Bits Bucket for June 15, 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
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWhZ1GI9UyM
Interesting Mom jeans on the chick playing the mandolin.
america is rock and roll and guitar solos…so where are they today?
My fave girl group:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5Gf9s5_yO0
“So do you really believe wages are going to double or triple to meet grossly inflated housing prices? Of course not. Housing prices will fall by 50% to meet existing wages as housing demand continues to collapse.”
or lower interest rates to zero to keep prices going up.
extend the length of the loan.
Asset gains will get us out of the hole.
That doesn’t seem to be working $hitHouse Poet.
Remember… Housing demand is at 19 year lows and falling.
still posing?
Still lying?
Look up “Frank Hamer” in Wikipedia and will get to read this:
“In 1928 Hamer put a halt to a murder-for-reward ring, and his extraordinary means of accomplishing this made him nationally famous. The Texas Bankers’ Association had begun offering rewards of $5,000 “for dead bank robbers — not one cent for live ones.” Hamer determined that men were setting up deadbeats and two-bit outlaws to be killed by complicit police officers; the officers would collect the rewards and pay the men their finder’s fees. But his investigation hit a stone wall: the police refused him support and the Bankers’ Association’s position was that ‘any man that could be induced to participate in a bank robbery ought to be killed.’ Spurred by urgency to thwart the next set of killings as well as personally infuriated, Hamer wrote and signed a detailed exposé of the racket, which he termed “the bankers’ murder machine,” then went to the press room of the State Capitol and handed out copies. A firestorm of public outrage led to indictments.”
From a separate source I learned the Texas Banker’s Association KNEW that a lot of people being killed for rewards were not bank robbers but were set up as such but THEY DID NOT CARE! All they cared about was the drop off of Texas bank robberies (which, in fact, occurred). That other stuff - the poor saps that were set up to be killed - well, that could be chalked up to something like, say, collateral damage.
There’s a lesson here, maybe a couple of them:
1. Don’t mess with Texas because Texas is God’s country, and
2. Don’t mess with the Texas Banker’s Association because they are in God’s country doing God’s work.
Bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Much easier to be a John Corzine…
No, MARIN is God’s country. Jeesh, Mr. Baker. Get your quotes right, or else no one is going to fall for your “I’m a banker” bit.
All I am saying, is give war a chance …
The New York Times says the lack of major wars may be hurting economic growth.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-14/new-york-times-says-lack-major-wars-may-be-hurting-economic-growth
If a major war will save the economy then it follows that a full-scale global thermonuclear war will make it boom.
Or, maybe, go boom.
Oh yes. It’s not an excessively indebted population which is causing economic stagnation. It’s not a global debt crisis which is causing economic stagnation. It’s lack of war.
These are the kinds of absurdities you get when you let the financial sector dictate policy.
The banks and the rest of the financial sector need to be kept on a short leash for a healthy economy. Their debt peddling and gambling activities can quickly ensnare and hamstring a society.
Instead, in the world today, they are the ones actually calling the shots. Via central banks and via a completely sold-out political system.
I wonder who he has in mind that we should go to war with this time. The last wars with Iraq and Afghanistan are still in progress and we have spent over a trillion dollars. Should we not be swimming in money and prosperity according to this IDIOT. Btw we could have paid most of the college student’s debt with the money we have wasted in Iraq alone with no lives lost.
I wonder if his hidden agenda is for the benefit of Israel?
Endless war and endless money printing
Long time Ranger fan that couldn’t be happier about the Kings fans celebrating their Stanley Cup victory Friday night outside the Staples Center.
“We got the drone! We got the drone!”
It Looks Like Raging Hockey Fans Destroyed An LAPD Drone Last Night
by HUNTER WALKER | Business Insider | June 15, 2014
Multiple videos have been posted online showing what uploaders described as hockey fans destroying a Los Angeles Police Department drone outside the Staples Center Friday night after the LA Kings won the NHL’s Stanley Cup.
Riot police were called in to break up what the LA Times described as a “melee” outside the arena following the King’s victory over the New York Rangers.
In one clip posted online, a drone can be seen hovering over the crowd of hockey fans before it was knocked out of the sky by people throwing shoes and clothing:
In another clip, the drone is not visible, but the hockey fans can be heard chanting, “We got the drone! We got the drone!”
Full article here
http://www.infowars.com/…/ - 66k -
Hooray for LA Kings and for the fans. They have a great team and during the course of the previous series I couldn’t help but think, “these guys are good”.
Also I could imagine someone swating one of those drones out of the sky with a hockey stick. Now that dudes photo is on record as destroying the governments property, if it was a government drone.
Not sure I’d want to be him.
Does a government drone have markings that identify it?
Yeah, but C’mon, there’s zero chance they are gonna arrest Wayne Gretsky.
I hate drones. Our right to privacy means we have a right to shoot down drones, whether flown by government or private individuals. We need a drone amendment added to the constitution.
Read Daniel Suarez’s Kill Decision. Good recent drone SF. Highly recommend.
This just means that the next generation of drones will be resistant to shoes and clothing.
Border agent laments gang members entering U.S.: ‘Why are we letting him in here?’
By Kellan Howell
The Washington Times
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Border Patrol officials are swamped by the number of minors crossing illegally into the United States and frustrated that they can’t turn away known Mexican gang members.
Chris Cabrera, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council Local 3307 in the Rio Grande Valley, said that confirmed gang members in Mexico — including those from Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) — are coming into the country to be reunited with their families, National Review reported Friday.
SEE ALSO: Border Patrol changing diapers, heating baby formula for surge of children
“If he’s a confirmed gang member in his own country, why are we letting him in here? … I’ve heard people come in and say, ‘You’re going to let me go, just like you let my mother go, just like you let my sister go. You’re going to let me go as well, and the government’s going to take care of us,’” Mr. Cabrera told the magazine.
He said that the only way to solve the problem was to implement harsher restrictions on who can be allowed to cross.
“Until we start mandatory detentions, mandatory removals, I don’t think anything is going to change. As a matter of fact, I think it’s going to get worse,” he said, National Review reported.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/…/14/border-agents-lament-mexican-gang-members-entering/ -
Gang members make good soldiers.
Gang members make good soldiers.
Gang members make good cannon fodder, it is a win/win.
All the politicians are terrified of getting Cantored by the electorate, but if any speak out that aren’t safe already, then they risk being pilloried by the MSM. Part of this orchestration is the expected overreaching of shamnesty opponents. The shamnesty advocates want a whipping boy Clive Bundy type to show up at the bus stations or at the border. They want that bad.
The crazy thing is that the unemployment rate is lower in Mexico than the US.
they don’t pay people not to work in mexico.
0% down mortgages in China.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-12/china-s-no-money-down-housing-echoes-u-s-subprime-lending-risks.html
They must be pretty late in the bubble cycle if they are going subprime.
I think if you read the story you see the fundamental difference between the bubble in the U.S. and China. The government there is actively trying to discourage the bubble while here the government does everything it can do to support the bubble. China does not need a housing bubble to have growth, Obamanomics relies upon it.
Why would they go to 0% down mortgages at this point in the cycle if not to keep the housing price appreciation party going?
It is not the Chinese government that is doing this it is the property developers.
The link appears to be lost but the public debt of the U.S. is hitting 113.8%, China’s public debt has fallen to 17.3% from 33.5% it had in 2010 after its stimulus. Yet China is ready to collapse not the U.S., I do not think so.
Right…just like it was not the U.S. government that was doing subprime lending, but rather the independent subprime lenders like Countrywide, Ameriquest and New Century fueled by a flood of money from Wall Street investment banks
The same result is on the way in China as happened in the U.S. circa 2007 when the last of the subprime buyers is priced out.
It sure looks to me like their housing construction industry is producing new empty housing units at an accelerating, unsustainable pace, but I don’t claim to be the expert that you are.
Right…just like it was not the U.S. government that was doing subprime lending, but rather the independent subprime lenders like Countrywide, Ameriquest and New Century fueled by a flood of money from Wall Street investment banks
Were they not selling these loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and didn’t Barney Frank block any attempt to stop that? Read the story, the Chinese government is trying to stop the developers from offering these loans not trying to promote them.
IbequirkyDan is either easily duped or willfully blind.
“China does not need a housing bubble…”
But they already have the biggest housing bubble on the planet. They have enough for 3 1/2 billion people!
‘The State Council, China’s cabinet, is likely to modify purchase restrictions introduced in 2010 following the high inventory levels for new housing units in several cities, reports the Chinese-language Shanghai Securities News, citing government sources.’
‘The E-house China R&D Institute recently published a report on the inventory levels for new housing units in May, which showed that it would take at least 44.9 months for Wenzhou in eastern China’s Zhejiang province to clear the units currently available in the market.’
‘A total 20 of the 35 major Chinese cities monitored by the market researcher expect the estimated time for selling new units to be above 16 months.’
These restrictions are usually along the lines of, “you can’t buy more than three houses.” It’s funny that they think that speculators will now rush in to buy houses in a falling market.
I asked recently why so many Chinese IPO’s go public in the US:
‘Shopping website Jingdong Mall has become China’s third-largest internet firm to do go public on the Nasdaq in the United States after Tencent Holdings and Baidu amid a wave of listings by Chinese internet companies in the US, the People’s Daily Overseas Edition reports.’
‘Why is it that internet firms with the most growth potential, the most innovative technology and profitable prospects, prefer to go public in the US or Hong Kong rather than in mainland China, the newspaper asked.’
‘The high thresholds for A-share listings in China have made these internet firms turn to overseas stock markets. Even the easiest public listing in the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) still requires the candidate to be profitable for two consecutive years with accumulated two-year net profit of no less than 10 million yuan (US$1.6 million), or it should be profitable over the past year with revenues no less than 50 million yuan (US$8 million). Jingdong Mall fails to reach these standards, because it had a net loss of 49 million yuan (US$7.8 million) in 2012 and 1.7 billion yuan (US$276.7 million) in 2013.’
‘The restrictions on shareholders and employees’ holding stakes also have forced the Chinese internet firms to move offshore. Many such internet firms such as e-commerce giant Alibaba Group have chosen to use a curious regulatory loophole known as a VIE, or variable interest entity, for their overseas listing.’
‘In the VIE structure, when foreign investors buy into a public listing in the US they are not allowed to own a single Alibaba share in China, for example, but instead their shares are registered in the Cayman Islands. In the VIE structure, if the company goes bankrupt foreign investors can’t access the company’s assets in China.’
‘Song Liping, general manager of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, said the current listing standard is set for traditional industries, demanding consistency and stability, however, the US listings of internet firms has triggered deep thinking and reviews by the regulators, the report said.’
‘This year, about 30 Chinese internet companies are expected to go public in the US, with Alibaba expected to complete the process in August.’
The QE thing isnt working. Quick launch some global unrest to drive gas prices up and spark some inflation in the price of everything. Buy some groceries now cause they’re gonna cost more in a week.
it is working for people at the top.
“In the face of temptation reason succumbs”.
Could you resist using printing press to pay your bills and get what you wanted?
“It’s just a little bit. And we can stop any time we want.”
The concept of “money for nothing” is very attractive to people. All people.
it is working for people at the top.
It worked for a little while. It isn’t working any more. Steroids, heroin, whatever, there is a burn rate.
News flash: Pushing on a string still not working for central banks.
Why economies stay stuck in the mud
By Dan McSwain
5 p.m. June 14, 2014
Updated 4:37 p.m. June 12, 2014
File photo of Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank. On June 5, 2014, the ECB cut two key interest rates, one of them into negative territory — a highly unusual step designed to keep the eurozone economy from sliding into crippling deflation. File photo of Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank. On June 5, 2014, the ECB cut two key interest rates, one of them into negative territory — a highly unusual step designed to keep the eurozone economy from sliding into crippling deflation. The Associated Press
Whether you’re a big-shot CEO or a teenager looking for your first job, the economy seems stuck in the mud.
For insight into this lack of traction, five full years after the Great Recession ended, I submit two seemingly unrelated facts — negative interest rates in the European Union and negative home equity in San Diego County.
I’m not suggesting these economies have a lot in common. San Diego’s is stronger, for starters.
Still, both suffer extended hangovers from real-estate-fueled debt crises. And both economies have too much money trapped and out of circulation, where it can’t be used for spending and investment.
Europe’s immediate problem is weak banks.
Unlike the U.S., which focused on shoring up bank reserves after the Financial Panic of 2008, Europe worried more about debt implosions of its southern national governments.
After bailouts and varying fiscal overhauls, the European sovereign debt crisis has subsided.
Yet overall economic growth is still weak. More dangerous is the risk of deflation, a cycle of falling prices that punishes borrowers and prompts consumers to hoard cash.
In a stab at stimulus, the European Central Bank on June 5 cut its short-term interest rate to 0.15 percent, about where the U.S. rate has been since 2009.
More surprising, the ECB imposed a 0.1 percent fee on reserves that banks hold at the central bank. This effectively introduced a negative interest rate, a subject that has fascinated economists for years.
The idea is that if banks face a penalty on reserves, they will instead lend the money to consumers and companies, thus stimulating economic activity.
Theoretically, this provides a path out of a “liquidity trap,” a condition that hobbles traditional monetary policy.
In ordinary recessions, central banks jolt the economy by reducing interest rates to big banks. This in turn cuts costs for consumer spending and business investment.
But the tactic stops working as rates approach zero. When borrowers offer no return, lenders are better off keeping their cash in the mattress.
Given that credit fuels everything from corporate purchasing to Social Security checks, few policymakers want to risk a widespread return to the pre-banking Stone Age. Economists since the 1800s have suggested that taxes on deposits could re-lubricate the flow of money in a liquidity trap.
So far, the U.S. Federal Reserve has avoided negative rates. Instead, it tried using massive bond purchases to push down long-term interest rates.
It succeeded in cutting rates, but not much else. Banks stashed most of the newly created money into interest-paying reserves.
Part of this phenomenon of pushing on a string is normal after a recession, as consumers pay down debt and put off spending.
However, the government’s measure of how often a dollar circulates in the U.S. economy is the lowest since records started being kept in 1959. This despite falling unemployment and steady, if sluggish, economic growth.
Europe’s central bank bought some government bonds to calm a market panic. But it has rejected the Fed’s broader strategy.
Now the ECB tiptoes onto the road to negative rates. But it may do more harm than good.
…
Obama Admin Forbids Lawmakers From Taking Photos Of Illegal Immigrant Facility
6/12/2014
Chuck Ross
Reporter
No recording devices will be allowed (We may ask you to leave your cellphone in our vehicle)
No questions will be allowed during the tour, but questions will be addressed later
No interacting with staff and children at the shelter
We will provide photos of the facility after the tour
During the tour, ”the tour guide will detail what goes on from room to room and the services youth are provided on a daily basis,” the email invitation reads.
But one congressional staffer invited to tour the facility called the planned tours “a dog and pony show.”
“Don’t talk to anyone, don’t record anything you might happen to see, but come visit us and we’ll give you a sanitized story with only the photos and accounts we want you to have,” said the staffer, who requested anonymity.
dailycaller.com/…/ - 97k -
If HBB is turning into an infowars blog, let me know so I can round up a few contacts of people I’d like to keep in touch with, then split.
It’s a free form jazz exploration. Overall i think the wild west works better, thanks Ben! I grin and bear what I don’t like also sometimes. Wasn’t particularly pleased with a whole bunch of quoted IMF articles breaking up the bucket yesterday morning when I thought one would have done just fine.
But don’t tell me I can’t complain. It’s Father’s Day, you kids get off my lawn.
It’s a free form jazz exploration
Yes. BTW, the MSM seems to be downplaying the fact that the Republican Guard is now in Iraq. A total sectarian war is looking more and more likely.
Sorry Revolutionary Guard.
Great updates in Iraqi situation:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/10900920/Iraq-crisis-ISIS-battles-for-Baghdad-live.html
Its Bush’s fault. It’s Reagan’s fault. It’s Eisenhower’s fault. Plus what can Obama do, he’s just one man.
For just one man he sure is able to screw up a lot of things, I will concede that point.
I saw a headline (from Fox News, lol) about the Iraq situation. It was something about “officials” saying the Iraqi “insurgents” were getting help from Iran.
Then everything became crystal clear. IRAN is the target here, with Iraq being the cause celebre to attack that country. Washington has such a hard-on for Iran, it wouldn’t even surprise me if Washington itself set up the current situation in Iraq.
Jeebus.
“cause celebre”
I should have said, “casus belli”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casus_belli
Can’t put this on Obama.
The blame has to go to the trifecta of war criminals; Jorge Busho, Pico Cheno & Donaldo Rummyself.
I don’t disagree, but here’s the big O himself carrying on the grand tradition. “I want MY OWN war. Let’s see, uh, Syria? Ooops, people spoke out against that one. Russia? Nope, Pooty-Poot’s got bigger balls than me.
Sigh. I guess Iran. I can get Congress to go along with that one, they’ve wanted it for a long time.”
Obama along with them shares the blame for this Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton bragged about their roles in the Arab Spring and I laid out way back then how it was going to bite us in the azz.
“Overall i think the wild west works better, thanks Ben!”
I don’t disagree. This is Ben’s blog, which is why I am asking — if you want to shoot up the saloon, give me a nod so I can slide out the side door.
You don’t have to do any finger-wagging or make any announcements. Just observe and make your own decision to post or not, according to your personal guidelines.
Better infowars than the NYT, but that’s just me.
“if you want to shoot up the saloon, give me a nod so I can slide out the side door.”
What does that even mean? Are you saying “Jeff, if you’re going to continue to post links to infowars lemme know so I can leave”?
Childish, IMO. Just chill for a while and check out DailyKos.
Better infowars than the NYT, but that’s just me.
The stuff from Infowars is shown to be untrue or to make no sense, but Mr. phony scandals and others just don’t care.
“The stuff from Infowars is shown to be untrue or to make no sense,”
I guess you’ve got the time on your hands to vet all their stories, so go for it, start a blog of your own.
“The stuff from Infowars is shown to be untrue or to make no sense, but Mr. phony scandals and others just don’t care.”
(1/5) How the NSA uses your cell phone to spy on you - YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BlZfSqsqGE - 296k - Cached - Similar pages
Jan 10, 2009 … Alex Jones talks with attorney Eric Plumlee about cell phone
Edward Snowden
From Wikipedia
On May 20, 2013, Snowden flew from Hawaii to Hong Kong, where in early June he met with journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, releasing numerous NSA documents to them.
Snowden’s leaked documents uncovered the existence of numerous global surveillance programs, many of them run by the NSA and the Five Eyes with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European governments. In 2013, the existence of the Boundless Informant was revealed, along with the PRISM electronic data mining program, the XKeyscore analytical tool, the Tempora interception project, the MUSCULAR access point and the massive FASCIA database, which contains trillions of device-location records. In 2014, Britain’s Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group was revealed, along with the Dishfire database, Squeaky Dolphin’s real-time monitoring of social media networks, and the bulk collection of private webcam images via the Optic Nerve program. In May 2014, The Intercept reported that the NSA was working in partnership with the U.S. DEA, and was recording the content of all cell phone calls made in the Bahamas.[12][13] Leaked slides revealed in Greenwald’s book No Place to Hide, released in May 2014, showed that the NSA’s stated objective was to “Collect it All,” “Process it All,” “Exploit it All,” “Partner it All,” “Sniff it All” and “Know it All.”[14]
’shown to be untrue or to make no sense’
Aha! Truth, one of my favorite subjects. Some say truth is where you find it. I often think people confuse truth with conclusions. For instance, a guy told me that meat eating animals will lap water from a pond, while non-meat eating animals will sip. A man would also sip the water. Therefore he said, man shouldn’t eat meat.
I know this; no one has a monopoly on the truth.
Fun quotes and stuff:
‘Sometime, somewhere you’ve heard someone say with conviction, “There are two kinds of truth….” You might have even said it yourself. What usually follows is a another sip of whatever you’re drinking and then the definitive explanation of the two kinds of truth. Something like (swallow): “there’s the truth that hurts us and the truth that hurts others” or “there are truths of reason, and truths of fact” or, maybe, “there are absolute truths and then there are relative truths…” (as Vizzini said to the Man in Black, “Wait till I get going! Where was I?”) There is “the truth of the intellect and the truth of the heart,” “the small truth and the great truth,” and don’t forget “the literal truth and the poetic truth.” We’ve even been told of “the cold truth and the hot truth” and the “truth of names and the truth of things,” but the best one we’ve come across goes like this: “There are two kinds of truth, the truth you can read in a book and the truth that any fool can see.” Actually, if you think about it long enough, it makes no sense to say there are two kinds of truth, and why not? The Maverick Philosopher knows…
“Ignorance is an enemy, even to its owner. Knowledge is a friend, even to its hater. Ignorance hates knowledge because it is too pure. Knowledge fears ignorance because it is too sure.”
Sri Chinmoy
“How happy is he born and taught
That serveth not another’s will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost skill!”
Sir Henry Wotton, A Happy Life
“Art is a lie which makes us realize the truth.” Pable Picasso
“Our intelligence is imperfect, surely, and newly arisen; the ease with which it can be sweet-talked, overwhelmed, or subverted by other hardwired propensities — sometimes themselves disguised as the cool light of reason — is worrisome.”
Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, 1992
More:
http://www.10ktruth.com/the_quotes/truth.htm
I can give a few examples that come to mind.
Someone posted a link to an infowars page a couple of weeks ago that claimed that Eric Holder had falsely accused someone or some group of being racist. I was curious to read what Holder actually said, so I clicked on the link. It turns out the Infowars had a page which included a paragraph from a Brietbart article, but not any words spoken by Holder. So I clicked on the link to Breitbart. They also did not include any quotes from Holder that supported their argument. However, they did have a link to a Washington Post story which included long excerpts from a speech that the Attorney General. However, nothing in those excerpts had him accusing anyone of being racist.
Then there was an article from a website whose name I can’t remember that phony posted a link to a couple of months ago. I can’t remember what the theme was. I think it was a list of 10 problems caused by illegal immigration. One of them was a statement that the total cost of incarcerating illegal immigrants was $1.5 billion a year, representing 30% of the total. These numbers sparked my curiosity, because it would imply that total local, state and federal spending on jails and prisons is only $5 billion, when my guess would be that it’s a lot more than that. So I clicked on phony’s link. The website had a link to a Fox News story, whose numbers only covered federal incarceration, not all incarceration. It’s pretty well known that most prison spending is at the state level.
There was also a zerohedge story a few weeks ago about car manufacturing that a lot of people probably remember. They claimed that manufacturers were building vast numbers of cars only to park them indefinitely in large lots. They even had aerial photographs of the lots to prove their point. It turned out that the story was nonsense and that many of the photographs were years old.
The truth in these examples is not something that a reasonable person would debate.
You have no interest in truth.
“The truth in these examples is not something that a reasonable person would debate.”
If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor.
Then the choice for you is clear. Huffington Post is your destination.
I can’t tell which is worse, NY Post or Huff Post.
Celebrity gossip central with inflammatory partisan articles.
Nothing like it if you need a good riling up!
It’s Ben’s blog. He pretty much gives everyone a voice, within reason, even to express points he disagrees with. If someone doesn’t like it, well, don’t let the door hit ‘em where the good lord split ‘em.
Jeff has posted many interesting items over time, not just from infowars, but other sources as well. I find it interesting that infowars will often be the first to publish something that hours or even days later appears on the google news aggravator.
I didn’t hear you complain for the eight “every thing is Bush’s fault” years….
“Don’t talk to anyone, don’t record anything you might happen to see, but come visit us and we’ll give you a sanitized story with only the photos and accounts we want you to have,” said the staffer, who requested anonymity.”
Reminds me of the Soviet Union’s InTourist and other similar devices used by communist countries. If people can’t see this administration for what it is, then truly they don’t deserve any freedoms. I just don’t want to go down with them.
Alternative media is growing and MSM isn’t. There’s a reason for that.
Going way back: I used to watch Alex Jones in Austin in 1998 on the Austin Community Channel on cable. He had a 30 minute, once a week show. Now he has a full on media station, mixing online with video and location live stuff. Pretty impressive. As a side story; once I was on an all day campaign thing with Ron Paul around 1996. We were ending the day in three cars, and Ron was going to do an interview with Alex Jones in the ACC east Austin studio. We got lost, and had to stop and ask some locals how to get there. We looked around and saw mostly hookers and drug dealer types. Ron looked at us and said, “well, we are libertarians.”
Later I worked with a guy who also had a show at the ACC studio. He told me he had let Robert Rodriguez in the back door to secretly edit what would become the movie El Mariachi.
Speaking of the HP:
‘And so the inevitable is unfolding: a possible collapse of the U.S.-imposed Iraqi state, the apparent triumph of the most brutal extremists in the world, and more to come in Syria, Afghanistan, and possibly Jordan, Mali, Libya, and who knows where else. The first step to recovery — if recovery is even feasible — is an honest reckoning of why this is happening.’
‘The discourse in Washington, as always, will be superficial, partisan, and knowledge-free…But while Obama has his share of missteps, the responsibility for this catastrophe rests with the neocons of the George W. Bush years and the liberal hawks who can’t help but propose war when they see a wrong that needs righting.’
‘Middle East historian Juan Cole explains the tumultuous history in his excellent blog, and makes the useful point that the Iraqi Parliament had rejected the U.S. proposal to keep a residual force in Iraq beyond 2011. Their rejection was rooted in eight years of mayhem that the U.S. invasion wrought. As I have argued exhaustively, the scale of killing was enormous — likely 600,000 or more Iraqis died in those years as a direct result of the war. That and displacement and impoverishment create and sustain bitterness that no amount of training and equipping the Iraqi army can salve. Many people would ask me why the mortality figures were so important (and a source of contention). This is why. The country was left a ruin, torn by sectarian politics and crippled by mistrust and fear and death. It is easy prey for the jihadists.’
‘The second charge against Obama is that he failed to arm the moderate rebels in Syria, thereby giving the extremists an advantage. Obama should not have encouraged rebellion. The human-rights lobby has been at the center of the Arab Spring fiasco, egging on the rebels and feeding the media narrative of despicable despots that needed deposing. That the likes of Al Qaeda has appeared at virtually every newly created power vacuum to wreak its own special havoc seems to have escaped the notice of every do-gooder from San Francisco to Oslo. The same thing happened in Afghanistan 13 years ago, when prominent feminists argued for war to liberate Afghan women. As my colleague Anna Badkhen points out in her brilliant on-the-ground account, The World Is a Carpet, Afghan women don’t need such patronizing attitudes. And, in any case, the Taliban will be back in power in two to three years: war for human rights is increasingly being exposed as an oxymoron.’
I didn’t know that you knew Ron Paul personally, Ben. Say what you will, at least the guy’s been consistent over the years.
That day was one I’ll always remember. I hadn’t moved to Austin yet. Early that morning I met Dr Paul and his team in the hill country for a rally. Then because we were using multiple vehicles, I drove him to Austin. That was the only time I was alone with him, and we chatted some those two hours. Mostly he read. He was always carrying around a stack of magazines and papers for that reason.
When we got to Austin we met up with his campaign manager and ate at a Taco Bell. I always crack up remember us sitting in Taco Bell of all places.
Around that time I bought him his first Shiner Bock when we were treating the college Republicans in San Marcos. I’ll say this about Ron Paul; he’s exactly the same in person as he is on TV or in front of a crowd.
I’ve seen him almost every time he’s been here in Vegas and marched in the Strip rallies in 2007-08. My daughter and I shook his hand at UNLV. When she told him she was sorry she wasn’t old enough to vote for him he laughed and said he appreciated her being there anyway. He couldn’t have been nicer to her.
If one hasn’t come to the realization that the MSM is a marketing tool for the corporate communists, he never will. It’s merely a means to enslave for them.
Man, that California article in the weekend topic thread is CRAZY. I think we could do a week on that alone. I asked this there also:
I don’t disagree with the sentiment, but what is the nuts and bolts of the theory that the mainstream GOP and Chamber of Commerce types want shamnesty? If it is for cheaper labor, isn’t it going to cost more to hire a legal person than an illegal? Is it that the flood of millions of newly legal laborers will drive the cost of labor down to rock bottom min wage? Won’t it drive the costs up in other areas like construction where illegals are already working?
Obama wants amnesty
Dems in the senate want amnesty
Dems in the house want amnesty
So WHY has it not passed yet?????
But people are constantly saying Repub business interests want it to. Why?
If it is for cheaper labor, isn’t it going to cost more to hire a legal person than an illegal?
That’s possible, but it’s cheaper for business to have the workers in the country than rounded up and sent up home. It’s also possible that business likes what’s going on now. Lots of talk of legalization, but nothing actually happening in Congress. In the meantime, the cheap labor continues to come in.
So all these people blathering on and on here on this blog about how both parties are the same and for shamnesty, and MightyMike’s weak ass business doesn’t really want it is the best defense?
Maybe I needs to ask on Monday.
How can you say that shamnesty hasn’t happened? They are here. They are subsidized. There are no penalties for them OR their employers. They are simply not being given the legal right to vote. If they had THAT, then they would not vote Republican. They would vote to increase the minimum wage, and they would demand free tortillas.
Rip-off realtors, lying lawyers, deceptive empty pocked donkeys resulting in a market rife with fraud top to bottom as a result.
Keep your powder dry.
I know many, many people who will be psychologically crushed if the market starts to drop by 15 percent or more.
I think you put your finger on the reason the PTB will do all within their capability to keep it propped up.
So the question gets down to whether housing bubble reflation measures are sustainable.
Where’s all the shills? It always amuses me to see them disappear on the weekends.
The lying lawyers and NAR funded sentiment consultants can’t bill weekend hours.
They also need to get caught up on their bar time.
Bar time? Like booze? Geeze, that sh!t is expensive. A glass of decent wine costs as much as the bottle of wallpaper remover. I’d rather buy two tubes of caulk than a couple a beers. Hard liquor shots and stuff? Got a nice birdbath.
“lawyers are liars”
Yes they are.
I do most of my drinking at home…unless I happen to be out with a lawyer, that is. They always seem to want to have a drink no matter the occasion.
OK LIEbrals, it’s Father’s Day, time to reflect on why you hate your Dad, and how he failed you if you grew up to be Lieb.
My dad is a great guy. Conservative dude. He took me to see Rush Limbaugh when I was in middle school. I’ll never forget that night, because it was the first time I’d seen a speaker wearing a bullet proof vest. We spent a lot of time together listening to Rush Limbaugh in the car. I grew up to become a liberal because I believe all of the systems we have should serve people, not the other way around.
My dad was such a good, loving dad, that I grew up to love everybody, to include black people. Even black kids. Even black kids without dads. Even kids from other countries (that may be in a gang and may not speak English). I love people so much so, that I believe in taxing you so that I can teach them. Evolution no less.
I can’t wait to see my dad soon.
Happy Father’s Day!
I grew up to become a liberal because I believe all of the systems we have should serve people, not the other way around.
Doesn’t liberalism have to work to serve people? That is the problem while the intentions of liberals are good, the result is always the same a high tax low growth economy where people do not do well. Hence, the saying if you are not a liberal when you are young you have no heart and if you are not a conservative when you are older you have no brain.
Some famous dude revered by liberals and with a Boston accent said more than 50 years ago “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
It is kind of ambiguous. The first statement is opposed to entitlements, and that is a good thing. The second statement is in favor of self sacrifice. Sorry but these days I would not sacrifice my life for a person whose culture I find disgusting. Americans had much more commonality 50 years ago and more than that 70 years ago than now. That is how we successfully teamed up to defeat the Japanese and fight the Germans (after Russia severely weakened the German army). We do not have the culture to fight a common enemy these days unless the enemy is giant spiders from space (like starship troopers).
And of course it turns out all the productive people serve the government.
OK, now I understand.
With your own understanding of conservatism, how can you love your dad? He probably hates black people, hates people from other countries, doesn’t think government by nature were designed to serve people.
Feliz Día De Los Padre!
Those LIEbral policies have been helping out those black kids without dads real good. Thanks LBJ. If you build it, they will come.
Happy Father’s Day to Uncle Sam!
Isn’t it funny how our dads’ politics can influence our own independent thinking? My views definitely fall to the right of where my dad raised me to think by a long shot.
Not to suggest here that I don’t think Rush is a bloviating narcotics-addicted blowhard or anything…
Interesting article about China steel production. By slowing down its economy but just a little it has caused the cost of imports of iron ore from countries like Brazil and Australia to plummet which now allows their steel companies to turn a profit while they still produce record amounts of steel:
(Reuters)
Updated: 2014-06-13 14:45
Counter:41
China’s crude steel output hit a record of 70.43 million tonnes in May, up 2.6 percent from a year ago, government data showed on Friday, as steel mills in the world’s biggest producer looked to meet strong demand.
Steel demand in China traditionally improves in the second quarter as construction activity picks up along with warmer weather, but the slowing economy and weak property sector is expected to curb demand growth and push mills to cut output in coming months.
May’s output rose 2.3 percent from April and trumped the previous record of 70.25 million tonnes hit in March. Output for the first five months of the year rose 2.7 percent to 342.52 million tonnes from the same period last year, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.
The average daily crude steel output fell to 2.272 million tonnes in May from a record 2.295 million tonnes seen in April. It has stood above 2.20 million tonnes so far this year.
A rapid fall in iron ore prices, which have lost about one third and hit a 21-month low, has also helped steel mills to generate a profit of about 50-150 yuan ($8-24.18) a tonne, encouraging them to keep production high, traders said.
“A rapid fall in iron ore prices, which have lost about one third and hit a 21-month low, has also helped steel mills to generate a profit of about 50-150 yuan ($8-24.18) a tonne, encouraging them to keep production high, traders said.”
Let me see if I understand this:
Steel demand has fallen so the demand for iron ore has fallen as a result. So far, so good.
But because the cost of iron ore has fallen the cost of producing steel has also fallen and because the cost of producing steel has fallen due to the lower cost of the raw material steel is made from, which is iron ore, production of steel should be increased so as to take advantage of the low price of the iron ore - a low price brought about by the fallen demand of steel.
Or sumthin’ like that.
What would really be neat idea is to have the price of steel fixed by some sort of government edict and at the same time allow Mr. Market set the price of the iron ore. In this way the spread between the fixed price of steel and the market price of the ore would guarantee a profit for the steel companies and this guaranteed profit could be used as a selling point for floating massive amount of steel company shares to the public.
But of course this will never happen because to do such a thing would be unethical.
What it is really stating is steel demand has not met expectations of growth. Brazil and Australia opened mines expecting continued 10% growth in China’s steel demand. Reduce that growth to around 2.5% and the you have a glut of iron ore that China has turned to its advantage. China’s economy does well and Brazil takes it in the azz, at least Lola is happy about that.
“What it is really stating is steel demand has not met expectations of growth.”
Which makes it logical to increase production of steel?
Yes to meet the real growth in demand which China is experiencing.
What time will Lola roll out of that cardboard box, down another fifth, then start posting old links?
There you go. Collapsing demand is the first part of the story.
Should union pensions be cut?
By Jennie L. Phipps · Bankrate.com
Friday, June 6, 2014
Posted: 4 pm ET
http://www.bankrate.com/financing/retirement/should-union-pensions-be-cut/ - 158k
“They are saying to older people with no other resources — many barely making it already — ‘We’re going to break the promise that you would have a secure lifetime income.’ It’s unconscionable.”
Life’s a bitch and then you die.
Interesting article really fails to address which of the union plans failed to pay their full contributions for the rank and file as well as their contributions to the PBGC.
Public unions have taxpayers to make their contributions. No worries.
As long as they can still find a few of them…
Public unions are the largest contributors to the dem party by far…
So the answer is no.
See the GM for a small example…and this is a private union…
Look no further for Father’s Day gifts. The morning paper has a boatload of Burger King coupons. Buy one Whopper, get one Whopper free. Game over.
ammo would be a great gift.
Lola is having a deal tell when whopper and then get the second whopper for free.
auto correct when=one
I stopped going to BK twenty years ago when I saw customers in line with misshapen heads. They could not help their condition. I feel sore for them. All the same, you don’t like to be eating the diet that people with obvious health problems eat.
Sore = sorry
I liked it better as “sore”.
Lola is sore.
Maybe your eyes were sore?
‘I stopped going to BK twenty years ago’
Thanks for that vignette. I was seeing BK as a lesser evil to MCD’s 3-D made food. Now, I might just as well eat sunflower seeds and hard-boiled eggs.
The only saving grace is BK in the UK refuses to alter its food due to Sharia law. Subway gave in.
I stopped going to BK twenty years ago when I saw customers in line with misshapen heads.
Thank you for making my day with this comment. Too funny.
You sound like Miss Amy talking about renters. Always wondered who she really was!
Do we give the dollar value or does the govt?
why does a piece of paper have value?
Do we give the dollar value or does the govt?
govt demands that taxes be paid with it, so it has to have ‘a’ value. we give the the dollar ‘its’ value.
why does a piece of paper have value?
if you mean the dollar, it’s because we work for dollars.
Are you arguing that Fed control of the money supply has no effect on the value of a dollar?
is part of the reason the FED reserve note has value is due to basically there is no other option to use?
“why does a piece of paper have value?”
The value of the piece of paper is not contained in the piece of paper, the value of the piece of paper is contained in what the piece of paper can be traded for.
People piss and moan because the dollar is not back by gold or silver or whatever, which means, in their point of view, the dollar is not backed by anything.
But in reality the dollar IS backed - it is backed by anything it can be traded for, which happens to be anything that is offered for sale.
And this anything that is offered for sale that backs the dollar happens to include gold and silver.
Works great until it stops working like the continental, confederate currency etc. then your life savings are worthless paper.
why did those currencies stop working?
People just lost faith in them since they were not backed by anything. That experience is why the founding fathers backed our currency with gold, since they had personal experience with the continental. All fiat currencies have collapsed through history but “it is different this time”.
Seems like the common theme with fiat currencies is that the issuers cannot restrain themselves from creating more.
When the currency is backed by a hard asset is puts some restraint on the issuer.
When the issuer has to gather the assets to back the currency it is limited buy the availability of that asset.
Gold always made a good currency backer because it was scarce. As the issuer you hope that the currency grows in value faster than the asset backing the currency.
But in reality the dollar IS backed - it is backed by anything it can be traded for, which happens to be anything that is offered for sale.
no, the dollar isn’t backed by anything. when a currency is ‘backed’ by something, (presumably gold) you can take is somewhere and always get a fixed amount of gold for it. you can’t get a fixed amount of gold for the dollar.
you can’t get a fixed amount of gold for the dollar.
Yep. This is the distinction that Combo and PB don’t seem to get.
The dollar is not “backed” by a fixed amount of gold; instead, it is _exchangeable_ for a variable amount of gold.
That variable amount can vary widely, including all the way down to zero gold.
If you might find your dollar exchangeable for zero gold, then it isn’t backed by anything.
“If you might find your dollar exchangeable for zero gold, then it isn’t backed by anything.”
When the dollar was “backed by gold” one could not exchange dollars for gold because it was deemed by the PTB to be illegal for one to own gold, which meant the dollar at that time was “exchangeable for zero gold”, as you quite accurately put it.
It was only after the dollar was no longer backed by gold that someone with dollars was able to exchange his dollars for something other than zero gold.
I don’t know how interesting all this is to you but to me this whole gold-backing thing and all the related and connected paradoxes is quite interesting.
Strangely, the one thing one could not do with his gold-backed dollar was exchange his dollar for the very thing that backed it, which was gold.
He could trade his dollar for most anything else except for the one single item that gave to his dollar its value.
This makes no sense at all if one thinks about it a bit but apparently this is the system that many people want to return to.
If any of you people want to own gold then you had better hope gold is not the item chosen to back the dollar.
combo, you’re missing the point. you said “the dollar is backed by..”
the dollar isn’t backed. not by gold, silver, copper or tulips.
During the “wonderful days” of the gold-backed dollar one had to trade (whether he wanted to or not) an ounce of gold for thirty-five dollars.
That was the price; It wasn’t the going price, it was the set price, set by the U.S. government. And either you accepted this set price in exchange for your gold or else you were subject to going to jail.
Now the price is not set by the government, instead it is set by Mr. Market, as most prices for most items are set by Mr. Market.
And it is not illegal to own gold as it was in the old days.
Something to think about.
fiat currency doesn’t have to be fully backed by gold. in fact, it shouldn’t be. the swiss franc used to fully backed and now it’s around 25 to 35% backed. that’s really all that’s needed.
you just want to make the issuers have some skin in the game.
fiat currencies will rise and fall against everything. so they shouldn’t be pegged close to the spot price of any metal. they should be pegged much lower, like the franc. then, should the currency fall, it will be a long time before people start melting the coinage. there’d be enough time to do things like raise interest rates, or free up markets, etc.
a fiat, in a strong free country with free markets, should almost always be gaining strength. a steady rate of falling prices for everything should be the norm.
the ‘currency wars’ are suicidal. i can’t believe that people in charge are really that stupid. they have no clue how destructive their policies are or they wouldn’t indulge in them.
“And this anything that is offered for sale that backs the dollar happens to include gold and silver.”
A point which is conveniently overlooked by the gold bugs, I might add…
cant the currency be backed by anything of value?
precious metals happen to be scarce limiting the growth of the currency.
If the issuer wanted to create more currency they would have to go out and buy that asset backing the currency. so if there wasn’t a lot of the asset to buy the issuer couldn’t issue the currency very fast.
So that leads us to the question of; if those fed reserve notes aren’t backed by a hard asset what keeps people wanting them?
“precious metals happen to be scarce limiting the growth of the currency.”
Which explains why there was growth in the amount of our currency all during the period of time that our currency was subject to the restrictions imposed by the gold standard.
Oh, wait …
the value of the piece of paper is contained in what the piece of paper can be traded for.
i presume he knows that. he’s asking why and how the dollar gets its value.
the govt declares the paper is worth ‘a dollar’. now, what is ‘a dollar’?
seems like it a combination of the govt and the people.
By law the us dollar is a legal currency to use. as you say taxes are paid in dollars.
And then you have socialization. people have grown accustomed to accepting and paying in dollars.
But over history a fiat currency has an avg lifespan of 27 years.
Why do they fail?
seems like it a combination of the govt and the people.
yes, unintentional cooperation of people. beneficial if done correctly.
people have grown accustomed to accepting and paying in dollars.
true, but unimportant in understanding the value of the dollar.
But over history a fiat currency has an avg lifespan of 27 years.
it’s hard to get someone or something to run an honest fiat for any length of time. plus, you need good government that doesn’t intervene in markets.
Why do they fail?
a few reasons. government can fail (the confederacy). counterfeiting. then there are additional factors that weaken a fiat currency. there are factors that strengthen it too.
That’s what I was thinking. The piece of paper has value because you think you can trade it for goods or services.
If I was to hand you a piece of paper for your services and you knew you couldn’t trade it for something else you might think twice about accepting it.
It seems like the pieces of paper really start turning people off when it takes a wheelbarrow full of them to buy a loaf of bread.
At what point do people look for alternatives?
“The piece of paper has value because you think you can trade it for goods or services.”
The value goes beyond thinking you can trade it for goods or services, the piece of paper has value because you actually can trade it for goods or services.
the pieces of paper really start turning people off when it takes a wheelbarrow full of them to buy a loaf of bread.
At what point do people look for alternatives?
To the bread? Just about then I’d imagine.
At what percentage between 0% and 100% taxation do you become a slave….?
at 25% you’re officially a serf. slaves don’t get taxed.
Can you explain that? Any links perhaps?
Honest request
i’ve known it for a long time. it might go back as far as what i was taught in high school. i can’t cite a source for you, but if you research it a little online, i’m sure you’ll find it.
http://www.gfmag.com/global-data/economic-data/public-debt-percentage-gdp
This is very interesting and the data supports what I have been saying about the U.S. and China. The public debt of China is down to 17.3% of GDP for 2014. It was 33.5% in 2010. Now, look at the numbers for the U.S. it was well below 100% in 2007 but by 2010 it was up to 98.6% and this year it is hitting 113.8%. So China’s debt is 17.3% and the U.S. debt is 113.8% and China is imminent danger of collapse not the U.S.? You can do the same analysis for local government debt and private debt and find similar results. With our 2% economic growth with population growth of 1% and productivity growth of an anemic 1%, there is no way to reduce the long term unemployed. China using supply side economics and having virtually no safety net is rapidly increasing its population’s standard of living. So is liberalism, even if it is being done with good intentions “good” when it decreases progress and is quickly pushing this country into a total collapse?
Are you shut out of the home equity rebound? (In my neck of the woods, it seems like a disproportionate of those who are riding the rebound are the financial investors who snapped up foreclosure homes when most of the economy was on its back.)
Home equity is soaring, yet many owners are still underwater on loans
Boom in home equity continuing
Kenneth R. Harney
In some inland California counties during the recession, toxic financing contributed to home value losses of 50% and higher. Yet today, thanks to the most vigorous marketplace rebound of any state, just above 11% of California homes are in negative equity.
WASHINGTON — If you’re like most homeowners, it’s your biggest asset. You can’t track it online or check monthly statements sent to you by a bank, but it’s crucially important for your personal financial well-being and your retirement planning.
It’s your home equity — the difference between the market value of your house and whatever debt you’ve got on it. Equity for most of us is a big deal, and based on data released recently by the Federal Reserve, Americans’ home-equity holdings are booming.
That’s great news for most owners — though not all — and for the economy as a whole. The more equity we have, the more likely we are to spend money on goods and services that create more jobs — the so-called wealth effect.
Now consider these brain-bending big numbers: Thanks to rising prices and substantial continuing pay-downs of mortgage debt, owners’ combined equity holdings increased by $795 billion during the three months ended March 31. Homeowners’ equity holdings at the end of the first quarter totaled $10.8 trillion, the highest amount since late 2007 — but still well below the bubble-era record of $13.4 trillion reached in early 2006.
The ongoing boom is also pulling thousands of owners across the country out of real estate purgatory — they’ve been stuck in negative equity positions but are now transitioning to positive. According to new estimates from mortgage and housing analytics firm CoreLogic, the owners of 312,000 houses moved out of negative territory during the first three months of 2014. If prices rise just 5% in the year ahead, say researchers, an additional 1.2 million owners could do the same.
Now for the sobering side of the home-equity story: Despite the boom in housing wealth underway, many owners are still unable to join the party. About 6.3 million of them remain underwater on their loans. The average amount of negative equity they’re carrying is often significant — they owe an average 33% more than their house could command in a sale today. That gives you an idea of the widespread pain still being felt in the wake of the bust and recession.
The impact is especially severe for owners who bought with little or nothing down and then loaded on additional debt with second mortgages. The average negative equity balance for owners with two mortgages is about $75,000, according to CoreLogic. For households with one mortgage, the average negative equity is around $52,000.
Also on the sobering side, millions of owners continue to have less equity than they’ll need if they want to sell or even refinance. At the end of March, 10 million owners had less than 20% equity in their properties, and 1.6 million of them had less than 5%. Given real estate transaction costs, most people with less than 5% equity would have to bring money to the table to pay off the debt on their house when they sell.
…
Did nixon take us off the gold standard when someone informed him there was not enough gold to pay all the people back who were issued currency backed by the gold?
The Agency’s mission is not to stop crime. The agency’s mission is to collect every piece of information. Read Greenwald’s book.
It can do whatever I wants with the data and don’t expect it will stop a common thug from his emailed plan to home nvade your address. That is not what the agency does.
The agency is interested in more power to the agency. Secondarily the age cy will use data it collected and it collects to destroy any opposition or dissent.
Is another “Sedition Act” going to be enacted soon? King O has okayed and ordered this violation of our right to privacy. He can just as well order by executive fiat another Sedition Act.
(this post meant for below)
All day long I’ve been pondering the DC housing mentality which is expressed in this article. What does it presume?
1. American home owners are a special class, worthy of government wealth transfers to increase their home equity.
2. Once American home owners have enough equity, they will once again begin spending it like drunken sailors, stimulating the economy back to life.
3. Rising real estate values are the best way to get the U.S. economy back on its feet.
4. If we can just loosen credit enough, then housing prices can start growing again at double-digit rates, just like in the good-old days before the Great Recession.
5. If only all Americans would buy homes, we could all be rich, since real estate always goes up.
Did I miss anything?
‘How NSA Can Secretly Aid Criminal Cases’
‘Last week a journalist asked me why I thought Congress’ initial outrage – seemingly genuine in some quarters – over bulk collection of citizens’ metadata had pretty much dissipated in just a few months. What started out as a strong bill upholding Fourth Amendment principles ended up much weakened with only a few significant restraints remaining against NSA’s flaunting of the Constitution?’
‘Let me be politically incorrect and mention the possibility of blackmail or at least the fear among some politicians that the NSA has collected information on their personal activities that could be transformed into a devastating scandal if leaked at the right moment.’
‘Do not blanch before the likelihood that the NSA has the book on each and every member of Congress, including extramarital affairs and political deal-making. We know that NSA has collected such information on foreign diplomats, including at the United Nations in New York, to influence votes on the Iraq War and other issues important to U.S. “national security.”
Cmon none of those high up in power have any of the blackmailable offenses detailed below in their closets.
NSA hierarchy of blackmailable offenses:
Tier 1 criminal conduct:
Murder
Selling drugs
Child molest
Major ripoff/fraud
Proven physical Domestic violence
Proven rape
Bribery
Tier 2 criminal conduct:
Taking hard drugs
Possess child porn
Tax cheating
Embezzlement
Obstruction of Justice
Violent assaultive conduct
Workers comp type fraud
Anything defined as felonious
Embarrassing conduct:
Closeted gay
Marital affair
Minor fraud
Alcoholic
Smoking mj/prescription pills
Gambling
Something unbecoming your job title/position
Sexual harassment
Racism
Whoremongering
Viewing Deviant Fetishist pornography
Campaign finance irregularities
Employing illegals
Psychological issues
Medical issues
Abuse of sick leave or company policies
Resume padding
Sexism
And frankly they are doing a piss poor job of sharing data cause crime is rampant as always despite juked stats.
The world has been a busy place since June 1st.
2014 Bilderberg Meeting In Copenhagen
The 62nd Bilderberg meeting, which is an annual private conference of around 140 leaders in politics, industry, finance, academia and media, kicked off yesterday in Copenhagen, Denmark and will run till June 1st.
Notable past attendees include:
■Bill Clinton
■John Kerry
■Gerald Ford
■Rick Perry
■Chuck Hagel
■Kathleen Sebelius
■David Petraeus
■David Rockefeller, Sr.
■Bill Gates
■Ben Bernake
■William F. Buckley, Jr.
■George Stephanopoulos
Notable attendees this year include:
■Executive Chairman and former CEO of Google Eric Schmidt
■NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen
■Former director of the US National Security Agency Keith Alexander
■Chairman of Volvo Svanberg Carl-Henric
■Chairman of The Board of International Advisors of The
■Goldman Sachs Group Robert B. Zoellick
■Mayor of Atlanta Kasim Reed
See full list below.
http://www.truthandaction.org/2014-bilderberg-meeting-copenhagen/ - 106k -
One most interesting point in “No Place To Hide” by Greenwald, is that President Obama knot only knew about all this cyber spying and violations of our right to be secure in our own homes, but he ORDERED this spying.
Phony “people’s” president. Bush the same. He knew it and ordered it.
Neither is any better than the other.
Got that Lola?
From the article Ben posted above:
“Bottom line? Beware, those of you who think you have “nothing to hide” when the NSA scoops up your personal information. You may think that the targets of these searches are just potential “terrorists.” But the FBI, Internal Revenue Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and countless other law enforcement bodies are dipping their cursors into the huge pool of mass surveillance.”
The nothing to hide because I am not a terrorist argument is not the same as the nothing to hide at all argument.
I am glad you now agree. We have a right to privacy. You and I are not threats to freedom and American lives. A paranoid government spy network is anti American by violating our right to privacy. I should feel safe to have my opinions, as a voluntaryist. But I don’t feel safe.
What the government is doing is illegal because it violates the constitution. It’s criminal. If you think this stuff should be legal, change the constitution.
I guess I misunderstood the statist Favela’s post.
Again Favela. All your accounts an passwords. Post them here now.
‘All your accounts an passwords’
That’s an interesting experiment; Suppose I said, or any blogger said, give me your all your accounts and passwords if you want to comment here. Not forcing you, volunteer this information, and I’m going to monitor your activity in case you are doing something illegal. After all, I don’t want criminals or evil-doers posting on my blog!
I’d bet no one would give me squat. Yet the government can do this, illegally, and we’re supposed to stay quiet?
It boils down to the rule of law. I could go into the many reasons a free society doesn’t allow this spying. But I don’t have to. It has already been decided; these are our rights. You either believe in the rule of law or not. I have to live by the laws, and so does the government.
Thanks Ben. Good point.
And people posted on blogs asking McSame to give ll his passwords out. McSame is a big backer of this invasion of our privacy. So far he has not given out his account names and passwords.
Dianne Feinstein is mentioned in Greenwald’s book as a big supporter of the Agency’s violation of our constitutional rights.
I wont give you all my passwords cause I don’t trust you that much. I don’t know you. I have close friends and I wouldn’t give them my password. But it isn’t because i have something to hide, it is because I want to avoid the potential for shenanigans. The chances of you or someone I know causing shenanigans for me is much, much higher than the NSA doing it.
I also agree that privacy is important and what the NSA is doing appears illegal. And I agree with Ben that if it ain’t it should be even if you have to change the Constitution (which you don’t). I am much closer to you as a voluntaryist than a statist. I just think you are unnecessarily worrying and going to extremes with the whole stand alone computer and things like that.
But I will give you my Reddit password cause I don’t think you can do any damage beyond looking at my posting history there or maybe posting something in my name. If you change the password, i can easily get a new account.
Username: FavelaTouro
Password: Lolasucks69
I don’t know what reddit is.
Imagine the Bits Bucket with more than 100 million visitors a month with posts posted, categorized and subcategorized into any topics you can imagine. The posts can be upvoted or downvoted and the posts getting the most votes move up and possibly to the front page where they are viewed by many millions. All that stuff posted to Facebook usually originates days or weeks earlier on Reddit.
CAUTION: do not ever go to Reddit if you have any work to do and tend to procrastinate.
Reddit is addictive.
ahansen is still #6 of all time Top Ten AMA (Ask Me Anything) on reddit. Finished her book; highly recommended.
Top Ten AMAs
I was mauled by a bear, fought it off, and drove 4 miles down a mountain with my face hanging off. AMA
Thoughts to consider: The agency depends on taxpayer money mostly. They do run businesses in a sense that they use FISA - the secret court - orders to dictate to businesses. They have 30,000 employees and another 60,000 contractors working through places such as Booz Allen Hamilton - like Edward Snowden did.
But the NSA does not produce wealth. They likely know this. Their nature of secrecy prevents them from producing wealth even if they were cost efficient.
So the NSA is probably aware they depend on the backing of the American public. Just like the government depends on our consent. And more importantly, they depend on wealth created through private companies to get their funding. Like all agencies.
The question is: Will the American public forget all their correspondence is being spied on?
Kathleen Sebelius?
So she is connected to the world government crowd, very interesting.
CIA agent: The next False Flag will invole a Radioactive Device.
Crisis Actor: I think I’m booked that week.
Report: Gunmen Steal Radioactive Device From Mexican Research Lab
by Mac Slavo | SHTFPlan.com | June 15, 2014
Amid the tense security situation created by thousands of illegal immigrants compromising the southern border of the United States, Mexican officials say that a radioactive device has been stolen from a government research facility.
The device containing cesium-37 and americium-beryllium was housed at the National Construction Laboratory located in Tultitlan just north of Mexico City, reports Fox News Latino.
The theft, which involved an unknown number of armed gunmen storming the research building, has left the Mexican government scrambling. “We have the report regarding the theft of this material and the alerts and protocol we follow in these cases have already been implemented,” said Government Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong in an address to law enforcement officials.
Mexico’s federal government has distributed alerts to law enforcement officials in Mexico City and surrounding regions.
“Handling the material without proper safeguards or spending an extended period in close proximity to the radioactive substances could result in temporary health problems, according to the bulletin.”
The theft of the device highlights growing concerns that rogue terror organizations or extremists may attempt to cross into the United States via the porous southern border, which has been overrun in recent weeks by a flood of people taking advantage of lax border security policies.
“The ones we are losing are convicted felons, aliens from special interest countries, and other high risk individuals,” reports one Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent speaking with Infowars.
Though it’s not clear who is responsible for the armed robbery, there is a distinct possibility that the device could be modified into a ‘dirty bomb’ and smuggled into the United States by drug cartels or another organization.
In 2010, Atlanta’s WSB-TV2 ran a special report about what officials call the “Other Than Mexican” border security threat, citing federal detention center records that show individuals from Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan have previously attempted to enter the U.S. from Mexico. Though the Department of Homeland Security is aware of the OTM threat, the border is now as exposed as it has ever been, giving smugglers and foreign enemies a perfect opportunity to bypass the heavy security often found at international airports or the northern border with Canada.
Further concerns about the possibility of a serious, and perhaps coordinated, border breach have been highlighted by Youtube channel DAHBOO7 which followed up on aDrudge Report story from earlier this week that a Nogales, Arizona power station located just miles from the border was sabotaged with a crude explosives device. The bomb which targeted the station’s diesel generators failed to ignite, but had it achieved its goal experts suggest it could have taken down electrical power to the entire border region, further hampering efforts to secure the influx of migrants.
“It would have pretty much blown a hole in our defenses, and anyone and everyone gets through.”
The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security are investigating the attempted attack but have not released any information regarding suspects or motive.
Mexican officials continue to search for those responsible for the theft of the radioactive device but have provided no additional information about their progress.
Tired of all the American spying? I don’t blame you. There’s a way to lesson it. Move away from America.
But it takes some guts and a lot of money. And the money is a hard part for most Americans. Going on 4 decades of TrickleDown did not trickle down as was promised and is still being promised.
Why is liberty so expensive? Because it’s worth it.
Man there’s a lot of Argentinians in town. They’re kind of unsettling, yelling and screaming their slogans drinking in huge groups walking around Copacabana Beach with dozens of cops following them. The Argentinians don’t like the English too much. The city is packed with huge groups representing each country in the Cup. I’ve seen Africans, Mexicans, Chileans, Dutch, French, English, Aussies, Americans. I’ve watched a few games here below. I’m going to ride my bike there and lock it with two locks. I’m going there now but will go home when Argentina plays tonight. They get drunk and crazy and if they lose I don’t want to party with them.
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/brazil2014/world-cup-fans-unite-at-copacabana-beach-1.2675503
http://pt.fifa.com/aboutfifa/organisation/marketing/programmes/fanfest.html
ISIS and the Plan to Balkanize the Middle East
CIA’s Benghazi weapons used by ISIS in conquest of Iraq
by Kurt Nimmo | Infowars.com | June 15, 2014
The corporate media reports ISIS in Iraq received many of its weapons as a result of the Iraqi retreat from Mosul. ISIS, however, had plenty of weapons prior to the takeover. Most came from the United States.
The U.S. and Saudi sponsored proxy war in Syria to topple the government of al-Assad provided the terror group with its weapons, according to Michael Knights, the Lafer Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who is described by Vox as “an obsessive ISIS watcher.”
“The war gave them a lot of access to heavy weaponry,” Knights told Vox.
Following the overthrow of Libya, the CIA and its partners moved weapons into Syria. The murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens was collateral damage in this operation. The Senate Intelligence Committee report on Benghazi released last September dwells on the failure to protect Stevens and his staff. It also ignores the underlying operation.
Seymour Hersh, the award-winning investigative journalist who was unceremoniously dumped by The New Yorker due to his penchant for exposing uncomfortable truths, explained how the Senate buried information about the CIA and the gun-running operation in Benghazi:
A highly classified annex to the report, not made public, described a secret agreement reached in early 2012 between the Obama and Erdoğan administrations. It pertained to the rat line. By the terms of the agreement, funding came from Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; the CIA, with the support of MI6, was responsible for getting arms from Gaddafi’s arsenals into Syria. A number of front companies were set up in Libya, some under the cover of Australian entities. Retired American soldiers, who didn’t always know who was really employing them, were hired to manage procurement and shipping. The operation was run by David Petraeus, the CIA director who would soon resign when it became known he was having an affair with his biographer. (A spokesperson for Petraeus denied the operation ever took place.)
The operation had not been disclosed at the time it was set up to the congressional intelligence committees and the congressional leadership, as required by law since the 1970s. The involvement of MI6 enabled the CIA to evade the law by classifying the mission as a liaison operation. The former intelligence official explained that for years there has been a recognized exception in the law that permits the CIA not to report liaison activity to Congress, which would otherwise be owed a finding. (All proposed CIA covert operations must be described in a written document, known as a ‘finding’, submitted to the senior leadership of Congress for approval.) Distribution of the annex was limited to the staff aides who wrote the report and to the eight ranking members of Congress – the Democratic and Republican leaders of the House and Senate, and the Democratic and Republicans leaders on the House and Senate intelligence committees. This hardly constituted a genuine attempt at oversight: the eight leaders are not known to gather together to raise questions or discuss the secret information they receive.
I guess the conspiracy theories of “Bilderbergers,” “Council of Foreign Affairs,” Rothchilds, and big banksters running the world might be all shot down. So far I’m the only one on HBB saying that I’m reading Greenwald’s book on Edward Snowden. The agency has information on everyone. Not only phone calls (both connections, how long, and what the data is) but internet on everything: Facebook, Skype, Yahoo, Apple software, Microsoft, Google. The Agency by now would know who the banksters are.
Unless the banksters run the agency.
I seriously doubt a “one world government” push is including Red China.
Kind of a weapon like the A Bomb. Whoever gets it first is at a big advantage. But would other countries be able to get the data also? Do they need some type of root cable access? How could they get that in other countries, and if they can, couldn’t other countries get ours?
There were / are two main ways the agency collects data. Through tapping fiber optic cables, through phone service providers, through internet routers and other equipment built in since day one of internet, then the second way is through big company compliance: Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and so on.
China would have to make deals with Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and Microsoft to get all the data rerouted to China. That ain’t going to happen. China might be able to tap underwater fiber optic cables and the like. Not sure. China would have to tap the phone companies.
So if you see what i mean the other nations have no advantage.
Would it be a fool’s bet to buy GOOG stock? I am looking at them like a sin/vice stock -ie- liquor company, tobacco, etc. as they seem to be after something suggesting sinister controls. So, bet that they are gonna grow anyway and make money while you get screwed or they languish and the stock plummets, but at least you can know they are losing their grip. A hedge of sorts, but not sure if that is good enough reason to put one’s money where one’s sense of risk is.
I think the best bet is to buy all large company stocks in a mutual fund.
The government needs all big corporations to be profitable to 1) supply jobs and 2) supply tax revenue.
That some agency in the government is illegally doing operations and knows it’s illegal means they know they are walking a tight rope on the deal of “consent of the people.”
While I no longer vote, it will be interesting to see how the new candidates do against incumbents in all congress and senate contests. It will be interesting to see how the Libertarian Party does. But the election is all rigged and I would not be surprised if the NSA, CIA or some secret organization does all the rigging with the support of FISA.
A total rout of NeoConservatism
…They refused to listen to Ron Paul - by Gary North
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/06/gary-north/a-total-rout-of-the-neocons/
I’ll take ‘wear and tear’ for $100 Alex:
http://maine.craigslist.org/trp/4521903952.html
http://maine.craigslist.org/fbh/4521658318.html
crater
How is the collapse phase of China’s property bubble shaping up?
World China
China’s Real Estate Downturn Spells Trouble for Global Economy
June 10, 2014
A sales assistant talks to visitors in front of models of apartments at a real estate exhibition in Shenyang A sales assistant talks to visitors in front of models of apartments at a real estate exhibition in Shenyang, Liaoning province April 17, 2014. Sheng Li—Reuters
The world’s largest trading nation’s economic growth remains heavily dependent on property, meaning a sharp downturn in that sector would be felt across Asia and beyond
“Will the government save the market if housing prices fall?” That was the question being asked in China this week — not by stressed-out mortgage holders, but by the country’s most famous (and wealthy) property mogul, Pan Shiyi.
Pan, the chairman of giant real estate developer SOHO China, has made a series of pronouncements in recent weeks that reflect an increasingly bearish long-term outlook for China’s property sector.
At an industry forum in late May, Pan compared the nation’s real estate prospects to the Titanic. “It [the real estate industry] will soon hit the iceberg in front of it,” he declared.
Pan’s outlook may be bleak, but is borne out by statistics. According to Standard & Poor’s, residential housing prices in China will drop by 5% this year — a dramatic reversal from last year’s rise of 11.5%.
…
China Real-Estate Slump Threatens Li’s Economic Rebound
By Bloomberg News Jun 13, 2014 9:01 AM PT
China’s property industry extended its slump last month as sales and construction dropped and investment growth slowed, threatening to drag on a recovery in the world’s second-biggest economy.
Home sales in the January-to-May period fell 9.2 percent from a year earlier by area, after an 8.6 percent decline in the first four months, National Bureau of Statistics data showed yesterday. New property construction dropped 18.6 percent this year through May and residential housing starts fell 21.6 percent by area.
The sinking real-estate market may undermine Premier Li Keqiang’s mini-stimulus policies aimed at arresting a slowdown that’s thrown his 2014 growth target into question. The property industry is the biggest downside risk to China’s economy, according to Societe Generale SA.
“The housing downturn is still playing out and has shown no sign of turning around,” Yao Wei, China economist at Societe Generale in Hong Kong, said in a note yesterday. “The next few months will still be a tug of war between the housing sector and policy easing.”
…
China housing slump leaves real estate agents with nothing to do but play cards
In this Saturday, June 7, 2014 photo, real estate sales agents look at their smartphones near display boards showing properties for sale and for rent, as they wait for potential buyers in Beijing. China’s house prices have marched higher for 15 years, helping to drive an economic boom but making home ownership unaffordable for many families. Now the slump is dragging down economic growth that already was slowing. Some analysts worry banks might be shaken if developers default on loans. (The Associated Press)
BEIJING — Six months ago, China’s housing market was so red-hot that Feng Xiaowei, a sales manager at a real estate agency in the eastern city of Hangzhou, rarely took a day off.
Then lending and sales curbs imposed by the government to cool soaring housing costs started to bite and business evaporated. Now Feng and the seven salespeople he supervises spend the day playing cards.
“There are no buyers,” said Feng, 24. “We take three days off a week. We go out for barbecue and play poker.”
China’s house prices have marched higher for 15 years, helping to drive an economic boom but making home ownership unaffordable for many families. Now a slump is dragging down economic growth that already was slowing. Some analysts worry banks might be shaken if developers default on loans.
The slowdown should fit the Communist Party’s ambition to nurture growth based on domestic consumption instead of trade and credit-fueled investment. But the timing is awkward, with demand for China’s exports and growth in consumer spending both weaker than expected.
That is forcing the government of President Xi Jinping into a politically delicate balancing act. It wants to discourage speculative investment and increase supplies of low-cost housing without allowing prices to fall, which would alienate prosperous city dwellers, a pillar of ruling party support. Banks were ordered in May to prop up the industry with more lending.
“They don’t want to get into a situation where prices are going into negative territory,” said economist Brian Jackson of IHS Economics. “There are stability concerns related to that on the social side and also on the financial side.”
…
June 9, 2014, 1:49 a.m. EDT
China’s real-estate market sees land sales plunge
By Laura He, MarketWatch
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Amid ongoing central government curbs, China’s property market is cooling off dramatically despite the onset of the sector’s traditionally “hot season,” as both land sales and transaction values plunged in May across 300 major Chinese cities.
Total land sales fell to 1,767 transactions in May in 300 Chinese cities, down 45% from a year ago and 19% lower than in the previous month, according to a survey published Friday on China’s leading real estate website Soufun.com.
In the same month, the total transaction value for land sales dropped 38% year-on-year, marking a 30% drop from April, to 13.75 billion yuan ($2.2 billion).
“May is traditionally the hot season, but China’s property market has cooled further, “ Soufun said, adding that property developers remain in “wait-and-see” mode.
Several Chinese cities even recorded no land sales at all. Hangzhou, the affluent capital of the eastern province of Zhejiang, has offered no land for sale in its main city zone to residential developers since March, possibly under pressure from the central government to reduce real-estate inventories, according to Soufun.
Jinan, the capital of the eastern province of Shandong, also saw no land sales during May, as developers turn cautious amid tougher market conditions, according to a report by Jinan-based Life Daily, a local-government-run newspaper.
Overall property prices in China could push lower this year, as developers with large real-estate inventory are under great pressure to generate cash flow and meet ambitious sales targets, Standard & Poor’s said in a report published on Monday.
In particular, sales and financing prospects are likely to be “gloomy” for smaller Chinese developers, especially the unrated ones, some of which may default or be acquired by others, the rating agency warned.
…
June 10, 2014, 10:42 A.M. ET
Here We Go Again: Average Junk Bond Yield Slips To 5.002%
By Michael Aneiro
The seemingly endless junk-bond bull market is making another run at the 5% yield threshold, and if history repeats itself bonds could be in for a bit of trouble ahead. As of today, the average yield across the junk bond market has fallen to 5.002%, according to a benchmark Bank of America Merrill Lynch index. You’ll recall that in May 2013 the average junk-bond yield slipped below 5% for the first time in market history, just four months after it had fallen below 6% for the first time ever (thank you, Federal Reserve easy-money policies). That average yield spent only a couple of days below 5%, getting as low as 4.96% before interest rates started soaring and bonds of all stripes experienced sharp price losses last summer. It all turned out OK in the end for junk bonds, which returned 7.42% in 2013.
Last year’s spike in rates started when then-Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke started hinting that the Fed might soon wind down its bond-buying program. Lately people have been waiting for rates to rise based on improving economic data and expectations that the Fed will start raising short-term rates sometime next year, but instead rates have fallen throughout 2014 and remain anchored by ultra-low bond yields abroad.
Junk bonds have already returned 5.16% this year to date, even though the year isn’t even halfway over and the market yielded just 5.67% on an annualized basis at the start of the year. Junk bonds now yield just 3.5 percentage points more than comparable Treasury bonds, and trade at an average price of 105.7 cents on the dollar, still below the record 107-cent level set 13 months ago.
The big question remains whether junk bonds are so overvalued that they pose an imminent threat to investors, or whether high yield is just one of any number of Fed-inflated markets that could remain overvalued for a while yet without collapsing.
…