Bits Bucket for February 24, 2014
Post off-topic ideas, links, and Craigslist finds here.
The Housing Bubble
Examining the home price boom and its effect on owners, lenders, regulators, realtors and the economy as a whole.
About Me
Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
To donate by mail, or to otherwise contact this blogger, please send emails to: thehousingbubble@gmail.com
PayPal is a secure online payment method which accepts ALL major credit cards.
Links
-
November 2024 M T W T F S S « Sep 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Photo Submission: hbbphotos@gmail.com
View the HBB Photo Gallery *updated 4/13/2008
Why is it that some struggle so much with the fact that housing always depreciates?
http://www.picpaste.com/IMG_20140223_061619_493-s3XFBGjl.jpg
LOLZ
Too bad this movie was “over the top.” It could have been an instructive lesson plan to help millions of young people starting out.
There was a similarly “over the top” movie about landlording. I forget who was in that movie.
Pacific Heights (1990) Michael Keaton, Matthew Modine, Melanie Griffith?
^^ I think so. Pac Heights is a great neighborhood in SF and the movie I’m thinking of was in San Fran.
Keaton plays a sociopath renter, right? Who systematically ruins the couple’s lives over a period of weeks/months.
The Landlord
She sounds Chinese.
Some things are only understood by painful experience.
Or maybe things are misunderstood because the statement is vague. Do houses lose value, or physically depreciate? If you are a bear with the mental capacity of a realtor, you might tend to muddy the waters and cause confusion.
The truth is coming down the barrel right at you. I think it will be painful for you.
That monthly nut prevents them from accepting reality.
A rapidly depreciating house at current asking prices is not worth the risk.
Are your China stocks getting crushed by real-estate jitters?
Did you happen to catch the story about the wolf in the Sochi Olympics dorm?
8:20 pm
China stocks getting crushed by real-estate jitters
By Mike Kitchen
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was trading just a hair higher in the premarket, but now it’s down 0.9%, tracking a 1.6% pullback in the Shanghai Composite.
The reason for the pullback seems tied to new-home-price data released at the market open. On the face of it, the data weren’t so bearish, with average prices up 0.4% in January for a 9% gain from the year-earlier period.
But Andrew Sullivan of Kim Eng Securities sees other factors at work: “Whilst China property prices continue to rise, the market is watching the tightening and the start of discounting as being the driver as the Shanghai press [is] reporting tightening of loans by the banks.”
He adds: “Our man in Shanghai was out visiting sites recently, and he tells me that projects are staring to cut prices,” while tightening liquidity is also hurting the sector.
Among the losers, China Overseas Land is down 3.8%, China Resources Land is off 5.5%, and Agile Property is taking a punishing 8.3% sell-down.
…
Sorry for the misfire; this post was meant to land here:
“Are your China stocks getting crushed by real-estate jitters?”
US Olympian crying wolf or is Sochi’s dog problem bigger than before?
FOXSports.com-Feb 20, 2014
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/21/showbiz/kimmel-wolf-video-prank/
Kimmel setup.
Is the EM crisis now contained?
Ukraine’s fugitive president wanted for mass murder
BY NATALIA ZINETS AND PAVEL POLITYUK
KIEV Mon Feb 24, 2014 7:07am EST
People light candles during a religious service at a church in Kiev February 23, 2014. REUTERS-David Mdzinarishvili
RELATED VIDEO
Ukrainians gather in D.C. to honor those killed back home
(Reuters) - Fugitive Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich, ousted after bloody street protests in which demonstrators were shot by police snipers, is wanted on an arrest warrant for mass murder, authorities announced on Monday.
As rival neighbors east and west of the former Soviet republic said a power vacuum in Kiev must not lead to the country breaking apart, acting President Oleksander Turchinov said Ukraine’s new leaders wanted relations with Russia on a “new, equal and good-neighborly footing that recognizes and takes into account Ukraine’s European choice”.
European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton was travelling to Ukraine to discuss measures to shore up the ailing economy, which the finance ministry said needs $35 billion in foreign aid over the next two years.
Russian-backed Yanukovich, 63, who fled Kiev by helicopter on Friday, is still at large after heading first to his eastern power base, where he was prevented from flying out of the country, and then diverting south to the Crimea, acting interior minister Arsen Avakov said.
“An official case for the mass murder of peaceful citizens has been opened,” Avakov wrote on his Facebook profile. “Yanukovich and other people responsible for this have been declared wanted.”
…
23 February 2014 Last updated at 10:32 ET
Thailand crisis: Deadly attacks on opposition rallies
The BBC’s Jonathan Head said a grenade was launched in an area that had a “family atmosphere”
An explosion has killed two people and wounded more than 20 others near an anti-government protest rally in the Thai capital Bangkok.
A boy aged 12 and a 40-year-old woman died in the attack near the Central World shopping mall, officials said.
It came hours after gunmen opened fire on an anti-government rally in eastern Thailand, killing a five-year-old girl.
Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra condemned the attacks, describing them as “terrorist acts for political gain”.
She said her government would not tolerate terrorism, and ordered a full investigation.
Tensions across Thailand have escalated since a wave of anti-government protests began in November.
The demonstrators want Ms Yingluck to resign to make way for an appointed interim government, but she has refused.
Last week, several people were killed in clashes that erupted in Bangkok when police began clearing protest sites.
…
24 February 2014 Last updated at 06:58 ET
Nervous uncertainty across Ukraine
Activists guard a government building Kiev
Government buildings in Kiev were still being guarded on Monday by anti-Yanukovych activists
Ukrainians are to trying to re-establish authority across the country after the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych. But there is still considerable anger, especially in mainly Russian-speaking areas. BBC correspondents report on the mood in cities across Ukraine:
Here in the large, north-eastern city of Kharkiv, there was some lawlessness on Saturday but everything is now back to normal. There is, however, one exception: the central square - one of the largest in Europe - where a stand-off continues between those who back the Maidan protests and those opposed. Each side has mustered some 200-300 supporters.
At one end of the square, the pro-Maidan activists took over the entrance to the regional administration on Saturday. After scuffles with the pro-Russian protesters, they erected a barricade in a semi-circle around 15m (50ft) from the entrance. The building also houses the regional parliament, city parliament and other institutions. Immediately in front of the barricade is a protective line of police with shields.
On the opposition side of the square, some distance away, the pro-Russians surrounded the statue of Lenin with makeshift small barricades and lit fires, just as the anti-government protesters had done in Kiev.
…
6:41 am Feb 20, 2014 BANKS
Macro Horizons: Fed, China, Ukraine Dent Risk Appetite
By Michael J. Casey, Alen Mattich and Michael Arnold
Macro Horizons covers the main macroeconomic and policy news events affecting foreign-exchange, fixed income and equity markets around the world, as selected by editors in New York, London and Hong Kong.
WRAP: European and Asian equity markets weakened in early trading. The tenor was set by a soft Chinese manufacturing survey and the Federal Reserve’s indication that it would continue to pare back its asset purchase program during the coming months unless there’s a dramatic weakening of the economy. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian crisis might also be feeding through to sentiment.
…
24 February 2014 Last updated at 01:56 ET
Thailand crisis: Army rules out intervention as blast toll rises
Bomb squad police examine the scene of a deadly explosion at an anti-government rally on 23 February 2014 in Bangkok
Sunday’s attack happened in central Bangkok, near the protest site at Ratchaprasong junction
Thailand’s army chief says the military will not intervene with force in the country’s crisis, as the death toll from a blast in Bangkok rose to three.
Thailand’s political crisis has become increasingly violent since mass protests began in November.
On Sunday, an apparent grenade blast near an anti-government protest site killed a woman and a four-year-old boy.
Doctors said on Monday that the little boy’s sister died later of brain injuries.
Twenty-two people were hurt in Sunday’s blast, including a nine-year-old boy who is in intensive care.
Sunday’s attack came hours after gunmen opened fire on an anti-government rally in eastern Thailand, killing a five-year-old girl.
Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has condemned the attacks, describing them as “terrorist acts for political gain”.
UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon has also spoken out, calling for violence “from any quarter” to end immediately.
…
Yesterday’s conversation about what is a “general contractor.”
———-
oxide: “General contractor” is starting to become slang for anyone who hires separate outfits to do home repairs,
HA: You hire joes concrete to cast some curbs and sidewalk around your garage makes you The Contractor? I can’t wait to read the contract language.
Ronnnie’s Left mango: I think the statement above is simply ridiculous. Where do you get this garbage?
———-
Could you two kindly look up the definition of “slang?” Slang means that the term is informal. It will never show up in contract langauge. I’ve heard the slang term from several contractors (mason, plumber) that I’ve worked with, and from other homeowners who have acted as their own “general contractors.” I think I saw it in some letters to Angie’s List too.
I won’t have time to answer today, so clean up after yourselves, k?
Another debt-donkey styled shift in the goal posts.
You’ve heard a mason or plumber refer to the debt donkey employing them as a GC? You heard other debt donkeys calling themselves GCs?
Please find a single instance in anything anywhere on the internet showing this. You can find lots of instances of such slang. I am far from a formalist but you’re just making stuff up to help jingle balls or whoever.
I was busy working yesterday, so I must have missed a discussion thread. Just for the record, I was a licensed class B general contractor in the state of California.
Good.
Quote me a price on Div3 flatwork.
HA, good one. You want it for one of your little SFR shacks or would you like the price on a new Wal-Mart? Get over yourself. Your question is non-sense.
And there it is. You’re no more a contractor than you’re a truth teller.
Come to think of it, we have a project falling behind right in your backyard and I need a sub to do some miscellaneous work. Whatta ya say JingleFraud? I’ll give you some info so you can develop a quick ballpark. No pre-bid meetings, no closed bids.
-Mass excavation from EL32.25 to 10.33 for a proposed 3 sided structure pinned to existing, 14′ in to in, each way
-Cast 16″ double mat slab at EL10.33, #9 on 8″, Sched60 bar
-Cast walls on 3 sides from TOS to EL31.75, #9 on 12″, two faces
-Fly 1′ precast panels on to walls
We have the formwork on site and spreaders and rigging for panels so exclude mobilization from your quote. You provide excavator for mass exc and rigging, steel, concrete, rodbusters and woodpeckers. Site/civil is a net export so include that volume in your price.
The work is in Sacramento so we’re going to save a little on mobilization right?
I look forward to doing business with you.
“I look forward to doing business with you.”
Are you getting your Realtwhore license?
Oxide:
Most states have laws against presenting one’s self as a general contractor without a license. So forget about slang. It doesn’t apply.
Licensing… a state-sponsored guild system by another name.
Recent Mike Whitney piece:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/07/the-american-dream-is-dead/
This is one of the most comprehensively negative Mike Whitney columns I have ever read. Welcome to the recoveryless recovery. The future belongs to Lucky Ducky. Happy Monday!
Time for the pitchforks and torches! Nah, let’s order a pizza and watch T.V.
Is there ice cream?
All your future are belong to us.
“All that stuff about “working hard and playing by the rules” has turned out to be pure bunkum, just like the “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” horsecrap or the “owning a home enters one into the middle class” thing. What a freaking joke. 6 million people have been booted out of their homes since the bubble burst, and the Pollyannas on TV still drone on about “owning a home”. Get the gun!”
+1 The time for real politicking is near.
“Get the gun!”
For what- a Facebook revolution?
Flash mob? Or is that Twitter?
Goes back to what i said Ohbama’s legacy will be the death of political correctness.
And that will be a good thing…….no one should fear being castigated for demanding black people be charged and convicted of racial hate crimes when thy purposely try and knockout and hurt/kill a white person….fair is fair.
Seems like a great time for a stock market melt up, $105 crude oil, and rocketing house prices.
I don’t disagree with the doom and gloom, but this passage really bothers me, and says something about the point of view pushed in the “article”:
Of course, there’s no opportunity. Why would there be more opportunity when the government is cutting spending instead of creating jobs? That’s not how the economy works. You have to spend something, to get something. There’s no free lunch.
This victim mentality really bothers me. Since when is it government’s job to provide for everyone? Folks want to “stick it to the man”, and end up raising taxes on business owners, who then have to cut back. The government isn’t some magical entity that can just create jobs out of thin air. The government isn’t there to provide everything for “the people”.
The government *is* “the people”. Funding of government comes from “the people”. How can the government both take from the people and give to the people? It’s not possible.
It’s a mis-framing of the problem. The government shouldn’t be paying 1year+ of unemployment compensation. The government shouldn’t be “creating jobs”. The government should be getting the hell out of the way, encouraging business growth, making it easy to add employees and to conduct business.
Stop shopping at walmart. Stop using credit cards for everything. Stop buying imports. Pay cash, shop local, cut back and buy high quality rather than quantity. Use credit unions. And stop voting for the same Republican or Democrat politicians, both locally and nationally. Vote out the incumbent. Vote for the “average joe” that runs for city council/mayor/etc. Stop voting for every bond measure and tax increase in your local community - all you’re doing is making the problem worse.
Stop borrowing. Stop expecting government to do it all. Start acting in a way that supports your local community and a sustainable economy.
Stop voting for every bond measure and tax increase in your local community - all you’re doing is making the problem worse.
+1 to the rest but this comment reminded me of 3 measures in Portland on a recent ballot. Higher taxes for libraries, high school earthquake retrofits, and an “arts tax.”
Exit polls indicated that the majority of Portlanders said they were willing to vote for 2 out of 3, and didn’t vote for the 3rd measure because they felt that they could only afford 2.
Problem was, so many people voted this way, they all passed!
(Voted no on all 3, myself.)
Exit polls indicated that the majority of Portlanders said they were willing to vote for 2 out of 3, and didn’t vote for the 3rd measure because they felt that they could only afford 2.
Were the projects fully funded by the tax? Was the tax targeted/restricted solely to the project?
I’m guessing the answer to each of these is ‘no’. That’s the issue - these things just grow the general fund, and helps all those random projects “eh, we have the money, let’s add radiant heating and digital signage to all of the bus stops” kind of stuff.
Were the projects fully funded by the tax? Was the tax targeted/restricted solely to the project?
I can’t say that I remember, but I’d also bet on ‘no.’ I do remember the retrofit measure sounding incredibly wasteful when scrutinized.
The government shouldn’t be paying 1year+ of unemployment compensation.
The government has to do this as per their mission statement to “Promote the General Welfare” when they have first allowed the middle-class to be gutted for the benefit of the few.
The government shouldn’t be “creating jobs”.
The government absolutely should be “creating jobs” by fostering an environment that incubates and protects middle-class jobs - again part of our mission statement above.
The government should be getting the hell out of the way,
The government did get the hell out of the way by allowing offshoring of everything, gutting import tariffs and deregulating the financial markets. And then bailing them out was the government “getting the hell out of the way” of capitalism.
The government should be….encouraging business growth, making it easy to add employees and to conduct business.
The government can’t do that by “getting the hell out of the way”.
You idiot, you forgot about tax cuts. The gov needs to get out of the way by cutting taxes. Oh, the gov already did that in the stimulus? Well, that wasn’t enough.
Don’t you understand? These as-holes won’t be happy until there are NO taxes and NO regulations and no pesky employees at all.
Mango (Manga) update:
Well, it’s pre-Carnival and people are starting to get a little crazy ’round here. It’s summer so it’s manga season and their are a lot of mangos and fruit I don’t even recognize in a lot of the trees here. Last night, I go for a bike ride at the beach (Muggy posted my street cam screen shot) then I went to a restaurant on that street with that yesterday’s linked 1.2 million US dollar (not Zimbabwe dollar) 4 bedroom apartment that was “only” about $500K only 6 years ago but “it’s not a bubble because it’s different here.”
Anyway, I’m sitting there at a table on the sidewalk and this fruit falls and hits me in the foot. It’s from an Amendoeira tree so everybody on this blog knows it’s too small to really hurt you but I look up in the tree and there’s this big bat flying around eating the fruit in the tree. And I say, “wow, that’s a big bat” (actually I say “nossa, isso é um grande morcego” (in a funny and thick American accent that half the Brazilians don’t understand) (How come I can understand “lousy” English but they can’t understand “lousy” Portuguese?) I think because I lived in California and Portuguese is too hard.
Anyway, this pretty lady with soft curl corn silk blondish hair we’re talking to (who speaks “lousy” English that I can totally understand) has a big house in the country says that the bats are eating all of her mangos in her huge mango tree but she calls them mangas because they don’t say “mango” here, they call it manga. And I say, “wow, that’s interesting” (Because I thought it was interesting.)
And Manga prices have not come down in the stores even though there are mangos everywhere in the trees. (Maybe because the bats are eating them?
And there it is with the Manga update during “pre”-Carnival in Brazil where things are getting a little crazy ’round here.
Hello Lola. Please find another obscure webcam to monitor for regular traffic. It’s a lot easier than just posting something actually verifiable, like a sign that says HBB and showing your “view”.
What’s that cubicle in DC look out on anyway, crack addicts?
He does not even know what is happening to the Brazil economy. The policies he advocates for the U.S. have been tried and failed in Brazil the last four years. Its per capita income is stuck at a small fraction of Mississippi and yet he advocates the failed demand side policies of Brazil for the U.S. Of course, this is a person that claims that the Social Security and Medicare trust funds are not rapidly exhausting, he/she never allows facts to get in the way of his arguments. Of course, he is probably on the staff of a left wing ideologue member of Congress. Somebody has to go get the coffee.
“He does not even know what is happening to the Brazil economy.”
…hell…. he doesn’t know what’s going on in his own backyard in the Washington,DC area.
Rio:
I don’t understand why we are getting articles saying that Brazil house prices are falling, but you say they’re still going up. Do you know of a good data source (other than news articles) that we can reference?
And this is before Brazil spiked interest rates recently:
http://www.zillow.com/brazil-in/home-values/
we are getting articles saying that Brazil house prices are falling, but you say they’re still going up. Do you know of a good data source (other than news articles)
You want me to give you sources other than articles because you are seeing articles?
Brazil has no really great sources of numbers but I have seen no sources or articles saying Rio de J’s prices are coming down. I’ve seen they are leveling off or the rate of increase is slowing but not price drops. But I would not be surprised to see that someday either. I’m not sure of other parts of Brazil.
Scroll down this link and see Copa/Rio’s cost per sq meter since 2008.
http://www.zap.com.br/imoveis/oferta/Apartamento-Padrao-4-quartos-venda-RIO-DE-JANEIRO-COPACABANA-RUA-JULIO-DE-CASTILHOS/ID-5413970
That listing doesn’t do anything to tell me whether prices are up, down, or flat in RdJ or Brazil. It just shows the asking price of one apartment right now. I think Ben has posted a couple articles about Brazil house prices going down or government loan programs having problems or some such.
That listing doesn’t do anything to tell me whether prices are up, down, or flat in RdJ or Brazil.
I don’t know. You can play with the figures here but my main interest in it at this time is academic. (7. Theoretical or speculative without a practical purpose or intention. )
Rio home prices: +1,2% - dec/13 a jan/14
Rio home prices: +15,4% - jan/13 a jan/14 (rents up 7.6%)
Rio home prices: +242,5% - jan/08 a jan/14 (rents up 135%)
“venda” means sale. “aluguel” means rent.
It says in 36 months, Rio’s houses went up 76% and rent went up 44%.
http://www.zap.com.br/imoveis/fipe-zap/
Hedgie socialist Tom Steyer on NPR this morning talking about funneling cash to Democrat Party candidates to promote Climate Change and to take away our F-150 and Big Gulps and end American Exceptionalism, that Climate Change is a “mission” and a “generational challenge” and only Democrat Party can save us, LOLZ.
And speaking of Climate Change, Drudge links to bedwetter “Al Gore brings climate change message to Kansas City” and correctly counters his lies with “Cruz to CNN: global warming not supported by data”
“Al Gore brings climate change message to Kansas City”
Then AlGore has his work cut out for him there because there can’t be global warming because Kansas City had a cold winter.
“Cruz to CNN: global warming not supported by data”
Data shows climate-change is simply the natural result of dinosaur farts after the world was created around 6,000 years ago.
Goon when the CAGW has to reach this far as this yahoo article demonstrates they have lost the argument. Volcanoes always have been part of climate on Earth. In fact much of warming in the 1890’s was a recovery from a large volcanic eruption (BTW, the satellite data shows a cooling a not a warming, NASA’s ground base data shows a slight warming):
Cooling caused by volcanic eruptions accounts for 15 percent of the recent global warming “pause,” the mismatch between actual warming and climate-model predictions, according to a new study.
The slowdown in global warming, sometimes called a pause or hiatus, started in 1998, when Earth’s average surface temperatures halted their feverish rise. The average rate of warming was 0.31 degrees Fahrenheit (0.17 degrees Celsius) per decade between 1970 and 1998, but dropped to 0.072 F (0.04 C) per decade between 1998 and 2012. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had predicted the temperature trends seen in the 20th century to continue at their disco-era pace.
And despite all the Drudge links saying how winter is brr brr cold, real journalists report that for the rest of the world, January 2014 was the fourth warmest January on record, and the 347th consecutive month of temperatures above the 20th century average.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/02/21/science/earth/more-bite-left-to-winter-but-it-hasnt-been-as-bad-as-you-think.html?referrer=
Forward
From the article:
“The United States covers only 2 percent of the surface of the globe, so what happens in this country does not have much influence on overall global temperatures.”
That’s unpossible. Because when it’s cold, the Drudge Report links to it.
Get your mouse clicking finger ready, because when this next winter storm hits the eastern USA, you’ll be clicking Drudge links (and fluffing Koch) faster than you can even imagine.
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-24/polar-vortex-set-to-bring-more-snow-on-return-to-u-s-this-week.html
Forward
Co2 ppm has been soaring and the global temperatures have been flat, it says it all. Yes, natural warming has occurred and soon natural cooling will occur. The cycles of life. BTW, just as a reminder, I do think man has had a minor role in the warming but just a minor role.
global temperatures have been flat
Not according to trends, NASA and 95% of the scientific community. You keep trying to hang your hat on “temps staying flat” since 1998 but that does not break the upward TREND in temperatures since about 1880. Sure, some years temps drop and temps stayed around the same from 1940-1980 but that still did not break the upward 134 year TREND. If that 40 years of staying about the same did not break the 134 year upward trend, why do you think your little 15 year “flat” period breaks the upward trend. It does not. Take a look at the NASA chart. “it says it all”
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/616910main_gisstemp_2011_graph_lrg%5B1%5D.jpg
When you are only looking at a 135 years of data, almost 20 years of a pause is a big deal. Step back and look at the last 400,000 years and you will see that we are still 2 degrees Celsius cooler than the normal high during an interglacial period. The clear relationship the CAGW was showing between ppm of co2 and global temperatures is gone, for the most part only the people that want to redistribute money from the developed worlds to the emerging markets or benefit from selling co2 credits or alternative energy are still pushing CAGW.
When you are only looking at a 135 years of data, almost 20 years of a pause is a big deal.
If your 16 year “pause” in the data is a “big deal” in the 135 year uptrend, then the unbroken 135 year uptrend is a huge deal in that it remained and remains in a very strong 135 year uptrend even though it includes your “big deal” 16 and 40 year flat spells.
And there were more flat and down years than those 16 and 40 year flat spells.
A 135 year uptrend that remains in an uptrend in the face of about half of those years being down or flat, is one hell of a strong uptrend that your “big deal” 16 year flat spell does not negate in the least.
Upward trend began when humans were putting probably 10% of the co2 in the atmosphere as we are now, but it is now that the pause has occurred. The relationship between co2 and the warming is broken, it is not that there has not been warming it is just that the primary cause is not co2. We still are far below what normal natural warming would cause during an interglacial period. You can try to spin it all you want but the computer models have epically failed since they predicted rapid warming due to the rapid increasing co2 amounts in the air. The co2 emitted has exceeded the projections but the temperature has not responded. Back to the drawing board for the CAGW crowd just as I predicted seven years ago on this board.
but it is now that the pause has occurred. The relationship between co2 and the warming is broken
You make no scientific sense, however, NASA does.
NASA Finds 2011 Ninth-Warmest Year on Record
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2011-temps.html
The global average surface temperature in 2011 was the ninth warmest since 1880, according to NASA scientists. The finding continues a trend in which nine of the 10 warmest years in the modern meteorological record have occurred since the year 2000.
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, which monitors global surface temperatures on an ongoing basis, released an updated analysis that shows temperatures around the globe in 2011 compared to the average global temperature from the mid-20th century. The comparison shows how Earth continues to experience warmer temperatures than several decades ago. The average temperature around the globe in 2011 was 0.92 degrees F (0.51 C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline.
“We know the planet is absorbing more energy than it is emitting,” said GISS Director James E. Hansen. “So we are continuing to see a trend toward higher temperatures. Even with the cooling effects of a strong La Niña influence and low solar activity for the past several years, 2011 was one of the 10 warmest years on record.”
The difference between 2011 and the warmest year in the GISS record (2010) is 0.22 degrees F (0.12 C). This underscores the emphasis scientists put on the long-term trend of global temperature rise. Because of the large natural variability of climate, scientists do not expect temperatures to rise consistently year after year. However, they do expect a continuing temperature rise over decades.
The first 11 years of the 21st century experienced notably higher temperatures compared to the middle and late 20th century, Hansen said. The only year from the 20th century in the top 10 warmest years on record is 1998.
Higher temperatures today are largely sustained by increased atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2014/02/24/the-period-of-no-global-warming-will-soon-be-longer-than-the-period-of-actual-global-warming/
9th warmest? We were suppose to be setting all time records almost every year according to the models. We should be 1 to 2 degrees Celsius warmer by now, not fighting over .1 degree Celsius.
Al Gore’s predictions from a few years ago vs. reality, for a really belly laugh compare his 1980’s predictions to reality:
http://www.theclimatebet.com/?p=457
We were suppose to be setting all time records almost every year according to the models
That’s not how science, The Planet Earth or trends work.
“This underscores the emphasis scientists put on the long-term trend of global temperature rise. Because of the large natural variability of climate, scientists do not expect temperatures to rise consistently year after year. However, they do expect a continuing temperature rise over decades.” NASA dot gov
Al Gore’s predictions do not affect science or math.
Sorry they predicted according to the models that we would be setting all time records every few years, you have to if you are rapid warming and you had set a record in 1998, it is simple math, well except for people with your IQ.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/10294082/Global-warming-No-actually-were-cooling-claim-scientists.html
according to the models that we would be setting all time records every few years,
A little like this for 135 years?
http://climate.nasa.gov/interactives/warming_world
you have to if you are rapid warming and you had set a record in 1998
Or something like this?
nine of the 10 warmest years in the modern meteorological record have occurred since the year 2000……The first 11 years of the 21st century experienced notably higher temperatures compared to the middle and late 20th century, Hansen said. The only year from the 20th century in the top 10 warmest years on record is 1998.
NASA dot gov
What part about the fact that we should be setting all time records for the limited data set do you not understand? Record high ppm of co2 should translate into record high temperatures not just flat albeit mesa temperatures. Co2 has gone perpendicular flat temperatures should not be happening. And if you are going to get anywhere near what the models were predicting you should be 1 to 2 degrees Celsius warmer by now. Even a .1c higher record means nothing at this point.
If co2 was the primary cause of global warming as the computer models claim then the temperature graph should be very similar to the ppm graph of co2 but they look nothing like each other:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/05/10/atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-concentration-400-parts-per-million/
Dan,
If there is a causal effect from CO2, then I would expect the variation to be a mean variation over time. Since we are talking about climate, it seems like geological timescales should be used. However, since even the 100 year period of oil burning we are currently in has a presumably higher than “normal” rate of change of CO2 concentration, it does seem that we shouldn’t average out a large change in a short time over 100 or 1000 years of data. What I’m getting at, is that given say the last 20 years of temperature/CO2 average, how does that correspond to other historical periods on a geologic time scale (1 million year ranges or even 100,000)? For example, in some geologic period over the past few million years, : a) was there a period that had similar CO2 concentrations. b) does the temperature now (20yr avg) correlate to the temperature then?
Also, people keep saying “climate change” is a problem/crisis. Is there a historic record for current CO2 levels/rate of change, and what were the geologic consequences?
What part about the fact that we should be setting all time records for the limited data set do you not understand?
What part of the fact that we have been setting all time records every few decades and sometimes every few years in a 135 year uptrend do you not understand?
(See NASA chart above)
What part of the fact that trends are trends and not straight lines do you not understand?
What part of the fact that “nine of the 10 warmest years in the modern meteorological record have occurred since the year 2000″* do you not understand?
*NASA dot gov
Rio, who I believe you actually are, I told you for a historic interglacial period we are actually 2 degrees Celsius cooler than the normal interglacial period. Also, just a few days ago someone posted the models vs. reality and he used a graph that was in the NYT. It is not even close, we are at a minimum one degree Celsius cooler and if you use Hansen’s work almost 2 degrees Celsius cooler than the predictions.
here is a suggestion, you should stick to housing.. I’ll let the science community educate me on matters of science.. as far as Al Gore goes, Brasil has it correct… I could care less about what he drives or where he lives or how much his book sells for.. all, completely irrelevant to this discussion..
What part of the fact that trends are trends and not straight lines do you not understand?
The ppm trend is very much a straight line and if you are going to claim that co2 is the primary cause the temperature trend should be almost the same perpendicular trend line, minor variation from year to year but certainly not a flat line for seventeen years. Of course, if it is a flat line every year will be almost the same and warm, someone who knows six grade math would understand that so maybe you should ask, wait do you have some sort of court order that keeps you away from six graders?
The ppm trend is very much a straight line and if you are going to claim that co2 is the primary cause the temperature trend should be almost the same perpendicular trend line
You know…..that is one of your weakest “scientific points”. (I’m surprised your not embarrassed to keep making it.) Your analogy might work for what happens when you boil a pan of water and even then, it would not totally hold up. (Heat loss, thickness of pan, lid seal etc)
But we’re talking about co2 and other pollution and gasses being released into a massive and complicated global climate system, with many other variables reacting upon each other at different rates and times.
(Hint: Real science is much more complicated than your above “point”.)
goon,
what is the correct temperature that the earth should be at? how far are we deviated from that temperature?
It has nothing to do with a correct temperature for Earth. It has to do with the fact that human beings will have a harder time adjusting the new, warmer Earth than we would by just cooling our heels a bit with the CO2 concentration. We currently have places on Earth that are inhabited by a lot of people and farmland, that will eventually be too hot and dry, or have too many hurricanes.
>It has nothing to do with a correct temperature for Earth. It has to do with the fact that human beings will have a harder time adjusting the new, warmer Earth than we would by just cooling our heels a bit with the CO2
Are you saying anything other than what we have right now is “incorrect” because we will have to deal with change? That kind of sounds like a nimby-ism rather than any kind of scientific reasoning. Also, what are the metrics that show humans will have a harder time? I’ve heard that vast swaths of permafrost could be opened as farmland, and also that increased heat will bring more rainwater, enabling more land to be arable based on transportation of that extra fresh water.
Also, as Dan says, we are 2C cooler than historic interglacial periods. Clearly there have been hotter times in the past and life on the planet has not gone extinct.. In fact, isn’t it the glacial periods or “ice ages” that cause high death and extinction rates? Shouldn’t we be managing the ambient air temperature to avoid glacial periods? All we hear about is change, and nothing about net effect.. The change we are hearing about appears to be hyperbole in many cases… why is this a “crisis” again?
No one is saying that life will become extinct. People are saying that it will be more difficult than necessary for us to deal with the negative consequences of our actions. Humans have a penchant for building cities in place. It will definitely be very economically disruptive when everyone has to pick op and abandon their existing cities (and lose all that equity), and build new cities elsewhere. Just a big extra expense for no good reason.
Besides, we’re going to run out of fossil fuels one day anyway, so why not look for safe alternative sources? There is some progress with fusion, for instance.
I am not a scientist. I’ll let the real journalists at the New York Times report quotes from real scientists on this topic.
The websites that Dan posts on this topic are not written by real journalists.
I am not a scientist.
Rio, is not a Brazilian does not even live in Brazil but it does not stop him from playing one on the blog. He did go to a Brazilian barbeque once.
Rio, is not a Brazilian does not even live in Brazil
Well, being even half right is pretty darn good for you lately Albuquerquedan.
(Like you really live in Albuquerque. You’re just trying to make me jealous.)
Don’t come out to my part of the country, you will be waiting on the corner in Winslow, Arizona in drag a long time before you get a hit. That particular town not far from Ben, is populated by Navajos and mo mos (Mormons) but they don’t have any homo hos and I expect don’t want any.
but they don’t have any homo hos and I expect don’t want any
My debate teacher always told us that you know you’ve won the argument when they start calling you a homosexual prostitute whilst foaming at the mouth.
‘you know you’ve won the argument when they start calling you a…’
Yeah, I’ve heard the same thing about calling people racist.
‘you know you’ve won the argument when they start calling you a…(homosexual whore)
Yeah, I’ve heard the same thing about calling people racist.
Big difference in this case:
rac·ism a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race….the belief that some races of people are better than others m-w dot com
Albuquerquedan’s penchant for comparing Black countries IQ’s disparagingly with White countries, his professed beliefs in certain theories of Eugenics, (As did the Nazis) and his refusal to even acknowledge the racist element of disproportionate black incarceration but rather hint at genetic flaws of entire races are just part of his vibe that reeks of racism.
For me to point out these documented Adan tendencies is way different than calling someone a “homo ho” just because he’s been bested in debate.
My debate teacher always told us that you know you’ve won the argument when they start calling you a homosexual prostitute whilst foaming at the mouth.
I am not foaming at the mouth, I am laughing at your persona. The board created the alternative persona because they did not believe you really lived in Brazil. I just go along with the joke. You attacked me and many people on this board numerous times in a personal manner before I ever attacked you personally. I am never the one that starts with the personal attacks except for you due to your record. You are the one that is fuming because you recognize the Saul Alinsky tactic you first used on me and others by calling us racists, stupid etc. because we disagreed with Obama. If pointing out data that is a fact is racist then that word has lost all meaning.
BTW, I know that it really bothers you to be called a homosexual by your responses which I think is even more funny because you pretend to be so liberal and enlighten. Joe just thinks its funny and plays along because he is secure in his sexuality whatever it really might be and I am fine with that.
You attacked me and many people on this board numerous times in a personal manner before I ever attacked you personally.
Nope. You personally attacked me first using your Saul Alinsky tactics. I just said you were bad at math, trends, and have a poor understanding of science. That’s not personal. That’s fact.
Calling us racists,
You are not a racist? Really? I don’t believe you. Your penchant for comparing Black countries IQ’s disparagingly with White countries, your professed beliefs in certain theories of Eugenics, (As did the Nazis) and your refusal to even acknowledge the racist element of disproportionate black incarceration but rather hint at genetic flaws of entire races are just part of your creepy vibe that reeks of racism.
I know that it really bothers you to be called a homosexual by your responses
And you are a homophobe bigot. My debate teacher always told us that you know you’ve won the argument when they start calling you a homosexual prostitute whilst foaming at the mouth.
I win again.
In your own mind, you win again. However, maybe Maxine will also believe you won. But Brazil is not growing at a decent pace and the planet is not warming, which is what I predicted and you disputed, so the facts say something quite different. Facts are stubborn things.
I will never accept that racism means that you must ignore evidence. I judge every individual on their own merits regardless of skin pigment but do I believe that Northern Asians, European Jews and Germanic people have the highest IQs as a group. The evidence speak for itself, Google their average IQs. It shows up in their societies. You mock Fundamentalist Christians for ignoring facts but you then want me to ignore test results that are easy to duplicate and you cannot even see your inconsistency.
“Twenty years ago Brazil’s GDP was at $358 billion and ranked 11th in the world; today, at $2.5 trillion, it’s between sixth and eighth” Forbes
But Brazil is not growing at a decent pace
“But Brazil is not growing at a decent pace”? There it is, in all it’s failed glory - your misunderstanding of long-term trends, math and statistics. It mirrors your same failed “theory” on global warming. (As if temps need to go up almost every year for there to be a trend.) What man of science would even contemplate such a scientifically obtuse “requirement” in a 135 year trend?
Brazil is not growing at a decent pace? Do you even understand business cycles or the economic digestion times needed after massive progress? You think one or two year’s weaker numbers in a structurally changing economy amounts to a bucket of warm spit in the big picture? When 35 million Brazilians have risen out of poverty the past 15 years? You hang your hat on quarterly numbers? You talk jive cloaked in strange math. And you do a poor job of it. But you’re funny.
Long term Facts:
“Twenty years ago Brazil’s GDP was at $358 billion and ranked 11th in the world; today, at $2.5 trillion, it’s between sixth and eighth, depending on who’s counting. No other BRIC balances democracy and widespread wealth nearly as well. Half of Brazil’s population now occupies the middle class–their output alone surpasses the entire economy of neighboring Argentina. ….Brazil has become one of the most entrepreneurial countries in the world, with one in four adults self-employed in some manner. Small businesses create two out of three jobs in Rousseff’s private sector–” Forbes
The evidence speak for itself,
The evidence speaks for itself in your bigoted writing.
Your refusal to recognize the racial aspect of disproportionate black prison time, but instead hint at genetic shortcomings of people of color, your penchant for comparing Black countries IQ’s disparagingly with White countries, (In the face of the cultural aspects of those tests) your professed beliefs in certain creepy theories of Eugenics, (As did the Nazis) And your blind visceral hatred of Obama are just part of your racist vibe.
The evidence speak for itself,
I believe that Northern Asians, European Jews and Germanic people have the highest IQs as a group.
I’m glad you put so much faith in IQ studies in light of your racial bigotry, homophobia and (willful you should hope) not understanding math.
“There are multiple examples of very bright conservatives and not-so-bright liberals, and many examples of very principled conservatives and very intolerant liberals,”
But:
Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice
http://news.yahoo.com/low-iq-conservative-beliefs-linked-prejudice-180403506.html
There’s no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy.
The research finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes as adults. These findings point to a vicious cycle, according to lead researcher Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario. Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found. Those ideologies, in turn, stress hierarchy and resistance to change, attitudes that can contribute to prejudice, Hodson wrote in an email to LiveScience.
The findings combine three hot-button topics.
“They’ve pulled off the trifecta of controversial topics,” said Brian Nosek, a social and cognitive psychologist at the University of Virginia who was not involved in the study. “When one selects intelligence, political ideology and racism and looks at any of the relationships between those three variables, it’s bound to upset somebody.”
Polling data and social and political science research do show that prejudice is more common in those who hold right-wing ideals that those of other political persuasions, Nosek told LiveScience. [7 Thoughts That Are Bad For You]
“The unique contribution here is trying to make some progress on the most challenging aspect of this,” Nosek said, referring to the new study. “It’s not that a relationship like that exists, but why it exists.”
Brains and bias
Earlier studies have found links between low levels of education and higher levels of prejudice, Hodson said, so studying intelligence seemed a logical next step.
‘in light of your racial bigotry’
You fully support a man who brags about being “good at killing”, and all of the killing he does involves brown people. Several hundred innocents; children, women, have been burnt to death or blown to bits. I’ve said it before; you are a racist and a fascist Rio. Let’s add hypocrite.
You fully support a man who brags about being “good at killing”
Wrong. Please show me where I’ve supported Obama killing innocent brown people. Ever.
I’ve said it before; you are a racist and a fascist Rio
I don’t understand. I’ve never implied or written anything racist. By your thinking, I’m a “racist” because I support the ACA and other Obama stuff, but you think Obama is a racist on other issues? And that makes me a “racist”?
And I’m a “fascist” now?
I thought you thought I was a “socialist”.
‘I’m a “racist” because I support the ACA and other Obama stuff’
You’re a racist and a fascist because you support a racist and a fascist. Weren’t you just telling us what a hero he is? You can’t separate the war crime part and good roads. Hitler built a heck of a nice road system.
You’re a racist and a fascist because you support a racist and a fascist.
I thought Obama was a “socialist” (as opposed to a fascist) who inherited those wars against brown people. And as if Repubs would have taken the gloves off for fear of killing brown people? I admire your anti-war/killing stance but disagree Obama is motivated by racism.
Weren’t you just telling us what a hero he is?
No. I said he would go down as a legendary figure in much of the world and he will. And the reason mainly imo, is because he was the first black president in a formerly very racist and still a partially racist country. Just look at Adan for proof.
“Profit from Global Warming?”
I thought only Al Gore was allowed to profit from Global Warming.
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-24/profit-from-global-warming-or-get-left-behind.html
The Drudge Report website is set to auto-refresh every two minutes or so, like it’s some kind of stock ticker or wire news service. How much “Global Warming” is the Drudge Report creating with all those page loads and sucking up bandwidth and burning coal to create electricity for all of it?
If you dislike Drudge Report so much, why do you visit the site?
Because Koch is paying so much money for it, I want to see if they’re getting their money’s worth.
And it’s a good morning preview for the content of the Rush Limbaugh radio show (yes he regularly reads articles linked from Drudge on the air.
He made a good point, actually. The Kochs, etc are already spending money secretly (or at least hard to track) to trick everyone into thinking that there is no global warming. This is for the sole purpose of helping to influence legislation toward making their own companies more profitable. On the other hand, the normal people are coming right out and saying it, honestly! Steyer said on the radio that these are the new rules, so those are the rules by which he is playing. If no one wants to change those rules, then no one can complain about it.
We’ll see how the Repubs react to this. They don’t care when their own guys are doing it, but they will probably cry like sissies now that other people are doing it too.
“Hedgie socialist Tom Steyer on NPR this morning talking about funneling cash to Democrat Party candidates to promote Climate Change and to take away our F-150 and Big Gulps and end American Exceptionalism, that Climate Change is a “mission” and a “generational challenge” and only Democrat Party can save us, LOLZ.”
Progressives - Scheming to destroy freedom since the early 1900’s. Like I said yesterday, global progressives (including radical islamists) are the most deadly and dangerous enemy to freedom the world has ever seen.
Also, this hypocritical POS made hundreds of millions from our capitalist system including a stint at Goldman Sachs. How much CO2 came from his investments? How many baby seals were clubbed to provide his fluffer harem?
Now he has the money to force us into his little utopian dreamland…how do I opt out?
More Hope and Change linked from Drudge
Los Angeles Times - More youths crossing US-Mexico border alone
http://touch.latimes.com/#story/la-na-texas-young-migrants-20140222/
And when they get here, they automatically get enrolled in Medicaid and SNAP and free school breakfast and lunch with liberty and Obamaphones for all. And who will they vote for to say thank you?
Permanent Democrat Supermajority
Si si puede:
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-24/obama-pressured-to-slow-deportations-as-bill-talks-fade.html
What’s this all about, anyone know?
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/polio-like-illness-affecting-calif-kids-article-1.1699928?comment=true
Probably too many kids who aren’t immunized
I remember getting immunized for polio when I wuz a pup, it would be really creepy if it was making a comeback, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
I believe in getting immunized, but I think parents have to be cautious how immunizations are administered. When I was a kid, the shots or oral vaccines were spaced out over time, on a schedule, instead of all at once, which I think is insane. That’s why people get wary of immunizations, because of the way they’re administered these days. They’re afraid of having their kids drug-bombed into autism, and I don’t blame them.
More Hope and Change
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/us/politics/pentagon-plans-to-shrink-army-to-pre-world-war-ii-level.html
Because Obama want to cede national sovereignty to United Nations and make us too weak to fight them over there so we won’t have to fight them over here, which means we will have to fight them over here.
That’s what Obama wants, Obama hate USA.
Hope and Change
Denver Post - Colorado adopts tougher rules for oil, gas industry
“Colorado adopted tougher air pollution rules for the oil and gas industry — the first in the nation to cover methane, a gas linked to climate change.
State air quality control commissioners voted 8-1 on Sunday to pass the rules … But they did so over the protests of much of the oil and gas industry, including the powerful Colorado Oil and Gas Association and Colorado Petroleum Association trade groups.
By passing rules aimed at reducing toxic emissions from oil and gas facilities, Colorado officials are trying allow an enter boom while also protecting health and the environment. They needed to act because Front Range air already fails to meet federal standards.”
Forward
Real Journalists at the New York Times chime in with more commie talk:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/opinion/let-the-epa-do-its-job.html?referrer=
Speaking of the oil and gas biz, current banner ad on HBB:
http://keystone-xl.com/?gclid=CLmi0u-J5bwCFRQV7AodUk0APQ
Only for you.
tougher air pollution rules…to cover methane, a gas linked to climate change.
Noah knew methane was linked to climate change. That’s why the dinosaurs weren’t allowed on the Ark and cows barely made the cut.
dinosaurs weren’t allowed on the Ark
I might have to rethink that.
Were dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark?
http://creation.com/were-dinosaurs-on-noahs-ark
……we can conclude that the universe is only a few thousand years old (perhaps just 6000), and not millions of years old…In Genesis 6:19–20, the Bible says that two of every sort of land vertebrate (seven pairs of the ‘clean’ animals) were brought by God to the Ark. Therefore, dinosaurs (land vertebrates) were represented on the Ark. …
….3. How did those huge dinosaurs fit on the Ark?
Although there are about 668 names of dinosaurs, there are perhaps only 55 different ‘kinds’ of dinosaurs. Furthermore, not all dinosaurs were huge like the Brachiosaurus, and even those dinosaurs on the Ark were probably ‘teenagers’ or young adults. Indeed, dinosaurs were recently discovered to go through a growth spurt, so God could have brought dinosaurs of the right age to start this spurt as soon as they disembarked—see Dinosaur growth rates: Problem or solution for creationists?
Creationist researcher John Woodmorappe has calculated that Noah had on board with him representatives from about 8,000 animal genera (including some now-extinct animals), or around 16,000 individual animals. When you realize that horses, zebras, and donkeys are probably descended from the horse-like ‘kind’, Noah did not have to carry two sets of each such animal. Also, dogs, wolves, and coyotes are probably from a single canine ‘kind’, so hundreds of different dogs were not needed.
According to Genesis 6:15, the Ark measured 300 x 50 x 30 cubits, which is about 460 x 75 x 44 feet, with a volume of about 1.52 million cubic feet. Researchers have shown that this is the equivalent volume of 522 standard railroad stock cars (US), each of which can hold 240 sheep. By the way, only 11% of all land animals are larger than a sheep.
Without getting into all the math, the 16,000-plus animals would have occupied much less than half the space in the Ark (even allowing them some moving-around space).
Admitting that you know nothing is very difficult.
Admitting that you know nothing is very difficult.
Did you finally master it?
Did you finally master it?
He does know something. You have mastered the art of knowing nothing but not the ability to admit your lack of knowledge. You must fit right in on Maxine Walter’s staff.
Is it a contrived diversion or just Trolla?
You have mastered the art of knowing nothing but not the ability to admit your lack of knowledge.
Obviously I know a lot and can convey it. I think that’s why I really piss you off. But it is not personal. You just have a flawed agenda very poorly backed up on some issues imo.
You are a legend in your own mind, just like Obama.
You are a legend in your own mind, just like Obama.
Obama will go down as a legendary figure in much of America and much of the world. I saw his face on a t-shirt on the beach last week.
legend:
an extremely famous or notorious person, especially in a particular field: Oxford Dictionary
adjective
[predic.]
very well known:
“Obama’s ability to piss-off racists like Ted Nugent were legend.”
“Descended from horselike kind… Descended from canine-like kind…”
So now they are using evolution to defend creationism???
they are using evolution to defend creationism???
Now that was a good one.
That right there. Two kindred souls finding common ground in mocking wingnut land, and ridiculing an entire society. Mocking doesn’t make you healthy.
Blue:
Surely you can detect the logical fallacy in the religious explanation that is being mocked. And mocking doesn’t make you unhealthy either.
and ridiculing an entire society
Cry me a river.
I’m an imperfect Christian who believes in God the Father who created evolution imo, and much of that “entire society” I ridicule does not have much at all in common with the peaceful and tolerant teachings of Jesus Christ.
What? Did you miss the memo?
Baby dinosaurs were on the ark! Yes!
Another slip down the santorum slickened slippery slope to mandatory Sharia Law gay marriages:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/us/politics/ohio-gay-marriage-push-divides-some-advocates.html?_r=0&referrer=
The “subhuman mongrel” isn’t content with secret hookups in a Chicago bathhouse. He wants all of USA to embrace his socialist and internationalist lifestyle of perversion.
http://m.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2014/02/ted-nugents-subhuman-mongrel-slur-in-translation.html
The NFL is considering 15 yard penalties for saying “certain words” on the field. For starters, the “N word” and any homophobic slurs will be 15 yard penalties.
Can you imagine the heat a player will take from fanz if, in the heat of battle, he says something deemed “offensive” and a ref flags it? LOL, political correctness is going to be forced on redneck fans and the players.
————-
(excerpt)
The NFL’s competition committee is expected to enact a rule at their March owners meeting that would penalize players 15 yards if they use the n-word on the field. John Wooten, the head of the Fritz Pollard Alliance, which monitors diversity in the league, told ESPN that he thinks the automatic 15-yard penalty should apply to first-time offenders, while second infractions should be punished with ejection. “I will be totally shocked if the competition committee does not uphold us on what we’re trying to do,” Wooten said. “We want this word to be policed from the parking lot to the equipment room to the locker room. Secretaries, PR people, whoever, we want it eliminated completely and want it policed everywhere.”
Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome, who serves on the league’s competition committee said, “We did talk about it, I’m sure that you saw near the end of the year that Fritz Pollard (Alliance) came out very strong with the message that the league needs to do something about the language on the field. So we did discuss over the last three days.”
Under the possible new rule, homophobic slurs might also be outlawed because, as Wooten reiterated, “there is too much disrespect in the game.”
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/02/nfl-might-ban-the-use-of-the-n-word-on-the-field.html
Downlow Joe has entered the building.
Gay NBA, gay NFL, are we Rome yet?
This is the “slippery slope” that Rick Santorum warned us about.
Gay NBA, gay NFL, are we Rome yet?
No, but it gives new meaning in the NBA for the term going to the hole.
Actually phrase. But it also does give new meaning to “tight end”.
Rednecks are gonna have to find a new sport to follow. I hear that European soccer is having a devil of a time keeping racism in check. I read stories about euro-hooligans throwing bananas at black players.
Mixed martial arts is coming on strong.
Rednecks are gonna have to find a new sport to follow ??
Wait until the first NASCAR driver comes out…
LOL! The ultraviolent aspects of the sport, which leave players with scrambled brains and wheelchair bound in their 40’s, are OK. But yelling certain slurs (I’m sure that F bombs are still OK) is a no-no.
The idea to penalize teams, during the game, for the choice of words by a player is beyond stupid. I would totally get if they wanted to impose stiff monetary fines. The reason I think it’s funny to do it in the game is, there are so many ways to get around using the actual N or F words and, on the flip side, it’s crazy to let officials pick what is or is not “offensive”.
Then you have the whole issue of the NFL’s Washington franchise having a team name which is arguably more offensive than the N word, since the N word is something that blacks call each other quite often.
Yes, but if you used that language yourself at your workplace, you could get fired. If you look at it that way, it doesn’t sound unreasonable.
If I used the level of violence that is the norm in the NFL I at work would also get fired.
The difference is that violence is not inherent in your description. NFL players know that violence is part of the job.
Hello Liberace.
how was paddles last weekend?
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/health/for-gay-men-a-fear-that-feels-familiar.html
Apparently it was NFL weekend. Liberace will be posting about rodeo riders next Monday.
If I was a shitlib, I’d start handing out 15 yard penalties everytime you say “Liberace”.
Na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, good bye - NFL
The society didn’t want an imperial presidency so the office was term-limited. But they forgot about Congress. And now we have an imperial Congress.
60 years in the House of Representatives. Yikes.
Longest-Serving U.S. House Lawmaker John Dingell Said to Retire
By Derek Wallbank and Greg Giroux
Bloomberg
February 24, 2014
John Dingell Jr., the longest-serving member of Congress in U.S. history, plans to announce today that he will retire at the end of his current term, a Democratic aide said.
Dingell, 87, has served alongside 11 presidents. He has been a member of the House of Representatives for 58 years, which is longer than President Barack Obama and about half of the current House members have been alive.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-02-24/longest-serving-u-dot-s-dot-house-lawmaker-john-dingell-said-to-retire
His donor profile:
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00001783&cycle=2014
Social Security was solvent when he took office and now the trust fund is rapidly running out.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-security-trust-fund-in-the-red-by-2033/
The disability portion of Social Security will have exhausted its funds by 2016, but is Obama addressing it? It is like Greece or Detroit pretend you can continue to spend money right up to the crisis point.
Being that it is the unemployment bennie of last resort, it will be interesting to see what is done about SS disability.
it will be interesting to see what is done about SS disability ??
Massively abused…Buddy of mine qualified at 54….I don’t consider his situation “fraudulent” but, its close to borderline…He was a carpenter/contractor his 34 years…He is pretty busted up…Knee replacement…Several back surgeries…He just can’t do what he is trained to do anymore and make the money he did…But, he still healthy enough to do other work…
He is now a fly fishing guide in Montana and Northern California…
“The disability portion of Social Security…”
Possibly half (47%?) of the guys I grew up with in San Jose, CA are and have been draining the SSDI fund. It’s really become a way of life as their “grunt jobs” were off-shored.
Dingell berries are sometimes difficult to shake off.
There go the comps. NIMBY
Skinny micro-housing designs lets you live between buildings
http://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/live-between-buildings-micro-housing-mateusz-mastalski-ole-robin-storjohann.html
With more and more people choosing to live in cities, there is less and less affordable housing available, meaning that some municipalities are trying out things like micro-housing or relaxed zoning laws to meet up with the demand.
Of course, not all of these micro-developments have to sit on vacant land; Danish designers Mateusz Mastalski and Ole Robin Storjohann have created a series of clever urban infill concepts that could occupy the residual spaces between buildings, yet remain lit with natural daylighting and looking surprisingly spacious.
Titled “Live Between Buildings,” the project proposes several designs sited in various cities like New York, Tokyo, Amsterdam, Helsinki and London. Coming in various configurations, the surfaces are all covered with transparent roof windows to let the maximum amount of light in. The designs are definitely not for the disabled, as access to the various levels requires some nimble navigation up ladders and stairs. But the spatial overlapping allows for a lot of different functions to be potentially packed in, while leaving some room for fun things (climbing wall, swing and hammock? Why not).
I wonder who owns the land between the buildings.
http://www.silverseek.com/article/coming-silver-storm-public-not-prepared-12963
Chalk this up to Obama’s America:
“Disbarred lawyer allowed to serve as worker’s comp judge for 16 years”
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/45482/judge-not/#.UwYPsPUGrK4.mailto
From Washington Post via Drudge:
The latest list of big lobbying spenders contains a surprising name: George Soros.
Well, not the billionaire himself, but the Open Society Policy Center, the Washington-based advocacy affiliate of his Open Society Foundations.
Soros and his generous support of liberal causes, through his philanthropy and his personal political spending, have long been the subject of conservative ire. But, until now, he hasn’t done much on the formal lobbying front, and the group’s huge increase in reported spending — it hit $11 million in 2013, more than triple the $3.25 million it spent the previous year — has drawn remarkably little notice.
The big jump placed the Soros group 27th in a recent year-end lobbying tally by the Center for Responsive Politics — just below defense giant General Dynamics and ahead of corporate powerhouses Dow Chemical, Chevron and Microsoft.
Such large companies as those tend to rely on healthy in-house government relations teams and legions of outside lobbyists. But the Soros group takes a different approach: Most of its advocacy millions were spent in grants to activist organizations that do their own lobbying.
“A bunch of things that we’ve worked on forever have moved into the legislative phase,” said Stephen Rickard, executive director of the policy center, explaining the big increase. He mentioned several areas, including criminal justice reform, national security issues and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which the Senate Foreign Relations Committee considered last year.
But, Rickard said, the majority of last year’s spending increase was due to the group’s support for comprehensive immigration reform, and its largest grantee was the Alliance for Citizenship, a broad-based coalition of labor, immigration, community and faith-based groups and a leading voice in the debate.
ARGH!
Dear Prime_Is_Contained:
To produce HFCS, one destroys corn starch. Why are you so mentally deficient?
Why are you so mentally deficient?
Well, if he is, I’d say low glucose. Probably needs more carbs and to get those from fruits and veggies.
Shuddup slime, you shouldn’t be opening your mouth. You are an ignorant waste and you have nothing to contribute until you learn how to form a sentence.
Hell hath no fury like a liberal, educated woman scorned by a conservative man?
Anyway, telling me that I “dont’ have a clue what I’m talking about” is really childish, and it makes you seem desparate. Like you are desparately trying to believe that Democrats caused Social Security to have problems, even while Republicans have heroically not been saving Social Security either.
Desperate, not desparate. If you’re going to throw stones about sentence structure and grammar in a blog post, we might as well include proper spelling and vocabulary.
Big difference because he started it. Besides, shuddup doesn’t count for proper spelling and vocabulary.
What’s wrong, Northeasterner (with a missing “r”), you can’t handle it when the pretty little girlies won’t let the big cave men act like bullies? Welcome to the real world. Conservative men do not actually have the ability to force women of any type to take their krap. You may think that you have the ability, but you are all actually nothing but a bunch of useless creeps, and everyone hates you, ESPECIALLY all the pretty little girlies. That’s right cave man, you lose.
so shuddup
Conservative men do not actually have the ability to force women of any type to take their krap. You may think that you have the ability, but you are all actually nothing but a bunch of useless creeps, and everyone hates you, ESPECIALLY all the pretty little girlies. That’s right cave man, you lose.
I agree you don’t have to take anyone’s crap. My wife and daughter certainly don’t take any… but they also don’t try and cram neo-liberal feminism down the throats of anyone who disagrees with them.
Gender roles have a basis in evolutionary biology and your attempts to pretend otherwise are futile. The genders are not equal. Our intellects may be equal, but men will always be physically stronger and faster, on average than women. I’m sure you and your ilk are quite proud of the fact women can now serve in front-line combat units in the US military… and fail, because some feminist somewhere ignored the lessons taught by evolution. Or physics for that matter.
Tell me, why is it women are so much more prone to stress fractures and injuries when carrying heavy loads long distances like I did in the light infantry? Ah, well someone needs to explain physics and how the pelvic muscles see increased shearing stress from trying to maintain stride under load, especially as the lower muscle mass/higher body fat content women lean over under load.
On an unrelated note, did anyone watch Women’s Hockey in the Olympics? Does anyone even care women played hockey in the Olympics other than liberal feminists?
DUMMIE!
I was talking about corn. You interjected your Republican war against women into a conversation about corn. You could not be more of a typical, overagressive, egotistical, insecure man who needs to pick on girls to be happy. If your wife and daughter are putting up with you, then they SUCK. They get no entrance to the girls’ club. They can beg for scraps, but not you. You are not even allowed that.
Oh wait, the corn thing was a different thread. I was talking about Prime’s inability to form a coherent sentence, and his tendency to blame everyone else for not being able read his vacuous mind.
How do you get “women on the front lines” and “women playing hockey” from that? I don’t think that most women would make sense on the front lines, and I don’t care if a bunch of girls or boys want to play hockey, or if you want to watch them play hockey or not.
This is not important. You are obsessed with your genitalia, Cave Man of the North, and you’re SCARED. That’s a bad sign. I think you should eat more corn because I think your brain is malfunctioning again, just like Prime. Total lack of any scientific knowledge, much less an objective grasp of the way the world works outside your own skull.
The propaganda machine is in full swing now. You know that new girl on NPR? The one who speaks with a dorky lilt to her voice? She reported this morning (with no source) that house prices would continue to increase, albeit at a slower pace.
Also, the stock market is up.
Uncle Fed, aren’t you in the health sciences field (not sure where I got that, but I seem to recall you have some knowledge in the area). If so, do you have any info or opinion on this “polio-like” condition that has afflicted some children in CA? It’s sort of a low level thing in the media right now, but I think it’s something like 20 children in the past couple of years.
If you have any info, I’d appreciate it.
I suspect she’s a biochemist, not a health practitioner.
I would be very careful about taking her advice. Her posts yesterday defending HFCS vs cane sugar show a myopic understanding of the role of sweeteners in processed foods. What she failed to disclose while attempting to sway us with a biochemical analysis (typical of many technocratic liberals) was that the cheaper production cost of HFCS meant that food companies could use HFCS is almost everything, improving “flavor” and “consistency” without undue cost.
Why is that important in the argument for or against HFCS? Because our bodies are wired to crave “sweet”, and by putting cheap artificial sweeteners in all our processed foods, we are creating a caloric surplus from overeating because our brains are being overstimulated by constant exposure to the sweeteners.
Unfortunately for us, we have a very strong corn lobby in this country, which is doing us no favors by pushing HFCS, not to mention corn-based ethanol for energy. Sugar cane would be a better option overall, but you won’t here that from anyone in industries supported by the corn lobby…
Spell checker fail… in, not is and hear, not here.
Nor did I like the promotion of HFCS as “corn sugar.” That particular point is familiar only to the food activists and lobbyists. Uncle Fed, are you going to bring up the notion that the sugar profile of HFCS is not that different from honey, and therefore it’s healthy?
Fructose is harder to metabolize than glucose. Glucose will make you hyper more quickly than fructose. Sucrose is 1/2 glucose and 1/2 fructose. Sucrose is table sugar. If you want to avoid sugar, then you should avoid table sugar, dextrose, L-glucose, fructose, and whatever’s in honey because I forgot.
HFCS is simply the cheapest way to make stuff sweet. Don’t blame it on corn. Blame it on yourself if you eat too much sugar, whether the sugar came from corn, beets, sugar cane, or wherever else.
Don’t you guys remember the fructose craze? That happened at the same time as carob. People used to pay extra to get fructose instead of sucrose because they thought it was better for them.
Sorry Oxide, but I’m pretty sure you never studied metabolism. I understand it at the molecular level. I even did lab research on gene therapies for diabetes and heart disease. Had to make recombinant mice and test their blood for all sorts of things and break their necks too. Then I would freeze their organs and slice them up in little pieces and look for glow-in-the-dark macrophages.
It’s just a little tiresome when people with no actual knowledge of metabolism or biochemistry stand around making grandiose claims like “Big Gulps are made of corn, and corn kills!”
Hello Jose:
My degree is in molecular biology, but I haven’t worked in the lab for a long time. I haven’t been following the polio-like disease thingie. I have no idea.
And don’t listen to Northeasterner. He will probably just try to tell you that liberals caused it by making your “body” crave corn, which is the root of all polio. Actually, you should never listen to anyone who tries to frame a conversation around whether or not you are a liberal.
Sincerely,
The smartest and bestest uncle ever on this blog or anywhere, and much better overall than Cave-Man North.
The Federal Reserve Is Not “Independent” Or “Apolitical”
Posted on February 24, 2014 by WashingtonsBlog
The Fed Is Very Political … And Serves the Big Banks and the Powers-That-Be
The Federal Reserve likes to pretend that it is “independent” and “apolitical”.
The facts are different:
■ The Fed offered to bail out Mexico, if it would agree to join the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Free trade deals have nothing to do with the Fed’s mandate
■ A study published in the Southern Economic Journal shows that Fed policy tends to create a better economy in the 3 years before presidential elections than right afterwards … to help the incumbent get re-elected
■ According to Robert D. Auerbach – an economist with the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee for eleven years, assisting with oversight of the Federal Reserve, and subsequently Professor of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin – the Fed had a hand in Watergate and arming Saddam Hussein. See this and this
■ The Fed is not independent … it is owned by the big banks
■ The Fed is corrupt
■ The Fed threw money at “several billionaires and tens of multi-millionaires”, including billionaire businessman H. Wayne Huizenga, billionaire Michael Dell of Dell computer, billionaire hedge fund manager John Paulson, billionaire private equity honcho J. Christopher Flowers, and the wife of Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack
■ The Fed also bailed out wealthy corporations, including hedge funds, McDonald’s and Harley-Davidson
■ The Fed has been bailing out foreign banks … more than Main Street or the American people. The foreign banks bailed out by the Fed include Gaddafi’s Libyan bank, the Arab Banking Corp. of Bahrain, and the Banks of Bavaria, Korea and Mexico
■ The Fed’s main program for dealing with the financial crisis – quantitative easing – benefits the rich and hurt the little guy, as confirmed by former high-level Fed officials, the architect of Japan’s quantitative easing program and several academic economists
■ The Fed has intentionally discouraged banks from lending to Main Street – in a misguided attempt to curb inflation – which has increased unemployment and stalled out the economy
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/02/federal-reserve-independent-apolitical.html - 66k
Everyone of those points is consistent with a Fed that is pushing globalization. They do not want small industrial companies to do well in the U.S. they want them to do well in the emerging markets.
In other news, water is wet and the sun rises in the east. Anyone who truly believed the Fed was “independent” has no understanding of the human condition, or history…
Or did Bernanke’s comments regarding cheap auto loans for Main St. while Wall St. received low interest capital just fall on deaf ears?
Fed to Main St: Consume!
Fed to Wall St: Profit!
Main St to Fed: We’re broke!
Wall St to Main St: Dead beat. Get a job!
10 Stories From The Cold, Hard Streets Of America That Will Break Your Heart
By Michael Snyder, on February 23rd, 2014
If the economy is really “getting better”, then why have millions upon millions of formerly middle class Americans been pushed to the point of utter despair? As I wrote about earlier this month, the U.S. economy is definitely not getting any better. For example, if you assume that the percentage of Americans that want to work is about at the long term average, then the official unemployment rate in the United States would be above 11 percent. And compared to six years ago, 1,154,000 fewer Americans are working today even though our population has gotten significantly larger since then. Behind all of these numbers are real flesh and blood people, and you are about to hear from some of them. The following are 10 stories from the cold, hard streets of America that will break your heart…
#2 Homeless people wasting away in “Obamavilles” on the outskirts of Baltimore, Maryland…
A sheet of plastic laid over a clothesline. A mini-fortress of milk crates stacked under a tree. A thin mattress on a flimsy crate lying in a dark tunnel.
On the edge of Baltimore’s woodlands, dozens of the city’s transients live in makeshift homes which they consider safer than homeless shelters.
#3 A 50-year-old woman in Pennsylvania named Karen…
“My husband only makes 10 dollars an hour and drives 30 miles round trip, so it’s taking all we have just to keep the Jeep filled with gas. We stopped going to church and all to save gas. We are homebodies now, afraid to use what gas we have. We save two kids from getting put in foster care just to be hit like this. It’s just a constant trap they try to keep you from receiving any help! I’m so disgusted when my 12-year-old asks me why we don’t have snacks anymore, or why are we eating so much rice, etc.”
#5 A 55-year-old man from California named Randy Carpadus…
“I was working as a firefighter for the state of California and was laid off in April 2012, right at the beginning of fire season. At my age, I’m not going to be picked up by another fire department. They want younger guys.
I’ve applied for everything from truck driver, to sales, to nonprofit work. I’ve sent out almost 400 resumes, and I’ve gotten nothing. I’ve done whatever I could to make ends meet.
Through some connections, I got a temp job as a truck driver in Napa Valley — a 3-hour commute from where I live. I lived in my car and worked during grape harvest.”
But if you listen to the mainstream media, you would think that happy days are here again for America. Just check out some of the bizarre headlines that I have collected in recent weeks…
CNBC: “Stop whining! The US economy is in good shape”
USA Today: “Economists: U.S. will see better growth in ‘14″
Newsday: “Why the economy isn’t doomed”
Most Americans will buy into this propaganda and will never see the next major economic crisis coming until it is too late to do anything about it.
211 comments
Rodster • 19 hours ago
I was watching the Keiser Report and Max Keiser was mentioning the same thing is happening in the UK. David Cameron along with Mark Carney is purposely creating a housing bubble. House prices have gotten so high in the UK that families don’t have enough money left over for food and the jobs situation there is just as bad as it is over here.
It’s worldwide as you are seeing the collapse of the global economy.
Mike Smithy >Rodster • 19 hours ago
There are also housing bubbles in Canada and Australia.
VegasBob >Rodster • 19 hours ago
What’s interesting is that some of the “hot” real estate areas here in the US have fully “recovered” to or even surpassed 2006 bubble prices.
And Wells Fargo recently announced the return of subprime mortgages. The next collapse will be even worse than the 2008-2009 debacle.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/10-stories-from-the-cold-hard-streets-of-america-that-will-break-your-heart - 120k -
We might be reaching peak malaise sooner or later. From Jimmy’s speech:
‘In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning….’
Everyone Knows that the Federal Reserve Banks Are PRIVATE … Except the American People
Posted on July 13, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog
Most Americans Still Don’t Know that Federal Reserve Banks Are Private Corporations
The country’s most powerful “agency” – the Federal Reserve – is actually no more federal than Federal Express.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1928:
Instrumentalities like the national banks or the federal reserve banks, in which there are private interests, are not departments of the government. They are private corporations in which the government has an interest.
The long-time Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee (Charles McFadden) said on June 10, 1932:
Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are private monopolies ….
The Fed itself admitted (via Bloomberg):
While the Fed’s Washington-based Board of Governors is a federal agency subject to the Freedom of Information Act and other government rules, the New York Fed and other regional banks maintain they are separate institutions, owned by their member banks, and not subject to federal restrictions.
For that reason, the New York Fed alleged in the lawsuit brought by Bloomberg to force the Fed to reveal some information about its loans – Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 08-CV-9595, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan) – that it was not subject to Federal Freedom of Information Act.
As Bloomberg reported in a separate article:
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York … runs most of the lending programs. Most documents relevant to [a freedom of information lawsuit filed by Bloomberg news] are at the New York Fed, which isn’t subject to FOIA law [a law which applies to Federal agencies], according to the central bank. The Board of Governors has 231 pages of documents, to which it is denying access under an exemption for trade secrets.
San Francisco Federal Reserve research analyst David Lang confirmed in 2011:
[Question]: “I had a really quick question, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco specifically, is that formed as a private corporation itself?”
David Lang: “Ah yes it is actually. yes our state chartered banks, banks under a charter share that and we pay a dividend on those shares.”
The senior counsel for the Federal Reserve confirmed in a court hearing in the Bloomberg lawsuit that the Federal Reserve Banks are “independent corporations”, which are “not agencies”, are “privately held”, and have “private boards of directors”.
And Federal Reserve law enforcement officers agree.
Postscript: The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) – which is the “Central Banks’ Central Bank” – is, in turn, owned by the Fed and other central banks:
The BIS is a closed organization owned by the 55 central banks. The heads of these central banks travel to the Basel headquarters once every two months, and the General Meeting, the BIS’s supreme executive body, takes place once a year.
So the private banks own the Fed (and other central banks), and the central banks own BIS.
High-Level Fed Official: QE Is “The Greatest Backdoor Wall Street Bailout of All Time”
Posted on November 13, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog
QE Is Greatest Wealth Transfer in History
Many economists have said that quantitative easing (QE) quantitative easing benefits the rich, and hurts the little guy.
It’s been known for some time that quantitative easing quantitative easing increases inequality (and see this and this.)
3 academic studies – and the architect of Japan’s quantitative easing program – all say that QE isn’t helping the American economy.
The Federal Reserve official responsible for implementing $1.25 trillion of quantitative easing has confirmed that QE is just a massive bailout for the rich:
I can only say: I’m sorry, America. As a former Federal Reserve official, I was responsible for executing the centerpiece program of the Fed’s first plunge into the bond-buying experiment known as quantitative easing. The central bank continues to spin QE as a tool for helping Main Street. But I’ve come to recognize the program for what it really is: the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time.
***
Trading for the first round of QE ended on March 31, 2010. The final results confirmed that, while there had been only trivial relief for Main Street, the U.S. central bank’s bond purchases had been an absolute coup for Wall Street. The banks hadn’t just benefited from the lower cost of making loans. They’d also enjoyed huge capital gains on the rising values of their securities holdings and fat commissions from brokering most of the Fed’s QE transactions. Wall Street had experienced its most profitable year ever in 2009, and 2010 was starting off in much the same way.
You’d think the Fed would have finally stopped to question the wisdom of QE. Think again. Only a few months later—after a 14% drop in the U.S. stock market and renewed weakening in the banking sector—the Fed announced a new round of bond buying: QE2. Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, immediately called the decision “clueless.”
That was when I realized the Fed had lost any remaining ability to think independently from Wall Street.
Billionaires have admitted that they are the beneficiaries of QE. For example, billionaire hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller said the following about QE:
“This is fantastic for every rich person,” he said Thursday, a day after the Fed’s stunning decision to delay tightening its monetary policy. “This is the biggest redistribution of wealth from the middle class and the poor to the rich ever.”
“Who owns assets—the rich, the billionaires. You think Warren Buffett hates this stuff? You think I hate this stuff? I had a very good day yesterday.”
Druckenmiller, whose net worth is estimated at more than $2 billion, said that the implication of the Fed’s policy is that the rich will spend their wealth and create jobs—essentially betting on “trickle-down economics.”
“I mean, maybe this trickle-down monetary policy that gives money to billionaires and hopefully we go spend it is going to work,” he said. “But it hasn’t worked for five years.”
And Donald Trump said:
“People like me will benefit from this.”
Indeed, government policy for years has focused on redistributing wealth from the average American and Main Street to the Wall Street tycoons.
The American government’s top official in charge of the bank bailouts writes:
Americans should lose faith in their government. They should deplore the captured politicians and regulators who distributed tax dollars to the banks without insisting that they be accountable. The American people should be revolted by a financial system that rewards failure and protects those who drove it to the point of collapse and will undoubtedly do so again.
Only with this appropriate and justified rage can we hope for the type of reform that will one day break our system free from the corrupting grasp of the megabanks.
Economics professor Randall Wray writes today:
Thieves … took over the whole economy and the political system lock, stock, and barrel. They didn’t just blow up finance, they oversaw the swiftest transfer of wealth to the very top the world has ever seen. They screwed workers out of their jobs, they screwed homeowners out of their houses, they screwed retirees out of their pensions, and they screwed municipalities out of their revenues and assets.
Financiers are forcing schools, parks, pools, fire departments, senior citizen centers, and libraries to shut down. They are forcing national governments to auction off their cultural heritage to the highest bidder. Everything must go in firesales at prices rigged by twenty-something traders at the biggest and most corrupt institutions the world has ever known.
***
I see two scenarios playing out. In the first, we allow Wall Street to carry on its merry way, as the foreclosure crisis continues and Wall Street steals all homes, packaging them into bundles to be sold for pennies on the dollar to hedge funds. All wealth will be redistributed to the top 1% who will become modern day feudal lords with the other 99% living at their pleasure on huge feudal estates.
That is the default scenario—the outcome that will emerge in the absence of action.
In the second, the 99% occupy, shut down, and obliterate Wall Street.
Economics professor Michael Hudson agrees … saying that the banks are trying to make us all serfs.
Economics professor Steve Keen says:
“This is the biggest transfer of wealth in history”, as the giant banks have handed their toxic debts from fraudulent activities to the countries and their people.
Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz said in 2009 that Geithner’s toxic asset plan “amounts to robbery of the American people”.
And Wells Fargo recently announced the return of subprime mortgages. The next collapse will be even worse than the 2008-2009 debacle.
Yes, as I said this weekend by at least one metric the stock market is more overinflated than in 2008. Stock market capitalization is 200% of the real economy while it was “only” about 163% in 2008. Obama beats Bush in bubble creation, why to go. As far as housing, there is less ability to cut mortgage interest rates now than there was in in 2008, so refinancing will not save people like it did many last time. If you like your mortgage you can keep your mortgage at least until foreclosure.
I think Joe is doing a class action against Bayer Joe whats up with this stuff ? Merit ( imidacloprid ) 1/2 teaspoon per 5 gallons of water. If a fly lands on the mixed solution and drinks it you will see the fly on its back shortly afterwards legs kicking.
“In January 2013, the European Food Safety Authority stated that neonicotinoids pose an unacceptably high risk to bees, and that the industry-sponsored science upon which regulatory agencies’ claims of safety have relied might be flawed, concluding that, “A high acute risk to honey bees was identified from exposure via dust drift for the seed treatment uses in maize, oilseed rape and cereals. A high acute risk was also identified from exposure via residues in nectar and/or pollen.”[11] An author of a Science study prompting the EESA review suggested that industry science pertaining to neonicotinoids may have been deliberately deceptive, and the UK Parliament has asked the manufacturer Bayer Crop Science to explain discrepancies in evidence they have submitted to an investigation.[12]“
Obama Seizes Control of Late Night TV
Establishment moves into securing entertainment industry as primary conduit for political agenda
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
February 24, 2014
The recent replacement of Jay Leno with Obama cheerleader Jimmy Fallon is part of a White House coup d’état to take control of late night television.
With more and more young Americans deserting news networks and getting their information and opinions from late night comedy/discussion shows, the establishment is moving into using the entertainment industry as its primary conduit for state propaganda.
Distrust in the institution of television news is hovering at all time lows, which is why one of the few places left that the White House can elicit a sympathetic response to its agenda and talking points is the cosy, make believe world of late night TV.
While Barack Obama is pursuing a chillingly dictatorial political agenda based around executive tyranny, Jimmy Fallon is helping to massage Obama’s image as a down to earth, fun loving guy that you can trust.
While Jay Leno savaged Obamacare in his final weeks as host, one of Fallon’s first acts was to afford Michelle Obama the platform of The Tonight Show to push Obamacare talking points. Fallon even once gushed that President Obama “booked himself”.
While the media has pondered on the mystery of Leno being replaced (he enjoyed consistently high ratings for 20 years), the reality is strikingly obvious.
As Politico and others have reported, this is part of the changing politics of late night TV, with the Obama White House now moving to seize control of late night TV, with Fallon acting as little more than a White House spokesman whenever the need arises.
Watch the video above and read the articles below for more background.
Jimmy Fallon, Democrat Political Asset
The changed politics of late-night TV
Was Jay Leno Canned by NBC For Criticizing Obama?
Johnny Carson’s Head Writer Hints Leno Was Ditched Over Obama Jokes
Is anyone still watching broadcast TV?
Is anyone still watching broadcast TV?
What is that? I think I remember something by that name but I can’t place it.
I watched less than an hour total of the Olympics, LOLZ. And the last teevee I watched before that was to see the Broncos loose the Souper Bowl. With all commercials muted for both, thank you.
“Is anyone still watching broadcast TV?”
Nope. And I only watch cable tv when I’m home in Phoenix, which is every two or three weekends. And it’s reality TV shows mainly.
Michelle Obama: ‘Young People Are Knuckleheads,’ So They Need ObamaCare
By Paul Bremmer | February 21, 2014 | 11:22
First Lady Michelle Obama insulted the young people of America during an appearance on Thursday night’s Tonight Show. Host Jimmy Fallon asked her why young people should sign up for ObamaCare if they can’t afford it, and Mrs. Obama struck a condescending note in her response. [Video below. MP3 audio here.]
“[A] lot of young people think they’re invincible,” she said. “But the truth is, young people are knuckleheads. You know? They’re the ones who are cooking for the first time and slice their finger open. They’re dancing on the bar stool.”
Below is a transcript of the segment:
JIMMY FALLON: While you’re here, I have to talk to you — I want to talk to you about the Affordable Care Act. It’s March, is there a deadline?
MICHELLE OBAMA: The end of March, absolutely, yes it is.
FALLON: And why – because a lot of young people watch our show. Would you like to tell me why would they — because a lot of people don’t have money to spend on this.
OBAMA: Well, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, young people can stay on their parents’ insurance until they’re 26. But once they hit 26, they’re on their own. And a lot of young people think they’re invincible. But the truth is, young people are knuckleheads. You know? [Laughter] They’re the ones who are cooking for the first time and slice their finger open. They’re dancing on the bar stool. They’re –
FALLON: Young people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
OBAMA: Yeah, the young people.
FALLON: I would never do both of those things this last past summer. No, no, no, no, no.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/paul-bremmer/2014/02/21/michelle-obama-young-people-are-knuckleheads-so-they-need-obamacare - 59k -
“Is anyone still watching broadcast TV?”
Late night broadcast TV? Sure, Stoners, young people who work in the “restaurant” business, jobless 25 year olds who live in their parent’s basement and other young exceptional Americans who helped put Obama in office twice.
While Barack Obama is pursuing a chillingly dictatorial political agenda based around executive tyranny,
Please send some of that “chill” down here. My January A/C bill was pretty high.
President Obama Has Issued Fewer Executive Orders Than Any President in Over 100 Years
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/01/obama-executive-orders-guns.html
…..If it’s the use of executive orders in particular that’s getting critics all riled up, though, then it’s worth noting that Obama has used this lever of presidential power less frequently than every other president in modern times.
We’ve crunched the numbers, and as you can see in our handy graph, above, Obama has issued fewer executive orders per day in office than conservative heroes like George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and Calvin Coolidge. In fact, you have to go all the way back to Grover Cleveland in the nineteenth century to find a president who has issued executive orders at a lower rate than Obama.
And:
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/orders.php
Three Ways Obama’s Executive Orders are the Worst of Any President
by Joel B. Pollak 4 Feb 2014
Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post is the latest to defend President Barack Obama’s use–past, present, and future–of executive orders to circumvent Congress. She argues that his “push-the-envelope moves” are “within the bounds of the modern presidency.” Marcus is not alone here: others have pointed out that Obama has used fewer executive orders than his predecessors, forgetting that constitutionality is what matters, not quantity.
Complaints about executive orders, Marcus suggests, are just “politics dressed up in constitutional clothing, to be put on and off depending on which party holds the White House.” I can say with confidence, as someone who never voted for George W. Bush and resented his expansion of the executive, that Obama is in another league entirely.
There are three basic ways in which Obama’s behavior exceeds that of any his predecessors.
The first is that Obama is using executive orders and actions to alter his own legislation. It’s one thing to claim that you are forced to act because Congress will not. It’s quite another thing to re-write the law after Congress has done what you asked–and after you have offered, time and time again, to entertain formal amendments to the legislation. Obama has simply invoked executive authority to cover up his own errors. That’s unprecedented.
The second way in which Obama’s abuse of executive power is different is that he has done it to prevent the legislature from acting. It is now widely acknowledged that the president issued his “Dream Act by fiat” in 2012 not just because Congress wouldn’t pass his version of immigration reform, but to outflank Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who was preparing his own version, embarrassing Obama among Latino voters. Such pettiness is rare.
The third way in which Obama’s behavior is unusual is that he commands sweeping executive power on some issues while arguing, on other issues, that he has no power to act. The president’s recent speech about the NSA surveillance programs is a prime example of such self-contradiction. There is no constitutional doctrine behind the president’s executive orders, actions, and omissions: there is just pure, cynical political expediency.
A final note. Marcus, like other apologists for President Obama’s power grabs, compares his actions to those of President Abraham Lincoln when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation. It is an absurd comparison, one chosen to flatter Obama’s failing pseudo-heroic image. If anything, Obama’s executive excesses tend to make us less free. He is not governing in the tradition of Lincoln, but that of Woodrow Wilson–and doing far worse.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/02/04/Ruth-Marcus-Obama-Executive-Order
There are three basic ways in which Obama’s behavior exceeds that of any his predecessors.
The first is that Obama is using executive orders and actions to alter his own legislation.
It’s my understanding that Presidents have the authority to adjust timings of laws in order effective implementation and have done so many times.
Constitutional scholar Simon Lazarus argued that such concerns about the legality of the administration’s decisions were overblown and ahistorical:”In fact, applicable judicial precedent places such timing adjustments well within the Executive Branch’s lawful discretion… Nor is the one-year delay of the employer mandate an affront to the Constitution, wiki
The second way in which Obama’s abuse of executive power is different is that he has done it to prevent the legislature from acting.
If it were that “unusual” the 5-4 conservative dominated SCOTUS and Repub House bringing forth the matter could stop it no?
“Another check to the broad power of the executive order is the Constitution. That is, the Supreme Court may review the order and weigh its constitutionality. Essentially, both the legislative and judicial branches of the government have the potential power to check or dismiss a directive, but their ability to do this may be based on the degree to which party affiliation of Congress or the courts aligns with the president.”
The third way in which Obama’s behavior is unusual is that he commands sweeping executive power on some issues while arguing, on other issues, that he has no power to act.
That’s “unusual” for a politician?
This was my personal favorite.
Obama asserts executive privilege over Fast and Furious documents
10:00 AM 06/20/2012
President Barack Obama has asserted executive privilege over documents pertaining to Operation Fast and Furious. The move followed Attorney General Eric Holder’s last-second request for him to do so, ahead of a scheduled House oversight committee vote to begin contempt of Congress proceedings against Holder.
Obama granted the 11th-hour request after negotiations between Holder and the committee’s chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, fell apart again on Tuesday evening after a 20-minute meeting. Holder had agreed beforehand that he would provide internal DOJ documents to Issa ahead of the meeting. He did not bring the documents. On Tuesday evening, Issa gave him one final chance to provide the documents before the 10 a.m. scheduled vote to hold Holder in contempt.
Holder again did not provide the documents to Congress. Then, on Wednesday morning, minutes before the meeting, it was announced Obama had agreed to assert executive privilege over those documents.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/20/holder-asks-obama-to-assert-executive-privilege-over-fast-and-furious-documents/ - 97k -
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/02/24/can-brazil-keep-raising-interest-rates/
Brazil 1.7% growth rate and 6.5% inflation rate, Obama could post such numbers if the Tea party would not block what he wants to do, you don’t have that problem in Brazil as the link that will soon post shows.
Excerpt from story about Brazil:
The outlook for this year keeps getting worse: on Monday, the bank’s survey of market participants showed growth is now seen at 1.7% this year, down from 1.8% last week. And 2015 isn’t looking much better, with growth forecast at around 2%. That’s a far cry from the boom years of 2009 and 2010 when Brazil and its emerging market peers were expected to help drive the global economy out of recession.
Yet inflation remains a serious problem. Many economists believe the central bank has all but given up on hitting its official target of 4.5% any time in the next couple of years, and that instead it’s simply content to keep the number below the upper threshold of 6.5%. It’s a charge the central bank denies vehemently.
Excerpt from story about Brazil
You’re a funny fellow Adan - Your personal attacks are as contradictory as your “science”. They are not well thought out - and weaken your “case”.
Example:
Why do you think I’d care about your Brazil stories when according to you, I don’t even live in Brazil? It makes as much sense as your climate-change “math”.
You held up Brazil as an example of what to with an economy four years ago. I stated that the policies would drive the growth rate down to nothing. It is just another example of me knowing what I am talking about and you blowing smoke.
You held up Brazil as an example of what to with an economy four years ago.
I wonder why. Are you just embarrassed that Reagan’s failed Trickle-down Voodoo economics destroyed America? Try thinking beyond quarterly numbers. That kind of shallow thinking is killing America.
“No other BRIC balances democracy and widespread wealth nearly as well. (as Brazil) Half of Brazil’s population now occupies the middle class–” Forbes
Brazil’s middle class swells as 35 mn climb out of poverty
Roughly 35 million Brazilians have climbed out of poverty over the last decade and 53 percent of the country’s nearly 194 million people now belong to the middle class, according to an official study released Thursday. http:// latino dot foxnews.com
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/12/17/a-look-inside-the-feds-balance-sheet-17/tab/interactive/
We demonstrated our product today at the RSA conference in SF. I’ve been to SF several times and always loved the city. Went to the Irish Bank pub last night for several Guiness beers. Not sure where we go this evening. I was due to fly out in the A.M. but might stay another day to browse the expo.
We were on our feet for over 5 hours. It’s been years since I was on my feet so long. I guess that was my workout for the day. Imagine how many calories you burn by standing and gabbing.
‘Imagine how many calories you burn by standing and gabbing.’
Uh, maybe about 75? Just a guess. It would of been sporting more to be doing push-ups as you explained the ISO 9000 compliance of your booth’s product. j/k
Not my prediction but:
http://downtrend.com/brian-carey/chris-matthews-dems-could-lose-10-senate-seats-this-year/
Does this give us less of a chance of an invasion of a foreign country that is an enemy of Israel?
Unfortunately, no. However, I do not think it increases it either.
The “real journalists” will have the last word.
Listen to the real journalists.
Kennedy Mixed Up Drugs, Lawyers Say at Trial
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — A Kennedy family member’s groggy behavior after her 2012 arrest for sideswiping a tractor-trailer was not the result of a criminal act but of mistakenly taking a sleeping pill instead of thyroid medication, her lawyers argued at her trial Monday.
Kerry Kennedy, 54, daughter of assassinated Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the ex-wife of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of driving while impaired.
“This case is about a mistake, plain and simple,” defense attorney Gerald Lefcourt said in his opening statement in Westchester County Court in White Plains, about 35 miles north of New York City.
Lefcourt said it was a medication mix-up that led to Kennedy’s arrest for erratically driving her silver Lexus on Interstate 684 near North Castle in Westchester County the morning of July 13, 2012.
Lefcourt described Kennedy as a devout Roman Catholic and a devoted humanitarian and mother who would never willfully drive while impaired.
A jury trial is unusual for a relatively minor unclassified misdemeanor. If convicted, Kennedy could face up to a year in prison, but with no prior criminal record, it is unlikely she would serve any time behind bars, court officials said.
A toxicology report after Kennedy’s arrest showed she had the drug zolpidem, which is sold under the brand name Ambien, in her system. The drug is a slow-acting medication to induce sleep and overcome insomnia.
Prosecutors said Kennedy continued to drive her car after realizing she was impaired, endangering herself and other drivers, before running off the road and passing out behind the wheel.
Witnesses testified on Monday that they saw her Lexus traveling at high speed, tailgating and veering into other lanes.
Nobody was injured.
Kennedy drove about five miles while swerving into other lanes of traffic, the grassy median and eventually a tractor-trailer, prosecutors told the jury.
— Reuters
“Kennedy Mixed Up Drugs, Lawyers Say at Trial”
It’s better to have money and not need it than it is to need it and not have any.