The Housing Bubble

I am taking a risk of being accused by Fav that I have a mental illness because I am bringing a post forward, but I think we can have some fun with this:

Ben said yesterday, “I am going to the metro with the weakest housing market in the nation, where I will feast on the carcass of speculators.”

This is from LPS (now known as Black Knight):

LPS shows prices off 43.3% from the peak in Las Vegas, off 36.2% in Orlando, and 32.5% off from the peak in Riverside-San Bernardino, CA (Inland Empire). Prices are at new highs in Colorado and Texas (Denver, Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio metros). Prices are also at new highs in San Jose, CA and in Nashville, TN.

Given Ben is leaving Flagstaff and Las Vegas is within 300 miles to the east, my money is on destination Vegas. If I am wrong, I will donate $50 to the HBB. If I am right, I will donate $100.

Time will tell. When will Ben disclose his new location?

West…..300 miles to the west. D’oh!

How asians became white…

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Blasio: Tests shouldn’t be only way kids get into NYC elite schools
NY Daily News | 06/22/2014 | RACHEL MONAHAN , BEN CHAPMAN , JENNIFER FERMINO

Bill de Blasio vowed Wednesday to overhaul how children are chosen for New York City’s elite public high schools, saying the high-stakes admissions test should no longer be the only factor in the selection process. Tackling an emotional issue for parents and schoolchildren across the city, the Democratic mayoral nominee blamed the reliance on the test for creating schools that he said did not reflect the city’s diversity.

Although more than half of the city’s residents are black or Latino, just 12% of the students at the elite high schools — which include Stuyvesant High School, Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech — were black or Latino last year.

De Blasio — whose 16-year-old son, Dante, attends Brooklyn Tech — said he would push for a change that would require a variety of factors to be used in the admissions process, including grades, portfolios and extracurricular activities.

He dismissed critics, including his Republican rival for mayor, Joe Lhota, who claim that allowing other factors into admissions decisions beyond one standardized test would reduce the quality of students in the schools.

Ben - this is why ISIS is such a success with a few thousand troops in Northern Iraq.

——————-

Iraqi Shiites say insurgents and neighbors expel them from their homes in Sunni province
The Associated Press ^ | June 22, 2014 | Diaa Hadid

KIRKUK, Iraq – The insurgents came at midday, walking across a canal, advancing under cover of mortar fire toward the cluster of three Iraqi villages.

Within eight hours, Shiite residents who fled said the Sunni insurgents had expelled thousands of them from the majority-Sunni province, helped by local Sunnis in neighboring villages.

“You cannot imagine what happened, only if you saw it could you believe it,” said Hassan Ali, a 52-year-old farmer siting in the al-Zahra Shiite mosque, used to distribute aid in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, where the displaced had fled, some 50 miles (80 kilometers) away.

“They hit us with mortars and mortars, and the families fled, and they kept hitting us. It was completely sectarian. The Shiites, out,” he said.

The expulsions appeared to be part of a plan to create a Sunni-dominated territory from the Syrian border to Baghdad’s edge.

The Islamic State fighters consider Shiites to be heretics, and proudly post images of them being killed — often for no reason other than their beliefs.

But even less-ideological Sunni groups that are fighting alongside the extremists have grievances against Shiites, and see them as an obstacle to having a more autonomous territory.

They deeply resent the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The litany is long: harassment by security forces; lacking political representation, disenfranchisement, and neglect of Sunni provinces.

Days after they were killed, after pleading interventions to Sunni tribal leaders, the insurgents agreed to dump the bodies on a roadside for collection. The displaced residents say between 15 and 25 people were killed.

“They called and said: send somebody to collect your dogs,”

“Every indicator of housing market activity and prices we know is slowing or falling outright,” Shepherdson said.

http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/05/27/5850363/dfw-home-prices-reach-new-high.html

Housing and stock market bubbles in Dubai bursting as the margin calls go out…this is starting to look like 2008 all over again.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-24/dubai-stocks-extend-rout-with-biggest-decline-since-2008.html

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-24/overnight-equity-futures-algos-jittery-after-discovering-dubai-map

Uh-oh, algos are discovering bubble trouble in Dubai.

And Politico is a pretty left leaning magazine…

The Man Who Broke the Middle East
Politico Magazine | 06/22/14 | ELLIOTT ABRAMS

There’s always Tunisia. Amid the smoking ruins of the Middle East, there is that one encouraging success story. But unfortunately for the Obama narratives, the president had about as much as to do with Tunisia’s turn toward democracy as he did with the World Cup rankings. Where administration policy has had an impact, the story is one of failure and danger.

The Middle East that Obama inherited in 2009 was largely at peace, for the surge in Iraq had beaten down the al Qaeda-linked groups. U.S. relations with traditional allies in the Gulf, Jordan, Israel and Egypt were very good. Iran was contained, its Revolutionary Guard forces at home. Today, terrorism has metastasized in Syria and Iraq, Jordan is at risk, the humanitarian toll is staggering, terrorist groups are growing fast and relations with U.S. allies are strained.

How did it happen? Begin with hubris: The new president told the world, in his Cairo speech in June 2009, that he had special expertise in understanding the entire world of Islam—knowledge “rooted in my own experience” because “I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed.” But President Obama wasn’t speaking that day in an imaginary location called “the world of Islam;” he was in Cairo, in the Arab Middle East, in a place where nothing counted more than power. “As a boy,” Obama told his listeners, “I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk.” Nice touch, but Arab rulers were more interested in knowing whether as a man he heard the approaching sound of gunfire, saw the growing threat of al Qaeda from the Maghreb to the Arabian Peninsula, and understood the ambitions of the ayatollahs as Iran moved closer and closer to a bomb.

The humanitarian result has been tragic: At least 160,000 killed in Syria, perhaps eight million displaced. More than a million Syrian refugees in Lebanon (a country of four million people, before Obama added those Syrians), about a million and a quarter Syrian refugees in Jordan (population six million before Obama). Poison gas back on the world scene as a tolerated weapon, with Assad using chlorine gas systematically in “barrel bombs” this year and paying no price whatsoever for this and for his repeated attacks on civilian targets. Both of the key officials handling Syria for Obama—State Department special envoy Fred Hof and Ambassador Robert Ford—resigned in disgust when they could no longer defend Obama’s hands-off policy.

The result in security terms is even worse: the largest gathering of jihadis we have ever seen, 12,000 now and expanding.They come from all over the world, a jihadi Arab League, a jihadi EU, a jihadi U.N. Two or three thousand are from Europe, and an estimated 70 from the United States. When they go home, some no doubt disillusioned but many committed, experienced and well trained, “home” will be Milwaukee and Manchester and Marseille—and, as we see now on the front pages, to Mosul.

u are powerless over a printing press.

By Ruth Mantell

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — U.S. home prices rose 1.1% in April, a second monthly gain as the spring selling season got underway, according to S&P/Case-Shiller’s 20-city composite index released Tuesday. Among 20 tracked cities, all saw higher home prices in April. After seasonal adjustments, home prices among the 20 cities rose 0.2% in April, compared with growth of 1.2% in March. Meanwhile, annual growth posted a sharp slowdown, with year-over-year home prices rising 10.8% in April - the slowest pace since March 2013 - compared with annual growth of 12.4% in March 2014. Among the 20 cities, 19 saw annual growth taper in April, including hot California markets. Including April’s monthly gain, prices were about 18% below a 2006 peak

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/home-price-growth-posts-sharp-slowdown-in-april-2014-06-24?link=MW_latest_news

More signs of bubble trouble ahead.

I wanna slap whoever wrote this for comparing Austin, TX to these cities

———–

Think Austin homes are expensive? Here’s what pricey really looks like

Conversation around Austin’s housing affordability has been gaining traction as home values have appreciated significantly and lease rates have soared.

But this week I came across some data that puts things in a little different perspective.

The Freddie Mac Blog posted the costs per square-foot of housing in a few U.S. markets compared to international destinations based on information collected by website Credit Sesame.

The average cost per square foot of a home in Paris is a whopping $3,287, far outpacing the next most expensive city — London at $1,590 per square foot. The other global locations are Singapore at $1,561 per square foot, Madrid at $1,395 per square foot, Hong Kong at $1,118 per square foot and Cairo, which is fairly affordable at $574 per square foot.

New York City checks in at an average price of $1,068 per square foot — which compared to those other locations is a steal.

Yes, housing is more expensive in Austin than ever before, but it’s barely registering on the Richter Scale of housing prices from a worldwide perspective.

After sleazeball bankster-owned RINO Eric Cantor got the heave-ho in his primary elections, it looks like the GOP leadership got the memo that the rank-and-file aren’t as enamored of crony capitalism as the beltway insiders are.

http://www.businessinsider.com/export-import-bank-reauthorization-fight-2014-6

Dubai stocks (especially builders) are cratering. Coming soon to a bubble market near you….

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/10922309/Dubai-stocks-suffer-biggest-drop-since-August.html

The Fed’s debasement of the currency through its creation of trillions out of thin air is finally starting to show up as inflation - which Old Yellen blithely ignores in her “No Banker Left Behind” provision of Wall Street’s limitless gambling money, backstopped by taxpayers.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/inflation-is-rising-why-doesn-t-the-fed-acknowledge-it-s-a-concern-120934138.html

The usual economists are “surprised” and “disappointed” by Case-Shiller data that shows - inconceivable! - a slowdown in home price increases.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-24/case-shiller-index-has-slowest-annual-home-price-increase-year

What those kids need are $500,000 starter homes!

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2014/06/23/upsurge-in-denver-area-house-prices-continues.html

Rep. Cummings Goes Off, Apologizes to IRS Head for Putting Him Through ‘Hell’

by Josh Feldman | 11:04 pm, June 23rd, 2014

Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings took a few minutes during Monday night’s IRS hearing to apologize to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen for putting him through “hell” by subjecting him to a politically-motivated hearing instead of one concerned with the facts. He opened by saying, “I thank you from the depths of my heart.”

Cummings got emotional as he thanked Koskinen and went off on the GOP, saying, “Some of the statements that have been made here today make it look like, you know, you’re just coming up here, trying to fool people, when under Republican and Democratic administrations, you have been highly regarded.”

Cummings scolded his fellow committee members and got angrier as he continued.

“I appreciate you coming into this institution, giving it the best you’ve got, and then having to come in here and go through this hell!”

Watch the video below, via C-SPAN 2:

http://www.mediaite.com/…/ - 47k -
——————————————————————————–
New questions over Rep. Cummings’ connection to IRS probe

Published April 14, 2014 | The Kelly File | Megyn Kelly

With: Cleta Mitchell

MITCHELL: That’s right. And so, then — beginning in the fall of 2012, about six months later, Elijah Cummings announced that he had undertaken an investigation of True the Vote. Now mind you, he has no authority to do that. That is beyond the jurisdiction of that committee.

KELLY: Right.

MITCHELL: To start investigating a private citizen’s group in Houston, Texas. And he announces on national television and submitted three different — three or four different letters to True the Vote demanding all kinds of information.

KELLY: Right, right, right.

MITCHELL: But curiously, almost the same information the IRS had demanded about six months earlier.

KELLY: OK. So, just to advance the story, so you smell a rat. You say something is weird, that it seems like they are coordinating, which they should not be doing, right? That’s your allegation.

MITCHELL: That’s right.

KELLY: You’re not supposed to be having, you know, a partisan person, whether it’s Elijah Cummings or a Republican on the other side coordinating with a mostly independent agency — the tax agency about people’s tax returns and other information, even if they are publicly available. Am I correct? That is not supposed to be happening.

MITCHELL: That’s absolutely –Megyn, you have really put your finger on what is the underlying problem of this entire scandal, which is that the Lois Lerner and the top brass at the IRS came to see its role as somehow the enforcement arm of the Democratic Party and Democratic members of Congress and the White House and they began to carry out these activities to pursue conservative groups because these politicians were demanding it.

And yet, all of these people, Lois Lerner, all of them, they have civil service protection and the only difference between what happened in Watergate when Richard Nixon asked the IRS to go after his political enemies was when Richard Nixon asked, they refused. When these Democratic politicians said go do something about these conservative groups because they are challenging us, and we don’t want what they are saying about us, the IRS took it upon themselves to do their bidding, and to try to silence these groups. And in this case, Elijah Cummings said to the IRS that he was undertaking an investigation of True the Vote. Now there is nothing proper about that.

http://www.foxnews.com/…/2014/04/15/new-questions-over-rep-cummings-connection-irs-probe - 39k -

Some early morning humor …

Why a Dow of 44,000 is coming.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/bull-markets-don-t-die-of-old-age–why-dow-44-000-is-coming-193910039.html

Article for Dannyboy, because warmists gonna warm:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-23/global-temperatures-break-another-record-for-the-month-of-may.html

Hope and Change linked from Drudge:

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/06/23/police-establish-order-after-mexico-soccer-fans-celebrate-rock-cars-at-busy-intersection

And every single one of them will vote Democrat for life

Forward

White House Attorney to Testify About IRS Targeting Scandal

Katie Pavlich | Jun 24, 2014

White House Attorney Jennifer O’Connor will testify on Capitol Hill Tuesday morning after being subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee yesterday.

townhall.com/…white-house-attorney-to-testify-about-irs-targeting-scandal-n1855099 - 64k -
———————————————————————————-
LMAO

This O’Connor lady is shaking her head no and shrugging a shoulder everytime she says something like… the IRS never had something in place to deal with this kind of situation. She’s gonna need a massage when her testimony is over.

Do You Know When Someone Is Lying to You?

•Opposite Nodding: Often when people lie their body gives them away. This happens with nodding. For example, someone will lie and say “yes” but without realizing it, shake their head no.

•One Sided Shoulder Shrug: Dr. Paul Ekman discovered that people have the tendency to slightly lift their shoulder when they lie. It is almost as if they are shrugging because they don’t believe what they are saying.

http://www.scienceofpeople.com/do-you-know-when-someone-is-lying-to-you-new/ - 42k -

I think ben is moving to stockton ca.

Money managers don’t like copper these days.

The latest data from the Commodities Futures Trading Commission show “managed money”—hedge funds and the like—are net short 401 contracts of copper, worth roughly $31.6 million. This is the first time shorts outweighed long positions by managed money accounts since April.

Copper is down 7.4 percent this year, while gold, silver, aluminum and platinum are all positive.

Some of the increased copper shorting can likely be pegged on investigations by the Chinese government into loans that use copper as collateral. However, Gina Sanchez, founder of Chantico Global, thinks there are other macro reasons for the increase in bets that copper will fall.

“This short move in terms of hedge funds is consistent with recent downward revision of expected growth,” said Sanchez, a CNBC contributor. “The World Bank has recently downgraded their expectations for 2014 growth, and that was primarily centered in the emerging markets; the BRICs were at the top of those downgrades.”

Serial Groper On The Loose In NYC

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/55492023/ns/local_news-new_york_ny/

Liberace? Lola?

From Chinaeconomicrewview, China gains from Obama’s Iran policy:

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

China’s crude oil imports from Iran in May jumped 36% year-on-year to 3.22 million tones, the second-highest level on record, Reuters reported, citing customs data. The increases were both a result of state refiner Sinopec’s (SNP.NYSE, 0386.HKG, 600028.SHA) new push to cut crude procurement costs and the easing of Western sanctions imposed on Iran to curb its nuclear program. Also contributing to strong import figures were imports started around last August by an independently-run petrochemicals company in southeast China of condensate, a very light crude oil from Iran’s South Pars gas project. China counts condensate as crude oil.

FEMA Region VIII checking in.

Year Over Year Housing Demand Plunging In 53 Of 58 California Counties

http://www.zillow.com/local-info/CA-home-value/r_9/#metric=mt%3D30%26dt%3D1%26tp%3D5%26rt%3D4%26r%3D9%252C3101%252C1286%252C2841%26el%3D0

Oh my word…..

Santa Barbara, CA Housing Prices Crater 7% YoY As Housing Demand Collapses Nationally

http://www.zillow.com/local-info/CA-Santa-Barbara-Metro-home-value/r_395064/#metric=mt%3D18%26dt%3D1%26tp%3D4%26rt%3D6%26r%3D395064%26el%3D0

Comment by FavelaTouro
2014-06-22 12:18:59

My calling Prime a shill was a mistake and I apologize.

Thanks, Favela; accepted, with no hard feelings.

Some days I have trouble keeping all the names straight myself, particularly when they change frequently—though to avoid such confusion, I have been using this handle exclusively since that day back in 2007, when the Bernank uttered my favorite foolish quote.

Hearing about more and more stories like this, I have been driving automatics lately but like driving standard more:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/oddnews/teen-carjackers-thwarted-by-70-year-old-victim%E2%80%99s-car-with-stick-shift-211301525.html

Chula Vista is the worse and Buffalo is the best, when the expand the list to 100?
http://living.msn.com/life-inspired/the-five-best-cities-for-staycations

Dropped off my Republican Party primary ballot today, voted for Tom Tancredo for Governor (as I also did in 2010), he may not be the best hope to defeat Governor John Lickenpooper this fall but I vote on principle, not because the “establishment” party tells me I need to vote for some chickenshit Wonder Bread candidate.

Feds Posted Bid Request To Handle Child Immigrant Surge Back In JANUARY

11:54 AM 06/24/2014

Chuck Ross
Reporter

A bid request posted to a website for federal contractors in January indicates that the federal government was aware of a heavy influx of children coming to the U.S. illegally.

But the Department of Homeland Security, through its immigration and border protection agencies, has only recently began publicly addressing the surge of Unaccompanied Children, or UACs, that have traveled to the U.S., many of whom have been apprehended at the U.S. border.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, posted a bid request for “Escort Services for Unaccompanied Alien Children” on Jan. 29 at the site, FedBizOpps.gov, looking for contractors to help transport and care for the UACs.

“The Contractor shall provide unarmed escort staff, including management, supervision, manpower, training, certifications, licenses, drug testing, equipment, and supplies necessary to provide on-demand escort services for non-criminal/non-delinquent unaccompanied alien children ages infant to 17 years of age, seven [7] days a week, 365 days a year,” reads the bid request.

A majority of the UACs are between 12 and 17 years old. Most of them hail from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

“Transport will be required for either category of UAC or individual juveniles, to include both male and female juveniles,” reads the bid request. “There will be approximately 65,000 UAC in total: 25% local ground transport, 25% via ICE charter and 50% via commercial air.”

The Department of Homeland Security has put the Federal Management Emergency Agency in charge of managing the surge. The Department of Health and Human Services helps place the UACs at temporary facilities while they await deportation proceedings.

UACs have been sent to military bases in California, Texas, and Oklahoma. HHS has also explored sending the children to other facilities throughout the U.S.

At a hearing of the House Committee on Homeland Security held Tuesday, Georgia U.S. Rep. Paul Broun quizzed DHS Sec. Jeh Johnson about the bid request.

“I don’t know where this estimate comes from or what it’s based on, so I can’t comment,” said Johnson.

dailycaller.com/…/ - 95k -

Oxnard, CA Housing Prices Plummet 18% YoY As Housing Demand Collapses

http://www.movoto.com/oxnard-ca/market-trends/

Moorpark, CA Housing Prices Collapse 30% YoY

http://www.movoto.com/moorpark-ca/market-trends/

La Mesa, CA Housing Prices Sink 5% YoY As Sellers Slash Prices

http://www.movoto.com/la-mesa-ca/market-trends/

Colorado Springs, CO Housing Demand Collapses 24% YoY; Fall to 2010 Levels

http://www.zillow.com/local-info/CO-Colorado-Springs-home-value/r_4172/#metric=mt%3D30%26dt%3D1%26tp%3D6%26rt%3D8%26r%3D4172%26el%3D0

Woman Says DHS Forced Her to Strip Naked at Gunpoint During Terrifying Dawn Raid

“Two hours of pure hell” as SWAT team trashes home by Paul

Joseph Watson | June 24, 2014

Kari Edwards said she and her boyfriend were forced to strip naked at gunpoint during a terrifying Department of Homeland Security dawn raid on their Florida home which lasted for two hours.

The incident began on June 10 at 6:16am when numerous armed SWAT team members, accompanied by a helicopter overhead, arrived in an armored vehicle at the couple’s address before smashing in the door and deafening their pet cat with flash bang smoke grenades.

“They busted in like I was a terrorist or something,” Edwards told the Tea Party News Network, adding, “[An officer] demanded that I drop the towel I was covering my naked body with before snatching it off me physically and throwing me to the ground.”

Having been previously employed by the federal agency herself, Edwards noted that some of the men were DHS agents, although when quizzed as to who they were and why they were conducting the raid, the men only responded by saying that they were “police,” while calling Edwards “stupid” and “retarded” for asking the question.

“While I lay naked, I was cuffed so tightly I could not feel my hands. For no reason, at gunpoint,” Edwards said. “[Agents] refused to cover me, no matter how many times I asked.”

According to Edwards’ boyfriend, one of the agents then proceeded to ogle his naked girlfriend up and down like a piece of candy.

“They spent about 2 hours trashing my house, even smashing clear glass shower doors and a vintage statue,” writes Edwards on her YouTube channel. “My boyfriend, who is asthmatic, started having trouble breathing due to the lingering smoke created by the flash bang grenade.”

After trashing her home for two hours, Edwards said the SWAT team eventually handed her a warrant signed by Jonathan Goodman, a federal magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, which authorized the agents to search for computers and electronics, although Edwards claims police seemed uninterested in the couple’s electronics and did not seize any items despite raising the suspicion of child pornography.

Surveillance camera footage of the incident shows armed agents surrounding the property. Edwards says the clip is brief because the agents ripped out her surveillance DVR while claiming that they couldn’t be recorded.

Edwards summed up her experience by describing the incident as “two hours of pure hell.” The couple have filed a complaint with the ACLU.

While the details of the incident remain unconfirmed, the story will heighten concerns that the DHS is turning into a “standing army” emblematic of a militarized police state.

John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute recently cited numerous examples of out of control DHS activity to make the point that the federal agency is a “beast that is accelerating our nation’s transformation into a police state through its establishment of a standing army, aka national police force.”

http://www.infowars.com/…/ - 70k -

United Nations seeks US-based disarmament, demobilization and reintegration specialists

June 24, 2014 6:14 pm EDT

By Mac Slavo | SHTFplan.com

It’s no secret that the United Nations, with assistance from members of the Executive and Legislative branches in the United States, has been actively working to reduce Americans’ accessibility to firearms. In 2012 President Obama, along with then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, spearheaded a backdoor move that would have imposed gun control on the United States through foreign means by signing a global disarmament initiative known as the Small Arms Treaty. Though that attempt failed, mass shooting incidents at Sandy Hook and elsewhere have kept the pressure on gun owners with the President having made repeated suggestions that he would mandate gun restrictions through Executive Order should state and federal legislatures fail to act.

Given the rocky history between America’s gun owners and the United Nations, chances are that the push for disarmament will continue with more ferver than ever before. In fact, a recent job posting at the United Nations website suggests that the organization is not only working to get guns out of the hands of American citizens, they are actively preparing personnel to assist in what they call “disarmament, demobilization and reintegration” activities. And if that’s not bad enough, the duty station for this key U.N. Peacekeeping Operations department is New York city, suggesting that the organization believes such operations may be commencing in the United States at some point in the future.

If you’d like to join them in their efforts to confiscate firearms then you can apply directly at the United Nations Career Opportunities page:

Posting Title: Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Officer, P4

Job Code Title: DISARMAMENT, DEMOBILIZATION AND REINTEGRATION OFFICER

Department/ Office: Department of Peacekeeping Operations

Duty Station: NEW YORK

Work Experience: A minimum of seven years of progressively responsible experience in disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration or related area. Experience working within peacekeeping, peace-building or development programmes operations is desirable. Experience with small arms control, conflict/post-conflict crisis management, economic recovery is desirable. Experience coordinating multiple partner agencies, funds or programmes is desirable.

Languages: English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. For the post advertised, fluency in English is required.

Full Listing / Video Commentary

According to the United Nations information page on ‘DDR’ operations, the New York post will involve various aspects related to the process by which a governing organization would confiscate firearms, all of which target what the U.N. calls “small arms.”

Disarmament is the collection, documentation, control and disposal of small arms, ammunition, explosives and light and heavy weapons from combatants and often from the civilian population.

Demobilization is the formal and controlled discharge of active combatants from armed forces and groups, including a phase of “reinsertion” which provides short-term assistance to ex-combatants.

Reintegration is the process by which ex-combatants acquire civilian status and gain sustainable employment and income. It is a political, social and economic process with an open time-frame, primarily taking place in communities at the local level.

The objective of the DDR process is to contribute to security and stability in post-conflict environments so that recovery and development can begin. DDR helps create an enabling environment for political and peace processes by dealing with security problem that arises when ex-combatants are trying to adjust to normal life, during the vital transition period from conflict to peace and development.

http://www.intellihub.com/…/ - 74k -

Realtors are liars.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-24/americas-most-important-housing-market-signals-red-alert-housing-bubble-watchers

When it comes to critical housing markets in the US, none is more important than San Francisco.

Courtesy of its location, not only does it reflect the general Fed-driven liquidity bubble which is the tide rising all housing boats across the US, but due to its proximity to both Silicon Valley and China, it also benefits from two other liquidity bubbles: that of tech, and of course, the Chinese $25 trillion financial debt monster, where since the local housing bubble has burst, local oligarchs have no choice but to dump their cash abroad.

It is no surprise that during ever single previous bubble peak, San Francisco home prices managed to post a 20% annual increase, starting with the dot com bubble in the year 2000, and certainly the first (not to be confused with the current) housing bubble peaking around 2005.
Which is why, while today’s Case Shiller data was widely disappointing across the board, indicating a significant slowdown in price gains (and on a sequential seasonally adjusted basis, practically a decline), the one market we paid particular attention to was San Francisco. What we found is a red flag for everyone waiting to time the bursting of the latest housing bubble. Because after an unlucky 13 months of posting consecutive 20% Y/Y price gains, the San Francisco bubble appears to have finally burst, posting “just” an 18.2% price increase, the lowest since January of 2013.

So, has the global coordinated credit bubble burst? Judging by stocks, which just traded at their all time highs, ironically based on housing data from the West (as we just reported) not yet. As for the wealthiest buyers of homes, usually the best leading indicator of easy financial conditions: they appear to be quietly putting up for sales signs in front of their bay area mansions.

Hmm…Two year note yield for June 30 is posted at 0.511%. No great shakes, except it appears to be drifting up finally. Easing into short term notes now, very “easing!”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/borrowing/mortgages/10922389/Tighter-mortgage-rules-cool-housing-market.html

Tighter lending standards starting to cool superheated UK housing bubble.

As a gift to Phony Scandals and my HBBers here you go:

http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2014/06/24/the-democrat-who-glenn-greenwald-calls-the-indescribably-heinous-best-friend-of-the-nsa/

On Monday evening, journalist Glenn Greenwald spoke at New York’s Carnegie Hall as part of his U.S. tour in connection with the release of his book, “No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State.” During his speech, Greenwald didn’t hold back in his criticism of the U.S. government and media, unloading most harshly on a perhaps unsuspecting victim.

Calling her “indescribably heinous,” the outspoken author attacked Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, contemptuously casting her as the “NSA’s best best friend in…all of Washington, D.C.”

As evidence, he referenced a USA Today op-ed Feinstein penned last year in which she argued that the NSA’s “call-records program is not surveillance,” with metadata collection a Constitutionally protected practice. Greenwald characterized the piece as the ”peak of brazen political propaganda.”

The context for this aside was a characteristically bombastic speech that in its themes almost made Greenwald sound like a Tea Partier.

It started with an introduction by famed actor and playwright Wallace Shawn.

“Well I guess as long as intelligent Democrats stay in power, we don’t need to worry [about the NSA],” Shawn said sarcastically, calling out those who seem okay with government snooping just as long as their candidates are in charge. “A man like Obama wouldn’t get involved in hurting people who haven’t done anything wrong.”
Harping on the fact that the NSA’s motto is “collect it all,” Greenwald argued that while the NSA claims that its data collection tools are about protecting America from terrorists, in reality the agency is “devoted to the elimination of privacy in the digital age.”

“They literally intend and are very close to achieving a system that collects and stores every single communication event by and between every human being on the planet that takes place electronically,” he added.

He continued:

“It is the greatest and most oppressive and most pervasive system of suspicion-less surveillance ever created in human history.”

While hurling the harshest invectives during his speech at Sen. Feinstein, Greenwald slammed many others who he feels carry water for the NSA’s intelligence-gathering practices and overall system — in particular, the mainstream media.

Greenwald said MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell “irritated [Greenwald] even more than usual” during an interview O’Donnell conducted with Greenwald, in which O’Donnell said that none of the NSA revelations bothered him. Greenwald also called out Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post, Roger Cohen of the New York Times, Hendrik Hertzberg and Jeffrey Toobin of the New Yorker, Edward Jay Epstein of the Wall Street Journal as others who routinely advance government narratives as a matter of expediency.

Greenwald is outraged at these figures, among many others in the mainstream media, for what he perceives as their subservience to government power in the stories they report and the way they report them, especially on matters of national security.

The author argued, for example, that in the media’s unanimity (according to Greenwald) in pegging Edward Snowden as a Russian spy, it revealed more about the media’s own “soullessness” than anything else. This soullessness leads the media to protect the Obama administration and government more broadly, out of a desire for “career advancement” and self-aggrandizement.

Later in his speech, Greenwald made a forceful argument for the importance of privacy, stating that “dissent, creativity [and] personal exploration,” require it. Further, he said that the ”measure of how free a society is…is how it treats its dissidents.”

And Greenwald has little faith that meaningful change regarding surveillance is going to come from the state, arguing that government doesn’t walk around saying, “How can I unilaterally reduce my own power?”

Yet what is ironic in all of this is that while Greenwald argued against effectively Leviathan government and a complicit media used to stamp out critics of the prevailing political orthodoxy, conveniently missing from the groups he cited as being subject to injustices at the hands of government were liberty-minded groups and individuals.

Greenwald referenced Muslims, African-Americans, the folks at Wikileaks, and “hacktivists” broadly as groups targeted by government, but never mentioned the so-called “right-wing extremists” referenced in Department of Homeland Security literature, or even conservative groups targeted by the IRS, let alone the private individuals targeted by government via audits and other means in recent years.

Further, in spite of Greenwald’s criticism of government, the very event at which he spoke was sponsored by progressive/socialist groups from Haymarket Books and its sponsor the Center for Economic Research and Social Change, to the Glaser Progress Foundation. Greenwald is speaking at the similarly-aligned Socialism 2014 conference, and has spoken at such conferences in the past.

Greenwald’s focus on themes of “radical” dissent, and his comments on alleged atrocities carried out by U.S. troops overseas, plus his belief that the Iraq War was executed on behalf of Wall Street — themes typically focused on by the political left – combined with Greenwald’s associations indicate his sympathy with those who themselves champion even more expansive statism. This would be consistent with many other civil libertarians, and groups like the ACLU, who defend causes and groups antithetical to liberty.

Alan Dershowitz, no conservative, was perhaps most blunt in his views on Greenwald’s ideology, stating back in 2013 that the journalist is “anti-American, he loves tyrannical regimes, and he did this [aiding Edward Snowden in leaking NSA information] because he hates America. This had nothing to do with publicizing information.”

So while the crowd at Carnegie Gall booed and howled at many of the leftist names that Greenwald mentioned during his speech, judging by Greenwald’s own political associations and tendencies, the groups backing his speech and as echoed by the various socialist groups who passed out pro-Greenwald literature outside of the the lecture hall, could it be that Greenwald and his fans are more upset at the leftists who they feel are betraying the “change” they seek, rather than tyrannical government itself?

Shortly thereafter, Greenwald — of Edward Snowden leak fame — stepped to the microphone and lambasted the government (almost singularly Democrats) and its national security establishment, as well as the mainstream media.