Bits Bucket for November 10, 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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Region VIII
Good morning
May the Force be with you!
On the subject of housing, or lack thereof in Region VIII, repost of an article from a few months ago
The weather is dropping to the single digits with overnight wind chills well below 0F this week, wonder if all the gutter punks and hippie kidz who live on the 16th Street Mall with their dog and guitar will be rethinking their decision to migrate here for legal weed
9 News - Pot seen as reason for rise in Denver homeless:
“Officials at Denver homeless shelters say the legalization of marijuana has contributed to an increase in the number of younger people living on the city’s streets.
The deputy director of Urban Peak, which specifically helps homeless youth, tells The Denver Post that the majority of new young people it is seeing say they’re in Colorado because of marijuana. At the St. Francis Center, a daytime homeless shelter, pot is the second most frequently volunteered reason for being in Colorado, after looking for work.”
http://www.9news.com/story/news/local/2014/07/26/denver-homeless-marijuana-impact/13214129/
And may the odds be ever in your favor Region VIII
Donk clobber pirate!! A good day!!!
Region VIII
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29950843
Students are often keen to exercise their rights but recently there has been an interesting twist - some in India are talking about their right to cheat in university exams.
“It is our democratic right!” a thin, addled-looking man named Pratap Singh once said to me as he stood, chai in hand, outside his university in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. “Cheating is our birthright.”
Corruption in the university exam system is common in this part of India. The rich can bribe their way to examination success. There’s even a whole subset of the youth population who are brokers between desperate students and avaricious administrators.
Then there’s another class of student altogether, who are so well known locally - so renowned for their political links - invigilators dare not touch them. I’ve heard that these local thugs sometimes leave daggers on their desk in the exam hall. It’s a sign to invigilators: “Leave me alone… or else.”
One-third of mortgage borrowers would struggle if interest rates rise
An increase of two percentage points would create problems for 32% of borrowers in the UK; in the south-east of England the figure is 39%
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/nov/09/one-third-would-struggle-to-pay-mortgage-on-two-point-rate-rise
Between the devil and the deep blue sea; what a hole they have dug with this addiction to cheap money.
Their real flaw was in buying using an ARM. If they had a fixed interest rate they wouldn’t care. And if you need an ARM to afford the house, you can’t afford the house.
Aren’t we pretty much the only country that offers long term fixed rate mortgages?
Yep. Thank you, federal guarantees…
You’d be lucky to find a fixed rate mortgage for more than ten years in the UK.
If you need a 30yr mortgage of any type to afford the house, you can’t afford the house.
Another day of cratering housing prices across the land.
Remember….. falling prices of items is positively bullish and good for the economy.
The guy across the street from me put his house up for sale and wants $465,000 for it - two bedrooms, one bath, 888 square feet.
Do some math and you’ll come up with a price per square foot of …
$523.65!
This price he is asking closely resembles either:
1. The market price (the price the comps are going for), or …
2. The price he paid for it several years ago when the market was booming.
There is only one correct answer here and whoever on this message board correctly guesses the correct answer automatically gets preferential treatment during the bidding process - the bidding war - that is about to take place in the guy’s living room.
Think about it this way.
Given the fact that reproduction cost (lot, labor, materials, profit) are right around 10% of this guys unit price or roughly $55/sq ft, what are the odds of this guy actually selling the dump for even half his fantasy asking price?
Pass.
Where is it located? 868 sf is not a very large house.
Southern California.
God’s country.
does it have a 2 car garage i could live there and rent out the house
“does it have a 2 car garage”
YES! And if you factor in the square footage of the 2 car garage the price per square foot drops dramatically!
You are a marketing genius.
or maybe its all i can afford living in the same room with my new car.
http://www.cadillac.com/2014-escalade-suv.html
Combo, in my neck of the woods, buyers would take your joke seriously. 2-car garage = space to rent out.
Southern California.
Dios country.
Yes, a veritable rainbow in the dark.
There is a nice house on my street that is listed at $50/ft2. About 2000 ft2 for $100K. Been sitting there for sale since midsummer.
It’s not in Southern California, is it?
No, but it has a nice 2 car garage, with an upstairs even.
I’d bet that the average income in Southern California isn’t significantly higher than here. California is the poorest state in the country.
California is the poorest state in the country ??
Poor in what way ??
Disposable family income.
“Disposable family income.”
Which is boosted if one paid off his house but is trashed if he did the David Lereah thing and sucked out the equity.
IMO enjoying imputed rent should be the long-term goal of any house buyer who plans to live in a house for … for forever … and saying “no” to the latest cash-out fad is a habit he will somehow need to acquire.
Disposable family income ??
So is Louisiana poor ?? What about Kentucky or Alabama ??
What cracks me up about California real estate is how new buyers get shafted on property tax. Those who have theirs (and have for quite a while) get to live off the backs of those younger, who also pay a great deal more for a domicile to begin with.
Poor in what way?
My question is the inverse: rich in what way?
It’s obvious why California has the highest poverty rate in the country (and it’s not all about illegals, either). It’s also obvious why it will remain that way.
California must have the greatest income/wealth disparity numbers of all states.
is how new buyers get shafted on property tax ??
Prop#13 passed for a reason…If you understand the reason then you will know why it passed…And, passed overwhelmingly I might add…
Proposition 13
Choice Votes %
Referendum passed Yes 4,280,689 62.6
No 2,326,167 34.0
Invalid or blank votes 236,145 3.4
Total votes 6,843,001 100.00
California, the Golden State, Is Actually the Poorest of All
Friday, 24 October 2014 10:34
By Keith Griffith, Equal Voice | News Analysis
Welcome to California (Photo: The Lost Adventure)
California, the home of Silicon Valley and more billionaires than any other state, is the poorest state in the country.
That’s according to an Oct. 16 report from the Census Bureau, which also finds that Mississippi – typically ranked among the poorest states – has a poverty rate below the national average.
The report out last week is not the official census poverty measure, which came out a month earlier. But after decades of criticism that the official measure is broken and outdated, federal officials in 2011 began quietly piloting an alternative approach to measuring poverty.
Called the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM), the report has no official bearing on policy. The latest SPM report puts the 2013 national poverty rate at 15.5 percent, one point higher than the official measure. But the regional differences are dramatic, upending some long-held notions about the distribution of poverty in the U.S.
Those notions are based largely on the official poverty measure, a formula that has changed little since the 1960s.
“It is antiquated,” said Mark Levitan, the former director of poverty research for New York City, which in 2008 threw out the official federal measure and devised an alternative for city poverty reports.
…
A Different Approach
The Supplemental Poverty Measure aims to bridge that gap by counting food stamps, tax refunds and other public assistance toward a family’s income, illuminating the impact of such programs. The SPM report found, for example, that 23 percent of children would be living in poverty if refundable tax credits were eliminated, as opposed to the current supplemental rate of 16 percent.
The SPM also offers a dramatically different geographic picture of poverty. Mississippi, which has one of the highest poverty rates under official measures, drops below the national average in the SPM. By contrast, California’s poverty rate jumps from 16 percent under the official measure to 23 percent — making the Golden State the poorest in the country under the new measure.
…
Of course it passed overwhelmingly!
And that’s precisely the point.
And it’s also highly indicative of the mentality that led California into being the poverty-stricken, wealth disparty mess that it is.
that led California into being the poverty-stricken, wealth disparty mess that it is ??
All because of prop #13 eh ??
Who cares why CA is the poorest state in the US.
“California Most Impoverish State In The US”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_poverty_rate
Well, he’s not gonna GIVE it away!!!! Besides, it sounds like a nice starter home for a newly married couple in their early 20s just starting out! He can work at the factory while the Union helps protect his pension. Maybe in two or three years he can make it to management! If he doesn’t like it at his company he can just walk into the competitors office on his lunch break and speak with the foreman on duty about a new job there.
The wife can stay home and bake cookies and make babies. Their life will be grand!
LOLZ
$523 per square feet and he has no freedom.
From yesterday:
—————-
Comment by Blue Skye
2014-11-09 18:37:54
“you would be paying rent anyway….”
Kind of like saying you should buy a luxury car (on credit) because you would be renting a Limo anyway. For this to resonate, you have to be a single gal with three bedrooms and two baths, mortgaged to the eyeballs, betting on credit expansion for decades to come.
—————-
We’ve been through this. Yes and no. It’s true that I could rent a one-bedroom apartment for less than the cost of my PITI… now. But it’s not as much less as you would think, and 10 years from now the one-bedroom apartment would cost as much as the house, and after that it would cost more. Sure, I could seek out cheaper rents, but let’s be honest, low rents bring in low income, and that’s not safe.
Donk,
You could have rented the very house you’re anchored to for half the cost.
You just can’t bring yourself to admit it.
oxide: But it’s not as much less as you would think, and 10 years from now the one-bedroom apartment would cost as much as the house, and after that it would cost more.
Historic rents: https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/grossrents.html
In real dollars, it varies decade to decade. In some states, in some decades, rents actually drop. In non-inflation-adjusted (nominal) dollars, costs do go up pretty consistently.
But - we’re a society at peak debt. The PTB cannot and will not wean itself of this model. There’s a lot of nonsense out there about the importance of inflation. The central bank has tried heroically to stoke it. But inflation plus ZIRP is not like Japan The Model™. They had deflation plus ZIRP, which didn’t put stress on the population like inflation, which reduces purchasing power.
Also - based on historical incumbency rates, inflation looks like a pretty good way to clean out the Senate at least (see 76-80). The House of Representatives skates by because I don’t think they’re seen as high level leaders. But leaders with responsibility pay the price in inflationary periods.
Net result… with peak debt, and top leaders paying the price for inflation, I still think it’s a threat if the central bank goes rogue or f–ks up but not a fait accompli like I used to.
“In some states, in some decades, rents actually drop.”
Was that before the Fed demonized deflation? Because lower rents are deflationary, and deflation is B-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-D!!!
” It’s true that I could rent a one-bedroom apartment for less than the cost of my PITI… ”
I could rent a one bedroom for less than my PITI as well, I just wouldn’t want to live in it. To get something comparable, I’d have to exceed my PITI.
Yet leveraged landlords like Jingle Male work on the thinnest of thin margin, apparently 1% the last time we talked numbers. His model is based on price appreciation. Institutional investors are not making money on rentals despite buying in bulk. Oxy’s model is based on rising rents to infinity as well.
We may be in a housing bubble and we may see an inevitable crash in house prices. We may see millions of excess empty houses come on the market as cheap rentals. We may see the commodity bubble crash and the cost of bringing yet more excess housing online plunging by half.
Or, the big credit bubble lies ahead, bigger than the one we have! See the reference to peak debt above.
It is painfully ironic, that to avoid living like the poor, or even near the poor, so many will impoverish themselves with debt to live in a veneer of wealth.
If it is cheaper to buy than rent, and you don’t plan on moving anytime soon, it makes sense to buy. I pay a $300 or so more per month to have 3X the living space, plus garage and yard. I now have a guest suite for my parents and other visitors. We just shut the vents and close the door when no one uses it.
A house down the street was for rent recently and it went for $1800 / month. My PITI is $1400.
In some areas buyers have to impoverish (?) themselves to buy. That was one of the reasons I left SoCal. Here in Dallas not so much.
Jingle Male - I think he does ok, bought at the right time, etc., I wouldn’t worry about his margins too much.
And you conveniently ignore your losses to depreciation….. at your sole risk.
Oh yes, the how-much-a-month. Good for you, and good for getting away from the price craziness in So Cal.
I am now in my own winter castle and my PITI is $120/mo. A house down the street rented out for $800, so I guess I made out even better than you.
I am pretty sure that I am paying about half a million less than you over 30 years, but you get a garage. Oh wait, I have a garage too!
I don’t say it is a bad idea to buy a house rather than rent, I say it is bad to overpay in a bubble and to do so with long term debt.
Half a million less? Ha! You may wanna re-check those numbers dude.
North Texas home sales soared in October. North Texas preowned home sales jumped by 13 percent in October – the biggest annual sales gain in more than a year.
http://bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com/2014/11/north-texas-home-sales-soared-in-october.html/
Nope….. But you may want to check yours.
Dallas/Fort Worth Housing Demand Collapses 23% YoY; Prices Slide Lower
http://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public/Metro/Metro_Turnover_AllHomes.csv
“Half a million less? Ha!”
Yes, suck it up. You can do it.
It’s only half your life, the half between when you are too young to work and when you are too old to work.
“If it is cheaper to buy than rent, and you don’t plan on moving anytime soon, it makes sense to buy.”
Does your buy / rent comparison include the falling price scenario? For instance, would you consider it cheaper to rent if you could buy a place for the same monthly costs you would pay to rent, provided home prices were falling and creating negative wealth effects?
“His model is based on price appreciation.”
Works great unless prices fall!
“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes,” stated Gruber. “If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. Okay, so it’s written to do that. In terms of risk rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in – you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed.”
by Paul Joseph Watson | November 10, 2014
In a newly uncovered video, Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber admits that a “lack of transparency” was key in getting the Affordable Care Act passed because “the stupidity of the American voter” would have otherwise killed the bill.
From 2009-2010 Gruber, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, served as a technical consultant to the Obama Administration during which time he helped craft the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare.
During a recent panel discussion, Gruber explained that the characterization of the individual mandate as a tax, which led to the Supreme Court upholding it as such, was not actually a tax at all.
“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes,” stated Gruber. “If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. Okay, so it’s written to do that. In terms of risk rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in – you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed.”
“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” he added. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical for the thing to pass. Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.”
GRUBER: “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G790p0LcgbI - 176k - Cached - Similar pages
2 days ago …
I always thought that the simpler way to do this would be to grant a refundable tax credit if you had insurance. That’s fair to everyone. I wondered that when they devised this penalty/tax it was put there on the hopes that the Supremes would strike the whole thing down.
Good plan, if it weren’t for one big problem:
It doesn’t grow bureaucracy at a clip anywhere near fast enough.
I wouldn’t call it the stupidity of the American voter.
I’d call it the criminal intent (fraud) of those who rammed it down the throats of the citizenry.
Gruber ought to be in the pen.
if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in – you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed.”
From each according to his effort in maintaining great health habits to each of the sedentary / obese / junk food junkies. “Progressivism” at work.
“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” he added. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical for the thing to pass.”
As far as I know most of the people who didn’t vote for Obama were against Obamacare.
So who are the voters the MIT dude is talking about when he says…
“call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical for the thing to pass.”
When so called “progressives” on the left get elected (by lying about who they really are of course), they immediately go to work on the American Public. Takes them microseconds to begin plotting and crafting all of the wonderful things they can do TO the people, who if they knew the truth, would not accept one fly egg on that trash.
#FundamentalTransformationOfAmerica
Ferguson Cops Expect Riots Whether Grand Jury Indicts or Not: “Preparing For All Worst-Case Scenarios”
Mac Slavo
November 9th, 2014
Recently, hacktivists from Anonymous released leaked information claiming that Darren Wilson will NOT be indicted, and said that ‘virtually every local police agency as well as the National Guard and all local jails are on high alert,’ seemingly supporting the case for no charge and an uncivil public reaction:
On or about November 10, 2014 the Grand Jury decision will be announced. Darren Wilson will NOT be indicted on ANY charges related to the murder of Mike Brown. All local police Chiefs and jail commanders have been notified to begin preparing for major civil unrest. Governor Nixon has been notified of the impending announcement and has ordered the Missouri National Guard to begin preparations for a possible re-enstatement of the martial law that was declared at the beginning of the Ferguson protests.
If you thought all hell had already broken loose in Ferguson, get ready.
http://www.shtfplan.com/…y-indicts-or-not-preparing-for-all-worst-case-scenarios_11092014 - 401k -
Web Search Results
1 - 10 of about 597 for Ferguson Cops Expect Riots Whether Grand Jury Indicts or Not: “Preparing For All Worst-Case Scenarios”
irony - def. a group of people rioting because cops stereotype them as violent.
They should wait a few days to announce the verdict, it will be 70F in St Louis today, will be in the 30s later this week.
Youts don’t like cold weather when they are seeking Social Justice™ by looting Foot Locker.
“…seeking Social Justice™ by looting Foot Locker.”
Can someone who understands please explain how looting local businesses promotes social justice?
Asking that question is racis.
Speaking of racis, this is funny but true.
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/im-a-proud-white-man-said-the-racist/question-4245991/
#IdentityPolitics
looting local businesses IS social justis.
First comes the looting of local businesses. Next comes charges or racism and redlining when businesses all move away.
Here’s how you handle this, and future incidents of this nature:
Cordon off a reasonable area around Ground Zero. Airlift in the top management of all the major networks, throwing in CNN and MSNBC for good measure, plus all their key reporters and anchors. Also management and journalists from select newspapers like NYT and WaPo, Los Angeles Times, etc. No trucks. For good measure, add some of the better known race baiters. Leave ‘em there for the duration, forbid them to jump the perimeter and if they try, shove ‘em right back into the melee. Let God sort ‘em out.
I promise you that one very salutary effect of the above actions is that there will be considerably more peace between the races in the US going forward.
Oh, and no cell phones allowed.
i f-ing love it, let the real journalists get a taste of what they created
Comment by phony scandals
2014-11-10 07:41:36
Ferguson Cops Expect Riots Whether Grand Jury Indicts or Not: “Preparing For All Worst-Case Scenarios”
Mac Slavo
November 9th, 2014
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/ferguson-cops-expect-riots-whether-grand-jury-indicts-or-not-preparing-for-all-worst-case-scenarios_11092014
Some hard lessons gonna be re-learned here, especially about the media and agents provocateur.
This is how a “free” press becomes unfree.
i hope they do riot…..Ferguson is prime property for urban renewal bounded by 3 highways 70 170 270 easy access to a new stadium mall condozes…..bulldoze it and upscale the place…..if those people dont know the value of that land well maybe they should move elsewhere.
There is plenty of well-constructed older housing around Ferguson. No need for bulldozing; restoration of a rule-of-law will do.
How is China’s economic picture shaping up?
The Wall Street Journal
China’s president says economic risks ‘not that scary’
Published: Nov 10, 2014 12:09 a.m. ET
By Mark Magnier
Jeremy Page
Reuters
Chinese President Xi Jinping
BEIJING — China’s economic risks are manageable, President Xi Jinping told business leaders Sunday, pledging to help boost growth and improve infrastructure, trade and transport links across the Asia-Pacific region.
While some people are worried about the Chinese economy, Beijing has the tools to address perceived risks, Mr. Xi told executives at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting. The meeting of 21 regional economies hosted by China runs through Tuesday.
“Indeed there are risks, but not that scary,” Mr. Xi said in a speech. “Resilience best equips the Chinese economy against risks.”
Momentum in the world’s second-largest economy has slipped this year amid slower growth in investment and a slumping real-estate market. China’s gross domestic product grew by 7.3% year over year in the third quarter, its slowest pace in five years, down from 7.5% growth in the second quarter, fueling concern that China could miss its annual growth target of about 7.5%.
But Mr. Xi played down concerns. Economic data in the first nine months remained in a reasonable range, he said, adding that slower growth is a “new normal,” and annual growth above 7% still puts China’s economy among global leaders in speed and size.
…
Iron ore specialists take $10b hit as prices slump
Date November 10, 2014 - 1:57PM
Tess Ingram
The crashing iron ore price has wiped more than $10 billion of value off Australia’s four key pure-play iron ore miners so far this year, with Atlas Iron worst hit by the broad sell-off.
Together, Fortescue Metals Group, Mt Gibson Iron, Atlas Iron and BC Iron have suffered enormously from the near 45 per cent fall in the iron ore price this year. A combined $10.2 billion has been wiped off their market capitalisations since December 31, analysis shows.
Atlas Iron has been worst-hit by the reaction to the price crash, with its market capitalisation plunging 78.4 per cent to $216.1 million as of November 7, down from $1 billion at the start of the year.
BC Iron has lost about $473.6 million in value, bringing it down 73.6 per cent to a current market capitalisation of $169.6 million, while Mt Gibson is $620 million lighter at just $480 million.
Advertisement
Fortescue has seen $8.3 billion wiped off its market capitalisation this year, representing a decline of around 46 per cent from $18.1 billion to just $9.8 billion.
Driving these dramatic losses is the plummeting iron ore price, which crashed to a fresh five-year low last week of just below $US76 per tonne, levels not seen since June 2009.
The price is down almost 45 per cent this year, now hovering about $US75.80, with some analysts predicting it could go as low as $US70 by year’s end.
The price has been suppressed by new Australian supply that came on-stream this year, flooding a market already dealing with cooling Chinese demand.
Independent resources analyst Peter Strachan said he can’t see any end to the pain in the iron ore business because the market hasn’t been as responsive as expected in removing high cost producers.
“If the iron ore price falls further it isn’t going to be good news for these companies,” Mr Strachan said.
“In the next few weeks I am expecting to receive announcements about job losses, further measures to cut costs, the impact of low grade discounts. It’s going to be a tough period ahead, especially for companies that are reliant, as Warren Buffet says, on the generosity of a stranger – the bankers.”
…
Fink Joins El-Erian Highlighting Cost of Easy Central Banks
By Simon Kennedy, Mark Deen and Stefan Riecher Nov 7, 2014 7:16 AM
Cheap cash is losing its allure among asset managers, and even the chief providers of loose monetary policy are warning of the disadvantages of low interest rates.
The downsides of six years of monetary easing are proving to be a dominant theme at a Bank of France conference in Paris today attended by an all-star cast of central bankers and investors. U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen and Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda are there alongside Laurence D. Fink of BlackRock Inc. and Allianz SE’s Mohamed El-Erian.
Among the gripes: Central-bank stimulus has relieved pressure on governments to revamp their economies, punished savers, and left financial markets overly reliant on liquidity and prone to volatility when it reverses.
“This is a world which places too much of a burden on central banks,” said El-Erian, the former chief executive officer of Pacific Investment Management Co. and now an adviser to Allianz. “This is a journey, not a destination. If the journey lasts too long, central banks go from being part of the solution to perhaps being part of the problem.”
…
hope and change from the most transparent administration in history
http://www.infowars.com/is-barack-obama-attempting-to-harass-and-intimidate-media-personalities-on-his-enemies-list/
forward
I just dropped in to see what condition that my Region was in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gfa6umSlR8A - 182k -
Region VIII checking in.
http://www.denverpost.com/weathernews/ci_26906918/denver-weather-cold-snow-hit-area-about-noon
Do you want me to read the card?
How about a 60% tax bracket for incomes over 1M?
In high tax states, when you include self-employment taxes for business owners, you’re pretty much there.
You might as well all know that today I decided to dollar-cost average into the stock market. I feel sad.
I’m proud of you. We should all learn from Selfish Hoarder’s successful investing track record (not to mention John Bogle’s advice).
P.S. I, too, DCA into the stock market, though I am a bit antsy about sticking to my positions (e.g. I dumped before the October swoon). Since I am anything but a bull, I have to hold my nose while investing.
“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes,” stated Gruber. “If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. Okay, so it’s written to do that. In terms of risk rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in – you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed.”
“Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” he added. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical for the thing to pass. Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.”
Here Comes The Power Grab for the Internet
By Call it Crazy Follow Mon, 10 Nov 2014, 8:45am 262 views 32 comments
Watch (2) Share Quote Permalink Like Dislike
(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday pressured the federal communications regulator to toughen its planned Internet traffic rules, saying higher-fee “fast lanes” should be banned and Internet providers should be overseen more like public utilities are.
It came after nearly 4 million comments flooded the Federal Communications Commission after Chairman Tom Wheeler formally proposed new Internet traffic rules in May.
Public internet groups have vigorously opposed Wheeler’s proposal, which prohibited Internet service providers from blocking any content, but allowed deals where content providers would pay ISPs to ensure smooth delivery of traffic.
Obama also said the FCC’s new rules should apply equally to mobile and wired ISPs, with recognition of special challenges that come with managing wireless networks.
“We must take the time to get the job done correctly, once and for all, in order to successfully protect consumers Politicians and innovators Democrat Produced Propaganda online.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/10/us-usa-internet-neutrality-idUSKCN0IU1I620141110
They control the MSM, so now onward to the Internet!
Did you dump your junk on time?
ft dot com > Markets >
Capital Markets
November 10, 2014 10:45 am
Falling oil price hits junk energy bonds
Vivianne Rodrigues and Ed Crooks - New York
A sharp drop in energy bond prices has pushed yields to their highest level in more than one year, casting a shadow on the outlook for the broad US junk bond market and highlighting the risks to investors who flocked to the debt in recent years.
Low-rated energy bonds have sold off in the past month amid a slump in oil prices, which have dropped more than 25 per cent since June.
The shale boom that has created a surge in US oil and gas production has been financed in part through a steep increase in sales of low-rated debt in the past decade. Energy bonds now account for 15.7 per cent of the $1.3tn junk bond market, according to Barclays data, having accounted for just 4.3 per cent of that market in 2004. “No one can avoid the energy sector,” said Sabur Moini, a high-yield fund manager at Payden & Rygel. “Every high-yield manager has a lot of energy bonds.”
Junk bond investors are now facing a double blow. A further drop in oil prices could put pressure on the highly indebted companies in the sector and potentially trigger a wave of debt restructurings, which has not been seen since the depths of the financial crisis.
The second risk is the extent of the sell-off for junk-rated energy bonds. The bonds have been the worst performing group in the market for high-yield corporate debt, with negative returns of 1.3 per cent in the past month, according to Barclays indices.
A further drop in bond prices raises the odds of a broader spill-off at a time when trading volatility has increased in riskier assets. “Energy was considered a fairly defensive sector and the whole renaissance of US shale made it a good story,” said Mr Moini. “Now everybody is paying very close attention to what may happen to some of those companies if conditions become truly unfriendly.”
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Does it seem like die-hard gold bugs are ignoring the inevitability of rising interest rates?
Gold’s ‘dead-cat bounce’ is a temporary distraction from an inevitable fall
Nov 10, 2014 @ 7:58 am
By Jeff Benjamin
Don’t get too excited about Friday’s one-day gold rally. It is being described as another ‘dead-cat bounce’ for a precious metal that could be headed toward $1,000 an ounce, which is a level not seen since 2009. The outlook for silver is even bleaker
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