Bits Bucket for July 5, 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.
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Name:Ben Jones
Location:Northern Arizona, United States
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Here’s a Political-Typology test you can take if you want to discover just where you stand.
(FWIW, the test says I’m a Staunch Conservative).
http://www.people-press.org/quiz/political-typology/
I got hard pressed skeptic and I’m not even American. That must make me a rabid right winger in the UK.
I am a “young outsider”….So much for the Liball moniker some here talk of me (Al-Bee-Cur-Kee)…
Some posters here flame anyone who ever dare to question their superior wisdom — such as Albuquerque Dan’s frequent endorsements of the superior Rasmussen Poll results leading up to the 2012 Romney defeat.
“Steadfast Conservative”
But since I dare to occasionally disagree with the paid Koch brothers plants on the HBB, I have occasionally been figuratively tarred and feathered as a libruhl. Which reminds me why I seldom vote Retardican…
Like an ICLEI meeting.
Choose from one of these poor choices.
Choose from one of these poor choices.
exactly.
+1. Most decent people don’t want to be pigeon-holed as conservative, liberal, libertarian, etc. Especially if their eyes are open and they’re capable of understanding they may not have the full picture on any given issue. Nothing is more insufferable than a dogmatic half-educated buffoon.
http://www.truthdig.com/staff/chris_hedges
Example: A “progressive” who actually speaks truth to power, unlike being a craven closet fascist like most of them.
I was expecting “Grumpy Old Fart” but they tagged me as “Young Outsider”.
Focus on right/left differences emphasizes a subset of moral metrics. Loosely speaking liberals focus on care or harm while conservatives are more interest in fairness or cheating. Apart from both of these extremes are libertarians who are more concerned about liberty or oppression. There is also a significant middle ground who just want things to work and find all political extremes and machinations distasteful. Most involved in politics prefer to emphasize the right/left metrics, but it is sometimes interesting to ask if a particular policy advances liberty or balanced accounting instead of merely being compassionate or fair.
Business Conservative
Ok whatever
Here’s an interesting/informative six-and-one-half-minute-long video about America and maps and various rules and laws and such:
http://www.vox.com/2014/7/3/5868743/what-maps-of-america-get-wrong
We burnt the hot dogs on the grill yesterday.
Thanks Obama!
I leaned something with that video…Thanks Combo…
Because people are smart …
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/07/people-who-call-obama-worst-president-since-second-world-war-also-blame-him-for-starting-it.html#entry-more
OMG, that’s priceless!
I had to look twice to see whether it was from The Onion.
FWIW: Here’s and excerpt of an article that talks about cash flow and profitability and the difference between the two:
“Cash Flow And Profitability”
“If there’s one financial principal that small business owners must understand, it’s this one: Cash flow and profitability are two totally separate things. Not understanding the difference is one of the surest ways to financial disaster.
“In short: You can be profitable, but not have positive cash flow. And you can have positive cash flow, but not be profitable. The first scenario can run you out of business if you don’t have enough cash (or working capital) in the short term to pay your bills. Your business will likely survive longer under the second scenario, but you can’t stay in business indefinitely without making a profit.
“The first scenario (profits but no cash flow) is the most common one among small businesses. It arises when businesses have to pay their suppliers before they get paid by their customers. ‘The company may be profitable,’ says Blasingame, ‘but somebody else has their cash.’
“’The bottom line: Don’t look at the profit on your operating statement and think you can spend that amount. And by the same logic, if you post a periodic loss, that doesn’t mean you’re out of cash.’
“The second scenario (positive cash flow but no profits) is common among point-of-sale businesses (like retail and restaurants) that do receive lots of “cash on the barrel” but pay their vendors on terms. ‘Ever seen a restaurant open and close within 90 days?’ Blasingame asks. ‘It probably had little to do with the food or service. Rather, the owner probably thought his or her cash was profit and spent it.’
“The bottom line: Don’t look in your checkbook to see how profitable your business is.
“So, which is more important — cash flow or profit? They’re equally important for different reasons. Every business owner wants to make a profit, but every month or year may not be profitable. ‘You can work through an unprofitable period with well-managed cash flow,’ says Blasingame. ‘But even a profitable business won’t last long without cash.’
“Or in other words, profit may be the Queen of business, but cash is King. ‘The moral,’ notes Blasingame, ‘is to manage your business for profitability, but operate it for cash flow.’”
Buying a home isn’t running a business, it’s an investment that pays for itself.
Shiller sees a housing bubble and a stock market collapse
By darlag Follow Thu, 3 Jul 2014, 8:10am 1,466 views
Video from Yahoo! Finance predicts problems for housing and stock market again. He got it right the first time. Doubting him this time probably isn’t a good idea.
http://www.globaldeflationnews.com/robert-shiller-sees-a-housing-bubble-and-a-peak-in-the-stock-market-video/
What will be the impact of one of the biggest builders entering the home rental market; ?
AS HOME SALES REMAIN RESTRAINED, BIG BUILDER EYES HOME-RENTAL MARKET
Source: Wall St. Journal
http://www2.realtoractioncenter.com/site/R?i=H5VPZHowPSmrVS68k-Fepg
“Shiller sees a housing bubble and a stock market collapse”
So do I…someday. The multi-trillion dollar questions are
(1) WHEN?
(2) WILL THERE BE YET ANOTHER ROUND OF QE TO FIX IT?
“Shiller sees a housing bubble and a stock market collapse” ??
I it were to happen fairly soon, IMO, there is a much bigger issue than what the USA would face…Europe, would go into full-fledged meltdown with world wide ramifications none of us could possibly comprehend…
“…there is a much bigger issue than what the USA would face…Europe, would go into full-fledged meltdown…”
Which explains why the central bankers will never, ever allow this to happen…
Which explains why the central bankers will never, ever allow this to happen…
QE to infinity and beyond!
Like whole life insurance if you are lucky to have skills for 30 years of work and never have to move…..it adds up
So we all need to get guvmint jobs, anything else is too risky to buy.
Until it doesn’t.
It’s kind of like dividends versus growth in an investment strategy. You want a balance of bonds and dividend stocks on the one hand and growth stocks on the other. The growth stocks worked very well the last 64 months, for example. The bonds and dividend stocks produced income still, had some good gains, but not as great as the growth sectors. But during the big crash it is a warm fuzzy feeling to still get dividends. Arguably, some companies cut dividends when the market crashes. So you have to be selective. I heard that Colgate Palmolive and McDonald’s performed well and produced dividends nicely in 2008 through 2009.
IMO you want a company that makes real money - real money as in cash.
Some companies don’t make real money but nevertheless pay out real money in the form of dividends. American Homes 4 rent (AMH) is a company that loses money - loses real money - but nevertheless pays out real money in the form of cash dividends.
A poster here indicated he was more interested if “flow of funds” than profits, which I found to be a bit interesting but, hey, different strokes for different folks.
“A poster here indicated he was more interested if “flow of funds” than profits, which I found to be a bit interesting but, hey, different strokes for different folks.”
I know of a construction company that lost money for several years after 2008 as they struggled to maintain their effective crew.
Here’s something interesting about paying out interest in something other than cash (from Wikipedia):
“PIK bonds”
“In modern finance, when a bond pays in kind (PIK), it means that the interest on the bond is paid other than in cash. The most common form of this is for the principal owed to the bondholder to be increased by the amount of current interest.”
Which means instead of getting a return in the form of cash for your investment you get a return in the form of an increased value of the principle of the bond, and if the issuers of the bond work it right then when the bond matures the principle of the bond will be returned to you not as cash but instead it will be returned to you in the form of another bond - in other words you will be paid in kind.
So what you will end up with is a bond that forever grows in value but this value can never be converted into cash.
So what you will end up with is a bond that forever grows in value but this value can never be converted into cash.
Sure it can be converted into cash—just so long as you can find another sucker to sign up for that deal in your place, thus letting you off the hook.
PIK bonds are kind of like a house in that way, now that I think about it…
“Sure it can be converted into cash—just so long as you can find another sucker to sign up for that deal in your place, thus letting you off the hook.”
True dat. And because suckers need to be sucked in the bond’s price will have to be discounted - discounted a lot. And if you discount the bonds price and keep the coupon rate the same then the yield will go up.
During the Sixties I was perusing bonds and came across some PICs that were discounted some eighty-percent (i.e. a thousand dollar bond selling for two-hundred dollars) and the coupon on these bonds was ten percent-or-so (which was a hundred dollars) which meant, due to the discount, the bond was yielding a FIFTY-PERCENT RETURN!
Imagine that! A fifty-percent return every year until the bond matured, at which point a thousand dollars will be handed over to me.
Which is why I went all-in, and going all-in explains why I am now living in a cardboard box under a freeway overpass.
FIFTY-PERCENT RETURN!
A return of that magnitude is typically associated with a significant level of risk; as such, I would typically advise against going “all-in” on such an asset-class. A small investment might be a risk worth taking, if you think that things are likely to improve in that sector.
True. I don’t know how to run a company. My boss is ten years younger than me but looks older. Too much work and time taken away from health habits. Though he also has three kids to manage.
Just like I have no time to study individual stocks. I got lucky with my former company stock. But I bought it at discount too.
I am interested in mostly stock index funds, especially those producing dividends in my retirement accounts. It’s a warm fuzzy feeling when a Roth IRA gives you $500 quarterly. Reinvested of course. I like leaving the stock picks/management to Standard & Poor, no load, and with the very steep fee of five pennies per one hundred dollars of my balance.
That’s amusing about American Homes 4 Rent. I know the guy who runs it. He made a multibillion dollar killing on Public Storage. He’s driven to prove he’s not a one-trick pony. It’s fascinating to me that a billionaire is so insecure about the way he’s perceived. I was amazed how slipshod the whole rental company cam about - random people pulled in to work who really had no idea what they were doing. Changed my perception of billion dollar businesses - much less sophisticated than I had imagined.
American Homes 4 rent (AMH) is a company that loses money - loses real money - but nevertheless pays out real money in the form of cash dividends.
I am considering screening for similar stocks, as a pool to choose shorts from…
As the old saying goes: “We lose a dollar on every sale, but we make up for it with volume!”
I like your cash flow post yesterday in the main thread. Where you said keeping a job is good cash flow. Many small businesses generate less income than what I am earning. Like local coffee shops, nail parlors, personal training. Yet people put in insane hours just so they can be their own boss. More power to them. My favorite firearms shop in my Phoenix neighborhood is owned by some guy with a half dozen employees. He loves guns, so it is fun work for him.
Sometimes my own work becomes drudgery. But I remind myself that with the money I have left over after taxes and paying rent, I can buy more two year notes, precious metals, and stock index funds.
“Where you said keeping a job is good cash flow.”
IMO one way to measure the value of a job is to measure just how much a return you would get if you were able to sell a job.
People sell businesses all the time so the idea isn’t all that far-fetched, and a main criteria in pricing a business is just what return on invested capital should one expect to receive if the business was bought.
Assuming one buys a business and is an active participant in the running of the business eight hours a day, forty hours a week then his price for buying the business could easily translate to the value of a job that is worked eight hours a day, forty hours a week if the return is the same - meaning if the return from operating the business is the same as the return for working as an employee.
If the business sells for, say, a million bucks then it could be looked at as working an equivalent job with an equivalent return would be worth a million bucks.
Another way to value a job, IMO, is to figure out just how much money would one have to invest in some sort of fixed income instrument so as to match and replace the wages one would be giving up if he were to quit or retire. But in this case the no-longer-working worker would be idle while receiving a return from his investment as opposed to a still-working worker still working so this comparison has some obvious imbedded faults.
But maybe not entirely faulty because there are a lot of cases (a WHOLE lot of cases) where a person willingly walks away from a good-paying, cushy job only to find out that, for whatever reason, he needs to go back to work and this going back to work means settling for a less-paying, less-cushy job than the one he willingly walked away from and so looking at the total return of what his current job gives to him may fall well short of the total return of what his previous job gave to him.
But back to the original premise, which was “keeping a good job means keeping up good cash flow” means a lot, is valued a lot, when cash flow from other sources is dismal but means little, is valued little, when cash flow from other sources is plentiful.
And this was the case some years ago during the era when lots of positive cash flow was easy to get, when the concept of cashing out the ever-growing equity from one’s house every six-months-or-so was something that was bought into by thousands of people and many of these thousands of people treated their jobs with distain, treated their jobs as something that was holding them back from becoming what the were destined to become, which was a real estate mogul.
So the did the logical thing, given the circumstances, which was to quit their jobs.
And then everything changed …
there are a lot of cases (a WHOLE lot of cases) where a person willingly walks away from a good-paying, cushy job only to find out that, for whatever reason, he needs to go back to work and this going back to work means settling for a less-paying, less-cushy job than the one he willingly walked away from
This reality is a primary reason that I will likely try to “overshoot” somewhat on the retirement savings before actually retiring, rather than wish after-the-fact that I had stayed a bit longer.
The part where your investments exceed your total compensation: I’m at that point now assuming an 8% annual gain on my entire portfolio. But learned from observation not to be smug about it or the market will bite you back where it hurts and if you lose your job or you slack at your job, you will be sorry. I project I will be in my late 60s by the time my investments exceed my compensation by 160%, but then that is retirement age.
Fly fishing, anyone?
” the time my investments exceed ” - meant “the time my average annual investment gains exceed”
When is a good time to buy a house? After prices bottom. And prices haven’t bottomed.
Sour grapes.
Fetch me a beer woman. And make it snappy.
I know. Sorry you bought high and now are stuck, but don’t take it out on us.
Loser debt slave.
Oh, and those 3-1/2 percenters are still waiting for their free home tours…
The open house that was scheduled for today was cancelled because the house is already under contract.
Who’s the loser now, renter for life?
MOVE Woman!
You are excused to leave the table now, the grownups are having a conversation.
NOW!
These exchanges would be more enlightening if they provided illuminating insights about the housing market.
Or if Amy ever got around to making that sandwich!
Looks like the Obama Zombies realize they were sold a bill of goods (though McCain and Romney would have been equally appalling alternatives).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10948224/The-Obama-years-The-trailers-were-great-the-movie-was-horrible.html
Why America is NOT the greatest country in the world, anymore.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMqcLUqYqrs
In less than 5 minutes, this sums up what happen to our once great country.
I have seen that video before…”Classic”…Even better the 2nd time around…
Entry: Fail.
http://daserste.ndr.de/panorama/aktuell/NSA-targets-the-privacy-conscious%2cnsa230.html
NSA targets the privacy-conscious
“The investigation discloses the following:”
“Two servers in Germany - in Berlin and Nuremberg - are under surveillance by the NSA.”
“Merely searching the web for the privacy-enhancing software tools outlined in the XKeyscore rules causes the NSA to mark and track the IP address of the person doing the search. Not only are German privacy software users tracked, but the source code shows that privacy software users worldwide are tracked by the NSA.”
“Among the NSA’s targets is the Tor network funded primarily by the US government to aid democracy advocates in authoritarian states.”
“The XKeyscore rules reveal that the NSA tracks all connections to a server that hosts part of an anonymous email service at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It also records details about visits to a popular internet journal for Linux operating system users called “the Linux Journal - the Original Magazine of the Linux Community”, and calls it an “extremist forum”.”
This is silly
The Surveillance State: covert revolution
by Jon Rappoport
July 4, 2014
The Surveillance State aims to profile every human in the United States. This profile will include a psych eval.
The eval, plus psychological tests will be mandatory for all government employees, including public school and college teachers, counselors, and wall-to-wall bureaucrats.
The objective? To qualify those people to judge the rest of us.
In other words, they will be the Normals, and we will be viewed as the Freaks.
These new government arbiters will also be selected on the basis of their feeling like put-upon victims.
Given new powers, they will have a field day.
I’m talking about a cultural revolution that turns things inside out and reverses vectors.
It’s already happening, of course, but the intensity is expanding.
Here is the view from the top: install “the underclass” as the officials who will run and police day-to-day society.
Make a list of every real or imagined victim group you can think of. From these groups, the millions of clerks and bureaucrats who operate the levers of intrusive public life will be chosen.
They are the natural allies of big government.
“Never had a chance to wreak revenge on the people who are holding you down? Come see us for an interview. We may have a position for you. We’ll give you a test, put that together with a profile we’ve already assembled on you, and voila…you could be working in an office tomorrow, collecting a paycheck, receiving benefits, and dropping the hammer on anyone who has an independent or errant thought in his head…”
Big government wants to make more and people poor and dependent, yes. But beyond that, the plan is to “rescue” them and give them power in government jobs.
“Look, we’ve assembled psych evals on 300 million Americans. Here are the ones we’ve identified as troublesome. Guess what? They’re the folks who don’t like you. But now you’re working for us, the government. So we’re setting you loose. Go after them, find a reason to harass them, block them from getting ahead…”
Make no mistake about it, there are ways to make poor nations, from which immigrants are flooding into the US, far more prosperous—just as there are ways to make poor communities inside the US prosper. But those ways are verboten. Instead, big government, despite its pronouncements, is intent on exacerbating poverty and dependence.
Gradually, the difference between receiving government benefits and having a government job will be completely erased.
Freedom of the individual? Never heard of freedom or the individual.
The Bureaucratic Society is shaping up before our eyes.
The Surveillance State is the framework within which this goal can be accomplished, by the use of psych profiles and evals, which are filters used to separate the “put-upon people who thirst for power” from everyone else.
If you think all this is too crazy to be true, go to publicintelligence.net and read the report, “Identity Dominance: The US Military’s Biometric War in Afghanistan.” The program involves securing extensive background information, including “threat potential,” on every single human in the country.
With a shift of target, such a program could be transferred back home to the US, where it would mesh with NSA operations to achieve the same goal.
Translation: “We engineered society to create millions of people stuck in material and psychological poverty. Dependent. You’re one of those. Now we need employees to run this wall-to-wall welfare state and corral the ‘independent ones.’ We’ve let you soak in misery and suffering for a while, and now we think you’re ready to make other people follow the hundred thousand rules and regs we’ve set up…”
jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2014/07/04/the-surveillance-state-covert-revolution/ - 72k -
What if there are ten million fiercely independent ones? Against an army of 30,000 NSA employees and 60,000 contractors?
Ten million “fiercely independent” Americans? That’s a stretch.
“Ten million “fiercely independent” Americans? That’s a stretch.”
I guess “fiercely independent” would have to be debated but here are One million three hundred thousand in 2 states that flipped em’ the bird “fiercely” or not.
New York Gun Owners Refuse to Comply With New Gun Laws: What Happens Next?
By Steve Straub On April 17, 2014
It will be interesting to see how New York and Connecticut deal with the refusal of 90% of gun owners to comply with new gun control laws.
Via the Christian Science Monitor:
With some tearing up gun registration forms in public protest on Tuesday, some 1 million New York gun owners shrugged off an April 15 deadline to register assault-style weapons under a tough post-Sandy Hook gun control law.
http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/…-refuse-to-comply-with-new-gun-laws-what-happens-next - 292k -
———————————————————————–
EDITORIAL: Connecticut gun owners revolt
Widely flouted registration law puts legislators in a bind
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Reality is of little interest to Connecticut politicians when they’re intent on making a statement. They thought that they could compel everyone to think as they do about gun control by threatening those who disagree with a felony. It didn’t work.
Faced with 300,000 potential offenders, officials must decide whether to ignore the new law, or enforce it by sending SWAT teams to raid the homes of anyone suspected of owning the most popular rifle in America, the AR-15.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/…/2014/feb/19/editorial-connecticuts-gun-revolt/?page=all - 95k
Democrats - believe it is impossible to do anything about illegal immigrants but believe in making previous legal firearm owners criminals and felons and planning how to round them up…
You betcha if I was a New York state or Connecticut resident I too, would hold onto my guns and my high capacity magazines. Statists can go pi up a rope.
“What if there are ten million fiercely independent ones?”
Well they would have to be disarmed, rendering them unable to do anything about it.
But in order to do that you would have to have National tragedies planned and played out in the media creating such an outrage that this could be accomplished.
Do you want me to read the card?
I figure you haven’t been to Arizona. Texas is probably the same way. People in ose states will never give up their guns. I have a rifle and two handguns there. And four different types of ammo. Will never give it up.
To me the ultimate gun grab is not the big deal.
It’s what comes after it.
But in order to do that you would have to have National tragedies planned and played out in the media creating such an outrage that this could be accomplished.
I don’t buy the meme that every tragedy that is seized upon by gun-control advocates is “planned.” There are way too many unhinged individuals with ready access to firearms. It is ludicrous to think all these mass shootings were somehow staged as part of a larger gun control agenda. Ever been to a gun show? You see some swivel-necked loons buying scary amounts of firepower. There has to be a middle ground somewhere that upholds the Second Amendment while doing more to keep guns out of the hands of the demonstrably mentally ill and unstable.
Not every tragedy is “planned”. Just 2 shootings and 1 bombing that I know of.
Most ‘Muricans now get gubmint benefits. Forward, Free Sh!t Army! All hail the Democrat Supermajority!
http://www.forbes.com/sites/merrillmatthews/2014/07/02/weve-crossed-the-tipping-point-most-americans-now-receive-government-benefits/
The deeply corrupt Democrat political establishment that has been instrumental in importing Democrat-on-Arrival entitlement voters suddenly has a problem: identity politics. The newly-minted “Ds” apparently prefer their own brand of politicos to the entrenched DNC variety, as Minnesota Democrat apparatchiks are discovering to their displeasure.
Imagine Pelosi’s discomfiture when her new voting bloc, instead of obediently voting the straight-D lineup offered by the California and Beltway establishment Dems, opt instead to elect one of their own (ingrates!).
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/07/109076.php
The population of Mogadishu is moving to Minneapolis, through the miracle of chain immigration. I don’t know whether there is any limiting principle to this or whether all of Mogadishu will one day reside along the Mississippi, but in any event, the Somali influx is already impacting Minnesota politics.
Despite being “natural conservatives”–imagine what they must think of abortion and gay marriage!–the Somalis have so far been reliable Democratic voters. This has created one of this year’s most interesting local races, in which Phyllis Kahn, a left-wing Democrat who has represented her district in the Minnesota House of Representatives for 42 (!) years, is being challenged in a primary by one Mohamud Noor.
Kahn has long enjoyed the perks of a Democratic insider, including the privilege of owning a $1 house on prime Minneapolis real estate. But so far, all of that seems to avail her little as she fights for her political life against Mr. Noor.
The race first came to widespread attention when a fight broke out between Kahn and Noor supporters at a precinct caucus. Next, in a historic first, a Democrat finally stumbled across voter fraud in Minnesota:
The Hennepin County attorney’s office is investigating whether a private mailbox center in Minneapolis’ Cedar-Riverside neighborhood has been improperly used as an address for more than 140 voters.
State records show that 419 Cedar Avenue S. has been used by some of the voters as far back as 2008. [Ed.: In other words, since Al Franken's 2008 campaign.]
No one lives at the address, which is a Somali-dominated commercial building housing several small businesses and a popular mail center.
The investigation reignites a long-running debate about voter fraud in Minnesota and is the latest flash point in the highly competitive race between Capitol stalwart Rep. Phyllis Kahn and Mohamud Noor, who would become the first Somali-American elected to the Legislature if elected. Kahn was denied the DFL endorsement in April due in part to Noor’s ability to turn out Somali supporters. An August primary will decide the fate of the race.
My dream of retiring on a small farm in Zimbabwe is over.
President Robert Mugabe Says No Whites May Own Land in Zimbabwe
Kicking out the last white farmers may be ploy to divert attention from economic catastrophe
by Christian Science Monitor | July 4, 2014
Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe has ordered the nation’s remaining white farmers to be booted off their farms in order that the land be given to black Zimbabweans.
In the harshest official policy on race and land reform in a country that has been close to bankruptcy, the 90-year old autocrat said Wednesday that whites may no longer own any land in Zimbabwe. Whites would still be allowed to own businesses and urban apartments.
Speaking to farmers in Mhangura, a small mining town about 120 miles north of the capital Harare, Mr. Mugabe, said all remaining white farmers should leave – and closed the door even on white families renting farms from black owners, as some several hundred have been doing since most were violently chased away a decade ago.
Not a peep from the usual State Department human rights pontificaters, naturally.
The US instituted new sanctions against Zimbabwe 3 months ago.
Darn those facts.
How about retire on a small farm in Nebraska? Though with a well equipped storm cellar.
A friend of mine just did that. An off-the-grid setup. He’s not sanguine about where America is headed.
“President Robert Mugabe Says No Whites May Own Land in Zimbabwe”
That’s racis’
“Kicking out the last white farmers may be ploy to divert attention from economic catastrophe”
Purely coincidental that kicking out white farmers went hand-in-hand with economic catastrophe, I’m sure…
I probably am doing more of these steps than you are:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/07/daisy-luther/withdraw-your-consent-2/
Thaks for posting this
I can write a whole treatise on withdrawing consent. My own interest is in urban settings, as I am highly skeptical of rural “survivalism.” You can say I’m an urban anarchist.
“Urban anarchist”? Is that another way of saying that when the marauding post-SHTF hordes show up in your ‘hood, you’ll emit a piercing girlish squeal followed by an involuntary bowel movement, then run like Ted Kennedy from a sinking car?
So smart “a”, tell me that you have enough acres of irrigated land to grow your own food.
I am quite sure Bill would check any sinking cars for girls.
Bill doesn’t seem like the type who would show up at the Superdome in New Orleans with a toothbrush for a hurricane preparedness kit and ask the government to take care of him.
Nope. Maybe someday.
Here’s the real deal:
In 1979 the USA looked like it was going to hell in a handbasket. Camouflaged-wearing survivalists appeared on Phil Donohue shows and were smirking that they have moved to the rural parts, have all their guns and ammo, enough land to grow things.
1979.
Then 1980 happened. Oops. The same month Ronald Reagan’s inaugural, gold spiked to $800 per ounce. It never saw over $720 before January1 1980. After January 31 1980 it never saw prices over $720 per ounce until around 2007 or 2008 - 27 years later. Also that month on inauguration day 440 US hostages were freed. Goodbye Obama part 1. We are in Obama part 2 these days.
You tell me how smart it was to sell all your stuff, quit your urban job and go low tech into the countryside just before morning in America!
Don’t tell me another man cannot make America be proud to be America again. Don’t tell me that things will always get worse. I was 21 in 1980. The difference between summer of 1979 and summer of 1980 in every stranger I met was amazing.
I will not quit my urban job. I read about famous libertarians who did the survivalist thing. They cried about paying 15% of their long term capital gains in taxes. BOO FRIGGING HOO! And because of that 15% they gave up building their own means of financial survival - because they were frigging young and did not know that people older than 50 sometimes get catastrophic illnesses and must pay a lot out of pocket - OOPSIE!.
So are you going out to the woods? You probably will not sign up for Obamacare - I would not either but I have insurance through my urban job - the software company I work for.
I’m 55. And I am in superb health but despite that have to take prescription medicine for my thyroid and blood pressure. Even so I could get majorly sick and don’t want to be 100 miles away from the type of top medical care I get in large cities like Tampa - where I spent 2 days in a hospital and where the cardiologist laughed and said my heart is fine after all. Oh your country doctor is also a barber? I forgot.
The famous libertarians went low tech, one lived in a former school bus. She wrote a brilliant book that I refer to a lot for my anarcho capitalist philosophy. But she hated the state so much she could not bear to even part with 15% of gain in taxes.
I used to be in Libertarian politics in my early 20s. I knew Marshall Fritz personally before he became a famous libertarian. I held a political office at 23. But then my brain told me - “but I have no money.” There I was happy that I was not paying taxes in my early 20s. But I had no money. Was that what the rest of my life would be about? I then told myself no. I gave up politics and got a job. The type of work I do is most common in large urban areas. The money I make is most often in blue states.
I’m yanking Bill’s chain. My image of an “urban anarchist” is some punk who has never built anything of value yet runs around smashing other people’s things to show his “rage.” But that’s not Bill, I know.
Given the vulnerability of our transportation and power grids, not to mention the real possibility of the dollar losing its reserve currency status (thank you, Fed!) it’s up to each person, family, and community to be prepared for the unexpected.
This is why there are lots of free internet resources about long term food storage for city slickers. Yes you ought to live in a neighborhood of people like yourself. Not in a neighborhood of foreclosures and $30k millionaires, but of frugal millionaires who squirreled away useful things.
W-A-B probably knows how the Mormons prepare for emergencies.
Even for 60 days of survival to keep your strength up in case terrorists blow up the airport and the major interstates leading into your city. For Phoenix I cannot think of what natural disasters could be worse than those people worry about in California and along the gulf coast.
A few weeks ago I studied up on deep cycle batteries. Someone here told me about them. A buddy of mine convinced me not to do it though. I will wait until I rent a SFH in Phoenix.
I’m 4 and half years away from when I will really be ready to change my career again and work in Phoenix for good. I’m going to start drawing from my traditional 401k mostly for backup, but I want to avoid being forced to withdraw too much money after 70 and a half. At that age you have to take a RMD based on the IRS schedule. I want to have a balance low enough that it keeps my taxes low after 70 and a half. So with excess money while living in Phoenix I will throw it back into stock index funds, notes, and precious metals.
I don’t think we will have a major civil catastrophe and mass rioting before I move back to Phoenix.
“it’s up to each person, family, and community to be prepared for the unexpected.”
That was clearly a right wing extremist statement and has been duly noted and filed under your name in the 1 million square foot NSA spy center in Utah.
Come to think if it, It’s a great idea to move to the Gilbert, AZ area, which is two communities away from my southeast Phoenix area. Lots of Mormons there. And they are unlikely to be stealing from others when SHTF.
so maybe I should rent a 5 bedroom 4 bath beheamoth just for being in a save area. Gilbert is one of the safest places to live in the USA.
Rural places are not immune from Section 8 and welfare being bussed in. L.A. and Bakersfield did exactly that to the high desert town in California where I did make mortgage payments for awhile. It was a learning experience for me.
I’m going to start drawing from my traditional 401k mostly for backup, but I want to avoid being forced to withdraw too much money after 70 and a half. At that age you have to take a RMD based on the IRS schedule. I want to have a balance low enough that it keeps my taxes low after 70 and a half.
This makes no sense, Bill. You are going to withdraw more sooner, and pay taxes on it sooner, to avoid paying LOWER taxes (due to reduced income) later in life??
Your best bet is to defer the income as long as possible, unless you believe that marginal rates are going to go way up. Otherwise, it doesn’t make any sense to minimize your RMDs by paying way higher taxes sooner than you must.
I’ll have to do the math. I figure my traditional 401k balance at age 70 and a half will be around $2.2 million, based on 15 years at 10% average gain and my current balance. I also have savings bond interest that is federal taxable.
I have lots of time to figure it out.
1980…
I am shocked no one caught me on this. Ronald Reagan was inauguarated in January 1981. A year after the gold price spiked.
I remember the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. A horrible thing of course.
I was thinking that evening that my fellow college folks would be jaded when I see their reactions the next day. But I was unprepared. From this point on through when I graduated in 1985 I detected a lot of admiration from young people in Ronald Reagan.
The other odd thing is that when I was in high school I knew most of my fellow students were Democrats, by a 2/3 to 1/3 margin. I called myself “Republican” those days. But four years later something really changed.
In 1980 Barry Commoner ran for President. He was a technocratic socialist. A scientist. Very blatantly a leftist scientist. Jimmy Carter (Obama Part 1) was running for his second term. The jury was out on whether we wanted more misery or a different form under Communist-er, or a totally different form under Reagan.
In 1980 in November even with libertarian Ed Clark garnering 1% of the popular vote, a record up to that time for any Libertarian Party candidate, Reagan won. Commoner was not even a spoiler. He did not do any better than Ed Clark. There were no spoilers in 1980. Ronald Reagan won by a landslide.
Fasf forward to 2012. The RNC shuts down Republican Ron Paul and insures a second victory for Obama. Ron Paul was the most popular speaker during the campaign than any Republican or Democrat candidate on college campuses.
Now pundits are predicting Elizabeth Warren will win in 2016. While we did not have the FSA in 1980 the fact is that was the peak of the number of eligible baby boomer voters - the people most likely to vote for free $hit.
In 2016 Elizabeth Warren might be the scapegoat to beat up on for 8 years of ineptitude of my favorite president Obama. The FSA might not show up in enough numbers to vote in Obama part 3. Unless Romney runs again. Unless McCain runs. Unless someone like Boehner runs. Unless Karl Rove gets his way.
The Republicans will have a winner if they grow a pair and allow a candidate to win who says we need to make major defense cuts, abolish welfare, significantly cut down military bases all over the world, completely leaving some nations. We need to 100% abolish welfare and the Department of Education.
Otherwise we will get more severe Obama the next time around. People might have enough of Obama and not want another Democrat no matter what.
2016 could be the year without a speaker on campuses as popular and charismatic as Ron Paul. A vacuum must be filled.
2017 inaugural could be morning in America. E Warren is not morning in America. E Warren is further mourning in America.
ICE Can No Longer Call Illegal Immigrant Children ‘aliens’
by Cheryl Carpenter | BizPacReview | July 5, 2014
Immigration and Customs Enforcement will no longer be calling illegal minors crossing the border alone “UACs,” or unaccompanied alien children.
An internal ICE email has instructed officials the minors will be called “unaccompanied children,” according to Breitbart News, which reported:
“This was briefed earlier today during he (sic) command and staff meeting,” an email sent to ICE personnel reads. “It has been requested that in correspondence regarding unaccompanied children, They (sic) not be referred to as UACs. The term UAC should not be used in official correspondence.”
The email, with the subject line “UACs,” continues, “The appropriate messaging on documents should be using the term : unaccompanied children all lower case. (Unless capitalizing would be grammatically correct).”
ICE did not respond to Breitbart’s requests for comment.
Customs and Border Protection continues to use the UAC designation, as it is responsible for keeping a tally of the number of juveniles, ages 0-17, in their custody.
Recently it was discovered that the Department of Homeland Security had posted a “help wanted” notice seeking “Escort Services for Unaccompanied Alien Children,” or someone to supervise juveniles entering the United States. The notice was posted in January and anticipated approximately 65,000 children would need their services.
Already, more than 52,000 unaccompanied alien children have been detained after crossing the border from Oct. 1 to June 15, according to Breitbart.
George Washington’s parting address, from an era when we had true statesmen for Presidents, not self-snapping bon vivants.
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2014/07/04/washingtons-farewell-address-1796/
I meant, “selfie-snapping bon vivants.” Elected by morons.
More fraying at the edges.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-05/rodney-king-redux-california-highway-patrolman-caught-tape-pummeling-black-woman
“Give me control of a nations money supply, and I care not who makes it’s laws”
Border Meltdown: Obama Delivering 290,000 Illegals To U.S. Homes
10:02 AM 07/05/2014
Neil Munro
White House
Correspondent
The vast majority of 50,000 unaccompanied youths and children who have illegally crossed the Texas border during the last few months have been successfully delivered by federal agencies to their relatives living in the United States, according to a New York Times article.
A second New York Times article reports revealed that officials have caught an additional 240,000 Central American migrants since April, and are transporting many of them to their destinations throughout the United States.
The deluge of 290,000 illegals — so far — are exploiting legal loopholes that allow them to get temporary permits to stay in the United States.
Experts say that President Barack Obama’s administration has failed to close the loopholes and is unlikely to deport more than a small percentage of the illegals, despite the high unemployment rates among American Latino, African-American and white youths, and the strapped budgets of many cities and towns.
The president’s policy has caused protests by frightened citizens in towns such as Murrieta. But Obama’s allies — such as La Raza, an ethnic lobby for Latinos — are eager to escalate the conflict and to paint the protestors as racists. Those protests may escalate before the November elections.
The Central American parents of the 50,000 youths and children are using a 2008 law to ensure their children are transported to them for free by a relay of border patrol and Department of Health and Human Services officials. The youths are delivered to the border patrol by smugglers, dubbed coyotes, in exchange for several thousand dollars.
Half of the 50,000 Central American youths were delivered by taxpayer-funded employees directly to their parents now living in the United States, and another third were delivered to people who said they were close relatives, said the July 3 article.
That new data was included in the 19th paragraph of a 20-paragraph June 3 article.
Top immigration officials choose to not heck if the relatives or parents who pick up the children are in the country legally.
Both New York Times articles described the border-crossing illegal aliens as “immigrants.” In fact, “immigrants” is the term for people who legally migrate into the United States.
The 240,000 strong-group largely consists of many mothers and young children, most of whom are now being flown and bussed to destinations near where they wish to settle. That new 240,000 number was included in the seventh paragraph of a 24-paragraph article.
Few of the illegal immigrants are high-school graduates, or have skills that would allow them to earn more than they cost to federal, state and local taxpayers.
Officials have not said where they’ve delivered the adults or youth illegals, but pro-American activists are keeping track of some locations, including San Diego, Calif.
Officials have defended the administration’s catch-and-release policy, which critics say is inviting more Central Americans to cross the border in the hope of being arrested by the border patrol.
“When you have a noncriminal [border-crossing ] mother, they are going to be released,” David Jennings, the head of the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency in southern California. “The most humane way to deal with this is to find out where they are going and get them there,” he said at a town meeting held in Murrieta, Calif., according to the New York Times.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/07/05/border-meltdown-obama-delivering-290000-illegals-to-u-s-homes/#ixzz36c3ckXkv
Worthless housing… worthless worthless housing. It’s worth less and less with each passing day.
left over ball parks today? Got equity?
See your bankrupty attorney and do it soon.
Another holiday weekend living in mom’s basement.
Have fun in your mom’s basement hoaxster.
But get me a beer before going back down.
Bill, don’t drag yourself down to Housing Analyst’s level of childishness.
Now now. Where’s my beer?
Amy I need your help.
I am looking for a small ranch in Zimbabwe that a white dude can own.
Living in a rental will never feel like a real home.
Wheres my beer woman?
how is grocery shopping with mom going?
What’d I tell you woman? Get a move on!
As much as I would love to stay and chat with you about the numerous ways you have failed at life, my boyfriend, who is one of the most successful Realtors in Chicago, is picking me up to take me out to dinner to celebrate closing 5 sales in just the past week.
Go back to playing World of Warcraft in the basement, little boy.
And get that filthy kitchen cleaned up too. Move it.
10 acres would be fine, I’m partial to NE Zimbabwe.
Property in Zimbabwe
If you’re interested in buying Zimbabwe real estate, now is the time. Not only are prices low and the foreign exchange rate in favour of foreigners, but because the country’s general elections are just around the corner and the expectation of a more positive future is in the air.
Zimbabwe Real Estate | Properties for Sale in Zimbabwe …
http://www.remax.co.za/Property-in-Zimbabwe - 40k -
OMG, that’s _awesome_!
Of course, you might want to consider the downsides of purchasing there if you are white…
There are currently 0 properties in property types .
“They’re going to crush the system,” the nurse told me. “We can’t sustain this. They are overwhelming the system and I think it’s a travesty.”
“That’s what alerted me,” she said. “Oh, my God. They’re flying these kids around. Nobody knows that these children have scabies and lice. To tell you the truth, there’s no way to control it.”
“I made a recommendation that a child needed to be sent to a psychiatric unit,” the counselor told me. “He was reaching psychosis. He was suicidal. Instead of treating him, they sent him off to a family in the United States.”
Medical staff warned: Keep your mouths shut about illegal immigrants or face arrest
By Todd Starnes
Published July 02, 2014 •
Editor’s note: The contractor running the refugee camp at Lackland Air Force Base is “BCFS,” not “Baptist Family and Children’s Services” — as noted in a previous version of this story.
A government-contracted security force threatened to arrest doctors and nurses if they divulged any information about the contagion threat at a refugee camp housing illegal alien children at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, sources say.
In spite of the threat, several former camp workers broke their confidentiality agreements and shared exclusive details with me about the dangerous conditions at the camp. They said taxpayers deserve to know about the contagious diseases and the risks the children pose to Americans. I have agreed to not to disclose their identities because they fear retaliation and prosecution.
My sources say Americans should be very concerned about the secrecy of the government camps.
“There were several of us who wanted to talk about the camps, but the agents made it clear we would be arrested,” a psychiatric counselor told me. “We were under orders not to say anything.”
The sources said workers were guarded by a security force from the BCFS, which the Department of Health and Human Services hired to run the Lackland Camp.
The sources say security forces called themselves the “Brown Shirts.”
“It was a very submissive atmosphere,” the counselor said. “Once you stepped onto the grounds, you abided by their laws – the Brown Shirt laws.”
She said the workers were stripped of their cellphones and other communication devices. Anyone caught with a phone was immediately fired.
“Everyone was paranoid,” she said. “The children had more rights than the workers.”
She said children in the camp had measles, scabies, chicken pox and strep throat as well as mental and emotional issues.
“It was not a good atmosphere in terms of health,” she said. “I would be talking to children and lice would just be climbing down their hair.”
A former nurse at the camp told me she was horrified by what she saw.
“We have so many kids coming in that there was no way to control all of the sickness – all this stuff coming into the country,” she said. “We were very concerned at one point about strep going around the base.”
Both the counselor and the nurse said their superiors tried to cover up the extent of the illnesses.
“When they found out the kids had scabies, the charge nurse was adamant – ‘Don’t mention that. Don’t say scabies,’” the nurse recounted. “But everybody knew they had scabies. Some of the workers were very concerned about touching things and picking things up. They asked if they should be concerned, but they were told don’t worry about it.”
The nurse said the lice issue was epidemic – but everything was kept “hush-hush.”
“You could see the bugs crawling through their hair,” she said. “After we would rinse out their hair, the sink would be loaded with black bugs.”
The nurse told me she became especially alarmed because their files indicated the children had been transported to Lackland on domestic charter buses and airplanes.
“That’s what alerted me,” she said. “Oh, my God. They’re flying these kids around. Nobody knows that these children have scabies and lice. To tell you the truth, there’s no way to control it.”
I don’t mean to upset anyone’s Independence Day vacation plans, but were these kids transported to the camps before or after they were deloused? Anyone who flies the friendly skies could be facing a public health concern.
The counselor told me the refugee camp resembled a giant emergency room – off limits to the public.
“They did not want the community to know,” she said. “I initially spoke out at Lackland because I had a concern the children’s mental health care was not being taken care of.”
She said the breaking point came when camp officials refused to hospitalize several children who were suicidal.
“I made a recommendation that a child needed to be sent to a psychiatric unit,” the counselor told me. “He was reaching psychosis. He was suicidal. Instead of treating him, they sent him off to a family in the United States.”
She said she filed a Child Protective Services report and quit her job.
“I didn’t want to lose my license if this kid committed suicide,” she told me. “I was done.”
The counselor kept a detailed journal about what happened during her tenure at the facility.
“When people read that journal they are going to be astonished,” she said. ‘I don’t think they will believe what is going on in America.”
So it was not a great surprise, she said, when she received a call from federal agents demanding that she return to the military base and hand over her journal.
She said she declined to do so.
“I didn’t go back to Lackland,” she said.
Both workers told me while they have no regrets, they want to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.
“They’re going to crush the system,” the nurse told me. “We can’t sustain this. They are overwhelming the system and I think it’s a travesty.”
BCFS spokeswoman Krista Piferrer tells me the agency takes “any allegation of malfeasance or inappropriate care of a child very seriously.”
“There are a number of checks and balances to ensure children are receiving appropriate and adequate mental health care,” she said.
Piferrer said the clinicians are supervised by a federal field specialist from HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement. She also said BCFS have 58 medical professionals serving at Lackland.
“Every illness, whether it is a headache or something more serious, is recorded in a child’s electronic medical record and posted on WebEOC – a real-time, web-based platform that is visible to not only BCFS but the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,” she said.
As for those brown shirts, the BCFS said they are “incident management team personnel” – who happen to wear tan shirts.
My sources say Americans should be very concerned about the secrecy of the government camps.
“This is just the beginning,” one source told me. “It is a long-term financial responsibility.”
http://www.foxnews.com/…/ - 41k -
It all sounds true. But at the same time I sense Americans had enough with the paramilitarization of police across the nation, the imperial presidency, the gestapo-like federal agencies, the handling of the VA hospitals and how it ties into another big failure - Obamacare, and then the Cliven Bundy episode, the IRS scandals, growing police brutality all over the nation, repeated attempts to escalate military action around the world, and we are so war weary.
Americans - I think we feel about the same regard for how this country is operating as we or our parents did in 1979 and 1980.
We don’t want GWB back. But if we get a Karl Rove pick, maybe the pick will turn against Karl Rove’s RINO principles and we might be pleasantly surprised.
Americans want to admire their president.
Coffee is for closers:
http://maine.craigslist.org/acc/4545860437.html
Remember… Houses depreciate rapidly.
I was just at Safeway buying some fresh produce, deli meat and several 20-oz bottles of Oregon micro-brew. A tall skinny blonde in a snug tank-top and designer shorts was in front of me, and a morbidly obese white woman with a mulatto toddler in the cart was in front of her busy checking-out. Nothing but processed packaged chit and a surreptitious swipe of the SNAP card, but the long access code gave her away, parasite. The blonde kept her distance ignoring the toddler.
Next up. Steaks, chicken breasts, pretzels, etc., looks like a BBQ party, and two six-packs of Guinness and several bottles of Oregon micro-brew. The checker starts loading her cart while I begin setting my purchases on the counter, a hard rubber divider separating her and I. From an expensive looking leather tri-fold, the blonde slides out a Platinum card and swipes it confidently, glances back at me with a beautiful smile (and nice straight teeth) as she slides the card back into the wallet dropping casually into one of several reusable cotton shopping bags. No SNAP card required with those long legs and flat tummy.
Just before pushing her cart away she does a quick double-take of the counter to see if something was missed, and she spots my Oregon micro-brew, her eyes widen. She starts to reach for them, but she sees the rubber divider still there and pauses looking up at me.
“You have great taste, but those are mine,” I said with a smile. Not satisfied she turns and looks through her cart for [her] Oregon micro-brew, sees them, glances back at me with a fleeting smile, and eases the cart away. No easy conquest.
When she’s ready for a house, a house will happen. It will happen regardless of market conditions or interest rates or depreciation or anything else short of a civil war. And the NAR knows it.
If that young cookie is smart, she pays off her platinum credit card every month.
Life is great when you have no debt, have lots of savings or are young and have a world of opportunity ahead of you like that girl, diversified your assets, and accumulate movable, hidable assets.
Life is even greater if you drink in moderation and eat a whole foods diet.
Second time in a month I dropped the main entree, salmon, from the spatula to the floor. That is the worst thing that happened today, so it was not really a bad day. Still had a plate full of fresh produce - no GMOs, no pesticides, and some whey protein. Whole foods diet is a keeper!
65 days since I had added sugar.
“Life is great when you have no debt, have lots of savings…”
+1 No debt, decent savings, paid-off home and a good income over here. However, my aging Toyota Tercel would have been a real disappointment. Moreover I’m still dating my wife.