Washington, D.C. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
Treasuries fell, with 10-year yields approaching the highest in almost two weeks, before an industry report that economists say will show job growth quickened, backing the case for the Federal Reserve to cut stimulus.
U.S. government bonds approached the cheapest relative to stocks in more than two years, with 10-year notes yielding 81 basis points more than the estimated dividend yield on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX), down from 87 on Sept. 10, the highest since July 2011. Global central banks are forcing investors to buy riskier assets in an attempt to promote growth, said Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Bill Gross. The Labor Department will release its monthly jobs report on Friday.
“People in the market are on tenterhooks ahead of employment reports,” said Nick Stamenkovic, fixed-income strategist at broker RIA Capital Markets Ltd. in Edinburgh. “Treasuries will probably trade in a tight range ahead of the data but we see further increase in yields from here.”
…
U.S. Yields Approach Highs Versus Germany, Japan on Fed Outlook
Wes Goodman and Masaki Kondo, ©2013 Bloomberg News
Published 1:38 pm, Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Dec. 3 (Bloomberg) — Treasury yields approached a seven- year high against their German counterparts and the most in 31 months versus Japanese bonds amid speculation the Federal Reserve will trim its debt purchases as soon as this month.
U.S. 10-year yields were 105 basis points more than similar-dated bunds. The gap was 108 basis points last month, the most since 2006. The spread to Japanese bonds was about 217 basis points, versus 2.23 basis points in September, which was the widest since 2011. The European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan both increased efforts to reduce yields this year.
“The Fed is contemplating an exit strategy from monetary easing, while the ECB is seen as strengthening its low-rate policy to contain disinflation risks, and the widening yield gap shows this difference in monetary policy,” said Hajime Nagata, who helps oversee the equivalent of $115 billion as an investor at Tokyo-based Diam Co. “Japan’s monetary policy is closer to additional easing than to an exit, which is very different from the Fed.”
…
“Japan’s monetary policy is closer to additional easing than to an exit, which is very different from the Fed.”
If this guy thinks Fed’s policy is different than Japan’s, he deservers lose all his money.
Breaking News
Companies In U.S. Added 215,000 Workers In November, ADP Says
Stocks Drop for Third Day in U.S. as Treasuries, Oil Gain
By Stephen Kirkland & Nick Taborek - Dec 3, 2013 1:48 PM PT
U.S. stocks fell a third day amid concern an improving economy will cause the Federal Reserve to reduce monetary stimulus, while 10-year Treasuries advanced as the central bank bought debt. The pound climbed to near a two-year high against the dollar and crude oil surged.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX) lost 0.3 percent to 1,795.15 and the Stoxx Europe 600 Index slid 1.5 percent, the most since August. Ten-year Treasury yields fell one basis point to 2.78 percent by 4:45 p.m. in New York. The pound strengthened to as much as $1.6437. Portugal’s five-year note yield fell from a four-week high after a bond exchange. Oil rallied after TransCanada Corp. said it will begin operating a pipeline to deliver crude to Texas from Oklahoma in January.
Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Bill Gross, manager of the world’s biggest bond fund, said the unprecedented cash added to the financial system by central banks globally is raising the risk of a slide in asset prices.
…
Citigroup to BofA Spurn Treasuries for Cash on Taper Risk
By Cordell Eddings & Daniel Kruger - Dec 2, 2013 5:01 AM PT
Never before have America’s banks been so wary of risking their cash deposits on U.S. government debt.
After holdings of U.S. debt surged to a record $1.89 trillion in 2012, lenders from Citigroup Inc. to Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC) are culling for the first time in six years and amassing dollars. Banks’ $1.8 trillion of the bonds now equal less than 70 percent of their cash, the least since the Federal Reserve began compiling the data in 1973.
With net interest margins falling to the lowest since 2006, banks are spurning Treasuries and hoarding unprecedented amounts of cash on prospects that loan demand will revive as a strengthening economy leads the Fed to reduce its own debt purchases. Five years of cheap-money policies also have depressed yields and made it less attractive for banks to buy Treasuries as a way to bolster income.
“Banks reluctant to lend were large holders of Treasuries,” Jeffrey Klingelhofer, a money manager at Thornburg Investment Management Inc., which oversees $89 billion, said in a telephone interview from Santa Fe, New Mexico. “Like a lot of other people who have been moving out of fixed income, it’s largely to avoid the fallout from tapering.”
…
In case anyone thinks I post too much on the subject of long-term bonds, considering this is a housing blog, let me point out the connection. Mortgage rates and long-term Treasury bond rates have near-perfect correlation. It’s been a few years since I ran the numbers, but the correlation is well north of 95%. The upshot is that higher Treasury bond yields lead to higher mortgage rates, and the latter can potentially lead to a collapse in housing prices.
Get it?
“Get it?”
You forgot your Paypal URL.
“Potentially” lead to a collapse.
I think it’s going to stay a potential. HBB has continually beat the drum of rising interest rates dropping house prices for years. I no longer agree.
Oxide 2010: Rising interest rates will drop prices.
Oxide 2012: Even if rising interest rates drop prices, it will take a decade to happen and I would have spent too much in rent waiting for the price drop. I think I’ll buy.
Oxide 2013: Rising interest rates will just drive J6P out of the market because they can’t afford the PITI. Any price drop will be checked by investor funds outbidding each other to buy the houses cash. Cash don’t care about rates.
Oxide 2014: It doesn’t really matter what bonds do. If anything, rising bond rates will attract more cash to investors, who can buy more houses outright and bid up the prices even more.
If you’re aching to run some numbers, I would love to see a graph tracking house prices, interest rates, PITI corrected for inflation, and PITI as a % of income from 1945 to 2013. Bonus points if you can identify the point in time when women entered the professional workforce and made a two-income family the new normal.
‘HBB has continually beat the drum of rising interest rates dropping house prices for years’
Bubble pop, it doesn’t matter what sets it off. That said, rates did rise starting last May and 80-90% of the US markets promptly slammed into reverse.
Correlation not causation. Markets were driven by cash buys who were looking to buy low and sell high, not by J6Ps calculating PITIs in Excel. When prices reached a high last May, cash buys stopped, like any stock. Nor would I say that prices have gone into “reverse.” Yeah, prices could drop a little, but I don’t see a “collapse.”
‘Nor would I say that prices have gone into “reverse.”
Let’s take just the California markets. A few years ago, San Diego started falling month over month. The people in LA said, ‘it may fall in San Diego, but it will never fall in LA.’ Then LA started falling and the people in the Bay Area said, ‘it may fall in LA, but it will never fall in the Bay Area.’ Then it fell in most of the Bay Area, and the people in Marin said, well you get the idea.
This process took many months, maybe even close to a year, I can’t remember exactly.
Not this year. Boom, they all started falling, almost at the same time. We went from hearing about flippers selling to flippers, multiple offers on every house, to zero flips. Almost no multiple offers. In the course of a few months. And it wasn’t just California; Las Vegas, Phoenix, practically all of Florida, even Dallas hit an air pocket. From what I read, the only markets still moving up are parts of Massachusetts and New York City.
If you read the media, they’ll tell you the peak was one year after the real peak. That’s because they only report a fall when it’s year over year. Catching on to this, the Las Vegas paper ran on their front page the other day, “The Peak Is Past,” with a cartoon of a roller coaster headed down. And when history writes up this part of the story, I suspect it will be called the most rapid about-face in real estate.
Significantly higher interest rates will hammer real estate values in all but the best of the best places “unless” we see significant wage growth along with it…
best of the best places
doesn’t exist. but keep on dreaming.
“Nor would I say that prices have gone into “reverse.””
You’re in deep denial your your not paying attention.
What is your function here?
Correlation not causation. Markets were driven by cash buys who were looking to buy low and sell high, not by J6Ps calculating PITIs in Excel. When prices reached a high last May, cash buys stopped, like any stock.
I actually agree with oxide’s reasoning about the cause here being high prices more than the rates. I don’t agree with her plateau conclusion though.
And it wasn’t just the all cash crowd that stopped from what I see. They stopped first, even before May. It was the jump in and make a pile crowd that was bird dogging the all cashies who also stopped because prices got too high, and anyone normal looking to buy. It was pretty obvious price increases weren’t sustainable and there was only one place to go, down.
Bulletin Private sector adds 215,000 jobs, more than expected: ADP »Investor Alert
Dec. 4, 2013, 8:20 a.m. EST
Private sector adds 215,000 jobs in November: ADP
By Ruth Mantell
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Private-sector employment picked up in November, as employers added 215,000 jobs, Automatic Data Processing Inc. reported Wednesday. Economists had forecast that private-sector employers added 178,000 jobs, up from an originally estimated gain of 130,000 jobs in October, according to a Dow Jones Newswires survey.
…
Uh, isn’t Christmas just around the corner. Isn’t it normal for hiring to pick up just before Christmas?
Yep….misleading number IMO…
Is it “seasonally adjusted”, whatever that actually means?
Is it “seasonally adjusted”, whatever that actually means?
Any number that the Obama administration wants to claim. They would claim they try to level out the number so they don’t count all the seasonal workers. However, if businesses hire their Christmas workers early it would inflate the number. Thus, come December you would see fewer hired. We will see.
Who owns long bonds?
I had short and medium term bonds in VFIIX and dumped them last week at $10.54. Now at $10.49 on their way to $9.50 in my opinion. Sort of makes the 4% yield moot, when the NAV drops 8%.
In a rising interest rate environment, the only place to be is in a money market fund till the rates settle at the new levels. It is not a fun place to be, but discipline rules the day.
“Who owns long bonds?”
Presumably people who don’t go all in on residential real estate investment might own some long bonds as part of a diversified portfolio.
The Fed? Foreign countries?
In a rising interest rate environment, the only place to be is in a money market fund till the rates settle at the new levels. It is not a fun place to be, but discipline rules the day.”
even stocks can get hurt when rates rise
Hmm, 13-degrees, wind chill at 4-degrees this morning. Figured we’d be below zero. Maybe tomorrow, which is supposed to be colder. Lower dew point, clear blue skies, but no bicycle; teeth hurt in the cold.
Alaska?
Eastern Washington.
We’re getting a big dose of Al Gore’s global warming here, it’s 4F outside now. Thursday night’s forecast low is minus 9F, and it’s not forecast to get above freezing until the middle of next week.
All good as long as its partly sunny skies.
Freaking Arctic blast! It was so nice the week before.
Now the Broncomaniacs are worried that it might be too cold for poor St. Peyton Manning to play well this Sunday.
Saint Peyton…. lolz
As much as I despise the DenverDonkeys, you gotta admit…. that team is on fire thanks to Peyton.
So Ca - My area is 57 today. That’s cold around these parts. Evidently, we don’t know from cold. lol
So Ca - My area is 57 today. That’s cold around these parts. Evidently, we don’t know from cold. lol”
Might freeze in the early am. Have to throw a blanket over the cactus tonight.
It was 60 on Monday. Right now it’s 9.
Some guys LOVE the crisp, cool, thin Denver air.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IJ6EDc3A88
It’s “Low-T” Liberace now?
Not bad Lib…. not bad.
Football is for slack-jawed mouth-breathers who like watching their heroes prance around in tight pants and give each other concussions that will give them Alzheimers at age 40.
Lindsey Vonn is a real athlete.
I think you’re living in Liberace’s empty skull….. rent free…
Lindsey Vonn is a real athlete.
And she’s easy on the eyes too.
pasty white caucasian.
Speaking of Al Gore…
“Climate change isn’t just a problem facing future generations, a new scientific report warns, saying the planet could suffer serious and abrupt climate threats in the next few years or decades — leaving nations with a narrow window to adapt.
The National Research Council report, released Tuesday, says even gradual climate changes that have unfolded over centuries will reach so-called tipping points that could result in abrupt impacts on everything from sea ice to ecosystems. The report calls for an “early warning system” aimed at better predicting when those impacts will occur.
The report was issued on the same day the International Energy Agency warned that global greenhouse gas emissions will continue to surge in the coming years, a move that puts the planet on a path toward blowing past a temperature increase target that scientists consider low enough to avoid serious harm.
Carbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector will rise 20 percent by 2035 despite moves in the U.S., Europe, China, Japan and elsewhere to reduce emissions, according to the IEA’s 2013 World Energy Outlook.
“This leaves the world on a trajectory consistent with a long-term average temperature increase of 3.6 C, far above the internationally agreed 2 C target,” the outlook said.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/national-research-council-report-climate-change-could-hit-tipping-points-environment-100615.html?hp=l18
Hurry, don’t waste a minute more!
Raise taxes, raise taxes, raise taxes before the sky falls!
Yes just ignore that they have been wrong for thirty years in predicting the climate. We are now .3 C colder for the world wide average compared to normal than we were in January. Now, if Co2 is the determinative factor for climate, how does this even happen? Some months co2 decides to trap the heat other months not so much? Or could it be as I have said for years that sunspots, the PDO and AMO, El Nino or la Nina are the major determining factors and co2 is just a minor player?
Guess what folks the PDO is in a cold cycle not good news, particularly if you live in the Northwest and we may be heading for a serious period of low sunspots. Goon you maybe able to ski year around unless the solar activity picks up in the next few decades.
None of which negates the fact that China has tripled its coal consumption in less than 20 years.
Keep on breeding ‘em and keep on burning coal and burning gas and burning oil and welcome 2+ billion Chinese and Indians into the global middle class, meanwhile pretending that your children and especially your grandchildren have a future, because they don’t.
I am still in shorts albeit with a sweatshirt in the mornings and evenings… :>)
I am on my speedo.
I was on it on last Saturday anyway.
sshhhh….. You’ll send Lola and Liberace into a frenzy.
They can look but they can’t touch.
Turns out government shutdowns are great for U.S. home sales.
Bulletin ISM gauge of U.S. services sector falls in November »Investor Alert
Dec. 4, 2013, 10:02 a.m. EST
New U.S. home sales leap 25.4% in October
By Jeffry Bartash
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Americans looking to buy newly built homes evidently brushed off concerns about the government shutdown in October, pushing up sales to their highest level in fourth months on the lure of lower prices. New U.S. homes sold at an annual rate of 444,000 in October, up 25.4% from 354,000 in September, the government said Wednesday. Economists polled by MarketWatch forecast sales to total a seasonally adjusted 419,000 in October. The collection of sales data for both months was delayed by the federal shutdown, prompting the government to release the information on the same day. Demand in October was strong across the country, with double-digit percent gains in all four major regions. Part of what drove sales was a decline in prices and more demand for lower-prices homes, a trend that typically emerges in the colder months. The median price of new homes fell 5.3% to $245,800 in October. That’s the lowest level since November 2012. The supply of new homes on the U.S. market, meanwhile, sank to 4.9 months in October at the current sales pace from 6.4 months in September. New home sales are 21.6% higher compared to one year ago.
This Story has 5 Comments
5 comments
Jonathan giggs 1 minute ago
But, oddly, Mortgage applications are now matching 5 year lows. All cash buyers??
Berry Atinta 4 minutes ago
EEM is now UP. Great.
Steve Thompson 13 minutes ago
While recent statistics suggest that America’s housing market is recovering nicely, here is an article that looks behind the headline numbers, showing the real state of the housing situation:
http://viableopposition.blogspot.ca/2013/12/a-different-perspective-on-sales-of-new.html
Despite five years of Fed intervention, all is not well.
Berry Atinta 5 minutes ago
@Steve Thompson
That is why QE shall continue without disruption.
eliane laurent 1 minute ago
Don’t think so. A lot of money for little effect. As long as the wages are not higher, meaning building a middle class, things will not improve on a solid base.
This is the money comment
Don’t think so. A lot of money for little effect. As long as the wages are not higher, meaning building a middle class, things will not improve on a solid base.
The number of excess houses in the US is dwarfed by
The number of excess rooms in the US is dwarfed by
The number of beds that can be fit into the rooms is dwarfed by
The number of people that can fit in these beds is dwarfed by
The number of cardboard boxes and park benches.
As people get poorer they will consolidate. People are getting poorer.
No thats the cop-out comment.
End the price fixing. Reintroduce affordability.
Yellin and her 17 academic papers.
Expect a direct deposit from Yellin in your checking account every month.
Interest rates vs home sales
http://www.cnbc.com
/id/101246505?__source=yahoo|finance|headline|headline|story&
par=yahoo&doc=101246505|Chart%20of%20the%20Day:%20Rates%20f
New Mortgage Applications Crater 4%
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/04/us-usa-economy-mortgages-idUSBRE9B30H420131204
As if demand at 17 year lows wasn’t low enough. It craters more.
Hard to reconcile this with todays reports of an increase in new home sales. Something smells fishy.
Really it’s a double whammy. Added empty inventory, collapsing demand.
>all things work together for good to those who love to see dramatically lower and more affordable prices of houses and everything else.<
Think about…. EVERY market sector is price-fixed except for one.. Which one is that?
Labor
Enter: LIEBERALS
Now LIEberals want to price fix labor. They want to double the cost of entry level labor.
As an accused liberal
One thing this does is shifts the balance of power toward bigger corporations. McDonalds can afford to replace workers with technology or outsource. I read one article where they were giving tax breaks to large corporations to higher teens to off set minimum wage increases. I’m sure mom and pops business is less able to take advantage of these things.
This in essence is a tax on the middle class to support the lower class. A better solution is to make our tax structure more progessive. ie tax capital and stock transactions more and cut taxes or give credits to the low wage workers so they can spend more and stimulate the economy. My effective tax rate is 25% I think the elite should pay at least that much. Currently I think they pay 10% or less.
See article below, as technology replaces 40+% of todays jobs over the next 10-20 years there are going to be big problems and someone better come up with an idea to fix them or there’s going to a massive breakdown in society.
And right now, prices are too high.
Stop the price fixing.
“Currently I think they pay 10% or less.” Sorry, but the examples of people paying low rates like Romney are by far the exception, not the rule. And since the rates for capital gains reverted to 20%, with an additional 3.8% for Obamacare, you can add another 8.8% to whatever rate you think Romneys of the world pay on the almost entirely capital gain income stream.
Here’s an interesting piece on the Buffett’s claim of the rate he pays vs. his employees.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/10/23/warren-buffetts-actual-tax-rate-is-31-while-his-office-workers-pay-21/2/
A big problem is that there isn’t enough focus on the trades in this country.
Rather than legislate minimum wages (and potentially create a permanent class of perfectly content hamburger flippers), how about something to provide a leg-up out of the hamburger flipping job?
You’d get a push out of the minimum wage job (because the wages suck), a pull into a higher wage job (for better $), and something to help bridge that gap (this is what is needed…predicted by an advisor of ours to be the next big social program).
There could be a hundred ideas that would serve this purpose…I would be in support of such ideas–especially if they were designed to be implemented at local levels. HVAC technician apprentices would be needed in Phoenix. Much less so in Seattle, etc.
Federal incentives for local programs would be OK, Federal program implemented from DC would be much less good. Eventually there will need to be technicians to fix the coming army of machines, right?
So the day you “bought” a house it looked like this;
http://tinyurl.com/mls6nc4
Now it looks like this;
http://tinyurl.com/mveog9w
Now whose fault is that?
Hope and Change
“History will record that on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary met to consider the impeachment of Barack Hussein Obama.
The Republicans in the House know there is no chance of throwing this president from office. Yet at least 13 of the 22 Republicans on the panel have threatened or hinted at impeachment of Obama, his appointees or his allies in Congress. They’ve proposed this as the remedy to just about every dispute or political disagreement, from Syria to Obamacare.
Tuesday’s hearing was titled “The President’s Constitutional Duty to Faithfully Execute the Laws.” The unanimous view among Republicans was that Obama had not done his duty, and it’s true that this president has stretched the bounds of executive authority almost as much as his predecessor, whose abuses bothered Republicans much less (and Democrats much more).
In recent days, Rep. Steve Stockman (Tex.), one of the more exotic members of the Republican caucus, has distributed proposed Articles of Impeachment to his colleagues. Last month, 20 House Republicans filed Articles of Impeachment against Attorney General Eric Holder. Around that time, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) accused Obama of “impeachable offenses.”
Rep. Trey Radel (R-Fla.), before his cocaine arrest and guilty plea, invoked the prospect of impeaching Obama over gun policy. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) raised the specter of impeachment over Obama’s threat to bomb Syria without congressional approval. Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R-Mich.) said it would be his “dream come true” to write the Articles of Impeachment, and Rep. Bill Flores (R-Tex.) said that if “the House had an impeachment vote it would probably impeach the president.”
Sen. Jim Inhofe said Obama could be impeached over the attack on Americans in Benghazi, Libya, while fellow Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn said in August that Obama was “getting perilously close” to meeting the standard for impeachment (though he called Obama a “personal friend”). Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) thought it would have been an impeachable offense if Obama unilaterally raised the debt ceiling. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) branded Obama “lawless.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-republicans-see-one-remedy-for-obama–impeachment/2013/12/03/e623d61e-5c65-11e3-be07-006c776266ed_story.html
It has to be done. And while they’re at it, wouldn’t hurt my feelings if they threw Shrub into the pot.
I understand a president doesn’t have to be a sitting prez to be impeached, BTW.
But as to Obama, I think the surprise will be when a few dems get on board with it. He’s thrown some of them under the bus with the ACA and they know it, so this will be their effyoo back at him.
Sad Panda boo-hoo
“Young people helped elect President Obama in 2008 and 2012, but they’re giving him low marks now.
The wide-ranging poll of 18- to 29-year-olds, released Wednesday morning by Harvard’s Institute of Politics, found that America’s young people are disillusioned with Obama’s tenure in office and disapprove of his handling of the country’s major issues.
Fifty-four percent of those surveyed disapprove of Obama’s job performance, compared with 41 percent who approve. Those numbers are an 11-point drop from Harvard’s survey in spring 2013, and almost the opposite of its fall 2009 poll, when 58 percent of young people approved and 39 percent disapproved.
Just under half of young people also said they think the country is on the wrong track, compared with 14 percent who said it’s generally headed in the right direction (34 percent said they don’t know).”
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/young-voters-obama-approval-rating-100647.html?hp=l5
Article in Bloomberg
youth unemployment 22%
Black youth unemployment near 40%.
Why
1. Older workers aren’t leaving the workforce as their pensions go poof and health care costs are shifted onto them as the money they earn on their savings dwindles.
2. Technology replacing entry level jobs
3. Slave labor in foreing countries replaces jobs in US
4. Credit bubble bursts crushing demand.
Given article below that 40-50% of jobs in US may be replaced in the next 10-20 yrs by technology my guess is the Utes in the US will be more than unhappy. Good thing will have home land security to keep them in line.
27 is the new 18
27 is the new 18
It is.
I look and feel 15 years younger than I thought I would 30 years ago when I got 36 years older.
‘27 is the new 18′
Not only that, check out the latest flaunt-it-if-you-got-it selfie:
http://i3.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article2461622.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/Kim-Kardashian-instagram-selfie-2461622.png
Now that’s (ghetto booty)^3.
‘Not only that, check out the latest flaunt-it-if-you-got-it selfie:’
Inappropriate. Totally NSFW. Disturbing. Thanks Ben.
“Totally NSFW.”
Wow, you can blog at work?
“Young people helped elect President Obama in 2008 and 2012, but they’re giving him low marks now.
Irrelevant.
Obama can’t run, and young people can’t vote Republican without verily vomiting violently.
Given recent articles suggesting 47% of us jobs could be replaced with technology by 2025. Given that those with jobs will not be able to afford to retire given loss of pensions and shifting of costs. Given the already massive youth unemployment. Currently teen unemployment is 22.2% and black youth unemployment is near 40%.
What do people propose as solutions? These are a list of options that I can come up with.
1. Pull the safety net creating massive poverty and slums and crime. If 40% of those with jobs were suddenly without jobs or money what will corporations do? A: cut more jobs. What will happen to small businesses
? Answer most will go out of business. What will gov do with decreasing tax revenue? A: cut more services and jobs.
2. Welfare - Means gov either borrows and spends or taxes adn spends.
3. Government jobs programs -ditto on gov spending
4. War - ditto on gov spending.
5. Push for a war in Asia that would destroy factories and stimulate spending? Evil but it might work.
6. Hunger games (I haven’t read the book or seen the movie) or Solient Green.
7. Loan everyone piles of money at low interest rates. Already did that
8. Stop the price fixing
8. Have some other country do any of the above and then import everything from the US. This seems to be what all the countries are hoping to do.
Cut taxes across the board and cut govt. spending, not just the rate of spending which is the only “cut” that the left knows.
Also get the govt. out of everyones face.
OK so your solution to 50% unemployment and collapsing gov tax revenue is to cut taxes on the elite and cut government spending. Congratulations now unemployment is up to 60%. What do we do next.
Again the question is if 40-50% of jobs are replaced by technology what should we do.
Be the ones that design the technology for the rest of the world. But that means limiting unskilled immigration and only allowing people necessary to help design the technology. It would mean allowing in a few hundred thousand of the brightest not millions of the dullards.
And what’s to prevent others from stealing it. See china and AMSC.
Be the ones that design the technology for the rest of the world.
Supply-side edunomics.
This does nothing for the 40-50% unemployed in that scenario. Like 40-50% of America will “design the technology”.
Be the ones that design the technology for the rest of the world.
We already do this. The so-called technology industry was devloped in this country. The problem is that there aren’t enough jobs involved in design.
I said cut taxes ACROSS the whole spectrum(everyone). This is what Reagan did and it worked. The problem is that the libs know this and cannot accept it, because it does not conform to their twisted reality of thinking. Just ask Debbie “blabbermouth” Shultz.
Cut taxes across the board
We did that for the rich and corporations for 30 years ie supply side economics.
Cut taxes across the board and cut govt. spending, not just the rate of spending which is the only “cut” that the left knows.
What makes you think that that would result in more jobs?
Because it’s been proven. Let the spirit of free enterprise be released. What are you afraid of? You don’t see this current clown trying any new ideas.
Because it’s been proven.
Let me get this straight. If 40-50% were unemployed cutting taxes would work because “it’s been proven”?
Show me a link of where 40-50% of Americans were unemployed and cutting taxes fixed the problem. Where? Not in America. Where?
And Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy, had a boom and ran a surplus that would have eliminated the debt you guys crow about. But then Bush ruined it with his TaxCutsForTheRich Supply-side tripe.
Here we are.
Where and when was it proven? Also, what spending would you cut?
Across the whole system cuts, everyone living on less just like the politicians expect us to do. 2%,3%, it’s your patriotic duty could be the mantra.
The failures of socialists will be proven out over time. It’s just a matter of waiting.You guys are just deer in the headlights.
So you want to cut both federal spending and taxes by 2% or 3%? I can’t see how that would have a siginifcant effect on the economy.
I’m just tossing a number out. Anything is better than advancing any debt. Lets let some bean counters(bi-partizan). Better to start small, just like the income tax was created, start small reversing the process.
If you’re concerned about the deficit, you would probably want to cut spending more than taxes.
9. Realize that the US has all the natural resources it needs, change trade policy so that imports are taxed at a higher rate for countries that have slave wage labor and don’t play ball with us.
20 hour workweek like in the Jetsons. When productivity rises so high because of mechanization and humans are no longer needed to fulfill the basic needs of the population we can spend the excess time creating and innovating and further educating.
The problem is, and we are facing it with the welfare state today, how to maintain work ethic if basic needs are taken care of.
There was a post here a couple of times about the comparison between Brave New World and 1984, where the thrust was BNW won because it was more about amusing ourselves through goodies and Soma than being controlled by the State thru fear. That post gets it wrong though. I recently reread BNW and what the comparison posted ignores is all of the conditioning that occurred in BNW. It was a world of massively implemented eugenics and brainwashing techniques on the young from birth.
BNW won because the control happened even worse in BNW. It happened thru genetic selection, in vitro and through brainwashing. That being said, BNW is far less realistic for these very reasons and you can see that it really doesn’t seem to account for such a huge and complex population as exists today.
“The problem is, and we are facing it with the welfare state today, how to maintain work ethic if basic needs are taken care of.”
+1 Indeed. The poor do not exhibit much of a survival instinct, and unlike the animal kingdom, very little effort expended preparing their own offspring.
“Deregulate markets and ban price fixing allowing prices to fall to affordable levels to match the unregulated low wage rates”
That’s the only answer.
So you think that deregulation and preventing price fixing will fix the problem of 40-50% of jobs going poof due to advancing technology in the next 10-20 years? You’re going to stick with that answer?
What will you do with all that free time?
Probably mug people coming out of star bucks.
strawman invoked by drama queen.
Probably shooting down amazon and star buck drones delivering product to the few who still have jobs.
“Probably shooting down amazon and star buck drones delivering product to the few who still have jobs.”
Wait a minute…that drone has my Grey Poupon!
What if the low wage rates don’t provide enough for food and shelter? I mean you are seeing even slave wage jobs in third world countries replaced by technology.
They don’t provide already.
The answer is to end the price fixing.
“What if the low wage rates don’t provide enough for food and shelter?”
The fed.gov supports high food prices with SNAP cards and other food subsidies, and shelter shouldn’t need an explanation, here anyway. In a market system these basics would likely cost much less, or not be available at all.
Precisely.
It’s a shame we have so many dishonest people here playing stupid all the time.
How do you suppose we prevent price fixing without regulation??
You don’t seem to like dramatically lower and more affordable prices.
Why is that?
Be a bit more precise. So 40-50% of people become unemployed due to technology and a massive number of business who used to sell to these people go out of business. This of course reduces demand for everything from food to building materials so the price of all of those things drops the price of technology drops as well. Companies that produce those things cut production making unemployment worse. Now if you have cash and a job you make out like a bandit. If you have neither you starve take up a life of crime.
You’re belief ? is that if you let wages fall to a level that will compete with technology that unemployment will decrease. Again what if technology can work for a penny a nickle a dollar a day like computers can. Your belief is that demand will fall (?as people consume less starve or die of disease war or violence?) and that will drop the price of natural resources. Never mind OPEC, or the fertilizer/seed/ mining oligopolies. You believe that this drop in the prices of natural resources will stimulate demand.
Give us a bit more of an answer than ” stop price fixing”, show us how it plays out in your head.
Be a bit more precise. So 40-50% of people become unemployed due to technology and a massive number of business who used to sell to these people go out of business.”
Should make their life better free them up for better kinds of work, think washing machine, who would want to wash clothes by hand like they used to ? ugh
That’s the theory. I think the real problem is the out sourcing technology has made possible. Not everyone can work for Homeland Security
We’re not talking about washing clothes type jobs we’re talking about.
1. With drones and computerized driving, every shipping, delivery taxi cab , pilot etc job is at risk. . That’s a large list of people.
2. Restaurants doing away with waiters and using on the table ordering screens.
3. We’re talking about computers that can listen understand and give a reply. Nurses, operators, receptionists.
4. We’re talking about computers like IBM’s Watson reducing the need for scientists and engineers and doctors.
It’s f’n massive. So tell me what jobs will be created to take the place of the 40-50% of the working population who will loose jobs. Is a job fairy on the way?
So tell me what jobs will be created to take the place of the 40-50% of the working population who will loose jobs.
That is a bleak world.
Let’s face facts and be honest. The solutions would range from barely not letting them starve and having massive social unrest that threatens to “burn the whole thing down” to real types of Socialism where citizens own (or directly profit from) the means of production that would, in such a scenario, be in the hands of even fewer than now. I would not go that far but many would in that picture. That’s why I fight to not let America get that far gone.
In that bleak world I would vote for doing whatever countries like Sweden and Denmark were doing leading up to it or what those countries are doing now. They seem to have a pretty good handle of of balancing safety-nets/education and capitalism.
Tell us how you prevent OPEC or foreign corporations or governments or oligopolies from fixing prices. It’s not just the gov that fixes prices.
Who cares who is fixing prices.
End the price fixing ends the problem.
They can fix prices on stuff only if you NEED it.
Arrange your affairs so as to reduce your needs. Needing little is freedom.
Amen.
Who cares who is fixing prices.
End the price fixing ends the problem.
But this one goes up to 11.
How will regulation help without reform? How can there be reform without honesty?
^+1000 Blue. Technology already makes honesty possible. The next 10-20 years will make it even more likely that very reliable truth machines are available. It is far more likely this happens than that technology drives unemployment up to 40-50 percent in the next 20 years.
EC fines banks £1.4bn over interest rate rigs
From Europe Dec 4 2013 BY: Sam Shaw
The European Commission has fined a group of eight financial institutions a total of €1.7bn (£1.4bn), for forming illegal cartels to rig interest rates.
Barclays, Deutsche Bank, Société Générale and RBS were fined for price fixing of interbank lending in euros with Deutsche slapped with the biggest fine of €725m.
UBS, J.P.Morgan, Citigroup and broker RP Martin were also implicated for fixing of yen rates. Some of the banks received fines for price fixing across both markets.
Other banks currently being investigated included HSBC, Credit Agricole and J.P.Morgan on another rate-rigging matter on which it had not yet settled.
The cartel operated between September 2005 and May 2008 and aimed to distort the normal course of pricing components for derivatives used by the banks to influence the risk of interest rate movements.
The EU found that traders of different banks discussed their bank’s submissions for the calculation of the Euribor as well as their trading and pricing strategies.
Joaquín Almunia, commission vice-president in charge of competition policy, said: “What is shocking about the Libor and Euribor scandals is not only the manipulation of benchmarks, which is being tackled by financial regulators worldwide, but also the collusion between banks who are supposed to be competing with each other.
“Today’s decision sends a clear message that the Commission is determined to fight and sanction these cartels in the financial sector. Healthy competition and transparency are crucial for financial markets to work properly, at the service of the real economy rather than the interests of a few.”
…
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/talking-numbers/bove-government-destroy-american-mortgages-permanently-181249759.html
Video also available at this link.
The removal of the two most important players in American mortgages – the Federal National Mortgage Association (”Fannie Mae”) and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (”Freddie Mac”) – threatens the very foundation of the American economy, according to Bove.
…The bailouts also came at a steep price for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – they will be phased out by 2018 under a plan developed by the Obama administration (see the Treasury Department’s white paper: “Reforming America’s Housing Finance Market” - .pdf). Congressional Republicans and Democrats also want to see an end to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, though they don’t agree on what should be done to replace them.
For Bove, the end of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will radically shake up the kind of mortgages most Americans will get.
“If Fannie and Freddie go away, what then happens to the mortgage markets?” asks Bove. “The answer to that question is that we no longer have things like 20-year and 30-year mortgages because banks are not going to put that type of mortgage on their balance sheets. And we won’t have fixed-rate mortgages.”
“If Fannie and Freddie go away, what then happens to the
mortgagehousing markets?”Housing prices fall to dramatically lower and more affordable levels accelerating economic growth to unprecedented rates.
With the Fed soaking up all the mortgage paper, aren’t the GSEs redundant?
Canada manages to have a “mortgage market” without GSEs.
Is the 30 debt contract an American birthright?
At one end is the consumer, and at the other end is the supplier; easy enough start.
What is not clearly seen are the barriers and layers erected between these two groups. Regulatory barriers are often erected to prevent new entrants to the marketplace rather than protect consumers, and layers of financial market entities frequently enrich those who game the markets (artificial shortages?) rather than provide more choices and lower prices for consumers.
Today this middle layer is struggling for survival having become shot-through with corruption; they are [the] obstacle to an efficient consumer v supplier marketplace. Do we really want to pause at the dinner table to give thanks to Goldman Sachs for hoarding leading to higher prices?
San Diego’s home buyers of 2013 go euphoric to despondent in 8 months… ” Yeah!!, I’m the highest bidder…Crap, I overpaid!!!!”
So you can wager Janet Yeltsin will continue central planning’s 5 year roadmap to more price fixing.
Didn’t communism(price fixing) fail in the USSR?
Again it isn’t just the gov fixing prices. Oligopolies in the US and around the globe do it every day.
Tell us how you fix the problem of 40-50% of jobs being replaced by technology and the further job lose that results from the destruction of demand.
That’s the problem as you define it.
The problem is unaffordability and price fixing.
End the price fixing, end the problem.
40-50% of jobs being replaced by technology ??
Its a slippery slope and one that appears we cannot stop…Information technology has allowed people in the remotest parts of the world to become engaged…
Look at Bezo’s droid…Even if that could be applied to only rural area’s how many jobs would that eliminate…How much money would it save…
Droid = Drone…Wow…I think thats the 2nd time I have done that…
1. First it would kill off a lot of high paying delivery jobs.
2. It would give Amazon yet another advantage over small business putting more small business out of business.
3. All those people who provided services to the delivery drivers and small business owners and their employees will be put out of business.
Now throw in the loss of other taxi and delivery drivers with computer controlled cars and trucks, and loss of jobs in the service industry as computers that are able to communicate with customers are able to replace customer interface jobs - Front desk, information, nursing, trouble shooting etc.
Those with remaining jobs will save a buck on delivery and Amazon will pocket 3 bucks a sale. Most of this will go to the elite who already own most of the stock.
It’s not a slippery slope it’s a cliff a waterfall onto jagged rocks.
Note I read an article the other day about IBM’s watson cutting the work load required for basic research and playing a roll in medical decision making. Is there a job out there other than CEO or politician that is safe.
How do we deal with this is the question. I laid out my list, answers from others so far.
1. Cut taxes across the board.
2. Cut price fixing and regulation.
Any others?
No.
Scroll up and read the starter.
3. Learn to do art and poetry.
Some people just can’t get out of the idelogical box they have boxed themselves in.
3 bucks a sale. Most of this will go to the elite who already own most of the stock.
It’s a no-brainer that no one wants to talk about. If 50% are unemployed and only .01 has any wealth and that wealth was derived from the rest of society and the .01% now has all the wealth to the danger of an entire country and a people, then that wealth has to be redistributed back from where it mostly came. The people. How? Massive tax increases on the .01% to be redistributed BACK to the people.
Use that money to subsidize health-care, education and small business to put them on a level playing field with the massive corporations and the .01%. Supply-side economics and technology all lead to the same place, Monopoly and massive wealth inequality.
Monopoly and massive wealth inequality is not the basis of healthy capitalism. And if they get artificially out of whack, they need to be put artificially back in a place that fosters a more health capitalism.
It’s basic:
Capitalism is a tool and an invention to serve humankind. Humankind not a tool and invention to serve capitalism.
So the retail business model is changing again. I am not sorry if it is the death toll for Wallowmart.
Wealth disparity is what socialism brings in large doses. The vast majority are being taxed and indebted and written in as guarantors in absentia by those in power. The monies are funneled to the moneypower centers who are allowed to place their own men in our government, capture most of the rest with bribes and run any scrupled independents out of town. They get to write our laws. The “Fed” is giving these crooks Trillions a year and the rest of us are withering in the checkout line as they speculate in the essential goods of our existence. There were laws against this, they have been repealed.
The reason that socialism never works like you’d expect is that there is never a shortage of immoral greedy sociopaths. Freedom and prosperity requires that these people be restrained, so that one man may not gain too much influence over another and not have his hands too deeply into the pocket of others.
We’ve gone down this starry eyed path quite a ways and probably more pain is required for a blowback. It could be through the democratic process or it could be more bloody like episodes in our history. In any case it will happen. In the meantime, sugar mango visions of a kleptocratic utopia reek like vomit.
Wealth disparity is what socialism brings in large doses.
No, no no. Not Social Democracies. Scandinavia has much less wealth disparity than the USA and they have a higher standard of living, better health-care for all, are more educated and are much happier than Americans. And yes, their brand of Capitalism is superior than ours for 99% of their people.
World’s Happiest Countries? Social Democracies
by Craig Brown
A new report released by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) shows that happiness levels are highest in northern European countries. Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands rated at the top of the list, ranking first, second and third, respectively.
The US? As expected, the United States failed to make the top 10 but ranked among the highest for obesity and child poverty. Americans spend less than half the amount of time eating as the French, but have three times the obesity rate. “This tells us something about slow food, I think,” Simon Chappele, editor of the report said in an interview with NPR.
commondreams dot org
Lola,
Of course they’re “happier”. I’d be happy to if I had everything handed to me.
*Think* Lola *Think*
““This tells us something about slow food, I think,”
Relates to you being a water boy for the kleptocrats just how?
Relates to you being a water boy for the kleptocrats just how?
I have no idea what you are saying. Explain and I’ll answer. But hurry. It’s late.
‘much happier than Americans’
They don’t have to compete with Kim Kardashian.
A drone carries 1 box up to 5 pounds.
A delivery truck carries a huge number of boxes, many that can weigh more than 5 pounds.
1. A drone can’t deliver an entire truckload (due to weight constraints alone).
2. Even if a truck were only filled with 5 lb packages, how many trips would a single drone be able to make in a day (delivery one, and back to warehouse, reload, delivery 2, back to warehouse and reload, etc.)? Following from that, how many drones would you need to have in order to maintain the same flow of goods as with the current delivery fleet? Would people be OK with that number of drones constantly whizzing through the skies?
IMHO, truck delivery folks have nothing to worry about, not for a while. Delivery drones will be a novelty for a long time.
The folks who should worry are local stores that sell small, items that people tend to need/want the same day. Drones are an alternative to a quick trip to the store.
Why is it one drone vs a truck. Why not 1000 drones vs a truck. I purchased a quadcopter the other day for 50 bucks. I imagine Amazon could build autonomous copters for 100 bucks each, but let’s assume it’s 1000. One truck costs 60,000 and they pay the driver 60k a year. So Amazon could purchase 60 copters that could deliver 3 packages an hour 24 hours a day with the price of the truck and another 60 each year for the price of the driver.
1200 x 3 x 12 = 40,00 packages a day could be delivered with this fleet every 12 hours. My guess is joe in a truck can’t deliver 40,00 packages in 12 hours. My guess is Joe can’t deliver more than 10 packages an hour ie 120 on a 12 hour shift. Let’s just say he can deliver 100 an hour or 1200 in a 12 hour shift. He’s still way behind the drones, the drones will also work 24 hour shifts.
His only saving grace is bad weather. How long before autonomous trucks drive up and a robot delivers the package to your door step? Now even heavier packages don’t need a delivery driver.
Just answered it Google is working on humanoid drones that can move the package from the autonomous truck to the front door. Poof no more delivery man.
We could have delivery boxes streetside. Just have the truck deposit it, as the garbage trucks do now in reverse. If I could get a delivery out in the middle of Lake Ontario at a specific Lat/Lon, that might be interesting. Can I deliver my taxes to the IRS with a drone copter???
It’s not one drone vs. a truck, and I don’t imply that. I note a question of how many drones would be necessary, and a question of how many would need to be whizzing through the air at all times for delivery, and whether that would be acceptable to the public.
How long will the battery charge last?
Who loads the copters?
Who swaps out the batteries (because charging would take too long)?
Who delivers packages that have gone awry?
Who makes sure the copters don’t crash into people?
How will they deliver to the 20th floor of a skyscraper?
The second floor of a small building?
You also need to consider that these do not replace the need for trucks to delivery heavier products…and that the entire ballgame for shipping is to be able to cram vehicles full–this is much easier if you have small packages alongside big packages. Think about trying to build a specific rectangular shape with a limited number of random sized legos (representing the bigger boxes that need to be delivered in a certain area in a day), but not having small pieces. There will be empty space in your creation.
In many cases, taking small pieces off of a truck/route won’t eliminate the need for a truck and driver at all.
In other words, if you think you are going to move x small packages to drones that would otherwise fill y vehicles, and be able to remove y vehicles and y drivers from your fleet, it’s not going to happen.
However, if you want to charge an amount of money for something you need right away to be delivered by copter, I’m sure that is WAAAAY cheaper than having a driver available to drive you the product (through traffic and stoplights, etc.), and there is an audience that wants the tie in time for dinner out, a new pair of shoelaces that broke at the wrong time, a tool that you forgot to buy at the hardware store, etc.
And for convenience, I’m sure you could charge enough for convenience drops to make it work (even if a copter is $10,000). People pay $20+ for next day delivery. Would a lot more people pay $10 for next 30 minute delivery? Absolutely.
I can also imagine book and video game delivery for new releases. Pack 5-10 to a copter and spit them out like pez. One copter, 5-10 deliveries, one trip out.
I’m not saying that the copters are worthless, I just don’t think drivers should be quaking in their boots just yet (they should be nervous about autonomous trucks and robots–in the future), but local businesses should be–each copter drop takes away a sale where the only other option would have been a quick trip to the local store.
By the way, you added a zero (120 x 3 x 24, not 1200 x 3 x 24). Your 24 hour fleet of robot copters (that load themselves and don’t need recharging) would deliver 4,320 packages per day, not 40k.
I think there are 3 zeros after the 4. Initially I calculated at 100 dollars a drone, but then decided it might be as high as 1000.
In regards to your other questions
How long will the battery charge last? 1 hour it’s attatched to the product carrying module that the copter lands on when picking up a load.
Who loads the copters? Robots load into a container that has a battery pack that will allow delivery.
Who swaps out the batteries (because charging would take too long)? When drone lands drops off old container which contains the used battery pack then a new container with a full battery pack and containing the next package to deliver is picked up. Off it goes takes 30 seconds. Old container with drained battery pack then goes to charging station via conveyer belt and then is loaded with product by a robot.
Who delivers packages that have gone awry? I’m assuming packages that are lost due to malfunction. Answer is another drone.
Who makes sure the copters don’t crash into people? It’s likely they will be safer than human powered craft. They have computers that will allow them to fly from the pick up zone to the delivery spot. They will have sensors to detect other flying objects, but air corridors will be created likely over existing roads so this will be rare.
How will they deliver to the 20th floor of a skyscraper? They will land on the roof or docking station that sticks out of the 20th story.
The second floor of a small building? No different than the 20th story.
The technology already exists. You put an electronic beacon on your mail box the drone identifies it and delivers the package.
Yeah, now I feel more confident that this drone thing is going to be very limited for a long time.
Talking Heads – Once In A Lifetime
2005
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
You may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
You may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”
2006
And you may ask yourself, “How do I work this?”
2009
And you may ask yourself, “Where is that large automobile?”
And you may tell yourself, “This is not my beautiful house”
And you may tell yourself, “This is not my beautiful wife”
2010
You may ask yourself, “Where does that highway go to?”
You may ask yourself, “Am I right, am I wrong?”
You may say to yourself, “My God! What have I done?”
2013
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Talking Heads: Once in a lifetime - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvM6TxUnCDE - 122k -
I like this one better”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rpYo4GFt2k
Warning sign, warning sign,
I hear it but I pay no mind.
Hear my voice, hear my voice,
It’s saying something and its not very nice.
Pay attention! Pay attention, I’m talking to you and I hope your concentrating.
I’ve got money now, I’ve got money now,
C’mon baby, c’mon baby.
Warning sign of things to come
It happened before (2008)
It will happen again (2014-2020+)
I like this one better:
“Let ‘em eat jellybeans let ‘em eat cake…Let ‘em eat sh!t, whatever it takes…”
We Can’t Make It Here Anymore - by James Mcmurtry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTW0y6kazWM
…..Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I’m in
Should I hate ‘em for having our jobs today
No I hate the men sent the jobs away
I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They’ve never known want, they’ll never know need
Their sh!t don’t stink and their kids won’t bleed
Their kids won’t bleed in the da$% little war
And we can’t make it here anymore
Will work for food
Will die for oil
Will kill for power and to us the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get to fall through the cracks
Let ‘em eat jellybeans let ‘em eat cake
Let ‘em eat sh!t, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force, or join the Corps
If they can’t make it here anymore….
“Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another, right now”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCGvONbVCa0
1) DC’s two new WalMarts receive 23,000 applications for 600 jobs: http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Walmart-to-Open-First-Stores-Dec-4-232488871.html
2) An Ikea in Spain received 20,000 applications for 400 jobs: http://wtop.com/628/3518078/IKEA-receives-20K-applications-for-just-400-jobs
DC’s application to job ratio: 38 applications for every job.
Spain’s application to job ratio: 50 applications for every job.
See? We have a ways to go before we are like the Eurozone peripheral countries.
As always, we’re always thinking up new ways to empty some pockets outside of the construction biz….
Now that the entire population of CA has been getting irradiated by Fukushima fallout and will continue for whatever the half life of that particular isotope is(hundreds of years?), we’re thinking about opening up cancer clinics to meet what will be a tsunami of patients seeking treatment as a result of the exposure across California.
Cha-ching?
Well all you DebtDonkeys…..
You wouldn’t have these—-> http://tinyurl.com/jwxm4dq ……..
… if you didn’t do this—> http://tinyurl.com/l2otdgb
…. now you got this—> http://tinyurl.com/mkgwf38
http://youtu.be/SReQ6XNhB_E
Mad Donkey - JPG Photos
http://jpgmag.com/photos/3325104 - 94k
So How Do You Speak “Donkey”?
Tail Swish:
I like to use this one when I am carrying hay to the feeder and a donkey is following too close behind me. It is a very mild first warning for them to back off and give me a little more room. You may think at first that this would be a really hard thing to imitate since we humans don’t have tails. But when I started pretending to act like a donkey, I found that swishing my arm back and forth like a tail behind my back worked very well as an alternative to a real tail.
Evil Eye/Glare:
Here is another fun one to do! I have been teaching my donkeys to wait to approach their hay feeder at feeding time until I tell them they can. As “Boss Jennet” I should have the authority to tell them they have to wait patiently until I’m ready to let them eat.
Snort/Hiss:
Some of my donkeys can make a terrifying snorting/hissing sound when they want another donkey to bug off and leave them and their space alone. It’s one of the first warning signs, and means “Get back and leave me alone! I’m not in the mood to have you bothering me (or my food).”
Stomp:
The stomp should be pretty easy for you to figure out. It is a more moderate warning sign. A stomp accompanied by a glare and sometimes a snort can usually be pretty convincing for most donkeys who are not really serious about testing their limits.
Shuffle or Charge:
This is a stronger warning to your donkeys to keep back from you. You’ve probably seen a donkey charge or lunge a few feet toward another donkey to chase them off. She doesn’t run very far, but those few feet are enough to convince the other donkeys to stay back.
Your donkeys will learn to have a much greater respect and confidence in you once you learn to talk to them in their own donkey language.
As always, remember safety first when working with your donkeys. And good luck learning to speak “Donkey!”
Kristie Jorgensen
http://longearsmall.com/mt/articles/mall/archives/2004/12/so_how_do_you_s.html - 13k -
“New home sales rose 25% in October, suggesting that a critical sector of the economy is continuing to gain strength as the end of the year approaches.
Builders sold homes at a seasonally-adjusted annual pace of 444,000 in October after a revised estimate of 354,000 for September, the Census Bureau said Wednesday. That beat economists’ projections of 425,000 for October.
The strong report supports the idea that the economy is gaining some steam. Home sales are a crucial part of the recovery, because new home construction is still at less than half of its pre-recession peak, and each new home built supports between 3 and 4.5 new jobs, according to different estimates by economic consulting firms.
“Real estate took us into this mess, and in some ways real estate is going to lead us out of it,” said Frank Friedman, chief financial officer of consulting firm Deloitte.
The outlook for housing depends on wage growth, household formation and the number of houses for sale, T. Rowe Price Associates chief economist Alan Levenson said in New York on Tuesday.
The good signs include a drop in new home inventories that builders need to sell, meaning that any increase in demand will lead quickly to new construction and new jobs, he said. The Census Bureau said builders have enough homes to satisfy 4.9 months of demand at the current sales pace, less than half of what they had during the recession and down from 6.4 months’ supply in September.
The question mark is when household formation will rebound, after an extended shortfall, Levenson said. The number of households has historically risen by about 1.5% a year, as young people graduate from school or college and leave their parents’ homes, according to Census data. That rate fell by two-thirds during the recession.
That has led to more than 2 million ”missing households,” Trulia.com chief economist Jed Kolko wrote in a July 2013 report. The housing recovery will gain steam when more of those people strike out on their own, he said.
The key to when that will happen is wage growth, Levenson said. Household formation has been slow to rebound during the recovery because wages continued to fall early in the recovery and grown tepidly into this year, he said.
And they’ll collapse next month as a result of “counting error”.
Remember…. NAHB is no more honest than NAR when it comes to numbers. And as you recall, NAR was caught “reporting” inflated, overly optimistic numbers every month for 5 years.
The truly unbelievable thing is that the Commerce Department, a huge government agency dedicated among other things, to gathering data, explicitly relies on the NAR for its existing house sales data. From the Commerce Department website:
“Existing home sales data are provided by the National Association of Realtors®. According to them, “the majority of transactions are reported when the sales contract is closed.” Most transactions usually involve a mortgage which takes 30-60 days to close. Therefore an existing home sale (closing) most likely involves a sales contract that was signed a month or two prior.”
http://www.census.gov/construction/nrs/new_vs_existing.html
The NAR is a sales organization. They are only going to provide data which advances their agenda. While they certainly do collect data internally, they’re not going to share it unadulterated if it doesn’t advance their interests.
The slide into a crony-capitalistic banana republic continues.
The outlook for housing depends on wage growth,”
yea so outside of Washington DC and Silicon Valley whats up ?
I guess farmers are doing pretty good and so is oil extraction.
Foreign money and Blackstone Hot Money .. what else ?
Medical industry must be doing well the Mutual fund family I follow has it as the best specialty fund performer for years and years in a row .. I didn’t buy it 15 years ago because I didn’t think it would last Do-OH
T Rowe price PRHSX
“The Census Bureau said builders have enough homes to satisfy 4.9 months of demand at the current sales pace…down from 6.4 months’ supply in September.
Math is so hard.
Or maybe it is 4.9 months +/- 3 months. In any case, the larger picture here is that demand for new houses continues to bounce along below 1960 levels. It’s a multigenerational bust and they still are blowing the recovery bugle.
New homes cost less than used homes in many cases.
A teacher I kinda know is buying a house now and expects to live in it for 3 years then retire and move..
100K more than I paid and its a smaller Duplex up the hill
Oh NO this is what you get for hiring Financial advisers
Come to think of it I sold my Townhome to a teacher back in 2006…
Oh NO
“A teacher I kinda know…”
Sounds like you need to teach that teacher a thing or two.
The Liar In Chief is out there again today blasting capitalism, saying that the income gap has never been greater. Anyone who reads this blog knows because its been posted before here that the income gap has been the greatest under his watch and has grown 4 times.(i.e. Wall Street 1%). What has The Liar done to “solve” the homeless problem in 5 Years? It’s greater than ever. It’s his policies that have perpetuated it.
There is no hope in fixing the problem until he is homeless or at least out of his present home.
Will you be shocked if the next administration is just as bad as the present one?
The Liar In Chief is out there again today blasting capitalism, saying that the income gap has never been greater.
You are lost in foggy state of warped dogmatic confusion.
Conveying the FACT that the income gap has never been greater is not “blasting capitalism”.
It is the opposite.
Admitting that the income gap has never been greater is acknowledging a serious situation that is a threat to capitalism itself.
Obama has a lot of guts to talk about this in the face of a rabid right-wing constantly agitated by America’s dangerous billionaire Plutocracy.
Obama is imperfect but he’s got twice the guts of Clinton. I’d put him up there with Bush II and Reagan. Even more.
The guy that had the “guts” was Kennedy who lowered the top marginal tax rate. Yes that was lowered taxes on the “rich”. One forgotten piece of history that even the Kennedy family hates. It created economic prosperity. Go back to the history books Rio, if you can find one that hasn’t been bastardized by you fellow liberals.
The guy that had the “guts” was Kennedy who lowered the top marginal tax rate. Yes that was lowered taxes on the “rich”.
Thank you. We find common ground. Raise the top tax rate to Kennedy’s 65% and we’ll all do better.
The Myth of JFK as Supply Side Tax Cutter
John Kennedy was no Ronald Reagan on taxes, despite what some conservatives might claim
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2011/01/26/the-myth-of-jfk-as-supply-side-tax-cutter
…The notion of Kennedy as supply-side forerunner is a powerful myth, but it is a myth. Context is key. Conservatives love to quote a speech Kennedy gave at the Economic Club of New York in December 1962. Here’s one quote—I’ve italicized the crucial part often left out: “Our present tax system, developed as it was, in good part, during World War II to restrain growth, exerts too heavy a drag on growth in peace time; that it siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power; that it reduces the financial incentives for personal effort, investment, and risk-taking.”
JFK was not expounding an implacable economic philosophy; he was speaking about a very specific circumstance. The top marginal tax rate was 91 percent, which JFK wanted reduced to a “more sensible” 65 percent. Compare that with today’s 35 percent top rate, and ask: If supply-siders are so enamored of JFK’s tax policies, would they advocate a return to a “more sensible” 65 percent top rate? Applying Kennedy’s tax talk to the current structure, JFK biographer Robert Dallek says, is like comparing “apples and watermelons.”
Like trying to nail jello to a tree that Mango boy is.
Like trying to nail jello to a tree that Mango boy is.
There are 2 possibilities that I can reasonably attribute that to.
1. That those “arguing” “against” me are not smart enough to make their case.
2. That I am correct, therefore their case cannot be rationally made.
I’ll go with #2 because I respect many HBB poster’s intellect. But I don’t respect or accept fine intellects being corrupted by failed dogma.
Lola,
You’re the dumbest smart person I’ve ever encountered.
I respect the facts Rio not your propaganda.
I respect the facts Rio not your propaganda.
No. You don’t respect facts that refute your dogma. Through the years, I’ve posted hundreds of facts and studies.
You? You’re relatively new (at least you-re new handle is) and I’ve never seen you post one study or an accurate fact yet.
So how can I possibly respect your propaganda? It’s the only thing you post “NH Hick“.
Also bring back the exemptions and exclusions and favorable capital gains treatment that existed under Kennedy, (Don’t forget income averaging), does anybody remember that term?
Also bring back the fact that taxes were much higher for the rich and capital gains under Kennedy. (Like triple that of today…..triple)
does anybody remember that term?
It sure as heck wasn’t called “Supply-side economics”.
The “rich” in your eyes was able to escape taxes and make that 65% much less through the means I just described. 50% exemptions existed on capital gains up until the 1986 tax reform act. It’s too bad Reagan was fooled into thinking that the Democrats would ever cut spending in exchange for the concessions he agreed to. Well that’s water over the dam.
It’s too bad Reagan was fooled into thinking that the Democrats would ever cut spending in exchange for the concessions he agreed to
No. Let me fix it for you Hick:
It’s too bad Reagan falsely “fooled” himself and America into thinking that the Democrats would ever cut domestic spending as much as Reagan would raise spending. Especially after Reagan said in his campaign that he would not.
Better. More fact. Less propaganda.
As much as you guys think you have the facts right, America knows your wrong. Just wait till the next election, we will see who prevails. Just keep blaming it on Bush and “Reagonomics”, it’s go to work!
America knows your wrong.
For some, that’s almost as funny as what you’re trying to say.
But for me? It’s not even close.
VAPORIZED: Detroit Obliterates Retirement Funds: 80% Cuts to Pensioners: “This Is Going to Affect Everyone”
Mac Slavo
SHTFPlan.com
December 4, 2013
Though a decade ago civil servants and union members would never have believed it could happen, the stark reality of the situation came to pass this morning.
Image: Detroit (Wikimedia Commons).
We now know the answer to the question: What happens when a government makes promises it can’t keep and borrows so much money it can never be repaid?
This morning a judge overseeing the City of Detroit’s fiscal sustainability ruled that the City can be afforded bankruptcy protection, meaning that all 100,000 of its creditors now stand to lose a significant portion of monies owed to them.
The most notable victims are the tens of thousands of retirees living off of pensions – many of whom will see an 80% obliteration of the retirement funds they believed they’d receive until they died.
Creditor attorneys have repeatedly speculated they expect Orr’s plan of adjustment to mirror the June 14 proposal he offered creditors to avoid bankruptcy. That deal proposed giving unsecured creditors such as pensioners and bondholders a $2 billion note for $11.5 billion in estimated debts — or less than 18 cents for every dollar owed.
Most of those affected assumed the government would simply find a way to borrow more money or fabricate it out of thin air. They were wrong and now they are paying the price:
“Oh my, oh my. Everyone is worried. When we think about what could happen, it’s scary,” said Larsen, 85, who moved to Palm Harbor, Fla., outside of Tampa after he retired in 1976.
“If they take our health insurance? Oh god. Cutting pensions? It’s terrible. The city of Detroit was our pride. Honest to goodness. We loved it.”
“We are all worried,” said Nancy Schmidt, the group’s secretary. “This is going to affect everyone in different ways. If it comes to fruition, I’ve got two empty bedrooms and I may end up having to rent them out.”
“My net pension is $2,300 a month,” said Kammer, 77, who moved to Englewood, Fla., not long after retiring with a disability in 1977.
“I could make it for a while, go through savings, but pretty soon, I’d end up in bankruptcy.”
“(Retirees) feel like something that they’ve earned and were promised is being taken away from when they’re not in a position in their lives to plan for it and fight back,” Plecha said. “They’re at a time in their lives when they’re most vulnerable.”
Detroit is the first and they have now set a precedent for other cities in similar situations. You can be assured that more will follow.
First it will be the cities. Then the states will go under. And finally, the Grand-Poobah – our own Federal government. Detroit’s debts are pocket change compared to the $200 trillion in future liabilities owed by the United States of America.
If you are depending on a government retirement package to be there for you for the rest of your life, you’d better think again. Over twenty thousand Detroit retirees thought the same thing – and as of today they have been wiped out.
When this crisis hits the Federal Government – and it will – you’d better be ready for them to take drastic measures. This means they’ll be forced to not only cut retirement benefits promised to federal employees, but will make the case that if they have to give up their retirement funds, you’ll have to give up your 401k, IRA or personal savings.
Sounds impossible, right? Congressional members have already gotten the ball rolling on a nationalization of America’s retirement funds, and when they are ready to do it they’ll pass the legislation just like they did when they seized 1/6th of our economy by nationalizing health care.
They are coming for the money – YOUR money – because they will be left with no other choice.
If you’re not planning on a secondary income stream or preserving wealth in the form ofgold and silver, productive land, or other tangible assets, you’ll end up just like the retirees from Detroit. Having additional resources, like a well stocked long-term pantryand a preparedness plan for financial disaster, can mean the difference between living in poverty or thriving when best laid plans fall apart.
Plan for the worst, because that’s what’s coming.
This article was posted: Wednesday, December 4, 2013 at 6:31 am
249 comments
U.S. Army Retired
• 39 minutes ago− +
⚑It’s just a matter of time before it goes federal. No More Social Security, No More Federal Retirements. And still no sign to fix the debt….
see more
0 △0 ▽You must sign in to down-vote this post. •
<Reply•
⥅Share ›
TwitterFacebookLinkNutZ
• 40 minutes ago− +
⚑The real reason this is happening is because for the last few decades Detroit has been run by some of the worst criminal politician in the country. If those politician hadn’t stolen the money there would be plenty to go around and this wouldn’t be happening.
see more
0 △0 ▽You must sign in to down-vote this post. •
<Reply•
⥅Share ›
• 2 hours ago− +
⚑Apparently from the comments, not many of you are able to see the problem. The 85 yr old retired 37 years ago, when he was 48, and has been living in FL, not Detroit off of the taxpayers since 1976. The 77 yr old retired 36 years ago, when he was 41, and has been doing the same thing. Sorry, but this pension “plan” was doomed from the beginning, and these two are a glaring example of why it could never work. Sorry, but the wheels finally came off that gravy train. Too bad most were too greedy/stupid to understand that before it happened.
“I could make it for a while, go through savings, but pretty soon, I’d end up in bankruptcy.”
Only if you are deeply in debt. So you are a Debt Donkey, making promises you cannot keep yourself.
If you’re not planning on a secondary income stream or preserving wealth in the form ofgold and silver, productive land, or other tangible assets, you’ll end up just like the retirees from Detroit. Having additional resources, like a well stocked long-term pantryand a preparedness plan for financial disaster, can mean the difference between living in poverty or thriving when best laid plans fall apart.”
Buy as many homes as you can because the government doesn’t want them you can even live in them for freeeeeee
Buy as many homes as you can because the government doesn’t want them you can even live in them for freeeeeee
You had me until that final sentence. The wealth of the world is moving from Europe and North America to Asia. That does not bode well for housing prices in either area. Of course, it is no coincidence that Asia has become more capitalistic than either Europe or North America. That is why I like the metals particularly platinum and palladium. Own what Asia wants is good advice. While some may want houses in North America now, in the longer run there will not be the income here to support the prices unless we make a drastic change back to free markets, not crony capitalism, free markets and address the declining collective IQ of the country.
You had me until that final sentence.’
the last sentence is mine, some sarcasm on the above article which gives strange advice at the end saying the government will confiscate 401k’s and then saying to buy tangible assets- like they can’t take those as well.
I doubt they will out right confiscate any 401k just means test and not give you any Social Security if you have any net worth saved up. And tax the crap out of it as you withdraw 401K savings.
You would have to hide very well any gold and then also hide the selling or trading of it as some poor and or angry folks would love to turn your ass into the government as a hoarder.
I’m think Cambodia and the kids turning in their parents who could read and write.
So lets hope its doesn’t come to that.
401ks, brokerage accounts, bank accounts - are all the low hanging fruit. The IRS knows the account numbers, gets 1099-DIV, 1099-INT, 1099-B’s and so on from the tattle tale investment firms. The Cyprus experience was that those account numbers were already known by the Cypriot government…for the same reason the US government knows all our electronic account numbers.
That’s worth a bold italic.
Low hanging fruit. 401ks will be partially confiscated before any physical precious metals (platinum, palladium, gold, silver, rhodium) are confiscated. Because it’s far easier (and safer for government employees) than to go door to door in flak jackets with m-16s and demand all the precious metals.
Same thing for fine wines, rare violins, rare stamps, original art, and so on.
“I sold all my bullion yesterday” (observe the quotes).
Bill, most people lost their stack by a boating accident.
Bloomberg
Chief Executive Officer Laurence D. Fink, who last year said he would invest 100 percent of his personal wealth in equities, said pension funds won’t meet their liabilities unless they put more money in stocks.
“I do believe most plans that I know have underinvested in equities,” Fink said today at the National Association of State Treasurers Issues Conference in New York. In a low interest rate environment, increasing stock holdings is the only way for pension funds to meet their obligations, he said.
Come on Charlie Brown. The only way you are going to get a field goal is if you run and kick the ball while I hold it for you.
Looks like Brazil could use some Reaganomics, negative GDP when they have wages lower than China, guess the Krugman solutions they tried have not worked out so well:
http://blogs.barrons.com/emergingmarketsdaily/2013/12/03/are-investors-fleeing-brazil-after-the-q3-gdp-contraction/?mod=yahoobarrons&ru=yahoo
Bad link but here is the excerpt, the demand economics has failed: government spending and promoting consumer spending:
By Shuli Ren
“There is some danger of an abrupt collapse in investor confidence and Brazil should be watched closely in the days ahead,” warns Michael Shaoul of Marksfield Asset Management, adding “Brazil’s capital markets appear to be suffering from a sudden flight of capital.”
The Ibovespa Brasil Sao Paulo Stock Exchange Index is down 0.7% to 50,872 this morning as Brazil reported its third quarter GDP contracted 0.5% from the second quarter.
More alarmingly, Brazil’s 10-year yield shot up and its spread over the U.S. Treasury is now at the highest level since the summer of 2009. Here is Shaoul:
Brazil’s 10 year yield has risen more than any other major issuer over [the past year] and only international basket cases such as Venezuela suffering deeper losses.
Are investors fleeing Brazil?
Just by looking at the third quarter GDP breakdown, Brazil, once a bright star, now seems to have little to offer.
The year-on-year 2.2% growth was driven by consumer and government spending, and even the consumer spending was “probably boosted by government-subsidised credit for household goods as part of the ‘My Better House’ scheme which came into effect in the summer,” said Capital Economics.
“The Ibovespa Brasil Sao Paulo Stock Exchange Index is down 0.7%”
Wow good thing drops like this never happen in the US??
Brazil reported its third quarter GDP contracted 0.5% from the second quarter. Wow an exporter like Brazil seeing a contraction in GDP during a collapsing global credit bubble I just don’t understand.
More alarmingly, Brazil’s 10-year yield shot up and its spread over the U.S. Treasury is now at the highest level since the summer of 2009.
Aren’t US interest rates being held down by the FED, so this is some kind of commentary on Brazil’s situation or on our FED??
The other two components of GDP – net export and investment – do not have bright outlook either. Brazil’s largest trading partner China’s pivot towards a consumer economy means weaker demand for metals and fewer exports for Brazil. As for investment, Brazil may have a hard time attracting foreign direct investments, according to Capital Economics.
Well there are your facts. Capital economics thinks brazil will have a hard time attracting investment (not really a fact) and the black hole of natural resources appears to have a finite and decreasing appetite due to collapsing global demand in my opinion.
Looks like Brazil could use some Reaganomics, negative GDP
3rd quarter growth down .5%? One quarter after Brazil’s 15 year trend of growth for most its people? Yawn.
This is a classic example of Albuquerquedan’s frantic fixation on short term events and weird logic. He just can’t get his hands around long-term trends and numbers. His math is horribly corrupted by his failed politics.
Brazil’s 3rd quarter growth down .5% from the 2nd quarter and ADan thinks he’s making a positive point about Reaganomics? A failed policy pursued by America for 30 years.
Facts:
The past 30 years in America, Supply-side/Reaganomics has gutted the middle-class and thrown millions into poverty while making a few Americans richer than kings.
The policies in Brazil (Nothing like Reaganomics) the past 15 years have brought 35 million out of poverty and into the middle-class.
ADan can’t see the forest because the trees are in the way.
And Brazil is still a third world country.
I keep reading Mexico is picking up manufacturing jobs pulled back from China ?
Brazil yea its the curse of Hot Money investing
Wait until the Hunger Games are over.
Finish the day with this story.
Google is building humanoid robots. Expect to see more of these in shipping and processing jobs, house cleaning, and other manual task jobs.
My guess is that in 20 years we are able to replace more than 40% of jobs with technology. I think we are already capable of 40% replacement the build out will take time.
Second Story is a testimonial to how the top 0.01% run the system. The most common grade handed out at harvard is an A. The average grade is an A minus. Even my foo foo classes didn’t hand out A’s like that, maybe history of jazz but that was about it. My engineering classes were stingy as hell. Differential equations gave out a single A and an A minus out of 40 kids. The most common grade was a C.
I was the one who got the A in DifEq. I don’t remember any of it. Never used it once in my working years. Crazy. An engineering degree is IMO only useful to prove that you can excel at stuff that nobody in their right mind would want to do.
Ditto!
I do remember in the first 3 weeks of Diff EQ the prof insulted me. He basically committed some logical fallacy by the insult! I had half the students in my calculus classes previously and they knew me better and knew the prof was wrong. I ended up getting an A, but not in the form of an apology. From just doing the work and solving the problems on the tests.
The only applied math I ever used was vector geometry in three dimensions to solve a robotic motion issue for work.
Don’t discount the real value of your math: You are a better problem solver than many people. That’s from your years of mathematics.
Just ordered a book on PDE’s by Haberman. I just like math. Same thing with physical chemistry. I’ll probably never set foot in a lab again or use differential equations, but I like the logic of math.
I am glad you weren’t alive during the horse and buggy days. W
The worst class I remember was a probability class (P-chem was brutal). ISTR that getting 35% right on the final got you an A (which was way better than average).
Teacher was a brilliant Chinese guy who was barely understandable. People used to leave the classroom laughing at how ridiculously hard it was to understand him, or the material.
The other brutal classes was the bio core, filled with pre-med students. Brutal curve–very few A’s given out. I remember studying pretty hard the first class in the series…B+. Decided to go completely balls to the wall Winter quarter…I’m talking flash cards crazy, hours and hours of study sessions, etc…B+.
I drank a lot of beer and played a lot of basketball Spring quarter. I’m pretty sure I got a B+.
The “p” in p-chem has nothing to do with probability.
Yeah, I meant that P-chem was also brutal…missed a word there. The probability class was worse.
It’s been a while since I took the class, but I think the official title was the “Theory of Probability”. The trick to the class was to think of less obvious ways to come to the answer, using all sorts of crazy techniques that weren’t used in any of my other math classes. It was like solving complex brain teasers in a foreign language, being taught by a foreigner who barely spoke english.
They wouldn’t do this to my man Tom Vu:
http://www.fastcompany.com/3022941/fast-feed/electric-car-owner-arrested-for-stealing-5-cents-worth-of-power