The Housing Bubble

“Evergrowing bank” may be an ironic name for this latest casualty of China’s shadow banking system.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-12/china-lender-faces-650-million-of-defaults-from-shadow-banking.html

A Chinese bank was saddled with $650 million of defaults from an off-balance-sheet lending arrangement that channeled money to one of its shareholders and an affiliate, according to a state media report.

Evergrowing Bank Co. in Shandong province repaid 3.7 billion yuan ($600 million) of principal and 300 million yuan of interest on Aug. 29 as guarantor for the borrowing, the People’s Daily said on its website today. Three calls to the lender for comment went unanswered.

Intricate structures for some off-balance-sheet lending by China’s banks make it harder for investors to assess risks to the financial system after an explosion in shadow banking. In some cases, banks have channeled money to companies through trusts or brokerages to bypass government limits on lending and requirements relating to provisions and capital.

the loss of privacy continues…

quick - someone blame Bush

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Yahoo: Feds made us spy or pay $250K a day in fines
Washington Times | 9/12/14 | Cheryl K Chumley

Yahoo executives said the federal government made them participate in a surveillance program and turn over key private client information — else face $250,000 per day in fines.

The insider account of how and why Yahoo helped the feds expand their spy program came to light just this week, after a judge ordered some materials…

A couple of thoughts:

What ever happened to Global Warming???

Glad we are not dependent on Russia to heat our homes (like most of Europe)

Wood stoves are a beautiful thing.

A poorly made house with poor insulation is going suck this winter

And there is already snowing/frost warnings in the Midwest TODAY

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Brutally Cold 2014-15 Winter Shaping Up For The United States
Firsthand Weather | 11SEP2014 | Matthew Holliday

The 2013-14 winter was a season that I will never be able to forget simply because of the kind of cold Arctic outbreaks that occurred throughout that year. What’s even more remarkable is that the 2013-14 winter became known as that winter that simply would not end, and even this summer, we have seen times when the mid and upper level pattern strongly resembled what would be typical of a winter pattern. We had pretty severe Arctic outbreaks in both 2009-10 and 2010-11 winters but for entirely different reasons than last winter. The main driver of last winter was the warm pool of above average waters over the northeastern Pacific, and this warm pool is still there! It is to blame for a lot of the volatility that we have seen this year in our temperatures across the United States.

The 2014-15 winter could also be strongly influenced by the warm pool in the northeast Pacific if it persists going into the winter months, and based on some of the things that I have been looking at, chances are good that it will. This would likely lead to another brutally cold winter in the central and eastern United States while the western U.S. would have above average temperatures, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. The good news is that I think central and southern California will receive above average precipitation, and that is due to a developing weak El Nino that will not necessarily be the main driver of this winter but will have some influence. This also means more precipitation across the southern states including the Southwest through the Southern Plains to parts of the Southeast. The regions where the cold air will be in place will have an increased chance at seeing more wintry weather this season, even in locations that typically don’t get any snow/ice.

Virologist: ‘It’s Too Late, Ebola Will Kill 5 Million’

Expert says virus will infect entire population of African countries
Virologist: ‘It’s Too Late, Ebola Will Kill 5 Million’

by Paul Joseph Watson | September 12, 2014

A top German virologist has caused shockwaves by asserting that it’s too late to halt the spread of Ebola in Sierra Leone and Liberia and that five million people will die, noting that efforts should now be focused on stopping the transmission of the virus to other countries.

Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit of the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg told Germany’s Deutsche Welle that hope is all but lost for the inhabitants of Sierra Leone and Liberia and that the virus will only “burn itself out” when it has infected the entire population and killed five million people.

“The right time to get this epidemic under control in these countries has been missed,” said Schmidt-Chanasit. “That time was May and June. “Now it is too late.”

The current Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed over 2200 people, with Liberia and Sierra Leone accounting for over 1700 of those fatalities.

While calling for “massive help” from the international community to prevent Ebola appearing in other countries like Nigeria and Senegal, Schmidt-Chanasit warns that getting a grip on the epidemic in Liberia and Sierra Leone is a departure from reality.

German aid organization Welthungerhilfe blasted Schmidt-Chanasit for his comments, with Sierra Leone based coordinator Jochen Moninger labeling his statements, “dangerous and moreover, not correct.” However, Moninger acknowledged that Schmidt-Chanasit’s assessment may be accurate in the case of Liberia.

The World Health Organization refused to comment on Schmidt-Chanasit’s remarks.

Although Ebola continues to rage in five African countries, media coverage of the epidemic has waned, despite evidence that the virus has mutated.

As we reported last month, former FDA official Scott Gottlieb, M.D. warned that if the virus was to hit the United States, the CDC would enact emergency procedures which could lead to healthy Americans who show no symptoms of the diseased being forcibly detained for an indefinite period of time.

Scientists in Canada and Canada’s Public Health Agency have both acknowledged that the virus has likely gone airborne at least to a limited degree, while the CDC has urged airline staff to take steps to prevent the airborne spread of the virus, including giving suspected Ebola victims surgical masks as well as directing staff to “not use compressed air, which might spread infectious material through the air.”

What is even more shocking is being to collect a $135,000 tax-free pension (OT spiked with fake disability for a “back injury) after only 21 years (retired at age 45) of working as a public union goon.

It is no wonder every democrat and public union goon city will go bankrupt in the near future.

Gawd help you if you own a home or business in one of them…

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A retired cop’s shocking life of drugs and crime
NY Post | Phillip Messing

A retired police commander kept a stunning secret for more than two decades: Before joining the NYPD, he peddled crack, tried to murder a fellow drug dealer and was close pals with a notorious cop killer.

Corey Pegues — who collects a $135,000 tax-free line-of-duty disability pension for a back injury — revealed his sordid past on the “Combat Jack’’ podcast Aug. 13, in a blatant attempt to hype his yet-to-be-published book.

This is probably the most beautiful house in all of Detroit (and still in great condition).

If you built it today - it would cost at least $10 million just for materials and craftmen.

Being located in a long time democrat and public union goon controlled city - it is worth maybe 10% of its replacement cost.

Similar examples can be found in Cleveland, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Trenton, Camden, etc.

Who says housing values always go up?

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Beautiful mansion is Detroit’s biggest sale in at least a decade
Yahoo Homes | September 10, 2014 | Ilyce R. Glink

Detroit has recorded its biggest home sale in a long, long time.

The historic and still-beautiful Alfred J. Fisher mansion sold to an anonymous all-cash buyer for $1.6 million, more than any Detroit home in recent memory, according to the Detroit Free Press.

That might not sound like much, but this is a city where thousands of homes have been razed because they couldn’t be sold for anything. Detroit hasn’t seen a sale price like that for at least a decade.

The home has 15 bedrooms, 17 bathrooms, an indoor pool, a ballroom and 2 acres of landscaped grounds in the Palmer Woods neighborhood.

So who are the people blocking amnesty?

It is not obama
It is not the democrat controlled senate
It is not the billionaire liberal elites

Democrats can not imagine these same lawless tactics being used against them some day. And it will and they will have nothing to complain about.

And yes - this speech is now on Drudge. Well worth the read anyways.

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Don’t Give the Masters of the Universe Their Amnesty
By Jeff Sessions

Senator Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, delivered a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday evening about Senate Democrats’ refusal to support legislation to block the president’s proposed executive actions on immigration policy, and the interests supporting amnesty. Following is an adapted version of his remarks.

Earlier this week I spoke about the president’s promise that he would issue an executive amnesty to 5 or 6 million people. The planned amnesty would include work permits, photo IDs, and Social Security numbers for millions of people who illegally entered the U.S., illegally overstayed their visas, or defrauded U.S. immigration authorities.

The Senate Democratic conference has supported and enabled the president’s unlawful actions and blocked every effort to stop them. Not even one of our Democratic colleagues has backed the House legislation that would stop this planned executive amnesty or demanded that Senator Reid bring it up for a vote. Every Senate Democrat is therefore the president’s partner in his planned lawless acts.

Tonight I would like to talk about the influence of special interests on our nation’s immigration system. How did we get to the point where elected officials, activist groups, the ACLU, and global CEOs are openly working to deny American workers the immigration protections to which they are legally entitled? How did we get to the point where the Democratic party is prepared to nullify and wipe away the immigration laws of the United States of America?

Just yesterday Majority Leader Reid wrote in a tweet something that was shocking. He said: “Since House Republicans have failed to act on immigration, I know the President will. When he does, I hope he goes Real Big.”

Let this sink in for a moment. The majority leader of the Senate is bragging that he knows the president will circumvent Congress to issue executive amnesty to millions, and he is encouraging the president to ensure this amnesty includes as many people as possible. And the White House has acknowledged that 5 to 6 million is the number they are looking at.

This body is not run by one man. We don’t have a dictator in the great Senate. Every member has a vote. And the only way Senator Reid can succeed in blocking this Senate from voting to stop the president’s executive actions is for members to stop supporting him.

In effect, the entire Senate Democratic conference has surrendered the jobs, wages, and livelihoods of their constituents to a group of special interests meeting in secret at the White House. They are surrendering them to executive actions that will foist on the nation what Congress has refused to pass and the American people have rejected. They are plotting at the White House to move forward with executive action no matter what the people think and no matter what Congress — through the people’s House — has decided.

So who are these so-called expert advocates and business leaders? They are not the law-enforcement officers; they are not our ICE officers; they are not our Border Patrol officers; they are not the American working man and woman; they are not unemployed Americans. They weren’t in the room. You can be sure of that. Their opinions weren’t sought.

No, White House officials are meeting with the world’s most powerful corporate and immigration lobbyists and activists who think border controls are for the little people. The administration is meeting with the elite, the cosmopolitan set, who scorn and mock the concerns of everyday Americans who are concerned about their schools, jobs, wages, communities, and hospitals. These great and powerful citizens of the world don’t care much about old-fashioned things like national boundaries, national sovereignty, and immigration control — let alone the constitutional separation of powers.

Well, don’t you get it? They believe they are always supposed to get whatever it is they want. They are used to that. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars. In fact, one report says they have spent $1.5 billion since 2007 trying to pass their desired immigration bill — $1.5 billion. They tried and tried and tried to pass the bill through Congress, but the American people said: No, no, no. So they decided to just go to the president. They decide to go to President Obama, and they insist that he implement these measures through executive fiat. And Senate Democrats have apparently said: Well, that is just a wonderful idea. We support that. Just do it. Go big. But, Mr. President, wait a little bit. Wait until after the election. We don’t want the voters to hold us accountable for what you are doing. We want to pretend we in the Senate have nothing to do with it.

Well, the “masters of the universe” are very fond of open borders as long as these open borders don’t extend to their gated compounds and fenced-off estates.

This is one of those rare days in recent times when both gold and U.S. stocks are dropping in tandem. Any thoughts on what’s up?

Some insight into the mind of the free sh*t army..

“My son works — he’s not entitled to have his own bedroom?” she said. “Next thing they’re going to tell me is that I’m not entitled to a roof over my head.”

She makes $24,000/year but does want to spend $240/month for a great taxpayer subsidized apartment? Because that would be “unfair.” The government should pay for it because she is “entitled.”

The FSA votes. They vote for the party that will give them more free sh*t. And they are above 50% of the population now…

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Budget Cuts Reshape New York’s Public Housing
New York Times | September 11, 2014 | MIREYA NAVARRO

The crushing news came less than a year after Diane Robinson and her 24-year-old son moved into an airy two-bedroom apartment in the Bronx. The city, which helps pay her rent, wrote this summer to say she would have to downsize into a one-bedroom apartment or pay $240 more a month in rent.

A public school aide, Ms. Robinson, 48, decided to stay in the apartment, in the Castle Hill neighborhood. But on an annual income of about $25,000, she is struggling, she said, and she does not know how long she can hang on. Moving to a one-bedroom apartment would mean that her son, a college student who works to help with food and utilities, would have to sleep in the living room. “My son works — he’s not entitled to have his own bedroom?” she said. “Next thing they’re going to tell me is that I’m not entitled to a roof over my head.”

Thousands of New York City tenants are facing similar choices because of cuts to the federal Section 8 voucher program and the resulting belt-tightening by the city. The rental vouchers allow low- and moderate-income tenants to live in private buildings and to pay about 30 percent of their income in rent, with the voucher program making up the rest. The cost of the program is about $400 million a year. But federal budget cuts under sequestration last year have left the program $37 million short, the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development said.

Who is worse Big Pharma or the NAR?

I read on zero hedge that 1 in 4 women in their 40s and 50s is on depression meds. 1 in 3 kids in foster care are on psychotropics or add meds.

Big Pharma has created a nation of addicts.

Just too funny NOT to post.

So gays don’t like their “weddings” mocked? How about that!

Just wait until lots of “fake gay” people get married to avoid taxes..

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Fury of gay community after two heterosexual men marry in New Zealand.
Daily Mail (Australia/UK) | 12th September 2014 | Heather McNab

Two heterosexual men have tied the knot on Friday morning under New Zealand’s liberal marriage laws.

Marrying not for love, but for Rugby World Cup Tickets, the two men from Dunedin in the South Island of New Zealand officially said ‘I do’ in front of 60 family and friends.

The ceremony was live broadcast by Edge Radio, who’s ‘I Love You, Man’ competition was launched earlier this year in a bid to find two straight men willing to wed for the sought after tickets.

‘It’s official folks, Travis and Matt have just said ‘I do’! Congrats to the happy couple!,’ the station tweeted.

Travis McIntosh, 23, and Matt McCormick, 24, won the ‘bromantic’ radio contest in August and are over the moon- not for a life together, but for the opportunity to head to the Rugby World Cup in England next year.

Local gay rights groups have condemned the wedding, protesting that it ‘trivializes what we’ve fought for,’ according to the New Zealand Herald.

Got wood?

Got nuclear? (like France)

It is kinda funny to see socialists freeze in the dark due to their insane energy policies…

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Eastern Europe Braces for Energy Shortages as Russian Gas Flows Fall
The Wall Street Journal | Sept. 12, 2014 | Sean Carney

A fall in gas flows from Russia to two Eastern European countries this week has sent a chill through the region as it prepares for possible energy shortages this winter.

Slovakia’s gas distributor SPP said Thursday its daily gas intake from Russia fell 10% below contracted levels starting late Wednesday. Polish gas company PGNiG said its gas flows from Russia had fallen 45% below its contracted daily volumes by Thursday.

Latest News
Dow 17,002 -46.92 -0.28%
Nasdaq 4,581 -10.66 -0.23%
S&P 500 1,991 -6.06 -0.30%
9:10 A.M. ET Updated Gold slips for 5th straight day, eyes weekly loss of 2.5%

The Wall Street Journal
5 takeaways from the Bank of England’s bitcoin report
Published: Sept 11, 2014 9:48 a.m. ET
By Amir Mizroch
Bloomberg
Bitcoin may be a bank killer, the Bank of England says.

The Bank of England released a report Thursday on innovations in payment technologies and the emergence of digital currencies, specifically bitcoin. It’s bottom line: The digital currency doesn’t yet pose a threat to the U.K. financial system.

#1: It’s A Bank Killer

The BOE said the key innovation of digital currencies is the ‘distributed ledger’ technology that allows a payment system to operate in an entirely decentralized way, with no intermediaries such as banks.

#2: It’s Not For Everyone, Yet

While digital currencies could, in theory, serve as money for anybody with an internet-enabled device, at present they serve the roles of money only to a limited extent and only for relatively few people.

#3: Never Have So Few..

The BOE estimates that as few as 20,000 people in the United Kingdom currently hold any bitcoins, and that as few as 300 transactions may be conducted by those people per day.

#4: Owed So Little

The bank estimates that there is less than £60 million ($98 million) worth of bitcoins circulating within the U.K. economy, which represents less than 0.1% of sterling notes and coin and only 0.003% of broad money balances.

#5: Transaction Fees Will Rise

A key attraction of digital currencies like bitcoin is their low transaction fees. But as usage grows, and bitcoin’s set supply diminishes, these fees may eventually need to rise significantly.

Another reason Main Street shouldn’t trust Wall Street
By Allan Sloan September 11 at 8:35 PM

Whenever Wall Street comes up with a hot new product, Main Street gets stuck with a bill. That happened with the dot-com mania that inflated and then destroyed stock prices, and with the junk mortgages that inflated and then helped tank the economy. And it’s starting to happen with Wall Street’s newest favorite product: corporate inversions.

“Inversion,” of course, is a euphemism for “desertion.” It happens when a U.S. corporation takes over a foreign company and then — for tax purposes only — pretends to be based in the taken-over company’s country. That allows the U.S. company to pay lower income tax rates — such as 12.5 percent (or even less) in Ireland rather than 35 percent in the United States.

Inverters and would-be inverters say their U.S. tax rate will remain the same, which is true. What they don’t say is that inversion makes their taxable U.S. income lower than it would otherwise be. Inverted companies reduce their federal and state income tax bills by siphoning income out of the United States in a variety of ways, but they continue to be run from here and benefit from what our country has to offer: deep and liquid financial markets, rule of law, intellectual infrastructure, great places to live, and military protection.

That behavior’s repellent, at least to me.

But let’s not get into questions of morality and social responsibility today, or whether proposals by the Treasury or Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) to rein in inversions will work. Instead, let me show you how regular people — especially prudent, long-term retail investors — pick up the tab for Wall Street’s inversion feast.

Advertisement

Wall Street firms get rich advisory fees and financing fees from inversions. Hedge funds, takeover trolls (who call themselves “activist investors”) and other institutional investors — all part of Wall Street — can get a quick boost to their investment performance, which helps them generate bigger fees and attract more investor money.

Board members and top executives of corporations that succumb to inversion mania get rich subsidies from the firms’ shareholders, who typically give them special payments to cover the excise taxes they owe on their restricted shares and options when the inversion happens. For example, Medtronic, a big medical-device company that wants to invert, estimates that it will give $63 million of nondeductible payments to its top executives and directors to cover their excise taxes and the taxes they will owe on their excise tax subsidy.

Meanwhile, retail investors who hold Medtronic in non-retirement accounts will pay taxes on shares they own directly, and will pay taxes indirectly on shares owned by mutual funds they hold.

Here’s why. Although a company pays no exit tax when it moves its tax domicile, tax law requires shareholders to pay capital gains tax as if the company were sold for cash at its market price on Inversion Day. (This is an anti-inversion regulation that hasn’t worked at all.) The holders continue to own their Medtronic shares but have to dig into their own pockets to pay the tax.

That can be serious money. For example, a high-bracket Minnesota resident who has owned shares of Minneapolis-based Medtronic for 20 years, when it sold for the equivalent of $5 a share, would have to pay about $20 a share in federal and state tax if the company inverts at $65, the price Medtronic assumed in a recent SEC filing. But such taxes don’t affect mutual fund and hedge fund managers, who are judged on pre-tax performance and who pass on tax obligations to their investors.

“It’s one thing for investors to have to pay tax if a fund manager is selling a stock at a profit, but it’s a whole other thing to have to pay on a stock the fund is keeping,” said Daniel P. Wiener, editor of a newsletter for Vanguard investors. The same, of course, is true for people who own stock directly.

Once again, Wall Street gets its way, while responsible Main Street folks get screwed. Let’s stop this inversion farce now, fix the corporate tax code, and get back to the business of growing our economy and improving our lives. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/another-reason-main-street-shouldnt-trust-wall-street/2014/09/11/7e48d62e-39fb-11e4-8601-97ba88884ffd_story.html

Bang a bong bong… “Cash is king!” Rub-A-Dub-Dub…”Cash is King!” A Selfish hoarder sleeps easy! Bing a Bang bang!

A great day to laugh at Home moaners!

“It’s the land!”

Nope.

If you like your machetes, you can keep your machetes…

Especially in a Sanctuary City!

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Unprovoked Machete Attack By Illegal Aliens Caught On Camera In Chicago
American Thinker | September 12, 2014 | Thomas Lifson

A horrific machete attack by an illegal alien gang on two innocent young men waiting on a platform for a Chicago El train has been caught on surveillance camera, and is making big news in Chicago. Chicago is, of course, a sanctuary city for illegal aliens under the policies of Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Here is the ABC/channel 7 news report on the incident, which pauses the video to spare viewers the full horror

America - land of the free sh*t army

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America, 2014: The Land of Entitlements
American Thinker | 12 September 2014 | David Long

Earlier this week I had lunch with a CPA client of mine to talk with him about increasing the number of his small business clients who provide medical insurance plans to their employees. Everything I recount herein is from him; I am not making this up.

His answer and the reasoning behind his answer were stunning to me. In my naivety, I hadn’t even dreamed that I would hear anything like what he was about to tell me.

He explained that essentially, his clientele comprises Spanish-speaking business owners, almost all of whom employ essentially 100% Spanish speaking workers. They own firms such as restaurants, gardening services, custodial services, small grocery stores, painting companies, trucking companies, and so on. But, he said, most of their employees who work only 20 to 30 hours a week, with only a very few who work the full traditional “full time” 40 hours a week. As a result, my CPA client said, nearly all of his clients, the business owners, don’t feel an obligation to provide benefits to these “part-time” employees.

When I asked why they had mostly part-timers instead of full-time workers, he explained that the employees don’t want to earn too much money, or else they’ll lose their government benefits.

They like getting free things like food stamps, a housing allowance, MediCal insurance (California’s government subsidize medical care for low income people), and the like. They would rather earn less and get the entitlement programs for free than work longer hours, make more money, and have to pay for their own food, housing, insurance, and so on.

From the personal “Chickens coming home to roost” department….

As some may have noted, my appearances here have become less frequent. Simple reason……too busy.

Ran into an acquaintance of mine on Monday, who told me about a project I might be interested in. Seems that an Ivy-League type bought an old airplane/business jet, took it to a local shop to do the 3-year inspection, and now those guys are in over their heads. The one guy in the shop who had any experience just left for a new job in SoCal. Nobody else knows anything, not even the kind of inspections they are supposed to be doing. The shop manager is thinking about just putting it back together, and telling the owner to try to find someone who will work on it. (and taking a $10K hit in the shops budget).

Hell, even the aircraft OEM can’t/won’t help them. Even if they were interested in doing an inspection on a thirty year old airplane, all of the guys who have actually worked on this model are either retired, bought out, and/or have moved on to bigger better things.

As it turns out, yours truly is the answer to everyone’s problems, and I could pick up an easy ten grand for about two weeks of supervisory work.

But I ain’t touching it. The guy doesn’t have enough money to pay me to make it worth my while, or for me to assume the risk of approving his airplane for “Return to Service”.

Risking my regular job, and my continuing contract work on professionally flown and operated, adequately budgeted corporate jets just isn’t worth the risk of doing a one time deal for some guy who couldn’t figure out (in spite of his Ivy League degree) that the airplane he just bought was super-cheap for a reason.

The best song the Kinks ever recorded:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_M0jDbmPTc

If only everyone were wealthy, we could all own $500K starter homes or even $1 million dollar SFRs in SF.

Region IV checking in