Bits Bucket for December 16, 2013
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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@ADan-
you are on the right track about ‘the united federation of planets’ in star trek. but i encourage you to go further.
look at groups and associations like the AMA, the professional society of engineers, etc. etc. they are all detrimental.
for instance, people think that the AMA sets standards that promote excellence. but they don’t. they set standards that promote mediocrity or worse.
they tell us that their mission is to promote excellence. but their real mission is to gain power. and they gain power through numbers. why would they want to limit their numbers? they will include everyone that they possibly can. and if no one is looking, they’ll even try to include the ones that don’t qualify. they want influence, money and power. and the best way to get it is through numbers. ‘united we stand’ and all that.
in large groups that try to conform to standards, there will be less pasteurs and edisons that will stand out. groups will continually set the bar lower so that the most can qualify. no longer will individual’s reputations stand out as much. people that would have stood out without the group, and relied on reputation, will now mostly conform. i call it ‘the evil of groups’.
the good stands out easily in individualism. it gets obscured and lost in the group. in a certain way, so does evil. but then evil wants to hide and good should naturally stand out.
don’t listen to the naysayers Dan. you’re on the right track and you should continue with your theme.
Whenever something doesn’t make sense and it seems there could be a pretty simple fix to make things more efficient or productive, but that never seems to happen, somebody is making money off of things remaining with the status quo.
yes, money and power. they want things to be the same. expend less effort to keep getting more.
Solid points tj.
Some environments insist on teamwork. When I am part of those environments, I make sure I do my job, and if I see a member of the team lagging, rather than wait to have him pull me down I help him get up to speed. Most often it works and does not make too much effort and I get recognized for it. However this is a selfish motivation on my part.
My reputation in engineering is well above average. The people who do not learn proper engineering techniques tend to fade into mediocrity and become permanently bitter. But it is their own fault. Laziness is part of it.
For me, I will exit before I fade. By exiting, I will transform m field into a hobby and do the work on the road. I aim for moving with the climate at some point, to never be in temperatures above 100 and never below 20 - while maintaining an Arizona or Nevada main residence!
Bill, again i’m sorry for the mistake, although there’s nothing bad about being mixed up with Dan.
individuals can cooperate as a team. that is, i’m not against the division of labor that smith speaks of in the wealth of nations.
but it’s clear that these organizations are not a division of labor. they are a unification of power.
“they are a unification of power.”
Precisely.
And their goal is to establish power and never let go irrespective of harm done.
more people need to see that, HA.
Hey Bill:
Maybe when you retire, you should become a teacher, since you like to share your techniques. You won’t need as much income then, and you can travel during the breaks.
Good point! Maricopa County Community College Mathematics!
‘Good point! Maricopa County Community College Mathematics!’
Just don’t treat your students the way Sam Kinison treated Rodney Dangerfield.
Actually I brought up the reference to Star Trek yesterday. Thanks though.
sorry for the mistake.
Despite all the comments that will say otherwise on here, a realtor will help you find the home you want and also negotiate in your favor. Yes, we do collect a commision, but for any realtor worth his/her salt, that should not be the only source of motivation. Never hesitate to ask questions in the home buying process, we are here to help.
Comment by A
RealtorLiarKill them with kindness. It always works. Where can I send my 6%?
I met many years back with the younger brother of a high school classmate who was a realtor. I asked him why the sales fee was 6%. He disagreed and said it was totally negotiable…except not below 5%.
I have 2 comments/questions:
1. In the commercial realm, all commissions (sales and leasing) are totally negotiable…based on the size and complexity of the transaction. I’ve seen sales fee as low as less than 2%, and as high as 7%. The market functions perfectly well. Why don’t realtors negotiate their fee?
2. I listened to a guy who worked for a taxi company talk about how they are adjusting their business model to adjust to competition from Uber, etc. Do you see any risk to your business model from technology?
And based on LOTS of experience with difference brokers, I’m sorry to say, that there is a HUGE amount of motivation that comes from the commission…
Lastly, how do you explain the phenomenon that on average realtors sell their own house for more than third parties (as described in Freakonomics), OTHER than the fact that they are more interested in the commission, than getting the best possible price for their client (the seller)?
“Housing as a rental investment is a huge gamble considering it’s negative cash flow at current inflated asking prices of resale housing.
Beware.”
Exactly.
If you take on mortgage debt at current massively inflated housing prices, you’ll enslave yourself for the rest of your life.
“Debt is bondage.”~ Suze Orman, May 11, 2013
Don’t Be A Debt Donkey®
“If you have to borrow for 15 or 30 years, you can’t afford it nor is it affordable.”
You better believe it Mister.
“Housing is a depreciating asset and a loss, always. Your losses are magnified tremendously if you finance it.”
BINGO
the national association of realtors is a corrupt and unethical organization
Actually, realtors do help many people find their home at an affordable price. It is a common misconception they are contributiong to the housing bubble. Blame the banks for that.
hello realtor
Hi A Realtor. It is nice to meet you. Welcome to the Housing Bubble Blog. You can use this site to help your clients be better informed. Since you are a trustworthy person, I know you will bank your income during the best times to buy, and then refuse to compromise your integrity during overpriced times. Certainly you have a second career to sustain yourself during periods of bubble pricing. I’m glad you’re here!
“Arlington County Realtor Burglarizes Clients Homes CAUGHT ON CAMERA!!!”
http://youtu.be/uR3ySw8m9Dg
Actually, blames the banks if anything. Realtors help many people find affordable homes and help negotiate. Not all of them are bad. The realtor I went thru was very helpful when I moved into a new area and only took a 6% commision. Well worth the price I would say.
hello dan the realtor. will your girlfriend amy be joining us here today?
I blame people like you for buying houses out of their means.
here comes my souper bowl equity
’sports illustrated announced sunday that broncos quarterback peyton manning is its sportsman of the year for 2013. manning, 37, is the first bronco and the first denver athlete to receive the prestigious award. he is in the midst of an unprecedented comeback from four neck surgeries that forced him to miss the entire 2011 season with the indianapolis colts, an injury that led to his release, free agency, and new chapter in his career with the denver broncos.’
Four neck surgeries…If he earns $millions per year in his career I guess it is worth it. Not for me.
While I like football, I think it is awful about the injuries they get. Knees mostly.
Baseball is safer and I prefer watching that. But just this morning I heard of a player who got severely injured or killed in that sport as well.
Peyton had already banked millions before any surgeries. IMO he should have stayed in Indy as a coach — heck, he was practically the head coach anyway. He’s playing because he has one ring less than Eli.
Now I can’t watch. I’m afraid that he will be knocked down and not get back up, ever.
Peyton had already banked millions before any surgeries. IMO he should have stayed in Indy as a coach —
That could depend on a medical question. Many times one heals after surgery to be as whole as before. Necks? I don’t know. I’m sure that was a major medical concern addressed by some of the best doctors in the world. It better have been.
Now, thinking no 37 year old should be playing football is a different subject, but Peyton is on the cover of SI and will be MVP and maybe win the Superbowl.
But screw the Bronco’s. Go Chiefs!
how about that ACA, comrade!
it’s scoring big points for you commies, ain’t it?
doncha just love those obamacare headlines that seem to come out every day?
you’d like to talk about anything but obamacare now, correct?
just wait comrade.. it’s going to get worse and worse. i wonder what nov. 2014 will look like?
Peyton is on the cover of SI
O no!!
He’s doomed.
(for those not familiar, being on the cover of SI is considered to be a curse/jinx. Historically, an SI cover means your career is about to slump.)
‘here comes my souper bowl equity’
LOL
here comes my souper bowl equity
Prediction: The Broncos will lose their first playoff match, just like they did last year.
buy a house today, extract some equity tomorrow for xmas gifts!!
Why buy a house when you can rent it for half the monthly cost?
no better way to pay for that new ps4 than by amortizing it over 30 years!
PS3: 90% of the features @ 50% of the price. Possibly less now that people will be selling them to upgrade.
I think if you update the software on your ps3, the only things PS4 has relate to gaming… and many games probably won’t use (or at least require) those features yet. Many people people use ps3 as a home entertainment system bc of its BluRay player, web browser, good wifi connectivity, Netflix/Hulu/Crackle/RedBox/Amazon Prime capabilities. Same for XBox, except I don’t think the old XBox had a BluRay player.
I hope that Aereo wins @ the Supreme Court this term… that will open the floodgates for people fleeing cable. Right now Aereo is only in select markets on the coasts (NYC, LA, SF, Balt/DC, Boston) and Texas. Aereo won the right to put broadcast tv from an antenna onto the internet in their District Ct case and it was upheld at the Ct of Appeals level as well.
Liberace!
@Downlow Joe
The prospect of upgrading my entertainment “system” is so daunting I don’t want to do it. My 20 year old teevee is a flatscreen, not a flat panel, so it still has the bulky tube/box. My DVD player was $40 at Wal-Mart. And my library DVDs are free.
For “entertainment” we took our Alpine/Touring skis with climbing skins several miles up into Wild Basin in Rocky Mountain National Park yesterday, at a cost of 3.5 gallons of clown-car driving gas. And you don’t have to buy a lift ticket when you “earn the turns”.
You’re beating me in this respect. However, I’ll put my bang for the buck of entertainment against just about anyone’s. I have very low month to month charges… Cable internet connection $19.95/month (no TV package or home phone), $15 for Netflix streaming + BluRays via the mail. Amazon Prime is $70/yr and saves me a ton on shipping… the media library is just a bonus. Although I will say, I like all 3 of Amazon’s original shows — Vikings, Alpha House, and Betas. I have only seen a bit of each so far, I usually fall asleep quickly. Netflix’s House of Cards was the best thing I’ve seen since The Wire and Arrested Development is worth the money.
Right now my Aereo subscription is free but that will expire and it will be $8/month. I’m waiting to see if they add chromecast or PlayStation compatability.
An overlooked aspect of PS/XBox is social gaming. I game with some bros from work, pumping and dumping stocks in GTA5 or hijacking airliners. A great way to unwind.
Best ways for anyone out there to kick the cable habit -
Google Chromecast - $35, ships for free. Works with ANY tv with a USB port. Software updates itself via smart phone & home wifi. Also available at any electronics store, e.g. BestBuy, radioshack, probably at Target, etc. With chromecast, you can use Netflix, Hulu, Pandora (free), YouTube (free) and 1 or 2 other services I’m forgetting.
PS3 (not 4) - I’d buy used or reconditioned right now, the deals are probably great. Has wifi, bluray, and more streaming capabilities than Chromecast, at least for now. Also has camera options to do video chat, etc. I wouldn’t buy the PS4 bc, like I said, it’s 2x the money for 10% more capabilities. PS3 software is updated every so often via home wifi. Last update I noticed was addition of Crackle and RedBox.
Overall I spend about $25/month on Netflix and Aereo. I use stitcher and slacker on my commute (both free). Seems like a good deal to me.
Liberace….. there is no way to get HBO using any of these cable alternatives.
How are we to watch your HBO biography? It was a great movie by the way.
Behind the Candelabra actually was a good program.
Netflix has HBO shows available on DVD/bluray for sure. I think you can stream some of them, but the really popular ones (Sopranos, The Wire, Curb your Enthusiasm) are only available on DVD.
Obviously you can’t get current seasons of HBO shows on Netflix, there is a delay to allow them to come out on DVD. Same thing for Showtime, AMC, and other premium channel shows. You can usually stream all but the latest season.
It was pretty good indeed Lib.
Right now Aereo is only in select markets on the coasts (NYC, LA, SF, Balt/DC, Boston) and Texas.
Denver too.
I think Aereo is in Chicago and Atlanta too.
Biggest problem for Aereo is the case pending in the Supreme Court. Battle of law firm titans in that case right now.
Aereo doesn’t work on Android or Windows phones yet, only on i phones. And they’ll need to get up and running on chromecast/PS3/XBox if they want to get a big market share. Most people don’t want to watch on a phone or tablet, they want to stream it to their TV.
BTW, Google Chrome… now just $29.99 with Amazon Prime.
Connects any tv with a USB port to a limitless supply of streaming content.
Cable is done.
Most people don’t want to watch on a phone or tablet, they want to stream it to their TV.
A Roku box works nicely.
hope and change
‘it was thursday, which meant giveaways at a place called bread for the city. fridays were free medical care at the clinic in southeast washington. saturdays were the food pantry at ambassador baptist church. the 1st of the month was a disability check, the 2nd was government cash assistance and the 8th was food stamps. ‘november freebies,’ read a flier attached to their fridge, a listing of daily handouts that looked the same as october’s freebies, and september’s freebies, and the schedule of dependency that had helped sustain raphael’s family for three generations and counting.’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2013/12/15/waiting-for-the-8th/
Strange how women have a knack for finding deadbeat fathers over and over again.
Strange how women have a knack for finding deadbeat fathers over and over again.
they get money for deadbeat fathers. i guess for some, that beats having a real husband.
but they really hit the jackpot if the husband is in prison. then they get extra perks.
racis
You guys are like Pavlov’s Dog on this raci$t stuff. Do you guys bark on command too? Shake? Chase your tails? Another Reagan legacy lives and you’re basest fears and hates are being played like a fiddle. Well done.
The Return of the Welfare Queen
Republicans are launching a class war with racial undertones—and hurting the poor whites they’ll need to win in 2014.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/the-return-of-the-welfare-queen-20131212
LOUISVILLE, Ky.—The welfare queen, she has risen.
Spawned by Ronald Reagan to turn blue-collar whites against the Democratic Party, then buried by Bill Clinton with a law “ending welfare as we know it,” she’s been excavated under the first African-American president as Republicans inveigh against the costs of health insurance and food stamps for the poor.
Twenty-five Republican-led states have—astoundingly—rebuffed billions of federal dollars under Barack Obama’s signature health care law to offer Medicaid insurance to more poor people. To justify this unprecedented rejection of federal relief, these governors and state lawmakers say they just do not believe Washington will keep its promise to pick up the tab. Republicans in Congress are egging them on, denouncing Obamacare’s disastrous launch as proof of the arrogance and folly of big government.
But all of this opposition carries an unmistakable undertone of class warfare, a theme easy to exploit in states such as Kentucky, packed with low-income white voters who have a strong distaste for the federal government. To hear the rhetoric coming from Capitol Hill and the campaign trail, Medicaid and food-stamp recipients are a bunch of shiftless freeloaders living high on king crab legs and free health care, all on the backs of hardworking Americans.
Medicaid expansion is “the principal reason your kids’ college tuition is going up,” Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky charged at a press conference here.
New Medicaid recipients “have no personal responsibility for their health,” said state Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, a Republican running for the U.S. Senate, in a memo from the state capital.
The mythical welfare queen was accused of driving a Cadillac and pumping out babies to keep the government checks coming.
…The tirades don’t stop at Medicaid.
The rhetoric about rewarding indolence is also pervading the debate over the farm bill, passed with subsidies for big agriculture—but no food-stamp funding for the first time in four decades
The facts defy the stereotypes. The largest group of food-stamp recipients is white; 45 percent of all beneficiaries are children; and most people eligible for Medicaid are families with children in which at least one person in the household has a job
well if it ain’t Reo the Ryin’.
what did you do with ‘the voice of treason’?
you make far more racist accusations than anyone else on this blog… race baitin’ Reo the Ryin’.
“If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon” — President Barack Obama
“The facts defy the stereotypes. The largest group of food-stamp recipients is white; 45 percent of all beneficiaries are children; and most people eligible for Medicaid are families with children in which at least one person in the household has a job”
You ignore percentage of population numbers as that would not furthur your liberal rant. The largest group of EBT recipients are white because the largest group is white.
Hi-Z, you don’t expect him to ever be honest about anything, do you?
Twenty-five Republican-led states have—astoundingly—rebuffed billions of federal dollars under Barack Obama’s signature health care law
– wow, and this miracle money is just like free manna from heaven during the exodus… so these republicans must be satanists, or at the very least, anti-semetic
You ignore percentage of population numbers as that would not furthur your liberal rant. The largest group of EBT recipients are white because the largest group is white.
I don’t understand. Since when is pointing out some facts regarding American rac!sm and hypocrisy “liberal”?
I quoted an article but your “point” does not negate the point in the article that the largest group of EBT recipients are white.
And here’s a real gem from the article. “The Return of the Welfare Queen”
….(Terry Rupe said. “I’ve always taken care of myself )…meet Terry Rupe. The 63-year-old widower can’t remember the last time he voted for a Democrat, and he’s got nothing nice to say about President Obama. He’s also never had health insurance, although he started working at age 9. Since his wife’s death four years ago, he’s been taking care of their 40-year-old, severely disabled daughter full time. She gets Medicaid and Medicare assistance.
“I don’t have any use for the federal government,” Rupe said, even though his household’s $13,000 yearly income comes exclusively from Washington. “It’s a bunch of liars, crooks, and thieves, and they’ve never done anything for me. I’m not ungrateful, but I don’t have much faith in this health care law. Do I think it’s going to work? No. Do I think it’s going to bankrupt the country? Yes.”
Rupe sounds like he could be standing on a soapbox at a tea-party rally, but he happens to be sitting in a back room at the Family Health Centers’ largest clinic in Louisville—signing up for Medicaid. Rupe, who is white, insists that illegal immigrants from Mexico and Africa get more government assistance than he does. (Illegal immigrants do not, in fact, qualify for Medicaid or coverage under the Affordable Care Act.)
He’s not alone in thinking this way. A majority of whites believe the health care law will make things worse for them and their families, according to a United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll.
“President Obama’s idea is taking from the working people to give to the people who won’t take care of themselves. It’s redistribution of wealth,” Rupe said. “I’ve always taken care of myself.
Sizzurp’s up!
so these republicans must be satanists,
That’s a straw man but this is funny.
Christine O’Donnell: “I’m not a witch.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGGAgljengs
I don’t understand.
we know that.
Since when is pointing out some facts regarding American rac!sm and hypocrisy “liberal”?
since when have you pointed out any facts regarding racism?
I quoted an article but your “point” does not negate the point in the article that the largest group of EBT recipients are white.
but smaller as a percentage.
you looked this time, didn’t you comrade?
how ’bout that obamacare? you sure don’t seem to want to talk about it these days.
” (Illegal immigrants do not, in fact, qualify for Medicaid or coverage under the Affordable Care Act.)”
HA HA HA HA HA!!
Good one.
Sure, they don’t legally qualify. But they also don’t legally qualify to actually, you know, be here in the first place. Or vote. Or drive without insurance. Or steal SSN numbers.
But yeah, I’m sure the criminals who disobey pretty much every other American law will obey the “don’t sign up for free Obamacare insurance law unless you’re a citizen” law.
nyc:
How do you explain all the non-deadbeat fathers? Do women have a knack for choosing them too? I would like to know if you are black.
non-deadbeat fathers don’t have to be ‘explained’.
In that case, “women” don’t have to be explained either. You seem like a teenager.
just women that choose the deadbeats.
you seem very mature.
Strange how women have a knack for finding deadbeat fathers over and over again.
A subset of women are attracted to “bad boys” the way a moth is attracted to a flame.
“A subset of women are attracted to “bad boys” the way a moth is attracted to a flame.”
+1 According to psychologists pleasure and pain are related.
clock running out for debt donkeys
‘the mortgage forgiveness debt relief act of 2007 sunsets at the end of december, just two weeks from now. congressional action will be required to extend it, and by all indications, with everything else currently on congress’s plate, it is not looking likely.
surprise! for a short sale that settles after the act expires at the end of the year you may receive a 1099-misc for $200,000 in ‘income’ and will owe federal and state income taxes on that amount.’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/where-we-live/wp/2013/12/16/why-sellers-in-short-sales-need-a-sense-of-urgency/
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDMQqQIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessweek.com%2Farticles%2F2013-12-09%2Fharvard-study-finds-the-rent-is-too-damn-high&ei=wRCvUqaeOcz9oATG_4HIDw&usg=AFQjCNFUiChivsHMiott2C5vnb7H7J0RxA&sig2=QcumCoagKBh59jCCy-JPaQ&bvm=bv.57967247,d.cGU
Dump the depreciating house while you still can because the losses grow tremendously the longer you hold onto it.
“Manhattan Apartment Rents Drop for a Third Straight Month”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-11/manhattan-apartment-rents-drop-for-a-third-straight-month.html
Considering rental rates are falling nationally, this should be no surprise.
Good luck to the corrupt ba$stards at Blackstone.
Bwahahaha! Another great reason to be renting.
Got popcorn?
That’s a nice head-fake. Everyone figures the housing market is on a tear, so why bother with tax breaks for short sellers? Never mind the fact that 21% of owner-occupied houses with mortgages in the United States are still underwater. Never mind that institutional investors are getting out of the game. Also ignore the rising housing inventory, especially in cities where prices have risen dramatically over the past 18 months.
Definitely get rid of the tax breaks.
If everyone were honest about it, anyone who signed for a mortgage since 1999 is underwater….. and going deeper by the day.
I’m guessing that there will be a last minute extension of the law. Waiting until the last minute will cause lots of people to sell NOW, thus clearing up more distress than would be cleared up if they extended the law 2 months ago.
In any event, I don’t care either way…if they don’t extend the law though, I can imagine all the estimates of the number of people stepping up to voluntarily short sell their house will be WAY too high.
Taper or notaper?
Bulletin Dow industrials leap 160 points in early going Monday »
Dec. 16, 2013, 9:15 a.m. EST
Industrial output jumps 1.1% to all-time high
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By Steve Goldstein
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Industrial production in November saw the biggest one-month percentage gain in a year to reach a record high, though the monthly advance was led by utilities output after an unusually cold month. The Federal Reserve said Monday that industrial production climbed 1.1% in November, the biggest percentage rise since Nov. 2012, as utilities output jumped 3.9%. Also, October production was revised up to a 0.1% gain from a previously reported 0.1% drop. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected a 0.6% gain for November. The level of 101.3 for industrial production is on an index that was 100 in 2007. Capacity utilization rose to 79% from an upwardly revised 78.2% in October.
Maybe we should start a campaign to send donations to tapir-related funds, in the name of the Federal Reserve. Whac, do you think a tapir would slow job growth in the US, or just cause the stock and housing markets to crash, without actually hurting anything else? That’s what I really want.
Fed Tapir
Taper? Bwahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
damn it feels good to be a banksta
‘managing directors at banks in london are expecting a 44 percent rise in bonuses for 2013 even as european authorities seek to scale back compensation, according to a recruiter’s survey.
the average bonus for managing directors may increase to 166,955 pounds ($271,686) from 115,618 pounds a year earlier, astbury marsden said in an e-mailed statement. that’s more than double their average salary, up from 88 percent in 2012, the recruitment firm said.’
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-16/london-bankers-expect-44-bonus-increase-survey-finds.html
Hey goon:
You apparently have not learned anything from tj’s lessons on this board. Don’t you know that no one has a right to question executive compensation? Especially not at the most socialistic institutions in the world, such as banks.
The New York Times, employer of many of Senator Dianne Feinstein’s “real journalists”, laments sheriffs in flyover who refuse to bow before the bedwetter coastal elitist agenda:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/16/us/sheriffs-refuse-to-enforce-laws-on-gun-control.html?hpw&rref=us
I read that and didn’t see any lament. The article allows quite a few people on both sides of the issue to have their say.
Besides, I’m sure that a lot of those sheriffs would call you a liberal bedwetter - a person who moved to Denver two years ago and is concerned about his neighborhood’s walk score.
The New York Times is the unofficial media mouthpiece for Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns (which should be correctly titled Mayors Making Guns Illegal).
That may be a valid point regarding their editorials, but this particular article doesn’t take sides.
“doesn’t take sides”
The online article commenters certainly do
They’ll get what they voted for with DiBlasio, when they learn that “when seconds count, the police are only minutes away”
I took a quick look at those comments this morning. Only about 10% appeared to be from New York state.
Do you guys think the stock market will crash sometime soon? I’d like to have something to invest in. If house prices are too high, stock prices are too high, and interest rates are too low, then what can a person do with their money? I wish I could buy dividend stocks and get a good income from that.
Invest in your bank account. You will thank yourself.
What about when banks fail?
We advise you keep no more than the FDIC insured amount in any one institution.
I don’t know if banks are the best investment at this juncture. Interest rates even for CDs are stuck at a paltry 1%. Safe? Probably. Will you make any money any time soon? No.
Capital preservation my friend…… you’re going to need every penny of that cash.
It seems quite obvious at this point that the stock market always goes up.
I heard it was because of a tapir shortage, which is forcing would-be tapir investors into the stock market instead.
There is not great income from dividend stocks today, but if you were going to look through such a list, do a Google search for “Dividend Champions”…you can find a list of companies that have a long-term (25+ years) history of raising their dividend.
I made a decision to invest in small/micro cap stocks starting about a year ago, and have been quite happy (up 40-50% or so). Candidly, I think I’m going to move to cash sometime in 2014…the market feels pretty fully valued.
Then again, I’ve been very lucky in public markets going 100% to cash in 2007, and going “all-in” in late 2008/early 2009…I’m not sure I’m going to be lucky for a third time, so perhaps I’ll just keep with the current strategy.
I’m holding cash other than maxing both our Roth’s. I don’t do 401k because big law firms don’t do matching contributions bc of the way they’re structured. Also haven’t bought any rental houses in nearly 3 yrs. Prices don’t make sense, at least 20% too high.
I am poised for the next drop in asset prices. In ‘08/09 freefall I was a wee lad just finishing up school and selling my body on the downlow to get lunch money. I will not miss a chance to buy BAC/JPM/GS at a big discount the next time around.
the only “chance” that existed was one to lose a lifetime of earnings.
Sit tight Lib. This train is just leaving the station.
Someone who bought large cap financial stocks during the dark days of 2008 or 2009 is sitting pretty right now. Hopefully they have the good sense to sell.
If things fall again, I think this would be a great opportunity.
For example, GS has more than doubled since early ‘09. Not including dividends. See http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=GS+Interactive#symbol=gs;range=5y;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;
BAC fell from $14 to $3 in early 2009. It is now above $15.
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=BAC+Interactive#symbol=bac;range=5y;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;
Question, does your firm allow Roth 401k’s? If so, other than limited flexibility on investment choices (until your next job and it’s converted to a Roth), why don’t you go with the Roth 401k to get another $17.5k into the Roth account?
At some point over the next 10-15 years, you are likely to change jobs, and even if you leave that money in a low risk option, you would have a couple hundred k in a Roth account that could be converted to an IRA, where you have lots of additional options.
Our 401k options have expense ratios higher than my liking.
However, what you say makes some sense, re: dumping money in a 401k then rolling into an IRA later.
My next job, if/when I leave, will most likely be me + 2 or 3 amigos in a very small firm. A better option to handle things will probably be a SEP IRA or some other option I’m not aware of at the moment.
My wife and I have about 10% of our retirement as her employee match (pre-tax $). The rest is in Roth accounts (about 20% in Roth 401k, the other 70% in Roth IRAs).
Since her employee match is vested, I’m trying to figure out how I can convert that amount to Roth and pay my tax now before the $ grows too much.
I converted a lot to Roth in 2010, paid my tax, and am very happy that I did.
Hey Lola The LIEberal….
What are todays excuses for Wrong Way Barack?
<b”Local Realtor sentenced in mortgage fraud”
http://www.capitalgazette.com/bowie_bladenews/news/local-realtor-sentenced-in-mortgage-fraud/article_7cbf8ee4-9baa-5e3b-ad89-3472409d1bdd.html
You’ll sustain massive financial losses if you get involved with these people and buy a house.
Ugghhh, off to San Jose again. This time under much different circumstances, though. New boss’s last software guy must have given notice…now the two of us that remain in Colorado get to go save the project. If he’d have laid me off 2 weeks ago I’d be laughing my butt off right now. Only downside is I have to be ready to go to China soon…
Sounds exciting! Keep us posted on your Sillycon Valley adventures…
And if you work hard and long hours your boss will get a nice bonus.
So true.
I have to be ready to go to China soon…
That would suck
But good luck
And try the duck
you might have me on ignore right now comrade, but you’ll miss me soon!
sooner or later you’ll want to tell me again how ‘civilized’ obamacare makes us.
tell us again comrade, how great obamacare is.
be sure to tell us before nov. 2014. i love the smell of roasted commies in the morning!
now the two of us that remain in Colorado
Is it worth keeping just two of you in CO, or would he insist that you move to Silly Valley?
No idea yet. He’s up to the usual hijinks, though, even though he can’t afford to lose anyone else. Got back to the room from work about midnight.
“Herndon Area Mortgage Loan Officer Convicted of Fraud”
http://herndon.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/herndon-area-mortgage-loan-officer-indicted-for-fraud
Now you know why housing prices are massively inflated with fraud like this going on everyday.
Now here’s 3 decades of “Trickle-Down/Supply Side failure in a nutshell. Look at today’s Reuters story below. Worker production has been rising for almost 4 decades while pay has stagnated therefore workers have no money therefore massive monetary stimulus (public and private debt into bubbles) is needed to keep the fake supply-side/trickle down show going.
From today:
Mon Dec 16, 2013 (Reuters) - U.S. nonfarm productivity rose the most in nearly four years in the third quarter but a drop in unit labor costs underlined a lack of inflation pressure, bolstering arguments for the U.S. Federal Reserve to maintain its massive monetary stimulus.
Now from a source across the pond:
“Changes in the nature of modern capitalism make a new settlement between waged workers and the owners of productive capital more urgent than ever….We have lived through the disaster of both left and right based Keynesian economics and public and private debt has been used to put off the genuine supply side solution we need: a supply of capital to labour enabling ordinary people to innovate and educate together, investing in their own businesses, their own lives. “ Phillip Blond
That quote is from an “internationally recognized political thinker and social and economic commentator” out of England who has a very interesting take on our problems of letting capital totally dominate labor the past 3-4 decades and the problems of labor dominating capital in the UK in 50’s-70’s. And He’s saying there should be a better balance of power and access to capital between labor and capital than USA and UK has now.
He’s also saying that supply-side’s aspect of financial deregulation has blown dangerous debt bubbles (housing, stocks ect) that “has kept us in business the past 20 years.” He also offers some interesting solutions.
The Supply Side State
http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/The-Supply-Side-State-xoya
…Mrs Thatcher in 1979 inverted the priority given to workers by the British state and favoured capital – arguing that in the end this would be to the benefit of everyone. Defeating inflation was the only way to resist investment strike and restore profitable returns to invested capital and therefore productive assets to industry. But the resources of the state were exhausted it could no longer maintain demand, and since UK growth was not productive enough to raise wages to sufficient levels the burden of financing low productivity passed from the state to the individual.
So the economy gradually moved from Mrs Thatcher to New Labour from maintaining capital supply through public debt to maintaining public demand through private debt. America sang the same tune. Europe its prior settlement now ossified into vested interest and bureaucracy increasingly followed suit. Neoliberalism succeeded not through supply side innovations but through privatising the debt demand function. For what deregulation allowed was massive capital inflows not to productive investment but to finance the extraordinary taking on of debt by private individuals and corporations and it was this debt driven growth that kept us in business over the last 20 years.
In short if the period from 1945 – 1979 was public Keynesianism the period from 1979-2008 was private Keynesianism. Across the West from the 1990s onwards as government debt gradually fell, private and corporate debt rose to unprecedented levels. The 2008 crash exposed this fake separation and collapsed both together when the state had to take back the debt (greatly increased through leverage and asset deflation) it had thought effectively privatised. Space prevents a proper analysis but let us say that the state is now in the extraordinary position of having to pay down debt to reassure bond markets that debts are affordable while at the same time creating growth so that – you guessed it – bond investors are reassured that debts are affordable. Austerity and growth are the twin irreconcilable demands being placed on debtor nations.
So what to do? How should a new one nation state behave? Siding with capital over labour ultimately undermines investment and destroys markets just as siding with labour ultimately undermines and destroys the interests of working people. Changes in the nature of modern capitalism make a new settlement between waged workers and the owners of productive capital more urgent than ever.
The 21st century economy could be truly terrifying; computer adaptation may well mean the equivalent of de-industrialisation for the middle classes. Innovation and ownership have been captured by a new oligarchical class. Increasingly our markets look like those of a ‘rentier state’ where offshore monopolies avoid tax whilst we allow them to dominate our markets extracting rents through effective denial of market entry. Success for this type of capital won’t necessarily mean a success for capitalism or democracy. America the most innovative western nation already gives us a vision of our plutocratic future – in 1974 the top 1% of US families owned 8% of US GDP in 2007 it was 23.5%.
To avoid such outcomes requires a One Nation state to reverse some very long term assumptions. Firstly it should not conceive of its primary role as redistribution – since redistribution can never catch up with production, its aim should be the restoration of wealth creation to all. Welfare to low paid work is not nearly enough it should be welfare to own, to trade, to learn. Wages are not enough the return to labour from wages as a proportion of GDP has been falling since 1968.
The true One Nation task must be to pluralise and extend ownership, innovation and education. This requires multiple initiatives. It means creating ‘horizontal’ bottom up trading economies in our most benighted areas facilitating people trading with one another preventing rent extraction from the ‘vertical’ economies that currently scale money up and out of neighbourhoods
It should mean creating new peer to peer investment vehicles so that wealthier people can invest in local businesses rather than buy to let bubbles and a failing stock market. The left should not view markets or capital as the enemy but as a good that has been restricted to the few. It should look critically at current competition law and the failed agenda of ‘consumer welfare’ that has aided current economic concentration and monopoly formation.
Tax law should be area based so that companies pay a proper return on trade and the ‘little people’ aren’t left with the tax burden. It should radicalise and extend the mutual and co-operative offer so that this sector can really become mainstream. It should seek to restore the city states of the industrial revolution and create an infrastructure that serves rather than centralises so there is as much regional/local autonomy as possible.
It means grouping educating and innovating our SME’s – creating not just individual but supply chain competition after all, of the 4.8 million UK private sector businesses, 99.9% of them are small and medium sized enterprises. Crucially it involves a through life educational offer for all citizens so that they can constantly adapt their skills to the rapidly changing world.
RioTard!
I think this article needs commas. It’s hard to read.
I think this article needs commas. It’s hard to read.
I know. Partly because it’s written by a Britt I think. And they spell funny. But his ideas are very interesting. He talks about the “fake” left/right debate as does Ben. I agree with it somewhat but not totally.
I totally agree with his “supply-side should supply business capital to regular people” opinion.
This is where Keynesianism leads:
http://www.infowars.com/colorado-shooter-opinionated-socialist-and-keynesian/
+1000.”He was such a nice young man”.(It must have been some evil Republican that made him do it).
Thatcher and Reagan did not create the problem. During both their administrations everyone did benefit. You cannot even see the problem. After they left office, and Thatcher was actually pushed out of office, the PTB pushed trade deals that gave China and many other countries WTO status. The PTB then created debt economies by creating artificially low interest rates. The answer is not left wing economics that failed both in the Soviet bloc and in Western Europe or crony capitalism which relies on access to fiat currencies before anyone else but a return to free enterprise. This was the policy of Thatcher and Reagan.
As far as your earlier e-mail calling people on this board racist based on welfare queens. The left calls racism whenever people point out facts. The fact is blacks make up about 13% of the population but do make up almost half of welfare cases. The same is true about prison populations. Is it racist to use facts? Are whites just suppose to ignore facts. If I told you an item was likely to double your cancer risk, you would avoid that item. But a store owner is suppose to ignore that a black person is four to five times more likely to shop lift? A cop is suppose to ignore that a black person is four to five times more likely to have that illegal weapon. Making rational generalizations is just racist profiling?
The second paragraph of this post is very racis. Bad racis, bad.
The PTB then created debt economies by creating artificially low interest rates.
The PTB? Reagan appointed Greenspan who started America down the path of artificially low interest rates and the disastrous Reaganomic financial deregulation. That’s the PTB pushing ReaganOmics.
And then Greenspan pushed for the BushTaxCutsForTheRich which totally destroyed our budget and is responsible for much if not most of “Obama’s debt”. ReagonOmics in action. We’re livin’ the dream.
Reagan appointed Greenspan who started America down the path of artificially low interest rates and the disastrous Reaganomic financial deregulation.
you are a little confused and dishonest, comrade.
greenspin did his dirty deed long after reagan was out of office. but you know that already, don’t you, comrade?
artificially keeping interest rates low is an artifact of keynesian economics, not supply side.
it’s demand management comrade. something you don’t understand but are in favor of anyway.
keynesianism is the tool of socialism, like you’re the tool of the krugites.
It’s not true that “the left” racism whenever people point out facts. More importantly, for a cop or a store owner to treat a person in a certain way based on the color of his skin is</I? more or less the definition of racism.
There are many millions of black Americans who are hard working, law abiding people just trying to live their lives. Is it reasonable for the police, whose salaries they pay, to treat them like garbage just people who look like them are statistically more likely to break the law than people who don’t look like them?
I still remember that Bill in LA said a couple of years ago that racists are statists. You don’t want to be a statist, do you Dan?
The fact is blacks make up about 13% of the population but do make up almost half of welfare cases….The same is true about prison populations.
Do you really wonder why? Really? Seriously? Most of your stats above are the result of the fact that there is a price to be paid for centuries of ongoing raci$m. You think hate and sickening prejudice come free? Deniers might want a handout on that, but there is no free lunch.
Racism Literally Costs America $2 Trillion…Ready to Stop Payment?
http://news.yahoo.com/racism-literally-costs-america-2-trillion-ready-stop-002225118.html
What we know: Racism has left a vast legacy of violence. Bigotry in America has marginalized a diverse range of minority culture. It dashes the hopes of children.
What we didn’t know: Bias based on race costs the United States a shade under $2 trillion a year.
A more complete accounting of the toll taken by race-based chauvinism has arrived in the form of a W.K. Kellogg Foundation study that shows fallout from racism slashing the country’s wealth. The study, released in October, posits that an income gap resulting in part from racism costs the country $1.9 trillion dollars each year.
The study, titled “The Business Case for Racial Equity,” was conducted with the institute and scholars from Johns Hopkins, Brandeis, and Harvard universities and demonstrates how “race, class, residential segregation and income levels all work together to hamper access to opportunity.”
Surprised not to have heard about the findings? Lead author Ani Turner of the Altarun Institute is right there with you.
“I was expecting it to get more attention as well, the numbers are so startling,” says Turner. “We all understand that removing barriers to racial equity is the right thing to do, but…(doing so doesn’t just) benefit those who are currently being disadvantaged.”
Addressing factors such as health care inequities, unjustified incarceration disparities, and lesser employment and education opportunities would generate 12 percent more annual U.S. earnings, the study found.
Among the more striking findings cited are a U.S. Department of Commerce study estimating that minority purchasing power would increase from $4.3 trillion to $6.1 trillion in 2045 if income inequalities were eliminated. Research also indicated that “businesses with a more diverse workforce have more customers, higher revenues and profits, greater market share, less absenteeism and turnover, and a higher level of commitment to their organization.”
state is now in the extraordinary position of having to pay down debt to reassure bond markets that debts are affordable while at the same time creating growth so that – you guessed it – bond investors are reassured that debts are affordable. Austerity and growth are the twin irreconcilable demands being placed on debtor nations.”
Bond investors will eventually demand the USA sell off real assets to repay all this debt. That’s what other broke countries end up doing.
We need to pull back some manufacturing. We need to tax capital gains the same as labor. Selling RE to Chinese is going to be just as bad as out sourcing manufacturing.
We need to tax capital gains the same as labor.
Cactus, the more you tax capital gains, the less jobs can be created.
I call BS. Even if you cut their taxes to 0 they still wouldn’t create jobs. They would hand their profits to their stockholders and turn around and whine that there are too many regulations. And if you disable all the regulations they will treat their few workers even worse and dump crap into the oceans and the air and then turn around and whine about some other “business unfriendly” restriction like interest rates that aren’t zero. They will make demands until we return to the middle ages of castles and serfs.
I call BS.
big deal. you’re always calling BS.
Even if you cut their taxes to 0 they still wouldn’t create jobs.
tell us, how are jobs created?
They would hand their profits to their stockholders and turn around and whine that there are too many regulations.
yes, those evil stockholders. do you think those evil stockholders put their money under the mattress?
And if you disable all the regulations they will treat their few workers even worse and dump crap into the oceans and the air and then turn around and whine about some other “business unfriendly” restriction like interest rates that aren’t zero.
what a load of krap. yep, ‘disabling’ those regs will cause them to abuse their workers. what a joke.
They will make demands until we return to the middle ages of castles and serfs.
no, that’s what government will do.
what a load of krap. yep, ‘disabling’ those regs will cause them to abuse their workers. what a joke.
It depends on the type of regulations in question. My grandmother grew up in town where most of the men were coal miners. Accidents in the mines were much more common than they are today.
Accidents in the mines were much more common than they are today.
yes, technology always helps. i know of a guy who installs some type of electrical equipment in mines all over the world. he constantly travels. he said most regs in mines are actually detrimental to safety. he said that he also feels much safer in a non union mine. i could look up some of his old stuff, but it would take a long time. he backs up his observations with cold logic, and it rings very true.
tell us, how are jobs created?
When government borrows money and calls up their favorite no-bid contractor?
When government borrows money and calls up their favorite no-bid contractor?
no, that’s one way money goes to money heaven.
why does it mean an increase on capital gains.. how about lowering individual rates to a max of 15% instead?
state is now in the extraordinary position of having to pay down debt to reassure bond markets that debts are affordable while at the same time creating growth so that – you guessed it – bond investors are reassured that debts are affordable. Austerity and growth are the twin irreconcilable demands being placed on debtor nations.”
The Author is in the UK. And this:
IMF: Britain’s deficit to shrink at fastest rate in developed world in 2013
Global fund suggests UK pace of consolidation is in line with recommendations, while it says America is cutting too fast
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/10367430/IMF-Britains-deficit-to-shrink-at-fastest-rate-in-developed-world-in-2013.html
Britain’s deficit will shrink at the fastest pace in the developed world this year, according to the International Monetary Fund.
The UK was just one of four advanced and emerging market economies to receive an upgrade from the IMF yesterday, with the overall deficit now expected to fall to 6.1pc of GDP in 2013, from a prediction of 7pc in April. America’s deficit is also expected to fall to 5.8pc this year, from a previous projection of 6.4pc.
While the IMF said the UK’s austerity measures were expected to continue at a rate of about 1pc of GDP in 2014 - in line with its general recommendations for advanced economies - it criticised America for cutting too fast and described the across-the-board spending cuts known as the “sequester” as a “crude tool”.
“The United States is adjusting too fast given the incipient recovery,” the IMF said in a report. “A slower pace of fiscal adjustment could also be considered in some European countries, given substantial negative output gaps.”
“Loan Officer At Midtown Mortgage Convicted”
http://blog.al.com/live/2013/12/first_person_convicted_in_mort.html
If they can’t afford the mortgage payment, deny them. If they have to borrow for 15 or 30 years, they can’t afford it nor is it affordable.
Organized House Flippers Convicted Of Bank Fraud In Oregon
http://www.registerguard.com/rg/news/local/30858760-75/fitzsimons-fraud-prison-desert-scheme.html.csp
Sacramento Real Estate Agents Arrested In Mortgage Fraud Scheme
http://www.centralvalleybusinesstimes.com/stories/001/?ID=24735
I’m glad most of you get a kick out of degrading other peoples professions. A realtor provides a service just like a chef at a kitchen. Just because some of you had some sour experience somewhere with a home purchase does not mean people should’nt buy houses. Realtors do not determine housing markets, leave that to the fed and banks. We work and pay bills just like anyone else. Calm down with the doom and gloom.
Realtors are trustworthy.
Falling housing prices to dramatically lower and more affordable levels is gloom and doom?
Pick yourself up off the floor and get ahold of yourself.
Calm down with the doom and gloom? Really? Dude, this is the Housing Bubble Blog. We’ve been doing gloom and doom for a decade and we’re good at it.
Go to the gym and troll there. You’ll probably find more prospects.
Doesn’t make it true or fact. The world hasn’t ended yet despite what some of you posters may think. Continue to live in your basement shelter and aviod life while others continue living if you are so scared.
Falling housing housing prices to dramatically lower and more affordable levels means the world is going to end?
…… its no why the public believes that realtors are frauds.
Continue to live in your basement shelter and aviod life while others continue living if you are so scared.
Playing the basement card so soon?
I’m glad most of you get a kick out of degrading other people ??
Thats all that he has to offer…..
Awww poor thing….
Gonna start being truthful here?
People in your job field are scumbags because they cheat the system. See? I can play that game too. Is that a fair assesment?
Stealtors cheat the system?
No…… Thats not accurate.
Stick around here and read the articles posted everyday and you’ll see more clearly then.
Finally, we are getting back to our mission with this blog. We have a truce in the works.
Truth is nonnegotiable.
Housing Analyst
Housing Analyst. I see you’re frantic comments all over the board but they are collapsed - ignored. The Joshua Tree Extension v2.1.
Why are you ignored? Because you add nothing that you have not barked hundreds of times before. You are boring and give off bad vibes imo.
But Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I wish you peace.
I told you long ago to ignore me Lola yet you come back for more schooling.
You are boring and give off bad vibes imo.
But Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I wish you peace.
lyin’ hypocrite.
Spot on Rio…Elementary playground banter is all it is…
“Because you add nothing that you have not barked hundreds of times before”; The pot calling the kettle black.
I’m glad most of you get a kick out of degrading other peoples professions.
Most don’t, but a few on this board borderline on the unhinged. (Borderline?……Well it’s Christmastime..)
There’s also a lot of hatred by some of Blacks, Browns, Gays, The Poor etc. And if you effectively support things within the centrist sphere of American politics such as Soc/Sed, Medicare, More equal wealth equality, Worker’s rights etc. they get all bent and call you a Commie and other hilarious stuff. If they bore the he!! out of you, you can ignore them with the Firefox Joshua Tree Extension. It works.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0QMI_-Iy8pod25GTjYwRTFZNlU/edit?pli=1
You’re full of reccomendations for every one else yet you fail to take them under advisement……
TJ is right……. Your a lying hypocrite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_drank
A realtor provides a service just like a chef at a kitchen.
Why should I pay you 6% when I can buy my own cookbook and cook my own food?
There are two ways of looking at things.
1) Given the repeat bubbles we’ve had so far in stocks and everything else, we can predict a never-ending cycle of bubbles. We should plan on investing all our cash during crashes, and then sellling all our assets when it becomes clear that we are near or just past the top of the market.
2) After so many repeat bubbles, there is no way can possibly have any more. Everything has to end sometime, especially after so many people have been burned so badly and so many times. We can predict that after the next stock/house crash, growth will be slow but steady.
Do you guys think that either one is right?
Hold onto your cash….. You’re gonna need it in ways you cannot imagine.
I think you are putting too much stock into the concept of “cash”. The dollar will be worth nothing when this whole thing blows up. Now gold, other precious metals and ammo on the other hand….
The two exceptions. I stand corrected.
To the financial planner who called after just meeting me last week: The purpose of your call is to set up some sort of arrangement by which we could send referrals to each other.
Ummm, dude, here’s a clue: I do NOT give out referrals like Halloween candy. They are earned. And, in most cases, I don’t refer people I only met last week.
We can predict that after the next stock/house crash, growth will be slow but steady.
——–
that’s what it is right now.
Do you guys think that either one is right?
Maybe.
The Fed has said it will keep buying assets “until the outlook for the labor market has improved substantially,” so the payroll data, along with the retail sales numbers, have bolstered speculation Bernanke will announce a reduction in quantitative easing at this week’s FOMC meeting on Dec. 17-18.”
This means never. As written about on this Blog how can the labor market improve when the information age needs far fewer workers ?
Yet demand for everything continues to collapse which is what they’re trying to avoid……. Yet they fail.
how can the labor market improve when the information age needs far fewer workers ?
Maybe it won’t;
And that’s what The Wire was about basically, it was about people who were worth less and who were no longer necessary, as maybe 10 or 15% of my country is no longer necessary to the operation of the economy. It was about them trying to solve, for lack of a better term, an existential crisis. In their irrelevance, their economic irrelevance, they were nonetheless still on the ground occupying this place called Baltimore and they were going to have to endure somehow
how can the labor market improve when the information age needs far fewer workers ?
IMO the labor market cannot possibly ever improve without structural economic changes. This is the Brave New World. 30 years of funneling most of our national wealth to the rich has just made the problem worse in the USA. Welcome to our plutocratic future.
From the article I posted above from respublica dot org dot uk/
The 21st century economy could be truly terrifying; computer adaptation may well mean the equivalent of de-industrialisation for the middle classes. Innovation and ownership have been captured by a new oligarchical class. Increasingly our markets look like those of a ‘rentier state’ where offshore monopolies avoid tax whilst we allow them to dominate our markets extracting rents through effective denial of market entry.
Success for this type of capital won’t necessarily mean a success for capitalism or democracy. America the most innovative western nation already gives us a vision of our plutocratic future – in 1974 the top 1% of US families owned 8% of US GDP in 2007 it was 23.5%.
30 years of funneling most of our national wealth to the rich has just made the problem worse in the USA.
comrade! a few questions mr. closer..
were they rich before the ‘funneling’?
if they were, how did they get rich in the first place? do the one’s that didn’t get the rich ‘funnel’ deserve to keep their wealth?
what’s the ‘funnel’?
why don’t you see the actual funnel from taxpayers to the government?
when will the government have enough?
will it be when it has made everyone poor?
what did you do with ‘the voice of treason’ and ’smells’?
Dearest Tijuana namesake:
I think you are missing Rio’s point. Furthermore, you are conflating his point with another one, and then arguing with the point he never made. I can’t tell whether you are doing this on purpose or not.
We’re having fun with the LolaTheLieberal before he/she goes back in his/her cage….
Move along…. nothing for you to see here.
you always think i’m missing the comrade’s points, but i’m not. maybe you’re missing his point?
That last sentence is pretty stunning…
Glad to see you’re out in the slums of Brazil helping the truly poor, not the welfare queens your Messiah chooses to subsidize more and more.
The labor market has been improving for a few years now.
I don’t see anywhere on this chart where there is an improvement. To the contrary; employment conditions are worsening. Even if it were dramatically different, it would have no impact on the current housing debacle.
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
Yes, I know that labor force participation is down, and this is mostly due to Millenials staying in school for extremely long stretches of time, graduating with too much education and not enough experience for their age. However, the unemployment rate has still be decreasing for years.
No.
It’s attributed to unemployment and the fact that the unemployment rate fails to capture those who’ve given up seeking full time employment because the economy sucks so bad.
It’s attributed to unemployment and the fact that the unemployment rate fails to capture those who’ve given up seeking full time employment because the economy sucks so bad.
true. and in addition, more people are working two part-time jobs (thanks obambacare) and being counted as two people working, not one.
why don’t you try looking at the labor participation rate?
It’s in the link above TJ.
In light of what I was talking about a few days ago, NASA’s data increasing diverging from satellite data, this is very interesting:
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/warming-593355-global-temperature.html
BTW, has anyone seen what the middle east looks like the last few days? It looks like Buffalo. Not only do we still have snow in Great Britain we are seeing it in places we have not seen it for 100 years.
I need to run and will not be able to post for awhile.
Nothing warms me up faster on a frosty day than a hot mug of purple drank!
Why do people post antiscience comments on the housing bubble blog? It’s weird. If you want to argue with the scientfic method (which, essentially, is all that these warming deniers do), then you might get more effect by doing so on a science-related blog.
Then again, the scientific community no longer feels compelled to waste time responding to the same pseudoscientific fallacies over and over again, so maybe you wouldn’t get any attention on a blog full of scientists. Maybe you NEED to propagandize among less scientifically astute readers.
It’s all Drudge Report links.
If it’s cold somewhere, Drudge links to an article about it.
Anytime people say the science is settled, it is anti-science. We have had cooling for 17 years when the AGW said we would have warming. That is a fact, not an opinion, and it is verified by satellite data.
P.S. The reason I post it on the blog it is the globalists that are pushing AGW. It is also the globalists that have used debt bubbles to cover up the decline in income caused by trade deals with countries like China. The housing bubble is just one example of a debt bubble caused by the easy money. A policy that happened after Reagan. But despite this and the fact that inequality has increased under Obama more than any other president, we have people trying to blame our economy on Reagan. True idiocracy.
The housing bubble is just one example of a debt bubble caused by the easy money. A policy that happened after Reagan
That is entirely wrong that it “happened after Reagan. How can you deny numbers and history? The path towards easy money clearly began under Reagan in 1981 as seen in this historical chart of the USA 10 year bond.
One can clearly see here the ReaganOmic TREND towards easy money in an almost-unbroken 33 year downward trend line. This is not conjecture.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Scat_VEIW9I/URrH6UrACXI/AAAAAAAABqs/I6shP2ednNo/s1600/U.S.+Treasury+Bond+Interest+Rate+History.jpg
So, for one saying the easy money did not start under Reagan……The Trend Is Clearly Not Your Friend.
Rio are you that clueless that you do not know the difference between interest rates dropping due to inflation falling, the right reason and interest rates dropping due to the government buying up bonds and expanding the money supply? Reagan crushed inflation allowing the lower rates. Obama has just printed money. You are nothing but a SEIU shill.
you that clueless that you do not know the difference between interest rates dropping due to inflation falling,
The path towards easy money began under Reagan. This is fact and history. This whole debt thing began under Reagan. He tripled USA’s debt in 8 years. Here’s a long take on how Reagan’s easy money (huge debt Reaganomics) worked great at first then fell apart because in the end…ReaganOmics is voodoo economics and America is living the results of 33 years of it.
Goodbye Reaganomics: The Recovery of America’s Honor
http://temi.repubblica.it/limes-heartland/goodbye-reaganomics-the-recovery-of-america-s-honor/722
Since the ‘80s, Washington has used its debt to finance its unipolar dream. Now the illusion has ended.
…The growth of public debt was an intentional policy started during the Ronald Reagan administration, and it was coupled with wide-ranging deregulation intended to boost America’s economy….
…These policies worked miracles. They were a strategic weapon, as they provided the funds to engage the U.S.S.R.
…Furthermore, the strategies endowed the American people with cheap money to start a spending spree, which proved to them U.S. affluence and guaranteed consensus for the ruling parties.
….However, there were snags in this process. The debt was sold to the open market as bonds, and it was also monetized.
…(By 2007) The paradigm of growth that had worked since Reagan was falling apart, but for months, many economists thought the worst was over and that this was a limited crisis….
…4. Reaganomics, which started this whole process, does not work anymore—but what should be done? The negative legacy of this disaster is huge. Its first victim is the reliability of the U.S. financial system, which, in turn, is the very heart of American power
What I notice about you, Rio, is that if you find some article somewhere that supports your view, it’s gospel. If somebody finds an article that disagrees with your view, it’s garbage.
Have you ever thought about getting help with your self-righteousness?
The path towards easy money began under Reagan.
repeating lies over and over won’t make them true comrade. tell how good obmacare is again.
What I notice about you, Rio, is that if you find some article somewhere that supports your view, it’s gospel.
Facts are gospel.
Facts:
1. Reaganomics basic premises and/or realities were and are expanding public debt, deregulation of the financial industry, easy money, and funneling more national wealth to the rich.
2. For 33 years we have expanding public debt, deregulated the financial industry, had easy money, and funneled more national wealth to the rich.
3. So, for 33 years we did exactly what Reaganomics called for and are now in serious trouble.
Ya know Lola…..
You talk about facts a whole lot here but your posts seem to be fact-free.
Much like you giving advice yet you never seem to apply it to yourself.
Why is that Lola?
Rio, you seem to be missing a key point:
‘That is entirely wrong that it “happened after Reagan. How can you deny numbers and history? The path towards easy money clearly began under Reagan in 1981 as seen in this historical chart of the USA 10 year bond.’
World war II clearly “began” for the US on Dec 7, 1941. To imply that the president on that day therefore “caused” WWII is pretty dumb. The real “cause” of easy money is the FIAT system. If you can just print it, it is easy. So Nixon is really the one to blame then, not Reagan.
You got it, Rio. It’s a simple system with only one input and nobody understands it better than you do.
3. So, for 33 years we did exactly what Reaganomics called for and are now in serious trouble.
more lies. and obamacare will be feeling mighty heavy in 2014.
I agree with the Nixon comment. However, easy money does not always mean lower interest rates. You need to consider whether the rates are higher or lower than the inflation rate and to the degree that the fed is pushing to lower them artificially. At no time during the Reagan presidency did that happen. The fed protected the hard won victory over inflation. Greenspan did not push easy money until the Clinton administration. There was no easy money during the Reagan presidency.
What I notice about you, Rio, is that if you find some article somewhere that supports your view, it’s gospel. If somebody finds an article that disagrees with your view, it’s garbage.
I think that a lot of people on this blog do that. They have certain beliefs about politics and economics and then they go and look for evidence to support those beliefs. It’s really the opposite of what a person should do if he wants to learn how the world works.
Rio, you seem to be missing a key point:
This is the key point:
Reagan’s policies and philosophy of supply-side/Trickle down policies were a major shift in America’s public economic policy - policies we still follow today.
Reagan’s Presidency was a major economic pivot point.
Reagan was the catalyst for, and Reagan’s Presidency was the definite turning point of America’s 33 year failed experiment in “SupplySide/Reaganomics.
Since Reagan changed the economic course of America in the 80s, for 33 years, we have practiced the following main points of Reaganomics.
1. expanding public debt,
2. deregulation of the financial industry,
3. easy money
4. funneling more national wealth to the rich.
5. Offshoring
6. Weakening of Unions
7. A false religion of “we’re all on our own”
8. The false religion of the “rich create jobs”
9. The fomenting of hatred of our federal government
So yes, we are living the nightmare of the 33 years of ReaganOmics that was begun, surprisingly enough, under Reagan.
There was no easy money during the Reagan presidency.
I guess Reagan tripling the US debt in 8 short years, slashing the top income tax rate from 70% to 28%, and the trend line on the 10 year note beginning its easy money 33 year trend down has nothing to do with easy money.
I guess Reagan..
i don’t blame you socialists for wanting to change the subject away from obamacare. but it ain’t goin’ away. the news will continue to get worse. you can run, but you can’t hide.
obamacare might just bring all you commies to your knees. couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch, comrade. munch on your ACA. i’m sure it tastes good.
you find some article somewhere that supports your view, it’s gospel. If somebody finds an article that disagrees with your view, it’s garbage.
I think that a lot of people on this blog do that
I really don’t do that. For example, the following is typical of my posts. It’s an excerpt from an article noting facts of wealth and income inequality that began to go off the charts since 80’s. (Since America fell in love with the false religion of SupplySide/TrickleDown economics.) It also gives the sources of the facts.
Now if someone can “find an article that disagrees with” these facts, using facts and their sources, I’ll be happy to look at it. But no one can.
Economic inequality and the end of the American Dream
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/12/15/340149/us-inequality-and-end-of-american-dream/
A 2011 Congressional Budget Office found that the after-tax income gap (and this includes after calculating in transfers payments and welfare) between the top one-percent of the population and everyone else more than tripled since 1979. After-tax income for the top one-percent increased by 275 percent between 1973 and 2007, for the bottom quintile it was merely 18 percent while for middle class or middle three quintiles it increased by not quite 40 percent. According to the census Bureau, the median family income fell in 2012 from $51,100 to $51,017, with average Americans earning less now than they did in real dollars in 1989. However, there is some good news–since 2009 the income of the wealthiest 1 percent has increased by 31 percent.
But income only tells part of the story. Maldistribution in wealth is also exacerbating and growing. According to the Institute for Policy Studies, in 2007 the top one-percent controls almost 34 percent of the wealth in the country, with half of the population possessing less than 3 percent. The racial disparities for wealth mirror those of income. Since 2007 the wealth gap has increased as the value of American homes–the single largest source of wealth for most Americans– has eroded. Studies such as the Survey of Consumer Finances by the Federal Reserve Board have similarly concluded that the wealth gap has increased since the 1980s.
I really don’t do that.
‘no, i win debates, just ask me’.
A 2011 Congressional Budget Office found
LOL. What’s their approval rating? What are their biases? These are the people you trust for facts? Pitiful, really.
A 2011 Congressional Budget Office found
LOL. What’s their approval rating? What are their biases? These are the people you trust for facts?
What is your point “Michael Viking”? LOL on the CBO? Approval rating on the CBO? Really? Do you know of what you speak? Do you know what the non-partisan CBO even is?
“the CBO’s role as a objective authority has endured”*
*Why does anyone trust the CBO?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/post/why-does-anyone-trust-the-cbo/2011/07/27/gIQARUVfeI_blog.html
…In recent months, Republicans have seemed impervious to outside pressure. They don’t fear the president. They don’t fear the debt ceiling. They don’t fear the market. But on Tuesday afternoon, when the Congressional Budget Office announced that House Speaker John Boehner’s proposal for raising debt ceiling would save significantly less money than promised, the Republican response was instantaneous. They backed down. Immediately.
As in previous high-stakes debates, the (non-partisan) CBO has become a key arbiter in the legislative process as lawmakers scramble to react to its analyses.
…Though they’ve regularly contested the CBO’s findings, legislators have deferred to its authority more often than not. …
…On several high-profile occasions, the CBO’s numbers have almost single-handedly doomed some of Congress’s biggest priorities, regardless of which party had brought in the agency’s director at the time…
…The CBO’s profile and influence have arguably risen even further in recent years as the national debate has revolved increasingly around the question of government spending, making the cost and savings attached to legislation even more consequential. Within an increasingly polarized political environment — one that’s fed a growing distrust of institutions once seen as impartial — the CBO’s role as a objective authority has endured.
So your facts are that I can trust the CBO because of a Washington Post blog? More LOL. It’s like when ol’ Mr. Turnipseed of the Federal Reserve personally told me that I could trust the US Treasury because it was backed by the Fed Reserve balance sheet and I could trust the Federal Reserve because it was backed by the US Government.
And yes, I’m laughing out loud at the CBO. I laugh out loud at most large government things. There’s not a lick of common sense in any of them. Nor do you seem to have a lick of common sense.
Belly up to their bar, good buddy.
I’ll give you some free advice related to common sense: never vote for something that the people proposing exclude themselves from.
I’ll say it again, this Rio clown is sitting in the basement of the White House spatting out propaganda for the “One”, wasting everyones energy to divert attention from the real failures of the “One’s” administration.
Lola got new marching orders. Bash Reagan, that’ll get the Messiah haters mad and off the topic of Messiahcare which is killing us.
Rather than bash something from 30 years ago, how about this:
If you want your liar, you can keep your liar. 2014 in 15 days.
More LOL. It’s like when ol’ Mr. Turnipseed…Rio clown is sitting in the basement of the White House…Rather than bash something from 30 years ago
Yea, yea, “basements”, “clown” “Rio this”, “Rio That”, yada yada.
You guys are sad in a perplexing way. You’ve been duped and you are my fellow Americans. Sad.
And actually, your reactive lashing out on cue shows that I make a good case, that I know history and summon facts to support my position.
Otherwise why so threatened? Why be so scared of a “clown who lives in a basement”?
The grand issues are not about me. They are about America’s failed Supply-Side 3 decade experiment.
Why not make a logical case yourselves? Why not cite facts, figures and your American history?
That would take some real effort.
Not one of you has posted facts with links refuting Rio’s posts just name calling. It’s depressing to watch.
I laugh out loud at most large government things.
That makes little sense in the lens of reality.
Do you “laugh out loud” at your mother’s Medicare check, the Hoover Dam, the roads you drive, the laws that protect you and yours, basic scientific research, NASA or the USS Ronald Reagan?
I think you are confused by failed, and not-well-thought-out plutocratic dogma.
Not one of you has posted facts with links refuting Rio’s posts just name calling. It’s depressing to watch.
That’s been done over and over here. SHe’s been schooled and schooled. She just comes back with more lies and spin. What good are facts to a propagandist shill?
That’s been done over and over here….(Rio’s been) schooled and schooled (with facts)
No. It actually never has been done here with facts. I’ve never been “schooled” with facts here. Show me when and with what facts.
Here. Here’s a chance from tonight. Please school me differently from the following facts: (buy use facts) Go.
From the article posted above:
A 2011 Congressional Budget Office found that the after-tax income gap (and this includes after calculating in transfers payments and welfare) between the top one-percent of the population and everyone else more than tripled since 1979. After-tax income for the top one-percent increased by 275 percent between 1973 and 2007, for the bottom quintile it was merely 18 percent while for middle class or middle three quintiles it increased by not quite 40 percent. According to the census Bureau, the median family income fell in 2012 from $51,100 to $51,017, with average Americans earning less now than they did in real dollars in 1989. However, there is some good news–since 2009 the income of the wealthiest 1 percent has increased by 31 percent.
You’ve been schooled, ridden hard and put away wet…. again.
We’ll let you out of your cage again when we’re ready.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/
Idiocracy.
http://www.people.com/people/kim_kardashian/
ot, but it pisses me off…
Working on the Covered California (ACA) stuff last night. The “undocumented” are exempt from rules,but us Americanos have so many and fines to boot. So many freebies to new legal arrivals as well. I was livid watching the tutorials on youtube.
We should sue for discrimination against the citizenry of this mess called America. This country is over, imho.
just listen to comrade Reo the Ryin’. he loves the ACA and thinks it makes us ‘civilized’. welcome to comrade’s big government america.
this is racis
I can’t afford the ACA
How to make $2 MM/yr as a sociologist…
http://chronicle.com/article/Executive-Compensation-at/143541#id=table
(Worked for Amy Guttman, at least)
BTW, I love how the Presidents of dozens of crappy universities make much multiples of what Harvard, Princeton, MIT, and Stanford pay.
They’re worth it.
Those schools won’t be producing any Obamas or Clintons, but they churn out the foot soldiers of the libtard bedwetter army.
When I was a page in the state legislature, one of the legislative interns was a recent graduate of Kenyon College (highest paid college president in Ohio). I can’t remember the context of it, but he once said that “the government should run everything.”
Isn’t Gordon Gee the highest paid President in Ohio? He went back to tOSU after his stint at Columbia. Columbia pays at least 7 figures, hard to believe he left for any less than that.
You know… quality of life improvements for Joe Sixpack have been caused by technological improvement. Not financial innovation and endless bubbles. The latter simply serve to extract wealth from Mr. Sixpack and consolidate it in the coffers of the PTB.
quality of life improvements for Joe Sixpack have been caused by technological improvement. Not financial innovation and endless bubbles.
quite correct.
Caused by technological improvement, which was brought about by lots of investment of capital (which in some cases was encouraged by bubbles).
I’m not saying bubbles are good. I’m saying investment in technology is good. And there are times when stupidly high valuations of new tech companies encouraged more investment into technology than would have occurred otherwise.
And there are times when stupidly high valuations of new tech companies encouraged more investment into technology than would have occurred otherwise.
you’re a very methodical thinker RW. and it serves you well. but you’re making mistake here.
the ‘more investment’ that you talk about is a misallocation of capital.. malinvestment. it is likely that the capital would be squandered like solyndra. even you need to trust the free market more. bubbles are no good.
rw has the intellectual capacity but is blinded by an tragic gambling losses.
We’ve got a few of them here.
your opportunity losses are incalcuable at this point. could of , would of , should of? how many years have you been wrong about home prices? 4 -5 @ least?
Are you drinking again $hithouse Poet?
If you are a logical investor in venture capital, all investment would be malinvestment.
The overall returns for the industry are atrocious. If you take out the returns on two companies (Facebook and Google), my understanding is that venture capital is overall a money loser over the past 15 years.
What attracts capital to investing in technology is the potential for outsized returns (to be part of Facebook and/or Google). This potential appears greater with high technology valuations.
Investment in technology is a form of pure research and development of human capital. Even with Solyndra’s failure, SOME things were learned, and SOME people became more experienced, malinvestment, or not.
And again, I’m not saying that bubbles are good. All I’m saying is that bubbles in tech can drive more money flowing into technology companies.
‘I’m not saying that bubbles are good.’
That’s exactly what you are saying. And it’s an old argument.
‘Economic bubbles have also been necessary. Occasionally, the object of speculation has been one of those fundamental technological innovations — canals, railroads, electrification, automobiles, aviation, computers, the Internet — that eventually transforms the economy.’
It’s just another version of the broken window fallacy:
‘During World War II, science went to war on an unprecedented scale, yielding innovations from radar to the atomic bomb. And the commitment continued through the decades of the Cold War. From 1950 through 1978, federal government agencies accounted for more than 50 percent of all R&D spending.’
Yeah, radar would never have been invented without war, etc. It’s no different than saying we should dig ditches and fill them in so we can invent better shovels.
If he were made whole on his losses, we’d be hearing from RW that bubbles are dangerous.
Yeah, radar would never have been invented without war, etc. It’s no different than saying we should dig ditches and fill them in so we can invent better shovels.
i didn’t see your answer before i answered RW, but yes, i agree.
not only would radar still have been invented without war, but many things that weren’t invented at that time, would have been if there were no war. all that money spent on war machines could have been put to much better use in peace time than building war machines.
Yeah, radar would never have been invented without war, etc.
It pains me to think that Lola and the rest of his comrades are proWar, but there it is. That’s where their program ends up.
Do you have an example?
I’m assuming you are looking for examples of how investment in technology was encouraged by bubbles.
I don’t have a specific example, just anecdotes. Lots of individual seed investors in technology venture capital do so because of the dream of hitting it big.
So, you have an angel investor who invests in the seed round with a valuation of $xMM for a company. An overabundance of capital chasing promising tech companies drives the value of that company to $3xMM for the “A” round of funding (a “bubble” valuation). On paper, that angel investor feels like he is successful, even though there is no product, no profit, no exit. That angel investor is now emboldened to pump money into the next deal.
Would that same angel investor put money into the next deal if the “A” round were a down round (valuation of less than $xMM)?
Less likely, but still possible.
People I know in tech today would say that there is too much capital chasing too few deals in tech, making the investment environment less attractive (too much risk for too little return).
It does mean that more ideas are getting funding. More people are tinkering with new stuff. Some of that tinkering may result in new technology.
Excluding the initial R&D cost, that technology might even be profitable to produce on an ongoing basis. However, taken on the whole, it may not be a profitable venture (sunk costs and all).
For J6P or society as a whole, are we better off that a rich guy is making bad investments in tech? Without the bubble, he might have made a better investment in a different realm. Or he might have just bought a Ferrari.
“I don’t have a specific example, just anecdotes.”
Just like your engineering, construction and contract admin examples.
I can see that angle, attracting more money into tech will attract human and investment capital, which can spark technology growth.
However, instead of having it metastasize into a bubble, with the inevitable social costs (consequences of the reversal of broad-based malinvestment), it might be more socially beneficial to simply have it be a lucrative field with less of a boom/bust cycle and more of a steady attraction of talent and investment.
Venture capital companies losing money slows IPOs. Bubbles damage those with much more limited resources, those who can ill afford it.
Another down side of a bubble is that it attracts more and more people into the financial sector, where their idle hands become the devil’s workshop (e.g. the quants who hid the growing financial crisis behind walls of mathematical obfuscation). And it takes away their talent from the actual technological improvement which improves the citizenry’s quality of life.
I’ve got no issue with fabulously wealthy venture capitalists gambling to try and score the big win. But these growing apologetics of bubbles is concerning. As median wages and income distribution charts show, they predominantly benefit the wealthy at the cost of the rest of the population.
The punditry see themselves and their social circles becoming more wealthy as a result of these phenomena, so it’s unsurprising they would advocate for these phenomena.
Also, I do understand the allure of bubbles from a policy maker’s perspective. They see the upslope of the bubble and think, “That’s what we want society to be all the time!”
But is it really? What is really happening to the net worth and quality of life of the populace? This needs to be examined.
Doing crack cocaine is one of the most pleasurable experiences one can have (so I’m told). However, there are significant consequences with the inevitable addiction and subsequent health consequences.
Bubbles are also like crack for an economy. But similarly there are negative consequences which invariably follow the hyperbolic pleasure.
Perhaps a more general sense of well being, though less dramatic than a crack/bubble hit, should be the optimal, sustainable goal for the economy.
Bubbles are also like crack for an economy. But similarly there are negative consequences which invariably follow the hyperbolic pleasure.
When a country spends 30 years funneling money to the rich through tax schemes and corporate welfare, at the expense of 95% of the population, bubbles are formed to distract. It’s fact now.
We get jerked around by every bubble, with our hopes stoked then dashed, while the very rich come out of every bubble much better off.
It’s a “Supply-Side” side show to keep our eyes off the pea. Sad.
Document Reveals State’s Move To Vastly Expand Continuity of Government Powers
Mikael Thalen
Infowars.com
December 16, 2013
A document currently circulating through the Washington state government details the attempt to vastly expand Continuity of Government powers by amending the state’s constitution.
Exclusively revealed to Storyleak, the document, entitled “Modernizing State’s Continuity of Operation Planning,” asks State Representatives to pass legislation concerning the government’s ability to implement COG. Spearheaded by the Washington Military Department and the State Auditor’s Office, the document also details the move to add Continuity of Operations planning to state law.
Created at the height of the cold war during the 1960s, the Continuity of Government (COG) program was designed to give the federal government martial law powers in the event of a nuclear attack. Now, states have begun following the federal government’s lead in granting themselves much greater COG abilities.
“Change ‘only enemy attack’ to ‘any emergency, disaster or attack’ in the state’s Continuity of Government Act, as well as the Continuity of Government provisions developed for the Office of the Governor, the legislature, county commissioners and city or town officers,” the document states.
The document also goes on to call for erasing the government’s requirement of bringing the legislative body together no later than 30 days after a disaster or attack, giving the governor the power to keep COG operations ongoing for undetermined lengths.
“Amend the provisions for the governor calling the Legislature into session from ‘as soon as practicable or no later than the 30th day after the attack’ to ‘as soon as practicable,’” the document reads.
Under revised amendments, each state agency, commission and board will be directed to begin developing and practicing a yearly continuity of operations plan.
“COOP is nationally recognized as a critical Continuity of Government component to ensure Washington citizens receive government assistance during emergencies,” the document’s first paragraph details.
While some feel the expansion of COG operations is a simple update, other laws passed in recent years seems to paint a more focused picture, as historically low government approval ratings coincide with increasingly authoritarian legislation.
President Obama’s extension of the National Defense Resources Preparedness executive order last year, which allows the government to completely take over all manufacturing, food, transportation and water resources in the event of any stated emergency, whether legitimate or not, followed several unprecedented law changes.
The 2012 and 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, signed by President Obama, not only declared the entire United States a battlefield in the never-ending war on terror, but granted the US government the ability to kidnap and detain any American citizen without charge or trial indefinitely.
H.R. 347, also known as the “Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011,” was updated to more easily impose felony charges on citizens who protest at any location or event attended by anyone with secret service protection.
Recent revelations, such as the leaked FM 3-39.40 Internment and Resettlement Operations document, clearly outline the federal government’s plan to detain and “re-educate” political activists in military internment camps during times of unrest.
Military drills on the streets of America, which include unannounced machine gun fire from helicopters over busy city streets, have begun fueling debate over the government’s plans for the future.
With some of the world’s leading financial experts predicting the worst economic woes ahead of us, which are admittedly being carried out by design, the update to allow COG implementation over financial disruptions leaves little room for debate.
Now, the same government demanding increasing powers to protect citizens during disasters is stockpiling billions of rounds of ammunition while spending millions on paper shooting targets of pregnant woman and children. Unsurprisingly, the same government admittedly spying on mainline Americans, now deemed the main terrorist threat, is also unwilling to handle even the slightest disaster.
If Hurricane Katrina is any guide, the federal government’s main objective will be confiscating the guns of law-abiding citizens while others desperately wait for food and water. If Americans are lucky like New Yorkers, they will be greeted by “closed due to weather” FEMA signs instead of gun-confiscating soldiers during their next major disaster.
This post originally appeared at Story Leak
This article was posted: Monday, December 16, 2013 at 5:59 am
If you are a logical investor in venture capital, all investment would be malinvestment.
for that to be true, all investments would have to fail.
The overall returns for the industry are atrocious. If you take out the returns on two companies (Facebook and Google), my understanding is that venture capital is overall a money loser over the past 15 years.
the risk is huge, but so is the reward for the right choice. as long as there are winners, the risks will be weighed and bets will be made.
What attracts capital to investing in technology is the potential for outsized returns (to be part of Facebook and/or Google).
yes, as it always is in a free market.
Even with Solyndra’s failure, SOME things were learned, and SOME people became more experienced, malinvestment, or not.
the experience was useless since most in the industry already knew solyndra was a lost cause. no one was going to put their money in solyndra. only obama’s cronies. they had nothing to lose but taxpayer money so they didn’t care. it was well known in most of the industry that solyndra was going to fail. there was no private money for solyndra. only taxpayer money.
All I’m saying is that bubbles in tech can drive more money flowing into technology companies.
and i’m saying that all bubble money (the ‘more’ you speak of) has a negative expectation. it’s all a waste. the price doesn’t justify the risk. no good comes from bubbles. none.
don’t know how my answer to RW got all the way down here..
NSA Director Alexander Has to Ask Permission to Answer a Question
Who’s really in charge of the NSA?
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
December 16, 2013
One of the more jaw-dropping moments to emerge out of 60 Minutes’ profile piece on the National Security Agency yesterday was when NSA Director Keith Alexander had to ask permission from his superiors on whether or not he could answer a question.
The report, headed up by John Miller, himself a former FBI and National Intelligence official, was basically a soapbox for the NSA to downplay its malfeasance in light of the Edward Snowden revelations.
“Did the NSA actually find a foreign power that had identified this capability and discussed using it offensively,” Miller asks Alexander at the 2:45 mark in the clip above.
Alexander is about to speak but then turns his head towards what Miller describes as a “crowd of people in the dark,” and states, “I need time out on that.”
According to Miller, Alexander then asked this group of people, “Can I answer that?”
Bear in mind that Alexander is the highest ranking individual in the National Security Agency and moreover a four-star general. Alexander is also Chief of the Central Security Service (CHCSS) and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM).
If Alexander is supposedly the top guy at the NSA, why does he need to ask shadowy advisors lurking in the background if he can even address a question?
And who exactly are this group of shadowy people who have the power to give orders to the Director of the NSA and why don’t we know their names?
Miller and his team said that a group of 20 “minders” would follow the reporters everywhere they went and carefully monitor each individual interview they conducted with NSA employees.
One interview clip features a woman in the background who states, “please stop….back off” as another NSA worker begins to answer a question.
Although Miller, himself a former Associate Deputy Director of National Intelligence, insisted that the NSA story would not be a “puff piece,” that’s precisely what it turns out to be since virtually all of the assertions made by NSA employees which justify mass surveillance go unchallenged.
Watch the full 60 Minutes report below.
http://www.infowars.com/category/featured-stories/ - 71k -